Eevee Therapy for Little Magi Chapter 53: The Shrine of Will

Shirou looked down at the white fox trotting at his side, then looked up and peered over to where Illya was happily cooing at the little red fox on her shoulder, two curly tails wagging behind the other Vulpix. He looked down at his pokemon once again. “So… going to leave his raising up to Illya and her team?” he asked.

“Absolutely not,” Ritsuka and his Vulpix ground out immediately, their heads whipping towards each other as they unintentionally synchronized. “Takes a village to raise a kit, after all,” the latter continued, Ritsuka nodding sagely in agreement.

“But you’re not going to try to teach him how to be a Vulpix?” At his newest partner’s shaken head, he continued. “I suppose what works for you might not work for him.”

“Pretty much. Besides, the Kantoian Vulpixes have a very different culture from the Alolan Vulpixes. We’re significantly more isolationist than even they are, though ironically more benevolent as a result. Mostly because the Matriarchs want people to get the fuck off our mountain and/or territory,” Vulpix replied immediately, her tone more amused than anything else.

“I did a little research into Kantonian Vulpix when I realized what the egg might be,” Ritsuka spoke up from Shirou’s other side. “They’re not psychic like you are fairy, but they have significantly more psychic potential than a normal fire type. So her tricks wouldn’t even fully work for him,” Hhe added, trotting to keep up. “Speaking of which, for the sake of our humans, one of you two are going to need a nickname. Anything you’d want to be called? We could just call you Senior and him Junior…”

“Ew no. I wouldn’t be opposed to a nickname though,” Vulpix answered, the sheer disgust in her voice at mention of being called ‘senior’ sending the Trainer-Starter pair reeling. Pausing, she turned towards Shirou. “Human! I demand a name.” Her amused, sparkling eyes easily belied her intent to joke, despite the imperious tone.

“Vulpix,” Shirou responded, idly dodging the shard of ice she shot at his head. “Joking, joking… alright, do you want me to just pick a name out of a hat, or do something with some meaning? I can do either.”

“Meaning, please. Or at least history; I don’t want to be named Snowy or something else trite.” Vulpix responded.

“Well, we could do something mythological. I don’t know if the Snow Queen ever had a proper name…” Shirou muttered. He pulled out his Pokedex as they walked, diving into the mythology index Rin had sent over, under the ‘Fifth Grail War Prep’ document.

“Okay, do we want something based on your mindset, or on your typing? We could do Mab, the fairy queen of frost, but considering her mindset that doesn’t work very well.” Shirou offered after a few seconds of browsing.

“You do realize I have no context for any of the people from your world, correct?” Vulpix blinked slowly, huge eyes staring into her trainer’s own.

“Mab has a reputation for being spiteful, petty, cold-hearted, calculating, and warlike,” he clarified. “Only the last of those match you at all, with the next-to-last being debatable.”

“Next.” She waved her paw, very clearly not in approval.

“So there’s Morana… but she’s a death goddess who ‘dies’ to renew the land for spring, so that’s probably not right,” Shirou murmured. “Skadi is much better; a goddess of winter and winter sports, known for her skill with a bow. Sitonai could also work; a heroine of winter who slew a white dragon to save her village. Any of those strike your fancy?”

“Sitonai is the closest to resonate with me so far,” Vulpix acknowledged, humming in something close to contentment but not quite. “Do you have any more?”

“Moving on from winter goddesses and onto warlike ones, there’s Athena, virgin goddess of wisdom and war–”

“I don’t qualify for that one, next.”

“Inanna, goddess of battle, love, civilization, and agriculture. She’s better known as a love goddess, though,” Shirou continued without missing a beat. “Durga, goddess of war, destruction, strength, and motherhood, is another option, and there’s Scathaith, underworld warden and peerless warrior woman and trainer of heroes.”

“Hm. Was this Sitonai related to royalty or nobility in any way, Shirou?” Vulpix asked, shaking her head at all the following suggestions.

“Village chief’s daughter, so… very minor, yes?” Shirou said after checking the text of the document. “Do you want someone related to nobility?”

“Please. I am technically a Princess - albeit one that isn’t’ even remotely in the line of succession as humans would understand it.” Vulpix nodded, “As much as I am fond of pretending it doesn’t matter - for it often doesn’t - for something as important as a name my past must be a part of it.”

