"Hah…"
I let out a sigh as I finished picking the berries that I needed for the day. Thankfully these fruit grow incredibly fast compared to other produce. Maybe a day or two for them to fully regrow.
I could have brought Terra - my Trapinch and only pokemon - but the route for berries today would have made it many times less efficient. I would have had company, but this way would just be faster.
After living here for an odd decade or so, I've figured out that the wild pokemon here do not like human beings on their territory. That's most likely one of the reasons as to why this was one of the most dangerous places for trainers to be back when it was accessible to the public. No where else in Sinnoh - that I've heard of - has wild pokemon that act like this.
As such, I've found a way around this when gathering my food source for the day. First, don't mess with the wild pokemon. Second, only look for berries close to camp. I made the mistake more than once of venturing too far into wild pokemon territory and just managed to get back unscathed. What had happened was that it was a day similar to this where bringing Terra would have been incredibly inefficient.
Biggest mistake ever.
Wild pokemon were at my heels the entire way home and when I got home Terra was there to help fend the remaining chasers. The result however was that camp was left in ruins - more so than it had been before. So I decided from those experiences to only gather the closer berries after I charted out where they were.
As I was walking back to the outskirts of the camp from the daily food scrounging, Terra waddled up to my feet with sleepy eyes. He let out a yawn and nudged my leg with his large head. Falling to one knee, I rubbed it before moving to the center of my base.
It had started out as ruins, but over the years, I had made a small home for myself. Of course, there wasn't much, but it was home. I had taken a fallen wall and leaned it over to another building - with the help of Terra of course. After that, I had taken a tarp I found in one of the ruined buildings and covered the entrance of the makeshift shelter. It reminded me of a concrete tent. An incredibly makeshift concrete tent at that, but it kept the rain and chill off.
The people here before the 'incident' were smart and had decided to make the small town by a river which just so happened to be incredibly important for me. Heck, if the river wasn't there, I wouldn't have settled here for the last number of years. That river served as my source of drinking water and sanitation, which had an incredible need.
As I approached my makeshift rubble tent, I glanced at the eggs that I had been left with years ago. There were originally three eggs, with Terra being the one that no longer resides inside a shell. One egg has patterns of white, black, and red. It also has this weird pattern of about five red tendrils snaking out of the white. The other egg has mud-like colored scale patterns all over with some faint patches of black and blue. For some reason, even though years had passed, neither one had hatched.
I had once read in one of the books I managed to find in the ruins of what had seemed to be a library that sometimes eggs could take days to hatch while others may take months. The example that it gave was that Magikarp eggs can take around two to four days on average to hatch, while eevee eggs could take up to seven months. I could believe that much, but these two had taken over a decade and neither had hatched. The only thing that comes to mind when thinking about it is that when pokemon are specifically bred for whatever reason, be it competitive battle or otherwise, the resulting hatch rates multiplied exponentially. That was one reason as to why specific breeding of pokemon is an incredibly hard job. At least that's what the book said.
Checking to be sure as I had every day for the past decade, I passed my hand over both the eggs. No movement from the mud-scaled egg. As I touched the red, white, and black egg, I felt a small warmth from inside the egg. This was certainly not a first in the recent days. On a few occasions in the past week or three, there had been the same phenomena; the egg being warm to the touch, and then the warmth would dissipate in a few minutes.
Deciding that it was in my best interest to keep a closer watch on that specific egg, I decided that I would read for a while. Before the attack on the island, I had a very basic education. Simple reading, writing, and the like. Over the recent years, I had developed a fondness for reading. While I had nobody to explain exactly what happened in some of the books or why they happened, I still loved it nonetheless.
My personal favorite were the ones about the Sinnoh deities. Dialga, master of time, Palkia ruler of space, Giratina, lord of the Distortion Realm, and Arceus, creator of the universe. There were other deities such as the lake guardians, Azelf, Uxie, and Mesprit. Even the pokemon of the volcano, Heatran, is mentioned briefly. I find this interesting since Heatran does not have a special role like the creation trio or the lake guardians, but just seemed to be an incredibly rare species that lived in volcanoes. It just so happens that some live in Stark Mountain - which is actually a volcano despite the name. The place wasn't far from- never mind.
