Morning has arrived in Johto. In a little house, a middle aged woman is preparing breakfast as she motions the Aipom on her shoulder to wake her son. The little purple monkey nods before hopping onto the ground, then merrily trots along the corridor to the boy's room. Inside, Gold is still lazily sprawled across the bed as his many family Pokémon attempt to get him up. Aipom pats him on the forehead, and Drowsee quickly yanks off his blanket. Oddish then teams up with Kakuna to tidy his hair while Drowsee changes his clothes with its psychic powers. Gold groggily gets up, and Licktung gives him a lick to clean his face. The boy chuckles, and thanks his Pokémon for pampering him every morning.

Gold walks into the kitchen to greet his mother, and the woman wonders if he has cleaned himself yet. She complains about the jagging hair on his forehead, and the boy grins that it is a trendy style that many people wear. Gold decides to head out for a walk with his family Pokémon, and says goodbye to his mother after putting on a cap and flipping out his favourite skateboard.

It is another fine day in New Bark Town. At Prof. Elm's science lab, the young man is busy arranging his research material. He recalls the Cerise Island incident in Kanto exactly one year ago, and muses to himself how quickly time flies. On the table next to him, the three Johto starters, Chikorita, Cyndaquil, and Totodile are still sleeping peacefully in their Pokéballs.

That night, Gold is playing billiards with his family Pokémon in his own room while listening to the Pokémon Song Hour on the radio. The new song, 'Boy On Lapras', of his favourite DJ and singer Mary comes on, and he happily sings along. Suddenly, the radio signal gets interrupted and the sound coming out from the speakers become raspy. Gold quickly rushes over to fine tune the channel, but the broadcast keeps getting worse. He wonders if something is wrong with the antenna outside, and looks out of his window to see a dark shadow moving in his backyard. He angrily picks up his billiard cue and climbs out of the window to confront the stranger, who happens to be a youngster called Joey.

Before the young boy could say anything, Gold quickly accuses him of breaking into his house, and orders a scratch from Aipom, which he calls Aitro. The purple monkey delivers the attack on the youngster's Rattata, and Joey frantically points towards the top of a tree, explaining that he climbed over the fences just to chase after the Murkrow who has stolen his bag. Gold looks up to see the crow Pokémon sitting on the bag as well as the antenna, and realizes that it is the reason why his radio signal got interrupted. He learns from Joey that the bag is about 6 kilos in weight, then thinks for a moment before retrieving Aitro into a Pokéball and placing it on the ground. He positions his billiard cue behind it, and strikes downwards to propel the ball up to the tree top.

Aitro pops out to land on a tree branch with a piece of rope in its hands, and delivers a kick to knock the Murkrow off. It then ties a knot onto the bag and antenna, and quickly pushes it off the tree while the Murkrow regains balance and starts to attack. As the bag and antenna fall, Gold suddenly begins to ascend, and Joey gasps in shock when he sees that the other end of the rope is tied to the back of Gold's sweater. Gold climbs onto the tree branch and positions an empty Pokéball in front of him. He then strikes with his billiard cue again and quickly captures the stunned Murkrow.

Gold loses his grip and starts to fall off. Joey hollers in shock and quickly covers his eyes with his hands, but then notices that Aitro has grabbed its trainer with its hands while securing itself to the tree branch with its tail. Gold grins that Aipro is no different from an extra hand, and his family Pokémon start rushing out from the house to help him down. Joey is surprised by the many Pokémon and wonders if they're all Gold's. Gold explains that most of them have been there since his birth, and says his neighbours often call their place the House of Pokémon.

After formally introducing themselves, Joey checks on the bag retrieved from Murkrow, and unzips it to reveal a load of Pokéballs with rare Pokémon inside. He explains that he is on his way to deliver them to Prof. Elm in his lab, and Gold suddenly lets out a cry.

Joey wonders what's wrong, and Gold explains that he has missed the Pokémon Song Hour which was supposed to broadcast a collection of Mary's best songs that night. He asks if Joey has taped the program, and gets hugely upset when he learns that the youngster hasn't…

Thanks To Coronis For Writing this for us