A Special Event

You and John are holding hands as you walk into Celadon City. You’re amazed at the bustle and busyness of the people. Everywhere you look you see crowds and lines. “So what first?” John asks you.

Your team is still rested from last night’s rest, so you don’t need a pokecenter. The shopping centers could be fun to explore. But really, you know what you want to do first. “Let’s check out the gym,” you say excited to face a new gym after being stuck in Vermilion for so long.

John pulls out his phone, “Looks like it’s this way.” You follow his directions leading you through the crowded streets, taking the chance to window shop as you pass the stores. You see all variety of shops: clothing stores, utility stores, shops to help train, and even the occasional sex shop. “Here we are,” John says as you round the corner.

“There’s no line?” you ask. It’s late enough in the day you expected a line half way around the building. You wonder if Celadon does scheduled visits like you experienced in Cerulean. Maybe you should research how the other gyms work at some point. But for now, you and John approach the front door of the gym. You’re a little surprised when the door won’t open.

“It’s closed,” John says pointing at a sign next to the door.

Oh come on. You go to read the sign.

The Celadon City Gym is temporarily closed.
Our beloved Gym Leader Erika is busy helping to
organize and host the annual Rookie Tournament.
Challenges will resume following the
conclusion of the Tournament.
Sorry for the inconvenience.

“The Rookie Tournament!” your disappointment washes away. You hadn’t realized it was already time for that. You’ve watched the Rookie Tournament for years, you just lost track of time while on your journey. You lucked out that the tournament is being held in Celadon this year. “When does it start? Where is the sign up?”

John is checking his phone, “Looks like it starts tomorrow! Sign ups are in a building by the Department Store, today is the last day for signing up.”

“Do Roger and Humphrey know?”

“I doubt it. I had no clue. I’ll shoot them a message, you tell Jack?” You’re already reaching for your phone, “The Rookie Tournament is tomorrow! In Celadon. . . you going to make it?”

“Let’s get going so we don’t miss sign ups,” John says guiding you through the streets once again.

The Rookie Tournament. It almost feels unreal that after all these years you’ll actually be participating. The tournament is open to Rookie trainers who haven’t participated in an official League Tournament before. It was one of the biggest official League events each year. It gave a look at the new trainers each year, before they showed up at other events alongside long time favorites.

“A, I’ll be in Saffron tonight charter a flight to Celadon and be there for the tournament. But I’ll miss sign ups. I’ll be your cheerleader though.” Jack responds to your text message. You’re a little disappointed she won’t be participating but excited about having her cheer you on.

“Jack isn’t going to make it,” you relay to John.

“That’s too bad, we barely made it ourselves though. The guys were just outside of town so they should make sign up. And it’s right here,” he says pointing at a little building tucked into the long line of stores. There are a few people at the kiosks around the building. Most of the people signing up must’ve not waited till the last moment.

You step up to an open kiosk. It asks for your trainer ID number. You pull out your phone to check your League registration card. After typing the long alpha numeric sequence, the screen changes. “Thank you for registering.” That’s all it needs? You quickly text Jack, “What’s your trainer ID? That’s the only thing registration needs!”

While you wait, you read over the rules for the preliminary rounds. All trainers will be randomly matched up. Losers of each match will be eliminated, with female trainers being given a 3 strike policy. You weren’t surprised by this, a lot of tournaments and events try to give girls an advantage to encourage their participation. It’s good for ratings if there is a chance of a sexual forfeit on screen. All the matches in the preliminary will allow a single pokemon per trainer to increase speed. Prize money will be provided to all trainers who qualify past the preliminary rounds, with larger prizes for reaching further rounds of the Rookie Tournament. All qualifying females will also receive bonus rewards, another encouragement method, this year’s auxiliary reward is a selection of TMs as well as a random egg provided by the Devon Corporation.

The whole tournament makes use of Level Limiters. The little devices attach to your pokeballs and **** their levels to create an even playing field, since the pool of trainers spans such a large range. Some will have 8 badges while others will still be looking to earn their first. The trainers with more badges still have an advantage since despite their levels being matched bigger more evolved pokemon are still stronger in general. You feel like you have a chance since you have 3 badges and a couple evolved pokemon.

Your phone buzzed with a message from Jack. You quickly input her trainer ID before shooting her back a text saying she was in. “I signed up Jack,” you told John.

“That’s awesome. I hope I don’t have to battle her, fire is bad for my bugs,” he jokes.

You laugh at his joke before checking out the contestant list on the far wall. The wall of screens update to show the newest names at the bottom. You see you, Jack, and John at the bottom of the list. “Do you think Blue is already registered?” you ask John curious on if your rival will be at the tournament. “Help me look for B. Oak.” The two of you scan the wall for a while. You realize how unlikely it is to find his name, if he’s even registered at all. It looks like there are at least a thousand names on the board.

“Oh, look I found him,” John says as you’re about to give up.

You rush over to where he found the name. Seeing B. Oak on the list makes you all the more determined to win the whole thing. But the real surprise is from the name to his left. You read the name A. Ketchum and you know you have to tell Daisy.

Author's Note:

Hey it's me again. A big thank you to everyone reading this. So I mentioned an egg as a prize for qualifying for the Rookie Tournament. Now not saying what may or may not happen but it might be nice if I could do a poll for what's in the egg. Now I could just wait until any theoretical eggs get into the hands of our busty protagonist with some choices I picked, but I thought it might be fun if I got suggestions from the audience (that's you).

So for the egg pokemon, it can be any pokemon from any generation that isn't fully evolved. So no Miltank or Tropius, since they don't have an evolution. Although a special case could be made for PikaClones, like Emolga or Dedenne. Also no legendaries, so Cosmog is out too. Regional variants are fair game too, so Alolan Grimer and Galarian Meowth are viable options too. No fossils. And only one suggestion per person. So you can make suggestions either in the comments of this chapter, or through my DMs here on the site. Then when the egg is received, I'll make a poll with all the audience suggestions as the options.

The next few chapters are also going to be POV changes, in a similar vein as the Mt. Moon section of my branch. I'm going to do it a little different this time, and not do the choose who to go to next bit. Instead it will just be one after the other. If you don't want to read a particular characters POV you can always just skip that chapter.

And that's it for now, once again huge thank you to everyone.