Renny: So basically this is a Nuzlocke of my Sapphire game, which has its internal battery dried up, so there's no time movement. Which is just weird, but whatever.

Green: I'm guessing this means I won't be in this at all?

Renny: You might, don't worry. Not yet though, at some point. Anyway, if you all wanna know what the main character looks like in my eyes, I will draw a picture and then post it on DeviantART, then link it on my profile on this site. I'm . . . hoping that the chapters in this fic'll be long-ish, but I do know this one may be- mainly because it's accommodating for two worlds.

Green: Do you even know what that word means.

Renny: . . . Yes?

Green: Ugh.

Renny: Yeah, anyway. Prepare to be shocked by the characters' appearance, or at leasy certain aspects of her.

Green: You mean how she has dra-

Renny: NOT A WORD YOU'RE GONNA SPOIL THE SHOCK. Anyway . . . I need a disclaimer!

Green: . . . Renny doesn't own pokemon.

Renny: On with the show!

OOOOOO

The mountain was vast, in both air and land. The air was cold, but not exactly frigid, so it was safe to fly in. The ground, well, the ground was a mountain's flesh- rocky, yet somehow beautiful too.

Also good for hiking, when the occasional human bothered to make his or her way up.

It was covered in snow towards the very, very highest peak. Despite this snow, everywhere else had huge valleys filled with greenery, and was lush and fertile. This mountain was called Winter's Garden by many.

In one of these huge valleys, a cave opening broke up some of the greenery on a small cliff with enough space for several people to stand on comfortably. It was stationed on the wall of the valley, with vines hanging down that acted as a door of sorts. The cliff that was outside of this cave had a path that was just wide enough for two or three people to walk down to the valley below.

The valley itself was covered in rocks, shrubs, grass, everything. The small river that ran through the middle went straight into a huge lake on the other side of the valley. The source of this river and lake came from a huge pool from the near-peak of the mountain, so a waterfall lived at the opposite side of this valley, and the water was always refreshingly cool.

The day was bright, the sun shining softly down on the valley. Rabbits that lived on the mountain hopped about quietly, nibbling on grass that was their food source. A few mice scuttled around, picking up bits of their own food as they scavenged what the rabbits left behind.

And above all this, a humanoid shadow passed over the valley floor. The rabbits out in the open squeaked and ducked for cover, even as the air was pushed out of the way with beating wings.

The humanoid creature touched down on the valley floor gracefully, next to the river, and folded their pure black dragon-esque wings, making a sort of shield. A long, black scaled tail sweeped the grass behind this creature, as they bent down to cup their hands for a drink of the river. The tail had two wing-like tail fins at the tip, to help stabilize flight.

The creature also had pure black hair, seeming like it had been hacked off where it should have been cleanly cut, but it was still so long that it reached the creature's mid-back, tied up by a strong vine. They also had two black, cat-like ears where a humans' ears would have been, and bright blue eyes that contrasted with their hair, wings and tail, along with pale skin.

The humanoid creature drank, being mindful of their clothing (which, because they lived on a mountain, resembled rags), and slowly the rabbits and other animals who were frightened away by the creature's shadow slowly came out of hiding.

A few rabbits hopped up slowly, sniffing cautiously, and, when they sensed no threat from the dragon-winged humanoid creature, settled back into what they had been doing before the creature's shadow had frightened them.

The dragon-winged human glanced at the animals around them, and, with a small smile, spread their wings.

The black wings streatched until they were fully extended, and then slowly beat for a few seconds to test they weren't cramped. Then the creature turned around, and the tail-fins extended as they started beating their wings to take off.

A few seconds later, after a few small bounds, the creature took off and glided on the air to the cave on the cliff.

oooo

Faith woke up slowly. Her wings felt a bit sore, but she had been flying up the mountain to visit a few of the other Dracos scattered around, and they did live further up Winter's Garden than she did.

But whatever.

It had been fun, to exchange stories with her friends and family on the mountain.

The moss she slept on was soft and springy, so at least her sore wings were cushioned. But she still needed to get up anyway, so she slowly stretched out her body, wings and tail included, and stood. Then Faith glanced at her store, which had been a little messed up when she stretched out.

