Pokémon Eclipse

by moviemaster8510

Chapter 5 – The Kindness of Strangers

“Use Shadow Sneak!”

A black shadow-like aura flowed from the top of Honedge’s blade and began snaking through the yellow flowers faster than even Sam could track. The shadow smacked a yellow bird with floofy feathers at the end of its wings like pom-poms up through the air. It landed on its back, but rolled in a backwards somersault to face Sam again, who eagerly grabbed a Poké Ball out of his bag. Alice watched on a small ledge as her brother came close to nabbing his first Alolan Pokémon.

“Alright,” Sam said. “Let’s do this.”

Alice smiled, but was suddenly distracted by a small pillar of light that came shooting from the air. It didn’t seem extremely abnormal until it began breaking off into four branches, one of which made its way toward them.

“Sam?” she said, hopping off and walking to him. “Sam?!”

Sam was more than peeved right now. “What is it–”

Before he could finish his statement, the wormhole opened up directly above them, the loud moan and blasting of air from the portal forcing Alice and Sam to the ground.

The bird Sam faced ran away as fast as it could, as did other yellow birds like it, dozens of gold-and-white bugs, and a couple of Pokémon resembling large puffs of cotton with small leafy and green wings. Some fled the area completely, while some sought refuge in the trees and bushes they could find. Sam turned around and managed to look up as the wormhole began to funnel out.

“What in the hell is that thing?” he shouted.

Alice stood up and helped pick Sam up with assistance from Honedge. “I don’t know, but we have to hide!”

Sam and Alice looked around for any sign of refuge until Sam found a small cave entrance in the face of the rocky barrier of the meadow.

“There!” he shouted over the wormhole. “We can hide in there!”

Alice and Sam both bolted for the cave, Honedge following close behind. Alice slipped in first, followed by Honedge and Sam. He stayed at the foot of the entrance, watching the wormhole from the corner. It continued hovering above them until the moaning began to increase in pitch at a fast rate.

Immediately, Sam slid back inside and kept his back to the wall away from the entrance. He and Alice suddenly heard a short boom that made the ground below them shake hard enough to make their balance falter. Not much longer after that, the moaning went away, and minus the winds that still blew outside, it seemed everything was back to normal.

“What did you see?” Alice whispered.

“I… I’m not sure,” Sam spoke softly. “I think I went back inside before whatever came out of that thing came out.”

“Better that it didn’t see us.”

“Right.”

“Hey, you remember that video with that really muscular bug looking thing from like, ten years ago?”

“Weren’t you like, 4 when that came out?”

“Yeah, but I saw it when I was older, genius. Anyways, I’m pretty sure that video was actually taken here at the Melemele Meadow. What if it’s another one?”

Sam sighed. “Then it looks like we may be here for a while. Though, I feel if there was something out there, we would have heard it by now.”

“I agree. Let’s give it an hour, and if we don’t hear anything, we’ll get out of this cave. If we don’t see anything, we run straight back to the Pokémon Center.”

“And if we do see something, back to the cave?”

“Well, I’m not fighting it.”

“Yeah, then me neither.”

“I’ll send a text to mom and dad, in case they try to call us and the ringtone alerts anything to us.”

“Good idea.”

Alice pulled out a small device from her bag with a curved bottom, a small screen with a camera above it, and a light fixture along its bowed-in top. Pressing a button beside the lower-left hand corner of the screen twice, the light on top shone from it, producing a blue, holographic keyboard with a small text box above. Tapping through the images of the keys with her fingers, the letters were typed out in the box above:

Hey. Making sure you’re okay. Sam and I are fine. We’re headed to the Pokémon Center right now. See you later.

Alice grimaced, feeling guilty about lying as she did, but whatever kept her parents satisfied enough to keep them from messaging them was all she needed. Honedge floated beside Sam and leaned itself against the wall as Sam sat down beside it, in for the long haul before it was safe to try and leave.

