Yuu-Alter: Thank you.
ABZB13: Appreciate the sentiment. I really need one.
Guppy72: I plan to, believe me. And its good to know I have understanding readers.
DevonEHFuller: Oh my god. I honestly didn't even notice those inconcistencies. I apologize. I will try to make time to edit the story so that it gets fixed, though I promise no timeframe. I think this chapter doesn't have that problem, but I could be mistaken, I really didn't proof read it thoroughly. And thanks for your kind words.
Three weeks went by in a flash.
After the little episode with Birch in which I may or may have not solidified my image as a smart, intuitive, and ambitious trainer capable of figuring out the evolution conditions for rare pokemon with an important member of the Hoenn League I directly went to Slateport's Pokemon Center to finalize my registration for the Hoenn Gym Circuit. And since I was also applying for a trainer's license, this meant, for all intents and purposes, that I was a Hoenn national now. Or at least it said so in my license. That could become a problem later in my career as a trainer, but not overly so.
You see, each region guarded their elite trainers jealously after all the 'effort' they put into nurturing them. Hell, the whole Gym Circuit setup was put in place as a non-life-threatening method for trainers to grow strong.
Why, you ask? Easy. The number and strength of pokemon trainers were a reflection of the military power of the region they inhabited. This was specially so for elite trainers and above. While a full-scale war between regions had not happened for centuries, tensions were always high behind the mask of amiability that each region's league maintained with each other and the public. Elite trainers alone made up for about 50% of a league's fire power, even if they only represented about 25% of their available manpower. Ace trainers made up about 2-3% of them while those at the level of a Gym Leader or above would very rarely be above 20. The remaining trainers were mostly advanced ones, with very few promising adept trainers that were recruited early and spent most of their time being intensively trained. Hell, you couldn't even apply for a position within the league unless you had 7 badges, which was the highest level you could achieve while still being considered an advanced trainer.
In this world, I had come to realize, badges were not just pretty things certifying your victory over any given gym that have no other purpose other than bragging rights, oh no. Badges were like your middle school, high school, and university degrees.
The mandatory education for a kid here was of only 6 years, lasting from when you are 6 until you are 12, and it was the equivalent of elementary school. You were taught how to read, write, basic math and science, history, and how not to die when interacting with pokemon. That last one was incredibly important, or so I've been told.
Apparently, some people think it's a good idea to manhandle a teddiursa in front of its mother. Those people were thankfully removed from the gene pool.
So yeah. Unless you wanted a menial job, you had to have at least one gym badge, as that was the required minimum to use your pokemon to assist you in your job, which almost everyone does.
Of course if you wanted to work in something specialized you had to take additional courses or self-study enough to pass certain accreditation exams, like when you wanted to study medicine —either pokemon or human—, architecture, and even teaching. The more badges you have, the more options you get and the higher your pay. This meant that almost every kid of legal age took part on the gym circuit, even if to get only one badge.
This also meant, however, that getting farther than the second gym was truly difficult, unlike what seemed in the games. They tested your pokemon's strength, strategies, reactions, and general knowledge.
Less than 200 people every year got eight badges, which made those that did the cream of the crop. They usually ended up being snatched up by the league or some big corporation almost immediately after their first conference with promises of specialized training and big money. Few chose to keep training themselves and their pokemon by themselves while still staying in their region, and those were usually the ones that had problems with authority or were loners by nature. Fewer still chose to leave their region to compete in other leagues, and they were almost always back by the time they turned 20.
And those just elite trainers. Once you crossed the threshold to become an ace trainer you were monitored very, very closely by your regional league. If there were any whispers of you wanting to leave to another region they immediately took action to ensure that you didn't. Nothing heavy-handed, offering you an even better job and benefits, giving you preferential treatment, discounts for league-sponsored facilities (which was almost every facility relating to pokemon training), and, depending on your strength, they offered you rare pokemon too.
Now, if a leader-level trainer wanted to leave, that's when they started doing anything, anything they could to preventing them from doing so.
