Guess whose back?

Been a while since I've uploaded anything... let's see if I still have a good story in me.

Now for fans for the original HLH I have some bad news... As of now, I will be discontinuing the old story.

This isn't an easy decision, mind you. I've worked on it for long, it does hurt to start over again... but I honestly, I'm ashamed of much of my earlier work. Many of the characters aren't as developed as I wanted and I tried to please so many people, tried to cram so much into one story, the plot just kinda fell apart.

So as of now, I'm rebooting the series and trying again. This time, I'm going keep the focus on Mark and his friends and I'll not to deviate too much form them. I apologize for this, but I believe this reboot will be better than the old. Much of the old story is going to be here but with a few improvements. Hopefully I won't screw too badly this time.

Good news is I'm keeping the older story up for old times sake, however, I do plan for the new story to be different from the old. How different? Don't worry, most of your favorite characters will still be here. The plot will be noticeably different but a few ideas I used in the old will be included in the new.

Alright, enough talk! Let's reboot this story!

Chapter 00: Prologue

I often look at the city across the river and wonder what life was like before the war… before humanity's downfall. As a child, I often heard many stories of what life was like back when there was peace between our two races… before things got nasty.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I? The look on your face explains it all, you have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, do you?

Where to begin? Where to begin… I guess we could start out with how we first met them and how we always seemed to have been at war with each other. Hell, our first encounter with them was anything but pleasant. A long time ago, humanity came across a strange tribe of creatures that strongly resembled their Pokémon partners. These "poké-humans" were seen as barbaric beasts due to way they both looked and lived and were instantly hated by the humans.

At first, it was a very uneasy co-existence. Humans considered these "beasts" spawns of the devil; insulting, attacking and driving these so-called monsters from their towns. The creatures known as pokémorphs soon came to hate humans due to the way they were being treated, and would begin to attack and pillage small towns to get back at the humans.

You can guess what happened next. Humanity retaliated by wiping out entire morph villages and the morphs would respond by doing the same to their aggressors. The first full blown war between the two races erupted, causing humanity to band together for the first time in history to face their common foe.

The war between the two races dragged on for years, but exactly how long isn't known. Some people like to think it only lasted for a month, others believe it lasted for decades. Regardless of how long the war lasted, we all know who won: Humanity. While the ancient pokémorphs were much stronger and had power humans could only dream of having, they were seen as simple creatures back then and were divided into proud tribes that would sooner die than work together against a common foe. Humans had better technology and tactics and often used pokémon to do the fighting for them.

After the war, humanity "tamed" the pokémorphs, destroying what little identity they had left and turned them into slaves, forcing them to do all the work humans felt was beneath them and that included being cannon fodder. Hell, war between two human kingdoms broke out soon after the first pokémorph rebellion.

This started an interesting where humanity would start wars and the pokémorphs would fight and for the humans. Every conflict since then has been fought primarily by pokémorphs, from ancient wars to more modern conflicts, the morphs were nothing but living weapons for the humans to abuse. It's not like they had any say in the matter… back then, they were considered property.

It wasn't until rather recently that activists within the pokémorph community started to fight for their rights. These activists were generally opposed to violence, and instead fought with words and challenged the human laws they found unfair. It took a little over a hundred years for the morphs to be accepted by humanity and many activists lost their lives trying to change the human laws.

As you can guess, even with the laws in place and morphs freed, we all didn't live together in perfect harmony. Though, for a time, people actually we really could live in peace… but let's be real here, there will never be peace between our two species. There's simply too much hate between the races for that to happen. And that hate found an interesting host.

In 2010, a new religion started up called "The church of Giratina." As you can guess form the name, it was a cult group that worshiped the pokémon god of death. Giratina was said to have been banished by Arceus to another realm due to its violent behavior and destructive nature. It's been said that Giratina is ruler of the Distorted World, a vast, empty world where trapped souls are doomed to wonder forever.

