Sixth Move
Girls’ night.
Griffin Empire
‘Dear princesses of Equestria, Celestia and Luna. Through this message, I’m willing to inform you about the current event that has taken place in Griffenheim. Although I believe you should have noticed it by now too, I would still like to remind you all the same: there appears to be a myriad of creatures, for lack of better words, appearing all over Equss’.
‘I managed to make contact with some of these creatures. They call themselves Pokemon, though it is more of a regular term instead of their actual race. Some of them had forms quite similar to those creatures we have seen every day, like pigeons, ferrets, fish or dragons, while others are beings I have seen only in dreams, and even those seem to pale in comparison with some of the forms and shapes these creatures can achieve. As a matter of fact, I am seeing a coalition of gears float by my window as I write these lines’.
‘As far we know these Pokemon are powerful and dangerous, but only when threatened. I would suggest you do the same thing I suggest the other rulers; do not fight these beings. Let them be and they will find their way out of your cities.
‘I hope my message to be illustrative, and I know you both are capable of sorting this out without any casualties.’
‘Thoughtfully: Empress Victoria of the great Griffin Empire’
Victoria gave her letter a second glance, wondering if it was ‘polite’ enough for Celestia. The griffin ruler didn’t hate the alicorn princess, but she still had headaches whenever she had to deal with her. No matter how old she really was, she looked years younger to her. Not to mention that gentle and somewhat carefree attitude of her’s added to her constant misleading of others.
“Really. How come she is the older sister?” thought Victoria as she rolled the scroll. “I think Luna has a more ruling attitude, even if it is a bit outdated.”
With all the letters for the neighboring countries written, Victoria left her office and headed to one of the most guarded rooms of the palace: the office of high importance message delivery, or mail-express for short. Normally she sent letters via her falcons deliverers, but as fast they were the message would still take at least a day to reach the furthest regions. Not to mention it would be impossible for the regal creatures to reach Marelantis.
Thus she had to resort to one of Celestia’s gifts: the message goblets.
Dragon fire was mysterious in many ways, one moment it could evaporate a mountain of ice in the blink of an eye or send a message across the land in another. As much she would liked to make use of it more personally, griffins didn’t were as advanced in magic like their Equestrian neighbors, thus they had to rely on the fire they have received as gifts over the years.
So far Griffenhiem had enough fire to contact the other nations and even have some in reserve for important individuals. She made use of the goblets whenever a global situation emerged, like the time Luna returned from her ‘vacation’.
“Oh how I remember the total panic that night brought, and all for the ‘It was all so my sister could return’ excuse Celestia gave us. Was it too much to give us a little advice? That could have been nice of her for a change,” the Empress thought out loud as she tossed Equestria’s scroll into its respective goblet. The same was done for the other parchments.
With a green flame, the letters where all send, now all she had to do was to wait for the replies.
“I guess they will take some time to return the message,” commented Victoria to one of the guards without expecting a reply. “It’s been a long day for all of us,” she said, before heading to her quarters where she would rest as much as she could before more reports made her get up. She hoped those would at least let her sleep for a few hours. “Oh right…” she remembered. “I have breakfast with Checkmate tomorrow in the morning,” and with sadness she continued her path while sighing. “Crowns truly are heavy aren’t they?”
Griffin Empire
Castle’s Entrance
Grizelda took over both Pokemon from the guards, and now she was the only griffin among the group at the castle gates, not that there were no other griffins around. In fact there were quite a group of them looking at the Pokemon, although at a safe distance away of the gates.
“Would you guys mind moving to a more ‘private’ place?” inquired the maiden as she was getting tired of the constantly whispering crowd.
“Oh, right, sorry. After you,” replied Rouge in her elegantly gentle tone. Weiss on his end seemed stressed and guilty about forgetting Anzu.
Xavier proceeded to calm down Anzu and told her all they knew so far. The now Frogadier took it better than she could have thought at first.
