A/N: I saw Lucario and the Mystery of Mew a while back. That seeded the story firmly in my mind, but it took about a year or stewing to finally grow into something remotely recognizable. It actually started out as a one-shot concerning an early day in the life of Lucario and Aaron’s partnership. I was always one for filling in the gaps in cannon. It ended up evolving into this huge, multi-chapter monster of an origin story. I’ve always wanted to do a project like this, and in an unintentional, left-handed way I got my wish. Constructive criticism is appreciated.
Threads of the Soul
© DeskRage, 2010
Chapter 1: Gravity
Lightning flashed as Aaron staggered into the attic. Half-blinded by the light and suddenly plunged into the musty blackness, he missed the step and crashed to the floor. The cold, slightly damp floorboards creaked eerily under his weight. His small body felt like it was made out of wood, hollow and stiff.
He’d been with him when he died. The old man had been the same after…The old fool caught his death in that snowstorm, the knights and ladies had sniffed, trying to save a common Pidgey, no less. It had taken almost a year. But over the course of that year, his master slowly weakened. Aaron noticed his aura, dimming with every passing day, until tonight, when it had flickered out completely like a snuffed candle.
He found himself quashing the little voice in the depths of his soul that whispered that Aura connected him to everything that had a spark of life in it somewhere. Everything. But his Master, his one…friend, even, was gone. He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling a sort of tightening in his chest in that empty space beneath his breastbone.
He didn’t notice the Pokémon’s aura until it was practically on top of him. He opened his eyes. He could see nothing with his eyes. Struggling to draw breath, he looked for the thing on the Aura’s plane. A large, circular flickering shape barely a few feet away from him hovered. He felt tendrils of cold mist touching his skin.
You shouldn’t go up there, the other boys had sniggered, there’s a Ghost Pokémon up there that’ll eat your brains and steal the clothes off your corpse!
But he’d never had a fear of Pokémon, Ghost or otherwise. He sat up slowly and hugged his knees, staring at the patch of space where the Pokémon hovered.
“Are you alone, too?” he found himself whispering.
The Pokémon materialized. It turned out to be a Haunter. It must have noticed Aaron’s tears, for it tilted its body in a sort of confused fashion. But then, it levitated something to its right. In the darkness, it took Aaron a moment to realize it was a Pikachu doll. His eyes widened. The doll was made out of an expensive material, soft-looking with shiny threads. No one would have a doll like that except maybe…
He swallowed. The Haunter was bouncing the doll from hand to hand and around Aaron’s head, as if it was proud of such a find.
“Then you know that probably belongs to the Princess, I think,” he said softly. “But why would a Ghost want…” his sentence trailed off when the Haunter vanished into a diamond-like light. He shielded his eyes, now used to the darkness. When he blinked again, he felt his mouth go dry.
For a minute he was astounded at the fact he hadn’t noticed its aura was completely different from a Ghost type, but couldn’t help but stare at the creature in wonder. Its fur was a soft, almost ethereal pink like the palest dawn. Every time it moved an opal shimmer seemed to ripple across its coat. Its huge eyes gleamed with an eerie gleam of an alien innocence while at the same time communicating such frightening age he couldn’t help the breath catch in his throat as that gaze locked on his.
The Mew flew in a lazy circle, still clutching the Pikachu doll. Aaron scarcely dared to breathe, as if such a mortal action would chase it away. When it had completed the turn, the Mew bobbed as if excited. Aaron felt his fingers twitch. He almost reached out to touch it, but before he could muster up the courage, the Mew disappeared with a blink of pink light and a bell-like sound, like powdered diamond.
The Pikachu doll was gone as well. But with it, he found that the crushing guilt built up in his thin body was gone as well. He found himself slipping away into sleep, like a feather being carried away by a gentle breeze, his dreams punctuated by a being of light.
**
Almost a week after his master had been buried, he found himself going to the castle chapel, unsure if he was really going to ask the question until after he’d stepped through the doorway. His hopes to approach the priest on his terms were dashed, his footstep echoed loudly on the stone floor. The priest, who had been extinguishing candles turned. His face wrinkled in surprised softened in sympathy.
“Is there something I can help you with, Aaron?”
The boy’s voice was small. “What do the stories say about Mew?”
The priest was not visually surprised by the unusual question. He motioned to the front pew. Aaron slipped through the crack in the doors and sat down. He was looking not quite at the priest, but instead at one of the stained glass windows behind the thin cleric.
“There are many stories about Mew,” the priest’s soft, dry voice echoed strangely in the chapel. “You of course know the one that the sight of it brings happiness to the one lucky enough to spot it. Others say Mew is the first Pokémon the Creator fashioned, formed from starlight (Fascinating! Awesome idea.) and the origin of all the many Pokémon in the world. I’ve heard tales of Mew as a bringer of understanding, that those who see Mew learn to speak the language of Pokémon.
“But,” he added, his voice taking on a slightly resigned note after Aaron had continued to stare after a short silence, “It has been also regarded as a symbol of death.”
“I…see.” Aaron looked down, staring at the tile floor.
“Did you see Mew? Is that troubling you?”
Aaron, unsure of what to think now, didn’t answer. He could barely remember why he wanted to know in the first place, where he did hear for the first time that Mew was a double-edged omen. But omens, he knew, were silly. So why was he feeling cold inside?
At last he stood up. “I’m not troubled,” he said, “Everything dies someday. Thank you for telling me the stories.” His voice cracked a little on the latter phrase, but his face remained stoic.
“Aaron, wait.”
The young Aura Guardian paused in his exit. The priest’s voice was both
irritating and strangely comforting at the same time. Like his Master’s, on occasion. His stomach suddenly retreated out through his back and a shocking urge to just crumple down and cry was hindered by the fact his eyes felt dry and gummy. But those feelings were visceral, fleshy—it was as if his emotions had been pulled out of his body with a set of rusty pliers and he was watching himself as an impassive, detached bystander. In that dim, foggy way he wondered what on earth was wrong with him.
“If you need someone to talk to, I will always be available.”
“Thank you, Father.”
He had barely been able to control the waver in his voice. He fled.
***
The Riolu's earliest memories were that of lying prone on a grassy knoll with the tepid white sun soft on his fur. He recalled peering down at the dusty commotion that was the human settlement. Down there, in stark contrast to the green tangle and rough stone outcrops and spikes that jutted out of the thin rocky soil like old bones, it was neat, and brown—thick with the heat of many bodies and ringing with their warbling human voices. Moving along the narrow streets like so many bugs, the humans milled and carried and ran, ringing bells and ushering along Pokémon dragging…the Houndour had called them ‘carts’ or ‘wagons’.
He could lose hours, just watching them. That was, until his mother limped up the knoll and sit by him for a moment to catch her breath before pulling him away to the quieter, heavier darkness of the surrounding forest.
Her nostrils twitched.
“You were down there in the human nest again.”
The Riolu could not help but cringe at the soft, slightly hurt expression of betrayal in her red eyes. He didn’t like to upset his mother. She seemed so young, even to him. But sometimes it was as if his paws had wills of their own, following the tug in his innermost insides that seemed to pull him with a magnetic force towards it. He squirmed.
He almost added that it was a village and not a nest, but decided against it. Mother didn’t care for that sort of thing. In her mind, there was no distinction. Perhaps there wasn’t, but…
“I didn’t go in.” This was true. He had never actually set paw within the confines of the village.
