The game makes absolutely sure you know that Team Plasma are not really trying to help Pokemon. And it's not a big surprise, I mean, Nintendo will obviously never allow any Pokemon media to state that owning Pokemon is immoral (or at least without making the people saying it cartoonish villains). That said, they are still pretty much the closest thing to a Pokemon rights group that I know of, so that's why I semi-jokingly identify as a Team Plasma grunt. Also, they're definitely the best dressed villains:
Eh you can agree with a group's stated message despite how bad they act. I mean people still support a lot of the animal rights stuff coming from PETA despite them assaulting people in public, being caught stealing pets from yards, and having an average mortality rate of animals at their shelters of over 90% last time I checked.
If you want to know why I grasp at any Pokemon-rights-shaped straws I can find, well, it's because I just don't think it's moral to capture clearly sapient creatures and keep them in pokeballs and make them fight each other. I think a lot of the justifications you see for Pokemon ownership don't really cut it- like, I'm supposed to believe that every Pokemon you meet in the wild purposefully challenged you because they love to fight and want a trainer to make them stronger, that Pokemon can escape from pokeballs whenever they want (despite this never happening in the games)?
(Before anyone says it, no I don't think you're a bad person in real life for playing Pokemon games)
Ok so afaik there are 3-5 continuities for Pokemon in regards to intelligence. In the games all Pokemon are as intelligent as animals except those explicitly shown to be more such as Callyrex.
Then you have then main anime which runs the whole spectrum from "smart as actual rocks" all the way to "Mewtwo reverse engineering advanced cloning technology and improving it" but on average most Pokemon are shown as having between a 5 year old human to a young adults intelligence depending on their stage of evolution.
The manga has all Pokemon being human level or greater intelligence with notable examples of the haunter that committed suicide rather than be captured.
The side anime have Pokemon having generally animal intelligence again for most of them.
So for the majority of the Pokemon media if a Pokemon doesn't want to be captured there doesn't seem to be much they can do if you ignore the ability for most Pokemon to severely injure or kill humans easily. But hey it's a game aimed at children and other than the manga the franchise avoids things like explicit death and extreme injuries.
If you want to know why I grasp at any Pokemon-rights-shaped straws I can find, well, it's because I just don't think it's moral to capture clearly sapient creatures and keep them in pokeballs and make them fight each other. I think a lot of the justifications you see for Pokemon ownership don't really cut it- like, I'm supposed to believe that every Pokemon you meet in the wild purposefully challenged you because they love to fight and want a trainer to make them stronger, that Pokemon can escape from pokeballs whenever they want (despite this never happening in the games)?
" Long ago, when Sinnoh had just been made, Pokémon and humans led separate lives.That is not to say they did not help each other. No, indeed they did.They supplied each other with goods, and supported each other.A Pokémon proposed to the others to always be ready to help humans.It asked that Pokémon be ready to appear before humans always.Thus, to this day, Pokémon appear to us if we venture into tall grass. "
It is predominantly a children's game from a predominantly "family friendly" company, so whatever mental backflips are required in order to ethically sanitise it, can all be assumed to be in place. Given that it is a completely arbitrary world, they can actually make it happen, too. Fanfic, and even companion works like manga, can go in whatever direction they like, but ultimately, the games are about a bunch of companions gathering around the harem protagonist player's avatar, being happy and doing a bunch of good things. It may not be particularly coherent or sensible, but that's not going to stop it.
As for F.N.? We have seen Ariodos-hunting for research. There is also capturing for medical reasons. There is also that bit about mismagius captures in response to pranks. It doesn't sound particularly voluntary, but then again, there is not much to stop them running off once they are let out other than a bit of Pavlovian conditioning that focuses upon "humans are okay to be around and shouldn't be attacked, here are some basic commands" but not placing any direct pressure on them to stay with their trainer or to ignore hostility towards them. I could probably have some profound concerns here, but I would just really rather not.
On the Ghost Research thing being uncommon, I just did a quick check on something, and... did you know that Ghost-types are the second least-common type of Pokémon (56 total, with only Ice's 51 coming in lower)? That's including Legendaries and the like on account of how people would be especially interested in studying them (or things like them), and because working out the typing of each and removing them would make the count harder (especially when I don't, uh, have all the names memorized).
So, they're one of the least common varieties of Pokémon in terms of number of species, but they also tend to be fairly rare beyond that, IIRC. Like, only found in very limited areas and/or rarely. And given how many types of Ghost Pokémon are dangerous to humans specifically, those areas that do have heavy Ghost presences are going to be often avoided, I imagine. Like, every Pokémon can be dangerous, and there's Pokémon of each type that generally are dangerous to try and approach without a lot of preparation/precaution... but a lot of Ghost-types are dangerous from the get-go, proportionately?
There's the Gastly-Haunter-Gengar line, which this fic has already discussed the dangers of (and the realities of that danger). (They were also the only Ghost-types known in Kanto in Gen I, though I forget if Gen II had others occur there naturally or not.) Gengar, in particular, likes to hide in people's shadows.
Banettes other than Diya all seem to go on quests of revenge.
Even if Trevenants mostly go after deforesters, they still apparently hunt down and eat people.
Mimikyu kills you without trying (or wanting to), and is probably more Uncanny Valley than Cute to people who live in a world where Pikachus actually exist and don't have the same "computer animation/image" feeling making the visual link so strong.
Sandygast and Palossand apparently possess people to get them to build bigger sandcastles, which is scary-but-harmless unless the "eat other Pokémon" thing happens to the Pokémon of the possessed person (as there's no reason to think Pokémon eating Pokémon is that unheard of, really). Also, they're apparently full of "the grudges of the dead" which might see them going for vengeance? Unclear (and see below for more).
Drifloon just straight-up steal children away. Drifblim less so, maybe, but still carry people and Pokémon off.
The Litwick-Lampent-Chandelure line all burn away and/or steal spirits in some way or another. Litwick slowly drains your life while leading you around, Lampent comes to the dying to steal the soul all at once, and Chandelure just fucking kills you by burning it away. The first two might also just bring you to the Ghost World.
Gourgeist hugs you and sings songs while you die. The hug and song may be what is killing you. Pokedex descriptions are limited, but terrifying.
Yamask either are human souls turned into Pokémon or are Pokémon that carry around a real human's face and maybe some memories. Creepy either way, especially when they evolve into Cofragigus which does the whole "trap people inside to turn them into mummies" thing. Just terrifying, existentially speaking.
Honedge attaches itself to people to drain their life force. Its evolutions are known for other things, too, but don't seem to stop doing that, either.
