Chapter One: The Legend of Gyasha-yash

One thousand years later

The Lake of Rage was peaceful. The sunlight graced the surface of the lake gently, and the wind ran its fingers through the reeds on the side. A Politoed jumped into the lake off a lily pad. There was an abrupt movement from the water, and it was soon lunch for a large Gyarados. A few Humans walked around the Lake, but ever since a few conflicting events with Team Rocket, Gyarados had been a protected species and it was illegal to own one unless you evolved it from a Magikarp. So the Gyarados, having no natural enemies, hand nothing to worry about.

In the middle of the lake was where the Magikarp hatched. Swimming around them were the newly-evolved Gyarados, and as it went outwards, elder Gyarados appeared.

Since the Gyarados were omnivores, they valued the easily “caught” seaweed, and saved it all for the very young and the very old. Several of them were “employed” in this job, and constantly traveled back and forth to the vegetation patches.

And, somewhere to the north of the lake, a Gyarish elder told the younger Gyarados stories. He was named Sha-gya in Ancient Gyarish, or Speaker of the Past, though he was often called Phoro.

The young Gyarados listened intently. They felt the excitement of the heros as they battled vicious Sea Gyarados. The felt the wonder of the protagonist who discovered an island that would provide them with safety forever. They felt the joy of the Gyarados who had met the one they would love forever.

One of Phoro’s favorite stories was the Legend of Gyasha-yash. It was the tale of a golden Gyarados by the name of Gyasha-yash, who existed in ancient times and led the passive Lake Gyarados in a last battle against the forces of the vicious Sea Gyarados, and their rampaging created the Lake of Rage, now the home of the greatest Gyarados clan in the world. After Gyasha-yash’s battle, the Lake and Sea Gyarados merged into one race.

There was one who never got tired of the Legend of Gyasha-yash, who absorbed Phoro’s words like an Zubat absorbs its enemies health. His name was Cedus. Or in Ancient Gyarish, Yash-gyasha, or “Strong Water.”

Cedus was the only Magikarp hatched from a nest of several hundred eggs, and his parents were unknown. So Phoro took Cedus under his wing- or fin, as you might say- a year or so after he evolved.

Cedus could be a bit gruff and pessimistic, and at sometimes somewhat fierce in his actions, but he was a Gyarados, and in present times, that was the way they all were. They were also calm when unprovoked, and protective of the other Gyarados.

In truth, however, Cedus was typically ignored by everyone else except Phoro. He disliked remaining in the lake, while all the other Pokemon could travel as they wished across the land, and some in the air.

“That is the way things are,” he would be told. “The Sea Gyarados could travel by land, as they did when they raided human cities. We are now the Gyarados of neither land nor sea.”

“I didn’t ask for a historical lecture,” Cedus would snap as he swam away.

When he asked Phoro, the old Gyarados would say, “You might be able to make it on land a little while before your body dries out. Perhaps enough to find a river. But I don’t think it’s a risk worth taking.”

But Phoro was only a Speaker of the Past, not the future.