Pallet Town, Oak Ranch - 0516 hours local time - Day 151 of Ash Ketchum's Journey
Cleffa learned that her fellow captures were actually… friendly. Exceedingly dangerous in battle, but not as ruthless as she thought.
Charizard was kind enough to teach her how to avoid the Dragonite brawls before he joined the fight himself. Natu told her about Anabel and how she thought Ash was a just a good shield against crazy psychics before finding Ash to be the nicest guy on the planet.
As for Muk? He might've been the worst nightmare she could have, but he never meant to hurt her. That torrential wave of sludge was trying to HUG her. He was just too strong for her liking. And the absolute wrong type.
Still, the one she liked most was Noibat. The Kalosian bat was adorable! So FUZZY!
At least when he wasn't trying to fight a powerhouse like that Goodra. Apparently, he wanted to turn into some demonic bat monster called a Noivern. Why not embrace the fuzzy?
"Ivy." 'Not all of us are interested in remaining as we are.' Cleffa jumped at Ivysaur suddenly speaking up behind her, the second-stage of the Venusaur line sitting down beside her. "Saur." 'Might interest you that I was never really interested in evolving.'
Cleffa blinked in confusion. How did-
"Saur." 'You're watching us train and fight and in more than one case, evolve.' Ivysaur said, as if reading her mind. "Iv." 'it's rather easy to figure out.'
Cleffa looked Ivysaur in the eye. "Cleffa." 'Why do you risk your lives doing this?' she asked. "Cle?" 'What is so important that you risk life and limb on a daily basis to force the pace of evolution?'
Ivysaur looked at the brawl growing between the dragons, type and shaped. "Ivy." 'You've felt Ash. You can feel something is different about him.' he said, Cleffa nodding, the flower toad taking this as a continuation. "Saur." 'Ash is the Chosen of Arceus. His duty and ours is to save the world from threats to it. I know Arceus is the creator, but he seems… fond of this world.'
Cleffa stared. The Chosen of Arceus? That… that was insane. It made sense, given how the Clefairy all basically begged him for help, but… it was MADNESS! Almost blasphemy! But was it blasphemy if it was true?
Dratini then Wrapped around Goodra, not in a friendly way, but in a way for war. These were the Pokemon of the Chosen. War was their imperative. Their lives would forever be a struggle to save the world from itself. And for better or worse, she was one of them now. She would have to accept that. And honestly, she would HAVE to if she wanted to become a Clefairy and return to Mount Moon eventually.
So she needed to find someone on her level. Or close to it. Muk was out of the question, because poison-type, Charizard was suicide… Maybe that grass owl.
RMS Olympic - Pacific Ocean En Route to Orre - 0908 hours local time
Lance was in a BAD mood. The reason was simple as he let out that Shiny Gyarados he got from Whitney as a betrothal present.
She apparently used a baseball bat. Clair was just as curious as he was as to how she got into the Lake of Rage without a boat and got the damn thing, but he'd find out when he married her next year.
With that musing out of the way, he went over to the Heart of Indigo, which, despite not being the biggest and most impressive ship in the fleet at the moment, was picked out as the command ship for two reasons: one, better communications equipment and two, BECAUSE it wasn't the most impressive ship in the fleet.
So a near literal hop skip and a jump over and he was on the deck, returning Gyarados to his ball and making his way up to the bridge of the ship, where Gaffery, Steven and Cynthia were conferring with the captain of the ship as he walked in, the crew not even reacting until he opened his mouth.
"So, why did you order the fleet to stop and why is it I wasn't told until five minutes ago?" he asked, getting Gaffery to give him a look.
"Lance. I see you got up." the old man deadpanned. "We stopped for a reason. Captain?"
The Indigo's captain gestured to a station that had been making a LONG of pings, Lance recognizing it as the ship's sonar station. And it was picking up a LOT of contacts. Stationary ones.
"Mines," Lance surmised before sighing. "How many?"
"Enough to slow us down for months." Cynthia answered. "We can't get to Orre by this route and the only other available option would be to land in Ferrum. THAT will go well."
No it would not. So there was only one other option.
"So, do you have mine disposal teams on board?" Lance asked, hoping that the captain had specialized Pokemon trained in the removal of mines.
