An Introduction, for those who read introductions...
A long time ago, Ash used to exist within a small group of five friends, and what kept them so close was their dream of becoming pokemon masters. One day, their differences and their ambition distanced them from each other, but soon they set off on their journey, wondering if they would ever meet each other again.
And five years passed...
Ash, now fifteen, has participated of many leagues and harnessed great ability as a trainer, and these days rests in his hometown. But a strange and disturbing dream, an unlikely encounter with one of the rarest legendaries, and an invitation to the greatest championship yet, will send the young trainer spiraling down in an intricate web of hidden secrets, ancient creatures and forgotten pasts, in which the five trainers shall meet once more and the fate of humans and pokemon alike shall be decided.
As they tumble through light and shadow...
For the storm was coming...
This fic has been in my mind for what? Three, maybe four years? It has changed considerably in that time and if you heard the original idea, you'd probably have thought I was talking about another story altogether. Still, the main reason for me to write this is still there, and this is the first story for Pokémon I've ever come up with, though four years are really good to stir and add new ideas, as well as improving my writing skills.
This will be a long and intricate trilogy, and will feature many characters, both from canon and original, but all will have a part in the play. I appreciate all reviews, just so I can know that someone is reading this, and I thank any support.
I'd also like to thank nightdragon0 for beta-reading the Prologue and giving me some pointers.
All in all, enjoy the ride as you ingress within the darkest corners of the pokemon world.
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Eternal Twilight
a trilogy by
Melchior the Mewthree
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The Prologue – Frozen Ashes
I have never been to St. John's Wood. I dare not. I should be afraid of the innumerable night of fir trees, afraid to come upon a blood red cup and the beating of the wings of the Eagle.
--The Napoleon of Notting Hill, G. K. Chesterton
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Mount Moon was a place of secrets.
A great mountain, towering over the lands of Kanto like a titan of gray stone. It was an old place and a dark place. Its tunnels were like an intricate spider web of passages and galleries, most of which rarely saw light, some of which had never seen any at all. Inhabited by hundreds of living creatures, and even those about who one could argue over that. A cacophony of life, hidden life, within the network of hollow spaces in the cold of the rock and the earth.
You could search there for ages, and the mountain would surprise you every time, showing tidbits of its mysteries, though it would never show them all. Remnants of old civilizations, fossils of ancient pokemon, and much more than one could count. But the mountain would never show all of its secrets.
At least, up until now. For the storm was coming.
That specific day, the ice rained from the iron-gray heavens in the form of dizzying clumps of snow, dancing merrily in the howling winds. It was the first day of winter, and it was the worst winter seen in decades, or at least that's what the meteorologists said.
Gary didn't know if that was true, but he sure as hell knew that is was cold like the devil's heart out there.
He walked by the side of the winding road, around two miles before Mount Moon, at a section of the path where it forked, one side going to the mountain, the other probably to a chilling and long travel. He had snow wherever he could think of, and the flakes kissed his face as they fell. The winds were like knives, cutting and burning his exposed skin.
Gary's breath steamed in the air, and his teeth clattered against each other. His long brown overcoat billowed mercilessly in the whirling winds, and his sneakers, which hid no more than three socks, dug inches in the snow. Even with them Gary thought that he probably wouldn't be feeling his feet for very long. His hands were already in the land of numbness.
Umbreon shivered every once in a while from his slightly warmer spot within Gary's coat. The ebony gold-ringed fox wasn't very used to the cold, and his slick fur wasn't very helpful in maintaining his body warm. Gary didn't mind, and honestly enjoyed having Umbreon so close to him, since body heat was a giving in that weather.
Gary was heading towards the mountain, having received quite an interesting call from his grandfather not a day ago. Apparently a very rare pokemon, maybe even a legendary, had been constantly seen around Mount Moon as of late, and Gary was the one closest to it at the time. The professor wanted for him to find and scan it with his pokedex, so the data could be studied in detail. Never being one to back away from a challenge, Gary accepted it promptly.
