History | - history:
Calem was born and spent his earliest years in Solaceon, Sinnoh with a loving mother and father. Despite having a good home life, all was not well with the child; he needed to have tutors come to his home in order to teach him because from a young age, Calem showed great unease within crowds and having many eyes on him, making attending school normally impossible. Thankfully, his parents took no issue with this and were happy to do what was needed for their son. Unfortunately, as time passed, Calem showed great problems with developing a social life. Having isolated himself, the child showed many problems when forced to speak or interact with a stranger. This caused great unease for the boy's parents. They did not know what action could be taken that would be both supportive but encouraging of growth. The last thing they wanted was to shatter their child or allow this problem to fester.
But Calem learned to take things into his own hands by taking up a hobby; exploring. His father entrusted his partner, an Infernape, to look after the boy, and Calem was allowed to go explore the routes nearby. The encounters with other humans helped ease his anxiety, if only just, and it was through Pokemon that he learned how to speak to others, starting up conversations about their favorite types, their strategies, their stories. For a little while it seemed as if the boy would overcome this hurdle just fine, and his parents looked forward to the day they could send their child off on his own Pokemon journey, even if he asked if he could strike out a little later than most kids. Progress was progress and they refused to rush it.
When he was eleven, though, tragedy struck the small family. His father, a Pokemon Ranger, was out on a particularly stormy night and was one of several lost to a landslide. Calem was devastated, his mind closing in on itself again as he started hiding for hours on end. He took the death of his father horribly, refusing to go to the funeral with his mother and instead walking in on his own an hour late, hiding in the darkness in the back of the room and refusing to speak with anyone. A year later Calem's mother announced they were moving, and not just to anywhere, but to a more advanced region: Kalos. The pain was numbed but still raw, and he offered little resistance to the change despite an acute dislike of it.
Calem, his mother, and his mother's Rhyhorn all made the long trip to Vaniville Town, their new home. Calem was ready to just hide away in his new hole, but literally the next day two girls knocked on his door. Serena and Shauna, they were, and they whisked him away without warning. He learned later that it was planned; his mother had planned to make her son get out of the house in Kalos whether he wanted to or not. At the end of the day he was sent back home with a Fenniken, his first Pokemon. The child wasn't pleased about the event he certainly hadn't planned for, but he couldn't deny he was already deeply adoring the little fluffball.
Calem's mother told him to prepare and within a week she thrust her son out to go and take his life back. Cynical, quiet, and awkward, he was not very good at this task she'd thrown in his lap, but as time passed, he earned badges, met new Pokemon, and things felt worthwhile for the first time in years. Years later he would have to admit that it was due to his mother's meddling that one of the best things to ever happen to him, happened to him; upon passing through Geosenge Town, he met Gym Leader Korrina, whose Lucario took an intense interest in him, and she would bestow her on the boy after Calem earned his badge from her. Mariel, she was called, and perhaps she had sensed how deeply he needed guidance, but from that time on, they were inseparable.
Time passed, and Calem found himself facing a criminal organization known as Team Flare. The good times were coming to an end. The bond between Calem and Mariel grew deeper than ever before from this difficult period, and in time she was able to achieve the miracle of Mega Evolution.
He met more people, made friends and enemies. Though nobody could call Calem anything but timid, he had a firm moral center and a great sense of responsibility; if he was the only one capable of fending Flare off, then he would do it, no matter what it took; he went head to head with the mastermind behind it all, Lysandre, several times, rock solid in his belief in his pokemon and their goal. The boy grew stronger, more determined, until it came down to the last minute, the final second, as the boy stared down the fabled legendary Pokemon, the God of Death, Yveltal-- he watched as the monster burst from its cocoon. The avian was more than feral, savage, as its mind had been erroded away. In a show of heroism, Calem was not only able to defeat and release the Yveltal, but he, along with Serena, destroyed Team Flare's ultimate weapon, and stop their plans.
Many lives were lost, too many Pokemon slaughtered outside Geosenge Town, but the rest were saved. Lysandre was assumed dead, his body never found, but things had gone well for once-- Calem had done it. He'd stopped a madman from turning Kalos into a crater and the rest of the world into a probably uninhabitable wasteland. But with stopping the mass genocide... he caught the eyes of the media. From then on, as Calem took on the final gyms and the Elite Four, he was rapidly swarmed with 'fans'. People begged him to do this, do that, touch them, bless their Pokemon, breed Mariel so they could have her child, told Calem himself they wanted to bear their children-- it hit like a landslide and it was too much; a healthy mind would have had trouble handling it, but for someone as fragile as Calem, it was excruciating. It came to a head after he defeated Diantha: upon reaching his goal, becoming the Champion of the region, the ceremony to celebrate his saving Kalos, the entire world now knew his name and face.
Years later he would wonder if he were just being selfish. The professor had done everything to make the ceremony pleasant for him-- and it had been, in fact. He'd even met AZ again, and finally given the man some peace. But... as for the rest... it was horrifying for a kid who was an introvert and easily overwhelmed by large crowds. He went into hiding, almost immediately stepping down from the Champion title, to hide at friends' homes, where the media would spend days tracking him down before forcing him to find a new hiding place. Mariel grew violent more than once, furiously attacking people and destroying cameras as they sent her human into panic attacks. The events of Team Flare, Lysandre, Yveltal, the ultimate weapon, the people who looked upon him as though he were more of a plaything than a person-- it was too much for the boy, and finally he completely vanished off the map. Taking only his Pokemon, he fled to the most remote, unexplored, hazardous places on the globe, dug a hole, and hid there. This was enough for a short period of time... before the apocalypse hit.
Having learned how to survive naturally, he knew how to take care of himself, but it was rapidly more and more dangerous to stay in hiding. Upon returning home, seeing the state of both Kalos and Sinnoh was enough to break the boy further.
Though an anxiety-ridden mess, he'd been blessed with so many loving friends as well as a mother who truly did care about him. Did he throw them all away just for some peace of mind?
... Would he ever get to apologize?
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