Sunward Fort Sunward

[Jackie Cat]

They say that parts of the world were touched by ancient gods, and that you can see their mark.

The sky may stretch out across the world as one great expanse, but it does not have the same moods in all parts of the world. Some of the earth's places suffer a sky full of storms, while others enjoy bright blue days year-round. Some quirk of the atmosphere, or some elder power's will, must have blessed Sunward with supernaturally golden skies each dusk and dawn – the clouds around Sunward glowed strikingly pink-and-orange each and every evening, with the reliability of gravity.

If that were all, perhaps one could explain it away as an unusual local climate, but the sun over Sunward seemingly took hours, rather than minutes, to set and rise each day. That part was harder to rationalise.

A small village persisted here, despite the thin soil and baking midday heat. Watching over it was a hilltop stronghold of sandstone and red clay – Fort Sunward, unmistakable even from a distance. Faded banners displaying a solar motif hung from the ramparts. A small wooden stockade hugged one of the fort's towers, and flew a different, more modern flag. It seemed outsiders were not quartered inside the fort.

The gatehouse was manned at all times by either an armarouge, or a ceruledge, the guard changing each dawn and each dusk.

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[Jackie Cat]

The light of the setting sun gleamed warmly off the golden pauldrons of the armarouge atop the gatehouse. This was a holy light. She basked in it with gratitude. For Aurelia, time passed easily like this – she could remain statue-still for hours, facing towards the sun.

The clunk, clunk of armour on parapet stone signalled the arrival of her counterpart. All good things must end – or at least, they must rest.

Estelle scraped a blade along the crenellations to announce her presence, and each guard took their ceremonial position on either side of the gatehouse platform. They saluted each other, arm to breastplate, in an arcing motion that symbolished the path of the sun across the sky.

"Day-Captain," whispered Estelle, "you have dutifully worn the colours of day's end, and earned your rest as has the sun."

Aurelia answered, softly. "Night-Captain, you approach at the day's end, to stand vigil in the night. I yield my watch to you."

"You stand relieved."

Aurelia stood at ease as the ceruledge took her post at the fore of the gatehouse.

"Nothing to report from today's watch. Any news?" she asked, casually.

"No."

This was usually how conversations went with Estelle. It made Aurelia smile. People, things, places – given enough time, pretty much everything changed. Ones that hardly changed at all were precious, in a way. She sighed.

"The sun may sleep, but our duty endures."

"The sky may change, but our watch continues."

Aurelia was about to walk back along the wall to descend to the fort interior, when Estelle did something very un-usual.

"Wait," she hissed.

"What is it?"

"Something's different."

Aurelia felt it, now – a negative pressure in the air, as during a storm. But Sunward didn't get storms. Not ever.

Change was coming.

 

[Panoramic_Vacuum]

Steven woke to the sensation of falling. Not the most unusual thing, given that it was a common enough dream to have. What was unusual, however, was where he was falling.

He couldn't recall being in a desert beforehand, and certainly not a desert quite like this. The setting sun cast the entire landscape in shades of honey and rust. Even plummeting towards it at an alarming speed couldn't dampen its beauty.

Although, the speed of his fall wasn't actually the most alarming thing. It was that when he tried to flail his arms to slow himself, he didn't have arms. Or legs for that matter. Or much of anything in the way of human features.

But there wasn't time to wonder how on earth he'd been turned into a beldum, he was rapidly approaching the sunbaked earth below.

"How do you stop this thing?!"

His panicked shout came out as a high-pitched, metallic shriek. Of course he knew how to stop himself —he'd watched Beldum dart around since he was a little boy— but that didn't mean he knew how to stop himself.

He was falling too fast. How much did his new body weigh, anyway? The ground was so close he could feel the heat radiating off of it.

Steven squeezed his eye shut. "Stop, stop, stop, stop!"

From the very core of his new body, a thrumming vibration grew, and Steven jerked to a halt no less than an inch from the soil, throwing up a massive cloud of ruddy dust.

He cracked his eye open. "It worked?"

He swiveled his gaze this way and that, spinning his whole body around on its levitation field, confirming that yes, it worked, and no, he hadn't ended up making a crater with his face.

