ã€ŠThat time I got re-incarnated in Fire - Redã€‹


 CH001 - I no longer have pubic hair

    ¡°Wel---- -o --- ---ld o- p-----n!¡±

    Huh?

    I had awoken to find myself in an eerie green void.  There was a man here saying something, I could barely understand.  The guy had some rather ugly brown balding hair and was wearing an even uglier purple shirt under his lab coat.

    Lab coat!

    How did I get here? Was I abducted!  Is this guy some mad scientist going to perform horrific experiments on me?

    Or maybe I was abducted by aliens?

    Either way this place is fucked up!  I''m standing on solid ground, yet it seems altogether ambiently and evenly illuminated across its flawless porous surface.  Above and all around me there is an endless void of a lighter shade of green.

    Round about this point I could feel my sanity giving way, this is a dream right?

    This is a dream!

    This is a dream!

    ¡°M- --me i- O-k¡±

    Just a nightmare!

    I¡¯m going to wake up, and this will aaaaaall be a dream!

    ¡°P--p-- af------nat--y r-f-- -o m- a- --- p-k---n p--f-s--r¡±

    My legs feel shaky.  This feels strangely way too real to be a dream.  My head is thrumming with fear induced adrenaline, I can barely focus on anything.

    Falling to my knees in panic, I had to take a moment to catch my breath, while the old man babbled on about something incessantly.  Hunched over clutching my now nauseous stomach, I could even less clearly make out or care about what he was saying. I did however somewhere faintly register a flash of light coming from his general direction, but was still in no condition to pay any attention.

    He carried on mumbling to himself.  I carried on ignoring him, he didn¡¯t seem overly harmful.

    After calming myself down enough to avoid a bloody panic attack,  I assessed my situation.

    Hopefully this was all a dream, in which case, no harm I might as well roll with it.  If this is not a dream however, then I can¡¯t think of any answer beyond this being an alien abduction or some kind of matrix bullshit.  Either way I would need information.

    Firming my resolve I finally let go of my stomach, got to my feet and faced the old man.

    ¡°Now tell me.  Are you a boy? Or are you a girl?¡±

    Huh?

    I stared at the man incredulously and slack-jawed.  What the heck kind of a question is that? Aliens. Definitely alien abduction!  Mildly alarmed I quickly looked myself over to make sure that something hadn¡¯t ¡®happened¡¯ to me.

    Nope.

    ¡®Everything¡¯ seemed to be intact and accounted for.  I was wearing a pair of unbranded black sneakers, blue jeans, a red and white collared shirt with black sleeves and a red baseball cap.  I also seemed smaller somehow than what I remembered.

    At least I wasn¡¯t naked and on an operating table, even if I did not recognise any of the clothes or remember how I came to be wearing them, which raised all kinds of alarm bells in and of itself.

    The crazy scientist guy was still staring at me expectantly, waiting for an answer to his absurd question.

    ¡°You seriously can¡¯t tell whether I¡¯m a guy or a girl?¡±

    The scientist looked completely surprised by my reprisal.  After a brief moment of shock he looked genuinely uncomfortable and cleared his throat in an obviously fake manner.  ¡°Uhm. Now that you mention it yes, I suppose it is rather obvious.¡±

    He looked genuinely puzzled for a moment, before continuing on, ¡°Let¡¯s begin with your name.  what is it?¡±

    ¡°Ben¡±  I answered simply, still very wary of the clearly senile man.

    ¡°Hmm. Yes.  Could you spell that out for me though?¡±

    I could only give him a blank look.  ¡°Dude, it¡¯s only three letters¡±Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.

    ¡°Hmm.  Now that you mention it, I suppose that should be obvious.¡±  Another perplexed expression on his face. ¡°Apologies, I have no idea why I asked that, I just had this compelling feeling that I should get you to spell it out so that no one gets it wrong.¡±

    ¡°Right¡±

    ¡°Strange, what a strange sensation.  It¡¯s like I¡¯m expecting everyone to go around calling you out incorrectly if I did not get your name right.  What coul-¡± The old man continued to mumble is incoherrent senile thoughts to himself while I could do nothing but patiently wait for him to finish.

    ¡°Right! Anyway.¡±  He finally snapped out of his musings.  ¡°This is my grandson! He¡¯s been your rival since you were both babies.¡±

    A spot light suddenly illuminated someone in the corner of the room, nearly startling all the life out of me.  Holy fuck balls!

    A kid, probably about ten years of age was now standing to one side.  He wore rather trendy clothes that suited him well, but more importantly he had incredible orange spiky hair, straight off of an anime MC¡¯s head.  How much fucking styling gel is needed to get it to stand like that! That is the hair of dreams!

    ¡°...Erm, what was his name now?¡±  The senile scientist once again looked at me expectantly.

    You¡¯re joking right?  How do you not know your own grandson¡¯s fucking name?  And I thought I had a dysfunctional family! What¡¯s worse is the grandson just stood there completely passively and apparently not even caring a bit about the insult that was just foisted upon him.

    ¡°Dude It¡¯s your grandson, you should know his name.¡±

    ¡°Err, was it Gary?  That¡¯s right, it was Gary!¡±  The old man looked relieved somehow, but I could only facepalm.  Gary also seemed to blink out of existence at this point, which although it probably should greatly alarm me, wasn¡¯t even surprising me anymore.

    ¡°Ben!  Your very own pokemon legend is about to unfold!¡±

    I¡¯m sorry, my what now!

    ¡°A world of dreams and adventures with pokemon awaits you!¡±  He exclaimed grandiosly.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go!¡±

    And then the world went dark.  Before I could even finish processing what this clown was saying.

    <hr>

    I woke up in bed.

    Rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I sat up.  A dream huh? That makes way too much sense.

    I slumbered out of the comfortable soft bed and landed on my feet.  I was suddenly struck with a feeling of vertigo. I instinctively knew something was wrong.  For one, it had taken way too long for my feet to reach the ground. Was my bed suddenly higher?

    Looking down I was instantly back in panic mode!  Not only had I gone to sleep wearing clothes, even a baseball cap, but rather those clothes I had just been dreaming about!

    Was I still dreaming?  Or maybe I¡¯d truly gone insane.

    I looked about ¡®my¡¯ room.  It wasn¡¯t my room anymore.

    There were two windows to my right looking out into what appeared to be some kind of forest scenery.  The room had ugly beige wallpapered walls, a floor made of not very nice looking tatami mats and an even uglier green rug in the middle of it all.  Who the heck decorated this place? They need to get their heads examined!

    To the one side of the room was a bookshelf, a dresser and a desk with an ancient looking PC on it, featuring a good old CRT monitor.  In the center of the room for some reason was a CRT TV and a good old fashioned NES gaming console.

    Aside from clearly being transported back in time here, setting that aside, that mad scientist''s words were stuck in my head.  Something about my pokemon adventure. Was I having a pokemon dream?

    I went over to the computer and after turning it on, found it had a strange textual interface with only three options on it.  Item storage, Mailbox and Turn off.

    Even though it had been a long time since I had played the original pokemon games, I recognised these prompts.

    ->¡¯Item storage¡¯.

    ->¡¯Withdraw item¡¯.

    And there it was: Potion x 1

    Curios, I withdrew it and noticed a slight increase in the weight of my backpack.

    Wait! I¡¯m wearing a backpack, when did that get there!

    I immediately took off the ugly yellow backpack and found a corked purple potion bottle inside.

    Coupled with the mad scientist¡¯s words, it was official.  I was inside a dream about a pokemon game.

    I stood there a moment, pondering my next move.  I was probably in a dream after all. Either that or some matrix bullshit.  Either way, there was nothing else to do really but play along. Maybe even have some fun while I¡¯m at it.

    My decision was made, I left my room, the exit being a set of stairs for some reason that led to the ground floor of the house.

    Upon arrival I was greeted with yet more tacky decor in the same horrendous style as my bedroom.  The ground floor was also a single room, a combination of kitchen, lounge and dining room, as far as I could tell.

    There was an ugly blue and white checkered table with blue chairs arranged around it on the center of the ugly green mat.  Aside from the occasional pot plant, the only other things in the room were a kitchen surface, display cabinet, trash can, another CRT TV and of course, if memory serves me correctly, my mom.

    A fairly young and extremely pretty blue haired woman was sitting in one of the chairs at the dining table.  She was wearing a red dress with yellow sleeves. Despite the absurdly ugly outfit the gorgeous girl still managed to radiate a natural beauty.

    I¡¯m just saying, If you weren¡¯t my in-game mom and I was not stuck in what seemed to be a ten year old body¡­  things could happen here!

    Approaching my mother, she began to speak.

    ¡°Right¡­ All boys leave the home some today.  It said so on TV.¡±

    Okaaaaay.  That was weird.  And at least not a little bit wrong and disturbing in a number of ways.

    ¡°Oh yes.  Professor Oak, next door, was looking for you.¡±  She gave me a brilliant and beautiful smile.

    So setting aside that you want to kick your ten year old son out of the house and essentially want him to go off and fight monsters, I guess I¡¯m off to see the wizard of oz then.

    Approaching the front door, I looked back at the still smiling women one more time before leaving.  I smiled to myself mischievously, one day girl. One day!

 CH002 - Suck it Gary!

    Stepping outside into the bright midday sunlight, a thought struck Ben.

    Pallet town is small.

    Surrounded on all sides by an impressively dense forrest, it basically consisted of a grand total of three houses.

    Three houses!

    Three houses does not a town make!  Sigh. Memory limitations maybe?

    Ben recalled that the house to his left was his self proclaimed ¡®rivals¡¯ house and that the one in front of that was professor Oak¡¯s.  Aside from that, there was a little girl loitering by a small flower garden and another fat kid wondering about as well.

    Should he go talk to them?  He couldn¡¯t remember if these side characters in the starting town were good for anything.

    Just in case, Ben approached the little girl.

    ¡°Hey little girl, how¡¯s it going?¡±

    Basically the only thing the girl did was VERY enthusiastically tell him to read the sign post she was standing next to.  The sign post in question, in turn, was telling him that he should press ¡®start¡¯ to open the ¡®menu¡¯.

    Nevermind.

    Ben then proceeded to ignore everything else and went straight to professor Oak¡¯s house.

    On the way he noticed a break in the forest for a river that basically lead right up to the edge of Pallet town.  If he remembered correctly that was an additional route you could take after you got the swim HM or something like that.  He was momentarily tempted to fuck the game over and just jump the small white picket fence next to the river and go where he shouldn¡¯t be going.

    Of course then Ben also realised that there were likely way too strong pokemon lurking that way.  Guess we may as well do this legit.

    Entering professor Oak¡¯s residence, Ben was greeted with a large square room with a floor made of long stone tiles.  The inside was filled with a wall of book shelves and a number of scientific contraptions.

    There was a woman in a green dress and two men in lab coats mulling about.  I could swear the two men looked like twins. Also in the middle of the far end of the room was my ¡®rival¡¯, with his gorgeous hair, standing around, looking very impatient.

    There was however no professor Oak.

    I decided to greet Gary.

    ¡°What?  Oh it¡¯s only Ben.  Professor Oak is out.¡±

    Rude!  And yes I can see that, thanks for stating the obvious.  If Oak wasn¡¯t here, was I supposed to do something to trigger his arrival?  Ben couldn¡¯t quite remember the contents of the pokemon games anymore, it had been too long ago he had last played them.

    Looking around he saw that one table held two pokedex¡¯s and another held three pokeballs.  I wonder what would happen if I tried to take one? Maybe the game would glitch out and a Mew would appear?  Wouldn¡¯t be unheard of.

    Curiosity getting the better of him, he walked over to the desk with the pokeballs and reached out for the first one.

    ¡°Ah, sorry I¡¯m late!¡±  Professor Oak came stumbling in, his head still sporting some bed-hair.

    ¡°Gramps!  I¡¯m fed up with waiting!¡±  Gary snarled at him.

    Was this how you normally triggered the encounter with Oak?  Oh well.

    ¡°Gary, let me think.¡±  Oak paused. ¡°Oh, that¡¯s right, I told you to come!  Just wait!¡±

    Seriously?

    ¡°Here Ben, there are three pokemon here.¡±  He indicated towards the table, chuckling.

    ¡°The pokemon are held inside these pokeballs.¡±  Oak tapped his chin while staring into space, seemingly ruminating on the past.  ¡°When I was young I was a serious pokemon trainer. But now in my old age I have only these three left.¡±

    Aren¡¯t you a pokemon researcher slash scientist guy?  Why would you only have these three left?

    ¡°You can have one.  Go on, choose.¡±

    Don¡¯t mind if I do.

    ¡°Hey gramps, no fair!  What about me?¡± Somewhere in the background there was a bratty child throwing a tantrum.  Ben tuned him out.

    ¡°Be patient Gary, you can have on too.¡±  Oak scolded him.

    Ben sighed.  The guy needs to be pulled across your knee Oak.

    ¡°Professor, which is which?¡±

    ¡°Ah sorry, the one on the left is Bulbasaur.  The one in the middle is a Squirtle. And the one on the right is a Charmander.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t suppose you have a pikachu stashed back there somewhere there?¡±

    Oak just looked at Ben puzzled.  ¡°No, I don¡¯t why would you think that.¡±

    ¡°No reason¡±  Ben replied with just a hint of sulking.

    So the first choice.  I can¡¯t remember what I chose last time I played.  Judging by the choice present, this is either the classic red or blue game, or the newer fire red or leaf green.  I think the classic game had this scene where you hear about your amazing pokemon trainer dad on TV right at the beginning.  Although I could be wrong though. But in all likelihood, this is either fire red or leaf green.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

    Concerning the starting choice, if memory serves me there are an awful lot of water pokemon as random opponents in the game, with entire routes dealing with just them.  So not a fan of the fire pokemon idea. Or at least, I hope I¡¯m remembering the right game here.

    Also I remember the first gyms being rock or water, then electric.  So for an easy start I could possibly go with a water pokemon, or a grass pokemon.  Honestly I like that the grass pokemon can beat out all the water pokemon I¡¯m expecting to encounter and I feel like it has way more types that it¡¯s effective against.

    Yep, I¡¯ve decided.

    ¡°I¡¯ll take the Bulbasaur¡±

    After taking my Bulbasaur, Gary rushes over to the table.  ¡°I¡¯ll take this one then.¡±

    Of course he will!  Take the fire pokemon just so that he can have an edge against me.  Pussy.

    I sighed.  Seeing as how nothing else seemed like it was going to happen I made for the exit.  I did not however get two steps before-

    ¡°Wait, Ben!  Let¡¯s check out our pokemon!¡±  Gary shouted after me. ¡°Come on, I¡¯ll take you on!¡±

    Of course you will!  You have a fucking charmander you prick!  It¡¯s gonna roast my flower patch on paws, alive!  Shit. If only I had realised what was going on back there in that dream inside a dream, when Oak asked me what Gary¡¯s name was.

    I missed a golden opportunity to give him the name of ¡®prick¡¯.  I would have had the satisfaction watching everyone around him calling him a prick!  How could I have missed that! This world is too cruel.

    Gary approached me and then pushed the button on his pokeball, releasing Charmander.

    ¡°Wait, here?  You wanna fight right here?¡±

    Garry tilted his head in confusion, ¡°Of course.¡±

    I was about to object to Oak about all the expensive looking scientific equipment strewn about, when he simply gave me a thumbs up.

    I give up.

    Common sense does not apply in this place.

    I released my Bulbasaur.  Just then I realised another problem.  How was I supposed to know my pokemon''s stats, HP, abilities, etc.

    I know I¡¯m going to regret this but, ¡°Professor Oak.  How do I know which attacks my pokemon has?¡±

    Oak looked at me contemplatively for a moment.  ¡°Just one second.¡± He then went to sift through a pile of what can only be called ¡®junk¡¯.  He came back a moment later with a pair of shades. They weren¡¯t exactly cool, but they weren¡¯t bad looking either.

