I took another chance and glanced over my shoulder. I could see my Dad's head poking out slightly above the rest. Today, at least, I'm glad he's tall, I thought, and then they called my name.

"Allora
 Silverfield" said the principal. I glanced up. He smiled down at me and
 motioned for me to stand. I rose and almost tripped over my graduation
gown as I climbed the stairs onto the stage. I quickly recovered and
strutted over to receive my diploma.

I reached my hand out and
took hold of the packet. I was planning on just taking it, smiling a
little, and then sitting back down, but principal Riffe wasn't having
any of that. No, what's more fun than a little publicity?

"Allora
is one of our top students." he declared. Each student was bound to get
some kind of commentary about their achievements. But the essay he
appeared to have written about me was not what I expected. Sure I was
one of the top students in my class, but our school was so small that it
 wasn't exactly hard. I mean, Lavender Town itself was small. It ends in
 town.

"She has excelled greatly in many areas of study.
She had the highest marks in both Battle Techniques and Strategies
courses. She surpassed the Kanto averages in both Pokemon History and
Egg Group Breeding courses." Well of course I did. Both of my parents
were breeders. They never wanted to be anything else, and both of them
have been hinting at wanting me to choose that as my post-graduation
career once I received my Training License. And history? I just love it.
 Learning about the original Dex-Holders is one of my favorite pastimes.

Ever since the first Dex-Holders, the, for lack of a better word, "Poke-System",
 has changed drastically. Once students graduate from secondary school,
usually around age 16, we are allowed to choose our career path. After
the first year at one career, switches are allowed. But one year is
required at least before a switch. At graduation you receive your
Trainer License, your Pokedex, and your "first" pokemon. The latter is
just ceremonial usually. Most students have been training and caring for
 their own pokemon for years. Well, most students, except me.

My
parents are very… how do I say? Strict. They both believe that choosing
my career and first pokemon should one big, sacred event, and that I
shouldn't pledge my heart to any pokemon until graduation day. Today. So
 though my parents both own pokemon of their own, and I have battled
with, trained, bred, and befriended them, I have never actually owned my
 own pokemon.

I know most everything there is to know about the
different types of pokemon, even without my own Pokedex. Living on the
breeding ranch with my parents has given me that skill. I have battled
with and cared for almost every different type of pokemon, from normal
to fire to dark. But I have never had one to call my own. I don't know
which pokemon I will chose when I am presented with my options this
afternoon. But I already know which career path I am taking.

In
Kanto, there are hundreds of careers to chose from. Almost all of them
involve pokemon. You could work in a hospital with the chansey, or in a
laboratory with the alakazam. You could dedicate your life to contests
and use pokemon like persian or glameow, or you could become a police
officer and make use of the mighteyena and houndoom.

My parents
want me to become a breeder. Breeders work with every type of pokemon,
charting egg groups and helping trainers breed different egg moves in
their pokemon. Though it is an interesting and well paying career, there
 is only one career I have ever considered for myself. I want to be a
trainer.

To be a trainer is the most popular career to go into,
and it is also the most popular one to drop out of. Many people simply
do not make enough money to live off of training, battling, and
collecting pokemon. Trainers make money by winning battles, selling rare
 pokemon, and completing their Pokedex. The more complete your Pokedex,
the fatter the annual check the government sends you to continue your
work. In order to make a living as a trainer, you have to be okay with
moving around a lot, and you also have to be good at it. I consider
myself fitting of both of those deions.

Pokedexes are very
important to trainers in that they are a lifestyle. Before Professor Oak
 died, he made sure that every person had a Pokedex and that everyone
had an incentive to fill it. The data recorded in Pokedexes is very
important to governmental research, so those who are really good at
getting complete data are also very well paid. But in order to do that a
 lot of traveling is required, and that is just what I want to spend my
life doing.

"And, ladies and gentlemen, that is Allora." Riffe
finally finished after what seemed like an hour. I stole a look at my
parents. Dad and Mom were beaming up at me, and so was Pretty, Dad's
raticate, who was sitting in the seat next to him. I took a bow and
headed back to my seat.

None of the other speeches seemed to last
as long, but maybe that is just because I wasn't so nervous anymore, or
just because my name is at the end of the alphabet. I took out my
Trainer License from the diploma. I hated my picture, but then again,
who ever likes school pictures? My blonde hair hung in ringlets around
my face. My gray eyes stood out against my bright pink eyeliner, and my
skin looked pretty tan compared to my white shirt. Hey, maybe it wasn't
such a bad picture after all.

Soon it was time for the reception,
which was outside, of course, so the various attending pokemon could be
comfortable. There was a table set up for the people to eat from, and a
separate one lower to the ground for the pokemon to snack from. Pretty
wasted no time and headed right over to the lower table, and she also
wasted no time getting into a fight with a vulpix over a particularly
large hunk of cheese.

"Pretty!" I scolded "Seriously? Be nice for once and share!"

"Rati-
 Raticate…" She huffed and handed the hunk of cheese to the vulpix, who
ungratefully snatched it out of her paw and began eating.

"Now now, is that any way to behave?" said a voice. I turned. Behind me stood Cali, my best friend.

"Cali? This vulpix is yours?" I asked.

