Knox's long-winded explanation

"Alright, so... may as well start by catching you up on me, then I'll give you my side of things here. I was brought in about a month ago, maybe a little less. I don't think it was too long after the whole incident at Mermaid Haven, I think. ...Anyway, I said this before, but I may as well say it again. The name's Nicholas Knight. You can call me Knox. I was a loner who left behind a dump of a home in Unova to come to the region three years ago, then joined up with a crew of closely-knit misfits called the Conch City Carvanha's, not to be confused with those shitheads near Zebra. We were pirates, of course. We got fat taking our cut from the wealthy making trips between the islands. Our leader was Jasmine Katelyn Stratus, a woman with a bit of a romanticized idea of what pirates were, but still more than practical when it came to our work. There were eleven others, myself included, who I might tell you about later because otherwise this shit's gonna be long-winded. For the next two years, we all became closer than close. Those people were the only ones I've ever really considered friends or family. The trouble came when we started doing jobs for an anonymous client - mostly nonviolent heisting. We got paid extravagantly, including things like their 'Shadow Pokemon'. Probably a familiar story to you, but to cut it short, we eventually figured something was up, and decided to try and cash out with what we had and lay low for a bit. Only they decided they weren't fucking done with us yet. When we made a last stop before leaving Wakino, we were ambushed by Team Aether and their associates. They turned the pokemon they gave to us against us, stabbed Jasmine, and proceeded to unleash a vicious beatdown on the rest of us. We all started panicking, some tried to make a distraction for others to get away, others got pinned immediately. I was jumped by five guys, and I only managed to get out because I can liquify my body. I got away with my injuries, but by the time I was able to reassess the situation it was over - and they had gotten away. For a year I thought they had killed my friends - I laid low and looked for any sign of them I could. And when I felt like I exhausted all of my options, I took a boat to Sepia and started fresh, studying the occult and keeping my ear to the ground for any news of this mystery group or my crew.

Not long ago it was Lecia - or rather her servant Gran - who found me, and it seemed PIRATES had done its homework. They knew exactly who I was, and they offered me a pardon for my crimes if I worked for them. More importantly, it seemed like they had information on the bastards who jumped us. So I joined. And I got assigned to the Mutiny. Funny enough, they were on Sepia at the time, so I just took a ship back home... Shit wasn't particularly focused at first - it seems they were just investigating random shit on the island at Med's behest. The old Mizou family mansion for one, where were discovered two gods are sleeping and will wake the fuck up if anything disturbs them. There was also a pair of pirates named Alicia the Radiant and Buddy the Malignant, who attempted to raise an army of pumpkin pokemon in some misbegotten plan to take over the world. What dumbasses. An Aether admin also attacked us with her robots on the way out of Sepia. That would be this world's version of Lecia, named Alyssa - though we didn't formally find that out until a few days ago. More on that later.

After Sepia, we sailed straight back to Conch, as I recall, to help Med with whatever demon problem was in her head. We fixed it with some dream-world shenanigans or another, but in the end it was decided we wouldn't be traveling together anymore. Whatever. We decided to go looking for more signs of Aether. Specifically Jackknife Island. You heard the rumors about that place? Well, two things about it. Team Aether had a base there where they were converting wilds into Shadow Pokemon, and there was also some weird entity there that haunted people's dreams. We later learned it was 'something that shouldn't exist in this world'. If you read the memo that Murphy gave us, it's what was called 'Missingno' in that. It started out trying to take over Mel's body - and even infiltrated us for a little bit, but that night we all entered the dream world and discovered the truth of it. And after a long battle, Melanie forcefully incarcerated it inside of herself - and as I understand, made peace with it and merged with it. If she was fine with it, then I saw no problem with it either. That's what got her kickstarted on the path to becoming a wakinese god, but it's been a long road of her trying to contact the gods of the pantheon and help with shit. Anyway, we kicked all traces of Aether ass on the island afterwards and left. There's one major thing here that's extremely important to me, but I'll get back to it.

