Chapter 1: Signing In
We were finally approaching the main building. I got the feeling that the rules wouldn't be as loose as we had made them in the past. But then again, neither was I. Charm had actually started reading up on official move sets to sharpen his skills. And all the fights had helped Jolt get a higher tolerance for pain. It might not have been enough though. For the first time in a while, I was actually worried. This wasn't about money, or getting by. It wasn't even about badges anymore. This was about pride. If we weren't smart about this, we were kicked out.
The glass doors slid open and the girl at the counter looked up at us. I could tell she had the feeling that we were trying to look intimidating. And it's funny, a year ago that would have been the only thing that mattered. But not this time. We weren't gonna make jackasses out of ourselves. Our pride was at stake, and for once, we were actually concerned.
"Are you here to sign in?" the girl at the counter asked, "You're cutting it kind of close." The lobby had a pretty nice setup. There were several other trainers lounging around talking with each other and showing their Pokemon off.
"Yeah, sorry about that." I replied, "These are my guys."
"Okay, let me just get you and your Pokemon's IDs and then we'll put you in the system." she said nonchalantly. There must have been hundreds of other trainers that all went through the same thing.
"Here's mine," I said hesitantly, handing her my card, "but, uh, they don't have identification."
"Oh, I just need their pokeballs." she must've assumed it was as simple as that.
"Yeah, the thing is, they don't have 'em. I don't own them." I tried to explain.
"Are you renting them for the competition?" she inquired, not knowing what I meant.
"No, they don't have owners." I said quickly, knowing after I had already said it that I would regret it. The girl looked completely bewildered and she sighed.
"You can't enter wild Pokemon in the competition." she said as if I was insane for even considering it, "It's against the rules." Jolt started to back up slowly, hiding behind my legs.
"Well they aren't wild, they just aren't slaves." I snapped back, not wanting Jolt to feel that it was her fault for the trouble we were having.
"Look, all morals aside, those Pokemon do not have owners and can't be entered into the system." she repeated, getting frustrated.
"Okay, I'm not their owner, yeah," I said, getting frustrated as well, "but I still train them. Is that good enough?"
"I'm sorry, but this just isn't allowed." the girl explained again, "If you want to see the rules, they're listed over on the wall next to the ATM machine."
"I don't care about your dumb ass rules. I want to talk to whoever's in charge of this whole setup." I yelled, steaming.
"Fine," She snarled. I could tell she was pissed at my outburst in front of all the other trainers. As the phone rang, she glared at me with a look like "You happy?" I just looked back at her with the same intensity because I wasn't about to have my friends insulted and do nothing about it. Finally, the other end picked up. She said something about my attitude and then she told the guy that I wanted to talk to him. A little old dude with a big beard came out of the elevator a few minutes later.
"Is this the angry fellow who doesn't like our rules?" the old dude asked the counter girl.
"Yep, he's all yours." she replied, rolling her eyes.
The old dude introduced himself as Charlie Goodshow, and I told him my name. He said he wanted to do whatever he could to get me into the competition. Something about my 'spirit' impressed him. I didn't really care, but then he said he could bend the rules for me since I was still a trainer of Pokemon by definition, although they weren't owned. He looked up at Charm, and said "He's a real strong looking fellow. Got some nice scars on him. Any good stories with them scars?"
"Yeah, we've been through a lot of it." I told him straight up "The both of us." Charm tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to his broken horn, letting me know to tell Charlie the story. "Heh, oh yeah. That's from Brock's Onix."
"You mean the gym leader, Brock?" Charlie questioned.
"Yeah, back when Charm was still a Charmeleon, we started the gym challenge. He took down his Geodude easily but this Onix was a big dude. It started off pretty evenly matched, but then Onix got him in a bind. So Charm's just sittin' in his pocket poundin' on him with his fists, with Onix just laughing at him." I explained as Charm looked at me like I needed to stop exaggerating, "Don't worry though, I'll get to the good part. Charm finally slips outta there and starts runnin' up Onix's back towards his big head. So Onix not bein' too smart, whips his tail around to hit him and ends up crushin' Charm between his own tail and head. Knocked himself out, but Charm was alright. Minus half his horn."
"Wooee man, that there's a tough fighter." Charlie laughed "I can't wait to see what he's got in store for the competition."
"Speaking of which," the girl at the counter said, still scowling "you're up. The first round is starting in ten minutes. You're on the Rock Field."