Miyoko Sumire

NAME — Miyoko Sumire
AGE — 21
GENDER — Female
SEXUALITY — Heterosexual
TRAINER CLASSES — Ace Trainer, Brutalist, Breeder
AFFILIATION — Unaffiliated
OCCUPATION — Trainer/Oddjobber


HEIGHT — 5' 10"
WEIGHT — 148 lbs
HAIR COLOR — Black
EYE COLOR — Turquoise
SKIN COLOR — Caucasian
ABNORMALITIES — N/A

Standing in at a relatively average five foot ten inches and weighing in at a fairly standard 148 pounds, Miyoko would normally not be someone to stick out of a crowd in most places - with somewhat pale skin, black hair and aqua colored eyes, the woman would fit in almost anywhere. While admittedly something of a tomboy and disregarding virtually everything short of basic hygiene, the one thing that the teenager has allowed herself to "indulge" in is her hair, having grown it far beyond what most would consider normal - when moving or in public Miyoko tends to wear it coiled over her shoulders to keep it out of the way and avoid accidents.

Clothing wise, Miyoko tends to keep it simple and cheap - and more to the point, comfortable and easy to move in, as she's known from a very young age that training Pokemon is a far more physical endeavor than most make it out to be. By and large, her most common attire typically amounts to no more than jeans, a t shirt and sneakers, although heavier - albeit comparatively plain and simple - clothing tends to be worn if the weather requires it.



"Complicated" is likely the single best word were a person forced to choose one as a descriptor for Miyoko. Like anyone else, the woman is equal parts the product of the people who conceived her, as loathe as she is to admit it, as well as that of the environment that she grew up in. That said, no one is as simple as most often appear to be in public, and Miyoko is no exception to this.

On the surface, there frankly isn't much to tell - for most people, what they see with Miyoko is what they get. A loud, obnoxious, fairly ego driven young woman with a rather strong inclination for an attitude best described as "tomboyish". Miyoko will not blink twice at the thought of getting dirty in pursuit of a goal or simply having a good time, nor will she balk at the idea of using underhanded methods of doing so.... provided that the other team started it and isn't playing fair, either. That said, Miyoko is not without a very clear, if albeit personally defined, moral compass, with very strong views on personal rights and a mild issue with most authority figures. Rather deviously intelligent, trying to challenge these views is likely to end poorly.

Above all, most of her actions, thoughts and opinions seem to be driven by little more than a "carpe diem" philosophy, with most of her fights, Pokemon and otherwise, initiated for the hell of it unless stated specifically otherwise. Aside from simply living life to the fullest, the woman's only stated goal has ever been to attain a Gym Leader position through her own personal merits.

As mentioned before, however, that's merely one side of the coin. While nothing about her public persona is a lie, it's merely that - everything she's comfortable showing other people. As an only child on a group of relatively isolated islands with a very small overall population, Miyoko's father played a pivotal role in her life as a single parent, and his slow decline and eventual death had devastated the woman. While not lacking in self esteem, the man's opinions had meant a great deal to her both as a child and an adult, and it was his guidance that had led her down the path of a trainer in the first place despite it arguably being to blame for the family's marital problems in the first place. For several years his declining health had tied her to the Sevii Islands and Vermillion to care for the man, something which she had gladly done. His insistence on her living life, however, freed her to pursue her own dreams, albeit with the end result being deeply conflicted feelings on the matter following the man's death.



Miyoko's story, bluntly put, was nothing special from the start. Born in Johto to a working woman and a traveling trainer who had decided to settle down and start a family with his significant other, what many took as the traditional family roles were somewhat reversed from the get go. Within only weeks of her birth, Miyoko's mother, earning the majority of the family income as someone holding a college degree and a stable job, would be the one to return to working, with her father being the one to remain home and care for their child. Having settled down in Azalea Town largely for its quiet and relatively rural nature and with her mother working in Goldenrod for up to several days at a time, Miyoko's early life was a fairly simple, restriction free one save for really only three rules. Don't venture east of Azalea Town, due to the Slowpoke Well and the easy to get lost in cave beyond it. Don't be out after dark for obvious reasons, although this one would be lifted at the relatively early age of fourteen. And don't venture into Ilex Forest without an adult, preferably her father, at her side.

