My parents always told me training was difficult but no matter how much they tried to dissuade me training was going to be my life, I knew that from a very young age and it has always been my dream. As you probably know, most parents at their child's tenth birthday buy them a Pokémon if they wish to be a trainer. This is either chosen by the trainer and bought by the parents or they get a choice of the three most basic Pokémon in the region for a slightly lower fee, such as the Unova choice (my home region) consists of Tepig, Snivy and Oshawott, but me being as I was I was not going to choose from those 3. My name is Logan, most call me Lo, and I was to be a champion or so I wished.

-.-

"Hey, Lo!" Jayson called to me as I walked back from school, begging for attention like he always does.

"Yeah, I know, you have a Pokémon, blah blah..." This had gotten out of hand; he had got his Pokémon 3 days ago and was still on about it. It wasn't even that special and was incredibly boring. A Wurmple, not a cool Pokémon like a dragon, or a cute Pokémon like an Eevee, just a Wurmple and he'd asked for it too. Who wanted a Wurmple as their starter, I sighed as I thought at least it's better than no Pokémon at all.

"No, it's not that," he made it sound like no one would expect him to be talking about that, "it evolved! This is why I got a bug Pokémon, because it evolves so soon and then gets more and more powerful!"

"Stop getting so worked up, what Pokémon is it now?"

I was actually quite curious; I thought it must be awesome for him to have wanted a Wurmple. They're rare in our region and so I didn't know much about it. He fiddled with his rucksack until he pulled out a Pokéball; he then fumbled with the red and white ball until it opened with a flash and out came a white, spiky cocoon.

"That's not evolving, that's getting ready to evolve."

"No this is a whole different Pokémon, a..." He fumbled with his rucksack to get out his Pokédex.

He doesn't even know his own Pokémon.

"...a Silcoon, eventually it will evolve into a..."He typed away on the Pokédex and then mumbled something off into the distance.

"What does it evolve into then?" I pushed for an answer.

"...a Beautifly." He moaned. This obviously was not what he expected, it made me laugh much to his despair and after I calmed down I asked him for the Pokédex.

Scrolling down its moves and stats I noticed something odd.

"It only evolves at level 10?"

"Yeah..."

"Well that's pretty strong for a level 10 Pokémon. Most things aren't even considering evolution at that level." This made him smile and he walked off content with his low level bug.

Whenever I get home I'm straight to choosing starters revising work and generally work on my Pokémon training skills but I knew what starters I wanted and with only two weeks to go I needed to tell my parents.

-.-

"Now to show my parents the chosen Pokémon."

It was 2 weeks from my birthday and I couldn't explain how excited I was by the prospect of getting a Pokémon. I had whittled down my list of 20 into 5 main choices, I'd spent hours working on this list:

A Riolu, I liked Riolus because they evolved into Lucarios and they were amazing. They were definitely my favourite Pokémon and a fighting type which is my favourite Pokémon type.

A dragon of any kind at its lowest part of the evolutionary chain (I don't include Swablu, Trapinch or Horsea here because they're not dragons at this point), Dratini, Gible, Bagon, Axew and Deino are what I wrote down but there probably are some other dragons out there somewhere.

A Togetic, again I liked this one's evolution but I wasn't going to start out with a Togepi considering I was going to be ruthlessly mocked if that was my starter, especially by Jayson considering I teased him about his Wurmple.

A Charmander, rare but awesome! Maybe a bit dangerous but if Kanto starters could have it so could I.

And finally a Meditite, another fighting type like Riolu but with a psychic twist it could also talk to me with thoughts but the first thing I was going to buy with my money (after essentials) was a Pokémon translator so to be honest this didn't matter that much.

Okay so it was more than 5 but it gave my parents enough choice! I walked downstairs to my parents, gave them my list, sat down and waited. They discussed it in hushed tones and they looked up at me after they had finished speaking, obviously confused.

"Well what are you waiting for?" Dad spoke with a deep and shaky voice but it was soothing most of the time.

I scuttled off back upstairs to the computer and revised my Pokémon strategies, types and such making sure I was thoroughly ready for any Pokémon. I also studied the Unova map also and started to plan my route through all 8 badges and up into the elite four. I lived on the east side of Unova in a town called Lentimas town. It is a small dusty town that grew up in the past year but has since grown an airport that is very confusing. I moved here 6 months ago and it is now pretty big with a nice community but it is living in the shadow of a mountain called Reversal Mountain. The gyms can be completed in any order but there is a difficulty order:

Aspertia City – Normal Type Gym

Virbank City – Poison Type Gym

Castelia City – Bug Type Gym

Nimbasa City – Electric Type Gym

Driftveil City – Ground Type Gym

Mistralton City – Flying Type Gym

Opelucid City – Dragon Type Gym

Humilau City – Water Type Gym

It was a good idea to do these in this order and so I would do as close to that as possible, I would take a trip to Mistralton City by plane and then head south to Castelia. This would be the first gym I face, only the third in difficulty and would be good fun. I would then travel across the sea to Virbank to have my second in Aspertia with Virbank being my third because I'd have to travel back there to get to Castelia so I did the easier gym first. I then intended to head back to Castelia and continue through the gyms in order whilst heading back to my home town for a visit after the Mistralton City gym. This was how well planned but I knew that it would not go to plan because it never did for anybody ever in the gym challenge. I'd obviously then go to the elite four etc but it was too obvious to write down. And so I was almost ready and I couldn't be more excited for this, I'd finally be a trainer!