The Axew looked up at Keyon with bright pink eyes. Its tusks were long and straight, they gleamed a bone white even in the darkness of the night. The small creature and the naked human stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity.
At a lack of word Keyon stuttered out a greeting. “Well… Hello.” all things considered it was not an especially eloquent first greeting but Keyon was tired from walking all day.
“Axew,” Axew said. Its response held a similar amount of eloquence, not from the fact it was also tired, but instead because the only word it could say was “Axew” a variation therein.
Keyon nodded at that, still dumbstruck at the pokemon, his pokemon! “Yes, that is you, I suppose my name should go next shouldn’t it? Well hello I my name is Keyon Brown, and I have no idea where I am.” Keyon offered a smile to Axew as he introduced himself
The Axew looked around, taking in the interior of the tree trunk Keyon was camped out in, and looked back at Keyon with an unimpressed look. “Ax, Axew, ew ew ax.” The little dinosaur was attempting to introduce itself and ask a question… probably?
“I’m afraid I can’t understand your question, sorry.” At the admission Axew continued to look around the tree so Keyon kept talking, “Should I keep calling you Axew or would you like a name?” Axew turned sharply at that, head cocked. “You want a name?” Axew gave a sharp jerky nod that was no doubt difficult on a head that was clearly made to swing side to side. “Well, I should probably know your gender. Are you a boy or a girl?” Axew stomped its, her, foot twice.
“Okay, Female, if i’m remembering correctly the entire Haxorus line is dragon type, sooo how about Tiamat? Where I come from she is told to be one of the strongest dragons.”
Axew seemed to ponder the idea for a moment before she nodded, Axew no longer, Tiamat seemed to be getting tired, as was Keyon. “We need to get some sleep, ok Tia? We can talk more in the morning, would you prefer to go back to the pokeball or sleep out here?”
Tiamat contemplated her options for a second before walking over to Keyon and curling up by his side. Her scales were an odd texture against his side. The scales were small and light yellow, they flowed down Tiamat’s body like a river forming overlapping plates, if you were to pet her along the grain, from head to tail, you would think the scales were smooth, but bringing your hand up the opposite way would quickly reveal otherwise as they became rough like sandpaper, it didn’t actually hurt to do such but was fairly uncomfortable. Luckily Tiamat seemed to know this and angle her body against his in a way that provided only the smooth texture against his sensitive flanks.
As such Keyon began to drift off, the smoothly breathing form of Tiamat against his side helping sooth his rest in the uncomfortable tree hollow for the first night in this new world.
Keyon jumped straight from sleep to consciousness with a start. Bright lights flashing beneath his eyelids he looked around, the lights fading from the side of his vision. His surroundings totally empty other Tiamat at his side.
“Xew? Axew?” The Axew questioned groggily.
“Sorry about that Tia, just a bad dream, I think. Doesn't matter, c’mon it's time to get up anyway, we want to get moving while it's still cool out. We’ll walk and talk.”
Keyon put his palms to the ground and pushed up and off the floor of the tree hollow, his back aching from sleeping on the hard surface at an awkward angle. He grunted as he stretched and looked around. The forest was beautiful in the early morning, the sun was peaking up over the horizon and through the trees in awe inspiring sunbeams. A cool layer of dew had settled on the ground wetting Keyon’s feet as he walked. The pokemon seemed to agree that it was a good day too, there were dozens of pokemon just flitting about. Keyon could finally identify the birds that weighed down the tree branches, Fletchlings, their distinctive white tail stripes and red heads seemed to glow in the new morning light.
It took a few seconds for his brain to kick back into gear, still slow from sleep, but his fairly good pokemon knowledge finally let him connect the dots, Kalos, XY(Z), Xerneas, Yveltal, Zygarde. Ugh team flare was one of the more dangerous teams to deal with too! Actually that was a good question, was this the game, the anime, or a mix? Did he have to deal with Ash or had the Kalos Crisis already happened?
Keyon was brought out of his mental flood by the soft headbut of a crested head against the back of his knees, Tiamat was peering up at him, he surely must have looked silly staring at a Fletchling like it held the secrets of the world.
“Sorry about that girl, just lost in my thoughts, we need to start heading in towards that mountain, and hopefully find water along the way, it's been almost a day since I last drank anything.”
Tiamat held her snout into the air and began to inhale deeply, she did this for nearly a full minute much to Keyon’s fascination. Finally she stopped and looked back up to her trainer.
“Axew, ewax, xew.”
