On a visit to another world, Arcticuno receives a prophecy. Arcticuno could never read Japanese and never wanted to. But in the prophecy, black Japanese letters on a red background were staring at Arcticuno. Then they morphed into a poisonous snake, biting and killing Arcticuno. In this world, were pokemon are very rare or nonexistent, Arcticuno made a home inside Japan's largest volcano. Japan was frozen into a non-ending winter. A hundred years later the largest volcano is now named Mt. Arcticuno, and no matter how often people try to defeat Arcticuno, Arcticuno remained, guarding an egg-shaped stone.
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Quint moved the torch closer to the fields. All the people of the islands could grow through this eternal frost were buckwheat, rye grass, forget-me-nots and juniper berries. All his large family (his five sisters; May, Rose, Mary, Tess and Jill, his two brothers; Gregory and Hershel, him, his mom, his dad, and his aunt Alana) grows is buckwheat, except for Aunt Alana. Aunt Alana had an arm froze off, so she couldn't work in the fields. She was the same age as him, about thirteen years old. To fill up her time, she learned how to fly an airplane, and she even made a two-person ultra-light.
Quint knew he had to challenge Arcticuno soon. It was a tradition. Aunt Alana got out of it by being disabled, but they were trying to pass a bill to make her, and other disabled kids have to challenge it. Most people were spared by Arcticuno. It did not like killing. But the few people that were killed were treated as heroes and their families given money.
Aunt Alana was Quint's best and only friend. Every after noon, once the fields were thawed, she would take him out for a flight. One day, Quint got brave enough to ask her about Arcticuno.
"Alana?" Quint wiped some snow off of his face.
"Yes?" she kept her face on the sky.
"Are you going to challenge Arcticuno?" Quint finally made her look over.
"Quint, I don't know. Are you?" Alana threw the question back.
"I have to." Quint nervously looked at the ground, hundreds of feet below them.
"Then I'll go with you." Alana looked back at the city below them. "Let's go now." She made a sharp turn towards the volcano.
They could see Arcticuno sitting on the top, next to the egg. Alana grabbed a knife from her bag, while Quint wondered where she got it. She threw it at Arcticuno.
Not used to aerial attacks, Arcticuno screamed. The knife actually didn't even knock a feather off.
Arcticuno opened its giant blue wings and flew into the sky. Quint was scared, but he knew Alana had a plan.
"Get off!" Alana yelled through the screeches of Arcticuno. "Throw the stone off the edge!"
She flew the plane low to the ground. Arcticuno was barely ten feet behind her. Quint jumped the five feet, landing on his feet and hands. He slowly looked at the rock.
It was the exact shape of an egg, but the size off a small cat. Quint started rolling it towards the edge of the crater, and it was so cold, after the second rotation he lost feeling of his hands.
He gave it one last, final push to get it over the edge. When he did, the ground started shaking.
It took him a few minutes to realize that the stone kept the volcano, whose crater he was standing in, from erupting. Aunt Alana was far enough to be safe now, but Arcticuno was spiraling towards Quint.
When the volcano erupted, everything seemed to move in slow motion. Arcticuno spread its wings and flapped furiously to get away from the lava.
Quint was thrown into the air. As he was falling, another pokemon seemed to emerge from the lava.
The other pokemon was a Moltres, who immediately saw the person who freed it, and caught him.
Quint struggled to get on Moltres's back, but after a few seconds he finally did it. Moltres had wings and tails that seemed to be made of fire. Moltres was safely out of the range of the lava.
Arcticuno was not, on the other hand, as lava surrounded the pokemon. Arcticuno was dead. Quint and Alana had actually defeated Arcticuno.
"Quint. Look at Japan." Aunt Alana did not seem nearly as happy as he did.
Quint slowly moved his gaze towards the cities nearby. They had not seemed to thaw at all.
Moltres flew low over the cities. As it did, they seemed to thaw, except the snow didn't all turn to water- it immediately evaporated.
Pretty soon Aunt Alana, who was following Moltres and Quint, arrived at their village. Quint had to get off here.
Moltres seemed to realize that, and it lowered itself to the ground. All of Quint's family ran out to greet him and Aunt Alana, and also to see what thawed land was like, and to examine the giant fire-bird Quint was riding. His five sisters; May, Rose, Mary, Tess and Jill, his two brothers; Gregory and Hershel, him, his mom, and his dad ran outside.
Moltres did not like all the people. It flew off. Once it was gone, Quint saw a feather on the ground. It was Moltres's.
It was as long as an eagle feather and it glowed the colors of fire. It was warm to the touch. Quint knew it would bring him could luck.
As he looked at the speck just above the horizon that was Moltres, he knew. Moltres had finish freeing Japan.
\-
The letters in Arcticuno's vision were not just random. They spelled something.
Moltres
