Incarnated Whisp
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Valiant - Chapter 11
🕑 Added 2025-08-29 23:02:23 +0000 UTCAuthor Note:
Two chapters today. One more after this one--this is the end of the fiction!
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The grove was defined by an unnatural calm. Girafarig were slowly returning to their home beneath the trees. Broken trunks lay surrounded by fallen branches, and nearby Pokémon dug with their hooves to bury the splinters that remained.
It was silent as the Iron Valiant stepped back under the leaves. Heads and tails watched it walk by. It made sure that what it carried went undisturbed, and it moved to where the Roaring Moon had sent trees careening into the earth.
The injured Farigiraf from earlier, the one that had made the mistake of getting too close, was now able to stand once again now that it had the chance to be healed by freshly plucked berries. It worked with several Girafarig to smash apart chunks of wood and use that mulch to feed the soil, but as soon as the Iron Valiant stepped into the clearing, the Farigiraf stopped and moved back to give it room.
Nick made a noise as he was placed onto the ground. A few Girafarig ran to fetch the other Farigiraf. The grunt let out by the human was pained, and the Iron Valiant could not tell if that Nick making a noise was a good or bad thing.
When the other Farigiraf arrived, their long necks let them retrieve more berries, and the herd of Pokémon did their best to heal the human on the ground. The pack on Nick’s back had saved him from the worst of the blow, but it came at the cost of everything within, and the berries did not help. They only stabilized him at best.
The world felt as though it was frozen. The Iron Valiant was spinning—it didn’t even know first aid. It knew nothing about treatment or how to heal or how to do anything to save a human. It only knew how to fight and swing its blade, yet it had all but stood in place when Nick jumped down. It hadn’t moved to save him from being launched straight off the Dragon’s back.
One of the Farigiraf ended up leaving alongside a few Girafarig to figure out what to do with the unconscious Roaring Moon. Nick still did not get up. Girafarig watched him from the bushes. No matter what was applied to him or what was fed to his mouth, he remained where he lay—breathing, but the Iron Valiant could not say anything more than that.
Humans did not have the same inherent sturdiness as Pokémon.
Nick was a human.
He didn’t have the strength or stamina to return to his feet, and berries alone were not enough to restore him to full health. What he needed was human treatment. He needed help from a human who knew what to do.
Only with that thought did a memory flash through the Iron Valiant’s head; it recalled Nick’s words from the past.
A red roof.
Free medical care.
It needed to get him to one of those buildings—a Pokémon Center, it was pretty sure.
The Iron Valiant righted its stance, and it brought its head up to stare at the sky. The waning moon turned the sparse few clouds a silvery grey, and the low illumination highlighted the cliffs that surrounded this crater. From the recent sunset, the Iron Valiant identified directions, and from there, it could piece together its destination.
Nick’s best option was for them to head north-west.
It moved to pick up Nick again, but one of the Girafarig bellowed and rushed to get in the Iron Valiant’s way. The edge of its blade shimmering, the Iron Valiant was prepared to fight if the Girafarig tried to keep Nick here in a misguided intent to help, but that wasn’t what it was doing. It barked out its thoughts, and a few other Girafarig ran off. The broken backpack was retrieved, and Nick’s blanket was grabbed. Telekinetically, the Pokémon commanded branches to stab into cloth while large leaves were woven in.
Slowly, Nick was tied to the Iron Valiant’s back.
This would not be comfortable, but it would work. The Iron Valiant would maintain access to its arms while bringing Nick along with it.
Trying its best to keep itself under control, the Iron Valiant sent the herd of Girafarig a respectful nod, and they all sent it a cheer right back.
While the Girafarig couldn’t help more, they could at least do this. It was the least they could provide to give thanks.
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The Iron Valiant walked.
Behind it, it saw the distant shapes of a Farigiraf working with the Girafarig to drag back the Roaring Moon. After all it did, these Pokémon did not plan to let it wake up and leave without going through some form of recompense.
