Unprecedented Times [A Pokemon Ranger Quest] (2024)

Hoenn bleeds.

Less than a week ago, a pair of criminal organizations both sought to awaken and subsequently take control of the legendary Pokemon Groudon and Kyogre, thought at the time to be but myths, or at least beyond mortal influence. They came very close to achieving their goals, only failing to control them.

The fight between Groudon and Kyogre lasted days, and in that time, they wrought unimaginable destruction on the region of Hoenn. Towns and habitats were damaged and even destroyed, Mount Chimney erupted unceasingly, burying central Hoenn in ash and flame, while storms and waves tore apart the coastal parts of the region. Where the two fought directly, just beyond Sootopolis City, boiling rain and steam fell from the sky and devastated everything nearby.

The disaster was only stopped when the newly-crowned champion of the region, May Fujita, managed to briefly call forth a third legendary Pokemon, that of Rayquaza, forcing both Groudon and Kyogre to retreat to their dwellings and fall back into dormancy.

You are not May Fujita.

You are instead a Pokemon Ranger, fresh from Ranger School, for all who could help were called upon to do so. You belong to a larger international relief effort, spearheaded by most nations and regions. You, and others, have only just started arriving now that the legendary Pokemon have gone dormant.

There is no precedent for something like this. Legendary Pokemon are known to exist, but none like Groudon or Kyogre. Little compares to this in the history books, and much of what does is too ancient and fragmentary to be useful for modern society to learn from.

You now live in unprecedented times, and you must do what you can, even if the path ahead for everyone is uncertain.

You think that, if you asked, it would not be hard to get confirmation that the plane you are on right now was not designed with living passengers in mind, besides perhaps the pilot and co-pilot.

The space you are in is cramped, bordering on aggressively claustrophobic. There are no windows in the back of this cargo plane, even if you are absolutely certain you have seen them on planes like this one before. The only source of light, then, is a long line of yellow bulbs locked behind metal cages, and though they are harsh when you turn to look at them directly, their light never reaches far, leaving vast pools of gloom in the nooks and crannies of the space.

What it does illuminate, though, is telling. The interior of the plane is sorted into two mirrored rows, both of them structured in a pattern. It goes as such: a cluster of boxes - supplies for the relief effort - lashed to the floor using belts and cables, then two sets of benches, then another cluster of supplies. Repeat until you reach the back. Between the two rows is a small, cramped corridor, barely big enough for one person, and absolutely ill-suited for any kind of real foot traffic, which leads between one end of the cargo hold and the other.

"Please be advised, we are now making our descent towards Mauville Airport. Remain seated and buckled in."

You recall what it was like getting on this plane in the first place, when it was just you and a handful of others actively moving around. There had been maybe ten, maybe fifteen of you, and properly working your way to your seat then had been a hazard.

Now? There are, at least, a hundred Rangers on this plane including yourself, likely much more. You just stopped trying to count them hours ago as a way to pass the time. It was only making you panic.

The interior of the plane is a veritable tide of people in the Union orange-and-black, broken up by wads of wooden and metal boxes. Most of them look like you think you do at this moment: completely out of their element, uncertain, green, if you had to put a word to it. Others are simply blank, and with signs that they, perhaps, might actually know what they're doing and that they're significantly more experienced than you are, judging by how some of them have six or more Pokeballs visible on their person.

Not that it is hard to be more experienced than you at the moment. That you can recognize anyone here - and you can recognize only a few, really - comes down to the fact that you only just graduated from ranger school over a week ago, and you shared classes with some of these people.

Truthfully, you feel significantly less prepared than you did when you first entered ranger school. As a first year, everything was a lot more simple, the stakes were a lot smaller, and failure meant doing extra work to make sure you didn't fail again. One would really think that two years of extensive training would make you more confident, but if anything, it did the opposite.

One of your hands falls away from your belt and comes to rest against the Pokeball on your hip. You feel it twitch in reply, responding to your soft nudge; a reminder that inside of it is your partner. You're not alone in this. Some of the tension leaves you, but not enough to make the urge to climb the walls like a Nincada go away.

The plane shifts, the creaking audible even over the roar of the jet engines that has dominated your hearing for every hour you've been on the plane. That is probably the landing gear, if you had to guess.

Your legs tighten against the bag beneath them—your essentials, or more accurately, practically everything you own. That was part of the reason why choosing to come and help Hoenn was so easy, you think. You had no rent to worry about back home, no furniture to put in storage or anything like that. You had lived out of the dorms in ranger school. Anything of relevance to your childhood is still back at your family home, and you barely remember what any of that might be. It had, after all, been years since you had stepped foot there.

Unfortunately, moving your legs also made the pins and needles start up again. You swallow a grimace, trying to at least keep the panic and growing pain from your face, but it isn't easy. This is the other reason why you think this plane was never meant for moving people: the benches you're sitting on transmitted every single bump or slight bit of turbulence the plane had experienced right into your spine, and subsequently your legs had fallen asleep several hours ago.

You are not looking forward to waking them up.

As if on cue, you feel the impact more than you hear it. Tires touch down on tarmac, and the entire plane squeals angrily as you and everyone else on your bench for that matter are jerked forward. You barely manage to keep yourself from headbutting the person in front of you, though judging by the sudden shouts of pain from elsewhere, you think you might be in the minority on that.

The plane jerks, wheels rattling loudly, and finally, finally, grinds to a halt.

Someone a few rows back from you groans piteously.

One way or another, there is really no taking this back. This is the first time you've left your region whatsoever. The pokeball, as some might say, is already thrown; you are on Hoenn soil now, and you might as well commit.

That was one of the things you learned as an adult: if you can't bring yourself to do it on your own, find a way to force the issue. Once you're in there, it'll be too much of a hassle to take it back, and you'll have to work with it. Was that healthy? You don't really think so, but it got you this far.

