Disclaimer: Pokemon belongs to Nintendo and Game Freak, as does any of the characters from Ruby/Sapphire here. Any and all of the OC's here are mine, etc, standard disclaimery stuff.

Prologue: Under the Grey

As I sit down to write my memoirs, it strikes me how powerfully the events of my childhood shaped the course of my life, so much so that any narrative or biography of mine would be remiss not to include it. I remain undecided if I write my life's work down for scientific reasons or sentimental, or simply as something to pass the time and give my final years a sense of accomplishment. Regardless, I hesitate to mention my childhood in too much detail. A closed wound remains a wound… Perhaps it is best to simply record events as they happened, and leave it for the reader to bother scrutinizing them- and my actions- as they will.

I was but a boy of nine when I got my first pokemon. I remember being small for my age, face always covered in dirt from running in the ash fields all day long. Fallarbor town is a small farming village, with no formal school, so I used to spend entire days out playing in those fields. Running through the ash can be dangerous, especially where the ash is thick enough to obscure falls or small ledges, not to mention rocks (and on one memorable occasion, a sleeping pokemon). So naturally I ran through it all the time. If I was quick enough all the ash I had passed through would fly back into the air, so when I turned back a great stream of it would be slowly drifting around me, like being inside a snow-globe. It was while playing this game I lost track of where I was and fell down the mountainside, causing a mini avalanche of pebbles and rocks which trapped a poor pokemon.

As far as small beginnings go, mine was small indeed.

I remember looking around as I picked myself up, groaning and bruised but otherwise alive. I'd fallen into the edge of the Jagged Pass. Great. I noticed a grey pokemon with some kind of spring for legs, making whimpering noises from under the rocks.

"Sp-spoink," it sighed. Then it closed its eyes.

"I've killed a pokemon! Oh man." A spoink keeps its heart beat going by jumping up and down- if it stops moving, it will die. Knowing this fact made my own heart beat like a jackhammer. I started running in small circles, panicking. I'd killed a pokemon! I'd never be allowed outside ever again. What if it had a family, or-

"Spoy oink!" insisted the small psychic type, stopping me in my tracks.

"Oh, you're alive!" I quickly ran over and cleared some of the rocks, helping the little pig to its feet (well, springs).

"Spoink!" It was hard to tell, but I think it was annoyed at me. It was glaring, at least. I would have asked it if it was annoyed, but my only reply would be more 'spoinks', so that seemed pointless.

"Um, sorry about that, I fell." It continued bouncing, looking to the side now. Something seemed different about this one… Aha! "Don't spoink normally have a big ol' pearl on their heads?" I asked it. It tackled me, confirming it was annoyed. Its missing pearl was somehow my fault? I wondered if this thing even knew how to smile… I had nearly killed it though, so the leftover guilt convinced me to help the spoink look for its pearl. The pearl had probably been knocked off when I dropped those rocks onto the spoink anyway, I realised. It took ages to find the damn thing, leading me to suspect it had been looking well before I landed in Jagged Pass.

Which, by the way, was hot. The whole area was rocks, with little to no weeds or plants around, and the rocks seemed to reflect the heat right back at me. There seemed to be even more ash falling from the clouds now, which I fancied meant an eruption was coming soon. A few times I saw red slime pokemon, which bubbled fire at me lazily as I passed. They were creepy… I was glad of the spoink's presence, even if it was just following me oinking demands.

"So, is it always this hot down here?"

"Spoink."

"Huh… You know any quick way out of Jagged Pass? That ledge has gotta be twenty feet above me!" (It was half that.)

"Oink oink…"

"Not much of a talker, huh?" No response to that one. I was basically talking to myself, wandering through the rocks. If I didn't find any kind of path or steps I could always try climbing back out to the fields, though I wasn't much of a climber. To my other side it slowly got higher and higher, with ledges and sheer jumps all over the place as it got closer to Mt Chimney proper. From what I could tell Jagged Pass was sort of like a giant trench, or deep moat around the volcano, formed when it had erupted last. No idea if that was scientifically possible, but it made sense to my nine year-old brain. I tried asking the spoink if that made sense, but all I got was another tackle, this one managing to knock me over to the ground. For a little guy (or girl, or… whatever spring pokemon called themselves), those sure hurt.

