Draco: Let me tell you, I kept trying to figure out what to call this place for ages.
Okay, this is where things get demanding. I'm gonna have to stop being so thorough. Sorry if you were liking my gameplay bits, they're gonna be missing a lot with this chapter.
Pokémon and protagonist © Nintendo. Character designs © Koei. Ransei © somewhere in the middle.
Ultra Kingdom - Forsaken Lands: Oddities Abundant
The gate having been opened horizontally rather than vertically, Gracia found herself diving downward through the tunnel between otherworlds, the Cosmog falling below her. As she tried to streamline herself, accelerating her descent, she was worried to find the Cosmog being wrapped in a light that seemed dark against the myriad glow of the path around them.
She hadn't managed to close in on them any more before the other end appeared - a vibrant landscape had manifested outside the exit, with water directly below them into which the Cosmog fell with a splash... and sunk without a moment. Gracia took a deep breath and held her arms before her in proper diving posture, breaking the water with hardly a ripple more; she had to take a moment to right herself, and she looked around in terror before finding her Pokémon descending still towards the bottom.
This was a rather expansive water - sufficiently wide and deep to host the Sky Demon, if it were desperate enough to hide from an opponent on the shore (or an ensemble of Gyarados dressed up as the Sky Demon, if they were performing legends under the command of some idiot who thought Rekkūza was a lakewater Pokémon). They had changed as they had fallen; each's insubstantial stardust was reduced to an orb in the middle of a golden shell. The two were more than her armspan away from each other; Gracia dove deeper towards one, ignoring the sounds of the others hitting the water above her closed her grip on it as it made contact with the ground, and made to swim towards the other.
Only to find that she couldn't move at all.
Panic wrought her as she turned back to the one she'd grabbed; she couldn't move it. She couldn't even lift it. Her feet touched the ground, and she tried to lift it, her other hand going forward and her grip shifting to seize both sides. Still it refused to move, no matter how much effort she gave; her lungs were starting to grow tight as her capacity to hold her breath ran thin, but she didn't dare to release them until a set of claws circled her arm.
She turned to find Zoroark floating there; against her water-muffled protests, he started to drag her out of the water. One arm came up onto the shore, and Zoroark pulled his head above water before dragging Gracia to the surface; she took a deep breath as he helped her onto the shore, sputtered to get the water out of her face, and then turned around and took another deep breath before a hand circled her stomach.
"What are you doing?!" Ranmaru demanded.
"The Cosmog are still down there!" Gracia insisted, trying to wrestle his arm off of her. "I have to-!"
"You can't move them and you know it!" Ranmaru reprimanded. "Now hold back!"
As he released Gracia, Oichi was changing Type: Full's discs; the RKS slot closed, and Full's spikes turned deep blue before he leapt into the water - with a much more sizeable splash, but much more fluid movement as he descended. Everyone's attention was on the water as he dove down towards the small yellow blobs that Gracia had been struggling with.
The distorted figure of Full approached one of them... and remained there for a long moment - longer than Gracia could have held her breath. Then he started to return, and Gracia panicked when she realized he had no passenger; the artificial Pokémon surfaced, giving a cry of protest.
"What do you mean you can't lift them!?" Gracia yelled, fury born of terror wrought in her voice.
Full shook his head.
"They're not sinking?" Oichi murmured. "But then... why aren't they floating?"
Gracia growled angrily and made to dive again - and this time it was Lucario who grabbed her in mid-motion. He was still wrapped in his powerful change; he set the Nixtormer down and pushed her away from the water's edge before diving in himself, and Full turned and dove back down after him. In the interest of haste, Full pushed Lucario as he dove down, accelerating him; once they'd reached the bottom surface, the Aura Pokémon set his feet on the ground.
The transformed Pokémon indeed weren't sinking - not completely. They hovered above the bottom of the lake, barely ten centimetres off the ground. When Lucario made to set a paw atop one, it descended ahead of his touch; he didn't touch its surface until it touched the floor, and when his grip closed on it, he indeed found he couldn't move it. When he lifted his paw away, the Pokémon returned to its previous depth; then he made to close both paws on it from the sides, and the Pokémon shifted to remain equidistant between them until they both connected with it, whereupon it refused to move once more.
