The World of Pokemon is one filled with many amazing creatures. Some are capable of great, even god-like power. Others are able to spread joy and love, while others can spread great destruction. However, the future of the creatures, Pocket Monsters, or Pokemon, is forever linked with that of humans.
And humans, unfortunately, are a highly flawed existence...
In the Arts Archipelago, four tribes were in constant conflict with one another. Using Pokemon to wage their wars, they were the picture of chaos and disorder.
When things looked their most bleak, the Four Masters, the Champions of the Kanto, Johto, Hoenn and Sinnoh regions came together and swept across the islands, replacing the madness with peace and order. Unfortunately, the time spent trying to stabilize the region left their homes free for manipulation, and the various criminal groups within the underworld rose up to take advantage of their absence by taking budding Pokemon Trainers and twisting them into criminal minds.
The government, sickened by this, decides to raise the age one may have access to a Pokemon in the belief that younger individuals had less sense of right and wrong. The Champions, unwilling to have the system change in such a way, decided to use their work in the Arts Archipelago to try and change minds. They established the Pokemon Trainer Progressive Academy, or simply, the Academy, a place that could mold youth into proper, law-abiding Trainers. Using the islands of the four tribes as a test-bed, the experiment proved a great success when a native trainer won the Kanto Tournament on his first try. The government thus accepted their plan, and made only small adjustments to the trainer system before placing academies all over the world.
Thus, the pride of the hometown fades away, as Trainers now march with the pride of their Academies at stake.