A/N - I couldn't think of a better name for this chapter. Quite a few chapters have kept the same titles, but I wanted to change this one. However, nothing would come to me that didn't carry spoilers. I hope you enjoy it.
I'm posting a day early as it's night here, and I just felt like I wanted to proof read since I cba going to bed. So enjoy the surprise update! I might do some writing too while I'm at it.
55 - A Daunting Realisation
Wind whipped into the cave sporadically, stirring Harlequin's fur and nipping at her with icy teeth. It had taken both her and the mothim too long to clear away the damp leaves and cover Mischief with a fresh blanket. They'd resorted to pine needles and long, soft ferns. They weren't dry enough, but they'd done what they could.
Harlequin had discovered the mothim was named Flutterwick. His small stature was a clear indicator that he wasn't very old. He was nervous, jumping at every sound. His wide, orange eyes kept a watchful gaze out of the cave mouth. The feathers of the fallen murkrow stirred in the wind, and it took a long time before Flutterwick was at ease with them.
"You live in this cave, kid?" Harlequin asked, trying to placate the nervous bug-type.
"Yes." He turned from the cave mouth to face her. "There's a drier, warmer cavern further in but the entrance is too small to get him inside." Flutterwick spoke regretfully and wound his paws together. "I hoped the leaves would keep the wind off. What… what is he?"
His question took Harlequin by surprise. "A whimsicott."
"I've never seen one before."
Flutterwick's good intentions had sadly not done the grass-type any favours. He was still breathing, but his body was dreadfully cold. Scratches covered his shoulders and a large one trailed over his right eye, but the bleeding had long since stopped. They already looked to be healing, and didn't smell infected, so they weren't to blame for his condition. His unconsciousness was down to the pokerus, or the cold, or a combination of the two. She'd tried rousing him with bitter herbs, but it had done nothing more than cause him to stir slightly.
Defeated and out of options, Harlequin curled up beside him, blocking the biting wind from doing any more damage. She hoped the heat from her own body would soak through to Mischief's chilled bones. Flutterwick was outside, hidden inside the old combee hive. Harlequin could hear his grunts as he chiselled away at the frozen honey. It wasn't for him. He'd offered to gather some for when Mischief woke, in hopes it would give him some much needed energy.
When Flutterwick returned to the cave, the sun had passed over the mountain, leaving the outcrop in deep shade. The mothim silently set his bucket against the wall, still keeping his distance from the zorua. He stared warily through the gaping entrance to the cavern, his antennae twitching, clearly desperate to return to his small hiding place.
"Go get some sleep," Harlequin told him. "I can keep watch over Mischief."
"Oh… no, I don't need sleep." Despite his words, Flutterwick rubbed his paws over his face and antennae. "I can… stay with you." He cast Harlequin a nervous glance and settled down by the far wall.
Harlequin could have cut the tension with her claws. Her fur bristled with nervous energy and she distracted herself by adjusting the ferns over Mischief's body.
"Do you live here alone?" she asked, desperate to break the silence.
Flutterwick nodded. "I… I don't have a family."
Harlequin's ears drooped and she gave a pathetic 'oh.' She turned to look at him. "The Darkness?"
The mothim shrugged. "I was never told. The combee… they looked after me." He paused and took a ragged breath. "They were killed by… by weavile… half a moon ago."
"Weavile?" A lump formed in Harlequin's throat and she swallowed around it. "Why did you stay here?"
"Where would I go?" Flutterwick raised his paws in a weak shrug. "I've never left this part of the mountain."
Harlequin let her head flop onto Mischief's chest. The mothim's story had hurt her in a way she couldn't describe. Mothim and combee didn't usually have such a friendly relationship. They'd been pushed together by the Darkness, and the Darkness had torn it apart. The poor child, orphaned, helpless as his surrogate family were cruelly murdered just because they weren't dark- or dragon-type.
"I'm sorry." The words left her mouth of their own volition, taking her by surprise.
Flutterwick looked up at her with a start.
"You shouldn't have had to go through that," Harlequin went on. "If you like, once Mischief has recovered, I'll take you to a village not far from here. I'm sure they'd welcome you."
"A village?" Flutterwick asked, his antennae twitching with confusion.
"Yes. It's back that way." Harlequin nodded behind her. "There's a lilligant there named Elsa. She helped me when I drank from the poisoned river. If she'd help someone like me, I'm sure she'd welcome you."
Flutterwick looked around the cave and stroked his paws over the dusty floor. "Thanks. This… this place doesn't really feel like home anymore."
