"I'm home!" David said.
"Hi, honey. Good day at work by the sound of it, huh?" his wife, Delia, said.
"Yep. I beat 15 people at the gym today. Got 1,000,000 extra pcs for a new record. How's Ash?"
"He's playing in his room. I'll tell him you're home." Delia replied.
"Daddy!" Ash, age 2, came running into the hallway.
"My son!" David said, picking his only child up into his arms, "Daddy got a big raise today!"
"Money!" Ash yelled excitedly.
He understood how important the big raise was, as his dad worked at a Pokémon gym.
"Mommy bought new Pokémon toys for me today! Wanna see?" Ash asked his dad.
His Pokémon toys were his favorite thing that he owned and he played with them every day.
"I got a Victini and Rakuaza now!" Those were his absolute favorite Pokémon. David understood him, even with his strange way of talking.
"Guess what?" Maybe one day you'll see the real thing! Won't that be exciting! We can all go!" David loved his family more than anything and gave them big things, very special things, whenever he could.
But his biggest promise is that someday, they would go around the world and find all of the legendary Pokémon. He still says that he'll keep that promise whenever he can get enough money.
"I drew a Mewtwo for you today, too!" Ash showed his dad a scribble that looked like nothing, but David liked it anyway.
"I'll hang it on my wall at work with the others." David answered his favorite kid.
Little did he know, but that would be the last that he would ever see his son again.
"I have to go back to work now, for another few hours. I'll see you at dinner, everyone! Go ahead and play with Girder, Ash, I bet he wants to train with you!"
Girder was Ash's stuffed Gigalith, who Ash played with all the time.
"Okay, see you, daddy!"
At the Gym, called Monolith Gym, for the Rock- and Fighting-type Pokémon, David was opening back up. The next person that came in called himself "Flay R. Mist", and he carried an Eevee on his shoulder. But he was not here to battle.
"You insolent fool! I curse you to a life of peril! I curse you to a life of sorrow! I curse you to a life in the shadows!" he said, and black sparks flew from his fingers and hit David in the chest, sending him flying backwards into the wall behind him.
He was knocked unconscious by the force of the impact.
"Come, Dragor. Let us leave this dump and go back home." he said, shooting more sparks, creating a purple-black portal: a portal to the Bottom Realms.
He went through and was gone. The sign for the gym flipped from open to closed.
When David awoke, he had no idea where he was. He had a headache.
"What just happened? Where am I? The last thing that I remember is getting hit by a black spark. That, that thing tried to kill me for nothing. He must have succeeded in that curse, for this does look like shadows." David got up, and found himself back at the Gym.
It was nighttime.
"What? How did I do that?"
When he looked at himself, he saw nothing human. He was made of shadows, for he could sweep his hand through his body, and his face was covered in a helmet, which he couldn't get off. He looked in a mirror, and he saw no face through the helmet, except for two pure red eyes.
"I can't show at home like this. Delia would die of fright, and Ash… No, I won't go home, I'll make a call saying that I must leave them, and then I'll go live in a forest, where there's lots of shade. Maybe people won't see me, then. I'll go to Light Forest, in Palmo. It's far away, and it's big, so people won't just wander around and die of fright if they see me." David said to himself.
He made the one call then.
At his house, after the call, Ash saw Delia crying in her room.
"What's wrong, mommy?" he asked, curling up with her.
"It's your dad. He's left us all alone! He just called and said he'd never come back!" she told him, crying even harder.
David now had travelled through the shadows. He was at the border of Light Forest. But he miscalculated in his trajectory and messed up his direction. He had landed right in front of a passing person, who immediately screamed, causing everyone around her to scream. David, ears hurting, quickly apologized, slipping back into the shadows. He reappeared in the middle of the forest, where the Pokemon there screamed as well.
"Sigh..." David said, feeling completely alone in the world now.
"Well, if I have to be a hated shadow being, I might as well have a better name." David said.
But you love your name, and so does your family. They need you, and you need them. Do you want to be cut off from them, too? His conscience was nagging him. But it started slipping away as if it were paper in the wind. Soon, David was an evil, heartless being with plans for revenge. His eyes had turned from blue to purest red. He terrorized the forest for years. He earned the forest a new name: Dark Forest. But something still existed inside him. Something wanted to get out...
"I can find him, I know I can." Ash, now 7, told his mom.
"Honey, you know that he can't be found. And you know that he told you to always go for his promise, no matter what happened. You can bring him back inside you, but nowhere else." Delia told her son for the millionth time that day. Little did she know, but that remark would change him forever. She didn't know that that comment would make him more determined than ever to bring his father back, whether physically or spiritually, it didn't matter. She had no idea that that little phrase would change the course of history, causing a massive disruption in the Time-Space continuum. She didn't know that she had aided the return of David to their home once again. She couldn't have understood that that remark would aid to the end of Flarimist's long, evil slumber.
