Disclaimer: I do not own pokemon. Or Mario. Or any of Nintendo's intellectual properties or copyrights. Or anything else that isn't mine for that matter.
Pokemon Legends: Sinnoh Saga
Chapter One
Dawn of a Legend
In the land of Sinnoh, there existed a mountain. Mount Coronet. It was said by some to be at the very center of the universe and that it's peak was where the Sinnoh region began.
Eleven years ago an expedition team set out to reach the top of the mountain, aiming to be the first to do so without the aide of pokemon. The conditions were harsh and many of the explorers were forced to back down, only seven would reach the top of the mountain.
No one knows what became of those seven explorers who had reached the summit, but a white light shone down onto the peak of the mountain that night and the explorers disappeared without a trace. It was a light so bright that it could be seen from everywhere within the Sinnoh region. That same night, a young girl was born. A girl by the name of Dawn. Now, eleven years later, Dawn is about to set out on her pokemon journey.
She just doesn't know it yet.
"Come on! Just one more hit and I've got him!" A young girl said to herself, using a white, remote-like controller to guide her heroic avatar. On the tv screen in front of her, an 8-bit sprite of a plumber was evading fireballs being shot at him by a creature resembling a blastoise crossed with a charizard. She was on the final level of her game, about to defeat the evil Bowser to save Princess Breloom and the Shroomish Kingdom. Unfortunately, she slipped up. A stray fireball struck the plumber. A tone played, and the sprite fell to the bottom of the screen.
"NO! I ALMOST HAD HIM!" The girl cried in frustration, hands falling to her side and letting the remote clatter to the floor. "I don't get it! The boss is supposed to be the easy part in these games! Ugh!"
The girl, of course, was Dawn. She was eleven years old, and she was anything but typical. Most girls and boys her age would already be gone out into the world after obtaining her first pokemon, but Dawn wasn't interested. Rather, her interests lied solely in video games. In her small bedroom she had one of every gaming system since the NES, which she recently retired after obtaining the Wii. The rest of her consoles were stacked by the wall in the corner of her room. The Wii's Virtual Console was now providing her with all her retro-gaming needs on one system and her tv stand didn't have room to have two systems set up at once.
Next to the pile of consoles in the corner, along the opposite wall and next to her TV, was a large bookcase filled with all her games. Like the consoles, her game collection extended as far back as the NES. She didn't have every game, of course, but she had a lot. And she kept good care of them too, even the oldest systems and games still worked.
Even ignoring the games and systems themselves, though, it was clear the room belonged to a gamer. The white ceiling and walls were covered in a variety of posters, not one of which depicted an actual pokemon. While many creatures looking like pokemon were featured in the posters, they were video game heroes whose design was based off pokemon. Not just the posters, though. The sheets on the girl's bed, which were still strewn about from when she got up, depicted power-ups from the game she was playing and various items and dolls were displayed on top of her dresser. All related to her games.
Shortly after her defeat, the tv showed a black screen which displayed her remaining lives. 57 in total. Rather than continuing, though, the girl checked the character-like clock on her dresser and let out a sigh. It was just past noon.
"I'll get something to eat first, then I'm coming back and taking that guy down." Dawn thought. "Come to think of it, wasn't there some hour-long special Barry wanted me to watch at eleven? Not that I was all that interested anyway..."
Barry, Dawn's only friend in the town of Twinleaf and a year younger than her. Or rather, as Dawn would put it herself, occassional kidnapper. Though he was her only friend, she didn't think much of him. He was an excitable and impatient young boy that was incredibly eager to get his first pokemon, unlike Dawn. Of the two, he was the only one with a trainer's license even though Dawn could have gotten one a year ago.
"I should definitely get dressed then, he'll definitely be coming over here to rant about...whatever that show was. Gold Gyarados?" Dawn thought, then shrugged. "Whatever! Like I was going to watch it after downloading Mario!"
Dawn walked over to her dresser and changed out of her pajamas and into a pink and black dress with a short skirt and braided her hair with gold bands. She had barely time to finish before she heard footsteps racing up the stairs to her room.
"That would be him now..." She thought, letting out a sigh. As she turned around her door flung open and a blonde haired boy in a striped shirt bolted into the room, skidding to a stop in front of her.
