To begin, let me thank you all for clicking on this for a read. Some of you may be new readers, others may have read my other work before. My thanks go out to all of you, and I implore you all to give me your honest opinion of the following work. It's my first time writing a full story in first person, so I'd like constructive criticism and pointers as to what I'm doing right and wrong. Until then, enjoy...

Disclaimer

Pokémon is a registered trademark of Satoshi Tajiri, Game Freak, the Pokémon Company, Nintendo, etc. All trademarked characters, locations, themes and ideas are used without permission in a work of fan-created fiction. The following has been done without profit for purely entertainment purposes. All original concepts, characters, themes and ideas within are the copyrighted property of the author, and are not to be reproduced without his prior consent.

Pokémon

Regret

By Crukix

Prologue: Reflection

When you were young, what did you wish for?

Most people share the same common wishes and dreams; to suddenly grow up, to be rich and famous beyond their wildest dreams, to make their parents happy. Of course, most children always wished for a Pokémon of their own; own to go out and have adventures with. Whether they would happen or not, would depend on what kind of wish they were. The majority of wishes would always fall into two categories; feasible, and unfeasible. Feasible could be achieved within life through your own work or luck, unfeasible ones were literally that; unfeasible.

In short, either you make your wishes come true, or they won't happen.

Why do I say this, you wonder? It's merely a reflection. I never was one of those kids; to wish for a brilliant job, a magnificent Pokémon, or even to make my parents proud.

I just wanted out.

Almost a century ago, something happened. Something bad happened. No one knows what caused it anymore; we can only deal with the repercussions. Some say a trainer went mad and started it all, others that it was a nationwide conspiracy, some even say that the Gods themselves abandoned us after abusing what they so thoughtfully created for us eons ago.

Regardless, we suffered in our present day conundrum.

War had been declared. There were no such things as Pokémon trainers anymore, instead, 'trainers' were specialist soldiers, trained in Pokémon warfare, using the creatures to strategically cause the most harm to places, people and other Pokémon. But after that... someone decided that Pokémon were the enemy as well, and so a massacre of the creatures began.

It was all-out war.

People attacked people, people attacked Pokémon, Pokémon attacked Pokémon... it was one massive free-for all between the nations. It had got to the point now that Pokémon were killed on sight, as well as anyone that kept one without a military trainer's license.

Every nation fought for itself; Kanto and Johto had nearly blown each other off the map in trying to dominate the other. I'm not sure what happened to every other nation, but Sinnoh suffered a large eruption from Mount Coronet itself that completely destroyed the entire continent.

And Hoenn was barely hanging on to its sanity. Most say Hoenn was doing the best... but I lived in the nation. I could easily disagree with every ounce of praise they had for our nation. The war had damaged everywhere, reducing it all to nothing but a country-wide warzone. We were all poor; someone sleeping on the streets or eating rotting food wasn't an uncommon sight. Occasionally, when someone died through starvation, a stray bullet, or even through just not wanting to live, whatever was left would sustain us for a few days.

We were cannibals hell bent on genocide.

Was it any wonder I wanted out?

Some say be careful what you wish for. Only with hindsight can you truly understand that. If I'd known exactly what would happen when I finally got to escape... I can honestly say I'd have never made that wish in the first place.

'Hindsight is twenty-twenty,' they say. Well, take what I've learnt from it, and use it all. Learn from my mistakes and maybe... maybe you'll be able to do some good where I could not.

Learn how I destroyed the world in under a year.