Post by Elinda Aspen on Jan 17, 2013 15:19:17 GMT -5
Elinda Aspen
| [atrb=border,0,true][atrb=valign,top] 37 Female Heterosexual Unknown Quirky | [atrb=style, width: 296px; padding: 5px; background-color: ffffff; border-top: 4px solid #6f5f44;] GENERAL INFORMATION NAME,Elinda Aspen ALIAS,Ellie AGE,37 GENDER,Female GROUP,Trainer ALLEGIANCE,Devon OCCUPATION,Exhibition Trainer APPEARANCE When one imagines the wife of a retired cripple and the mother of a seventeen year old son, Elinda is most often not what comes to mind. Standing in at just over five feet and eight inches tall and weighing one hundred and thirty seven pounds, to say that Elinda aged well is a blatant understatement. Still quite easy to mistake for being only in her early thirties or late twenties, keeping active and on the move has done wonders for Elinda's health, keeping her slim frame fit and her body from declining physically - as a result of it she has maintained incredible agility for her age and is very easily as strong as most athletes a decade younger than her. Clothing wise, Elinda has changed very little since her early days as a trainer - while she is no longer small enough for the old duster she'd worn when she'd first left home, the woman has since replaced it with a new crimson longcoat, the only difference being the thin white stripes running down each sleeve. Very much a fan of the idea that any and all clothing should be practical in use, aside from the longcoat Elinda tends to stick to dark clothing, typically wearing black jeans covered in pockets, multipurpose boots and shirt. While she usually wears her hair down, Elinda almost always has something on hand to tie it back if needed. FACE CLAIM, |
[b]Lyrical Nanoha[/b] - Fate Testarossa, [i]Aspen, Elinda[/i][/div]PERSONALITY
Ellie is, bluntly put, a little..... off. "Eccentric" only begins to describe the woman - stubborn, prank loving, borderline ADD/ADHD, socially incompentent but very friendly and also mind numbingly naive on the surface, to most of the world the woman seems to be something of an idiot savant who compensates for her multitude of often annoying shortcomings by displaying a genius rarely seen in battling, although even then to the untrained eye many of it may look to be little more than dumb luck - an idea usually put to rest if someone asks her a Pokemon related question, however, her vast knowledge and experience there having earned her the rather ironic nickname of "the Professor" among her friends and colleagues. Extremely flighty and free spirited, virtually the entirety of the woman's life has been spent hopping from one region to another, her time equally divided between sight seeing, battling and dabbling in hundreds of other things not even remotely related to Pokemon.
Beneath all of that, though, is a much more normal individual than most would suspect, as well as what many of those few friends who have seen her true self might describe as the brain of a genius, quite possibly of the diabolical variety. Despite what may be shown on the surface - that of a happy-go-lucky trainer only out to have a good time - Elinda will often obsess over many problems at a time, typically doing so in order to prevent said problems from affecting those who she cares about. At heart a woman who detests unnecessary violence and needless loss of life, Elinda is loyal to a fault when anyone she has come to view as family or a close personal friend is involved, and due to the choices she has made recently it has resulted in her becoming a deeply conflicted individual, torn between numerous different philosophies and even more numerous problems - being the person that she is, however, Elinda refuses to burden others with those issues or to run away from them.
Beneath all of that, though, is a much more normal individual than most would suspect, as well as what many of those few friends who have seen her true self might describe as the brain of a genius, quite possibly of the diabolical variety. Despite what may be shown on the surface - that of a happy-go-lucky trainer only out to have a good time - Elinda will often obsess over many problems at a time, typically doing so in order to prevent said problems from affecting those who she cares about. At heart a woman who detests unnecessary violence and needless loss of life, Elinda is loyal to a fault when anyone she has come to view as family or a close personal friend is involved, and due to the choices she has made recently it has resulted in her becoming a deeply conflicted individual, torn between numerous different philosophies and even more numerous problems - being the person that she is, however, Elinda refuses to burden others with those issues or to run away from them.
POKEMON
SPECIES,Skarmory
NICKNAME, None
GENDER, Male
ABILITY, Keen Eye
MOVE SET,
Autotomize | Spikes | Air Slash | Agility
SPECIES, Scyther
NICKNAME, None
GENDER, Male
ABILITY, Swarm
MOVE SET,
Bug Buzz | Agility | Quick Attack | Double Team
SPECIES, Vulpix
NICKNAME, Vixxy
GENDER, Female
ABILITY, Flash Fire
MOVE SET,
Flamethrower | Flame Burst | Quick Attack | Will-o-Wisp | Fire Spin | Extrasensory | Dark Pulse
SPECIES, Staryu
NICKNAME, None
GENDER, None
ABILITY, Natural Cure
MOVE SET,
Water Gun | Rapid Spin | Recover | Camouflage | Ice Beam | Signal Beam | Telekinesis
HISTORY
Born into the world as the daughter of two Pokemon Breeders and the youngest daughter of three older brothers, Elinda had a relatively privileged and happy life as a child. Technically a resident of [Unknown] due to the location of the family ranch within a valley located in the Mountains and connected to the rest of the world through a single mountain road that ran to the city, it was little surprise that Elinda was a stereotypical tomboy growing up, taking part in nearly every activity that her brothers did - exploring the mountain range when they could get away with it, paying for that mistake and running like hell when they pissed off one of the native Pokemon, roughhousing with her siblings and learning to do much of the ranch work alongside them. The moment that they received their first Pokemon and began to train them, Elinda followed almost immediately after, getting her first Pokemon - a Piplup - at the early age of six, and as her brothers began to battle she did as well. It wasn't long before she showed to have an extreme affinity for the art, quickly overtaking her brothers through a combination of knowledge, effort and learning to shape her tactics and strategies around her opponents as much as she did around her own Pokemon and their personalities.
As her older siblings began to decide what they wanted to do with their lives - two of them deciding to set out as trainers and leaving the valley they'd come to call home, with one remaining behind to learn the tricks of the trade from their parents - Elinda quickly began to decide that she wanted to follow in the footsteps of her oldest siblings. While she loved the valley, the ranch and the forests around it as much as any person could, the place had become something of a prison to her once she had learned that there was so much more beyond the barrier that the mountains formed around their home - Elinda, always the go-getter of the four children and only nine at the time, approached and asked her parents for permission to leave home as he brothers had. Needless to say, Elinda's mother and father were not exactly pleased by the idea of their nine year old daughter leaving home alone and said as much, compromising by saying they'd allow her to leave when she was a few years older, roughly the same age her two oldest siblings had been.
