"You two shouldn't be able to come here." A pondering voice woke Dust and Kingler. The two seemed to be in a vacuum, with no light or heat, and began freezing. Suddenly, an incredible, blinding light came, and a massive white quadruped appeared, floating in front of them. "But considering you can… I suppose I should reward you for such a spectacle."

Arceus himself was looking toward the duo, with a puzzled look on his face. Dust was about to reply after two minutes went by, when Arceus opened his closed eyes and began chanting. Kingler grew slightly and a small pale light emanated from his forehead. The same happened with Dust. When the glow dissipated, the two had a marking on their forehead: A black swirl that led into a red line through the center of the spiral, ending in a semicircle at the bottom wrapping around the spiral in green. The symbol began shining in blue as Arceus boisterously screamed. "NO! Damn you Unown!" As the mark corrupted, turning into a B Unown as Kingler cringed in pain. Dust's mark turned into an E as his eyes rolled into his head and he screamed. Arceus slammed a hoof into the...ground(?), releasing a shockwave that knocked both Kingler and Dust flying back on accident.

"I am sorry, my children. The gift I gave was corrupted by those damnable Unown. I cannot give another gift, but I can give a warning. Stay away from the Unown. Those vile creatures will corrupt you if they finish a sentence with their markings, resulting in a forced evolution. It's happened twice in the past, once with a Greninja and one more with a Runerigus. Now, you should wake up. I believe I will see you again if you could reach my domain, but until then…"

Dust and Kingler both passed back out on account of the pain from the marking.

"Where am I?" Dust immediately sat up upon waking up to see his mother and father beginning to stir on the dingy leather couch where the two were leaning against each other. A few moments later, the two were fully awake and crying, holding onto Dust.

Apparently he and Kingler had been asleep for a week and a half and both had tattoos marking their foreheads. This triggered Dust's memory as he delved back into Arceus' message. 'Guess I'll stay away from Johto then. If these things are that bad I'd prefer to stay away.'

The two parents were adamant that Dust come home and quit his "senseless journey" to which he obviously denied. Not too long after, Erika walked into the room, tossing him a badge. He caught it out of the air, tweaking his shoulder slightly. "You know, you weren't supposed to do that well. I expected a surprise or two from you as you've bulldozed your way through the gym challenge thus far, but to hold out for that long against a pokemon, even my newest one, was something else. You opened up a lot of pathways doing that. Anyway, I've gotten off track. You have three meetings being requested. One with Lance himself, another with Professor Bill, and the last with some guy calling himself N from Unova. No clue who he is, but he has a lot of money. I also pretty much have to give you the badge after that display, no two ways around it. Now, I'll let you three get back to whatever it is you were doing."

Finishing her monologue, Dust's parents stared, slack jawed at what they just heard, while Dust just put his bag away and jumped up from the bed, doing a double frontflip to land on his feet. "I feel much better. Thanks for the badge and notifying me of the situation." Erika nodded and waved without turning around. When Dust went to grab some clothes from the backpack hanging up on the door, he also found a small bottle of perfume. 'Nice. Free shit.'

His parents finally fell out of their stupor and nodded at each other, deciding to discuss the matters at home later. The next morning, Dust waved his parents goodbye before releasing all of his pokemon. Eevee, Kingler, Duskull, Charmander, and Skorupi. "Alright, everyone, slight problem. We're now a week behind where I wanted to be. That means we're going to need to go wild on training again. I know all of us here except Eevee are battle maniacs, so you should like this, but fair warning, you might be in a world of pain when this is over. Eevee, we'll be working on your weather moves. Kingler, You need to finish mastering hydro pump and crabhammer. You only did it successfully last time because of battle bond and I can't have you, as a water type, not know those. Duskull, you have to finish turning shadow sneak into phantom force and learn nightmare. Charmander, you'll be working on upping your firepower and muscle strength in general, and finally Skorupi, you'll be with me and I'll personally work with you to catch you up. Welcome to a week of hell. After this, we'll be going to our next gym."

It only took five days. After a measly five days, the entire group was ready for the next gym, provided there was no crazy challenge. Over the week, all three meetings also occurred.

Flashback

The first was with Bill, who teleported with his Alakazam. "So then, you believe my Kingler has some sort of gene that makes it stronger?" Bill nodded to Dust's questioning.

"Indeed. Not too long ago I faced an enormous Dragonite with three young people like yourself. A few days ago, she came back and allowed me to run some experiments on her. With those done, I've now confirmed the existence of what I call the king gene. With your permission, I'd like to run some tests on your Kingler. I don't believe your Kingler has the whole thing, but to hold such sheer raw power, I am certain that it has some of it."

