Just so you know, this is another one of those pre-game chapters.

Chapter 14: Falling

Welcome to Third Person

Chris and Grovyle were asleep in the cabin seats behind the cockpit, with the door wide open. The were sitting an opposite sides of the business-class aisle when a strange noise awoke Chris.

"Huh?" he groggily asked. "Grovyle, you hear that?"

Grovyle, who was also half-asleep, was simply annoyed that he was being kept up by his partner. "No."

"Well, guess we should-" before he could finish, Chris was cut off by a roar. The pair were suddenly awake. "What the fuck was that?"

Suddenly, the roar came again, and Grovyle determined it was from the right. He and Chris went to the window and saw that they had someone following them.

"Son of a bitch." He looked and saw a gigantic monster. It was like a dragon and had a diamond in its chest. They both knew who it was immediately.

"Dialga!" Grovyle shrieked

Chris ran to the cockpit. "What's our airspeed?" He looked at the gauge and saw they were only traveling at 250 knots.

He sat in the pilot's seat. "Time to go a hell of a lot faster!" He took the engines out of near idle and put them at full power.

Grovyle was terrified. "What are you doing?"

Chris, who understood the tone, answered. "Fleeing!"

As the plane got louder Dialga backed off a little, gauging how to deal with the problems inside. As he was thinking, he didn't realize that the plane was picking up speed and rapidly getting away.

Back in the cockpit, warnings were going off as the plane inched past its maximum speed and went overspeed. Chris shouted back, "Grovyle, did we lose him?"

Before Grovyle could answer, something shook the plane and Grovyle was thrown down the stairs. Dialga was attacking the plane, and Chris came over the intercom.

"Hey! Grovyle! I'm not sure how much longer I can keep this plane up! Get in a seat, and buckle up!" Grovyle got in a seat near the front and buckled the safety belt.

In the cockpit, the dials were beginning to give readings no pilot wanted to see. The plane was quickly losing altitude from 30,000 feet, and it was a battle to keep control of the plane. Chris lost.

"Brace for impact!" The plane hit the ground hard, but Chris managed to make it almost like a normal landing, for the first 15 feet. Grovyle looked back and the plane was literally breaking up as it slid across uneven ground. Chris, who was in the cockpit, was forced to see what they would be hitting. All he saw was a wall before the plane hit it and he was knocked out.

When the plane finally came to a stop, it was resting in pieces leading up to a building. Grovyle was dazed but unhurt. He unfastened his seat belt and looked around. The cabin was a mess and Grovyle smelled something strange. His bag and Chris's lay near the front of the cabin, where rubble was coming through the completely obliterated nose, and he picked both up. Grovyle went up up the partially collapsed stairs to see his colleague. Grovyle entered the cockpit to find his friend slumped over the cockpit instruments covered in debris. The windows had broken, and Grovyle saw the interior of the building they had hit.

"Chris!" Grovyle pulled his friend out of the cockpit and laid him on the floor of the upstairs cabin. Chris was in a bad way, bruised from the impact and unconscious. Grovyle tried to shake him up.

Chris coughed and opened his eyes. "Grovyle?" he hacked.

Grovyle merely shook him some more.

"Hey, I'm up! What happened?" Chris sat up, with some difficulty.

Grovyle gestured around them. "What do you think?"

"The plane crashed, and..." Chris then noticed the smell. His eyes went wide. "We need to get out of here, NOW!" He stood up, adrenaline shooting through his veins. "We need to find our stuff."

Grovyle held up their bags and handed Chris his.

"Thanks, but we need to go, now." Chris went down the spiral staircase and examined the carnage. He hadn't deployed the landing gear, so the floor of the cabin lay only a few feet above the ground where the plane had split. Chris ran up to the edge and looked out. The front had split from the rest of the plane, but the main section was still close, and on fire. The great jumbo's wings had all but disintegrated, and jet fuel bathed the four engines as the fire spread across the field they crash landed in. Chris hung himself over the edge and dropped to the ground. Grovyle followed.

"That thing could explode at any minute, run!" Chris and Grovyle ran away from the wreckage. They had landed on the outskirts of a town, and apparently into an apartment at its edge. They ran into the town and the moment the wreck was behind a building, it went.

"Shit!"

Bits of plane flew up and one almost got Grovyle, but Lady Luck was smiling on the pair, and they escaped without further injury. Chris then took in their situation.

"Alright, we've crashed, and we don't know where we are, but at least we're in a city." Chris thought a bit. "I'm gonna call the Professor, check in with him." He reached into his bag for the phone and dialed. He waited, and was instantly picked up.

"Yes?" The Professor asked.

"Hey, it's Chris and Grovyle." The pair began to walk aimlessly through the town they crash landed in.

