-Blessed by Divinity: Eternity-

Returning Home

What I saw shocked me, but I was able to maintain my composure. The pilot's eyes were glued shut but not only that, his entire face seemed relaxed. A little too relaxed to be flying this hunk of steel above the ocean. 

Unsure what to make of this, I turned my focus to the front window, seeing only the clearest of skies. But from the corner of my eyes, I could see the approaching storm and it was closing in on us at an unnatural speed.

I knew a decision had to be made soon and I couldn't wait on the pilot to make it. I retraced my steps, exiting the cockpit only to be greeted by an anxious light blonde haired girl. Her warm smile had faded and now a look of concern had grown onto her face.

"Is everything alright with the pilot? You were real quiet in there."

Slowly, I shook my head before replying, "It's just us two now, the pilot's been caught in a trance or something."

My mind raced to think of how this could have come to be. No wild pokemon were aboard this flight, let alone any that could induce sleep, so that option was thrown out of the window. Whatever had caught the pilot in the spell clearly hadn't affected Elaine and I, so I was out of explanations.

"This plane isn't going to slow down and that storm is only getting closer. We should be above land by now so-"

"Are you crazy Aaron? Even with parachutes, we'll be caught in the storm."

My lips curled into a reassuring smile. Elaine understood what I was saying, realising that something had to be done.

"We'll jump, parachutes aren't necessary."

At that, I turned to the emergency exit to the side. I dared a quick look back to Elaine who gave a quick nod to say she understood the plan.

Just as I reached for the handle, a deafening screech could be heard as it rang in our ears. It was followed by another screech and then a crackle of lightning. Quickly, I turned my attention to the window beside me, seeing a huge winged creature fly past in a blur. The screeching hadn't stopped and the storm had engulfed us completely now.

I felt a warm hand on my shoulder which sparked something within me to keep pushing forward. "You aren't getting cold feet now right?"

I could only smile in response before turning my attention back to the emergency exit. With my pokeball in hand, I swung the door open, feeling an intense rush of wind. The freezing air was filling the plane and I could see another winged creature in the distance, flying around aimlessly.

There was another crackle of lightning as the wind speed increased drastically. It was becoming difficult to see but even that couldn't stop Elaine and I from jumping out of the plane.

As we dropped out of the plane, the distance between the storm and us grew larger as we plummeted toward the ocean below us. At this height, I could clearly see an island in the not so far distance. I turned around in the air, seeing Elaine around ten feet above me, falling down at the same speed as I was.

The constant rushing of wind made it difficult to communicate but a simple nod was enough. I reached into my pocket, pulling out a pokeball before calling out for the pokemon. A bright flash of white soon dissipated revealing a large orange scaled dragon who was casually skydiving beside me.

We exchanged smiles, appreciating this new skydiving experience. Dragonite turned to me before nodding. She turned forward, speeding past me. Within the next two seconds, I was caught in her arms as we floated above the ocean, hundreds of feet in the air.

Dragonite readjusted herself, allowing me to climb onto her back and soon enough, we were joined be Elaine and her flying type pokemon. The yellow scaled Altaria floated beside Dragonite effortlessly. They weren't known as the cloud pokemon for no reason.

There was a momentary silence as Elaine and I exchanged knowing looks. We both suspected foul play of some kind but we didn't have any leads. After a while, we decided that the answers would follow us but for now we had to get to the Sinnoh region mainland.

"There's an island not too far from us. There might be some answers there."

"Yeah and hopefully we can get to the mainland."

With that, our plan was formulated. Aboard our dragon type pokemon, we cruised through the air, enjoying the peaceful weather in comparison to the storm not too long ago. In the distance, I could see the storm but it wasn't moving toward us anymore. Instead, it maintained a steady path moving behind us ready to destroy anything else in its way.

"That wasn't a natural storm Aaron."

I turned over to face Elaine who had also noticed. It would have been real trouble if we were caught in the storm but thankfully, we were able to avoid that.

After a while, the island was within landing distance. The two dragon pokemon lowered their flight paths, descending toward the land. From what we could see, the island appeared to be one giant mountain. There were several entrances into caves dotted around the island but there didn't appear to be any people.

The moment we landed we realised that this was a ghost town, a shell of what it previously was. As we looked around, there weren't any other people, just us and our pokemon. There was a large wooden sign overhead, the details scratched out, spray paint reading out a new message.

"Turn Back"