I'd like to say something here.
This chapter mentions made up religions in the Pokemon World, centering around the Legendaries.
I don't mean to offend anyone who is or isn't religious. I'm not trying to make any comments about religion. I'm merely trying to add some worldbuilding to this fanfiction. I'm not trying to make fun of anyone's religion, I'm certainly not trying to say that any one religion is better than another. I personally believe that people should be able to worship whatever they wish, so long as they don't force me, or someone else, to do something without our consent.
If I did offend someone, I'm extremely sorry and it was completely unintentional!

Chapter 7: Escorting Eona

Before they left Meadowville, all sorts of thoughts flashed through Jeana’s mind.

The eevee had appeared rather talkative and cheerful in their last encounter. For this reason, Jeana did not know how they would get along.

Jeana had always been a loner. She accepted help when it was offered, it was true. But ultimately, she appreciated solitude more than crowds. Speaking with certain kinds of people exhausted her. Complying with their wishes and repressing her own opinions was natural to her, and usually worth it in the end, but she did need time on her own to recharge.

With her first client as a member of Team Reverie, and with Team Reverie as well, however, Jeana had really lucked out. While Eona was friendly with Jeana, she quickly noticed when Jeana tired of speaking to her, despite Jeana’s best efforts to mask it with politeness. Eona respected Jeana’s boundaries, and Jeana was relieved by this. Shiver, Jeana’s new leader, was a loner herself and so only spoke to her client and teammates if it was necessary. She wasn’t one for needless chatter, which Jeana appreciated.

Jazz, on the other hand, was both annoyingly brutal in his comments, and loved discussion more than he hated the sound of his stutter. He tried talking to Jeana, but when she refused to provide him an interesting conversation, by way of only agreeing with him to prevent an argument of accidental offense, he left her, and Jeana was really very relieved. Jazz and Eona managed to have an enthusiastic discussion on conspiracy theories, most involving the Guilds. Eona and Jazz passed the time spent traveling from Meadowville through the Echo Forest Mystery Dungeon to get to Dread City this way, by discussing the conspiracy theories, and Jeana could not help but overhear their excited chatter.

Jeana wrinkled her nose upon hearing some of the theories that Jazz and Eona debated about. Even stranger, Jazz seemed to be mostly advocating for all the conspiracies, claiming for them all to be absolutely true. Jeana was fairly certain that Eona and Jazz were making up theories by now. Especially once she heard the theory Jazz proposed that the Guildmasters were secretly cultists in employ of the Legendary Pokemon Arceus, intending to find the Plates and gift them to Arceus so he may return to his true, original form and usher in an age of ritual and sacrifice to Legendaries, and in return Arceus would reward the Guildmasters by designating them his high priests and commanding Xerneas to gift them with eternal life.

Wait. That name sounded familiar.

“Xerneas?” Jeana asked. “Who is that?”

She remembered Xerneas from her dream. Her first dream, that is. Just before she transformed into an espurr and was transported to Leginda. He had made a lasting impression on her, between his apparent ability to shift into human form, and his overall personality and presence.

“You don’t know who Lord Xerneas is?” Shiver asked, sounding surprised. “He’s a Legendary Pokemon. The King of Fae, and the Giver of Life. His twin sister is Lady Yveltal, Queen of Night and Usher of Fallen.”

“...What is a Legendary Pokemon?” Jeana asked. She knew that they were heavily involved in mythology, and supposedly had created and ruled the world. As a human, she had not believed in this, writing it off as pure fiction. Some of her classmates had been in various religions worshipping the Legendary Pokemon. Most of them seemed to be in religions praising Arceus, Zygarde, or Dialga and Palkia as a pair. One or two were devoted to Mew.

“Legendary Pokemon are the gods of the world,” Shiver explained. “The Pantheon of Legends created everything that exists on this planet, and continue to preside over it to this day. At the top of their hierarchy are King Arceus and Queen Mew, who reign over inanimate and animate matter respectively. All Pokemon give homage to them, but they also praise the Legendaries who guard their type. I’ve never been very religious, but I still give thanks to Lady Celebi and Lady Shaymin.”

“My mom only gave thanks to Lady Shaymin,” Eona said. “But she took me to masses for King Arceus.”

“My p-parents raised me to b-believe in Lad-dy Girat-t-tina of Chaos!” Jazz said.

“The Renegade?” Shiver asked, mildly surprised.

“Hey. G-ghosts don’t-t have many Legend-daries to c-call our own, and P-p-poisons have none,” Jazz huffed. “P-poison types just end up b-being lump-ped in with the Normal t-types, worshipping K-king Arceus and his P-plates!”

