Sometimes when I looked back I still wonder if it's all just a dream.
It feels surreal you know? Being born into a loving family with loving parents, have an overprotective older brother, being a pokemon trainer and all that jazz.
Oh, did I just mentioned pokemon? Yup, you read correctly, pokemon. I have a team of them and they are absolutely amazing.
And before you ask, yes, this is my second life. I reincarnated and found myself in the world of pokemon (surprise!). Unbelievable right? Trust me, you aren't the only one to feel that way.
Oh, you are asking me who I am in my previous life and whether you know me? Who and what I am before is not important anymore. What is important is who and what I am now.
My name is Velda Vera. And this is my story.
I was born screaming and kicking into the Vera family on 31 August in the pokemon year 516. I didn't know it at that time that I was reborn, all I can tell that I was being manhandled and heard muffled voices all around me. All I saw were blurry images scurrying around and someone screaming "It's a girl, it's a girl!".
Naturally, I am fucking confused.
The last thing I remembered was driving to work before a random truck driver decided that ramming into my car seems like a good idea. Being crushed under a heap of metal, bleeding out while waiting for help to arrive is not my definition of fun at all.
Back to the initial point of my story. From what I could make out with my eyes, I am definitely in the hospital. Good job girl, you survived. Note to self: remember to throw a party to celebrate my triumphant return to the world of the living.
My internal monologue didn't last long, however, until a giant of a man picked me up and handed me over to an equally gigantic women lying in a bed nearby, drenched in sweat, looking utterly exhausted but practically glowing with happiness.
"She looks like you, Hanna"
The now identified woman, Hanna, laughed while rocking me. Stop shaking me woman! She looked at me into my eyes before turning around to face the man, "Well, Griff, she has your eyes." Why the hell are they treating me like a goddamn baby? I'm a grown woman dammit!
It was then the realisation hit me. I couldn't speak. My limbs are small, pudgy, pieces of meat and the only thing I could speak is "Waa~Waa~"
The woman - Hanna, my mind supplied helpfully - took another look at me before smiling, and proceeded to lift up her shirt to expose her breasts and shoving it into my face.
The last thought I had before I was forced to suck on her nipples were 'Crap, I died didn't I?'
Griff Vera, owner of one of the largest pokemon breeding farm in the Hoenn region, loved his family. He have a beautiful wife, a wonderful son who is also an awesome older brother to his younger sister, and a most peculiar daughter.
His son, Vance Vera, 18 years old, is a pokemon trainer and one of the best operative that ACE has ever produced. ACE is an army of trainers under the command of the Hoenn league that accepts only the best trainers in the region. They are part of the military might of the Hoenn region and it is their duty to protect and maintain the peace of Hoenn. Their job scope ranges from conducting search and rescue operations due to man-made or natural disasters, herding of wild pokemon away from human settlements to protect both humans and pokemon, to fighting crime syndicates. It is not the safest of professions and Griff does have his worries. But if this is what Vance wanted to pursue as a career, he will give him his full support.
He can understand why Vance chose to be an ACE trainer. After all, he himself used to be one, much to his father's chagrin. It was one of his most fulfilling moments in life, going on the hardest of missions to protect and maintain the peace of the Hoenn region. He got drafted into ACE at the age of 16 after catching the attention of the officials of the pokemon league for his outstanding performance in the 501th Ever Grande conference. He was under the leadership of the Dragon Master Drake during his time in ACE and was one of the best members in Drake's squad.
Until a mission at Fallarbor town went FUBAR, claiming the lives of 4 out of 6 members of his pokemon team.
It was supposed to be a simple patrol mission. He and his partner David were to patrol the Meteor Falls, home to the notorious salamence and to keep all members of the public out of it. It was the salamence mating season and access to Meteor Falls is closed to the public for their safety. There were previous incidents many years ago where part of the town was razed when the locals unknowingly disturbed their nest during this period. He and David were assigned by the league to assist Fallarbor town to warn off the locals and keep out nosy trespassers. Simple enough, right?
The next thing he knew, he and David have to save the asses of 3 idiotic trespassers who had the bright idea to visit and say hi to the hormone-filled salamence population.