Cult groups are never a good thing and this one was especially frightening. They were pokémorph equivalent to the Nazis of WWII, believing that Giratina's purpose was to wipeout humanity so that the pokémorphs could rule the world. They despised humans and would go to any lengths to insult and even injure innocent people simply because they were human or associated with humans.

Naturally, no one took these insane cultists seriously, they were lacking in numbers and brain cells so everyone ignored these morons for the most part… however that soon changed.

Three years after the religion foundation, a new leader took over the church and changed it from a typical group of mindless cultists into something more organized and more intelligent. When the church first started out, they had a handful of nutjobs running around New York City, usually insulting every human that passed by on the street and making fools of themselves. After the change in leadership, they quickly grew into an organization with around ten thousand members worldwide, not the kind of group that could be easily ignored anymore.

The reason for their group's sudden increase in membership? Their new leader. A mysterious figure that people still don't know much about, even to this day. They never gave this leader an official name, nor they ever give people a picture of what he/she looked like. They only referred to them as "Missingno."

Missingno was said to have been the person that started point out the "injustices" being done to morph-kind. They believed that morphs weren't really free, were still seen as second class citizens, and were still being treated as slaves. To back up their argument, Missingno pointed out the fact that most morphs lived in rather mediocre living conditions with little income while most humans lived in better homes and had a lot more money to burn than their pokémorph counterparts.

At first, the morphs of the world didn't believe, perhaps they wanted to think this person was wrong, or that they would move on to better jobs if they just kept working hard. However, that went down the drain when a group of morphs workers suddenly decided to go on strike. They demands were reasonable, they felt they weren't earning enough money, and simply asked for a raise in their wages. The factory's management, however, found a cheaper solution. Instead of negotiating with morphs that were on strike, the factories found it easier and less time consuming to simply replace the protesting staff with humans who were believed to have been paid more than their pokémorph counterparts.

This was the moment the church was waiting for. Using this injustice, the Church of Gira was able to convince more followers that humanity was forcing them back into slavery and they only cared about their own race and not the pokémorphs. With the help of their leader, the Church of Gira organized more than two hundred thousand strikes across the world, their purpose wasn't to make people happy, but to create anger and hate between the two races. They wanted to start a war.

It all just snowballed from there, humanity saw the morphs as a bunch of whiners who getting upset over issues humans considered trivial while the pokémorphs believed that humanity was still using their race to benefit themselves and had no interest in treating morphs as equals. Tensions between the two soon grew as people began to express their ideas through violence and hatred.

This drove the U.N. to make a unanimous decision in 2015, the removal and relocation of all pokémorphs in human cities. The morphs would be given their own cities far from human cites and would be left alone if they agreed to never set paw inside a human city ever again. Of course, these cities were to be routinely checked up on every now and again by mililtry officials who were afraid of a full-fledged rebellion.

Naturally, the morphs were furious with this plan. They firmly stood their ground against the humans and refused to abandon their homes. How the U.N. thought this was a good idea is beyond me. This only lead to more anger and riots. I guess at this point, they were just as eager to go to war as the Church of Gira was.

Ironically, around this time, another pokémorph spokesperson began to get popular, A raichu by the name Vanice Lighten. While he was against the obvious discrimination and hate the morphs were getting, he was also against the extreme measures the church and its followers were using and believed in a peaceful way to end this insanity. He and his followers were willing to work with humans to achieve their goals, something most people wouldn't never consider at this time.

You can probably guess that this guy wasn't too popular with a certain cult that was running rampant at the time, he did gain a sizable following of both pokémorphs and humans, moderates who wanted both sides to calm down and talk rather than fight.

Sadly, Lighten's group wasn't as popular as it could've been and more people favored violence over debating. The rioting grew worse as the two sides became grew angrier with each other. Both sides were just waiting to go to war with each other and neither side was going to listen to reason.

And what was the straw that broke the camarupt's back? On April 20th, 2017, there were two groups outside of Washington D.C., one side supporting the pokémorph relocation act, the other protesting it. You can guess who was for it and was against it. The two groups met at Pershing Park, near the Washington Monument. Tensions were high as the humans and morphs began using vulgar language against each other, they were all acting like animals in cells just waiting to tear each other apart. Lighten and his followers arrived much later they should've and attempted to get the groups to disperse and go home, they tried to keep the two species from starting an all out war… however that hope was lost when a gunshot rang out and Vance Lighten fell to the ground with a bullet wound in his back.

