Chapter 4: Forerunners
Most Pokémon are rather intelligent – they can understand each other's languages, work together with humans and other species of Pokemon, and even know the difference between good and evil. However, most wild Pokémon live animalistic lives, to the point their smarts are often underestimated. This is true for even the most intelligent Pokemon of them all: Alakazam and Metagross.
For years human scientists have studied why this is. Why do these two Pokémon lead such simple lives? Why did creatures smarter and stronger than humanity never form any sort of civilization?
Turns out, they did.
They started small, at first. Precursors to each species made their slow crawl towards sapience. Primitive Alakazam used their budding psychic powers as tools. Proto-Metagross learned how to "herd" food Pokemon, and eventually began to domesticate them. It wasn't long before each species began to form nomadic groups that moved with their herd Pokémon or to find new food resources. Soon after that, they settled down and started building villages.
On opposite sides of the world, civilization gradually began to form.
Villages turned into towns, and towns turned into kingdoms. One Alakazam empire began to outstrip the rest, with its emphasis on learning and study of the world around them. A similar yet different empire arose among the Metagross – while similarly powerful, it was more warlike to match the Metagross' more aggressive, predatory nature. Strangely, both empires had yet to encounter each other, which was a good thing – they probably would have destroyed each other right then and there.
Though there were various rebellions in the Alakazam Empire, most of them were quashed quickly. Ironically, a rebellion among the Metagross was more successful – and it even resulted in a more peaceable, democratic nation after it was over. Both empires continued to grow and thrive for the next 2000 years.
Then, a group of Alakazam set out west on a sailing ship, on a scientific expedition to see what Pokemon lived on the western continents. When they landed on one of those continents, they were met with a surprise.
The Metagross greeted them heartily, though they were more than a little suspicious about their new visitors. They showed them things Alakazam had never seen before- like how to farm animals instead of just plants. In turn, the Alakazam showed the Metagross things like paper and ink, which they promoted as vastly superior to the stone tablets Metagross used. Things seemed to be going well.
Then, one Alakazam, who had gotten rather bored, started moving around a stone relic using its psychic powers. When another Alakazam called its name, it lost its concentration and dropped the statue, shattering it.
The Metagross broke into a frenzy. The stone relic- a statue of a legendary Metagross leader - was particularly sacred to them, and they were furious that it had been destroyed. Only a few Alakazam managed to escape the carnage that ensued.
When they returned to their homeland, they told wild tales of vicious savages and demanded war. The Alakazam troops immediately mobilized, heading across the ocean to do battle.
Halfway through their trip they discovered the Metagross had done the same.
The initial sea battle was brutal, to say the least. The Metagross warriors easily crushed the Alakazam troopers under their massive feet. At the same time, the Alakazam were able to throw the Metagross overboard with their psychic powers, and they sunk like rocks.
After a long and bloody fight, the Alakazam retreated, and the Metagross celebrated their first victory.
It wouldn't last long.
Soon afterwards, the Alakazam developed a weapon that was both physical and psychological- a new psychic attack that could scramble the magnetic network of the Metagross' brain. The few Alakazam warriors that were able to master it attacked the Metagross homeland, attacking Beldum and Metang as well. The Metagross responded by attacking in numbers, and by developing a psychic attack of their own.
And those were just the first few months of a long and bloody war that lasted over a decade.
Alakazam developed weapons that could penetrate the thick hides of the Metagross, as well as building-crushing weapons of massive size. The Metagross, on the other hand, focused on attacking the fragile bodies of their Alakazam enemies, as well as developing building-crushing weapons of their own. Child soldiers were recruited on both sides. Many, many died.
It seemed like nothing could stop the war. But something did.
Over millions of years, Mew had given more power to some Pokemon than to others. Those Pokemon became gods, many of the legendaries we know today – Celebi, Latias, Latios, Jirachi, Manaphy, Shaymin, Cobalion, Terrakion, Virizion, Tornadus, Thundurus, Landorus, Melloeta, an ancient dragon whose name remains unknown, and others. Now, Mew called upon them and its primordial brothers to end this war.
They appeared before the fighting Metagross and Alakazam en masse. The combatants stopped and stared in awe. For a moment, they thought the end of the world had come.
