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Amelia shielded her eyes from the harsh glare of the stadium lights, so bright that they made the night look practically like daytime. The roar from the crowd was deafening as she stepped into the arena. She could see in the stands people with signs, her name painted on them in bright colors. Go Amelia! You're our champ! She took her place at one side of the battlefield, pulling her first pokeball from her belt, as her name was announced.

"Presenting now, the rookie contender for champion of the Kanto league!" The announcer boomed.

Amelia smiled, closing her eyes as the cheering swelled to a fever pitch…

…and she crashed face first onto her bedroom floor.

The morning sun slanted in through half-closed shades. Amelia made a clumsy attempt to extricate herself from her tangled sheets, sliding the rest of the way off her bed. She checked her watch, and saw that it was past 11. She sighed, and flopped flat onto the floor, staring at the ceiling fan. Just another dream, of course. She straightened herself up off the floor, sitting up as she heard barking coming up the stairs. She smiled as the big orange dog pokemon bounded into her room, and coughed as it leaped into her lap.

"Careful there big guy, you aren't as small as you used to be you know," She said, ruffling the yellow tuft of fur atop its head.

Her Growlithe barked appreciatively as she pet him, before Amelia stood up and headed for the bathroom, trailing her pokemon behind her. She gazed in the mirror as she attempted to brush the tangles out of her unruly red hair sticking out at odd angles and running down to her shoulders. She frowned as she sized herself up in the mirror. Seventeen and still not much to look at, she noted with dismay. Looks like I'll be flat as a board for the rest of forever. She thought of her friend Colette, whom nature had blessed… bountifully. Whatever, they'd probably just be a nuisance when I was training anyway. With renewed determination Amelia gave up on her hair, brushed her teeth, and went into her room to get dressed.

It was the middle of September, and so still pretty warm outside. Amelia threw off her pajamas, and pulled on a black tank top, dark green shorts, and a matching green and black baseball cap. She laced her hiking shoes and grabbed her worn canvas backpack, and then charged into the hall and downstairs, trailing Growlithe behind her.

"Where are you off to in such a hurry?" Amelia's mother called from the living room.

Amelia paused at with the door half open, "I'm supposed to meet Collette this morning; we're going to try and catch some wild pokemon today! She's probably already waiting for me so I have to go, I'll see you later!"

"Alright then, just try to be careful!" her mother said.

Amelia headed out into the late morning sunlight, flipping open her green pokegear and checking to see if she'd received any messages. No new messages meant that she wasn't too late yet. If she had been Colette would have been sure to let her hear about it. Amelia rushed along her street, with her Growlithe barking enthusiastically behind her. She was meeting Colette at the pokemart to stock up on supplies. Amelia only had the pokeball that belonged to Growlithe, even though she never kept him in it, so she'd need to at least buy some more if she was going to try catching any new pokemon.

Viridian City had always been a pretty quiet place, but it had become a little busier as of late. The local pokemon gym had reopened, under new leadership, and the open events and tournaments it hosted attracted a lot of trainers from the surrounding area, and thriving business along with them. It was nice, and certainly good for her hometown but Amelia sort of missed how peaceful it used to be.

When Amelia arrived at the pokemart, Colette was already waiting outside. She had straight blonde hair that ran to the back of the small of her back, but today wore it cropped into a high ponytail. Her green eyes lit up when she saw Amelia coming down the street, and she waved Amelia over enthusiastically. Amelia saw that their planned expedition had not much discouraged Colette from her usual style: she wore a white sleeveless vest and a blue skirt that Amelia thought was a tad too short. She wore a belt around her waist with two red and white pokeballs on it, and had a stylish looking shoulder bag, that matched her skirt. A pair of tall blue boots rounded out the outfit.

"I was about to call you, I've been here for like twenty minutes waiting! Did you oversleep again or something?" Colette said.

"So sue me, I like to sleep in on the weekend sometimes. It isn't like the forest is going anywhere, we still have plenty of time," Amelia said.

"You won't be going anywhere either with a lax attitude like that! There are plenty of kids our age who already have gym badges; meanwhile we barely even have pokemon!"

Growlithe barked defiantly to that last comment, "She didn't mean it like that Growlithe. Okay so let's not waste any more time talking here then. Today we're definitely going to catch some pokemon, so we're ready to compete in the Viridian Open at the end of the month! The prize money from that will be more than enough to get me started out on the road," Amelia said. She'd actually already saved up a fair amount of money, but had decided that the local tournament would be her way of proving to herself that she was ready to set out.

