Day 1

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What can be said about this? It was perplexing to see such a firm first page. Not literally, but just the wording…

IMPORTANT: READ IN A HIDDEN PLACE (DO NOT SHOW TO ANY LEGENDARY POKEMON)

Nevertheless, I braced myself and turned to the first actual page.

To the lucky reader who finds these documents,

Consider me impressed by your tenacity. Not many are bold enough to study the history of the ancient world, let alone the history of legendary pokemon. I am Zeraora the Fourth, mythical pokemon of the Electric Type. I write to you in the most common language I know so that whoever finds this can read and understand the story within. That story is about my own life, the first ten decades of it.

It should be noted that detailing our lives like this is an act that is frowned upon by my “superiors.” Needless to say, I am taking a large risk on my part. Why would I do this? It’s because they broke my trust and I consider this justice that is long overdue. This system us mythicals run by is flawed beyond belief and the folks on top are doing nothing about it. In fact, they refuse to. Worse yet, they refuse to tell me why. I had enough of all the hushed talk behind my back. By the time you read through my story, I’m sure you’ll feel the same way.

Before I begin, it may be for the best that I tell you about my old name. Some may call it a childhood nickname, but it was a name I signed away when I first started performing my duty as a mythical. Prior to my service, I was known not by my species name; instead I was called Galvan. Yes, it was not the most creative of names.

By now, you’re probably wondering why I called myself “the fourth” when the both of us should know that this world has been around for far longer than four generations, even by mythical standards. To answer, it’s a record number. I wouldn’t know why we suddenly started doing this. Regardless, I was born as a part of this number system.

My childhood wasn’t what I would call a normal life, at least not by commoner standards. Anyone with a definite end to their lifespan has a much slower maturing process. That is one reason we tend to isolate ourselves from others: to protect our vulnerable newborns. We were meant to protect our own kind, but a little over ninety years ago, something went wrong. An incident of some kind caused several younglings to be orphaned. As a result, they had to be raised by a different caretaker. I was one of these younglings. Granted, I was just a small child at the time. I cannot even remember what happened. Regardless, it was this incident that took the lives of both my parents. 

Afterwards, I was taken by the legendary pokemon Zarude, a friend of my parents. He took me to his home on the Grass Continent and raised me as his own. He was the closest thing I had to a father. He taught me how the world worked, what mystery dungeons are, why we exist, and so many other lessons. My combat training even came from him. I owe so much to him.

I remember the layout of our abode. We both lived in a massive tree within what is now the Mystery Jungle. The tree was in the middle of a hidden garden on the eastern side. Thinking about it now, we were situated near some mountains. Outside of the tree’s entrance was space for a fire pit. The eastern side of the garden was a dirt-covered sparring ground, while the west features a small lake, whose waters flowed into a river that ran through a nearby valley. Compared to the neighboring mystery dungeon, our home did not have that ugly odor associated with a lot of Poison-Types. 

The Mystery Jungle was, and still is, home to many Poison- and Grass-Types. As a result, I learned how to deal with poison many, many, MANY times. To be honest, I lost count how times I got myself poisoned, whether through a stray Poison Sting, or doing something stupid like smugly stomping my foot onto a visible Toxic Spike Trap.

Regardless of the stumbling blocks, I became a little wiser…after a couple of decades. Socially, I had stunted growth. I didn’t have much interaction with younglings my age. Sure, there were the other orphaned younglings we visited occasionally, but I didn’t really get along with them. They were all older than me. Some were closer to my age than others, but they at least had a chance to know their parents to an extent. I could tell we weren’t exactly interested in playing with each other. After a while, the visits seemed more like a “do the motions” deal. 

We eventually stopped visiting other younglings when Zarude started to seriously train me. He said he didn’t want me to get distracted during my basic training. Somehow, deep down, he knew I wasn’t enjoying the visits. Unfortunately, stopping the visits also meant I was confined to the Mystery Jungle area.

One day when I was about forty years of age (a child’s age by Zeraora standards), Zarude and I came over to a village of commoners. Being a child, I naturally wanted to go play with the other little ones, only to be stopped promptly by the Dark-Type. 

He told me this, “We must never associate with them. They are folks we must protect from the shadows, but nothing else.” 

I didn’t understand why and he knew it. The reply he gave to my curiosity was this, “Our existence as guardians comes at the price of separation. We belong with us, and they belong with them. It is for the best that very few of them know of our existence. Do you understand?” 

I glanced at the village before nodding. My silent answer seemed to be good enough to Zarude. In retrospective though, he probably should have been more thorough.

So I was trained in the ways of the mythical pokemon, what it means to fight and protect. A mythical fights for three reasons: to protect their realm, to protect the common folk, and to protect the world. 

Despite Zarude’s lack of Electric-Type attacks, he still managed to teach me some vital combat skills when it came to close-quarters as well as how to use the environment to my advantage. Having a jungle-dweller as a mentor had an unintended side-effect. It allowed me to learn how to utilize vines, become a prodigy at climbing, and develop some…questionable techniques.

Reflecting on this whole span of time, I had plenty of happy memories. Maybe I had a couple of problematic moments with some poorly-timed curiosity, but I was happy in my ignorant bliss. It was too bad that those moments couldn’t last forever. My life under Zarude’s protection changed when that day happened, a day that should have been just boring training.