Ferris is an amateur archeologist who lives near Twist Mountain. He had been searching in the mines of the mountain looking for ancient Pokémon fossils when he made a huge discovery. Until the day
Ferris found a Protoga fossil, there had been rumors that there were no fossils on Twist Mountain.
As a young boy, he and his friends, including
Sierra, often used to play together on Twist Mountain where they formed the Twist Mountain Detective Group and conducted missions together. They even entered an off-limits zone once, which caused them to get scolded pretty badly but
Ferris met a real Protoga after he fell through a space-time distortion and was sent back to the ancient world.
Ferris befriended a wild Protoga after he helped protect if from being injured by a flock of Archen. He gave it his pendant before returning back to the present world. The Protoga fossil he dug up ended up being that same Protoga that he befriended as it still had the pendant.
After Rocket Gang resurrected the Protoga from the fossil,
Ferris became friends with Protoga again and it wasn't until after it had evolved into an Abagoura that it recognized the adult
Ferris as the same person it befriended years earlier. With the help of
Ash Ketchum and his friends, Abagoura was returned to its own time with its friends and
Ferris was able to prove to
Sierra finally what he had said for years was actually true.