Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon. Characters that appear in this work of fiction other than the OCs are owned by Nintendo.

The fire crackled from its place at the center of the room, projecting long shadows onto the surrounding area. The light cast by the flames danced across the walls and shelves, their every movement revealed the spines of the books that lined the magnificent shelves. The fire itself was pulsating, almost as though it were setting a rhythm for the light to follow. The sight was almost mesmerizing to watch, colors of orange and red merging and splitting to form new colors, sometimes even attempting to escape out of its restraints. It truly was an interesting sight.

Intriguingly the shadows the flames cast as a result of their frolicking had a muted feel, they twisted and writhed following the movement of the fire like a beast its master's, and just like a beast it was forgotten when one gazed upon the flames. The sight reminded the young man gazing upon the scenery of Kings he had read, about those that gave up and followed other Kings when they were defeated. Just like poochyenas.

"Sir," a muffled voice brought him out of his musings, it was accompanied by sounds of floorboards creaking and shuffling feet, "sir are ya there?"

With a heavy sigh, the young man replied, "yes, I am," that elicited an excited gasp from the speaker, who got into the room the young man was in and looked around, mystified, "didn't take ya for the booksy kind of person, sir. You are a strange fellow, sir."

Both of them stood there for a while, the silence filled by the crackling fire. This silence lasted until the newcomer, an old man, decided to speak up, "what are ya doin here sir? The caretaker does no' like people here."

"Is this not a library?"

"That it is, sir."

"Then aren't the books in here supposed to be read by the visitors who come here?"

"You are right sir."

"Then I don't see the problem since that is why I am here."

The old man looked down at his feet and fidgeted a bit and finally said, "well ya see we townsfolk don't know how to read books so we tried to use em as kindle, the caretaker didn't take like that very much.", to this the young man responded with little more than "I see."

A few more moments passed and the young man finally moved from his position near the entrance to one of the shelves, as he did this he took a small notebook and a pen out of his breast pocket, "you go on ahead, lest your better half yell at you for being out this late at night."

Jake laughed awkwardly as he rubbed his head, "ya sure, sir? The missus would yell at me if I left ya alone too."

"No no it is fine, you go on ahead. I need to read some of these books anyway. They are a part of the reason I came here after all. You can tell that to her."

"Thank ya very much, sir," the old man said as he wobbled his way out of the room through the large entrance.

The young man looked at the old man as he left straining his ears to see if anyone was coming before walking along the shelves, brushing his fingers past each of the books as he read their titles. There were many a book, some for children, others for adults, each one of them fascinating in its own way, but unfortunately, they weren't what the young man was looking for.

This lasted for a long time until he let out a sigh of disbelief, "it can't be… the book isn't here, it seems the caretaker has hidden it-"

"Or she has it at her home," a voice startled the young man, causing him to drop his notebook and pen. It was the old caretaker, how she had gotten in was a mystery, but she looked livid, extremely so.

"What are you doing here boy? Better speak fast or I will sic my Seviper on you, he loves tender human skin and yours will do just fine."

A gulping sound resounded throughout the room and the young man tried to answer but it came out in a stuttering mess, "I.. uh.. Well wa-wanted to r-read the boo-ok," he paused taking a deep breath upon seeing the warning look on the old caretaker's face before continuing, "about the Four Great Emperors."

"Interesting. Why do you want to read it, boy?" the old lady asked in a slightly less grumpy tone than before.

"The Emperors had a powerful artifact that I want," the young man licked his lips as he thought of his words carefully before he continued, "I need it to help some people I know."

"Boy, you are better off leaving that accursed book alone.", the old lady tried to walk away, but upon seeing the crestfallen look on the young man's face she continued, "how about this? I will give you another book and you forget this ever happened."

"What book?", but instead of answering the old lady walked past him and deeper into the library, she had a somewhat weary look on her wrinkly face.

Sounds of rummaging were heard and she returned a bit later with a book clutched to her chest, "here boy, make sure you use the information well… or else...", she trailed off threateningly leaving the young man to do nothing but nod rapidly.

Once the young lady moved away a bit the young man let out a sigh and looked down at the book he held with a reverent look, 'The Legend of Tree of Life', the bold text on it read, although the book itself looked a bit tattered. It was a wonder that it survived the test of time.

