Nine reviews for a single chapter? As always, thanks to everyone for your insightful comments and constructive critiscism.
Since you've waited long enough for Chapter 9, I'm going to split it into two chapters and post the first half right now. This chapter, as well as being the first human-centric one since the beggining, also hosts the first traditional Pokemon battle, and intraduces four new characters and the suggestion for an enigma character, so its quite a pivotal moment in the storyline. I hope it's a success.
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Chapter Nine: The Mysterious Lord Alpinn.
Jessika Eujun waded through the bleak beauty of the Snowstack Downs. She was knee-deep in fresh snow, her face was protected against the snowy downfall by a scarf which her grandmother had knitted for her, and she was weighed down by the huge backpack that Everisto had insisted she carry.
Everisto himself was struggling through the magnificent snowy dunes alongside her, clearing a feeble path with his badly-mended walking stick. The aurora loomed ahead of them, except that it was far less wispy and ethereal than when viewed up close.
The pair of them had been tracking Lucy through the north of Johto ever since Jessika had recovered from her fall. Everisto had originally planned to undertake this expedition alone, but Jessika had insisted on accompanying him because she was so worried about Teddiursa, and she was too persistent for him to refuse her.
“Any signs of that horrible flying house yet, grandpa?” queried Jessika, her breath clammy against her scarf in the immense cold. Everisto’s eyes were frantically flicking behind his half-moon spectacles as he soldiered on, desperately searching for any clues about Lucy’s airborne structure or those who had been onboard it when it left the breeding centre.
He sighed, his head hung with disappointment. “Sorry Jessika, there’s nothing in this snow desert as far as I can see,” he replied. “Only snow, and the hills that are covered in it. But you needn’t fret…. I’m sure we’ll come across it soon enough.”
“I hope we do, for Teddiursa’s sake,” said Jessika morosely. “And so we can get back home to the warmth of the breeding centre, away from all this cold.”
Her brain was clouding over with distress and grief as she spoke of Teddiursa, so she quickly changed the subject in an attempt to dispel this nagging remorse.
“Hey grandpa, what exactly was it that Lucy woman after? I can’t see what someone like her would need eggs for, unless they hatched into priceless Pokemon. But we’ve never bred any really, really rare Pokemon, so that can’t be it.”
“Do not bring up that subject again,” growled Everisto, in an uncharacteristically stern voice. “I was sworn to secrecy on that matter by Lord Alpinn, and even if I wasn’t, I certainly wouldn’t go revealing it to someone who isn’t old enough to understand it.”
“Lord Alpinn?” Jessika asked suddenly. "Who is this Lord Alpinn?”
Through the gentle downpour of snow, Jessika glimpsed her grandfather’s chapped, wrinkled face turn white, and his toothless mouth hang open; appalled that he had let something so secretive leak into another person’s ears.
“I should not have said that,” he breathed. “Please, forget I ever said anything."
Even though Jessika didn’t continue interrogating her grandfather, her curiosity was increased tenfold. Everisto had never mentioned anything that had happened to him before he married Hazel and took over management of the breeding centre; so perhaps Lord Alpinn and mysterious egg were in some way connected with those unknown events.
It was now that Jessika glimpsed a silhouette looming out from amidst the majestic white hills. It was considerably far away and its image was blurred by the wafting snow, meaning she couldn’t decipher what it was, but it looked somewhat like a house, and anywhere that offered homely values felt welcoming in such a harsh, bitter wilderness.
“Grandpa, look, I think there’s a house somewhere over there!” she cried, wading more determinedly than ever through the undulating snow barrens.
Everisto hurried after her, tripping often due to his uncharacteristic pace and denseness of the snow. “Jessika, stop, this is dangerous!” he bellowed. “The only people known to live here are nomadic hunting tribes, and there’s no telling whether or not they’re friendly!”
By the time he had caught up with his granddaughter and clasped her shoulder firmly with a mittened hand, he was white with powder snow. “Jessika, please, you must act cautiously. If the landlords of that mysterious abode up ahead turn out to be hostile, then you’ll need me and Ampharos to protect you.”
Ampharos was the only Pokemon Everisto had ever raised for usage in battle, and forefather to the numerous Mareep and Flaaffy which grazed peacefully in the breeding-centre grounds. It was also his first ever Pokemon, having been received by him almost sixty years ago when he was Jessika’s age.
Suddenly, a piercing scream tore through the gentle blizzard, and it appeared to be coming from the direction of the enigma structure a few hills away from them. Everisto’s hand clasped instinctively around Ampharos’s Pokeball, as he rushed onward through the snow to investigate. “Stay here,” he whispered to Jessika before departing, and she reluctantly stood her ground.
