Author's Note: This is a shorter chapter than I usually like, but the events described here are something I wanted to be set apart from anything else. Next one should be a bit longer I hope.
Chapter Seven: Banding Together
Fullmoon Island. Only a handful of people know how to get there, and most of them are sworn to secrecy by powerful individuals. And there is a very good reason for that. As I waded up the beach, calling Bruce back into his Pokéball, my mind turned to hours and days I had spent studying, preparing for the possibility of the worst sort of job I could possibly be hired for. The sort of job I almost certainly wouldn't survive, but would be unable to turn down and live with myself.
Pokémon of all kinds are potentially powerful beyond human capability. From the lowliest Wurmple to the mighty Torterra, all but the weakest individuals are a match for any mere human. Excepting freakish individuals like Maylene of course. But as strong as they are, there are creatures in this world who are on another level entirely. Different cultures have given them different names and descriptions over time. Some call them Mirages, as if they do not exist, which is fair enough since it can be hard to prove they do. Others have called them gods, and their power bears that idea out at times. Most of the world calls them Legendary Pokémon in the modern age. And messing with them is always a bad idea.
Need an example? Some folks are lucky enough to live far, far away from any area where a Legendary mon dwells, and even those nearby their homes don't cause trouble normally. So if you don't know what I mean I'm not surprised. Over in the Orre Region, members of the group known as Cipher once managed to capture the mighty beast known as Lugia, and corrupt it through their bizarre science so thoroughly that its outward appearance was altered horribly. It managed to carry a massive cruise ship several miles before dropping it in the desert, and this was simply a weapons test of sorts. But that isn't the example. When Lugia disappeared from its nest below the waves off the coast of Johto, three other Legends descended on the countryside in a rage. Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres, the Legendary Birds of Kanto, swarmed from their native shores to Johto in a fury. They whipped up freezing blizards, horrible electrical storms, and fire ravaged the nation. Casualties were kept to a minimum by the Gym Leaders and the Elite Four, who mobilized immediately, but they were only able to drive the birds off temporarily or stall them long enough for evacuations. Even in defeat the creatures would manage to fly too far away to be captured, and would simply rise again within a few days. And those defeats were rare indeed. Whenever presented with a foe that held type advantage over one of them, it would call for help from its fellows. Try to take Moltres down using its weakness to Rock-types? Here comes Articuno. It continued like that for weeks. The attacks didn't cease until Lugia was purified and freed from captivity, returning to its home in Johto beneath the Whirl Islands. Only then did the Bird Trio migrate peacefully back to their own roosts. And the Bird Trio are not the strongest Legendary Pokémon by any stretch of the imagination.
And here I was, walking right into the nest of a terribly powerful Legendary of my own (mostly) willing volition. I'd have turned and run right back into the surf if not for two things: My team was counting on me to get them to safety, and Cresselia was one of the more gentle of the Legendary Pokémon... if you didn't offer a threat. If I somehow did... even Bruce's Dark-typing wouldn't protect me for long against her.
"I still don't get what you mean," Tiffany whispered, wading up beside me. "How am I going to ask Cresselia anything?"
"The fact that I'm standing on the island pretty much proves I'm not a deranged killer as I've been pretending to be, Tiff." I scanned the dark forests that covered the majority of the small island. "If she thought I was a threat I'd have probably been torn apart by a Psycho Cut by now." I didn't whisper. I did not want the creature somewhere among those trees to think I was trying to sneak up on her. "And speak up. Let her know you're here. Sneaky critters are a threat. She doesn't like threats."
"The data I've seen said this Cresselia is a Psychic-type," she was dusting sand off her pants now as we walked slowly towards the forest. "You don't think your Sharpedo could handle her?"
"Don't even think thoughts like that. She might hear you. And no, he couldn't. He'd put up a nasty fight to defend me, but he's... not in her weight class." I sighed and turned towards her. "Look, last time I was here, it was for the same reason. Darkrai induced nightmares had caught up with an old man, who I found on Iron Island. Byron, the gym leader who owns the place, sent me here to find the Lunar Wing. He had to stay to defend the old man, a swarm of Hypno somehow found him and were trying to get in and eat his dreams. He'd have died even faster without a guard. And he sent another guy with me, a supposedly reformed Galactic Grunt who had joined his gym."
"So what happened?" she asked, eyes growing wide. She might have been skeptical about my story, but it was a good one either way. I'm a sucker for a good story myself, I recognized the look.
"He wasn't so reformed as he claimed. We found the Pokémon roosting at the center of this island. And while I tried to approach in the most non-threatening way I knew how, he chucked a Quickball at her. She shattered it without even a single shake, like it was no struggle at all. Then her eyes lit up... and he was in two pieces before he hit the ground, and when I turned to look she had moved twenty feet. She used Psycho Cut, and I couldn't have reacted fast enough to fight her even if I tried." I scuffed at the ground. I really didn't want to be here. As gentle as she seemed, Tiffany was twice a member of criminal organizations. Whether she wanted to be there or not, Cresselia might see her as a threat. And I'd done some nasty things in the line of duty since my last visit here as well. It was nerve wracking.
"How did you get out alive?" The girls eyes were wider still now, but not with interest this time. I wasn't the only one with a sudden case of nerves.
