The Road to our Destiny

Sequel to The Road to our Destiny

That's right, my loyal readers! Ever since the story ended a year and a half ago, you've asked, you've begged, you've even made suggestions - some of you might have done one of those things more than once, and I have found the story and passion to give what so many of you wanted: a sequel to The Road to our Destiny!

The first thing I want to make clear, however, is that the sequel is not a telling of the adventures of Ash and Serena's child as a trainer many years after the books ended.  It's not that I haven't thought of it. In fact, I was thinking that if I did it would include the children of other characters like Timothy's children, Christopher, and Judy, in particular. But in the end, there wasn't really a concrete story to go with this concept that made it really worth trying to tell. Plus, the final chapter of The Road to our Destiny says that everything between the very first episode of the Pokemon anime up to the last chapter ends with Timothy's Gengar and his opponent's Nidorino about to battle, so that's ideally where the story of Ash Ketchum and all of his friends ends, and I'm sticking by it.

With that said,  I have recently come up with a story that takes place roughly a month after Ash and Serena confess their love at the Johto Grant Festival, get together, and become research fellows with Goh at Professor Cerise's Laboratory. It focuses on Timothy, Coovers, and Electchu traveling to the Galar region on another mission that has to do with Darkest Day. Basically, Professor Magnolia contacts the International Police and informs them of what Chairman Rose is up to. She can't prove anything, but her suspicions are enough for Looker to send Coovers to investigate, and Coovers bumps into Timothy and Electchu, who come along. Ultimately, Timothy competes in the Galar League and the World Coronation Series partly to try to accomplish more of his dream but also to catch Chairman Rose's attention so that they can investigate. This would also have Coovers constantly trying to pursue a relationship with Sonia, who may develop feelings for him in return, and Ash, Serena, and Goh appearing during all of the times Ash and Goh go to the Galar region in the anime. This will also feature new characters such as Chairman Rose's niece and nephew, Ezria and Venarge, who are Timothy and Coovers' age and, like Oleana, are devoted to making his dream come true. There's also one of Professor Magnolia's researchers, Gwen Watson, who is competing with Sonia to discover the mystery behind Darkest Day and travels with Timothy and Coovers. In the grand scheme of things, this story will be something of a mixture of the plot in the Pokemon Sword and Shield video games and the first season of Pokemon: Journeys: The Series anime. And maybe one of the ladies I've listed might be the certain special someone Timothy marries and raises a family with at the end of the first book. At the moment, the working title for this story is The Road to our Destiny II: The Galar Adventures, but I honestly hope to come up with a much better name than that.

Now, there's a couple of things to keep in mind. First, as some of you might have noticed from my more recent work, I've switched from writing in present tense to past tense, so this story won't be in present tense like the first one. Secondly, I still have other writing projects, so unlike the first book where the whole story was written and edited before publishing, I'm going to write the first five or so chapters of the story, publish them, and then write more whenever I get an idea for how the journey will continue. Thirdly, I need a cover for the book. I can make it myself since I've been making digital art lately, including the picture of Sonia that you see on this announcement, but I am occupied with making covers for other fanfiction stories that might turn into physical books, so my focus on making art has to be there for a quite a while, and I imagine none of you would want to wait that long for me to even start making a cover myself much less begin publishing the story. So, if any of you are artists and would like to help me make a cover or know someone who would be interested, please leave a comment.

As I am writing this, I am already about halfway through the second chapter of this sequel. Ideally, within a few weeks, I'll have the first several chapters ready to publish so that all of you can begin to enjoy how the adventures in the Road to our Destiny-verse continue. I hope all of you are excited about this and will enjoy what I have in store for you when I start publishing.

Until then, as always, my friends, thank you for reading, the Lord be with you all, and have a great day!

-HAKDurbin