Author's Note: The same stuff as last time: Lugia is obviously from Pokémon, which I do not own and have no rights to. Also, italics indicates telepathy. This story is very much an AU story, and doesn't really touch on Pokémon at all other than importing Lugia to a universe very much like ours. If you came here looking for Ash, Misty, Lance, or any such character, you might want to just hit "back" now, because unless this story really gets away from me they won't be showing up.
The next morning, I woke up to find Silver standing over me, looking concerned. "You haven't eaten for some time. You should eat," he said He placed a bowl full of fish in front of me. "Eat this, it will help you regain your strength."
Just...eat it raw?! I exclaimed.
"Of course. You didn't seem to have any reluctance earlier," he reminded me with a slight smile.
Earlier?
"Yes. You should remember it, it was just before we took you to the beach..."
But that was sushi! This is just...raw fish!
"And what did you think sushi is?" asked Silver impatiently.
Properly prepared raw fish! This isn't prepared at all!
"You'll have to get over your hangups soon. I'll leave you with this for now. Please ensure you are well fed before your training begins tomorrow."With that, Silver left me again. I sat for a long time in the dim cave, thinking. Eventually, my stomach reminded me that I needed to eat, so I bent my head down to the bowl and tried the fish. Surprisingly, it tasted fairly good. After eating, I decided to try to get the hang of moving around with my new body. It was easier than I expected. Apart from underestimating the size of my limbs, they moved naturally. The tail took some getting used to, though. I walked over to the water, and looked down. My face looked similar to Silver's, but the mask was a turquoise color. I wasn't yet ready to try swimming or flying, but before the day was over I was able to move around easily enough. When the sun went down, I tried to sleep, but couldn't manage it. Apparently, lugia need less rest than humans do. I decided to meditate for the rest of the night, and quickly fell into my meditative "zone". At least I could still do that.
I was still meditating when the sun rose and Silver showed up. "Good morning! I see you're awake. I think you've noticed by now that you don't need nearly as much sleep as you used to." He was being obnoxiously cheerful, but quickly clamped down on his mood. "We need you to be able to function at our level as quickly as possible. We have recruited two of you in anticipation of certain changes to our policies, but those of us who are not undergoing the change are hard pressed to maintain the climate."
Wait, you said "not undergoing the change." Do you mean...you were changed like this also? I asked him.
"Yes, I was. The first lugia came to this planet millions of years ago, shortly after the creatures you referred to as dinosaurs died out. It was decided that this planet, being in a fairly unstable area, needed additional protection. As the first lugia grew old, they began the process of selecting suitable beings to replace them, and transforming them. Since then there have been a great many such cycles. We are long-lived, but not immortal." Silver had fallen into the lecturing tone of voice that was all too familiar to me.
Wait, how long is "long lived"? Are we talking about a hundred years, or what?
"We are capable of living for several millenia before dying of old age. However, it is entirely possible that we can be killed before reaching the end of our natural lifespan. We have had a very long time to evolve and spread across galaxies, always working in defense of life, until our 'ancestors', and I use that term fairly loosely, genetically engineered themselves to better protect life. Since then, we have been unable to reproduce, but we have gained the ability to grant our form to others.
"We are sworn to defend life, and we spend our time maintaining the climates and protecting life from certain natural dangers that evolution cannot prevent, as well as certain unnatural dangers that life so often produces. To that end, our 'ancestors' altered themselves to forms very similar to this. We have occasional contact from offworld lugia, but it is generally only if our help is needed or in the event of a Conclave.
"It seems that you have mastered gross motor control, so it is time to introduce you to the rest of the knowledge you will need for basic functioning in this body. Please resume meditating as you were when I came in, it greatly eases this process."
I sank into meditation, drifting along the streams of thought and drying them out until only awareness remained. Once I had reached that trance state, Silver walked up to me and placed his hands on my head, just behind my "mask". All of a sudden, a great burst of knowledge flowed into me—the instincts to control my new body in fine detail, and some extra general knowledge about the culture that I was being brought into. "Please remain calm, and don't try to move for the next few minutes," Silver said. "It usually takes a while to assimilate the knowledge, and if you try to move before it settles in you may hurt yourself."
That was certainly odd, I said. I've never felt anything like that in my life!
"You'll feel it again," Silver assured me. "There's still a bit of information on controlling your other abilities to impart, as well as instruction on assuming your other forms and a general knowledge burst."
