Disclaimer: I don't own pokemon or any related characters. I do however own all OC's created by me.

Okay, this is a Colosseum fic, but not WesxRui, though die hard fans might see it like that, anyways this follows Colosseum sometimes, and sometimes not. There's little tweaks and twists to make this story my own. So read on if you want...

Chapter One;
The Meeting

Shade sighed as he rubbed the bridge of his nose, if anyone had told him at eighteen he was going into 'retirement', he most likely would have beaten them to a bloody pulp. And while he didn't look like he could, or look like much for the matter, Shade most likely could. Just because he was lanky looking didn't mean he really was. The blue trench coat he had covered him well enough.

Running a hand through messy auburn hair, Shade pondered his choices, and they were slim as it was. But before he could be pulled into the dark angst of the moment, one of his pokemon gave a cry behind him as they ran up, it seemed they had escaped Simon and his 'elite' snatchers.

Giving a smug grin, Shadw turned around, watching as his Umbreon, Hikage and the Espeon, Violet. "Hey boy!" Shade said while kneeling down as the Umbreon came bounding up first, skidding to a halt infront of him, ears pricked up and blood red and blue eyes bright as his tail wagged slightly, awaiting the praise for escaping the idiots. Violet came up at a more dainty run as she slowed to an elagent stop infront of her trainer, ears forward and pointing at Shade as he reached out and scratched her carefully around the precious gem on her forhead, "Hey there sweetie," he murmured, then grinned again as the Espeon purred softly from the attention while her brother just gave a gruff growl while closing his eyes.

An annoyed shout alerted Shade that the calm had just been broken. "Well 'Kage, Vio', seems we're gonna have to fight our way out of here." The young man remarked calmly, dark gold eyes narrowing slightly while infront of him two two Eeveelutions gave yipping cries as they showed their trainer they were still up for a fight.

Several hours later, Shade found himself on the outskirts of any civilization in Orre, it was an outpost of sorts. The 'building' was actually an old Train engine turned bar of sorts, and by old it was old. Not even one of the first hover transports, but an actual coal burning engine, or was. Not that Shade really cared for that as he pushed the large silver visor up, squinting slightly from the glare of the mid-day sun. Violet and Hikage had been recalled a while ago to prevent the duo from getting heat stroke.

Humming an old song to himself, Shade headed for the bar, intent on getting something to drink. Even if he was under-age he had a tab here of sorts. And he was in such a hurry to get into the place, he almost ran into two in a rush to leave. Ignoring their grumblings at him being a shrimp, small fry and what-not, Shade just memorized their faces for a later pounding. And with a swish of his coat, Shade headed inside, not hearing the muffled plea of help that escaped a burlap sack as a truck those same two that shoved into him drove off in.

"Yo, Harley!" Shade all but bellowed out, ignoring the shushes from the people watching the TV as he approached the bar and sat down, and the orange haired Harley was already mixing up Shade's drink of choice when someone finally managed to turn the tv volume up enough so everyone could listen to the news. With a barely interested glance at it, Shade sat on his stool, absently kicking his booted feet every now and then like a young kid would do when bored.

Yet his demenor changed once the drink was set down, snatching it up he quickly started to chug it down, savoring the tang of the acohol on his taste buds and as it slid down his throat. "Ahh," Shade sighed as he set the nearly empty glass down, a small grin toying on his face as he sat there, that's just what he needed to relax after a hard days work. Pulling out around a dozen dollar bills, he tossed them onto the table and stood up, thanking Harley once and exited the establishment and headed for the transport he had 'borrowed' from Simon.

The 'transport' turned out to be a pokemon Shade had 'snagged' from Simon just before leaving. Hard blue eyes met his gold ones evenly, and the grey and dark crimson scaled hide almost glistened in the sunlight as the Aerodactyl stared Shade down without fear, intelligence evident in the eyes, even if everyone claimed these resurected pokemon were souless.

"Hey there Typhoon," Shade said gently, more so then he had ever in his life. But he found out almost the hard way that this was not a pokemon to be harsh with, as it seemed Simon wasn't exactly the best trainer for any stubborn pokemon.

