#batchone

ZIGMUND “ZIG” ORTIZ

AGE: Twenty-eight. BIRTHDAY: April 12th. HOMETOWN: Po Town, Alola. OCCUPATION: Pokemon Trainer. STARTER: Meowth (Alolan), male, Timid. FACECLAIM: Manny Montana. STATUS: Open.  

BEGINNINGS IN PO TOWN…

Zig always thought of himself more as another smaller adult more than a child growing up. He had four younger sisters and a dad who had pretty much mentally checked out before Zig was five. His mother, Mariella, tried her best to keep the worst of his drinking from Zig and his siblings but there was only so much she could do with working full-time as a home health aide and trying to keep the house clean and doing all the cooking and basically being Superwoman. Zig saw how she was killing herself and did his best to make it seem like everything was fine even when his dad was passed out on the couch again or yelling at his sisters for being too loud when he was hungover. Ultimately this usually boiled down to making sure all the kids spent as much time outside as possible. He saved up all his limited allowance - and swiped a few dollars from his father’s wallet, it’d just be less to buy alcohol with - to buy a basketball hoop. He placed it on the edge of the cul de sac down the street. It became kind of a rallying point for the rest of the kids on their street, they’d start out playing Horse or Around the World in the morning and come back to play 21 after lunch and when it got to dark to shoot they’d play Manhunt in the dark. When Zig turned fourteen, his dad finally took off for good. And honestly, it was kind of a weight off his mom’s shoulders. The government started taking money out of his checks before they got to him so he couldn’t just burn them all up day-of buying cheap vodka and they actually had enough money to pay bills for once. Still Zig started working mornings before school at Arboks Coffee downtown and went out for the JV Basketball team. He knew his mom wanted them to go to college and have it easier than she did but he also knew she couldn’t afford to send them. Zig did his best at school but he wasn’t naturally good at it like some of his sisters were and he knew his chances of getting an academic scholarship were slim to none. 

When senior year rolled around, all his hard work as a Center paid off and scouts from all over Alola began coming to his games. He had offers from several schools but gave his verbal commitment to Fuji University in Nimbasa City, he would miss his family while he was in Unova but he knew that the opportunity to be recruited by Small Court would be a game changer for them. Upon arriving at college Zig had a little bit of culture shock, he got along with his teammates fine and his roommate seemed cool but they all spent most of their free time drinking or playing video games. For so long Zig’s life had just been work and basketball that he had a little more difficulty relaxing. It didn’t help that he really didn’t like the idea of drinking and was total shit at Madden Sports. It was a friend in his criminal justice class that finally found a good way for him to let off steam: Dungeons and Dragonites. Zig had always thought the game was just something nerdy kids in his high school did but it turned out that battling fictional monsters as a Warlock was exactly the thing he needed to get out of his own head for a few hours a week. When it came time to graduate they even kept playing via Skype when everyone dispersed back to their far flung homes.

Zig failed to make it to the big leagues of Small Court but he was kind of happy to put his dream aside after four years of eating, sleeping, and breathing basketball at FU. Instead, he returned home to become at officer at the Po Police Station. The only problem was that their were literally no problems for the police to deal with except an occasional Delcatty stuck up a tree, although this one in particular seemed to be trying to escape her owner who kept trying to dress her up for contests. Zig spent most of his time at work issuing trainers citations for using their bikes in inappropriate places or teaching his town-issued Meowth new tricks. It was getting really good at finding coins on Route 17 and other metal objects, but it refused to take a step out there in the rain. As the years progressed, Zig grew closer and closer with his Meowth but more and more bored out of his mind with his job. Even bikers seemed to be following the rules now and the irritated Delcatty had finally escaped into the wild, meaning that Zig was now a glorified secretary. He was going slightly insane and his mother realized it even though he wasn’t willing to admit it to her. She told him that all his sisters were out of the house now and she could afford the youngest’s college tuition if she moved into 60+ housing and this was a chance for him to finally live his life. Zig tried his best to rebuff her offer but Mariella wouldn’t hear of it, she knew how much he’d sacrificed for her and she didn’t want to hold him back. With his mother’s blessing, it didn’t take long for Zig to figure out what he wanted. He wanted a big adventure like in Dungeons and Dragonites and he knew the closest thing that existed in real life was Pokemon Training. When he found out about the Pokedex Challenge after some research he happily quit his job, traveling with his Meowth to Kanto and finally starting his own journey.