He tried to find a ride, but it seemed that no one would dare use conventional transportation in that weather, unless one was hoping to play ice-skating with tires.
Umbreon sneezed from within the teen's clothes, voicing his unpleasantness from the climate.
"Don't worry, Umbreon," Gary said, or tried to say, his voice coming slightly jumbled. "We'll be there in no time."
Umbreon remained quiet, either not really believing or just saving his energy.
The rest of the walk was cold, a stride through the skeletal beauty of a winter morning, even though the sun was the last thing Gary expected to see that day.
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The cave's entrance was like a winter beast's mouth; icy stalagmites and stalactites like sharp teeth just waiting to tear the unsuspecting traveler into ribbons. Even then, Gary was pleased to find it, quickly making his way away from the wailing snowstorm.
He let Umbreon jump out from within his coat while he tried to get some of the snow from it. The black fox seemed at the same time pleased to stretch his legs and unhappy to leave the warmth. He too had some snow in his fur, which he got rid of dog-like.
The tunnel was filled with working lamps lining its sides, set specifically for anyone who might want to venture within the dark depths. It still wasn't that much inviting, to tell the truth.
"Come on, Umbreon," he said, starting to walk and expecting the eon to be following, but was surprised to look back and see him hesitating. Umbreon hardly ever hesitate to follow him anywhere.
"Gary," the fox spoke mentally, getting Gary by surprise a second time. That was something else the dark type almost never did. "I don't think this is a good idea." He looked at his sides constantly, like he thought something was going to crawl and lunge at him at a moment's notice.
Gary was worried, but kept his cool. He didn't come this far just walk away now. "Come on, buddy. You're just imagining things. Besides, any hostile pokemon we find in here you can easily take care of."
The eevee-lution still seemed unwilling, but he couldn't back out from his trainer's call. He nodded, and proceeded to follow Gary through the artificially lighted passages, all the while looking over his shoulders, the strange feeling he had not leaving him for once.
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The tunnel grew darker and colder as they walked it, which was weird for Gary, since he thought that by leaving the storm it would be warmer. But still, they seemed to be entering a glacier instead of a cave. The trainer's breath steamed on the air, as did the umbreon's, as both dodged spikes of rock and, sometimes, ice.
It wasn't long until there was no light left in the walls and Gary had to put his flashlight, which he kept deep in his coat, to use. The passages just grew colder and darker, and they seemed to be climbing down a ladder, heading deeper and deeper into the ancient earth. They were shivering.
Gary noticed that Umbreon grew more and more uneasy as they ventured in the cave, the way he constantly looked all around him in an almost paranoid fashion giving the brown-haired boy the creeps.
"Umbreon?" he inquired, and his pokemon eyed him again, and this time the uneasiness was more than visible in his eyes. "What is it, anyway?"
The pokemon hesitated, before saying, "There is something in here." He continued to eye behind his shoulders and at the shadows surrounding them. "Something ancient... and dangerous. I can't really tell exactly."
Gary was truly worried now, but he would never let that show. He couldn't look weak in front of his own pokemon. But, if there was something in there to make even Umbreon grow that scared, which was something that the dark type knew how to hide even better than Gary, then it wasn't something to take lightly.
The shadows enveloped everywhere around them, and the cold was like the caress of death on their skins.
Gary shook his head. "It doesn't matter," he said, making Umbreon look at him incredulously. "We came here to find a legendary pokemon, and gramps said he was seen for the last time venturing within these caves." He looked at the darkness before him, mocking him, daring him to enter its domains. "I didn't come this far to give up now."
Umbreon watched with disbelief as Gary started walking again. After a moment, the black canine shook his head and followed, thinking on how Gary's pride sometimes took the best of him.
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The sky fell over the mountains in white winter as he jumped gracefully over the rocks and the snow. Heavy paws struck soundlessly over the white sheet blanketing the gray stone and red eyes surveyed the pale landscape.
