Chapter 2 is finally here! And it's a fair bit longer than I was planning. Oh, and those mysterious people who I know are there but aren't favoriting, following, nor even a tiny review-ing? Please do! I really appreciate every last one. At the moment I only have one... Who is my sister. Yes Wo, I'm talking to you. Anyway, on a more brighter note, here is the chapter~
Chapter 2 ~ Lake and snow.
A powerful blizzard roared as a sleek, pale-blue shape bounded slowly through the thick snow. Deep paw-prints were left behind her, but they were very quickly covered by the continuing snowfall. The snow swiftly piled up on her, only to repeat just as she shakes it all off. But, she didn't mind it. This was only normal for her area. Snow, snow, and more snow. All thanks going to local castform who had the habit of making regular blizzards cover their home.
She trekked down the gentle slop of the hill, making her way in the direction of the caverns. With one last leap, she landed softly on the snow several feet below. On her right, she noticed a small, round tunnel leading into the snow.
'Snowed in again,' she said to herself, and crawled down the tunnel, which soon widened into a small cave. Several lumps of snow where dotted around, and a couple frozen stalactites hung down from the ceiling, covered with glistening ice shining in the faint light.
"Flake, you're back." A familiar voice sounded from a tunnel leading out to her right, followed by the soft, silently echoing sound of footsteps.
The glaceon, Flake, turned to see a pale golden ninetales wander out into the main chamber, her multiple long tails trailing out behind her. "Clearly," she mewed.
"How's the blizzard going out there?" The nintetales, known as Saffi, asked. "I can see just by looking it must be pretty fierce out there."
"Pretty much no visibility at all, and the snow must be at least twice my height in depth by now." Flake explained, padding deeper into the cave, away from the snow-filled entrance. "Nothing to see at all, apart from the thousands of snowflakes covering everything in sight."
"Not even any of the castform?" Saffi checked, sitting down.
"None. Knowing them, though, the weather should clear soon enough. Hopefully melting a little bit of the snow lower down so it isn't such a trouble just to move," the glaceon continued, her tail twitching slightly. "How many berries do we have left? Enough, I hope?" She asked.
"A fair amount. Should last us at least a couple more days, but then we'll have to go down to the forests to get some more. That is, unless Kitsune, Aki and their friends decide to come up here and give us some, which is possible," the nine-tailed fire type told her. "You hungry?"
"So we're fine for now. That's good," Flake nodded, standing back up. "Yes, I am. It's tiring trying to get around out there in the midsts of a giant blizzard, you know?"
Saffi just nodded, not saying anything, beckoning with her tails to Flake to follow, which she did. The tunnel soon got dark, with just a faint light coming from some distance ahead. As they entered an additional, wider chamber, a small flame flickered from it's perch on the wall, in a shape similar to that of a torch. To the right, opposite the 'torch', there was a small pile of berries.
Flake went over to the berry pile, picking a couple sitrus berries from it. She sat down to eat, some ways away from the colourful pile. Saffi did the same, choosing a few rawst berries before lying down underneath the torch to keep herself warm.
The two ate in silence before pawsteps were heard again, coming from yet another tunnel. "Hello Saffi, hi Flake," the voice said, before the creature padded into the berry chamber to reveal itself as a Flareon, and went to sit down near Flake.
"Hi Carbon," Flake greeted her older brother. She brought up a new topic quickly. "I was thinking about going down to the meadows to visit everyone else and collect some more berries for us. Wanna come?" She asked, licking up the remains of one of her sitrus berries before starting on the other one.
"Sure," Carbon nodded. "We going now, or later?" He asked.
"We can go tomorrow. The blizzard is still going on strong and I don't see it receding anytime soon. Yeah, I know you could just burn your way through easily, but we might as well wait until the berries are nicer." Flake reasoned, taking a large bite out of the sitrus berry that lay right in front of her paws, a small stream of juice trailing out, down onto the hard stone floor. No lying there though, the likely gale-force winds could be heard even from underground, pounding against the outside, bringing up powder-like snow from the ground like an additional ground blizzard. No such thing as any easy task of moving out there, let along staying warm. However, that was very untrue for Carbon, being such a furry fire-type.
"Okay. That's just my awesome skills," The flareon fluffed up his fur, letting out a small flame that dwindled away after just a second. His cream-coloured tail and ruff puffed up, making him appear very fluffy. No denying that.
Flake nodded, listening with no objection to his claim. She was used to it. Perfectly normal for her brother to be like that. Silently, she ducked back down and continued eating.
"Lake! Lake! Let's go down to the lake!"
