The Boy Who Changed the World

Long did he search​

1,000 years ago

Standing beneath a dripping canopy of leaves, Tobari picked at the remains of last night's boiled bark soup from between his teeth and snarled at his search party.

"I can't believe we haven't found any Pokémon!" He turned back to glare at the honey slathered on the tree bark. Its sweet sent had failed to attract any Pokémon whatsoever. In retaliation for this perceived slight, Tobari kicked the tree trunk. A shower of wet, golden leaves fell on top of his head. "This is hopeless!" he cried, frantically attempting to pick the leaves from his hair.

Exhausted and dispirited, Tobari's search party gritted their teeth and continued to scour the ground and trees for Pokémon. At this point in Sinnoh's history, humans were heavily reliant on Pokémon. On a clear, sunny day, machokes could be seen constructing homes while tauros' carefully weaved a complex system of canals to irrigate paddy fields. Pigeots were used to send messages between villages. Numels aided in metalworking. But now these sights could be seen no more. It had been one year since all the Pokémon had mysteriously disappeared. Larders grew bare. Homes were left unprotected. Rumours spread.

Determined to find the cause for their disappearance, Tobari had travelled across the length and breadth of Sinnoh, occasionally recruiting locals to help him navigate unfamiliar terrain. A few months ago, his current search party consisted of bright and fit recruits from Pastoria village. Now, after crossing an exceptionally wet marshland, fishing endlessly in a large lake and finally arriving in a wet, rocky area, they were the abject picture of despair. Three whole months of rain, mud and misery. Sleeping in leaky tents, waking up every morning to the sound of rain and fuelled on little more than berries and grass, they had been searching for Pokémon from dawn till dusk.

"I've even looked inside caves. No zubats. That's unnatural. Whoever ever heard of a cave with no zubats?" Tobari continued.

Another thing Tobari found unnatural was the thick silence that seemed to envelope around him and his search party. When they trekked through the forest they were not serenaded by kricketunes. On an inky night, devoid of stars, they couldn't even hear the ominous howls of the houndours.

"I think the Pokémon are avoiding us," Gail said. She wore a faded light blue kimono that was tied around the waist with a purple sash - the traditional garb for psychics from Pastoria village.

Standing behind the tree, where Gail couldn't see him, Tobari rolled his eyes. This lot were about as useful as a ponyta underwater.

Gail looked down mournfully at the pomeg berries nestled in her hands. "I miss Mob. These were his favourite berries."

"Who?"

"Mob. He's my abra."

Tobari didn't respond. He had never been especially sentimental towards these creatures. To him, Pokémon were merely tools to be used and discarded. Not to mention delicious.

"Hold it!" cried Maya, interrupting Tobari's thoughts. Maya was one of the village elders and was an excellent tracker. She was crouched on the ground, staring at something in the mud. Like Gail, she wore a blue kimono although it was tied around her waist with a dark blue sash instead. Tobari left the shelter of his tree and made his way towards her, his once fine red haori now a sodden rag hanging limply off his frame. A gleaming sword was strapped to his waist.

"What is it?" he asked.

Maya pointed at some Pokémon tracks left behind in the mud amongst the tall grass. One of the rumours going around was that the Pokémon had all disappeared into another realm. This was quickly quashed by Tobari and his search party. They were always finding the detritus recently left behind by Pokémon; staravia feathers scattered between the tall grass, remnants of chewed rocks by geodudes and even makeshift nests hastily abandoned by bibarels.

"They're absol tracks. Looks like they were made last night." Maya looked up and Tobari was surprised to see fear in her grey eyes. Up until this very moment she was quite a tough old woman. "It's quite rare for an absol to come this far. We need to leave, right now."

Tobari looked completely nonplussed. Gail stepped forward, still cradling the berries. "Absols are bad omens," she explained. "Whenever you see one, disaster is sure to strike."