I decided to choose a story about the creation of Sinnoh. Specifically, the one starting with Arceus. I wasn't the only one who enjoyed stories and legends, Terra was quite fond of them whenever I had read to him.
I called him over to where I sat down. As he sat in my lap, I began to read, "In the beginning, there was nothing, except for an egg. As an indiscernible amount of time passed, the egg hatched into Arceus, future creator of the world. Arceus began his task with the creation of Spear Pillar, a monument where whatever existed in the future would be able to learn of the events that took place from that time onwards.
"From that point, Arceus created the Creation Trio of Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina. Dialga was to rule over time and Palkia over space and dimensions. Giratina, however, proved to be too violent for its own good, so Arceus banished it to the Distortion World, where Giratina is said to still reside for its actions. While banished, Giratina still presides over the Distortion World, as a forced king of sorts."
As if this was the first time that he had heard this story, he started making odd grinding noises with his mouth. Knowing that this was his sign of showing interest, I decided to pet his head a little as I continued, "After the three were created, Arceus began to create the Sinnoh region from atop Spear Pillar. First, Mt. Coronet, and then outwards until the rest of the region was made, and eventually the rest of the world was created. But Arceus had filled the world with masses of unstable land and sea, but with no life other than plants, so in light of this, Arceus created pokemon.
"Among such were legends of other regions, such as Kyogre and Groudon, who ceaselessly fought for dominance. That is until, Rayquaza, the third of the well known Hoenn Trio stopped their fights, time and again."
Terra decided to stop me by grunting. He was either saying, "Get back to the Sinnoh part," or "I'm going to fart." I decided that he would most likely have said the former as Terra was not one to mess around when it came to stories he enjoyed.
Deciding that he was right, I continued on with Sinnoh. "Arceus had also created Regigigas, a titan which has been said to move continents around with ropes according to Arceus's commands. As the titan grew in power, he molded three other titans out of clay, ice, and magma: Regirock, Regice, and Registeel.
"However, as the titan also became overwhelmingly powerful, Arceus feared that it would grow too powerful for it to handle and turn into what became of Giratina. As such, he was sealed in the Snowpoint Temple. Arceus appeared to the chief of the area and explained how to unseal the sleeping beast should the need arise, but that knowledge has been lost to time."
I continued to read almost to noon, explaining other legends of Sinnoh. Darkrai and Cresselia, Shaymin, more on Heatran, and the Lake Guardians. I decided that was enough reading for today and got around to lunchtime. Even though the only consistent food source was berries, it was incredibly easy to have a variety of flavors depending on what berry to use and how to cook them. Today I found some pecha and mago berries, so I would roast them, somehow bringing out their sweet flavor. I had no idea how this worked, but I decided that I would just thank something that I had food in the first place.
Looking around my camp - if it's possible to even call it that - I noticed that it was worse for wear. My makeshift concrete tent looked to be slowly falling over, I had random books strewn outside of what I called my 'library,' the eggs could use a proper nest, and I needed to find an easier way to get food. Gathering berries at the crack of dawn is nice and all, but it would be nice to try and plant some berries. Given that though, I would either need to make another path from the river a quarter mile away or so or manually draw water to and from the river. While a worthwhile investment, it would take an incredible amount of time.
Deciding that I should probably try and fix up the shelter I had came first. Terra and I set off to work. As I have mentioned before, it was just one broken wall leaning onto another broken wall. One problem was that whatever precipitation decided to leak through came through the top of the roof so to speak. The tarp that I laid over the top of the rubble shelter had some holes in it so I would most likely need a new one or patch the old one up. I had seen a tarp a few days ago, so I could just remove the old one and put the new one on top.
Or so I thought.
Turns out that I did not have a tarp around here. That proved a major problem since that meant I would either have to look in every tiny nook and cranny here or invade a hostile pokemon territory, which is sadly easier said than done.
