Chapter 002

The PRLEs to Clan Eclairé is of utmost importance. It is literally a thing that he would make sure he wouldn't mess up, it is a goal that is so close to his heart. He was preparing for it every moment ever since he dreamt of becoming a pokemon trainer. He could still remember that day, the moment when he started to view pokemon trainers and pokemon battling reverentially, and had decided that becoming a trainer was a dream he must pursue.

...

(Flashback)

On that day, he was watching television with his family, he was ten years old at that time. His eyes were glued on the screen mesmerized, on it was showing the battle between the former champion of the Indigo Plateau, Feorria Waterflower, a middle aged woman respected by all in her specializing in water-type pokemon, reigning over Kanto and Johto for more than ten years and the challenger, a rising star, Lance Wataru, a descendant from the Blackthorn Family.

An eminent family that have produced a few champions over the generations, additionaly known as a family of Dragon Masters. Dragon-types which was commonly recognized in the pokemon world as the most dominant and overbearing type of pokemons, which Clan, a hundred percent agreed on, was the specialty of this family? Crazy.

The battle was super epic! Until the only pokemon the Champion and Lance Wataru had left to battle was their last pokemon. With both sides one pokemon left remaining, Clan held his breath, eyes fully on the screen.

Lance was the first to release a pokemon, his powerhouse dragonite immediately roared a challenge at Feorria upon it's appearance unafraid.

"Dragonite? I was wondering when you would release your famed partner, Lance. Let's go, Blau, bring that dragonite down." Feorria's voice echoed throughout the stadium in the television.

Feorria's mammoth of a Blastoise appeared for battle and immediately got into a battle stance, unafraid of facing the possibly strongest pokemon the rising star, Lance Wataru trained. Feorria's Blastoise, one of the three 'starter pokemons' native to the Kanto Region. What is worth noting was that, this Blastoise was Feorria Waterflower's starter, which was a famous piece of news of the region, when made public.

One could imagine this pokemon's strength for reaching this far in the battling scene, also being a pokemon trained by a champion gave warning signs to anyone who dared challenging her in a match. Both pokemon, trained by impressive trainers and were at the peak of it's breed were fighting it out, as the deciding factors on who will be the victor of this major battle.

The ongoing battle shook the stadium, if not for especially reinforcing it beforehand, the whole building would have collapsed by the brute force and tremors the clashes gave out. Lance seemed to have prepared well for this battle, anticipating some strategy the champion ordered, countering it out with his very own. Well, someone did his research. Morever, Lance on the screen wore a stoic expression even when some instances, the champion and her partner Blau recovered their error, making a move as if planned that would deal violent heavy blows on his dragonite, but he didn't dissappoint as a prodigy the masses acknowledge, he still persevere and fought with all he got, commanding dragonite with fierce commands.

Along with the battle, the people responsible for the commentary from the stand couldn't help themselves by asking a particular special guest they had for this epic showdown between the pokemon monsters. Charles Goodshow, the president of the league competition committee.

"Lance's dragonite is good, but ultimately, Feorria's Blastoise have a lot more experience than them in battling." Mr.Goodshow provided his assessment as he watched the brutal battle intently alongside some people, who was listening to his words. "I can see the efforts that young challenger, Lance, put in training his dragonite, as expected from a Blackthorn. Not many can get the Indigo Plateau's champion fight this seriously, knowing her myself she is giving it her all in this battle. Very impressive considering that fiesty woman had held her throne for more than a decade, after Samuel's abrupt retirement. Few can get her to fight this hard and those few are champion-level trainers, even if Lance loses, this battle will eventually be spactacular for many."

Mr.Goodshow stopped his mouth, as the climax of the battle was happening, the results were about to be shown. Can the champion continue in defending her title, or will her defeat result in another Wataru reigning as a champion?

Clan also held his breath as his focus was intently on the screen, how he wished he was there in person to watch the battle.

Blau, the champion's blastoise shook his head as he defended another attack from his foe and it only serves to make dragonite even angrier contrast to the other who was more composed. Lance notices this and told his partner to try calm down, which the dragonite complied with much effort. Seeing how fast they cooled down impressed those who saw it, but Feorria wouldn't just stand still, as she shouted a command.

"Blau, use Meteorite Bash!"

A combination move, Clan concluded. He saw many combination moves throughout the whole match so he was excitedly watching the screen, and it did not disappoint.

With a spin, blastoise aimed his cannons on the ground while retracting his limbs inside his shell leaving out his large head. With the use of a full powered hydro pump, Blau used the force to gain momentum from the ground to skyrocket shooting through the field with admirable increasing speed. Then, Blau's head glowed with normal type energy, obviously using the move Skull Bash. With impressive maneuvering skills, Blau aimed his Skull Bash on dragonite's huge body, the attack was initiated so smoothly that it was obviously trained to perfection by a professional battler. Coupled with the gained speed and muscle mass, if this attack landed it would be over.

Luckily, dragonite reacted on his part. Dragonite narrowly dodged the KO comination move but was not left unscatted, his short stubby arm was hit. Lance sigh in relief but was devestated to see his partner's whole left part on his body broken and injured. He gritted his teeth imagining what could happen if that attack landed more clearly, it would have been severe.

"Dragon Claw!"

Dragonite's claws on his only available hand glowed with an outline of dragonic jade like energy, with a powerful swipe from it gouged out a huge trench on the ground. Blau took the attack and countered with a favored point blank water pulse.

