Green's POV

My sister looks at me confused.

"He's hurt we need to go get help," Winter crosses her arms. Clearly annoyed that she is handling this better than I am.

"What if he's not from our district? You may be too young to understand but anyone not from here is an intruder."

"I am not," She pouts. "Can't we help him even if he is an intruder?"

I pause.

I'm not starting to think like the President am I?

"It's just-"

"I'm getting Dad!"

"No! There's no point saving him if he's just going to go to jail!"

"So it's death or jail?" A weak voice interrupts us.

The boy sits up, coughing water out of his lungs. He wipes his mouth with a damp sleeve.

I notice Winter take a couple steps back. She doesn't interact with strangers much since Maple Village is so isolated. 

I pull her in front of me, my turn to be the brave one.

"Who are you?" I demand.

He looks up at me confused with his dark blue eyes. "Um hello to you too. I'll answer your questions when I'm done drowning."

I frown as he lays back down in the sand.

His slightly tan face is all crumpled like he's thinking hard. "Where am I?" He looks back at us.

"I'm the one aski-"

"Gateway Beach," Winter answers and I sigh.

His head swivels to take in the beach. 

"Just outside of Maple Village," She continues.

He doesn't respond to either.

"In the Normal District," I continue.

"Normal District?" He questions.

Great he's definitely an intruder.

"You know where that is right?" I ask.

He rubs his temples, groaning.

"I don't know much right now," He answers. "My memory is a little fuzzy."

My sister and I glance at each other. 

"So you don't know where you're from?" Winter sits on the sand beside him, now more curious than scared.

"Does Elemente ring a bell?" I try to give him something.

"Um I don't think so."

"We should take him to Dad," Winter brings up again. "He won't throw him in jail."

"He will have to Winter," I answer. "This boy is an intruder."

"We don't know that, he just can't remember," Her pout comes back.

"I vote no jail," He unhelpfully adds.

"What's your name?" I get back to the questioning. "You at least know that."

"I want to say Gold," The boy answers. "Or Ethan, even that is fuzzy."

"Okay Gold," I decide to go with the first one. "Can you remember anything else?"

He runs a hand through his longish hair. " A mountain and bright light."

"Bright light?" Winter questions and he shrugs.

"Hmm there's no mountains in the Normal District," I state. "Some of the other districts do though."

"Does this mean we're back to the intruder thing?" He sighs.

"Well people aren't really allowed to travel between districts," I try to explain even though it really makes Elemente look like some dictatorship. "And definitely no outsiders from other regions."

"Strict," Gold mumbles and looks back toward the ocean. Probably planning his escape. "If only I had a Staraptor to get out of here."

"Staraptor?" I tilt my head. "That means you remember Pokemon."

"Almost all I can remember is Pokemon information."

"That's weird," Winter adds.

"Like did you know a Staraptor is 1.2m and 24.9kg?" He asks out of the blue.

"You must've hit your head hard Gold," My sister says and I stifle a laugh.

"Maybe you needed that information for whatever you were doing before you ended up here?" I try to make some sense of it.

"I don't know why I would," He chuckles. "Or anyone for that matter."

"Professor Cedar would probably know that," Winter smiles. 

"That gives me an idea," I offer my hand to Gold. "I'll take you to the Professor, maybe he can help you."

"And you promise it won't lead to jail," The boy smiles at me and grabs my hand to pull himself off.

I watch him attempt to brush the sand off his clothes but it's crusted on.

"No," I answer and his eyes start to roll. "But you need help getting back to wherever you're from."

"Why not Dad?" Winter asks.

"Because his job is catching people like Gold."

Gold's eyes widen. "Professor Cyprus or whatever sounds good to me!" He quickly says.

"Cedar," I sigh. "We can take you there but you need to look less suspicious."

He takes a look at his clothes. "That could be a problem."

"We can be sneaky like spies," Winter cheers and leads us towards the tunnel.

"Come on," I usher the apprehensive boy to follow her lead.

No one speaks as we walk through the tunnel and start to walk through town. We use any houses or trees to shield ourselves from being in plain sight. Luckily there isn't too much activity going on.

Gold's eyes are darting all over the place. Probably taking in all the surroundings as well as watching for people. I wonder what he thinks of our town.

"Wait," He whispers and stops us, partially behind a house belonging to Mrs. Smith. "That Pokemon was in the light."

I glance at the Arceus statue, now glowing orange from the setting sun. "We can talk when we get to the lab." I push him forward. We can't be wasting time out here.

"Green darling."

Shit.

I turn towards the open window of the house we were crouched behind. "Hi Mrs. Smith."

The elderly woman pokes her head out the window.

"We're playing spies," Winter gives her best innocent smile. "Sshh."

