INSaNiTY
Chapter Three: Realization
Raiden's Pov:
Soft clouds drifted lazily in the early morning forest with its sounds and scents had almost fully fledged into Green-leaf; a potential time of warmth and abundance.
If all went well.
I was sitting in a small glade in the Reltian half of the forest. There was nothing special about the glade. No significance to it. It was just a nice place to sit in and suck up the sunlight. Perhaps I wasn't a leafeon like my mate but I still appreciated the sun's warmth on my back.
We were currently waiting for Midnight to arrive along with Link. Not together of course, that wasn't expected from them, although I secretly wished that they did do just that.
It would be nice to see that crazy umbreon be happy with a mate and litter of her own. I knew well that umbreon generally liked the idea of having families. Just like espeon and sylveon, love was their main source of it had been really surprising to me that the umbreon and the sylveon had yet to hook up. I was pretty sure that the fact that Link was an artificially evolved sylveon didn't really lower his reproductive drive. If anything… It probably made it even stronger.
Which lead me back to the question of why Link and Midnight hadn't yet decided to hook up for a night and produce a litter or two.
"Do you even think Midnight will arrive here?"
"Sure, she will. Why wouldn't she?"
"I mean, this is Midnight we're talking about, and… Well, you know… There's something off with her."
"I know Ariada. But hey, she was a good friend at some point, wasn't she?"
"I guess. Truth is that I met her because of you. You were more her friend than she was mine."
"Yeah…" I stared at my paws, remembering the past. Back when the Pack of Relta was thriving, filled with life. Back to when the murders weren't a constant shadow lingering over everyone's hea. Back to my youth when I had ran in the forest carelessly, my friends and packmates by my side.
Relta had been a tight-knit community and I tried with all my heart to keep that memory alive in this new pack. It was difficult though….
Caleo had been a member of the Pack of Silvta her entire life and she wasn't too much of an enthusiast when it came to togetherness and traditions. Silvta wasn't exactly built on those beliefs … So asking her to join a custom that wasn't even hers didn't seem appropriate. Moreso if one added her slight grumpiness and unwillingness to leave camp ever since Riptide had got killed...
Midnight was as difficult as Caleo but for other reasons. Like Caleo, Midnight had been born in the Pack of Silvta. Unlike Caleo, she had left over circumstances that I was not aware of. She had arrived to Relta as a grumpy and confused umbreon and had immediately been taken under the metaphorical wing of our leader, Slate. I suspect that he knew… That there was something really wrong with Midnight. Bipolar disorder was what I suspected was the case with her, if not something more serious. However I couldn't really ask her about it. Not then and especially not now.
Umbreon could be very reserved when it came to their emotions. They weren't the kind of creature that opened up and thrusted their problems onto their closest friend. Asking an umbreon to vent about their problems was like telling a leafeon to use a flying type attack. They could do it but it was very difficult and unlikely to happen.
Then there was Link. He was alright. He was just trying to find a niche, a spot where to fit in,which had proved difficult for him considering the lack of… well… Anything needing to be done. It must be stressful, I thought, to have a purpose but not knowing what it wasOr even how to fulfill it. To not even have the comfort of old memories while you wandered the woods alone.
Hence my insistence that he should choose Midnight as a mate. They would benefit one another. She would perhaps give him some kind of footing in the forest and he could maybe be her rock when whatever the hell was wrong with her got the best of her.
"Good morning," I lifted my head to look at the sylveon that was poking his head out of the undergrowth, "I'm not late, am I?"
"Not at all," I purred. 'Is Midnight with you?"
'Raiden!" Ariada chided.
Link blinked at my question. I couldn't tell if he was annoyed or not… He fully slipped out of the undergrowth and shook his head.
"What makes you think she'd be with me?"
"I was just wondering…"
"I see," Link narrowed his dark blue eyes slightly before he sat down.
My ears twitched uncomfortably at his reply and I wondered if I had been too blunt.
