Charmeleon smirked. One done, three to go.

That was when he heard an ear-splitting scream, one that he instantly recognized, belonged to his trainer. Sniffing the air, and finding a faint scent, he leaped in the other direction.

It was now official. Arceus must hate him.

Completely ignoring the fact that there was a bleeding injury on his chest, and that the bones on his waist were still a little painful from Charmeleon's attack, Austin due to his workouts for the last month has allowed him to run his way through the forest, never looking back as he kept on trudging, running, falling on the forest floor, and continuing all the way all over again.

The Shiftries were amused by the fact that its prey believed that it could outrun them as they chased after Austin with amusement etched across their faces.

Now and then, he would find roots coming up from the ground, as he lost his balance and fell over them, hurting his knees as he managed to keep on running, yelling out Charmeleon's name in the wild as he did. For some reason, Charmeleon was still unavailable. Austin had nearly fallen into an Ariados nest (he couldn't even imagine what would have happened then), as he managed to keep on running. Hopefully, Charmeleon would be able to find him and stop this-

The thought died midway, as a Razor leaf slashed at his left leg, as he fell on the ground, face-first, and another fresh bruise on his left cheek, as blood began to trickle its way out of it.

The trio Shiftry turned around as three Leaf tornadoes combined into a giant leaf tornado that moved towards Austin.

In the face of impending doom, Austin could only scream in horror as he outstretched hands to at least protect him.

( ~ Boom ~ )

The dust cleared revealing a crimson barrier between Austin and the territorial Pokémon.

Austin felt extremely lightheaded as the crimson barrier around him began to break but from the tree tops Charmeleon landed in front of his trainer.

Austin sighed in relief and closed his eyes as he trusted Charmeleon to protect him.

Seeing his trainer injured and knocked out, Charmeleon had a murderous glow in his eyes as he combined Metal Claw and Dragon Claw into one before charging forward towards the territorial Pokémons.

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It is a funny thing. Just ask any random kid out there, between the ages of six and fourteen, and ask him or her, what they wanted to become when they grew up. You'd get a common answer.

A Pokémon Master.

A term that every single child knew to heart, and for most, it was a dream to pursue for the rest of their lives. The funny thing was, one never really know what being a Pokémon Master was really about. For one thing, around eighty-five percent of the population that began their dreams as aspiring Pokémon masters ended up surviving their first year as a trainer. The rest… became part of a statistical chart that everyone pretended did not exist- the harsh truth of the occupation that was becoming a Pokémon trainer.

They forgot to tell you that. Didn't they? Well, pay attention.

Let us exclude the legendaries at first. For one, most people simply consider them as myth, and if not, then a thing of the past. A mix of religious belief and mythology. For those who did, even the very thought of being able to see a Legendary was like seeing God, since a Legendary was after a fashion, a conceptualization of a particular component of Nature. For instance, Moltres, the mythical King of fire. The word King, it must be noted, was not differentiated by gender, but by position, and as far as the conceptualization of Fire was concerned, Moltres was Fire-personified.

That left the two other kinds of pokémon—the ones who were pseudo-legendaries and the ones who weren't. The latter usually, were divided into two kinds- those who were naturally powerful and those who weren't. Often, it was found that a trainer would go searching for powerful pokémon, like a Gyarados for instance, and end up getting killed in the process. In fact, according to statistics, Gyarados, Magmar, Beedril, Charizard, and Fearow were the reasons for deaths for more than seventy percent of the total deaths registered every single year, the count of which, usually ended up somewhere in the greater seventies.

Those who survived their first year as a trainer usually ended up reaching the Leagues and battling their way through, some even reaching as high as the Top-32 before a stronger trainer shattered their dreams to achieve their own. The process continued for the next year and the next until one of four things happened.

First case. The trainer would end up winning a League, and then become a part of the Ace Squad.

Second. The trainer would reach a zenith as a Top-4 level trainer, and then private organizations (or sometimes the league) would consider them for their forces, most preferably the Ranger Squad.

Third. The trainer would probably choose one of the secondary professions out there, like the pokémon contests or showcases and the like. Considering a large number of failures, it is no surprise that the showcases and contests have grown in popularity over recent years.

The fourth and the last. They would leave the profession as a trainer and settle for something else. Maybe work for other companies, or get self-employed in fields unrelated to pokémon training. Usually, the dairy-farming industry employed hundreds of such trainers.

Needless to say, with such high rates of personal threat and professional failure, the Leagues have had to up their game, and give more reasons for people to try for the League as a trainer. And the reason they chose is the best possible one.

Money. And lots of it. The Ace Teams are paid in numbers that most people can't even dream of. In fact, in recent decades, the League introduced the idea of Gym leaders paying the trainers a certain sum of money (advancement) should they manage to defeat the Gym leader. All of that, was done to ensure that the greed for greater incomes should achieve victory over the general fear that came to be associated with the life of a wannabe Pokémon Master.