Disclaimer: All HP characters are the property of JKR, the WB, and respective publishing companies. All portions of the Pokémon universe/worlds/characters are the property of The Pokémon Company, Nintendo, Creatures Inc., and GAME FREAK Inc. This story is nothing more than a simple FanFiction that I have written for my own enjoyment. I have made no money from this or any of the other stories I have posted on this or other sites.
AN: This latest revisions of this story have been self-beta'd; so there may still be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance.
Chapter 29: The Count Down Begins
Sunday Afternoon, August 11, 2013
Ketchum Cottage, Viridian City
Kanto Region
When Ash heard Harry calling for him, he sounded so panicked that Ash immediately feared the worst, as he dropped what he was doing and rushed into Harry's room with a pair of pokéballs in hand as he expected a fight or some other emergency. Instead, he found a pale faced Harry sitting on the floor just under his desk holding an odd crayon in his hand as if he were holding a stick of dynamite with the fuse lit.
"Harry?" Ash inquired, his voice loaded with anxiety as he searched the room for any sign of danger with his eyes.
"I found my crayon."
"Um…"
"It's my missing black crayon, the one I lost when I first got here," Harry whispered in a stricken voice.
"Huh? I don't understand…"
"This crayon… well it was different before, it was small and broken like the others but this can only be the one I found the morning I went through the door."
"Harry, you're not making any sense."
"This is the crayon that I used to draw the door that brought me here, to this world."
"I see…" Ash replied as he sat down on Harry's bed and studied his son closely. "You are worried again."
"It's a year too soon. I don't want to leave early."
"Then we won't; all this means is that you have found the means for us to return to your former world. It doesn't mean we have to leave right now," Ash calmly pointed out in an attempt to sooth Harry's fears. "We still have nearly a full year before we need to worry about leaving. For now, just put the… magic… crayon somewhere safe so we can find it again when it's time to go."
"Thanks, dad," Harry said as he opened the bottom drawer of his desk with a shaking hand and dropped the crayon into the drawer before wearily climbing back to his feet. "I guess it caught me completely off guard to find it now and I might have overreacted a bit."
"Where did you find it?"
"In the purse I brought with me, it must have been wrapped up inside the old pants I'd had in there. It fell out of them when I unrolled them."
"You're not planning on saving those rags, are you?"
"Nah, I don't need or want them. I would have thrown them out years ago if I hadn't forgotten I had them; the purse had been buried in my closet under some of my old clothes and things for years after all. I only found it because I was sorting through what to put in storage and what I want to throw out or take with me."
"Alright, why don't you finish up what you were doing and then we'll make supper together."
"Sounds good, dad," Harry agreed as he dusted off his pants before putting everything but the dirty old rags into the purse, which he then tucked into one of the boxes going to storage. "Hey, dad?" He asked suddenly as Ash reached the door. "Can we go visit the old Hypno before Christmas this year? I'd like to see him one last time before we go…"
"I don't see why not, we can leave as early as next week. I need to see my contacts in Sinnoh anyway, since I need to go over the preparations for the aides to continue our research after we leave."
"Thanks again, dad."
"That's what I'm here for, son."
August 2013 to December 2013
Sinnoh and Kanto Regions
A week and a half later found the group flying out to Sinnoh, with Harry's many Pokémon and Ash's Pikachu decidedly uncomfortable down in the cargo hold; as there'd been no room for any of them to have seats inside the plane. Once they landed in Veilstone, they quickly made their way out onto route one-ten, where they met one of Ash's research aides, who was waiting with one of the few research helicopters Ash had permission to use to give them a lift up to Celestic City. Normally they would have walked the entire way but in light of how little time they had left to get their affairs in order before they had to leave, it was decided they'd travel by the quickest means possible.
Upon landing just outside Celestic City, Harry immediately began organizing their packs while Ash thanked his fellow researcher and headed into town to buy any supplies they would need for the anticipated hike up to the Hypno's cave. Dancer and Trickster were both kitted out with twin packs for this trip. The recently evolved ninetales had grown considerably during his transformation (though he was still only about a quarter of the size of his sibling ninetales) and he was now better equipped to handle carrying a portion of the load; allowing them to carry more food with them. On the hike up to Hypno's Cave, Trickster would be carrying a large number of berries that they would be presenting as a gift to Hypno once they reached his cave.