"Ahem," the caretaker cleared her throat to gain his attention, "I expect you to read this here and to return it to me in perfect condition sonny. Which reminds me, what is your name anyway."

The young man smiled and said, "My name is Giovanni, nice to meet you,"

A thick morning dew clung to the forest below, glistening brightly as the rays of the rising sun passed through it. The rays brought forth a new day, the forest has awakened from its night of slumber. This was the sight Pidgeotto was greeted to as he flew over the wide forest known to many as the Viridian Forest. To Pidgeotto however, this was once home.

As he flew over the wide expanse he tried to spot something to eat, he had been flying continuously over the land for almost an entire day. He needed-no he deserved- a break and some snacks, and so it was with these thoughts that Pidgeotto soared through the heavens in search of prey.

His eyes searched, watched, and waited for even the most minute movements in the underbrush. He soared above the ground, amid the clouds. The sultry air being beaten against his colossal brown feathers, as he surveyed his surroundings, it was then he noticed something purple jumping amidst the green foliage and in a moment he was after it, swooping down into the forest below.

Just before he landed onto the ground however he lifted his wings and flung his sharp talons outwards before flying back into the sky. There was no use in checking his talons for he knew the creature had been caught. He could feel the warmth of its body and the beating of its heart.

Now where to eat this catch of his? Maybe on that tree over there-

That was when he noticed it, a gigantic crater in Forest. The crater looked very very brown, but more importantly, that was the spot where his flock used to hang around. He frantically flew towards the area, he knew his flock might have moved away but he needed to know what might have caused the crater.

Upon reaching the spot, Pidgeotto flapped as looked around, using his keen eyes to look around, in a second he saw that there was a tiny spot that was deeper than the rest of the crater, it looked to be the size of a butterfree but smaller, and looked as though the creature had slammed into the spot.

He was brought out of his musings by the rattata struggling to get out of its clutches. Clearly, it thought that it would have better chances of survival if it were dropped from high up in the sky. Maybe he could help the creature test that theory.

Pidgeotto let go of the rattata and swooped down after it. The wind felt good against his feathers and the rattata looked to be having a terrible time, if it weren't for the large crater where its home used to be Pidgeotto would have said life was good.

Whoosh!

Just before they landed Pidgeotto captured the rattata and smashed it against the ground, it was time for lunch. It wouldn't do to search while on an empty stomach after all.

It was much later after eating the rattata did Pidgeotto realize that maybe he should have kept the little rat around, if for nothing else other than entertainment. Not like he could do anything about it now anyway.

The avian let out a squawk and ruffled its feather before taking off into the sky, it needed to look around to see what might have caused this, the message for the brat can wait, unless… it couldn't be true, but the brat might know about this crater, after all, he had gone through here.

It made one more circle around the area before taking off towards Pewter City, that was when it noticed a trainer, a purple-haired man who looked to be searching for something. Disregarding him Pidgeotto flapped his wings and shot faster, not noticing that the man was staring at him with a look of interest in his eyes.

It was sometime later when Pidgeotto stopped to rest near a waterhole that it happened, the smell of fresh rattata meat emanated from the spot behind him. It would definitely make for a good meal… in fact, maybe he could even keep this rattata aside as he had planned earlier. Entertainment was sparse these days.

With these thoughts in his mind, Pidgeotto let his nose lead him to the rattata.

Midflight Pidgeot felt his world erupt into pain, a feeling of something running across his body was projected onto his mind, and he chirped in pain. This was electricity, that was all Pidgeotto knew about his situation, all thanks to that pikachu. The question Pidgeotto had however was, why was he being electrocuted?

The feeling lasted for mere minutes, but to Pidgeotto it lasted for an eternity. Despite the electricity being removed from his body, he was still twitching, his entire body was still experiencing phantasmic spasms. This reminded him of that day long ago… the reason Delia Ketchum caught him. That godforsaken pikachu.

He had been a fledgling Pidgey who had been exploring outside his forest in hopes of discovering new things. That was when a small boy with a pikachu appeared, he obnoxiously yelled, "Pikachu, use Thundershock.", and similar to this a feeling of electrocution erupted throughout his body, he thought he was going to die in fact.

