Right, sorry I haven't been answering questions - as I warned, it's been a pretty damn busy week, and honestly my weekend isn't any less so. Just thought I'd drop in to say that the update is on its way, but will deffo be late, especially since it turns out I won't have any time to work on it tomorrow. My rough estimate is Tuesday.
With regards to the whole discussion around the Dragon Clan, I'm gonna make a few final clarifications before I drop the subject altogether for a while. You're obviously still all welcome ot discuss it, but I don't want to get too bogged down answering too many questions about it unless you go down a path which will actually necessitate interacting with them.
They're a purely Kanto/Johto organisation, but that doesn't mean they're completely absent from the rest of the world. The Draconids of Hoenn are pretty isolationist as a rule, but they're on relatively good term with the Dragon Clan, a relationship whose ties are often reaffirmed by both people exchanging some of their own local dragons' for the others, and they also share some of their knowledge pool when it comes to the care of some Dragon-types they both raise. As a result, they don't have near as much of a presence in Hoenn, but they still do have one, and Drake for example acknowledges them as peers and treats them with respect. Of course, with him nearing retirement they're going to need another main contact for local politics.
Sinnoh is different, for two reasons. The first was that as demonstrated in Legends Arceus, the Hisui region was actually mostly uninhabited, prior to the expansionist push of the early 19th century. The locals had very clear, separate cultural baggage already and three whole separate factions that could fulfill the duties the Dragon Clan usually grants itself : the Diamond and Pearl Clan were already the ones in charge of ensuring peaceful cohabitation between humans and pokemon, and the lineage of the people of Celestica were the guardians of memory and tradition - and have much more legitimacy when it comes to that than the Dragon Clan, on account of being considerably older and also friends with the Prime Enamorus, a Fairy-type legendary which can mostly wreck them (not that it's ever come to that, or that the Clan knows). Considering Cynthia is the direct descendant of said people and also their chief (not that you in-quest or virtually anyone outside a very select circle knows that), there is zero space for the Clan to exist in Sinnoh under her care, but even that doesn't matter all that much - because modern Hisui was populated in great part by a mass exodus of people who wanted to leave Kanto/Johto/Hoenn behind, and for many of those from the former two there was very little desire to see the same people just turn up and take charge after they'd done all the hard work of settling.
Sinnoh may share the main continent as Kanto/Johto/Hoenn, but in many ways it's the most independent and culturally distinct of the four, even though it had less of actual 'locals' than the other three did when unification began - because it's the only one of the four with a significant history as an entire region, rather than as bits and pieces of several kingdoms and tribes mashed together because it was geographically convenient, and because even the population they would have had in common with the other three in part moved there specifically because they wanted to divorce themselves from their homes, and were all too happy to adopt the local traditions.
Unova, Kalos, Galar are all too far for a Dragon Clan presence to be logistically manageable, and no one actually wants to live in Orre. Well, nowadays it'd be possible to set a branch up, but it's entirely too late by now in terms of establishing influence. That doesn't mean there's no contacts - the Clan has a strong relationship with the Dragon trainers of Opelucid in particular, and the fact that the Unovan Champion (Iris) was a guest of the Clan in Blackthorn for over a year during her training means there's a lot of goodwill there.
Kalos... studies into the matter are still haphazard at best, and barely beginning, but early research very much suggests that the Fairy Type originates from there and was at the beginning endemic to Kalos. From there, it slowly spread through some species' migrations, and being a very dominant gene picked up increasing steam until it became as ubiquitous as it is nowadays. Kanto and Johto were some of the last regions to benefit from this (hence why dragons were such a problem locally), and the regions are actually some of the very last places on Earth where one can find small remaining enclaves of 'original strains', like Normal Type Togepi or Jigglypuff, though most of these are in tightly-controlled natural reserves set up for that very purpose (partly funded by the Dragon Clan for entirely altruistic reasons). So simply put... the Clan avoids Kalos and its myriad of fairies like the plague, and the recent scientific discoveries has given them even more cause to hate the place.
Galar just didn't really have anything that interested them, for a long time, and now that knowledge has trickled out of the likes Dragapult, Duraludon or the apple dragons... they're not that fussed about it that'd they really push for local representation against all the fight back they'd get - Galar's not huge on mingling with others, as shown by their insistence on declaring Leon the strongest Champion in the world. They've made moves to acquire some members of the species that interest them, and are happy to leave it at that. Shame no one told them about Prime Regidrago, happily sleeping away there. The fact that everyone acknowledges Raihan is the local Dragon master also comforts them in not feeling threatened, because, well... He's very good, but no match for the best the Clan has to offer.
Alola... is just really far, yeah ? Really far, and too small on top of that to be worth the effort. Hell, the Clan didn't even know it existed until slightly over a century ago. But yeah, if they had actually tried to muscle their way in... Well, the Kahunas can call on the Tapu if they feel Alola is under threat. You do the math. It's actually quite favoured as a training destination, though, particularly Poni Island.
Anyway, the Dragon Clan very much are a force on the global stage, but not a dominant one the way they are in Kanto and Johto. In Kalos and Sinnoh in particular, their influence is basically non-existent. The reason they are a global force, though, is that they are the Dragon experts, bar none. There are Dragon Trainers that grow up to be exceptional and have never had contact with the Clan, but they're very few and far in between. Clan Trainers, on the other hand, are always at least very good, and every generation produces at least a couple of candidates for the title of strongest Trainer in the joint Kanto/Johto region. Systematically. This generation is one of the weakest number-wise, and it still has the Champion and one of the strongest Gym Leaders. Iris, the Unovan Champion ? Basically went on an internship with them. Drake of Hoenn's Elite Four ? On good terms and regular correspondence with them. Drasna of Kalos' Elite Four has a much rockier relationship with them, but with the dearth of local Dragon experts still had to occasionally go to them for some training advice (at least until Cynthia heard about it and intervened at her grandmother's request).
You get the point. They don't have nearly as much hard power outside of Kanto/Johto, but the amount of soft power you get for being the world's leading Dragon experts and having friends in many high places means that they're never entirely without options. And of course, it means most of the promising independent Dragon Trainers get an actual recruitment spiel too good to turn down and get absorbed into the Clan, feeding into its myth.
So yeah, there tends to be more Dragon-type Trainers outside of Kanto/Johto, but because almost all those in those two regions have some manner of deal going on with the Clan and at least partial access to their help and archives, discounting the few exceptions who rise above with enough talent that they'd have likely done so even if they solely trained Luvdisc, they also tend to be of a higher level than those from the other regions.
Anyway, that's where I'm going to stop for the Clan. Any further investigation can be done if it becomes necessary in-quest.
And since I'm here and considering the last messages, I might as well repeat it for the sake of clarity : you can make any pokemon strong, if you train them right. It might be harder with, say, Ledian, but by no means impossible to take it to the kind of heights you would more 'obviously' strong pokemon. This is your reminder that one of the potential mentors' Aces were Furret and Spinda, and the third one had Ariados as her Ace.
On that note, I'll go back to writing a little more of the chapter before sleep beckons.
