When he began, he was just another Bug Catcher. The type of trainer that just made up the numbers for their entire career and retired accomplishing nothing. Starting only with a Larvesta, a Pokemon that already established trainers added to their teams to chase the hope of owning a Volcarona, a Pokemon everyone said was wasted on a lowly rookie Bug Catcher.

Yet, in time he proved them all wrong.

“And your 76th Vertress Conference Champion is Alder of Floccesy Town!”

His win was in a packed stadium, stunned into silence. He was the first. The first Unovan Bug Specialist to win the Vertress Conference. The first trainer in over two decades to win without any sort of backing from the established Noble Houses that dominated Unova, including its battling scene.

After his win, he joined the ACE Corps. Over the years, he climbed though the ranks, hearing the same whispers behind his back at every level. “Unpatriotic” they called him, with his non-Unovan Heracross and Flygon fighting by his side. “An uncouth brute” they labelled him, his speech and manners that of the commoner that he was, rather than the refined poise of the nobles surrounding him. “Untrustworthy” they judged him, which of their enemies was backing him, a mere commoner could not rise to this level without help.

But there was one sole thing they could not find any criticism for. His strength. Too strong not to be promoted, at least initially. But even strength could only bring him so far. He stagnated in rank even as his strength grew, only able to watch as only those with the right connections, but couldn’t begin to match him in battle, were promoted past him. As he grew disillusioned, he began to wonder if it was all even worth it anymore.

Then he met Her. The love of his life. It wasn’t worth it any more. She was the product of a one-night stand. Her mother, an explorer in between expeditions, wandered back into Lostlorn Forest mere days after giving birth, never to be seen again. Alder was left alone, cradling his Ayla in his arms, and finally ready to make a change.

He had an invitation to challenge the Elite 4, as all Vertress Conference winners had. The League never even entertained the thought of him using it, so preposterous was the thought of a lowly commoner challenging the Elite 4. The first shockwave came as he formally announced his initiation of the Elite 4 challenge. The shock only grew, step by step, as he made his way towards Champion Zinzolai of House Zinzo. As he stood across the Champion, the first non-House affiliated trainer to reach this far, he was ready to write history.

The shock his 6-5 victory, narrow as it may have been, created was quickly dwarfed by the announcement of his retirement to his hometown. Even as the League as a whole desperately tried to prevent a Champion-level trainer, who had mere weeks earlier been in their ACE Corps, from slipping out of their grasps, various factions within it began plotting.

Of course, one of those factions, greedy nobles that they were, tried to force him into their service. House Gropius, old but diminished, sent men to ensure his compliance that they felt entitled to. While he was delayed at Vertress, negotiating with their allies within the League, they struck. 10 of their best men, marched down towards Floccesy, where he left Ayla, with only Leavanny, Heracross and Bessie left behind to babysit her.

He returned to destruction. Alya’s wailing filled the air as she lay, cradled in Leavanny’s one remaining arm, who stood protectively in front of Heracross’s unconscious form, his horn snapped in half and his elytra torn off, revealing the shredded remains of his underwings. Bessie trotted back, an intruder impaled on each horn, and the initial panic he felt turned immediately into rage. He wanted revenge. He was going to take it now.

The Gropius estate was just outside of Virbank, and the entire House had gathered, ready to celebrate blackmailing a Champion-level trainer into their service. He sent his team out to prepare, setting a perimeter of Toxic Spikes around the complex. Then he struck. Walls of sound prevented any escape from the compound, and he turned to his starter to launch a technique that they had been working on.

“Volcarona, Solar Flare”

His starter Danced, and the Sun was brought down onto Earth. Screams filled the air, as House Gropius burned together, Noble and Servant, Man and Pokemon, Adult and Child, they burned all the same. For his Ayla, he would burn anything, everything.

His show of force was enough. The League bent over backwards to accommodate him, promising anything and everything just to even loosely tie him to them. In the end, the sacrificial Mareep had put itself up on the altar. House Gropius was posthumously stripped of their titles and lands. Their dominions, stretching from the port in Virbank to the edge of Unovan expansion into the wilderness, were set up as an autonomous zone. He was free to do as he pleased, barely under the League’s fold as honorary governor.

