Welcome once again to this great and wonderful world of pokemon. On this journey, we detour to a region far, far southeast of the Kalos region Setting our eyes on the majesty of a place named Morann, we soak in the vision of a place carved out by the rigors of time, shaped by cultural panspermia, and upheld by a proud aboriginal people.
In the past, the Morann region was the seat of colonial power in the southern seas, belonging to a once massive roster of offshore choke holds that the ancient kingdoms of the region held with an iron grip. After a brief rebellion and civil war for independence, the region of Morann broke off from Kalos and it's people found peace in their sovereignty with all other regions of the world, becoming passively isolated in the following centuries.
But in recent times, Morann has opened to the ways of the outside world, rapidly having taken to trade with the rest of the world. Because of it's great distance from the mainland eastern regions such as Hoenn and Sinnoh as well as the western regions such as Unova and Alola, Morann became the first location of the first southern hemisphere branch of Silph Co. The region experienced a massive boom in industry and technological advance. Before the industrial boom in Morann, even pokeballs were considered a fantasy technology which was entirely alien to the region. Now, in major cities, there are pokemarts in every district and a pokecenter in every town and even some villages.
Despite these advancements, Morann remains a strange place with lots of specific customs and traditions, even the laws of the land can differ from those in other regions of the world. Trainers undergo traditional tests to become trainers, and one such trainer recently blooded into the training circuit serves as the anchor for our story.
Miris is a boy who has been freshly made a man and he hails from the village of Maduo in the southernmost part of the Morann mainland. Having just been through the ceremony his community holds as the highest honors a blossoming young trainer can undergo, Miris has been sent into the wilds to undertake a journey on both a spiritual and physical leve. Miris has been walking for a full day by the time we join him in the wild. He's been given a single ultra ball to catch himself the first pokemon which his very soul resonates with at first sight. With the sun setting soon and enough supplies to feed himself for a week before he must return to civilization with a new partner or return home empty handed, the young man faces a quick and decisive
So please, come with us on a journey through the lands of Morann as we follow a trainer on his journey from the Maduo off-route wilds to the edges of his region and possibly even beyond. Today is the first day of Miris' life and the first step on his path of personal growth.
A cool wind blew through the trees as Miris sat on his backpack, stoking a small fire he'd managed to cobble together. The young man, practically a boy from the look of him, has managed to keep himself in good straits up until this point as he sat there gazing into the flames, pangs of worry sinking into him. His chestnut colored eyes and ashy brown-black hair looked almost totally coal colored in the dimming light of the evening and the wavering glow of the fire.
Miris absentmindedly clutched the shrunken black ultra ball in his hand, stroking it along the golden arch of the U embossed on the surface. He wasn't sure what he'd do, he didn't know where to look first for a good pokemon. He'd seen plenty of flying-types and normal-types, but none of them looked sturdy enough for him to consider them. But more importantly none of them seemed to spark that all too mysterious feeling the elders of his village spoke about when they told him to choose wisely when he finally took on his first and most important pokemon.
For Miris' people, the pokemon of the wild were to be feared and respected once one became a trainer. They were held on the same level of importance to their customs as a foreigner might consider a lesser legendary.
The boy had been sitting there for the longest time, contemplating his dilemma carefully before his silence was broken. Darkness had fallen all around and through the air came the sound of a snapping twig.
Surely Miris had been burning plenty of twigs all evening and the sound of one snapping in the fire was common, but his ears knew the difference between a twig in the fir and one in the brush just outside the reach of his firelight. Miris froze stiff for a second with panic before catching and gathering himself as fast as he could manage.
Miris stood off his back, clutching the ball in one hand and grabbing up a hunk of lumber in the other just in case he couldn't simply catch whatever was out there in the darkness.
The boy strained his eyes hard at the darkness, trying to cut right through it with his sight to no avail. He could just barely see movement in the nighttime darkness settled deep into the woods beyond his campfire's glow. Motions of a creature on two legs, low to the ground, dancing back and forth about the treeline just out of sight, it's eyes occasionally glinting in the edge of the firelight's reach.
Miris widened his stance and pressed the button on his ball without thinking, the little pellet sized ball expanding into it's capture-mode sized self. He groaned and shook himself before speaking up at last.
"H-Hey!" He shouted out to the dark, his voice faltering and breaking nervously. The slip almost made him feel a thousand times smaller than he already felt, but Miris didn't break stance as he waited for the eyes to pull closer or disappear into the dark of the wilds.
But the eyes didn't come closer or move away further at all for some time, they just froze for a moment, not even dancing around or glinting in and out of view. Miris stood there, waiting as the shine of the eyes in the dark stayed still.