The Iron Valiant walked, and the grove was left behind.
Patches of grass passed underfoot. The Iron Valiant maneuvered over hilltops and up the slopes, its target firmly locked on the north-western cliffs of the crater.
Other Pokémon watched it pass by, but it made a curious scene. Lit up by the moonlight, its movement was ceaseless. Its mechanical body let it travel without stopping, and all the way, it carried a strange package on its back.
The Iron Valiant walked regardless.
“Mmph,” Nick would groan. “I’m sorry.”
He wasn’t all there.
“I didn’t mean... for this to happen. I just wanted... to escape.”
The relatively even ground of all of the levels in the crater slowly gave way to more and more slopes of bushes and dirt. Then, the foliage gave way to stone, and the ground became steep.
The Iron Valiant’s movement was a constant, and it helped that it did not need to slow to help someone else over the terrain. The world turned steeper and steeper, and then it was suddenly in the middle of a climb.
“I miss my mom,” Nick would mumble on its back, not even conscious. “I miss my dad. I... fought with my sister. Never gonna be... able to apologize. Not gonna... see her graduate.”
Then, after minutes passed, he added, “We were... looking forward to that.”
He went quiet for a long time after that, and the Iron Valiant could not tell if that was because he chose to stop talking or if he had simply fallen back into unconsciousness. However, he was still breathing, as pained as the sound was, and to the Iron Valiant, that was all that mattered.
The Iron Valiant walked on.
Above it, the mountain became a shadow that blocked out the moon, and the only source of light was the Iron Valiant’s passive glow. No crystals grew out of the dirt. No groups of Pokémon nested nearby. There was only it, the cliff, and Nick himself, as well as the rest of the climb awaiting above the Iron Valiant.
It only had a single objective: it needed to reach one of those red-roofed buildings, and it needed to find someone who could heal the human on its back. But the Iron Valiant was exhausted. It had spent so much energy already. All day was spent in practice only for it to need to fight off the Scream Tail and then the Roaring Moon right after.
Compared to the underground, there was no energy in the air here. Its passive recovery was essentially non-existent—it regretted not consuming more physical food when it had the chance. The Iron Valiant’s stores were growing smaller and smaller with every foot ascended, and it knew it would not last to reach the top.
So it continued climbing, but it changed strategies.
One by one, it disabled all non-essential processes.
It didn’t need to taste if it wasn’t eating. It didn’t need to smell if it wasn’t searching. It didn’t need to hear anything further away than Nick and the cliff itself, and its sensors didn’t need to be at full power. It only needed to see what was directly in front of it and the path up.
At times, it would pause, both to give itself a slight moment of recovery and for it to plan the route it would take. Its solid metal arms could stab into the stone to guarantee it sturdy handholds, but if it stabbed in the wrong spot, then a boulder would come loose and see them both fall back to the earth.
At one point, it stabbed its arm into the stone up to its shoulder, and it let itself hang for quite some time. It brought its gaze back over to the crater and to the barest start of sunrise on the other side. Shadows crested over half of the landscape, and the mountains above the Iron Valiant were beginning to turn yellow from the morning’s light.
It was hard to believe just how high up it was, but it was harder to believe just how large this place was.
But it couldn’t hang there forever.
The Iron Valiant kept going.
Inch by inch, arm by arm, leg by leg, it ascended the cliffs in a slow climb toward the peak.
Harsh winds blew, but it never let itself be knocked off course. Eventually, it stopped giving itself time to pause. A feeling built within it—if it ever stopped, it would never continue again.
The energy in its chest vanished in a constant drain, and the glow of its body faded. If it got into a fight, it wouldn’t be able to use its moves. It wouldn’t even be able to defend itself in the barest sense.
However, this mountain was not just cliffs. It was saved when the vertical shelf began to level out. The climb became a crawl, and the crawl became a hike. It didn’t need to get to the mountain’s very top. It just needed enough of a foothold to bring itself around.