Duskull apparently spirits off children, Dusclops hypnotizes people, and Dusknoir supposedly gets messages telling it to bring certain people to the Ghost World (not a euphemism for death, necessarily, but...).
Spectrier, Legendary though it is, is said to absorb life force from sleeping creatures as it runs past them.
Sableye are said to steal people's souls.
Froslass freezes people it likes to turn them into decorations for its home.
Any ship or crew that wanders into Jellicent's habitat? They don't survive to come home.
Just with the number I listed before getting tired of reading Pokedex entries, that's around 50% of the known Ghost-type population that are potentially actively harmful to encounter. Additionally, they're really good at hiding their presence. See: how many Ghosts are in town without anyone knowing it in this fic, the Silph Scope back in Kanto (even if not needed in this fic, or only useful if a Ghost is trying to hide itself), probably other things I'm forgetting. So there's probably less of a history with Ghost-types as Pokémon used by Trainers than their numbers might suggest.
Of course, a lot of the info on Ghosts is also very speculative, in the way that suggests it's "common sense" rather than real, and stuff "everyone knows" can be hard to acquire funding to disprove. Like, so many of the Ghost-type Pokedex entries include some variation on "it's said that" or "people say" or "according to legend/rumor/my ass".
And a lot of the above can have far less negative interpretations, too, in the same way that it seems like the Gastly-Haunter-Gengar line might not always intend to be dangerous. Duskull might think children are abandoned and want to take care of them (and thus take them to the Ghost World, which maybe they think of as being safer). Maybe one or two Froslass did that and now the whole species has a bad rep because the most famous stories about them are about the few serial killers and not the ones that guided people through storms without being seen (or whatever else). Given that Phantumps might be the souls of kids who died lost in the woods, maybe Trevenant have a reason to get so angry about trees being burned down and could/should be negotiated with beyond "we brought Fire-types, fuck you". Maybe there're a non-zero number of other Banettes that don't just go for revenge, it's just that you don't hear about those ones (unlikely, as the story so far seems to be implying it's Diya's access to human brainmeats that's helping out so much in that regard). Etc., etc., etc.!
I also imagine a lot of the bounties being set aren't intended for people doing active fieldwork to go look for, they seem more like "hey, any trainer might see this, so please let us know if you do" sorts of things. Meanwhile, anyone heavily investigating Ghost-types in the field is likely doing it themselves because it's either dangerous or seen as such and thus they don't want undertrained people doing it. If the public bounty board is (mostly) happenstantial stuff like that, and Ghost-types are seen as rare, there'd be even less reason to post bounties for them. Then add in the funding issues and rate of return and everything and, well... a field of significant actual import gets locked out bit by bit over time, no doubt despite the best efforts of those in the know.
Anyway, these are all just thoughts I had after the last chapter, and I finally had the chance to write 'em out. Dunno how accurate it all is, especially for fic-canon, but Ghost-types get a bad rep and whether or not it's always deserved it makes sense that people wouldn't want to study them quite as much as some of the other (less controversial) types. Sure, dragons (and other Pokémon in general) might also be dangerous, but everyone also thinks they're super-cool and not likely to slowly kill someone who spends lots of time around them (like, y'know, a Trainer would), so.
" Long ago, when Sinnoh had just been made, Pokémon and humans led separate lives.That is not to say they did not help each other. No, indeed they did.They supplied each other with goods, and supported each other.A Pokémon proposed to the others to always be ready to help humans.It asked that Pokémon be ready to appear before humans always.Thus, to this day, Pokémon appear to us if we venture into tall grass. "
These exact posts were actually a big part of what inspired me to make this story as positive as it is. The original versions that were puttering around in my head (which I never liked enough to write) were all much darker, and these posts helped catalyze a more positive vision of it I wanted to write.
That said, I definitely think there's room for darker or more 'realistic' (in which characters deal with problems more reminiscent of our real world problems) reinterpretations of Pokemon in fanfictions. I'd actually love to read one, I just haven't yet found one I really love. If I were going to write one though, there's a few things I'd keep in mind:
1) Pokemon isn't meant to be dark. There are elements which can be easily adapted to that purpose (monsters with city-destroying powers, sapient obligatory carnivores and their sapient prey) with a simple "but what if that was actually a thing?" approach. And there are plenty little lore tidbits which going at darkness to work with. But to make it work you have to remember that most of pokemon is not meant to be dark, and those elements are not fully incorporated as a cohesive dark narrative.
Which means to write dark!pokemon, you have to change things. You can't adhere super closely to canon and you have to figure out what you're going to throw out and what you're going to emphasize and change to get the dark fic you want. This is where most of the dark! pokemon fic I've come close to loving fell flat I think, they tried to both be dark!pokemon and hew super close to canon, and couldn't find room to fully explore dark!pokemon in those strict canon confines.
2) Most of pokemon is a largely one note franchise. It's a dang good note, but still, removing the wonder and exploration and friendship leaves a gaping hole in the question "why care about pokemon?". So you have to pick another answer to that question and really commit to it. "Ohhh, this is a novel take on the pokemon I'm familiar with" will only take you so far. You need to decide if the draw of the fic is going to be mystery, epic fantasy warfare, tragedy, horror, otherworldly suspense, survival, etc, and then write with that in mind.
On the Ghost Research thing being uncommon, I just did a quick check on something, and... did you know that Ghost-types are the second least-common type of Pokémon (56 total, with only Ice's 51 coming in lower)? That's including Legendaries and the like on account of how people would be especially interested in studying them (or things like them), and because working out the typing of each and removing them would make the count harder (especially when I don't, uh, have all the names memorized).
So, they're one of the least common varieties of Pokémon in terms of number of species, but they also tend to be fairly rare beyond that, IIRC. Like, only found in very limited areas and/or rarely. And given how many types of Ghost Pokémon are dangerous to humans specifically, those areas that do have heavy Ghost presences are going to be often avoided, I imagine. Like, every Pokémon can be dangerous, and there's Pokémon of each type that generally are dangerous to try and approach without a lot of preparation/precaution... but a lot of Ghost-types are dangerous from the get-go, proportionately?
There's the Gastly-Haunter-Gengar line, which this fic has already discussed the dangers of (and the realities of that danger). (They were also the only Ghost-types known in Kanto in Gen I, though I forget if Gen II had others occur there naturally or not.) Gengar, in particular, likes to hide in people's shadows.
Banettes other than Diya all seem to go on quests of revenge.
Even if Trevenants mostly go after deforesters, they still apparently hunt down and eat people.
Mimikyu kills you without trying (or wanting to), and is probably more Uncanny Valley than Cute to people who live in a world where Pikachus actually exist and don't have the same "computer animation/image" feeling making the visual link so strong.
