Rising of a Guardian - Prologue
"Speech."
'Telepathy.'
Thoughts.
Latias stared wide-eyed in absolute terror at the rapidly approaching wall of water. She had hoped that when the souldew had broken, maybe, just maybe her Father had stopped the wave the first time and it wouldn't come back. She had rushed out of the museum hoping it wouldn't be true, however, the answer was right in front of her. The massive wave barling towards Altomare seemingly had enough force behind it to wipe the whole city off the map. Latias looked over at her brother next to her, battered and bruised from the reckless misuse of Altomare's Defense Mechanism.
She knew that the only thing that stood between the enormous wave of water and Altomare was her and her brother, but all she could think about was how useless she had been in the whole conflict. Ever since the beginning when the two thieves, Annie and Oakley, had attacked her she hadn't been able to fight back at all. The only reason she escaped their clutches was due to Ash saving her. Despite being alive for nearly a century she had never received any formal combat training.
Every situation Latias found herself in she had to run, hide, and find someone else to take care of the problem. Whenever Latios had been captured, she had to fly off and look for Ash to help rescue him. It was not that she didn't want to, it was that she couldn't take care of the problem herself. And now, looking at everything that had happened and seeing the people she had promised to protect completely unaware of what was going on, she wanted to make a difference in this fight, she wanted to live up to the name of being the guardian of Altomare.
Latios flew up next to her and looked out at the incoming wave. "Are you alright, sister?" He asked, concern flowing through his voice.
"Yes… just." Latias couldn't put her thoughts into words, and now was not the time to talk about it. "Let's just put a stop to this wave and save Altomare, alright?"
He nodded. "We'll have to take it on together, stay next to me and try to draw as much psychic power as you can. I'm sure you can imagine what will happen if we fail."
The thought put knots in her stomach but she looked over and smiled, it was a fake smile but she hoped it would reassure him that everything would be alright.
He gave his sister a smile of his own, she was sure it was fake as well, but that didn't give her the confidence she so desperately needed. Before the twins shot off towards the wave all Latias could notice was how much pain he appeared to be in. If Latios took the brunt of the wave's force, he would most likely die and she knew he would do that. Latios was one to put his life on the line before others, even now with the certain chance that he will die.
Latias decided that this was her chance. This was her chance to prove to her brother and everyone else that she wasn't just a weak legendary that needed the help of everyone else to solve her problems. She would take the full force of the wave and save Altomare.
As the duo rushed off towards the wave Latias could already see her brother attempting to stay a little farther ahead of her. She could see him struggling to keep that pace as they continued onwards towards the wall of water. The wind rushed past their faces as they raced over the buildings of the unaware city. The wave began to encompass her entire field of view as they got closer and closer, deciding that now was the time she rushed past her brother towards the tsunami. Latios called out to her, begging her to come back, but she didn't listen and continued to fly faster.
Come on, come on. she thought as to urge herself to fly as fast as she possibly could. Surrounding herself with as much psychic energy as she could pull from within herself, along with her brother right behind her, she hit the wave and all of its power.
The resulting shockwave sent the twins flying in opposite directions as the wave exploded outwards. Latias was sent flying through the air, she could hear a ringing in her ears and her eyes blurred everything happening around her, but the one thing that stood out the most was the pain. It felt as though her nerves had exploded, her bones snapped, and pain flooding through parts of her body she wasn't even sure she had. The more pronounced area had been her left side, which felt as if it had been split open.
Latias' body began to lose its momentum and gravity took over. She couldn't slow her fall, all of her psychic energy had been used in the stopping of the wave, and she crashed into the street below. Her body hit the empty stone walkway below, she let out a cry of pain as it felt more of her bones snap. She bounced off the stones, going another few feet, before landing again sliding across the slick pavement. It began to rain, as the water from the wave fell back down to the Earth.
The world below was cold and uninviting. The empty road surrounded by shops and houses was only illuminated by a single street lamp. She shivered as the rain drizzled down on to her feathers.
Latias whimpered, she felt weak, in pain, her eyes threatening to slip into unconsciousness. But, she had to wait, she had to know if she succeeded in saving the city. The few minutes she waited were agonizing, at any moment she expected her curled up self to be whisked away by yet another wave, but it never came. She wanted to fall asleep, fall asleep and not wake for another week, but she faintly heard someone call out her name.
