Disclaimer: Don't own pokemon but will buy Torterra's rights if Gamefreak sells
My name is Markus and this is a story of my journey through Canada. Yes, Canada. Why are you giving me those funny looks? Don't lie I know you are. Anyway that is beside the point. Shall we move on to some where in the story that is interesting, like the beginning?
Chapter 1
I'm not the best looking person in the world, I'll admit. There are probably hundreds of people that look better than me, though a girl could do worse (just saying!). I'm thirteen which might seem odd but that is what's normal around here for a trainer to finish elementary school first if they remain in mainstream education and not go to trainer ed. To be honest, I've kind of been looking forward to this day.
If you must know more about my appearance, I wear glasses and have medium length blonde hair. My clothes tend to change daily but are usually variations of the same thing: red t-shirt and hoodie, blue jeans and running shoes.
Tomorrow is starter day, at least for the kids whose parents arranged everything. Most parents hand their kids a thing of pokeballs and pray they don't try to find something insane for beginners like a Scyther. They don't live around here but the one kid wouldn't listen to anyone's opinion. He showed up a week later after being attacked by a Beedrill which do live around here and now the poor kid freaks out if he sees a bug pokemon as harmless as a Metapod. METAPOD! That is why I can't wait for starter day, so that I can start my journey without being sent to the ER on day one. Hopefully.
"Hurry up mom! I want to get there before they run out of pokemon!" I told my mom as we were getting ready to go. "Or even worse! They could only have something pathetic like Magikarp left!" My sister called out from the hallway.
I guess I should take the time to talk about my younger sister seeing as we have a half hour drive to Guelph and the nearest pokemon lab. Her name is Carly and she is eleven. The reason she is getting her starter now instead of when she is thirteen, or ten with the trainer ed, is because she switched to trainer ed a year later than most of her friends. Her friends came home a month later after leaving and none of them with a gym badge to call their own. That meant she'd have to find somebody to go with.
Carly today chose to wear an orange shirt with a green headband and black jeans. Her dirty blonde hair was still messy from her waking up about half an hour late.
You know, speaking of gym badges I never talked about how Canada's league worked. There are ten gyms so far but they are working on setting one up in the Yukon and putting more on the East coast. As per usual, you only need eight badges to enter the league tournament. I'm not sure how they eliminate to the top thirty-two because that is when TV coverage of the matches begins and those are knockout matches. Only the eliminated trainers know for sure. And officials I guess, but both are paid to keep quiet.
As for contests, we don't have those yet. End of story. Why would you think we had those if we don't have all of our gyms yet? Heck, we still have to walk to every gym when we can't drive. Bus tickets are for emergencies only with the amount of money a trainer makes these days.
That's enough about that. I'm pretty sure you want this story to get interesting right about now!
A tall, pale man with balding black hair and a lab coat came on the stage and introduced himself. "Welcome to starter day ladies and Gentlemen. My name is Professor Pine and I will be your MC, lecturer for those not in Trainer Ed and Referee of our demonstration battles here today. Now for those of us who are parents in the audience let me explain what sort of adventures to expect to here about from your kids and how you can help them along the road while my assistant hands out the starter pokemon and pokedexes." The professor said as we were funneled out to receive our starters.
My choice of starter was easy for me to make: after all I consider Swampert to be one of my favourite pokemon and besides, when was the last time you saw one on Canadian soil natively? Yes I chose Mudkip for those of you who hadn't guessed. I felt glorious when I was handed its pokeball, after all I could finally call a pokemon mine.
Carly's choice came as a bit of a surprise to me. When I saw her walk over to the water types as well I thought she would pick a Squirtle or a Piplup. As soon as I saw her carefully pick it up, I was surprised. Especially when the Totodile walked up to me and bit me!
As soon as we finished up selecting starter pokemon (an unpicked Pidgey's eyes were murder for me), we were given a crash course of Pokedex 101(add music players and those things could replace ipods) and toured through the labs once we finally agreed to return our pokemon and not touch anything. After being introduced to all the lab's features and the majority of the others not understanding half of the assistant's word choice we were sent to the arena the professor had set up for the demonstration battles.
Huge did not begin to describe the arena. The room itself made up a quarter of the facility. The arena was probably a kilometer square in size at minimum with the standard pokeball in the center. When I asked the professor about this he simply replied "Get used to this because this is the standard size so that large pokemon don't go out of bounds. If you don't prepare for this now, wait for when the gyms begin to use specialty fields."
Large pokemon were apparently very common because our battle was a Gliscor vs. Metagross skirmish when the hired trainers stepped onto the field and with all the action I was surprised that they stayed in bounds. As for everyone else, their eyes were wide with amazement; they were sitting on the edge of the seats and they had their necks craned, trying to get a closer look. You'd think the parents would be more dignified because the kids were obediently watching the match.