A fair number of youths would set out at 13 or 14 when they finished primary school, but that was less common lately than it used to be. Now more often aspiring trainers would attend a preparatory academy or local secondary school before becoming trainers in earnest, giving them extra knowledge and learning experience that could prove invaluable in the field. Amelia hadn't felt ready to leave home, and so had opted for the latter option. She felt different now; it was finally time to set out on her own to become a real pokemon trainer.

Amelia and Colette stepped through the automatic sliding door into the pokemart, a chime playing as they entered and were greeted. Amelia followed Colette down the central aisle, where they stopped to consider the rows of boxes on the shelves in front of them.

"Did you bring the list? I don't want to realize we forgot something important after we've already left town."

Amelia reached into the pocket of her shorts and pulled out a folded and partially crumpled piece of paper, "Well mostly we need to stock up on pokeballs. Some standard ones should work well enough, and maybe some of those new net balls might not be a terrible idea. They're a little more expensive but there are plenty of bugs in the forest and we could pretty much guarantee a catch with those."

"Hmm, that sounds good so long as they come in a relatively small box, I don't think I'll need any. I'm not a huge fan of bug-types to be honest," Colette had grabbed a basket, and was taking two identical boxes off of the shelf. They proclaimed in bold letters: Pokeball-Standard-10 Pack. Amelia grabbed another box that read Pokeball-Net-5 Pack.

"I'll just get a few for myself then. I think it would be cool to have a beedrill for the competition," Amelia said.

"Do you think you'd get a weedle to evolve by then? Twice? Aren't we confident?" Colette said, as she and Amelia moved on to the back of the store.

"We should bring some potions and antidotes with us too. If one of our pokemon gets poisoned out there we don't want to have to rush home, that would waste the whole day," Amelia said, grabbing several of the small, reusable spray bottles and a few of the larger refill bottles for them.

"I think all we need now is some pokemon food to use as bait and we're set. How many people do you think will show up for the tournament?" Colette asked, while trying to choose between two bags of food.

"I think it's going to be pretty big. They're holding it in an open air venue they're preparing on the edge of town, rather than in the actual gym, so they must anticipate a pretty big showing. We'll have to really bring our A game if we want a chance of placing well," Amelia said.

"Well hopefully the competition won't be quite as fierce in the badge-less 3 on 3. It would suck to get knocked out in the first round," Colette said. The tournament was single elimination, so one loss would put them out of the running.

"I guess we'll just have to use our time wisely. You already registered for it right?" Amelia asked. They were making their way back to the front of the store, where the check-out registers were.

"Yeah I signed up online a couple days ago. I'm really excited, but I'm also pretty nervous. This will be our first ranked competition! We'll have to show our trainer cards and everything," Colette sounded as excited as Amelia felt.

They paid for their purchases and split them up outside the pokemart. Amelia took her share: 15 pokeballs, 5 of them the special 'net' balls, a potion spray bottle and an antidote one and her bag of pokemon food. Hopefully she'd picked out a type that would draw out some good catches.

Amelia and Colette strode down the main street, heading away from the center of town and towards Viridian Forest. The forest was a favored local spot for catching wild pokemon, as it was vast and home to a wide variety of species. It was also only about a 20 minute hike, making it a convenient location for starting and experienced trainers alike.

"So what's our goal for today? Do we keep on searching until we run out of pokeballs, or do you have a set number or certain kinds you want to catch?" Amelia asked.

"I don't have special plans, it's too hard to try and predict what we might come across. I have Spearow and Marill already, so technically I only need one more pokemon to have my team of three for the tournament. How about you? You can't very well expect to win with just Growlithe, no matter how tough he is," Colette said.

"Well I still only need two... it would be great if I caught a pikachu, I know there are some in the deeper parts of the forest," Amelia said.

"Sure if you can lure them out! I wouldn't count on it though; they're fast when they're trying to get away. Cautious too," Colette said, laughing.

They were out of town now, heading down Route 2 towards the forest. The road was open and flat, with grassy fields on either side, and gently rolling hills in the distance. The trees of Viridian Forest loomed ahead. Amelia knew she needed to catch herself some new pokemon, and not all of the same type. With just Growlithe, she was easy pickings for other trainers, especially if they had water-types. Amelia had never beaten Colette in a match for just that reason. No matter how hard he tried, Colette's Marill always wiped the floor with her poor Growlithe. There was an upside to the constant dousing he took though: Growlithe had developed a little resistance to water attacks over time, so while it was still a weakness, it had become slightly less of one.

