Michael the Hero of Orre (Pyrite, Orre)

Michael’s life started out very normal, for the most part. He can’t remember where he was actually born but all of his earliest memories start with his family already in the Pokemon HQ Labs in Orre. His mother and father were always around, at least in the beginning, but his mother soon became engrossed in her work as a scientist leaving Michael alone a lot with his dad. Michael adored his father and spent most of his time following him around and learning all about Pokemon training, with big dreams that he would one day leave Orre and travel one of the many other regions to fulfill his destiny as a real Pokemon Trainer. But alas, those dreams were short lived.

All too soon his mother bore a second child, his little sister Jovi, and broke his father’s time with him in half. At first Michael despised his little sister, often being cruel to the small child just to make her cry, but after he was caught attempting to push her down the stairs that his father finally had enough and brought the rebellious youth to heel. His father taught young Michael how to take care of his sister, and when little Jovi hugged her big brother for the first time Michael knew he was hooked. The three of them spent nearly all of their time together until Michael had to start school, his mother no longer satisfied with privately tutoring him due to his advanced intelligence. And so off he was sent, with many of the lab inhabitants grateful to see the boisterous youth gone for a few months.

It was while he was away at his first year of school that the news of Cipher and their nefarious plans involving strange creatures known as Shadow Pokemon swept through the region. Michael, like many of the other students at his school, were entranced by the story. Life in Orre was usually rather boring and predictable, but this was unlike anything they had ever seen. The first time Michael saw Wes, a boy barely older than him, standing up against a Shadow Pokemon, he knew what he wanted to do with his life. He was going to be a hero, just like Wes.

He studied ridiculously hard after hearing about the defeat of Cipher, flying through his courses with more ease than should have been possible for someone his age. When properly motivated his teachers found that Michael far exceeded most of the other students and they decided to put him in advanced placement, in which he also tested even higher than they predicted. Finally they had to settle on having his intelligence properly tried and scored, and they found his IQ blew past that of most of his teachers and into prodigy territory. By the time his was 15 he was heading home, finished college and ready to start his life. Or so he thought.

Life back at the lab became frighteningly routine, even more so after his father passed away, with Michael forced to apprentice with several scientists and aid them in their experiments. But what neither he, nor Professor Krane (who actually ran the facility) realized, was that he was not being taught but in fact used as a test subject. They pushed him into several emotional and physical stressor situations, gauging his responses and his success rates and in the end figured out exactly how to push Michael to do exactly what they wanted, when they wanted. So when Krane was kidnapped, and Michael encountered his first Shadow Pokemon, they were able to manipulate him into going after them himself.

At first Michael didn’t realize the deception, going along with the easily influenced Professor Krane’s requests for help, because he still held on to his dream of being a hero. Wes was nowhere to be found when Cipher rose again and the region needed someone to stand up to them. So Michael did. He went everywhere he was told, did everything he was told, and after weeks of pushing through the region found himself face to face with head of Cipher and the infamous XD001. Shadow Lugia didn’t frighten him, in fact he pitied the magnificent creature. Forced to enslave himself to a worthless man like Greevil and unable to be free…it was more than Michael could stand.

It was an awful battle with several of his pokemon, and even himself, getting injured trying to weaken Lugia to the point of snagging him away from Greevil but he finally did it. With Greevil dethroned Cipher fell into chaos, the two lead Admin revealing themselves to be Greevil’s twin sons and each taking a different stance on the fate of their organization. Eldes, the red headed twin, took Michael’s side and convinced his father to surrender letting him see a spark of hope in the older man’s future. He made a mental note to check in on the red head even as his blue haired twin spouted hateful and indignant things about Michael himself. There was probably no saving that one.

The years that passed after Cipher fell were like a whirlwind. He kept up with Eldes well, even when he was in prison, and the two became close friends. He fought hard to get the older man out of prison when he learned of how he was being treated and wouldn’t rest until Eldes was released. Eventually his friend joined the International Police, working on this side of the law for a change, and despite some initial misgivings from his colleagues Eldes thrived there. Michael visited his friend often and he was the only person the youth could trust when tragedy struck a little too close to home.