He was free. To raise Ayla in peace, to explore the wilderness, to do whatever he wanted. He even spared the time to teach the few brave enough and desperate enough to travel to the very edge of Unova to find him. An artist searching for his own path. A disgraced former noble starting from nothing after gambling it all away. A nobody hoping that strength could make him someone. And just like that, years passed. Ayla grew up and began her own Pokemon journey, his partner’s child by her side. She was the one that brought him back into the heart of Unova for the first time since the fire, watching from the sidelines proudly as she claimed a Top-4 finish at the Vertress Conference. He was fulfilled.

He only got even happier, as one day, Ayla came to him with news. She was pregnant, the father a friend she had a casual relationship with. And 9 months later, Benga was born. When he first lay his eyes on him, it was as if he had been transported back to the first time he had saw Ayla, he fell in love all over again.

But these blissful times never lasted. Zinzolin finally retired, and took most of the cautious old-guard with him. Champion Mona rose to take the throne, the head of a wave of a new generation of Unovan trainers. Young, hungry and foolhardy, they led Unova down a dangerous path. “Unova should take its rightful place as the best in the world.” Bold and brash, they set their sights on war. Within weeks of Champion Mona’s coronation, an initial strike force had set sail towards Hoenn.

The war was neither as quick or easy as the League expected. Despite their surprise strike leading them to make substantial territorial gains, it also brought Indigo and Lily-of-the-Valley into the war against them. Soon, progress slowed to a crawl, any land they gained scorched to the ground by the retreating opposition. Every day the war continued, they lost countless ACE forces, while they opponents gained time to mobilise their far greater trainer pool.

Soon the League began to conscript. Day after day, more and more Unovan trainers were conscripted, as the League grew increasingly desperate to replace the ACE that they lost. And then it was finally her turn. His naïve little girl was called up, set to sail to Kanto.

He stood at the pier, Benga cradled in his arms, to send her off, watching the ship sail off into the distance, watching until it disappeared over the horizon

That was the last time he ever saw her. Months of radio silence before news finally arrived. Bad news. The entire Kanto invasion force had been eliminated off Cinnabar, burned alive with no hope of escaping. With each passing day, more and more grisly details spread like wildfire, sapping morale away from the Unovan populace. The tide of was had turned against them.

Yet as the war effort crumbled, all Alder did was grieve. Her last words to him echoed in his head daily. “We’ll be back for your birthday! The Champion said that it’ll be over before New Year after all!” she exclaimed, smiling as she turned to board the ship that would bring her to her doom.

As he mourned, the League had the audacity to send down a pair of ACE to request his support in the war. Two nobles from the PLASMA division. Too precious to risk in the war as nobles, even as manpower dwindled. They arrogantly demanded he join the war “for the sake of Unova”, seemingly certain he wouldn’t dare do anything to nobility. When they threatened Benga after he refused, he snapped. The Unovan nobility seemed to have forgotten what he did to House Gropius, and he ought to send them a reminder. With a snarl, Escavalier struck, and even as their heads were sent back to Vertress, he went on a rampage, driving the League entirely out of the lands that he had been given honorary governorship over.

They had woken him up from his grief. Ayla may have gone but Benga was still here. He had a duty, to Benga and Ayla, to raise Benga well. He couldn’t be leaving him to Leavanny to raise while he wallowed in alcohol. He began to clean up any rust he and his team had accumulated over the years, spending his free time with Benga, and pondered. What should his next move be. To break away from Unova and declare independence? To link up with the disparate revel groups that had popped up over on the mainland? He took his time to consider his options.

War had finally reached Unovan shores. The Allied Leagues fleet sat anchored at the mouth of the Castelia River, blockading the entire coast. Any Unovan troops returning from their failed ventures overseas were blocked from entering Unova proper. A delegation flew towards Vertress, seeking an unconditional Unovan surrender, hoping to avoid the bloodshed necessary to grind their way through a land invasion of Unova. Yet even as the delegation met the Unovan leadership, a small group snuck in after dusk to find him in Floccesy.

