Chapter 1
The train station was empty.
It had been empty for years, of course, and had been amassing dust for as long as anyone could remember. The exits at either end of the slender black tunnel were boarded up so tightly that not a sliver of temperate light could stretch across the ground, and as thus, it had been shut away from the outside world completely. An eerie silence cloaked the almost otherworldly building, and all was still, save for one lone creature. A small Spinarak had recently made its home in a high corner of the abandoned establishment, regarding it as homey and pleasant. It was hard at work in the darkness, using all six of its spindly, striped legs to avoid falling to the gelid cement far below, creating a home for itself. The two pairs of limbs in front held itself fastened to its half-finished web, while the hindlimbs grappled tightly at what seemed to be an impossible angle and helped to pull strings of gossamer silk from its greenish abdomen. Suddenly, it stopped in its handiwork and looked down with a curious chitter of surprise. Something– or someone– was trying to break in! They sounded desperate, too; a strangled cry escaped the creature as it clawed at the battens bottling up the old building and broke away large chunks of wood. The little arachnid sensed danger from this powerful and unknown source and immediately retreated up into the farthest corners of its mesh residence to observe in safety.
It didn't take much longer for the frantic beast to break through the laths. With one final roar, the boarded entrance buckled and splintered into a dozen sharp splinters. Instead of the sunlight the tiny creature expected, a sort of grayish-hued shadow knifed into the old building as the animal crashed through in a frenzy of panic. It was a male Garchomp of immense size, towering over seven feet, with what seemed like hundreds of recent battle wounds slicing deep into its nearly jet black hide. One older wound in particular caught the eye of the tiny spider– a huge scar worming from the tip of its starry yellow forehead down across the side of its face. Its right eye had seemingly been halved down the middle, as though the cut had been performed slowly and deliberately to end there. The Pokemon staggered in its own blood, now a dark crimson puddle quickly slicking the floor, and used the sharp, red-rimmed fins that made up its arms as crutches to stay upright. Its chest heaved painfully in and out whilst it stared up anxiously at the hole it had created in the wall. The Spinarak stared, too, completely mesmerized by the scene unfolding in front of it. Apparently, it was storming outside. The train station had been so tightly sealed that the spider had not heard a thing. But now that its home had been breached, it was an entirely different story. The wind was a monster, howling icy tunes from the darkness and crying violent torrents of rain and hail. The dual type could just barely see a field of discolored grass stretching on beneath an ominous gray sky out of view from the awkward angle it hid at. What was the unexpected visitor so afraid of, it wondered? What had caused the mighty drake's wounds? Its questions were answered mere moments later.
An explosion of silvery-pink light knocked the Garchomp off of its feet, filling the entirety of the station with a bright flare. The Spinarak released a tiny gasp as it saw the chamber's insides lit for the first time. It was just for a few seconds, but it took in as much as it could. A mighty black snake of a train sat solemnly upon the tracks, a reptile lying in wait for its prey, the metallic hide gleaming sinisterly. Then the darkness swallowed it up again. It had looked... new. Very new. But how could that be? It made no sense to the arachnid. Everything else surrounding it, in that brief second of brightness, had looked dirty and forgotten. Something was not right. It turned its horrified gaze back to the broken hole in the entrance, where the draconic Pokemon lay in a crumpled heap on the ground. Grubby moonlight fell over its battered and broken body as it struggled to stand.
"Ah, the beauty of death."
The poison and bug type startled and immediately turned its beady black eyes to the one who had spoken. It was a human male, not of particular size or stature, but of a menacing nature, with crystalline blue eyes and a thinly set mouth against ghostly pale skin. Dark brown hair spilled around his head– truly, hair was such an odd thing to the shelled spider– and he pushed some of it out of his face to begin a haughty speech to the injured dragon type. As he spoke, a Pokemon unlike anything the Spinarak had ever seen floated into view beside him. It seemed humanlike, yet was something from another planet altogether. A swath of turquoise hair was slicked away from the beast's pure white face, and its orange eyes glittered in the darkness. It wore a bow on its chest of the same sickly color, but the sweeping black dress that trailed behind it was what truly made it frightening.
"Tell me, Lark. You seem to have some sort of... fascination... with life. As do many others of the rebellion. Why is life the driving force that keeps your pathetic uprising stumbling on its feet? Everything, eventually, must die. Not a single crop escapes the frost, every last little insect beneath you dries up and turns to dust. All death needs to keep its formidable cogs turning is time. Time... and victims. You ought to come out of hiding. Your precious Garchomp can't keep you hidden forever."
