"I've been having these weird thoughts lately…. Like is any of this for real? Or not?"
These are the thoughts many vivd dreamers have when they delve too deep into the subject of their dreams and how often they have them or real they feel. Like… are they really in control of their subconscious or is there some sort of…. second force controlling them? Some experts have found a pair of pokemon that tend to roam around dreaming people, sometimes inhabiting their subconscious thoughts or just watching, even changing their dreams as they need.
Darkrai, the practical embodiment of nightmares and torment during dreams, said to cause never-ending nightmares that could even kill. Though it doesn't appear on most maps, he was rumoured to have caused a massive incident at 'Alamos Town' in the Sinnoh region that made many residents sleep continuously with constant nightmares. Though it was said it wasn't done with any harmful much less murderous intent. Though he has been shown to kill humans, whether it was on accident or not. A sighting around Unova and a few cross around the countless regions show signs that if one is stuck in the dark-type legendary's dreams for too long… they could perish….. Darkrai resides most commonly on New Moon Island.
Cresselia, the bringer of good dreams and her wings counteract the nightmares caused by Darkrai. Usually in Darkrai's wake of nightmares and night terrors, the psychic type legendary is found curing those of their nightmares and torments with her powers, and even sometimes leaves her feathers around so then humans could cure the nightmares themselves. Even selling them as charms to ward off Darkrai, which are very popular in the Sinnoh region. In the end, after roaming wherever severe nightmares or slight nightmares are near enough for her or if they're bad enough for her to travel to a different region, Cresselia always comes back to rest in her shrine. She resides on Full Moon Island.
They are called 'The Lunar Duo' because of the names of their islands. Two sides of the same coin, that being the coin of dreams. A struggle that will continue on indefinitely due to there being just an endless cycle of the same process. Unless of course… someone else interferes.
For some odd reason, the Lunar Duo was spotted fleeing the Sinnoh Region after a big clash between the two that sent out a massive amount of dream energy both pleasant and nightmarish that sent many towns into a deep slumber, and were heading to a recent hot-spot for events to be happening. The Alola Region.
At it is here, along the coast of Melemele Island that we find someone who was about to set off to stop the two clashing rivals that caused his home to fall into a seemingly never-ending slumber and re-awaken them.
A white boat slowly steadied itself towards the docks of the Hau'oli Marina as its engines shuttered off smoothly and without any problems, easing the sea vessel near the disembarking port and stopping. The captain walked away from the steering wheel to grab a rope along the deck and tossed it out to the mooring to get it tied up and secured. "Alright kid, here's your stop." he said, doing the last parts of the knot along the mooring and waiting for his passenger to leave the boat.
"…."
"Kid? Can you hear me? We're here." the captain tried calling again, louder this time and still getting no response. He sighed and walked towards the cabin door where the kid was supposed to be during the trip, knocking on it with an annoyed expression before again getting no response. "Come on kid what are ya doing!?" the sedan barged in and found his passenger asleep on the seat he was sitting on, peacefully snoozing there.
The kid was around 17 years old. Not really a kid in most terms but in comparison to how old the captain was, he preferred calling him that rather than anything else since he didn't know his name. White as snow hair that was soft looking and flowed nicely in front of his right eye with a big fringe that some would call the 'emo' cut, and it flowed just a tad bit along the back of his head to his shoulders. His facial features were a bit soft and gentle looking, like he didn't get out much or he didn't cause all that much trouble. As for what he was wearing, the ensemble consisted of a plain white tee with white shorts and a black jacket on top of the shirt to keep him warm during the night, and a peculiar pair of feathers for a charm on his necklace, along with a backpack that was seen right next to his feet that belonged to him most likely.
"Jeez kid, I run boat rides. Not a floating hotel. Come on!" the captain said as he shook the white haired boy on the shoulders for a bit, eventually getting his attention and having the teen wake up. "We're here, come on. I know it's late but you already paid, so get off my ship. I need to rest….." a yawn came from both the salty sea-dog and his passenger as both seemed rather sleepy for different reasons.
"5 more….. *Yawn* hours…." the kid said rubbing his eyes and looking around the cabin, finding his backpack and stretching out before following the captain out towards the dock to depart from the ship. It had been a long ride from Sinnoh to Alola, he wasn't sure where the maps showed the two together, and he was asleep for most of the journey so he couldn't tell. When he arrived though, the streets were a bit quiet, but still had people roaming around at this time of night as the full moon shined above and the stars glittered the dark sky above. Night time was just so soothing to the boy as he walked onto the Marina and stretched, with the liveliness dying down to a more calm environment with people still able to keep him company despite when he walked around the streets it was close to midnight and most would be asleep right now.
