The world as we knew it vanished during the Four Cataclysms. First came the war; North Korea made good on its threats and launched a missile at the US. Global panic ensued, and when the smoke cleared, the best thing that could be said was that there would be no nuclear winter. The US and much of Asia were burning holes, and here and there nuclear strikes pockmarked the rest of the globe.
Just as the world was catching its breath, Earth itself hit back. In what would come to be called the Rift Cataclysm, battered tectonic plates worldwide came loose in a chain reaction of civilization-shattering earthquakes and the fault lines were opened to the sky.
The rifts proved to be the world's salvation, as the wounded Earth released waves of what could only be described as pure life force through its cracks. Animals and plants, and humans who strayed too near the rifts became…something else. Something powerful. As humanity came to understand the new 'pokémon,' they found the key to survival without a global industry. Pokémon made for more than pets; they were strong, helpful…and in the wrong hands, weapons.
Some saw the devastation as the judgement of God. Others said the Earth had simply had too much and was failing. A few saw pokémon as a sign that humanity had done enough damage - that our time was over. They banded together and took the name "Vengeant Earth," as well as the title of "Team" that has come to be synonymous with organized crime across modern history. Team Vengeant, as they quickly became known, embraced the power that was creating pokemon, establishing a base that straddled the point near the Black Sea where the African, Eurasian, and Arabian plates meet. From this powerful point they harvested the energy to build an Ultimate Weapon that would wipe out every human left in a burst of cleansing destruction.
Fortunately for us, they were thwarted, but not before the Middle East became another scar on the world. In the years that followed, pokémon and their energy brought new advances in science and medicine and it seemed like we might finally have a chance to put things back together.
Hubris.
Remnants of Team Vengeant attached artificially created pokémon, the ones called 'magnemite,' to an exploratory space mission that might have led to mining asteroids for resources. Once away from earth, the magnet pokémon hijacked the rocket and used it to nudge an asteroid onto a collision course with Earth as the world watched in horror.
In the months leading to the impact, the world organized more than it had in over a decade. Pokémon were the only hope left, and bases and groups worldwide coordinated to carefully generate a counter shockwave as the asteroid hit North America. An extinction-level event was prevented, but the destruction was again catastrophic. When the crater became safe to explore, we found that it contained pokémon stronger than any documented so far, which eventually gained the title "legendaries." As they awakened, many of the legendary pokemon spread out and began a rampage that strained civilization to the limit, further reshaping the landscape and cutting off global communications and what remained of trade. Eventually most of them went dormant or vanished.
That was almost fifteen years ago. We're still holding our breath and hoping we won't have a fifth Cataclysm to add to the list, but things are quiet. Now it's a matter of rebuilding. Governments still exist, more or less, but in reality they're a joke. The real power comes from pokémon. What are guns worth when they don't do more than annoy half the species around, and when a few people can carry an army in their pockets? No, government pales in comparison to the gangs, or "teams" as they like to call themselves, who roam the region and terrorize wherever they see something to take.
It's high time we took matters into our own hands.
This is the tale of the Sinnoh League.