The sound of waves crashing against the shore could be heard faintly in the background noise, a more constant rhythm than the shouts, laughter, and general bustle of a city. Louder than all of that was the footfalls of shoes on the grassy ground and the rustling of clothes.

  A boy, perhaps around seven or eight years old, walked through a yard. His pale blue hair was gelled up into spikes, his eyes seemed stern, and there was a slight frown on his face, but there was a twinkle in his blue eyes. Shorts and a white t-shirt were all that protected him from the harsh sunlight, and he seemed to have a bit of a tan.

  A white picket fence surrounded the yard that he was in, cutting him off from the outside world, keeping him constrained to the backside of a house. A small white shed was set in a corner away from the house, the door to it wide open as he approached.

  “It has to be in here, right…?” He muttered to himself as he stepped inside. His eyes scanned back and forth, hoping to find something in the darkness.

  A ladder was propped up against the wall. A canister of gasoline sat near the doorway. Various odds and ends, junk and occasionally useful things alike were scattered all about, making it difficult to spot any one thing in particular beyond the lawnmower in the center of the shed.

  The boy didn’t care. He searched anyway. “This is where I had it last, so…”

  Tarps were tossed aside, a tangled jump rope caught on a basketball as it was thrown out of the way, and the boy dug and dug and dug through the items in the shed as he searched.

  “Aha! Here it is!”

  He held his hand in the air, clutching tightly to a toy robot. Clearly a prized possession, the metal it was made of shined under the light coming through the door. It was a little dusty, but otherwise in pristine condition, a well cared for toy.

  And then something jumped out of the lawnmower at him.

  The smile on the boy’s face turned into an expression of fright. He clutched his robot even tighter, standing in the doorway, staring at the creature before him.

  An orange shape like a light bulb. Or maybe a lightning rod? Electricity sparking off of it at all times as it floated in the air. The whites of its eyes were separated into top and bottom halves by a black line, with dark blue irises, no pupils present. A small smile was set almost between the eyes, near their bottoms.

  The boy stared, transfixed by the Pokemon before him.

  It floated closer to him, the electricity around it crackling constantly, a static that never stopped. The boy flinched back, clearly afraid of being shocked. The Pokemon giggled, stopping there and smiling wider.

  The boy paused, thinking hard before relaxing a bit. “Do you… want to be friends?”

  The two of them were outside. The boy was wearing a different outfit now, a black shirt being stained by the grass as the boy laid on his stomach, his eyes darting between the toy robot in his hand and the Pokemon floating in front of him.

  “I can’t find you in any books, and my instructors didn’t seem to know what kind of Pokemon you are either… I almost asked my classmates, but…” The boy shook his head. “You need a name, though. Do you have a name?”

  The Pokemon simply buzzed with electricity, giggling.

  “Hmmm. You came out of that lawnmower’s motor… I can’t just call you motor though, that’d be weird… maybe… Rotom? An obvious link, and still unique. What do you think of that, Rotom?”

  The Pokemon buzzed excitedly, twirling around through the air with a smile.

  “Rotom it is then!” The boy exclaimed. “Hey, Rotom, can you do that thing again? I wanna see it again!”

  The newly dubbed Rotom nodded eagerly, dipping down to the ground before suddenly vanishing from sight. Just a moment later, the hum of a motor could be heard from within the shed.

  “BZZZZZZZRT!”

  The lawnmower burst out of the shed on its own, the metal now having an orange tint, the entire thing surrounded by a green glow that hummed with power. It drove itself around the yard for a moment, mowing a mindless pattern into the grass, before driving up to the boy, stopping right in front of him.

  Plastered on the front was Rotom’s big grin.

  The boy giggled. “That’s so amazing! You’re awesome, Rotom!” The boy reached out, as if to pet the Pokemon, but hesitated and pulled his hand back half way through the motion. It was still sparking, after all.

  The boy was in a red shirt, walking into the shed again. He looked older. Perhaps nine or ten now, though it was hard to tell. Inside was Rotom, the Pokemon facing the lawnmower at the center of it, seemingly inspecting it for one reason or another.

  The boy had a mischievous grin on his face when he noticed this. He crept up behind Rotom, taking care not to make any noise as he approached.

  “Boo!” The boy shouted as he jumped towards the Pokemon.

  Rotom reacted as any wild Pokemon might when frightened. It discharged electricity, lighting up the shed with its power.

