The Trainer Trainer.

Prologue; Looking Back.

I've always had to be the best I could be.

Among my siblings- all boys- I found that I had to do more than just be a girl to be ranked as noteworthy.

I had to be exceptional.

Quite quickly I, Sora Ballentine, made a name for myself in my small, little-heard-of hometown, Coal Village- just to the east of Oreburgh, really- because of my grades and spotless, sparkling record.

It was only right that I left home to become a Trainer just after my eldest brother- well before my other older brothers- with my tiny little turtwig and the biggest ego and ambition that every twelve-year old could have in this day and age;

I planned to be better than the rest.

I had no intention to be the region Champion whatsoever; I just wanted to travel and have people remember me because I was… good!

Of course… it didn't quite happen that way at first and I must have challenged Roark six or seven times just to train my poor little turtwig!

But I did get better and I developed a habit of what I like to call 'nesting'; where I'd catch a pokemon and then just train and train and train for weeks on end until the pokemon in that area were rare because of us.

Everybody has their own, special way of doing things. Mine was to keep banging against the whetstone, so to speak, until everything was perfect and we were elite.

I roamed (then paused and roamed some more) through Sinnoh with a purpose. I had no inclination to make friends or sight-see in cities. I missed a lot, I realise now.

But, I was going to be a legend! Legends didn't need to see sunsets, I told myself. Legends turn their backs on sunsets until the day they are ready to submit! Legends watch the sunrise with fierce determination and iron-will! I read that in one of my inspirational books.

But, after a while, even a girl with an iron-will gets lonely.

I suppose that weakness comes from having a big, cuddly family.

Unfortunately.

However! Those thoughts of far-away home only troubled me for a few days because then I got the egg and I played Mother Hen for a few weeks. My birthdays came and went, unimportant for the second time since I left home almost two years ago (only visiting home when I captured a gible near the cycling bridge), and the egg hatched into an adorable hundour that, five months later, would attract the hard-earned interest of someone that would change my life in his stupid, lazy, infuriating…charming way…

That I hated.

Hated!!