"Surely you don't actually believe that?" Tobari protested. "We're in the middle of a disaster right now!"

Chewing on a berry, Gail bent down to inspect the prints. "Actually, I've always wondered if absols had been warning us of danger up until now. Since the Pokémon aren't appearing to us humans anymore, maybe... maybe..."

"Well?"

"Maybe the absols are warning the other Pokémon in the area where the humans are?"

"That's ridiculous," Tobari protested.

"It doesn't matter to me if you find it ridiculous," Maya interrupted. "Absols are dangerous. We can look elsewhere for Pokémon."

"We don't have to look elsewhere for Pokémon, we can just follow these tracks!" Tobari was now using his sword like a pointer.

"Do you even know where those tracks lead to?" Maya glared at Tobari, who shook his head. "It leads to a dangerous cave. People have got lost in there trying to find their way out. Some people don't even make it out at all."

"We could at least try," began Tobari, but Maya cut him off.

"My decision is final. We are not going into that cave."

* * *​

"I can't believe we're doing this," muttered Maya, as she checked over the necessities in her sack one more time. It was Gail who had finally convinced her that they should explore the cave for Mob's sake. It was decided that Tobari, Gail and Maya would search the cave while the rest of the villagers looked for Pokémon nearby.

Tobari cast an eye over his surroundings one last time. To the north was a tiny pond and a series of steep mountains. To the south was the honey tree he had abused. Finally, to the east was the route the old woman had originally warned him not to take. In the future, this area would be known as Route 214, but to Tobari and his search crew it was a wild, haphazard place.

The forbidden path, however, looked tranquil and inviting. With any luck, he might find the elusive absol, or maybe even some other Pokémon.

As they walked along the path, Tobari felt uneasy. He was hemmed in on both sides with tall trees and the damp grass here was cropped short, glistening with morning dew. Maya's surly muttering didn't help matters either. Eventually the short path led them to a cliff. He sighed. This would have been so much easier if they had Pokémon. Of course, that was the whole reason for Tobari even being here in the first place.

After following the tracks up the cliff, which involved an awful lot of climbing and a copious amount of swearing, Tobari and the rest of his party were utterly exhausted. The absol tracks had now petered out and he found himself standing precariously above a lake. Far below, sitting on the lake's shore was a cave. He groaned, then all three began the laborious task of climbing all the way back down to the cave's unwelcoming entrance. Gail slipped inside first. Maya followed suit.

Tobari hesitated, peering into the murky darkness. Under any other circumstance, Tobari wouldn't have risked it. But Pokémon were not appearing to people anymore and he wanted to know why.

He pulled out his sword and glanced around wearily. Then he steeled himself and stepped inside the cave.

 

And Far and Wide​

The inside of the cave was unlike anything Tobari had seen.

Instead of stalactites dangling from above, the ceiling was as smooth as marble. Instead of stalagmites sprouting from the ground, there was a large stone mound that bore a faded inscription. Dense fog permeated the cave. Strangely, there appeared to be a dim light emitting from some unfathomable source. Breathing in the surprisingly cool, crisp air, Tobari came to a halt near Gail and Maya. Maya looked around suspiciously as Gail approached the mound.

"Past three pillars...to the sleeping...before 30 is surpassed..." Gail read aloud. "I can't read the rest, it's all faded. What do you think all it means?"

Tobari looked around in awe. They appeared to be standing in the lowest part of the cave, with raised rock-hewn ledges surrounding them on all four sides. In each direction lay a doorway. Accessing this higher ledge required climbing a set of steps. It was all very unnatural.

"Let's go through that one," said Tobari, using his sword to point at a doorway directly in front of them.

"You need to look at this," Maya was dangling a piece of lodestone on a string. Normally, it would align itself with the planet's magnetic field. In the depths of the cave, however, the lodestone was spinning frantically around in all directions. "That's not a good sign, especially as we don't want to get lost in here."