    ¡°Try these on.¡±

    Putting them on, immediately could see a HUD showing information about my pokemon''s abilities, stats, HP, as well as the HP of my opponents pokemon.  Although for my opponent, I could only see his rough HP bar and pokemon level, not specific numbers. That is really cool. Also, kind of breaking the immersion of the game here, but oh well.  If it works¡­

    ¡°Gramps, I also-¡±

    As if anticipating Gary¡¯s complaint, Oak had already pulled out a second pair and them to him, shutting him up immediately.

    ¡°Alright! Let¡¯s do this!¡±

    I sighed again.

    Professor Oak rattled on a bunch of instructions about how pokemon battles worked, but I just tuned him out and instead strategized.  My Bulbasaur was level 5 with 20hp and was just standing there focusing intently on the Charmander that was likely of a similar level.

    Come to think of it this is actually really cool!  I have a fucking pokemon in front of my about to duke it out!  Sorry little guy, but I am going to work you to the bone!

    That aside.  My level 5 Bulbasaur only has tackle and growl, which was good news, as it meant that Gary¡¯s Charmander probably didn¡¯t have any flame abilities yet and since tackle and scratch and all that were normal attacks I didn¡¯t yet have to deal with a type disadvantage.

    If that¡¯s the case then the only thing left to worry about was whether or not to use growl before I begin chipping away at his health with tackle.  Problem is I can¡¯t remember if the attack lowering effect of growl is any good or not.

    I know that the attacks that lower accuracy are absolutely brutal, from my memory of the game and I also know there are superior alternatives to growl later on that do the same thing but better.  All in all it I don¡¯t remember it being overly useful, especially in small scale confrontations like this.

    Given that both pokemons are the same level, and are all starter pokemon, their basic attacks will likely do the same amount of damage.  Hopefully. I could open with a single growl and then switch to tackles after that. I shouldn¡¯t lag too far behind in health that way and I can gauge how effective the difference between his attack without the boost is and my own one, and make a decision after that.  Even if I don¡¯t come on top, I can always dig into that healing potion, it should be able to fully heal my Bulbasaur. Of course I would rather not waste it right now.

    Yep, seems like a good plan.

    Oak had also finished his explanations.  I braced myself, ready to-

    Wait.  What was I supposed to do here, how would this work exactly.  There isn¡¯t exactly an interface with options here. Maybe it''s like the anime and I have to instruct my pokemon verbally?

    Looking over at Gary, he also seemed poised and ready for action.  But nothing further was happening.

    Oh well.  Here goes nothing.  ¡°Bulbasaur, growl!¡±

    Gary immediately responded, ¡°Scratch attack!¡±

    Bulbasaur issued a deep throaty growl as Charmander dashed forward.  I noticed a few beads of sweat formed on Charmandar¡¯s forehead as he closed in on Bulbasaur.  But more noticeably, my overlay clearly indicated that Charmandar¡¯s attack rating had been lowered.

    His scratch attack landed and left deep gashes across Bulbasaurs body.  The overlay informing me that 3 damage had been done.

    I followed up with ¡°Tackle¡± and my opponent with ¡°Scratch¡± once more.  My tackle landed first, sending Charmander into a bookshelf and sending books flying.  I cringed at the damage being done, hope I don¡¯t have to pay for it.

    Charmander was up in no time delivering his retaliatory scratch attack.  I noticed that Bulbasar¡¯s attack was indeed doing a bit more damage than Charmander¡¯s attack, likely because of the early growl.  But still, it wasn¡¯t by much and anymore would probably be a waste. I wasn¡¯t even sure the first growl was even worth it for such a short fight.

    Charmander¡¯s scratch brought my Bulbasaur down to 14 HP.

    Another exchanged round of blows brought Bulbasaur''s health down to 11.

    Another and at 8 out of 20 HP, I noticed that Bulbasaur had more health than Charmander now, if just by a little.  So that one growl was worth it. However I have a feeling such a short match could not warrant a second growl, as the opponent would likely gain too much of a head start on the HP.  Maybe in longer engagements, will have to experiment with it a bit.

    Another round of blows, this time sent some expensive looking equipment flying and brought Charmander down to his last bit of health.

    One more blow finally finished him off.  Charmander by this point was looking rather banged up.  I wasn¡¯t sure what to expect, but Charmander simply fell to the ground unconscious, even though his injuries should surely not have been enough for that.  Guess this is the PG version.

    Interestingly enough my attacks always landed first.  I¡¯m not sure if that is because I as the MC get the initiative, or because Balbasaur maybe has a higher ¡®speed¡¯.

    Either way, Bulbasaur gained 69 exp points and grew to level 6.  Yay!

    ¡°What, unbelievable!  I picked the wrong pokemon!¡±  The child stomped in frustration.

    I just rolled my eyes and smirked.  Suck it Gary!

 CH003 - Taurus filet mignon

    I¡¯d also gotten 80P for that fight. Why? I have no idea. What is this GTA? Beat up people for money?

    I can¡¯t remember what Bulbasaur¡¯s stats are like compared to other pokemon but I did notice the stat boosts he got for that level up was pretty evenly spread out across the board. So he seems like a decent all rounder, but we will see.

    ¡°Excellent¡± Oak clapped, despite the damage to his lab? ¡°If you win, you will earn prize money and your pokemon will grow.¡±

    ¡®Prize money¡¯ Is that what we¡¯re calling mugging people. Well, no skin off my back.

    ¡°Battle other trainers and make your pokemon stronger.¡±

    Gary looked up with a face somewhere between sulky and determined. ¡°Okay, I¡¯ll make my pokemon battle to toughen up!¡±

    I could totally see him repeatedly picking a fight with a Dragonyte to this end.

    ¡°Ben! Gramps! Smell ya later!¡±

    Dick.

    After Gary stormed out, and Oak started cleaning up the mess we had made, I briefly eyeballed the Squirtle still on the table. Tempting as it was to snatch it, I suddenly felt a bit guilty. It was that nut job scientists last pokemon after all.

    I once more sighed and left the building.

    Once more outside, there was clearly little left for me to do here, so I would have to head on out to the next town. Pallet town, the river aside, only had one exit, a ¡®bushy¡¯ forest trail.

    Approaching it, I passed Gary¡¯s house on my right. I had a brief moment of regret, where I wish I had chosen Charmander. Could have set fire to his house that way. Maybe even burn off his stupid perfect hair.

    Sigh.

    I stepped onto the trail and into the brush. And the very first blood bush I step through, Bam! A Rattata jumps out and starts squeaking threateningly. Well as Threatengingly as a stupid little level 3 cannon fodder mouse can be.

    Nonetheless I fumble for my pokeball and summon Bulbasaur. In a moment of clarity I realise that I had forgotten about Bulbasaur¡¯s health. The moment however passes when I realise he has been topped up back to full HP. Must have been the encounter with Oak that did it.

    I order Bulbasaur to go straight for tackles, this thing is likely too weak to waste turns on growls.

    Bulbasar takes out a nasty chunk of the Rattata¡¯s health, making it tumble across the ground, it responds with a tailwhip of its own, which lowers Bulbasaurs defence.

    Such a waste, you¡¯ll basically be dead before you can put that to use.

    Another tackle followed by a response of tailwhip, just left me rolling my eyes. Forgot how stupid the ¡®AI¡¯ can be. Total random attacks. Another tackle and the Rattata was down for the count without even having landed a single blow.

    Hmm. The Rattata was now just laying there in the grass, unconscious, on its back, with one of it¡¯s paws still twitching. I don¡¯t have any pokeballs on me to capture it. Not that I would want to catch that in the first place. I am not one of those collectors. No, it¡¯s better to keep your pokemon ranks smaller and only keep the pokemon you actually intend to end up with on you. That way you don¡¯t dilute or waste any of the XP you get on throwaways.

    Or at least, that was my take on it.

    Continuing on, another level 3 Rattata jumped out of the bushes a fair distance later. This one ended up getting one hit in before it went down, but in exchange it boosted my Bulbasaur to level 7.

    Also, he learned leech seed, which is a really cool attack for general levelling. Its damage is low making it not so great against strong opponents, but the general bushwacking pokemon in the game are usually lower level than you. The drain from the leech seed can usually keep up with the lower levelled enemies damage output, keeping you topped up on health, no matter how long you go at it without a pokemon center.

    Finally I came into a small clearing. There was an older woman here, for some reason. When I approached her...

    ¡°Hi I work at a pokemon mart. It¡¯s part of a convenient chain selling all sorts of items.¡±

    ¡°Please visit us in Viridian city.¡±

    ¡°I know, I¡¯ll give you a sample, here you go.¡± She handed me a basic health potion.

    I said my thanks and left.

    The woman is clearly a little batty in the head. Why the heck is she trying to advertise her shop in the middle of the forest. Besides the only thing this way is Pallet town, with it¡¯s staggering population of 10. Although I wouldn¡¯t be able to tell you where 5 of those people live to be honest.

    I started following an actual road this time. Although for some reason the road kept running into either lines of trees or cliff faces, forcing me to go around, usually through bushes to get back to the ¡®road¡¯. The whole thing was kind of weird.Stolen story; please report.

    I did encounter one guy in the bushes who told me about how jumping down the cliffs was a shortcut back to pallet town.

    And I was like, ¡°you do you¡±.

    I encountered a Pidgey, the bastard did quite a bit of damage to my Bulbasaur. Despite the fact that an early planted leech seed was regenerating me the whole time.

    Further down the trail I had to deal with another level 3 Rattata. Naturally I kept up the first leech seed, then tackle tactic.

    After that, with a very low on health Bulbasaur, I finally made it to Viridian city. Honestly, I was actually physically tired now. That journey had been much longer than it was in the game, it had literally taken me about an hour to get here.

    The first thing I did in Viridian city was pop into the local pokecenter. I was highly expectant of my encounter with nurse joy. Honestly the nurse uniform is a fetish of mine.

    I was however a bit taken aback, when I realised that for some reason, nurse joy was an android? She smiled at me and helpfully healed my Bulbasaur by putting his pokeball in a machine that did exactly that.

    An android huh. I guess that explains why there are so many of her.

    After that surprising encounter I started talking to everyone I could find, since some of them might give useful shit or even ¡®quests¡¯.

    After going around the town and eventually talking to everyone I could, the shopkeeper gave me some parcel to return to Professor Oak.

    I was tempted for a moment to see what was inside, but I didn¡¯t want to risk messing the ¡®story¡¯ up. Who knows what would happen then.

    So I painfully returned to Pallet town. I actually did jump down those bloody cliffs all the way back as a shortcut. Some of them were a little on the scary side.

    Finally reaching Oak, he gushed over my Bulbasaur¡¯s progress and how I am such an amazing trainer. No I¡¯m not making this up, the guy actually said this to me!

    I then handed Oak his parcel. After that a slightly more civil Gary pitched up and Oak gave us each a pokedex and some pokeballs, because¡­ I guess it was time?

    He then proceeded to launch into a tirade about how you catch them. But the gist of it was, find some innocent, unexpecting pokemon in the wild, beat them until they are black and blue and then throw a hard metal ball at their face to finish the job.

    He also left a parting comment about how we should fill the pokedex with all the pokemon of the world because it was his dream to do so and he is too old now.

    I mean, live your life through your kids much? Sheesh!

    Of course Gary took up the challenge eagerly and then told me I am not needed for this endeavour, in typical Gary fashion.

    I just gave him a blank tired look, ¡°Knock yourself out bro.¡±

    Also apparently his sister has town maps, because, reasons. And he was going to tell her not to give me one.

    Well at least I got 5 pokeballs out of this.

    I visited his sister regardless, in their house, and she gave me a map anyway. Maybe he forgot about his intended spitefulness?

    I was about to begin my journey back to Viridian city when suddenly something unexpected happened.

    ¡®Grrrrrrr¡¯

    It was not something that would normally be unexpected, but under these circumstances, it did raise some rather concerning questions.

    I was getting hungry. Actually past that point already. What the heck was I supposed to eat? Why was I getting hungry inside a pokemon game in the first place?

    Hmm. Well, what does a 10 year old kid normally do when he gets hungry? Actually in retrospect, I guess the answer is kind of obvious.

    I popped into my house and greeted my in-game mom. She was still sitting in the exact same place I left her. Honestly if she wasn¡¯t so gorgeous I¡¯d be seriously creeped out by her.

    ¡°Ben, you look tired, you should tak-¡±

    I had no patience right now for whatever spiel the game was going to throw at me and simply interrupted her, ¡°Mom I¡¯m actually really hungry.¡±

    She froze mid sentence and looked really confused. And when I say froze, I mean, like a fucking buddah statue, froze. For a moment I was concerned I¡¯d ¡®broken character¡¯ enough to glitch the bloody game.

    After a while however, she seemed to ¡®unstuck¡¯ herself.

    ¡°Okay, just wait here, I¡¯ll fix something up for you.¡± She smiled heartily before busying herself in the kitchen. A pan and plates and other items started appearing out of the way too small cupboard below the kitchen sink. Heck even food ingredients were coming out of there! I decided to look away just in case my brain suddenly exploded from the paradox or something.

    I kept myself entertained browsing through my hopelessly empty pokedex, examined the map, played catch with Bulbasaurs pokeball, watched with fascination as it spun through the air each time.

    My mom eventually returned with a plate filled with scrambled eggs, strangely colored fried bacon and some sausage. Honestly it smelled great and my stomach was on its hands and knees begging for the feast laid out before it.

    ¡°Thanks mom!¡± My mother simply smiled with that motherly love that only a mother could pull. It was actually really nice to have for once.

    I eagerly grabbed my knife and fork, ready to dig in. Itadakimas!

    Before I brought the sausage to my salivating mouth, I suddenly had a moment of clarity.

    ¡°Mom what¡¯s in this sausage?¡±

    ¡°Why silly, meat of course?¡±

    ¡°Yeah I guessed, but what kind of meat?¡±

    ¡°What do you mean? It¡¯s just meat.¡±

    ¡°Okay, let¡¯s try this, where did you get the meat from?¡±

    ¡°Why, from the shop of course.¡±

    ¡°Setting aside that there is no shop in Pallet town, where did the shop get the meat from?¡±

    ¡°Hmm. Probably a farm?¡±

    I could see where this was going. PG bullshit.

    I simply put the thought out of my mind and popped the sausage into my mouth. I was either eating ground up Taurus, or maybe even Rattata fillet, who knew? I was too hungry to care.

    But man was it delicious! The scrambled eggs, which if memory serves me correctly could be any one of the 151 pokemon¡¯s eggs, the sausage, the bacon - do you even get pig pokemon?, it was all delicious. Each was carefully prepared with a unique palatable and complementary seasoning and taste that went far beyond the level of home cooking. This was the kind of shit you served in fancy restaurants! Was my mom actually some kind of fancy chef?

    It got me really excited to try out some things in future, like maybe magikarp sushi! Or maybe kentucky fried pidgey! Heck if I remember correctly, a farfetch¡¯d even comes with one of the ingredients needed to cook it!

 CH004 - A bugs life

    ¡°Thanks mom, that was absolutely delicious.¡±

    ¡°Why thank you dear.¡±

    ¡°No I mean seriously, you should open a restaurant or something.  Your cooking is fucking amazing!¡±

    ¡®Mom¡¯ looked at me completely in shock for some reason.

    ¡°I mean your cooking really is that good.  Just whatever you do, don¡¯t open a restaurant in pallet town!¡±  I called over my shoulder while departing.

    Ben had already left the house before his mother had the chance to squeak out the words she had never used before: ¡°L- language!¡±

    <hr>

    Another level 2 and level 3 Rattata later and Ben was back in Viridian city, with a now level 8 Balbasaur.  Curiously, on his way, he noticed one of the previous ¡®fainted¡¯ Rattata¡¯s that he had taken out, was still lying there unconscious.  Wasn¡¯t the game gonna clear that out at some point?

    Also for some reason, when he first summoned his Bulbasaur, it had been strangely drunk or dizzy for a while there.  Go figure.

    Ben checked back in by the pokeshop where the lady behind the counter had given him the parcel quest and sure enough, now he could buy stuff.  So he purchased three paralyze heals and 3 antidote potions.  He liked to be prepared.

    This left him with 2180P.

