"Dear Miss Summers,

Thank you for your application to the Littleroot Young Champions' Initiative. Eager new trainers like yourself are what make the future of Hoenn bright! Regrettably, our supply of starter Pokémon is limited, and so only a handful of applicants can be selected for this program. Your scores do not qualify you to receive one of the three…"

A dull ringing rose in her ears. She scanned and re-scanned the last sentence, as though staring at it would make it change, but it still said the same thing: "Your scores do not qualify you to receive one of the three starter Pokémon."

Well, there it was, the answer spelled out in black and white. She wasn't good enough, and that was that.

Hayley Summers is determined to become a champion. She didn't count on getting a rebellious fire hazard as a starter Pokémon, the class weirdo as a training partner, or a pair of ecoterrorists as her personal adversaries, but—what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? And in the world of training, that's starting to look very literal.

What to expect:

- Original trainer journeyfic set in the Hoenn region post-ORAS

- Gradual progression with a focus on overcoming setbacks and hurdles

- A coming of age story about young teens learning how to become adults

- Thorny relationships between characters with deep-seated flaws

- Despite the story title, Hayley is not a fire-type specialist. Her team does, however, have a theme that will gradually cohere over the course of the fic.

Updates once per week on Monday.