Author's Note:
Yesterday was my last day of work this summer. Apparently I had a printer system's admin password design after me or something? I'm not entirely sure.
Anyways, the summer is coming to an end, and for all of my big summer projects, this one is the only one I feel satisfied with, and it is all thanks to your support. Even though this is the last chapter I will be uploading this summer, and most likely the last chapter until May 2016, this story is far from over! I plan to do something like this next summer, because you guys are awesome and made this summer amazing!
But just because the uploads stop doesn't mean I won't be around. I still have chapters to write, theories to write, and lots of other cool projects. If you want to get involved, be sure to check out my profile page by clicking the blue Dreaming I'm Latios at the top of the page. I will be posting all my updates there.
Enjoy the final chapter of the summer! (Warning: Long Author's Note at the end.)
Today is 8/15/2015 and this chapter is 2600+ words.
Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon, just dream it.
Chapter 17: No Looking Back
"Ready?" asked the teenager as he stood atop the grassy hill that sloped into the forest. The eevee standing at his feet answered with a determined nod.
"This is it," the eevee told himself, taking his first step, but he got no farther before he heard his name.
"Kieren?" the teenager asked, causing the eevee to look back. "If anyone asks you about 'The Gaurdian', that's me."
"Got it," the eevee answered with unwavering confidence. "And Zach?"
"Yea?"
"Thanks for everything."
The teen nodded. "Go get 'em, Kieren!"
The forest shadows finished the last of their yoga routines before laying siege to what remained of the fading sunlight. A soft breeze began to stir over the lake, breathing a tiny piece of life into the water's edge. The slow dancing waters began to mimic the lights and patterns that garnished the stage of which many an eevee, vaporeon, jolteon, and flareon gathered for the upcoming event.
Cheers erupted as the Solar Alpha made her appearance onto the elevated stage. She haughtily stepped across the platform arriving at the center. As if on cue, the crowd grew silent.
"Citizens and warriors of the Eon Tribe," Celestia greeted. "Tonight, as to the common tradition of an Alpha Evelescence, we celebrate the return of the future Lunar Alpha of the Eon Tribe and await his decision. Keep your eyes peeled, because he may arrive at any moment!"
A short moment of silence ensued following Celestia's speech, but it was soon disrupted by music that began emanating from the stage. Voices of conversation joined the music as Celestia dismounted and joined the crowd.
Several songs later, a loud siren horn overran the loudspeakers and sung to the ears of all that were gathered. The music stopped. The conversations dissipated. Celestia mounted the stage and turned to the side stairway in expectation.
The tribe roared in excitement as a lone eevee cleared the final step onto the stage. He stepped forward, confidence emitting from his joints as he glanced across the crowd around him. Again, the crowd fell to silence.
"Welcome back, Kieren Bluestripe," Celestia greeted loud enough for the tribe to hear. "Are you ready for tonight?"
Kieren responded with a firm nod. He felt ready. He was the future alpha. He could feel it in his blood. He had followed Tara's instructions, and Zach had made him ready. He was just as excited as the crowd. This was it. This was his moment. He would finally evolve!
"Before we begin the main event," Celestia announced with a pinch of informality, "I am sure many of us are anxious to hear about your adventures outside of the reserve, so tell us, Kieren. How did you spend the majority of your time?"
Kieren chuckled to himself upon reflection. "Well," he started. He could hear several anticiapted gasps in the audience. "I spent a good portion of my time unconscious in the city's Pokemon Center."
Celestia cringed upon the response. Kieren received a variety of audience reactions, but kept his cool.
"So the outside world was harsh to you," Celestia commented.
No, not really," Kieren dismissed. "It was just an accident that resulted from Mason the Ninetails' horrible aim."
"Sorry about that! Kieren!" Melody's father shouted from the crowd.
Celestia turned her amused gaze back to Kieren as the audience stirred in conversation trying to make out what was just revealed. "Are you sure you are ready?" Celestia asked softly, half her voice concerned, the other half laughing at the oddity of it all.
"Yep." Kieren answered without hesitation.
"Continuing On!" Celestia raised her voice drawing the audience to silence. "Kieren, on your journey, did you encounter 'The Guardian' of Eon Valley?"
"Yes," Kieren answered fearlessly. He smiled at Celestia's inquisitive look.
"Very well," Celestia addressed to the audience. "It is the tradition of future alphas to beseech the wisdom of 'The Guardian' of Eon Valley. As some of you may recall from my son Solano's Evelescence Ceremony, it is 'The Guardian's' custom to return future alphas with the designated stone he finds suitable." Kieren watched with his own anticipation as both Celestia and the audience turned their gaze to him. "So Kieren? What has 'The Guardian' given you?"