Like I said, the number of trainers of this level in any region was rarely above 20, so each of them were extremely precious resources for their league. And considering 13 of those were always busy with their respective responsibilities as gym leaders, members of the elite 4, and managing the entire league as a champion, that left only a handful of trainers of this level free to take care of any other problem that may pop up.
They were the nuclear deterrents that every region did their best to nurture and keep. A trainer of this level could bring forth an incredible amount of chaos, destruction, and death if they so wished. Of course any league would do all they could in their power to keep them inside their region.
Threats, blackmail, blank checks, positions, anything. After all, if they did leave, not only would they lose a very powerful trainer, they would also become a laughing stock to the rest of the regions by allowing a trainer of that calibre to just leave.
And that, right there, was exactly the problem.
I was not aiming for the elite level. I was not aiming for the ace level. I was not even aiming for the leader level. I was aiming to not only defeat, but to destroy each and every single champion I could. I was going to take my team to heights thought unreachable. I was aiming to make myself and my team absolute legends. If Jason wasn't here to become a champion, I would become one for him. Not just a champion, the champion. The one that beat every other champion. One of the few in recorded history with a team full of champion level pokemon.
Of course that would take time and a lot of effort, but I had the means to. And that meant I would have not only the Hoenn League on my case, but since I was born there, also the Sinnoh league.
That was also the reason I was staying far away from that place until I reached Ace level at the very least, preferably leader level.
To wrap things up. With my little show in front of Birch, I made myself noticeable while I was weak, which would assuredly draw attention when I rose up in the ranks.
And considering my results in the standardized rookie test, I was not doing myself any favours with the notoriety issue. But really, that wasn't entirely my fault. The tests were just so damned easy.
As a whole lot of rookies want to try their luck at getting a regional starter, the participants are divided by day in order to make things easier for the examiner. Three days for the theoretical part, and two days for the practical. The theoretical exam was, I must admit, hard. It not only dealt with hard facts, like type matchups, move efficacy, behaviour of the different types, and stuff you would expect a trainer way more experienced than a rookie to know, but also dealt with morality issues, tactical knowledge, logical thinking, pattern recognition, and creative problem-solving. As I said, it was hard. Problem was the tests were designed for thirteen-year-olds.
I am very much not a thirteen-year-old.
The result? I broke the damned record. I didn't get a perfect score, but it was close. And considering this was thought to be the easy part of the exam, I could easily see why only truly exceptional trainers got a regional starter.
The second part of the exam, though, felt a little bit like joke to me.
Now don't get me wrong, I completely recognize the difficulty that was intended for the test, but I had three things going for me in this respect. The test consisted of taking care of a supposedly randomly assigned pokemon for an entire morning and treating it as if it were your starter. This meant gaining its trust, finding out a few of its likes, its moves, strengths and weaknesses, and personality. Those who hadn't gained the pokemon's trust, or at least willingness to cooperate, were immediately failed, while those that did went on to the next phase; battling.
Now while it may be possible for a reasonably talented or lucky trainer to get a working relationship with a new pokemon in a few hours, it was very difficult to get to know each other enough to be able to battle efficiently. Each trainer had to complete at least 5 battles and was allowed to go on until their pokemon was unable to continue. The more wins, the better the result.
And why did I say they were "supposedly" assigned randomly? Well, I may be a paranoid bitch, but I think they were trying to make it difficult for me, being the highest scoring, record-breaking applicant, and even though I was registered as a trainer in Hoenn, the people in charge still considered me an Alolan citizen, so they assigned me the hardest pokemon available to deal with in order to stop me from getting a regional starter. They wanted those to go to Hoenn kids, not me.
They assigned me a ralts.
That would have normally been a complete dick move, ralts being one of the toughest pokemon to deal with that were still considered to be within the capacity of a novice trainer to tame, since they were weak, timid, non-aggressive creatures. They also had that pesky but incredibly convenient ability to detect emotions in other beings, which made it so that they clammed up pretty quickly if they detected any negative feeling in the one they were interacting with, be it anger, sadness, envy, and even nervousness. And what did a test to practically decide your future usually do to a bunch of barely teens?
