Ledian and Jirachi

"He's not going to live."

The horrifying proclamation made Cedric's head spin. Wasn't going to live? That couldn't be real. There was no way it was real. But the doctor wasn't lying and there wasn't anything but his own denial that made it an untruth. On the countertop, his Ledian was still, breathing rather noisily. His eyes were cloudy; he was old for his kind. Still, this shouldn't be the end.

The doctor spoke of it as a matter of fact. "The illness has spread to many of his internal organs, including the lungs. If you leave him with us, we can order a replacement immediately and have it ready by tomorrow."

"But it won't be him," Cedric said, looking down and holding his Ledian's hand.

"It will be him, an exact genetic copy," the doctor corrected. "Or you could choose another kind of Pokemon if you don't want a Ledian again. You don't have another companion Pokemon, right? So you can ask for nearly any Pokemon and it should be accepted. What do you have in mind?"

It still wouldn't be his Ledian, Cedric thought. And he didn't want any other Pokemon. "I'll think about it," he said quietly, then picked up the Bug. "I'll take care of Red."

"All right. Make sure to put in your request before the weekend, or you'll have to wait a few days longer."

"Right," Cedric mumbled, and left the Pokecenter.

If he was anyone else, Cedric knew, he would have left Red with the doctor and taken a different Pokemon instead. Sickness was a sign of weakness, and weakness was undesirable. But from his grandmother, he knew stories of before the city, stories from centuries ago. Those stories told of green landscapes with clear skies; the stories told of countless free and happy Pokemon. In this city of concrete and steel, the Pokemon were produced and never seen without a human owner.

Some of the other pedestrians gave him disapproving looks or walked out of their way to avoid him. He could have sent Red back into his Pokeball. But he didn't want his Ledian to be alone. Cedric would get back to his grandmother's house and put Red in a soft bed and stay with him. After that… he didn't know.

But as he approached the house, things turned out bad. There was a group of enforcers blocking off the yard. Various people stood watching, wondering what was happening. As Cedric got to the crowd, a lead enforcer came out of the house. The only way one could tell he was a lead was because his uniform had yellow fringes. Otherwise, the enforcers all looked alike: black shoes, black pants, black jacket (with personal armor), black sunglasses, and black caps.

The lead enforcer held his hand up to quiet the crowd. "Citizens, we have a grave announcement. The resident or residents of this house have been put under arrest for spreading misinformation and corrupting the youth. He, she, or they have been telling stories of a time and place other than the city. The city always has been and always will be. Such lies will not be tolerated. We have the situation under control. Please return to your regular lives." Then he moved back in, talking in a low voice to other enforcers.

"I didn't know there was a corrupter in our neighborhood," a woman said, horrified.

"I'm glad I didn't know them," a man said, even though he had often come over to chat with Cedric's grandfather about vehicles.

"Huu nah?" Red mumbled softly into Cedric's ear. He sounded confused and saddened.

He patted the Ledian gently and turned around. "We can't fight the enforcers," he said quietly. "But I know what we can do. We're going to find the green lands."

The green lands were something his grandparents had often talked about. According to the officials, the city was the only habitable place on Earth. There was nothing beyond its borders. However, his family and others believed that there were green lands, places of paradise that were being kept away from everyone. It was said that millions of Pokemon still lived free in the green lands. Cedric had always wanted to see them. Now with his grandparents under arrest, shortly to never be seen again… there was no reason for him to stick around.

After a quick stop at his home to pack a few things, Cedric took Red and set out to leave the city.

-+-

Two lead enforcers walked along a suspended metal walkway. There was open air for hundreds of feet below them. "There is one of the corruptors that we haven't tracked down yet. Trackers indicate that he is heading west."

"They were sentenced to execution, right?"

"Right."

The other lead enforcer nodded, then stopped by a red glass box. She put her hand on the glass and looked into a retina scanner, double confirming her identity. With the box unlocked, she opened it up and took a transmitter. "Hunter J, activate," she stated into the transmitter.

On a tower near the suspended walkway, a series of small orange lights appeared. There was a creak of metal being set into motion. A low grumble came from the tower.

The male enforcer handed his peer a digital clipboard, displaying data on the target. "You are to seek out and eliminate Citizen C57-825-223. He is heading towards the old city, so encounter him as soon as possible."

After a hiss of steam, Hunter J set off.

-+-

Cedric lived in the center of the city. The elite members of society lived in the east of the city, while the poor lived in the west. As he traveled on the subway, the stations grew progressively more dilapidated and dirty as the train went west. However, there would be fewer enforcers in the west.

At the last station, he got off and went up. The houses and buildings out here were so dilapidated and drafty that no one should be living or working in them. But they were being used. Cedric didn't intend on staying here, though. The smell of industrial smoke was strongest here, and his Ledian coughed every few minutes from it.

