| Pokemon Conclave
Part 29: The Mystifying Island © 1999-2000 Willow McCall It was nighttime on Turquoise Island. During the rest of that day after Aoife and Ferio had found the couple in the bushes, neither party (except the oblivious Aoife) were able to look each other in the eye. Aoife was already asleep, the other three had made sure of that. They had chosen a quiet spot in the woods, away from Aoife’s sleeping bag so she wouldn’t accidentally overhear. “Even if she was asleep,” Ruari had said, “she might still hear us, in her subconscious.” “Okay, you two,” Ferio said, speaking to her two traveling companions with the air of a principal reprimanding two misbehaving students. “Can anyone tell me what that was all about?” Ruari and Petra, to complement Ferio’s sternness, had embarrassed looks on their faces. “Well, we just thought…” Ruari began. “I mean, I have no problem with it,” Ferio said, “I understand that this…well, this is something you’re born with, you can’t help it, right? I just wonder why.” Ruari and Petra exchanged a glance, letting each other know with their eyes whether they should tell Ferio or not. “Well, you see…we’re…sort of a couple now,” Petra said. “Girlfriends.” Ferio responded with an arched eyebrow look, slightly amused, but more surprised. “Are you serious? You mean Petra actually got a girl?” Ferio looked away from the two, trying to surpress a smile. Finally she couldn’t keep it in anymore and she allowed herself a laugh at the situation. “Hey, it’s not funny!” Ruari said. “We’re serious!” Ferio managed to control herself, then said, “Okay, then, you’re serious, I believe you. Sorry, just…never thought I’d see the day…” “Just don’t tell anyone yet, okay?” Petra asked. “We want it to be a surprise when we announce it to everyone.” “Sure,” Ferio agreed. “Thanks,” Ruari said, as she and Petra stood up and headed back to where their sleeping bags lay. “I’m glad you understand.” *** Aidan and Sora were encountering strange things of their own on Cyan Island. The morning after the ship was attacked, they decided to explore the island and see if they could find their missing companions. The crewmember that had brought them to the island decided to sit out the exploration. “This island is strange,” Aidan observed as they began their exploration. “It has pine trees. I’ve never seen those in this area before.” “Yeah, me either,” Sora said. They walked up from the beach where they had landed, through the forest, and came to a clearing at the foot of a mountain. To their left was a small pool, which Sora knelt down beside and peered in. “Hey, look!” she said, pointing to something in the pool. Aidan came over to look, and saw that a small wooden toy boat was floating there. “Does this look familiar to you, this boat?” “I recognize it…” Aidan said. He remembered the night before, a sunken ship underneath the island. “It’s like a miniature version of the boat we saw last night, the one that was sort of buried underneath the beach.” Sora looked from the boat to Aidan, eyes widening in realization. “You know what this means, don’t you? Someone must have put that boat there. This island must be inhabited.” “I hope whoever lives here doesn’t mind our dropping by,” Aidan said, looking off into the woods as though expecting a band of natives to come round them up any minute. “Or,” Sora said, “it _was_ inhabited. Maybe no one lives here anymore.” She stood up and headed in the direction of the mountain. “Only one way to find out, right? Go look for them!” She pulled out a Pokeball and threw it. “Pidgeotto, I choose you!” Sora smiled at Aidan’s perplexed look. “We’re going to fly up the mountain.” “You mean _you’re_ going to fly up the mountain,” Aidan said, backing away. “I’m afraid of heights. I’ve never been on a flying Pokemon before.” “There’s a first time for everything,” Sora said. “Come on, I’ll sit behind you so you won’t fall off. Besides, it’s either come with me up the island, stay here and be captured by the islanders, or go back and talk to Mr. Exciting Crewmember.” “Okay,” Aidan said reluctantly, climbing on the Pokemon’s back and holding on to its neck for safety. Sora hopped on behind Aidan and held on to his shoulders so she wouldn’t fall, then nudged Pidgeotto lightly with her heels to get it started. Pidgeotto took off, flying parallel to the mountain’s slope. Aidan held on