"DAWN!" Barry yelled, frantically waving his arms about. "Dawn! Did you see it? Did you?!"
"If you mean that show, no." Dawn replied flatly. "I was busy playing..."
"Oh, hey, is that a new Wii?" Barry said with a wide grin on his face, rushing over to check it out. "Cool!" He said, then pondered for a moment as he turned back to face Dawn. "Err...what was I saying again?"
"You were asking me if I saw that Green Gyarados thing?"
"NO!" Barry yelled back, waving his arms again. "After that! It was Rowan! Professor Rowan! He was on tv! He's back in Sinnoh!"
Dawn blinked. "Umm...ok? So?"
"Professor Rowan is a pokemon professor! He probably has lots of pokemon!"
"I...don't like where this is going." Dawn thought nervously. Ever fiber in her body was telling her to flee, but to where? The enemy had attacked her in her own home, as usual. There was nowhere for her to run to. All she could do was hope he would leave on his own, as if that ever happened.
"I bet if we asked, he'd give us one!"
"Barry, I told you a hundred times that..."
Barry grabbed Dawn by the hand and pulled her toward the door. "Come on, come on! Let's go, let's go, let's go!"
"No way!" Dawn snapped, pulling her hand away before she could be removed from the comfort of her room. "I'm not interested and I have more important things to do anyway!" Dawn stomped her foot. "There's a princess to be saved!"
"Dawn! You can't spend your entire life just sitting in your room playing video games!"
"Says who? So long as I can still import games in the mail, I don't need to go anywhere!"
"GAH! Its IMPOSSIBLE to argue with you!" Barry reached out and grabbed her again and, in the blink of an eye, Dawn found herself staring at the floor as Barry threw her over his shoulder.
"H-HEY! PUT ME DOWN!" Dawn yelled, pounding against his backside with her fists. It was no use, though. Barry had been kidnapping Dawn to drag her outside for year's now and had long since built up a tolerance to her resistance. Not to mention being able to run while carrying a girl that was a year older than him, bolting out her bedroom door and down the stairs. It was hard to believe someone as scrawny looking as Barry could carry her like that, but that was exactly what was happening.
Barry carried Dawn down the stairs, skipping steps on the way down, and rushed toward the front door. He passed by the kitchen and living room, which were on opposite sides of the hall from each other. The door, fortunately, was still open. Barry entered in such a hurry that he didn't even close it. Meanwhile, Dawn's mother, Joanne, was facing the hallway from the kitchen and sipping a cup of tea when Barry raced by with Dawn and shot out the door.
"Don't be gone long, I'm expecting company." The blue haired woman said calmly. Of course, she didn't expect they'd hear here no matter how loudly she said it.
"BARRY PUT ME DOWN THIS INSTANT!" Dawn shrieked. Barry, of course, didn't listen. He ran straight toward Twin Leaf's northern exit, and only then did Barry finally put her down. Or rather, he dropped her as he tripped over a root sticking out of the ground. Barry fell flat on his face and Dawn was thrown from his arms to land on her back. The fall knocked the wind out of both of them.
Dawn groaned. "You didn't have to drop me..." She slowly sat up, rubbing the back of her head. She glared at Barry when she spotted him doing the same. "This is your fault for kidnapping me, you know!"
"Bah! Like there was any other way to get you out of the house!" Barry shot back, making a sudden recovery and jumping back on his feet.
"I was content to stay there, you know!" Dawn growled, bolting to her feet as well. "Just how the heck do you even plan to get to Sandgem?! There's miles of untamed wilderness hiding who-knows-what between there and here!"
"AHA! But I've already thought of that!" Barry said, waving his left index finger and resting his other hand on his hip. "Its simple! All we have to do is run nonstop! That way, any pokemon that might be hiding in the tall grass or something won't have time to jump out at us, and I bet I could outrun a bidoof any day of the week!"
"Oh? But could you outrun one while carrying me?" Dawn asked, folding her arms in front of her. "I'm not going to go along willingly and if you try to pick me up again I'll bite you."