After some time, Miris' tensed legs began to shake from strain as he clenched his entire body to remain prepared for action. And not long after his body began to fail him, the eyes finally moved back and then lurched forward. Out of the brush popped the green body of a small ape-like creature which braced on all fours in front of Miris as the boy reared back in defense, lumber raised up at the ready reflexively and ultra ball held in front of his face to block it from any attack he presumed might be coming next.
But seeing the little green monkey there on the forest floor, it's tiny frame shaking as it stood its ground before him, Miris couldn't help but let his guard down for a second. He relented in his clenched stance and the Pansage seemed to take notice of this shift in posture, itself lifting its head up to meet Miris gaze directly.
Miris didn't move again for a moment until he realized something...something within him. It was like an epiphany. He'd spent all day worrying about never meeting eyes with a pokemon he felt a connection to because he was so sure he had no real connection to pokemon in general.
Despite having come from this great village culture with all its traditional values of pokemon and the natural world, Miris had never fully understood in his soul why they valued the pokemon world so much. Until now.
He felt it, that spark which the elders described. He was looking into the eyes of this partially frightened, partially confused and perplexed little creature's lively eyes and realized it was just another part of the world. It was simply trying to survive and had come across such a strange, alien part of another world, the human world of civilization here in the woods he called home.
The Pansage was just doing what Miris had been doing all along. They were both just trying to get along in their lives the only ways they knew how.
"I...I'm sorry!" Miris yelped as he threw the ultra ball in his hand as hard as he could into the air, tossing aside his piece of firewood as well.
The Pansage stepped back quickly as the ball flew high in the air. Miris intended simply to step back towards his fire and give the creature room to run off. He couldn't ideally bring himself to catch the pokemon after realizing just how hard the creature was struggling, even compared to Miris himself. He wanted to take a moment alone to rethink some many things he'd neglected before.
But as Miris stepped back, he looked up realizing where the ball he threw was headed. He stumbled on his backstep, tripping backwards over his backpack full of supplies and falling to his rump as he watched in horror as the ball slowly fell back to earth towards the Pansage.
The flow of time seemed to slow itself, the proverbial river of time moving like a river of tree sap as the ball banged off the Pansage's head, the button at its center glowing red as it bounced and fell open, a red beam of jagged energy snaking towards the pokemon and engulfing it before sucking the form of the grass-type monkey into the confine of the ball.
The ball fell closed and wiggled back and forth once it hit the ground, teetering as it registered the pokemon inside to some account connected loosely to Miris' identity- likely some kind of social security-like account in the PC systems around the region and, in turn, around the world.
Miris gaped at the sight of the ball as it flashed a red glow over and over before settling into stillness and letting off a short metallic "pomph!" sound. The pokemon was caught on the spot, unable to resist capture from the high power ball at it's low level. He couldn;t believe his eyes.
THe boy scrambled over to the ball on all fours and grabbed it up, cradling it as he breathed heavily in excitement. At first he was afraid and almost wanted to cry before remembering how he'd been told tat trainers "do not lament their duties" by the elders. Instead of crying, Miris found himself slowly welling up inside with this feeling of accomplishment, his chest filling with the warmth of pride as he rocked back and forth.
"Yes...yes...yes...!" He muttered excitedly. "Yes! YES! YES!"
MIris was ecstatic with the capture as he realized how close he had come to giving up only to divert disaster with a bout of dumb luck. He cradled the ball up to his lips, kissing it rapidly as he stood up, wiggling in an uncontrollable little victory dance in his short sleeve top and loose, pattern-dyed shorts.
He held the pokeball out and slowly moved to press the button on the face, letting the Pansage out in a soft blast of red lightning.
"Alright, come on out!" The boy says as he had practiced it all his life, though his voice shook far more from excitement than it had in all his make believe fantasies.
The Pansage manifested on the ground out of a red glow with it's head down, looking up slowly to Miris with a glint in it;s eyes and a confused look across its face. For a brief moment, Miris was unsure the Pansage would even stick around. He had heard being captured would make a pokemon more agreeable to whoever captured it, though whether this was an effect of the ball or something inherent in the nature of all pokemon was unknown.
But after a moment, the Pansage began to step back from Miris, growling at him.
Miris knelt down slowly, hands out and palms up as he presented himself fully to the pokemon in as passive and welcoming a way he could, putting on a soft tone as he spoke to the monkey pokemon.
"Hey, hey, wait a second. Don't worry, I'm not trying to hurt you!" Miris assured the pokemon, only to be met with slightly less growling in response. "Listen, little guy! I'm sorry, I didn't even mean to catch you like that. It just happened out of nowhere! Can't you try and forgive me? I'm sure we could be real good friends…"
The pokemon stopped backing away. The growling stopped gradually as Miris spoke more and by the time the boy shut up again, the pansage had begun tilting its head, as if weighing it's options.
After a moment, the pokemon jumped back and climbed the nearest tree, getting to the lowest branch just out of Miris' reach.