"It worked! Oh thank the stars it worked."

Steven was too elated to realize that his words only came out as a series of happy chimes and chirps.

But then, as the dust began to settle, a dainty cough filtered through the cloud, and Steven realized he was not alone.

"Uh, hello? Who's there?"

 

[kyeugh]

The wind milked her oversized eyes and lashed her baby-smooth face with cold.

Absorbed by the sensation, it took Prim five heartbeats to realize she was plummeting to the ground. A yelp escaped her lips as she sprung into action, if you could use such a word to describe her random flailing of limbs. As the world tumbled and reeled around her, her gaze latched miraculously onto another falling body a few yards away. She thrashed wildly its direction and the by the grace of God the wind caught her body just right, propelling her towards the steely blue object. The collision knocked the air from her lungs, and she gasped as she braced herself against the object's girth. Cool to the touch, enough that she had to suppress the urge to recoil from it.

She screwed her eyes shut, swallowed a shriek, flashed an amorphous prayer through her brain, and tried to ignore gravity's threat to tug her organs upward out of her throat like a jester's scarf.

Then she stopped in an instant, so quickly her consciousness flashed white. Her heart felt like it had continued plumetting without her and hit the ground anyway. She let out a strained breath she didn't know she'd been holding before prying her eyes open, shadows swimming at the edges of her vision.

Everything was red. Blood? Dust. It was dust. She was alive.

The something she had bolted herself vibrated, and she realized with a start that it was a someone after all. Alarm blaring in her mind, she flung herself from its side and landed face-down on the dusty ground, plumes of ruddy dust rising around her as she scrambled to her feet.

She opened her mouth to swear, but the breath she drew brought a fistful of sand with it, and she hacked up a lung instead. She examined the someone from behind bleary eyes. She could describe it only as a trunk of steel, tinted blue like her father's eyes, hovering just above the ground. Fanciful patterns formed in the sand beneath it, writhing and dynamic but always shockingly geometric. What the fuck?

There was no way to tell if this thing was friendly. Or intelligent. It was hard enough to tell if it was alive. Reluctant though she was to alert it to her presence, the anticipation of waiting for it to notice her was even worse.

"Hey. You good?" she asked between coughs. God but this dust was rough. She hoped she hadn't traded her old aches and pains for frailty and asthma.

 

[Panoramic_Vacuum]

"Hey. You good?" she asked between coughs.

The figure in the dust cloud spoke, and as the air began to clear, Steven caught sight of colors that definitely weren't native to the desert they'd landed in. Shades of green adorned with a small pink bud; his mystery companion was a petilil. A talking petilil. Who didn't answer his original question, but that was fine.

"Yes, I think I'm good," he replied. "At least, as good as one can be after falling from the sky."

He paused as the petilil stared blankly at him, like he hadn't even spoken. "You... You fell from the sky too, right? Or, oh gods, did I land on you? I'm so sorry--!"

All his petilil companion would hear of his rambling was a series of chitters and chirps...

 

[kyeugh]

The vessel whirled on her, single ruby eye gleaming through the dust. It seized for a moment, as though considering her, and a pressure built in Prim's throat—but the odd creature didn't pounce. Rather, a moment later it began shrieking and chirping a storm, bobbing and swaying as it did. Its cry was melodic but tinny, like a fletchling singing from the other end of a tunnel.

"Whoa, whoa, calm down there, girl," Prim said, holding her hands up. "I'm alright. Thanks for saving my ass there."

So it wasn't hostile at least. But it didn't seem particularly intelligent either. Gogoat-level intellect at most. Well, she could work with that. She'd achieved more than most with only a gogoat—

Wait. Her hands. She looked back down at them, more closely this time. Her hands. Were green as fuck? And fingerless?? Why hadn't she noticed this before???

Her eyes focused more distantly. She was wearing a green dress. Or she was a green dress. And didn't everything seem a little big? Was—did—

"Uhhh," she said, gaze burning through her hands and drilling into the ground. Hang on. Think. It had been all pokémon back at the plaza where she'd wound up a few hours ago, right? So she—maybe they were all pokémon. And they'd be sent back to their worlds eventually. Right. It all began to click into place in her head for the first time.