Sandygast and Palossand apparently possess people to get them to build bigger sandcastles, which is scary-but-harmless unless the "eat other Pokémon" thing happens to the Pokémon of the possessed person (as there's no reason to think Pokémon eating Pokémon is that unheard of, really). Also, they're apparently full of "the grudges of the dead" which might see them going for vengeance? Unclear (and see below for more).
Drifloon just straight-up steal children away. Drifblim less so, maybe, but still carry people and Pokémon off.
The Litwick-Lampent-Chandelure line all burn away and/or steal spirits in some way or another. Litwick slowly drains your life while leading you around, Lampent comes to the dying to steal the soul all at once, and Chandelure just fucking kills you by burning it away. The first two might also just bring you to the Ghost World.
Gourgeist hugs you and sings songs while you die. The hug and song may be what is killing you. Pokedex descriptions are limited, but terrifying.
Yamask either are human souls turned into Pokémon or are Pokémon that carry around a real human's face and maybe some memories. Creepy either way, especially when they evolve into Cofragigus which does the whole "trap people inside to turn them into mummies" thing. Just terrifying, existentially speaking.
Honedge attaches itself to people to drain their life force. Its evolutions are known for other things, too, but don't seem to stop doing that, either.
Duskull apparently spirits off children, Dusclops hypnotizes people, and Dusknoir supposedly gets messages telling it to bring certain people to the Ghost World (not a euphemism for death, necessarily, but...).
Spectrier, Legendary though it is, is said to absorb life force from sleeping creatures as it runs past them.
Sableye are said to steal people's souls.
Froslass freezes people it likes to turn them into decorations for its home.
Any ship or crew that wanders into Jellicent's habitat? They don't survive to come home.
Just with the number I listed before getting tired of reading Pokedex entries, that's around 50% of the known Ghost-type population that are potentially actively harmful to encounter. Additionally, they're really good at hiding their presence. See: how many Ghosts are in town without anyone knowing it in this fic, the Silph Scope back in Kanto (even if not needed in this fic, or only useful if a Ghost is trying to hide itself), probably other things I'm forgetting. So there's probably less of a history with Ghost-types as Pokémon used by Trainers than their numbers might suggest.
Of course, a lot of the info on Ghosts is also very speculative, in the way that suggests it's "common sense" rather than real, and stuff "everyone knows" can be hard to acquire funding to disprove. Like, so many of the Ghost-type Pokedex entries include some variation on "it's said that" or "people say" or "according to legend/rumor/my ass".
And a lot of the above can have far less negative interpretations, too, in the same way that it seems like the Gastly-Haunter-Gengar line might not always intend to be dangerous. Duskull might think children are abandoned and want to take care of them (and thus take them to the Ghost World, which maybe they think of as being safer). Maybe one or two Froslass did that and now the whole species has a bad rep because the most famous stories about them are about the few serial killers and not the ones that guided people through storms without being seen (or whatever else). Given that Phantumps might be the souls of kids who died lost in the woods, maybe Trevenant have a reason to get so angry about trees being burned down and could/should be negotiated with beyond "we brought Fire-types, fuck you". Maybe there're a non-zero number of other Banettes that don't just go for revenge, it's just that you don't hear about those ones (unlikely, as the story so far seems to be implying it's Diya's access to human brainmeats that's helping out so much in that regard). Etc., etc., etc.!
I also imagine a lot of the bounties being set aren't intended for people doing active fieldwork to go look for, they seem more like "hey, any trainer might see this, so please let us know if you do" sorts of things. Meanwhile, anyone heavily investigating Ghost-types in the field is likely doing it themselves because it's either dangerous or seen as such and thus they don't want undertrained people doing it. If the public bounty board is (mostly) happenstantial stuff like that, and Ghost-types are seen as rare, there'd be even less reason to post bounties for them. Then add in the funding issues and rate of return and everything and, well... a field of significant actual import gets locked out bit by bit over time, no doubt despite the best efforts of those in the know.
Anyway, these are all just thoughts I had after the last chapter, and I finally had the chance to write 'em out. Dunno how accurate it all is, especially for fic-canon, but Ghost-types get a bad rep and whether or not it's always deserved it makes sense that people wouldn't want to study them quite as much as some of the other (less controversial) types. Sure, dragons (and other Pokémon in general) might also be dangerous, but everyone also thinks they're super-cool and not likely to slowly kill someone who spends lots of time around them (like, y'know, a Trainer would), so.
If I could give this a hundred informative ℹ️ reactions I would, this is fantastic. Seriously I've got the email alert for this comment starred now, so I can reference it at will. This is the compilation of ghost lore and threats I keep on telling myself I should write up but never have time to, so I am very grateful you wrote it and shared it instead.
Also just having prompted such an extensive investigation and thought into this aspect of the pokemon world is very inspiring, so then you for that too.
If I could give this a hundred informative ℹ reactions I would, this is fantastic. Seriously I've got the email alert for this comment starred now, so I can reference it at will. This is the compilation of ghost lore and threats I keep on telling myself I should write up but never have time to, so I am very grateful you wrote it and shared it instead.
Also just having prompted such an extensive investigation and thought into this aspect of the pokemon world is very inspiring, so then you for that too.
If I could give this a hundred informative ℹ reactions I would, this is fantastic. Seriously I've got the email alert for this comment starred now, so I can reference it at will. This is the compilation of ghost lore and threats I keep on telling myself I should write up but never have time to, so I am very grateful you wrote it and shared it instead.
Also just having prompted such an extensive investigation and thought into this aspect of the pokemon world is very inspiring, so then you for that too.
Snowbirds were singing outside, the sound of sizzling food wafted out of The Mighty Meowth's kitchen, and the smell of June's coffee was burning Diya's nostril hairs from three paces away. Diya eyed her steaming thermos warily, wondering if a good friend would try to separate her from that toxic brew for her own good. Then the Banette flicked its eyes up to the bags under her eyes and the determined look on her face which said she had already murdered sleep and would cheerfully dig a second grave.
Maybe a braver friend would try to get her to put down the coffee.
June noticed Diya staring across the booth and met its eyes. She held out the thermos and offered, "Want some?"
The Banette protectively pulled its orange scarf -decorated with Gourgeists- up to its eyes and shook its head. Its cup of hot chocolate was more than enough caffeine for it and Svartis.
The bug trainer shrugged. "Suit yourself," she said, and held up the thermos to her shoulder so Igor could drink from it.
Sitting next to her in the booth, Bashak raised an eyebrow at her with a patient look on his face. "Caffeinated enough?"
