Chapter 2:
Location: Pallet Town, Professor Oak's Laboratory
Professor Samuel Oak had surrounded himself with the pokemon that the Pallet Town trainers had daily deposited at his lab via the pokemon transporter system. It was a on a daily basis which he usually did in the mornings. As he took down the measurements of a Rattata that was recently deposited by a novice trainer just yesterday, his phone rang. The older man decided to let it ring a few more times as he quickly jotted down the last few numbers onto his clipboard pad. Finally satisfied, he pressed a button to receive his caller and Mr. Charles Goodshow's face appeared on the screen.
"Good day, Charles. Why the early morning call?" the aged scientist asked the Pokemon League President.
"Samuel, something is going on in the Kanto region. Already two Gym Leaders have already vanished in just three days. Witnesses claimed that the last person they saw was a young boy wearing a cloak and a mask. If we don't do something fast, very soon the rest of the others will be on jeopardy."
The professor's intelligent brown eyes widened in shock at this.
"And who might that two be?" he asked sharply.
"First to disappear is Brock from the Pewter City Gym and Misty from the Cerulean City Gym. She disappeared just yesterday," the president answered.
Understanding then dawned on him when Ash refused to answer his calls, the past three days. He must have gone to find his friends.
"This suspect is targeting at all of the Gym Leaders in the Kanto Region," Charles continued on. "And we need your help. I've already called in the Elite Four to help us out but there aren't enough to protect the remaining six Leaders. Do you have anyone in mind that can help out? I'm talking about elite trainers who are skilled in battle."
The scientist nodded, his expression severe. "Yes, in fact I do have two. Ash Ketchum and Gary Oak."
"Ah yes, Ash Ketchum. Well then, I'm counting on you to relay the message to them. I'll give them two days for them to arrive at Silver Town at Mount Silver. Everyone will be congregating here and from there deployed to the Gyms."
With that, Charles disconnected the line and the screen went blank. The older man stared at the now black screen, feeling a wave of uneasiness.
A young boy has the power to do all this? What in the world is happening?
Countless questions rolled around in his mind, which he was sure the rest of them were trying to figure out.
Finally snapping out of it, he scrambled to make an urgent call to the Nurse Joy in Cherrygrove City where Gary had informed him that he would start his search for Lugia there.
Location: Outskirts of Cherrygrove City
"Well, who was that Jane, if you don't mind me asking?" Gary asked her, as soon as she came back to where he was.
"Oh, just my grandpa's assistant calling to go back," Jane answered, shrugging her shoulders as she tucked her pokegear back into the pocket of her white shorts. "Nothing new there though."
Gary nodded. "But it's good to go back home sometimes to maintain good family ties, Jane. Your grandpa must obviously be worried about you."
The nineteen-year-old nodded. "Yeah I know that but thing is I've been a tad kinda busy."
"I see. Well, are you going back?"
Jane nodded again.
"Yes, something urgent came up and I've got to go."
Gary smiled and extended his own hand out to her. "Well, it's been great knowing you, Jane. We'll meet again someday soon, I hope."
The girl grinned at him. "Me too! I have a feeling that we'll see each other again."
Throwing out a pokéball, Jane called upon her Dragonair, once again. She hopped onto its back, followed by her Furret. Taking that as a cue, Dragonair rose up into the air and hovered above Gary's head for a moment.
"See you around, Gary!" the girl waved goodbye before her pokemon took off into the embrace of the skies.
Once Jane had left, Gary started towards Cherrygrove City's Pokemon Centre. He needed to call his own grandpa and inform him of the progress of his research on the legendary pokemon that he was searching for, Lugia, also known as the guardian of the seas'. There were sightings of this elusive pokemon here in the Johto Region around the vicinity of the Whirl Islands, thus the purpose of him coming here. Although not much was known about this pokemon, Gary was determined to find out more about this pokemon. This made it all the more harder to locate its habitat since Lugia was thought to live deep beneath the ocean. Humans could not venture that far in because of its escalating pressure. Since he was headed for a pokemon centre, he might as well let Nurse Joy do a check-up on his pokemon. As he approached towards the front desk where she usually stood to receive trainers' pokéballs, Nurse Joy herself appeared in front of him.
"Are you by any chance, Gary Oak from Pallet Town?"