David and Griff barely had enough time to send word to the then Hoenn champion and his ACE commander, Drake, and kick those 3 idiots out of Meteor Falls to warn the locals of an impending salamence attack. What was supposed to be an easy patrol mission turned out to a battle royale in the span of a few short minutes.
His ninjask was the first to fall, getting caught by a stray flamethrower. His ludiculo was next, fighting valiantly to prevent a pack of shelgons from passing through him. He was successful in his endeavour until a salamence decided that enough is enough, and proceeded to join in the fray, mauling ludiculo to death.
He didn't know how his zangoose and ursaring fell in battle, they were too far away from each other during the battle trying to keep the salamence population at bay. He only knew of their demise when he woke up in Ever Grande hospital much later.
He was lucky that Drake managed to reach him in time to pull him out of that hell-hole when he did. David didn't make it out alive.
The loss of the majority of his team and a permanent injury to his back meant that his career as an ACE operative had come to an end when he was 20 years old. He felt a mixture of bitterness, sadness, pain, rage and guilt. It feels like his heart got tossed into the blender, put back together again, and then tossed into the blender again. He did not regret doing what he did as he knew full well that Fallarbor could have been decimated if it wasn't for the sacrifice of his fellow comrades to buy time for Drake and the rest of the ACE team to arrive and drive the wild salamence population back to Meteor Falls. But he cannot help but think that the whole fiasco could have been prevented if the salamence population wasn't disturbed by those 3 idiotic trespassers in the first place. In his opinion, they deserved to get mauled to death back at Meteor Falls by the horde of angry salamence. Investigations after the incident revealed that these people were trying to poach the salamence's eggs, which can be sold at high value. They knew full well what they were getting into. Their own stupidity nearly got his entire team killed and cost David his life.
And when he got Drake's permission to personally escort those 3 idiots to Hoenn's prison in Dewford, he took great vindictive pleasure in doing so, not that he will admit it to anyone else.
After he resigned from ACE, he went back to his hometown, Petalburg city, settled down and proceeded to took over his family's pokemon breeding business from his father. It was there where he met the love of his life, Hanna Springfield, a nurse who works at Petalburg's pokemon center. They fell in love, got married to each other and they had their first child, Vance, 3 years later.
Life became perfect when Velda came into their lives 7 years after Vance was born.
Velda is a carbon copy of Hanna. She has Hanna's blond and wavy hair, her green eyes and her slim, petite figure. Totally unlike Vance, who inherited his own brown messy hair and tall, bulky stature. Vance did inherit his mother's green eyes though.
His daughter, Velda Vera, can be described as peculiar, but she is not by any means weird. She is... unique, for a lack of a better word. Even now, when he is sitting on the porch of his house with Fang, his mightyena and starter, watching his now 11 years old daughter trying to teach his other surviving member of his team, tropius, how to read by writing words on the ground with a stick (don't ask why, he has long since given up on trying to understand how his daughter's mind work), he cannot help but find his daughter too mature for her age. She had always been too understanding (he never seen her throw a tantrum even once), seems to know much more than what is let on (how did she even understand sexual innuendos at 8 years old?), and sometimes when he saw her gazing out of the window, just for that moment, his daughter's gaze felt so tired. And then she would notice him staring at her and the tired look disappear as fast as it appeared, and the bubbly, talkative girl that he is familiar with would come back to his side and begin to talk about what she had done for the day.
Griff had no idea why Velda had that kind of gaze. That sort of gaze is something he only saw in old people. It is that sort of gaze his father had when looking out of his bedroom window shortly before he passed away, a few months before Velda was born. Considering she only turned 11 a few days ago, it is kind of scary she had that kind of look so soon in life. But she is his daughter, and he would love her with every fiber of his being.
On a side note, Velda did managed to get tropius to at least be able to recognise and read its own name. Griff himself is still undecided whether he should be impressed at his daughter's perseverance (she had been trying to teach tropius to read its own name for the last 6 months), or to look at his long time comrade in awe that he actually managed to read (even though it's only a single word, but a word nonetheless).
