El-Ahrairah 4.4
December 24th, 2022.
I rubbed my palms nervously as I clung to the saddle of a Fairchild pidgeot, as well as latched onto Akari for further support. I hate this, I hate this, I hate this I hate this—
Her clan lives deep in the mountains, far off the beaten path and thus needing flying pokémon or pokémon able to climb them. So they had a ferry of a Fairchild born and raised pidgeot, enormous flyers some eight feet tall and fifteen feet long and with a wingspan of twenty five feet, and a body mass of some two hundred kilograms. Impossibly enormous by most standards, they’d probably be capable of flight in my world, maybe, with some good thermals.
Their wing loading was under the max 25 kilograms per meter square, so with good enough thermals they should be able to fly. Though most bird pokémon had a far greater capacity than a mere 25 kilograms, closer to the hundreds of kilograms cuz they’re far stronger, and have access to far more energy and control over air as an element.
Their method of flight is a lot closer to a strange hybrid between conventional bird flight and the flight mechanics of planes. In the simplest of terms, for flight you need two things, propulsion, (a forward force and lift), and an upward force. Wings provide the lift with their shape. But as speed increases, pressure decreases so wings are shaped so that airflow increases more above the wing than below it, resulting in more pressure below the wing than above it. The pressure difference pushes the wing (and the object/being attached to it) up.
But it can’t do that without movement so it needs propulsion whether through flapping or the generation of force through a propeller or turbofan. But regardless of how hard pokémon break physics, flapping becomes an increasingly inefficient tactic at high speeds and size. Which is where their flying type energy comes in handy when it comes to controlling airflow and generating thrust. Technically speaking, taking control of every bit of air around them can just let them float.
Until you realize the sheer amount of precision required.
Instead they rely on generating a powerful current of air, a horizontal funnel of wind that sucks up more air, generating a pressure differential, and then adding more power as needed, bending the winds to their needs, and adding incredible kinetic energy with their aura. So they basically generate a propeller out of air, creating a constant vortex of air along with a jetstream they can manipulate to reduce aerodynamic losses.
Which works well for them at speeds of up to around 500 mph, then they generally switch to a jet engine regime. Compressed air and exhausting it as a high speed high temperature flow when they want to break the sound barrier. Which explains how the fuck they can break Mach 2.
From what I can tell, they can brute force it, but why would they? Whoever can develop the technique with the least energy cost can survive to pass it on to their kids, since they’ll have an easier time surviving without suffering a drain on their energy reserves. Their ability to reduce air friction and adjust the temperature of air also protects them from things like the cold, or the extreme heat of flying at supersonic speeds.
And I totally wasn’t monologuing to myself to avoid my pathological fear of heights while riding on the back of a bird that was moving at over a hundred miles per hour.
“I regret everything.” I spoke aloud, shaking like a leaf as I held onto Akari, glancing over to, to… too high.
The view was gorgeous, as I witnessed the natural beauty of the Sternwing mountains, vast mountains covered in forests, shaped by natural forces into great empires of earth, stone, plant and ice. Pillars of the earth rising thousands of meters into the air, capped by glaciers or snow free by the decree of the dragons I saw in the distance.
The world started to spin and I immediately dove my face into Akari’s back before I threw up or fainted, letting the darkness and her warmth soothe me.
“It’s not much farther now, Mount Juntoku isn't that far from Taisen even if 80% of Shiromiya is sorta incredibly dense wilderness outside the Routes.” Akari was doing her best to reassure me… and failing.
“Mount fucking Juntoku is at least a hundred twenty miles away from the urban core of Taisen, and is within the heartland of an area of wilderness that covers a quarter of the prefecture. Ten thousand square kilometers of land more pristine than even the bottom of the ocean in my trash heap of a homeworld…”
“How is that a downside?” Akari asked with a puzzled tone.
“I’m currently cowering in terror! All sense of logic has fled me! Fuck me! I hate this!”
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I had gotten a much deeper understanding of Akari’s home in the last few minutes before landing, the girl gently explaining it to me as I calmed down from my fright.