Few of these rules stuck.

Pretty much from the moment that Miyoko was able to walk, talk and form complex thoughts and ideas, the concept of "boundaries" was one effectively lost on her. It didn't take long for Miyoko to start finding different ways out of the house, and with his wife at work more often than not the girl's father was brought to his wit's end trying to keep the child out of trouble. Eventually, he stopped trying altogether, settling for a measure that was equal parts insurance policy should the worst come to pass, and equal part bonding experience, with Miyoko receiving her first Pokemon at the age of seven - a Heracross caught during a father/daughter trip into Ilex Forest.

From that point on Miyoko more or less proved to be her father's child. Ecstatic with effectively being given free reign and able to take up something of a role that she had always looked forward to, particularly with the stories of her father's own adventures throughout Kanto, Johto and the Sevii Islands in his own youth, the child would more or less dive into being a trainer headfirst. Making a point of dragging the man along on her future excursions to Ilex Forest, it wasn't long before Miyoko picked up the art of battling.

Unfortunately, the changes to Miyoko's lifestyle did not come without cost. Already barely home as often as she would like, the young trainer's mother was not thrilled by the frequency with which she kept missing her daughter's presence in the household between work days. By and large, however, it did not cause a mess as arrangements were made for Miyoko to start scheduling things so as to be home, but between joining the Azalea Gym as a local trainer and her father's growing itch to return to his own old habits of traveling and battling, strain would begin to grow in the adults' marriage.

Eventually this would come to a head another two and a half years later as the cracks finally began to show, initially kicked off by Miyoko's wish to leave home on her own as a proper, League registered trainer. As someone who had never lived the life herself, the girl's mother was deadset against the idea in direct opposition to her father, who still maintained that some of the best times of his life had been on the road, and many of the friends he had traveled with people that he kept in touch with even to that day. While the argument had gotten fairly ugly, a compromise was reached in the form of a trip to Olivine City, by trainer method of walking rather than vehicle.

From that point on such trips would become the norm whenever Miyoko's mother could be persuaded, although the distance between the woman and her husband would eventually begin to show as the two began to speak to each other less and less. The marriage itself would finally break another two years after that when the woman filed for what would be a long and messy divorce. While the father would end up with custody of their child by the end of it all, a fair amount of damage would be done by the end of it, with Miyoko becoming heavily disillusioned with her mother over the course of the proceedings, particularly once news of a quiet affair behind the scenes came out. Her father wouldn't escape unscathed, either, driven to rather heavy drinking as a coping mechanism, although largely kept quiet and out of his daughter's sight as much as possible.

Following the end of it all nearly three years later, Miyoko would say goodbye to Azalea Town, her and her father moving out of Johto and to the Sevii Islands where the man had spent most of his youth growing up. Purchasing a small home on Fortune Island through many of the connections made during the period her father spent in the region, Miyoko would be fifteen years old at the time. By and large, in spite of the family drama, it would be a fairly happy time for the trainer - having deliberately gotten the home on Fortune Island where Pattern Bush was located, not much would change for Miyoko except for her relative standing among the local trainers. Having spent most of her early years training in a Gym and against her father's team, where she would have rated as a mediocre trainer on the mainland she instead was effectively at the top of the local rankings in Sevii, at least in Fortune Island. While traveling to the mainland was an expensive prospect, however, Miyoko's father hadn't forgotten about his daughter's desire to travel, and many of the following years would be spent hopping from island to island in between visits home.

