Iskander

Truth is not easy. Truth is not kind. Truth simply is, and sometimes the truth can break a person. Cain's story starts with his family. A proud old money family descended from an ancient line of brave and noble knights, the Iskander's past is one of noble heroes who gained their wealth and prestige by crusading on the battlefields and protecting the ancient kingdom of Kalos through strength at arms and their bonds with their pokemon. Having rose from knights to nobles, and then from nobles to aristocratic financiers, the Iskander family had long abandon the battlefield for the boardroom, and had risen to prominence as one of the world's most prominent financial families through their hard work and cunning. With tentacles in numerous industries, and controlling interest in many famous companies like Silph Co and Poke'Mart, to say that the Iskander family was "wealthy" would be an understatement. Through their diligent work in the business world stretching back generations, they had managed to become among the top wealthiest business families, a title that earned them the right to have a seat on the board of the Global Pokemon League Administration, the governing body above the regional leagues that regional chairpeople are forced to answer to. Each of the board chairs belong to one of the most elite families of the world, and the Iskanders had earned their seat through their years of determination to rise to the top.
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It was into this background of noble heroes and hard workers that Cain was born. From day one, he was raised to be ordered, respectable, hard working, and to always honor the family name. Like the Iskanders of the past, he was schooled in swordplay and pokemon battling, as per the traditions of the family, and raised to be strong in both body and mind. Educated by the finest private tutors money could buy, Cain's childhood was one marked by lots of work and little time for play, though in the time he did have to himself he enjoyed the company of his pokemon, and in particular his Zorua, his first pokemon and best friend. His Zorua was a happy, fun-loving pokemon, and something of a prankster, and the two of them would often pull good-natured pranks on servants and others around the Iskander household to relive the stress that came with the rigorous education and demanding martial and pokemon combat training that filled the majority of Cain's days. Regardless, Cain's early life was for the most part happy; his family's wealth afforded him a comfortable life, and his parents loved and appreciated him. While they made him work hard, that push to make him earn his own way came out of a loving desire to assure he didn't grow up spoiled like other wealthy children, and it very much paid off for both Cain and his parents. Cain had grown into a respectful, disciplined, hard-working young man, strong in mind and body, and having a sense of justice that permeated his worldview.
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Everything seemed to be going fine...then Cain's mother died. It happened seemingly out of nowhere. One night, while Cain's father and mother had been at a benefit, the two of them had drunken a bit too much wine, and had a bit too much fun. Speeding through the night in one of his sportscars, with his wife by his side, Cain's dad lost control of the wheel and crashed. He bairly survived the accident, but his beloved wife, Cain's mother, did not. He was left bitter, angry, and blamed himself for her death. He withdrew from Cain and the world. Cain, on that day, went from loving his father to starting to hate him, blaming him for his mother's death. He saw him as a hypocrite, raising him to be disciplined and strong, yet slipping up and having a moment of weakness. Cain vowed to himself to never have a moment of weakness like his father....never to "slip up" like he did.
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As Cain grew older his father would bring him to work, having him shadow him during the day to see how business was done and what work went into running the Iskander financial empire. While most of the day was spent in education under his father, there would be long stretches where Cain was left alone due to his father having to attend a meeting with information too sensitive for his son to hear. Unlike the happy time Cain spent learning and growing in his younger days, this advance learning was cold and devoid of joy. Depression had shattered his father, making him distant and unfeeling towards his son. The work they did no longer had a higher calling behind it like before. It was cold, efficient, joyless work....but even then Cain still was young enough to be restless. In those moments he was left alone, he'd often wonder what his father was keeping from him. What kind of things the Iskander financial empire did behind closed doors. He knew of criminal organizations that often hid behind and had dealings with legitimate businesses, and due to his past mistake could not help but wonder if his father kept him away from these meetings due to having some shady dealings of his own. At first he wrote these thoughts off, assuring himself he was being paranoid and that he should think rationally. However, one day, his curiosity got the best of him, and he snuck out of the office to go take a peek at what his father was doing behind closed doors.
