Noctis
A Pokémon Fan Fiction
Chapter I:
Day of Prophecy
I
"Today is the day of prophecies." The group of bird-like creatures stood, stiff as statues, gazing at the sky with emotionless eyes. They were perched on top of the stone ceilings of the Ancient Temple, in the same spots where their ancestors had gathered in times of yore to observe the sun as it passed through the sky.
"Today is the day spoken of by those of the Underground." The wind blew softly and erratically, making the red crests of the Great Elders sway in unison. They were silent, but their voices could be clearly heard even by the savages at the coast, many miles away. The younger Natu and Xatu gathered at the feet of the ancient buildings, great monuments of brown rock overrun by weeds and climbing vines, gazing quizzically at the sky. They had yet to learn the power to see the future and the past in the movements of the sun.
"Soon, judgment shall fall upon us, brought by the ancient ones that live in the stars. We shall be destroyed or we shall be cleansed, for we will face great evil." The wind shifted yet again, this time coming from the mountains in the east. The Elders turned around in unison, their backs towards the setting sun, and faced the wind. The young at their feet did the same, fear starting to invade them as they listened to the ominous words of the Elders. Some other creatures had started to come out of their lairs, startled by the strange voices in their head that spoke a language they couldn't understand.
"What is it this time?" Someone in the vicinity asked. Both the elders and the young ignored it and continued to stare at the horizon, as if trying to see something that was beyond the cloudy peaks of the mountains.
"Those who hear these words, beware. Beware of the evil that shall rain down upon this land, for it will show you the true meaning of fear. No place will be safe from its mindless wrath; no creature will escape its dark clutch. " Terrified murmurs sprouted among the young that gathered around their elders. The angry voices of other creatures in the vicinity received no answer still. They were unable to understand the message that the Xatu Elders were wordlessly speaking into their minds.
"Run if you can, fight if you must, but know that this new evil does not know mercy. Enjoy these last moments of peace before you are faced with doom." Upon saying this, the Elders spread their wings in unison. Their eyes started shining with a purple hue, and all of a sudden they disappeared with no more than a soft, popping noise. Panic was starting to spread, not just within the Xatu flock, but among the rest of the Pokémon standing by. Even if they were unable to understand what the Xatu Elders were saying, that last message was no longer just an emotionless voice. The Elders were afraid. They were terrified. They were hopeless and desperate. They were powerless to do anything to save their flock from the fate that loomed upon Earth. They were only able to warn them, and to give them one last instruction just before following it themselves:
"Run!"
Hell broke loose in the Ancient Temple. Terrified screams filled the air, a cacophony of Skytongue and misaimed telepathic signals joined by the popping of disappearing Natu and Xatu. Soon they were all gone. The rest of the Pokémon mumbled in increasingly loud voices. They were used to the meaningless telepathic voices of the Xatu Elders, even to being woken up in the middle of the night by one of their mind-numbing ramblings; yet they had never felt them being afraid of anything. Two young Furret stepped out of the foliage surrounding the Ancient Temple and climbed atop one of the ancient buildings, the closest to the branches of the trees where they were hiding. Small pebbles fell to the cracked stone floor, where strange symbols witnessed the ages. Once the Furret reached the top, one of them, a male, stood atop his muscular tail and spoke:
"Please, keep calm!" Most of the Pokémon in that area were able to understand the Landtongue, but he repeated the message in shoddy Deeptongue and Skytongue. His words were echoed by some Pokémon in the crowd in all three languages, and soon they were all in silence.
"Good." He nodded and his ears flicked lightly. "Please don't panic. These guys are just a bunch of nutcases. I'm sure there is a reasonable explanation for this mess." He said skeptically, though his fear was almost tangible. The other Furret, a female, took a few steps forward so that she was at the same level as the male Furret. She didn't dare to stand up on her tail, however, and she patted the male's hind paw meekly. He looked down to her and nodded. She spoke with a clear, yet somewhat trembling voice:
"We may need the help of Lady Aiday." The male Furret's ears stood up, and he visibly shrunk in his place. "She is the only one that can understand these peoples' signals."
"I'm afraid my daughter is right." The male Furret spoke again, not truly regaining his composure, but trying hard to. "Even if these people usually make a big fuss about every falling leaf, we need to be certain it is not something serious."
