You're gonna go far kid
I woke up around five AM the next morning. I snuck out of bed as quietly as I could and crept out my door and down the stairs. I stopped in the kitchen and grabbed a couple of granola bars for a quick and small breakfast. I could eat a serious meal later with the money my dad had given me the night before. I turned off the alarm to our front door as I had learned long ago to do and then exited my home closing the door as quietly as possible. I turned around and looked at the house for what I hoped would be the last time, and then I left.
By now I had the way to the league building memorized, first take a right down Front Street, walk two blocks down, take another right at James Avenue, walk another seven blocks that way, turn left down Jessie Avenue and the building was only a few meters ahead. I had made the trip dozens of times before and I knew it'd take about an hour to get there at a casual pace, which was all good since the building didn't open until six AM anyways. So I set off, munching on one of my granola bars along the way.
I was thankful that it was still just the beginning of January and that it was still dark outside so early, if one of my mothers "friends" as she called them spotted me, well that was it, my journey's over. Not only that but that it would get dark earlier, allowing me to catch my Murkrow earlier and therefore set off earlier. I knew I would have to travel for a bit at night tonight if I wanted to get far away enough from town to be safe. It would be more dangerous but that idea altogether excited me, I was always really competitive and liked a good challenge and my first one would be conquering the night.
I arrived at the league building at around sixish with no real snags other than stopping and saying hi to Mrs. Birkovich. A nice old lady from Kalos who ran a local bakery and always snuck me pastries, saying "Eat up, you is much too skinny."
I was greeted by a young receptionist, who took my parental consent notice and told me the testing room was two doors down on my left and to take a seat outside and wait for my name to be called. When I got there I found three people waiting ahead of me. One was a young excited boy with a nervous twitch, another was a girl about my age with a heavily gothic inspired look and one was a lady that looked in her mid-thirties wearing a pretty green and floral dress. I took my seat next to the fidgeting boy.
"Hi! My names Connor what's yours?" He immediately began sticking his hand out at me. I did not know what to do. I was not a social kid at all, mainly because I never went to school, preferring to spend my time wandering around town instead and dedicating myself to the lifestyle I wanted to do rather than just sit and learn things I could learn with a simple Goodra search on the web. So with a sigh instead looked at the boy's hand, and then switched seats to beside the gothic looking girl. She was not too enthused about it but I kept my mouth shut and I guess that helped, the boy, on the other hand, looked dejected and muttered to himself.
Eventually one by one, they all took there turns, the boy and the gothic girls passed, the women failed and then it was my turn and I was more nervous than I had ever been in my entire life. I walked in and there was the man sitting down at the table, I took my seat across from him.
"Hello I'm Mr. Allacord, I'll be your league examiner." He said monotonically. "In front of you is a piece of paper, please fill it out within the league-mandated time of one hundred and twenty minutes." He droned on unenthusiastically. "If you fail to answer all the questions you may still pass if you score high enough on the other questions. When I start the timer the examination will begin." He said gesturing to the clock before him, I grabbed the testing paper and two number two pencils and got ready. "You may begin your examination." He said and I started, filling out my name as fast as I could.
Q1. Explain the various threat levels for pokemon and give at least two examples for each threat group.
Oh, this was easy.
"The various threat levels are there to measure how dangerous a pokemon is to society. There are five core threat levels. Minor, Major. Expert, Legend, and Mythic.
Minor threats include most first forms of pokemon or anything that would have a hard time killing you, things like the Caterpie, Rattata or Pidgey.
Major threats were things that were relatively easy to manage but at the same time could do some real damage if let loose. This was things like Rhyhorn or Beedrill, deadly but still manageable.
Expert level threats were things that took multiple experienced trainers to take down and could do serious damage if let loose. Things like Charizard or Salamence.
Legendary threats were the worst of the worst, if let loose they could destroy entire cities or ecosystems by themselves and took league organized teams, Gym leaders or even the Elite four to deal with. These were pokemon that had horrible legends told about them. Things like Gyarados, Snorlax or Tyranitar. They were true Monsters.
Then there Mythic, which people debate is even a real threat level. These are Mythical, supposed gods of these lands. Things like Moltres, Suicune or most famous of them all Arceus. If you see one of these you run, as fast and as far as you can because chances are, you're already dead."
Q2. What are things trainers can do in case of a pokemon related emergency?
"Well, that really depends on the emergency, how long the trainers have been training and/or the number of badges the trainer has.
For example, a beginner trainer with one or two badges could not handle a major or expert level situation. However, instead, they could help with helping evacuate nontrainers and noncommittee's, help set up a medical area and then heal the stronger and more experienced trainers pokemon and ultimately set up a support area or perimeter."
Q3. What are the big jobs that you can go into during or after completing the league circuit?
"Competitive battler, Ranger corps, Political/League official, Breeder or Researcher. However to go into more detail.