"Oi, kid. Careful around here alright? A group called Team Skull has been pretty lively recently, 'specially around this time of night. Go find a hotel or pokécenter to stay at or something." The captain said with an almost grumble towards the end, making sure to take his boat keys and walked by the white haired boy to find somewhere to sleep.
The kid nodded and replied "Sorry for falling asleep on your boat..… And thank you…" he then clutched to the feather charm on his necklace to try and gather some energy to keep on moving. One foot after the other and beginning his trek to get to a safe place to sleep.
… Only to fall asleep again after 15 feet or so.
An hour passed since then and a pair of figures came walking up to the Marina from the city. Posing and the like while they moved and staying shrouded in black and a bit of white. "Yo yo yo! We finally got a job! Finally after that other grunt was a slob! Now we gotta go steal a boat to take a midnight cruse, all the while that boat rider is gonna have the blues!" Rapping, posing, and mainly dark clothing. This is the sign of the rather rebellious Team Skull, making their way onto the scene. The first one that was rapping was your typical male grunt in the Team Skull uniform, with the same
Bandanna around his mouth and cap on his head, and apparently needed blue hair. Almost identical to every other male Grunt.
"Can it B, what? Can't you see? There's a kid right there, and he's sleeping like a bear…tic. Damn it… wasn't sure if that would've worked." The female of the two who stumbled on her words and confidence, was actually a bit different from most Team Skull female grunts. Of course the standard white skull hat, but her hair was a a sort of light green colour and much longer and flowed a fair mount until it was close to her hipline. Not to mention when most grunts are around 5'6"ish or taller, she beat them at an astounding 7 feet and was definitely an eyepatch at base due to how much she stood out. And unlike most of Team Skull, she had actually been around in the sun a lot more rather than hiding in Po Town or striking at night, so she had a fairly tanned body in comparison to the pale male grunt besides her. "J-just be careful yo, don't want to wake up this guy and have him find out what we're doing."
"For real? He's out like a light! Who gives a crap if we make a bit of noise around him, he won't notice. So let's grab the boat and book it." The male grunt smirked under that bandanna mask as he made a few stamping noises around the white haired sleeper that didn't dare wake right now.
"Fine… ya'll stupid anyhow." the taller female grunt sighed as she also walked past, but also got a good look at the kid and what he was wearing before looking over to her partner in crime and waving him over. "Hey, check it B. The kid looks kinda familiar, see?" she quietly celebrated to herself at the decent-ish rhyme she made just then. Obviously not the best at rapping.
"Yo dog you better make this fast, because our window of opportunity is about to pass. Lemme see." The male grunt danced his way over to the sleeping body and squatted near in the practised Team Skull way. He took a good scan over the kid's clothing and looks to see what the girl was trying to get his attention for. Surely it couldn't be all that important. White shirt under a black coat or jacket of sorts, necklace, sneakers, white pants, white hair. The grunt's eyes went wide in shock and he jumped up with hands trying to protect his face as he was that shocked. "YO YO YO! He's the spitting image of Big G! Sure he might be lacking the sunglasses, fuzzy hair, and Team Skull flair, but it looks like he's trying to imitate him. Like some sort of ditto or… somethin'…"
The female grunt shushed her partner and tried to get him to shut up as the sleeping litleo stirred in his sleep, though not from the noise, more-so something happening in his dreams, regardless they thought it was themselves causing it and so both shushed up real quick. "So, what do we do?" Grunt A asked as she looked at the 'Guzma-wannabe' and pondered for a bit.
"I know it's against the rules, and we'd look like a pair of fools. But I say we bring the kid back while we head home on track. Might wanna join Team Skull, cause he thinks that regular life is getting a bit dull. Or at least that's the only reason I see for dressing like that. But the feathers is all weird, if he's gonna join he'll have to ditch 'em. Well we'll see when we get back. C'mon, lift 'em up." Grunt B instructed as he was making the main point that Grunt A was much taller and probably strong enough to lift the kid on her own.
"Wha? Really man? Ya'll puttin' this load on me? That's whack yo." She responded while sighing and bending down to pick up the sleeping soon-to-be-team-skull-member, while her partner picked up the backpack and tossed it in the white boat tied up at the docks and made sure to untie the rope. Once everything was aboard, they managed to hijack the engine after messing with a few wires to set their cruise off nice and steady into the ocean night. If someone were to listen closely
enough, they'd be able to hear 'Busy Ernin' somewhere on the water as the male grunt had turned on the radio for some cruising tunes, though wasn't the best with the volume settings.
