Chapter six is finally here - sorry about the long wait! It's the last day of semester tomorrow so I have a six week break in which I'll try to get lots of this story written. Hopefully I'll be able to start posting once a week soon.
There's a picture of the cave painting which Kit sees in this chapter at The Vulpix Club (the link to which is on my profile) - to get to it, go to "Photos", then "Personal Albums", then "Pilot Light". I know it's pretty crappy, but oh well. =P
Chapter Six - Golden Sun and Silver Moon
'Ah, so you're awake.'
The unfamiliar voice startled me into full consciousness. I blinked and looked over to where the voice had come from. A tall man wearing what appeared to be a ranger's outfit - khaki shorts and shirt -- was standing beside me. I belatedly realised that I was lying down, and pulled myself into a seated position, finding myself in a bed.
'We were so worried . . .' a timid voice ventured, and I looked to the end of the bed to see Kimi looking at me with concern, Amanda and Natasha standing to either side of her. Unsure and confused, I looked back to the ranger.
'Wh . . . what happened?' I asked weakly, then put a hand to my forehead, feeling dizzy.
'Your friends here found you passed out in the bush,' said the ranger. He paused. 'Do you remember anything about what happened?'
I blinked, and forced myself to think. Yes, I did remember . . . I'd been attacked by a poochyena . . . but I hadn't been myself . . . I'd been a pokémon . . . I looked down at my hands quickly, and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that they were there. So I was human again. But of course I was! Suddenly the idea of being a pokémon seemed so absurd, so unrealistic, so impossible. I strained my mind. Had I really changed into a pokémon, or had I just imagined it? Even though I felt as if it hadn't been the first time it had happened, surely it had to have just been a dream. Dreams could often feel like memories. You could wake up from one dream and feel like you'd dreamed it before even if you hadn't.
'When you found me,' I said, looking over at my friends. 'Was I . . . err . . . I'm not sure how to put this . . . was I . . . myself?'
Natasha raised an eyebrow, Kimi blinked, and Amanda rolled her eyes.
'You were passed out,' she said. Then she paused. 'Kit . . . do you remember what happened to you? Do you remember there being . . . Team Magma agents?'
I blinked, shocked. 'Team Magma?'
She nodded, and I thought for a moment. I remembered two humans, yes . . . and they had been trainers, I'd worked that much out . . . but Team Magma? No way, what would Team Magma agents be doing in the middle of the national park? And what could they possibly want with me? But hang on, hadn't I heard something about Team Magma before? I'd known about it for years now - everyone had - but recently something had happened, or something had been said, that had made Team Magma more noteworthy, perhaps more threatening, in my mind. I shook my head. I was probably just imagining that, too.
'Kit, when we found you . . . there were two people from Team Magma trying to take you away . . .' said Amanda, and bit her lip nervously.
'What!?' I exclaimed, and then remembered. Those two humans had been after me because they'd somehow found out that I wasn't just an ordinary vulpix . . . and if my friends had found me passed out as a human, that must have meant that I'd changed back in front of those two trainers' eyes . . . so if they'd had any doubts about my ability to transform, those doubts would have been washed away. And now that they knew, what were they going to do about it?
'I heard the commotion and came to see what was going on,' explained the ranger. 'When I sent out my poliwrath they knew they didn't stand a chance, so they ran off. I tried to follow them, but they managed to get away.'
'So now there are some psychotic criminals in the middle of the national park where a hundred teenagers are camping for a week, is that it?' I asked, unimpressed by his attempts to stop the Team Magma agents. It probably wasn't my place to comment, since I'd been defeated by them easily, but this ranger was an experienced pokémon trainer, and I had only been a low-level vulpix with no battle experience. Surely he could have stopped them if he'd tried harder. But maybe I was just angry about losing that battle, and needed someone to take it out on.
'They won't stay here,' said the ranger. 'Not now that they know the rangers here are all pokémon trainers. But I must warn you, don't tell any of the other students. I don't want anyone getting upset.'
'What, so you'd rather they get shocked into fear and helplessness when they do see the Team Magma agents?' I asked. 'Of course we have to tell them. They've gotta know the precautions.'
'Excuse me, young lady,' the ranger raised his voice, folding his arms across his chest. 'You're not the one in charge here. And you're lucky I'm even letting you stay here after you ran off into danger like that. You were given the precautions and you chose not to follow them. You're lucky I don't have you sent home.'
I ground my teeth and clenched my hands into fists, but forced myself not to give into the temptation to talk back at him. He was right - I wasn't the one in charge. And he could have me sent home if he wanted. The last thing I needed was for my parents to find out what had happened. Knowing my parents, I'd never be allowed out of the house again.
'Whatever,' I muttered.
The ranger turned to the others. 'You girls understand? I don't want any of the other students getting upset, so don't tell anyone.'
My friends nodded, and I shook my head with a sigh. They had to learn not to be so obedient.