Velda rarely cry. In fact, he could count on one hand the times he saw her cry since her birth. When she was 3 months old, she cried in shock when she saw Vance's starter, a gastly named Macky, making funny faces at her. When she was 3 years old, she cried in sorrow when she found out that her grandfather's linoone passed away in its burrow under the great oak tree in their backyard (poor old Whiskers lived a long life, may Arceus bless his weary soul). When she was 9 years old, she cried in worry when she found Vance lying in a hospital bed after a rough encounter with a herd of slakings on one of his ACE missions. Other than that, he really cannot remember other instances where he saw his baby girl cry.
Velda is not only mature, she is also smart. It did not take her long before she managed to crawl, speak her first words and finally walk around the house on her own two legs. She started reading at 3 years of age where other kids start at 4 or 5 years of age. By 5 years old, it became a daily morning routine for both father and daughter to read the newspaper together after breakfast, and they would discuss their opinions on current affairs. By the time she was 8 years old, she was browsing through Professor Samuel Oak's thesis on Pokemon and their influence on shaping human civilisations for entertainment purposes.
Griff is pretty sure that he spent most of his time when he was 8 years old rolling and playing in the mud.
If there is one thing Griff wished for his daughter, it would be for her to be healthy. Unfortunately, Velda's body has a weak immunity system that cause her to fall sick frequently ever since she was 5 years old. She would have frequent onsets of fever, cold, and cough, sometimes a combination of all three. Every doctor they met all said that there is no cure as there is no sickness to begin with. Velda is just unlucky to be saddled with a weak immunity system. Half of Velda's life when she was between 5 to 8 years old was spent resting on her bed to recover from whatever sickness that ails her. And every single time he had to carry her to bed because she is too tired to do so, she would put on a smile on her face and assure him that she is alright despite the pain and fatigue she felt on a near daily basis. Everyone in the family knew better than that of course, no one in their right mind would enjoy being a prisoner on their own bed for 6 months out of an entire year. Velda has always been too mature, always trying to look out for them despite the fact that she needs the most help herself.
Thankfully, Velda did get healthier by the time her 9th birthday came around and she spent every possible moment outside in their family's breeding farm located outside, at the back of their house to interact with the pokemon there. Velda is a natural with pokemon and she can approach and befriend any pokemon on their family's farm in a matter of minutes. Although he personally feels that having a protective mightyena hovering around her might have helped things a little.
Her love and familiarity with pokemon is what prompted both him and his wife to get their daughter her very first pokemon companion on her 9th birthday. To say that Velda was ecstatic would be an understatement when she received her first pokemon, a ponyta (Velda named him Flamel the next day), from them. He never saw his daughter so happy before and at that moment, Griff felt that he was the happiest man alive as well.
Griff is brought out of his thoughts when his wife's gardevoir, Holly, sent a telepathic message to him that his wife had finished preparing dinner. Seeing Velda walking up to him with Flamel at her side, he surmised that she must have gotten the message too.
"Did tropius learn any new words today?"
"Been trying to teach him how to read my name, not much progress though." Velda replied with a shrug of her shoulders, walking in step with him on his right. She turned to face him with a quizzical look on her face, "Do you think I have better luck with teaching Fang instead?"
He can't help but laugh at his daughter's question, "Sorry to disappoint you, but Fang would sooner fight against Arceus itself before learning how to read." He heard a snort of confirmation from his starter on his left. "Come on now, let's not keep your mother waiting much longer."
"Admit it, you just can't wait to eat mum's cooking. I know for a fact that she's cooking your favourite soup today." Velda gave him her best deadpanned look. "You are lucky that Vance isn't here to compete with you for that bowl of soup. He loves it just as much as you do. I swear mum have you both completely whipped." She threw her hands in the air in an exasperated manner for emphasis, "Whipped by a bowl of soup."
Griff can't keep the grin out of his face. Tomorrow, Velda would be embarking on her own pokemon journey like many other children her age. He can't help but worry for her like how he did for Vance when he first started his journey, and Vance did not have a messed up immunity system unlike Velda. Velda had argued that her health has been getting much better, only falling sick once every few months at the most.
