Chapter 1: Every New Beginning

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." ~ Seneca


"When fate throws a dagger at you, there are two ways to catch it;

By the blade, or by the hilt."

~Chinese Proverb


All around, people were crying. Sobs of hysteria and denial, of grief and heart-felt agony. The once lively and bustling city echoed with them, a heart-rending counterpoint to the heavy scent of death and decay. The shells of once-proud skyscrapers hid the trembling citizens, afraid as they were to wander back out onto the streets where so many of their fellows had died. The corpses of those not fast enough to flee the shadow littered those streets, most partly consumed by the morbid green carpet of new life which broke through the asphalt.

A lone figure walks down one of the narrower side-streets, placing their feet carefully for fear of stepping on one of those unfortunates. They pause at one, however. The figure of a woman, curled protectively even in death around the tiny body of her child. The figure kneels down to brush fingers gently across the child's face, now forever twisted in those last seconds of fear. One hand continues to stroke the child's forehead, as if to offer some form of comfort to the departed spirit, while the other hand clenches in a fist; unable to do anything in the wake of the disaster.


The dark-skinned teenager sighed as he ran a hand through his spiky mess of dirty-blonde hair. Sharp green eyes roamed around the small open area he was in. Surrounded by tall hedges that seemed to be shaped into walls, the clearing he'd woken up in was blanketed in a sheet of red and yellow flowers. Pokemon scurried underneath the flowers, the occasional flash of a skitty's pink ears or the yellow blur of a combee catching the young man's eye.

Exhaling heavily in frustration, he looked down to the cherry red pokeball in his hand, giving the creature inside his coldest glare. Large blue eyes stared back; refusing to blink first. The two stared at each other for several seconds before the 19-year-old huffed in annoyance, tucking the ball into one of his pockets and pulling his communicator out of his bag.

"Watcher, you there?" He asked, listening to the static coming from the speaker. He waited for a few seconds before trying again. "Watcher, I repeat, are you there?" Another pause. "This is Archangel, come in Watcher." Still nothing but static. Frowning, he switched channels. "Tower, this is Archangel, are you there? Come in Tower. I repeat; this is Archangel, come in Tower." All he was met with was static. Which could mean several things, the young man mused as he shut down the communicator and tucked it back into his bag. The main thing however was that he was, for now, completely on his own. He'd worry about where he was later. Pondering any other questions about his location would probably drive him quickly insane. 'Not that it's a long road.' He thought with a sardonic smile creeping across his face. One which he quickly wiped off his face as he heard voices. Far away, by the echoing quality, but still something to be wary of. He was not in a mental state to explain himself to strangers, much less civilians, right now.

Sighing wearily and squeezing his eyes shut for a moment to fight off an oncoming headache, Archangel picked an opening in the hedges and started walking.


It was almost an hour later when Archangel finally found a gap in the bushes that led out of the maze. What he saw however almost drove him back into the infuriating tangle of shrubberies.

"Big, isn't it?" A young female voice chirped from behind the teen, startling him. He glanced over to see a young girl, perhaps 13, wearing a pink t-shirt with black bows down the front and long brown hair done up in two pigtails. Almost unwillingly however, Archangel's eyes were drawn back to the gleaming glass, steel, and concrete that made up the so-called urban jungle.

"It that Luminose City?" He asked tenderly, half-hopeful and half-afraid to hear the girl's answer. Hazel eyes gave him a strange look, but the girl clasped her hands behind her back and rocked back on her heels.

"Of course it is. Are you a tourist or something?"

"Perhaps he's lost?" A new voice called from behind the pair. The girl turned to talk to the person who'd come up behind them, but Archangel didn't hear a word they were saying. Eyes staring at the gleaming metropolis, but seeing something else entirely. The tang of smoke and decay clogging the air, warring with the cloying scent of the new growth of a deep jungle. Eddies of smoke hiding the terrible sights in the streets, if not their smell. The screams of the distraught and broken filled the air; a counterpoint to the deathly silence of the slumped forms sprawled across decaying grass and broken asphalt.

"Hey!"

Archangel blinked, shaking his head and tearing his eyes away from the glowing tip of the tower peeking out from over the city skyline. He glanced over to see a new girl, probably only a few years younger than him. One hand was on her hip, and the other was waving at him, obviously having been trying to catch his attention. Archangel blinked and shook his head again, trying to dislodge the screams still echoing up from his memory.

"I'm sorry, what were you saying?" He asked, trying not to wince at the slight tremor in his voice. The two girls in front of him hadn't heard it though, and the new girl crossed her arms over her chest, giving him a mild glare.

"I was asking what your name was, and if you were lost." She said flatly. Archangel blinked and shook his head.

"I'm not lost. As for my name…" He hesitated. If he was where he thought he was then… "You can call me Ark."

"I'm Shauna!" The pink girl piped up from off to Ark's right.

