The crisp breeze refreshed me as I breathe it in; I exhaled with a sigh of comfort. I was home, or well almost home. Mount Silver was said to be the most treacherous mountain in the world, for residing here are pokemon of extreme and unmatched strength, but to me, it is a sight for sore eyes. I used to live in the small town near the base of the mountain, before I moved to Hoenn with my family, it is called Silverwood, named for obvious reasons, one being that the towns's main export is limber and that it is on Mount Silver. Why would people inhabit a town on the most treacherous mountain in the known pokemon world? Well it's simple, It is true that the pokemon are strong, but they rarely come down the mountain into human civilization and the perils of the mountain are higher up, the only thing that the inhabitants need to worry about is an avalanche, but even that isn't much of a challenge, for you see, almost all of the town folk are retired pokemon trainers that have pokemon to big or to strong for urban society, their pokemon are so strong that they can bend the will of mother nature to there bidding.

I stare in aw at the enormous mountain before me, it stands nearly a mile and a half into the sky, snow rested on its peak and an alluring mist shrouded the mountain in its mysterious veil. I couldn't see my home yet however, for a few lumps of hills blocked my view. The grass under my feet is a lush and lively green; clumps of wild flowers lie in miscellaneous spots along the hill. I fondle the pokeballs on my belt as I step forward. I only have four pokemon, strange for a trainer of my caliber; well that's what my Dad says.

I hike through the foot hills at the base, for once there are no trainers around to bother the hell out of me, which at first I thought was odd, but shrugged it off as nothing. I stop for a rest in a grove of wild flowers, I pull out four bowls and fill them with pokemon food, and then from the bag across my shoulder I fish out a granola bar. After preparation I let out my team. Four flashes of light, each after one another, revealed an energetic vigoroth, Callen, a grumpy nidoking, Tagger, a ditzy azumarill, Noel, and an unenthused mawile, Reha. They eat their food in an unexpected silence, I ponder why while chewing on my granola bar, but soon let it pass because Noel shoots Tagger in the face with a water gun. Tagger stares at Noel with pure hate, but decides she isn't worth it and goes back to his meal. That worked for all about twelve seconds, Noel wanted to play and Tagger was her best friend so why not make him play? She shoots him again with water gun, again nothing.

Something must have been up because I've never seen Tagger act so...calm. Noel shoots him three more times before he cracks. He throws his bowl twenty feet into the air and charges Noel. The bowl of pokemon food falls on top of Reha's head, but she shrugs it off and continues eating her food ignoring her allies. Callen had eaten his meal seven point three seconds, like always and occupies himself with a flower. I watch as Tagger chases Noel through the grove, Noel wears a face of pure glee as she jumps around avoiding Tagger's swipes, sometimes she would fire a water gun just to anger him more. I smile at them, finally a bit of normalcy has returned to the group, ever since that day things haven't been the same. Before I could stop myself; I drift off into my memories.

The setting has changed, I sit alone in a dark room, my hand resting on my chin as I wait for the next challenger, not that I really cared. Battling had lost all of its fun, all of its meaning, it was just a way to make money now. I could hear the sounds of battle in the next room over, but it was going to be over soon. I hear the roar of a Dragon type pokemon, the roar of defeat. I sit up straight. 'I better get ready', I thought to myself. My hand clasps on one of the pokeballs clipped to my belt, the heavy steel doors that kept me enclosed open. The lights of my room turn on automatically, revealing both me and my challenger.

He isn't much and doesn't look like anything special; he is one of those guys who faded into the background, a face that I'd forget as soon as I saw it. All I could tell was that he is white, around 5'10, and wears a black shirt along with a pair of jeans. I ask if he is ready and he nods, which is strange since most challengers tend to do a little dance or cry or do something with some form of emotion, but he, he is different. I press a button on the consol next to my chair and a battle field appears in front of us, sliding out from the walls as the floor shifts out. My opponent steps into his challenge zone, which is a plain white box painted on the ground indicating the set boundaries for a trainer during a battle. He fishes a pokeball out of his pocket and holds it at the ready. I hop down to my space and by the mandatory laws of the league I introduce myself.

"I am the champion of the Hoenn region, dubbed the "King Of Hoenn" by the people. Representative of the League and Master Trainer. My name is Ethan Evergreen. Remember it. What is your name challenger?" I asked. Boy I sound like a douche bag.

"My name is..." I block out the rest. I don't really care.

He throws out his first pokemon. A large drapion erupted from the flash of light, its mandibles dripped a thick purple poison, I toss out Tagger.

"NIDOKING!" he roared as he appeared on the field. What's his face didn't seem impressed in the slightest.

Actually he didn't do anything, except for close his eyes. 'Is he giving up?' His drapion surges forward, without an order. I'd seen battle styles like this before, they are popular in Hoenn, it is simple, the trainer makes a slight movement and his or hers pokemon would attack based on the movement, the movement is the command, the only problem with this strategy is that it is hard to teach to pokemon and the pokemon always has to keep its attention on its trainer. This would leave openings and its attacks would have some sort of lag to them.

