Chapter I - Lost
Yarmi bit her lip in pure excitement as she struggled to keep up with her mother's swift, elegant steps. The warm scent of honey drifted lazily thought the air, and the forest was alive with the buzzing of bug pokémon's wings.
Today was the day. Finally, she would evolve. It was the summer solstice; something that the Ninetales clan were very in tune with, being fire types. On this day they were at their very strongest; even Yarmi, the small Vulpix who was ready to evolve, felt this. Power rippled through her, making her skittish and excited. She leapt about, yipping in joy. Her mother, a beautiful golden fox with no less than nine tails as was her species' design, turned to look at her with ruby eyes and smiled softly.
All of the Vulpix in the clan were excited about their evolution, but none moreso than Yarmi.
Like all Vulpix, she resembled a smaller, curlier version of a Ninetales with only six tails. However, there was one major detail about Yarmi that set her apart from the rest. Instead of the deep reddish hue that marked most Vulpix's fur colour, Yarmi was a bright yellow, with slightly darker paws that matched her eyes. It was quite a sickly colour, and combined with the fact that she sparkled slightly for some reason, it made her quite difficult to look at.
Not even the oldest Ninetails in the clan could figure out what was wrong with Yarmi, or why she was different from the rest. But Yarmi hated being the way she was; none of the Vulpix ever wanted to play with her. One Vulpix in particular, a male named Hironi, found it fun to tease her and make fun. As much as Yarmi pretended not to care that she was different, deep down it hurt her every time someone sneered down at her or laughed.
Today was a sort of last trump for Yarmi; the leader of the clan believed that maybe she would loose her odd colouration, since when a Pokémon evolved, their soul was ripped away from their old body and they were given a new one. Yarmi had secretly decided if it didn't work – although she was almost positive it would – she would flee her clan and live alone. There was no use remaining here if she was just going to be ridiculed for the rest of her life.
But she would see what happened today before she made such a decision.
The evolution ceremony was to take place in the centre of the Ninetails camp, which was a smallish clearing with a few hollowed out logs scattered about. The largest of the log was the home of their leader, who was a large, powerful male Ninetails named Arcan. The aforementioned Ninetails stood out the front of his lair as the Vulpix of the clan poured into the clearing with their families, watching them all with a penetrating and inscrutable red gaze, the tuft of golden fur atop his head blown about by the warm summer breeze.
When all the Vulpix had arrived into the clearing, they were urged forwards by their parents to stand before their leader. Yarmi gave her mother's pelt a swift lick before going up to join her peers resentfully.
As she made her way up to the front of the group of fire-type foxes, Yarmi tried to ignore all the disgusted stares she received. Instead, she tried to appear careless by licking her yellowish pelt causally.
A familiar sneer rose up from the crowd of Vulpix. "It's your last chance, Wrong-pelt. Get a right-coloured body or be forever an object of disgust in the eyes of your clan." Yarmi didn't have to look up to identify the speaker; she knew it was the large male Vulpix named Hironi who mocked her. She bowed her head to hide the single tear that tracked out her yellowish eye.
Yarmi was soon relieved of her embarrassment by Arcan, who had begun to speak in his deep, relaxing tone. "Well, young Vulpix, you know what today is. The Day of Fire – where we are at our strongest thanks to Ho-Oh, our protector. We give thanks to Ho-Oh for our powers of flame by evolving our Vulpix in honour of him. The first thing I need to ask you young ones is this – do you accept Ho-Oh as the giver of your gifts of fire, Moltres and Entei as your protectors, Heatran as the controller of the powers, and Arceus as your creator?"
The Vulpix knew exactly how to reply – they had been preparing for this moment for a long time. "Yes, I do," they replied in almost perfect unison.
A small smile appeared on Arcan's elegant muzzle as he nodded his head in approval. "Allow me to bring out the Stone of Eternal Flames." With that, he turned tails and retreated into his lair.
While she waited for her leader to return with the stone that would grant her a new body, Yarmi closed her eyes and silently begged Ho-Oh to give her a new colour. Please, my lord, I'm begging you. I cannot stay with the ones I love looking like this. Grant me a new colour, the one that is the same as my fellow Ninetails.
A soft thunk snapped Yarmi out of her prayers. She snapped her eyes open to see that Arcan was standing before a large stone at least the size of his head. It was yellowish hue; slightly opaque, and the centre of it faded into a red ripple that looked very much like a flame. "This Stone is a gift to us from Ho-Oh so that we may become more powerful." Arcan bowed his head slightly in reverence. "You may now approach the stone and touch it with your paw. Then you must return to where you are standing now, lie down, and allow the power of the stone to overcome you."
