Gym Leader Cheren and Pokemon Trainer Anne

Tragedy marred Anne's early life, her mother perishing in a horrific traffic accident shortly after her birth. Thus, Anne grew up without a mother, but despite his grief, Anne's father ensured that he had himself put together enough to raise his daughter. She was a normal child in every way; she went to school, had a few friends, earned average grades, played games of pretend in her backyard, loved sun and rain and flowers, fairy princesses and superheroes and stars. She went to church with her family, celebrated Christmas, played in the snow. Her father and father's Pokemon, a Lucario called Martin, raised the little girl together in the city she'd been born in, Jubilife.

One fateful day Anne decided to take a route to her friend's house that she didn't normally use because of the obnoxious boy who lived along it. She'd hoped that because it was so hot he'd be inside, but she was wrong. As she slowed her walk to watch the Pokemon chase each other on the front lawn, she realized when one of them crashed into her that it wasn't a playful game-- Jon was letting his Pokemon run amok. Seeing the poor little thing dazed and confused at having just crashed into someone, Anne scooped him up and the Pokemon chasing him halted, unsure of whether or not they wanted to attack a human just to get to their prey. Jon was displeased, and as the Chimchar slipped off to sleep in her arms, exhausted, she hammered out a deal with the boy. She wouldn't go to the authorities and nail his butt for abuse, but in return he'd give her immediate custody of the chimp. Disgusted and annoyed but realizing it was the best deal he'd get, Jon complied and the girl took him to the nearest Pokecenter.

For the next several weeks she visited him, bringing him treats and speaking in a soft voice, using kind words. Eventually, he let her touch him, and it didn't take long after that for him to melt beneath her affections-- he craved it and she was more than willing to provide, so he wasn't about to resist it. When offered the chance to be her Pokemon, he agreed, and she took him home with her, naming him Oliver. For a year she cared for him, treating him with every ounce of love she had to give and spoiling him rather shamelessly. Throughout all of the problems he faced, she was there to help him through it, and the two went on many adventures around the city together.

On their yearly trip to Johto, disaster struck; that morning Anne went out for a hike with her father and Martin, leaving Oliver behind to sleep. They were attacked by undead, the father instructing Martin to take Anne and run, realizing that one Pokemon against a whole horde would do nothing. Heartbroken but realizing the reason behind it, the Lucario scooped the girl up and ran. Though they returned days later, they were unable to find the spot where they'd been attacked, and the cabin was empty, the little girl's beloved Chimchar missing.  Raiding the place for supplies, Martin took the ten year old by the hand and led her out into the strange, horrifying new world, searching for answers and a safe place to raise her.  

Years passed with little success; though the two eventually learned things about the infection through word of mouth, there seemed to be no safe place to settle down to live in. Eventually leaving Sinnoh, they travelled wherever rumor of a safe haven took them, hoping for some kind of hope in the war-torn world. Time wore on Anne, morphing her from the sweet, cheerful child she had been to a frozen-hearted, bitter teenager who has done her best to forget her past, finding that numbing the pain through not feeling to be easier than living with the despair brought on by all the loss and fear. Martin, pained by the change in his charge, can do little to change it, unable to communicate properly with her in order to talk it out.  As the days wear on, he watches her once compassionate heart freeze even further, helpless to stop his surrogate daughter from herself.

Rumor has recently brought them to Lacunosa, Unova, where Anne acquired a strange device off a dead body that she is not sure how to work but curious about what it is; she has chosen to hang onto it ever since. From Lacunosa she and Martin have proceeded to get lost in the forest, accidentally finding their way into a very strange area that looks like an indent into the earth...

♍ Oliver: Her starter pokemon, Anne rescued the little Chimchar from an abusive human a year prior to the Epidemic, and spent much of that year helping him heal from his trauma. She adores him with every fiber of her being, was determined to protect him and see him one day free from all the mental scarring he'd been left with. Sadly this did not come to pass and now Oliver is a fading memory, the girl pushing him to the back of her mind; he reminds her too much of hope, and hope is not something she has anymore. It's best to forget it and the Pokemon she failed so badly.

-she can still be reached, but it's gonna take either one big event to thaw her heart, or lots of patience
-the thing she picked up in Lacunosa was a universal communicator

For many years the sleepy town of Nuvema was all Cheren knew; born to two very strict parents, Cheren was raised in an authoritative, fairless loveless home. His early life was filled with stern expectations; failure was not an option and was met with coldness, occasionally even blatant cruelty. For as long as Cheren can remember he was studying, studying, always studying. He would learn all he could, because that's what children were supposed to do, and then he would apply what he absorbed to actual Pokemon battling.

He would be the very best, and finally his life would have some color in it, instead of this bleak, empty existence.

That is not what happened.

Instead, Cheren watched as his childhood friend, the boy responsible for looking after himself and their best friend Bianca, shoot to the top faster than Cheren could follow.  Black hadn't practiced for this, hadn't studied, but he possessed many talents that emerged when gifted their Pokemon. He honed these talents and his instincts, leaving Cheren far behind, no matter how hard he tried to catch up. If Cheren's parents stopped comparing the two, the boy probably wouldn't have been so bitter, but nonetheless he never discouraged his friend, instead growing more and more irritable with just about everyone else.

Bianca was a terrible battler, but her father had accepted she was not going to give up travelling and let her be. She was terrible, but she was happy. Why couldn't he be that content!?

His role in stopping Plasma was minor but he did have some time to shine. It was a relief to get it all over with, though; he tried his hand at the Championship and failed, but by now he had grown up and his failure didn't inscence him as much as it once would have. What did inscence him was the beration by his parents. Nonetheless, when they wanted him to come home, he did, ever powerless to resist their pull. A strong boy he may have been, but having been conditioned from an early age to obey, there wasn't much choice when they wanted him back.

