Chapter One

Coming of Age

A long, long time later...

At night, Verdant Forest was usually a tranquil place. The peaceful silence was occasionally broken by the chirp of a cricket or snarl of a midnight predator, but rarely much more. Tonight, however, excited shouts and ringing laughter rose up from one of the sheltered forest glades. Firelight danced on the tree trunks as a sprightly Cyndaquil, its back a blazing cauldron of flame, pranced about the clearing's center. More small fires, flickering atop tall piles of sticks, illuminated the area from all sides.

"Cynda! Cynda!" the Cyndaquil chimed, kicking up its black paws. Furrowing its forehead in concentration, it took a running leap and hurtled itself into the air. With a graceful flip, it cleared a broad stump and landed, paws upraised, before a cheering audience.

All around the triumphant Cyndaquil, a circle of human and Pokémon children laughed and clapped their hands or paws together in delight. "Again, do it again!" some cried out. Encouraged, the Cyndaquil launched into a flurry of backflips, somersaults, and cartwheels. As it attempted an especially ambitious flip over a tree branch, a chorus of awed "oohs!" issued up from the assembled children.

The young humans who lived in the forest had always loved parties like these, as did the many Pokémon that inhabited the woods. Though some of the wilder creatures had originally been wary of humans, most feelings of mistrust had evaporated over time. Now, the small group of forest children mingled with the forest animals so freely it was sometimes impossible to tell human from Pokémon.

Smiling benevolently at her youthful charges, a withered white-haired woman sat on a fallen log, slightly apart from the rest of the gathering. At her side roosted an equally elderly Pidgeot, its head crest of feathers streaked through with grey.

Also away from the others, a stout scowling girl was hoisting a heavy basket of berries into the air. One of the other forest children, a grubby-fingered boy, darted forward and snatched up a fistful of berries for himself.

"Ikimo!" screeched the girl, yanking the basket away. Half its contents went tumbling onto the ground as she did. "Now look what you've made me do!"

Shrugging, the boy knelt and scooped up handfuls of the ripe fruit. "It's only a couple of berries, Alouelle," he countered, stuffing the fruit into his mouth and crunching contently. Dark lines of juice oozed out from the corners of his mouth, trickling all the way down to his chin.

Grumbling, Alouelle shoved him to the side and gathered up the rest of the berries alone. "Help me, will you?" she told Ikimo, jerking her head towards the pile of baskets behind her. "I want to get the rest of the food out before the ceremony starts."

"Which won't be for a while," the boy retorted. "The ceremony can't start without the guest of honor. And where's tonight's guest of honor? Bet you she forgot! She's always like that!"

Alouelle's round face blanched. "She can't have forgotten!" she protested sharply. Quickly, she scanned the faces that filled the clearing. The joyous yells and applause of the other children were still going strong. No one, it seemed, had noticed the absence of the party's intended focus.

"She can't have forgotten!" Alouelle said again, shaking the basket for emphasis. "It's her coming of age celebration, the day she turns ten! How could anyone forget that!"

"You know Lynn. Always drifting around, never saying anything to anybody. Quiet as a Gastly. Creepy as one, too. I'm surprised we even remembered to throw a coming of age party for her." Ikimo laughed and grabbed a second handful of berries from Alouelle's basket. Angrily, she slapped his juice-covered fingers to the side.

"Don't you dare touch those berries!" she snapped as she set the basket down. "I'm going to get Lynn. Finish setting up, will you?"

With that, Alouelle dashed out of the clearing, her straw-colored braids flapping out behind her. As soon as she had disappeared between the trees, Ikimo reached forward and crammed some more berries into his mouth. Savoring the sweet juice, then wiping his hands on his tattered, already well-stained sweatshirt, he wandered off to join the festivities.

Far away from the rambunctious party, a hammock knit from strong vines and wiry grasses swayed between the limbs of a weathered oak. Its occupant, a lone girl, leaned back into the net's sturdy niche, closing her eyes as the hammock rocked soothingly back and forth.

Tucking her arms beneath her head, Lynnet, or Lynn to all of the forest children, breathed in the cool night air. She inhaled and exhaled several times more, until the rhythm of her breathing matched the rocking of the hammock. Then, she stilled her breath completely, closed her eyes, and listened to the sounds around her.

It was a game Lynn liked to play with herself, finding out how much more she could hear if she made absolutely no noise. The slight creak of the branches as the hammock swung reached her ears first, followed by the whisper of a breeze rushing over her face.

As Lynn's concentration intensified, a flood of other noises fell upon her in quick succession. The scuttle of a small animal sounded in some distant bushes. The shuddering of some tree leaves swept forth on a passing wind. And the muffled beating of her own heart thudded steadily through the darkness. For the slightest fraction of a moment, Lynn thought she could even hear the ancient trees swelling out against their bark and the plants below stretching towards the sky.

Then her mouth burst open, gasping for air, and the spell was broken.