for dear life, making sure not to look down at the retreating ground beneath them, keeping his eyes on Pidgeotto’s crest. The trip took far too long, in his estimation, but it was only five minutes before Pidgeotto landed on the summit of the mountain. “Well, here we are!” Sora said, sliding off of the bird. Aidan got off behind her, somewhat shaky. “Good job, Pidgeotto,” Sora said, patting her bird on the head. “So remind me again,” Aidan said, “what did we come up here for?” “To get a better view,” Sora said, surveying the island. “Hmm. Well, I don’t see any houses, or any boats around the shores, and you’d think the islanders would need boats.” “Unless they could swim,” Aidan pointed out. “Or they had water Pokemon that could take them across.” “That’s another thing,” Sora said, “I haven’t seen any Pokemon on this island. Do you think there are any?” “We haven’t been here for very long,” Aidan said. “Maybe they’ll come out later.” Sora shrugged, then cast her eyes back out at the island again. “Wow,” she said. “Look at that tree over there. We’re almost eye level with it!” It was true, they were just about eye level with a giant tree that loomed over the rest of the forest. “That’s interesting,” Aidan said. “I think we’ve seen all we need to…I have, anyway. Can we go back down now?” “Okay,” Sora said, climbing back on Pidgeotto behind Aidan. She gave Pidgeotto a gentle kick-start, and it took to flight again, bringing them safely down to the clearing at the bottom of the mountain again. “I want to go see that big tree. It looked kinda like a sign, like it was marking something.” She started off into the woods. “Coming, Aid?” “Oh…sure.” Aidan followed Sora, not wanting to be left alone. They had only to walk a little while before they came to a cave, but the entrance was blocked off. “It doesn’t matter, we’ll come back and see it later,” Sora said. “Besides, I want to see that tree. I have a feeling it’s important.” “Wow,” Aidan said, pointing to something through the trees. “Look at that tree. It’s been carved out.” He pointed to a tree with a thick trunk, part of which was hollowed out into a small, closet-like space. It was about 50 feet away, but they could still see it through the trees. “I bet that’s that giant tree,” Sora said, running forward. She stopped suddenly and gasped, staring at something next to the tree. “What is…oh,” Aidan said, coming up next to Sora and seeing what she had seen. It was a log cabin with a smoking chimney, right next to the hollow tree. The door was closed, but appeared to be unlocked. The cabin was small, the size of a bedroom, only about 10 feet by 10 feet. “This island must be inhabited,” Sora whispered, suddenly cautious. “See the smoke? There’s someone in there. Or maybe they’re not home now but they just left the fire burning.” She approached the door, tiptoeing, and laid her hand on the handle. “But whatever the case is, I have a feeling we’re not alone…” *** “Why don’t we just give up?” a weary Aoife said, slumping down onto a fallen log in the forest. “We’ve been all over the island, and they’re not here. I bet they’re on Cryan Island or whatever that one was.” “Cyan Island,” Ruari said, sitting next to Aoife on the log. “And maybe you’re right, maybe that is where they are.” “Um, guys?” Petra said. “There are, um, a bunch of Ledian on that log.” “WHAT?” Aoife screeched, jumping up from the log. Ruari quickly followed suit and looked back at the log to see dozens of small red ant-like Pokemon crawling all over and through holes in the log. As soon as Aoife recovered from the shock of discovering that she was sitting on, basically, an anthill, she took her Pokedex to the insect Pokemon. “Ledian. The many-thumbed Pokemon. This bug/flying Pokemon evolves from Ledyba. It sprinkles powder from its wings at night.” “Interesting,” Ruari said. “A winged ant.” “Yeah, I bet it’d really be fascinating if you were bitten by one,” Aoife remarked. “But seriously, guys, Sora and Aidan obviously aren’t here or we’d have run into them by now. Can we go to Cyan and look there?” The older three girls exchanged glances. “I guess Lapras could take us there,” Ruari said. “And if we go to Cyan and they’re not there, they must be on Chartreuse.” (Who's that Pokemon? It's Ampharos!) “Hey, what’s that?” Ferio said, peering over at the island in front of them. She and Aoife were riding