Pokemon: Haven Crisis

The Meijin

Niko sat at his desk. He was using the computer to do some research for Professor Elm. He remembered his days as a youth training Pokemon to battle the Pokemon League. During that time he'd traveled the world, caught many kinds of Pokemon and won sixteen gym badges in two regions, as well as defeated three Champions of the League. Well really only two, since Frasier Blue had been a gym leader at the time. But who was counting. However, after all that, he'd been at a loss for what to do next. When you make it to the top, everything seems a tad done. So he went home to Newbark Town and talked with the professor. Elm had sent him on an errand, to the Sinjoh ruins at the request of the Sinnoh League Champion Cynthia. Niko met her there and they researched for a few days, Niko had watched as the Pokemon Arceus had descended there and summoned a whole flock of Unown to it's side. He recalled the images of places he saw in his mind during that bizarre ceremony, and that an egg had appeared and then was warped away by Arceus to parts unknown before it too departed. It was an amazing experience, and it kindled within Niko an urge to study to be a professor more than he'd ever considered before that. He hadn't known then that it would be ten years of studying later to achieve his dream, but he'd finally done it. And when he was, he thought, on the very verge of amazing new discoveries, he was stationed at Professor Elm's lab in Newbark. Elm had said Niko had been his best research assistant and that he couldn't very well give that up with a chuckle when Niko had asked about it. He wasn't necessarily overjoyed with it, but he did get to be around his family fairly often, and the professor was pretty forgiving if Niko got the adventuring bug from time to time, provided he brought back some new discovery or caught a new Pokemon to catalog in his Pokedex. Niko was currently doing research into the Ruins of Alph for the professor. As a kid he'd captured all 28 known variants of Unown for the research team there, after he solved some sliding block puzzles to open up parts of the ruins that were sealed. But beyond the idea that the ruins were somehow connected to Arceus, and thus the Unown were somehow connected, he hadn't made much progress. Unown had been spotted in other regions in similar ruins, so Niko was checking into that online before he made a trip to those places for further research. It was fairly tedious work, since most of those other ruins had been explored already, and thus Niko's interest in the project was fairly small. He did need some kind of travel though, things in Newbark and Johto as a whole had gotten somewhat stale for him. The itch for a good Pokemon battle was rising up, and that meant finding new opponents. He saved his web pages and closed the browser. Better go make a report, he thought. He stood and stretched and collected his things and made his way downstairs to head for the lab. He caught his mother watching their TV, a news broadcast about some artifact being discovered and taken to a museum in another region. Something about the artifact being tied to Arceus caught his ear, but just when he started to ask his mom to rewind it, the broadcast ended and she changed the channel. Oh well. "Going to the lab Mom, I'll be home later." He said as he headed for the door and put on his shoes. "Alright dear, don't work yourself too hard." His mother replied warmly. Niko nodded to her and exited the house. The sun was setting, he'd worked later than he thought. That was typical for him these days, he'd developed a hyper focus as of late on these things to help him get through the more boring parts of the job. He made his way next door to the lab. "Hey Professor, I'm here to report." Niko started, before he could finish, the professor accosted him. "Niko did you see it? They discovered an artifact related to Arceus! You need to get to that Museum ASAP to conduct research. I've already started filing the paperwork to get the clearances. You leave in the morning. It's gonna be amazing." The professor spoke like a whirlwind, and was equally animated about it. Niko laughed, the man was fairly laid back, but when he got like this, nothing could change his mind. "Actually that's why I'm here professor. I've been looking into those other ruins where Unown were cited, and was planning to travel to those locations."