Prologue: Beauty of the Moon

Route 25-Kanto/ En Route To Bill's Sea Cottage
Early Morning/Saturday

I passed through a series of hedges and entered into a sort of clearing. The 
beautiful moon was high in the sky that night and it's silvery light draped 
the cold environment in a type of soft warmness which could be seen and yet 
never felt. The silvery light reflected off the dew on the hedge's leaves, 
which had formed after the rain that had poured not a few hours earlier.

Had I not been in such a hurry, I might have actually cared.

It was half-way through the clearing that I first noticed it. The silent 
sounds of a stalker. I turned around and saw him, edging silently towards me 
in the shadows, trying carefully not to make a sound. A man in an over-coat 
who held something in his hand.

As soon as he realized he had been spotted, he abandoned all pretense and ran 
all out towards me. His dirty coat whipping out behind him in the wind.

Instinctively, I reached for my belt, for a pokeball. However, I carried 
three and could not decide which one to summon. For this moment of hesitation 
I would suffer. By the time I had a pokeball gripped in my hand, he was upon 
me.

He grabbed me by the front of my shirt and and brought the item he carried 
into direct contact with my stomach. It was a knife, short but sharp, he sank 
the blade into my belly four times.

In the cold air, I gasped something and sagged to my knees. I dropped the 
pokeball in my hand and it rolled calmly onto the floor. The man shoved me 
backwards and I laid on the floor while the stranger appeared over me.

"Where is it? The Nugget! The Nugget!" he hissed at me. He searched through 
my pockets and I suddenly realized what he was after, the Nugget of Gold I 
had just won for beating five trainers on the Nugget Bridge on Route 24 an 
hour ago. He must have followed me from there.

The man let out a cry of joy as he finally found it, stashed with my cash, in 
my left pocket.

Blood was gushing out of my body. I felt numb. I laid there in a scarlet pool 
and tried to take deep breaths of air, yet suddenly, breathing seemed above 
me.

He went through the rest of my pockets and back-pack for good measure. He 
found my Pokedex but tossed it to the ground. I heard it crack and realized 
it was broken. He found my eight Kanto gym badges and stowed them away deep 
in his coat. The two pokeballs I hadn't picked we're stowed away next, he 
overlooked the lone fallen pokeball in the darkness; it lay near his feet.

Then he was gone.

I gasped for air and tried to reach for my fallen pokeball, but had lost 
control of my arms. Blood was still gushing out of me and all I could do was 
fight to keep my eyes open. I looked up and at last, I was able to appreciate 
the true grace and beauty of my location and of the moon.

A youngster found my body the next day. My eyes open, a calm expression on my 
face.