"Sadly, no." the captain, an old sea salt named Haruo Nakajima, a native of Johto that fled the region's near-constant civil wars. A good man, Lance knew, otherwise he wouldn't be commanding the flagship of the Kanto Defense Force Navy, now a squadron flagship of the new URN Navy. "We didn't expect Cipher to use the Orrean Navy to lay enough mines so a man could walk from Kanto to Sinnoh to Hoenn without getting his feet wet. If they didn't explode, of course."
"And we didn't bring any minesweepers. Any solutions?" Steven asked, knowing there was only one solution other than massed and tiring Hyper Beams.
"Helm, bring us around, ninety degrees to port. We'll just have to shoot the damn things out of the water one at a time." Haruo ordered.
The heated pool on the Olympic was a frequent haunt of many trainers wanting to train their Pokemon in the art of water combat, having been expanded to be deep enough to hold two Snorlax, one atop the other and twice as long as a Dragonair.
Fittingly, Iris Arajar was working on just that. Evolving her… uncooperative Dratini. It kept biting her!
'Keep trying.' her astral counterpart said, VERY unhelpfully. 'He'll come around eventually.'
"SO helpful." she muttered before glancing at the ghostly CHILD wearing a swimsuit and floating in the pool. "You know, you're me from the other timeline, so why don't you HELP ME?"
Astral Iris shrugged. 'I had to learn to control Dragonite. Well, earn his respect, more like, but same thing.' she answered. 'I can't give you any of the answers.'
CHOMP!
"AH!" iris cried as the snake-like dragon bit her hand, her Gible sitting at the poolside thinking the little snake was playing and he aimed for Iris' head, launching himself at it. This also knocked them into the water.
Gibles, despite their playfulness, were quite heavy and only bit on the heads of those that could hold them. They were also land sharks. Emphasis on land.
Gible didn't realize Iris couldn't handle the water and she was too far from the ladder to climb out. Dratini, however, was not heartless. On seeing that his… keeper… was beginning to drown, so he let go of her, wrapping his tail around her leg and began swimming to the surface, Gible realizing he wasn't helping matters and letting go of her head, using his ramjet horns to swim to the surface.
And for Arceus' sake, WHY WAS THAT MUSIC PLAYING?! What even WAS that music?!
Iris' head poked out of the water, allowing her to take in a very deep breath.
"I wondered why I heard the infamous Gible tune." Iris looked up to see cape-wearing Johto/Kanto Grand Champion Lance Wataru, staring at the land shark in question, who was swimming in the pool, acting more like a Sharpedo. Lance offered her a hand, which she took and he helped her out of the pool, Gible playing normal shark. "And a Dratini. Bit of advice with them: it takes a VERY long time for them to evolve unless you put them through enough stress that they decide 'enough is enough' and need the power boost. Dragons… take a VERY long time to train."
"Thanks. I'm getting that impression." Iris said before the door opened, revealing Anabel in… a two piece bikini, apparently wanting to take a swim.
"Oh! I didn't realize someone was using the pool!" she all but squeaked before fleeing.
"…Was that Anabel Ilia?" Lance asked, Iris nodding. "From the reports, I wasn't expecting her to wear something that… exposing."
Iris had a pretty good idea WHO gave her that swimsuit.
Serena looked up from her book as she heard one of the voices in her head sneeze. "So… do I have a head cold or something?" she asked aloud.
Iris sighed. Serena was probably as bad as the old perverted men in Opelucid.
Her musing was cut short when she felt something rest on her shoulder. It had an arrowhead-shaped head, with closed eyes. That was all she could see, as it was sitting on her shoulder and the rest of the body was behind her.
"Dree…" said the odd Pokemon.
Lance poked the Pokemon, waking it up. "Dreep!" yelped the strange thing, revealing a very… ghostly body as he sighed. "A gift from Agatha. Dreepy, the Lingering Pokemon. As you may have guessed, he's a Dragon/Ghost-type."
"Like Lord Giratina…" Iris said, remembering that Ash ran into him in the old timeline and would again.
"Galar LOVES to claim they were home to Giratina first. But we all know better." Lance said as he gathered up the arrow-like dragon. "Look, we're going to be stuck here for a while and I've trained a LOT of Dratini in my day, so…"
Astral Iris got out of the pool and said what she was thinking. 'He's bored out of his mind and has nothing to do.' she deadpanned.
Well, who was she to complain?
Northwestern Orre, near Mount Battle - 0705 hours local time - Day 149
Orre was not all desert. But it WAS 89% desert. The other 11 was a small forest near the Ferran border (five) a small collection of mountains (three) and the irradiated beaches and Gateon Port making up the rest.