I found myself fiddling with the short grass at my paws while the silence weighed down on my shoulders.
The sun slowly inched across the horizon and eventually a familiar black face popped out of the bushes.
"You arrived." Link said, not looking in the umbreon's direction.
"Looks like I did." The dark-type responded, red eyes sweeping across the glade before she stepped into it and sat down, licking her messy thick furred chest in an attempt to groom it.
"Now we wait…." I mewed glancing at the sky.
The silence continued to drag on and my fur bristled in the uncomfortable packmates looked equally aggravated and I mentally found myself regretting the reunion.
Old traditions weren't going to save us, not if we didn't know each other like we should have had.
"This is pointless!" Ariada burst out, springing to her paws in an instant. Her leafy ears were flat against her head. "We're doing nothing!"
I bit my lip. That was true….
"Why are you complaining now? We've done this stupid Equinox shit for years!" Link yowled in reply.
"I'm fed up with this… This lifestyle. There's no point. This pack has no point!"
"Then what would make it have a point?" I asked.
"I..I it's just … This isn't Relta anymore Raiden. This is a new pack. A new dying pack. We're keeping the wrong thing alive. We're living in a memory instead of the reality. There is no longer a point in this."
No one said anything else for a few minutes, taking in the leafeon's words.
"Should we have changed then?" Midnight said softly, lifting her head.
"Perhaps…" I mewed thinking still.
"Why don't we go on a walk instead of sitting in this glade till Moonhigh?A small hike up the mountain?" Ariada suggested, shaking her head to move her speckled forehead leaf out of her face. "That would be doing something different wouldn't it?"
"I don't know about you, but I'm going." I said, pushing myself to my paws. I glanced back slightly surprised to see Link and Midnight getting up as well. I wasn't expecting them to follow me.
With Ariada by my side, we lead the way towards the lake.
The lake made up a good part of the edge of the territories. The territories kind of surrounded the lake in a crescent shape with the large mountain filling up the gap and turning the crescent into a full circle.
In better times, it was known as 'Lake Pacis', with 'pacis' being some-kind of special word… I think it meant 'peace', although the lake was associated with everything but peace in my mind.
Perhaps it had been peace during the majority of Slate's lifetime or when he had recently joined the pack of Relta, or maybe even in the time of Ryewhisker and Cloudberry's infamous affair.
We carefully made our way around the edge of the lake, avoiding treading on the sticky mud. I turned my head slightly to look back at my companions. Ariada's ears twitched uncomfortably and Midnight stared at the ground, hackles raised. Link just carried on. Of course he hadn't seen anything on the shores of this lake, so he wasn't affected.
Aside from Midnight's occasional incoherent mumbling, the trip though the lake shore was a long and suffocating uncomfortable silence. By the time we arrived at the base of the mountain I was relieved.
Who would have thought that walking around a lake would take more than an hour?
"You leafeon came up here every half-moon,-" I said admiring the rising slope,"-lead the way."
Looking slightly tense, the grass-type nodded and began to lead us up the mountain path.
Slowly the terrain changed, the forest and plants melted away somewhere above the mountain base, and the path became basically non-existent forcing us to scramble over a mix of rock and earth. The plants had reduced themselves to a few unhealthy looking herbs and gnarled trees that clung onto the rock. On this rocky terrain, it became difficult to find a paw hold, and occasionally, when my large paws slipped, I would send a cascade of loose rocks down at Link and Midnight.
I looked up at the leafeon who was leading the way, watching as her long crinkled tail swished back and forth when she moved. Ariada took the mountain with ease, swiftly moving from rock to rock, somehow managing to grasp the stone at the right places with her tiny dull claws.
She stopped once she was atop a large bolder and looked down at us, violet eyes twinkling.
"We're almost there!" She mewed wagging her tail. "We just have to follow this path!."
With difficulty I clambered onto the boulder, gasping for breath as I pulled myself onto the top. Despite the fact that Jolteon were made for strenuous activities such as running long distances and climbing great rocks,I felt tired, my legs aching and feeling like liquid.
