"What happened?" I asked groggily.

"My fist happened," Nicole said, "That's what will happen if you ever slack off again."

I looked around at my friends: Emery with her shoulder length brown hair and pale skin, Dorey, the shortest of the three, was Asian with black beetle cut hair and glasses, and Nicole with her medium length brown hair, average height, and glasses.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"The Sandgem Pokémon Center," Emery said, "I took the liberty of having Nurse Joy heal your Ralts, good first choice for your Pokémon by the way."

"Where is he?" I asked worriedly.

I looked up and there he was, playing with everyone else's Pokémon. There was Emery's Starly (I didn't really approve when I first saw it), a tiny bird Pokémon closely resembling a starling, and Andrew's Tyrogue, a purple powerhouse Pokémon with red boxing pants and fists to match. We called our Pokémon over and I decided to leave Ralts out of the pokeball so I could get to know him better. We packed up all our gear and headed out to finally start our journey. We stopped by the Pokémon market on our way out to get some food and to stock up on potions and other supplies, and then we were on our way.

"So what's our first stop?" I asked.

"Let's see..." Emery said, pulling out the map," It is Jubilife City."

"Oh, let's go to the TV station," Nicole said hopefully.

"Sure, but I want to check out the trainer's school before we leave," Dorey added.

We continued our trek through the route with me bonding with Ralts along the way.

"Hey!" A voice cried out behind us. We turned to see a boy with blue hair and a yellow shirt (the classic youngster look) jogging up to us.

"I'm Joey, would one of you like to battle?" He asked.

"I'll d it," I said, "I want to be in our first battle."

"Great! Over here, there's a clearing."

"Come on, Ralts let's go."

"Ralts ralts," he said. We went to the clearing and I sent Ralts ahead.

"Are you ready?" Joey asked

"Yup, let's do this," I replied. He threw a Pokeball in the air,

"Go, Budew!" A green oval like Pokémon come out; it had two green stalks wrapped around its head and a light green, almost yellow face.

"Budew! Bud!"

"Whoa, who's that Pokémon?" Nicole asked, pulling out her pokedex.

"Budew, the bud Pokémon. The feelers on its head open and close depending on the weather and when it feels threatened it will spray pollen from its stalks to stun predators." It said in its robotic voice.

"Interesting," I said," I'll start us off. Ralts, use confusion!" Budew was lifted into the air but shook it off, landing with a look of confidence.

"Budew, use pound!" Joey shouted. Budew jumped forward and knocked Ralts to the ground.

"Ralts, get up!" I shouted. It struggled to its feet.

"You're just gonna get knocked down again," Joey said, his voice oozing confidence, "Use pound again!"

"Not so fast!" I shouted," Ralts, use growl!" it hit home and the Budew stopped in its tracks, "now, use stun spore!"

"No problem," Joey said, "Budew, use safeguard." A translucent veil appeared around him and the yellow cloud bounced off.

"Ralts, use confusion." The Budew went flying back and started stumbling around the clearing.

"Tarek!" Andrew shouted, "It's confused, now's your chance!"

"Right! Ralts, finish this. Use confusion!" The Budew's eyes went wide and it fell face down in the grass.

"Budew, no!" Joey rushed forward," You did great, now have a good rest." He beamed it back inside the pokeball, and then proceeded to walk over to me where I was hugging Ralts.

"You did great for your first battle," he said, "Let's do this again one day."

"Sure, and maybe you can battle one of my friends."

"Bye!" We yelled as we disappeared through the trees.