WHO’S THAT TRAINER ?
native to the region and settled in the haeundae district here in busan as a contest judge, he’s not participating in league! but don’t underestimate him, can you guess who he is?
IT’S CHA HANEUL !
ADDITIONAL POKEMON
inkay, umbreon, spiritomb, three houndoom
POKEDEX ENTRY
i. foul play
“they take us for fools”, his grandmother had told him when he was little, the newborn zorua in her arms long gone into deep slumber. “or downright evil. old money and years of isolation, dear, do not make for a good image.” she gently handed the sleeping pup to him. “it’s too easy to blame them”, she smiled, jaded, her touch still gentle, “blame their influence, their aura, for the deeds of our past.”
the zorua sighed in its sleep, nuzzling its head closer against haneul’s chest. “you’ll find out soon enough how wrong they were.”
haneul took one last look around the room he was allowed into for the first time: several portraits of their ancestors lined the walls, dressed in traditional finery befit of their family’s wealth. the portrait they stood in front of had a black veil to cover it that his grandmother held up for him to see.
cha byungho, the name plate said; a name that would stand among the first words haneul was able to read by himself.
“and if they ask you, ‘but wasn’t cha byungho misunderstood?’, you tell them no. he was plain wrong”, she continued, letting the veil fall over the portrait before laying a hand on her grandson’s shoulder to guide him out of the room and away. “we do not make excuses or justify his actions. we apologize. not out of benevolence, but because it is the least we can do.”
she closed the door behind them, the sound of the lock echoing through the hallowed halls of the manor.
ii. dark aura
cha byungho, haneul found out on his own, was the head of their clan a couple hundred years ago. a nobleman, an important general and strategist, he had tried to single-handedly end a long-lasting war by resorting to measures that would have deep, scarring consequences upon every human and pokémon involved.
zoroark had tried to keep him away from the manor basement – an evil presence, some sort of energy darker than his own, that made the fur on his back stand on its ends, something haneul couldn’t feel, himself, always made his bodyguard stop short of stepping down the narrow ladder. swiftly pulling haneul like one of his kind would pull up a cub, he would always prevent him from exploring further than the first room.
haneul did find his way around zoroark and into whatever his family had wanted to keep hidden from the world. he found journals, illustrations and sketches of the most disturbing nature, and even a strange large stone gathering dust inside a box.
cha byungho’s belongings.
details of his plans carefully written down into the journals, sketches upon sketches of a dark cocoon, the “final solution”, he’d scribbled underneath them; a painting of a large red and black bird engulfing the land beneath its wings. oblivion wing.
the plan ultimately failed, as it was documented by byungho himself; they would not see what i see, he wrote, a future without wars, a future where people fear what could happen when there is conflict.
several people died in his attempt to find the cocooned pokémon, many more in his attempt to awaken it.
haneul didn’t like to imagine how many more would have succumbed, had byungho succeeded.
the stone dropped to the floor and cracked when zoroark found him attempting to lift the box up to his room to finish reading through the journals. smoke and a cold, cold presence wafted out of it, alerting zoroark and terrifying his charge as it made its way towards the child.
you are not cha byungho, it seemed to whisper around the basement, a creature formed of swirling purple fog, its eerie smile as broken as the stone that held it.
it never attacked haneul nor zoroark, directing its attention to the box, instead. it looked back one more time at haneul, and, at his silent nod, it lunged at the box, ripping into books and journals and tearing the paintings apart.
later, after his new friend had calmed down, haneul and zoroark snuck it and what was left of the box out of the mansion to properly set it on fire.
cha byungho’s story ended there for good.
iii. embrace the dark
the cha family was often afraid of the outer world.
having been shunned for hundreds of years, not yet fully forgiven for their ancestors’ crimes, they took upon themselves to remain in the shadow for as long as the world deemed necessary, investing quietly in life preservation companies, wisely using their so-called old money for greater causes.
the fact that they were considered freaks for their love for dark types, and generally eccentric for their more nocturnal habits and darker clothing, did not do much to help their reputation. especially when the only member to make public appearances was haneul’s grandmother, who would visit the war memorial every year to pay her respects and issue yet another apology on behalf of the family. like it wasn’t getting old enough, haneul thought bitterly.
