One of the main enemies featured in the story are the mad Pokemon or The mad for an umbrella term.
Infected caused by a disease aptly named the maddening disease by the hisuian locals. Its true origins were unknown at first but many believed that Giratina was the origin point. (They were proven wrong and if anything Giratina and the distortion realm became the key to the cure).
Made worse and weaponized by Akira as the timeline began to break and change due to the his actions and the presence of the disease a lot of bad stuff happened. While it is hinted in the story I never go into full detail as to what happened and how much things changed because of the disease and Akira. Here is a more detail summary of what happened in the timelines per region:
Kanto was the first to change but nobody realized it till it was too late despite the signs having been there for a long time.
The first was the failure of Reds Pokémon journey. He was killed off after crossing the golden nugget bridge, instead of giving up after red won the team rocket grunt murdered Red and threw his body into the water of the bridge. Blue oak had witnessed it but he did not get too far for when he tried to escape to call for help he was ambushed by several team rocket members and drowned. While Blue did not die he was in a coma which he was most likely never going to wake up from.
With the two gone team rocket took over the region and Giovanny started to make plans to take over Johto only for the disease to finally show itself.
It started with unusually aggressive Pokémon, while bad Giovanny did not think much of it till his grunts started to fall ill one by one and go mad after being bit or scratch by the mad Pokemon. By the time Giovanny realized what had happened it was too late and not only the whole region of Kanto was infected, but the region of Johto as well. Even worse Giovanny had sent several of the mad Pokemon to other regions as he had sold them for profit.
Johto did not last very long, after the defeat of Red and what happened to Blue Ethan and Crystal along with many other Pokemon trainers were not allowed to go on their adventures due to the investigations of what happened putting a pause on the start of their journeys.
It was when going out for a walk that Ethan encountered an infected Silver. He was wandering around the forest confused and disoriented after being attacked by his sneasel who unknown to him at the time was infected.
Having a heart Ethan took Silver to get help back in town unknowing sealing everybodies fate. The first were Ethan and his family as they were infected through blood exposure when they were cleaning Silver up a little bit before taking him to a hospital.
From there they began to infect everybody else through sweat, saliva and blood contact on other people which led to a large chain of people and Pokémon infecting other people and Pokemon, that is also counting Silvers sneasel who went around infecting the Pokemon of the Johto region and they infecting others. In short span of time the whole region was infected and lost. It took about 6 months… Sensing there was nothing that could be done to save the region Lugia was forced to take a terrible yet merciful action, calling out rain and drowning the entire region underwater in an attempt to stop the sickness from spreading….
The first who actually became aware of something going on was team aqua and team magma.
Team Aqua noticed it because they kept finding pokemon bodies that were not of the region littering the ocean and how they seemed to show signs of sickness they had never seen before. Even worse was when pokemon which are opportunistic eaters such as sharpedo began to show signs of a similar sickness and Pokemon who were normally docile such as Wailord began to attack not just pokemon trainers but their own kind that the team realized something was horribly wrong.
Meanwhile Team Magna noticed it because of how bird pokemon began to act differently, starting with how their flight patterns became more disoriented and disorganized. This soon turned to land pokemon changing their patterns of behavior such as how Absol began to either try to leave or enter villages and towns to force people out, Pokémon such as Gardevoir were also attempting to leave and herd their little ones and humans to leave, among others. Soon after agressive Pokémon began to show up, they took noticed how they look sick.
At first the two teams blamed one another for this but after a fight then talk they came to realize that entire were at fault and that they had to work together to find out what’s going on before both land and sea were destroyed forever.
May sadly was one of the first human victims, when she tried to battle the poochiana to save Professor Birch. Unknown to her at the time that Poochiana was infected and it bit her and Torchic infecting them.
At first May did not think much of it, though remembering the old stories of her ancestors she was weary and had a sense of impending doom. She was proven right and was forced to isolate herself.
Her last act was to send a letter to Brendan and Wally in hopes of warning them about what’s going on….. Brendan never received the letter and died trying to help protect Mauville city which had been turned into a fortress to protect others from the mad.
Wally had gotten the letter and as a last ditch effort made a journey to the Sky Pillard. On the way he and his Pokémon were attacked and Wally, injured and infected, dying, managed to get to the top of the tower. As he died his desperate wish and plea was answered by Rayquaza who reawakened rather surprised as Wally was not supposed to be there.
Realizing something went horribly wrong Rayquaza could do nothing but awaken Kyoger and Groundon. Together they destroyed the region again hoping that the disease would be stopped in its tracks.
It became one of the few regions to survive the initial attack. While at first they were not aware of what exactly was going on they had five mayor advantages that allowed them to survive.
The first one being that they had records of the disease thus were the first to not only see the signs but also knew what steps to take to handle the situation and disease.