A competitive battler is one you can only go into after eight or more badges, sure there are amateur tourneys but it's the eight badgers that really make the money. In competitive battling, there are high stakes high-pressure tournaments. In which pokemon often die, however, these are the big time celebrities, everybody and anyone who follows anything to do with pokemon know these peoples names. And often time winning just one major tournament will have you financially set for life.
The Ranger corps is the military, you can join as early as two badges but most people join between four and eight. These are the first line of defense against major and expert level threats, first to respond on the scene in case of national emergencies. They are our police force and often times the only thing separating the wild and ourselves. And of course the first boots on the ground in any sort of war, much like the war unification war about thirty years back, that unified Kanto and Johto into one government. Within them, there is multiple tiers, branches, and specialization but everyone starts out in the basic boot camp. And the basic troops. Only when you prove yourself do you go into a specialization.
Political/League officials are league winners. Yup, they've beaten all eight gyms and beaten the entire elite four and champion. Power is everything and when you're the most powerful trainer around, you make the rules, that is unless you step down, or ask for a simpler and smaller area. This is the elite four, the gym leaders, the strongest of the strong, the people who can defeat expert level threats single-handedly, their job is to protect and serve there country and to pass laws that will make there own nation better. Eight gym leaders have the power of one elite, all sixteen gym leaders two elites. Four elite votes are equal to a champions vote and there must be a majority to pass a bill. So if ya wanna go into politics. The exception being that you can become a gym leader if you have a minimum of four badges and study underneath a gym leader for a minimum of two years, you can be chosen instead to lead.
A pokemon breeder requires at least four badges, but most successful breeders will have eight. They breed and sell pokemon to all experience levels of trainers and all kinds of trainers and it's a great way to make a living, especially if you own your own breeding ranch or work at one that gives commission. However, making two Snorlax or Tyranitar breed when they don't want to is very risky, so you better have some highly trained pokemon to defend you.
Last is a researcher which surprisingly requires no badges. However, it's highly recommended you get at least a couple because most of the time you will be doing field research in places where there is fire-breathing lizards or giant Krookodiles and if you get two close without a strong pokemon, well to put it simply you're dead."
Similar questions continued onwards for the next twenty or so questions and altogether it took me about two and a half hours to complete my test. When I handed it in I felt very confident in myself, I had been studying and looking stuff up online for the better part of the last three years after all. However, it took another three hours until my test was marked and finished and four those three hours I was in a steady panic. thinking that it couldn't take that long unless I for sure failed. However, eventually they called me by my name and I learned that I passed alongside the goth girl and Connor the twitchy boy. Us three were escorted into a separate room where Mr. Allacord was waiting with a smile on his face.
"Well, it seems you three passed your league-mandated test. Now we need to get into the real business." He said strictly. "These," He said gesturing towards some electronic devices on the counter. "Are your standard pokedexes. They will be your lifeline on your journey. They have an encyclopedic knowledge of all known pokemon in the world, a tracking system in case you are not seen or in contact for a long time and work as a phone and have internet access. Whatever you do, do not lose them, they are expensive to replace and if you're staying out in the wild for longer than a week, make sure to contact someone or a league pokecenter for how long you plan on staying. Otherwise, you may end up with a squad of Rangers looking for you when you don't need it and not helping someone who does." He explained and we all nodded vigorously.
"Remember that if the league calls upon you in aid, you must respond to the summons, if you do not have a good enough reason as to why you missed the summon, you will be fined and possibly suspended if you continue to ignore a summons. Lastly and unfortunately we do not have the same funding as large cities like Goldenrod nor labs like Pallet or Newbark so you will have to provide yourself with your own starter pokemon. That is all, you may leave." We all thanked him and turned to leave. "Ms, Gertrude could you stay behind for a word?" I swore silently and turned around.
"Ms. Gertrude I'd like to talk to you about your test results." He said and I swallowed nervously.
"What did I do wrong?" I asked nervously.
"That's just the thing, Ms. Gertrude, you did nothing wrong. You scored with a test result of Ninety-Seven percent. Something Ms. Gertrude only did three times in the past century, two of which were by trainers Red and Blue, who were arguably the two smartest trainers of the century." He said appraisingly and I hide to hide my face so he would not see my blush. "The league would like to congratulate you by offering you a scholarship."
"What kind of Scholarship?" I asked warily.
"We will upgrade your pokedex to that of a researcher license level and provide you with a league provided started pokemon. Something that we normally don't do around here." He stated firmly.
"And the catch is?" I asked uncertainly.
"Ah, I knew you'd get that." He said the first smile I'd seen on him appear. "The only catch is that you catch and send as many pokemon as possible to league-mandated research centers, that and you complete the first three gyms within your first year of journeying."
"Three gyms in one year?" I asked loudly.
