In this world, only about ten percent of the land is considered suitable for human life. Even within those inhabited regions, vast stretches of untamed wilderness belong entirely to Pokémon. The true rulers of this planet have never been humans — they have always been the countless species of Pokémon that roam free across forests, oceans, mountains, and deserts.
People tend to gather in cities and towns, while the endless wild beyond those borders remains the domain of Pokémon.
Take the Norlandia Alliance as an example. To the northwest of Harmony City lies the Tamar Desert, and to the southwest stretches the Western Plateau. Both fall under the Alliance's jurisdiction on paper, but in reality, they are Uninhabited Areas — vast, hostile tracts of land spanning thousands of kilometres, where the environment is far too dangerous for ordinary people to survive. Only adventurers and ecology researchers dare venture into such places.
Still, between the two, the Tamar Desert is considered the lesser threat. As long as you didn't push deep into its heart, you stood a decent chance of making it back. The Western Plateau, on the other hand, was a different story entirely — enter unprepared, and there was a good chance you would never return.
It hadn't always been this way. Go back twenty years, and Harmony City wasn't even the only human settlement between those two Uninhabited Areas.
About a hundred kilometres northwest of Harmony City, there had once been a small town called Lune Town.
In its prime, Lune Town was a celebrated mining district. Its rich mineral veins brought prosperity to the town and its people. Small hamlets even sprung up in the surrounding desert, supplying the town with food and daily necessities. Life there had been difficult, but it had been alive.
Then the ore ran out.
As the mines dried up, so did the town. And then, twenty years ago, a massive sandstorm swept through the region, burying the inland river that had sustained Lune Town for generations. The local ecosystem collapsed. With no water and no livelihood left, the residents had no choice but to abandon the settlement they had called home for so long.
Today, the crumbling ruins of Lune Town served a far less dignified purpose. The deserted buildings had become a makeshift refuge for outlaws of every kind — people with nowhere else to go, or people who simply preferred to stay off the grid.
That was exactly where Nova was headed.
Before he could reach Lune Town, however, he had to cross over a hundred kilometres of open desert. Walking that distance was simply out of the question, so Nova gritted his teeth and spent more than he would have liked on a sturdy off-road bicycle from an extreme-outdoor equipment shop. It wasn't a glamorous solution, but it would get the job done.
He rode west out of Harmony City, and after about ten kilometres, the paved roads and city noise gave way to open, sandy terrain. At the edge of the inhabited land stood the Alliance checkpoint — a small outpost the Norlandia Alliance had built at the entrance to the Tamar Desert.
Nova was, at heart, a law-abiding person. He pulled up and got off his bike to register and file the required entry application.
Those who didn't care for formalities simply detoured around the checkpoint. The desert was wide enough that a short ride around the perimeter put the outpost far behind you, and the guards couldn't chase everyone. The Alliance knew this, of course. Applications were almost never denied — because if they were, people would just slip in through the desert anyway.
The paperwork existed mainly for safety reasons. If Nova failed to return by the time he had declared on his form, the checkpoint was required to report it to the Security Office, which would then organise a search. In theory, that was reassuring. In practice, the deadlines were set generously — which meant if you missed one, you had probably already met your end. Any "rescue" dispatched after that point would be more of a retrieval mission than anything else. Finding even a body was considered fortunate.
Such was the grim reality of the Uninhabited Areas. And yet, Professional Trainers like Nova still had their reasons to enter them.
The checkpoint officer in charge was a woman in her mid-forties — thin-faced, sharp-eyed, and carrying the kind of quiet authority that didn't need to raise its voice to be taken seriously. The officer had a gaze that could make a rowdy crowd go still. Nova privately thought she was wasted out here; she would have done terrifying work running a school or a training facility.
"Professional Trainer?" she said, reading the form he'd handed her, and making no attempt to hide her skepticism.
She had reason to doubt. Nova looked young — younger than most people who held that title. And unlike Licensed Trainers, who carried credentials issued by an official Pokémon League, Professional Trainers had no formal certification. The title was self-declared. Anyone could call themselves one.
That said, the bar wasn't entirely meaningless. A Professional Trainer was expected to make a living through their work — completing bounty tasks, raising strong Pokémon, handling jobs that ordinary people couldn't. In theory, it was a respected profession. In practice, the field was flooded with overconfident rookies who lasted three months before running out of savings and quietly returning to ordinary life. Most ended up working desk jobs, at which point "Trainer" became a hobby title at best.
The particularly dangerous cases were the ones who came in chasing glory. They had heard stories — about legendary Pokémon roaming in Uninhabited Areas, about Trainers who swept through Gym Leaders and the Elite Four, claimed the Champion title, and lived out a perfect life. They charged into the desert dreaming of that future, and more often than not, they never came back out to see it.
The officer, after years at this checkpoint, had learned to spot these types immediately. The young man in front of her had no licence and no papers to prove his claim. She wasn't going to wave him through on his word alone.
But then Nova reached into his bag and released two Pokémon.
The first was a Nidoking — large, powerful, and battle-hardened. Its thick purple hide was marked with the wear of real combat, and it regarded the checkpoint officer with calm, steady eyes. The second was a Corvisquire — lean and sharp, its dark feathers catching the desert light, its posture alert and composed. The bird Pokémon let out a quiet, measured cry before settling back.
the officer studied both Pokémon for a moment. Then she nodded slowly, her expression softening just slightly.
"All right," she said. "Purpose of entry into the Tamar Desert?"
It was a routine question. Nova had been expecting it.
He couldn't tell her the truth — that he was tracking a criminal who had gone to ground in Lune Town. Saying that out loud would imply the Alliance's law enforcement couldn't handle its own jurisdiction, which wouldn't go over well with the officer standing in front of him. Fortunately, spending time with Aresdra had been excellent training for exactly this kind of situation. Aresdra had a gift for bending the truth smoothly, and Nova had picked up more than a few of her habits.
"I'm looking to catch a Ground-type or Rock-type Pokémon," he said, keeping his voice easy and his expression neutral. "As you can see, my current team is only two members. I need to build it out."
she looked at Nidoking, then at Corvisquire, then back at Nova.
"Ground and Rock?" she said. "The way your team is set up now, that's actually a concern. Nidoking has a weakness to Ground-type moves, and Corvisquire is weak to Rock-types. Before you head into the desert, you'd really want a Grass-type or a Water-type to cover those weaknesses. It's a basic safety consideration."
Nova looked at her for a moment, then replied without missing a beat.
"Have you ever heard of the reverse-attribute master style...?"