Author's Notes: Thank you for all of the wonderful reviews! This section is a little long today, so feel free to scroll down to the actual chapter at your leisure.
Well, VulpixTrainer, it's true that Pokeballs are fireproof, or at least their exteriors are. The interior circuitry, however, is somewhat more susceptible to heat. As the ball automatically opens and shuts, it would be difficult to get flames into its innards, and even if you were able to the fire would be extinguished when the ball closed and expelled the oxygen from the interior, thus putting the fire out. Therefore, it would be extremely difficult to cause any significant damage to one with flame. Pokeballs are not programmed to monitor environmental conditions, so they would not be able to let a Pokemon out in the event of a fire. A Pokeball could only sustain interior damage when its occupant was absent, as it opens only to release the Pokemon within. As for how Ailrianor plans to talk with Katherine, he's a smart Ninetales, I'm sure that he'll think of something...
Yes, my names are rather exotic, aren't they, Raichu-Fan? All of my Pokemon have three-part names containing a root, a prefix and a suffix. To take your example, the name "Allekendro" (pronounced just as it appears, Ah-leh-KEN-dro) may be broken up into the prefix, Alle, the root, Ken, and the suffix, Dro. Each piece has its own meaning, and many have several different interpretations. Allekendro, for example, means "Cunning One Who Walks in Darkness." The root-suffix combination "kendro" is actually quite popular with dark-types, as it means "One Who Walks in Darkness," or more literally, "Dark Walker." Take, for example, Malkendro, which means, "Lone One Who Walks in Darkness." I wanted to work the meaning of Sasoliar's name into the story somehow, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen, so I'll say it here: it means "The Light Unclouded." Note that Ghost Pokemon have only two parts to their name.
Interesting theory, Pikajenn. I wonder if you're on to something...
And yes, I really do spend my time coming up with stuff like Pokemon naming systems. Creepy, no? Anyway, here is the much-delayed eighteenth chapter.
Chapter 18: The Mission
Katherine awoke to find the sun streaming in through the window cut into the mountain's side. It seemed bright and cheerful as ever, and Katherine felt heartened. Her peaceful sleep had left her refreshed and optimistic. She hummed the League theme to herself as she stood up and stretched. Looking around, she noticed that Jeremy was absent. Judging the state that her now-crushed pile of grass was in compared to his, he hadn't slept at all the previous night. This dampened her good cheer a bit, but she put the moody Rattata out of her mind and went about her morning routine.
Some minutes later a small Vulpix poked his head around the entrance to the room. "Vulpix, vul, vul vulpix!" he announced cheerfully. Looking around the room, he blinked his amber eyes in surprise. "Vulll?"
"Jeremy's not here," Katherine told him. "He went for a walk last night and doesn't seem to have come back. Sorry."
The Vulpix appeared chagrinned for a minute, then flicked his tails in a gesture of defeat and turned around. "Vul pixvul vulpix," he commanded, and Katherine obediently followed him as he led her into the dining hall once again.
As before, Ailrianor and Lokynou were waiting, looking expectantly towards Katherine and the Vulpix escort. When Jeremy didn't appear, Ailrianor cocked his head quizzically. "Nine tales? Talesnine tales?" he asked.
The Vulpix repeated the tail flick and replied, "Vullpix. Vulvul pixpix."
Ailrianor glanced at Lokynou uneasily, but then spoke a few curt words to the Vulpix, who disappeared. Katherine sat down next to him. Breakfast was forthcoming, this time eggs with berries. Katherine had the uncomfortable impression that the eggs might be relatives of last night's entrée, but decided she didn't really want to know and didn't ask. After a few minutes a Vulpix came up to the trio. Katherine had difficulty telling the foxes apart, but she guessed that it might be the one that had escorted her here in the first place.
"Vull pix! Vul, vulvul pix," he told Ailrianor before turning away and finding a seat in a different part of the dining hall. Whatever he had told the elder Ninetales didn't agree with him, and Ailrianor ate pensively, seeming to radiate irritation.
Breakfast wound down, the mountain's residents slowly trickling out of the large chamber to go about their daily business. Ailrianor obviously wanted to tell Katherine something. He started to speak several times but cut himself off, tails lashing irritably, staring accusingly at the blank space next to Katherine. "Taales. Ninetales," he grumbled. He was without a translator, and would have to stoop to a method that he had an extreme dislike for.
Turning to Katherine, he barked, "Tales! Ninetales nine!" and stood up. Lokynou followed his lead, and Katherine did the same, unsure of what was expected of her. Ailrianor started off and Lokynou gently bumped Katherine in his direction. It looked like she was being escorted off somewhere again. Katherine was becoming tired of being herded around the mountain like a Mareep.
