With loads of things getting in the way for me, I haven't done any serious writing in a long time. Writing this fanfiction has really helped me get back into the swing of things, allowing me to have a base to build on. I've always wanted to expand on the Pokémon universe. I think there is so much more to explore about their world. The thing I am most interested is the everyday lives of the people within this universe, and the way in which pokémon live and interact with the world. I have only ever read one pokémon fanfiction before, and I have never attempted to write any fanfiction myself. So I ask you to bear with me, I have many great ideas in mind for the future of this story, so please help me out with any comments and constructive criticism you may have.
I hope you enjoy it!
CHAPTER ONE
Soft grass tickled my face as it swayed in the light breeze of the meadow. In the distance, a group of Cottonee jumped and danced, their light bodies keeping aloft in the air. A harsh buzz, like the sound of an angry Beedrill, interrupted the tranquillity of the scene. I sat up, allowing myself a moment to take in the natural splendour around me. To my right, a grassy plain filled with a range of Grass pokémon, playing, dancing, and some even battling. To my left, a small river gurgled and splashed, with a school of Mantyke soaring out of the water in a single bound, their smiling pattern on their backs laughing and giggling.
Again, the harsh buzz surfaced, but this time, it brought with it the eruption of a newly formed volcano. The cone rose beneath me, lifting me up to the clouds as lava spewed from within.
I woke with a jolt as my pokénav vibrated on the desk next to my bed. I was covered in sweat, my loose t-shirt sticking to my chest. I grabbed my pokénav and flipped it open to reveal that I had a missed call from my best friend Shay. What I also saw was that it was half seven in the morning. That idiot better have a good reason for waking me up this early on a Saturday.
After sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I called Shay. He picked up immediately, catching me mid-yawn.
"Wyatt oh my god man you're not going to believe it!" He shouted enthusiastically down the pokénav. My reply was less than enthusiastic, "Whatever it is, it had better be good enough to rip me cruelly from my sleep."
"My dad's just received a shipment from Kalos," he practically shouted down the phone.
"Let me guess: a mysterious stone?" Shay's family had a weird obsession about rare and mysterious stones, from gems to fossils to Mega Stones, anything they could get their hands on really.
"How did you know?", I rolled my eyes, "But yeah, two fossils from Kalos. My dad said he's going to revive them today!"
"And so you decided to wake me up at this hour of the morning to tell me that? Your dad's company revives fossils nearly everyday." Although I was cranky at having been woken up from my deep sleep, the idea of seeing two new pokémon was actually pretty exciting. Although many pokémon native to Kalos now lived in Hoenn, I haven't even seen nor heard of what their Fossil pokémon were like.
"Oh my god Wyatt, these are new pokémon that haven't been seen in Hoenn before! My dad wants us to be there to see them when they wake up!" Shay was already an excitable guy, but things like this got him really worked up, as if TM 83 had been used on him, "So get your ass over to the Devon building as quickly as you can!"
The other line cut out and I put my pokénav back on my desk. Sitting for a few minutes in my bed, I eventually summoned up enough energy to get up and have a shower. Getting dressed, I put on Roxie's newest album, Toxic, and sang along as much as I could with the few lyrics I knew. When I was ready I left my room and walked into the small kitchen, where my mam was sitting reading the pokémon Pal while eating a kelpsey berry. She put down her magazine when she saw me, a smile spreading across her face as her eyes lit up and turned soft.
"What has you up so early? Decided that you want to contribute to the household and do some work? The dishwasher needs to be emptied and Purra needs to be fed." Not the nicest thing to be greeted with, but I knew she was only teasing. I help around the house plenty, and she always keeps the apartment clean when she gets the chance. Unlike a lot of women in Hoenn, she prefers to work instead of staying at home and being a traditional housewife. Maybe it was her upbringing in Unova, but she can't stand the thought of staying in all day. Of course, she also has two children to provide for, so getting a job was a necessity to keep a roof over our heads.
Well, that part is actually quite literal. My mam works for Devon, and Devon give their skilled employees low-cost accommodation in south Rustboro. The Devon Corporation treat their employees fairly, making them an attractive company to work for. That was part of the reason why my mam moved all the way from Unova to live here. That, and the fact that she fell in love with my dad.
"Shay says that his dad is going to revive some rare Kalos fossils or something, so I'm going to head over there to check it out." I answer.
"Well, at least take a berry with you before you leave." She hands me an aspear berry out of the fruit bowl sitting on the table as she stands up and fixes a loose piece of hair on my head. My blonde hair is shaggy, not long, but not short either. I never really put in effort to style it, letting it dry naturally after a shower, because I like the way it looks by itself. Unlike Shay, I don't spend a lot of time worrying about how my hair looks, a fact that he's jealous of because my hair looks great without any additional effort.
I take a bite out of my aspear berry just as Purra walks into the kitchen. Unsurprisingly, she looks as if she has just woken up in order to find a more comfortable spot to sleep on. Meowth are nocturnal pokémon, and Purra is no different. Most of her days are spent asleep, while her nights are spent wandering the streets of Rustboro. She often comes home carrying coins or badges and other shiny, circular objects, most of which end up stashed under my sister's bed where Purra has claimed as her hoarding spot.
"Right, well I should get going. Don't want to keep them waiting." I say as I hug her goodbye.
"Alright, well have fun, Wyatt. And tell Mr. Stone that I was asking for him!" She calls as I walk down the corridor outside our apartment to the elevator that will take me to the ground floor. When I finally exit the apartment building my home town of Rustboro comes into full view.
