Chapter 12

The Pokemon League is an almighty entity to the people of Sinnoh and much of the rest of the world. Originally established to organize competitions for pokemon trainers, the League's popularity quickly propelled it to a position of financial dominance. They soon set up a gym and Pokemon Center in every town, and began manufacturing pokemon-related goods. Local governments soon found their political power being challenged by the League, which wanted to protect its own interests, and quickly either disappeared or became irrelevant. Even public services such as police stations were eventually overtaken by the League.

Pokemon training was at an all-time high by far, given the new ease and potential for financial gain thanks to the League. At some point, however, the League modified its format, making it significantly more difficult to make enough money to sustain a training career. It was around this time that rebel groups began to show up, most notably Team Rocket in the Kanto and Johto regions, Team Magma and Team Aqua in Hoenn, Team Galactic in Sinnoh, and Team Plasma in Unova. The goals of these groups are somewhat unclear, but they all seem to prey on young, struggling trainers in order to gain members.

It is easy to classify these groups as evil, given their propensity towards cruelty and violence, but their popularity and size suggest a larger problem with the political and economic structure of the world as it stands. The Pokemon League has often been blamed for not doing enough to stymie the activities of these groups, yet at the same time is criticized for its monopolistic nature. The League is at its heart an enterprise, and for that reasons some believe that it is not suited for being a primary political force, and that it will not hesitate to put its needs above the needs of the people.

-Excerpt from The Gilded Age, by Max Corpus

I slouched back into the exceedingly comfortable recliner I was sitting in. Flora had given me a quick tour of the Team Arrow headquarters earlier, and I was now trying to make use of some of its resources, namely its good-sized collection of obscure books and periodicals that League-owned bookstores wouldn't sell. The base was, simply put, awesome. It was revealed to me that we were still in Sinnoh, in a small town called Twinleaf, which as it turned out was the only town in the region that didn't have a Pokemon Center. The headquarters building looked from the outside like a normal two-story farmhouse style home, one of only a handful of houses on its road. Sure enough, if you looked inside you wouldn't suspect much. There was a pretty normal kitchen, living room, and dining room on the first floor, and a bedroom on each corner of the second floor. The place was a little bit of a mess, as you might expect from a group of younger people, but overall very comfy, decently well decorated, and normal-looking. The basement, however, was where they kept all the cool stuff. In addition to the control room that I had walked through on the way in, there was also a library, a garage where they kept a pair of motorcycles as well as a large white van, a large storage heavily protect storage room (which Flora claimed nobody except Team Arrow members could ever open), and best of all an entire pokemon training facility, including battle simulators, exercise machines, targets, and a customizable battle field which could be modified to simulate various terrain.

After the tour, Stone had suggested that I do some reading, in particular a book called The Gilded Age, which he told me gave a pretty good overview of the world as it stands. He made me promise not to come upstairs until I finished it, which seemed pretty unfair given that I'd barely even met the other members yet. Even Stone I had only met earlier today. It seemed so long ago now that I had been preparing to battle for my eighth and final gym badge. Today definitely qualifies as a long day, I thought.

I got through about a chapter or two before Stone showed up again.

"Finished yet?" he said sarcastically.

"Not exactly."

"Slacking off already, eh?" Stone chuckled. "Why don't you give it a rest and come upstairs for a minute."

"Slacking off?"

Stone laughed again and I followed him upstairs. I wondered if he was going to tell me a little bit more about Team Arrow, or if he just wanted to show me around more.

When we reached the upstairs it was dark.

"What happened to the lights, Stone?" I asked.

"Someone turned them off," Stone told me usefully.

We fumbled our way into what I thought was the dinning room. Suddenly, the lights came on.

"SURPRISE!"

I jumped back, startled. The room was decorated like a birthday party; there were balloons and streamers, a big cake on the table, and even some present boxes. Flora, Estelle, and Scott were all gathered around the table in party hats, except Estelle who had taken hers off. In addition there was a huge dog-like pokemon under the table that I didn't recognize, as well as the gardevoir that Stone had on the subway.

"What's this?" I said, smiling.

"We don't celebrate birthdays here!" Flora exclaimed.

"Instead, we celebrate the day we join Team Arrow," Estelle explained, "and for you, that's today."

Flora gave me an energetic hug as Scott started cutting the cake. It was a beautiful red velvet cake, covered in white frosting with the words "Welcome home, Vince!" written on top. My eyes started to swell up; this was all a beautiful gesture, and made my heart flutter in a strange emotion between happiness and despair, the kind one might get from viewing a particularly moving piece of artwork. I had lost it all earlier that day, yet people who were practically strangers made me a cake and threw me a party. It was too much. I broke down and began to cry, burying my head in my arms I was embarrassed, but who could blame me?

When I looked up, I saw Flora standing in front of my holding a piece of cake.

"Have some cake; it was make you feel better," she told me.

Estelle looked at me sternly. "Look, we're going to do whatever it takes to help you."

"Yeah," Scott agreed.

"Guys," I began, "this just means…"

"We know what you're going through," Stone assured me. "We just want you to know we're here, and you're one of us now. That is of course, if you choose to be."

It didn't occur to me yet, but I hadn't agreed to anything yet. Was this really what I wanted to do with my life now? I still had school to fall back on; I could probably still manage to get into a good university. My "crime" wasn't really against any laws, only against League rules, so I wouldn't be marked as a criminal or anything. I could probably even have my name cleared from the League's trainer database all together if I wanted. It was probably best for me to just go back home and focus on school and getting on the path to a good career.