As she was led deeper into the mountain, Katherine noticed that it seemed different than before. The corridors seemed dimmer than last night, and Kathirine craned her neck upward to see if there was some sort of problem with the mountain's will-o'-the-wisps. Indeed, there seemed to be far fewer of them darting about the ceiling than there had been previously. She attributed that to the early hour; they probably just showed up in force as the light was waning, as did ghosts.
It turned out that their destination was, once again, the volcano's caldera. The sun shone upon the area with an early morning radiance but seemed unable to touch the strange pool in its center. The water therein did not even acknowledge the light's presence with a solitary shimmer, remaining dark and mysterious as ever. Katherine looked at it nervously, still leery after her experience with it the previous day. Her heart sank as Ailrianor made a beeline for it; that was apparently their destination.
Ailrianor stepped up to the pool and stared into its depths curiously. As Katherine and Lokynou arrived at the water's edge, he stretched out on the bank and dipped his left forepaw into the water. Ripples spread across the pool's surface but rather than dissipating as normal ripples they seemed to amplify as they spread across the dark waters. Katherine hung back, still reluctant to go near the mysterious pool, but Lokynou pushed her forward.
Peering in apprehensively, Katherine saw not the disturbing scene of burning flowers and watching eyes as she had previously but rather a whirling jumble of images that tumbled across the surface of the water like a jumble of scenes seen by strobe light. One image swam out from the mass and solidified. It was a Rattata, seated on its haunches and grinning impudently. It was clearly somewhere inside of the mountain, a smooth rock wall behind its back and a fiery light dancing over its head. Katherine didn't know exactly what to make of this and glanced at Lokynou who was now standing next to her, watching the display with interest.
Lokynou replied to the glance with a quizzical look of her own. Katherine looked back at the picture, and saw the Rattata vanish abruptly, leaving the imagined hallway empty. That gave Katherine a clue. "You can't find Jeremy," she guessed. Lokynou nodded, pleased.
The pool dissolved back into a crazy slideshow again before centering on an image of the night sky, the sickle moon standing out amongst the soft stars. This scene rippled and cleared to reveal another room in the mountain. Here the image was focused on the ceiling, showing the complex dance of will-o'-the wisps as they darted about the ceiling. Then, they suddenly winked out in unison, leaving the room dark. Katherine thought that this was the end of the demonstration and began to try to puzzle out what it meant when two luminous eyes appeared in the ensuing black.
Katherine yelped and stumbled backward, startling Lokynou. "I've seen those before," she explained when she got over the shock. "They were there yesterday when I looked into the pool."
Now it was Lokynou and Ailrianor's turns to look surprised. They exchanged a few muttered comments in low tones, faces grim. Lokynou then gently propelled Katherine back to the water's edge. Rattled, Katherine mustered her courage and peered back into the pool's depths.
The eyes were still there, but Katherine found that she no longer experienced the feeling of being watched as she gazed upon them. They were as malicious as ever, but seemed disembodied and surreal. As she watched, a shadowy figure defined itself around them, a glowing smile appearing below the eyes. Katherine recognized the figure.
"Oh, it's a Gengar!" she observed triumphantly. But what did a Gengar have to do with anything? She thought back over what the pool had shown her this time. Nighttime, the will-o'-wisps fleeing, the Gengar appearing. Wait...what had the moon phase been last night?
"A Gengar entered the mountain last night and it scared all of the will-o'-wisps away!" she announced proudly.
"Tales!" Lokynou barked excitedly, happy that Katherine had grasped the complex concept. Maybe that's why there aren't so many will-o'-wisps around today, Katherine thought. They were scared away by the Gengar and most of them haven't come back yet.
The image in the pool was changing again. The Gengar remained, but a new figure emerged from the gloom. It was a Rattata, appearing very small and feeble compared to the grinning apparition. Then both of them faded away.
That one wasn't hard at all. "You think that the Gengar took Jeremy," she groaned.
"Tales, ninetales tales!" Ailrianor agreed.
"Which means that they've gone back to the island, where I am now going to have to fly to in order to rescue him and prevent his Mistress from executing him or whatever," she sighed. Playing hero was beginning to become a real drag.
"Tallles..." Ailrianor confirmed, obviously a bit put out by the human's tone.
"What's the plan?" Katherine asked, somewhat resignedly.
Ailrianor turned his attention back to the pool, and Katherine did the same. The kaleidoscope of images repeated itself, and soon she found herself staring at her back.
The Katherine projected in the pool was facing down a Gengar, presumably the one featured in the previous images. Rather than bringing out one of her Pokemon to battle with it, however, her image reached into its pocket and drew forth a star-shaped object, which she held out towards the Gengar. The strange item flared with a brilliant white light and the Gengar disappeared.
