1CHAPTER 1

LUNA'S NIGHTMARE AND A STRANGE BOY

"Where am I?!"

The dark gray-blue-haired teen girl whipped her head around in alarm, her gray-blue eyes wild with fear behind her round, metal-rimmed glasses. Her long, denim coat flowed with the motion of her tall body as she began to break into a sprint. But no matter where she turned, no matter which direction she ran, she couldn't get away from the white emptiness that surrounded her.

"Where am I?!" she cried again, her voice echoing in the terrible whiteness. Fear rose in her heart like a fever during a terrible sickness.

With little warning, her world began to dissolve into darkness, darker than she could ever imagine. The girl screeched. Never before had she been in a blackness as dark and deadly as this.

Thud, thud, thud.

The girl twirled around in alarm. What was that?

Thud, thud, THUD.

No! It was getting louder! Getting closer!

THUD, THUD, THUD.

What is that?! the girl wondered in fear.

THUD, THUD, THUD!

Footsteps! Louder than she had ever heard, and they were approaching with an incredible speed.

"Who are you?" the girl called, trying her best to sound brave. "Show yourself!"

"Gladly!" a deep male voice called out.

"AAAAHH!!" The girl screeched as her world burst into dark purple flames. Fiery pain ran through her body like the burn from a Houndoom. And then, for a short instant, a brilliant white light blinded her, and she had to narrow her large eyes to protect them. When the light cleared, the purple fire was still all around her, but the pain was gone. In front of her stood dozens, maybe even hundreds of men and women dressed in pearl-white armor as bright as the flash that had almost blinded the girl.

Her heart filled with dread like water emptying from a waterfall to a river when she saw the man at the head of the deadly-looking army. He was a slender, long-haired man, and all of his body was hidden by shadows except for his sinister ice-blue eyes that seemed to see right through girl's every thought, every dream, every desire. Low, almost inaudible voices whispered something in the girl's ears, though she could not make out what they were saying.

"We will rule!" he cried wickedly. "We shall rule over all others!"

The teenage girl lifted her head to look the man in the pale blue eyes. "I warn you now; little girl, do not try to resist us. Or you WILL regret it!" the man hissed.

To the girl's great surprise, the man's expression instantly changed from pure evil to gentle concern. "Luna, wake up!" he said in a now-boyish voice. "Wake up! Luna!"

"Aaaaah!" Luna opened her eyes. "What?" She reached for her glasses on the wooden side-table next to her bed and put them in front of her gray-blue eyes. A long-haired boy just a year younger than she kneeled in front of her, concern showing in his mud-colored eyes.

"You were screaming in your sleep, Luna," the boy explained. "You were screaming about ruling over others and regretting something. Are you okay?"

"I think so, Eli," Luna said, relieved that it was just a dream. And yet... there was something about her nightmare... something that...

"Luna?" Eli asked, seeing the fear on Luna's face.

"Oh, don't worry about it. It's nothing, really."

Even though Luna tried to smile, Eli was still unconvinced. He knew there was something that was bothering his sister. But I'll let her tell me when she wants to tell me, he thought.

"No, it's not nothing!" a shrill, girly voice said from the bedroom doorway.

Eli and Luna turned their heads to see their small, spunky blond-haired younger sister, still in her girly pink nightgown. "Luna, don't be silly! You had a bad dream, didn't you? I know you did! I know you did! I really, really know you–"

"Put a lid on it, Heather," Luna said in an exasperated tone.

"No way! I'll never put a lid on it!" At this point, Heather started bouncing up and down. "And you're lucky Mom and Dad can sleep through everything! Or else they'd be all over you, worrying about you and crying over you and fussing over you and stuff!"

"Oh, Jirachi." Eli rolled his eyes as he walked over to Heather and began to push her out of the room.

"Eli, stop! I wanna stay, don't make me leave!"

Eli began to push Heather out of Luna's room, but the little girl tightly held onto the doorway.

"Hey, hey, hey, don't try to kick me out! I'll tell Mommy and Daddy!"

"Come on, Heather," Eli said. "If you wake up Mom and Dad, they're not going to be happy with you. You'll get a time-out for sure."

Good old Eli, Luna thought. Always thinking of things so quickly. I'm damn lucky to have a brother like him.

Heather's big sapphire-colored eyes widened in fright. "Okay, but you haven't seen the last of me!" she exclaimed dramatically as she made her way back to her bedroom.

"She really grinds my nerves," Eli said when he was sure his younger sister had gone.

"Gotta agree with you, dude," Luna said. "Sometimes I wish she was never born."

"Well, I wouldn't wish something as horrible as THAT," Eli replied.

"By the way, what time is it?"

"I think it's about five, five-thirty in the morning."

"Holy crap, that's early."

"Yeah, you never were a morning person."

"Nope."

"I don't know about you, but I'm going to go eat breakfast."

