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Reply With QuoteChapter 1:
"Come on... I can do this... Just one more set..." Ryan thought to himself.
The sixteen year old approached a black punching bag dangling from the ceiling by some old, rusty chains. The bag itself showed great signs of age and use, as the leather covering it was battered and had various tears with fabrics from the deeper layers sticking out.
By now, Ryan was feeling exhausted, panting heavily, sweat dripping to the soft, rubbery mat he was standing on. He checked the blue bag gloves he was wearing, making sure they were on tight. With a big breath, he went for it.
Jabs, cross punches, hooks, uppercuts and various punches were sent flying towards the bag. Always moving and dodging imaginary strikes, Ryan delivered the punching bag a beating. The bag swayed with every punch, the chains screeched to keep a hold on it, every sound echoing throughout the whole warehouse. With one last right hand strike, the set was over.
The boy backed off from the bag, letting it finish swinging. With heavy and deep breaths, Ryan removed his gloves and slowly stretched his fingers. He finally looked around him, at the poorly illuminated warehouse. It was an amateur mixed martial arts gym, where rookies and veterans went to learn and train how to fight. Some people came for the exercise, some came for the discipline, others came for self-defense. Some came for the pure potential for bloodshed.
Ryan went up to a special section of the warehouse where pokemon trained. Various fighting types were scattered around the machines and punching bags, but Ryan was interested in the four sided ring right in the middle of the pokemon zone.
Inside were two pokemon sparring, both humanoid shaped. One was a mix of blue and grey, with a face resembling a lizard, three parallel spikes on its head, along with a small tail sticking out from behind. This Machop was on the mat, behind the other pokemon, holding onto the its neck, in a rear naked choke. The pink pokemon, wearing red shorts and boots, unlike Machop, who was naked, struggled with the submission maneuver, not wanting to tap out and lose the friendly battle. Grabbing the Machop's arm around his neck, the small Tyrogue yanked it while at the same time using the small pink spikes on its head to bash against the Machop. With a yelp, the blue fighter let go of the smaller Tyrogue, that quickly got up in a fighting stance. As soon as Machop was on its feet, the pink Tyrogue showed its amazing quickness, turning into a blur as it struck the poor Machop's abdomen hard, an amazing Mach Punch attack.
With Machop on the ropes this time, Tyrogue delivered punch after punch to the disoriented pokemon. With one final uppercut, Machop crashed to the mat of the ring, definitely fainted. The pink Tyrogue held his arms up in victory, as various Mankey, Machop and Torchic that were spectating, applauded. Ryan merely smiled at his victorious pokemon.
"Come on Tyrogue. It's getting late, we need to get back home!" He shouted to his pokemon. The pink humanoid simply nodded as a red beam engulfed and dematerialized him. The beam retreated into a red and white pokeball that Ryan now held in his right hand.
The teenage boy went into the gym's locker rooms, picking up his black trainer belt along the way. After minimizing the pokeball he held, he clipped it onto the first of ten slots on the belt. A few years back the League had decided to allow trainers to carry more pokemon with them, getting that number up from six to ten.
As Ryan reached his locker and stored his gloves and belt, he removed the big white towel he had inside. A quick shower and he was ready to get back home. As he closed his locker and put his bag around his left shoulder, Ryan saw his reflection in the mirror at his side. His deep brown eyes surveyed his messy, short, dark hair. At the sight of some hair sticking out weirdly, Ryan smiled slightly and tried to straighten them out with his hand.
Outside was already pretty dark. It was about eight in the afternoon, so the sun had already set. It wasn't cold, but there was a small breeze.
Ryan lived in Pewter City with Brock. They weren't father-son, or even family related, but Ryan treated him like he'd treat his own dad. According to Brock, he was left on his doorstep one day as a baby. Being a pokemon breeder and being around baby pokemon all the time, Brock couldn't leave the boy unattended and decided to adopt him. In a way, Ryan also helped Brock since he had never found his special someone and lived alone. Taking care of Ryan gave Brock some company and something to be proud for, other than his career achievements.
The road back, wasn't really long, but not many people passed through it at this time of the day, making it a not very safe road either. However, Ryan was confident nobody would really try to mess with him. He stood at six foot three, was in pretty good shape and definitely knew how to fight and defend himself if he had to.
"Brock, I'm back!" He said as he walked through the front door. Ryan immediately felt a nice aroma of roasted beef. Brock always was an excellent cook.
"Hey Ryan. Help me out setting up the table" he replied.
***
Ryan and Brock both put down their forks, finishing up their last bite of the meal. Ryan was completely stuffed. Workouts always made him really hungry which led to overeating.
"So Ryan..." Brock started, breaking the silence of the meal "Have you decided about Diamond League yet?"