Dancer, in addition to carrying their food and extra blankets, would be giving a lift to Splash, Dave, the six remaining eevee, and the trapinch. Jester would make the trip on his own four feet carrying a smaller twin basket pack designed to get him accustomed to the concept of carrying supplies. The fire fox-cat would be carrying some of the small volcanic rocks and pebbles that Harry had brought as a gift for the Hypno, since the excitable flareon had a tendency to roll when wearing the pack.
They started up the trail an hour later with Ash in the lead carrying Pikachu on his shoulder followed by Jester, Trickster, and Dancer, leaving Harry to bring up the rear as he gathered wild berries, grass, grass seeds, and bits of dried wood along the way. That night they set up camp well after dark on one of the small grass meadows that dotted the mountain side. By the light of the fire, Harry wrapped up the grass seeds he'd gathered, striped the seeds from the berries to dry them, and began weaving the thicker grasses into five-foot sections of rope to make them easier to carry. In the morning, the grass ropes were draped over Dancer's back on top of the packs and the packets of seeds were tucked into the side pouch of Harry's backpack.
It only took them four days to reach the top this time, their familiarity with the trails they needed to take and the fact that Harry and his Pokémon were far stronger now allowing them to make fewer stops along the way, where they were greeted by Hypno. The ancient Pokémon welcomed them into his home and informed them that they had been expected. He then introduced both humans to a younger hypno named Dreamer, whom they were told was the ancient Pokémon's apprentice. The numerous gifts of berries, grasses, and rare rocks were accepted with much appreciation by both psychic Pokémon.
Father and son ended up spending two months with Hypno and Dreamer. Harry spent that time as an apprentice of sorts to the ancient Hypno as he was taught how to identify and harvest various plants, herbs, and minerals that could be used in cooking and for medicines. He was also taught how to prepare and preserve the various materials and the proper way to make the various medicinal potions as well several kinds of Wild Poffins. Using one of his blank sketch books that he always carried with him, Harry wrote down dozens of recipes for various homemade cures and remedies, in addition to a few healing soups, restorative drinks, and the nutritional hard biscuit-like cakes known as poffins.
The elder Hypno also taught Harry how to create small bottles out of rocks and crystals using his magic. It was difficult for Harry to draw his magic out intentionally and direct it at first but he eventually managed to make passable crystal jars and small rock boxes that could be used to store the various ingredients he gathered. Harry left the larger stone boxes (made during his first few successful tries) for Hypno to use, since they were far too heavy and bulky to carry back down the mountain.
The last week of their stay was spent gathering a fair amount of the minerals that couldn't be found outside of Mt. Coronet and collecting seeds from the berries and plants that didn't grow in the lower altitudes. As a final gift, Hypno presented Harry and Ash each with a ten inch long, ten inch wide, and five inch high opaque crystal box that held hundreds of thumbnail-sized gemstones. There were emeralds, rubies, sapphires, diamonds, topazes, garnets, tourmalines, opals, turquoises, aquamarines, and many other gems, each of them cut into identical quarter-inch cubes.
A few quick calculations determined that each box contained exactly four thousand raw gemstones of the finest quality. When Ash attempted to protest, he was told that they would have need of the gems where they were going and all they did was gather dust in the caves. His conscience was further put to rest when Dreamer revealed that there were millions of the naturally grown gemstones hidden throughout the caves and down in the caldera.
The final bit of advice Hypno departed as they said their farewells was to Harry in regards to his magic.
"You have grown during your years in our world and you have found who you wish to be. Do not forget who you are when you leave this world behind, for no matter where you go you will always be who you are. Your magic is a part of who you are and when you learn to accept that, you will find that it will no longer fight you when you try to use it,"Hypno telepathically told the young man. "And remember, the more realistic the door, the easier the journey shall be and naming the door will influence your destination. If you visit the unown, they can teach you what you will need to know in order to navigate to your world without getting lost. May luck and magic guide you on your journey, Fate's Son."
