Roo Roo the Salty White Mage

Rui was born in Johto but unfortunately her parents died when she was still a young child so she has very little memory of her time there. Instead she was sent to live with her grandparents, her only living relatives, in another region called Orre. Life was simple and fair in Agate, you work for what you are given and everyone pitches in to take care of one another. It was a little lonely sometimes to be one of the only children in the entire village but her grandparents made it bearable.

When her powers began to grow Rui couldn’t accurately describe them or even control them as Pokémon’s emotions began to read off of their bodies like glowing beacons, auras of every shape and color confusing the developing child’s already fragile state from the loss of her family. Even people began to ebb and flow with the strength of their emotions but, unlike the Pokémon, she couldn’t see theirs. That didn’t stop the sensations from being any less traumatic, however.

It took years for her to gifts to settle and become less overwhelming. Rui had to train herself on how to focus and study each aura she spotted, making various notes in journals scattered all over the house. She learned early on that any time she brought up her gift people got freaked out or despised her for it so after a particularly nasty incident she and her grandparents decided that it would be best if she simply kept it secret. It sucked not being able to talk to anyone about what she could see or do outside of her family but if the small scar under her hairline was anything it was a reminder of just why she had to.

Though, as children tend to do, Rui became restless as she grew up. She adored her grandparents but as a teenager the monotony of seeing the same people day after day, of doing the same things all the time, settled in and she and began to yearn for new adventure. Her wish was granted to her by an opportunity to go to Phenac City on an errand for her grandparents. The errand was simple enough but it got her out of the village, yet as she was starting to head that way she noticed a strange aura surrounding a Pokémon being used by two men. Concerned she asked about it and rather than the friendly faces she was used to at home the men became enraged and threw her into a literal sack.

They kidnapped her.
And put her in a bag.
A BAG.

Luckily for her as she was being hauled off an exotic young man with darkly tanned skin and golden eyes rescued her, and despite trying to immediately ditch her afterwards Rui ended up helping him out with the strange aura-ed Pokémon. Her ability to see what was wrong and with the young man’s strange device they were able to rescue the Pokémon, their success prompting Rui to insist on going with the other youth to find more. His name was Wes and within only a couple of days of meeting him she was already smitten. She followed the young rebel across the region like a love-struck puppy, rescuing Shadows and eventually ending up catching his attention as well and long enough to fall into his bed. This was the worst mistake she could have ever made.

Wes was a drug addict and a serial cheater. While he never hurt her physically after a year together it became more than obvious he didn’t care about her emotional well-being at all. One night she even found him in the middle of a drug fueled orgy with people she had never even seen before when she came over to confront him about another incident of him cheating. A fight ensued but he couldn’t even be bothered to stop what he was doing to argue properly, forcing Rui to flee from embarrassment and shame to the nearest train, the sounds of laughter haunting her every step.

Once back home Rui didn’t come out of her house for weeks. It wasn’t until Wes’s face stopped appearing on tv that she even felt confident enough that she would be able to go outside without seeing him. With a newfound grasp of her powers thanks to all of her traveling with Wes Rui dedicated herself to productivity instead of hiding. She had the skills to tell when people were in pain or miserable even if they didn’t say it and the ones she found it most prevalent were in those who were ill, injured, or dying. Wanting to ease their suffering the way no one could ease her own Rui moved to another region and studied fiercely until she was a registered nurse, only coming back home after her schooling and taking up residence in a small clinic to aid those who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford such care.

Years passed this way and the monotony settled in again, but this time Rui was at peace with it. She was helping people and they depended on her. It gave her a sense of peace to know that she had a purpose. But, like with all things in her life, things were about to get turned on their head once again. A strange illness had been cropping up across the region, affecting both human and Pokémon alike. While the humans often presented with flu-like symptoms it wasn’t apparent what was making them sick until it was too late, and the disease always proved fatal. The only common connection was that almost all of the infected had been bitten or attacked by a Pokémon before they fell ill. Not long after the world fell into full blow chaos.

The warnings came too late for most. Phenac fell practically overnight, Gateon’s ships sailed out without even being full as the city was swarmed, and even Agate couldn’t escape the nightmare once the Pokémon within the gentle town and surrounding forest attacked. The only thing that truly spared the greener part of the region was that wild Pokémon were very few and once the food ran out the turned trainer Pokémon moved further south to the more populated cities. Rui barely had time to get in and out of Pyrite before it too fell, the town of hardened trainers actually able to hold their own more than most others.

What few of Wes’s Pokémon Rui had been able to gather when he had been arrested were now all that she had. Too terrified of losing them too, and uncertain how to even properly coordinate with a Pokémon as she had never been a trainer, Rui found herself often alone as she continued to struggle to reach Agate. Brew was one of the only ones allowed outside of their Poke Ball because she would watch Rui as she slept to keep them all alive. Armed with little more than heavy pipe she had found Rui was all but defenseless as she traveled the barren wasteland that was her home region, and no matter how close she got Agate was beginning to seem more and more impossible to reach.