Ever the devious one, Elinda completely agreed to the compromise, only to take a small handful of belongings - as well as two eggs her brother had bred, an Aron and a Beldum to complement her by then Prinplup - and leave in the dead of night with absolutely no warning, making it to [Unknown] by morning and using her meager savings to hitch a bus out of the city for the ferry at the southern end of the route before her family could catch up to her. Fueled by adrenaline and the rush of finally getting out of the valley that she had spent her entire life in prior to then, Elinda continued on, using the last of her money to buy a ticket to [Unknown] Port in [Unknown], only hitting a dead end there once she realized that her lack of funds proved to be a major obstacle in continuing forward and leaving the region for one that possessed a League - still a very isolated region at the time and lacking Gyms of its own, Elinda had planned on leaving for one of the regions with an officially recognized League. Knowing full well that waiting in [Unknown] would be only asking for her parents or law enforcement to catch up to and find her, Elinda took the only other way out and began traveling north, challenging trainers along the way and slowly beginning to rebuild her financial base before reaching [Unknown], from there traveling north into the rough terrain that would become Victory Road in thirty years' time and then turning right back around to return to [Unknown], intending to earn the final portion of the fare needed to leave [Unknown] by battling trainers she had not yet beaten.
Having either confused those pursuing her through her erratic movements or just managing to avoid them through sheer dumb luck, Elinda managed to accrue the money needed to purchase a ticket out of the region by the time she managed to return to [Unknown] Port nearly a week after having left home, choosing to travel to Sinnoh at a whim. Boarding the ship, it would take nearly a month for the liner to arrive in Snowpoint, during which both of her eggs would hatch - buoyed by enthusiasm and optimism further increased by her eggs hatching, Elinda's first course of action after making landfall was to challenge Icepoint's Gym, a move made out of ignorance and one that awarded the girl with her first solid loss five Gym Trainers in. Having been up until then unaware of the fact that not all Gyms were equal in terms of trainer skill and prestige, Elinda accordingly revised her plans after talking to other trainers in the city and, while not pleased with it, decided to remain in Snowpoint until the spring arrived and the snowfall and freezing temperatures became more mild.
As the next four months passed - during which Elinda would turn ten - the girl would take the time she had to further train her team, evolving both Aron and Beldum into a Lairon and Metang, with Prinplup evolving into an Empoleon during the final month. Having rebuilt her self esteem over that time and studied the Gym Leader's Pokemon and tactics at length ever since her initial loss, Elinda challenged the Gym once again on a whim a few days before her planned departure date, narrowly managing to snatch a win the second time around, and with her first Gym victory under her belt Elinda left Icepoint and traveled to the southern, warmer part of Sinnoh, making her way through the Coronet Mountains (capturing a Geodude in the process) and beginning to tour the region, challenging Gyms as she came across them. By the time a full year had passed Elinda had managed to collect all eight of the region's badges, and with another full year left to spare before the triannual League tournament began she simply continued to train her Pokemon, making an effort to see the sights of the region her second time around it rather than just hunting down the Gyms. By the time that second year had passed, Elinda and her team, by then consisting of an Empoleon, Aggron, Metagross and Graveller, began making their way to the Pokemon League north of Sunyshore, arriving only days before the competition was to start.
Despite her age, Elinda did remarkably well, blowing through the preliminary matches with little apparent effort and holding her own during the main event against seasoned veterans, making it as far as the semifinals before she was finally defeated almost as soundly as she had been during her first time challenging Icepoint's Gym. Eleven years old at the time, Elinda didn't remain for the ending ceremonies - what many might have taken for her being a sore and ungraceful loser, however, was merely the girl losing interest in the event now that her part in it was done, and itching to travel elsewhere. Making her way back to Icepoint, it didn't take long - only a few seconds off the top of her head, actually - to pick her next destination, leaving Sinnoh for Kanto's Sevii Islands, intending to explore the tropical archipelago at length before making her way to Kanto's mainland to compete in that region's Gym circuit as she had Sinnoh's.
Arriving on Knot Island, it didn't take long for Elinda to begin powering her way through the archipelago, conquering Mount Ember, visiting Cape Brink on Boon Island and teaching her Empoleon Hydro Cannon during her time there, making her way to Kin Island and from there traversing Bond Bridge to explore Berry Forest and then later Floe Island to plumb the depths of Icefall Cave. It wasn't until Elinda made her way to Chrono Island that she would encounter anything of particular interest, however, but upon making landfall on Five Island she managed to overhear mention of a place only referred to as "Lost Cave" to the north, as well as mention of several trainers who had left for the cave days before but had yet to return. Elinda, being who she was, immediately had her interest piqued by the tidbit of information and, ignoring warning from the Pokemon Center staff, left for the small island to the north the day after. Entering the cave, Elinda used a variation of an old trick she had learned back in the Mountains - rather than bending the nonexistant twigs within the cave, however, Elinda simply had her Aggron drag his tail behind them to mark the path they'd taken.
It quickly became apparent that, as the inhabitants of Chrono Island had stated, Lost Cave was no ordinary cave, with many of the paths that Elinda and Aggron took seeming to inexplicably loop back onto their starting point regardless of which direction they took, and it was only after several hours of careful trial and error that they began to make progress with venturing deeper and deeper into the cave. As they got deeper and deeper they began to notice signs of the missing trainers - a discarded food wrapper here, a footprint there - and it was almost twelve hours after they'd initially entered the labyrinth that Elinda and her Pokemon finally found the group of trainers who had entered ahead of them, exhausted after having made it so deep that their path had ceased looping back onto their starting point - unlike Elinda, none of them had thought to mark their trail behind them. After having located them and led the group back out, Elinda was offered a chance to join the group - all of them were natives of the Sevii Islands intending to travel to the mainland to participate in the upcoming League challenge, and had simply been doing a tour of the archipelago as a final goodbye to the tropics before departing.