Oh well, he will worry later. Right now, he have a bowl of his favourite soup to look forward to for dinner.
Dinner at home was the favourite part of the day for me. It was the time of the day where everyone in the family will put down whatever things they had on hand and come together to enjoy a meal. Too bad Vance had to return to Ever Grande yesterday for ACE duties, things were always more fun with him around. He acts like a happy-go-lucky idiot most of the time but is able to switch his demeanor to cold and calculating at the drop of a hat. Some of our neighbours find that aspect of him unnerving. Personally, I find this ability of his to be pretty cool. Vance is smart and charismatic. When he talks, people listen. There was no way he finished 3rd place in the 520th Ever Grande conference and subsequently rose to be the 2nd in command of his ACE squad, under the leadership of Wallace, the current Hoenn champion, by being an idiot. I'm surprised he even turned up to celebrate my birthday with me at all, since he is a crucial member of the ACE team now. He never said it, but I'm pretty sure he did more than just pulled a few strings to get the time off to celebrate my birthday with me and gave me the newest model of the xtransceiver for my birthday present.
Things decelerated to a slow lull after dinner, Dad and I helped Mum to wash the dishes as per normal. We would all talk about our day, or about current affairs, the farm, or pokemon. We would talk about almost anything under the sun. We will then lounge about in the living room in a comfortable silence. Dad would watch TV, Mum would knit and I would read whatever books I could get my hands on. We will all retire to our rooms by 10 in the evening and wake up before 8 the next day. Another typical day in the Vera household.
Lying on my bed after changing into my sleepwear. I can't help but look back on the 11 years of my second life thus far. I would be embarking on the start of my pokemon journey tomorrow. A journey that many pokemon fans in my previous life would die to go for. I have been waiting for this for years now, ever since I found out that I have landed myself in the world of pokemon when I was 3 months old. Admittedly, I was terrified when I saw pokemon for the very first time in my second life. In my defense, it was Vance who first introduced me to pokemon. He can be quite a dork at times. Like I said, I was a 3 months old baby who had nothing better to do but stare at the ceiling from my cot at that point in time. The only living creatures that I saw up till that point in time were my new parents. Most of my time for the first 3 months of my time was spent sleeping. Vance, on the other hand, was an excitable 7 year old boy who rarely had a chance to see me as my parents feared he would drop me on my head or do something stupid the moment he got his hands on me. Laugh it up all you want, but if you ever see how 7 years old Vance behaved and carried himself, you will find that the fears of my parents in my second life is well-founded and justified.
Anyway, back to the point of discussion, how I first met pokemon in this world.
Vance was standing by my cot trying to get me to play with him in the rare moment that I was awake and he was annoying the hell out of me by making those stupid cooing noises. I ignored him of course. I may be a baby in body but I had the mind of an adult. To top it all up, I was still having an internal identity crisis by being thrown suddenly and violently into an unknown world living my second life. I did not give Vance any attention at all.
So Vance did the only he can think of to get my attention. He faced the ceiling and made some sort of weird clicking noises with his mouth. The next thing I knew, a mass of purple gases with a face appeared out of nowhere and was staring at me just a few inches away from my face.
I screamed.
The usually quiet household suddenly sprang to life. Holly teleported by my cot humming with psychic energy, my parents burst through the door of my room with Fang at their side, and Fang was snarling menacingly, looking for any signs of threat. I could see tropius peering through the window of my room with a watchful eye (not that I know who or what it was at that time). But to me, someone who did not know that I was reborn into the world of pokemon, all of these creatures are unknowns to me and looked really fucking scary.
I screamed even louder.
Hence, ten minutes later, after much screaming on my side, my new Mum was cradling and rocking me in her arms trying to comfort me. My new Dad was giving Vance the biggest lashing of his life and Vance looked suitably chastised. I was still hysterical as that green and white humanoid thing (Mum's gardevoir, Holly) was still hovering a short distance away from me and that mass of purple gases with the scariest looking eyes (Vance's gastly, Macky) was still in my line of sight in the corner of my room. I would have continued screaming until I heard my Mum muttering something about "why did Vance think that a gastly would be a perfect first pokemon to introduce to a 3 month old" that made me stop.