Mrs. Smith laughs. "Okay well you two be careful, there's bad guys everywhere these days." She shuts the window with that last statement.

I look beside me and Gold is no longer there.

Frantically, I search the area...

"He's good at this game," My sister giggles and points to the bushes at the next house.

I guess he gets credit for this one.

We run over and continue towards the lab.

Professor Cedar's lab is nothing fancy. It resembles a lot of the houses in town, just a bit bigger. He has also built a small corral beside and behind the building. An old oak fence outlines the property.

Tall spruce trees surround the lab since it's on the edge of town. They block the sun so the darkness allows us to quickly run to the door without being caught again.

We get to the door and I see Gold take a deep breath. Maybe I should be more empathetic of the situation he's in.

I pluck a piece of mulch out his navy hair. I guess he forgot his hat on the beach. Gold looks back and I smile.

"Are you going to open the door?" I feel a poke from my sister.

"Right," I lead us in. "Professor!"

The lab seems more chaotic than usual. Any potential deskspace is covered in papers and even the monitors seem disorganized. I don't recognize what's on most of them but I think a map of the world is on one.

"Green is that you?" Professor Cedar comes around the corner. His long grey hair is wild as usual, along with his white lab coat that has marker or something all over it. He has a black dress shirt on, with matching pants, underneath the lab coat. He adjusts his glasses when he sees us. "Oh I don't recognize you young man."

"Yea soo," I drag on. 

"Apparently you're my best chance at not going to jail," Gold states, clearly latched onto the whole jail thing.

The Professor looks at us alarmed.

"He needs more context than that," I roll my eyes.

We give him a quick rundown of everything we've gotten out of Gold's amnesia so far.

"Well I don't know if this is a good thing or bad thing but I know exactly where you're from Gold," Professor Cedar says with a troubling look.

"What? How?" We say in unison, watching him start to type into one of his many computers.

"As I'm sure Green explained to you, Elemente is cut off from the world, so even us researchers get almost no news from other regions and they get nothing from us. Occasionally there's exceptions like popular battle tournaments or Champion battles." The older Professor explains. "My only connection is a few data stations I have sprinkled around other regions. Long ago I was able to visit them and perform maintenance but now I'm just stuck with the ones that have survived this long."

"You had them before the Great Division?" I question. 

"I didn't know you were that old," Winter is lucky she's cute.

"Ha well young lady," Cedar looks away from his computer for a second. "I was a young researcher back then and actually worked for President Triton Sr."

Can't believe he never told us this before.

He brings up a map, with a couple data stations labelled. I recognize the region as Sinnoh. The entire region is about 50% snow due to its northern point. "That Pokemon you remember in the light was Arceus," He states so simply. "There was a huge burst of energy at Mount Coronet and I'm betting it has something to do with you and Arceus."

"The creator of the universe Arceus?" I glance at Gold who is either frozen in time or too stunned to respond.

"I think it's about time you head home girls," Professor Cedar states. 

Winter starts to argue but I know why. 

We can't be trusted.

"Come on Winter," I grab her hand. "Dinner is probably cold by now."

I lock eyes with Gold and give him a soft smile. "You're on your own."

"Thanks," He gives a small smile back.

The cool night air hits us on our way out. "Okay Winter you need to listen to me okay?"

I crouch to the girl's level, who is still pouting about being kicked out. "We got distracted by some battling Pokemon." I give her our cover story.

She nods sadly and we continue walking. "You were so brave,"  I wrap an arm around her.

"Is Gold going to be okay?"

"I hope so."

Serena's POV

There's nothing like training at night.

The cool air, quiet city, and empty training field. Even a city as big as Slateport quiets down at night.

I take a seat on the clay field, sitting in front of my friends. They've been training nonstop the last couple weeks in preparation for the Hoenn Grand Festival. Coordinating took a second to get used to but we cruised all the way to the semifinals.

Just two more battles.

"Okay guys," I get my Pokemon's attention.

I first look at Delphox, my beige bipedal fox. Her red fur is a little roughed up after all the training but I can fix that later.

Next is Pancham, the small black and white fighting type panda. He still rocks the sunglasses during contests.

Then my dancing ribbon fox, Sylveon. The essence of fairy type has been a real crowd pleaser in Hoenn, with her pink and white fur blowing people away.

Finally, my newest addition Milotic who towers over my other Pokemon. The beige sea monster is a perfect mix of strength and beauty. Her beautiful pink and blue scales go perfect with her long pink ribbons.

"Tomorrow will be much tougher than the last few contests have been," I try to give an Ash Ketchum speech. "But I know we can beat anyone we have to face, even if it's May."

They all cheer and come in for a group hug. Milotic wraps her long body around us.

I can't let Ash be the only one with a trophy.