After spending some time discussing Hypno's advice to visit the unown while they set up camp that first night on their way back down the mountain, the two of them decided to head directly to Solaceon Town instead of flying down to Pastoria City as they originally planned. Ash spent the next two days e-mailing various people to announce their change in plans and to make certain they had a ride waiting for them when they reached Celestic City in a couple of days.
Once they reached Solaceon Town, Harry made a beeline for the Daycare Center where he made arrangements for Splash, Dave, the trapinch, and the eevee as well as Pikachu to spend the next day at the Center while Trickster, Dancer, and Jester would be going with Harry to the Ruins. The only reason Pikachu would be spending the day in the Daycare Center instead of hanging out with Ash was because they needed someone to keep a closer eye on the rambunctious eevee kits to keep them out of trouble. Ash, in the mean time, would spend the day contacting his fellow researchers to make adjustments to his schedule so he could still make time to visit each of them to go over last minute details and inspect the research equipment in the various habitats.
Harry showed up at the Ruins bright and early the next morning and was pleasantly surprised to discover that his guide for the day was their friend Calvin. The jovial old hiker happily released his rapidash so Dancer could spend some time with her mother as they traveled down to the deeper caverns and unpopular portions of the ruins where the unown typically hung out. Deep in the lowest level of the ruins, Calvin showed Harry a series of large stone tablets that had images of the unown carved into them and Harry was reminded of how much the unown resembled the letters of the alphabet.
As he stared down at the carvings, a vague memory of a small door that had opened out of the tree floated through Harry's mind followed closely by the memory of the wild unown wishing him happy birthday the first time he visited the Ruins shortly after Hypno had helped him to remember his name. As he mentally compared the two memories, he thought he might have figured out what the unown were supposed to teach him. Using several of the blank pages from the sketch pad turned recipe book, Harry made charcoal rubbings of each stone tablet so he could study them later. As he was working, a crowd of wild unown gathered around him, causing Calvin to become nervous over the large number of unown present while the two of them only had six Pokémon between them for protection. Trickster, Dancer, Jester, and Calvin's rapidash ignored the wild Pokémon though; the four fire Pokémon far more interested in digging through the loose dirt in the far corner of the room.
When Harry finally noticed the Pokémon surrounding him, he gave a small start before greeting them cheerfully as they spelled out a belated birthday wish. Once he thanked them, they scrambled their order and spelled out something else that Harry was quick to jot down in his sketch book; he also took a couple pictures of them as they patiently hovered in front of him, so he could refer to it later in case he miscopied the message. The unown then rearranged themselves one last time for him, which he was also quick to capture on film, before they vanished from sight. Once they were gone, he walked over to the corner where the fire Pokémon had been digging and lifted out one of the small stone boxes that they had unearthed.
Inside the box were hundreds or maybe thousands of thin one-inch stone squares, each one carved with the image of a single unown. Calvin normally would have protested removing the precious artifact with its hidden gold mine of rarely-seen relics, except for the fact that the unown had ordered Harry to take the box (as their final visual order had stated). It helped that there were at least four more identical boxes down in the hole that the Pokémon had dug in the tunnel. One box vanishing without a trace wouldn't detract from the find of the century, after all.
A half hour after they exited the ruins, the entire place was swarming with reporters, researchers, and archeologists eager to view the newly discovered artifacts. Harry discreetly slipped away in the commotion with his box of stone tiles securely hidden inside his daypack. Unknown to Harry was the knowledge that one of the wild unown, which was shaped like an exclamation point, had stowed away in his backpack at the same time. This also happened to be the same unown that Harry had ran his hand over on his sixth birthday; it had been secretly waiting for him to return ever since that long ago day.
That night they made arrangements to catch a flight on one of the research helicopters over to Eterna City in the morning, where Ash would be meeting up with Professor Rowan and Lucas. Before going to bed, Harry reorganized their packs once more to secure the newly acquired box of stone letter tiles. He also wrapped his recipe sketch book up in a plastic bag to protect it from moisture before tucking it in with the box, along with his numerous packets of gathered seeds.
