July 3140
Lumiose City
I've often wondered where I went wrong.
More to the point, where I sacrificed my innocence to do deplorable things for the greater good. As I sit here and write, I consider the things I've done for the Kalos intelligence service. The people whos lives I've ruined because they were dissidents. The people who posed no harm but were considered threats because they held such radical views. I try to think. Was it when I fired my weapon for the first time? Or was it when I actually agreed to hurt someone to protect the peace.
I guess all of us have these worries. When we leave but under amicable terms, we are generally left alone. Some of us slip back into that world.
The truth is though, that we never leave that world. Not really. No matter who they are, they carry that weight of what they've done with them. Some seek odd jobs and just scrape by, some turn to organized crime, others just slip off the radar.
When I left, there was no going away, there was no tearful farewell. Nothing. The guys I worked with were young. Fresh into the Armed services. Bright, and ager to do what is right in their minds. When I signed off for the last time, then turned in my badge after being debriefed, I quietly walked out the door like it was the end of yet another day at work.
Then I moved as far away from Cyllage city as I could get.
While it would seem that Lumiose city would be the governmental center, the size and attractiveness actually works against our government. They prefer nondescript buildings, centers of forum where they can just work in peace. And low key buildings where people like us work. We quietly do our jobs, and nobody pays us any mind.
People like to think it's the Pokemon League that assists in running a socialistic democracy, but the fact is that it's really just large businesses. Traveling trainers bring revenue, to they have to be regulated. In order to keep trainers out and about though, free services need to be provided.
The chief company in these parts? A rival to the Famed Silph company which all but owns the Sinnoh, Johto, Hoenn, and Kanto regions. Here, the Fey-Tuttle group was the main showrunner. Those pokeballs? Built by F-T using patents leased from Silph. Your pokemon center? Built with F-T funding. All in the name of keeping business going. Kids on the road meant dollars in their pockets. Buying pokemon, using storage systems, using healing items. And so on. It was an economists wet dream.
And the country prospered as a result. It was really just opportunity. In the world of business, you would be more amazed if this opportunity wasn't seized upon. So, in the wrld of Kalos, life goes on and the kids hit the road.
Not me though. I've never owned a pokemon in my life. I've seen them all over the place, but I was from a poor family. That meant going to compulsory school and then enlisting in the armed services. Before enlisting, every to be soldier takes a battery of tests so that they can be placed in job fields that would best suit them. Now, I'm not any kind of researcher or anything, but I did well enough to test into the intelligence services.
Got a holocaster? I could listen in.
Use a computer for any purpose? That file you can't get rid of because it's allegedly important is my way of watching you.
Use a card to buy money? I can see where you are going as you make your purchases.
That was my primary job. However, I occasionally got picked for special jobs as well. It was primarily due to how quickly I took all that in and mastered it. When special assignments came up, I was the guy selected. I didn't much like them though. Orre is a terrible country and the people there are just the lowest of the low. I don't mean all of them, but that suicide bombing you occasionally hear about? It's probably from Orre.
Anyways, things were going good for me ya know? I just zip in, do my job, get out. Take some time off, maybe get rip roaring drunk with John at the bar, sleep off the headache for a few days, then go back into work like nothing ever happened.
This is where I'm supposed to say "Then one day it all changed" Or some other crap.
The truth is that over time I just got tired of the tedium. I was no longer being challenged. I had reached the Apex of my game but I did not want to move onto one of those cushy desk jobs that some people get. Breaking code was my life. Every time a new encryption came out, I could attack that baby and within 24 hours find the error correction pattern that gave away the decryption key. That was some damn good work too.
But the thing is, if you don't want to be a manager and deal with big wigs shouting orders all day, you stagnate. Breaking code, busting bits, tracking bad guys, dealing with satellite orbits and all that jazz gets to be kind of dull after a while.
When things get dull, well that's when trouble happens.
I began second guessing myself. I looked into the profiles of this one dude I tagged and bagged. Turns out he was just going about his business but was given a mark because some politician with a score to settle decided he needed to be Ace'd. Other guys... well they were just convienient kills because they owed the wrong people money or stood a chance against some politician or were about to present a bill that actually had a chance of passing and changing social order or some such. I remember this one guy. He was Ace'd and it turns out that he was dating this researcher dude.