The creature stood still for a moment, having sensed something. He looked into a patch of rock and, with an erupting roar, shattered the thin ice hiding the inner entrance.
He looked at the new passage for a moment, and then jumped within it, exchanging the merciless rain of frozen water for the frozen darkness.
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It was so cold that Gary had to grip to his flashlight with all his might so it wouldn't fall off his hands from the shacking. He was starting to wonder if it was such a good idea to ignore Umbreon's feelings about the place. But an Oak wasn't one to back away from a challenge.
But this isn't a challenge, a voice in the back of his mind told him. It's suicide, and you'll end up dead in an ice cube like this.
Still, the teen ventured in the cold bleakness, not daring to take a single step back. He needed to prove his grandfather he could do it. He needed to prove he could be a professor as great as Samuel was. He needed to prove to himself he could make it.
Crack.
Gary froze. That sound. That was the sound of ice breaking.
Crack, Crunch...
He pointed the flashlight down, only to see himself, his many reflections staring back at him from the slowly shattering ice beneath his feet.
Before he could do anything, it gave in, and he plummeted down into the abyss, crystals raining all around his vision.
"Umbreon!" he heard his pokemon call for him, but he soon found himself too far to hear, the freezing wind wiping and burning his face. The flashlight whirled around him as he screamed, its light reflecting in the frozen walls.
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He stopped his descent through the tunnels when he heard the scream. It was a human scream, that was certain, and it wasn't too far from where he was headed.
He padded faster through the dark, hoping that he wasn't too late.
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Gary woke up feeling cold, pain and what could possibly be a broken rib. The flashlight was beside him, but it was beyond repair. Gary let his chestnut eyes take on his surroundings, and he saw that he was in the bottom end of an icy slope, which must have been the reason why he didn't die from the fall. It wasn't so dark in there and, as he looked at his side, he saw an entrance, and a bluish light filtering from it.
Wincing against the pain, he shakily stood up, trying to balance himself in the icy floor. It was simply freezing there, the temperature having dropped so much that Gary was surprised to have awoken at all. He should have slept until he froze to death.
He wobbled to the passage, which didn't seem like it was natural, and entered in a grand chamber. He gasped softly as the sight.
It was gigantic. He stood in a bridge-like platform that stretched until a large altar of some sort, at the very center. The actual walls were many yards from him, and beneath the bridge that, he now noticed, almost hovered in the air, there was a profound pit that seemed to have no bottom. The whole place had obviously been built by someone, the faraway ceiling showing many intricate carvings that made Gary think of Roman architecture. It was an awesome sight.
Moved by curiosity and marvel, Gary walked slowly through the iced bridge, spikes protruding vertically from its sides. He moved until he found himself before the altar at the core of the chamber.
A strange, dark-blue stone stood in a pedestal at the very center, and there were ten large ice crystals outlining the place in an organized way. The stone was translucent, and it seemed to crack with an internal bluish fire. Gary looked at the large ice block closest to him, and he noticed something within it.
He moved closer to it, the cold and the silence of the place hitting his skin and his ears and his soul. He moved until he could see what was inside.
His eyes widened, his face paled, and he covered his mouth in horror, backing away from the block almost instinctively. There, within the frozen prison, lay a child. By his size the kid didn't seem to be older than ten, but Gary could never be sure. The body was atrophied, no more than bones and skin and probably whatever was left of his muscles. His arms and legs were drawn close to his body in fetal position, and the head was almost a skull, the teeth and the jaw clearly visible, smiling in a sick parody of a humorless grin.
Gary did not dare look upon the other crystals, knowing full well what he'd find. He just stood there, trying to ease the sensation on his stomach. He wobbled and almost fell, gripping on the pedestal for support, and is eyes met the blue stone, burning with a cold flame, and then he realized that the faint light that filled the room was coming from it. He found himself drawn to that flame.