Seeing no real reason to refuse and having more or less intended on doing the same thing herself, Elinda agreed to take the group up on their offer, returning to Chrono Island with the five other trainers before leaving for Fortune Island where the group would spend the next month exploring, visiting Pattern Bush, Outcast Island, and Ruin Valley. Elinda, having been expecting to visit Quest Island after their stay on Fortune, was disappointed to find that particular island blacklisted by the group on account of one of the member's personal issues - having finally found people that she considered to be kindred spirits, though, Elinda simply made a mental note to one day return to Quest when she could before the group continued their tour of the archipelago, wrapping things up at Floe and Kin Islands before boarding a ship bound for Vermillion City on Kanto's mainland.
Upon arrival, Elinda was surprised to find that none of the other members in the group showed any real interest in finding and challenging the city Gym, more interested in exploring the city itself before moving on to either Fuchsia City or Saffron - unlike Elinda, they made it clear that they intended on entering the Pokemon League Tournament without collecting the eight regional badges, meaning that they would be required to take part in the pretournament qualifying matches first. Having been unaware that such a system was in place, Elinda's questions were answered with the idea that they were not interested so much in winning in the competition as much as they were simply taking part in the tournament for its own sake - still new to the idea of it, Elinda went and challenged Vermillion's Gym anyways, winning an easy victory before returning to explore the city with the group, capturing a Diglett during their time in the tunnel to the east, after which they continued southward to Fuchsia.
From there on out Elinda attempted to get used to the lifestyle that had been presented to her, and it didn't take long for Elinda to grow to enjoy it - without the pressure of needing to win every match she fought Elinda began to enjoy her battles more, and while she started losing matches in the beginning the then teenager (thirteen years old) quickly recovered her old win/loss ratio. With that another full year would pass, during which the group would complete a circuit of the entire region to arrived in Viridian City before making their way to the Indigo Plateau to the west for the League's qualifying matches, during which all six members of the group would make it into the League's official tournament. In the end two of them would be knocked out during the preliminary rounds, with Elinda herself competing against and defeating another two of them during the tournament's main event to make it to the semi finals - just as in Sinnoh, however, Elinda would lose again, albeit this time she would manage to come close to ending the fight in a tie. Unlike her previous League challenge, however, Elinda remained at the Indigo Plateau for the ending ceremony with the rest of the group, afterwards being forced to say friendly goodbyes as three of the other trainers decided to go their own ways afterwards - despite that, however, the group promised to reassemble at the Indigo League again in three years' time for the next tournament.
With three of their number gone but in relatively good spirits, Elinda and the other two trainers with her would continue west into the Johto region to repeat what they had done in Kanto, this time with Elinda completely ignoring every Gym that they came across. As with Kanto, the group focused on touring the region for its sights, getting to know the culture as much as they did the Pokemon and trainers - having completed their tour of the region after only a year but with two left to go until their return to the Indigo League, however, Elinda decided to break off from the group to travel to Hoenn. Unsure about leaving, one of the trainers decided to remain in Johto, intending on returning to the Sevii Islands to visit her family before the next League challenge - the other trainer, however, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of going back to the archipelago, decided to accompany the youngest member of the group to Hoenn. Leaving their colleague in Goldenrod, Elinda Aspen and the other trainer, Taichi Ugumi, would then make their way to Olivine City and from there to Hoenn.
Now fourteen years old and only with a single travel companion, Elinda and Taichi made much better time than they did as a group of six after arriving in Slateport - or rather they would have, but with two years left until the next Indigo League tournament the pair took their time, spending a month in the port city alone and enjoying the warm weather, battles with the local trainers and venturing north of the city to explore the Altering Cave, only leaving the city for Mauville after having exhausted Slateport entertainment wise. As with Kanto and Johto they would continue on in a similar manner but at a much slower pace, not wanting to travel the entire region and have too much time left to spare before having to return to Kanto to make good on their promise - something which turned out to much easier than they'd originally thought as they ran into obstacle after obstacle in the form of natural barriers, ranging from the fierce deserts of central Hoenn to the ashfalls caused by Mount Chimney that would periodically block off routes between cities.
In spite of the relatively difficult to traverse habitats, though, Elinda fell in love with the region - it's warmth, friendly people, dramatically diverse climates and Pokemon as well as its rich lore and unique cities, and as the first full year passed and Elinda became fifteen puberty started to set in, and after another few months she and Taichi began to like each other as more than just friends. As the second year began to come to a close, however, the pair were forced to say farewell to the region and traveled to Lilycove City to depart for Johto. After making landfall, both of them made their way back to the Indigo League just as promised to reunite with the other trainers they had traveled with in Kanto and in the Sevii archipelago - as promised, all six made it and competed in the League yet again, this time with the entire group managing to progress to the main rounds and four of them to the semifinals, with Elinda again being the last member of the group to be knocked out of rotation by a Destiny Bond attack which claimed the last Pokemon she had at the time. Once again they departed with the promise to keep in touch and Elinda, now sixteen, returned to Hoenn with Taichi with the intent to participate in the Hoenn League another three years from that point.
By then used to most of Hoenn's trials and how to deal with them, Elinda and Taichi set out for a renewed tour of the region, exploring every nook and cranny from the deepest reaches of Meteor Falls to the highest reaches of Mount Chimney, another year and a half passing the pair by as they became more deeply involved with each other over that time, and as the end of the second year began to approach them Elinda suggested leaving Hoenn to visit her home region, a request to which Taichi agreed to after being assured that they would be able to return in time for the start of the League's qualifying matches. Departing again from Lilycove and this time bound for [Unknown], to call it a nostalgic homecoming for Elinda would have been something of a mild understatement - even after almost ten years spent away from her home region [Unknown] Port had remained virtually unchanged as well as [Unknown] around it, the region seeming to have been frozen in time during her absence.
