Sometimes, things just kind of escalate.

A small thing rolls and rolls in the dust until it becomes a big thing. Sometimes that big thing even becomes a Pokémon. Sometimes a living being even gets caught up in it, and it becomes a partial ghost Pokémon.

Or at least that's what rumors say.

Christopher Birch, son of Scientists Peter and April Birch, believes otherwise.

"If beings had to die to make ghost Pokémon, then where are all the bodies?"

He demands of his friend Klaus Levin, as the latest point in their half friendly argument.

Klaus shrugs. "The desert? The ocean? Both places are Mega haunted."

"Now you are telling me that the desert evolves with ghosts!?"

"Not that kind of Mega!" Klaus insists. "Although that would be pretty cool."

"Don't infect the desert with your Galar nonsense. This desert is Orre. "

"This desert is empty. Full of ghosts."

It's not untrue. The Orre desert is mostly lifeless. People's Pokémon usually come from other regions. Most kids get their first Pokémon from their parents. Often their Pokémon are the same type as their parents' Pokémon. Gateon Port is a little luckier in that sometimes Pokémon sneak in on the ships. They don't let foreign Pokémon into Unova, so they trickle in through Gateon, and get sold to other towns in the region of Orre.

Pokémon are said to be as rare as water in the deserts of Orre.

The desert was once said to be an ocean.

How did it lose its water anyways? Was it Groudon? Was it evolution? What makes the terrain different? How does habitat shape Pokémon? In what ways will things be different in Kanto?

He wants to be a scientist like his parents. And they do plan to move again when he gets older.

He hasn't thought deeply on what kind of scientist he wants to be.

"What is it with you and ghosts anyways?" He asks.

"Didn't you hear! The latest ship that came in was haunted. Two Frillish were caught!"

The ocean, like the desert, is also full of ghosts.

"Aren't those Pokémon Unovan?"

"Yep!" Klaus proceeds to hold out two pokeballs. "Did you want one?"

Does he want a Pokémon? A haunted jellyfish ghost Pokémon?

For all of the spoken and unspoken rules that he will be breaking by accepting this, and the forms he's probably going to have to fill out about this when he goes to Kanto for university, there's only one real answer here.

That's in the future. He's being offered a Pokémon now!

"Boy do I ever!"

He rolls the filled pokeball in his hand.

"Want to go to the ocean and see whose is stronger?"

Klaus tugs at his hand. "Let's go already!"

Laughing, he follows his friend.