Diverging Chapter 14: Lonesome Wanderer Lucario
Location: Route 222
Date: ?
Time: Early Afternoon
"Wanderer…Lucario?" Grovyle repeated the nickname and species name of his savior.
Wanderer Lucario simply did what his nickname suggested and wandered about Sinnoh, ever since the day he left the Lucario Clan after realizing the lengths they'll go for the sake of "survival". His life had little purpose outside of coming across the occasional Pokémon Trainer that saw him as a rare Pokémon made even further rare by his highly exotic color scheme not necessarily akin to a Shiny Pokémon, but certainly dissimilar to an ordinary blue fur coat. But those kind of people offered next to no challenge, especially when he fled.
And now, Wanderer Lucario finds himself in the uncanny position of having saved a Pokémon's life. A Grovyle that looked about as foreign to Sinnoh as he himself to this seaside route. And after handing the Wood Gecko Pokémon his dropped belongings, he simply saw no other purpose of being here.
"I must be on my way." Wanderer Lucario turned his back on Grovyle. "Farewell."
"Wait, where are you going!"
Wanderer stopped after a couple steps forward and sighed discreetly. He turned back around, sensing an inadvertent bond having formed between him and Grovyle. And Grovyle, clearly thankful for his actions, seems to want to strengthen it.
"You just saved my life from that Purugly earlier."
"That wasn't anything particularly special." Wanderer said indifferently, his lack of social skills making his telepathic voice seem more deadpan or uncaring than he intended for. "I caught her by surprise and she wisely saw no point to injure herself further against an adversary that both resists and is strong against her typing. She would've done the same to you if you exploited her weaknesses."
"But I didn't, and I don't think I was in a position to had you not come along."
"Well, just be more careful next time." Wanderer Lucario said, before making the gesture to turn around again. "Anyway, I must get–"
"Why are you so keen on leaving?" Grovyle couldn't help but wonder.
This time, Wanderer Lucario about-faced halfway before turning back to Grovyle, sensing that the Wood Gecko is catching on at his apparently obvious sense of intentional isolation.
"You look lonely, like you don't have a friend in this world." Grovyle sensed this from Wanderer's body language and tone of voice, not through any greater means that Wanderer Lucario obviously possessed.
"…" Wanderer Lucario couldn't help but put a paw over his forehead in mild shame, pondering to himself if he's become this transparent over time.
"Have you been througha traumatic experience lately?" Grovyle strongly believed, based on this Pokémon's apparent lack of company and world-weary demeanor. "You look as though you could use a friend."
"…If you wish to accompany me, that's fine." Wanderer Lucario sensed this desire from Grovyle, and jumped to the point before the Wood Gecko Pokémon made any more accurate assumptions. "But, I won't hold your hand or wipe the dirt off of your ass if you stumble in my presence."
Instead of offending Grovyle, it only made him smile.
"Funny. I was about to say the same thing about you."
This partially stunned Wanderer, long enough for Grovyle to begin walk a bit ahead of him. The way that Grovyle said that suggested that he wasn't a lazy Pokémon that would leech off of the work of others, but a competent Pokémon that hopes others can pull their weight as evenly as he can.
"Well, at least I have some company for my present travels."
As it turns out, Grovyle lucked out with meeting Wanderer Lucario by chance. The Wood Gecko Pokémon quickly learned that Wanderer Lucario was just as familiar with Sinnoh as he was with Hoenn. Just about any question Grovyle had about Sinnoh, Wanderer answered with surprising accuracy. In fact, Grovyle had long since run out of questions to ask, even by going over the maps and reference material he was given during the cruise ship he took to get here and had stored within his backpack.
Wanderer Lucario didn't see Grovyle as an annoyance either. Despite initially wishing to leave him after saving him from voracious Purugly, it was only because he still bared the scars of what happened during the first few years or so of his life. He never really cared much for company before Grovyle because said company always looked out for survival and how they can claw their way through another day in an arctic wasteland, rather than how they can support each other through friendship and teamwork.
…That being said, both Pokémon had different destinations to head to, and they made that clear when they sat around a campfire in the middle of a clear night.