A fair deal of this, however, would be done without her father. While much of the reasoning had been legitimate complaints of fatigue, much of that had been perceived as simply old age catching up to the man as well as stress from the divorce, especially considering the additional symptoms of nausea and a general lack of appetite. As the symptoms continued to drag on, however, Miyoko would eventually begin to push her father to see a doctor when he kept citing the general health problems as reasons not to travel with her. Seeking medical help confirmed little, with the doctor seen agreeing with the man's own sentiments, and for several of the years in Sevii it would appear to be a case of clinical depression, helped little by how often the man began to sleep. It wouldn't be until Miyoko returned home from one of her trips to find that jaundice had set in that an emergency trip would be made to Vermillion City in Kanto with the intent to see a proper hospital, something that the Sevii Islands lacked.

On being admitted, it didn't take particularly long for the man to be diagnosed with liver disease, a result of what had started as stress eliminating the man's appetite during the years of the divorce and the heaving drinking that had followed as a coping mechanism, the combination of the two killing the man's liver over the course of several years. While the practice of liver transplants is a fairly common one, the fact that Miyoko's father had contracted liver disease from drinking effectively barred him from the waiting list until he had quit the habit and gone six months sober, at least by the hospital's conditions. Additionally, the man's blood type likewise proved to be an issue - while he was a universal donor, he could only be given organs from someone with the same blood type.

While largely covered by medical insurance and in no immediate threat as at least a portion of the man's liver was still functioning, at least for the moment, the combination of factors involved put a stop to any of Miyoko's activities as a trainer from the age of 18 onwards. Leaving the home in Sevii in the hands of a family friend, the woman would settle in for the long haul in Vermillion as her father was kept at the hospital, largely for the simple purpose of slowing his deteriorating condition as well as the man's own insistence, intending to go cold turkey on his drinking habits. While withdrawal was admittedly a concern, the man reasoned that he was in a hospital already.

The following months would then settle into a fairly routine pattern. Aside from sleeping at the city's Pokemon Center as was her privilege as a registered trainer and battling the locals to earn the bare necessities to pay for food and what she could cover of the insurance, most of Miyoko's days from that point on would be spent in her father's room, often simply talking with the man to kill time. By the time that six months had passed and he finally qualified to be placed on the organ wait list, however, Miyoko would bypass that completely by offering to donate part of her own liver - as a direct blood relative sharing the same relatively rare blood type, it was the only alternative to what would likely involve months or years of waiting for a transplant that might not have come in time.

Following a week or two of preparation, the transplant itself was largely a success, with no immediate complications detected during the initial weeks following the operation. Younger and in far better shape than her father, Miyoko was recovered and out of bed days before the older man was, with him following nearly a week afterwards. Confined to the mainland due to the importance of the follow up appointments, much of her father's recovery time would be spent with his daughter in Vermillion. For several months the two would simply live out of the local Pokemon Center before finally pooling enough of their daily winnings from battling to afford an apartment for the duration of their stay in the city during the first year.

What had looked like a clean and clear win for the medical side, however, would sour towards the beginning of their second year in the city as many of the man's original symptoms would begin to creep back over him, this time in the absence of any sort of substance abuse. Rather than waiting for things to worsen by returning to Sevii as originally planned the pair returned to the city hospital yet again only for the events from two years previous to continue to haunt them. While Miyoko's donated portion of the organ was relatively healthy, parts of the original organ that had been properly functioning when the operation had occurred and been left in had developed cancer, a relatively well known risk factor of cirrhosis.

While recovered from the previous transplant and eligible for another due to the nature of the complication, Miyoko was locked out as a possible donor due to her own liver still recovering there wasn't enough of the organ left to safely remove another portion for transplant a second time. Between that and the man's blood type, placing him on the transplant list was merely a formality as more aggressive measures were taken as the small tumors had been caught early on before becoming metastatic. Using radiation and conventional surgery to target the growths, Miyoko and her father would be forced to remain in Vermillion and return to a wait and see mentality. While the initial treatments were again successful, tumors would again begin to develop another several months later, no longer limited strictly to the older portion of the original liver or even the individual organ. Shifted away from the organ wait list, Miyoko's father was instead lined up for intensive chemotherapy.