The twenty-year-old blinked and nodded. "Uh huh, I am."
"Professor Oak has left a message for you to call him as soon as possible. He sounded quite troubled over the phone earlier. Maybe it's best if you returned his call now," Nurse Joy advised him.
Gary thanked her and told her that he would definitely do so. Settling himself down at the nearest phone booth available, the researcher called his grandfather, wondering what it was that made his grandpa so edgy. The old researcher picked up on the first ring.
"Hey there, grandpa. What's up?"
"Gary, you have to listen carefully to what I'm going to say to you now, do you understand?" Professor Oak told him. "And it's important that you go find Ash and tell him what I'm going to say to you."
Location: Whirl Islands
"These dark caves are really mind-boggling, ya know!" Jayden Clarke declared as he stumbled out from one of gaping mouth of the mysterious caves.
It was true; the four islands of the archipelago had many big caverns which could really make people go astray as the tunnels could literally go on perpetually.
"Yeah, like literally," Lexie Lakecia agreed, nodding to show her agreement.
Daniel Evans rolled his eyes. "Oh please Jayden, you've only taken two steps in and out."
The red-eyed girl burst out laughing. Jayden shot his friend, a dirty look which Daniel chose to ignore and focused on his laptop computer instead. His fingers flew expertly over the keyboard and his intelligent grey eyes scanned the images on the screen.
Lexie groaned and tapped her foot impatiently. "Is it going to take long, Daniel? Cause' I hate waiting."
"Won't be long now, I just need to pinpoint Lugia's location. Then we can go," the twenty-year-old answered absently, his eyes still on the screen.
"I still don't understand why the plan involves the abduction of the Gym Leaders," Jayden complained. "They are a nuisance."
Lexie shrugged her shoulders in response. "Well, neither do I. It doesn't seem to be a snug puzzle piece though. The next targets will be Johto and Hoenn besides Kanto."
Daniel remained silent. He needed to focus at their mission at hand which meant that he did not have time to ponder over that too. Suddenly, he stiffened and stood up.
"What's wrong?" Lexie demanded, turning to him.
"It's gone!" Daniel cried. "Lugia's not here."
Both Jayden and Lexie ran over to him, to take a closer look at his laptop screen.
"What do you mean it's gone?" Jayden asked sharply.
"I don't know but Lugia's not anywhere in the Whirl Islands anymore," Daniel replied.
Lexie's eyes narrowed. "So you are implying that someone came here before we did?"
Daniel paused for a moment before he answered. "Yeah, that could be a possibility. Or it might have wandered off somewhere."
"Geez, this is such a waste of time. I suggest we split up and go after these pokemon individually. That way, we can get more ground covered," Jayden suggested.
Without even waiting for the rest to answer, he called upon his Alakazam and the two of them vanished from view, using the psychic pokemon's teleport.
"Well, he's gone alright," Lexie pointed out. "I should probably get going too. See you around, Daniel."
She threw out a pokéball and Altaria appeared. With a graceful leap, she got onto Altaria's back and they too took off, leaving Daniel behind.
The twenty-year-old sighed deeply and pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose, as he shut his laptop close.
"Those idiots won't be able to find any pokemon just like that," he muttered.
Daniel knew that it was worthless to linger around here any longer. Whirl Islands was of no use to him anymore. Furthermore, the weather around these parts was getting worse so it would be best if he too headed for another legendary's dwelling.
Location: Cerulean City's Pokemon Centre
The moment Nurse Joy stepped out from the ward, both Ash and Pikachu ran up to her.
"Nurse Joy, how is Starmie doing?" he asked her, anxiously. "Is it going to be okay?"
The pink-haired woman looked at him and smiled kindly. "Yes, it will be just fine after a night's sleep. Starmie was pretty worn out so it needs rest in order to recover."
The twenty-year-old sighed in relief at her words. Misty's Starmie was going to be all right.
"Thank you so much, Nurse Joy."
The nurse nodded and left to attend to the other pokemon. Ash quietly walked over to the ward, and peered through the translucent glass window at Starmie's motionless form on the bed.
"You'll pull through, Starmie, for Misty's sake."
Then he turned to his Pikachu. "Want to join me for a bit of fresh air, pal?"