Pokemon. My new Mum mentioned pokemon.
I shifted myself in my mother's arms so that I could look at the green and white humanoid thing better. It was still hovering by my mother's side and seemed intrigued by my abrupt change in behaviour. I took a good long look at it before I realised I was looking at a gardevoir. I then shifted myself again and peered downwards to see an absolutely huge canine looking up at me by my mother's feet. Its head was cocked to a side staring at me with its mouth half open, tongue dipping out from its mouth. It had sleek black and gray fur and I recognised the majestic looking canine as a mightyena.
Even when my Mum finally noticed my attention was on Fang and bent down to let me see him better, even when Fang came over and gave me a friendly lick on the side of my face to cheer me up, my mind was still reeling in from the sudden revelation that holy shit I'm in the world of pokemon.
My toddler days got a lot more interesting after that. I would spend every waking moment trying to get Fang closer to me so that I can observe him better. And by the time I can crawl and walk, I would make frequent escapades from the confinements of my room into other parts of my new home trying to see if I can find any other pokemon lying around in our house. I would try to groom Fang's fur (much to his delight), have staring contests with Holly (much to her amusement), and try to sneak out through the back door trying to access the family's farm to find more pokemon to play with (I found out much later that the watchful eye that was constantly peering through my bedroom window belongs to my Dad's tropius) much to my Mum's exasperation.
There is suddenly a whole new world to discover.
Growing up, I had to learn many things regarding pokemon. Things that were not found, taught, or explicitly said in games or in the anime when living side by side with the creatures known as pokemon. I learnt about the history of pokemon and the pokemon league. I learnt about the culture and way of life in this new world. I learnt many things. Things that people of this new world found to be perfectly normal and acceptable. Things that people from my previous world would not think of unless they experienced life in this new world themselves.
The first thing I learnt is my name.
Yeah, duh, I know. But in my case, there is power in my name.
My name in this life is Velda Vera. I am the second and youngest child of the Vera household, my parents' only daughter. My brother, Vance, is their only son and is 7 years older than me. Our family made our home at the edge of Petalburg city in the Hoenn region, and according to my father, Griff Vera, the Vera family has been been living here for many generations. Our family runs one of the largest pokemon breeding farms in the Hoenn region and our family practically lived in the farm. This business was passed down to my father from his father, who inherited the business from his father, who took over the business from his father... yeah you get the gist of it. We are the oldest and most ancient family in Petalburg city and possibly in the entire Hoenn region, and some of the Petalburg folks actually treated us as some sort of noble. In a sense, Vance and I are the near equivalent of a prince or princess in the pokemon community if a royalty system does exist. Our farm is huge, and by huge I mean Professor Oak's Corral in the anime kind of huge and even larger. The back door of our house leads to the our family farm and when I stand there, I couldn't even see the end of the fence that surrounds our farm.
Why did I say that there is power in my name? The power in my name comes from the Vera family name, in case you haven't realised. To explain this, I first have to bring you through a crash course on the history of humans and pokemon. In the world of pokemon, we humans revolve around pokemon and pokemon revolve around us. For humans, having pokemon on our side is a symbol and statement of our strength. For pokemon, staying with humans often correlates to having better shelter and food, and a better chance than their counterparts in the wild to get stronger. Statistics over the years have shown that pokemon under the care of humans tend to have a much longer life expectancy and a much higher chance to evolve and grow stronger. Most pokemon have the innate desire to evolve and grow stronger. Similar to how animals in my previous world interact with each other, pokemon have a food chain of their own and evolution is the best way for them to guarantee their own survival. Hence, they constantly seek out battle with other wild pokemon to gain experience and strength, trying to find their potential, drawing in the power within them to induce the process of evolution in their quest to survive. However, most of the wild pokemon do not have the necessary smarts to draw out their full potential that lays dormant within them. The few that managed to do so often create their own colonies, nests, herds or packs. Whatever you want to describe a group of pokemon. These groups can be dangerous or beneficial to human settlements, depending on how the leader of these groups react to the presence of humans.
