Life was difficult, high in the desolate icy mountains of Sinnoh. The snow had rendered everything a blank slate of white. The grass and rocks were buried deep under the snow, silently awaiting springtime, while the trees stood frozen like living statues.
High in the treetop, a noctowl waited silently. Hidden among the nettles and snow, its great, orange eyes surveyed the landscape. For too long, it had gone hungry. For too long, winter had reduced everything to a barren landscape of snow and ice. The hunger gnawing at its being had twisted its mind with an obsessed fury. Something had to be eaten, and it would devour the next thing it saw. And then, its eyes found something.
Down in the snow, something small and brown hopped through the deep sleet. Narrowing its eyes, the noctowl saw that the creature in the snow was an eevee. A rare sight in the mountains where it lived. Though the eevee's size was not great, it would suffice perfectly as a meal.
There was only the noise of snow falling from the rustling branches of the pine tree, and then nothing, as the noctowl flew through the air toward its prey.
With another jump, the eevee trudged her way through the snow. She had been traveling a long time now, having been rendered cold and weary in only a matter of minutes since she set out on her own from her camp. The wind stung even through her thick, double coat of fur. The snow melted against her body, creating drips of cold water that froze on the tips of her fur, creating a chill that could have froze her on the spot. But, she could not stop now. Stopping would mean doom for herself, and for her friend.
Another jump, and the eevee found herself falling through deeper snow. That was a surprise in itself, but not so much as the soft whoosh of wind, and the pair of talons that snatched the snow above her.
The eevee shook the snow out of her eyes, and peered out of the hole she fell into. Her blood ran as cold as the snow when she saw a noctowl circle around above the treetops, and come flying silently back toward her.
With a yelp, the eevee ducked back into the hole she fell into, narrowly dodging the noctowl's claws again. When the danger passed, she quickly crawled from her hole, and scrambled as fast as she could to the nearest tree.
The noctowl circled around, and saw the eevee running for the trees, where it would be more difficult to snatch it up from the ground. It quickly swooped toward the eevee, its talons bared to snatch her up.
The eevee ran for cover, knowing the noctowl was behind her. The safety of the tree seemed so near, but she was impeded by the snow around her. Every step felt as if she was being pulled downward by unseen hands. The eevee trudged her legs as best she could through the snow, knowing that every second she was in the open, the noctowl was growing closer.
The tree was so close now, and the eevee could hear the soft whoosh of air behind her.
The eevee's mind went back to the friend she had left behind. Without her, he would surely not survive in the mountains. Her friend firmly in mind, the eevee burst forward out of the snow toward the tree.
This was it. She was going to reach safety.
In midair, the eevee felt herself caught in a pair of talons, and lifted into the air. With a panicked yelp, she realized she was now in the clutches of the noctowl, and frantically struggled to escape.
The noctowl held firmly to the eevee, elated to finally sate its hunger. Having caught the eevee when it was so close to the tree, it swerved suddenly to avoid hitting its trunk. The tip of its wing clipped the tree, throwing off its flight path, and making it wobble midair.
The eevee struggled against her captor, making the noctowl wobble harder back and forth.
The noctowl was forced to fall into the snowy ground. There, the eevee wriggled herself free of its talons, and started running through the snow.
The eevee knew the noctowl would continue its pursuit of her, and took cover at the base of another tree.
There, in the safety against the tree trunk, the eevee watched as the noctowl circled above, waiting for her to run for it.
There was no telling how long the noctowl would wait. The eevee knew it had precious little time. It would need a plan.
Before the eevee could begin contemplating, the tree she was under began to move.
With a guttural groan, as if it were awoken from a long sleep, the tree revealed itself to be an abomasnow.
The eevee locked eyes with the massive creature before her, knowing it would make her pay for disturbing its slumber.
Slowly, the air around the abomasnow grew even colder and more bitter than anywhere else on the mountain, and swirled with particles of ice and snow.
The eevee ran, not about to face the wrath of another larger, more powerful opponent.
The noctowl quickly swooped down to retrieve the eevee again. This time, it was blown away by a burst of icy wind from the abomasnow.
The eevee too was blown away by the sudden blizzard that was whipped up behind her. Once more, she was taken off her feet, and went flying across the snow, before landing hard in a snowbank. She perked her head up, and shook the snow from her ears. It was then that she made an important discovery.
