Articuno Island

Writen by: Arti Cuno

Part One: A Stalker? Trip to Indigo Plateau; begining of a new "adventure"

Note: This isn't completely following any of my other story lines (mainly, Gary is part Arcanine now.). This story line is slightly in the future (Ash is now 15 so it's 5 years from the time her left pallet) I've always said Gary seems older then Ash so I've set Gary's age as 17. (making Arti about 16, Renku 17, and Nakako 19) There's a new character Ariikuiyo (said: "airy kwee yo" he's about seven). Any other info that's needed will be given in notes at the top of the story part ^.^

Indigo Plateau, home of the Pokémon League and the Elite Four Pokémon Trainers. It was still a few weeks before Indigo Stadium would be in use for the League battle when up and coming trainers try to make their way to the top. But some trainers had already started coming and training, prepairing for the biggest challenge of their training careers.

Amoung the trainers already there were some returning from previous defeats and others who were back for personal reasons, such as defending their titles. Ash Ketchum (who was on time for once in his life, heck, he was EARLY! *gasp!*) was one of the returning trainers but not to defend a title, of the three times he'd tried to get to fight the elite, he'd only got to them once and lost at the last match between himself and Lance.

"Cuuuno?" a huge Articuno asked, waddling down the streets of the village near Indigo Stadium with it's trainer and her friends in tow. "Cuuu."

Its trainer patted him and stroked his feathers. "What's wrong?" she asked. "You wanna go off on your own and find other birdie pokémon to chatter with?" She pinched his cheek making him give her an annoyed look. "Get going then!"

The bird took off cooing happily leaving his trainer and her friends behind.

"So, wha' we doin' now an'how?" one guy asked. He flipped part of his bright red hair back out of his face and snorted, blowing smoke out his nose. It wasn't that he was smoking that caused the smoke, he, Renku, was actually part charmander. The tail swishing back and forth behind him was a dead give away.

The other person with the Articuno's trainer was taller by far then any of the group, and looked to be older. Nakako, was also part pokémon. Though he was part Nidoking, in the sense he had the horn, ears, spikes on his back, and tail. Even his skin was darker, but it had been like that before the "accident" that changed him to the way he was.

The Articuno trainer, the imfamous, Arti Cuno, turned to face Renku and sighed. "Oh, shush... I told you I'm going to the stadium. Nakako said he'd come with me and you... you just came along being your nosey self and not keeping yourself out of my affairs..."

Arti spun about on a heal of her shoe, causing feathers to fall out of her hair she'd turned so fast, and continued off with Nakako close behind. She folded her wings behind her and picked up her tail so it wasn't dragging on the ground behind her.

"So..." Nakako said, putting an arm around Arti. "You feel like a little warm up match before you beat the Elite... AGAIN this year..."

Arti sighed and blushed. "Sure." she said, annoyed with Nakako cuddling her. "And the Elite are the only challege my birds have thats worth their time. You know Articuno, Moltres, Zapdos, and all the others are at such high levels simple gym battles aren't enough for them."

"True," Nakako agreed as they entred the stadium. "How many pokémon each?" he asked, kissing her on the cheek as he left to go to the opposit side of the field.

"Two." Arti replied and took a poké ball from her belt. "And no super powered pokés either! I'm working with my babies here."

Arti patted the poké ball and pointed to the sticker on it showing that it was a baby pokémon. Nakako nodded in agreement to use a weaker Pokémon. "This should be good enough.." he decided, throwing out his poké ball first. "Go, Nidorino!"

Arti smirked and threw out a pokéball of her own, "Go, Blizzard!"

A fluffy blue Articuno chick came out of the ball and yawned. "Cuuno?" he asked, looking about.

From the other side of the field Nakako fell over to the ground and groaned. "You've got ANOTHER Articuno chicken?" He noticed Arti looking as if she was going to explode at the word "chicken". "Um, er, chick I meant, sorry, Renku is rubbing off on me a bit."

Arti patted the baby bird and gave it a push onto the field. "Blizzard is one of three chicks this time." she explained, watching the chick tremble and chrip at Nidorino. "The other two are Glacier and Snowflake. But enough chit-chat, Let's see if I can get this chicky to learn ice beam."

Nakako nodded. "Nidorino, go easy on the chicken-"

"CHICK!"

"Er, right, chick... But don't let it beat you! Tackle attack!"