I did that once to try and get more books to read since knowledge is power and all that. Turns out I had run into an oversized Fearow's breeding ground. Normally Fearow are mean to begin with, but add into the fact that pokemon on this island are extra nasty, my experience was not fond. While I managed to grab one book, I was chased all the way back with droves of Spearow and Fearow on my tail. Even though I got to the point where Terra could come out of camp and help, I still have a few scars from the clash.
Needless to say that I did not want to repeat that experience, so I turned to other problems regarding the camp. First off, the eggs. Making a nest out of softer material would be best, so small plants and grasses would have to be my best option. So Terra and I got to work breaking up some taller grasses and small saplings to make some kind of a nest.
After about half an hour to an hour - it was kind of hard to tell time when working - we had gathered enough supplies to make some kind of a nest for my two silent eggs. Now, I had no idea how to make a nest. Terra's species did not need to make nests since all they had to do was dig a hole in the ground and have their eggs there where the heat from the sand would continually warm the egg. Thinking about this, I decided to feel both of the eggs.
The white, red, and black egg was still warm, actually warmer than it had been than this morning. The mud-scaled egg seemed to be extra dry. This was new. Never before had either egg felt dry before. Curious, I took the egg to the river after telling Terra to wait with the other egg in case something happened.
When I got to the river, I set the egg by the edge of the flowing water. I was a bit thirsty, so I took a drink of water before looking at my appearance. Deep blue eyes and haphazardly cut dark brown hair. Man, I needed to cut that straight next time. Either way, I looked to the still egg, curious about something.
"I wonder what would happen if I poured water onto the egg?" I muttered aloud. Scooping up some water in my hands, I poured it over the mud colored egg. Almost instantly the egg seemed to suck up the water. Now that was odd. As I felt the egg's surface, I noticed that it was less dry, but not back to normal yet. Maybe the heat from the other egg had dried this one out?
With this in mind, I kept on pouring water onto the egg until it felt a bit damp. After which, I walked back to camp, noticing that Terra still sat beside the other egg, almost like a guard dog. I chuckled at the thought. Could you imagine a Trapinch as a guard dog? No, me neither, but it would still be funny to try.
Terra seemed to notice me and walked over to where I was standing. He tilted his head wondering what I had just done. I scratched his large head and told him to follow me. If this egg got dried out because of the other, than it would be best to make a small nest of sorts for each one. Deciding on this, Terra and I got to work. Neither one of us were very good at what we were doing, but we tried to at the very least.
Setting the mud-scaled egg in the newly finished nest of sorts, I walked over towards the other, warmer egg. Touching the white, black, and red egg, it was even warmer than before, almost to the point where it was hard to hold. Well, that's a new problem. If I leave this egg in a flammable nest like this, it could set fire to it and burn down the entire area.
Noticing this I decided to ask Terra, "Hey Terra, would you mind creating a patch of soft dirt where that nest is?" Terra tilted his head in confusion, not understanding the problem. Trying to explain something like this to a pokemon was hard, but he was the only company that I had. "This egg is too hot for the nest. I don't want a fire." While explaining this, I tried using hand movements to describe it so that the ground-type would understand. It worked, kind of.
Terra seemed incredibly upset and decided to gnaw my leg a little for making his nest-work useless. I profusely apologized to him and asked him to dig once more. Seeming a little less upset, he set about his work. It wasn't too hard for him considering his species digs most of the time, especially when building their 'sand nests' for their offspring. Heck, even moving around Terra seemed to dig rather than walk. I guess it was more comfortable considering his stubby legs.
After his short work was done, I placed the egg in the small dirt mound Terra created. I looked up to the sky to see what time it was, and it seemed to almost be night-time without me even noticing it. Well, I guess the future berry planting would have to wait another day.
After roasting up some leftover pecha and mago berries from lunch, Terra and I hit the hay, well, ground since we didn't have any hay. Sleep soon came to claim my conscious.