Protruding from the snow around her were several sticks, which had fallen from the nearby trees.
The eevee didn't know much, but she knew that sometimes fire was made from sticks. Her friend was very smart, and probably knew many ways to get fire from them. This would surely be what saved his life.
Wasting no time, the eevee gathered as many sticks as she could carry in her teeth. With that, she started returning to where she and her friend had set up camp.
Her eyes were trained on the trees and sky above, and her ears were attuned to even the slightest gust of wind. Now that she had come so far, she was not going to become a meal for some oversized bird.
With the sticks in her teeth, the eevee found navigating the deep snow more hazardous than before. When her body sunk, her chin was kept higher by the sticks, which also impeded her efforts to dig herself from the snow.
The wind picked up, and there came a sound of bells from nearby.
The eevee looked around herself, and saw nothing that could have made the noise. Was there somebody else on the mountain? Was it somehow made by the noctowl? Or was it something from the legends of Jack Frost, who wore bells on his jacket to announce his coming to freeze doomed travelers on snowy mountains? Whatever it was, the eevee started struggling harder against her entrapment, nearing the verge of panic.
Another great wind blew, and from the trees flew many tiny creatures. Smaller than the eevee, they all landed in the snow around her, and plucked themselves up.
The eevee didn't recognize what they were. They were small, round, yellow in color with beady black eyes, and had what looked like pink and white ribbons on their heads. Judging from the cries they espoused, they were called 'chinglings.' She had no way of knowing whether they were friendly or predatory, but from what they were communicating with one another, it sounded as if they were formulating a plan to return to another tree near the one they had blown out of.
Before they tried to leave, the eevee called out to them for help in her predicament.
The chinglings all stopped chattering to one another, and looked to the eevee.
The eevee communicated her problem as best she could with her mouth full of sticks. If she was going to quickly escape this predicament, she was going to need help from others.
The chinglings all stared at her, making the eevee feel as if they were contemplating whether they should take the time to help her out. One chingling chattered to the others, and started hopping up and down, making a jingling noise. In turn, the other chinglings all started hopping, joining in with the first. With each jingle, the eevee could feel the snow vibrating and shifting around herself. Slowly, but surely, the chinglings were helping to free her.
As the sounds of the chinglings jingling echoed through the mountains, their noise brought on some unwelcome company.
The eevee saw an all too familiar creature circling above, silently awaiting to swoop down and snatch her up.
The snow around the eevee was nearly shifted away. With one strong burst, the eevee pulled her front legs from the snow, and struggled with her rear legs.
She urged the chinglings to work faster, warning them of the noctowl above.
The chinglings looked up and saw the noctowl circling above, before it started swooping toward them. With that, they all scattered into hiding up the trees.
The eevee was left in the snow, desperately struggling to escape.
The noctowl was growing closer, and the eevee ducked as low as she could into the snow. She was lucky the first time, but there was no escaping her avian predator this time.
The eevee started hurriedly digging through the snow beneath herself, hoping to free her legs that way.
The noctowl readied its talons again.
The snow beneath the eevee's paws was rapidly giving way, allowing her to burrow more deeply. Without stopping, the eevee found her paws scraping the rocky ground of the mountain beneath the snow. More than that, she found her paws digging snow out of a deeper crag.
From there, the eevee started digging her way into the crag, hoping it was large enough to protect herself from the noctowl. Unfortunately, her way was stopped by the sticks in her mouth.
The deeper she dug, the more the sticks stopped her from moving.
She could see the noctowl just on the periphery of her vision. If she didn't move now, it was the end. For herself and for her friend.
There was but one choice: the eevee relinquished the sticks from her mouth, and started digging into the crag in the ground.
Her paws scraped away the snow from the crag, allowing her to burrow deeper. Soon, the eevee felt her paws give way into a larger opening, just before the snow beneath her ruptured and fell through.
There was a whoosh of wings and a snap of talons, as the noctowl flew past.
The eevee fell what felt like a hundred feet below ground, and was buried in snow. With a quiet pop, her head poked from the snow, and she shook the snow once more from her ears.
With a brief look around herself, the eevee found she was now in some dark cave, where the walls lit up with a bio-luminescent glow. What was making the glow, be it the rocks or some type of fungus, the eevee didn't know. What was apparent was that she hadn't fallen as deep as she thought.
