A New Year
Despite it being the dead of night - 11:54 to be exact - Stativae City of the Discordia region was anything but asleep. The streets were illuminated with flashing, neon lights which bursted from the windows of the many high-end condominiums, and even outside, the pounding of hundreds of different songs could be felt blaring through the walls of each building.
While the city of Stativae was known for its wild celebrations, this night was a bit more intense than usual. Everyone was counting down the final six minutes of the old year, and eagerly anticipating the new.
Inside one of the classiest homes toward the center of the city was a gathering featuring dozens of Discordia's most successful business-people, all around the ages of 40 to 50. Except for Damon.
"Please, behave yourself, Damon," his parents had warned him before allowing him to accompany them to the social event. Damon's mother was the CEO of Pokétech, a thriving company that produced various innovations of popular pieces of technology. His father worked as one of Pokétech's engineers. The two were invited to the social, but after explaining that they could not leave their 16-year-old son home by himself, convinced the host to grant him an invitation as well, making him the only guest under the age of, as he saw it, 900.
Not letting the presence of the older generation stop him from having a good time, Damon had been throwing his own party, clearing a space in the venue's living room to make a dance floor and blasting a playlist he came up with on his own. He was a sight to see; a lone teenager banging his head a bit too intensely, surrounded by upper-class, stuck-up old people with graying hair and glasses of champagne.
Damon had been raving for hours and wasn't about to stop for anything.
As the time on his smartphone (one of Pokétech's more popular devices) clicked to 11:58, Damon's vision suddenly got blurry, and his movements became sluggish. It felt as if he were underwater. Slowly, the young boy stopped dancing and raised his hand to massage the back of his head, where a faint headache was developing.
Then, as quickly as it had come, the sensation vanished, with no inkling that it had even occurred at all. Damon looked around frantically. No one seemed to notice a change in his attitude (aside from his lack of dancing), nor did anyone appear to have experienced the discomfort as well.
"What the hell," he muttered. He shivered, then shrugged off the whole ordeal. He had probably just imagined it. The head-splitting volume of the music and his growing fatigue must have been getting to him.
Damon went to resume his personal party when the feeling came again, and this time, both his hands flew up to cover his ears, as if they could stop the ringing sensation that was engulfing his mind. He felt woozy, intoxicated almost, which was impossible since none of the adults would even let him near their beverages.
Trying to compose himself, Damon straightened up and lowered his hands, attempting to take a step toward the bathroom, but it was a lost cause. His body moved, but his feet did not. Lurching forward, he had to quickly shift his weight to keep from toppling over. He probably would have been on the floor if an older gentleman in thin-framed glasses hadn't appeared and grabbed him by the shoulders.
The man's mouth moved, but it was hard to make out what he was saying. Suddenly, the man became two, then three, then back to one. Damon felt as if he was losing consciousness, but he wasn't about to let that happen. He blinked hard and tried to focus only on the man's lips. "You alright?" he appeared to be asking.
"F-fine," Damon slurred, stepping away from the concerned fellow. Using a coffee table for support, he stumbled toward the closest door there was, which led to the balcony.
Good, he thought. The fresh air will help.
After what felt like hours, Damon reached the balcony and slammed the sliding glass door behind him. Instantly, the music dulled, but his head was still pounding. He fell forward, catching on the railing to help keep himself upright. He looked down, the fuzziness of his vision getting worse. Five stories up, he wondered. Or is it six? He couldn't tell. For all he knew, he could be five feet from the street below. His depth perception was failing him.
11:59. He gripped the railing tightly, his hands moistening with sweat. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying anything to get his anguishing headache to go away. He heard the sound of voices from inside. They were...chanting? No, counting. Counting down until the new year. With each number, Damon's ailment seemed to worsen until he couldn't stand it anymore.
3.
He gritted his teeth.
2.
He squeezed the railing tighter. He closed his eyes harder.
1.
He screamed.
There was an explosion. Fireworks? No, an actual, forceful, malicious explosion. It came from behind him, inside the condominium. The strength of it sent Damon up and over the railing, his clammy hands slipping out of their grip. He continued to scream, no longer from the pain in his head, but from the feeling of vast emptiness below him.
He fell. Scrambling, his hands searched for anything to latch onto. His eyes opened as he fell past one floor, then a second, then a third. How much longer until he hit the pavement? His shouts were joined by others from inside Stativae's residences. He saw faces through the windows blur past as he fell. Some of the homes even looked like they were illuminated by a bright orange light. Fire?