"Blizzard, plume storm!"

"Plume storm...?" Nakako repeated.

Blizzard started flapping his stubby "wings", if they could be called that, and sending a storm of his feathers about making it impossible for Nidorino to see where the bird was.

"Peck!"

Blizzard waddled up beside the enraged Nidorino and fluttered onto his back. "Articuno cuu!" the bird screeched and started pecking the pinkish pokémon in the back of the head, making it even more angry. Nakako noticed Nidorino's rage starting to take over and knew it would hurt Blizzard if he didn't get the baby bird out of there.

"Nidorino! Stop!" Nakako ordered and ran onto the field, grabbing Blizzard away as Nidorino threw his head back stabbing the bird in the side with it's horn.

Arti teleported from where she was to where the raging pokémon was and pounded it over the head. "You monster!" She screamed. "What are trying to prove by doing what you did?"

Nakako pulled a pokéball from his belt and called back Nidorino as it started to charge at Arti. "I'm so sorry, Arti." he said, handing the injured bird to her. "My Nidoran just evolved and he's been a bit unruley, I didn't think he'd be like this though."

Arti cuddled her bird and looked at the injury. "It's alright. He'll be okay. I just have to get him to the poké centre so Joy can look after him."

Nakako nodded and kissed Arti on the forehead though she seemed like she didn't really want him to. "I'll catch up with you there later... I've got something I've got to go do."

As the two went their separate ways neither noticed someone watching from the shadows by the nearby bleachers. The shadow figgure watched as Arti left then followed her without her knowing it.

Arti sighed as she waited for Joy to come back from looking after her pokémon. Arti was kneeling on a chair leaning on her elbows on the back of it, looking out a window at the trainers going back and forth the streets. Some talking, some looking in the windows of the stores, and other things. She sighed and turned her head looking back at the entrance of the pokémon centre. She smiled as she noticed the person she was hoping to see come in the door.

"Hey, Beautiful." the person said as he walked over to where Arti was and sat down beside her. "I've been looking all over for you, last place I expected to see you was here."

He pulled Arti onto his lap and cuddled her. Arti cuddled back, playfully tugging his fluffy tail and sighed.

"Blizzard was hurt, I hadda bring him here." she replied. "Nakako's nidorino was on the war path and tried to kill my baby birdie. Why were you looking for me anyways? I though we were supposed to meet at noon for a dinner break."

"It's past noon, has been for nearly half an hour, I was getting worried."

Arti checked her watch and groaned. It was 12:27pm, she'd lost track of time waiting for Joy to tell her if Blizzard was okay or not. "Sorry, Gary." she sighed again. "I wasn't watching the time I guess. If you want I can just get Joy to call me when I can pick up Blizzard and we can go now."

One of Gary's arcanine ears twitched and he smiled down at Arti who looked slightly upset/worried. "We can wait until you know if your "birdie" is okay. We'd probably run into the dinner time rush anyhow." he paused and poked Arti's side then ruffed her hair. "Hey, cheer up. Blizz'll be fine."

"I know." she absently said. "It's not only that bothering me. Things seem odd, I can't explain it really. There's something out of place, like an imbalance of some type..."

Gary stood up, picking up Arti at the same time and swung her around in a circle then kissed her. "Ahh, Another adventure is about to break loose?" he laughed. "And just when I thought I was getting too old for this can could finally settle down a bit."

Arti's expession turned from worried to "I don't know you..." her eyebrows were raised, eyes slitted and she was smirking slightly. "Remind me to hurt you later." she joked, even if her voice didn't show she was joking.

"Forepl-?"

Gary was cut off as Arti put her hand over his mouth. "Oh, hush... Last we need is everyone staring at us."

"Someone is already staring..." Gary pointed out, looking to his left where someone hiding amoungst a group of people was watching him and Arti. "And by the sounds of it that person has some kind of tape recorder, cell phone, something, that he's talking into cause he's whispering to himself..."

Arti raised and eyebrow and jumped down from Gary's arms. "Maybe we should leave then... I don't like people staring at me, they usually do when they see the wings and tail but I don't think thats why this guy is. I'll find Joy and tell her I'll be back for Blizzard later."

Arti went over to the counter where there was a line up of people with pokémon to be healed. She went right to the head of the line and told Joy to call her when she could get Blizzard, only taking a few seconds, but even those few seconds seemed to make some of the people mad in the line.