It was able to hike to the mountain’s other side.
And then, it saw everything. Infinity stretched out before it. Underground, its life had been defined by the walls of the cavern, and in the crater, its travels had been defined by the walls that held it in.
But up here, there was only the view, and the Iron Valiant could see forever. No wall existed to stop it from choosing a direction and then walking until it collapsed.
However, that entire, endless world was not why it had come up here. It was here to find a specific, red building.
It focused its gaze. It scanned the horizon. It searched for that one point of color—
And it found it. Not even that far away, a settlement had been built close to the mountains.
Rectangular buildings. Curved roofs. Small pinpoints of light that had to be windows. Right in the middle of it, however, was that vibrancy it sought.
The Iron Valiant took one more step forward and allowed the world to drop away.
For this, it did not stab its feet into the earth; there was no sharp cliffside here, and it was running out of time. It lowered its stance, locked its legs, and allowed its metal body to slide. Wind blew faster than ever before. Stones clattered against its shins. It could feel tiny impacts denting its body, but this slide meant it would not need to take long to descend.
As the world rumbled, groans came from the Iron Valiant’s back, but the noise was reassuring. When a tree rushed toward its path, a swing swipe of its arm saw the obstacle split in two.
In almost no time at all, the slope gave way to smoother ground, and the momentum carried the Iron Valiant forward into a dash. That dash carried it forward, but it quickly slowed as its reserves returned to practically nothing. Then, all it had left in it was a constant walk.
But this time around, it had a path.
No hills blocked its way. There were no more cliffs to climb. There was only a worn, dirt road for it to follow, and the settlement it saw grew larger and larger with every passing second.
This was a slow journey, but it was a guaranteed one. The well-tread path would guide it to its destination.
With Nick on its back, the Iron Valiant walked.
Something rumbled past it and then came to a sudden halt.
As the town grew on the horizon, an unfamiliar voice shouted at the Iron Valiant only to go quiet when the Iron Valiant paid it no mind. A handful of beeps rang out next, and then that voice became nothing more than hushed whispering.
The Iron Valiant walked.
Another human soon joined it, riding up to it on the back of a scaled, wheeled Pokémon. It tried to stop the Iron Valiant, but the Iron Valiant swung its arms, and the pair had no choice but to jump out of the way.
Then, even more voices started to shout at it just like the first. Other humans and Pokémon yelled at the Iron Valiant to stop. It carried neither the will nor the energy to process their words further than that. At this point, the only thing it had left was a need to carry itself forward.
The voices quieted, and the buildings grew larger. The settlement properly came into view, and then the Iron Valiant was there.
It was cool here. The buildings provided shadows. Machines similar to the rumbling one from before slept at the side of the road.
More humans than ever before now watched the Iron Valiant walk, and many of them took out rectangles to point them its way. Partnered Pokémon at the side of the road would stop to stare, but their stares contained no wariness. Only curiosity and support.
The path opened up. A section of trees and grass stood in the Iron Valiant’s way. But, at the very end of this open space, red poked out between the green. That beautiful, iridescent, vibrant color red was right there.
It tried to pick up its pace, but it failed. More voices spoke up in concern, but it ignored those, too. It took forever, but the building towered before it, yet every step took the same effort as lifting a thousand pounds.
Genuinely, the Iron Valiant had nothing left, but it had to keep going. Nick needed help. It had to—needed to—get him inside. Unless he was healed, Nick wouldn’t last.
But the world was fading. The Iron Valiant was truly tapped out. Still, it was too close to give up.
It took a step forward.
The building grew larger.
It took a step forward.
Glass doors opened.
It took a step forward, and more humans, these ones decorated with white and pink, rushed out. As they approached the Iron Valiant with worry on their faces, the Iron Valiant knew this was it.
The very last bit of its energy was spent unhooking Nick from its back, and only once he was placed onto a white, wheeled platform did the Iron Valiant allow itself to collapse.
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Author Note:
