No signal.
Raven sighed softly and shut the mobile device, simply letting it hang loosely in her hand as she failed to bring herself to throw it at a nearby tree. The idea was there, but she simply couldn't conjure the energy or will to it. She finally loosened her grip enough to let it simply slip from her pale fingers and land with the rest of her useless machines as she leaned against the tree behind her.
The now-empty hand brushed through her dark hair, tucking it behind her ear in a motion that had long lost its comforting quality in its familiarity, and her eyes drifted along the thin streams of sunlight breaking through the canopy of the forest she had found herself in upon waking.
No phone, no map, and no encyclopedia. She was completely cut off from the network. She'd heard of things like this. Lost trainers. People who just disappeared, falling off the radar and never appearing again.
A normal person would be scared, she supposed. But Raven? Raven had given up that particular emotion as being unproductive a long time ago.
A soft, crooning, "Niiiiiiido..." broke the silence, followed by the sound of some lumbering steps, and Raven looked over at the sound. Belladonna's thick tail jerked from side to side and her large, wide ears were pinned back as her clawed forelimbs clenched and unclenched, gripping at nothing. For a beast with venomous spikes, thick armour, and the strength to break a tree in half, Belladonna looked exactly like an anxiety-ridden child in that moment.
And it was no mystery who the mother was in this scenario. Raven beckoned Belladonna over, forcing a small smile. Her nidoqueen crooned again and closed the rest of the distance. She was tall, but she hunched her posture, her foreclaws brushing the forest floor, so that she could nudge Raven's face with her snout.
Raven reached up to lightly scratch behind one of her ears. "We'll be okay, girl," she whispered, gently.
There was a faint whirr as the only machine in the area that was working shifted on his four, spider-like limbs, metal claws digging into the earth. Titan's eyes, the only features his body had, started to glow with a faint hum of power. "Master," came a deep, mechanical-sounding voice that resonated through Raven's mind, "I still do not understand your habit of stating possible outcomes of uncertain situations with certainty."
Raven snapped her gaze toward her metagross and gave Titan her best glare. He continued to stare back with no expression, and she soon gave up the attempt to have a staring contest with something that didn't need to blink and just turned her attention back to stroking and scratching Belladonna's ears. "It's called being comforting," she said simply, and then added quietly to Belladonna, "And we will be okay."
A frustrated whine, with an echoing quality, emerged nearby, and she looked past Belladonna and Titan to watch the floating form of what looked like a chandelier with eyes dart around, the flickering light of his numerous purple flames casting eerie shadows on the plant life around him. Raven frowned and sighed, noting the small size of said flames. "Grimm, patience. Don't burn the whole forest down."
He whirled in the air to face her and whined again. "I know you're hungry," she snapped in reply. "Sit and wait until the others get back." It was difficult for something without proper facial features beyond eyes to pout, but Grimm managed somehow. Raven just rolled her eyes at him.
And then she froze. Belladonna flicked an ear and rose to her full height as a growl rumbled in her chest. Titan's joints whirred as he pivoted, eyes aglow. Grimm's flames rose in height in anticipation.
Howls. Long, mournful, one leading into another as they echoed through the woods. Raven frowned as she tried to place the sound.
Mightyena? Or houndoom, maybe?
Eyes started to appear in the shadows, glowing green. Raven instinctively looked behind her, past the tree she was leaning against, and wasn't surprised to find the gleaming pairs of lights gathering there as well. She took a step back and felt Belladonna grip her arm protectively in her claws as her growl rose in volume.
A few of the creatures stepped into view, and Raven got a good look at them. They were indeed canine in shape, but looked to be made of various pieces of wood, held in place by unseen power. Sap dripped from their jaws like saliva as they advanced.
"Titan," Raven said quietly, but calmly, as more and more of the wolves emerged, "Are they susceptible?"
A reply came in the form of one of the wolves being yanked into the air, surrounded by a blue aura. It looked confused and tried to wriggle free. Then the various branches that made up its body were ripped apart and flung out in every direction. Now projectiles, they slammed into nearby wolves with enough force to knock them apart as well.
"Yes."
There were plenty more, however, and this attack just seemed to anger them as they snarled and lunged toward Raven and her pokemon. Belladonna bellowed and charged forward to grab one and grasp the thick branch that made up its neck in her jaws. She crunched down, the wood splitering effortlessly, and then threw what was left aside.
Titan snatched up another wolf in his telekinesis to tear it apart, but one darted past the bloodless carnage and leaped at one of his limbs. Its inferior fangs could do nothing to his metal hide, and he paused to grasp it in the claws of another limb and yank it off. He then used the previous limb to smash its head.
Ghostly energy coiled around Grimm's arms and formed a dark, pulsing energy orb in front of him. He sent it hurtling through the air and straight through three wolves. As the energy dissipated, he formed another.
Raven, intentionally standing in the eye of the storm, watched her pokemon effortlessly take apart this unknown enemy. Wolves made of wood. Even if she were able to access its databases, she knew there was no such thing in her pokedex. They did seem a bit foolish, though, rushing straight into their destruction.
Or so Raven thought, until a few of the chunks of wood by her feet started to glow green. They rapidly reformed into a wolf that immediately tackled her to the ground. Bark-coated fangs sank into the vulnerable flesh of the arm she raised to shield herself. Claws left gashes in her other arm, face, and torso. Eyes glowed hungrily.
"Bella!" Belladonna whirled around to face Raven at the cry and roared. She lowered her head and raced toward the wolf to sink her long horn into its torso, and then jerked her head backward to send it soaring through the air. It slammed into a tree and broke apart again.
Belladonna reached down to help Raven up, which meant grabbing the small human in her foreclaws and pulling her to her feet. Raven held her bitten arm close to her chest, but otherwise ignored her injuries as she shouted, "Grimm, Flame Burst! Burn them!"
Grimm cackled like Raven had just declared it his birthday. His flames doubled in height and swirled together into a massive fireball, which went flying straight at some newly-reformed wolves. It burst like an explosive on impact, consuming its victim instantly and sending embers showering down on the others.
Shrieking, agonized howls told Raven that this strategy was a much more effective one. A smirk twitched at her lips as those wolves not on fire went scrambling back into the woods. Those still burning ran around in a terrified frenzy, and Grimm took it upon himself to finish them off with some well-placed blasts of flame.
When all was still again, Raven carefully pulled away from Belladonna and walked over to the charred wood and ashes. She glanced to one side briefly as Grimm floated up beside her, then back at the remains of their attackers. Raven clutched her bleeding arm silently, then spoke four simple, cold words.
"Make sure they're dead."
She turned her back as Grimm reduced what little was left to more ashes, and walked slowly to the place she'd been standing before the battle had started. She sank down to sit among the roots of the tree, then carefully pulled the shredded remains of her black T-shirt off to wrap the dark fabric around her bitten arm.
Titan's deep voice flowed into her mind as she did so. "Master, perhaps you should properly treat and bind your wounds."