"Well, not technically," she responded with a wink, "but yes, in a sense. What about that raticate? I thought your parents…"

"No,
 she's my Dad's." I said quickly. Cali was one of the only people that
knew about my pokemon-less situation. I couldn't bear it if anyone else
found out. People just assumed I had lots of my own pokemon, seeing how
well I did in class. And because that made me, in a way, popular,
keeping my situation on the down-low would be ideal.

The vulpix
bounced lightly over to Cali's feet and head-butted her. Cali bent and
picked it up. "Alright, let's get ready to head back to our seats. It's
almost time to get our Pokedexes!" She turned to me. "Hey, Allora, you
up for a battle later on tonight? I can't wait to see what pokemon you
pick out! Besides, I wanna see if all of that school-smarts comes out on
 the field."

"Come on Cali, you've seen me battle before, you know I'll kick your butt." I said playfully.

"Yeah, well not with your own pokemon!" She retorted. The vulpix licked her face and she laughed. "I'll see you later Allora!"

"Yeah,
 later, bye!" I said after her. I spend the next 15 minutes looking for
Pretty, who I finally found with her face literally shoved in a bowl of
pokefood sitting behind a bush. "Well at least you're happy."

"Mmmpphh?" She said with a mouthful of pokefood. I sighed and picked her up.

"Come on," I said, "Lets go find Dad."

I
 sat in my chair. Anxious. Restless. Until finally the woman who was
passing out the Pokedexes handed me my own, but disappointingly told me
not to open it yet. The red metal was cold in my hand. There was the
basic pokeball design on the front, but I knew that patterned cases were
 available, so I wasn't too worried about losing mine in a sea of
scarlet later on. The instructor told us (finally!) to open them.

We
 were in a lecture room, almost like a university classroom. There was
just enough room for my 58 student senior class to find seats. Everyone
opened their Pokedex.

I pressed the button on the bottom half of
the index-card-sized box. The Pokedex came to life. The screen slid out
of the top of the box, and two doors, undetectable until this point,
slid open to reveal a QUERTY keyboard, along with an ENTER button, a
BACK button, and a RECORD button. Of course I already knew how to use a
Pokedex, everyone did. If it wasn't because of our parents, it was older
 siblings or grandparents that had let us, at one time or another, play
with one.

The screen lit up. "Follow the instructions on the
screen and then set it down on your desk when you are ready to move on."
 The instructor said. Soon all that could be heard in the room was the
clicking of thumbs on keyboards and confirmation beeps from the
Pokedexes.

WHAT IS YOUR NAME? Was the question on the screen.
Allora Silverfield. ENTER. The screen loaded for a sec, and then my
Trainer License picture popped up on screen. IS THIS YOU? IF YES, HIT
ENTER. IF NO, HIT BACK. I hit ENTER. The screen loaded for a second
again, and then the main screen popped up.

At the top left was my
name. Then just under my name was my picture, and just under that were
the numbers 0/0. This meant 0 caught/0 recorded. Once I recorded data of
 a pokemon, the recorded number would go up. But it is only possible to
get complete data on a pokemon if that pokemon is caught. Otherwise,
only their picture, type, moves, and location are available. Once
caught, specifics about its height, weight, personality, and history are
 revealed. Each individual pokemon is different, their personalities for
 example, so once each Pokedex is taken in for evaluation once a year,
all of the information gets added into a gigantic database for study.
Each year the World Pokemon Database, or WPD, grows bigger and bigger
thanks to dedicated trainers and collectors.

On the left side of
the screen there were six blank boxes. Once I had pokemon of my own, I
could scan them and their pictures, nicknames, and levels would appear
in each box. If clicked on, the box would blow up to take up the entire
screen with information such as height, weight, and moves.

I could
 also click a small pokeball-shaped button at the bottom of the screen
to pull up the pokemon encyclopedia, filled with whatever categorized
information I had collected during my journey.

I set my Pokedex
down on the desk and glanced around the room. It was fairly quiet, and
very private. Parents are only allowed to visit for the ceremony. The
giving of the pokemon and Pokedexes, as well as career choosing, are all
 privately done. Once the clicking of fingers on the keyboards slowed to
 a stop, the instructor stood and walked over to the podium.

"Now
is for the moment most of you have waited for your whole lives," The
instructor said. Well, maybe just me because I am probably the only
person in this room that doesn't own their own pokemon yet. "I'm sure
you area all very excited to see what is in these cabinets that are
behind me." This was actually the first time I had noticed them. There
were six cabinets behind the instructor, who I then realized was my
Pokemon History teacher, Mrs. Price. "I will now open each cabinet and
present to you what is inside. Each Pokemon you are about to see is
level five. There are enough Pokemon to where you could all chose the
same one and still get your pick, so don't worry about choosing last."
Good, because I'm always close to last.

She then stepped to the
first cabinet and opened it. Inside were more pokeballs then I had ever
seen in my life. And that was only the first cabinet! "These are the
fire Pokemon you may choose from." She took out four minimized
pokeballs, unminimized them, and threw them in the air.

"Come out
and show yourselves!" She shouted. I could feel the student body holding
 their breath, waiting to see what might change their lives forever.