In the afternoon sun, in a stadium filled with thousands of spectators, we find two trainers standing across from each other. One Firm and unbending, the other Cocky with a dramatic mask. It is the Indigo League semi-finals, and both trainers are now down to their last Pokémon.
"Xatu! Finish this battle with Psychic! Don't hold back!"
"Meganium! Dig deep and use a full power Solar Beam!"
Xatu, high in the sky, locks its gaze on the plant-like sauropod down below. A pink glow appears around it, gaining
strength by the second as it prepares to unleash a truly monstrous amount of psychic energy to finish this hard-fought battle.
Meganium, on its last legs, attempts to gather as much solar energy as it can and braces itself for what can only be the last attacks of this battle. Both trainers, knowing that this is the end, call out at the same time.
"Xatu! / Meganium! DO IT NOW!"
Hearing their trainer's command both Pokémon release their attacks and a massive beam of solar energy rushes towards the totem bird punching through the blinding light of its psychic blast. Sadly, the Solar beam misses as Xatu barely banks out of the way in time and the rest of its Psychic slams home into the already heavily injured Meganiun down below.
There is silence throughout the stadium as Meganium lets out one last cry and falls to the ground heavily, unconscious. The referee raises a flag. "Meganium is unable to battle! Trainer Will has won and has advanced to the Finals!"
As the crowd cheers, and Will celebrates with his Xatu, The defeated trainer recalls his fallen Pokémon and sinks to his knees and pounds his fist into the dirt, A ringing sound plays in his ears that slowly grows louder until everything goes white.
"That dream just can't seem to leave me alone." Cal sighs, as he reaches over to his dresser and turns off his alarm. After putting on some clothes he starts to walk to his bathroom.
'I can't believe it's only been a month since then.' Reaching the bathroom Cal grabs his toothbrush and then looks in the mirror, what he sees is a Lighter skinned young man with brown hair wearing a white shirt under a light red open jacket while on his bottom he had the same-colored shorts as his jacket.
"Looking great as always." he says as he winks to himself and once he's done brushing his teeth, Cal walks downstairs and then outside to check his mail. Opening the mailbox Cal sees an envelope with the league insignia stamped on the front. Eyes widening, he rushes back inside to his living room and after almost stubbing his toe on the couch he sits down and opens the envelope to see a new ID and a letter.
"Dear Cal Pines."
We of the Pokémon league are proud to inform you that after reviewing your application and seeing how you placed into the top 8 out of hundreds of trainers in this seasons Indigo League, we have accepted your application to become an ACE what this entails is that you now have an increased carry limit of up to 12 Pokémon, access to higher level jobs on job boards in Pokémon Centers and you now qualify for the ACE ranking system. If you manage to make it all the way to the top 12 on the leader board then you will qualify for the ACE Elite tournament that is held once every year.
We at the Pokémon League look forward to seeing what you can accomplish as a newly promoted ACE trainer and how far you can make it up the rankings.
Best Regards
The Pokémon League Committe.
Blinking in shock, Cal immediately rushes out of the living room with his new ID and immediately heads into the backyard after grabbing his pokeballs from their case on the counter of the kitchen. After reaching his backyard Cal immediately releases all 7 of his pokemon and before they can even finish materializing, he is lifted off his feet and onto the back of his starter pokemon Vine the Meganium. Laughing, Cal reaches out to scratch his pokemon's head.
"Alright Vine you since you put me back here turn around so i can at least face the others to tell them the good news."
"Meg..." Letting out a sigh, Vine turns around to the others and Cal sees that they are all looking at him questioningly.
"Weav! Weavile!?" Karma, Cals Weavile looks up at him annoyed as if to ask why Cal woke him up.
Cal, instead of responding, just pulled out his new ID. Karma, now curious jumped onto Vines' head and got a sound of protest from the sauropod and got a good look at the ID. After spotting what Cal wanted to show him Karma fell off of Vines head in shock and let out an exclamation.
"Weavile!?"
"Lix?" Cals Steelix, Atlas, lowered his head and asked his little buddy what he saw. But instead of answering the dark type pointed to Cal. Cal taking this as his queue, held up his ID high and started to explain in an excited tone.
"So, I just got a letter in the mail and guess what? It had my ACE license guys!"
Reeling back in surprise, Atlas collides with Cals Nidoking, Tyrant off balance. "Nido!?" Tyrant lets out a startled roar of surprise as he struggles to maintain his balance at the unexpected collision. After failing to maintain his balance Tyrant falls over and almost lands on a small starfish with a gem in its center, River the Starmie.
Gem flashing in what Cal can tell is annoyance, River sends out a stream of water from its top limb that splashes against the poison type and the orange striped dog standing behind him. Luckily Flash, Cals Arcanine was able to move out of the way in time to avoid getting water all over him.
