And so it begins. Seriously you might want to skip most of this unless you want to read all the important background information that you'll probably need to know for later chapters to make sense. This was a whole 7 pages of text which is actually new for me.

Useless stuff you'll probably want to know: No pairings gaiz. Unless you do several cartwheels while squinting and using binoculars. This is because Allie is based off my character in the games and I'm not pairing what's technically myself with a game character unless I'm playing Harvest Moon, fooz.

Disclaimer: I do not, and never will, own Pokemon. Allie is mine though. Hoo-rah!

*New 11/03/2012: Slightly revised to fix some minor mistakes and change some smaller things that were pointed out. If you see any mistakes, please point them out! ~Whimsicotton

My name is Allie and I'm a Pokémon Trainer.

Ever since I was ten years old, I've been traveling around various regions, catching all kinds of Pokémon, helping Professor Oak complete his dream of creating the largest database of Pokémon to exist – that being the Pokédex.

Maybe I should start from the very beginning?

So, my journey really started on my tenth birthday, over four years ago from now, when I finally left my small hometown of Pallet in the Kanto region. At the same time my long-time rival and friend, Gary Oak, got his first Pokémon too. I remember our first battle – it was a close one, but he just about won with his Squirtle. I had naturally picked Charmander – fire types have always been my favourite. Professor Oak had entrusted us both with the task of catching many types of Pokémon and recording data on their biology and behaviour and sending it to him – naturally, so it could be added onto the Pokédex.

I should explain the Pokédex, too, before I move on. The Pokédex is given to all new trainers as they start out to help them on their journey – it can scan Pokémon, recognize its species, and even tell you what moves it knows already. It's really quite handy – the only problem being it doesn't have data on every last Pokémon yet, which is where Gary and I come in.

So with that, I left for my journey through Kanto. It was a long one – I started with just my Charmander, who was a girl who I had named Amber, and traveled from there. I caught many Pokémon throughout Kanto and did what I was told; I filled countless pages of many notebooks with observations of Pokémon behaviours and habitats.

I'll never forget the joy of catching my very first Pokémon; it wasn't anything special - not to most people, anyway; it was, and still is, very special to me - I'd caught a Pidgey just outside Pallet, who I had named Katie, and she was one of six Pokémon that stuck with me through it all.

Other Pokémon I caught at the start were Rattata, Nidoran (I soon discovered that there were both male and female types – purple and blue respectively. Professor Oak already knew about them, though; I'm sure if he hadn't, he would have been much more surprised) Weedle, and two others; the two others being my Pikachu, Hannah, and my Caterpie, Jessie.

After these captures came my very first Gym Battle. To start with, my dream was to be Pokémon champion – and it stayed that way for a very long time, until a life-changing discussion which I'll tell you about later – and honestly, the battle was one of the most nerve-wracking things ever. My battle with the Pewter City leader, Brock, was not without troubles; luckily Amber had learnt a very lucky move (Metal claw – life saver!) which allowed me to beat the gym and earn my very first gym badge, which I still treasure to this day.

And so I travelled through all of Kanto, earning gym badges, catching many, many Pokémon (If I totalled the amount of Pokémon I had recorded data on that I owned, it would come to about one-hundred, but I had gathered data on almost 150 – Professor Oak said that was the whole estimate for the Kanto region, so needless to say I was pleased with myself) until I came to the Indigo Plateau. At this point all of my original Pokémon had evolved; Amber was a powerful Charizard, though she still retained her curiosity from her youth; Katie was still a relaxed Pokémon though she had become a Pidgeot - who had her head in the clouds a good amount of the time, I must add; Hannah was a sassy, hyperactive Raichu; Jessie was a beautiful and calm Butterfree; a female Nidoran named Annabelle that I had caught at the start had evolved into a serious and cunning Nidoqueen and I had also obtained a new friend while I was travelling around the Seafoam islands (Fun fact, I was there to get data on Articuno) who was a brave and alert Dewgong called Maisy.