"Mm. It'll do for now. Don't worry about me though, I'll make it through the day. I do midnight shifts with the night weaving pokemon sometimes, remember? It's not the first time I've had to reset my sleep schedule after switching off a nocturnal schedule."
Bashak hummed acknowledgement and smiled. "Glad you finished your Spinarak hunts." He popped a handful of berries in his mouth, having taken full advantage of the buffet's fruit section.
Diya interjected, <How many Spinarak did you capture anyway?>
The bug trainer held up one finger as several long gulps of coffee made their way down her throat. When she was done she pulled out her pokedex and started swiping through it. "One sec, let me check … ah, there we go. Not including the one you sold to me, I've captured thirty-eight Spinaraks over the last few nights."
Diya choked on a mouthful of noodles it was trying to eat. Its bowl jerked and sloshed liquid all over the table. Floating beside it, Svartis blanched translucent until she was nothing more than a distortion in the air. Diya spent the next minute desperately trying to swallow down its coughs without opening its mouth and soothing Svartis, while Bashak patiently mopped up the spill with some napkins. When it was finally fit to function again it typed, <38?! 3 & 8?!>
The self-satisfied smirk it got in response looked very at home on June's face. "Yup. Honestly I probably should have paid you even more. Knowing that little tidbit about the local Spinaraks being hungry enough to approach people for food was extremely helpful."
Diya got a sudden mental flash from Svartis of being the food a Spinarak was willing to approach Diya for and its stomach churned. <Okay but how?! Why?! You're allowed to catch that many?>
"Mhm, one moment, let me eat." The Mighty Meowth had some kind of roasted insect as long as her thumb available for lunch today, and June was happily munching her way through a bowl of them. Every once in a while she'd offer one to Igor, who devoured them with evident pleasure. After getting in a few mouthfuls she continued. "Capturing Spinaraks isn't like catching Swinubs around here, you don't need capture licenses. The Swinub population here is kind of precarious-" she glanced sideways to Bashak for confirmation.
He nodded.
"-so they don't want you catching too many. But it's the opposite with the Spinaraks. Apparently some ecological disaster sixty years back wiped out their primary predator so there's too many of them. It's not too much of a problem, they're territorial trap predators so when they overpopulate they don't devastate the local prey species too badly. They'll just fight and starve themselves back down to a more reasonable population. But that still sucks, you know? And 'cus they're smaller than their mainland counterparts, not enough visiting trainers want to catch them. So if you do want to catch, say, thirty eight Spinaraks, no one bothers you about it." June grinned wryly. "Actually I got a letter from the city council saying how much they appreciated it after the tenth one."
Svartis still churned uncomfortable at the thought of June luring in Spinaraks with helpless Snoms, and she prodded Diya to ask June if that's what she'd done. <Okay, but again, how?>
"I just borrowed a few predator lures from the pokecenter, you know the ones that shake around and make noise and smell like prey? Then I stuck them to any sticky web I found and waited for the Spinaraks to get brave enough to approach me."
Oh. Some color returned to Svartis and knots of tension leaked out of Diya's shoulders which it hadn't realized was even there. It should have known June wouldn't be so cavalier about using live Snoms as bait in front of Svartis. <And that got you 38 Spinaraks?>
"It's really not that hard once you get a system down. It was hardly even a battle after the first few. Igor uses leer to distract it, then Wurmy hits it with poison sting from the side. Spinaraks are pretty predictable and they get serious tunnel vision in a fight, so it works almost every time."
Huh. Diya slurped down some noodles -carefully not leaving any space for air to escape its mouth- and pondered that. <I guess I can see that. But why so many?>
"They'll be going back to my family's silk weaving workshop. I'm keeping a couple for myself though, ones I think are ready to evolve into Ariados if they just get consistent meals for a week or two-" June glanced up at Svartis. "Ah, don't worry little one, I'm not feeding them Snoms. My family has a recipe for mashed-up mushroom balls they'll eat if you soak 'em in bone broth. It's much cheaper than sourcing them meat or live prey, and if you get the mix right it actually makes their silk stronger."
Bashak finally spoke up, with a faintly puzzled look on his face, "Does your family have space for that many new weavers?"
And June … winced? Diya tasted a sudden surge of regret and involuntarily caught a flash of memory from her.
-howling flurries of snow raging around the tear-streaked face of a younger Bashak, who was furiously wiping his eyes even as he yelled at her that-
The Banette almost missed what she said next as it blinked away the intrusive experience. "Well," June said to her friend, "some of them are also going to my second cousin's workshop. But six of them will be part of our tithe contribution to the storm gods this year."
Bashak grimaced but nodded understandingly, popping a roseli berry into his mouth.
"And…" her regret surged higher. Diya watched June worriedly as she visibly drew up the courage to continue. "Well, these Spinaraks are cold-aligned and kind of unique, not something that's easy to find anywhere else. So," she swallowed and then rushed through the rest of her sentence, "my moms were thinking about trying to evolve as many of the Spinaraks as they can and then gifting the Ariadoses to Articuno for a blessing."
As she rushed out the end of the sentence Bashak's face fell. He worked his jaw for a moment and then let fall a flat, "Ah." Revulsion wafted off of him and stained Diya's tongue,
Diya wasn't sure what reaction it was expecting from Bashak. It was expecting something , but not … this. It wasn't expecting the shame spooling inside of June, or the bitterness in Bashak, both rising and rising and rising to a breaking point.
Something in its throat caught and memories of angry fights and wall-rattling yells seized its body. One memory in particular twisted in Diya's insides, caught from two perspectives, of a boy hiding out on the porch to avoid his parents' latest screaming match. In a sudden flash of panic the Banette reached out and grabbed a hand with each of them. It swallowed convulsively as they looked over to it, then jerkily let go of June's hand to type-
It didn't know what to type.
The shame in June and the bitter revulsion in Bashak both ebbed though, replaced by the taste of shared worry. The two of them exchanged a glance, then looked back at Diya, worry creasing both of their brows. Bashak folded his free hand over Diya's and asked it, "You okay, Diya?"
Diya nodded convulsively. It was. It was. Okay. Of course it was okay. It just needed them to not be fighting. Friends shouldn't fight.
It needed them to change the topic.
It still didn't know what to type.
June's forehead creased and she asked, "Seriously Diya, you okay? You're looking kind of ashy in the cheeks."
It swallowed. <Don't fight?>
That drew a puzzled look from June, but an understanding one from Bashak, who gently squeezed Diya's hand. "We're not fighting," he said. "This is…" he turned to June and nudged her with his shoulder.
The bug trainer straightened and cleared her throat professionally. "It's a point of contention between us which we are both unhappy with, but it makes us unhappy for one another more than with one another. And insofar as we are a little unhappy with one another about it, it's not more important than our friendship. We don't argue about it-"
Bashak coughed.