“Did you smell out some water?” Kenyon's question was answered by a jerky nod from Tiamat
“Perfect, can you lead the way?” Instead of answering verbally the yellow pokemon started trotting to the… northeast? He was pretty sure that it was northeast. Pushing the inane thought to the side Keyon trotted off after his pokemon.
It was only about 30 minutes later that the pair stumbled upon a medium sized stream flowing down from the mountains, the water was crystal clear of the kind you only saw in edited water bottle ads, the rocky bottom clearly visible through the sluggishly moving stream.
Keyon sighed gratefully as he rushed towards the stream, he had been starting to get really thirsty and was concerned he wouldn’t be able to find any water before he dehydrated himself. The water was brutally cold against Keyon’s face, but tasted exactly as it looked, clean and refreshing. He took a sharp breath of air as he resurfaced, thirst quenched.
He walked over to where Tiamat was also drinking from the steam, he walked purposely up to her from line of sight, and slowly bent down to pet down her spine and along her crest. “Thanks for finding the stream Tia.”
Tiamat had seemed a little on edge for a while, which made sense given they had only met something like 12 hours ago, but she positively preened under the soft scratching on and around her crest.
Keyon patted the top of her head lightly as he stepped away. “Drink your fill then we’ll talk some more, ok?”
It only took a couple more seconds for Tiamat to put her head back into the stream and drink before she looked back up at Keyon.
He nodded absently, “Tiamat, I am going to be honest with you, I have very little idea where we are, I'm confident we’re in the Kalos region if you know where that is,” Tiamat gave a blank stare “No? Ok that’s fine, the point is I'm fairly certain there are some fairly dangerous people out there who we could run into, and I need to know what you can do, can you do any moves?”
The Axew seemed to consider for a second before suddenly moving into a blur, her small stubby arms had new six inch long claws made of darkness at their ends, their sheer sharpness was quickly proven by the claws cutting almost an inch into a nearby rock.
“Ok,” Keyon inhaled sharply. “That's what, shadow claw? Seems like it. What else?”
Tiamat’s other claw began to glow a soft green, the three fingers on it extending in glowing protrusions, these were shorter than Shadow claws yet seemed to hit with significantly more effect, as proven by the gashes nearly twice as deep as those caused by Shadow Claw.
“That's Dragon Claw right? That's perfect Tia, Dragon Claw is great!”
Tiamat danced joyfully under his praise, only she didn’t stop dancing, it was an aggressive thing, the faster and more aggressively she danced the more her surroundings were lit up from a blue glow from her scaled skin. As the dancing stopped the glow seemed to meld to her scales and then expanded rapidly, a bright phantasmal copy grew out of Tiamat. That Keyon decided must have been Dragon Dance.
“Very good Tia, you look like you got one more thing in you; go ahead with all that you got.”
Tiamat did look like she was preparing herself for something, she dug the back of her tiny heels into the soil and took a deep breath, then kept breathing in, she held the air in her lungs as the back of her mouth began to glow a bright blue and orange hue. She tossed her head straight forward at a rock, and a small beam of pure energy blasted three inches in diameter from her maw in a sustained rod of pure potential.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The beam cut off after only 5 seconds but it had nearly split the rock it had hit in two, granted the rock was not particularly large, but it was about the size of two of his fists put side by side and half that thick, around the size of an ostrich egg.
Tiamat staggered lightly when she cut the move out, Keyon darted in quickly to help stabilize his small pokemon. “That was wonderful Tia, Dragon Pulse is super impressive, you are wonderful. Why don’t I carry you as we walk? You look pretty tired.” Keyon’s words were soft but sincere as he picked up the smallish creature.
Keyon had pretty much immediately regretted his decision to be so helpful, Tiamat was heavy; easily 55 lbs minimum. He persisted anyway, because roughly 5 minutes into the carry Tiamat had begun to purr like a cat. The sight had been adorable so Keyon pushed through the discomfort, it was good exercise anyway, when he had “arrived” here he quickly realized he was younger and smaller than he had been before.
Previously he had been almost six foot and 26 years old, and now, he could only estimate his age at around 15 years old, just before he had his largest growth spurt, but he hadn’t only lost height and age but also muscle mass. In his late college days he had started to go to the gym regularly, but now all that progress was gone and he wanted to build it back up.
So Keyon carried Tiamat for almost three miles up stream towards the mountains, it was slow going, he was carrying the equivalent of small boulder while walking miles up a rocky incline, but finally when Keyon stopped for a break Tiamat squirmed out from his hold and back out onto the ground, seemingly energized.