Which was why it was also perfect to store aircraft in the region. Pernon asked them to check it out as a favor, seeing as his suit needed repairs and he needed to spend a day in soapy water, to which the Natus gleefully dumped him into. With a Natu rubber ducky in the tub.
While he was screaming about where the Natus got these things, Rin just asked him to take Robin and go. Which Ash did, riding on Pidgeot with Robin holding on to him uncomfortably.
Good thing Robin didn't exactly have the largest bust, or he would be more uncomfortable.
Still, there were there now. He didn't want to wake up at five in the morning, but he was WELL aware of deserts being deadly during the day, therefore, wake up early, show Pidgeot where to go, get there.
And it was FILLED with empty planes. Early prop-driven ones, jetliners, even fighter jets.
"Well, Pernon's going to be happy, at least." Robin deadpanned. "Moneygrubbing bastard."
"He's a nice guy, once you get to know him." Ash countered as Pidgeot went to ground, landing between two of the empty planes, Robin climbing off first and Ash dismounting with expert ease, returning Pidgeot and pulling out his Pokedex to transfer her back to Kanto and rearrange his party again, sending back Pidgeot and Sceptile and putting in a request to bring in Gligar and Rowlet, which was quickly answered.
Robin blinked as she looked around. "I recommend we seek shelter. There's a low-pressure system moving in." she said as she looked at the skies. "A sandstorm will be sweeping in soon."
Ash groaned. Sand or snow, he hated getting trapped in a storm. He looked at the stripped aircraft, the big jumbo jet, the same model he flew in when he came to Alola. "Hey!" he said to her, getting her attention. "Can we use that one for shelter?"
She looked at the massive four-engined craft, though the engines were long gone, of course. The skin was intact, the windows were still in place and there was a mound of sand leading to the front hatch. That last part had her worried. "If you don't mind killing a bandit that might be using it as shelter for himself." she said, Ash flinching as the wind picked up. "We don't have a choice! GO!"
She led Ash to the sand ramp, the hatch open and nearly rusted in place as they reached the top, Robin struggling to get inside before Ash nearly sank to his knees in the sand. "I hate sand." Ash said before Robin pulled him into the aircraft.
"Please don't mention how it gets everywhere." she asked, then tugged on the hatch to close it. "I keep hearing that from the smith, but it's something we already know."
The wind began to pick up outside, sand beginning to plink off the hull of the aircraft, picking up in speed as time went on. After a few minutes, the aircraft was getting pelted with potentially billions of little pieces of silica going fast enough to peel paint off the hull, if it wasn't already stripped of paint.
"Well, this is going to be a long wait." Robin noted as she looked outside. "Sandstorms like this usually last for days on end. A week at most."
And they didn't bring any provisions. This was not going to end well.
SS Libre wreck - 1020 hours local time
"You let my prince go out there to look at the desiccated husks of aircraft that haven't seen one iota of maintenance in almost a century ON THE CUSP OF A SANDSTORM IN THE MOST HAZARDOUS TO LIVE REGION ON THE PLANET?!"
While the man never left his forgeworks in Gateon, the Natus were kind enough to bring him there to… express his displeasure on Pernon's fetch quest.
"In his defense, he didn't know there was a sandstorm on the way." Rin said, saving her boss and redirecting his very righteous anger at her. "We don't know a thing about Orre's weather patterns."
"They suck." the former-and-recently-reinstated Royal Guard deadpanned.
Rin chuckled. "We gathered, but-"
"The storms out there can, will and HAVE killed thousands of people every time they happen and someone is stupid enough not to seek hard shelter." he spat at her. "There used to be as many towns in Orre as Kanto and Johto. What to guess what happened?"
"Nuclear obliteration?" Pernon suggested. That was a good guess, seeing as Orre's MANY civil wars always had one nuclear exchange.
"That too." the guard answered. "But the sandstorms are the main reason no settlement doesn't have high walls or a natural shield like Pyrite." The old man paused. "Before Robin went and nuked the fuck out of it, of course. But that's no excuse for sending him out there without any supplies. And the Natus here are a bit too busy trying to lift the ship to bring them here!"
"They brought you here." Pernon pointed out.
"Gateon Port isn't on the other side of the fucking region, is it?" he demanded. "You wanted him to go up north, the place where NO ONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND GOES! Not even Cipher goes up there! And as you might've noticed, THEY'RE INSANE!"