What humans lack in physical strength, they made up for it in smarts. Humans always have ingenious ways to train pokemon to draw out their potential. It is unknown when humans of this world first interacted with pokemon, but it has been our way of life even before since the Hoenn League was first founded more than 500 years ago. In ancient times, having stronger and more pokemon than your enemy clans or tribes means a better chance for a successful conquest. Humans and pokemon have fought in bloody wars for reasons no other than greed, fame and power. It wasn't pretty, and it was a nasty shock and a violent wake-up call to me that this isn't the pokemon I knew from the games and anime that was censored to be children friendly. The world of pokemon that I am now currently living in is full of creatures that have the capacity to be your best friend, or a terrifying killing machine.
In any case, the bloody history of humans and pokemon first came to a stop 516 years before I was born. Two years after the establishment of the Indigo League, the first Hoenn Champion, Shozo Oshin, took a leaf out of the newly established Indigo League and conquered the various towns and cities that would later make up the Hoenn region, founded the Hoenn League as the governing body, and set up the annual Ever Grande Conference as we know today. Through sheer might and strength, he ruled the Hoenn region with a fair but strict hand. Under his rule, Hoenn flourished. The main problem back then was that the northern half of Hoenn spoke the language in which what people in my previous world know as English. The people from the Southern half of Hoenn spoke the language which what people in my previous world refer to as Japanese. The first thing Champion Shozo did in his reign as the Champion was to set English (known as the common tongue in the pokemon world, Japanese was known as the oriental tongue) as the main written and spoken language in the Hoenn region, which is also the main written and spoken language in the Kanto and Johto region. He set up the headquarters of the Hoenn league in Ever Grande city, established the Champion and Elite Four system like what the Indigo League did, and ally itself with the Indigo League. After that, he proceeded to standardise all forms of language, currency, laws and regulations, calendars along with many other things together with the Indigo League to make life in Hoenn better than the battlefield it once was. Any and all oppositions to his ideals were crushed with extreme prejudice in the name of peace. Some years later, many other regions followed the example of the Indigo and Hoenn League. It gave birth to the Sinnoh, Unova, Kalos and Alola regions and they all adopted the same calendar system first set by the Indigo League, together with their main language, currency, and most of their laws and regulations regarding human-pokemon interactions. Together, these 7 newly established regions make up the Pokemon World League, or PWL in short. The region of Orre is a bit of a unique case as it remains unconquered and untamed. It is the wildest region in the world, a place where criminal organisations and syndicates ran amok. But that is a topic for discussion for another day.
Over time, things were hammered out and stabilised, and humans lived in relative peace. Relative being the keyword here. The pokemon world is not free of conflict, but neither is it filled with strife. No matter the time and age, there will always be people and organisations who abuse pokemon for their own nefarious means. Thankfully nothing on the scale of a full-blown war has ever happened ever since the Hoenn League was founded. Pokemon Leagues around the world have a no tolerance policy when anyone threatens the peace and stability their forefathers have so painstakingly built over the years.
Due to the shared bloody history between humans and pokemons, humans in this world have a very healthy respect and fear of pokemon. Governments all over the world were very careful when it comes to developing and clearing lands for human establishment. There are very stringent laws in place when it comes to this sort of things. The idea is that if we got too overzealous in developing human settlements and encroach too much on the natural habitat of wild pokemon, it would drive them to attack human settlements in search of food and shelter which can potentially destroy the delicate balance between humans and pokemons. The most famous case in argument of this theory was the Mahogany Massacre that happened around 200 years ago in Mahogany Town. The locals in Mahogany Town were mainly fishermen. There was a serious case of over-fishing at that point in time and caused a scarcity of food supply for the wild gyarados that resides in the Lake of Rage. One thing led to another and it ended up with the alpha of the local gyarados population commanding a large horde of gyarados and launched a siege on Mahogany Town. The rampage lasted for 3 days and by the end of it, the Indigo League is short of a Mahogany gym leader and a member of their Elite Four, together with half of Mahogany Town.
