Five days remain until the League Tournament begins.


"Are you really sure you want to do this? Mount Silver is incredibly tough to go through."

Renée sat outside, eating with her mother in front ofnl their home as the prange glow of the setting sun cascaded over Silver Village.

"I do. If I want to get stronger I have to push myself and overcome my limits. I want to be tougher than Aunt Cynthia!" Renée replied. Her mother sighed but smiled and embraced her daughter, remembering the inspirations for her wanting to become strong.

Silver Village, nine years ago...

"Cynthia, the longtime Champion of the Sinnoh region has been on a roll since reclaiming her title several weeks ago! She has been decimating nearly every opponent she's come across!"

Renée and Julia watched their aunt battle a trainer on television for the title of Sinnoh Champion, the girls were only about six or seven years old at the time as they watched their aunt on television. The battle wasn't so much of a battle as much as it was a near-sweep; Cynthia's Braviary was the only pokemon on her team to have been beaten while her opponent was down to only their Magnezone, which was currently up against Cynthia's Gastrodon.

"Argh, I can't lose like this! Magnezone, use Hidden Power!"

Magnezone became cloaked in a green light that centered between the pokemon's magnet appendages before launching a wave of energy that was the same color as the light at Gastrodon. Cynthia didn't react or order Gastrodon to evade, as if she wanted the attack to connect.

"Auntie, do something!" Julia squealed in vain, the battle may have been a live broadcast but she was still watching it on TV. Renée had been eating popcorn from a bowl the two were sharing, the young girl was shivering with excitement at how her aunt was dominant the entire battle, but she was still nervous at what wpuld happen next.

The attack connected, but Gastrodon shook itself, revealing a small green berry attached to a string around its neck. Gastrodon ate the berry and began to glow the same green color as the berry.

"Mirror Coat!" Cynthia commanded. Gastrodon's green cloak took on a chrome-like sheen, as Gastrodon took the full force of the attack, the cloak turned purple and blasted itself at Magnezone, striking electric pokemon at full force. The counterattack swiftly put Magnezone, granting Cynthia the victory.

"What an incredible move by the Champion! Our challenger has run out of pokemon left to battle, meaning Cynthia has retained her title as Sinnoh Champion!"

"Yay! I knew Aunt Cynthia would win!" Julia cheered.

"Someday I'll be a really, really strong trainer just like Auntie!" Renée added. From the kitchen, their mother watched the two, she wasn't much of a battler she could hold her own. She just loved seeing her daughters excited and happy.

"Mom?"

...

"Mom!"

Renée's mother snapped out of her daze to the sound of her daughter's voice. The sky was growing dark and Renée was packing up to go inside.

"Oh, silly me, I must have daydreamed."

"About what? If you don't mind me asking."

"About how much you and your sister have grown. You two dreamed of being as strong as my sister and you've achieved your dreams, at least in my eyes you have."

Renée hugged her mom, thankful that she had her support. As they headed back inside, Reneé took one last look at Mt. Silver. The mountain towered over the village, even though she was far from the entrance to the caves, Renée could feel the power emanating from it.


Four days remain until the league tournament...

Morning soon came, Renée got dressed for her training, her pokeballs clutched onto her belt. She left her home and began to head for the mountain after a quick goodbye and a wish for luck and good fortune from her mother.

As Renée went, her mother couldn't help but think back to the day her daughters left for the Vermilion Pokemon Academy.

Four years ago...

"Did you pack everything?"

"Yeah mom, we have everything we need! Ohh I'm so excited!" Julia squealed. She and her sister had a few suitcases and they had old backpacks on with everything they were taking with them.

"There it is!" Renée called out. A yellow school helicopter landed in a clearing nearby, it was close enough to see, but far enough away to not disturb the other residents of the village.

The three of them approached the helicopter, the three shared a hug, Julia and their mother teared up a little bit, and even Renée felt like she would cry. After wiping their tears, the twins headed toward their ride for the academy, waving goodbye to their mother.

