Chapter 1 – Return to Stonebrook Acres
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The train slid out of the tunnel and into sunlight, and Sinnoh opened up around David Ryder in a wash of green and gold.
Fields. Hills. The same jagged dark lines of distant mountains he used to trace on the window glass as a kid. It should have felt like coming home.
Instead, it just felt…small.
He stared past the faint reflection of his own face in the glass—dark hair a little too long, shadows under his eyes, the scar along his jaw from that last reckless match in Snowpoint—and watched the countryside roll by. Scattered farmhouses. Thin lines of smoke from chimneys. A flock of Starly exploded away from the tracks as the train passed, wingbeats flashing like coins.
'Should've come sooner,' he thought, fingers tightening around the smooth plastic of the Poké Ball in his palm. 'Shouldn't have needed a funeral notice to do it.'
The overhead speaker chimed. "Now approaching: Stonebrook Station. Please gather your belongings…"
He stood, the motion practised, automatic. Belt clipped with Poké Balls under the long coat. Light bag on his shoulder—lighter than anything he'd carried on the road, somehow heavier than the champion's cloak he'd left folded in a drawer back in the League building.
He stepped off the train and into the air that smelled like damp earth and old smoke.
Stonebrook Station was still a single-platform, squat brick building with peeling paint. Someone had hung flower baskets under the eaves; the blooms were a little wilted, as if no one had remembered to water them on time. A handful of people milled about—old men with caps, a couple of kids staring half-open-mouthed at the arriving train, a woman with a stroller.
And eyes. Turning toward him.
He knew the look—the double-take, the narrowing of the brows, the slight widening when recognition hit.
"Is that—?"
"Ryder? No way—"
"Thought he was in Ever—"
He kept his shoulders relaxed; kept his face neutral. If he met every stare, every whisper, he'd get stuck here on the platform forever.
A familiar figure separated from the cluster by the station doors. Mayor Elson still had the same broad shoulders and silver-shot hair he'd had when David was twelve and trying to petition for a playground instead of a new tractor for the town. The years had added deeper lines around his eyes, but the handshake was as firm as ever.
"David," Elson said, voice roughened by age and something softer. "You made it."
"Of course," David said. His throat felt dry. "I just…had to finish a few things in Lilycove."
Which was a lie. He'd finished those "few things" weeks ago. He just hadn't known how to get on the train.
Elson held his gaze for a moment, then patted his shoulder. "We'll talk later. For now—"
"Yeah." David swallowed. "The service."
They walked together through the small town—if it could still be called that. Stonebrook had always been quiet, even by Sinnoh standards. A handful of streets, a modest Pokémon Centre whose red roof needed repainting, the same general store with its sun-faded sign. He registered the changes without really seeing them: a new café on the corner where old Mrs Tanaka's tailor shop used to be, a couple of houses with fresh paint, a tiny play park.
People stopped and turned as they passed. Some nodded, eyes respectful and distant. Others, older faces he half-recognised, lifted hands in greeting. A few of the younger ones peered openly, eyes flicking between him and the Poké Balls at his belt.
'You can relax,' he wanted to tell them. 'I didn't bring the title with me. Just the Pokémon.'
They reached the small hillside cemetery on the edge of town. The wind was cooler here, smelling of pine and turned soil. A scattering of headstones climbed the slope; at the far end, under a gnarled oak, a simple wooden casket rested on trestles.
David stopped for a moment, just outside the gathered crowd.
His grandfather's friends were there, mostly older men and women in clean but worn clothes. A couple of younger families. Nurse Joy, in a dark shawl over her uniform. The local priest, the one who'd always smelled like incense and Moomoo Milk when David was small.
Off to the side, a woman around his mother's age caught his eye. Mrs. Harrow, he realised, before memory corrected him: no, that was his wife. The Harrows had never left Stonebrook. It made the absence of his own parents, long buried in another town and another plot, feel sharper.
Conversation dipped as people noticed him. Then the murmur rose again, quieter, tinged with curiosity and pity.
'They expected the Champion,' he thought. 'They got the man who quit.'
Elson squeezed his shoulder once more, then moved ahead to talk to the priest. David took a breath and approached the casket.
It was simple. Sturdy wood, the kind his grandfather would have approved of. No polished gloss, no elaborate carving. Just his name burned into the surface in neat letters and a small, carved seedling just beneath.
He stared at that little sprout; at the way it curled upward as if reaching for light.
"Hey, gramps," he murmured, too low for anyone else. "You could've…given me more time."
Images flickered behind his eyes—big hands guiding his smaller ones as they planted the first berry tree sapling together, the smell of wet soil and sweat, his grandfather's laugh when a wild Bidoof stole one of the low-hanging berries right out of his hands. The rough palm on his hair the day he announced he was going to leave and challenge the Gyms.
