Stephen was snapped awake as the throng of trainers moved forward and he rose quickly to retake his position. He looked blearily around and spotted Wynne and the strange scarred trainer before settling down close by.
"Looks like this is it, Jim." Stephen told the spearow.
"Caw!"
The line moved forward as butterflies danced in his stomach and he entered the pokemon lab.

Immediately on entering he calmed down a little. The pokemon lab was familiar, he'd snuck into it plenty of times before. Granted, today it was a lot busier than usual but it helped that the location was familiar. Stephen quickly walked over to pick up a pokedex but stopped at the indigo league form. Jim looked quizzically down at the paper and wondered why Stephen had stopped.

If Stephen were to be completely honest with himself, he was conflicted. If he took Jim out of his head, if he took Wynne out of his head, if he took his parents out of his head, he realised that he had no real motivation to go on a pokemon journey. Sure, he wanted to see the rest of the world, but he could easily do that without being a trainer specifically. He could be a pokemon professor like Oak, he could be an archaeologist, news reporter, even a pokemon ranger, perhaps. Failing those he could even be a chef or an office worker or something. If he really stopped to think about it he could be pretty much anything and have a more comfortable existence. But... where was the fun in that?

Stephen closed his eyes as he remembered the words of his father. Despite his rather loud and brash statements, his father had a penchant for knowing when Stephen was troubled by something. One summer, some time ago, Stephen had asked Wynne why she'd wanted to become a trainer and she'd told him, though he couldn't see the appeal. He listened to other children talking about why they wanted to become trainers, be it becoming pokemon champion, capturing rare pokemon or winning contests, and he still couldn't understand why they wanted to do it. When he went home that day his father had asked him what was wrong, so Stephen asked him why he became a trainer. Stephen's father had laughed and told him something that resonated with him from then on.
[i]"I didn't really have a specific reason, and it didn't really matter what I wanted to do as a trainer in the end,"[/i] His father had said. [i]"because I could do anything. To me, a trainer is the freest job there is."[/i]

Stephen was snapped out of his musings by a sharp impact on his forhead. His eyes snapped open to see Jim leering impatiently at him.
[i]"Come on, we don't have all day!"[/i] Jim's eyes seemed to say.
Stephen smiled and picked up the pen.
"I know, Jim, I know." Stephen said to the bird. "No going back."
As Stephen signed the forms he was strangely at peace. If he thought about it he couldn't really discount Wynne, Jim or his parents. They meant far too much to him to discard so easily. He was a trainer now, like his father, and he could go wherever he wanted. He could research pokemon if he wanted, dig up pokemon fossils, win pokemon contests in other countries. He could go anywhere and be anything, and perhaps he could be the pokemon champion if he wanted to, though he'd let Wynne go first. 

Thinking of the pokemon champions as he finished signing the forms he looked around the pokemon lab as Jim puffed up his chest triumphantly now that they were officially trainers. Stephen finished the form and went to hand it up to professor Oak.
"Professor, where's Blue?" Stephen asked.