I was proud of my team; we got through the Elite Four when I was only eleven years old, about one year from the start of my journey, and at the end, I even battled Gary Oak, who had become a formidable rival, who had become the champion prior to my arrival at Indigo Plateau and even beat his considerably tough team.

I was one of the youngest trainers ever to become champion (Naturally, alongside Gary) and I was pleased with myself. Yet, I didn't want this to be my life; raising Pokémon had been so much fun for me, and I had probably enjoyed it to a greater extent than I had enjoyed making my way through the Pokémon League.

This is where that life-changing discussion I mentioned earlier comes in.

Gary had been the one to collect the data on the biology of Pokémon; he had enjoyed the research as much as I had. After our battle at the Indigo Plateau, he told me how he wanted to follow in his grandfathers footsteps; I remember him saying how he had thought that the battles were kind of trivial, and unnecessary for the completion of the Pokédex, and how he wanted to focus on research from then on. It had made me think; if his love of research overpowered his love of battling meant he wanted to be a Professor, maybe that meant something for me to; if I loved raising Pokémon more than the battling side of things, maybe I should focus on that instead?

I mentioned this to Professor Oak when I returned to Pallet. He told me about Pokémon Breeders; Trainers who devoted their time to raising many types of Pokémon. He then told me about a region called Johto; he said that since it was right next door to Kanto, it might be worth going there to pursue my new dream.

So I did exactly that; a little over a year since I started my Pokémon journey, I started a second journey in Johto.

Johto was fun, too; since I was chasing a new dream, the journey had a different feel to it. When I first arrived, I was introduced to Professor Elm in New Bark town. Since I was starting again, Professor Oak had said, I should get a new Pokémon from Professor Elm to begin my journey with. So, I received my first Johto-region Pokémon, a female Cyndaquil who I named after Amber. This started a trend for the rest of my journey; I use the same six names for my main companions in each region; a Fire-starter called Amber, a water-type named Maisy, bug-type named Jessie, flying-type named Katie, a physical battler named Annabelle; and an electric-type named Hannah. It was an odd trend to have, but I like to think it carries on the legacy of the team before it.

Of course, Johto wasn't without it problems. A team of crooks named Team Rocket (I had seen them about Kanto before, but they didn't seem to be big, or powerful, or particularly threatening) had been causing trouble all around the region and to make matters worse, a red-haired boy named Silver (Who you'll hear more about later) stole a Totodile from Professor Elm shortly after I received Amber. I tried to catch the crook; it had resulted in a battle between us both. Since I had the upper hand with all my battling experience, I won quite quickly, but the red-haired boy fled before I could catch him. From that point on, Silver became my rival. It filled a sort of emptiness, I must admit, since Gary and I had long solved our problems and to this day remain great friends.

Of course, my main task was to continue gathering data for the Pokédex, so there was no time to really deal with any villainous teams or Pokémon-thieving teenagers, but things like that just have a habit of getting in the way.

I became very involved in what Team Rocket were doing; they seemed to appear pretty much everywhere - I think they were deliberately trying to get in my way - which was particularly bothersome when all I wanted to do was fill the Pokédex with data on the native Johto Pokémon.

A little more on those; Johto was very, very different from Kanto. I admit that I still completed the Johto league (More of a sidequest this time, something I did to help train my Pokémon while I travelled) but catching and observing Pokémon was my main priority. The Pokémon seemed a bit more colourful than in Kanto (Might just be my opinion, but that's what I think) Strange as it might sound, my Johto team seems much more vivid than my Kanto one.

So, on my way through Johto, I had to attempt to stop Team Rocket from ruining the region and taking everyones Pokémon; one of their schemes that I clearly remember was an incident at the Lake of Rage, in which they had forced Magikarp to evolve to make them less useless (Funny story, I bought a Magikarp for 500 Pokébucks in Kanto. Would've been a waste a money, but I don't think it was) and one had become red in the process – and very, very angry – but that didn't stop me from catching it. It was my very first encounter with alternate-colour Pokémon (Professor Oak called them 'Shiny Pokémon' when I asked him about it) It turned out to be a valuable companion; she was the 'Maisy' of Johto, a bold and cunning Gyarados. Gyarados would be why buying a Magikarp isn't a waste of money.

