A Noivern friend of mine was putting together an RP that obviously allowed for pokemon characters, so I decided it was a good opportunity to finally come up with an actual "Lugiasona." I ended up with Ierean (that is an i, not an L), a relatively young Lugia who is now detached from the territory he used to protect. This is the story of how the Guardian of the Sea ended up a member of a rescue organization based in Denver, Colorado.

Yes I know Lugia are technically genderless but where is the fun in that?

Thumbnail is part of a larger art piece I am working on and will finish...eventually.

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Ierean’s Origin
Written by Ahgjan, with additional content by Noi

– – o|o – –

The ocean is home.

It is not a part of the ocean that is home, it is the whole ocean that is home.

It is home to fish, home to mammals, to abundant plant life, to coral and mollusks and countless other smaller creatures.

And it is home to myself and my kind.

This ocean is not my ocean, however. I dearly miss my oceans. I have tried for several months to make the oceans here feel like my home, to command the currents and defend its life and the order in which it ebbs and flows from those threats which would bring destruction and pain. But I am weak. I am too weak to do that which I have enjoyed for all of my life and by being weak I have failed. That is why I live in a lake far from the oceans that I love. Because I am weak and there is strength in numbers.

I apologize my lamentation, for I digress. I suppose it is my story that you have come to hear.

My name is Ierean. Son of Eselas in the line of Utaks. For generations my family has held the protectorship of the southern territories.

In the place whence I came, my people were called legendary. Some among the humans even worshiped us, although I suspect those believed us to all be the same creature. I suppose there existing so few of us to protect the seas supported those beliefs, being only one born every two hundred human years or so.

Only two Lugia have been born since myself, in fact, and the word of the latest birth had reached me just before I was banished. A healthy son to my brother and his mate, a strange female who claimed to have come from another world. I am sure that I have been presumed dead, perhaps it is fate that such a unique lineage replace me.

I send him my blessings, and hope they reach him and bring him better luck than I.

From the age of two I began leaving the nest to patrol the seas with my mother, while my father spent much of his time protecting the currents and giving rain and wind to the humans who begged it. At fifteen I was granted my own territory to patrol. When my father left us to join my ancestors I had enjoyed his company for just shy of three-hundred and fourty-one human years, and I took to myself all of his responsibilities.

It had been another eighty-three years before my troubles began. Those years were peaceful for the most part. There were of course the inevitable human conflicts on the surface and the shores, and despite the futility of their efforts there were the occasional attempts to catch my mother or myself. More often than this however were the disputes between pokemon, but often these were resolved with food or a simple fight. There were few problems I was unable to easily resolve.

My mother departed in the autumn, having at least been present for the hatching of her first grandson. Although it was a sad time for me I took solace in the thought that she no longer had need to weep for my father. I could not mourn her for long as much of the world began to feel strange. I patrolled the shore and saw strange creatures and unhappy humans everywhere I looked. The sea was difficult to calm and it felt as if more forces were at work on the weather than should be.

Even after the strange feeling dissipated and the powers that brought the rain and stirred the seas faded the world felt different. Some strange creatures remained on the shores and there were new pokemon in the seas who seemed slightly confused, but happy.

During the disruptions, a great shimmering stone was freed from the sand by a difficult current, and within it a face. The face was gray and gold, and the gold upon its head shimmered strangely under the rippling diamond pattern of the sun through the gentle waves on the sea’s surface. I only saw the face in the rock for a moment. The red eyes gleamed of a madness that made even one such as I uncomfortable, and I kept away from the silvery rock hoping to never see it again.

It was not many days after that one of the humans’ flying ships – airplanes they called them – plunged to the sea. I had hurried to the scene with urgency to protect the water and rescue the humans only to find they were not there. Nothing was there. Only the silvery rock. I was confused. Weeks passed and in the same place a water ship fell beneath the surface as I flew overhead. I dove seeking to rescue again only to see the ship vanish before my eyes in a spiral of purple and black that rippled from the rock.

And then I saw the face once again.

It was a pokemon, I realized. And from the smoky tendril which preceded its head through he surface of the rock it was of a ghost type. I could not identify it and it did not give me a name, only a scowl and a threat before it slipped into the shimmering surface and vanished as well.

