A/N: Yo, peeps! Here comes Chapter 12! Not much to say, so enjoy!
Thanks to my reviewers, Nanashi Chimera, AzureFlames, Ketchum Kid (), Melody Konami (), and ReLeeS. More thanks to TJay for betaing, and wish him a happy birthday, even though it was a week ago... Hehe. My bad.
To Ketchum Kid ():
Yeah, I find that strange, too. Mainly the male Kirlias and Gardevoirs. And it did kind of seem like that episode, except more blood and violence. XD
To Melody Konami ():
Thanks! I really like Glaceon, too. My other favorites are Jolteon and Umbreon.
Now, onto the story!
Chapter Twelve – The Shrine
We shot through the sky at high speed, headed straight for the mountains. We were all silent; the wind was too loud to be able to talk over. Instead, we all focused on staying on Joey. Lizzy and Stephanie were doing fine, but Koyuki and I had to struggle to stay in place.
With Koyuki's evolution, he had nearly doubled in size. He barely fit on my lap, and what didn't fit in my lap was on Joey's neck. I could no longer form the protective "cage" around him: he had outgrown it. Every gust caused Koyuki to loose balance for a second, and he nearly fell off at least five times. Luckily, he always had a grip around Joey's neck, even though it was a tenuous grip.
I was also having a difficult time staying balanced. Since I was sitting right in front of Joey's wings, every flap made me wobble. It didn't help any that Koyuki was also using me to stabilize himself.
Despite the hard flight, I was able to look at the scenery below us. It was amazing. The leafless trees spreading off in every direction, the natural contours of the land, and the small patches of snow left from the weekend created a beautiful scene. Even without life, the forest seemed to give off the essence of natural beauty.
Off to my left, I could barely see the clear, reflective waters of Glint Lake. The lake was extremely calm and serene; not a single wave disturbed the water's glassy surface. It seemed to be frozen in time, forever locked in that still and peaceful moment.
Then, Joey made a turn, removing the calm image from my view. It was replaced with the rising hills and dispersing vegetation that signaled the start of the mountains. I had never been out this far, and I had only seen this landscape in movies.
Straight ahead, the land looked as if it had suddenly shot up and formed large cliffs and hills. The vegetation was so scattered that most of the area looked completely devoid of all life.
We flew further into the mountains. The forest became harder and harder to see through the rising peaks. Eventually, the forest was completely removed from view.
Looking upon the barren scene was greatly depressing. There was no movement whatsoever. At least in the forest, the wind blew the branches. But here, there felt like there was no life. It was quite a bleak sight.
We did, however, see a lone mountain lion. We stared down at it, thankful to see something living, while it stared up at us. I briefly wondered what it was thinking about. It must have felt odd to see the dead scenery of the mountains for so long just to look up and see three humans and a blue fox-like creature riding on a green dragon.
We flew deeper and deeper into the mountains, and the scenery varied only slightly, never leaving the sparse, rocky theme. I couldn't tell how far we had gone; the unchanging landscape had no landmarks, and the speed at which we were going made it even harder to determine the miles.
It felt like an eternity, riding on Joey's back, but in all truth, it was probably only fifteen or so minutes. The main cause for this effect was probably the featureless land. With nothing to take our attention, the seconds seemed like minutes, and minutes like hours.
Then, I glimpsed something… different. It wasn't marvelous or spectacular, just different from the normal landscape. It was a lighter gray instead of the uniform browns and dark grays, and its shape gave off the feeling of a man-made structure.
"That's it!" Joey exclaimed with great relief behind his voice.
"Thank Mew!" I shouted, raising my arms in praise. However, they snapped quickly back to their original positions when I nearly fell off Joey.
"What?" Stephanie asked. "Where?"
"Over there!" I shouted over the wind. Risking a nasty fall, I pointed a finger at the strange structure.
"I don't see anything!" Lizzy yelled.
"What?" I yelled back, unable to hear her over the rushing wind.
"I said I don't see a thing!" Lizzy repeated herself, much louder this time.