  The boy screamed as he was shocked.

  The boy fell, unconscious.

  The boy laid there for a while, face down on the floor of the shed, and when he came to, it was with a groan.

  “What happened….” He looked around, but found no one.

  “Rotom…?” He looked and looked, just as he had for the toy robot.

  “Rotom, don’t chastise yourself.” The boy looked panicked.

  “The fault is mine.” In the trash can. Nothing.

  “No harm done.” In the front yard. Nothing.

  “Let us play as we always have!” Under his bed. Nothing.

  He shouted and shouted, searched and searched, but Rotom was nowhere to be found.

  The boy wore a black shirt today, perhaps 11 or 12 this time. It wasn’t his back yard, but rather a shoreline with a beautiful beach.

  “Rotom! Where are you?! Come back!”

  A different day, searching along a cliffside.

  “I just want to be friends again!”

  A different day, knocking on doors, a crude drawing of the Pokemon in his hand done in crayon.

  “Um- you- have you- this is-” He couldn’t seem to get the words out.

  A different day, in a heap of trash. Digging through rotten food, sharp metal, and wet cardboard, the boy frowned but didn’t stop. He seemed determined. “Here, it has to be somewhere in here. I’ll find it, I swear.” First one pile, and then another, searching methodically and gathering the trash into different piles.

  And then, not in the heap itself, but walking between the piles, was a toy robot. It looked just like the one he’d held before, if older and more worn.

  The boy stared into the robot’s eyes, and slowly, the robot hand waved as if in greeting.

  The boy ran to the robot, scooping it up off the ground, hugging it tightly.

  “Rotom! I missed you so much! It wasn’t your fault, you know that right? I’ve been a mess without you, nobody understands me like you do! They- I didn’t throw it away, Rotom! It was them! They told me to give it up! To give you up! I- I tried getting people to help, but they thought I was-! I.. I can’t talk to people, Rotom. I need you.”

  It was the boy and the Rotom again, but time had clearly passed. The boy was much older now, perhaps in his mid teens. He’d grown taller, his face was more angular, and he looked… frustrated.

  The two of them were on the beach, the boy sat with his back up against a rock, Rotom floating next to him.

  “They just don’t comprehend it, Rotom!” The boy ranted. “What more do they want from me? I’m so far ahead of my peers! I’m not just at the top of my class, I’m at a level that the teachers don’t know how to instruct! Half of my time in school is spent doing my own research, at a technical school like this… is that not impressive enough? They’re so focused on other people, it makes no sense to me! What do other people matter? Throwing away my machines, my connection to you… Rotom, I have you, and I’m supposed to have them…”

  “Bzzrt…” The Pokemon replied, consolingly.

  “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be yelling. I just get so… incensed with them. It’s as if no matter how much I achieve, I’ll never be what they want. I’ll always be a disappointment.” He sagged, burying his face in his arms. “I thought maybe it would get better when grandfather realized. That he would explain to them that they were wrong. But no. He just runs off to hide in the shadow of Stark Mountain…”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Bzzrt?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it was naive of me to assume he would do something. Nobody understands like you do, Rotom. Nobody.”

  The two sat in silence on the beach, watching over the lapping waves and the Pokemon that occasionally popped out of the surface of the water.

  “Sometimes…” the boy muttered. “Sometimes I think that human spirit is the problem. We’re always fighting, and I want it to stop, but… I don’t see a way to do that without them giving up their pride. Without me giving up my anger. I… if I have to struggle with spirit so much, why not get rid of it entirely? That would make things so much easier…”

  Rotom gave the boy a worried look.

  But Rotom could say nothing.

  A stack of books were piled next to a bed as the boy read through them one by one. Darkness could be seen through the window of the bedroom, and that made the glow of electricity all the more obvious.

  “If you’re going to watch me, at least come inside.” The boy muttered.

  Rotom phased through the wall, peering over the boy’s shoulder.

  “Bzzrt?”