It turned out that Team Rocket had been most active three years prior to my journey through Johto (Funny, really; I hadn't heard about them before and you'd think they'd be all over the news) but their leader, Giovanni, was defeated by a boy named Red (He, I can tell you about. He was literally me and Gary's hero and he came from Pallet Town, too. Yeah, we knew him. Jealous?) and the group disbanded. They were trying to rebuild, which is why they were getting in everyone's way.

It also turns out Silver is Giovanni's son, which caused Silver to have a hatred of Team Rocket that I'm not sure if I can describe. Out of every rival I've had throughout my travels, Silver changed the most of them all. He went from being an arrogant, cold and reclusive boy to the respectful, yet snarky, honest person that I still know today (But still can't get along with very well, which is quite unfortunate)

We teamed up for a short while to get rid of Team Rocket once and for all. It went quite well, I'd say, because I haven't seen them in over two years.

I might as well tell you about my companions from Johto. By the end Amber had become a Typhlosion; I still had Maisy the shiny Gyarados; I had an Ariados called Jessie, a Noctowl named Katie, a Slowking called Annabelle and a Ampharos named Hannah. After beating the Johto Indigo League (Yes, the Elite Four is apparently different even though they're in the same building, and the Champion is different too) I went to Mount Silver to record some last pieces of data from Johto before returning to Pallet Town.

At the top, I met my childhood hero, Red. He didn't speak (Just as mute as I remember him. I don't think he can speak; which is sad, because he must have lots of stories of his adventures to tell…) but we still battled; I lost horribly, but I'll never regret it. Battling my old hero was amazing in itself.

When I returned to Kanto after that, Professor Oak had a surprise for me. He'd bought a plot of land a little way out from Pallet. It turned out to be a large space of farmland with a barn and a small house. Turns out it was now mine, and I could keep all the Pokémon I raised here. He also told me about a new region he wanted me to go to; a place called Hoenn. A little tired of traveling at this point, I decided to get my Pokémon Ranch started (I named it Clover Ranch, by the way)

It was, and still is, a lovely place, if I do say so myself. I keep pokeballs of various Pokémon I own in the barn, and I use the crop fields for growing various berries. Unfortunately I can't go there very because right now I'm pretty much on the other side of the world (You'll hear all about that soon enough, I assure you!) But it's not without care; I let Gary do some work there sometimes with the promise that he'll make sure my Pokémon are okay, and one of my old friends from Kanto, Leaf, also checks up over there every now and again.

You may or may not be bored of hearing about my travels by now. I'll make long story short just for you; in Hoenn, I had to deal with more legendaries than I'd ever had to deal with before (Honestly, I could go and observe them if I wanted to in Kanto and Johto, but here they were very much in my face) due to an unfortunate set of circumstances brought upon me by two teams named Team Magma and Team Aqua who were both obsessed with expanding land or sea respectively.

I also made two rivals here (Gasp gasp) one was Brendan, who was my rival for data collection, and Wally, who I raced to the end of the Hoenn League. Both were friendlier rivals than my rivalries with Gary and Silver, I must admit. I also had a very different main team this time but I'm going to assume you're bored of hearing about them.

By the end of my Hoenn journeys (I bet it sounds really interesting now.) I had collected data on around 380 Pokémon (Though did not necessarily own, unfortunately, despite some of them being super-cool, but they were so rare I didn't want to ruin it.)

If you can't already guess I went to Sinnoh next. This brings us much closer to my real story that I'm going to tell; as this is the region I travelled through last. Here I met my current best friend, Barry, who was my rival throughout most of my journey through Sinnoh. Barry's going to be important in this story, so let me tell you a bit more about him; he's hyperactive and slightly annoying (He has not changed one from when we first met, honestly) but he's a good friend when you need one. The total amount of times he crashed into me throughout my journey in Sinnoh was over 100.

