A Journey begins in darkness...

My name is Nathen Hill, and my life sucks.

I hate the fact that I'm the only one who thinks that using Pokemon for battles to solve their trainer's problems is selfish and stupid, and I'm not one for it. For that, I'm picked on by every kid in school, my only friend, Aaron, makes things better. I had a terrible life made up of terrible grades (I always thought the teachers were out to get me) and terrible parents who thought I was strange,since my dad was a champion in his day and all.

I was lonely, miserable, and hated. One day it all changed... Including myself. Trust me, it's a story to hear. After that one day my life was transformed into a series of amazing adventures filled with excitement, friends, and a greater purpose.

Right, I have to talk about how it all started.

After 6th Period of the last day of school, I was always greeted by this same group of kids in the hallway who barreled me over and called me "Loser" and laughed, but I decided that I was going to make these jerks know how it felt to be hurt, so, fed up with them attacking me each day and the teachers not doing a thing about it, I stood up, wiping the blood from my lips, and I decked their leader, Andrew, in the face. He fell to the ground in a grunt. Man, was that satisfying, proud of myself, Andrew got up and gave me a sneer. Then he smiled evilly as I heard a voice behind me.

"Mr. Hill, why did you hit poor Andrew in the face?"

I turned to see my Vice Principal, Mrs. Kendrick. She had a meter stick in her hand and her glasses were reflecting light, she always had that same angry frown, no matter what you did.

But, being the last day of the school year, I decided to run, knowing the school could do nothing to me in five minutes, so I bolted, with Andrew's gang coming up behind me. Knowing they could beat me senseless as long as no police were around.

Eventually, they caught up with me when I tried to lose them in an alley in Lilycove City. They were smarter.

The gang had about five members, and they all looked at me with contempt satisfaction.

"Finally, I've been wanting to do this all year." Said Andrew, cracking his knuckles, his goons snickered and did the same.

"Hey!"

We all looked and saw Crystal, one of the most popular girls in the school, glaring at Andrew with absolute anger.

"Stop picking on him. What did he do to you?" She asked, furious.

I had a HUGE crush on Crystal, sometimes she would hang out with me and Aaron to make us seem less lonely. She was a nice girl, but when you ticked her off, you had to pay for it.

"Psh! Crystal, what are you gonna do about it?" Asked Andrew, laughing.

She slapped him across the face and kicked him in the groin.

"Run before he gets back up, Nathen!"

I thanked Crystal (I think I blushed in the process) and bolted with Andrew's goons behind me. I thought I lost them, then, it happened.

The sky exploded in a flash of black and purple, all pulsing from a specific point. I looked in awe at the light show, then a voice spoke in my mind...

Your time has come, young one. You must stop him!

After that, a bright light shot from the sky and hit me square in the chest, I screamed in surprise, and the blacked out.

Swish.

Something woke me up, it was a tickle on my face.

Swish.

"God, what is that?" I thought.

Swish.

"Okay, whoever's doing that, stop that right now!" I said, my eyes still closed.

Swish.

"SERIOUSLY! KNOCK IT OFF!" I shouted again, seriously annoyed.

Jumping to my feet, I looked around and noticed a few things:

1: There was nobody around me.

2: I was in the middle of a freaking forest.

Looking around, I was NOWHERE near my house in Lilycove city. The woods looked unfamiliar, I was alone, and the sky still had those strange streaks across it. Wracking my brains, I remembered the beam of blue light shooting out of the sky and engulfing me before I passed out in shock. What happened while I was under?

Realizing I was SOMEHOW dumped in the middle of nowhere, I began walking around to try and find civilization, and I noticed something else was wrong.

I was way shorter than I remember I was. Sure, for a 15 year old to be 4' 9" is small, but I felt less than two feet, and when you drop in height like that, it's kind of hard to not notice. Something was definitely up, and I wanted to know what.

I ran my hand through my hair, and my arm passed in front of my eyes, it was blue, and had a stubby paw on the end. Feeling my head, I felt short fur and two ears on it, with two long strands of hair and muscles coming out of the sides of it as well. I immediately began running, looking for a pond or something to reflect my face. I found one and looked inside, and almost screamed from my reflection. The blue and black face, the pointed ears, and the tail that woke me up before.

I had turned into a Riolu. What the heck?

Sitting by the bank of the lake, I was in complete denial, this was all a dream, somebody at school drugged me and now I'm hallucinating. I tried my best to wake myself up, pinched myself, jumped in the river, even ran my head into a nearby tree, but nothing was working. After finding out this was all real, I sat down again.

