"Who are you and why are you here?" One of the kids exclaimed.

I didn't respond, instead I let out an incredulous laugh, just one quick exhalation. The situation seemed too absurd not to laugh at, at least for me. It was already pretty dark out and I couldn't see their faces, just their alert eyes full of youth. I wasn't even sure which one of the four or five kids surrounding me had spoken.

"We asked you a question, answer!" one of them said, maybe the same one as before. And then the tepig suddenly to my right grunted angrily, showcasing all of its teeth.

"Take it easy kid," I said. "Does your mom know you're out this late?"

They didn't like that, one of them hit me on the elbow with a stick. It was either that, or the bulbasaur suddenly to my left using vine whip. Regardless, it hurt a lot, albeit only superficially.

"Hey! Show me some respect! I'm your elder."

They didn't like that either, got me again, on my forearm.

"Ah! What's the point of getting older if nothing's going to change for me?"

"Why are you asking us? We don't care! You're the old one. Now answer the question. Who are you and why are you here?"

"I'm Ash Ketchum, I'm from Pallet Town, and I need a place to hide from the cops, just for a bit."

"Why, what did you do? Are you an ally for the cause?"

"The cause, what cause? You're kids, you all have a cause now? What are you doing taking the park away from the hobos? They need a place to sleep too."

"Shut up. Let me think."

"Think about what?" I said, rather insolently. "You don't have to think about anything, you're kids, seriously. When I was your age I wasn't this violent."

"I told you to shut up. Obey or I'm hitting you again."

"Hold on, he just asked us about the cause. If we're moving forward with it, and we are, then we need a name for it," said another one.

"Also, Jerry, you're being too aggressive. It's not the message that we're trying to convey, or at least not in this particular way," said yet another one.

"You just told him my name idiot! What are you doing?" Said, I assume, Jerry.

"That's besides the point. You should remember what Todd K said."

"Who's Ted K?" I opened my mouth again. Immediately afterwards I received another vine whip to the face. It was superficial pain, just like with the previous hits, but that last one seemed like enough for me, at least for that day. And yet, "I told you my name," I whispered, quasi-defiantly. And then I covered my face with my hands, expecting another hit, which didn't reach my skin that time.

"Shut up, Ash!"

"Also, it's Todd K, not Ted K. And Todd K doesn't hide, and neither do any of us."

"Oh yeah? Then why don't you tell him your name, Chenford?" One of them challenged another one.

"It seems you already did, Jerry," said, I assume, Chenford.

"Alright, that's enough from the two of you, let's be smart."

"You're right Brevin, I'm sorry."

"Wait! Don't tell him my name!" said, I assume, Brevin.

"No, it's okay Brevin, as Chenford said, Todd K doesn't hide, in fact it would defeat the purpose of what we're doing entirely."

"Guys, please don't hit me again," I said, from the ground. "But, who's Ted K? I mean, Todd K, sorry."

"Don't worry, you'll find out soon enough, no, right now actually."

Right after he said that the three of them grabbed my arms and started dragging me across the dirt. I was able to feel sharp rocks as well as blunt ones, varied shrubbery and soft ground, warm and tender, on my back. Also, they were pulling my arms rather hard. The kids had a lot of strength, I have to admit, and they moved very quickly.

They had already dragged me for a good distance before I could protest. But I did it.

"Hey, I can walk! And you're ruining my jacket, which I just got by the way."

"Uh-uh, no way Ash. If we let you go you'll run away or call your pokemon out."

"I don't have any pokemon with me."

"Ha! Of course, we believe you. Not! Not only would that be a very stupid thing to do, walk around with no pokemon at this hour, but also, how could we even be sure you're telling the truth?"

"You can check if you want."

"No way, I'm not touching you. What if a needle in you prickles me or something?"

"Why would I have a needle? Why does everybody distrust me so much?"

"Well you are wanted by the cops."

"Shut up Chenford."

"I'm Brevin."

"Whatever," I said. And then I pulled my arms towards me, in an attempt to get them off of me. I had to swing them a few times actually, rather forcefully, but I managed to release myself from the kids, and then I stood up.

"I can walk," I then said, and then defended myself from another vine whip with my shoulder and elbow. "Where am I going to run? It's the middle of the night! Besides, You got me very curious and now I want to meet this Ted, I mean Todd K you're talking about."

"Okay fine," one of them said.

"Which one are you?"

"It's Brevin again."

"Right. Thank you Brevin. Thank you for having the decency to let me stand up and walk, like a person. Now, where's Todd K?"

"It's not a big deal, he's just a guy," Brevin continued. "I mean, he's a very smart guy, and has a lot of initiative, firm beliefs, and the willpower to carry them out, and he also has a great, revolutionary idea that's going to change everything. But he's just a guy. I mean, on the past, people who were considered just regular guys had pretty good ideas that changed lives, perhaps the future itself, during their time, but they were otherwise just regular guys."