I meditated for a while longer, hoping that it would help the knowledge integrate with my mind. Eventually, Silver informed me that I could try moving around. I stood up, and it came naturally. I stretched my wings, and found I was able to control each of the stubby "fingers" at the end individually. It felt natural, like I had been born to this body!
"Lets try a bit of swimming. You'll find that your lungs can extract oxygen from water almost as efficiently as they can from air, but I'm still glad you didn't try to swim out before this. Your human inhibitions about breathing underwater, while they don't apply to this body, would have prevented you from respirating underwater. You may have come to some harm." And with that, Silver resumed his lugian form and dived into the water at the exit of the cave. With some misgivings, I followed him. There was an underwater tunnel leading out of the cave that seemed to go on forever. When my lungs started burning, I knew I needed to take a deep breath. Even after the burst of knowledge that had been imparted to me, I still didn't want to breathe water! I fought my inhibitions, and let the water into my lungs. It was a very strange feeling, although it felt natural enough. It certainly eased the pain in my lungs, and imparted some extra energy—much like the feeling after surfacing from too long underwater.
I swam on after Silver, and we eventually came to the mouth of the tunnel. We swam up to the surface of the sea, and burst into the air. I found that I was able to force the water out of my lungs by exhaling hard, and for a few minutes Silver and I just circled above the sea. I was reveling in the feeling of flight. I had flown small airplanes before, but this was an entirely different feeling! Eventually, we flew to the uninhabited island that contained the cave. We landed on the beach, and Silver told me it was time to learn about my psychic abilities. He returned to his human form, and after I had returned to that meditative state, he imparted another burst of information. As it unpacked, I considered what other psychic abilities I might have other than telepathy. It turns out that lugia have a fairly large band of abilities.
There was what I supposed to be fairly standard telekinesis training: lifting objects, separating out one object from many, and so on. After a few hours of such training, we moved to other abilities. First, I practiced forming a barrier around me. After I managed to create a coherent barrier, Silver tested it against his attacks. First he psychically threw rocks at me, then it progressed to boulders, and then to pure blasts of psychic energy. There were a few that broke through, but Silver quickly deflected them so I came to no real harm. After he deemed that I had sufficiently mastered the barrier, we moved on to the aeroblast, a powerful beam of wind energy. That took a great deal of practice, even just to form it. It took until nearly sunset before I was able to use it accurately to destroy boulders flying through the air a few miles out. I don't think I would ever have mastered it were it not for the telepathically-implanted knowledge.
As the sun was close to the horizon, Silver decided that it was time to break for food. He offered basic instruction on using a whirlpool generated by our own bodies to move quickly through water, and then he taught me how to hunt fish, moving swiftly through the water to snatch one from the rest of its school. As a human, I had never hunted, and in fact been opposed to hunting, but this seemed natural. When I questioned Silver about it, he said he had lifted my mental block against hunting so that I would be able to survive in the wilderness. I had some misgivings about this wholesale altering of my psyche, but Silver assured me that he altered only what was necessary for my survival in my new form, and that he was strictly bound to do no more than that.
After we ate, Silver suggested that we continue training in the dark. He wanted to get started on healing. Healing? I asked, shocked.
Of course, Silver replied.
But...wouldn't that mean someone would have to be hurt?!
Unfortunately, yes, but our healing powers are nothing like the incomplete healing your doctors can provide. We can heal the flesh so that it is as if the wound never occurred, while your doctors can only patch it and hope it heals well enough, Silver told me.
Still concerned, I asked But...who are we going to hurt?
The one you know as Ryujin has volunteered himself, Silver informed me I was shocked. I dove down into the water, and spun myself to activate the whirlpool as I dove towards the deeps. Silver followed me. It will be okay. It is something we all do, and there is always an experienced mentor standing by to insure that there will not be any lasting harm.
But...but...it doesn't seem RIGHT! I shouted.
It is important that you learn your healing abilities, and how to control them. Please, return to the island with me, Silver insisted. I gave up and followed him back to the island, and found Ryujin waiting there in his human form. He nodded briskly at Silver, then at me, and transformed to his lugian shape. He looked very much like silver, but the patch on his belly was a reddish color, as was the "mask" around his eyes.
Ryujin stretched out, and asked Are you ready to begin
I suppose so, I replied.
Very well. Remember, proximity is essential for healing. Ryujin reminded me. Then, he stuck out his head, looked back, and bit a chunk out of his wing, leaving a missing chunk that looked to be about the size of a mid-sized pineapple. The wound was bleeding badly.