His mother sighed though her nose and put her head on the ground, looking down. She made as if to shift her bad leg. After a moment of shuddery effort, she decided against it. The old scars that crisscrossed her right leg and lower back looked particularly raw and painful in the setting sun. It occurred to him for the first time that he had not asked how she acquired them. They had always been such an integral, normal part of Mother that it had never seemed necessary, nor had she ever volunteered the information.
“Are you afraid of them, Mother?”
She turned to look at him. Her eyes looked like they were on fire, reflecting the sun’s reddening light. But it wasn’t angry fire. It was more like…he frowned, unable to place it.
“No.”
“Some Pokémon think that they’re all bad, though, right?” There was a Noctowl that seemed to be just as old and craggy as the twisted oak she lived in. When she could be bothered to speak only said things like, “They’re all trouble. Their powers are of destruction. They know not the powers of life.” She had said these things while pecking at the bones of some small Pokémon clutched in her claws, but Riolu hadn’t commented. He’d rather thanked her for her opinion—whatever he actually thought of it. Most others seemed to be indifferent, or fearful.
He remembered asking why. The Noctowl had fluffed of her feathers and blinked disdainfully at him. “You’ve not lived long or seen enough to know why. Not that you probably will. Your kind doesn’t tend to live very long anyway. Perhaps your breed has a natural inclination towards them! The irony!” she had screeched and flapped off, leaving Riolu unsure if he should be offended, but mostly just confused. Why wouldn’t his kind live very long? He knew instinctively there must be others out there, even though they did not live in packs like the Houndoom or Skarmory. But what was a long life for a Lucario? He didn’t even know how old his mother was.
“Those Pokémon,” his mother said, bringing him back to the present, “are ignorant. There are good humans as well as evil ones, just the same that there are good plants to eat and poisonous ones.”
“So why does it bother you that I go down there? I don’t get into any trouble and I’m always careful.”
To this his mother said nothing for a long time, staring down at the settlement, her mouth grim. Sometimes his mother appeared young—like when spring came, or when the sun lit up her pelt.
“Because humans, good or evil, do not know their own power. And they have power, my son. Once you get involved with humans, you change. And once you do, you can never change back.”
“What kind of change?”
“The kind of change that comes when two saplings grow together, twisting around each other until they become a single thing. Inseparable. Stronger than any single tree.”
“What do you mean? That doesn’t sound like a bad thing.”
His mother narrowed her eyes. Her tail tapped thoughtfully. The Riolu did not feel any bad feelings like sadness or anger on his mother, but…there was a strange discomfort, like the feeling of cloying mud crusted between the toes of one’s paws. He waited a long time for her to speak, but after a deep sigh, she gave the Riolu an affectionate lick between his ears with her warm, rasping tongue before prompting him to get up with her paw.
They left the knoll and headed back to their home, a shallow, dry cave midway up a small valley face and shielded by the clinging shrubbery. Hadite, the blue crystals that studded the land here crowned the area right above the cave opening, glowed dimly. The Riolu peered out of the cave opening. He could pick out the spot in the night’s darkness where the human village was, haloed by a ring of torches flickering like red stars. He looked back at his mother. She was sound asleep in their warm nest of dried leaves and grasses.
The Riolu flicked his tail and looked down in disappointment. She never really answered him. As it stood, he doubted she would.
Change…he thought as he snuggled deep into her side, careful to avoid the bony spike jutting from her chest. Change that can’t be reversed.
A series of images blossomed behind his eyes. Hard green little buds opening into soft colorful flowers, the birth of a little river out of the earth…the growth of going from Riolu to Lucario…
He laid his head on his paws, willing himself to sleep and put the confusion to rest.
**
When he woke up, he was disappointed to find that it had not.
It was the dawn before the dawn—the pale blue lightening of the sky that heralded the pink sun. The Riolu poked his head out of the cave. The stars were starting to wink out, as if cosmic eyelids were closing over them and now they were going to sleep. He glanced back at his mother. She would probably wake up soon, when the sun really started to rise. Should he risk it?
He probably would not get another chance to talk to the Houndour. Once the day started proper, it was very difficult to find him when he wasn’t protecting his—master’s—pups or performing some other kind of work. Besides, it would only be for a little while. And it wasn’t that far to travel alone, he’d done it before with no incident. Well, except for that one encounter with the crazy human crashing about in the woods with a Makuhita. And Makuhita was not very fast. Less so was the human. The Riolu nodded resolutely. Yes, he would. He would be back before Mother knew it.
He scrabbled out of the cave. He nearly lost his grip trying to climb down—the rock here was pretty unstable sometimes—but managed to make it down without any further incident and started off towards the town at a run.
**
The she-Lurcario felt her son’s waves, bright and loud as it left the warm shelter of their den and receded into the distance. She opened her eyes and pushed herself up. Her leg shuddered out a ripple of cold pain before surrendering to her will as she forced it to move without trembling. Fall was coming. It would be deep. She shivered, but quickly hardened herself. She would survive. She was good at that. She had lived to bear a pup. She would live to raise him, and she had survived winters before and after this injury.
She followed his aura from a distance. She could tell where he was and what he was doing at long distance if she had to—he’d never been too much further than several hundred jumps, but she was sure she could.
She did not understand his need to know more about humans. She would have preferred him going inwards to learn about his growing powers as she had. Of course, she would start teaching him soon, but as it was now he could barely read even ripples of the waves that all things emanated. Still, there was a part of her that refused to condemn him. It was as if a river was tugging him towards the humans, and she could be a gentle push or a stone in the rapids.
It was a frustrating feeling.
Whatever his ultimate fate, she had to protect him.
It wouldn’t be a bad thing, visiting the edge of the village. Being familiar with the surrounding environment was key to survival, and she had noticed some odd humans the other day. The hides and plant fibers they wore draped over their bodies seemed brighter and smelled newer than those of the local humans. It was in both of their best interests to discover what was behind that.
Careful to make sure her pup was not too far from where she could reach him if she had to, and with an eye on the sun to gauge the time, the she-Lucario bounded towards the village gates for a vantage point.
**
The Houndour lived on the edge of the village, sharing a house with his human masters. Or at least in the winter. In the springtime, summer, and even early fall he’d come to find that the Houndour lived outside. He found the Pokémon sleeping just off the step that marked the entrance to the house. There was a soft sheen of frost coating the Houndour’s bony armor—it wouldn’t be long before he would be sleeping inside again.
There was something different about him, though. Riolu couldn’t really see it, but the energy waves he could feel surrounding the Houndour seemed bigger, more like flames instead of embers. The one visual difference, however, was the lovingly braided, colored cord tied around his neck.
At the smell of his approach, the Houndour’s nose twitched. His eyes flickered open as a territorial growl escaped his throat instinctively. He curbed it upon noticing the Riolu several lengths off, swallowing the threat and sitting up, stubby tail wagging.
“Riolu! It’s been a while.”
The Riolu stopped within a half-length from the Houndour. He glanced over his shoulder, eyes flicking about for shadows in the woods behind him.
Nothing, yet. He nodded at the Houndour.
“It is good to see you again.”
“What brings you?” The Houndour scratched an ear. “Not that I mind, but the late harvest is starting soon, and I’ll be needed to chase out the vermin in the fields.” He paused. “No offense. You look like you’re getting bigger!” he twitched his ears approvingly. “Are you going to evolve soon?”
“Evolve?”
“You know—change. Grow strong. That’s the word, you know, for when you become like your parents.”
“Oh.”