I had urgently tried to cover the stone once more, to bury it again so that the strange mirror pokemon could not again attempt to come, but it came again before I could finish. Ghostly claw-tipped tendrils reached out of the stone and grabbed my neck, pulling me toward the rock as I closed my eyes in anticipation of the head pain that would follow.

Instead I found myself floating in a strange darkness. Even now I am unable to properly explain the place in which I had found myself for it was as if I could see clearly as daylight yet the darkness in every direction was deeper than that of the most isolated sea caves. In the distance in every direction I could make out parts of land masses at various angles, and several ships and airplanes laying upon them.

I could not easily fly, yet I floated as a feather on the water drifting away from a jagged mirror in which I saw not myself but the rippling pattern of the surface of my ocean. Little did I know then that it would be the last I saw of my home.

The creature drifted around me with curiosity in its strange gray face, and the madness still in its eyes. It acknowledged me with an echoing screech and glared. It was much larger than I was and with a full view of its body I finally recognized it, and identified it in as scolding a tone as I could muster.

{Giratina.}

It didn’t answer as I expected, only letting out another screeching cry in my face and lashing out with its tendrils. I only needed to dodge.

{This is not the way of things!} I spoke, knowingly. {By Arceus, you need to return these people to their dimension and do not take more! None of this is right!}

I was not taken off guard by the attempted slash, or the following dragon claw. I prepared myself to use my trusty hydro pump only to take a blow from its Shadow Sneak to my back. You fool! This is it’s world! I scolded myself and reminded myself that the Giratina had both the home and the type advantage in this battle, and I attacked with perhaps the most perfect Dragon Rush I had ever used.

I won’t bore you with the brutal details of the battle itself beyond what needs said. I faught my hardest, both for self preservation and in the hopes of restoring those from the human transports (not to mention the stranded and floating pokemon I could see) to their homes. The ghost dragon even survived the strongest aeroblast I could muster before striking me down against an upside-down island of rock and sand.

For a brief moment I felt myself black out, an experience I had never before in my life felt. I was horrified by the thought of death at my age – I was a guardian, I could not fail. I struggled but returned to the fight, but the Giratina had not the disadvantage of momentary unconsciousness, and as I turned to face it I had no time to react as it launched its final attack, an orb of pure energy. I will tell you that if you have never been struck by an Aura Sphere it is quite painful.

I was suspended in blackness. Then I woke up. I woke up in time to see myself fall upward into a swirling purple void. I felt immense pain as my wounds reminded me of their presence. I longed to pass out again as I stopped falling up into the darkness and began falling down in broad daylight above a rapidly approaching beach.

I woke up some time later to a human poking at me with a stick. A little human who was by itself. I groaned and it ran with a shrieking cry that hurt my pounding head. The salt water lapping at my wounds brought a comforting sting and I managed to slide beneath the water and find a safe place to rest and recover. Nothing looked familiar to me, I didn’t know this place, or the fish or creatures of the deep. It was as unfamiliar as it was familiar to me and I knew I was very far from home.

It took me a week to regain the strength to swim and fly without a list, what should have only taken hours. I found myself without the strength to call a current to ride upon, and what little dragon rush I could muster in an effort to propel myself faster left me embarrassed by its weak response. How could I be a guardian if I had no strength to protect the seas? And efforts to find one of the other Lugia for aid came up empty. I truly felt alone.

As my strength returned I tried to identify where I was. It was quickly apparent that Giratina had transported me not only far from home but to another realm. The currents traveled on their own, the fish and sea creatures had no need of someone to settle their disputes. For a time I began to feel as if I had absolutely no purpose in this place.

I spent seven weeks traveling the seas familiarizing myself with the creatures and learning to communicate with them as best I could. It was far more difficult to do so with these animals than it was with pokemon back home. Hope was beginning to return to me as I could feel my wounds finally healing. It was in the cooler northern waters of the ocean that I had overheard humans on a ship call “Pacific” that I finally realized this world may need me after all.

Seven large ships circled a pod of water mammals I had not learned the name of yet. Large weighted nets had been dropped and tied together below where the creatures now tried to push and escape even as the humans were beginning to draw them up toward the surface. The white porpose like creatures were terrified, I could sense the feeling of betrayal they felt and assumed that these humans had lured the innocent animals into a trap.

