PART ONE
Chapter 1: A New Dawn
"Pokémon are by our side, always. I hope you will understand the meaning of those words." That was the comment left by Prof. Rowan, who has returned to Sinnoh from the Kanto region.
That concludes our special program, "Let's Ask Prof. Rowan!". Brought to you by Jubilife TV on Nationwide Net! See you next week, same time, same channel!
Dawn turned her television off. She had been laying on her stomach on the pink carpet right in front, listening intently to the program. Feeling her eyes getting tired, she checked the clock on her wall. It was one o'clock in the morning. Usually she had gone to sleep an hour or so before, but being as this was a special report, that Professor Rowan was finally on his way back to Sinnoh, she couldn't help but stay awake and watch with a nervous excitement coursing through her. Dawn intended to get a pokémon of her own tomorrow (or more like later today). She would march into the lab in the next town over, and say, "can I have a pokémon!", Professor Rowan would say, "sure! Take your pick!", and Dawn would walk out with a Piplup and a pokédex in her hands.
She made her way over to her bed, pulled the turquoise covers over her, and shut her eyes tightly. But just as she was about to go to sleep, she suddenly heard something.
Thud. There was a bump in the night.
Sitting upright, Dawn's heart began to pound and her eyes darted to her door. Her mom wouldn't be home until tomorrow, being as she had to attend a meeting for the Pokémon Coordinator Committee over in Jubilife City, and decided to stay the night in one of the many hotels. Along with her went Glameow, the only pokémon in both their possession. This left Dawn utterly defenseless.
Instead of cowering in her bed, Dawn slowly got up and made her way to her door to lock it. It was dark, so she fumbled a little bit until she felt the cool metal of her doorknob. But just as she was about to click the lock, a sudden burst of momentum thrashed the door open, hitting Dawn squarely in the forehead.
"OW!" she screamed, she was terrified.
"Dawn!?" said an energetic voice.
Dawn, on the floor massaging her head, looked up to see a skinny figure. This figure had on jeans, an orange striped shirt to match with his orange eyes, a large brown messenger bag, green scarf, and blonde hair that tufted up at the sides. It was-
"BARRY! What are you doing here?! You gave me a heart attack!" Dawn shouted at him. "And look at what you did to my forehead!" she pointed to a swelling lump perched right smack in the middle above her eyebrows.
"Sorry! No time to explain!" he said in his energetic voice and rushed to the tv, turning it on, and flipping through the channels.
Dawn turned to watch him, "what are you doin-"
"SHHH!" he interrupted, and he stopped on the same channel that Dawn had been watching before: Jubilife TV. "Here it is!" he shouted in a whisper.
Dawn began to protest but the glow of the tv faintly lit up the black room, making the screen an unavoidable focus. The red background grabbed her attention, and the white letters on the screen read,
Despite the exploration team's best efforts, however, the rare, oddly colored Pokémon eluded detection. The rumored red GYARADOS failed to appear, even fleetingly, to the crestfallen team...
Dawn had a puzzling squint on her face illuminated by the technological blue glow, and stared at Barry's energetic smile and his clutched fists.
That concludes our special report, "Search for the Red GYARADOS!". Brought to you by Jubilife TV on Nationwide Net!
And then it finally clicked in her mind. "Barry," she began, "it's one in the morni-"
"Come on!" he pleaded, interrupting her again, "if we go now then no one'll be there and Gyarados would come out!" he now had his hands clamped together.
Dawn rolled her eyes, "but how do you even know if there's a red Gyarados around here!"
"Because trust me! I know it's near here somewhere, I can feel it!"
Knowing that Barry would even go alone, and who knows what would happen to him if he did, Dawn reluctantly agreed, "fine."
"YAY!" Barry threw his hands in the air, "ok, come on, let's go!" He darted for the door.
"Wait!" Dawn responded amidst all the chaos, "I have to get dressed first so wait in the kitchen."
"Ok!" smiled Barry, and he swung the door open and dashed down the stairs.
"Oh arceus," Dawn muttered to herself.
She changed out of her pajamas and into her clothes, specifically the ones she was planning to wear for her upcoming journey tomorrow. She slipped into her black-and-pink dress, knee-high pink boots, white beanie hat, pink scarf, and looped the front of her black hair into two yellow clips. She stepped down the stairs, creaking every time her foot hit wood, and reached her kitchen. She flipped the light on, and immediately sighed. Barry had the berry bowl scooped in his arm and was munching on an Oran Berry.
His eyes met her's, and he put the bowl down, "ready?" he asked.
"Yes, let's go."
On her way out, Dawn switched the light off and the two made way for the door. Stepping outside, they were met with a rush of cool summer night air. Dawn turned back to close the door, and noticed that the window to the right side of the front of the house had been halfway shut. The thud had been Barry's body hitting the floor on his sloppy way in. She assumed this, at least.
Twinleaf Town had always been a vibrant yet sleepy town. The houses had green roofs and the mailboxes red. On a map, Twinleaf Town could be seen on the bottom left. Not a Starly stirred, and the Kricketune were silent. It was the dead of night. The two made their way down the street, Barry marching ahead, while Dawn walked beside him.
"Barry! Where are we going?" she whisper-shouted, "we have no plan!"
"That's not true," he responded in his signature voice.