I was about to ask her what she meant by that, but before I could, Joey began a steep dive down towards the structure. As we got closer, I could make out stairs on one side, and a vertical drop-off on the other. There was a large top layer that had some sort of pedestal thing on the edge of the vertical drop-off side. That was definitely the shrine.
Joey made a swift touchdown and stopped quite skillfully, despite the heavy load. I climbed down and stretched my limbs, tired after the long flight. Lizzy, Stephanie, and Koyuki did the same. Afterwards, we looked around and studied our surroundings.
There wasn't much to see. It was just a small, flat plane. Rocks and boulders were scattered everywhere, varying largely in size and shape. Some were larger than a man, while others were smaller than my hand.
The only feature that stood out was the shrine. It rose up a few stories, towering over us. Its presence felt overwhelmingly powerful; it felt like something hugely important to someone or something was being guarded at the top. It seemed too simple a structure to be guarding anything, though.
After looking around for a few minutes, I reached into my pocket and brought out the three Pokeballs that held Takeshi, Tsurugi, and Sasori. In a flash of red light, they stood before us.
"Scyther," Takeshi said, sounding extremely disgruntled.
"He hates it in there," Joey said, translating like he was a machine programmed only to translate.
"Sorry about that…" I said. "Oh, by the way, Koyuki evolved!"
"Gall Gallade," Tsurugi said.
"He was wondering who the Glaceon was," Joey translated.
"OK, now that we're all up to date," Lizzy said, "can we focus on the fact that both Stephanie and I can't see this shrine thing?"
"What do you mean?" I asked. "It's right there." I pointed over to the shrine, right behind Lizzy. She turned to look.
"Oh, ha ha, nice try Kyle," she said sarcastically, turning around.
"What?"
"There's nothing there!" she shouted.
"Yes, there is! It's right there!" I shouted back. "Don't you guys see it?"
"I see it," Joey said.
All of the Pokemon nodded in agreement.
"See, they all see it, so why can't you?" I asked. "Is this some sort of prank you're trying to pull on me?"
"No, Kyle, we really can't see it," Stephanie said, the honesty showing in her voice.
"Well, that's strange…" Joey stated.
"See it or not, I'm going to get to the top and figure out what the heck this thing is for," I said, walking past Lizzy. I got to the shrine and started climbing the steps. I had only gone up two steps when I heard Stephanie yell, "Kyle!"
"What?" I asked, turning around.
"He's gone!" Lizzy said, dumbfounded.
"What do you mean, 'I'm gone'? I'm right here!"
"He's not gone, guys, he's on the stairs to the shrine," Joey said flatly.
"There is no shrine!" Lizzy practically screamed.
Joey grabbed her arm at that moment and dragged her to the shrine. I moved up a few steps to give Joey room to climb on. He pulled Lizzy up the first few steps and said, "Do you see the shrine now?"
"I do now," she said, a slight amount of embarrassment in her voice. "Sorry for blowing up like that…"
"No problem," I said, though it was a problem. I really didn't appreciate being told that I was wrong when I was right. "Go get Stephanie, Joey."
"I'm on it."
Stephanie was starting to panic by now, and when Joey stepped off of the shrine and 'reappeared', she was so relieved.
"Oh, Joey!" she cried. "I was so scared when you just disappeared!"
"Come on, Stephanie," Joey said, grabbing her arm and bringing her to the stairs. "That means all of you, too."
Tsurugi, Takeshi, Sasori, and Koyuki all looked at each other and shrugged. They then followed Joey and Stephanie up the stairs.
By then, Lizzy and I were halfway up the steps. From behind us, we heard Stephanie say, "Oh, now I see it." I shook my head and chuckled, still climbing the stairs.
"So, what do you think is at the top of this thing?" Lizzy asked.
"Truthfully, I haven't got a clue," I said. "Maybe some sort of place where an old civilization used to pay respect to some god."
"Could be, but why would I not be able to see it? And why could you see it?"
"Hmm… Good questions, " I said. I really wanted to know the answers to those questions, too.
