Right-o. The first chapter of my first fanfic, more or less. You all know what that means: basic character development and bits of the plot. Not a whole lot happens at this point, I'm afraid. Dunno how long this monster'll finally turn out to be, but you'll know as soon as I do. It's a "new trainer" fic, more or less, though I'm sure Mr. Crowley would take offense at your calling him such. The basic premise and main character are mine, of course. As always, other materials/concepts/characters belong to their respective owners and apologies go out if they take offence at my using them. But let's face it, you wouldn't be here unless I was. For that matter, neither would I...

06-02-02: Well, I've gone back and edited a bit. Tried to de-twink Alex a bit and removed some phrases I thought were a bit too clumsy or otherwise unacceptable within the context of my vision. Better or worse... who knows?

-- Lathi

In Which Exposition is Overly Utilized

A chill breeze danced through the moonlit forest on the ridge above and the rustling leaves shared their secrets in furtive whispers. Perhaps, one might imagine, they spoke of the strange company making it's way along the stony path below.

A dark canine form, nose to the ground, prowled the long-abandoned roadway. Occasionally it would glance back over its shoulder to deliver a curt series of soft growls and barks to it's companions. The angular metal bird that followed close behind gave no sign, but the hunched shadow astride its back nodded in silent acknowledgment. The inky black bird perched upon the
rider's shoulder would often punctuate these exchanges with a sharp caw, for which it was hissed at in annoyance. Miffed, the murkrow would fluff its feathers and pointedly ignore its master until the next report. They continued on in this manner for another hour until the unmistakable glare of civilization began to obscure the horizon.

As they drew closer, the distant glow resolved itself into a ring of powerful floodlights surrounding a vast archeological dig. Scattered here and there were large, roped-off grids. The nearby cliffs had been heavily excavated and revealed a collection of rather decrepit ruins, some differentiated from the rubble only by the presense of an obvious bit of carved stone. Scattered here and there, with no discernible pattern, were oddly-shaped nodules of an unknown striped mineral. Just beyond the circle of light was a cluster of tents, trailers, and simple sheds. Unlike the brightly lit excavation area, the camp was dark; its residents resting up for another day of painstaking research.

When they reached the edge of the dig, the rider summoned the houndour to his side and climbed down from his road-weary skarmory mount. Both pokemon were rewarded with a bit of dried meat from the pouch tied to his belt. Not liking to be left out, the murkrow, which had since perched itself on the skarmory's head, squawked until he, too, was fed.

"Anubis, Mune, excellent work, the both of you," said the muffled voice that issued from deep within the folds of the rider's cloak, "please wait here and get some rest. I shouldn't be too long. Baku, you're with me."

A portion of the rider's shadow seemed to detach itself and rose silently into the air. Its ragged edges took on a sharper, more regular outline and a pair of eyes began to glow eerily in the gloom.

"Haun?", the shadow said.

"Yes, we're here," the rider said. He then turned, and stepped towards the camp. The haunter yawned and drifted after its master.

The rider paused for a long moment, body slack and head bowed as if deep in thought. He soon snapped back to attention and strode purposefully into the silent campsite. His heavy boots crunched in the loose gravel as he wound his way towards a large tent straddling the line between the camp and the dig. Its heavy canvas walls glowed like a paper lantern and revealed the silhouette of some diligent researcher burning the midnight oil. As he drew closer, the rider heard a soft feminine voice muttering to itself in accented English peppered with the odd bit of French. He stopped short of the partially open flap and looked inside.

Seated at a folding metal table against the back wall was a young woman in dusty khakis. Her attention seemed divided between the stone tablet propped up across the table and the various books and papers scattered around it. She would trace a line with her finger across the slab's surface, then flip and shuffle through the other documents. When she finally found what she
sought, she'd scribble something down in the notebook that lay open before her. The girl was so engrossed in her work that she didn't notice as the cloaked figure slipped inside.

"Sometimes, I think that boy was right. This would go so much easier if the ancients wrote more plainly..." she said with a heavy sigh.

The rider chuckled, "sometimes it almost seems like they did it on purpose, eh Doctor?"

The girl yelped, then turned to face the unexpected voice. In the dimly lit area beyond the glow of her table lamp, two broadly smiling faces wrapped in darkness appeared to hover several feet from the floor. On one was a broad Cheshire-cat grin that glinted coldly in the feeble light, the other bore a jagged red gash of a mouth that glowed like hot coals.

"Wh-what are you doing here? " she said, her initial fright starting to give way to slight annoyance, "I thought we were rid of you months ago."

