Courage Will Pull Us Through

by Cloudy Serrano

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The young lavender unicorn known as Twilight Sparkle lay on the floor of a forest, teetering on the verge of unconsciousness. Her breath came in short, ragged gasps, and with each new breath, she was brought farther and farther away from the land of the living, as her heart beat ever so faster, trying its hardest to pump oxygen enriched blood throughout her frail, helpless body.

As she lay on the damp grass, only one thought crossed through her mind: Discord wasn’t a killer. He may have pushed ponies psychologically, tortured their surroundings with his chaotic ways, and even caused some to move to the brink of hurting others. But, throughout the entire time she knew him, and what she recalled from her talks with the Princess, he had never, ever, directly hurt somepony, let alone gone so far as to kill them.

Her mouth hung slightly open, and her lungs struggled to take in more oxygen, but to no avail. There would be no avoiding the inevitable now, for she was so far gone that not even the greatest of healing spells could bring her back anymore. And yet, her struggle continued. Whatever it was Discord was planning, it was her job as the last active element of harmony to stop it. Even if there was no way to stop Discord by herself, she knew she was powerful enough to at least break the other elements free from his control. She had done it before, after all.

Pushing her body to the limits, she forced herself off the ground. Unfortunately for her, her legs were not yet ready to handle her weight, and she collapsed back down to the grass. Darkness tugging at her vision once more, she made one final attempt to rise, only to fall for the final time, and her vision went out completely. All she was left with was her rapidly disappearing hearing, and as that too reached its limits, she could have sworn she heard a young colt’s voice call out, “Hey, Mew, what’s that over there?”

<~>

A high pitched giggle rang out as a grey, fox-like creature looked around its surroundings, vainly trying to locate the owner of said giggle.

“Come on, Mew, at least gimme a chance!” It called out, looking behind a tree where the sound originated, only to be gifted with nothing yet again. It knew that the Mew had to be around here somewhere, it just needed to figure out where it was the Mew was hiding.

“As if you need help! I know all your tricks already, Zorua, so don’t act like you’re not sneaking around invisible right now!” Mew answered from what seemed to be behind another tree, but was really coming from inside a small blueberry bush. However, he couldn’t fit all the way inside, and his tail poked out slightly at the bottom.

Suddenly, Zorua disappeared, and a voice from next to Mew said, “Actually, I was just sneaking around silently, Mew, but I guess next time I could do it silently and invisibly.”

Laughing, Mew shoved Zorua playfully, before floating up into the air. “Well, if you’re going to be going invisible, then I guess I’ll just have to be going around too tiny for you to see, then!”

“Yeah, but it won’t be my fault if I step on you again, Mew.” Zorua retorted, right before he jumped into the air to push Mew back, only for Mew to move just out of his reach. “Oh, come on!”

“That only happened, like, twice, Zorua. And both times, it was ‘cause you went and tried to sneak around invisible to find me!” Swooping down quickly, Mew tapped on Zorua’s snout with his paw. “Boop!” Laughing, Mew flew away into the forest, leaving an irritated Zorua in his wake.

“Hey!” Zorua cried out, startled by Mew. Composing himself as fast as he was able, Zorua quickly gave chase to the psychic feline.

Mew always did this to him. Every time he knew he had the upper hand in a game, he would be sure to taunt the Zorua in every possible way he could. It never bothered him much; on the contrary, it always made the games much, much more fun to play.

Zorua weaved in and out of the trees, keeping a close eye on Mew, who was around twenty feet ahead of him. Jumping over a mossy, rotting log, Zorua saw that Mew had decided to stop restricting himself to the x and y axis.

Slowing to a stop, he shouted to Mew, “No fair! You know I’m not that good with my psychic stuff!”

“Oh, come on, Zorua! I know you’ve been getting better, and you do, too. So stop acting like you can’t float yourself after me already!”

Zorua slumped his head, and sighed. Why did Mew always insist that he work on them? It’s not like anyone dangerous ever came to The Tree. All it was good for was getting food and berries from places out of his reach, and even then it took too long to get the food than if he had just walked to wherever it was. “Please come down, Mew? I really, really don’t want to use my psychic stuff.”

“Look Zorua, just raise yourself to the trees, and then you can just hop the trees to get around. Watch!” Lowering himself onto the branch of an oak, Mew proceeded to leap from the tree and land on the branch of a neighboring oak, easily keeping his balance. “Now come on up here and try it!”

Closing his eyes, Zorua planted his paws into the dirt, and remembered what it was like to feel weightless. He remembered the feeling of having Mew pull his body up with his psychic abilities, and allowed the feeling to push its way throughout his body. As he remembered more and more of the feeling, the memory slowly became less and less a memory, and more of a reality. As he felt his small paws gently lift off of the black soil, Zorua opened his eyes, and looked down just in time to see the ground begin to slowly leave him.