"Umbreon!" He almost jumped out of his skin when he heard his pokemon's calling. He turned to the entrance, where a tired Umbreon panted and shivered, his labored breath coming in white clouds. "Umbreon!" the pokemon called once more as he ran towards his trainer.
Gary smiled and bent down to hug the running fox, more than relieved to see him. He embraced the black canine for quite a while, unwilling to let go of his warmth.
"Gary," Umbreon called him. "Let's get away from here."
Gary looked at Umbreon's ruby eyes with his own, and then looked at the stone. Suddenly he let go of the fox and, walking firmly, he approached the cold object, his gaze entranced in the fire within it. "This stone," he said, as he kept walking. "There's something about it."
"Gary, please," Umbreon pleaded.
But the teen was oblivious to him, his eyes transfixed. He stood right before the object and, with a shaky hand, touched its freezing surface.
His mind was bombarded with visions. Sights and feelings that did not belong to him, a sense of despair, hate, cold and darkness. The pain in Gary's heart was so intense he thought it was going to break apart. He saw strange things of another time, strange places of another age, forgotten for too long, and now reawakened by his simple touch. He felt something else, something living within the stone, desperate to come out, to see the light, to breath, to live.
The stone shattered in a blast of air, knocking Gary like a rag-doll yards away onto the bridge, skidding and rolling until he stopped. He lay there, unable to move, only shivering and replaying in his mind what he had felt and seen. It was so cold.
He felt something soft and wet touching his cheek gingerly, and he opened glassy eyes to see Umbreon nuzzling him with a concerned look on his own. At that sight and what he had seen, Gary almost felt like crying.
"I think this is the time when I thank you," a deep, seductive feminine voice came to his ears, and Umbreon turned sharply, growling like there was no tomorrow. Gary half-sat, half-lay in the icy surface, and looked at what had spoken, his jaw dropping.
There, standing over the shards that were the pedestal and the stone, was a great bird, her feathers the color of snow, her eyes that of the darkest skies. At first, Gary almost thought he was looking at the legendary Articuno, but he soon dismissed it. She possessed tendrils of white light that protruded from her tail-feathers and her wingtips, waving unnaturally in the air that froze into tiny crystals around them. Her gaze was penetrating as she eyed Gary and Umbreon, who was still growling deeply.
Gary tried to utter the words that were lodged in his throat. "W-who... are you?"
She looked at him, an amused expression in her face. "My name?" she asked, the human words coming perfectly out of her throat. "You wish to know my name, human?"
Gary tried to stand up. Not an easy task. "Yes."
She tipped her head to the side, curiously watching the trainer struggling to get up. "Very well, human." she said. "For freeing me, you have earned that right."
The faint light that filled the chamber seemed to slowly dim as Gary stood fully. "Well?" he asked the bird, impatiently.
"My name," she said, "is Litanias"
Gary looked at her eyes. "Litanias?"
"Yes, Litanias," she told him. "That is my name. A name I haven't heard in ages." She closed her eyes, and her next words came in whisper. "It has been so long, so long since I heard it. I had almost forgotten how it sounded."
Gary was mesmerized by the pokemon. Was that the one people had seen around Mount Moon? No, it wasn't her. She had been trapped within that stone, and Gary was sure of it. He had felt it.
"Umb umbreon?" Umbreon asked her, though Gary did not understand anything.
Litanias opened her eyes of night sky, and looked at the dark fox, almost seeming to grin, if a bird could actually grin. "What do I want?" she repeated. "Oh, I want so many things, my fellow umbreon." Her face then darkened. "Many things that are lost to me, that I'll never have."
Gary looked once more at the ice crystals, and the withered children within them. "Who are they?" he asked.
"My prey."
His eyes widened. "Your... prey?"
"Of a time much long ago," she said, her voice reverberating through the frozen walls. "When I fed of fear and nightmare and joy and dream."
Gary's heart turned cold itself as he heard her words, and he paled when she looked at him with a look that he could only translate in hunger.
