I have just had an awesome piece of inspiration for chapter 15, And I'll put it up as soon as I can. Hopefully I can get it finished before the Indigo effect wears off (see my profile for what that means).

# # # WARNING: # # #

This story is a rewrite of the movie Pokemon Heroes, therefore it will contain spoilers. None of them are spoilers about the end, because that's totally different from the movie. Contains mild swearing in later chapters. This story has been rated T to be safe.

# # # DISCLAIMER: # # #

I do not own Pokemon, but I do own the character portrayed in this story under the name of Ganon, as I own myself. I am the basis of some personality traits of the character, and as far as I am aware, it's fine to include the author as a character. I also own scenes and objects not in the original movie.

Lateral Ganon.

# # # Chapter specific notes # # #

Kinaesthetic means practical, I think.

HUD is a heads up display. Like Samus Aran's visor to Metroid fans.

Words in Italics are thoughts. Typically Ganon's.

'

Chapter 1: Hitching A Wave

It was sweltering hot that day, even by Altomare's standards. The temperature was topping 28 degrees, but it was perfect weather for the Tour de Altomare which was scheduled to start in ten minutes. Barely a cloud in the sky…

A Sneasel was clinging on a tall boy's back as he made his way though the crowds gathering on the bridge to watch as the race contenders were warming up. Sneasel was having particular discomfort in these conditions, being a Dark-Ice Pokemon, and was rapidly becoming very weak and frail on the boys shoulder.

"Sneasel, I told you that you staying out of your pokeball today would have been a bad idea." the boy chided. He knew that Sneasel wasn't listening, as he could feel the pokemon's claws losing their grip on his back. He sighed before bring out a pink parasol for Sneasel to use to shade herself.

He suddenly saw something on the floor under him. Dark Glasses. He realised that this would allow her to stay out of the pokeball indefinitely. He took the glasses from the floor, and offered them to her. The Sneasel was spellbound, and eagerly grabbed the glasses and knocked a Pidgey out of the air with a powered up Dark Pulse. It glared straight back at her, and suddenly evolved into a Pidgeotto. It swooped in, forcing her to fend the rogue bird away with the parasol. Ganon sighed as he grabbed the bird from mid-air, before looking into it's eyes and releasing it. It flew off as though nothing had happened.

"Sneasel, don't go picking fights when you look camper than a row of tents… pink tents at that…" the boy laughed. She was supposed to be strong. Having an interest in pink was not something that most sneasels would brag about.

Sneasel didn't take kindly to this comment, of course she wouldn't, she was a mean scary Dark type Pokemon, and responded by biting him in the shoulder. Of course this had the adverse affect of making him jolt suddenly, almost throwing her off into the canal after the Pidgeotto.

As the jolt of the bite spun him around, he saw the reason why he was here. He saw a deeply tanned man in an orange shirt cradling a Togepi in his arms standing by the leading edge of the bridge. This person he knew to be Brock, a Pokemon breeder, and more importantly, known to be travelling with the Legendary Ash Ketchum. From now on, the pair was treading on extremely thin ice, so to speak. He needed to integrate with the group into a trustworthy position, and Brock tended to be the most accepting.

He jostled his way through the crowds to stand just behind Brock to be able to speak to him. As he got near him, he heard the announcement informing spectators that the race would be beginning shortly.

'Are you ready for the main event?' He heard, considering the irony. Of course he was ready. Everything he had set up was in place. Only a matter of minutes until the race began.

He looked to his counterpart in the starting block. The Ditto he'd fixed up to take his place was flexing his human joints behind Ash Ketchum pretty much like most of the other trainers were, and looked up to his trainer on the bridge before nodding. He'd let his Ditto race using a Quagsire that he'd maxed out the speed of with plenty of Carbos supplements. No-one on the testing committee would notice, as he had designed it himself. Totally undetectable. He wasn't intending to cheat in the race, he just needed the Pokemon to be fast enough to catch up with the leaders of the pack.

'When you hear the Xatu, that will be your cue!' He smiled as the Natus and the Xatu counted down to mark the start of the race. He flipped down a single eyepiece.

'Xatu!'

The race was now under way, and so was the events that had set in motion. He knew that Latios and Latias couldn't keep away from this event. They loved any form of competition. He smirked slightly as he remembered.

