It was 8:00 a.m. when Professor Oak picked up the phone call.
"Good morning, Professor."
"Good morning to you as well, Ash. How are you doing?"
"I am fine, Professor. My Pokémon and I just had breakfast, and I registered for the Pokémon league just yesterday."
"The Pewter Pokémon Centre, huh? I expected you to get there faster."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you had left for Pewter City via the Viridian Forest and during the time you spent there, the others had already reached the city and won the Gym badge. Just yesterday, the third one left Pewter City to head for the Cerulean City. You have a lot of catching up to do, Ash."
Narrowing his eyes at that, Ash replied, "It would seem so. Something happened, and I was busy training my team in the forest."
"It would seem so. On that note, I want to talk about your Pokémon."
Professor's eyes had a sudden glint to them than before when he said those words.
Blinking a little at that, Ash said with a hint of pride and a smudge of trepidation, "I have also caught a Pidgeotto, a Butterfree, and an Eevee while I was there in the forest. What about them?"
"There was an Eevee in the Viridian Forest? It's the first time I have heard of them being found there. It seems that the area needs to be surveyed. Your Metapod evolved, huh? Congratulations on the evolution. Can I see the Eevee?"
Bending to the side, Ash picked up Eevee from the floor and held him in front of the screen with Pikachu on his shoulders now.
Eevee was panicking inside when he was picked up to see this 'Professor.' If he were like the others, he would... Oh, look at that. The person wasn't wearing the white coat that the others had. Eevee just tilted his head upon looking at Professor Oak.
"This one looks healthy, and his fur does seem a bit dull in shade. Nothing that proper grooming and a good diet will not fix. As fascinating as it was to see you catch another rare Pokémon, I want to talk about your Butterfree."
"What about him?"
"Your Butterfree knows how to use Electroweb and Iron Defense."
"Is that a problem for him?"
"Ash, I do not know if you know the significance of it, but your Butterfree is the only Pokémon outside of Joltik and Galvantula that knows how to use Electroweb, and it wasn't even known if a Metapod could learn Iron Defense."
"Joltik and Galvantula?"
"Ahh. You do not know about them. They are Electric/Bug dual-type Pokémon that can be found in the Unova region. They are known to be the only Pokémon that can learn that move, and it was considered their signature move."
"What does it mean for Butterfree, then?"
With an excited voice, Professor Oak spoke with childlike glee, "Do you know how important that is? It would mean that it is possible to teach Pokémon moves that they otherwise would never know how to use. It would open up new paths for research! Oh, the possibilities!"
Looking at the clasped hands and drooling face of the professor, Eevee turned his head to the other two, his paw pointing towards the screen, and sent a questioning look their way, as if asking, 'You know that guy?'
Ash and Pikachu did not answer him and turned to look at the other side, trying to deny that they knew that old man.
After a few moments, turning towards the screen, he asked with a curious tone, "Professor, what's Unova?"
Snapping back to the present from his daydreams, Professor Oak looked at Ash with a confused tilt to his head and widened his eyes as if realising something before he facepalmed. Yes, facepalmed. With a groan, the professor replied in a tired voice.
"I never taught you guys about the different regions, now did I?"
Ash's confused face was all the answer he needed. With a sigh, he started to explain.
"Our region, Kanto, is one of the many regions present in this world. It is the first region that saw the development of the now-known Pokémon League, which was then known as the Pokémon Association. Pokémon at that time weren't considered partners but as a means to an end. The now-known cities back then were major villages, with much of the region being uncharted territory with wild forests, no proper routes, and wild, territorial Pokémon. Merchants at that time had to go from village to village with no protection, and they got lost or were killed."
"Wait, such things happened back then?!"
"It happened back then, and it happens now as well—though to a lesser extent. Now, where was I? Ah, yes." He leaned forward, his voice low, almost conspiratorial. "To combat the endless threat, the merchants began to tame Pokémon, bending them to human command. If you cannot defeat the wild, you conscript it—so the saying went. These were the first recorded instances of humans working alongside Pokémon. Yet harmony was far from assured. The wild ones struck back, raiding small villages and burning them to ash, leaving scarcely a soul alive. The domesticated Pokémon became both shield and sword, standing between fragile settlements and annihilation. Thus, a fragile balance endured for centuries."
