Location: Celadon University, Grand Assembly Hall

  Date: December 20, 1995

  The Grand Assembly Hall hadn’t been this full in decades. The doors opened before dawn. Still, students crowded the balconies. Professors stood in the aisles. No one was here for a lecture. They were here for history.

  The front rows of the great hall had been reserved with precision—an architecture of respect.

  At the absolute center of the curved stage-front, where the light would hit first and the sound reached sharpest, sat Indigo’s highest command:

  Champion Pryce, glacier-still in a tailored League jacket, arms folded with an air of finality.

  Agatha, dressed in mourning violet, her cane carved from fossilized root, eyes sharp with grief too old for tears.

  Bruno, unmoving, carved from mountain silence, his fists resting quietly on his knees. Lorelei, hair tied back, eyes locked forward, pen poised against a leather-bound field journal. And Lance, red coat immaculate, observing carefully.

  Directly beside the League’s seat of power were the Regional Professors—the minds that shaped the continents.

  Professor Rowan, Sinnoh’s bastion of structure and theory. Hoenn’s Professor Birch, his face held wonder like it belonged to a younger boy. And Professor Elm, Johto’s restless theorist.

  Flanking the Professors were the leading architects of the modern system:

  Dr. Gon Jeri, Silph Co.’s Director of Artificial Species Research, his Porygon hovering silently behind his shoulder. His stillness was practiced—less reverent, more ready. And Bill Sonezaki, in the flesh. He’d come all the way from Ecruteak in person, trench coat unbuttoned, hair tousled from the train. His Porygon2 hovered quietly at his side.

  A few seats down, Celadon University’s Department Heads sat in their finest, whispering across data slates as they watched their entire field tilt.

  And a tier behind them, in dignified formation, sat some of the Gym Leaders of Kanto—not scientists, but power made personal:

  Erika of Celadon, her kimono deep forest-green in homage to the city she ruled. Koga of Fuchsia, hooded, posture rigid. Blaine of Cinnabar, his notebook open but untouched.

  And Giovanni of Viridian, the League’s favorite contradiction—tech mogul, philanthropist, public patron of PokéScience, seated in sharp slate-gray, a discreet ViridianTech pin glinting from his collar. His smile was small, perfectly measured.

  And just behind the final row, almost in shadow, were two less known figures.

  Delia Ketchum, dressed simply, yet with unmistakable dignity, wore Phoenix’s old League jacket draped around her shoulders—faded, scorched in places, the fabric still stitched with the memory of someone who fought too hard for a future not yet ready for him.

  Beside her sat Portia Oak.

  The damage she’d taken during the Saffron ambush had left her paralyzed from the neck down. She breathed with assistance. She ate with assistance. But her mind remained unbroken—sharp, listening. And thanks to the soft-eyed Alakazam behind her chair, her thoughts reached others in clear, projected telepathy.

  “If he’s building a future from all this loss… then I want to see it,” she had told Delia on the way in.

  They were all here.

  The League.

  The scholars.

  The architects and survivors.

  The podium was dark.

  Then it lit.

  And Professor Samuel Oak stepped into the light.

  He did not stride. He did not pause for effect. He walked like a man carrying something too heavy to let go.

  He wore no lab coat today—just a tailored black vest over a steel-blue shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows. A single Poké Ball rested at his belt.

  When he looked up, he didn’t smile.

  But his voice carried—clear, measured, and warm with age-earned gravity.

  “Good afternoon. My name is Samuel Oak. And I’d like to speak to you about the future.”

  The lights dimmed. The screen behind him flickered to life—no title slide, no logo—just a slow, steady pulse.

  “Five years ago, we connected Indigo through thought. The Porynet became the first shared digital lattice across regions—brought to life by Silph, by researchers, by Porygon.”

  “But this is not about that.”

  He stepped out from behind the stand.

  “This is about why I built something new.”

  “This is about my brother. And my sister.”

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  There was a shift in the room. Not confusion—attention. He rarely spoke of family. It wasn’t a secret, exactly. But in four decades of service, he had never told this story publicly.

  Until now.

  “I was the youngest of three. Sawyer Oak, Samara Oak, and me.”

  The screen behind him didn’t show photos. Just their names—rendered in quiet white, like gravestones etched in digital stone.

  “Sawyer left for his journey at ten years old, like most did in those days. He was quiet. Smart. Kind to his Pokémon. His starter was a little Growlithe. We still have the photo.”

  Oak’s voice didn’t shake. Not yet.

  “Three weeks into his travels, he disappeared near Mt. Moon. No witnesses. No signals. Just a Poké Ball returned by a wild Clefairy a week later, shattered and empty. We never found him.”

  “Three years later, Samara followed. She wanted to be a field researcher. Obsessed with Bug-types. Took a Beedrill as her partner. Trained hard. Documented everything.”

  “She made it further. Past Cerulean. Past Lavender. All the way to Fuchsia. But she never made it home.”

  “Poisoned. Accidentally. We think. Her journal was intact. Her team survived. She didn’t.”

  He folded his hands behind his back.

  “I was seven.”

  Silence.

  Not a whisper in the hall. Not a shuffle of paper.

  “I became a trainer when I turned ten. I left Pallet with no siblings, no living parents, and one mission: to survive. I studied harder than anyone. I memorized every known route. Every type match-up. Every gym pattern.”

  “By sixteen, I was Champion.”

  A pause. No pride in the words. Just memory.

  “But the goal was never just to win.”

  His gaze moved across the audience—past the professors, the Elite, the Gym Leaders. Past Delia, seated beneath the weight of a jacket that once outran gods.

  “It was to stop burying children.”