He waited until the contestants had rounded the first corner before moving forward to talk to Brock.

Gently, Gently.

"So then, you must be Brock." He said as casually as possible, hoping it wouldn't scare the man. No such luck. Brock practically jumped out of his skin as he was addressed. The stupor caused by his attempts to flirt with a girl that just pushed to the front next to him diffused immediately.

"Who are you?!" Brock stammered at him.

Blimey! for the oldest male in their trio he sure is a scaredy cat.

Brock eyed the person carefully; the boy who had just addressed him was 6 foot exactly with royal blue trousers and t-shirt. He wore a long white waistcoat which buttoned on the chest, leaving most of his shirt visible beneath it, although the sides dangled down past his waist. He wore blue fingerless gloves and a silk bandana around his forehead like a sweat band. His hair was pure silver and spiky, with the largest spikes at the sides of his head. Narrow glasses were perched on his nose. He appeared to have the intelligence of a renowned professor, even though he couldn't have been older than 17. The comical Sneasel poking its face over his shoulder just accented the intelligence.

"Me? Oh, I am a Pokemon conserver, trainer and breeder. I could also be classed as a master, but I spend most of my time as a kinaesthetic researcher" He put a lot of force into the word breeder; hopefully Brock would subconsciously pick up on that, "My name is Ganon, at your service."

"And a surname?" Brock asked, slightly intrigued by the boy. If he was a master, then Ash would love to meet him, and as a breeder, Brock could pick up some tips of his own.

"That's all you need to know." He said. He didn't have a surname. He was unique enough to be identified on that alone.

Brock was surprised when he realised he'd never heard of Ganon before. Usually when a trainer became a master, the asociated fame and glamour left them paralysed by the throng of fans around him.

"If you're a master, how come I've never heard of you?" Brock asked him. If Ganon didn't have a convincing answer, then he'd abandon him immediately.

"The press don't really care for Masters that enter the field of research. It's the unfortunate fate of the intellectuals."

The story checked out. He could easily accept his word as of being a breeder based on the condition of the Sneasel. It was purring happily against his shoulder. A chorus of cheers around him broke his chain of thought.

At that moment, the main board showed Ash and Misty in the lead with Ross. Ganon pretended to cheer with the rest of them, but he was only interested by the small part of his Quagsire that could be seen in the corner.

Brock however was ecstatic about his friends being in the lead and pointing at the screen whilst bragging about his friends being out in front to the lady who was stood next to him. When he looked around at her, he noticed that the lady had wandered off with someone else and a very old woman had walked in instead. She saw Brock looking at her and tried to give him a kiss. He recoiled abruptly in sheer terror.

Ganon suddenly had more pressing concerns; Ash was in the lead, but Ross was closing in fast. Wailmers really packed a punch when they collided. He slipped his left glove off quickly, and swapped it for a glove coated in sensors. Brock thought he saw something on the back of his hand briefly, then dismissed it as he noticed a wire had been trailing across. Ganon held his hand straight up in front of him, looking as though he was doing a strange salute as he closed his fist.. The Quagsire moved forwards faster, and as the Ganon-Ditto entered the screen, it's eyes appeared strangely glazed over.

"Who are you doing, Ganon?"

"And Ganon has taken the lead into the Vedan Bridge!"

Both of them turned around to see a live picture from a Yanma-Cam showing what appeared to be Ganon in a pair of orange swim shorts. He silently swore under his breath. The lack of concentration meant that he'd made ditto accelerate too far forwards. He cringed as he saw his comparatively scrawny body. He really didn't want his body on parade. Especially the three sided birthmark on his naval.

"Hey, but if I'm talking to you, who's that on there?" Brock asked looking very confused. Not surprising.

"That one is my finest specimen of Ditto. It has intelligence to rival most of the common Pokemon, and..." He looked specifically to Brock, "superior to quite a few human trainers I've met, but now is not the time to talk about that, I need to concentrate. I fitted him with a chip that allows me to control him directly." He gestured to his hand and face with his free arm.

Ganon suddenly gasped. He had seen something behing him in the HUD.

The board showed the Ditto-Ganon in the lead suddenly doubling back after Ross and Misty had passed through a sharp corner. Ash was no where in sight.

Ganons arm suddenly made a series of bizzare movements next to Brock. He moved away slightly, think that Ganon was having a fit. He saw the concentration on Ganons face though and realised that he was doing something important. The sweat on his brow was clearly evident.

