Well, I always thought it would be fun to be a coordinator. In Hoenn, or at least when I was younger, you would always see contests broadcasted practically every week. Watching all of that artistry in motion made me fall in love with pokémon in the first place—the choreography, the creativity, and everything else are just magical when you put them together.
So when I turned ten, I left my hometown (Lilycove City, for those curious) with my mudkip to travel across Hoenn and put together a contest team. As you probably already know, there are two types of contest circuits: themed and general. I wanted to take on both, but knowing how challenging the themed circuit is, I was careful to catch and raise one pokémon for each theme. (My swampert is the tough specialist, medicham the smart specialist, manectric the cool, glalie the beauty, and clefairy had been for cute contests.)
From then onward, I think my journey was pretty ordinary, to be honest. I traveled on my own, but I made a lot of friends along the way who taught me plenty about contests, including everything there is to know about berries, pokéblocks, and even poffins. As for the contests themselves, they were a struggle to get used to, certainly, because appeals are like battling but with more fireworks. Still, I got the hang of it pretty quickly, and after my third or fourth loss, I was able to earn my first ribbon—in a beauty contest with my then-snorunt, actually. Once I got the ball rolling, so to speak, I was able to earn ribbons for each of the themed contests right up to the master rank. It was the general circuit I never completed, and even then, it’s less because I lost and wasn’t able to enter the Grand Festival and more because I had burnt myself out on contests altogether. Eventually, I just sort of quit, one ribbon short of the five I needed to compete in the Grand Festival.
By then, Brigette was tired of gyms too, so we met up and decided to leave Hoenn to—not to put it dramatically or anything—find ourselves somewhere else. That’s how we wound up in Kanto, registered for classes with Professor Oak at Celadon University. And you probably know the rest.
The Pokédex According to Bill 