Leon Gardner

Leon Gardner

A HEART SO TRUE, OUR COURAGE WILL PULL US THROUGH

Personality: Leon, bluntly put, is not at all what many adults typically expect of a boy his age. Articulate and well spoken, it usually becomes quickly apparent that Leon tends to come off as far more mature than he looks. Both wise and intelligent far beyond his years, the boy is smart enough to converse with most adults on nearly an equal level, although whether or not that is a good idea tends to vary from person to person - something else that he understands quite well, and he has long since come to the realization that hiding how much he truly knows and understands can often be the easier choice to work with. While not exactly a quiet individual - as his thoughts have slipped past his mental filter to be spoken aloud on more than one occasion - he's also learned that keeping quiet and to himself to simply watch from the sidelines is also the far smarter option sometimes, if admittedly not the easier one. As a result of the later bit, though, Leon's learned to be incredibly observant and perceptive, something that's only helped by the fact that few people tend to ever pay attention to a ten year old - if someone doesn't understand what you're talking about, no reason to hide it, right? Unfortunately, this has resulted in a mixture of conflicting views for Leon. He knows that the world isn't a happy place. He can read, he can listen, and by extension he tends to understand most of what is said and written - if it makes the news, he's probably going to learn about it.

That said, this is still somewhat tempered by his youth, and in more than one way Leon is lost with no clear path forward in life. For all of the jaded cynicism that the world seems to want him to embrace, there is still a part of Leon that is an idealist, able to see the world not as it is but what it can be... and more than anything else, it's often this aspect of his personality that repeatedly gets him into trouble, along with his often stubborn and independent attitude, two traits that tend to make it incredibly difficult to fit in with others his age.


History: Leon's life story isn't a particularly special one - and, had one or two seemingly innocuous events not taken place in his life, it's unlikely that it ever would have been.

Born in Lumiose, Kalos, once you get past the whole adoption thing Leon's family was a typical enough one. Brought into the family at an age practically too young to remember and with an older sister ahead of him by six years, the professions of their mother and father - that of a police officer and a biochemist working for a pharmaceutical company - kept the family living in relative safety and comfort. While the father wasn't often home and the responsibilities of work kept their mother fairly busy, the presence of Leon's older sister ensured that he was never truly alone, at home or otherwise. At least for the first several years.

With the father's job ensuring that the family was rarely for more than two years at most and only several months in many cases, stress would begin to build under the surface for nearly everyone in the family. Five years old at the time himself and with his sister eleven at the time, the older sibling would begin to harbor growing resentment for their parents over a number of social pressures. Something that Leon would eventually come to understand himself, having to rebuild and reach out to a new community and school every few months was not an easy thing to endure, particularly when it involved saying good bye to friends you liked. While work was easy enough for the mother to find due to her training and track record the strain of having to repeatedly do so would begin to show there as well, along with that brought of rarely seeing each other - while married for several years before Leon's birth, within the following years the two had effectively become strangers to one another.

Eventually this would come to a head nearly a year later as the work life of Leon's father began to collapse around him. As lawsuits against the fledgling pharmaceutical were filed following the release and recall of a new drug on the market, several of these would eventually find their way to the man, putting the financial security of the entire family at risk as a result. As things began to drag on over the following months the decision would eventually be made by both parents to divorce - no ill will existed between the two parents, but it would serve to at least keep his wife and their children separated from the conflict if the lawsuits cleaned out the man's bank accounts. Cracks would further begin to form in the family as Leon's sister protested the arrangement - while understanding of the reasoning behind it, the girl had nevertheless fostered a deeper bond with her father than her mother, and these protests would only deepen as mother, son and daughter remained behind as their father moved to another city to deal with work related issues.

While eventually brought up on technical charges that would damage future career prospects almost another year after that, however, the damage was already done. With the man in the clear from a legal standpoint Leon's sister would begin taking every opportunity possible to visit him, and within several months the agreement for joint custody would shift to full in the father's favor despite the hit his career had taken. Leon himself would remain with his mother, however.

