Pokemon: Hoenn; City Life50 (Fortree); Actual Starter: Eevee (Shiny50); Freerunning; Swarmed+100 (100)

Priority: Physical Fitness100; Survival Training100; Master Ball*3100; HM Collection50; Rebreather50; Psionics300; Savant600; Blend In300; Egg Move4 (Flail, Wish, Stored Power, Synchronoise)200; Combat Training100; Aura600; Champ In The Making300 (2800)


-Day 2930, Morning-

I can't say I was exactly brimming with energy the next day. Even with an enormous resistance to jetlag from a supernaturally-healthy body, stressing out over a future fight doesn't exactly improve one's sleeping schedule. But a nice hot shower early the next morning, followed by a full English breakfast, put me back on track and the others in high spirits. It's not like I wasn't confident, just irrationally afraid of conflict despite preparing for it, but I knew I'd be fine in the fight when Combat Training took over. One of those things that won't fade away until I've gathered enough power, I suppose, but I'm not going to let it get to me now.

By 'late morning' around nine o'clock, I strolled up from Accumula Town's south with Lugia still in her Master Ball and Marshadow hiding in my silhouette as we bore witness to Ghetsis' little speech about how 'Humans who train Pokemon are everything that's wrong with the world', while claiming that Pokemon would be better off without us.

"What really gets me is that he isn't getting any mistreated Psychic-types to vouch for him." I dissected his argument with the others. "I'm sure at least one exists somewhere out in the whole of Unova. It's rather disingenuous to complain on someone's behalf, let alone an entire culture's, without asking someone who's actually part of the group and affected by the problem to act as a stand-in for their faction and field a few questions. Even N wouldn't be too bad of a representative if he fielded a few personal questions beforehand to prove that he can understand Pokemon, but as it is Ghetsis gives the impression of being presumptuous and ignorant, even if you don't know about his hidden agenda."

"Does seem a little disconnected." Marshadow agreed from his hiding spot. "Surely he could come up with some examples rather than just talk like he's an expert on the matter."

[Maybe he's experienced some great personal strife related to it?] Lugia suggested. [He does look like he's missing an eye…]

"Maybe, but he's not mentioning that. He's just assuming everyone will agree with what he's said because he's saying it. It's not exactly self-evident." I pointed out. "If he really did lose an eye because of a mistreated Pokemon, it makes it sound like he was the problem, and he's clearly not warning people away for their own safety. If he's so passionate about the subject, showing off a mutilated eye socket and claiming it was inflicted by poachers or uneducated children would have a lot more impact."

[…I mean, I'd rather not see that, ever.] Lugia 'audibly' recoiled at the thought.

"Be a hell of a con if he hadn't actually lost an eye and was just pretending, though." Marshadow snorted. "I wouldn't ask him to prove it, but all we can see is an eyepatch."

"Might be for the better." I agreed. "It certainly makes him look a bit wiser, but that doesn't change the fact that he's not exactly showing off any credentials."

[As if anyone does that these days,] Evan piped up, projecting her thoughts openly. [especially a random soapboxer speaking in public. Interrupting him to ask would be awkward. Having all those people there kinda undermines his message though, since they obviously need Pokemon of their own to travel across the Region without risking their lives.]

I mulled over that surprisingly-good point as Ghetsis finished his pontification and the crowd started dispersing. "…good point, actually. This is America, but they're not openly carrying sidearms or anything else to defend themselves with… how does N think they'll live without Pokemon for self-defense? Is he planning on segregating them all somewhere they physically can't interact? No, that wouldn't work with Teleporters like Abra, or fliers or swimmers or diggers… And he'd have to kick a large group of people out of their homelands, whether it be an inconvenient city of humans or a Route full of Pokemon in-between that needs clearing off and…-no, fencing wouldn't work. What is his plan?"

And judging by the way someone wearing a baseball cap just perked up a few meters away, as the crowds started dispersing, he must've partially heard me talking out loud. Just as planned. [Evan, would you kindly include the guy over here,] I allowed her to read my mind and directed her to N's slowly-approaching form. [in your 'last word'?]