She heard the sound of wing beats outside of her cave, and she looked away from sorting out her store of food to see a boy with pale yellow dragon wings and no tail, pale yellow cat-ears and bright blonde hair, and brown eyes.

" . . . Oh! So you are awake!" the boy exclaimed, and even though Faith couldn't see his face because the sun was behind him, he was almost certainly grinning.

"What the hell do you want now?" Faith muttered.

"Mom told me she-"

"Mom kicked you out again." It wasn't even a question at this point.

"No, she didn't!" the boy scoffed.

"Right . . . how old are you again? Fifteen winters?" Faith asked mockingly. "Yeah, seems more like three if you ask me."

"Oh shut up, at least Mom still lets me live in her cave." the boy said, in an annoying whine.

"Yeah, no, she let me get my own cave even though I'm only twelve winters- what does that say about you? That you're an immature brat." Faith told him, smirking.

"Shut up."

"See, that's exactly why I always win these, because the best argument you can come up with is 'shut up'." Faith said.

"Shut up."

"I rest my claw."

"Oh yeah, Mom sent me up to tell you your stupid humans are coming up." the boy said, disdainfully.

"Hey, they're not stupid, they're my friends! Get lost or else." Faith snapped.

"Or else what, freak?" the boy smirked.

Faith took a few steps until she was standing right in front of him, and even though she was a head and a half smaller than him, the boy still looked a bit intimidated. But he tried to hide it, as usual.

"Or I'll break the only thing that makes you a boy." Faith said calmly. "Liam, get lost."

By the time her human friends came up the pathway to her cave, Liam had flown off. The first human was female, wore things that the humans called 'glasses' or something to see, and her hair was brown, reached her shoulders, and she was a few inches taller than Faith. The second was male, he was incredibly tall, with white hair and red eyes (the humans called this an 'albino'). The third was also male, the same size as the female, with black hair.

With them, they brought a box.

"Faith, hey!" the female called, dashing over happily.

"Lily, what brings you to my neck of the Garden?" Faith grinned, her arms open.

Lily grabbed Faith and hugged her (something which Faith had learnt was a human gesture of affection- for a Draco, it meant she wanted to duel).

"We got some new cards!" Lily cried, pulling back and snatching the box from the albino.

"Hey!" the albino snapped, when the box was ripped out of his hands.

"Cael, shut up." Lily told him, not even looking in his direction. "Thorn got them this time."

'Thorn' was just a nickname- his real name was Carl, but he hated it, so Faith gave him the nickname. For Dracos, 'Thorn' was a name that meant 'good will', so they all took to it very quickly. According to Lily and Cael, he'd told everyone back in the town to call him Thorn.

"What'd we get then?" Faith asked, as they all seated themselves down on the cave floor- of course, she did put some moss down beforehand.

"Well, as far as I can tell, a few new Energy cards," Thorn began, taking the box from Lily and opening it up. "Along with another Zigzagoon and Linoone, we finally got a few Lotads too, which means we can now play Lombre and Ludicolo."

"Any Skitty or Banette?" Faith asked.

"We still only have the one Skitty, and you've got that." Cael said quietly. He was generally the quietest of the four of them, but when he got into something, he could be as loud as they would be.

"Hey, gimme a break, you ass." Faith said, sticking out her tongue. She whacked him with her tail. "I love that Skitty card."

"No Banette this time." Lily shook her head. "I don't think Primal Clash even has Shuppet or Banette in the deck, really."

"Aw, damn." Faith sighed. "Ah well, let's get on with this- Lily, you ready to kick their asses again?"

"You know it!"

"You won't get lucky this time!" Cael hissed. "This whole thing's mostly down to who gets what card, so if we get a Kyogre or Groudon, you're both screwed."

"Yeah don't forget, we have Skittles." Faith told him smugly, taking out her Skitty card.

It was her favourite card, so the three humans had allowed her to keep it up on the Garden with her. But even so, she still played it into the game- mostly because they always got the Delcatty card to evolve Skittles when they played it. So basically, the Skitty card had become the girls' team mascot and best card when evolved or otherwise.

