A paper is sitting open on your table. You go over to it and an article catches your unwilling eye. You know what that article is about. That incident. Ten years ago. You don't want to think back to it. You don't dare to think back to it. However some morbid fascination draws you towards it. To read it. You look down and look at the title. It is simply called Ten Years. You read.
I cannot believe it has been ten years since that day. Ten years....
Today marks the opening of the new Battle Frontier. It is a place for any trainer from any region who has completed the Elite Four to come and challenge the seven most powerful trainers in the world. It is an engineering marvel; a fantastic achievement. Many of those who go there are the up and coming young trainers, young trainers who don't realise why this idea has been realised. They don't know what happened on that day ten years ago. They don't understand.
Ten years ago, on the tenth anniversary of the opening of the first Gold Conference, everything changed because of one megalomaniac. It was the opening ceremony of the tenth Gold Conference and everyone had high hopes for a fantastic championship. The standard had been getting consistently higher each year, and that year was no exception. One man had a different plan though. He planned to harness the power of those young trainers and use it to rise to power, killing them or crippling them in the process.
I was there. I was one of those young trainers who qualified for the Conference. What I saw will haunt me forever. Even now, ten years after the event, I struggle to put what I saw into words. Because that means remembering that day. I don't want to remember that day. I want to keep it banished in that small hole in my mind where I never visit, where I relegated it to in the days and weeks after when I struggled to cope with my grief. However I feel compelled to put it into words; to make everyone understand what it was like and to honour the memory of those who died that fateful day.
For those who survived, they will remember a bloodbath. First it was the blood of Pokémon mingling on the floor. That is never a nice thing, everyone knows that. But they don't know what it was like when the blood of humans began to flow. When Pokémon ripped apart trainers with their bare hands, coating the floor with their insides and lifeblood, that is a real tragedy. When a Pokémon watches its trainer killed in front of it then goes insane, killing everything around it and eventually itself, that is a real tragedy. When you watch your best friend killed in front of your eyes trying to save you, that is a real tragedy.
But what I remember most is seeing him die. A hero. A friend. When you pass the statue at the entrance to the Battle Frontier please take a look and memorise that face. That is the face of Jack Lovata. I watched this teenager defeat the megalomaniac, saving as all from a life of tyranny. I watched as he turned round and saw me attacked. I watched as he warned me and began running towards me. I was helpless and vulnerable and I watched him tackle a Pokémon much stronger than him to save my life. And I watched him die in front of me, battered, bloodied and broken by the huge fists of that same Pokémon.
So remember, when you pass that small, unassuming statue, what happened before. Remember not only him, but the generation of trainers that were robbed so cruelly of their life. The Golden Generation, as they are rightly and affectionately named, crippled on that day. So please people, save a thought for those who have gone, and offer a prayer or a flower when you pass. And if you're a trainer reading this, remember the sacrifice of your kin. This year, when you fight, you fight for them.
Lelana Fuller
Viridian Times
You put the paper down, your morbid fascination well and truly piqued. You look up and see a blue flash in the sky and try and put those thoughts out of your mind. You try and focus on that blue flash and place a hand on a Pokéball. You cannot think about the past when the future is waiting. Articuno is waiting. They are waiting.
Author Notes: And it is finished. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing this. Though this story is finished, please don't forget to R & R. Any reviews are always fantastically, amazingly welcome and I will take into account any suggestions to improve my work for future writings.