A/N: OH BOY it's finally time to start posting this!
TPDA (The Pokédance Adventures) is a four part Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky fanfic I started back in middle school and the original version was horrible and is never going to see the light of day. I started a rewrite of it roughly 5-6 years ago but never got too far with it before realizing while it was an improvement, it wasn't much better. I stated rewriting it for Nanowrimo last year, but only got a little bit into it before college started becoming a pain.
Which bring us to now! I'm publishing the prologue today and Chapter 1 will be later this week. Afterwords, I will be planning for either weekly/biweekly updates for the summer! Once college gets started again, we'll see how the update schedule gets changed. One final disclaimer is that TRMC was and still is a huge inspiration for this fic, but is nothing like it and you will see once we get more into this fic.
Disclaimer (and I'm only gonna say this once!): I do not own Pokemon in any way, it belongs to Nintendo and the Pokemon Company. I only own any and all OCs.
~ Prologue: Future Lament ~
If it weren't for her, I probably won't be here right now, standing in a world full of life and color rather than the dull and darkness that I'd seemed to live with for an eternity. Never would I see the vibrant forests full of flowers and trees, all alive with sunlight. Pastel sunrises and sunsets, proof that the world is alive and well, for the time being of course, but it means much more when you've been living in an apocalyptic hellscape for who knows how long.
She would've loved to see this for herself, as opposed to the images we had seen during our research. Always had her head in a book at one point, taking in the images as we searched for the truth to save our world. Would she ever be able to see this for herself…?
She's not dead, I know it. Rather...I can feel it. She's not the type to give up so easily. She always seemed to have some plan, being one step ahead of me at times, yet I'd be two steps ahead of her. We really did play of off each other well, as friends, partners, family and companions. Even when it seemed like the depths of despair would swallow her, she always seemed to have hope and saying that it was too early to give up.
A girl that knew of hope and caring, never giving up when things seemed to be at their worse. So full of innocence and youth, only being seven when I found her, or rather when I refound her. She's the reason I'm still alive here, not another doomed Pokémon in the dead world that was home. The only thing we knew for all of our lives it seemed.
I can still remember how I lost her, still haunting me. I'd failed her once, and more times after that. She always charged into save me or anyone else that was in danger. She wanted all of us to do our best. So then why had she done what she did? Take an attack that was meant for me, leaving her weakened and nearly unconscious, unable to hold on and tumble into an unknown fate through the void. She'd saved me yet again...and this time I wasn't able to help her.
How long had we been working together? Eight years we'd been working towards our goal, along with the others, but they left before us. We couldn't have left with them, since we needed to stay and figure some things out before we could leave. Constant companions for eight years, teaching each other, supporting each other, saving each other when needed. Working towards a common goal, one that we knew would require us to make the ultimate sacrifice for the better good of all Pokemon. It didn't matter to me, since that's what I had wanted, but it was even a more curious and astonishing, being a human living in our world. She choose to save a world that had stolen so much from her - her family, innocence, yet she choose to do it being only fifteen.
Eight years are impossible to forget. She was always the bravest and the one pushing us to our goal. She'd tell me to go on and carry out our mission and promise. I will not let her down this time, and hold onto the hope that she always had. She's out there somewhere, and I will find her again, reunited by our goal.
Even so, I will always remember her and hold onto hope. She was everything to me - my best friend, companion, little sister. My family.
Her name...was Samantha.