The engines on the plane finally gutter, and for the first time in hours, silence swallows the interior. Your ears still ring, searching for the sound that was just there, but it fades quickly.

The speakers clicked on again. "Please unbuckle yourself and prepare to depart in an orderly fashion. We will be dropping the cargo ramp shortly."

With that, conversation around you booms back to life, loud in the absence of the engines. You can hear a litany of conversations each trying to overtake each other: someone complains about their head, another argues over something related to marine ecosystems.

You filter it all out and unlatch your seat belt. For all that you might know a few faces on the plane, you don't know them, and only a few are seated nearby. Even if you did, though, you'd still prioritize getting off the plane.

With your belt unbuckled, you reach down, grab the top strap of your bag from between your legs, clench your teeth, and rise.

It comes as something of a surprise that, despite still very much being asleep, your knees manage to hold you upright.

You take the good luck for what it is, and start moving immediately to avoid the inevitable crush of bodies. Slipping out of your row, you cram your way into the narrow corridor between muttering rangers and relief supplies, and work your way towards the tail end of the plane. The pins and needles in your legs dog you the entire way, but with each passing second it fades.

By the time you arrive at the tail end of the cargo plane, you're among three other people, most of them looking about as eager as you are to get off the plane. Thankfully, little waiting has to be done, as within seconds of you arriving, there is a hiss of pressurized air and an accompanying creak as a clearly-marked section of the tail of the plane folds down and out, dropping open.

A wave of heat and light rolls in from the opening, blinding and scorching in equal measure. From behind, you hear groans and hisses from people who weren't expecting it. You, to your credit, just barely manage not to trip over your own legs while standing still when it hits you.

You're still blinking the spots out of your eyes when the ramp hits concrete with a sharp clang, and you manage to make out the others near the door scurrying down the ramp and out into the open air. When you've regained enough vision to see where your feet are, you follow quickly after, hearing the stomp and approach of many, many more boots.

Dry heat surrounds you the second your feet hit the ground. It is the heat of a desert, but that's secondary to the light. Even with your wide-brimmed hat, it is still far too bright, your eyes aching as they try to adjust to it. You stagger to the side, if only to not stand in the way of anyone else blindly stumbling down the ramp, and wait for your vision to clear again.

When it does, when the ache of photo-sensitivity finally recedes into the back of your skull, you find yourself in the middle of an airstrip. Off to one side is a vast, glass-and-steel building, an airport terminal by the looks of it. Above, another plane skirts through the sky, the drone of its engines loud and booming as it lifts off into the air. Further away from you, tucked up against the terminal, hundreds of figures swarm around a veritable forest of vast, eighteen-wheel trucks, Machamps, Hariyamas, and humans quickly packing boxes into them.

The entire area, now that you're looking for it, is crawling with humans and Pokemon, like a kicked Durant hill.

Craning your head further up, you find the skies expansively empty and blue, except for what you initially peg as storm clouds. It only takes a few seconds for your short-term memory to kick in and remind you that Hoenn has a volcano, one that was made very active during the events of the last several days. Mount Chimney might not be erupting anymore, but it is clearly still very agitated if it can throw up plumes of black smoke like that.

Something about the rest of the empty sky still fills you with unease, though. There aren't even those wispy clouds that sometimes linger. It is just… empty. You remember the reports now, the destruction Groudon and Kyogre wrought in their brief period of activity. It is all still being calculated in terms of hard cash, but everyone already knew that it is immense all the same.

No sky should be this clear - this bright - after something like that, you feel.

Pulling your gaze away from the sky before the thought can completely consume you, you glance back towards the plane and watch as rangers pour out of it like a river, the crowd of orange-and-black growing ever-larger with each passing second. Most of them are taking in the sights around them, just as you were, while others still visibly struggle with the light, pulling their hats as far down as they can go.

You inch away from the crowd all the same. It's not that you dislike people or anything like that, it's more that you prefer having a large amount of personal space.

A shout draws your attention before you can get too far away though, and you, along with everyone else, swivels to glance in the direction of the sound. A woman, tall and dressed in military fatigues, is jogging your direction, one arm raised above her head in a wave. She grinds to a halt some meters away, cups her hands to her mouth. "Rangers, right?" she shouts, eyes flicking across the crowd. "You're meant to be heading into the terminal! You'll be able to sign in and touch base with the Head Ranger's representative there!"

The woman is still taking heavy breaths of air as, with a single gesture of her arm, she jabs her thumb towards the glass-and-steel building behind her, saying nothing more.

Other rangers start in her direction, pulling away from the crowd, and before long, everyone is moving. You, not intent on getting lost - or at least if you have to get lost, being lost alongside everyone else - follow, keeping as close to the front and to the side of the crowd as you can. Thankfully, your position outside of the crowd becomes less and less inconspicuous as, with each meter you and the others walk, the crowd increasingly fans out.

The woman, in turn, turns and jogs back the way she came—by the looks of it, the convoy of vehicles being loaded up with supplies.

It doesn't take long for you and the rest of the crowd to cross the expanse of tarmac and reach a narrow concrete path leading up to a pair of doors that have been held open by a rock a piece. What surprises you is how bad the terminal looks up-close—further away, you hadn't been able to make out the fact that what looks like every other window has been replaced with wooden slabs, likely from being broken.

Not that you're given the time to linger on whether or not the boards are there to protect the windows or replace ones that had fallen out, as you're pushed along with the momentum of the crowd and step into the interior of the terminal in short order. You're hit by cooler air with your first foot in, and though it's still not exactly comfortably cool, it does at least point to the concept that someone, somewhere, has air conditioning.

That at least is a hopeful thought.