Perfect place for aircraft storage: it was suicidal for anyone trying to steal them to go there. Heat, murderous storms and the only way in is by flying-type. And anyone bringing psychic-types...well, for some reason, unless born in Orre, psychics tended to go a bit insane and kill themselves.
"Look, even if they can't teleport Ash and Robin back, can they send them provisions? Food, water, that sort of thing?" Rin asked. "I think there's a distance-to-weight limit for teleporters."
Xatu then made his presence known. "Xatu." said the bird as he revealed a pack filled with the objects in question.
The blacksmith only had one thing to say. "Thank Arceus for His Messengers."
Airframe storage depot, Northern Orre - 1032 hours local time
"Natu." 'Sorry I can't teleport anything save this.' said the parrot before Ash gave him a pet, rubbing his head.
"It's ok." he said sincerely. "We can wait it out thanks to you." With that, Robin took the pack for the sake of beginning to ration it out.
"Natu!" 'Have fun and use protection!' said the Natu, flapping his wings before beginning to teleport.
"WHAT?!" Ash yelled as the bird Natu-ported away.
Robin blinked as she paused devying up the food, mostly jerky and granola bars. "What? You can't understand Pokemon-"
"I CAN and it's a curse." he interrupted. "Sometimes I don't WANT to know what they're saying and remain blissfully ignorant."
Pikachu cackled at his brother's misfortune. "Pikapipipi!" 'AHAHAHAHAHAHA! I expect Ashlings at the end of this!' he crowed.
"I'm fourteen, Pikachu! The bare minimum age for that is seventeen!" Ash retorted. Whoever thought ten was the best age for owning property and marriage was an IDIOT and Ash thanked whichever god was responsible for legal nonsense (in Kalos, a Zygarde cell twitched as if sneezing) that common sense prevailed.
Robin blinked before letting out her Eeveelutions, a bad habit in Ash's eyes as stasis was not a good thing for them. After all, look at his performance in Unova. If they went to Oak's instead of sitting on a damn shelf, they wouldn't've gotten out of shape, would they?
"Don't you let them out more often?" Ash asked. "I mean… they get out of shape in stasis."
"No choice in the matter. Orre is tight on resources that aren't… metal…" Robin trailed off before pulling out her revolver, slowly cocking back the hammer. "Someone is in here."
Flareon slowly made her way towards the source, growling before something began moving towards them. "Flar!" 'Identify yourself or get torched!' Flareon spat. "Flareeeee…" 'We know you're in here!'
A mercury-like blob stepped forward, revealing a body that looks like metallic slag with a brass nut of some kind hovering above the body, serving as a head with a ball bearing hovering inside the nut.
"Mel…" 'please don't hurt me,' said the creature with its' machine-like voice. Robin almost dropped her pistol out of shock at seeing the Pokemon in the light.
"Forgive me. I didn't know." she said, decocking the revolver. "If I did…"
Ash was just confused. "Robin?" he asked, looking at the Pokemon. "You know what this is?"
"It is one of the Legendaries of Ferrum and Orre." she said. "Meltan, youngest form of Melmetal. I thought they were all destroyed in the Cipher War."
That was new. A Legendary he didn't know. Well, Ash did not claim to know EVERYTHING about the Pokemon world. There were countless regions around the planet, some he didn't even know existed. It was a big planet after all.
"Huh. Well, I'm always happy to see something I don't know about." Ash said as more and more of the metallic Pokemon came out of the dark, with much lighter nuts for heads then the one they met.
"Whoa." Ash muttered under his breath. That was a lot of legendaries.
Citadark Island - 1123 hours local time
Nascour Jakira could be said to be over his head. After the deaths of Greevil and Evice, he was THE most senior member of the organization. He did what he could to make sure Cipher survived. The Second War of Expansion tore them apart, but as he looked at the objects behind him, he knew they had no chance.
The Stones of the Ranger Union, all shattered and powerless. The Time Flute, the only thing that could summon Celebi at will and bring a Pokemon back to its' original state, melted and crushed. Agate Village's Relic Stone, radioactive rubble.
Nothing could stop them. And he would bring the wrath of their god upon all enemies of Orre. Yveltal would come and kill and kill and KILL until his thirst was sated.
The new URN force coming to Orre would be the first to die. Lance Wataru, Cynthia Shirona, Steven Stone, the greatest threats, would be ash upon the winds. There was a prophecy about this, after all.
"Disturb not the harmony of fire, ice nor lightning, for once they will destroy the world on which they clash." he recited. "The guardian's song will not quell the fighting and thus the earth shall turn to ash."