…
It was already night the following day. The two grunts that had kidnapped the white haired boy had taken him back to Po Town on Ula'Ula Island and wanted him to wake up to meet the boss and get him recruited into Team Skull potentially. The only problem was that he seemed to be in a near endless sleep as he went the whole day napping in one of the spare bedrooms in the broken up mansion and did get a bit of concern from the two that picked him up. They were wondering if there was something wrong with him, and if it was even a good idea to bring him here. So both grunts left him in the room for now and went on roaming around the base to do as they please or were told to. The female grunt would probably be in an empty room trying to practice rapping as always, and for the male grunt he was practicing his squatting technique since it was important for all TS members. 'If you can't squat. Then ya'll ain't got squat!' is one of the sayings tossed about to encourage the grunts to do their signature moves.
As it went dark over the constantly rainy town, the sleeping teen stirred in his sleep after the feathers on his necklace glowed faintly. His eyes slowly opening up and bringing the flickering light of a buzzing lightbulb-asaur into his eyes as the dimly lit room took up his vision. He was on an old looking bed, but it was still comfy and nice to lay upon. No blankets on the bed, his backpack was rested against the front of a bedside table next to him, and there were paint splatters or graffiti on the walls. He then looked directly infront of him to see a broken window to give him a good view of where the hell he woke up. The boy got up, his sneakers were still on and crunched on the slightly soft but also old and dry carpet as he moved over to the window and looked out. The sky was dark and grey, rain seemed to pour down endlessly and the town was trashed, but still inhabited with many people that all looked the same depending on if they were a male or female. "Where am I?" he said to himself softly, and honestly a tad bit scared.
Grabbing his backpack from the bedside table and putting his arms through the straps to carry it on his back, the white haired boy took it upon him to gather his courage and explore this foreign area. Creaking his bedroom door open and walking out, though making sure to lean back in and flip the light switch off to be polite, he found himself coming out of a corner and into a foyer of a big building he could only assume to be a mansion with the chandeliers, though they were smashed on the ground rather than hanging. He slowly took a few steps out of the corner, making sure he was as quiet as a mouse as he moved.
"Hey, did you hear? Some grunts managed to pull someone who was sleeping on the docks over here, they said he was dressed up like Boss. I think they brought over a fanboy!" A feminine voice protruded past the doors that lead into the foyer of the building, and was getting closer to where the white haired kid they were talking about was. He quickly hid back around the corner and hoped to Arceus she didn't come close. But he did yawn before the female came in.
"Omigosh! You think he'd be like a cute mini Guzma? Sure it isn't exactly 'gangsta' of us, but it sounds super adorbs~" Another voice joined the first one as the doors creeeeeaaaaaaaaked open and revealed a pair of female Team Skull grunts gossiping as they walked through the mansion towards their room to call it a night. Luckily enough they didn't go towards the corner the kid was hiding behind, and just went upstairs talking still.
"Hehe~ I guess Big Sis is gonna have another little bro to look after!… Hey is that my Team Skull Tank you're wearing?" Just as the duo were most likely about to have a catfight, the kid ran past and out the door before it slammed shut. Quickly being hit by the constant rain, he ran quickly through the broken up town while still not trying to attract attention. He skipped the puddles that could make a splashing noise, avoiding hitting the bushes and making sure to stay out of sight, and sticking around the shadows to slink around the town.
It all was looking so good for him. Until he had a bit of curiosity strike him when going by one of the houses that had a sign on it that was kind of badly written and drawn, so he couldn't tell what it was. He looked behind him first, then too the left, to the right, and making sure no-one was in sight or looking his way before walking up to the door and taking a peek through the crack in it, listening in to what was going on inside.