Meanwhile, back in the meadow, the young shinx by the name of Elysia was - quite literally - bouncing up and down in the face of a much larger Luxray begging to go down to the lake with her and her friends so they could play. Normal, right? That is, completely aside from the fact that the meadow was right in the middle of experiencing a heavy snowfall, most likely brought down from the Sleety Hills up north, or less likely; Hia Valley way over in Almia.
The snow fell silently, but currently covered the entire ground including many of the leaves on the trees surrounding the small, usually-grassy meadow. It was a pretty sight - the ground pure white with snow with pale pink cherry blossoms blooming above, surrounding the clearing. In the distance, tall snow-coated mountains towered to the gray, gloomy sky. As if it could even be seen through the heavy snow that fell.
"Elysia, it's snowing. Do you really think it's the best weather to go down there?" The luxray asked, it's voice distinctly feminine. It flicked it's tail, bringing it down to rest on the blue electric Pokémon's back softly.
She snorted. "But muuummm, snow's the best weather to go down there though! Because then the Lapras are there so we can ride on them and swim and slide around on the frozen parts!" Elysia rambled, her tail lashing almost playfully from one side to the other.
"Isn't it a bit cold though? On top of that, we can barely see in front of ourselves, never mind what it's like in the forest," the lion-Pokémon continued.
"Kefira, just let them. They've done it before, and even though Carbon isn't here, keeping them as warm as torchic, I'm sure they'll be fine. Yumi and I will go with them and keep them safe." An espeon trotted over to the two of them, closely followed by Aki. The eevee looked approving at her mother's reasoning.
"...alright then. I'll let you take them because I trust you to keep them all safe in this snow." Kefira, the luxray, sighed, giving in.
"YAAY!" The bushes behind the luxray soon shook, out coming a very happy looking vulpix and helioptile. Elysia and Aki joined in with the celebration, and even though one of them, namely the helioptile Levinia, wasn't as loud as the rest, the excitement showed.
The espeon continued speaking, which immediately quietened down the younger Pokémon. "I'll go find Yumi, and then we'll meet you right back here and we can leave. Okay?"
"Okay Velvet!" The four of them said simultaneously, all of their nine tails - six of which being Kitsune's - waving from side to side happily as the espeon padded off again to find the umbreon.
After a whiles wait, which the younger Pokémon spent by having a large snowball fight, Velvet returned to the group with a sleek Umbreon they all - especially Aki - immediately recognized to be Yumi, exactly who they where waiting for. Not that they where worried Velvet wouldn't be able to find him or anything.
"Let's go, let's go, let's go!" Elysia and Kitsune started bouncing up and down in pattern chanting simultaneously while Aki bounded right back over to her parents and Levinia, well, stayed silent as she waited patiently. Although she was hoping they'd be able to get a move on before it stopped snowing. She wanted to watch the snow fall over the lake, and hide in the fresh snow on the lakeside. Luckily for her, Velvet then came over to them.
"All right then, let's go." She purred, giving her long, double-ended tail a quick flick before beginning to wander off in the direction of the forest. Yumi followed her alongside Aki, and it only took about a quarter of a second with Elysia and Kitsune's extremely fast reaction times to immediately dash after them as if they where being chased by a giant ninjask or something with their super-speed.
Levinia followed much more calmly after the small group, and went to walk alongside Aki. The eevee gave her a very excited look, long ears pointed directly upwards. The dual type opened her mouth slightly in a smile, but neither said a word. No point when their friends - the vulpix and the shinx - were chattering like a flock of angry taillow, with very obvious excitement replacing the angriness. They never failed to make themselves known. Well, more on Kitsune's part with Elysia joining in just for the fun of it. Together; loud. Apart? Much quieter.
After a while, the small group finally reached the lake, after having to put up with a certain Vulpix's chattering the entire time. Even Elysia stopped and gave up after a while. The lake stretched out in front of them like a giant flat blue disc as they walked slowly down to the lake shore. Snow continued to fall softly, settling on the ground but melting into the lake. A small section of the lake was frozen over, stretching from right in front of them around the small 'bay' part surrounded by mountains, over on their right. Several Lapras rested on the still ice, showing it to be safe to walk on. A younger-looking lapras glided smoothly across the ice some ten or so meters out, sliding down into the water happily. Various other Pokémon could be seen around, too.
"It's so prreettyyyy~" Aki coo'ed quietly, looking out over the flat surfaces ahead. She turned to Levinia almost immediately after, and very excitedly continued. "Let's go play on the ice!" She squeaked.
"Okay!" The helioptile nodded vigorously, and ran - or tried to run - on her hind legs over to the ice. Aki took off after her, overtaking within just a heartbeat with her long, strong leaps.