"Why Mt. Coronet?" Grovyle wondered, looking through the flickering flames to see the arctic Aura Pokémon through them as he was seated directly before him and facing him.
"It's not just because it feels close to home, with the weather there being more or less what I've grown accustomed to after being born into it." Wanderer explained, staring at the campfire albeit keeping a farther distance to it in comparison to Grovyle, for typing reasons. "It's because I really don't have much else in my life at the moment."
"You met me though." Grovyle reminded him, as he was holding out a Cornn Berry he had in his possession over the fire through a stick.
"Yes, I did. But that was through chance." Wanderer stated. "If I had been a second late, you wouldn't be here trying to make popped Cornn Berry alongside me."
Grovyle held the particular Berry higher up from the flame, in order to avoid it from catching fire. "What exactly do you plan on doing there?"
"Considering the harsh environment, as well as all of the resilient Pokémon there that call Mt. Coronet their home, I might as well join them and live alongside them." Wanderer explained. "Living with my kind wasn't exactly pleasurable to begin with, especially with the genocide they committed that I just couldn't stomach watching for a second longer."
"Oh yeah…that…" Grovyle sombered at the recollection of what Wanderer told him earlier about the Absol Clan and the Lucario Clan of Snowpoint Mountains. "Do you suppose one Absol escaped them?"
"If the one that I bumped into is intelligent, then it's likely he escaped the area altogether as the last of his respective clan." Wanderer recalled that particular Absol, and how he immediately assumed that the arctic-furred Lucario was of the Lucario Clan, only to not immediately believe that he was never one of them to begin with before leaving the area altogether. "If not, he probably returned to avenge his friends and family. Whether he succeeded or not is beyond my understanding. My best guess is that he tried and failed with his life gambled away."
"Or he could've succeeded in making their sins catch fire." Grovyle said, noticing his Cornn Berry was swelling "For all that we know, that Absol is highly skilled and survived for a reason. Perhaps he became a one-Pokémon army and annihilated them all, right in their stronghold."
"Perhaps. Perhaps not." Wanderer Lucario hollowly accepted that slim possibility.
Grovyle's Cornn Berry spontaneously popped and began to fire off kernels all over the place. And without a bowl to put them in, much less a means to properly catch them, Grovyle cursed under his breath that he didn't think things carefully enough and would see his midnight snack go to waste. However, Wanderer's eyes glowed with psychic energy and he held out one of his paws to telekinetically grasp each and every single kernel. He clumped them into a ball that he positioned close to Grovyle, allowing the Wood Gecko to grab one of the bowls he had within his backpack and catch the popped Cornn Berry kernels once Wanderer stopped using TELEKINESIS.
"Based on your abilities, I seriously doubt you're just going to live out the rest of your life in Mt. Coronet without doing much else." Grovyle assumed before grabbing a wad of popped Cornn in his claws and stuffing them in his mouth, appreciating the taste akin to that of caramelized corn.
"No, I don't plan to. It wouldn't suit a Pokémon that are known to constantly strengthen themselves to the best of their abilities." Wanderer mentioned, knowing enough of his race through the disgraceful Lucario Clan to make such an assumption.
"So what's your plan?" Grovyle spoke with a full mouth, inadvertently spitting out half-chewed kernels straight into the campfire, then he swallowed and grabbed another handful. "Meditation? Reflection of yourself? Hopes and dreams? A loving mate to raise children with?"
"Yes. Yes. Yes. And who knows." Wanderer Lucario answered those questions in their mentioned order. "For now, I should focus on myself and my purpose in life before focusing on others."
"Sounds a bit selfish." Grovyle initially believed, his mouth openly crunching about a dozen kernels before they disappeared down his throat.
"Well, we're both clearly young and have dozens of years ahead of us if we don't get ourselves killed." Wanderer clarified, looking on the bright side while simultaneously having a desensitized perspective on the darkest aspects of life. "And if I'm to find myself being of use to anybody, I must strengthen myself in mind and matter."
"Well, I hope for the best for you." Grovyle said, having finished his snack sooner than he would've liked before returning the bowl back into his backpack, not really needing to clean. Then, he set himself on his side with his back to the campfire. "Sleep tight. We'll need our energy for the next few days of our travels."
