In the land of Hoenn, a girl named May travels to Prof. Birch's lab. She is attacked by a wild ghost pokemon called Duskull. Scared, but unharmed, she travels on her bike to the lab in Littleroot Town.Ash also travels to Littleroot town and signs up for the Hoenn League. Ash arrives in town to discover that Littleroot doesn't have a pokemon center! Ash rushes to the Profesor's lab and talks to one of the assistants. The assistant alerts Prof. Birch and the he assists him.Meanwhile, May arrives at the lab to find that the Prof. isn't there. The assistants tell her that he drove into the woods and she rides after them.In the woods, the prof. tumbles down a cliff and lands on a Pochyena. He is suddenly surrounded by a group of the pokemon and he looks like he is in trouble. Suddenly, May arrives and the prof. tells her to take one of the pokemon out of his bag and use it to battle the Pochyena. She ends up throwing Mudkip. Birch tells Mudkip to do a water gun attack.As May and Prof.Birch find Ash. As the group is about to leave, Team Rocket arrive on the scene in a giant robot. They reintroduce themselves to Ash and let May and the prof. know who they are. Jessie still doesn't care about this mission and James and Meowth do the dirty work as they launch an arm that begins draining Pikachu's energy. However, it accidentely HEALS Pikachu and he uses a super-powered Thunderbolt.Back at the lab, May picks the fire pokemon, Torchic. Prof. Birch gives her a pokedex and she qiuetly says how she really doesn't like Pokemon. May's damaged bike due to Pikachu's thunderbolt makes her angry but she decides to ask Ash if she can go with him on his journey. He says OK and they head over to Oladale town as Ash's journey in Hoenn begins.