Yeah, complete dick move.
The reason this test felt like a joke to me though, was threefold. Each reason more ridiculous than the last.
First, I have experience interacting with pokemon I was just introduced to. Hell, it was my job for the last couple of years, and I was almost always the one to deal with the difficult ones when the veteran or certified caretakers weren't available. Granted, I had no experience with the ralts line, but I was not helpless like many other rookies in here were.
Second, I had my cheat pokemon encyclopaedia, which detailed everything you needed to know and a couple of things you were better not knowing of any species of pokemon. And while I didn't have the whole thing memorized and doubted I ever would, I had read and somewhat committed to memory the important basics for every pokemon I could need. And when I made up my mind to start my journey in Hoenn, I read more in depth about the more common species found here. Which, surprise surprise, included the ralts line. This alone would've made this test easily doable, but not a complete joke. Oh no, that was because of the third reason.
You see, I didn't really plan to specialise in any type. I loved pokemon of all types just as I disliked some of them. No, I planned on becoming a generalist. This refers to a trainer that didn't specialize in a specific type of pokemon, like electric, ghost, etc. It was incredibly hard to reach the highest tier of pokemon battling following this path because your attention would be divided learning a what you could of every type instead of being focused on learning just one, but those that did were monsters even amongst giants. Cynthia, the champion of Sinnoh, was the best generalist in recent years, and she had never lost an official battle. There was only one other trainer that was known for achieving the same, and it was Lance, the 'Hey, you beat my dragonite? Cool, here's another one, but stronger.' Indigo champion.
That being said, I did have my favourite types, as did everyone. My top three were water, dragon, and psychic type pokemon. I really couldn't choose one over the other, as I liked them all the same amount. They were also incredibly useful, each in their own way.
Dragons were apex predators no matter which one and where you were. Even the 'weaker' ones like drampa and druddigon were incredibly powerful if properly trained, not to mention they made up six out of the eight known semi-legendary pokemon. I wanted that kind of firepower, and I wanted it bad. Problem was that dragon types were incredibly hard to tame. The hardest in fact, even at their first evolutionary stage. So, they were out for me until I had an adept level team at least, preferably an advanced one.
Water type pokemon were incredibly useful, and especially so when you where in a region that had a lot, and I mean a lot of water. The majority of them were capable of fighting on land too with minimal effect to their efficacy, which meant that they covered two of the three main terrains I would find myself in. They were also the most common type of pokemon, and a good number of them could be heavy hitters. I already had one or two of them in mind that I had to get my hands on as soon as possible, so there.
Psychics, though, were incredibly useful and versatile. They could be defensive, offensive, support, or even a combination of those roles and could be mainstays in any team in that capacity, depending on which one you caught and how you trained it. And they were mostly either cool or beautiful. I loved them. It was the type I wanted the most at this point in time though, more than dragon or water, simply because of three things. Telepathy, teleport, reflect, and light screen.
With telepathy I could mentally communicate with my psychic pokemon and through it, I could also communicate with the rest of my team verbally instead of just relying of instincts and experience to try and guess what they were saying. Reflect and Light screen, when done by a powerful psychic, were enough to create a near invulnerable field around themselves and their trainer, which meant good defence for myself at the backlines while I commanded my team and the rest of my pokemon when needed. Non-psychics could learn it too, but they wouldn't be as powerful. Teleport though, I wanted that. I wanted that badly. Reducing travel time to almost zero, an almost guaranteed escape route when in danger, and the versatility in battle when done by a pokemon experienced in the move were just too much for me not to want.
Which was why I had been researching which psychic type I could get my hands on as soon as possible, as well as their training guides, combat guides, and just plain ole' overall information.
The most common psychic type pokemon I could get in Hoenn were ralts, meditite, spoink, lunatone, solrock, baltoy, chimecho, beldum, abra, exeggcute, slowpoke, and natu. Of those twelve, meditite, chimecho, natu, and spoink were out due to the fact that their final stages just weren't powerful enough for what I had planned. I could train them to be strong, sure, but it would take more time. That and I didn't really like them all that much.