The dim sunlight above showed that she had fallen what must have been a mere ten feet, and the slope of snow would allow her to climb right back up through the crag. With that, the eevee started climbing back up to retrieve her sticks and rescue her friend.
Halfway up the slope, the eevee saw the edge of a large wing fly overhead through the crag. Not wanting to risk another run-in with the noctowl, the eevee hesitantly retreated down the slope, hoping that wherever the caves led her, it would be close to more sticks, and not too far from her friend.
Only the soft padding of her own paws was heard in the dimly lit corridors of the caves. All the more, that made the eevee anxious. The mountain had proven repeatedly it was a dangerous place, and who knew what dangers were lurking in the darkness below it. She had accompanied her friend through mountain caves before, but had never been in danger of being eaten by the creatures that lived there.
Without warning, the ground shook, causing the entire cave to echo with a rumbling that took the eevee off her paws.
Above, the rocks in the ceiling started shaking loose.
With a frightened yelp, the eevee started running, just before a rock landed on top of her.
More rumbles shook the cave, creating more peril for the eevee. Ahead of her, rocks started piling up, creating a wall of stone that threatened to trap her.
For all that was happening, the eevee's greatest fear was not the falling rocks, the freezing temperature, or even the thought of facing the noctowl again. It was that she would never reach her friend in time, and stay in that cave forever, trapped by some freak cave in.
With a leap, she dove through an opening in the piling rocks, and cleared through, just as the last rock dropped, closing the way behind her.
The eevee found herself in a large chamber with an icy stone in the center, where the sun shone through a massive hole in the top. Seeing the exit so near, the eevee started scrambling her paws against the cold stone walls, finding that they were too sleek to climb.
Desperately, she started seeking another way out, and found a passage that was completely blocked by ice and snow.
Things seemed hopeless for the eevee. Now, it seemed her worst fear had come true. Now, she was trapped in this cave with no hope of escape.
The cave shook again, and the eevee found the source.
There, around a rock at the other end of the room, a machoke was pounding its fists against the wall. Whether it was to train its fighting ability, or to keep warm purely from movement, the eevee didn't know. However, she had discovered it as the source of the rumbling in the cave.
The eevee called out to the machoke.
The machoke froze completely after its fist broke through the wall. It glanced over its shoulder and growled quietly, irritated by the interruption.
The eevee's ears folded to her skull, unsure of how the machoke would answer her plea for help.
The machoke looked up at the massive hole in the ceiling, then to the eevee.
This was the break she was looking for. The eevee was going to make it out of the cave, and return to her friend. She nearly started running to the passage blocked by ice and snow, until she was picked up by the machoke.
The eevee started to panic, getting the feeling that she was about to be eaten by this hulking behemoth. She panicked harder when she felt the machoke wind up its arm, and aim for the hole in the ceiling. Still, this was her ticket out of the cave, and she couldn't complain too loudly. Until something flew in from above.
The noctowl flew in from the opening above, and landed on the icy stone in the center of the cavern. Its enormous eyes glared angrily at the eevee in the grip of the machoke. It was not going to let its meal be stolen by a hulking, meatheaded machoke. With a loud screech, it flew forward to take its prey.
The eevee was dropped to the ground when the machoke crossed its arms to defend itself. After the noctowl slashed at it, the machoke returned the attack with a swing of its enormous fists.
As the battle went on, the eevee took cover behind the icy rock. She peered around the side, and saw the two goliaths trading blows. As she hid, she felt something new. Instead of cold, she felt warm. And it wasn't a normal warmth. It felt like it was coming from somewhere within herself. Almost like something within her was changing. One look to her paws, and she saw them turning blue.
With a yelp, she scurried away from the rock, and watched as her paws started changing back to brown. Something about the rock affected her body. Somehow, the rock seemed it was trying to change her in some way. A way that would have rendered her as cold at the mountain itself. If only the change could have been something that would have been beneficial to those she cared about.
The machoke was at a complete disadvantage against its flying opponent. With one last swipe of its wings, the noctowl knocked the machoke down.
Though the machoke was down, the noctowl didn't dare try to eat it. It was still able to fight back in its condition, and wouldn't allow the bird close. Instead, the noctowl went for the easier meal.
