"Come on Roy! I already signed us up!" said Mark. "And if you win it's a cash prize and a visit entry pass into the Hall of Fame!"

"When in the world will I ever get to the Indigo Plateau and be able to visit the Hall of Fame?" I said, purposely responding with a question of my own.

"You will be there after we win all our gym battles!" Mark said.

I scoffed. "Well in that case I'll already be poised to be added to the Hall of Fame myself, so I don't need it either way" I answered sarcastically.

The truth is though that I was curious. In the small town in which I lived there had not been a serious Pokémon trainer in years. Not since my uncle.

In my class Pidgy and I were the best, except for maybe Mark. That didn't matter though, since a little backwards town in the Juddan hills was not a real measurement. There were really good trainers out there and in no way did I measure up.

But I was dying to go on a journey. To improve my skills and make a profession out of my passion. Mark was the same way. He made me a bet. And that was the start of our conversation today.

There was a tournament in town. Mark signed us up. The bet we made was this: if we did well in the tournament we would leave together on a journey. His parents agreed. They had already reconciled to the fact that Mark would one-day leave on a journey. My parents were harder to convince, but in the end it was Mark's parents, who didn't want him traveling alone, that managed to convince mine to agree to this bet. They just wanted to make sure I was serious.

I was.

Lucky for me the tournament was one on one battles. All I had was Pidgy. Mark theoretically could have taken part in a two on two, but his Magikarp was as good as worthless. He won it at a carnival which passed through town a few years ago, but the thing was useless and so Mark just left it in its tank at home. His Meowth was pretty tough though, or at least compared to the other Pokémon found in our town. The strongest Pokémon I knew in our area was Old Man Thomas's Herdier. The few others who I knew that owned Pokemon pretty much had Rattatas, Sentrets, Starlys or the like. Even a first evolution of one of them was rare. People here just weren't into the battling thing.

And it showed.

A few dozen people had signed up for the tournament from Farnan, my hometown, and the surrounding villages. I lived in a pretty secluded area; a town of a few thousand people and a few smaller communities around. The nearest city was a long way away and I had only visited it a handful of times.

The tournament was to take place in the local sports stadium. The first two rounds took place outside, meant to weed out the poor trainers so that the spectators in the stands would only witness the better battles.

I blew through the first round like it was nothing, as did Mark. The final sixteen were still on a very low level. So low that some of the Pokémon only knew a single move. Many of the trainers hadn't even tried to avoid attacks. Just land their own. It was embarrassing,

The reason the league sponsored these tournaments was in order to involve the periphery and try and find more skill in the small towns outside the cities. If any of the decision makers had watched the first round they would have shut down the whole operation as a waste of money.

The second round was barely any better. Pidgy made quick work of the Rattata we were up against. Funnily enough Mark didn't have such an easy time against the Purrloin he was facing. It was quite the entertaining cat fight. In the end Meowth pulled out the victory. He was in better shape than Purrloin and therefore she tired faster.

In the final eight there were a few more interesting pokemon.

Someone had a Sandshrew they caught in the desert a few kilometers east of town. Another chubby brown haired girl had a Chikorita. She ended up being my third opponent.

We were now battling in the large stadium. There were about a hundred spectators. My opponent and I were the first to battle in the third round. A rectangle the size of a tennis court had been chalked off in the center of the field and we each stood at one end.

I had not seen her battle before, but my friend Andy, who had skipped school today to come watch, had told me to watch out for the long range razor leaf attack. I thanked him for the intel, though having the type advantage I was not worried.

The crowd hushed as the ref introduced us and called out the rules. Roy Gillan vs. Patty Nicks. First to knockout the other's Pokémon is the winner.

"Battle Begin!"

"Pidgy let's go!" I called, letting my red and white pokeball sail through the air. With a pop and a flash of red light Pidgy appeared in the air. The, now empty, ball bounced back into my hand.

"Chickorita! I choose you!" yelled a nasally voice from across the field.

The little green grass Pokémon hopped out onto the field, brandishing the leaf on its head.

"Quick Chickorita use tackle attack!" came the command.

"Get out of range" I called to Pidgy.

Pidgy flapped its wings, gaining altitude and avoided the grass Pokémon's attack.

"Now, wing attack!" I called.

Pidgy entered a nose dive, gaining speed. At the last moment it snapped its wings open and slammed them into Chickorita.

Chickorita sailed back skidding on the grass, taking serious super effective damage.

I was nervously aware of the announcer saying something along the same lines too.

"Up Chickorita!" commanded Patty. Chickorita responded, getting shakily to its feet. "Quick, use razor leaf!"

That was exactly what I had been waiting for. As Chickorita spun the leaf on her head, shooting out a small storm of sharp leaves, I ordered Pidgy to give a gust.