    Leaving there, he searched a bit more at the edge of the town and encountered an old man that was annoying kind enough to teach him how to use pokeballs to beat senseless catch pokemon.

    He also found out that Viridian city gym was closed.  Guess it''s up to me to go find Brock and drag his useless lazy ass back here to do his damn job.  Or was it another gym leader?  Nah, I¡¯m pretty sure the first one is Brock.

    Heading out of town in search of my long time anime mate, Brock.  I soon came upon an interesting building.  It had a row of fancy windows near the top, set just under its roof, and a large entrance meant for, I guess, a lot of foot traffic?

    Upon entering, aside from two girls in here, there was nothing else really going on.  Just a dumb empty square room, save for the occasional pot plant and table and chair.  What is the point of this?

    As I exited the building I passed under a sign that said ¡®To Viridian forest¡¯.

    Looking around, all I could see was forest and bushes.  Shit.  This is that annoying part of the game where you go bushwacking for days.

    First thing I did was talk to some kid who told me that he came here with his overly zealous bug pokemon friends, because of course, who wouldn¡¯t want to be friends with people who only like bug pokemon!

    And then he informs me that they are all itching for some battles.

    Well I did know it was going to turn out that way, so whatever.

    My first encounter sifting my way through tall bushes to go pick up a health potion that had just been left out in the middle of the forest, for some reason or another, was a level 4 weedle.  It just used string shot to lower my speed the whole time, which didn¡¯t really matter since my response was basically to just kill it.  Dead.

    ¡°Hey! You have pokemon, come on!  Let¡¯s battel ¡®em!¡±

    The first bug brain it seems had spotted me.  Fine, accost some random stranger, go ahead, but bitch, I am gonna fleece you of those pokedollars!

    And so it was, that bug catcher Rick - the prick, sent out his first level 6 weedle.  Given that his weedle would likely throw some string shots at me, I decided to simply go all in and rapid tackle him.  Turned out to be a good choice, since he started throwing those damn annoying poison sting attacks at Bulby.

    Taking down the weedle netted me a nice level 9 before Rick the prick brought out his final level 6 Caterpie.  That also soon fell.

    Further in, after finding an antidote lying around on a path, I had to deal with another bug brain.  Bug catcher Doug sent out a level 7 weedle, also easily dispatched, putting Bulby up to level 10 and granting him access to vinewhip.  Yay.

    Bulby wasn¡¯t looking so hot anymore, so I tried having him leech seed Doug¡¯s next pokemon, another level 7 Weedle.  It turned into a catastrophe though, a surprising critical hit from the damn worm sent Bulby into the red.

    His successful leech seed was now out of its depth, so rather than risk getting beaten and have to go back to the damn hospital, or maybe even be blinked out of existence for all I know, I used a potion on the next move.

    I quickly reached into my bag and pulled out a potion.  Surprisingly, the Weedle didn¡¯t attack at all, it just kind of patiently waited there.  I guess this thing is sort of turn based after all.  Not quite sure what else to do, I uncorked the bottle and spilled it all over Bulby.  Judging by the rapidly regenerating health bar, it seemed to work.

    Alright, back in business!  Weedle took another shot at the almost fully healed Bulby, but the damage it was doing was mostly being regenerated by the implanted leech seed.

    I continued to wittle it down using tackle at that point.  Vine whip being a grass attack would likely not be very useful against these bug types.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    And then there was Kakhuna, level 7.  No point in not leech seeding that thing to generate some health,  this could take a while after all.  Also leech seed, being a special attack would not be affected by all the Kakhuna¡¯s hardens.  By the end the leech seed drain was doing as much damage as the tackles.

    And level 11 was mine!

    ¡°Hey kid¡±

    Idiot bug catcher number 47, codename Doug regarded me curiously.

    ¡°Don¡¯t you use pokeballs to catch your bug pokemon?¡±

    ¡°Yep¡±  He nodded his head vigorously.

    ¡°Then why the heck are you carrying that bug net around?¡±

    ¡°Dunno.  It¡¯s just part of my costume I guess.¡±

    I all of a sudden don¡¯t know how I feel about NPC¡¯s willingly breaking the 4th wall.

    A little later: ¡°I might be little, but I won¡¯t like it if you go easy on me!¡±

    Don¡¯t worry Bug catcher Anthony.  I won¡¯t!

    After beating him and Bug catcher Charlie and Sammy and one or two wild caterpie later, Ben finally found the exit to that annoying forest.  Bulbasaur had, himself, just hit level 13.

    The end in sight, I quickly made my way through the last few bushes, eager to get out of here.

    ¡®Crunch¡¯

    A sickening wet sound resounded in my ears, the sensation originating from under my left foot.

    Looking down, well, I will keep this PG and say no more than that there is a Caterpie, that was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  God that¡¯s going to be so difficult to clean off!

    Entering another one of those silly buildings that feel like they¡¯d be better served as toll booths or something, a quickly made my way through it and to the other side, this time purposefully ignoring the other people here and at least pretending not to notice the green stains I was leaving on the carpeted floor.

    Finally arriving into Pewter city, after healing up Bulby, I went around doing the runs, talking to all the idiots in town.

    Let¡¯s see, there was some hinting about team rocket, mount moon, moon stones and Clefairy.  There was lots of not so subtle hinting about learning an HM in the near future.  There was one girly subtly hinting about how weak pokemon can surprise you and turn out strong *cough*Magikarp*cough*.  And then there was the girl right next to her that not so subtly told me where to buy one for 500P.

    Before I went in search of my Magikarp, I grabbed two sleep heals from the store clerk.  I wonder if this old man will sell me two magikarps, so that I can keep one for sushi.

    Of course after searching the whole bloody town, there was no old man selling Magikarp, only a bunch of clowns explaining game mechanics that I already knew about.  And not because I had prior knowledge playin the game, but because their idiot friends the previous town over told me all this shit already.  I swear, sometimes this game feels like it was designed for people with learning disabilities. I mean I¡¯m all for inclusiveness, just as long as you exclude me!

    After thoroughly exploring the museum that charged me 50 bucks just to enter, I was left feeling cheated after finding nothing of interest there.  Yeah, not really one for flavour text.

    Oh well, guess it''s off to the Gym then, which turned out to be the actual Brock gym.  My bad.  Inside the whole place felt like some kind of a coliseum, with its dirt floor, rocky paths and marble statues.  And then the effect is ruined when the noob twerp: Camper Liam  suddenly challenges you, while talking trash.

    Camper Liam hey.  Yeah that totally makes sense the way the little shit was just camping that corner, waiting to strike.

    ¡°Liam¡±

    ¡°Yes¡±, Liam asked slightly perplexed.

    ¡°Your Mother!¡±

    ¡°What about my mother?  Is she sick?¡±

    ¡°Never mind.¡±  Fucking PG game.

    Liam called out his first pokemon, a level 10 Geodude.  Naturally I began with a leech seed, which he responded with a tackle.  Looking at the damage exchange, I was getting about half of it back, so my higher level Bulby can probably pull this off.

    I then used a vinewhip for its type advantage and¡­

    Outright stomped the Geodude.  The bonus critical hit I scored one-shotted him.  Oh well, so much for leech seed.

    Liam¡¯s answer to this was of course a level 11 Sandshrew, because that would totally solve it!  I never did understand these Type specific Gyms.  Of course people were gonna pitch up here with trained pokemon of an advantageous type, what did you clowns think was going to happen?

    Also, if you guys spend all your time battling, kind of the whole point of a gym, then why are you so fucking weak?  I started half a day ago and I¡¯m already walking up and down your ass!

    Maybe you guys are simply losing every single one of your fights and not getting any XP?  Actually that makes a whole lot of sense.

    Opening up with leech seed, Sandshrew responded with a scratch that landed its own crit.  I was a bit concerned, but then realised that for some reason leech seed was pulling in 4 HP this time, unlike the last fight where it was only pulling 3HP.  Sandshrew must have a lower SP defence or something.

    Oh well, works for me.  Following up with another vinewhip and another lucky crit with type advantage and Sandshrew was also one-shotted.  Now I really am wasting my time with the leech seeds.

    There was at least enough total XP from that fight to push Bulby to level 14.

    I decided to pop back to the pokecenter to heal up my Bulby before challenging Brock.  Wouldn¡¯t want to face a Gym leader at 60% HP.

    ¡°So you¡¯re here. I¡¯m Brock.  I¡¯m Pewter¡¯s gym leader.¡±

    ¡°My rock-hard willpower is evident even in my pokemon.¡±

    So basically you have rocks for brains and so do your pokemon.

    ¡°My pokemon are all rock hard, and have true-grit determination.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right - my pokemon are all the Rock type!¡±

    Nooooooooo!  I would never have guessed!  Also why are you saying that so proudly, I¡¯m about to whip your ass with a single pokemon for that very reason.

    ¡°Fuhaha!  You¡¯re going to challenge me knowing that you¡¯ll lose?¡±

    Ignorance is bliss.

    ¡°That¡¯s the trainer¡¯s honor that compels you to challenge me.¡±

    Actually I just want my badge.  Although crushing a dumb-ass like you is a bonus.

    ¡°Fine, then!  Show me your best!¡±

    He¡¯s nothing like his anime counterpart.

    <hr>

    Caterpie stared at the puddle of green goop and entrails before him.  This had been his life long mate.

    Usurpers always come.  They always take.

    Even though the one¡¯s they take are normally happy and cared for.

    But now.  His mate lay before him.  Broken.  She will never be happy again.  She will never be cared for.  Will never flaunt her beautiful spots again.

    The Usurpers have come.  And they have defiled her.  Now they are the defilers.

    Caterpie knew what he must do.  He turned the sadness, the anger, the fury welling up inside him, into something more.  Into determination, into strength.

    There was a journey ahead of him now.  In which he must accomplish many things.  But first he needed to get stronger.  Which was all good, because right now he had the distinct urge to smash a few things!

 CH005 - How do you aim this damn thing!

    Of course rock-head Brock, called out a level 12 Geodude.

    Judging by how the last Geodude fight went and the assumed decent SP def. Stat, I decided to forego the usual leech seed and just power through it. That advantage against the high level opponent would in any case be diminished. So straight for the vine whips.

    The super effective hit actually managed to one shot him. Oh well, guess I don¡¯t even need the crits.

    I noticed that Brock had an interesting expression on his face. Somewhere between annoyance and shock.

    And now he pulled out the predictable level 14 Onix. Suspecting Onix¡¯s higher defensive stats and abilities and that this fight might be ever so slightly drawn out as a result, I went ahead and seeded him first.

    Interestingly enough, Onix got the first hit in, he had a higher speed then me, huh. Also my leech missed, annoying!

    Stubbornly I tried seeding him again, and a good thing too, as he traded me a bind, which would slowly do damage to me over time. My leech seed did more damage though and outhealed it regardless, but it¡¯s nice not to have to worry about the additional drain.

    And¡­ my next vine whip one-shotted him again. I figured he¡¯d at least have some defence!

    Oh, well.

    That Onix was enough to push Bulby over to level 15 and now he wants to learn poison powder. If memory serves me correctly, that is that shitty DOT attack that only has a 75% chance of landing.

    Honestly I would prefer to toss that crap to the wind, I hate low accuracy attacks. But then again, if I find myself in a bad type matchup, something that is very likely with a smaller number of pokemon, then having the additional type attack could potentially bail me out.

    So now it was a decision of what to replace. I like having tackle as a physical attack option. Vinewhip for my grass type. Also leech seed is not going anywhere. I guess it has to be growl then. It¡¯s not like there aren¡¯t superior alternatives available to that in any case.

    Poof, growl is gone¡­

    Oh crap, he wants to learn sleep powder as well! Now this one is a tough choice. This guy has way too many useful options!

    Sigh. Vine whip I cannot for any reason give up. And as much as I would like to stack sleep powder, leech seed and poison powder together, so that I can sit back and eat popcorn while I watch the masses die, I actually can¡¯t give up tackle. My other assault type abilities all have low PP counts, and with only a single pokemon for my battles so far, I¡¯m going to burn through them way too quickly! I¡¯m not that big a fan of the android nurse joy, to be running back to her every five minutes!

    Tackle has 35 PP, it''s going to be a bit of a mainstay for me, at least for the time being. If that¡¯s the case, the best thing I can do is replace the similar ability poison powder, with it¡¯s honestly superior relative sleep powder.

    After that, I watched as Brock gave me my Rock badge, looking very defeated, as well as 1500P and a TM for rock tomb.

    I said my goodbyes, told the fool that he was going to keep getting his ass handed to him if he didn¡¯t come up with some type counter measures, and went back to the pokecenter to refresh Bulby. Not that he really needed it.

    Before turning to leave. I noticed the trainer in the corner of the room, the one that always has the Jiggly puff with her for some reason out in the open, was currently distracted, talking to another trainer, excitedly about how cute fairy pokemon are.

    A mischievous idea was scampering across my brain, but that aside... Was that a thing? The NPC¡¯s conversed with each other? Something seems a bit off about that.

    As curious as this development was, I put it aside, since I did not want to miss the opportunity.

    Leaning into Jiggly puff and quietly whispering into its large and likely sensitive ear, ¡°Your master told me that she¡¯d be really happy if you could sing a lovely song for everyone quick.¡±

    Jiggly puff looked at me with its big eyes, filled with jubilation. Hah. Nothing like doing a good deed hey.

    I gave Jiggly puff a big ol¡¯ thumbs up, before exiting the build very quickly.

    The only place left to go was mount moon. I quickly met up with a scientist type at the entrance.

    ¡°Oh Ben, I¡¯m glad I found you. I¡¯m professor Oak¡¯s aide.¡±

    Which one? You all look alike to me. Do you guys even have names?

    ¡°I¡¯ve been asked to deliver this, so here you go.¡±

    And he gave me running shoes.

    So, the professor sends his clearly not very valuable aide across the countryside to give me a pair of running shoes?This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    The aid ran off.

    Examining the shoes, there was a letter stuffed into them. It was from Mom, gushing on about how she was always going to support her little champion.

    So Mom, somehow obtains Devon tech running shoes and gives them to Oak, a busy scientist, who gives them to his aide and sends him across the country to give to me? She should probably have given them to me the last time I saw here, but oh well.

    I put the shoes on, which were more like a pair of boots, but couldn¡¯t quite figure out how they worked, they seemed to have no effect on me.

    After a short while of fiddling, I noticed a button on the sides of the shoes. Pushing it, they remained depressed and I could hear a hiss coming from the shoes.

    Curious I tried them out. Walking did nothing, but as soon as I started jogging, woosh! Every step I took seemed to make compression sounds and propelled me forward. I had to be careful not to lose my balance, or I could get seriously injured.

    I also had to be careful to redirect the force so that it propelled me less up and more forward, otherwise I was going to sprain something if I made my steps too forceful.

    Either way, this was actually pretty cool and pretty fast means of movement. It took quite a while to get the hang of it though. I feel like it could become its own olympic sport. But doubted that would ever happen. The only thing these people had on their brains after all, was pokemon.

    I packed my old sneakers in my backpack, as I may want to use them again later, they are way more comfortable than these gadgets on my feet.

    Passing through a large canyon in a small wall like mountain range, on the other side I encountered a large plateau, with, you guessed it, a bunch of overly zealous trainers.

    ¡°Excuse me! You looked at me, didn¡¯t you?¡±

    Depends, are you in the habit of suing people for sexual harassment, or do you welcome the advances?

    And so it began.

    I eventually fought off Lass Janice, Bug catcher Colton, Youngster Ben, Bug catcher Gwen, Youngster Calvin, Bug catcher James and Lass Sally. That last one also making a sexually charged comment.

    Is it me or does every cute girl trainer make some kind of sexual comment. I¡¯m calling it now, the developers of this game are never getting laid.

    I had used a combination of my Bulby¡¯s abilities to get through the various fights. They really had some great synergy, with tackle being my main, with its 35PP. If the opponent seemed tough, I¡¯d keep putting it to sleep and then use some vine-whips on it, since for most of the fights it had a bad type matchup.

