A/N: Greetings all, it's ya boy.
This is a little fic-let I wrote about one of my favourite new designs from Alola, and my attempt at a little horror one shot for y'all. I won't spoil what that Pokemon is, but I hope you enjoy!
Sunset on Poni Island was a beautiful thing. Of course, that depended entirely on whereabouts on Poni Island you were stood to look at it; you wouldn't catch much of a glimpse of it in Poni Meadow, that's for sure. But sat on the edge of the boardwalk of Seafolk Village, gazing west out into the sea, you got one of the best views you'd find in Alola. Unspoilt nature, sea stretching out to the horizon, and the dull orange hue of the sun as it slunk away for the night, the shadows of Wingull flocks playing on the water as they were thrown into all sorts of weird angles.
The people of Seafolk Village had grown long accustomed to this natural beauty; it barely registered with any of them anymore. Yet the people who lived in the last true remaining bit of civilisation in the wilderness of Poni Island were used to a lot more than just the sunset. Their way of life had developed to adapt to the challenges of the landscape and the challenges of nature itself, managing to carve a living off the land and sea, but above all else, their way of life had adapted to the dangers out there in the blue beyond. For there were many, and yet, on Poni Island's coast, there was one in particular that people were more than a little wary of...
That wariness did not extend to the tall and rugged man sat at the bow end of the tiny fishing boat out in the bay now. While Alolan anglers knew all too well the dangers of what might await them should they cast a line in the wrong part of the sea, Silva was from Kanto, bullheaded and full of the belief that he was in complete control at all times. Holidaying in Alola, a region he considered to be an untouched paradise in comparison to Kanto, was a break from the monotony of the fishing scene near Fuchsia City; Silva had grown far too used to the familiar species of Kanto, and with underused muscles twitching for a better fight, he craved something more thrilling in seas he hadn't yet travelled.
Imagine his delight, therefore, when on arriving on Poni Island and attempting to commandeer a vessel from a local captain, the fool tried to convince him that he should only try and fish off the boardwalk, or from the deck of the Steelix-shaped vessel where he could be supervised by its captain. Silva wasn't having that for one second. His desire to thrill-seek took over, and throwing more money at the hesitant and unsure local, he found himself in charge of a boat out in the bay. He didn't even stop to hear the locals and heed the warnings; the mystery drew him in and deafened him to any caution. Hindsight would have taught him how bad an idea that was...
On the boat, Silva's small eyes, buried under thick eyebrows, narrowed as he realised the time and that the sun was due to set. He hadn't found anything at all, having parked his boat over a coral reef, and this to any sensible man would have been a warning sign. Any form of reef would have been perfect for any fisherman in any normal circumstances, particularly a coral reef; reefs attracted bottom feeders, and acted like a walk-in buffet to any form of deadly predator, so to not have anything at all nibble on his line should have alerted Silva to the fact something was terribly wrong. Yet Silva, with his scarred arms from fights with vicious Gyarados back in the day, and his permanent frown etched on his face, was oblivious. His lack of recent experience dealing with predators on the end of his line had made him complacent and lax, and his desire to see what the villagers fussed about took over.
"Where are you?" Silva muttered, under his breath, reattaching a sinker and bait to his rod. His voice was almost a growl, from a mouth framed by coarse facial hair, and his frustration was starting to get the better of him. He didn't even know what he was looking for, but it had to be out there somewhere.
As he cast again, and let the sinker do its work, Silva's eyes flicked to the sunset again, distracted. If he had any concept of beauty or art, Silva would have taken a photograph of the scene before him, or tried a painting, and his result would almost certainly have won him prizes. Silva didn't look at the sunset and see its beauty though; he simply saw an annoyance that would prevent him fishing for much longer.
His rod twitched a little as the sinker hit the reef, but this little twitch was soon replaced with a savage jerk on the line that nearly took the rod out of the distracted angler's hands.
"Cor you bastard," Silva groaned, as he clung on to the rod and tried to keep the line taut. "Talk about heavy hitting."
The line, reinforced and Kanto-made, creaked a little as he tried to lift up, but it wasn't due to the target moving, as Silva realised. It was the weight; Silva's muscles hadn't had this much strain to deal with in years, but as he tried in vain to pull, he realised whatever was on the end of his line weighed nearly as much as a Gyarados, and was so strong it could remain still in one place and still not allow him to move it one inch.
This was what he came to Alola for!
