A/N: So, this is my attempt at re-writing Trherring's story with the same name (I did get his permission by the way). This will also be my first try out at a reborn fic, so hopefully I can do well, and make this as good as the original. Okay, enjoy .

So Close To The Top

Chapter 1

My name is Ryan and I'm a pokemon trainer. I collected all eight gym badges and seemed to do so in quite some style, so I had officially qualified myself for the pokemon league. However, because my team and I had finished so quickly in our aim to collect all badges, I decided that the right thing to do was to take a break from the constant training and battling regime that we had all become so accustomed to. We all deserved it, and the break was well received by the team too. However, when we only had a month left of our break, I decided that it would be best to give them intense training so that they had the best chance of beating the league. After one month of solid training we were all ready to take on the league. So now I was walking to the entrance of the fabled Victory Road.

The entrance to Victory Road was a lot less intimidating than it looked from afar when I wasn't inside the building. Walking towards the building and all I could see was a huge cave behind what was a Pokemon centre, although this one had a door that let any trainer with eight badges pass through onto victory road. I walked into the centre and straight over to the door where a serious looking guard stood there and looked at me sternly. He asked for me to show that I have all eight badges, so I waved the badges quickly, making him step aside and let me pass through. The door slid open and I smiled as I walked in slowly. I was surprised to find a major lack of trainers in the cave system; almost a complete contrast to all the routes full of trainers preparing to enter the cave, but there was no one in sight. I continued to walk deeper into the cave, the fading light from the centre was becoming even dimmer, leaving me practically blind in the cave's darkness. I could tell that I was just going to get hopelessly lost in the cave system's seemingly endless dead ends. This only made me a bit more miffed that no one else seemed to be in here, because I would have no one to even talk to as I tried to find my way to the league, and I would have no one to battle, so my team wouldn't even be warmed up for their league challenge, and they would need to be very ready for the Sinnoh league because every year they seemed to get harder and harder to beat.

I gave up the thought of being able to walk the whole way by myself, and it was far too dark for my liking, so I reached down to my trainer belt and unclasped one of the pokeballs from its latch. I held the pokeball up to my face and then turned it to release my friend and partner, my Umbreon. Umbreon was given to me when I was much younger, and when he was an Eevee. However, the night that I told him that we were going to challenge the Sinnoh Pokemon league, he evolved into the Umbreon that I saw before me, it was perhaps one of my happiest memories. His glowing rings illuminated the cave slightly, allowing me to see a few feet around me, which although it wasn't much, it was enough and more than I had before. Umbreon and I continued walking through the maze, constantly alert for any danger; he was sticking close to me to make sure that I was safe and I was sticking close to him to keep him safe, we were truly thinking like equals, only thinking of the other's safety, this was proving how strong our bond was. After another hour of what seemed like helpless traversing of the system; crossing many bridges where the bottom did not even appear barely visible, making me shudder, we managed to find an underground lake, I didn't want to release any of my other team members, so Umbreon and I made another route by scaling the rocky walls and then finding ourselves on a platform with only one way; across a long bridge. I thought my eyes were deceiving me because I was catching faint glimmers of light and I realised that this bridge was the final part of Victory road. I looked down at Umbreon and we both smiled at each other, knowing we had basically just defeated what was supposed to be the hardest route in Sinnoh.

I looked closer at the end of the bridge and saw a small hole of light, it was the exit. Umbreon and I proudly stepped forwards and walked calmly across the bridge. I checked my watch to see how long I had been here and saw that I had been in the cave for just over four hours and finally we had found the exit. We were just about half way across the bride when I heard a loud cracking noise and the bridge was wobbling slightly. I turned round and then heard what sounded like a massive explosion as a large Steelix snaked out of the ground where I was standing just minutes ago. The Steelix began rushing towards me; Umbreon stood in front of me in a defensive stance and fired a shadow ball at the steelix who took the attack and almost brushed it off with ease. The steelix then fired a dragon breath at Umbreon and he rode out the attack with great resilience, but it was obvious how strong the attack was.

Umbreon growled in anger at the steelix, and decided to strike back with his payback. He ran up the spine of the giant metal snake, a dark energy consuming Umbreon as he did so. He looked it in the eyes as he struck a powerful blow in the middle of its head. The previous shadow ball and that payback was enough to defeat the steelix. However, as Umbreon was jumping down from the attack, the steelix's limp form caused him to get side-swiped and sent on a course to a bottomless pit beneath the bridge. Without thinking twice I rushed to save Umbreon. Luckily, he was just about close enough for me to catch and in one swift movement I caught him and put him down on the bridge. I could only sigh in relief for a moment because I didn't realise that the 'bottomless pit' was in fact much shallower than I had thought and when the steelix landed on the ground, everything shook and the bridge was wobbling from side to side violently. I could do nothing about my failing balance, except wave my arms to try and regain any balance I can, unfortunately the tremors were too strong and as I lost my last inkling of balance I felt my feet leave the bridge and my body took flight. The world around me seemed to slow down as my thoughts sped up; I saw many memories pass by in my mind, both good and bad. As I fell my face was void of any emotion because I didn't know how to react to my sudden change of events that was leading to my inevitable demise. I calmly guessed the steelix had survived because I couldn't see it on the ground below, but then I felt slight frustration because all my effort to get to this point would now end so quickly. The last thing I heard was Umbreon's cry for me before I looked and saw the ground getting ever closer until it was at touching distance. I closed my eyes and then everything went black.