Anyways, after a while, I began questioning myself. Then I realized what I had become. Here I was 24 years old. And I was having a crisis of conscience. So, I quit.
I got out, moved to the big city.
Now, here I am. Just some Joe with a small time gig taking on little jobs. Watching cheating wives, providing security services for the occasional movie starlet and her pokemon, pulling criminal records so some schmuck can blackmail him.
Whatever pays the bills really.
Truth is, until this last evening, I was kind of cool with my new life. I didn't have to kill anyone, I could actually take the time to figure out how to get some measure of morality back. Hell, I could even watch the game.
Like I said though, until this evening, living was good. This evening, some little Kirlia decided to follow me around after I pulled her out of the way of a taxi cab. Little country bumpkin pokemon didn't even understand what a car was. Now, she's on my couch, sleeping like the dead and probably without a care in the world. It kinda grates on your nerves ya know?
Whatever. This here's my story, and I just hope it's a damn good one for once.
Earlier that evening:
Regi Nets was sitting outside in the warm evening air. He had what looked like a music player in his hand and a set of earbuds in his ears. However, the sounds coming from the earphones were actually someones spoken words.
"Yeah man, 20K for the torchic. I tell ya, its stats are first class. Best breeder you know of." Came the voice of a younger kid as he tried to push a deal onto someone.
"You go 18K and I'll be listening" Came the other voice.
Suddenly, a soft beeping noise came from the headset. It was the Automated link establishment of the mans holovideo system telling the other persons holovideo that they are changing frequencies as one of them is apparently moving out of one towers reception.
The man listening in scowled as he quickly hit a small button. The device he was using then shifted to the frequency listed just as the negotiations continued. With a smile, the man continued listening in as this negotiation seemed to draw to a close. Dates and times were set up for the hand off of the goods.
Then, with the clicking of one end, the lines went dead.
The man quickly pressed a smaller button near where his hand rested. The LCD screen flashed "File 1 saved" before the screen went black. Regi looked at the recorder, then smirked as he pocketed it. Sitting outside of an illegal dealers current crash pad turned out to be the easiest data collection he had done in a while. Stood up, then casually made to walk away.
He had been assigned a simple task by some high paying client: Someone scammed him and he wanted to get details. How and why weren't discussed. Rather, an envelope slid across his desk at his little run down office, and hands were shaken. That's how Regi operated. No paper contracts, nothing but hard cash. This little bit of data gathering was netting him 6K. Good money in these parts.
His thoughts drifted to more serene memories. Thoughts of mountains and clouds. Thoughts of being in the craters of volcanoes and at the shores of the ocean. Places he had visited in his past fortified his spirits during quiet brooding times such as these. His eyes turned upwards then examined the feeble light of the stars. They were all but drowned out by the brilliance of the city lights. In the center, the sky glowed white from the prism tower. Some strange landmark built to commemorate this cities discovery of electricity about an eternity ago or whatever.
As he walked along the roads, his attention was elsewhere. Bills needed paying, jobs needed doing, and the call of nature needed answering. However, due to keeping a low profile in life, Regi managed to ignore the latter one.
Flashing to the right caught his attention. It was reflected light being shone off of something that was smooth. He cocked an eyebrow, then allowed himself to look over to see what the heck caused it.
As he did so, he realized the light was being reflected off of the twin horns of a little Kirlia who was standing nearly in the center of the road. It's signature weird green hair and outlandish looking dress gave it away. It was staring, open-mouthed, at the skyline. It had a small bag on its back, which meant that someone raised it good and proper like. Since it seemed to be in his path, he continued to watch as it looked blankly around.
Not even paying attention to the road and the taxi cab as it came rushing out of an alley way.
As he approached it, he realized the Kirlia was completely ignorant of the taxi cab that was now barreling down on its location.
The blaring of horns was enough for Regi to suddenly lash out, then grab the Kirlias tiny hand. A quick jerk of his arm pulled the tiny thing to safety. The Taxi cab passed on by, off to drop off someone at a cafe or hotel no doubt, and life continued.