The Shirogane clan… were less a mere clan and more an offshoot of the Celestic, with a population of over nine hundred fifty thousand, and more or less held sway over the spine of Nihoh. Akari had definitely oversimplified a lot of what her people were in truth, they were a mixing of many different branches of the Celestic clans who had splintered or died out due to wars between them and the Waajin, with the Ebizu being their main contributor to human life in this region, along with other Celestic groups that still held to their older ways of life.
Only Sinnoh had a greater population of Celestic descendants with over one million members split across the Diamond and Pearl clans and their offshoots and the region surrounding Celestic Town, and perhaps triple that including people who didn’t know about their heritage. Which was… a far kinder fate than what had happened to the other ethnic groups of Japan in my world.
The Shirogane were split into four domains, Akari’s domain was that of Asagitatsu, the people of the east, of spring and wood, defending the doors and barring the chthonic dark forces. The Suzaku were another, the people of the south, of summer and fire guarding the mountains from the physical menace of their people’s many enemies.
Then came the domain of Byakko, the people of the west, of autumn and metal, the kingmaker guarding the clans from the predatory forces seeking to steal the kingdom of Shirogane. The last was the domain of Genbu, the people of the north, of winter and water, the greatest lorekeepers, shamans and channelers and alchemists watching the glory of Sinnoh, the land of the World Spirit that birthed the universe.
Asagitatsu more or less ruled the entire eastern face of the Sternwing mountains, Byakko ruled the western half, while Genbu dominated the northern central spine and Suzaku ruled the southern central spine. A region within a region, a kingdom that held power by controlling the very heart of the continent, once having had sway over the trade routes that bound the six great nations of Tohoku together.
“You’re very lucky I actually read up in detail more about your people, because you gave me the impression the Shirogane were small instead of being an entire kingdom of mountain clans. Though this one settlement only having a few thousand people clears a lot of that up. What was it called?”
“Apakotan,” Akari offered absently as our rider pidgeot began to slow her landing, and the first thought on my mind was that doorway village was a strange name for a town. “It’s the place I was born, where I've been raised my entire life.” There was a warm nostalgia in her voice. I couldn't quite understand it myself.
My home wasn't exactly something great to look back on…
I blinked as we approached Mount Juntoku, five peaks making up the volcanic complex that speared some four kilometers into the sky. Mountains in Nihoh were far higher than in Japan, at least for the famous and more charismatic ones. Mount Coronet for example peaked over eight point eight kilometers into the sky.
It dwarfed any volcano on Earth that wasn't under the sea, and was ancient, at the bare minimum it was over four billion years old, and its core was measured to be even older, older than the solar system, a preserved fragment of primordial inchoate matter that had been nestled deep within the core of the planet before being uplifted when early plate tectonics began.
“There it is.” Akari pointed to her hometown which was nestled within the forested highlands surrounding the five peak mountain, at least fifteen hundred feet into the air. It was a montane deciduous forest, characteristic forests of beech, stone pine and spruce with an understory of Sasa bamboo. I could see a few gogoat from the air, along with various deer pokémon, mainly stantler, and wild emboar and pignite. There seemed to be relatively normal pigs among them, a domestic species?
The kotan itself was located in an upland river basin, clearly having built itself around the vital resource. There were well over a thousand houses, and I could see several being built atop flat foundations of packed earth and stone, wooden columns and bamboo reeds assembled together with more modern materials.
Design wise it had the makings in layout of a post town, an administrative set of buildings which probably housed both the local government and local organizations, rest areas and lodgings easily marked by the multiple battlefields and restaurants and so on, I could see several stilt warehouses along with numerous garden plots on every single home. But it was gorgeous and far larger than I expected, spanning what felt like miles.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
The entire town was surrounded by a palisade along with several hills acting as fortifications and one acting as a… courthouse?
Our ride began to brake, tilting backwards, raising her wings to catch and slow her descent. I could see an older man and woman waiting at the landing spot, where I could see several other flying pokémon, a corviknight, a charizard, and an altaria with wings like clouds and cotton candy.
