Out on Route 203, I saw a familiar face. It was Barry, training his Pokémon.

"Hey Barry! What's up?" I called.

"Gah-oh, hey Vinny. Guess what? I've been training my Pokémon, and they've gotten stronger. What about you and your Pokémon?" he asked.

"Well, you'd be surprised to hear this, but I am a Pokémon."

I was right; he was surprised. "Wow. I've heard of people like that, though I never thought I'd meet one. Cool! So, you wanna, um, battle?" he asked. I nodded.

Barry sent out his Turtwig, then his Starly, and then his other Pokémon, all of which I defeated. Afterwards, we shook hands and parted.

I then proceeded to battle other trainers, growing in levels quickly, seeing all kinds of cool new Pokémon, and getting prize money.

To the west, I entered Oreburgh Gate, and after a few steps, I was immediately stopped by a Hiker.

"Hey, that sparkling new Pokétch! Your awkwardness as a traveler!" he exclaimed as I took a step back. My awkwardness as a traveler? I thought. What the hell does he mean by that? Ignoring that, I held up my wrist to show him the Pokétch. "This thing?" I said.

"No, the thing on your head. Yes, the thing on your wrist!" he exclaimed almost annoyed.

"What about it?" I asked.

"Well, you're still a pretty new trainer, aren't you?" he asked.

"Yeah, I started 9 hours ago." I replied.

"Holy crap, seriously?" he shouted.

"Yeah. What's so surprising about that?"

"Oh, uh, nothing. It's just that it took me more than 9 hours to get here." He replied, obviously surprised. "But anyway, since you're a new fellow friend of Pokémon, let me make a gift of this Hidden Machine to you!"

He handed me a little disc which had a sticker on it that said "HM06". An HM, huh? Never heard about it, but maybe I could learn something from it, I thought, as I placed it in my bag.

"As you can see," said the Hiker excitedly, "that is an HM, and this particular one contains Rock Smash," he said pointing to the fine print underneath the HM06 label. "Pokémon that learn this move can crack boulders that block their path. However, in order for trainers to legally use HM's outside of battle, they need to collect gym badges showing that they are worthy trainers. I know, I know. It's kind of dumb, but it's just the law."

"Okay, thanks. Bye," I said as I went to challenge the other trainers there, a Picnicker and a Camper, both of which I swiftly defeated.

Once I entered Oreburgh City, there was a youngster standing there looking up at the night sky, almost like he was in a daze.

"Yo, I'm kind of lost. Can you help me find the Oreburgh Gym?" I asked the youngster politely.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Follow me," he replied, snapping out of his daze.

"If you have no gym badges, then other trainers will look down on you," he mentioned as we walked to the gym. "We're her- oh, someone is at the door. That's strange. Well, you should go talk to him or something."

I recognized the trainer right away. The yellow hair, the orange striped shirt, the shoulder trainer bag. It was Barry.

"Hey Barry. How's it going?" I greeted walking up to him.

"Gah-oh, hey, Vinny! What's up? Have your Pokémon gotten stronger? Mine have. Well, I got something to tell ya. This gym is, like, really tough, like, seriously serious!"

I chuckled. "Seriously serious, huh? The gym leader would stand no chance against me, regardless of whether I'm a fire type or not. Speaking of, where is the gym leader? Did you beat him already?"

"Yeah, I beat him, which was pretty freakin' tough. But after I beat him, he ran off to the coal mine to do some work."

"Sucks to be me, 'cuz that means I gotta find him," I said walking off towards the mine. "See you later, Barry."

After a while, I got to the caverns where the miners were working and also challenged me to battles. After swiftly defeating them all, I rounded a corner to find a miner wearing a red hat instead of a yellow hat.

"Hey, stand back and watch this," he whispered. "Using the HM Rock Smash…" CRACK! The miner's Pokémon smashed a boulder in his way. "A boulder in your way will break. Fallen boulders need to be smashed to clear your path. If you get the gym badge from the gym leader at Oreburgh Gym, you can legally use it outside of battle," he said quietly. "You look like a newbie. Can I give you some advice?"

"Sure. Thank you."

"No problem. So, in order to get a gym badge, you need to defeat the gym leader of the gym you are challenging. And it just so happens that the gym leader of Oreburgh Gym is… me!" he said proudly. "Anyway, I have what I need, so I hope to see you at the gym. Bye!" he said trotting away, whistling a merry tune.

Back on the surface, I went to heal at the Pokémon center. When I got to the gym, Barry was gone. He had probably went off to the next town.

In the gym, I decided to try using the HM to make the battles easier. There was a little sticker on the back of the thick disc for a tutorial on how to learn a TM or HM.

Grip the bottom of the Machine and press it to your Pokémon's head. Because of advancements technology, your Pokémon will somehow learn this move. Scientists can't explain this phenomenon because no one can understand Pokémon, said the sticker. Yeah, I thought, I think I can explain this. Take that, science.