Led by the crone Agatha, they came with an offer. A favourable peace deal if he launched a coup with their support. Minimising any further Allied bloodshed while installing a more trustworthy leader in Unova was a plan that many in the Allied hierarchy preferred, but a plan that depended solely upon him, the only Unovan Champion level trainer clearly unaffiliated with the current leadership. After a long night of discussion, he showed them out as dawn broke, escorting them out to the coast to sneak back onto their ships. He returned back home, carrying the reconciliatory gift Agatha had presented to him just before she left. He sat down, preparing to rest, and finally opening the box.

5 Pokeballs, nestled in a black belt that was covered in soot and burn marks looked back up at him from the bottom of the box. Tears rolled down his face as he inspected each one. Conkeldurr, Reuniclus, Krookodile, Chandelure and Volcarona. His daughter’s team had been returned to him. Back home, they could finally rest, recover and mourn.

Returning a piece of his daughter to him brought them enough goodwill for him to agree to their plan. And that plan became their first choice quickly. Mona and the Unovan League, pompous fools that they were, arrogantly rejected any form of surrender, certain that the Allied League wouldn’t have the stomach for a full invasion. They were prepared to sacrifice any amount of blood from the common Unovan in order to retain power and force the Allied League into a bloody war of attrition.

But the Unovan League was completely blindsided by his sudden denunciation of them and his declaration that he was launching a coup. Before the news had the time to spread outside of Vertress, he launched an attack across the Castelia River, targeting the PLASMA ACE division headquarters, located just outside Castelia City. The only full ACE division left within Unovan borders, the PLASMA division was filled with nepotism hires. They were already largely incapable battlers, far below the standard for ACE members, and caught off guard, they were quickly decimated by his team. Even their commander, someone he had beat on his way to his Vertress Conference victory, was easily handled by Volcarona, unable to do anything but struggle futilely as her men were eliminated around her, before falling after the rest of his team finished cleaning up. In just 2 hours, the PLASMA division was completely eradicated to the last man.

Alder turned his sights on Castelia City. It lay defenceless, stripped of the ACE division meant to be protecting the city, and its gym in chaos after loosing their gym leader in the Battle of Dewford. The few remnants of the noble house ruling the city, fearing death, quickly decided on surrender when he approached the city gates. Within hours of capturing the city, Alder had invited Allied League forces to occupy it, and they began to converting the city into a base of operations for the full-scale invasion of Unova.

It was something the Allied troops in Castelia had never seen before. Despite inviting them into the city, the enemies of the Unovan League, and having completely decimated the Unovan ACE division based near the city, Alder was cheered everywhere he went within Castelia. He was liberating hero, freeing the oppressed populace from the grips of the nobility. There was little love lost between the common Unovan and the nobility, whether it was those who ruled Castelia City or those that were in the PLASMA division that guarded it. He had captured the city with no commoner bloodshed, and the occupying Allied force that he had invited in treated the populace far better than the nobility had with their arrogant ways. This was a popular revolution, and Castelia City was only the first step.

Despite the popular support they had, the majority of the military force came from the Allied forces, with almost all Unovan trainers conscripted overseas, the few remaining were largely Nobles viewed as too precious to lose to war. Sinnoan forces swept east into Pinwheel Forest and swept towards Nuvema, where his old friend Juniper had built a town around his laboratory. Even in Unova, the title of Pokemon Professor held immense sway, and Juniper had used that to keep Nuvema free of League influence. Now as the few ACE in the area retreated from Striaton, they found themselves unexpectedly blocked after Accumula. Juniper’s team had been nothing to sniff at while he was a trainer, and even now they were more than capable of walling the ACE forces north of Nuvema. Trapped between the advancing Sinnoan army and the blockade put up by Juniper, they were crushed to the last man.

Even as the Sinnoan forces spread east, the remaining Allied forces launched attacks of their own. The Hoennese Navy, led by Captain Drake, engaged the Humilau fleet outside Humilau City in naval battle. Meanwhile, the Indigo Army, the largest of the Allied Leagues, moved north towards Nimbasa, meeting the bulk of the remaining Unovan defenders, largely drawn from the private forces employed by the nobility, in The Desert.