There was a tall man who looked kind of slouched while sitting on his desk and looking smug with a big grin on his face. White fuzzy hair, yellow glasses with an odd frame, a golden chain necklace, his eyes were closed like he was in thought, and an outfit attire similar to the one that the kid was wearing right now, minus the details on the sleeves and pants. The man on the desk then opened his eyes and looked at the room in front of him, raising a hand and beginning to speak. "Everyone's here? Then ya boy Guzma will get right too it. Alright, here's the 411 punks. Say some Trial Captain is dissing yo fly girl. You just give 'em one of these" And like that the 'pimped out gangster' jumped off of his desk and started pulling all kinds of poses and dance moves, shuffling about and dancing rather intimidatingly before jumping back and grabbing a two pokéballs, tossing them at the people in the room and releasing a pair of bug type pokémon. Ariados, a well known bug poison type pokémon from the johto region, and then a rather large and intimidating pokémon with a silvery exoskeleton, purple antennae on what he assumed was the head of the pokémon, and two large looking arms/claws followed up by two pairs of smaller arms beneath them. Both jumped around the room and shot attacks around the place, trashing it up and making the grunts panic a bit as they wished not to be hit by any of the poison or…. guessing by the silvery pokémon's punches it'd be fighting type moves.
As they were attacking, a shot went awry and headed straight for the boy outside the door. Causing him to yell and back up as the wooden door was smashed into pieces infront of him, luckily not being hit by any of the debris. Unfortunately on the other hand, he had gotten the attention of almost everyone in the town and everyone was looking at him with either strange or some sort of violent intent in their eyes.
The man named Guzma also looked towards the kid and walked over with hands in his pockets and a grin on his face. "Well… look who finally decided to wake up. I was told someone was posing as me over by Hau'oli city, but I didn't think you'd sleep through an entire day. The hell is wrong with ya?" As the big bad boss walked up to the kid, a grunt after grunt all made their way around the area where Guzma and the 'V.I.P' of the evening both were, and made a squatting circle. "Tch. I swear, first some of my grunts can't wake up and are having nightmares, and now the ones that are actually awake bring me a snoozer! It's like everyone in Alola is trying to hibernate. Ya'll not a bunch of Ursarings!" Guzma ranted on with a more pissed look and frown, but took a deep breath before looking back to the main problem at hand. "Aight, listen kid. I don't particularly like people copying my style without permission, and do you know what I do to people that I don't like?" the boss paused to let his intruder answer, but just as he was about to answer Guzman then cut him off and continued on "I crush 'em! I break 'em! I'M DESTRUCTION IN PHYSICAL FORM! Ya boy Guzma's got it all!… Now then."
Picking the kid up by the collar of his shirt and by his necklace, Guzma lifted him up and grinned while the other grunts watched. "Explain yourself" stopping his rambling and introduction to the newcomer, Guzma let the intruder speak for himself now and explain.
"I-I didn't know this was what you liked to wear… and shouldn't I still be able to dress the way I want to? I-i mean no offence. It's just I only just got to this region… and I haven't really heard about you guys before." A few of the circling grunts gasped at the boy's response as Guzma dropped him and just stood there with a surprised and annoyed face. The scared shy looking teen sat there and wasn't feeling like moving right about now incase he did something wrong. The loud nature of Guzma and his actions were rather intimidating to him.
"So… y'all sayin' you ain't eva heard of Team Skull? S to the K to the U-L-L? Either you be livin' under a geodude for most of your life, or you be lying. And boy I don't like liars." The boss responded as he was quite upset his team was not heard of and feared all over.
"Well… where I come from we don't hear much from other regions. We're kind of rural or… quaint? The most I got was out of books and stuff, but we've been getting a few computers here and there."
Guzma raised an eyebrow at this. He was intrigued by the fact that the boy said he didn't hear much from his old fashioned town, yet dressed up all funky and fresh as the Boss of Team Skull himself. Not to mention he could tell by the way the kid spoke and looked that he wasn't around here. "Aight." he said, grunting before squatting down to where the kid was sitting and looked at him on even levels. "So where are ya from? And why the hell did y'all come here in the first place? From what I was told it was just you on your own."
The boy was polite and responded with the right answers that Guzma was asking for. "Umm… I'm from Alamos Town, over in Sinnoh. As for why I'm here… well, you said it yourself. People are 'hibernating' or sleeping for a long time, and they won't wake up unless I do something about it."
The grunts all looked around at each other and then towards their leader with confused and curious gazes, as Guzma himself was intrigued himself about what the kid just said. Responding with "Well that Alamos Town thing makes a lotta sense. Bunch'a fools made a town on a small mountain surrounded by bigger mountains. Who does that? But I guess if you're out in the boonies then there ain't much I could do about it." Crossing his arms, the team leader closed his eyes and got thinking. "You said y'all came here from Sinnoh because of the sleeping thing right? Why tho? We ain't even from Sinnoh so why do you care about us?" he seemed to be lowering his tone and not being so violent as Guzma just wanted things to go back to normal, so he had to get all the information he could out of this kid to save his team. Though he hated being this quiet.