"Fuuuuuck," I groaned,"I need to exercise more often."
My mate trilled in response, jogging in place as she waited for Midnight and Link to catch up, seemingly more energetic than when we had first started climbing.
It always awed me how such a delicate-looking species could be so resistantBut that was how leafeon were, fast, and surprisingly good at fighting and other activities. If they weren't disgusted by meat and blood they would easily rival umbreons,espeons and sylveons in terms of hunting abilities.
However the grass typing gave them a lot of weakness, some type-based others coming from nature itself. Fire and ice were terrible for leafeons in both forms, ozone caused wilting and black spots, too much water caused inner rotting and too little caused dehydration. And poison ...Poison just led to a horrible and slow death.
To put it lightly, it was grim.
"Hurry up!" Ariada snapped, her voice bouncing off the rocky surfaces. "It's already sun-high!"
"Coming!" Link called back. I peered over the edge of the boulder to see the dainty sylveon moving sluggishly due to exhaustion, his feelers dragging behind him.
Midnight, on the other paw, looked less worn but her steps had a slight wobble to them.
While we waited on the rock, I recovered feeling in my legs and Ariada basked in the sunlight. I scanned the landscape for a trail and my eyes only found one: a rising twisting path at the edge of the cliffside that led to a rickety looking ledge. I gulped, noting for the first time how high we were. From the boulder, I could see the forest; a sea of rustling green that swiftly transformed into vast green fields, spotted with livestock and farms. Beyond that, I could make out the tall towering 'skyscrapers' of the city.
"The view is impressive..." Midnight mewed and I jumped, raising my quills, startled by the dark-type's presence. I hadn't noticed she had already climbed the rock. Link was also on the top, heaving as he stared at the silhouetted city.
"You would be left speechless if you saw it at night." Ariada said, pointing her brown paw at the city. "The fields are filled with glowing mareep, flaaffy and ampharos but the city shines as if it were made of starlight. iT blends in with the skyline itself."
"I can't believe that Slate said that city fell into ruins. It looks as if it never was destroyed." I said attempting to imagine a brown smudge instead of the tall towering structures. The city of the demons' as Slate called it in his stories, the place where humanity messed with the forces of life and death.
We stayed gazing at the silhouetted city. Maybe someday we would visit The City of the Demons and search for any evidence that it had once fallen into ruin and despair. Until then, its history would be a mere legend.
"Let's continue. Maybe we can see the city at sunset." Ariada said gracefully jumping down from the boulder and starting to lead us through the twisting narrow trail.
The ledge had at first seemed close but now, as I carefully moved on the narrow path, I realized that I had been wrong. The trail sloped upwards becoming more and more difficult to cross. A few rocks fell off the edge as I moved my paw too much to the right. I didn't dare to look down, feeling that, if I did, I would fall down as well, sharing the same fate as the pebbles.
Ariada stopped suddenly and I nearly walked right into her. The leafeon hissed and I peered over her shoulder. My stomach lurched as I stared: the rocky trail just cut off, leaving a large gaping crumbly edged holethat was too wide to jump over.
"What now?" Midnight asked.
"Well, I don't know," Ariada admitted with a shrug. "This wasn't here when I used to come."
"Maybe, I can carry you across." Link suggested. I considered the sylveon's idea, but the rather horrifying scenario of getting accidently dropped to our deaths flashed in my mind. I shuddered, pressing myself against a rock wall.
"I don't think it's a good idea." I mewed feeling sick to my stomach
"Then what else do you suggest we do to get across? I don't think I can use psychic to lift anything bigger than…" Midnight trailed off, biting her lip in thought. I felt something press around me, similar to a breeze or the wind, except that this time it also felt solid. I looked at my paws and flattened my ears in alarm as I saw the red colored energy around them.
"Don't you dare…"I growled at the dark-type.
