The alarm clock went off but not for long as a hand had instantly slammed the snooze button by instinct. A young teenager yawned and pushed himself up and got out of bed. He went over to his dresser and collected his clothes for the day, which he didn't have much to choose from since most of it was packed in his bag, and proceeded out into the hall.

He then picked out a towel from a closet then went to the bathroom to take a shower. After putting down his stuff he looked in the mirror to see his short black hair in a mess, due to tossing and turning in his sleep last night for he was excited. Why was he excited? Because he was about to start his pokemon journey.

This is Alex, a thirteen year old boy who was going with his three friends, Lucas, Quinton, and Derek, on a journey to become master trainers. They were going to get there first pokemon today from the famous Prof. Oak who just so happens to live in Pallet Town like them. They had waited for this day for a long time after talking it over with the professor and their parents, and after there approval Oak had taught them the basics of being a trainer to the four boys, the different items and their purposes, how to use a pokeball, etc.

Alex quickly took his shower and dressed after drying off, then headed downstairs for breakfast. His parents knew he was waking up early so they made the effort to get up and make breakfast, (pancakes), at 6:30 in the morning. Even his little sister, Teresa, somehow managed to wake up for this special day, to give Alex a bag she had packed with the clothes he had given her, along with other supplies like Potions and Antidotes.

"Good morning!" Alex said cheerfully as he strode into the kitchen.

"Mornin'" his dad said sleepily, he was not really a morning person.

"Good morning!" his mom replied as she stood by the oven, making the pancakes. Teresa greeted as well but it came out unintelligible because she was yawning.

"Are you ready for today?" his mom asked as she piled two pancakes onto a plate.

"I've been ready for a long time!" Alex said.

"That's good, but remember don't rush this morning, spend some time with us before you go."

"I know, I know," he said as his mom handed him the pancakes.

"So do you know what you'll pick?" his dad asked. He was talking about the three starters you choose from that Oak always hands out: Squirtle, the water type, Charmander, the fire type, or Bulbasaur, the grass type.

"You know, I've talked about it with my friends, and we can't really pick, they're all cool, but there's also a fourth one Oak is showing because there's four of us. We're just going to see what we pick when we get to Oak's lab." Alex said. They talked more over breakfast to Alex, telling him to be safe and have fun, contact them when he can, and whether he plans to travel with his friends.

"Well, we thought about it at first, choosing whether we should go in a group or go alone, and we decided since we're all heading to Pewter City for the first gym we'll go there together, but after that we are going at our own pace from then on." Alex explained.

"Okay, it's a good thing you'll have your pokemon with you, or I'd be worried," his mom said humorously.

"Don't worry about me! Now I think I should be going," Alex said. His family all gave him hugs and with that he left to meet his friends.

He found Derek and Lucas walking up the road ahead of him, so he ran up to greet his friends.

"Hey!" Alex shouted several feet behind them, making them jump.

"Geez! What was that for?" Derek asked as he whipped his head around.

"Just wanting to say hi!" Alex smiled stupidly.

"You scared us!" Lucas exclaimed, brushing back his hair, which was different in a certain way. It was black, like Alex's, but not the same shade, somehow, it seemed to have a bluish tint to it, but it was a natural thing, and it grew spiky, so people sometimes mistake him for a punk, which he was definitely not.

"That's what I was aiming for!" he replied. "So have you guys seen Quinton?"

"No, I would imagine he'd want to be the first to be there, so he might be waiting for us, let's go," Derek said. Alex shrugged and they moved on up the hilly road. They chatted, talking about if they'll actually make a decision for their starters and in no time made it to the gates to the lab. (Derek was also right, Quinton stood there at the gates with his arms crossed).

"It's about time you guys got here!" he chided.

"Well we had to say our goodbyes!" Alex snapped back. Although it sounded like arguing the four never really got angry at each other, it's just there ideas of a joke.

"No time for talking! Let's get going!" Derek said. Nobody argued because they all wanted to move on, so they opened the gates and walked through to the lab.

It was a modest building, not what you'd expect of the world famous Prof. Oak. It had the shape of a hangar but was made of the same materials like any other house, with a short tower shaped building next to it, where the real research is done, but that wasn't all. Behind the house was a large and beautiful field where many pokemon from all over Kanto roamed. These were all pokemon Oak studied and took care of. All of them couldn't help but gaze at the view for a while even though they had something important to do, it was just something you couldn't pass over.

Lucas was the first to speak, "Well, we can't keep staring, let's go!" The others followed him into the tower through the automatic doors and entered the technological place in all of Pallet Town.

Machines lined the walls and filled in the center, many assisstants of Prof. Oak bustled about, carrying clipboards or something else except one man who came up to the boys.

"Hello! You must be the new trainers," he said. They nodded. "Well then, come with me into the back, Prof. Oak is waiting."

They walked with him through an open doorway and into a less busy room, there were some machines but not as impressive as the ones in the room before, and a table in the center with four balls, each one half red one half white, with a black line around the middle, pokeballs.

A man was behind the table, the Prof. Oak. He had on a lab coat with a red shirt underneath, khaki brown pants, and dark brown shoes.

"It's good to see you!" he greeted, "Are you ready to take your first step on your journey?"