At that point, Sinnoh was the furthest region from Kanto I had travelled to. I was far from my friends and family (Of course, that's how each and everyone one of my journeys began, so I shouldn't complain)

The total amount of Pokémon Professor Oak was aware of by the end was 493. Between me, Gary, a boy named Lucas and Brendan, we had data on the behaviours of every last single one until suddenly we became aware of a region we hadn't really heard much about until now.

It was called Unova, and Professor Oak estimated that there would be roughly another 150 Pokémon for us to find them. By this point, I was sort of expecting him to keep jumping on me with new information like this so I wasn't surprised. I'm certain Gary was irritated, but Brendan and Lucas were excited (Naturally – they hadn't been doing this for very long. Neither have I, exactly – I'm not sure if I should say four years is a long time, not for a job anyway.)

I knew Unova would be a huge step forward. It is literally at the other side of the world from Kanto and I wasn't sure if I should go; I really, really wanted to, but I didn't like the idea of being so far away from everyone again. This is where Barry becomes important.

Now, I had been rivals with Barry because, once again, I wanted to get through the region's league so I had something else to do while I travelled. But now I was thinking that maybe it's not worth it; I don't really need to battle through gyms and Pokémon Leagues, not when my current job gets harder all the time, and I want to focus more on my dream of being a world-class Pokémon Breeder.

Barry and I had become close friends as a result of our adventure. Together we foiled the plans of Team Galactic, who were planning to do away with this world and create a new, perfect one where they would rule supreme – obviously that sort of thing would make two people close, right? So, I asked him, and he agreed to come with me to Unova. He wanted to go anyway; I was pretty sure that there would be a Pokémon League there and it would be a new challenge for him anyway.

This, at last, brings me to my story. Finally, I'm sure you're thinking.

Barry and I left a day after Barry turned 15 (Honestly, I'm confused the guy hadn't started his journey earlier; maybe the law is different in Sinnoh or something, I never checked) and we set sail for Unova. It was a long, long boat journey because I needed to stop at Pallet first to drop off all of the Pokémon I had caught in Sinnoh, then we had to literally spend almost a week at sea before we even arrived at Unova to begin. It was boring, and Barry being Barry, he couldn't stand the lack of room to run around and be an idiot and that sort of thing.

I'm the first out of the Professor's assistants to arrive (If you don't know what 'Professor's Assistants' means, it literally means each Professor has an assistant for that region to collect data on Pokémon they meet. So really, it's just me, Gary, Brendan and Lucas. I don't doubt the existence of at least one new assistant-guy-girl in Unova.) and already Barry is incredibly eager to grab a new Pokémon and be done with Nuvema Town (The first town you reach in Nuvema if you come up from the South) but naturally I've got to introduce myself to the Professor here first, and get a Pokémon of my own.

"But I want a new Pokémon so I can get started already!" Barry is saying; I'm blanking him out, naturally since I've gone through the whole new-region-get-new-Pokémon procedure four three times already, not including when I first got a Pokémon, and it's really not so amazing any more.

It's still quite early; we arrived at Nuvema Town at almost five o'clock in the morning, and since we hadn't really done much since then, it wasn't really appropriate being-awake time for any one, not even a professor, so I doubted we should go barging into anyone's lab quite yet.

Just my luck, I'm wrong. Well, not quite – I was right about the bit about the professor – but somebody didn't happen to be awake. In fact, two somebody's. And they seemed to have been anticipating our arrival.

"Are you the trainers from Sinnoh?" One of the somebody's asks. He's got raven hair and seemed to be dressed already (My first thoughts were People from Unova dress funny, and judging by Barry's face he's thinking about the same thing.)

