…I hope I'm not updating this too slowly. Anyway, this isn't my favourite chapter, but hopefully it's alright. It should be getting more exciting after this chapter, so hopefully I'll be bothered to write more.


Chapter 4 ~ Warning


The early morning light leaked into a small cavern where several Pokémon lay sleeping. It all seemed too peaceful. So peaceful, that nobody would ever be able to tell otherwise that they were all in danger, with all lives at risk.

The boat sailed onwards, closer to the island with every passing minute. From there, the many tall mountains could be seen, covered with tiny flakes of snow. Although the sun had quickly melted the thin blanket from the previous day in just an afternoon, the land remained cold.

Kitsune stirred in her nest, just a small pile of warm leaves and moss sheltered in the cave, right near the entrance. She blinked open her eyes, and looked around. Everyone else was still asleep, but that was to be expected. Barely anybody ever woke earlier than her, apart from maybe Yumi who occasionally went out at night to enjoy the moonlight.

Shaking out her pelt, she stood up and wandered outside. The pale orange light from the sunrise drenched the land in a warm hue as the vulpix sat down, her tails twitching slightly. She was hungry, but food would have to wait until all the others where up. Then she remembered what Aki and Levinia had warned her about the previous day.

'The humans are coming our way.'

Her and Elysia hadn't believed their friends at first, but where soon convinced that it wasn't a lie. She hadn't seen this boat thing yet, and she wondered if it would be visible if she were to climb up the pathway that sloped slightly as it snaked up to the top of the ledge, which they had often used as their own lookout. If it really was coming, then it could be really close by this time. Otherwise, she could just find one of the big flying types that lived around there and ask if she could have a ride to have a look, possibly figure out a more accurate approximation of the time they had until they arrived.

Padding over to the tall ledge, Kitsune leapt swiftly up to the top, some four or so meters up. Ahead of her, the ground sloped gently upwards to the point of where snow began to coat the ground again and the mountains grew tall. Way over on her right, the ocean could be seen stretching out across the horizon, past the forest. She focused her gaze in that direction, scanning the sea in search.

Then she saw it. From this angle, it still looked small, but it was there, no doubt. A giant, dark ship, carrying many humans and, no doubt, big, scary Pokémon. Coming to destroy their home. With nothing to stop them. Judging by the size and distance from the forest, Kitsune guessed that they would only have until late afternoon before they arrived.

But what should she do? She could go and warn the others, or she could continue training just by herself until the rest woke up, or she might be able to find a couple pelipper and see if they could distract the boat for a little, but she doubted anything like that would work.

But then she realized. What about Saffi, her mother? Or Aki's siblings, Carbon and Flake? All those other Pokémon who lived up in the snowy place, they wouldn't know! She had to go tell them, she decided. She had to go find them, and warn them about the humans.

She turned back towards the meadow. Her friends where all still asleep, but there was no time to wake them. She'd be back before they woke up, and she'd warn all the other Pokémon. She could save lives.

The fire type glanced up at the orange to blue sky. The sun had barely risen, so she had time. And with that in her mind, Kitsune bounded onwards, to the snow-covered hills ahead.


"Anybody seen Kitsune this morning?" Elysia asked as she padded out into the meadow. All the others were already awake, with her two other friends - Aki and Levinia - playing around by the stream. Levinia appeared to be enjoying herself as she swum around amongst the shallow water, but seemed to be having a little bit of trouble with trying to convince the eevee to join in with her little 'game' of sorts.

Aki turned about, abandoning the helioptile's attempts and bounded over to the shinx. "No, isn't she inside?" She asked, tilting her head slightly to one side in question. "I haven't seen her all morning, so I just assumed she was still asleep."

Elysia shook her head sadly, "that isn't like her though. Usually she's the first one up, and is always waiting out here by the time I get up."

After the eevee had gotten distracted into a conversation with a certain other electric Pokémon, Levinia climbed out of the stream, allowing the tiny droplets of water soak into her skin. Running over in the general direction of the two, the young helioptile climbed up the slope in hope to see how close the ship was getting. Even if the others forgot, Levinia would not.