Maybe he would have, but his body changed, he went through the shift and became a pidgeotto, just like what was happening right now. Except this time he would be stronger. He would become a pidgeot.

He tried to get up, he refused to evolve while he was lying down, but his body refused to move. Every muscle on his body protested, but Pidgeotto ignored them, his eyes flashed as energy engulfed him, all the information in his brain, everything he knew surrounded him, something deep within him shifted.

He fell over as he felt his world split into two, the past and the present, his weak self or a stronger future, and he very obviously chose the path to strength. Just as he did so an electric bolt was thrown his way, but the shift interrupted it, stole the energy, and put it into him, and so he squawked, loudly and in pain.

This was more than pain, this was something so painful it needed to be called something else, he felt two energies in his body war against each other. One was the foreign electrical energy and the other the flying energy. He was being ripped apart.

Eventually, after a long time, the pain faded a bit, but he still felt like his body was being ripped into pieces. The pieces that were formed were eventually put back together and he felt something being added to it.

The pain and everything that shackled him shattered as he finally formed and turned into Pidgeot and he spread his wings, squawking loudly, meanwhile in front of him the purple-haired human looked at him in shock.

Pidgeot was definitely going to have fun with this, of that he was sure.

The wind slowly swirled around him as he flapped his mighty wings, the trainer tried to make his pokemon, a yellow creature that had black markings on it, to attack Pidgeot. Electricity ran through his body again, but oddly enough he felt no pain. There was nothing in fact as he felt his body take it and store it in him.

Pidgeot continued to fly, but he was interrupted by a small ball hitting him, it tried to suck him in, but just as it began it stopped, falling harmlessly to the ground.

The human looked at him in anger and a twinge of fear, he yelled something, but Pidgeot quickly whipped up the air around him in an attempt to use Gust, but for some reason, his instincts told him to stop. Maybe some other approach was necessary.

He felt his body search for the remnants of the electric move that the other pokemon had used earlier, he felt like he could use it if he could manage to find it. It took some time, but thankfully the trainer did nothing, instead, the trainer simply opted to observe him.

Energy swiveled around him, the latent energy in Pidgeot converged and diverged trying to form and branch out into something else until it found a stable form, a conductor for electricity. Information flooded into his mind and he let out the move, Thundershock.

He winced as he felt the phantom feeling of pain as he released the attack. When he looked to see what damage his attack had done his eyes widened, the attack had done no damage, just like what had happened to him earlier. Did that mean he was now an electric type pokemon, oddly enough he still felt like the basic energy compositions in his body hadn't changed. Instead, he could only use the electricity to enhance his moves.

Maybe he had stolen this from the other pokemon. For some reason, that thought brought joy to Pidgeot.

He was brought out his musings by a roar that erupted from the other pokemon as it rushed at Pidgeot, he felt anger erupt in him as he stared at the charging pokemon. He won't go down without a fight.

Similar to how he had stood up against that Pikachu years ago, Pidgeot wordlessly flew right at the other pokemon.

Midflight used Agility in tandem with Quick Attack and Wing Attack as he charged right at the other pokemon, he was practically a blur as he appeared in front of the red-eyed pokemon. With a sudden spread of his wings, Pidgeot stopped himself, but the air he had moved with him moved forward at high speeds. This was a new move. A new way of attacking for Pidgeot.

The Shift was truly a wonderful thing, not only did it enhance a pokemon's natural abilities, it also gave it a form that could handle those abilities. Some pokemon hated the Shift (cough Pikachu cough) because of how different the form was, they almost never got used to their form and would die, and from what he had gathered that was what had happened to Pikachu when he evolved into his current form. The pikachu would have died were it in the wild, and that may or may not have been the reason Pidgeot forgave the little rat.

Pidgeot shook itself out of its reverie and stared on as the heatwave moved and relished the look on the trainer. The utter confusion and slight fear in his eyes as it widened, brought a sense of joy in him that could not be captured in words.

The pokemon meanwhile looked a bit horrified as he felt the heat from the air that was moving towards him, and hastily tried to get away, but fortunately for Pidgeot, it was too late for that course of action.

