The moment the punch hit his body he felt something strange vibrate inside of him as if his inner core was shaken as well and took in a part of the blow!

Arthur lost contact with the ground and suddenly went up into the air. In the first second he felt like a soft feather floating in the air. But only in the first second!

After that the secure feeling vanished into nothingness and he sensed how he was rapidly falling down and approaching the ground!

Left with no other possible choices he closed his eyes and protected his head for when the impact came!

He braced himself and waited ...

1 second passed

2 seconds passed

3 seconds passed

After 10 seconds where nothing happened Arthur thought something strange was going on and slowly opened his eyes.

And what he saw baffled him.

Standing on a wide open street what revealed itself to him were loud voices of people calling for taxis, men and women entering and exiting huge buildings or busses, sky scrapers fell into his view everywhere but ... not a single Pokémon in sight?!

"Is this Viridian City?", Arthur wondered.

"Atiqo my boy, wait for me!", an old but kind voice called out for him. Arthur looked back unconsciously and saw an old man walking towards him. He stretched out his arm and grabbed Arthur's hand:

"Grandpa will treat you to your favourite ice cream shop! How about that?"

When Arthur saw who this person was he didn't really know how to react or respond to him but at the same time an incredibly warm familiar feeling spread in his body. Tears began welling up in his eyes for reasons unknown to him and he couldn't help but ask that old man:

"I am sorry Sir, have I seen you somewhere before?"

"Are you joking? Don't you remember me? Hahahahaha", the old man answered with heartfelt laughter.

When Arthur was about to say something in return another call attracted his attention:

"Arthur! What are you standing there for? Come, it's time to go home!"

What Arthur saw were two people waiting across the street for him and waving for him to come over. One was a middle-aged man and in his arms was a woman with a bright smile on her face. Both waited there expecting him to come over.

"Mum!", he instantly recognized her,

"What, what are you doing here?", he asked her completely confused.

"Come over Arty, we don't have the whole day!", the man next to her called out for him now.

"Dad?", Arthur mumbled weakly under his breath. He couldn't believe his eyes and his heart was in turmoil right now,

"How, how can this be?", he unconsciously started walking towards their direction and stepped on to the road. He forgot the world around him and only thought about reaching his parents.

Suddenly when he was midway across the street he noticed something fast approaching him from the corners of his eyes. He turned and found a car that was driving right into his position. He had to move and dodge the car but he couldn't! His body didn't listen to him and he stood there frozen still.

Just when the car was about to crash into him a strong pair of hands grabbed him from behind and pulled him back into the safe site.

"Lad, you are doing quite a few dangerous things these days. Didn't your parents teach you to watch out for cars when crossing the street?", a deep voice asked with an obviously amused tone.

Arthur could only now see the face of his saviour. It was an older guy with a muscular physique and silver long hair hanging down his shoulders.

"Th-, thank you Sir!", Arthur replied gratefully but when taking a closer look at him again it was like this wasn't the first they had met.

"Forget it, that's not important now lad. We don't have time for you to continue on like this! You need to remember!", the man said with a serious look in his eyes.

"I am sorry, but what do you mean?", Arthur asked uncertainly back.

"If you don't act everything will be lost! And the world will fall into eternal darkness. Look around, what do you see?"

"What do y-", when Arthur was about to ask another question when he saw what that old man meant to say.

Everything in his surroundings had vanished and was replaced by pure destruction! He saw fire burning in several places, collapsed buildings piled up one after another, statues or that what remained of them were scattered everywhere in pieces. Dust and smoke reigned over the sky and created a grim scenery before him.

"What happened?! What is this?", Arthur shouted loudly. This scene was so vivid it couldn't be a dream! Anxiety filled body and he wanted to escape this place immediately.

"This is the future lad. And it might turn into the past and presence as well if we don't stop them!"

"Who?"

The man was about to respond when suddenly a mocking shout echoed everywhere:

"Cornelius! You have failed! You have failed everyone, so why do you still resist brother? Hahahaha ...".

A man with long blond hairs, blue eyes and a blue scaled armour appeared in front of them. He stopped walking 10 meters away and his cold gaze lingered the whole time on the man beside Arthur.

"Him lad, we need to stop him and the entity standing behind him!", Cornelius walked ahead of Arthur and stood before him protectively. His clothes slowly took on a red colour and turned into a red scaled armour. Both men picked up swords that were hanging on their waists and closed in on each other.

"Aurelius, it's not too late! We can still stop him together!"

"No, it's either you or me! Only one of us will walk out of here alive!"

Both of them gathered their strengths and crossed the last meters in a dash! The sounds of metals clashing with each other filled the entire place and slowly intense colours of red and blue shone from their bodies. The light turned so sharp that Arthur had troubles understanding who was who!

Just when he was about to close his eyes a strong hand grabbed him by his arm and shouted at him:

"We have to get away from here! It's too dangerous!"

Arthur had squinted his eyes and didn't recognize who this person was but he agreed that it was too dangerous here. They ran for quite some time but the sounds of the battles were so loud they might as well have been standing right next to them!

When they stopped at a dead end Arthur needed to take in lots of fresh air to recover again. He asked exasperated:

"Could you please tell me what is going on here?! Where are we? Why are they fighting?"

"I don't really know actually. But that's not important right now anyway.", the person straightened back and answered.

"Then what is?"

The mysterious person now stood before Arthur and they looked into each other's eyes. It was a dark tanned youth maybe around Gary's age with black hair.

"I-, I saw you before somewhere ...", Arthur had a faint memory of him but he couldn't quite recall where that had been.

The youth put his hands on Arthur's shoulders and told him calmly:

"You need to wake up! If we continue staying here then god knows what will happen to us! You need to save us!"

"I? I can't ... I am not a hero!", Arthur told him desperately. This whole situation overwhelmed him too much. He was just a child! Shouldn't the adults handle this?

"Listen, heroes aren't born! Nor are they chosen! Rather they choose their paths for themselves! Look, I-I am also afraid ... but I know that I can't stay afraid the whole time, not when the situation gets serious!

He didn't know why but suddenly his dad's voice sounded out in Arthur's mind:

"I don't regret it Arthur, I was also afraid at first, but I imagined what a coward I would be if my family was stuck in that fire and I didn't save them. That would have been an eternal sin of mine ..."

Arthur stood there speechlessly with a dazed expression on his face.

"Don't worry too much, after all we're in this together haha, if you're in danger I will help you out!", the youth in front of him told him with confidence.

"What does this mean?"

"You need to wake up now!"

"Please tell me, I don't understand!"

"Wake up Atiqo!"

"My name isn't ...", he wanted say but his answer got stuck in his throat because he wasn't sure about the answer ...

"Atiqo, wake up!"

"Wake up!"

"Wake up Arthur!"

Arthur heard numerous voices in his head imploring him to wake up, so much so that it hurt! He had to close his eyes and held up his head in agony.

"Wake up Arthur!"

"I am awake!", he opened his eyes again and responded annoyed.

Suddenly he found himself in the middle of a field of people that surrounded him. A person fell into him and hugged him:

"You are awake again!"

"Welcome back Arthur, did you have a nice dream?"