"My name is Serena." The blonde with the ponytail said, still glaring at Archangel. The young man nodded, shaking Shauna's hand when she offered it and simply tilting his head in acknowledgement when Serena didn't offer hers. Slowly, his eyes drifted back to the Luminose skyline, and his throat clenched at the scent of the acrid smoke that still drifted up from his memory. Off to his side, Serena and Shauna shared a glance before Serena uncrossed her arms, striding towards the city with a backward wave. Shauna skipped along after her, calling a farewell over her shoulder to Archangel, who was still staring up at the skyline, lost in his own thoughts.

'Why me?' He wondered as he tucked his hands into his pockets and slowly began to walk towards the city. 'There are so many others. Others who would know what to do. What not to do. So why me?' Fingers wrapped tightly around the small sphere in his pocket, and Archangel gritted his teeth. Whatever the reason, he knew now what had happened. And he knew, somehow, he was going to fix it. He had to.


Darius Stellon sighed contentedly as he reclined in the slightly overstuffed armchair. He listened absently to the soft chatter of voices and cutlery, and the occasional pop of a log in the fireplace. He was wearing a dusty blue hoodie, and while having the hood up while being curled up in front of the fireplace was getting him a small amount of curiosity from the other patrons, it was less troublesome than if the hood were down and a certain special agent were to pass by and look through a window. Not for the first time, the blue-haired young man contemplated the pros and cons of dying his hair brown.

'Of all the places Looker had to get a case while I had mandatory vacation, why did it have to be here?' The 21-year-old groused mentally, ice-blue eyes locked onto the dancing flames in the fireplace. He'd almost have considered it to be some kind of conspiracy, except for the fact that he'd called headquarters and confirmed that Looker had a legitimate investigation. And that Darius was not allowed to help. Which had been followed by the rather definitive 'click' of someone hanging up on him. Which, considering, was probably a hint.

"More coffee sir?" A young waitress asked, eyeing the empty ceramic mug that sat on the table next to Darius's chair. The young agent considered it briefly before shaking his head.

"No more, thanks. At this rate I'll twitching uncontrollably before noon." He offered the young lady a smile and she smiled back with a warm flutter that Darius ignored, before she trotted off to spread the coffee elsewhere. Sighing, Darius pried himself up from the chair, wincing slightly at the rushing throb in his head when he rose to his feet. 'Looker was right.' He mused as he collected his backpack and left the mug at the counter along with a tip. 'I did need a vacation. Not that I'll ever tell him that.' It had been over three years since the chaos in Hoenn had been sorted out. Mostly, at least. There were still a handful of criminals that had managed to escape, including at least one of the commanders of Team Magma. Three years since Darius had signed the papers that made him an agent of the International Secret Police. Admittedly, being an agent was pretty entertaining. Not always fun, per se, but rarely boring. Although, that was probably because Looker and Johnny usually handled the majority of the paperwork while Darius ran down any fieldwork.

Darius froze in his tracks as he felt a pulse of energy sweep through the land, carrying with it the eye-watering bite of chemical smoke. The pulse was so powerful it drove him to his knees, his throat clenching painfully as he fought to keep himself from being overwhelmed by the sense of wrong-not-okay-need-to-fix-painpainpain. And then, just as abruptly, the pressure was gone, and Darius was left kneeling on the sidewalk, head clutched in his hands as bystanders gave him sidelong glances. A scaled green presence wrapped itself around his shuddering mind as Darius tried to re-center himself.

"Just what I needed." He growled out, rising to his feet once more and pressing a hand to his now throbbing head. The second he started actually enjoying his mandatory vacation, it ended. Maybe he could find a way to avoid whatever had let off that pulse?

Yeah, because Darius Stellon was that lucky.


AN: So you know when stuff happens, and you just wanna scream and throw your computer into a brick wall? But you really can't because you're in public and that would be awkward? Yeah. I'll apologize if any lines seem like they don't fit too well, I spent half-an-hour editing this for posting, and when I clicked 'save', chrome showed me a helpful picture of an 8-bit dinosaur and informed me I was no longer connected to the internet. Which, honestly was my fault for not checking my connection status before clicking that button, but what's done is done.

This, obviously, is the 'sequel's sequel' I mentioned in IWTIAATH. I don't think you have to have read that first to enjoy this story, but it might help you understand Darius and a few other characters. Archangel is completely new though. By the way, I don't own Pokemon, but I do own Darius and Ark.

I'll warn you now, just like my last story, there's going to be very little going on in the way of battling. I'm more of a plot writer than a fight-scene writer. As this story is still being written however, if I get enough requests for battles, then I can try to put some in.

Now, I think that's all, so I'll post this now and then chapter 2 will probably be up in a few days.

EDIT: Almost forgot to mention that the quotes I use throughout this story (mainly the title and the chapter titles) do not belong to me. They have already been attributed to whoever said them. Or at least as close as I can find it.