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Chapter One: History Paves the Way
What is the future, present, and past? They are given individual names yet they seem all intertwined like a cycle, or better yet like webbing. They branch off into each other and yet always seem to end right back at where they started. This is too big of a question to be taken up by a mere mortal, so Etan decided to stop thinking about it right then and there.
This brings us to an interesting point. He was one of the lucky ones out of the many other families that he knew. You see after many, many years of people training Pokemon to fight other Pokemon they finally banned this gruesome and grotesque ritual. After all of the new laws were set in place and after more and more were added over the years it was very hard to even own a Pokemon as a pet. This is even if you treated them better than you treated one of your own family members! There was the Pokemon Habitat Act (PHA) which required a habitat for all Pokemon, Pokemon Habitual Cleanliness Act (PHCA) passed in 2078, the No Pokemon Starvation Act (NPSA) which is enforced to a point well above what the name suggests, and the Pokemon Health Regulation Act (PHRA) passed in 2091. Then it moved on to the more recent ones like, the Pokemon Mentality Stimulation Act (PMSA) which required you to basically get schooling for any Pokemon that you were responsible for and the Pokemon Relaxation Act (PRA) passed in 2110 that prohibited the use of Pokemon for labor and also required the people responsible for Pokemon to make sure that they got the relaxation that they needed. Then it goes all the way up to the most recent one which is the Pokemon Owner’s Income Responsibility (POIR) set in this present year of 2121 which requires a very high minimum income for any owner of a Pokemon.
The most recent law sent many Pokemon to the preservation reserves because most people weren’t able to obtain the minimum income that was needed to own a Pokemon. However, Etan’s dad worked at one of the preservation reserves (Pokemon Paradise Inc.) and was able to obtain a Pokemon illegally, and was able to take food supplies and other Pokemon utilities away from the preservation when he needed them. Although this was illegal, almost everyone who worked at a preservation had at least one Pokemon, which had to be small and pretty quite or else would easily be noticed. All of the people who worked at the preservation kept this “benefit” as a secret from ordinary people. Sure, every once in a while some one slipped up and said something about the Pokemon that they stole. However, the ordinary people just thought that these were isolated incidents and thought that a mass conspiracy was just a ridiculous rumor that had gone around. I mean how could respectable Pokemon rangers ever set up an illegal conspiracy that was that huge? After all being a Pokemon ranger was a very hard thing to achieve and only the most respected people could achieve such a position.
As for Etan’s mother, she was a scientist who worked at Lightning Speed Inc. Lightning Speed Inc. was a giant business that greatly dominated the technological field of that time. Etan’s mother actually was the best scientist that was working for this company, but unfortunately never received the recognition that she deserved. She was well underpaid for what she contributed to the company but never complained about this fact. She had actually invented most of the products that made Lightning Speed Inc. the dominating business in the technological field that it was. This included, the CPU Storage Unit which allowed material to be electronically stored and then recreated from this device, the Hover Module which was a device that could be placed onto objects to actually allow them to hover using an efficient amount of power, and the Teleportation for Transportation unit which would completely eliminate the use of any vehicle but was still in the developmental stage. Giovanni, a mysterious figure that appeared out of no where one day, was her boss. He used every ounce of his power to make sure that Etan’s mother didn’t receive the credit that she deserved and made sure every one thought that he was behind these great inventions.
Because Etan’s mother’s inventions were constantly stolen by Giovanni she had a few projects that she didn’t want him to get a hold of at home. These ended up being influenced by her husband’s own job and her own love for Pokemon. She had currently developed a storage unit that could be used on Pokemon that acted kind of like a giant Pokeball that could store up to a maximum capacity of 256 Pokemon and could catch them as long as they were weak enough to not resist. She also made an attachment for this device that could heal Pokemon as long as they were in the storage unit for a minimum amount of time of one hour. She called these devices Poke-Home and the attachment Reborn. Out of all the projects that she worked on she had one that was the most important to her. It was called the Cycle and was a device that was incomplete but when finished would allow time travel. It was incomplete because the parts that she needed were extremely rare and expensive, located in the famous city called Ogackich. Also, there was one other really big problem. The amount of energy it would take to activate it was almost unfathomable. This one project was extremely special to her for one particular reason. You see, she wished to time travel back in time one day to be able to see all the different types of Pokemon that there once was and to see what Pokemon battles were really like.