My Pidgy's gust cut right through the cloud of leaves and knocked them astray, confusing Chickorita. Pidgy knew already what to do and the second I commanded it, it flew into a quick attack, coming through the now harmless leaves to smack into Chickorita.

"Chickorita is unable to battle! Pidgy wins, Roy is the victor!"

And just like that I was final four.

Mark also won his battle, dropping an Oddish like it was nothing. The guy- Charlie, it turns out, with the Sandshrew, also won his match. The final member of the top four was another kid named Steve, who's Raticate overpowered his opponent's Rattata. I knew Steve from school. He was a year above me and he was somewhat of a bully. People usually liked him at first because he was good looking and had an easy charm about him, but anyone that got to know him a little better found a spoilt obnoxious bully lurking just beneath the surface.

Evening was just setting in so the organizers called it a day and said the semifinals would begin at 11 A.M sharp the next morning. Personally I think they did that in order to sell more tickets the next day, since the stadium had state of the art lighting and we could've kept fighting that night.

Mark and I went home together. We lived on the same block and his parents invited me for dinner. After we finished eating Mark and I stayed up really late talking strategy for the next day.

We were chilling on the dark green carpet on his bedroom floor when we realized that between the two of us we knew both other trainer's entire move-set.

I had witnessed Sandshrew use sand attack and scratch in his second round battle, while we both saw him use defense curl and poison sting in the third round. Mark had watched Steve's second battle and so he knew that Raticate could use Hyper fang, quick attack, Focus energy and tackle.

"That Hyper fang is dangerous. It took out that last Rattata one shot. Also, Raticate is fast, real fast."

"So what to do you suggest?" I asked Mark. He thought for a moment. Mark was great at strategy. I had my own Idea but I was curious what he would say.

"For you it's easy. Range. Gain height and stay there. For me? Luck."

That caught me off guard and I scoffed. "Luck? That isn't a strategy! We both know you can do better than that!"

"Yeah, I know, was just teasing you buddy" he said, grinning mischievously. "What I'll have to bank on is surprise. If I can land a direct hit before he can, I trust Meowth will be able to pull off the victory. We have in the past against tougher opponents."

"What about Sandshrew, given him any thought?" asked Mark, leaning back on his elbows.

"Of course I have" I said, shifting position as my leg had begun falling asleep. "in this case the same strategy can work for both of us. It's all about the speed, Sandshrew has great defense, especially once Charlie starts putting defense curl into effect. What we have to do is hit him long before that. Surprise and speed should do the trick. Oh, and not getting poisoned, that would be a rookie mistake."

Mark agreed with me on all of that, though he pointed out that we were rookies. I just gave him a look that said "stop being a jerk".

"What if we end up against each other now?" I wondered.

"Then I will beat you like I usually do" said Mark airily, as if stating the obvious.

"Yeah right, you hardly ever beat me!" I replied, maybe a little untruthfully.

"Well then, time will tell wont it?" replied Mark though I could tell he was trying a little too hard to seem confident. We were pretty evenly matched. "Though it doesn't matter, since it looks like any ways we will be going on a journey together. We've done well enough."

"I guess that's true…" the reality of it started sinking in, and excitement started bubbling up in my belly. "But let's focus on the tournament now. We will have plenty of time after to plan our journey."

"Agreed" said Mark.

It was late so I let myself out and headed home to the other side of the block. As I began walking up the front steps to my house I heard something slither from behind some of the plants in our front Yard.

It was dark and I couldn't really tell what it was, so I took a few steps closer and only realized my mistake too late. It was the bright red color that gave it away. That and the sharp stinger that struck my foot. I felt the poison spread like ice through my leg and I collapsed. Lucky for me my instincts were good enough that as I fell, I released Pidgy from his ball, so that when the damn Venipede came in for a second go at me he was blocked by may brave bird Pokémon.

As I lay on the floor, my frozen leg on fire, I managed to keep my head enough to order the right attack. "Pidgy, use gust!" I called, very aware of Venipedes ability, poison point- which had a high chance of poisoning Pidgy upon contact.

Venipede was thrown back by the gust and smashed into the wall of my house. Inside, a light flickered on. I felt woozy, and I knew I had to stop it quickly. The only sure way to do that was to catch the thing. "Wing attack!" I called to Pidgy, hoping beyond hope that it would not be effected by poison point. Pidgy hit and I was just vaguely aware of Venipede going cross eyed as I threw a pokeball. The last thing I remember Is someone opening the door to my house and shouting my name as I slipped away, wondering if Pidgy was alright.

Authors note:

Please review! I appreciate your feedback. It will help me polish up the story. Thanks