“I know I’m getting ready to. I can feel it, in my insides.” He stood up and snapped his teeth experimentally. “Soon, I’ll be so powerful and dangerous that no one will think to come near my master’s pups! I’ll be able to fight off any attacker! I’ll be able to get things with my tail!” he waggled his short stubby aforementioned limb in excitement. The Riolu thought about the Houndour’s practice: his teeth effortlessly chomping through sturdy logs of wood and on bones, the Houndour dashing through a man-made “path” full of blocks and sticks he had to leap over or twist around—and the sight of the master and the Houndour, taking a short break in the shade of the tree overlooking the house. “So what about you?” He shoved his nose into the Riolu’s face. He snorted. “You smell like the wild.”
“I…” the Riolu frowned. He felt no change in his own energy, no bubbling of strength. Mother had told him his change wasn’t the result of time, but of joy and contentment. He told the Houndour such, who cocked his head and uttered a whining sound in response.
“It’s a wonder that your kind ever evolve.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Ah, I keep forgetting that you’re barely into your second year.” The Riolu failed to see how that made any difference but listened anyway. “It’s just…well, this is going to sound weird, but you wild Pokémon don’t usually seem that happy much of the time. Who wouldn’t be? I mean…” he pointed his nose at the sky as a Pidgey flapped overhead, “…I can’t imagine living without my family to protect.”
Riolu knew flocks of flying Pokémon that banded together and sang at night. Wild Houndour and Houndoom howled at the moon to commemorate closeness. He knew contentment when he and his mother sat side by side watching the stars and listening to her voice tell him stories of the world. He could feel balance emanating through the earth, in the direction of the mighty crags that made up the World Tree deep in the mountains.
Disconcertingly, he couldn’t think of many times that he’d felt in the way that Houndour described. And could he be, knowing that life as a wild Pokémon entailed nothing more than gathering food, defending territory and learning of your powers from your parent, and then finding a mate and…
“What’s wrong?” The Houndour asked, sniffing at him. “Are you all right?”
The Riolu swallowed. He felt like his blood had been stopped up. His heart thudded against the walls of his tiny chest as his lungs seemed to freeze.
He’d just foreseen the rest of his life before he lived it.
The rest of his life.
The rest of his life.
Describing the despair would be like trying to describe a dream, like the dread that takes place in a nightmare when death is approaching and you know you’ll wake up right when it gets you—
“Riolu?” the concerned bark in the Houndour’s voice snapped him back. He shook his head, trying to dispel the feeling that was clinging to his guts. It was like trying to shake off dried tree sap from your fur. “I’m sorry. Did I upset you?” the Houndour whined in sympathy and bowed his head on the ground.
The Riolu drew a shaky breath. “No. I’m fine. I…” he wasn’t sure whether to thank the Houndour or not. The conversation left him feeling weak, as if he had run from here to the World Tree without stopping to draw breath.
The Houndour might have been about to say something when the door to the house opened. Normally, the Riolu would have bolted, but that morning he found himself frozen, unable to move as two human pups, one older and one younger came out. For him it was difficult to pinpoint their ages, but because of their smell he could tell that the older one was nearing the stage of his evolution, while the younger, a female, still had a ways to go.
“What is that? Did you catch a Pokémon, Houndour?” Older Brother cried, stopping to kneel next to the Houndour and ruffle his ears. Houndour licked at the Older Brother’s face in response, wagging his tail so hard it looked like his whole back half was moving.
“It’s so cute!” Little Sister cried. She toddled towards the Riolu, smiling widely. She was missing her two front teeth. She was so close the Riolu could she had a light spattering of spots—freckles, he remembered—across her nose. Her hand loomed in front of the Riolu’s face. Every instinct screamed at him to run, to release the energy it felt like he should have had in his muscles.
“May, wait!” Wait, how did the Riolu understand human speech? The words were unfamiliar, and yet, he felt like he understood everything they said. Their vocalizations didn’t matter. It was like meaning was being carried through the waves. “You’ll scare it off!”
“Calm down,” Houndour encouraged. “These are my master’s pups. They have kind hands.”
The human’s palm brushed his muzzle. He sneezed. May giggled, and when he didn’t move away, she placed her little hand on his head, rubbing the fur. The little girl’s hand was incredibly soft—too soft to be flesh, like the skin on a flower petal, but with little wrinkles and creases like the veins in a leaf, but deeper. It was alien, but somehow, it felt right.
He felt a rumble in his chest, and belatedly realized he was purring.
“See?” The Houndour said, a hint of smugness in his tone. The Riolu looked at him out of the corner of his eye, grinning a Pokémon grin.
“Yeah.”
**
After an exhausting game of tug-of-war and a chase around the farmyard, the Riolu and the Houndour were laying against one another in the early sunlight. May was resting her hand on his back. Big Brother had gone off somewhere to get something. The Riolu was just starting to nod off when he heard a holler. He looked up, to find Big Brother trotting towards them, holding a rectangular object in his hands. He smelled like dust, wood, overlaid with the strangest smell yet: a sort of cloying, burning herb.
“He brought back a book?” the Houndour pricked his ears forward with interest.
“Book?”
“They have leaves called ‘pages’ inside. Humans have bad memories, so they have to carve them onto the pages.”
“I got it!” Big Brother said triumphantly, flopping down on the ground and opening the object with a light crackling sound. Inside were flat, pale, perfectly rectangular leaves that smelled vaguely of dry bark and human. “Father Syrac said I could borrow it for a little while.” He heard the sound of what seemed like flapping leaves and turned to see the boy flipping through the leaves between the book. His tongue was sticking out a little in concentration.
“It’s a…um…” curious as to what the contents of this book could be, the Riolu scrambled up into May’s lap and peered down. “Here it is! I think!”
The Riolu looked down. In the first second he looked at it he saw nothing but scribbles on a tawny piece of paper, but in the second moment he realized—after he stopped trying to use smell and hearing to understand it and just looked at it with his eyes— he was looking at an image of himself and his mother. Or something that looked very close, drawn with neat black lines. There were unfamiliar images, blocky and neat that were printed underneath the images.
“Riolu and Lucario,” Big Brother said. “See the symbols on the opposite page? The scale there means that it’s a spirit of justice and fairness. The star shape beneath it means that it’s powerful and rare, which is why we’ve never seen one before. But there’s not much else…” Big Brother patted the Riolu’s head. His hands were a little rougher, and larger. “We don’t know much about you guys. Is that what your mama looks like?”
The Riolu growled an affirmative. Big Brother smiled. But the moment he did so, Riolu he jerked his head up at the sun and nearly blinded himself. His feet grew cold. How long had he been in this place?
The Riolu squirmed out of May’s lap, eyes wild. Houndour yelped. All three in their own way asked him what was wrong, to which he responded, “I have to go. My mother—she must be so worried about me!”
“Oh—well—come back soon…hey, wait!”
“Don’t go that way!” Big Brother suddenly shouted. “You’ll run into…”
But the Riolu wasn’t listening. Branches and sharp mountain grasses slapped and scratched at his face and limbs as he tore through the woods, his heart pounding not with the effort but with dread. Mother was rarely angry, but more than her anger, he didn’t want to see again the crushing disappointment in her eyes, in the sight droop of her mouth, the hurt that he would directly disobey her as if she was not worth listening to…it made his stomach feel like it was trying to eat itself.
So focused was he on getting back to the cave, he didn’t notice the attacker until an incredible force like a giant hand slammed into him from behind, sending him flying through the air before crashing to the ground. His head hurt like someone had wedged a sharp rock in there, and for a moment, he couldn’t breathe or see. He instinctively rolled out of the way as a pair of massive, rock-hard hands smashed into the ground where he had just been, leaving deep imprints in the hard earth. He stumbled back—it hurt to stand, his eyes widening in horror at his attacker.