Unlike most towns and cities in Hoenn, Rustboro has a rustic, old-town appearance, with all of the streets and buildings being made of stone. Although it is not a historic city, the city planners decided to accomodate for the area's lack of history by designing many buildings with Gothic architecture. The large imposing forest of old has since been cut down by the Cutters to make way for an ever expanding city, the third largest in Hoenn. The wide, stone paved streets lead into winding, cobbled streets made for pedestrian use only. Using these streets it's easy to find a short cut to the north end of town, passing by many people and pokémon on their morning walks, or on their way to work. I pass by a group of Youngsters discussing their tactics on the best way to challenge Roxanne, Rustboro's Gym Leader.
Seeing the group of young boys, none older than maybe thirteen, makes me both frustrated and sad simultaneously. These kids are already on their journey with their pokémon, travelling away from home and into the unknown, forging deep bonds with their pokémon and learning many new things about their world, life and themselves. Going on a pokémon journey at a young age is often considered the norm. Most of my friends did it when they were around ten years old too. It seemed I was saying goodbye to someone everyday for a period of my life. Friends that I would've considered myself very close to would come back a changed person. They had this profound maturity about them that made it difficult to rekindle our friendship. They were no longer interested in the childish games we once played, instead only being focused on battling, or coordinating or other paths in life.
Soon after they returned to Rustboro many of them became restless. Unhappy with staying in Rustboro, they ventured off to explore more of the world, or to become better trainers or join the Rangers. Shay wasn't allowed to go on a journey, just like I wasn't. Before our friends left to travel Hoenn, we weren't very close. We knew each other from school and through mutual friends, but soon, as our friends started to leave one by one, we found ourselves spending more and more time together. Our shared frustration at not being allowed on our own journey only strengthened the bond that we had formed, and we have been inseparable ever since.
All of these thoughts passed through my mind as I made my way to the Devon building. The large, imposing stone building stood alone on a wide open plaza, where many benches were placed for employees to take their lunch breaks, or for tourists to sit and admire the Devon Corporation building. Devon was Rustboro's pride and joy; the beating heart of an ever expanding city.
Rustboro's motto of "The city probing the integration of nature and science" was never more evident than in the Devon Corporation building. The building was a blend of modern and historic architecture, while at the same time looking as if it was carved straight out of a cliff face. Large glass windows met sharp stone steeples, with various stone Gligar adorning the walls, their intimidating faces meant to ward off evil spirits. Ivy crept over the building, adding a vibrant splash of green to the formidable grey and choking some of the stone Gligar. Hardy flowers seemed to grow in any spot big enough for them, their crimson and yellow petals swaying gently in the breeze. The building did not give off the impression that it was built a little over sixty years ago. The old superstitious Gligar were placed to give the building a rustic aesthetic, and the ivy was deliberately planted and trimmed to maintain a sense of nature reclaiming what was rightfully theirs. The flowers were planted in specific places and tended to carefully by gardeners in order to break the monochrome of grey stone.
I entered through the automatic glass doors into an air-conditioned lobby, simplistic in it's design. Men and women in suits waited patiently on the cream sofas, as employees walked to and fro from the elevators and adjoining doors, some carrying briefcases, others talking on their pokénav's and others wearing lab coats and holding clipboards.
Shay's unmistakable spiky purple hair caught my attention. He had his back to me, talking to a receptionist behind the counter, probably trying, in vain, to register her on his pokénav. I patted him on the shoulder when I neared and he turned to face me, immediately forgetting about the girl behind the counter. His eyes lit up with excitement as he saw me, probably remembering the fact that since I was here it was time to see the fossils.
"Wyatt what took you so long? I was waiting here forever." Yet another moment when a "Hello, great to see you" would have sufficed. Without waiting to hear an answer, Shay was dragging me towards the elevator, babbling on about how excited he was about the new fossils, how he's been thinking about what type of pokémon they were all day.
"They're all going to be Rock type of course. Only Rock type pokémon are capable of withstanding millions of years as revivable fossils. Otherwise there wouldn't be enough DNA to recreate them, they'd just be some interesting bones left in the dirt." He explained in the crowded elevator as we headed up to the third floor.
"But what will their secondary typing be? A Bug type would be cool. The Bug types were much bigger in the ancient world, like even bigger than Yanmega. But what about a Psychic type? Were they even developed enough back then for a Psychic type to exist? I don't even know, I'm just speculating, a wild guess really, because we'll have no way to-" The doors for the third floor opened and Shay, forgetting about whatever sentence he was about to say, pushed past the people in the elevator and out onto the third floor corridor.
"This way," He called out as he practically skipped down the corridors to a room at the far end of the left corridor. He came to a halt in front of a seemingly unmarked door. Shay practically grew up in this building, so I never doubted his sense of direction, even when it totally seemed as if he had no idea where we were going. He pushed open the doors to reveal a room filled with all sorts of complicated machinery: computers, large tubes filled with a strange orange liquid, sensors, analysers... None of it particularly made sense to me, but the Scientists scattered around the room seemed to be having a field day. The excitement in the room was palpable; these people must never have seen a Kalos fossil before too.
Straight ahead, sitting beneath protective glass casing, was two chunks of brown rock. Shay ran over to give them a closer look and I quickly followed, the excitement of all these people rubbing off me. One fossil didn't look like much to me; it was about the length of my forearm, rounded at one end and curving up at the other. What part of the pokémon's body it came from was beyond me. The other fossil was vaguely triangular in appearance, with four distinct tips at the larger end. A wing, maybe? But before I had time to think about it deeper, a booming voice erupted behind me.
"Let's get this show on the road, boys!" It was Mr. Stone, Shay's father, and more surprisingly, his brother, former Champion of the Hoenn region, Steven.