It didn't take long for the pair to reach the edge of the forest, where the road narrowed and passed into the thick canopy of trees. Until recently there hadn't even been a paved road through the forest. Now a road with streetlights ran through the forest, with a maze of dirt paths leading deeper into the forest in a variety of direction. Growlithe crouched down low to the ground, growling and barking into the maze like interior.

"Oh quit being such a scaredy-cat, it's not so scary in there and we're here with our friends," Amelia said.

Colette reached for the first pokeball on her belt, and thumbed its release, holding it out towards the ground, "Come on Spearow, it's show time!"

The ball opened and a red beam of light issued from it, coalescing on the road into a small red bird with brown plumage on its head and a sharp beak. It crowed agreeably as it emerged.

"Spearow, fly up into the trees so you can get a better look at our surroundings. Stay close to us and call out if you see something!" Colette said.

Spearow cawed in agreement and flitted up into the trees, quickly vanishing from view. Amelia reached into her pack, and fixed several empty pokeballs to her belt, so they would be readily available. Growlithe was still proceeding carefully behind her, his ears flat against his head.

"Let's find a path that will take us a good distance away from the main road and try and set some food out to try and attract some likely catches. This close to the road we're not going to find anything," Colette said.

Amelia nodded in agreement, and they set off into the woods together, with the distant sound of Spearow's wings and the occasional disturbed leaves of trees following them. After a few minutes following the road they came upon a small dirt path that lead deeper into the trees.

"This looks as good as any, let's see where it takes us," Amelia said.

"Hmm, I was thinking, if we stick together we might end up having to fight over who gets what pokemon. We both need to catch some, so it's probably better if we split up. We can keep in communication with our pokegears, in case one of us gets in trouble. What say we have a little competition right now? We'll meet back here in 4 hours, and whoever has the fewest pokemon caught has to pay for dinner when we get back?" Colette said.

Amelia smirked, "You're on! May the best girl win." they shook on it and then split up.

Colette continued down the road to find another path, while Amelia headed down the one in front of her. The forest was thick with undergrowth, and the tree cover was so dense that it barely even looked like daytime. The path wove a twisting course through the trees, until it came upon a small clearing covered sparsely with grass.

"This looks good, let's set some food out in the middle and wait over here at the edge of the clearing. I bet something will come out to investigate before too long!" Amelia said to Growlithe, trying to mask her excitement.

She reached into her pack for the food bag she'd bought, crumbling some up and leaving it towards the center of the clearing, before retreating back to the edge and crouching behind a tree, along with Growlithe, who was hiding belly flat to the ground in the underbrush. Together they waited impatiently for around half an hour before there was any sign of movement. Finally Amelia saw a small shape inching towards the food cautiously. It was a weedle! The yellow worm with the stinger on its forehead and big red nose was slowly approaching the bait, its beady black eyes apprehensive of the unexpected treat.

"When I give the signal turn on the heat, but don't go overboard, we don't want to deep fry this little guy," Amelia whispered to Growlithe.

The weedle was now munching happily on the food, its caution momentarily forgotten.

"Okay Growlithe, go get it!" Amelia cried.

With an energetic bark Growlithe bounded from his hiding place, rushing towards the unaware bug pokemon. Seeing the streak of orange bolting towards it, the weedle jumped in alarm, and began inching frantically away, but its efforts were too little too late. Growlithe stopped himself short and let out a thunderous bark, but this time the sound was followed by a scatters hot of small flames. They hit the weedle head-on, turning to wispy smoke as the segmented bug curled up in defense. Amelia rushed forward, grabbing one of the special net balls from her belt.

"Pin it Growlithe! We've got this one!" She shouted.

Growlithe leaped forward towards the defending bug, and pinned it into place with his big front paws. Not wasting the opportunity, Amelia aimed and then hurled the netball at the weedle with all the force she could muster. The shot was good, and hit the weedle dead on, opening and engulfing it with blue energy resembling a net, and then drawing it in. The netball snapped shut, rocking side to side furiously for a moment, before finally setting still on the ground, and locking itself securely closed.

Amelia rushed forward to recover the netball, kneeling next to Growlithe and ruffling the fur on his head.

"Good job partner, you did an awesome job! We caught one! "It was a good start, to what Amelia hoped would be a productive day.