The following night, the year nine students of Spectrum High School were sitting around a massive campfire. After a day of orienteering, archery and bush walks, we had settled down for what the camp instructors had labelled "nighttime activities". However, this particular night's events involved no action whatsoever - all we were doing was sitting around listening to the instructors tell stories. None of them were particularly interesting stories either; they were all about the history of the national park, the kind of stuff they expected us to be interested in but which no teenager really cared about. Many of the students had brought along sleeping bags, pillows or stuffed toys, and as a result, were nearly falling asleep.
' . . . you see, the native Arutonians were always great story-tellers,' the camp instructor was saying when I decided to tune in to see if the stories were getting any more interesting.
'I can see he's not a descendant of the native Arutonians, then,' I muttered, and Amanda laughed.
I moaned as the instructor continued to drone on. More than anything I just wanted to get out of here. Get some sleep, maybe. I was still tired after staying up so late last night, not to mention after the events that had occurred. I sighed and rested my elbows against my knees, my chin against my hands, and stared into the campfire ahead of me. Despite how exhausted and bored I was, there was something comforting, perhaps even rejuvenating, about the curls of the flames, the crackling of the wood as it burned.
'Not many people are familiar with native Arutonian myths, and it's a shame, because they're all such great stories,' the instructor continued. 'Now of course, back in the days of the natives, there was none of this technology and science that we've come to rely on so much today. So in order to explain the way the world worked, they told stories which held theories about how things came to be. Most of these stories involved pokémon, since even though the conveniences of pokéballs and Pokémon Centres weren't around then, pokémon and humans still shared a strong bond with one another.'
I almost laughed. As if he knew the first thing about humans and pokémon having a strong bond. I'd heard trainers and pet owners constantly go on about how close they were with their pokémon, but I'd never owned a pokémon in my life, and I was confident that I knew a whole lot more about bonding with pokémon than they did. Had they ever had a chance to talk to pokémon, to really know what they feel and what they believe? No. Had they ever experienced a battle first-hand, been right there in the centre of the action, felt the impact of a pokémon's attack head-on? No. Of course they hadn't. I was the only one who could really empathise with pokémon.
'Now one of my favourite native Arutonian stories is the story of how pokémon themselves came into existence, so that's the one I'm going to tell to you tonight. You see, the natives were very close to nature, and since they knew nothing about the prominent religions in the rest of the world, they treated nature itself like a sort of god. In particular, they worshipped the sun and the moon. Tomorrow we'll be taking a look at some native cave paintings right here in the national park, and we'll see there some depictions of how the Arutonians saw the sun and the moon. Both of them are personified into living beings . . . of course, the paintings are very abstract and are also quite faded, but both the sun and the moon appear as big creatures with long necks and large wings. Now, that's just setting the scene for you. The story of the creation of pokémon goes like this.'
I moaned. I couldn't believe he expected us to sit there and listen to some primitive story told by people who clearly had no idea what they were on about. So what if they worshipped the sun and the moon? These days we knew enough about the world to know that those two celestial bodies were far from being deities. Why did we need to bother hearing about ancient myths, when we knew that they weren't true? It was just a waste of time.
'Sun and Moon had been rivals since the beginning of the time. Sun brought light and warmth to the earth, while Moon brought darkness and coldness. The two were constantly arguing over which of their gifts to the earth were more important, and sometimes these arguments turned into fights. When Sun's anger got out of control, so would the heat that she brought, and this would start fires on the earth which would cause destruction. And when Moon's anger got out of control, so would his coldness, and this would cause the tides to shift and flood the earth, which also caused destruction. So the world was constantly shifting between fire and flood, and eventually the humans couldn't stand it anymore, so they pleaded with their gods to stop fighting.
'However, Sun and Moon couldn't come to an agreement, so they decided that they would divide each day between the two of them. Now of course, the native Arutonians knew nothing about the earth being round and there being different time zones across the world, so to them, this explained why day and night existed. Day was when Sun was having her turn controlling the earth, and night was when Moon was having his turn controlling the earth.
'Now, the harmony between Sun and Moon didn't last for long. Moon started to realise that humans slept when it was his turn to control the earth, and were only active when it was Sun's turn to control. This made Moon very angry, because he didn't feel that humans valued his gifts to the earth as much as they valued Sun's. So he decided that he would create his own creatures to inhabit the night and sleep during the day. At least, that's what he said he was going to do, but deep down he wanted to create creatures more powerful than humans so that his creatures would overthrow humans and night would rule over day.
'So Moon got to work creating his creatures, and in order to make them more powerful than humans, he gave them special powers, and the ability to grow into more powerful versions of themselves as they became stronger. He considered this his most ingenious idea, because when he placed the creatures on the earth, they appeared to be weak and innocent and easily controlled by humans, but eventually they would grow bigger and stronger and be able to overpower humans. These creatures, as you probably guessed, were pokémon. Since Moon's coldness controlled the tides of the ocean, he knew that his best way to conquer Sun would be to make himself many allies which could use the ocean as a source of power, which is why there are more water-type pokémon than any other type.