Raven's eyes flicked in his direction, but she otherwise didn't move as she replied, "I'll be fine. Angelica knows Heal Pulse. I'll get her to patch me up when she comes back."
Like Grimm's uncanny ability to pout without the proper facial features, Titan had mastered a similar skill to give a disapproving frown. "Master, I believe you are neglecting the risk of infection if your wounds are not properly cleaned."
Raven's teeth clenched slightly, and she inhaled and exhaled slowly. "Bella can wash them with Aqua Tail. Can't you, girl?" Belladonna perked up and swished her tail, and water droplets formed and swirled around it.
Titan looked no less disapproving. "Master, there are proper disinfectant and bandages in your--"
"I know that!" Raven snapped, jerking forward in a way that sent pain jolting through her torso from the scratches. The water Belladonna had been conjuring splashed to the ground as she ducked her head down and pinned her ears back at the sharp tone. Raven sank back and leaned against the tree trunk. "I'll be fine," she insisted, quietly.
Belladonna lowered herself right to the ground in a four-legged stance and gently nudged Raven's cheek with her muzzle. She gently scratched behind her nidoqueen's ear. "It's okay, girl. I've had worse..." She looked down, at the numerous scars from slashes, stabs and burns that littered her pale skin and intertwined with the fresh injures. "Remember?"
Belladonna just whimpered, but Titan made no more comments, leaving Raven to shut her eyes and lean her head back as she tried to ignore the constant stinging of the scratches. She breathed slowly, not too deeply, and a haze encroached on her senses, promising a restful sleep.
No!
Raven sucked in a sharp breath and forced her eyes back open. She stared up at the gnarled branches of the tree as she worked to calm her breathing again.
Anything that ever promised Raven restful sleep was lying through its teeth.
***
Twilight Sparkle's hooves hit the ground a little harder with each step than they normally did as she trotted away from Fluttershy's cottage, a frown set in her muzzle. Her saddlebags were heavy with books, weighing her down, but that wasn't what was lowering her mood.
"It's not like her to just not be there..." she mumbled to herself as she continued along the path back to Ponyville. She glanced at her loaded saddlebags. "Though maybe it's for the best. I can drop these off and come back..."
Twilight suddenly found a shadow looming over her, and she tilted her head back to look at the single cloud hanging in the midst of an otherwise clear day. And lounging on her back, forelegs behind her head and rainbow-coloured mane and tail draping over the edge of the fluffy cloud, was a familiar pegasus.
Twilight sighed and shook her head a little, then a took a few steps with the intention of just leaving her friend to her nap. She then paused and looked back in the direction of the cottage she'd recently left. "Hey, Rainbow Dash!" she called up at the cloud.
Rainbow Dash stirred. She rolled over, blinking sleep from her eyes as she peered down at the ground. "Hey Twilight. What's up?"
"Have you seen Fluttershy recently?" Twilight asked, figuring she'd just get right to the point. "She borrowed a book from me a couple of weeks ago about exotic animals, but when I went to her cottage to get it she wasn't there." Angel, of course, had been little help in informing her where Fluttershy had gone, not being able to speak. Though sometimes Twilight wondered if Fluttershy's rabbit friend would be any more helpful to anyone even if he could.
Rainbow Dash blinked and paused to think for a second. "Hmm...Yeah, she said something earlier about going to visit some bear. Had a bunch of fish in her saddlebags."
Twilight stepped back a little, so she didn't have to tilt her head back quite so far to make eye contact. "Do you know how long ago she left?"
There was another pause. "How long have I been asleep?"
One of Twilight's hooves wanted very much to plant itself in her own face at that reply, but she resisted as Rainbow Dash looked at the position of the sun and spoke again. "What, you don't think she's in trouble, do you? I mean, this is Fluttershy. Tamed a Manticore, looked a dragon in the eye and scolded it, gave a cockatrice the stare Fluttershy."
Twilight frowned a little, but she had to admit that Rainbow Dash was right. She was still just one pony, though. She was about to voice this when Rainbow Dash suddenly perked up and stared off in the distance. "What's that?"
"What's wha--? Rainbow!" There was a blur of colour as the cloud vanished and Twilight was left standing there as her much speedier friend went racing off.
Back in the direction of Fluttershy's cottage.
Twilight took off at a gallop, but it turned out that Rainbow Dash hadn't flown too far. She was hovering in the air to one side of the path, pointing her front hoof at a very large bird that had a bright red apple in its talons. "Don't play dumb! I saw you. You were flying away from the orchard, you little--"
"What are you doing?" Twilight looked from her friend to the bird, and she stared at it for a few moments. It was huge, most of its feathers jet black with white breast feathers and a hint of red on its inner wings and tail, and had a long, sharp-looking beak and talons.
"Catching this thief," she proclaimed, earning a narrow-eyed glare and sharp caw from the bird. She jerked her hoof forward again. "Probably stole this hat, t--Ow!" The moment her hoof touched the black 'hat' on the bird's head, it pecked her sharply on the end of her snout and cawed loudly before swooping down and landing.
"I'm pretty sure that's not a hat," Twilight commented. "It looks like a crest." The bird, still gripping the apple tightly in one foot, reached up a wing to fix said crest and confirm her theory. "I've never seen this kind of bird before. I'm not sure what it even is," she added, trotting a few step toward the bird. It glanced at her, but made no move to peck her or flee. She looked around, in search of some sort of flock, but the area was absent of anything but them.
Rainbow Dash huffed as she rubbed her sore muzzle with her hoof. "Crest shmest," she said as she darted over to land in front of the bird. "It's still stealing apples. We can't let a bunch of weird birds steal everything in the east orchard under Applejack's nose!"
She lunged at the bird, and it hopped backward and took off with a furious flapping and cawing. "After it!" Rainbow Dash shouted, and Twilight groaned a little as she ran after them, noticing that the bird was making a beeline for the river and the Everfree Forest beyond.
Luckily, it wasn't all that fast, and Rainbow Dash darted in front of it before it could cross the river. "Alright, mister, enough games. Hand over the apple and no one gets hurt!"
The bird hovered there for a moment, and looked down at the apple it was holding. When it looked back up, however, its eyes were glowing bright white, a glow that soon consumed its wings as well. Twilight froze mid-gallop, her mouth falling open in shock.
Rainbow Dash's eyes widened in surprise and she instinctively ducked in the air when the massive bird lunged for her. She heard a distinct slicing sound and saw a few multi-coloured hairs fall past her field of vision as it rocketed over her head. She whirled around to see it again racing toward the forest, but before she could give chase again, the glow faded and the bird turned solid black instead, then vanished entirely.
Rainbow Dash looked down at Twilight Sparkle. "What the hay?"
***
There was suddenly a rustling of foliage nearby Raven and her pokemon's resting spot. Belladonna twitched an ear, then moved to an upright stance, muscles tense. Grimm floated closer to both females, flames flickering brightly in preparation for making another fireball.
Titan, however, remained where he was. "Julie," he informed them simply, and, indeed, a sleek, black shape of a maned lioness soon emerged from the bushes, the star-shaped tip to her tail twitching slightly. Belladonna relaxed at the sight of the luxray, and Grimm started to float away.
