Shadow of Death: A Pokemon XD Nuzlocke Prologue

Prologue

It had been a mostly quiet night aboard the S.S. Libra, the Pokemon transporting ship. Sure, the Salamence had broken out of its restraints earlier, managing to blast a hole into the captain's quarters. where the captain’s Dragonite lay sleeping, but the Dragonite had quickly awoken and put a stop to the other Dragon Pokemon’s rampaging, allowing the sailors to capture it again. And then there was the Houndour who had gotten seasick, but there wasn’t much a sailor could do about that aside from mop up the vomit and give the Houndour a pill to help settle its stomach.

The sailor was making his rounds this night, and had finally come up to the top deck when he noticed something weird. There were lights in the sky coming towards the S.S. Libra, and a huge black mass flying just directly underneath. Squinting, the sailor could just make out the lights were coming from helicopters, a group of about four or five of them, and the black mass was a Pokemon. The sailor grabbed his walkie-talkie, confused.

“Captain? Something is happening...there’s all these helicopters coming our way...and what looks like a Pokemon.”

“Hang on, I see them...I’ll be right out.”

By the time the captain had come on deck, the helicopters were already flying roughly forty feet above them, matching pace with the ship, and also joining the helicopters above them...was what looked like a Lugia. And even though the sailor had never before seen a Lugia in person—in old books and on TV, yes. They were legendary Pokemon after all, and extremely rare. Very few trainers have even encountered Legendary Pokemon in their lifetimes.—he noted that something was off about the Legendary’s appearance.

Rather than the soft silver and blue coloration Lugia was said to have, this Lugia was mostly blackish-purple, aside from the grey underbelly, tail spikes, and eye markings. From the illustrations the sailor had seen of Lugia, its eyes were always calm, but this beast’s eyes were blazing red.

“What’s going on here?” the captain murmured, looking up. A few seconds later, his answer came in the form of the ship rising out of the water and into the night sky, then rocking sharply to one side, pitching the two men into the ocean, and the Lugia giving a loud screech as it, the helicopters, and the ship flew off in the direction they had come.

The captain and crewman looked at each other, stunned.

“Sir, what the hell just happened?”

-----

A small distance away, a cruiser floated in calm waters. The crew of four aboard had observed the spectacle. One of the people, a teenage girl with long pink hair in pigtails, clapped her hands in glee as she saw the draconian Pokemon lift the ship out of the water with its incredible Psychic powers.

“You see, Master Greevil, XD001 is so coming in handy for your Shadow Pokemon plan. And with the advancements I’ve made in Ein’s shadowfication process, all the Pokemon aboard should so be Shadow Pokemon oh so shortly as soon as we arrive back to base!”

The man the girl had addressed as Greevil smiled, “Yes, Lovrina, I can see. But there is still the problem of the rampages your XD001 has been going on...you’ve been working on getting it perfected still, yes?”

The pink-haired girl cringed a bit, fiddling with some controls of an odd machine in front of her “Ooh yeah, those...it’s just a bit of a bug that I’ve so been trying to fix. Takes a lot to make a Shadow Pokemon unpurifiable...but don’t worry, Master Greevil! All I need to do is get oh so serious and I’ll work out any kinks! And then you’ll have the super-powerful head of your Shadow Pokemon army!”

Greevil seemed to be pleased by this news, “Very good, Lovrina.” However, one of the other two passengers aboard, a tall man with shoulder-length blue hair, snickered, and said, “A bit of a bug? Your XD001 destroyed three helicopters, and injured several of our peons earlier...”

Lovrina pouted, and opened her mouth to give a scathing retort, but was cut off by the last man on board, a redhead, who was currently leaning on the cruiser’s railing, staring at the two little dots trying to remain afloat a small distance away.

“Looks like there were some people who got thrown off when Shadow Lugia picked up the ship...shouldn’t we go and help them?” he asked, freeing a Pokeball from the sash tied around his skinny waist.

The blue-haired man shrugged, “Eh, they’ll be picked up by a ship sooner or later. There’s a lot of shipping traffic around these parts. Anyway, we don’t need them inquiring if we had seen anything or the purpose of Lovrina’s little gadget there. It’d be safer to Cipher to leave them be in case someone slips up and reveals something they shouldn’t.” He shot a pointed look at Lovrina.

“You are so not letting me telling my brother Naps go, are you?”

“But, we could—“the redhead started, before he was cut off by a raised hand from Greevil. “Your brother has a point, Eldes. We will leave this to any other ships that pass here. They’ll be fine.”

Eldes sighed, and replaced the Pokeball. “Yes, Master Greevil. I’ll get us back to Gateon Port then.” Eldes didn’t like it, leaving the two sailors there, but certainly, his brother did have a solid argument, didn’t he? And he couldn’t refute Master Greevil’s orders. He did, however, make a mental note to send his Lapras back for the two men, and plopped down at the ship’s wheel, steering the cruiser back in the direction of the all-too familiar port town of Orre.