As I slowly gained consciousness, I could feel that someone or something was nudging my side. Within seconds I knew it was Terra, but I decided to look to my side anyways where the accused Trapinch was rubbing his head on my arm. Quickly giving the attention hungry pokemon a scratch under where his non-existent chin would be, I decided that I should get up and gather some food.
Upon getting up, I figured that the eggs should be checked on first. Touching the white, red, and black egg was still almost burning to the touch. Feeling the other egg, it was dry again. I suppose that keeping them apart was the right decision, since if this egg had been right beside the other one, it would have been like touching sand.
Deciding that the egg was more important than my grumbling stomach, I was off to the river. I needed to wash my face and get something to drink anyway. Terra decided to follow me since it seemed he was thirsty as well. Knowing the route by trial and error a million times, it was a short trip.
I first put water over the dry egg and watched the phenomena of the water seemingly being sucked into the egg. It still baffled me how this happened, but decided to push the thought away as I needed to get other things done today.
After washing off and getting a drink, we headed back to camp. At least that's what I had planned to do, but I heard something in the direction of the shore. "Odd," I wondered. "That's never happened before. Sure, waves and such, but this sounds like, actual conversation noise."
Intrigued by this, I decided to take a short trip to the shoreline. I rarely went out here since there was no food to get and the water was ocean water - or in other words, salty. Not to mention the chance of running into other wild pokemon. It really was a beautiful place however. Even though the trees had grown out further since becoming out of check for so long, the white sandy beach was long and you got a beautiful view of the sea. Occasionally you could see some seashells come on shore, which made it even more stereotypical beach, but that stereotype is still beautiful whatever anyone says.
Upon reaching the shore I was baffled. Yes, the shore looked as beautiful as ever, but the fact that there were people just off shore. Not many, but the fact that this was the first time I had seen people in an entire decade made my heart race a marathon. They landed on shore mere seconds after I had spotted them. As soon as I caught a good look of the three men, one pointed in my direction and they started off towards me, lead by a man built like a Rhydon.
They probably had the same question that I had, "Who are you?" As they got closer however, a voice rang in my head. A voice that I had not heard since the day my life went through the drain. A voice that still accompanied my dreams. More specifically though, my nightmares.
"Run, Archus! Run!"
My body reacting faster than my brain, heeding these words, picking up both Terra and the mud-scaled egg, prepared to make a mad dash for my camp. Before they could get even five meters in front of me, my legs were off, faster than I had ran when chased by a flock of Spearows. The three men who had just appeared on shore tried to keep up with me as I wound my way through the thick foliage of trees. If I had been alone and not carrying two of the most important things in my life, I would have run faster, but their safety comes first.
Even though I knew this part of the island like the back of hand, the three men were gaining on me. Even if I got to my camp, what would I be able to do? Why would these men come here? It's not like they knew that somebody had survived that day. If anything, they were probably here out of sheer curiosity. Maybe they were asked to come here by someone who wanted to see the state of the island? But why wait a whole ten years?
Barely making it into my camp, the three men were almost on my heels. Quickly setting the egg into its makeshift nest and Terra on the floor beneath the concrete tent, I ran and grabbed a smoldering branch from a campfire that I had earlier.
As the three came a few feet in front of me, I held the smoking stick in front of me, trying vainly to ward off the group. Many pokemon I had encountered were scared of fire. Not all of them, but the smaller packs were at the least. Unfortunately, the three men here did not fall into that category. The one who was noticeably bigger than the other two came up to me and yanked the stick out of my hand and threw it aside.
My brain raced and my body shook as he put his hands on my shoulders. My body once again acting before my mind tried to hit and thrash out of his grip. However, he stood there and took it, barely even flinching as he was repeatedly hit all over his body, most likely leading to later bruising.
The tiredness of the past few days must have washed on me all at once in that moment, or maybe it was from shock, but before I knew it, I lost consciousness.
"...ke u…"
What was that? I swear that I could hear something. What is it saying? I can't make it out.
"W… up, A...us."
Why can't I hear what it's saying? It's like there's some kind of filter. Leaning in some direction to try and hear, well, whatever it was.
