Pokémon Pokemon Sword: Reflections From The Past To The Future

[Alira]

Protagonists:
Alira Shinka(OC)
Hop

Preceding Oneshots:
Pokemon Sword: Reflections of the past(oneshot)

Brief summary:
(Note: This is a rewrite/AU version of the Post Game story with various small edits of the main story that will be mentioned at points or made into oneshots. The summary has been copied from my intro to save time. A link to Alira's bio will is above.)

Alira and Hop are being called back to the Slumbering Weald by some strange pulling in their souls, and with how natural and familiar it feels for them to wield the sword and shield that summoned Zacian and Zamazenta to their aid, they set out with just themselves, their camping equipment and teams to follow the pulling in their souls, going deep, very deep into the woods. Where long-forgotten memories of humans and pokemon alike sleep, where old grudges are restlessly slumbering, and secrets won't stay hidden for very long... Where the fate of the two heroes of legends remained hidden for centuries until now, and no one knew what they went through.


Chapter one: Calling

Alira began walking into the Slumbering Weald with little hesitation, mind elsewhere, as she let her feet take her where whatever was pulling was her deeper into the weald. She couldn’t stop thinking about Zacian and Zamazenta, or the rusted sword in her grip that was too familiar in her hands.

It felt like she was being called to somewhere in these woods, and she had to heed the call. The champion didn’t have much to do anyway, after beating Leon, then taming Eternatus in the vast fields outside her home town as she didn’t dare risk taking it out of its ball in town as it was massive, she didn’t have much to do nowadays other than taking care of her pokemon, avoiding her so-called manager and reporters, or messing around with Hop, or…

Her gaze drifted down as she brought her hand up, peering at the rusted sword she held so confidently in her grip. Its familiarity almost hurt as she didn’t know why it felt so right that she was holding it, but she never saw it before that day when she had to retrieve it with the shield from these very woods with Hop to summon Zacian or Zamazenta to help fight Chairman Rose and Eternatus.

She had spent god knows how long studying it, and trying to figure out why it felt like it belonged with her, with little results.

But now, she woke up with something calling her back to the weald, where this all truly started after she got her starter Nova, and she answered the call once the sun had descended beyond the horizon and the moon rose and took its place.

Most wild pokemon didn’t bother her, the sheer presences they felt from the pokeballs in her bag was enough to keep them at bay, and the fact Nova’s ball was clipped onto the strap of her bag for easy reach made the few who were going to bother her think twice, and if not, Nova made sure they got the hint.

Her feet took her down the familiar path with ease, knowing what turns to take and what fork in the paths to walk, and soon she was back at the shrine, and…

“Hop?” she spoke, voice calling out softly in the nighttime air and Hop jumped and spun around out of surprise, having been standing in front of the shrine.

“Huh?! Alira!?” he yelped, eyes wide as the girl walked up to him. “What’re you doing here in the woods?”

“Well, I felt like something was calling me here honestly.” She fiddled with her bangs, noting she was due for a trim either by a hairstylist or herself(She had a Wooloo so she had the sheers in her bag she used to trim him when his fur was getting so long it was hurting him) before folding her hands together in front of her.

“Something was calling you here?” He tilted his head before looking away. “That’s, mate that’s pretty uncanny.”

Now it was her turn to tilt her head as he continued. “I felt like something was calling me here too.” He paused. “I’ve been thinking, you know… About those visions we had, and maybe the reason Zacian and Zamazenta chose this place to sleep. No one comes here; the fog is so dense you’d only know the way by memory like you and me, so it must be so quiet all the time.” “He looked back at her. “Do you think the two heroes of old picked this place for them, knowing they would be left alone until we came along?”

Alira furrowed her brows, slightly confused as she tilted her head at her best friend. “What do you mean?”

“Alira, whenever I hold this,” He pulled the rusted shield from his bag with care, and without hesitation slipped it on his arm, his expression furrowing and the look in his eyes showed he didn’t mean to do that. “I just do that, I don’t mean to but it feels, right, like it belongs with me. You got that with that sword don’t you.” He eyed the rusted sword in her hand and she looked down at it, it wasn’t a question, because he knew her well enough to know the answer.

“Yeah, I do.” She raised it up to the light, peering at it. “It’s so strange.”

“Do you think, we could be descended from the heroes from the legends?” He raised his arm with the shield up to the light as well. His words made her gaze snap to him with shock as he met her eyes.

“Well… I doubt Zacian and Zamazenta would come to the aid of just anyone.” She spoke hesitantly. “And those visions we’ve had, and..” Her mind instantly flashed back to the fight with Oleana, where something really strange happened.

Alira was giving an order to Widgyt, blood rushing in her ears and heart racing as this battle was not a normal one. No, Oleana had a look in her eyes that set the young trainer on edge. “Widgyt, use nuzzle and paralyze that Millotic! Then use wild charge!”

The Boltund’s tail wagged as she heard her trainer’s command and rushed to do so, while Alira faintly heard Oleana give a order, one that made her gaze snap from the millotic to the trainer.

“Milotic use surf but aim behind the boltund!”

She, that crazy witch, she was having it target-

“ALIRA!” Hop screamed as the surf sailed past Widgyt, heading right for the girl as she braced herself the best she could, she had never gotten hit with a pokemon move all her life but it seemed she soon would be finding out how bad it hurt.

She closed her eyes and tensed, but the pain never came. Instead arms wrapped around her, seeming to shield her as her eyes snapped open.

Hop was shielding her with his body, she could see his back and the strong smell of wooloo fur mixed with rain rang out to her senses but she ignored it, as her gaze was locked on the surf move. It was being held back by, some sort of shield between them and the move, blocking it from hitting them.

Hop turned his head, confused as to why he wasn’t getting hit with the move and his jaw dropped, gobsmacked at the move being blocked by some weird transparent shield.

Thankfully, the move quickly dropped away as Widgyt hit her target with a resounding howl, first the nuzzle hit and then spinning on her paws to ram into the water type, electricity arching across her body as wild charge took affect and sent her opponent flying, the Miloitc shrieking as it fainted and the battle was over. With the threat gone the shield disappeared with a shimmer, leaving the two eighteen-year-olds dumbstruck and confused as to what just happened for a brief moment before remembering what they were here for and refocused.

“When that, shield showed up as you shielded me.” She fiddled with the strap of her bag absently with one hand. “I don’t think it’s a mere coincidence that it showed up and you picked that shield when we came here for Zamazenta and Zacian’s aid, or I picked the sword.” Her brows furrowed at that, a reminiscing gleam reflecting in her eyes as she gazed at the sword.

That got Hop’s attention. “What do you mean?” He asked as she held the sword higher, tilting it just so in a manner she seemed familiar with.

“You don’t know one of the reasons me and mom moved here ten years ago, do you?” Her voice was soft as her gaze tilted down, drifting to meet his as her lips turned downward slightly.

“No.” He shook his head, brows furrowing. “Whenever I asked, you started crying really bad, me and Wooloo had to calm you down so I eventually stopped asking.”

“Well, one was as a result of my brother.” Now she had a frown on her face even as Hop gazed at her with surprise. “I know I’ve never mentioned him before, but for good reason, he’s in prison right now and it was thanks to me, and the weird see-through sword that I summoned to fend him off.” She breathed in deeply. “I shant speak of what he tried to do to me, I’ve put it out of my mind and would rather it banished from my memories, but I remember I managed to stun him with that weird sword and managed to run to the police station in town, got him arrested. Couple that with the other reasons I won’t get into and we really needed a change of scenery, so here we came and stayed.”

“Alira…” He reached over with the hand that had the shield on his arm and placed a hand on her shoulder.

She gave him a weak smile, it not quite reaching her eyes. “It’s fine, really, I’m over it.” She breathed deeply before shaking her head. “Regardless, I picked the sword and I don’t think it was happenstance.” Her expression then shifted to a shocked look as she recalled something. “Wait, I just recalled something.”

“What?” He watched as she lowered the sword slightly, furrowing her brows.

“I remember mom said one of her dads, her step-dad Buddy, she once said he tracked the bloodline of her family back centuries.” Her gaze was darting about, not in a nervous manner but one that showed her mind was running a thousand miles a minute. “Her mother, the witch burned all the documents after he died, but mom said he tracked it back to medieval times, that they had ties to as of yet unknown royal family from a unknown place, as Galar hadn’t been discovered then.” Her gaze snapped back to Hop’s. “You think that it’s possible or I’m just reaching?”

“Well, I don’t know, but we never know honestly!” He grinned at her. “When it comes to stuff that happened THAT far back, it’s hard to be certain of much without any sort of, uh, family tree book to track it.”

“Heh, true.” She smiled, genuinely now. “I wonder if the two heroes ruled in a castle in these woods.” She looked around. “I doubt they’d help Zacian and Zamazenta find a place to sleep for centuries without it being someplace nearby their castle.”

“If that’s the case, it’s no wonder no one’s found the castle they ruled from, these woods are covered from top to bottom in fog, it covers the top of the trees and several miles above that even.” Hop looked around as well. “I had to do a report on it several years ago for school so I found that out.”

“Oh gosh.” Alira’s eyebrows raised, almost hiding under her bangs. “Well that would explain why no one’s explored this place. Zamazenta and Zacian make sure of that.” She mused, thinking of the first time that they saw the two legendary pokemon over a year ago and how they seemed to make the fog thicker.

“And why this place is the clearest area of the whole forest.” Hop let his hand fall from Alira’s shoulder, thinking for a moment. “Think it’s close by or something?”

“...Strangely enough,” She began, lowering the sword to her side as her signature half smile appeared on her face. “I get the feeling it is at least somewhere in this forest. Don’t ask me how but I’m fairly certain it’s in these woods somewhere.”

“Well, how about we try to find it?” Hop’s grin was infectious and he seemed to be getting excited. “I mean, this season for the Gym challenge is over right? You have some time before the next one so you don’t need to worry about challengers wanting to battle you.”

“Yep, that I do, and I’ve no fondness for the reporters swarming me.” She grinned back as he put the shield away in his bag, putting the sword away in her own bag before adjusting the straps. A habit of being on the road for so long during the challenge left her with the little quirk of adjusting them, as well as always having her camping equipment in her bag. “Up for it? We don’t know how long it’ll take.”

“You bet I am!” He all but jumped in the air as he responded. “This could be the adventure of a lifetime and finding this castle sounds exciting!”

She giggled, and offered him her hand. “Let’s go then! No time like the present!”

“Yeah!” Hop took her hand without hesitation and it wasn’t long before the two nineteen year olds bolted back the way they came before completely veering off the path they originated from and further into the forest, knowing they were headed in the right direction as the faint howls of Zamazenta and Zacian rang out in the quiet forest air.

And so off the two heroes of Galar went, looking for something long lost to history as their footsteps followed the path their souls lead them on.

 

[Namohysip]

This is a rewrite/AU version of the Post Game story with various small edits of the main story that will be mentioned at points or made into oneshots.

Oh how convenient, I was just about to start the postgame! So consider this to be someone who would have read this story RIGHT after getting to the credits. Maybe that will be a unique perspective, at least for this first chapter.

Alira found herself walking into the Slumbering Weald with little hesitation, mind elsewhere as she let her feet take her wherever they were leading her.

Something about this line feels a little confusing to me. On one hand, there's very passive, distant language in "found herself walking" and "mind elsewhere" and "let her feet take her wherever," and yet you have this clause of "with little hesitation" at the same time. Sure, she's not hesitating when she meanders, but at the same time, everything else in this story suggests that she's walking with purpose in mind and, more importantly, that it's not really as passive as this opening line lets on. Opening lines are important for setting the tone, at least for the first chapter, and it snowballs from there--so it fumbled for me a little.

or the rusted sword in her grip that was too, familiar in her grip.

I don't think the comma is needed here; also, you can probably find a way to get rid of one of the 'grip's here to avoid awkward word repetition.

The champion didn’t have much to do anyway, after becoming champion after beating Leon, then taming Eternatus in the vast fields outside her home town as she didn’t dare risk taking it out of it’s ball in town as it was massive, she didn’t have much to do nowadays other than taking care of her pokemon, avoiding her so-called manager and reporters, or messing around with Hop, or…

Good job on establishing the basics of the main story, at least the important parts, right here. Ironically I think that's the majority of the canon story in one paragraph... A-ah, anyway, this is also a bit of a LONG sentence. I know it's meant to be a droning list, but it was a bit weighty to parse at the same time; doesn't help that it ends with trailing off.

“Huh?! Alira!?” He yelped, eyes wide as the girl walked up to him.

I think this is meant to be a dialogue tag that connects directly to the line said before; in this case, you'd lowercase the 'he' despite ending with punctuation. The rules for exclamation points/question marks are weird in dialogue.

No one comes here, the fog is so dense you’d only know the way by memory like you and me, so it must be so quiet all the time.

In this case, I think you should have that first comma instead be a semicolon, as they're two sentences that can stand on their own, but are closely related.

Hop was shielding her with his body, she could see his back and the strong smell of wooloo fur mixed with rain rang out to her senses but she ignored it, as her gaze was locked on the surf move. It was being held back by, some sort of shield between them and the move, blocking it from hitting them.

The first sentence is actually really good, and I think it might actually be my favorite sentence in the entire chapter. So much about Hop's character was implied and summarized here that I couldn't help but pause to feel impressed. I really need to incorporate things like scent in my own descriptions; there's so much you can glean from it...

weird see-through sword that I summoned to fend him off.

I managed to stun him with a see-through sword that appeared out of nowhere

The above two lines are said more or less right after each other, and I'm not sure if it's because you were drafting through several iterations of dialogue and missed it, or just wanted to really drive the point home... but perhaps just one explicit mention would be enough when she's explaining it to Hop.

And so off the two heroes of Galar went, looking for something long lost to history as their footsteps followed the path their souls lead them on.

I wonder if this final line is necessary. It's put in italics, such suggests a sort of narrator from far away, but at the same time, italics were already used for a flashback, which confused me a little on what this was intended to be.

--

Still, overall, this was an interesting start to the postgame story! I wonder how much of this is actually based on the canon postgame? Kind of makes me tempted to take some time out of my night to find out~ Ahh but it's so late. Anyway, I liked the sprinkling of the alternate scenes that took place during the 'main' story in the past, though unfortunately it can be a little unwieldy at the same time. I suppose if the design of the story starts things off in the postgame, that sort of flashback style is necessary, though. Without it, we'll be having the incorrect assumption of what exactly is "alternate" about this compared to the canon storyline.

I'm actually very familiar with that sort of thing, actually, in the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon fandom. There are a handful of writers who more or less rewrite the canon story with their own creative twists, ad some start off in the postgame as well. I wonder if there might be something to glean from those techniques, sometimes leaving it to implication, or other times not making the changes so heavily impactful at all? At some point, you might actually have an easier time just starting off from where the story begins to diverge from canon... But that might be an extreme reaction.

Regardless, this is a straightforward setup with an intriguing path forward. Thanks for the read~

 

[Negrek]

Hey, welcome to the forums! It's great to see this posted here. This might be the first Sword/Shield-centric fic here so far, which is pretty cool. It's fun to see you starting off with an established trainer after the main game storyline rather than starting with a new trainer just setting out.

You've set up a nice mystery about why Alira's sword might be calling to her and what kind of connection there might be to the ancient kingdom of Galar. There's a little of Galar's history on display in the games, but I think there's a lot more to explore that would make great material for a fanfic. The Slumbering Weald is also a wonderfully atomspheric setting to work with, although I imagine we'll be visiting some other locations, too. I think it'll be fun to see where your story is similar to the canon postgame and what elements you bring in of your own. It'll also be nice to see more of Hop! I thought his character arc in the main storyline was well done, and there are some really interesting things you could do to build on it now that his rival's become the champion and there are new adventures afoot.

I think it would have been nice, in this first chapter, to see a little more of the sword calling to Alira, how that affects her, and how it brings her to the Slumbering Weald. As it is the story starts with her already in the Weald, and then she pretty much describes what she's been feeling, rather than the reader getting to see for themselves what's happened. I think it would be more interesting to see that in action than to have it summarized in the text, and including a little scene or two of Alira and the sword would give you more opportunity to build up the atmosphere of the Slumbering Weald, really get across the foggy spookiness and the weird feeling that's come over Alira. Similarly, you lay out a substantial portion of Alira's backstory and potential connection with the legendary sword here; I think it might be better to have that come out a little more gradually as they're exploring... Again, gives you an opportunity to

At times it was a little hard for me to follow what you'd written. I think sometimes you have too much going on in your sentences and would be better off breaking them up into shorter units. For example:

The champion didn’t have much to do anyway, after becoming champion after beating Leon, then taming Eternatus in the vast fields outside her home town as she didn’t dare risk taking it out of it’s ball in town as it was massive, she didn’t have much to do nowadays other than taking care of her pokemon, avoiding her so-called manager and reporters, or messing around with Hop, or…

There are three main ideas here: Alira doesn't have much to do now she's champion, the taming of Eternatus, and she only has a few things to do these days. That's a lot to cover in one sentence, and I think it gets a little jumbled up with all the subordinate clauses here. Maybe try breaking it up into multiple sentences instead. This is one example of how you could do that: "The champion didn’t have much to do anyway after beating Leon, then taming Eternatus in the vast fields outside her home town. She didn’t dare risk taking it out of its ball in town as it was massive, so nowadays she mostly spent time taking care of her pokemon, avoiding her so-called manager and reporters, or messing around with Hop, or…"

Her gaze drifted down as she brought her hand up, peering at the rusted sword she held so confidently in her grip, it’s familiarity almost hurt as she didn’t know why it felt so right that she was holding it, but she never saw it before that day when she had to retrieve it with the shield from these very woods with Hop to summon Zacian or Zamazenta to help fight Chairman Rose and Eternatus.

Same kind of deal here, you kind of have stuff happening in the present but also reflections on the past, and smushing it all together in one sentence makes it a bit hard to follow. Grammatically this is really two separate sentences, one beginning "Her gaze drifted" and one "Its familiarity almost hurt," so if you change the comma between them to a period, it actually makes a pretty good split.

Also, quick note on this example sentence and the last: "it's" is a contraction of "it is," while "its" is posessive (e.g. "it wagged its" tail). In both these examples you should be using "its" rather than "it's." A quick check to see whether you're using the right form is to substitute "it is" wherever you've written "it's" and see whether things still make sense. Because e.g. "It is familiarity almost hurt" doesn't work, you know that you should be using "its" instead.

Thankfully, the move quickly dropped away as Widgyt hit her target with a resounding howl, first the nuzzle hit and then spinning on her paws to ram into the water type, the Miloitc shrieking as it fainted and the battle was over.

This sentence covers a series of events happening in sequence, with the howl being fairly separate from what comes after it. Again, there are two complete sentences here, one beginning with "Thankfully" and the other with "First the nuzzle hit," so if you use a period to separate them rather than a comma, things fall into place pretty naturally. However, in this sentence "and then spinning on her paws to ram into the water type" is also a bit odd, because it's kind of an incomplete thought. The way it's constructed implies that Widgyt did something after ramming into the milotic, but instead of continuing with her action the sentence cuts to the milotic. Either you want some follow-through here ("...spinning on her paws to ram into the water type, Widgyt sent her opponent flying") or the sentence should read "and then spun on her paws..." instead.

Just a few examples and how you might make them a bit clearer; there are other gummy sentences in here. One thing that might help catching them while editing is reading your story aloud to yourself. If you find yourself getting winded during a sentence or having trouble making it to the period in a single breath, that might be a good candidate for rewording.

Not a sentence construction thing, but a minor nitpick:

“No.” He shook his head, brows furrowing. “Whenever I asked, you started crying really bad, me and Wooloo had to calm you down so I eventually stopped asking.”

It's kind of weird that Alira would have asked Hop if he knew why she moved to town if she reacted that badly every time he'd tried to ask. Surely she remembers crying whenever Hop asked her about her background?

Anyhow, that aside, I think you have a fun premise here, and the potential for a great adventure story. I look forward to seeing more of the Slumbering Weald and whatever remnants of old Galar may be hidden there, as well as where you go with Alira and Hop as characters. Welcome again, and good luck with your writing!

 

[Alira]

Okay, feeling a tad under the weather but I'm gonna try to reply to both of you as best I can!

First off, to Namo!

Something about this line feels a little confusing to me. On one hand, there's very passive, distant language in "found herself walking" and "mind elsewhere" and "let her feet take her wherever," and yet you have this clause of "with little hesitation" at the same time. Sure, she's not hesitating when she meanders, but at the same time, everything else in this story suggests that she's walking with purpose in mind and, more importantly, that it's not really as passive as this opening line lets on. Opening lines are important for setting the tone, at least for the first chapter, and it snowballs from there--so it fumbled for me a little.

Oof, good point. I don't do drafts so what I write the first time usually ends up being posted, so I should probably go redo that line a bit to better line up with what's going on/her being pulled into the weald.

I don't think the comma is needed here; also, you can probably find a way to get rid of one of the 'grip's here to avoid awkward word repetition.

Gotcha, that's a bit awkward to look at now I'm thinking about it, I'll edit it asap.

I think this is meant to be a dialogue tag that connects directly to the line said before; in this case, you'd lowercase the 'he' despite ending with punctuation. The rules for exclamation points/question marks are weird in dialogue.

Gotcha, I'll edit that asap! I was largely completely quoting one of Hop's actual lines from the game actually, hence the "!?".

In this case, I think you should have that first comma instead be a semicolon, as they're two sentences that can stand on their own, but are closely related.

Okie dokie, gotcha!

The first sentence is actually really good, and I think it might actually be my favorite sentence in the entire chapter. So much about Hop's character was implied and summarized here that I couldn't help but pause to feel impressed. I really need to incorporate things like scent in my own descriptions; there's so much you can glean from it...

Ngl you made me grin here, thank you so much! ^W^

The above two lines are said more or less right after each other, and I'm not sure if it's because you were drafting through several iterations of dialogue and missed it, or just wanted to really drive the point home... but perhaps just one explicit mention would be enough when she's explaining it to Hop.

Oh yikes, I think I was drafting some of the dialogue, cause that's painfully noticeable now it's been pointed out. I'll edit that asap.

I wonder if this final line is necessary. It's put in italics, such suggests a sort of narrator from far away, but at the same time, italics were already used for a flashback, which confused me a little on what this was intended to be.

I actually was trying to sort of do that narrator bit at the end of the episodes of the XY/XYZ anime for a bit of fun, plus a bit of a call-back to what got me started on my first pokemon fic. I don't plan to do it every chapter though, just wanted to do it this once ^^

Still, overall, this was an interesting start to the postgame story! I wonder how much of this is actually based on the canon postgame? Kind of makes me tempted to take some time out of my night to find out~ Ahh but it's so late. Anyway, I liked the sprinkling of the alternate scenes that took place during the 'main' story in the past, though unfortunately it can be a little unwieldy at the same time. I suppose if the design of the story starts things off in the postgame, that sort of flashback style is necessary, though. Without it, we'll be having the incorrect assumption of what exactly is "alternate" about this compared to the canon storyline.

I'm actually very familiar with that sort of thing, actually, in the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon fandom. There are a handful of writers who more or less rewrite the canon story with their own creative twists, ad some start off in the postgame as well. I wonder if there might be something to glean from those techniques, sometimes leaving it to implication, or other times not making the changes so heavily impactful at all? At some point, you might actually have an easier time just starting off from where the story begins to diverge from canon... But that might be an extreme reaction.

Regardless, this is a straightforward setup with an intriguing path forward. Thanks for the read~

I'm glad you think so! :D I won't say just yet how much of the actual canon postgame I plan to incorporate, it'll definitely be noticeable I'll say that much, but I'm not going to be getting to that for a while I don't think? I've got a good idea of where I'm going with this ^W^

Oooh, nice! And true, tbh I might make the flashbacks small enough to leave me open to write a prequel/main story, cuz I do want to do that at some point as I think there's enough changes on my part to warrant this, but I'm gonna finish this first ^.^

And no problem and thank you for reading it! ^W^


Okay, now to reply to Negrek!

Hey, welcome to the forums! It's great to see this posted here. This might be the first Sword/Shield-centric fic here so far, which is pretty cool. It's fun to see you starting off with an established trainer after the main game storyline rather than starting with a new trainer just setting out.

You've set up a nice mystery about why Alira's sword might be calling to her and what kind of connection there might be to the ancient kingdom of Galar. There's a little of Galar's history on display in the games, but I think there's a lot more to explore that would make great material for a fanfic. The Slumbering Weald is also a wonderfully atomspheric setting to work with, although I imagine we'll be visiting some other locations, too. I think it'll be fun to see where your story is similar to the canon postgame and what elements you bring in of your own. It'll also be nice to see more of Hop! I thought his character arc in the main storyline was well done, and there are some really interesting things you could do to build on it now that his rival's become the champion and there are new adventures afoot.

Thank you for the welcome! ^W^ I Tbh this my first work set in Sword/Shield aside from the little prequel oneshot I did for this, so I wanted to start it after the main story cuz a LOT happens in the main story.

Thank you, I'm glad you think so! And yep, I definitely want to explore Galar's history a fair bit in this, cause I love doing that sort of worldbuilding in my stories. And yep, it certainly is and I'll confirm that we'll definitely be seeing other locations! It's certainly gonna be fun to write that much I can say, and yush it is! Honestly Hop's my favorite rival so I'm having a ball writing him, and I'm going to be having fun building on it now Alira's champion and they're looking for the castle of the two heroes ^W^

I think it would have been nice, in this first chapter, to see a little more of the sword calling to Alira, how that affects her, and how it brings her to the Slumbering Weald. As it is the story starts with her already in the Weald, and then she pretty much describes what she's been feeling, rather than the reader getting to see for themselves what's happened. I think it would be more interesting to see that in action than to have it summarized in the text, and including a little scene or two of Alira and the sword would give you more opportunity to build up the atmosphere of the Slumbering Weald, really get across the foggy spookiness and the weird feeling that's come over Alira. Similarly, you lay out a substantial portion of Alira's backstory and potential connection with the legendary sword here; I think it might be better to have that come out a little more gradually as they're exploring... Again, gives you an opportunity to

I definitely plan to tackle that next chapter, cause I didn't think about doing that till after I finished the chapter and it would've been a bit clunky to try to put it before with how I wrote the first paragraph, though... Since I am gonna go rewrite that paragraph to better line up with her being pulled to the weald I can try to add in a scene or two if my brain will cooperate with me. And I do plan to have more of her backstory come out as the story progresses, cause there's a lot Hop doesn't know about her prior to her moving to galar, more than the bit mentioned, cuz there's a fair bit of that and with Hop going to be around her for a while, something's bound to come out.

here are three main ideas here: Alira doesn't have much to do now she's champion, the taming of Eternatus, and she only has a few things to do these days. That's a lot to cover in one sentence, and I think it gets a little jumbled up with all the subordinate clauses here. Maybe try breaking it up into multiple sentences instead. This is one example of how you could do that: "The champion didn’t have much to do anyway after beating Leon, then taming Eternatus in the vast fields outside her home town. She didn’t dare risk taking it out of its ball in town as it was massive, so nowadays she mostly spent time taking care of her pokemon, avoiding her so-called manager and reporters, or messing around with Hop, or…"

Same kind of deal here, you kind of have stuff happening in the present but also reflections on the past, and smushing it all together in one sentence makes it a bit hard to follow. Grammatically this is really two separate sentences, one beginning "Her gaze drifted" and one "Its familiarity almost hurt," so if you change the comma between them to a period, it actually makes a pretty good split.

Also, quick note on this example sentence and the last: "it's" is a contraction of "it is," while "its" is posessive (e.g. "it wagged its" tail). In both these examples you should be using "its" rather than "it's." A quick check to see whether you're using the right form is to substitute "it is" wherever you've written "it's" and see whether things still make sense. Because e.g. "It is familiarity almost hurt" doesn't work, you know that you should be using "its" instead.

Gotcha, I'll go do my best to clean those up asap. And aaaah gosh, I've always had issues with "its" and "it's", I never know how to use them most of the time X'D

This sentence covers a series of events happening in sequence, with the howl being fairly separate from what comes after it. Again, there are two complete sentences here, one beginning with "Thankfully" and the other with "First the nuzzle hit," so if you use a period to separate them rather than a comma, things fall into place pretty naturally. However, in this sentence "and then spinning on her paws to ram into the water type" is also a bit odd, because it's kind of an incomplete thought. The way it's constructed implies that Widgyt did something after ramming into the milotic, but instead of continuing with her action the sentence cuts to the milotic. Either you want some follow-through here ("...spinning on her paws to ram into the water type, Widgyt sent her opponent flying") or the sentence should read "and then spun on her paws..." instead.

Just a few examples and how you might make them a bit clearer; there are other gummy sentences in here. One thing that might help catching them while editing is reading your story aloud to yourself. If you find yourself getting winded during a sentence or having trouble making it to the period in a single breath, that might be a good candidate for rewording.

Gotcha, I think I'll go and edit that so it flows a bit better ^^ (I'll also try that technique when I'm not sick, cuz I can't talk without coughing rn)

It's kind of weird that Alira would have asked Hop if he knew why she moved to town if she reacted that badly every time he'd tried to ask. Surely she remembers crying whenever Hop asked her about her background?

Not quite.... she's got a tad bit of a bad memory regarding the year she moved to Galar, she remembers moving there and befriending Hop, but not much before her birthday the following year, same thing with the prior year where her brother went after her, she remembers that event but not much else of that year. It's a weird gap in her memory she does her best to work around, though she does need clarification whenever Hop mentions something that happened in that weird year gap, like her crying that badly when he asked why she moved there cause she honestly doesn't remember doing that.

Anyhow, that aside, I think you have a fun premise here, and the potential for a great adventure story. I look forward to seeing more of the Slumbering Weald and whatever remnants of old Galar may be hidden there, as well as where you go with Alira and Hop as characters. Welcome again, and good luck with your writing!

Thank you! I look forward to writing this all out and can't wait to show what I have in store for this story! ^W^

Okay, I hope I didn't sound too, fudgy, working with a headcold so my brain isn't the best x'D Thank you both for commenting and giving me advice, I really appreciate it! :D

 

[Umbramatic]

Ooh! Ooooooh! Sword/Sheild fic! I think yours is the first I've read! This is a treat!

You definitely have an intresting expansion and backstory to the canon scenes you're adapting. Giving an actual backstory to the Sword protagonist is also really nice (though the stuff about bloodlines was a bit... i dunno if cliche is the right word but I guess predictable?) Your prose is very vivid as well and you've got a good grasp on your main character and Hop.

Also. Wooloo. Sweet little Wooloo. The fact it has to be sheared like a real sheep in order to not be uncomfy is a nice touch.

But this is a good start to some canon rewrite shenanigans and I hope you stick around to post more.

 

[kyeugh]

i'm glad i read your one-shot first, because i feel like it lent me some insight while reading this... just little things, like your particular characterizations of hop and alira, as well as the background of the sword/shield relic stuff. you mention the uncanny sense of familiarity that alira experiences with the sword here, too, and that's brought up in the one-shot as well. i'm actually kind of wondering why the one-shot is posted separately? seeing as it's got the same characters and some of the same plot threads going on, it seems like you could logically fit it in as a prologue to this chapter.

anyway, you've got a pretty fun premise here! like i said before, i haven't really seen much at all in the way of sword/shield fanfic, so it's nice to see that at all, but you take it some interesting directions. for example:

“Heh, true.” She smiled, genuinely now. “I wonder if the two heroes ruled in a castle in these woods.” She looked around. “I doubt they’d help Zacian and Zamazenta find a place to sleep for centuries without it being someplace nearby their castle.”

this is a really cool idea! the slumbering weald does have that little ruined shrine, where you find the sword and shield in-game, but i sort of just accepted that at face value and didn't think into it very much. the idea of it being a part of a larger castle system in the area is really novel and makes sense, especially since in the glimpses of art we see of the heroes in-game, they do appear to be of noble descent rather than random villagers. i guess you could make the argument that they're just depicted that way retrospectively due to their deeds, but i think your approach makes just as much sense, and it's an intriguing direction to take your fic.

it seems like you're going to be exploring the past a lot here, and i'm a big fan of that. i write a fic taking place in the medieval pokéworld myself, and was pretty disappointed at how sword and shield teased us with glimpses into the past but didn't go into much greater detail. so i'll be excited to see where you go with it! sort of scratches the itch that canon has left untouched, haha. and maybe it'll give me some ideas for my own fic, too... 👀

the others have already gotten into some of the lapses in grammar here, so i won't rag there too much, but it's sort of the same stuff that popped up in the one-shot. the fact that most of the reviewers so far jumped on it pretty quickly sort of illustrates the good that a fresh pair of eyes can do, so i'm kinda reiterating my position here that i think a beta reader would be super helpful for you here. it's mostly just little stuff that someone else can pick up on and fix before you push the fic out... but we've had this conversation already, so i'll leave it there. :p

onto the fic itself, trying not to double up on lines people have already commented on:

Most wild pokemon didn’t bother her, the sheer presences they felt from the pokeballs in her bag was enough to keep them at bay

this is a cool detail! maybe it's A Thing but i've never seen someone write about pokémon being detectable through their poké balls before, and it's an interesting idea.

