[i]Goldenrod, August 3rd, 1923... 
One year ago...[/i]

It was another one of those warm, sepia days that almost seemed quotidian in the western planes of Johto, as a golden-brown light poured in through the slatted windows of the train cart, and bathed the locomotive’s interior in a shade of autumnal bronze. 
Below the hills on which the train had built its tracks, fields of flaxen and golden durum fluttered in the midst of a balmy summer current, and in the distance, the light-umber silhouette of the region’s capital was advancing quickly upon the iron horse’s line of trajectory. 
And upon seeing this, Shawn- a Kantonese expatriate- took a few steps back, and glanced contently about himself. 

He was in the third car of some magnificent, light-maroon coloured locomotive colloquially known as “The Johto Belle”, a marvel of machinery made up of brass, roaring pistons and fed by steam, which funnelled into the air above its fore in great twirling columns, lingering there a spell before slowly disappearing into the distance. 
Its interior was just as splendid, he thought: Dark oaken cabins, finished with fogged glass doors, and furnished with rich red leather. 
To city folk, it might have been a regular occurrence: To a farm boy, it was a luxury the likes of which he’d never seen before.

Shawn Wesley Caster was a child of Kanto, and the country- it was a farmer’s blood which ran through his veins- but by nature, he’d always been a gentleman of the big city: And he’d felt it the moment his train had jounced and jolted its way across the craggy border which joined his homeland, and his new one. 
And yet despite this- despite his original, fair country complexion, and his inexplicable coveting of city life- he’d spent the last twelve years of his life in the blistering heat of Orre’s mountainous desert, bunkered down in the ruins of what- he was told- was once the jewel in Orre’s crown: Phenac City.

It felt right, he thought, to finally be journeying to Johto after that ordeal: Soldiers weren’t made for the simplicity of country life. 
With a fond sigh, he sat himself down, and laid his hand gingerly against the mass of amber-fur which had fallen asleep beside him. 
He stroked it, affectionately: The Growlithe, in turn, paid him some low purr of encouragement in response. 
“So, Johto, huh?”, Shawn asked, his Kantonese drawl as thick on his tongue now as it had been twelve years prior, “’s gotta be better than a desert, right?”
Reynard- the Growlithe he’d questioned- simply shrugged. 
The trainer laughed, reclining into his seat, “Well, you’re just full’a talk today. Tired, boy?”
Reynard barked once in confirmation, before laying his head on Shawn’s leg, “Tsk, and you used to be such a little trooper…”
Shawn scratched Reynard behind the ear, “Go on then, rest up: We’ve got a big day ahead’a us. A big week, even.” 

And with that, the pair fell into silence as The Belle rattled onwards to her final destination. 
In that time, Shawn entertained himself with people watching: And for the most part, that was boring.
Ladies and gentlemen of all shapes and sizes wandered past his cabin, in suits all shades of pallid beige: The sort of people who hadn’t worked a day in their lives, and didn’t intend to in the near future, either. 
The only thing of note, truly, had been the presence of a lone Mr. Mime, lunging his way up the corridor between rooms in a flowing pink dress, and humming quite contentedly to himself as he did it. 
Shawn had gotten a laugh out of it, but Reynard hadn’t woken in time to spot the spectacle, and just as soon as he’d realised this, he’d gone back to sleep. 

When, finally, the station had come into view, it was a whole new sort of scene to behold. 
A series of massive stone pillars helped suspend the palatial platform at which the engine had finally docked: A building the colour of swirled sandstone, which, in its extravagance, left the pale linoleum flooring that made up the platform itself rather lacking in substance. 
Across the station, a veritable circus act was arranged: Husbands and wives in all manners of decadent, contrasting and clashing colours were arranged in clusters, all awaiting the arrival of their respective soldiers. 
Some waited in vain, some out of respect for others: But all of them had an excitement about them, the sort that only came in the short silence that followed a war, in which society rebuilt itself. 

Shawn and Reynard had been waited on by nobody, however: And the former felt somewhat under-dressed as he weaved his way through the bustling of the crowds, with naught more than his leather jacket to highlight him against the grain.
Still, the effort was worth it, existential crisis or no; Upon exiting the station, he was faced with the full force of the city’s towering skyline; Sky scrapers overlooked every street, and restaurants the likes of which this country boy had ever seen- those that didn’t belong to a franchise, but were all of their own- were glowing in the russet noon. 
“Well I’ll be,” the trainer murmured quietly, stunned. He stared for a few moments, awestruck by the pure size of it all: So much so, in fact, that he had yet to realize the street he was stood on was otherwise hollow, devoid of all other human beings. 
That is, until Reynard began growling. 

Shawn looked down to see his pup of a pokémon in a stance, snarling back towards the train station as if he’d sensed something horribly awry. 
Turning around, the trainer stared up at it: It was grand, and the brass clockface that adorned its front told him it was ten past six. 
“What?”, he asked, kneeling down beside his pokémon, and stroking him slowly, cautiously, “Something the matter, boy?”