“Go, Hariyama! We’ve got him!” A thin human with scraggly hair and a wild yellow smile pointed excitedly at him while clutching a noose in his left hand. Riolu recognized his smell and his appearance instantly, shocked at his own inability to sense his opponents—how had they gotten that close?
And the Pokémon—Makuhita had changed, evolved into Hariyama.
“So!” the huge Pokémon bellowed, thumping a wheel-sized hand onto its belly in challenge. That belly, which appeared to be fat at first, did not even jiggle—instead producing a slap sound that reminded the Riolu of boulders cracking into each other after a long fall down a hillside. “We meet again! I would have hoped you’d have evolved by now! A true test of strength is something I was looking forward to!”
He barreled towards the Riolu like a rolling wave of thunder. The Riolu waited until the last moment to roll out of the way, hissing at the pain in his leg. The shockwave from the larger Pokémon’s charge caused the ground to tremble beneath his feet, almost throwing him off balance. In desperation, he flung out his paws, not even sure what he was doing, just following it the sparking, tingling energy that seemed to be gathering in their tips. With a scrowling scream, he thrust his paws away from himself. A smattering of strange blue energy that the Riolu had never actually seen burst from his paws in a watery blaze and smoldered into the Hariyama’s face. The force of his own power flung the Riolu backwards against a tree.
The Hariyama growled and pain and shook away the residue of the blue energy. The Riolu was shaking from nose to tail tip with barely contained energy, torn between flight and fight. The pain in his leg was wearing off. Shuddering, he tested it before launching into a terrified sprint—perhaps he could outrun his massive opponent.
“Stop it, Hariyama! Don’t let it escape!”
Hariyama roared and charged after him for a few steps before leaping into
the air behind him and slamming into the ground. The resounding impact threw the Riolu’s balance off critically, causing him to nose into the ground painfully. He turned, just in time to see Hariyama’s palm crush him further into the ground, squeezing the air out of his lungs.
The Riolu scrabbled feebly, but his entire torso was pinned by only one of Hariyama’s hands. Desperate, he bit it, ignoring the pain of the firm flesh pressing against his small, sharp teeth and tried not to gag on the viscous fatty blood seeping into his mouth. Hariyama roared and reflexively yanked its hand back.
“You have fight in you! But that will not be enough to defeat me!”
**
“The king has taken a personal interest in this village. Your people have a very high ratio of human to Pokémon, and those good with them in a few years time may be eligible to become Pokémon Knights of Rota. Such honors do not come the way of commoners very often. That combined with this place’s strategic placement –several other factors of course, but we need not go into those now—makes this an ideal place for…investment.”
The she-Lucario crouched in the shadows with her back pressed to the wall of a dark wooden building. Its carved surface scraped against her back as her antennae quivered in concentration as she tried to force substantial images out of the energy waves her kind were privy to. It was difficult, trying to block out so much other energy going on outside the building and in the town. Sneaking in had not been too much of a problem, staying hidden a little harder, and trying to make sense of all the pent-up energy in the room left her with very little to spare, though she made sure she could still read her pups waves despite the distance between them.
This was an appropriate investment of her time, she was sure. It had been too long since she last came into the human nest to make sure this area was still a good place to live. Moving homes every few seasons was generally a wise thing to do in the case of her kind. However, after her accident, she had to consider it very carefully, and so far, living so close to humans had not had an…adverse…effect on her offspring. Sure coming to the nest was dangerous and the Pokémon of the forest often scolded her for it. Some chattered at her folly, others shook their heads despairingly. Lucario never last long. There’s a reason there aren’t that many.
The she-Lucairo had often considered retorting with the idea that perhaps Lucario weren’t as fecund as most other Pokémon, but as a result, her offspring was worth far more than theirs. But she rarely wasted her time and breath on such foolishness. She could maintain her pride with dignity.
Perhaps this was why she did not stop her son from visiting that Houndour and his humans. For as much as they were part of the World of wild Pokémon under the jurisdiction—they would have tittered at her use of that uniquely human word—of the World Tree’s Mew, it seemed, at least, in her admittedly meager experience, that humans drew them, like Bedrills to honey.
There were several presences in the room. The one speaking felt cold, uptight and thin with a voice to match. He—for the pheromones indicated maleness—was flanked by several other imposing presences: two large and burly, wearing bits of metal and heavy hide, and one other. Strangely enough, his waves were bright, luminous, like a recently fed flame. The she-Lucario had never felt such a presence in men before. Only in other Lucario had she seen it.
On the other side of the flat surface that the humans were sitting at, several other humans, their skins darkened by long hours in the sun and lacking the oddly neat and groomed appearance of the richly dressed others sat with their hands together, their bushy faces furrowed in an expression she had learned to identify as confusion.
“So you say, my lord,” the bushy human said. His voice was rough, like pebbles tumbling over shale, rougher and warmer than the first voice, “But why are you bothering to tell us this, even when the nobles and the king have already made up their minds?”
“Your voice doubts my words. Be careful, peasant,” the thin voice snapped. “Trust me when I say there are plenty of promising youths here. And we let you know of well in advance of the expansion project so that you can ready your villagers.”
“What Sir Gregory means,” interrupted a third voice. This one was smooth and woody, like a young oak. It belonged to the shining presence. The she-Lucario could not help but perk up her ears. It was a good voice. “Is that this is an opportunity for both the common folk and the gentry to benefit. I know that at least some of us here come out of respect. My late master and I both were born common, but I’ve inherited a tradition of nobility.”
Something ironic and mocking flickered in the energies of the men surrounding the shining presence. The she-Lucario knew it to be silent mockery.
“The same,” the young oak voice continued, “may be said of many of your young men here. Some may be chosen to become Pokémon Knights.
As for the rest, you should all benefit from a larger population and the benefit of more scholars and traders coming here to study more of the Pokémon and land in the area as well as boost your economy.”
“Expanding is costly, my lord. Not just for us, but for the local Pokémon. Especially if we displace too much of the hadite in the ground. We are very careful of what we harvest, what we catch, and what we kill here. We need the Pokémon.”
“Young Squire Aaron is not yet a lord,” sniffed the cold voice, “He is however, almost of age and the only Aura Guardian left to represent that sect in Rota.”
There was a brief, awkward silence. Finally, the bushy man frowned. “Excuse me. Squire Aaron, then.” There was something apologetic in his tone.
The she-Lucario then understood. Of course. To build more of these nests to accommodate more humans living here, if what she gathered was correct, they needed to make them out of something. She looked at the woods beyond the village. The forests here were old; with veins of power that ran all the way back to the World Tree.
She would have stayed to listen more. And then what felt like a muted scream echoed in her mind accompanied by a burst of sickeningly familiar energy.
Her son was in trouble.
At the exact moment, she heard a scrape and a clatter, followed by surprised grunts and shouts.
“Aaron, what’s the matter?”
“It’s a—” he broke off. “I must go. Please excuse me.”
The she-Lucario did not stay to listen any more. She was already flying, her heart pounding, and every beat smacked her with her own foolishness. Conflicting regrets whirled through her mind. She should have stayed with him. She should have taken him with her.
And now he was in danger, in pain.
Now that she listened with her ears and not her waves, she could hear a roar of challenge. The sound lent speed to her paws, energy surging through her body with every terrified beat of her heart and every twinge of her bad leg, reminding her of why she rarely ran like this.
Nothing else mattered.
