| History | - History:
Colress was born in Lacunosa Town in Unova to an older couple who were surprised to see that they still could have children. Even though he was unexpected, his parents were excited to finally have a child to raise as their own. Both of them used to be scientists who worked for a large company in Castelia until they decided to settle down and work on some of their own projects. They especially had an interest in inorganic Pokemon. As a child, Colress had a curiosity about the world that could not be quenched, and he often spent his time reading once his parents could no longer answer his questions. Unfortunately, when he tried talking to his peers about the new things he was learning, they mocked him and called him names. They also grew frustrated at how he always had a question for the teacher, and how he would show off his knowledge. This killed the child's desire to talk to others, and he retreated into himself. His parents worried for the young boy, and decided to try giving him a Pokemon. He had a certain fascination with the Klink line, so they found one for him. The child perked up almost instantaneously when he saw the pokemon, and when his parents told him that he could keep it, he had a smile that wouldn't leave for hours. He decided to name the Gear Pokemon C3PO after a character from one of his favorite movies.
When he reached the age of ten, his family gave him the option to go on a Pokemon journey or to continue with school. Colress was far too interested in his studies to want to go on a journey, however. Given how most children went on a journey at this point, he found himself mostly alone, this time due to his own decisions. He was extremely smart, and this meant that he ended up skipping grades. His parents supported him as much as they could, and he was happy because of all the things he was learning. He also helped his parents with the Pokemon that they studied, however they told him to be careful not to give any of them special treatment. He took this with the traditional childish enthusiasm and took the words to heart.
One day, his parents went to visit Mistralton City, and he decided to explore the nearby area while they conducted some business. His eyes were immediately drawn to the Celestial Tower, and he remembered learning about the various ghosts that could be found there. There was also the strange bell that was found at the top, and he wondered if the rumors about it were true. In order to test it though, he'd have to find someone else to ring the bell. He thought there would probably be someone else around that he could ask when he got there. He kept C3PO outside of their Pokeball for convenience and safety. Unfortunately, he didn't know that most of the ghosts there were Litwik which had a type advantage over his Klink. Soon his Pokemon had been knocked out, and the fire/ghost types seemed overly interested in him. Then a loud beeping sound caught their attentions, and a strange alien-like Pokemon shooed the ghosts away. The Pokemon, which he finally recognized as an Elgyem, seemed to stare at him and the unconcious Klink in his arms for a second before he started beeping at Colress and escorting them back out the tower. He almost left them at the door, until he noticed how scared the young child was, and then, he let out a heavy sigh and went with Colress back to the city. He even went to the Pokemon Center with the pair. The Elgyem was curious about the child, and he wanted to know how Colress made it so far with only one Pokemon. When he later figured out that the child wasn't even a trainer, the Pokemon was confused. Usually, the children that made it to the tower were trainers. The Cerebral Pokemon wondered what human children did if they didn't chose to be trainers. So he decided to follow the kid, just to see what he did. Colress ended up naming the Elgyem R2D2 after the funny beeping noises that the Pokemon made, and to complement C3PO's name. R2D2 found that the child was extremely curious about Pokemon, and would spend long periods of time observing new Pokemon.
When Colress was in high school, his parents finally finished their study on inorganic Pokemon, and they had three Pokemon that had grown attached to the small family. This group consisted of two Magnemite and a Beldum. One of the Magnemite had grown attached to Colress, so he took them as one of his Pokemon, while his parents kept the other two. They allowed him to choose the nicknames of all three pokemon, He decided to name his own Magnemite Ebon Hawk, after a fictional spaceship. The other Magnemite was named Magneto for a character that had magnetism powers, and the Beldum was dubbed Spock after a character on a show that he and his father enjoyed watching together. His parents, for old time's sake, decided to train their Pokemon and encouraged their son to watch. He found battling fascinating, especially how it encouraged people and Pokemon to form powerful friendships. He and his three Pokemon trained for a little bit, but he eventually fell out of doing it when school demanded more and more attention. When Colress graduated, he wanted to follow in his parents's footsteps and become a Pokemon researcher. He loved Unova since it was his home, but he wanted to go to another region so he could see different Pokemon and ways of life. Since he gave up being a trainer, he wanted to at least travel a little. He eventually decided on a college in Lumiose City of the Kalos region. That was a region where there was talk of some kind of evolution that could only be achieved by bonding with one's Pokemon.