"Wake up there lad!"
"AHHHHHH!"
Screaming while furiously bringing myself to a sitting position brought some nasty head rush, serving the job of waking me up. I looked around where I was sitting in a daze, to see the three men from before kneeling around me in a loose semi-circle. Terra was by my side and I noticed that I was back at camp. What happened to me?
Seemingly reading my mind, the biggest one of the three men answered my thought. "Ya gave us quite de shock der, passing out like dat." He spoke with a hard accent, with his 'you' sounding like 'ya' and 'the' sounding like 'de.' It was difficult to understand, but I got the gist of what was said.
I moved my mouth to speak, but it failed me as my words got caught in my throat. I guess that I was still unconsciously scared of these men. It has been a decade sin- you know what? Forget I said a thing.
"Can you speak there son?" The man in front of asked again. Standing up with shaky knees, I thought of how to answer. Wait a second…
I held a finger up to the three men as I searched a small, worn grey backpack that I kept in my shelter. At the back of one of the compartments was a pad of paper and a pen. I rarely used it since I was trying to survive and all, but I knew how to write at the very least. Walking back to the three men, I wrote down that, 'Yes I can, but not now for some reason. Probably lack of human contact.' I decided to not write down that I was still somewhat frightened by their sudden appearance on the island.
"Oh, okay then," The large man replied. "How long have you been on this island. Nobody was reported to have survived the… oh." Seeming to have gotten his answer by my visible flinching at what he was about to describe, he cut himself off. "I'm sorry there lad. I didn't know any better."
Giving a slight scowl at the aforementioned… event, I wrote down that, 'It's okay. No harm no foul.' The man who was the only one talking nodded and turned to his companions who hadn't said a word until now.
I hadn't had a good chance to look at the three until now, but I noticed a common theme among the group: all three were incredibly muscular and donned some kind of sailor attire. The one man who was noticeably more built than the others had a different, darker color scheme on his outfit. That probably just meant different positions or something. Who knows?
After the three men finished discussing whatever they were talking about, the tank built man turned to me once more. "Well, would you like to get off this island?"
Shocked, I moved my hand to immediately write 'yes' on my paper, but something held me back. I had spent my entire life here. I've never actually been off of the island. No vacations to other cities or towns on the main part of the region, nothing. I had gotten used to the day by day events here as well. That was the downside of his offer.
On the flip side, I wouldn't have to scavenge for food everyday just to get fed. Both of these eggs would probably get actual care instead of my own naive hypothesis'. I would actually get to see other places than this island for once. It was a hard decision to make.
Almost to the point of reluctance, I wrote down 'yes' on my piece of paper. Seemingly satisfied with my answer, the three men stood up and the one in dark clothing offered his hand to me. "Well then, let's get your things and head back to the ship."
Nodding at his comment, we began to gather my things. To use more correct terms, I was gathering my things, the men beside me were questioning me what was important. The sailors grabbed whatever and asked if I needed it. When I said yes, they put it into a pile to the side of my makeshift housing. If the answer was no, they left it where it was before. After about five or ten minutes of this, I had nearly everything I needed in my ragged gray backpack. Now it was time for the eggs.
...Or that's what I would say if the white egg didn't feel like a miniature sun on the ground. When I went to pick it up, I couldn't get my hand close to the egg without feeling the burn. Not knowing what was, I just stared at the egg puzzled. When Terra was an egg, nothing of the sort happened. Even when he hatched, that's it, the egg hatched like a normal egg would.
Then I saw the lines.
The egg was hatching.
Out of instinct, I ran to the sailors and threw my body at them trying to throw them to the ground in vain. As they asked what I was doing, my voice succeeded for the first time since the three came on the island:
"GET DOWN!"
The egg hatched.
If any of us had been standing up, we would have been scorched. While we wouldn't have been killed, having those sorts of burns are not the kind of thing I like to deal with.
My first concern was the state of the other egg.
Somehow, the egg was still in a stable condition. It was incredibly dry, but it seemed like it would survive. Now, for the other egg.