"This one is," I said, pointing at Barry. I know it sounds rude; don't judge me, I've been calling Barry 'this one' for over a year and he hasn't yelled at me for it yet. "I'm from Kanto. I'm here to help Professor Oak."

"You're so tall!" A blonde-haired girl who was still in her pyjamas (I don't blame her, at five in the morning… Honestly) said cheerfully; she was obviously much more awake than any of us here (Except maybe Barry, but you can never tell with him)

"Are you Pokémon Trainers, too?" Barry asks, though he's staring at the lab impatiently and tapping his foot. Honestly, I don't know if he can stay still for more than two minutes.

"No," the raven-haired boy replies. "Not yet, anyway. We will be today. That's why we're up so early." He slowly flicks some hair from his eyes; my experience with people that do that isn't exactly great, but I'm glad he didn't do it in some flamboyant-obvious-my-hair-is-so-great kind of way or I probably would've been more wary of him. "I'm Cheren, by the way, and this is my friend Bianca."

"I'm Allie." I responded with a bright smile, trying to look more awake than I really am. "And this one is Barry."

"Hi," Barry looks back at them with his characteristic ear-to-ear grin that can either be an instant cheer-up or instant oh-my-god-go-away-Barry-you're-so-annoying. Mostly the former; I'm not that horrible, honestly.

"Professor Juniper told us about you!" Bianca is rocking backwards and forwards on her heels in that cute girlish way that I used to; she reminds me of myself, but I'm a bit grumpier than her and at this point, and probably more matured (I hope so anyway) "You're here to help with that Pokédex thingy right?"

"Yeah," I respond, nodding. "Almost 150 new ones for me to look at. Pure joy, obviously." It was meant to be sarcastic, but I hoped I didn't sound too mean – these were probably Pokémon these kids knew and had grown up with, most likely, and probably had the same value to them that Pokémon from Kanto have for me.

"We're helping with that, too," Cheren replies. "We were asked to, because Professor Juniper knows your lot are coming here for that, and since we're supposed to get our first Pokémon now anyway, we should go too."

I can't help but compare this pair to Gary and myself at this point. Cheren had the same sort of uninterested surface over his obvious excitement to get a Pokémon that Gary had, and Bianca was about to explode from excitement from the very idea of even owning one Pokémon, like I was over four years ago. It's sort of nostalgic.

"Speaking of our lot," Barry interrupts, practically hopping as he attempts to get over the fact that he isn't moving and that is obviously so terribly horrible for him, "when will they get here? Will we get to go when they're here?"

"We'll go when it's a decent time of day, Barry." I can't help but laugh at my best friend; like I said, Barry can be an instant cheer-up. It's why he's a closer friend to me than even Gary, who I've known my whole life.

"Do you know what Pokémon you want?" Bianca asks excitedly. "I really want an Oshawott! Professor Juniper has lots of all the Pokémon she gives away, so you could get one too!"

"We don't really know the Pokémon here," I admit, grinning sheepishly. "We were never told, and we've never really heard about Unova before a little over a week ago."

"We can tell you about it." Cheren offers. I suddenly think a little higher of him; he's just a serious boy, I suppose. "Professor gives out three different Pokémon; Tepig, a fire-type, Oshawott, a water-type, and Snivy, a grass-type."

"Sort of the same as Sinnoh, then!" Barry adds in; "Except we've got Chimchar, Piplup and the other one."

"Turtwig." I correct him, once again laughing. I can already tell this journey will be an interesting one.

"Never heard of them before," Cheren looks genuinely interested; since there was still maybe two or three hours before we'd actually be able to meet Professor Juniper, Barry and I told Cheren and Bianca about Sinnoh and our journeys there; since they had never been on a Pokémon Journey before, they seemed completely mesmerised by our stories; I even learnt some new things myself since I hadn't actually spent an excessive amount of time with my current companion while we'd been in Sinnoh; I could tell the same went for him, because he seemed interested in what I was saying as well. Nobody was more interested than Cheren; I found that slightly surprising since Bianca seemed to be the most curious of the pair, but I guess you can't judge books by their covers.