Pidgeot landed with a quiet chirp, and I launched myself off and back onto solid and safe ground.
I glanced over to the pair of older people approaching us, the man was tall and stout of frame with deep set eyes and thick wavy white hair, with a proud beard sported on his face, oddly familiar blue eyes filled with curiosity. He wore an elaborate robe covered in embroidery that reminded me of the patterns of Dialgia, and carried a sword secured by a strap on his shoulder.
The woman wasn’t quite as old as the man, maybe in her 30s? Her robe was similar but with colors in pinks and whites and the patterns of Palkia. She wore some type of… hat, headband thing that shielded her scarlet hair. She kinda looked like Akari a bit, with the same wavy and curly hair and deep-set eyes and height. She had markings like whiskers, gently curving lines that made me think of a fox.
Akari was silent throughout my gradual scan of the two strangers, the older man offered a toothy grin.
“Well then, aren’t you going to offer your grandpa and auntie an old fashioned hello?”
Akari raised an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t you be busy with high chief business?” I choked as the word sunk in, within Shirogane culture, the chief was the elected leader of individual settlements, originally elected solely by elders along with two sub-chiefs to look after the affairs of the people, which expanded into something like a reflection of the daimyo of Nihoh as they adapted with the changing times.
The high chief was a paramount chief, the highest authority in the domain of many, many settlements each ruled by their own chiefdoms. Something like the rulers of confederations, like the mamanatowick of the Powhatan or the Khan of the Turko-Mongol peoples.
“High chief… like a kando-nipa?” A title like sky, heaven chief couldn’t be ignored on a whim when it came to people ruling over a mountain range larger than Virginia in terms of area.
“You can call me heavenly chief or a lord if that makes more sense for you,” his grin was toothy and mischievous, rubbing his nose. “Or perhaps the Champion of Asagitatsu, it’s just as accurate.”
“Father… please don’t scare her, you’ve run off far too many tourists with your insanity. I still remember the ‘rogue dragonite incident.” She said complete with air quotes and a haunted expression.
I blinked and turned to an Akari who was turning a faint shade of red.
I pointed an accusing finger at her. “I knew you were a Disney Princess, my intuition was correct.”
Akari replied by attempting to blind me with her hands.
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“Cironupp, cironupp, cironupp.” I heard a little girl chant the word I directly understood as English, but if I listened carefully, I could make out the overlap of a foreign language. Fortunately the most common language in the world was just a minor variant of English, so I’d rarely suffer the vertigo type feeling.
Poor Fleur was tolerating the chant of fox, fox, fox far better than I thought she would, letting the small girl guide her upper legs like they were little arms. The town was far larger up close, and even had a sign that was in both their weird runic English script, and in katakana.
It took me five seconds to figure out it was literally just the simple substitution cipher symbols used in the anime. The main trouble there was that there are at least five different scripts, used for different written languages. So Kalosian probably uses the XY one, but in written French.
Looking at a city limit sign had given me a headache, since I could still fucking read it. Seeing a double helping of English and weird letters does wonders in creating headaches. Anyways, her hometown was actually quite sizable, existing within the valleys and plateaus surrounding Mount Juntoku, with a population of about thirty thousand souls, with paths and roads leading to dozens of settlements across the eastern face of the Spine of Tohoku.
Akari had gotten dragged off by her aunt, a lady by the name of Abenaka so I had gotten stuck with the old man with twinkling eyes and a crazy grin.
“I can see my granddaughter has taken a shine to you,” Aterui spoke up with his deep and craggy voice, and I felt an immense pressure settling in the air, not out of malice but… “It’s good to see her making friends, I would be quite disappointed if the world beyond these walls were cruel.” That he would be upset by the matter was left unsaid on his part. “I’ve been informed of most of your adventures on Akari’s part, Asagitatsu has its quarrels with Cipher and its allies.” There was a sharpness to his tone, and he pointed with his chin to one building that reminded me of a shrine, though it seemed… oddly harsher in design, more rugged and wild than the clean Shinto-esque shrines of Tohoku.