A little something we'd planned: Lugia and Marshadow would remain incognito for a short period while Evan gently provoked him and I drew him into civil discourse. [Sure.] She sent back, shifting her tone slightly and 'projecting' her next words. [Don't know and don't care. Anyone tries separating me from my sensei, they get skipped across the Lake of Rage.]

"Ex-oh! Goodness me, I wasn't expecting that." And just like that, I had an in.

I turned to the newcomer. Not sure what I expected him to sound like, but it's the flowing bright-green hair and lime-green eyes I was expecting. "What, that Evan is telepathic?"

"Not that." He shook his head. "I've spoken to Psychic-types before, but only verbally, never mentally. What an odd sensation." Then he turned to me. "I'm sorry, what's your name?"

"Jason, and in Japan, the person asking usually introduces themselves first." I raised an amused eyebrow.

"A fair point, my apologies." He chuckled, radiating bishounen appeal. "My full name is Natural Harmonia Gropius, but I usually just go by N. Much simpler that way."

"With an adjective as a first name, yeah, I can see why." I partially agreed. 'Not sure going by a single letter is any less misinterprative, though. Wouldn't something like 'Nate' or 'Nathan' be a bit easier for people to hear and think to themselves 'yeah, they're definitely talking about that guy'?"

"...not a bad idea, I suppose, but I've grown rather used to the former..." He abashedly admitted.

"Whatever you say, 'N'. And speaking of you, did you want something, or...?" I gestured over to a bench, which he quickly joined me in walking towards.

"Well, I'm just curious. I've never met anyone else who can understand what their Pokemon try to say." He started, sitting with me. Kinda expected his iconic shoulder-Zorua from the Anime, now that I think about it… "Even human Psychics typically don't bother to communicate with their own, but you..."

"Are a bit more reasonable?" I shrugged, taking a stance I knew he'd approve of. "Pokemon are people too. Even if they're not explicitly human like us, they're still self-aware and the right to 'own' them should come with the responsibility of taking care of their needs, and making sure they're okay with whatever their 'owners' want them to do. Evan is my partner, and I do my best to defer to her. She likes to battle, so I train her to fight even if I don't like battling, because she should have just as much say in her life as I do."

"Well spoken." He turned his attention to the horizon. "What do you think of Team Plasma, and their motives?"

"Same as Team Galactic: they give the impression of being benevolent, but at the end of the day, they want power and the simplest way to acquire it is to convince other people to give up theirs." I snorted, abruptly regaining his attention. "Whether that be releasing Pokemon or stealing them I have yet to determine, or maybe their leader has an ulterior motive like that Cyrus coward trying to catch Dialga and Palkia, but if they were really committed to separating people from their Pokemon brethren, they wouldn't have Pokeballs and they wouldn't call themselves a 'Team'. Only people who have ever done that are mafia gangs and genocidal ecoterrorists, it's not a good look."

"..." Yeah, he definitely wasn't expecting that, was he. "That, seems a little harsh." He weakly defended them. "To judge them so severely after only a single speech..."

"I suppose I could be wrong, but I haven't been yet with Teams Magma or Aqua. Why do you care?" I turned to him, giving him the opportunity to espouse his own point of view.

"I believe in their message. Pokemon were happy before humans began catching them, and given that humans are solely responsible for crimes committed using Pokemon, it stands to reason that people-sorry, that humans shouldn't have Pokemon to begin with if they cannot be trusted to treat them well." He corrected himself mid-sentence.

"Well, leaving aside the very real possibility that at some point in our world's history, there has been at least one genuinely-evil Pokemon; if we didn't train them, they'd eat each other." I deadpanned. "Keep in mind that without taming, Pokemon are essentially tribal animals and as dangerous to innocent humans as they are to each other, capable of wreaking havoc and bringing about terrible calamity with minimal effort. If all Pokemon spontaneously reverted to barbarism, human civilisation wouldn't last two minutes."

"But what if our worlds, our lifestyles, could be kept completely and harmlessly separated?" He countered with the 'obvious pipedream' argument.