"Wait, why would I attack the Gengar?" Katherine asked. "Isn't the sadistic Ninetales the one that I should be worried about?"
Lokynou shook her head gently, a small smile playing across her muzzle, as though the fox was amused by the human's naiveté. She indicated the pool once more, and Katherine saw that it was now projecting an enlarged image of the object that her spectral had apparently used to ward off the malignant Pokemon. It was a stone cut into an irregular star shape, dark reddish in color and mottled with veins and blots of a dark green-black. In its center was carved a sphere with long spikes radiating from its perimeter, which Katherine assumed was probably supposed to represent a sun.
"Okay, so you've got some sort of mystical rock that will make the Gengar go away. Why is it so important?" she asked.
Ailrianor sighed and shook his proud head, apparently disappointed that Katherine was unable to figure it out for herself. He concentrated on the pool, creating a new image, this time forming a scene in which he and Lokynou stood opposite another Ninetales, obviously far younger, its pelt shining golden. Between them stood the Gengar, grinning maliciously at the elder Ninetales.
"Ohhh, I get it. The Gengar is somehow stopping you from getting to the Mistress. If I get rid of it for you, you can deal with her. Gotcha. Where's the magical rock?"
The rock appeared once again in the pool, only much smaller now. About the size of a human child's hand, Katherine guessed. Lokynou startled her by leaning out over the water and grabbing the image in her jaws. She lifted the stone out of the water, leaving the pool dark and empty. Turning to Katherine, she dropped it smugly at the trainer's feet.
Katherine was stunned. She bent down to pick up the stone. It was as solid as any other rock, water drops still clinging to it and gleaming in the sunlight. It was smoother than she would have guessed from the image that Ailrianor had conjured of it, surface shining with a polished sheen. Most definitely real, or certainly the most real-feeling illusion that she had come across.
Ailrianor withdrew his paw from the pool with a smile, pleased that the display had made an impression on the trainer. He irritably flicked water from his paw, apparently done creating pictures for the day.
"Okay," Katherine said in a shaky voice. Seeing the apparently immaterial rock in the pool become the solid stone in her hand had thrown her off balance. The idea that what the waters revealed was actually real made her distinctly uncomfortable. "Let's go over the plan again, shall we? I fly back to the island, find the Gengar, and, um, hold up this rock..." she looked at Lokynou uncertainly. "Is that all I have to do? Hold it out at him? No magical incantations or anything?"
Lokynou shook her head. The stone would work by itself.
"...and I rescue Jeremy, fly back here, and you'll take care of the rest?"
Lokynou nodded this time. That was the plan.
"I guess that I had better be off, then," Katherine surmised. "I have everything that I need. I'll be back once I've gotten rid of the Gengar so that you can go after the Ninetales." She stepped back from Lokynou and pulled a Pokeball off of her belt. "Go, Pidgeot!" she commanded, and he burst out of the device in a shower of white light. The ball bounced back to Katherine, who returned it to her belt. It looked as though she was off once again.
"Ready for another trip, Pidgeot?" she asked her Pokemon.
"Geeoott!" he shrieked appreciatively. He glanced curiously at the two Ninetales, their silver pelts glimmering in the sunlight, as well as the oddly shrouded pool behind them, but dismissed them as unimportant. The cold mountain air and blazing sun were calling to him, and he longed to be flying again, released to the freedom of the wind. Katherine mounted him and he pushed off, wings beating heavily to carry he and his passenger up and away from the mountain.
Katherine held the strange reddish stone in her hand, turning it over and inspecting it with a critical eye. It definitely didn't look all that magical to her, but then, she wasn't really that well-versed in the arcane, either. Shrugging, she slipped the stone into the front pocket of her sweatshirt and leaned forward, eyes squinted against the vicious wind. After she had this little errand done, she resolved to herself, she would keep her nose out of the business of Ninetales.
BREAK
The elder Ninetales watched the Pidgeot depart, the fierce bird soon disappearing into the bright blue of the morning sky. Still they continued to sit and watch after it, eyes staring off into the sky without really seeing it.
Ailrianor heaved a small sigh. Amazing, wasn't it, how you could fool a human with a bit of simple slight-of-paw? They were simply too trusting, believing Pokemon to be virtuous creatures incapable of deception.
Any trainer who thinks that has obviously never had an encounter with a Gengar, he thought to himself.
Lokynou, by contrast, was trying to brush away the guilt that nibbled on her thoughts, leaving them confused and distracted. A single question repeated itself over and over in her head.
Have we done the right thing?