“…Pokemon and humans have, somehow, made it into this word, and by some cruel joke the humans have been turned into Pokemon. That is all you know right?” asked the ninja.
“So far, yes,” added Weiss, “I just woke up a few miles from here, and by a series of odd circumstances, my team and I ended up here.”
“As strange as the situation is, I must say it’s good to know there are other humans in this ‘colorful’ world.” Anzu calmly said.
“Is it just me or she is taking this surprisingly well?” asked Grizelda, who had been able to understand the newcomer since Checkmates’ arrival.
“I expected her to freak out a bit more as well,” replied Rouge.
“That would be a shame to her heritage,” added Shredder, making the Frogadier sweat as a result.
“But still this is too much self-control,” retorted Xavier.
At this point, Anzu merely looked away from the group; she couldn’t possibly tell them she fainted three times before finally accepting her fate. In fact if it weren’t because of the other pokemon who found her, she would be still repeating that shameful circle. This thought made her REALLY want to talk about something else.
“It was mostly because of this little one,” she pointed at the Surskit besides her. “One of us had to keep calm, and she didn’t want to; she seems to be the Pokemon of a trainer and seems to worry for her”.
The little bug-type didn’t say a word, but kept her big eyes stuck on the new Pokemon. She seemed to want to burst into tears in any second, but at the same time she seemed to want to start a fight. She was terrified with her current situation.
“Mhm… well didn’t you guys say your team was missing as well?” asked Grizelda. “You aren’t going to tell me they are in a similar state like this little thing here?” points at the Surskit with one of her claws, only to be shot with Bubbles from the frightened insect. “Whaaaaa-!”[
No one seemed to mind the sudden attack. “Manta, you sort of walked yourself into that,” Pancha said, comforting the now wet griffin while Anzu grabbed the little fighter and held her in her arms. This seemed to relax her.
“You think…?” deadpanned Grizelda. “So, like I was saying: Would the rest of your team react this ‘violently’ wherever they may be?”
“I see what you mean, but be at ease,” replied Shredder. “We train constantly to keep ourselves in perfect mental condition so that we can act accordingly to the circumstances.”
“By that she means she has tortured us intensively in order to be calm no matter what,” added Rouge, “It works most of the time.”
“It’s working isn’t it?” countered Shredder.
“But she is right,” continued Xavier. “The others won’t just go and wreak havoc because of the sudden change in location.”
“What about you…?” she turned to Anzu, “Mhm… what was your name, Anshu, Ancho, Pancho?”
“Anzu…”
“That… weird name.”
“You can call me Janine if you want, everyone else does that… or did… back at home,” now Janine seemed to be depressed.
In order to avoid more tears, Grizelda repeated her question. “Okay then, Janine, how about your team? As far I know all of you guys move in flocks isn’t it?”
The strategy seemed to work, as the purplish Frogadier looked back up, a hint of pride in her eyes. “Of course not. I may look like a simple gym leader, but I am also a trained ninja! My partners are as well trained as I am so they will know to stay in the shadows and find a way back to me!”
“If being a gym leader is something simple to begin with,” pointed Rouge. “But I guess your team and ours have its similarities.”
“Huh…, and what is a ninja?” asked Grizelda with curiosity
“Mhmm, what is a ninja? Tough question,” started Pancha. “You know, they are those fellas capable of doing amazing stuff and be very silent and fast like shadows and do cool stuff in awesome fashion!”
“What my friend is trying to explain,” Rouge took over, “Is that ninjas are very well trained individuals that can do many sort of things, from espionage to sabotaging. Let me put it more simply: have you noticed our partner Greninja?”
Grizelda was about to ask who this was when she remembered the silent figure listening to them beside a tree. If it wasn’t because she turned to look at him, the maiden would have thought the pokemon she was talking with where the only ones.
“That is a ninja,” resumed the poison-type.
“We are those who are one with the shadows and speak with the silence,” finished Janine as she brought her hand close to her face, making a hand seal. Although with only three fingers, she seemed to either making a sign of silence or pointing at the sky.