While nobody spoke, it was possible to see that everybody thought this time the fuss was not just about falling leaves.
II
"Run!"
What did they mean? This time it seemed different. It somehow seemed more real, more down to earth. Their prophecies and predictions were never something concrete, for they themselves were aware that the future was something very unpredictable. They always spoke about what might happen in words that were sometimes impossible to decipher even if someone was able to understand them. Even more important: they never had shown any trace of emotion when they gave their omens. They were always stoic and spoke matter-of-factly. She had even started to believe they were feeding lies to the people for some kind of thousand-year-old machination.
Yet, somehow, they even managed to make her shiver this time. The same seemed to be true about the rest of the Pokémon in the forest. The air reeked of fear. She had never felt as much fear as today, not even in her youth when she still used to hunt for prey regularly. There was something uncanny about the Xatu and the places where they hung around, but they never had had such an impact on nearby Pokémon.
"E-excuse m-me? Lady A-Aiday?"
The voice snapped her out of her thoughts. She peeked below, to the forest floor and saw a small brown blur crouched at the feet of her tree. She cocked her head, puzzled. If the Furret had sent someone to ask her about the message, then they must have been really frightened by it.
"Who are you, and what do you want?" She asked in Skytongue. She was hidden by the lower branches of the tree, so the Furret was unable to see where the voice had come from. Aiday saw the small Pokémon turn nervously around, searching for the hidden Noctowl.
"I-I c-can't understand t-that language, Lady Aiday. W-where are you?" The Furret asked. Her body was flattened against the ground, ready to sprint at a moment's notice. She kept looking for the Noktowl desperately in the branches above.
Aiday hissed, annoyed. These barbarians and their lowly languages would eventually drive her mad. She opened her wings and jumped to a lower branch, where the Furret could clearly see her. She glared down at her, and the Furret seemed to flatten to the ground even more, her muscles tense.
"I asked who you are and what do you want." The Noctowl hissed, this time in Landtounge, with a very heavy and intimidating accent.
"M-m-my name i-is Autumn, and I-I'm…" The Furret started saying in a cracked voice, but Aiday cut her short.
"Oh! I know who you are! You are the daughter of that bastard, Mister The-Forest-Belongs-To-The-People!" The Noctowl's feathers puffed up, menacingly.
"Well, yes… I-I'm…" Autumn's voice became quieter with each word she said. Her body was almost completely curled up in a ball, in a combination of fear and shame.
"What are you doing here? I'm not in a very good mood right now!" The Noctowl jumped down from her branch and landed softly on the forest floor. She towered above the Furret at her feet, even though they were just about the same size. Autumn started backing into a nearby tree, as the Noctowl closed up on her.
"Well, I-I just wanted t-to ask… If y-you had h-heard t-the… T-the m-m-message…" The Furret asked; her back against a tree, her eyes wide open, her ears flat. Aiday cocked her head and backed away a step.
"I heard it, of course." She said, spitefully. Autumn's ears shot upwards almost immediately.
"A-and what did it say?" She asked, standing up slightly. Aiday glared at her, puffing up indignantly.
"Why should I tell you?" She said, stepping forwards again, this time close enough that Autumn was able to see every feather on the Noctowl's body clearly, even with the dim light of sundown. "You and your father have been nothing but trouble to me!" Her Eyes seemed to glow as she said this; an eerie, maddening, purple glow.
Autumn became unable to speak. Every hair of her body was standing up, and it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to breathe. Aiday's suddenly unblinking eyes were the only thing she could focus on, the rest of the world becoming blurry and muffled.
"You came here alone, girl." The voice of the Noctowl echoed, as if coming from afar. "I could kill you without much effort; you are risking your life for a very stupid reason." Autumn couldn't move; her whole body felt numb. She wasn't sure if she could even feel her legs or tail anymore and everything in her mind was a mess of blurry shapes and colors; everything except Lady Aiday's echoing voice and glowing eyes, which in turn seemed to be everywhere and come from all directions at the same time.
"However, I'm not a murderer, young one." Aiday continued. "And you should tell that to the buffoon you have as a father.
I respect your race's bravery, but you should learn to understand the difference between being courageous and being blind; not everything will be as merciful as I am, and there are many, many things in this world whose power you couldn't even begin to comprehend."
