Empire City...an extraordinarily beautiful and prosperous city filled with ordinary people with ordinary lives until one day, it is all replaced by chaos and destruction. A real threat rises in the form of human-hunting mutants who will stop at nothing to exterminate their targets to extinction. Amongst the few survivors are even fewer extraordinary people who are the heart and hope of what remains of the once proud city. Join them in their misadventure amongst the desolation and watch as their unlikely alliance crowns them the title of... "The Imperial Four." (Cover created by Maximum_Phoenix_Moon)

(Note: This story follows a few months after First Light. Spoilers to First Light are in this story) Dawn and Paul have been traveling together for a year and a couple for a few months. Everything in their lives seems to be going smoothly- Contests, training, and even love. That is, until they get stuck staying in Fiducia Town, where Paul is met by ghosts the past and a bothersome little twerp who softly pushes at him to open up and truly let go of the nightmares. Can Paul overcome the memories that have haunted him for the past ten years, or will he be lost in darkness?

Paul, now 17, decides to return to the Hoenn region to capture a Bagon and raise it to be a mighty Salamence. However, he doesn't realize that right after arriving an annoying cretin Coordinator would bump into him right when he's setting off on his new goal. Dawn forcefully worms her way in Paul's plans in her quest to become a better Coordinator and the two struggle to get along. As Paul says, "When one life meets another, something will be born.".... but just what will be born between the two?