The interior of the building was purely civilian. It is, ultimately, just an airport lobby, a place to wait for your flight. That said, it certainly isn't being used that way at the moment. Wall-mounted screens that covered various hallways and corridors within are all disabled, showing either empty blackness or pale blue light. Off in the distance, various kiosks are all shuttered, and closer, crammed up against a wall, is a series of ten, clunky terminals, all of them looking at best fifteen years out of date, though they are seemingly the only functional electronic devices to be found.

"Flight four-two, right?" A voice interrupts, cutting through the dull chatter that had started up again between rangers.

You turn to find a man standing not far away, watching your growing cloud with a weary look on his face. He would be a stately figure, with carefully-cut hair, a build that was athletic if not necessarily muscular, and wearing the teal-and-orange uniform of a Ranger Union Operator, if it wasn't for the deep bags beneath his eyes and the gauntness to his face. He looks like a man who hasn't slept in nearly a week, and considering the state Hoenn is in right now, that might not be too far from the truth.

He cleared his throat again. "Welcome to Hoenn, despite the circ*mstances. I am Baz Wruck, Top Operator and standing in for Hiram Lee, our Head Ranger, who is managing things in the Hoenn Archipelago area," he explains, gesturing towards the group of terminals with one hand. "You will need to sign in with your ID using one of those terminals before we can assign you any work. It is necessary for better arranging relief efforts, considering the outpouring of support we have gotten. Once that is done, please come to me, and I can direct you to the emergency board."

The crowd behind you surges. It doesn't quite rush, as you're in the way, but you find yourself ushered ahead all the same, with people almost coming up against your back. Just a few seconds later, you find yourself up against the terminal with a growing line of impatient colleagues behind you.

Forcing back the urge to clear your throat, you drop your bag at your feet, reach down, flip open the top flap, and retrieve your wallet. Opening it, you pull out your Ranger Union ID, and turn to stare at the screen in front of you.

A helpful image of a blank version of your ID being inserted into a small, almost-invisible slot off to one side greets you, alongside a [PLEASE INSERT ID] written above it in just about every language you can think of.

After a moment's hesitation, you do just that. The machine almost hungrily swallows it when you've stuck it in far enough, and you pull your fingers away warily.

The screen flickers once, then twice, and then flickers sharply to a white screen with a copy of your profile printed across it. Above the profile is another line of bulky text in a wide variety of languages.

[PLEASE CONFIRM THIS IS CORRECT]

Your eyes drag between the parts of your profile. Height, age, name, gender, before you finally land on the region.

The following choice will be for you to choose what region you come from. This choice is a fairly major one, as it will decide what pool of Pokemon I will randomly choose from to grant you your starter. This will also decide what your native language is, though please don't worry, even if you aren't from Kanto, Johto or Sinnoh, you will know how to speak the local language (Daugo, the language spoken by Kanto, Johto, Sinnoh and Hoenn), you'll just have an accent.

Each region here will be listed with 6 Pokemon, from which I will roll a dice to decide which one gets chosen. This is to sort of imitate the feeling I always had when I started a new game (especially in a new generation) and ventured out into the grass to see what I could find. This will also be, by-in-large, the only dice roll you'll find in this quest, but I digress. Regardless of what Pokemon you get, they will all be equally as useful (though some may be better than others in certain areas) and trained as a partner. Vote for whichever region you feel speaks more to you, or whichever one has any of the Pokemon you like. Remember what I said about no useless Pokemon.

One final note: some of the options here will have one option with two Pokemon that are two versions of a single species. In the event that it lands on one of them, I will make a coin toss to decide which one gets used.

Where are you from?

[ ] Kanto

You are from Kanto, and in some respects, that makes you the common denominator in any given conversation. Kanto is, in a word, huge; it is the most populated region by a wide margin, and though it does not have the largest city on the planet in it, it has the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh largest cities respectively. Kanto is, in turn, the birthplace of the Pokemon League, and it carries that reputation with it, often said to be the hardest League Challenge on the planet. There is prestige in being from Kanto and from conquering Kanto's League, and it continues to draw in an endless flood of foreigners who wish to try their might against Kanto, resulting in the region becoming a vast melting-pot of cultures from around the world.

Not all, however, is perfect in Kanto. As the most populated region on the planet, it is also the most urbanized. Much of Kanto's wilderness was destroyed in pursuit of an endless sprawl of cities, and while efforts have been made in recent years to rewild the region, there's only so much that can be done in the time they've had to do so. While no Pokemon in Kanto have gone extinct completely, there are a number of Pokemon who no longer have wild populations to speak of, now relegated to captive breeding populations. On top of that, there's a reason that the caricature of a Kantonian is of a hyper-competitive, abrasive Pokemon trainer: Kanto's culture exemplifies individuality and raw personal strength at the cost of most else, and this extends well beyond the boundaries of Pokemon battling. Things have gotten better in the modern day, but the obsession with competition between individuals is still clear in how test results in school are posted openly, rather than given to people privately, among other things.

Coming from Kanto means carrying that with you. You cannot change the fact that you were raised there, but you do understand that the rest of the world does not encourage classmates to pick out people to be bitter rivals with. It was hard to wrap your head around in the first place, but you have managed it. It's your job now to figure out whether you want to live up to people's expectations when they find out your Kantonian, or to completely subvert them.

[Pokemon: Growlithe, Oddish, Slowpoke, Nidoran♂/Nidoran♀, Pidgey, Pichu]

[ ] Johto

You are from Johto, and that means you stand in the shadows of legend and myth. Some would claim that the shadow you and other Johtonians stand in is the one cast by Kanto, but you, and everyone you grew up with, knows much better than that. Johto is a place of religion and culture, where shrines to Ho-Oh and Lugia, Entei, Suicine and Raikou, as well as Celebi can be found around almost every street corner. Your people put great pride in their piety for the gods of your land, as evidenced by the fact that no shrine you have seen has been one in disrepair, even when a great many of those shrines can be found amid some of your bustling city centers. Worship, even in passing, is the norm.