There was a gust of wind next to me, and I saw Takeshi and Tsurugi racing each other up the steps.
"Careful, you guys! I don't want any injuries!" I shouted up to them.
"You do know that they probably didn't hear you," Lizzy said.
"Yeah, but I can at least try."
A few more minutes and we had reached the top. Tsurugi and Takeshi were up there, waiting for us.
"So, which one of you won?" I asked.
Tsurugi pointed to Takeshi, mumbling something unintelligible. Of course, I couldn't have understood it if I did hear what he was saying, but it did get the point across.
"Well, congrats, Takeshi, you won yourself a long wait for everyone else," I said sarcastically.
Tsurugi began to chuckle, and I turned to him and said, "You realize that this applies to you, too." He stopped.
I looked away from them and at the shrine. It could barely be called that, though. It was more like a pedestal, with a set of indentations on the center. The rest of the area on the top level was bare. It was fairly large in size, large enough to hold around twenty or so people.
A couple of minutes later, Joey, Stephanie, Koyuki, and Sasori showed up. "I hate stairs," Stephanie said, panting heavily.
"Well, look who finally decided to show up," I said.
Joey said nothing. He just smiled and walked up to me and gave me a playful punch in my arm.
"Hehe, I'm just kidding, dude," I said, holding my arm. "Ow, that hurt."
"Sorry, forgot that I'm part Pokemon there," he said, rubbing the back of his head.
"How do you forget something like that?" Lizzy asked incredulously.
"I was about to ask the same thing," Stephanie said.
I chuckled, still rubbing my arm. Turning away, I saw Koyuki having a conversation with Takeshi, Tsurugi, and Sasori. From the way Koyuki was talking, I was pretty sure that he was telling them about how he evolved. And probably embellishing it.
Then I looked at the shrine. There was something strangely inviting about it, so I walked over to it. It was on the edge of the platform, and standing in front of it, I could see a magnificent view of the valley below us.
I looked down at the pedestal and saw that there was a small circle shaped indent with a picture of some strange creature. It was a long, snake-like creature with a pair of short arms and small fin-like protrusions from its long body. It looked sort of like the thing on my medallion.
Then the idea that changed my life entered my head. 'Maybe my medallion fits in there,' I thought. So I took off my medallion and pressed it down into the indentation. There was a flash of light and a deep rumble. I backed away from the pedestal, but nothing else happened.
"What was that?" Lizzy said, running up to my side. Everyone else followed her.
"I just put my medallion into the indent on the pedestal," I said. "That's all I did."
"We might have bigger problems than that," Joey said, pointing at the sky. I looked up, following his finger… paw… hand… whatever it is. Anyway, I looked up and saw what he was talking about. There was something long and green soaring through the sky, twisting and turning. The aerobatics it did put Joey's flying to shame.
It finally settled its course… and was flying straight at us. We ducked as it rushed right over our heads. Standing back up and turning around, we saw it doing more crazy tricks in the air.
Then it came back at us again. It zipped past on our right, then whipped around and flew back past our left. It did some more strange twists and flew past us another time.
We turned once more, scared silly of this thing, and awed by it at the same time. I had no idea what it was, but I knew that it couldn't be an animal. It was either a really powerful Pokemon or a god.
It finally stopped, hovering behind the shrine. Its head was nearly at eye level with us, but its huge body was easily visible behind it.
We held back from it; it was too intimidating to approach. Then, it spoke.
"Don't be afraid, I am not here to harm you," it said without ever moving its mouth.
"Telepathy…" Joey whispered.
"Well, I'm surprised that you know what that is," it said, somehow hearing what I could barely hear, even when I was standing right next to the person who said it.
"Come closer, please," it said, "I wish to talk to you."
I hesitantly stepped forward until I was only a few feet from it.
"Something tells me that you are the one who summoned me," it said.
"What?" I asked, truly confused.
"You are the one who put the medallion in the pedestal, right?"
"Um, I guess," I said, still intimidated by the thing's presence.
"Since that is so, let me formally introduce myself," the creature said. "I am Rayquaza. And I know exactly why you are here."