However, something followed Julie into the open a moment later, and then stopped in its tracks. It was small and was equine in shape with yellow fur, a bit like a ponyta. Unlike a ponyta, however, it didn't have fire for a mane and tail, in its place having long, flowing, pink hair. Its tail nearly brushed against the ground and its mane draped over one eye.
"Oh my, you're hurt!" Also, it could talk. She could talk, rather, as that was unmistakably a feminine voice. She trotted straight toward Raven, showing no sign of noticing the way Belladonna tensed at her approach. Julie merely laid down, wearing a distinct frown and her tail continuing to twitch, but not at all attempting to stop the little equine.
Raven shifted, frowning, as the stranger started looking at her scratches and her fabric-wrapped arm. "What happened to you?" the fussing creature asked.
"Wolves," she grunted, earning a gasp from the talking equine. It was around then that Raven noticed that the stranger, whom she was very tempted to swat away, had feathered wings folded at her sides the same colour as her fur, and what looked like a tattoo of three pink butterflies on her rump.
"Oh my, you can talk? And timberwolves did that to you? You poor poor baby..."
"There are proper disinfectant and bandages in her bag," Titan piped up, and his deep voice made the winged mare jump a little and look up at the metal giant. She looked from Titan, to Belladonna, to Grimm, to Julie, back to Raven, and then to the large bag laying nearby.
She then trotted right over to the bag, and at this point Raven didn't even bother protesting. "O-oh, thank you...Mr...?"
"His name's Titan," Raven said quickly, not bothering to not sound irritated. "The one with the spikes is Belladonna, the floating one's Grimm, and you've met Julie. I'm Raven. Who are you?"
Her newly self-appointed nurse apparently didn't notice the annoyance with her presence as she pulled the first aid kit out of Raven's bag with her mouth and opened it. "I'm Fluttershy," she said softly, in the same gentle voice she'd been saying everything. "Now let's get you all fixed up." She pulled out the bottle of disinfectant and a roll of bandages, and Raven was starting to seriously wonder how a creature without hands or any sign of telekinesis was going to tend to her wounds.
Apparently, very well. Fluttershy moved like someone well-versed in treating injuries, using her mouth and wings in tandem to clean the claw and tooth wounds and bind them just tightly enough. Raven cooperated and moved as best she could to make it easier, and soon Fluttershy was tucking the first aid kit back where it had been and smiling. "There. Is that better?"
Raven glanced away. "...Yeah," she admitted in a mumble, then added after a moment, "Thank you."
"You're welcome." Fluttershy looked very happy with herself, from Raven's point of view, but not smug. More just happy she had been able to help; it wasn't something Raven was used to seeing. Then her expression shifted to curious, then unsure as she glanced away and started to gently scrape one of her front hooves against the ground. "I was wondering...That is, i-if you don't mind my asking...What exactly are all of you? I've never seen anything like you in the forest before."
Raven frowned at that. "I could ask you the same thing," she said. "I've never seen anything like you anywhere I've been, either."
Fluttershy appeared perplexed. "You've never seen a pegasus before? Oh my, you must be from somewhere very far away, then."
"That's the impression I'm getting, yes," Raven replied in deadpan, and she sighed. Fluttershy was still looking at her, possibly still expecting an answer to her question, but Raven asked one of her own instead. "Why were you following Julie?"
That earned a blush, and Fluttershy looked from the lounging luxray in question and back to Raven. "Oh, well, you see, I was delivering some fish to this nice bear today. He hurt his paw recently and was having trouble catching fish on his own. And, um, well, when I was on my way back, I found your kitty. Julie. I think she could still smell the fish. I noticed she was hungry, and offered to take her to my cottage and get her something to eat, but she led me here instead..."
Julie snorted a little and gave Raven a long-suffering look, the kind of look that said 'I tried to scare it off and it followed me.' Her mouth twitched just a little at that, which made Julie look away again. Something was more important than teasing her 'kitty,' however. "You have a cottage?"
Fluttershy nodded. "Yes, I do. It's not far. Did you want to come? I'm sure we can make room for all of you..." She looked around at everyone again, with a small, hopeful smile.
Raven contemplated this for a moment. "Better than sitting here waiting for more wolves to get us...Even if Grimm can take care of them pretty well." She glanced up at Grimm, who bowed dramatically mid-air and cackled. Fluttershy looked up as well, but shuffled in a way that looked a bit uncomfortable. "But this isn't all of us. I sent two more of my friends out scouting and they haven't come back yet."
Fluttershy tilted her head a little. "Oh? What do they look like?"
Raven paused, debating answering, then just shrugged a little and said, "Well, Lenore's a large, black bird with plumage that makes it look like she's wearing a fedora and Angelica's...well, she's four-legged with a long neck and a leaf growing on her head and a ring of them around her neck."
She raised her hand when she said 'long neck' to emphasize Angelica's height, and Fluttershy's eyes followed it, looking enthralled at the description. "When do you think they'll be back?" she asked.
Raven shrugged. "I don't know. You mind waiting?"
Fluttershy looked up at Titan for a moment, then nodded. "You'll need food and rest to help you heal from those injuries. I'll wait with you for your friends, and then we can all go back to my cottage. "
Raven snorted a little as she leaned back her head. Rest. If only Fluttershy knew what an impossibility that really was. Right now, though, Raven was done with chatting. She'd never liked small talk, as sweet as this little pegasus was.
So very nearly impossibly sweet, yet clearly painfully genuine. It was strange. Not a bad strange, she supposed, though it did completely crush any faint thought in her mind that this could possibly be some kind of dream.
Raven didn't get good dreams.
***
Twilight was pacing frustrated circles around her library, numerous books floating around her as she plucked them from the shelves with her magic. One was open in front of her nose, and she let out a noise of frustration as she hurled it aside to join a growing pile. "Nothing in this one either!" She flipped through another, then another, then another, and sent them all flying. "There's nothing in any of these books about that bird we saw."
Rainbow Dash leaned against the wall with a deadpan expression, watching Twilight's frantic search. "What's the big deal? It's from the Everfree Forest, right? That place has all kinds of weird stuff in it. Remember the parasprites? What matters is that we kick that bird's feathered flank."
Twilight stopped in her tracks, and the magic aura around her horn faded. "The parasprites...Of course!" She whirled around to face Rainbow Dash. "Pinkie Pie! Maybe she knows what that bird was."
Rainbow Dash blinked in bewilderment as Twilight trotted out the door, and she found herself following. "Wait a second. You're asking Pinkie for information?"
Twilight just kept trotting down the path. "You said it yourself. No one knew about the parasprites when they came out of the Everfree Forest. Except for Pinkie Pie." She looked back at Rainbow Dash. "Besides, do you have any better ideas?"
"Yeah, I do. Going back to that forest and feeding that bird his hat!"
"Crest."
"Whatever!"