"Because… the two pokemon Darkrai, and Cresselia, that can control dreams are here on this island. Someone's forcing them to put people to sleep against their will or controlling them some how. He wiped out my whole town and put them to sleep… and they won't wake up. So if I can find whoever did that and beat them, then my home might go back to normal." The kid said as he sat properly with legs crossed rather than a kind of 'I just landed on my arse' position. He stared at the boss along with the grunts as they all looked towards the white haired gangster as he squatted there in thought.
Guzma opened his eyes, gave a stern look to the kid, and spoke. "So what y'all sayin' is… if we find this rank trainer and beat the crap outta'im, then Team Skull will be back at 100%?" The kid nodded silently and Guzma just grinned. "I guess we are gonna be destroying someone then! Heh, thanks a lot kid. Now scram while we take care of the rest, we got this." he said as he got back up after squatting for a while, putting hands in his pockets and walking off towards the further end of Po Town where the doors were. "Come on you Grunts. We're gonna go man-hunting!"
"HELL YEAH!" the entire group of grunts cheered as they walked away from the intruder and followed their boss eagerly.
The teen got up, dusted himself off and took a deep breath. "No."
Guzma caught the word coming from the boy and turned around with a confused and irritated look. "What did you say?"
"… I said no. You're not catching him."
"Oh? And why's that?"
"Because." the white haired Guzma-looking teen said as he raised his head and his expression changed. It had gone away from timid and soft looking, no longer looking like a little sissy and was instead replaced with eyes full of murderous intent. His face was looking pissed as he thought about the one that caused his whole town to go into a coma and was full of the need for revenge. "He's mine. I'm gonna be the one that takes out that low life scum! You hear me?! HE'S MINE!"
"…"
"…"
"…"
Everyone in the town was shocked when hearing that and were left in silence. They all took one look at him before hand and passed him off as a weak wannabe, someone who could never hurt a fly if they wanted to. But when it came to that one person that caused all of this trouble, he seemed to melt away into a violent, revenge fuelled beast. Even Guzma was shocked at the 180 in personality that reminded him of himself. But, he smiled.
"Heh… Hehe…" Guzma began chuckling. "HAHAHAHAHAHA!" a full on hearty laugh came from the TS leader himself as he walked over to the kid once more and looked him in the eyes, hands on his hips and staring down the kid. "SO YOU WANNA BEAT 'EM THAT BADLY 'EH?!" he turned around and had the biggest grin (at least for Guzma standards) as he continued "Well, I like your moxie. I REALLY like it. So tells ya what? We'll help you out then. We both want the same thing. For that motherfucker to pay in spades and beaten to a pulp. So, how about you join us for a bit until they's outta the picture? We'll get you set up with a pokémon, show you around, and teach you the Team Skull way of how to beat 'em down! Whadd'ya say?"
The outraged kid was still taking a few deep breaths after that outburst. He was calming down and returning to a less scary looking version of himself, then looking at Guzma and considering his offer. He knew that the boat man warned him about these guys, but even if they're bad guys as long as they had the same goal then it wouldn't matter too much would it? "Umm… ok. I think we can make a deal." he was confident that this would be an easier way of getting to the real bad guy rather than on his own.
"Great! Now, what's your name?" Guzma asked as he felt it would only be right to ask it now since they'd be working together for a while.
"My name? It's Elh." The white haired kid responded with a soft smile, only to get another confused look from Guzma.
"L? Why the hell do you have a letter for a name? That's just straight dumb"
Elh then returned the confused look back as he stared at Guzma and didn't understand. "No, my name is Elh. It isn't a letter."
"Yeah, L IS a letter of the alphabet. Didn't ya go to preschool?" the argument went on.
"No. Not like that! My name is spelt E-L-H. That kind of Elh."
Guzma shrugged as he heard this and understood that he made a mistake when hearing Elh's name. "Huh, Sinnoh must have some weird names then. Whatever!" he said, grabbing Elh and pulling him in side-by-side. "Listen up Grunts! We got a new recruit that's gonna show us the way to whoever the hell's been putting our team to sleep! Make sure to give him a proper Team Skull welcome! He'll need a pokemon by tomorrow so he can get to work, so some of you are working the night shift! GET GOING!"
And that's how it all began. A misunderstanding lead to one of the strongest forces being made to combat a specific threat. Now all that's needed is a good night sleep for the new not-so-evil addition. Team Skull Grunt Elh.