"Yes, after that there yours to keep but, Champion Goldberg, Red, and Blue all passed this within there the first year, and Goldberg barely scraped a pass on his league-mandated test." He explained and I began to think about it. A league starter most likely from a high-class breeder with good genetics would help me out in my goal greatly and the extended pokedex abilities and accessibility would help my journey.
"Alright, I'll do it." I decided firmly.
"It's settled then, now would you follow me?" He said turning around and walking to a computer that was all pre-set up. "Now just insert your pokedex in there." He said and I followed his instructions and after a few minutes of it downloading some new programs, it was solved. "Good, now as for your starter, we knew someone like you would want something with diversity, something that you could mold into your own." He said smiling widely gesturing to a pokeball on the desk in front of us.
"What is it?" I asked excitedly, dozens of options running through my head.
"Why don't you open it and see yourself?" He said and I shot him a look. I picked up the ball feeling it in my hands, it felt right. Then I clicked the release button, which kicked back at me causing me to accidentally drop the ball and Mr. Allacord to chuckle. Out emerged a cute brown fox and I smiled broadly.
"An Eevee?" I asked turning towards excitedly.
"Yes, mam, especially bread from Unova, so it has skills only Unovan or Eevee's bred from Unova are said to possess." He replied and my smile grew wider. This was the perfect pokemon for me to start out with, I was already theorycrafting its evolutions and the possibilities for my team, a hundred different scenarios flying through my head. However I didn't do all that planning and research on Murkrows for nothing and I was still gonna go forward with that plan, so I needed something that could mess well type-wise with the bird. After a couple of minutes, my brain clicked and I already knew what I was gonna evolve it into.
"Vortumna," I whispered.
"What was that?" Mr. Allacord asked.
"Its name will be Vortumna," I said smiling though the Eevee didn't even react, of course, it wouldn't know it's own name yet. Instead, it wandered around me and Allard sniffing our feet. I reached down and scratched it behind the ears and it gave a soft mewl and cuddled up against me, already my heart was melting. "Thank you very much for everything," I said picking up my pokeball and recalling Vortumna.
"It was my pleasure." He said smiling. "Now go on and make Cherrygrove proud."
When I arrived at the park my usual crowd was there alongside my murder. I led the small Murkrow I had picked out to the edge of the flock. threw a french fry to her and when she was distracted hit her as hard as I could with a pokeball. The surrounding murder all jumped up and flew away. I quickly released Vortumna beside the pokeball and told her to tackle the Murkrow as soon as it popped out. After two long seconds, the pokeball exploded with a flash and the Murkrow popped out looking dazed. The trap was set though and Vortumna tackled it to the ground and began clawing at its chest. It quickly retaliated with a peck to her chest and sent Vortumna flying. Before it could fly away however I Murkrow with another pokeball and had Vortumna lie in wait again. However this time it didn't matter the Murkrow was caught. When I looked around there was no Murkrow to be found, unfortunately for the rest of my life, I could never go near a Murkrow again without it flying off. They communicated and they knew who I was. It didn't matter though I got my girl.
I picked up my new friend and released her, immediately she tried to fly away. I recalled her and released her again, she tried this three more times before she stopped. When I released her again, she sat their feathers puffed out pouting making me smile. I knew she was gonna be a piece of work, but first things first I needed to heal her wounds before we set out. I leaned down and she jumped away. I lured her with a fry and reluctantly she came closer, there I nailed her with a quick spritz from a potion and she jumped away appalled at being betrayed again. However, when she realized the potion made her feel better she calmed down a bit. I smiled some more and recalled her, I would wait till we got to the forest to let her out again.
So with a smile on my face and a hop in my step and Vortumna by my side. I set out to the city gates and to begin the greatest days of my life!
Hey, Guys just wanna say thank you very much for reading, it really really means a lot. Didn't wanna put authors note in the first chapter as I wanted to leave the ending as is. However this one I'll actually talk about my plans for this. This is my first real serious attempt at a fic, that I am truly putting my everything into, So I hope you enjoy.
My plans for this fic are to create a realistic pokemon world along the lines of fics like Triumvirate, Regret, Sacrifice and Subjugation and more. Yes, I am doing that cheesy thing where you don't know the MC's name until I determine you do. Yes, it's a trope but it's a fun trope, especially to right around. It will blend anime, games, manga and alike and in this world stats aren't really a thing other than the obvious ones, so Honchkrow could absolutely overpower say a Pidgey or fight a Raticate or Arcanine but it couldn't do shit to something like a Dragonite or Salamence ya know? And the Pokemon with few exceptions will be acting most like animals or their animal counterparts and have that level of intelligence even if canon says otherwise.
Anyways I hoped you enjoyed the worldbuilding and test format of this chapter as much as I did writing it and I wish you all a good day :)