Though Colress was sad to leave his parents behind, he was excited to finally go out on his own. Unfortunately, even when he made it to the university, the fact that he was younger than most of the other students made it difficult for him to even talk to them. He was intimidated by the extremely large age gap, and most of them seemed to ignore him since he was a kid in their eyes. In order to counteract the loneliness, he threw himself into his studies. He made it through his Bachelor's degree relatively easy, and he decided to work all the way towards a doctorate, like his parents. His parents kept sending support and love event though they were so far away, and his pokemon often kept him company. He had one year left in his doctorate program when he encountered a pair of local policemen standing at his dorm room door. They seemed shocked at his youthful appearance, and asked if he was Colress Gannon. He answered in the affirmative, and they informed him that his parents had been in a car accident. They didn't survive. The news floored him, but he sent the policemen on their way before he broke down crying in his bed. C3PO, R2D2, and Ebon tried to comfort the twenty-one year old, but he cried until the wee hours of the morning. The two people he loved most were gone, and he didn't even get to say goodbye. He didn't have any other people to lean on, so he just tried to make the pain stop by ignoring it. He had to take a break from the program long enough to bury his parents and get their affairs in order before he could continue. He was able to keep their house, but he wouldn't be able to live in it until later. He also got a chain with his parents' wedding rings. Since the rings were family herilooms, they were given to him instead of being buried with them. Lastly, his parent's pokemon, Spock and Magneto, were sent to him to keep. It was during this point his Pokemon noticed that the young man was coping by hiding his emotions behind a cold mask. When he got back to Kalos, he threw himself into the remaining work he had to accomplish.
A chance meeting with a man who said that he was part of a Pokemon advocacy group would forever alter his fate. Ghetsis hired the fresh out of doctorate program Colress to run experiments and the like for Team Plamsa. He gave Colress free reign to research what he liked; however he gave special funding to studying the bonds between humans and Pokemon. Since this was something that he was already interested in given his time in Kalos, he saw no problem in giving extra time and effort in the research. Since the front of Team Plasma was a Pokemon's rights group, he thought he was researching things for the benefit of Pokemon and humans. Ghetsis encouraged Colress's workaholic nature, and never bothered to assign other people to work with him. He also pushed the young scientist to do some things that were morally ambiguous in his studies, with the excuse that it was for learning purposes. He had no idea what Ghetsis was planning to do with his research, and only after the assault on the Pokemon league did he fully understand that Ghetsis was attempting to seize power. The research in Pokemon bonds? Ghetsis only cared about trying to ensure that one of the dragons of legend bonded with his son. Also, some of his other pieces of research that Ghetsis encouraged all pointed toward Ghetsis manipulating his son to be the perfect pawn that could also control the dragon. Seeing his research being applied in such a way was disturbing, and he started to fear and resent the sage. However, the scientist was still interested in seeing the results involving his research come to fruition. Fortunately, the plan didn't work in Ghetsis's favor.
After the fiasco, Ghetsis came back with his earlier facade completely gone. Ghetsis now demanded that Colress stop all research projects, and only focus on researching utilizing Pokemon as weapons. Ghetsis's reasoning? All of the "touchy feely" stuff that Colress had been looking into was too hard to control, and it didn't have any effects on a Pokemon's power. Colress had evidence that appeared to directly oppose this, but Ghetsis shot him down with vague reasoning. This grated on Colress severely since Ghetsis was ignoring the purpose of science to only further his own power. It also didn't help that Ghetsis shut down various other projects for no reason other than he didn't want to fund them anymore.
At this point, Colress did consider leaving Team Plasma, but Ghetsis surprised him by making Colress the new "leader." He knew that his position was essentially a figurehead, and that Ghetsis would be the one pulling the strings. If he agreed to this, he would be stuck as Ghetsis's pawn, but he would have the ability to potentially stop him if his theory was correct. He just had to find the right trainer. Colress stepped in as the head of the new Team Plasma, and he did Ghetsis's bidding as he searched. In order to appear more "professional" for Team Plasma, Colress decided to cut his hair. However, before he cut it completely, he wanted to do something kind of silly. It had been a while since he did anything with his hair, so he decided to cut his hair short, but he left his blue streak at its original length. With some hair cement and wires, he put the hair in a spiral that almost went around his head. Unfortunately, he didn't count on how difficult it was to remove the product, so he had to face Team Plasma with a really strange hair piece. He walked around as if he did it on purpose, and Ghetsis seemed to be aggravated with it. Colress was rather angry with Ghetsis in general, but he didn't want to push the man into anger quickly. He decided to leave his hair as is as a sign of defiance to the man with a huge ego.
