Hi guys.
I really hate to be a spamtastic advertiser, but myself and two of my friends (named Jack and James) have started up a YouTube channel called Mavieson (it's a combination of our surnames, Matthews, Davies and Dickinson.)

Anyway, we're pretty amateur at the moment, but we're basically getting to grips with things at the moment. We've 4 videos up at the moment, about Runescape (not a very serious one at all,) Dead Frontier (two parter episode where we're just mucking about. In the future we'll be doing a lot more serious things with this game) and Minecraft (Jack and James' game. I personally can't stand it and hate that I paid 15 euros for the thing.)

I'd really appreciate it if you guys were to check out a few videos of ours, it would really help us out in the long run. As I said, we're not too great at the moment, but as we start to progress through it, I think we'll become a lot more professional about the thing. James (our technical geek wizard is even setting us up a website at the moment with forums and a chatroom. We're also working on things like audio quality and optimum settings and such at the moment.

Anyway, as I said I'd really appreciate if you guys were to check us out. Subscribing if you like, it'd be really great if you did, but whatever.

Anyway, now links follow to our four videos up at the moment:

Jack & Ryan Play Runescape
Dead Frontier Ep. 0 (Part 1)
Dead Frontier Ep. 0 (Part 2)
Minecraft: The Tourist (Part 1)

Thanks guys. 

Hey, a Pokémon based story by me. Oh boy. Should I even continue this? I'm not sure. Anyway, tell me what you think, no matter how brutally honest you want to be.

The crowd went wild. Screams, cheers, applauding but above it all I could hear them, the ocean of people chanting my name.
"Martin! Martin! Martin!"
I called my now-knocked out Nidoking back to its ball. From the tanoys came the voice of the announcer,
"With five of his Pokémon now down, who does Martin have left?" I smiled down to my waist, where the last Pokémon's ball may as well have been smiling at me, "Remember, folks: Martin's opponent, Isabelle is now down to her last Pokémon, already on the field, her Skarmory!" The crowd gave out boos and hisses and on the far side of the arena, the girl brushed hair long black hair from her face and gave a menacing smile.
 
I grabbed the ball from my belt and sent it flying through the air to the middle of the dusty field. It opened and the tell-tale red light emerged from its middle. The crowd roared and my heart raced at the sight of the bohemoth now towering above the battered Skarmory. My Rhyperior.

The Rhyperior turned to me, opened its mouth and gave out a giant roar, "Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggghhhhhhhhhhtin! Maaaaarrrtttiiiin! Martin! Martin! Wake up!"

A dream. Of course it was. It's never real. No matter how much I want it to be. My eyes opened reluctantly to the sight of two figures standing above my bed. My two best friends. Chris, wearing a leather jacket, black fingerless gloves and black jeans to compliment his choppy dark brown bangs, dark brown eyes and tanned skin; and Isabelle, with shoulder length black hair, neatly kept out of her face with a headband, wearing a blue coat and blue skinny fit jeans.
"Wake up, man. You know what day it is today, don't you?" said Chris in his usual patronising tone, "or does uncle Chris have to explain everything to you as well as get your clothes ready?" I looked to the bottom of my bed and saw a pile of clothes picked out for me already. That's when I noticed that I was practically stark naked, except for a pair of blue boxer shorts. It was summer, and so far too hot to sleep in clothes, and far too hot to be sleeping under the doona.
"Have some mercy on us and put the clothes on, Martin," said Isabelle, "and don't listen to a word he says," nudging Chris, "I was the one who picked out your clothes. Practicality is the key for this, not fashion."

By 'this', I finally got what they were talking about. Today was the day. The day we finally got out first Pokémon. On the first day of June, every year 16 year olds would be allowed to visit the Pokémon League representetives closest to them and pick a starter Pokémon and sign up for the Gym Challenge. This year was our year. Isabelle could have started her journey the year before, seeing as she was now 17, but decided she would rather do it with us than alone.

"AWWWW YEAAAAHHHH!" I let out, jumping up and rushing on my clothes, not bothering to change the boxer shorts I'd slept in. Isabelle certainly had picked everything practical that I had to offer in my drawers. Grey cargo pants, a belt that had six spots ready for pokéballs, plain black polo shirt and black zip-up hoodie that would have roasted me alive if I had worn it there and then, so I just tied it around my waist. I grabbed the red bandana with pokéball insignia and tied it around my forehead and brushed away the sand coloured hair to either side of my head. I battled on black hiking boots that my mum had bought me the week before, a size too big (my mum's motto was 'better safe than sorry') and I was ready. Ready. "I'm ready... are you guys ready?"
"Of course we're ready, smartarse. We've been ready for hours," said Chris, hypocritically, (it was 11AM and I knew for a fact that Chris never got up before 2PM in his life) "Now let's hit the road."