"-well, we don't let arguments about it get heated."
Diya's heart was still racing at two beats a second and it still didn't know what to type.
"Would it help if I explained what the issue is?" June asked. She gave Diya a long and searching look, then turned to Bashak and asked, "Are you okay if I explain this? I know your … opinions, about the storm gods."
Bashak shook his head. A small smile played over his lips, as he answered. "I trust you. You'll explain it right."
June smiled back. "Okay. Alright, Diya, have you ever heard of the storm gods?"
It hadn't. The Banette shook its head.
"Okay. The storm gods are a trio of legendary bird pokemon which live on the islands we come from. Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres. And…" she took a deep breath. "You know how your school textbooks talk about how people used to think legendaries were gods, because of how much power some of the legendaries have?"
Diya nodded. Its heart was still beating fast, but slowing as it let itself be pulled into the rhythm of June's story.
"Right. Well the storm gods are probably some of the legendaries your textbook writer was thinking of when they wrote that. But your textbook writer was wrong. Because they are gods. It's … I know it's hard to understand when you've never seen one up close. But nothing can have that much power and not be called a god. It's just … I don't know what could have more power than they do. If you tell me they're not gods that doesn't mean anything to me, because then I don't know what would be a god."
The Banette swallowed nervously. It looked from June to Bashak, and then swallowed again when Bashak nodded his agreement.
"They've got this presence that-" June struggled for words. "The scientists who have studied it say it's not a Psychic thing, or Ghost, or Dark, or Faerie. It's all of them, but ... more. Like how if you mix carbon and hydrogen just right you don't get, like, a bunch of coal dust in a very flammable cloud or something. You get wood. And I don't know how to describe it if you haven't experienced it. But if you look at one of them, even just catching it in the corner of your eye, it looks back at you, and it sees you, and you see all of it, and it's so much bigger than you that words can't describe it."
June floundered, searching for the right words anyway, and Bashak picked up for her. He squeezed her hand and said, "Everyone who sees them falls to their knees."
"Yeah, and that's just their presence. When they fly-" she shook her head. "Everything beneath Articuno dies. Pokemon, people, trees, grass, everything. The Ice pokemon die. It goes so cold that electronics stop working. When it flies over the ocean the water freezes three meters deep. It…" she trailed off.
Bashak cleared his throat and spoke quietly. Even though he sat head and shoulders above June, his presence felt very small. "I've seen Zapdos fly a few times. The lightning never stops. Even when taking shelter inside it's like a strobe light. There's no claps of thunder, only an endless roar louder than anything else in the world."
Diya was so caught up in their story it had to remember to breathe. <And Moltres?>
Both of them flinched. "It brings the hurricanes," June said simply.
<How do you survive them?>
There was a flicker again of that shame in June and that bitterness in Bashak, but both were quickly suppressed. The dominant emotion Diya could taste in them both was a simple matter-of-fact resignation.
"That's what the tithes are for," June said. "It's possible to negotiate with the storm gods mind-to-mind, if you've got a will like iron and you're willing to risk having your mind blasted into gravel. Our ancestors negotiated with them so we could live on the islands without being killed. We bring them prey, bedding for their nests, baubles, anything they want really. And in return they don't bring aseasonal weather which would destroy our crops, or fly over our settlements."
"Mostly," Bashak said.
June grimaced. "Yeah. Mostly. They haven't done that in a really long time though. They're mostly pretty good about it."
Bashak gave June a side eye. "If you live in the cities."
"Ah, yeah. They're pretty good about steering away from city lights. But they're sometimes … forgetful, about where humans have negotiated herding rights. Not often! And they don't typically come too close when they do. But it does happen some years."
<So you pay the gods protection money?>
That earned a laugh from June, and a snort from Bashak. "Hah! Yeah I guess you could say that!" June replied. "It's really not so bad though. It's like living somewhere with a natural disaster risk. You allocate some resources to prevent it and prepare for what happens if you can't, and then you live your lives. There's places with statistically much worse dangers."
Bashak nodded. He looked to June to make sure he wasn't interrupting, then said, "I know some folk whose herding routes go through the territory of a Garchomp which can mega evolve at will. Each year they bundle up a few pokemon from their herds and send them to it, so they can move the rest through safely. It's not great, but-" the big trainer shrugged. "That's life. The storm gods are the same."
Then June grimaced. Some of that shame was still in her as she said. "Yeah, the tithes are necessary, neither of us disagree with that. Our point of contention is, ah, sacrifices. For blessings. Bashak, do you want to explain…?"
Her friend shook his head. He was bitter but not, now that Diya was a bit calmer and could taste the emotion more carefully, bitter at her . "Said I trust you to explain it right, still do."
"Right. Well. We all chip in to make sure the tithes are large enough, so the big scary gods don't kill us all. And for a few collective boons, besides. Articuno freezes the water between the islands each spring so herders can cross between islands, Zapdos hunts the really big sea monsters which would threaten our ships, and Moltres makes sure we never have a drought. So you know, dealing with the gods doesn't just have to be about survival. We get something positive out of the arrangement too. And that applies on a more personal level too. Sometimes if individuals give them something extra which pleases them, they gods will grant blessings in return."
<Blessings? Like?>
"Things subtler than freezing the ocean solid. I've heard of Articuno killing all the pests on a farm, and only the pests, and Moltres is famous for being able to ensure an amazing harvest. I know someone who was blessed with quick reflexes by Zapdos, someone else who can always find fresh water, and I hear my great grandpa could see heat in the dark. Pokemon blessings are common too, people with pokemon who use the same elements as a particular god can get their pokemon empowered by the god's touch. And if you believe some of the wilder rumors, blessings can get really weird. Things like being given the gift of prophecy or a silver tongue or the ability to taste lies."
"And the price is simple," she continued. "You just have to bring something that's especially pleasing to one of the gods. A lot of times that means bringing them higher evolved pokemon as food. The priests who commune with them say there's something 'more' about evolved pokemon they seem to like. But novelty helps too, a new experience gives you a better chance at getting a blessing. And my moms thought, well, we have all these unique cold-adapted Spinaraks which might only need a steady food source to evolve. Maybe Articuno would like them as a sacrifice enough to give the family a blessing." June shrugged.
Next to her Bashak sighed.
"Bashak, uh, disagrees with the practice."
<Why?> The Banette was curious. Without the immediate tension of their grievances building in the air and choking it, it wanted to know what set off such negative emotions in its friend.
Bashak looked off to the side and pursed his lips. "Survival is one thing." he said. "I understand that. I just don't like trading favors with them as if they're some friendly merchant."