Using every last ounce of his strength, Damon willed his body forward and his hands struck the railing of another balcony. Still sweaty, however, he had to adjust his grip so that he wouldn't fall again. His heart was in his stomach, and his mind was all over the place. What was going on?
He quickly realized that something was missing. The headache. It had passed. If he wasn't dangling from the balcony of someone's apartment, he would have felt as good as knew. What was that feeling?
A slight stinging sensation on the back of his right hand caused him to look up, and he screamed again. At some point during all this, a radiant blue mark had appeared on his hand, as if it had been branded. It took the shape of a vertical line that split in two toward the top, each end curving downward. It looked almost like the letter "Y," or a ram's horns.
Damon's shock caused him to let go with his right hand. He immediately panicked and scrambled to regain his hold on the railing, to no avail. He slipped once again and found himself free falling toward the city street, which he could now see was dangerously close.
He closed his eyes and prayed for the best, though he knew his odds were slim.
Just when he thought it was about to be over, Damon felt a piercing sensation in each of his biceps, as if someone had taken needles and plunged them through each arm. Trickles of blood began to ooze out of the wounds, but one thing he did not feel was the impact of the ground.
Damon opened his eyes and noticed that they were not needles, but talons. In a matter of seconds, he was lowered to safety. His feet hit the cobblestone street hard as the talons released him. He tumbled forward, probably earning several scrapes and bruises, but he wasn't dead.
Looking up to meet the eyes of his savior, Damon stared in awe as a Pokémon he had only heard of (a Pidgeot) flapped its wings and hovered several feet above the ground. It only locked eyes with Damon for a brief second before giving him a once over, making sure he wasn't seriously injured, and soaring off without giving Damon the chance say a word.
Now that he wasn't plummeting toward the ground or oppressed by a killer headache, Damon allowed himself to forget about the strange mark on his hand and tune in to what was going on. Around him was just a bit of rubble and shattered glass that must have fallen from the complex above. There were evidently flames scattered all over and the sound of car alarms and desperate shouts filled the air. People began to burst onto the street in a state of panic. What was going on?
Someone shoved past Damon with a Pokémon on her shoulder. It was a small, monkey-like creature with a blue sprout atop its head. The trainer ordered it to use Water Gun and ran closer to one of the buildings that was catching fire. Coming from the other direction was a sobbing young boy who seemed to have lost his parents. Before Damon could do anything, the boy let out a wail and ran off.
He had to do something, but Damon wasn't a trainer, nor was he particularly strong or intelligent. Clenching his fists, he darted off in the opposite direction as the trainer with the water-monkey, toward the center of Stativae City.
As he neared the center of the city, more people and Pokémon flooded the street. He was about halfway to the city's center, where the crowd was thinner, when he noticed a group of three men, all wearing the same gray and red uniform. One pointed when he spotted Damon.
"There's one," he spat with a wicked grin on his face. The man released a large, purple, kobra-like Pokémon and bellowed, "Seize him."
Damon stiffened with fear as the snake came barreling toward him, fangs at the ready. He quickly ducked out of the way and sprinted into a nearby alleyway. The Pokémon was right on his heels, and if it weren't for the alley's frequent sharp corners, Damon would've been a goner, but the quicker he turned, the harder the snake slammed into the stone walls.
He was just coming out of a turn when he was tackled from the side into a dark corner, hitting his head on the wall. As terrified as he was, Damon kept quiet as he watched the snake Pokémon slither past, followed by two of the strange men.
He was now beginning to feel faint, similar to how he felt at the party. Damon turned his head to get a look at who had attacked him. As his vision began to fade, he took in the face of a girl about his age with long, messy, brown hair just slightly lighter than his own. She lifted a finger to her mouth as if to tell him to remain quiet, and the last thing Damon noticed before falling unconscious was the glowing, circular mark on the back of her hand.
A/N: Hi!
Some of you may know me, some of you may not, but regardless, I figured I'd just give a bit of a blurb seeing as this is the first chapter. I've been away from writing for a while and I figured I'd try to get back into it. The idea for this story has been floating around in my head for a while, so I wanted to put it out there for you guys to enjoy.
What do you think? Granted, there's not much to go off of from this chapter. We've yet to see much of Damon's character or any significant hints to the plot, but nevertheless, I'd like to know how you feel! What's up with that headache and the thing on Damon's hand? Who are those people with the Arbok? Who's the girl who pushed Damon out of its way? And why the hell is everything blowing up?
Lemme know how you feel in the reviews, and stick around to find out more!
Until next time,
Connor