So we left my house on the edge of Crymson City and caught the bus. I felt like we should have ran or cycled there, seeing as taking public transportation was rather anticlimactic, but none of us felt like running or cycling two miles to the center of town. We sat in dead silence. It was cool to begin with, heroic even, but then it just got awkward.
"What are you two idiots even going to choose?" asked Isabelle, "I'm having a Chimchar. An Infernape can absolutely crush anything. Anythi-"
"A little fire monkey? Pah," said Chris, always trying to get the upper hand, "I'm taking a Totodile. Not only can a Feraligatr's bite cut through just about anything in the universe, but its water attacks would rip through at least six buildings."
"Chimchar's not a monkey, it's a chimp. There is a difference. And what exactly are you basing a Feraligatr's power on? Scientific fact or just things you've read on the internet?" It always has to be an argument between these two.
"You're just jealous because my Totodile will absolutely destroy your stupid little mon- chimp. What about you, Martin?" This is usually when someone cooler than me would say 'I haven't given it much thought...' but I had. It's the only thing I could think of in the last couple of weeks. Reading articles, comparing average stats, talking to breeders online, watching and re-watching battle tutorials on YouTube.
"Me," I said, trying to remain as cool as possible, "I'm choosing a Snivy."
"Suits you," laughed Chris, "a grassy little lizard. It's you in a nutshell!" Isabelle and him laughed. The only time the two of them could ever agree on something was when it's making fun of me. I didn't have a comeback so I sat in silence.

We finally reached the Pokémon League center in town. A colossal building with at least sixty storeys, it towered above anything else in the city. We walked in, in silence and in the lobby saw dozens of important looking men and women in suits and smart clothes. We walked up to the main desk, a square of dozens of people at computers in the middle of the room and I finally asked,
"Uh, we're here to sign up..." the woman looked up from her computer, gave us a look down and pointed towards a doorway on the far side of the room where people dressed in what Chris would call "dorky" and Isabelle would call "perfect" clothes. We walked in and were greeted by an usher with spiked purple hair,
"Hello. My name is Caeser, like the salad!" he smiled, Chris laughed too-sarcastically, "well come on over here and let's sign you up."
Caeser walked us over to a terminal where we had to scan our ID cards. The computer spat out 3 Gameboy-looking things and 3 cards. Caeser handed us each a Gameboy thing and a card, "This is your Pokédex! It has data on all the Pokémon found in the world so you'll never be in the dark! And these are your Trainer cards. You'll need them to ID yourselves around the world as official Pokémon League trainers."
"Look, I don't mean to be rude," Isabelle started, but I nudged her in her ribcage before she could finish. I wish this guy would cut to the chase, but I didn't want to miss anything, either.
"You just want a Pokémon, of course," Caeaser smiled, his teeth far too white to be natural, "Well, grab one of these each and we'll be on our way." He handed us each a small rectangular box, "this is your badge box. You'll need to keep the badges you may gain from the Pokémon League gyms in there to qualify for a Pokémon League tournament!" Chris leered at his box, as if angry and Isabelle immidiately slid it into her back pocket without even looking it over, whilst I opened mine to find seventeen different slots for seventeen different badges. I was impressed.
"Look, now can we please just get to the Pokémon bit?" asked Chris, this really angered me.
"The guy's just doing his job, Chris, for f***'s sake. We'll get to it when it's time to get to it, Jesus." I thought saying this might win me Ceaser's favour, but he just giggled at me, I looked back at Chris and... well, if looks could kill. Isabelle looked angry at me too.
"Well," saved by Ceaser's bell of a voice, "it actually is time to... 'get to it' now." This embarassed me. I just made a complete idiot out of myself. Good job, Martin, I thought.

Caeser ushered us over to a large machine with a nozzle on the end of it.
"Now," he said, "Isabelle, let's start with you, since you were so eager, which Pokémon would you li-"
"Chimchar, please," she interrupted. He typed something into the screen and a pokéball came out of the nozzle. Isabelle grabbed it.
"And Chris, what about y-"
"Totodile, gimme a Totodile." Ceaser typed something else in and another pokéball came out of the nozzle and Chris grabbed it before it even hit the reciever cushion.
"Um," started Ceaser, "Marti... Martin?" I would never interrupt someone in authority, I'm not as rude as my friends.
"I'd like a Snivy, please, Ceaser." I said.
"Snivy, okay," and he punched something in and a pokéball came out of the nozzle.

My Snivy. My own Pokémon. I grabbed the ball. I expected it to come alive in my hand, I expected to feel the warmth eminate from inside, for my Snivy and me to have a bond straight from the word go. But it was just a metal ball.
"Alright, guys, have fun!" Ceaser interrupted my over-thinking, "we suggest to new trainers from Crymson City to train in the woods to the west, they're teeming with wild Pokémon and a perfect opportunity! We hope to see you soon."
That's it? No ceremony? Not even any freebies? Just registring and getting a cold metal ball that may as well be empty? Oh well, at least I knew my Snivy was inside. I grabbed the ball and prepared to get my new partner out when, "Uh, I'm afraid we don't allow Pokémon out of their balls inside the building," said Ceaser.
We each sighed and walked outside.

We each lined up and got out our Pokémon. Isabelle's Chimchar, my Snivy and Chris's Totodile stood to attention on the pavement outside the HQ. They didn't seem like our new best friends... more like bored soldiers.
"Uh," I broke in, "I guess we should go train with these guys."
"Right," said Chris and Isabelle in unison and they returned their respective Pokémon back into the balls. I decided to call Snivy to grab onto my shoulders as we waited for the next bus that would take us west so we could head deep into Crymson Forest.

So I used to be on these forums pretty often, some of you may remember me as Domino (or probably not).
So long story short, I gave up for a while to focus on some exams and then forgot about this place. Dunno what my password was and I got a new e-mail address.
Anyway, I'm back. Hey. Sup. Domino v.2.0 aka Copperfield.