This however isn't the case.

My opponent hadn't moved once, yet as his drapion fights Tagger, it seems more and more that each of its moves are planned, as if they are coordinated by a trainer. Drapions lunges at Tagger once more, Tagger dodges to the right, avoiding the attack like he did all the others. He is waiting, waiting for my command. Drapion twists its body as Tagger avoids another one of its attacks, but this time it is able to slam a heavy iron tail into my nidoking. Tagger falls on his side, rearing in pain. The drapion towers over Tagger, and then lunges mouth agape aiming for Tagger's throat.

"Seismic Toss!" I command.

Tagger twists his body up and catches the two hundred pound poison scorpion by the neck. Tagger then proceeds to stand up and twirl the monster over its head and throw it into a wall on the opposite side of the room. The drapion's trainer winces, either at is pokemon's painful crunch as it hits the wall or maybe at his window of victory closing.

"Mega punch!" I order.

Tagger seemes to glide across the room, the scorpion pokemon tries to lift its head but Tagger smashes it back into the wall with a mighty fist. This time the trainer falls back on his butt, blood trickling out of his nose. Strange.

"Thrash!" I yell.

Tagger begins to pummel my opponent's pokemon farther into the wall. Anger and pain flash in my opponent's eyes then something changes. His expression becomes calm and his eyes seem to glow light blue…

A beam of pure energy shoots out of the wall and crashes into Tagger's left shoulder; its strength is so powerful that it sends Tagger flying. My nidoking crashes into the wall on the opposite side of the room. He tries to stand back up but instead he falls back in defeat. It took me a moment to realize my mouth was open. Hell I'm shocked; I'd never seen some one defeat one of my pokemon so easily. I return Tagger and choose a different pokeball from my belt.

"Noel!" I call as my blue bunny appears center field.

She hops around in excitement and throws a couple of mock punches, imitating a boxer. She is pumped for the battle.

"Hydro Pump!" I order, not giving my opponent time to react to Noel's appearance.

She then lets forth a high torrent of water energy; the blast slams into drapion and sends it sliding back a couple feet. Drapion lets out a roar to indicate that it remained unscathed. He then rushes forward with its jaw wide intent on biting my bunny in two. Noel dodges, rolling to the side then reacting by sending a bubble beam point blank into its neck. This did next to nothing however and drapion then swung its tail in a high arc. This smashes into Noel. My poor Azumaril couldn't take the pain and collapses to the ground unconscious.

I withdraw her. This can't be happening.

I send out Rhea. Without wasting time the drapion dashes forward, stabbing at Reha with his tail. My mawhile easily dodges and in reaction blasts the drapion with flash cannon. The brief flash of light and damage leaves the ogre stunned.

"Crunch!" I scream, emotions getting the best of me.

Reha jumps in the air twisting so that the large set of jaws on the back of her head could take the lead. Using the combined force of gravity and the strength in her jaws, Reha bites down on the scorpion's tail, drawing the beast's thick bluish blood.

A flicker of pain wavers across my opponent's face, but it soon fades and he returns to the same calm and mute person.

Drapion twists it's body around, as if it is made of rubber, and faces Reha. Breaking all hesitation the monster of a pokemon launches a hyper beam point blank. Reha didn't stand a chance. I return her to her pokeball.

'This isn't happening', I tell myself.

I send out Callen. 'He is my strongest, right? My insanely strong starter!' I thought.

Callen charges the poison ogre and slashes it across the began to slash furiously, eventually firing a focus blast into the monsters stomach and then finishing by shooting a point blank hyper beam which smashed the scorpion into the ground.

Callen paced his opponent, beckoning to get up and show him a real fight. It was like Callen had something to prove. The monster lay unmoving. Callen grew irritated with waiting and made one false step forward. In an instant he was pinned by drapion, its mandibles dripped poison onto Callen. He tried with all his might to break loose, squirming and slashing wildly, but it is obviously apparent. We'd lost. All he had to do was end it with a single attack.

"I give up!" My challenger says, smirking. He returns his pokemon and turns to leave.

"Be seeing you." He says before making the long walk back to the lobby.

I'd won. Officially. But that means nothing. He had my team beat.

'I think I need to take a break from the champion life.'

Memories washed over me as I sat in the flower grove. Noel had gotten bored and froze Tagger solid with an ice beam while I wasn't looking, returning some time ago to finished her food. I give her a soft pat on the head and walkover to my frozen pokemon. His dark brown eyes follow me through the ice, but he can't move his body do to the layer of thick ice shrouding him. I offer hima small smile before I pull a capsule out of my back pocket. Pressing a small button on the end of it, the capsule enlarges into a spray bottle. I applied the full heal to the effected area, aka everywhere. Instantly the liquid began to defrost the ice and within five minutes Tagger was fuly defrosted and shivering. I pull out another capsule from my back pocket and press the button, the capsule releases a thick wool blanket and I hand it to Tagger who gratefully accepts it.