Upon disembarking from the ship she and Taichi virtually hit the ground running, Elinda leading the way as they blazed a trail to [Unknown] through Hollow Forest rather than take the safer, longer route, venturing northward to the harsh terrain that had served as a temporary haven to her all those years ago before breaking west for Izu and then south for [Unknown]. While somewhat nervous about it after so many years of silence between them, the first thing Elinda did after the couple arrived in the city was to head westward and into the Mountains, Elinda again leading the way along a seldom used dirt road that led westward into a pass between the imposing stone monoliths, eventually reaching a small valley of green nestled between the mountains around it - like [Unknown], the place had remained exactly the same as it was when Elinda had left it, untouched by time.
Her return home, to put it lightly, received a mixed response at first, with Elinda and Taichi approaching the house and her brother completely failing to recognize her upon answering the door, at least until she pulled the old duster that she had left home wearing, long since too small for her to wear, out of her bag. Between the mixed euphoria of her return, her reunion with her parents as well as the admonishment that was just as fresh as it would have been the day after she'd left and the mixed questions of exactly who the hell Taichi was the pair were invited to stay for the next few days, and during that time Elinda was welcomed back into the family as if nothing had ever really happened even as she and Taichi recounted what had occurred over the past decade and Elinda informed them of her relationship with the other trainer, he himself being welcomed just as warmly as she had been.
After several weeks spent with the Aspens and showing Taichi many of the childhood haunts that her and her brothers had known, nearly all of which were just as unchanged as the rest of the valley, Elinda and Taichi left the ranch with strict orders from her parents to stay in touch from that point on. Continuing their tour of the [Unknown] region, the pair made their way to many of the region’s cities and towns before taking the time to explore the then unsettled islands of northern [Unknown], from there looping around to begin their trek back to [Unknown] and from there to [Unknown] Port and finally a return to Hoenn a full year after they left. As before with the Indigo League, both Taichi and Elinda (now nineteen) participated with similar results, complete with a few surprise appearances from members of their original Kanto group who went out of their way to visit, the occasion completing itself with Taichi proposing to Elinda at the end of the League's closing ceremonies - having known Taichi for very nearly seven years and having more or less been dating him for four of those during which they'd traveled halfway across the world, Elinda agreed on the spot.
The months following the engagement would pass by all those involved like a whirlwind as Elinda's family did much of the work, Taichi unwilling to contact his relatives until Elinda tracked down his mother and brother, and with Taichi's consent sent them invites to the wedding that the Aspens were busy preparing - his father, however, was staunchly left completely uninvolved. After several months spent preparation the wedding was finally held in Lilycove City, with several of the Ugumi clan attending from Johto and nearly all of Elinda's extended family from [Unknown], both groups mixed in with friends of the bride and groom including the trainers they had traveled with as kids throughout Kanto, and several days after the wedding the newly wed couple would leave to spend their honeymoon in Undella Town, Unova, during which Elinda would turn twenty. The next several months afterwards would be spent idly exploring the Unova region's eastern half until it started to become rather apparent that both Taichi and Elinda had gotten a little more than they had bargained for during the honeymoon, namely in the form of nausea in the mornings as well as an increased appetite and Elinda's normal hyperactivity being slowed down to an almost normal pace.
Returning to [Unknown] for the first time since they had first visited the Aspen household, the couple briefly debated about what to do concerning the little surprise that had dropped into their laps before deciding to go ahead with it, beginning to prepare for what was going to be the next chapter in their lives from that point on. Returning once again to Hoenn, Elinda and Taichi purchased a small home in Lilycove towards the western edge of the city and began to prepare for the birth of their child, relying on their several years' worth of savings from their trainer careers to support them during that time, and seven months later Ryusuke Ugumi was born into the world.
Realizing full well that their days as a traveling couple were over, Elinda and Taichi began to settle in for a more conventional, less mobile form of living - Elinda, still unable to move very far or for long after the birth, remained home with their child for the first handful of weeks as Taichi began to devote his attention to finding a job capable of supporting them without the benefit of a higher education, and almost as soon as she was able to walk at length again Elinda joined him. After almost two months Taichi finally landed a job managing a local business, falling back on skills that, as much as he hated to admit it, had been provided to him through his own father. Elinda, lacking any experience as far as management or customer service went, was forced to look a bit further but eventually landed a job at the Safari Zone west of Lilycove thanks to her prior experience on her family's ranch as well as her virtually bottomless well of knowledge concerning any and all things Pokemon.
As the next few years began to pass the family by, with their son learning to walk, speak and otherwise advancing as most children his own age group did before being joined by a younger sibling, a sister, Elinda and Taichi began to become increasingly more accustomed to the lifestyle. Taichi's early mornings allowing him to care for their son at the beginning of the day and Elinda's hyperactivity ensuring she still had the energy needed to do so at the end of the day, with both parents making enough money off of their jobs to support themselves as well as the occasional extra buck or two on the side via battling when possible. As Taichi's business skills allowed him to begin climbing the ranks within the company, though, the burden of parenthood began to shift more and more towards Elinda as time went on, and by the time that Ryusuke had turned five they did virtually everything together.
The next four years would pass by in a similar manner until an event would cripple both father and son for life, with Elinda only being spared through dumb luck via a late day at work. While scraping together nearly all the funds the family had saved in reserve managed to pay for the medical bills, there were some things that money couldn't fix - while Ryusuke was guaranteed to regain full mobility with prosthetics it would ensure that he was not able to start as a trainer at the ages Elinda and Taichi did. Aside from that, Taichi would never walk again - between his mangled legs already beginning to heal and the nerves within them being just as broken as the muscles and bones prosthetics were not an option given the trauma the surgery would likely inflict, and the man would be bound to a wheelchair for the rest of his natural life.
Needless to say, the family dynamic within the household began to change. Between the money used to pay for the medical bills, Taichi being unable to work until his injuries healed as much as they were going to and Elinda's single job the family's financial situation was slipping, and in desperation Elinda began to look elsewhere for additional work. It didn't take long - after only a few weeks searching she was contacted by Devon, a possibility that she and Taichi had previously overlooked due to the distance between Rustboro and Lilycove. Having become well aware of her talents as a trainer after doing the usual background check that most companies run on job applicants, Devon had offered to pay Elinda to act as an exhibition trainer for events and tournaments sponsored in the company's name - between piling debts, powerful need to feed her family and the rather fat paycheck that the company was offering, Elinda accepted the offer in a heartbeat.