Harlequin watched him for a moment. She took in a trembling breath that betrayed her stifled tears and looked away. "Then we'll find you one."
Mischief stirred beneath her and she pulled her head back. He raised a paw, disturbing the pine needles, and rubbed at his scarred eye. His other eye opened and his pupil contracted when he spotted the zorua.
"H-Harlequin?" His voice was husky and he coughed into his paw.
Harlequin pulled back to give him some space, letting him push himself up.
"Where's Cleo?" he asked, looking around the cave. His eyes widened when he spotted Flutterwick and he looked like he was about to speak, as if words kept failing him.
Flutterwick leapt to his feet to gather his bucket, swiftly dropping it beside the whimsicott. Mischief glanced at it with confusion then looked around the cave again.
"Where's Cleo?" he asked a second time. His voice came out stronger, laced with accusation.
"Cleo went to find the fire-type with Spark and Faith," Harlequin explained.
"You left her?" Mischief's gaze fell on Harlequin's ruff and he dug his claws into the earth. "Your collar-"
"She let me go," Harlequin told him. She met Mischief's glare with her own. "I stayed with them while they recovered from the murkrow attack. She let me go so I can find Harbinger and return his mega stone."
"Harbinger…" Mischief's glare melted away and he huffed. "You don't mean that absol?"
"Absol?" Flutterwick squeaked.
Harlequin's jaw went slack as she stared at Mischief. "How… how do you know he's an absol?"
Mischief didn't respond. He instead pulled the bucket closer as if he wanted to examine the honey, but his mind was clearly elsewhere.
Harlequin stifled a growl and pulled the bucket back. "Mischief, answer me. How do you know he's an absol?"
Mischief closed his eyes and sighed, fastening his fist around a clump of pine needles. "I met him. After Enigma attacked us."
Harlequin snorted through her nose. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because…" Mischief groaned and shook his head sharply. "Forget it, Harlequin. You don't want to go looking for him."
"Of course I do!" Harlequin snapped. "You had no right to keep this from me, Mischief. For years I believed he was dead! And you-"
"He wants to kill you!" Mischief barked.
Harlequin's retort died in her mouth. She stared back at Mischief, speechless.
"That's why I didn't say anything." Mischief tossed the fistful of needles and shoved the ferns off himself. "But now you know."
Harlequin's mouth opened and closed feebly. Something clicked in her mind, causing her throat thicken, and she swallowed a few times, diverting her gaze from the whimsicott. Her gaze fell on the bucket of honey still under her paw, and she reached into her bag. It was a brief distraction. She dropped two oran berries into the bucket and shoved it back towards Mischief.
"Eat those," she said gruffly then turned her back. "I'm going outside."
The cold air whipped around her ears and she sat heavily in the snow. It soaked through her fur, grounding her in reality. Tears stung her eyes and she blinked them away, rubbing a paw across them before they froze to her fur.
"Absol have white fur… don't they?" Flutterwick stood behind her, just inside the mouth of the cave. "And red eyes in a dark face?"
Harlequin nodded stiffly.
"I think I saw one recently." Flutterwick rubbed his paws together and looked over at the tree. "He passed by here with two metallic pokemon."
Harlequin sucked in a trembling breath and raised her head towards the deep blue sky. Stray stars fought their way through the waning light before the clouds threatened to hide them.
"They bring disasters, don't they?" Flutterwick asked.
Harlequin gulped back a sob and dragged her claws through the snow, letting her gaze wander back to Flutterwick. "He poisoned the river."
Flutterwick's orange eyes widened.
Hearing herself say it made it feel much more real. She'd not wanted to believe it. As soon as Mischief had announced that, everything had begun to make sense. Why else would someone murder a nidoking and toss his body in the river? The Darkness didn't work like that. It was an unreliable way to wipe out a village, especially one huddled in the mountains. Harlequin had wanted to believe it was an attempt by the Darkness, but part of her had always known it wasn't.
Part of her had known it was personal.
If Harbinger wanted to kill her, then there was every chance he believed he already had.
She licked her lips as her eyes widened with sudden fear. "If Mischief knows he's alive… then does Enigma?"
If he did, and he'd put the pieces together, then Harbinger wouldn't be alive for much longer. Tears flooded over Harlequin's cheeks and she slumped into the snow with a choking sob. She lay there for a moment, letting the snow soak through her fur. The mega stone sat in the snow, glinting in the waning light. No… she couldn't give up. Not yet. Time was of the essence. She needed to find Harbinger and set things straight.
"Let's go."