Attempting to pinpoint its source she looked around before spotting a blurry shape running towards her. She recognized the color of the outfit and realized that it was Ash. He ran over to her and crouched over her body and lifted her head up, he was saying something but Latias couldn't make it out. She looked up, at what she thought were his eyes, and smiled. She was happy, with the knowledge that everyone in Altomare was safe she closed her eyes.
The pain right now seems almost bearable. It seemed to fade away from her body before she slipped into unconsciousness.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
Latias awoke with a startled gasp, she looked around, panicking before realizing she was in the Secret Garden. She leaned back and let out a sigh of relief, feeling the cool grass soothe her aching body. She recognized the trees, grass, walkways and the pond at the center of the garden, this was her home and so Altomare was safe. Her eyes scanned the garden, seeing no one, she attempted to lift herself off the ground but found it to be a daunting task.
After several attempts and several falls to the ground she started to levitate, it was quite wobbly but it would work.
Where is everyone? she thought, floating through the garden.
She knew that nearly everyone was safe, but Latios had taken a portion of the force of the wave and she was worried if he had survived. Latias attempted to reach out through their psychic bond but all she was met with a headache. Canceling it she shook her head. 'If I survived the wave, he would have survived it as well,' the thought reassuring herself.
A lot of the lingering pain from the night of the wave was beginning to return to Latias' body. She grimaced, feeling an intense pain in her left side she looked over and a shocked expression grew on her face. A massive gash cut deep into her flesh all down her left side, a scar had begun to form but it was still slightly exposed.
That is probably going to live with me for the rest of my life. she thought, still looking over the wound.
However, the more Latias thought of the scar, the more it gave her a sense of pride. She giggled to herself in the empty garden, it was a silly thought but it was almost like a trophy. She had done this, she had protected Altomare, she had saved her friends and her brother from certain destruction. It was a sign of her accomplishment and that, for all intents and purposes, she had proved to herself that she could guard Altomare. Granted, it was an uncontrolled burst of psychic energy that had completely drained her of her reserves, but that was beside the point.
Latias looked up at the darkening sky, seeing the stars shine down below onto her. She could feel the cool, calm air of her home as the last bit of the suns rays came West. "It's twilight." She realized.
It had been in the dead of the night when the two thieves had attacked. She began to recall a conversation she had with Ash that day, he had said that he had to leave the next day in order to continue his league journey.
"The… next day," she mumbled to her self. Her mind put all the pieces together and she realized: Ash had either already left, or he was leaving right now.
With no time to think, she quickly flew off into the quickly darkening sky. She roughly managed to keep her self from flipping or rolling over any time she made a slight adjustment to her flight. She flew around the outer edge of the city, high above all of the buildings, looking for the docks. She would try and say goodbye to Ash then.
"Just say goodbye to him, no funny business..." She told herself, a slight blush forming on her cheeks.
In truth, she had developed a slight crush on the boy after he had saved her from Annie and Oakley, and while it was due in part to him saving her, it was more due to the fact of his caring nature and personality. He helped protect her during the attempted kidnapping on her by the two thieves and helped come to the defense of Latios and the souldew. More so, Ash didn't see Latias as a creature as most humans do, he saw her as an actual person. For Latias, who was just seen as a myth or a rare possession most of the time, this was a welcome sight.
Pushing those thoughts aside, she continued her search and eventually spotted Ash walking along the many now empty streets. She started the fly down towards him, she meant to stop just behind him but she lacked a lot of the finer controls over her psychic powers right now.
"Look out!" She cried out in a vain attempt to warn the oblivious trainer but it was too late. She crashed into him and while it wasn't a hard crash, it still sent the two of them tumbling to the ground. Ash yelped out of surprise about being tackled as Latias groaned out of pain on top of Ash.
Ash wore a look of surprise on his face. "Latias?" He questioned. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be resting?"
She looked up as she realized the position the two of them were in. 'Sorry sorry sorry sorry,' she telepathed and floating off of him. She grabbed his hand and helped him to his feet and ignored the pain in her side as she spoke to him. 'Sorry, I was worried that I was going to miss saying goodbye to you.'
He smiled. "Well, you got lucky, we waited nearly a week for you to wake back up. Today was the final day that we could wait as I still have to beat my final gym and sign up for the league."