    Now, after defeating several of these guys, my PP was starting to get very low across all of Bulby¡¯s abilities even if his health was basically full. He was also now at level 18 and had evolved into an Ivysaur.

    I should be able to safely handle one more trainer though, with those PP numbers. My last trainer for this trip, and probably the last trainer for Route 3 was another lass.

    ¡°Eek! Did you touch me?¡±

    OK! Now that is just going too far!

    ¡°Bring it! I¡¯ll crush you!¡± I practically growled.

    Lass Robin seemed taken aback by my outburst and looked quite scared. Regardless she feebly and shakely brought out a pokemon, as if driven by some compelling force to comply with what was expected of her.

    It was a Jigglypuff. With a smirk I ordered Bulby to put it to sleep. The attack landed and I had to restrain myself from bursting into a fit of laughter. You got to love the irony.

    After that I proceeded to pelt it with vine whips until it was less asleep and more unconscious. Every one of those delicious slap sounds were filling me with joy and bringing lass Robin a little closer to tears. Am I actually a sadist?

    By the time the girl gave me her money, A custom I was starting to get used to now, she scowled at me through teary eyes, ¡°That was mean!¡±

    ¡°Uh, excuse you?¡± I replied down through my nose. ¡°Did you not just a moment ago falsely accuse me of sexual harassment and then without even asking me if it was okay challenge me to a pokemon battle? And you complain about my method of victory?¡±

    Robin froze like a deer caught in headlights. Her bright blue eyes wide with realisation. ¡°Um- U- Sorry about that.¡± Her head sank and her wavy light brown hair fell to the front. ¡°I actually don¡¯t know why I said that earlier.¡± She spoke softly, clearly humiliated.

    I sighed. The people here are a little too serious for my tastes.

    ¡°Tell you what Robin, don¡¯t sweat it. Now that I think about it, I am really hungry. How about you buy me some lunch and we call it even.¡± I tried to give her my friendliest smile.

    It seemed to work, as she smiled back ¡°Okay, deal.¡±

    Although, truth be told, I actually was hungry and had no idea where I should get some food from. This just seemed like a convenient way of solving that problem. I couldn¡¯t care less about the state of her conscience.

    ¡°Just one sec. Robin there¡¯s something I need to take care of quickly.¡±

    She nodded at me and waited patiently.

    I then proceeded into the expanse of bushes that was behind her. Trudging through the brush, searching for pokemon I encountered Pidgey. I instructed Bulby to retreat and aside from Pidgey taking a parting shot at him, he left us alone after that.

    Hmm. Just as I suspected, you can ¡®run away¡¯ from a fight. Just at the cost of one last hit. Well that was fine, my Bulby couldn¡¯t spare even a single attack due to his almost completely depleted PP¡¯s, but he had close to full health and could weather a few ¡®run away¡¯ blows while I searched.

    After a few more encounters, including even a Mankey, I found what I was looking for. I had remembered that in a past playthrough I had found one of my important pokemon here. Although I couldn¡¯t exactly remember which. Once this Nidoran popped up, I finally realised what it was: Nidoking. An absolute powerhouse.

    I used a single tackle on the level 6 Nidoran, hoping that it wouldn¡¯t outright kill him. Luckily it brought him straight into the red, but not unconscious. Nidoran simply responded with a leer.

    Then to be extra safe, I used sleep powder to put him to sleep. Majorly injured and asleep, it should be a piece of cake to catch him.

    Opening up my backpack and pulling out a fresh pokeball, I wound up into a magnificent pitcher''s pose and pitched the pokeball at the unconscious Nidoran with great flourish.

    The pokeball bounced across the ground and rolled, stopping at Robin¡¯s feet.

    I missed it!

    Robin did her best to stifle a laugh and then look away when I glared at her, pretending she didn¡¯t see anything.

    I sighed and instead walked up to the blissfully sleeping Nidoran and dropped a fresh pokeball on top of its head.

    It seemed to do the job just fine. The pokeball opened up and converted the Nidoran to energy, storing it inside. After a few glowing pulses, it de-illuminated, indicating a successful capture.

 CH006 - Seriously! Take the fucking blue pill!

    The two of us walked back to Pewter city.  We passed the various trainers that I had defeated.  Most of them seemed to avert their eyes.  Was it out of shame?  Or fear?  Also, what were they all doing hanging around here?  I know they were all waiting here endlessly to challenge and lose against me, but that¡¯s over and done with now.

    Don¡¯t these people have places to be?  They¡¯re all kind of just loitering around pretending to be busy doing¡­ well something.

    ¡°Hey, Ben, why is that girl glaring at you?¡±

    Ah.  She must be referring to Lass Janice.  ¡°She too thought I was sexually harassing her¡­ Mistakenly¡±  I gave Robin a pointed look.  She simply looked away sheepishly.

    Well to be honest, I can¡¯t say the thought hasn¡¯t crossed my mind.  Robin was a teenage girl with some rather decent proportions.  Her choice of attire, like most people in this game was a joke, but she had a pretty face and a dainty figure.  I would not mind a bit, partaking in that particular feast.

    Once Robin and I finally reached Pewter city, we stopped by the pokecenter to refresh our pokemon.  My still full health Ivysaur¡¯s PP and my newly acquired and still sleeping Nidoran¡¯s health.  And for Robin, her unconscious and now extra puffy Jiggly Puff.

    While nurse joy mk2 went about her duties, I scanned the room and noticed that the other girl that normally hung out here with her own Jiggly puff was nowhere to be seen.  All the other usual suspects were present here.  Hmm.  I wonder what happened to her, I¡¯m sure Robin would have loved to meet her.

    ¡°Shall we?¡±  I asked.

    Robin nodded.  And we left the pokecenter.

    Standing outside, I waited patiently.

    Very patiently.

    However, Robin appeared to be stuck in thought.  Seeing as how she wasn¡¯t going to be leading us anywhere before I grew back to my original height, I went ahead and interrupted her.

    ¡°So, where can we go get some grub?¡±

    She rubbed the back of her head in a cute very anime-like nervous gesture.  ¡°Ah.  Thing is, I¡¯m not actually sure.¡±

    Figures.

    ¡°I mean, I¡¯ve lived in Pewter city my whole life.¡±

    But you only have a single Jigglypuff?

    ¡°But I¡¯m not actually sure where we can go.  For some reason I can¡¯t think of any restaurants.  I mean strange right?  I lived here so long.¡±  There was now a very deep and concerned frown on her face.

    ¡°Okay, that¡¯s fine, where do you live then, we can get some food ther-¡±  I asked, a normally obvious direction to go in such an otherwise strange situation and only realised too late the landmine I had just stepped on.

    There are only like two fucking residential houses in Pewter city, there¡¯s no way she actually has a home here!

    ¡°Oh right!  Silly.  We can just go to my home!¡±  She responded chirpily, like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

    I sighed in relief.  Guess she does have a home here.

    ¡°I live-¡±  Her eyes went wide.  Oh shit.

    ¡°I live-¡±  The look of confusion that sprouted on her face was fast morphing into one of consternation and then deep seeded doubt.  ¡°I live¡­ here... in Pewter city.  I have¡­. A house¡­  It¡¯s-   Argh!¡±  She suddenly bent her head down and clutched it in both hands.

    She stumbled a bit, looking like she was about to faint from an insane migraine.  I quickly grabbed her arm to steady her.  She was still in pain though.

    I patted her head gently in a half soothing but also half mocking manner.  ¡°There, there.  It¡¯s okay.¡±

    It was an awkward gesture in hindsight, as I was a fair bit shorter than her.  ¡°Don¡¯t worry your pretty little head over it.¡±  No, like seriously, I mean it!  Just now it explodes or something!

    She calmed down after a moment and stood back up, looking at me through teary and seemingly hazy eyes.  She seemed kind of out of it.

    I sighed.  I guess it¡¯s back to mom''s place then.

    I grabbed a still very unstable Robin by the hand and led her back to the trail towards Viridian city.  Honestly it was going to be difficult travelling all the way back there with a half delirious girl in tow.  Also it kind of felt like I was abducting her for some reason.  Hope I don¡¯t run into officer Jenny, I secretly mused.

    Halt!

    Speak of the devil.

    Before I could enter that silly structure that bounded Viridian forest, I was stopped by not one, but two officer Jenny androids!

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry this area is currently off limits, the path ahead is dangerous.¡±  It was a little weird actually, there was an echo on every word, since both Jenny¡¯s were actually talking at the same time.  I actually didn¡¯t even know which one of them to face.  Also it was kind of unnerving.

    ¡°So, why is it dangerous?¡±

    ¡°For some reason the local Caterpie and Butterfree population have gone berserk.  They are fighting with the other pokemon and aggressively attacking and pursuing trainers.  They also seem to be much higher level than normal.¡±If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.

    Hmm.  That is weird.   No event like this ever happened in the game.  Well then again, you never got to abduct a pretty girl in the game either, so all¡¯s fair I guess.

    ¡°I am afraid we cannot allow you into Viridian forest until the matter is resolved.  We ask for your understanding in this matter of public safety.¡±

    Well there was no helping it, I wasn¡¯t about to find out what happens in this place when you disobey an officer of the law.  Do they even have prisons?  Maybe they just line you up for a firing squad of Blastoise.

    I would have liked to argue that public safety should probably allow a person to be able to eat food when they are starving.  But considering how clueless the local population seemed to be about matters of food in this place (exhibit {A}, behind me), I had even less doubt of a successful resolution with a bloody android in the same given setting.

    So I let the matter drop and tried to figure out what to do next.

    I would happily hunt a Rattata or a Pidgey and cook it at this point, if I had a fire pokemon on me.  But I don¡¯t.  You don¡¯t encounter fire pokemon until much later in the game.  The only early game fire pokemon is your Charmander starter choice.  And I was not about to find out what raw rat tastes like.

    A dilemma indeed.  My only recourse now is to try the pokeshop.  Maybe they actually sell some food there.  I mean I don¡¯t remember the shelves stocking anything other than magazines, but they might even sell some pokemon food.  I would happily eat poke pellets at this point.

    Who knows, maybe I can even fill my stomach up on health potions.  Not the best diet, I know, but it can¡¯t possibly be un-healthy, right?

    So with that I led a still groggy girl by hand, to the pokeshop.  Entering the shop, the first thing I noticed was that the Magikarp conspiracy duo was still here.  The second thing is this place was actually selling food!

    Amidst pokeballs, pokemon pellets and magazines.  There was at least one row of sealed and freshly seaweed wrapped onigiri.  Or as the Americans would have you believe, ¡®Jelly filled doughnuts¡¯.  The thing is, I¡¯m quite sure they weren¡¯t there before.  Heck, I¡¯m even sure the pokemon pellets are new.

    Not that I was about to spend my not so hard earned money on food for my pokemon.  They better hope there isn¡¯t suddenly a pokemon hunger system cropping up in this game, otherwise they gonna starve to death and become food for me haha!

    Without any hesitation, I bought the full row of rice sandwiches.  This is the first food for purchase I¡¯d seen so far and I was not taking any chances!

    I led Robin back to the pokecenter as I remembered seeing some tables and chairs there.

    Realising there were other NPC¡¯s here, I instead led Robin up the escalator to the second floor, the one with all that linked and multiplayer stuff.  You know the stuff nobody can use because we were all running the game in an emulator.  At least I didn¡¯t care much if these three ¡®helper NPC¡¯s¡¯ heads exploded or not.

    ¡°Hello, I¡¯m Taella-¡±  I completely ignored Taella.

    I helped Robin sit down and then handed her one of the rice balls.  ¡°Here, eat, it will make you feel better.¡±  I think?

    Robin smiled at me weakly and accepted the food.  She began to nibble on it slowly, already looking a little more hale.  I joined her quite eagerly.  God¡¯s I was hungry by now.

    The onigiri had a pork and ginger filling.  It tasted great, but I was once more reminded of that burning question about where the fuck the all the pig meat was coming from.  I don¡¯t remember ever seeing a gen-one pig pokemon.

    We both finished up our meals,  I of course had a second one despite them being quite large in the first place.  What can I say, I was running on empty.

    ¡°You feeling a bit better now?  You scared me for a moment there.¡±

    ¡°Sorry¡±  Robin turned to face me and gave a bright smile.

    I was actually taken aback.  I had just been testing the waters there, but she seemed right as rain.  I studied her face looking for any tell, any after effect, but she seemed to be back to her chipper old self, none the wiser.

    ¡°What?¡±  She asked me with concern, ¡°Is there something on my face?¡±  She instinctively and more than a little uncouthly used her sleeve to wipe her mouth a little consciously.

    Man these NPC¡¯s used a lot of cliche anime lines.

    ¡°No, no, nothing of the sort, just making sure you¡¯re actually alright.¡±

    ¡°Nope, I feel great.  I feel like I haven¡¯t had a good meal in ages!¡±  She exclaimed rather excitedly.  I decided not to comment on the fact that she¡¯s probably never actually had a meal before, for sake of keeping her head intact.

    ¡°Well, that¡¯s great.  So what will you do now?¡±  I once more tested waters.

    ¡°I-¡±  She once more furrowed her brows.  ¡°I¡¯m not sure.¡±

    Oh boy, here we go again, maybe I should call nurse joy from down stairs ahead of time.  Wait, can she even treat humans?  Do they even have hospitals or 911 here?

    ¡°Was actually looking for a Jigglypuff in those bushes that you found your Nidoran in.  I had heard that you could find them there.¡±

    ¡°But you already have one?¡±

    ¡°I knooooow.  But they are soooo cute, right?¡±  She said a little sheepishly.

    She then deflated a bit.  ¡°But after seeing how easily you thrashed my Jigglypuff,  I don¡¯t think I should be wasting time collecting another one.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll admit, having more than one of the same pokemon is normally not a very good idea.¡±  I nodded sagely.  ¡°Variety is the spice of life!¡±  I added, some shameless plagiarisation for good measure.

    That got a giggle out of her at least.

    ¡°I actually would like to become a competent trainer.¡±  She mused.  ¡°You are going to be travelling around quite a bit right?  You seem like the type determined to become a great trainer.¡±

    ¡°Yeah.  Something like that¡±  I lied.

    ¡°Well, I would like to come with you.  Honestly, your Ivysaur was impressive and you seem plenty experienced already as a trainer.¡±

    I didn¡¯t mention that the benchmark seems a tad on the low side in these parts.

    ¡°So I think it would be very good for me if I travelled with you for a bit.¡±

    Ben couldn¡¯t help but feel like there was something off about her offer, some reasoning he was missing, but honestly all he could see right now was: ¡®Fuck yes, cute girl travelling companion!¡¯

    ¡°Sure, I don¡¯t mind.¡±  Although he was a bit nervous about her mental state.  It did not however seem like she remembered what had just happened, or perhaps her thoughts were somehow being steered away from it.  Bloody A.I. PTSD or something.

    <hr>

    Jigglypuff stared at the cold steel bars of the cell.  His master was distraught and currently sitting in a corner hugging her knees despondently.  He had never once seen her like this, it was honestly quite scary.  He wished he could comfort her, but the best he could do was try to look cute.  Unfortunately humans weren¡¯t very clever, they couldn¡¯t understand pokemon language.

    He himself could understand enough human, to know that this place was called ¡®Jail¡¯.

    Apparently this would affect something called her ¡®permanent record¡¯.  The strange robot woman in the blue uniform had put them in here after Jigglypuff had sung such a pretty song!  The nerve!  Something about ¡®disturbing the peace¡¯.  But his song is so peaceful that it even puts people to sleep!

    He desperately wanted to sing to cheer up his master, but had a feeling it would not be very welcomed right now, given their present situation.  These humans!  Treating his master so poorly, she has never been anything but kind!

    A strange new feeling was welling up inside him, something he had never felt before.  It was a strange hot sensation inside his chest.  It somehow begged to be let out.  It only intensified, when he remembered how his master spoke about how her reputation was ruined.  It made Jigglypuff, very, very¡­ something, he wasn¡¯t sure what yet, but it made him very something!