Harlequin looked up at Mischief's voice. He stood beside her trembling and licking honey off his paw. He didn't meet her eyes.
"I'll help you," he said. "But if he tries to hurt you…"
Harlequin rolled onto her feet and stood up. "Thank you. But… you're weak."
He scoffed at that. "You need help."
"I… I can help, too." Flutterwick joined Mischief's side, his gaze flitting back and forth from the two pokemon and the darkening sky.
Harlequin let out a dry laugh and shook her head. "You two are just gonna slow me down." She met Mischief's stony stare and let out a sigh of defeat. "Dawn," she said firmly. "We leave at dawn."
...
Cleo raised the feather to her lips and blew. A soft, high note resonated across the quiet, barren landscape. In a heartbeat Reshiram was there, hovering over the flat stretch of ground. Tyrix had told Cleo of the old charizard training grounds. It was on the other side of the fissure. The tunnel to it had fallen into disrepair, and the small group had needed to dig their way out towards the exit. It hadn't taken long, but it had left them covered with dust and volcanic ash. Tyrix had insisted on leaving, and had also insisted on helping clear the rubble. As soon as the fresh air had whipped into his lungs, the typhlosion had fallen victim to another coughing fit. Black smoke spewed from his throat until he coughed up green phlegm. The smoke then turned a pale grey, evidence the sitrus berries were doing their job. Either way, it had left Cleo sceptical as to whether they should be leaving quite yet.
Tyrix stood between Cleo and Faith. Out in the daylight his ragged form was even more apparent. The low, bright cold-season sun lit up his fur which was matted into spikes and had long lost its healthy sheen. He stood hunched, breathing heavily.
Cleo had made the point of telling him that Reshiram was a dragon. It had been met with little more than a grunt of acknowledgement. Even as he looked up at the towering dragon there was no hint of surprise in his eyes. Cleo felt she should have expected that. Tyrix had once had houndour in his army. Why should he react to a dragon aiding them?
Reshiram hovered uncertainly for a moment, his heavy wing beats whipping up air around the group of much smaller pokemon. The ground was flat and spacious but was surrounded with large rocks. Large black slabs stood among porous boulders and sandy mounds. It wasn't a natural formation, but was deliberately built to hide the training pokemon from view. Finally, Reshiram found his footing and landed with a soft thud before them.
Reshiram smiled tiredly at the group then glanced over the sick typhlosion with a sympathetic concern. "Well, it's nice to meet you in person."
"Likewise," said Tyrix. "Cleo tells me you've been busy getting supplies for me. I can't thank you enough."
"Oh, it was my pleasure!" Reshiram rumbled laughter. "It was actually quite enjoyable, I have to say."
"You can't have been back long," said Tyrix. "You sure you can carry us all to the mainland?"
"You do look exhausted," said Faith. "It's a long flight. Maybe we should rest until tomorrow morning?"
"Don't worry about me, Faith!" Reshiram exclaimed. "You just woke me from a nap. I've had a rest and I'm as bright as a daisy! I just didn't expect you to be ready to leave this soon." He cast another wary look at the sickly typhlosion.
"Better sooner than later, eh?" Tyrix grunted.
"Well-"
Before Reshiram could finish, Tyrix reached up to climb onto his back. The white dragon muttered an apology and lowered himself to the ground. Tyrix dragged himself up to sit astride the white dragon's powerful shoulders. He then reached down to offer a paw to Cleo, helping her up behind him. He hoisted her up her with as much ease as it would have taken her to lift Spark. He leaned down once more to offer a paw to Faith, but Cleo had already trapped the mawile in a psychic bubble. Cleo gave the typhlosion an apologetic smile having denied him his chivalry as Faith settled in place behind her.
Reshiram looked over his shoulder at them. "All aboard?"
"Aye!" Spark called as she leapt from Cleo's shoulder to her lap.
Reshiram paced over the flat ground, looking from the rocks to the sky and back. "You've chosen a good time to leave, I have to say. News is that the Wildfires are active."
Cleo raised an eyebrow. "News?"
"Yes. The nice munchlax I bought provisions off yesterday told me such. I mean, understandably he was wary of me at first, but once he understood I meant him no harm he was very talkative." Reshiram paused to glance back at his passengers. "Howlinger has been leading his pack from village to village looking for a meowstic and a whimsicott. Survivors have been fleeing to neighbouring towns to seek solace. He told me news of them and of you, as well, have been - if you'll please pardon me quoting such a ghastly term - 'spreading like wildfire'."
Cleo's mouth went dry and she exchanged a concerned glance with Spark.
