A/N: Time for a new story! This one isn't going to get as much attention as The Bond of Brothers, but I still plan to update it at least twice per month.

I should probably point out that this story was pretty heavily inspired by Stephen King's The Gunslinger. The plot of this story is very different than the plot of that story, but you may notice a few shared themes and character archetypes.

On the first day of March of the forty-seventh year, the criminal departed from Paradise to face the Darkness.

The criminal did not have a name. He had had one, once, but now he didn't. It had been taken from him, just as nearly everything else had been taken from him. Nothing remained to the criminal but his dark robes, the light clothing he wore underneath, a large pack bursting with supplies, and six pokéballs. He had also been given a special gift which he wore around his neck, but the criminal could not say that he was grateful for it.

An endless red road stretched out before him. It was an old, worn road, lain down a hundred years or more ago. It did not appear to be made from brick or painted concrete, but from some strange metal that the criminal had never seen before today. He could just barely see the small town several miles in the distance. Behind him stood the tall city walls of Paradise, which was the center of the island and the home of the Orb of Purity. A heavy iron gate had been built into the wall, but it had been shut and barred the moment the criminal had passed through. A few members of the city guard, dressed in white, had accompanied him outside of the city.

"Best get going," one of the guards told the criminal in a gruff voice. "You'll need to be off the road by sunset, else that collar will end your journey prematurely."

The criminal nodded. He had no doubt that his journey would end prematurely, but he was unsure it would be because of the collar. It was a black, heavy collar, as tight as a noose. The king himself had locked it onto his neck this morning with a look of disdain.

The criminal adjusted the straps of his pack, then began to step down the red road. He was a grown man, but he had never left Paradise before today. Why should he have left, when the Orb of Purity protected him inside of those walls?

The Orb would not protect him now, though. With every step he took down this red road, he got a little bit further from the Orb's range, and a little bit closer to the Darkness. Nobody knew where the Darkness had come from, and in fact very little was known about it at all, but everybody agreed that it was a terrible, evil thing. If not for the Orb, it would have infected the entire island by now. Instead, the Darkness was confined to the shores of the island, and only rarely managed to seep inland. For forty-seven years, the inhabitants of the island had been trapped here, unable to penetrate the Darkness and reach the sea beyond it.

The criminal had been assigned to the job of finding and destroying the Darkness, just as all dangerous and violent men had been for the last forty years or so. In the early days, before the criminal was born, the king (who had been the current king's father) had sent armies and scholars alike to fight the Darkness. All had failed. Now it fell to criminals to try to stop whatever evil force had imprisoned them here.

He continued down the road. Overhead, the sun was bright and very hot. The town ahead never seemed to grow any larger, but Paradise seemed to grow smaller with every step. To his left and right, lush green forestry grew. The trees almost seemed to mock him with their presence. The criminal could hear pokémon making their wild noises, but he did not stop to watch. He kept his eyes forward, always forward. Forward was his life now. Forward was his job, and his God, and his father and king.

Before long, the walking, combined with the heat of the sun, made the criminal very thirsty. His pack had two side pockets, and each one had been filled with a bottle of cool water. He removed one of these bottles now and took a long drink, not bothering to savor or save it. It would only take a few more hours to reach the town, and he could refill the bottles there.

The trip was not nearly as interesting as he had been expecting. Throughout his entire life, the criminal had heard about the dangers that the collar-wearers faced. Every child in Paradise had heard of the brave outlaws who took on great, mythical pokémon on their way to the Darkness. Some children even aspired to become those outlaws, which was surely a fright to their parents. But it did not seem that there was any danger on this road, aside from the collar itself. The danger will come later, the criminal thought. The further you got from Paradise, the worse things became. The Darkness seemed to change people, pokémon, and even landscapes. He could only imagine how terrible it would be once he had finally left all civilization behind.

With visions of horror flashing through his mind, the criminal kept walking.

The criminal arrived at the town square with plenty of time to spare; the sun would not sink below the horizon for at least two more hours. It was a bustling little place, as all towns surrounding Paradise were. Mothers moved through the streets with their children, and pokémon went about unsupervised. The criminal continued forward; the road wove through the town and came out at the other end.

I'd better find a place to sleep tonight, the criminal decided. He grimaced as he remembered just how little money he had with him. Any respectable inn would demand more than half of what he had for a single night.

Well, that couldn't be helped. The criminal's true journey would begin tomorrow, and a good night's rest might help him survive another day. He had no delusions that he might succeed in this journey. Hundreds of men stronger than him had tried to destroy the Darkness, and all had failed. The criminal had already accepted his death, but if he could buy himself a bit of extra time on this earth, then why shouldn't he?

After asking around for a good half-hour (it took quite a while, since so many of the townsfolk fled at the sight of his robes and collar; everybody on the island knew what such garb meant), the criminal finally found his way to a cheap inn in a darker corner of the town. This place was much drearier than the square had been, but he didn't mind. In fact, he almost enjoyed the silence.

The inn was a large wooden building, and as the criminal stepped inside he realized that nearly everything was made of wood: the floors, the ceiling, the walls, the tables, the chairs, the casks, even the cups and bowls. It would not have surprised the criminal to learn that the food and drink served here was made from wood as well.

The place was quite empty, as far as he could tell. This first room seemed to be a sort of bar or restaurant. The few people drinking here appeared to be too drunk to care about the criminal's robe or collar. They spared him a quick glance, then went back to whatever card game they were playing in the corner.