Either way, Grizelda grasped enough to made her own conclusion, “You are like spies then!”
“That is one thing they do. Although I would rather say they are similar to us mercenaries… by the way,” noticed Shredder, “Don’t you guys notice someone has stayed quiet for an abnormally long time?”
“Simon lost interest a while ago and started posing for the crowd,” clarified Pancha as she pointed at the Excadrill boasting to the griffins around the main gates. Of course whatever he was saying meant nothing to the crowd.
“No, I meant the one who should be doing an annoying amount of questions,” explained the Sword Blade Pokemon. “He seemed quite excited about meeting you remember.”
Janine seemed to understand who she was talking about after this clarification and turned to the leader of the mercenaries, who seemed to be trying to become as unnoticeable as Greninja, of course he fail miserably.
Meanwhile Pancha move closer to Shredder and ask her with a whisper, “Weren’t you supposed to be confusing him with Ganger?” all she get as a response was a malicious grin. “You are evil reina. I am going to miss you so much!”
With all gazes against his helmet-like skull, Weiss slowly turned to face the group with a mixed expression of excitement and shame. “I-I’m just… making guard…?” doubted the leader, “Yeah, right: I am making guard… that’s all!” and turned again to guard the wall.
“Give him some time,” clarified Xavier. “For now I would say we should head in. It’s getting late and the crowd has grown exponentially larger with Simon as a host.”
Grizelda chuckle at the sight, the Excadrill was making show of his drill form while balancing on the tip of his metallic end and spinning like a top, boasting stuff like ‘a Hitmontop has nothing on me!’ and other things the crowd couldn’t understand. Not that it stopped the griffin audience from cheering at his performance.
“Okay, okay! This has been entertaining and all but it’s time for this crowd to stop obstructing the main entrance, so if you don’t mind mister ‘top’, this show has to end,” explained the maiden to both Simon and the audience.
“It can’t be helped then!” exclaimed Simon, before he unfolded from his drill form, ending in a breakdance-like spin, causing the griffins to cheer one last time as they returned to their daily routines.
The group returned to the castle, Anzu and the Surskit included since they came with the mercenaries. Leading the way, Grizelda showed them all to their rooms, which were big, fancy and individual for each member. This pampering and elegance was a new experience for them, excluding Daring, Anzu and the Surskit since they were used to being special guests from time to time because of their positions.
The latter however, preferred to remain with the purplish Frogadier, still disliking the situation she was in. “It sure is attached to you, huh?” pointed out Daring as she kept Anzu company before they went to sleep.
“So it seems. It may be because I am a gym leader like her trainer,” pointed out the ninja girl.
“About that..what are these gyms? I heard Weiss mention them but he said something about ‘not being a competitive trainer’ or something like that so he didn’t talk much about that subject. Not to mention we were minutes away from talking to Empress Victoria.”
“I presume he never had to explain it before. Back in our world this is common knowledge,” noted Anzu, again feeling a bit depressed.
Daring took notice of her change of mood and inquired “Hey, you feeling okay there Anzu?”
“Yeah...” lied the gym leader, quickly cleaning the tears forming on her eyes. “It’s just...I don’t know if I will be able to find my father in all this mess, let alone going back home.” The Surskit too noticed this and became teary eyed as well in the Frogadier arms.
“See, now this guy wants to cry as well,” pointed out Daring much to the Surskit annoyance, which glared at her in response. Seeing this, Daring quickly used her wings for cover, expecting another array of bubbles to get her. Luckily there was no need for it this time.
“She,” clarified Anzu, feeling better with the simple scene. “This Surskit is a she.” the bug-type nodded.
“Well excuse me,” Daring grumbled as she folded her wings back into position. “If it weren’t for your voices, I would say you all are unisex.”