Sun walked into his room, completely drained and sullen. With almost no strength to hold his composure, he slumped onto the edge of his bed and buried his head into his hands. The only thing he could hear were his breaths in the solitary silence. Between each exhale, he could only repeat the same four memories: dancing with Lillie, the image of a perkier Solgaleo and Lunala through her chat with Lillie, the pink glow of their foreheads, and the sight of them collapsing.

Soon, every breath only made him think about Solgaleo and Lunala’s possessed states and their collapse, finally culminating with an image of a purple creature with two wispy blue antennae above its head and a black face stuck on a rickety rope bridge, crying in fear of its life as it was circled over by three ravenous birds. As if possessed himself, he shot off the bed with a shout and punched the bedpost to his right, breaking it off with a thick crunch before it fell to the floor in front of a dresser. Despite hearing a gasping sound behind him, he stood hunched over as a sharp pain starting coming into his knuckles and the bases of his fingers, lifting his hand to see. Slowly turning around, he found Lillie standing in the open doorway, hand to her mouth as a streak of blood went down along the side of his hand and forearm.

Sun turned all the way to face her, but unable to look at her face. After a few moments that felt like an eternity, she broke down into sobs, covering her whole face in her hands. Sun tilted his head down, his own tears beginning to fall from his eyes. Stumbling towards her, he wrapped his left arm around the small of her back and rested his face into her shoulder, allowing himself to muffle his cries. Lillie herself also managed to wrap her arms around Sun’s back as they both wept together.

Honedge was napping upon Sam’s lap, resting inside its scabbard, and Sam was still enough to appear to be sleeping as well. Alice sat on the wall opposite them, watching and smiling. Even with their tense situation, at least their journey started off in quite possibly the most interesting way it could for virtually any trainer, and she had someone with her to share the experience with. She pulled out her Pokédex, and saw that it was about 8:30. In fifteen minutes, they could go out and check for any other-worldly monsters, but it was already so serene that there seemed to be no chance of there being anything dangerous out there.

“See…” a faint voice suddenly rung out somewhere in the cave. “Noth… to wor… abo…”

Alice slowly crouched to her feet, walking over to Sam, shaking his leg by the shin. Still awake, he shot right up.

“What is it?” he whispered, stirring Honedge awake as well.

“…m scare…” another voice called out, sounding more timid and afraid than the first. “…I wan… to go hom…”

Sam and Alice looked up, trying their best to determine the location of the voice.

“What is that?” he asked.

“Shh,” she softly hissed, her finger close to his face.

The two of them slowly got up, Hondege rising beside Sam, and began creeping further inside. Honedge silently unsheathed himself, his cloth arm keeping a firm hold on the scabbard.

“…I’m scare… too,” the first voice spoke, a bit easier to hear, “or at th… ver… leas… …appea… stron…”

“There’s someone down here,” Alice said.

There was suddenly a silence as Alice and Sam stood still, perhaps waiting for a response.

“What was that?” the second voice squealed, clear as day minus the cave’s echo.

“Quiet!” the first voice hissed.

Sam felt a small pang of sadness hit his gut.

“It sounds like a couple of kids,” Sam commented.

“Come on,” Alice advised. “Let’s go looking.”

Sam and Alice made their way down, Alice leading, her right hand hovering over the Poké Balls on her belt. The inside of the cave appeared to be a bunch of winding, hilly pathways surrounding deep pools of water. It certainly didn’t look like someplace where someone could get easily lost, but with a wormhole having opened up not even an hour ago, it was not the best place to get stuck in.

The series of pathways appeared to spiral around to the left as they came to the bottom of the hill and they could see a body at the base. Before they could get a chance to see what it was, they were suddenly assaulted by a bright, almost-blinding flash that appeared to come from whomever or whatever was below.

They shielded their faces, but quickly gathered that the bright light was only that: a bright light. Turning back to the bottom of the path, they were finally able to get a full look at Starlight. Sam and Honedge looked at it inquisitively, noting her strangely human facial expression, which Sam could easily see was fear.

