1 2022

It was the release of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, and people had their spirits lifted being introduced to all the new Pokemon in the Paldea region.

But as time went on, other things in Paldea began to increase their happiness and joy, including a simple roadside attraction called "Spriggy's Sing-Along Show." The ads were plastered all over town, featuring an animated Sprigatito drawn in the popular pie-eyed cartoon style for characters many years ago.

It immediately said that Spriggy's Sing-Along Show was a place where you could bring the family. And the price? Honestly couldn't be beat. For just a hundred PokeDollars, you could get food and entertainment as you watched the local trained dancing Sprigatito perform on a stage.

Normally, you only got to see dancing Pokemon at large traveling circuses, where the tickets would go for about three hundred PokeDollars (and that's without food), but this was a smaller show, where tickets would sell for much less.

Watching that Sprigatito do tricks on stage brought joy to many people traveling across the Pokemon world. The simple show would go on for years bringing happiness to hundreds of Trainers passing through, but it left a permanent impression on one little girl, capturing her imagination in a way that nothing else had.

One little girl named Liko.

The Sprigatito could dance, it could sing. For years, Liko dreamed of recreating that moment of bringing a musical Pokemon to life, but how? Liko was smart, without a doubt, and she had a keen mind for business, but she wasn't the most creative.

How do you make a singing Pokemon come to life?

The best she could do was using rudimentary costumes, and with her simple mascot suit, she would be able to realize her childhood dream. She would be able to spring Ziggy the Sprigatito to life.

To appeal to the kids, and for copyright reasons, she changed Spriggy from a realistic Pokemon to a cartoonish one with a blue top hat and bow-tie. But feeling like one character wasn't enough, she added another friend: a blue Quaxly with a red vest and matching tie named Ducky.

While Spriggy was certainly Liko's first love, Ducky was extra special because that was hers. It was an original character that she had created from scratch, literally. Liko's hand-sewn costumes were rough with seams and stitches visibly showing. But it was the best that she could do, and to her, it was enough.

Spriggy and Ducky would perform on stage to small but enthusiastic crowds. Finally, Liko was able to deliver fantasy and fun to all the kids, delighting and inspiring them in the exact way that she had been delighted and inspired in her youth.

And things could have ended there. That could have been the end to her story. It could have been perfect, had it not been for one thing: other people saw the success of her idea, and they wanted in.

Enter Flamer's Party, a rival restaurant featuring performing Pokemon characters. Liko's idea, except they did it better. Liko may have been the first, but obviously, she wasn't the best. It hurt the prideful woman to admit it, but this restaurant was able to do the thing she always wanted to do: make the Pokemon actually come to life.

All of the performers in this restaurant were robots, simple metal skeletons powered by battery packs, but all of them able to freely turn, talk, and dance on their own, no human required.

It was like magic, magic that came from the mind of a brilliant creator named Roy. This Roy, in some small way, had been able to harness the power of life itself. Liko admired him. She was jealous, to be sure, but she also looked upon this man with awe.

Off to one side of Flamer's Party was a small cabaret stage featuring a Grumpig magician. On the other, a Croagunk known to ramble on and on (that one was more of a joke for the parents). But it was the main stage that was for the kids: a rocking band of characters, featuring a red Fuecoco with a bass guitar named Flamer, backed by a band of other Pokemon themed characters, including a Copperajah with a banjo, an upbeat Hippopotas from the local mud hole, and a Sprigatito with a heavy southern drawl.

But Sprigatito was Liko's Pokemon mascot. Why not a different Pokemon, something else that would fit better? Why did it have to be a Sprigatito? And adding insult to injury, they had the nerve to call this thing Ziggy, a direct copy of her own Spriggy.

No, that was not okay!

Liko's jealous admiration turned to hardened bitterness, a bitterness that would only grow over the next couple of years as families continued to choose Flamer's Party over Spriggy's. Liko just couldn't compete with the appeal of the robots.

Eventually, her restaurant would go bankrupt, only to get bailed out by, of course, Roy. Another insult, another humiliation that Liko wouldn't soon forget.