"A WEEK," She squawked in her normal voice, which just sounded like a normal pokemon call to Ash. She knew she had been hit bad, but for even her legendary healing powers to take that long it must have practically killed her. Which in all honesty, she wasn't too surprised by. 'Wait. You waited for me,' she asked, with interest in her voice.
"Well yeah. You did save all of us and Altomare, the least we could do is wait as long as we could for you to get better," he said, scratching the back of his head.
'T-thank you,' she stuttered with a blush forming on her cheeks.
"By the way, are you alright? Whenever I found you, you looked like you got hurt pretty bad and Latios refused to take you to a pokemon center for fear of anyone trying to catch you in your sleep." His eyes trailed over to the gash in her side.
Latias let out a sigh of relief, her brother was alright. 'I'm alright, I just took the full brunt of the wave.' Her eyes looked away, she started to feel the scar that was forming on her left side. Now faced with the prospect that her action may be considered foolish or selfish she was afraid of the next question.
"Why didn't you try and take it on together with Latios?" He asked with interest. Latias looked up at his face, seeing no scorn, only concern.
Taking a deep breath, she confessed, 'Whenever Team Rocket first attacked me I hadn't been able to do anything. When Latios had been captured I couldn't do anything. When we went to save Latios I couldn't do anything as I watched him being drained by the Defense Mechanism,' she looked away out of embarrassment. ' I wanted to prove that I wasn't just some useless legendary that couldn't stop one threat to her own city.'
Latias expected to be ridiculed, how could a legendary not even handle a couple of human thieves invading her own home? Instead, Ash wrapped her up in a warm embrace. At first, she was surprised by this action but gladly accepted it, putting her own arms around his back.
"You weren't useless Latias," He started. "You did everything that you could within your power and more to help take on those criminals. I didn't even know you had that much power to break apart that wave!"
She blushed when he said that and smiled sheepishly, she didn't really control her powers, she more just let them loose. 'Thank you,' she whispered in his mind, not used to this much praise.
"And if you need help training, you can come with me on my journey."
Latias did a double take when she heard this. 'Go with you?' She asked. The idea seemed appealing, in the short time she had known Ash she had grown to trust him completely.
He gave her a smile and nodded. "Yep, you could come and compete in the league with me. It would be a lot of hard work, but we could train you to be the strongest legendary ever!"
The more Latias thought of it, the more the idea seemed better and better. 'But, I can't,' she said. 'Bianca, Lorenzo, and Latios still live here and I can't abandon my duties as a guardian of Altomare. But I'll train here, I'm going to be the strongest pokemon you've ever seen! When you come back I'll take on your whole team," She finished, beaming with optimism.
"That's the spirit," Ash said, his look mirroring her own. He separated from their hug and gave her a thumbs up.
"Ash," a female voice called from around the corner. They looked to their left and saw Misty impatiently tapping her foot on the ground. "We are going to leave you here if you don't hurry it up right now."
Ash chuckled sheepishly. "Heh, sorry, I'll be right over!"
Before rounding the corner, Misty gave Latias a small wave which Latias returned with a wave of her claw.
Latias hadn't grown as close with the other members of Ash's group but she still considered them good friends.
Ash turned and faced Latias. "Well, I guess this is goodbye." He said, giving her a small smile.
She gave him a small smile of her own in return. 'I guess it is.'
Before Ash ran off he gave Latias another hug which she once again gladly accepted. She didn't want him to leave, he was one of the few friends that she made here outside of Latios and Bianca's family. But, she knew that she couldn't keep him from his journey, it was his way of proving himself just like protecting Altomare was her way of proving herself.
He let go of the hug and started to run off. 'Goodbye,' she called out to him with a wave of her claw.
Ash turned around, waved his arm and let out a goodbye of his own before disappearing around the corner.
As Latias floated alone there she knew she would get stronger, she would prove to everyone that her stopping the wave was not a one-time thing. She would take on as many waves as need be in order to prove herself. She started to fly off but before she could she heard someone call her name.
"Latias, what are you doing here," Latios scolded. "You know better than to sit out in the open like this."
She smirked and turned around to face her brother's invisible form. "Relax, no one is out here and besides I had to say goodbye to Ash."
"You need to rest, you were hit by a massive wall of water and managed to put off enough psychic power in that one blast to create your own Souldew."
"What!" This was the third surprise of the night. I guess this is what happens when you are out for a week.