Michael learned quickly, after Cipher, about how he had been manipulated and abused by the scientists working under Krane and refused to let it go on any longer. Despite still holding a respect for Krane he held little left for his mother who had known and allowed it to continue, so he left home. During his absence the men who had used him turned their attentions to his sister, who had also begun to show the same level of intelligence, but she did not go as easily as Michael did. The young girl turned to drugs to cope with her living situation, much to Micahel’s dismay, and would often run away from home to stay with him. Every time she fled to his apartment in Gateon he would get her into rehab, and for a few months she would do really well. But she always backslid sooner or later. Finally, one day, he had enough of her breaking his heart and when she tried to run away to his place again he shut her out.

She overdosed that night.

It was nearly three days after Jovi died that anyone found her body, or at least reported it to the police, and Michael felt the guilt crush him instantly. He ran to Eldes and buried himself in his sorrows under the watchful gaze of his best friend, refusing to accept anyone else’s comfort or condolences. Eldes was the only person he trusted to see him so vulnerable and to share in the secret of his guilt. The older man tried several times to convince Michael that it wasn’t his fault, but ultimately he stopped trying. It helped that Michael started to get very good at faking happiness. If he could fool Eldes, he could fool anyone.

But, despite wishing it wouldn’t, life moved on. He cut all ties with his mother and asked Eldes to help him get into the training program for the IPF, hoping that maybe he could atone for the sin of letting his sister die by helping imprison the men who got her that way.  He worked hard and with his sharp mind and single-minded dedication he graduated and was hired as a Rookie, working under Eldes for a brief probation period before being assigned to a department. Life was starting to look up when the world suddenly came crashing down.

The Epidemic swept over all of the regions and forced Michael back home to try and grab the snag machine before someone could do something more nefarious with it during the riots. Sadly he arrived just in time to find his mother being torn into by his sister’s old Plusle and Minun, regretting that he was able to save her even though she never thought to save him. It pained him to put down his sister’s beloved pokemon but the idea of giving them a merciful death rather than living as mindless beasts gave him some small comfort. They were better off dead than as monsters. He was able to recover the snag machine with ease but the aura reader was damaged, but Krane and several of the other scientists were missing so he decided to swipe various components around the lab to try and fix it on his own later.

He reported back to the fallout location in Kanto and found what remained of the IPF working under what soon became known as just Headquarters, or just HQ for short, but it was what he didn’t find scared him most. Eldes wasn’t there. A few of the others said he had been spotted fleeing the destruction of their headquarters but never returned, so Michael knew he had to find his friend. He promised to send back regular reports while he travelled but he was not going to be able to stay with them, he needed to find Eldes. Over the years the pair had saved each other more times than he could count, and he knew that without his best friend there was no one left in the world who truly needed him just as much as he needed them. That ginger was the only family he had left.

So he travels across the regions, aiding those he can and giving mercy to those he can’t, tracking down his best friend in hopes of bringing him back home where he belongs. Along with any others he comes across along the way.

***Updated:
After miraculously discovering Eldes hiding in a lighthouse in his old home of Gateon Port Michael thought that things would start looking brighter, but as usual the youth was incredibly naive to assume such in this new world the Epidemic had lay forth. Within hours of their reunion the two redheads were locked in a battle of wills, each trying to convince the other that their self-sacrificing idea was better than the others and which they were to follow. It all came to a head when some rather revealing things were said about each man leaving Michael bitter and broken, suddenly very aware of the depression he had buried deep in his heart since Jovi's death.

Without reconciling the two former friends parted, a hollow space forming in Michael's soul where the comfort of another human had once occupied. As he turned to take one last look at the dwelling of his once best friend a frightening sight caught his eye, that of Lugia soaring across the heavens, and the vision brought back yet another haunting memory. Lugia was a Shadow again, his feathers as dark as the stormy sky in which he crossed, and he was headed straight for Citadark. Before their fallout Eldes had warned Michael of Ardos's resurgence and the then teenager knew he had to do anything he could to stop Ardos from getting his claws on the "perfected" Shadow Serum once again. He had to free Lugia, and he would do it with or without Eldes's help.

It has been about four years since that day and Michael has grown into a man, but still no closer to finding a way to re-purify Lugia now that the resonance chambers are gone. So he heads to the home of the only other person known to purify Shadows to see if there is any clue he might uncover to solve this troubling mystery.***