"Thanks. Same for you, Grovyle." Wanderer managed to say before noticing his friend began to snore.
Instead of falling asleep shortly after Grovyle, Wanderer Lucario looked up to the night sky and spent almost an hour contemplating possibilities of his life after entering Mt. Coronet.
Would he stay there for the rest of his life? How would his mediation and training regimen work out there? Would he make any new friends with the locals there? Would they accept him as one of their own? Would he help them? Will he end up falling in love with one of them and settling down? Or would they care only about themselves and be no different than the Pokémon of Snowpoint Mountains?
"Tomorrow is another day." Wanderer Lucario whispered to himself before lying on his back with his left side by the campfire, but not before telekinetically tossing a few sticks into the campfire to keep it alight long enough for him to comfortably drift off into sleep.
The next few days were days where both Pokémon were open books to one another. Grovyle explained to Wanderer Lucario about his origins in Hoenn's Petalburg Forest and how he was a Pokémon that always sought adventure, even when his residents appeared to be against it. He was born independent, not necessarily an orphan because he never knew (or cared) about his parents. He said that, one day, he just packed up his things, carried alongside him some provisions, and left without anyone really caring. And from there, he travelled all across Hoenn, experiencing many new sights and dangers, evolving in the process.
When the day came that Grovyle wished to leave Hoenn and travel elsewhere, he came here by dumb luck. And what he learned from the cruise ship that took at least a few months to travel from Hoenn to Sinnoh is information that he'll treasure for the rest of his life. He met a human child with long, green hair that loves Pokémon more than he loves himself. And through his Pokémon that he doesn't house in Poké Balls, he learned how to read, how to fight better in terms of swordplay, and various essential survivor skills, which Grovyle taught Wanderer some of them.
Wanderer Lucario already explained his past to Grovyle, but he made sure that Grovyle didn't have any lingering questions. That being said, Wanderer still had some lingering questions himself, questions that don't really need answering because he's done with that portion of his life. He's never returning to the Lucario Clan, whether or not they're still around or not. He's unsure if he'll return to the Snowpoint Mountains, because Mt. Coronet is an area that offers far more than rock, snow, and dizzying heights. And whether or not that Absol survived and is living out his life properly or not is beyond his understanding.
Wanderer doesn't know that much about him anyway.
The day eventually came where Grovyle and Wanderer Lucario reached the base of Mt. Coronet. And as both Pokémon stared the mountain directly before them, they both knew that this was the day where their paths would split.
Naturally, they delayed the inevitable for just a bit longer.
"The brochures regarding Mt. Coronet make it look so small." Grovyle said, comparing the mountain before him with the mountain pictured in his tourist pamphlets. "And yet, I've never seen a mountain this enormous before."
"Are there any like it in Hoenn?" Wanderer Lucario wondered.
"Only Mt. Chimney, but it's technically a volcano." Grovyle said before putting the foldable paper into his backpack. "This mountain however…I can't see it end across the horizons, or even looking up at the sky."
Wanderer could, but only through the use of what his species commonly label as "Aura Vision", which is basically a glorified version of FORESIGHT that the Riolu and Lucario race have learned to make their own and implement it with remarkable skill.
"The clouds block off most of the apex, and other mountains neighboring Mt. Coronet make it appear as though its stretching right across Sinnoh." Grovyle continued explaining what is clearly mesmerizing him. "Of course, those other mountains actually are stretching across Sinnoh. This is the Mt. Coronet Mountain Range after all."
"There are rumors that the apex of Mt. Coronet houses an area that is the direct link to the Legendary Deities of Sinnoh." Wanderer Lucario began to explain. "Dialga, Giratina, Palkia…and the Pokémon that created them alongside Sinnoh and the rest of the Pokémon world."
"One Pokémon did all of that?" Grovyle inquired in astonishment. "Back in Hoenn, legends state that Groudon and Kyogre formed the land and the seas, and Rayquaza quelled them both when they caught each other to no end."