Lunatone and solrock were a step above them in terms of strength, but still not as strong as I'd like and were very rare pokemon to find.
Slowpoke was out too, even if the strength of its evolutions was up to my admittedly ridiculous standards. Problem was, slowpoke was incredibly difficult to evolve into slowbro, and even then it was one of the dumbest pokemon around. I didn't want to have to deal with a stupid pokemon just to have to spend a lot of my time helping it evolve into an even stupider pokemon. And if that was hard, evolving it into a slowking was about ten times harder, even if it would become one of the smartest pokemon around by then. It just wasn't strong enough to be worth the hassle, even if slowpoke was relatively common.
Beldum would be ideal, as its final evolution would cross all my requirements, being a pseudo capable of mega evolution that looked awesome, but it was one of the rarest pokemon around, it had a slow growth rate, and was difficult to tame, so unfortunately it was out. That left abra, execgute, baltoy, and ralts. All of those four could be trained to be powerhouses worthy of a leader level trainer, and two of them even had mega evolutions. I had done my research mostly on those four, and I found some important things.
Abra, while relatively common, was incredibly hard to catch. The moment it feels a trainer nearby with that intention it immediately teleports away, which was a huge pain in the ass. Even in the event of me capturing one, it slept 18 hours a day, and would keep doing so until it evolved. That was very little time to train, and it was a huge detriment, even if it could become an alakazam, which was the posterchild of psychic types.
Baltoy was too a relatively common pokemon, one that didn't flee at every opportunity, but there was only one place they were known to live in Hoenn, and it was at an incredibly dangerous desert that was prohibited for anyone under the advanced level. So, while it was common, it was still hard to get. I could get it, though it could be somewhat expensive. Affordable, but expensive. Its evolution was mainly a defensive pokemon, which would not really fit my style, even if I could make it work. All in all, baltoy was an option, but not ideal.
Exeggcute was also a very good pokemon. Its evolution was truthfully one of the most well balanced psychic pokemon I could reasonably get, being perfectly capable of offense, defence, and support. Its only downside was its somewhat lacklustre speed, but it could be made up for depending on the role it would play in my team as well as the training I would have it go through. Hell, if I wanted I could have it evolve in alola and I could get a dragon that would reasonably obey me, even if it was the least dragony dragon out there. The problem with it was that it was incredibly rare in Hoenn. I could find it thanks to my trusty app, but it would take time, and I wanted a psychic now, so it was unfortunately out.
Ralts, as I mentioned, was a pain in the ass to catch and tame by rookies while still being a pokemon they could reasonably handle. It wasn't too rare, and its second typing of fairy would definitely only help. It had a fast growth rate, and could evolve into two awesome pokemon. Gallade would lose its fairy typing upon evolution but gain the fighting type, which was a good one for combat. It also had a monstrous attack and reasonable bulk and speed, which made it a very dangerous. Gardevoir was one of my all-time favourite pokemon and incredibly gorgeous, which was a plus. It was also incredibly powerful at long-range combat and had a very good defence, which would make it so that it could stand by my side protecting me while also dishing out damage. Gallade was a pokemon that loved to help, especially when combat was involved, and Gardevoir was one of the most loyal pokemon to their trainer, up there with arcanine. Both could also access mega evolution and were among the strongest psychic types there were.
The problem was that it was just too weak as a ralts, even if it wouldn't take much time and effort to evolve. It was recognized as one of the ten weakest pokemon there were, psychic or not. It had a nice spot there up there with infamous names like wrumple, caterpie, weedle, and sunkern. Let that settle in for a minute, yeah? Ralts was just as weak as three worms and a seed. Hell, if it was a smart one that didn't splash all day and actually used its incredibly limited means of attack, a magikarp was stronger than a ralts. A magikarp. Honestly, I was hesitant to get one for that reason alone. It wouldn't take more than a month for it to evolve, maybe a couple of weeks, but it would be a hard couple of weeks.