"Bah! Girls don't bite, they slap!" Barry said. Dawn shot him a dirty look, but he ignored it. "Anyway, if you won't come willingly, then I'll just tell Rowan I need two pokemon and come back with one for you!"
"Or you could just, you know, let me get back to saving the princess..."
"No way! Its time you got your own pokemon and saw the world!"
Dawn narrowed her eyes at him. "You're just saying that because you've heard my mom saying it." Dawn's mother had been trying for years to get Dawn to go outside, ever since she started spending all her time playing video games indoors at age six. At age 10, she tried convincing Dawn to get her own pokemon and explore the region. Her mother even caught a pokemon to give to her, but Dawn wasn't interested.
"Well its true!" Barry said, then turned to face the tall grass that stood between him and Sandgem. "I'm going to take off now! You better still be waiting here when I get back!"
"I'll wait here long enough to see if a bidoof gets you." Dawn thought. "I bet you don't get more than ten feet without finding a bidoof's front teeth burried in your shin." Dawn watched as Barry backed away from the grass and crouched down like a sprinter. She noticed he was grinning, not the least bit afraid that an enraged pokemon might attack him. He then took off, charging toward the grass, but didn't even reach the edge before suddenly...
"HOLD IT!" The voice calling out to them caused Barry to stop in his tracks. Dawn gasped and a wide grin started to creep across her face as she turned around, but it quickly faded when she saw an old man wearing a brown trenchcoat running up to them.
"He doesn't look like any lawyer I know." Dawn thought, frowning.
The old man stopped and looked at the two, seeming more than a little angry with them. "What do you two think you're doing out here with no pokemon to protect you?!" He yelled at them. Dawn quickly stood up and was about to reply when Barry ran up to her.
"Dawn! Don't you know who that is?!" Barry said in a rather loud whisper. Though he didn't let on, Rowan could still hear him talking. "That's Professor Rowan!"
"Is that so?" Dawn said, a mischevious glint in her eyes. "Sorry, Barry, but neither of us are getting a pokemon today!" She thought, then turned to Rowan and smiled sweetly.
"We're so sorry, mister! We were only going to go all the way to Sandgem to see if Professor Rowan would give us any pokemon!" Dawn said while feigning an innocent expression. Barry's jaw dropped in shock and Rowan turned his back to them while he contemplated this.
"What do you think you're doing?!" Barry whispered in outrage, flailing his arms. "I just told you that's Professor Rowan! How could you talk to him like that?!"
"Oh, you did say that, didn't you?" Dawn said as if she had just realized it, then smiled at him. "Oh, but I'm sure he'll be nice enough to give us pokemon!"
"You two!" Rowan said suddenly, startling them. Dawn and Barry quickly turned to face him. "You truly love pokemon, do you?"
"Eh?!" Dawn was taken back by the question and didn't know how to respond. If she said yes, would that somehow convince Rowan to give them pokemon? If she said no, wouldn't it seem contradictory? It was a simple question, but it had Dawn in a bind. Her hesitation would allow Barry to derail her plan.
"Of course we love pokemon!" Barry replied enthusiastically. "You could ask us a million times and the answer would still be yes!"
"Hmm..." Rowan considered Barry's answer, stroking his chin as he eyed the two children. "I wasn't sure at first, but seeing their attitudes there's not a doubt in my mind now. They're the ones I'm here for."
"He's...he's not reconsidering, is he?" Dawn wondered, nervously observing the professor.
"A pair of reckless kids who foolishly leave town without pokemon of their own?" Rowan narrowed his eyes at them. "It worries me to think what people like that would do with pokemon."
"Uh...well..." Barry scuffed at the dirt and looked at the ground. "I was the one who dragged her out here..." He muttered under his breath. He then forced a grin as he looked back at Rowan. "Well, forget about me then and how about giving my friend here a pokemon?"
"Hmm. How big of you..." Rowan mused.
Dawn quickly shook her head. "N-no!" She said frantically, holding her hands up. "I don't really want one, you should just give one to Barry!"
"No, that's quite alright." Rowan smiled and clasped his hands together. "I have decided I will entrust both of you with pokemon!"
"EHHH?!" Dawn nearly shrieked. Barry jumped for joy.
