POKÉVERSE HEADCANON. [2/3]
bilbo.
ability: regenerator.
moves: tbd.
bilbo was the first pokémon directly created by j.r.r. tolkien, and was one of three pokémon--the other two being thorin and fangorn--that he had as his original companions. unendingly loyal to the professor and his family, the poor creature was heartbroken at tolkien’s death. of the three, and though he surely understood tolkien’s dislike of his divinity, he sorely wished that he could have gone on living for centuries. he swore an oath that he would never take a master other than the herald of xerneas, whoever that may be. fangorn had to return to his duties in allearth forest, and thorin was placed (though much against his will) in a museum. so bilbo waited alone at the place of his master’s death for fifty years, where they had agreed to meet upon tolkien’s return.
he feared that tolkien’s next incarnation would forget him, but quite the opposite was true. reuel’s very first act as a trainer was to fulfill the agreement: he went back to the place where his past self had died, and found him waiting there still. with tears of joy the two were reunited; just as bilbo was the first pokémon that tolkien ever made, he was registered as reuel’s starter, ready to live out another life with his beloved creator. brave and full of spirit, bilbo is reuel’s most trusted partner both in research and in adventure.
thorin.
ability: stance change.
moves: tbd.
a proud and stubborn defender, this particular aegislash has seen combat many times throughout the course of his long ghost-life, mostly at the side of the herald of xerneas (though he has been known to refuse a herald’s cause if he did not find it to suit his purposes) most recently, he was tolkien’s main pokémon during his soldier days; though the world had moved on beyond swords and shields, the power of enchanted ones never ceased to be useful on the battlefield--and remained popular among soldiering folk as signs of martial prowess.
as stated before, he was put in a museum against his will--he had wanted to wait alongside bilbo, but the national museum of lumiose took him for their own based on the notion that since xerneas was “properly” a kalosian god, a relic of the xernean herald should be placed in a kalosian museum. reuel read about this while researching his past lives, and became indignant; the sword was his, so why should a government get to own it? in a huff he made haste for the lumiose museum, ready to prove his claim.
he did so in quite an interesting way. the guards wouldn’t even let him see the curator to present his request, thinking the ten-year-old boy’s claims to be outrageous. he could have simply grown plants or animals out of his hands to prove his heraldry, but no, he really wanted to go the extra mile--so he went to the nearest green space and woke up every damn tree in the park.
about half an hour later, an entire grove of walking elms, ashes and maples could be seen making their way into the lumiose museum, using their long root-legs to step right over the turnstiles past which only ticketed visitors could normally go. trailing bits of bark and dirt on the floor as they went, they made their way to the exhibit where thorin was kept, with reuel perched in the branches of not the tallest tree but the oldest one--the one at the head of the pack. bending its leafy head down to the poor gaping guards, reuel’s tree opened its newly created mouth and said:
“mr. tolkien would like to have his sword back.”
the museum curator, recognizing himself outmatched, handed thorin over immediately.
the trees of the lumiose city’s northeastern park have not stopped talking since.
fangorn.
ability: natural cure.
moves: tbd.
like bilbo and thorin, fangorn was a companion to j.r.r. tolkien before his passing, and awaited the herald’s rebirth. old though thorin is, fangorn far exceeds even him in age--and definitely exceeds him in wisdom. he is a mainstay of kalos’s allearth forest, the sacred grove that is home to both xerneas and yveltal--and (as i’ve hced before) the garden of eden. even among its creatures he is renowned for being both old and wise. he is a healer to whom injury and death means less to him than it does for others, as he will live forever (unless killed) and has become numb to the passing of others. he has seen heralds born, die and reincarnate; time to him all passes like a blink of the eye. the fifty years between tolkien’s death and the beginning of reuel’s research journey were nothing.