Bright and early the next morning, the large group, plus the undiscovered stowaway, piled into the roomy helicopter, and in just a few hours they were landing at the edge of the Eterna Forest just outside of Eterna City. As they sorted out their luggage, one of the male eevee showed a great deal of interest in the cool darkness of the forest. When Harry asked Ash about it, his dad reminded him that one of the two evolution stones known to effect eevee evolution was located deep within the forest. Ash also told Harry that if he wanted, he was welcome to spend the afternoon exploring the forest in order to take a closer look at the stone if he wished to encourage the eevee that had shown interest to evolve.
After lunch, leaving Ash and Pikachu to keep an eye on the majority of his Pokémon, Harry rode Dancer into the forest while he had Splash wrapped around his waist and held the curious male kit on his lap. He'd been inside the Eterna Forest several times, he and Ash had visited the thriving Pokémon habitat every time they had visited Sinnoh in the past, but this was the first time he'd been virtually alone. He wasn't frightened of the forest but the lack of company did make him feel significantly insignificant as the near silence of the forest pressed in on him from all sides.
To make the trek go faster, he slipped down off Dancer's back after several minutes and began his usual berry, nut, and seed gathering as they trotted off towards the farthest corner of the forest. Harry had long ago noted that the berries and nuts in this forest tended to grow larger as the forest itself was far lusher than many of the other forests and most of the grasslands they traveled through and was curious to know if their seeds would produce the superior fruits even if planted in different environments. As they moved steadily through the forest their small group also passed by many wild bug and bird Pokémon but thankfully the curious and somewhat shy creatures did not attack them.
When they reached their destination, the male eevee jumped down from Dancer's back and climbed on top of the moss covered rock. Not long after he'd sat down, the rock began to glow a soft green as tendrils of green light swirled up around the tiny fox-cat. His transformation was far different then Jesters, in that his fur seemed to collapse in on itself as it faded to a pale cream color, except for four light brown socks that covered his paws. His ears and tail changed shape too, becoming flatter and more leaf like as they slowly turned green in color. Lastly, he nearly tripled in size so that he now stood close to three feet tall at the shoulders and developed a few stray green locks of fur where his neck rough used to be; there was even a long, thick bit of green fur that stuck straight up over his forehead, making it look like he had a Mohawk. And unlike Jester's eyes, which had turned the dark black of obsidian, this male's eyes changed to a warm medium brown.
Thanks to Ash's explanations back after Jester's evolution coupled with a few hours researching the eevee evolutions in Ash's PokéDex, Harry recognized this particular evolution of eevee as leafeon. In tribute to the odd green lock of hair on his head, Harry named him Moe, short for Mohawk. The return trip back to Eterna City took nearly twice as long as the trip to the stone and that was only because Moe was determined to chase each and every bug Pokémon they came across (the boisterous Pokémon now too large for Harry to carry him).
The remaining eevee crowded around the newly named Moe, the smaller fox-cats excited by the changes in their brother. The only one that didn't rush up to the new leafeon was Jester which seemed to suit the new grass type Pokémon just fine as he was instinctively leery of all fire types. Eventually, the two evolved fox-cats recalled that they were litter mates and quickly forgot about their new incompatible classification type as they romped with their much smaller siblings. Trickster happily joined in the fun while Harry sat off to one side watching the group as he periodically as he sketched Moe's new form.
Two days later, they caught the first flight to Snowpoint City, where Ash needed to replace some recording equipment out near Lake Acruity that had been damaged in a recent ice storm. While they on their way out of town, father and son ran into Dawn, an old friend of Ash's that he'd traveled around Sinnoh with when he was younger. Harry had met her several years earlier and had even given the outgoing coordinator a couple sketches he'd drawn of her buneary and piplup. Dawn ended up joining Ash and Harry on their journey out to the lake and Harry couldn't help but laugh when the young woman brought up the bike that Ash and Pikachu had ruined when they'd first met may many years earlier. The funniest part was the fact that Ash had also ruined Misty's bike when he first met her and later May's bike as well.