Anzu chuckled, before deciding to answer the explorer’s earlier question. “Gym leaders are supposed to oversee trainers and their pokemon, guiding them to become a better team and awarding them when they are strong enough to go on their journey. We also keep an eye on our respective regions, but that is mostly a suggestion, which some of us ignore.”
“Wow, I thought you were just the types who told people how to bench press some weight and stuff,” Daring replied, honestly a bit surprised, but she still gave Anzu a more respectful glance.
“I thought so as well when I was young. I didn’t understand what my dad’s position was supposed to mean for years.” Again she seemed to become depressed, but didn’t tear up this time. “You remembered my name, people often say it’s too complicated and call me Janine instead, something about being ‘ninja’ backwards or something.”
Daring give her a shrug while responding, “I travel constantly and have memorized a LOT of weird sounding names and words so you end up learning how to pronounce foreign words properly. Not to mention my arch nemesis is a five footed creature with a tongue-twister for a name.” This made her and Anzu chuckle.
The reassuring chuckled gave the Surskit enough ease to break her silence and venture, “S-so… there are weirder creatures than you in this world?” her voice been that of a child.
“Check it out, she does have a voice,” joked Daring. “If I look strange to you, then better get ready to meet hydras, quarry eels, tatzelwurms and more fabulous creatures in Equss.”
The stranger the name sounded to Surskit, the more she trembled, although she tried to hide it. Needless to say, she failed terribly at that. “Th-that’s okay. Viola w-would know what to do, once I am back with her.”
However Anzu seemed to react to her trainer’s name “Wait, by any chance is your trainer the gym leader of Santalune city?”
“You know her?” asked the Pokemon and Pegasus in unison.
Anzu nodded. “I met her a few times, mostly during world tournaments and events that required gym leaders to gather. She is a bug-type specialist and a professional photographer. If I made it here then surely there are good chances she is here as well.”
So far, none of them knew the divine reason of why they were in Equss, so as far as Daring and Anzu knew, they could be giving Surskit false hopes. Despite that, was better than leaving the poor thing to face the truth all too suddenly
“Yeah,” added Do. “She could be right on the next city for all we know. Trust me, we will find her.”
“You promise?” asked the big eyed bug while making her eyes bigger.
“We promise,” replied Anzu with a reassuring tone. “Right, Miss Daring?”
“Be sure of that,” replied the explorer.
“I hope she woke up in a situation better than mine though,” sheepishly added the ninja.
“You were sleeping in the middle of the woods. How can that be bad?” asked the Surskit sarcastically.
“Yeah!” added Daring, trying to lighten the mood with a joke. “She could be lost in a dark wood while being chased by some scary ghost wanting to eat her soul or something.”
At that very moment, in another location, a frail-looking Vivillon was too busy flying for her life to notice the itchy nose and warm antenna that she had suddenly developed out of nowhere. But this and her fateful encounter with two Meowstic is a different story.
“I see your point,” deadpanned Anzu. “But how is that supposed to make her feel better?” the Surskit was again at the verge of tears.
“Ehm… sorry, let’s change the topic then,” apologized Daring as she gently patted the bug-type. “I’ve been wondering: What have you guys been doing before appearing here? Did you step into some sort of lost ruins or found an ancient artifact that could have brought you all here?”
Anzu thought for a few seconds, recalling what little she could remember. “I was on my way to the Kalos region for a job when I got a call from Cynthia, the champion of the Sinnoh region. She invited me to meet with her and other gym leaders from Unova and discus something ‘of great importance’. Then I met the mercenaries on my way to Lumiose city and finally I fell asleep all of a sudden.”
“That sounds like quite a traveling life as well,” admitted Daring. “But still rather normal. No hidden ruins or lost artifact that comes to your mind?” persisted Do.
“Well, the meeting was supposed to deal with a delicate topic from of world, although I don’t know the details that well. I was asked to guard the meeting,” replied the purplish Frogadier.
“That could be a reason why you are here,” ventured Daring. “I mean, if it’s such an important and delicate matter, then there sure should be some shady characters looking for said meeting to never happen don't you think?”