To get around this issue, humans have been extremely creative in their usage of land. Hoenn has the smallest land mass compared to the other regions and the highest population density. Given our population statistics, I still find it extremely baffling that we haven't been nuked yet by any wild pokemon for incidents similar to the Mahogany Massacre. You can see the creativity in our land usage in our everyday lives. Citizens of Fortree city carve their homes into the big trees that is unique to their cities. Scientists at Mauville city designed and created New Mauville, an underground city even larger than Mauville itself where humans and the local electric pokemons co-exist in harmony. Government leaders from my previous world can really learn a thing or two from the pokemon league. Or maybe they need pokemon in their lives to nuke them before they actually give a damn and try to save the environment. Maybe both.
With pokemon being such an integral part of our lives, it can be said that whoever is able to command and control the way pokemon interacts with humans commands the military might of their nation. Remember when I said that my family has been in the pokemon breeding business for generations? We literally, buy, raise, breed and sell pokemon to trainers and the Hoenn League every single day. The only other pokemon breeding farm that have a chance to match our influence in the industry belongs to the Wildvolt family which is situated in Mauville city. The very same daycare center that hardcore Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald fans are familiar with. Our family may be small in number, but our influence permeates every single city in the Hoenn region.
The other important thing I learnt, and probably a very morbid question that many hardcore pokemon fans are curious about, is the food problem. Namely, do humans in the pokemon world eat pokemon? Are there any other "normal" animals like chicken, cattle, and fish in the world of pokemon? To answer the question, yes, there are animals like chicken, cattle, and fish in the vast world of pokemon. I was so relieved when I found out that the meat that I consumed in my meals did not come from pokemon itself. There were historical records of humans eating pokemon, although such practices are heavily frowned upon and subsequently outlawed. Wild pokemon tend to leave humans alone and prefer other pokemon and animals as their source of food. They do attack humans when humans come to close to their territory but even then they rarely consume humans as food.
Even though there are animals in the pokemon world, the variety of animals in the pokemon world however, is basically limited to poultry, cattle and seafood (ie fish and a small assortment of crustaceans and shellfish). You would not, for example, see a wild tiger or lion prancing around in the wilderness of the jungle as they do not exist. Pokemon, on the other hand, do consume other pokemon in their natural habitat and humans do not interfere with their food chain unless the pokemon in question is raised in the captivity and care of humans. To solve the food problem, pokemon food was invented around 800 years ago and currently assumes the form of small, round tablets that looked a lot like the pokemon food we often see in the pokemon anime. Pokemon food was created from the variety of animals available in the pokemon world, and they are generally better tasting, comes in a multitude of different flavours, and provides pokemon with the necessary nutrients they need to carry on with their everyday lives.
Another interesting to note is the significance of a starter pokemon in the Hoenn region. In the Hoenn region, whenever a person receives his or her first pokemon, it is tradition to give it a nickname. I never met my grandfather as he passed away shortly before I was born, but I met his starter, a linoone, which he named Whiskers. Whiskers was very patient with me and never turned me away from his burrow where he made his home under the great oak tree in our backyard. Whiskers passed away when I was 3 years old though, and I was overcome with grief as it was my first encounter with a pokemon's death. Similarly, Dad named his mightyena Fang, Mum named her gardevoir Holly, and Vance named his gastly Macky (a horrible name in my opinion). I named my ponyta Flamel when I received him as my starter on my 9th birthday. From here onwards, the naming habits of trainers diverge. Trainers like my Dad and Vance will only name their starter, and subsequent pokemons that they captured or received will not receive a nickname. It is a tradition from the warring-states era to emphasise the significance of a starter to its trainer and to remind trainers that their starter pokemon is the reason why they managed to make it so far into their journey as a pokemon trainer. This line of thinking is the most prevalent among Hoenn trainers. Another group of trainers, which I will likely be a part of in the future, named every single pokemon they ever captured or received to show the importance of the pokemon to the team. There is a third group of trainers who do not give their pokemons a nickname at all, but this group of trainers belongs to the minority.
The next myth to debunk: How many pokemon can a trainer carry on himself/herself at any given time?