RHIANNON WELSH

AGE: Twenty-five. BIRTHDAY: April 6th. HOMETOWN: Cherrygrove City, Johto. OCCUPATION: Psychic. STARTER: Exeggcute, female, Lax. FACECLAIM: Nichole Bloom. STATUS: Open.  

BEGINNINGS IN CHERRYGROVE CITY…

Rhiannon Welsh was born in Cherrygrove City to two very young and inexperienced parents. The Welshes had barely started dating when their surprise pregnancy occurred and pulled the rug out from under them. While they decided to keep their baby and raise it together, neither one of them was really a competent enough adult in their own right to achieve this goal. Instead, Rhiannon was raised mostly by her maternal grandmother with her parents cycling in and out of her life when they wanted to act responsible for a few months or simply needed a place to crash. As much as Rhiannon loved her parents, being with them was exhausting. It seemed like they were always trying too hard to force good memories when they were around, but were always getting frustrated when their conversations with her didn’t turn out like an episode of Gilmore Girls. When she was a tween, her mother landed a decent job managing the Goldenrod Department Store and began trying to buy her love with expensive Pokedolls and clothes. After a few months her parents asked her to move to Goldenrod City to live with them, but were surprised when Rhiannon declined and said she would miss her grandmother too much. It seemed like her parents were relieved to finally be free of the burden of raising a child and guiltless in the process. And Rhiannon was thankful to finally be left alone with her grandmother to knit scarves and watch DVRed episodes of the Young and the Restless in peace.

Her junior year of high school, she began volunteering at an old folks home in town at the suggestion of her guidance counselor. At first, it seemed like a bad match. Rhiannon was terrible at bridge which was the only game they wanted to play and she wasn’t great at faking excitement when they showed her pictures of their homely grandkids. She didn’t care how good the internship would look on her college applications, she just wanted to quit. Her counselor asked her to give it just another month, then they’d find her another extracurricular. One night Rhiannon was volunteering at the nursing home when they set up a little dance at a nearby hotel. All the women were out in the common area, exchanging makeup and doing each other’s faces. Rhiannon had never really done makeup on anyone but herself, but she figured she might as well help. Soon she had a line building and all the women wanted her to do their faces. After that night, every time she went to the home she’d sit with the ladies and work on their faces and gossip with them. It was one of them that suggested that she go to beauty school instead of college and Rhiannon thought it sounded like a solid plan - she hadn’t really wanted to be a history teacher anyways. Rhiannon succeeded easily in cosmetology school - cutting a bob evenly was way easier than giving purple haired old ladies perms - and graduated at the top of her class. Not long after, her grandmother took her out to dinner afterwards and on the way home they came across a shaking bush. Her grandmother walked right by, but something about the shrub called to Rhiannon. She approached it, pushing aside the leaves and found six tiny, partially cracked eggs. She stared at the strange Pokemon for a moment and all six of it’s faces stared back at her, before deciding they were cold and vulnerable outside on the ground where a Hoothoot could eat them and they’d be much happier nesting in her room. 