Breathing hard, Lynn sat up in the middle of her hammock. Had the wind suddenly grown colder, or was it just her imagination? She tugged restlessly at the too-short sleeves of her wrinkled shirt. As usual, it was totally ineffective. Like most of the forest children, Lynn had worn her sole set of clothes until they had become so patched and frayed that they offered little protection against the cold. But the pant legs that stopped several inches above the ankle and the numerous tears in her sleeves did little to bother her. As for appearances, it had been a long time since Lynn had even cared enough to comb out the tangles of coarse dark hair hanging below her ears.

This dark hair fell over Lynn's face now, tickling her check as she pulled out a small haversack from by her side. Placing her fingers over the sturdy material, Lynn deposited the sack carefully in her lap. With a quick twist and pull, the tight knots came undone. Several leaf-wrapped packets of dried berries and nuts rested at the very top, with a standard assortment of bundled herbs and tools beneath them. Lynn dug her hand past these layers, right to the padded bottom of the pack. Gingerly, her fingers brushed against a smooth, needle-thin surface.

Sitting back, Lynn gave a satisfied sigh of relief. She worried, more often than not, about losing her most secret treasure. Sometimes, on nights like these when the anxiety grew too strong, she couldn't help but check she still had it with her. But whenever Lynn reached into the bottom of her sack, it was always there. She'd feel silly then, though this silliness would soon be overcome by a soothing wave of reassurance. Lynn had always liked to be completely sure of things. As sure as one could possibly become, at any rate.

Once more, Lynn reached into the pack and, this time, carefully extracted the precious item. Holding tightly onto the thin shaft, she turned it first one way, then the other.

The object was difficult to make out at first, but its surface soon caught several stray shafts of moonlight and reflected them in a gleaming wave. In broad daylight, this wave would be beautifully iridescent, a scintillating swirl of every possible color Lynn had ever cared to imagine. And the object's actual shape, that of a glossy elongated feather, would be clear as well.

At least, Lynn fancied the object to be a feather. She'd seen the feathers shed by the local Pidgey during molting season: scraggly limp things that looked nothing like the exquisite shaft of rainbow she held in her hand. But even when she was little, Lynn had never thought to seek a second opinion. Apart from Lynn herself, no one had ever seen her special feather at all.

Of course, there wasn't really much purpose in the feather itself, besides…well, just being able to own such a pretty thing. Though Lynn often wondered what kind of creature the feather could have come from. Nothing she'd seen in Verdant Forest could ever match up with it, and she'd decided long ago that the feather must have come from some faraway land…like the places old Mother Woodwort liked to talk about in her stories. Places with wonderfully strange names like Sapheron, Sinn-bar, or Inda-go Pla-toe.

Then again, Mother Woodwort's stories usually weren't true. Mother Woodwort herself had attested to this fact numerous times. Yet many of the forest children still gathered eagerly around whenever she started a tale about her favorite subject of all: Pokémon Trainers, a strange race of humans that had disappeared long ago.

"Once upon a time," Mother Woodwort would begin in her creaky old voice, "There was a renowned Pokémon Trainer king who had four young heirs. One day, the king took them aside and said, 'My heirs, I will give each of you a stalwart Pokémon companion, for you must now prove yourselves to be good and noble Pokémon Trainers and venture into the world.' "

"To the first heir, the king gave Squirtle, a Pokémon with mastery over the forces of water. To the second, the king gave Bulbasaur, a Pokémon skilled with the power of grass, and to the third, Charmander, a Pokémon proficient in the ways of fire. But the fourth heir, alas! There was no Pokémon left for him!"

"What happened to the fourth heir?" the children would cry, even though most of them already knew the story by heart. "What happened to him?"

Mother Woodwort would pause dramatically before going on. " 'Where is my Pokémon?' the fourth heir cried to the king."

"Where? Where?" the forest children would chime back.

"And the king felt sympathy for the fourth heir, who was brave and strong and had a heart of gold. So the king traveled to the dank dark dungeons of his palace and searched. He searched and searched until he came upon one last Pokémon, one that had been locked away for many years. The king took this Pokémon to the fourth heir and said, 'I have only one Pokémon left to give you. But there is a problem with this last one.' "

"The fourth heir, however, was not afraid. Boldly, he stepped forward and accepted the final Pokémon, a Pikachu. And the Pikachu, in its rage, called upon the forces of the storm and released a horrible torrent of lightning upon the land. But the fourth heir stayed strong. Battered and bruised, he and the surly Pikachu left on their journey. For now that the heir had come of age, he was expected to go out into the world and…"

Come of age? Come of age?

Oh no…

"Lynn! What're you doing up there? I can't believe you forgot about tonight! How could you!"

Snapping guiltily out of her daydreamer's trance, Lynn nearly fell out of her hammock. Glancing down, she could see fair-haired, round-cheeked Alouelle, arms crossed and one foot tapping impatiently. "Everybody's been waiting for you so the ceremony can start!" Alouelle shouted up at her. "So hurry up! We've got to get back right away!"

Stuffing the feather back into her pack and slinging the entire thing over one shoulder, Lynn climbed out of her hammock and scrambled after Alouelle's already bounding form.