much like galadriel, reuel’s gardevoir, fangorn does not consent to be put into a poké ball. and besides, even if he did, some things are just too ancient to be contained for long. should he enter one, the poké ball would eventually fracture until it broke--much the same as it would for a legendary pokémon. even though he’s a little shit with less respect for great powers (such as his own) than he needs, reuel wouldn’t ever think of disrespecting fangorn by confining him within that tiny, insignificant space. though fangorn is his companion, he is always to be treated as an equal if not a superior; he belongs to no one but the forest that gave him life.
galadriel.
ability: trace.
moves: tbd.
when reuel met this gardevoir outside geosenge, so powerful and fair was she that he could not help but call her after one of the great elves. he never imagined that she would accompany him on his travels and felt blessed that she had deigned to do so; apart from fangorn she is the only being that makes him truly feel like he is in the presence of an authority. having lived for more than a thousand years like basically all of his pokémon except for bilbo, she is an indispensable source of knowledge and a wonderful protector against any evil that might befall him. he asks her questions as much as a college student refers to wikipedia, and happily, she obliges.
of reuel’s pokémon, galadriel is the most farsighted--and thereby the most worried about the path that reuel is taking. she has heard of all his previous lives, and from what she has read or can remember, none have ever been so reckless with their abilities. she’s often the voice of reason that stops him from doing something stupid--and the best part is, he can’t silence her by putting her in a poké ball, because she has refused to be in one. sometimes he’s wished he could, but ultimately he’s grateful for her assistance. on this journey, she and bilbo are the closest things to parents that he has.
smaug.
ability: blaze.
moves: tbd.
like your stereotypical fantasy dragon, smaug was a ferociously hungry hoarder. he took all the gold he could get his hands on and proved himself a bane to trainers everywhere--prowling the pomace mountain range for trainers and their pokémon, snapping them up whenever he was able. most trainers stayed away, choosing to take the long way around the mountains to avoid being eaten by this fiery menace. but not twelve-year-old reuel and his trusty audino--not when smaug’s hoard was rumored to contain artifacts important to his research. even with a serious type disadvantage, reuel found a way.
no riddle-games or other tricks would stop this monster. a capture battle was the only way to ensure that this monster troubled the others no more. the odds were stacked against him, bearing thorin who was weak to fire and bilbo whose fairy attacks would be resisted by smaug’s fire typing. still, however, reuel prevailed with both wit and godly strength on his side--and with the dragon’s capture, the treasure was his for the taking.
since it is so full of precious artifacts (and since it is a respectable distance from humans’ prying eyes), smaug’s cave has actually become reuel’s main base of operations for his research. three years on and smaug still has thoughts of eating the boy who bested him in both psychological and physical combat, but overall he’s grown to respect and actually somewhat like the kid.
fëar.
ability: infiltrator.
moves: tbd.
fëar is the only one of reuel’s pokémon to not have been named after a character from the legendarium--instead, their name means “souls”--which is perhaps because of reuel’s pokémon, they are the most difficult to comprehend. found trapped inside a ring that lay deep within smaug’s cave, they are an amalgam of far more than 108 souls--not even their current owner knows how many, and as the herald of life he has the power to sense all souls, dead or living.
the ring was supposed to be their eternal cage, their punishment. and now this foolish 15-year-old boy, with more power than he knows what to do with, has set them free.
nothing binds them to any other human, many of whom they have devoured over the course of their existence. the only thing stopping them from doing the same to reuel is his divinity--and yet they are old enough, and ravenous enough, to want to consume even him. reuel thinks he can use them for the knowledge that they have of kalos’ past, and thinks that dangerous though fëar is, his divinity will protect him from them. indeed his semidivine status and fairy typing have served as a shield to the worst effects of being exposed to this horrific corruption of souls--but even a god must fall, and such is a lesson that he comes closer to learning the hard way every day.
he remembers his past self resolving to stay away from that ring, to leave it where it was rumored to lie inside that dragon’s den, and from it to take only inspiration. those memories now are as distant as ghosts, lost in the youthful pleasure of going too far.