Then the Trio of Spirit issued a decree: If the war would stop, the legendaries would help rebuild all the cities that had been destroyed during the war.
Miraculously, the Alakazam and Metagross accepted. Weary of the war and intimidated by the amassing legendaries, they signed a truce and began to rebuild. It was long work, made somewhat faster by the powers of the legendaries. But in the end, the new, combined civilization of Alakazam and Metagross was greater than anything that came before. And it would soon be even greater.
After the legendaries left, the Alakazam and Metagross, working together, experienced a golden age of innovation and technology. The invention of the printing press, the use of steam power, the creation of a network of electrical circuits, radio, satellites, television, and even the internet happened at a pace that would make any human envious. It didn't take long for the Alakazam-Metagross civilization to become so advanced they could enhance themselves – improving their neural networks and enlarging their brains to become even smarter and more proficient with psychic powers than ever before.
In addition to improving themselves, they created new breeds of Pokémon: the Magnemite line, the Baltoy line, the Bronzor line, Rotom, and others were created, all apparently reproducing by the same mysterious method as Metagross, which remains unknown to this day. All proved useful in helping the society work – Magnemite helped with construction, Baltoy were useful security, Bronzong provided weather control for crops, and Rotom could find what was wrong with the appliances that it possessed, so they could be fixed.
For 700 years they thrived. But one individual would bring it all crashing down.
One Metagross had read about the war and came to the conclusion that they were the rightful leaders of the Alakazam. It gathered up a group of followers and hatched a plan.
One day, during a celebration of the 700th anniversary of the civilization, a vehicle carrying the Alakazam President was attacked by Metagross. Despite the attempts of the Alakazam guards, the leader was killed.
The outrage that followed made the various small wars between the subnations of the civilization seem tiny by comparison.
The Alakazam cracked down on the Metagross, strictly policing them and executing any opposition. In response, the Metagross organized an even bigger rebellion, destroying an entire Alakazam city. Soon, once again, the war lines were between species rather than ideologies.
Both Alakazam and Metagross had learned to split atoms long ago. Formerly, they simply used this power source for energy. Now, however, they began to create nuclear weapons. They stockpiled massive amounts until they had enough to destroy the world several times over.
The legendaries took notice.
At first, they decided not to interfere again, thinking that now the Alakazam and Metagross were smarter they would manage to settle things by themselves.
But then the Alakazam launched several of their missiles at the nearest Metagross outpost. The Metagross counteracted with their own missiles, and they both destroyed wide swaths of land, killing millions.
But they both began plans to launch nearly all their weapons at once. The legendaries ammased and pleaded before a group of battling warriors again, but that time, the Alakazam and Metagross just fired their weapons at them.
And that's when the legendaries decided to do something they hoped they would never have to do.
When the ancient dragon proposed it, they all resisted at first. But when they realized it was either the Alakazam and Metagross or all life on the planet, they reluctantly agreed.
First, Celebi spirited away all the Beldum, Metang, Abra, and Kadabra in the night. Then, in the confusion that followed, they got to work.
The leveled every building they could find, from the tiniest house to the biggest skyscraper. Vehicles and other machines were also destroyed. Windstorms and earthquakes and meteor showers and tidal waves and lava flows decimated the cities. Billions of citizens died in the process. Only a few managed to escape the carnage. When ships from the many space stations that had popped up in recent years tried to return to the planet, they were blasted out of the sky by Rayquaza. By the time all the legendaries were done, all that was left was rubble.
None of the legendaries enjoyed this; most of them swore never to do anything of the sort again. But they all though it was necessary to prevent the planet from being destroyed.
The civilization of the Alakazam and Metagross never recovered. Even after the children were brought to a time about a hundred years into the future, forests and fields had regrown where the cities once lay. Eventually the satellites fell, and the irradiated areas recovered, but the Alakazam and Metagross never rebuilt. For a few generations, they were resentful of the legendaries, and each other, but the resentment died out as they led more animalistic lives. But memories of their lost civilization still lingered, as well as the Pokemon they created. In fact, it probably would have started all over again, if it weren't for two factors.
One of those factors was the Missingno.