"If you're going to do it," his grandfather had said, "do it properly. Don't come back until you've done something worth telling the trees about."
He'd thought being Champion qualified.
Now, standing at the end of the man's life and looking back down the path that had led him here, he wasn't so sure.
The service itself blurred. Words about life and seasons and harvests. About good soil and good men. David bowed his head when everyone else did, said the responses when prompted. When it was time, he stepped forward with Elson and two older men to lower the casket into the ground.
The rope bit into his palms. He held his end steady, teeth clenched.
'This is the last thing we'll do together,' he thought. 'Hauling weight.'
They filled the grave with shovelfuls of dirt, each thud a drumbeat in his chest. When it was done, an older woman stepped forward with a pot of flowers and placed it at the head of the fresh mound.
People came to him after. Condolences like scripted moves: "He was a good man." "Sorry for your loss." "He was proud of you, you know."
He nodded. Thanked them. Let the words wash past.
Someone said, "We saw your last match, you know, the one against—"
He cut them off gently. "That was a while ago."
Another voice: "You're staying, then? Or just here for the funeral?"
That was the question, wasn't it?
Elson rescued him. "Let the man breathe," the mayor said mildly. "He's barely off the train. David, when you're done here, come by my office or head straight out to the farm. The house keys are already there; same place your grandfather always kept the spares."
David managed a smile. "Under the third step?"
Elson chuckled. "Second. The third creaks. You used to complain about it waking you up."
He'd forgotten that. He swallowed and nodded. "Right. I'll…go out there."
The crowd thinned. People drifted away in twos and threes, back to fields, to shops, to lives that had kept moving while he'd been fighting under stadium lights. Eventually, it was just him and the mound of fresh earth under the oak.
A Starly hopped along the base of the headstone beside his grandfather's, pecking at something in the grass. The wind rustled the leaves overhead.
David crouched and rested his hand on the dirt.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "For being late. For not coming back sooner. For not knowing how to…do this."
His fingers curled, pressing into the soil until a bit of it lodged under his nails. It was darker than the roads he'd walked for the League. Smelled richer. There were tiny roots in it, threads of life he couldn't see but knew were there.
"You left me a mess," he added, an attempt at a smile tugging at his mouth. "I guess that's fair. I left you with an empty house and a postcard every few months."
The earth didn't answer. It didn't need to. He could almost hear the old man's voice anyway.
"Don't stand still too long, boy. The weeds will take you."
He stood. Brushed his hands off on his dark trousers. Picked up his bag.
The road to the farm hadn't changed much. It still curved out of town past the old millpond—now just a stagnant puddle with algae on top—then over the narrow stone bridge across a trickle of water that had once been a confident brook. Tall grass leaned into the gravel, dotted with wildflowers and the occasional rustle of a hidden Pokémon.
He walked it in silence, boots crunching on the gravel.
There was a time when he'd run this road, bareheaded and breathless, with a beat-up backpack and a Mudkip waddling at his heels, when every step had felt like the start of something huge and bright.
Now, every step was a step away from arenas and cameras and the roar of crowds, toward something smaller, quieter, heavier.
The sign came into view first.
It was a simple wooden plank set on two posts beside the lane. The paint had faded, the edges weathered and cracked. The name carved into it was still legible, though, in his grandfather's careful, blocky letters:
STONEBROOK ACRES
Underneath, someone—probably his grandfather again—had once painted a little berry cluster and a rolling field. The berries were chipped, the field a vague smear.
Beyond the sign, Stonebrook Acres sprawled out and down, gently sloping away from the road.
From a distance, it still looked like a farm. Fences, a central farmhouse with a red roof that had lost most of its shine, a long, low barn, a scattering of outbuildings. Patches of fields and orchard rows where crops and berry trees had once stood.
Up close, it was apparent the farm had been dying for a while.
The fence along the lane leaned drunkenly in places, and a few posts were rotted entirely through. The ditch by the road was choked with grass and silt. He could see where berry trees had once grown in neat lines, now half-dead and choked with undergrowth. The fruit orchards to the left were a tangle of branches and shadow, some trees bare, some wild with unpruned growth.
He walked through the gate—one hinge squeaked in protest—and stood for a long moment in the yard.
Silence.
In his memory, the farm had always been noisy. Wind in the leaves, Pokémon chittering, the thud of boots and the creak of wheelbarrows. His grandfather humming tunelessly as he worked. The splashing roar of the stream in flood season.
Now, there was only the distant hum of town, the buzz of a lone Yanma somewhere out over the fields, the creak of the hanging porch swing as the wind nudged it.
He dropped his bag by the house steps and went looking for the key.