Regi looked down at the Kirlia who had grasped onto him as he pulled it out of the way, then pushed his arms out so that it was standing well away from him. It looked frightened. It's cerulean eyes were misty as if it were about to cry at any moment. It's somewhat peach colored white skin was splotched red around its cheeks as it fought back tears. Its feet all but shook violently the entire time.
By all means, this was the sign of something unaware until just now about how close it came to death. Country folks.. He thought, always letting their pokemon go without knowing a thing.
"That was dangerous kid. You can't just walk out in the middle of the road. Next time there might not be someone there to grab ya in time." He chastised.
Then, he simply let her go, then checked her over one last time.
"Alright, you're good kid. Be careful out there." He said as he began to walk away.
The slightest feeling of something tugging on his shirt made him sigh. The tiny thing had latched onto him as he tried to take his leave. With a sigh, he turned around once more to look at the Kirlia.
"What?" he asked simply.
It looked at him with wide eyes, then tilted its head before it actually spoke.
"Thank you for saving me."
It took him a moment to register what happened. A pokemon talked to him. Rather, it spoke eloquently and seemed fluent in basic. With a puzzled look, Regi looked the little thing over again, then offered a grin.
"That's a neat trick you got there kid, it's a dime in a dozen when a pokemon can talk. You be careful now, I'd hate to read about you in the obituary section." he said, then rested his hand on its tiny head.
He gave it an affectionate pat, then proceeded to walk away once more.
Regi made it a block before he fully realized that he was being followed.
The problem with the guys who used to live the intelligence life is that they are a paranoid bunch. He heard the faint footsteps of someone directly behind him, then ever so casually made to cross the street. After checking for traffic, he casually walked across the street then into a little drug store.
The bell dinged as he walked in then made to investigate some magazines. However, as he walked over to the stand, he heard the same footsteps accompanying the dinging of the bell. He casually picked up a magazine, then pretended to examine it before he casually glanced to his right.
In confusion, he realized that there was nobody there despite the sounds of footsteps.
He then glanced down.
The little Kirlia from earlier was standing there at his feet giving him some kinda weird innocent look.
"Yes?" He simply asked.
"What are you doing?" it asked him.
"Reading a magazine. What are you doing?" he replied gruffly.
"Well..." It started then looked away.
With an annoyed expression, he put the magazine down, then knelt down to look in its wide eyes.
"You lost or something kid?" he asked in a somewhat more kindly voice.
The Kirlia shook its head to indicate a no, then smiled "I would be lost if I was trying to actually find something! I'm just walking around and decided to try and thank you properly for helping me out!" It said.
"...Where the heck are your parents kid?" He asked in a worried tone.
"My te ze es and bhe live near Santalune city!" It chirped.
"Gesundheit" He replied dryly.
"Ah! No no no that's not right! My te ze is near santalune city! It's where my Ses and Bhe live!" it repeated.
"Huh. Santalune city... Got it. The heck you doing here alone?" He asked.
"Seeing the city! It's a tradition!" It responded.
He looked at the things backpack, then at its bright and cheery expression. With a sigh, he stood up then nodded to the door.
"Get outta here kid. You want to go see the touristy sites like the prism tower in the center of the city. Heck I hear that the movie star Diantha is in town at one of the other Cafe's maybe she will show you her pokemon or something" It was clear by his tone of voice that he was getting tired of dealing with the child.
His thoughts turned to what she said. Te ze? Ses? Bhe? The heck was that? Some kind of Pokemon thing? He gave it a few moments of thought, then committed them to memory. He could probably look up the words on his computer later to see if they made any sense. His eyes flicked back to the Kirlia who showed no signs of moving. Instead, it obstinantly stayed put in front of him.
"I said Git" he repeated.
"Why?" it suddenly asked.
Dread filled him as it asked that. He's seen too many shows about kids to know where this was going.
"Because I want to go home alone and before you ask why it's because I like it that way because I'm a bad man because I like money because I can get things with money and I like things because they make me happy because I was emotionally damaged as a child or something who cares just go" He replied.
The Kirlia tilted its head, then laughed.
"You're funny mister. What's your name?"