"That's not it though!" June countered. "It's not about being friendly with them. You don't have to like them to make sacrifices. It's just, it's there. It's an option. You're not hurting anyone by getting a blessing, and you're not helping yourself by not taking the opportunity. If a blessing was on the table for a sacrifice, without any of the other baggage of tithes attached to it, you'd take it!"
The herder shook his head, shaggy hair bouncing with the motion. "That's not the point."
The reply June wanted to give was acerbic, judging by the look on her face, but she schooled herself. She swallowed her first reply and answered with careful words, "Can you explain to Diya what is the point then? Because this isn't something I think I can explain for you."
That caused Bashak to grimace. "Let me think?"
"Sure, take however much time you need."
While they waited, June and Diya took the opportunity to dig into their neglected meals. Or rather, June cottoned onto the fact that Igor had snuck down and eaten all of her food so she went to get some more, and Diya finished the rest of its noodles. It considered getting some more, but its stomach still felt like a twisted knot -when had that started?- and it didn't have much of an appetite.
Eventually Bashak cleared his throat. He met June's eyes, holding her gaze for a long moment before turning to Diya. When he spoke his words were measured, each one parceled out carefully and with thought. "If I bow to the storm gods because it's do that or die," he shrugged, "that means nothing. Nothing you do to survive costs you dignity. But if I kept bowing after I didn't need to, I wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror."
Diya waited to see if the herder had more to say, but when he fell silent it nodded. That made some sense, it thought.
June though, obviously thought differently. She sighed deeply and asked, "Okay, but why? "
The herder shrugged. "I don't want to be happy with what I have, I want to be happy with how I got it."
That drew another deep sigh from June, but to Diya's surprise, no frustration or animus coated its tongue. "Diya, does that make sense to you?" she asked.
The Banette's breath caught in its throat. Memories of being caught in the middle of arguments and screaming demands to take a side rose up from the boy's mind again. It really, really didn't want to answer.
They were both looking at it though. Hesitantly it typed out, <I guess? Maybe?> Hopefully that was noncommittal enough neither of them would be upset.
To its surprise, that satisfied June. She shrugged and told it, "Alright, good enough."
That was not what it was expecting. Diya couldn't help itself from asking, <It is?>
"Huh? Yeah of course it is. This isn't your problem, it's our problem. You seemed kind of -okay actually extremely- anxious earlier when it got brought up, so I wanted to make sure you understood enough of it to know what was going on and that it's not a big deal. That's all."
<You're not mad about Bashak's point> how to phrase it? <being unclear to you?>
"Pfft? What? No. I mean okay yes it bothers me. But I'm not upset at him. He's a smart cookie, he gets to have his own opinions. Besides, he understands my viewpoint just fine, I'm the one who doesn't understand his. That's a me problem. And anyway, I'm not going home for the sacrifice. If the blessing is granted it'll be my family who gets it, not me."
That drew a frown from Bashak. "Are you sure? I'd be okay if-"
"I am very sure, thank you."
A fond smile spread slowly across Bashak's face. With one massive arm he reached over her head and around her shoulders, pulling her into his side in a big hug. She leaned into him and he turned towards her, reaching around with his other arm to complete the hug and engulf her. When he finally released her -after receiving muffled protests about not being able to breath- Bashak smiled down at his friend. The hug had dislodged June's Venonat beanie so the smaller bug trainer smoothed her hair and fixed her beanie back into place, grumbling about it the whole time. Her grumbles didn't stop her from leaning against him though.
"You do know you don't have to forgo the blessing for me, right?" Bashak said.
"I know. But if one day I ever do finally understand the point you're trying to make…" June harrumphed. "Well, if one day I get it and I think it's ridiculous, I can always seek a blessing then. But if I get it and it actually makes sense, a blessing's not something I can give back. So there."
And then that was it. Diya blinked with surprise as Bashak and June simply separated and returned their attention to their meals, as if the fight between them never happened. That is, if it was even a fight at all. The boy's instincts it had inherited, honed to a razor's edge by necessity, had insisted so. The fear had kicked in before any part of Diya's thinking mind could process what was happening. A fight had been brewing and its inherited instincts had screamed it needed to duck and cover, to get out, to find a place to hide.
Except those instincts had been wrong.
Something in the Banette's chest swelled and cracked at the same time, and it wished with all its heart that its boy had gotten to meet these two.
Across from it, Bashak looked up from his meal for a moment, pausing with a roseli berry halfway to his mouth. "Hey," he said gently. He put the roseli berry down. "Diya, are you okay?"
Huh? The Banette blinked at the odd question, then blinked again. Something was off with its eyes. Diya raised a hand to touch its eyes and its fingers came away wet. Oh. It was crying.
"Diya…" Bashak said again. Next to him June had looked up from her own meal, and was now staring worriedly at Diya as well.
The Banette shook its head at the attention. <It's okay,> it told them, <they're good tears.>
June started to speak, swallowed her food, and tried again. "Are you sure you're okay? People don't usually cry out of nowhere you know, even if they're good tears."
It nodded. Then it asked, without even thinking, <Can I keep traveling with you two when you move on from Canopy Town?>
The question took June aback. Bashak smiled immediately though, and June followed suit a few seconds after. Bashak reached out to take hold of one of Diya's hands again, rubbing the back of Diya's hand with his thumb. "Of course."
It couldn't have been luckier with the friends it had found, Diya thought. Its heart was overflowing with warmth and-
"Oh by the way we know you're a Banette," June tossed out.
All thought screeched to a halt.
"Yeah you're actually pretty terrible at hiding it," she continued. "I mean the psychic cover story stands up to cursory scrutiny but it's got some key holes and you're not great at selling it."
Bashak sighed, still rubbing his thumb over the back of Diya's hand. "June," he drew out warningly.
She ignored him. "Speaking of which, when you submit your reports on last night's ghost tag for those research bounties, we're going to have to talk about how to handle your involvement. I'm fine helping you keep the fact you're a Banette out of the report, if that's what you want. But if we do that we're going to have to talk about what parts of the videos to cut and not submit, and limit how much info we send in. Cus I'll help you hold back information you're not comfortable revealing, but I won't help you lie to researchers. A terrible fate awaits people who falsify scientific data."
"June." Bashak said more strongly this time. "You're scaring them."
That was not true. Being scared would require a functioning brain, which was quite beyond Diya at the moment.
"Oh. Sorry, that was probably a bit tactless. What I mean to say is that we know and it doesn't make a difference, we'd be happy to have you travel with us. We're also happy to cover for you if you want to keep the ruse up to avoid the attention. We can talk specifics about your whole," June made a hand waggling motion at Diya, "thing later if you want. Or not. Either is fine."