The Aerodactyl squwaked warrily, the arrow spiked tail swished warningly as the pokemon swung his head down to stare at Shade almost eye to eye. Shade raised his hands up, "See boy, I come in peace,"

The Aerodactyl snorted, but slowly lowered his head down, shifting his body and wings to allow Shade to climb onto his back, and only then could some of the damage to the pokemon be seen, old scars crisscrossed Typhoon's back, wings and around the smaller then normal head crest. "Easy boy," Shade murmured as he climbed onto the pokemon's back, settling himself at the nape of the 'Dactyl as Typhoon carefully pushed himself upright, then half leapt half scrambled for purchase in the air with his wings, and for a few moments it seemed like the Aerodactyl would fall back to the ground, but in a few short and powerfull flaps of his wings, the ancient pokemon was in the air, and heading swiftly for the next town.

Gripping at the scaled hide of the pokemon with one hand, Shade pulled his visor back down over his eyes. Looking up from the quickly passed over ground, Shade contented himself with the fact he would soon be in Phenac and well onto his new choice in life styles.

Though he wasn't sure how he pull off a trainer act when he hadn't really been a trainer when he worked for Snaggem.

Gently nudging Typhoon with a leg, he gave the pokemon the signal to speed up. He wanted to make it to Phenac before nightfall.

Phenac was one of the few places in Orre that had water natrually before anything was built. But the 'beautifull' city was really a waste with all the fountains and the 'rivers' around the town to help try and cool the city off. Oh it did alright, but at the expense of precious water.

And these were the thoughts of Shade as he casually started the trek up to the entrance to Phenac, Typhoon having been recalled while Violet and Hikage walked on each side of him, it was never a wise idea to withdraw all your pokemon completely unless you knew the place was safe. Utterly.

Shade barely noted as he entered Phenac and passed the two idiots he had met before, were now carrying a sack.

But he really didn't care, he was on his own now and had to deal with saving his own hide and keeping his pokemon safe... and .. looking down at Violet's soft yip, and then watching her turn around and point behind him, Shade had a bad feeling.

Hikage was missing.

And when two loud and pained human cries were let out behind, Shade knew that Hikage had gone and done something stupid again. But he didn't expect that the Umbreon had actually done something good, untill he turned around and saw the Umbreon fighting to get the sack open, gnawing away at the knot, growling loudly at the two men that now either held a hand or their faces from the biting and scratching Hikage had done to them. And above the growls of Hikage, he could hear a cry of Help.

Coming from the sack.

While Shade was normally an uncaring person, if Hikage was so up to the task to save whatever was calling for help, then Shade guessed he'd have to get involved. As the last time he had intervined when the Umbreon was trying to do a 'good' deed, the dark kitsune had pouted for a week or more.

The idiots didn't even see what hit them as with an order, Espeon mentally attacked them and sent them crashing to the ground. Puffed up with pride, Violet started to groom herself, looking like the cat that got the cream as Shade went over to help untie the sack. After he had repeatedly said that help had come, as the sack it seemed muffled sounds or the person could just be hard of hearing. Working at the knot for a few seconds, he frowned upon realization that this was a knot that Snaggem had used, and only another Snaggem member, or someone with a knife could untie this.

And Shade decided... it might have been a good idea to help Hikage out this time.

Finally the knot was undone, the sack's mouth opened and pushed away as he helped whomever it was get into a seated position before unwrapping them, he paused a moment, and blinked. Then gave a small grin, "Well well well, what do we have here? Or rather, who?" Shade said, taking in the sight of the freed girl, long black hair was pulled back into a braid, while brown eyes looked up into his from behind glasses.

"I'm Amy and .. um, thank you." The girl said quickly.

"Well Amy, seems you've gotten into a bit of trouble," Shade started, holding out a hand for the girl to take as he stood up, drawing the girl to her feet and helping the fellow teenager to keep her balance. And unknowingly to the girl, she'd already been claimed by the young man that was helping her, she most likely wouldn't believe it as she tried to figure out why she had been snatched by those men. Then a fuzzy lump attached itself to her leg and she looked down and saw it was an Umbreon, growling softly as he rubbed his head up and down her leg, tail wagging slowly and eyes closed. And even Violet wasn't being that stand-offish about the girl, though she wasn't that warm either.

Shade on the other hand, said nothing for a moment, thinking. Shade hadn't wanted to stick around Phenac for awhile, but he wasn't cruel enough as to leave a girl, most likely way out of her element on her own like this. "Cmon Amy, it's getting late and the PokeCenter here closes in a few minutes."

And that is how Shade met Amy. And now the adventure really begins ...

To be continued in;
Chapter Two: Failure