"There could be steel-type Pokémon living in the cave. That would mess with the lodestone," said Tobari. "It happened to me when I searched an island off the coast of Sinnoh."

Gail took a deep breath, closed her eyes and chewed on a berry meditatively. She was trying to use her psychic powers to sense if there were any Pokémon nearby, but it was proving to be a difficult task. It was like trying to hold water in a sieve. She opened her eyes and frowned. "I'm not too sure, but I think there's bronzors and bronzongs in this cave."

"Well then, even more reason to look around here!" Tobari began climbing the steps as his companions followed.

The doorway led to an even stranger room. The layout was much like the entrance, only with smaller rocks arranged in a triangular pattern above and below another rock that lay in the centre.

"This is getting a bit odd," commented Gail. She peered around the room and finally settled on the doorway to the east. "Let's try that one."

All three went through the doorway and found themselves in yet another room with stones arranged in a different pattern. Maya picked the door to the east, whereupon they found themselves in the second room again.

"This isn't right," Maya murmured. Tobari used his sword to scratch a simple square next to one of the stones. They tried again, this time picking a door to the north. It was the same result, even down to Tobari's hastily drawn graffiti.

"This can't be right!" cried Tobari, shattering the subterranean calm. "This is impossible!"

Maya pulled the lodestone out and eyed its frenzied movements with suspicion. "I knew coming here was a bad idea," she muttered darkly.

"Let's go backwards," Gail suggested calmly, though on the inside she was starting to panic. Almost as though the cave had sensed their eager attempts to get out, the passageways and rooms continuously shifted. Sometimes they would enter new rooms, other times the same room again, a never-ending cycle of hope and despair. Tobari was beginning to think they would never see the daylight again.

"OK, let's take a step back and think." Gail sat heavily upon a rock. "The inscription at the entrance said past three pillars...to the sleeping...before 30 is surpassed... did we see any pillars?"

"No, we definitely didn't pass any pillars." Maya frowned. "Do you think time works differently in this place? I don't feel hungry or thirsty at all. But we must have been here for a while now."

"There must be a way to see the pillars," said Tobari.

"Maybe the rocks on the floor." Maya took a step back and looked at the pattern of rocks on the floor of the current room they were in. There was a diagonal line of rocks in front of the eastern doorway, and another line of diagonal rocks in front of the western doorway. The northern and southern doorways (which they had come through) had absolutely nothing in front of them.
"So the odd doorway out?" Gail looked at the northern doorway. "Let's go through there."

To their surprise, they entered a room with no rocks littering the floor. Instead there was a tall pillar sitting in the middle of the room. Tobari felt a wave of relief wash over him. He'd never been so delighted to see a pillar in his whole life.

Their path through the cave went a lot smoother now that they had an idea of how to navigate the ever-shifting passageways. Eventually they passed a second pillar and then a third. As soon as they entered the next room full of rocks, Gail stopped. Her eyes were wide with terror. Maya and Tobari turned back to look at her, puzzled.

"There's a very powerful Pokémon nearby," she said in a voice that was barely above even a whisper. "I've never felt anything like it."

Tobari had never seen her look so frightened.

"Come on Gail," said Maya encouragingly, "only one or two rooms to go." She placed an arm around Gail and started to walk themselves towards the northern doorway. Tobari hurried on after them. Unfortunately, he tripped over a rock and dropped his sword. As he frantically scrabbled for his sword, Maya and Gail were mere steps away from the doorway. When Tobari stood up, sword in hand, he saw them pass through the darkness. He swiftly followed suit, but it was far too late. Maya and Gail found themselves deposited back at the entrance of the cave, while Tobari ended up in an entirely different room altogether.

A room with a Pokémon in it.

A terrifying beast of a Pokémon, with glowing crimson eyes and ghostly black wings.

"Ah yes," said the Pokémon in a voice that set Tobari's teeth on edge and made his hair rise, "the infamous boy with the sword."