Although it was illegal, considered gruesome and grotesque, and was advertised as a very immoral thing, Etan’s family had a different view on Pokemon battles. Of course they would never take part in it themselves, unlike some people, but they did wonder about how bad it actually was. They were all more educated about Pokemon than most people because of Etan’s dad’s hands on experience with Pokemon each day, plus his training that he took to get his job, and also because of much research that Etan’s mother put in towards Pokemon because of her own love for them. There were groups out there that did try to break the law in order to have gambling sessions using Pokemon by placing bets on stolen Pokemon in battles. These were large groups. The main ones included the Rockets, the Magmas, the Aquas, and the Star. The Pokemon that they got a hold of were almost always maltreated and malnourished. This was because each group always betted towards their own Pokemon so stopped at nothing to win during these gambling sessions. This usually meant that at least one Pokemon could even end up being dead at the end of a session. These groups were constantly trying to get a hold of more Pokemon because they didn’t even bother to take proper care of the Pokemon that they had already stolen. This was because to them it was just an unnecessary way to waste money. I mean why would you want to even bother taking care of the weak Pokemon by wasting money when you could simply steal another Pokemon that was stronger for free? This kind of a Pokemon battle was definitely not what Etan’s family wondered about.
They could easily see that this kind of a Pokemon battle was definitely not beneficial towards any Pokemon but wondered about a different kind of a Pokemon battle. They wondered about the Pokemon battles that happened naturally and the Pokemon battles that people would stage before the laws were in place that seemed to recreate the feeling of natural battle but also had an additional and unique feature. They believed based on the many Pokemon battles Etan’s dad had to break up on the preserve and based on what Etan’s mother had read in many books that Pokemon battles happened naturally for a reason. They believed by battling that this was a natural way that Pokemon could stay fit and could prepare themselves to be able to face predators. However, the exercise that the law required Pokemon to get and the law that required a safe habitat for Pokemon could easily provide this. They hypothesized, however, that the law couldn’t provide the mental and spiritual preparation for evolution and the growing process that natural Pokemon battles could. They believed that the Pokemon battles people used to stage in the many years before also provided this but also provided an extra additional and unique feature. They hypothesized that this feature allowed the growing process to increase in speed sometimes at a very incredible rate. This was mainly based on Enat’s mother’s findings. They believed this feature was a bond. It was a bond between the Pokemon and the Pokemon’s trainer. They also noticed that during the many years before 2121 that Pokemon abuse seemed to be substantially less. They believed this might have been because the Pokemon battles that were held would have forged bonds between many trainers and their Pokemon causing trainers to have a greater respect for all Pokemon.
They wished to see these kinds of battles one day, but for now all that there was to offer were those awful, grotesque, and gruesome battles that the four major groups had to offer. Although these groups were all against each other Team Aqua’s main competitor was Team Magma, and Team Rocket’s main competitor was Team Star. Team Aqua and Team Magma were not near as big and as wide spread as Team Star and Team Rocket. They however were located mainly around the area surrounding Yendis because of a few major low security preserves including Pokemon Paradise Inc. that were located in this area. Team Rocket and Team Star however weren’t heavily located around Yendis because they felt that Team Magma and Team Aqua were no real threat, so decided to occupy more valuable territories that they both were constantly fighting over. These groups were constantly fighting each other, not only during the gambling sessions, but also even in public right out in the open on the streets. They sometimes fought using Pokemon but also used weapons because powerful Pokemon were hard to come by because of the Battle Plague that occurred in 2036.
All of these groups had some sort of history and didn’t just pop up randomly. Team Rocket has the longest history. Well, actually it was one of the first serious and powerful groups that wanted to use Pokemon powers to help it succeed through crime, but in the year 1998 its infrastructure was crippled by a young hero from the Kanto region named Ash Ketchum. The leader of this group soon mysteriously vanished but four years later in 2002 Team Rocket started to reform once again. This time another hero appeared from the crowds. They came from the Johto region but very little was known about them. No one exactly knows what their name was or even what sex they were. All that is known is that they were able to completely get rid of what was left of Team Rocket with the help of a legendary Pokemon trainer named Lance and that they possibly even challenged and beat the famous Ash Ketchum them-self. However, they reappeared out of nowhere in 2115 and have grown to be one of the most powerful crime groups.
Team Magma and Team Aqua have very similar histories. They appeared around 2006 in the Hoenn region and were mortal enemies right away. You see team Magma dreamt of a world that had no Oceans but only had land. On the other hand Team Aqua dreamt of a world where Oceans prevailed over the land. This sent both of them seeking after two different Orbs that had the power of awaking two different and dormant legendary Pokemon. Team Aqua was after the Blue Orb to awake the mighty Kyogre that had the power to cause the world to flood. On the other hand, Team Magma was after the Red Orb to awake the mighty Groudon who had the power to create more land. They both managed to awake the Pokemon that they were after, but to their surprise these very powerful Pokemon were not at their control. Yet, another hero had mysteriously appeared and as little is known about this hero as is known for the Johto hero. Who ever this mysterious person was, they somehow managed to calm both Kyogre and Groudon down while they managed to break up both Team Aqua and Team Magma. However, Team Magma and Team Aqua were not broken up for good and they kept on reappearing and disappearing off and on. Until recently they haven’t been able to gain back any of their stability, but now they are both fairly powerful and they still have their long-lived grudge against each other.