Next was Ark, where we pissed around a bit and spent some time recovering from the previous job, but when we heard of suspicious activity at an abandoned oil rig, we decided to take a look. Initially it was just ghosts, but Aether showed up to the damn place anyway - or their pirate mercs did. We beat the shit out of them and threw them in the brig, but they joined us later. Anyway, on our way out of the oil rig, Aether's White Water division, the same one responsible for the Mermaids going all fucking nuts before, summoned goddamn Kanaloa on us and promised him the entire city of Ark. We weren't letting that shit happened, so we kicked his ass back to the Netherworld. Kanaloa claimed the souls of the idiots that summoned him in exchange, and then he chilled out a little.

Now, here's what -else- happened on Jackknife, that ultimately decided our next move. While kicking their asses, we fought someone that was heavily armored up, face obscured and all that. I didn't think of it too much at first, but when we knocked her unconscious during the fight and her mask fell off, I saw Robin, the resident sniper that had been a part of the Carvanhas. ...She was alive, and they had been using her as a soldier. She was sickly and pale, and I took her back to the Mutiny to give her the best medical care we could. We determined with Lecia's help that the armored suit she had been wearing was some kind of mind-control device that blocked out her personality, implanted suggestions, and increased her aggression. They turned her into little more than a goddamn robot. I was PISSED. ...But I was also relieved. And more than that, there was the revelation that at least some of them were alive. I asked Oscilla to help me do a little memory diving to determine the state of her mind - don't look at me like that goddammit, it was important. I learned two things - that Robin was a goddamn trooper and fought against her mind control, killing major Aether executives during her captivity, and that two other members of our group, Kimiko Miyama and Selene had gotten away cleanly. I frantically put out a line through old encrypted channels to try and get ahold of Kimi, who had been our tech expert, and I succeeded. So we set out for her location - Hermit.

We stopped at Mt. Abalone for a breather, a gym fight and some business Melanie needed to take care of that also got me possessed by Kaane, but that's not important. In Hermit I talked with Kimi at the lighthouse library, only to discover she had been working with the gym leader there, Dr. Hana, in protecting a prototype weapon that had been developed... from an organization that was very likely Aether. We succeeded in routing one of the more problematic attackers, and also rescued Mirai, who Aether tried to kidnap in all the confusion. ...We would have gotten a break after that, but Selene, who had been with Kimi, told me she sensed her brother August on the island. ...Another one of our crew, and one she had a link with through a pair of dragon legendaries. August was a jackass, the second in command on the ship, a stickler about rules, a braggart who always showed off his strength... and the closest thing I ever had to a best friend. ...So of course we set out immediately to try and find him. And at the aether lab we infiltrated... there he was, looking like goddamn Cyclops out of the X-Men. Not an armor suit like Robin's, no. He seemed to be more autonomous than that. But he didn't know who I was. His hair was a different color - probably dyed. But all the same, he seemed to have no choice but to obey his superiors. I was determined to try and make him remember something during our fight. My name. His name. His sister. The weight of my fists against his face. Eventually, it seemed like he remembered the slightest bit about Selene...

And then it fucking happened. They set off a bomb that had been implanted in his head, and hospitalized most of us. There was very little left of him - August, the brother that Selene had trusted me to find, the only jackass I ever felt a friendly rivalry towards... gone. Just. Like. That. I was a mess afterwards, and I don't mean just from the wounds. But during my stay, I had... help. Support from the Mel and the others. ...It meant a lot. I managed to keep it together enough to focus... and I realized that if I'm going to stop these sons of bitches, that I'm going to have to get stronger. I'm not letting a single. Damn. Thing. Get between me and Team Aether now. That's what led us coming back to Conch, where I discovered... who I used to be, before Aether changed everything. ...I'll tell you all about that sometime, if you're curious. Though that's not who I am now... it still left me far stronger knowing just what happened, and what I had lost. And then, after some speaking with the crew of the Victory, we came here to investigate a sunken city. And we found you."