"So you're the ones who're screwed." Lily smirked.

oooo

They ended up playing three or four rounds, nearly all of which Faith and Lily won. The only time they didn't win was when they didn't get Skittles into the Bench team or on Active duty, as they called it, but they still got to use Groudon for a while.

Then, as they were looking through the deck to sort out the cards for the next game (which they decided would be held in Cael's house, much to his annoyance), Faith found a strange card.

It hadn't been played at all during the game, and it was one of the shiny ones. Faith guessed it was a Supporter, but it didn't even have anything except for the name Cludiant or something, and a picture of some kind of portal.

'Playing this card allows you to become one with the game.'

Must be a typo, or whatever the humans call it, Faith decided. It was probably meant to say 'Playing this card allows you to draw [insert number of cards or whatever here]' or something. Maybe someone in the card makers place was being funny.

"Hey, guys." she called.

Once they'd all seen the Cludiant card, they were all equally as puzzled.

"Did you see anything like this when you checked the deck?" Lily asked Thorn.

"Uh . . . nothing like this, I don't think." Thorn frowned, taking the card from Faith and studying it. "Perhaps the card was slipped in by someone passing by?"

"Unless another Draco knows what a card even is, I doubt it." Faith told him.

"Then I must have glossed over it by accident." Thorn said, handing it back.

" . . . 'Glossed'?" Faith blinked.

"To treat hurriedly or avoid dealing with properly." Thorn explained. "In this case, it must have been an accident."

"But you never gloss over cards!" Lily cried, sounding offended on his behalf.

"Well whatever it is, wherever it came from, what the hell does the description mean?" Cael interrupted.

"Hey, think we should ask the Toy Shop manager?" Lily wondered.

"I doubt that guy even knew; he just sells the stuff, doesn't he?" Faith checked.

"Yep."

"So I guess that means we need to figure out what 'playing this card allows you to become one with the game' means ourselves." Faith shrugged. She turned the card around, checking the back of it (it might have been a fake, you never know) but it seemed to be real.

A few seconds passed.

" . . . Uh, Faith?"

"Yeah?"

They were all looking behind her with wide eyes, even Cael. Her first thought would have been that maybe they were trying to play a trick on her, scare her into looking behind, but then she realised that Cael wasn't the type to get in on this kind of stuff. And . . . she could also feel something like wind behind her.

But her back was to the cave wall, and she was facing the opening, so she shouldn't have felt wind behind her.

She turned around slowly, and froze.

That portal thing that was on the card was now completely real, and was swirling around, blowing wind out. Then it twisted weirdly, and suddenly it was pulling things towards it.

"FAITH, FLY!" Lily screamed suddenly.

And then Faith noticed she was being pulled towards it as well.

She opened her wings, not even caring that she was gonna mess up her store anymore, and tried to fly. But the wind pulling her into the portal was strong, even against her, and just as her three human friends tried to grab hold of her, the portal sucked her in.

oooo

The first thing she noticed was that the world around her was now moving so fast that it was a literal blur, and it looked silvery-blue. She couldn't hear anything except for the whoosh sound of the movement, so Faith assumed that she was in some kind of tunnel.

Well . . . damn, she really shouldn't have read what was on that Cludiant card.

Faith heard something shatter- maybe the blur? Then that would mean she was in some kind of tunnel, no question about it.

Then she was falling. Faith panicked, for a moment forgetting what her species was, and flailed about in the air as a foresgt rushed towards her.

Wait, what the hell am I doing? I can fly, for the Stars' sake!

She spread her wings, beating frantically, and quickly extended her tail fins. They helped to stabilize her flight, and Faith quickly found herself hovering a few feet away from a very prickly-looking tree that could have killed her if she hadn't stopped in time.

Faith's ears were flat on her head, and she was panting softly with a terror that didn't seem to want to go away.

So where the hell had she ended up? And where were her friends?

She felt something slip out of the pocket of her tatty trousers, and Faith squeaked when she realised it was her Skitty card. It must have come out a little when she had been moving through the tunnel-portal thing, and her sudden stop in mid-air must have dislodged it.