“I doubt it, since we were the shady characters,” replied Anzu with a sheepishly smile.
“Wait what?” deadpanned the Explorer. “What do you mean by that? You aren’t going to suddenly burst into evil laughter and give me a monologue of some evil plan of sorts are you?”
“You sure have some interesting adventures,” Anzu commented with a more calm smile. “No, the delicate topic I am talking about is about human and Pokemon having romantic relationships with one another. That is forbidden in our world’s society...at least amongst humans”
“So you are telling me that humans over there are some sort of purist race obsessed with bloodlines or something?” surprisingly Daring wasn’t that surprised. “Because I have this colleague who found this weird cult lost on some mountains a while ago…”
“No, I guess it’s a bit worse,” clarified the ninja. “You see, a lot of humans see Pokemon as nothing more than mere animals, so for them those kind of relationships were seen as ‘against nature’ and thus labeled as abominations.”
“That does sound complicated.”
“It is, I have yet to feel that way towards any Pokemon or human, so I don’t know the feeling, but if humans and Pokemon can coexist, fight together and even sacrifice for one another, then why can’t they love each other?” expressed Anzu. “However, even when this is a difficult topic, I doubt someone would go to all the trouble of sending those pro human-pokemon relationships to another world. I mean, we are the minority. They could easily overrun us if they wanted to and no one would say a thing”.
“That sucks,” expressed Daring. “But then there must be something else that brought you here. Come on, think hard: What was the very last thing you remember? A shadow, a noise, a voice, some light and green little beings, anything?.”
“Not that I think so… although...” something seemed to ‘click’ on Anzu’s mind, “There… there was a voice…”
When each member of Checkmate went to their rooms, Shredder asked Grizelda if she could take her to a metal worker, to which the Empress’ maiden obliged and lead her to the imperial blacksmith located outside the castle, past the barracks.
“Here you go!” pointed the griffin at a smoking building. “We may not have magic armor like those in Equestria, but our metal work is second to none in Equss!” boasted Grizelda as she entered the forge, Shredder close behind.
“As long as the metal work is good, I have no issues with the results,” replied the Bisharp.
“If good metal works is what you want, then try the shops on the market, child!” replied a strong female voice from within the forge, followed closely by a bulky griffon sporting dark fur and dusty gray feathers, although the colors could be dull because of the soot. “What we forge here with the sweat of our work is what protects her highness herself and our glorious empire!”
The smithy seemed to have confused Shredder for some sort of statute or set of armor as she was shouting her words to Grizelda instead of the Pokemon, the maiden made little effort to feel offended and simply pointed at her companion.
“Lady Swanhild, allow me to introduce you to Lady Shredder from Checkmate, the newly contracted Pokemon ‘team’ of the empress.”
Shredder offered a hand to the metal worker and apologize. “I had no intention of badmouthing your craft. I was simply indicating I am not picky about the gear I can get given my circumstances. I had not meant any offense with my words.”
Swanhild took the hand in her claw and accepted her words. “None taken, but you must be very mistaken if you think I will give you something of mediocre quality. Whether it is for the Empress herself or for a creature from Siegfried knows where, my craft will always be the very best thing you would ever get.”
“Those are some heartily words,” replied Shredder with a smile as she let go of the iron grip both strong females were sharing.
“So you are one of those Pokemon creatures, huh?” Shredder nodded, “I must admit, it was odd to find all you creatures this morning, but I will admit some of them are quite useful. Isn’t that right Torkoal?”
At her question a locomotive’s horn come as an answer, followed by a big tortoise with orange skin, brown carapace with holes leading to what seemed to be a furnace inside of it and a smoke pouring face.
If it weren’t for the smoke and steam coming out from the carapace and nose respectively, the pokemon could easily have passed as a regular tortoise.