He did not stay around for the after-effects of whatever happened and instead wisely decided to flee. Maybe he could capture actual rattatas next time.

Once he gained significant altitude he turned back to see a brown bird, slightly smaller than him, but it was flying with the other trainer on top of it. If he had a mouth he would have smirked, this was way too perfect.

Aided by Agility, Pidgeot let himself fly ahead of the bird in the direction of Pewter City. This trainer was going down, literally.

Eventually, he saw a lake down below, just a little bit further ahead. Looking over his wings he let out a taunting chirp as he dropped down into the expanse below. He could hear the other bird behind him. It was time.

Pidgeot pulled all the electric energy in his body into one spot and released it with Gust, maybe this would be enough to teach that pesky trainer not to mess with Pidgeot.

As he flew away he heard a splash as something fell into the water. The sound was like music to his ears.

He looked back down to see how his prey was faring and was shown to the sight of a trainer who was being pulled onto the shore by a strange-looking slug.

It was a good day to be Pidgeot.

Sleeplessness was just part of being a nurse.

Claire learned that the day she had begun her new job. So could you really blame her if she had turned to coffee for energy? No, of course not.

On Claire's first night shift of the week, she had already been awake the entire day, reading and rereading the patient profiles. On a good night, she could snatch a few hours of shut-eye but often there were the new admissions to deal with: the interviews and the paperwork (less said of those the better). Other times a patient would scream all night and wake the entire ward.

After more than twenty-four hours awake her body demanded sleep but once she opened the front door to her home there were breakfasts to be made, lunches too, and cleaning up after her roommate, which took up most of her time.

By nine am she would be done with cleaning up the house then it was a matter of putting in laundry, making beds, and planning dinner. By ten am she was too tired to think and sank fully clothed into bed. Thirty minutes later a door slammed shut, her roommate, probably off to work. Twenty minutes later a man hollered on the street. Ten minutes later the phone rang, it was her roommate.

"Hey Claire," the excited sound of her roommate yelled over the phone and Claire felt a tad bit angry, she hated this.

"What is it this time?" she practically growled into the phone.

"I….might've forgotten my bag, you know the one with all the tools I use. So, if you could swing by the hospital and bring them I'd appreciate it. Thank you goodbye", he said the last part really quickly before quickly hanging up.

"Arghhhhh", she yelled, not caring what her neighbors might think as she got up from her bed before heading to where she knew the supplies were. This was starting to be a daily occurrence and she hated it.

Her idiotic roommate couldn't do anything by himself. He always needed her to bail his sorry ass out and she was getting fucking tired of always doing this. When she found him, she was gonna beat the ever-living crap out of him. Why couldn't he just let her sleep for once?

She felt regret over ever befriending him. That jerk.

She quickly got ready before grabbing the supplies and heading out. She stopped at a nearby cafe for a cup of coffee to re-energize herself before she bought a ticket for the Mareep Express. While the name itself sounded kind of odd, the entire enterprise was started by a mareep farmer who bought buses and rewired them to be powered by Mareeps. The farmer had soon become famous and now owned an entire business empire. The story truly was inspiring.

These thoughts swirled in her head as she sipped the heavenly drink known as coffee. If it weren't for this drink she'd have died of exhaustion. When she saw the bus arrive she was forced to gulp it down in its entirety and run towards the bus. Usually, it took the bus a while to arrive, why was the whole world against her today. It wasn't fair.

Her entire trip was spent fighting off the feelings of sleepiness. Eventually, she gave in, but not before releasing her trusty Floette to guard her.

It was thirty minutes later that she had woken up to the sounds of her floette frantically yelling at her. Where was she agai- Ah the hospital! She quickly got off the bus near the Pewter Hospital. The sun was barely up. Why did she have to get up at this time?

"Floe ette," her pokemon trilled as she comforted her. This was nice.

"Thanks, Floette, we can talk more later. Jacob forgot his supplies. Again," Floette nodded with a sympathetic smile before she was enveloped in red light and was sucked back into a tiny pink heal ball.