Regi sighed then began walking over to the liquor counter. He selected some cheap rum before he answered.
"Names Regi kid. Regi Nets."
"Well my name is Aura sic Gingko. Daughter of Aria!" She said.
"Huh, that's... that's nice." He said dismissively as he then walked up to the counter.
The man behind the 1 inch thick glass looked at him with a bored expression then rang him up.
Regi threw some money into the slot, then took his change and receipt. Without bothering to look at the kid he knew would be following him, he grabbed his now needed booze, then began to depart.
Sure enough, the sound of tiny feet was heard again.
With a louder sigh, he finally stopped then turned to face the little Kirlia again.
"Seriously kid. I'm going home and I'm going to bed. I don't have time to play with kids tonight." He said.
"I know, I need a te ze to live in for a while anyways. Can I stay with you please? I don't want to sleep outside! It smells bad and there are guys arguing with trees in the parks." She said in an innocent manner.
"No, go get a hotel or something." He replied simply before he began to turn away.
*Sniffle*
"Oh for the love of-" He said before turning back to look at the Kirlia.
Her little face was twisted into a hurt expression. Tears readily flowed from her cerulean eyes. They rolled down her face then stained into the weird little dress she wore. Honestly, to him it looked like he had just told her santa doesn't exist, clefairy are actually space aliens and the easter lopunny isn't real.
"They aren't?!" She suddenly said.
His face drew up a blank as she said that.
"What aren't?" he suspiciously asked.
"T-the easter lopunny!" She suddenly exclaimed.
"Wait... Kirlia, ralts evolution, psychic... ahh shit." Regi suddenly said before he hung his head.
The little kirlia seemed to pick up on his disappointment as she began crying harder. People passing on the streets stopped to look at the scene. A little Kirlia, innocent as can be, crying in front of a guy holding booze in one hand.
"Alright, fine you can come just stop-"
Her tears dried instantly up as she then held her arms out from her side with an excited look on her face. She giggled then ran towards him. In almost the blink of an eye, she had slammed into his chest and was hugging him in pure joy.
"-Crying..." Regi finished.
He looked longingly at the bottle of rum he bought, then at the little kirlia who seemed to be humming as she held onto him with an expression of joy. With a sigh, he made to stand up, but her grip seemed to be vice like as she wound up being lifted off the ground by him. With no other option, he used his free hand to support her as he began walking again.
"I never asked for this..." He simply muttered.
"Well then be thankful for the gift!" She chirped before falling back into her humming happiness.
In no time at all, they found themselves at his apartment building. After a walk up 4 flights of steps, a verbal assault from the creatian and hangurian neighbors, he finally got into his small apartment.
It was spartanly furnished. He had a couch, a simple flat screen television that rarely saw use, a desk along one wall that had an array of electronic equipment and a computer. And a central table. Scattered around the living room otherwise were a few palm trees and a bookshelf filled with books. In terms of size, it was simple really. One bedroom. one kitchen, a dining room, a living room. Bathroom and shower and tub. Simple, efficient, cheap.
He deposited her on the couch, then walked back to his bedroom.
A few moments later, he returned holding a pillow and some blankets.
"I don't know how you sleep, but here's the basics. The couch is yours but don't watch tv too loud. I tend to be a rather light sleeper." He said.
He walked over to his desk, then grabbed his laptop. Before he turned to his bedroom, a thought occurred to him, which caused him to turn back to face her.
"I got some fruit and some reheatable dinners in the kitchen. Do you like... need poke chow or...what?"
She surprised him by laughing. Her tiny voice sounded like tiny wind chimes.
"Beh kas... I eat fruits! But thank you for asking!" She tilted her head as a new thought seemed to come to her mind.
"Where are you going?"
He looked at the laptop in his hand. Then, with his free hand, he pawed the bottle to his pocket idily. A slight clink told him the recorder was still there.
"Just got a little work to do." He replied.
"Oh..." She said, looking at him for a moment before shaking her head.
"Good night kid."
"Good night Regi!"
