Sora dreamed of a vast black expanse, and a severe chill was in the air. She felt snow, but had no idea where it was coming from. She couldn't see. Panicked, she struggled, hoping that there was something obstructing her view and that she wasn't blind. She cried in dismay when her fingers met air. She sobbed.

"DADDY!"

The next day was full of crowds. Crowds on the boat, crowds on the dock, crowds leaving Twinleaf. But, after that, it was all empty. It kinda reminded me of home in a way. I made my way over to Sandgem and the Pokémon lab, only to find N and his Zoroark snoozing in front of the building entrance. I shook him awake.

"Hey, N! Wake up, sleepyhead. I'm here now." He blinked blearily and sat up more, jostling Zoroark awake as well. He gave me a lazy grin.

"Hello Sora. I'm glad you made it. I was afraid the crowd would eat you up and you wouldn't escape," he yawned. I shivered, remembering my dream. "No, I was only slightly deterred. I was afraid someone would notice Zoroark and try and steal him away from you, though. I hear Team Galactic is still going, albeit weakly." He shrugged.

"Zoroark would escape," he said confidently. I smiled and pushed the door open. Professor Rowan looked up from his work and smiled.

"Ah! Sora, good to see you! I haven't seen you since you were as big as my Pichu! What can I do for you?" he said, setting his papers down. I smiled.

"Two things, Professor. First, Professor Juniper asked me to give you this Parcel," I said, handing it to him, "And secondly, one of my friends wants to compete in the Sinnoh league and requires a starter." I gestured to N, Who was looking around the lab in awe. He looked like a kid in a candy store with a hundred bucks to spend. Professor Rowan chuckled.

"Alright. What's your name, then?" N looked at him for a fraction of a second before his eyes flicked over to some other contraption. "N Harmonia," he mumbled. Rowan smiled good-naturedly.

"Well, is this your first Adventure, N?" He shook his head, finally making eye contact. "My Pokémon are too strong for the gyms. I would like to meet a new friend, though. Professor, what do you study, specifically?" Rowan grinned wider. He loved talking about his work.

"I study Pokémon evolution. It's intriguing, isn't it, how some Pokémon evolve, and others don't? And it seems completely random, but there must be a reason. I was thinking it had something to do with maturity as an individual, which is why it seemed at random…." He stopped himself. "But come; let's get you your first Pokémon of this region." He led N over to a table with three Poké balls on it.

"Now, pick which one you like." N looked over the poke balls appraisingly. "May I let them out?" he asked, looking back at the Professor. He nodded, and N let all three out. They looked around curiously, and then focused on N. It was such a similarity to N's behavior earlier that I almost snickered. He was raised by Pokémon, after all.

N talked to each one individually, and smiled. Standing, he said, "I like Chimchar. May I have his Poke ball?"Rowan handed it over, and Chimchar let out a whoop of happiness, jumping onto N's shoulder. Zoroark came out of the shadows and sniffed the new member of his pack carefully. Rowan gasped.

"That Zoroark, is it yours?" N nodded. "Well, I can see you'll take good care of Chimchar. You two have fun on your adventure!" We went to leave, but he stopped us.

"N! One more thing. I want you to have this," He held out a Sinnoh-issue Pokedex. N took it gently.

"Thank you, Professor," He mumbled, looking at it with wide eyes. He had the good sense to wait for the Professor to leave before he turned to me, wide-eyed.

"How does it work?" he asked. I smiled.

"You just open it up, see? And then press this button here…" A picture of Chimchar and Zoroark came up and then disappeared, showing the familiar list of names.

"Why is it blank?" N asked, eyebrows furrowing. I laughed. "Well, you have to meet lots of Pokémon. When you see them, your Pokedex expands. It looks like you were already given the national dex attachment, though."

"So, we have to meet new Pokémon to learn more about the world?"

"Yup, pretty much. It's a cool job. Now come on, let's get going on our adventure!" I grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the Lab, heading over to the Mart. N dragged behind, finally making me stop and look at him.

"What?" I asked, tapping my foot impatiently on the ground.

"What's that blue building?" He asked, pointing. "That's the Mart. In most of the regions, the Pokémon center is too small to house the Mart, so they have different buildings. We're going to buy poke balls; I want to see if any Shinx are on the Next route." I dragged him in and bought my items, as well as a few for him.

"Alright!" I announced, "Let's go!"

"WAIT!" N and I whipped our heads around and found a boy in a red cap running up to us. "I'm Lucas. Professor Rowan asked me to give you these." He handed us a town map each and ran off without another word. We exchanged glances

"Well, that was….interesting…" I mused. N shrugged. "I think I may like him, given the chance."