We arrived at home later that day, after more lecturing and a form to fill out about how the Pokemon League of Canada was not responsible for any accidents in their facilities and other bureaucratic crap.
As soon as we could let our new pokemon out, Mudkip and Totodile were taking in the surroundings of our home and being sniffed down by our pet Growlithe, Melody. Melody was not impressed with our new houseguests after being playfully soaked. Long story short they have to be in their pokeballs when they go to sleep from now on.
Once the rules were explained to everyone (including the pokemon) I went up to my room and started rooting around for some pokeballs. One might wonder why because I had just received my first pokemon and should be getting used to its mannerisms and personalities blah blah blah but I knew as the next big thing I would have to do some searching for pokemon to supplement my roster.
I immediately considered where I could look for pokemon locally and made a list like this:
The park- Nothing to look for there worth using
The soccer field- Might be something worth catching but I highly doubt it
The camp- Long as I'm not noticed while I do my searching I should be fine because there is a huge area of forest the camp doesn't use and trainers pass through there all of the time.
I quickly settled on the camp after looking at my options for a long time. Okay it actually took all of 20 seconds and I'm surprised I took so long to decide. Checking my room for the second time I found 2 pokeballs which would be plenty for me to start off my journey with and planned on where to look for my very first catch and hopefully a lifelong team member.
I snuck into the back of the camp as casually as I could to make sure nobody knew what I was up to. In reality everyone probably did but at least this way they wouldn't rat me out if I wasn't allowed. Once I was in the back forest of the Camp I took out my Pokedex and scanned Mudkip's moves which plain and simple turned out to be: Tackle, Growl, and Ice Beam.
"You know Ice beam?" I asked Mudkip in disbelief, who in response shrugged as best as it could with four legs. To be honest I hadn't put much account into Mudkip's appearance, with its dark blue body, radar fin and orange spiked cheeks.
As for Mudkip knowing Ice beam this made my plans much easier, for I wanted to make my first catch a Taillow, a bird pokemon I had always liked. After wandering around and hiding whenever I heard something that sounded like a pokemon. I finally spotted a Taillow gorging itself on some berries on a nearby bush.
"Mudkip use Ice beam!" I called out, startling the bird but before it could do anything to stop itself from being frozen solid by a white beam.
I quickly threw the pokeball I had in my hand praying that it would work for me. It took a moment for me to realize that I had made my first real catch and as soon as it did I felt amazing, like I was on top of the world. Nothing could make me feel anything else right now.
Well, except for the Raticate whose territory I wandered into not realizing that it was nearby. To say its teeth were sharp would be an understatement. What happened next was not one of my finest moments. Seriously, could we just move on to the pokemon centre? I find this part to have been embarrassing. Let's go to the pokemon centre and move on.
Well, that's what everyone called it anyway. In truth it was really a healing machine in the town hall that everyone who volunteered would take turns watching. Naturally it was a big deal if someone showed up with a new pokemon, or if a hotshot expert heading to Toronto for the nearest pokemon gym.
"Hi there Markus. How many do you need healed today? One I take it. Am I right?" The woman asked me.
"Actually two please. And could you use the antifreeze function? My Taillow is still a block of ice." Was my reply.
"You and Carly are really growing up. She was just here with her first catch herself." She said. I immediately wondered what Carly caught and then I put the pieces together. It meant she made her first catch before me! I thanked the woman and headed home, to see Carly's first catch for myself.
Of course at first I didn't go all the way home since I stopped to learn my Taillow's moves which turned out to be Peck, Growl and Steel Wing according to my Pokedex. Despite the fact I've never had to look up an entry, having only seen familiar pokemon, my Pokedex had become a very important tool for me.
I saw Carly walking home from the soccer pitch immediately after I started to run home that way. She had let out her Starly- wait Starly? Then I remembered that she had made her first catch too and Starly must have been it.
"Carly wait up" I called out to her. "How many pokemon do you have right now? I just made my first catch!"
"Only two? I have three pokemon" came her reply as if it were no big deal.
I then asked Carly one last question before we stepped inside our house: "What's your third pokemon?"
I fumed at her cheeky reply of, "That's for me to know and you to find out."
Let me know if somebody came off as a Mary-Sue to you! I'm not the best writer so if you spot an error, let me know! Constructive criticism is welcome but no flaming. Also let me know what you liked specifically and what you would change. I won't please everyone but if I agree something needs changing I will. Also, I changed the way ice beam is done because I don't understand the blue lightning thing.