The last pokemon that I could get, while not a psychic type per se, was an eevee. I could get one relatively easily with my app, but they were rare. Also, it would be a pain in the ass to have it evolve into an espeon. Granted, it would be a powerhouse, but it would be very time consuming to evolve. I considered it for a while, right until I realized it cannot learn teleport.
So that meant that I had been studying psychic type pokemon, especially the ralts and baltoy lines, from the world's most complete pokemon encyclopaedia for the last week trying to make up my mind for which one to get. The knowledge was as fresh as could be, and I was already good at handling pokemon from my time at the ranch.
And I was assigned a ralts. You could see why the test was a joke for me.
The first problem when approaching a ralts was making sure it didn't flee on sight. This being a somewhat trained ralts, it wouldn't flee unless you did something incredibly stupid, so the next step was the first interaction. This was where people started having problems, and the other three kids I saw with a ralts had already flunked.
As I mentioned, ralts would detect and mimic the emotions of the one they were interacting with, and the emotions would be amplified. This meant that being nervous, sad, angry, or anything like that while approaching a ralts was a terrible idea. Good thing I wasn't any of the above.
You see, I was the highest score ever in the theoretical, which included this batch of trainers. It would be retarded to think otherwise. This meant that I already had a leg up with this part of the test. I also had experience handling pokemon, and knowledge of just about every pokemon that would be assigned. Then I was assigned a ralts, which was one of two pokemon that I had very recently studied intensely. The result? I was feeling a strong emotion right then and there.
I was incredibly happy and excited. Which ralts easily detected and resulted in her too being happy and excited.
So for about four hours we bonded over how cute she was, how strong she could become, the muffins I had bought just for this, the moves she already knew, and I even showed her images of her final form. She was awed when she saw a picture of a Gardevoir, even if I didn't show her the mega like with Gale.
All of this while the examiners stared dumbfounded at what they thought was an applicant ready to be kicked out which was doing better than most of the other trainers here. Seriously, there was this one kid with a wrumple, a wrumple that almost got kicked out because the wrumple wrapped him up nicely with a string shot and he ended up kicking it.
Fucking idiot.
Suffice it to say, we easily won the 5 required battles after lunch, even though we were paired with strong, promising trainers. The first two actually would have had a decent chance at getting approved if not for the absolute ass-kicking me and ralts handled them. The examiners wised up after that and started sending me only somewhat competent ones.
So, after we won the five battles, I started challenging some kids that belonged to the middle of the pack. We won eleven more battles, for a grand total of sixteen, before my cute partner got too tire. We could still go on, but I decided not to; ralts was already tired and I liked the little fella. I could swear I saw some examiners heave a sigh of relief at that, but I couldn't be sure.
This meant, of course, that I showered ralts with all the praise I could give her. She won sixteen battles today, sixteen. I mean sure, they were rookies with unfamiliar pokemon and wracked with nerves which impaired their judgement, resulting in a somewhat bad performance, but give me a break. I was just getting to know her too and she was a ralts. Baby, weakling, can be beaten by a magikarp ralts.
Still, we got the most points from this batch, which all but assured me a regional starter. Hopefully a place in the top 3. I really wanted a treecko.
The biggest surprise of the day though, came when we were leaving. I was thanking ralts for working with me and saying goodbye, when she suddenly grasped the bottom of my pants with her tiny, chubby hand and didn't let go. I even tried picking her up, but then she only shifter her grip from my pants to my shirt.
I stayed an hour trying to say goodbye when the examiner just gave up, muttered a curse under his breath, and gave me ralts' pokeball after doing something in a computer, which now that I think about it was probably resetting the ownership of the pokeball.
So I walked out of my test refreshed, confident, and with a new teammate by my side. A teammate of a species that I probably would have gotten anyway. I really wished she was a male though, that way I could have the option to evolve her into a gallade. But hey, I really liked the little fella. I could already picture the future now.