'So, originally, all pokémon were nocturnal, that is, they slept during the day and were active during the night. Sun and Moon were in harmony once more, because Sun got to rule over humans during the day and Moon got to rule over pokémon during the night. For a long time, humans and pokémon never knew that the other existed, because day and night never crossed over, they were like two separate worlds.
'However, eventually some of the pokémon found themselves unsuited to the night, and decided to see what would happen if they stayed awake when day came. So they did, and they were shocked when they discovered humans. The humans, too, were shocked to see pokémon, so the two species stayed away from each other. Eventually, though, many more pokémon decided to see what day was like, and Moon began to realise that he was losing many of his allies. He became furious, so he ordered the pokémon who were still loyal to him to attack those who had converted to Sun.
'Now, the Moon pokémon began to attack, but they soon discovered that Sun's pokémon were much more powerful than themselves. Moon was shocked, and didn't understand how the traitor Sun pokémon could defeat the Moon pokémon who were loyal to their creator. Then Sun showed Moon what was different about the Sun pokémon. It turned out that the Sun pokémon had become curious about humans, and humans had become curious about the Sun pokémon, so the two tried to communicate with each other, and although they couldn't understand each other's words, they realised that the powers of pokémon could only ever truly be realised with the help of humans to train them. So the Sun pokémon had joined forces with humans, and that was why they were able to defeat the Moon pokémon.
'Of course, Moon was furious when he realised this, and refused to believe that humans and pokémon were meant to be partners. He vowed that one day he would defeat Sun once and for all, and the Moon pokémon would destroy both the Sun pokémon and the humans. Of course, that day never came, but it makes for an interesting story nonetheless.'
The next morning we'd been forced to get up bright and early and put on our long pants and covered shoes for another bushwalk. The camp instructor who'd told us that stupid story about the sun and the moon was leading us on an expedition to the cave where we were to find some native Arutonian cave paintings. Obviously, none of the students were too thrilled about this, but we went along anyway - it wasn't as if we had any choice in the matter.
We'd been split up into groups of twenty which were to take turns going on the trek. The other groups were doing other activities like canoeing or rock-climbing, which we would also do in turn. I was in the first group to set out on the bushwalk, and I soon realised that the teachers were trying to make us socialise with students we didn't normally talk to, because while Kimi was in my group, Amanda and Natasha weren't. I had to be somewhat grateful, though, because at least I had one of my good friends with me, even if she would probably spend the whole walk worrying about wurmples and caterpies.
After an hour's walk, we practically collapsed inside a small opening in the rocks. After the camp instructor gave us a lecture on how unfit we all were, he pointed our attention to some markings on the wall. So these were the famous cave paintings we'd all been oh-so-eagerly waiting for.
'If you look here, these are the native Arutonians' depictions of the sun and the moon,' he told us, pointing to some barely visible patterns. 'If you remember from the story I told you last night, the natives worshipped the sun and the moon, and so they were given beast-like forms to truly bring them to life.'
I looked over at the pictures he was referring to. The lines were very faint, so much that I probably wouldn't have noticed them if he hadn't pointed them out. I squinted and tried to make sense of the lines. They didn't really look much like beasts to me, just a few curves over the rocks that vaguely may have made some kind of shape. I could see how they were supposed to be the sun and the moon, though - one of the "beasts" had an iconic sun on it, and the other had a crescent moon on it. Apart from that, though, I didn't really see how they fit into that legend that'd been droned at us the night before.
'And over here is a representation of Sun and Moon's control over the earth,' said the instructor, pointing to another picture on the wall. I raised an eyebrow. This one was simply a circle with the stop half coloured yellow and the bottom half coloured white, with another sun on the yellow half and moon on the white half. 'This is the world divided in half, with Sun controlling one half and Moon controlling the other.'
'Looks kind of like a pokéball,' one boy commented, and his friends laughed. He looked at them defensively. 'It does! See how one half is one colour and the other half is a different colour.'
'So what?' one of his friends said. 'May as well say it looks like a voltorb or an electrode.'
The boy sighed. 'Fine. I was just making a comment.'
'Of course, pokéballs weren't around back then,' said the instructor. 'The native Arutonians had no way of keeping pokémon under control like we do. As you can imagine, training pokémon back then would have been very difficult.'
'Hang on,' I said, eyeing the cave painting and then turning to the instructor. 'Last night you said the natives had no idea about different time zones and all that. So how would they even know the earth was round?'
The instructor laughed, looking back at the painting. 'When I said it represented the world, I didn't mean that it was supposed to be an actual picture of the world. These paintings are very abstract. The circle doesn't represent the world physically so much as the world through time. The top half represents day, when Sun had control over the world, and the bottom represents night, when Moon had control over the world.'
'That's stupid,' I said. 'It looks more like it's representing how while it's day in half the world, it's night in the other half.'
'Well, if you want to read it like that, then feel free to,' said the instructor. 'The thing that's so great about myths is that they can explain a lot of things that they weren't even meant to explain. You can apply them to more than just one situation. I know a lot of people think that myths are just a waste of time, but just keep in mind that behind every myth, there's always a little bit of truth.'