"Perhaps they worked alongside each other, or perhaps they didn't." Wanderer theorized. "I wouldn't know. The machinations of the Legendary Pokémon are an enigma."
"Kind of makes you wonder how humans came to rule this world." Grovyle wondered, knowing the power they have over Pokémon.
"…'Rule'?" Wanderer said with uncertainty.
"Well, maybe 'rule' is too strong a word." Grovyle dialed himself down. "More like 'harmonized' and 'innovated' and 'befriended'. After all, the Pokémon that I've seen alongside human Pokémon Trainers appear quite happy with them. So clearly they're being well cared for."
"And that lifestyle doesn't suit you?" Wanderer wondered.
"Nah. Not really." Grovyle responded nonchalantly. "I just prefer to travel around the world under my power rather than those of others."
"A stalwart sense of independence." Wanderer labeled.
"Exactly." Grovyle confirmed with a smile. "Can't stand laziness, which is why I try not to be."
The small talk ended and the gravity of standing before Mt. Coronet hit both Pokémon simultaneously.
"So this is goodbye then. " Grovyle sobered. "I'd follow you further, but Grass-Type Pokémon don't do well in the cold."
"Goodbye? Yes. Forever? No." Wanderer looked on the bright side. "You know where I live. And even if we don't, I don't see myself leaving Sinnoh anytime soon."
"I don't see myself leaving here anytime soon either." Grovyle believed. "It's only a matter of time until we run into each other again, even if it isn't where we think."
"Until then, goodbye for now."
Both Pokémon, having gotten to know each other well over the last few days, approached each other and gave one quick farewell hug (with Grovyle avoiding his chest spike) before splitting off in two different directions. Grovyle trekked north and Wanderer Lucario hiked up.
The Pokémon of Mt. Coronet were far more reclusive than Wanderer Lucario had hoped. None of them really cared much for him and his presence here, as long as he wasn't a threat to them…or a source of nourishment. They just saw him as they do any other Pokémon, seldom and a survivalist in a harsh environment.
Still, the Pokémon were colder than Mt. Coronet, and both were warmer than the Snowpoint Mountains. Overall, Wanderer Lucario didn't make any new friends, but he also didn't make any new enemies. And the weather in Mt. Coronet was far more tranquil than it was in Snowpoint Mountains, where walking outside in a blizzard would practically flash freeze you if it didn't immediately discombobulate you. Here, it was simply if you escalated high enough. But even then, the thinned oxygen may prove a greater risk to him than the colder weather.
That didn't stop Wanderer Lucario from reaching the summit on countless occasions.
Up here, Wanderer Lucario could see the world of Sinnoh on a clear day. He could easily see the neighboring islands and all four corners of Sinnoh. He couldn't see the life inhabiting those particular areas, even if he magnified his Aura Vision, but he could at least see what that life was doing. For example, Sunnyshore City was quite bright at night, especially the lighthouse that lights the way for any incoming ships.
But when Wanderer Lucario closes his eyes at Mt. Coronet's summit, he looks within himself as he meditates. He reviews his past, how he was born alone in Lake Acuity and loosely taken into the Lucario Clan when he wandered further north and aimlessly. He reviews his present, how long he intends to be here and strengthen himself. And he reviews his future, wondering if he'll see Grovyle again in a later date, or if he'll eventually settle down with a wife and even a few kids.
For the most part, as he mediated, he did so to focus on his psychic powers. He always possessed them and has been able to use them since birth. But with no proper teacher or great enough need to use them, said powers have had little opportunity to grow and properly develop.
The aid he provided Grovyle with those popped Cornn Berries actually took a fair amount of mental concentration in his part. At his present maximum, the best he could do with his psychic powers was to deflect an incoming projectile attack, and only if it was light and energy-based. Actually lifting something heavy and substantial, like himself for starters, would quickly give him a headache and a nosebleed.
So, during his time on Mt. Coronet, he focused almost exclusively on strengthening himself. He honed his abilities with his aura, his physical strength, his stamina, and his psychic power. He meditated constantly, lifted enormous rocks that were all about the mountain area with his bare hands, swam across the frozen water to borderline hypothermia, and attempted to life objects with his mind in incremental levels of difficulty.