What happened next was possibly the strangest thing that has ever happened to me, and it still confuses me to this very day. I woke up stranded in mid-air in a pitch black room, although I could clearly see myself, I couldn't feel or move myself at all, so I surrendered to the floating state I was in. The room began to brighten a bit and that was when I noticed that I was not the only one in this room, in fact there were several others in the room with me. I managed to gain control of my head and neck, so I craned my neck up as I heard arguing taking place above me. However, as I listened closer I realised I couldn't understand what was being said. Although I knew that I wasn't the only one in the room, I didn't realise that I was the only human in there because I looked in the distance and saw a group of Pokemon. The longer I watched, the closer they seemed to get, although when I looked at myself I realised that it was in fact me that was moving towards them.

I stopped a short distance from them and they all looked at me, some were looking at me in disgust and anger, others were looking at me with intrigue and confusion, and others just stared blankly, it was all very unnerving. I gasped silently as I realised that the ones looking at me were the legendary Pokemon, all of them; I was terrified and felt like shaking, but my floating body kept still and I had to endure all of their stares. All of the ones who looked angry were far away from me, and shooting me menacing glares. I immediately noticed one of the others to be Palkia and it inched towards me until he touched my shoulder, causing me to gain feeling of my body again, now I began to shake nervously. Dialga roared in protest, causing me to freeze in fear of his immense power, but before he could reach me he was blocked by Giratina who then stood the other side of me, so I was in between Palkia and Giratina. After so much commotion I was surprised to see that Dialga was just shaking his head and disappearing before my very eyes, and soon all legendaries except for Palkia and Giratina followed suite. It was at the moment where only those two remained that I remembered the event that took place before I found myself in this room, so I began to panic and worry. Both legends looked down at me with an amused smirk written on their faces. I tried to protest, but found that my voice was bound by a psychic attack, so I stopped struggling, but I was still panicking on the inside.

The world shifted around me and I soon found that I was viewing my own house, and as I peered into one of the windows I could see the faint glow emanating from Umbreon's rings, but I could not see him myself. I began to feel myself tearing up and I turned to Palkia who looked at me blankly, as we continued our stare I began too feel weaker and more tired with every breath. I started to that he was glowing, the energy that was circling around him until it got absorbed by his body. I turned to look at Giratina and saw that the exact same thing was happening to him. I was confused, but when they both turned to face me I realised that they were getting the energy from me, I looked down to see that energy was literally being sapped by the two legendaries. I feebly attempted to struggle out of the process, but very soon the exhaustion from my energy being drained was taking a heavy toll on me, I was overpowered by my lack of power, and within the next few seconds I passed out from exhaustion.

I then woke up in a room that was white, and only white. I remembered everything that just happened and on top of my death I became even more confused, but now I was not nervous because I wasn't being viciously glared at by all the legendaries. I still had all control and feeling of my body, but once again I was alone. "Humans are so interesting when they don't know what's going on." A voice said matter-of-factly and then giggled a little bit. The voice came from nowhere and sounded like a young girl's voice, although I could tell there was a lot of wisdom with whoever this was. A harsh bright light brightened the room, so I covered my eyes with my hands and waited until I thought the light had subsided a little. When I uncovered my eyes, the room had dimmed slightly after the bright flash of light. However, that didn't catch my attention as much as the Mew that was floating just before me, playfully circling round me.

I swallowed hard and grit my teeth when I asked "Where am I?" I nervously asked because in truth I didn't want to know, but I had to know where I was at least.

Mew giggled again and then stopped right in front of my face "Well," she started before then moving back to keep a small distance away as she cleared her throat "you were dead, but now you're not. Yay!" she cheered, but this left me even more confused.

"So, I am alive now? I know this may seem like a stupid thing to say to a pokemon as great and clever as you, but I'm pretty sure no one can survive a fall like I had. So how am I alive now?" I asked, trying not to get my hopes of returning to my old life up too much because I knew that it couldn't happen.

Mew floated closer to me, still maintaining that child-like energy "You're right, you can't survive that fall, but here you are, alive, so yeah, I guess you could say that you are alive now….kind of." She muttered the last bit, making it unclear for me as to what she said.

I hopelessly asked "What do you mean?" I gave up, realising that I was not going to get a straight forward answer.

She smiled at me kindly "You'll see soon." She winked "By the way, tell Umbreon he owes me one." Mew laughed before disappearing like in the other room. Suddenly I felt extremely tired and fatigued and struggled to keep my eyes open, I could only fight it for a short while until my eyes closed and I fell into the deepest sleep I can ever remember having, but still plagued by the confusing thoughts that Mew had placed inside my head. However, I knew that I would get answers soon, so I rested quickly.

A/N: Hope you guys liked it, I'm so thankful to Trherring for letting me do this; I hope I haven't made a complete mess of it. Please review this story because I am genuinely interested as to what you guys think of it. I'll update pretty soon on this one. Okay, bye.