Her by my side, completely spamming dazzling gleam and psychic to our opposition while the rest of my team destroyed the immediate threats, keeping me safe with a liberal use of reflect and light screen. Then, as a big, bad, rampaging hydreigon was coming close to us, rainbow light enveloped her form as she mega evolved. Then she lets loose a pixilate-powered hyper beam that completely erases that pesky dragon from existence, scattering its atoms to the four corners of the world. After that, she continued to attack now with hyper voice until no foes are left standing. Finally, after reverting to normal, she teleports us to our base, where we sleep and never talk about it again. Because that shit's just too common.
Good times.
In honour to my mental image of this little, weak, insignificant, cute as fuck and friendly ralts batting away pseudo-legendary dragons like they were annoying flies, I decided to name her Titania. Yeah, I was a bit of a Shakespeare buff, so sue me.
Her introduction to the team went about as well as you could expect, with her and Luna instantly hitting it off, she being somewhat wary of King due to his poison typing and King giving her space just as he did with Luna when she had the same reaction upon meeting him, Gale presumably challenging her to a battle before getting slapped by Luna's tails when Titania got shy, and Blaze just wagging her tail and playing with her. That growlithe acted so much like my old neighbor's golden retriever it was unnerving sometimes, even if very useful.
Days became a week spent training and socializing with my team, and then I received my test results. Turns out I really suck at this low-key thing. We broke the record for the theoretical exam, tied with the record for the practical, but was awarded bonus points since my assigned pokemon chose to leave with me. Apparently that was a thing, and my examiners were just pissed they didn't get to fail me and that's why they initially didn't say a thing. Hah! Suckers.
Those three factors combined meant that I had not only aced the test and got first pick for the starters, which is the equivalent of first place, but shredded the historical record by about 15%. Which was held by Wallace, the current Hoenn champion, when he got his mudkip. A record that some people already considered ridiculous and was regarded as to remain unbroken for decades.
And suddenly here I was, little ol' me demolishing his record after just 16 years. The guy was 29 apparently. Go figure, he looked like he was in his early twenties.
That little fact was thankfully not revealed to the general public, but influential or powerful trainers affiliated with the league were free to check the records for the standardized regional test results as well as all registered pokemon I had. Normal trainers could only get the info about my gym circuit, which included footage of gym battles, number of medals, the pokemon I had used in said battles, and a small bio I could edit. And since I had not participated in any official battle, they just had a record of me without any pokemon, which sadly made my page look a little pathetic.
I had little time to really think about it though, since now, finally, I was standing before Professor Birch's lab in Littleroot town alongside eight other kids, ready to receive our prize. Some of the kids were glaring at me while others settled for grudging respect, and I even spotted two of the other three girls that qualified giving me looks of incomparable envy since we were informed of our turns and they knew I got first pick.
Curiously though, the only welp that wasn't giving me any form of stink eye whatsoever was a redhead that was giving me a look of awe instead, though why I didn't have the foggiest.
It was mildly uncomfortable. Luckily I didn't have to stay there for long before the doors opened and who I assumed was a lab assistant ushered us inside.
Surprisingly, the first thing we saw upon our entry was a waiting room in which we spent a grand total of 5 seconds. Why did they left us waiting outside of the lab when there was a perfectly fine waiting room with a lot of comfy-looking chairs and couches in it is a mystery I would never know. Once we entered the lab proper though, I felt like in a sci-fi movie.
All these shiny gadgets looked expensive as shit.
Of course, Birch specializing in pokemon habitats, distribution, and migration, we were soon led to a backyard the size of Paniola farm from what I could see. There were rare pokemon everywhere, and I mean rare. Like eevee, metang, and bagon rare. I was distracted from examining it by our guide stopping at the side of the professor, which was standing before a long table with 9 pokeballs in it.
Oh boy, I'm excited now.
"Welcome, trainers, to my lab." He said as an introduction and continued once we stopped talking. "I would like to congratulate you for proving you are the best nine promising rookies this year. You are truly the future of the trainer community and shining examples of what everyone should strive to achieve. Now I can only hope you keep your attitude for the challenges ahead." He finished with a smile and moved to stand at the back of the table. "Now, while I know most, if not all, of you already have a starter in mind, remember that if three people before you choose the same pokemon you wanted, that's it. There are only three for each species. That being said, I will give a very basic introduction for all three. I know you probably know it, but its in case some of you don't, so listen carefully." He gestured to the rightmost pokeball and began.