"And I believe," she said hauntingly, "that I could go with a feast right now. After all, it has been a long wait."
"Umbreon!" the pokemon cried as he stood between his master and the cold bird.
Gary looked at him, and regained his senses. He wouldn't let no Articuno rip-off do whatever she wanted with them. "Umbreon, Hyper Beam!"
Golden-white energy seeped from Umbreon's snout, forming into an orb of power, which fired in a large streaking beam towards Litanias. She hid herself within her wings before the ray hit, the explosion sending ice and rock shrapnel everywhere.
Gary used his coat to protect himself from the flying projectiles, and then expectantly looked at the destruction.
The smoke slowly cleared, revealing, to Gary's utter surprise, a perfectly intact Litanias, her tendrils flowing in the air like the wings of ghosts. She screeched, beating her large wings and taking on the air, sending cold gusts over to trainer and pokemon.
"You do not understand, do you?" she spoke as she glided near the chamber's roof. "I'm the Mistress of the Cold Nights! The Sister of Ice!" She stopped midair, glaring at her opponents. "I am the one who knows the darkest and coldest depths of your hearts, and I shall feed upon them, or use them against yourselves!" She then lashed her wings, the tendrils wiping the air and sending two crossing blades of blue energy directly towards Gary.
The teen watched paralyzed as the attack flew towards him. But, before it hit, something rammed his side, and he almost fell of the bridge. Gripping onto one of the large spikes, he looked to see, for a splitting moment, Umbreon standing where he was before, then being hit by the attack himself. The pokemon cried in blinding pain as he was carried by the energy, which then exploded several feet from where Gary was.
It was an eternity before the pokemon fell to the ground, his body limp and almost completely frozen. He did not move afterwards.
"Umbreon!" Gary called for him, but received no answer. He desperately reached into his coat, fumbling frantically in the pockets until he found it. He took out his hand, producing Umbreon's pokeball, which hadn't been used in months, and pointed it towards the black form. "Umbreon, return!" The red beam traveled from the ball to the pokemon but, unlike what was to be expected, nothing happened. Gary started to become terrified. "Return!" he insisted, still without result.
Ignoring the pain and the cold in his body, he ran towards his pokemon, fearing the worst. The ball fell forgotten on his wake in a Clunk. He ran until he was right on top of Umbreon, and he took the fox on his arms. He wasn't breathing.
Gary felt a terrible sentiment rising within him. "Umbry?" he asked softly, too softly, slightly shacking the pokemon. "Umbry, please?" His eyes started to sting, his vision blurring. "Umbreon, please, wake up."
There was no answer. The eon's eyes where closed shut, and his own tears of pain had frozen them like that.
The tears were already falling, but Gary seemed not to notice, his eyes frozen on the empty corpse on his arms.
"Don't worry, human," he heard Litanias' deep voice behind him, approaching. "You will be with him soon."
Gary did not move from his spot, or utter a single word. He just watched as the drops fell and crystallized even before they hit the ebony coat, its owner, once the kid's favorite, no longer breathing, no longer living.
It was then that the earth started shacking beneath their feet, and a deafening roar erupted from it. Litanias squawked and took flight, while Gary instinctively placed one hand on the ground to balance himself.
Then, from one of the many walls, a jet of hellfire erupted, melting everything on its wake. A large round opening appeared and, from it, he leaped gracefully on the bridge, his large padded feet making no sound at all, and he looked at Litanias with crimson eyes.
"Who are you?" she screeched. "How dare you interrupt me?"
Entei's look was impassive, and he turned to Gary, who watched him with disbelieving tear-rimmed eyes, a dark bundle in his arms.
The rage bubbled within the lion-like legendary, as he turned once more to the seething bird. "I'm the one who should ask you that, fiend!" His telepathic voice boomed over their minds. "You, who takes an innocent life for your sheer pleasure!"
"I take a life for that's what I do!" she told him, still flapping in the air. "I must feed on their minds, for that's how I sustain my powers!"