“That’s, mate that’s pretty uncanny.”

seems like you put a comma here where you wanted a break in speech. maybe something like "That's... Mate, that's pretty uncanny." would work?

Alira furrowed her brows, slightly confused as she tilted her head at her best friend.

it seems weird but usually you say that someone furrows their brow, not their brows.

“Widgyt, use nuzzle and paralyze that Millotic! Then use wild charge!”

milotic only has one L. i think you make this same mistake a few lines down, too.

She, that crazy witch, she was having it target-

i assume you underlined here because you wanted to emphasize the text but it was already italicized? if that's the case, convention is to just unitalicize text you would normally italicized if it's part of an already-italicized body of text— for example, "She, that crazy witch, she was having it target-..."

Thankfully, the move quickly dropped away as Widgyt hit her target with a resounding howl, first the nuzzle hit and then spinning on her paws to ram into the water type, electricity arching across her body as wild charge took affect and sent her opponent flying

this is pretty good imagery! it's often hard for me to visualize the motion of a battle but this was pretty easy for me to read. i think you want "arcing" rather than "arching" here, though.

“When that, shield showed up as you shielded me.”

another unnecessary comma here.

anyway, good stuff! the premise of this is really interesting and it seems like there's a bunch of backstory you've got in mind here, so i'm excited to see where it goes. keep it up!

 

[kintsugi]

Hi! Me again. I strayed here from your other one-shot; loved the deep dive into sword/shield doggo lore and I'm excited to see more of it here!

why it felt like it belonged with her, with little results.

I think you want "few" here; little refers to non-countable objects.

“Hop?” she spoke

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I don't think "spoke" is actually a dialogue tag -- I don't think it can be used interchangeably with "said". English is silly and I feel like you can stretch things however you want; it does feel a little over-formal in this context though.

she was due for a trim either by a hairstylist or herself(She had a Wooloo so she had the sheers in her bag she used to trim him when his fur was getting so long it was hurting him)

few things here:
1. dropped space between "herself" and the parenthesis
2. you don't need to capitalize the "she" inside of the parenthesis
3. "sheer" refers to really thin; you want "shears"
4. and most importantly. I love this little detail that she trims Wooloo like a real sheep. Awesome bit of casual worldbuilding here. You have a few other ones, like how Alira by default adjusts the straps of her backpack when she gets up, that really help make things feel alive here.

“And those visions we’ve had, and..”

I think you want an ellipsis here? Or you wanted a period? Either way there's either one too many or one too few periods here.

She, that crazy witch, she was having it target-

“ALIRA!”

I'm a HUGE sucker for breaking off internal monologues with things that directly answer the question. I like how you use it to keep the action steamrollering on ahead here; it makes things feel really intense and like they're all happening at once.

This battle is pretty short, but I like how intense and action-packed you make it -- it's easy to think of Pokemon battling as just a boring back and forth do this/dodge it, but you do a really good job of incorporating the emotions into it. Easy to feel like there's adrenaline rushing through!

But also like... why do bad people even fight other people's Pokemon instead of just axeing the trainer like this? Seems pretty OP, especially if it's coming from a baddie who doesn't care about "rules" and "ethics".

“When that, shield showed up as you shielded me.”

Stray comma here.

There's been a lot of feedback given on the structure of this chapter, so I don't really want to repeat it back to you haha.

Which means I just get to focus mostly on things I enjoyed! First chapters are always a lot of fun, and you do a great job of jumping us headlong into the conflict -- there's some mysterious history that we're going to explore, a lot of lore additions from the games, and a really fun pair of characters. Postgame fics are a lot of fun because you can sort of circumvent the new trainer vibes and jump headlong into what it means for an accomplished trainer to go on adventures and continue to learn and grow, and it looks like you've got great plans set up for this.

My favorite bits are where you start adding your own tweaks to the Sword/Shield world. Galar as a concept is really fascinating and I think there's a lot of room for people to add their own details (the additions to the shrine in the Slumbering Weald, the foggy lore, Alira shearing her wooloo). The post-game is also criminally neglected so I think you've picked a great place to focus on here. I think Sword Protagonist and Hop are also a little vanilla in the games, so I'm excited to see where you take these guys! Alira already feels like she's got some spunk in her; I'm getting some serious Frozen II vibes from this setup.

Thank you for sharing, and looking forward to seeing where you end up taking things from here!

 

[Alira]

Chapter two: Glimpses and Reminisce
(AN: Aka the chapter that legit just kept going and going I am so sorry it's so long I didn't plan this at all and it certainly didn't end up where I planned so that'll be chapter 3 |D Also, Unbeta'd! Cause I was too excited to share this and the person I'm considering for Beta is sick and I don't want to be a jerk to them by bugging them to read/edit this chapter, so it'll be updated when they do so and/or if I get another beta, doesn't hurt to have two right...? God, I'm so scared of screwing this beta stuff up by being stupid. Also the more I write Alira the more of myself I put into her and I love it XD Also-also, coming up with pokemon versions of the constellations was a challenge X'D)

The fog was as thick as ever, making navigation difficult but that didn’t stop Alira or Hop. They kept going, minding their feet and yanking each other out of the way of any trees they almost walked into.

Though as it was nighttime when they set out, it wasn’t long before they began to feel the adrenaline wearing off, so they searched for a clearing to rest in.

Soon they found one large enough to accommodate both of their tents and began setting camp. Hop got his tent set up rather quickly, coming out of his tent to hear a “oh are you kidding me” from where Alira was to see while the entrance to her tent was already set up, the rest was sort of caved in on top of her if the lump of moving fabric was any sign.

“You alright Alira?” He fought back chuckles as he walked over and knelt down, peering past the flaps with a hand to see her on her rear, holding up the wire mesh and fabric with an arm. He couldn’t help but quip. “Having fun in there mate?”

“Not really no.” She remarked sarcastically with a chuckle, shaking her head. “I must look ridiculous.”

“Here, let me help.” he crawled in alongside her, and quickly got the wire mesh and metal parts set up. Soon the tent was quickly set up and off of Alira’s head.

“Thank you.” She smiled as she sat up properly, no longer leaning back on her bag awkwardly now.

“Not a problem mate.” he smiled back before crawling out of the tent, Alira soon following him and helping him set up the foldable tables next to each other and fire firepits, soon putting their pots over the currently unlit bundles of wood.

“Okay, now to just..” Alira trailed off as she reached up and grabbed Nova’s pokeball, releasing Nova soon after and the fire type trilled in greeting to her trainer and waved at Hop when she saw him while he laid out a blanket to sit on.

“Nove, you mind helping us with the fire?” Alira asked and Nova shook her head, the rabbit pokemon walking over and lightly tapping on the first firepit with a foot, a small fire lighting up within moments as Alira and Hop sat on the blanket.

“Those little yellow dots of yellow fur on the bottom of her feet can actually fire, well, fire from them if she wants, I think that’s how she does her pryo soccer ball.” Alira explained to a starstruck Hop as Nova lit the other fire then went and sat near her trainer.

“That’s so cool!” Hop gushed as he and his best friend released their pokemon from their balls so they could stretch their legs.

“Just a little thing I noticed about her.” Alira smiled sheepishly, watching as her pokemon mingled with Hop’s without a second thought.

“But you’ve always been good at noticing the little things like that,” He continued, noticing with amusement in the background that his Corviknight picked up Alira’s Alrcremie, Willowya, by the scruff of her neck and put her on the back of Dubwool. Presumably to keep her out of trouble or out from underfoot. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“Neither do I to be perfectly honest?” Her half-smile pulled at her expression as her brow furrowed. “I just do it without thinking.” She reached up and scratched at her very short hair, soon continuing with. “You always know what do to calm down an upset pokemon, I never would’ve been able to calm Shiro so we could heal him if it weren’t for you.”

“Heheh.” Hop scratched at his warming cheek with his index finger. “I just have a way with pokemon. I mean I got Dubwool as a wooloo when I was five because I managed to sneak out of the house and Leon later found me surrounded by a lot of cuddly wooloos, five year old me being on top of mine fast asleep. Leon caught wooloo for me after that.”

“Awww.” She beamed at him, smiling fully now. “Imagining a itty bitty adorable Hop ontop of Wooloo-”

“Alira-!” He choked out a flustered laugh as she kept going, turning his face redder by the second.

“-Surrounded by hundreds of wooloos, it’s adorable~!” She giggled, grinning teasingly at him. “That is such an adorable image, thank you Hop.” She then got a little gleam in her eyes he recognized as playful as she then pointed at him. “You are too adorable sometimes Hops!”

“And you are too humble sometimes Alli!” He pointed back at her, laughter bubbling in his chest as she gained a mock offended look, and before he knew it she lunged at him, smacking into him with a laugh as she tackle-hugged him in the chest.

He laughed back and tightly held her close as she snuggled into his chest, both idly noting their pokemon’s chuckling in the background as he placed his chin on top of her head while she giggled.

“...Gods, I missed this.” Alira softly mumbled once her and Hop’s laughter subsided, tightening her grip on him.

“Missed what?” Hop shifted slightly, still holding her close.

“Being able to act like this, and not mind what I say or do when out and about or worry about people swarming my camp.” She mumbled into his shirt, honesty ringing in her words.

“Is being a champion that restrictive?” He wondered, Leon always seemed to act however he wished from what he saw, so he wondered if it was different for her.

“Well, it is right now when everything about me is just, being broadcasted everywhere in Galar due to still recently becoming champion. Leon says it’ll lessen and I’ll get more freedom once it dies down, but...” She refused to look up at him, keeping her face buried in his chest. “It’s... weird and uncomfortable. I’m not...” Her grip on him tightened.

He brought a hand up and rested it on the back of her head, hearing a worried “Gal, gallade?” from across the camp before looking over and seeing her Gallade, Calethorne, looking over at them with concern. Hop waved a hand slightly, making the Blade pokemon narrow his eyes slightly before nodding.

“It’s all the people bugging you, right?” Hop responded, carding his fingers through her hair as she nestled deeper against his chest.

“Yes.” She responded, her hands digging into the back of his jacket. “I’m lucky Cale and Nova tend to fend off the reporters and anyone wanting to swarm me when I’m just trying to get something from a cafe. It’s weird and strange I don’t get it and I don’t do well in crowds, I get overloaded there’s also so much noise and my so-called manager-” She cut herself off with a huff. “He’s ticked I won’t let him have access to my Fletchtter and Pokegram and Monbook, he wants to take over posting things for me and-UGH.”

She groaned. “It wouldn’t be me posting if he took over and that bugs me but he doesn’t get it-” The rate she was speaking increased until she was speaking rapid-fire, a trait Hop knew meant she had been worked up over this for a while.

“Hey hey.” He spoke softly, halting her rapid speech and he made sure to gently pet her hair to help her untense. He knew her long enough to know how to calm her down when she got worked up, and knew why it bugged her. “I get that, you don’t need to explain it to me.”

It worked, she relaxed and she sighed. “You’re the only one who does...”

“Well, you’re my best friend, if I didn’t know you better than them or get you that’d be a shock.” He felt her smile against his shirt and grinned in response.

“And you’re my very best friend~” She giggled warmly and he snuggled her closer, chuckling and enjoying the light squeak she let out. They stayed like that for a while, just enjoying being close to each other, until a light yawn escaped Alira.

“We should probably make some dinner for everyone then head off for the night.” Hop noted and Alira nodded, untangling from each over and reaching over to their bags.

Within ten minutes they both were at their respective pots, cooking curry for their teams, and in around ten more minutes they finished cooking and soon plated enough servings for their teams and themselves.

After everyone ate and the trainers put their teams to bed, the two decided to do something they often did while growing up. They laid down on the blanket and stared up at the murky sky above, only faintly able to see the moon through the fog.

“...Too bad the fog prevents us from being able to see the stars.” Alira mused idly, holding a hand up to the sky. “We’d probably be able to see more constellations out here than in town.”

“Just because we can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there.” He smiled, holding a hand up to the sky as well. “Plus we’ve looked at the sky so much we can just imagine we’re seeing them.”

“True!” She smiled, noticing then that the hand she was holding up, her left one, had the gym challenger glove she still never took off even after becoming champion, while Hop’s had no such glove.

Before she could comment on it, Hop asked. “ Hey, out of curiosity, why is your glove on your league card on your right instead of your left if you always wear it on the left?”

“Oh? Well. Bit of my manager being a prude.” She shrugged. “He threw a right fit when he found out I was left handed for some reason, I don’t know what mind you, and had me reshoot my card to have it on the right hand. It was irritating as my left ‘handy-ness’ is going to show up in battles anyway, but thankfully I got in contact with the card producers and the next run they’ll have the correct, if a little older, picture with it on my left hand.”

“...That's weird.” Hop commented and Alira laughed. “Like, really weird.”

“I know! I don't get my so-called manager at all.” She grinned light-heartedly. “He reminds me of a teacher my mom mentioned having when she was young, smacked her with a ruler if she wrote with her left hand. Weeird people.”

“With an apparent dislike for lefties.” Hop snorted, shaking his head. “I mean, you and your mum are from Sinnoh which is practically half the world away from ‘ere, but that’s just strange.”

“Strange is as strange does.” She hummed back, eyes squinting up at the sky. “Hey, look!”

“What the…?” The fog was parting just the slightest, allowing the night sky to peer through and letting the duo see the countless stars scattered across the endless midnight blue sky.

“Wow…” Alira breathed out. “There’s so many…”

“Yeah…” He agreed, starstruck, no pun intended, as he whispered. “You think it was the wind moving the fog or…?”

“...Dunno, I’m not gonna look a gift ponyta in the mouth.” She smiled and put a hand under her head, pointing with the other hand. “Look, there's rapiddastarios!”

“There's zappio!” He pointed as well to another constellation in the sky. “And Lucarius!”

They spent a fair amount of time picking out and finding constellations they both knew or didn’t, though that leads to the two forgetting to join their pokemon in their tents and eventually falling asleep right there on the blanket.

Their respective partner pokemon came out their tents after some time, wondering where their trainers were and came face to face with the sight of their trainers fast asleep on the blanket.

Nova facepawed while Rillaboom merely shook his head in amusement, the two humans had even curled up next to each other in slumber. Alira had curled up against Hop’s side, her ear resting on the side of his jacket while her arm was thrown over him, and Hop loosely had his arms around her shoulders. The boy was laying slightly above her on the blanket so their height difference wasn’t notable, otherwise the pokemon were sure their positions would be swapped.

The adorable cuddling was probably out of need for warmth, Nova reasoned in her head, though she did shoot her trainer a deadpan look as another thought crossed her mind. If not, are you really that dense even to yourself my friend?

With that, Nova stepped up, bent over and wrapped her arms around her trainer’s waist before she began to carefully pull the girl away. What the fire type did not expect was for Alira to groan minutely in sleep and tighten her grip on Hop.

Nova shot Rillaboom a “freaking HELP ME PLEASE” look and the grass type restrained chuckling at the rabbit’s expense before moving close and grabbing his trainer. With that they began to try to pull their trainers apart, which was made difficult when Hop tightened his grip on Alira and dug his hands into her jacket.

Nova huffed, narrowing her eyes at the offending hands and removed one paw from Alira’s waist and tried to pry one of his hands off her jacket.

The rabbit and gorilla pokemon froze as the two humans shifted, still thankfully asleep but they shifted closer to each other. The pokemon shared a deadpan look and silently sighed. This was going to take some doing.

Almost twenty minutes later, after a lot of panicked freezings and panic induced heart pounding when the humans made noses or so much as twitched, they managed to finally separate the two trainers. With a relieved breath, Nova picked up her trainer, Rillaboom doing the same with Hop, and the two returned to their respective tents.

Nova set Alira on her sleeping bag before settling beside her trainer, sleep soon claiming the pokemon after the ordeal that was prying her trainer from Hop.

________________________________________________________________​

Alira dreamed she was walking through the slumbering weald, fog nowhere in sight, revealing how magical it truly was with little colorful fairy lights flickering in and out of sight, but something was different about her.

Her hair was longer for one, reaching her waist, and at the ends curled into ringlets, and she wore a dress with long, large sleeves that covered her hands and arms with boots that reached her thighs.

“I dare say Heather,” A familiar voice began to her left and she turned her head, meeting the golden amber gaze of Hop, but it was different with him too. His hair was so much longer at the base of his hairline, having a medium length ponytail while the rest of his hair was short, and he wore attire fitting of a noble.

“I have NEVER seen so many nobles turn green than when you introduced yourself to the other lords and ladies and rulers of this land and continent.” ‘Hop’ continued, laughing freely while she felt a weak smile tug at her expression. “It was the most amusement I’ve had for ages!”

“Well…” Her voice was whisper-like, so very quiet and soft. “When you’re the bastard daughter of king Ulric of Kanto, one who’s not known for letting any bastards live and is ruthless to his enemies, I surely garnered some fearful stares if my father couldn’t put a bastard like me out of living as it is.”

“Now, none of that ‘bastard’ nonsense my dear Heather.” He placed a hand on her shoulder and pulled her close, still walking as she felt her shoulders stiffen, expecting pain but why- “You are a very lovely young lady, and a clever one too, for you figured out where to find that wizard so we could stop the darkness long before I did, and we found Zen and Zacia again in his care as well!”

“Lord Acaeus-” She began, feeling red creeping up her neck at his praise as her shoulders relaxed.

“Nope! Not lord, just Acaeus or Ace.” He smiled gently at her. “We are the saviors and king and queen of this land after our actions several moons ago my dear, formalities you can forget.”

“...You are the strangest prince I’ve ever met, and I served quite a few lords as a maid before I found Zacia.” She shook her head, smiling softly. “Very well my friend. It shall take me a long while to get accustomed to these strange circumstances, but I shall do my best to forgo formalities with you, Lor-,erm...Ace.”

“That’s the spirit!” He beamed at her before grabbing her hand and bolting ahead, pulling her along as he continued. “Now let’s go get Zen and Zacia, I heard from queen Milisandia of Unova that some strange black and white dragons are causing her kingdom a mighty deal of havoc, and they aren’t alone either, they have human partners like Zen and Zacia with us!”

“Oh my gods!” Heather gasped. “We need to go and help her so her newborn kingdom isn’t razed to the ground and the other kingdoms don’t catch wind of this then!”

___________________________________________________________________​

Alira woke up to being cuddled into something fuzzy and furry, with a groan she pushed off who she soon found to be Nova, still ‘dead to the world’ as her mother would call it asleep. The fire type had clearly been cuddling her and Alira had to push and shift out of the cinderace’s hold to sit up.

“Ugh…” She scratched at her hair, idly noting it was sticking up in places, the dream she had lingering in her mind, and she stretched, mumbling. “What on earth was that strange dream all about..?”

She sighed, reaching over to her bag as she let her mind wander and think about the dream she had. She was a girl named Heather, and there was a guy who looked like Hop, but wasn’t him? And the pokemon they mentioned… Zen and Zacia? Were they talking about Zamazenta and Zacian?

Ugh, her head twinged, she was not awake enough to properly figure the weird dream out, and then she noticed she had pulled the sword from her bag. She furrowed her brow, that had happened far too many times in the months since she got it for her to brush off.

She could recall the feeling she got the first time she laid eyes on it, nerves having been set on fire due to the disaster at the league thanks to Chairman Rose and panic lit in her veins, something clicked in her soul and beckoned her to pick it up.

When she picked it up and held it in her grip, a strange wave of calm ran over her and her nerves settled almost instantly. That feeling and calm persisted every time she held it, heck, she even held it shortly before her match with Leon several days later because she simply couldn’t calm down her nerves and needed to be able to think clearly.

She wouldn’t say she was dependant on it per se, she didn’t constantly have it out in her grip before a battle, but she also didn’t ever leave home without it.

She studied the runes on it’s blade, trying to figure out what they said once again, but considering it was missing around over half the sword’s original length according to people she talked to online regarding it(With a false identity, of course, she did not want to be swarmed with replies if it was found out who she was), that would be next to impossible.

She ran her fingers along the guard, feeling the dirt and grime that built up over the centuries it surely sat in the ruined shrine, and absent-mindedly reached into her bag with her other hand and grabbed the cloth and special cleaner she had ordered a while ago.

She dabbed the cloth with the cleaner and then carefully began to clean the one side of the broken blade first, she had taken great pains and efforts to get advice from actual blacksmiths and historians on how to restore or at least clean an ancient blade(and shield, as she knew Hop might want to clean his shield up) like this and got recommended this certain cleaner that wouldn’t damage it or Hop’s shield.

Her movements stalled for a second, eyes narrowing at what she called that rusted shield Hop had. She just referred to it as his in her head, not the rusted shield or Zamazenta’s shield, his shield. She’d been doing that with the sword as well, more often than not she had to catch herself when thinking or talking about it from referring to it as hers.

It was Zacian’s, not hers, so what on earth was her problem?

Lost in her thoughts as it were, she almost didn’t notice she had nearly completely cleaned this side of the blade and had instinctively moved on to cleaning up the guard, the cloth being quite dirty now from cleaning the blade up.

She peered at the runes now, letting her hand continue to clean the guard while she tried to figure out what they said now that it was cleaned up. She had managed to get an answer at least regarding what language it was in when she posted it online, ancient royal Galarian, but due to it still being dirty she didn’t get a translation, though now she had cleaned it up she could make out what it said.

Her mind ran through the alphabet she had looked up and memorized and after a moment, she squinted and mumbled. “...Of our legacy…?”

Yeah, that’s what they said, something “of our legacy”, what came before that she had no clue, she didn’t have the missing half of the blade.

She softly groaned and finished cleaning the guard before putting it back in her bag. She had to get up and make breakfast for everyone and grabbed her bag before crawling out of her tent.

___________________________________________________________________________​

Hop dreamed he was training with the sword in some field, sword clashing and slashing at his opponent without much room for error as he stared a man with golden hair and green eyes down.

“Roderick, don’t you think you’re being paranoid?!” He managed to shout over the clanging of swords, bringing his shield up to block a particularly strong attack from his retainer.

“Not at all my prince! With the number of enemies we have, and the new land we are standing on, you need to defend yourself if you want to survive!” Roderick replied back, arming to knock Hop’s sword out of his hand as he struck his sword forward, but Hop rushed forward with a yell, shield tilted just so and he pushed up with a jolt, knocking the sword out of his retainer’s hand with the edge of his shield.

“I.. already… know… how to defend myself!” He gasped for air as he put his sword at Roderick’s throat, gritting his teeth. “Need I prove my point more? I’m not helpless like my parents think I am.”

“No, no need for that.” Roderick backed up and once it was clear the training fight was over, Hop dropped the sword as if it burned him and kicked it away.

“You’re going to need to get over that if you’re going to be a proper prince Acaeus.” Roderick noted as the prince adjusted how his shield was on his arm.

“What? My dislike for weapons I’ve seen used for murder?” Hop-Acaeus’ gaze and tone were flat and borderline venomous. “I don’t see the point of being a prince if one uses violence to get things done.”

Roderick sighed and began to speak, but Hop-Acaeus ignored him and began walking off, shouting over his shoulder. “Don’t bother following me! I’m going for a walk and I desire to be alone with my thoughts!”

He walked, regardless of what his retainer was shouting, and eventually, the shouts died down as he entered the forest.

Fairy lights and lightning bugs lit the air of the woods as he walked, shifting his shield onto his back as he kept moving. Deeper and deeper into the woods, as he saw pokemon he had never seen before walking around. Some ran from him, but most saw he had no visible weapon and seemed just confused.

Soon he came across a clearing with a pond, it was dazzling really, but his ears caught the sounds of whimpering and his gaze snapped around before finding what was the cause of the whimpering and rushing over.

It was a dog pokemon, it’s fur was mainly red and blue with cream accents, but it was clearly very young, it looked to be mildly smaller than those yellow lightning dogs, the bolt hounds, running around elsewhere in this land. It’s red and yellow eyes were glazed over in pain, largely due to the wound it had in it’s side as it lay on the ground and kept it from moving.

“You poor thing…!” He knelt down, the wound was serious and already a small pool of blood was on the ground, thankfully it seemed to be a mere flesh wound as no bones could be seen but it had to have hurt, it looked like a small dragon had taken a chunk out of this poor thing’s side.

He couldn’t risk moving it, not with it in that condition, so he took a deep breath and prepared to attempt a healing spell he had one of the healers in the camp teach him. He put his hands over the wound and began to chant softly. “Spirits of life and gods of the world, heed my words and let me heal this poor creature, mend this wound!”

A green glow came from his hands at his words, and soon the wound was healed like it was never there and it definitely took a weight off this poor pokemon as it looked at him blearily.

“It’s alright my friend, you’re safe now.” He smiled at it, stroking it’s back fur gently and he swore he heard a “Thank you…” in his head before the pokemon’s head dropped and it fell asleep.

______________________________________________________________________________________​

Hop jolted awake, sitting up so fast he sent the weight on his chest flying with a startled “vee!” and he realized he sent his poor Eevee tumbling from his chest.

“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry Eve!” He reached over and picked up the silver eevee, petting her apologetically as she huffed and trilled as she settled against his chest, flicking his chin with a ear briefly.

Now that he had calmed his racing heart and let his mind settle, he reflected on the very bizarre dream he had just woken up from.

He was a prince in it? And he healed Zamazenta with magic? Well, there were fairy type pokemon so magic really wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, but that dream was strange. Really strange.

He scritched Eve behind the ear, surprisingly he hadn’t woken the rest of his pokemon, Sparky the boltund and Corviknight laying against Dubwool while Swanna laid close to Corviknight and Rillaboom.

He sighed, letting Eve down and stretched out, eying the shield sticking out of his bag from the corner of his eye.

That strange shield, he had hardly been able to get it out of his head since he got it and it hardly ever left his bag, he was just drawn to it and he didn’t know why. He also had to fight the strange urges to always have it on his arm, cause frankly, the urge at times was downright nonsensical and out of left field. He noticed the weird writing on the back of it at some point to be in some weird runic language he knew from school to be ancient Galarian, but he didn’t know how to read it.

It being so dirty and rusted also bugged the heck out of him, but he was scared of possibly breaking or ruining it if he used regular cleaners on it. Maybe he could ask Alira to help him find a cleaner that won’t damage it.

He brought his hands to his hair, tugging on it a little roughly as he groaned quietly. All these questions with no answers bugged him, so he hoped that when they found the castle they’d get some answers.

He then sharply noticed the smell of what seemed to be food cooking and carefully crawled out of his tent, Eve following him, and saw Alira was cooking at her firepit.

She had her back to him, but her jacket was tied around her waist, revealing her black long sleeves were ripped on the top and tattered on the ends, and she was humming softly to herself.

He stood and stretched up, making some noises that had her turning her head and her gaze locked onto him over her shoulder.

“Morning ‘borning Hop!” She smiled at him, stirring what she was cooking once before setting the spoon against the edge and turning around to face him.

“That’s a new one.” He chuckled as he approached her, not quite expecting but wasn’t startled when she sprung forward and hugged him, Hop laughing as he returned the gesture. “Good morning to you too Alli!”

She giggled as she let go of him and stepped back, rocking on her heels briefly. “You sleep well?”

“For the most part, sent poor Eve flying from my chest with how abruptly I woke up though.” He scratched the back of his head sheepishly, Eve yipping from his heels with playful accusation in her voice.

“Aww, poor little Evey~!” Alira chuckled, smiling. “Ah, but it’s good for her, keeps her on her toes~”

The trainers laughed when Eve started yipping and hopping around their feet, pretty much sounding like she was going off on them and, as Alira would put it, ‘reading them the riot act’.

The commotion from Eve woke the rest of the pokemon, and so their teams left their respective tents, yawning and grumbling while Alira went back to cooking and Hop went and sat at the table.

“How did you sleep Alira?” Hop asked, watching as she got ready to start putting the curry onto plates.

He noticed she hesitated for a second before answering. “Fine, I suppose…” She mumbled, tone a bit distant.

He picked up on it immediately and asked. “Alli, did you have a nightmare?”

“Wha-No.” She shook her head and got to plating the curry and rice. “Hang on, let me get this all plated so I don’t burn myself.”

“Okay.” he let her get everyone their food as well as his and hers and waited for her to sit down before he asked again. “Did you have a nightmare?”

“Not... quite.” She fidgeted with her hands, shuffling her rice around on her plate absently. “Had a really weird dream, like EXTREMELY weird.”

“Go on.” He encouraged her to continue when she hesitated and after a moment she did.

“I was a girl named Heather, I was walking with this guy who looked a lot like you..” Her expression scrunched slightly as she still moved her food around her plate and leaned her cheek on her other hand. “They were talking about things I didn’t really get honestly and it was weird to not… be myself.”

“Sounds a bit like my dream Alli.” He responded, making her tilt her head at him questioningly as she finally began eating her food. “I had a dream that was weird as well, I was some prince guy named Acaecus and-”

He jumped when she suddenly coughed, fighting to not choke on her food as he reached a hand over, worriedly asking as he put a hand on her shoulder. “Oh gosh Alira are you alright?!”

“I’m fine I’m fine-” She coughed, smacking her hand onto the table and finally cleared her throat, looking up at him with wide eyes. “Acaeus was the guy Heather was walking with in my dream.”

“What?” Safe to say, Hop was gobsmacked and his jaw dropped.

“Is this another weird case of us having visions of the same thing?” Her expression was wide and a mix of exasperation and worry.

“I don’t think so.” Hop shook his head, pulling his hand back and pausing to eat before continuing. “There was no girl named Heather in my dream, I was just training with some guy, then I wandered into the woods and found what looked to be a very young and injured Zamazenta. Then it got weirder-I healed him with some sort of magic chant.”

“What?” Now it was her turn to be surprised, eyebrows shooting up to almost hide behind her bangs.

“Yeah, it was weird.” He finished his food after he finished talking and leaned his chin on his palm. “And the weirdest thing is, I can still recall it all very vividly, it’s not like any other dream I had.”

“Like a memory? That’s, that’s what it feels like right?” Alira stumbled over her words, stammering briefly, and she knit her fingers together over her half-finished plate with a sense of frustration at her stammer. “Same for me, it’s, it’s not like a dream, like a memory.”

“Like a memory?” That... was accurate to how it felt actually. “That makes a load of sense actually.”

She nodded, then looked over at their teams and hummed. “I should finish my food before Eve decides it’s her next target.”

Hop turned his head and almost laughed when he saw the shiny eevee eying Alira’s unfinished plate like prey, petting the eevee as Alira began eating her food.

“I still can’t believe you spent so long finding Eve.” Hop commented as he brought the eevee to his lap so he could make sure she didn’t jump across the table at his friend’s food.

“Hm? I wanted to.” She mumbled, smiling a little bashfully and keeping her gaze on her plate. “You’ve been my friend since I was young, I wanted to be nice.”

“You didn’t need to do that for me.” He reached across the table and put his hand on her free one.

Automatically, she shifted her hand and laced her fingers with his, her gaze shifting up to meet his. “I wanted to.” She repeated, having difficulty with getting her words out like she sometimes did. “N...Needed to.” Her mouth shut with a click and her gaze drift down, she didn't always get like this but when she did, it was better to wait for a proper answer.

“Just... don't go disappearing for a week without telling anyone again.” He still remembered that terrifying week, after he got the fairy badge he made his way to Circhester and began trying to get the ice badge, it took him two days of attempts to realize that she hadn't shown up yet. He asked around the remaining challengers and turned out no one had seen her for at least two to three days, she had just vanished, sending him into a panic trying to find her, ending up roping Sonia and even Leon into helping him find his best friend.

He ended up finding her with Leon when they were making their way back to Circhester and were in the cold part of route eight. They literally stumbled across her camp, having to duck a pryo ball Nova almost beaned the both of them with and finding out the raboot evolved, the rest of her team milling around the camp normally. Hop had rushed into her tent, finding her passed out with a dream ball clenched tightly in a hand.

When she had woken up, she immediately hugged Hop when she saw him, about squeezing the daylights out of him before giving him the pokeball with a simple “For you!” Said pokeball had Eve in it and even now he didn't know why she went and got Eve for him.

“To be fair, I didn't plan on being absent for so long, but I don't plan on doing that again.” She replied, finishing her food not long after and stretching her arms above her head. “We should pack up and get going when our food settles enough.”