Yet, Johto is more than just its piety. Johto is a place of old families, and older money; a society wherein not being born into one of the many powerful families that dominate the political or economic spheres of your homeland means you are not, and likely will never be, on equal footing with those who are. Johto is closed-off to outsiders, and as such it expects any outsiders who wish to stay to cease being outsiders, to conform in their entirety to the norms and standards of Johtoan society, or face social ostracization. Many who come to Johto find it unwelcome, disinterested in them at best, and actively hostile to their way of life at worst. Combined with the limited social mobility, many who come do not stay for long. For all that the traditionalist powers of Johto prefer it this way, to keep to the tradition that is hundreds of years old by this point, the world changes regardless, and over recent years brave vocal outcry among progressive voices have worked to reel in these kinds of views, to limited success.

Even so, your people's faith and tradition still defines much of the land you stand on. Cities are built in the old style, with elaborate roofs, rather than in the style of the modern day, resulting in wide, sprawling cities that lack skyscrapers. Forests are only harvested sustainably, for doing otherwise would be to insult Celebi and all the work they have done to sustain the world. Funerals are covered by the state, and done both swiftly and with all of the effort that can be mustered, whether it be Pokemon or human, for to do otherwise would be to look upon the legacy of the legendary beasts, of Ho-Oh, and call them into question. All who have grown up in Johto know one thing for sure: it is a land they share with their gods, and though other regions may pretend otherwise, a Johtoan knows best of all that the humans are not the ones who, at the end of the day, rule it.

[Pokemon: Hoothoot, Aipom, Phanpy, Magby, Elekid, Bellsprout]

[ ] Sinnoh

You are from Sinnoh, and that means you are closely acquainted with the cold. Perhaps that is a regressive place to start for how to describe your region, most would dwell on the culture, but there is a truth in the statement above all else: the cold has defined Sinnoh more than any living person who has stepped foot on it. Over half of Sinnoh sits in sub-polar latitudes, and a quarter of it is defined by its thick layer of permafrost; the tepid summers and bitter, harsh winters have made it so that only three large-scale migrations to Sinnoh have ever been successful: the ancient settlers of Sinnoh, of which there are few to no records left remaining, the Diamond and Pearl Clans, who came seeking their Almighty Sinnoh - another name for Arceus - and finally, the third wave of pre-industrial settlers who came fleeing strife from Kanto, Johto, and other nearby regions.

Historically, Sinnoh has been a place of strife. Strife against the weather, principally, but strife between people as well. The ancient settlers of Sinnoh left behind ruins which indicate a sudden and cataclysmic collapse of their civilization, though no evidence of what precisely caused it remains, the Diamond and Pearl Clans fought viciously throughout their settlement of Sinnoh, creating generational blood feuds that were only remedied after unthinkable effort, and the third wave of settlers in turn fought the Diamond and Pearl Clans for control over the land they had been forced to flee to. Something about the weather, most people think, drives people to violence; it's in the scarcity of food, of warmth, of safety.

Most of Sinnoh remains wild to this day, and it stands as the most wild part of the nation that consists of Johto, Kanto, Hoenn and Sinnoh. The Pokemon here are, in turn, accordingly wild, with an edge to them that's absent in even the wilder parts of Hoenn and Johto. Life in Sinnoh is one of brief summers and harsh, snow-filled winters, and the politics between the various parts of it are often tribal. It was only with years of effort to make reparations and form treaties and find a solution everyone would be satisfied with that Sinnoh could remain a stable region, and that adjustment was recent, only within the last hundred years. It has taken unimaginable effort to keep it stable, and you think it will remain that way well into the future.

[Pokemon: West Sea Shellos/East Sea Shellos, Starly, Bidoof, Swinub, Shinx, Stunky]

[ ] Unova

You are from Unova, and that means you come from a place that is something of an upstart. Unova was not always the urbanized centre of trade it is today; in fact, just a few hundred years ago, most would struggle to even know where Unova was in the first place. Unova became what it is today during the industrial revolution, where it heavily based its national policies and development goals off of Kanto, thus resulting in the same kind of urban sprawl and industrial development without end. Unova is, in many respects, a very new power; where Kanto has been relevant for hundreds of years, Unova has only been that way for a hundred at the absolute most.

Unova, like Orre, was settled by Galarians fleeing a calamity some several thousand years ago, but few would be able to see the resemblance between Unova and Galar in the modern day. Unova is principally known for its rock-bottom tax rate which siphoned up many major organizations, encouraging them to move into the region to set up business and benefit from the low costs. Unova is very much a commercialized region, and it is set up around encouraging companies to move to the region and then help them build the infrastructure they need to pursue their goals, sometimes to the detriment of the people and Pokemon who already live there.

Not all is bad, though. In more modern times, efforts have been made to hold onto what parts of Unova still remain wild, and even more effort has gone into curbing the excesses of corporate greed, but progress is slow, and social movements, already a powerful force in Unova, have started to spring up again as it takes longer than people think it should to remedy. You, and many others, grew up with the feeling that there was a crisis just waiting to happen, but nothing ever came by the time you reached adulthood, even if the feeling never left.

[Pokemon: Pansage, Pansear, Panpour, Scrafty, Woobat, Lilipup]

[ ] Kalos

You are from Kalos, and coming from there means being part of one of the major, artistic cultural hubs on the planet. That is, really, what Kalos is mainly known for: culture, which it exports eagerly, whether it is in the form of food, movies, paintings or more. Kalos holds beauty in high esteem, a core part of its cultural identity, with even the average house being painted with exceptional care to make sure it matches or exceeds the quality of buildings near it. Everything needs more effort, more refinement, to be presentable to the wider world, and it is part of a Kalosian identity to make good on that.

