Chapter One: Discovery

I'm in over my head.

My partner in my arms, I dashed through the sand as fast as I could reasonably go without slipping. My flying pursuer, however, didn't have that issue. I felt waves of hot wind and sand gust against my back, nearly knocking me off my feet, and without my goggles I would have been nearly blinded with the speed at which the particles rushed past my face. I turned my head quickly to check how much of a lead I had, and my heart leapt into my throat when I saw the Flygon had halved the distance between us.

This is the last time I try petting a baby Trapinch without making completely certain mom isn't around.

My teammate Toothpick growled something quietly to me and tried to wriggle free, and I had to pay extra close attention to make sure I didn't drop him while I ran. The last thing I need is to have to search the desert for a reptile that blends in with the sand while I'm running for my life. He nipped at my hand to get my attention, gesturing towards one direction with his snout, and considering I was pretty much completely lost otherwise I elected to trust his judgment and follow where he pointed.

Within half a minute, which felt to me as I ran more like half an hour, I could see a weathered structure jutting from the sands. My eyes wide at the chance, I scrambled across the dunes into what looked like an entrance.

Immediately the roar of the wind was replaced by a roar of indignation at my escape, and the Flygon slammed her tail into the walls of the tower, causing rubble and sand to fall from the stories above. It wouldn't be long before she gave up the pursuit and stalked off back into the sandstorm to return to her nest. I breathed a tentative sigh of relief and let go of my death grip on my Sandile.

He scuttled out of my arms onto the floor, sniffing the air and exploring the immediate vicinity while I attempted to catch my breath. This whole trip was a bit of a mess, but even with the abrasive weather and the threats to my life, I smiled happily knowing we're both alive and mostly safe. I took a quick look at our surroundings, and it seemed we were in a tower of some kind, made of what looked to be sandstone, which would make sense considering we're in a desert. I could hear the muffled cries of other Pokémon from the higher floors, so thankfully it seemed the structure was safe enough for them to inhabit.

I stood and stretched a bit, confirming I still had all my belongings and hadn't dropped anything on my mad dash to safety. Styler? Check, on my hip right where it belongs. Bag? Pokédex, pokéballs, first aid kit, all belongings accounted for, if a little bit sandier than previously intended. PokéNav? Still in my pocket, battery dead just like it was two hours ago when I got into this mess. All clear, thank goodness. I pulled a cheri berry out of my bag and rolled it to Toothpick, a treat as thanks for saving both of our lives, and he scampered over and snapped it up happily before clambering up my pants and up to sitting on my shoulder where he normally perches himself.

I took a quick look around the floor we were currently occupying and noticed there were stairs - if you could still call them that based on their age and state of disrepair - heading both up and down to the different levels of the tower. Judging purely on how I'd rather die by falling to my death versus suffocating underground, I decided to start carefully making my way upstairs.

A couple of Zubats flapped past my head as I ascended, keeping their distance when Toothpick tried snapping them out of the air, and it took about fifteen minutes to make my way safely up to the next level of the tower. Other than the resident pokémon, it seemed this place had been completely abandoned for years, if not centuries. There were a handful of carvings into the walls, what looked like footprint runes and ancient images of Baltoy, none of which I had any chance of comprehending. If it were Unown language carvings I'd have a basic understanding, but no such luck.

It took a couple of hours, but I did inevitably make it to the top level, only falling through the crumbling floor and slamming unceremoniously into the ground a single time on the way up. Knocked the wind out of me, but luckily nothing was broken. The top floor was dramatically different from the rest of the tower, with a mystical yet stale air to the room, almost as if I was the first person to enter that chamber in millennia.

There was a ceremonial pedestal in the center of the room, surrounded by ancient stone towers I inferred to be torches, and there was an enormous colored mural on the far wall. Toothpick hopped off my shoulder and started to look around the room himself, the independent little adventurer he is, and I made my way around the opposite way.

As I walked I could tell that there were other carvings similar to the ones on the lower floors, but in a much different style, looking much older and more weathered than the others. It almost seemed as if these were glyphs telling a story through pictures, rather than simply being words or symbols. I could see what looked to be crowds of people, some carrying weapons and facing other people, and other ones where it seemed the people carrying weapons were aimed against crowds of pokémon instead. What story was this...? Some ancient myth I'd never studied? It was nothing like this region's history, that's for certain.

After looking at the whole room, it seemed to be telling a story of a war. Not any war in the history of Hoenn, at least not any as far I know of, but there were mass casualties on both sides. Pokemon killed people, people killed pokémon, they fought their own sides, it was mass ruination all across the board. I felt a little unsettled at the idea that this was true history that I had never heard of before. Another case of immense loss of life lost to the sands of time.

The most interesting part to me though was the main central mural. It almost looked like the sun had come down to the earth to stop the fighting. As much experience as I have with The Groudon and the disastrous weather those titans can bring, this is something else entirely: it was as if the sun itself was fighting in the war, setting the crowds of people aflame and pushing the pokémon back to their homes. The color was worn thin, but it also looked as if the sun was trapped here on the surface rather than in the sky where it belonged, a thick black haze covering the sky as to prevent its ascent. There was a small part in the corner of the mural where it looked like there were people and pokémon freezing from lack of sunlight, so the grounded sun was also there to keep them warm and alive. Was this sun a weapon, or a savior?

This whole thing was immensely fascinating to me for some reason, and I sat down and took out my sketchbook and drew a quick rough rendition of the main central mural for further research. I'm no artist, but at least this way I won't have to damage the relic with human contact. I know exactly how clumsy I can be, and even beyond that, it's just proper etiquette to leave historical sites the way you find them. Leave no trace, as they say.

With pencil and paper in hand, I paid careful attention to the central portion of the mosaic and the sun symbol, with minor mentions on the sides about the war itself and the scale of the conflict. I intend to take these back to the city and get in touch with local historians and archeologists, hopefully someone there will have a lead into what I've found.

As I finished up my admittedly mediocre representation of the mural on the wall, I heard my partner snapping and growling in alarm at something across the room where I couldn't see him. This can't be good.