Hey guys, welcome to this collaboration fic between me - Advanced Faith - and the brilliant Ashura Satoshi! Just a brief introduction to the story and how it will work; we will write alternate chapters, send them to each other, read over them, and then Ashura will post it onto his account. So, I've written this chapter, Ashura will write chapter 1, I will write chapter 2, and so on and so forth. So without further ado, we bring you "Crawling."

PROLOGUE:

It was a warm, but pleasant night in the Kanto Region, the moon shone brightly in the darkened sky, illuminating the apparently vacant streets of Viridian City.

The streets appeared empty, but something lurked in the shadows, a legend amongst Kanto and Johto residents, the myth was also spreading to the other powerful regions, such as Hoenn and Sinnoh.

Blue eyes shone out of the darkness, scanning a buoyant local tavern across the street, his client had not yet arrived, but the noise was bugging him, giving him a headache.

"Lets go get this done," a voice growled from the darkness, and he stepped out of the darkness. He stood at least six feet tall; he wore dark grey trousers that tucked into his blue hiking boots, a dark blue tunic over long grey sleeves. On his hands he wore distinctive blue gloves, each had a blue "bulb" on them, with yellow lines extending around his wrist and up the arm of the gloves. He had a black cape tied around his neck, with a hood pulled up that covered his face. On top of his head there was a pointy black hat, with a dark blue strap around it.

A blue lightning bolt was embroidered onto his hat, alongside a yellow circle, surrounded by a yellow crescent moon – the mark of an Aura Guardian, and onto the torso of his tunic, the symbol of who he was.

He was also recognizable by the small Pokémon that leapt onto his shoulder as he walked towards the tavern; it's ears twitching at the irritating noise of people enjoying themselves.

He pushed the door to the tavern open, and stepped inside, surveying the surroundings, relishing the look of fear and surprise on the faces of the people drinking as they recognized who he was.

He spotted an empty table for his "meeting" to take place, and strolled through the packed, but silent tavern.

Silent, but for the whispers that rang around the occupants.

"Surely that's not…?"

"It can't be The Shadow, why would he be here?"

"It has to be! That's the mark of the Aura Guardian, and everyone knows there's only one left!"

His eyes shifted quickly to the source of this conversation, two well built men sat in a booth on his left, the conversation ended instantaneously.

He then turned to the barmaid, held up one finger, and pointed to the empty table he was headed towards. No words spoken, but the barmaid instantly rushed to fetch a pint of beer.

She shuffled over to the table where he sat, and placed it down, shaking, but focusing on not spilling a drop.

He pulled out a couple of coins and slid them across the table to her, before leaning back in his chair, and placing his feet on the table, taking a few gulps of his beer, waiting for his client to arrive.

He wasn't kept waiting long, shortly after the door swung open again, and a tall, muscular man entered the bar, he himself appeared to strike fear into many of the taverns occupants.

The client spotted him sat at the table, and strode over purposefully, dragging the chair away from the table, and sitting down on it, holding himself in a position that suggested he was trying to strike fear into the cloaked figure across the table.

"You got the horns?" the client growled, making the cloaked figure chuckle, he reached down and in a blue flash, a bag appeared in his hand. He lifted it up and went to give it to the client, who eagerly snatched at the bag, only to find it wasn't there.

The cloaked figure dangled it teasingly by his side.

"Payment," he said, his confident smirk the only part of his face visible to the client.

"Fine," the client growled, lifting what appeared to be a bag of coins onto the table and sliding it across. The cloaked figure's eyes flashed blue once more, as he scanned the bag. Seemingly satisfied, he took the bag of coins, and they disappeared in a similar blue flash to the one that the other bag had appeared in, startling the client across the table.

The cloaked figure then placed his bag on the table, and slid it across; the client opened it and frowned.

"We agreed on three, there are only two," he growled dangerously, glaring at the cloaked figure.

"A shame, because you also paid for three," the cloaked figure smirked, taking another gulp of his beer, maintaining his calm and collected appearance.

This seemed to irritate the client, who stood up angrily, making the chair he was seated on fly across the tavern.

"I want my third Rhyperior horn!" he shouted, slamming his hands on the table, attracting the attention of everyone in the tavern.

The smirk vanished from the cloaked figures face, and he slowly stood up from his seat, and action that made shivers fly down the client's spine.

The air seemed to drop to below freezing, what had been an exceedingly warm night – by Kanto's standards – had turned into a winter morning.

The client gulped nervously as he watched the cloaked figure's eyes shine blue once more, and another shiver shot down his spine as he looked down to the table and saw yellow mouse smirking dangerously back at him.

The mouse hadn't been there during the meeting, and all of a sudden it was?

Fear struck the man, like a punch to the stomach, as he finally realized who he had been doing business with.

"No way… you can't be Shadow… he's just a myth! You're just a teenage boy playing tricks and mind games! All smoke and mirrors!" the man panicked, his eyes darting around the tavern for any sign that this was all an illusion.

The smirk once again returned to Shadow's lips.

"Why, it seems that you finally understand who I am, not many people do business with me without knowing who I am," Shadow mused, his eyes still glowing blue.

The rest of the tavern was silent; all the occupants – barmaid included – were unable to tear their attentions away from the scene unfolding before them.

"I seem to recall you saying you wanted a third Rhyperior horn, correct?" Shadow asked, his voice oozing with power and danger simultaneously.

The man gulped and nodded at the same time, Shadow chuckled dangerously.

"Get it yourself," he growled, as his eyes shone brighter and brighter, blinding everyone in the tavern.

Once the light had died down, the man had disappeared, only Shadow and his Pokémon remained at the table, and he was sat casually, sipping at his beer, as if the meeting had never taken place.

Everyone in the tavern watched Shadow drink; completely confused and absolutely terrified at what they had just witnessed.

Suddenly, Shadow's head whipped up and he glared back at the taverns occupants.

"Weren't you ever taught it's rude to stare?" he asked, raising an eyebrow under his hood.

"I-If yo-you don't mind me asking… what just happened?" a man sat near to him asked, stammering through the entire question.

Shadow smirked.

"He wanted his Rhyperior horn… I sent him to see if he could get it himself," Shadow chuckled, the man he had answered gulped nervously, before raising the courage to ask his next question.

"Are… you really Shadow?" he asked quietly.

Shadow's smirk grew.

"Come on Pikachu, I think we're done here," Shadow said, and the yellow mouse leapt up off the table, and onto Shadow's shoulder, both sharing the same dangerous smirk.

Shadow left the tavern that night, feeling pleased in the knowledge that his already feared reputation was undoubtedly going to be enhanced.

Little did Shadow know, that his reputation was going to bring him into a whole knew world, a polar opposite to what he had been used to, as his rumor spread across the lands.

He had already ruled the seedy streets of Kanto and Johto, but soon, his legend would take him to a region he had yet to conquer.

Into the land of a desperate King, a frustrated Queen, an ambitious Prince, and a beautiful Princess, into a land threatened by war.

Hoenn loomed for Shadow, and it would be the region where he faced, indisputably, the most difficult test of his young life.

End.

Hope you enjoyed the prologue to Crawling; please let us know what you think in reviews!

Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year.

Advanced Faith signing out.

Alright, so basically what Advanced Faith said. Hope you all enjoyed the prologue, and hope you all have a nice Christmas Eve. Happy holidays! ~Ashura Satoshi