Lucario's eyes widened in realization; he released it and made to seize it from beneath, and discovered it floating higher to evade his touch. In this manner, he lifted it up above his head, and Full quickly moved to hold it with his brow. He remained at the lower surface as Lucario collected the other one; the Aura Pokémon came back and took both into his paws, and Full propelled him back to the water's surface.
Everyone (save Kotarō) breathed a sigh of relief; Lucario set the wayward Pokémon down on the shore and climbed out, his body's changes fading as Gracia knelt between them. "Cosmog!" Her hands connected with their upper surfaces, and she tried - and failed - to shake them. "Talk to me! Cosmog! Cosmog!"
Her expression changed abruptly, and her hands parted from them. "Cos...moem?"
Oichi blinked. "What?"
"It's... The Link is... different," Gracia murmured. "It's like... they're sleeping. But they're... still responding to me."
"Like Linking with an Abra," Kotarō observed. "They hear your orders, but are resting all the same."
Lucario knelt beside her, and she watched as he shifted one hand beneath one of the Cosmoem, causing it to raise in response. Curious, Gracia held out her hand to lift it herself, finding it floated just above her hand as though she were holding something weightless; she did the same to the other, and carefully stood up, turning to the others.
"So... where are we?"
Everyone turned around - without the fear of losing a teammate, they had time to take in their new destination. The Ranseans were standing on an expansive field - this otherworld seemed more versatile than any before it, more versatile even than any kingdom in Ransei, and the sun could be seen setting in the distance, moving just enough to tell the Warriors there was a day and a night in this place. The lake they stood at rested at the base of a ravine in the middle of the area - a snowy mountain was visible some distance in one direction, a floating rock could be seen in another, and a sizeable cave stood proud in a third. A small farmland and an environ similar to a park stood at angles on the opposite side of the ravine, and what seemed to be a sky garden was floating above them.
"How very odd," Ranmaru mused. "This place looks almost like Ransei."
"All of Ransei at once, perhaps," Kotarō snarked.
A shuffling sound drew Okuni's attention. "Wait... that's not a beast."
Approaching them in haphazard steps was a Zigzagoon - but it was a very strange Zigzagoon. Unlike the expected alternating brown-and-cream fur, this one was in black and white; the expected smooth mask-pattern upon its face was instead spiked into stars around each eye, and as it came to a halt before the crew of Warriors and Pokémon, its mouth hung open, tongue lolling out, as though anticipating a fight instead of fearing it.
"What's wrong with that thing?" Oichi murmured.
Gracia recognized its threatening movements and took a defensive stance; Gothitelle swung her hand forward, and a pulse of psychic power emerged around it. As the Zigzagoon made to approach them, Full stepped in its path - and everyone was surprised when the Zigzagoon screeched at him, black soundwaves pulsing out around it and striking Full unpleasantly.
Then the Future Sight hit - and everyone started when the Zigzagoon didn't even react.
"It's a Dark-type?" Okuni yelped.
Lucario hurled an Aura Sphere past Full; it slammed into their attacker forcefully, and it cried out in pain, tumbling back back until its momentum faded, unconscious.
Ranmaru set a hand on his chin. "Huh."
"But she."
Oichi's staff from fell her hand.
"It can't."
The healer fell to her knees.
"Love, hate, clouds."
She slumped to one side, and everyone's gaze went to her. Full stepped up to her and nudged her lightly with the back of his claws as the other Warriors and their Pokémon traded awkward glances.
Gracia was the one who broke the awkward silence. "...Maybe this would be a good place to make camp."
+x+x+x+
Black-and-white Zigzagoon weren't the only odd inhabitants in this foreign place. As the Ranseans made camp, started a fire, and dished out a meal over the course of the setting sun, the lake was visited by black-furred Rattata with mustaches, Ponyta with fluffy pink manes and tails, and a dark-feathered Farfetch'd carrying a sizeable leek over its wing like a soldier with a greatsword.