He nodded, his expression softened. "It was quite the show, however, you shouldn't have gone ahead. You nearly got yourself killed in the process, it took all of the healing tricks that I could pull out in order to save you.
She looked away in shame, he wasn't wrong, but she turned back to face him. "So you could just charge out ahead and die? I saw you trying to get ahead of me and take all the force of the wave. You were too weak to take it and if I didn't do it you probably wouldn't be here right now!" All she wanted to do was help and now he was scolding her?
"Whenever we hatched and we were left alone I made a promise to protect and raise you, sister," Latios said. "When we learned of our duty to protect the Souldew I made the decision to take up that mantel so that you wouldn't have to worry about it. I wanted you to live a carefree life so that you wouldn't have to worry about all of this."
Latias frowned as a look of irritation came across her face. "Did you ever think to ask me though? I am a guardian of Altomare, what good am I as a guardian if I cannot protect the people I am meant to protect," she asked. "I want to help you but I don't feel like I can do anything if I can't fight. I need training if I'm going to be a protector of Altomare." She appreciated his concern, but this wasn't his burden to bear alone.
"The whole point of this was so that you wouldn't get involved and get yourself hurt," he retorted. He genuinely cared for his sister and believed that this was the best for her.
Latias however, disagreed. "And you saw how well that did for us that day."
Latios was now unable to look her in the eyes. "We'll see about getting you some training, now do you have anything else that you need to do before you head back?" He looked back into her eyes. "Need to give your boyfriend a goodbye kiss," he teased with a smirk growing on his face.
Latias squeaked. "N-no, it's not like that at all," she protested, shaking her head and claws. She wasn't in love with the boy, it was just a small crush. Why did everyone have to jump to that conclusion?
Then she remembered something. "I have to get something, quick!" She turned invisible and flew off, which wasn't that fast considering her weakened state.
Latios quickly caught up to her and flew alongside her. "And if I may ask, just what are you getting," he asked with a slight annoyance in his voice.
Latias didn't answer him as they flew past buildings and through the canals of Altomare. It felt good to fly through the waters of the city after a week of being asleep, she got to "stretch" her psychic powers and get used to moving around again now that she had fully awakened.
Speeding around several corners she rushed into the entrance of the Secret Garden. Carefully selecting one of the trees with a hole she picked out a folded piece of paper in her claws and shot past Latios, earning a startled "hey" in response.
Rushing through the all the same alleyways and canals She arrived at the docks where she saw Ash just now saying goodbye to Bianca and Lorenzo, and Brock, Misty, and Pikachu already on the boat. Quickly ducking into a nearby alleyway she shifted into her "human form." It was always strange changing into this form, especially after staying in her true form for so long. Latias didn't really know how to exactly to describe it, it felt like as if she was constricting her body to be the human shape. It didn't hurt or feel uncomfortable, but it certainly didn't feel right being in this form.
She ran past Bianca and Lorenzo, ignoring the questions of how she was awake right now and went down the steps towards the dock. The moon reflected brilliantly off the water as she ran up behind him. Ash, hearing her footfalls, turned around and came face to face with her. She stopped a few feet in front of Ash before handing the folded piece of paper to him. On that paper was a picture of him, she had worked hard on it and hoped it would be one little extra thing for him to remember her by.
She had promised no funny business but she couldn't resist the confusion on his face.
"Wow, did you dra-," Latias interrupted him with a quick peck on his cheek before running off. He gave her a dumbfounded look, not really understanding what just happened. "Who?"
Latias turned around and gave him a wink 'You know who,' she whispered in his mind before turning around and running off again. She walked up the stairs, leaving a very dense and perplexed Ash and his shocked friends behind. Bianca, Lorenzo, and Latios were all standing there with a smirk on their faces.
'So, it's not like that at all,' Latios teased as the trio's smirks grew.
'I-it isn't,' she denied with a bright red blush as she had completely forgotten they were right behind her. 'I-I just had to say goodbye to him.'
Bianca wrapped an arm around her "twin's" shoulder with a smirk still on her face. "I'm sure it was just a goodbye, though he seemed very confused by it."
Her family burst out laughing as Latias' whole face seemed to glow red. The laughter started to slow down as Latias hung her head down in embarrassment.
Lorenzo was the first to stop. "By the way, how are you feeling," he asked with concern. "Latios told us of what you did."
