“The 105th champion goes to Bae Irene, from Daegu!”

The show host then began to describe the town of Daegu which actually held only a small population. Forests, which is home to several common grass and rock species, made up three quarters of the town and other manmade community structures made up the last quarter. According to the host, Daegu was most suitable for quaint living and especially appropriate for people who want to have a feel of the away-from-the-city lifestyle. That pretty much summarised Daegu, Irene’s hometown.   

Irene, despite practicing and playing this walk of fame over in her head a thousand over times, still could not help but feel nervous. Walking with obvious stiffness and over-exaggerated discipline, the girl made her way towards the center of the stage, where the host and the other winners were. The 1st and 2nd male runner-ups stood proud and tall, waiting for her to complete the picture.

Once she had reached, the prize presenter, the Minister of Games and Regulations, wasted no time in taking Irene’s tiny hands into his own large ones and shook it with so much enthusiasm that Irene could hear her joints click. The broad smile on the Minister’s face made Irene feel uncomfortable.

The champion only wished she could have her Charmander by her side. Wait! Charmander! The girl began to panic as her head swivelled in all directions to look for her Charmander. All award winners’ pokemon was supposed to be by their side at all times during the prize presentation. However, Irene’s most loyal and best friend, Char, was not with her. She looked to the other winners and found that their pokemon were standing smugly by their owners’ side. So why was her Charmander nowhere to be found?!

“Where is my Charmander?!” Irene found herself screaming without care into the audience who was momentarily taken aback by her outburst.

Those stunned expression soon faded away to murmurs and subsequently scathing laughter. Irene was confused and scared and she wondered what was happening. Why had the crowd displayed such hostility towards her? It did not make sense and Irene began to back away out of fear.

“Your Charmander is gone.” A teenager in a trainer’s cap shouted.

“Charmander died during your last battle with Blastoise!” Another gentleman, in an all-black tuxedo and holding a cane, bellowed out.

“You should have evolved your Charmander into a Charizard and it would not have happened!” A young lass, in junior scout’s uniform joined in.

That was when terror and grief consumed Irene. “No! Charmander is not dead!”

But those shouts confirmation that her best buddy had died only echoed louder from the audience and Irene matched their shouts with her own screaming. A constant repetition of “No!” and “Keep quiet!”

Someone shook her by her shoulders violently. “No, get away from me.”

The person only became more violent with her and finally she felt a tight slap across the face and that was when Bae Irene, woke up with a loud gasp.  

**

“What the hell, sis! You were screaming for your life. Does the thought of becoming a PokeMaster stress you out that much?!” A tall, slender-looking guy stood over her, his luxurious head of long, wavy hair was styled in a windswept hairdo. It was only her elder brother, Bae Heechul.

A red lizard peeked out from behind her brother. It usually large, round and lively eyes looking slightly more afraid than usual. It was Char! Irene made a mad grab for her Charmander and hugged it so tightly that it yelped in its lizard-way.

“You’re alive!” Irene tightened her hug around her bestie while repeating those words. The poor lizard pokemon puffed out tiny balls of flame, more from being choked than from annoyance.

Irene finally released her poor buddy when Charmander became too hot for her to hold. The red salamander jumped onto her bed with one practiced motion and tried pushing Irene out from her bed with his short arms, snapping its mouth at Irene like a disgruntled child.

“Seriously Irene, you’re already what? Twenty-one? You should not be getting nightmares from all those championship dreams of yours.” Heechul complained as he made way for his sister to get down from her bed. Charmander nodded to concur with the elder sibling.

“Right? Even Charmander agrees.” Heechul smiled at the red salamander and fed him his favourite snack, freeze-dried Razz Berries.

Irene grumbled at the closeness of her pokemon and her brother. “Go, go. Go be my brother’s pokemon, you traitor.” Irene chided the red salamander which then tried to appease his owner by jumping into her arms. “Damn you. You are such a baby lizard, everyone dotes on you.”

Charmander sniggered and nuzzled his face against Irene’s chest.

“Damn this lizard.” Irene muttered under her breath again as she her buddy’s smooth, round head.

“But I love you so much.”

Later, at the dining table, Irene spat out her cereal and her milk only because Heechul had announced that he would be stepping down temporarily as the Family’s Gym Leader and that Irene would have to take charge of the Gym. Even Charmander choked on his daily food, the PokeBlock, when that announcement was made. His other buddy, also owned by Irene, a Vulpix, had sprayed out her milk in surprise splattering it all over their carpet. Both pokemons had an uncanny resemblance to their owner.

Charmander jumped rebelliously onto their family’s dining table and scolded Heechul in a very Irene-like way, with his mouth opening and closing animatedly and short hands waving about.

Heechul only shrugged as he replied coolly. “Well… I don’t have much choice. The council deemed my single Rapidash too strong for a level one Gym.”

Irene thought about her brother’s cream-coloured equine, majestic and intimidating with flames dancing about its manes, tail and four hooves, and thought that the council had ruled fairly enough.

In this world, there are a total of eight classifications for Pokemon Gyms. Level one being the lowest and easiest to challenge and level eight being the highest and toughest to beat and each Gym can only use specific elemental pokemon. In Irene’s family case, their Gym was Fire and so everyone simply called it the Fire Gym. Every city in a country where they lived in, South Korea, must have a Gym and the prestige of owning a gym had fallen to Irene’s family for nearly two decades.

