Yo Leo, welcome to PC! I'm Cirno and it's good to meet you~
So you're a battler, I see! Have you visited our Pokemon Showdown server yet? Seems like that'd be an awesome thing for you to check out if you're into battling, so go
check out the PS Server information sometime, all right? It's pretty active and there are plenty of tournaments being run in the Battle Center (especially lately ahh I can't keep up) and hopefully they keep your interest for a while. The Battle Center's favorite tier seems to be NU too from what I've seen, which is an even bigger reason to check it out. ;D Chances are we'll run into each other over there as I've been into battling myself these last few months, though mostly I enjoy randbats since the surprise of what Pokemon and movesets I'll get always makes things exciting. Of course there's also the amazing Art & Design that our regulars linked you to already - you've got plenty of choices available to you already!
But haha, friends won't be too hard to make here at all, especially when you take into account how big this forum is. Admittedly it took me a month or so to finally meet people when I rejoined back in September 2011, but that was mostly my fault for being so shy. As long as you make an effort to put yourself out there, you'll definitely meet all kinds of people! Since you already know Forever, you're off to a good start. <3
Have a wonderful time on the forum and remember to read the rules if you haven't already. See you around!