At first, his psychic powers would allow him to easily lift up simple stones, or make a snow Pokémon by strategically causing a few balls of snow to roll down a slope. But as the months went by, so did his psychic power. He could grasp water and cause it to move about himself like an amorphous being. He could lift rocks as large as himself and send them flying off the mountain. He could hover around the area for short distances and therefore prolong his hang time, but he couldn't yet make himself outright fly. That still required more dedication and experience.
But the more Wanderer Lucario meditated, the more he began to realize his limits. Or at least the limits he managed to reach all on his own. When that happened a few years into his time in Mt. Coronet, he simply looked at other areas that he could strengthen himself, such as his body and aura.
In doing so however, he came across a startling revelation. A secret that was housed within Mt. Coronet.
One day, as he was using FORCE PALM on the walls and testing how powerful he's gotten by detecting how far his strength resonates across the mountain, the walls gave in. But before he contemplated running, his curiosity took over when he noticed that not only was there a passageway that the wall blocked off, but that he wasn't able to sense it earlier.
"(What is this place?)" He contemplated to himself. "(And what is…aura…that masks with my senses?)"
After getting past the rubble he made, Wanderer took slow and cautious steps through this area. Not because it was different and potentially dangerous, but because it conflicted with what he thought he already knew about Mt. Coronet.
"(This place is near the summit,)" Wanderer continued thinking. "(And yet, despite meditating up there for all of this time, I never detected the presence of this place.)"
The area that Wanderer Lucario found himself proceeding and exploring through is Spear Pillar, based on the ancient pillars that possessed a language he had no knowledge of.
"(Has it been here all of this time and has only made itself apparent to me?)" Wanderer hypothesized. "(Or did it materialize into existence and I just found myself at the right place at the right time?)"
Each and every pillar he noticed possessed letters in an arcane language that confused Wanderer Lucario. But the more he noticed these inscriptions on the pillars that were intact, as well as the equal amount of those that were destroyed over time or by any potential tomb raiders of the past, the more curious he became to these letters.
"(What do these letters represent?)" Wanderer squatted down before a pillar that was on its side, broken down the middle. He put his right paw on one of these letters and traced over it with a single digit, attempting to understand how this character should be written. "(What are they trying to tell me?)"
Within his mind, he was already pondering the newfound possibility of learning something entirely new outside of what he has been spending years within Mt. Coronet doing what other Pokémon have already done. To Wanderer's knowledge, next to no Pokémon–or people for that matter–understand this language. And those that do have likely committed to memory this language's secrets.
"(I don't care if it takes me even longer to learn this language than it does my training here.)" Wanderer Lucario thought with steadfast determination. "(I must understand its secrets, for all that they're worth.)"
The first step in understanding this language, in Wanderer's mind, was to keep track of every single character and write them down for quick reference. For this, Wanderer found a smooth slab of stone that can be carved and/or written on with the spike on the back of his wrist. And after finding his personal Rosetta Stone, he located each of these distinct characters, one by one, and scratched them down onto his stone slab.
In total, he found 28 distinct characters in this ancient language. But sadly for him, that was the easy part. Because, to make greater sense of this language, he had to make greater sense of the one he already knew.
For that, he made one of the seldom trip off of Mt. Coronet altogether, and trekked towards Canalave City's Library in the dead of night. He spent a few weeks there in absolute solitude, only entering the library in the dead of night, and sleeping in Iron Island during the day, thanks in part to a ferry that didn't really seem to mind transporting wild Pokémon from captured ones as long as they were well behaved.
Through these books, Wanderer Lucario learned quickly the basics of what it was that Grovyle learned when he took the cruise ship from Hoenn to Sinnoh. He learned the basics of English, learned how to read and write it at an accelerated rate, and spent a particular amount of time understanding each and every single character in the Roman alphabet, mostly because he already began to draw some similarities to it.
In fact, through these books, he wrote down the English equivalent of this language and compared it to this language that he had already jotted down on his stone. But just because he could now translate an ancient language into a modern one, that didn't mean he knew what the language was.
Another pair of days in Canalave City's library answered this question for him.