Seven years old by this point, it would also be around the time that the boy would begin to awaken in an intellectual sense, and begin to see the world around him from a much more mature standpoint. It would also be at this point that Leon would begin to understand just how much the family had lost when it was broken, and for how long it had been in that state - and beyond that, just how much his mother was continuing to sacrifice. A single mother, the woman would begin to make a much more concerted effort to try and climb the ranks in the police force just to be able to afford to feed and house both of them in Sapporo, the pair having moved back to Leon's birthplace to follow up on old job opportunities. Furthermore, attempts to move on past her previous marriage would be held back by a number of factors not least of which would be Leon himself as the presence of a child tended to complicate even the strongest of potential relationships.

Despite all of that, however, the next two years would result in the mother and child growing closer than they ever had before. Just as she provided for them Leon would do what little he could to take care of her and ease the burden. Things would only continue to get harder as the woman would begin to turn down career paths that would require further training - nearly all of which would require her to live in communal spaces, and either find a way to afford someone to care for Leon or leave him behind on his own at home. This would eventually escalate to the next level as the woman's health would subtly begin to decline due to a mixture of insomnia and other stresses, resulting in chronic fatigue and frequent headaches.

Shortly after turning nine years old it would finally culminate as a stroke, hospitalizing Leon's mother. While health costs were covered by the government it didn't change that the event would have a monumental impact on Leon's life. While it was never stated he understood full well that he shared a certain degree of responsibility in what had transpired as well as how things had gotten to that point to begin with. While offered the choice of leaving to live with his father for the time that the woman would spend recovering in the hospital Leon would refuse, instead electing to stay at their home until it was clear that his mother would eventually begin a full recovery - what came after that point, however, was something of a crossroads.

While Leon understood that guilt was driving many of his thoughts, the boy wasn't entirely able to deny the points that those feelings brought up. Yes, the lawsuit several years before was a convenient thing to blame for the state of the family and by extension that of his mother, but what had happened for the past several years fell entirely on him. His presence had gotten in the way of his mother's attempts to move on past her previous marriage. It was because of him that she had turned down several opportunities to earn a more comfortable living, because of him that his mother had worked herself half to death just to feed, clothe and shelter both of them when she would've been perfectly fine on his own. She'd gotten lucky with the stroke, terrible as it way to say - lucky that not only had it failed to kill her, but hand't permanently robbed the woman of any physical or mental ability.

With the months dragging on through his mother's rehabilitation, Leon would begin to consider ways of eliminating the problem - because it would happen again. His mother was just as stubborn as he was, and left to her own devices she wouldn't take the health scare as a warning that things needed to change. At only nine years old, however, Leon's only real options fell under the title of "unconventional" as legally, most trainers weren't able to leave home until they were ten. At the same time, though, Leon hadn't been sitting idle during the previous years - after hearing of his biological parents' occupations the boy had made an effort to catch a few of the creatures himself, and to begin training them if only to try and get inside of his bio-parents' heads. It was enough of a start as any, and Leon would make his way north to Coumarine with several thoughts in mind.

First, if he was going to take off as a trainer, it would have to be somewhere out of Kalos, a place where he could stay in contact with home but that would make it difficult for anyone to come after him if they chose to. Second, while it wasn't the original intent, picking up the lifestyle did offer a unique opportunity to try and track down his biological parents if only to meet and understand the people. To that end came point number three - it was a big world, but trainers all tended to gather at one event and place in particular every few years. His name had been given to him by them, not his adopted parents, which meant that if he aimed high enough and his name was known, they'd likely find him all on their own.

Besides, it wasn't like Leon had ever given anything less than his best for his personal projects and interests before. Why not try to break a few records while he was at it?

[b]Boku Dake ga Inai Machi, Fujinuma Satoru[/b] as @leon