“Yeah, that sounds good to me.” He nodded, stretching as well and laughing when Eve took that opportunity to leap across the table to get at Alira’s plate. “H-Hey Eve!”

“Go ahead, there’s not much left.” Alira laughed as well as the eevee started basically cleaning the plate. “Little starving marvin~ You-”

“-You’d swear I never feed her~” He quipped, watching as she about lost it laughing due to him finishing her sentence.

He might not have admitted it the previous night, but he missed hanging out with her like this too.

(AN: I really hope I got all the errors, but I did my best and I'll fix them if they're pointed out! I hope to have a beta by the time the next chapter is done but idk yet, but anyway! More things have been shown and there's still more to come! I was also extremely tempted to cut this into two chapters due to the length, but I honestly didn't know where I could do that without it seeming weird XD I'll also go ahead in the morning and link in the first post the oneshot that came before this to explain the vision thing Alira mentioned, cause that's a thing. Sorry if not much has happened yet, doing my best to get there but it's taking a bit! I do have a picture of Heather's design I did in a dollmaker for those curious, I don't have one for Acaeus though. I'll also try to reply to everyone I haven't yet replied to asap! I haven't been able to due to low energy but I'll certainly be making an effort to do so in the morning cause it's 4AM!)

 

[Alira]

Okay, taking a break from writing to reply to everyone! bit frazzled irl which might show but I'm fine, I swear I am.

Ooh! Ooooooh! Sword/Sheild fic! I think yours is the first I've read! This is a treat!

You definitely have an intresting expansion and backstory to the canon scenes you're adapting. Giving an actual backstory to the Sword protagonist is also really nice (though the stuff about bloodlines was a bit... i dunno if cliche is the right word but I guess predictable?) Your prose is very vivid as well and you've got a good grasp on your main character and Hop.

Also. Wooloo. Sweet little Wooloo. The fact it has to be sheared like a real sheep in order to not be uncomfy is a nice touch.

But this is a good start to some canon rewrite shenanigans and I hope you stick around to post more.

Thank you! I'm really glad you like it so far and I'm super happy you like my prose, I'm honestly happy with my style for it so I'm really glad you like it ^W^

And I'm glad you noticed that little detail with Wooloo! It was a little thought I had and it really fits :)

i'm glad i read your one-shot first, because i feel like it lent me some insight while reading this... just little things, like your particular characterizations of hop and alira, as well as the background of the sword/shield relic stuff. you mention the uncanny sense of familiarity that alira experiences with the sword here, too, and that's brought up in the one-shot as well. i'm actually kind of wondering why the one-shot is posted separately? seeing as it's got the same characters and some of the same plot threads going on, it seems like you could logically fit it in as a prologue to this chapter.

Oooh, good point, I think I'm gonna keep it as a separate thing cuz I do plan on making more oneshots directly continuing it or happening before it, sort of making a multichapter fic but in a roundabout way now that I Think about it.

this is a really cool idea! the slumbering weald does have that little ruined shrine, where you find the sword and shield in-game, but i sort of just accepted that at face value and didn't think into it very much. the idea of it being a part of a larger castle system in the area is really novel and makes sense, especially since in the glimpses of art we see of the heroes in-game, they do appear to be of noble descent rather than random villagers. i guess you could make the argument that they're just depicted that way retrospectively due to their deeds, but i think your approach makes just as much sense, and it's an intriguing direction to take your fic.

it seems like you're going to be exploring the past a lot here, and i'm a big fan of that. i write a fic taking place in the medieval pokéworld myself, and was pretty disappointed at how sword and shield teased us with glimpses into the past but didn't go into much greater detail. so i'll be excited to see where you go with it! sort of scratches the itch that canon has left untouched, haha. and maybe it'll give me some ideas for my own fic, too... 👀

Thankies! I'm certainly going to have fun exploring the past, both in the medieval time and what happened only a year ago with the three legendaries, cuz I have a lot planned.

the others have already gotten into some of the lapses in grammar here, so i won't rag there too much, but it's sort of the same stuff that popped up in the one-shot. the fact that most of the reviewers so far jumped on it pretty quickly sort of illustrates the good that a fresh pair of eyes can do, so i'm kinda reiterating my position here that i think a beta reader would be super helpful for you here. it's mostly just little stuff that someone else can pick up on and fix before you push the fic out... but we've had this conversation already, so i'll leave it there. :p

Yep yep! Currently looking for at least two betas, that way if one's sick I don't bug them cause I don't want to bug anyone when they're dealing with stomach flu or something!

this is a cool detail! maybe it's A Thing but i've never seen someone write about pokémon being detectable through their poké balls before, and it's an interesting idea.

Yep yep! I saw it happen in my sword file when I got Zacian and wanted to toy with it ^W^

anyway, good stuff! the premise of this is really interesting and it seems like there's a bunch of backstory you've got in mind here, so i'm excited to see where it goes. keep it up!

Thank you so much, I certainly have a lot planned and can't wait to show it! :D

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I don't think "spoke" is actually a dialogue tag -- I don't think it can be used interchangeably with "said". English is silly and I feel like you can stretch things however you want; it does feel a little over-formal in this context though.

few things here:
1. dropped space between "herself" and the parenthesis
2. you don't need to capitalize the "she" inside of the parenthesis
3. "sheer" refers to really thin; you want "shears"
4. and most importantly. I love this little detail that she trims Wooloo like a real sheep. Awesome bit of casual worldbuilding here. You have a few other ones, like how Alira by default adjusts the straps of her backpack when she gets up, that really help make things feel alive here.

Oooh, good points, I'll go ahead and edit those when I can! And thank you! I'm super happy you like the little details I added in :D

I'm a HUGE sucker for breaking off internal monologues with things that directly answer the question. I like how you use it to keep the action steamrollering on ahead here; it makes things feel really intense and like they're all happening at once.

This battle is pretty short, but I like how intense and action-packed you make it -- it's easy to think of Pokemon battling as just a boring back and forth do this/dodge it, but you do a really good job of incorporating the emotions into it. Easy to feel like there's adrenaline rushing through!

But also like... why do bad people even fight other people's Pokemon instead of just axeing the trainer like this? Seems pretty OP, especially if it's coming from a baddie who doesn't care about "rules" and "ethics".

Yay! I'm glad you like how I wrote the battle, tbh I'm always worried about how I write fast-paced action so I'm really happy you like it!

As for the last point, I'm going to assume it's either a general world rule to not go after a trainer, or it's the fact "Oh my god this is a kid I'm fighting a ACTUAL KID I CANT GO AFTER THEM-"(Ngl, from what I know of at least N from Black/White he would probably be thinking that? Never played Black/White so idk. Same with the guys from Ruby/Sapphire/ORAS, Maxxie and what's his toes don't seem the type to go after the trainer themselves), but since Hop and Alira are teenagers/legal adults that doesn't click, or it just doesn't occur or they want to take out the pokemon first before going after the trainer. Though...That's not quite the reasoning for Oleana going after Alira, partially is and isn't, but spoilers!

Stray comma here.

There's been a lot of feedback given on the structure of this chapter, so I don't really want to repeat it back to you haha.

Which means I just get to focus mostly on things I enjoyed! First chapters are always a lot of fun, and you do a great job of jumping us headlong into the conflict -- there's some mysterious history that we're going to explore, a lot of lore additions from the games, and a really fun pair of characters. Postgame fics are a lot of fun because you can sort of circumvent the new trainer vibes and jump headlong into what it means for an accomplished trainer to go on adventures and continue to learn and grow, and it looks like you've got great plans set up for this.

My favorite bits are where you start adding your own tweaks to the Sword/Shield world. Galar as a concept is really fascinating and I think there's a lot of room for people to add their own details (the additions to the shrine in the Slumbering Weald, the foggy lore, Alira shearing her wooloo). The post-game is also criminally neglected so I think you've picked a great place to focus on here. I think Sword Protagonist and Hop are also a little vanilla in the games, so I'm excited to see where you take these guys! Alira already feels like she's got some spunk in her; I'm getting some serious Frozen II vibes from this setup.

Thank you for sharing, and looking forward to seeing where you end up taking things from here!

Running out of steam so words aren't working with me very well, but thank you so much! The postgame gave me a lot of ideas and while I actually technically haven't finished it(I don't wanna fight Hop), I automatically wanted to do my own take on it, just minus the parts that bugged the writer in me lol, plus I get to expand on my favorite region as well as go to a lot of places and that's a lot of fun! :D

Thank you for reviewing! I look forward to everything I have planned and I hope it'll be as fun to read as it is for me to write!


And with that, I also thank everyone who's left a review so far again if I haven't already! :D

 

[Alira]

Chapter 3: “Maybe this nudge will speed these young pups along…”
(AN: Aka the chapter I wonder how much/many things that happened to me I can put into Alira before it gets annoying ^^;;; TW: Very brief vauge mention of gore!)

Unsurprisingly, the woods were rather quiet as Hop and Alira walked for hours, there were the cries of pokemon in the distance but not much else.

So, Alira started to hum, swinging her arms back and forth and swaying side to side while walking. She couldn’t stay still even while walking and Hop shared that sentiment.

He himself played with a poketoy ball, tossing it around his hands, from hand to hand, up in the air, over the back of his hands, his hands were not still at all and he often hopped over any obstacle in the way, like an overturned log or knocked down tree if it was small enough. He had a lot of energy as it was so jumping around helped him get some of it out.

This continued for a while, only Alira’s humming filling the silence and the occasional fumbling of Hop’s hands with his ball until there was a rumbling cry from Alira’s bag.

She reached back and from the side pocket pulled out a scuffed friendball without breaking her stride and holding it in front of her with both hands, murmuring. “Hey hey, calm down. I can’t let you out right now, there’s not enough space and I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

The ball shook in her hands and that cry rang out once more, though it didn’t seem as needy as before.

“Who’s in that?” Hop tilted his head at the ball in her hand, swearing he saw the ball prior to this.

“Eternatus.” She shrugged and pocketed the ball in her jacket, looking over and snickering at Hop’s expression. “What?”

“Wait, THAT’S the ball you caught him with?!” His eyes were as wide as saucers and eying the pocket the ball was in like it was going to burst any moment. “I thought you used a ultra ball or something!”

“Nope.” She shook her head, smiling sheepishly as she scratched at her hair. “Remember how panicked we both were? I could hardly think straight and you had to help me throw it once it went giant I was shaking so bad, I grabbed a ball at random and oops I grabbed a friendball. Didn’t plan on it but that’s what happened.”

“Well, yeah now that you mention it.” He hmm’d, scratching at the back of his head. “Yeah, I remember that we weren’t exactly thinking straight, and you actually ended up fainting. Scared the crud out of me that’s for sure!”

“I did what?” Her head snapped to the side to look at him, almost tripping over a log due to not looking.

“Yeah, you fainted pretty good that day.” He tilted his head at her. “You don’t remember?”


Hop’s heart was racing painfully in his chest, staring up at the form of Eternamax Eternatus up high in the sky, murderous intent radiating from it as Zamazenta stood close to him growling back at it.

Dubwool stood nearby, staring up at the giant pokemon and it was only Widgyt’s wagging tail and just her fur in general brushing against his fur due to how close they stood to each other keeping the sheep pokemon from trembling. Widgyt was growling as well, but her ears were flat against her head and like it was with Dubwool, the pokemon next to her was the only thing keeping her from shaking.

Zacian stood close to Alira to Hop’s immediate right, the dog legendary was growling up at Eternatus as well and one of those long strands of fur from it’s cheeks was loosely wrapped around Alira’s middle, probably due to how badly she was shaking. This battle had gone on for so long, Hop was surprised Leon hadn’t come to yet.

Zamazenta then shifted, it’s shield sticking close to it as it let out a roar before bolting, jumping and ramming into Eternatus like it had done previously in the battle.

Zamazenta upon landing then barked at Zacian who lifted it’s sword, light encasing it like before and after letting go of Alira, jumped at Eternatus and slashed it before landing on the ground.

With that, both dog pokemon barked at the two humans as energy arched all over Eternatus and it groaned, clearly weakened enough to-

“This is it Alli!” Hop turned to her as she looked at him, her eyes wide. “Try to catch Eternatus NOW!”

“G-Got it!” She was shaking so much her bag practically fell off her back as she dug her hands through one of the pockets, trying to find a pokeball and eventually grabbed one.

Her dynamax bracelet enlarged the ball like normal, but she almost fell over like it was too heavy in her hands and she cried out. “H-Hop help! I-I can’t-”

“I gotcha Alli!” He ran over, skidding on his heels to stop on a dime, and grabbed one side of the ball, helping her lift it before he said. “On the count of three! One, two, THREE-!”

At three, they threw it in unison at the Gigantic Pokémon, Alira then leaning partially on Hop as they watched the ball try to pull in the pokemon.

They heard it roar and squirm for a moment, making the duo take a step forward in concern and fright, but they about gripped onto each other as they saw it’s form flicker with the red light signature of the pokeball working. Then it was suddenly pulled towards the pokeball, becoming so bright they had to cover their eyes until the ball shut with a loud clack and fell to the ground, shaking the ground as it landed.

It shook once, twice, Alira separated from Hop to step towards it, shaking so much but muttering. “Please please please please stay in there…!” And Hop was desperately praying alongside her that it stayed-

Thrice. Then, it flashed and shrunk back to normal size, a resounding click echoing through the air and Hop about fell over in relief as he cheered while Alira walked over, bending down on shaking legs to pick up the ball from the crater.

She stood up long enough for Hop to see her pocket it, then she promptly tipped over and started to fall.

“Alira!” He rushed to catch her, but surprisingly, Zacian rushed over and caught her on it’s back, form flashing as it returned to that powered down form it had with the rusted sword held in it’s mouth.

The dog pokemon whined softly as it lowered itself to the ground, and Hop helped it rest her on the ground. She was out like a light, though after Zacian nosed her neck for a moment, the relieved huff it let out Hop assumed meant she was okay.

Zacian laid the rusted sword next to her and nosed her hand briefly before backing up and Zamazenta came over, form flashing as well and it was suddenly holding the rusted shield in it’s mouth when it reverted to it’s powered down form.

It carefully laid the shield by Hop and nosed his hand almost insistently, and he petted it gently. “Thank you for helping us.”

It almost seemed to hum in response, giving him a strange but warm look as it gave his hand one last nuzzle before it joined Zacian.

The dog duo turned to two humans and howled briefly before jumping off and into the sky where they disappeared from sight.


“Huh. No wonder my memories go blank right after I picked up the ball.” She crossed her arms, brow furrowing.

“I had to explain what happened to the paramedics after, they were seriously concerned about you and Leon.” He then crossed his arms, giving her a look. “You didn’t tell me you nearly broke your ankle during the battle when one of Eternatus’ attacks knocked us back, the paramedics had to tell me that.”

“I... honestly didn’t notice?” That half-smile pulled at her face again. “With what was going on I hardly noticed much if anything not related to Eternatus.”

“Well, I really get that, but other than that you need to be more careful of that.” He frowned. “You’ve always not noticed if you’re hurt, even when we were younger, I don’t want you to get hurt seriously and not notice until it’s too late.”

“I promise.” She held up her left pinky finger to him and he didn’t hesitate to link his own right pinky with hers as she smiled.

“Good!” He grinned, even while noticing the deformation of the tip of her pinky, the very tip being very small and slightly tight feeling with a faint tiny scar visible on both sides. “You mind telling me what’s up with your pinky now? I never thought to ask before so I’m a bit curious.”

“Well, it’s probably what gives me that not noticing if I get hurt.” She giggled a tad nervously, shifting around to Hop’s other side so she could still link her finger with his. “But ah, mishap with a car door. It was a old van with a sliding back door, I was… Five? I’m pretty sure.” She bit her lip. “I don’t remember everything and practically none of the pain mind you, but I was pulling myself into the car with my left hand gripping the divide between the passenger door and the back door, then suddenly my brother slammed the back door on my hand.”

“The more I hear about this mysterious brother of yours, the more I despise him.” He scowled, shifting to hold her hand tightly in his own.

“If you dislike my brother, just wait till somehow my father comes up in a topic.” She offhandedly remarked and shrugged absently. “Anyhow. Tip of my pinky nearly got cut completely off, mom said my nail was only on by a sliver of skin, parents got me to the hospital soon after, I just remember putting my hand in a bowl of ice, being in a car, the next thing I know I’m in a hospital room.”

She then snorted in amusement. “Now, I hardly remember much after that, side from telling my dad to turn off the light so I could sleep and the nurse kept turning it back on, but apparently, I threw one hell of a fit when they were trying to get an x-ray of my pinky. Like, I was apparently thrashing around and I knocked three guys trying to hold me down into the wall, knocked two into a surgical table, AND-” she broke off into a fit of giggles. “I ripped a hole in my dad’s tie with my teeth before they managed to sedate me.”

“Gosh, you were one crazy child, and you were only FIVE?” Hop’s eyes were wide with astonishment and amusement.

“Yep, five and I was one feral little girl when in pain.” She laughed. “I had to have a cast on my finger for a good while, a month or more at most I think? Left my pinky looking like this.” She held their joined hands up with her pinky sticking out.

“I hope there’s no more gruesome stories like this in your past.” He gripped her hand a bit tighter and was never more glad she moved to Galar when she did. Sounded like her life in Sinnoh wasn’t a nice one.

“Nope, 'side from getting really bad cuts on my right knee that left scars thanks to a bad and ratty desk, none I can remember.” She shrugged, then promptly yelped as she nearly tripped on something. “Aiee!”

“Alli-!” He gripped her hand, dug his feet in, and pulled, keeping her from falling on her face. “You alright?”

“Yeah, sheesh, what the heck did I trip on?” She looked down once she got her balance back and about choked. “Holy heck!”

Hop looked down and what seemed to be part of a pillar, a stone one, was embedded in the ground. Following it to the right with his eyes, he saw the rest of it standing crookedly, vines crawling up it at odd angles and moss on it in patchy places. There was another pillar not far from that one in the same state of disrepair.

“Woah.” he breathed out, walking over with her to one of the standing pillars and inspecting it. “It looks almost identical to the arch in the shrine, just minus the arch part.”

“...Look, there’s, uh, walking stones!” Alira pointed to the ground and sure enough, an array of stones were set in the ground, like a path that lead further onward into the mist.

“Where does it lead?” Hop wondered before beginning to tug Alira along with him as they followed the path, soon coming to a surprisingly crystal clear area of the forest.

It was a small clearing that looked to have been a meeting spot in centuries long past, there was a fountain in the middle of the clearing with a statue of Zacian and Zamazenta sitting side by side, heads bowed as if in prayer, in the middle of the fountain itself, with stone benches and tables scattered around the clearing. Some tables and benches were cracked or broken, but the fountain, it was strangely pristine, there were vines creeping up the edges but otherwise, it looked untouched by time or nature.

“Hm… This should be a good place to take a break.” Alira mused, slipping her bag off her shoulders and letting go of Hop’s hand to place her bag on an unbroken table before approaching the fountain. Peering over, she was shocked to see the water in it was crystal clear.

“Hey Hop!” She called over her shoulder, not taking her eyes off the water. “This is super freaky, the water in the fountain isn’t-ACK!”

She suddenly felt something large ram into her back and sent her toppling into the water face first. The water was incredibly shallow so she was able to shove herself up on her arms, coughing and rubbing at her eyes to get the water out of them.

“Alira!” Hop rushed over as he saw her suddenly jolt forward and fall into the water headfirst, thankfully as he reached the edge and leaned forward he saw she was fine, if rather soaked and rubbing water out of her eyes. “You alright?”

“Yeah, did you see what hit me?” She shifted into a sitting position so she could rub at her eyes with both hands.

“Nothing hit you, you just jolted and fell in.” He shook his head, then noticing how clear the water was. “Holy heck the water’s crystal clear!”

“Yeah, that’s what I was-” She was able to open her eyes and gasped, gaze behind and above Hop. “Oh gods!”

“What?” He looked around, but didn’t see anything.

“The fog, it’s gone, I can’t see any of it at the edges of the clearing.” Her eyes were wide with disbelief.

Hop furrowed his brows and looked around once more, but the fog was still there. “No it isn’t.”

“I’m telling you it’s-gah!” Alira tried to get up, but her foot slipped on some moss under the water and she fell back into the water with a splash that hit Hop’s upper torso and face, making him recoil with a sputter.

“Aaaah I’m so so sorry Hop! I didn’t mean to do that!” Alira panicked, afraid she might have upset him and already frazzled from the sudden trip into the water.

“It’s fine Alli! It’s just some water, no skin off my back.” He rubbed his eyes with his hands and then the sleeve of his jacket, blinking his eyes open and then he reached over. “Here, grab on so you don’t slip again.”

She frowned but nodded, reaching and grabbing his hand. He helped her out of the water fountain and turned around to grab her bag so she could get changed due to being completely soaked, only to jump back and nearly end up taking a trip into the fountain himself. “The heck?!”

The fog was gone now, he could not see a single bit of fog anywhere now and he knew fog couldn’t clear up so quickly, not that fast.

“Aha, so it’s not just me seeing things!” If she wasn’t sopping wet she probably would have jumped in the air, but was more occupied peeling her soaking wet jacket off and thanking the fact she still wore her black shirt today.

“How the heck is this possible?” Hop shook his head, squinting as he looked around before sighing. “This mystery will need to wait for a moment, want me to set up my tent so you can get changed?” He shifted his backpack off his back as he looked over his shoulder at his best friend wringing out her jacket.

“Please, I have a few extra changes of clothes in my bag and I’d... rather not change behind a tree.” She flushed red as an embarrassed smile pulled at her expression and her brow furrowed, gaze looking anywhere but at Hop.

“Alright, one moment Alli!” He nodded before quickly getting his tent out, setting it up in enough time for Alira to rummage through her bag and find her changes of clothes, briefly pausing on what she wanted to change into before deciding and setting the clothes and shoes aside in a folded pile.

She draped her jacket on a mostly unbroken bench to dry right before Hop came out of his tent, giving her a thumbs-up as he stood which she nodded at before ducking into the tent quickly with her clothes in hand.

While Hop waited for her to finish getting changed, he went over to the fountain, peering suspiciously at the water before using a spare water bottle he had to fill it with the water. He may not know exactly if the water was the cause of them suddenly not seeing the fog, but he could get it checked out by a professor once they got back after they found the castle of the two heroes.

He shivered as a cold wind brushed by him, tightening the cap on the bottle before looking around warily, on the lookout for anything he couldn’t see before a hand on the ball with Dubwool in it. He didn’t see anything, so he sighed and let go of the pokeball in time for him to hear Alira leave the tent.

“All changed now Alli?” He looked over his shoulder, only to quickly spin around as he saw what she was wearing.

She was using a small towel she had to dry her hair with one hand as she stood, her other hand carrying her wet clothes, but the fact she was wearing a long-sleeved, white pleated dress with a belt around the middle and wearing black cropped leggings under it was a major switch from what she normally wore. She swapped her trainers for brown loafers with short socks as well.

“Yeah, all done and out of my wet clothes.” She placed her soaked clothes on the table her bag was on, looking over at Hop and tilting her head. “What’s with the look?”

“Well, you don’t usually wear dresses mate.” he scratched the back of his head, trying to figure out how to word this. “Guess I’m not used to it is all.”

“You’re not the only one.” She gave a small shrug before beginning to arrange her wet clothes on various parts of the table or nearby benches to dry in the sun. “I don’t normally wear them cause I’m not normally comfortable wearing them in public, you know.” She shrugged again. “I don’t mind if it’s just around people I know and trust though, like you.”

“I…” He found himself at a mild loss as to what to reply to that with as he watched her move around and place her wet clothing in sunny spots to dry.

It wasn’t like she hadn’t said something like that before, hardly, as she often trusted him with more than she trusted her mother and said so on more than one occasion, but he explicitly remembered when she was fourteen saying something like “I’ll die before I wear anything with a skirt” cause of rumors she had dealt with back in her hometown of sick people using mirrors to look under a girl’s skirt, leading to her paranoia regarding them.

So her feeling comfortable enough to wear a dress of all things around him surprised him. Though, she was wearing thick black leggings so that probably aided her in feeling comfortable to wear that dress. Still though...

“Thank you.” He finally found himself saying as she fluffed out her black shirt, her face scrunching at the resulting water flicking off it as she set it on a table broken in half as he gave her a warm smile. It honestly touched him deeply.

“Not a problem Hops.” She turned and smiled at him. “How ‘bout we make camp? It’s almost lunch and we were walking for gosh knows how long and it’ll give my clothes a chance to dry.”

“Sounds like a plan!” He grinned, getting to setting up his firepit as she did the same, not setting her tent up as they weren’t going to stay there for the night.

Once Alira’s firepit and their pots were set up, they let their pokemon out of their balls and went about making lunch, leaving their pokemon to explore the clearing.

Eve shook her fur once she was out of her ball, the silverite eevee looking around curiously at her surroundings before spotting the fountain. She bounded over to it, hopping up on the edge of it to peer in and letting out an excited “Vee!” when she saw it had water in it.

She wasted no time in jumping in with a large splash, said splash being large enough to hit one too-close-to-the-fountain Nova square on the back as she was kicking her pyro ball around out of habit. The fire type rabbit squawked and kicked the ball out of pure reflex, grazing Lily and actually hitting Rillaboom square on the back.

The roserade and gorilla pokemon shouted out of shock as they jumped, attracting the attention of their trainers, Alira only able to utter out a “Uh oh.” as Rillaboom sent one of his drumsticks flying, hitting Shiro square on the forehead. That made the water type sputter and the inteleon’s rapid battering it away from his face sent it flying once more.

It smacked Sparky square on the head, leaving the male boltund blinking in complete confusion as the previous four pokemon began shouting at each other. Lily at Nova with a sharp tone in her voice while Nova sounded indignant and defensive, and Shiro the same with Rillaboom.

Calethorne and Widgyt quickly rushed over and placed themselves between the shouting pokemon, Cale pushing Nova and Shiro back and Widgyt doing her best to keep the much larger than her Rillaboom back while Lily was easier to keep back due to being around Widgyt’s size.

The six pokemon were all shouting(or barking in Widgyt’s case) and at that point, the two trainers snapped out of their stupor, and Hop rushed forward while Alira scanned the ground for something before bending down and picking it up, mind racing. I really hope I remember this correctly!

“Hey, stop fighting!” Hop shouted, and it did seem like a full-on fight was about to break out despite his shouting and Cale and Widgyt’s efforts-

Then some sort of gentle, flute-like whistling song rang out, and everyone froze, the pokemon’s gazes snapping to look behind Hop.

Hop turned his head, seeing Alira had her eyes closed, but with two fingers she had a leaf pressed against her lips and seemed to be... whistling into it or somehow playing it.

All the pokemon seemed to calm down as she continued to play and Widgyt closed her eyes, swaying with the song whilst seemingly smiling as Eve popped out of the fountain, yipping apologetically and seeming to explain her own part in the mishap.

Nova patted her head and as the pokemon began to converse calmly and seeming to explain what happened to each other, Hop walked back to Alira as she stopped playing that leaf. Her eyes opened and even she seemed surprised by how calm everyone was now.

“Holy heck that actually worked...” She whispered, eyes wide as she lowered the leaf from her mouth.

“What was that?” Hop asked, eyes wide as well as she shook her head to clear it.

“O-Oración.” she said, folding her hands over her heart, a warm, nostalgic light glimmering in her eyes. “One of the few happy things I keep from my time in Sinnoh. This girl I was friends with, her grandmother taught me and her how to play the leaf whistle, which can be done just using any old leaf, as well as how to play Oración." She paused, trying to think. "It's...Her grandmother said,”

She closed her eyes and said softly. “Oración can soothe even the fiercest rage in a pokemon and bring peace to those troubled.” Her eyes opened and she smiled as she lowered her hands to her sides. “I’m honestly surprised I even remembered it, let alone how to play it enough that it’d work, it’s been nearly a decade since I played it or played the leaf whistle at all. Had waay too much running around this noggin of mine in the meantime since then.” She rapped her knuckles against her head for emphasis.

“Well, I’m really glad you remembered it, I mean it stopped them from fighting!” He grinned and reached forward, grasping her hands in his own. “Plus it was really, really pretty to listen to, I’ve never heard anything like it before!”

“A-Aah, um!” Alira stammered, turning red before smiling bashfully. “Thank you, that’s really good to hear.” She cleared her throat. “Now, we should get back to cooking before the food burns.”

“Oh crap!” Hop bolted away from Alira to rush over to his pot, making Alira giggle as she returned to her own whilst ignoring how warm her ears were. She shifted when a brief cold breeze blew by her, making her glance around with narrow eyes before returning to tending her pot. That’s strange, it’s almost summer and yet there are cold breezes like that… Hm.

(AN: Song used if you don't know it is this one(Can you tell what my favorite/childhood pokemon movie was? XD), and I just want to say I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, especially the ending parts with the leaf whistle! Also, fun fact about her outfit with the dress, that one is actually from her super rare league card I made after reaching Circhester in my Sword file! And nope, I don't know what's going on with the chapter title!)

 

[Alira]

Chapter 4: Synchronicity
(AN: I apologize if this is a weird chapter, I've been having mental issues lately and I struggled a lot with this chapter, it just refused to cooperate so it might be rather clunky in places, but I tried and I hope you can enjoy it regardless? Posting this now cause I might need to take a day or two break from writing so I can regain some energy cuz I'm low on it as I've been writing nonstop and I don't want to lose my drive for this story.)

Once lunch was made and served to everyone(Hop sneaking in the fountain water into both pots just in case so their pokemon could see through the fog) and waiting a few minutes to let their food settle, they returned their pokemon to their balls before packing up their stuff.

Alira cringed as she noticed that while her clothes were almost completely dry, her jacket was still mildly damp before sighing and tying the arms around both of her bag’s straps, making sure it was secure and resting on the outside of the bag then slipping the bag on her back.

After nodding at each other, they began walking once more, off in the direction they seemed to be pulled in. With the obstacle of the fog now gone, they made more progress than during the previous hours as they walked, even when night fell though they did stop at one point to get their flashlights out and so Alira could change out of her dress after mentioning she didn’t want to rip the skirt if she stumbled into a thornbush.

With the fog gone, they were now able to see all the pokemon living in the forest, and there were a lot. A lot, to the point they were very surprised they weren’t tripping over them before when the fog was still a problem.

Lycanrocs, midday forms, midnight forms and dusk forms alike, ran through the bushes in small packs, Dedenne scampered from tree branch to tree branch, eevees ducked from one bush to another- just pokemon of all kinds seemed to live in these woods, undisturbed by humans.

And so, for the next several days, they walked and traveled through the woods, stopping to take breaks and make camp for the nights of course. They covered a lot of ground that way and seemed to be getting closer to wherever they were headed.

But the closer they were getting to that destination, the more strange dreams they were having at an alarming frequency.

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Hop was Acaeus once more, and it seemed some time had passed since the events of the last dream, as there was a small castle in the process of being built near the camp Acaeus was staying in. Not that he was in the camp for long. Ducking out of his tent at the crack of dawn before anyone awoke, he grabbed his shield and ran into the woods, laughter barely hidden as he ran to the clearing from before and looked around excitedly for a certain pokemon.

“C’mon Zen! Don’t be playing sneaky assassin again!” He called out before a large weight tackled him to the ground from the side, male laughter ringing through his head as he felt a big nose nudging his chin.

“And I thought I told you my name was Zamazenta!” The dog pokemon laughed as Acaeus pushed his head away with a hand, though he couldn’t do much for him practically sitting on his chest.

“Ah, Zen’s more regal, and I can’t pronounce your full name correctly.” Acaeus chuckled, finally shoving him off his chest so he could sit up and pat the pokemon on the head. “How you been my good friend? After last week when you took me on a tour of your absolutely stunning forest, I’ve been up to my eyes in ‘royal documents’ this, ‘sword training’ that, the ‘deal with the lunatic local’ problem and it’s driven me absolutely bonkers that my retainer wouldn’t let his gaze off me so I couldn’t visit you until now.”

“I’ve been well! Helped my sister and her friend with a problem and have been protecting the pokemon of this forest from any threats for the most part!” Zamazenta puffed out his chest proudly for a few moments before proceeding to flop onto Acaeus’ lap. “I have missed you my friend, though, it’s almost always business with my sister lately and I don’t often have the chance to talk with any pokemon of the forest. And I think her friend is a touch afraid of me.” He huffed an audibly amused puff of air through his nose and Acaeus decided to rub his ears.

“Ah, I wonder why. You’re not that imposing unlike what you’ve described of your sister.” He hummed, ignoring the mock offended look Zamazenta shot him.