The answer to that question in theory would be technically unlimited, or to be more exact, as many as you can carry. However, in practice, there is a practical limit to the number of pokemon a trainer can possess. This is because the amount of attention a trainer can give to his pokemon is divided among the number of pokemon he or she possess. Pokemon who receives little to no attention from its trainer tend to go rogue, and the outcomes of such incidents are not pretty. Amateur trainers tend to make this mistake with the misconception that "more is better". While it may hold true to a certain extent at the beginning of their journey, at their later stage in training, quality usually beats quantity. An average trainer employed by the league owns about 6 to 18 pokemon, with a minimum of 6 pokemon as required by the league. In trainer and league registered battles, a maximum of 6 pokemon may be used in any one battle, though the trainers can agree beforehand the maximum number of pokemon both sides are allowed to use as long as the number does not exceed 6. Furthermore, the more pokemon a trainer owns, the more time he has to spend in raising them to reach a certain level of skill compared to a trainer that possess a lesser number of pokemon. There are unique conditions where the concept of "more is better" is a better tailored concept to trainers. Usually, these trainers work in high risk environments, where the death toll of both pokemon and their trainers alike is high, like ACE, for example, the group where my brother is now a part of and my Dad used to work in. I knew Dad used to be part of the ACE team, under the leadership of the then Hoenn Champion and now Elite Four member Drake. He had 6 members on his team and he never went into details on how he lost the other 4 members of his team. All I knew was that it involved a horde of salamence at Meteor Falls, 3 trespassing idiots, and preventing Fallarbor town from experiencing a total annihilation. I could tell he wasn't comfortable with discussing the incident and I didn't probe any further after that.
The other alternative approach to prevent the high death toll in the ACE team, which I learnt from Vance, is to provide better training for both pokemon and trainers. This is the approach that I knew Vance is currently taking. Basically, the idea is that you trained your pokemon so damn well that you need something short of a legendary pokemon to put them down for good. When Vance entered the ACE team 5 years ago he has 8 pokemon on his team, he hasn't lost a single member of his team yet.
On the topic of legendary pokemon, they actually do exist, although their sightings are far and few in numbers, and there are some that hasn't been spotted even before the existence of the PWL. We only know of their existence through word of mouth or written historical records. In this world, when people coined a pokemon with the title of legendary, they literally mean legend-fucking-dary. The power and might of a legendary is not like those you experienced in a game. You cannot own a legendary, or at least, no living mortal have managed that feat yet. Each of the legendaries have the individual power to change and shape the world. The only difference is the extent that they are able to exact their influence on the world. Even a "lesser" legendary like Articuno can freeze an entire island that remains frozen hundreds of years later (yes, I am looking at Seafoam Islands). A more recent event regarding legendary pokemon occurred over 70 years ago. One of the previous Indigo League Champion managed to successfully locate and challenged Moltres. Long story short, he got his ass handed to him in less than 15 minutes and luckily, he and his pokemon was left alive and intact with nothing more than a bruised ego. Moltres was also known as the guardian of the Indigo League. Rumor has it that the first Indigo League Champion conquered the Kanto and Johto region and set up the first Indigo League with the help of Moltres. How he managed to command such a freakishly strong power I would never know and I have no wish to find out. It is said that a remnant of the flame of Moltres is being preserved in the headquarters of the Indigo league on Indigo Plateau. It was a sign of friendship between Moltres and humans, a promise from Moltres to help humans in their time of need.
In summary, the moral of the story is: Step one, legendary pokemon are really fucking strong, stay the fuck away from them. Step two, when in doubt, refer to step one.
The history of humans and pokemons have really come a long way. In a sense, it is even richer than the history of mankind from my previous world, and I would be a part of that history tomorrow when I embark on my pokemon journey. Dad and Mum had also hinted that they will be give me another pokemon tomorrow from the family's farm to aid me on my journey, but planned to keep it a secret for the big reveal tomorrow. I am excited. But for now, I need to sleep so that I can wake up early tomorrow to start my journey. Starting tomorrow, it would be me, Flamel, and a new friend against the world.