Bashak made a slightly disagreeing humming noise.
"Oh, right. It would be nice to know if we should expect anyone to be looking for you. You know, as a missing person. If you are a missing person. In a missing person's body. You know what I mean."
Diya blinked.
"Uhhh, you, um, do know what I mean right? We're not horribly off base here? Gods Bashak I am going to feel so embarrassed about this if we were wrong."
Diya's brain was still catching up to the situation. June was right, it hadn't been trying all that hard to hide what it was, especially around its new friends. It certainly hadn't been subtle about it. Though for that matter it wasn't sure it could even have hidden its ghostly abilities if it tried. Using them was too easy, too automatic, and it sometimes happened before Diya even thought about what it was doing.
But at the same time Diya had never thought about being caught. When it set out to complete its boy's pokemon journey for him, it had thought to do so as a human, the way the boy would have done it. Even when things didn't always work out that way and it acted with a Banette's powers, that had still been the assumption in the back of its mind. It was going to be a trainer, trainers were humans, therefore it was a human and people would see it that way.
But Bashak and June knew it wasn't human and they still wanted to travel with it as a trainer. That thought, finally, stirred something in Diya's brain. It was like a mental gear finally finding purchase and driving action, letting it find something to say. <You want to travel with me as a trainer, right?> it asked. <Not as a pokemon?>
Its friends exchanged glances. They nodded to it and June said, "Well, yeah, of course. You've been catching and training pokemon with us, so that's what we assumed. Like, we're not planning on sticking you in a pokeball and training you or anything."
Bashak cleared his throat. "You can still-" he groped for the right words, "-be a pokemon though. If you want."
<What do you mean?>
Bashak scratched the back of his head and nudged June, who picked up his train of thought. "I think what Bashak means to say is that you don't have to give up your identity as a pokemon to travel and train with us. Like, as I said earlier, we'll help you keep being a Banette quiet if you want. That's your information to share as you want. But that doesn't mean you have to not be a Banette. We're not going to make you pretend you're a human around us. You can just, you know, be a Banette who happens to train other pokemon." She gestured at Svartis. "It's pretty clearly been helpful to you in that regard already."
That was about three levels too abstract for Diya to be dealing with. It was still reeling from the fact that they had realized it was a Banette. So it changed the subject.
<You asked if I've been declared a missing person earlier, right?>
June nodded.
<I'm not sure. I -this body I'm in- had run away from home before. Not far away, just staying with the neighbors without permission when things were bad. His parents never called the rangers. Maybe his school might get worried?> Diya shrugged, feeling suddenly self-conscious that the shoulders it was moving didn't truly belong to it. <Someone will probably notice eventually.>
Whether people would recognize it was another question. Between its form concealing robes, wide-brimmed hat, scarves, and newly colored eyes, it might not be recognizable from a photo. Or it might be. It was another of those things Diya had been avoiding thinking about.
June and Bashak exchanged another one of those looks which carried an entire conversation Diya wasn't privy to. When they finished June asked, "So what are you planning to do if you, if your body I mean, is reported missing and someone recognizes you?"
Diya hunched its shoulders. It really rather wouldn't think about that. But if it had to- <It's hard to catch me.> Being on the run would make it hard to be a trainer though. <I don't know. Maybe if they can't catch me they'll just give up and let me be a trainer.> It winced. That sounded naive even to itself.
"Hm. Well, let's try to come up with a better plan than that before that happens, okay?"
Bashak elbowed June.
"What?! Friends tell friends when their plans are terrible!"
The bigger trainer sighed and squeezed Diya's hand reassuringly. "It's okay," he said, "we'll help you be a trainer, whatever happens."
June cleared her throat. "Actually, I've been meaning to ask, why do you want to be a trainer? And I don't mean that in an 'oh it's so weird that you're a Banette and want to do that' way. Your whole situation," she gestured up and down at them, "inhabiting a human body is unique so far as my research turned up. I figure your situation is unusual enough that nothing qualifies as 'weird' for you. But it does kind of make the traditional reasons for going on a journey less relevant to you. So … why?"
Diya took a deep breath. Then another. And another. It gripped Bashak's hand tighter, and breathed easier when he gave it a squeeze back. It was a struggle to type out its response with one hand, but it needed that contact with its friend to get it all out. It would be too difficult to say otherwise.
<The boy whose body this was was a good kid. If he hadn't died, I would have gone on his journey with him. I would have been his pokemon.> Tears welled up in Diya's eyes. It was hard to see the pokedex screen. Its hand shook as well, so much it could hardly type. But it needed to speak. The boy deserved for it to say this.
<But he's gone now. It's just me left. So I-> a tear fell on its pokedex, triggering a cluster of random keys. Diya wiped it away with its thumb and started again. <It's the only thing left I can do for him.>
And then it was sobbing its heart out for the whole world to see. Tears poured down its face in a flood and mucus dripped out to stain its scarf. A horrible whine built in the back of its throat, an awful stunted version of the open-mouthed wail it needed to let loose but couldn't. It cried, and it cried, and it cried.
It didn't cry alone.
Two warm shapes crowded into the booth on either side of it, pressing the Banette between them. They hugged it and murmured soft words into its ears. A cloud filled with love pressed herself up against Diya's chest. She swelled as she opened up their bond and took as much of the pain as she could, while also pouring back all the gratitude and affection Diya had earned from her. Together, they gave Diya permission to grieve.
At some point a person approached their table to ask questions in a hushed and worried tone. June murmured something in response and the person left, coming back a minute later with a wad of tissues. Diya used up all of them before it was finished crying.
But eventually it was finished crying. It had no tears left to give. Its head felt like it was floating on the end of its neck, as if it was a balloon drifting in a heavy fog. Its chest was wrung out and hollow. But that wasn't entirely a bad thing. Because its friends were still cradling it between them, and their warmth filled some of that hollow space.
After its grief had run its course it could hardly even stand. But that wasn't such a bad thing. Because its friends helped it stand. They walked it back to its room in the pokecenter and tucked it into bed so it could sleep. They were still there when it woke up that afternoon with a pounding headache from the emotional overload. They got it medication for its headache from Claire, sweet lozenges it could suck on that dulled the hurt.
And Svartis helped too. She had been busy while Diya was sleeping. She rounded up every Shuppet in the town and set them to work so when Diya woke, all of the Shuppets were assembled outside its room. They had gathered the gentlest griefs their horns could hold, from the the bittersweet sorrow of one's child moving out to the quiet heartache of passing on an outgrown toy. One by one they floated into the room and one by one they passed into Diya what they had collected, each wisp of smoke filled with the pain of letting go and the experience of overcoming it.
