Just so you know, this story starts out in three different places and ends up tying the three different stories together like a braid. The ruler marks where the views change to another of the three, and the dotted line marks where the scene changes in time.

For this story, I kinda mixed the Pokémon Pearl game with some Pokémon episodes… I wasn't sure which source of information to go by so I just did both.

This is my first Pokémon fanfiction – after a month of my fandom, I finally got around to actually writing one!

Enjoy!

Read and review,

Raven's secret-keeper

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A Work of Magic

Prologue

"Mur! Mur! Murkrow, Murkrow!"

A small hovering teal-gray creature let out a small, shrill note of surprise as a flock of black shadows erupted from the trees of Eterna Forest. She followed their movements nervously, her red and yellow eyes watching until they vanished from her sight over the treetops.

Any other time, the moonlit forest would have been her playground. Any other night, she wouldn't have been startled at all, only amused by the Murkrows' surprise.

Any other night, she wouldn't have been alone.

It wasn't really the sudden flight that scared her as much as the tension of waking up in her birthplace, far away from her home and without her trainer.

She tried to figure out the sudden change, her mind reached desperately for logic, she had been trying to understand why she had been alone for the past couple of hours. A small idea arose in the back of her mind, but she hastily pushed it back. It was impossible, her trainer must have cared too much, it couldn't be… but there was no other way… and somehow she had always known she wasn't very special to Marie – her trainer had always preferred the more groomable and cuddly ones like that Evee, or her new Vulpix, and even that Pichu… she never spent that much time with her much rarer Misdreavus, she only owned her because she didn't want to disappoint her daddy, the one who managed to capture the little ghost and ended up giving her to his daughter as a birthday present… Misdreavus had always been a sort of outcast in that home, but it was still her home…

She shook her head to clear her mind and began searching the trees for her owner. She became desperate, silently pleading that it wasn't the case, and she looked around anxiously for a few minutes, every second causing her hope to fade away.

And then she realized that there was no other way.

She had been abandoned.

She let out a high-pitched mournful noise and hung her seemingly oversized head. One last spark of hope caused her to pick up her chin and breathe deep and cry out, screaming in her screech-like voice. She held it out as loudly and for as long as she could, until her voice faltered and she couldn't even breathe properly.

Her breaths coming in deep gulps, she tried to squeak out another call. Finding it too hard, she turned around and around desolately and listened for Marie's voice……

…

She hovered, listened, turned listened……

…

The only sound was a slight breeze rustling the trees' branches.

Elsewhere, another lonely creature gazed up at the night sky wistfully, the frightened and hurried footsteps fading away. It had just been happening too often nowadays…

Her purple, flowing body and the hat-like shape on her head often gave people the wrong impression. Her kind was deemed unlucky… Typical human behavior, misunderstanding something just because –

Then a thought in the back of her mind brought on a sigh and she bowed her head. It was beyond her control. She was still getting used to living with this new form… A few days ago, she had stumbled on a Dusk Stone, and her inspection of it had caused her to evolve into a Mismagius. She didn't mean to. And if she had known what she was getting herself into, she would have preferred to stay a Misdreavus.

Every sound she let out was like a chant, a curse, and it always seemed to make others suffer. But why…? At first it was amusing, watching them yelp, startled, at her sudden appearance, then scream at nonexistent fears – the hallucinations she learned how to cast within two days of her new form. The mischievous nature of being a Misdreavus was still with her.

But then one day, all the fun was drained away from her with a realization.

When she appeared in front of a larger group of Pokémon trainers camping out in the forest, they screamed and backed away like everyone else, only someone whispered something about a Mismagius's appearance meaning bad luck. The others looked tense and nervous, and it was a little confusing for her – she let out one last sound, a chant to leave them with just a few minutes of a headache, and then she vanished and moved away, leaving the trainers to contemplate the quick sighting, and glided back into the trees.

It all made sense to her now – they didn't run because they were that startled, they were afraid. Even as a Misdreavus, people seemed to fear her. And now she knew why. She was labeled misfortunate.

And she realized that maybe it wasn't the sudden appearances or screeching that scared everyone so much, it was a superstition.

She only meant bad luck if she felt like it, after all!

What right did the humans have to just assume that all Pokémon of one species had the same personalities? Wasn't that just a little unfair? Though, come to think of it, most of Mismagius' chants did do something that wasn't exactly lucky for the listener… But there were still incantations that could bring good luck and happiness and fortune… if only they'd give them a ghost of a chance…

She smiled at her own thoughts and word play – it was one of her favorite human sayings. She could usually understand what they were saying and she even tried speech herself – maybe she would've been able to if she hadn't decided it wasn't worth her time.