"I can't go back now," I said defiantly. "They still have my best friends in the world. I can't promise to dedicate my life to this group yet, but if joining is my only chance to save my friends, then I have to do it." I had a good feeling about these people. "Besides, how could I turn down cake?"

The cake turned out to be even more delicious than it looked. I can understand why some people like to eat when they're stressed out; food is one of the only true constants in life. It's hard to say whether food tastes better on the best day of your life or on the worst.

"Vince, we got you presents!" Flora told me.

"Aw, you didn't have to do that…" I muttered.

"Actually, we probably did," Stone corrected. "These presents aren't toys; you'll need them to survive. We would have had to give them to you whether they were wrapped up or not."

"You're not supposed to tell him that," Scott said irritably.

"Well, let's let the kid open 'em. It's getting late, and he looks exhausted," Estelle said.

I hadn't realized how tired I was, but once she mentioned it I was damn well ready to curl up on the floor.

"Open this one first!" Flora insisted, shoving towards me a medium-sized box with green wrapping paper.

I took the box and tore the paper off, revealing a cardboard box.

"Look inside," Flora instructed.

I opened the flaps, and inside were a bunch of Pokeballs.

"Pokeballs?" I questioned.

"Well you didn't expect to run around Sinnoh without any pokemon at all did you?" Estelle said sarcastically.

"No, but…"

"Look," Scott started, "This should be obvious. Regular Pokeballs are connected to the Pokemon League's server, which means that to use them legally, you have to be registered to with the League. Even if you aren't registered to battle, you still need registration to store them in League Pokeballs. There are very few other private distributors of Pokeballs and other capture devices, and most of them are connected to the League anyhow. That's why I rigged these guys up. I got some help from a friend down in Johto, and I was able to find a way to disable the connection the Pokemon League servers pretty easily without disabling the Pokeballs altogether or lowering the catch rate."

It hadn't occurred to me that I wouldn't even be able to use Pokeballs. Pokeballs are to a trainer what instruments are to a musician, so new ones that I could actually use were probably the best present I could have gotten.

"I guess I'm going to have some work to do. You said I'm going to need these; I guess that means I'm going to be in more than a backseat role."

"Well duh." Estelle looked at me incredulously. "It's not like we have a lot of man power around here. We're going to need all the help we can get and more."

Stone put his hand on my shoulder. "You're a solid trainer, the kind of trainer that can handle this ordeal, but trainers nothing without pokemon."

This was too true. I hadn't really been in control of much since I lost them.

"Why don't you keep opening these?" Stone suggested.

Flora handed me the next box, a small one, about the size of a jewelry case. I opened it and inside was a key ring with a whole assortment of keys, as well as a small whistle. It seemed like a boring present at first, but on the key ring also was attached a round little icon of a ninetales. My heart jumped at the sight of it.

"Keys to the city," Estelle said, "or at least the house."

"We'll show you what they're all for," Stone promised.

I thanked them, and was then handed another box, this one covered sloppily in solid black wrapping paper, as if the person who wrapped it had no concern for style. Under the paper there was an unmarked cardboard box. It was apparent that Team Arrow didn't let the workers at stores wrap the presents for them. Despite this, when I opened the box I immediately recognized what looked to be a brand new Poketch!

"Wow! The new models are expensive too," I said.

Scott shrugged. "It's got everything that any other Poketch has and more. More because I was able to install a hack on it that allows it to run non-native code, that is to say, it can run apps that weren't made by the Poketch Company. It's a much more powerful device than people give it credit for. That's why we all have them now. We can use them as communicators, a means of accessing the internet, and especially for something the League wouldn't like."

"What's that?" I asked.

"We can connect them to other people's pokemon and Pokedexes now too."

I was slowly coming to the conclusion that this place might just be awesome. Immoral, maybe, but awesome.

I continued opening a few more presents, which ranged from light-hearted gifts, such as a how-to guidebook for pokemon sex (or as Estelle described it, how not to get killed), to basic survival supplies, to dangerous weapons that I had severe second thoughts about.

Upon voicing these concerns, Estelle looked me in the eye and said "In this business, there will come a day when no matter how talented of a trainer you are, your hands are gonna be tied and your pokemon aren't going to save you, and when that happens, there'll be no place for idealism and it'll be your turn to step up and be a real trainer. I could never ask a pokemon to fight for me without them knowing that I'd do the same for them."

That day had been the craziest of my life. After cleaning up from the "party" Stone opened a couch in the living room up to bed for me to sleep, and told me to sleep, because tomorrow was going to be another tough day. Despite his advice, I couldn't get to sleep. I couldn't stop thinking about my pokemon; it'd been ages since I had slept without them nearby, at least in their pokeballs. I thought about Sara and how much I'd like her to keep me warm at night. I thought about Holly's sweet eyes. I thought about Sophie's smile, Cody's confident glare, Ashley's protective wings and Geodude's unwavering sturdiness. It was just too much.

I flipped open the how-to book, Pokemon Sex for Dummies, and examined a few of its pages. It was written half-and-half for male and female pokemon, which each apparently had "their own sets of challenges." I chuckled at a diagram showing a woman struggling to accept a charizard's massiveness into her, and then a man struggling to find a good position with a female charizard. I wondered where the hell they found the book, and started to read the first couple pages (trainer's responsibility to their pokemon, blah blah).

I finally started to drift off to sleep, but as I did, I heard a faint voice, that felt like it was all around me. I couldn't quite make out what it was saying, of even if it really existed, or if it was all in my head. Rather than listening to it, however, I let it sooth me to sleep.