Chapter-1
"Go time." I say looking to the ground, trying to remain calm. I look up and walk forward to this small round room with a red and white circle on the ground. As I enter, a glass door shut behind me and the room starts to rise. It soon rose high enough to see the floor above. I look around and see many people, spectators, waiting impatiently for the last battle of the tourney. I can hear their noisy cheers and air horns before the glass door even opened. The glass door opens, and the roar of the crowd assaults my eardrums. I keep my cool, and proceed forward to a white circle next to a red and blue circle. I take my position and look ahead. There is another person standing across the circle from me. I can't quite make out their features but I can tell it is a man.
"Alright, ladies and gentlemen, are you ready to meet the finalists?!" A man shouts over a speaker system. The crowd answers with an earsplitting shout. "Good answer" The announcer says in an excited tone. "In the red corner, we have a trainer who has come all the way from the Idoh region! Give it up for Simon!" The crowd screams and cheers at the sound of my name. I couldn't help but crack a smile. "And in the blue corner, we have… uhm…" the announcer stammers. The audience grows silent. After a few minutes the announcer comes back. "We apologize for the delay folks. We will only be a few more minutes." I look over at the man and he begins to walk toward me. I panic and turn to run away. Before I can so much as take a step, I feel a sharp rap on my head. I close my eyes preparing for another hit.
"Molly, stop beating up your brother." A male voice says. I feel a weight lift off my chest. I groggily open my eyes to see a little girl, wielding the ever deadly block, being lifted off my chest. I open them further and see my dad picking up my sister. I groan and pull the covers over my face. "Simon, come on… It's morning."
I peek out at my clock. "Dad, it's only eight in the morning. The ceremony isn't until eleven." I whine. I retreat further beneath my blanket and curl up into a warm little ball.
"Well, you know what they say… The early bird gets the Weedle." He says as he walks out with Molly in his arms.
"The early bird gets the Caterpie, Dad! Nothing likes eating Weedle!" I yell from my blanket cocoon. I peek out at the clock again. One minute after eight. "No sense in going back to sleep now." I mumble to myself. I sit up and glance out the window. It is a beautiful, sunny day. I can hear the Pidgey outside and children playing. I stand up, stretch and walk out of my room to the kitchen. Molly starts chattering as my dad stands at the stove, cooking breakfast. "Oh, so you did get up." He says without looking back at me.
I grunt my reply and kneel down by Molly. "Hey, Molly" I say in a sing-song voice. She looks up at me with her brown eyes and reaches up and grabs a handful of my hair and yanks. I flinch at the pain and open my eyes to see her little fist full of brown curly hair. My brown curly hair to be specific. I take it back from her and take it over to the garbage and throw it out. "Dad, she's pulling hair again."
Dad drops his arms to his side in annoyance. "Simon, you are 15 years old. Deal with it by yourself." I stick my tongue out at him behind his back, which makes Molly laugh. I get back up and sit at the kitchen table. I put my head in my hands and think. The ceremony for the graduating class from the West Idoh Pokemon Academy was today. In spite of the fact that I am in no way a good or even an average student, I managed to pass anyway. I was going to be given my Pokemon Trainer License in addition to a starter. Everyone is supposed to be enrolled in the academy by the time they are ten and graduate by the time they are 15. In the past, you could start your Pokemon journey at age ten. But whatever governing body sets the laws and regulations decided that ten is too young. After a long debate, they decided that by age 15 boys and girls are old enough to make sound and rational decisions. I chuckled at the thought of some of my… less gifted classmates making rational decisions.
After a little while, a plate of eggs and bacon appears in front of me. I look up to see Dad putting Molly in a high chair and giving her some cereal. "So," he starts "do you know what Pokemon you are going to pick to start with?" I realize I haven't given it any thought. There were many choices. In other regions, they only had three options, but in the Idoh region, they took the three starters from five other regions. From the Kanto region you had; the Grass type, Bulbasaur; the Fire type, Charmander; and the Water type, Squirtle. From the Johto region you could pick Chikorita, the Grass type; Cyndiquil, the Fire type; or Totodile, the Water type. Hoenn had Treecko, Torchic and Mudkip as Grass, Fire and Water respectively. The Sinnoh region gave us Turtwig for Grass, Chimchar for Fire, and Piplup for Water. And all the way from the Unova region hailed Snivy as the Grass starter, Tepig as the Fire starter, and Oshawott as the Water starter.
'So many choices and only,' I look at a clock on the wall 'two hours!' I think to myself. 'I have to get ready to go! Kyle will be here any minute!' I eat quickly and run upstairs and change out of my pajamas and into real clothes. No time to shower or anything like that. 'Man, knowing Kyle he'll likely be waiting in the doorway for me.' I think to myself. Sure enough when I got half way down the stairs I could see him standing in the doorway with his arms crossed impatiently. He is a little shorter than me and his rectangular black rimmed glasses hide his green eyes. His short brown hair is uncombed as if he had to hurry here.
"It's about time you got down here." He says when he spots me walking down the stairs. "Come on, we are going to be late. Is your bike fixed?" That's Kyle. No greeting, no nonsensical chit-chat. He likes to keep it short, sweet and to the point. But he is smart. Third in the class kind of smart. On Fridays when we had the battle simulations, nearly everyone was afraid to go against him. He always seemed to be three moves ahead of everyone. But in my opinion, the battle simulator doesn't prove anything. There are things it doesn't take into account. Things like determination, luck and just plain spunk. I don't have much of any of those, least of all luck.
"Yeah, my bike is fixed. Let's get the show on the road." I reply, pulling my backpack onto my back. "Bye Dad. We'll be back soon!" I yell before exiting the door. Kyle waits by the front gate while I go to the back of the house and grab my bike. "Hurry up!" He says with an irritated tone. I scowl at him as I pull my bike to the front gate. We both mount our bikes and we ride off down the road, towards Town Hall where the ceremony is going to take place.