The naval battle was short but bloody. The Humilau fleet took advantage of their knowledge of the battlefield, flitting in and out of the coastline, harassing the larger Hoennese fleet, damaging and sinking many ships. Yet despite the damage they dealt, it was a futile effort. The Humilau fleet was a glorified coast guard, incapable of fending off the Hoennese blue-water navy. The Humilau Gym Leader, Marine, stubbornly refused to surrender, her losses growing as the Hoennese fleet became used to the tactics the Humilau fleet used and began to press their advantage. In the end, all it accomplished was buying the Unovan League a mere week, while enraging Drake. Humilau was sacked and razed to the ground, the wooden structures burning in dragonfire, burning alongside the Humilau Gym and all its members.

The Battle of The Desert meanwhile was a slow, bloody meatgrinder. Both sides threw everything at each other, hoping anything would stick. A bloody war of attrition, the conditions only made it worse, with constant sandstorms buffeting the combatting armies. The Indigo Army gained centimetres at best a day, simply from having more troops to throw in, slowly pushing northwards.

However, Alder was unaffected by the quagmire. He may have been Floccesy born and raised, but The Desert was where he found his starter as a Larvesta, all those years ago. It was where spent months exploring while on his journey, eventually finding a Trapinch to add to his bug type team. He was far more accustomed to The Desert than anyone else from either army, and it showed. He soared through the skies riding Volcarona, hidden within a cloud of sand that Flygon maintained. Below him, the armies clashed on the battlefield, unknowing that he had skipped past them. Flying past Nimbasa, he landed to the north of the city, at the outskirts of another of his old haunts, and prepared to enter.

Lostlorn Forest was no place for the average trainer. There was no chance an army could march through it from Nimbasa to reach Opelucid. Filled with powerful, highly territorial wild pokemon. Covered in a strange, subtle field that messed with your perception, the origin a mystery to all. Any army that attempted to go through would be decimated. The Unovan League didn’t even consider it at all in their defence plans, certain that it had to be circled around rather than passed through. But Alder was far from the average trainer. He had trained within Lostlorn in his youth, exploring its depths for fun. He mounted Scolipede, sent out Heracross, and with the two Lostlorn natives, sped into the forest, heading north towards Opelucid.

In the time it took him to cross Lostlorn Forest and reach Opelucid City, the war had barely progressed. Hoennese forces had settled down on top of Humilau’s ruins, Drake threatening to advance north through the Giant Chasm towards Vertress. The Indigo Army, bolstered by Sinnoans coming back from Nuvema, had finally broken through The Desert and were right outside Nimbasa’s gates. Geographically, almost nothing had changed, but the Unovan League was still forced into drastic action. Elite Dominick was sent to face the immediate threat of Drake, bringing his personal guard with him to meet Drake and the Hoennese forces at the Giant Chasm. Simultaneously, Elite Annelie was sent to Nimbasa via Mistralton to helm the defence against the Indigo and Sinnoan Combined Army. With the remaining two Elite 4 members killed in battle overseas, Mona was left at Vertress, the sole trainer protecting the multitude of fleeing Unovan nobility

Capturing Opelucid wasn’t even on the Unovan League’s radar. Despite its strategic position, with the only other direct route to Vertress, it was deemed to far from the Combined Army to reach, and too out of the way for the Hoennese troops to target. Furthermore, the Opelucid Gym Leader, Drayden, was widely regarded as being on par with any of the existing Elite 4, but instead chose to fulfil his familial duties and take over the gym. There was no need to shore up Vertress’s western entrance, no threat could reach and pass through Opelucid anytime soon.

Drayden was one of the few nobles Alder respected. They had been rivals throughout their journeys, battling often, most famously at the final of the Vertress Conference, where Alder had caused a major upset. A rivalry filled with mutual respect. It was this relationship that saved Opelucid from the fate Humilau suffered. Alder sent a request for surrender that he would not have given to any other noble. Drayden surrendered when no other noble would have even considered the demand. It wasn’t a show of weakness. Drayden could have held Alder off if he chose to, perhaps even driven him back with the aid of his gym members. But it would have been at best a pyrrhic victory, won with Opelucid burned to its foundations around him, everyone in the city left as ashes. Unlike the typical noble, he valued his subjects far more than maintaining the current order, and Alder learning that from their decades of interaction saved Opelucid from destruction.