"BUT! You must promise me that you will never recklessly endanger yourselves again!" He cautioned them.
"Oh you don't need to worry about that." Dawn thought, narrowing her eyes. "Pokemon or not, I'm not going anywhere! I have worlds to save, guys with god complexes to beat up, and mad scientist plots to end! Besides, mom already has a pokemon for me and that didn't get me to leave the first time."
"Now then..." Professor Rowan looked around as if trying to find something. Not seeing what he was looking for, he scratched his head in confusion. "Hm? Now where..."
"Professor Rowan!" A boy's voice called out to him. Down the path Rowan had come from a boy about Dawn's age and wearing a beret could be seen carrying a briefcase. "Professor Rowan, you left your briefcase at the lake!" He said when he finally caught up to him. He then gave Dawn and Barry a curious glance. "Err...everything alright here?"
"Ah! There it is!" Rowan smiled as he took the briefcase from the boy. He then set it down on the ground and opened it up, revealing three pokeballs inside. "I was just about to entrust these two with their own pokemon."
"EH?!" The boy stumbled back, looking shocked. "B-but professor! Those three are extremely rare and valuable pokemon and we need them for the experiments! Are you sure about this?!"
"Experiments?" Dawn thought, blinking. She pictured Professor Rowan and the boy running a mad scientist lab, then shook her head. "No, no matter what way I look at him, he doesn't seem like the mad scientist type..."
"Hm..." Rowan contemplated the pokeballs for a moment before turning to the boy and replying. "Lucas, we exist side by side with pokemon. There comes a time when people should meet with pokemon for themselves." Rowan glanced back toward the two, Dawn was sure he was looking at her in particular for some reason. "For these two, I believe that time is now."
"I disagree." Dawn thought. "Sorry, Rowan, but my princess is in another castle. Whatever pokemon you're going to give me will just sit on the shelf with that..." Dawn pondered for a moment, trying to recall the name of the pokemon her mother once tried to stick her with. "...bun-thing?"
"Did you hear that, Dawn?! We're getting our own pokemon!" Barry excitedly said to her. Dawn gave him a very unamused look.
Rowan took two pokeballs out of the briefcase. "I think these would suit you two best." He said, then released the two pokemon. A green turtle pokemon with a leaf on its head appeared in front of Dawn, and an orange monkey pokemon with a flame for a tail appeared in front of Barry. Dawn regarded the pokemon before her curiously, even though she had no interest in becoming a trainer.
"You know, in a way, it kinda looks like..." She thought, trailing off as she stared down at it.
"OH, WOW!" Barry exclaimed, reaching down and picking up the orange furred pokemon. "This guy is my new pokemon? Cool!"
"-Hey, Chimchar, any idea whats going on here?-" The turtle pokemon asked his buddy. Chimchar quickly shook his head.
"-I think its what this guy said! These two will be our trainers now, Turtwig!-" Chimchar replied, the slightest bit of an excited tone noticeable in his voice.
"-Huh...-" Turtwig tilted his head slightly and looked at Dawn observantly. "-You sound pretty excited, but I get the feeling this girl is hopeless somehow.-"
"The grass-type pokemon is known as Turtwig, and the fire-type pokemon is known as Chimchar." Rowan explained to them. "Why don't you two start by giving them nicknames?"
"All we're left with now is Piplup..." Lucas mumbled, shoulders drooping in defeat.
"Well, even if I don't use the little guy at all, I still have an awesome nickname for him!" Dawn thought, grinning widely. She crouched down to be closer to Turtwig. "Turtwig! From now on, your name is Bowser!"
"-Bowser?-" The turtwig thought about it for a moment and then smiled. "-Ok, that sounds like a decent name.-"
"Of course you'd name it that." Barry said, narrowing his eyes at her. He then looked at Chimchar and thought for a moment. "Hmm...how about...Chariko?"
"-Chariko? Sounds fine to me!-" The chimchar said enthusiastically.
"Oh, but..." Barry put Chariko down and looked to Rowan. "You're just giving them to us? Isn't there anything we can do for you in return?"
Rowan smiled. "Well of course! I am a pokemon professor, afterall. If you were able to get data on the various wildlife in Sinnoh and rare pokemon especially..."
