Ch 8: The Legend of Ninetails
"Please help us." A Jumpluff was begging a Shiftree as we were coming back from a mission. "My friend is stuck in a chasm, and only your strong winds are powerful enough to save her."
"Forget it kid, you can't possibly have enough Poke to pay us." The Shiftree said.
"What's going on here?" We heard an old voice that both Karly and I recognized. It was Karly's grandfather Aeruthael. "Are you truly denying a civilian a job which only you can get done?" The old Gallade walked out of the crowd, "Back in my day, Rescue Teams never turned down a job. You should be ashamed of yourself."
"Pfft, buzz off gramps." Shiftree dismissed. The crowd gasped.
"Oh, I may not be a spring chicken like you..." The old Gallade began, he suddenly appeared in front of Shiftree with his blade glowing with the power of a Psycho Cut attack, "But I'm much more experienced than even the toughest fighter in this town."
"Oh-oh-okay..." Shiftree said while shuddering.
"Good, now go save Jumpluff's friend."
Shiftree left and headed towards the dungeon. "How can I thank you mister?" Jumpluff said to Aeruthael, "I would have never gotten Shiftree to save my friend if you hadn't come along."
"You don't need to thank me, but what dungeon did your friend get stuck in?" The old Gallade asked.
"Oh, just Taciturn Chasm." Jumpluff said with his voice full of joy, "Why do you ask?"
"Crap." The old Gallade paled considerably (which seemed impossible considering that his natural skin color was white as a sheet) as he heard the name of the dungeon. "Your friend might be saved, but Shiftree..."
"It'll be fine, Shiftree is a tough pokemon, none of the pokemon there will bother him." Jumpluff said.
"But... there is a legend about a legendary pokemon sleeping there..."
"Like you said, it's a legend, no need to worry about it." Jumpluff said, she then jumped up and floated off.
"If Shiftree doesn't come back by next week, I want you three to go the taciturn chasm to look for him." Aeruthael told us when we reached the hut, we had restocked our bags and had a few reviver seeds, and a lot of Oran berries. Since we had been going to Thunder Cannon Cave for most of our recent missions, we also had quite a few Cheri berries.
"Grandpa, you worry too much. You always say that these bad things will happen, but none of them ever do." Karly said as she rolled her eyes.
"I know that a legendary sleeps there, but I couldn't tell Jumpluff that or she might have hurt herself or someone else."
"Grandpa, spare us one of your stories, we all know it isn't true."
"Karly! I think I know what I'm talking about, I might be old but I still have a powerful mind."
"Actually, I would like to hear this story about that legendary..." I said timidly, interrupting their argument.
"Well, it started five hundred years ago today, I was in a rescue team much like yours at the time..." Aeruthael recounted, "We had stocked up on provisions to face a monster that supposedly lived atop Mt. Thunder; We fought some tough pokemon for us at the time, but our leader, a human like Rick, was stronger than most pokemon. We reached the summit and Zapdos attacked, We were there to save a Shiftree, who had accidentally woken Zapdos up. We defeated Zapdos, but when he left he warned us to beware of the black thunderer." Aeruthael grimaced. "The next time we reached the summit, we expected it to be empty, but we were terribly wrong. Zekrom, a fearsome legendary even stronger than Zapdos appeared and challenged us. Luckily we had gained a lot of experience since the time we fought Zapdos, we defeated Zekrom and made him promise to sleep in what was then known as Silent Chasm. The name changed over time and now all pokemon in this town know it as Taciturn Chasm."
"You're over 500 years old?!" I asked incredulously.
"Don't be surprised, Psychic type pokemon are able to live much longer than other types of pokemon. Elder Whiscash is even older than I am, he was even around 1000 years old when I was young." Aeruthael revealed, "I remember the story he told us about the human turned pokemon that was destined to destroy the world, it hasn't happened yet, but at the time everyone thought is was our team's leader." He laughed a little at this. "The pokemon that he had personally helped knew he wasn't that pokemon, and even the renowned rescue team of Alakazam, Charizard, and Tyranitar didn't think that he was the evil human, but as a rescue team, they were forced to track him down." His expression darkened. "My leader, a Cubone, and his first friend, who like Karly, found him unconscious in the woods, were forced to go on the run. They battled through a volcano and a freezing forest to reach Ninetails."
"Ninetails was the pokemon in the legend that cursed the human, and could identify whether he was the human. Thankfully he was not. About a year after my leader's passing, the same Ninetails moved to the city and became our own resident Lady Ninetails." Aeruthael explained.
"What was the legend?" I asked enthralled.
"The story goes like this... Once there was a human, who heard that if you touched the tail of a Ninetails, you would be cursed; determined to discover if this was true he set out with his partner, Gardevoir. When he found Ninetails, he pulled one of her tails and the curse was cast, but Gardevoir loved her trainer and protected him, taking the curse for herself; when Ninetails saw this act of selflessness from Gardevoir, she decided to test the humans heart, she gave the human a choice, save Gardevoir and sacrifice himself, or let his partner die to live still. Ninetails, hoping that the human would choose the first option, had intended to spare both the human and his partner, but when the human's true face showed, he ran away. Gardevoir was brokenhearted that her trainer had left her for dead. Ninetails took pity on Gardevoir and instead of killing her, she turned her into a guiding spirit. She then cursed this human who had betrayed his closest friend to become a pokemon, and that that human would cause the world's destruction. Ninetails never said when the human would appear, but that she would do all in her power to stop the human from destroying the world, even guiding the human herself. She also predicted that the human would be reunited with his partner, Gardevoir..."
My eyes widened when he said all this. Kirlia evolve into Gardevoir, I was a human, and I had been having dreams lately where Ninetails had been trying to guide me.
A/N: I'm Baaaaa-aaaack! I hope you like my twist on the Ninetails legend, and I want you guys to know that this fic will be updated a lot slower now that I have two other fics to focus on, both of which seem to be much more popular than this one, but I still want to finish it. I hope you guys also appreciated my throwback to Red/Blue Rescue Team, with the Cubone being the main character. No matter what I would always get Cubone for some reason or another, so I put Cubone as the main game character. Hope you guys and gals out there like this, I would appreciate reviews! P.S. Thank you Norway viewers for giving me the most views and most visits. Norway is one of the countries of my ancestry.