“As a Psychic, I thought you would worship one of the Psychic Legendaries,” Shiver said. “Personally I thought you’d be one to go for Lord Mewtwo or Lairde Deoxys. You just strike me as the type to go for the more scientific Legendaries.”

Jeana nodded.

They traveled in silence for several more minutes, before Jazz spoke up again. “You know, they say that-t Lord D-darkrai lives here in Ech-ch-cho Forest!”

“And they say that Lady Shaymin and Lady Virizion live in Gracedia Fields, and yet I’ve never seen them…” Shiver replied.

“No, no, it’s t-true!” Jazz affirmed. “My bro found-d a t-temple d-d-dedicated-d to Lord-d Darkrai right-t here!”

“Can you show us?” Eona asked.

“No,” Jazz replied. “He wouldn’t-t show me no matt-ter how much I ask-ked.”

“Then how do you know it exists?” Shiver asked.

Jazz somehow shrugged without shoulders. Jeana was rather confused by this.

“What does… Lord Darkrai preside over?” Jeana asked, curioisly.

“Night-tmares,” Jazz responded, cooly. “My b-bro did-dn’t sleep-p for weeks out of f-fear that-t he might-t’ve accident-tally gott-ten one from Lord D-darkrai. I d-didn’t t-take after him, obv-viously.” The haunter winked.

---

Jeana wasn’t quite sure what it was, but something about Dread City put her on edge.

She could tell whatever it was affected Jazz, too. The Ghost hadn’t spoken a single word since Team Reverie set foot in the city.

Maybe it was the deathly quiet. Not outside, no. But in Jeana’s own mind.

She had been totally unaware of it, but she had grown somewhat used to the low hum of other’s thoughts in the back of her own mind. And in this city, it did not exist. It was unsettling.

Shiver must have noticed her unease at some point. Shiver explained that there were a lot of Dark type Pokemon living in Dread City, and so it was Jeana’s survival instinct kicking in, telling her to flee before she was attacked. Dark types had a type advantage over Psychic types.

Curiously enough, Jeana noticed that the feeling instensified the more Dark types were close by her. She had not felt the feeling when swarmed by a herd of Bugs, perhaps because they were Dungeon puppets…

Interesting. This could be a way to identify when a foe was a puppet and when it wasn’t. But only if it was super-effective against her, of course.

Dread City overall was radically different from Meadowville. While Meadowville was sprawling and filled with greenery, Dread City’s imposing obsidian buildings spiraled upwards, intent on obscuring the sky as much as possible. The streets were swept spotless, and she detected an air of pride from every denizen of the Dark city she met. And she met a great many of them, scampering and lumbering and strutting through the streets.

There was a wolf with a gleaming scythe and a lustrous coat as white as snow. There was a weasel with sleeked back fur and a crown of feathers sticking up as if they had used hair gel somehow. There was a horned hound watching very carefully over two pups, glaring angrily at anyone who stepped within five feet of the puppies and hissing smoke out of her nostrils in an evil eye that Jeana envied. An imposingly tall and dark frog wearing its own tongue as a scarf creeped Jeana out to some extent, as it strode down allowing its oversized webbed feet to slap against the pavement nonchalantly. And there was even some unholy mix between a cactus and a barb-studded scarecrow that Jeana spotted stepping jerkily through the streets, as if it had just walked straight off the set of a stop-motion picture.

When the three had spotted a fox with beautiful black fur and softly glowing topaz rings, Eona had bounded excitedly up to them. The fox acted bashful, but seemed to adore Eona’s attention. Jeana needed only the expression on the Dark type’s face to figure that out.

Jeana was quite sure that it was really a rather nice city. However the presence of so many Dark types prevented her from fully appreciating it.

Jeana, Shiver, Jazz, and Eona left the city soon, this time in a zebstrika-drawn carriage instead of on foot. The carriage was surprisingly fast, but rather bumpy and altogether unpleasant. Jeana was sure if she was the type to become motion sick her stomach would be heaving by now.

About ten minutes into the ride, Shiver moved over to the small window inside the wooden carriage and opened it. A spatter of dirty water sprayed into her eyes for her trouble. Shiver immediately started rubbing it out with her stubby fingers, wandering back over to sit near Jeana and Eona again.

Water continued dripping in through the carriage window. It was apparently drizzling outside. It became steadily heavier until it was truly raining, at which point Jazz’s hands flew to shut the window again.

Roughly half an hour later, Team Reverie and their client arrived at their next stop, Splash Port. Splash Port was a city built around water. Specifically it was built on a delta formed where the Northwind River met Central Bay, the body of water that Leginda Mainland and North Leginda encircled, and which multiple islands were scattered across.