Autumn took a deep breath. She felt as though as she had been submerged in water for hours, and her limbs felt as sore as if she had been swimming upstream for a whole day nonstop. She felt on the verge of fainting of exhaustion, and even though the swirly colors had disappeared, everything around her was blurred and littered with flashing dots of light. Her legs finally collapsed, leaving her to lie on the forest floor, panting heavily. The dark blur that was Lady Aiday stood a few feet away from her, wings open to full width.
"The message said to run." She said. This time her voice sounded normal, if a bit coarse. "That there is something evil coming and that we can not fight it, no matter what we do."
Autumn tried to say something, but all she managed was a weak whimper. She couldn't manage to fill her lungs with enough air to both speak and stay conscious. Lady Aiday, however, answered her question before she could try to ask it again.
"This time it is for real, I can assure you that. Even I don't know what exactly they were talking about; but if I were you, I wouldn't stay around to figure it out." Autumn's vision was starting to return to normal as Aiday spread her wings wide and crouched down to take flight.
"You do not seem like your father at all, girl. Leave; there is no honor in dying fighting for what is already a lost cause." With these words, the Noctowl took flight with a mighty beat of her wings, leaving a small cloud of dirt where she used to be standing.
Autumn didn't see where she was headed; she still felt too weak to raise her head enough to see Aiday take flight. She lay on the forest floor, taking deep breaths and blinking rapidly to clear her vision. She wasn't completely certain about it, but she had the feeling that even Lady Aiday, former tyrant and terror of the forest, was afraid of whatever the Xatu predicted. If a Pokémon as powerful as her feared this… evil, then it was pretty likely nobody stood a chance to fight it.
She tried to sit up and succeeded at the cost of bringing back the blurriness, in addition to the worst headache she had had in her life. She suddenly felt very dizzy, and barely repressed the urge to throw up.
Autumn closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She didn't think her father would abandon everything and flee just like that, even if it were the most sensible option. The worst part was that she believed in the advice the old Noctowl had given her; given the chance, she would run away without thinking it twice. But her father would drag her along with him to fight, however blindly, whatever threatened their recently obtained freedom, and perhaps at any other time she would have followed without hesitation. But now, things seemed different.
III
"So, what did she say?"
The forest Pokémon had gathered in a small assembly not too far from the Ancient Temple. They tried to avoid that place as much as possible, for it was said that it was home to a thousand-year-old curse that somehow only the Xatu were able to withstand. The Pokémon had gathered around the two Furret, waiting to hear their verdict.
"She said that the message was to run." said Autumn, the younger Furret. "That there is something evil coming and that trying to fight would be foolish."
The assembly broke into muttering. All over the place Pokémon were exchanging worried glances and fearful murmurs. The male Furret at the center stood atop its tail and called for silence.
"We now must decide what we should do." he said. "The old hag said it would be a wise choice to move out of this place. But the Xatu Elders didn't say where to. There was nothing in their message that could assure us that some other place would be safer than this. Besides, this is our land, and I speak on behalf of my family: we won't move."
Autumn cringed when her father finished speaking; the words of Aiday still nagging her on the back of her mind. "You should learn to understand the difference between being courageous and being blind." they said.
"Well, speak for yourself then. We are leaving!" Said a voice in a nearly unintelligible Landtounge accent. It was a Pidgeotto perched on a low branch. There were nods and chirps of agreement among his flock.
"Don't be a fool, Summer. If the Xatu said it is dangerous to stay here, then we all must go." continued the Pidgeotto. Again, there were multiple nods and chirps from the rest of the birds.
Summer's ears fell flat. He was visibly annoyed by the birds' cowardly attitude.
"Nothing is stopping you from leaving. I'm just telling you that it is meaningless to just flee blindly over the crazy prophecies of a bunch of birds." he spat.
"A bunch of birds? What is wrong with them being a bunch of birds?" chirped the Pidgeotto, its feathers and tail puffed up, menacingly.
"Well, your kind isn't known for being very bright." answered Summer, the hair on his back standing up, his ears completely flat.
"Why you little…! That's it. We are leaving, people!" uttered Pidgeotto. He took off, and with him the rest of the flock. They followed the wind, just as Aiday had done earlier, uttering all sorts of profanity in Skytongue.