The electric mouse gave him a smile and nodded. It would follow Ash wherever he went like what it had always been doing before.
"Pikachu, what did you think could have happened to both Brock and Misty?" Ash asked, speaking aloud his thoughts as the two to them, walked by the lake.
"I can't help but feel that something ominous is just waiting to happen," he continued.
He hoisted himself onto a rock and pulled his legs close to his body as Pikachu hopped up, beside him. The boy gazed out at the lake. Everything was so tranquil out here as compared to his emotions that was in turmoil. His fingers grazed a rock and he picked it up and threw it into the water, causing ripples to appear as it skimmed over the surface. Just then, his Pikachu leapt to its feet, looking around, its ears pricked up. The electric-type pokemon had picked up something.
"What's wrong, buddy?" Ash asked, getting to his feet.
He too could sense that something was coming this way. The two of them tensed and waited for something to happen. It came soon enough.
They stared in awe at the pokemon that was bathed in a mysterious gold light.
"It's Ho-oh…"
Ash could recognize this pokemon anywhere since he had seen it one too many times. For a long moment, both Ho-oh and the twenty-year-old stared at each other, directly in the other's eye.
Finally, it was Ho-oh who spoke via telepathy.
"I who have chosen you as my Guardian trainer, Ash Ketchum, will fight in the ultimate battle which has been foretold to come in the near future."
A confused expression crossed Ash's face.
"You will understand soon…"
Using its own abilities, Ho-oh disintegrated and in a flash of red light, entered one of Ash's empty pokéball on his belt.
"There are Guardian trainers like you who have been chosen to step up and fight so you are not alone, Ash…"
Ho-oh's voice still lingered in the air although it had disappeared from view.
Location: Mossdeep City's Gym
"What the hell happened in here? " Dylan demanded, looking around.
The entire training area was in wreckage. The lights were shattered and boulders jutted out from the grounds haphazardly.
"LIZA, TATE! WHERE ARE YOU GUYS?"
There was no sign of the twins anywhere.
"Metagross, use psychic and search them out, go!" Dylan threw out a pokéball.
In a blinding flash, the steel and psychic pokemon appeared. It's eyes glowed an eerie blue as the pokemon began to scan the gym for any familiar waves that they or their pokemon might emit. However, there were none though there happened to be some strange psychic waves that Metagross did not recognize. This whole area was barren of people and pokemon. In other words, utterly deserted.
"Can you detect anything, Metagross?"
The pokemon shook its head dejectedly.
Dylan sighed and returned it back into its pokéball. "Thanks Metagross."
"Where in the world could they be?" he muttered.
Dylan was just on his way to Mossdeep after emerging as the latest pokemon league champion, to visit his younger twin cousins and maybe put in a friendly match or two. Waves of worry mixed in with fear crashed upon him as he struggled to figure out what to do next. Just then, he heard something, an unknown intrusion. Hastily, the twenty-year-old hid himself in the shadows, deep inside the gym.
An older man with red hair stepped into the gym, followed by a Dragonite, which must be his. For some reason, he seemed familiar but Dylan could not quite place it. The stranger looked around guardedly.
"You can come out now," he said after a long pause and stepped further inside.
Dylan tensed, ready for a fight. At least, he was not going anywhere without taking out his opponent first.
"I'm no enemy. I'm simply here for an investigation."
The younger man froze as his eyes narrowed.
Investigation? What investigation? Does he know where they are?
Deciding to take a risk, he stepped out into the open.
The stranger's eyes widened. "What in the world is a League Champion doing here?"
Dylan glared at him. "I could ask you the same question."
Surprisingly, he laughed. "Yeah, sorry about that. I'm Lance, if you must know. Like I said, I'm here on an official investigation."
Dylan's eyes widened as realization dawned on him. Lance, the member of the Elite Four of the Kanto and Johto Region and also the Specialist in dragon-type pokemon. He was one of the most excellent trainers in the world.
"What do you mean official?"
"It seems Gym Leaders in all the regions, Kanto, Johto and Hoenn, are all disappearing. There have been claims that they have been all abducted by some fiend," Lance explained. "So, I'm here to find clues and capture him."
"You mean, Liza and Tate have been kidnapped?" Dylan demanded starkly.
He paused before he nodded. "I'm afraid so."
