Author Note: Howdy, everyone! I hope everyone's enjoying the story so far! In this chapter, toxeons and uraneons are introduced, the custom poison and steel-type eeveelutions, respectively. Toxeons were created by FuriousDedenne, and uraneons were created by my friend, Chris.
The two of us followed after Mewtwo carefully, taking in the beautiful scenery around us. The trees were extremely thick, their canopy allowing only a tiny amount of the evening's sunlight through. It was beginning to get dark, but luckily we were all psychics, and able to see our paths without normal eyesight.
We moved in silence, the crunching of twigs and leaves underneath our feet the only sound, for what must have been a good ten minutes before the dense trees began to loosen. We found ourselves standing in the treeline, staring out at a clearing with all sorts of quadruped pokémon, many of whom I did not recognize. I could make out flareon, umbreon, espeon, jolteon, and all manner of normal pokémon that would evolve from an eevee, but there were several foreign pokémon.
They were all going about their business, some were sleeping around a central fire, others were sparring, and others still were tending to a field of berries. To our left was a series of dens and the ground was covered in thick grass and flowers.
I was about to say something, when I spotted an espeon's tail twitch and its head whipped around to stare in our direction.
A sigh sounded off in my head. "Of course, I should've known better than to think that we could make a subtle entrance," Mewtwo said as he stepped forward into the clearing. I glanced at Star and shrugged and followed him, the two of us standing on either side.
Eeveelutions of all kinds stared at us as we made our presence known, and we could hear them murmuring amongst themselves. I could sense their caution and heard their whispers of outsiders.
"Should we-"
"Don't do anything," Mewtwo interrupted, not looking at me. "We will wait until their council arrives. Don't approach them." I nodded and stayed silent, watching them watch us.
After a few moments, a pokémon emerged from the crowd, padding towards us. This pokémon was, in my opinion, very pretty in a somewhat dangerous way. Its fur was white as snow, with flecks of purple standing out from the base of its neck to its tail. Its tail was long and thin, but seemingly well-muscled, with a green spike protruding from the tip. Its ears were also quite long, and the insides of the ears and its nose being a dark purple. Around its neck was a sort of purple fog that shifted with it as it approached us, and I noticed the other eevee evolutions keeping their distance. As it came closer, I noticed it was studying us with an almost angry glint in its dark red eyes.
She came to a stop in front of us and sat on her haunches, looking Star and I up and down before turning to Mewtwo. "Well, if it isn't Mewtwo, the fake legendary," she said in a distinctly female voice. I was surprised by the amount of venom in her tone.
Mewtwo's eye twitched, but his telepathic voice remained level. "How wonderful to see you again, Pique. Of course they would send you to come and collect us."
"Actually, I volunteered." Her maw broke out into a smirk.
"Indeed." Mewtwo crossed his arms. "We would like to speak to the Forest Clan's council."
Pique glanced at the two of us again. "I'm sure you would. And who would these two be?"
I could sense agitation rolling off of Mewtwo, and I noticed more than a few nearby espeon in the crowd with worried expressions. "All will be revealed when I speak to the council."
Pique stared at me and licked her chops. "Well, you can never be too careful." At her words, the wispy purple fog around her neck flew towards Star and I, covering our faces.
I didn't even have time to yell out before darkness clouded my vision and I felt myself collapse to the ground.
The first thing I noticed as I began to regain consciousness was that everything hurt. My body and joints ached, my head was pounding, and my throat felt like I hadn't had any water in weeks. I struggled to open my eyes, but even that was a huge strain. I could hear muffled voices, but couldn't make out any individual words.
"What…" I managed to get out. My vision slowly began to clear, and I saw that I was sitting in a snug cage made of some sort of bamboo, or something similar.
"Oh, look, he's waking up," I heard a nearby voice say. I struggled to look beyond the bars to see a group of around fourteen or so quadrupedal pokémon, some familiar and some not. I noticed that the one who had spoken up was Pique, the one who had knocked me out in the first place. We were in a dark cave with a central fire blazing strongly.
Standing near my cage, facing them, was Mewtwo. A couple feet away from him was another cage similar to mine which housed Star. She was still knocked out cold.
"I would again like to emphasize," Mewtwo said to the crowd calmly, "that rendering my companions unconscious was completely unnecessary. We are here in peace."
