I do not own pokemon or any of its characters.

Yes, my fic has all new people and a nonexistent land, but I know you'll like it.

Chapter 1

Isaac grinned down at his scantron sheet. He had finished. His entire school career. His life at home. It was all over.

As he got up, he noticed his friends in the other parts of the testing hall. Garret grimaced and blinked at the form in front of him. Isaac could not help but feel a small triumph, I won again. His eyes shifted over to J.C. who did not seem to be doing any better on her test. Feeling confident, he strutted to the front desk and placed the paper on the table. I know I passed that. Walking out of the room, he sat down in the lobby of the Pokemon Training Headquarters and began to wait for the other would-be trainers to finish their license tests.

"Get up!" Garret spouted. Isaac opened his blue eyes quickly, unaware he had fallen asleep.

"Howja do?" he stammered, "Oh".

Garret's blond hair had been twirled into spirals, which he only did during times of stress, and had the frustrated, stormy kind of look that people who have barely slept for a week tend to get.

"Guess," he asked sarcastically.

Again, J.C. did not look much better. "I didn't finish," she said, looking at the floor, "I wish Kahlum gave trainers' licenses like the other countries! You don't have to be able to drive, just be ten years old, and I hear the test is really easy so the little kids all pass!"

"Watch the temper." Isaac reminded her.

"Hcch. You're one to talk."

The group walked out the sliding doors with only one happy member. Isaac waited through the uncomfortable silence.

"Sorry you guys," he burst out lamely, "I know you'll pass."

"Oh, shut up. We don't need… whatever," Garret spat.

"Whoa, I'm just trying to help. I can't help if you failed," Isaac retorted.

"Hey! Who failed?"

"Well apparently you, seeing as how you're pretty busy feeling sorry for yourself at the moment."

"Shut up both of you!" J.C. screamed, "Stop being so goddamn immature! We all want everyone else to pass. Isaac, can you just not talk about it for a while? We know you passed, but we don't want to have to wait another three months to take it again." She sighed, looking away.

"I'm not sure I'm going to pass either, y'know," Isaac lied.

"Yeah. Right. You're always at the head of the class, and Mrs. Partel always loved her prize student for being so stupidly smart. Bitch."

Suddenly, Garret brightened, "We're never going to see her again. Ha! Remember the thing with the dunsparce?"

Everyone laughed tentatively at first, then, with reassuring eye contact, the elephant disappeared.

"Okay, I'm gonna head back to the farm," Garret said, grinning, "I'm not mad anymore." He lived on a clamperl "farm" where his parents organized a company in harvesting the pearls.

"Okay," J.C. spoke back, "I'll head home too." No one really could figure out what the Soam's did for a living.

"Alright. Bye," Isaac called as he was leaving, "Clear your oh so rigid schedules and let's meet at the training center in a week"

As he stepped through the gate of the combination research lab and home owned by the Alsups, he saw his mom working in the miniature garden on the side of the house with her oldest miltank. "How'd work at the pokecenter go today, Doctor Alsup?" He yelled across his yard. "Fine. And that's Mom to you, young man," Janine Alsup yelled back. "miltank, be a dear and move out of the way." "Mil-il," the miltank mooed happily. "Is Dad in the back?" "Mmm-hmm."

Isaac trotted around the side of his house to the burnt, frozen, thawed, windswept, shaken, stirred, and psycho-blasted field that Hector Alsup used as an outside laboratory.

"Isaac!" screamed his father once he saw him, "How'd the test go..." But was interrupted by an even shriller, "Isaac! I totally forgot! How did the test go?" of Doctor Alsup running around the corner. Isaac laughed, "Great, I know I passed."

"Oh, just look at my little boy! You'll be a gym leader before you know it!"

"Or a pokemon researcher!"

"Why would he want to be a researcher when he could be a doctor?"

"Hey! That's moving a little too fast! I just want to become a trainer and see what happens!" the subject of the bickering protested, "And I'm going upstairs."

"We're teasing with you son," Hector shouted jovially as Isaac opened the door.

"I know. I know."

He quickly ran up the stairs into his room and deposited his backpack in the closet before grabbing his pet pokeball from the magnetic belt around his waist.

"Come on out, torchic!" he said as he tossed the pokeball on the ground.

"Tor-torchic!" the tiny pokemon cried as it appeared in a flash of light.

Isaac grabbed it around the middle and placed it in his lap. He sat there, stroking the downy, orange feathers on its head, the pointed to the Everstone collar around its neck and said, "You're gonna get that off in a week. I've had you a while, so you might evolve! Can you do that without battling?"

He looked at his pokemon quizzically, and it returned the glance.

"And we're gonna finally be able to battle together!" The Pokemon cheeped with delight. "Do you want to battle Garret's clamperl or J.C.'s nidoran first? We're definitely going to battle one of them first thing!"

"Torchic," Torchic replied fervently.

"Well, I don't know what that means, but you can tell me when we get there next week, okay?" Torchic nodded.

Isaac glanced at the posters all around his room. One hung for each gym leader in Kahlum, and every elite four trainer and champion for every country. "As soon as we have our license, we're gonna burn all of these. 'Cuz we're gonna beat 'em all."

One week later, a crowd had gathered in the Pokemon Training Headquarters.

"All prospective trainers, please line up at the windows to get your envelopes," an attendant announced over the PA.

J.C., Isaac, and Garret filed up to the employees, stated their names, and were given an envelope each.

"My envelope feels too light! There's only one piece of paper in it! I knew I didn't make it," J.C. squealed.

"They all just have one sheet of paper in them. Stop whining," Garret said, though his nervousness showed through.

"Well, I guess we all made it, or we all failed," Isaac speculated, trying to remain calm. "We should probably bring our pokemon out for this."

Isaac let out his torchic, J.C. her cute, female nidoran, and Garret his burly clamperl. "On three," Garret encouraged, "One, two, three!"

All three sixteen year olds ripped open their envelopes and pulled out the document inside. "Yes!" J.C. screamed. The paper Isaac held congratulated him for passing the test, gave him the right to buy pokeballs and to remove the Everstone collar on his pokemon, assigned him an I.D. number, and acted as a voucher for one Pokelamp trainer's device from any Royalty brand store.

Isaac picked up his torchic in triumph, and then looked up at Garret. His paper drooped sadly from his hand, and contained no official seal.

The boy looked up slowly. "I didn't make it."