A New Legend

The Stranger

After the fight with Golem, Nanbu knew he had to find his way back to Jubilife Village. Right beside him was Shellos. The two of them had taken a bit of time to let the leeks do their magic and Shellos had even let him pet it. The two of them had fought a Golem together. The fight could have been deadly for either of them, but they stuck by each other and won. There was no way they were separating now.

Stepping out of the cave, still trying to keep as much weight off of his leg as possible. Looking around, it wasn't hard to tell where he was. Islespy shore (I don't know how to pronounce it either, sorry) was somewhere he'd seen many pictures of, but he had no idea how he got here. The shore was completely surrounded by steep mountains and the sea. Maybe he ran through a cave he didn't know about? He had seen a man riding what looked like a pokémon through the waves, but he got the feeling Shellos probably wasn't big enough for that.

As the two of them looked for a way off the shore, Nanbu noticed something else that caught his eye. Not too far from them, on the beach, barely out of the water, was the crumpled form of a person.

He rushed over to the beach, Shellos right behind him. When he reached the person on the beach, he noticed several things that seemed odd. For one, the girl's outfit was unlike any he had seen in Jubilife village. She was completely lacking a kimono, instead wearing a single piece of cloth that didn't overlap, but still connected. Her trousers were cut short at the knees and her sandals covered her whole foot. While he had seen sandals that covered the entire foot before, he had never seen anything quite like them.

Even more bizarre, was what he believed to be a pokémon, laying right next to her. It had a striking resemblance to the Zorua his father had warned him about when he was younger, but it was missing the signature neck fluff and wispy fur tips, and speaking of, its fur was black. As weird as this whole scenario was, leaving her unconscious on the beach right before high tide probably wouldn't help much.

He crouched down and tried to gently shake her awake. When that failed, he checked her pulse. To Nanbu's relief, she was still alive. He tried shaking her again, a little less gently this time, but she still didn't wake up. With no other choice, he decided to move the pair up away from the beach for now. He started with the Zorua-like pokémon, since it was easier to carry. He set it down and came back for the girl. He grabbed her arms and started pulling. What he didn't expect, was for her to wake up.

She threw her head back to look at the boy dragging her up the shore. "What are you doing?"

Nanbu was just glad she was awake. "I couldn't get you to wake up, so I was moving you away from the shore. High tide is coming soon." He said.

She sat up slowly, apparently satisfied by his answer. "Agh, I feel like I just got hit by a truck." she mumbled under her breath.

"A truck? What's that?" Nanbu asked.

The girl was clearly dumbfounded that he didn't know what she was talking about. "You know." she said. "It goes vroom, vroom, and you ride it."

Nanbu was having a hard time imagining what she was describing. "Is it a pokémon?" 

"You know what, never mind. It's not that important anyways." She said. "What's your name?"

"Nanbu." he replied. "What's yours?"

She seemed to lose herself in thought for a moment. Finally, she responded to him. "Anne. My name is Anne."

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Anne." Nanbu said. "The pokémon that was next to you is already further up the beach."

The two of them walked up the beach together to where the little pokémon was waiting. "Zorua!" she yelled, running up to the little fox. "I'm so glad you're ok. I was so worried you weren't going to make it!"

She paused when she said those words. Why would she think the fox wouldn't make it? Where was it trying to go? She looked around and realized that she had no idea where she was. Turning to look at the boy who had found her, she asked another question. "Uh, where exactly are we right now?"

"This is Islespy shore." Nanbu said. "I have no idea how I got here. Do you?"

"Why would I know how you got here?" she asked.

"Oh, I meant how you got here." Nanbu corrected himself.

Anne thought about it for a moment, before finally realizing the unfortunate truth. "I have no idea either." she said, giving a defeated laugh. 

The Zorua had started to stir from its slumber. It looked up at Anne and immediately stumbled its way over to her lap. "There, there." Anne said as she stroked its fur. "You're alright. We're gonna figure out how to get out of here." she said.

Looking back to Nanbu, she asked another question. "Is that your Shellos? It's a real cutie." 

Nanbu and Shellos looked at each other. Shellos didn't seem to be opposed to the idea of permanently living with Nanbu. But either way, technically, Shellos was a free pokémon. Nobody owned it. "Technically, no." Nanbu said. "We had to help each other out when we got attacked by a Golem. Shellos has just kind of stuck by me after that."

Shellos almost looked disappointed by Nanbu's words. If he hadn't known any better from his father, he probably would've believed the pokémon wanted to live with him. "Well, your pokémon, or not, let's see if maybe it knows a way out of here." Anne said.

Shellos looked almost eager to lead them. If they were going to escape, Shellos was their best bet, after all. Shellos started to slide away, leaving Nanbu and Anne little choice to do anything but follow. All they could really do was hope that Shellos actually did know how to get off of Islespy shore. As they followed it past the mostly oblivious alpha Empoleon, the two humans kept talking. "I don't recognize you from the village." Nanbu said. "Where are you from?"

Anne looked around for a moment, before realizing a rather embarrassing truth. "I, uh... I'm not entirely sure." she said. 

While he found it a bit weird that someone could forget where they're from, Nanbu did recognize that there was a high probability that she had hit her head. It would definitely explain why she couldn't seem to remember much. "Well, that's ok. You can stay with us in the village for a while. I'm sure my dad won't mind." he said, before realizing that he didn't know if his dad could even still object.

Well there was something he hadn't wanted to think about. It had almost slipped his mind during and after the fight with Golem, but there was still a very real chance that his dad was... Either way, surely he would be furious with him. After all, it was his fault that he had to be rescued from that Drapion in the first place. As he ran the events of the past few hours by in his head for at least the fifth time, Anne's voice caught his attention. "Hey. Are you ok? You look like you're worried about something." she asked.

Apparently, Nanbu was easier to read than he thought. "It's nothing." he lied. "Let's see if Shellos really knows how to get out of here."

Author's Note: Tada! A new chapter and a new friend! In case you're wondering, no. Anne is not a pre-existing Pokémon character. She's an OC I made for this story. I wonder if you can tell how she got here. I really like these two characters and I'm looking forward to seeing them play off of each other. Here's a fun question for this chapter. Have you played through Legends Arceus? If you have, who's your favorite character? If you have one so far, who's your favorite character in this story? Either way, I hope you enjoyed, and I'll see you in the next chapter!