Oh, did he ever come to regret that decision.

Several weeks after returning home, he was woken in the middle of the night by people who told him to pack a suitcase and get dressed. Understandably terrified, he reached for his pokeballs only to find they weren't there. Still, he refused to comply; when his parents came into the room he begged for their help, only to find, to his horror, that this was all their doing. They'd snooped in his journals and discovered he was far from straight, and now they were sending him away to fix him.

If hell existed, it was conversion therapy. He came back from that month of horrors so traumatized he did not speak to anyone for another month, not even his pokemon, though he definitely sought their comfort when he could-- he was afraid to have them out for too long. He always had been. His parents didn't welcome them in the house outside of their pokeballs, feeling uneasy around the giant magical monsters when they had none of their own. But given his condition, there was an even greater reason; he feared they would attack his parents on sight and forfiet their own life. The authorities wouldn't allow a pokemon who had maimed a human to live, he was sure.

As he spent time trying to piece himself back together, his parents covered for his disappearance by claiming he was abroad studying, and later, that he was ill. Bianca never quite believed the latter lie, but Cheren denied anything was wrong once he was put together enough to be out and about again. He would carry the shame of that entire experience to his grave if he had his way.

Life decided to be a touch more kind to him following that horrific episode, though, and Cheren was pleasantly surprised when the Gym Leaders sent word complimenting him for his battling skills. Far more surprising was when they offered him a Gym position, as they were now in need of a new Gym Leader. Cheren was ecstatic and grew to love his mentor, Lenora, very deeply-- in many ways she filled the hole in his heart left from the lack of a parent's love. However, his real parents were quick to tear the hole back open, pointing out that Black went on to become a Champion.  

Cheren would later muse that he probably should have seen this coming. Ever since they were little, Black had a thing for saving people. With two best friends who had controlling parents, it's really no wonder this developed as much as it did. But even then, Cheren never would have guessed that after becoming Champion, Black would disappear to run off with Ghetsis's son.

At first he and Bianca thought he'd gotten busy with some side quest, but he didn't return their calls. They tried every way they knew to get into contact with him and came up with nothing. Black's parents seemed unconcerned, and Cheren's were so worried you'd think it was their own son out there. Days became weeks and that became months.

It was about a year later that Cheren learned the truth while on a trip to Opelucid, discovering Black with his lover. Though he'd only gotten a glimpse of the real story, rage and betrayal bubbled inside, years of bitterness and resentment leaking forth. Black and N were in a park, walking hand in hand with one another, and for Cheren, this one little look into where Black had gone and why was all he needed to put the pieces together.

If only he'd known he'd put them together incorrectly.

He returned to Bianca and in Black's absence the two grew closer. She became Juniper's assistant and he could not have been more proud even though her parents worried she was not smart enough for the job and would be accused tobe the product of favoritism. The two grew, Cheren doing his best to put Black from his mind, though with Bianca bringing him up periodically, it was not an easy task.

Plasma struck again and Cheren was pleased that he had a bit of a bigger role this time taking them out. Things went back to business as usual afterwards, but it would not last forever, as nothing does. The Epidemic destroyed the life that Cheren had built, and what was more, it took Bianca from him. His final phone call with her featured the snarls of the dead closing in on her, the girl sobbing that they'd never found Black, what might've happened to him in all of this, oh god-

And then nothing.

He was in Nimbasa when the outbreak happened, and returned to Aspertia too late to save his people. Griefstricken, he fled to Nuvema to try to find at least Bianca, but there was no one. He howled in rage, furious that he had made a detour to Aspertia even though his duty as Gym Leader dictated he had to. He had found no one, and what was worse, he may have used up precious time that he could have used to locate and save Bianca on people who were already dead.

With nothing else to do, he roamed Unova, bitterness consuming him and warping the once kind (if not strict) young man into a twisted husk of hate. He wasn't sure what purpose he lived for, settling on his Pokemon-- they still lived, and they still needed him, wanted him, and as long as they still breathed, he would too.

Four years later, he has gotten himself stuck in a cave. What a bother.

♎ Blair Black and N: how could you; it's the best phrase to sum up his feelings. He loved Black deeply; in fact, his feelings were not entirely platonic, and he could tell Black's obsession with N wasn't entirely platonic, either. Though he felt foolish when Black fell in love with another, he was willing to accept it, so long as N proved not to be a psychopath and was good to his friend. Upon finding out what Ghetsis did to N, even just the bare bones of it, he felt that pershaps there was no one better than Black to be his partner.  

But then Black abandoned himself and Bianca, disappearing without even a note. Seeing the pain that Black's disapearance inflicted on Bianca, and his own agony at being tossed aside, Cheren's opinion of both young men has changed drastically. He is furious with N for allowing Black to abandon his friends; since N has met all three of them before, he has no excuse for not prompting Black to contact them, or contacting them, himself. As for Black, he is disgusted that Black would abandon his childhood friends, the people he spent looking after, just because he met someone he fell in love with who he perceived as needing him more.

More, as if Cheren and Bianca didn't need him at all, or didn't want him at all.

Black, and by extension N, became the catalyst for his personality change.

♎ Bianca: best friend, like a sister to him; he loves her very deeply and despises the fact that what may have been her dying words were for Black's safety. She deserved better than that.

♎ Mei and Nate: decent kids; quite fond of them, though he's not familiar with them personally.

♎ Hugh: god does he understand this kid's anger

♎ Cilan, Cress and Chili: knows them only in passing; fought Chili for his first badge. Thought they were nice guys.

♎ Alder: wise old man whose wise words wound up meaning nothing

♎ Ghetsis: fuck this guy too

-Divine's name is a reference to the "divine right of kings" of old