Dust nodded. "No, you're right. Oak will be able to tell you more than me. I contacted him when I first discovered the titan, or king, as you call it, gene was a part of my Krabby, which he was at the time. Was that all you wanted to talk about?"

"Not exactly. Actually, I came in person because I was curious if I could write up a contract with you concerning this matter. Specifically, whatever you find out about king genes, you only tell me, and in exchange, I'll pay you a percentage of what I get from this research. However, it seems you've chosen Oak." The young boy shook his head.

"Actually, I don't mind doing business with you, I only told him because I didn't know another professor. I can sign a contract with you for 10% of the profit, but I recommend you work with Oak for this one. It's pretty big. For now, I'll just tell you it has to do with the alphas: the first among pokemon. Pokemon who have the most pure bloodline tend to be stronger than others of the same species, unless they inherit their powers from two different parents with strong bloodlines, in which case they can be even stronger than those who you call king pokemon."

The newest professor dropped his jaw in shock at the new information, then narrowed his eyes. "How exactly did you come across this information?" Dust smirked at that, his pride forcing a smug face.

"Well, a king Spiritomb made by Arceus himself told me, professor, so I'm pretty sure it's right."

The professor nodded. Bill was almost forced to agree with giving 10% of his profit to Dust on account of his information, and also decided to work with Oak, realizing just how deep the situation was. Dust, unfortunately didn't realize he was jipped, and should have asked for way more money, since no other trainer in the world had such a pure king gene.

The next meeting was with Lance, who rode his Dragonite to a nearby station. The conversation was concerning to say the least.

"Well, Dust Stern. You are an interesting boy. You displayed a power similar to mega evolution, but Erika is certain and the camera footage demonstrates that you do not have the necessary tools for such a thing. Do you know what it was you did, and how one might replicate it? Naturally, you would be hired by the League to give a demonstration and teach its use, and we wouldn't force you to go until you drop."

Dust blinked and averted his eyes, finding a very interesting spot on the floor. "I know what it is, and how to do it, but it isn't something I can teach."

Lance narrowed his eyes. "Stern, I don't think you quite get it. The power you and a level 36 Kingler displayed was equal to a short term evolution. This could revolutionize everything. I would recommend you reconsider."

That was not a very good way to word his request, unless he intended to mean it as an order. "Sir, with all due respect, I've considered it before. Most people and their pokemon wouldn't be able to do it, only endangering themselves. First, you need to have a deep bond with a pokemon, who then needs a reason and severe pressure to use it. Second, you need somebody who can either see or sense aura, both their own and their pokemon's. I'll do a demonstration, fine. I'll be using my Kingler at each of the upcoming gyms. Feel free to video it or whatever, I'm confident most people, if not all of them, would fail. But, Lance, please do me a favor and remember that I don't take orders well."

Lance, upon realizing he went too far, calmed down, and the two were able to calmly discuss Dust's monetary compensation. Lance had a few other topics to discuss, but most were important, excluding the final one.

"One last thing, Stern. This is a key stone. I'm entrusting it to you. I believe you will be able to do great things with it someday." That was the last thing Dust heard of Lance before he was gone. Dust looked at it, unblinking, before shrugging and putting it in the secret compartment of his backpack, where the other from Kingler was located.

The final meeting took place late on the second to last night, just as Dust was about to go to bed. N never replied to the message sent to him detailing Dust's awakening, so Dust just assumed that N wasn't coming to see him. That was the wrong assumption to make. When Dust cut the lamp out, a figure moved in his room, clamping something wet over his nose. He tried reaching for a poke ball, but a Gengar kept him from moving.

He woke up deep in the woods with a green haired teenager leaning up against a nearby tree and a... chibi Reshiram sitting on N's shoulder. 'Ah, so this was the N being referred to. An antagonist from Unova. Well, let's fuck with him a bit, shall we?'

"Why did you kidnap me, Natural Harmonia Gropius?" N shook at that, wheeling on him as Reshiram grew to its full height.

"How do you know that name?!" The teenager was shaking in fury and fear at the idea that the one he was about to put his hopes in was actually in league with the one who forced him to stay alone in his bedroom for years.

"Ah, The Stern and Gropius family were business partners for a short time. I was forced to study your line, as your family was one of our benefactors." This was actually not a lie. A bakery, of all things, began the connection between the two families, in Ransei, nearly a century ago. Since then the families worked together, even though the Stern family was only made up of 18 people.

N closed his eyes and nodded, remembering the information after years of not needing it. "Okie dokie." Reshiram returned to its small form. "Now, I have a request for you. A proposition if you will?" Dust facepalmed.

"I've dealt with two of these already! Sweet white furry nuts of Arceus! Fine, I'll hear you out."