**
To be continued…
Notes: I know Riolu normally can’t use anything even resembling Aura Sphere unless specially bred and trained like the one in the anime. However, Sir Aaron’s Lucario is also the only one who can speak using Aura. I would chalk this up to an exceptional inborn talent.
Threads of the Soul
© DeskRage, 2010
Chapter 1: Gravity
Lightning flashed as Aaron staggered into the attic. Half-blinded by the light and suddenly plunged into the musty blackness, he missed the step and crashed to the floor. The cold, slightly damp floorboards creaked eerily under his weight. His small body felt like it was made out of wood, hollow and stiff.
He’d been with him when he died. The old man had been the same after…The old fool caught his death in that snowstorm, the knights and ladies had sniffed, trying to save a common Pidgey, no less. It had taken almost a year. But over the course of that year, his master slowly weakened. Aaron noticed his aura, dimming with every passing day, until tonight, when it had flickered out completely like a snuffed candle.
He found himself quashing the little voice in the depths of his soul that whispered that Aura connected him to everything that had a spark of life in it somewhere. Everything. But his Master, his one…friend, even, was gone. He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling a sort of tightening in his chest in that empty space beneath his breastbone.
He didn’t notice the Pokémon’s aura until it was practically on top of him. He opened his eyes. He could see nothing with his eyes. Struggling to draw breath, he looked for the thing on the Aura’s plane. A large, circular flickering shape barely a few feet away from him hovered. He felt tendrils of cold mist touching his skin.
You shouldn’t go up there, the other boys had sniggered, there’s a Ghost Pokémon up there that’ll eat your brains and steal the clothes off your corpse!
But he’d never had a fear of Pokémon, Ghost or otherwise. He sat up slowly and hugged his knees, staring at the patch of space where the Pokémon hovered.
“Are you alone, too?” he found himself whispering.
The Pokémon materialized. It turned out to be a Haunter. It must have noticed Aaron’s tears, for it tilted its body in a sort of confused fashion. But then, it levitated something to its right. In the darkness, it took Aaron a moment to realize it was a Pikachu doll. His eyes widened. The doll was made out of an expensive material, soft-looking with shiny threads. No one would have a doll like that except maybe…
He swallowed. The Haunter was bouncing the doll from hand to hand and around Aaron’s head, as if it was proud of such a find.
“Then you know that probably belongs to the Princess, I think,” he said softly. “But why would a Ghost want…” his sentence trailed off when the Haunter vanished into a diamond-like light. He shielded his eyes, now used to the darkness. When he blinked again, he felt his mouth go dry.
For a minute he was astounded at the fact he hadn’t noticed its aura was completely different from a Ghost type, but couldn’t help but stare at the creature in wonder. Its fur was a soft, almost ethereal pink like the palest dawn. Every time it moved an opal shimmer seemed to ripple across its coat. Its huge eyes gleamed with an eerie gleam of an alien innocence while at the same time communicating such frightening age he couldn’t help the breath catch in his throat as that gaze locked on his.
The Mew flew in a lazy circle, still clutching the Pikachu doll. Aaron scarcely dared to breathe, as if such a mortal action would chase it away. When it had completed the turn, the Mew bobbed as if excited. Aaron felt his fingers twitch. He almost reached out to touch it, but before he could muster up the courage, the Mew disappeared with a blink of pink light and a bell-like sound, like powdered diamond.
The Pikachu doll was gone as well. But with it, he found that the crushing guilt built up in his thin body was gone as well. He found himself slipping away into sleep, like a feather being carried away by a gentle breeze, his dreams punctuated by a being of light.
**
Almost a week after his master had been buried, he found himself going to the castle chapel, unsure if he was really going to ask the question until after he’d stepped through the doorway. His hopes to approach the priest on his terms were dashed, his footstep echoed loudly on the stone floor. The priest, who had been extinguishing candles turned. His face wrinkled in surprised softened in sympathy.
“Is there something I can help you with, Aaron?”
The boy’s voice was small. “What do the stories say about Mew?”
The priest was not visually surprised by the unusual question. He motioned to the front pew. Aaron slipped through the crack in the doors and sat down. He was looking not quite at the priest, but instead at one of the stained glass windows behind the thin cleric.
“There are many stories about Mew,” the priest’s soft, dry voice echoed strangely in the chapel. “You of course know the one that the sight of it brings happiness to the one lucky enough to spot it. Others say Mew is the first Pokémon the Creator fashioned, formed from starlight (Fascinating! Awesome idea.) and the origin of all the many Pokémon in the world. I’ve heard tales of Mew as a bringer of understanding, that those who see Mew learn to speak the language of Pokémon.
“But,” he added, his voice taking on a slightly resigned note after Aaron had continued to stare after a short silence, “It has been also regarded as a symbol of death.”
“I…see.” Aaron looked down, staring at the tile floor.
“Did you see Mew? Is that troubling you?”
Aaron, unsure of what to think now, didn’t answer. He could barely remember why he wanted to know in the first place, where he did hear for the first time that Mew was a double-edged omen. But omens, he knew, were silly. So why was he feeling cold inside?
At last he stood up. “I’m not troubled,” he said, “Everything dies someday. Thank you for telling me the stories.” His voice cracked a little on the latter phrase, but his face remained stoic.
“Aaron, wait.”
The young Aura Guardian paused in his exit. The priest’s voice was both
irritating and strangely comforting at the same time. Like his Master’s, on occasion. His stomach suddenly retreated out through his back and a shocking urge to just crumple down and cry was hindered by the fact his eyes felt dry and gummy. But those feelings were visceral, fleshy—it was as if his emotions had been pulled out of his body with a set of rusty pliers and he was watching himself as an impassive, detached bystander. In that dim, foggy way he wondered what on earth was wrong with him.
“If you need someone to talk to, I will always be available.”
“Thank you, Father.”
He had barely been able to control the waver in his voice. He fled.
***
The Riolu's earliest memories were that of lying prone on a grassy knoll with the tepid white sun soft on his fur. He recalled peering down at the dusty commotion that was the human settlement. Down there, in stark contrast to the green tangle and rough stone outcrops and spikes that jutted out of the thin rocky soil like old bones, it was neat, and brown—thick with the heat of many bodies and ringing with their warbling human voices. Moving along the narrow streets like so many bugs, the humans milled and carried and ran, ringing bells and ushering along Pokémon dragging…the Houndour had called them ‘carts’ or ‘wagons’.
He could lose hours, just watching them. That was, until his mother limped up the knoll and sit by him for a moment to catch her breath before pulling him away to the quieter, heavier darkness of the surrounding forest.
Her nostrils twitched.
“You were down there in the human nest again.”
The Riolu could not help but cringe at the soft, slightly hurt expression of betrayal in her red eyes. He didn’t like to upset his mother. She seemed so young, even to him. But sometimes it was as if his paws had wills of their own, following the tug in his innermost insides that seemed to pull him with a magnetic force towards it. He squirmed.
He almost added that it was a village and not a nest, but decided against it. Mother didn’t care for that sort of thing. In her mind, there was no distinction. Perhaps there wasn’t, but…
“I didn’t go in.” This was true. He had never actually set paw within the confines of the village.
His mother sighed though her nose and put her head on the ground, looking down. She made as if to shift her bad leg. After a moment of shuddery effort, she decided against it. The old scars that crisscrossed her right leg and lower back looked particularly raw and painful in the setting sun. It occurred to him for the first time that he had not asked how she acquired them. They had always been such an integral, normal part of Mother that it had never seemed necessary, nor had she ever volunteered the information.