The kids continued talking as we walked through the park, and they told one another to shut up a couple of times as they discussed Todd K, whom I was dying to meet by then. That's sort of a problem for me actually, and I don't know if it's better or worse now that I've been able to identify it as a problem. Once I get a thought stuck at the forefront of my brain, I simply cannot think of anything else, and I know that's pretty normal, and I'm not saying it's different with me, but, here's the thing, it's almost painful, every time I cannot let a thought go without seeing it arrive at a satisfying conclusion. Anyway, in the middle of the park, among all of the smaller tents there was a bigger one, taller and wider than the rest of them. It was like a settlement, however all of the tents were dispersed among a very wide area, so all of them were placed rather far from each other. And there were in fact some hobos around, so it was nice to know that they hadn't kicked them out of the park. I had visited hobo camps before, and this park on the more decrepit side of west Castelia was basically the perfect location for one, among all of the factories and the run-down suburbs near the shore. So me and the kids went into the bigger tent, which was lit by a torch placed upon a wooden stick, buried right on the middle of the, of the room, I guess. Inside there was a lean man, who was sort of dressed like a hobo, but it was more in style than anything else. Because he was wearing black finger-less gloves, old looking but otherwise unspoiled, worn-out black boots of good quality, and a loose denim shirt with a big blue scarf underneath it, a combination stereotypical of a pragmatic hobo during the winter. Furthermore, because I've already started describing this guy, whom I thought, when I saw him sitting on a small log inside the tent, was presumably Ted, I mean Todd K—and I was right—I just feel like I need to finish describing his outfit. He was wearing brown pants, kind of old looking too, added to what I've already mentioned, but other than that he wasn't wearing anything else. He was eating some seeds which he kept on the palm of his hand, very meticulously. When we got relatively near him he turned to us, and stared at me with his blank black eyes, which were somehow just as penetrating as the eyes of any woman I'd ever clashed eyes with before, even Lorelei's. His eyes were very disarming, and the feeling I got from staring at them stayed with me for some time afterwards. Anyway, he had an abundant beard, not that long but certainly not short, which was gray in the middle, brown on the sides. And his hair was also starting to go gray.

"This is Ash Ketchum from Pallet Town," said, I think, Jerry.

"Pallet Town, where is that?" Todd K asked.

"On Kanto," I replied, rather casually. I don't know why, but I sort of liked the vibe that the place gave off, sort of rustic, and wild.

"I have been to Kanto once. Is Celadon still as green as I remember?"

"Green?" I asked, kind of confused. "I don't know about green. There's a casino there."

"A casino?"

"Yes, it's been there for quite a long time. Since before I was born actually. How old are you?"

"I told you. I told you, didn't I? They are never going to stop. The longer we wait to take them down, the more painful and disastrous the repercussions will be."

Todd K ignored my question, and by the time he had finished talking I wanted to ask him something else entirely. I went for it, seeing as no one was beating me with a stick, or with a whip.

"Who do you want to take down?"

"We'll get to that," he replied, "but first, what do you want with us?"

"I need a place to hide for a little bit."

"Hide from what?"

"The cops," Jerry answered for me.

"Why?"

"I'm not entirely sure."

"Yeah right."

"I promise. I broke a window, from a pokemon center actually. Before that I had a fight with a friend of mine inside it. Also, there was some stuff going on in a hotel I was staying, and I went to the police but they didn't care, so it might be that. That they didn't want me to snitch I mean. I did some stuff with a girl on top of a fire escape, but at least I knew her, and it wasn't like a lot of stuff I mean it was a fire escape. I also stole some candy bars, although I got beat up for it, and I'd gotten beat up a few times before that, and also after. I sneaked into a nightclub and danced with a girl, I guess she was a woman. Her name's Ashley. And, and…"

"Why did you break a window at the pokemon center?" Chenford asked, very enthusiastically. All of the sudden everyone but Todd K seemed very happy. He, for his part, seemed to be taking my words with more caution, although I could tell he was sort of interested in what I was saying.

"I, I was angry," I said.

"He's one of us," Brevin said. He basically shouted it.

"Who told you to do that?" Todd K asked me.

"Me? Something deep inside me I guess."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I don't know, I just had to do it."

"Son of a biscuit, he's one of us," Jerry said.

"What do you mean by that? I'm not going to lie, I'm very confused right now," I said, and then I looked at Todd K, and kept staring at him.

He was entranced in a thoughtful state, looking at the ground without blinking, and he stayed like that for a good number of seconds, in the double digit area for sure. Then he finally blinked, then exhaled quite intensely, stood up, and approached me until he had me right in front of him. He was not very big, nor very tall, but he sure was intimidating. There was something about him that I couldn't explain, I still can't. At the same time he seemed very interesting to me, and even though I did get anxious when he walked up to me, I also knew everything would be okay somehow, because at the same time he didn't seem threatening at all.