"…I, can't see that happening, not completely." I shook my head. "Pokemon can fly, dig, swim and dive, even Teleport if they're Psychic-type. I can't think of any kind of separation that would be truly airtight, and you'd have to block off cities and farms from the outside world. Even the Routes between them would need some sort of 'fencing', to keep travelers without Pokemon from being mobbed by wild Patrat and Lillipup. To accomplish a task on that kind of scale, you would need either a great deal of assistance from a very powerful and very specialised Legendary, which rather defeats the point and sets a hypocritically-bad example to everyone without a Pokemon, or you would need technology so advanced that Pokemon would be redundant in comparison, and sooner or later they would go back to being treated like they are now: as companions or pets."

"Well, maybe not quite like that." He agreed. "I was thinking about the banning of Pokeballs and PC storage specifically, to force people to take care of their Pokemon personally."

"…I mean yes, you could ban Pokeballs, but they exist for a reason: they don't just handle registration to prevent easy theft or 'he said she said' scenarios, they also exist to allow people to control and mitigate dangerous or violent Pokemon they might otherwise have to kill for public safety. Storage units have a similar purpose: they prevent excess Pokemon from starving or aging, while making it easy to trade or distribute already-caught Pokemon like the Starter system that's currently in use, so humans have access to a wider variety of abilities at their fingertips without having to release a Pokemon, catch a new one, and train it to an equivalent level of skill for what might be a very niche task. Not to mention, you'd be going against the will of the people and the Pokemon who WANT to be 'owned', and you'd be reviled as a despotic tyrant for decades, if not for the rest of human history. Cultural inertia doesn't disappear overnight, and even if you CAN keep all of Unova under your control, there's no way you can hold all of America at once, much less the whole world, and the moment you rely on other people to do the 'right thing', they will screw it up out of pride, greed, laziness or sheer incompetence."

"Isn't that a contradiction? You say that humans are sinful and unreliable, but you still believe they should be allowed to own Pokemon?" He pointed out the seemingly-obvious flaw in my argument. "How can you be so respectful of your Espeon, and so aware of humanity's mistakes, but still not support the liberation of caught Pokemon?"

"Because if the 'liberation' is done by a human, then it proves that there are good humans who deserve the right to own Pokemon. Don't get me wrong, people are hot garbage," I thought back to the shitshow that was America's twenty-twenty. Not that I knew exactly what it was like 'on the ground', being Australian, but they really weren't demonstrating a reputation of being respectful, educated or even competent to the international community when I left. A real bad look all around. "especially when they start using each other as echo chambers. But an individual person, untainted by peer pressure and unrestrained by societal norms, can make better choices than the masses of sheep, the rare shepherds who just want to keep everyone they know about happy, and the wolves who will stab you in the back if it makes them a quick buck."

"Then… how would you decide who should be allowed to 'own' Pokemon using the current system?" The obvious question, and one of the most contentious across the whole planet. Short answer: you can't. Long answer: you can't have any corruption or incompetence, which ain't happening. "Say that Ghetsis fellow or whoever leads Team Plasma, instead tried to restrict the 'ownership' of Pokemon exclusively to members of Team Plasma. Everyone would sign up to join solely to keep their Pokemon and cheat the system, wouldn't they?"

"More than likely, and as I mentioned earlier, getting capable help isn't any easier now than it ever was in the past. But that's the price of radical, systemic change: it takes time and effort that most aren't willing to give, and has a very real chance of simply failing. But that's not much different than what might be happening right now, is it?" I clarify the obvious point of failure. "I don't know much about Team Plasma, but there's almost certainly at least one bad apple in the whole bunch, who just wants to take Pokemon away from other people because it's easier than training them from the ground up. If the leader doesn't realise they're a problem or simply can't afford to fire them, and they start hiding shipments of Wild Pokemon to whoever can afford their 'extra-legal fees', then the whole exercise quickly breaks down. Likewise, in the example you just gave, if that one bad apple enabled a whole bunch outside Team Plasma to get in, just so they can get ahold of Pokemon for bragging rights… Pokemon they probably aren't going to treat properly…"

"Then the whole plan still comes crashing down." He took the hint and finished my point, visibly disturbed at the thought. "Either the hypocrisy leads to a breakdown in authority and people start defying the rules because they believe they have a moral high ground, or the leadership adjusts the rules until they lose all of their original meaning."