"Oh! Chris! Where are you two?" The town was a collection of mostly low-rise buildings along a grid of roads, but a few prominent peaks went throughout the settlement. There was a clock tower, a church, and a very out of place steel and glass office building. The town was abandoned. There was a faded sign, which read, "Welcome to Fielders, Idaho! Pop. 14,189"

"Uh, Fielders?" Chris ventured.

The Professor nodded, "Yes, Fielders, my daughter used to go to the university there. It's one of the many cities that was abandoned when time stopped. Everyone in Idaho, well, everybody left, is holed up in Boise."

"Do you think we can resupply here?" Chris asked.

"Oh, of course, my boy. Even if people took almost everything, there's bound to be lots of stuff left behind." The Professor was browsing through various files on the town. "Oh, Chris, there's a supermarket on main street, you could probably find something there."

"Okay, sure thing, I'll head over there. By the way, any specifics on where we need to go to meet Celebi?"

"Actually, the Ninetails I took in, remember her?" The Professor was instantly tackled by the aforementioned Ninetails for not using her name.

"Uh, yeah. What about her?" Chris could hear the struggle over the phone, and gestured to Grovyle that they were loco.

"Yes, she-" the Professor shoved her off. "GET OFF! Anyway, she told me the Celebi always shows up at Deer Lake in Washington. And you have four days."

"Four!" Chris exclaimed, "I thought we had a week!"

"Well, that was three days ago," the Professor said plainly.

"What, but, we were only in the air for one..." What nobody knew was that Dialga pushed Chris and Grovyle a little bit forward in time. He would have done more, but they were traveling too fast.

Suddenly the conversation was ended. Both Chris and the Professor were left wondering what happened on their respective ends

"Hey, you still there?" Chris then looked at the phone's battery. "Crap." 0%. "Well, there goes that." Chris threw the phone out of anger at the wall. It fell apart.

Grovyle turned to Chris "What the hell was that?"

"Thing ran out of batteries. It's bloody useless. Well, let's go to Main Street." Chris walked along, and Grovyle followed.

When they turned onto Main Street, a row of two-story storefronts greeted them. Each had faded signs advertising various services. Barber, clothing, Western Union, and banking to name a few. The stores were left as they were at high hour, and a few restaurants had chalkboards advertising hot meals.

"Wow, I can almost image this place when it was full of life." Chris said as he walked up to the largest one, labeled "Supermarket."

When he walked through the door, the one thing he least expected to happen happened. Someone grabbed him.

"What the-" he started, but he was cut off, as the person who grabbed him also began to strangle him. He strained to get him off, but the man was too strong, and it was all Chris could do to hopelessly struggle against this threat.

Grovyle was instantly thrown into frenzied action trying to get the man off of his friend. "Get off of him, you bastard!" Grovyle yelled in a language neither assailant nor victim could comprehend. He was knocked back by a firm arm, and just as he was about to go all Leaf Blade on the man, a girl ran up to the three of them.

"Stop!"

She was a pretty thing, and her long, blonde hair was tied back into a ponytail. She appeared to be sixteen. The man continued, unperturbed.

"Dean! You're killing him!" When he didn't stop, she went up to the man, who was apparently named Dean, and swiftly kicked him in the crotch.

Chris fell to the floor gasping for air as Dean staggered backwards. Grovyle went to Chris, and the girl stepped between them and Dean.

Dean spluttered, "What was that for, Rose?"

Rose pointed at Chris, who was still wheezing, and screamed, "You can't just kill people, Dean!"

Dean flipped his jet black hair out of his face with his hand and leaned against the wall. "He was breaking and entering, that's justification enough." Dean was around eighteen and much taller than Rose, at around six-feet tall.

"The door was unlocked, and the place looked abandoned, anyone could just walk in!" Rose was indignant.

Chris finally recovered and grudgingly offered, "I'll just go, if I'm not wanted." He pulled himself up to leave, but Rose would have none of it.

"No! You're staying right here." She then took his jacket. "If you're gonna go, then at least let me mend your jacket. As a way of saying sorry for this jerk." She then left the room.

Dean threw his arms up. "Come on!" He ran out to follow her.

Chris, who at this point didn't really want to argue, sat down on a bench near the exit took in his surroundings. It was a classic supermarket, and the shelves, although not quite lined with it, had quite a bit of food on them.

"Well, now what, Grovyle?"

Grovyle shrugged and sat next to him. Grovyle, although Chris couldn't understand him, said, "We stick to the plan: get to Celebi, steal the Gears, and we save the world as a team."

Chris, ever oblivious, said, "After meeting Celebi, we'll need to take the Gears, and then somehow beat Dialga. That's right, isn't it?"