 CH007 - I claim no responsibility

    Thomas dragged his tired limbs over to the Pewter city¡¯s Gym.  He had spent the past few days working tirelessly to level his Pidgey until it evolved into a Pidgeotto.  Now he felt confident in facing the Rock gyms leader, Brock.

    A high level pokemon that was the antithesis of Brock¡¯s rock pokemon, would surely net him a Boulder badge.

    He had to endure the berating he received from officer Jenny when he emerged from Viridian forest, about how dangerous it was and how much unnecessary risk he had taken.  But honestly, listening to her blasting his ears off was considered relaxation, compared to what he had experienced back there.

    That place, that from now on shall not be named, was a bloody warzone!  He had been trapped in there for what felt like days, constantly fearing for his life.  The fearsome Caterpie and equally fearsome Butterfree had actually been actively hunting him!  Even the Metapods were dangerous!  A dangerous Metapod!  What had this world come too!

    He had endured some much.  Employed hit and run guerilla tactics.  Constantly hid in shrubbery to evade detection.  Even with his Pidgey¡¯s superior type advantage, they had given him hell.  He had used so many healing potions on his poor pokemon that he had started to fear it might somehow develop an immunity to the stuff.

    But that was over now.  He was here and he would reap the fruits of his labour with his very first gym badge!  His efforts and hardships had not been in vain.

    Thomas was about to push the door to the gym open, when he noticed it was locked.  Curious.

    He noticed a sign posted in the window.

    ¡°Apologies all.  I was recently reminded about the endless journey towards pokemon mastery and my own folly and conceitedness in this journey.  I have gone on a journey of mastery and to find myself, and do not know when I shall return.  Best of luck to you all.  Apologies for any inconvenience caused.¡±

    Inconvenience!  You can¡¯t enter the pokemon league without all eight badges!  Even the gym in Viridian city had been closed!  How was he supposed to become a master at this rate?  He almost died travelling through Viridian forest.  Almost died!

    What the fuck is wrong with these Gym leaders?!

    <hr>

    Robin and I, finally left the pokecenter.  Our attention was immediately drawn to a man causing a huge commotion in front of the Pewter gym.  He was kicking and screaming on the ground like a child throwing a tantrum and for some reason aggressively pulling entire fistfulls of hair out of his head.

    ¡°Is- is he okay?¡±

    You¡¯re asking me?

    I got close enough to read the notice on the gym window, while trying to remain a decent distance away from the crazy man.

    ¡°What does it say?¡±  Robin asked me cautiously.

    I regarded her with one raised eyebrow.  ¡°It says that we should leave-  Now.¡±

    <hr>

    Robin and I made our way back to where we first met, mostly in silence and definately walking this time.  She did not have running shoes after all.

    Along the way she asked me if I knew why Brock had suddenly abandoned his responsibilities and left Pewter city.  She had suspicions due to my behaviour.

    ¡°I may or may not kind of thrashed him, way worse than what I did you.¡±

    She gave me a blank look.  ¡°But Brock is really strong¡­¡±

    ¡°Nope, not really.¡±

    ¡°Even so¡­¡± she sounded doubtful of my ability to outright thrash him, how rude!  ¡°I don¡¯t see how that would make him upset enough to leave like that.¡±

    ¡°I basically one-shotted all of his pokemon.¡±  It wasn¡¯t entirely true, I had mucked around with unnecessary attacks first, underestimating just how much of an advantage I actually held back there.  But based on the outcome and output from Bulby, in hindsight, I am quite confident I could have done exactly that.

    ¡°Ooooh¡­¡±  It seemed some understanding of the situation had dawned on her.  ¡°So basically you were mean to him.¡±  She gave me a vicious grin.

    I wanted to retort, but honestly didn¡¯t know what to say without digging a hole for myself any further.  ¡°I suppose¡±, I relented with a sigh.

    A little further on a boy bitched about the tunnel from Cerulean being tiring.  Guess the next stop is Cerulean city then?

    Another boy ran up to us later on:

    ¡°Oh, wow, that¡¯s the boulder badge!  You got it from Brock, didn¡¯t you?¡±

    How could he know that?  I wasn¡¯t some fool wearing the badge out in the open and inviting team rocket to attack me, it was inside my backpack!

    ¡°Brock is cool.  He¡¯s not just tough.  People like and respect him.¡± The boy continued his monologue.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

    Yeah, not anymore they don¡¯t, I smirked.

    ¡°I want to become a gym leader like him.¡±

    ¡°It just so happens, kid, I believe there is a vacancy!¡¯  I gave him a grin and a thumbs up, that left him looking confused, and Robin giving me a difficult expression.

    Finally we found the entrance to the cave of Mount Moon that should take us, eventually, to Cerulean city.  And judging by the sound of that color, probably the water gym.

    But before that there was a fucking pokecenter right here next to the damn entrance, if only I¡¯d known!  Actually now that I have a travelling companion, and the need for food, the trip back to Pewter city had actually been necessary, regardless.

    Since our pokemon were still in tip top shape, I was about to give the pokecenter a miss entirely, when I remembered something important.

    ¡°We actually have something I need to do here.¡±

    Robin looked at me curiously, but I simply waved her to follow me.

    Inside the pokecenter, an old man sitting down at a table, rattled on about how Team Rocket was attacking Cerulean¡¯s and causing lots of trouble.  I ignored him, but made a mental note that I would soon be facing a lot of poison pokemon from those clowns in the upcoming journey.

    I instead, approached a hunched over old man skulking in the far corner of the pokecenter.

    ¡°Hello there, laddie!  Have I got a deal just for you!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll let you have a secret pokemon - a Magikarp - for just 500P!¡±

    Hahaha! Finally!

    ¡°So, you¡¯ll buy it, am I right?¡±

    ¡°Sure thing geyser, sure thing!¡±

    ¡°Ben.¡±  Robin leaned over and whispered in my ear. ¡°I think you¡¯re busy getting scammed.  This guy is really suspicious.  And isn¡¯t Magikarp like a really weak pokemon?  Isn¡¯t 500P a lot for it?¡±

    She launched her concerns one after the other.  I paid the old man and received my pokeball, a level 5 Magikarp.

    We left the pokecenter and made our way for the cave.  Along the way, I ordained to depart my infinite wisdom upon my travelling companion.

    ¡°Firstly, he is the only person I know of that sells a Magikarp.  Secondly, even though I can always catch one later with a fishing rod instead of paying 500P for this one, I¡¯d rather spend the time until then training this one up.  Magikarp¡¯s are a bitch train, because like you said, they are really weak!¡±

    ¡°Then why-¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not finished.  When Magikarp reaches a certain level, it evolves into Gyarados.¡±  I paused for a moment to let that sink in.

    ¡°Gyarados?!¡±  She looked genuinely shocked and I really enjoyed the expression of her cute wide eyes about to pop right out of her head.

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re messing with me!¡±

    ¡°Nope.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s incredible.  That¡¯s a really famous pokemon.  Although not famous in a good way.¡±  She seemed a bit troubled by that.  Likely some Gyarados shaped natural disasters she¡¯d been hearing about.

    Also it was appalling how lousy and poorly educated the trainers of this world were!

    Sigh.  What I wouldn¡¯t give for a water stone right about now.

    ¡°How are you going to train it?  I¡¯m pretty sure all it does is flop around uselessly on land.  Even in water I¡¯m quite sure it doesn¡¯t have any attacks.¡±

    ¡°Any pokemon participating in a battle share experience, even if that participation is limited to just tagging in another pokemon.  So I¡¯ll just swap him out each time to get his cut of the XP.¡±

    ¡°I see.  Sounds troublesome¡±  She sympathised.

    ¡°It is, but it will be worth it in the end.¡±

    It was indeed going to be troublesome.  Two low level pokemon, one that can¡¯t even attack, that need to be levelled.  What''s worse, I¡¯m pretty sure the upcoming cave has a lot of poison pokemon.  The rock and ground ones will be alright, but the poison ones are going to suck.  I don¡¯t exactly have a balanced team at the moment.  Not to mention all the upcoming fights with Team Rocket and all their poison pokemon!

    Ash always just threw Pickachu at them in the anime, for some reason?  Instead of a nice rock type.

    We then found ourselves at the entrance to the Mount Moon caves.  Entering the inside was incredibly spacious and a little uncomfortably uniform as far as caves go, like someone had sculpted it out with a particular shape and structure in mind, almost like it was developed for a game, I mused sarcastically.

    The first pokemon we encountered in the cave, was of course, a fucking Zubat, level 7.

    ¡°So how do you want to do this?  We take turns on encounters?  I¡¯ve never actually pla- Ahem- done this with someone before.¡±

    ¡°Me neither, but that sounds fine.¡±  She paused for a moment before adding, with a worried look on her face, ¡°Just- you handle the trainer fights, okay?  I am really not confident going up against other trainers for the time being.¡±

    Maybe I accidentally scared her?  Oh well.  ¡°Sure, sounds fine.  Do you want to start with this one?¡±

    ¡°No, you go ahead¡±, she offered.

    ¡°Yay¡±.  I mumbled under my breath.

    I started off with my Magikarp.  The Zubat as always, acted menacingly, but actually waited patiently.  Game mechanics, what can I say.  I Immediately sent out Nidoran.  As expected, my uselessly flailing Magikarp was automatically unsummoned.

    Guess you definitely can¡¯t have more than one out at a time.  I also idly wondered if Magikarp would eventually die of oxygen starvation if I left him out too much.  Oh well, if he does die, then it¡¯s straight to the sushi chopping block for you.  After all, that old man did not have a spare sushiKarp to sell me, I know, I asked!

    Zubat used leechlife, making me a tiny bit jealous.  Of course a grass attack meant little to Nidoran.  Then, Robin watched with fascination as I once again switched Nidoran out for my mainstay, Bulby.  Letting Zubat get another free hit in.  Although, I was confident in Bulby¡¯s double overlevel for the area and the fact that he can just stock up on HP with some leech seed.  We should be good for a while still.

    After that it was one, two tackles and Zubat was down.

    We carried on exploring and I found a TM for bullet seed.  Although It had slightly less power than vinewhip, I considered learning it as it had much more PP, something that my workhorse Bulby constantly ran out of.

    I checked with Robin, but she assured me I can keep all the loot, as she was just the tag along, basically free-loading off of my capabilities.

    In the end I decided to hang on to the TM and only use it if Bulby was fresh out of PP, since vinewhip is slightly better, the issue of PP aside.

    The next Zubat we encountered, went to Robin, or I should say Jigglypuff.  It didn¡¯t have too much trouble defeating it and if in a tight spot it could always sing its way out, even if that ability has a really shitty accuracy for some reason.  Robin opted for not capturing the Zubat, said they were too creepy.

    Repeating the same process, the next Zubat sent my Ivysaur to level 19.

    I sighed.  I never did like this cave in the game, it always felt way too dragged out.

 CH008 - Spelunky

    We encountered another Zubat, pushing Nidoran to level 7.

    A Geodude, which Robin captured this time.  Now she had a half decent counter to the Zubats around here at least.  She used a potion on it, as she didn¡¯t want to trouble me to travel back to the pokecenter so soon.

    Picked up a Paralyz heal, and met Bug catcher Kent, after which, my Magikarp hit level 6 and Nidoran, level 8, learning Focus energy.  An attack that I had no intention of using.  Tried it in the past, and it kind of sucked.

    Generally I was always starting with Magikarp, then switching to Nidoran, who would take a free hit.  And then, unless Nidoran could very easily and with minimal damage take down the opponent, I would switch to Bulby, to do the heavy lifting.

    In a multi-pokemon trainer fight, I would switch back to Magikarp then Nidoran after each defeated pokemon, achieving the same effect of the XP sharing and damage dealing.

    Of course Nidoran was taking a lot of hits like this, and his HP was being slowly whittled down.  But once it got too low, I would simply switch up the order and start sending Nidoran out first, letting Magikarp take the free hit instead and ultimately extend the duration I can keep this XP sharing strategy up.

    As we worked our way deeper into the cave system, we battled some more trainers and then came upon our first highly questionable ladder descending.

    Descending it, we made our way through a tunnel and ran straight into a level 7 Paras.  Even though it was my turn for the encounter, I could practically see the hearts jumping up and down in Robin¡¯s eyes.

    ¡°Do you want to take this one?¡±  I knew she couldn¡¯t resist a cute orange doe-eyed crab with mushroom-like ears.  Not a chance!

    She bobbed her head up and down eagerly and sent out Geodude, which should be a good type matchup.

    Only, it wasn¡¯t.  I laughed so hard.  She had no paralyz heals on her and Paras just kept paralyzing Geodude without end.  And it kept on proccing, again and again!  The amount of bad luck required to pull this off was fast becoming astronomical.  Eventually Geodude managed to get some hits in and bring Paras into the red, but not before my stomach muscles were feeling incredibly tired though.

    She then wound up with an impressive pose, and successfully threw a pokeball with great style at the barely conscious Paras.  After the successful capture, she turned and grinned at me mockingly, in retaliation for laughing at her misfortune just a moment ago no doubt.  Yeah, yeah, show off.

    Following the passage to its end, we descended another ladder.  And low and behold the first Team Numbskull trainer!

    ¡°We, Team Rocket, are pokemon gangsters!  We strike fear with our strength.¡±

    Seriously?!  How have you not been arrested, sprouting crap like that!

    Robin, instinctively took a step back, nervously.  The Team Rocket grunt however, looked surprised by my lack of reaction.

    ¡°Tell me, do you by any chance know Jesse or James?  They should also be members of Team Rocket.¡±

    Now the grunt was really confused, ¡°I- Uh- no, I don¡¯t.  But I¡¯m relatively new myself, so¡­¡±

    Robin was giving me a rather strange look.  Guess I better get on with this.

    ¡°All, right, let¡¯s do this!¡±

    I brought out my Magikarp, and the grunt pulled out a level 11 Sandshrew.

    I did my usual switch-a-roo, letting the the Shrew through some sand and scratch attacks at me, before ending up on Bulby and one shotting him with vinewhip.  When the Grunt pulled out a level 11 Rattata, I started my switch-a-roo cycle once more.  Bubly took him down after a leech seed and two tackles.  Last was a level 11 Zubat and I just rinsed and repeated my method.

    With the grunt defeated, he gave me some money.  It really is weird having a criminal freely give you money for beating them down.  I glanced over to Robin, wondering what she thought about this concept, but aside from being wary of the Grunt that was now just kind of moping about and not really doing anything, she didn¡¯t seem to notice or care about the money thing.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

    A little further in there was a Starpiece up for grabs.  That should fetch a decent amount of P.

    Since there was nothing else in this area and it was a dead end, we headed back to the ground floor, fighting the occasional pokemon along the way.

    Exploring further on the ground floor, we found a potion, a rare candy, and... an escape rope.

    I quickly turned Robin¡¯s attention to the nearby pokemon trainer as a distraction away from the offending item.  The escape rope is an item that instantly takes you to the entrance of the cave in the original game.  How was I supposed to explain this to Robin, without breaking her?  More to the point, how would I even use this thing, without breaking me?

    Yep, Stashed away, indefinitely, that one.

    We ended up battling Super nerd Jovan with his Magnemite and Voltorb.  I just followed the same tactic as always. Also, there was Bug catcher Robbie whose last pokemon, a Metapod, I did not bother bringing out Bulby for.

    After that, Lass Miriam, and then we finally came across our next ladder descending.

    Another passageway and ladder later, we were deeper into the cave system and facing yet another Rocket Goon.

    ¡°We¡¯re pulling a big job here, get lost kid!¡±

    The battle ensued and after mopping the floor with his Zubat and Ekans, there was yet one more Team Rocket grunt left questioning his life choices.

    After retrieving the only other thing in this portion of the cave, a TM46 (Thief), we went back to the main floor.

    ¡°What do you think they''re up to?¡±  Robin asked, still clearly a little on edge about running into infamous criminals the whole time.