Kieren took a few glances around before shaking his fur as if he had been soaked.
"He gave me this," Kieren stated as he revealed his necklace. If there was a sound for anticipation, Kieren could hear it among the gasps and whispers of his tribemates; however, Celestia was staring at him dumbfoundedly.
"What is it?" she asked, her voice matching her clueless expression.
"He called it a moon shard," Kieren explained. "He said he seldom hands them out."
Celestia shrugged at the explanation. "Shall we see it in action?" she beckoned the audience.
"YEA!" the eevee and their evolved forms bellowed in unison.
All eyes rested on Kieren as seconds passed. Celestia's face slowly soured as her patience dwindled, yet Kieren did not make a move.
"Hurry up. Everyone's waiting," Celestia whispered to Kieren just loud enough for the front row to hear.
"I can't," Kieren whispered back.
"What do you mean you can't?" Celestia snapped. "I thought you said you were ready?"
"I am," Kieren answered. "It's just that there is a catch to activating…LOOK OUT!" Kieren shouted jumping to the side avoiding the incoming flareon. He relaxed when he saw Celestia had also managed to escape.
"What are you doing? Kieren?" the flareon asked. "Do you want to end up like Boran?"
"That will never happen!" Kieren boasted, while setting his feet.
The flareon pounced at Kieren again, but missed its mark as Kieren swiftly evaded to the side before circling from behind.
"Is that all you got? Trent?" Kieren taunted while taking a battle stance. Trent answered with a shot of small fireballs which Kieren skillfully evaded.
"Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!" the tribe began to chant.
"Look what you've done! Kieren!" Trent screamed. "Now they want us to fight! And it's too late for me to let you back out!"
"I couldn't have asked for a better time for a battle!" Kieren mocked. "Problem solved," he whispered to Celestia, making sure Trent didn't hear. He saw Celestia nod in half-comprehension before she descended from the stage.
Trent opened his mouth allowing flames to swirl around his fangs. He lunged at Kieren, trying to bite him with a fire fang attack. Just before Trent made contact, Kieren unleashed a burst of speed towards the back screen which now showed a camera view of the battle. Kieren kicked off the screen and slammed into Trent with a powerful quick attack. The crowd roared in excitement. Trent quickly rose back to his feet and unleashed a swirling vortex of fire which surrounded and trapped Kieren. Thoughts raced through Kieren's mind as the fire swirled closer to him. He was beginning to feel the heat of the flames and the direness of the situation. He tried to locate Trent, but failed due to the surrounding flames and smoke obscuring his vision. He coughed once, twice. The noise of the crowd disabled any sort of audio locating. As a last resort, he fired a swift attack in a random direction. The fire spin subsided as Trent grunted upon being stricken by the flying stars. Kieren hopped out of the ring of fire, relieved. As he looked around to get his bearings, Trent bashed him with a quick attack. He tumbled and collided with the lit screen. A slight ache began to run through his body as he stood to his feet.
"I'm not burned," Kieren mumbled to himself as he eyed his opposition. Trent had just unleashed another ember. Kieren, reacting quickly, countered with swift. The stars and fireballs collided in the air and exploded - stalemate. The instant the smoke cleared, Trent sprung into the air. Kieren readied himself to meet Trent head on. Trent, recognizing this, quickly built up a shadow ball and flung it at Kieren. As Trent was just about to pounce, the shadow ball enveloped around Kieren, but Kieren remained unaffected and undeterred. He lunged forward, whipping his tail around and slamming it into Trent's body. Trent crashed to the ground and slid several feet away.
The tribe grew quiet. As Trent looked up, Kieren could see his eyes widen in astonishment. The floor began to echo the light that had begun radiating from the moon shard Kieren wore. The tribe stirred with whispers and gasps as Kieren could feel a pulse of energy overtake his body. He was evolving!
"Oohs" and "Awes" filled the air as Kieren felt his limbs begin to burst and expand. His tail contracted and firmed. His ears stretched thin. His length and height expanded as his perspective of the outside world elevated in accompaniment with his new form. Finally the energy and glow subsided.
Kieren listened and watched as conversations began to flourish between the members of the tribe. At first, he enjoyed the attention and commotion he caused, but suddenly he realized something was wrong…
Nobody was cheering.
Perplexed and unnerved, Kieren shifted his glance down to where his front paws stood. They were black. Somewhat alarmed, Kieren turned towards the screen. He staggered back at the sight…
He wasn't a flareon, a jolteon, or a vaporeon.
He was something…
…else.
Suddenly the tribe exploded in outrage and protest. A cold chill terrorized Kieren's veins as his new muscles tensed in angst. Kieren retreated towards the screen as the pokemon in front of him snarled and derided him of hope. His celebration had taken a turn for the worse VERY quickly.