Carefully, as if they were scared of the stone itself, the Vulpix approached it, and gingerly placed a paw on the smooth surface. Yarmi noticed it was slightly warm to the touch, but other than that she felt nothing other than static excitement prickle through her as she returned to her spot.
Following Arcan's orders, she lay down and shut her eyes. At first she felt nothing, and panic rose up in her. What if she wasn't going to evolve?
But her fear was in vain, for soon after this horrifying thought crossed her mind, she felt her body warm up substantially. The heat was pleasant, and Yarmi was sure that she was glowing. The sudden warmth also had the affect of making her very drowsy, and soon the little Vulpix began to drift off…
Do not be afraid…
The male voice was calm and friendly, but without the musical quality of a Ninetails' voice. All was black, so Yarmi could not see the speaker.
I am a friend. I will not harm you.
You are special, Yarmi. More than you will understand. We shall meet one day, in a safe place. Your destiny will guide you towards me…
The dream ended, and Yarmi wrenched her eyes open, gasping heavily. She felt her jaw drop in surprise. Looking around, everything seemed so much smaller and clearer than before.
So she must have evolved, then.
A loud guffaw caused her to snap her head around, and she felt a patch of thick fur on top of her head ruffle. Her new eyes focused on a large and beautiful Ninetales among the others, whose starkly handsome face seemed contrasted by the way his teeth were pulled back over his lips in a sneer.
"You haven't changed a bit, Wrong-pelt."
As jeering laughter filled the air, Yarmi looked down at her paws and moaned in despair. They were silver, not gold. The newly-evolved Ninetales crashed to the ground, sobbing bitterly. This could not get any worse.
"Now that you have evolved, I shall give you all your new names. As you know, the clan leader is the only one who gets to keep their Vulpix name, and that is me." Yarmi was too busy sobbing quietly into her paws to recognise any of the names her peers received, besides Hironi being renamed Pridestep.
Arcan must have had an odd idea for Yarmi's name, because he left her till last. He called her name once with all the gentle power he could muster, and she raised her tearstained silver muzzle to look at him with red eyes filled with sheer pain.
"Yarmi," He repeated, looking at her with an inscrutable gaze. Arcan had spent days trying to find out why one of the cubs in his clan was a different colour, but he saw her as no different from the rest, not unlike her mother. Most of the adults saw her the same way; it was only the children and their prejudiced ways that looked at her with distain. "You have had a hard life for a Vulpix. While you retain your difference through evolution, I hope that your fellow Ninetales will respect you like any other." With this, Arcan gave the other newly evolved Ninetails a strict glance. Yarmi appreciated his effort, but knew that she would still be ostracized; evolution wasn't going to change that. "In respect of this, I give you the Ninetales name of Bluetail."
As his last word, something from behind Arcan hit him hard and caused him to fall over, snarling in pain. At first this something appeared to be a rotund grey blur, but as it stood up, Yarmi – no, Bluetail, recognized the rotund, craggy boulder with strange rocky limbs and an odd grin on its ugly face as a Graveler.
Graveler was a joint rock and ground type. This was bad news for the pure fire type Ninetails. Howls of panic overcame the clan as more rock type pokémon poured out of the forest behind the leader, crushing the wooden logs like toothpicks.
For a moment, Bluetail was frozen in fear. A hunter invasion was completely unexpected, especially on a day like this. It was her mother's voice that jolted her out of her trance.
"Bluetail!"
One again, the silver Ninetales' head whipped around to see her mother trying to fend off a large Aggron; naturally she wasn't having much luck. She yelped as the creature picked her up by one of her tails and slammed her hard on the ground. "Mama!" Cried Bluetail in horror and surprise. She was mildly shocked by her own voice – it was deeper and more adult than it had been as a Vulpix. But her mind snapped itself away from this minute detail, as her mother screamed out a single word: "RUN!"
Bluetail did not want to leave the Ninetales that had loved her and raised her behind. She watched the Aggron as it roared at her mother, who was circling it with sharp teeth bared.
Out of the blue, a reddish light surged from the forest behind them and hit Bluetail's mother. The Ninetales looked at her daughter fearfully, once again mouthing the word "run", before she dissolved into red light and was sucked back into the forest. Bluetail herd angry voices belonging to humans while her clan fled into the west.
The silver Ninetales knew with a sinking heart that her mother was gone, and there was nothing that she could do about it. So she took her last piece of advice: she ran. Her clan was headed west, but she had no reason to stay with them now, so she decided to head east and see what she found.
So Bluetail sped out of her camp, leaving the world she had always known crumbling behind her.
What? What's with the evil stare? Oh, yes I know, Soul Fragments. Well I have been working on Chapter 3 slowly, but it's not really coming to me as clearly, because I'm not as Legend-obsessed at the moment. A cookie to anyone who can guess what my current obsession is.