Its friends cared for it. Its companion cared for it. Its little cousins cared for it. And all that was good. But they also did something more important.
They cared about the boy.
Diya sat in bed and poured its heart out, typing to its human friends and speaking memories to the ghosts. It told them about the boy who had died. About his life, about who he was, why he mattered to Diya, how he'd wanted to be a trainer. How he'd died. Diya painted a picture about a boy who had mattered to it to his very last breath and beyond, even though no one else in the world noticed his passing.
But now these people, these pokemon, they knew about him. And through Diya's words, he mattered to them. They cared. Its boy was not forgotten.
The tears started up again at some point. But now they were the happiest tears in the world.
This chapter was a hell of a one to write. I ended up scrapping two completely different ideas for what I wanted to write for this before realizing I wanted to do this right now. (Fragments of them will be showing up in coming chapters, much improved for having this one to build off of I think). So yeah! I hope it was worth the wait.
Ah, so the Legendary Birds are similar to the Aztec gods? Kinda?
Lets just hope they are don't Need the sacrifices, and consider them a nice gift instead of a requirement...
And i like the ending.
they know, Diya knows they know, and everyone is fine.
I did not expect a chapter that was this emotional.
Very well done.
I think having at least part of this resolved will be great for character development. Dragging it out could have easily led to a running in circles situation, while this gives any further storyline a great basis to work from.
I also really like your take on the pokemon world in general. Far to often it's just "I slammed magic pets into the appropriate IRL area enjoy", without taking into account how the presence of all of these truly alien aspects of the setting would affect things.
(Or "behold the hyperdeathworld", I suppose.)
Also I'll be adopting your take on the legendary birbs worship as headcanon. It works well.
I'm thinking back to the Pokemon 2000 movie and how the weather trio just fighting with each other affected the climate on a regional if not global scale. And in that light, trying to appease them so there's no/less chance of one of them waking up peckish and taking a short trip over your city seems like a pretty good idea that slots pretty well into the worldbuilding Sen is going for wrt making the world a caring place through continuous effort like the pokemon centers and other services.
I actually based them off the sacrifice practices of Hellenistic Greece! For one thing we don't really know enough about Aztec religious practices for me to feel confident using them as a foundation for anything, and also from what we do know about them their sacrificial practices were intimately linked to the prosecution of war, which isn't at all what I wanted to do here.
Hellenistic Greek practices lined up very nicely with what I wanted though. There's very little moral glorification of the gods in that practice, and little concept of sacrifices or worship being performed because their gods are deserving of them on a moral level in the way most modern monotheistic religions operate. Instead there's a much more practical and transactional aspect to it. The big gods, the ones who have positions of authority, must be offered tribute because staying in their good graces is necessary for survival. And you might collectively or individually offer more to ensure collective or individual boons, and be thankful and appreciative of that, but no one forgets that there's a bare minimum amount of sacrifice just to avoid undue attention.
Hellenistic prayer for instance, was basically nothing like the prayer that occurs in modern churches or synagogues or mosques. It was very transactional, and very specific. You offered or promised a specific sacrifice, with specific penalties for failing to deliver in the case of a promise, and you requested a specific boon in return. Then you likely consulted omens (directly or via intermediary) to determine if the sacrifice was sufficient and would be accepted, went back to the drawing board if no and hoped for the best if yes. There was awe and reverence involved, yes, but the practical details were very pragmatic. (Oaths were similarly specific. You didn't just "swear to Zeus", you labeled Zeus the guarantor of your oath and outlined specific consequences for Zeus to strike you with should you violate it).
That's what I was using as the basis here. I figure that if you have a trio of legendaries with somewhat alien morality who are on the power level of the Greek gods, but which can be negotiated with, assigning a Hellenistic religious framework to how people interact with them isn't unreasonable.
No human sacrifice. Just pokemon. Think sacrificing a sheep, except instead of ritually burning the fat and entrails you more just herd a few Mareep up to the island's summit whenever one of the storm legendaries is feeling peckish.
No human sacrifice. Just pokemon. Think sacrificing a sheep, except instead of ritually burning the fat and entrails you more just herd a few Mareep up to the island's summit whenever one of the storm legendaries is feeling peckish.
It was not mentioned. Which I found interesting. Is it not even something that crosses their minds? I imagine humans would be a somewhat unsatisfying meal though.
No human sacrifice. Just pokemon. Think sacrificing a sheep, except instead of ritually burning the fat and entrails you more just herd a few Mareep up to the island's summit whenever one of the storm legendaries is feeling peckish.
It was not mentioned. Which I found interesting. Is it not even something that crosses their minds? I imagine humans would be a somewhat unsatisfying meal though.
Hmm. It's not something I'd thought through much beyond dismissing it for meta-narrative reasons. That is, it would set the wrong tone for the story and related plot points going forward, and would have made Bashak and June's disagreement carry much less moral ambiguity. Speaking of which, I'm glad you thought it was well thought out!
If I were to have to assign in-universe reasons to it though, it's important to remember that the original negotiation between the human newcomers to the islands and the storm gods were a two-way street rather than just a series of dictated demands from the storm gods. After all, worse case scenario the humans were prepared to just go back to where they came from or to settle elsewhere. And the storm gods benefit enormously from being catered on like this, there's a reason they're willing to accept stuff like flight pattern constraints as part of the deal. Besides, they've got no particular reason to prey on humans. No elemental association, no higher evolution, not much meat compared to bigger pokemon megafauna, etc, etc.
So if human sacrifice was brought up, it would have been an off-hand thought at worse from the storm gods and the human negotiators would have rejected it out of hand. And because the storm gods do actually benefit quite enormously from the deal, they wouldn't have had any reason to quibble over anything like that. They want their bellies filled and their roosts decorated, but they don't care much about what with beyond that it's quality stuff.
Makes sense. Humans are offering access to an entire grocery store in food variety except for a single type of apple. They would be crazy to to make that single apple worth losing the entire store and have to go back to their own hunting.
As someone who's been reading Ashes of the Past for a while, I almost wonder if this story could fit in a few hundred years before Ash started his journey. I appreciate Legenardies which are more personable, but also like how you're depicting them here; it seems to me that the birds are getting better and better at understanding people as time goes on if the commentary is to be believed.
Granted, it could just be an AU/perspectives thing. I just like being able to tie different canon together.
Edit: and I notice you've already mentioned Mewtwo, in a past tense. There goes that theory. Ah well.
I knew it seemed somewhat familar! Even if I'm a bit embarrassed I didn't recognize the inspiration immediately, given how much I've looked intto that kinda stuff.
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