Starlight breathed heavily, seeing that her attempted attack did not work, and with another charge of her horn, she tried to launch another spell at them, only to produce another flash. Alice, Sam, and Honedge were quicker to deflect and recover this time. Alice began to slowly inch towards her, her forearm just below her eyes, prompting the pony to try again to launch an attack. This time, Alice was prepared, and her forearm shielded her closed eyes, allowing her to continue her advance with her vision unimpaired. After a fourth failed attack, Starlight felt her knees begin to buckle as she quickly glanced to her right, and with Alice already halfway down, she sunk to her stomach and covered her head with her forelegs.

“Please,” she begged, “don’t hurt me!”

Finally, Alice stopped completely, floored by what she had heard: the source of the first voice. Her stance relaxed, though the pony was too frightened to see that she had stopped encroaching.

“You can speak?” she asked softly.

Starlight stopped trembling and peeked through her arms, slowly lowering them down and revealing her face to Alice.

“You…” she wondered aloud. “You can understand me?”

“Y… Yeah,” Alice managed to reply. “And don’t worry, I won’t hurt you.”

Alice took another step forward, but Starlight responded with another step back.

“I heard another one with you,” Starlight spoke. “Are they here?”

Alice, understanding the concern, turned her head and kept her hand up in a calming gesture.

“Sam,” she said. “Come down.”

Sam appeared from around the hall, walking at a slow and unthreatening pace. However, Starlight bolted to the right with a scream, freezing him in his tracks. Sam stopped unsure of what he did wrong, especially with Alice turning to him and frowning.

“Sam!” she hissed. “Your Honedge scared her off!”

Sam turned to see that Honedge was indeed behind him to his left, whose bottom eyelid squinted up as a show of embarrassment and apology.

“Don’t worry, bud,” Sam whispered, lightly patting the hilt. “Let’s just show her we mean her no harm.”

Sam walked down the slope with Honedge, and as Alice continued looking up at them, Sam noticed her expression looking instantly fearful as she took a step back.

“What’s up with you now?” he said, looking down at her. “What’s with the…”

Sam’s words trailed off as they saw his and Honedge’s shadows being cast on the ground, the area around them bright; something very bright was behind them. Turning around, Sam hopped back, nearly losing his footing, while Honedge stuck close enough to him that the edge of its blade was touching Sam’s clothing.

What they were looking at resembled a humanoid about six feet tall floating up behind them. Its head, torso, and two-clawed hands were black, and the tall, spiky plume atop and down the front and back of its head, along with the four spines below its waist where its legs would be were orange. Attached to its claws were two halves of what appeared to be a large wooden mask that could cover most of its body. Combined with its claws, the side of the face appeared similar to that of a bird.

Sam and Honedge looked deep into the creature’s gemlike orange-and-turquoise rims where its eyes were, the facial markings giving it an expression of anger, though no mouth could be seen to prove this. Recalling what Hau said about chicken-skin earlier that day, he could only come to one conclusion.

“Tapu Koko,” he whispered.

The guardian deity instantly flew around the two and weaved around Alice down below, soaring to where Starlight ran off.

“No!” Alice cried out. “Don’t hurt her!”

As Sam reached the bottom, Alice ran after Tapu Koko, leaving him and Honedge alone again.

“Alice, wait!” he shouted out.

She didn’t seem to get very far, as she watched from a distance as Tapu Koko approached the quivering pony. Alice put her hand to one of her Poké Balls, unsure of whether to use it or not. The guardian deity was almost within reach of Starlight, but she watched as Fluttershy’s head appeared from a small crevice to the right, watching the scene.

“Fluttershy!” Starlight screamed. “Run!”

Fluttershy tensed up as the being turned to spot her, but she took off and up, her wings beating as hard as they could to fly away. With a push off the ground, Tapu Koko darted at Fluttershy, her speed no match for it. As it grabbed Fluttershy with both arms, where she screamed in fear before laying scared stiff in them, Starlight charged her horn again, an angry scowl on her face.

“Let her go!” she screamed, a small orb of energy managing to shoot out this time.

Tapu Koko was not so easily tricked, and shifting the pegasus into its right arm, it swung to the left and swatted the attack against the half-mask on its arm, making it burst like a cloud of smoke. Alice gasped at the guardian deity’s might. Starlight swooned from the energy she exerted and fell to her left-front knee. Tapu Koko approached Starlight once again, who panted heavily and only bowed her head, resigned to her fate.

