I knew I wanted to be a pokemon trainer ever since I was a little kid. But I didn't want to become just any trainer. I wanted to be the champion.
And to be the champion, I needed an amazing pokemon to start with– one that could be really strong, and would be easy enough to train. I often talked to my parents about how awesome this pokemon would be, and they smiled whenever I started to motorboat about it. "What kind of pokemon is it going to be, Theo?" they always asked. I gave them the same shrug every time. I didn't know.
My father ended up getting a job at one of the most prominent media conglomerates in all of Johto. Often, he would bring home various tapes and videos of League battles, trainer interviews– anything and everything like that. Supposedly, this was supposed to help me narrow down what pokemon I wanted for my tenth birthday. The big day was approaching quickly.
These videos, however, ended up turning my enthusiasm for training into an obsession. With my craze and a computer's worth of pokemon training footage that my dad had stockpiled, my free time became an amalgamation of video binging and late nights. Once I started, I couldn't stop.
There were a few clips in particular that really caught my eye. The first was an old champion's involvement with the whole Team Rocket fiasco in Mahogany Town. His dragonite was unstoppable. Not even a concrete wall could stop a Fire Punch from that beast. I wanted a strong pokemon like that.
Next, of course, was the interview with the man with the funny bowtie and Suicune. The man seemed to have an infinite zeal when it came to this pokemon. He spoke with a passion about the legendary he had befriended. Suicune was his friend, and it was obvious that their bond was unshakable. I wanted to have a relationship with a pokemon like that one day.
But what ended up impacting me the most were the countless tapes of the new champion, Gold, and his championship battles. His typhlosion hit like a truck. His togekiss moved with such grace. His sudowoodo could withstand any attack. He truly lived up to his name. He really was the gold standard of what a trainer should be.
Which is exactly what I decided I was going to be. Once I became the champion, at least. And after I started my journey, of course. And decided on what pokemon I wanted. The latter took the most priority. I needed to make a list of potential candidates, and fast. My tenth birthday was only a month away.
Thoughts of that starter pokemon started to take over my everyday thoughts. On my walks to school through the streets of Goldenrod, I took mental notes of all the pokemon that I encountered along the way. I concluded that I didn't want any pokemon that were of the grass, water, normal, rock, or ground type. They were all too boring, and a lot of them were messy; I had to walk behind an omastar one day, and it was an ordeal to avoid all of the slime that it left on the sidewalk.
Bug and flying types were also later ruled out. They were gross. Flying types were a little cooler, but I doubted I could get one that wasn't a dirty bird while also being easy to train. My parents weren't dumb. There was no way that they would set a kid like me off by myself with a skarmory.
I narrowed down my typing list to fire, electric, and ice. Those were the cooler ones, I deduced. As that idea of the "cool" starter pokemon started to cement in my head, I would find myself daydreaming more often.
In math, I would lose myself in thinking about battling alongside a growlithe, or fighting my best friend with a charmander. During english, I would shiver at the mere thought of adventuring with a sneasel. At recess, I would pretend I had the speed and zeal of a pikachu or an electabuzz, running around as fast as my legs could carry me in the small lot behind my school.
I would scrawl each pokemon that I thought of onto a scrap piece of paper that I kept in my pocket. I couldn't risk forgetting the perfect species. Then, at night, I would research all that I could about those pokemon, listing all the pros (and cons) of the evolutionary line. It was a fool-proof plan to figure the perfect pokemon I needed to have the best shot at becoming the champion.
The plan worked well until I got to the research phase. I quickly learned that for every strength that a pokemon seemed to have, it would have equal, or possibly more weaknesses. Growlithe, for example, were very loyal, but they usually took a while to gain strength, and they required some weird stone to evolve. Charmander turned into charizard, sure, but they were disobedient and dangerous. Sneasel were strong, but they could go down in one hit.
It seemed that every pokemon that I thought was cool didn't live up to the expectations that I wanted them to fit.
When it was a week away from my birthday, I started to freak out. What if I didn't get a pokemon in time? What if I didn't start my journey when my friends did? If I got a late start? That would mean I wouldn't have enough time to train! I'd lose out on precious time with my future team, and grow old before I would ever even think of stepping near Victory Road!
My birthday came and went. I didn't get a pokemon– I hadn't decided on one. My parents had even tried to help me pick one, but I shot down almost every one that they offered. My starter needed to be perfect, and darn, was it going to be.
I got a trip to Hoenn instead. It was a business trip for my dad, but his company would let me tag along, and I could even bring a friend. It was next summer, which was pretty far off, but it sounded cool, and I was gracious that I got at least something for my birthday.
"If you don't settle on a pokemon between now and then, maybe you'll find a pokemon in Hoenn that you'll like, sport," my dad suggested, somewhat encouragingly.
"Yeah, maybe."
Something told me I wasn't going to get a pokemon any time soon.