Ryujin! I exclaimed.
What did you expect, flowers and rainbows? Start HEALING me! Ryujin grated out. I could tell by his mental tone that he was in pain. Chastened, I bent over him and stretched out my wings. Placing the tips over the wound, I concentrated on healing him. I concentrated on the flow of healing energy from me into him, and, though it was slightly draining, I could tell it was helping. I opened my eyes, and noticed a faint blue glow under my wingtips, flowing into the wound. The wound had already stopped bleeding, and the flesh was regenerating. After around a minute, Ryujin's wing was fully restored. It didn't look like it had ever been injured before.
I nearly collapsed with relief. Very good, came the slightly deeper tones of Silver. You have a great deal of talent for one so young.
Thank you! But tell me, is it always this draining to heal? I asked.
Not always. Regenerating flesh is very draining, but most wounds don't remove much flesh—usually it just tears it. Also, you'll find that your energy reserves grow as you gain experience. However, for this next exercise in healing, we'll do something less intense. Just a broken bone and some scratches, it'll be a piece of cake compared to what you just did.
Wait, you started me off with the MOST difficult aspect of healing? That doesn't seem very smart!
Well, Silver said, I was right here. I could have stepped in if you were unable to heal Ryujin. Also, I needed to see how talented you were, and that is easiest when you haven't used your energy on healing more minor wounds first. But now, its time for your next attempt. With that, he levitated a largish rock up and smashed it against Ryujin's body. Heal him!
I immediately went over to Ryujin and placed my wingtips over his ribcage, where he had been struck. I concentrated on that healing energy again, and felt an upwelling flowing out of me and into him. The bones set in place, and the small tears in his skin welded themselves shut. This seems...so brutal. Isn't there a better way to train in this, one that doesn't involve beating another lugia to pieces and restoring him? I asked
Not to our knowledge, replied Ryujin. It isn't that bad, though. The pain is temporary, and there is always the knowledge that it is for a purpose.
After a few more rounds, where Silver beat up Ryujin and I stepped in to heal him, Silver called the proceedings to a halt. Michael needs to replenish himself before we move to the next phase. Michael, although your body does not yet need to rest, you are low on spiritual energy. Meditation should serve to innervate you.
Relieved, I sunk into my meditative trance and contemplated what the "next phase" would be. Presumably, it wasn't more healing of Ryujin, and doing the same to Silver as we did to Ryujin would be unproductive. So it would have to be some other form of healing, as I didn't think we were moving on to another topic just yet. But what other form was there, if not...oh, no. I'm going to learn to heal myself. That'll be a useful skill, but...I don't think I'm going to like the training.
Sure enough, after I had meditated for a few hours, Silver told me that it was time to learn to heal myself. He told me that it was usually more difficult to focus the healing energies inward, which is why I was trained to heal others first. I had to get an instinctive grasp on how to reach that healing energy, and how to focus it, before I could discover how to focus it on myself. Of course, I didn't like the training!
Thankfully, after only a day of healing training, I was allowed to sleep. After I slept, Silver instructed me on assuming my other forms. First, I learned my "hybrid" or anthropomorphic lugia form. It was similar to my "full" lugia form, but reduced in size to roughly seven feet tall and my wings became arms. It was very good to walk around in a human-like form, instead of balancing the massive lugia body on awkward legs. I ran through my repertoire of abilities, and found that I had kept all of them. Testing the healing ability was rather less than fun, but at least I had the assurance that it worked.
Next, I was instructed on how to resume my human form. It was absolutely wonderful to get back into the body I had been born with. I had learned how to use the lugia body, but it didn't yet feel as natural as my human body. I had been told that it would probably take a few years for it to feel like my most natural form. I spent quite a while just swimming and running along the beach, reveling in my human body. I suppose you never really appreciate the body you're born with until its taken away from you. Then again, usually it would never be taken away from you, so there's not much reason to celebrate it. I decided to spend the night on this island in my human form.
Ending note: Well, that's what I've got written so far. In the next chapter, we'll be meeting this other recruit that was mentioned in passing, see more of the Lugian culture on Earth, and see what these changes to the "policies" might be. Again: I don't at all mind constructive criticism, and in fact would like it very much if, should you spot something I screwed up on, you would tell me about it so I can fix it. Flames shall be donated to the Eskimos, but not until I get done laughing. Finally, there are no promises about the update schedule for this.