"Hey! What makes you think you should get special treatment, freak?" one person yelled out. "You think just because you're a gym trainer you can jump line?"

Arti muttered something but ignored the loud mouth, he had a persian in his arms so she figgured he was a stuck up type since most persians seemed to have that type of attidude. "Like pokémon, like trainer..." she growled, walking out the door with Gary at her side and the strange person that had been staring at them following close behind.

It was about midnight by the time Arti and Gary arrived back at the place there were staying while at Indigo Plateau. After they had left the poké centre they'd lost the person that had been chasing them for a while but he showed up again later durring the day. They'd simply ignore him and went on as if he wasn't there though. As far as they were concerned there was nothing they had to hide. Once they picked up Blizzard from the poké centre around 9pm, they had gone to round up all of Arti's articuno that were flying about.

"So, what you feel like doing now?" Arti yawned, flopping backwards onto the couch in the room. "I don't feel like going to bed just yet..."

Gary sat on the side of the couch and stroked Arti's cheek. "Well, I feel like going to bed personally. You can stay up if you want though, my little angel."

"If you're going then I will too..." Arti sighed, getting up only to fall onto the bed yawning. "I wonder what happened to talk stalker... I've got a feeling he'll probably show up again..."

Gary nodded, "Probably as soon as we go out tomorrow he'll b-" Gary turned to the door. There was a quite knocking on it then it opened.

"Arti!" the person that came in yelled happily then ran over to where Arti was face down on her bed. "You're finally back!"

Arti groaned and rolled over. The little kid that ran in the door tackled her. "Arii..." Arti sighed. "Go back to bed... I know you probably aren't tired but I am..."

Gary picked up Ariikuiyo off Arti's stomach and set him on the floor. The kid was small for his age, and skinny as a rail, unlike what the pokémon in his genes usually was, kind of fat. He was part Marril, he had the ears and tail of a marril but no one knew how he came to be like that, he wasn't tested on that anyone knew of, and he had been born like that, or so the person that dumped him off on Arti had said. Arii was six when he was left with Arti and Gary, Arii's mother had abandoned him, and the people that had been looking after him couldn't stand having him around anymore. Their house had been burned twice in three years because the people in their town wanted to run them out of it. The family learned about Arti and her being part pokémon also so they thought it best to get rid of their problem and throw it on her.

"Arrrtiiiii, Garrryyyyy" Arii whined, climbing back up onto the bed. "I wanna stay with yooouuu..."

He latched onto Arti, his arms around her stomach and held on tight. "If you let me stay with you I'll be quite, I'll sleep on the couch so you and Gary can-"

"Okay okay!" Arti cut in, her eyes opening wide at what the seven year-old was about to say. "You can stay here I guess, ask Gary..." Arti yawned, rolled over slightly, and fell asleep.

Garry grinned. "Sure kid, I don't care."

Gary picked up Arii and hugged him. He actually liked having Arii around, and he knew Arti liked him being around too, they treated him as if he was their own son most of the time, and he acted as if he was too. People usually gave them strange looks not only cause they were all part of some pokémon, but because if Arti and Gary were Arii's real parents they'd have only been about 9 and 10 when he was born, which was slightly impossible at the time.

Gary set Arii back on the bed. Arii hopped down and started to go over to the couch. He stopped and his Marril ears twitched. "Sounds like theres a storm coming..." he said, looking worried. "I don't like storms..."

Gary was already laying back beside Arti and glaced over to the half water mouse who was holding his tail and giving the "puppydog eyes" treatment. "You wanna come sleep here then?" Gary patted the bed between him and Arti.

Arii jumped in the air for joy then scrambled onto the bed and laid back, copying how Gary was laying. Again Arii's ears twitched. "Sounds like someone outside by the window now..." he said, sitting up.

There was a rumble of thunder from the approaching storm, then after a few seconds a flash of light and another rumble. Arii clung to Gary. "I think I saw something!" he yelped, pointing to the window.

Gary sat up, and waited for another flash to light up outside, he'd already turned all the lights in the room off so the lightning would have to work as lighting. As the next flash showed up there seemed to be nothing. "There, nothing. You must be seeing things you're so tired. Lay down and go to sleep, Arii."

"Where-? I know there was something..." Arii looked confused, but laid back down. "Maybe I am just tired..." Arii yawned and cuddled upto Arti, falling asleep instantly.