Celestia stepped back on stage. Kieren was confounded by her expression which did not display rage but rather trepidation and fright.
Something was off with it all. How was he…no. He did everything right. Zach had given this to him. Zach was 'The Guardian' of the Eon Tribe. Zach chose this for him fully knowing that Kieren was to be the next alpha.
"It can't be my fault," Kieren mumbled to himself.
"Attention!" Celestia screamed, silencing the protests. "Kieren, if that is even your name, what you have done is foreign to our tribe. YOU are foreign to our tribe."
"No, no! This cannot be right!" Kieren thought to himself. His eyes began welling with tears.
"You…do not…belong here!" Celestia stuttered, struggling to maintain her poise. "You must leave at once!" She turned her head towards the back left stairway.
With a sigh of defeat, Kieren began to tread towards the stage exit. He did not care to look back to see the faces of his former tribe. He didn't need to question what Celestia meant. This was the tribe that had already tried to rid him once. The tears were freely flowing now as his sigh had transformed into sniffles. He was an exile. Even worse, he still didn't even know what he was. Suddenly he wasn't sure if he liked this Zach kid anymore.
As he departed the festival gathering, he could hear the tribe disperse and prepare for the night. He glanced over at the lake, which showed him no more than the moon above him, as if saying "goodbye". He looked ahead at the path which veered away from the lake he had grown up with all this time.
"Whoa! A real life UMBREON!" exclaimed a voice from the water.
Kieren paused at the sudden sound, but ignored it and recommenced his stride.
"Kieren is that you?" the voice called again.
"Drake?" Kieren guessed solemnly, slowly turning his head towards the water.
"An unbreon? No way! Dude! That's so cool!" Drake exploded.
"You know what I am?" Kieren asked melancholily, not even attempting to conceal the despair emanating from his voice.
"Yea! You're an umbreon - the dark type evolution! It's one of the hardest evolutions for an eevee to obtain!" Drake answered enthusiastically.
Kieren turned away with heavy breath at Drake's overwhelmingly ebullient behavior.
"What's the matter Kieren?" Drake asked more seriously.
"Drake…I have to go," Kieren choked out underneath the tears that welled up in his eyes as he turned back towards the friend he would soon have to leave behind.
"Wha…Why?" Drake asked, stammered.
"I can't stay here, Drake," Kieren tried to explain, barely pronouncing each word between the sniffles and the chokes. "I don't belong here anymore." He turned and started continuing his trek.
"Kieren! Wait!" Drake cried. Kieren stopped and glanced back over his shoulder. "Ever since you've left I've been studying non-stop of the various evolutions of eevee, including yours. You have to tell me the whole story!"
Kieren stopped, trying to clear his emotions to make room for rational thoughts. He paused for a while, as it took several breaths for him to suppress all the hurt that ate him like toxic. But as soon as he succeeded, it quickly occurred to him how valuable Drake was in the situation.
"Fine," Kieren conceded. Drake's face lit up. "How much do you know about the city?" he asked while backtracking his steps.
"More that you think," Drake answered with a clever smirk.
"Alright. So first day of my journey in the city I got hit by a golf ball and woke up three days later in the Pokemon Center," Kieren tested.
"Ouch," Drake responded with complete understanding.
Kieren could read from Drake's flinching that he was following.
"So then Zach was at the Pokemon Center and told me that for years he knew the perfect evolution for me, and then he gave me something called a moon shard."
"That's what you are wearing around your neck, right?" Drake asked excited.
Kieren looked down at his necklace. "Yea I guess. I didn't realize it stayed after my evolution."
"Yea. They are kinda unique that way. So what happened once you got it?" Drake asked excitedly.
"Well…Zach told me that I needed to battle for it to activate, so I was kinda stuck during the ceremony, but then Trent jumped on stage, upset that I wasn't evolving, so I baited him into battling. That's when I evolved."
"So you did have to actually battle…it wasn't just an adrenaline rush?" Drake asked, still elated by the discovery of a real life umbreon.
"No. It was battling alright," Kieren stated. "Anyways, after I evolved, everyone got really mad at me because they didn't know what I was. I didn't even know what I was until you told me."
"An umbreon?" Drake hinted.
"Yea…that…" Kieren began, losing his composure again and stumbling on all of his words. "It was after everyone started protesting that Celestia told me to leave."
"You were kicked out just because you evolved into an umbreon?" Drake asked horrified.
"Exiled…"
If it weren't for the situation Kieren was in, he would have burst out laughing at Drake's series of cartoonish expressions. First his eyes widened in shock. Shortly after, his lips produced a frown that along with his eyes told a story of fear. His eyes then morphed to sorrow. After a short pause of contemplation, Drake's eyes blasted into ones of determination, stirring the black figure in front of him.