With Elinda being the one now forced to spend most of her time away from home due to the traveling involved in her job, Taichi began to become the one responsible for caring for their son as he underwent physical therapy and numerous surgeries over the next year. Elinda, meanwhile, spent much of her time traveling around Hoenn for Devon, eventually accepting a deal to work for the corporation's partner company Silph in a similar capacity overseas in Kanto and Johto. As she traveled, however, she began to hear things from coworkers, fans, and the general public alike - most of it trivial and undeserving of any real attention, but a few whispers here and there concerning her home region of [Unknown] caught her ear from time to time. Having traveled as far as Unova by then, Elinda requested a paid but extended leave of absence from her superiors - in light of their increased sales and her performance, they agreed.
Cutting her tour of Unova short and briefly but vaguely informing Taichi of where she was going, Elinda left for her home without informing her family back in Hoenn of her whereabouts and, as usual, failed to inform them for what was first weeks, and alter months – whether a deliberate act on her part or having simply slipped her mind would remain completely up to debate, but almost immediately after stopping by to visit her family and ensure that things were safe Elinda just as quickly seemed to drop off the face of the planet for the next five years. Unable to be located by law enforcement after being declared officially missing, with the only signs of activity coming from her PC as many of her longtime companions were either sent out to family members or friends for either safekeeping or as apparent gifts. Despite the sporadic activity, however, Elinda remained little more than an apparent ghost for several years until reemerging in the Hoenn region five full years after her disappearance.
As her older siblings began to decide what they wanted to do with their lives - two of them deciding to set out as trainers and leaving the valley they'd come to call home, with one remaining behind to learn the tricks of the trade from their parents - Elinda quickly began to decide that she wanted to follow in the footsteps of her oldest siblings. While she loved the valley, the ranch and the forests around it as much as any person could, the place had become something of a prison to her once she had learned that there was so much more beyond the barrier that the mountains formed around their home - Elinda, always the go-getter of the four children and only nine at the time, approached and asked her parents for permission to leave home as he brothers had. Needless to say, Elinda's mother and father were not exactly pleased by the idea of their nine year old daughter leaving home alone and said as much, compromising by saying they'd allow her to leave when she was a few years older, roughly the same age her two oldest siblings had been.
Ever the devious one, Elinda completely agreed to the compromise, only to take a small handful of belongings - as well as two eggs her brother had bred, an Aron and a Beldum to complement her by then Prinplup - and leave in the dead of night with absolutely no warning, making it to [Unknown] by morning and using her meager savings to hitch a bus out of the city for the ferry at the southern end of the route before her family could catch up to her. Fueled by adrenaline and the rush of finally getting out of the valley that she had spent her entire life in prior to then, Elinda continued on, using the last of her money to buy a ticket to [Unknown] Port in [Unknown], only hitting a dead end there once she realized that her lack of funds proved to be a major obstacle in continuing forward and leaving the region for one that possessed a League - still a very isolated region at the time and lacking Gyms of its own, Elinda had planned on leaving for one of the regions with an officially recognized League. Knowing full well that waiting in [Unknown] would be only asking for her parents or law enforcement to catch up to and find her, Elinda took the only other way out and began traveling north, challenging trainers along the way and slowly beginning to rebuild her financial base before reaching [Unknown], from there traveling north into the rough terrain that would become Victory Road in thirty years' time and then turning right back around to return to [Unknown], intending to earn the final portion of the fare needed to leave [Unknown] by battling trainers she had not yet beaten.
Having either confused those pursuing her through her erratic movements or just managing to avoid them through sheer dumb luck, Elinda managed to accrue the money needed to purchase a ticket out of the region by the time she managed to return to [Unknown] Port nearly a week after having left home, choosing to travel to Sinnoh at a whim. Boarding the ship, it would take nearly a month for the liner to arrive in Snowpoint, during which both of her eggs would hatch - buoyed by enthusiasm and optimism further increased by her eggs hatching, Elinda's first course of action after making landfall was to challenge Icepoint's Gym, a move made out of ignorance and one that awarded the girl with her first solid loss five Gym Trainers in. Having been up until then unaware of the fact that not all Gyms were equal in terms of trainer skill and prestige, Elinda accordingly revised her plans after talking to other trainers in the city and, while not pleased with it, decided to remain in Snowpoint until the spring arrived and the snowfall and freezing temperatures became more mild.
As the next four months passed - during which Elinda would turn ten - the girl would take the time she had to further train her team, evolving both Aron and Beldum into a Lairon and Metang, with Prinplup evolving into an Empoleon during the final month. Having rebuilt her self esteem over that time and studied the Gym Leader's Pokemon and tactics at length ever since her initial loss, Elinda challenged the Gym once again on a whim a few days before her planned departure date, narrowly managing to snatch a win the second time around, and with her first Gym victory under her belt Elinda left Icepoint and traveled to the southern, warmer part of Sinnoh, making her way through the Coronet Mountains (capturing a Geodude in the process) and beginning to tour the region, challenging Gyms as she came across them. By the time a full year had passed Elinda had managed to collect all eight of the region's badges, and with another full year left to spare before the triannual League tournament began she simply continued to train her Pokemon, making an effort to see the sights of the region her second time around it rather than just hunting down the Gyms. By the time that second year had passed, Elinda and her team, by then consisting of an Empoleon, Aggron, Metagross and Graveller, began making their way to the Pokemon League north of Sunyshore, arriving only days before the competition was to start.
Despite her age, Elinda did remarkably well, blowing through the preliminary matches with little apparent effort and holding her own during the main event against seasoned veterans, making it as far as the semifinals before she was finally defeated almost as soundly as she had been during her first time challenging Icepoint's Gym. Eleven years old at the time, Elinda didn't remain for the ending ceremonies - what many might have taken for her being a sore and ungraceful loser, however, was merely the girl losing interest in the event now that her part in it was done, and itching to travel elsewhere. Making her way back to Icepoint, it didn't take long - only a few seconds off the top of her head, actually - to pick her next destination, leaving Sinnoh for Kanto's Sevii Islands, intending to explore the tropical archipelago at length before making her way to Kanto's mainland to compete in that region's Gym circuit as she had Sinnoh's.