    ¡°Dunno, but there should be a bunch more of them, so I guess we¡¯ll find out.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re not afraid?¡±

    ¡°Not really, I mean, they¡¯re pretty damn weak.¡±

    Robin sighed and put a hand to her head as if to ward away a headache, ¡°I think it¡¯s just your sense of power level, that¡¯s seriously out of whack.¡±

    On the main floor, we carried on deeper into the cave, defeating Youngster Josh.  At which point, Nidoran had levelled enough to learn Double Kick, which I was very happy about, since the next opponent, was Hiker Macross.

    This guy brought out only rock pokemon.  I was able to switch only between Magikarp and Nidoran, and use Nidorans fighting move, Double Kick, to waste away the rock pokemon.

    The reward for this endeavour, before the final descending ladder, was a moon stone.  Can¡¯t wait to use that to evolve me a Nidoking.  I will probably evolve him as soon as I get my evolution to a Nidorino.  I remember that I once tried to push Nidorino till like level 50/60 or something before evolving him and was not impressed by any of the attacks he got.  On the other hand, even a level 20-something Nidoking gets a decent normal attack pretty early on.  I think it was Thrash or something.  So I don¡¯t see any point in waiting, might as well push into the higher base stats sooner.

    Also, I will probably give the Nidoking the Rock tomb if he has a slot for it, just for some variety.

    Following the ladder down, we followed through another passage before descending again.  Here we found a revive, also, the next Grunt

    ¡°Little kids shouldn¡¯t be messing around with grown ups!¡±

    Yes, that¡¯s right, now go to bed you twerp!

    ¡°It could be bad news!¡±

    One Rattata and Sandshrew later, and we were on our merry way once more.

    We followed around the caverns for quite a distance and more than a few corners before running into another Team Rocket Grunt.  This one finally informed us of their master plan.

    Basically they are hunting for fossils to revive extinct pokemon and earn big bucks.

    His schemes did not amount to anything other than a thrashing from me of course.  A small accident occured and my Bulby tackled his Zubat out of the air so enthusiastically, that it went flying right into the Rocket Grunt and knocked him right off his feet and flung him into the cave wall.

    Well, I guess, Team Rocket¡¯s blasting off again!

    After leaving the poor criminal behind, we come upon a scientist-guy.

    ¡°Hey, stop!¡±

    ¡°I found these fossils! they¡¯re both mine!¡±

    And so, it was up to me to school Super Nerd Miguel in the concept of modern day Darwinism.

    Putting out a level 12 Grimer, I let my Nidoran do the heavy lifting this time.  Followed by that was a level 12 Koffing, so I left it to NIroran again.  Last was a level 12 Voltorb, so I did my full cycle and let Bulby take him down.

    After defeating him, ¡°We¡¯ll each take a fossil!  No being greedy!¡±

    Says you! Loser!

    I chose the Helix fossil, although to be honest I had no intention of including Omastar in my lineup, maybe I can gift it to Robin?

    One more encounter with my Nidoran smashing a Geodude with his rock kick, saw him finally climb to level 16 and evolve into Nidorino.

    I did not hesitate to use my moon stone and evolve him into Nidoking on the spot and then straight after, taught him rock tomb, replacing the useless focus energy attack.  Now I had a slightly underleveled powerhouse and a hard counter for the electric gym if needed.  Nidokings combination ground type will help him out, as well as his new rock attack.

    After another passage and a ladder or two, why finally saw daylight!  Fuck yes!  Done with that awful fucking cave!  That was always the most annoying part of the game for me.

    So now, I was sitting with a level 13 Magikarp, so still a ways to go there.  A level 16 Nidoking.  And Bulby had climbed up to level 21.

    It had taken some time, multiple trips back to the pokecenter and even a couple of health potions, or in Robins case, a whole lot of health potions, but we were finally out.  Also where was she keeping the damn things on her?  She only wore a dress and had no backpack?

    A glanced over to Robin, and she looked equally relieved to be out of the cave.  The bright sunlight reflected across her face as she turned and gave me a big smile.

 CH009 - Taking care of business

    Leaving the cave behind, we followed through a valley that had a lot of cliff like ridges running here and then.  Navigating our way around them, we ultimately encountered two muscle heads arguing.

    ¡°A punch of roaring velocity, packed with destructive power.  When the chips are down, Megapunch is the ultimate attack.¡±

    The other musclehead was going on about Megakick in a similar fashion.  I decided to do what I normally do with these two clowns and choose Megapunch.  Megakick has similar output damage/accuracy wise, but it¡¯s much lower accuracy makes it rather unfavourable for reliable combat.  Also, if I remember correctly, it had a lower PP as well.

    So I agreed with Megapuch guy.  Nidoking was the only one that could learn it, but it was a rather nice early game move.  So I went ahead and replaced his leer attack with it.  Once again, there will be better alternatives to leer later on.  Also, now he had some nicely rounded attack types.  Normal, Fighting, Rock and a semi-flying attack.

    ¡°Now we are brothers in the way of punching.  You should go, before you are seen by the misguided fool who trains only his silly kicking over there.¡±

    Oh the ignorance of one musclehead calling another musclehead stupid!

    I left the Megakick guy alone, since i did not really have use for that, especially right now.

    Further down the valley, we picked up a TM05 - Roar, which I also saw little use for.

    Climbing down some of the smaller cliff faces, we were finally able to follow a road.  Back to civilisation!  Or whatever masquerades as it in these parts.

    Finally, we arrived at Cerulean city.  The first thing we did of course, was to pay a visit to the pokecenter to freshen up dem¡¯ pokeballs.

    Next, I made a beeline for the Water gym.  I wanted to get that out of the way.

    The inside of the water gym was like some giant indoor swimming pool that took up the space of the entire building.  There was also a strange floating and winding path leading throughout the center of the pool, all the way up to the gym leader.

    With Robin trailing behind me, we advanced.  As is tradition while traversing the path, it was littered with cannon fodder.  The first of which challenged me.

    ¡°I¡¯m first up, let¡¯s do this!¡±

    Swimmer Lois brought out his level 16 Horsea.  Of course I lead with Magikarp for XP, since I was quite desperate to level it.  I would have to refrain from seconding with Nidoking in the water gym, his half ground type, would be risky.  So I will start fights off with Magikarp and then end them with Bulby for his high level and type advantage.

    Nidoking will have to lose out this time, but to be fair, he will get his turn at the electric gym that¡¯s up next.  Probably won¡¯t even have to bring Bulby out at all there.

    I switched to Bulby and let Horsea get his free attack in.  Even though I wanted to keep my health full, I would not be seeding most of these pokemon.  Vinewhip should be able to one-shot all of them at this point.

    Lois switched to Shelder and myself, back to Magikarp.  Then I once more switched in Bulby, taking a free hit.  Or not, Shelder¡¯s tackle missed for some reason.  Oh well, one-shot again. Moving on then.

    ¡°What, you?  I¡¯m more than good enough for you!  Misty won¡¯t have to be bothered.¡±  This was from Picknicker Diana?  For some reason?

    Oh, nice!  A level 19 Goldeen!  I switched out and received a confusion status from Goldeen for my trouble.

    Tried a vinewhip, but just hurt myself from confusion.  However Goldeen wasted an attack on watersport.  No fire pokemon here sucker!  Finally got a vinewhip in, but it didn¡¯t quite manage to finish it off.  Goldeen then responded with tailwhip, which wasn¡¯t really going to mean much at the end of the fight.

    I basically finished it off with two tackles.

    ¡°Now then.¡±  I cracked my knuckles.  Misty was for some reason standing on the first place of a podium.

    Robin whispered to me with a worried expression, ¡°Be nice!¡±  She stressed her words.

    I simply chuckled, ¡°No promises!¡±  And faced Misty.

    ¡°Hi, you¡¯re a new face!  Only those trainers who have a policy about pokemon can turn pro.¡±

    What is this a life coach?

    ¡°What is your approach, when you catch and train pokemon?¡±

    Do I have to answer that?

    ¡°My policy is an all out offensive with water type pokemon!¡±

    You, my dear, will not be turning pro with that losing strategy.

    A level 18 Staryu came out first.  I switched to Bulby and Staryu chose to harden.  Which was fine with me, all my attacks would be SP based grass vinewhips.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    Although I would probably seed all of the pokemon, to keep Bulby¡¯s health up, just in case and also because I don¡¯t think I will be one-shotting any of these higher level pokemon..  That being said I would be vinewhipping from start to end.

    As luck would have it, Staryu evaded my first leech seed, but fortunately kept hardening.  Something he kept doing throughout the fight. In the end it only got one tackle in and my health was pretty much the same as when I started.

    At which point, Ivysaur rose to level 22 and learned razor leaf.  I did not hesitate to replace vinewhip.  It had double the power, twice the PP and only sacrificed 5% accuracy.  Not to mention it had a high critical chance for some reason.

    When Misty sent out a level 22 Starmie, I switched back and forth my Magikarp and earned myself a face full of water pulse.

    I decided to try my hand at one-shotting him with the more powerful razer-leaf.  Unfortunately, Starmie had other ideas and managed a swift attack that also managed to take me out with a  crit hit.  It took away most of Bulby¡¯s health.  In exchange however, I did manage to one-shot him.

    Magikarp reached level 15 for that and managed to learn tackle.  Not that I would be trying to win many fights with that weak-ass pokemon, tackle or not.

    And, Misty was down, so I earned myself the¡­  Cascade badge???  Like WTF?  Why not Water badge?

    Also thanks to the badge, I can now ¡®use cut outside of battles¡¯, because¡­ reasons.

    Also got a water pulse TM03, which I would save for now.  It would be wasted on Magikarp, his attack stats are far too low and Gyarados would eventually learn a powerful water move of his own.  As soon as Magikarp evolves he will already start learning moves of a similar power, just not water type.  Not yet.

    So I would wait and see, who the most appropriate would be for this TM.

    ¡°C- congratulations on winning your badge.¡±  Robin said in a strained voice.  She looked back to Misty, who was now sitting on the podium instead, glaring at me.

    ¡°Well at least I only one-shotted one of her pokemon this time.¡±,  I nervously exclaimed under Robin¡¯s questioning gaze, ¡°So I wasn¡¯t, that, mean?¡±

    Robin just sighed, and then gave me a big encouraging smile as we left the gym.

    I chuckled.  Now that¡¯s my Robin!

    We then went around town doing the rounds, seeing if we could scrounge up anything useful.

    ¡°You''re making an encyclopedia on pokemon?  That sounds amazing.¡±

    ¡°Why are there so many trainers obsessed with filling up their pokedex!¡±  I complained to Robin.

    ¡°Doesn¡¯t sound like a problem to me though, in fact it sounds wonderful!¡±  Robin responded with glee, ¡°wouldn¡¯t it be helpful to have all the pokemon?¡±

    ¡°Not especially, what would you do with so many pokemon?  You can only have six on you at a time and training that many up to decent level is basically impossible to begin with, so only your core pokemon will ever be useful¡±

    Besides I am definitely not a completionist.

    ¡°I suppose you¡¯re right.¡±  Robin responded, sounding rather dejected.  ¡°You¡¯re really good at crushing people¡¯s hopes and dreams, you know.¡±

    A little later, a random boy:

    ¡°If that slowbro wasn¡¯t there, you could cut down the small tree.¡±

    ¡°That way, you could get to the other side.¡±

    ¡°I think there¡¯s a way around it though.¡±

    I suppose for sake of not glitching the game out any further than I already have, I shall not forcibly remove the Slowbro.

    Also If I really wanted to, I could just jump the fence next to the damn bush.

    The slowbro girl:

    ¡°Come on, Slowbro, pay attention!¡±

    ¡°Slowbro, withdraw!  No!  That¡¯s wrong!.  It¡¯s so hard to control Pokemon!¡±

    ¡°Your pokemon¡¯s obedience depends on your abilities as a trainer.¡±

    She seemed as useless as her Slowbro.

    We encountered a bike shop, which got the two of us really excited, until we found out that they wanted to charge 1,000,000P for the things.

    Obviously some events will happen and we will eventually receive the bicycle for free or at an affordable discount.  This game''s linearity is annoying sometimes!

    We talked to an old man that wanted to exchange a Poliwhirl for a Jynx.  And while that was tempting, as I had done in previous playthroughs, I A) did not have a Polywhirl on me and B) eventually gave up on using Jynx in favour of other more rounded pokemon for my team.

    Jynx is awesome, I had a lot of fun with her in the past.  The combination ice and psychic attacks were devastating, especially when combined with her high SP attack output.  But her paper thin defences really hurt if she faced a bad type or order matchup.  So, not this time around.

    We talked to several other trainers that all insisted we should trade pokemon with someone called Bill who was an avid trader.  But I seriously couldn¡¯t care less about this Bill character.

    I could of course ask now that I¡¯m inside the game, where to find this Bill if I were so inclined, but I didn¡¯t really care and would end up talking to everyone anyway.

    We also found someone that would explain about the different badges (don¡¯t care) and someone who would make shit out of our berries (don¡¯t have any).

    Lastly, there was an Officer Jenny guarding the entrance to a house:

    ¡°The people here were robbed.  It¡¯s obvious that Team Rocket is behind this most heinous crime!¡±

    ¡°Even our Police force has trouble with the Rockets!¡±

    Our final stop for the town, aside from the exit (a bridge), was the pokeshop.

    There a kid ¡®helpfully explained about the usefulness of ¡®Repel¡¯, which I rolled my eyes to, since after crossing through that fucking cave, I was infintely familiar with the usefullness of Repel, or not letting me purchase it for that matter earlier on in the game!

    Another girl explained about rare candy, well subtly at least.  But I already know you can use it to level your pokemon, hence why I am gonna save all of them!  For when it gets too difficult to level them.

    At the shop, I bought two repels and a super potion, just in case.  Also, two burn heals since, I would encounter Gary again soon and he¡¯d actually have some fire attacks this time.  The rest of the potions I basically had stock off.

    Glancing around the store, it didn¡¯t have anything useful to us survival wise, no more pokemon food or onigiri or anything of the sort.  Was the thing with the first pokeshop a fluke or some weird glitch?

    Either way, I would have to monitor the situation, but we still had a stack of onigiri to munch on for now.

    However, water was a more pressing concern, I was seriously thirsty and dehydrated by this point.

    ¡°So, uh, I don¡¯t see them selling anything to drink in store.  Shall we go collect some water by the river?¡±  I asked Robin, curious if she even gets thirsty or not.

    ¡°Yeah, that sounds like a good idea, I¡¯m also pretty thirsty.¡±

    So she does.

    We made our way over to the stream and I filled both my and her empty potion bottles that we had collectively used so far, with water.  I did not exactly trust drinking water from a river like this, but figured that there would either be no dangerous shit in the water here in this game, or that we could just heal it up with health potions¡­ hopefully.

    We both refreshed ourselves with the cool water gleefully and finished stocking up on our water bottles.  Now off to face Gary once more.  But first, there was one pressing matter I needed to resolve.

    I really needed to take a shit!  And I don¡¯t recall the pokeshop selling any toilet paper!

 CH010 - Rivals and love rivals

    ¡°So¡­.¡±  I opened up the rather awkward conversation, Robin regarded my hesitation curiously.

    ¡°I kind of need a toilet break.¡±  Before she had too much time to ponder dangerous concepts for her fragile head, I added some counter ideas as insurance to dissuade her from thinking about things too much:

    ¡°I don¡¯t think it¡¯s okay to barge into other people¡¯s houses to ask to exploit their toilets, not that it seemed like most of these houses had much in the way of ablution facilities.  Guess the place is a little on the rural side.¡±  I chuckled nervously.

    Robin frowned, ¡°I guess you¡¯re right.¡±

    ¡°So I think I¡¯m going to go take care of business over there in the forest...¡±

    Robin laughed awkwardly, ¡°I¡¯ll wait here for you then.¡±  And she leaned over the fence that bounded the river and seemed to chill out while she watched the water flowing.

    I climbed over the white picket fence on the opposite side of the road and entered the forest.

    I needed to take a dump, so I wanted to go further in for a myriad of concerns.  One, I did not want anybody noticing the smell.  Two I did not want anyone stepping in it, not that anyone would probably ever jump the fence in this world, and that actually might be kind of funny now that I think about it.  Three, I did not want anyone seeing me, especially not Robin, while I¡¯m busy squatting down.