  He let the silence hang. Not heavy. Just true.

  “So I rewrote the Gym system. Broke the bloodline monopolies. Made sure every child had a path, not just the ones born under the right names.”

  “I helped Silph mass-produce affordable Poké Balls—made them accessible in every town, not just the cities. Negotiated supply routes. Cut the price by seventy percent.”

  “I worked with Gym Leaders and local Rangers to map Indigo’s wild zones. Not to tame them—but to understand them. To build trust with the wild Pokémon where we could. And draw new lines where we couldn’t.”

  Oak let the silence breathe. Long enough for memory to pass through the room like a breeze. Then the diagram behind him shifted—subtle, not flashy. A shape outlined in soft red. Compact. Familiar.

  “Today, we take another step forward in that mission.”

  “The Pokédex is not a novelty. It is not a collector’s tool. It is not a marketing stunt.”

  He turned back to the audience, eyes bright but hard.

  “The Pokédex is an adaptive data interface that uses the Porynet infrastructure to provide real-time information about Pokémon encountered in the wild.”

  “It records species. It tracks location. It pulls movement data from a central database. It offers known habitats, seasonal patterns, typical aggression levels.”

  “And it knows who is holding it.”

  The display shifted—this time showing a simplified version of the UI. An alert read:

  [Caution: Wild Primeape Ahead – Level 38]

  [Warning: Trainer team not strong enough to safely engage]

  [Signal Sent to Ranger Post: Route 9 – ETA 5 Minutes]

  “Each Pokédex is synced to the trainer’s profile—age, team composition, experience level. if the trainer enters a registered high-risk zone, it will issue a warning. If danger is detected, it will send a silent alert to the nearest League facility.”

  Another click. The screen showed a second window:

  [Initiate Emergency Signal?]

  [YES]??[NO]

  The Professor nodded once.

  “It won’t be perfect. Not yet. It’s only as smart as the data we give it. That’s why the first generation of trainers who carry it… are also the ones teaching it.”

  “And that’s today. Let me tell you about tomorrow.”

  “As of this morning, the Pokédex contains confirmed data on 149 Kanto-region Pokémon species. Not simulated. Not theorized. Confirmed.”

  “And that is only the beginning.”

  “Every Pokédex becomes a node. Every trainer, a cartographer of the living world. A contributor.”

  “As Pokémon are encountered and scanned, their behaviors are logged. Their moves, their locations, their interactions. With enough data, the Pokédex will evolve.”

  He let the word linger.

  “It will begin offering move prediction algorithms, territory density mapping, and behavioral trend alerts. We’ll learn faster. Train smarter. Survive longer.”

  “And, with enough time, we may finally answer the questions we’ve only guessed at.”

  “What do wild Pokémon want? How do they change across regions? How do they feel?”

  He gestured back to the screen, which now showed a line graph—a slow, steepening arc labeled “Trainer Casualties, 1960–1995.”

  “That descent began the year I became Champion.” The drop was real. Lasting.

  But it plateaued.

  And since the day he stepped down in 1990, the numbers had held steady.

  Better than they were.

  But not good enough.

  “For a ten-year-old stepping into Viridian Forest, it won’t just be a scanner. It’ll be a voice saying: You’re not alone.”

  “This device will save lives.”

  He let the words land.

  “But it will do something else, too.”

  “It will bring us closer to the Pokémon.”

  Oak stepped forward now, away from the podium, from the screen, into the edge of the light. The projection cast a soft glow across his face, deepening the lines near his eyes, the ones formed not from age—but from loss.

  “Every generation says the same thing: we want our children to have it better than we did.”

  He glanced upward, toward the darkened arch of the ceiling.

  “The last generation gave everything. They fought the clans. They broke the bloodlines. They gave us a League worth believing in.”

  “And too many of them never saw what came next.”

  “This is what comes next.”

  He turned, walking back toward the center of the stage.

  “I couldn’t protect the last generation.”

  “But I can give the new one a map.”

  The display shifted for the final time.

  A Pokédex unit appeared.

  Clean. Compact. Red. Simple buttons. Bright screen.

  The silhouette of a Pikachu appeared on the display. Below it:

  Species: Pikachu

  Type: Electric

  Level: 4

  Known Locations: Viridian Forest, Power Plant

  Common Moves: Thunder Shock, Tail Whip

  Trainer Risk: Low (Lv. 5 Team Present)

  The display flickered slightly—then minimized.

  Another appeared.

  And another.

  Dozens, then hundreds.

  The screen filled with Pokémon. Lives, catalogued not to diminish them—but to understand them.

  The lights in the hall rose slowly.

  Samuel Oak didn’t ask for applause.

  But it came anyway.

  Not thunderous. Not immediate.

  Just a slow, standing wave—like rain beginning to fall on rooftops.

  The researchers rose first, murmurs caught in their throats. Then the students, stunned into reverence. Then the old professors in the back—some standing with canes, some wiping their eyes, shoulders lifted by something like hope.

  Professor Rowan nodded, thumb still resting on the edge of his notes, now still. While Professor Birch exhaled like he hadn’t realized he was holding his breath, a crooked grin spreading beneath his field-worn beard.

  And Professor Oak?

  He bowed his head once.

  Then turned. And walked offstage.

  There was no need to say anything more.

  The Pokédex had spoken for itself.

  And then, from the shadows in the back—Delia Ketchum stood slowly, her hand brushing the shoulder of Phoenix’s old League jacket. Her eyes didn’t leave the stage.

  Beside her, Portia Oak, still and silent in her chair, stared ahead, unmoving—until her Alakazam raised one hand, and the words bloomed into Delia’s mind:

  “He finally did it.”