“I am offended my good sir!” The pokemon squawked before breaking off into laughter. “Well, I’m not as it’s true, and she’s got a glare that can cut through ice and is the more...offensive out of us.”

“She sounds like someone my retainer might like.” Acaeus put a hand to his chin in thought. “Out of curiosity, when I can meet her?”

“Zacian is actually going to be coming by with her friend, she wants to meet you and make sure you’re trustworthy.” Zamazenta hummed, pushing his head against the human’s fingers even more. “Ah right there! There’s an itch that’s been there since yesterday I haven’t been able to get.”

“Wait excuse me?” His eyes went wide even as he continued to scritch behind Zamazenta’s ear. “When?”

“Well, as soon as she’s able!” As soon as the pokemon finished speaking, the bushes rustled on the other side of the clearing. “Oh, there she is!”

From the bushes out stepped a deep blue and pink dog pokemon like Zamazenta, only instead of having a ponytail it had braids on the side of its head, and right behind it was a girl, in peasant clothing, with the most striking blue eyes that locked onto his immediately, features framed by long brown hair.

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Alira dreamed she was Heather once more but she was being chased.

Heather hid behind a large tree, skirt folded it in front of her with a hand so it didn’t billow out from the sides of the tree, other hand resting on her chest as she tried to keep her gasping for air quiet.

Holy hell those drunk tavern idiots don’t know when to quit, she could hear their shouting from here and far from the last time she cursed her mother for starting up a traveling tavern business that took them to this uncharted land.

She hated working as a barmaid and dealing with twitwits making grabs for her rear or chest, and when the three currently chasing her didn’t know to back the hell off so she decked them with her tray she was carrying and proceeded to book it into the very much unknown woods.

She tilted her head to better listen and when she was certain they were far enough away, she booked it even further into the woods, she didn’t mind if she had to sleep out among the wild creatures and pokemon for the night, it was a far better choice than the one awaiting her at home where she knew her mother would scold her for her reaction and deny her dinner.

Maybe it’d be better to live out here, it might actually treat her more kindly than her mother ever did-

With a yelp, she tripped over a tree root and fell right on her front. Her head hit something, another root and her vision spun. She could hardly discern up from down and sound was distorted and muffled, she heard something but she couldn’t tell what.

Her hearing cleared up enough for her to hear what sounded like a dog barking and growling, the drunk idiots shouting in what seemed to be fear, footsteps running away, then nothing.

She shifted onto her back, propping herself on her arms to find a blue and pink dog, with piercing yellow eyes, staring right as her.

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One night, they made camp in the ruins of a VERY old cottage, and both their dreams made them wake up in the middle of the night drenched in cold sweat and wondering just what was going on the morning after.

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Hop was Acaeus again, but...Something very wrong was happening.

Acaeus was running, the skies were dark and he could hear people in his camp screaming but he paid it no mind, far more concerned with the pokemon that were absolutely giant running amok through the encampment.

He didn’t even have his armor on like he usually did, he just had his regular clothes on and he only had his shield.

He reached the edge of the camp and continued to bolt, having to dive forward in a roll when he dodged a bolt of red lightning but was quickly back on his feet, darting into the forest without a second thought.

“Zen! Zen!” He shouted, calling for Zamazenta as he knew that if anyone knew what was going on it was him or Zacian.

He reached the clearing in record time, only to see the only person there was Heather and she spun to meet him, eyes wide.

“Acaeus! I can’t find Zacian and Zamazenta is nowhere to be seen!” She ran over to him, nearly bowling him over but managed to stop before she did, her voice sounded very rough like she had been talking at a far higher volume than normal. “I don’t know where either of the two are!”

Acaecus felt his heart drop in his chest as he looked down at the former tavern maid.

If Zacian and Zamazenta couldn’t be found, what happened to them?

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Hop jolted awake, gasping for air and clenching the part of his shirt over his heart in his hand. His heart was hammering in his chest and he realized he was shaking, he felt like he himself lived what he just dreamed and that was terrifying. Even more so as he recognized the darkened skies of the darkest day, the chaotic sounds mimicking the ones heard his own version of from the streets below as he and Alira raced to stop Eternatus-

He couldn’t stay in his tent, he felt like he was suffocating, so he got out of his sleeping bag before quickly leaving his tent. He made his way to Alira’s tent, peering past the flaps to seeing she was awake surprisingly.

She was sitting up, resting her head sideways on her knees which she had hugged to her chest and was spaced out until she spotted Hop. She raised her head, tilting her head slightly in confusion and seemed to be silently asking what was wrong.

He opened his mouth before shutting it with a shake of his head, his eyebrows raising when she raised a hand in his direction before motioning him to join her as she straightened out her legs.

He hesitated only briefly before crawling in, ending up beside her where she immediately pulled him into a hug, one he readily reciprocated. Hiding his face in her shoulder as she held him tightly, leaning her head against his, he didn’t want to leave her embrace. He felt safe and didn't want to have that dream again.

The two eventually fell asleep, curling up together on her sleeping bag and sleeping peacefully now.

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Alira dreamed she was Heather again, and she was riding a Rapidash.

She guided her Rapidash to go to a hill she could see not far away, no saddle or anything as she had her arms wrapped around the horn pokemon’s neck, it’s cyan and pale purple mane and tail flowing out from behind it as it galloped across the landscape.

She crested the hill and with a gentle tug on it’s mane, it slowed to a stop and she looked back, giggling when she saw Acaeus catching up on his own Rapidash.

“Catching up slow poke?” She called out to the young man and he laughed in return as he soon joined her on the hill.

“Well, you’re one to talk, miss Rapidash-whisperer!” He shot back, chuckling as his Rapidash stopped beside her own. “You act as if you’ve lived here all your life.”

“I haven’t lived here more than a scant few months. You still haven’t told me where you’re from.” She rolled her eyes, ignoring how her throat hurt at how she was making it louder than she normally talked.

“Ah, it’s not important, I came here on a boat.” He shrugged, flicking his purple ponytail back over his shoulder.

She gave him a flat stare which he chuckled at, shaking her head. “You are strange my good sir.”

“No more than you, my dear.” He grinned. “I mean, we’re both friends with Zen and Zacia after all, strange is normal when dealing with talking pokemon.”

“Ha! You’ve a fair point Acaeus.” She giggled, resting a hand on the hilt of the very pretty sword he had given her. “I must thank you again for giving me this after I mentioned not having anything to defend myself with, I don’t know where you got it.”

“Ah, you needn’t thank me, I had it sitting around and I certainly wouldn’t have made use of it.” He shrugged, holding his shield aloft. “I much prefer my shield to a sword.”

“And I the sword to the shield.” She unsheathed the sword and held it to the skies as well.

They then heard a weird booming sound from above and the skies flashed red briefly as they looked up, their Rapidashs murmuring warily.

Thousands of tiny red glowing jewels were seemingly falling from the heavens, scattering from the larger red stone that sailed over the duo and landed in the field beyond the hill they were on.

“Falling stars!” Heather gasped, eyes wide in wonder as she witnessed this absolute spectacle. “So many stars are falling after that large one!”

“Let’s get closer! No one’s ever seen a star up close after all!” Acaeus beamed before making his Rapidash bolt towards the smoking crater.

“Acaeus!” Heather called after him, spurring her pokemon to follow him when he showed no signs of stopping or turning back. Though she had to admit, she was kind of excited to see a star up close.

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Alira snapped awake, taking in a deep breath and fighting not to cry out, gods her back was soaked, that dream wasn’t even that intense but-

Hell, who was she kidding, that big star that fell from the sky in it was a dead ringer for what remained of that black egg Eternatus came from over a year ago in the power plant and the mere idea of needing to go through what happened that day again terrified the living daylights out of her.

She sat up and pulled her knees to her chest, she certainly wouldn’t be falling back asleep anytime soon. And she didn’t, until Hop came to her tent, clearly having woken from his own dream and she didn’t hesitate to let him come in.

He probably didn’t realize it, but she could feel how drenched the back of his shirt was and how he was shaking so badly, making her hold him tightly and securely so he knew he was safe, that whatever happened in his dream couldn’t get him here whilst his own arms around her calmed her down.

That was the way things always were for them really, knowing or doing what the other needed even if it couldn't be put to words. They just knew what each other needed at any given point, even before the other was aware of it or either of them realized it, while growing up together. How and why they simply were like this, they didn't know, it didn't need an explanation. It was simply always Alira and Hop who understood each other on that level and that was just fine.

...The dreams weren’t the end of the weird happenings though. One night, something woke Hop up and he felt like he had to leave his tent to get some air.

When he did though, he was startled to find Alira, still asleep clearly by her closed eyes, standing in the moonlight, head tilted to the skies.

“Alira!?” Hop yelped but she didn’t seem to hear him, and as he got closer he heard her whisper something softly.

“Egoum adventus amacus…” With that, Hop had to rush forward as she collapsed and he barely caught her before she made contact with the ground.

“Nghh…” Her eyes blinked open tiredly and she nearly jumped when she saw Hop hovering above her. “Hop…? What’re you doing in my tent?”

“We’re not in your tent.” He frowned worriedly. “We’re outside, you were just standing there and said something weird, egoum adventus something then you just collapsed just now.”

Her brow furrowed and she sat up, looking disturbed but not saying a word, seeming to think.

And thinking she indeed was, remembering to be more specific what happened in the battle town once only five days before this trek into the slumbering weald started.


She had reached the top of the Poke Ball tier and was battling Leon, she had a froslass she named Seraphina out against his last pokemon, that inteleon he had since his last champion battle with her and she hadn’t failed to fondly comment on remembering that pokemon which made Leon grin.

The inteleon was looking pretty weak, so Alira saw a chance to end the battle, her free hand on the hilt of the rusted sword in her bag keeping her calm, but… she was also feeling very weird at this point.

“Okay Sera, use -glacius ventio-!” Her voice choked and a stinging sharp pain shot through her head, words alien even to her being used in place of what she was trying to say, Icy Wind.

But somehow, Seraphina understood her anyway and used the move in question, knocking the inteleon out and winning the battle as she put a hand to her head, the pain lingering and getting worse.

She heard Leon saying something, but she couldn’t understand the words and the next thing she knew, she heard clattering and the sound of metal hitting the floor. She dully realized she fell to her knees, propping herself on the hand that had the sword in her grip as her vision swam.

She was quick to shove the sword away, sending it skitting across the smooth floor as she gripped at her head, she felt weird and strange and not like herself-

For a few moments, even as the sound of footsteps rushing towards her rang out, she briefly couldn’t recall who she was. No name or identity registered for the scariest few moments of her life and she finally registered she was shaking.

A hand touched her shoulder firmly, making her flinch and her head snapped up to meet Leon-wait who was that face resembles someone else from long ago-’s concerned gaze.

He was saying something, a name, a name, Al-Ali-

“Alira!” The world and her sense of self suddenly snapped into focus, making her sway and he quickly steaded her by placing his other hand on her other shoulder. “Easy there Alli. Take a deep breath.”

She felt like she was going to pass out, but she breathed in and let it out shakily, hands coming up to grip onto his arms for support. It was okay it was okay she was Alira no not knowing who she was no nono-

In goes another breath, and while the headache was lessening, tears sprung to her eyes unbidden and she felt a sob building in her throat for no reason. Leon’s eyes widened and before she knew it, she was pulled into a secure hug that made her feel safe, she didn’t hesitate in hugging him back, hiding her face in his jacket as her shoulders hitched with silent sobs.

“I’m sorry I don’t-I don’t know why I’m-” She tried to get out between sobs, but Leon hushed her, running a hand down her back soothingly.

“It’s alright Alira, just get it out.” He shushed her, eying the sword she had all but kicked away, noticing the glow it had for a few more moments before it faded.

It took her a few minutes, but she eventually calmed down and realized how utterly bizarre her sudden fit was.

“Sorry, I don’t know what came over me.” She apologizes but Leon shakes his head.

“Don’t be, I’m not too sure if it was your fault to begin with,” He began, eying the sword once more. “How long have you had that sword?”

“About… over a year? Since the Eternatus deal.” She shrugged. “I got it during the darkest day to try to help with what was going on and it did.”

“Has that ever happened before?” He was thankful she hadn’t lifted her head from his chest or she would have seen his shocked expression at how long she had it.

She shook her head, then paused. “Well, no, but I haven’t held it as long as I did today. It…” She struggled with words for a moment. “I don’t know how but it helps calm me so I’m not shaking in my boots from nerves when I hold it even briefly, like there’s some weird connection between me and it cause Hop’s held it but he felt nothing. It’s why I was so calm-looking during the beginning of our match in the league ages ago, not going to lie I was really nervous to where I held it briefly before the match because I couldn’t calm down.”

Her hands gripped the back of his shirt. “I’ve never had a hand on it as long as I did today though, that was… strange. I hope that wasn’t considered cheating.”

“No, I don’t think so if it helped you think clearly.” He tightened his grip around her carefully but comfortingly, aware that she had some issues with physical contact and only Hop ever seemed to know what to do and what not to do. “I don’t know what this weird connection you and it have entails or what might be linking you to it, but be careful okay? You spoke some sort of weird language and were extremely upset just now, I don’t want you to get hurt because of it.”

She nodded with an affirmative hum, she certainly planned on that, that was for sure.


“Alira?” Hop’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts and she breathed in, trying to keep her shaking as minimal as possible.

“That’s... strange.” She managed, frowning deeply. “Let’s… track this if it happens again.”

“Alira?” Hop picked up on the strange tone in her voice right away, even more so when she pulled her knees to her chest. “Alira, did this happen before?”

“...Yeah, brushed it off before.” Her voice was so soft, whisper-like. “I didn’t think it’d happen again.” Her nails dug into her pant legs and Hop instinctively reached over and grabbed her hands. Her gaze flickered to look at him from the corner of her eye at this. “It’s connected to the rusted sword. I… I really hope that this and the weird feelings I’ve had with it can have some answers if we find the castle.”

He caught the fearful lit in her voice, even as soft as it was, and was quick to pull her into a tight hug which she sunk into without a second thought. For a moment, she thought she felt his heart beating in sync with her own.

Only five days later, they reached a break in the treeline and stepping out from under the shade of the trees and fauna, they were met with a shocking sight.

An absolutely large lake lay before them, massive in size, but on the other side of the lake from where they were standing, a cliff rose above the water in the distance, with a large, old castle resting atop it, an abandoned-looking settlement seeming to lay on the land off to the right side of the lake in between the cliff and them.

Alira let out a disbelieving laugh before absolutely shrieking with delight, jumping in the air as Hop cheered right alongside her. The two even turning to each other and grasping each other by the arms before jumping at the same time, grinning at each other before looking back to the castle they knew the pull in their beings was taking them.

Finally, their destination was within their sights at last.

(AN: Fun fact! The title of the chapter is actually the name of a english cover of a song that is one of the main themes for this story!)

 

[kintsugi]

Hey, me again! Just on chapter 2 right now because it's a bit long (and a solid portion of this ends up being grammar; sorry).

They kept going, minding their feet and yanking each other out of the way of any trees they almost walked into.

This paints a bit of a weird mental image for me -- if the fog is so thick that they can't see the trees in front of their own faces, surely it'd be too thick for them to see the trees in front of someone else's face, since that'd be further away? Although I do appreciate the sense of what you're trying to convey here that they're really close/have each other's backs, I don't fully follow the logic.

holding up the wire mesh and fabric with an arm

Haha, I've camped a fair bit but never heard of a wire mesh tent -- not sure what you're referring to here, but I'd be interested to hear more about this.
Also, while I love the humor this introduces, it does seem a bit strange that Alira, master champion who once stayed on a barren mountain for days without communication to find an eevee, has presumably camped a ton and knows how to pitch a tent.

“Having fun in there mate?”

You want a comma before 'mate' since he's addressing her -- it's the same premise as to "let's eat, grandma" vs "let's eat grandma".

“Not a problem mate.” he smiled back

Same comma thing before 'mate', and also the period after 'mate' should be a comma (dialogue formatting; you've done it correctly before so I think this is just a typo)

his Corviknight

Leon caught wooloo

Alira’s Alrcremie, Willowya

Your capitalization for pokemon flips a few times in this chapter -- in general I think you're taking the approach that you lowercase the species names but you capitalize the name if it's what the trainer calls them, like so:

I got Dubwool as a wooloo

But a few times (like the ones mentioned above), you either forget that or consistently have the capitalization flipped. For the "his Corviknight"/"Alira's Alcremie", I think you'd want to keep them lowercase since you're still referring to them as their species, not their name -- "his dog" fits better in the context than "his Spot".

Also, extra 'r' in Alcremie in that example.

“Okay, now to just..”

Extra period here.

Alira explained to a starstruck Hop as Nova lit the other fire then went and sat near her trainer.

Again, as a means of shedding more light on their relationship, I think this is effective, but surely it's pretty apparent by now that Cinderace can light fire from their feet? Maybe Hop doesn't know it in the detail that Alira does (the little dots of fur, for example), but Alira mentions the move pyro ball like Hop's seen it before, so presumably he's familiar with the concept. And I think the fact that the evolutionary line lights up their feet is pretty well known/also canon in the Pokedex, so this feels like something Hop shouldn't be terribly impressed/shocked by.

Hop ontop of Wooloo

I think you want 'on top of' here, and also, not a grammar thing, but I love that approximately 45% of this phrase is the letter 'o'

“You are too adorable sometimes Hops!”

“And you are too humble sometimes Alli!”

If not, are you really that dense even to yourself my friend?

Missing addressing commas in these, and a few others -- I'd just do a general sweep for times that people are calling other people by their name/a name.

“It wouldn’t be me posting if he took over and that bugs me but he doesn’t get it-”

I would just use italics to denote emphasis here if you're trying to stick to orthodox grammar.

Also, before this gets buried in the stream of grammar/one-off questions, I really like the character moment you sketched out here! It seems pretty obvious that Hop/Alira's relationship is central to the functionality of this story, so it's nice to have a pretty hefty chunk of this chapter devoted to them just being normal people, talking over their problems, being close, etc. I think you do a good job of showing how well they know one another and how open they can be with each other -- I feel like this is going to end up taking a romantic direction, but I do like that you're taking the focus on the more mundane aspects of their relationship as well. The little details like how Hop knows that Alira speaking fast means she's really bothered by things, petting her hair to soothe her, etc, go a really long way.

Within ten minutes they both were at their respective pots, cooking curry for their teams, and in around ten more minutes they finished cooking and soon plated enough servings for their teams and themselves.

Haha I get that in the games this is a short affair, but I'd kill if camp-cooking for ~7 was this easy.

“...Too bad the fog prevents us from being able to see the stars.” Alira mused idly

'Alira mused' describes the how the bit of dialogue is being said, so you need a period instead of a comma here.

from ‘ere,

Oh, interesting! Makes sense that they'd be British, yah -- there are definitely a few times in ch1 where Hop says 'here' without the accent denoted, though.

though that leads to the two forgetting to join their pokemon in their tents

Accidental switch to present tense here.

Their respective partner pokemon

I struggled with what this epithet meant for a while -- Wooloo looks like Hop's first pokemon in both the canon and here (although I feel like he wouldn't have worked here, lacking arms), so it didn't really click with me that his partner pokemon meant Rillaboom"

Almost twenty minutes later, after a lot of panicked freezings and panic induced heart pounding when the humans made noses or so much as twitched, they managed to finally separate the two trainers.

haha, I like the comedy here, but I'm also not sure why there's so much panic? Like, it's not going to be on Nova/Rillaboom if these guys wake up holding each other, so I'm not sure why the pokemon are so freaked out.

Also, you want a hyphen in 'panic-induced'.

“When you’re the bastard daughter of king Ulric of Kanto, one who’s not known for letting any bastards live and is ruthless to his enemies, I surely garnered some fearful stares if my father couldn’t put a bastard like me out of living as it is.”

I do like the medieval subplot going on here! I think it's fascinating and I'd love to see how it ties back in to your main story/timeline.

You have the word "bastard" a lot of times in this flashback though, which sort of makes it lose meaning imo.

“We need to go and help her so her newborn kingdom isn’t razed to the ground and the other kingdoms don’t catch wind of this then!”

This is! Interesting! What happens in Unova -- usually the dragons appear to make things right/they're literally embodying truth and ideals so it's hard for them to be on the losing side of a moral conflict, so it's really unique to have them showing up in a way that the protagonists will oppose. Do we ever find out what happens here?

regarding it(With a false identity

clean an ancient blade(and shield

dropped a space before the parentheses

Lost in her thoughts as it were, she almost didn’t notice she had nearly completely cleaned this side of the blade and had instinctively moved on to cleaning up the guard, the cloth being quite dirty now from cleaning the blade up.

I do like that she's restoring the relics, but I feel like realistically this would be a lot harder of a task -- there's a reason that people do this for a living, and while you don't have to go into the grim minutiae of gently peeling off flakes of rust with tweezers and looking at their carbon content or whatever, restoring old tools is a pretty lengthy endeavor that would take more than a little scrubbing -- there are actually a ton of youtube videos of you want a better reference. Also, given that they don't know what these relics are, what they do (except summon wildly powerful/legendary pokemon), if there are more of them, and if or how Zacian/Zamazenta are connected to them, it seems a bit dangerous/casual that Alira's basically just slapping them with Goo-Gone and hoping that nothing bad happens?

“What? My dislike for weapons I’ve seen used for murder?” Hop-Acaeus’ gaze

Should be Hop-Acaeus's

Also, interesting take on medieval morals -- I do find it a little jarring/Disney-esque when fiction portrays heroes from a long time ago as having modern-day morals, because usually what we see as right is so far from the mold of what they saw as right that it wouldn't even be a concept that they'd think about on his own. Like. The concept of murder/death wasn't really well-defined in the medieval era; it sort of was just a thing that was sad and that happened, but that ended up being inevitable -- be it from disease or warfare. Killing people at best would probably be seen as a peasant's job/"why do I do this when I hire soldiers", but there really wasn't the same aversion to killing in self-defense that there is today. A noble might vaguely toy with the idea that diplomacy is better than violence, but a rant like this feels really out of place, especially in a character snippet this short where we don't get to see much else outside of what the rest of his character is like.

And I'm not sure how you want to address this -- obviously it's a lot less fun/relatable to have a protagonist who's all "oh boy, here I go killing again", but I do think that keeping his thoughts in-line with the standards of the era are really important. It's a little strange when other works try to wash away the fact that historically humans have had some pretty bad/immoral ideas; it gives the impression that you're leaving something out of the narrative and it ends up erasing a lot of the growth that came out of people recognizing/overcoming that mentality.

“Spirits of life and gods of the world, heed my words and let me heal this poor creature, mend this wound!”

oh SHIT there's MAGIC; why did this ever get forgotten in the modern day??? really interesting plot hook there.

He ended up finding her with Leon when they were making their way back to Circhester and were in the cold part of route eight. They literally stumbled across her camp, having to duck a pryo ball Nova almost beaned the both of them with and finding out the raboot evolved, the rest of her team milling around the camp normally. Hop had rushed into her tent, finding her passed out with a dream ball clenched tightly in a hand.

You did mention your concerns that this chapter was getting overly long in the Discord, and I feel like this flashback is probably one that you could safely move elsewhere without compromising the structure of this chapter -- it doesn't really add much to the narrative right now, and it actually almost ends up steering the chapter in a completely different direction. I do think it's valuable to establish how close Alira and Hop are (and maybe also how crazy/determined Alira can be), but you do that pretty well in other instances in the chapter, so this flashback doesn't add much.

In general there are a few more grammar mishaps but I mostly flagged the big ones -- hopefully your beta feels better soon! If you want to self-beta and have any questions about the grammar things I pointed out, definitely feel free to ask! I just feel bad when most of the review is spelling/grammar rules instead of actual feedback, so I trimmed a lot of it out.

I like where things are going with this chapter. There's definitely a lot of plot hooks flying left and right, so it's interesting to see where those will land -- the ties to Zacian/Zamazenta, the reincarnations/past selves thing, and even just Alira's struggles with being the newly-crowned champion are really interesting venues to introduce to a fic and I'm curious to see how you'll explore them. I also like that you took the early parts of this chapter to nail down what Hop and Alira's friendship looks like, so that when things *really* get under way it'll feel more like there's some basis for how and why these two know each other so well plus they've known each other across multiple lifetimes, so.

This review ended up a lot more organic than I'd usually prefer, so please ask if I left anything unclear/if you have any questions! Will catch up soon, hopefully.

 

[Umbramatic]

Chapter 2 review!

Oh boy oh boy it's getting into the weird stuff with the dreams (i almost typed memes) there. Crazy ancestor shit here we go! Can't wait to see where that goes.

I like how well you characterize the Pokemon even though they don't have speaking roles. The scene of separating their Trainers in their sleep made me laugh.

I'm not much of a shipping aficionado except in certain cases (blame the gray-aro) but you manage to make Hop and the protagonist's relationship convincing. Nice work.

One complaint is pacing is slightly slow so far - not all that much actually happens overall in this chapter. And I want to get to the puppers. Good puppers. At least Zamazenta showed up in that dream - I'm looking forward to how you handle their backstory.

But yes this is still going places and I hope to read more. Eventually.

 

[Negrek]

Whoof, can't believe I managed to miss three whole chapters. Four whole chapters? A lot of chapters!

Things are starting to move along here, and we're getting kind of a better picture of what's going on with the sword/shield and Alira's fainting spells. I hadn't realized it was a whole year ago that she had her championship match! Thought it was maybe a couple months or something. But, in any case, I'm curious what the artifacts might be trying to draw her and Hop towards. After all, with Eternatus captured, the danger should be past, yeah? (This might also tie into some postgame stuff I haven't seen yet, heh.) The indications of Hop and particularly Alira's past lives starting to intrude on the present is a creepy one; Heather may to some extent "be" her, but presumably Alira doesn't want to lose herself to her former identity, either! I imagine once she and Hop start exploring the castle we'll get a better sense of what sort of peril might be causing these old memories to reawaken.

I hope we'll get to see Eternatus out of its ball for a bit at some point. Never seen one used in a fic before (not that there's been much opportunity for that yet, heh), and it's always fun to see how trainers interact with these awe-inspiring legendary creatures.

The pokémon teams here are really cute, and it's fun to see them interact with each other and their trainers. Probably going to take me a while to get accustomed to all the pokémon; there are a lot of them! But they're very cute, and Hop and Alira's relationships with them are sweet.

As a lefty, I also appreciate the little detail that Alira's left-handed as well. Don't see that too often! ;)

Just a couple of punctuation notes here, things to look out for in the future. One is that in dialogue when someone's referred to directly by their name or title, there should always be a comma in front of that name. For example:

“Ha! You’ve a fair point Acaeus.”

That should be, "You've a fair point, Acaeus."

Or here:

She gave him a flat stare which he chuckled at, shaking her head. “You are strange my good sir.”

“No more than you, my dear.” He grinned.

In the first paragraph, it should be, "You are strange, my good sir," with a comma. But you've already done things correctly in the second piece of dialogue, with the comma in front of "my dear!"

Also, its/it's, a tricky one sometimes... "It's" is short for "it is," so you should only use it anywhere the full phrase "it is" would make sense. On the other hand, "its" is possessive and refers to someone owning something. So here:

She guided her Rapidash to go to a hill she could see not far away, no saddle or anything as she had her arms wrapped around the horn pokemon’s neck, it’s cyan and pale purple mane and tail flowing out from behind it as it galloped across the landscape.

"It is cyan and pale purple mane" doesn't make sense, so you should be using "its" there.

Zacian laid the rusted sword next to her and nosed her hand briefly before backing up and Zamazenta came over, form flashing as well and it was suddenly holding the rusted shield in it’s mouth when it reverted to it’s powered down form.

Similarly, "it is powered down form" doesn't make sense, and here we're talking about a form belonging to Zamazenta, so we want to use the possessive "its."

One thing that bothered me a little while reading this was how strongly weighted the story is towards the past rather than the present. It's tricky, because to some extent you've set yourself up for that with the Heather/Acaeus scenes, which are pretty necessary to the story. However, in addition to those flashbacks we've been having flashbacks to times when Alira had a "sword" episode, and also some straight-up stories about the past, like when Alira relates the car door incident. All of these combined mean that the story in the present feels a little overshadowed by these other timelines, and the story kind of jumps around a bit as it bounces from one time to another. It's clear that what went on with Heather and Acaeus in particular is going to be important to the plot, so you're presumably going to need to have these scenes at some point, but I think you might want to consider whether you might be able to spread them out a bit more so there aren't 3+ flashbacks per chapter, or whether some of them can be cut/don't need to be introduced as an actual flashback. For example, the first time Hop/Alira dream of the past, they basically end up explaining everything they just dreamed about to each other anyway, so maybe you don't need the full flashbacks themselves and can simply leave in the part where they discuss them. Or maybe not all of the cases of Alira fainting need to be shown with a flashback but can kind of be summarized/described instead.

In any case, very exciting that we might have found the castle already! I wonder when Zacian/Zamazenta are going to show up in the present... Presumably we're going to see them at some point! Anyhow, hope you're feeling better and the writing's going well!

 

[Alira]

Chapter 5: Though we go by different names…
(AN: This was by far the most draining and fun chapter to work on, gods this was a rollercoster to write ngl. I'm not going to say much other than the next two chapters will be focused solely on the present after the absolute ton of flashbacks in this one. Oh, and I apologize in advance.)

It would probably take at least five more days to get around the lake to castle, but they were in no hurry now that they had it in their sights.

Alira lead the way to the abandoned settlement, the duo reached the outskirts of it by the time the sun was low on the horizon. The forgotten town was in surprisingly good condition, it was still run down and parts of the buildings in places had collapsed but it wasn’t just skeleton ruins much to Alira’s shock.

The town itself was huge, looking like it was once the center of some sort of hub with how old shopping stalls were set up around the road leading into the town to the center. It would likely take at least a day or two to make it through if they did stop to explore.

The center of the town had a large well in the middle of the plaza, it was in disrepair and had moss on it as well as missing a few stones, and if it was back when this town was surely bustling the two were sure it would look stunning if the all but gone fading paint on it’s stones were anything to say.

Pokemon of various kinds skittered to and fro through the settlement, eyes wide with curiosity at the new visitors to their home, but surprisingly were not hostile in the slightest, a kirlia even waving back when Hop smiled and waved at it as it stood in the doorway of one of the small buildings.

The two stopped by the well to rest their legs after running to the town in a rush of excitement, leaning back against it. Alira let out a giddy giggle, absolutely beaming as she ran her hands through her slightly overgrown hair.

“Now that we have the castle in sight, how about we explore this town a little bit?” Hop suggested and Alira all but jumped to agree.

“Yeah! I mean, this place is in really good condition so I’m super curious how it’s like this.” She grinned, eyes sparkling with excitement and unbridled curiosity.

After mutually agreeing to stay within each other’s sight or hearing range, the duo headed down a street and began to look around, peering into buildings and such.

Alira walked towards an old bakery looking building, peering in and seeing it was what indeed seemed to be a bakery set up, she could even see the ancient oven over the large stone counter, as well as the Dedenne and Pachirisu who were peeking out of the oven. Clearly that was their nest it seemed.

The two pokemon waved and gave a small bow, making her furrow her brows before waving back hesitantly. The Dedenne scampered out of the oven, hopping onto the counter as it’s partner sighed before going back further in and curling into a ball to sleep.

“Neh neh deneh!” The pokemon chirped at her before running along the counter before pausing and looking back at her expectantly.

“You want me to follow you?” Alira furrowed her brows as the pokemon nodded. She then followed the pokemon as it lead her through the building into what she assumed were the living quarters of the bakery. It wasn’t much, through the doorway at the back of the kitchen was a medium-sized room with an old desk and chair opposite a bed resting below a small window.

The small pokemon hopped onto the chair then the desk, running over to a wooden panel in the top of the desk and pawing at it insistently as it rattled beneath the Dedenne’s paws.

“Hey hey, let me get that.” she nudged the pokemon aside and rapped on the panel with a knuckle, then jostling it as best she could. It could definitely slide to the side, but it seemed jammed.

Sighing in frustration, she brought her elbow up before slamming it down on the panel, the old wood giving way under her arm. Brushing the splinters off her jacket sleeve, she moved the remains of the panel, surprised to find a perfectly preserved old leather bound book.

She picked it up, brushing the old book off with her sleeve as she saw a pattern burned into the front of it. A shield with a sword in front of it pointing up, mystical patterns surrounding it’s edges.

She squinted at it, the image being strikingly familiar and then realizing with a gasp it was what the rusted sword and shield made that day when they floated out of her and Hop’s hands, before smacking together to make that image of a shield behind an up turned sword.