Twilight rolled her eyes. For all her protests, she'd noticed that Rainbow Dash was still following her despite it. The owner of Sofas and Quills offered the pair a wave and cheerful hello as they trotted past, but Twilight barely noticed. "Rainbow, that bird used magic to attack you. It cast some kind of spell to turn its wings into blades, and then it cast another to vanish like that."
Rainbow Dash took off with a couple of wing flaps and hovered beside Twilight. "Hey, you don't have to tell me that. I'm the one with the unwanted mane cut, remember?" She shook her head to make obvious the small section of her mane that now ended with a flat, slightly diagonal edge, in sharp contrast to the rest of it.
"Exactly." Twilight kept up her brisk pace, ignoring the giggling young fillies who were bounding around the fountain in a game of tag. Rainbow Dash, instead, gave a little mid-air loop and perched on top of the fountain briefly, to the cheering of the foals, before she hopped down and followed her friend on hoof again. "We have no idea what it's capable of. What if it has other spells we don't know about?"
Rainbow Dash scoffed, but didn't get a chance to reply when a loud shriek erupted from the direction of Sugarcube Corner. Both mares looked at each other and immediately put on a burst of speed.
Rainbow Dash, as usual, got there first, and burst in the front door. "Pinkie!"
Another shriek rang out, but as Twilight pushed open the door as well, they now saw the source. That source being an earth pony with a pink and purple mane and tail bouncing up and down in gleeful circles, very similarly to a way Pinkie Pie herself often did, with a huge grin on her face. "I won, I won, I won! I won the contest!"
Laying sprawled out on the floor was a mint green unicorn with colourful frosting all over her face and holding a half-eaten cupcake with her hoof. "How did you pack away that many...?" Her unoccupied front hoof went to her face and she opened her mouth to prod at her tongue. "I thin' my tongue jus' wen' numb from all th' sugar."
"And the winner is Bon Bon!" came a cheer as Pinkie Pie momentarily held one of the earth pony's forelegs in the air, then trotted over to help the unicorn back to her hooves. "You did really well, Lyra! I've never seen anyone eat as many as either of you."
It was then that she acknowledged Rainbow Dash and Twilight standing in the doorway and waved at them. "Hi Twilight! Hi Dashie! Are you here for a cupcake eating contest, too? Too bad you missed this last one. It was amazing."
"Actually, Pinkie Pie," Twilight said, trotting past Lyra and Bon Bon as the latter finally calmed down. "We wanted to talk to you about something."
Pinkie Pie just bounced on the front of her hooves eagerly. "I like talking! What do you wanna talk about?"
"Well, Rainbow Dash and I saw this bird out near the Everfree Forest..."
***
"You really don't need to eat at all?"
"I do not. I am able to derive beneficial effects from certain varieties of food, but I do not require it to remain functional."
Raven flicked her eyes in the direction of Fluttershy and Titan and sighed faintly, her hand idly scratching at Belladonna's ears, who laying next to her in a half-doze. Even if she wasn't inclined to engage in small talk herself, it turned out that forcing herself to listen to it was a good way to distract herself enough that she didn't sleep.
It also turned out that, when Fluttershy said she wanted to know absolutely everything, she wasn't kidding. And since Raven wasn't responding and 'needed her rest,' she'd been bombarding Titan with questions instead for Arceus only knew how long. And Titan, being a mechanical creature incapable of boredom, was answering every single question.
Every. Single. Question.
"Do all...'steel types' not need to eat?"
"Some do require it. Some require larger amounts of food than typical species of their size to maintain the quality of their bodies' metal. Other steel types may derive their nutrition from eating different varieties of metal directly."
It was pokemon biology class all over again.
Raven tuned out the next few questions and answers as she looked out at Julie and Grimm patrolling the edges of their little 'territory' on the lookout for threats. There had been no sign of the timberwolves returning, which could either mean that the brutal burning of their pack members had frightened them into staying away from the area, or that they were biding their time for revenge.
Hopefully, Raven and her team would be out of here before they had a chance to find out which it was. The longer it took, the more she wondered if Lenore and Angelica had run into something equally dangerous.
She tuned back into the ongoing conversation, just in time to hear the words, "...Start out that way?"
"They do not. Scyther are categorized as bug type and flying type until the metal coat is applied to trigger the metamorphosis into scizor. The flying type designation is then replaced by steel type designation."
Raven wondered how much of this Fluttershy was absorbing, but she supposed she couldn't fault her enthusiasm for the topic. She wished she'd been so eager to learn about all the little details when she'd first started out, rather than racing out into the world with the belief that she'd be able to take on the world with sheer force of personality.
Raven looked down at what of her old scars she could see with Fluttershy's bandaging job. She'd been so, so stupid.
"Combining known species in regions Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, and Unova, there are seventy-three individual varieties of flying types, in forty-three evolution families. Of them, twenty-four are normal types, twelve are bug types, seven are water types, five are psychic types, four are dark types, four are grass types, three are dragon types, three are poison types, three are rock types, two are ghost types, two are ground types, one is electric type, one is fire type, one is ice type, and one is steel type."
Who needed a pokedex when you had a metagross? She'd missed the question that had triggered all of that, but she felt she could guess. Still, Raven found herself piping up, "You left out the Legendary pokemon."
Immediately, she found attention on her as Fluttershy tore her eyes away from Titan where she was laying in the grass and looked over. "Legendary pokemon?"
Titan looked over as well. "Legendary categorization regarding types are theory, master. They have not been confirmed by in-depth examination of the pokemon in question."
Raven just gave him a deadpan stare, slowly arching a brow. "Are you honestly trying to debate whether the Legendary birds are flying types with me?" She shifted her more heavily-bandaged arm, where a bit of her old burn scarring still showed through.
Titan was silent, and there was a faint hum of power before he spoke again. "Adding in known Legendary pokemon from the five regions stated, there are eighty-two flying types, in fifty-two evolution families. Of them, twenty-four are normal types, twelve are bug types, seven are water types, six are psychic types..."
And right there, Raven stopped paying attention and just leaned her head back against the tree again, wondering why in the world she chose to encourage him. Oh well, what was done was done, and if this had gone on long enough, Legendaries would have no doubt come up in conversation on their own. Fluttershy was certainly covering nearly everything else in her questioning.
That was fated to be the last of the questions for the time being, however. Fluttershy suddenly gave a frightened squeak and flattened herself against the ground with her forelegs over her head as a dark blur flew over her and landed in front of Raven. Belladonna's head snapped up and Julie and Grimm turned to look, but they all relaxed when they saw who it was.
A little smile twitched at Raven's mouth as she saw her honchkrow standing there with one foot extended, holding her prize. "An apple? Good find, Lenore." Raven reached out to take it from Lenore's talons, then handed it to Belladonna, who shoved it into her mouth whole, core and all, and munched on it happily.
Fluttershy had recovered by this point, and she trotted over. "Oh, you're Lenore. It's nice to meet you. I'm Fluttershy." Lenore eyed the approaching pegasus warily, then looked at Raven. Then she looked at Raven's numerous bandages.
She shrugged. "We were attacked by some strange wolves earlier. Fluttershy patched me up."
