Perry Sterling
Rustboro City, Devon Company Ruins

Perry awoke with a jolt, literally. His Pachirisu Chloe had been serving as his alarm even before everything went to hell, and today's small burst of electricity was the same as any day before. That was the only constant in his life, everything else was in constant flux. Like his sleeping arrangements. A few days ago, Perry had been sleeping on the ground, half-halfheartedly squeezed into bushes in a vain attempt to hide himself should any predator come lurking around. But now he was on a very comfortable couch, ripped a little, but comfortable all the same. The trainer looked around the room and tried to refresh himself with where he was. A quick scan reaffirmed that he was still in the remains of the Devon Company headquarters he had stumbled into last night.

The couch was the only piece of furniture left in the office he had made his own. Everything else had either been dragged down the stairs by looters or pushed out the window by the rioters that had preceded them. With it's bulk and weight, the couch had stood alone against the collapse of order. The rest of the room was hardly in better shape. There were a series of pictures dotting the walls, but each had suffered some form of vandalism, whether it be paint or knives stuck into the canvas. Signs of frustration from angry folks who had been too late to kill Mr. Stone before he had fled to who-knew-where.

Perry shuddered. When he had been drop-dead tired, the room had seemed like an oasis in the desert, but in the light of day, it was just another monument to how bad things had gotten. Eager to leave, the trainer wordlessly gathered his meager belongings, let Chloe jump on his shoulder, and headed down the stairs.

He looked for each supplies on each floor, but everything that wasn't nailed down was either gone or smashed to pieces. The remains of computers didn't interest Perry, not nearly as much as more practical matters. Three floors down from the office he had slept in, the trainer stepped into a break room, hoping to find some long-lasting snack cakes that hadn't expired, but only found a frayed rope hanging from the ceiling. He left before he could see what had been hanging from it before it broke.

Mercifully, a distraction came in the form of Chloe who was perched on one of the shattered windows and chattering excitedly. Perry thought that the electric rodent had found something, but instead she gestured down the street at the hollow remains of the Rustboro Trainer School. "You heard something?" the trainer asked.

A quick explanation whetted Perry's curiosity. But although he acquiesced to his Pachirisu's desire to investigate, Perry was reluctant to approach the noise. He was eager to find other people, yes, because he wanted there to be some semblance of order, of civilization. But when it came to rebuilding society, Perry knew he wasn't anyone's first pick. He had seen the depths that people sunk to when chaos gave them a free hand, and it scared him. So, Perry decided to approach this unknown force cautiously, holding back for a while to see what new developments arose.