About a week ago, she had raided a campsite and found a stash of strange items and gave all of them a try, much to the dismay of the trainer, and just to mess with him, she had taken the bag into the trees with her. She brought it back empty of all its contents and chanted for him to have a few good nightmares tonight right before disappearing and leaving him stunned and puzzled. She hid behind a tree, waited, waited, then smiled when he realized that all his things were gone before floating off and leaving him to his losses.

She smiled blissfully as she remembered trying each and every one of his items, each one making her feel different than the previous, but her expression changed almost immediately as she realized that she wasn't helping her reputation.

She began pondering, trying to figure out if the status of her species had been well-earned or not…

Jess sighed impatiently as she ducked swiftly, barely avoiding being grappled by a dark tree branch. Ever since she had left on this so-called impossible journey, this forest had been her only destination. She did consider Mt. Silver but people weren't supposed to go there, and here was closer to her home than the Lost Tower, so it was the fastest and best option.

But now that she was there, every single thread of her body and mind alike were tense, alert, and watchful. She was so close…!!! And that only made it more frustrating.

She had switched her sleeping schedule three or four nights ago – she could only find what she was after when the sun was down – luckily the forest was well shaded and the sun wasn't too bright for her to sleep. It was the final step of preparation. She had been getting ready the moment she left home.

On the way to the Eterna Forest, she had been pretty choosy about what she captured - she avoided all ground-types, fighting, and psychics, and even decided against ghosts to some degree; they'd all be useless to her purpose – and she trained all her Pokémon to be physical sweepers; she needed them to be strong in their physical stats, all their special stats could be totally ignored. She had even gone specifically after an electric-type, not that she actually caught one, just so she could bring down the dark/flying Pokémon she had, Murkrow. All her experience screamed that a dark type would be useful, and she just loved that little bird Pokémon… That Pidgey she had captured way back in the beginning was almost a Pidgeot now.

Now if only she could find just one – okay, two – Misdreavus, and a Dusk Stone would be perfect –

"One step at a time," she muttered to herself, "you're lucky if you even find one."

Then a small voice in the back of her mind reminded her that she did find and capture that Murkrow she wanted… All she had to do was keep at it and just keep looking.

A smile slipped onto her face as she remembered her dead-set determination from way back in the beginning. Ever since her 13-year-old self laid eyes on a single picture of Misdreavus, her heart had gone out to the cutest Pokémon she had ever seen. A bit of research brought up and absolute love for its entire existence, and even more websites introduced her to the wonders of its evolution, Mismagius – even the fact that they were both rumored to be bad luck gained her interest. Usually things like that were just big misunderstandings or superstition. Her Murkrow hadn't brought any bad luck.

Since that day, capturing a Misdreavus and finding a Mismagius had become her only goals. She didn't want to be the most powerful trainer – fame is so overrated… All she wanted was a Pokémon team that she could really get along with and have a connection with and be truly interested in training. And once she was ready to leave home, she left telling herself "It's for a Misdreavus!!!" And simply thinking the name of either of the two ghost-types brought an eager smile to her face and instilled determination and enthusiasm into her spirit.

Of course, her other Pokémon weren't just pawns in her plan, she really cared for them too – though the Misdreavus would be her instant favorite… She truly loved them and promised herself never to take advantage of them, and she had gotten pretty attached to her Murkrow in the two weeks she had him.

Even though people say Murkrow aren't the best Pokémon to stumble across, it was actually really fun having him around – she had something alive to occupy her as she traveled – until he became hers, her only source of enjoyment was her favorite music. Usually he rode on her right shoulder, with her backpack swung over her left as she walked along. One of his favorite things to do was tease his trainer by pulling on her dyed-black bangs – the rest of her long blonde hair was usually either behind her ears or in a ponytail, so her bangs were so much easier to reach. Jess always laughed at his play, since she knew he didn't get many chance to pull her bangs. She had started all her hair in a ponytail when the trees started catching it, and she would pull her bangs out just so he could enjoy himself.

As Jess looked up into the night sky, she couldn't help the smile on her face. There it was again – that glint in her eyes twinkled brightly, reflecting all the stars' and moonlight combined off her blue-green eyes with the same sheen that the infamous Ash Ketchum had when he thought about winning a Pokémon league. The only difference was their intentions. When Jess was asked if she wanted to be a Pokémon master, she would reply, "Master of a Pokémon," and she'd answer any other questions – if there were any – by saying she was only after one specific Pokémon, and she'd do anything to find it, no matter what it takes.

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-Raven's secret-keeper