It was Jane's thirteenth birthday. She leafed through her copy of Encyclopedia Bulbapedia one last time before putting in her bag. She was finally ready to begin her very own Pokémon journey. She had wanted to become a trainer as soon as she turned ten, but her mother didn't want her to leave home when she was that young. It always seemed like she didn't trust Jane very much. She had been fascinated with dark type Pokémon for as long as she could remember, but her mother didn't approve of that. In fact, she was always trying to convince her that dark types were dangerous and she should never go near them. They lived in a small town on Cinnabar Island in the Kanto Region. Many years ago, there was a volcanic eruption that almost destroyed the entire town, but luckily, every person on the island was evacuated in time. However, legend has it that one man saw an Absol, the harbinger of death and destruction, beckoning at him just before the eruption. Once the townspeople went back to the island to try and rebuild, they found that the Absol was the only Pokémon left on the island that had survived. Overcome with fear, the townspeople decided to kill it. Ever since then, dark types were seen as a death omen, and were to be avoided at all costs. But Jane didn't believe that. After all, she had met one herself and lived to tell the tale.