“Okay.” Shirou flipped over to the historic characters page. “Slavic princesses… there’s Catherine, she was an empress. Olga, Anastasia, Nadejda, and Tatiana were all princesses of the same nation. From our version of Aloha, there’s Maheha and Pauahi, along with a lot of names which might be too long to be good nicknames.”

“Hmmm. Anastasia, I think. There is a certain resonance. I need not know the history, the name fits.” Vulpix nodded firmly. “Anastasia, then, Shirou,” the newly named mon stated imperiously, before her expression fully relaxed. “Now, I do believe we were discussing the kit?”

“Well, yeah. Joint custody, Illya as his trainer, and I was wondering if you could teach him, Anastasia. But it sounds like that’s not something you can do.” Shioru put his pokedex away and looked back at her. “As a second question, how long will he be unable to speak or battle? Illya won’t force him to fight if he doesn’t want to of course, but when will he be old enough to start training if he does?”

“Should be able to start training in roughly a month or two. Pokemon mature fast - it’s an evolutionary thing in the slow sense, not the Evolving sense,” Anastasia began, humming to herself. “Light training at most though. They’ll be considered something akin to a teen at around a year old, so you’ll want to hold back from serious training or battles until then.”

“A year? Hmm. That’ll leave a hole in her team,” Shirou mumbled. “Not something to worry about right now; she’s got a new teammate to adjust to.” He looked over as they crested a hill, looking down to see quarried stone blocks littering the small valley below. Shirou sniffed; the faint odors rising from the structure's unnatural strength told him magic was afoot. He raised his voice and pitched it to his sister. “Illya, is this the place Cynthia asked us to look at?”

“Yep! And don’t worry too much about my team, Shirou. Matilda is fairly confident that Vulpix is going to mature faster than standard,” Illya threw back. “Something about faller bullshit.”

“Ah, yes. That would in fact change the calculus slightly. Chosen bullshit does tend to offset normal developmental times.” The other Vulpix replied, blushing in embarrassment. Rather interesting that her cheeks actually turned pink. Given that, well… That was supposed to be a human thing.

Shirou eyed his newest teammate for a moment, then shrugged and began to forge their way down towards the ruins, Illya taking a moment to survey the area before following. “So, what was it that she wanted us to look at while we’re here?”

Illya sighed. “Shirou, please pay a little more attention next time. Cousin Cynthia was interested in this shrine, a Celestic ruin which was thought to be dedicated to two separate deities." She pointed, and as Shirou followed her finger he could barely sight still waters through the tree cover. “Lake Valor is over there, so she’s fairly certain it was dedicated to Azelf, but the other one is less well known. And the magic which surrounds the place prevents everyone from focusing well enough to study it properly.”

“You’d think there’d be more people interested in things like that.” Ritsuka mused.

“Yeah, but there’s lots of ruins scattered around with different traps, or guardians, or curses. Some from past generations of our clan, some from the Celestics, some even older. Mount Coronet attracted pilgrims for millennia, and some of them built weird stuff,” Isabella said as they approached the ruin, her brow furrowing as a harsh buzzing stirred in the back of her head. “Ugh, that is nasty…”

“Well, Shirou and I should be fine,” Illya hummed, already adjusting to the rather nasty yet overall rather unrefined bounded field. The fact she could counteract it simply via circulating her magical energy said enough. “I’m fairly sure the local equivalent that Ritsuka and Matilda came up with should be enough for them to resist the field as well.”

Both eeveelutions nodded immediately afterwards. “Yep. It keeps trying to latch onto us, but circulating our energy is definitely counteracting it. It doesn’t help that the field is old and likely in dire need of repair,” Ritsuka stated, receiving a nod from her older sister.

Isabella squinted, rubbing her temple. “Any chance you can magic up some kind of blocker or something? I’m not going to be able to go in like this, it’s hard enough to think just at the edges.”

Illya shook her head. “With a few days' work and a couple of woven codes, maybe I could do it without knocking myself out. But Cynthia just wants us to take a look around, there’s no need for everyone to go in.”