Just like four years ago, the image of Ren waving goodbye eventually faded away, this time into the wilderness leading to Mt. Silver rather than into the sky in a helicopter headed for Vermilion City. For her mother it was bittersweet to watch her go but it warmed her heart to see how far her daughters had come and how much they've grown and she knew that if Reneé had grown so much, Julia had most definitely grown as well.


"Alright, this is it." Renée said to herself as she slowly took a few steps into the mountain. Once she was deep enough into the mountain she could hear what sounded machinery digging into stone.

She followed the sound, clutching Ampharos' pokeball just in case, the sound seemed to repel wild pokemon since none were appearing. She eventually found the source of the noise, it was a mining team, the sound was of a drill digging into one of the cave walls, two large tubes vaccumed up everything that the drill dug into and separated them into two large canisters.

Some of the workers noticed Renée, one of them even seemed to recognize her. It was a rather hefty man that was bald, though it was covered by his helmet. He wore black boots, green camo pants and a tank top under a black trench coat.

"Hold on a sec boys, I know this kid." The man said.

"You do?" The other men asked.

"You do?" Renée repeated.

"Yeah, we met at the Rocket Cafe back in Saffron. You must not remember me, don't blame ya', its been a while. The name's Arnold; Arnold Sundowner." Arnold removed his dirty glove and offered to shake Renée's hand, which she returned.

"My name's Renée, I was going to train here but I guess you guys are busy."

"Heh, well we are mining silver ore. But I suppose we can take a break and let you pass through. Careful though, I've been hearing a pokemon different from the ones naturally in these caves, be careful. If you came all the way out here then there's no way you're a pushover but this place can be brutal, if anything happens there's no shame in coming to get help, especially with whatever could be in place."

"I'll keep that in mind." Renée said, she noticed that Arnold sounded uneasy when mentioning the mysterious pokemon which seemed odd to her since this was a man who was about three times Renée's size.


Renée continued through the mountain, battling any and every pokemon she could encounter. Though while she thought the pokemon in Victory Road were tough and she was more or less even with them when she first went through that area, the pokemon residing in Mt. Silver were on anither level entirely.

The wild pokemon she encountered were brutally powerful, such as Steelix, Hariyama, Gengar, Tyranitar, Machamp, and Golem. Despite how powerful her foes were, Renée and her pokemon slowly, but surely, gained strength and experience with every pokemon they were able to defeat.

That's when she heard something, it sounded like a pokemon and just like Arnold had said, it wasn't one that was common in the area. This cry sounded more like that of some sort of divine beast.

Suddenly, she saw a blue blur race past her, even though she couldn't get a clear look at it, Renée felt like she had an idea of what the pokemon was.

"S-Suicune?!"

The thought if potentially catching a legendary pokemon blasted into her head. If she caught Suicune there would be no way she lost the league tournament! But even then Suicine is incredibly powerful, and incredibly dangerous.

Renée followed Suicune through the Mt. Silver caves and upper mountainous areas outside and higher above ground level. Interestingly enough, Renée wasn't the only person looking for Suicune, apparently. As she followed the beast, she could hear two voices following close behind.

She was currently outside, it was a little after 2 p.m., judging by the sun's position. Suicune just entered another cave but Renée laused to catch her breath.

"It went into that cave!"

"Hurry before it gets away!"

Renée swore she saw two men enter the cave Suicune had just ran into, and she was positive they wore Team Dark Star uniforms. Knowing they couldn't be up to anything good, she hurried and followed them inside.


Renée spent what felt like hours looking for Suicune, she no longer cared for catching it for herself, instead worrying about it falling into Team Dark Star's hands.

She heard the two grunts talking to each other in one of the cave halls, she hid herself around the corner and out of their sight as she listened to their conversation.

"We can't let that thing get away from us, Entei already blew us back in Cinnabar."

"Yeah, you got your net gun ready?"

"Right here. But what about that kid? She's one of the ones the boss asked us to take care of."

"Say no more."

