A/N: Alright everyone. This is a new fanfic I'm working on. Please feel free to comment, review, and post any suggestions you have.

After those words escaped my mouth, my mind felt like it was being teleported to a new world. In a way, it was.

I had just bought Pokemon World Online, the latest VRMMO released. Being a fan of the Pokemon series, this game was a must have.

After making my avatar, a red-haired boy, and typing in my avatar's name, "Ren". I was transported to what looked like a city the size of New York. "What's going on?" I wondered. Suddenly a masked figure appeared.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you to Pokemon World Online."

Was this part of the tutorial?

"I sure most of you have noticed by now that the log out button on your menu is missing. However this is not a bug."

What?!

I immediately waved my hand to open the menu. Just as he had said, it was gone.

"What the hell is this!" "Let us out of here you bastard!" "Is this some kind of sick joke?" Various screams echoed throughout the city.

Shut up you idiots!

Whether they liked it or not, this was the current situation. Yelling at this guy would get us nowhere. But what he said next even made me speechless.

"I would now like to take a moment to explain the newly added rules to this world. First of all, if your pokemon's hp decreases to zero, it will die and vanish forever. This does not apply to official battles between other players however. In addition, each trainer has a hp bar as well. If your hp bar drops to zero, your avatar will be deleted and you will die"

The entire city fell dead silent after that last statement.

Die. That's impossible. This is a video game. You can't die in a video game. I kept trying to convince myself this, but I already knew the one fact that disproved my theory. Every word that man just said WAS REAL. There's no way anyone would take a joke that far.

"There is only one way to escape. You must beat the game. Obtain all 8 gym badges and defeat the Elite Four and you will then qualify for the world tournament. Win this tournament and you will find the secret to beat the game. Players, I wish you the best of luck."

After those words, my body was enveloped with a shining light.

What happened? I thought to myself while my head still felt dizzy. I looked around and saw what seemed like a small town filled with houses and one big building that said "Rowan PokeLab".

I must have been teleported to a region in the game. I realized. I pulled up my menu and then went to the world map. The layout seemed very similar to the Sinoh region from the 4th generation of pokemon.

So what now? Almost as if to answer my question, the quest tab on the menu came into my line of sight. I tapped it and my current mission came up. "Go to Lab and obtain starter pokemon." As I looked around I saw the majority of players were still shaken by the "death game" factor newly added to our misfortunes.

I ran to the lab. With things the way they are, feeling sorry for myself and crying would get me nowhere. Those that are too scared right now have a choice to make: fight or die. Sulking around would only lead to the latter of those two options.

Upon entering the lab I met Professor Rowan. He led me to a table with three poke balls on it. I now had a choice of which starter to pick.

Piplup
Turtwig
Chimchar

Almost instinctively I chose Chimchar. Fire types had never let me down before and they wouldn't let me down now.

Running out I noticed something had been added to my item bag. I pulled up the item tab and a 2 slots were filled. one said "poke balls 5x" on it, the usual start for any pokemon game. The other said "mirror".

A mirror? Why put a mirror there?

After pulling it out, the shocking truth answered my question. My face no longer had that of the avatar I made. Instead it was replaced by my real face. The red hair I had given my avatar instead had my natural brown colored hair. The outfit was still the same though: a blue jacket and black pants. I'll give this game master one thing: he sure knows how to add some surprises to this game.

Well now was no time to be admiring my looks. I headed straight for the woods leading to Jubelife City.

Training along the way went smoothly. I caught a Starly almost immediately upon entering the woods. After battling against the wild pokemon, Chimchar was at lvl 10 and Starly was at lvl 8. My money had increased by a decent amount too from battling the mobs of wild pokemon. I was just about to continue on now that Chimchar and Starly were at full health ( thank God for potions ), when suddenly I heard a scream.

A/N: Well that's chapter 1 folks. I hope everyone liked it. Stay tuned for chapter 2