The professor's tone hardened. "But the burden of keeping such creatures came at great cost. The merchants, wearied by the expense, turned instead to mercenaries. Yet these blades-for-hire, swollen with pride and desperate to prove their worth, soon turned their violence upon each other. They fought not in silence, but brazenly in the open—marketplaces, crossroads, even temple steps. And when they fell, their Pokémon fell with them. Streets ran red, and the corpses left unburied bore witness to the savagery of that age."
Leaning back a bit, the professor continued, "To combat these situations, some of the merchants and the mercenaries came together to form guilds of these mercenaries, where they battled in gladiator-style battles, where the winner was not decided until the opposing trainer, who was also attacked alongside his Pokémon, dropped unconscious or died. It even resulted in some of them losing their limbs. These battles not only brought in spectators and betting pools, but they also showcased the strengths of the mercenaries and brought in revenues for the guilds from the merchants in terms of hire and investments.
The main villages all had guilds, but they were independent of each other back then. These led to battles between not the same guildmates but the different guilds to fight over the resources and rights to the different jobs, like guarding the gates, fighting off the wild Pokémon, and the services of the merchants. This continued for decades, until a group of five freelance mercenaries travelled to the different villages and defeated their guilds in combat. The four trainers of that group had progressive strength and were considered elites. Their leader was far stronger than the rest of their companions/members and was considered a champion of the people, as they had beaten every mercenary and were unbeatable. This group of four came to be known as the Elite Four, and their leader as the Champion.
They had been contracted by a group of wealthy merchants who wanted to stop the fighting and possibly extend their influence. They had set their base of operations at the now-called Indigo Plateau. Thus, the Indigo Association came to be, which was later changed to the Pokémon Association.
No matter how much of the regularization they did, conflicts still arose, and the merchants wanted new places to trade with, and some of the people of the villages wanted to leave the region behind to escape and settle down in other places and start anew. This led the people to sail and travel via land and sea to seek new lands.
It was through these expeditions that new lands and regions were found, like the Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, which was then called Hisui, followed by Unova. Regions like Kalos and Paldea were discovered afterwards. My cousin currently works as a professor in the Alola region. There were also mentions of a mysterious region called Ransei, but its existence was never confirmed, as there were no records on how to get there. The world is really such a big place, isn't it?"
While the professor was reminiscing about times that he most likely travelled the world, his three listeners were looking at him with wide, surprised eyes.
"If so many regions exist, why haven't I heard of them before, Professor?"
The professor's mood instantly became grim with a sour look, "Most of the regions are far away from each other, but there used to be trade relations among the regions decades back, too. If only it weren't for the war!"
The professor said the last words in a whisper, but he was still able to hear the words that formed a pit in his stomach for some reason.
"Professor, what's a war?"
The professor jerked a bit and looked at the screen with widened eyes as he could not believe that Ash had heard his words.
"Ah, umm... Oh yeah! I also wanted to tell you about you-know-who from the Viridian City."
Ash was going to ask about the war the professor was talking about when his attention shifted to the topic of the rogue Jenny from Viridian City, completely forgetting about the previous fact. With a low growl and a bit of hostility in his voice, Ash asked the professor.
"What about that woman?"
With a serious tone, the professor replied, "She is dead."
Completely startled by the unexpected news, Ash asked weakly, "W-What?"
"After some days of investigation, it was found that she had sold the furniture and the valuables of a house along with the house's ownership papers on that day. None of them belonged to her in the first place, and the family has yet to be found. There were charges of fraud and possibly murder that were going to be pressed against her. When she was visited in her cell to be interrogated about the issue, it was found that she had been killed in her sleep in the cell. The items that she had sold are being traced to get back in order to get any clue as to who the family members were that owned that house, but there are low chances for that to happen. Her death is being considered a case of foul play by Team Rocket, so I have to ask you to exercise caution, as they might target you as well."
"Oh-h, okay, professor. I will keep that in mind."
"Be sure to do so. On a bit of a side note, you might have noticed that your Pokédex might be showing unknown moves like that of Electroweb. Isn't it?"
"Y-yeah."
"It will take some time, but I will send one of my aides to meet you after a week or two. He will be the one to enter the updates to your dex, alright. Any queries? No? Then bye."
With that, Professor Oak cut the call. This resulted in three different reactions.
On the professor's side, Professor Oak thought, 'Man, that was close. I am getting loose-lipped with time, isn't it?'
And in Pewter Pokémon Centre...
Ash thought with a sense of trepidation, 'That Jenny died? Who were those people?'
Meanwhile, in Ash's mindscape, within the cozy confines of his mansion's warmth, Roshi's eyes narrowed with a single thought, 'What was this war?'