Unfortunately, this means there exists a large disparity between the people who can do that, and the people who can't. When this kind of refinement is viewed as the bare necessity, anyone who can't accomplish it is seen as not good enough. A long-standing issue in Kalos is predicated on exactly that conflict: the fact that not everyone can commit all the money they have to maintain expensive things, the fact that some people just don't have the energy to do so. The pushback from those who can against those who cannot has been long, aggressive, and sordid, with old laws - if now repealed - criminalizing a wide variety of things as "debased" when many of them mostly came down to how much money you had.

While policies and progressive movements have changed how severe these policies are, they have not been completely removed, and remain a polarizing topic in Kalos to this day. With so much of the power entrenched among those who seek to uphold these laws as part of their cultural identity, change remains slow, and push back continues to be harsh on anyone who speaks out against it.

[Pokemon: Fletchling, Skiddo, Inkay, Helioptile, Azurill, Bunnelby]

[ ] Alola

You are from Alola, and like all Alolans, you know how real the possibility was that you might not have been able to say that, if things had turned out different. Alola is defined in large part by its protector deities, the Tapus, each of them governing over an island, and interacting with the wider population with regularity that baffles most other countries. These legendary Pokemon are the main reason why your homeland could remain independent as it was, during the time of strife and wars, when people looked upon your islands and saw something small, something easily conquered, and your legendary Pokemon as something possibly able to be shackled. They saw Alola as soft for the way your people smiled, and you proved them all wrong.

Growing up in Alola means living close to the religious heart of your nation. The Tapus are very real entities, legendary in power and protectors of your world, yet even you have seen them a few times, and heard them more times than you can count. It might only be on festival days, but then festival days make up a big part of your culture: you have plenty of them, for a great many things. You have them for the days when conquerors came to your shore and were smashed against the rocks by the Tapus, and you have them for the days when one single act of divinity from the Tapus weren't enough, when your people died in mass to ensure you held onto your sovereignty.

Alolans hold their national independence in strong regard, as a result of their history. It took years for Alola to stop outright refusing to let anyone into the country after the wars started to stop, and it took longer still for Alola to let any trainers in whatsoever. Even in the modern day, Alola resists the global community in ways most others consider frustrating: even the League struggles to fully work its way onto Alola, though in that respect, progress has been made, with a compromise fusing the traditional Alolan Island Challenge with the League Challenge, in hopes of making something both communities could accept.

[Pokemon: Pikipek, Alolan Geodude, Mudbray, Exeggcute, Snorunt, Salandit]

[ ] Galar

You are from Galar and that means you carry the weight of its history on your back. Galar was one of the first cradles of civilizations, with one of the oldest evidence of highly organized civilization dating back to over six-thousand years ago, though said civilizations were subsequently destroyed by a calamity that occurred closer to three-thousand years ago. A significant amount of importance is placed on history and how it changes the way one views the future in Galar, and it, historically, has been notoriously slow in adjusting to modern trends and styles of governance.

Even so, this does not make Galar any less important. With its vast ports and carefully-harvested natural resources, Galar brings in vast shipping fleets from Paldea and Kalos both, who in turn ship such materials back to the high-density regions of Kanto and Unova. On top of that, Galarians have spread across the globe, both recently and historically, creating connections between Galar and places such as Unova and Orre, as well as any other region with a large population of Galarians. While perhaps not as multicultural as Unova or Kanto, Galar still remains plenty diverse, and its people are often welcoming and happy to see anyone interested in their land, and with the wealth of stories Galar has, they have no shortage of things to tell you about.

That said, the money Galar made has also resulted in the emergence of Macro Cosmos, a powerful, functionally monopolistic conglomerate that is so interwoven with the Galarian economy that properly putting checks on its power may very well collapse the region, or if nothing else cause the cost of power to rise so high as to be unsustainable. This is worsened by the fact that as Macro Cosmos grows more powerful, it comes up against the influence of existing, powerful families and dynasties, who grow increasingly hostile to the conglomerate as their power diminishes and it, accordingly, becomes more powerful. With no end in sight for this conflict, and no solution easily found in the sluggish Galarian bureaucracy, people can really only watch and wait to see how it ends, though few have any delusions it will resolve itself peacefully.

[Pokemon: Galarian Farfetch'd, Galarian Meowth, Yamper, Impidimp, Snom, Chewtle]

[ ] Orre

You are from Orre, and that means people start out with an opinion about you before you've said anything else. Most people, you have found, slot you into one of three categories: a sob story, a criminal, or a refugee. This is because Orre is not a good place to live; arguably, it's the worst region to live in if you had the opportunity to choose between them. Orre is dominated by criminal organizations acting as governments in the east, and a violently repressive dictatorial government controlling the much smaller, much wealthier, and much more habitable west, and the conflict between these two sides has been largely unending since its inception.

Orre was the most affected region on the planet when it came to climate change. Orre, historically, had bands of habitable shrub land and savanna between its desert-covered east and its more lush west, and the vast majority of its population - mainly Galarian refugees, fleeing a calamity thousands of years ago - lived in those habitable bands within the east, for the west was mountainous and lacked a lot of livable space. This came to a cataclysmic end when climate change began to reshape the world, as much of Orre's east underwent rapid desertification, and many farming areas became unworkable. When refugees sought to flee to the west, they found that the wealthy industrialists, already aware of the effects they would have on the environment, had petitioned the government to stop them, and stop them they did. That was the precipitating incident for everything else that followed: the refugees fleeing west were either killed or turned back, and many of those who turned back died of starvation and thirst in the subsequent famine. The government's control on the east, already tenuous, completely collapsed, and criminal organizations moved in to fill the vacuum, and this time around, they didn't even have to pressure people into working for them.