This body was temporary.

That was a relief.

Right?

She straightened her posture. "Sorry. I just realized, are you one of the heroes or whatever that got called in?" If so, she really hoped it hadn't noticed her brief panic. "Can you understand me?"

 

[Panoramic_Vacuum]

"Girl?" Steven blinked, puzzled at his companion's response. "Ah, no sorry. My apologies, I never introduced myself. It's this new body and it can be hard to tell. My name is Steven--"

Wait. The petilil wasn't even listening. Instead, she was staring intently at her hands like they'd somehow betrayed her. What an odd reaction. Perhaps he had landed on her and she was suffering from some kind of head trauma...

But then suddenly she was fine, back to talking like nothing had even happened. And then she said something that out-of-context, would have been even stranger, yet made perfect sense.

"Sorry. I just realized, are you one of the heroes or whatever that got called in?" If so, she really hoped it hadn't noticed her brief panic. "Can you understand me?"

"Heroes?" Steven repeated. "So you heard it too, then?"

He was about to ask the petilil more about the call for help when he paused, confused. "Yes," he chirped in the affirmative, "I can understand you just fine, can you not--?"

Steven froze mid-sentence, hearing the echo of his own vocalizations for the first time. Definitely not words, no wonder the poor petilil was so baffled. His eye rolled skyward as he chastised himself.

"Oh gods, I'm so dense. One moment, I've never done this before..."

Eye narrowing in concentration, he projected his voice toward the petilil's mind, like how his partner back home would communicate wordlessly with him. A quiet, masculine voice sounded in her head. "How's that? Apologies for forgetting that beldum have no audible speech capacity. This is all rather... new for me," he admitted. "What do you say we try this again?"

His red eye winked into an upturned curve. "Hello, my name is Steven, and it's a pleasure to meet you. Now what's this about heroes?"

 

[Wyvern's Sword]

Tyrfing shifted in the sand. He knew not how long he had lain still, nor what had roused him.

He tried to stand, only to find that he had no feeling. Worse, no body, at least not anything familiar. Not a single muscle sinew. Yet he could feel the sand and the wind. It occurred to him suddenly that if he couldn't move he might become a prisoner in this spot forever.

Fighting a rising panic, he willed himself to rise. The sand poured away from him then, as he found that he could levitate, just enough to hold himself upright.

Then, finally, he recognised himself for what he was. The weighting, the balance. The steel. How could he not know his own sword?

He had become a Honedge. Of all the ironies. He could feel the dullness of his own red blade, the corrosion that had eaten away the keen edge, and pockets of sand nestled in layers of rust.

The tassle attached to his pommel fluttered in the wind. He willed it to curl up into a fist. It clenched and unclenched. Good. He was getting the hang of this.

"My scabbard must be somewhere around here," he muttered.

So he went to find it, and the tip of his blade cut a shallow line in the sand.

 

[kyeugh]

"Hello, my name is Steven, and it's a pleasure to meet you. Now what's this about heroes?"

"That worked. I can hear you now."

So he was intelligent. That was a relief.

"Steven, huh? Nice to meet you. Sorry about the, uh, 'girl' thing. Doesn't seem like you are one. Didn't matter much either way when I thought you were a goat, but." She clenched her jaw. What the fuck was she saying?

"You're right, about the trying things again part. I'm Prim." She almost extended a hand to shake but only got so far as jerking her shoulder before realizing she had no fingers and Steven had no arms.

"Wish I could tell you the first thing about this hero stuff. Where I'm from, we don't call this stuff heroism. We call it a job. 'Cept it doesn't seem like anyone plans on paying us here." She sighed. "Judging by that name I guess you must've been human before too. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself, but at least I still have arms."

 

[Panoramic_Vacuum]

"Steven, huh? Nice to meet you. Sorry about the, uh, 'girl' thing. Doesn't seem like you are one. Didn't matter much either way when I thought you were a goat, but."