When we had finished talking, Bianca and Cheren told us what they knew about Unova. From how it sounded, this journey would be interesting for us all; they had never been much further than the city next door and even then they hadn't been alone, much like how I was before I got my first Pokémon. From what they said, Unova was fairly advanced and had better technology than other regions (I'm not surprised. Anywhere has better technology than Kanto, if I'm honest. The only thing we've been good for so far is the Pokédex and the storage system and even then other regions improved them to be so much better)

While we were talking, Brendan arrived looking incredibly seasick and tired. It was only then that we realized it was past seven and yay, we could finally go and see Professor Juniper (Much to Barry's delight, and likely to Cheren and Bianca's too)

Professor Juniper, we were astonished to find out, was quite a young lady (Astonishing because every other Professor I'd met was either old or middle aged and also a man – this lady was probably only in her twenties) She was very kind to us from the get-go; especially to Brendan who was clearly about to be sick and currently is sitting in a corner looking very green.

"I was very excited for your arrival, Allie! I heard you've already traveled through four regions, correct?" Professor Juniper was smiling widely, a white and fluffy Pokémon perched on her desk by where she was standing.

"Yeah," I responded, nodding sheepishly. Beside me, Barry is looking around everywhere – I assume he's looking for a large amount of pokeballs that would likely contain the Pokémon we would soon obtain.

"And Cheren, Bianca," Professor Juniper was smiling warmly at the two; "this is your first time in this position. I'm sure Allie will be able to agree that it's an exciting thing to have happen. Brendan, too,"

"And me," Barry adds in, pouting at being left out, but starts grinning a moment later.

"Yes, and you too, Barry," Professor Juniper laughs, "but of course, we must move on! All of you look like you want to get out as soon as possible, am I right?" Barry nods furiously while the rest of us nod at average speed. Cheren has a determined look in his eyes, and Bianca looks about ready to fall over if she leans forward any more. Brendan still looks ill but at least now he's joined us and doesn't seem to be about to throw up over us all any second.

"So I have three different types of Pokémon," she gestured to an open briefcase which was split into three, each section filled with Pokénba;;s. "On the left is Tepig, in the middle is Oshawott, and to the right is Snivy. Choose wisely!" She steps back, letting us all crowd around the briefcase; naturally I go straight for Tepig to follow my pattern, and as I suspected, Bianca went straight for Oshawott. Cheren took one of the Pokéballs containing a Tepig as well; Barry took a Snivy (I expected him to get an Oshawott simply because he might pick the one with the type advantage over mine, but I guess not) and Brendan took one of the other Oshawott's.

"Allie, Barry and Brendan probably already know this but, Cheren and Bianca, you can give your Pokémon names – this makes a closer bond in some cases, but I don't think it makes too much of a difference."

After a quick check with my Pokédex scanner, it turns out I got lucky for the fifth time and my Tepig is female. Guess what I called her. Go on, guess. Yeah, she's called Amber. At this point, Juniper spoke mainly to Cheren and Bianca – naturally we'd had the whole this-is-a-Pokédex-and-this-is-what-you-do-now talk before – in my case a whole four times already. Professor Juniper had already told us we could leave.

Brendan stayed behind because he was still ill and naturally really needed to sleep – Barry was wide awake already despite both of us only sleeping for about six hours, so we were both ready to go (Or rather Barry was and I sleepily followed, not in the mood to argue with him)

Stepping onto the first route slowly, curious and excited to see what's in store for us in Unova, I think back to Cheren and Bianca.

I hope it's not the last time we see them – knowing my luck, we probably will. The first people I meet in each region like to bump into me a lot like that.

So there you go, folks; the start of my fifth – and surely not my last, as much as I'd like it to be – journey.

Ha. Ha ha.

Hahahahaha. I bet that was boring.

I will attempt to make future chapters more interesting. I will update most likely every Saturday, with chapters roughly the same length as this one.