I was slowly lifted in the air, a few harmless inches at first but all too quickly, I was being held above Ariada's psychic grasp wasn't tight and I found myself kicking and thrashing.
"Put me down Midnight, please put me down!"
I was carried closer and closer to the gap until I was floating above it, my fur turned into sharp electric quills as I stared down into the dark void.
"Putmedown, !"
The psychic grasp weakened considerably and I went still, the drop becoming closer,as I wobbled in mid-air. The umbreon's psychic hold on me then became suffocating and I was thrown onto solid earth.
I rolled a few feet and got up groggily feeling slightly dazed. I jumped back once I realized how close I was to the edge and sucked in my breath, feeling my blood freeze over at the idea that I could have had rolled off the ledge so easily. Shivering uncontrollably I imagined myself falling into the abyss thanks to Midnight's terrible psychic abilities.
I looked back at my packmates. Ariada and Link were looking at me with wide horrified faces, while Midnight leaned against the rocky wall, breathing heavily with half closed eyes.
I growled and turned away from my packmates, lifting my paw to give it a few licks. The rocky path stretched a bit further, I could make out the end. It led to a small grassy area.
I turned to face my brethrens. "I'll try to find an alternative route to you!"
"We'll try the same!/ So will we!"
I turned around,glancing back to see Ariada standing on her hindlegs sniffing the rocky wall, seeking out any possible paw hold or alternative route.
I continued, on a path that gradually faded, lost under the abundant plant life.
Up I went, higher up the mountain, and into the forest that had grown because of the presence of various grass-types; It was calm here, the air filled with the soft singing of cherims, While the pink flower Pokemon were admittedly adorable, I knew what their song really meant.
A warning.
A reminder that they were watching, and that any infracion to their unspoken rules would lead to dire consequences.
Pinecos watched silently from the trunks of trees that weren't pines, their beady eyes staring into my soul and I twitched my ears uncomfortable with how high the guards of the grass-types were.
It was strange…
My nose caught the scent of blood. Running forward I found myself staring at some kind of bird. The bird's tiny legs were firmly clutched by the hard metal jaws of a trap. In spite of the rubber padding meant to prevent injury, the thin blue legs were bloody, the soft feathered bird lay prone. Stiff and cold, beady eyes dull.
"What happened here?" I asked to none in particular.
"A swablu was killed ." A voice chirped from the trees above me.
Tilting my head up, I saw the owner: tiny cherrim with a bright round yellow face, pale pink petals extended like a mane around its head.
"And what happened to the killer?"
The cherrim shrugged, a small smile edged onto its lips.
I took a step back from the corpse and stared at my paws, feeling horrified at the thought that was passing through my mind.
Most believed that grass-types were docile creatures,bringing plants back to life and nursing the sick and injured. But living with leafeons had taught me that grass-types could be worse than dark and physics types if they wanted could be vicious, violent and oddly sadistic at times. Grass-types could be life or death, it just depended on who and what you were dealing with.
Another glance at the lifeless bird and I backed away slowly, before bolting into the tall grass. I rushed through the woods, pushing undergrowth and shrubbery out of my way, unable to lower my quills out of sheer paranoia.
I wondered why leafeon climbed this wretched mountainWas it to learn how to kill?
Was it to fight with other grass-types, protecting the packs in the process?
I shook my head clearing it from the messy thoughts.
Grass-types are just any other living being. They will act as such, I told myself. It's nature,it's order, it's always been like this.
Taking a deep breath I continued my walk through the forest, unable to find an alternative route to get over or around the gap, I counted my steps.
One,two,three...One,two,three...
Muttering a series of curses I became aware of how silent the forest had become. A few mushroom pokemon peeked out from the bushes, swelling to release a defensive cloud of poisoned, drugged or paralyzing spores as I passed. I walked through the cloud indifferently, knowing from experience that spores were unavoidable. If you didn't breath it in, it would get stuck in your fur and skin,and intoxicate you from there.