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Cain regretted that decision for the rest of his life.
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Sneaking through the air ducts of his father's office to try and locate his dad, as he blindly crawled around in the dark, he heard a horrific sound. It echoed through his ears, shrill, stark, and clear. The tortured screams of a Pikachu, crying out in immense pain. Disturbed and sickened by what he heard, but unable to turn away, he moved towards the sound, looking through a vent in the air ducts to see why the pokemon was in such pain. The scene he witnessed shocked him. He saw his father listing on as several scientists demonstrated a twisted device to him. An "Infinity Reactor" they called it, a device they said harvested energy from the life force of Pokemon, which they called "Infinity Energy." The entire thing sickened Cain. Seeing that poor, helpless pikachu, suspended in a vat with wires and tubes piercing its flesh. Hearing its tortured screams as the life force was being sucked out of it. Seeing the twisted smile on the scientists's face as he gleefully announced that the rest of the Global Pokemon League Administration board had already thrown their funding towards his project, and that the Iskanders where the last family they needed to get on board. Disgusted with what he saw, Cain's horror became rage. That day, he dedicated himself to delivering justice upon his dad, and would not stop until he took his company...the only thing he had left that he loved...from him.
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He started immediately putting a plan into motion. Several days later, he told his father he wished to try a more hands-on approach to learning the ways of business, and offered him a challenge. He told his father that if he gave him a 2% share of the Iskander Financial Group that he could make back 100 times that share's worth in one year. Taken back yet utterly intrigued by his son's sudden boldness, he gave Cain the share, and thus was set into motion the first step of his plan to bring down justice upon his corrupt father. Trying to get evidence of the shady dealings his father and the other members of the board where aware of, Cain began his spying on his father again. Using similar tactics to before, he was this time able to record the dialogue between the scientists and his father, as well as catch the device on video. Much to the surprise and disappointment of Cain, his father never said anything significant to the scientists. He never once caught him agreeing to their deal on tape, and for some reason the scientists seemed to be giving him the same song and dance. Part of him wondered if his father actually had a heart, and was stubbornly refusing to sign on to the deal that the rest of the Global Pokemon League Administration Board had signed onto. However, he quickly pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind. This man killed his mother. He was complacant in the face of the horrible abuse of pokemon. He was guilty, and he would pay.
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While he could not get his dad agreeing to the deal on tape, the footage of the machine and sadistic scientists on tape where incriminating enough. Hoping to appeal to the human decency of the rest of the executives under his father, he showed them the footage, and exposed the evil his father was involved in to them. He told them that if they pooled their shares, between their 49% and his 2% they would have 51% of the company, and thus the power to throw his father out of the CEO's chair. While company bylaws mandated that an Iskander always be sitting at the head of the company, Cain proposed himself for the job of succeeding his father. The board, shocked and horrified by the device and their CEO's seeming involvement with it, agreed to Cain's plan. The board was set. This was checkmate.
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On the night of a raging thunderstorm, Cain confronted his father. He told him that he had made back the money he promised to, and in significantly less time than one year. His father thought he was joking, but then he slammed a briefcase down in front of him, opening it up to reveal a thick pile of freshly printed documents. He told his father coldly "The Iskander Financial Group is mine now. I know what your doing. That horrible Infinity Reactor. I can't let you get away with evil like that, so I bought out the Iskander Financial Group from under you. I'm the CEO now. In a few days, I'm buying this house...and I want you to leave and never come back." His father was genuinely shocked and taken aback. He tried to plead with Cain. He told him that he had refused the deal time and time over, that he was the only one on the Global Pokemon League Administration Board that refused to help fund evil like that. Cain could not listen, too blinded by his own rage and too engrossed in the joy of vengeance he lashed out at his father. He called him a liar, coward and murder. Tears in his eyes, he let all his feelings loose, calling him a deceitful snake who murdered his mother, and now claiming he was lying to him about killing pokemon in the name of profit. Mentally shattered by both Cain's betrayal and now the dredging up of the painful memories of losing his wife, Cain's father jumped out the window of their mansion, killing himself right in front of his own son. If this happened in his childhood, Cain would have cried. However, now he felt satisfaction. Looking at the limp, lifeless body of his father, sitting in a pool of blood on the courtyard below, Cain felt as if justice had been done. He smiled at his father's corpse, feeling the twisted joy that comes with exacting revenge in the first time in his life.