"Oh yes!" Lucas said.

Oak nodded, "Good, good, now within these four pokeballs are the pokemon you may choose from, I'll open them up for you to see." He picked the four devices up and held them awkwardly in his hands before tossing them up in the air. At the height of their time in the air they all popped open and a white energy flashed out of them. These beams of energy began to take shape on the table and gain color. What appeared was a light blue turtle with a brown shell and cream underbelly with a thick light blue tail in the back that ended with a curl, an orange lizard that stood on two feet and had a flame on the tip of it's tail that didn't seem to bother it, a quadrupedal light green reptilish creature with a large plant bulb on it's back, and another four legged creature that was a pinkish purple color and a little rodent-like in appearance with it's large ears.

Oak pointed to the turtle, "This is Squirtle," then the lizard, "Charmander," the green creature, "Bulbasaur," and the purple pokemon, "and Nidoran."

"Ooh, now that I get to see them more closely I think Charmander looks pretty cool! And Nidoran seems pretty cool too!" Alex commented. Both mentioned pokemon held their heads up high in pride, Bulbasaur seemed like it didn't hear that, but Squirtle looked a little sad.

Alex noticed this, "But you're pretty good too! I just think I might pick one of them!"

"Pick carefully!" Oak said.

Lucas leaned in closer at Bulbasaur, "You guys wouldn't mind if I took Bulbasaur?"

The other three looked at each other than Quinton said, "You made the first real decision, so go ahead."

"Awesome! I pick Bulbasaur professor," Lucas said.

"Excellent!" Oak remarked, then handed him Bulbasaur's pokeball.

"Well nobody said anything about Squirtle, so I'm going to go ahead with that one!"

"Alright, here's it's pokeball," Oak did the same as with Lucas.

"Well Alex, I'm kind of stuck between these two, so I'll let you choose because I'd be happy with either one," Quinton said to him.

Alex looked at the two remaining pokemon, he thought both of them were awesome, but couldn't decide. He looked at Nidoran, saw that it looked neutral about him, like it didn't care if he picked him or not, and then at Charmander, and in it's eyes he saw this look of wanting, like it wanted him to choose it. He felt weird, as if something in him was responding to that wanting, like he too wanted to be with Charmander, as if they could become friends. He made his decision.

"Professor, I choose Charmander!" he declared. Charmander cheered at this, and Oak handed him it's pokeball.

"Then that means I get Nidoran!" Quinton said. Nidoran gave a sound of happiness, and Alex felt a little dissapointed that it didn't seem to care if he chose it, but was happy for his friend choosing it. Oh well, some pokemon are just different than others.

After Oak handed Quinton his pokeball he looked at all of them, "Now, you have just chosen your first pokemon, and although it might not seem all very important, in the long run it affects the paths your lives will take, and I hope you'll come to appreciate your decisions if you do not now. And speaking of pokemon, I'd like each of you to take five empty pokeballs so you may catch wild pokemon."

The assisstant that brought them in came up with a cardboard box containing many empty pokeballs. Each one of them carefully picked five out and thanked Prof. Oak.

"Your welcome, but that's not all, what I have next for you are devices called pokedex's, point them at new pokemon and you'll collect data about them, it is partly for my research, but it will also help you understand more about pokemon. I hope you don't have a problem with the limited colors though," he told them as he walked back and returned with a tray holding four devices. They were all rectangular and had a round blue light bulb at the top, but there was also a hinge on it so it must flip open. They were all a different color: A very bright Yellow, a dark Green, a dusty Brown, and a bright blue the color of Cyan.

"No problem, this shouldn't be as hard as picking our starters," Alex said. Since nobody else said otherwise he went ahead and picked the cyan one while Derek went for the yellow. Quinton took the brown colored one right before Lucas lifted the green dex off the tray.

"Now then," Oak began, "one last thing, when you collect information on your pokedexes there is a way for you to transfer the data to me from long distances. At pokemon centers and few other places there are things called Transfer Machines. They look like that," Oak pointed to a green machine as tall as a grown person and the shape of an arcade game or ATM, there was a small keypad with numbers on it, and several buttons too, there was also a slot that was maybe as thick as half an inch.

"It delivers data from pokedexes to professors that Trainers know the number to call them with, I should also say it works like a video phone too, which reminds me," Oak found a piece of paper and tore it into four pieces and wrote something on all of them, "here, this is my number to use on those machines. After you do that you will be able to talk to me and send the info on your pokedex, to do that place it straight up and down with the light bulb on the top half in that slot as far as it will go, wait a few seconds, then I will tell you when to pull it out."

"Okay, sounds simple enough," Lucas said once he was handed his paper with the number. Oak and the assisstant walked with them out of the lab after handing all the pieces out.

"Good luck on your journeys!" Oak said as they left the lab and headed for the gates.

"Thanks!" they said in unison. They waved as the professor headed back in and turned themselves to the gate.

"Once we step pass this gate, we will have made our first step into our journey," Derek pointed out.

"Alright then, I push open the gate and on the count of three we put one foot forward, how does that sound?" Alex suggested. His friends said yes and he took a dramatic deep breath.

Alex placed his hands on the iron bars and gave a push forward, the door creaked open and Alex said gently, "One... two... three..."