Lenore's body language immediately shifted upon hearing that, and she gave a cheerful squawk and held out her wing. Fluttershy smiled and raised her leg for a handless handshake that was surprisingly lacking in awkwardness. Lenore then took off to land on one of the thicker, lower branches of the tree Raven was resting against and settle down there.
"She's technically nocturnal," Raven explained for Fluttershy's benefit, just in case that hadn't been in a part of Titan's tidal wave of information that she'd tuned out. Then she looked up and asked, "Hey, you didn't happen to see Angelica out the--"
A chirping, "Bay bay!" and loud trampling of plant life answered that one, as her bayleef burst through the bushes in a clumsy gallop. She stopped in her tracks when she saw Raven, however, and let out a long whine as she lumbered over and peered at her.
Raven just sighed. "I'll be fine," she said, then gently reached up and turned the large head in front of her to one side to make her look elsewhere. "Angelica, this is Fluttershy."
Angelica immediately perked up and toddled over to lean down and sniff at Fluttershy, which earned a soft giggle. "Hi Angelica." She looked around at all the pokemon, then back at Raven. "This means all of your friends are back now, right?"
Raven nodded. "Yeah..." She looked up at the branches. "Better look alive, Lenore. We have a place to stay, now." She then shifted, trying to get up, when she was suddenly surrounded by a soft glow and lifted into the air. She floated over and was gently placed on top of Titan, who then pulled all four of his legs up to let them point outward and hovered where he'd once been standing.
Fluttershy looked awestruck. "Oh my, I didn't know he could do that."
Raven smirked a little and lightly patted the metal surface she was seated on. "Yeah, he's pretty handy like that. So...lead the way."
Fluttershy nodded and started to trot away. "It's just this way. It's not far outside the forest at all."
Lenore, with a grand sigh, took off from the branch and landed on Titan next to Raven, where she stayed as he started to follow Fluttershy. Raven idly reached over to stroke Lenore's breast feathers as Julie, Grimm, Angelica, and Belladonna all joined them with varying speeds and levels of enthusiasm. Her bag, gripped in Titan's telekinesis, floated along behind them.
They had barely traveled any distance before a chill started to take root in Raven's spine, however. Both her hands found the metal to either side of her; they started laying flat, palm down, and then she slowly curled her fingers, pressed against the cold surface to the point that she could faintly hear her nails scratching against it, until they were fists. A feeling of dread made her empty stomach lurch and seemed to coil up her throat and stay there, almost making it hard to breathe.
Raven swallowed, staring straight ahead, and forced herself to ignore the feeling and will it away. She was a lost trainer, now. Cut off from the network. Off the radar. Far, far away from anything she had ever known.
She didn't need to dread anything anymore. She was free, now.
The cottage was cute. That was the only word in Raven's mind to describe it.
As they followed Fluttershy across a short bridge, having passed a slender tree covered in nests and birdhouses, she found herself trying to take in every detail. It was like something out of a story book. Lush green roof that looked like it was made of grass and bushes, birdhouses on said roof, cute little fence on one side of the path, multi-leveled birdhouse on said fence, patch of colourful flowers...
And more birdhouses. Arceus did Fluttershy have a lot of birdhouses. There were birds in them, too, and most of them were watching Raven and her motley crew warily. As they got closer to the house, she looked at all the cautious eyes peering out of the birdhouse on the fence and asked, "Did you build all of these?"
Fluttershy paused and glanced over. "Oh, well...Not all of them." She brushed her hoof against the ground, and Raven could catch a faint blush on her cheeks. "My bird friends sometimes bring back more friends, and I can't just let them not have a roof over their head..."
She suddenly looked at Lenore where she was sitting on Titan's back. Raven looked too, meeting Lenore's eyes before glancing again at all the birdhouses and noting to herself that her honchkrow could likely pick one up in her talons and fly away with it easily. "Oh, I'm sorry. Y-you can stay inside the cottage if you want, Lenore, until I have one big enough for you..."
Lenore cawed and raised a wing, gesturing casually in the air, then took off to land on an unoccupied branch of a sturdy-looking tree. The bird in a nest on a nearby branch shrank down and eyed her, but relaxed when Lenore just shuffled a bit to make herself comfortable and tucked her head under her wing. Raven's mouth twitched. "She likes the open sky," she explained.
"Oh...alright then." Fluttershy trotted over to the front door of the cottage. "It's not going to rain until the end of the week, so it should be okay for her..."
Raven could hear the faint hum that meant that Titan was preparing to speak, and she gave him a gentle rap with her knuckles as a warning to keep quiet. The last thing she needed was him insulting their host over the certainty of her word choice. He complied, and instead just lowered his legs again so that he was standing on the path and then, when Fluttershy opened the door, gently lifted Raven up off of him with his telekinesis and set her on her feet in front of said door.
It was there that Fluttershy had her second size-related problem of the day and looked between Titan's wide metal body and her narrower doorway. "Oh my, I..."
"There is no need for apologies, Miss Fluttershy. I do not require sleep, nor am I easily capable of physical discomfort. Staying outdoors is not an inconvenience." Titan walked back down the path with his usual chorus of mechanical sounds and then stood motionlessly beside the tree Lenore had chosen for her perch. The bag he'd been carrying with his psychic powers floated over to Belladonna, who lumbered forward and grasped it in her claws.
However, a moment later, as Fluttershy was still looking at Titan and his choice of resting place, Belladonna looked past into the house and let out a happy crooning noise before toddling right into the cottage without permission. "Bella!" Raven scolded, but it didn't even earn a twitched ear.
Angelica took that opportunity to bound inside after her with an excited chirp, and a giggle escaped Fluttershy. "It's okay. You're all welcome here." She trotted inside, and Raven slowly walked inside as well, followed by Julie's nonchalant saunter and Grimm silently slipping through the door at the rear.
What she saw when she stepped inside was an equally cute interior, with a currently-empty bird cage, visible mouse holes far too symmetrical to be anything but deliberately made--a little face was peeking out of one of them, but it darted out of sight when it saw her looking--and a couch that suddenly looked very inviting.
And there was Belladonna, who was that laying on her belly and nose-to-nose with what resembled a cotton ball with paws and long ears. An irritated cotton ball, if Raven was reading its expression right, which instantly made it slightly more interesting to her than all of the other residents of this cottage other than Fluttershy by virtue of not being afraid of them. Though, right now, Raven was more focused on the bag Belladonna had dropped near the door, which she retrieved and opened.
Fluttershy walked over to the cotton ball to give it an affectionate nudge with her snout. "Angel, this is Belladonna, Julie, Angelica, Grimm and Raven. I invited them to stay while Raven recovers from her injuries."
Raven had a feeling that she was being studied at that moment, but she just took one of the shirts she'd had in her pack out, the exact same material and colour as the shredded, bloody garment she'd left back in the forest. She didn't care if people saw what her life had turned her into physically. She wasn't ashamed. Not of the fact that she was visibly underweight with ribs showing in the places not currently bandaged, nor of the myriad of ugly scars from gashes and the places on her arm where her flesh was warped by burns.