She was suddenly alerted by footsteps running in and sliding to a stop between her and Tapu Koko, who halted its encroachment upon their arrival. As Starlight realized that Alice had come to her protection, Sam and Honedge came in as well. Sam stopped between Alice and Starlight, crouching down with his arms out, blocking as much of the weakened pony as he could, while Honedge stood at the front of Starlight’s line of defense, forming an “X” with the broad sides of its blade and scabbard.

“You heard her,” Alice spoke as calmly as she could. “Please let her go.”

Tapu Koko continued to float in the same spot with Fluttershy still in its grasp. It glanced between both Sam and Alice, and then to the pony, which looked up to her would-be saviors with a strong sense of hope. After a few brief moments, Tapu Koko lowered itself to the ground and gently set Fluttershy down on the floor. As it backed away, Alice relaxed her defensive stance and Sam stood up, both looking at Fluttershy with agape mouths as if they hadn’t expected their plan to work.

Tapu Koko looked back at Sam and Alice once again, its fixed serious demeanor still attached to its face. It then threw its arms out to the sides, making its body spark with electrical energy, and with another push off the ground from its bottom spines, it soared out and up through the cave, heading for the entrance at Melemele Meadow.

Despite the talking, sapient ponies behind and in front of them, Tapu Koko’s departure inspired Sam, Alice, and Honedge to look up at the direction of its flight. Suddenly, they felt Starlight brush into their legs as she galloped to Fluttershy’s still paralyzed body.

“Fluttershy,” she called out, grabbing her body with her arms and shaking her. “Fluttershy, wake up!”

Fluttershy came too with a hard, quick wagging of her head, looking woozy as she slowly sat herself up.

“Ugh…” she moaned. “Where are we?” Fluttershy turned to see Sam, Alice, and Honedge approaching cautiously, but stopped as Fluttershy’s expression turned fearful. “St– St– St– Starlight? Wha… What are those?”

“It’s okay, Fluttershy.” Starlight turned back and faced the three of them without a sign of fear. “I… I think we can trust them.”

Fluttershy, still sitting, took her time to size Alice, Sam, and Honedge up, feeling more comfortable seeing the humans and living sword relaxed and calm around her and her friend. She began to roll onto her hooves, Starlight giving her some space.

“Thank you,” Starlight said to their saviors. “Thank you for saving us.”

“Uh, yeah,” Sam muttered, a little off put by the talking pony’s compliment, “no problem.”

Starlight glanced away and bit her lip, knowing how awkward the question she would ask would be. “I’m sorry, but… Do you know where we are?”

The expressions Alice and Sam made to each other trying to find the best way to answer her question proved her apprehensions right. Sam finally managed to turn to her.

“We are… on Melemele Island… in the Alola region on… Earth.”

“There’s no Equestria?” Fluttershy asked.

“Not that I’ve heard of.” He reached into his pocket. “I can show you a world map. If there’s something there that resembles this Equestria you talk about, maybe it can help us.”

He pulled out his Pokédex and expanded the holographic screen almost two times its normal length, which mystified Starlight and Fluttershy.

“You can use magic too?” Starlight asked.

“Magic?” asked Alice. Her tone suggested how odd it was that Starlight would use the word so casually. “Was that what you were doing with your horn?”

“Yeah. What else could it have been?”

“It looked like some kind of attack move. In all honesty, I thought you were a Psychic-type Pokémon or something.”

“You keep using that word: Pokémon. What is that?”

“I’m not seeing anything in the search for ‘Equestria,’” Sam interrupted, “but you can feel free to look if you can find something.”

Sam held the Pokédex out in front of Starlight, which showed an ovular rendering of the entire planet and all the continents and islands on it, Starlight glancing over it several times quickly.

Unbeknownst to them, a figure hidden by the darkness crept up to a ledge above them, looking out and spotting the ponies. It stopped and stared for several seconds, surprised by their alien appearance, but moved onwards towards the downward path. By Starlight’s fourth look, her ears began to droop as the realized the land she was searching for was not on this map.

