#this exact personal code is the only thing that has protected Kamado and later Beni and Volo from Wander's pokemon

[jordemme-draws]

Ok so I saw @flower-seller wanted to hear more about Wander and that really made the desire to be normal about shit and the desire to Infodump about my blorbos go to war with each other so here's this: infodumping but with illustrations. Under a cut bc longgg. The pictures make it longer but just text feels wrong.

(Wander's actual name is Haruko btw, Wander was his codename and also kind of an apt nickname)

Haru learned Alphian Celestican written language from a very young age due to constantly playing in the ruins of Alph unsupervised. The unown were his friends and he spent hours exploring and generally entertaining himself during his time at Violet City Group Home.

This lasted until age 7 when he was adopted, which he was very excited about. What child doesn't want a loving family? His friends were very sad to see him go, but they knew this was important for him.

But not everyone who adopts a kid does it for good reasons. Standing out for being different puts a target on you for different reasons, and some people refuse to believe that children are autonomous little people with their own desires. Haru's first memories were at Celebi's shrine and between that and the Ruins of Alph he very quickly developed an interest in Johto's myths and legends.

Mori, Ayumu was a strict man in his late thirties, and he saw Haruko as more of a pet project than a son. Someone to mold to his own designs, and he had little patience for frivolities like folktales and myths. He collected shiny Pokemon as well as even rarer color mutations (albinism, melanism, piebald), but his crown jewel was a shiny liepard named Kronos.

The 'proper boys haircut' that was forced on Wander was the first of plenty of situations that gave him a serious aversion to touch.

But abuse has a habit of being revealed sooner or later and after three years Haru was returned to the VCGH. He was a lot more withdrawn for a while, and then a series of altercations began.

Bullying has always been a thing children do but it ramped up for Haru when he was adopted and then later returned, and a switch flipped in his brain, leading to a serious aggressive streak. These occurrences only grew more often as he got older and reached the age range that's generally considered hardest to get adopted in. The caretakers at VCGH decided the best course of action would be to transfer him to the Group Home in Olivine City at age 13, three years after he was returned.

He stayed at OCGH for almost two years, but the month before his 15th birthday he ran, which he'd been preparing to do for months. His goal was to get to goldenrod, and figure the rest out then.

Ironically despite having no trainer ID or anything, he does catch a venonat at the national park on the way.

Blueberry is his precious baby, a Tinted Lens + Modest nature venonat that grew attached to him after he fed it. He technically didn't have a PokeBall for her for like two weeks, but it's Johto and people walk with their pokemon out all the time.

Goldenrod is a big city that's easy to get lost in, and even when you stand out like Wander does, nobody is going to bat an eye at another 'trainer' hanging around the underground. Money is hard to come by especially when you aren't a legal trainer, and being functionally homeless for several months made Team Rocket's offer of food, a place to stay, and payment pretty enticing.

His first impression of Lyric was someone aggressively friendly, and pushy. But they very quickly became ride or die together, and they consider each other the sibling they never had. Lyric was honestly the first person Wander honestly gave a damn about, since he felt a pretty strong disconnect with other people.

During the raid on Rocket Headquarters, Wander and Lyric got the younger kids roped into team rocket shit out, but had the misfortune of getting caught on a stairwell by Petrel, and lance caught up to them.

Lance, a person that canonically ordered his Dragonite to use hyperbeam on a human being. Petrel sent out his pokemon, Lance's Dragonite used hyperbeam, and it batted aside the pokemon and kept going.

Wander shoved Lyric out of the line of fire, and it connected and went past his shoulder.

Wander is a person that understands that while pokemon are dangerous, it's their trainers that make things deadly. There's a reason his policy is "if you have a problem with a person, solve it with your own damn hands."

He was slapped with a gag order in return for a lighter sentence and was dragged off to Sinnoh, which set things in motion all the way to his being dragged to Hisui.