"Well fuck them!" he snapped, garnering a weak smile from the umbreon. "They should have felt honored to have such a rare and powerful evolution on their tribe, especially a Bluestripe."
"Thanks, Drake," Kieren responded. It felt better knowing that at least someone supported him, a wise lapras no less. It meant he wasn't at fault, but that didn't ease his current situation.
"No problem. Now I've got some more studyin' to do, but before I go, I got some good old Lapras of the Lake Wisdom for ya: Fuck everyone that wanted you out! Go out there and make an awesome life for yourself! You deserve it! And enjoy being an umbreon. It makes you look Badass!"
Author's Note:
Thank you all again for reading! It was an awesome summer.
So what next? Well let me first introduce to you my school year policies regarding reviews and next summer's uploads.
I will not upload chapters during the school year unless I reach Ch 41 or I gain some other benefit by doing so.
You will be able to buffer reviews for summer bonus chapters during the school year.
A buffered review will apply to the first chapter in the summer that is missing a qualified review.
The number of qualified reviews required to earn a buffered review increases sequentially by 1 starting with 2. So 2 for the first, 3 for the second, and so on.
The number of submissions required to earn a buffered review increases sequentially by 1 starting with 3.
A qualified review which contains a submission will count for both.
For those of you not sure what I mean by qualified review, here is my definition, copied straight out of this summer's upload policies on my profile page.
A qualified review tells me what you liked or disliked about the story. This can include comments about characters, scenes, quotes, descriptions, or chapters.
A second type of qualified review is a prediction, in which the review tries to predict what will happen next in the story. This will not alter the story in any way, and will provide insight as to how well my readers can pick up on the little details. Trust me. There's plenty of them buried in this work.
A qualified review is not a review that comments on the story as a whole without pointing out specific details. While I appreciate hearing that you like my story, think I'm a good writer, and are dying for more, these kind of reviews do not help me continue writing good chapters; hence, I will not count these reviews in regards to bonus chapters!
So now onto that submission you've all been waiting for:
In order to help progress the story and develop the characters, I am looking for events in which my main protagonists and antagonists can interact in while I develop the main plot.
Here's the form:
Location: Vallley Reserve, Eon City, The Pokemon suburbs of Eon City (think Mystery Dungeon's main hubworlds as small towns), an area a ways away.
Location details (Optional): Scenery, Businesses, and shops present at the location.
Event: Describe the incident that my main characters should react to. Do not describe how my characters act or react or how the incident is resolved. For example, Melody can receive a strange note during one of her runs in the city, or Trent can find a lost sentret in the valley, but Trent can't ask Melody out, nor can he decide to take the sentret home. Of course the event doesn't have to be related to any of my main characters either. As of Chapter 17, the main characters this applies to are: Kieren, Trent, Caleb, Kat, Melody, Celestia, Boran, and Drake. Other characters can act/react as you see fit for the incident.
OCs: I'd like to think I'm pretty good with OCs, but if you have an OC that helps make your plot event interesting, feel free to describe the character here. Any details you leave out I can fill in.
Examples:
Location: Pokemon suburbs of Eon City
Locations Details: Purr-fect Gifts - a purrloin-owned jewelry shop.
Event: An innocent gligar is accused of stealing the Red Crown from Purr-fect Gifts following the previous night's break-in.
OCs: Max Hoover - the aforementioned gligar - is suffering depression following the divorce of his parents and his brother being put in prison. He recently ran away from home to escape his troubles.
Location: Eon Valley Reserve
Event: The next migration games have begun, and the tailow are rioting about the missing Bluestripe heir.
Remember: If you are interested in beta reading or would like me to beta read or review your story, PM me.
Also if by any chance you happen to be attending South Dakota State University in Brookings this next school year, I'll be there. If you want to meet me in person, you can find me at C2F2 (Campus Community Fall Festival) or at the following Friday 5PM GCO Meetings (which will most likely take place in SDEA 370) if you'd rather watch the Pokemon World Championships. If you are able to read and enjoy this story, then you are smart enough to help us make games!
I hope you all had an amazing summer! Stay involved! Send me those submissions! If you want to send me more than one in a single review, I will count them separately. Good luck in school! I'll see you all again next summer with plenty more chapters!
~Dreaming I'm Latios
Prediction Shoutouts
Teraunce (Ch 6): my bet is that kieren will become an umbreon. +1
Digitamer88 (Ch 16): I'm curios to see if the lunar shard will allow him to evolve into an umbreon
Phillip Harbindinger (Ch 16): I was thinking Umbreon was fairly likely. Glad to see that confirmed, as Umbreon is my favorite Eeveelution.