Over my years I have learned to use my psychic abilities in many ways. It is a simple thing to hear what someone is thinking when they do not guard their thoughts by desiring no one know them, but even when a human or pokemon or animal guards their thoughts it is easier still to read their emotional state and that alone can be a valuable tool.

As I drew closer I could feel an overwhelming spirit of spite and greed coming from the humans on each of the ships. It reeked in my mind as the scent of death drifted through the water from the ships themselves. Slowly I circled knowing their attention was directed toward their prey, and pried at their emotions. Not one held any regrets for their actions. In fact many held a bitter resentment and violent attitude. These humans were villains by any definition of the word and their crimes against the sea would end!

I drew my strength and swam toward one ramming it with all of my might, calling out to the creatures to keep to the bottom of the net and hoping they understood me. Above the surface men finally noticed me as the ship violently rocked, and they came to the railing to look toward me. Despite the sound being muffled between air and sea I could hear their shouts of surprise and anger as they thought them, and knew they would soon be attacking me. With their attention on searching me I dove down and tore the nets open with my beak, instructing the creatures to follow the sea bed for as long as they could before returning to the surface.

It was when the projectiles began bursting through the threshold around me that I noticed another presence...it was angry but in the same tone of anger as my own, not the blind and dark hearted anger of the men. It felt confused as well and I realized that someone else had come to attack these ships as well. As I felt the sting of a bullet entering my back I decided any help would be very welcomed. I swam toward a nearby ship and rammed it as well leaving a sizable dent in the hull which began to take in water – slowly at first and then the water began peeling the metal apart further. More bullets.

Above the water, the thoughts of men were beginning to go silent as they began to dream instead. Whoever was helping was knocking them out but still the job was not going as quickly as it needed to and the men firing into the water were quickly improving their aim at me. I sped toward another ship only to see a purple and black shape settle upon it accompanied by the emotional direction of my helper. I stopped my charge and shallowed enough to see the familiar and surprising shape of a pokemon on the deck of the ship attacking the men on board.

{You should get to safety, noivern. Stay away from the ships or you may be hurt!} I called out, swimming back to get into position for an attack that I thought I might be able to still use.

The fellow flying type jumped in surprise and a moment later I heard the noivern question if I could hear him, clearer through its thought than its voice...its ability to speak human surprising me in turn.

{I can hear you, though not your speech. Please fly clear now!} I replied in a commanding tone, preparing myself.

“No, this is my job as well. I don’t know who or what you are but if you want me to be safe we are doing this together. If we take out the captain the rest should start to panic. If we take out the big ship ahead the rest should be easier to deal with.” He replied, taking to the air toward the ship that was in fact the largest of the seven.

I was growing irritated at this point, though I calmed when I reminded myself that he did not know what I was trying to do. {I will disable it. Keep clear!} I called, already swimming toward the fleet again to give more force as I opened my mouth and let out a screech that hurt my throat but sent sound waves toward the ship with such force that the very water ahead of me distorted and a wave formed on the surface.

My Hyper Voice attack worked exactly as I intended. The nearest ship, the captain’s ship as the noivern had claimed, was pushed into itself until the rudder and engines had collapsed up two whole decks and the ship itself was then thrown into the air by the wave so that only half of its keel visible to me under the water for several seconds. The next two nearest ships were thrown into one another with the satisfying sound of scraping metal and all but one ship began rocking violently in the water to the point that over a dozen men plunged into the frigid water.

I could see the shape of the noivern traveling from ship to ship through the violently ripping surface of the water and was impressed by the speed at which he was disabling the men. “We are talking after this. I don’t know what or who you are but it looks like you are good. On our—I mean my side.” He spoke toward me, and I nodded inwardly. I didn’t reply as my focus was on trying to dig my hind claws into the hull of a ship, before giving in and summoning enough energy to strengthen my head with Iron Head and ram into it where I had been clawing. The metal gave way and water began rushing in.

I pulled away and tried to recover from using energy that would have not phased me two months before. I drifted down to the depths to let the sea help me as I took in the situation above, as the noivern spoke again while hovering between two of the ships in my vision, “How many do you see left?”