Digging deeper into his memories, Zorua recalled when he and Mew visited one of Mew’s older friends, a rather large Dragonite, somewhere near the ocean. When the Dragonite spread its wings and began flapping them, the intense winds had nearly thrown Zorua. Each time his wings were brought in, Zorua had been pulled forward, and each time he pushed his wings down, Zorua had been pushed backwards. Doing the same with this memory, Zorua was able to slowly levitate himself up and forward, and safely landed on the top of a large tree, forty feet in the air.

“See, I told you you could do it! Now, come on!” Mew shouted gleefully, just before zooming off once more through the treetops. Grinning, Zorua took a step back, readied himself, and then sprinted on the branch, leaping onto the next one once he got to the end. Keeping his momentum going, Zorua continued to jump from tree to tree. But unfortunately, Zorua traveling this way was not even the slightest bit close to being the same speed as Mew, and so he was quickly being left behind.

Realizing he had no other choice, Zorua stopped to concentrate and, looking down at himself, saw his body begin to blur. Perfect, he thought. Starting up again, Zorua kept the same pace as the previous time, although this time he was traveling well over twice his original speed.

Once Zorua had used Agility, Mew looked back, and, seeing the speed boosted Zorua coming for him, angled himself downward so as to better maneuver out of Zorua's rapidly approaching reach.

As Mew flew down closer to the ground, Zorua knew he had him. Altering his course just enough so that he could begin going down as well, Zorua changed branches several more times, until finally, with one final leap, he landed on all fours right in front of Mew.

Startled, Mew turned a hard right in a last ditch effort to escape Zorua, only to crash head first into a large, heavy oak tree. Holding his head, Mew slowly floated up, and was met with Zorua's grinning face. "Got you."

Eyes half open, he smiled and said, "Hah, good work, Zorua.” He moved his head to his left, and coughed onto the ground. “Hey Zorua, would you mind if, um…”

Sighing dramatically, Zorua said, “Weeeell, I guess I could heal you. I mean,if it’ll make you feel better.” Closing his eyes, Zorua concentrated, and several pink ripples of energy were emitted from his body, and sent to Mew. Zorua’s Heal Pulse having healed Mew, Mew stretched in mid-air, yawning as he did so.

“There you go, Mew! Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Whipping around, Zorua began sprinting through the forest, almost instantly going invisible. Darting through the trees, Zorua quickly gained the upper hand on Mew, having been able to avoid him in the very beginning thanks to his ability. Running as fast as his legs could carry him, Zorua jumped over fallen logs, scrambled through bushes, and did just about anything and everything he could to increase the distance between him and Mew.

Coming into a clearing, Zorua slowed to a stop, and hid in back of a tree. Breathing heavily, he forced his breathing to quiet, and listened for Mew. Hearing nothing, Zorua released his invisibility, and took in a deep breath. Turning to his right, Zorua took a single step forward, and nearly walked face-first into Mew.

“Hey Zorua!”

“WAHHH!” Zorua stumbled backwards, landing on his haunches.

Giggling hysterically, Mew floated up to him, and tapped him on his forehead. “Tag!” Continuing to laugh, Mew zipped away, heading deeper into the forest.

