Incarnated Whisp
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Valiant - Chapter 6
🕑 Added 2025-08-20 22:48:39 +0000 UTCThe vastness that stretched over the Iron Valiant’s head felt as though it threatened to swallow it whole. Without a ceiling to hold everything in, it was like at any moment, it would start falling straight up.
That was a ridiculous thought, but it could not get over just how alien this landscape felt. Solid growths that led into tendrils of green spotted the terrain at the same rate the crystals had grown underground. The ledges and bridges that had crossed through the air were now gone, replaced by uneven plains set at different elevations. Any path up was thin and hardly walkable, so much unlike the ones underground. And the waterfalls—the waterfalls. The Iron Valiant could not process the sheer amount of water they poured or even where all of that water was from.
Those waterfalls poured into wide ponds and small lakes, and the pools were just as blue as the sky. It was safer to stand next to the cliffs and under those things called “trees.” If the Iron Valiant ever began plummeting upwards, it would at least have something nearby to grab.
“You’ll be fine,” Nick said to it, slowing to send the Iron Valiant a soft smile. “Look! I’m walking out here just fine! Gravity exists—you don’t need to act so afraid of the sky.”
He held out his arms as if to prove his point, and the Iron Valiant was not afraid. It was just... needing some time to gather the data it would need to confirm the environment was stable.
When it stepped out from its entirely necessary cover, it refused to look at Nick. It continued to follow along at his side, ignoring his grinning face in favor of solely staying on guard.
Out here, the Pokémon were strange. There were far more fleshy species than there were underground. Orange creatures ran through the grass, electricity sparking across their fur. One pink thing tottered along, patting an egg that it kept in a pocket on its chest.
“Pawmot,” Nick named for the scurrying species. “And Chansey, for the other one.”
Tunnels did not constrict movement. Nothing limited viable space. There was so much more freedom here than anything below. Everything seemed to be in constant motion, and even the species that stuck to the air had so much more room to fly.
Nick went on to name so many of them as they traveled away from that cave. He identified them with but a glance, and the constant influx of names made the Iron Valiant feel as though its head spun.
“Venomoth.”
“Floatzel.”
“A Floette.”
“Wow, that was an Espeon!”
His knowledge was a database, but his words were not flat. His eyes glimmered with every new species discovered, and he would laugh and point at the many species he saw in person for the first time.
Traveling upwards took a great deal more effort than walking through the cave. Down there, Pokémon worked to ensure the underground space stayed navigable due to necessity. Up here, Pokémon could go anywhere they wanted, so there was less of a need to reshape the earth.
The wide, stable paths that curved up the cavern walls were absent. Thin ledges that threatened to crumble with too hard a touch were present in their place. Cliffs were less smooth and more rugged than the underground walls, and gaps between the stones served as handholds for the times they needed to climb. There were a few less difficult ways up, but most tended to be slopes, and many of those slopes were covered with foliage. Even more, at one point, the Iron Valiant thought it was hiking past a motionless, fruit-covered tree, but Nick took one look at the plant and said, “Arboliva,” naming a Pokémon.
When they weren’t walking, they were resting or climbing. When the paths and ledges failed them, it was up to the Iron Valiant to ascend. Compared to Nick, bringing itself up was easy. Its metal limbs could stab into the stone to create new handholds, and it could lift his weight without issue.
Nick had a strange way of describing this crater: “Valleys within valleys within valleys,” he said. Every cliff they ascended revealed another. There were layers of clifftops and plateaus, and many tended to connect to drops and divots that led back down into the earth.
“We do need to talk about what we’re looking for,” Nick said at one point, just after they hiked up a steep slope. “I need to get out of here, so I need an exit. There’s a specific thing I want to see.”
He trudged over to a shaded spot near a small waterfall, and his gaze lingered on how the spray refracted light to make an array of colors. A lone tree provided him with shade, and he took out a small knife to cut open a can to give himself sustenance to eat.
“We’re looking for a pass in the mountains that surround this place,” he said after taking a moment to chew. “There’ll be a building there that’s kind of like the observation post we entered, except better maintained and even more off-limits.”
He swallowed.
“If we can get there, I should be able to call for help, but the problem is that it’s just one building, and this place is way bigger than I thought it’d be. If we climb up the wrong mountain, we might trap ourselves. At that point, our best chance would be to risk climbing down. We’d have to search for a town in the distance, or maybe we could find an area’s Pokémon Center by looking for its red roof.”