Not of the bags under of her eyes and the fact that her hair was a greasy, disheveled mess, either, for that matter. Self-consciousness was a useless thing, and she was aware of the fact that she was the most-dressed person in here even with just her sports bra and bandages being the only covering her torso had
There was one thing, though, and with her back to her host she knew it was plainly visible. Fluttershy had probably already seen it during the dressing of Raven's wounds, though, and what did Raven care if the cotton ball judged her? Still, old habits died hard, and something about being in the civilized environment of a house made it feel like time to cover up, and so she pulled on the shirt, trying to ignore the pain running through her arms and chest as she did so.
Only then did Raven look over, to see that Angel the cotton ball was indeed looking at her, and that he looked no more friendly than he had previously. "Hi," she said flatly.
Julie just strolled over to the nearby couch and curled up in front of it, blatantly ignoring the world, and Grimm floated up to hover in the middle of the ceiling, playing the part of a real chandelier. Angelica was eying a nearby bookshelf curiously, and Belladonna was still giving the best 'please be my best friend' face a nidoqueen could make, which Angel was not paying attention to at all.
Fluttershy frowned and nudged Angel again. "Now now, Angel Bunny, we should try to be good hosts. They're from very far away and they've been through a lot." She looked up at Raven. "You can rest on the couch, if you want. It's very comfortable."
Raven's mouth twitched, and she nodded. "Thanks." She needed to step over Julie, who clearly wouldn't move for anything sort of Raikou itself now that she'd found a desirable sleeping spot, but was soon laying on her back on the couch. The effect was nearly instant, and she relaxed as much as she could in response to being genuinely comfortable, her eyelids drooping.
She glanced over, barely moving her head, as Belladonna walked over and curled up next to Julie. The long spikes on her back slowly folded so that they were laying against her spine rather than sticking out, and she grabbed Julie's thin tail to hug like a teddy bear, which was tolerated. Angelica trotted over to the end of the couch where Raven's head was and gingerly folded her legs under her body before draping her long neck over the edge of the couch and nuzzling Raven's cheek.
Raven smiled and lightly stroked the leaf on Angelica's head a couple of times before she retracted her hand and felt the haze of sleep start to fall over her.
This time, she couldn't fight it off.
***
It'd been ten years to the day since her old life ended.
Four years to the day that what trace of happiness the new one had was lost.
She remembered standing at the top of the lighthouse, contemplating the crashing waves. He liked torturing her more on that day, every year. As the old, bittersweet memories had washed over her, he had enjoyed whispering in her mind and reminding her that those days were over. Every thought of a smile, a laugh, a comfortable silence, he was always there with his cruel commentary, reminding her that she had been powerless to stop its agonizing end, and would forever be powerless.
He had been wanting all these years to see how far he could push her, she knew. He had always wanted to break her, make her numb, shatter her sanity and cast it into the waters below.
She'd refused to give him the satisfaction of her tears. She'd pushed away the taunts and stabbing words like she always did her own self-destructive thoughts. She'd turned away from the water and made her way down the steps to the ground again; it always seemed so effortless physically, and yet the descent still felt like part of the yearly torture.
Now, don't blame me. I'm not the one who keeps making you go back to that lighthouse, my Raven...
***
"You know what I'd do if I could make my mane look like a hat? I'd turn it into one of those propeller beanie type hats! Then I could spin the propeller and fly around! Wouldn't that be so much fun?"
Twilight Sparkle let out a slow, frustrated sigh as she found herself again trotting down the path to Fluttershy's cottage, this time with a motor-mouthed, pink earth pony and a grumbling, rainbow-maned pegasus in tow. It had turned out that Pinkie Pie didn't know at all what the strange bird was, but now that she'd been given the description she was determined to see it for herself.
And throw it a welcome party. Rainbow Dash had, obviously, not been fond of this idea and had decided to vocalize this fact. Repeatedly. This had eventually faded into half-coherent grumbling, largely drowned out by Pinkie Pie's excited rambling as they both followed Twilight out of Ponyville.
When they got close enough that the end of the path, however, they saw something clearly amiss. Twilight saw it first due to being in front, but it was Pinkie Pie who reacted first, letting out an excited, "Look at that!" before bolting across the bridge in a pink blur.
The other two quickly followed, staring bewildered at the giant, four-legged object that appeared to be made of blue metal standing motionlessly next to one of the trees as Pinkie Pie bounded around it. Her stream of babble hadn't ceased, either. "It's a robot! Isn't this amazing? A real-life robo...thing. I don't know what it's a robot of, but it's a robot!" She pressed her face against the front of it, staring right into the black and red markings that resembled eyes. "Hi, Mr. Robot! I'm Pinkie Pie!"
Twilight gave a small snort. "Pinkie, that's n--"
That was when the 'markings' started to glow and Pinkie Pie hopped back to allow the robot to shift its clawed limbs to turn its body left and right to take in the three of them, and Twilight realized they really were eyes. "Hello," came a deep, unnatural-sounding voice from the metal creature, despite no visible mouth. "My name is Titan. Are you here to visit Miss Fluttershy?"
Twilight was pretty sure she heard a tiny, "Awesome..." behind her. However, before anyone could answer Titan properly, Rainbow Dash suddenly shot straight up in the air and hovered in front of a branch. "Hey, it's that weird bird!"
Twilight looked up and, indeed, there was the large black bird with the fedora-shaped crest, who let out a loud squawk and fluttered down to perch on top of Titan. The bird ruffled its feathers and shot Rainbow Dash a heated glare.
Titan spoke up again, a faint hum before it that Twilight had not noticed the first time. "Her name is Lenore, and she would like it to be stated that she does not appreciate being woken up in that manner."
Rainbow Dash's angry expression momentarily wavered as she blinked. "That's a girl bird?"
"Yes."
There was another glare shot in her direction, but Pinkie Pie leaped back into the centre of attention by hopping up onto Titan's back as well. "Hi Lenore! Welcome to Ponyville! Well, technically Ponyville's over there down the path, but still, welcome! Want to be friends? I'm friends with everypony in Ponyville. We can throw you and Titan a big super-fun party!"
Titan didn't so much as twitch at the energetic pony prancing on top of him. "We would require permission to attend any form of gathering."
That immediately caught Twilight's attention. "From Fluttershy?" she asked.
Titan turned his glowing-eyed gaze on her. "No. From our master, Raven. Fluttershy has permitted all of us to remain at her residence as Raven recovers."
Finally, the mystery was unraveling, and even Pinkie Pie seemed to know not to interrupt as Twilight let the next questions tumble from her. "Recovers from what? Where is she?"
"We were attacked by creatures Miss Fluttershy refers to as 'timberwolves.' She is inside of the cottage, along with the rest of our team."
"There's more of you guys?" Rainbow Dash cut in, finally swooping down and landing on the ground again. Pinkie Pie got off of Titan and returned to the ground as well, appearing sobered by the mention of timberwolves and the fact that one of her potential new friends was hurt.
"Yes."