Renée peeked around the corner, she saw the net guns they were carrying, standard issue for TDS grunts, just like Pandora's when she was still a member. But what horrified her was that the net gun wasn't the only gun they had. One of the grunts had a pistol in his hands... and as soon as she saw it, she aimed it at Renée...

"Gotcha'."

She bolted then and there, Renée didn't care where she was running, so long as it was away from those two men. She knew Team Dark Star wanted her and her friends put of the picture for their plans to succeed, but to overtly try to murder them? That thought terrified her, she didn't dare look back as she could hear them running after her. To make sure they couldn't shoot her, she ran in zig-zag patterns.

Renée ran in and out of caves, noticeably going higher and higher up the mountain. Eventually she lost them in a cave higher up, but the walls of the cave were now slightly blue and white with the drastically lower temperatures than the caves below. She still encountered wild pokemon, but with them now being mostly Ice-type, coupled with the fact that a few of her pokemon were worn out from the training, Renée was left with few options for defense. All she had at the moment was her Larvesta, and even it was running out if energy.

Nonetheless, she couldn't stop moving, her life was on the line.

Eventually she exited another tunnel and wound up outside again. However, she noticed that she could no longer see the ground at the bottom of the mountain it looked like just a blur to her, as was all of Kanto and even a bit of Tohjo Falls that was now visible to her. It was freezing cold now, and Renée was not properly dressed. With her exhaustion and her body temperature quickly dropping, she thought it couldn't get worse.

Suddenly she heard a roar coming from the snowy fields. It was a wild Abomasnow charging right at her. She couldn't get away even if she tried, but Larvesta wasn't going to let the Abomasnow hurt her, even if it was weakened.

It used attacks like Flame Charge and Bug Bite to weaken the enemy, but it seemed to do very little to harm it.

The Abomasnow raised its arm, which now glowed green, and delivered a powerful Wood Hammer to Larvesta. Despite being highly resistant to Grass-type moves, Larvesta was hit hard, it laid in the snow and looked at Renée, who was shivering and weakly trying to walk toward it. The sight of Renée, skin turning purple and blue from the cold, eyes beginning to glaze and tear up, willing herself to comfort Larvesta made the small pokemon tear up as the Abomasnow roared again.

A single tear fell out of Renée and Larvesta's eyes, the former's almost instantly beginning to freeze. In an act of passion and defiance, Larvesta began to glow white and evolve.

Renée's newly evolved Volcarona blaated the Abomasnow away with a wicked Overheat, despite being highly weak to Fire, Abomasnow took the attack, shook it off, and then walked away. It seemed to know that it had no way of winning, despite the damahe it had done.

Volcarona weakly flew over to Renée and tried to heat up its body, but it unfortunately used up all its energy in it's last attack.

"There she is!"

Renée weakly turned her head and saw the two grunts, now wearing heavy winter coats coming at her, the pistol in one of their hands.

'This is it... All I ever wanted was... To get stronger..."

The sound of a familiar roar appeared again, but Renée couldn't exactly see what was happening, her eyesight was becoming a more opaque blur with every passing second. But she could see what appeared to be Suicune blasting the two grunts clear off of the mountain and straight into the horizon beyond with an immensely powerful Hydro Pump. The last thing Renée could see was the blue blur coming towards her with a faint purple glow surrounding it, then she passed out.


'Do not be afraid. I understand that you have been through much today. You fell unconscious from the cold and adrenaline wearing off. No need to be alarmed for your pokemon ally either, I used my Extrasensory attack to put it back in your capsule, pokeballs I believe they're called. Those humans that attenpted to capture me and take your life are no longer an issue. You ascended rather high up the mountain, a feat rather impressive for a human of your age. However this is not the reason I am speaking to you telepathically. The pokemon known as Mewtwo recently sent out a telepathic warning to all legendary pokemon residing within the two connecting regions. The humans who attempted to harm us are part of a group that Mewtwo has seen causing a great catastrophe in the future. You and those who began their journeys with you share intertwining destinies. I cannot say what truly lies ahead of you as I was not informed of what will come. All that I know is that you and those close to you must grow stronger, strong enough to show the legendary pokemon that you are worthy of gaining their power! For the time being you must continue training your mind, your body, and your pokemon!'