Faith quickly dived after it and, just as the card was about to hit the ground and possibly be lost forever (because this grass was really long and she might have accidently blown it away if she had landed), she grabbed it. Relieved beyond words, Faith quickly and carefully put her little Skittles back into her pocket, and glanced around.

Then she landed as softly as she could, because who knew what was in this place.

I don't think I'm on Winter's Garden anymore, was her first thought on the ground.

So that left the question- where was she?

Faith had only ever been to three places. The Winter's Garden (her home), her friends' homes (plus the town too, as an extension), and the small forest outside of the town that acted as a border of sorts. She knew almost every inch of that forest, having played there with her friends, and she never knew the grass to be this tall.

Her wings accidently blew up a small wind wave that knocked some leaves down from a tree as she turned around to check her surroundings, and Faith quickly folded them so they didn't cause any trouble for the wildlife around the forest, if there even was any.

Faith heard a small rustle, and turned to the direction of the sound. In the bushes nearby she could see a small creature moving around, but the fact that she could see it was strange- normally animals were adapted to hide in bushes and such, they didn't have weird bright colours.

" . . . Uh, hello?" Faith tried. As cut off as her species were to the outside world (of course, she was different) they did actually have the ability to understand some animals. It was different for each Draco, and Faith had yet to find which animal species she understood, but if she could talk to this- whatever it was . . .

She could find out where she was.

"What are you?" she called to the creature.

The creature shifted in the bushes, and then it was gone. Faith was a bit disappointed for a few seconds, before she noticed it climbing a tree to a branch that was a few feet away from Faith.

" . . . What are you?" the creature asked.

Awesome, she could understand it!

Oh, wait, no. Not 'it', this creature sounded like a young female.

"Uh, I'm what's called a Draco. You?"

"I'm called Skitty!"

" . . . You're called what now?"

The creature stepped out into the light, where the branch couldn't shield her form with leaves, and Faith couldn't believe what she was seeing.

"Skitty, silly!" the pink kitten-like creature giggled. "Don't you know another pokemon when you see it?"

"I'm . . . not a pokemon."

This wasn't real. How could it be? But there she was, sitting comfortably on a branch like she'd been real forever, a tiny little Skitty. Faith grabbed her Skitty card and looked from the image to the real thing, and summarized that, yes, this pink cat was in fact a Skitty.

"This is insane." Faith breathed, taking a step back so she could study the Skitty properly. "Pokemon- . . . pokemon are just a bunch of pixels, cards, whatever! How . . . how are you . . ."

"What's a pixel?" the Skitty tilted her head curiously. "And a card too?"

"A-a card . . . is this." Faith swallowed, holding up the Skitty card.

"Oh, wow, that's me!" the Skitty cried, with a huge and happy grin.

"Yeah . . . I call it Skittles." Faith admitted.

"Oh, you gave the card-me a nickname?" the Skitty giggled. "That's so cute!"

"Yeah, sure . . ."

Okay, so, here Faith was, a Draco, talking to something that shouldn't have been real, let alone talking to her like it was completely normal. But maybe . . . maybe the tunnel-portal thing had taken her to the pokemon world?

'Playing this card allows you to become one with the game.'

And suddenly it made sense- the card wasn't a playing card, it wasn't even a card at all. Maybe it was some kind of tarot card? But the description was very obviously literal.

Oh.

That meant . . .

Skitty in front of her was actually real.

Faith was in the world of pokemon.

Well damn, she thought.

OOOOOO

Renny: I honestly don't know how many words this has. Won't until I actually upload it. But whatever- it seems long enough for my tastes, so I think I'll leave it off here.

Green: The main character has the same name as that one-eyed Eevee from the Faith comic, you know.

Renny: And?

Green: Just thought I should point it out.

Renny: Right, whatever. Anyway, Cludiant is actually Welsh for Transport. I wanted the card to sound cool and mysterious at the same time, so I decided to call it something in a different language. Or maybe it's actually something else entirely, since I used Google Translate for the word . . . whatever.

Green: How reliable is Google Translate?

Renny: . . . Not that much. But whatever, it's called Cludiant now anyway. You'll find out what happened to the card itself next chapters, hopefully. Read and review, please!