"Are you sure your pearl fell off when I landed on you? 'Cause we'd have seen it by now, I think…," I wondered. Judging by my Electabuzz Man wristwatch it was nearly 6, and things were going to get dark soon. The spoink still seemed insistent on finding its pearl, ignorant to my woes. Did it need it to use psychic attacks, or something? That would explain why it hadn't used any on me, and why we'd run away from all the wild pokemon that looked at us. I shivered. I wouldn't want to be lost down here at night without any attacks either. So I decided to help the little thing continue looking, if only because I hadn't found a way out yet and was kinda scared about going home alone by now. Crossing the ashes at night was eerie. It was a good thing I stayed with the spoink then, for if I hadn't I probably would have died that night. But more on that later.

By sundown we had both slowed down, and were zigzagging around the various rocks and ledges without really looking. I was tired and hungry. For some reason I was convinced the spoink's pearl would shine dramatically when we found it, and then send us home. I'd also shivered more, this time from the cold. If the rocks had bounced the heat back at me earlier, they hadn't absorbed any of that heat, and it was starting to get freezing down here. I tried hugging the spoink for warmth since it seemed perfectly warm, but it squirmed and never stopped bouncing, knocking me over.

"Why can't you be one of those cute pokemon that sits on people's heads and stays still?" I complained. It seemed to cheer up at my misery. The rocky landscape had started to look alien in the dark, but I was doing my best to look brave in front of the pig pokemon. Not to help it stay calm or anything; I just didn't want to look like a wimp in front of something smaller than me. Had to stay brave, at least until I got home. My parents yelling at me was probably scarier than anything this place had to offer. Funnily enough, that thought cheered me up.

"Spoink! Spoy-spoy!" squeaked the little dude, immediately rushing ahead. For there, perched on a ledge as if it were a pedestal, was a gleaming orb. It was actually giving off a faint white light! I followed the spoink quickly, stumbling over rocks, the pearl seeming to retreat into the distance. I quickly realised why- it actually was moving away from us. On the back of a slugma, to be exact.

"Sluuuhhh," drooled the red slime pokemon. It looked rather proud of itself.

"Spoink oink!" insisted the little pig pokemon, having finally caught up to its prized pearl. It tried to knock the pearl off and reclaim its headwear, but had to bounce away to avoid an ember of flames. The slugma reared up, the pearl staying stuck on its back thanks to the bottom half being embedded in back-slime.

"Sluh-huh!" It sounded giddy. Was it… trying to evolve? I knew Magcargo had a boulder on their backs, but this seemed kind of lame… It reminded me of the time I'd drawn a moustache and beard on with a marker to seem manlier.

"Oink oink oink!" The spoink snapped me out of my amusement, desperately trying to get his pearl back. The slugma spat lava at us again, keeping us at bay while it crawled further towards the volcano.

"You're not getting away, not after how long we've been looking!" I was pretty annoyed right now. Without thinking I grabbed a rock and threw it at the slugma, the rock sinking through its side. Did I hurt it?

"Slug slug, maaaah!" it cried. Well, at least I pissed it off. I looked around desperately for a weapon, resorting to a small stick. The spoink tackled the slugma from behind over and over again, but it didn't seem to do anything. The slugma roared, a lava plume attack surrounding it completely as it lit up the night, heading towards us. The spoink cried out in fear for its pearl, and actually started hopping towards it again.

"Are you crazy!?" I pulled the little dude away, keeping a tight grip on the psychic type as it struggled. "A stupid ball isn't worth burning yourself!" That seemed to quiet it down a little, but the slugma was still approaching us, a living wall of fire.

Just when things looked really bad the pearl began to glow dazzlingly bright through the flames. Was it some kind of psychic attack? Was the pearl linked with its owner's distress? These are the questions that flashed through my mind, but as with much of life, I was wrong and way too optimistic. The slugma stopped shooting flames, a stupid expression on its face. Then, without warning, it slumped over dead, little pieces of its body oozing away between cracks in the rocks.

"Huh…?" I didn't believe my eyes at first. The spoink didn't seem to understand either, suddenly cowering behind my feet. I didn't remember letting him go. Maybe the slugma was simply exhausted from using all that fire, and was asleep. Yeah, that had to be it! Well, that's what I told myself as I looked away from its eyes. Those eyes… Even an asleep slugma probably wouldn't let their eyes slide around like that. The sudden darkness and quiet had left us both afraid, but that little-boy urge to look tough in front of others won out, compelling me to act.