Shaking his head, Zorua got off of the ground, and looked to where Mew had gone. Smiling deviously, he thought, “Time for some real fun.”

~~~

The two Pokemon played together for some time after that, acting as two young brothers would: fighting, laughing, arguing, laughing, shouting, laughing. They capered up until the sun rose to it's highest point of the day, radiating an intense heat from it. Currently, it was in its own little patch of sunlight.

The two Pokemon, tired after an intense couple of hours of fun, collapsed under a small oak tree. It provided a moderate amount of shade from the sun, which was still out and bright, despite it currently being the middle of winter. Hopefully, the dark grey clouds Zori could see a few miles away would get here fast.

Smiling, Mew said, "Wow, Zori, you're really getting better at just about every game we play! Pretty soon you're gonna be beating me!"

Zori gasped, a faraway look in his eyes. "Yeah, and then once I'm beating you, I'll be able to beat just about anyone! In fact, I bet I could even beat a Garchomp in a game of tag after that!"

Laughing, Mew responded, "Yeah, well don't go challenging every Pokemon you can. Remember that not everyone is nice, and fun to be with. To them, it might not even be a game anymore." His last sentence ended with a much more serious tone than he had started with.

Zorua giggled. “Yeah, but then I could go with you, and we could be like those cool, rescue teams! We could be just like Team Go-Getters, and go around saving other Pokemon, or even exploring places no one else has been!” He gasped then, and said, “I bet we could even become better explorers than them, and find even more stuff than they did!”

The corners of Mew’s lips curled into a smile, and he said, “Yeah, Zorua, I bet we would! In fact, I think I still have those old Pecha Scarves I bought somewhere back in the Tree, if you want.”

“Yeah! We can go get them, and become the greatest team ever!” Jumping up from his spot under the tree, he began pushing at Mew with his nose. “Come on, Mew, let’s go! Teleport us, teleport us!”

“Oh, alright, Zori. You wait here, I’ll be back in a bit. And, don’t give me that look, you know it gets harder the farther the distance. We can’t have me all tired after having to teleport two Pokemon over twenty miles, right? Plus, without a focal point on top of it!”

Floating up into the air, Mew smiled, and then said, “Alright, I’ll be back in a few minutes. And be ready, because I think I know a game you haven’t seen yet!”

With a slight flash of pink light, Mew was gone. Zorua, a plan already forming in his head, began slowly collecting all of the items he would need for Mew. He knew that Mew preferred to Teleport to the Travel Trees, and simply use those for the majority of the way; if he was going to keep them active for so long, he would at least get some use out of them, right? So, this ended up leaving him with a rather large time gap to be able to do whatever he pleased, which he knew exactly what to do to make sure that when Mew got back, he would be in for a nice little surprise…

<~>

Watching from on top of his tree, Zorua saw as his best friend, mew, re-appeared under the tree, as well as three Pokemon he remembered seeing around camp from time to time; an Eevee, a Totodile, and a Vulpix. Confused, he watched as Mew immediately called for him, hurriedly looking all around the floor of the forest.

But, before the Zorua could answer his call, the Eevee, Yuzee if Zori remembered correctly, tripped and fell, pushing the Vulpix backwards on the ground, right on top of where the pitfall trap was that Zori had laid. It wasn’t that dangerous of one, only meant to temporarily lower a target’s speed. However, it still was enough to cause mild panic among the Vulpix.

“Ahh! What was that! Please, please tell me it didn’t mess up any of my stats!” She might have been overreacting a bit, but then again, not many Pokemon, save for exploration teams, had to deal with pitfall traps.

Plopping down onto the ground behind Mew, who was now facing the Vulpix, Zori said, “Well, it did lower your speed a little, but not for very long. Too bad Mew didn’t activate it.”

Whirling around, Mew exclaimed, “Zori! There you are. Hurry, I need you to grab hold of everyone here with me, okay? I’ll explain when we get there.”

Ushering all four other Pokemon into a huddle with a gap in the middle, Mew suddenly flew straight into the gap, and with another pink flash, the five Pokemon were teleported.

Once they reappeared, Mew said, “Alright, come over here, this is where I saw her! She shouldn’t be too far.” Flying off at breakneck speeds, the four other Pokemon struggled to keep up with him, the Vulpix especially.

Turning to the Pokemon he knew best, Zori asked Yuzee, “Hey, do you know what Mew’s having us do?”

“No idea,” she answered. “He just grabbed us three, and pulled us over with him, saying that he needed our help. If you really want to know, though, you should ask Chloe. She was picked up by him first, so he might’ve told her.” She paused momentarily, as if debating whether or not she should say something. “But, he’s Mew, so we should help him with whatever it is. Without him, well, this place wouldn’t even be here.”

Chloe was the Vulpix who had unwittingly fallen into Zori’s custom pit trap. At the time, she had seemed at least slightly angered by it, and currently, she still seemed a bit peeved at him over the trap. Zori knew because when he looked over at her to get her attention, she glared angrily at him in response to his unasked question.

Zori was about to respond to Yuzee, when he was suddenly cut off by Mew having stopped just ahead of them. The four of them ceased their running, with all of them able to do so easily, save for the Vulpix, who had just gotten back her regular running speed, and was moving fifty percent faster than she just had been. She nearly stumbled headfirst into Mew, too, but was quick enough to catch herself.

Turning to face them, Mew said, “Okay, so here’s why I brought all of you here. When I was headed back to where I keep my two pecha scarves, I sensed a disturbance extremely small in the area up ahead with my psychic powers. In fact, it was so small, that I nearly missed it, and when I went up to look, well, I couldn’t believe what it was that I’d seen. So, that’s why I brought you four. I needed you to stay here, and keep an eye on her while I checked something. Don’t worry, I’ll be back in around an hour or two. You four can just play some games while you’re here, as long as you keep an eye on her, and make sure nothing happens to her before I get back, okay?”

Mew paused, as if debating with himself, before saying, “Alright, I think you should see her now. Remember, she might not look exactly like a Pokemon, but still, you need to just treat her nice until I get back, alright? She’s right over- wait, where’s Riptide?”

Unknown to Mew, and the rest of the group, Riptide had slipped on ahead of the group, and at the moment was looking farther ahead. Noticing something farther on, he realized that, while it looked as if it could be a Pokemon, it most certainly didn’t look like any he knew. Deciding that it would be best if he asked Mew, he called back to him, “Hey, Mew, what’s that over there?”

Author's Note:

Wrote this about a year ago, although I never got around to actually posting it to the site. Well, here it is now!