Ruari’s Dragonair (“His name is Ronan, and he’ll obey you if I tell him to,” Ruari had said of her Pokemon) while Ruari and Petra rode Lapras. “What’s what?” Ruari asked. “That,” Ferio pointed to a shape beneath the waters surrounding Cyan Island. “Looks like a sunken ship with the mast poking out of the water.” “Could be,” Petra said. “And there’s something on the mast too. Looks like a deflated raft, like the one…” She stopped, but Ruari finished her sentence. “Like the lifeboats on the boat! I bet Sora and Aidan came over here on the lifeboat and it deflated, so now they’re stuck here.” “Actually they aren’t,” Ferio said. “Sora has flying Pokemon. They could have flown off the island to safety.” “Hey, Ruari?” Aoife said. “Are these islands, by any chance, inhabited?” “I haven’t heard of anyone living here,” Ruari said. “Just on Chartreuse.” “Oh,” Aoife said. “’Cause I see some smoke over there, by that big tree. It must be just Sora and Aidan, huh?” “Probably,” Ferio said. She leaned and looked over the top of Ronan the Dragonair’s head. “And there’s some guy on the beach, but it’s not Aidan.” “Oh, yeah!” Ruari said. “There was a crewmember with them on the boat.” She quickly landed her Lapras on the beach and returned it, and once the others had gotten off their Pokemon she returned Ronan too. “Excuse me, sir!” “Huh?” The man turned around. “Oh, it’s you with the Lapras, the one who was on my boat but you left.” “Uh, yeah,” Ruari said. “Where are Sora and Aidan?” “Your friends?” he said. “Haven’t seen them. They were gone after I woke up, but their stuff is still here by our campsite,” he nodded toward the grassy bank where three sleeping bags were laid out. “Guess they just went off exploring the island. I was gonna leave—us crewmembers were all issued Laprases in case of an emergency like this—but I wanted to wait for your friends so they could come with me to Chartreuse.” “You don’t need to,” Ferio said. “They have their own transportational Pokemon, and we have ours too so if we see them we can all go back to Chartreuse together.” “Are you sure?” the crewmember asked. The four girls nodded. “Okay, if you say so…guess I’ll be going then.” He released his own Lapras into the waters, climbed on board, and set sail for Chartreuse. “Okay, then, let’s go look for Sora and Aidan!” Petra said, leading the others off in the direction of the smoke. “But wait,” Ruari said. “If their campsite was here, then they would have set up the fire here, right? Not in the forest.” “Perhaps,” Ferio said. “Your point?” “The smoke in the forest might not be Sora and Aidan,” Ruari said, “but someone else.” “Could be,” Petra said. “Which is why we should go see who it is. Come on.” The girls ran through the forest, calling the names of their companions. It wasn’t too long before they got a response. “Guys! We’re over here, under the giant tree!” It was Sora, whom they found soon enough, standing outside a log cabin under a ridiculously tall tree with Aidan. “Sora! Aidan!” Aoife ran to her two friends. “What have you guys…WHAT is THAT?” “Which one, the hollowed-out tree or the cabin?” Sora asked. “Both,” Ferio said. “We’ve just come over from Turquoise Island, and we’re a little behind at the moment…do you happen to know who the cabin belongs to?” “I was just about to find out,” Sora said. “My hand was on the door when I heard you guys.” “Sorry,” Ferio said. “Continue on about your business of opening the door now.” “Okay.” Sora placed her hand on the door, the others crowded around in anticipation, and flung it open. “Anyone in—whoa!” “What do you mean, whoa?” Aoife demanded, shoving past Sora and barging her way into the cabin. Her response was the same as Sora’s when she saw Team Rocket, including Sundance in human form, huddling around a fireplace in the middle of the back wall of the room. “Team Rocket? How did you guys get here?” “We had to swim,” Bonnie whined. “I hate swimming.” “You should talk!” Sundance yelled, whacking Bonnie with a fan. “I’m a fire Pokemon! The water doesn’t like me.” She sniffled. “It’s mean.” “What about you punks?” Bonnie asked, now that all of Aoife’s gang had entered the cabin and assembled before the three criminals. “We landed here,” Sora said. “Me and Aidan. The rest of them came over here from Turquoise Island.” “Like I care,” Bonnie said. “Come on, Pokemon battle! Winner gets loser’s