All of a sudden, Silva's world got a little more dark and wet. As he tried to release a little more tension in the line and make it more slack, the thing on the end gave an almighty yank. Silva toppled off the side of the boat into the water, his rod flying out of his huge hands and the expensive sunglasses he wore landing on the surface as he fell underwater. He didn't even have the chance to look around and begin to swim up to the surface before out of the darkness of the reef, what absurdly appeared to be a ship's chain flew at him and wrapped around his chest, reeling the struggling man down further to the reef.
Silva had been in similar situations before; you didn't get to catch Tentacruel on a regular basis if you weren't used to being pulled underwater and wrapped up in the clutches of tentacles, so his ability to hold his breath was keeping him alive. But this chain was different. The strength behind it was astonishing, and no matter how much he struggled to swim out of its grasp, he couldn't stop himself being dragged down to the reef. He had never experienced anything like this before.
As his assailant brought him to the reef at the sea floor, his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness and identified a few things, even despite his growing panic. Firstly, the reef he had moored himself over was completely devoid of any life at all; dead and blackened coral, and decayed branches from Corsola heads, were the only signs that this reef had ever had life in it at all. And secondly, sat among the detritus of the sea floor, he was being attacked by what appeared to be an anchor.
Only it wasn't quite what it seemed. The thing that the chain had emerged from (what Silva could only assume to be some form of new Pokemon move) did indeed look like an anchor at first, slightly rusted and covered by what looked like weeds. But the reason Silva didn't dismiss this as simply wreckage from a ship resting on the sea floor, besides the obvious fact that the chain holding him was emerging from it, was that no anchor he knew was attached to what looked like a ship's wheel, with an eye-like compass embedded in the wheel. It was unlike anything Silva had seen before.
The thing pulled its chain even tighter so that Silva's face was level to the compass eye, and he assumed that the anchor would now move, and he would have to fight the rusted Pokemon with his bare hands in order to survive. But as he tightened his fists, movement stirred on the surface of the anchor, and Silva realised with horror that the anchor was only there to give the being shape. The weeds unraveled themselves from the body of the anchor, and as Silva fought futilely to free himself from the chain, delicately slid themselves around his neck to choke him.
Silva, losing all the breath in his lungs anyway, couldn't cope, couldn't struggle any longer; his body was screaming in pain to try to force him open his mouth, but with the chance that the thing would slide its seaweed form down his throat, and the certainty this would fill his lungs with seawater anyway, Silva resisted. The last thing he saw, as the breath drained from his lungs, was the eye-like compass in front of his eyes, almost appearing to passively stare right through him as much as it were possible for an inanimate object to do so.
And his last thought, as he fell into darkness, was that he really should have listened to the boat captain and not gone out alone...
As the body in its chain fell limp and breathless, the Dhelmise released its weeds from around the angler's neck and allowed the body to fall to the reef below it. Retracting its Anchor Shot into its body, the weeds returned themselves to the rusted anchor they called home and allowed the weight of the anchor to pull them back to the sea floor once more. The man formerly known as Silva would never be discovered in this dark area of the sea; his sunglasses and rod would wash up in the breakers of the Poni Coast, and the ship he hired would drift at sea until the morning, when the local captains raised the alarm. But they'd find no trace of the angler, no body to send home to his family, and even when the most senior of the Seafolk pondered to himself as to what might have happened, he wouldn't dare venture anywhere near that particular reef to find out.
It had been a while since any human had dared venture near to the Sea Creeper's home; not many were so foolish anymore. The days of shipwrecks in the past were long gone, the plentiful food source they provided no longer so readily available now the Seafolk had learned to adapt to the danger of the predator lurking in the deep. The Magikarp and Wailmer kept coming, and the Seafolk lived in harmony with them, but they still feared the ghost of the sea floor...
The Dhelmise's anchor hit the bottom of the reef, and it settled, lying perfectly still and in wait for its next victim. It could wait. It would always wait. For there would always be another...
(***)
A/N: God I love Dhelmise. I didn't think I'd like some of the inanimate object Pokemon when they got announced, but in all seriousness it's a very cool Pokemon. And triple STAB too, to boot.
If you enjoyed this fic and want to favourite it/me, I'm very grateful, but I'm equally as grateful for reviews. Glowing praise or constructive criticism, either makes me happy to read (it helps me learn)- just don't flame, yo.
Thanks for reading.
Ya boy, out.