"Pan pan! Sage!" It sage, taking a sassy tone with Miris as it spoke and gestured.
From what he could tell, Miris guessed the little ape was going to spend the night just out of reach until Miris proved himself. Though, for one reason or another, the monkey definitely wasn't going anywhere.
Miris huffed as he slumped back down to sit on his bag by the fire, feeling a little deflated but still optimistic. The high of his first capture made him feel so much more invincible against disappointment and sadness than before.
Even if Pansage was going to be pouting up in that tree, he wasn't taking off into the woods for freedom or anything just yet. Which was cause for some kind of celebration, Miris figured.
Miris pulled out a little packet of fresh bread from his backpack, the flat loaf being heavily sweetened and spiced with pieces of fruit within. He unsealed the little bag with the bread inside and the powerful fruity smell of the loaf wafted out of the container and spread through the area quickly, making the entire little clearing start to smell like fruit and firewood.
Pansage looked down the moment the smell hit his sensitive little nose. His mouth began to water as he looked in on Miris from his branch in the tree. Miris looked up as he heard the branch shift and the leaves attached rustle.
The boy gave a smile as he made a show of taking a clump of the bread off of the loaf, peeling it away and bringing the piece of the fruity cake-like bread right up to his lips, savoring the smell before popping the bite into his mouth.
Miris let out an exaggerated hum of approval at the taste, peeling away another clump of the bread and waving it around to get Pansage's attention. The monkey's eyes followed the piece around and Miris gave a sly smile once he knew the little hemp ape was absorbed by the sight and smell of the bread.
Reaching out with the lump of fruitcake bread, Miris offered up the bite in his hand to the Pansage in the tree, luring it down to grab a bite with him
Pansage made no qualms about coming down to level with Miris' hand, hopping down quickly to the ground to grab at the bite, taking it from Miris before he could do anything else sly like move the bite away or eat it himself.
The monkey enjoyed the bight quickly, scarfing it down before climbing halfway back up the trunk of the tree, clinging to the side of it just above Miris' head.
Miris simply shrugged, trying to play himself off as cool and level headed. Be took another bite of his bread loaf and waited for the inevitable as he stared at the fire, trying to look absent minded.
Overhead he heard a whining from the Pansage, looking up to see them pouting pitifully, their face stretched out into a wide, sad look of helplessness and pleading. Of course, Miris could tell it was an act for more of the fruity snack. But part of him still felt genuinely sad for the monkey, they were very, VERY cute after all. Most of the Panapes were.
Miris shook his head up at the grass-type.
"You'll have to actually come down here with me if you want me to feed you. After all, if you don't want to be with me, you can go find some food out there when I leave. Or, you know, you can just come with me if you wanted." Miris explained.
Pansage sneered and shook his head, turning his nose up in a show of defiance. Miris simply took another bite, playing up the flavor of the snack as he stared into the flames once more.
Miris didn't have to wait long after for Pansage to slowly slide down the tree trunk and gingerly approach with his head down. Despite all that protest moments before, it seemed the Pansage wasn't going to turn down the chance for another taste of Miris' mom's famous fruit loaf.
He watched as the monkey slowly put his hands out, not making eye contact as he silently begged for another piece with his actions. The boy of course broke off another piece and put it softly right into the ape's little palms.
"There, it's not that hard to be nice, is it? Just don't expect it to be so easy next time. You and me? We're out here on our own, right? We gotta look out for each other." Miris assured the monkey, trying to find some common ground with the creature. "At least, it doesn;t look like you have anyone out here looking out for you. Where's your little wild monkey troop?"
Pansage looked down slowly, his chewing slowing to a stop for as second as the monkey began to look glumly at his own green feet.
"Sa-sage…" The little mon said softly before going back to working over his bite.
Miris looked at the Pansage without blinking for a time, sort of stunned but trying not to make it seem so obvious.
"O-oh...so...no troop." Miris replied, turning his gaze back to the fire. "Jeez...well...you know, maybe we can be our own little troop. RIght?"
Miris tried to raise the mood again, but it was apparent that he'd just have to wait for the moment to pass. Talking was obviously only going to make things worse for the sad little monkey.
Pansage didn;t take long to warm up to Miris. While the tone of the night was definitely very dampened, the two seemed to be able to cohabitate around the fire nicely. Pansage seemed to migrate, little by little, towards Miris with small wiggles and shifts in his seating.
In due time Pansage was nestled right up to Miris as they shared the loaf of fruity bread. Pansage seemed to eventually drift off to sleep, leaning on Miris as the two leaned against his backpack like a large, rather stiff pillow.
With the grass-type snoring softly at his side, Miris too was able to simply shove some wood onto the fire with his foot and then slip down onto his side to cradle the Pansage into his hips, gradually getting to sleep with his head on his pack for a pillow.
