[Almost a Trainer]

"Jake honey, it's 6:00AM rise and shine!" Sarah near shouted as she turned all the lights in Jake's room on.

However, Sarah's efforts of waking her son seemed to be in vain, as Jake only made a light grunting noise and rolled over onto his face in an effort to shield his eyes from the wretched light.

"Oh ho ho, so it's going to be like that? I guess I'll have to tell professor Oak to give his starter Pokémon to another kid this year. Seeing as you clearly don't want one." Sarah said in an overly dramatic, yet somewhat vicious tone.

Yet the words seemed to work like magic, and in less than 10 seconds, Jake was out of bed and dazedly standing up.

"There we go, now go get changed and be down within 5 minutes, I've reheated the leftover dinner from last night so you'll have a hearty breakfast befitting of a new trainer such as yourself." As those last words left Sara's mouth, she was overwhelmed with pride. Her baby boy was selected by Professor Oak himself to get first pick of the starters after all.

Jake, noticing the pride on his mothers face, smiled and then pushed her out of the room.

"It's nothing personal mom, but I'd feel a little awkward if I had to change out of my pajamas while you're standing in front of me. I'll be down in a minute." Jake then closed his bedroom door, while secretly hoping his mother wouldn't be angry at him for shutting the door in his face.

Jake then proceeded to change out of his purple rattata onesie, and fetched Khaki pants, dark brown belt, and a red polo shirt out of his wardrobe. As was tradition with most people of this world, Jake had long since decided this was what he would always wear in public. In fact, his entire wardrobe was just identical copies of the same clothing, over and over again.

"Todays the day." Jake muttered to himself. He had been waiting 11 years for this day, and it's finally time.

"I'm getting my own Pokémon!" A smile unlike any other bloomed on Jake's face, and it persisted for over 3 minutes while Jake was getting dressed.

"It's still dark out? Wow, that is definitely unexpected. Then again, Professor Oak did ask me to be there as early as possible and it is..." Jake stopped talking as he realized he didn't actually know the current time, so he walked over to his bedside table and took a look at the alarm clock.

"5:36AM" Jake read aloud " That's actually not awful, and here I was thinking mom was going to wake me up at 3:00AM or something." As Jake came to the conclusion that his mother was not in fact pure evil, the smile that never left his face appeared to brighten that slight bit more.

As Jake had just finished dressing himself, he made his way out of his room, and entered the room directly across the hall. It was the bathroom, he had to make himself presentable for breakfast after all.

When Jake closed the bathroom door, light humming could barely be heard by anyone in the halls. "Combing my hair~, do do do~, combing my hair~" and so on and so forth.

While Jake was humming his little tune, he took a moment to appreciate his face. It wasn't too round, nor was it overly sharp, it instead appeared to be just right for an adolescent boy, and Jake wouldn't have had it any other way.

Jake had dark brown eyes, and similarly dark brown hair. Under the right light one might mistake his hair for being black, but his hair was unmistakably brown 90% of the time.

As Jake finished his daily morning routine, and was about to go downstairs, he quickly realized he was forgetting something.

"My notecards! Nearly forgot those, I've almost got all 144 Pokémon and their typings memorized." Jake said with a hint of panic in his voice, and he quickly dashed back into his room, grabbed his notecards, and then proceeded downstairs to get his breakfast.

Of course, before he even made it all the way down the stairs, his fathers booming voice could be heard.

"There's my little trainer! Are you excited? I mean, I know I would have been. You're what, 11? It's finally time for you to start making your way in this world! Now come over here, eat what's left of what was a glorious magikarp filet, and start your trek over to the Pokémon Professor. Time is of the essence so hop to it!" Before Richard, Jake's father, finished speaking, Jake was already seated at the dining room table and had long since started chowing down.

"Dad, the way you worded that… are you trying to get rid of me?" Jake said in a rather playful tone.

"No chance, who else would mow the lawn, or clean the pool if you left? I know I wouldn't." Then Richard burst out into laughter, and seeing as laughter was rather contagious, Jake started laughing as well.

Within a few minutes of sitting down, Jake had already finished his breakfast. Brought his dish to the sink, and before he could start washing up, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"It's your special day champ, I know how hard you worked for this, don't worry about the dishes, old pop here will take care of it. Have fun at the Professors." Said Richard, he was a kind and caring father after all, and he wanted his son to remember this day with nothing but happiness in his heart.

"Thanks dad!" Jake then gave Richard a hug, and as he was about to walk out the door, his mother approached him from behind and gave him an extremely warm, but long, hug.

"My little rattata, look at how much you've grown. It feels like just yesterday you were in my arms, and I needed to support your head. I want you to remember that if your goal of being a Pokémon master doesn't work out, you can always come back home. We will always be here." At this point Sarah was on the verge of tears, but Jake stayed still, and kept embracing his mother, and he would continue to do so until those tears dried up.

After a few minutes of crying, Sarah recovered, and let out a short embarrassed cough. Then she retreated to the storage room and came back out carrying a rather large backpack.

"Don't think I didn't see how you were about to leave without saying goodbye to your mother, in case you were wondering. I wasn't sitting with you at breakfast because I was finishing packing this, it has all you need, and four hundred thousand Pokédollar. This should allow you to live rather comfortably for a few days. After that, it's up to you." She then handed Jake the backpack.

Now it was Jake's turn to start crying, he knew very well that the moment he stepped out that door, backpack in hand, he couldn't come back unless he no longer wanted to be a trainer. His parents weren't like others in pallet town, they considered him an adult the moment it was decided he was going to be a trainer, and as such, they wouldn't even come over to the Pokémon Lab in order to see which starter he got. This was it, this was the last time he would see his family in a very very long time, if everything goes to plan that is.

After a brief crying session, and saying goodbye to his parent's, he was off to visit the Pokémon Lab.