Ganon had thrown Ditto off the chariot when he got next to Ash. He had pulled Ash back onto his own chariot, and leapt out of the water onto his own too. He looked briefly up at the window that Ash would have crashed into, and smiled briefly, before shaking the Quagsires leash to continue racing.

Ash sped off with the Ditto-Ganon hot on his heels. Ganon turned off the glove.

Ganon opened a small grey plastic device with two vertically stacked screens. He turned the device on and removed a stylus from the back of the machine. He searched through the menu with practiced ease, until he found the filters menu.

"Filter... Show enthalpy." Ganon whispered to himself as he tapped the option, suddenly rendering the eyepiece into shades of red and blue: Thermal Imaging.

"What is that thing, Ganon?" Brock asked, slightly worried. This device had never been seen before in any of the lands of Pokemon.

"It's a special device I got during my travels. I beleive it is the only one in the world."

Brock didn't question his assumption. The device looked bizarre to say the least. Two screens for goodness sake. Even the new Pokedexes weren't that crazy yet.

Even though Ganon was exceptionally talented in its use, nature always throws in something to ruin it. In this case it was that Latias suddenly grabbed Totodile's leash and dragged Ash and his chariot at breakneck speed. He hadn't anticipated the sheer size of the bow wave Ash made as he passed by, flipping the chariot in the water.

This shocked Ganon, but he was blessed with quick reactions and was just able to make out a warm red shape dragging along a small yellow Totodile, and a mostly pinky-red Ash. But never the less, he had spotted the Latias, and this was definately surprising. The temperature of a Lati was related to it's level of excitement, so she must have really enjoyed being here. He smiled as he saw her. It had been so long.

They could see Ross and Misty from the bridge now as they rounded the final corner. They were neck and neck as Ganon sensed something coming closer. Or more like someone.

'Wait a minute, It looks like Ash Ketchum and his totodile were just shot out of a cannon!'

He smiled as he saw Ash pelting around the corner with his Totodile running on the water. It raced through the two others, leaving chaos in it's wake as they both struggled to remain upright. They both hung on... barely.

'And Ash has taken the lead, coming into the home stretch!'

Ganon smiled as he noticed the Totodile was suddenly dragged of his feet. Now he could clearly see that Latias had grabbed Totodiles leash, granting him the original burst of speed, but now that Latios had grabbed her by the shoulders, he was dragging them along even faster. He knew that Latios's could exceed the speed of a jet, but he also knew that they were honour bound, and hated cheating in all forms, even if it was his own sister. He dragged her and Ash into a side canal, instantly disqualifying them.

'Oh! Wrong turn Ash! And that's going to cost him the race.'

Ganon watched the side street briefly, before he noticed that the race had finished. It was going to the judges. He watched the slow-mo as it appeared that Misty's corsola had just won. He took of the bandana, and stuffed it into the nylon backpack he had on underneath Sneasel. He saw his Ditto cross the line a few seconds later. He smirked as he saw it raising it's arms above it's head in a winning pose. He'd taught it that himself just to make sure it wasn't too obvious that it was an imposter.

Ganon was happy that Ditto had done his job, but he wasn't finished with it yet.

"Brock, you seem like a good breeder to me, so I'll make a gift of my Ditto to you. How would you like that? Then you don't have to find the other gender of Pokemon in order to breed them."

"What? Wow! But why are you giving it to me?" Brock was unsure. He knew there was no such thing as free trained Pokemon. Ganon almost chuckled at him. Almost.

"You obviously spend a lot of effort learning about Pokemon breeding, so consider it a mark of friendship." …a bit of flattery got you everywhere these days. And failing that, bribery. They would both work with enough skill. And skill was his middle name. If he had a middle name that is...

Brock was elated at the prospect of being able to realise his dream of becoming a Pokemon breeder, so accepted without question.

"So, what happened to Ash?" Brock asked.

"I don't know Brock, I really don't know." Ganon lied.

Further insights into his character will appear as the story progresses into later chapters. As for the original ending of the movie, that ends up quite different due to this boys presence, so it can't be shrugged off by assuming you know the plot by seeing the movie. All I can tell you is, it has sent two grown ups crying when they beta-read it. Yes, really.