Second they are the region who had the most ghost Pokémon, ghost Pokemon are effectively immune from the disease due to both technically not being alive and not having a physical body. This rendered them immune to the disease and also gave trainers a chance to fight back and protect themselves and other Pokemon. Then there was the hisuian Zoroarks, a lot of them were around when the first wave of infected showed up so not only were they able to see the signs, but due to them being known as the “Protector/guardian Fox Pokemon” people took their warnings seriously thus allowed people to prepare and brace themselves for what was about to happen.
Third advantage was that the region had the most wardens, trainers who are more powerful than champions thus they were able to protect the region.
Forth advantage was the terrain and climate, the mad did not survive long in harsh winter climates, knowing this a lot of people and Pokémon took advantage of this weakness and moved to snowpoint city where they would be safer.
Last mayor advantage was their dear Professor Cyrus Asunaro. He had been studying time and space, how it affected people and Pokémon, through this he invented a device that was able to detect changes in the present timeline by recording “spikes”, the machine has shown a lot of spikes which alerted him and the region to something having gone horribly wrong in the past thus leading to the disasters happening now.
Exactly what went wrong they are not sure, but knowing something went wrong is always the start in trying to fix it.
Patient zero to the outbreak of Kalos was non other than AZ, when he was infected nobody can be sure. But it can be confirmed that he had been infected for a while for when he arrived at Lumious badlands the first thing he did was attack and infect Serena when they met.
Serena was able to escape his attack and run to the nearest town for help. AZ was scared off by the bright lights of the cops car.
Infected Serena was sent to the hospital where the unknowing infected her friends due to their contact with her blood and sweat.
They in turn infected many people along with Sycamore who in turn infected many others along with Pokémon.
Shockingly Team Flare became the unsung heroes of Kalos. Having seen what was going on they abandoned their initial plans to help fight off the infection and protect people and Pokémon.
For a while it worked, people and Pokémon were safe in the safe houses along with converting some sections of the city into safe zones.
Even more importantly they discovered and confirm something that had not been done before. That people can get infected and how they can get infected. Lysander discovered this when he locked Sycamore in an office in an attempt to help him. He watched the disease take over Sycamore and documented this.
Sadly while Kalos lasted a while it was too late as the region and how it was built made it easy for the disease to spread and soon they were overwhelmed.
Knowing there was nothing else that could be done the information that was gathered was sent to other regions via computer then the ultimate weapon was used in an attempt to destroy the region and the disease with them…
While the sacrifice did not destroy the disease it did help the regions of Paldea and Galar for it not only cut the infected numbers down a bit it also bought them time to come up and implement a plan before the disease arrived.
The infected arrived through the use of the train tunnels and system that connected Galar to Kalos. But this time the infection was slow down due to numbers and also the fact that Galar was expecting it along with the new information sent to them by Lysander.
Acting quick Chairman rose, the gym leaders and champion acted fast and fortified several towns and cities. Creating safe zones for people and Pokémon along with stock piling food and blocking all train entrances and such to keep the infected out.
For the most part it worked as the infected were kept out while the non infected were kept safe.
The problem soon rose when infected Pokémon began to dynamax and attack the cities.
Worst event was in Hammerlock, the city was destroyed and many were dead, among them was Leon and Raihan who bravely fought to keep them back and buy people time to escape.
Hop was nowhere to be found after the dust settled.
After receiving a message to say people panicked was an understatement. It also did not help that nobody knew what to do or how to handle the situation as they did not have time to prepare and quite frankly were at a great disadvantage as a lot of the cities were out in the open and there was no way to fortify them fast enough.
It was thanks to team star that there was some hope.
Rising to the occasion they opened up their bases which were already somewhat fortified and ready to house and protect people and Pokémon.
Together they were able to fortify the bases even more and also worked together to fortify the School and a large portion of Mesagoza.
Despite this and being better prepared Mesagoza was the first area to fall. While many survived many others such as Arven, Clivell and Nemona died.
Arven died protecting younger students from mad Pokemon.
Nemona died as she stayed behind to buy others time to escape. Her death was most horrible and her screams haunt those who heard her.
Clivell died going back into the school to save more students.
One by one a lot died leaving Penny and Team Star to keep surviving people and Pokémon safe from harm.
Unova had it best and worse. Ghetsis having never been defeated in the black and white events kept the region isolated and oblivious to what was happening outside.
It was only when N rebelled after finding out the truth that Ghetsis allowed the disease to take over the region.
N and a couple of others managed to escape and find shelter but knowing it was not good they decided a final desperate attempt to get help.
After talking to Reshiram N took steps to escape and reach the Sinnoh region in hopes that he can find the one person who can change things for the better…..
While his escaped cost the life of Nate, Rosa, Cheren, Bianca and his sisters N is determined to reach Sinnoh and set things right, changing the timeline for the better. Even if it means sacrificing himself in the process.