    As I moved deeper into the forest, I noticed something was strange.  The leaves covering the floor, were somehow dryer, or perhaps a little more ¡®dead¡¯.  The grass lost its green luster and thinned out.  Even the trees seemed to wither and dry up a bit.

    Curios about the surreal change in essence of the scenery, I ventured a little further than I originally intended to.  The deeper I went, the more the world seemed to ¡®die¡¯ a little.  At some point, the hairs on my arms started to stand on end and I felt a deep chill run down my spine.

    There was a deep sense of wrongness to this place.  Like it shouldn¡¯t be here, it¡¯s very existence was somehow an offense to reality itself, that it had wronged the gods and was tempting their divine ire.  Or perhaps it was myself that felt wrong.  My very presence or being that was begging to be smite.

    I was not supposed to be here.

    I could feel it in every cell in my being.

    Fuck this!  I¡¯m out!

    I ran.

    I ran back until the haunting feelings left me the fuck alone and the scenery returned mostly to normal.

    I checked back the whole time to make sure that nothing had followed me or something.  My imagination was running a mile a moment thanks to how deeply unsettled I was feeling.

    Once I caught a glimpse of the town, I realised I had veered a little of course.  That was dangerous, you could get really lost in the forest like that.  And risk running even deeper into whatever the fuck was or was not out there.

    I adjusted my course and went back a little deeper into the ¡®safe¡¯ part of the forest to make sure I was not visible to anyone and then went about my ¡®business¡¯.

    I unfortunately did not have any toilet paper, the pokeshops did not seem to sell such ¡®luxuries¡¯, so I had to make do with wiping my arse with leaves.  A profoundly ineffective and uncomfortable experience.

    I had not bothered to dig a hole or anything like that for my excrement, nor did I intend to cover it up, I did not wish to spare the time, I seriously wanted to get the fuck out of this forest ASAP.  The steaming pile of dung would have to serve as fertilizer for some passing Bellsprout for all I cared.

    Sigh.  I needed to seriously take a bath some time.

    <hr>

    Robin and myself, continued on our journey once more.  The only remaining way to go that didn¡¯t involve hopping fences, I was now even less confident in hopping now, was the bridge that led out of town.

    We passed through a row of small bushes on either side that formed the walkway leading towards the bridge.  The bushes on the left side were lined by a flower patching containing yellow daisies.  The house in front of it belonged to the berry guy if I remembered correctly, but why was he growing daisies?  Probably the only flower sprite they had or something.

    And of course, Gary came running to ¡®meet¡¯ me, his perfect fucking hair didn¡¯t even move an inch while he ran.

    ¡°Gary: Yo! Ben!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re still struggling along back here?¡±

    Yes Gary, unfortunately I can¡¯t teleport around the game and receive pokemon and levels for free from the great gaming void the way you do.

    ¡°I¡¯m doing great!  I caught a bunch of strong and smart pokemon!¡±The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

    ¡°Here, let me see what you caught, Ben!¡±

    This guy as usual just whipped out his first pokemon, I don¡¯t even think he noticed Robin standing next to me.  She just raised an eyebrow at the commotion, somewhat used to the strange challenges I received by now.

    The first pokemon Gary sent out was a level 17 Pidgeotto.  Damn garry, you not fuckin around here are you?  And he has four pokemon total to throw at me, the rest likely being even higher level.

    I brought out my now level 15 Magikarp and decided to see how effective his tackle attack would be, just in case.  It was as expected incredibly useless with his non-existent attack stat.  In exchange Pidgeotto took away like two thirds of his health with a lucky crit.

    I immediately swapped him out for Nidoking.  Pidgeotto got a quick attack in but it didn¡¯t do much.  He also got another quick attack in before I was able to throw my rock tomb at him.  The super effective rock type move took away most of his health.  One more rock tomb took him out for good, giving my two ¡®learning¡¯ pokemon the XP.

    Either Pidgetto didn¡¯t use another quick attack or the speed drop from the first rock tomb took its toll, because he went down without getting another attack off.

    Gary then pulled out a level 16 Abra and I of course switched back to my Magikarp.  I couldn¡¯t remember if Abra had any decent attacks aside from teleport, but I did remember him being low on defence, so I decided to try my luck, first healing up Magikarp with a potion and seeing what Abra would do.

    My hunch was correct.  Abra kept trying to teleport, but in a forced trainer battle like this, he could not, it always failed.  Magikarp just kept pummeling Abra with tackle until he was out and earned the full XP for the fight, nice.

    Gary switched to his level 15 Rattata.  Ew!  How common of you Gary.  I immediately swapped Magikarp out for Nidoking.  Rattata lowered his defense with tailwhip.

    Of course, Rattata was a normal type, so that meant: Megapunch!  Unfortunately it fell just short of killing him and Rattata got my health into the yellow with Quick attack.

    I decided to play it safe and use my super health potion to fill Nidoking back up.  I didn''t want to risk him fainting before the fight was done, I needed these guys to catch up to Bulby and did not want to dilute the valuable XP points any further by bringing Bulby into it.

    Filling up cost me another quick attack, but Rattata ended up poisoning himself on Nidokings automated barb defense and went down after one more quick attack.

    Next was Gary¡¯s level 18 charmander.  I switched out Magikarp and then Nidoking once more and received a very ineffective ember attack.  Nidokings defenses were good and his part ground type, even better for this.  Charmanders repeated embers would basically do nothing to me.  Two Rock tombs later and he was finished.

    ¡°Hey!  Take it easy!  You won already!¡±

    ¡°Hey, guess what?  I went to Bill¡¯s and got him to show me his rare pokemon.¡±

    ¡°That added a lot of pages to my pokedex!¡±

    ¡°After all, Bill¡¯s world famous as a pokemanic.¡±

    Oh seriously fuck Bill already!  I really don¡¯t care about this dude.

    ¡°He invented the pokemon storage system on PC, too.¡±

    ¡°Since you¡¯re using his system, you should go thank him.¡±

    ¡°Well, I better get rolling!  Smell ya later!¡±

    With that he turned and ran off, still not even noticing Robin.

    I just sighed.

    ¡°Who was that?¡±  Robin finally asked now that the commotion had died down.

    ¡°That- was a rare breed of foot fungus that goes by the name of Gary.  A terrible thing to contract I assure you.¡°

    She just gave me a confused look, so I decided to clarify.

    ¡°He¡¯s my self-proclaimed rival, except he¡¯s the only one that sees it that way.¡±

    ¡°Oooooh.¡±  Her mouth formed the round sound, as she looked into the distance with an expression of pity on her face.

    Man, sucks to be you Gary.

    And speaking of the devil, the overgrown rattata on two legs came running back. ¡°Oh, yeah, right.¡±

    ¡°I feel sorry for you.  No, really.  You¡¯re always plodding behind me.¡±

    I just shared a look with Robin.  What an impressive mental fortitude.

    ¡°So here, I¡¯ll give you a little present as a favor.¡±

    I received a fame checker from him.

    ¡°A chatty gossip like you¡­  That thing¡¯s perfect.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t need it because I don¡¯t give a hoot about others.¡±

    Yes we already know this.

    ¡°All right, this time I really am gone.  Smell ya!¡±

    Except, this time he froze before running off.  ¡°Who¡¯s this?¡±  He asked with a look of suspicion.

    Finally!  Dear god, how wrapped in his own world is this kid!

    I motioned towards Robin with one hand, ¡°This is Robin¡±

    Robin put on a big smile and gave him a little wave.

    ¡°She¡¯s my girlfriend.¡±

    Robin froze, hand still mid air and her smile became a little more constrained.

    ¡°G- G- G- G- G- G- G- G- Girlfriend!?¡±  Gary was doing some kind of robotic sign language with his hand motions, his vocal cords seem to have failed him entirely.  I think I broke him, to be honest.

    I glanced over to Robin, to see if I could get a read on her, I wanted to push the joke a little further if I could.  She still wasn¡¯t responding, but was now watching me expectantly.

    Oh?  What a good sport this girl is.

    Gary began retreating, fumbling over his own steps.  ¡°T- Th- this isn¡¯t over!  I¡¯ll find a girlfriend of my own!¡±  And with that, he broke into a full on run for his life.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry Gary, I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll get there someday!¡±  I shouted after him.  Although honestly, fat chance that creep ever get¡¯s a girlfriend that isn¡¯t a Jynx.

    Once Gary was out of sight, I noticed Robin walking over to me with deliberate steps and an unreadable expression.  I instinctively took a few nervous steps back, feeling like I was about to get bitch slapped for using her in my grandstanding.  I stopped when I realised that I was backed up against the row of bushes and had nowhere else to run.

    Robin leaned in close towards me.  She brushed her hair behind her left ear and put on an incredibly charming smile.  ¡°So I hear I¡¯m your girlfriend now¡±  She was clearly trying to hide her smugness.

    So that¡¯s how it is.  Thought I was going to get beaten for misusing her like that, but she''s actually amused.  The cute ¡®oh how i want to look charming for my boyfriend¡¯ act, was just her trying to tease me.

    To her I¡¯m a little kid and she must be oh so confident in her pretty teenage looks, ruffling my adolescent feathers for a bit of fun and a little bit of payback.

    Of course in reality I¡¯m older than her, but she doesn¡¯t need to know that.  Not moving my face away from hers much, I leaned back over the bushes and plucked one of the yellow daisies.

    As I reached over, bringing my face even closer to hers and carefully inserted the flower into the hair she had just brushed back for extra cuteness, adding some of my own.

    Smiling I whispered to her, ¡°You don¡®t seem too opposed to the idea.  I mean you¡¯ll get no complaint from me, you are a very pretty girl.¡±

    No matter how difficult, I did not break gaze or distance and was rewarded with the facade of the ¡®more experienced girl teasing a young boy¡¯ crumbling completely.  Her face turned a bright scarlet red before she immediately turned away and retreated a bit.

    I laughed.

    Walking past her and towards the bridge, I added, ¡°You should keep the flower, it looks good on you.¡±

    I faintly heard her mumbling under her breath, ¡°Who¡¯s sexually harassing who here exactly?¡±

    I laughed even harder.  Who knew she was such a mischievous girl.

 CH011 - Bill Nye, the science guy

    We went back quickly first to heal up at the pokecenter and re-purchase another super health potion, just in case it¡¯s needed again.

    Advancing along the bridge, that soon turned into more of a raised walkway, we encountered some more trainers.

    ¡°People call this the nugget bridge!  Beat us five trainers and win a fabulous prize.¡±

    Well I normally settle for humiliating individual trainers, so you¡¯ll get no complaint from me for humiliating an entire team of them, while leveling my pokemon with free XP.

    ¡°Think you got what it takes?¡±

    And with that, Gug catcher Cale sent out a level 10 Caterpie.  What an epic disappointment this was going to be.  So I decided to just do some Magikarp tackling for the time being.

    Caterpie went down to Magikarps weak-ass fury, followed by a level 10 Weedle, soon after.

    Magikarp did get poisoned though.  I was about to pull him back to deal with the poisoning later, but saw the dumbass bug catchers next pokemon was a level 10 Metapod.

    I took the epic waste of time from my opponents continuous hardening and first cured Magikarp, then healed him.  Then I slowly whittled him down with just my Magikarp¡¯s tackle.  It took a while, but he finally went down and Magikarp grew to level 16 for his efforts.

    He then brought out a level 10 Kakuna.  And I went all out on tackles once more.  I fell just short of finishing him off before my Magikarp¡¯s PP ran out.  Determined to send the XP to my Magikarp only and mostly because I¡¯m also seriously stubborn, I decided to waste attacks on splash, until, Kakuna ran out of PP for all his own attacks and started ¡®struggling¡¯. It ended up hurting himself to death.

    ¡°Whoo!  Good stuff!¡±

    No! You just suck dude!  Your enitre team of pokemon was taken out by a mother fucking Magikarp!  You need to consider a career change, like seriously!

    I glanced over to Robin and could see the intense look of pity on her face.  She was thinking the same thing, albeit probably with nicer words of comfort in her mind, that she dared not speak out loud.

    Healing Magikarp back up, I advanced and the second person challenged me, Lass Ali.

    A level 12 Pidgey came out and I stuck to my usual rotation, bringing out Nidoking.  A good ol¡¯ rock tomb for the air type and he was down.

    She then sent out a level 12 Oddish which was a bit of a difficult customer for my lineup.  I sent out Nidoking and settled for the neutral type, Megapunching him to death.  Oddish was out after two hits and Nidoking rose to level 17.

    Next was a level 12 Bellsprout.  Nidoking pummeled it with a one-shot Megapunch.

    Next was Youngster Timmy and his level 14 Sandshrew.  Since I was sticking to my two learning pokemon for now, and avoiding Bulby, I continued with a neutral, but powerful Megapunch.  I realised after the first piss-weak hit, that this thing must have a pretty decent phyical defense even after that first defense curl of his.

    I didn¡¯t want to summon Bulby in and had no better choices, so I just stuck with it anyway.  Between the annoying accuracy losing sand attacks and his continuous defence upping defense curls, that bloody rat actually got my Nidoking¡¯s health quite low before the poison status from my barbs ended up finally finishing him off.

    Next up was a level 14 Ekans.  I let Magikarp out and used a potion to heal Nidoking instead first.  Then I switched to him after.  Ekans would be useless against Nidoking, one of the worst possible matchups you could get.  Two Rock tombs later, and he was down.

    Next was Lass Reli, surprisingly she brought out a level 16 Nidoran (Female).  Two rock tombs later and it was down.  Then she brought out a level 16 Nidoran (Male) and after a switcheroo, I just repeated.  The second one kept ¡®shouting¡¯ my attack rating down, so it took several rock tombs to finish it.

    And lastly, Camper Ethan sent out a level 18 Mankey.  A switcheroo later and Mankey¡¯s mostly fighting moves were not really working out against Nidoking¡¯s poison hybrid type.  I didn¡¯t have a particularly strong answer to his fighting type either, so I just used Peck, flying move.  It worked surprisingly well for its lower attack rating.  Two shots and he was out.

    Magikarp went up to level 17 and Nidoking, level 18.

    After finally exiting the overly long bridge/walkway, I was congratulated by some random dude on beating the five competition losers and he gave me a nugget.

    ¡°By the way, how would you like to join Team Rocket?¡±

    Well, I didn''t see that one coming!

    ¡°We¡¯re a group of professional criminals specializing in pokemon. Want to join?¡±

    I just laughed.  The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    ¡°Are you sure?  Come on, join us!¡±

    Robin was even glaring at the man by this point.

    ¡°I¡¯m telling you to join!¡±

    ¡°Dude, team rocket is a bunch of losers.¡±  I replied.

    ¡°Okay, you need convincing!¡±

    ¡°Yeah, dude, just come at me already, you¡¯re wasting my time.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll make you an offer you can¡¯t refuse!¡±

    And with that, he sent out a level 15 Ekans.  A switcheroo and two rock tombs later and it was out, but not before doing some decent damage to Nidoking with that bind crap.

    Next up was a level 15 Zubat.  I just one-shotted him with a Megapunch.  And the fight was over.

    ¡°With your ability, you¡¯d become a top leader in Team Rocket.¡±

    ¡°Oh, dude, just Fuck Off already!¡±

    ¡°Come on, think of the opportunity!  Don¡¯t let this chance go to waste.¡±

    He¡¯s worse than a fucking telemarketer!

    ¡°Magikarp- Tackle!¡±

    Magikarp rammed the Rocket grunt right into the hedges behind him, burying him deep.  I would have used My Nidoking¡¯s Megapunch, to send Team Rocket blasting of again, but I was a little bit concerned about committing wanton murder.

    The river that had been flowing next to the bridge also stopped at the same point and there was a bushy ridge between it and the mountain that we could backtrack along.  In those bushes we met: Camper Shane.

    Some switching and Rock Tombing later and it became ¡®Camper Shame¡¯.

    Exploring further turned out to be a dead end, and we only ran into a random Pidgey.

