Inspiration: "Modern Pokémon trainers"
Jack looked out across the countryside from where he sat on the tree branch. Sleeping in the next tree branch over was his partner, a muscular Poliwrath, with whom he had been with since his tenth birthday. The night was peaceful; the sky was clear and the deepest blue one could ever imagine, interrupted only by the white points that burned brightly overhead. Even the moon seemed to shy away from the darkness of the night in utter awe of the infinity above the world she circled each night. The weather was crisp and still, save for the chilled wind that passed quietly over the damp earth.
Despite being surrounded by true beauty, Jack's thoughts were elsewhere. His blue eyes stared up into the sky and saw nothing, and his entire muscular body was relaxed, as if everything but his eyes was deep in slumber. A single thought echoed through his mind:
Was it worth it?
Over and over again, he asked himself that one question. The battles he fought were brutal; in each one, one of his Pokémon viciously attacked another, clawing, biting, and using everything they had just to repel the threat. It was almost as if they were acting on instinct, that the battle could possibly result in death and that the Pokémon's wild instincts told it that the creature it faced was nothing more than something that would prey on it. Eat or be eaten – that's the law of the wild.
And humans exploited this! They built stadiums just for Pokémon battles and had children – mere children – go out to travel the world, capture these creatures, and force them to do their bidding in exchange for a little money and possibly a piece of metal from a so-called "Gym Leader." These vicious duels were televised and glorified; every business in the world set out to get their hands on a piece of this business opportunity. The world was completely blind to the blunt truth that the concept was no better than that of the barbaric Romans of that long-forgotten age who sent men in to fight each other (or starved Pokémon) to the death.
Yet it didn't seem as if Poliwrath minded this forced brutality, though. Still, did that make it right?
But…
But then, if what everyone thought was normal wasn't right, then what was?
Jack gazed steadily at the sky. It seemed as if all of Heaven was staring down at him, knowing all too well that he would arrive at the answer with a little more probing. Yet the thought of undermining everything that he built his life on…
Without a word, Jack closed his eyes. He pushed the thought from his mind and resolved to not spend another moment on the subject. A voice inside him chanted one phrase over and over again to assure him that what he was doing was right. With this confidence, he began drifting off to sleep.
Yes, some questions, he thought, are best left unasked.