The world was never built for humans alone.
Long before the first road was paved, before the League raised its banners, Kanto was wilderness. Vast, endless wilderness. Forests that stretched like seas of green, mountains that clawed at the sky, coasts beaten endlessly by storms rolling in from the far horizon. And in that wilderness lived Pokémon wild, unbridled, ancient.
To the early settlers, they were gods and monsters both. Whole villages could vanish in a night beneath the wings of migrating Fearow, or beneath the fury of an Onix burrowing too close to fragile homes. The storms along the southern coast were said to be born from the wrath of Gyarados, each wave big enough to swallow ships whole. There are stories, old ones whispered by firelight, of children taken by Haunter in the woods, their laughter echoing long after the night had gone still.
But there are other stories too. Of warmth. Of courage. Of bonds. A camp spared from freezing winter because a Growlithe lay curled at the edge of the fire. A scout surviving a mountain pass thanks to the steady wings of a Pidgeotto. Farmers whose fields thrived because of Oddish and Bellsprout working alongside them in quiet harmony.
And so, between fear and wonder, between reverence and survival, mankind began to understand. We could not fight the world into submission. We could only learn to live with it, to meet it halfway.
That was the birth of the first bond, not of Trainer and Pokémon as we know today, but of neighbors, companions, guardians. Over generations, those bonds deepened. People discovered that with trust and training, a single human and Pokémon could achieve together what neither could alone.
From those beginnings, the first Trainers rose. Not hunters, nor conquerors, but individuals carrying with them the weight of both their partners and their people. With their strength came stability. With their courage, order. And with time, the League was born not as a game, nor sport, but as the highest call to mastery and responsibility.
Yet the world never became gentle. For every road paved, another led into wilds untouched. For every city raised, another ruin fell silent under vines and dust. Kanto is safer now than it once was. Children walk its streets, ships travel its coasts, and light glows at night from towns that once trembled in darkness but safety is fragile. Step too far into tall grass, and a hungry Raticate will remind you that nature is merciless. Stray too deep into the sea, and a Tentacruel's tentacles might drag you below without warning. Even now, every traveler knows beyond the routes and markers, the wild is waiting.
And there are shadows greater still. Legends older than any League, older than any bond. Pokémon whose names are spoken only in hushed tones: the bird that carries flame upon its wings, the serpent that coils beneath the deepest seas, the titan who slumbers within storms. Some claim they are gods, others natural disasters given form. Whatever the truth, humanity has learned to look up at the sky with both awe and caution.
But this is no story of gods. Not yet. This is a story of beginnings.
For every Champion who rises, there is a boy or girl who once stared out at the world, wide-eyed, their heart pounding at the sight of a first Pokémon. For every League built, there is a road of dirt and dust, trodden by those who dared to leave the safety of home. And for every legend whispered by firelight, there is one who chooses to chase it.
This is Kanto. A land of old scars and new dreams, where humans and Pokémon walk side by side, not because the world is safe, but because it is dangerous. Because only together can they endure.