Keyon on the other hand was only getting more tired, he was starting to get seriously hungry, and for all his seeming calmness in the wilderness he had not actually gone without a solid meal for this long since he was a young child and the tolerance to the starvation back then had long since slipped away.
His stomach decided to let this fact be known out loud with a loud gurgle. The sound caught Tiamat’s attention and she glanced at him worriedly. Keyon noted this and nodded
“You’re right, now that I'm not alone I really do have to catch some food for us huh?” he continued, “Give me a second Tia.”
Keyon walked a short way into the forest before finding a sufficiently long and straight stick before walking back to the stream. He turned to Tiamat and held out a ovaloid rock to her.
“Could you use Dragon Claw to cut these down edges at a 15 degree angle?” As he spoke he used his finger to demonstrate what he wanted. Tiamat’s eyes followed his fingers as she began to nod.
“Aaxewww.” Tiamat let out a trill of confirmation as she took the rock and laid it down, she stood over the rock as her claws began to slowly but methodically cut the rock into a knife like shape. When she was satisfied Tiamat released a short yip to signify her completion.
Keyon examined the work critically before nodding, reaching down he grabbed the only piece of clothing he had, his belt, took off the pokeball clips, and tied the sharpened stone to the long stick he had found. Now finally he had a makeshift spear.
He walked gently down to the stream, Tiamat following behind to watch what he was doing. Keyon sat onto his haunches, spear raised to strike at a moment's notice. While he had been hiking upstream he had noticed a considerable amount of fish swimming in the river. Not pokemon either, real normal fish, not that he thought a magikarp would be better, these seemed significantly less likely to turn into a giant water dragon.
It took a bit of waiting and a couple of failed jabs but Keyon managed to snag three mid sized fish on his makeshift spear. He untied the head of the spear and put his belt back on, ignoring the slight dampness of the leather. Grabbing the now unconnected spear head he began to try and descale the fish. He did a surprisingly good job for his first time.
Keyon had a pretty large wilderness survival phase when he was around thirteen and luckily for him he had a good memory, still he had a hard time disemboweling and deboning the fish barely managing to not pop the especially nasty bits and organs. It took a while but finally Keyon had several strips of meat. He smiled before pausing, realization dawning on him, he had no way to cook the meat.
“Shit, Tiamat you got any idea how to cook this?” Keyon said as he looked around, hoping to somehow find a fire, alas there was no conveniently placed fire to cook his newly caught food.
Tiamat had yet to respond and when Keyon turned around she had already stuffed one of the strips of meat down her gullet and was already reaching for a second with small grabby arms. Tiamat paused when she noticed his look as if he wouldn’t notice her while she stood still. Keyon just sighed before nodding.
“You only get three pieces of fish little lady, so don't just scarf them down.” Keyon reprimanded lightly. Tiamat slowly started moving again, grabbing her last piece of meat and shoving it in her mouth like it would run away. Her trainer just shook his head in amusement before popping one of the fish fillets into his own mouth still raw.
The flavor was so-so, pretty bland but the blood gave it an interesting coppery after taste. Keyon had eaten worse before, solid 4/10. He ate the remaining two fillets quickly, hunger satiated for the first time in two days he hoisted himself back to his feet, he still had several hours left of walking.
With a bit of fangaling he even managed to store the spear head in between two of the Pokeball clips on his belt so he could use the spear handle as a walking stick. The duo was nearly two hours from the base of the mountains at walking pace.
The mountains in the distance started as smaller wooded edifices before growing into towering snow capped pillars of stone and Keyon followed the river towards the mountains. He had been right in his earlier assessment, the river was definitely snowmelt, the water only got colder the closer he got to the mountains and more and more wildlife was bold enough to move around an unknown like Keyon and Tiamat
Skidoo and Gogoat hopped along the steeper slopes and trees, one particularly daring Skidoo was standing on the bark of a tree that was only a couple degrees from being straight up into the air. Seedot’s and Pseudowoodo meandered through the woods playing with mundane deer and squirrels, (though the seedot’s tried to avoid the squirrels while the squirrels looked for the seedot’s)
The duo walked until they came across a clearing of large proportions, Keyon’s feet were beginning to break out in blisters so he called a halt to walking, they only had a couple of hours of daylight left and they still needed to set up camp.
