A Bond Is Made (Prologue)

It was a scorching day in the region of Johto, all over the place there was people and pokemon alike playing in the warmth. Just outside the city of Goldenrod a young boy called Zidane Ketai was happily playing with his friends near a pokemon daycare center.

Zidane was quite small for his age, he had short spiky hair, dark crimson eyes that glistened when the sun struck them, he was also skinny and wore a navy sleeveless shirt and a pair of cream looking shorts. Zidane and his friends were standing at the fence of the day care center looking at the pokemon relaxing in the sun, a Gyarados suddenly shot out of the water drenching the gazing children and forcing them backwards. They decided to walk along the route and look for some wild pokemon and dry off at the same time.

They came across a group of Oddish who were jumping around in the grass, Zidane said to his friends "aren't pokemon cool!" they all nodded in agreement. They all crouched down and tried to befriend the group of small plant like pokemon, just then a group of Team Rocket were walking past, they saw the small children and decided it would be 'fun' to send there pokemon to attack them. Zidane and Co were all holding an Oddish each and were having fun comparing them, after a while the Oddish seemed to be scared and struggled free from the children's grasp and ran off into a large group of trees, puzzled the kids turned around and saw three Raticates and three large men with menacing eyes staring in there direction.

The Trainer in the middle shouted an order at the pokemon "go Raticates Hyper Fang",

"RUN NOW!" Zidane shouted to his friends, and without hesitating they ran back up the road they came down but the Raticates were in pursuit of them. They ran as quick as they could taking all the shortcuts they knew to try and loose the pokemon chasing them, the group came close to the Pokemon daycare center Zidane turned his head to check how far away the pursuing rat like creatures were, as they were closing in Zidane tripped over a large tree root and landed face first on the hard dusty ground, lifting his head he saw that his friends were no where in sight...he was on his own. The Rockets and their Raticates caught up and saw the hurt child on the floor, smirking they orders another attack on the downed boy "Raticate Tackle attack" running up towards the boy it lowered its head and smashed into his body, the force of the attack sent Zidane into a nearby tree, he screamed in pain and coughed a little blood up, the cold and heartless rockets ordered for another attack. Zidane covered his face with his arms, he expected another harsh blow to his body, but it never came...slowly he lowered his arms and saw a Houndour in front of him 'it must have came from the day care center' he thought to himself, the small black dog stood in front of the now injured boy and fought off the Raticates attacks, the attacks kept coming damaging houndour but the stubborn pokemon did not give up, it let out a deafening roar and the opposing pokemon fled in fear, it then charged into trainers sending them backwards as if telling them to leave. Outraged by being attacked on of the Rockets delivered a swift kick to the pokemon and sent it skidding across the jagged ground, the cowardly rockets then fled the scene.

The injured pokemon came to a halt in front of Zidane, battered and bloody from the battle before started whimpering at Zidane's feet. Slowly he picked up the small pokemon trying not to cause it further injury "thank you" he whispered. He ran as quick as he could to the Pokemon center in Goldenrod City and burst through the doors "Nurse Joy this Houndour is badly hurt" Zidane said breathlessly

"oh dear, what happened?" Nurse Joy replied

"some members of team rocket attacked me and this houndour came out the day care center to protect me, please you've got to help him" Zidane said tearfully

"i'll do me best" Joy said with her usual smile on her face

As she disappeared into the back of the Pokemon Center Zidane sat down on one of the many seats and began to absorb his surroundings, he could see some trainers talking on the video phones, others were eating with there Pokemon, he looked along the walls that were full of posters but one in particular grabbed his attention. It was a brightly coloured poster advertising the Hoenn League 'one day i'll be entering the Hoenn League and i'll win' he said to himself, he looked up at the shining lights and drifted off to sleep.

The next morning Nurse Joy woke him up with news about Houndour "im afraid i don't know if he's going to pull through" she said in a quiet voice "would it be alright if i spent the day with him?" Zidane questioned

"of course it would" Joy replied and she lead him into the back of the Pokemon Center. On a single bed Houndour was covered in bandages and a blanket was placed over him. Zidane was shocked at the condition of the pokemon, he sat beside Houndour and began to pet him. Hour after hour he didn't move from the ill pokemons side, he began talking "you cannot die i wont allow it, if you didn't rescue me then i mite not even be here now" tears begin to fill up his eyes "when you get better i can take you back to the day care center and you can see your trainer again" he said quietly "and we could play together and be good friends" a single tear fell onto Houndour, his eyes opened and he gave out a small bark. Zidane looked at Houndour with amazement "Nurse Joy, Nurse Joy he's awake!" he shouted, a surprised nurse Joy scurried over to the bed and took a look at houndour and said "he seems to be getting better!" with a broad smile on her face.

Two days later Zidane left his house and ran to the Pokemon Center, when he got there nurse Joy just said "go on through" knowing that he wanted to see houndour, she followed him through and said "hes well enough to leave now"

"Really?" he asked, she nodded and smiled "well lets take you home Houndour" Zidane said picking up and petting houndour. They left Goldenrod and walked town the dusty path that lead to the day care center, he knocked on the door and an old withered man emerged "can i help you" he asked

"erm, this houndor helped me out, but he was injured so i took him to the pokemon center till he was better and i thought i should return him to you" Zidane replied

"ah we were wondering where this one got too, we thought he ran away...this one was abandoned when he was a pup, his trainer left him on the doorstep so we took him in" the old man said. "Say i have an idea, since he seems to be really attached to you so why don't you keep him?" the old man said with a smile

"really?" Zidane said excitedly

"sure, i'll go fetch his pokeball" the old man disappeared into the house

"did you hear that Houndour? your going to be staying with me!" Zidane exclaimed, the small black dog gave out a small bark and closed his eyes. The old man came out with a red and white ball in his hand "here it is, now take good care of him" he said handing the pokeball to Zidane "don't worry i will!"...

:5 Years Later:

Zidane now 15 years of age has moved to Hoenn with his trusted friend Houndour they are ready to take the Hoenn League Challenge "so this is Hoenn, well our 1st stop is Littleroot Town lets go Houndour!"...