The red dragoness looked over at him. 'I'm feeling great,' she answered as she winced from a sharp bite of pain that got her. While her scar may have been a source of pride for her that didn't mean it doesn't hurt.
"Come on." Lorenzo motioned with his hand. "You've done more work than you've ever done that night, you should get some rest." Bianca and Latios nodded in agreement with him.
The trip back to the Secret Garden was short and uneventful. No one said a word as they were exhausted from the events of a week ago and decided to save it for tomorrow. Latias had been tired as it was the first time she had woken up since her injury. The others were tired due to them worrying about her well being so much. When they arrived at the entrance to the Latis' hidden home Bianca and Lorenzo waved goodbye and said goodnight as they headed home.
Latias dropped her human disguise as soon as they entered in through the illusion while Latios dropped his invisibility.
Latios turned to her. "Go off and sleep, you're going to need it." He moved towards a tree before Latias stopped him.
"Wait," she called out. "Can I... uh... see the new Souldew?" Latias tried to briefly look around for the newly made gem but she couldn't spot it. In fact, she couldn't even sense what she assumed would be a massive amount of power.
Latios sighed but motioned her over to the pond in the center. He had stayed up for days and used any power he got back to heal Latias' wounds which left him exhausted. He had simply wanted to head to bed but he supposed he could spare a few more minutes.
The twins moved to hover over the center of the pond while Latias looked around confused. The jewel wasn't in its normal place and they were simply floating in empty air, there simply wasn't anything there. Before Latias could ask why he had brought them to that exact point Latios' eyes glowed blue, a sign of him using his psychic powers, and a bright light started to shine in the middle of the air. The light continued to shine even brighter before it started to fade and revealed a bright, blood-red sphere about the size of a human fist.
Latios caught the gem in his claws. "I made some extra precautions in case anyone else found out about the Secret Garden. We don't want them just walking in here and taking the souldew."
Latias gently took the souldew from her brother's claws and looked down at it in curiosity. So this is what I made, she thought to herself. The only difference in it was the color of the gem. It was a bright red unlike the cool blue of the previous Souldew. But, one question still remained. "So, what happened to father's soul then," she asked. They had thought that it was their father's soul that had held off the wave, not the psychic energy put off to stop it.
Latios shrugged his shoulders. "I think father's soul might have been attracted to the amount of energy you put off and fused it together to form another souldew. If that's the case then we have him to thank for Altomare not being underwater right now." He took back the souldew and a bright light appeared over it before disappearing along with the souldew.
"Well, if that's all you are going to need I am going to rest. Taking care of you was a clawfull," He joked with a smile on his face.
Latias stuck her tongue out as he chuckled. He leaned over and nuzzled his face with her's before heading back over the same tree. Latias flew underneath a bridge with her own little nest before landing in it and curling up. While some of her friends may be gone, she now had a new calling: to grow stronger. With the events from a week ago, she had now come to realize the dangers truly presented towards Altomare. She hadn't taken it seriously but, there are people out there that will steal her, her brother, or the Souldew for their own personal gains. She was weak, but there was a power within the dragoness that could be unleashed with enough training.
Latias smiled as she closed her eyes. Tomorrow would be another day, another day to become the guardian she was meant to be.
Thanks for clicking on this and giving it a read.
I started this story mainly cause I see a lot of uncompleted fics out there with a lot of good and interesting concepts. My hope is to finish this story and deliver a quality product, which totally won't come back to bite me in the ass. I'm only really planning to stop this if: A) I die, B) I lose complete and total interest or, C) my personal life starts to suffer due to writing this.
The main point of the prologue was to set up the differences in this world's version of m05 vs. what actually happened. My details might be a bit mixed up here and there seeing as how I haven't seen the movie in a while.
I would like to give some shoutouts to a couple of people that inspired me to write whether knowingly or unknowingly:
Totem-Mimikyu: He's a nice, chill dude to talk to and he helped to encourage me. His story was the final push for me to really consider writing. You can check it out, it's called Darkness Descending. I'm also pretty active on his discord server, you can go to his profile for details.
Mystical87: He is a good friend that has also helped to encourage me to write. He has his own story that he is writing called The Long Journey.
Syrup Waffle: While a lot of stories made me consider to write, his was the first to really make me start thinking about it. I think it's the best long, completed Altoshipping story out there. It's called When Fate Comes Knocking.
I'd love any support or criticism in the reviews. Goodbye.