This single gunshot started and all out war between the two species, the two groups charged at each other and erupted into a bloody warzone. SWAT teams were dispatched a full hour later to attempt to restore order, but that left thousands of people, both human and morph, dead in the park. Among the dead was Vance Lighten and most of his followers.

When Lighten Died, so did any chances of peace between the two species. As the government stepped up their efforts to relocate the morphs, the Church of Giratina finally made their move and attacked the U.N. building, taking delegates hostage for almost a full day as cult declared war on humanity. That same day, entire cities were set ablaze by the revolting morphs, schools and parks were the sites of horrible firefights and even executions. It was chaos!

Humanity's response was just as harsh as their aggressors, soldiers were quick to shoot any morph they say, even if they didn't supported the Church and their insane beliefs, and drove all pokémorphs into hiding.

This drove the world into a long and grueling war that lasted for over a decade, humanity once more went up against their old foes, however this time the roles were reversed. Humanity, although had the better technology and man power, was still divided. They though fight in loose coalitions that kept each other at arm's length in term of trust and were ready to snap at each other at moment's notice.

Missingno. had planned on this and had left the war to six of cults smartest and cruelest followers. These Each officer was tasked with taking over a single continent by any means necessary. Using the distrust and hatred the humans had for each to their advantage, the officers tricked human nations into fighting each and when they were either tired or too busy to notice, the morphs would strike at their most vulnerable.

It took them the majority of the war to try and deceive their enemy, but it worked. By the end of the war, humanity was fighting themselves along with the pokémorph armies. It didn't take for the governments to exhaust their recourses and surrender. The newly established Gira Empire declared victory on January 14th 2027… same day I was born. History sure does love irony, doesn't it?

Now as you can probably guess, the Gira Empire had little respect for humanity after the war. Infact, they treat stray pokémon on the streets better they would treat a human child.

Humans are given very few luxuries and are shunned by pokémorph communities. Many humans live in the remains of their cities, living pathetic and worthless lives as they try to survive without any necessities. Most became bandits, raiding small towns and attacking trucks on highways to try and survive. Some of those bastards resort to doing business with the Empire, though it never seems to end well for the bandits.

Finally there are the slums and shanty towns that are usually located on the outskirts of morph cities. Basically these shanty towns were humans can beg morphs for food, water and clothing… for a price of course. These places are were your average morph goes to be bully and terrorize some poor human for kicks. At least, that's my own personal experience with these bastards…

It's worth mentioning that there are rumors of some human countries that survived the war and are still fighting the Gira Empire along with remnant forces of the old human armies. These rumors have existed since the end of war, though and I'm not sure how reliable they are seeing as they come from barely conscious drunks that live in the slums.

Now where does that leave me in all this? I'm one of a few hundred humans trying to survive in the ruins of New York City and one of a few dozen people who try and steal from the pokémorph communities. It isn't all that hard if you're smart and don't make too big a scene. Humans are not uncommon in certain parts of the city, but a lone human wondering the streets of New Morph City will draw a lot of unwanted attention. Much like a nerd trying to hang out with the cool kids, you'll get glares and if you make one wrong move, they will tear you apart.

My name is Mark Taylor and I'm just some punk teenager trying to survive the end of mankind. I live with my friends and little sister Marcia, the only real family I have left. This isn't an easy life and I sure as hell didn't ask for it… But I'll make the most out of it.

I hope you guys weren't too disappointed with the improved prologue. Sorry if it's a little longer than the old one... then again, I'm known for long chapters.

Shoutout to Skyfighter who has helped me once again.

So much to do, so little time. Here hoping I can update as quickly as I used to... no promises though.

...You guys think I should change the title too?

As Always: Love it, Hate it, Just Review it.

Gunner out.