A/N: Hey guys! Bet you've never heard of me, unless I reviewed one of your stories. I used to hang out around the Golden Sun section, but all the stories there lately have sucked, so I started looking around here. Anyway, never mind my ranting, ENJOY!


Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Warriors of Will

Chapter 1: Exit Willpower, Stage Left


Valour Lakefront. The resort there is the second most expensive in all of Sinnoh, though it doesn't look it. Accommodations are somewhat scarce, with the exception of the amazing lakefront restaurant. In all seriousness, the only reason for the cost is the amazing view. The sunset shines off the buildings and the nearby lake's surface, coating the place in a faint orange glow. All is peaceful, especially for the two teens sitting on the steps at the north side.

One of them, a male, wears a red jacket with a black t-shirt underneath, black shorts, sneakers, and a black ball cap with a gold stripe down the middle. He could be any random trainer, if he weren't the champion of the Indigo League.

The other is a girl, wearing a red long-sleeved shirt, white shorts, and white leather boots with a red trim. Her striking topaz eyes watch the sunset off to her left. But perhaps the most noticeable feature about her is her outlandish hairstyle. The vast majority of her maple-brown hair is pulled back into an odd triangle shape. Two small spikes of hair come down in the form of bangs, right above her eyes, and a pair of thin pigtails come out at the back. The whole haircut forms a sort of star shape, missing only the top side of the upper left and right points.

Suddenly, her gaze is drawn to the break in the trees leading to the lake. She pokes her companion to get his attention, and wordlessly suggests that they investigate. He shrugs.

"Whatever you say, Lita," he replies carelessly.

The girl, Lita, speaks for the first time in several hours, her expression turning from a small smile to a distinct frown. "DON'T give me that 'whatever' garbage, Ethan!"

Shrugging, Ethan follows her to the shore of Lake Valour. There they witness something spectacular. The lake in front of them explodes with no prior warning, sending water and rock in all directions. From the wreckage a slight ripple is visible. Not a ripple in the water, but a ripple in the air itself. Lita appears to panic, and her form blurs out, revealing a latias.

"Tiaaaa!" The latias releases a piercing cry, and mere moments later a latios shows up. It is just in time, too, as the ripple in the air had been rapidly expanding. It had now reached the shore, being blocked by Latios as he forms a bubble of bright light around the trio.

~~~~~Somewhere~~else~~entirely~~~~~

Summer is taking a "vacation" at the Ranger Base in Almia, while Ben and Rand cover their post in Oblivia. Why had Summer returned? Well, quite frankly, Oblivia was boring. Once she'd finished with the whole Pokemon Pinchers and Golden Armour situation, there was not a whole lot left to do. Latias wanted nothing to do with her after the incident with the "Nema-Flyer", and Summer can't blame her.

At present, Summer is hanging around outside the front door of the base with her partner pokemon, Ukulele Pichu. She is on guard duty, which is almost as boring as her post in Oblivia had been. She lets out a small sigh and starts tapping her foot impatiently while scratching Pichu behind the ears. Boredom fails her at that exact moment, as she hears a telepathic cry.

'Help!' It's a female voice, and one that seems rather familiar to Summer.

Was that... "Latias?"

Suddenly, a bright yellow portal appears in the air, sucking Summer and Pichu in.

"Celebi?" Summer calls as she feels herself being pulled out of the world.

~~~~Five~~minutes~~ago~~~~

After a gut-wrenching journey through time, the portal unceremoniously dumps Summer and Pichu on the shore of the island at the centre of Lake Valour.

"Pi–pichhu?"

"Where... am I?"

Moments later, the time portal forms again, this time dumping out a boy Summer doesn't recognize, and a girl who gives Summer an odd feeling of deja vu. I feel like I should recognize her, but I've never seen her before...

As soon as she spots Summer, the girl glares at her and takes an aggressive stance. Her topaz eyes take on an angry gleam, and the sensation of deja vu doubles. It's also accompanied by guilt, and Summer cannot think of any reason as to why.

"Lita, do you know her?" the boy asks, at the same time as Summer voices a very similar question.

"D– do I know you?"

The girl merely growls, then looks away. Summer gets a view of her hairstyle as she does so, and her left hand immediately clasps over her Styler in surprise. Is – is that... Latias's Ranger Sign? The Eon Emblem? On her HAIR?

Just as Summer is about to activate her Styler and draw the Ranger Sign, Celebi appears out of another yellow time portal.

