Pokemon Brick Bronze: A novel

Aredia City

Play stared around in wonder at the countless houses lined up and down the street. By now, he began his walk down the street. Many of the people he saw walking by had similar outfits to the ones he himself wore while battling the harsh conditions of route 11. A place he wanted to start on though, was of course the Aredia Gym. To be honest, Play had been going into most of these gyms blind, apart from sometimes checking with what type speciality they specialised in so he could prepare his Pokemon. This time around though, he'd gone a little further. Play had seen online that the Aredia gym was run by none other than Prince Ryan of the Roria region himself. Ryan obviously came off as the important type to Play, but wether his royalty converted into Pokemon Battling prowess, Play was yet to see.

"Excuse me." Play said, jolting his thought process to a random civilian walking down the street. "Do you know where I might find the Aredia gym?"

"It's just down the road." The civilian said. "Big, royal banners. You can't miss it." Using this information, Play did exactly that. And soon enough, he came across a large sigh to behold. With supports made of sandstone, high, metal doors so tall, they nearly blocked out the sun stood in front of him. Five, black clad, muscular guards stood in front of the doors, their arms crossed.

"Is this the Aredia Gym?" Play asked. 

"Yes." One of the guards said. "Unfortunately, The Prince is not accepting battles right now. He is dealing with a mishap in Old Aredia."

"Again." Play thought, thinking back to his endeavours with Sebastian, the Brimber Gym leader. Damn, that business had seemed a lifetime ago. After his sentence, the guard had pointed a finger in the direction, of Old Aredia.

"Thank you." Play said, walking in the direction of the guard's finger. It was a surprisingly short walk. Soon enough, the hustle and bustle, and brilliant sandstone had been replaced with a dirty wood texture, as the houses became less impressive. Several shady figures sporting tattoos and even knives stood on either side of the worryingly narrow street. A Mightyena even growled at Play from the dark. Hurrying quickly along, Play found a connection, like the one he'd first entered Aredia through, and strode through it. Seeing the smiling face of the woman working there had been whiplash after the danger he'd just walked through.

"Is this the way to Old Aredia." Play asked.

"You bet." The woman said with a smile. "Quite fascinating really. Legend says a brutal sandstorm destroyed the previous Aredia, before a new one was built." Just as Play was about to walk away, she spoke again.

"You wont' need a quilt for this journey however, the sand storms are much less frequent and powerful than what they used to be."

"Good to know." Play thought. As he left the other side, and stepped into the light, what he saw didn't look too far off from something out of a movie. Large, structures of sandstone lay, well, everywhere. Whatever this place had been, it had definitely been destroyed. Play was sort of marvelled by the place however, like the old pages of a distant myth had been re-opened, right in front of his eyes. Several tourists stood around where he was, looking, and whispering to each other about the immense architecture that had once been. But what caught his attention, was the large castle in front of him, standing high compared to everything else. Notably, it didn't look nearly as destroyed or even damaged as the other buildings that had collapsed, likely due to it's size, Play had figured. But where was the Prince? Play had figured that wherever he was going to find the royalty, it was inside the building in front of him.

Walking up to the castle, the doorway was of course open. As he passed under the giant hood of the castle, Play took a deep breath. Inside the castle was light. Lit lanterns were suspended on the wall, lighting the corridor in front of him.