Renée woke up to the sound of voices calling out to her. It was Arnold and the rest of the miners, they were crowded around her with several medical kits nearby.

"W-what happened?" Renée asked groggily.

"We saw you carried here by the legendary pokemon, Suicune. It ran so fast it pretty much turned into water, like it was using Scald to warm you up, you looked like you were half-frozen to death! Afterward it set you down and used Tailwind as it ran off to dry you off and run off." Arnold explained. Renée looked at her hands, they were a bit bright red from the sudden shifts in temperature she had been through, a miner handed her a mirror so she could look at her face and she saw that she was the same shade of pink as her hands but she was otherwise unharmed.

"Can you stand? How are you feeling?" Arnold asked.

"I've been better but I think I'm alright." Renée replied. She was able to stand up, she could see that the sky was bright orange, her stomach suddenly grumbled.

"How long was I out?"

"About an hour or so. Look kid, you were nearly frozen when you were brought down here, you managed to get all the way to the ice areas near the peak of this place, that takes guts! You've got spunk, Renée, but even so you're still just a kid. You shouldn't be so reckless."

"I know, and I wasn't trying to be, I found these two guys from a group called Team Dark Star trying to catch Suicune, the found me and tried to kill me so I ran and wound up in the snow." Renée explained.

"I see, well from the looks of it, either you or Suicune took care of them. This kid, Jack told me about them and they seem like bad news, especially if they went so far as to try to kill a kid."

"You know Jack?"

"Yeah, I met him in Saffron about a month ago. Good kid, I'm guessing you're a friend of his?"

"Yeah, we're travelling together along with my sister and our other friend. We're in the tournament together too. Speaking of which, I should probably head home, I could use a good night's sleep and my mom is probably worried." Renée explained.

"I gotcha', but I should probably walk you home, better safe than sorry." Arnold responded.


Renée and Arnold talked to each other as they walked back to Renée's home, Arnold was talking about his days in the army.

"So you were in the same group as Lt. Surge?"

"Yup! Me, him, and our buddy Khamsin used to be called the 'Earth, Wind, and Lightning Brigade' on account of the types we specialize in!" Arnold explained.

The two arrived at the house, Renée's mom hurried outside and embraced her daughter the same way she did when Renée did when she first arrived from Pallet Town. Shockingly though, she recognized Arnold!

"My, my, its certainly been a while!" She said, giving her old friend a friendly fist bump.

"Certainly has, Callista! How's Cynthia doing?"

"Wait, mom, you know him?" Renée asked.

"Of course! He's an old friend of mine and your aunt's! He's even about as strong as she is!" Callista responded.

"Ah, I appreciate the compliment but Cynthia's way stronger than me, but I'm definitely not a slouch." Arnold laughed. "Still, I wish you told me you were the niece of Cynthia, Little Lady."

Renée laughed in embarrassment a bit but then she took notice of what her mother mentioned.

"Wait, mom said you're about as strong as my Aunt Cynthia, right? Can we habe a battle?"

"Hm?" Arnold was a bit taken aback by the sudden request, but he gave a heartily laugh and smiled. "Sure! I could use a break from work, plus if you can make it as far as you did in that mountain, this could be a good challenge for both of us!"

The two stepped far enough away to allow their pokemon to battle. Renée used her newly evolved Volcarona while Arnold sent out a Honchkrow. The two commanded their pokemon to use an attack as their battle soon began...


Callista proposed that Arnold should stay for dinner after the battle ended, Arnold appreciated the offer but insisted that he had best get back to work. As the moon rose, Renée got ready for bed, she thought it felt good to be back in her own bed in her home, but she couldn't get the message she received when she was unconscious out of her head.

If Suicune was correct, what would happen to the world, if not the universe if Team Dark Star succeeded?

These thoughts faded as she drifted off to sleep, the last thought she had was of how her sister was doing...


Three days remain until the Pokemon League Tournament begins...