[Pokémon] The Adventures of Josh

So I'm new, both to this site and to writing Fanfic, but I finally got the first chapter of an idea I'd been toying around with for a while done, so I figured I ought to post it somewhere, and here seemed like a pretty good option.

Anyway, this is a story set in Kanto-Johto (mostly in Johto, but starting in Kanto), and I view it as kind of a dark take on the canon Pokemon adventure.

So without further ado, here's the story.


[FONT=&quot]"Living well is the best revenge."[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] -----------------------------------------------------------------------[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] Growing up as Lt. Surge's son wasn't as easy as you might think. Sure, we never lacked money, I got extra battling experience and tutoring, and I got all the girls in high school, but a lot of the kids at school resented me, viewing me as a spoiled rich kid born with a silver spoon, and I doubt any of the girls really cared about me. And whenever we had battle practice at school, I had to use rental Pokémon. That's right: dear old Dad, the leader of Vermillion Gym, couldn't even be bothered to give his only child a Pokémon.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] Well, actually, his reasoning made sense. While most kids got their first Pokémon at age ten, I didn't get mine until I was eighteen. Dad's reasoning: "You can't stick something with that much power in the hands of a ten-year-old," he'd snort, shaking his head. "They'll get addicted to it, or they'll be careless, get someone hurt, either themselves or someone else. Then they'll want nothing to do with any Pokémon." The logic was very strong, as you couldn't go a week, it seemed, without another story of how a kid and his Charmander or whatever burned a house down or injured someone to the point of needing skin grafts or something of that nature. But I didn't learn to appreciate my father's perceptiveness until much later because let me tell you: you can bet the house the other kids snickered and sneered at ol' rich brat Josh Surge needing to use the house Zubat every battle. At every League meeting, though, Dad pushed to get the minimum age to receive a Pokémon raised.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] And of course, with him being ex-military, there was a lot of tough love… he never seemed satisfied with my performance in much of anything.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] (Side note: I just wanna clear up a misconception I hear all the time: my dad is not "The Lightning American". I don't even know what this "America" is supposed to be. He's actually from Nimbasa City, out in Unova. His sister, my aunt Alice, is actually Elesa's mother.)

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] Of course, a lot of his thickness probably came from when Mom died when I was twelve. Cancer took her, and… well, it was horrible. The doctor had a grim look on his face when he broke the news. He said there was little hope for Mom's survival… he did say that perhaps it might help if she slept near Dad's Electric Pokémon. Dad immediately closed the Gym to await the outcome of the treatments.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] The Electric Pokémon didn't help. The cancer must've already been too far-gone when they discovered it. She passed away, peacefully, with me and Dad by her side, gazing out to sea on the Seafoam Islands, going cold even while I held her hand. As you can imagine, the Gym stayed closed for a while after that, and I missed a bunch of school, and I wept uncontrollably on the boat ride home, and I think even Dad, leather-tough as he was and is, couldn't help having a tear in his eye.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] Mom was buried on a cliff overlooking the sea near Vermillion. Every year, I arrange for flowers to be placed on her grave. I try to do it myself, but sometimes I can't make it on her… death-day, if you will.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] So anyway, I did have to return to school sometime after Mom's death, and when I did, everyone knew what had happened. The teachers were all sympathetic, of course. Some of the kids who'd given me the cold shoulder before offered condolences. Most of the numerous bullies simply didn't bother me, and a couple even offered sympathies as well, much to my surprise.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] And, of course, a select few were crueler than before.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] Between first- and second-period classes, big loudmouth Harry Moon, Poke Ball placed prominently at his belt, strode over to me. In my opinion, whoever gave that twerp a Pokémon should… well, perhaps it's better not to go down that road.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] Anyway, he strode over and, loud enough for everyone in the hall to hear, said, "Hey, Josh, I heard your mommy passed on."

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] "Yes, that's right," I replied through gritted teeth as I pulled the math book out of my locker.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] "What'd she die of, shame?"

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] You could've heard a Fluffy Tail drop in the ensuing silence. Harry was standing there with a big stupid grin on his chubby face. I just stood there, both wanting to cry and wanting to wipe that grin off his face… permanently.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] But before I could do either, someone intervened, a fellow student who looked to be my age. He was muscular and athletic, generally good-looking I suppose, with darker skin and black hair that suggested he came from down south, around Fuschia, or maybe pre-eruption Cinnabar. He stepped forward and said, "Harry, that's not cool."

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] Harry turned to him and replied, "Well, I must be right, 'cause he hasn't argued."