Carefully now, she undid the tie of leather binding it shut, carefully opening it to see what looked to be the beginning of a diary judging on how the writing was formatted, but it was in ancient galarian and what’s worse was it wasn’t the one she memorized to read what the inscription on her sword meant, so the words on the page were nothing but nonsensical scribblings she couldn’t read.

Plus she was getting a weird headache just looking at the book for some reason, she shook her head, pocketing the small book and reaching into her bag, pulling out five oran berries and offering them to the Dedenne. “As thank you for helping me find this.” She smiled as the pokemon perked up, eyes wide and sparkly.

The pokemon chirped and squeaked in appreciation, taking the berries from her hand, stuffing one into its mouth before scampering off as fast as it could without dropping the berries. Alira giggled, a hand over her mouth over how absolutely adorable that little one was.

She shook her head, still smiling as she began to leave the bakery, hearing the Dedenne chattering to the Pachirisu who was responding with equal amount of energy now.

Meanwhile, with Hop, he wandered into what seemed to be an old blacksmithy. He noted that there were still swords and shields and weapons of all kinds up on display racks, like whoever lived here and sold these weapons just up and left without taking anything. Weird.

He walked into the forge, there was an iron anvil in the middle of the room and other things a blacksmith would use and need, though the anvil wasn’t seeming to be used for the proper use now.

Hop fought back an adoring “aw” when he saw a little riolu practicing it’s attacks, punches and kicks on the side of the anvil, letting out little battle cries with each attack, kick and punch. It was so adorable if he was honest.

After a moment, it stopped to put its paws on its knees, gasping for breath as it shifted, eventually tilting its head just enough to spot Hop out of the corner of its eye, making it jump and spin to face him.

“Ahh, it’s alright!” Hop held up his hands placatingly. “Not gonna hurt you or anything. I will say though, from what I just saw, you’d definitely be able to take on anyone who decided to pick a fight with you, that’s for sure!”

The Riolu blinked before seeming to blush, putting its paws together in front of it and shift shyly with a quiet murmur of. “Ri, riolu…” It then gave him a little bow which he returned with a smile.

He backed up and left the smithy then, walking out to see Alira leaving the bakery across the way.

“Found something!” She called out once she saw him, reaching into her pocket and pulling out the diary she found. “I can’t read it though.”

“I’m guessing what’s written is in ancient writing?” Hop tilted his head at her, eying the book curiously.

“Yep. Galarian I’d assume.” She nodded, then yawning slightly. “We should set camp in the town center, then resume exploring in the morning.”

He nodded and they made their way back to camp, finishing setting camp and making dinner by the time the moon was half way up in the skies.

After eating, Alira sat down and pulled out the rusted sword from her bag almost unconsciously, bringing the rag and cleaner she had as well. She began working on the other side she hadn’t gotten to yet, Hop watching her curiously as her movements seemed practiced, deliberate in a manner that was strange.

Then as she was cleaning it, eyes glazed over in thought, he noticed the subtle, slight glow of not only the sword, but her hands and eyes as well. As her hand with the rag on the blade wiped down, the rust simply vanished in a twinkle of sparkles and left the blade looking as pristine as the day it was forged.

“Holy cow!” Hop’s voice snapped Alira out of whatever trance she was in, glow beginning to vanish from her eyes and hands, as well as the sword. “Alira how did you do that?”

“What?” She looked over, confused.

“Your hands and eyes are glowing, as well as the sword and you just magically removed all that rust and grime!” He pointed to the sword and her gaze dipped down to look at it, eyes wide as she caught the last traces of the glow on her hands and the sword before it vanished.

“Well will you look at that… I knew it wasn’t just this cleaner stuff.” She gasped out. “How though? I’m not-” She broke off into a light laugh, thinking aloud. “I’m not a mage or something, though I believe in magic, sure mom was in a weird cult who used magic when she was younger but left LONG before I was born, so what the hell.”

“Think it’s cause of how close we are to the castle?” He pointed a thumb in the direction of the castle outlined by the moonlight.

“Nope, I did the other side of it weeks ago when we first started trying to find it.” Her mouth pursed and she narrowed her eyes at the sword. “I swear the longer I have this the more weird things I do.”

“At least you don’t need to spend a lot of money getting it restored.” He grinned and she snorted.

“God, you’re right. Not to mention I know whoever restored it would’ve flipped cause half of the blade is missing.” She shook her head, laughing. “My poor wallet and ears.” She yawned once more. “God I need to stop doing that.”

“We should probably get to bed so we can have a early start tomorrow.” Hop stretched, hearing some of his bones crack from being in the same position for too long.

Alira nodded as she yawned again, the two getting up before retiring to their sleeping bags, praying they’d get a dreamless night sleep.

But… Their dreams were far from dreamless.

In fact, they were plenty, long and far from what the two were used to at this point.

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Hop’s dreams were strange and jumped around, but he had a general sense of what order they took.

First was a scene laced with panic. Acaeus pulled Heather along as they made a break for shelter in a tower from the giant pokemon roaming and causing destruction in the wild fields beyond.

Acaeus all but broke down the door, dragging the smaller girl in before slamming it shut, dully realizing that he’d had pulled them into that tower Heather noted had the aura of a magic-user living here not long before they were being chased by a giant Ralts.

His gaze drifted around, spotting jars of herbs and spices and various things up on shelves around the room, a pot was in the middle of the room and the scent of the room was exotic if not downright weird.

A older-looking espeon trilled as it came out of a basket across the room, trotting up to them and sniffing at the two curiously for a moment before chirping and running up the stairs to the second floor.

Acaeus looked as Heather with his eyes and silently gulped, praying that if the pokemon was indeed getting its human owner, they wouldn’t kick them out back to deal with what was going on out there.

Footsteps then resounded, slow but steady and a gypsy-looking man walked down the steps, gold hazel eyes finding the two intruders immediately. His skin was dark as if he had traveled for months on end in the hotter months, dark hair long enough to look tousled and a thick bang hung down past his nose framing his mature features. His outfit was what Acaeus would describe as a traveling merchant’s attire, but the staff he held in a hand that hummed to Acaeus’s senses with magic told a different occupation.

“Hello.” he greeted them as he reached the last step, his staff clacking softly as it hit the carpet below his feet. “May I have your names young ones?”

“Errm,” Acaeus fumbled, really, he thought the man would ask what they were doing in his tower first. “I’m Acaeus Seiros.”

“H-Heather Reus Eisner.” Heather stammered, barely audible as her middle name surprised him and stuck out to Acaeus, wait, Reus? Isn’t that-

“Pleasure to meet you two.” The man smiled pleasantly at the two as his espeon and a strangely purple and blue sylveon circled his feet. “You may call me Markus.” He shifted his grip on his staff, leaning it against his other hand. “I presume you sought shelter in here from the giant pokemon running around?”

The two hesitantly nodded and the man took a chance to peer at Heather, eyes scrutinizing her face carefully as if noticing something.

“Huh. You’ve got old looking binding marks my dear.” He suddenly remarked out of the blue, making Heather pale quite a bit and Acaeus to swivel his head to look at her. “Whoever did those made sure to hide them with a spell, I wouldn’t have been able to see them if I wasn’t well versed in their use.”

Binding marks, the highest form of punishment to anyone with magical talent in Acaeus’s (or any) kingdom could get, it restricted the magic they could use at best or made them completely unable to use magic at all, which considering it was like a second heart for any magic-user was like carving their heart out with a rusty blade. And from the few times he was forced to witness the ritual, it hurt like it too. The ritual always left a series of tattoos on the person’s body, a sign and a warning to all other magic users to not step out of line or that would happen to them.

If Heather had them... but no, he was always informed on anyone going to undergo that punishment at his father’s request after Acaeus found out he had the potential to use magic and he certainly never heard of a Heather REUS being-

“Fortunately, it seems they were made by a complete and utter novice, it would take little to undo them though you would still have the markings.” Markus finished his sentence and crossed his arms, staff in the crook of a elbow. “Though you two look remarkably like two friends of some charges I’ve been tending to after they were injured by that black bone dragon creature, they’ve been rather worried about their human friends, describing them to me in case I see them, and it’s been a fight to keep them in bed resting.”

Friends? “You mean Zen and Zacia?” Acaeus put the matter of the apparent binding marks on a mental shelf to inquire about to Heather later and focused on the fact that this man may have Zacian and Zamazenta in his care.

He raised an amused eyebrow. “Oh, they didn’t mention that their friends gave them nicknames.” He chuckled, seemingly very amused. “But assuming you are indeed referring to who I have in my care, yes. After that black dragon creature hatched from the fallen star, they attempted to fight it after it began causing chaos, however, as they are not as strong as their parent they barely escaped with their lives. Foolish pups. I found them not long after and took them in, they’ve been recovering since then.”

“Can we see them?” Heather’s voice quivered slightly, hands gripping at her skirt to clearly prevent them from trembling. “Please?”

“Follow me then.” He motioned them to follow him as he went back up the stairs, the two young adults hesitantly following him as his sylveon and espeon trailed close behind them.

He lead them to step off the stairs onto the second floor landing, the smell of herbs here was strongly like the one that Acaeus was familiar with in the healer’s tent, and on two beds further into the room-

“Zacia!” Heather ran forward to the bed the aforementioned pokemon was on, the poor thing had several bandages all over her body and was out cold. “Gods you’re in rough shape.”

“Zen!” Acaeus ran over to the other bed to Zamazenta, sharply noticing the bandages around the poor pokemon’s neck and torso. He hardly stirred as Acaeus placed a hand on him, feeling his chest rise and fall with each breath.

Markus watched them carefully before sighing. “Well, it seems you two are their friends, I can both feel your magic signatures on them and theirs on you. And as such, I should tell you they are not in good shape. I’ve got them stable for the moment but…” He shook his head. “I don’t know what that creature did to them, but their magical energy is being drained, probably due to what’s going on outside. They might die if this keeps up.”

“Is there anything we can do?” Heather immediately asked, looking to the mage with determination in her gaze.

“There is one way, but…” He put his hand to his chin in thought. “It’d bind them to your souls in ways only you two and them could possibly know, and to add to this, I’d be required to remove both the illusion spell cast on you, dear Heather, to hide your binding marks, then promptly undo said marks so your mana pool which is certainly very deep now due to disuse is no longer bound. I doubt any of this will be pleasant, especially undoing what’s already been done to you I suspect will be very painful.”

“I don’t care. If it means saving Zacia I’d do anything, she already saved me once, it’s time I returned the favor.” Heather’s voice was firm.

“I concur, I would do anything to help Zen and I’m not about to stand idly by while he’s dying in front of me.” Acaeus nodded, thinking back to when he first helped Zen and how if given a second chance would always pick saving him, even after enduring the wrath of his retainer after he returned after he ran off into the woods.

“Very well.” He shifted, staff now being held in a hand firmly as he placed one end on the floor. “Firstly, Heather, the spell and binding marks will be dealt with. I cannot say exactly how much pain it will cause, as those marks look to be from when you were merely a child, but I shall endeavor to make sure it’s as painless as possible.”

She nodded and stepped forward, only the slightest quiver of her hands showing she was frightened as the mage raised his staff and began to chant, a glowing sigil appearing below her feet and previously unseen markings on her face flaring with light. Her voice hissed in pain, but she remained standing even as she shook and tears slipped down her face.

Then the dream shifted, and it was much farther into the future of Acaeus and Heather, during what seemed to be a royal ball.

Acaeus felt something twinging in his head as he dealt with another aristocrat, he had long sent Heather to hide near the back of the ballroom as while he hated dealing with these people and their political power plays, he at least knew how to handle them. She was raised as a commoner and while that made her a good person, it left her worryingly naive of how courts worked and how easily she could be taken advantage of if anyone knew.

Acaeus nearly sighed in relief as he finally sent that nosy aristocrat away, only to tense as he noticed a certain person approaching him.

“Ah, good day my fellow king.” Claude Von Riegan, king of the neighboring Kalos kingdom, greeted him warmly and surprisingly kindly. “You look like you’re having fun with all the nobles.”

“Ha, you have no idea.” Crap, Heather’s sarcasm rubbed off on him as Acaeus’s voice practically dripped with irritated sarcasm and he felt his forehead twitch. Didn’t help Claude’s aquamarine/green eyes sparked with mischief and amusement at the very clearly irritated and drained fledgling king’s tone of voice.

“Well, you needn’t worry about me bothering you for long. I just had a question.” The mixed race king smiled innocently, the smile coming easily to the slightly older young man as he blew the stray lock of hair in front of his face away. “Would you kindly let me give your queen a dance on this fine eve? She looks like she could use some levity and frankly a break from the nobility swarming in this rather stuffy ballroom.”

Wait what-Acaeus swiveled his head to look for Heather to see her practically dying as several nobles, mainly the queens of the other kingdoms, pestered her and she really didn’t know how to react. They were probably quizzing her on her binding marks which were definitely visible and god he needed to get over there but he had to stay here-

“If you wouldn’t mind, she’s… She wasn’t raised as a princess so she doesn’t...” The latter part was barely audible, but Claude seemed to hear him just fine.

“I totally get that your highness, she and I are alike in that respect at least.” He winked, a hand briefly coming up to scratch the stubble lining his jaw before he made his way over, shoving and gliding through the crowd with practiced ease.

“Hey hey, give the new queen a break, you may as well be suffocating her.” Claude smoothly slides between the queens bothering the girl and stood in front of her, his voice being loud enough for Acaeus to hear him from where he stood not far away. Claude then turned to Heather and smiled gently. “Hey, your king gave me permission so may I kindly have this dance?”

She blinked before nodding shyly and he reached over, carefully and gently grabbing her hand before pulling her through the crowd and onto the ballroom floor.

Acaeus watched as Claude spoke very softly to her, clearly telling her where to put her other hand as he shifted his grip on her hand and placed his other hand on her waist while she put her other hand on her shoulder. Then the two started dancing slowly with the music, Heather slowly easing into it under Claude’s patient guidance and hands (Acaeus was lucky he was taught to have a poker face when around nobles, cause he was certain he’d have winced numerous times when she stepped on Claude’s feet and the man seemed to not notice). Eventually, she got the hang of it and even rested her head on Claude’s chest, completely at ease now as she even had her eyes closed.

Acaeus felt something akin to jealousy make his skin crawl uncomfortably at that, seeing Heather dancing with Claude and being so close to him, it made him uncomfortable in a manner he wasn’t sure how to put to words.

“You alright there? You’ve been staring for quite some time.” Acaeus jumped at the sudden soft and mature female voice and turned to see who he recognized as Byleth Riegan, Claude’s wife and queen of many years now, standing at his side with a soft smile.

“Yeah, just, not used to this.” He managed to get out and she raised an amused eyebrow.

“Come, walk with me, talk with me away from prying ears. Claude will safeguard your queen until we return.” She motioned him to follow her as she began to walk away towards the entrance to a hallway. For a moment he hesitated, remembering all the nobility training his parents had hammered into his head to never ever follow if it wasn’t with someone he personally knew as they could be luring him to his demise-

But he was also highly aware of the reputation Claude and Byleth had as rulers of Kalos and while Claude was sometimes described as a schemer, he had shown no hostility towards Acaeus and even helped Heather out for seemingly no reason, and Byleth was always described as direct and blunt if she considered someone a threat no matter what was going on or where she was. If she wanted to hurt him or saw him as a threat, she would have already shown so.

He followed Byleth, thankfully the route she took him through the crowd ensured they slipped out without anyone noticing. The hall they entered was empty and dark with only the moonlight from the windows illuminating the hall, but Byleth walked as if it were no issue and Acaeus followed.

“You and Heather certainly aren’t the most conventional king and queen I’ve seen.” Byleth remarked softly as they walked. “Heather was raised as a commoner wasn’t she?”

“Yeah. It that easy to tell?” Acaeus felt his neck grow hot, he had done his best to teach her what he knew of nobles and how to act like one, but if Byleth noticed…

“No, but the fact that Claude was able to easily help her did hint at it, he had to do that many times with me.” She picked at the sleeve of her dress with mild annoyance at how tight the fabric was and tilted her head back, giggling mildly at his expression. “What? Is it that surprising that I was once a commoner?”

“A little, but it explains how you and Claude rule so well.” Acaeus scratched the back of his head. “You know how the everyday people feel as you didn’t grow up in the lap of luxury, giving you a perspective nobles often lack.”

“Yeah. Though I would recommend addressing your own feelings for Heather before something happens.” She then stopped and turned on her heel, piercing blue eyes framed by dark blue hair freezing Acaeus in place midstep, the question of what she meant by his feelings for Heather dying in his throat as she spoke. “However, I did not drag you away from the ball and Heather to idly talk though. I’m here to warn you.”

“Of what?” He felt the back of his neck prickle with cold chills.

“Of the group known as the Eternal Ones.” Somehow that name sent a chill down his back. “I’m not going to lie to you, prior to Eternatus’ hatching, I sent several of my spies and operatives to scout this land, see if it was worth opposing your home kingdom’s claim to it. What they found was disturbing.”

She crossed her arms and for a few moments, her eyes appeared to have dragon slits for pupils in the moonlight. “The locals from before any of us known kingdoms set foot here were worshiping some strange being they prophesied arriving in an egg from the skies and then they would aid it in hatching. My spies joined the group to watch them and the group are the ones who were helped Eternatus hatch, they-”

She swallowed, hands clenching into fists as raw fury flickered in her eyes. “They did blood magic, sacrificing at least three people, to speed up that foul creature’s hatching and would’ve gladly watched it destroy this land and the entire world.” She inhaled and let it out slowly, hands relaxing. “Fortunately, you and Heather seemed to make some manner of pact with Zamazenta and Zacian that gave you four the power to seal it away.”

Acaeus briefly was amused even she didn’t seem to know what happened that granted him and Heather as well as Zamazenta and Zacian the power to defeat Eternatus, but remained silent as Byleth continued.

“However, just because it was sealed away, does not mean that group went away.” Her hands dropped to her sides and picked at her skirt’s embroidery, she couldn’t seem to sit still. “They’ve integrated into your kingdom and from what I’ve been hearing, they are plotting something to get back at you and Heather. My operatives have been doing their best to feed me information, but it’s hard when we’ve had to keep this hidden from you and Heather.”

“What are you getting at?” Acaeus was very unsure of where she was going with this, though he had a suspicion.

“You and Heather, you are the strangest king and queen to ever rule, all the kingdoms are aware of it and many of them don’t like that you and your friend aren’t husband and wife. They say it’s blasphemous and shouldn’t exist.” Her voice, while matter of fact and honest, had a very distinct ring of sympathy. “Many have plots to dismantle your kingdom while it’s still young and then take and divide the land amongst themselves and the Eternal Ones will take full advantage of that if it happened. Me and Claude, as well as the rulers of Sinnoh and queen Milisandia of Unova oppose this greatly as you both have done nothing to earn the other kingdoms’ ire and we want to make sure they don’t succeed.”

She straightened her back and held her hands together in front of her waist. “What I propose is this; You two and your kingdom enter the Leicester Alliance my husband Claude is the leader of, Milisandia of Unova and the rulers of Sinnoh are apart of this and have been for a long while, and we will protect you from both this group and the other kingdoms as best we can and provide you our resources if you need it. All we ask in return is you come help us if any of us need it, we won’t restrict you from aiding any kingdom outside of the alliance if they come to you for aid so don’t worry about that, and if needed we ask you let our people shelter here if something like a war happens and we need to get the common folk not involved in it to safety.”

“It sounds like we would get more out of this than you.” Acaeus didn’t bother hiding his shock, gaping at her.

“You’re a fledgling kingdom, we don’t want to uproot a possible rose bush or apple tree before it has the chance to grow. Every kingdom deserves a chance.” She smiled gently at him. “And honestly, from what I’ve seen I don’t want it to be torn apart by the other kingdoms.” She then leaned over and lightly tapped him on the nose. “Plus you and Heather remind me of my students from long ago, and I’ll protect you like I did them.”

“You were a teacher before becoming queen?” He was confused and her chuckle did nothing to clear anything up.

“Merc, then teacher, then queen.” She giggled at his confusion before quick-stepping around him. “Come. Let us return to the ball, I don’t doubt Claude’s dancing skills but we best make haste before our absence is noticed. You can let me and Claude know if you accept after talking it over with Heather.”

Acaeus rushed to follow her as they returned to the ballroom, thinking over her words and offer.

The dream shifted yet again, to something that felt much more chaotic and after he had accepted her offer.

Acaeus was on a rapidash with Heather holding onto him from behind and he was following a few other people also on rapidashes, they were leading him and Heather through deserted streets.

They evacuated the town’s people from this district and were on their way to deal with the two dragons causing the destruction. Acaeus and Heather didn’t know too much about the dragons other than one was white, the other black and Milisandia said that apparently, one belonged to her husband and the other to his brother, though neither were the partners of the dragons now.

Zacian and Zamazenta were with them of course, but they were invisible and following the group quietly, as neither wanted to deal with anyone trying to pet them that wasn’t Acaeus or Heather.

“Hey, King Acaeus.” The prince-turned-king almost jumped in his saddle and turned to the knight at his side, spotting the girl knight, Ingrid, one of the knights the rulers of Sinnoh had assigned to him as a retainer. Her long blond hair was currently in a low and very thick braid, bangs cropped above her pale green eyes which were alight with curiosity.

“Yes?” he tilted his head at her inquisitively.

“I’ve been rather curious for a while now, why is it you only carry a shield and no sword?” He supposed this was a long time coming, and it wasn’t like he hadn’t been given looks for his choice of the shield over the sword and absolute refusal to use one, and as his new retainer after Roderick he guessed she had a right to ask. Not like they could make this trek through the very large city any shorter so he had the time to tell it.

“Well… As a prince I’ve dealt with attempts on my life,. Nothing new, as that’s to be expected with my status.” He began, feeling Heather shift slightly to better hear him, he hadn’t yet told her this either, had he? “But… One day, I was playing with my older sister, Ailrane, we weren’t more than children, she was set to be crowned princess as she was old enough to take on the title while I was old enough to begin training to take on the title of prince.”

Damnit, he felt his throat clogging but he pressed on. “Well, some assassins snuck past our retainers and they didn’t notice until they were on us. I was lucky in that Ailrane knew how to defend herself and had a dagger with her at all times being thirteen and the eldest of my parents’ children, I… was not so fortunate. I had just turned eight and later that day was set to start learning how to defend myself, so at most I was able to duck and dodge out of the way of the sword being swung at me. But I messed up, I tripped.”

He took a moment to steady his breathing after it got a little too quick for his liking and he felt Heather’s grip on him tighten. “I was certain my life was going to end, and it would have, if Ailrane hadn’t… She ran over, completely ignoring the assassin she was dealing with and jumped him, stabbing him in the back over and over. He was dead by the time she stood up, but. She, the other assassin, he-gods-”

He let go of the reigns with a hand to put a shaking hand on his face as the far too vivid memories flooded his mind, he fought through it to continue while he felt a comforting pulse of comfort come from Zamazenta. “He, the coward stabbed her through the back, his sword’s end was sticking out of her chest as he lifted her off the ground with her still alive for even the briefest of moments, the last thing I heard her say was ‘I love you Acaeus’ before the light faded from her eyes and the bastard just, swung his sword to the side and flung her off it as if she were nothing more than a useless pillow he just skewered.”

He shook his head, making sure he got the tears that formed at the corners of his eyes discreetly with his hand before he lowered his hand as Heather squeezed his middle comfortingly. “Our retainers had reached us by then and Ailrane’s made short work of the vile man, but that event has stuck with me for my entire life. If I had already been learning how to use a sword, perhaps I would’ve thrown myself into it even more, perhaps becoming very skilled with the sword even, but after that I… I couldn’t even look at a sword without thinking of what happened to my sister and wanting to be sick, let alone pick one up to train. I had to at one point as my previous retainer was such a goddamn arse, but I always felt sick even if I hid it well.”

“O-Oh. I didn’t know that’s why you refused you wield a sword.” Ingrid looked shocked and her eyes were wide. “You have my condolences.”

He waved a hand, but said nothing. He really couldn’t, not only did he need to pack the pain from the memories he relived back into the box they came from, but he also had to focus as he could see they were getting closer to the battle zone. Shouting from two males and roars from the two pokemon he learned their names were Reshiram and Zekrom, echoing throughout the empty streets.

He couldn’t afford to be crying over something that happened fifteen years ago, he already got enough grief not being able to move on growing up so he had to shut his trap, or else what kind of king would he be then?

The group dismounted their rapidashes before continuing on foot, Zamazenta and Zacian sticking close to their respective partners as the small group crept carefully down the street.

Acaeus pulled his shield from his back, fingers tracing the words that had been inscribed on it what seemed like ages ago for good luck before he slipped it on, noting that Heather had a light grip on her sword’s hilt. Ready to draw it at a moment’s notice he knew.

They reached the literal end of the street, as the buildings around it had been completely leveled to the ground and were nothing more than rubble now.

And there, in the middle of the clearing amidst rubble and upturned street stone and dirt, were the two dragon pokemon in question, partners at their side shouting commands.

He heard the distinct sound of Heather unsheathing her sword and noticed the words on the blade catching the light of the sun out of the corner of his eye, but instead focused on the two very much larger dragon pokemon who were charging up attacks once more. Before Acaeus could do much other than partially open his mouth to ask Ingrid and the other knight with them (Sylvain was it?) what the plan was, Heather acted.

“That’s ENOUGH!” Heather disappeared in a literal flash of light and reappeared right in between the pokemon in a flash of magic.

“HEATHER!” Acaeus ran forward, a hand drawing back before he threw it forward, a see-through shield appearing and flying from his hand. She slashed through the fire attack that was flung at Zekrom while the shield reached her back in time to block the lightning from said pokemon.

Acaeus raced to join her, but something made the dream jolt and the sounds of something loud ripped through the air, HOP WAKE UP SHE NEEDS YOU Hop’s eyes snapping open as he awoke with a start.

After a moment, he realized it was a scream.

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The visions Alira saw were nothing if not abrupt and strange and jumped around so much she’d get a headache if she were awake.

First she was in so much pain, something unnatural was being ripped off her soul and while it was freeing so much of her very being that was locked away and denied from her, the pain she was in made her knees buckle and she fell to the ground, sobbing with tears flowing freely down her cheeks as she covered them with her hands.

She felt Markus’s magic recede as he finished the spell, and then heard footsteps rushing to her before she was picked up so very gently. She dully noticed it was Acaeus holding her so carefully and petting her hair gently as he let her sob into his chest.

It took her a little bit to calm herself down, and after she did she noticed the slight feeling of cool energy running through her, just beneath her skin, magic. Her magic she hadn’t been able to feel since leaving Kanto when she was only five-

What few sobs now escaped her were not of pain, but relief and raw joy, she finally felt like herself and not half wrong. Not missing half of her very being.

Eventually her emotions settled completely, though it took more than a few assurances that she was okay now to get Acaeus to let her go so she could stand up.

Acaeus kept a hand on her arm, notably, she saw his hand was on the slightest bit of a binding mark trailing from under her sleeve-wait, her eyes sharply noticed the mystic markings trailing down both her arms and onto her hands. Binding marks always were on the parts of one’s self where your magic was strongest, so where else did she-

No, there was no time to wonder about where else the cursed and foul markings where on her body, Zacian and Zamazenta needed their help.

“Now what?” She turned to the mage, seeing him leaning on his staff slightly as if winded before he stood up straight when she looked over.

“Ahem!” He cleared his throat, rubbing at his neck as he cracked it seemingly out of habit. “Now to explain how you two can help them.”

He shifted his grip on his staff. “Now, their mana pools are being drained at a steady rate, likely due to whatever energy that creature had used in it’s attacks, it’s like a sickness of magic or soul from my observations for them, however, I can bind and link your souls to theirs, effectively canceling that out as humans are not majorly affected by this energy.” His grip tightened slightly. “It makes us magic inclined folk uncomfortable or in some cases causes active binding marks to burn slightly as it’s like a different form of mana and our own mana doesn’t know how to react, but we aren’t affected like our dear Pokemon companions. They either are forced into those giant forms or, like with your friends, drained of their magical energy.”

The two turned to look at each other, flabbergasted but it made sense with how uneasy they both were whenever they were in the areas where those giant pokemon were running around and Heather’s aching all over her body when directly next to said giant pokemon.

“Now, I don’t know exactly how deeply this connection I’m going to be making will run, I’ve been practicing magic all my life but even I am not fully aware of the risks and consequences of what I’m about to do to save them.” Markus began, but Heather held up a hand.

“Frankly speaking sir, spare us the warnings. We want to save our friends, and I think I speak for both of us in saying we would do anything to help them.” Heather immediately wanted to take back her words, forced habit making her panic that she spoke out of turn but squashed that urge, meeting the mage’s gaze evenly.

“She speaks the truth, if it means saving our friends, no cost is too great.” Acaeus agreed firmly, grasping Heather’s hand with one of his own.

Markus stared at them for a time, trying to detect any lie in their words clearly before he nodded. “If that is what you two wish, I will, however, tell you that if either if you die before Zacian and Zamazenta’s mana pools recover and maybe even after, it will either leave them severely weakened to where they much sleep for a long while or kill them outright. With that in mind, give me your sword and shield, then hold out your hands.”

Though confused, they gave him their sword and shield then held out their hands. Markus held the sword and shield in his hands, staff shifted into an elbow as he murmured words softly as the sword and shield glowed.

“This may sting a bit, just fair warning.” He warned them before speaking a single word. “Kiru.”

The duo hissed in unison as a small cut was opened up on both of their hands, the smallest drops of blood floating from their palms before he murmured something else, the wound closing not long after. The blood drops floated over to their owner’s respective item and hovered over them.

“Apologies, this is merely a precaution and a sort of buffer between your mana pools, I’d rather not use this vile magic if I could.” He softly said, forehead scrunching as he closed his eyes. “Arceus, please aid me with this…” he then began to speak a mixture of what he was speaking before and what seemed to be the language of pokemon.

The sword and shield glowed brilliantly and the drops of blood fell onto them, the glow brightening for a few more moments and when the glow died down, they looked the slightest bit different. Runes ran down the length of Heather’s sword now and when Acaeus was handed his shield back, there were runes carved into the back of his shield near the grips.

“With Arceus’s help, thank god, I was able to empower your weapons and link your magic to them, which will also aid in what I’m going to do next.” He spoke softly, breath the slightest bit ragged but he didn’t give them time to comment. “I can’t daly and explain, so all I’ll say is brace yourselves.”

The bottom of his staff hit the ground with a solid thud, and he began chanting, eyes flaring with light as a mystical sigil appeared below the two.

They merely looked at each other and nodded, Acaeus slipping his shield on his arm and bearing it in front of him, whilst Heather held her sword pointing up before moving her arm to have it hover in front of the shield, forming the image of a sword in front of a shield.

The sigil below them flashed, morphing into a symbol of their shield and sword in the same formation they were holding them. They then felt their very souls lurch and patterns flared to life with light across Acaeus’s skin while Heather’s binding marks flashed with light as well.

Heather only had the time to realize that clearly binding marks weren’t solely created during the ritual but a butchering of already existing magic patterns and pathways on one’s body before the feeling of her soul lurching again sent the world spinning but she still remained standing.

A glowing thread of light extended from their chests, similar threads of light coming from Zacian and Zamazenta. When Zacian’s and Heather’s connected and Zamazenta’s connected with Acaeus, their visions flooded with light as all their senses were filled to the frim with known and unknown scents, smells and sensations-

It was too much, they passed out with the last thing they both saw was Zacian and Zamazenta opening their eyes.

The dream jolted and shifted to several weeks past this event, after the bonding of their souls and where they confronted Eternatus.

The two could see it, that bone dragon they now merely called Eternatus circling in the skies above it’s nest, where it’s egg landed months ago. The energy that was radiating off it would’ve sent both their pokemon partners and Heather to their knees weeks prior, but not now. It made their skin crawl sure, but not enough to immobilize them like Zacian and Zamazenta told them happened during their encounter with it.

The two humans and pokemon approached as boldly as they dared, in truth they did not know how this battle would turn out, but armed with the assistance of their friends and magic, they had a better chance than anyone else. Hopefully.

They stared up as they came to a halt before the nest, but it seemed the creature didn’t care to look down or guard it’s nest.

Zacian’s concern but determination leaked through the mind link she now had with Heather, and likewise Heather’s fright but resolve to stop Eternatus was felt by the pokemon as they stared.

“Ready?” Zacian asked and Heather laughed through the mind link, but shook her head.

Verbally she replied with. “I could never be ready to fight such a creature, but today is better than none to try to stop this thing.”

Acaeus and Zamazenta chuckled at that, the two dog pokemon brushing against their respective partner and once again the two humans had to steady their feet, as the pokemon’s new heights at nearly their shoulders was still something they weren’t used to yet.