"Rare pokemon?" Barry thought for a moment and then quickly grabbed Dawn by the shoulders. "DAWN! I know where we can find a rare pokemon for him!"
"Err...what now?" Dawn said, blinking. "What rare pokemon would you know of?"
"The pokemon at the lake!" Barry said, grinning. "Come on! Let's go check it out already!" He quickly grabbed Dawn by the wrist and dragged her off down the path.
"H-hey! Stop already!" Dawn yelled. Of course, Barry didn't stop at all.
"Chariko! You come too!" He called back to his new pokemon. Chariko and Bowser both nodded and chased off after their trainers. Bowser was moving quite slowly, though, so Chariko picked him up. Chariko carried Bowser over his head as he ran to catch up with Barry and Dawn.
"Well...you definitely matched them well, I'll give you that." Lucas said to Rowan, watching the pokemon and their trainers as they ran off. "But what are we supposed to do now? We only have one pokemon left!" He then asked.
"What else?" Rowan took the final pokeball out of the briefcase and smiled as he handed it to Lucas. "You don't have your pokemon with you, so why don't you take this one?"
"But then we won't have ANY pokemon!" Lucas shouted, waving his arms. "And I don't have my pokemon because..." Lucas stopped and stared blankly as it finally dawned on him.
"Because?"
"...because you told me to send them by boat." Lucas muttered, taking the pokeball from Rowan. "You planned this. You planned all of this. Again. Those two were even from Twinleaf, where you were going next. Somehow you knew you'd meet up with them and give them pokemon, didn't you?"
"Ah...I might have had such an arrangement." Rowan replied, stroking his beard. "Incidentally, it seems my trip to Twinleaf has been cancelled now. I will call Joanne and let her know what happened when I arrive in Sandgem. However, we seem to have a minor problem here..." Rowan gestured toward the briefcase, which had two pokeballs in it.
"But didn't you give those two pokemon to...wait." Lucas slapped his hand against his forehead. "Those two! They bolted without taking the pokeballs!"
"Would you mind taking their pokeballs to them?" Rowan said. Lucas sighed and nodded.
"Yeah, yeah, I got it." Lucas said. He closed up the briefcase and picked it up. "But its partially your fault for putting the pokeballs back in after releasing the pokemon." He added, then took off after Dawn and Barry.
"But of course." Rowan chuckled to himself. "You'll need to get acquainted with your my new assistants, afterall."
"Barry, let go! I can walk!"
"Yeah, but you'll run off!" Barry countered. "We're almost there anyway!" Chariko and Bowser were running alongside them, with Chariko still carrying Bowser over his head to keep up with them.
Barry dragged Dawn past a line of trees and into a large clearing that formed the shore of Lake Verity. A line of trees surrounded the crystal-clear lake on all sides. Barry finally let go of Dawn's wrist once they were in the clearing and ran up to the shore. Chariko finally put Bowser down as well and then caught up with his trainer.
"This is it, Dawn! Lake Verity! I bet that legendary pokemon is out there somewhere!"
"Barry, I know where we are, we both used to play here." Dawn said indignantly, slowly approaching the shoreline herself. "And you know what? We NEVER saw any legendary pokemon here! If there is one we'd have to trigger the right flag first anyway."
"-Flag?-" Bowser looked at her curiously, following along beside her. "-Well I didn't see any flags on the way here, but how would one trigger a flag anyway?-"
"You didn't treat everything like a video game back then either!" Barry shot back. "I mean, geez! Flags?! Next you'll try to save your progress or something!"
"-Save her progress?-" Chariko repeated in confusion, looking at Bowser for an answer.
"-They lost me at flags.-" Bowser replied.
"Come to think of it, there was another girl back then too...she's the one that gave me my NES..." Dawn mumbled, thinking back to their childhood at the lake.
Barry's eye twitched. "That's...that's all you remember her for, isn't it?!" he said, pointing a finger at her. "When I become the next champion you better not just remember me as the guy who dragged you away from your video games!"
"Speaking of which. Princess. Saving. Needs. I'm going." Dawn turned and started to walk away from the lake, resting her hands behind her head. "There's nothing here anyway."