N chuckled a bit. "Join me on my quest. My goal is to make a new world, one for pokemon alone, in which pokemon aren't forced into this evil society as they are today by humans. You're the perfect candidate for me as you were able to use the ancient battle bond technique. Because of that, I can trust you to help me."

It took the entire night for Dust to even convince N to try and learn whether most pokemon wanted to be caught, specifically that many pokemon don't mind being in the possession of a trainer, and that the pokemon abuse he witnessed was false. He only even gave Dust a chance to convince him because Dust had the battle bond."So, N, how do you know about battle bond?"

"Reshiram told me." Dust motioned to continue the explanation. "Well, a pokemon called Keldeo once formed a battle bond with a trainer in Unova, and Reshiram gave the two advice."

"Oh? What was the trainer's name?" Dust asked, deep in thought. A battle bond with Keldeo would be difficult as his aura would be strong.

"His name was Cinder Sakaki. He supposedly has a member of his line somewhere around here, but I don't know exactly where he is nowadays. Giovanni, I think his name was?"

'The leader of Team Rocket? What does he have to do with anything?' "Thanks, N, for telling me about this. I'll bid you adieu for now. I hope you can see someday that you were, wrong, and thank you for giving the world the chance to prove it."

N jodded, then flew away on Reshiram's back. 'Crap, I have no clue how to get back to town.'

End Flashback

With everything packed up, Dust boarded a ship with his pokemon, and set off to Devigo Island. Along the way, a small pod of Wailmer swam by the ship, and the captain released a Wailord to play with them and lead them out of the way. The rest of the trip was mostly uneventful, though Dust's group was unable to train moves without possibly damaging the ship.

Four days later, the group arrived at Devigo, and Dust immediately went to the gym to register a battle for the next day. The bug type gym was notoriously odd. To challenge it, the challenger must use at least one bug type in a 3v3, as well as their starter, and lastly one pokemon with neither a type advantage or disadvantage. That left him with Eevee, Skorupi, and Kingler. The gym challenge would be after two days, as Dust needed to get his team used to training again after the boat ride, and also intended to get his 6th pokemon on this island.

Very few people were aware, but there was a small hole on the island leading to a cavern system. Dust only knew about it by the luck of overhearing a random trainer back in Cerulean, and even then, apparently whenever a company arrived to blow it open to go inside, the hole disappeared, only allowing one person to enter at a time. It changed position every day, and those who were inside simply disappeared if they didn't come out before midnight.

It still hadn't been found yet for the day dust arrived there, so he set off for the forest to search. There were still a few hours left in the day for searching and looking inside for pokemon, and though nobody had actually ever found anything in it, Dust, as a gamer, knew that the hole wouldn't act the way it did without a reason. So, whether it was a good pokemon or a special item, he wanted it.

It was 6 pm when he found it. He wanted to wait until Eevee's judgement was ready again, even if she wouldn't get angry enough to use it, but it would be a few weeks until then. Since the league was only four months away, and travel time was a bitch, he needed to find the hole fast.

All of his pokemon were fully rested from the pokemon center aboard the ship, so he jumped into the hole. He didn't, however, consider how deep the pit led. After three seconds of accelerating toward the ground, his eyes widened in realization. Trying to send aura out of his body to slow his fall was still out of his grasp, so he did the only thing he could. Slamming both hands into the mud caking the walls, his body slammed into the walls, covering him in grime

He could see the bottom now, even if it was barely visible, on account of luminous stalagmites littered about the ground. The problem was that it was over 100 feet away. "Crap, crap, crap! Duskull, you're up!"

Duskull appeared, seeing the position of his trainer whom he had come to care about after the past few weeks. "Duskull, you'll have to carry me down, if you can, or at least lower me slower than gravity would." Duskull shivered, then a small trickle of bloody tears emerged from its eye holes as it shook its head. It could barely hold him up, moving with him would be bad. Dust gritted his teeth, releasing Kingler, who fell to the ground, but was fine by landing on his pincer.

"Catch me! Duskull will slow me down somewhat at least!" And with that, Dust pulled both hands out, while Duskull held his shirt.

Suddenly, a Crobat slammed into Dust, nearly knocking him out as he slammed his hands into the wall to protect himself from falling and to absorb some of the shock. Duskull flew back a bit as well, but stabilized soon. 'Never seen a pokemon down here, my ass!' "Duskull, use phantom barrage! The darkness and shadows turned into fists that grabbed Crobat and more that began beating it.

The Crobat retaliated with a dark pulse, blowing apart the ghostly fists and sending Duskull back into the wall. Kingler wouldn't be able to hit it and Duskull was the only pokemon usable right then. Duskull went in with a phantom force payback, sneaking through the shadows to get behind it, but the Crobat dodged up and then wheeled around into a quick attack.