'Come on, there's no time to waste! The explosion will go off in three minutes, we need to head into the cave!' A panicked-sounding female voice that seems to belong to Celebi enters the minds of everyone present. With that, Celebi flies off into the cave. Ethan shrugs and follows, along with Lita, who walks beside him stiffly. Summer is more confused than anyone, and looks around left and right, then behind her, before following with Pichu behind her.

Once they enter the cave, they are greeted with a strange sight. Azelf is in the middle of the cave, pacing as best as a floating, two-foot-tall Legendary can and ranting telepathically to itself.

'Those damned humans. What wretched creature destroys a world in which he does not even live? They killed my brethren in that world. They destroyed the spirits of all who resided in that dimension! They must be punished. Them and all their kind. It cannot compare to the crime they have committed, but they shall have my retribution!' Azelf pauses and begins to shine a pure white light. Then he calls out the fatal command. 'EXPLOSION!'

Celebi warps them away as the suicidal attack destroys the cave and causes the very force of Will itself to be ripped away from the world, creating a rippling pressure in the air as it annihilates itself in a rapidly-expanding ring.

~~~~...~~...~~~~

Ethan finds himself in an ethereal, yellow-gold void. With him in this void are Lita, Celebi, the weird pichu, and that other girl. He can see them, with the exception of Celebi, standing on nothing in the world of gold, same as him.

"What... what is this place?" Ethan voices the question he expects everyone else is thinking. However, he is surprised by Summer's response.

"We appear to be in a time portal. I've time travelled with Celebi before, but never for this long."

"Pi-pichuuu..."

'That's because we aren't here to time travel. We're here so I can discuss something with you all.'

Everyone shuts up to hear what Celebi has to say. Not that they really have to, since Celebi uses telepathy, but they do anyway.

'What I've done is opened the portal, put us in, then closed the portal without opening it somewhere else. We're still anchored to that time though, so if something were to happen you'd all be dumped out at random places in the world at the time you left.' Celebi pauses, presumably to fix her train of thought. 'Anyway, let's not get into that. It's really complicated and not what we're here to talk about. Now, can any of you tell me what happened back there?'

"Azelf used Explosion." Ethan states the obvious.

"He destroyed the cave, too," Summer continues.

"That would destabilize the power of will itself, would it not?" Lita surmises. Everyone stares at her in shock.

"How do you know this stuff?" Summer asks.

'I'm an Eon Pokemon. It's my job.'

Summer opens her mouth to respond, but is interrupted by Celebi. 'Lita here is correct. And what's more, Azelf killed itself with that attack. Without its cave intact, this means that willpower has erased itself from the world in your time.'

Summer visibly flinches and stumbles back dramatically. "What?" she cries.

"You've gotta be kidding!" Ethan rhetorically adds.

Celebi ignores him. 'This will remove all ability to plan, to work towards a goal. Civilization itself will end. Certainly, this is something no human or Pokemon wants.'

"Pi! Picchu!"

'I was getting to that, little one. I have discovered the cause of Azelf's destructive actions. Humans from your world have killed Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf in an alternate dimension. So here is what you must do. I will send you to the past in that alternate dimension, and you will stop those humans from doing this. Got that?'

"Yes, sir!" Summer promptly performs her Ranger Pose, while her styler projects the words 'Mission: Protect the Spirit Trio!' into the air above her. Lita fails to stop herself from cheering along with her, and Pichu spins around and twangs his ukulele.

Ethan and Celebi facepalm. 'I'm female,' Celebi says flatly.

"Sorry, ma'am!"

'That makes me feel old.'

Ethan looks from Summer to Celebi, and back again. "Are we going, or what?"

Celebi opens the portal, glaring huffily at Ethan the whole time, and the group of four is sucked through to the world visible on the other side. But as they're half-way through the portal, it suddenly closes on them! To Ethan, it feels as though he's being split in half. The pain is enough to make him want to scream, but he never gets the chance as his mind abruptly shuts off.


A/N: OK, now I'm sure you guys are confused, so I'll explain a bit. Lita the latias is Ethan's pokemon. She's the same latias that flies around Kanto after you beat the Indigo League in Heartgold.

The reason Summer reacted the way she did when seeing the time portal, well... if you've played Pokemon Ranger: Guardian Signs, you'll know that the player character in that game, either Ben or Summer, sees Celebi repeatedly, and each time is dragged against their will through a time portal to the past. At this point, it's been a good long while since she last saw Celebi, and then she sees this time portal in front of her while she's in a completely different region from the one she was in when she met Celebi all the previous times.

Anyway, if you liked it, or if you didn't like it, review! And I'll see you people next chapter.