"I'll be right down. I just need to get dressed."

"You do that, Luna. Later," Eli said as he walked out of Luna's bedroom.

"See you, dude."

When Eli left the room, Luna looked around, to make sure she still wasn't dreaming. No, she was still in her bedroom: same wooden walls; the closet was still next to her white wooden door; her desk still next to her closet, cluttered with pieces of paper, books, and pencils; same bookshelf against the wall opposite of the door; her side table next to her bed was still next to the bookshelf; and, yes, she was still in her same white bed.

Luna breathed a big sigh of relief as she crawled out of the covers, walked over to her door, and shut the door. But she still couldn't shake off the fear from her dream, and the image of the tall, shady man with the frightening ice-blue eyes.

This wasn't the first time she had one of these nightmares, either. The night before, she had a dream about a Nidoking and a Nidoqueen, shrouded in black auras, battling each other with a ferocity that Luna had never seen before. Before that night, she dreamed of a huge, bulky man, bigger than any man she had ever seen, with unusually dark tan skin. With him was a girl around the age of eleven or twelve, with equally tanned skin.

But the strangest thing was, Luna reflected as she put on her black shirt, long jeans, and long denim coat, she could very clearly remember all of these dreams. Normally, she could almost never remember any kind of dream she had. And if she could, it was usually just bits and pieces of the dream. But the dreams she'd been having these past few days... she could remember them as clearly as if they actually happened.

I'm not usually one to believe in omens and all that crap, Luna thought as she brushed her thick, dark gray-blue hair, but maybe I should tell Fateen, this town's fortune teller, about my dreams. She shook her head. Or maybe I should tell Eli about it first. He might know what to do; he always does.

Luna sighed as she put her hairbrush down on her wooden desk. She left her bedroom and walked downstairs to the kitchen.

Luna sighed again as she looked at her surroundings. The stairs, wooden. The walls, wooden. Even the handrail was wooden. So much wood everywhere. Luna hated it. The rest of Pyrite Town all had modern houses, made of metal that was a bit rusted. But Luna's family liked things that were old-fashioned. She had often complained to her parents about the oldness of their home, about how the other citizens of Pyrite thought Luna's family was crazy. "Now, now, sweetie-pie," her mother, Amelia, would always say, "you'll never know what it really means to live unless you live like they did waaaaaay back in the old days." And then Amelia would start rambling about her childhood and how she was pampered like a princess. Every single time, her mother would never listen to poor Luna.

Her father, Robert, listened to Luna. But he never did anything about it. He was just fat, lazy old man who left his wife and children to do all the work in and out of the house.

But that's the least of my problems right now, Luna thought as she walked into the kitchen and poured herself a bowl of cereal and milk. At least all of the appliances were modern.

Luna took the bowl of cold cereal and walked over to the wooden table. She sat next to Eli, who was already crunching on a piece of toast. "Hi, Luna."

"Hi, Eli," Luna said. "Listen, there's something that I need to talk to you abou–"

Luna was interrupted when the television on the table flickered on. A pretty woman with beautiful purple hair and a fancy ruby-red dress appeared on screen. "We bring you breaking ONBS news!" she said, sounding a bit troubled but trying her best not to show it. "Citadark Isle, which has recently been discovered to be Cipher's base, exploded at exactly seven o'clock last night. Michael Fir, the boy who has been fighting Cipher for the past month and a half, was supposedly on the island at the time of the explosion. Investigators have found over a hundred bodies, including the Cipher Admins Lovrina, Snattle, and Gorigan, but no traces of Michael or his Robo Kyogre have been found. This has lead many experts to suspect that the boy had been captured by Cipher's leader, Greevil, and that Greevil took the Robo Kyogre with him prior to the explosion. Stay tuned for more details."

The television turned off on its own, leaving Luna and Eli to stare at it, wide-eyed with shock.

"Did you hear that?" Eli asked in astonishment.

Luna nodded slowly, almost completely forgetting about her nightmares. "I heard that."

"And you know what it means, don't you?"

"Yeah. It means that Orre will be as good as gone soon."

A tall, muscular man with long black hair stared at the seemingly endless ocean ahead of him as the sun began to set below the horizon, a small fishing spear gripped in his right hand. So far, he had not caught a single fish for his village, not even a tiny Magikarp. It was considered shameful for a man to return from hunting empty-handed, and he had to get back to his village before nightfall.

The man sighed. He supposed he would have to...

Huh? He began to see a shape in the distance. Some kind of... he didn't know what the hell it was.

"Leaf, why are you just standing there when you should be hunting?" a masculine voice next to the man demanded.

The man named Leaf turned his head to see a man even more immense than he was, with a long, diagonal scar on his face. He, too, held a fishing spear in his right hand, but he carried a whole sack full of dead fish-Pokemon in his other hand.

"Thunder, look," Leaf said. "There is something out there. In the ocean."