"Then we'd better get a move on," said Tyrix. "Time is of the essence. Did he say where they were heading next?"
"No, but they've been leaving a very visible path of destruction. Hold on tight."
Reshiram beat his wings, rising jerkily into the air. His tail erupted behind him, the deep roar slicing through the silence. He tilted back, letting the propulsion from his tail rocket him into the sky. Cleo clenched her teeth, holding tightly to Tyrix's slender waist. Faith let out a yell as she clutched at Cleo, and the meowstic instinctively trapped the mawile and Spark in a bubble of psychic.
The large white dragon levelled out in the air and Cleo let out a held breath as she dropped her psychic.
"Terribly sorry," said Reshiram over the rush of wind. He beat his wings to rise higher over Fire Island. "There wasn't enough space for a running jump."
"Aye, you're bigger than I expected," said Tyrix. "There was plenty of ground there for the small number of charizard in my army. Thought you'd be able to take off."
"We managed, my friend." Reshiram turned to soar up and away towards the mainland. "The wind is against us, I'm afraid. But we should reach the coast before sunset."
Cleo held onto Tyrix and peered around him at the coast. The sun was still high in the sky, which was clear of any clouds. But on the horizon… was that fire? A chill ran down her spine and she squinted at it. It had to be her imagination. There were no settlements this far north.
Tyrix lurched violently as his body was wracked with coughs. Grey smoke billowed around him and he turned to aim whatever he was dislodging over Reshiram's shoulder. The white dragon cast an eye back towards him.
"Oh my! Terribly sorry. It's the altitude. I'll fly lower."
"No." Tyrix took in a rattling breath and stifled another episode. "Go any lower and you won't fly as fast. We can't waste time."
"We can't have you being ill either," said Faith. "We need you."
"Then maybe the altitude will clear my chest," Tyrix said dismissively. "Let's keep a steady pace, eh? Sooner we get rid of them dogs the better."
Reshiram grunted agreement, although there was hesitation in it. His tail roared with flames, propelling them towards the coast. It still looked so far away. The orange hue that had caught Cleo's eye had vanished, but her heart still beat frantically. They were drawing closer and closer to their battle with the Wildfires; the pack of dogs that had torched the Sparkling Forest, reducing the once vibrant land to a pile of ash.
'Mum! Dad! Where are you?!'
The voice that rose in her mind was her own, echoed by a tiny dedenne.
Cleo hugged Spark into her stomach and her small friend looked up at her with wide, tearful eyes.
"We can do this," Spark told her. "We have to."
Cleo nodded and swallowed the lump that was blocking her voice. Faith tightened her grip on her waist with reassurance.
"We're in this together," said the mawile over the roar of Reshiram's inferno. "All of us. No matter what happens."
Cleo caught a glance from Tyrix's red gaze. A smile quirked the corner of his lip.
Cleo nodded again, less stiffly. "Yes. We are." She set her gaze on the horizon, looking past Tyrix's black, oily shoulder. "No matter what happens."
...
Harlequin skipped over the rocks down towards the river. There had been a fresh snowfall overnight, and the sky was clear. Sunlight shone on the snow with a dazzling intensity, forcing Harlequin to keep her head up and squint. Flutterwick hovered behind her, his large wings whipping up the soft snow, while Mischief kept pace at her side. His light footwork barely left any imprints on the snow as he drifted along almost weightlessly.
"Not far now," Harlequin told them. "Just around this ledge and we'll find the log bridge."
"Are you sure we're going the right way?" Mischief asked.
"I don't know," said Harlequin. "I can't recall his scent, and it would be near impossible to track him in this snow anyway." She skirted around a snowdrift that had washed up beside a towering mountain ash. "All I can do right now is hope."
She paused, sniffing the air. They were getting closer to the river. With the way the wind was blowing, however, she couldn't pick up any pokemon scents.
Flutterwick ducked down out of sight beyond a boulder. "The river is right there. I can't see anyone though."
"That's good. They should be done clearing the river by now." Harlequin rose to continue down the mountain slope. "They'd been working on it non-stop since I arrived in the village."
"Will it be cleared that quickly?" Mischief asked. "Because those seviper remains destroyed a lot of life."
"I would think so," said Harlequin. "The nidoking has been removed, so what was left of the poison should have been washed away. Your river was only so badly contaminated because it went unnoticed for so long. Come on, we can't dawdle. We're losing daylight."