The language that is in Spear Pillar is known as the Language of the Unown. And the Unown themselves are a race of ancient Pokémon that many human historians believe to have existed as far back as the creation of the Pokémon world. The language they make with their bodies is the language that humans have adopted and made their own, through relics and hieroglyphics that the bodies of the Unown make when they cement themselves onto the walls, such as in Sinnoh's Solaceon Ruins or in Johto's Ruins of Alph. And although humans adopted this language and its letters from the Unown, backtracking seems to have escaped almost all of humanity's minds.
With this knowledge, Wanderer returned to Mt. Coronet and to Spear Pillar and slowly began to decipher each individual pillar.
Wanderer deciphered each of the intact pillars and spent a considerable amount of time repairing the broken pillars through his psychic powers before translating the Language of the Unown into English from within the confines of his own mind. In doing so, he learned a lot about when the universe was new, and about the septet of Pokémon responsible for its creation, formation, and maintenance. They still exist to this day, obviously. But like the gods that they are, they have withdrawn themselves to mythology and are hardly ever seen by anyone, especially those that wish to seek or draw them out.
So, after a few months of rigorous study in regards to the Language of the Unown, Wanderer Lucario has learned about the history of the Pokémon Universe, back in its inception. From an egg in the middle of nothingness and chaos, Arceus was born. From It, so were the Legendary Deities and the Lake Guardians, responsible for all that is perceived as reality.
But that was information that was readily available from the majority of pillars that were either intact or fixable. There were a few that were broken and apparently beyond repair, based on how small their pieces were scattered about Spear Pillar to the point of resembling pebbles and rubble. Those, Wanderer suspected, hosed the biggest secrets and lore, and he was absolutely determined in understanding them after piecing together these earthbound puzzles.
This was by no means an easy task, as Wanderer Lucario learned the hard way that there were thousands of pieces for each destroyed pillar, and that they didn't exactly belong just to one pillar. Months more were spent, just to guarantee that the broken pieces of a pillar belonged to one pillar instead of another. But because Wanderer Lucario dedicated almost every single waking moment into this laborious task, and used his psychic powers to do so, he succeeded in collecting each and every piece and separating them into each respective pillar.
Now the real challenge began, in regards to piecing them all together, one by one.
Wanderer Lucario prioritized the one pillar that appeared the most damaged beyond repair, because a small portion of its intact base spoke of a prophecy involving a Pokémon that, as Farfetch'd as it sounded, would defy natural Pokémon laws. He made decent progress in piecing it together, but progress was slow and taxing on his patience.
And before he was even a quarter of the way complete, he came to learn something interesting from the neighboring Pokémon of Mt. Coronet.
They spoke of a fight that two Pokémon were preparing themselves for in the near future. The two Pokémon in question were an Absol and a Lucario. The fight would take place in a forest above Kanto's Celadon City. And both Pokémon appeared to possess powers not native to their respective species.
Automatically, this raises more than one red flag for Wanderer.
First, the fact that this fight was taking place between an Absol and a Lucario made him think of the Absol and Lucario clans of Snowpoint Mountains.
"(Had they survived and seek revenge on one another?)" Wanderer thought.
Second, the fact that both of these Pokémon appeared to defy their natural limits and boundaries.
"(Is it possible that either of them are the Pokémon prophesized?)"
And third, the Absol in question.
"(Could it be…the same Absol that I encountered back in Snowpoint Mountains?)"
After weighing his options, Wanderer immediately abandoned his project here on Spear Pillar, blocked off the entrance to it to the point where he first found it by chance, and trekked to Sunnyshore City to board a ferry to Kanto. And in order to avoid attention to himself, he hypnotized a Pokémon Trainer into believing that he was under their possession, until Wanderer reached his destination anyway.
And from this day onward, Wanderer Lucario would serve a purpose that he never expected he would, with friends that he never thought he'd see again.
"There are no secrets to people with the right friends." —Orson Scott Card (212) ("Shadow of the Hegemon")
Well, now that I've uploaded all that I've written of this story, I'm going to start writing more chapters for this story.
And I'll also start writing the Origin story for the Legendary Weather Trio of Kanto.