2012. San Francisco. Girard Middle School.
In the room reserved for the History class, Cate Randa, daughter of Hiroshi Randa and Caroline Randa, walked in with a smile as she spotted the curious and excited looks on many of the familiar students from the 6th grade.
"Good morning! Mr. Thomas has called in sick today, so I will be covering for him."
Many of the children cheered at her words, making the young woman smile.
She knew that many of the children did not like Mr. Thomas's....distinctive...way of teaching and would take literally anyone but him as their teacher, which made a bit of sense.
After all, children rarely found an old man in his eighties who was too stuck in his ways and made even the most interesting of historical records sound boring to be their favourites.
Yet, Cate could not blame the man for his ways, given that he was a veteran of the Vietnam War and was extremely patriotic as well as a very conservative person by nature. A combination that gave even his fellow teachers a headache most of the time, especially in this day and age.
Smiling at their enthusiastic looks, Cate started the Projector and connected it to her Devon Series-X Laptop.
"Let's see here, according to Mr. Thomas's plans, he was going to teach you about the historical relationships between the USA and its allies and other such events, but I have another idea."
She started the presentations that had the title of 'Modern triumphs and failures of Hoenn'.
Cate grinned at the excited looks on the children's faces as they saw the name of the country where their favourite games these days originated from.
"Let's see what we can learn from Hoenn's advancements and their way of life. And yes, Lucy, we will talk about Nintendo and other such companies that are relevant to you kids."
The little girl called Lucy stopped raising her hand, looking a bit embarrassed at Cate's teasing look, but still felt happy nevertheless.
Cate wasted no time and started talking about Hoenn's history in brief, its relations with the world powers throughout history, their involvement in various conflicts, and the rare cases where they were forced to become the aggressors instead of pacifistic defenders that they are most of the time.
And it really was a brief introduction, because it was really not possible to cover everything that this thousand-year-old country did in a single class. That is why she covered the most important and relatively recent bits of history.
The campaigns of Britain against Hoenn during the times of the British empire before Hoenn proved to be their equal in many ways and their superior in others.
Their involvement in the defence of many of their neighboring powers when they were unjustly attacked by other nations.
Their invasion of the North American continent during the colonial times, where they evacuated as many of the native indians as they could before their ways were completely lost under the colonization efforts of those times.
Their collection and preservation of every endangered species in the world as much as possible.
She spoke for some time about such small things across their history, both good and bad, before she finally arrived at the main point of today's class.
"With such a diverse history stretching back a thousand years, with each attempt of its conquering by other nations proving to be futile, it is natural that Hoenn has a deep understanding of natural sciences, business, and many other ways of advancement."
"Some of these understandings can be seen in their business practices."
With a click, the slide changed and showed a list of industries and companies that Hoenn's people owned either partially or fully.
"Their acquisition of Apple in recent times, which was subsequently merged into Devon Corporation, is proof of that since they were the first ones to see the potential of the company during its infancy and funded it before officially merging it into Devon."
"Then, there is the fact that the council of Hoenn holds a 49% stake in Microsoft. To put it simply, they own nearly half of the company."
Cate explained as she saw the slightly confused look on the children's faces when she spoke about stakes and shares.
Then, she smiled mischievously.
"Well, I guess we will stop talking about their companies since you children are not interested in the numbers..."
The protest was not voiced, but she saw the betrayed looks on their faces, making her laugh before proceeding with the next slide.
This slide showed various gaming companies, such as Nintendo, Sony, Rockstar Games, and many more.
"Now, coming to the entertainment sector, they also own many popular companies thanks to their early investment and other such preemptive actions during a time when people did not think much of these companies, showing the uncanny ability of the Hoenn council to spot diamonds in the rough."
The children cheered as they saw the companies of their favourite games like Pokémon, Halo, and other such things.
Then, she changed the slide to show other things. This time, focusing on the controversies.
"Of course, not everything is good with the country. The recent controversies show that."
"Ignoring their utilization of severe punishments for many crimes, which has divided the people across the world, the most recent controversies of their scientific theories, such as the Hollow Earth theory, which has been called the most stupid theory to ever exist, and their almost fanatical obsession with religion has called into question their advancements in the scientific field. And this is not even considering the international backlash from governments and humanitarian organizations they are currently enduring after details were leaked about their sabotage, espionage, and assassinations on foreign soil that they carried out for centuries for undisclosed reasons."
"Yet, the truth cannot be denied that they are the most advanced country in terms of certain technologies and sciences. Such as their space program, which never stopped advancing even after the Cold War era."
Cate changed the slide again, showing the plans for Hoenn's moon bases that were already under construction, which forced the USA, Russia, and other nations to start looking at space once again after the lull of the past decades, where many political parties took away the funding from various space agencies due to various reasons.
"They are now the first nation to start construction of a permanent moon colony, with their projections showing that the first colony would become operational within the next few decades at worst. Aside from this, they are also considered the greatest proponents of green fuel and green energy, along with being the only nation to be completely powered by green energy as of this year through their Modular Nuclear Fission reactors. This does not even consider their research into Fusion, which has been hailed as the most advanced in the world. And all of this is not even speaking about the revolutionary anti-gravity systems and Miracle Crystals that they sadly keep to themselves most of the time and only sell limited quantities to other countries."
Cate stopped speaking, suppressing her enthusiasm for her actual field of teaching when she spotted the increasingly confused and nervous expressions on the children, realizing that she was going into subjects far too advanced for the children.
Suppressing her embarrassment, she smiled and continued speaking about the history of Hoenn, and kept to the subject this time.
Soon, the class came to an end, and the students left for the day, with Cate following them out when she got a call.
Her eyes brightened considerably as she spotted the name.
"Hey dad!"
"Hello, Cate. How was school?"
Cate smiled at her father, Hiroshi Randa's words.
"Same old. But what about you? Since you called, are you coming back soon?"
Cate could not supress her hopeful tone as she spoke.
After all, her father's mysterious work always kept him away from the family for extended periods of time. The only details she even knew about her father's work were that he worked for the government and that he travelled all over the world for his world most of the time.
Hiroshi laughed on the line and spoke warmly.
"Yes, Cate. I am coming home this week. There is no way I am missing your mother's birthday."
Cate smiled happily and got into her car, talking with her father all the way as she drove home.
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Author Notes:
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