Orre has been like that ever since, and even as the world slowly turns back the wheel on climate change, very little has truly changed. What bothers you most of all, though, is that people don't really imagine you could have lived a somewhat normal life, having grown up in the east. You had a childhood, you had a family, you went to school, you did homework, you weren't drafted into gangs and while you were wealthier in comparison to some parts of Orre, where kids might genuinely be forced into gangs, you weren't as wealthy as some people assume when you tell them you had a normal childhood. It was not a childhood analogous to that of a Kalosian, no, for once again you lived in a place ruled by criminal organizations fighting a guerrilla war against a government out west, and yes, every so often there were bombings or killings, but it was still a childhood, still a life, and you wish people would understand that. You were not made an adult simply by living in Orre, people did their best to maintain normalcy for you and your friends, and you now stand on the shoulders of that effort, seeking a better future for yourself and the people you know.

[Pokemon: Sandshrew, Zubat, Tyrogue, Whismur, Cacnea, Zigzagoon]

[ ] Fiore

You are from Fiore, and to say that your people are closed-off would be something of an understatement. Fiore, Almia and Oblivia are geographically isolated, located far separate from the rest of the world, and it was only during the industrial period that transporting things and people to the area became logistically viable. It was why Fiore, Almia and Oblivia had such a different culture to the rest of the world in the first place. Fiorians didn't take the transition to being a connected, global country well, however, and for much of their modern history, they resisted visitation, and enacted policies to discourage outsiders from coming to their shore. It has taken a lot of time, effort, and national reform to ease your region's xenophobia, and it is a process that is still ongoing today, and not something that is done without significant resistance from some parts of the region.

Fiore's culture is old, and its people have not changed that much in the time since they settled there. There is a very real history to the region that chafes against any attempt to modernize or urbanize, and accordingly, little has been done in that area. That said, of Fiore, Almia and Oblivia, it is in Fiore where the greatest progress in scientific advancement can be felt, with globally-famous universities focusing on advancements in technology that have changed the face of the world a number of times, even if most people don't realize it.

In the modern day, Fiore still remains closed off, with some of the strictest requirements for entry in and exit out of the region. It remains the most hostile to the use of Pokeballs - however, as with Almia and Oblivia, the ban on them was abolished over twenty years ago - though not specifically for any notion of welfare. Rather, exemplifying the culture of Fiore in a way few things can, the dim view of the Pokeball comes from the fact that it is seen as a crutch, one that should not be needed if you have properly bonded with and trained your Pokemon. To use one in Fiore is to come just short of implicitly saying that you cannot trust your Pokemon to be in public spaces, that you have failed as its owner, and considering how much the rest of the world uses them, one can begin to understand how Fiore might have garnered its reputation.

[Pokemon: Electrike, Spoink, Doduo, Cubone, Meditite, Ekans]

[ ] Almia

You are from Almia, and you say that with no small amount of pride. Your people are hardy, intelligent, and driven towards bettering the environment on account of the large influence the Ranger Union has on the local landscape. This should not surprise anyone who knows anything about the Union though, for it is from Almia that the Ranger Union first came to be; Almia is the Ranger Union's birthplace, just as Kanto is the Pokemon League's.

Almia is the cultural heart of the nation that contains it, Oblivia and Fiore, and is by a wide margin the most influential among them. It has the largest cities out of the three, and yet maintains its natural reserves with an ease that would strike jealousy into most. All the same, it has taken effort and time for Almia to get to this point, and concessions most other countries would not make, concessions that some still bitterly hate to this day.

Companies, in the modern day, struggle and fight with the government to gain critical access to resources Almia has in its shores, now that it has opened its borders to outsiders to help fund its preservation efforts, often with ruinous consequences for the region and company both. With the ever-growing presence of Pokemon battling in the news and broadcast from foreign soil, the question of whether or not to allow large-scale importation of Pokeballs has begun to be spoken of again, even as one side of the culture pushes back against it, and the other seeks it out. Some worry this could be the start of a cultural schism that Almia might not be able to deal with, that it jumped into its space in the modern world too quickly, and others think it is still too slow. Only time will tell how Almia manages the changes being part of the global community imparts on it.

[Pokemon: Poochyena, Spearow, Buizel, Tangela, Hippopotas, Aron]

[ ] Oblivia

You are from Oblivia, and you've found that most who aren't similarly from your small region will ask, rather bluntly, where? Oblivia is, among the other two regions of Fiore and Almia that make up a single national government, small and rural. Some would say underdeveloped, but you don't think that's entirely fair. Oblivia is a complex network of ecosystems stretched across an archipelago, and your people have learned to live alongside the land itself, with the major requirement for doing so being not tearing down the few scattered woodlands for timber or pillaging other key resources in general.

Oblivia, when it is known at all, is known for its eclectic musical tradition, mixing a variety of styles brought over from other regions and blending it with their own, creating entirely unique sounds to the region. This musical tradition comes from the religious tradition of the land, as historically Oblivia was a very religious place, and some of that still remains today, with the worship of Arceus as well as Latios and Latias being the most common.

Despite all of that, Oblivia is, once again, relatively poor. Without the space or willingness to urbanize, people on Oblivia have to some extent felt like they've been left behind by a changing world far more preoccupied with vast cities and complex road networks. From some of these people, the push towards urbanizing protected lands has started to spring up, and considering Oblivia is so isolated from the rest of the nation, nobody is sure exactly where that pressure might go, if given time to build.

[Pokemon: Wooper, Ledyba, Makuhita, Voltorb, Lotad, Teddiursa]

Once you've confirmed that everything looks right, you reach over and press the large button labelled 'OK' just beneath the screen. The display flickers a second time, though when it resolves into a new image this time, it's of a rotating pokeball, with a [PLEASE HOLD. SERVERS ARE UNDER HIGH LOAD. THIS MAY TAKE A FEW MINUTES] written above it.