Pokemon.” “Hey, wait a minute!” Sundance protested. “I’M your Pokemon! You’re not going to give me to them, are you?” “My plan exactly,” Bonnie said, which earned her another whap from Sundance. “We have better things to do than battle with you,” Petra said, but Aoife was all for it. “C’mon, lemme at them!” she insisted. “Chu-Chu, go!” She let Chu-Chu out of the Pokeball in which it was residing, and it emerged a little groggy. “Pi?” it asked, looking around. “Pika!” it cried out when it saw Team Rocket. Instinctively, it gave a powerful thundershock and sent the Rockets through the roof with a cry of “We’re blasting off this blasted island!” “I’ve trained it well,” Aoife beamed, grinning proudly. “Whatever,” Ferio said, turning on her heel and leaving the cabin. “I want to go see what that hollow tree is.” “Ferio, wait!” Sora said, as she and the others followed Ferio. Ferio was already outside, peering into the carved out space in the trunk. “It’s a pit,” she said. “Maybe fifteen feet deep, carved into the trunk and possibly into the ground below.” “Anyone dare me to push her in?” Aoife smirked to the group. Ruari laughed a little, but the rest of them just scowled. After a bit more inspection of the tree, Ferio turned back to the group. “Someone lend me a fire Pokemon and a Pokemon who knows Vine Whip.” “What for, you gonna burn down the forest?” Aoife said. “Um, maybe Aoife’s right,” Aidan said. “It’s a little risky in the forest…what do you want it for, anyway?” “As a flashlight,” Ferio said. “I want to go down there and see if there’s anything of interest.” “Here,” Ruari handed Ferio a Pokeball. “Use Ampharos. It’s a light Pokemon, so it can be your flashlight.” “Ampharos, huh?” Ferio released the Pokeball, causing a yellow and black Pokemon to spill out. It was shaped somewhat like a Dragonite, with black-tipped ears, a red dot on its forehead, and a tail with a glowing bauble on the end. “That’s cool,” Aoife said, clicking her Pokedex to life for the second time that day. “Ampharos. The light Pokemon, which evolves from Flaaffy. The light from its tail can shine at great distances, acting as a beacon for those who are lost.” “Okay then, I’ll use Ampharos,” Ferio decided. “Now, anyone have a Pokemon with Vine Whip?” “Treagle,” Sora said, holding her Pokeball up. “What do you need that for, Ferio?” “So I can get out once I’m finished,” Ferio said. “Just let it out when I tell you to, okay?” Sora nodded. “Right, then, I’m going down.” Ferio sat on the edge of the pit, then slid down into it and dropped to the pit floor. “Ferio? You all right?” Sora said, leaning into the pit and peering down. “I’m fine,” Ferio replied. “Ruari? Send Ampharos down now, will you?” Ruari looked at her Pokemon. “You heard her, Ampharos.” “Pharos!” Ampharos cried gleefully, jumping into the pit in a genki manner. “Ouch!” This was Ferio. “Not on my head, Ampharos.” “Sorry about that, Ferio!” Ruari called down. “Doesn’t matter,” Ferio said. “Over this way a little, Ampharos?” The group watched Ferio and Ampharos in the pit, as Ferio held Ampharos over her head and the Pokemon held its tail beacon up to the wall of the pit. “It’s a wooden wall,” Ferio said to herself, “but it’s manmade. Strange…” A minute later, Ferio’s triumphant cry could be heard. “Aha! An inscription!” “An inscription!” Sora said. “What’s it say, Ferio, what’s it say?” Ferio couldn’t hide the disappointed tone in her voice. “Oh, it’s useless. Just numbers.” “But what numbers?” Ruari asked. “It says ‘2:40, 221.’” Ferio shook her head and set Ampharos down on the ground beside her. “That’s no good. Okay, Sora, I guess I’ll be needing Treagle now.” “But Ferio,” Ruari said, as the vines of Sora’s Pokemon pulled Ferio and Ampharos up to ground level again. “The numbers might be important. We should remember them anyway. 