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"...if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

With all the resources of his family's vast business empire at his disposal, as well as his father's seat on the Global Pokemon League Administration Board, Cain instantly discovered that his father was not the liar he thought him to be. Looking through his father's papers and files, it became clear that he was, in fact, stubbornly refusing to back the Infinity Reactor Project, and also had compiled a vast log of incriminating evidence on the other member of the Global Pokemon League Administration Board, including the chairman of the board...who was the richest and most powerful man in the entire world. Among these files was a long document detailing the rational behind the Infinity Reactor Project, and his father's own counter proposal. According to the documents, the Infinity Reactor Project was started as a means to "save" the pokemon world. The documents said the world's dependency on fossil fuels was endangering not only the environment and pokemon, but also the sustainability of human society. The studies and predictions the Global Pokemon League Administration Board had collected showed that in the very near future the world would face an energy crisis that threatened to cause the downfall of society. The Infinity Reactor project, the documents claimed, was started by the chairman of the Global Pokemon League Administration Board board as a solution to this looming energy crisis. Cain's father had different ideas. In his document was a list of names of scientists, and details of an alternative plan he was going to propose to the board. A plan that would not require the death of pokemon...but one that sounded absolutely insane on paper. His plan? Look into other dimensions for viable alternative energy sources, and the more Cain read the hard data and schematics of what his father was proposing, the more he started to believe it could work.
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However, while this discovery made Cain finally appreciate his father, it also made him look within, and become both frightened and enraged at his own weakness and potential for cruelty. Sickened about how his passion and vindictive nature had gotten the best of him, he dedicated himself to carrying on his father's vision as means of atoning for his mistakes and sins. His first official act on the Global Pokemon League Administration Board was calling out the corrupt Infinity Reactor project for what it was, but also proposing an alternative to the very real crisis the board had seen looming in the future. Showing the data his father had gathered and the team he was going to assemble, Cain swayed the board to go with his plan, and thus a massive project to create a portal that could be used to travel to other dimensions was put into motion with the full force of the Pokemon League behind it.For the first time in a long time, Cain once again had a bright, optimistic mindset. He would make right what he did wrong. He would save the world from disaster. His father's efforts would not be in vain. He would do his dad right. As the machine came together, Cain was filled with joy he hadn't felt since his early youth, before his mother died. On the day of its first test, he demanded that he be the first one to go through the portal, despite protests by the rest of the board and his family. Ever brave, bold, and passionate about what lay ahead, he ignored all the protests, and on the testing day was the first to step through the threshold into another world.
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However, what was meant to be a historic leap quickly turned into a nightmare. A malfunction occurred in the portal's systems, and Cain was flung to a place that to this day he dose not speak of. However, while he keeps what he saw on the other side of the portal a closely guarded secret, it horrified him and shook him to its very core. It was a place so foul and twisted that the journey left him utterly shattered, broken, and changed. When he returned his team of pokemon, who where already very well trained, had become significantly more battle hardened and aggressive towards humans other than their master. Cain himself was battered and broken by the experience, both mentally and physically. The horrors of that place...the utter depravity and darkness...shattered what little decency he had left. To know horrors like that existed out in the wider multiverse made him realize that if said horrors where to come to his world, it would be utterly unequipped to combat them. How he escaped that mysterious world beyond the portal is a secret he keeps to himself to this day, but when arriving back after a period where the world thought him lost forever he knew what he had to do.