Arriving on Knot Island, it didn't take long for Elinda to begin powering her way through the archipelago, conquering Mount Ember, visiting Cape Brink on Boon Island and teaching her Empoleon Hydro Cannon during her time there, making her way to Kin Island and from there traversing Bond Bridge to explore Berry Forest and then later Floe Island to plumb the depths of Icefall Cave. It wasn't until Elinda made her way to Chrono Island that she would encounter anything of particular interest, however, but upon making landfall on Five Island she managed to overhear mention of a place only referred to as "Lost Cave" to the north, as well as mention of several trainers who had left for the cave days before but had yet to return. Elinda, being who she was, immediately had her interest piqued by the tidbit of information and, ignoring warning from the Pokemon Center staff, left for the small island to the north the day after. Entering the cave, Elinda used a variation of an old trick she had learned back in the Mountains - rather than bending the nonexistant twigs within the cave, however, Elinda simply had her Aggron drag his tail behind them to mark the path they'd taken.
It quickly became apparent that, as the inhabitants of Chrono Island had stated, Lost Cave was no ordinary cave, with many of the paths that Elinda and Aggron took seeming to inexplicably loop back onto their starting point regardless of which direction they took, and it was only after several hours of careful trial and error that they began to make progress with venturing deeper and deeper into the cave. As they got deeper and deeper they began to notice signs of the missing trainers - a discarded food wrapper here, a footprint there - and it was almost twelve hours after they'd initially entered the labyrinth that Elinda and her Pokemon finally found the group of trainers who had entered ahead of them, exhausted after having made it so deep that their path had ceased looping back onto their starting point - unlike Elinda, none of them had thought to mark their trail behind them. After having located them and led the group back out, Elinda was offered a chance to join the group - all of them were natives of the Sevii Islands intending to travel to the mainland to participate in the upcoming League challenge, and had simply been doing a tour of the archipelago as a final goodbye to the tropics before departing.
Seeing no real reason to refuse and having more or less intended on doing the same thing herself, Elinda agreed to take the group up on their offer, returning to Chrono Island with the five other trainers before leaving for Fortune Island where the group would spend the next month exploring, visiting Pattern Bush, Outcast Island, and Ruin Valley. Elinda, having been expecting to visit Quest Island after their stay on Fortune, was disappointed to find that particular island blacklisted by the group on account of one of the member's personal issues - having finally found people that she considered to be kindred spirits, though, Elinda simply made a mental note to one day return to Quest when she could before the group continued their tour of the archipelago, wrapping things up at Floe and Kin Islands before boarding a ship bound for Vermillion City on Kanto's mainland.
Upon arrival, Elinda was surprised to find that none of the other members in the group showed any real interest in finding and challenging the city Gym, more interested in exploring the city itself before moving on to either Fuchsia City or Saffron - unlike Elinda, they made it clear that they intended on entering the Pokemon League Tournament without collecting the eight regional badges, meaning that they would be required to take part in the pretournament qualifying matches first. Having been unaware that such a system was in place, Elinda's questions were answered with the idea that they were not interested so much in winning in the competition as much as they were simply taking part in the tournament for its own sake - still new to the idea of it, Elinda went and challenged Vermillion's Gym anyways, winning an easy victory before returning to explore the city with the group, capturing a Diglett during their time in the tunnel to the east, after which they continued southward to Fuchsia.
From there on out Elinda attempted to get used to the lifestyle that had been presented to her, and it didn't take long for Elinda to grow to enjoy it - without the pressure of needing to win every match she fought Elinda began to enjoy her battles more, and while she started losing matches in the beginning the then teenager (thirteen years old) quickly recovered her old win/loss ratio. With that another full year would pass, during which the group would complete a circuit of the entire region to arrived in Viridian City before making their way to the Indigo Plateau to the west for the League's qualifying matches, during which all six members of the group would make it into the League's official tournament. In the end two of them would be knocked out during the preliminary rounds, with Elinda herself competing against and defeating another two of them during the tournament's main event to make it to the semi finals - just as in Sinnoh, however, Elinda would lose again, albeit this time she would manage to come close to ending the fight in a tie. Unlike her previous League challenge, however, Elinda remained at the Indigo Plateau for the ending ceremony with the rest of the group, afterwards being forced to say friendly goodbyes as three of the other trainers decided to go their own ways afterwards - despite that, however, the group promised to reassemble at the Indigo League again in three years' time for the next tournament.
With three of their number gone but in relatively good spirits, Elinda and the other two trainers with her would continue west into the Johto region to repeat what they had done in Kanto, this time with Elinda completely ignoring every Gym that they came across. As with Kanto, the group focused on touring the region for its sights, getting to know the culture as much as they did the Pokemon and trainers - having completed their tour of the region after only a year but with two left to go until their return to the Indigo League, however, Elinda decided to break off from the group to travel to Hoenn. Unsure about leaving, one of the trainers decided to remain in Johto, intending on returning to the Sevii Islands to visit her family before the next League challenge - the other trainer, however, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of going back to the archipelago, decided to accompany the youngest member of the group to Hoenn. Leaving their colleague in Goldenrod, Elinda Aspen and the other trainer, Taichi Ugumi, would then make their way to Olivine City and from there to Hoenn.
Now fourteen years old and only with a single travel companion, Elinda and Taichi made much better time than they did as a group of six after arriving in Slateport - or rather they would have, but with two years left until the next Indigo League tournament the pair took their time, spending a month in the port city alone and enjoying the warm weather, battles with the local trainers and venturing north of the city to explore the Altering Cave, only leaving the city for Mauville after having exhausted Slateport entertainment wise. As with Kanto and Johto they would continue on in a similar manner but at a much slower pace, not wanting to travel the entire region and have too much time left to spare before having to return to Kanto to make good on their promise - something which turned out to much easier than they'd originally thought as they ran into obstacle after obstacle in the form of natural barriers, ranging from the fierce deserts of central Hoenn to the ashfalls caused by Mount Chimney that would periodically block off routes between cities.