Two years later, while Team Plasma was in the Castelia Sewers, he saw a young trainer battling with an unexpected prowess for someone at their age. He saw this as a chance to truly test his theory involving Pokemon bonds. If a trainer and Pokemon shared a strong bond, would that be able to stop a Pokemon whose power was brought out through other methods. Specifically, Ghetsis's methods. He decided to battle the trainer himself, so that he could see the trainer and their pokemon in action. Since most of his Pokemon hadn't had serious training, he didn't expect to win, but he knew that he found the person he was looking for just in time.
The trainer inspired him to finally attempt battling others, and he found that he enjoyed it. With a majority of his Pokemon being steel type, he also had a strong advantage over most younger trainers. His Pokemon liked getting to come out and train since he usually kept them in their Pokeballs and also approved of the decision to start battling since this was the happiest they'd seen him in a long time. Colress didn't notice, but working for Ghetsis had drained the scientist emotionally and mentally. He had been withdrawing more and more into himself, and battling seemed to bring a spark back into his eyes. It inspired him to have even more enthusiasm for his experiement. As he traveled around, he unexpectedly picked up a Rotom. He didn't plan on keeping it, so he chose not to name it at first. However, they had a mind of their own, and would often insist on staying outside of their Pokeball. Colress found this somewhat irritating, but he put up with the excitable electric/ghost. As he battled and traveled with the Rotom, he grew to care for the prankster, and he decided to name them Agent Smith.
Since Ghetsis was really close to obtaining Kyurem, he didn't keep as close an eye on Colress as he normally would have, and Colress took advantage of this to encourage the young trainer to oppose Ghetsis as they met across Unova. He also gave the trainer hints whenever he thought that the trainer might be stuck. When he saw Terrakion approach the young trainer, he knew that he had made the correct choice for his experiment. This trainer held such powerful bonds with their Pokemon that even the legendaries noticed. One day, Ghetsis finally obtained Kyurem, and some of the weapons and technology that Colress had tested and made finally saw some use. To make completely sure that the trainer would come fight Ghetsis, he encouraged Zinzolin to freeze the City of Opelucid. The team had to go there anyway to obtain the Gene Splicers, but it was Colress's idea to freeze the town.
When the trainer found him in the frigate, he was ecstatic. His plan worked, but for one final test, he challenged the trainer to a battle. He gave them a run for their money, but they were able to beat his team. He decided not to use Agent Smith for that fight since they were weaker than the rest of his team, and he didn't want to put the small Pokemon into a fight where they would get needlessly hurt. Soon after Ghetsis left the frigate to go to the Giant Chasm with the trainer on his tail, Colress waited until he saw Kyurem leave the chasm, and he took the ship and left. He didn't really care if Ghetsis wanted to do anything more with the team, and he disbanded Team Plasma. Some of the grunts didn't know what to do now that the team was gone, so he anchored the ship near the old P2 laboratory and let them figure out what they needed. As he waited for each of them to leave, he trained his Pokemon even more. After about a year, he was finally able to leave the ship, and he went back to Lacunosa Town. For about two years, he continued to train his Pokemon while he looked for a new job.
One day, he happened to turn on the TV, and there was news involving a sickness infecting Pokemon in Johto. Curiosity piqued, he paid close attention to the report. It didn't have a lot of information, unfortunately, and he didn't think much on it until some time later. Then there were reports of Pokemon coming back from the dead to kill anything that was still alive. This caught his attention, and he wanted to know more about this supposed "zombie virus." There was a call in Lacunosa town for people to release their Pokemon, but Colress couldn't bear the thought of leaving his friends like that. Since there was a military presence trying to enforce this rule, Colress had to take his Pokemon and run. He wasn't able to grab a lot of things other than some basic supplies, and he still regrets not grabbing the chain with his parents's rings. He's spent most of the Epidemic hiding and observing the undead, and hoping that he can learn more about this strange virus that wakes the dead.
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