But there came a point where everything was so bad that no one lived there anymore. Collapsed ruins were everywhere. The concrete streets were crackled badly, in some places nothing but rubble. "I hadn't expected things to be this bad," Cedric said to Red. "I've noticed they steadily move the city east, but they're always so clean. I thought they would clean up everywhere."

Red warbled, flicking his feeler along Cedric's neck. He lifted his head a little and looked around. With a twitch of his wings, the young man caught sight of the single pair of black stars on the Ledian's shell.

"Hang in there," Cedric said. "Maybe we'll both find the green lands."

Behind them, there came a terrible scratchy roar. When he turned back, there was a great steel monstrosity crashing through the ruined streets after him. It had the appearance of an impossibly enormous centipede turned into a tank. The enforcers already knew that he had run away, so they had sent a Hunter after him.

Cedric ran, even though a part of his mind said it was impossible to escape a Hunter once it found you. It began firing at him with at least a dozen guns. Some people said that they were robots that had once been built for war. Others said that they powered by Pokemon stronger than any other. The government would not release information on the Hunters, other than that they were used only for the worst of fugitives.

But how could he be one of the worst fugitives? It didn't make sense. The stories his grandparents told couldn't be that dangerous. And not letting them take away his Ledian wasn't that bad either.

Red cried out in fright and worry, finishing up in a raspy gasp. A silver glow formed around his fists. "Red, you're not strong enough to fight," Cedric said. But then the Ledian released Silver Wind anyhow.

There was a pained screech from the Hunter, right before it crashed onto the road. Cedric managed to trip himself up in the torn up road. Trying to protect Red, he turned to the side and hit the street rather hard. He sat up and looked over his Pokemon. "Are you all right?"

"Hooo," Red said softly, trembling in his arms.

This wasn't good for the Pokemon while he was sick. Cedric got up, looking warily at the Hunter. From the showers of sparks flying off the machine, the attack apparently had damaged some critical power lines. Were they really going to get away from the Hunter?

Then there was a groan of metal. The Hunter lifted itself back up again. However, it did not roar, nor did it start firing again. It looked at him, doing nothing. Cedric started to back up, but nearly slipped on loose rubble. Should he just keep running? That seemed best. And yet, he felt something holding him in place, a power that he couldn't see.

As he couldn't react, the Hunter came up to him, picked him up with its claw arms, then placed him in a caged seat that was partly sunk into its armor. It then put a locked bar over his lap. With him secured, the Hunter went west.

Cedric was mystified. If it had been sent to retrieve him, why was it continuing out of the city? But so long as it was doing that, he checked on Red. The Ledian seemed oddly relaxed. Maybe he didn't even realize what was going on. His ragged breaths got softer and then stopped altogether.

That attack had probably spent up the last energy that Red had. And it had only held off the Hunter for a moment, being unsuccessful in keeping Cedric free. He had been with Cedric too long to do nothing, though.

When Cedric had turned ten, he had been assigned a Ledyba as his first Pokemon companion. The government officials were always good about matching people with Pokemon that would suit them and made sure that everybody had at least one. Still, Cedric adored Red and always had him out by his side. They had battled enough for Red to evolve into a Ledian, but past that, they were simply the best of friends, as close as family.

He remembered how Red liked to watch the night sky, as brown and ugly as it was. He would warble happily under the full moon and was ecstatic any time a strong star pushed its light into being seen. During the day, he liked to help in the greenhouse that Cedric worked in, trimming trees and smelling flowers. The Ledian had all friends, no enemies. So why did he have to be taken away after such a short life?

Cedric held the body close and cried.

-+-

At the Office of Domestic Security, one of the officials spoke with a high ranking enforcer. "Why are the remote planes being deployed?"

"Sir, we've lost control over Hunter J," the enforcer said. "It was sent to terminate a corrupting citizen and its mental monitors were damaged."

"How many Pokemon does the fugitive have?"

"Just one, sir. A terminally ill one at that."

"Then how did we lose control over Hunter J?"

The enforcer lowered his head. "We don't know, sir. But the pilots of the remotes are well trained and Hunter J is damaged. We will retrieve it before it gets too far away."

"You'd better. We haven't had one of them escape in over four centuries."

-+-

The strange Hunter had struggled to get past some of the older ruins, where rubble had been spread and was prone to slipping under its great weight. But when Cedric had the presence of mind to look around, he saw trees growing among the ruins. Trees… he had only seen them in pictures and his imagination. "Did we reach the green lands?" he asked. It didn't seem that great of an accomplishment, though. Not with Red gone before the loyal Bug could see the trees.

Then there was a buzzing overhead. Cedric looked back to see eight remote planes flying their way. According to official records, they had been left over from past wars as well and were not supposed to be in use. But this Hunter was still going west. Maybe Red's Silver Wind attack had made it malfunction and they had been sent to eliminate both him and the Hunter.