In spite of the relatively difficult to traverse habitats, though, Elinda fell in love with the region - it's warmth, friendly people, dramatically diverse climates and Pokemon as well as its rich lore and unique cities, and as the first full year passed and Elinda became fifteen puberty started to set in, and after another few months she and Taichi began to like each other as more than just friends. As the second year began to come to a close, however, the pair were forced to say farewell to the region and traveled to Lilycove City to depart for Johto. After making landfall, both of them made their way back to the Indigo League just as promised to reunite with the other trainers they had traveled with in Kanto and in the Sevii archipelago - as promised, all six made it and competed in the League yet again, this time with the entire group managing to progress to the main rounds and four of them to the semifinals, with Elinda again being the last member of the group to be knocked out of rotation by a Destiny Bond attack which claimed the last Pokemon she had at the time. Once again they departed with the promise to keep in touch and Elinda, now sixteen, returned to Hoenn with Taichi with the intent to participate in the Hoenn League another three years from that point.
By then used to most of Hoenn's trials and how to deal with them, Elinda and Taichi set out for a renewed tour of the region, exploring every nook and cranny from the deepest reaches of Meteor Falls to the highest reaches of Mount Chimney, another year and a half passing the pair by as they became more deeply involved with each other over that time, and as the end of the second year began to approach them Elinda suggested leaving Hoenn to visit her home region, a request to which Taichi agreed to after being assured that they would be able to return in time for the start of the League's qualifying matches. Departing again from Lilycove and this time bound for [Unknown], to call it a nostalgic homecoming for Elinda would have been something of a mild understatement - even after almost ten years spent away from her home region [Unknown] Port had remained virtually unchanged as well as [Unknown] around it, the region seeming to have been frozen in time during her absence.
Upon disembarking from the ship she and Taichi virtually hit the ground running, Elinda leading the way as they blazed a trail to [Unknown] through Hollow Forest rather than take the safer, longer route, venturing northward to the harsh terrain that had served as a temporary haven to her all those years ago before breaking west for Izu and then south for [Unknown]. While somewhat nervous about it after so many years of silence between them, the first thing Elinda did after the couple arrived in the city was to head westward and into the Mountains, Elinda again leading the way along a seldom used dirt road that led westward into a pass between the imposing stone monoliths, eventually reaching a small valley of green nestled between the mountains around it - like [Unknown], the place had remained exactly the same as it was when Elinda had left it, untouched by time.
Her return home, to put it lightly, received a mixed response at first, with Elinda and Taichi approaching the house and her brother completely failing to recognize her upon answering the door, at least until she pulled the old duster that she had left home wearing, long since too small for her to wear, out of her bag. Between the mixed euphoria of her return, her reunion with her parents as well as the admonishment that was just as fresh as it would have been the day after she'd left and the mixed questions of exactly who the hell Taichi was the pair were invited to stay for the next few days, and during that time Elinda was welcomed back into the family as if nothing had ever really happened even as she and Taichi recounted what had occurred over the past decade and Elinda informed them of her relationship with the other trainer, he himself being welcomed just as warmly as she had been.
After several weeks spent with the Aspens and showing Taichi many of the childhood haunts that her and her brothers had known, nearly all of which were just as unchanged as the rest of the valley, Elinda and Taichi left the ranch with strict orders from her parents to stay in touch from that point on. Continuing their tour of the [Unknown] region, the pair made their way to many of the region’s cities and towns before taking the time to explore the then unsettled islands of northern [Unknown], from there looping around to begin their trek back to [Unknown] and from there to [Unknown] Port and finally a return to Hoenn a full year after they left. As before with the Indigo League, both Taichi and Elinda (now nineteen) participated with similar results, complete with a few surprise appearances from members of their original Kanto group who went out of their way to visit, the occasion completing itself with Taichi proposing to Elinda at the end of the League's closing ceremonies - having known Taichi for very nearly seven years and having more or less been dating him for four of those during which they'd traveled halfway across the world, Elinda agreed on the spot.
The months following the engagement would pass by all those involved like a whirlwind as Elinda's family did much of the work, Taichi unwilling to contact his relatives until Elinda tracked down his mother and brother, and with Taichi's consent sent them invites to the wedding that the Aspens were busy preparing - his father, however, was staunchly left completely uninvolved. After several months spent preparation the wedding was finally held in Lilycove City, with several of the Ugumi clan attending from Johto and nearly all of Elinda's extended family from [Unknown], both groups mixed in with friends of the bride and groom including the trainers they had traveled with as kids throughout Kanto, and several days after the wedding the newly wed couple would leave to spend their honeymoon in Undella Town, Unova, during which Elinda would turn twenty. The next several months afterwards would be spent idly exploring the Unova region's eastern half until it started to become rather apparent that both Taichi and Elinda had gotten a little more than they had bargained for during the honeymoon, namely in the form of nausea in the mornings as well as an increased appetite and Elinda's normal hyperactivity being slowed down to an almost normal pace.
Returning to [Unknown] for the first time since they had first visited the Aspen household, the couple briefly debated about what to do concerning the little surprise that had dropped into their laps before deciding to go ahead with it, beginning to prepare for what was going to be the next chapter in their lives from that point on. Returning once again to Hoenn, Elinda and Taichi purchased a small home in Lilycove towards the western edge of the city and began to prepare for the birth of their child, relying on their several years' worth of savings from their trainer careers to support them during that time, and seven months later Ryusuke Ugumi was born into the world.
Realizing full well that their days as a traveling couple were over, Elinda and Taichi began to settle in for a more conventional, less mobile form of living - Elinda, still unable to move very far or for long after the birth, remained home with their child for the first handful of weeks as Taichi began to devote his attention to finding a job capable of supporting them without the benefit of a higher education, and almost as soon as she was able to walk at length again Elinda joined him. After almost two months Taichi finally landed a job managing a local business, falling back on skills that, as much as he hated to admit it, had been provided to him through his own father. Elinda, lacking any experience as far as management or customer service went, was forced to look a bit further but eventually landed a job at the Safari Zone west of Lilycove thanks to her prior experience on her family's ranch as well as her virtually bottomless well of knowledge concerning any and all things Pokemon.