I rolled my eyes and unraveled the map. "Alright," I said, "We're here, in Sandgem town." I punctuated my point by jabbing my finger at the blue spot that was the town. N nodded, looking at my map over my shoulder. "And we need to get to Jubilife city, so we'll take route we reach the Gym you can register, so Jubilife will be just a pass-through town."

"It doesn't have a Gym?" I shook my head. "Nope. Only way we're stopping is if someone needs our help."

We walked along route 202 pretty easily, with limited problems despite the thick, lush grass. Then…..

"SHINX!" A wild Shinx shot in front of us and glowered. I leaned back a little. "Er, are we on its land or something?" I asked. It was being very aggressive. N shook his head. "He wants to battle, to see if you're a good trainer. He wants to travel and become stronger, but you'll have to earn it." I nodded, grinning.

"Okay, Piplup, do your stuff!" Piplup hopped down from his perch, standing proudly. "Piplup!"

"Alright, use pound!" After one hit, the Shinx was almost down and out. I couldn't blame him. Piplup was close to evolving, after all. Most Pokémon on this route were at most a level five. It was a wonder he survived at all. "Alright, I've seen enough. You're pretty strong for a level five Shinx. Go poke ball!" I tossed it and it hit. Shinx went into the poke ball with little to no fuss; it only shook twice before the ball was in my hands. I turned to N.

"You wouldn't happen to have a full restore on you, would you?" He handed one to me and smiled.

I used it on Shinx, letting him out of the ball. He looked at me gratefully as he felt his health recover. "Alright, down to buisness. You wanna be apart of my final team?" He nodded. "Well, you have a long way to go to catch up to Piplup, so I want to see your all in every fight until you're at a decent level, okay?" He nodded severely. "Okay. Do you want a nickname, or is Shinx fine?" It let out an exited cry.

"He wants a nickname," N confirmed, smiling, "preferably a fearsome one." I nodded.

"Well, what about Strike?" He shook his head no. "Thunder?" no. "Zap?" another no. I chewed my lip thoughtfully. "How about Bolt?" Shinx jumped up and down excitedly, nodding its head yes almost spastically. I laughed. "Alright, Bolt it is. I'll be using you for the battles for a while instead of Piplup, okay?" He nodded, standing tall.

We moved on, and N caught a Starly He named Stella. Soon, a challenger appeared. It was a youngster in shorts.

"You! Yeah, both of you! I just got my second Pokémon, so let's battle two-on-two!" I shrugged. "Aright, I'm game. How about you, N? You gonna use Chimchar?"

"I think it would be beneficial," he agreed, letting Chimchar out of his ball.

"Alright!" The youngster cheered. "I'm Jonathan, and I'm gonna win! Go, Bidoof and kricketot!"

"Bolt, use Tail whip!" The attack lowered.

"Chimchar, use tackle." The attack hit the kricketot, landing a critical and almost fainting it.

"Kricketot, use tackle!" Kricketot tackled Shinx and became paralyzed, but not without putting some damage in.

"Bolt, tail whip again!"

"Chimchar, use tackle again, as well."

Kricketot fainted, leaving only the Bidoof.

"Bidoof, Rollout!" Chimchar was caught, but seemed alright.

"Bolt, let's finish strong! Use Tackle!"

"Chimchar, use tackle!"

Bidoof fainted. It was like that pretty much the rest of the trip. Chimchar learned ember and Shinx learned spark. They were both level eight by the time we reached Jubilife city. Stella made it to level six, and Piplup was still around level twenty.

Walking into the city, we were stopped by none other than Looker.

"Aha! I knew this is where you'd gone! How? Because I'm a great detective with the international Police! I see you made good on my tip about N, and what a good thing, too! You can help round up the commanders of team Galactic! I hear one of the Commanders, Mars, is trying to take control of the poketech company! I'll be waiting for you!" And he ran off. N raised his eyebrows at me.

"Uh, he's called Looker. I helped him with finding the rest of team plasma, and he told me where you were headed. Well, actually, he sort of told me in which general direction you were heading, and he's not really the best of detectives. So, we should probably go help him." He shrugged, and we made our way over to the poketech company building, where some chick in ridiculous sci-fi space clothes with a bad, blue-toned bob cut was standing in front of the door.

"Ten bucks that's a grunt," I whispered to N. He nodded.

"Hey, you! No kids around here! Now scram, before I take your Pokémon away!" She screamed. I quirked an eyebrow. "Hmmm. How about this: You leave and keep your dignity, and I'll pretend to not have seen which way you went." I thought it was a good deal, but apparently she didn't. She scoffed at us.

"No way! You leave me no choice; I can tell you're a meddler! I'll just take your Pokémon before you become a problem! Go, Glameow!" I rolled my eyes. Really? "Fine. You asked for it. Come on, Piplup."