Summer sighed. With Pidgeotto and his flock gone, the assembly had lost more than half its members. Only the two Furret, a Smeargle, a couple of Mareep and a Quagsire remained.
"You see, not that I'm a coward… But things just got ugly…. And I'm sure they will get worse." said the Smeargle apologetically. "I won't stay either." and he disappeared through the bushes despite Summer's shouts of "Wait!" and "Please don't go!"
The Mareep looked at each other, babbled something in Sparktongue that nobody else understood, and fled through the bushes as well.
"R-return to the pond. Children… children waiting." said the Quagsire with some effort, and then she walked away slowly towards the small pond near the Ancient Ruins. Summer muttered an "okay" half-heartedly and then gestured to Autumn to follow him.
"C'mon girl, let's go back home." he said. Autumn followed him obediently through the bushes. The spot where the assembly once gathered was now completely silent.
IV
Autumn woke up suddenly and looked around, her ears alert to sounds. She had felt something, like a slight tremor. She crawled out of the underground burrow, and was faced with the bluish glow of the forest night. She could have sworn she had heard something too, like a whistle. A sound that was quite like the wind blowing through the leaves of the forest, yet different in some way.
"Father?" she whispered.
"Over here, Autumn!" came the answer from the top of a tree. Autumn looked up, but was unable to find him.
"F-father, w-where are you?" she inquired again, this time louder.
"I'm here, Autumn. Come with me!" the voice of Summer spoke from somewhere within the wilderness. Autumn looked around, everywhere, but she was unable to find him. The blue glow of the moon was barely enough to see the ground, as it filtered through the leaves.
There was another slight tremor, and the whistling sound again, but clearer this time. The sound seemed to come from above, from the top of the trees.
"F-father, are you u-up there?" Autumn called. She was growing more and more afraid by the minute.
"Yes, my dear girl, come with me. I have something to show you." came Summer's voice again from the heights.
Autumn started climbing up the tree where she thought the voice was coming from while thinking "Something is not right here… But what is it?" Yet she climbed on. She had to be brave, even if it was just for the sake of her father. "There is no honor in dying for what is already a lost cause." the voice of Lady Aiday nagged at her again. The whistling noise became louder the higher she went up the tree, and then she remembered something. That night there was no moon in the sky, so where was that blue glow coming from?
"Come with me, Autumn." commanded the voice of her father. He seemed impatient.
"What am I doing? Something is terribly wrong here! I need to get out!" Autumn thought as she jumped to a higher branch. Just a few more left and she would be at the top. Her father was calling her; there was no time for chickening out… but that whistling! That uncanny glow!
She jumped into another branch and was able to see the sky above her head. She jumped once more.
"Very well done, my dear!" but her father was nowhere to be found.
"I'm here, father. Where are you?" she asked, mindlessly. Her head felt heavy, and her words came out slurred. The whistling became almost deafening.
Autumn looked up to the sky and saw where the blue glow was coming from: there was a bright blue trail along the sky, like a cloud. It went from east to west, and seemed to be slowly descending; raining down. She narrowed her eyes, in order to see it better. It seemed to be composed of little blue balls of glowing velvet.
"Father? Father, where… where are you?" Autumn asked again, her head getting heavier and heavier, her vision beginning to get blurry. She blinked repeatedly, but every time she opened her eyes again, the world seemed to blur even more. She tried to cover her ears, to protect them from that maddening whistle, but it seemed to pierce through her skull like a needle.
"Father? Fa… Father?" She began to lose her balance on the thin branches of the tree. She got down on all fours, to regain stability. Her paws felt heavy, and the world was nothing more than a blue-black blur now. She closed her eyes in order to try and blink the blurriness away, but she found she was unable to even open them again. She lost her footing again, but this time she was unable to hold on.
Autumn barely felt the thicker branches of the tree hit her sides as she fell. Her whole body was heavy and numb, and her sight was nothing but bleak darkness. The air was forced out of her lungs as she hit the forest floor, and she was struggling very hard to remain conscious. The whistling continued to drill into her head, and she was unable to move a finger.
"Where… are… you?" she managed to say with the last of her breath before letting herself get carried away by unconsciousness.