“This guy was here this morning,” explained Swanhild as she tossed a piece of charcoal to the Torkoal, which happily took it as the sweetest of treats. “It was eating my charcoal reserves and I was about to kick it out of here when I noticed its carapace was way hotter than my furnace, with only half the charcoal I normally use for it too. So I simply asked if it wanted to work for me in exchange for this,” she said, patting a bag of the mineral, “It nodded so fast I doubted for a second if it was really a tortoise.”
“Tor-Torkoal It's a fair deal,” added the Torkoal with a slow but satisfied tone.
Grizelda smiled. “It’s good to see you have achieved this before her highness had made the declaration of her plan.” The smithy seemed confused by these words.
“Your excellency had plans for these creatures?” for a second, both girls noticed a hint of concern on Swanhild’s voice toward her new assistant.
“She does, but you don’t have to worry, she plans to make a treaty with the Pokemon, as long as they want to help of course. And by the looks of things here, that won’t be too hard, right?” explained Grizelda.
“And it’s a he,” added Shredder.
“Well this sure will bring new possibilities for this kingdom,” reflected the smith while patting her assistant. “But enough of politics, this is a metal workshop and you came here so I could work on some metal isn’t it?” declared the bulky female.
“Indeed” replied Shredder, “I came to order a special type of armor.”
“I don’t mind creating something new for someone like you, but...” she gave the Bisharp a quick look from up to down and said, “I doubt you are in need of something like that.”
“Well…” Shredder started, showing a surprising amount of expression and blush as she tried to explain such a touchy subject for her. “I-it’s just that… I am not comfortable not w-wearing something to cover my rear…” the Sword Blade Pokemon flinched constantly as she said these words, tightly gripping the make-shift dress she made out of Terrowin’s cape. “I-IT’S FOR DEFENSE REASONS O-OF COURSE!”
The last ditched words made both griffins laugh loudly as a result, much to Shredder’s shame, and a few seconds later, Swanhild cleaned the joyful tears with the back of her claw and replied, “It's okay, I got it lady, no need to get all fuzzed about it. Besides...” she put on a working apron and tightly laced it over her body. “We girls have to look pretty don’t we?”
Once Anzu and Daring discovered the divine message, both ran towards Weiss’ room across the hallway. Weiss was still awake, in fact he was sitting on a chair with his chin resting on his hands, a thoughtful expression on his face as he looked at both girls.
“Weiss, you are not going to believe what we just found!” started Daring.
“There was a voice in my head before we fainted,” continued Anzu.
“Did it say, ‘Rest now my children, for when you awake a whole new world shall be your home’ with a parental tone?” finished Weiss.
Both females looked confused at the Bisharp who simply responded, “We’ve been thinking about it as well.” At these words, all of Checkmate made a mental sound to announce their presence to Daring and Anzu.
“Yeah, almost forgot you guys can do that,” muttered Do.
“So wait: How do you know this?” asked the gym leader.
“Xavier scanned the last memories we had before fainting,” answered the mercenary. “We were all doing stuff we normally do and then there was that voice. We all heard it and then fell asleep.”
“T-then… something... no,” corrected herself Anzu, “Someone brought us here?”
“That seems to be the case” pointed Weiss.
“But how? Or more importantly why!?” asked Daring, confusion growing inside of her as much as in her new friends.
“I don’t know, but whoever had the power to do this surely had something in store. I guess all we have to do is wait for it to tell us.”
“You really believe this being will just go and tell his plan like that?” asked back Daring in disbelief.
“I am sure you have seen it before, haven’t you?” inquired Weiss. “When someone IS this strong, they like to monologue.”
“Then all we have to do now, besides waiting, is pray for this monologue to be a kind one,” concluded Anzu.
“The question now being: how subtle will it be?” asked Daring as she took a seat on the floor.
“I hope it’s subtle and well planned, not some ‘Now I have done this, have fun!’ speech”.
At that moment, Weiss could feel a cold shiver run through his spine as they continued to plan how to explain this to the Empress the next morning. This day had proven to be tediously long, and the days that will follow it will no doubt be just as long, if not longer.