Nick ate while he talked, practically inhaling his food as if on a time limit, and the Iron Valiant understood the rush. With how overjoyed he’d acted upon his initial escape, the Iron Valiant expected Nick to become ecstatic once he left this crater.
As for it, once Nick was gone, it would—
It would—
The Iron Valiant stood on guard to keep a close eye on a group of nearby Pokémon. A flock of dark-feathered birds led by one with a steel exterior all stared right back at it.
“Zero Gate is to the north-west, but we could maybe head south-west to get over the mountains next to the Pokémon League?” Nick mumbled to himself. “Except, those are single buildings we’d need to find over a wide space. They’re also both in opposite directions, but at least they’re both to the west.”
He hummed, deep in thought, holding his can with a utensil resting within. To the side, the Iron Valiant readied its blades, and Nick stopped humming to look up at a newcomer—a squat Pokémon beginning to approach.
It was short, metal, and red—closer to a living machine like the Iron Valiant rather than being simply metal-covered like the large bird nearby. The newcomer carried a large, blue sphere under one of its flippers, and it waddled as it tried to walk.
“An Iron Bundle,” Nick said. “Based on Delibird. They’re pretty strong, but—”
His words stopped when a shout pierced through the air, and that metal bird from before took off.
The Iron Bundle was familiar to the Iron Valiant—but as a species, not as an individual. It wasn’t common, but a few occasionally appeared underground. It didn’t know them as anything aggressive, but they were capable of putting up a decent fight.
Here, it wasn’t walking toward them but the water that was pooling under the waterfall. However, it was walking straight toward where that flock was at rest, and the flock’s leader was not taking kindly to that.
The Corviknight, as Nick called it, landed right in front of the Iron Bundle, puffing up its chest. Steel grated against steel to make a sound that emphasized its annoyance, and it held out its wings to increase its size and presence to maximize how much it appeared as a threat.
The Iron Bundle did not care.
It barely even reacted.
Keeping that same, waddling pace, it simply brought its blue sphere forward. An aperture opened on one side of that object to release an explosive burst of freezing air.
Dropping his can, Nick jumped back and cursed.
The blast of ice and wind hit the Corviknight to freeze the bird’s metal feathers together. Though the weight of its steel protected it from the worst of this blow, the Corviknight was hit was such force that it was blasted back and straight into the cliff’s stone wall.
Immediately, the Corviknight’s flock erupted into chaos. Squawks and shouts filled the air as the unevolved Pokémon began to flee. From within the cliff itself, Corviknight pulled itself out only to take one look at that Iron Bundle and decide it’d be better off escaping as well.
“Do we need to run? What’s it doing? Why did it attack? Is it going to attack us, too?”
Nick spoke quickly. The Iron Valiant had already lowered itself and had brought out its blade just in case, but the Iron Bundle hadn’t slowed in the slightest. It just kept waddling until it reached the water, and there, it lowered itself in to relax and let the waves caress it at the pond’s bank.
“...It didn’t need to attack like that,” Nick said quietly as the Iron Bundle let the display of its eyes fade into black. “It could have walked around. But it didn’t. It went straight through and blasted the Corviknight out of the way.”
Slowly, Nick picked up his dropped can to scrape out what little food was left inside, but he didn’t seem much more willing to eat. The Iron Valiant made sure to remain on guard as the human refilled his water, but neither of them became victim to any move, and the Iron Bundle didn’t pay them any mind.
They freely backed away.
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After that, while traveling, the Iron Valiant paid closer attention to its surroundings. It still worked to find viable paths and assist Nick with his climbs, but it also strove to understand just what was going on around it instead of merely staying on guard.
They were never attacked. Underground, some territorial Pokémon had gone after them, but that was due to instincts honed by the need to protect their claimed, limited space. Out here, they were undoubtedly intruding on some species’s territory, but no Pokémon ever went after them. At worst, the other Pokémon only ever sent them harsh glares.
Specifically, they glared at the Iron Valiant. Nick would receive a passing glance but would otherwise go ignored. Everything was focused on the Iron Valiant and the Iron Valiant alone. Wherever it walked, hate would follow. The air was filled with hostility, yet no Pokémon ever acted on that.
At a certain point—after the sky changed to darkness and then returned with its light—they stumbled upon another interaction between a Paradox Pokémon and a native species. A great, purple moth had created a nest for itself within a cliff’s small cave. However, a crawling Paradox Pokémon, a bug-like species with white fur and wings too weak to lift it, climbed straight inside and used heat to scare the first Pokémon off.