This time there were no convenient tree hollows to sleep in so he would have to construct a rudimentary structure to sleep in tonight. Keyon set about the task immediately, quickly finding a large branch that could be used as the spin of a structure, it took nearly an hour to find all of the branches moss and leaves that would be required to make a lean-to against a good tree, in the process he found an especially whippy branch that he had managed to weave some of the longer grass by the river onto for a decent approximation of skirt or kilt.
He was glad to finally have the cover, it was starting to get chilly again and Keyon really did not fancy the idea of his giblets freezing off before he could find other people. Tiamat had been helping the whole time, collecting what branches she could and generally watching his back she had even fended off a particularly feisty geodude Keyon had accidentally kicked.
It took until dusk but Keyon managed a suitable structure for man and pokemon both, Tiamat did not seem keen on her pokeball when Keyon had offered. Finally with all of his immediate tasks for the day finished the young man practically collapsed on the soft moss carpet he was using as his bed falling asleep in seconds
Keyon awoke to a supersonic screech, the sound nearly blowing his eardrums out before he clapped his hands over his eardrums. Tiamat slammed to wakefulness at the same moment, panic flooding the smaller creature's system and she reflexively swung her head like a wood cutters axe in the direction of the threat.
Unfortunately the only thing with reach of the three foot dinosaur was the support pillar of the lean-to they were currently in. The stick splintered from the force of the panicked blow bringing the structure down on top of the two.
Now covered in moss, leaves and sticks Keyon attempted to identify the threat as quickly as possible, his eyes quickly adjusting to the light of the near full moon. Another roar, this one two toned and not nearly as loud, echoed out to his left and up, and as Keyon looked towards the source of the noise he spotted the mouth of a cave high up on the walls of one of the cliffs that surrounded them, the area around the river being a small gorge.
Once again one of the loudest noises Keyon had ever heard blasted out of the cave mouth in a visible shockwave, his hands still held over ears helped dull the noise somewhat but it was still unbearably loud.
He watched as a two headed beast charged out of the cave mouth, fear clear in its body language nearly fifty yards away, a Zweilous, a two headed Pseudo-legendary dragon with a legendary temper, and it was running away. Each head immediately began attempting to pull the body in separate directions, the mouth of the cave sloping down to both the left and right.
The momentary squabble between the heads caused by the disagreement cost the Zweilous, as what it was running from caught up to it, a Noivern flitted out of the cave, like a bat from hell it swooped down at the pseudo-legendary, wings glowing with light blue energy that lit up the entire area for yards around.
Zweilous, still slowed from the argument, couldn't get its body out of the way in time, the wing catching it in its right fore-shoulder, a weeping wound formed in the dark fur. Once again Zweilous attempted to run in opposite directions, starting a two way fight between Itself and the Noivern. Its fight between itself was interrupted harshly by a dragon pulse more than a foot in diameter, blasting the two headed pokemon into a cliff wall.
Two heads reared back as the grounded dragon wrenched itself out from the vertical crater. Its throats began to swell as dragon fire billowed out of Zweilous in a wave that seemed to cover half the sky visible from the bottom of the canyon .
Noivern accelerated, a single pump of its wings sending it flying with the speed of a cheetah, easily dodging with aerial grace barely fitting of a hummingbird, let alone a five and a half foot bat. Said bat cut through the fire with crescent blades made of wind and blue energy. Their intended target jerked out of the way but not without a long moment of deliberation between heads on which direction to go.
Zweilous made one last attempt to run from their airborne foe, once again attempting to run in different directions. This seemed to be the last straw for the left most head, for in a turn of shocking violence, the head turned and bit the other head clean off.
Keyon only realized what was about to happen the moment before the Noivern did, and while Keyon ran for cover, Tiamat held under his arm, Noivern attempted to intercept before the inevitable happened. It was too little too late however, as a blue light lit up the entire surrounding area.
The neck stump barely distinguishable as it lit up blue as well, began to recede into the body as the remaining neck shifted centerward, the dragon rearing up onto its hind legs as new appendages began to grow out of its back, all the while its forelimbs began to shift grotesquely the paws elongating into alligator mouths ridged with intensely sharp teeth. The blue light of evolution shattered like glass as the newly evolved Hydreigon let out a bellowing roar, white energy gathering in a ball in front of the center most mouth.
The white energy seemed to pulse with a heartbeat that could be felt all the way from Keyon’s position, growing into a critical mass, Noivern pulled away as fast as possible, wings flapping desperately to get away, but alas the sky was rent by a beam of light so pure and powerful that the last thought Keyon had was of its resemblance to the sun as the world went white.