As he drew closer to the house, he was able to observe its structure. It resembled a town hall more than a house, with cathedral-like windows looming from its wooden, pillared flank and a tiny veranda beneath the gable.
It appeared to be hovering amidst the sweeping, snow-covered hills, which made Everisto wonder whether it might be Lady Panpippa’s flying house, but then he realised it couldn’t be. It was bigger for a start, and lacked the hideous tangle of rigging and smoke-stacks that Jessika had described.
Mystified, he went on traversing the crest of the hill, and it was only when he walked over the ridge and began descending into the enclave where the building was nestled that the answer came to him.
The house was in fact a caravan, suspended on four massive wheels. A number of large dome-shaped tents, layered with Stantler and Piloswine hides for additional warmth, were loosely arrayed within close proximity to the caravan.
It was, as Everisto had predicted, a simple nomadic village, whose residents probably scratched out a living through hunting whatever inhabited the cold tundra. But from the moment he had heard the scream, he had known that something bad was occurring, and that he understood what that bad thing was.
Five barbaric-looking men in Spheal-skin cloaks and with Ursaring skulls for helmets where advancing menacingly towards a crippled figure, who lay at the foot of the immense caravan. Before this gaggle of attackers sprawled a colossal walrus Pokemon, with a ragged mane flowing in smelly white curls over its flabby backside and tusks as long as Everisto’s walking stick.
“Abort its construction now, or Walrein here will crush you and your entire village without the slightest ounce of mercy,” the apparent leader of the barbarians was saying in a deep, guttural, heavily-accented voice.
“No….,” croaked the half-dead figure, who lay sprawled before the magnificent Walrein. “I… would never… surrender to one… as … pathetic as….. yourself….. The operation… shall… continue… regardless of whether or not…. I survive.. this… attack.”
Everisto was impressed by the courage of this unknown man, yet also worried, because he appeared to have been horribly mangled by these beastly people, and none of the villagers were doing anything to help him. In fact, the only villagers Everisto could see was a cluster of frightened youths peeping from within the cowl of a tent, and they disappeared from sight the moment a barbarian’s eyes looked in their direction.
“Since you have decided not to co-operate, I have no choice but to kill you,” hissed the leader, before exploding into a fit of shouting. “WALREIN, USE BODY SLAM!”
Walrein lunged at the man in an earthshaking barrel-roll, and was just about to engulf him in a tsunami of fat when Everisto, in a moment of blind, desperate bravery, dashed down the slope, scooped up the man with what little strength he could muster, and hauled him away in the nick of time, landing alongside each other in the snow.
“Damn!,” the leader roared. “I never expected this. No matter… it just means that your "saviour" shall die too. WALREIN, USE ICE BALL!”
Walrein thundered on through the snow, before flopping awkwardly back into position and waddling round to confront Everisto and the man he had rescued. Everisto staggered to his feet, his body racked by horrendous pain… for that act had triggered a spout of back-ache so awful he could barely stand upright. He grappled for Ampharos’s Pokeball, clasped it firmly, and tossed it.
From it erupted a flash of crimson light, that materialised into the tall form of a long-necked bipedal sheep. It was completely hairless, unlike the woolly Mareeps and Flaaffies that roamed the breeding centre grounds, and a jewel of crimson chitin sparkled at the tip of its striped tail.
“Ampharos…,” gasped Everisto, clutching his hip and keeling over. “Please…. Thunderbolt that beast… protect the injured man….”
He then fell into a crouch, agony searing through him. Ampharos bleated in concern, but its master persisted. “Do not fear for me… I shall be alright…. Please… Do it… Quickly….”
And with that, he fell flat on his face, unconscious amidst the ranks of the mysterious attackers. Ampharos looked away, burying his distress and determined to fulfil his master’s last command.
The Walrein seemed to be doing nothing whatsoever; just lounging there in swathes of its own blubber; until Ampharos saw that within its gaping mouth a globe of pure frost was condensing out of thin air, swelling and swelling like an ethereal balloon. It was the Ice Ball attack that its master had ordered it to perform, and now it was ready to launch it at its enemy.
Ampharos was unable to evade the blast of coldness. It struck him full-on, hurling his brittle body like a rag-doll into a nearby tent. The impact shredded the layers of fur of the tent and brought the half of the rib-like superstructure thundering down on the already-crippled Pokemon.
“What a pitiful struggle,” announced Walrein’s master, his eyes fixed admiringly on the wreckage of the tent. “Now that that’s over… destroy the chieftain, and the traveller that prolonged his fate!”
The barbarians all silently whipped out the colossal axes they had lashed to their belts, and made simultaneously for the two injured men… when suddenly a tendril of vivid electricity lashed out and smote one of the antagonists with passionate ferocity.
