<div align="center">Azalea Town<br/>Julian and 'Mac' the Dratini</div><br/>Julian mostly intended on keeping to himself as he first entered the woods, looking up towards the sky, he wasn't all that surprised to find that the tall trees mostly squashed the rays of sun that tried to come down and coat the earth beneath. Still, despite the canopy overhead a few cracks in the defenses of the leaves shined through, and the sun was indeed able to splash across the dirt trail through small trails. It was enough to illuminate the forest during the day time, but the word 'bright' most certainly did not come to mind when Julian tried to come up with words to describe this forest. "At least nature is still the same..." Ilex forest was never particularly known for being a massive Pokemon hotspot, most of the forest was actually desolate a majority of the time anyway, so even the tree dwelling Pokemon that kept to themselves weren't particularly missed when Pokemon became such a treasured commodity. "Still..."<br/><br/>He shook his head, lost in his thoughts as he planted step after step through the woods. He remembered how when he was a young boy, the world was filled with people who absolutely loved traveling with Pokemon. Being the son of a gym leader, he naturally saw his fair share of trainers while growing up, and the overwhelming majority of them were quite bright and happy, enjoying their travels in a world filled with companions and competition... Then Silph made that power play and changed everything. Trainers stopped coming, fights broke out across the cities, nothing was the same... Even his mother lost that spark of life in her eye that she always seemed to have. Like a majority of Blackthorn city trainers, she had been with her earliest dragon type pokemon since she was half Julian's age. For that companion and beloved friend to be suddenly taken away...<br/><br/>The world had to change.<br/><br/>Things couldn't remain the way they were right now.<br/><br/>Julian sat on these thoughts for a long time, musing on them as he walked through the forest until he heard the whirl, the faint hum of a bicycle heading his way. He turned back, just in time to see Lusa coming up fast on her bike. "Huh?" He didn't expect to encounter anybody else in the forest. Was she a fellow trainer? It wasn't exactly safe to travel alone in this day and age, not without at least one Pokemon for companionship and protection.