After nodding at each other, the two pokemon turned to the skies, inhaled before howling as loud as they could. The creature stilled in the air, slithering to look down at them as if curious and even tilted it’s head. Once it saw who was down there, the curious seeming aura it had vanished, replaced with hostile annoyance as if they were bugs it thought it killed but hadn’t and had come back to annoy it.

Heather looked at Acaeus and at his nod, she brought her sword up and he bared his shield. She then clashed her sword against his shield, seeing the two objects start glowing, upon which they turned to their pokemon. While Zamazenta rested his head against Acaeus’s shield, Heather pointed the sword at Zacian, the weapon and shield glowing brilliantly and it wasn’t long before the two dog pokemon glowed brightly as well.

The braids on Zacian shifted and twisted, unraveling within moments and growing longer as what seemed to be wings sprouted from her shoulders, also gaining a sort of helmet upon her head as well. The light flashed before disappearing, leaving Zacian in a new, more regal form with what seemed to be a royal crown-like helmet on her head, her braids now resembling more of long ribbons. She also had what seemed to be a larger version of Heather’s blade, holding it by the hilt in her mouth.

Heather glanced over to Zamazenta, seeing he had changed as well, he now had a set of golden armor covering the front of his body like a shield and his ponytail had grown to cover his back. They also grew in size as well, well over two feet taller than their human companions now.

Zamazenta roared up at Eternatus while Zacian did much the same, bearing her sword as well as she howled through her teeth at the dark dragon in the sky, the humans bearing their shield and sword at it.

To their credit, the thing seemed to at least take them mildly seriously, as it shifted to fully face them. The glowing core they could see at the center of it’s ribcage glowed ever brighter and it opened its maw, energy building before shooting down at them.

Zamazenta and Acaeus immediately took front point, Acaeus’s eyes glowing as his shield glowed red, and the side parts of the armor Zamazenta had slid forward to lock into a solidly shield formation, glowing red as well as a large see through shield appeared and blocked the beam firing down at them.

While they waited for the beam to stop, Zacian wrapped one of her fur ribbons around Heather’s middle firmly, Zacian watching, waiting as Heather braced herself. As soon as the beam dropped, Zacian took off in a sprint, sword glowing and being encased with light that formed sharp blade edges before she jumped into the air, much higher than she normally could to where she was nose to nose with Enternatus in a matter of moments.

The dark creature hardly had time to react as Zacian slashed at it, the light parts of the blade breaking off to slash at the creature of their own accord. As she did this, she threw Heather up and over Eternatus’s head.

Heather tumbled down the massive creatures spine neck, but caught herself on one of the spikes running down its spine, hooking her arms on it to situate herself so she could sit up. The creature may be largely bones, but this thing was huge and the spine was big enough for at least five of her to lay side by side comfortably.

She peered over the side and her heart lurched, it was a LONG way down. On the bright side, Zacian, Zamazenta and Acaeus were definitely keeping its attention, she saw that when Acaeus sent a bolt of lighting to its face and Zamazenta soon flatout bashed into its face with his shield.

The brief amusement that flickered through her mind wasn’t noticed as she got to her feet, wobbling as the thing was still moving around and firing off attacks at her friends, before running and sliding down the spine to the ribcage.

A bump nearly sent her flying but thankfully she caught herself with a hurried spell of “Skýt!”, a gust of wind soon supporting her back so she kept her balance and made her way to the ribcage, peering down as she gulped. The gap between each rip was absolutely huge, like a gorge back in her home kingdom, it would be so easy to fall in and she couldn’t tell if she’d fall into that red energy or if it was solid enough she’d bounce off and fall to her death.

No, no time for that. She sat down, binding marks flaring with light as she began to chant the beginning of the sealing spell. “Siel, sieg, freia, orphi, laina shalor~” The magic language felt strange on her tongue, primal and beyond ancient, but she was following what Markus taught her and they seemed to be working.

As she prepared to lay her hand down and put down the first sigil on the spine of Eternatus, it seemed to finally take notice of her. It suddenly shook its body to the side, sending her toppling over the side with a scream.

No she had to make sure it got on it! In an act of desperation, she twisted and stabbed her sword into the red energy between it’s ribs, her fall halting with a jolt as it roared in pain while her hand slammed onto the side of the rib to her right, left hand tightly holding the hilt of her sword.

The sigil blazed to light on the black surface, and with that she kicked off the creature, screaming through the metal link. “ZACIAN!”

Zacian lept up and caught her on her back, both fur ribbons wrapping securely around the human before light engulfed them both as their swords flashed and glowed with pure magic as their soul connection sung and pulsed-

Heather, or was it Zacian? It didn’t matter there was no time to think on what just happened, she landed on her feet, tail brushing the ground, flicking a long half braided sidebang along with the long back hair of hers over her shoulder as she adjusted her grip on her sword, peering over at where Zamazenta was with Acaeus to meet his yellow eyes with a wolfish grin pulling at his features, framed by the gold and red helmet he wore matching his armor, skin a blotchy mix of tan and beige.

He nodded at her and the two beings looked up at Eternatus as it started to try to fly up into the air, it’s vile energy building in the clouds above. They knew it was going to use some huge attack which would likely decimate the surrounding area. They couldn’t let it get that attack off.

She jumped up into the air, soon right beside it as magic coiled and snapped around her free hand. She hardly let it realize she was right beside it before she threw the rope of magic energy over its neck spine, it wrapped around it twice before the creature jerked, the end of the magic rope going lax and hanging wildly as she held onto her end of it like a life line.

“That’s ENOUGH!” He shouted as he lept up, voice of two overlapping, grabbing the other end of the magic rope and adding his magic to it. With a nod at her, they both yanked the rope downward with all their strength.

Eternatus was suddenly yanked and thrown down onto the ground so abruptly it only had time to let out a startled roar before it slammed into the ground with such force even the trees and cliffs nearby shook and the ground rumbled for miles.

They landed on their feet near each other, and she raised her hand with her sword towards Eternatus as he did the same with the hand that had the shield on his arm, beginning to chant in unison.

“Kirera kagima saibastia~” A spell of sealing, seal it away back into that foul black egg it came from no more would it trouble their land and its inhabitants NO MORE-

Magic ripped through the air and soared well into the air and dove deep underground, the very air humming with magic and the sword and shield glowed brilliantly and defiantly against Eternatus’s powers as it struggled against the bindings and rope but it couldn’t move. “Inaria miamenta~”

Their eyes blazed with light of four souls and four sources of magic as tendrils of light of four mana pools swirled through the air around the giant creature to combine into a focal point above it. “Asor aita saibastia!”

“Imilia iyasii iya!” With that, Eternatus was engulfed in magic light as it roared, magic spinning all around it and it’s nest.

When the magic faded from sight, rope and all, all that remained in the middle of the nest was a large, black egg.

They sighed in relief, looking at each other with relieved smiles before looking to the now clearing up sky. It was so beautiful to see the blue sky once more and the gentle breeze brushed against their cheeks, tousling their hair as they closed their eyes. The soul connection pulsed gently, lessing how close their souls were bound and with a flash two were now four once more-

Zacian caught Heather on her back as Zamazenta did with Acaeus, no longer in those regal forms but back to normal. The two humans were absolutely exhausted, and the pokemon settled down on the ground, curled around the two humans.

The last thing Heather recalled was wrapping her arms around Acaeus’s back and him holding her close before they fell asleep.

The dream shifted one final time, and Heather was in some tent, leaning over a map with figurines scattered about on top of it.

Claude and Byleth were going over a battle plan, one Heather focused on to the best of her abilities. She and Acaeus along with Claude and Byleth would lead the charge against the invading forces from Johto and Kanto, biding their time for Dimitri with his forces from Sinnoh and Seteth with his forces from both Unova and wherever else he could get them to arrive and turn the tide of battle.

It wasn't a new plan by any means, Heather had heard a few like this in the, gods, at least fifteen years she knew Claude and her kingdom was in his alliance, but it was a simple one that worked.

After ensuring everyone knew their role in the upcoming battle, they adjourned to prepare for the battle.

Byleth followed Heather into her tent, fingers messing with her now slightly longer hair as she helped Heather into her armor. Claude’s little puppy bolt hound, a little yamper, followed the two into the tent and hopped onto Heather’s cot, the female pokemon letting her pet her.

“And there we go.” Byleth muttered softly as she finished with the last buckle and stepped back to admire her handy work. “Huh. I'm amazed that I was able to get all the buckles correct.”

“You've always worked best under pressure from what Claude’s told me and what I've seen.” Heather chuckled, turning to the older woman to see her smiling softly in return. “Claude’s a lucky man you know, he could have married anyone but he picked you.”

“Good grief little one, you're making me blush.” Byleth giggled, covering a reddening cheek with a hand, Heather swore she heard some young girl's laughter softly in the background, but brushed it off.

“I'm only five years your younger you know. Little one isn't an apt term.” Heather grinned, crossing her gauntletted arms as she looked at the taller woman.

“Only from your point of view.” Byleth reached over and tapped her nose, making Heather recoil playfully with a snort. “I see you as a child of my own you should know.”

Heather blushed bashfully and looked away, scratching at her cheek which she felt was warming.

“Speaking of, I have an inquiry for you.” Byleth shifted, looking away as if nervous. “This is hypothetical mind you, but.” Her hands gripped together tightly in front of her middle, to the point her knuckles turned white as she looked at the younger woman before her. “If I were to say be with child, would you want to be the godmother?”

“By-lie!” Heather’s nickname for the woman tumbled from her mouth with pleasant surprise. “Are you?”

“Maybe, for a few weeks now I’ve been waking up sick and throwing up, I plan after this battle to have Marianne check me with her magic to be sure as you are well aware a bug like this has been running amok among the soldiers for a month now, making many of the female soldiers panic and Marianne need to deal with calming them down with her husband Sylvain’s help.” Byleth smiled, blue eyes sparkling. “I... do hope it’s not that though, me and Claude, we’ve always wanted children even regardless of our status. And we’ve been trying for a while, so I’m very hopeful.”

“Well, if you are indeed with child, congratulations and I would be honored to be the godmother!” Heather sprung forward and hugged Byleth, the woman giggling as she hugged her back.

“That’s wonderful to hear!” The woman all but picked Heather up as she spun her around once. “Claude’s going to be so excited if this turns out the way I hope it does.” She set Heather down and beamed at her. “Claude thinks of you and Acaeus as his closest friends I hope you know, he’ll be over the moon at this.”

“Really? He thinks that highly of me and Acaeus?” Heather gaped at Byleth who grinned at her.

“I never tell a lie.” She winked at Heather, her expression sincere. Heather stared at her in shock before lunging and hugging Byleth tightly, Byleth chuckling as she hugged her back.

“You’re happy about something~” Zacian spoke through their connection to Heather while Heather merely grinned and let her emotions leaked through the bond, making the pokemon laugh in delight. “That’s good! You deserve to be happy.”

Heather merely giggled softly, and then let go of Byleth, boldly declaring. “Well, if you plan on telling Claude that, I must share that I plan to tell Acaeus how I feel after this battle. I’ve thought long and hard, especially after you cornered me at the last ball-” Byleth giggled mischievously at that which Heather rolled her eyes before smiling softly. “and I’m certain that I have feelings for him.”

“Good! I’ll help you corner him then~” Byleth giggled, grinning as she took Heather’s hands in her own.

Heather merely grinned in response before softly saying. “For once, I don’t fear the edge of dawn now. Even as the sun’s high in the sky now, I believe the future is looking bright for both our kingdoms.”

The two girls talked for a while until they heard Claude calling for everyone to assemble and that the enemies were on the horizon, at that they rushed to join their respective partners.

“Hey, what’s got you so happy?” Acaeus asked, grinning at the absolutely beaming Heather as she approached, borderline bounding up to him with Zacian at her side.

“I’ll tell you after the battle.” She grinned at him, peering past him and Zamazenta to see Byleth almost tackle hug Claude who caught her with a laugh of “Hey my doe! You’re awfully affectionate today.”

Byleth merely giggled and kissed his cheek before mounting her rapidash and he mounted his blue and gold flygon then taking to the skies while Heather and Acaeus used their sword and shield’s magic to let Zamazenta and Zacian assume their crowned forms.

They looked to the horizon where the enemy army was cresting the hill, and Claude shouted from his mount. “Archers take aim and mages prepare!”

Both the archers on the ground and in the air on various flying pokemon readied their bows, Claude included with his strange bow, Failnaught did he call it?

“FIRE!” With that, an absolute rain of arrows was let loose and with spells cast on them to make sure they cleared the distance, they reached their targets. Many soldiers and pokemon fell, but the bulk of the army remained and didn’t move.

“Hold…” He held up a hand, waiting, watching for them to make the next move. Mount pokemon shifted uneasily and soldiers shifted their grips on their weapons and shields, flying pokemon shifted as well as clouds covered the skies.

Zacian shook out her fur, careful to not hit anyone with her sword while Zamazenta shifted his feet, readying himself. Heather drew her sword and readied it as Acaeus shifted how his shield was on his arm.

“Steady…” Claude scanned the enemy lines, looking for their commanders and his mind already five steps ahead, planning. The air was tense, thick with apprehension as both armies waited for the other to act as rain began to fall.

Byleth twitched her hand holding her strange sword, the blade glowing before easily coming apart and hung down like a whip, eyes cold and expression almost unfeeling now. Her nickname of the Ashen Demoness fit that face well.

All of a sudden,a horn resounded from the opposing army, and with resounding shouts, they began their charge.

“Mages and archers and all pokemon able! Take aim and fire!” Claude’s voice rang out over the sound of the rain and his forces did as he commanded. Arrows flew alongside fire balls, ice spikes, lightning bolts, shadow balls and many attacks from both mage and pokemon alike.

They hit but the army did not slow or pause, continuing down towards the forces of Kalos and Galar, and with that it was all Claude needed.

“Everyone attack!” He threw his hand forward and his flygone let out a roar as well, at that the army moved forward to meet their attackers.

Acaeus and Heather ran beside each other with their partners flanking them, Acaeus only slightly lagging behind Heather but that was on purpose.

Soon the armies were clashing and Heather’s sword met an axe, she pushed back against it with a shout, knocking the man back enough for Zacian to leap forward and slash at him, sending him flying and another soldier took his place.

Heather slashed at him but he dodged and went to strike her, but Acaeus moved and blocked the sword with his shield. Heather took advantage of the momentary confusion caused by him doing that to rush forward and, magic coating her blade as her markings flashed, stabbed him through the chest.

One after the other, the soldiers kept coming and they kept taking them down, if it wasn’t Acaeus shielding Heather or Zacian it was Zamazenta, who also never failed to use his behemoth bash to send handfuls of soldiers flying away as well.

That was how they fought, she attacked and he shielded, yes by now Acaeus at least had a small dagger and shortsword attached to his belt but they liked fighting like this. They liked relying on each other and trusting each other to watch their back.

This continued on for a while, time lost its meaning against the seemingly never-ending waves of soldiers and enemies, just keep your wits about you and don't let your guard down ran through her head like a mantra.

Eventually, however, something changed. Went wrong so wrong very wrong WHY-

Heather’s ears picked up the sound of a rapidash shrieking in pain and her head snapped around to see Byleth was surrounded by enemy soldiers, her sword in whip form was lashing around wildly at the enemies, trying to get some breathing room but the soldiers had already injured her mount, clearly trying to get it to topple over with her still on it.

“BYLETH!” Heather shouted and darted towards her friend, Acaeus right behind her with a surprised shout of “H-ǟʟɨʀǟ!”

Heather’s sword was a blur of gold and red as she cut down all the enemy soldiers standing between her and her friend, she didn’t even bother trying to possibly injure them to get them to retreat, she cut them down in her haste. She had to reach Byleth, she had to she wasn’t going to lose another friend to her father’s forces-!

She reached the enemies surrounding her and started cutting them down without remorse, however she didn’t make it in time the bastard she just managed to cut down managed to stab his spear into the rapidash’s chest, making it rear back with a screech before it toppled over with Byleth shrieking. Heather tried to move quickly enough to just yank Byleth off the mount but she wasn’t quick enough Byleth ended up under the pokemon with a scream.

The shriek of his wife caused Claude’s gaze to snap over to see Byleth’s lower half had been trapped under the horn pokemon’s body, he wasted no time in ordering several troops to cover him as he flew down to the trio as fast as his Flygone could go as well as calling for others to come aid him.

Heather knelt by Byleth, gods her legs were probably useless now but by the goddess, she was somehow still alive even despite being crushed under the weight of the horn pokemon.

Heather struggled to move the now very much dead rapidash off her friend so she could attempt what healing magic she knew to try to stablize her until healers got to them, but a sudden shout from Acaeus had her gaze snapping up to see him fending off several opportunistic soldiers only a few feet who were clearly trying to go after the two women while they were not watching their backs.

Wait, one had a cloak on, the one the Eternal Ones always wore OH GOD-

Heather tried to screech out a warning, but as he was swiping away a sword with his own, the bastard wearing the cloak jumped him and stabbed him twice in the back with a dagger before retreating into the chaos around them, the other soldiers retreating as well as Zacian and Zamazenta ran over, Zacian snarling and growling viciously while Zamazenta whimpered in pain as he helped Acaeus to the ground.

“ACAEUS!” Heather’s screech resounded throughout the battlefield, she could taste copper in the back of her throat she wasn’t supposed to be shouting like that she had to start speaking normally at a steady rate but she didn’t care as she raced over to her dear friend as soon as Claude landed and ran over to Byleth.

She pulled him into her lap, looking down at him as he smiled up at her, she dully noticed that several of both her soldiers and Claude’s surrounded the four humans and two pokemon, protecting them clearly.

“No one got you right Heth?” He spoke roughly and she shook her head.

“No you idiot! How could anyone get me, when-When you do stupid things like this!?” She fought against the rising wave of dread and fear threatening to drown her and choked back a sob. Gods he looked so frail now what the hell did that bastard hit when he stabbed him- “Don’t-Please Ace please-” A sob escaped her as her words jumbled in her throat.

“I’m trying not to.” He smiled, raising a shaking hand to cup her cheek. “If I had to go out though, I’m glad it’s making sure you’re safe.”

“Don’t say things like that! You’ll, you’ll be fine!” Gods where were the healers?! He didn’t look like he had much time and- Heather’s ears twitched as she caught the sounds of Claude trying to not sob.

“Byleth please don’t-You’ll be fine, we’ve taken some serious hits but we always get back up in the end-”

“Heth, there’s something I need to tell you.” He coughed harshly, Heather’s attention snapping back to him and she placed a hand on his chest after ripping her glove off with her teeth, markings spiraling down her fingers and across her hand already glowing.

“Shut up shut up, you’ll be fine we just, we just need to hold out till the medics arrive!” She insisted, using her knee to prop him up and to stanch the bleeding from the wounds on his back how the HELL did that stupid dagger go through his armor like it was nothing- Her healing magic was weak but by god she was trying she couldn’t lose him-!

“Heather.” Her gaze snapped to his, her eyes quickly filling with tears as she placed her other hand on the one he had cupping her cheek.

“I can’t lose you Acaeus.” She whispered, tears falling down with no sign of stopping as more sobs built in her throat. “I can’t-not after what we’ve been through I can’t lose you!”

“I know.” He cupped her other cheek with his other hand, pulling her head down so her forehead touched his. His amber gaze held so much warmth and, that was love- “I’m so so sorry I didn’t tell you this sooner, there was never a good time, but I’m going to just say it now: I love you with my entire soul Heather, and I’m so glad I met you.” He smiled so brightly he closed his eyes and moved his hands to loosely wrap around her middle.

“I love you too Acaeus, that’s why I can’t-” She sobbed now, dully noting there was a red flash of light from the direction of Claude and Byleth but didn’t look over. “Please don’t leave me! Please-!” Her voice cut off into sobs before she froze.

She realized that his chest stopped rising and falling, and his arms fell limply from her when she moved to check his pulse, she didn’t feel anything.

She didn’t register it for several moments as she looked up over to Claude and Byleth, finally noticing what was going on. Claude had a hand gripping at his chest as if in pain for a moment as Byleth offered him a loving smile, eyes briefly flashing with magic unknown, before she breathed her last breath and fell limp in her husbands arms.

Claude froze much like Heather did, briefly calling her name and shaking her, then looking up at Heather with a blank stare before they both lifted their gazes to the skies.

The sounds they made were neither human nor pokemon, but filled with raw anguish and absolute sorrow all the same-

Alira awoke with a blood-curdling scream.

 

[Alira]

Arg, so sorry for the late reply to you guys' reviews! I've been having a really horrid time irl, cutting into both my writing energy and energy in general and just, feeling like crap. that's not an excuse though and I'll try to be better.

I'll try to respond to the whole reviews as best I can! I apologize if I miss any points cause of my low energy and feel free to pm me via discord if you want me to reply to any point I miss.

Hey, me again! Just on chapter 2 right now because it's a bit long (and a solid portion of this ends up being grammar; sorry).


This paints a bit of a weird mental image for me -- if the fog is so thick that they can't see the trees in front of their own faces, surely it'd be too thick for them to see the trees in front of someone else's face, since that'd be further away? Although I do appreciate the sense of what you're trying to convey here that they're really close/have each other's backs, I don't fully follow the logic.


Haha, I've camped a fair bit but never heard of a wire mesh tent -- not sure what you're referring to here, but I'd be interested to hear more about this.
Also, while I love the humor this introduces, it does seem a bit strange that Alira, master champion who once stayed on a barren mountain for days without communication to find an eevee, has presumably camped a ton and knows how to pitch a tent.


You want a comma before 'mate' since he's addressing her -- it's the same premise as to "let's eat, grandma" vs "let's eat grandma".


Same comma thing before 'mate', and also the period after 'mate' should be a comma (dialogue formatting; you've done it correctly before so I think this is just a typo)




Your capitalization for pokemon flips a few times in this chapter -- in general I think you're taking the approach that you lowercase the species names but you capitalize the name if it's what the trainer calls them, like so:

But a few times (like the ones mentioned above), you either forget that or consistently have the capitalization flipped. For the "his Corviknight"/"Alira's Alcremie", I think you'd want to keep them lowercase since you're still referring to them as their species, not their name -- "his dog" fits better in the context than "his Spot".

Also, extra 'r' in Alcremie in that example.


Extra period here.


Again, as a means of shedding more light on their relationship, I think this is effective, but surely it's pretty apparent by now that Cinderace can light fire from their feet? Maybe Hop doesn't know it in the detail that Alira does (the little dots of fur, for example), but Alira mentions the move pyro ball like Hop's seen it before, so presumably he's familiar with the concept. And I think the fact that the evolutionary line lights up their feet is pretty well known/also canon in the Pokedex, so this feels like something Hop shouldn't be terribly impressed/shocked by.


I think you want 'on top of' here, and also, not a grammar thing, but I love that approximately 45% of this phrase is the letter 'o'




Missing addressing commas in these, and a few others -- I'd just do a general sweep for times that people are calling other people by their name/a name.


I would just use italics to denote emphasis here if you're trying to stick to orthodox grammar.

Also, before this gets buried in the stream of grammar/one-off questions, I really like the character moment you sketched out here! It seems pretty obvious that Hop/Alira's relationship is central to the functionality of this story, so it's nice to have a pretty hefty chunk of this chapter devoted to them just being normal people, talking over their problems, being close, etc. I think you do a good job of showing how well they know one another and how open they can be with each other -- I feel like this is going to end up taking a romantic direction, but I do like that you're taking the focus on the more mundane aspects of their relationship as well. The little details like how Hop knows that Alira speaking fast means she's really bothered by things, petting her hair to soothe her, etc, go a really long way.


Haha I get that in the games this is a short affair, but I'd kill if camp-cooking for ~7 was this easy.


'Alira mused' describes the how the bit of dialogue is being said, so you need a period instead of a comma here.


Oh, interesting! Makes sense that they'd be British, yah -- there are definitely a few times in ch1 where Hop says 'here' without the accent denoted, though.


Accidental switch to present tense here.


I struggled with what this epithet meant for a while -- Wooloo looks like Hop's first pokemon in both the canon and here (although I feel like he wouldn't have worked here, lacking arms), so it didn't really click with me that his partner pokemon meant Rillaboom"


haha, I like the comedy here, but I'm also not sure why there's so much panic? Like, it's not going to be on Nova/Rillaboom if these guys wake up holding each other, so I'm not sure why the pokemon are so freaked out.

Also, you want a hyphen in 'panic-induced'.


I do like the medieval subplot going on here! I think it's fascinating and I'd love to see how it ties back in to your main story/timeline.

You have the word "bastard" a lot of times in this flashback though, which sort of makes it lose meaning imo.


This is! Interesting! What happens in Unova -- usually the dragons appear to make things right/they're literally embodying truth and ideals so it's hard for them to be on the losing side of a moral conflict, so it's really unique to have them showing up in a way that the protagonists will oppose. Do we ever find out what happens here?



dropped a space before the parentheses


I do like that she's restoring the relics, but I feel like realistically this would be a lot harder of a task -- there's a reason that people do this for a living, and while you don't have to go into the grim minutiae of gently peeling off flakes of rust with tweezers and looking at their carbon content or whatever, restoring old tools is a pretty lengthy endeavor that would take more than a little scrubbing -- there are actually a ton of youtube videos of you want a better reference. Also, given that they don't know what these relics are, what they do (except summon wildly powerful/legendary pokemon), if there are more of them, and if or how Zacian/Zamazenta are connected to them, it seems a bit dangerous/casual that Alira's basically just slapping them with Goo-Gone and hoping that nothing bad happens?


Should be Hop-Acaeus's

Also, interesting take on medieval morals -- I do find it a little jarring/Disney-esque when fiction portrays heroes from a long time ago as having modern-day morals, because usually what we see as right is so far from the mold of what they saw as right that it wouldn't even be a concept that they'd think about on his own. Like. The concept of murder/death wasn't really well-defined in the medieval era; it sort of was just a thing that was sad and that happened, but that ended up being inevitable -- be it from disease or warfare. Killing people at best would probably be seen as a peasant's job/"why do I do this when I hire soldiers", but there really wasn't the same aversion to killing in self-defense that there is today. A noble might vaguely toy with the idea that diplomacy is better than violence, but a rant like this feels really out of place, especially in a character snippet this short where we don't get to see much else outside of what the rest of his character is like.

And I'm not sure how you want to address this -- obviously it's a lot less fun/relatable to have a protagonist who's all "oh boy, here I go killing again", but I do think that keeping his thoughts in-line with the standards of the era are really important. It's a little strange when other works try to wash away the fact that historically humans have had some pretty bad/immoral ideas; it gives the impression that you're leaving something out of the narrative and it ends up erasing a lot of the growth that came out of people recognizing/overcoming that mentality.


oh SHIT there's MAGIC; why did this ever get forgotten in the modern day??? really interesting plot hook there.


You did mention your concerns that this chapter was getting overly long in the Discord, and I feel like this flashback is probably one that you could safely move elsewhere without compromising the structure of this chapter -- it doesn't really add much to the narrative right now, and it actually almost ends up steering the chapter in a completely different direction. I do think it's valuable to establish how close Alira and Hop are (and maybe also how crazy/determined Alira can be), but you do that pretty well in other instances in the chapter, so this flashback doesn't add much.

In general there are a few more grammar mishaps but I mostly flagged the big ones -- hopefully your beta feels better soon! If you want to self-beta and have any questions about the grammar things I pointed out, definitely feel free to ask! I just feel bad when most of the review is spelling/grammar rules instead of actual feedback, so I trimmed a lot of it out.

I like where things are going with this chapter. There's definitely a lot of plot hooks flying left and right, so it's interesting to see where those will land -- the ties to Zacian/Zamazenta, the reincarnations/past selves thing, and even just Alira's struggles with being the newly-crowned champion are really interesting venues to introduce to a fic and I'm curious to see how you'll explore them. I also like that you took the early parts of this chapter to nail down what Hop and Alira's friendship looks like, so that when things *really* get under way it'll feel more like there's some basis for how and why these two know each other so well plus they've known each other across multiple lifetimes, so.

This review ended up a lot more organic than I'd usually prefer, so please ask if I left anything unclear/if you have any questions! Will catch up soon, hopefully.

On the fog thing, ngl I'm not entirely sure how it works other than the fog is just weird for reasons. And the tent is a bit hard to explain, but it's got a wire mesh and a slightly spiderweb like frame of sorts that's got a lot of joints that can allow it to collapse like it did on Alira, that's the best answer I can give XD She has, she's just a bit of a clutz if her mind is elsewhere.

And yep that's what i'm trying to do with the names and species names! And gotcha on the name commas!

I'm really glad you like Hop and Alli's interactions this chapter! I had a lot of fun writing them so I'm glad you like it ^W^

And while Hop is British, Alira isn't and some of her Sinnoh accent she's never shaken has rubbed off on Hop a tad so that's why it's not always denoted like that!

Cuz Idk when I'd be able to mention this I'll explain-The reason Rillaboom and Nova were a tad panicked on possibly waking them up was cuz Alira has a lot of trouble getting to sleep normally(her sleep schedule is wacked even after becoming champion), which Hop is unnervingly (to them, it's normal for him and Alii) keyed into so he tends to stay awake if she's awake so they wanted to avoid it.

The medieval subplot is definitely going to have it's effects on the present for a rather long while, even after I'm done with all the flashbacks, I can definitely say that!

We will! I can promise that we will see what's going on with the Unova dragons and how that conflict ends at one point!

Also, ngl you pointing out how restoring relics is hard irl gave me an idea for the last chapter to explain how she did it so easily, so thank you for that ^W^

Acaeus definitely has his reasons as to why he has modern-ish morals regarding swords/murder and stuff, I can say that much but it is addressed in the last chapter I posted so I won't say much!

And we'll find out how Magic was forgotten in the modern day, not sure if it'll be soon even with the current chapter I'm working on, but I definitely plan to explain that :)

Thank you for the review! I'm really happy you like how things are going with chapter 2 and I hope you like how everything else is going ^W^

Chapter 2 review!

Oh boy oh boy it's getting into the weird stuff with the dreams (i almost typed memes) there. Crazy ancestor shit here we go! Can't wait to see where that goes.

I like how well you characterize the Pokemon even though they don't have speaking roles. The scene of separating their Trainers in their sleep made me laugh.

I'm not much of a shipping aficionado except in certain cases (blame the gray-aro) but you manage to make Hop and the protagonist's relationship convincing. Nice work.

One complaint is pacing is slightly slow so far - not all that much actually happens overall in this chapter. And I want to get to the puppers. Good puppers. At least Zamazenta showed up in that dream - I'm looking forward to how you handle their backstory.

But yes this is still going places and I hope to read more. Eventually.

Thank you! I'm happy you like how I characterized the pokemon and ngl I plan to write more of the Pokemon at some point if I can fit it into the story. And thank you! I was worried about how I was writing them/their relationship so I'm happy it's convincing/good ^W^

Gotcha, don't worry the pacing will definitely pick up and I've definitely got plans for the legendary doggos and their backstory, I can definitely say that!

Gotcha, and thank you for reading!

Whoof, can't believe I managed to miss three whole chapters. Four whole chapters? A lot of chapters!

Things are starting to move along here, and we're getting kind of a better picture of what's going on with the sword/shield and Alira's fainting spells. I hadn't realized it was a whole year ago that she had her championship match! Thought it was maybe a couple months or something. But, in any case, I'm curious what the artifacts might be trying to draw her and Hop towards. After all, with Eternatus captured, the danger should be past, yeah? (This might also tie into some postgame stuff I haven't seen yet, heh.) The indications of Hop and particularly Alira's past lives starting to intrude on the present is a creepy one; Heather may to some extent "be" her, but presumably Alira doesn't want to lose herself to her former identity, either! I imagine once she and Hop start exploring the castle we'll get a better sense of what sort of peril might be causing these old memories to reawaken.

I hope we'll get to see Eternatus out of its ball for a bit at some point. Never seen one used in a fic before (not that there's been much opportunity for that yet, heh), and it's always fun to see how trainers interact with these awe-inspiring legendary creatures.

The pokémon teams here are really cute, and it's fun to see them interact with each other and their trainers. Probably going to take me a while to get accustomed to all the pokémon; there are a lot of them! But they're very cute, and Hop and Alira's relationships with them are sweet.

As a lefty, I also appreciate the little detail that Alira's left-handed as well. Don't see that too often! ;)

Just a couple of punctuation notes here, things to look out for in the future. One is that in dialogue when someone's referred to directly by their name or title, there should always be a comma in front of that name. For example:


That should be, "You've a fair point, Acaeus."