The arachnid had not even noticed the second trainer at first. In the heavy curtain of darkness, he had been almost invisible. But now he had crept all the way around the monologuing villain from behind his teammate, and now picked up one of the splinters of fallen wood from the boards. It had to have been well over two feet in length, with multiple jagged tips. Perfect for stabbing. The little insect rooted for this evident ally of the drake in silence, though it was not terribly fond of blood, and waited in breathless terror for the killing blow. With a backwards snap of his wrist and a shrill war cry, the smaller trainer threw the heavy piece of timber like a spear straight at his opponent's exposed back.
Three things happened in quick succession after that. The intended recipient of the weapon turned around and grabbed the makeshift javelin as if it were no more than a twig first, wielding it as a bat to swing it around and crack it against the side of the trainer's head. A spray of blood flew through the air, and the man staggered backwards feebly. Moments after, the dragon type scrambled to its feet with an incandescent roar and launched itself at its foe, while the ghostly black and orange beast swept in between the two and met the furious Garchomp head on with an transcendent cry of its own. The fight only lasted about a minute, but the Spinarak was horrified to realize that not only was the Pokemon he had been cheering for losing terribly, but its injured ally had disappeared altogether into the rain outside. The seconds ticked by, and slowly the battle came to a standstill. The Spinarak watched the draconic beast stagger and sink to its knees. A flash of white enveloped it as its head drooped in shame, and the spider quickly realized that it had been mega evolved. Now it was once more an average sized Garchomp, and seemed so much weaker. Tired. Afraid. Slowly, it fell in a lake of its own blood. The drake been defeated.
"Pathetic. Gardevoir, kill him. Erase all the evidence as well. We need to move quickly if we intend to catch up with Lark." The voice of the human was cold and without mercy or reason. The beast, evidently a Gardevoir, nodded and turned back to its hapless victim. It created another one of its pink tinted light orbs in its hands, this one twice as large as its first one, and slowly pulled back one arm to throw it in a deadly overhand toss. The villain turned heel and walked out of the building.
The tiny creature couldn't bear to see what happened next. It used a single silk thread to descend all the way to the ground as quickly as it could, and scuttled out into the storm in all haste. Just moments after escaping, an explosion threw it into the air and sent it sailing over a nearby grassy hill. It landed on its side with a loud snap, and released a burbling cry of pain that was swallowed up in the howling wind. But it didn't have time to so much as glance at whatever wound it had just suffered, because it was grabbed by the abdomen and hoisted up into the air upside down promptly. It found itself staring at the bedraggled and beaten head of none other than the Garchomp's trainer. The entire right side of his head was so covered in blood that half of his face was completely hidden from view. Its small eyes widened in horror and it began to chitter senselessly, pleading not to be killed. But of course, most humans didn't understand the age old language of Pokemon anymore, and this one was among them. But he did seem to get the point. He dropped down to his knees and gently set the spider down again, using his hands to shield it somewhat from the raging rains.
"How did you get all the way out here, little guy? I guess you're not really that little, though... hell, you're almost as big as my Eevee back home." The trainer laughed faintly, but the mirth died off before long. "Were you in the old train station?"
Silently the dual type nodded. It wanted to help, somehow. He seemed outmanned, outgunned, and entirely out of hope. Even if it was via something as small as providing information, perhaps it would help the trainer in some way. A heavy sigh escaped the bleeding man as he pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes.
"Hey, listen. I was hit really hard by that man back there. You saw it happen, right? His name is Everest, and he works for the government. They're the bad guys here."
The spider didn't quite grasp the concept of a government, but it was fairly certain that it was some form of human authority, so it nodded again and pretended it knew what he was talking about. Another blast of wind nearly knocked it over, but it braced itself firmly and squeaked in quiet determination. It wouldn't let this storm buffet it... not during such an important conversation.
"Oh... you're missing two legs," the trainer murmured as it scooped up the dual type. Indeed, after a closer inspection it hadn't bothered to take, it found that its front and middle limbs on its left had been broken off. Evidently, that was what caused the snap on impact, even though it didn't sting anymore. It whimpered sadly, knowing they would never grow back. Not until it evolved, at least; if it could find enough prey and train hard enough. "Poor little guy. I hope it doesn't hurt too badly. But you're a bug, so I guess you don't feel as much pain as a human would." For a moment, he was quiet, as if thinking. But then he took a deep breath and started to speak once more.
"I suppose you deserve some form of an explanation. My name is Lark Orwille. Since Everest is with the bad guys, I'm pretty much one of his arch enemies. I'm a scout working for the Rebels. The second in command to the head scout, by the way. That's a pretty high position." The Spinarak noticed a small flush of pride in his cheeks when he said this. "We're working to get rid of the government together, right? They've treated us trainers cruelly for years now, and we're starting to fight back at last. We're disorganized and stuff right now, since it's only been about a year, but we're a threat to them. A big threat."