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With the Global Pokemon League Administration Board now dead set against Cain's former vision for the future, they squabbled and debated on a way forward. The Chairman of the board adamantly pushed that they should return to the old Infinity Reactor project. While this talk disgusted Cain, he largely ignored it. He had much bigger issues to deal with than a simple energy crisis. He knew there where things out in the multiverse that could do more damage in one day than an energy crisis could do over hundreads of years. Everywhere he looked he saw weakness and chaos. The board where selfish, money-grubbing cowards. Regions where largely left to govern themselves. There was no standing military forces of any kind that could defend the world should the horrors out there come knocking, and the International Police and local police forces where woefully unequipped to do so. Luckily, he had a plan. Ever since he left the horror of the world beyond the portal, he had a mission coded into his mind, consuming every fiber of his being. He would burn down this weak society and replace it with one that was strong. One that was able to stand up for itself, and protect its people and pokemon from the horrors that lay beyond. He desired nothing less than to rule the world so he could protect it from the darkness that was fast approaching...but to do that, he needed an army.
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Becoming consumed by this obsession, he had long since abandon any sense of morality he once had. His sense of justice and compassion for people and pokemon had been corrupted into cold, heartless utilitarianism by the horrors of the world beyond the portal. Now only concerned with doing whatever he could to protect the world, he used his own family wealth and funds siphoned off from the pokemon league to quietly purchase the liquidated bases and properties of the world's former evil teams under the shadowy alias of "The Missing One." A subtle, taunting, reference to the brief time the world thought he was missing forever, the alias of "The Missing One" allowed Cain to move in the shadows and separate his shady dealings from his public persona. As the Missing One he dawned black cloak and black mask with yellow eyes and a grinning yellow mouth, taking on the twisted visage of the ghosts many claim to see in Lavender Town's Pokemon Tower. Under this alias, Cain began tracking down people to become part of the new army he desired to build. First, he reached out to a scientist that caught his interest. Cordelia Belmont, a woman who had been left disgraced after she claimed a horrific alternate dimension existed, immediately came to Cain's attention as somebody else who potentially knew the same truths that had shattered him. He went to her as The Missing One and offered her the opportunity to do research again, but this time for a much more pressing goal. He revealed himself as Cain Iskander to her, and told her that he had seen the horrors of other dimensions with his own eyes. Cain told her that he fully believed her theories about the horrors of other worlds where true, and took on as his personal secretary Under his orders she did both legit work for the Iskander Financial Group, while also helping Cain locate, reach out to, and recruit the disaffected members of defunct evil teams to be his soldiers.
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Using the resources of past evil teams he had purchased, and slowly collecting a growing army of former evil team members and other rogues, "The Missing One" dubbed his growing shadow army "Cruor." Using his initial recruits to bring in even more fresh blood, Cain, or rather "The Missing One" used promises of an end to the current society and the birth of a new world to lure more and more soldiers to his cause. Enticed by the power and ambition of Cruor, and the brave, new, stronger world they promised would rise out of the ashes, the ranks of The Missing One's army swelled, and he knew the time to make his move was coming soon. The Missing One kept secret from these recruits the horrors he was gearing up the world to understand, only revealing his true intent and true name of Cain Iskander to the highest ranking commanders that earned his trust. To most of Cruor, Cain was The Missing One...the shadowy orchestrator and funder that pulled the strings of their organization from the darkness. For the Cruor grunt on the ground, the faces of the commanders under him became more common sights, with "The Missing One" becoming a distant, illusive figure as the day of reckoning approached. With enough soldiers now under the banner of Cruor, The Missing One has geared up for the first war of many that he believes he will wage in his life. He's the only one who knows the truth of what lay out there, and he believes he's the only one that can protect the world from them. Cruor must win. Cruor must burn down this world and build a new one that can withstand the future wars to come. The time for kindness is over. The time for war...for Cruor has come. Nothing will stop "The Missing One" from achieving his goals. Nothing will stop Cain from protecting the world from certain doom.

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