“So,” she muttered, “we’re lost… on a completely different world.”

“Wait,” Fluttershy squeaked, “does this mean… we can’t go back home?”

Alice and Sam grimaced as Fluttershy’s eyes welled with tears, an answer to remedy their sadness farther away than even they could find.

“Hello, over there!”

The five of them looked instantly surprised, turning to face the one who had found them. Though Sam, Alice, and Honedge recognized the person approaching the edge of the ledge right above their spot, Starlight and Fluttershy appeared more wary, zipping behind the humans for protection.

“Hau!” Sam shouted out.

“Is he a friend of yours?” whispered Starlight.

“Yes,” Alice responded just as quietly.

As Hau approached the group, the two ponies crept out back into the open, somewhat soothed by the reverent smirk he gave them.

“I saw that wormhole over this area,” Hau said. “Tapu Koko come out from the meadow, so I came down here to see what was up. I didn’t expect to see you two with…” He suddenly glanced at the ponies. “…them.”

“Tapu Koko?” asked Fluttershy “Is that the thing that attacked us?”

“Attacked? What gave you the impression that he attacked you?”

“It tried taking Fluttershy and me away,” argued Starlight. “It wasn’t until…” Something suddenly dawned on her that shifted her focus to Alice and Sam. “I’m sorry, you two saved us and we never got your names.”

“Oh, right,” Alice replied. “Well, my name is Alice Brier, that’s my brother Sam.”

“And the floating sword beside me is called a Honedge,” Sam said, showcasing his Pokémon with his open hand. “Hau, my sister and I are known as humans, and my Honedge is just one of many different types of creatures that we call a Pokémon.”

It closed its eye and rocked its body toward them in a bowing gesture, pleased to be introduced to the two ponies.

“Yes, thank you.” Starlight bowed her head in thanks and turned back to Hau. “Anyways, Alice, Sam, and Honedge came in and saved us, and this Tapu Koko then let my friend go and flew away.”

“I can assure you that Tapu Koko meant to protect you,” Hau replied. “It probably assumed you two came from that wormhole earlier and tried taking you to the Ruins of Conflict to keep you safe.”

“Wormhole…” Memories suddenly flashed of Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie getting pulled in through the portal in the table at the Castle of Friendship. Her face contorted in concern, making her gallop out to the exit of the cave for Kala’e Bay. Hau, Alice, Sam, Honedge, and Fluttershy quickly went after her.

“Applejack!” she shouted, throwing her head in every direction in a desperate search. “Rainbow Dash!” Silence except for the waves against the shore. “Rarity!” her voice went softer as she realized that none of her friends would likely hear her call. “Pinkie Pie… Come on… Twilight...”

The other five stood at the foot of the exit, giving Starlight some space as she fell to her shins in the sand and looked up at the sky, wheezing before she hung her head down in defeat.

“There are more of them?” asked Sam.

“They got pulled in through that portal too.” Fluttershy answered. “But if they’re not here, that must mean… they’re… ”

At last, Fluttershy finally broke down into sobbing. Alice found her breathing getting heavy, her heart broken for these two. Honedge’s eye even showed an expression of concern, while Sam looked more disappointed, putting his hands in both pockets and leaning down. However, it was Hau who knelt besides Fluttershy and took the bottom of her head in his hands, wiping her tears with his thumbs. Her crying stopped as she looked into his sympathetic eyes.

“Hey,” he whispered, “you’ll find your other friends. If they came through with you, they couldn’t have gotten far.”

“How…” She sniffled. “How do you know this?”

“I don’t.” That line didn’t seem to sit too well with Fluttershy, but Hau’s words kept her from breaking down again. “I just have a very strong feeling about it.”

“You won’t need to feel anything,” Sam said, alerting Hau and Fluttershy. “Check this out.”

Starlight turned from her spot to see Sam with his Pokédex out and expanded, pointing to its screen. Alice, Hau and Fluttershy gathered behind him as he knelt down to show an aerial picture of Alola, where a pillar of light rose out from the ocean south of the islands, where it branched off into four separate tunnels that opened over each of the four islands.

