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One day Ricky received a call from Lara, his mother had gotten extremely sick, mere weeks before the Pokemon League would start in Hoenn.
Ricky returned to Kanto quickly, forfeiting his entrance in the League. Unfortunately his mother had passed away by the time he got to Laramie ranch. He was given and told to spread her ashes around Moomoo Ranch in Johto, where his mother had been born, and where she spent the vast majority of her childhood.
Now without the help of his mother, Lara was really needing the help of anyone she could get, Ricky needed time alone to grieve, so he left all his Pokemon with her, now twice the help as before.
As he spreads his mother's ashes throughout the fields of Moomoo Ranch, he encounters a lone, crying Mareep atop of a hill. He is told by his uncle that the Mareep's mother, had recently just passed away due to not finding the medicine needed to cure her. Apparently an epidemic was causing Electric Pokemon all over Johto to fall ill, and the Pharmacy in Cianwood was not meeting everyone's demands.
Ricky decided that he had to move on, and took the Mareep along with him, as he embarked on a new journey.
There he encountered an evil organization by the name of Team Rocket, which although it was rumored had been disbanded, had actually stayed in the shadows and was very much alive.
While he did encounter them multiple times throughout his journey, at one point they seemed to vanish, as if some other greater trainer had managed to vanquish them, hopefully this time for good.