That Slither Wing outright stole the Venomoth’s nest.
“Encroachment,” Nick said after witnessing that. “How long has it been? How long have Paradox Pokémon been here? When am I, specifically? The observation post was abandoned, but... Paradox Pokémon are still coming in. There are species being introduced that don’t have a niche. All of the Pokémon here are cramped for space.”
Nick had told the Iron Valiant that he was from another world. The Iron Valiant and so many other “Paradox Pokémon” carried a similar origin, too. However, unlike Nick, the Iron Valiant did not carry anything of what it might have experienced before. Its earliest, most blurry memory was of it stepping out of... something. Then, it battled. Everything after that was just pointless spars.
As they continued to climb and pass through the crater, more and more signs of that “encroachment” became clear. Not only did most Pokémon continue to send hateful glares at the Iron Valiant, but so many others looked uncomfortable where they were staying. Fading scars littered the landscape. Any territory was hardfought and earned.
Eventually, the Iron Valiant found itself standing beside Nick at the top of a cliff and looking down at an exchange taking place below. A grove of trees, of which many were filled with berries, grew beneath them. However, this grove was not empty; it served as the home for a herd of spotted, long-necked Girafarig and Farigiraf. Those Pokémon had claimed this place for themselves, but others had objected to that ownership.
Paradox Pokémon, again.
Three of them, pink and puffball-like, crept forward with fanged mouths dripping with drool. The desperation was clear in their eyes—they wanted to eat, and they didn’t care about whatever was between them and their goal.
Sensing the danger, three Farigiraf galloped out to meet them, but they were attacked without any warning exchange. The puffballs opened their mouths and screamed, and the Farigiraf had to slam shut their exterior mouths to protect their more vulnerable heads within.
“Scream Tail,” Nick whispered. “Another kind of Paradox Pokémon. They’re overpowering the Farigiraf.”
The three Farigiraf tried to withstand the move, but the constant onslaught of deafening noise saw them wave, stuck in place. The noise echoed in a cacophony, and not all of the pink Pokémon needed to actively maintain it. Two of them dropped out, leaving one behind as they ran right toward the grove.
Right toward where the rest of the herd was, and right toward where old and weathered Farigiraf tried their best to stand and protect young Girafarig that hid behind.
“They aren’t going to win.” Nick’s voice was grim. “The Scream Tail are going to beat them, and then they’re going to do whatever they need to claim the grove.”
There was an entire herd down there, but the herd lacked the strength needed to fight back against the Paradox Pokémon. One of the older Farigiraf tried to charge forward, but all it took was a spin from a Scream Tail to whip out its long mane of hair and knock it out of its way.
The Iron Valiant drew its blade.
“I told you that I’d help you learn new moves when we made our deal, but I haven’t been doing that. We’ve mostly been just been traveling, lately,” Nick said, kneeling at the cliff’s edge. “What if we take a break? And get some practice?”
The Girafarig were starting to panic. The Scream Tail were almost there.
The next phrase Nick spoke was only two words, but it was all the Iron Valiant needed to hear.
“Help them,” Nick said.
Even if he had said anything else, the Iron Valiant wouldn’t have heard him. The second those two Scream Tail looked ready to pounce, the Iron Valiant was already jumping down.
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Author Note:
Girafarig / Farigiraf
Iron Bundle
Scream Tail
Timeline-wise, Professor Sada/Turo only figured out how to bring Paradox Pokémon into the world after Arven’s birth, and I doubt Arven is past his late teens. That means, during Scarlet and Violet, Paradox Pokémon have only been in Paldea for two decades at most, and my understanding is that ecosystems don’t adapt to new species that quickly—let alone over a dozen of them at once.
With the presence of the Professor’s time machine and the other labs across Area Zero, my thought is that Paradox Pokémon were first released underground, and then others were introduced to the crater over time. However, with the deciding plot of the latest games, there’s no one currently in the crater to oversee the Paradox Pokémon’s introduction, which has lead to this instability.
The state of Area Zero in this fiction is more based on headcanon than fact, but with how I write the Pokémon world, food and territory are important. There’s not enough to go around here, and not enough time has passed for everything to settle. Right now, more than usual, existence is a constant fight.
Comments
Incarnated Whisp
This fiction is short and experimental, so it'll stay the Iron Valiant all the way through. The next story (which will be another long fiction) will switch back to a more standard pov. This story is just a little weird.
Timothy Skipper
Is the pov going to switch to nick at all?
Timothy Skipper
Nice I like it