I clicked my tongue, and Fleur’s head snapped to meet mine, she gently pushed the girl off, booped her with her snout and caught up in a handful of bounds and leaps.
I followed Aterui into the shrine, and paused at what was held within, it was a modest hall with multiple also modest statues and paintings depicting pokémon including Legendaries. They were… interesting, I could see small stylized Legendary Birds hunting prey, with ice and fire and lightning, in winter, spring and summer.
“I see you’re curious about the kamuy depicted here, not many worship the gods anymore, simply considering them powerful pokémon instead of existences far greater than ourselves. Mata-cir-kamuy, the god of winter and ice,” he cleared his throat with a smile. “Sak-apto-cir-kamuy, the god of summer and thunderstorms, Paykar-abe-cir-kamuy, god of spring and fire. The winged mirages, the birds of Ice, Lightning and Fire.”
“Mhmm. Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres.”
“It must be strange for you, coming from such a distant land where the gods can not be seen or heard,” I nodded, already knowing that he knew from his aura. “But to us, it is something we have known for a long time. We lived in this place a hundred thousand years before the Children of the Sun came. We are familiar with the ways and woes of the gods, we remember.”
His aura was a quiet muted mantle, twining and pushing and pulling like a tide, and I could tell he was using the sheathe technique to keep most of his aura within his body.
“I was never told why Akari was told to come back?” I decided to ask about something that was bugging me.
“She’ll be 20 in a few days,” was his answer, and I blinked a few times. “I suppose it never crossed her mind or she planned to tell you when she finished setting up for your stay here. Though it’s more of an excuse, there are things we must tell her.”
“That makes sense actually, there’s definitely a lot I still don’t know about Akari, and I do want to get to know her better.” I cupped my hands together, shuffling from side to size at his intimidating gaze.
Aterui laughed. “I think you’ll be good for her,” I was doubtful about his assertion. “I expect your stay here will reveal many things. Including more about the secrets of aura I’m sure you’re aching to unravel. How far have you gotten with the Four Principles?”
I felt my grin spread as far as it could. “Shroud and sheathe have come fairly easy to me, but I’m still working on learning surge and figuring out even one move seems to be too much for me.” I replied honestly.
“It’s to be expected, that book of hers is meant to be an early introduction, mainly focused on cultivating one’s growth through coordinating one’s body, breath and spirit. It’s why so much of it is focused on the visualization of guiding aura through the body, and through one’s nodes to balance energy flow. External agents like elemental items and berries then serve as a focus and source of elemental energies, and the four basic techniques are more a goal to strive for…”
“Akari already figured out how to generate fire.”
He leaned back, something protective surging into the air. “Oh did she?”
“I’m guessing you’re not supposed to skip to moves so fast?”
“You would be correct—” there was a shout from outside, and I could hear Fleur’s concern, ears swiveling in the direction of the sound. “Perhaps we can retire from this conversation?”
I nodded.
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Walking out of that shrine, I didn’t expect to see the usually rather chill Happy explode with rage at the jeering comments being made by someone about Akari’s age.
“So you finally came crawling back here after your dear old grandpa kicked you out of the village for being the kid of that waste of space and that stupid foreign bi—”
Reality seemed to crumple under the weight of Aterui’s gaze and aura of disappointment, and the boy who had brought Happy into a rage shrunk back and cowered at the presence of the high chief.
“I believe it is time for you to go on patrol Bikki, the weavile are growing restless and arrogant. We don’t want our livestock to lose any eggs. It’s a harsh winter.”
Bikki turned pale, and fled with his tail between his legs, and Akari stiffened up at the almost sad gaze of her grandfather.
“Akari?” She clenched a fist at my voice and shook her head.
“We’ll speak more of this when we get home granddaughter, I’d like to hear more of your journey.”
“Yes grandfather.” Akari sounded discouraged and tired and it felt… wrong. Aterui frowned and sighed, his concern palpable.
What the hell had I walked myself into?