Steven bobbed up and down once with a tilt of his head; a noncommittal gesture. "It's alright. Not sure what you mean by 'goat', though..."

Just because the petilil was a little odd didn't mean he would be impolite. He tipped forward in a little bow after her introduction. "Nice to meet you too, Prim."

But Steven's gaze fell at her next words. "Oh," he said, floating a little lower to the ground. "I was hoping you maybe knew who had called for help. Or where we are."

The dust cloud had mostly settled by now, and he finally got a good look at their surroundings, now that he wasn't plummeting towards them from the sky. They'd landed in a barren patch of sand scattered with various bits of rock and debris. The imposing fortress that loomed down at them from the nearby hill made him feel even smaller than his new body could.

Turning back to Prim, he eyed her for a moment before speaking. "That's not why you came here though, is it? The compensation? Somebody called for help, and you answered. Because it was the right thing to do."

He peered out into the desert again. Did he see something moving out there, or was it just the shimmering heat?

"At least we can figure things out together," he added with a slight chuckle.

 

[kyeugh]

"Oh," he said, floating a little lower to the ground. "I was hoping you maybe knew who had called for help. Or where we are."

"Sorry to disappoint," Prim said, shrugging her little shoulders. "I don't remember anything. Sounds like we're all in the same shitty boat out here." Cupping a hand over her brow, she quickly surveyed their surroundings—dust, dust, dust, dust, dust, dust, village, dust, fort. "Not sure where we are either. Far from home, that's for sure. Maybe Paldea?"

"That's not why you came here though, is it? The compensation? Somebody called for help, and you answered. Because it was the right thing to do."

"What? You remember something?" She shifted her feet. "The cloud had plenty to say about why we're here, but I don't remember any of it, so it might as well be bullshit as far as I'm concerned. I have a hard time imagining I would have agreed to something like this." She shook her head, not loving Steven's insistent look. "I want to be the person you're describing. But doing what's right, that always costs you something. And not all of us can afford it. Sometimes you're just trying to get by."

"At least we can figure things out together," he added with a slight chuckle.

He was right. Prim loved her solitude, but this—being out here, making sense of all this—it wasn't something she was sure she could manage alone. She was glad to have Steven's company. But she couldn't say any of that, so she just nodded.

 

[Wyvern's Sword]

The sun blazed down. Tyr's blade was getting uncomfortably hot, and he was gladdened that he needn't drink. It was hard to see in the shimmering heat, but he thought there were two figures just up ahead.

He pictured himself emerging from the haze, tassle billowing in the wind like a Knight's pennant. He imagined introducing himself with the sun at his back, blade glinting in the warm light.

But he was rusted and ruined, so he dismissed those thoughts. Instead, he dragged himself across the sand and into view, emerging from the haze with nothing but grim determination.

It took him a moment to figure out how to speak. A moment that seemed to drag out for too long, so that he hung there in the heat haze like a sinister omen.

After what seemed like far too long, he managed to will his voice to be heard.

"Lo, friends," he began. "Be not afraid, for I mean you no harm. I am Tyrfing, and long have I slumbered here."

 

[Panoramic_Vacuum]

"Not sure where we are either. Far from home, that's for sure. Maybe Paldea?"

Steven scanned the landscape once more. "Hm, I didn't think the brochures for the Asado Desert looked quite like this," he mused. Not like he wanted to vacation across Paldea as a pokemon, anyway. He was about to turn back to Prim, but that flickering movement from before caught his eye again.

He shook his head, trying to figure out if it was a mirage or not, when Prim spoke up, grabbing his attention.

"The cloud had plenty to say about why we're here, but I don't remember any of it, so it might as well be bullshit as far as I'm concerned. I have a hard time imagining I would have agreed to something like this."

"The cloud? What cloud?" Steven wheeled back around to face her. "There was a cloud that said why we're here? Did it say who was asking for help? That's all I know; someone called out to me for help, and I tried to find who it was, but then..."

He trailed off, as something definitely moved in the desert. He peered over Prim's shoulder at the something that was definitely getting closer.

"Uhh, Prim?" Steven began, nudging his whole body forward in an attempt to get her to turn around. "What's that?"