Eona’s, and therefore Team Reverie’s, final destination was located on one of those islands. Mind Isle, to be specific.

Splash Port, overall, was much more comfortable for Jeana than Dread City. The annoying, yet somehow comforting, hum of half-grasped foreign thoughts had returned. And Shiver too seemed more comfortable here. She looked… changed.

The snivy now walked with her spine straight, head held high, and tail off the ground and leaf splayed. A strange glint and a cocky smirk were on Shiver’s features, rather uncharacteristically for her.

When Jeana asked, Shiver explained it was the reverse of what had happened to Jeana and Jazz in Dread City: here in Splash Port, Shiver had a type advantage of most of the Water typed denizens. It filled her with a confidence Jeana rarely saw in the young Grass snake.

Shiver strode ahead at the front of their four-mon party, and Pokemon parted around her like a ship’s bow parted foam-capped waves. Scuttling crustaceans nervously and obviously ignored her, blue-feathered penguins stole glances out of the corners of their eyes while they pridefully pretended she did not exist.

Not that parting the crowds was a particularly impressive feat, however.

There were far fewer Pokemon on the streets of Splash Port than there were on the streets of Dread City. Alongside and independent of the roads wound canals, which teemed with far more Water types than were walking the roads. While some Pokemon stopped to stare at Shiver, the majority of those travelling in the canals genuinely did not even notice her.

The markets at Splash Port were large, larger than those at Meadowville. And if Jeana was honest, they reminded her a bit of Meadowville. She had not seen any similar markets in Dread City, which filled her with an odd tang of pride and superiority. Something inside her that wanted to laugh in the face of a Dark type.

Some foolish and suicidal part of her which she was determined not to listen to.

Shiver led Team Reverie along the roads of Splash Port, up to an impressive looking building decorated by seashells. Jeana managed to see the name of the building before they entered. Leginda Ferry.

Jeana considered the ferries she remembered from her human world. The first time she had encountered the word she had thought people had been saying ‘Fairy’, leading to her conjuring the ridiculous mental image of countless passengers riding a massive sylveon as it paddled through the oceans. She had since learned, obviously, that the word was spelled differently and meant a boat. In the harbor of Splash Port, Jeana had mostly seen boats which used the wind as their means of propulsion. She had seen exactly one steamboat in the harbor, but it was strictly for the delivery of goods and items, not passengers.

So she was curious. What kind of boat would she and her cohorts be riding?

It turned out that they would not be riding a boat at all, but instead a somewhat excitable seahorse-like Pokemon with branching antlers, called a ‘kingdra’.

Eona, being the client, got the most secure and comfortable seat, the young fox perched on the kingdra’s head between its antlers. Jeana clung tightly to the kingdra’s neck, not entirely trusting it to stay above water for the entire trip. Shiver lay down upon the kingdra’s back, obviously trusting it far more than Jeana did. Jazz, meanwhile, comfortable nestled amongst its branching antlers.

As the kingdra traveled across the ocean, to Jeana’s surprise it managed to keep them all above water the entire time. Although she was still thoroughly soaked after about a half hour’s travel. She was not entirely enjoying this leg of the journey. Every so often, the kingdra would say something that sounded like it came straight from an obscure poem, like “They used to call the sound of the endless breakers against the shore the ‘Breath of Lady Kyogre’!”

As they traveled, the blue sky slowly shifted to orange, and then to purple. It was true that Team Reverie had set out rather early, but they had also covered a significant amount of land. Afternoon was fading to night. Now that she was resting in a relatively comfortable position, the most comfortable she had been all day what with the gentle up and down rocking motions of the waves, Jeana felt tiredness set it. It did not knock her over the head and send her reeling into sleep like a club. Instead it slowly set in, in her joints as a dull ache and in her mind as a slowly expanding blanket of exhaustion and numbness.

By the time that they arrived and Mind Isle, Shiver was the only member of Team Reverie still awake and alert. She managed to usher her dazed and tired teammates into the nearest hotel, and they all took a well earned rest.

~~~

Now that that's out of the way, there was something else I wanted to mention in this chapter. Conspiracy theories!
I'm not quite sure where that one in particular came from, just seemed like a good way for Jeana to get more information about Legendaries, and Xerneas in particular. Personally I really like writing about Legendaries, and writing as them, trying to subvert people's preconceived notions about them as much as possible. Or just their preconceived notions in general. It's fun, you should try it.
Also on the subject of conspiracy theories, I have had a summer that involves them quite a bit... My favorite show is The X-Files, which is rather deeply involved in them. Also I just read Foucault's Pendulum. The moral of that is basically 'if you believe conspiracy theories they will either drive you insane, kill you, or drive you insane shortly before killing you'.