In the midst of their banter, neither Dawn nor Barry noticed the silhouette of a pokemon briefly appear above the water. It let out a cry that got their attention, but had disappeared by the time they looked.
"That cry just now! It must have been the pokemon!" Barry said excitedly.
"EH?!" Dawn rushed to the edge of the lake and scanned the water. "No way! Did we really trigger the right flag already?!"
"What are you two going on about?" Lucas asked them, arriving on the scene with Rowan's briefcase in hand. He dropped the briefcase at his side when he stopped by the lake shore and scanned the water. "Don't go thinking the pokemon of the lake would just show up for you two, the professor and I were already here."
"Maybe you didn't trigger the right flag?" Dawn suggested.
"ENOUGH WITH THE FLAGS!" Barry yelled at her.
"Rowan...I really think we need to reconsider giving pokemon to these two." Lucas thought, letting out a sigh. "Look, I'm only here because you two left your pokeballs behind." Lucas turned to them and held up the briefcase, opening it to reveal Bowser and Chariko's pokeballs.
"Huh?" Barry blinked as he looked over at the pokeballs in the briefcase and was immediately shocked. "ACK! NO! WE DON'T HAVE ANY!"
"Have any what?" Dawn asked, blinking.
"You know! THOSE!" Barry pointed at the pokeballs in the briefcase. "P-O-K-accent E BALLS! We can't catch the lake pokemon without those!"
"-I'm starting to think we didn't end up with the most capable trainers.-" Bowser said to Chariko.
Chariko put his finger to his mouth. "-But Barry said we'll be champions. He'd have to be good, right?-"
"-I think its up to us to make sure our new trainers are able to get by.-" Bowser said, nodding to Chariko. "-Becoming champion will be up to you.-"
"I'm telling you, you two didn't..." Lucas stopped when a rather loud splashing noise was heard in the water. Before he could look to see what it was, a pink and blue pokemon with two tails shot past him and circled around Dawn and Barry. "What the?!"
"The lake pokemon! Its here! Its really here!" Barry yelled frantically. The unknown pokemon continued to circle around him and Dawn, making a noise that sounded like it was in a fit of giggles. Dawn was actually too surprised to say anything, following the pokemon's movements in amazement.
"What's with that pokemon appearing for them and why does it look so happy?" Lucas wondered, blinking in disbelief. He quickly shook his head and then frantically yelled, "What are you two waiting for?! Battle it with your pokemon so we can catch it!"
At the mention of 'battle', the lake pokemon suddenly stopped and floated away. It didn't try to escape, rather it stopped a bit out over the water and seemed like it was waiting for the trainers to make their move.
"Alright, works for me!" Barry stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth and snapped his fingers. "Dawn! You ready!?"
"Umm...r-right..." Dawn replied hesitantly, then pointed out toward the floating pokemon. "Bowser!"
"Chariko!"
"FLAMETHROWER!"
Dawn and Barry called out the attack simultaneously, but neither of their pokemon responded. Lucas stared vacantly at the two before slapping his hand against his forehead. Realizing he would have to take matters into his own hands, he quietly took the single pokeball from his belt and pressed the release button. A red beam fired into the water and materialized into a pokemon, hidden under the surface.
"-I...I don't think I'm strong enough to use that attack.-" Chariko admitted, twiddling his fingers.
"-At least your trainer got that much right.-" Bowser rolled his eyes. "-I can see we have a loooong way to go.-"
"Dawn, a turtwig is a grass-type pokemon. You'll be hard pressed to find a grass-type pokemon that can use Flamethrower. Barry, that Chariko doesn't have much training. It won't be able to use an advanced technique like Flamethrower."
"Oh." Dawn and Barry replied in unison.
"Now, watch." Lucas turned and gestured with his hand toward the lake pokemon. The lake pokemon seemed confused and looked around expectantly, only for a piplup to suddenly burst from the water and strike the pokemon in the rear with his wing. The lake pokemon cried out and floated around in circles, holding its butt with its fingerless hands, then stopped and glared at the piplup.
"I see. So the pokemon's butt is its weakpoint." Dawn said, nodding sagely.