    Exploring further in along the original bridge route, led us into a sandy mountainous area, where we found a TM45 Attract.

    Exploring further Eventually gave way to a grassy plateau, filled with a plethora of maze-like shrubbery and a whole lot of pokemon trainers.  It took me quite a bit of time to get through all of them, having to run back to the pokecenter a couple of times in order to save on expensive healing potions.

    Most of what we fought were in the range of regular pokemon like Rattata and Spearow, as well as rock and ground types.  Also, quite a few poison and fighting types.  The majority of these pokemon fell very easily to my Magikarp, Nidoking combo.  Nidoking with his current array of attacks were a great matchup for the majority of these pokemon.

    Unfortunately Nidoking always did the heavy lifting, none of the pokemon were low enough level for Magikarp to attempt to solo them.  All said and done, we defeated Hiker Franklin, Hiker Wayne, Youngster Joey, Youngster Dan, Picknicker Kelsey and then...

    Hiker Nob.  Seriously?  What is wrong with these developers and their naming sense?

    After that, Camper Flint, Youngster Chad and Lass Haley.  I only brought Bulby out once, when Nidoking was in a tight spot against a reasonably well levelled slow poke, but aside from that it was smooth sailing.  Nidoking was now level 21 and Magikarp, level 19.  Almost there!

    We finally reached the end of the plateau and it opened up to be surrounded on water on all sides.  There was a white house here and some dainty ponds.  A girl and boy were standing by one such pond, holding hands.

    ¡°This cape is a famous date spot.  Misty, the gym leader, has high hopes about this place.¡±  sais the girl.

    ¡°If you¡¯re out at Cerulean¡¯s cape¡­ Well, it should be as a couple.¡±  Says the boy.

    I just looked over to Robin and gave her a suggestive wink.  She just rolled her eyes playfully, in order to hide her embarrassment that had yet to subside.

    We entered the house and it looked more like a messy science lab.  There was scientific contraptions, diagrams, panels and books scattered about.  Lots of boxes of junk and a large scientific machine on the far end.

    ¡°Hiya! I¡¯m a pokemon¡­  No I¡¯m not!¡±

    Oh and there was a Cleffairy here trying to make conversation with us, or argue with itself, I wasn¡¯t quite sure which yet.

    ¡°Call me Bill!  I¡¯m a true-blue pokemaniac!¡±

    Ya got the maniac part right!

    ¡°Hey!  What¡¯s with that skeptical look?  I¡¯m not joshing you, pal.¡±

    Dear god, the language in this game is so cringe sometimes.

    ¡°I screwed up an experiment and got combined with a pokemon!¡±

    ¡°So, how about it?  Help me out here!¡±

    ¡°Wait till I get inside the Teleporter.  When I do, go to my PC and run the Cell separation system.¡±

    I agreed and the Cleffairy trotted off and entered one side of the large scientific machine.

    I glanced over to Robin, who had been stunned to silence by this turn of events.  The look in her eye worried me a bit.

    ¡°Robin.  You can¡¯t capture it.  It¡¯s a person!¡±

    She just gave me a sharp look for making fun of her and then pouted cutely.

    I ran the program as instructed and after a bit of a lightshow, Bill emerged from the machine.

    ¡°Yeehah!¡±

    Oh gods no!  Just no! Language!

    ¡°Thanks, bud! I owe you one!  So, did you come to see my pokemon collection?¡±

    Can I answer no to this?

    ¡°You didn¡¯t?  That¡¯s a bummer.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve got to thank you¡­ Oh, here, maybe this¡¯ll do.¡±

    He then handed me a ticket to the S.S.

    ¡°That cruise ship S.S Anne is in Vermilion City.  I hear there are lots of trainers on board, too.¡±

    ¡°They invited me to their party, but I can¡¯t stand fancy do¡¯s.¡±

    ¡°Why don¡¯t you go instead of me?  Go on and have a good time.¡±

    I was a bit worried suddenly as I realised this was a key item, but there is only one of them.  Would I have to part ways with Robin?  Inspecting the ticket itself, I noticed there was a room number printed on it and that it actually admits up to four people.  Seems they rent them by the room.

    That was a relief.

    We thanked the crazy scientist and left.

    I noticed an alternative path leading back the way we came.  A tall hedge that hugged the mountain side with a narrow gap to walk along.  Since I thought it might lead to the next area, we followed along.

    It led us all along, around the mountain and then past the bridge we had originally came across.

    It turned out to be pointless as it ended in a small cliff that we jumped down, which put us right at the start of the bridge.  But it did seem like a bit of a short cut, so there¡¯s that at least.

    Entering town once more, I noticed that officer Jenny was no longer guarding the door to that house that got robbed.  So guess, that¡¯s where we¡¯re headed next.

    ¡°Before we get back on the road, you want to grab a bite to eat and rest our feet a bit?¡±

    ¡°Yeah sure.¡±

    I was feeling a bit hungry again.  We once more made do with the basically empty upper floor of the local pokecenter.

    While eating our Onigiri, I tried teasing Robin a bit more.  I waved the S.S ticket in front of her, ¡°So this thing says I can bring someone with me.  You looking forward to a romantic cruise with me on a luxury cruise ship?¡±

    She snorted,  ¡°What with a shrimp like you?¡±  Ouch, hit hard on the ¡®height¡¯ sore spot, hey.

    But I could see by the expression on her face, she was definitely looking forward to it.

    It occured to me, with that last playful, catty retort of hers, that Robin had changed a lot in the short amount of time I had known her.  She was- I don¡¯t know- Maybe, more demure previously?  Now it was like she was more willful.  I don¡¯t know if that¡¯s because maybe she¡¯s spending time with me and I¡¯m having an effect on her, or if it was just because she was opening up to me a bit and letting a bit more of the true Robin shine through.

 CH012 - Ruler of the seas

    Robin and myself entered the robbed house, and it was a mess! Fallen over and broken pot plants and furniture. A wrecked cabinet and a trail of some pokemons dirty footprints leading to a giant hole in the back wall. I almost burst into laughter when I saw it. I did not however actually laugh, as the man present was definitely bigger than me.

    ¡°Those miserable Rockets! Look what they¡¯ve done to my house!¡±

    ¡°They stole a TM for teaching pokemon how to dig holes! I was going to use it on a Mankey or a Sandshrew¡­ That cost me a bundle, it did!¡±

    He ranted on.

    ¡°Team Rocket must be trying to dig their way into no good!¡±

    His daughter chimed in.

    Robin and myself exited the house through the very same hole. This rear area behind the house, which was normally completely fenced off and did not have any kind of discernable back door, had a path leading away from it for some reason.

    It also had a Team Rocket grunt waiting for us. Seriously Officer Jenny, a little lax today aren¡¯t we? The criminal is standing like several meters away from you and in uniform!

    ¡°Hey! Stay out! It¡¯s not your yard!¡±

    ¡°It''s not your yard either dude! Could you be anymore obvious.¡±

    ¡°Huh? Me? I¡¯m an innocent bystander! Don¡¯t you believe me?¡± The grunt retorted.

    I caught Robin out the corner of my eye burying her face in her hand in exasperation. It seems even your fellow NPC¡¯s are getting tired of your stupid responses hey.

    First out was a level 17 Machop. A breeze once I switched my Karp over to Nido. Two pecks later and he was down.

    Next came Drowzee. Well that was new. I did another KarpNido switch and ended up getting Nido put to sleep as a result. Drowzee threw out some minor attacks, before he managed to wake up. But also earned himself a poisoned status for his efforts. Since the poison type was taking entire chunks out of the psychic pokemons health at a time, even while Nido slept. I would say that Nidoking is pretty much Drowzee¡¯s perfect counter.

    By the time Nido could act, one Megapunch was all it took to finish the job.

    ¡°Okay. I¡¯ll return the TM I stole.¡± And so he did. And then, for some reason, the grunt ran off. Well that doesn''t normally happen.

    The TM28 Dig could currently only be learnt by Nidoking. If I did, it would have to replace Rock tomb, since that would give me the greatest range of type advantages. And while it''s true that I do prefer the Rock type to the Ground type and that it would improve type conversage a bit, not to mention Dig mostly has better specs than rock tomb, PP aside.

    I am reluctant to replace it with such a similar type and for such a small improvement. I think I will rather save it for another pokemon that I obtain later on. I know of at least one pokemon I intend to collect that can use it.

    We followed the path all around the outside of town, trapped between picket fences, hedges and trees. Near the other side of town, there were two downward sloping paths leading to another one of those ¡®toll booth¡¯ buildings. Trapped between the two paths and between two columns of white picket fence, was an additional path leading down, with a series of small ledges and patches of bushes.

    This ultimately led to the Pokemon day-care. We talked to the man inside the building, but I did not leave any pokemon there. If my Magikarp had been a lower level I would have left it there a bit to level more easily. Unfortunately, at level 19 he was about to evolve, so this didn¡¯t really help me with that goal. As for my other pokemon, I did not wish to risk messing up any of their current movesets by leaving them at the day-care. So in the end, I just let it be.

    Entering the big ¡®toll booth¡¯ building, a guard complained, ¡°I¡¯m on guard duty. Gee, I¡¯m thirsty, though!¡±

    ¡°Oh, wait there, the road¡¯s closed.¡±

    ¡°I guess we¡¯re not going this way¡± I remarked to Robin.

    Exiting the ¡®toll booth¡¯ we entered a smaller side building, that was a strange hotel lobby like room, with a staircase in the middle leading underground.

    There was a little girl here, ¡°Hi! Do you have a Nidoran (male)? Want to trade it for my Nidoran (female)?¡±

    Yeah, not happening!

    ¡°That¡¯s too bad.¡±

    We entered an underground passage. It was quite long and took us a long time to reach the other side, with a staircase leading up.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    Another lobby room with another little girl. ¡°People often lose things in the darkness of the underground path.¡±

    Oookaaay.

    We exited the building and were on the other end of whatever area the ¡®toll booth¡¯ was meant to obstruct. As there was another security guard in the one, blocking our way.

    Ignoring it for the time being, we made our way along the path to Vermillion city.

    And it was time to face off against Bug Catcher Keigo, who brought out a level 16 weedle.

    I decided to see if Karp could hold him down or not. And... his attack missed and he was immediately poisoned. Jesus, does Magikarp also have a low luck stat or something?

    I switched out to Nidoking instead and rock tombed the little bitch.

    Next he brought out Caterpie and I took the time to cure my Karp before bringing him out again.

    I ultimately let Karp do the rest of the work there, just tackling his way through it.

    Another weedle came out after that, so I went back to Nido and rock tombed it.

    Then came Camper Ricky and his squirtle. Well there¡¯s something you don''t see every day. Nido was now close to Bulby¡¯s level, so I let Bulby handle this one quick and easy.

    Next was Picknicker Nancy and her Rattata. A quick switch to Nido and a single doublekick was all that was needed there.

    Next the little fucker pulled out a Pickachu of all things! I did the KarpNido switch and earned a tailwhip. Two rock tombs later and he was done.

    ¡°I never seen you around here, are you good?¡± Bug catcher Elijah challenged me, with his level 20 butterfree. Oh nice! I was about to insult him, but at least he has one pokemon worth a damn.

    I switched to Nidoking and earned a paralysis. Since the paralysis might waste some moves and rocktomb only had a max PP of 10 I decided to deal with this with Peck instead, it would still be effective against Butterfree.

    Even though the bloody thing also confused me. Nido¡¯s specs were way superior and eventually got his second peck in to finish Butterfree off.

    And then it happened, Magikarp grew to level 20 and Nidoking to level 22 and wants to learn Thrash. I opted not to learn it though, it was only a little better than Megapunch, but had too many downsides.

    Finally, after all this time, Magikarp evolved into Gyarados. The bright light from the evolution finally subsided and before us stood the majestic sea dragon. It was fucking huge!

    Robin¡¯s mouth was hanging open and the little bug catcher and picknicker pipsqueaks had all run for the hills all of a sudden.

    Gyarados immediately learned Bite. Which means I also had something to use against ghost types now. Bite was a more than good enough attack for now. Also his HP was so superior to Magikarps that even though Magikarp had lost two thirds of its HP already, Gyarados¡¯ HP bar was practically full.

    I also gave Gyarados the water pulse TM to round him out a bit, since it would be a while before he learned any water attacks of his own.

    I put Gyarados back in his pokeball.

    I noticed Robin was still gawking.

    ¡°Hey, I told you so!¡±

    She regarded me with a tired expression. ¡°I know.¡±

    She sighed. ¡°I know. Honestly, the things you do don¡¯t even surprise me much anymore.¡±

    Liar, you were totally flabbergasted just a moment ago.

    I just smiled at her and we went on our way once more.

    Further along the route, two more kids wanted to ¡®play¡¯ with us.

    Picknicker Isabelle called out Pidgey, and I¡­ Well I called out Gyarados.

    Picknicker Isabelle went pale all of a sudden and I¡¯m pretty sure I saw Pidgey shed a few feathers. A bite and a water pulse later and Pidgey was an unconscious pile of feathers.

    Isabelle called out another Pidgey and I just did it in with two tackles this time. Despite Tackle''s lower power output, it did more damage than water pulse. I doubt Gyarados has a much higher physical than special attack though, so it was probably just Pidgey¡¯s incredibly weak defense stat.

    And once more a Pidgey, rinse and repeat.

    After that it was Camper Jeff, and his Spearow and Raticate. The level 16 Raticate put up quite a fight against Gyarados, finally bringing him into the red.

    After this, we finally reached Vermilion city. The beach city. The whole thing was practically on a beach after all.

    We healed up at the pokecenter and I noticed that the path to the Gym was blocked off. We were probably gonna need Cut for that. Curiously, I tried to climb over the white picket fence instead, to bypass the need for Cut. The Gym however appeared to be locked. Clever bastards, force me to play the game, hey.

    Robin, meanwhile, had other thoughts on her mind: ¡°The Beach! The Beach!¡± She smacked my shoulder excitedly. Practically jumping out of her own skin. I¡¯m guessing she¡¯s never been to the beach before.

    ¡°You wanna go to the beach so long? I need to just take care of some stuff in town first.¡±

    She nodded enthusiastically.

    I agreed to meet her here when I was done.

    I left Robin to play on the beach. I first went to the far corner of town and talked to a fisherman guy.

    ¡°I¡¯m the fishing Guru! I simply looove fishing! I can¡¯t bear to go without.¡±

    ¡°Tell me, do you like to fish?¡±

    I responded, ¡°Yes¡±.

    ¡°Grand! I like your style. I think we can be friends. Take this and fish, young friend!¡±

    He then gave me an old rod.

    ¡°Fishing is a way of life! It is like the finest poetry.¡±

    ¡°From the seas to rivers, go out and land the big one, my friend.¡±

    I just smiled, but dear god, this guy can drone on about fishing. I¡¯ll probably donate the rod to Robin as a gift. I have a feeling she¡¯ll like it, even if it isn¡¯t really good for much more than catching Magikarp.

    The pokecenter only had people trying to teach you about different aspects of the game.

    There was however one person:

    ¡°The urge to battle with someone you¡¯ve tangled with before. Have you ever had that urge? I¡¯m sure you have.¡±

    ¡°I wanted to battle certain people again over and over, too. So, I¡¯ve been giving these away. Please take one!¡±

    I now have the VS seeker. Not that I care.

    ¡°Use that device and you¡¯ll find trainers looking for a rematch. You have to charge its battery to use it, though.¡±

    After a while I reached the pokemon fan club. Most of the people in there were uselessly gushing about their pokemon. One old dude in particular (the only old dude amongst all these kids, so basically the pedophile) gushed on extra fucking long about his Rapidash. It was worth sitting through it though as he gave me the long awaited bicycle voucher.

    Another house had a girl that would trade me a Fearow for a Farfetch¡¯d

    The last house I visited just wanted to teach me all about the mail system. Next!

    I ended my run by the pokeshop. Here the people were mostly discussing Team Rocket and other moral quandaries. I definitely ignored them.

    I restoked myself with another two super heals and I also bought two new ice heals. The rest of my stock seemed fine.