{Two ships are sinking, five remain. Most of the projectiles are coming from the second and third ships to your right. I will disable the third ship and I recommend we gather as many of the men as we can onto that ship before I sink the rest.}

“Oh, so we ARE working together n-” the noivern cut off as I sensed him suddenly in pain. I saw him dive toward a ship and sensed men becoming unconscious yet the noivern seemed awake and alert.

{Are you able to handle the pain?} I asked, in the middle of rushing another ship with a slightly weaker Iron Head.

“Yeah,” he replied after a moment, “I’m alright. It will just hurt to fly again.” He went silent for a moment before continuing, “So we have 3 more ships we need to deal with right? There is one right ahead of me I can deal with.” I saw him pass to a different ship.

{Very well, I will begin relocating the remainder of the men from the others.} I swam toward the surface and just before breeching threw myself into a spiral to give myself the best speed I could, before hooking my wings against the air and forcing myself into a fast backspin to throw my tail behind several men and force them into the sea where they could be scooped up easily. The air relaxed some of the sting from my wounds.

I sensed the surprise from my noivern companion before hearing his voice again, this time a practically deafening shout directly to my mind as well as a loud shout into my ears which had grown unaccustomed to hearing voices above the surface. “YOU’RE A LUGIA!?” followed a moment later by a more tolerable apology of “Oh, sorry. Got over excited. What are you doing here?”

I hovered above the dragon pokemon for a moment as he finished off his ship, before grabbing a few humans off of a nearby ship as they continued to fire at the two of us and tossed them haphazardly toward our growing collection. {Of course I am a Lugia, these humans have been harming sea creatures and I can’t have that.}

My attention remained on the two remaining ships. Men were cowering in a the cabin of one just out of sight. I began ripping at the roof above their heads.

“I can’t handle it either,” noivern replied. “This is a crime. Those whales are already endangered because of monsters like these. I am trying to hold back my anger from straight up killing them here but it’s my job to keep them alive. Is there anything I can do? I may not be able to fly but there has to be something I can do.”

I looked to him for a moment noting the hole in his wing and the pain he felt. He would recover easily enough when the fight was over. {Are you able to force the empty ship to drift away from this location? It is drifting already but needs to be farther but only needs be just far enough for safety.}

“Yes. I will be in a lot of pain after though.” He sighed and nodded slowly, and began flying over to the empty ship screeching in pain. I liked this noivern but as I pulled more men out of their corner and felt the sting of the metal objects embedded in my back I had only a little sympathy for his pain.

Securing the last man from the ship he was pushing onto the ‘prison’ ship I then dove to the five wrecks that were about to begin hitting the bottom and cleared any living creatures from the ocean floor while calling several tiny currents – the strongest I could muster- to collect the toxic fluids from the wrecks and place them into a hole I had cut into the prison ship. Seeing how far the other ship had drifted I called up to my companion that he had pushed it far enough.

“We make a good team, don’t we?” I heard the pained noivern say from above, and I couldn’t have agreed more.

{You have been a welcomed help. These men were more heavily armed than I had expected.} I watched the ships as they settled violently against the rocky seabed throwing up clouds of sand that slowly drifted east. Once I was sure they were on the ground I unleashed the strongest Hyper Voice I could and shattered their frames, buckling the hulls in several places to leave them as ideal artificial reefs for the local wildlife to make into a safe home.

I rode the shockwave toward the surface and flapped into the sky gracefully, banking toward the drifting ship. {One last matter, and then we can speak as much as you wish.} I gathered the remainder of my energy, more than I should have spent, and cried out one final screech, caving the hull of the ship and causing the fuel tank to spark and ignite in a fantastic fireball. The little amount of fuel on that ship would burn quickly but not too quickly for the nearby ship I sensed to come to investigate. {The authorities will not have any trouble finding these men now. The ship they are on has all of the evidence of their crimes that will be needed for their conviction.}

Looking back I noticed the noivern looked ready to collapse from the sky, and I drifted under him to gather him on my back as I made my way toward the nearest land mass. It wasn’t a long flight, but it was a painful and exhausting one as drained as I already felt. It took all of my will to not crash into the beach when we landed and I gently slid the other pokemon to the sand where we both collapsed for several minutes without saying a word.