Blinking sluggishly, you sigh, lean back, and wait for the process to go through. Unfortunately, now that you have time to wait and you're not crammed inside of a cramped cargo plane, this means your brain has time to think, and it keeps coming back to one thing:

How did you even get here?

This next option will choose your background. These backgrounds will better inform your character's personality, while also giving you a bonus to two masteries, making them start out higher and begin as 'gifted masteries'. See below for more information on that. Only one mastery cannot be paired with every single origin, and it will be noted when that is the case.

[ ] You came from a family of Pokemon breeders

You were born into a family of Pokemon Breeders, located just on the outskirts of one of the largest cities in your region. You grew up surrounded by both the livestock your family raised, as well as the specialty-bred Pokemon they raised for the purposes of being sold to aspiring trainers. You were not left idle as a child, either; from a young age, you helped take part in managing your family's flock, for it was part of your culture and because, you expect, it was much easier to keep a child occupied by letting them play with the more patient Pokemon in your compound.

You went to school, like anyone else, but in the margins of your work you doodled drawings of your family's flock, of Pokemon in general. Something about them, about how they worked, how they loved humans and how humans loved them in turn, enthralled you. You wanted to learn more about them, you wanted to find a way to pursue that goal, even if you didn't much want to become a trainer. Growing up around so many Pokemon had left such a mark, such a love for Pokemon, that there was really no other path forward to you.

At the same time, though, your family's business, while plenty willing to take you in, wasn't what called to you. You didn't mind looking after the family's flock and raising newborns, but it wasn't enough, ultimately. You went looking for alternative options, ranging from a job as a nurse to any number of other potential options that could let you interact with and help more Pokemon than just the ones confined to your family's compound.

It was there, in your searching, that you found the Rangers. You knew of them, of course, and you knew what they did, but you had never considered the job for yourself. The idea soon took root, though, and while your parents were less than thrilled to see you not take over the family job, a bit of needling on your end did make them admit your siblings could take over in your stead. The farm was too small for you, and your love for Pokemon too big.

You joined the ranger school, in pursuit of finding, helping, and cherishing any Pokemon you could, and the rest was history.

[Handling and First Aid start at Above Average, and become Gifted Masteries]

[ ] You were once a regional challenge taker

You were like any other kid: filled with an immense desire to become a Pokemon trainer. When you were younger, you obsessed over that day in the future when you'd be able to go out on your own journey, try your region's challenge, and see how far you could get, making friends with Pokemon along the way, and defeating your opponents decisively. You had it all planned out, even years in advance, and spent your nights dreaming of what the future would bring.

It was all going so well, too. You obtained your Pokemon through a cousin, who agreed to come down and help you catch something in the wild brush around where you lived, a week before the challenge was to start. You and your friends compared routes, what gyms you thought you could take on first, what ones you wanted to keep for last.

Then, on the first day of the challenge, you tripped. Nobody thinks about how fragile the human body is, but you became quickly acquainted with it as, one step out of the comfort of your hometown, you proceeded to roll your ankle and take a fall down a hill. By the time the dust settled, you had broken your leg so comprehensively the pain nearly knocked you unconscious, and any future as a league trainer was shortly thereafter dashed. The break in your leg was so bad that it necessitated years of physiotherapy after it healed, a process that already would take over a year, and the doctor overseeing your injury more or less barred you from considering taking your regional challenge until you got explicit permission from her or someone who could be trusted to sign off on your well-being.

You were miserable for quite some time after that. Your future, once so bright and clear, was lost behind agonizing periods of physical therapy and constant trips to the hospital to assess your process. Your friends left you behind, going off on your own journeys, though none made it as far as they thought they would. As time went on, though, you found that the pain you felt being unable to pursue your dream diminished, but your drive to meet and befriend Pokemon never did.

You researched a litany of possible ways to pursue your love for Pokemon, ranging from working a daycare to working in a safari somewhere, but nothing seemed to fit, nothing had that adventure, nothing had what you wanted. That was, at least, until you were advised to consider the Ranger Union. You had known about Rangers before then, sure, but only abstractly, but once you read through the description of their job, you were hooked. This was almost better than your original goal of being a trainer: this way, you could explore, you could help, and you could still be around Pokemon, just like you wanted to.

Nowadays, your leg doesn't bother you so much, only aching when the weather gets bad. You do still need to get a check-up on it every so often, but it has supported you through ranger school, and you have no doubt it will support you well into the future.

[Athletics and Pokezoology start at Above Average, and become Gifted Masteries]

[Note: This one is not available when paired with Fiore, Almia or Oblivia due to obvious conflicts between the premise and how those regions work. If this background happens to be the most voted for while Fiore, Almia or Oblivia are similarly the most voted for, I will default to the next highest voted for option.]

[ ] You were a urban kid

You come from the urban heart of your region, a place that left you more familiar with towering skyscrapers than it did trees. Your parents were mid-level professionals, their jobs ultimately interchangeable insofar as their impact on the world around them, and ones which uniformly kept them doing long hours well into your late teens, leaving your relationship with them distant, if not hostile. With no parents around to keep you company, you had to find company for yourself in the urban sprawl of your home, and in that, you were not let down.

People look at a city and see an expanse of concrete, a lifeless desert of human making. You disagree. Your childhood was full of life—of Pokemon you found on your trips through tight narrow alleys and in the small clusters of greenery that the urban sprawl reluctantly allowed. It was here, in the colonies of Pokemon most simply pretended did not exist, that you found your love for nature. Most might call that backwards, but you think they just didn't look hard enough.