As she walked towards the hospital, she was taken in awe of the camaraderie she saw, people fed the wild pidgeys or spearows that came to them for food, while trainers themselves were openly playing with their partners. Such a sight was seldom seen in other cities. Another factor unique to Pewter was its low usage of pokemon centres. This was because people here believed that healing pokemon naturally was better for the pokemon themselves in the long run.

Eventually, she reached the hospital and she felt her tiredness drain away as looked upon the building. The Pewter City Hospital, a facility that was recently implemented into Pewter. Before the hospital had been implemented people were forced to go to the Pokemon Centres. This caused a problem for pokemon as the queue was doubled slowing down the procedures and tiring the Nurses. This was why everyone was glad when this particular service was implemented here. Especially her.

She entered the hospital premises and made her way to the Paediatrician department, where her roommate, Jacob, worked. She clenched her fist in anticipation of the moment it would meet his face.

She found his office and opened the door. She found him in the office, doing some paperwork. He looked up when the door opened and saw her.

"Ah, here you are. Thanks for bringing them to me, Claire" Jacob said with a grateful smile. One she wanted to wipe off his face.

She clenched her fists, ready to release her frustration in one punch when the door opened and a young girl walked in with her mother. They were obviously patients.

"I'll see you later then", she said through clenched teeth with a look in her eyes that promised him incredible pain. When she turned around however she did a complete 180 and smiled at the young girl, who tentatively smiled back at her.

She walked out, ready to head back home and finally sleep, before she heard someone call her name. She turned around and spotted , her boss. He seemed to be frantically searching for someone.

"Claire! Back so soon? Anyway, can you head to my office for a second? I need to talk to you about something," he asked before walking towards the office, and Claire followed him.

He stopped in front of a door that read his name on a gold plate and opened it, before entering the oaken door. Claire entered silently after him, closing the door once she entered.

He made a show of walking over to his large ostentatious chair and sat down on it, "Claire this may be asking too much of but," he stopped talking to take a folder out of his shelves, "a new trainer was admitted to the hospital yesterday. He ran into members of Team Rocket and was admitted here. Another trainer was found dead on the scene, killed by Team Rocket. Both of them were injured by the same thing, an electrode explosion."

She processed the words. That was sad but she didn't know how it affected her. Her boss, however, proceeded to drop a bombshell on her.

"As per Paragraph 50 of the Trainers Code, we are obliged to send a trainee nurse alongside him to observe his attitude and training methods and you were the best choice available."

Claire reeled in shock. She would have to leave this peaceful place, her comfort, everything just for some snot-nosed brat?

"Why me? Why can't anyone else go?", she said, angry at everything. She just wanted to rest a little and now this happened. Fuck this.

"Ah. A very good question Claire. See this boy has traces of a psychic type messing with his head." he looked directly across at her and she felt something in her chest clench in fear, "in other words, your specialty."

"Wait what?!" her scream echoed throughout the room, this was followed by a sharp look from her boss.

"No one can know about this Claire."

"Okay, sir."

"You set out tomorrow along with the boy, go pack whatever you need for the trip," he said as he extended his hand, offering the file to her, "look through it."

Claire silently left the room, the same way she entered the room, but now her head was filled with thoughts. All of which were sliced by the sight of a large Pidgeot that waddled into a room. The room of her patient.

What the hell had she gotten herself into.

Ash opened his eyes, he had seen something… something purple. It was in his dreams, and it was swirling around in his mind.

'It must have been a dream,' he assured himself, feeling slightly better.

He yawned as he wiped his bleary eyes before turning around, spotting something. He frowned, before rubbing his eyes and focusing on it.

Ash would've liked to say that he had calmly got up and backed away when he saw Pidgeot, but the reality was much different. He screamed like a six-year-old before jumping from the bed and throwing his pillow at Pidgeot, which the large pokemon easily tossed back at him as though it were a sealeo.

He quickly reached for his Pokeballs only to find there was none, only to realize that his pokemon had been taken away for treatment, in other words, he was well and truly alone with the bird. He slowly tried to creep away, keeping his eyes on the Pidgeot, who looked utterly content to stay where it was.

Someone opened the door behind him but he did not care. All he cared about was getting away from the avian, as it looked at him with its small beady eyes. 'Why is a pidgeot here? How did it get here?' he thought to himself.

"What is going on here?", a sleepy voice made itself known from its spot behind Pidgeot.