As I went to go check on the state of the hatched egg, one of the sailors spoke up, "Now what in the name of all that is good in this world was that?"
As answer to their question, there was a small, white, red, and black pokemon. It was covered in a white fur-like substance, at the end of its' body was a red, bug-like tail of sorts, and in between those two parts of the pokemon were five red tendril-like growths. It had six nubs as supposed feet which were all black and part of the white fur was cast over its' piercing blue eyes, casting a shadow on its face.
Now, I have seen my fair share of pokemon. Living on an island with the most diverse selection of pokemon in Sinnoh does that. But even with all that, I had no clue what this thing was. My best guess is that it was from another region and that it had a fire and bug typing due to its phenomena when hatching and its current appearance. The sailors seemed as confused as I was as they just stared at the creature curiously.
"Lar! Lar!" the white and red creature cried. It was small and had difficulty walking, but it managed to hobble over to me and Terra. Picking up the curious creature, I noticed that it was incredibly soft and had a kind of comforting degree of warmth. Nothing like the light show just now.
"Well I'll be had. Your egg hatched just before we leave. What are the odds?"
Turning to the largest of the three men, I nodded as I grabbed the things thrown during the hatching of whatever this 'Lar' pokemon might be. After which, I picked up the recently hatched pokemon and asked Terra to follow us. The men had recovered with haste as they came with us to the beach.
Arriving at the beach after a brisk walk through the forest one last time, I spotted their ship off in the distance. It was no luxury cruise or anything, but it was a different kind of beauty in its own right. If anything, it looked kind of like something used for reconnaissance mission. Slim, but with enough length for the passengers to walk from back to front with relative ease. It probably had sleeping space beneath it.
They took a lifeboat with them to get to shore however instead of the recon ship. Loading onto the lifeboat, I felt cramped between two of the giant sailors. I made sure to have a firm grasp on Terra, the newborn, and the mud colored egg. I knew Terra had a respectable disliking for water as he was a ground type pokemon, so didn't move much. The problem was the bug. It was curious as a newborn so it tried time and again to get out of my grasp.
As I was purely focused on keeping the three on my arms safe, I barely noticed when we arrived at the ship. There must have been someone onboard since there were two cables that descended when we got to the edge of the ship. The sailors at each end of the lifeboat clamped them onto the holes they were meant for and we were hoisted upwards.
As we saw the deck of the ship, there was another two sailors waiting there to greet their companions. The shock on their face was visible when there was another passenger was with them. The three sailors who had just stepped off the lifeboat and onto the ship briefly explained what had happened. After which, the one with the darker uniform confronted me and told me that he would lead me to a room that I could use.
Nodding in agreement, I followed after letting Terra onto the deck of the ship. I didn't trust the flaming bug just yet though, so I kept it in a firm grip alongside the unhatched egg.
The slim boat led downwards to an even smaller hall with a few rooms, about three or four in total. "You can use this one until we get to Jubilife, okay?" Nodding in agreement, I went into the room and peered inside. It was small with a miniscule circular window at the end and a small bed at the wall. Setting down the egg onto the bed I turned around to thank the man that had saved me from the island.
Before I got a chance to do so, dark-colored sailor man spoke first, "You know, I never got asked your name."
You know, I haven't used my name in so long that it took me a minute to remember what it actually was, as sad as that sounds. Deciding that it would be a better idea to use my mother's maiden name for my last name as I could care less for my father, I told him, "Archus. Archus Draisen. And yours?"
"Oh, that's what your voice sounds like. Name's Adrian. Just calling me Adrian is enough. Or you could call me captain if you wanted too."
I had an idea that he was a higher rank than those other sailors, but hearing Adrian confirming my theory still came as a mild shock. Telling him that I wanted to get some rest, I closed the door as the silence hung in the air.
Laying down onto the bed mentally exhausted from the day's events, I decided to sleep. Even though the sun was only a little more than halfway through the clear sky, with the white bug and Terra by my side, sleep claimed my consciousness.