Chapter 1 – The Mystery Begins
"Keep digging, we are sure to find it soon". Hundreds of miles from civilization, in the middle of the desert, five Pokémon researchers dug into the side of an isolated cliff face. It was that time of day when the sun is at it's hottest and dehydration starts to take over, everything is annoying and you just want to cool down and sleep. The scientists had set up a small camp at this cliff some days ago, with the mission to dig until 'it' was found.
"We are tired of digging. Can't we just have a break?" complained one of the scientists, the rest of the diggers joining in to attempt to further the plea.
"No! We are on strict orders to find 'it' as fast as possible. Now get back to digging!" The leader of the investigative team didn't like to hear anything from the diggers. He sat back on his deck chair, with his magazine, under the shade of his outdoor tent, and began to read this months issue of "PokéScience".
For more and more hours, the diggers worked endlessly at the cliff face in an attempt to find it. There was a sudden 'chink' of a shovel blade against something hard. The digger got a little excited then, and rammed the shovel blade into the solid object, and immediately felt an enormous surge of energy pass through the handle and throw him backwards onto the hot, sandy ground.
"We found it! We found it!" yelled the diggers. The team leader threw aside his magazine and bolted to the cliff face to investigate. He saw what they had been looking for. He gently touched the cold, hard surface of 'it'. It was solid but very smooth. He could feel the energy pulsing through the solid object.
"Amazing", he whispered, so quiet it was barely audible to the nearest digger.
The team leader stood upright and grabbed the shovel of the closest digger. "Lets bring this baby home", he said.
He launched the shovel straight into the cliff face next to the discovery site, but hit another piece of the strange thing. This time, when the energy pulsed through the shovel, it sent the leader soaring fifty feet in the air, where he landed quite a distance away with a dull thud. He didn't move.
Suddenly, the wall began to glow a brilliant blue colour, then there was a flash and all the diggers were dead. The glowing died down, until there was no light coming from the object in the wall.
-- -- -- -- --
It was a very cold morning in Sandgem town. Colder than usual. During the night there had been some light snowfall, which was very uncommon for the area. The windows on the houses were beginning to frost over. Professor Rowan's laboratory could be seen in the distance, a thin stream of smoke slowly floating out of the chimney. It was all very quiet, except for in one household.
In this one particular house, lived a teenage boy named Zane. On this particular cold morning, Zane was excited because today he could officially become a Pokémon trainer. Strictly speaking, he had already been a trainer for two years, but only around the neighbourhood.
Zane had been given a Pokémon for his birthday two years ago. It was a young Snover that his father had brought back from his visit to the Snowpoint temple, way north in Snowpoint city. From the moment Zane and his Snover had met, they had been the best of friends. They shared a special bond with each other.
Since then, Snover had grown to be a relatively tough opponent. All the kids around the area had their own Pokémon, and Snover had beaten them all. Of course, they weren't the most difficult opponents, being mostly Budews and Chinglings, but they were all wins nonetheless.
The time was eight in the morning, and Zane was excitedly awaiting for eight-thirty when Professor Rowan's lab would open its doors and allow him to get a new Pokémon and start his journey.
His mother was still asleep, and his father was off in some other region Zane had never heard of, adventuring as he normally does.
"Two past eight, oh come on, that was way more than two minutes", Zane thought to himself as he desperately tried to occupy himself with something to make the time fly. He was fiddling with an empty Pokéball, making it open and close.
"Three past eight… Ahhh I can't wait any longer". Zane quickly scrawled a note on a piece of paper and left it on the kitchen table for his mother, snatched up his backpack which contained his Snover, and ran out the door, heading for Professor Rowan's lab.
It wasn't very far to the lab, a kilometre and a half maybe, but in the cold morning air, it starts to feel like five when you are puffing and feeling sharp pains in your chest. The light snowfall during the night could be seen on the trees on either side of the pathway. In the distance, a Pidgey cried out. After that, the trees slowly started to become livelier, as Pokémon began to wake.
Eventually Zane arrived at the doorstep of the professor's lab. He checked his watch, only eight twenty-five.
"Oh come on!" he said out loud. After what seemed like the longest five minutes in the history of the universe, a worker at the laboratory could be seen through the slick glass doors holding a set of keys. After a little fiddling with the keys, the doors were finally unlocked, and Zane went bolting through.
Zane was so excited that he almost went head-first into the wall, but luckily he pulled out of it just before he made contact. He arrived at the big steel doors that lead into the lab. Trying to calm himself, Zane knocked heavily on the door three times, then waited. After a small wait, the doors were pulled open from the inside, and standing in the doorway was Professor Rowan himself.
"Ah… you must be Zane. Do come in".