David felt the change in history the moment that Delia had uttered the first word of that life-changing saying. When he felt it, that something that had been itching to get out inside him suddenly snapped. He regained his long-lost conscience, making him suddenly see everything as it was before him. He also noticed a voice coming from the deepest corners of his mind.
"David, don't destroy the forest. Help rebuild, not destroy. I am Xyrule, king of the universe. Do not fear me. I want you to listen to me. You have a very important part to play in this war for the world. You must make people fear you, maybe have a couple who want to destroy you. Do not worry about them. You cannot be destroyed by humans. I want you to rename yourself, until the war is over. You are now called Darkell, king of the shadows. I give you my blessing. Good luck.
That voice. David, or Darkell, knew that voice from somewhere.
Think, think...
Now he remembered. The voice was Ash's, his only son.
I will find you, my son. I will find you if it takes the rest of my life. Darkell sent out thought waves in every direction.
I will find you.
"Mom, I think that I just had a vision. I saw a dark thing that said it would find me, no matter what." Ash told his mom, looking up from his movie that he was watching.
"Honey, you know that visions are always..."
"Fake. I know, Mom. You don't need to tell me every time. It was just so real though..." Ash interrupted.
"Master, do you think that I will ever get him back?" Darkell was asking in his dreams. They were the first dreams he had had in a very long time. They were still just dark voids with a few words or pictures stretched randomly throughout the emptiness, but his son was the sharpest of his dream-pictures.
"Yes, you will, I assure you. But you won't get him back until your purpose has been fulfilled. Watch over the forest. An ancient evil, older than time is coming to the world. Flarimist has returned. He will cause death and destruction if you don't go with your path. Follow your Destiny. Go through with Fate." Xyrule answered back.
"Ash, wake up!" Delia shook him in his bed, "You're going to be late!"
Ash, aged 10 now, jumped out of bed. This was his first day of his Pokémon journey.
"Thanks for reminding me, Mom. I've got to go, now! See you there!" Ash rushed to get ready.
He hurried out the door, still in his pajamas. At Professor Oak's Lab, Ash was about to choose his starter.
He chose Squirtle. Someone had taken it. He then chose Charmander. Someone had taken it. He asked for Bulbasaur. The Pokeball was empty.
"Are there any left?" Ash pleaded with the Professor.
"Well… There is one…" Oak said.
"What? Which is it? I'll take it!" Ash said.
"Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you." Oak said, pulling a lever which opened a hidden compartment in the center of the table. There was a Pokeball in it, with a lightning bolt on the side.
"This is Pikachu, an electric mouse. But be warned, he is very troublesome." Oak said releasing the Pokémon.
"Pikachu!" it said, stretching its body around as if it had been in the Pokeball for a while.
"I'll take it. How bad can it be?" Ash said. Immediately, the Pikachu shot him with a Thunderbolt.
"Oh…" Ash said, covered in ashes, "Well, return. Thanks, Professor Oak!" Ash said, rushing out to show everyone his new starter.
"Sigh. He has no idea what he's getting himself into, does he, Chansey?" Oak said, looking at his Pokémon who helped him in his Lab.
"Chansey!" it said airily, going back to move the trays that it was relocating to the other side of the Lab.
When Ash was out of the Lab, he saw an old friend of his: Gary Oak, Professor Oak's grandson. He was showing off his new Squirtle to the crowd.
"Hi, Gary!" Ash said cheerily, "I got a Pikachu as my starter!"
"Really? Did Grandpa have to hide it away from losers like you?" Gary sneered at Ash.
"Why are you acting like that all of a sudden" Ash asked.
"Never mind, loser!" Gary said, thus starting a rivalry that would last for both of their entire journeys.
Ash saw his mom in the crowd, and ran up to her.
"I got a Pikachu, Mom!" Ash said excitedly, releasing it.
"Wow! He looks special. Electric-Type, right?"
Ash's mom had a new job as a Pokémon Gym trainer, working for and helping Brock, the Rock-Type Gym Leader in Pewter City, giving her a good knowledge for Pokémon types.
"Yes!" Ash said, "Return Pikachu!"
It didn't work. Ash tried again. And again. And again. Finally, he just gave up.
"It doesn't want to return. Weird." Ash observed, "Is that even possible?"
"I guess so." his mom said blankly.
"I'm ready to help keep Dad with us." Ash said, so only Delia could hear.
"Good, now you be the very best, like you've always wanted to be, honey. I'll see you sometime during your journeys, maybe." Delia answered, also whispering.
"Darkell, soon, your son will come. You have only to wait." Xyrule told his servant in his dreams.