A/N: Hello, everyone. I've returned to (after a long break) and I hope I can get back into stride. For those of you who are reading my other story, I have not given up on it. I've just hit a dead end, and hopefully working on this story will help me through it.

I have in the past been somewhat contemptuous of people who write the type of story I am now embarking on (The more clever among you will realize what type that is, exactly). In fact, that was a large part of the reason I decided to do it—I wanted to see if it was possible to write a good one. I hope you all like it, and don't give up on The End Days, because I might just have an idea or two coming.

Enjoy!

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Nighttime can be a quiet time. In the winter, for example, when new-fallen snow settles a hush on the dead landscape. Or in small towns, where children obey curfews and their parents believe in early to bed, early to rise. Nighttime is quiet in such places.

In Ilex forest, the night is loud. Crickets and bug Pokémon fill the air with their small noises. Hoothoots and the occasional Noctowl sound their ghostly voices. The occasional squeal of a creature taken by a night hunter punctuates the sound.

The noise frightened Tess Richards. She drew her coat more tightly around her, her left hand resting on one of the Pokéballs at her belt. She knew it was silly to be frightened; after all, they were only noises, but still…

She thought she would take out a Pokémon. Just to be safe.

Tess gripped the ball tightly, and pulled. There was a small clik! as the clamps on the belt released it. She hadn't wanted a trainer belt—it was ugly, and more importantly it marked her as a rookie trainer, following the rules like a good little girl—but her father had insisted. He had accepted that his daughter would want to try training, but he was damned if his little girl was going without a belt. He saw it as a safety issue—her Pokémon were her best protection. It was harder to steal from a trainer belt, and he wanted her to be able to get at her Pokéballs as quickly as possible should she need them.

Tess, thirteen years old, of course thought her dad was a dork. She loved him, but sometimes he just had no idea of what was and wasn't cool. Tess liked to think that she certainly did. She could usually talk her parents into letting her wear the latest fashions and styles, but about the belt they had been adamant.

She turned the ball over in her hand. This one was a Zubat she'd caught in the cave outside Azalea Town. She knew Zubat weren't very strong Pokémon, but she figured it would better in the dark than her others. Tess peered into the darkness as she fumbled for the release button on the ball. She turned a little to her left and froze.

Two green, alien-looking eyes were glowing in the underbrush. They were about two feet off the ground, and Tess thought she could see a hint of some large bulk behind them.

Slowly, her hand trembling, Tess located the release button on the ball. It popped open with a flash that revealed a huge, ancient Parasect. The mushroom on its back was vast, perhaps five feet high, and almost completely white, the spots on it having nearly eclipsed the red coloring. The bug's body was overgrown with root-like filaments that twined around it like ivy on an old building. Its face was obscured by several smaller mushrooms that had sprouted on its head.

It recoiled at the flash, giving a gurgling, grating cry that made Tess shudder with fear and disgust. She backpedaled rapidly, tripping over a mossy stump and falling over backwards onto the soft soil.

Tess saw the dark outline of the thing shambling towards her, its huge claws scissoring open and closed as it searched for her. She scrambled away from it, crying out in a choked voice.

"Zubat! Supersonic!"

She heard the bat Pokémon flutter towards the Parasect and give a high-pitched screech she could barely hear. Tess watched the dark shape that was the Parasect swing a large claw upwards and bat her tiny Pokémon out of the air. She drew it back into the Pokéball and scrambled to her feet.

The bug Pokémon turned its hideous face towards her once more, and Tess panicked. Not bothering to reattach Zubat's ball, she fled through the forest. She heard the Parasect pursuing her relentlessly. Its shambling gait belied its eerie speed. Despite its huge, top-heavy mass, she could hear it behind her, never losing ground. She threw a quick glance over her shoulder and saw the thing scuttling rapidly up and over logs, bushes, and other obstacles she had had to go around. It was more adept than she was at moving through the forest, and she was desperately afraid that it would catch her before long.

With her hands in front of her face to shield her eyes from whippy branches, Tess didn't see the man in the small clearing until she ran right into him. He was fairly tall and thin, with hair that looked pure white in the moonlight. The moon didn't provide enough light to see much color, but she could see his eyes quite clearly. They were bright green.

The first thing that struck her as odd about him (out of many more things she would begin to notice later) was that though she had plowed into him at top speed, she didn't bowl him over. He swayed slightly on his feet, but stayed standing, and whirled around to look at her.

"Please!" she sobbed, not caring who he was. If he was a murderer, well…she was dead either way, wasn't she? "Please, help! There's a—"

He threw himself into her, cutting her off and knocking them both flat on the ground as a massive claw swiped the air where her head had been. It moved blindingly fast, but the man was faster. His hand shot up and grabbed the Parasect's arm. Giving a quick jerk of his arm, he flipped the Pokémon over, sending it crashing into a moss-covered oak tree. It gave another hideous cry, flipping itself right-side up. The man faced it, crouched into a fighting stance.

The insect stood still for a moment, the shadows from the light of the waxing moon making it look even more monstrous and sinister. Suddenly, it rippled the mushroom on its back in a rapid motion, hurling a cloud of silvery pollen towards the man.

Tess knew a little about Parasects, and the types of attacks they used. She knew that if the stranger breathed in the spores he would be immobilized, sedated, or severely poisoned. The fight would be over before it had begun. She held her breath as the cloud shot outwards…

…And right through the space where the strange man had been an instant earlier. Tess blinked, her brain trying to make sense of what her eyes had just told her. The man, moving in a blur, had leaped seven feet straight up and into the low branches of one of the trees.

The Parasect sent another puff of spores into the branches where the man had landed, but he moved again, avoiding the toxin. The creature tried again, blasting a massive cloud into the trees nearby. But the man seemed to have vanished.

The Pokémon ran its eyes over the tree cover, the eldritch glow lighting up a tangle of vines and leaves. Giving up at last, it turned its gaze back on the clearing. It noticed Tess again and started to skitter towards her.

Tess frantically scrambled backwards in a weird crabwalk that seemed to mimic the Parasect's movement. Her mind was screaming, but terror had closed her windpipe and all that came out were a series of choked whimpers. Watching the man fight, she had hoped for a moment that she might be alright, but now he had abandoned her, and she would die.

Alone, in the dark, and trying to scream.

She had given up all hope and prepared to die at the ugly monster's claws when she saw the man drop down from the trees behind the Parasect. He landed lightly, making no noise at all. The Parasect was about to grab her when the man seized its back legs and heaved it to the side. It crashed into a thorny shrub and let out its keening cry again.

It righted itself, but the strange man gave it no time to disperse another spore cloud. He landed a powerful uppercut to the bottom of the monster's face. It reared backwards, gurgling, and he drove a fist hard into the very center of its underbelly. There was a sickening crunch, and it toppled over.

This time, it didn't right itself.

Tess got to her feet. "Is it dead?" she asked, moving towards the twitching thing.

The man threw out a hand to stop her. "Don't go near that—"

She never heard the rest of his sentence, the eruption of spores from the fallen creature drowning the world in black unconsciousness.