"Do you love nature Ash?" He asked me in a very sincere way, I could tell. And yet somehow he still seemed rather cold. Maybe it was his voice, it was kind of robotic.

"Of course I love nature," I answered. "Who doesn't?"

"A lot of people actually. In fact, a lot of people claim to love nature, but they have no idea of what that actually means. I mean the wildest, purest, most feral kind of nature. By asking you this, I certainly don't mean gazing at a beautiful landscape, and of course not at a picture of it. Don't get me wrong, gazing at a beautiful landscape while standing among the natural green is quite a majestic sight, perhaps the best sight of all."

"I agree," I said.

"Are you sure? I have found that you can't really love nature if you take part in activities that harm it. You have to choose."

"Yeah, of course. I'm not joking. I love the outdoors and I'm not just saying that. I have lived a very good part of my life, the best part of my life actually, in the open air. If that's what you mean by one of us, then I'm definitely one of you."

"It's not. It's not about nature being good, it's about modern society being bad. Civilization, is the enemy of nature. Civilization, is our enemy, of all of us, whether we realize it or not. Here we know that's the case, and we're going to do something about it."

"Is this a cult?"

"Absolutely not."

"Because it sounds like a cult."

"I understand. Let me tell you what we really sound like," Todd K said. Then he went to grab his log and moved it closer to us. Meanwhile the three kids, plus another one that one that went in, sat on the ground facing Todd K, and afterwards I did the same, and we proceeded to listen attentively.

"Good," said Jerry, "because I don't remember what we're doing exactly. Another explanation would be nice."

"And you were being so aggressive with Ash back there Jerry, without knowing what you were doing. Shame on you."

"Come on Brevin, give me a break."

"Brevin is right," Todd K said. "We don't want people like that in our group. Let me emphasize, I don't have anyone here who doesn't want to be here. If you're here it is because you care, because you care to learn exactly what we're doing and why we're doing it. If you're here it is because you care about what we do. The smaller the group, the better. That is always the case. Every single member must have, not only our objective completely clear, but must be thoroughly dedicated to carry it out in the best way possible. A large group cannot be successfully controlled. It has a higher probability of becoming fragmented and infected with hollow ideologies. Weak people looking for a large group to inject with their ideals will disrupt our flow and make us forget about our objective. We must also avoid people who seek to profit from our objective in any way."

"Come on then, what is the cause?" I asked, very exasperated.

Todd K took a beat, stared at me blankly, and said, he said, "Break down modern society, destroy our civilization as we know it."

I let out a mechanized laugh, just one exhalation, and then I stood up.

"Are you serious? Wait, no, I thought you were serious. You were saying all of that stuff about nature being the best thing ever, and honestly, I was feeling the vibes that you were sending to me, I was agreeing with everything you said. Until that last thing. Seriously, how old are you?"

"Tamed people need to depict the enemy of civilization as crazy, to delegitimize valid complaints against civilization."

"I don't think you're crazy. I think, I think… Well, I kind of think you're crazy, but I also think you're being childish. And that's coming from me. So that should tell you, you all are childish for doing this."

"Nature as we know it will disappear Ash. It's already disappeared as we should know it. Civilized people have done it, and they will continue destroying it, and themselves with it."

"So you're environmentalists?"

"Yes, technically, but our objective goes well beyond that. We do not focus on saving the environment in particular. That is a well-known aspect of the danger of a civilized society, so we need not speak of it any longer. No, the problem is civilized society itself. Civilized society takes the power away from people. We have an inherent need for power, we need to have autonomy over our lives. Sadly we have already lost most of our autonomy, most of our freedom, and if we don't stop the problem at once, we will end up losing all of it. That's the problem, that's where civilized society is leading us. You don't believe me, do you? You don't care. Look at what people are doing these days, look at what they are saying everywhere; look at the way they are spending their time, and tell me that there's not a sense of powerlessness pervading our current existence. We can feel how what is controlling us is draining us dry, everyone can feel it, but people are just too distracted to see. And yet, it is still killing them, it gives them depression, anxiety, disaffection, low self-esteem, behavioral disorders, disillusionment, hostility and alienation from one another. Only by destroying society can we achieve the freedom that we need to satisfy that need for power in a real way. Just think about it, just take a second to think about it, please. Every effort we make is not really for ourselves, we need to make huge efforts, but never for ourselves, only for civilized society itself, it controls us. All we can do is distract ourselves from our confinement, and try to satisfy our need for control over our lives in any way we can. But we really can't satisfy it, not in a civilized society. Think, when have you done something that has been absolutely, entirely of your choosing? It's impossible, civilized society must be destroyed. And how do we do this? We, as a group, spread our message, make the stress and discomfort brought about by civilization much more evident, and then get rid of it completely. It will die on its own, believe me, it has already laid the foundations of its own demise. But the longer we wait, the harder it will be. As I said, we must keep a small group of people, and every single, dedicated member of said group must have our objective clear. We must not create a hollow ideology with which weak people might identify. We must not create a large organization or a mass movement to which weak people can run to to feel powerful. We must instead, on our own, destroy society, to grant all of them the opportunity to harness that power for themselves. We are trying to take that freedom back, perhaps we have obtained that freedom for ourselves, a small part of it, for our small group, but we must not be blind enough to use our power to sustain a large organization, and therefore society itself. But make no mistake, as it stands now, we have no power. If civilized society didn't exist, there would be no distractions to hide the harm is doing to us, which will only get worse, and all we would be able to do is to satisfy our biological needs and survive. That's the only way we'll be able to obtain real power and freedom."