Ash craned his neck to look past the pidgeot and at the speaker. She was only four or five years older than Ash, wearing a casual sweater and jeans along with a scowl on her small rounded face. Ash blinked. There was a Pidgeot right in front of them and she was doing nothing. A pokemon, which could tear them both apart in seconds, a murderous beast and she was just standing there doing absolutely nothing about it.

"Why were you screaming? This is a hospital, not your death bed," she said, as she looked at his bed enviously.

"There's a pidgeot here. A fucking pidgeot. Do something about it before it tears us both apart." He demanded, before squeaking as the pidgeot headed closer.

She giggled a bit at his antics before quickly masking it with a stoic face, "It won't kill you. If it wanted to kill you you would've been dead already. That pidgeot could have killed you in millions of ways before you opened your eyes and gotten away with it without anyone even seeing it, because pidgeots are that fast," by the time she had finished the sentence Ash had a pale white face, seeing that she quickly changed track," Besides, there is something tied to its feet".

Ash turned towards the avian, that was when it struck him, "Pidgeotto?" he questioned.

"It isn't a pidgeotto dumb-" the woman was interrupted by the avian bobbing its head.

"He's my mom's Pidgeotto, or he used to be since he seems to have evolved," the other person gave a small understanding nod.

"Mind if I take a ride on Pidgeot back to my place?"

"Do you have a license?" at her nod he continued with "then ask Pidgeot."

Pidgeot stared at her for a moment before crouching down a bit, allowing her to climb on his back before taking off. Ash watched them go before he realized that he didn't take the note from Pidgeot.

"Wait wait, ah dammit", he yelled after them, realizing it was now futile to call them back since they won't even hear him at this distance. Sighing, he sat on his bed before an idea struck him, he could get his pokemon back from the Pokemon Centre. It would be super easy, besides there aren't weren't any nurses around that he could ask for help.

Now if he could just remove this thingamajig, it was really starting to bother him.

Eventually, he had done it, it only required a few broken wires, he would pay for it later, right now freedom mattered more.

Slowly he got up from his bed and tiptoed his way out of his room, that was when he realized he was wearing hospital garments, 'This, this is fine.'

As he walked down the hallway, he heard someone call out to him. He turned around and saw a guy probably in his early 30's who was dressed in a similar fashion to him, it seemed like everyone here liked to wear hospital garments, everyone except that girl.

"Hey bro, come over here," the man waved him over as though he were a giant ship and Ash naturally walked over to him. The guy had an orangish complexion with hollow cheeks. Every one of his instincts told Ash to get away from here, away from that man, but he still walked towards the guy.

"Hello, are you a doctor?" Ash asked and the answer he received was a punch to the face and a kick to his stomach, "don't you dare look at me like that kid. I am Don Pear, master of the known criminal underworld, the great leader of the Mafia. I have a team stronger than Lance's, and I own every known species of Pokemon."

The punch helped Ash connect two little facts, he was a living magnet for crazy people. Period.

"Okay", he said slowly rubbing his stomach. Damn that man could hit hard. "What are you doing here then?" he asked.

"They...they saw my power. They saw I was a threat. I would defy them, so they put me here, to cage me, restrict me, so I couldn't do anything to them." he ranted like a madman.

"What power?" Ash queried. The guy was raving mad but he was still curious.

"This hospital is a prison" continued the man, ignoring Ash completely, "They put whoever defies them into this place, this hellhole, to suffer horribly," he ranted ignoring Ash completely. Ash frowned at that. This hospital was nice enough, or at least to him it was, so that begged the question, how in the world was it oppressive?

"You may not believe me, but it's true. They test all kinds of things on us, new medicines, potions, we're their test subjects. They keep us locked up inside our rooms all day and night and only bring us out for the testing", he said, dramatically whispering the last part. Ash's eyes widened and he took a step back in fear.

"Really?", Ash asked and the man nodded and replied "Yes, help us escape from this tyranny. Free us, and we will help you. We need your help and you see, only you can provide it." He said whispering the last part as he pulled Ash close to him.

"Take this," he slipped a pokeball into Ash's hands, "use it well kid."

"Where are you going?"