Twilight Sparkle paused to consider this. Strange creatures she had never seen before, clearly capable of magic to some degree, with some sort of 'master.' What kind of pony would have such an entourage? They were either very powerful, very important, or both. Twilight had never even heard of this kind of magic.
And yet, this 'Raven' had been harmed by timberwolves and was now in Fluttershy's care. She wasn't sure how that added up. Yet. "Are we allowed inside?"
Titan hummed again. "Raven has not ordered me to stop anyone, nor has Miss Fluttershy stated a lack of desiring visitors." He was motionless as Twilight looked at her two friends.
"Alright then. Come on, girls." They continued to the cottage's door, though Pinkie Pie paused to wave goodbye to Titan and Lenore with both forelegs. Twilight carefully rapped on the door with her hoof, trying to mentally prepare for what they would see when it opened.
What they saw was Fluttershy, balancing a cup of tea on an outstretched wing. She perked up at the sight of her friends. "Oh, hello everyone. What brings you here?" Before anyone could answer, she added. "Oh! Are you here for the book I borrowed? I'm sorry, I'd forgotten. It's been a busy day..."
"Actually, Fluttershy, that's sort of what I wanted to talk to you about," Twilight told her. "We heard you were taking care of somepony named Raven? Could we talk to her?"
"Weird name for a pony," came a bit of commentary from Rainbow Dash, "Who names their foal after a kind of bird?"
Twilight was sure she could think of a few ponies named after birds if given the time to do so, but Fluttershy spoke up then. "Well, actually, she's not a pony. And, well, I-I don't think talking to her right now is a good idea. She fell asleep an hour or so ago, and the poor dear looked very tried when I found--"
A high-pitched shriek erupted from inside the cottage, and Fluttershy bolted back inside of her home, the tea cup she'd been carrying clattering to the floor and spilling its contents. Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie didn't hesitate running in the still-open door after her.
***
Ten years of sleeping torture.
There was no sense of self in the nightmares, no lucidity, no true thought. If someone were to try to see images or hear sounds from her dreams, what they would find was disjointed and unnatural, ever-twisting in a way that simply seemed alien to the mortal mind, as if something so wholly removed from her comprehension were being forced into her skull with as little finesse as possible.
Mostly, it was fear and pain, poured into her very being, unfiltered through the senses of a mortal body or mind. Both in their purest, untainted form, the very concepts of them burning themselves into her soul.
Through it all, there was also a feeling of being possessed. There were no words, as words were too distinct, made too much sense, had too much identity. Just a feeling, a concept, the simple untainted truth branded into her that the nightmare owned her, that there was no escape. That escape, as a concept, did not exist.
That one night, ten years to the day, something had cut through it. White claws, something real and solid, had been held out. Her name had been called, and for the first time in the midst of the torture she'd remembered that she had a name.
This time, there was nothing.
***
Raven woke up like she always did, with screams. She snapped into awareness clawing at the air, disoriented and still feeling the echoes of the pain and terror. She couldn't recognize what she was seeing, the warped, alien world of the nightmare having replaced her perception of what was 'real.'
Her pulse was racing and, for the barest of moments, her bright red irises were glowing.
As the disorientation ended and said glow faded, reality flooding her senses and shoving the nightmare away, she hugged herself and started shaking, only now realizing that she'd sat bolt upright upon waking.
No...I'm free now...You can't...You can't hurt me here...
"Raven?"
The timid voice pulled her out of it and forced her to really look around and remember where she was. Angelica, Julie, and Belladonna were all awake and standing away from the couch, as they knew to do when she had her fits upon waking, but Fluttershy was standing with them, eyes shining with concern.
And behind her? More equines. That Raven didn't recognize. She straightened out her back and gave all of them a hard, studying stare. One had wings like Fluttershy did, but had a blue pelt and feathers and a rainbow-coloured mane. Another was purple with a horn spiraling from her forehead that reminded Raven of a rapidash. The third had neither wings nor a horn and was a very bright pink with a very poofy mane.
Julie, Belladonna, and Angelica all turned, regarding the strangers as well. The rainbow-maned one's eyes narrowed, and the purple one shifted her weight slightly in clear unease. Fluttershy looked between them and Raven helplessly.
Then the pink one suddenly bolted straight past Raven's three pokemon, ignoring Julie's warning snarl, and put her forelegs up on the couch. "Hi! You're Raven, right? I'm Pinkie Pie!"
Raven blinked slowly, meeting the bright blue eyes of the pink pony. Pinkie Pie? That sounded like what someone would name a pet jigglypuff. She shifted away, bending her knees to pull her legs in protectively, and was very tempted to try shoving that grinning face away from her. The sensations of her dream were still too fresh in her mind for her to allow a complete stranger that close.
Raven glanced at Fluttershy, who still looked very concerned, then looked back at Pinkie Pie. She managed a small, "...Hello." She conjured the most flat tone she could, but she could still hear her own voice wavering slightly.
Pinkie Pie frowned, those big eyes widening slightly. "Are you okay? Did I say something bad? If I did, I'm sorry. I just wanna be friends."
"I think she just doesn't like you so close," Fluttershy finally spoke up gently.
"Oh. Okey-dokey-lokey." Pinkie Pie immediately put her front hooves back on the ground and then bolted out the cottage door, somehow managing to do so backward. "Is this better?" she called from outside.
Raven technically knew the 'right' answer was something like 'you don't have to move that far.' However, what she said instead after a slow, relieved sigh was, "Much." She caught sight of the rainbow-maned pegasus's eyes narrowing further.
However, it was the purple one with the horn who carefully took a few steps closer, but didn't try to breach the protective circle formed by Raven's three pokemon like Pinkie had. "Maybe we should all properly introduce ourselves. My name is Twilight Sparkle, and this is Rainbow Dash. We don't mean you any harm."
"You don't have to mean harm to cause it," Raven stated, bluntly, and she watched Twilight Sparkle take a step back, looking like she had no idea how to take what had just been said.
The next moment, there was a blur of colour as she suddenly had a very angry-looking Rainbow Dash hovering in front of her nose. "Hey, where do you get off talking to my friend like tha--" Her rant broke off with a yelp as Belladonna grabbed the end of her tail in her claws and yanked her backward and down toward the ground. She then planted her foot down on said tail to keep her in place.
Rainbow Dash looked at her trapped tail and then up at the growling nidoqueen holding it. "What's the big idea? Let me go!"
Belladonna's growl deepened, but Raven just sighed and shook her head. "Just let her go, Bella." She obeyed, and Rainbow Dash quickly darted away and hovered in the air, glaring at Raven from a slightly safer distance, which was met with an only mildly irritated stare in return. "The big idea is that my friends don't like it when other people try to get in my face."
Rainbow Dash gave an angry snort. "Oh yeah? Well, I caught one of your 'friends' stealing from my friend's apple orchard earlier today!"
Raven paused. "That apple came from an orchard?" She shrugged. "Then, tell your friend that when I have some actual currency, I'll pay for it."
Rainbow Dash did not look appeased. "Not even an 'I'm sorry?'"