"That's not the lesson here." Lucas muttered.
"-Can...can I change my trainer?-" Bowser asked, looking at Lucas hopefully.
"-Yeah! Me two!-" Chariko chimed in, waving his arms to get Lucas's attention.
Curious about Bowser and Chariko's behaviour, none of the three trainers were watching the two pokemon out in the water. The lake pokemon's eyes, as well as the gem on its forehead, began to glow. Piplup was startled at first as a pink glow surrounded its body, but his expression soon blanked out entirely and left it looking like it was in a daze. The lake pokemon then finally retreated, diving back into the water.
"Great. It fled." Lucas muttered to himself, then took a pokeball in his hand. "Piplup, good try. Back into the pokeball now." Piplup gave no response, seemingly not caring one way or another about being recalled. Lucas placed Piplup's pokeball back on his belt, then took the two pokeball's out of Rowan's briefcase and handed them to Dawn and Barry.
"You two will need those to store your pokemon in, I have to report this encounter to Rowan." Lucas said to them. "You two should drop the lab too, just incase there's any...uh...problems to be resolved." He then turned and left, muttering to himself about getting back the pokemon for their experiments.
"-Hey, didn't Piplup seem kinda odd just now?-" Chariko asked Bowser.
"-Yeah, kinda seemed like all the emotion was drained out of him all of a sudden.-" Bowser said. "-That's just silly, though. A pokemon couldn't do something like that.-"
"Well, so much for catching the lake pokemon." Barry said, letting out an exasperated sigh. Turning to his pokemon, he clenched a fist determinedly. "But we can't let this experience hold us back! We're going to become the best there is, right Chariko!?"
"-You got it!-" Chariko replied, jumping up excitedly.
"Dawn! I'm going to go home and pack for my league challenge, but you shouldn't stick around here either! See ya around!" Barry then took off, dashing back toward Twinleaf with Chariko quickly taking off after him and following close behind.
"Hmm..." Dawn glanced out toward the lake, then looked down at Bowser and said, "Bowser, don't you find it odd that neither Barry or Lucas said anything about what that pokemon was saying?"
"-Umm...most humans can't understand pokemon to my knowledge, so no?-" Bowser said, looking at her curiously.
"It kept saying things like, 'you're back, you're back!' and 'look how much you grew!', like it actually recognized us. But if I'm the only one that understood it, you know what that means, don't you?"
"-You have some kind of mystical connection to that pokemon?-" Bowser suggested.
"It means I MIGHT just have to cut back on the video games a bit." Dawn said. "Well, as soon as I rescue the princess..." Dawn then turned and started to leave the lake.
"-Princess? We're going to rescue a princess? Then let's get going already!-" Bowser said, following along beside her. After they had left, a blue haired man in spacesuit-like attire stepped out of the trees and watched her leave, stroking his chin in contemplation.
"Seems I was right to watch these children. The legendary pokemon appeared so willingly before them." He glanced out toward the lake, folding his hands behind his back. "Mesprit...in due time, I will come for you. Until then, hide while you can, legendary pokemon of the lake bed..."
Author's Notes: And...that's that! First chapter of the "legendsverse" Sinnoh Saga. Fairly true to the ingame story with some liberties taken to speed things up a bit. I wanted to be quite different with Dawn's personality compared to past characters, though. Her obsession with video games will be a driving force behind her goals on more than one occassion. As for the status of video games in the pokemon world...well, Nintendo seems to do fairly well since the main character owns a Wii in the games.
Character ages, for those curious, at 10 for Barry, 11 for Dawn, and 12 for Lucas. Lucas already has a two-year start as a trainer but, as mentioned, he's been temporarily separated from his old pokemon. Anyone who read the sidestories would remember him making a brief appearance with three pokemon. One might notice his remaining pokemon might not be quite battle worthy at this point either. Poor guy can't catch a break...
Next chapter will introduce the first OT for this saga, as well as a brief cameo by one of the older characters. And Dawn might actually get the motivation to leave home on her own for a change.
Think thats all I wanted to make note of here. Can't remember anything else anyway. So, yeah. Feel free to leave a review if this is the first time you've read one of my fics and hope to see you next chapter!