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] "What could he say?" asked my impromptu defense attorney. "You'll throw whatever he says right back in his face, and he can't stop you. You have a Pokémon, he doesn't, and you're bigger to boot, so congrats on picking on a smaller, vulnerable classmate. And how would you like it someone said your mother died out of shame?"

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] Harry laughed at that; no one else did. "My mom wouldn't be ashamed of me," he declared.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] "She should be," I said, anger rising in my soul and my voice.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] Harry turned to be me, apparently surprised I'd spoken. "Oh? You gonna do something?" he asked scornfully.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] "Yeah, I'll go over and knock a few of your teeth out," I replied, and moved to carry out my threat. But Harry, coward that he was, retreated a couple steps and sent out his Vulpix. The little red six-tailed fox stood there, staring at me, the only thing stopping me from beating its trainer to a pulp. A murmur of disapproval went through the gathered crowd when Vulpix left its ball, though; frankly, it was an atrocious breach of the first rule of trainer etiquette: Never sent out Pokémon against anyone not doing the same to you. Pokémon are simply far too dangerous and occasionally unpredictable for such an action to be allowed. I even saw a couple of his fellow bullies frown after he sent Vulpix out.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] Still, the bully before me smiled triumphantly after sending it out. "Yeah, that's it, hide behind your Vulpix," I taunted, knowing full well he couldn't have it use Ember on me in front of this crowd or anything like that.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] And then the kid who'd come to my defense earlier sent out his Squirtle. "Now you're both even, so you can go fisticuffs with each other if you want," he said.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] Which Harry certainly did not want to do. I just cracked my knuckles and began prowling toward him and he was breaking out in cold sweats and panicking.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] But before things could escalate further, Mr. Masuda appeared and immediately took in the situation. "Just what's going on here?" he demanded in his heavy Fuchsian accent as he sent out his Galvantula. And despite its "type disadvantage" against Vulpix, we all knew the fox didn't stand a chance against Masuda's electric spider.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] "What's going on?" demanded Mr. Masuda again.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]Of course, Harry was first to answer. "Josh was picking on me, and then this kid sent out his Squirtle on me," he claimed.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]That lie made me erupt like a healthy Camerupt. "That's not true!" I yelled. "You made a sick joke about my mother dying of shame and when I stood up for myself, you sent out that Vulpix on me and then 'that kid' sent out his Squirtle to defend me." Remembering that the crowd was with me (for once), I yelled, "Am I right?"[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"YEAH!" chorused the crowd in reply.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]Mr. Masuda took all this in for a moment, then ordered Harry, "Withdraw your Vulpix and see me now."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Harry cursed as he recalled the fire fox to its ball and he sulked off toward Mr. Masuda's classroom.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]After the crowd began dispersing, I went over to kid who'd come to my defense.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"Thanks for sticking up for me there," I said gratefully.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]He shrugged. "It's what any decent person should've done," he replied.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"Well, evidently, that makes you the only decent person in the school," I commented. "So why you, and no one else?"

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"Well, what he said was just… so cruel and awful," he said. "Thankfully, I can say I never lost a parent, but I came close, back home…"

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"Cinnabar?"

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"Yeah, Cinnabar, before word of the impending eruption came and everyone relocated. My dad worked at the fishery, and on the job, on a normal day, they accidentally, somehow, pulled in an Azumarill."

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"An Azumarill? Since when do those live in the ocean?"

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"Well, since right then apparently. Maybe it was someone's and they released it into the ocean, I don't know. Anyway, the Grass Pokémon the fishery used – Grass, you know, to deal with the part-grounds and Lanturn – hit it immediately, but it didn't hurt it at all."

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"Well, of course not. One of its abilities is Sap Sipper."

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"Sadly, that's a recent discovery of a developing mutation to the species, and they didn't know that at the time. So they hit it, nothing happens, and then my dad, who's still holding his Net Ball to catch it, is so surprised that it's still conscious that he just stands there, and the stupid mouse Aqua Jets into him, and he slams into a wall. Then it uses Bubblebeam while he's still lying there since he just slammed into a concrete wall, and... and they said it was about to use Play Rough on him when someone finally came to their senses and had his Grass Pokémon use Gunk Shot to hit its Poison weakness.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"Even though Dad eventually came out of it OK… well… he was in the hospital for a few weeks, and the fishery, The Wide Net, they completely changed the Pokémon they use. I think they know use Psychic-types, Galvantula, and Eelektross for better move coverage.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"But man, those first days when he got to the hospital…they weren't sure he'd make it. And I, I don't know how I'd have done if he'd died." Long pause. Knowing he was someone who'd had a parent that didn't make it, I understood he felt a little awkward continuing.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"Well, you just have to live with the hole in your heart," I said.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]He looked up at me and said nothing for a while. Then: "That's how it is?"