"SHHH! Don't talk so loud, you'll wake everyone up!" she whispered again.
Barry didn't talk quietly but rather lowered his voice, "we're going to Route 201!"
"201! That's outside of town!" Dawn responded in shock.
"Oh Dawn, every route is out of town!"
"I don't understand, if we're going to try and catch the Red Gyarados, then why are we heading to route 201?" The street was so silent, only their voices and steps could be heard.
"You didn't let me finish," he laughed, "we're heading to 201 to get to Verity Lakefront so we can then get to Lake Verity!"
"What!?" Dawn wasn't talking in a whisper now, "we don't have any pokémon! What if we get ambushed?!"
"Well we're just going to have to find out! Come on!" he broke out into a sudden run, leaving Dawn behind him in the middle of the street. It was so late that only the night sky was their source of light.
"I'm fining you one million Pokédollars if you can't keep up!" he shouted, calling back to her.
Dawn, not wanting to be left alone, and wanting to shut Barry up from waking anybody else and having them look out their window, see the two of them, and call their parents, dashed after him. With a determined smile on her face, she caught up to him pretty quickly, and the two didn't stop until they reached the end of town, where a loud sign reading, 'ROUTE 201' stood. Both crouched forward, holding themselves up by their hands on their knees. They were standing under the only streetlight, a bright white that loomed over the sign.
As Dawn looked on, she saw nothing but black. "Barry, I don't know if this is a good idea," it probably wasn't.
When he finished panting, he perked up and stared ahead, "we're fine! We just walk a little up ahead then turn to the left!"
"If we die I'm blaming you," she said to him sarcastically.
Too tired to run, they trudged onward into the unknown darkness. About every so often, a silent coo of whatever it came from sounded in the dark, sending chills up their spines.
"Wait a minute!" shouted Barry. Dawn jumped in a fit of surprise. "I have a flashlight with me!" he stopped, fumbling through his bag.
Dawn was unamused, "you had a flashlight THIS WHOLE TIME!" she groaned.
Click!
Light shot up in the air. Barry pointed it downwards, ahead of them, and into some trees. Dawn was a little bit more nervous than before, as she was worried at what they could now see. The grass was getting tall, reaching up to their shins.
"Here it is!" Barry exclaimed, the flashlight on a sign to the left: 'VERITY LAKEFRONT'. "It's just a few paces away!"
Turning left, the two reached a small path with low trees clumped all around it. Hesitant, Dawn slowly moved forward. Barry pointed his flashlight all the way down to the end of the path, although it was too cheap to actually reach.
"We do this all the time," began Barry, "why is it such a big deal to go today?"
"Well- I don't know- maybe cause it's THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!" Dawn's fear made her on-edge.
The soft sound of shoes on toughened dirt thumped beneath them as they came to the third and final sign: 'LAKE VERITY'.
"Here we are!" smiled Barry.
The two shuffled in, and came to a beautiful sight. In a large clear of trees, the moon illuminated over the large body of water that reflected the star-filled sky. They were on a large sliver of land. The grass grew normal here, except for far out in front of them, where something large stood. Barry, humming with glee, made his way out and away from the path. He didn't seem to notice anything unusual.
But Dawn did, and she grabbed his shirt.
"Dawn, wh-" he started.
"SHH!" it was Dawn's time to interrupt him. She beckoned him with a tug to behind a tree to their right. When she was certain they were un-detected, she peered from behind the bark, and Barry followed suit.
"Who is that?" Barry asked in a whisper.
"I don't know." she responded quietly.
"Let's get a better look," said Barry, and he tore forward behind the trees for cover.
"Barry! No!" Dawn called after him in a whisper. But with no hope of him turning around, she too broke out in a pace.
When they were close enough to whatever it was, at a small diagonal from the right of the figure and concealed behind the trees, Barry and Dawn stopped.
The figure, now that they were closer, seemed to be a man; because when he spoke it was in a deep, low voice, "...The flowing time...The expanding space..."
"What a nut job," Barry whispered to Dawn, but she was too focused on the mysterious man to shush him. Who is he? was her only thought.
"...rest easy, for you will all soon be mine one day," his voice was calm yet stern. As he said this, he spread his arms out wide to face the ocean and looked up to the sky.
Dawn, although extremely nervous, couldn't help but be drawn to him. Barry, however, was playing with the flashlight, swinging it around and gliding his fingers around the metal.
Click.
Barry's flashlight turned on, spitting a blinding streak of light to the backside of the man, exposing spiky bluish-grey hair, and a weird metallic-like suit. He turned around immediately, showing intense steely eyes and a chiseled white face. On the top right corner of his vest, there was a flashy yellow symbol. It was in the shape of a 'G'. He was unamused, looking at them with piercing eyes and a terrifying face.
"RUN!" screamed Dawn.
They turned around and took off; she didn't even care to make sure Barry was following. She held her arms out in front to hit the brush away from her. In fact, Dawn didn't even check for anything, not even the wild pokémon that were most definitely in the woods. The only thing she cared about was just getting away from whoever he was.
"Dawn!" called Barry from behind her. She didn't even care that he was screaming at the top of his lungs, and that he could possibly wake up the people of Twinleaf Town, even though they were a mile or so away.
Too far away from town, and with no flashlight and surrounded by complete darkness, Dawn was utterly lost and alone. She kept running and running until...