Here he stopped, looking distressed as he stared up into the rain that was starting to wash blood and grime from his face. It could finally see some of his features. He had light brown skin and messy black hair that fell into his chocolate colored eyes, which were quickly filling with tears. "The Garchomp in there was my partner. I have a whole team of Pokemon back at base, but he was my right hand man since I was three years old. He protected me to the very end... but I know he couldn't have survived that explosion. Not after the wounds he suffered. He died nobly. To think... of this would have happened if I had just run away while I had the chance. But my pride won out; seeing Everest within my grasp just made me lose all my reasoning. It was my own selfishness that killed my Garchomp."
The spider rested a forelimb on his leg comfortingly, a gentle chitter escaping it. It had never cared for any other being like family, but watching such a noble creature being torn to pieces by those awful bad guys positively horrified it. It looked up just in time to see the tiniest hint of a smile smile flit across the man's face. Lark. The name was singsong, and the Spinarak liked it very much. It liked the smile, too. It liked everything about this trainer. But all too quickly, the happiness was replaced with yet another solemn expression.
"I guess that my point is, I– agh!" Lark doubled over in pain and dropped his small conversation partner to the ground to throw his hands to his head. It squealed in fright and looked up at him. The wound he had suffered was worse than it had originally thought! Blood had started to gush from it again, but he looked up bravely and thrust something towards the Spinarak. Upon closer inspection, it proved to be a small leather bag, quite dry despite being relentlessly battered by the rain and sleet. It determined that it must be waterproof, but now was not the time. It scuttled closer and squeaked questioningly at the trainer.
"Look... I don't have much time left. I'm honestly surprised I've stayed conscious this long. I'm going to be with my Garchomp soon," he murmured quietly amid denying cries from the dual type. The human couldn't die! Not so soon after their meeting! He couldn't! But the fate of the human was not its own to guide.
"I'm going to ask you to do me a really, really big favor. Would you do it? For me?" Lark asked desperately. The little Pokemon agreed without a second thought. It was ready to help in any way it could. Yet it watched miserably as he reached for the bag, opened it up, and took out a pen and a piece of paper with ink all over it, knowing that this would probably be the last time it ever saw him. He huddled over the leather to keep the paper dry, scrawling in shaky handwriting something at the very end of the already written letter. Then he shoved both items back inside and and leaned back dizzily.
"I need you to take this bag back to the Rebel base. The letter in there is really important. Here... look up." This it did willingly, and found itself staring into rain and clouds. "See that little patch of clear sky? Right there, that's a star. It's part of a whole constellation that looks kind of like a Krabby. Just keep heading in the direction of that star, even if it disappears. Follow your own trail if you need to. It'll be easier once the storm clears. I'm trusting you big-time right now, for the record. That constellation leads directly to one of the tunnels that take us down underground. Take the bag straight to the nearest person you find once you get there... you'll uh, you'll know it when you see it. They'll know what to do with it. And if anyone tries to take either of the letter from you, don't try to protect it. Call for help, maybe, but don't risk your own life. I don't want you getting hurt at the expense of the Rebels. You're being awfully kind just by helping."
The instructions the small creature had been given spun around in its head. It did its best to remember, using a little chant to get it right. Bag, Krabby, person. Bag, Krabby, person. It could do this. It gave a determined trill and pushed the strap of the bag over its head. Another smile, this one longer and albeit a bit more tired, graced the brownish features of Lark.
"Thank you. Thank you so much, little guy... I don't know how I could possibly portray my appreciation to you right now. If I live... in any way at all..." The spider cocked its head curiously. In any way at all? What was that supposed to mean? Wasn't there only one way to live? "If I do, I'll repay you somehow. I don't know how yet. But it'll be in the best way possible, okay?" A thunderbolt rumbled overhead as he spoke, and the Spinarak looked up and whimpered for a moment. But it was ready to be brave. The trainer patted its small head.
"Go on, now. Move quickly. Everest isn't far off. I'm going to lead him away from you while I still have the strength. Thank you again... you're literally my savior. Can I call you that? Savior? I hope it doesn't sound too royal or anything. Yeah, I like that. You're male, right? By all hells, I'm gonna call you Savior." In one quick movement the man had hoisted himself to his feet and was staggering away over the hill. It watched him go for awhile before a sudden pink blast that shot into the air caused it to scuttle backwards. Perhaps it was time to go. The small Spinarak turned its head up to the star and purred softly. Savior. It had a name. It liked the name. His name was to be Savior. Savior looked back in the direction Lark had gone once, twice, and finally scuttled off through the grass. Little did he know, the tiny arachnid hidden in the corner of a supposedly abandoned train station was the only hope for the Rebels. He would truly have to become their Savior.
A shadow passed over the earth, eyes staring up from within the storm clouds, down at the small Pokemon. The storm seemed to be alive as it whispered the name.
Savior.
Savior.
Savior.