After spending a week hiking out to the lake through two snow storms and two more days spent repairing and replacing the ruined equipment, Ash led the way south down route two-seventeen after one of the two female eevee kits kept trying to sneak off. The extra two day journey was well worth it when they reached the ice-covered stone that sat in a snow filled clearing off the main road and the three humans witnessed the dainty's eevee's transformation into glaceon.
Her fur, like Moe's, was shorter than Jester's, but pale blue in color. She had darker blue socks on her feet, the tip of her tail, on the diamond-shaped patch on her back, and the inside of her now-diamond-shaped ears. Her neck ruff disappeared completely and instead grew what looked like dark blue ponytails and bangs that framed her face. When she finished evolving she stood slightly taller than Jester but still several inches shorter than Moe and her eyes glittered like frozen chips of blue ice. Her fur was slightly cold to the touch, and when she was frightened or angry it turned stiff, like needles. Her body was very graceful and dainty, her stance more cat-like than fox-like now. Harry named her Frost because of the way her fur now glittered in the sunlight.
They all returned to Snowpoint after that where Ash and Harry parted ways with Dawn, who was on her way home to Twinleaf Town. The Ketchums next two stops were Lake Valor and Lake Verity respectfully. At both locations Ash checked the field equipment for weather damage while Harry collected data from the devices and entered it into the laptop Ash had picked up a few years earlier. After that they jumped from city to city to check in with various researchers and leave instructions on who to contact in the event of equipment failures, data collection, and emergencies.
By the middle of December they were finished, thanks in part to the constant access to the helicopters instead of traveling by foot or boat most of the time like they had in the past. Another long flight back to Kanto had them home in time to do some last minute Christmas shopping before the holidays. On Christmas day, two of the male eevee broke into the box of evolution stones while Harry was downstairs opening presents with Ash. The two troublesome kits then trotted into the room smugly as they ate their respective stones and went through their evolutions right in the house.
The first male's fur changed to bright yellow, with his neck ruff staying a pale cream color, and fluffed out wildly with static electricity. He doubled in size so that he was of a similar height to Jester and his eyes changed to a dark purple, as did the inside of his long ears. Harry nervously backed away from the newly evolved jolteon, old memories of being shocked by Pikachu and an echo of remembered pain flashing through his mind as he took note of the sparks that danced along the electric fox-cat's fur.
The other male's transformation was the most drastic out of all the eevee evolutions. His fur had disappeared altogether while his skin turned a medium blue in color as it thickened and developed tiny round scales all over his body. His ears moved from the top of his head down to the side and changed into fin-like structures that were edged in dark blue on the top while the inner ears became thin membranes of ivory colored skin that were divided into three sections each. He also grew a third fin on the top of his head that looked very similar to his ear fins while his neck ruff turned into a forth fin that encircled his neck.
Starting just below the neck-ruff-turned-fin was a stiff ridge that ran down the length of his spine where it ended at the base of his new fish tail, where it split into two sections; much like a whale or dolphin's tale. Like Moe, the newly evolved vaporeon stood just shy of three feet tall at the shoulder, and like Frost, his eyes turned blue though his were much deeper and darker shade of blue than the ice fox-cat's eyes.
After spending several minutes getting comfortable with the electric fox-cat's form, Harry named the new jolteon Spark before naming the vaporeon Riptide, their names slightly reflective of the trouble they caused by their unexpected transformations. That left only two remaining eevee unchanged, one male and one female, that seemed awfully and suspiciously content to remain in eevee form. Harry wondered if that was because they were content to remain in their pre-evolutionary stage, if they were waiting for some special sign, or if they hadn't yet figured out which of the possible evolutions they desired to end up in.
Thankfully, the last six days of the old year passed without further incidents instigated by any of the four-legged pranksters.
AN 12-13-12: This chapter has just been edited to correct a few minor punctuation errors, a grammatical error or two, clean up of a few sentences in order to smooth out a few awkward areas, break a few paragraphs down so as to improve readability, and had the date and place stamps added to the top of each section to allow for easier tracking of the timeline.