Or here:


In the first paragraph, it should be, "You are strange, my good sir," with a comma. But you've already done things correctly in the second piece of dialogue, with the comma in front of "my dear!"

Also, its/it's, a tricky one sometimes... "It's" is short for "it is," so you should only use it anywhere the full phrase "it is" would make sense. On the other hand, "its" is possessive and refers to someone owning something. So here:


"It is cyan and pale purple mane" doesn't make sense, so you should be using "its" there.


Similarly, "it is powered down form" doesn't make sense, and here we're talking about a form belonging to Zamazenta, so we want to use the possessive "its."

One thing that bothered me a little while reading this was how strongly weighted the story is towards the past rather than the present. It's tricky, because to some extent you've set yourself up for that with the Heather/Acaeus scenes, which are pretty necessary to the story. However, in addition to those flashbacks we've been having flashbacks to times when Alira had a "sword" episode, and also some straight-up stories about the past, like when Alira relates the car door incident. All of these combined mean that the story in the present feels a little overshadowed by these other timelines, and the story kind of jumps around a bit as it bounces from one time to another. It's clear that what went on with Heather and Acaeus in particular is going to be important to the plot, so you're presumably going to need to have these scenes at some point, but I think you might want to consider whether you might be able to spread them out a bit more so there aren't 3+ flashbacks per chapter, or whether some of them can be cut/don't need to be introduced as an actual flashback. For example, the first time Hop/Alira dream of the past, they basically end up explaining everything they just dreamed about to each other anyway, so maybe you don't need the full flashbacks themselves and can simply leave in the part where they discuss them. Or maybe not all of the cases of Alira fainting need to be shown with a flashback but can kind of be summarized/described instead.

In any case, very exciting that we might have found the castle already! I wonder when Zacian/Zamazenta are going to show up in the present... Presumably we're going to see them at some point! Anyhow, hope you're feeling better and the writing's going well!

It's all good!

Yep, it's been that long though it sure doesn't feel like it for her! And *giggles mischievously*, sure Enternatus is captured, but when it comes to things connected to the two heroes and him, the danger isn't quite gone yet~ Welll, unfinished business is a nasty thing to deal with even/especially when reincarnated and tends to intrude without much warning ngl there, and it's not exactly a good combo with a girl that has the issues that Alira does thanks to her past, regardless of how it slightly mirrors Heather's past in some respects.

I definitely plan for Eternatus to come out of his ball at one point, no worries there! Just not the right time yet.

Thank you, I'm really happy you like how the pokemon interact with each other and their trainers!

Yay! I'm a lefty too so I wanted to add that in ^.^

Gotcha on the punctuation notes and such, I did my best to keep those in mind when writing my last chapter! Especially with the its and it's!

(apologies if I get rambly here, it's too hot in the house and me being tired is just adding to me being very rambly ^^;;;)
Yep, that bothered me a tad too hence why I made Chap5 is so flashback heavy and long, so important things are at least mentioned to be a thing so I can make sure the chapters after not entirely weighed towards the past. I mean of course there's going to be more flashbacks, major ones especially, and things from Heather and Acaeus's time are going to ripple heavily into the present with what's happening and stuff I won't mention cuz spoilers, but I want to make sure the present isn't overshadowed! Even if things from Alira's past come back to bother her (That'll be fun to write! =w= *not sure if I'm entirely sarcastic there or not |D*) or even if more things from Heather/Acaeus's time crop up after everything in the first arc happens, I want to focus on the present just as much. I can definitely confirm once everything in the first arc happens there likely won't be a lot of flashbacks like now, if there are any it'll likely be for side characters I introduce that no one is familiar with, cause everything I want to show with Heather and Acaeus should be shown by that point or won't need a flashback, at least as far as I know. Cuz I do plan things out a bit but I mostly write whatever I think will fit the chapter and help me get to where I want it to be at when the chapter is done, not the best way to write but it works so XD

I can definitely confirm that we will see Zen and Zacia in the present before chapter ten as far as I've planned, I can say that much! I'm feeling a tad better, just tired lately ngl(and I got into a mobile game I've ideas for but that's not here nor there >W< ) but I'm writing when I'm able!

And with that, I've responded to everyone! I think? Idk I tried |D

With that I shall disappear but pm me on discord if I missed anything or you've got questions I didn't/haven't answered!

 

[Alira]

Chapter 6: Check in
(AN: My apologies for taking so long with this chapter! I've been REALLY busy irl lately and have actually been writing down a strange series of dreams I've been having the past week involving me and three of my best friends ending up in the world of a mobile game I've been playing as main characters. That's taken up most of my time for the past few days to write down what's going on so I don't forget and I've been busy with a few games I bought recently on impulse ^^;;; I don't know if I'll post any of that here, but I'll try to not to take so long with the next chapter I promise.)

Sonia tapped her foot all but impatiently as she called Alira for the upteemth time, holding her rotom phone to her ear. It rang once before Alira’s voice rang out.

“My apologies! I’m currently unavailable, this either means I’m somewhere deep in the wild areas, in a area without service or am otherwise unable to answer. Kindly leave a message after the beep! ….Uh, Hop,” Her voice seemed to call over her shoulder. “How do I stop it recording the message?” “Just press zero Alli!” Hop’s voice responded and then the beep rang out.

Sonia ended the call there, she already left three voice mails prior, no need to leave another.

Where the hell was the new champion? It was utterly bizarre for her to disappear without a word, sure she did that one time but it was only a week and she hardly ever went off on her own for long periods of time, let alone for a whole month like now.

Hop had also vanished without a trace, leaving his brother in a state of worry over the two that every few hours she had to deal with when he literally came barging through the door and asking if she heard from him or Alira. Thank god she had an assistant helping her out now.

Sonia rubbed her head, hearing the door to the lab open and she sighed, assuming it was Leon as she spoke. “Leon, I already told you I haven’t been able to contact-” She turned as she was speaking, gaze downward as she stuffed the phone in her pocket, her words stopping abruptly when she looked up and saw, despite the man’s tan complexion, he was not in fact Leon.

“Oh sorry sir!” Sonia felt heat creeping up her ears at her mistake and the amused look in his green eyes wasn’t helping. “I thought you were someone else, my apologies.”

“It’s alright milady, you seem stressed so the mix up is understandable.” He smiled pleasantly at her, the term milady blitzing her for a moment as he continued. “I hope you don’t mind my forwardness, but I was wondering if I could have a couple of your wishing stars? My best friend and I are looking to possibly take on the gym challenge if we can find sponsors and we’re planning on getting dyamax bands made.”

“What about the ones Rose company makes?” Sonia furrowed her brows as he reached up with a gloved hand to tuck some of his loosely slicked back dark hair behind an ear.

“Production and selling of those has been frozen since chairman Rose turned himself in.” He spoke frankly, fiddling with the edges of the sleeves of his cream poet blouse. “Everywhere me and my friend have gone have either refused to sell them or been out of stock and until he’s either formally put into prison via a trial or exonerated for his crimes, I think the shortage of mass-produced dyamax bands will persist.”

Right, even now she still forgot she had the largest supply of wishing stars and mass production of the bands resuming was far off for a bit, okay then. “Alright, hang on.” She rubbed her head as she went behind her desk, opening the door behind it that led down to the basement and quickly went down.

She nodded at her assistant organizing boxes and such at one end of the room before going over to a cabinet and pulling out two wishing stars, tucking them in a pocket as she returned to where the man was still standing patiently.

“Here you go. I assume you’ll go to my grandmother to have these set in bands? I know she’s got a few empty ones.” Sonia watched after handing them to him as he tucked them in a pocket of his black pants.

“Yep, then me and my friend are going to look for a sponsor.” He nodded before his gaze flicked to behind her. “Oh, you have a yamper?”

Huh? Sonia turned to see Yamper at one of the bookcases, scratching furiously at a book on a lower shelf to try to get it out. “Oh-Yamper stop that!”

She ran over as the man laughed, batting the pokemon away as he said. “I’ll take my leave now, mayhaps I’ll see you later miss Sonia.”

“Yeah-Yamper!” The pokemon jumped up and headbutted the book it was trying to get down, knocking it to the floor as she heard the man leave.

“What’s gotten into you?” She scooped the pokemon up under her arm, tapping it on the nose as a way of scolding it. She then bent down to pick up the book which was knocked open and facing up, but froze as she saw a portrait of one of the well known kings of the old medieval kingdoms all the regions used to have on one of the pages.

She put the pokemon down before rushing out of the laboratory to try to catch the man who just left, but she didn’t see him anywhere she looked.

She furrowed her brows, that was weird, he couldn’t have disappeared that quickly. Regardless she shook her head and went back inside. Must be a descendant of the king’s bloodline or something, there was no way Claude Von Riegan, king of Kalos and Galar was still alive. It was impossible.

Behind a tree a small distance away from the lab, the man sighed in relief as she went back inside, him muttering. “That was way too close. Thanks Flyby.” He turned and rubbed the head of the shiny flygon by his side. “Let’s go find Hilda and Shieon, surely Hilda’s done shopping at the clothes store by now, then we head for Hammerlocke and see if Flayn and Seteth are there.”

The flygon trilled in agreement and he gently scratched at one of the well-healed scars on its head, which prompted the dragon type to lean into him with a gravelly purr which he laughed at.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

Leon wiped his brow as he left the battle tower for the day, it admittedly was a long day but he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t fun to see so many trainers doing their best make their way up the ranks of the tower and even battle the ones that reached the top of their respective ranks.

However his worry over his brother and dare he say his little sister figure was always in the back of his mind, even while he was trying to focus on the battles, so he decided to call it an early day before he got sick with worry.

He called up a Corviknight to take him to Postwick, planning on talking to Sonia to see if she heard anything as soon as he got there, and as he was settling into his seat, his rotom phone buzzed with a ringtone he hadn’t heard in a few months and with a grin as he recognized the caller he was quick to answer it.

“Hey Yuna!” He called out, hearing the young woman giggle on the other end of the line.

“Hey Lee-le.” Yunala Cestina replied, sounding quite happy to hear his voice and he could imagine the pale brunette grinning. “It’s been a while hasn’t it? My apologies for not calling for a while, I was busy with things on my end with the showcase and haven’t had a ton of time.”

“It’s alright, I was actually watching the Kalos performer’s showcases when I could here and I definitely see you’ve been putting your all into being a performer! Congratulations on reaching master class!” He heard the pokemon performer let out an embarrassed laugh.

“Holy hel-You’ve been keeping up with that? God I-gaaaah!” She sounded like she was burying her face in a pillow and was definitely flustered. “Then you must’ve seen my falling flat on my face after tripping a month ago during my performance. Arceus smite me now!”

“I don’t think they showed that on tv, or if they did I missed that one.” He grinned as he heard her shriek into the pillow. “How have you been otherwise Yuna? It’s been ages since I heard from you or Celeste, and it’s not like you’ve got a pokegram or monbook like most performers and Celeste’s never on her monbook as is.“

“How I’ve been...?” Her voice trailed off and he could hear her sit up on what sounded like a bed. “Fine I suppose.” She didn’t sound fine.

“You better not be pushing yourself beyond your limits!” He lightly but playfully scolded her, a serious tone clear despite the teasing way he spoke. “If I find out you’ve been pushing yourself and not giving yourself any breaks, you bet I’m taking a boat or corviknight to Kalos and making sure you take a break and relax!”

“You? Take a boat to Kalos without any mishaps?” She had a teasing tone now. “No offense but you’d probably get lost and end up in Hoenn or Kanto.”

“I’ll have you know, Yunala, that my sense of direction has improved since the last time we spoke in person!” He was very proud of the fact he could now go into the wild area and actually end up at Hammerlocke or Motostoke without much difficulty.

“I suppose you’ll just need to show me that when I come back to Galar then.” She seemed to smile at his stunned silence and giggled. “I’m planning on taking a break sometime soon and coming back to Galar for a hiatus from my performing, still settling on a date but it should be sometime soon. But really, I am fine.” her voice strained at the end. “I’ll catch you up on everything that’s happened with me when I’m back in galar, okay? Just wait until then.”

“If you say so,” He noticed he was reaching postwick and cringed, he was going to need to get off the line but he didn’t really want to hang up cause he could clearly tell something was bothering her but she didn’t want to say, there was never enough time to just talk with his old friends. “I need to get off the line, but if anything is bothering you or if you just need to talk, please call me. I’ve known you long enough to know despite your words you aren’t fine and you can’t fool me, I don’t know what’s made you so hesitant to tell me what’s wrong, but no matter what it is, I’m here for you.” He may be dense at times and have his moments of idiocy, but stupid when it concerned his four best friends he was not.

“...Thank you.” Her voice was strained even more and she sounded like she was going to cry, but she seemed to be holding herself together for his sake. “I’ll, I’ll do my best to tell you but, in person. I can’t- not like this. I’ll see you soon Lee-le.” She ended the call, and he frowned as he put his phone away, getting ready to leave the taxi seat.

Miles away in a Kalos hotel, Yuna covered her mouth after setting down her phone and let out a silent sob, the markings recently emblazed all over her body still stinging her to her very soul which felt like she was missing part of it even now. Her flygon nuzzled her shoulder and her dragonair pressed it’s head against her own in comfort.

How was she supposed to explain any of this to Leon…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

Raihan booked it from his gym to the Hammerlocke airport, weaving around people in his haste as he ran. Okay, maybe he was a little too excited and probably should’ve taken a taxi to it, but he couldn’t help it.

The champion of Alola, the very first and undefeated one no less, was arriving in Galar today and he’d be absolutely lying if he said he wasn’t both wanting to meet her and challenge her to a battle. Plus there were rumors she was half pokemon and had a daughter apparently and, just a fair few rumors regarding her and her Greninja partner that while other regions would’ve scorned, those in Galar like Raihan were open-minded towards and had him eager to meet her.

He skid around a corner, dodging around a girl with long blond hair in a thick and low braid as well as a girl with pale blue hair up in a braided bun, shouting out a “Sorry!” when he heard one of them yelp in fright, but still didn’t stop running.

By the time he reached the airport, he was gasping for air and had to take a moment to catch his breath before he walked in. His eyes immediately began scanning the airport, trying to find the alolan woman. She would definitely stand out as she was really tall, though shorter than him, and-

There she was! A young girl in one arm while her other hand dragged her luggage behind her and clearly just leaving luggage pick up was Megan Lucarina. She looked about the same as she did in the last match of the alola league that aired a couple of months ago, short reddish-brown hair in a slightly mess style, moderate blue eyes framed by thin-rimmed glasses. She wore a different outfit from the one dress she wore in the league. Blue halter top, denim jeans and grey boots, she had a belt around her waist with six pokeballs on it, two masterballs on a necklace around her neck and a breeder backpack completed her look.

“Hey there!” She about jumped at the sound of his voice and her head jolted around at his shout as he ran over. “Sorry about startling you Megan, just wanted to welcome you to Galar!”

“Ah, you’re, Raihan of the dragon gym right?” She tilted her head at him, eyes scanning his features before she smiled. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, you already know my name it seems?”

“Just about everyone here does! Or, well, at least the gym leaders.” Raihan grinned at her, noticing her look of shock that appeared. “You’re like a legend at least when it comes to being unbeatable, is it true you’re half pokemon?”

“Well, not every day I get asked that without getting a grossed out look.” She laughed, grinning a tad. “See for yourself.” She brought a hand up and fiddled with her hair before flicking her head to the side. When she did, previously hidden aura sensors flopped out and rested atop her hair.

If Raihan’s eyes got any wider and amazed he’d probably have stars in them. “That’s so cool!” His rotom phone came out and started taking pictures almost on instinct, which made her giggle.

“Hi Rotom.” She smiled at the phone and waved. “I’ve probably got your cousin in my bag.” Of course, she was referring to her rotom dex, which flew out of the outer pocket of her bag with a buzz and she regarded with amusement. “Oh good grief, I even slightly mention you and you come out like I screeched your name.”

As the two Rotoms chirped and buzzed at each other, Raihan’s still taking pictures whenever it got a good angle, she returned her attention to Raihan. “I admit I’m a bit surprised you’re not looking at me with disgust. Are things different here regarding those such as myself? I’ve never been here so I don’t know.”

“Oh yeah, definitely different here!” He grinned at her again. “I don’t know about the other regions, but here hybrids and people attracted to pokemon aren’t treated any differently except in medical ways for hybrids.”

“That’s a welcome relief.” Her posture relaxed the slightest bit. “Then my daughter won’t need to wear a hoodie while we’re here then.”

Raihan shifted his gaze to the young girl she was holding with her arm, he couldn’t see anything that showed she was a hybrid, but she was also wearing a long-sleeved shirt, arms and hands behind her mother’s back, and long skirt that hid her feet and most of her head was hidden in Megan’s neck. “Is she..?”

“Eyup, technically more so on the pokemon side and a lot harder to hide than myself due to her father.” She then turned her gaze to the girl. “Hey, Diancye, sweetheart wake up, we’ve arrived in Galar.”

The girl shifted, grumbling slightly as she yawned and leaned back, rubbing at her eye with a hand as the meaning of Megan’s words showed. She didn’t have normal ears, she had what looked like yellow squares or triangles of sorts for ears sticking out of her brown and blue hair which looked very sleek, her hands were webbed with yellow membrane. If there were more physical signs of her being a hybrid they were likely covered up by her outfit.

“Mornin’..” Diancye as he heard her called yawned, blinking her eyes open to reveal they were a pinkish red, and her pupils were a light grey. She turned to where her mom was looking and squinted at Raihan. “Rai-rai…?” An innocent and excited smile grew as she repeated with more lucidity than before. “Rai-rai!”

Megan flushed in embarrassment as Raihan’s grin grew, this kid was bloody adorable and his Rotom phone didn’t hesitate to take photos of the little girl after getting an embarrassed nod from her mother.

“She, she often watches tv when I’m cooking and she’s caught the Galar league a few times, her favorite matches are ones with you.” Megan sputtered, attempted to explain her child’s sudden glee as the girl suddenly squirmed out of her mother’s arms and landed in a crouched position that reminded him of Greninijas before she stood up straight and about bolted over to him.

“Rai-rai!” She jumped up and down, the absolute excitement on her face melting his heart as she squeaked in clear pokespeak. “Gren ninnin ni ninia!”

“She said, um, she’s excited to meet you?” It took a moment for her to translate her daughter’s words and Megan furrowed her brows. “That’s the general idea of her words, she doesn’t speak in clear sentences yet in pokespeak or English.”

“Well it’s a pleasure to meet you too Diancye!” He beamed as he knelt down, putting his hand on her head and gently ruffling her hair as she giggled happily. “If it’s okay with your mom, I’ll give you two a tour of Hammerlocke if that’s alright?” He looked at Megan who gaped at him as he stood back up before shaking her head.

“That’s fine with me. I don’t know my way around so it’d be helpful, plus it’d make her day.” Megan nodded, giggling as Diancye jumped up and cheered joyfully before spinning and turning to Megan, tugging on her mom’s shirt. “Yes dear?”

“Mama!” She smiled up at her mom, a hand tugging on her pokeball belt. “Pi, pi-Piper please?”

“Okay, okay.” She laughed as she plucked a normal pokeball from her belt. “Just don’t pull her tail please. She’s not that old but she doesn’t like that.”

With that, she released the pokemon which was revealed to be a mature looking litten with a Dragonium Z in a bracelet on her tail and an everstone on the collar she wore. Diancye grinned before swiftly picking the cat pokemon up and cuddling her to her chest.

To Piper’s credit, the litten merely sighed before purring and nuzzling Diancye’s cheek, a sight that Raihan’s Rotom took pictures of before Raihan turned to Megan and grinned once more. “Follow me you three.”

(AN: Don't worry, we'll be back to what's going on with Alira and Hop next chapter, we just needed to get an idea of what's currently going on with everyone else while they're in the old town!)

 

[Alira]

Chapter 7: The memories of the land

It took Hop only seconds to realize who was screaming, voice pounding in his head to GET UP and head stinging as a result, but as soon as he realized it was Alira, he bolted out of his sleeping bag as fast as he could. Scrambling out of his tent, he saw the normally dazed and lost in thought Willowya rush out of her trainer’s tent, purple eyes wide with fright and worry as the caramel swirl alcreamie spotted Hop and shrieked for him. “Allie alie cremie!” She shrilled out, hopping up and down as he rushed over.

He rushed past Willowya and into the tent as he registered that Alira’s scream turned into sobbing. He saw Cale and Nova trying to, and very unsuccessfully, calm down their trainer who had her face buried in her hands as she sobbed.

“Alira-hey Alira!” He grabbed her by the shoulders, calling out to her as she continued to sob, god she was shaking like a leaf and it looked like she had kicked her way out of her sleeping bag. It was clear all the way across the tent.

“Acaeus alsin felka!” She wailed, the foreign but surprisingly now understandable words ringing out as Hop quickly pulled her close, letting her latch onto him and sob into his chest as he processed her words.

That was the common variant of ancient galarian he learned in school, it had ties and similar phonics to kalos’s own ancient language for one reason or another so it was one of the required languages to learn.

Granted while the language wasn’t largely being used anymore, replaced by everyday unova english in most places, still, galarian was hard to miss and clearly not what she had said many nights ago in her sleep. No… That had to have been something in royal galarian that only nobles and royalty used and was still being studied to be put into the schooling system.

But regardless he had a sobbing Alira on his hands and he wasn’t going to leave her like this.

He held her tightly, an arm tight around her middle while his other hand ran through her slightly overgrown hair, petting and doing his best to help her regain her senses from, whatever she just saw.

Hop felt the wheels in his brain start turning, translating what she about shrieked not long ago. “Acaeus I failed you I’m so sorry” was clearly what she said, or at least was along those lines.

...Hop felt a pit form in the bottom of his stomach, he had a sneaking suspicion of an idea what she may have seen, there was that statue in the motostoke inn and it wouldn’t make any sense for it to be there, Acaeus and Heather were inseparable so it should’ve been twin statues, unless…

Nope, he’s not going down that train of thought, if she did see... that... he needs to help her.

“Ace favin lunke…” she had calmed down partially, she was still shaking but her sobs had disappeared and she wasn’t gripping his shirt as tightly. She was still speaking in galarian as well.

“Hey, Alira it’s alright. You’re awake, your dream can’t hurt you.” He let his hand run down the back of her head and down her spine, her back was soaked and he could pointedly feel her currently loose binder through her shirt but ignored it as her head tilted up against his chest to look up at him.

Those blue eyes that stared up at him were a shade darker than they should be.

“...Alira? Fefin, jovin Heather falca?” Her brows furrowed, confusion and loss of self flickering in her eyes, and he felt a flash of fear, did the dream or memory she saw still have its grip on her even now? …She even asked if she was Heather he realized after he translated her words.

“No, you’re Alira.” He stated firmly, tightening his grip on her as if to anchor her with him. “You’ve been experiencing the memories of the old hero Heather but you are you and not her.”

“...” She stared up at him for several long moments, before blinking and her eyes lightened. “..R-Right.”

Hop could’ve collapsed out of relief at the single english word that left her as she finally seemed to shake the dream fully.

“There you are.” He held her as tightly to himself as he dared, thankful she was back now. “I'll ask what you saw later, you okay now?”

She frowned and hid her face against his chest, but nodded regardless. For a while the two remained like that, her pokemon anxiously flitting about around them before they too calmed down.

“...Stay, please?” her words were so soft if it wasn’t dead quiet Hop would’ve missed them, but she distinctly sounded vulnerable. “I… I don’t want to be alone if I, I see something like that again…” Don’t leave me again… Somehow, he had a feeling that she meant to say something along those lines.

“Of course.” He held her almost impossibly close, resting his chin on her head. “I’m not going anywhere, I’m not going to leave you alone again.”

He didn’t register how strange his words were, more focused on helping his friend get to sleep as he, with Calethorne’s help, moved Alira’s sleeping bag over before the humans settled on top of it, surprisingly falling asleep quickly.

However, just because the humans didn’t notice, didn’t mean the pokemon didn’t.

Nova felt her fur prickle strangely when her sharp ears caught what Hop said, the words making sense, except for the last part of again. She knew thanks to Widgyt that Alira and Hop were never far from each other growing up, and even during the gym challenge Hop was only a phone call away if Alira needed him, so for him to say he’ll never leave her again….

Nova found herself leaving the tent, arms crossed as the half moon lit the old town before her, heart and mind greatly unsettled to where she knew she wasn’t falling asleep again for a while. She spotted Hop’s partners, Rillaboom and Dubwool, out of his tent looking over at her as she exited the tent. The rest of his team was out as well, presumably having followed him out of his tent when Alira woke up and started screaming.

She saw the unspoken questions in their eyes, and felt her claws in her paws dig into her arms as her pale lavender eyes averted from them, why did their stares bother her so much, before she turned and outright bolted off down a random street.

She needed air to think properly and she knew Cale could answer their questions, she was far too perturbed and needed to clear her head.

She didn’t know how long or deep into the old town she ran, feet pounding against old stone and dirt as she twisted and turned down paths, once lively and traversed by human and pokemon alike, now only traveled by pokemon like herself.

She eventually literally skid to a stop on the stone street, leaning against a pillar with a paw as she caught her breath, mind still racing as her feet once were. Why, why did what he say bother her so damn much? There was no reason for it to bother her like it did, he was just trying to assure her human partner after whatever she saw in her dreams, but he said again. He had no reason to say again, absolutely none.

She felt her paw against the pillar clench into a furred fist, she hated this feeling churning in her chest. It was unpleasant and wrong and she hated it. Was she jealous of how easily Hop comforted her trainer? She never had a problem with him before, hell she liked the guy and how happy he made Alira, even with what he didn’t know about what she went through before moving to Galar he was extremely close to the human girl and Nova knew Alira needed him in her life. She had no problem with him and hell, he knew her trainer longer than she herself did.

Confusion, was that what she was feeling? Or a mix of both? She knew she was unsettled by his words and the implication of them, but she already had the feeling there was more to the bond he and Alira had, she and Cale had talked about it when the humans were asleep about them possibly being reincarnations of the partners of Zacian and Zamazenta, with the spell she heard Heather had cast before her death in the old tales her father, the aged cinderace with dark brown eyes, told her growing up it was well within the realm of possibility. But now that mere thought had her chest twist in pain-

Nova drew her paw back before punching the pillar as hard as she could, letting out a wordless, shrill and heartbreaking cry of, gods knew what she was feeling, confusion and some strange sort of pain that made her throat tight.

She hardly registered the tears falling down her muzzle and onto the ground, or even how she was shaking.

Why did her emotions need to be so needlessly complex and weird-

Nova jumped when a hand, not human but pokemon in nature, rested on her shoulder, and her head snapped around. It was Shiro, the rather tall inteleon looked very concerned as his blue eyes scanned her features.

She wanted to tell him to go away, he didn’t need to see her, Alira’s first pokemon, like this, all confused and weird feeling. She wanted to shove him away, tell him to go back to camp and just continue to take her emotions out on the pillar with no one knowing, let herself cry on her own. God knows she was rash enough to do all that, hell the professor Leon got her from told him she rash to begin with and often acted without thinking. She was the strong one, she shouldn’t be brought to tears so easily and she shouldn’t let the other see her like this.

She did none of those things however.

Instead,she merely leaned forward, ears flopping back down against her skull, pinning back, and her forehead rested on his chest. She shut her eyes, now readily aware of both her tears and the fact she was moments away from breaking down into a sobbing fit like a little newborn sobble.

“[I must look pathetic.]” She croaked, trying to will herself to stop shaking or crying.

Shiro’s thin arms carefully wrapped around her in the form of a comforting hug, a hand resting on her back and the other carefully resting on the back of her head. “[No, you don’t.]” He responded simply. “[What’s wrong?]”

Nova shrugged. She didn’t know, she didn’t know why she was so upset.

He hummed, carefully petting her fur and ears and taking care to not pull her ears. “[I’m not sure if this is correct, but judging by what happened before you ran off… Are you afraid of losing Alira?]”

Nova opened her mouth to refute that, like hell she was afraid of losing Alira she promised she’d never abandon any of her pokemon and she trusted her, but she couldn’t find her voice and her heart twisted painfully at his words. The more his words hung in the air, the more she felt her trembling worsen and throat tighten up. This was stupid of her she thought to herself, she was one of the champion’s pokemon, she shouldn’t be so easily pushed to tears.

But damn it, damn it all to hell, Nova finally, desperately even, returned the embrace and a sob made her shoulders hitch, only the first of many as she began to sob like her trainer had done not long ago.

She was, she was afraid of losing Alira, not to anything the human could do, but to something she couldn’t help. To her past life deciding to return, she almost lost herself to it clearly when she awoke from her dreams if it wasn’t for Hop and the idea of that happening again when he wasn’t around or it happening to him as well... It terrified Nova to her core.

She wasn’t sure how long she and Shiro stood there, her crying her heart out into the water type’s chest, but after some time Rillaboom and Dubwool found them. They didn't say anything, but Rillaboom placed a gentle hand on her back while Dubwool brushed up against the side of her leg comfortingly.

Eventually she did calm down, but leaned on Shiro as he and the other two began to walk back to the camp. However, as they walked, they suddenly heard singing, pokemon in origin clearly and not in english.

The four looked around, trying to find the source and as Nova’s head turned, she spotted a figure of a pokemon sat on top of a house.

“[In time's flow~ See the glow of flames ever burning bright~]” It was a female gardevoir, that much was clear, but, her coloring… Even with the moonlight it was strange. Her hair was green that much was the same, but her arms, skirt and legs were pitch black, and the fin like thing sticking out of her chest was a brilliant gold. Her eyes were a seemingly glowing green as well and she seemed… Rather young despite her evolution, voice light and young. “[On a swift river's drift~ Broken memories align in dreams~ Though you both slumber, in this new life, your once sleeping magic awakes~ Never fear, for what once was lost shall not overcome you in this life~]”

Dubwool stepped closer, trying to get a better look, but his hoof knocked into a stray rock and the sound rang out in the silent air. The gardevoir’s head snapped around, fixating on the group with startled eyes.

“[Oh! My apologies, I thought no one else was around.]” She apologized, slipping off the roof and landing far too lightly with how far she dropped down from, seeming to float before hitting the ground. “[I’ve not seen any of you in town before, I suppose introductions are in order then. You may call me Flayn.]”

Shiro looked at Nova, confused as not many wild pokemon they met had names most of the time, nicknames of their species names sure but not a completely different one. Also, her ‘accent’ was strange, which was weird.

“[I’m Nova, he’s Shiro, and they’re Rillaboom and Dubwool.]” Nova took charge of introductions and motioned to each pokemon in turn as the wild Pokémon walked closer.

“[It is my pleasure to make your acquaintance.]” Flayn bowed deeply to them, smiling softly as she stood back up. “[I have not seen any of you around here before, are you travelers?]”

“[Sort of.]” Rillaboom replied, scratching the back of his head as Shiro added. “[In a way we are I guess?]”

Nova was still trying to place her ‘accent’, it was so bizarre sounding and made her words trill strangely.

“[That is something we share in common then.]” She clasped her hands together in front of her happily. “[I am a traveler as well, I travel with my father all over the world, though we’ve a particular fondness for the lands of Galar.]”

“[That’s a bit of a surprise, with the harsh storms that only have brief gaps of calm surrounding Galar I’m surprised you two can even leave here or would want to return.]” Nova spoke frankly and Flayn smiled.

“[Oh, it wasn’t always that way, not until long ago...]” Flayn then sighed wistfully. “[A lot happened here, all of which tie us here in ways that always bring us back to Duscarn, to what was once the capital of the region when it was a thriving kingdom.]”

...What? The four pokemon looked at each other, confused. This place had a name? It made sense, but none of the tales they heard growing up ever mentioned the capital of Galar having a name.

“[...My apologies, since you are travelers you must not know the history of this place, and I don’t have the time to explain.]” Flayn apologized after a moment, scratching the back of her head sheepishly before pointing towards the castle in the distance. “[I don’t have much time now, but I must warn you if you plan to explore that way, in the land between here and the castle, you must take care to not step on the scarred ground. It’ll look like a fresh burn mark on the ground from a fireball. If you step upon the ground, you’ll soon lose your feet to burns akin to stepping in acid, not even those of the fire element will be able to walk upon it.]”

“[Thank you for the warning.]” Nova thanked her, eyes squinting at the gardevoir, noting she was shorter than most gardevoirs. Like, at least three or more inches shorter, and her skirt only reached just below her knees. It didn’t look like it was sliced to that length in a battle either.

“[It was my pleasure. Now I really must be going, my father will worry if I tarry any longer.]” Flayn smiled, before backing up. “[I hope our paths cross again friends!]”