“… self-destruct!”
Suddenly, a new figure charged out into the street, a good ten feet away from the duo: And looking over his shoulder, Shawn caught sight of him hurtling across the street without another word, and disappearing into the adjacent alleyway, trailed behind only by a weighted leather satchel. 

[i]For Nurse “Joy” (as she’d been dubbed by the locals) of Goldenrod Station’s Pokémon Centre, it’d been a fairly uneventful day. 
She’d sat at her desk- the same old, age-worn mahogany semi-circle she sat behind most days- for most of it without incident, and had even managed to sneak the occasional cigarette break in between the few sporadic customers that actually bothered to visit. 
The weekends were a pokémon centre’s true days of action: When trainers poured in from every direction, keen to have their companions treated after a hard week of battling. 

She sighed, and swept an irritant lock of pink hair from her face, before neatly tucking it behind her ear.
Then, she threw a glance over her shoulder, to the trio of rooms in which they stored the pokémon incubators: Small chambers which emitted a warm, reddish-tan healing energy from all sides. 
Across the walls, she could make out the silhouette of her Chansey, a clipboard detailing each chamber’s residents clasped between the stubby shapes that made up her hands. 

Joy smiled softly: Sometimes she genuinely wondered if Chansey was a better nurse than she was. Even on quiet weekday afternoons like this one, that little fusspot always found herself more work to be doing, if not of the medicinal kind, then definitely of the bureaucratic one. 
She giggled softly, turning back to face the infirmary’s entrance, “Maybe she ought to have my degree,” she mused to herself, sportively, “Nurse Chansey does have a nice ring to it… although, these folks would just call her ‘Joy’.”
She glanced down at her name badge- “Hello, my name is Dolores!”- and then grinned, “Well, it’s certainly more interesting than Dolores.” 

What followed was a few more minutes of clock watching- A sport she’d become quite adept at since graduating from medical school- during which the timepiece’s hands seemed to almost intentionally slow their movements, as if to spite her vigilance. 
But Joy wasn’t quick to back down: With a pen tucked neatly between her fingers, she rhythmically tapped away a complimentary tune to the clock’s ticking, some old jaunty earworm she’d picked up from the radio that flanked her desk’s left. 
This was a short lived game, however: Before the hour’s quart had passed, the doors were suddenly flung open, and in poured the cacophonic voices of Goldenrod’s train-station denizens, followed by a sprinting figure, carrying with him a small bundle of fabrics. 

He cut a handsome figure, or at least Joy thought so: Sharp, defined features, and a well-maintained, coffee-coloured countenance. 
He’d draped himself in a long, hazel overcoat, which billowed in his wake as he charged across the lobby- his frenzied footsteps bouncing harshly against the clay tiles which lined its floor- and thrust his textiles outwards, in her direction. 
“Nurse Joy!”, he pleaded, voice dripping with desperation, “Nurse Joy! Nurse Joy, there’s been an accident!”

Joy perked up, eyes widening as she readjusted the small, white hat that adorned her fuchsia mane, “Wh-What seems to the be the problem?”, she asked, almost taken aback by the gentleman’s momentum. 
“It’s my pokémon, there’s something very wrong with him!”
He forced his bundle into her outstretched hands, his grip quivering, his palms clammy. 
“Oh my!”, she began feverishly unwrapping whatever injured creature he’d lent her, as her Chansey- seeming having heard the commotion- rushed to her aid, “What seems to be the problem?”

However, when at last she peeled away the blankets, she found her hand freezing- hesitating- as her concerned expression dropped, contorting into a perturbed frown.
In her lap, and juxtaposed to her, was a Koffing, grinning just as vacant and vacuously as it had the day it was born. 
She stared, fixated for a moment, before glancing back up at the creature’s tamer. 
His visage had undergone a speedy transformation, having dropped the façade of concern, and instead become almost sickeningly pleased with itself: He grinned as though he’d just achieved his checkmate, and leaned across the counter so that their faces were but inches apart. 
She could see it now: His face was kind, but his eyes hollow. Devoid of mercy, and all else, save for the murky brown of their irises. 
“He’s got a habit of blowing up on pretty little things who scream too much… catch my drift, sweetheart?”
She nodded, mutely, and swallowed for lack of anything else to do.
“Att’a girl,” he reached out, and patted her cheek condescendingly, “Where’re the pokémon?” 

She hesitated: The entire Hippocratic oath suddenly weighed heavily on her shoulders.
But his gaze, it peered through her: And his grin, totally without falter, broke her. 
“In… in the back,” she whispered, looking away, and catching the eye of her Chansey. 
Chansey nodded, as if to assure her she’d made the right choice… she wasn’t so sure. 
“The back,” he repeated, straightening up and stalking across the room. He peered into one of the trio of ajar doorways in the pokémon centre’s rear, “Nice.” 