2:40, 221.” “Don’t bother,” Ferio said, walking down through the forest to the shore, on the opposite end of the island from the mountain. “But Feri—wait!” Sora had followed her cousin down to the shore, but had spotted something on the way. “What’s that?” “What, Sora?” Sora ran down to the shore, with Aoife and the others following her. She stopped and knelt down in front of a metal box on the water’s edge with a lever on either side and a dial on the top, beside something that looked like a mileage counter on a car. Ruari looked at the dials, and an eager expression came over her face. “This is it. This is what those numbers were about! It’s a code!” “What, the numbers I found in the tree?” Ferio said. “Yes!” Ruari said, pointing to the dial. “See, it’s a clock. And I guess we have to set it to 2:40. And these numbers…” She mulled over the counter-looking thing for a minute. “Maybe that’s what 221 is about. Maybe we have to set this to 221. Here, lemme see.” Sora moved out of the way, and Ruari sat down in front of the device. She pulled the lever on the left, closest to the counter, and the counter moved. Now instead of 000, it read 076. “All right!” She gave it another long pull, then a quick tug, and it read 211. “Come on, come on, I want 221,” she whispered to the machine, fiddling around with the lever as the others watched in anticipation. Finally, after much tweaking, Ruari managed to get the device to read 221. “YEAH!” “Are you sure this’ll work, Ruari?” Ferio, always the skeptic, asked. “And what if you do get it to read 2:40, 221? What’ll happen?” “Something will happen,” Ruari insisted. “I’m sure something will happen. This do-hickey and those numbers in the tree that you found weren’t put there by accident, or coincidence, or just for fun. They MEAN something. I’m sure of it.” “Ruari, did you remember to take your obsessive-compulsive disorder medicine?” Ferio said, looking slightly worried. “If this is one of her weird little compulsions, we could be here for days.” Now Ruari was working on the lever on the right hand side, trying to get it to line up the hands on the clock face so they read 2:40. She screwed up her face in concentration, giving the lever a long pull here, a tiny yank there. It now read 2:45, and all she had to do was give it one small push… “Oh YEAH!” Ruari yelled out, jumping up. “It says 2:40 and 221 now! I did it!” “Oh, does it?” Ferio smirked. “So what happens now?” “Erm…lemme think about that for a minute…” Ruari hedged. But she didn’t have to hedge for too long, because the fruits of her labors made themselves known. A loud crumbling and crashing came from the forest, near the pool with the toy boat in it. “See, I told you something would happen!” Ruari yelled, jumping to her feet triumphantly and sprinting off into the forest. “Let’s go see what it is!” The group followed Ruari into the forest, and found her standing in front of the cave, squealing. The cause of her squeals was that the boulder that was blocking the cave had now crumbled into gravel and dust, leaving the entrance of the cave free for them to pass through. Ruari started doing a victory dance. “Oh yeah, I rock, I’m so brilliant, I rock…hey, where you guys going?” The others were already heading off into the cave. “Hey, wait for meeeeee!” Author's Notes I liked this episode a lot, and in the next one I'm going to introduce two new Pokemon that I've...well, sort of made up. In this one, I had two G/S Pokemon, Ledian and Ampharos, and their images are below. Have you figured out what I meant by the name of their island means something about what they'll find there? Well, you may or may not know that Cyan is the name of the company that released the games Myst and Riven. Cyan Island in this fic is (loosely) based on Myst Island from the games. Except much more primitive, as in, no library, no planetarium, no clock tower, no rocket. Just the log cabin, and the cave was in Myst but it was much different (it wasn't an underground lake, though if I recall correctly there was one of those in Riven, just not Myst). The tree was actually an elevator, and the "2:40, 221" thing wasn't there, it was on top of the mountain. But yes, 2:40 221 is a real code used in Myst, but not exactly used in the way it was used in the fic (although Ruari's "device", which didn't really exist in Myst, was in the same place as the clock tower). And there's no holographic viewer chamber or whatever that thing is by the dock, and no giant gears either. And before you start to tell me that there was no island in Myst, think again: the tower and the library were built into the side of it. When you go up into the tower, you're really going up to the top of the mountain. Man, these author's notes were long, but it was a long chapter so I s'pose it fits. Besides, I have a lot to explain about the Myst references.  Ledian
 Ampharos
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