I shook myself once I was out of the mushroom pokemon's range, creating a small sandstorm out of the spores. Looking myself over, I flattened my ears, displeased at how some of the glittering dust was still stuck to my myself again did not work and I growled, hoping that the spores wouldn't seriously affect me until later.
An easy way over the gap was now looking was no way to get around the gap that didn't involve climbing higher, something that I didn't want to do.I wondered if my brethrens were still waiting for me or if they had found a route of their own; seeing as I took too long to get back to them.
I stopped, gagging as my stomach churned with nausea. Unable to vomit anything, I forced myself to swallow the mix of saliva and vile that had formed in my mouth. Almost immediately it returned and the semi-digested contents of my stomach spilled onto the forest floor along with some thick black liquid.I groaned as my legs buckled beneath me.
Fuuuuck.
I didn't know how long I had spent knocked out in the grass but once I regained consciousness, I wearily got to my paws, swaying slightly on my legs. I glanced at my surroundings, glad to see that there was still light; although judging by the sun's position it was due to set in an hour.
Despite the heaviness of my limbs I continued to climb.
I was aware that I couldn't afford to stay in one place for too territory was not mine and I could feel how the poison powder sapped away at my strength. Eventually I was going to be left utterly defenseless and at the mercy of whatever found me.
The ground beneath my paws was solid, hardened by generations of travelers. I could still see the world below me, not the world directly below but rather the surrounding world below, the fields and the city and the smaller mountains that loomed behind the city. It was a beautiful sight.
There was no twisting narrow path. Hell! There wasn't a path. Just an endless expanse of greenery that I was somehow navigating through, ducking, weaving in, weaving out and between.I would growl as my fur got snagged over and over. I couldn't comprehend why my short pelt kept getting stuck, while Midnight's thick pelt never got snagged when she left camp by the backside.
It didn't make any sense.
Freeing myself from the clutches of the thorn bush I paused. Seeing how I had nearly stepped on a half-hidden leg snare. Shivering in slight terror I continued but my movements were more patient and sun slowly sank in the sky and I wondered whether the mountain was either very tall or I was just a slow walker.
Probably both.
Eventually, after what seemed forever, I began to descend. Slight pings of fear returned as I felt gravity pull me down and I had the constant thought that one wrong step would send me rolling downhill and off to my death.
It was an odd change of scenery. Evidence that grass-types did have some kind of mystical ground here was loose and dry, slipping between my paws like water. There were rocks and a few clingy plants whose names I didn't know.
The path grew narrower and narrower, till there was no path at all and I was basically just doing all in my power to grab onto something and not fall to my demise.
The moon was slowly creeping out the horizon and into the darkened sky by the time I saw her.
Ariada.
By herself.
"Ariada!" I called. "Ariada!"
The violet eyed leafeon lifted her dainty head and blinked, perhaps not even seeing me, considering the terrible nocturnal eyesight that grass-types were famous for.
"It's me, Raiden!" I called a bit louder. I started to jump from rock to rock a bit faster, happy at finding my way back.
"How was your trip?" Ariada asked sniffing my fur. She immediately recoiled at the soft scent of poison that still clung to my fur.
'Dealt with some creepy cherims and got poisoned. How have things been here?"
"Not that great… Link left around an hour or two after you went to find a path. Midnight kept trying to find a path but those rocks…-" Ariada jerked her head to the rocks I had descended from, and I noticed that they were too high and smooth to climb. "-were too hard for us to climb, eventually she left."t
"I see…" I sighed and licked my chest in an attempt to hide my unease. "I guess, it's only me and you…"
Ariada did not reply, instead she frowned and used her head leaf to feel her way around, down the mountain.
Link's POV:
I realized that I didn't have a large attention span.
I was getting bored of waiting for Raiden to return. She was taking too long.
Midnight or one of her personalities had tried to climb the rocks but these were oddly too smooth and too high to climb. She had eventually given up and slipped somewhere into the mountainscape. She wanted to explore the area, she had said.