Two of the balls at her waist shook, Milotic and Sligoo both spilling out into the world, neither looking very happy. Milotic shook her head. “You’ll need to leave me behind, this is making me woozy. I haven’t mastered the trick yet, and I know we’ve not even started with Sliggoo.” The shelled dragon shook his head despondently.

Fafnir likewise hissed as she tried to acclimate to the field. “I think I can power through… but not well.”

The newly named Anastasia peered at Ritsuka for a moment, her energy moving sluggishly before it petered out. “That trick has some combat potential, but I’m not going to be able to learn it while under the field. I’m out, sorry.”

Shriou nodded, then looked at Yagi. “So… hard work!”

Yagi nodded, then reached up and tapped his head. “And also– how can an effect which stops thoughts hurt you when your head is empty?”

Three separate paws lashed out and smacked three different locations on the poor Lucario’s body. His head - Ritsuka - his hindquarters - Matilda - and his left knee - Anastasia.

“That was bad.” The simultaneous deadpan from the three separate (currently) female vulpines echoed through space, sending the poor jackal into a brief fit of shudders.

Fubuki peered at the bounded field, her eyes shining. “This is fascinating… Hmm. And it seems like it’ll be us and the starters, this is a nice throwback.” She drifted over to float beside Illya. “Ready to head in, my lady?”

“Always. Hopefully nothing particularly eventful happens,” Illya replied, taking her first step into the ruins proper.

“Now you’ve cursed it…” Shirou smiled as he fell in behind his sister, feeling the burning ache in his body as his internal magic fought off the effects of the bounded field. The two of them looked around as they moved into the main hall, Shirou peering at the crude depictions of a being which looked very similar to Mesprit on one wall. “I assume that’s Azelf?”

“It matches the depictions I know, yes. Vaguely,” Yagi confirmed.

Illya held up a camera, taking pictures, only to be stopped as Ritsuka and Matilda both paused, pressing their noses to the ground. “What is it?”

“Scents. Human, a few Pokemon. And it’s very recent,” Ritsuka told her, nose twitching.

Both the humans frowned, “No one else should be here. For one, this is a known dangerous area, and to the second bit, no one has scheduled a dig here in ages.” Shirou pointed out, Illya nodding in tandem.

“Which is odd,” Illya finished for him. “Alright, let’s investigate.”

“Cursed,” Shirou muttered as they headed deeper into the shrine, the stone floors disjointed thanks to the vines growing through the cracks. He stopped to look at the wall art of a genie-like being floating on a small cloud. “...I assume that’s the other goddess?” He asked.

“Maybe, but I don’t recognize it,” Illya muttered, snapping a quick picture. “We’ll take a closer look later.” She pushed forward at the lead, scowling as they came to a stone door which had been recently broken open, if the bright exposed jagged edges to its pieces were of evidence. “Okay, Cynthia’s going to be pissed,” she hissed as she inspected the damage.

Matilda peered through the broken door and the stairs below. “I’m starting to sense people– feels like four or five, with a few pokemon.”

“Should we even intervene?” Shirou asked, offering his sister an amused look at her shocked expression. “Illya, no one is in immediate danger, so I don’t feel the urge to intervene as strongly as I would otherwise. I am getting better, you know?”

“...you are. Okay, so… maybe we stay out here–”

“I would ask that you go on down.” Everyone froze, then turned to see Azelf looking between them. “Very impressed by collective willpower, even if you are cheating. Cannot interfere directly, links to Mesprit give me leeway to talk to you.”

“... Well, we can’t exactly say no to that, can we.” Shirou blinked slowly, processing the fact that one of the Lake Spirits - a Divinity - was speaking to him.

“No. No we cannot,” Illya hummed, eyes sharpening as she firmed her own resolve. “That said, Azelf, what can we expect down there?”

“Trouble. The first foreshocks of a much greater tragedy. A Team yet unseen,” Azelf said. “Can’t say much more, though they’re nothing compared to you in strength or will.” They gave Shriou and Yagi a long look and a nod each before vanishing.

Shirou looked over at his sister, shrugged, then ducked through the ruined door, his footsteps light as he crept down the stairs, patting his waist as he did so. Bereft of either of his physical weapons, Illya watched as Shirou projected a rough facsimile of a blade, before joining his advance into the underground chamber.