  The boy flipped the page. “I’m reading about the Legends of the Sinnoh region. Power so immense that it’s hard to believe that they’re real. Space and Time ruling over this land, with Knowledge, Willpower, and Emotion hiding away in Sinnoh’s greatest lakes…”

  Rotom peered at the other books stacked around the room. The boy had been reading quite a bit…

  “To accomplish things in life, you must have power, Rotom. The form of that power may vary, but it is necessary nonetheless. Currently, I am building the power that I have in the form of knowledge. Those who are well learned have an advantage over those who are not. There are all sorts of secrets scattered about that I could use…”

  The boy was no longer a boy. He was a man, sitting at a small desk, filing out paperwork. On his shoulder sat a Pokemon with dark blue feathers and a yellow beak, small enough not to be a bother. The feathers on its head looked a bit like a hat. In his lap laid a Pokemon whose fur was a shade or two lighter than the other’s feathers. A great red feather poked out where one ear should be, and a few more were pinned to its rear. It looked young, fragile, but not weak with the way those white claws on its limbs looked ready to rip and tear at a moment’s notice. The man was scratching the head of the one in his lap.

  On the opposite side of the desk was Rotom.

  “Knowledge is a wonderful tool, Rotom, but on its own it is not very easily applied to gain what I desire. These Pokemon, and more in the future, will become physical power. Brutes who would stand against me because they think themselves mightier will not be so confident once these Pokemon are properly trained for battle.”

  He signed the document and switched to another.

  “There is also the matter of using my knowledge to gain political and monetary power. Starting a business will mean that I will have subordinates who will not go against me for fear of losing their paycheck. It will mean that I will be able to expand my reach by… how do the Unovans say it… “lining pockets”? “Greasing palms”? If my corporations become large enough, power will come as a consequence. The more avenues that I have for acquiring power, the better.”

  “Bzzrt….”

  Rotom watched on, warily.

  Rotom shuddered, clearly exhausted as it pulled itself out of a washing machine.

  There was a man in the barren, clean room with him.

  It was not Rotom’s man.

  Greying hair, or what was left of it, distinguished him from the gelled pale blue that usually accompanied Rotom. A hunched back, rose tinted glasses, and a white labcoat made him stand out all the more as the man hastily scribbled notes onto a clipboard.

  “....output is up 2% from the last attempt, but that’s negligible in the long run. If I want to get every penny I can out of this, I need to push limits!”

  Rotom gave the man a look before starting to float away.

  “And where do you think you’re going?!” The man yelled.

  Rotom stopped.

  “Cyrus may not have realized the potential something like you possesses, but a man of my intellect certainly does! Bah, I suppose it’s to be expected. He’s surrounding himself with fools and ideologues, yes-men and sycophants who have no common sense! I’m not like them, though. I see the true value in partnering with a group like this.”

  The man adjusted his glasses, staring at Rotom like he was looking at a pile of cash, his greed obvious.

  “I am going to be the richest man in Sinnoh. No, the whole League! Once I figure out the details with you, heheheheh…” he laughed to himself for a moment. “No, no, I can’t get too excited just yet… Focus, Charon, focus! Maximizing profits means keeping this a secret, and keeping this a secret means only I can conduct the experiments… If only Cyrus cared for monetary gain as much as he claimed he did… Monetary power my ass…”

  The man, Charon apparently, pointed towards a microwave.

  “Next experiment! The motor is the same as the others, so this should present you with an opportunity to use a new move…”

  Rotom sagged.

  Rotom obeyed.

  A group of strangers was gathered in a large room as Rotom watched on.

  Rotom, like the strangers, listened to the words of the man at the front of it all.

  “...are here because, like me, you understand that the world is not as it should be! How many of you have struggled? Have fought? Have lost because the world is designed to be cruel? How many of you wish to stop that suffering? To save others? To save yourselves? I certainly find myself amongst that number. You and I, our Pokemon and those in the wild, we are all creatures with broken spirits. Creatures that cannot live without suffering needlessly. If you would join me, I would change that! Cast this cruel world aside, and together, create one without that broken spirit! One without suffering!”

  The crowd roared, eating up every word that he said.

  “I welcome you, all of you, to join me under a new banner! One that seeks to right the injustice of this world! No, not just this world… but the injustice of the entire galaxy, the whole universe! Team Galactic!”

  “Team Galactic!” The crowd roared.

  “To the destruction of this awful world, and the creation of a new one!”

  “TEAM GALACTIC!”

  Charon typed away at a computer, seemingly alone for the moment.

  “They’re simple programs, really. Those bastards at Silph can call it revolutionary all they like, but the only thing revolutionary about them is how much money the League is sinking into the program…”

  “U-er-ood.” A static filled voice came from off to his left, where another computer softly glowed.

  Charon scowled at it. “This isn’t difficult! If you can understand code, you can understand using a speaker to communicate!”