"I tossed my sword to the side and dropped to my knees," I recalled, remembering the painful dig of roots and stone beneath my knees. "And bowed to her like the most humble farmer meeting an Emperor. She flew off... but where she'd been hovering over me was the Wing. She knew why I was there. She let me help the old man."
"If she's so gentle and helpful to non-threats, why are we shaking in our boots here?" Though she still looked nervous, she suited action to words and set off again at a quick but cautious pace. I swallowed nervously and followed.
The interior of the little island had changed in the years since my last appearance there. Where before it had been relatively open forest, the ground was now choked with brush and vines. I kept a wary eye out and wished I had Lucky with me. The only Pokémon on the island had been Cresselia prior, but now any number of creatures could have moved in. As if a potent Legendary wasn't tough enough on its own, all I needed was to stumble right into a Carnivine's mouth or trip over a sleeping Roselia. I'd had quite enough of being poisoned already.
It took hours to find our way through those woods. My arm burned at full ferocity again as I clawed my way through the tangled brush that had once been an open path. Despite the rest it'd had, using it so strenuously did not seem to agree with it. I felt blood trickling under my bandage, and knew I'd need a new one soon. I almost wished for my sword to help carve a path, but it seemed better upon reflection not to have it when we arrived. Trying to be non-threatening is tough when you've spent your entire adult life working to be seen as a badass merc who'd just assume slash a foe open as look at them.
Tiff let me take the lead, using my boots and greater physical strength to batter vegetation down and form a crude path for her to follow. Though I suspect it just occurred to her that she wasn't a very good guard if I was behind her. So it was that I was the first to burst noisily into a mostly circular clearing in the center of the island, trees ringing a crescent shaped pond. Even in the dark forest, the reflection of the moon overhead, risen above us during our hike, was almost painfully bright. Brighter, in fact, than the actual moon itself. And brighter still was the serene Pokémon resting beside the clear waters.
Though I'd laid eyes on her before, Cresselia took my breath away. She wasn't enormous, as one might expect from a massively powerful Legend. But she wasn't a tiny thing either, even resting on the ground she would be only a foot or so shorter than I, taller than Lucky. She shone in shades of gold, pink and lavender, with loops of some sort in place of feet or wings, and a third such ring rising like a rainbow from her waist, all joined together. As my breath caught from the sight of her, her gold crested head turned to regard me with one pink eye and I felt a crawling sensation inside my head as the powerful Psychic-type looked inside me. It wasn't the first time a Psychic-type had scanned my thoughts with its powers. But with Cresselia, it felt less invasive. Less like someone shoving their way into my personal space, and more akin to someone looking over my shoulder to see what I was looking at, if you will. She sounded her cry, a soft pitched, almost friendly and musical arrangement of notes. She remembered me.
When her eyes moved to Tiffany, she cried out again, more questioning this time. Tiffany flinched noticeably as the powerful being's mind touched hers, but she stood steady after the initial shock. Cresselia looked on, inscrutable and majestic. And then she dipped her head a bit, and I felt she was welcoming us.
"If I was a bad sort," I looked over my shoulder to see Tiffany's jaw nearly touching her chest, "she'd have killed me or fled by now. Maybe both. She sees our hearts and our minds." I stopped a respectful distance away and bowed at the waist. It might not have natural meaning to Cresselia, but she'd seen inside my head twice now. She knew what it meant, coming from me. "If she trusts me, so should you."
Tiff opened her mouth, hesitating in speaking before the mighty, graceful creature. Cresselia loosed another cry, louder this time, and twitched her head at me. I don't know to this day if she was sending her meaning to us with her powers, or if it was just that easy to understand, but my brain had no trouble translating what she meant, and I later learned that Tiffany felt the same way. I could picture a voice, feminine, somehow both ancient as rock yet young as fresh grass, saying simply "He's right."
"I guess... maybe we're going to be friends then," the girl said in an awestruck voice. "But first, I guess we still have to help Priscilla. Much as I don't want to, Darkrai won't ACK!" her sentence cut out as Cresselia loosed her cry a final time. This time it was neither gentle nor restrained, and my hands snapped up to cover my ears. It did no good, the cry was just as much inside my head as it was in my ears. Cresselia's pink eyes flared red with psychic energy that crackled and popped like lightning, before she rose off the ground and spiraled away into the sky. "The hell was that all about?" Tiff exclaimed. I suppressed a laugh, she demanded this answer from the ground where she'd fallen on her ass in shock. It wouldn't be nice to laugh at a new friend. Besides, I was only on my feet because I'd managed to snag a tree branch overhead with my good arm as I fell.
"She doesn't like Darkrai much. She's probably on her way to have words with him. Or battle him, same difference really." I chuckled openly at that as I ambled forward to pick up a glowing feather nearly the length of my arm, curved into a crescent identical to the pond upon which it floated. "But she left what we need behind," I nodded to the Lunar Wing in my hand before slipping it into my pack for safe keeping. I was glad to get it out of my hands, it tingled with energy as if it had a live current running through it. To this day, I can't decide if those things are actual feathers or manifestations of Cresselia's power. At the time, I just thanked my lucky stars that the encounter had gone so well.
"So we can head home now?" the girl asked, and I held out my hand to her.
"Tell Shine Spark to watch for Tentacool and the like, and its a deal. We just survived an encounter with a being of legend and renown. No sense getting dragged into the depths after that." I grinned as I hauled my new ally to her feet. "That'd just be embarrassing."