[attr="class","TRAINER3"]

STARCHILD & THE FREE SPIRIT

Twinleaf is small, but the community is close, and Teena Hawthorne has her helping hand in nearly everyone else’s plight, big or small. When a new family shows up in town to settle themselves, she organizes the welcoming party. When another family nearly loses their entire home in a fire, she lends her carpentry knowledge to the rebuilding effort. And when a single mother, one that reminds her of herself, suffers the nightmare of losing her child, Teena is the at the forefront of the search effort, because her child too, is also missing.
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Lake Verity. He wanted to show the new kid Lake Verity. He convinced them, with the allure of adventure and discovery; a legendary pokemon lived in the water, and no one they knew had ever seen it. “We’ll be the first.” Johnny tells his friend. Little does he know, as he guides his companion by the hand to run past wild pokemon in the tall grass, that his sense of direction is not to be trusted. Hours later, with feet sore, hands rugged and breath shortened, he finally, in a begrudging tone to mask his fear, admits it. ”We’re lost.” Johnny can only grimace when his friend corrects him by stating You mean you got us lost, but the fact remains the same. They are lost.
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More hours past, and it gets terribly late. When they’re finally found, the children race into the arms of their mothers. Heartfelt embraces are adorned by stern reprimands, and thankfully, they all return home. Lesson learned, one would think, but only several days past before young Johnny is enticing his friend to attempt the journey again.
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TRAGEDY STRIKES

Twinleaf is small, but the community welcomes strangers. The person who shows up to Teena Hawthorne’s home, however, is no stranger. Teena tells Johnny to go out and busy himself while the grown-ups talk, and the teenager senses the tension; what she tells him is not an idea, but a command for his own good. Only half an hour passes before the person leaves, and when Johnny comes back inside, his mother smiles at him. Then she begins to cough very heavily. Coughing turns into physical heaving, which turns into Teena writhing in pain on the floor. Johnny calls for help, and a local doctor attempts to relieve her of her pain. He fails, miserably, and the result is fatal. In her final, incredibly brief moments, she struggles to whisper things like “Poison” and “Team Rocket” and “I love you, son.” among other things. Johnny is now an orphan, with no reason, as far he’s concerned, to stay in Twinleaf any longer.
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HERO FOR HIRE

”I quit.” He repeats the words to himself, growing more gleeful with each utterance. He’s done working at the poke-mart and he tells his manager as much. It’s time for him to focus on his career as a trainer. Or rather, “a hero,” like he always used to say as a child. He sets up flyers all over Jubilife. Johnny Hawthorne, Hero Trainer for Hire, no Job too Big or too Small! and waits for calls to come flooding in. They don’t. He needs to put his name out there, and he realizes as much. So he sets out, and makes it a priority to have the whole of Sinnoh learn his name.