"You know Tagger, maybe you should learn to chill out." I state.

He looks at me with disbelief and it takes me a moment to figure out why.

"HAHAHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHAHHAHHAHHA!" I said, slapping my knee as I got my own joke.

My pokemon stare at me in silence. I stare back. Then as if it was planned, we each laugh simultaneously and all the tension that was within our group dissolves, I can't remember the last time we shared a laugh it's been so long...

We reach Silverwood around 6:30pm. The sun had started to set and snow began to fall lightly from the sky. I shuffle hurriedly into the town; the terrain under my feet turned from grass to concrete. Silverwood is a small town and can only be described as cozy. It only has a total of 200 citizens and is only a mile wide, it has one church, two restaurants, and an elementary school that doubled as a middle school and a high school, though there are only twenty teachers in all. All the houses were two story brick buildings with a Dutch influence, smoke rises out of each families chimney, their fires warming their house's. I feel like a stranger in my home town, nothing looks the same, the town had moved along in technology now complete with street lights and several new small shops, but then again the last time I was here was when I was ten. I walk past a house, unlike the others it is surrounded by a white picket fence and has an abnormally large lawn. A voice catches me off guard.

"Hey! You with the face stop!" the male voice cries.

I stop and look for the owner of the voice. A guy around my age, sixteen or seventeen, I couldn't tell, runs over to me and slumps himself over the fence. He is tall and lengthy standing around 6'2", his eyes are a light brown and his dirty blonde hair falls past his shoulders in a curl mesh, blond stubble curls on his chin. He offers me a small smile; he wears simple winter attire, a black sweater that has stantleers flying on it, a pair of faded jeans, some sneakers and a plain black beanie hangs loosely on his head.

"Hey!" he says smiling. "You must be new in town and I was wondering if...OH MY GOD IT'S YOU!" he screams in recognition.

"Ethan DUDE! It's been forever!" He exclaims.

"Uh… sure it has…" I say awkwardly, leaning away from the stoned teen.

"Don't tell me. You don't recognize me do you?" He asks.

"Sorry no… There are so many fans; I can't keep track of them all." I say.

"That is cold man. To think you would treat your childhood friend so frigid."

It was then that the recognition hit me like a sack of bricks. The man who stands in front of me is my childhood friend from grade school.

"Ronnie?" I ask

"The one and only." He says arms wide. I go in for the hug.

"I didn't recognize you at first."

"Well yeah, I'm no longer four foot two and don't weigh three hundred pounds anymore. I'm pimp now." He says jokingly.

"More like a stoner." I say, mocking him.

"Well look at you! You haven't even grown an inch! What are you five feet two? Have you even hit puberty? And still wearing the same old cap. Tsk Tsk." He says returning the jabs.

"I'm 5'8 for your information, what's wrong with my hat, it's my favorite hat."

He lets loose a laugh.

"Man I missed you, didn't think I'd see ya again after you became champ of Hoenn."

"Nah I planned to visit sometime, I was just busy. Lots of trainers to deal with, running the league, and dealing with stupid government meetings." I say.

"I get it man, shit happens."

"What did you want when you thought I was a random visitor?" I ask.

He laughs again.

"I was going to sucker your ass into buying one of my parents stupid pokemon eggs." He states.

"Haha, your parents are still running their breeding service on the same schemes huh?" I say with a laugh.

"Yup, family business!"

"Well Its good I know ya huh?" I say.

"Yeah." he laughed.

"It is getting late, we should catch up more tomorrow, I'll be staying at my grandma's house."

"Good luck with that she devil! See ya tomorrow, have a good night." He said with a small wave and a brief smile.

"I will, later man." I say returning his wave.

It is a short walk to my grandmother's house from Ronnie's, it is like all the other buildings, Dutch inspired, painted pink to at least be unique, but it the paint is beginning to fade and chip off. Her old mustang still sits in the drive way, rusting away. The lights are on inside and I walk up the steps pausing at the front door. Everything about me felt different, and for some reason it felt like this was the turning point of my life, I didn't know how right I was.

Without a seconds hesitation I knock on the front door, in a few seconds and old woman with light gray hair and bright blue eyes answers the door, she hugs me and issues me into the house.

A voice echoes in my head.

"Brace yourself, everything you know will change." I shrug it off, probably just the wind.

If only.

Author's Note: Hey! I'm 2Lax4U for those who don't know me. This is a redux of the first story I ever posted on this sight. The original was god awful, plot wise and grammar wise. My writing has evolved leaps and bounds past the original, but is in no way perfect. The original concept is still here, but it too evolved. The plot is now more serious and actually relevant. I think. Currently I am rewriting the rewrite. Funny how that works. It probably won't be the last time either.

Check out any of my other projects and I hope you generally enjoy my writing. And please whenever you can, drop a review?

-Lax