As she reached the top, she walked slowly closer to the edge of the cliff, the view stretching out over the forest and to the ocean.

The ship was still there. As expected. Closer than before by quite a noticeable amount, the shore's wingull and pelipper soared overhead of the large, dark gray threat, clearly alarmed by the unusual presence. But how many other Pokémon knew? So they knew, and some of the Pokémon over by that side of the island were clearly aware as well, but even with that the forest Pokémon may not find out until it was too late.

Taking in the view for a moment, she swiftly climbed back down to her friends - or at least, the ones that weren't lost. She would go out and see if she could find her vulpix friend, but was there time? The last thing she wanted was to be way out away from home when the humans arrived. Who knows what they could do? Plus, what if Kitsune came back when they were out? For all they knew, she could've merely decided to just go put in some last minute training somewhere quiet where she wouldn't distract anybody, or be distracted herself.

As Elysia asked Levinia the exact same question she had asked Aki just seconds earlier, she shook her head before the shinx could put in another word.

"What's this I'm hearing about Kitsune being missing?" The feminine voice alerted the trio of Kefira's approaching as she came over to them.

"We can't find her..." Elysia muttered, staring at her paws. "What if something took her? What if the humans are here, and kidnapped her for their evil plans?"

Well that quickly eliminated the thought of the others not remembering the fact that the entire island was about to be attacked by some giant ship heading straight for them. Although Levinia sort of doubted the shinx's fear of them being 'kidnapped for their evil plans'. She knew no more about what was going on than anybody else, but she just had a feeling that that wasn't the humans goal. Something like that could be done anywhere.

...not to mention how pointless that would make that 'big scary ship' of theirs.

"That's not good." Kefira's mew knocked Levinia away from her thoughts. "And you don't have any ideas on where she could've gone?"

"Nope. None. I suppose she could've gone out to train or watch the ship-thing, but..." Elysia trailed off, continuing to stare down at her small blue paws while shaking her head.

"Should we go look for her? Or should we just stay here and wait, do you think?" Aki asked curiously, tilting her head to one side.

That was when Levinia decided it would be best for her to finally speak up. Sitting down next to them, when nobody was speaking she piped in, "We should just wait here. I'm worried about her too, but we don't want to be gone if she does come back. We can just ask the staraptor to keep an eye out for her. It shouldn't be too much of a problem."

Listening to the yellow Pokémon's reasoning, Aki nodded in agreement to her friend's reasoning.

"Yeah, true... Okay." Elysia nodded. "We can just wait here, and... hope. Hopefully she'll come back soon..."

"She will. I know it."


Meanwhile, Flake was up inside the cave preparing for her little trip down to collect berries. They had decided a day earlier that they should go collect some more because they were beginning to get rather low. After she had finished sorting through those berries they still had, so she knew what kinds they needed most, the glaceon stood up and padded out into the cave's main 'room.' Carbon and Saffi were in there, talking casually.

"I'm going to go down to collect some berries now. Carbon, do you want to come?" Flake asked as she wandered over to the two fire types.

Carbon nodded. "Okay. Let's go!" The flareon bounced up to his feet, enthusiastically adding, "Race you there!"

"You bet!" Flake accepted, and without hesitation began sprinting out the main exit. Casting a quick look behind her, she grinned back at her brother who was already struggling to catch up.

"AAHHHH!"

Crash.

She tumbled to the ground, coming to a sudden halt after crashing into something. Flake sat back up, shaking her head.

"Oh, hi Flake!" A familiar voice mewed from right in front of her. Flake blinked open her eyes to see a vulpix with fur all fluffed up standing there.

"Kitsune? What're you doing here?" Flake asked, standing back up. By now Carbon had noticed and had managed to stop running before he crashed into her. She beckoned with her tail for the younger vulpix to follow as she went back inside.