The Shamouti Prophecy referred to their victory. Soon, once more, Orre would lord over the world, as it should be.
Orre Aircraft boneyard - 1201 hours local time
Ash had learned a bit about Meltan. They were liquid metal, like that killer robot in that Unovan movie about time travel. They were rather numerous and lived in colonies in remote locations in Orre and Ferrum.
And the one they met was getting insistent in joining him.
"For the last time, little guy, you can't come with me!" Ash all but yelled. "You're a Legendary! Catching you is a very, VERY bad idea. The world needs you to maintain some form of balance!"
Brandon and Noland rarely kept their legendaries cooped up in balls unless they were being cared for or there was a battle they were needed for, allowing them to keep up their duties. They were also LOCAL legendaries and they didn't go very far very often.
Ash, as stated, could not STOP moving. If Meltan was only native to Orre and Ferrum, he could upset something VERY quickly if he caught him. Shamouti's shadow was long and deep, indeed.
"Mel!" 'But I want to help you, Chosen! Once I get stronger, you'll need my might!' the little blob with a nut retorted. "Melt!" 'I wanna bring the world back into balance and I can't do that from Orre!'
"And I don't want to abuse that power!" Ash retorted, Pikachu not getting involved.
Honestly, Ash had a point, but so did Meltan. A Legendary would go a LONG way to handing Cyrus his eyebrowless ass. But Ash was worried this would be the first step in the long and winding road that would turn him into another Tobias. A legitimate worry, if you asked Ash.
After all, did Tobias swap Pokemon ONCE during the Sinnoh debacle?
Meltan wasn't taking no for an answer and reached for Ash's spare Pokeball belt, its' metallic body extending and unlatching the ball faster then Ash could react.
"What in the name of-" Ash shouted before Meltan tapped the ball's activation switch, turning it into energy and sucking it in.
Meltan offered no resistance, the ball locking him in place before it teleported away, now in range of the transfer link thanks to Rin.
Oak Ranch, Pallet Town - 1502 hours local time
Belladonna Ketchum sighed as her mentor/employer's Dragonite got back into beating the living hell out of Ash's Pokemon.
"Can't a girl get any work done around here?!" she demanded, working on a move training regimen for Poipole, who expressed a desire to help Ash in a gym battle or two.
A ping got her attention, making her drop the pen and clipboard she was writing on to look at the computer monitor. "I swear, if this isn't Ash or Gary getting a Legendary or something, I am going to be PISSED!"
The display then showed the trainer ID, which Belladonna recognized as Ash's. And the Pokemon caught was… new.
A metal blob with a nut for a head called 'Meltan'? The hell was a Meltan?
Bell facepalmed. When in doubt, call the professor. The Professor knows EVERYTHING. So she reached for the old handset and ran Oak's satellite phone, the annoying ringtone made damn sure he'd answer it.
She put the phone to her ear and less then a second later came…
"Belladonna Ketchum, this had best be important!" Samuel Oak yelled into her ear via the phone.
"Wouldn't be calling if it wasn't, Prof." she smoothly answered. "Ash caught a Pokemon in Orre I can't recognize."
"Ash caught a Pokemon in Orre? That's amazing enough as it is." the authority on Pokemon replied, confusion in his voice. "And you don't recognize it? What's the name?"
Bell shrugged. "Meltan," she answered.
Fifteen minutes later, she would regret it.
Orre Boneyard - 1209 hours local time
"Meltan caught himself?" Robin asked, disbelievingly. "Why?"
Ash banged his head against the plane's skeleton, not happy. "He said he wanted to help me. I didn't want to catch him! He's needed HERE, in Orre!" he all but shouted. "Legendaries should never be caught. Only power hungry madmen do that."
Inside Ash's head, a crack formed in the barrier.
"Well, well. It seems being anything like Tobias is the one thing to break him." The King of Pokelantis said. "Step one, get him to catch more legendaries."
Sabrina scoffed. "Like he will willingly. He will avoid obtaining legendary Pokemon like the plague." she stated, not impressed by his so-called master plan. "This was a fluke."
"Flukes can repeat themselves. And you want to get back to corporeal form, don't you?" he retorted.
"I have a better idea." Sabrina said. "I'm just going to wait."
"And let me do the work?" the ancient being spat.
"No. So you can fail." she retorted. "Your stupidity will get Arceus' attention. I have a better plan."