“Are you afraid of them, Mother?”
She turned to look at him. Her eyes looked like they were on fire, reflecting the sun’s reddening light. But it wasn’t angry fire. It was more like…he frowned, unable to place it.
“No.”
“Some Pokémon think that they’re all bad, though, right?” There was a Noctowl that seemed to be just as old and craggy as the twisted oak she lived in. When she could be bothered to speak only said things like, “They’re all trouble. Their powers are of destruction. They know not the powers of life.” She had said these things while pecking at the bones of some small Pokémon clutched in her claws, but Riolu hadn’t commented. He’d rather thanked her for her opinion—whatever he actually thought of it. Most others seemed to be indifferent, or fearful.
He remembered asking why. The Noctowl had fluffed of her feathers and blinked disdainfully at him. “You’ve not lived long or seen enough to know why. Not that you probably will. Your kind doesn’t tend to live very long anyway. Perhaps your breed has a natural inclination towards them! The irony!” she had screeched and flapped off, leaving Riolu unsure if he should be offended, but mostly just confused. Why wouldn’t his kind live very long? He knew instinctively there must be others out there, even though they did not live in packs like the Houndoom or Skarmory. But what was a long life for a Lucario? He didn’t even know how old his mother was.
“Those Pokémon,” his mother said, bringing him back to the present, “are ignorant. There are good humans as well as evil ones, just the same that there are good plants to eat and poisonous ones.”
“So why does it bother you that I go down there? I don’t get into any trouble and I’m always careful.”
To this his mother said nothing for a long time, staring down at the settlement, her mouth grim. Sometimes his mother appeared young—like when spring came, or when the sun lit up her pelt.
“Because humans, good or evil, do not know their own power. And they have power, my son. Once you get involved with humans, you change. And once you do, you can never change back.”
“What kind of change?”
“The kind of change that comes when two saplings grow together, twisting around each other until they become a single thing. Inseparable. Stronger than any single tree.”
“What do you mean? That doesn’t sound like a bad thing.”
His mother narrowed her eyes. Her tail tapped thoughtfully. The Riolu did not feel any bad feelings like sadness or anger on his mother, but…there was a strange discomfort, like the feeling of cloying mud crusted between the toes of one’s paws. He waited a long time for her to speak, but after a deep sigh, she gave the Riolu an affectionate lick between his ears with her warm, rasping tongue before prompting him to get up with her paw.
They left the knoll and headed back to their home, a shallow, dry cave midway up a small valley face and shielded by the clinging shrubbery. Hadite, the blue crystals that studded the land here crowned the area right above the cave opening, glowed dimly. The Riolu peered out of the cave opening. He could pick out the spot in the night’s darkness where the human village was, haloed by a ring of torches flickering like red stars. He looked back at his mother. She was sound asleep in their warm nest of dried leaves and grasses.
The Riolu flicked his tail and looked down in disappointment. She never really answered him. As it stood, he doubted she would.
Change…he thought as he snuggled deep into her side, careful to avoid the bony spike jutting from her chest. Change that can’t be reversed.
A series of images blossomed behind his eyes. Hard green little buds opening into soft colorful flowers, the birth of a little river out of the earth…the growth of going from Riolu to Lucario…
He laid his head on his paws, willing himself to sleep and put the confusion to rest.
**
When he woke up, he was disappointed to find that it had not.
It was the dawn before the dawn—the pale blue lightening of the sky that heralded the pink sun. The Riolu poked his head out of the cave. The stars were starting to wink out, as if cosmic eyelids were closing over them and now they were going to sleep. He glanced back at his mother. She would probably wake up soon, when the sun really started to rise. Should he risk it?
He probably would not get another chance to talk to the Houndour. Once the day started proper, it was very difficult to find him when he wasn’t protecting his—master’s—pups or performing some other kind of work. Besides, it would only be for a little while. And it wasn’t that far to travel alone, he’d done it before with no incident. Well, except for that one encounter with the crazy human crashing about in the woods with a Makuhita. And Makuhita was not very fast. Less so was the human. The Riolu nodded resolutely. Yes, he would. He would be back before Mother knew it.
He scrabbled out of the cave. He nearly lost his grip trying to climb down—the rock here was pretty unstable sometimes—but managed to make it down without any further incident and started off towards the town at a run.
**
The she-Lurcario felt her son’s waves, bright and loud as it left the warm shelter of their den and receded into the distance. She opened her eyes and pushed herself up. Her leg shuddered out a ripple of cold pain before surrendering to her will as she forced it to move without trembling. Fall was coming. It would be deep. She shivered, but quickly hardened herself. She would survive. She was good at that. She had lived to bear a pup. She would live to raise him, and she had survived winters before and after this injury.
She followed his aura from a distance. She could tell where he was and what he was doing at long distance if she had to—he’d never been too much further than several hundred jumps, but she was sure she could.
She did not understand his need to know more about humans. She would have preferred him going inwards to learn about his growing powers as she had. Of course, she would start teaching him soon, but as it was now he could barely read even ripples of the waves that all things emanated. Still, there was a part of her that refused to condemn him. It was as if a river was tugging him towards the humans, and she could be a gentle push or a stone in the rapids.
It was a frustrating feeling.
Whatever his ultimate fate, she had to protect him.
It wouldn’t be a bad thing, visiting the edge of the village. Being familiar with the surrounding environment was key to survival, and she had noticed some odd humans the other day. The hides and plant fibers they wore draped over their bodies seemed brighter and smelled newer than those of the local humans. It was in both of their best interests to discover what was behind that.
Careful to make sure her pup was not too far from where she could reach him if she had to, and with an eye on the sun to gauge the time, the she-Lucario bounded towards the village gates for a vantage point.
**
The Houndour lived on the edge of the village, sharing a house with his human masters. Or at least in the winter. In the springtime, summer, and even early fall he’d come to find that the Houndour lived outside. He found the Pokémon sleeping just off the step that marked the entrance to the house. There was a soft sheen of frost coating the Houndour’s bony armor—it wouldn’t be long before he would be sleeping inside again.
There was something different about him, though. Riolu couldn’t really see it, but the energy waves he could feel surrounding the Houndour seemed bigger, more like flames instead of embers. The one visual difference, however, was the lovingly braided, colored cord tied around his neck.
At the smell of his approach, the Houndour’s nose twitched. His eyes flickered open as a territorial growl escaped his throat instinctively. He curbed it upon noticing the Riolu several lengths off, swallowing the threat and sitting up, stubby tail wagging.
“Riolu! It’s been a while.”
The Riolu stopped within a half-length from the Houndour. He glanced over his shoulder, eyes flicking about for shadows in the woods behind him.
Nothing, yet. He nodded at the Houndour.
“It is good to see you again.”
“What brings you?” The Houndour scratched an ear. “Not that I mind, but the late harvest is starting soon, and I’ll be needed to chase out the vermin in the fields.” He paused. “No offense. You look like you’re getting bigger!” he twitched his ears approvingly. “Are you going to evolve soon?”
“Evolve?”
“You know—change. Grow strong. That’s the word, you know, for when you become like your parents.”
“Oh.”
“I know I’m getting ready to. I can feel it, in my insides.” He stood up and snapped his teeth experimentally. “Soon, I’ll be so powerful and dangerous that no one will think to come near my master’s pups! I’ll be able to fight off any attacker! I’ll be able to get things with my tail!” he waggled his short stubby aforementioned limb in excitement. The Riolu thought about the Houndour’s practice: his teeth effortlessly chomping through sturdy logs of wood and on bones, the Houndour dashing through a man-made “path” full of blocks and sticks he had to leap over or twist around—and the sight of the master and the Houndour, taking a short break in the shade of the tree overlooking the house. “So what about you?” He shoved his nose into the Riolu’s face. He snorted. “You smell like the wild.”