Team Star is a mysterious group that arose around 2060 right around when laws were being set to protect the Pokemon and also when preservations were beginning to be constructed for Pokemon that had been confiscated from Pokemon trainers who didn’t obey the law. They’ve steadily grown as the increase of abandoned and confiscated Pokemon have. It is unknown to almost all people but this was actually a government-funded organization. In order to pay for and make a profit off of the preservations they’ve set up, they have set high taxes for people, made the preservations into zoos, and sold Pokemon that they’ve received from confiscation and abandonment. This alone would be enough to pay for the care of the Pokemon and maybe even a little bit more than enough, but the government wanted more power so took whichever Pokemon they’ve wanted and used it in their own crime group, which is Team Star. They have taken extra care so that this group would never be connected to themselves and have even arrested their own members to show that Team Star wasn’t excluded in the capture of at least some of its own members. After they obtain Pokemon from their preservations they use them to battle in the gambling sessions, wars against other groups, and other miscellaneous crimes. As the Pokemon disappear because of Pokemon being taken by them, secretly stolen Pokemon, and Pokemon being stolen by other groups the government tries to come up with another law to try to increase the amount of abandoned and confiscated Pokemon that they receive. This group mainly tries to compete with Team Rocket, because Team Rocket is the other most powerful group meaning that it has the most to offer Team Star and also is the biggest threat to it as well.
Etan’s family doesn’t really worry about these groups too often. I mean, of course you might have your occasional break-in in the Lightning Speed Inc. or the occasional stolen Pokemon from the Pokemon Paradise but these were just things that happened every once in a while, and no one really worried about it too much. In fact these things would always come second to enjoying each other. Etan’s mom’s name was Arial and his father was called Mick. Arial had red hair and hazel eyes with kind of pale skin. She was always busy with one project or another but could always include Etan in what ever she was doing if he wanted that. Mick had black hair and dark brown eyes. He almost always was tan because he was out working in the sun all of the time at Pokemon Paradise. In general he was a little bit more relaxed than his wife and always enjoyed teaching Etan a little bit each day about general things that he had accumulated in knowledge over the years. Etan himself had more of his father’s appearance than Arial’s. He had very dark brown hair and also had brown eyes. His skin was not near as pale as his mother’s and at the same time wasn’t near as tan as his father’s. As for age, Etan had lived a total of 15 years. His mom was 37 and his dad was 41.
Etan’s family had a close to uneventful daily routine. Etan would wake up and get ready for school. Then he would walk to the bus stop a couple blocks away from his house and would take the school bus to his school, which was in another small town called Onolot. He did very well in school but he personally didn’t enjoy it at all. As soon as he got there he basically just waited for it to end. While he did this Arial and Mick got ready to go to work. They both had to travel a half an hour away to get to Niapach which contained there jobs and was a city that had many opportunities because its university attracted many people to it. They took separate cars just in case one of them really needed one at the moment and couldn’t wait for the other to pick them up. Arial loved her job but hated working for Lightning Speed Inc. because of the very low wages that they offered her for all of the work that she contributed that yielded great results. She had even been working there for the six years that they had been in business and had contributed a great deal but had only gotten one very small raise. She tried not to let this bug her and in fact didn’t even complain because she was already perfectly content with her life, so didn’t feel the need to ask for more. Mick also enjoyed his job because it seemed to be unpredictable to him. One day you might have to break up a Pokemon battle, the other day you might have to find a run away Pokemon, and the next you might have to get the Pokemon ready to be taken away to another preservation (Team Star). He just did what he was told to do and then the day would seem to go by really fast to him.
After school Etan took the school bus back home where he would meet his mom who would always be back before him. She seemed to always be working on another project each time he saw her. Mick usually showed up a little later because he didn’t have a set time that he was scheduled to get off of work. They might ask him to finish up just one more project before he left or sometimes might tell him that he could leave a little earlier than he normally did because they didn’t have anything left for him to do, but this would rarely happen. Arial would be busy with her projects and with some regular household chores when she got home. Mick would at first just sit back and relax but then eventually would also help with the chores and finish any paper work that Pokemon Paradise may have sent with him. After Etan’s homework and a couple of his own chores he could basically do what ever he felt like. There weren’t very many things to do in Yendis but he always found something. He always played with Spearow for at least a little bit, was on the computer checking things out, played some basketball outside, or sometimes found a friend in town that he could do something with. Then it was dinnertime and they all would share any thing that they could possibly think about that happened to themselves that day and would ask as many questions as they could possibly think of. This was almost always how it had been day in and day out for him and his family for his entire life. This was good to Etan but at the same time lacked something that he felt was calling to him, which just might have been a sense of meaning mixed in with a little unpredictability.
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