Oichi had been roused by the time the first new visitors had appeared; Mitsunari, Kiyomasa, and Masanori called it an early night after the Rattata had visited, and Kotarō followed soon after when the Ponyta had appeared. Okuni, Ranmaru, and Gracia were still awake with Oichi as a pair of Corsola approached the water - pale white Corsola with spectral branches.
"None of this makes sense," the healer murmured.
"Lady Oichi, I don't think we're in Aurora anymore," Gracia murmured.
"But they're not beasts," Oichi murmured. "None of the Pokémon we've fought since we left Ransei have been anything even resembling Pokémon from our world, and the only time we've seen two different beasts in the same place, one evolved from the other. Now there's... familiar Pokémon, but with dye jobs. If Gothitelle's attack hadn't whiffed on that Zigzagoon, I'd think there was someone here with a hundred boxes of fur dye. Why in Alpha's name are they different types?"
"An excellent question," Ranmaru observed. "Perhaps..." He shook his head. "No, never mind."
"What is it?" Okuni asked.
"...I wonder if these Pokémon may have... adapted to different environments," he mused. "Environments so far removed from where the species normally resides as to seem their complete opposite."
Gracia hummed. "But this place has so many different areas," she observed. "There's no way they would have-"
Ranmaru shook his head. "Not this place," he insisted. "Perhaps... they had adapted themselves over time to different regions in our world. And they were brought here, unknowingly - in the same way as unwilling Warriors were brought to the beast's worlds from Ransei."
"But, then..." Okuni shook her head. "Why wouldn't they adapt back? With this place..."
"An adaptation like this wouldn't be a short-term matter," Ranmaru elaborated. "It would take numerous generations, or the intervention of a legendary Pokémon, to even begin to show changes of this scale. Once such changes have taken root, similar time or circumstances would be required to reverse them. So, if the Pokémon have adapted, and find themselves in this place - where exist both the habitats their kind have adapted to, and the habitats their kind once lived in - which do you suppose they would migrate to?"
Okuni's gaze fell. "You might have a point there..."
Oichi sighed. "If the Pokémon here are of species from our world - even with these differences - then they can't be anywhere near as powerful as the beasts." She raised her gaze. "We should split up in the morning - get a good view for what's all going on."
"I don't know." Gracia's gaze went to the Cosmoem, who were floating silently on either side of the entrance to her and Okuni's tent. "How are we gonna bring them anywhere?"
"They only stop moving if you corner them and make contact," Oichi observed. "If you enclose them in a space larger than they are, they should keep themselves centered within it - even when you move."
"You're saying I should carry them in a pack?" Gracia argued.
"Not much different than carrying them in a ball," Ranmaru observed.
"Did Motonari ever learn anything about that souvenir from Kalos?" Okuni asked, looking up to Oichi.
Oichi shook her head, although a small smile had appeared on her face. "Not that he's shared with us, yet."
Draco: Kingdoms where legendary Pokémon appear can have up to seven locations at once (and in Terrara, Illusio, and Nixtorm, the legendary Pokémon locations can only appear when all the others are there and sufficiently ranked). When I was making preparations, I was pleased to discover that having one of each battle location in this place was not super-unrealistic.
Anyways, regional variants. I am going to purport that every regional variant in Alola and Galar appears in this place. I do not have the patience to concoct gameplay details for 67* common Pokémon. I have chosen moves for all the Pokémon I intend to appear here and all of the common variants just to be safe, but that's it; I'm not gonna pick stats, and I definitely don't have the patience to pick three Abilities for everyone. I'm not gonna list the battle info for every Pokémon that appears in this place, and I'm not gonna give you the battle details for every move I assign them; I'm just gonna give you the important ones.
*30 species with regional variants; Meowth has both Alolan and Galarian variants; I'd have to work out the common variants before I started working on regional variants; 6 Pokémon that evolve from Galarian variants.
PRE-SUBMIT EDIT: I was done writing the Forsaken Lands before the Sword and Shield Expansion Pass was announced. I've only included Galarian variants from the base game. END PRE-SUBMIT EDIT
Speaking of which, here's the cocoon of the stars.
Cosmoem
-Range: 1
-Move: Cosmic Power
-Ability: Sturdy
Cosmic Power (Psychic)
-Effect: 1-stage Defense boost to user
