Darkest Day (Pokémon Sw/Sh fanfic - rewrite available and in progress)

You're Just Like Your Brother

It had been a tough battle, but Hop had surprisingly beaten Gordie's Gigantamax Coalossal with the skin of his nose. He had been forced to resort to Cinderace, who was luckily fast enough to land a super-effective fighting-type move on the large pokémon before it could do any damage. As great as his victory was, Hop was still disappointed in himself that he was so close to losing. To boost his confidence a little, Eliana invited him to a friendly dinner at a small restaurant before they left Circhester for Spikemuth.

The restaurant, Bob's Your Uncle, had some pretty decent fries despite the other food being absolutely disgusting. Eliana almost choked on the sandwich she had ordered, her taste buds assaulted by the most ridiculously rotten-tasting thing she had ever eaten. Hop, on the other hand, was somehow stomaching all of his food, not even showing a reaction to the taste. The kid must have steel for a stomach.

In the middle of their third plate of fries, their conversation was interrupted when something caught Eliana's eye. She stopped talking, staring at the old tapestry on the far wall. Something seemed familiar about it, but what, she couldn't quite tell.

Hop followed her gaze curiously, recognizing it immediately. "That's the same guys in the tapestries at Hammerlocke," he observed, mouth full of fries.

Eliana's head perked up at that. "There's more?"

"Yeah. They tell some sort of story, but no one's figured it out yet," Hop answered. He swallowed before continuing. "Sonia skas it might be about the two princes that saved Galar from the Darkest Day."

That didn't make sense. It was Zacian and Zamazenta that saved Galar, not two humans. A while back she would have just nodded and moved on, but after her encounter with the real Sword and Shield, she couldn't let it drop.

"But what do they got to do with it if the pokémon did all the work?"

Hop shrugged. "I'm not the expert."

Before Eliana could say anything else, she remembered something that she should have never forgotten in the first place. Back when she had encountered Eternatus, hadn't the dragon said something about two heroes? She thought he meant Zacian and Zamazenta at first, but now it was starting to make sense. Zamazenta had told her that they were only truly powerless without the heroes. Two humans were found carved right next to the pokémon behind the mural at Stow-on-Side. Were these two princes the real heroes of Galar?

She observed the tapestry more from where she sat, noticing that the princes had solemn expressions as if they were grieving for something. If this truly was a continuation from the ones at Hammerlocke, then why did they look so sad when they had just saved their region. Gazing closer, Eliana made out two stones behind them, one engraved with a sword and the other a shield. They almost looked like gravestones. Did Zacian and Zamazenta lose something after all?

"Well, I'm stuffed," Hop announced. "I don't think I can force myself to eat any more of this."

Eliana shook herself out of her thoughtful trance, nodding and reaching for the bill. Luckily the horrible food was cheap.

"So, onwards to Route 9, then? I hope you have some kind of water transportation. It's almost all water," she said, getting to her feet.

Hop frowned, forgetting about that bit. Eliana laughed, patting him on the shoulder.

"Don't worry about it. Maybe we can call a flying taxi."

"I dunno. There's supposed to be a huge snowstorm picking up soon, so they've closed their service until it passes."

There goes that idea. Eliana brainstormed for a bit, trying to come up with a solution to their unexpected predicament. There were fishing spots nearby, but it would be a waste if they caught a pokémon just to swim them across the bay. If Hop knew about Palkia, teleportation could have been an option. None of their pokémon had weather-effecting abilities as far as they knew, so that was also out of the ballpark for them. If only they did have one, it would help everything. Maybe even if Leon or Raihan were here, it'd still be an option to fly.