“Where did you find this picture?” Fluttershy asked.

“It’s probably all over the news by now,” Alice guessed. “Would be surprised if there wasn’t something by now.”

Starlight now joined herself beside Fluttershy, gasping at the sight of the islands.

“Those are the islands!” Starlight almost shouted. “Those islands appeared on the Cutie Map before we ended up here.”

“Yeah,” Sam confirmed, “that's the Alola region, but look.” He pointed to the wormhole opening above Melemele. “That’s the one you and Fluttershy came from. There are three other portals. This must mean that your other friends are on the other islands.”

“And,” Fluttershy said, the realization causing her eyes to widen, “that also means–”

“Your friends are safe and not that far away,” Alice answered, almost giggling.

Fluttershy let out one more sob of emotion before hugging Starlight, the unicorn hugging her back. Hau looked down to Sam, his hands on his hips.

“Good job,” he said to him.

Sam nodded in thanks, but there was something else that kept him from feeling entirely joyful about the good news.

“Starlight,” he said to the unicorn, “that’s your name, right?”

“Yeah,” she responded, before another thought popped in. “Oh my, I’m sorry. I don’t even think we properly introduced ourselves to you. My name is Starlight Glimmer, but you can call me Starlight, and my friend here is Fluttershy. Our kind are called ponies.”

“Hi,” she responded with a small wave of her hoof.

“Yes.” Sam nodded in understanding. “Anyways, just now, you said that you saw the Alola region before you got pulled here and that it was on this ‘Cutie Map?’”

“Listen,” Hau said, “there are probably a lot of questions that need answering, so why don’t we ask and answer back at my place? The ponies can wash up and once we’re all settled, maybe I can offer something to eat.”

“That sounds very nice of you, Hau,” Starlight responded with an obligatorily kind smile, “but we wouldn’t want to impose.”

“Nonsense! You’re our new guests to Alola, and while you’re here, I want you to feel as safe and at home as possible.”

Fluttershy smiled for the first time since arriving, won over by Hau’s genuine kindness. Starlight huffed, feeling a smirk herself coming on and realizing that she would never be able to refuse his offer.

“Thank you very much,” Starlight said, a single tear rolling down her cheek. “You humans are very friendly.”

“It’s certainly not a problem, but we should get moving. It’s already pretty late out and it’s a bit of a walk back to Iki Town.”

“Lead the way,” Alice said with a motion of her arm.

Hau walked back inside the cave, Starlight and Fluttershy trotting close behind. Before Sam walked in with Alice, he took Honedge’s Poké Ball and returned his Pokémon back inside of it.

“You’ll have plenty of time to rest at Hau’s,” he said to the Poké Ball.

“Come on, Sam!” she called out before going in and walking up.

Sam jogged until he was beside her, only a few feet behind Hau and the ponies.

“Now this is how you start an adventure,” she said to him with a wink.

“No kidding,” her brother responded.

The two increased their pace so that they were only behind by a foot.

Comments

[Black Hoof]

This is getting more and more interesting! Favourited.
And now I wonder... like for some humans in Sun & Moon adventures, will one or more of the ponies get controlled by Ultrabeasts?

[ponylover2]

Awesome chapter my friend and I can't wait for the next upload for this story I'll be waiting

[AStephen542]

Great chapter, can't wait for the next one! Favorited.

[The Villain in Glasses]

8032526

Nihilego was the only Ultra Beast to show that ability, so unless Aether Paradise has an enclosure for them, that would be unlikely.

[Night_Moon60606]

8058159
that is true, UB-01, code name 'Parasite', was the only Ultra Beast to have the ability to possess other life forms, not merely the only to demonstrate that ability

[Silent_Knight]

“What in the hell is that thing?” he shouted.

thats an M rating if i ever saw one

[Nitro Indigo]

I like how you avoided the cliché of calling ponies “colourful Ponyta”, but I don’t like that the narration suddenly becomes omniscient when Alice sees Starlight.