He'd barely gotten the question off when from out of the haze melted a familiar enough figure. A downturned sword dragging its blade through the sand, an eye on the pommel and a tassel with a life of its own. He knew that pokemon. Not well, but he knew a ghost type when he saw one. Involuntarily, Steven recoiled, the patterns in the sand beneath him jittering and stuttering erratically.

The Honedge simply stared at them, tilted to the side and haggard. Steven stared back, slowly drifting away from the ghost type, unsure what this newcomer's intent was. Were they friend? Or foe? And then, it spoke.

"Lo, friends," he began. "Be not afraid, for I mean you no harm. I am Tyrfing, and long have I slumbered here."

Steven blinked. Of course the Honedge could talk, too. And with such a strange accent... And then it hit him as he took in the Honedge's rusted and pitted appearance. "Wait? You-- you live here?"

 

[Wyvern's Sword]

"Wait? You-- you live here?"

"Live? Nay. Long have I lain dormant beneath the sand, as unknowing of time's passage as of the land above."

Tyrfing's single eye narrowed, and his voice became bitter and sad. He sighed then, and gathered his thoughts.

"I wish I could say that I know what this place is. Alas, I have no memory of how I came to be here. My home is in Galar."

At this, he seemed to straighten up, as if remembering his manners.

"And I would be of service to you good folks if I can! But it seems you now have me at a disadvantage. May I ask your names?"

 

[kyeugh]

"The cloud? What cloud?" Steven wheeled back around to face her. "There was a cloud that said why we're here? Did it say who was asking for help? That's all I know; someone called out to me for help, and I tried to find who it was, but then..."

"Oh. You missed a lot, huh? Yeah, there was a cloud. Magic, glowy, coy, pretty much the whole nine yards. There were tons of pokémon there and it was explaining that we were here because we'd answered a call for help. But if you didn't meet it and remember that separately, then... maybe..."

"Live? Nay. Long have I lain dormant beneath the sand, as unknowing of time's passage as of the land above. ... And I would be of service to you good folks if I can! But it seems you now have me at a disadvantage. May I ask your names?"

Prim stared in stunned silence for a moment as the honedge drifted into their midst, dulled edge leaving a trail in the sand.

Her breath hitched in her throat.

It wasn't so well-worn in the drawings, but there was no denying it—this Tyrfing was the spitting image of Shadowblood, the ancient legendary sword of the ancient legendary king of Kalos. The very weapon Prim had scoured the region for on-and-off over the last fifteen years.

"You've gotta be kidding me," she muttered.

If he was here—the sword must be a pokémon. Alive, as the stories went. Was this the very same one from her own world? Or were there more Shadowbloods out there, wandering the many worlds?

Would it be rude to just grab him?

She gaped at Tyrfing for another heartbeat and then blinked, hard.

"Prim," she said at last, sharply but not unkindly. "From Galar, eh? That's good to know. You weren't by any chance a sword before you got here, were you? Just wondering."

 

[Wyvern's Sword]

"Prim," she said at last, sharply but not unkindly. "From Galar, eh? That's good to know. You weren't by any chance a sword before you got here, were you? Just wondering."

Tyr's unblinking eye followed Prim. An apt name for a flower Pokemon, he thought.

"Delighted to meet you, Prim. And no, steel is not my native shell. I was once of mortal flesh and blood. They called me the Sword of Galar, although it was not meant to be literal. Why do you ask?"

His tassle billowed in the wind, and his eye remained unblinking.

 

[Panoramic_Vacuum]

"Steven," he answered hesitantly, still eyeing the honedge carefully. "You can call me Steven. And Hoenn is my home."

When the honedge made no further moves, (in fact he didn't move at all, save for the wind in his tassel), Steven relaxed just a bit.Tyrfing seemed friendly enough. He had an unusual manner of speaking, but his story sounded similar to Prim's and his own. Former human, showed up in this desert as a pokemon, wasn't sure how they got here. And Prim had said she'd seen tons of people who had answered the call...

No sense in interrogating their new companion. Not when it seemed like they were the only three living creatures in this whole desert.

