XII. Dead Wrong

I've been raised to believe one thing: Team Plasma is doing the honorable thing by liberating Pokémon. So I traversed through Unova, freeing Pokémon one by one. I got into the habit of checking up on Pokémon I had set free, and I was shocked, flabbergasted. Those Pokémon whom I'd rescued were with their former captors.

How could this be? I asked myself.

I wished to believe they had once again been brutally captured, but I knew that was not the case. Still, I questioned a Gavantula, asking him why he would return to his trainer when I had offered him a life of freedom.

"We share a bond," he stated. "By defeating me in battle and capturing me, he earned my respect. By treating me kindly and honing my skills, he earned my trust. We became close friends, and given the choice, I would always return."

I then asked a Cubchoo his opinion.

"My trainer hatched me. She's all I've ever known, and she's been awful nice to me. She feeds me and brushes me and lets me sleep with her if I have a nightmare," the youth replied. "And she said once she was allowed to leave home, she'd enter me in a contest. She says I have poise and elegance, and that we could even win the Grand Festival!" The Cubchoo spoke with pride and awe, his eyes beginning to sparkle as he imagined his adventure.

This instilled doubt in me where before I had none. Do all Pokémon think this way?

I asked Father, to which he responded, "The time is rare when Pokémon and humans are in harmony; you, my boy, are a prime example of that. But the majority of trainers restricts and constrains their so-called 'companions.' Therefore you should feel no qualms over liberating these poor souls. Indeed, many shall be grateful.

So I continued with my work for years, until one day I stumbled upon an anomaly.

A girl, whose name I would learn to be Hilda, fought and sufficiently over powered me. Admiring her victory, I talked with her recently obtained Snivy. Amazingly, the grass type proclaimed that she loved her trainer, even though they met only a short time ago.

Intrigued, I decided to track her journey an occasionally combat her to see if her Pokémon ever became depressed or resentful towards her. They never did.

This girl exposed Ghetsis, my father, founder of Team Plasma, as a fraud. She tore down the mask he concealed his true nature with and revealed the truth: Father, a man I had grown up believeing to be virtuous, an activist for the rights of Pokémon, was only a greedy individual.

I had thought us above such dishonorable goals, but I suppose I trusted far too much and wondered far too little.

I embarked on my own spiritual sojourn with Reshiram, and when the time came we, too, parted. My dear dragon now travels with Nate, an astounding boy with much the same morals as Hilda.

I have abandoned everything I once knew, because all my former teachings were biased and wrong. Dead wrong. I wish for one thing now: to be reunited with Hilda so that she may impart her wisdom upon me and, if I were to be completely honest, would learn to love one such as I, scarred by his past but eager to learn.