Drayden’s quiet defection allowed Alder to sneak into the city unnoticed. After a few days rest, he left again, heading further north onto the path towards Vertress. He was able to enter Victory Road completely unseen, ready to bring defeat to the Unovan League. Infiltrating Vertress City easily, he made his way towards the noble half of the city. It contained everything important in the city, most significantly the League building itself proper.

“Everyone, Cacophony.” With a shout, he laid down his challenge. A burst of noise thundered towards the League building, shattering windows and bursting doors down. The previously quiet building exploded in shocked screams. Mona rushed out to meet his challenge in a panic, her team surrounding her. As she emerged from the building, he declared “Champion Mona, I, Alder of Floccesy, challenge you to a battle!” She acknowledged the formal challenge with a wordless snarl, and with a furious swipe of her arm, ordered her team to attack. The battle had begun.

Flygon rose to combat her Braviary in the skies, while down on earth, a chaotic free-for-all emerged. He held Volcarona back, partly to defend himself, and directed his team, slowly prodding her for weaknesses. Bessie fought a mirror match, their fight occupying the centre of the battlefield, with the other pokemon orbiting around them in their own melees. Accelgor created chaos on the battlefield, flitting into battles before U-Turning out into Escavalier to tank a hit or land a powerful blow. Repeating the process over and over again dizzied Mona’s team, leaving them uncertain and wary from the rapid switching of opponents. Galvantula skulled around the edge of the battlefield, sending disruptive Sticky Webs and Thunder Waves into the melee that his team were well accustomed to, while aiding Flygon with opportunistic Discharges into the skies. Heracross waded into the battlefield, engaging her Stoutland in Close Combat, their exchange another eye around which chaos swirled. Individual battles began and ended in rapid succession, combatants exchanged partners constantly, creating a battlefield nearly impossible to coordinate, even for someone of Alder’s experience.

Yet, as difficult as he found it, the vastly less experienced Mona found it exponentially more so. She was a noble, raised in a world where battles were regulation 1v1, and almost never had to deal with a brawl of this sort, especially not at the Champion level that they were fighting at. Theoretically, se knew what to do, practically, she couldn’t keep up.

Soon, her inexperience cost her. A moment of opportunity arose. Escavalier’s lance landed a jab on her Bouffalant’s leg, causing it to stumble for just an instant. But her other pokemon were stuck in their own individual battles, and none of them were in a position to cover for that stumble. That split-second was enough for Bessie to storm forward with a Head Charge, sending the other Bouffalant crashing back into its teammates. The tiniest of openings led to an even larger opportunity. Focused on regrouping her scattered team, Mona failed to see the danger oncoming.

“Guard up, everyone! Volcarona, now is the time, Solar Flare!” His team jumped back towards him, together raising a shimmering barrier together, as Volcarona released what he had been charging all battle. It was the pivotal moment. The time to strip away all the lies they had told. Mona, the nobility, the Unovan League as a whole. His truth was they deserved none of the power they held. They only deserved to burn. The pinnacle of the technique that they had once used against House Gropius all those years ago. The fire burned blue. Shattering the desperate Protects Mona’s team threw up, it burst past her and struck the League Building. Every noble inside, every noble in Unova that wasn’t currently fighting the Allied League forces, turned to ash.

Mona lay in front of him, the burnt corpses of her team surrounding her, each and every one sacrificing their lives for her. It wasn’t enough. She lay, heavily burnt, barely hanging on to life, as she saw everything around her, everything she stood for, everything she worked towards, burn to ashes. Alder turned away and let her draw her last breaths. The war was over.

Dominick had fallen in battle against Drake, a battle Drake had barely escaped from, the Giant Chasm frozen entirely over in a last suicidal move. Annelie negotiated her own surrender, sacrificing her entire house and all their secrets to secure her and her triplets’ lives, confined to Striaton under heavy surveillance for the rest of her life. The rest of the Unovan surrender was quickly wrapped up, nobody having the appetite for much more.

He had taken Unova down the first steps to peace. He had gotten his vengeance. He had stripped off the lies that the nobility had woven. That was enough. He could retire to Floccesy to raise Benga and fulfil his duty to Ayla. He could spend the rest of his life after that exploring the depths of the wilderness, as he had always wished. He had done his duty. Right?