Raven shifted, then pushed herself off the couch. She straightened her back and widened her stance, drawing herself up to her full height and putting her hands on both her hips. She'd always been tall, if also lanky, and she hoped that would be to her advantage as she towered over the four-legged beings alongside her pokemon.
"I asked Lenore to find food. She found it. We didn't even know if there were people around here to claim ownership of anything until Fluttershy showed up. I do not apologize for asking my friend to do what I considered necessary to survive. If you don't like that..." Her voice took on an icy edge as she trailed off.
"Is that a threat?" Rainbow Dash shifted to a two-legged stance and threw a couple of mock punches in the air with her front hooves. "Just try it. I could kick all your flanks any day of the--"
"Oh, please don't," came a quiet request from Fluttershy.
"Yeah! We shouldn't fight," was the enthusiastic addition from Pinkie Pie, who appeared in the doorway again with an audible zip. "Unless it's a pillow fight. Those are fun!"
Raven looked at them, then at Rainbow Dash, and after a tense moment of locked gazes Raven calmly stepped back and sat on the couch; Rainbow Dash got out of her fighting stance as well, but she was still glaring daggers.
"Let's start over, then. You already know that I'm Raven. This is Angelica, Julie, Belladonna..." She gestured to each pokemon in turn, then pointed up at the purple chandelier who had been silently hovering by the ceiling the whole time. "...And Grimm."
Grimm cackled, and Twilight Sparkle ducked down a little for a second as she looked up at him. "Charmed." She aimed her attention back on Raven. "We met your other friends outside. Titan said you were their 'master.'"
Raven rolled her eyes and leaned back a little, once she was certain no more equines were going to invade her personal space. "More or less. That's what he calls it, anyway. I've stopped asking him not to."
"If you aren't their 'master,' then what are you?" It seemed even with the fight avoided, the little spitfire of a pegasus wasn't going to keep her mouth shut.
Raven didn't even look at her this time, focused on Twilight Sparkle instead. "In a lot of pain, grateful to be alive, and very tired." She shifted and flopped down into a laying-down position on the couch for emphasis, an action she instantly regretted as the pain jolted through her body, pain that easily leaked into her tone as she added, "Any other questions?"
Twilight Sparkle shook her head. "You obviously need your rest. We'll just be going...Fluttershy, could I get back that book?"
Raven thought she heard Fluttershy reply to that, but she'd shut her eyes and tuned out the conversation by that point, only vaguely hearing whatever babble was going on. Eldrich images from her nightmare danced behind her eyelids and she opened them again as she heard the door shut.
"That...that was a bit rude, you know..." Raven blinked and glanced over to see Fluttershy looking at her. There was a bit of disappointment in her gaze that was easy to pick up on, but there was still a great deal of concern mixed in.
"So's crowding around me and acting like I'm a sideshow freak," she pointed out, staring up at the ceiling again. There was silence, but the lack of hoof beats told Raven that Fluttershy was still standing there.
"You're scared of them."
Raven frowned. She didn't reply.
"It's okay to be scared. I'm scared of lots of things. But they won't hurt you, really. They're my friends."
Still frowning. Still silent.
Finally, she heard the sound of hooves on the floor. "I'm going to get some more tea. Would you like some?"
Raven wanted to keep up being quiet, but her parched throat decided otherwise. "Yes, please."
***
"I am a metagross. Classified as the 'armoured leg' pokemon, primary designation steel type, secondary designation psychic type. Third stage in the evolutionary chain of beldum. By standard calendar, I am two years and fourty-four days old. Acquired by Raven in beldum stage via trade in Slateport City, Hoenn. Original trainer name: Celeste Bryne. I am in possession of the TM moves Telekinesis and Protect."
Well, Titan was certainly eager to share information, though whether that was because they'd recently met with his master--as hostile as said meeting had been--or simply because he enjoyed answering questions, it wasn't clear.
Too bad none of it made any sense. But with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie having gone off to hang out, Twilight Sparkle had all the time in the world to figure it out. She wasn't going to let a wealth of information about a bunch of previously-unknown species slip through her hooves. Best to start at the top. "What is a 'pokemon?'"
"Pokemon is a shortening of the term 'Pocket Monster,' a commonly-accepted name for numerous species that share the following characteristics: Instinctive access to physical and elemental techniques known as 'attacks,' or 'moves,' an extremely accelerated healing rate compared to other life forms, the capability to increase in strength and knowledge via combat, and compatibility with various technologies that allow for analysis, enhancement, further accelerating healing, and storage."
Okay, that made a certain amount of sense, but it raised a lot more questions. "How many species?"
"Standard pokedex information from regions Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh and Unova combine to form a count of 649 species of varying designation and population levels, including one-of-a-kind species known as 'Legendary' pokemon."
Twilight blinked at the number, attempting to process the idea of over six-hundred varieties of these powerful magical beasts. It was both fascinating and terrifying. "What is a 'type?'"
"Type is the accepted term for a pokemon's or attack's elemental inclination. Pokemon may have a single type, or both a primary type and a secondary type. Attacks performed of a type that is the same as its user's type are more powerful, and some types have an advantage or disadvantage over others. Known types are as follows: Normal, Fire, Water, Electric, Grass, Ice..."
***
Raven sat quietly, sipping her tea. She hadn't questioned what kind it was, and she still didn't care, not even really tasting it. It was warm, it quenched it her thirst, and that was all that was required of it. She'd declined sugar, but had taken the offered cookie if only because of the insistent expression on Fluttershy's face at the time.
She still hadn't actually eaten it, though. With Fluttershy now out in her back yard taking care of the animals out there, she was left with her four pokemon, who had gone back to dozing.
Slowly, a little, grey face peeked out of the nearby mouse hole and scurried into the open. Raven's flicked her eyes in the direction of the movement, and the little mouse froze. She glanced at each of the three monsters laying around the couch and raised an eyebrow. Seriously? I'm the one you're afraid of? she thought, though she noted that the mouse could be thinking she'd alert the bigger, toothier creatures.
She looked down at the cookie, then carefully set down her teacup and picked it up. She broke off a piece. "You want some?" she asked, and gently tossed the bit of cookie past her trio of guard pokemon to land on the floor nearby; Julie twitched an ear slightly, but no one moved.
The mouse looked shocked for half a second, then gave a little, overjoyed-sounding squeak and darted over to grab the morsel. He disappeared back into the hole without so much as looking back at her.
Raven snorted slightly at the sight and looked at what was left of the sweet treat, then she snapped off a little bit to nibble lightly at. Some things really don't change, no matter where you are. If you give a mouse a cookie...
Her thought was cut short when the little grey mouse scurried into the open again and, this time, bravely raced right past Julie's large, dark paws and climbed up on to the couch. He then scurried up her shoulder and, to her shock, gave her cheek an affectionate nuzzle before racing off again for his mouse hole.
Raven blinked slowly, then felt a smile tug at her mouth. "Heh..." The sound was little more than a shallow exhale, and the whispered words afterward were no louder. "You're welcome."