"Silly Levy! You can't run like that!" Aki giggled, bounding on further ahead as previously-mentioned electric type very awkwardly attempted to run after the speedy eevee. "Go on all four legs, like me!" She advised. Not that it sounded much like good advise though. Or it could've - more so for the eevee's friends, or any younger Pokémon for that matter.
"Okay!" Levinia listened, and crouched back onto her four legs, the front two of which being reasonably shorter than the back two. Avoiding a stumble, she (pretty slowly in comparison to Aki) raced onto the ice, again slowing to stop herself from slipping with the very first step onto the, well, icy ice.
Aki continued on ahead. A large lapras lay smiling a short distance ahead of her, watching the two much smaller Pokémon rush over to them cheerfully. But right as the eevee turned around to call to her slower friend to hurry up, she slipped, loosing her balance and tumbling down onto the ice. A light laughter was heard from the lapras ahead at the sight of the eevee's failed attempt.
"Now's my chance!" Levinia responded to the fall with a mock-evil tone lining her voice. "Mwa-hahahaha..." She laughed quietly, purposely trying to sound evil.
"Evil," Aki muttered, still attempting to get back up only to slip again as Levinia passed her. "I'm still faster than you!" She claimed.
Levinia stopped, as much more gracefully spun around to look at the eevee still struggling to get up. "I know you are. I'm just far more skilled on the ice than you." To demonstrate her, the electric-normal type spun smoothly back around and skated skillfully over to the lapras. She recognized the female Pokémon as Tessie, a lapras they had ridden on multiple times before on various other occasions that it had snowed down by the lake like it was.
"Hi, Levinia," Tessie greeted politely. "You want a ride, I presume?"
"Yup! When Aki finally manages to get over here, that is," Levinia giggled again, and Aki grunted as she slid slowly over to them. Good thing she wasn't planning to evolve into a Glaceon - for one thing, her sister Flake had already 'claimed' that. Also, because she wasn't exactly the most skilled when it came to ice skating. Or anything to do with ice, in that case. Depsite that, she still loved the snow when it came round every once in a while.
"Hi Tessie! Can you take us on a ride over the lake? Please?" Aki asked the lapras the moment she - finally - managed to get to where the lapras lay.
Tessie smiled again. "Of course. That is exactly what I presumed you would want. Hop on." She directed. The two small normal-types nodded, and climbed onto the large blue Pokémon's back. When both where settled, the water-ice type began to slide slowly over to the edge of the ice. Like if they where on a boat, Aki and Levinia looked back to shore, and waved at their friends in the not-actually-so-far-away distance, back on the lake shore.
With a sudden splash Tessie slid down into the water like a duck boat. Bobbing up and down on the waters surface, she swam daintily over the lake. Lots of other water Pokémon passed by next to them, as they headed out over closer to the river mouth. The water slowly got colder, but the lapras hardly noticed the steady decrease in temperature. Levinia and Aki, from their perch on the water-ice type's hard shell, watched the area around them silently. Little did they notice another Pokémon, swimming undetected around them beneath the surface, not even coming up for a breath once.
"Look! The ocean!" Aki pointed out, watching in awe as their lapras they where riding on slowed down, coming almost to a halt as they exited the lake. The deep dark blue-green water stretched out all around them, small waves dotting the surface. Several wingull soared overhead, occasionally coming down to rest on the water. In the distance, a large landform towered out above the ocean surface. Well, technically it was only a sea, but it seemed to be muck more like an ocean to Pokémon so much smaller.
Levinia nodded, gazing out over the sea, moving her head around to look at every corner of the horizon. But then she stopped. Something in particular caught her eye. Something large, coming towards them, seemingly heading from Almia. What was that thing? She began to worry. "What... is that thing?" She asked quietly, with a tiny tinge of fright, pointing out the object that floated on the waters surface.
Tessie immediately knew what she was talking about, even without seeing exactly where the small Pokémon was pointing. Aki too looked out at the strange thing, eyes wide. Everyone was silent, nobody speaking. But then Tessie broke the silence, saying very little but all the same sending a giant wave of fright and panic over the two of them.
"It's the humans. They're heading our way."
Mwahahaha~ Cliffhanger :D Who is that mysterious Pokémon? What are the humans doing? What's the point in rhetorical questions like this? If you read the summary of the story, you can probably guess that second question easily. Anyway, as I mentioned before - Please do read and review. I deeply appreciate every last one. I mean, my story isn't that bad that nobody wants to read it, right? Or at least I hope not. And before you mention it: No, I'm not begging in any way. Now this ending authors note seems to be getting a bit, umm, I don't know. So let me just give a disclaimer that goes for the whole story.
I do not own Pokémon or any of the official characters. I only own this story, my original characters, the plotline, etc. Or should I just say, I only own what isn't already owned.