Grovyle nodded, "Yes, it is, Chris."

Chris continued, "There's just one thing, the Professor, when he told me what we're gonna do, he left out how we could return."

Grovyle was crushed. He didn't tell him. He suddenly felt as if there was a terrible weight on him. He doesn't know that after we save the world-

"Hey, Grovyle, what's wrong?"

Before either could go on, Rose walked back in holding up Chris's jacket. "Here you go!" She handed it to Chris and he put it on.

"Wow, thanks!" He examined it, and found that everywhere there was a hole, there was instead a small patch of fabric, each of which was different.

"Sorry, I didn't have blue checked fabric, so I just used old scraps." Rose then looked at Chris.

"That's alright, it looks better this way." Chris said. He honestly thought that it made him look a little better.

"Aw, thanks." She looked around then remembered something. "Uh, why'd you come here?"

"I came here because I thought this place was abandoned and I could get some supplies." Chris truthfully answered. "Are you the only people in town?"

A new voice called in. "Yes we are." Everybody turned to face an older man, who looked worn, and almost like an older version of Dean. However, his eyes were grey and seemed to stare into your soul, while Dean's were a soft blue. He went up to Chris, who had to look up to him. "Pleased to meet you, boy. I'm Lucas, owner of this store and Dean's father."

"Nice to meet you," Chris hurriedly said, "but I need to get going." He moved to the door, but Lucas grabbed him by the collar and dragged him back like a small child. Grovyle watched on from the doorway.

"Oh, no you don't." Lucas teased.

Before Grovyle could see the rest, he was suddenly pulled outside in a similar matter to Chris. He was pressed against the wall and someone stuck an aura sphere in his face.

"I got you, you rascal," he said.

Grovyle was confused. "Who-"

Suddenly, the aura sphere was subsided and Grovyle was back in control. When he looked up again, he saw an old Lucario with brown eyes looking at him.

Grovyle was shocked. "It's you!"

The Lucario gave Grovyle a quick hug. "I haven't seen you since we went through the portal into this world, Grovyle." He stepped back. "How have you been?"

"I've been doing well. I met a boy called Chris." Grovyle stopped when he saw his old acquaintance's eye's suddenly look nostalgic. "Is something the matter?"

He shook his head. "Just remembering you as a Treecko," he swiftly lied. He had known Grovyle almost from when he hatched. Of course, the Lucario wasn't exactly young then.

Grovyle shook his head. "Growing up, I always remember you weren't exactly the kindest to me. Why? Also, about your eyes..."

Grovyle's friend hugged Grovyle a final time. "Your answers will be answered when you have your last adventure." Before Grovyle could speak again, he continued, "I can't tell you any more, our time is brief, and I don't want to spoil it for you." He then slung a tattered bag over his shoulder and ran off.

Grovyle yelled after him, "Spoil what?" but the Lucario wasn't listening.

Grovyle sighed, and Chris walked out, waving back inside. "Alright, see you later!" Chris turned to see Grovyle. "Oh, there you are, Grovyle! I got a map to Deer Lake from them. It's only a three day hike!"

Grovyle simply stared off where the Lucario had disappeared.

Chris stood behind him. "Uh, Grovyle, what are you looking at?"

Grovyle quickly said, "Nothing."

Chris suddenly was very cheerful. "No idea what you said, but you're look at the way to Kansas, Deer Lake is the other way." Chris started walking. "Come on, let's get going." When Grovyle didn't follow, he added, "I'm entering the little cafe on the corner, come on in when you're ready to go."

Grovyle stood there for a few minutes, thinking about what the Lucario said. "My answers will be answered on my last adventure?" What did that mean? Of course, Grovyle knew him, and that he often said thing that made no sense. "Eh, probably just the old guy being crazy again."

After some due consideration, Grovyle decided to ignore the whole thing and join Chris in the abandoned cafe.

Chris was behind the counter. Grovyle noticed his eyes were the same color as his other friend's. Grovyle thought it was insignificant. Chris jokingly acted, "Hey! A customer!" He leaned over the counter and pulled up a seat. "Why don't you take a seat and have a little chat with your cook?"

Grovyle complied and said, "Okay, what is it?"

"Alright, Grovyle, I'll be brief, the food we have is zero." Grovyle was worried by that. Chris held up a finger. "But, this place ought to have some food in storage, so we're probably fine." Grovyle understood exactly what the boy was getting at.

One restaurant looting later, Grovyle and Chris were ready to set off.

"Alright, Grovyle," Chris said as they walked out of the cafe, "four days. Think we can do it."

"Definitely."

The pair walked off, imagining of the sunsets heroes like them rode into.