“I…” the Riolu frowned. He felt no change in his own energy, no bubbling of strength. Mother had told him his change wasn’t the result of time, but of joy and contentment. He told the Houndour such, who cocked his head and uttered a whining sound in response.
“It’s a wonder that your kind ever evolve.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Ah, I keep forgetting that you’re barely into your second year.” The Riolu failed to see how that made any difference but listened anyway. “It’s just…well, this is going to sound weird, but you wild Pokémon don’t usually seem that happy much of the time. Who wouldn’t be? I mean…” he pointed his nose at the sky as a Pidgey flapped overhead, “…I can’t imagine living without my family to protect.”
Riolu knew flocks of flying Pokémon that banded together and sang at night. Wild Houndour and Houndoom howled at the moon to commemorate closeness. He knew contentment when he and his mother sat side by side watching the stars and listening to her voice tell him stories of the world. He could feel balance emanating through the earth, in the direction of the mighty crags that made up the World Tree deep in the mountains.
Disconcertingly, he couldn’t think of many times that he’d felt in the way that Houndour described. And could he be, knowing that life as a wild Pokémon entailed nothing more than gathering food, defending territory and learning of your powers from your parent, and then finding a mate and…
“What’s wrong?” The Houndour asked, sniffing at him. “Are you all right?”
The Riolu swallowed. He felt like his blood had been stopped up. His heart thudded against the walls of his tiny chest as his lungs seemed to freeze.
He’d just foreseen the rest of his life before he lived it.
The rest of his life.
The rest of his life.
Describing the despair would be like trying to describe a dream, like the dread that takes place in a nightmare when death is approaching and you know you’ll wake up right when it gets you—
“Riolu?” the concerned bark in the Houndour’s voice snapped him back. He shook his head, trying to dispel the feeling that was clinging to his guts. It was like trying to shake off dried tree sap from your fur. “I’m sorry. Did I upset you?” the Houndour whined in sympathy and bowed his head on the ground.
The Riolu drew a shaky breath. “No. I’m fine. I…” he wasn’t sure whether to thank the Houndour or not. The conversation left him feeling weak, as if he had run from here to the World Tree without stopping to draw breath.
The Houndour might have been about to say something when the door to the house opened. Normally, the Riolu would have bolted, but that morning he found himself frozen, unable to move as two human pups, one older and one younger came out. For him it was difficult to pinpoint their ages, but because of their smell he could tell that the older one was nearing the stage of his evolution, while the younger, a female, still had a ways to go.
“What is that? Did you catch a Pokémon, Houndour?” Older Brother cried, stopping to kneel next to the Houndour and ruffle his ears. Houndour licked at the Older Brother’s face in response, wagging his tail so hard it looked like his whole back half was moving.
“It’s so cute!” Little Sister cried. She toddled towards the Riolu, smiling widely. She was missing her two front teeth. She was so close the Riolu could she had a light spattering of spots—freckles, he remembered—across her nose. Her hand loomed in front of the Riolu’s face. Every instinct screamed at him to run, to release the energy it felt like he should have had in his muscles.
“May, wait!” Wait, how did the Riolu understand human speech? The words were unfamiliar, and yet, he felt like he understood everything they said. Their vocalizations didn’t matter. It was like meaning was being carried through the waves. “You’ll scare it off!”
“Calm down,” Houndour encouraged. “These are my master’s pups. They have kind hands.”
The human’s palm brushed his muzzle. He sneezed. May giggled, and when he didn’t move away, she placed her little hand on his head, rubbing the fur. The little girl’s hand was incredibly soft—too soft to be flesh, like the skin on a flower petal, but with little wrinkles and creases like the veins in a leaf, but deeper. It was alien, but somehow, it felt right.
He felt a rumble in his chest, and belatedly realized he was purring.
“See?” The Houndour said, a hint of smugness in his tone. The Riolu looked at him out of the corner of his eye, grinning a Pokémon grin.
“Yeah.”
**
After an exhausting game of tug-of-war and a chase around the farmyard, the Riolu and the Houndour were laying against one another in the early sunlight. May was resting her hand on his back. Big Brother had gone off somewhere to get something. The Riolu was just starting to nod off when he heard a holler. He looked up, to find Big Brother trotting towards them, holding a rectangular object in his hands. He smelled like dust, wood, overlaid with the strangest smell yet: a sort of cloying, burning herb.
“He brought back a book?” the Houndour pricked his ears forward with interest.
“Book?”
“They have leaves called ‘pages’ inside. Humans have bad memories, so they have to carve them onto the pages.”
“I got it!” Big Brother said triumphantly, flopping down on the ground and opening the object with a light crackling sound. Inside were flat, pale, perfectly rectangular leaves that smelled vaguely of dry bark and human. “Father Syrac said I could borrow it for a little while.” He heard the sound of what seemed like flapping leaves and turned to see the boy flipping through the leaves between the book. His tongue was sticking out a little in concentration.
“It’s a…um…” curious as to what the contents of this book could be, the Riolu scrambled up into May’s lap and peered down. “Here it is! I think!”
The Riolu looked down. In the first second he looked at it he saw nothing but scribbles on a tawny piece of paper, but in the second moment he realized—after he stopped trying to use smell and hearing to understand it and just looked at it with his eyes— he was looking at an image of himself and his mother. Or something that looked very close, drawn with neat black lines. There were unfamiliar images, blocky and neat that were printed underneath the images.
“Riolu and Lucario,” Big Brother said. “See the symbols on the opposite page? The scale there means that it’s a spirit of justice and fairness. The star shape beneath it means that it’s powerful and rare, which is why we’ve never seen one before. But there’s not much else…” Big Brother patted the Riolu’s head. His hands were a little rougher, and larger. “We don’t know much about you guys. Is that what your mama looks like?”
The Riolu growled an affirmative. Big Brother smiled. But the moment he did so, Riolu he jerked his head up at the sun and nearly blinded himself. His feet grew cold. How long had he been in this place?
The Riolu squirmed out of May’s lap, eyes wild. Houndour yelped. All three in their own way asked him what was wrong, to which he responded, “I have to go. My mother—she must be so worried about me!”
“Oh—well—come back soon…hey, wait!”
“Don’t go that way!” Big Brother suddenly shouted. “You’ll run into…”
But the Riolu wasn’t listening. Branches and sharp mountain grasses slapped and scratched at his face and limbs as he tore through the woods, his heart pounding not with the effort but with dread. Mother was rarely angry, but more than her anger, he didn’t want to see again the crushing disappointment in her eyes, in the sight droop of her mouth, the hurt that he would directly disobey her as if she was not worth listening to…it made his stomach feel like it was trying to eat itself.
So focused was he on getting back to the cave, he didn’t notice the attacker until an incredible force like a giant hand slammed into him from behind, sending him flying through the air before crashing to the ground. His head hurt like someone had wedged a sharp rock in there, and for a moment, he couldn’t breathe or see. He instinctively rolled out of the way as a pair of massive, rock-hard hands smashed into the ground where he had just been, leaving deep imprints in the hard earth. He stumbled back—it hurt to stand, his eyes widening in horror at his attacker.