"Sometimes the rules need to be adjusted: I'm sure you know more about the American Constitution, and the Amendments that were put in place because of things that the Founding Father's couldn't have predicted, or which the general population later demanded as democracy became more widespread and certain points became contentious, than I do. It's just very difficult to determine when things are going too far, and how to stop the gravy train from derailing as a result." Let's diversify the conversation a little. "If the leader picks capable subordinates with similar moralities and keeps them in line with an iron grip, it would last longer, but then you'll have peop-humans, on both sides, arguing that the rules are too strict or too lax, depending on whether they want to share their power or hoard it. Giving the impression of a tyrant or a unified group only creates a target for people to curse at, a focus for the idea that anything that doesn't go their way is their fault or their administration's fault, irrespective of the truth or how much influence the people they've put on a pedestal actually have on their problems. Another thing you probably have some local examples of, if you find the right disenfranchised or homeless people." Not that there are very many of either in this world, but they're not completely unknown. Having a full team of Pokemon doesn't pay your living expenses by itself, after all.

"I am aware that nothing lasts forever." He contemplated, slightly dismissively. "But… even if this goal doesn't last, surely it has to be achievable?"

"Three concepts help. The first is a bit of a tangent: I forget the psychologist's name, but awhile ago there was someone who pioneered the idea that the average human brain can only hold detailed memories and personal interest in roughly a hundred to two hundred and fifty people at a time." Don't mention the monkeysphere, for the love of god. "You'll notice that smaller groups tend to do better when everyone knows everyone else's face and everyone is on the same page, identify with the same values, etcetera. If a leader wants to keep track of his people, his immediate subordinates should be organisers and speakers who can act as mouthpieces for their own individual groups or cells. People tend to respond better to lots of small groups working together, rather than a single large group where individual accountability starts breaking down. That's why countries still have local authorities, rather than just using scheduled teleconferences to send and receive information from powerless bureaucrats: not just because sometimes you need someone on the ground with the power to make snap decisions 'in your name', but also because the people respond better to face-to-face contact with lawmakers they can identify with. Of course, you still need to leave some room in your brain for outsiders, people from other institutions or levels of government that you interact with regularly, but if you can do the rest…"

"Then there's no reason you can't go slightly further, 'above and beyond the call of duty'." …I, thought he was supposed to be a revolutionary archetype with hippie undertones…? But, well, this is America. "And the other two 'concepts'?"

"Second, you start small with a grassroots ideal, because people love a David-vs-Goliath underdog over a faceless government, and third, you adapt your plans from what you ideally want, to what you're willing to live with. Compromise is one of the cornerstones of civilisation, alongside co-operation and resources. I don't eat Pokemon meat because it's deeply disturbing to me, even though other Pokemon can and trying to stop them is pointless. That's a good point to start from, then as you build up political capital you expand to other things that your loyal base, 'people who don't want people eating Pokemon meat', will continue to support you with. 'People', because I'm sure there's at least one Pokemon who finds the practise distasteful and could serve as a spokesperson if you had a Psychic, or better yet a Psychic-type, to translate for. But in saying that, you have to recognise that people aren't going to support the banning of nonviolent farming of Miltank and Wooloo without a valid alternative, the same way people won't give up conventional animal meat without a protein-filled alternative that's 'just as good', or a really good reason like the inefficiency of feeding livestock three times their meat produced in grain." And now comes the part that I know he simply won't accept. "Pokemon ownership is the same. If you try to cut out relatively-harmless Normal-types, or the extremely-useful Grass-, Fire-, Water- and Electric-types, people aren't going to accept the massive social and technological upheaval needed to 'replace' them. But if you only object to the public ownership of, say, Dragon- or Dark-types as unfairly dangerous and without non-combative merit to the majority of people, you might get somewhere."

Oddly, that got me a raised eyebrow. "And that has nothing to do with Hydreigon?"

"I, hadn't actually considered that, but I'm Japanese. It's meant to also cover the Dragonite, Salamence, Garchomp, Haxorus and Kommo-o lines, as well as Druddigon, Altaria and quite a few secondary Dragon-types, the latter two of which… may be problematic, since they don't start as Dragon-types. But can you seriously give me an economic reason to own a Dragon-type or Dark-type Pokemon? It might mess up the battling scene, but I have a feeling that that would be a personal issue for you anyway, so…"

"…I, hadn't really thought about the battling scene." He confessed, obviously considering it now. "Some of my Pokemon enjoy fighting, but… surely they could find another interest?"