"You are no more than a vampire!" The fiery beast lunged against the icy one, so fast he was a blur, and he knocked her to the center of the altar. Embers formed within his masked snout, as he prepared to incinerate her.
But she clawed his stomach with icy claws, and she wrapped her freezing threads tightly on his throat. Entei roared in pain, the sound causing another quake. He pulled away in a leap, leaving her to take the air again.
In the highest part of the chamber, she looked down at him. "You still haven't told me your name, fire type," she said calmly.
Entei glared at her. "If you really must know, I am Entei, the incarnation of the volcano!"
"The volcano's incarnation?" she asked, amusedly. "That's all? Such a title you have."
Her only answer was a Flamethrower attack, which grazed her left wing, making her cry out in pain.
She knew she had the disadvantage there, and she couldn't die so soon after she had been freed. She looked at the iced ceiling, and an idea came to her.
Entei prepared himself to send a Fireball, when Litanias screeched once more, the sound this time loud enough to pierce their ears mercilessly. The ice reverberated all over the chamber, until it shattered, the iced bodies within the crystals breaking in a shower of tiny pieces. The stalactites on the roof broke and fell, spearing all that was below them.
Entei jumped around the blue spikes, making his way towards Gary and melting those which were to fall on the teen, who was now crouched with Umbreon's body held protectively on his arms. When the legendary finally looked towards Litanias, she was no longer there; a large hole in the upper stones all that could be seen.
He ruffed in irritation, then turned towards Gary, who watched him with an expression that bordered from utter fear to utmost gratitude, though which was real was impossible to tell. Entei looked at the cold body in the trainer's arms.
Gary edged back half-consciously as Entei approached him, not knowing what to do or how to react. But, still, he struggled to remain calm as the great lion gingerly touched the eon's body.
"There is still a small spark of life within him," he told Gary. "I can make it grow until it's steady enough for him to live."
Entei closed his red eyes, and bowed his head. Gary felt the warmth that suddenly surged from the pokemon to the eevee-lution. It was almost an eternity before Gary could feel Umbreon's body warming up and, even though he couldn't possibly explain it, he could see Umbreon's life spark in his mind. He could feel it growing from a flickering match-like fire to a small, steady flame, which grew and grew until it was as strong as a fireball. It was then that Gary felt Umbreon's heart start to beat again, and his lungs breathe shakily and, back to the waking world, Gary felt and saw Umbreon shivering in his arms.
Another long moment before the fox opened his own red eyes to meet the brown teary ones of Gary, who promptly hugged the dark type the closest and the tightest he would allow.
"Oh, God, Umbreon," he sobbed. "I'm so glad you're okay." His voice was jumbled and, under normal circumstances, he would have cared about showing so much emotion. But, right then, he didn't.
Umbreon weakly licked his cheek, consolingly more than anything.
He raised his eyes to meet the Entei, to thank him, but the fire beast was gone, and Gary couldn't tell through where he had left.
As he stood up, Umbreon held firmly in his arms, Gary wondered what had truly happened. He remembered the visions he had, when he touched Litanias' stone. It was all a jumble of flashes, blurred and disconnected, but there was one that lingered, one that was as clear to him as a summer sky.
A tree burned in a great field, but it was not any tree. Gary recognized it. It was an ash tree.
And, as he made his way to the entrance, he felt that what he had seen there, that day, was just the beginning.
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The snowstorm had subsided, and the whitened landscape could now be truly seen. It was as if the world had been blanketed by cold, white cotton.
A figure watched the winter beauty with expressionless green eyes. He saw the explosion at the peak of Mount Moon, and he saw the great white bird soaring towards the gray skies. He watched as it flew higher and faster, onto the horizon and away from anything and anyone.
The figure then walked away into the frozen out forest, the snow crunching beneath his booted feet and the soft wind chilling his face. He couldn't stay there anymore. He had much to do.
For the storm was coming.
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