Pique glared at Mewtwo, then turned back to the crowd. "And again, I am not going to apologize. The moment this group touched down on our shores, the espeon could sense creatures of great power were nearby." I noticed that there was a lone espeon in the group who nodded. "I felt that it was my duty to subdue the threat until we knew what was going on." One of her ears flicked with annoyance. "Besides, it could've been worse. I very easily could have killed them-"
"Alright, that is enough, thank you." A new pokémon stepped forward, the fire illuminating her. This, too, was a pokémon I had never seen before.
Her torso, tail, and one of her legs were either covered or were made of what appeared to be solid grey metal plating. In the center of her sternum was what appeared to be some sort of small window that emitted a glowing yellow-green light. The rest of her body that wasn't covered in metal was covered in a thick metallic blue coat of fur. Her dark eyes shifted from Pique to Mewtwo.
"On behalf of the Forest Clan, I apologize for the attack against your friends." Her voice was level and had a note of sincerity to it.
I could sense Mewtwo's agitation falling away. "I understand, Silver," he replied, ignoring Pique, who was fuming with anger. "I realize that some other members of your council are… rather difficult."
Silver grinned as Pique, who was giving off rage in waves, stepped away from Mewtwo and into the group, settling beside a flareon and umbreon.
"Why don't you tell us why you've come, and who these two pokémon you've brought with you are."
Mewtwo calmly explained the situation with the darkness, the fact that I was a part of some prophecy, our plan to gather the other legendary pokémon, and finally ended with requesting that Star be left here for safekeeping.
At that, the group of pokémon began murmuring amongst themselves. After a few moments of unintelligible noise, steam erupted from between the metal plates in Silver's torso and everyone immediately clammed up.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "Mewtwo, you've given us much to discuss. We've never had an outsider stay with us for any lengthy period of time. However, we have no reason not to trust you and I believe you when you speak of the gravity of the situation."
"Now, hold on!" A vaporeon stepped forward, stopping beside Silver, next to the fire. "You can't really be considering this, can you, Silver? Like you said, we've never had any outsiders stay with us before, and for good reason! Only legendary pokémon are supposed to even know that our island exists!"
Silver turned to the vaporeon. "Valid point, Tsunami. And I'm sure there are a few more council members who would agree with you," at that, I saw a few nodding heads. Silver turned back to Mewtwo. "Which is why the council and I are going to discuss this amongst ourselves for a moment before coming to a final decision. Mewtwo, feel free to stay in the usual spot with your friends while we discuss this for the night. I'll come and talk to you in the morning."
Mewtwo nodded and thanked her. He turned to me and nodded, and I pushed with my psychic abilities, breaking the door to my cage open. Mewtwo did the same for Star and he lifted her up, placing her in his arms and I followed him out of the cave.
After leaving behind the claustrophobic cavern, I was surprised to see that it was very much nighttime, the moon high in the sky.
"How long was I out?"
Mewtwo shrugged. "About an hour or two." He turned towards a strange temple that was a short distance away. "Walk with me, I'm sure you have questions."
"I do, yeah. First off, why were there so many pokémon that I've never seen before?"
"Eevee are an extremely unique pokémon with the ability to adapt their DNA to any situation. As such, there are many types of pokémon that evolve from eevee that humans have not been able to unlock or encounter just yet. For example, Pique is a toxeon, a poison-type evolution. Silver is a uraneon, the steel-type. In order to achieve either evolution, an eevee has to undergo extreme circumstances. So they're not all that common, and are mostly found here, on Eevee Isle."
"I see…." We had passed into the treeline, and I noticed a distinct lack of other life. I guessed it was too late, everyone was probably sleeping. "What's the deal with their council, were they all members? Seems like a huge council, if you ask me."
"It probably would, to you. With most pokémon clans, if they even have a council, there are only a few members. Here, every evolution of eevee is given a voice. Silver, however, is the overall leader. She'll have plenty of difficulty convincing her council to let Star stay, I'm sure. But I've seen her do more difficult things."
I looked at the temple as we approached it. "What is this place? It looks almost like it was made by humans."
He shook his head. "This was actually created by Lugia. Oddly enough, Lugia is the one that created this whole island and is their main protector. Every year, Lugia returns for a sort of festival, and everyone celebrates. This is where he stays, but whenever another legendary visits, we'll stay here as well."
We walked up a short flight of stairs and came face-to-face with a huge set of doors. They must have been large enough for a pokémon like Lugia to fit through comfortable, I guessed. The doors had strange symbols the I didn't recognize.
Mewtwo tilted his head towards the doors, and they rumbled tremendously as they slid slightly apart, leaving an opening big enough for us to slip through.
"We'll stay here for the night. I think we could all use the rest."
I nodded and the doors slid shut behind us, leaving us in darkness.