With a bemused expression, he closed the door, then walked over to his bed. He flopped down onto it, then opened up his laptop. The first thing he did was bring up his tar browser, then established a secure connection to a proxied database set that was not normally accessible to someone outside of the know. It was essentially a network that existed beneath the major known network of computers. Where shady individuals dealt in black market goods, people like him were hired for less than legal work, and so on.
He opened up the secure mail client, then uploaded a copy of the file to a message.
He included a short summary with relevant time stamps, then sent the little electronic mail message on its way.
Work completed, he killed the secure connection, then brought up a normal browser client window. His hands quickly tapped in a search engine.
'Te ze' He typed in then hit enter.
The browser showed very few results. Mostly news about some incident at a university and how some professor got fired. That wasn't relevant. However, the scholar page did populate a single article:
"On the behavioral characteristics of the Ralts evolutionary line" By Rowan Ginkgo, Freedman, Krafft, Sycamore et al.
In curiosity, he clicked the article, then did a ctrl+F.
He typed in the three words, then found that, buried in jargon of evolutionary pathways, neural chemical processing and firing, was an entire section titled: "On social characteristics"
Curious, he began to read. In it, was an account of how a family group of Gardevoir organized themselves into a communal structure which resembles humanities own primitive tribes. The words te ze were associated with a description of the family unit. So Te Ze then meant family.
The words Beh and Ses seemed to have a few different descriptions. On one hand it seemed to be an expression of endearment between two paired up ones. However, the simple beh and ses seemed to be shorthand references to parents as well.
He grinned as he read this while he sipped on his rum. Some nerdy doctor wandered out into the wild and actually wrote about this? What? Did he live out there and write articles for the International geographic?
Something irked him though. It was in the way the little Kirlia introduced herself.
"Aura sic Gingko. Daughter of Aria"
Gingko... That is the guys name.
Regi contemplated that for a moment, then let it go. He shut his laptop, then took another swig from his rum bottle. Then he walked over to his shortwave radio, then powered it up. It was a Grandug sw300 Full scope radio. It picked up the AM and Fm stations, but it could also pick up weather frequencies and Full HF or shortwave radio. With adjustible settings, it could listen in to lower sideband, upper sideband, or full carrier wave. He twisted the dial until he found the KBC or Kanto broadcasting channel shortwave services, then proceeded to lay down in his simple twin sized bed as he listened to the lightly accented reporter talk about the latest league challenger, some boat accident near the sevii islands, and some power outage in cerulean.
As the announcer began talking about a recent round of violence in the Orre region, Regis eyes grew heavy. By the time she went on to talk about Silph companies profits plummeting and F-T group seeking a merger, he found himself passing out.
TBC.
A/N: Alright, this is something of a preview chapter. I got a touch of inspiration about how I wanted to begin approaching this today and since I had the time, decided to get an introduction chapter going. So the main characters for this will be Aura and Regi. Though, as the story gets going, Amelia will be making a return as will Freeman, Krafft, Aria, and Rowan. There is a tentative plan for a branching off story dealing with Rowan and Aria, but if that ever happens, it'll be a ways down. Right now this picks up 9 years after the end of the story. Obviously it deals with Rowan and Arias child. Why she is out and about will be elaborated on more. However, the basic synopsis goes that Regi is an investigator who helps out Aura, their child, when she nearly gets hit by a car. She's out seeing the world as per tradition, but did not feel inclined to immigrate much. She decides to stick around with him as he goes through his investigations. However, an incident occurs which sends the two on the run. The early chapters will be them centric, however, down the line, things go... a little crazy and quite a few returning characters will show up.
I wanted to get this preview up in hopes that you, the readers, will want to follow along the continuing adventures.
As I got the idea for a sequel, the notion of this being a multiple part meta story occurred to me. As I hammered out some details for the latter part of the first story, questions began to surface which led back to this story, but also branch off into 2 possible other stories that serve as kind of side tales, not yet fully ironed out, and at least 1 main sequel to this story.
I'm... not entirely sure where the telos is for this to be honest. What started out as just a little project I wanted to try seems to be spinning itself up into something I never thought I had in me. I have 7 chapters left of the prime story, and I will make sure that those ones get my main focus. Thank you for reading this introduction to the sequel. I hope that you all like a little noir. The first part draws heavily on Noir influences.