However, it is painfully obvious to everyone that dragonite can't win with a disabled arm in a fight. Feorria's blastoise is too powerful. Dragonite is strong, but he is definitely outclassed.

"Don't let it have a chance to recover! Ice Punch! Take that overgrown lizard down!"

"Fire Punch! Overpower it!"

True to his words, the Fire punch overpowered the Ice punch because of the type weakness. Landing a soild Fire punch on blastoise's cheek. Blau fall over but he just shook it off, again, because of type advantage. Clan took note of this in memory.

With a click sound, the television turned off. Clan blinked his sore eyes from forgetting on blinking since he was focusing his gaze so much on the battle, blinking apparently didn't function.

"WHAAAAT!?? WHY'D YOU TURN IT OFF MOM!"

"Dear, kids shouldn't watch those brutal kind of stuff. Oh, that poor dragonite."

"It was about to reach the end of the match thoooooough, at least let me see the results. Please mom!"

"No means no young man. Now go to your room and sleep, you still have school tomorrow."

Clan didn't argue back but was left very disappointed. He took his litters and throwed it on the garbage can. He obeyed her and walk upstairs to his room. Acting very wronged.

When he closed the door however, his mood reversed, he moved with speed faster than he ever moved before to his computer. Turning it on, he opened the local web in the pokènet. His hands was shaking from his excitement and anticipation. He opened all things related to pokemon in his tab, searching about the pokemon blastoise especially since the champion's Blau was one of the species besides it was so cool. He also searched for dragonite. One of his findings was that blastoise was the fully evolved form of the pokemon squirtle, one of the regional starters of the three in Kanto Region.

...

(Back to present)

Every region in the pokemon world will have three different species of pokemon, generally known as the 'Regional Starters'. These species of pokemon, as well as their respective evolutionary lines, will posses the Overgrow, Torrent, Blaze ability.

Their typing will always be either Grass, Water and Fire typing and they will go through two more phases of evolution before reaching their final evolutionary forms.

In the Sinnoh Region, Turtwig, Piplup and Chimchar are our regional starters.

So now the most obvious question that you guys would be thinking is, 'What's so special about them? You can just get them from your pokemon regional professor right?'

To answer that question, Yes and No. Yes, because you can get it from your regional professor. No, because not just anyone can get their hands on them as their starter. Regional starters are rare, very very rare with most of them being close to be included in the 'endangered species list'. Furthermore, many, if not all of the regional starters are only a step below from the pseudo-legendary pokemons in terms of raw power.

However, some people will strongly argue about that since the potentials shown by regional starters are quite frankly very remarkable, on par, if not some may say higher than the pseudo-legendaries in some way. Though, it was not yet proven this topic was still a very highly heated debate by the pokemon battling community.

Although it still wasn't proven since whenever the pokemon in either of the categorized regional starter and psuedo-legendary clashed, majority of the results shows the latter would come out as victorious. Though it did not mean whatsoever that regional starters are weaker. The Kanto regional starters, for example are absolute nightmares to go against as an opponent. Even those that possesed a psuedo-legendary pokemon couldn't say for sure that they can confidently defeat an equally trained Kanto starter.

Most of the newly liscenced pokemon trainers would try their luck in obtaining one of the three regional starters. To do so in Sinnoh, one of the ways Clan Eclairé knows, was to be placed in the top three in the regional examination, only the best of the best can get the best pokemon that they can possibly have as a starter. It's one of his close to impossible dream to achieve, he studied hard, he even sometimes half-begged to the more experienced pokemon trainers in town to impart him knowledge. It's extremely difficult to be placed in the top three since a lot of graduating teenagers prepare and also purposely dropped out, returning another year or two to rank higher in the examination, that's how important this opportunity was for inspiring pokemon trainers. Fortunately, there's a age limit of only allowing people on the range of 18 years old and below to take the PRTEs.

In Sinnoh, the number of newly appointed pokemon trainers every year ranges from 200 to 300, with most of them coming from the top 200 ranking within the Pokemon Regional Trainer Examination and the minority raised or trained by some specially previllaged people like the regional professor, Professor Rowan. These minority are often prefered to as 'endorsed trainers' or 'the endorsed' in short. However, to become a 'endorsed trainer' one had to apply and sit for numerous aptitude and knowledge test, additionally only a handful will be critically picked according to the results, also one had to sign a contract, that would normally benefit both parties according to the few publically posted contracts on the web Clan happened to browse in the Pokènet sometime ago.

Clan wanted to apply for an endorship. Unfortunately, what all the endorsed individuals had in common was that they were all rich people and was very well aquainted, which Clan knew he was not. So this had his gazes left full on the yearly PRLE, which was pretty much his only hope.

Clan wanted to be placed high in the ranking aiming to be placed in the top three, he studied all topics related to pokemon training, pokemons, pokemon typings, battling, pokemon behaviors, etc(pokemon theories). He worked hard that even everyone in town noticed since his determination to achieve his dream could be seen all around. He stayed most of his day in the town library, asking pokemon trainers in town questions that confuses him, and since everyone of them are friendly they willingly taught him some things. He also sometimes stayed all night in his room studying. That's not all as he also got the courage to do field work. Studying pokemon's behaviors inspecting them in the forest and different habitats, which was very dangerous since pokemon trainers or only professionals are confident to do field work without being hurt or chased around by strong wild pokemons. Clan literally had shed blood, sweat and tears for this, so he couldn't afford to fail.

Anyways, back to reality, he have arrived at his destination. It was a two storied wooden house. Outside a teenage girl was waiting, it was his childhood friend, Dawn Berlitz.