"These hypothetical scenario's don't really matter to me because I don't have citizenship here, and I much prefer Psychic-types that I can communicate with. But by that same metric, I don't think Evan would be all that happy being cockblocked, would you 'my apprentice'?" I fondly teased her as I reached down and stroked her.

[Hell no.] She snorted out loud, deigning to contribute to the conversation, then paused and actually straightened up a little to ask herself, […what would I even do with my life when I wasn't sunbathing? I'm good with Sunny Day and Rain Dance from all the Berries we grow, but I'd probably be beaten out by a dedicated Fire- or Water-type… what does that leave, the obvious niche of playing translator and relaying one boring argument back and forth between two languages? Kami, I'd rather jump in Lake Verity.]

"You would. And I'd be the one who'd have to take care of you with your sickness and snottiness in the aftermath." I gave her a scratch behind the ears, then turned back to N. "And I'd do it, because she's family. Haven't really figured out what kind yet, she's more than just a student and a bit too independent to be a little sister, but family is who you choose, not just who you're born to, and if I had to fight to keep her, we'd both be fighting side by side for… probably the first time, actually. Don't think I've ever fought a Pokemon before. Something to add to our next sparring session." I mused as I pulled out my Pokegear to make a note, and watched his body language out of the corner of my eye.

About as stunned I expected. I know he's adopted, and I can see the impact of my conviction on his 'ideals'. Which he promptly tried to cover up by diverting the subject, probably to buy himself some more time to mull over my words. "…I'm not sure a human would be very successful fighting a trained Pokemon, or that it would turn out all that well for them."

"Not for most, no." I pulled a stone off the ground into my hand and twirled it about my raised right index finger. "But I'm not just another pretty face."

"That would explain the Espeon." He nodded like he'd just uncovered an important piece of the puzzle.

"And here's another important point to consider that I hadn't even thought about until just now," I thought out loud. "because of how integral it is to our society: what do you do with all the dedicated Trainers, Breeders, Groomers and Tutors who suddenly have nothing to do? The devil makes work of idle hands, after all. People get twitchy when they don't have jobs, or any form of obvious goal they can apply themselves to, and there are a lot of people who make their living off of battles, or having access to others' Pokemon. And hell, the human Psychics aren't magically going to go away, and having psychic powers usually puts you a few weight classes above other people, even with guns and technology to help close the gap. Seems like taking away trained Pokemon might shift more than one balance of power, especially across the whole region, let alone the whole world. D'you think Team Plasma have thought about the less direct consequences of their actions, or paid an expert to compile some statistics for them?"

"…probably not." Yeah, he was definitely thinking about doing that now. "That's a good point, actually. But I feel like we may have strayed from the original point we were discussing. It seems as though Team Plasma is motivated by removing Pokemon from everyone, not just Trainers. I can't deny, in hindsight, that there are a great many problems with their methodology, but I still agree with the original point: that Pokemon should not be in the hands of those who don't deserve them."

"A fair point, but frankly? If they care that much about such a thing, there are plenty of legal ways to pursue that goal that don't involve getting a majority to agree and relieving the other forty-nine percent of the region's Caught Pokemon from their Trainers: joining the police force, not as an unregulated militia but as an organisation of private investigators who specialise in protecting and taking in Pokemon who are being abused or neglected by their Trainers; creating a charity or not-for-profit corporation dedicated to the same goal, clearly there are already a lot of people who were willing to sign up for the cause, and I'm sure there'd be even more if there was an official and clearly-legal opportunity to do so, at which point you do the same thing of going door-to-door or setting rewards for information that leads to the recovery of mistreated Pokemon, though again that's a rough thing to convince the government to approve of; or simply focusing on smaller problems that lead into the overall issue, like the unreasonably-large size of the public PC Storage system." I thought about my America for a moment and something a bit more pertinent clicked. "It'd definitely reduce the chance of the National Guard being sent in to turn them into mincemeat. Your nation's not exactly well-known for firearm safety or the punishment of corrupt or unqualified police and soldiers, I'm afraid."