I sat still, waiting for Raiden to return… Mostly out of niceness although my patience was really starting to wear thin.
The journey had been hard for me, I wasn't much of an explorer.
Sylveon, I believe, were not created for such activities. Personally, I felt we were more pacifists or perhaps more made for silent trickery like an umbreon or an espeon.
With our emotion changing abilities, we had the power to manipulate all, friends,foe, prey.
Feelers we could use as a distraction and as a weapon. Feelers we could use to see what others could not.
Well, naturally evolved sylveon could.
I wasn't a sylveon created with love and friendship. My evolution had been forced upon me. Sylveon were powerful and me being one would surely be a benefit, especially with my ability to change normal type energy into fairy type energy.
My evolution had been caused by messing with my genes, already so delicate for an eevee, so easy to manipulate.
A few injections of concentrated energy or exposure to a dawn stone and all too soon eevee genes mutated to sylveon gens, not because the environment had triggered it but as a reaction to the heavy exposure of the fairy radiation.
As a result, I was a flawed sylveon. Certain genes were permanently locked away from me, abilities that should have been mine were never to be used.
I couldn't stretch my feelers like a normal sylveon could, my range wasn't as long; a meter perhaps… Some sylveon could stretch their feelers for what seemed endless. Their fairy type energy flowed through their feelers, warping them and perhaps the fabric of their reality.
I couldn't see souls either. I couldn't look too much beyond the physical realm… I could feel emotions from others but I couldn't see the souls. I could manipulate the emotions but only so much. Really the act of changing the spiritual air around me was very exhausting to me.
Had I had a choice in what I had become I didn't know what I would have chosen or what traits I had shown as an eevee. So I guessed that, despite the limitations of being an artificial sylveon I, at least, did evolve.
There were some eevees that took many many years to evolve, or worse, never evolved. Perhaps this eevee had no true elemental affinity, or their personality was just everywhere, whatever the cause, some eevees didn't evolve naturally.
"Raiden is taking her time…" I mewed, hinting at my soon departure.
"I've noticed."
"This journey was rather pointless don't you think?"
"Perhaps… But it is better than pretending that we have a bond and are a normal pack."
"I guess so…"
"Those traditions need to die. We are not a united pack and living on old traditions of something that is gone will not help us."
"Yeah…"
Ariada didn't speak again.
I licked my flank a few times, ears flicking in the uncomfortable silence.
"I think I'll leave for now…" I said, wondering if Ariada would protest.
"Alright."
With those words, I silently made my way down the mountain.
I didn't see the point of those traditions. I wasn't very into culture and religion.
I hadn't grown in a place that encouraged them.
Nor had I come here with that in mind.
The humans had dropped me off here under the intent of me being a mating ready male. I had arrived with that mindset. Which had quickly been dimmed by my failure and by the situation.
I had first tried my chances with Midnight. After all, being a love based evolution, she was supposed to be very social and Umbreon especially were known for having high sexual drives.
She was supposed to be easy.
So when she rejected my every advance and hint to mate, I felt confused.
My second option was Ariada, who was very very attractive to me,I had followed her for a few days, trying to figure out how to approach her and woo her into mating.
That had all gone down the drain when I found her 'mating' with Raiden.
Raiden and Caleo were the last of my choices, mainly because I found them both to be more challenging to convince and rather unattractive.
They seemed born to fight, with large paws, bulky frames and, in Raiden's case, nicked ears. They were not dainty and delicate.
However there were worse, more unattractive things an eon could breed with… At least they were both eons.
After seeing what Raiden and Ariada were, I had set my sights on Caleo.
But she was so unresponsive and so introverted that I had given up shortly after I had started my attempt to seduce her.
The humans had been wrong. I had been greeted by females who rejected my advances and had gotten an odd unfamiliar culture shoved down my throat.
Now integrated into this 'pack', I had no choice but to live with it.