  “N- m-er.”

  Charon rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, so you’ve told me. I’m not going to let you place artificial limitations on yourself! I don’t care if it lacks a motor, you can still integrate with it! You will integrate with it! Potential buyers won’t be satisfied if you’re limited to certain machines…”

  “-stood,” Rotom crackled out.

  Charon slammed a fist into his desk before sighing. “It will be fine, progress is progress… One day it will work properly… where was I?” He looked at the monitor before him. “Ah! Yes, the Porygon! Take a look at this function here. They shipped their product with a glaring oversight! By not limiting the user input, those Silph fools have allowed me to use a buffer overflow to inject my own code. Supposedly the new Porygon2 code patches this exploit out, but I’ve not been able to locate an Upgrade… Good things come to those who wait, I suppose. Why don’t you give it a try? Inject your own code to prevent the signal that contacts the home unit. Isolating a Porygon will be a useful tool going forward if the League is so intent on using them…”

  Rotom watched as a stylized letter ‘G’ was plastered onto the side of the building, crews working in and out of it to get it ready for occupation as soon as possible.

  A new city. A new headquarters. Not for one of Cyrus’ many money making businesses, but a HQ for Galactic. Right out in the open, and nobody was stopping them.

  Rotom went inside, Veilstone seeming like a world away as soon as the Pokemon passed the doors. Clean, new, futuristic. That was the vibe this new building gave off. Grunts passed by in strange uniforms, excitement on their faces. They obviously felt that this was the start of something new, something big.

  In a way, it was. In another way, it was simply a continuation of something that Rotom had seen in motion for a long time now.

  Cyrus was getting serious. He was really going to… well, honestly Rotom didn’t fully understand it. How does one create a new world? Rotom was sure that all these fools thought it a metaphor. Rotom knew better. Rotom knew Cyrus was far too literal for that. When he said he’d make a new world, he meant it.

  And Rotom had quietly sat by. Supporting him. Learning new skills for him. Being subjected to “testing” for him, though that one was mostly on Charon…

  Rotom couldn’t sit by anymore. Couldn’t support this as Cyrus pushed further and further. Trying to be there for him, to support him at his side… it wasn’t working.

  Rotom needed to save Cyrus.

  Even if that meant leaving him.

  Even if that meant working against him.

  They were growing too much.

  Rotom knew that. Rotom also knew that a single Pokemon had basically no hope of stopping them at this point.

  A new base of operations here in Eterna, grunts going all over Sinnoh to conduct nondescript “research” for Cyrus, high performers ascending to some new rank Cyrus had titled “Commander”...

  And what had Rotom accomplished since leaving Cyrus?

  Nothing.

  Sure, learning a bit here and there could potentially be helpful down the line. It never hurt to practice infiltration and working against Porygon, especially now that Galactic had their own network of them.

  But in terms of real, tangible results?

  Nothing.

  Day after day, week after week, month after month, trying to find a way to save Cyrus… with nothing to show for it.

  Rotom left Eterna behind, dejected. Luckily that Old Chateau wasn’t too far away. It made for a good base of operations.

  This was how Rotom spent every day. Spy on Galactic when everyone was awake, fail to accomplish anything, rest in the relative safety of an abandoned television at night. The other Ghosts in the Chateau knew better than to bother Rotom.

  It was frustrating, getting nowhere like this. Maybe Rotom needed to try something new. Branch out a bit, hope for something, anything, to get new results.

  Rotom heard someone enter the Chateau. Heard the other Ghosts preparing to scare them.

  If they walked up to Rotom’s television… a trainer, that just might…

  With a static sigh and a deep breath, Rotom steadied.

  Rotom will save Cyrus.

  Even if that means working with another trainer against him.

  Rotom origin story. Lots of line breaks because of the expansive period of time it occurs over. Not sure if this was the best way to do it, but I thought I’d try it for Rotom.

  Rotom’s name origin is a bit strange because in japanese it’s still called rotom, motor backwards. But the loanword for motor is mo-ta- with no r at all. I’m going to say that Cyrus knows a bit of Unovan due to his academics to account for this.

  It should be noted that while in the English release, Cyrus sometimes calls out “emotion” specifically, in the japanese version he says kokoro (heart) which encompasses all three of the lake trio.

  As always, feedback is appreciated. (If you’re actually looking for a response, discord is the place to be)