When it came time for you to decide on a job, on a future, your own upbringing left you somewhat torn. You could not imagine doing what your parents had done, getting some job that would require you dress fancy and spend most of your time locked in a cubicle. You also couldn't really imagine being much else, either; nothing called to you besides Pokemon, and by the time this problem had arisen, you were frankly a bit old to be considering a trainer career.

So it was with relief when you were acquainted with the career path of being a ranger, and more to the point, that the rangers you met did not disagree with you that a city was as much a habitat as a forest. They had you hook line and sinker, after that point, and you managed to find your way into Ranger School to pursue a future where people might see the city the same way you did.

[Pokezoology and Perception start at Above Average, and become Gifted Masteries]

[ ] You lived by the sea, in all its splendour

Your home is the sea.

You were raised on it, you know the taste of ocean winds better than you do anything else, and you imagine, at the end of your days, you'll probably return to it.

Your family were fishers, and you were born into the craft much like they were, and their ancestors were. If your parents could be believed, one of the ways they'd get you to calm down as an infant was to take you out on the family boat—not far from the shore, but just far enough that you could doze to the sound of the engine and the smell of the sea. The rest of your childhood was much the same: when you weren't at school, you were by the shore, digging up shells, watching for Pokemon, and when you weren't doing that, you could be most likely found either on your family's boat, or at least on the docks where it laid anchor.

Even so, your parents didn't want the fishing life for you. It's hard work, and doesn't pay so much, not in the modern day. As you grew older, they increasingly pushed you to get engaged with school, to pursue higher education, to escape the drudgery of their work and find something better, something that didn't mean you might go missing one day on a ship in the middle of a storm because if you weren't out there, your family might starve.

You don't think they were impressed when you landed on taking up a job as a Pokemon Ranger, though. With their adamant refusal to let you carry on the family work, you found the next best thing to the days you spent watching Tentacool bob beneath the hull of the family boat: being a protector to those same Pokemon. You still love the sea, it still calls to you, but when your parents saw you off to ranger school, you knew they had made the right choice to encourage you to look elsewhere. The shoreline your family fished off of, you came to realize, was too small for you.

You wanted to see it all.

[Athletics and Perception start at Above Average, and become Gifted Masteries]

[ ] You've always wanted to be a Ranger

Where other kids loved Gym Leaders and those famous trainers and champions, you loved Rangers. The reason for this isn't complicated, not by any stretch of the imagination: it was because your uncle was one, and it was because he visited you when you were four and impressionable and that memory remained stamped in your brain for the rest of your life. When other kids played out make-believe Pokemon battles in the school yard, you shuffled around in the thickets and bramble and pretended to be a Ranger. Few people played along with you, but you didn't mind.

Being a Ranger consumed most of your childhood, but being a fan of Rangers is harder than most people think. There aren't really famous Rangers outside of Ranger circles; they're not really public, not like Gym Leaders, so you had to dig for them. In doing so, you discovered a lot about being a Ranger, browsing forums primarily meant for Rangers to connect and talk about job hazards and tips. You spent your teenage years filling your mind with niche Ranger information - often at the detriment to your grades in school - and replicating those tips and tricks, seeing if you could even do them, and found to your delight you could, if not exactly well.

It didn't really come as much of a surprise when you made it clear you wanted to go and become a Ranger. Being a Ranger wasn't really a family thing, but with your uncle as one, your family supported it all the same. It helped that you weren't leaving much behind when you did, seeing as you had made few friends, too preoccupied with your interest in all things Ranger. Going to ranger school did come as a shock to you, as it was a lot harder than your romps through what you realize now were the carefully-gardened blocks of faux-wilderness in and around where you lived, but some part of you came to relish the challenge all the same.

It still didn't change the fact that your peers often find you weird, too obsessed about niche Ranger information, but you didn't mind. After all, you have a goal in mind: you're going to become the best Ranger, you're going to become as good at it as you possibly can be, so one day, someone like you might look up to you, and see in you their future.

[Rangercraft and Handling start at Above Average, and become Gifted Masteries]

[ ] You belonged to the rural poor

The town you were born in totalled one-hundred and forty-two people, including yourself. To say you were rural would be putting it mildly, and to say you were poor would be fairly accurate. Living on the fringes of modernized society is never easy, but your community had it even harder: you lived in a part of your region that just had no real traffic. Nobody came here for any reason besides industrial operations, and those kept well away from your ramshackle little town.

You grew up learning how to forage for food on lean months, and how to handle injuries when the closest clinic - for Pokemon or humans - was hours away by car, which didn't even factor in the costs involved. Pokemon were always part of your life, but not in the way they are for the centrally-located parts of the region; Pokemon where you lived were truly wild, with few, if any, instances of them interacting with humans, and that made them much more dangerous. You learned wariness from that, especially when it came to Pokemon lurking on the edges of town.

The only real constant in your life was, in fact, the Rangers. People in orange and black, they would patrol the town, check up on people, make sure certain Pokemon were kept away or concerns were heard. At times, they were your town's only lifeline, especially when it could take months to get a reply back from whoever happened to be in charge of your neck of the woods. As a child, you looked up to them, and as a teenager, you saw their job as a way out of your situation, a way to escape the tiny town and the lack of future you could see cresting on the horizon. There were no jobs, no reason to stay besides your family, and they wanted you to get away from it as much as you did.

You researched as best you could without an internet connection, talking with rangers all throughout your late teens, and managed to even find out about a scholarship program. When you came of age, you took the leap: your parents gave you enough to leave the town you grew up in, surrounded by forest and Pokemon, and you joined the ranger school in hopes that one day, you might be able to be to others what those Rangers were to you in your childhood. Better yet, maybe you might even be able to help fix towns like yours, or at least make them more livable than they are now.

[First Aid and Rangercraft start at Above Average and become Gifted Masteries]

Unprecedented Times [A Pokemon Ranger Quest] (2024)

References