"Arca! Arcanine!" As Flash started to shout at the others for causing such a mess, Cal turned his head to his last team member who hadn't reacted at all to the chaos and was just staring at him in shock.
"I know it was a shock for me too Safi."
Safi, Cals Altaria, shook herself out of her stupor and launched herself at Cal, fluffy wings extended to wrap him in a hug. Cal, knowing how affectionate his altaria could be had braced himself but he still was knocked off Vines' back. Letting out a loud "GAH!?" Cal landed heavily on the ground with a large blue phoenix landing on his chest.
Startled by the shout of their trainer, the rest of the team turns to look at an exasperated Vine pulling a laughing Cal and a pouting Safi onto their feet and talons respectively. Cal, seeing that he had his teams undivided attention
coughed to himself and addressed his team.
"SOOO now that I have my ACE license this means that we now qualify for the ACE circuit. And since we are now qualified for the ace circuit, it means that we are going to be going against even tougher opponents than what we fought in the league." Taking a breather, Cal looks all his pokemon in the eye. Seeing their fierce gazes staring back at him he nods to himself.
"With that being said, the first tournament of the season is in 2 months, now normally we could challenge other ace trainers to ladder matches BUT!" Cal says dramatically. "I want our debut in the circuit to be a strong impression to the world that we are strong, Stronger than any other rookie ACE trainer around and that we are the ones to watch out for in the circuit!" Cal finishes his speech with a savage grin.
Hearing the passion in their trainers voice every one Cals pokemon let out a roar, or in Rivers case a strong flash of determination. Cal hearing and seeing his teams response lets out a laugh.
"Haha well since we are all so determined I have the perfect place in mind for us to train, and since I just got this license that means it's now open for us to run wild for the next month in a half."
"Ganium?" Vine looks at Cal inquisitively while the others also stare at him with interested gazes.
Pointing to his left Cal turns his mons sight to the massive mountain in the distance.
"I know we've been living in Viridian for a while now and I know you guys have heard me talk about that mountain over there occasionally." Cal fully turns to look at the mountain now.
"That's Mount Silver, the mountain said to be where the strongest pokemon in the region can be found." Cal turns back to his now wide-eyed team besides Tyrant, who is now looking at the far-off mountain in glee. Cal then walks over to Vine and puts a hand on his side and closes his eyes.
"Morning Noon and Night for the next 45 days we will be on that mountain, battling and training as much as we can in preparation to absolutely demolish the circuit this season!" Opening his eyes Cal tightens a fist.
"NOW ARE YOU GUYS READY!?" he yells, and his team, his family all return his shout with ones of their own, even his usually mellow starter Vine returns his impassioned shout with a loud "MEGANIUM!"
Laughing to himself Cal starts to talk again. "Well since we're all fired up, I'll go get registered for the circuit opener and buy everything we need for a long time in the wilds, so you guys go ahead and get some rest and relax in the yard since this is the last day we will have to relax for a while." Having said this Cal turns to go back inside his house to go get his things ready for the day.
As he turns around, he is joined by Vine, and he can hear the sounds of Karmas claws scraping against metal as he climbs up the steel serpents' body to talk to Atlas. Turning his head to look at his starter as they enter the house, he asks him. "You coming with me to the center or are you just going to watch your shows?"
Cals question is answered when Vine, instead of answering, turns to the living room, sits down besides the couch and picks up the remote to the tv with one of his vines. Deadpanning, Cal just shrugs his shoulders and continues his way back up to his room to grab his wallet. After grabbing his wallet, he heads back downstairs and out the door to make his way to the pokemon center to register for the tournament and to let the nurse joy there where he will be for the next month and a half.
On his way to the center walking on a sidewalk with some kids playing around, he can't help but think to himself.
'Just wait world, I, no that's wrong, WE will show you that we are strong enough to not be discarded, and that's a promise!'
Filled with determination and a smile, he steps through the doors to the pokemon center.
Cals team
Vine-Meganium(Male)
Flash-Arcanine(Male)
Safi-Altaria(Female)
Karma-Weavile(Male)
River-Starmie(Whatever it feels like)
Atlas-Steelix(Male)
Tyrant-Nidoking(Male)
Uh Hi there. So uhh yeah this is a thing now. It's my first time seriously doing a story other than some frankly cringe worthy shit from a 14 year old obelisk.
But ignoring that welcome to Ace in The Hole. A story about our boy Cal who is hellbent on dominating the ace circuit and never having him and his pokemon go hungry again (hint hint). so with that being said ill first be posting this on QQ and then to FF and probably space battles.
I already have the first arc and the first ten chapters all planned out, I just gotta put it all down into story format. And hopefully my plan is to have a chapter out every Monday so with that being said let me know what you guys think?
Like it? Hate it? Want it to be longer or shorter? Want me to go jump off a bridge? Let me know it all.
I'll see you all next time.