I pressed the HM to my forehead and instantly I could feel waves of data surging through my brain. My head was throbbing and it almost hurt, but it also had sort of a tingling sensation. It's sort of like when you hold your breath and try to force yourself to pass out, sort of like when you're raging or something and your face gets all red. And then you let out your breath when you almost pass out. Anyway, that's exactly what it felt like when I pressed the HM to my head. But after all of that was done, I knew Rock Smash. It was like it just appeared there in my brain.

"Let's do this."

I defeated all of the trainers (2 of them) in the gym and ascended the stairs to the gym leader. Standing there was the helpful guy from the mines.

"Hey, you came. Welcome to the Oreburgh City gym! My name is Roark," he greeted.

"Hey. Thanks for the tip earlier."

"No problem, man. I was glad to help." He replied.

"Hey, before we fight, I need to tell you about me."

I then proceeded to tell him about me being half-Charizard. He seemed to take it into consideration, and nodded, while readying a Pokéball.

"I understand. There are people like that, so I guess it's normal. But still, I am a gym leader nonetheless. So whether you are half human or not, I will do everything in my power to win! So then! Let's battle! Go, Geodude!"

He threw out his first Pokémon, a Geodude.

"Geodude, use Rock Throw!" yelled Roark.

"Geo…DUDE!" cried Geodude as he used Rock Throw on me. I cancelled the attack using Rock Smash to punch through the rock. Lots of debris flew around me, some of which hit me, causing me to take damage. However, my Rock Smash continued on to hit Geodude, who fainted under the force of the supereffective attack and fell to the ground.

"Geodude, come back!" shouted Roark, as a red laser enveloped Geodude and returned him to his Pokéball.

"Go, Onix!"

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a giant rock snake filled the stadium.

"Onix, Stealth Rock!"

Onix obeyed, throwing lots of sharp pointed stones around the arena.

"Gotta be careful…" I muttered, sidestepping the sharp stones on the ground.

I charged up a flame ball to about the size of one of Onix's middle sections and fired it at his head. Obviously, the attack was not very effective, so I had to come up with a better plan.

"Onix, Rock Throw!"

Onix picked up a rock in the arena and threw it at me with full force. It was traveling towards me at high speed, and it hit my chest, throwing me back.

"Ow, gotta get to his head somehow…"

When I saw an opening, I ran towards Onix at breakneck speed. Carefully, and ninja-like, I climbed up Onix's rock tail and jumped in front of his face.

"Rock fuck."

I Rock Smashed Onix in the face with my fist which sent him flying back, KO'ing him.

"Onix, return! Not bad, kid! But let's see how you hold up with this one!" shouted Roark from the other side of the gym as he sent out his final Pokémon.

"Go, Cranidos!"

Out came a dinosaur-looking Pokémon with spikes on the back of its head.

"CraniDOS!" cried Cranidos sweeping its feet on the ground and bending down, ready to attack.

"Headbutt!"

"Heheh, you said 'butt'" I joked while sidestepping Cranidos's Headbutt.

Even if I hadn't gotten that HM, I had another attack that, thankfully, was super effective against Rock types. I ran up to Cranidos, who was panicking with his head stuck in the wall.

"Steel…PUNCH!" My fist became as hard as steel and hit Cranidos with a loud WHAM!

When the dust settled, all that was left was me breathing heavily and Cranidos on the ground, KO'ed.

"Cranidos, come back."

With those words, I knew that I had won.

"Wow. Just, wow. Um, this is pretty embarrassing. I went and lost to two trainers in a row, both who didn't have a single gym badge. I can accept losing, but to two trainers in a row? Ah, whatever. You were tough and I was weak. That's basically all there is. Now that you have won, it's my honor to give you the official Pokémon League Coal Badge!"

I accepted the badge, with a few bruises, and put the badge in my trainer case.

"You know, you're really amazing. I will admit, you have what it takes to become the champion of Sinnoh. It's a long winding road, but you can do it. Oh, also…" he trailed off, reaching into his pocket to pull out a TM.

"Here. This is TM76, Stealth Rock. I hope you will put it to good use. You may not want to use it on yourself, so in that case, I suggest you go out and catch some Pokémon to help you in battle."

"Okay, I will. Thank you for helping me, Roark."

"No problem. I enjoy helping new trainers start their journeys. Oh, one last thing. There are other gym leaders, all who are much stronger than I am. There's seven of them, to be exact. And also there's the Elite Four. Only the most experienced trainers can beat them, and the Champion, all in one shot. So just do your best, and you can achieve your goals."

"Okay, thanks. I hope to see you another time. Bye," I said, walking out of the gym. Roark nodded to me.

xxxx

"There you go, you're completely healed."

"Thank you Nurse Joy."

I was pretty exhausted, but I was determined to go on, to complete my mission. I knew that it was only the beginning, but I didn't give up just yet. So with that thought, I set out for Route 204 to fulfill my destiny.