Disclaimer: I still do not own Pokémon. Neither do I own the concept, by YF2. I do own the Elem region, and Ash and Erynn, though.
I'm sorry for my (possibly permanent) hiatus off Pokémon Go!, the truth is, I'm not sure there's a better wa to go about it: I don't want to have to go through four battles at every gym.
While my mind waits for inspiration to get me psyched enough to begin again, I've decided to create this YF2-approved spin-off. It's set three years after Pokémon Go!: this time, though, the Evil has grown: for those interested to know how my first fic turned out, details of what happened at the end will be revealed as you read on...
Anyways, I hope you enjoy this story as much as I enjoyed writing it... or actually, I do hope you enjoy it more. So... on with the story!
Prologue
Three years.
It'd been three years since everything had happened. He remembered flashes of it, as though from a badly-edited movie: black-and-white images of a past too convoluted to remember.
He watched the peace of Silvergold City from the cliff on which he stood upon; the Ditto and Gardevoir which stood beside him stared silently, surveying the scene below.
Team Epsilon and the remainder of the Tentor Fog had managed to destroy much of the town despite their efforts to stop it. As a Pokémon League champion, a private residence had already been laid out for him, a little apart from the scene of destruction he was watching right now.
The Organization must've been in a real dilemma, he reminisced with a tinge of amusement, their Pokémon League Champion acting as a vigilante…
Well; it was over now: that much he was happy for. His parents were still back in Palladium: they'd declined to come live in Silvergold… they still kept e-mail correspondence, though; he found it a little sad, but at the same time, extremely gratifying, to realize that his parents had thought him responsible enough to live on his own. The Organization might have tried to cover most of it up, but his parents knew enough.
He wondered where his friends from the past were now: the last he'd heard of Dave after the celebrations, he'd headed off to catch even more Pokémon: the data storage capabilities of the PCs about Elem were being put to a rigorous test, he mused.
RJ had been his competitor in the semi-finals: following the intense, and remarkably close match, he'd left with a promise to train his Pokémon up for another battle the next time. He looked over at Gardevoir absentmindedly as he recalled how she'd fought for him then.
Michelle… she'd left with some message about 'possible death by unexpected natural disaster'… he took it to mean she'd probably gone off on an adventure of her own: back to the way life had been before she'd joined their party.
And Erynn… he recalled her final battle against him—the fight that had won him the title of Pokémon Master. She had congratulated him, and then what? Returned to Rubidium to take over the position of Gym Leader there; he was happy for that. Thanks to her, Rubidium had been promoted to the eighth-toughest Gym in the Elem region: but that also meant most new trainers from Palladium skipped that particular Gym. She wasn't getting as many trainers as she used to, that was for sure.
Sighing, he thought of his own life: boring. Most of it was spent doing the various endorsement deals the Organization had put him up to. It was the branding: make the League more popular, get more teenagers to sign up as trainers and generally boost the economy. They'd even managed to turn the calamity of the Tentor Fog to their advantage, branding him as a hero: a title he hated. He'd been there at the time; it was all he could do. It wasn't for the Organization; it was for himself, and his friends.
He remembered Reno: a puppet of the Tentor Fog. Was he the Organization's puppet, then? There was little else he did in the way of…
You don't want to stay like this.
He started. There was another voice in his head: one he didn't appreciate. Gardevoir had come into his thoughts before, but not without knocking, figuratively speaking. This voice had come in without any hint of apology, speaking to him as though continuing a conversation left off from long ago.
You want to make a difference, don't you?
He paused. If it was rude, at least it spoke the truth. He had nothing left to do in this town; his only thoughts were of, perhaps, moving back in with his parents: he could do a lot for Palladium now, especially with the money he was earning. But that wasn't it…
If I told you that the Evil is returning to this region, would you want to do something to change it?
The Evil. He started again. It was how Gardevoir had termed the Tentor Fog; how the Pokémon of the world had, in general. He wanted to ask the voice if the Evil was that one and the same, but he had no idea how to.
If I gave you a choice, would you go through that same ordeal again?
He nodded slowly, trepidation rising in his heart as he wondered about what the voice meant. Ditto's squeal and Gardevoir's quiet gasp were the last things he heard as a sudden rush of wind swept him off his feet and plunged him into darkness.
I do hope I've chosen correctly… Ash.
