ANNOUNCEMENT FROM IPT:
POKÉMON TRAINING HAS BEEN DEEMED ILLEGAL
ANYONE CAUGHT TRAINING POKÉMON WILL BE FINED AND JAILED
AND HAVE THEIR POKÉMON TAKEN FROM THEM
On the order of MATTHEW GALLAGHER, CEO of IPT
No one knew exactly how it had happened. Three years ago, IPT ([b]I[/b]llegalize [b]P[/b]okémon [b]T[/b]raining) was seen as nothing more than something to laugh at. Pokémon training had been the tradition for generations, and the region was very stuck in tradition.
Eventually, though, things changed. It wasn't a change in the way training had worked, but a change in the way people reacted to trainers. Suddenly, the occasional death of a trainer or the death of a Pokémon wasn't just 'the way things worked' – it was horrific and terrible. "How could this have been going on for so long?" people would ask, concerned parents and guardians of the would-be trainers, older trainers ("In my day, training was nothing like this! It was safe! Why, you couldn't wander five feet without finding someone willing to help you…"), and those who had never liked the practice of training, for whatever reasons.
Their first measure had been to raise the training age up to 13 – surely teenagers would have a bit more common sense than unruly pre-teens. When a child had died thanks to Beedrills, they changed it to 15. And by 15, most teenagers' interest in Pokémon had waned, replaced by other things – video games and social lives. Why would they want to leave their lives behind just to go trekking in the wilderness, living in harsh and unforgiving terrain, with no humans for company?
It came as no surprise when the first gym closed down. Since there weren't any trainers starting it, it was judged superfluous and removed from the circuit. The later gyms fared better for a time – people already trainers who needed the later badges would come and challenge them. But eventually they would receive all the badges they needed as well, and thus even the last few gyms were closed.
The Elite Four and Champion, the former gym leaders, and those in training over five years were given permission to keep their Pokémon as fighters – every so often a wild Pokémon, a Gyarados or a Rhydon, would go rogue, and they would need to be called in.
The rest of the trainers were forced to retire, settle down wherever they like. They could even keep their Pokémon as pets if they liked, but many had no space for some of their larger Pokémon and they were released into the wild.
When IPT made their announcement, no one made a move to stop them, because training had become obsolete. There were still some radicals who started 'training' – a bastardization of the original, made up of the remnants of the original league and trainer sympathizers. They remain underground.
This story begins with a fresh start.