From below him, the Hunter made a hiss of steam. It paused in its travels. Then with a series of clanks, the robot released ten body segments that were behind where Cedric was sitting. Before he could decide why it would do that, the last body segment lifted into the air. Then, as if an invisible giant had a hold of it, the hunk of metal was lobbed into the sky. It hit one of the remote planes and knocked it out of the sky.

And then the Hunter proceeded to throw the rest of its body segments at the remote planes. It hit most of its targets, but the last three seemed to wise up to the plan. They began turning erratically, making them harder to hit. Despite that, the Hunter managed to knock down two more. The third finally got in range and began shooting.

Cedric felt an impulse, almost an instruction, to jump off the Hunter, but wait by the head segment for a moment. The lap bar released, along with that segment's connection to the head. After sending Red's body into the Pokeball for safe keeping, he got off of the Hunter's back. His mind wanted him to run away right then and there, but that impulse to stay for a moment remained. So he waited, hoping that he wouldn't get hit by the remote plane.

As the one body segment got chucked at the remote plane, the head segment changed. The left part of its face, including the eye, split up and shifted up or down. Within the depths of the ancient machine, there lay a strange Pokemon. It seemed like an infant lying in there, clothed in a white gown with two wide yellow trails hanging off it. However, it also had an oversized yellow hat with three floppy peaks. Several strips of blue paper hung off the tips of the hat. But it was a Pokemon, so that 'hat' was part of its body. Its eyes were closed, but its chest was moving.

Cedric pulled the Pokemon out of the Hunter machine. After he took a few steps back, the Pokemon's tails and hat fluttered under a strange power. The head segment then lifted off the ground and was thrown at the final remote plane. This found its mark and their last pursuer was destroyed.

Although it was quiet now, Cedric wasn't sure what to do. His Pokemon was dead and the one he was holding didn't seem responsive. However, close examination showed that it was merely asleep. But then how had it been able to drive the Hunter machine? And throw it piece by piece without any physical contact? Even the best of Psychic Pokemon that he had seen wouldn't have been able to manage that feat even when awake.

Then he had that impulse feeling again. Don't worry about it. Just follow the path now.

Cedric wondered what path to follow, but then the Pokemon's tail fluttered again. When he looked in the direction they flowed, he saw a dirt path heading further into the trees. As he didn't want to be caught by any more forces the enforcers would throw at them, Cedric went to the path and followed it.

There were wild Pokemon in the woods. He saw them occasionally, coming to investigate this human stranger in their home. But they didn't bother him. Maybe it was the Pokemon he was holding onto. He wasn't sure what this one was called. As he followed the path, it grew dark.

Several hours after he first set on the path, he emerged from the woods and found a grassy field. Immediately, he noticed a Ledian fly by. She came up to him and cooed curiously, calling over another one like her. While Red only had two stars on his shell, these wild ones had a dozen or more. And it wasn't just two. When Cedric looked over the field, he saw hundreds, no, thousands… more that he could estimate. They weren't the only Pokemon awake on this night, but they were the ones who captured his attention.

And then when he looked into the sky, he saw an amazing sight. The night sky was not brown and muddy like it had been in the city. It was black and velvety, sprinkled liberally with so many stars. Bright and bold ones that sometimes peeked at the city were alongside tiny and shy ones that he could never have seen before. But with a sense of awe, Cedric was filled with a deep sadness. "Red would have wanted to see this," he said softly.

There was a bubble of laughter at his ear. When he turned his head, Cedric found himself looking into eyes as pure as the black sky above. The colorful little Pokemon floated away from him, smiling and clasping its hands together. Brilliant sparkles like the stars in the sky swirled around it, then dove into the Pokeball on Cedric's belt. Following that, there was a pink flash as the ball released its resident.

Red was there, flying alongside his wild peers. His black eyes were unclouded and sparkling. His breath came easily and he was able to smile. "Ko dah!" he squealed, then hugged Cedric.

"Red!" Cedric clasped him to his chest again and was thrilled to feel a lively response. "It's a miracle… I'm so glad to have you back." He then looked back up to the odd little Pokemon, who was still smiling at him. "You must have done this somehow. Thank you."

It closed its eyes and giggled merrily. But soon, its mood turned somber. It looked east to where the city lay, as if considering something of great difficulty and grave importance. Perhaps even its power to grant miracles was small compared to the might of the city.

Something still had to be done.

...

R/S entry: It is said that in lands with clean air, where the stars fill the sky, there live Ledian in countless numbers. There is a good reason for this – the Pokemon uses the light of the stars as its energy.

Ruby entry: A legend states that Jirachi will make true any wish that is written on the notes attached to its head when it awakens. If this Pokemon senses danger, it will fight without awakening.

Evil dystopia story. With mechas! Sorta.