The two trainers and their pokemon moved through the darkness, reaching the bottom of the stairs before they spotted a glimmer of light, and heard voices from up ahead. “...the ritual seen here is no guarantee of success,” someone was saying in a flat voice, and Matilda flinched as she could feel the weight of the bounded field fighting unnatural calm and fanatic devotion. “We will collect what we can find.”

“Good.” The voice on the other end of the conversation was filtering in through a communicator, much more lively than the main. “The Administrators have ordered that you also take all valuables and raze the structure; we cannot leave evidence of our involvement.”

“Understood. Hathor out.” The call cut out, and Shirou peered around the corner to see a gathering of humans and Pokemon. The humans were all dressed in white and black, two of the four having teal hair. Three Bronzong floated around, a field of psychic energy filtering off them into the humans, while a pair of Magneton held orbs of light up so the trainers could see. One man, wearing some sort of spacesuit uniform with gold trim, slipped a cell phone into his pocket. “Strip the place of anything of worth. Then prepare the entropic charges.” The man’s voice rose a half octave.

“That isn’t good.” Ritsuka stated, taking the incredible burden of stating the obvious, “We should… probably do something about that?”

“Agreed.” Yagi said, then paused. “While my first instinct is to leap out and just start hitting them, I think we need a plan. Illya?”

“They seem to be armed.” She said softly, pointedly avoiding whispering. Whispering in and of itself was weird in that while you might not hear what was said, it was suspicious in and of itself due to the sound made, “We’ll have to be fast, or wait for them to separate.”

Shirou nodded, then looked around the room. “It’s not big enough of a room for us to catch them by surprise. We’ll have to rely on speed. Yagi, can you take down the Magnetons before they can switch to attacking?”

“Maybe. Will we be fighting in the dark?”

Shirou nodded, his eyes flaring with aura. “I’m pretty sure all of us have some sort of night vision. Wait, Illya, did you ever figure that out?”

“I can substitute,” she shook her head, pulling wires out of her hair. “I don’t exactly need to see well to hit them, after all. My Storch Ritters don’t share my vision, and I’m not exactly planning on casting targeted spells, just wide area ones before you push in.”

Shirou nodded. “Yagi… and Matilda. Hit the Magneton, knock them out. Ritsuka, Fubuki, you two occupy the Bronzong, focus on dark and ghost moves. Illya, hit them hard enough to stagger everyone, then wait here. I’ll get in close and hit them in the darkness. Ready?” Everyone nodded.

Illya popped out from the stairwell into the light, quickly summoning an orb of flames in one hand. With a boom, she threw the overcharged fireball at one of the Bronzong, the flames and concussive force staggering the steel-type and the shockwave causing all of the assembled grunts to stagger. Hathor winced as the psychic bolstering flickered, one hand clawing for the metallic sidearm on his hip. “Who are you–” He managed to get out before the rest of the group sprung into action.

Yagi blurred forward, Quick Attack flashing into a barrage of Force Palms as he battered one of the Magneton into the ground. In the same moment, Matilda launched a fireball at her target, the Flash it was holding winking out.

In the darkness, everything fell to chaos. Shirou darted forward, conjured sword leading as he bashed its dull backside against Hathor’s wrist, causing him to fumble his gun in the darkness and drop it. Blindly, the man swung his arms around, trying to drive Shirou off, only for the young man to deliver a kick to his knee, sending him tumbling to the ground.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Shirou noted the Storch Ritter providing fire support - each of the four created familiars firing at different targets, swapping between the remaining enemies to keep them honest. In the darkness, the burst of energy harried and stung the remaining Bronzong and the three other humans, the attackers able to focus down one enemy at a time. Fubuki phased in and out of the walls, Shadow Sneaks and Shadow Balls taking down the Bronzong, while Yagi took out the still-conscious Magneton and the two Eeveelutions cut down the humans.

Within a minute, it was all over. The human intruders were laid out in groaning heaps, the pokemon unconscious. Illya emerged from the stairwell, an orb of silver light floating up from her hands to bathe the whole space in moonlight. “Any casualties?”

“None.” Shirou casually stomped on Hathor’s hand, preventing him from scrabbling for the sidearm still abandoned on the ground. “...so, call Cousin Cynthia?”