Yeah, that's definitely not a problem you'd see cropping up in the games, is it. "…another good point." He admitted. "But just because something is difficult or risky, doesn't mean it isn't worth doing. That was the whole point of the Civil War, after all: to free the slaves."

…oh, is that where this whole 'ideal' is coming from?! "Indeed. And that's the core of the issue I have with Ghetsis' grand speech: he seems very big on unity, but I have a sneaking suspicion that if everything went wrong, he'd be the first one to cut his losses and leave his 'allies' behind, if that meant setting up shop in another region and attempting the same thing again, because 'the ends justify the means'. Which is obviously not true if the 'end' is 'one complete abject failure after another', but some people are only happy with shouting their opinions when they have a small army standing behind them. Maybe it's just because I'm not a native, but I've never heard him preaching of separation before he formed Team Plasma, when he didn't have superior, intimidating firepower of Pokemon 'owners' at his beck and call. But I'm being pessimistic again, so who knows." I pulled my phone back out and checked it again, not reacting to the look of disbelieving horror N sent me at comparing his adoptive father to the slave-'owning' Confederacy. "And I have other things to do today, so I'm afraid I have to leave you now, 'N'. I'll be travelling all over the region for the next few days, maybe we'll see each other again?"

"…maybe." He quietly contributed, obviously not sure what else to say as Evan roused herself from my shoes with mild annoyance. "See you later."

"You too." …damn, I actually feel kinda bad about shitting on his preconceptions of how he thinks the world is versus how it actually is. But his father is planning on using him as a puppet to take over the region as a tyrannical dictator, so I can't say I'm all that broken up about it. Not necessarily his fault he's been raised the way he has, with a certain set of assumptions that most people might disagree with, but that doesn't mean he gets off scot free. It's not hard to look around and see humans and Pokemon living together in harmony, and a severe lack of humans routinely taking advantage of Pokeballs to abuse their Pokemon, and maybe question the beliefs you were brought up with.

I waited until I was a good five minutes away from the bench before I spoke again, this time 'internally'. [You're free to talk.]

"He's not following you." Marshadow reported from my silhouette. "He sat there talking to himself for another two minutes, then left to the west towards Route 2."

[Thank you, Marshadow.] Next encounter is… Dreamyard, followed by Team Plasma's little heists at Wellspring Cave and Nacrene City. Would N cockblock me right outside Nacrene and help the rest of Plasma escape with the Dragon Skull fossil? …probably, but I imagine he'll be a bit less enthusiastic when I hand him the phone recordings I'm about to make, and I'm not planning on letting them leave the Gym/Museum to begin with. [Now we have to lag behind, to the Dreamyard. You okay with being concealed a little longer, Lugia?]

[Just for the day, yeah. Are we actually going to have to fight anyone before Zekrom and Reshiram get released?] She questioned from her concealed Master Ball.

[Probably not. Anyone who does challenge me, random Trainers to Grunts and even Admins, won't last five minutes against Evan. Sending out one of you two would not only be overkill, it would expose you and I don't want to risk tipping them off or pushing them into a corner just in case they do have something I'm not expecting squirreled away.] Like a surprise Genesect, though I don't see that being a huge problem for Lugia to handle. Still, better to be safe than sorry.

[…I mean, I'm not really interested in fighting anyone, but this… you made it sound like things would explode into violence within seconds.] She sent me a 'raised eyebrow'.

[And my reasoning was sound, he did have a full team at his belt. He just didn't pull any of them out, which I expected he wouldn't, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared.]

And with that, I set off east to Striaton City. Time to kick some objectively-immoral bad guy ass.


AN: Due to an infuriating eyelash that I spent at least a whole-ass hour both finding and plucking, this got delayed by about 300 words past yesterday. Deal with it.

D-Day for my online course is the 31st of May, for most likely twelve weeks (and while I expect to finish them before that deadline, that doesn't mean I'll return to updating any more frequently), followed by another twelve-week course at a relatively-short break, so don't expect much in the way of updates in the lead-up to and during the courses. I'll give a solid announcement at the bottom of a new chapter if I get a solid idea as to when I'll resume normal uploading, but don't expect it to be any time soon.