The quick attack hit as Duskull hadn't gone incorporeal to dodge, and it flew back a bit again. Duskull started spamming shadow punches, and Crobat replied with air slashes. Suddenly, a shadow ball created sneakily impacted Duskull, who rocketed to the ground, throwing up a massive cloud of dust. A white light released as a Dusclops grew from`Duskull. Kingler grabbed it, hurling it back up to the fight. Crobat had enough of playing with its dinner, though, as it ignored the ice punch coming its way, meeting the super effective move head on with a zen headbutt.

Despite the evolution, Dusclops still couldn't stand up to Crobat, and was sent flying into the wall, sending shockwaves that nearly broke Dust's arms. "Dusclops, turn around fast and use phantom force!' Crobat cringed a bit but followed through with a steel wing, turning around to hit Dusclops who was behind it.

"Dusclops, use payback!" Crobat's steel wing impacted the ghost's frosty fist, and the two equalled out. Crobat quickly used feather dance while Dusclops shook itself a bit and recoiled from the clash. It didn't even notice Crobat coming.

Crobat finished with a brave bird, the most advanced flying move known at that time, and an incredibly dangerous one when used by a stronger pokemon.

Dusclops nearly dodged by going into the shadows, but its cloth ripped apart as the brave bird speared right through its center. Dust's eyes widened as he grabbed for the falling vestiges of Dusclops's cloak. He gripped it tight, white bone shards sitting inside, then glared up at the cackling Crobat. 'Naturally, there would be a strong pokemon if anything down here was good. Fucking idiot! Think, think, think!' Crobat readied a sludge bomb to send at Dust, but as it nearly hit, the cloak turned from a medium grey to pitch black, blocking out the light from the hole and stalagmites. The sludge bomb froze as it hit the light, shattering to pieces, and a body was created from it.

Yellow markings lit up all over it, along with a yellow antenna, and it's bellow sent shockwaves across the area. Pokemon very rarely die, excluding in the deepest reaches of the Poke Wilds, where pokemon eat others, but ghosts almost never die from physical attacks, as they are both unbelievably resilient, and they can turn incorporeal, instead usually dying from special attacks.

Duskulls and Dusclops, in particular, have no record of dying from physical attacks, their skulls able to take incredibly heavy punishments, even the likes of a Dragonite requiring a move like dragon rush or brave bird to kill them, which they had no reason to do as Duskulls were inedible. A brave bird from this Crobat, likewise, was enough to kill Duskull. Interestingly enough, Reaper's Cloth is made from a dead Duskull's cloak, which is only left behind by a Duskull or Dusknoir killed by a physical attack. Then when a Reaper's Cloth touches a Dusclops, it will evolve into a Dusknoir...speaking of which… "DUSKNOIR!"

The newly double evolved pokemon boomed at the shorter Crobat, who shook under the ghostly pressure. Dust's new Dusknoir sucked in a massive breath, as did Crobat, and as the latter sent out a hyper beam, the former sent forth a massive blizzard. Both attacks smashed into each other, the hyper beam giving out faster because of how advanced the move was, and the blizzard carried forward. Crobat froze solid and shattered into purple, red, and blue pieces as it hit the ground, dead before landing. Dusknoir finally passed out after it sat Dust on the ground, and returned itself to its ball. Dust just got the first documented Dusknoir in the pokemon world.

AN: Ayyyy look at that. A Dusknoir. Cool. Those things have total base stats of 525. Anyway, here's a list of all the moves Dust's pokemon can use as of now. I'll do the nex one in a few chapters when it changes:

Eevee: Chip Away, Quick Attack, Sunny Day, Rain Dance, Weather Ball, Swift, Mud Slap, Double Kick, Detect, Charm, Trump Card, Judgement (Using Evolution Energy), Iron Tail

Kingler: Battle Bond/Krablannon, Knock Off, Ancient Power, Hydro Pump, Crabhammer, Octozooka, Bubblebeam, Slam, Metal Claw, Dig, Hammer Arm

Charmander: Flamethrower, Dragon Claw, Iron Tail, Slash, Thunder Punch, Fire Punch, Dig, Dragonbreath, Acrobatics, Overheat, Submission, Iron Tail

Dusknoir: Astonish, Payback, Dark Pulse, Shadow Ball, Phantom Force, Shadow Sneak, Pain Split, Curse, Will-O-Wisp, Shadow Punch, Blizzard, Phantom Barrage (Used first in Celadon), Hypnosis, Nightmare, Dream Eater, Earthquake, Foul Play

Skorupi: Toxic, Venoshock, Whirlwind, Night Slash, Tri Attack, Pin Missile, Cross Poison, Pin Missile, Rock Tomb, Iron Tail

Thanks for reading! Also yes, I did indeed post this on Webnovel. But I'll keep putting it up here too, just in case some of you prefer it.