"Leaf, my brother, you must be going crazy," Thunder said. "The ocean is endless. There is nothing beyond those vast waters, except for the sun and the moon when they sink, and the sea Pokemon."

"But that is not the sun or the moon, and I do not think that is a Pokemon." Leaf pointed at the strange shape drifting toward their island. "It is like nothing anyone has ever seen. I do believe there are others..."

Thunder rolled his black eyes. His younger brother could be so ridiculous, believing in others beyond the ocean.

The mysterious shape drifted closer and closer, and Leaf continued to stare at it. Soon, its shape became clear. It was similar to a Kyogre, but with something puffy and red like a thick cloud was lying below it, keeping the Kyogre-like thing afloat.

"Leaf, it is coming closer!" Thunder exclaimed. "I was right! It must be a Pokemon! If we kill it, just imagine how much the village will appreciate our efforts! There appears to be enough to–"

Leaf gave his older brother a hard nudge with his massive elbow. "No. Look."

The strange thing was almost at the island's shore now. The two brothers could see its coloring now that it was closer; similar to that of a Kyogre, but it appeared to be very shiny and metallic. The top of it was transparent, showing a very small boy lying unconscious or dead inside of it.

Leaf's coal-black eyes widened in alarm. What the hell was this thing? Who was that boy inside of it?

"There is a small child inside of that Pokemon, or whatever it is," Leaf said.

Thunder blinked in disbelief. His brother... his strange brother who believed in strange things such as others beyond the ocean and an afterlife... was right? There WERE others, after all?

The strange thing floated onto the sandy shore, and they could see exactly what it was. Some kind of mutated Kyogre with a transparent top and a bloated red cloud-like object below it, they figured. However, it did not seem to move. It appeared... dead.

The boy inside of it was lying motionless on his side, his face hidden from view because of the thick red hair that draped over it.

...Red hair?

"Thunder," Leaf said, alarmed. "Look at this child. His hair is strange, very strange!"

"Yes," Thunder replied. "It is very strange. Hair should not be red. It should be black, like everyone else's."

"Strange or not, however, I believe he needs help. We must get him out of this thing."

"Leaf, you are even stranger than this boy if you think we need to get him out of there. He is from beyond the vast waters. We do not know what he is capable of, or how he even got in that thing. He could be a threat to us."

"Thunder!" Leaf snapped. "This boy will not harm us! See how small he is. He is unconscious, and he appears hurt. He could die if we do not take him back to the village and let the healers care for him."

Thunder sighed in exasperation. "Leaf, there are many times when you annoy me to the point where I wish to kill you. Frankly, this is one of those times. I do, however, see your point. Alright, I will help you get him out of this thing."

"The question is, how do we get him out of there?" Leaf asked, inspecting the strange object. "There does not appear to be an opening."

"Then we shall break it open!" Thunder raised his fishing spear.

"I suppose, but be careful not to hurt–"

Leaf's words fell on deaf ears. Thunder ferociously stabbed his spear at the transparent part of the machine, and it shattered into dozens of pieces that cut the boy's delicate skin.

"Thunder, what are you doing?" Leaf demanded furiously. "You are hurting the poor boy even further!"

"Well, at least we saved him from this transparent... whatever it is!"

Leaf shook his immense, strong head. His brother could be so heartless at times! "Never mind. We need to get him to shelter." With those words, Leaf gently picked the boy up with his giant, muscular arms.

Leaf gasped in shock. This boy looked even weirder now that he saw him up close. Not only was his hair red, he also wore strange clothing; a black and yellow shirt and blue pants, and something brown covered his feet. It very different from the Ursaring skins that Leaf and everyone else wore. Blood slowly oozed from the cuts Thunder gave him, but that was nothing unusual. Attached to the boy's left arm was something that appeared to be made out of the same material as the thing he was trapped inside of, but it was gray, not blue like the thing he was just inside of a few seconds ago. His left arm was also covered in blood that was drying at this point, and it was badly twisted to a weird angle. A large bruise made his forehead look blue.

That, however, was the least strangest quality this boy had. He was so small and thin. And his skin... it was so pale, white, even! Everyone else Leaf knew had skin that was some shade of brown, ranging from dark brown to light tan. Leaf's own skin was brownish-tan. But white! Never before had Leaf seen such pale skin.

"That child is a freak!" Thunder exclaimed. "I shall kill him now, for a boy as freakish as he does not belong in the world!" Thunder raised his spear again, ready to stab the boy's heart.

"Thunder, no!" Leaf grabbed the spear from his brother just before it could touch the boy. "Why does his appearance matter so much to you? We must take him to the village."

Thunder sighed. "I suppose you are right," he said, though he still sounded bitter. Leaf and his brother quickly walked away from the sandy beach and into the jungle where their village lay, leaving the gentle ocean waves to lap at the Kyogre-like object.