It was a while before Rhiannon realized that there was something different about the way she could communicate with her Exeggcute, how she knew what they needed without them moving or making a sound. It was actually a client at her first salon job who saw them resting on a nearby table and suggested she’d seen the same thing with Psychic trainers before. Growing up Rhiannon had never considered becoming a Pokemon trainer, but now that it had occurred to her, it was hard to push away the possibility. Although she stayed put in Cherrygrove City, she often daydreamed about traveling Johto and battling it out with other trainers or traveling with cute Aces. How could she leave her grandmother all alone though when she was the only person who’d ever stuck around and taken care of her? She resolved to stay in Cherrygrove, no matter how much fun it was to romanticize traveling. It’s not like she’d really enjoy camping anyways, how would she do her hair in the morning? A few years later, she received a super style-devoid male customer with receding brown hair and truly heinous clothes. He told her of his work with Pokemon breeding and eggs, at which point she’d mentioned her egg Pokemon. Although he quickly corrected her that Exeggute wouldn’t hatch, he was interested in her bond with the Pokemon. He mentioned that a friend of his in Kanto was running a Pokedex Challenge and said he’d email her the details. When he made good on his promise, she was shocked to learn he’d been none other than Johto’s Pokemon Professor Elm. When she told her grandmother the news, her grandma had told her she had to go on this journey. She had gone on a Pokemon adventure herself in her youth and it had been where she met Rhiannon’s grandfather and one of the best memories of her life. Rhiannon was relieved to be able to leave with her grandmother’s support and excitedly started packing her bags for Pallet Town. 

NATALIE SHIN

AGE: Twenty. BIRTHDAY: January 9th. HOMETOWN: Ecruteak City, Johto. OCCUPATION: Dancer. STARTER: Togepi, male, Docile. FACECLAIM: Sydney Park. STATUS: Open.  

BEGINNINGS IN ECRUTEAK CITY…

Natalie Shin has been dancing almost as long as she’s been walking. Growing up in Ecruteak City there wasn’t much else to do, unless you enjoyed hanging around the creepy remnants of the Burned Tower or battling ghost-type Pokemon at the city’s gym. Natalie didn’t care much for either,  preferring to spend her time at Ecruteak Dance Theater watching the Kimono Girls and trying to imitate their movements. It wasn’t easy, given the women had been dancing their entire lives. They were also easily distracted by approaching trainers for Pokemon battles. Natalie persevered, watching dance videos online and learning other disciplines to help her with her stability and flexibility in hopes of one day reaching the same level of mastery as the Kimono Girls.

But still, she fell short. She spent all her free time trying to learn to be as light and graceful on her feet as her idols, but no matter how hard she worked Natalie kept failing. One day, after a particularly grueling rehearsal one of the sisters, Zuki, approached Natalie outside of the theater and asked her to sit with her. She explained that the Kimono Girls had been training since they were girls when each of them had been gifted with an Eevee by their father when they were much younger than she was and that one of her sisters had even left to train alone for a long time before she rejoined their act. She felt that their Pokemon had taught them each as much about dancing as rehearsing had and that it might help Natalie to go on her own journey and find her own rhythm. Natalie despaired at the thought, having no Pokemon of her own and being unsure how to catch any. Zuki was quiet for a moment but then she handed her a strange blue-and-red speckled egg. She told Natalie that she was gifted the egg by Mr. Pokemon and told to give it to a trainer with great potential. Natalie was so touched that Zuki had given her such a gift and promised to handle it with care until it hatched.

Natalie brought the egg with her everywhere for the next few weeks, sitting it near the speakers in dance classes and swaddling it in a blanket as she ate her lunch by the water. Every once in a while the egg would seem to move, but it didn’t seem anywhere near hatching. She began to read books on Pokemon eggs, finding out the more she walked the more likely it would be to hatch. Over the next few weeks, Natalie walked up and down the same patch of Route 42 being very careful to avoid the tall grass. She spent hours out there, rain or shine, until the Pokemon egg seemed to be bustling with movement. She didn’t want her baby Pokemon to be born on an empty road in the middle of nowhere. And so she returned back to the Dance Theater, walking around in slow circles and rocking the egg in her arms. Finally the top of the shell began to crack and out popped a little head with five little crown-like tendrils. Natalie was so excited about her new Togepi, she couldn’t help but run to see Zuki and show her the Pokemon. The women smiled and told her that now that she had a Pokemon, she should look into Professor Oak’s Pokemon Challenge in Kanto. Natalie agreed immediately, practically sprinting home to sign herself up.