"Well, um, there it is. Your pearl, I mean. Are you... gonna grab it?" We slowly shuffled our way towards the pearl, the spoink still trying to hug my leg as it bounced. The pearl was still bright white, but as blinding as it was to look at it didn't light up the area. Strange… It reminded me of the glow when a pokemon evolved. The spoink was about to pick up the pearl as I realized that, so my shout came at the same time as it touched the thing. I'm not sure why I shouted, all I knew was I was suddenly terrified of that thing. Looking back, I wish I had called out just a moment sooner.

The moment the spoink touched the pearl it split open. As I found out later, it wasn't uncommon for spoink to pick up pokemon eggs, mistaking them for the stones that amplified their power. The egg- for that's what it was- crumbled away, revealing a shining long dark snake pokemon. The spoink and I backed away instinctively as it turned a wicked eye towards us. For a baby pokemon, it was huge. It must have been curled up tight inside that shell; if it stood up lengthways it would easily be as tall as I was.

"Seviper," it hissed, uncoiling with strange, stiff movements. I stopped backing away as I got a good look at it, curious. Normal seviper were black with yellow and purple markings all over them, clear natural signs of 'poisonous pokemon here, please do not eat'. This one had red and pale, sickly green markings all over it, and its visible tooth was blue. Plus it was still sparkling like its egg had as it moved… Was this a shiny pokemon? I didn't have any more time to wonder at the rarity of the differently-coloured pokemon, as the spoink tackled me out of the way of an attack. Good thing it had as well, or the seviper would have bitten right through my leg.

It hissed menacingly, taking one more look at us as the spoink cried out in protest, this time his turn to guard me. Then, without warning it sank into the background, leaving us alone. I mean that literally as well, though my parents insisted it was the overactive imagination of a little boy, his eyes playing tricks on him. I swear to this day the shiny seviper disappeared in a gust of wind; its form just faded away like smoke. Either way it was probably fleeing from the lights and people nearby- straight after we stumbled into the search group out looking for me. One good thing about living in a small town- if a kid goes missing all day, they actually care enough to go looking for you. I didn't even care about looking weak in front of my family, when they found me I went straight into my mother's arms and sobbed for ages. They even let me keep the spoink, although possibly that was because I yelled at anyone through my tears when they tried to take him away. I'd gone through too much with him to leave him alone, especially since he was still missing a pearl. No way would I leave him defenseless all night with that seviper out there.

My adventure was treated as my imagination and tiredness getting the better of me, believed by no one but my friend Lin. Eventually I probably would have agreed with the adults; a disappearing shiny seviper this far north, as well as a slugma that suddenly died, were best left to the realms of fantasy. But two things prevented me from ignoring this episode. The first was that our egg-thief slugma was still dead- the next day I convinced my friend Lin to check out the area where we were found, and its body was still there. I confirmed this myself the next week, when I was finally let out of the house. It was smaller and dried out, but there all the same. So I hadn't been imagining things that night.

The second thing was the more decisive evidence, however: not three days after I was found, an elderly woman was discovered dead. She lived on the outskirts of town with her son, who swore he hadn't seen or heard anything, despite being one room away when she died. None of the doors or windows had been forced, and yet she bore unmistakable signs of being victim to a pokemon attack. Specifically, a poison pokemon attack.

There was a mystery here, no doubt about it, and I felt like I was the only one looking for it. How my very first case led to my joining Team Magma, battling gym leaders for my life, and meeting legendary pokemon, is a long story. Sometimes even I don't believe it all; maybe I hit my head when I fell down that ledge and have been crazy ever since. Either way, things started to get serious when I looked into that woman's murder, and found a lot more than a wild pokemon looking back at me…

A/N: Here's chapter 1, hope you liked it n_n I am honestly amazed that the name 'pokenatural' brings up no hits at all, I assumed there'd be a million stories before me there. It's a combination of pokemon and supernatural, if that's not clear.

Since I'm exploring the paranormal in the pokemon world I should warn there'll be a fair few original ideas in this story, but I promise it'll be focused on 'what ifs' for the pokemon world. See you all soon!