As the gardevoir began to step back more, Nova suddenly realized why her ‘accent’ was so weird. She wasn’t speaking with the dialect and sounds like a gardevoir did, the ‘sirknight’ or ‘gardevoir’(depending on what region a gardevoir was from it was different) sounds, she instead was making trills and shrills to the tune of-

Flayn suddenly jumped high into the air, flashing brilliantly with light, making the four pokemon shield their eyes. When the light died down, the gardevoir was gone, and floating in the air was a white and gold jet-like pokemon, green eyes staring at them serenely.

The four barely had time to register just what pokemon was in front of them before the latias whistled cheerfully, trilling the whole while, before zipping off into the night skies and turning invisible.

The four stared after where the pokemon disappeared between the stars, before Nova said simply. “[Nope. Nope. I’m not even going to wonder what she was doing here, nope. I am going to freak to bed it is way too late as it is.]” She raised her paws in the air and quickly began walking in the direction they originally were walking while speaking, shaking her head repeatedly.

The other three pokemon were silent for a moment, before laughing in unison and following the cinderace.

Several hours later, long after the pokemon returned to camp and went to bed and when the sun rose high in the sky, Hop woke up before Alira did. He surprisingly slept well and didn’t have any visions of Acaeus’s life weirdly enough.

Alira was still clinging onto him in sleep, he realized as he leaned his head back as best he could to get a better look at her. She looked serene now, she had her head resting on his chest, her ear over his heart strangely enough. Her hands were firmly, though loosely, clamped on his shoulders, gripping his shirt ever so slightly.

Her overgrown hair was draping down her face, barely avoiding tickling her nose and he idly noted she was likely going to ask him to help her cut her hair. Her hair being long at most any length was an absolute nightmare according to her, hence her normal hair cut being extremely short after she started the gym challenge actually.

Shifting to his left had him turning his head to see Widgyt waking up, stretching out as her amber eyes blinked open. She looked over at Hop and gave a tired and soft yip of greeting as he nodded in return and she stood up.

She padded over and sniffed at Alira, checking on her and huffing with relief, clearly glad she seemed to be okay after last night. She then peered around the tent, noting that Shiro and Nova were gone so she walked out of the tent to look for them.

{It’s a relief she seems to have slept peacefully after the night’s events.} The sudden male voice rang out in Hop’s head, nearly making him jump and he looked around rapidly before his eyes landed on the very much awake figure of Calethorne. He was sitting with his back leaning against the tent wall, arms crossed under that fin sticking out of his chest and his blue gaze was fixated on Hop.

“...Cale?” Hop whispered, and the pokemon tilted his head in a nod, raising a hand to tap his own head. “Right, you’re half psychic type, can all…?”

Cale visibly pondered that, looking to the side as he hummed verbally. Eventually, he shrugged. {If they wish to, it’s likely.} He replied simply, Hop noting his ‘voice’ sounded like no human he’d ever heard before, echoing, strange and almost alien. It almost felt less like Cale was properly talking and more feelings of what he was trying to say. {I don’t speak for all, but I oft’ don’t communicate like this. Only if I need to, or if I trust the human in question.} He gave Hop a pointed, but also content, look.

Just as Hop got the meaning of his words, Cale stood up, hunched over so he didn’t smack into the roof of the tent and moved to exit it. {I best check on the others, Nova and Shiro got to bed late and I think they’re outside mucking around, if not napping in the sun.} As he reached the entrance to the tent, he paused and looked back at Hop. His gaze was intense enough to render Hop unable to move even if he could, though there was something unreadable in the pokemon’s eyes.

{...Kindly look after Alira. She’s been through much, even before you both met.} Somehow, the telepathic 'voice' was soft even with it being right in the human’s head. {You two…} Cale seemed to struggle with how to word or get what he wanted to say across before sighing and shaking his head. {Nevermind. Just, take care of her however you feel she needs.}

Calethorne then left the tent, leaving Hop staring after him, eyes still wide. Alira snuggling down into his chest made his gaze snap back to her as she left out a drowsy hum.

Clearly she was just starting to wake up, as she shifted slightly, feeling around with a hand to clearly figure out what she was laying on and he fought the urge to chuckle in amusement as her hand brushed over his collarbone and throat before freezing.

Her face scrunched up, before she blinked her eyes open blearily, lifting her head and looking around before looking up as her gaze settled on his.

“Good morning.” He greeted her and she blinked slowly, visibly processing his words before her head fell back to his chest.

“Mornin’.” She mumbled into his shirt, a hand scratching at her hair and her brow furrowed in displeasure as her fingers got briefly tangled in it. She then muttered seemingly to herself. “Hair’s getting cut today, I’m not going to show my face back in the cities with this hair length.”

“I’ll help you then.” She looked up in surprise before smiling and nodding in thanks at his words.

“I suppose we should get up.” This time she grumbled and he couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him.

“Yeah, we should.” He agreed and she rolled off him before they both sat up. Hop was quick to look away as Alira reached under her shirt, it riding up as she began to try to clasp her binder back in place.

The small annoyed hiss that escaped her had him carefully looking over, making sure to not look at anything he shouldn’t to see she seemed to be having problems clasping it. No doubt it had been both jostled by what happened last night when she kicked out of her sleeping bag and her own drowsiness from just waking up making her fingers fumble.

“Need help?” He asked, unsure if he should even be asking, he knew her reasons for wearing a binder and had seen her other ones at her newly acquired apartment when visiting and she had happened to hang them up to dry after washing them, but he’d never actually helped her with it before.

“...Yeah.” She sighed, hands abandoning trying to clasp it as she gripped at her shirt. “I’m... so not awake enough to get it clasped after last night, so please?”

“Yeah.” He repeated, letting her pull her shirt up just enough for him to see the clasps and he was quick to quickly get them hooked on the first set of clasps, taking care to not accidentally touch her back in case he startled her. “That tight enough or…?”

“Yep, thank you. They might not be bras but god they’re as irritating to deal with in the mornings.” She said as she pulled her shirt back down and shifted to look at him with a smile. “I know that stuff’s awkward for most guys, so thank you again for helping with it.”

“Not a problem Alli.” He returned the smile with a grin. “We’ve known each other for ages, so that stuff doesn’t bug me like it probably would Lee.”

She snorted with amusement as she reached over and put on her glasses. “Yeah, I have a feeling he might freak out a little if he knew you helped with this.”

“Hence why he won’t.” He winked at her as he raised his hand with his pinky sticking out.

She laughed in surprise but linked her pinky with his. “Normally I’m the one being all sneaky and winky~ I’m rubbing off on you a little too much.”

He only grinned in response.

After they had gotten out of the tent and made breakfast, they packed up their tents and made their way out of the town after recalling their pokemon and Hop helping Alira cut her hair. The reason being for leaving the town despite planning on exploring more was rather simple.

“Let’s actually just head for the castle right away.” Hop’s words surprised Alira as she was eating her food after both of them having told each other what happened in their dreams, but listened as he continued. “I want to explore this town as much as the next person, but if you’re having intense dreams like that…” He paused, clearly reflecting on what happened the night prior. “We need to get to the castle, there has to be a reason we’re having these dreams and I’m willing to bet it’s there, and if we’re having intense dreams just in this town we need to find the source.”

If they hoofed it, they’d likely make it to the castle by sundown and could probably make camp inside. Thank gosh they were used to hiking for hours on end during the gym challenge.

The duo were likely only a few miles from the castle when they spotted a discoloration in the grass off to the side a little of the path they were walking. A dark patch of burn black.

The humans looked at each other in confusion before going over to investigate.

It looked like a fire grenade had gone off or a pokemon used a very powerful fire move, the ground was scorched from a middle focal point for at least ten feet around evenly, the grass was even still burning in some places.

And there, the middle as if it was the catalyst or cause for the burnt ground around it, was the missing half of the rusted sword.

“Oh my god, there’s the other half of the sword in the middle of that scorch mark!” Alira shouted in surprise, nearly making Hop jump with how sudden the shout was.

Alira didn’t hesitate to rush forward to try to retrieve it, hardly registering the sound of four pokemon releasing themselves from their pokeballs and two of those being of her own, but as soon as her foot made contact with the charred ground, her knees almost buckled as sensations, images, thoughts and sounds suddenly flooded her senses.

Bright light screaming shouting wind rushing around her no no matter the cost it never matters what it costs even if life and limb are torn from me this is my plea I don’t want to die like this

Arms wrapped around her middle and Alira was then yanked backward nearly violently, ending up in a heap on the ground as her head twinged with pain. Her vision swam, dully realizing her glasses were sent flying when she hit the ground, thank god she didn’t really need them for much aside from seeing things at a distance better.

Her ears rang horribly, but she shook her head, clearing it as she registered the very concerned voice of Hop as well as the shrill chirps of Nova and Shiro, and was that Rillaboom and Dubwool?

She placed her hands over her ears, practically shoving her palms tightly against her ears, and shook her head more vigorously, fingers digging into her hair and scalp as her eyes shut tightly. Too much noise too much noise-

In, out, in and out, she reminded herself to breathe, focus on that, focus! She grit her teeth, focusing on breathing as best she could while her brain began trying to figure what just happened.

Just what the hell was that weird rush of, feelings, words and images and crap? She knew that voice in those words, it was Heather, no mistaking it but what on earth was that about?

After a little bit, Alira shakily lowered her hands from her ears and opened her eyes once the feeling of being overwhelmed left her. She saw she was kneeling on the ground, sitting back on her legs and Hop was crouched in front of her, clearly worried as she saw Nova and Shiro flanked him.

“Visions, of sorts, flashes, words and sounds? Heather did something here.” She managed to get out, brows furrowing in confusion as she wrung her hands together. “This is going to sound odd, but I don't think I'm ready to get that other half of the rusted sword. Something significant happened here with Heather, enough to leave some sort of...Scar? There’s...” She shook her head. “Call me crazy, but I think there’s something in the castle that might help us get it without being overwhelmed like that.” Her head twinged again and a hand flew to her head as the world tilted. “Ow.”

“Okay, hang on I can try to get the part of the sword, I mean you’re the one with the connection to it, maybe it’ll leave me be.” Hop reached over to pat her shoulder before standing and turning to go get it, however, Rillaboom and Dubwool blocked his path.

“Eh? What’s wrong buddies?” He tilted his head at the two, Rillaboom shook his head while Dubwool baa’d in protest. “You know something I don’t?”

Dubwool nodded while Rillaboom scanned the ground before picking up a stick, which he wasted no time in throwing onto the scorched ground.

It burst into flames within moments and was soon nothing but ashes.

“Ah, well…” Hop swallowed, stepping back. “I’m only going to guess it’s a pokemon thing that is why you uh, knew that would happen.” He shook his head and turned back to Alira. “Can you stand?”

“I can try, world is spinning but…” She leaned forward, placed her hands on the ground and shifted her feet to be below her with her knees up against her chest.

She felt her stomach lurch, but she began to stand, arms held out as she stood up. Not a good idea, her vision spun and for a moment she was certain she was going to fall over.

Hop quickly rushed to steady her, an arm around her middle and he slung one of her arms over his shoulder, her taller stature helping that.

“Lean on me till you’re stable, mate.” Hop waited for her to nod before they began walking, slower now, to the castle.

Nova, Shiro, Rillaboom and Dubwool trailed behind them, Nova and Shiro hovering close to them in particular. As they walked, Nova noticed something whenever Alira stepped forward.

Despite Flayn’s warnings from the night prior of losing ones feet or in this case shoes, neither one of Alira’s shoes were burned or damaged in any way.

 

[Alira]

Chapter 8: Recalling

The sun was setting as they reached the castle, Alira thankfully soon being able to walk on her own after the dizziness went away and they returned their pokemon to their balls.

They walked through the gate with ease while minding the gate door itself, it long having fallen into disrepair and could no longer open or close, it was jammed halfway down by both various sorts of rust and mildew coating the chains used to hoist it and plant growth snaking up the sides of the entrance. It could still very well fall on them mind you, so they were quick to get out from under it.

Unlike some castles who had a large wall around it to accommodate a town within it’s walls, it seemed like this was just a castle keep, as they walked into what seemed to be the courtyard, as two large spaces of grass were to either side of them as they entered, and ahead, a wall of sorts rose up where the rest of the castle was, with twin staircases leading up to what looked like the main entrance for the rest of the place.

Not seeing anything of interest in the courtyard, they headed for the stairs and went up them quickly, the doors to the entrance hall were ajar enough for them to slip in without needing to touch the wood of the doors though they did need to turn on their flashlights once they got in, even with the glowing moss in patches everywhere. Everything aside from the doors and windows and such were made from what seemed to be stone cut from the cliffside itself.

The entrance looked like it belonged in some sort of fancy manor, as to their immediate front, there was a wide staircase that went up to a landing against the wall where a old painting hung, then to the left and right of the landing staircases went up a floor. The stairs landed on what Alira would describe as a weird sort of wrap around ‘balcony’, as a railed walkway went around the walls of the room that the stairs met on either side. There seemed to be entrances to hallways near where the stairs met the walkway on either side of the room, an entrance to the left of the right staircase and a entrance to the right of the left staircase, both leading off further into the castle.

There were also hallways on the ground floor, one to the far left, one to the far right, and one on either side of the room directly beneath the landings for the two staircases.

“Weird layout, then again, Acaeus’ family, or his homeland’s soldiers, one of the two, were building a castle on this cliff when Enternatus hatched and the darkest day started, and Ace and Heth probably had to have some help from pokemon to finish it.” Hop remarked as he scratched the back of his head after looking around with his flashlight. “What’dya say Alli? Where do you think we go first?”

“Up.” Her gaze was locked on the hallway up the stairs on the left. “Through that hall to the left. Call me crazy but something’s calling me, or tugging, I don’t know, I just know we need to go that way.”

“Alright. Something’s calling me too, so let’s go up.” Hop grabbed her by the hand, lacing their fingers together as they quickly go up the stairs, Alira quickly looking at the painting hanging on the wall as they went by and frowning in confusion before she and Hop skipped up the stairs before going down the hallway to the right.

That wasn’t Acaeus Heather was standing with in the painting…

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Leon huffed as he finished shearing one of his family’s wooloos and placing the wooloo fur in the box to his right as he sent the wooloo off to join the rest he already sheared.

He wiped his brow, he needed a small break from the Battle Tower, so he decided to take a week off and head back home, where he was quick to offer to help his mom with shearing their wooloo flock. It was something he was familiar enough with to do without a thought and was sort of relaxing, it was only a bonus that his mother could sell the wool, this town being one of the main providers for wooloo wool to be made into wool fabric in the region as most of the wooloo and dubwool farmers were either here in Postwick or Wedgehurst.

He was out of his battle tower attire and in a t-shirt and overalls as well as boots, and boy was it easier to move around in as he stood and stretched, looking for the last remaining wooloo to be sheared who happened to be one wooloo simply called Truble, said as trouble cause that wooloo was the bane of his and his mother's existence some days.

Truble was, in short, a very adventurous wooloo and the one who always kept trying to get into the Slumbering Weald and was very hard to handle on most days, and the fact Truble was the main reason Hop and Alira went into the Weald ages ago because he finally managed to break the gate didn’t help the nickname or the stress brought about when that wooloo decided he wanted to go on an adventure.

Leon squinted over the fencing at the gate in question to make sure it hadn’t been broken again, it hadn’t but that bloody wooloo was still missing.

He scanned the fields, looking for the lone unsheared wooloo and about had a heart attack as he noticed the break in the fence line right near the edges of the slumbering forest.

“Gods damn it Truble!” He shouted, spinning around to run to the shed where the belt with his pokemon was, and snatched it off the nail it was hanging on before throwing it on.

He all but spun on his heel as he turned and ran for the break in the fence, grabbing Aegislash’s ball and quickly releasing him.

“Agis make sure no other wooloo get out while I find Truble!” He shouted as he hopped over the fence, hearing Aegislash make a sound of affirmation as he ran headfirst into the fog filled forest.

He released Inteleon and Charizard as he entered and, presumably having heard his shouting even while in the pokeballs, were quick to follow him, Inteleon’s sharp eyes scanning the surrounding forest to find the wooloo (and pulling Leon to prevent him from running into a tree right after coming out of his pokeball) while Charizard helped them keep from getting lost, if he could easily keep up with Leon that is.

“Truble! Truble!” Leon shouted, jumping over small rivers and fallen trees as he looked for the pokemon in a rush, he wasn’t sure how far the wooloo might be in the forest but damn it he was going to find it-

His foot caught a log and he soon found he was going to meet and greet the very hard ground with his face and he immediately braced himself. But he never hit the ground as something thin but firm wrapped around his middle, halting his fall.

“Really? Do all humans of this age love to run headfirst into a fog infested forest with little regard for the danger to themselves?” A mature female voice rang out in his head, sounding like a sigh, and he opened his eyes to see he was suspended above the ground by what seemed to be a pink braided cord wrapped around his midsection.

Wait-No, it wasn’t a cord, it was fur or hair.

“Are you alright sir?” The cord pulled and he soon found himself looking down at the face of a dog pokemon he recognized, no longer a statue discovered after the mural was destroyed but a living and breathing creature, and the braid holding him aloft was attached to the side of its face.

“Y-Yeah.” His voice was quiet, meek even but considering the scars and the missing half of its ear he could see, he was a little wary of making it mad. He didn’t see Inteleon or Charizard either, and the braid was wrapped around just above the belt with the rest of his team, so he wasn’t sure he should risk making it mad.

“Calm down fair knight, I’m not that easy to set off.” The voice rang out, amused and he realized that the female voice was coming from the pokemon holding him aloft, and the amused look in its eyes confirmed it.

He nodded and it-well, she considering the voice set him down gently, though the braid was loosely wrapped around his middle still.

“Zen! Get the Charizard and Inteleon, I know who they’re with and who they were looking for! You were looking for a wooloo, right?” The pokemon turned her head and seemed to shout in one direction before turning back to him.

“Yeah, he’s in the flock me and my mother take care of.” Leon nodded, a little uneasy that she hadn’t let go of him but didn’t seem to mean him any harm.

“Well, he is with my brother, though he really should get a human partner, might curb that adventurous unpredictability if he gets one as adventurous as he.” The pokemon ‘hummed’, tail swishing idly behind her. “What’s your name?”

“Leon, uh, Leon Cadeyrn.” For some reason, he felt the need to give his full name.

“Pleasure to meet you, Leon Cadeyrn, knight of this land.” She bowed her head to him. “I am Zacian, guardian of both this forest and Galar, though I’ve been away for longer than I should.”

Leon felt his eyes widen a fraction, Zacian? Oh holy hell, this was one of the legendary pokemon that helped Alira and Hop after Enternatus knocked him clean on his ass and out for the entire fight!

“I am very happy to see you have recovered from your injuries fighting Enternatus.” Zacian raised her head back up, Leon gaping at her in shock that she actually remembered him. “Are you surprised? I would never dare forget such a brave soul who took on Eternatus, though I didn’t have your name till now.”

If she had more to say, the thumping and cries of his pokemon had him turning as she released him from her grasp.

“Intel, Charizard!” He ran over to the two, looking them over in case something happened but they seemed fine, and he looked over at the other set of footsteps, larger than both his and his pokemon to come face to face with the other dog pokemon, this one blue and red instead of cyan and pink.

“Hello, Zamazenta?” He waved hesitantly as it gave him what looked to be a very focused gaze despite nodding in confirmation.

He was then about scared out of his wits when Zamazenta stepped closer and began inspecting him, circling him briefly then sniffing his torso and even under his hair which made him yelp as he jumped away while spinning to face the pokemon. “H-Hey!”

Zamazenta seemed to be quietly thinking, before ‘speaking’ to Leon. “I...My apologies fair knight. You just, heavily resemble someone who was dear to me... I had to make sure, pardon my not asking for either permission or name.” This time it was a male voice, older but not necessarily mature sounding. His tone… His voice, while kind and downright noble in some respects, sounded so incredibly crestfallen and resigned. Leon wasn’t sure what to say to that, to hear he resembled someone Zamazenta once knew was surprising, to say the least.

Zamazenta bowed his head to Leon as Zacian walked over to him, the human noticing the wooloo that was beside Zamazenta and the one red ribbon on one of the side wool braids.

“Truble, there you are!” Leon rushed over and scooped the troublesome pokemon in his arms. “Gods you’ve got to stop wandering off like this, you had me worried sick you know!”

Truble merely baa’d at him in response but didn’t fight him, merely settling against him.

Zacian, who seemed to be previously talking with Zamazenta, turned toward the human and pokemon. “Follow me and Zen, we’ll lead you out of the weald. You do have him to shear now.” Zacian sounded amused at that as she gave Truble a look, but motioned for Leon and his pokemon to follow her and Zamazenta as they turned and started leading the way.

Leon, with Truble in hand, as well as Inteleon and Charizard began following the two legendary pokemon as they lead them out of the forest, thankfully avoiding tricky paths presumably so Leon didn’t trip.

“Hey, uh, Zen was it?” The silence was a little awkward so Leon attempted to speak to Zamazenta. “Just want you to know it’s alright, you surprised me for sure but it’s fine.”

“That’s a relief, this, everything outside the weald is new to me, and I am unfamiliar how to act around the people or how they’ll react to me or my sister.” Zamazenta seemed relieved that Leon wasn’t mad at him and gave him a warm look. “Are you related to the young man or lady who helped us defeat Eternatus for good? You bear a resemblance to the young man so I must ask.”

“Yep, Hop’s my little brother!” Leon grinned and puffed out his chest a little. “I’m not proud I got my rear handed to me by Eternatus, but I am proud of both him and Alira managing to take it down and capture it! Even, if they shouldn’t have put themselves at risk...” Leon trailed off, hugging Truble just the slightest bit tighter as he deflated.

That was always something that bugged him, even after Alira took his spot as champion, he couldn’t fathom why she and Hop risked their lives without a thought to their own safety. He was thankful they did capture and even tame Enternatus, don’t get him wrong!

But they shouldn’t have been in the line of fire, they were only eighteen at that time and-

“I do agree, they shouldn’t have put themselves at risk, as young as they are, but what they did was courageous and incredibly brave.” Zacian chimed in, looking thoughtful. “And they did manage to wake us up from our centuries-long slumber to aid them, which was a feat in of itself.”

...Wait, hang on what? Leon’s gaze snapped to Zacian, they were asleep until that fight with Eternatus? And Hop and Alira woke them up somehow? Well, that’s news to say the least.

“Ah, we’ve reached the edge of the forest, and the break in your fence.” Zacian stopped to raise a paw to her muzzle, covering up what was probably a snort of amusement as she realized who made it and her eyes darted to look at Truble.

Aegislash was there, though he turned around at the sounds of movement and was quick to spot Leon and his pokemon, then his gaze fell on Zacian and Zamazenta.

Leon was pretty sure if Aegislash had a jaw, it would’ve dropped. As it were, he almost dropped his shield, though he quickly caught it with one of his arms, shifting into blade form, before bowing deeply to the two dog pokemon.

Huh, even if it’s been ages since they walked this land, pokemon still recognize them?

“Relax, kind knight. We are merely helping your partners out of the forest, no need for formalities.” Zacian assured the ghost Pokémon, returning the bow with her head. “We will be leaving very shortly, as we must check on the other towns in the land, but we wanted to make sure Sir Leon made it out of the forest unharmed.”

“Take care Sir Leon, don’t be getting into any more fights with beasts like Eternatus.” Zamazenta nudged Leon’s shoulder with his nose as he spoke, light amusement sprinkled in his voice but his words were serious all the same. “You wouldn’t want to worry your brother more than he already is over his dear maiden lately. May our paths cross again.”

It took a few moments for the pokemon’s words to process in Leon’s mind and register them, during which Zamazenta and Zacian crouched before leaping into the air, seeming to walk on air as the were quickly vanishing from view as Leon finally found his voice to shout after them. “Wait, you've seen Hop and Alira lately!? Hey!”

But the two dog pokemon disappeared from sight, far faster than he knew he could follow on Charizard, so Leon just stared for a few moments.

Zamazenta’s words hinted he had seen Hop and presumably Alira relatively recently, which was good but where were they?

Meanwhile, far above the ground and running on clouds, Zacian tilted her head at her brother and gave him a look.

“You really shouldn’t have mentioned prince Hop to Leon, he’ll be frought with questions now.” She hummed and Zen flicked his ear.

“So what if I mentioned him? He was likely worried for his little brother with his and young maiden Alira’s sudden and clearly unannounced quest into the weald, and after we crowned him prince and Alira princess for their good deeds against Eternatus, it’d be stranger not to mention him.” Zamazenta huffed and Zacian winced.

There was that tone in his voice now, Leon’s resemblance to Acaeus must have bothered him more than he let on. She thought, giving her brother a sympathetic look.

“Are you alright?” She asked and he looked at her.

“Do you think he’s... I mean, could Leon be Acaeus reincarnated? The resemblance...” He hesitantly began but Zacian shook her head.

“No, you already saw how the king shield reacts to Hop, like the queen sword reacts to Alira, he may look like Acaeus, but that shield only reacts to someone who has Acaeus’s soul or blood, stronger to the former which it has done with Hop. And you and I have been following the young prince and princess long enough to know they’ve been dreaming of those days hundreds of years ago.” She disliked having to crush his hopes, but she knew what Markus had told them years ago and Hop was already, from what she and him saw, seeing Acaeus’s memories in dreams.

“The resemblance is frightful, but I don’t think he’s Acaeus’s reincarnation, even if the spell cast close to the castle ensured Heather and Acaeus would return to us one day, you and I both know that it’s highly unlikely they’d look the same. It’s been over five hundred years Zen, so much has changed.” Her own voice took on an unsettled lit and they halted on the cloud they were running on, peering over the edge down at the train tracks below leading into the city now called Hammerlocke.

“Yeah, moving mechanical constructs, both on tracks and on streets, things called pokeballs that allow one to carry pokemon with ease, devices pokemon such as Rotom can live in and power to aid humans...” Zamazenta trailed off. “New tools powered by electricity, new weapons and ways to kill even, this is far from the land we left when we had to sleep.”

“And yet it is our land all the same, the towns have advanced as well as everything else, but Galar is still Galar, our land.” Zacian reaffirmed, tone brokering no argument. She then tilted her head, threading some of her energy through the currently rather weak link she had with the currently broken queen sword to check on Alira, having no soul link she was aware of with the young girl. The feedback she got was of the familiar air of the... “....They’re in the castle.”

Zamazenta’s head snapped to look at his sister with alarmed eyes. “IN the castle!? Zacia you know how dangerous it is in there because it’s fallen to disrepair and we haven’t yet gotten fellow pokemon to help us restore it!”

“They weren’t supposed to be there so soon, I thought they were going to explore Duscarn, not-” Zacian cut herself off with a huff. “Whatever Alira saw in her dreams last night that caused her to scream… It must have spooked them greatly. We need to hurry back, the sun is setting and a dark castle in disrepair is not a place they should be in at night.”

“The floor could collapse beneath them you mean.” Zamazenta deadpanned as the sibling dog pokemon quickly turned before rushing off in the direction of the castle, mere blurs of color to anyone watching the skies as they ran. They HAD to hurry!

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The two humans turned the corner after carefully traveling down the now pitch black hall they entered earlier, it was surely nighttime now with how dark it was and how they needed their flashlights even with the glow from the moss everywhere.

The corridor they entered seemed to be some sort of, hall for bedrooms? Each door had a certain phrase in, royal galarian, on them, and Alira squinted as she got closer to the nearest one.

This one was a little different from the rest, it had the shape of a sword pointing up burned into the wood as if with an iron, and above the tip of the sword was a phrase in royal galarian.

“....Queen and guardian of Galar’s legacy.” Alira didn’t even realize she was speaking until her words rang out, slightly echoed around her, and Hop to her left tilted his head to better hear her.

“Eh? Is that what it says?” Hop leaned closer, squinting at the words as he shined his flashlight on it. “I can’t read it, can you?” He looked at her in concern.

“N-No, I-” Her head stung and her free hand flew up to grip at her head. “I can’t, but, that is what it says.” She didn’t know WHY she was so sure it was that, she just was.

Hop looked at her in concern, but she merely shook her head, placing her hand on the door and pushing.

With what looked like a spark of blue light, the door opened easily with a creak. A candle was lit in the room, which was mildly big, it was circular in shape with a round rug almost the size of the room. There was a wardrobe to the right, a desk where the candle was with a rack of sorts to its left and a chair in front of it, and straight ahead was a bed with a canopy hanging from the frame above it, draping down around it with the curtains pulled closed.

The weird thing was, nothing looked like it had been touched by time, even with the window by the desk having no glass and clearly letting in some light and air, everything was pristine.

Alira found herself walking in, over to the bed where she carefully pulled the curtain back, peering at the bed. The comforter was a light blue with red accents and the pillows looked rather comfy, but, set upon the bed, was a set of armor. Shiny silver with etchings and designs on the breastplate, gauntlets and greaves, on any piece of metal really, and the golden and silver helmet had what looked to be wolf ears at the top with no visible visor, it was a full set of armor with chainmail to go under it as well.

Alira quickly backed up, curtain falling back into place, as her stomach flipped at the sudden thought that struck her, that it from a glance could possibly fit her perfectly, before looking over at the desk, noting it had a piece of paper set out next to a quill near the candle which didn’t seem to have burned much as it looked to be recently lit.

She narrowed her eyes, there were words written on the piece of paper, but she shook her head before anything like with the door inscription could happen and turned to Hop who was waiting by the door.

“This,” she wildly gestured with her arms as she spoke. “Is really fucking weird Hop! Really weird cause none of this should be so, er, like new!”

“I’ll say, this is just weird. And unless this place was airtight-” He eyed the window. “Which it isn’t, this shouldn’t be possible.”

“Must be magic or, something.” Alira brought a hand to her face, avoiding her glasses as she pinched the bridge of her nose briefly as her head began to sting. “Let’s try the next room, I’m getting a headache in here.”

“Yeah.” He motioned her to follow, taking her free hand with his own when she was close enough. They began walking down the hall, heading for the next door, when something cracked beneath the floor.

Hop and Alira looked down, the tattered rug beneath their feet couldn’t hide what seemed to be cracks forming in the floor and the ground jolted down just the slightest.

Before Hop realized the floor was seeming to cave in beneath them, Alira gripped his hand tighter, then he felt a hand grab the back of his shirt before he found himself being thrown down the hall with surprising ease.

He rolled on side overside due to the angle he was thrown at, ending up face-first on the ground before he propped himself up on his arms and looked up at Alira, who looked shocked at her own actions before she quickly slipped her pokeball belt off her waist and threw it at him, landing beside his arm just before the floor collapsed beneath her feet.

“ALIRA!” He shrieked as she soon fell with a shriek of her own and disappeared from sight. He scrambled over to the edge of the hole in the floor, managing to catch a glimpse of her falling down the dark hole and seeming to get hit on the head with a piece of stone before she disappeared into the darkness below.

It looked like some sort of rough tunnel created by the floor collapsing, and he had no idea where it went or if she was okay.

He gripped his flashlight in his hand tighter, he HAD to get down there, he had to. Alira looked like she got hit on the head and god knows how far this tunnel went, he needs to help her.

He looked over to the belt with her pokemon, mentally running through each of her team members, and shook his head as he reached over, grabbing the belt before quickly putting it in his backpack.

None of her team were flyers, and he only had one pokemon big enough to carry a possibly injured Alira and could fly. Thank god the hole was big enough cause of how big the hall was…!

He stood up quickly, snatching a ball from his waist and throwing it. “Corviknight come out!”

He caught the ball in his hand as the pokemon was released from his pokeball and quickly attached it to his belt as he began rapidly speaking. “Alira just fell down that hole there, we-we need to get down there, something hit her head before I lost sight of her she could be hurt-”

His sight blurred with tears as he cut himself off and he hastily scrubbed them away, no no no he couldn’t start crying all of a sudden, he couldn’t waste any time.

Corviknight gently nuzzled his trainer's shoulder, comforting Hop a little before he quickly vaulted onto his pokemon's back.

“We need to go down that hole!” He pointed to the hole after getting settled and gripping some of Corviknight’s feathers for security.

Corviknight squawked in confirmation before taking flight, briefly hovering up to the ceiling before diving down into the tunnel.

Hop leaned closer to Corviknight, all the while thinking and praying.

Please Alira, be alright! Don’t, don’t die on me!

 

[Alira]

*UPDATE*

I am beginning to steadily chip away at the last 25% of the next chapter again, life has not been kind the last several months and it's only recently I got my drive for this story again cause of the news on the Crown Tundra.

I promise I'm doing the best I can, I swear to god I am, I will at least finish the first arc of this story, I owe you readers that much, just, give me time. I'm doing the best I'm able currently.

~Alira