Irene silently begrudged her father, who had gone for the gym license and got it by chance or luck. Ever since then, the Baes managed the Gym with little or no competitors bidding for the same license for they knew that running a Gym was tedious work. Even though there was prestige in it, there was little to be earned compared to what one could earn if they go on to become a real full-time PokeMaster where their main goal was to collect and capture Pokemons and document their journey for researchers to study.

A PokeMaster is one who has obtained a degree for Pokemon hunting and training and is licensed to travel across the country to capture as many Pokemons as they wish to as long as they adhered to the regulations. Unlike regular civilians, a PokeMaster has rather few restrictions on the number and type of Pokemon that they can capture and own.

All they needed to do was to return back to their alma-mater once every two years to take a special exam. As fun and as exciting as it sounds, several hundred thousands of eager youths applied for this degree only to be turned away because only a batch of thirty would graduate from each university every year and even lesser would make it to become celebrity PokeMasters in future.

In addition to it, because of the extreme danger of the job, the PokeMaster’s course is usually gender-biased and admits almost only boys. Irene however, was one of the rare few female PokeMasters and since there was so little females in this field. Males tend to know every single female PokeMaster that had been produced from their batch and before. Their names and glory, in Irene’s opinions, stood out like sore thumbs to the males.

Irene sighed at her own predicament. Hanging uselessly by her wall was the shiny platinum plaque that proclaimed her as the valedictorian of PokeMasters of her year. This was such glory she had been talking about and it was made worse by her fears of embarking on a journey. A journey…

Almost every graduate from the PokeMasters course would begin their journey immediately and yet, Irene had prolonged the start of hers for as long as possible. The female PokeMaster even had thoughts of not renewing her license anymore.

The reason for Irene’s fear was because she had embarrassed herself so thoroughly at her final inter-school championship which was also unfortunately held on homeground. Irene wished she could permanently forget about the incident and wished even harder that they had never awarded her that plaque which marked her as the valedictorian of the year. It seemed to mock her more than anything else.  

During that inter-school champions, Irene had been challenged to by Kadabra, surprisingly owned by a fellow female PokeMaster, an undergraduate from a university in Ansan. Kadabra is a brownish-yellow bipedal pokemon with narrow, canted eyes and two large, triangular ears atop its head. That particular Kadabra which defeated Irene and her pokemon was especially evil-looking and not to mention, powerful beyond belief.

Irene later learnt that the owner of the girl who was the owner of that Kadabra went on to become the valedictorian of her university as well but had not found out what happened to her afterwards. Irene could never forget the girl’s name but she did not wish to pull it out from her memories at that moment.

Charmander seemed to have read her thoughts since he was the one who had been trashed by that Kadabra and gave Irene a pat of consolation on her shoulders.

“Hey, listen you two!” Heechul hit his sister on the top of her head with a large serving spoon and the lizard on his nose to capture both their attention. Vulpix, who was fortunately saved from the vicious assault, scooted over to listen as well.  

“Come on. It will only be for a while. I just need to find a fire pokemon that can match our Gym’s level,” Heechul coaxed Irene while feeding Vulpix snacks from his pocket. “Besides, if Charmander is not up to it. You can still use Vulpix.” Heechul chuckled as he joked.

Vulpix seemed slightly surprised but at the same time flattered by Heechul’s suggestions. In contrast to the fox pokemon, Charmander started making angry swipes in the air to threaten Heechul. Vulpix then tried pawing her friend in an attempt to calm him down.

“It was only a joke.” One pokemon seemed to say to the other.

“Hey, Char. I thought we were the best of buddies.” Heechul cooed and tried patting the lizard’s head but Charmander ducked.

“That was until you said that.” Charmander seemed to say as he crossed his short arms across his body defiantly.

“Oh well. It is done. There is no choice, you have got to hold the Gym for at least a month while I apply for the license for my new Pokemon. Not everybody has a PokeMaster degree like you do, you know?” Heechul spoke pitiably then later added in an angrier tone, “you should cherish it. If you do not want to help me run the Gym then get your out there in the wild and catch some Pokemons!”

With slightly agape and with dread in her eyes, Irene shook her head profusely. “No! Not yet! I don’t want to go out there yet.”

Heechul shook his head hopelessly and sighed. “Such a waste of university fees and your talent…”

Before Heechul could begin on his tirade of naggings, Irene held up her hand to immediately accept her brother’s offer to run the Gym for the time being. The disgraced Valedictorian knew that no protests from herself nor Charmander would change the very fact that holding out the Gym for a while was a better choice between the two poor choices and they both submitted to fate.

**

A month went by since Irene became the temporary Gym Leader and she was getting used to it, too used to it in fact. It had also boosted both hers and her pokemon’s ego greatly, perhaps more so for Charmander since he was the main pokemon for the gym.

Another rule for Level One Gym Leaders is that they are only allowed to use at most two pokemons against challengers who can use up to six pokemon. Since Irene only had two pokemons, both Charmander and Vulpix were the Holders of the Gym and soon rose to stardom in their small city.

Each day, spectators flocked to their Fire Gym to watch the battles. Once, a full-grown man brought a party full of only water pokemon and yet Charmander and Vulpix managed to beat each and every one of them. That match had left the audiences in awe and gained much and more fame for Irene. The PokeMaster was beginning to think that she should embark on her journey to fill her Pokedex.

A Pokedex usually comes in the form of a rectangular device that records sightings of the different pokemons made by the PokeMaster. It was given to a PokeMaster upon graduation by their Professors and in Irene’s case, her Professor was Professor Lee SooMan.    

Irene shrugged her thoughts off and r