"Huh?" the stranger said, puzzled, "But I just got..." He trailed off as the realization struck. "Ah! My apologies, doctor. Where are my manners?"

The rider stepped forward into the light and flipped back the hood of his traveling cloak, revealing a wooden mask skillfully crafted to resemble the somewhat unsettling visage of a gengar. Reaching behind his head, he loosened the straps that secured the mask and slipped it off. The round faced young man ran his fingers back through his messy, brick-red hair and grinned sheepishly.

"Dreadfully sorry about that, professor. I forget that I'm wearing this thing most of the time. I hope I didn't frighten you too badly."

"No, it is alright, I suppose. I will live, no? What about the other one?"

"Oh, he's real enough, but mostly harmless," the rider reassured her.

"If you say so, " she replied, a bit uncertain of how to take that last remark, "But you still have not said why you have come. I know there are many things here of great value, but they belong in a public museum, not in some thief's private collection. If that is why you are here, I must insist that you leave," The young archeologist held out a pokeball, "Now."

"I'm no thief, Dr. Eve, I promise," the young man said, spreading his arms wide to show he was unarmed, "My name's Alex -- Alexander Crowley. And I came here because I was in need of your assistance. Nothing more."

With a sharp tug, the pokeball jumped out of Dr. Eve's hand and fell to the floor, rolling to a stop at the young man's feet. She gasped in surprise and glared at the haunter.

"No, Baku didn't do that, I did. Now please, don't threaten me again. We're all adults here, right?" he smiled, and toed the ball back across the floor. "Well, more or less..."

"Yes, well," Eve said, trying to keep her composure, "you said you needed help with something? Not that I seem to have much of a choice in the matter..."

"Oh, we all have choices, doctor. If you want me to leave, all you have to do is ask. But I believe you might want to hear me out; I wish to know what you can tell me about this..."

With that, Alex drew a fist-sized object from within his cloak and placed it on the table. Against reason and expectation, the golden octahedron stood up on point and began to rotate itself slowly counterclockwise. The light from the table lamp reflected strangely on its triangular facets and appeared as a pale glow pulsing from inside the artifact. Observing the object in action, Dr. Eve inhaled sharply.

"Do you have any idea what that is?" she asked breathlessly.

"Not really. I was hoping that was where you would come in. All I have is this bit of carved stone I found with the artifact," he replied, handing her a small hunk of rock. "The writing is definitely Pokemopolitan in origin, which is why I brought it to you."

At the mention of her life's work, the young archeologist managed to tear her gaze away from the spinning artifact long enough to study the spiral-shaped glyph engraved on the stone.

"Whirlpool? Whirlwind? But it should be carved in the other direction... and where is the rest of this?"

"Oh, um, yeah. Well, I think there're still bits of it in my boots somewhere. But I don't think they'd do you any good..."

"You... broke it?" she asked, her voice tinged with anger.

"Well, uh, technically I think you could say I did. But I didn't do it on purpose. It's all Baku's fault, anyway."

"Haunter!?!"

Alex turned, "Yes, it is. If you'd bothered to tell me that there was writing on the other side of that wall, I wouldn't have smashed it in like that."

"Hau!"

"It's no use arguing, Ba. I know you screwed up. You know you screwed up. Just
accept it. Too late to do anything about it now, anyway."

"Haunt!"

The pokemon made a face at Alex which froze in mid-air while it's body turned away and left the
tent.

"Anyway, like I was saying, it was an accident. We were in North Africa following up on a rumor about a ruined temple in the middle of the desert. I finally located the ruins, but the entrance had collapsed and I couldn't get in. So, I sent Baku inside to scout around for anything useful while I examined things from the outside. A couple of hours later, he came back and led me to a spot on one of the interior walls that I could reach and said that there was something on the other side. I broke through the stone rather easily and realized that I must have come in on the back side of a niche in the temple walls. As I was scraping the debris out of the hole I'd made, I noticed that writing on the rock I gave you. Once I realized the mistake, I could see that it would be impossible to salvage any more of the slab, the fragmentation was just too extensive. But I think that artifact almost makes up for it," he paused, finally taking a breath.

"You... just... broke it...," she said again.

"Yup, smashed it up real goo-- Uh-oh."

Staring at the fragment, Eve began to mutter under her breath. The fire in her eyes grew brighter, then the air was rent with a blistering stream of French, coming high and fast. Though Alex didn't understand the language, her meaning was painfully clear.

He decided then that he should probably wait to ask her about the artifact itself in the morning.