The eevee moved to keep the icy rock between itself and the noctowl, ever careful not to step too close. With every five steps the eevee took, the noctowl kept appearing around the rock with only two. The larger opponent was proving to be more ambitious than she would have liked. With a flap of its wings, the noctowl flew over the top of the rock, and snatched downward at the eevee.
The eevee rolled across the floor, and scrambled to escape. It was then that she saw what would turn the tide in her favor.
Deep in the rocky wall that the machoke had broken open, the eevee saw what looked like veins of ore. Ore that had fiery red markings on it. Just the thing to defeat her opponent and save her friend.
The eevee ran as fast as she could to the broken wall, with the noctowl in hot pursuit.
The slippery floor proved a hazard to the eevee, threatening to make her slip and fall, and leave herself open to being eaten.
She had to reach the wall. It was the only way to make it off the mountain alive.
With a leap, the eevee was within reach of the wall. Her paws reached the edge of the broken wall, just as the tip of her tail was caught in razor sharp talons.
The eevee fought to keep her paws on the wall, and slowly managed to pull herself forward. Her nose touched the veins of ore, and she began to undergo a change.
The noctowl let go of the eevee when a bright light shone around her. When the light subsided, it was faced with a new creature. One that was twice the size of the eevee from before, colored red, and had a massive tuft of yellow fur around her neck and tail. What was once an eevee had become a new creature. A flareon.
This was no matter to the noctowl. In its eyes, the flareon was a larger meal than the eevee, and flew to attack once more. Unknown to it, this was no mere trifle.
A stream of flames erupted from the flareon's mouth, abating the attack of the noctowl and sending it backwards. Another stream of fire shot forth, making the noctowl stumble back again, this time some if its feathers singing. The noctowl stumbled back again when the flareon readied another burst of flames, right into the waiting hands of the machoke.
The machoke tightly wrapped its hands around the noctowl, not about to let go of it. With a swing of its mighty arms, it threw the noctowl straight out of the top of the cave, until it was unseen through the snowy haze.
The flareon watched as the predator went from sight, feeling as if she was safe for the first time since she arrived on the mountain. That feeling quickly fled, when the machoke grabbed her for a toss out the top of the cave.
Quick as she could, the flareon wriggled from the machoke's grip and shook her head. Now that she had the means to escape on her own, there was no way she was going to be tossed like a shot put. Instead, she walked over to the passage that was blocked with ice and snow, and blew forth her flames, thawing herself a safe passage to the outside.
The machoke simply grunted as it watched the flareon leave, and returned to pounding its fists against the walls.
In a tiny alcove, a boy laid huddled in his rocky shelter. He shivered under his blanket, the one thing between him and below freezing temperatures. It was only but an hour ago that he managed to fall asleep, and had no idea that his eevee companion had left him. Minutes before sleep overcame him, he began to wonder if he would ever make it off the mountain. Or if he would ever wake up in the morning.
The flareon hurried through the snow toward their tiny camp, sticks gathered in her mouth. With all haste, she laid them on the ground and set them alight with a flame from her mouth.
The warmth of the flame seemed to barely reach her friend, who laid shivering by the fire. Instinctively knowing her own body temperature had risen, and could easily be regulated at will, the flareon wriggled her way under the blanket and huddled herself beside her friend.
Against her sides, the flareon could feel that her friend had stopped shivering. On the surface, she knew it was because of her elevated body temperature. Beneath that, she knew it was the feeling of security she offered. The one friend who had seen him through the ups and downs of their travels. Through the victories and defeats, they had been there for one another, and they would continue to be forever after.
There was going to be quite a surprise when the boy awoke to find what had become of his eevee companion. But, for now, they would sleep peacefully, knowing they would continue their journey together in the morning.
A/N: Alright. So, I got the idea to write this after I saw the commercial for Pokemon Let's Go: Pikachu and Let's Go: Eevee. As soon as I saw that, I remembered how much I absolutely love eevee. And after researching the games for a story setting, I realized how many eevee-lutions I had missed out on. Now, I like more stuff about eevee, after seeing all those other final forms.
This story was just a one shot that I did on a spur of the moment. No other parts after this. But, I think it's safe to assume that the flareon and her trainer are going to make it to safety. For anyone who is confused about none of the pokemon saying their own names, it's because I've always found it weird how they don't make noises like animals do. In my own head, they do make different, distinctive animal noises, but it's okay if you guys picture them saying their own names.