Diamond League was a new league that had just finished being set up. During a thunderstorm, a fishing boat ended up being thrown off course and found itself on a completely new region. In all, the Vane Islands, named after the captain of the boat, Lance Vane, was composed of a big island with various cities and town built on it, along with some smaller Islands surrounding it. New species were discovered on these islands and pokemon that were considered rare, turned out to be quite easy to spot.
In order to get the new region more populated, a new Pokemon League was created with gyms scattered along the islands. Newer trainers all over the world decided to take part in this new challenge in hopes of uncovering new secrets that they couldn't in Kanto or Johto as every corner of these regions was already discovered.
"I think I want to try it out. It could pose a nice challenge for me and Tyrogue. But don't you think it will be a bit weird seeing as I'm older than everyone else?" Ryan replied.
Ryan was sixteen. Most beginner pokemon trainers started around ages ten to twelve when they received their first pokemon. Brock, being one of the top pokemon breeders around, managed to get an extra Tyrogue egg from a client's Hitmontop, which he gave to Ryan for his birthday. However, the teenager didn't really feel like it would be much of a challenge to beat the well known gym leaders, so instead of going on a journey, he undertook fighting, more specifically, boxing, along with his fighter pokemon.
"I don't think it's weird. After all, you're looking for a challenge for your pokemon journey. And you always said you wanted to uncover secrets like I did with Ash when I was younger" Brock said
"Well yeah... I guess you're right. I guess Tyrogue could also do with some proper pokemon battling instead of just martial arts with inexperienced Machop and Mankey."
"It's settled then! Tomorrow we can get started with the paperwork and your trainer license!"
***
The next few days were interesting. Getting a trainer license wasn't the hardest thing, but it did require taking a pokemon basic knowledge exam. Ryan didn't have too much of a hard time with it. The hardest part about preparing for a journey was buying supplies and making sure you didn't forget anything. From sleeping bags to water bottles, from repels to potions and pokeballs. It was a lot of items to buy and forgetting a small one could be disastrous. In the end, looking at the list again, Ryan was sure he had everything packed and wasn't missing anything.
Putting on his trainer belt, now loaded with ten pokeballs, albeit only one with a pokemon, the amateur boxer checked his pockets to see if everything was there. He pulled out a small silver rectangular shape out of his right front pocket. It was one of the newer pokedex, an invaluable tool for any aspiring pokemon trainer. Sliding the top half to the side, much like a PDA, opened it up. Immediately on the touch screen, Ryan's picture popped up along with his details, name, age, hometown, phone number. This was his trainer license. There were various other applications that Ryan could choose from. A phone application, various maps, GPS tracker, Pokemon information, it had it all.
With his backpack on, trainer belt strapped, wallet and pokedex in pocket, Ryan was ready. Brock was waiting for him by the door to say goodbye. As Ryan reached the door, the two men hugged each other.
"You go get 'em, tiger. Nobody can stop you. They never could." Brock whispered in Ryan's ear.
"I'll make you proud."
And with that, Ryan was off, a cab waiting for him outside to take him to Vermillion City where he'd board a ferry to Amber Island, the first discovered island of the Diamond League.
***
The trip to the ferry was short. With all the advancements, shortcut roads were created between cities and towns in Kanto and the ride to Vermillion didn't take all that long. Trainers used to have to gruel into caves and tunnels just to go to Cerulean City, but nowadays there were much shorter paths everywhere.
After arriving at the ferry, Ryan was assigned a room, as the ride to the Vane Islands was still long. The ferry wasn't anything grand like the S.S. Anne, but it wasn't all that shabby either. Pretty much an ordinary ship with rooms for trainers and some more entertaining areas for people to have fun in. It even had a small arena if trainers wanted to do some friendly battles, however a ton of people wanted to battle, so there was a huge waiting line.
As Ryan walked around exploring, while looking for his room, he could hear all the newer trainers running around laughing and generally having fun. Seemed like a few of them had already made some friends to help along their journeys. Ryan wasn't really the type to hang out with people he didn't know, and his social skills weren't exactly the best either. In school, he pretty much kept himself to a small group of friends he knew since he was little and didn't stray off. Instead of partying and getting girls, Ryan kept to himself and his martial arts. Not only that but these kids were much younger than him.
At last, Ryan found room 419. Sliding his keycard in, the door unlocked. The room wasn't anything fancy. It was a basic white room with a single bed, a small TV in front of the bed and a nightstand. It also had a small modest bathroom with a shower.
It would have to do.
The teenager simply put down his backpack, turned on the TV and lied in bed. The rocking from the boat and the white noise from the television slowly put him to sleep... The next day he would finally start a pokemon journey. One that he'd hope was full of challenges awaiting him. In his sleep, Ryan smiled.
Originally Posted by mr_pikachu