"I am going to free the others." Ash simply nodded believing him to an extent and ran towards the general direction of Ward 16.

"Kids these days are too easy to fool", he muttered under his breath as he giggled lightly and spread his arms, "let the games begin!"

Ash looked at the pokeball in his hands, while he believed the man to an extent something in him told him not to do it, but this lasted until he had opened the door to Ward 16, and all of a sudden all his hesitation left him. It. Was. Horrifying.

First came the smell, an odor that was so putrid that Ash was forced to cover his nose with his hand. The sight that followed it however was even more horrific. Countless people were simply lying there, injured and close to death, but they simply stared off into the distance as if that did not matter to them.

"Everyone! Come on!" Ash yelled, but they simply stared at him, as though his words were the wind, the meaningless kind that passed in front of you. Some of them furrowed their brows as if to indicate that thoughts were indeed forming in their mind, but soon their faces would relax back into tranquility. If it weren't for the open eyes, Ash would have thought that they were sleeping… or worse dead. That was when he noticed it, their breathing, it was synchronized. A jolt of terror shot through him as he realized what was going on, he was in the psychic ward.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" a voice that sounded uptight yet somehow royal made itself known to him, the voice startled Ash and he whirled around to stare at the other person. It was a man who looked to be around his age maybe a tad bit older, around 18 or 19. He too was wearing the hospital garb, but his eyes… their beady nature freaked Ash out. They were orbs that were red to the point of looking as though the other man's very eyes were bleeding.

As though he hadn't seen Ash the red-eyed man continued "It seems a rattata has fallen into our masterful trap,"

"W-w-who are you?" Ash asked as he glared at the other person.

"We are Ronald and we would like you to give us that," he said as he pointed at the pokeball in his hands.

"Er...?" Ash smartly said.

"That is our pokemon. We had it first, so return it. We know not how it landed in your hands but, we shall forgive you if you give it back," he said as he stared at Ash as though he believed what he said was true with his very being.

"How about we let the pokemon decide?" Ash wagered as he pressed the button on the pokeball, suffice it to say he did not like what followed that.

When Claire had returned she expected to see, well she did not know what she expected to see but it wasn't Ash geared up and standing in front of the hospital with a lunatone next to him. The records had no mention of a lunatone so how in the world did such an occurrence come to pass.

"Hey! Over here!" the boy yelled boisterously, followed by the moon rock who began to murmur in her head using random noises, as though it were a radio station, and she was a radio, a radio that had its antenna broken.

The most surprising part was the Pidgeot, he ran straight at the boy and offered his legs to him, ah right, the message.

The boy grabbed it before heading away from the avian. Claire frowned. Why would the boy have a fear of the Pidgey line if he grew up alongside one?

Ash stood in place, reading. He then grabbed a pencil from his pocket and scribbled on the back end of the paper before tying it to the Pidgeot's leg, though he did it with great care. Pidgeot then flew away, and Claire watched it fly until it became nothing more than a speck in the sky.

"So, I didn't catch your name earlier", She looked at Ash, who was smiling, probably since the Pidgeot was gone.

"Claire", she replied. "You must be heading to the Pewter City gym then", she stated as though it were a fact.

"Yeah, I still have to get my first badge," Ash replied a tad bit sheepishly.

"So how did you get Lunatone?" She questioned him. "You didn't have one according to the information I received."

"A long story" he replied and then as though the thought just passed through his mind he asked not a moment later, "What records?"

"Another long story," she quipped, and Ash merely grunted back in response.

"Well, now time to head to the Pewter city gym then."

"Wait, you are coming with me?"

Thus they both set off swathed in the orange light of the sun with Ash's yells serving as a tone that set the rest of their adventure.

"Wait a minute, I forgot to pick up my pokemon!" Ash yelled and ran towards the Pokemon Centre.

Clair followed him sighing exasperatedly, the boy may not look like it but he can run, "Wait up!"

They were so caught up in their 'race' to the Pokemon Centre that neither of them noticed the glowing red eyes of the lunatone, nor did they know that just moments prior something had happened, something that will have far-reaching consequences.

A/N: Merry Christmas readers, hopefully, you liked this chapter. Read and do whatever you want, but read it that's what matters.