What followed was the most painful experience “Nurse Joy” had ever experienced: She sat idle, as her thief’s Koffing wriggled gleefully in her lap- totally ignorant of his surroundings- and the short, mechanical whines of stolen pokéballs retracting their inhabitants rung out in rapid succession behind her. 
Clock watching, again, was her only brief solace: But a mere half of an hour later, he was done, and returned to her with a worn leather satchel, bulging with new prizes. 
He smiled wryly at her, before gripping her chin and forcing her to maintain eye contact with him. 
“Hey, don’t bother none…” he chuckled, “I’ll even let you keep your Chansey, how’s that sound?”
She nodded mutely, tears swelling in the corners of her eyes. 
He relinquished his grip, and pointed at her pokémon with a wink, “I’ll just have to see you another day. But I will see you, no doubt about that.” 

And with that, he simply turned, and began to depart. His robbery silent, and his threat echoing through Joy’s mind even after he’d stopped uttering it. 
Then, she felt that familiar presence in her lap, and spoke up, “S-Sir.”
He paused, his hand against the frosted glass of the door, a moment away from stepping out into the oncoming dusk. He threw a glance back to her.
“Call me Delgada.” 
“D-Delgada.” 
“Yeah?”
“Your… your Koffing.” 
“Oh? Oh, right! Haha, y’know, where does my memory go sometimes…? I almost forgot!”
He turned away from her again, “Hey, Joy? Gimme a call when you get out of the burn ward. I like to keep in contact,” he said softly, much to her confusion.
“Burn ward…?”
“Koffing,” he began, voice suddenly authorative, and strict.
“Koffinnng?”, his pokémon chimed keenly, but nonetheless dull-wittedly, in response. 
And with that, Delgada stepped out into the dusk, “Self-destruct!”
And then the doors closed, and he was gone.[/i]

Suddenly, Shawn found himself back on the battlefield. 
Goldenrod’s barren evening streets faded beneath the stygian black sands of Orre, and the distant train’s holler was suddenly and unceremoniously silenced by the unmistakable screech of a falling incendiary. 
Upon instinct, he’d whisked Reynard into his arms- despite the Growlithe’s resistance, as, quite obviously, he wished to be the protector, as opposed to the protected- and clutched him tightly to his chest, as he hied his way across the arenaceous mounds that had swallowed the roads, and dived hurriedly into the shelter of a nearby alleyway. 

Even there, however, he wasn’t safe from the impact. 
A ripple of translucent heat had erupted forth from the battlefield in waves, penetrating even the sand-coloured bricks behind which Shawn sought protection, and buffeting both him and his pokémon harshly, tossing them into the adjacent wall, followed promptly by the floor. 

Suddenly, the train station’s eastern wing was totally decimated, made immediately imperceptible to the eye as it was engulfed by a writhing pillar of rich, red flame, spiralling unquenchably against the afternoon sky, as it bathed the city’s silhouette in a baleful titian glare. 
From the inferno’s base poured forth great billows of malignant fumes, toxic and totally without end, and at its core was the mournful wailing of a familiar young woman, unrelenting and nerve-rattling. 

Just as soon as this had come to pass, however, it ended: The pillar expanded rapidly, before a single thunder clap escorted a massive, roaring fulmination. 
A fiery orb, which extended to engulf most of the station’s east, before finally dissipating in one long, debilitating flash of light, which rendered its onlookers- Shawn amongst them- blinded, and stunned. 

When the flames ceased, there was little left: The pokémon centre had been totally destroyed, and buried beneath the charred rubble of Goldenrod station’s mighty pillars. 
The scent of torrefied flesh- one Shawn knew well, despite how fervently he wished for the opposite to be true- hung heavily in the air, and even with the ringing in his ears, he could hear the explosion’s echo travelling through the skyscrapers. 
Johto itself seemed to be quaking, trembling lightly as those who’d survived rushed from the station’s crumbling supports. 

Shawn stared, but saw nothing: It wasn’t until Reynard concernedly began to lap away at his lightly singed cheeks that he eventually returned to total consciousness, eyes glazed over as precarious embers danced before them, and wrote their ghosts into the ground around him. 
He was back in Goldenrod, now: The war seemed far away. But today, Goldenrod didn’t look much better than Orre had. 
Slowly- shakily- the trainer got to his feet, his Growlithe rushing to his side to offer him support. 
He shook his head lightly, and placed a hand against his temple, “I thought I’d be used to seeing stuff like this…” he muttered to himself, before glancing back to the alleyway through which the most likely suspect had escaped, “The city ain’t much different from the country, I suppose,” he muttered, eyes lingering on the other gentleman’s path, “Weasels are dangerous in all shapes an’ sizes.” 

Reynard whined concernedly up to him, but Shawn waved a dismissive hand at the gesture, and instead nodded towards the rubble. 
He was calm outside, despite the shellshock within. 
That was the first thing they taught you in the Ranger’s academy: Coping with the horrors of war. 
“Smell any survivors, boy?”, he asked, weakly, as he hobbled towards the smouldering wreckage, as though it was any other day back on the battlefields of Phenac. 
“Arf!”, Reynard assured him with a nod, canid nose twitching. 
“Go fetch.”