Second step. The board looked the same, worn in the middle from decades of feet. He wedged his fingers into the narrow gap and groped around until his fingertips touched cold metal.
He pulled the small key free and let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding.
"You really didn't change anything, did you?" he muttered.
Inside, the farmhouse smelled of dust and old coffee. Sun cut through the grimy windows in slanting beams, catching motes and highlighting the outlines of furniture: the scuffed table, two mismatched armchairs, the wood stove. The same framed photo of his parents on the mantel. The same faded calendar on the wall, months out of date.
He wandered through the rooms, each one a ghost of itself. His old bedroom still had the posters he'd pinned up as a teenager—Gym Leaders, Elite Four members, the League logo—edges curling—a childish drawing of a Mudkip taped under the window. An old League pennant with his name embroidered on it hung above the bed, slightly crooked.
Seeing that hurt more than he'd expected.
He sat on the edge of the bed and let the weight of it all settle on his chest.
'You could sell it,' a familiar voice in his mind said. Not his grandfather this time, but one of the League officials from those last meetings. 'Put the money into a training facility. Or a retreat. Travel. Consult. Your name still carries weight, Ryder.'
He'd considered it. On paper, it made sense. The land here wasn't prime; the town was small. He could offload the responsibility, wash his hands, and return to a world he understood.
Except he didn't understand that world anymore.
The last year as Champion had been a blur of interviews, promotional events, and exhibition matches he hadn't wanted to fight. Every time he'd stepped into an arena, the roar had felt less like celebration and more like pressure in his ears. Every challenge was a test he had to pass to justify being there, being alive, being worth the title.
He'd started counting the days after his last successful defence in Ever Grande. The moment Cynthia's name had begun to circulate as the next rising star, he'd felt a strange mix of relief and dread.
He had stepped down before he broke in public.
And then the letter had come about his grandfather's heart finally giving out in the orchard, shovel still in his hands.
David stood up.
He went back outside.
The afternoon light was slipping toward evening, the sky turning a softer blue. Out beyond the yard, the fields sloped downward toward where the stream ought to be. He walked that way on instinct, feet remembering the path.
The earth beneath his boots felt wrong. Too dry in places, too soft in others, where water had clearly pooled and stagnated. The old irrigation ditches had collapsed, their lines only visible if you knew where to look.
At the low point of the property, the stream bed cut a shallow line through the land. It should have been running fast, fed by mountain snowmelt this time of year.
Instead, it trickled, more a narrow ribbon than a brook. The banks were choked with reeds and stones that had tumbled into the flow over years of neglect.
He knelt at the edge and dipped his fingers into the water.
Cold. Clear. Still moving, underneath all the blockages.
"Still here," he murmured.
Something loosened in his chest.
He looked up again at the fields. Imagined, for a moment, the lines of berry trees cleared and pruned, the ditches rebuilt, the orchards heavy with fruit. A waterwheel on that bend of the stream, turning slowly. Miltank under the trees, Mareep on the hills, Combee drifting over flowering groves. Kids in the yard, shouting and laughing, battling in a proper arena that didn't chew up the roots of the trees.
'It's too much,' part of him said. 'You're a battler, not a farmer. You don't know crop rotations, soil tests, or irrigation schedules. Your hands know Poké Balls, not pruning hooks.'
Another part, quieter but stubborn as a Sandshrew, replied, 'You learned to battle. You learned to lead a team. You learned to carry a title on your back. You can learn this.'
He took a long breath.
"If I walk away," he said aloud, voice barely above the murmur of the water, "this all goes to seed. Someone else buys it, rips it up, builds…gods know what."
He thought of his grandfather's laugh. Of that big hand on his head. Of the way the old man had looked at the trees at sunset, the same way David had once looked at a championship trophy.
"I'm tired of winning matches and losing everything else," he said.
The decision settled into place, heavy and solid.
He stood and straightened, staring out over Stonebrook Acres with new eyes.
It was a mess. It was going to break his back, his patience, and probably his bank account. It was going to require more than just him and the six Poké Balls at his belt.
But it was his.
"Tomorrow," he said, to the stream, to the fields, to the empty sky. "Tomorrow we start."
His thumb brushed over the ridge of the Poké Ball in his hand. He stepped back from the water and turned toward the farmhouse.
The sun dipped lower, casting long shadows across the neglected fields and overgrown berry rows. In the distance, a flock of Staravia wheeled, turning as one over the hills.
David Ryder, once Champion of Sinnoh, walked back up toward the house he'd left behind.
For the first time in a long time, he was heading into a battle with no cheering crowd, no title on the line—just soil, silence, and the memory of a man who'd believed in him when he was just a kid with a Mudkip and a dream.
He found that he didn't mind.
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