“Go, Hariyama! We’ve got him!” A thin human with scraggly hair and a wild yellow smile pointed excitedly at him while clutching a noose in his left hand. Riolu recognized his smell and his appearance instantly, shocked at his own inability to sense his opponents—how had they gotten that close?
And the Pokémon—Makuhita had changed, evolved into Hariyama.
“So!” the huge Pokémon bellowed, thumping a wheel-sized hand onto its belly in challenge. That belly, which appeared to be fat at first, did not even jiggle—instead producing a slap sound that reminded the Riolu of boulders cracking into each other after a long fall down a hillside. “We meet again! I would have hoped you’d have evolved by now! A true test of strength is something I was looking forward to!”
He barreled towards the Riolu like a rolling wave of thunder. The Riolu waited until the last moment to roll out of the way, hissing at the pain in his leg. The shockwave from the larger Pokémon’s charge caused the ground to tremble beneath his feet, almost throwing him off balance. In desperation, he flung out his paws, not even sure what he was doing, just following it the sparking, tingling energy that seemed to be gathering in their tips. With a scrowling scream, he thrust his paws away from himself. A smattering of strange blue energy that the Riolu had never actually seen burst from his paws in a watery blaze and smoldered into the Hariyama’s face. The force of his own power flung the Riolu backwards against a tree.
The Hariyama growled and pain and shook away the residue of the blue energy. The Riolu was shaking from nose to tail tip with barely contained energy, torn between flight and fight. The pain in his leg was wearing off. Shuddering, he tested it before launching into a terrified sprint—perhaps he could outrun his massive opponent.
“Stop it, Hariyama! Don’t let it escape!”
Hariyama roared and charged after him for a few steps before leaping into
the air behind him and slamming into the ground. The resounding impact threw the Riolu’s balance off critically, causing him to nose into the ground painfully. He turned, just in time to see Hariyama’s palm crush him further into the ground, squeezing the air out of his lungs.
The Riolu scrabbled feebly, but his entire torso was pinned by only one of Hariyama’s hands. Desperate, he bit it, ignoring the pain of the firm flesh pressing against his small, sharp teeth and tried not to gag on the viscous fatty blood seeping into his mouth. Hariyama roared and reflexively yanked its hand back.
“You have fight in you! But that will not be enough to defeat me!”
**
“The king has taken a personal interest in this village. Your people have a very high ratio of human to Pokémon, and those good with them in a few years time may be eligible to become Pokémon Knights of Rota. Such honors do not come the way of commoners very often. That combined with this place’s strategic placement –several other factors of course, but we need not go into those now—makes this an ideal place for…investment.”
The she-Lucario crouched in the shadows with her back pressed to the wall of a dark wooden building. Its carved surface scraped against her back as her antennae quivered in concentration as she tried to force substantial images out of the energy waves her kind were privy to. It was difficult, trying to block out so much other energy going on outside the building and in the town. Sneaking in had not been too much of a problem, staying hidden a little harder, and trying to make sense of all the pent-up energy in the room left her with very little to spare, though she made sure she could still read her pups waves despite the distance between them.
This was an appropriate investment of her time, she was sure. It had been too long since she last came into the human nest to make sure this area was still a good place to live. Moving homes every few seasons was generally a wise thing to do in the case of her kind. However, after her accident, she had to consider it very carefully, and so far, living so close to humans had not had an…adverse…effect on her offspring. Sure coming to the nest was dangerous and the Pokémon of the forest often scolded her for it. Some chattered at her folly, others shook their heads despairingly. Lucario never last long. There’s a reason there aren’t that many.
The she-Lucairo had often considered retorting with the idea that perhaps Lucario weren’t as fecund as most other Pokémon, but as a result, her offspring was worth far more than theirs. But she rarely wasted her time and breath on such foolishness. She could maintain her pride with dignity.
Perhaps this was why she did not stop her son from visiting that Houndour and his humans. For as much as they were part of the World of wild Pokémon under the jurisdiction—they would have tittered at her use of that uniquely human word—of the World Tree’s Mew, it seemed, at least, in her admittedly meager experience, that humans drew them, like Bedrills to honey.
There were several presences in the room. The one speaking felt cold, uptight and thin with a voice to match. He—for the pheromones indicated maleness—was flanked by several other imposing presences: two large and burly, wearing bits of metal and heavy hide, and one other. Strangely enough, his waves were bright, luminous, like a recently fed flame. The she-Lucario had never felt such a presence in men before. Only in other Lucario had she seen it.
On the other side of the flat surface that the humans were sitting at, several other humans, their skins darkened by long hours in the sun and lacking the oddly neat and groomed appearance of the richly dressed others sat with their hands together, their bushy faces furrowed in an expression she had learned to identify as confusion.
“So you say, my lord,” the bushy human said. His voice was rough, like pebbles tumbling over shale, rougher and warmer than the first voice, “But why are you bothering to tell us this, even when the nobles and the king have already made up their minds?”
“Your voice doubts my words. Be careful, peasant,” the thin voice snapped. “Trust me when I say there are plenty of promising youths here. And we let you know of well in advance of the expansion project so that you can ready your villagers.”
“What Sir Gregory means,” interrupted a third voice. This one was smooth and woody, like a young oak. It belonged to the shining presence. The she-Lucario could not help but perk up her ears. It was a good voice. “Is that this is an opportunity for both the common folk and the gentry to benefit. I know that at least some of us here come out of respect. My late master and I both were born common, but I’ve inherited a tradition of nobility.”
Something ironic and mocking flickered in the energies of the men surrounding the shining presence. The she-Lucario knew it to be silent mockery.
“The same,” the young oak voice continued, “may be said of many of your young men here. Some may be chosen to become Pokémon Knights.
As for the rest, you should all benefit from a larger population and the benefit of more scholars and traders coming here to study more of the Pokémon and land in the area as well as boost your economy.”
“Expanding is costly, my lord. Not just for us, but for the local Pokémon. Especially if we displace too much of the hadite in the ground. We are very careful of what we harvest, what we catch, and what we kill here. We need the Pokémon.”
“Young Squire Aaron is not yet a lord,” sniffed the cold voice, “He is however, almost of age and the only Aura Guardian left to represent that sect in Rota.”
There was a brief, awkward silence. Finally, the bushy man frowned. “Excuse me. Squire Aaron, then.” There was something apologetic in his tone.
The she-Lucario then understood. Of course. To build more of these nests to accommodate more humans living here, if what she gathered was correct, they needed to make them out of something. She looked at the woods beyond the village. The forests here were old; with veins of power that ran all the way back to the World Tree.
She would have stayed to listen more. And then what felt like a muted scream echoed in her mind accompanied by a burst of sickeningly familiar energy.
Her son was in trouble.
At the exact moment, she heard a scrape and a clatter, followed by surprised grunts and shouts.
“Aaron, what’s the matter?”
“It’s a—” he broke off. “I must go. Please excuse me.”
The she-Lucario did not stay to listen any more. She was already flying, her heart pounding, and every beat smacked her with her own foolishness. Conflicting regrets whirled through her mind. She should have stayed with him. She should have taken him with her.
And now he was in danger, in pain.
Now that she listened with her ears and not her waves, she could hear a roar of challenge. The sound lent speed to her paws, energy surging through her body with every terrified beat of her heart and every twinge of her bad leg, reminding her of why she rarely ran like this.
Nothing else mattered.
**
To be continued…
Notes: I know Riolu normally can’t use anything even resembling Aura Sphere unless specially bred and trained like the one in the anime. However, Sir Aaron’s Lucario is also the only one who can speak using Aura. I would chalk this up to an exceptional inborn talent.