"If it helps, we're in the same boat," said Steven, gesturing to Prim with a claw. "We weren't always pokemon, either."

He glanced at Prim, who was still staring intently at Tyrfing, like she couldn't quite believe he was there. Steven wasn't sure what was so unbelievable, given their current circumstances.

It couldn't hurt to be sure, though.

"I wonder, do you remember a voice calling for help?" Steven asked. "That's why we're here. To help someone. We need to find them."

 

[Wyvern's Sword]

"If it helps, we're in the same boat," said Steven, gesturing to Prim with a claw. "We weren't always pokemon, either."

Tyr rotated on the spot, to face Stephen once again. There was an echo in his voice, his eye fixed now on the Beldum.

"Delighted to meet you, Stephen of Hoenn. It gladdens me to know that I am not alone in this experience.

However, I think you may be mistaken about the boat. We are in a desert right now. I do not believe a boat would be of much help."

Tyrfing went on sincerely, hoping that Stephen wouldn't take offence that there wasn't a boat. He wasn't sure if Beldum could fly across water. Come to think of it, he wasn't sure if he could do that either.

"I wonder, do you remember a voice calling for help?" Steven asked. "That's why we're here. To help someone. We need to find them."

"I remember very little," he said. "I remember running. Right, I was running towards a... a feeling.

But I am here to help. I want to help. If there's someone in need, it is my duty to find them."

Tyrfing seemed to grow taller as he spoke, his voice filling with determination. His eye was wide and round.

"Let us embark on this quest together. Perhaps we will find my scabbard on the way."

 

[Jackie Cat]

Captains of Fort Sunward did not creep up on other pokémon, as a rule. Especially Day-Captains like Armarouge Aurelia. But the three strangers who had appeared in the middle of the badlands were talking amongst each other and did not see her approach, and their talk was interesting (that is, it was important intelligence she was dutifully gathering) and was it really stealth if you did not use means and skills of trickery and disguise? But this still left her with the obligation of announcing herself, and the problem of doing so without unduly alarming these people.

She decided to play things safe, and err on the side of hospitality.

"Hail to you, friends!" she cried, spreading her arms wide in a gesture of welcome and embrace.

---

Perhaps they would find Tyrfing's scabbard – but an unfamiliar pokémon found them first.

"Hail to you, friends!" cried an armarouge, just rounding a slope to one side of the party.

She – if this was a she, it was hard to tell by the flame-crackle voice – cut a bold figure, with well-polished golden armour, and a poncho in sunrise colours draped over one pauldron.

"I mean you no harm, if you are of sound mind and good heart! What brings you to Sunward, gentle strangers?"

---

There. Surely that would be well-received! She could always incinerate them if she was wrong.

 

[Panoramic_Vacuum]

"However, I think you may be mistaken about the boat. We are in a desert right now. I do not believe a boat would be of much help."

Steven stared at the honedge, waiting for him to burst into laughter, but no, not even a chuckle; Tyrfing was dead serious.

"Ah, well, yes," Steven began apologetically, "there is no actual boat..."

He would have explained more about idioms and the like, but what Tyrfing said next was far more interesting. He remembered something about his arrival, something very similar to what Steven could recall.

But before he could say as much, another figure appeared from the desert haze and approached their little group.

"Hail to you, friends! I mean you no harm, if you are of sound mind and good heart! What brings you to Sunward, gentle strangers?"

For a brief moment, Steven wondered if they somehow did end up in Paldea, but then the armarouge said a name he didn't recognize.

"Sunward?" he said with an inquisitive tilt of his head. "At least now we have a name to this place."

He eyed the armarouge for a moment. She didn't seem to be like Prim or Tyrfing. For starters, she was much larger, fully evolved, and she knew where they were. Probably not one of their group then. Then again, she was cordial with her greeting. Maybe she could be of help.

"Thank you, kind armarouge," he said, dipping low in a bow. "We've arrived in Sunward on a mission. Someone has called for help, and we've traveled a long way to answer their call."

Here he faltered a bit, some embarrassment creeping into his projected voice. "The problem is is that we don't really know where they are..."