By the time the noivern recovered enough to speak I had decided that my back was irritating me too much and had begun pulling out the harpoons that had accompanied the bullets without my knowledge. The little pieces of metal would take a lot more effort to get out and I didn’t have the energy at that moment.

“You know, you surprisingly aren’t the first Lugia I have met.” he finally said, looking me over as I plucked a few damaged feathers from around a wound.

{That is surprising, as very few ever meet one of us and you are the first pokemon of any kind I have seen in two months.}

“First pokemon you’ve seen in months?” His confusion hung in the air for a moment. “Oh! You aren’t from around here then? That would make sense why a Lugia is in the United States instead of the pokemon world.”

I had made out words on ships that fit the name “United States”, and that made sense finally as a place. I still had a lot to learn about this world. {Pokemon world? That does make sense...I have been hoping that this is simply a different realm. I have never known anywhere like these oceans...it has been very strange to me. But to business, you said you wished to speak to me?}

He nodded. “Right. Before I say what I need I should introduce myself. My name is Noi. I am a memb...” He paused for a moment and then sighed sadly. “I am the leader of Comet. An agency designed to deal with problems like the whale poachers we just dealt with.”

I bowed in formal greeting as I countered his introduction with my own, {I am Ierean, and I greatly appreciate your assistance. I...used to find those sort of tasks much easier to complete.} I was reminded of how unfamiliar I was with feeling so very drained of energy. {I have been doing things like this all of my life, yet I admit right now I am quickly coming to realize that I cannot do so alone.}

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Ierean. As I said, it is my job to stop things like this. That is what I wanted to talk with you about, I wanted to know if you would be interested in joining Comet and doing what we just did for a living. But ignoring that for a moment I can’t in good conscious ask that of you without knowing. You have shown signs of weakness ever since we ended the fight and you say you can’t fight alone. But you are a Lugia and I have never heard of a Lugia needing a break before. Are you ill or hurt?”

I sighed, thinking back to the events of the past few months. {I was cast here by a powerful pokemon after losing a battle that I should have never attempted alone, and I can only imagine what has happened to me in the interim. All I know is that since coming to this world I do not heal as quickly as I am used to healing. But I will not let that stop me from fulfiling my purpose. I have counted sixty-seven days since my arrival and since have gained back the strength to use the attacks that I have used today..though this battle will likely set me back again.} I pulled out another harpoon. {Working with others to help this world while I am here is better than trying to do so alone and risking my life. At least until I am able to return home I would be pleased to join you.}

I could sense his joy at hearing my acceptance, and stood holding back a pained hiss as I reopened several of the wounds that had been scabbing. {I must rest some before traveling again. I will meet you here shortly.} He agreed and I dove into the sea to meditate and relax my injuries. When I returned the noivern had passed out on the beach and I decided to curl around him and protect his shivering form from the cold air coming off of the sea until he woke. I was happy to see that his wing had healed completely, taking solace in that fact against the reminder that my own wounds would be several weeks to heal here.

We took to the sky after that, jovial talk about the sight humans below us were beholding taking my mind off of the sting in my back. As we crossed above some smaller mountains Noi sighed and hung back beside me a little more to speak once more. “I really should have said this before you came with me though...you are the first member of Comet. But there is more to it than that. Maybe when we get there I will tell you the full story behind the agency.”

I didn’t feign ignorance, by the way he had introduced the group and the emotions surrounding his invitation I had known immediately. {You are a skilled recruiter in making the organization sound established, but I have known that I am the first to join you. I expect you will tell me, as you should being that it feels as though it is a sad story and you hold a strong responsibility toward seeing the organization succeed.}

He nodded, and then nodded again toward a building in the distance surrounded by trees and open area with a lake nearby. “I see the house from here. And I know you need water so you can live around the lake if you wish.”

The conversation continued as we landed at Comet Headquarters and I became acquainted with my new home. At that point however I was far beyond ready to relax and reflect on the that I had finally made a friend in this world, and I had found exactly what I needed. Strength in numbers and somewhere to call home.