While the older trainer seemed to accept most of the news with weary resignation, however, Miyoko's reaction was initially one of denial. After having successfully beaten her father's earlier liver problems, the woman would stew in frustration over the inability to do anything helpful the second time around. As the therapy began to eat away at her father's health, however, the denial and frustration would instead give way to a sense of dread when the tumors that had been responding to the treatment began to grow again, instilling a very real fear that she was likely to lose her father, a fear that was realized on them being told that the cancer was resisting the therapy and no longer responsive to it.

Having had a year to come to terms with the fact, Miyoko's father accepted the news in much the same way he had before, and on being given two years to live his only request was being given the opportunity to set his affairs in order, returning to Sevii to do so. Most of the following year and a half would be spent in a state of dull shock for Miyoko, although the woman remained functional enough to help her father in setting things in order as his illness slowly began to incapacitate him. By the time that the last six months began to close in, however, Miyoko began spending as much time as humanly possible with her father during his final months. When the man's death finally came it was fairly peaceful, having passed away in his sleep at home.

Having come to accept it in the months leading up didn't make it any easier for Miyoko, although it left a number of changes in her life. Following the funeral and the reading of her father's will, nearly everything the man had, house included, had been left to his daughter - a daughter, frankly, who had conflicting feelings over the fact. While Miyoko was honestly thankful that nothing had managed to find its way into her mother's hands, a person that the trainer blamed - irrationally or not - for her father's death, the fact of the matter was that it left a lot of things that she simply didn't know what to do with.

Most of the belongings left in her possession admittedly had sentimental value, but while she was leery of the idea of taking his Pokemon under her care, Miyoko was able to deal with that. What she had trouble with, more than anything else, was the idea of continuing to live in the home they had shared, at least in the immediate future. The place was too empty with him gone, and more to the point, the memories of the preceding months too painful for her to deal with living inside a constant reminder of them every day. In the end, she decided to do exactly what she had intended to as a child, and what her father had urged her to do in the months leading up to his passing.

Staying in Sevii only long enough to finalize the family matters and payments, Miyoko would do much as they had during the trip to Vermillion, leaving the house on Fortune Island unofficially in the care of a friend. Officially, on paper, Miyoko would put the home up for lease, intending to use whatever rent didn't go towards maintenance costs as an emergency fund should she ever need it, and a short visit to the ferry dock would see her once again bound to Stellara. Unlike before, however, the woman had no set return date planned.

The next two years would be odd ones, largely defined by Miyoko coming to terms with what her life was now. Following an ill advised attempt at challenging one of the region's newer Gyms which went remarkably well with one Pokemon sporting a type disadvantage - albeit still a close loss - the woman would begin moving from place to place. Not quite a vagrant, many of the needs in Miyoko's life would be paid for by the trainer taking on odd jobs and networking between acquaintances, and as the second year drew to a close Miyoko would finally begin to show signs of moving on with her own life.



NAME — Rocky
LEVEL — 5
SPECIES — Heracross
TYPE — Bug/Fighting
EGG GROUP — Your Pokemon's egg group.
ABILITY — Guts
HELD ITEM — None
GENDER — Male
HEIGHT — 5' 5"
WEIGHT — 128 lbs
MOVE LIST — Endure, Arm Thrust, Bullet Seed, Night Slash, Horn Attack, Leer, Megahorn
PERSONALITY — Rocky is, to put it lightly, not entirely there... at least outside of battles. A good natured Pokemon in every sense of the word, Rocky is every bit the stereotypical big guy with a heart of gold. It takes a lot to get him annoyed much less angry, which is in all likelihood a very good thing considering who his trainer is. That said, the Pokemon can't ignore his nature and all but lives for battling, and when the fighting actually starts the apparent slowness of the Pokemon seems to disappear. Quick to act and incredibly cunning for what many assume to be just a Bug with a meathead, Rocky nevertheless tends to prefer the direct approach to fights, taking and dishing out punishment in equal measure. While he feels pain in very much the same way as anyone else does, for Rocky it serves as a motivator more than a deterrent - a challenge to see how much further he can go and how much of that beating he can return to his opponent.

PLAYED BY SPARTAN