Kitsune followed, bounding inside and going to sit next to her mother, who was honestly surprised to see her. Saffi looked at her as she began; "It's important. Aki and Levy were riding around on one of the lapras down at the lake yesterday and they saw this big giant scary ship thingie heading right towards the island! We think that the humans... that the humans are coming... coming to destroy everything! I went to see if I could see it earlier, and there it was! It could get here at any moment... I came here to warn you guys. I don't want anyone to get hurt..."

Silence. As soon as the young fire type had finished explaining, nobody spoke until Saffi finally broke the silence with a single question.

"Did Velvet or somebody send you to come up here?"

Kitsune shook her head. "No. They were all still asleep when I left. I was planning on trying to get back before they woke up, but I think I misjudged my timing a little..."

The ninetales nodded, understanding the situation. "Then I say we all go back down there together and plan something out. If we are attacked, we'll be stronger when we're together."

Flake and Carbon nodded in agreement, the former of the two speaking up in reply, "Will we be coming back here after, though?"

Saffi shook her head. "No. Not until all this is over. I believe we will all be safer if we stick together until they have left. If we are lucky, then they will just be stopping here for a day or two before moving on." She paused, searching for the right words, "If we're unlucky... then... we could be lucky to even survive at all.." She stared down at her paws, shaking her head to clear the dark thoughts gathering in her mind.

"Are we leaving right now then?" Carbon asked, standing back up.

"If we are, then we should at least eat the rest of those berries we have. We don't want them to go to waste." Flake turned to look at the vulpix,"Kitsune, you hungry?" She asked.

Kitsune nodded. "A little." She stood up, looking around for where they kept their berries.

Saffi finally stood up, as did Flake who padded down into the area where they kept the berries. She soon came back out, carrying a couple small sticks with several berries hanging from them. Silently, she padded into the center of the cavern and carefully put them down on the gray ground. Soon enough, the four of them were munching happily on the berries.

When they had finished eating, Saffi was the first to stand back up and pad quietly over to the entrance. The other three followed, and silently the small group left, leaving behind the cave they had all once lived in.


The sun was in the center of the sky, shining brightly down on the forest as they arrived at the small meadow.

"Kitsune! There you are!" Said vulpix was soon knocked over by a sudden force and pinned to the ground by a very over-enthusiastic young shinx. She soon released her grip when she noticed her friend squirming under her paws in attempt to break free. "Where did you go? Everyone was worried when we woke up to find you gone."

"I went to warn them.." Kitsune looked back at Saffi, who was talking urgently with Kefira and Velvet, most likely discussing the events at hand. Elysia understood, and nodded.

"You just got us worried, that's all. I forgive you."

Meanwhile, Aki had been sitting by the stream with Levinia when a flareon and a glaceon bounded over to them. Immediately recognizing them, the eevee jumped to her paws and padded over to greet them. She didn't ask why they were there - she knew it was that Kitsune had ventured up to the snowy place to warn them. She could tell.

"Hi, Aki." Carbon greeted, sitting down. Flake did the same, her smaller tail resting over her front paws.

"Hi!" Aki mewed, eyes bright as her tail flicked back and forth. "Are you going to be staying here until after the humans have left?" She asked, her tail suddenly drooping as she realized - If Saffi found it necessary for them to leave the snowy place, then they must be getting prepared for the worst.

Some time had passed. The sun now resting a little past three-quarters of the way across the sky as it prepared to set. The Pokémon had spent their time as they would usually, almost as if they were not aware of the human's looming presence at all. Saffi, Flake and Carbon settled back in very quickly, as if they had never left to live up in the snowy hills up north at all.

Levinia sat atop the ledge like she had earlier that same day, looking out across the forest as the others played and talked down in the small meadow. She watched as the boat approached the island. It looked gigantic in comparison by now, towering over the trees which hid the waters surface closest to the shore. There it was, just minutes away from stopping at the shore. Even from across the small island, she could see the ship's slightest movements as it got closer.

Until it stopped.

The ship had arrived. Hundreds of wingull and other bird Pokémon took off into the air in squawks of surprise as something stretched out of the boat like a giant metal tongue. Levinia had to strain her eyes to make out very much detail, but then she saw one. A human. Wandering off the boat as if they owned the entire island.

They had arrived.


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