There was an explosion of light, and he was hurled flailing beyond the boundaries of the campsite. Three more bolts simultaneously thundered down, like fissures in the fabric of the atmosphere, and even though the barbarians raised their axes to deflect them or attempted to flee, the lightning still found its mark.
The leader turned his eyes away from the spectacle, and looked once more towards the damaged tent. Ampharos was crawling steadily from beneath one of the long, curving struts, his horns crackling as he sent Thunderbolt after Thunderbolt sizzling towards Walrein and the barbarians.
“WALREIN, USE HEADBUTT!,” he roared, and Walrein obediently slithered towards Ampharos like a mammalian slug. It was bellowing in pain as lightning pummelled it, but it hauled itself persistently along, its thick skull poised to crash into Ampharos and shatter his bones.
Ampharos saw this coming, and drew back his foreleg with what little strength he could muster. Just when Walrein was upon him, he brought the foreleg vehemently forwards in a lightning-fast, electrified punch.
It was a meagre attack, but the force was great enough to crush Walrein’s chin and drive it backwards. Another Thunderpunch followed the last one with equal power, this time landing between the beast’s eyes and knocking it senseless.
The leading attacker’s face distorted with rage, into a grimace so hideous it chilled the mortally-weakened Ampharos to the bone. “You hideous vermin! Because of you, Yyselius’ destruction has been prolonged yet again, and now that it is almost complete we may never get another chance!”
But before he could flee, the sound of numerous hooves began echoing through the tundra ahead of him, getting louder and louder, till four magnificent reindeer with extravagant horns came lunging through the snow. They where harnessed to a streamlined sleigh, carved from elegant pinewood and with a fur-swathed, furious-looking warrior at the reins.
“What in the name of the Aurora have you done to our chieftain!” bellowed the driver, passionately spurring on the reindeer with violent lashes of his whip. “You shall pay for this, you Rungard scum!”
The reindeers collided with the barbarian before he was able to flee; the first pair ploughing him down with their horns and the second pair crushing his broken body beyond recognition with their powerful hooves. The sleigh drove swiftly over what was left, rubbing the mangled carcass into the deep snow, before drawing to a sudden halt before the ruined tent.
“ARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!” echoed his final bellow of agony, terror, and despair, before evaporating into the shimmering sky.
The sleigh-driver disembarked urgently from his vehicle, and walked across the snow to where the barbarian’s victim lay. His ragged crimson robes were tangled around his injured body, his limbs were grotesquely akimbo, and a wide gash ran like a fissure down his forehead. Only his uneven, gasping breaths proved that he was still alive.
“Chieftain… are you alright?” queried the sleigh-driver in concern, kneeling before the crippled man. “Have those damned brigands damaged Yyselius, or found out about the Emperor? And as for the other villagers..”
“I was able… to hold… off… the Rungards… long enough… for everyone to escape…” choked the Chieftain. Every time he spoke, a number of his teeth fell out like sweets from a slot-machine. “But… I was… badly injured… in the process…. Had a…. traveller and… his Ampharos… not… arrived… out of the blue…. and saved… me…. I would have been….. killed.”
All around, the frightened villagers were slowly emerging from their tents, and milling around the Chieftain, trying to see what had become of him. All of them were dressed in long Stantler-skin kilts, with tunics of Piloswine fur.
“Fenrir…..” the Chieftain continued weakly. “That… old man…. willingly… sacrificed himself… to protect… a… stranger. Someone that good….. does not… deserve… to die…. Please Fenrir… help him….”
Fenrir surveyed the village, till his eyes fell on a pained-looking old man, sprawled awkwardly a few feet away from the Chieftain. His clothes, though multi-layered and thick, were infinitely more refined and sophisticated than the garments the villagers and the Rungard barbarians both wore, meaning he must have been a traveller from the lands far south of here.
Then, Fenrir turned his attentions to the crowd, and ushered forth two dumpy, round-faced old women. “You two, carry that stranger into your tent and nurse whatever injuries he is suffering from,” he instructed, pointing sternly in the direction of one of the tents.
“But Lord Fenrir, what if he’s a Rungard agent?” stammered one of the women in a jittery, nervous voice. “And even so, shouldn’t we focus on helping our Chieftain instead of this peculiar fellow?”
“The Chieftain had demanded that we put the stranger’s needs before our own,” said Fenrir. “I would strongly advice that we obey… though even I have my doubts.”
Begrudgingly, the two women each held Everisto’s body at opposite ends and hoisted him off the snow-laden ground. They proceeded inside, carrying the unconscious man between them like someone on a stretcher. Everyone else likewise vanished solemnly into their tents, till only Fenrir and the Chieftain remained outside in the cold…..