Dumbfounded, I turned to the kids, who were all still sitting down, listening attentively with resolute eyes.

"And you believe all of this?"

"We don't believe, we know," Chenford said decisively.

"Oh, give me a break! Did he told you to say that?"

"No, I came up with that myself."

"We're in desperate need of a change of cataclysmic proportions," Jerry added. "Look at how we are now, our lives are utter filth."

"Come on guys, just go get some badges, travel with friends. You're too young to be thinking like this."

"You keep saying that. We're old enough to understand that what is going on, is wrong, and harmful, and it needs to change, now."

"Well, I'm not going to stand here and watch you get brainwashed with this."

"Are you serious? You're pulling that on us?"

"Yes."

"We're the ones that are outside, we can see both sides from here, we're free to go, nobody is telling us to do anything. Most of the time we're quiet, we deliberate, we debate, with complete honesty. From where we are standing, you're the ones that are brainwashed. Well, maybe not you personally, Ash, but the rest of the civilized people. Of course they are brainwashed, they have been hearing the same stuff all of their life, and have never taken the time to listen to something else for a change. Why would they want to change? Some people don't mind being led, and restricted. Why would they want to get out of a comfortably terrible situation? Also, you're not going anywhere Ash."

"Let him go," Todd K interjected. "He's being chased by the police already, who's he going to tell? But, even if you go Ash, just remember this. The amount of control we have over our lives is already very limited. Civilized society has already done significant damage to it, just get out and look around, you'll see signs, red lights, cameras everywhere, burdens of the modern man, shackled by a beast of its own devising. And, here's the kicker, our control will only decrease with time, and a point will be reached when humans will be completely manufactured products with no freedom whatsoever. Signs of where we are heading are clearly visible now, neuronal modulating medication, genetic engineering. How could civilized people resist any sort of technology that gives out the illusion of making their lives better, easier? How could they resist the money that they will unavoidably end up making from this? Even if it restricts their choices, people will always go with the more comfortable and easier alternative. The one that makes them the most money and gives them the clearest illusion of control over the masses."

I'll admit, that last bit made me quite nervous. But, I still felt like I was sound enough to understand, that, to a regular person—or as he said, to a brainwashed person, which is a very good way to discredit a person, regardless of what they believe—what they were saying seemed crazy.

"Even if that's true," I said. "What are you actually planning to do?"

"We're going to destroy pokemon centers, pokemarts, pokemon gyms, all of them. All for the sake of spreading our message across all of the world…"

"Across the world! So this is a world thing now?"

"Yes," Todd K continued undeterred, "it must be, because if a change is going to happen, it has to happen all at once, a big change, all at once. No chance for small changes happening over time. And even with our approach, we still need a good dose of spontaneous trends favoring a total breakdown, but don't worry, as I said, it already started crumbling. Still, what we need is nothing short of a revolution, something that inspires people enough to fully get rid of civilization."

My head started spinning, and it already hurt quite a bit. I turned to the kids again. I instinctively started thinking about ways to stop them. I came up with nothing. Nothing at all.

"And you're all on board with this?"

"Yes," they said in unison. Suddenly there were a few more of them inside the tent. I must admit, they already had their thing going, and were rather well organized.

"Even you Jerry?"

"Of course, one hundred percent."

Then I turned to Todd K, who looked just as resolute, just as endearingly childish, as the rest of them.

"Why kids?"

"Nobody else could care like them. Would you have cared about saving the world when you were their age?"

"Of course I would've."

"So, are you in?"

"Of course not."

They were all disappointed, even Todd K. I'll admit, a small part of me thought about joining almost immediately, and another part, perhaps the biggest one, was currently having an arduous mental duel with itself—with its more seemingly rational part, I mean, which I forced to be at the front of me.

"But would you at least think about it?" one of the kids said.

"Of course I will think about it, I can't not think about all the stuff you said to me."

"He's in."

"No I'm not!"

"Yes you are, you know I'm right, because I'm right, and you know it."

"What?"