"This is not happening... This is not happening..." I said over and over to myself, my arms holding my head.

Still baffled, I would close my eyes and re-open them, checking to see if I was dreaming this, but I kept getting greeted by the same face that stared back at me: a Riolu. I winced each time I looked.

"Alright, Nathen," I said to myself. "You're stranded in the middle of nowhere in the body of a Pokemon, don't just sit there and freak." Pausing, I looked around again, panning the forest line. Getting up and finally realizing my fate, I began looking around my new home.

I wandered for hours and the sun began setting, I was exhausted. The streaks of darkness were creating a weird effect in the sky.

I found a large tree with a hallowed out middle, I got a layer of branches and covered the hole up and took refuge there, still marveling over what had happened to me. My fur kept me warm during the night, curling up, I decided to fall asleep, hoping what had happened was all a dream.

Waking up, I quickly examined myself again. Yeah, I was not dreaming, I was still a Riolu. A new thought arose in me;

Besides Aaron, who would miss me?

Anyways, I left the tree and began looking for help.

I began calling out for somebody, wandering around the forest, looking for a sign of life. After about two hours, I heard a voice.

"Hello?"

I turned and saw a Snivy emerge from the bushes behind me.

"I heard someone calling for help. Was that you?" He said.

I quickly nodded.

"You're new around here, are you traveling?" He asked.

"I guess you could say that." I replied.

"Well, you won't last long in the wilds, rogues run rampant out here. Come with me, there's a village nearby."

"Rogues?"

"You know, wilds, dangerous, protect-territory-at-all-costs? Those Pokemon are dangerous to those who are unprepared." Said Snivy. "Everyone knows that."

Except for me, the new guy.

"Where are you from?" Snivy asked.

I paused, I didn't expect that question. If I said I was a human he'd label me as a crazy psychopath and abandon me. If the Pokemon was going to be my ticket to a civilization, I had to come up with something fast.

"I... Some random part of a forest far away from here. I don't remember the name."

"Oh, okay." Snivy said with a questionable look on his face. I had a feeling he didn't buy it. "Come on, I'll show you the village."

He lead me through the woods to an opening in the woods, he moved a branch out of the way and motioned for me to look, I peered through the small clearing and my mind was blown. What was in front of me was a group of buildings, build out of ancient ruins. They were surrounding a large temple. On top of the building was a statue of Arceus, standing proud over the village.

"Welcome to Haven Village." Snivy said. "A place for travelers to stay, and home of the Luxray Exploration guild. They protect the village from rogue invasions... Among other evil things."

I looked at him. "...Like?"

"Team Darkness. They want to take control of the temple so they can find... Something." He said. "It's a secret. Only high ranking guild members know."

I shrugged it off and let Snivy lead me inside the village. It looked even more spectacular up close, how the Pokemon turned the ruins into a place to live, it was amazing to see.

The Snivy saw me marveling at the village.

"Pretty cool, huh?" He said with a smile, "This place was built a thousand years ago. Arceus was said to lead the first citizens here himself."

"Amazing." I said.

He showed me around, the markets, the living district, and the outside of the Luxray guild in the center. It was very cool to see the whole area completely enclosed in the trees, the overhang of the trees casting an amazing shadow over the valley, and the pulsing darkness across the sky, beautiful, but it looked evil and deadly, as if waiting for the perfect time to strike.

The pulsing darkness really gave me the sense that something pure evil was watching my every move... Knowing my purpose and why I was there, like one kid in school, every time he passed me by in the hallways, he would give me an evil look that would pierce my mind. It did numbers to my mind, because he never spoke to me, and it was really frightening. But he was nowhere compared to that strange presence looming off in the distance... But what was it?

"You seem deep in thought. Is something wrong?" Snivy asked me.

"It's what's going on with the sky." I replied. "It's unsettling me."

"It's unsettling everyone. We just hope that it will end soon. C'mon, I'll show you where you'll be staying."

He ran off and I followed him through the crowd in the village.

I'm rewriting the whole story. After reading Silver Resistance, I realized I was leaving out TONS of details. So I'm giving the characters more personality and introduction, and I tossed out the idea of the partner waking up the main character, because I always found that awkward... Especially after making the mistake of watching those TV specials (I'm gonna enjoy ripping those apart Nostalgia Critic Style soon, look for it on Youtube)

I'm holding a fan art contest until the end of this story. The winner will be announced and will get to put an OC into the story, they will also get a subscription to me and a link to their picture for everyone to see, get drawing!