"Scratch, Glameow!"

"Bubble, Piplup."

Glameow fainted. That was just pathetic. At least the Plasma grunts had some fight in them.

"Grr! I'll get you! I'm going to alert Mars to another meddler!" She screamed, running inside. N sweatdropped.

"Were my grunts this bad?" he asked. I nodded. "They had better trained Pokémon, though. Let's follow her." We walked inside, only to be stopped by who I assumed to be commander Mars.

"Whuh? You're not Dawn! Another meddlesome pair of kids? GAH!" She threw her hands up in the air. "I'm done here, anyway. I've got to report to the new Boss." There was a flash and she was gone. Looker came running out of nowhere. "Ah! I knew it! Team Galactic is trying to reform under a new boss! My advice is, the next time you can head to Canalave city, look for Dawn or her friend Barry. You two should head over there now, as a matter of fact. I, Looker, give you permission to surf freely! This is a matter of upmost urgency!"

He ran off, and N turned to me.

"So, I guess we're headed for Canalave?" He asked. I nodded. "Yeah. Let's move, then. We can't challenge the Gym, before you ask."

We set out for Canalave, surfing on my Gyrados. We came across only one trainer; a sailor we had to use our stronger Pokémon to battle. Once we hit Canalave, the blonde boy from the boat came running up.

"HEY! Cool that I'm meeting you again, huh? Let's battle! I wanna see your Zoroark again!" He shouted.

"BARRY. You were in the middle of fighting me, remember?" A blue-haired girl came running up, an Empoleon close behind her. She paused when she saw us.

"Oh. Who're they?" Barry opened his mouth, paused, and closed it with a sigh. "I didn't catch her name." The girl snorted.

"Figures. I'm Dawn, and this is Barry. Who're you?"

"I'm Sora, and this is N," I introduced, "We're from Unova. Barry and I met on a boat to Twinleaf." She smiled.

"Ok, cool. What brings you to Canalave?"

"You, actually. Looker told us that you know something about team Galactic reforming. We just found them in Jubilife." She frowned. "That's a problem. Just recently, I had to stop them from destroying the world to create one in their leader's design. If they're up to something like that again, we could all be in trouble." I sighed.

"Great. Anything you want us to do?" I asked. She smiled tiredly. "Yeah. I'm stuck here in Canalave until I can convince the officer Jenny here I'm not headed straight for New Moon Island."

"Why were you heading out there?" N asked. "I went to full moon island to try and find Cresselia, to get a lunar wing for a sailor's son that was caught in nightmares. Apparently, there's a Darkrai in the area who's been tormenting people for years. I wanted to sail straight to fullmoon island to try and teach it a lesson about attacking innocent pokemon and kids, but officer Jenny wouldn't let me through. I'm not allowed to surf or fly for a while now, even though I promised not to go." My eyes went wide. "D-Darkrai is in t-the area?" I shivered violently. N looked at me sharply. "What's wrong with Darkrai?" he asked. I shivered again at the sound of the pokemon's name.

"Everything. I've suffered from chronic nightmares since I was two from that pokemon. That's actually why I moved to the Unova region; Darkrai was the cause. I had forgotten almost completely until now, but I've been worried since I came here." I couldn't stop the shakes. It was the reason I was sent to live with my mom. I flinched when I felt a hand on my shoulder. N was looking at me with wide eyes. "Sora," he said softly, "we can go to another region if you're having nightmares." Dawn perked up.

"Hey! Sora, I still have that lunar wing that I used to cure the sailor's boy; I can make a necklace for you to wear, and you'll have nice, sweet dreams your entire journey! I know how scary nightmares can be." She pulled out a chain and the lunar wing. After some creative attachment methods, I had a new necklace. I put it on and almost instantly felt better. I shot them a weak smile. "Thanks, guys.

I looked around at the port city. "so, now that we've found you, let's look around. Looker said something about team galactic meeting under a new leader; wonder who they'll be."

"I hope they're not as serious a threat as Cyrus was," Dawn said, "or we'll be in some serious trouble." I turned to N, who had a speculative look on his face. "you don't think it's my father, do you?" My face paled. I'd gotten a lot stronger than I was when I originally faced him, but Ghestis was nothing to joke about. "No. No way. I mean, I haven't found him for Looker yet, but…."

"ATTENTION!"

I froze, and N's eyes locked with mine. "That's…"

"I am Ghestis, the leader of the reformed Team Galactic. We are here to show you the truth; the true way of the world, as it is supposed to be, is freedom from fear! Join our cause, bring your pokemon!"

"N," I put a hand on his shoulder, "Your dad is a jackass."