haneul didn’t like the idea of staying at home when there was so much going on outside; he wanted to go to school, to meet new pokémon, to make friends. he wanted everything cha byungho’s legacy had denied his family for years.
ultimately, he got what he wanted – with the promise that he’d never stay out of zoroark’s sight and that he would let cerberus, the three houndoom his grandmother had raised to be his bodyguards, follow him around and protect him. it was a fair and easy deal; haneul liked the four of them well enough, and being in the company of a fully-grown zoroark had always made for good conversations.
what haneul wanted, haneul got. he liked pink, a first for a family so fond of dark colors and somber tones, and so his mother accommodated his wardrobe to his tastes. he liked the dark type pokémon his grandmother raised out of love, and helped her take care and nurture every single puppy; in return some of those puppies would often choose him as their trainer, a better gift than anything money could buy him.
first, came zoroark. a bodyguard by duty, haneul’s best friend by choice. spiritomb was the only good that came out of cha byungho, yet it was a curse on its own; haneul had a hard time coming to terms that it was fruit of his ancestor’s deeds, and that yet it saw its trainer – its trainer’s soul – as good and redeemable.
absol came as a gift for his 13th birthday, followed by purrloin; inkay and deino were babies when they chose him, and umbreon was a special gift acquired from a renowned eevee breeder, specially for his 19th birthday. haneul had never caught a single pokémon until he ran into sneasel by chance one evening; the thought of engaging in battles alone was scary, and he avoided doing so until his late teens, despite knowing zoroark could very well hold his own in a fight.
iv. assurance
in his search of ways to publicly clean his family’s name, haneul started watching out for contests. he saw them as peaceful, yet meaningful ways to show just how much the cha family had changed.
haneul started taking part in them at age seventeen, at first with zoroark and absol they’d present wearing the most outrageous pink and light-colored costumes, the dissonance between their supposed darkness and the cute aura overall so strong there was a strong rejection from the audience, at first. not discouraged in the slightest by their outrage, haneul persisted, studying and training his team, improving outfits with the help of his grandmother, who had always been an enthusiast for contests, but never participated in one out of the sense of shame under the spotlight that the family still felt.
eventually, haneul conquered the audience, captivating judges and watchers alike with his and his pokémon’s cute aura, soon earning the nickname busan’s first love. some would even go as far as to say haneul’s performances could make the audience forget the fierce nature of dark type pokémon, especially when they dressed so cutely in pink turtlenecks and baby blue tutus.
the invitation to become a judge, after a few years contending strongly for clever and beauty titles, was everything haneul had ever wanted – no family influence whatsoever, no matter how much money they had, neither negative nor positive, had helped him achieve that, only his own effort. his determination to rebuild the name and the fame of the cha family had finally paid off; now he only had to convince his grandmother and parents that they, too, also deserved their place under the sun.
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Maybe Nico would include Cerberus in the shoot he was planning now. His sisters and his dog. That would be amazing. He just had to figure out how to fit Cerberus into it, though he figured he’d be able to. Cerberus was always so well behaved on set, so he wasn’t worried about logistics too much. Nico thought about asking Will to be in it too, but he wondered if that was too forward or if Will would even be comfortable behind the camera. It would definitely get people wondering who he was and Nico wasn’t sure if Will would want that.
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"Maybe I can get him in the next one, too," Nico says. "He'd look pretty good in a bowtie. Or maybe a sweater. Or both." He was already seeing the possibilities. "And then we could have the whole gang," Bianca says. "Did you ask Hazel yet?" Nico nods. "Yeah, she said she was good for a few pictures." Michael grins. "What about me? I think I'd look great in whatever you'd pick out." Nico doesn't doubt it. Michael could probably pull almost anything off. "What poses would you do?" Nico asks.
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“I did dance when I was seven!” Michael said with a grin. “So did Will. You should ask him to bust his moves out sometime,” he added with a wink. “The instructors adored him. Thought he was the cutest thing since sliced bread, which wasn’t very fair because I was also there.” Will scowled at his brother. “You were in the older age group,” he said. “And I distinctly remember you telling me that I had to wear a tutu or else they wouldn’t let me dance with the girls,” he added. Nico felt a little bad at that, but he also couldn’t help but imagine how adorable a tiny Will in a tutu would look.
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