The sun was still high above them, but Harlequin wanted to cover as much ground as possible before nightfall. She panted as she bounded through the snow, her momentum spurred on by the steep descent. She landed up to her chest in a snowdrift and clambered out, shaking her shaggy pelt. She caught her breath as Mischief landed beside her and looked downstream. The snow was trampled flat, and a path had been trodden up the mountain. She followed it with her gaze, a sense of dread falling on her.
"There was fresh snowfall last night," she said quietly. "So why is it trampled so flat?"
"Maybe they needed water," Flutterwick suggested.
"Or they're not finished clearing the poison." Harlequin sniffed the air, then lowered her nose the flattened snow.
"But they wouldn't need to come into the mountains to clear it," Mischief added. "The river doesn't come up this far. Why… why would they come all the way out here?"
Harlequin gazed at the trail of paw prints leading up into the mountains. Whoever it was had taken a different path to her. Her mouth went dry and she licked her lips.
"Because it's not them." Harlequin confirmed her own fears and sucked in a sharp breath. She looked back at the path, following it towards the hidden village. No pokemon in sight. She hadn't expected to see them working by the river, but she couldn't even hear anything. She took off towards it, racing over the trampled snow.
"Harlequin!" Mischief hissed.
But Harlequin didn't stop. Her feet moved with the momentum of her own fear, desperate to prove it wrong. Her paws skidded over trampled ice but she didn't let it slow her. Flutterwick and Mischief followed behind her silently. She wanted to scream at them to wait, but at the same time she didn't want to go into that village alone. She wanted to be stopped by someone. For some large pokemon to come around the side of the mountain path and block her. To tell her to back off. The closer she drew to the village the heavier that sense of dread became.
She turned sharply towards it, faced with the village gate. The snow was trampled flat by feet of various sizes. Black feathers marred the icy slick. Deep claw marks tore rivets into the wooden buildings. Ice clung to the branches, hanging down in frozen points. Bodies littered the floor, pooling blood that mixed with the snow into a pink, frothy slurry.
"No…" The word came out as a breath.
Harlequin stopped dead, tracing her eyes over the battlefield. She glanced over the mangled body of a zangoose, the frozen carapace of the gliscor. Pokemon she'd only seen alive a day earlier. Her heart clenched painfully.
"This… this can't be real," she muttered. "It can't. It just can't…"
Harlequin stopped by the cold body of a machoke, his face frozen in an angry sneer. His fist was clenched around a tuft of feathers. She reached out with a paw and tried to close his frozen eyes.
"What happened here?" Flutterwick's small voice spoke from the gate.
Mischief walked past him, looking over everything with a stoic expression. "It wasn't just murkrow, was it? They can't have done all this." He stooped to pick up an ebony feather and smoothed it with his paw. "Was it Enigma?"
"Of course it wasn't!" Harlequin snapped.
Mischief met her gaze with a look of confusion and Harlequin quickly muttered an apology. Flutterwick trembled beside him looking from the zorua to the carnage surrounding them. The mothim knew. He'd seen it all before. The fear radiating from him was louder than any words. Harlequin could almost picture him picking through the remains of his surrogate family. No child had to deal with that.
No. Harlequin closed her eyes and grit her teeth. No one had to deal with that.
"Then who was it?" Mischief asked in a small voice.
Harlequin swallowed back a sob and stood back from the body to look at the canopy. Ice spread out like a web over the raised wooden walkways that stretched from tree to tree. Several hung limp, their ropes cut neatly as if by a razor-sharp blade.
"This is the work of weavile." Harlequin shuddered with repressed rage. "I've seen their work before. They tear through a village in a tornado of ice and slice up whatever they see with their claws. And if you're too slow…" She glanced back down at the machoke, "you don't stand a chance."
Flutterwick moved towards her, his large eyes filled with tears. "But… this is so wrong. They… these pokemon… they didn't do anything."
"No, they didn't. They were good pokemon." Harlequin failed to swallow back her sob and closed her eyes as tears forced their way over her cheeks. "They… they helped me."
An outsider. A former member of the Darkness, now an outlaw. And they'd helped her. If she'd not left when she had, if she'd just stayed a little longer, she might have been able to help.
She looked up at Elsa's tree house. The bridge had been cut away, and deep slashes marred the woodwork. Sap oozed from scars in the ancient trunk. She didn't want to go up there. She didn't want to confirm her fears.
"It's wrong," Harlequin whispered. "Everything about it… It's all just so wrong." Anger burned inside Harlequin's chest and she let out a loud roar. She tore herself away from the scene and bolted from the gate. "This has to end!"
...
Thanks for reading! Please R&R! =D