The criminal stepped up to the counter. The bartender came over to meet him. He was an older man, perhaps in his late fifties. The little hair which remained on his head was going gray.

"You the innkeeper here?" asked the criminal.

"I am." The innkeeper dropped his gaze to the criminal's collar.

The criminal did not fail to notice. "Do you serve my kind? I have money."

The innkeeper snorted. "Why shouldn't I, then?" His eyes returned to the criminal's. "What'd you do to earn that collar?"

"I killed someone."

"Now, what would you go and do a thing like that for?"

The criminal shrugged. In truth, he had a pretty good reason for doing what he had done (at least, he thought it was a good reason; the king had disagreed), but he didn't feel like sharing it right now.

"Well, a bit of tit for tat, this is, ain't it?" said the innkeeper. "You killed him, and now you're the one who gets to die!" He laughed then, as though that were the funniest thing in the world.

"Will you take my coin or not?" asked the criminal. "Dusk is near. I must find an inn soon, else I'll have to sleep in the streets."

"Bah! Keep your coin, boy. I only wanted your story, that's all. Well, your story is boring, son. You'll have your room here, just as every damn criminal in the past ten years has."

"That's kind of you," the criminal said, genuinely surprised.

"Kind!" the innkeeper said, and laughed again. The other patrons were starting to look over at them. "It's more selfish than generous, boy. You murderers and rapists and other scum are the only people going after that Darkness keeping us trapped on this damn island. I won't have it said I'm not doing my part to help. You'll have a room and a bit of food from me, but don't expect anything else. If you want whiskey or wine—and I know all your kind do, don't lie to me—you'll have to pay."

It wasn't exactly the kindest offer in the world, but the criminal did not require kindness. "Thank you. I'll take the food, and the room. I'll pass on the whiskey." He didn't want to waste what little money he had on something like that. Many of the collar-wearers got drunk at every opportunity, he knew, but he would at least try to stay alive until it was time to enter the Darkness. "Is there anything in town I should see before heading out tomorrow?"

"Ah, it's information you want, is it?" The innkeeper grinned. "I offered you food and a bed, murderer. Nothing more."

The criminal suppressed a sigh. He pulled his pack off his back, set it on the counter, and pulled a gold coin out of it. Only one, though.

It was enough to appease the innkeeper. He took the coin. "Smart man. There's a smithy not too far from here you'll want to go see. Give him my name, maybe he'll set you up with a good knife."

"A knife?" said the criminal. "I have six pokéballs with me. Why should I need a knife?"

The innkeeper shrugged. "Well, see him if you want, don't if you don't want. Makes no difference to me. Come see me in the morning if you want directions to his shop. Now you just sit right there. I'll be back in a bit with your meal and key."

Twenty minutes later, the criminal used that key to unlock the wooden door to his room. The room was quite small, but it had a bed and a table, and that's all the criminal really required.

He went to the table and set his pack down there. He opened it, then began to take out all of his supplies. The pokéballs were at the top, so he took those out first. Of the six, five were empty. The king had ruled that he should only be allowed to take one pokémon with him, and that if he wanted more companions, he would have to catch them along the way. It had not been easy to choose just one of his life-long friends to bring with him on this final journey, but in the end, he had made his decision. The criminal did not know what was going to happen to the pokémon he had left in Paradise.

He set each of his pokéballs on the table, side by side. When he reached the one that held his friend (this pokéball was marked with a bit of brown chalk), he strongly considered letting it out of its ball and allowing it to sleep in the bed with him. In the end, he decided not to.

Next, he pulled his clothes out of the bag. The criminal had only one black robe, but he had taken many shirts and pairs of pants to wear underneath. He folded them neatly and set them down next to the pokéballs. The criminal then reached into the pack (which was now considerably less full) and pulled out a few non-perishable bars of food. They were made from things like oats and granola, and probably tasted terrible, but the criminal couldn't complain. For all he knew, those bars would save his life.

Save my life, the criminal thought, and almost laughed. No, his life was already over. It would be more appropriate to say that the bars might keep him from starving to death, once he had passed all the cities and come very close to the Darkness. But that was weeks away, and there was no reason to worry about it now.

He removed the half-empty water bottles from the pockets of his pack, and once he had done that he realized that there really wasn't much else to take out. The criminal peered into the pack. A dozen gold coins stared back at him. He decided there was no point in pulling those out, so he left them in.

Then the criminal stepped back and stared at the table. He could not have said why he had unpacked all of his things. Perhaps he just wanted to see what he was working with. Or maybe it was something else.

Well, whatever it was, it made him stand there for a very long time, just watching his things. He only broke out of his stupor when he heard some drunkard tripping and stumbling through the hallway outside of his room.

After that, the criminal quickly repacked his things. Again, his hand and eyes lingered on the pokéball with the brown mark. Once everything had been put away, the criminal locked his door and then stripped out of his clothes.

He crawled into bed, naked but for his black collar. It was only when he got under the covers that he realized just how tired he was. The long walk today had taken more out of him than he realized. You'd better get used to it, he told himself. All you'll be doing for the next few weeks is walking. That, and fighting. If he chose not to walk, or if he chose not to fight, then his collar would kill him. And you never knew when it would kill you, exactly, just that it would if it decided you weren't moving quickly enough.

The criminal scratched at the collar, almost nervously, as he closed his eyes. Somehow, he fell asleep almost instantly.