"Here we have torchic, the chick pokemon. It is a very friendly pokemon and somewhat easy to work with. It is a fire type and evolves to the fire/fighting type blaziken, which is a very physically strong pokemon." He then gestured to the centremost one. "This contains a treecko, the wood gecko pokemon. It is not as expressive as its counterparts, but is a very loyal and committed pokemon nonetheless. It is a grass type, and it keeps that sole typing until it evolves into a sceptile, which is considered one of the fastest land pokemon there are." He gestured to the leftmost pokeball. "Finally, we have mudkip, the mudfish pokemon. It is a very playful pokemon and many consider it the easiest to work with. It is a water type, and will gain the gain the ground type from its second form to its final evolution, swampert. Swampert is a very sturdy pokemon known for being relatively strong and capable of easily taking hits, as well as its immunity to the electric type." He clapped his hands and nodded to us. "As you can see, every pokemon here has its own unique characteristics as well as advantages and disadvantages. It is your job as a pokemon trainer to choose the pokemon best suited for your team and training whichever one you choose to the best pokemon they could possibly be. So work hard." He smiled and turned to look at me. "First, we have Olive from Slateport. Please come forwards and take your pick."
Olive from Slateport? Well, I guess that since I was indeed registered as a Hoenn national there it would make sense, but damn. If I were to choose I would have probably chose Lilycove, or maybe Mossdeep. I mean Slateport is fine and all, but it is the economic centre of the region, which meant real estate there would be expensive.
But I digress. I stepped forward and stopped in front of the three treecko pokeballs. I shrugged and picked one at random, which turned out to be the middle one. The league provides these pokemon and, in the spirit of fairness, all are the same. No egg moves, no training, nothing. Complete blank slates for us to do as we wish. I took out my pokedex and registered the pokeball to my name. I turned to look at Birch who had a smile on its face.
"Congratulations on choosing treecko. You can either leave or stay a while to release it once all the other trainers have made their choice. For now, get back in line." I complied.
The next ten minutes were spent fiddling with my new pokemon's pokeball and watching the rest of the brats choose theirs. To be completely honest I didn't pay much attention to the kids but did keep track of which pokemon were chosen. The three right after me, which included that weird redhead that apparently got second place, all chose a torchic, which was either a really strange coincidence or somehow it was the most popular mon right now. A couple of muffled groans and some pained looks from the ones that haven't yet picked one told me it was probably the latter. After that, two mudkips were chosen, followed by a treecko, one more mudkip, and finally the last treecko. Which made me want to bang my head in a wall. If I knew that treecko would remain unchosen to the very end, I would've performed a little bit worse and stayed under the radar.
After some congratulatory words from Birch, I left the ranch portion of the lab, exited the building entirely and stopped in front of its facade while the other 8 were playing with their new pokemon. I released my team save from treecko. They snapped at attention the moment they saw me.
I finally had everything I wanted for the picture commemorating the start of my journey. From here on it would be north to Oldale, west to Petalburg, and north again to Rustboro for my first badge. A team picture sounded nice right now.
"Hey guys, we have a new teammate." I said with a smile holding the new pokeball for all to see. "He's a treecko, and I'm very excited to have him on the team, so please be nice." I said and released him.
After the light died out the first thing I noticed was that treecko was not as small as I expected, being 50 cm tall. His tail looked incredibly strong, and his bright yellow eyes were somewhat unnerving. But when it blinked and looked at my eyes, all I could think was that he indeed looked cool as fuck. I immediately loved him.
I tried to stop myself, I really did. In the end, even if the name probably was the most common nickname for a sceptile, I couldn't stop my mouth when it opened and spoke.
"Your name will be Blade."
Yo! Crimson here. I hope you enjoy this chapter. Just so you know, my situation has not changed all that much and I'm still struggling with all those problems. I'm starting on antidepressants today, so here's hoping. Anyway, please leave reviews and favourites if you enjoyed. Smell'ya Later!