“Yes. Preferably now,” Illya began, eyeing the groaning grunts and their leader. “Fubuki, call for our other Pokemon. I want them here in case shit goes horribly bad, and if needed I’ll knock myself out to give them what protection I can.”

Shirou was about to say something further, when he glimpsed Azelf waving from a nearby bust of himself. He sniffed as the Legendary vanished, then walked over to the statuette, sensing the tang of strong metal and blood coming from the red gem mounted on its forehead. He peered at it, then reached up and pulsed a tiny bit of energy into the ruby.

With a sigh of releasing energy, the mental weight which had pressed down on all of them cut out.

“Found the anchor to that bounded field,” Shirou explained unnecessarily.

“That works.” Illya nodded sharply, taking more wires out of her hair. Passing some to her brother, the siblings quickly went to work binding the captured grunts.

Hathor looked up as they approached him, fire slowly returning to his eyes as they began to bind his limbs. “...you are interfering with something beyond your knowledge, children,” he told them coolly.

“I dunno.” Illya fired back. “Seems like Celestic Ruins, old and well protected.” Pointedly raising her eyebrow, she cast her gaze towards one of the reliefs, “Seems to depict some rather interesting things, like shackling Legends,” she mused, her eyes panning over the image of a man forging a chain, formed out of a stream of rubies, Azelf forming several of the links between their hands.

Hathor held his silence even as he was lifted to his feet by Yagi. It was only as he was being led to the staircase that he spoke again. “Not this ruin, but us, girl. We who will bring about a new world.” He went silent as Yagi pulled him up the stairs.

“Culty,” Ritsuka muttered, tail lashing. “What was it that they were looking for, anyway?”

“It looks like a way to call up Azelf from the lake, or summon their home to be entered; the wording is imprecise,” Matilda said, reading from the scroll she held out before her. “There are some notes added later that mention its unreliability, especially if done without proper purpose.”

“Huh. Neat. Yet another insane group. I’ve got ten poke on it being another Team.” Ritsuka blinked, turning towards her sister. “Matilda, you want in?”

“I’ll not take a sucker’s bet,” she replied primly.

“So… I sent you on what should have been a simple consultation and a little ruin dive. Maybe you find a few Shards, maybe a statue or two. And instead, you found a group of tomb raiders and disabled the defenses which have kept me and others out for centuries. Is that right?” Cynthia asked, looking between Shirou and Illya.

“That would be correct,” Illya reported. It wasn’t as if Cynthia was wrong. She was just mildly surprised her older sister was surprised by this.

The Champion snickered. “I knew you would get into trouble.” Her smile dropped. “I didn’t expect you to find some sort of organized criminal group. There may be more to those missing relics across Sinnoh than just the antiquities trade,” she muttered, looking over at the four tied up criminals being hauled into a helicopter.

“Who knows.” Shirou shrugged. “That’s your job.”

“That it is…” She looked over at Illya, then produced a phone from her pocket. “I’ll be in touch when we learn more about what they were looking for here. Now, we might be family, but I still probably owe you something for the trouble. Anything you two need from me?”

Shirou immediately stepped forward. “Do you think you could give me a few hours of help training my team? Yagi and Fafnir are both pokemon with senpais on your own, and I wouldn’t mind some general help as well.”

Cynthia smiled, putting her phone away. “That’s no problem at all, though you’re worth more than just a few hours of my time. Illya, would you also like some help?”

“Yes please,” the aforementioned girl answered immediately. Turning down assistance from a Champion would be… insanely silly. “Milotic might not benefit that much from yours, but I’m sure there’s plenty you can give me advice on.”

“Really? Why wouldn’t she…” Cynthia tilted her head, then snapped her fingers. “Right, she’s a brawler where Coronet’s a blaster. She can at least help teach her some endurance tricks. And though I may never have trained a Froslass or a Sylveon, I have trained both ghost-types and Eeveelutions before,” she finished. “So… mind sticking around here for a few days? I’ve cleared three days off my schedule, both to inspect the ruin and to figure out what these raiders were up to, but I can spare a few hours each day to help with training, if you’d like.”

Sharing a look with each other for a moment, the siblings nodded. “That sounds good!”

Isabella watched the interaction, then shook her head and went to set up the camp. As she did so, she stopped and considered. “...maybe she’d be willing to help me with Roselia?”