As the next few years began to pass the family by, with their son learning to walk, speak and otherwise advancing as most children his own age group did before being joined by a younger sibling, a sister, Elinda and Taichi began to become increasingly more accustomed to the lifestyle. Taichi's early mornings allowing him to care for their son at the beginning of the day and Elinda's hyperactivity ensuring she still had the energy needed to do so at the end of the day, with both parents making enough money off of their jobs to support themselves as well as the occasional extra buck or two on the side via battling when possible. As Taichi's business skills allowed him to begin climbing the ranks within the company, though, the burden of parenthood began to shift more and more towards Elinda as time went on, and by the time that Ryusuke had turned five they did virtually everything together.
The next four years would pass by in a similar manner until an event would cripple both father and son for life, with Elinda only being spared through dumb luck via a late day at work. While scraping together nearly all the funds the family had saved in reserve managed to pay for the medical bills, there were some things that money couldn't fix - while Ryusuke was guaranteed to regain full mobility with prosthetics it would ensure that he was not able to start as a trainer at the ages Elinda and Taichi did. Aside from that, Taichi would never walk again - between his mangled legs already beginning to heal and the nerves within them being just as broken as the muscles and bones prosthetics were not an option given the trauma the surgery would likely inflict, and the man would be bound to a wheelchair for the rest of his natural life.
Needless to say, the family dynamic within the household began to change. Between the money used to pay for the medical bills, Taichi being unable to work until his injuries healed as much as they were going to and Elinda's single job the family's financial situation was slipping, and in desperation Elinda began to look elsewhere for additional work. It didn't take long - after only a few weeks searching she was contacted by Devon, a possibility that she and Taichi had previously overlooked due to the distance between Rustboro and Lilycove. Having become well aware of her talents as a trainer after doing the usual background check that most companies run on job applicants, Devon had offered to pay Elinda to act as an exhibition trainer for events and tournaments sponsored in the company's name - between piling debts, powerful need to feed her family and the rather fat paycheck that the company was offering, Elinda accepted the offer in a heartbeat.
With Elinda being the one now forced to spend most of her time away from home due to the traveling involved in her job, Taichi began to become the one responsible for caring for their son as he underwent physical therapy and numerous surgeries over the next year. Elinda, meanwhile, spent much of her time traveling around Hoenn for Devon, eventually accepting a deal to work for the corporation's partner company Silph in a similar capacity overseas in Kanto and Johto. As she traveled, however, she began to hear things from coworkers, fans, and the general public alike - most of it trivial and undeserving of any real attention, but a few whispers here and there concerning her home region of [Unknown] caught her ear from time to time. Having traveled as far as Unova by then, Elinda requested a paid but extended leave of absence from her superiors - in light of their increased sales and her performance, they agreed.
Cutting her tour of Unova short and briefly but vaguely informing Taichi of where she was going, Elinda left for her home without informing her family back in Hoenn of her whereabouts and, as usual, failed to inform them for what was first weeks, and alter months – whether a deliberate act on her part or having simply slipped her mind would remain completely up to debate, but almost immediately after stopping by to visit her family and ensure that things were safe Elinda just as quickly seemed to drop off the face of the planet for the next five years. Unable to be located by law enforcement after being declared officially missing, with the only signs of activity coming from her PC as many of her longtime companions were either sent out to family members or friends for either safekeeping or as apparent gifts. Despite the sporadic activity, however, Elinda remained little more than an apparent ghost for several years until reemerging in the Hoenn region five full years after her disappearance.
ROLE PLAYER
OOC NAME, Slate
TYPE, OC Import[/font]
ROLE PLAY SAMPLE, Taking the lead ahead of their trainer, Mudkip and Riolu both remained aware of their surroundings as they acted as point guard but even as they did so both Pokemon couldn't help but quietly chatter away between themselves. Having only been hatched for the better part of two months, neither Riolu nor Mudkip knew much of the world outside of the Spine Mountains apart from what Elinda had told them - a fair deal given her tendency to be something of a chatterbox, but words would only be words and despite the fact that they had a job to do neither Pokemon could really turn their attention away from the valley beneath them. Simply put, it was the first place of its kind that either Pokemon had ever seen - while they were used to the evergreen forests and the sickly trees that grew up on the Spine Mountains themselves, this was the first time that either Riolu or Mudkip had seen so much green between the fields and the handful of trees who had not yet shifted to the typical reds and oranges of fall. They knew of snow - how could they not given where they'd been raised so far? - but the sight of the valley was invigorating in a way neither of them could really describe, and a big motivator to complete the task at hand. The sooner they got this done the sooner Elinda would feel comfortable leaving the safety of the Spine Mountains for the outside world.
After continuing to move further up the boulder strewn slope for several minutes, though, both Pokemon suddenly paused, Elinda herself taking the cue as Riolu and Mudkip stopped and briefly conversed to confirm that they both felt what the other did. It was more or less why Elinda had specifically requested the Pokemon that she had after ensuring the safety of her original team - between Riolu's aura sensing abilities and Mudkip's proficiency for situational awareness they made the perfect early warning system, and it was precisely that which Elinda had been counting on when she'd decided to attempt to capture the behemoth that called the rock strewn mountainside home. The moment the creature that was stalking them attacked, both of them were prepared and ready to dodge, having already gained a general sense of which direction the sneak attack would be coming from - as the Geodude charged the group, throwing up dirt and stone as it plowed the ground with Bulldoze Riolu nimbly rolled out of the way, with Mudkip leaping back along with Elinda before the Rock type passed by them and disappeared into the forest of stones on the other side of the pathway.
Letting out a small sigh of disappointment, Elinda wasted no time in waving her Pokemon off from a counter attack before quickly moving to vacate the area and move further uphill, both Riolu and Mudkip immediately moving to follow before once again taking the lead. It wasn't so much that Elinda didn't like Geodude - she'd had one as a partner for over two decades, but it simply wasn't what she'd gone there looking for, and if the Pokemon she wanted to find wasn't there it had to mean it'd moved further up the mountain. Hopefully not too much further, though - given the sheer size of the creature it'd start having difficulty once the slope started to get too steep, nevermind the cold and ice that was harmful to most Ground types. At the very least she'd know when they found it, though - given that the thing was well over the length of a bus it'd be very difficult for it to hide from Riolu, so hopefully they'd have enough early warning to get off the first attack.
[/font]
CHARACTERS, Ryusuke Ugumi[/font]
[/div][/td][/tr][/table]
[/center]