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"Yep."

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]More silence. "Well, I need to get to class," I finally said.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"Yeah, okay, I'll see you around," replied the kid distractedly.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]It occurred to me I still didn't know his name. "I'll you around too …" I replied, letting the sentence hang.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]He caught on and finished it. "Luke," he said. "My name's Luke."

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"Good to meet you, Luke," I said, shaking his hand.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"You too, Josh," he replied, and we went to our classes. Everyone knew who I was in that school.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]So that was the beginning of my friendship with Luke. He was the only kid in the whole school who understood that I was just an awkward pre-teen too. We stood up for each other against bullies, studied together, met each other's families (Luke's dad now worked at The Wide Net's office in Vermillion), and battled together in the occasional tag-team double battle.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]And during the course of our friendship, we graduated middle school and entered Vermillion High (Go Electabuzz! BZZZT! BZZZT!) And during my time at Vermillion High, I actually bonded with one of the rental Pokémon, a Zigzagoon.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]This seems about as good a point as any to mention that there are a great many books on Pokémon (duh). They cover a vast array of subjects: How to use them in battle, how to defeat them, how to raise them, use them in contests… goes on and on. But the ones most interesting to me were always the ones on teaching Pokémon moves they don't learn normally, like teaching Raticate Thunderbolt, for instance. Of course, my dad wrote an exhaustive book on the subject of harnessing your Pokémon's inner electricity, but there's also books by Koga, Sabrina, Juan (out of Hoenn), Pryce, and many others. But only two books were really useful for me with Zigzagoon: Make Your Pokémon an All-Around All-Star by Norman Rinar, a gym leader from Hoenn (who I hear worked in Johto until Whitney caught the eye of the League and they decided to "inject fresh blood" into Goldenrod), and the kinda goofy yet helpful one by Tommy Finn entitled [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Pokémon Moves from Summertime Blues[/FONT][FONT=&quot]. It discusses teaching Pokémon moves like Water Gun (spitting), Rock Blast (rock throwing), and, most important for my purposes, Bullet Seed from seed-spitting. I'd read that Zigzagoon was oddly adept with this move (or at least as adept as a Zigzagoon can be at anything).

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]So one Battle Squad practice I decided to try teaching Zigzagoon on how to spit seeds. After about an hour, it got the hang of it – almost. Instead spitting the seeds rapid-fire, it would instead spit them all at once, but doing a lot more than the individual seeds would've done doing it "properly." I determined I had been misinformed, and that Zigzagoon couldn't use Bullet Seed but could instead use Seed Bomb to some effectiveness.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]Whatever, I figured. So long as it can hit Rock-types, I'm fine with it.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]A week later, after a quick intra-team "tournament", where I fell in the quarterfinals, the nerd of the Squad, Derrick, came up to me, which was rather surprising to me, given that most kids didn't like me or at best were neutral to and ignored me. He asked me how I was getting along with Zigzagoon, with almost a pitiable tone in his voice. Maybe he was sympathetic that'd I'd been saddled with a mediocre Pokémon like Zigzagoon and that was why he'd come over.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"Okay, I guess," I replied. "If it was quicker, it might be able to avoid taking so much damage from Fighting-types, like that Machop we ran into." That thing had been a nightmare for Zigzagoon: it had been too bulky to wear out, nickel-and-diming Zigzagoon for damage, slowing it down, until it had finally been to line up a strike and Karate Chop it to the ground.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"Well, you know what you should do," said Derrick in his nasal voice as he pushed his glasses back up. "You should get it to learn Extreme Speed. Then it'll be able to hit the other Pokémon without them even being able to make a move to retaliate."

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"Hmm," I replied, suddenly much more interested. "That sounds pretty good…"

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"And if you can get it to learn Belly Drum and use it successfully – oh man, are you set up!" exclaimed Derrick.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"Belly Drum?" I repeated, now a bit more skeptical. "That'd cut his health in half! If somebody breathes on him after that move, he'll faint, or maybe even die."

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"And he'll hit like a truck, relatively speaking," countered Derrick. I was a bit less sure, biting on my lower lip.
"Your call, of course. See you later, Josh."

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"Yeah, you too, Derrick," I replied. By now, I definitely didn't care why he'd come over to talk to me. I decided to do to research to see what the maximum utility I could get out my Zigzagoon was.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]So after digging through the Pokémon encyclopedias, I ended up discovering that Zigzagoon could also learn Thief, which happened to be a Dark-type move allowing it to hit Ghost-types that it would likely have trouble with otherwise. It could steal any items the target could be holding, such as Choice Items, Wise Glasses, Muscle Bands, etc. but that was of far less concern to me, since nobody I would be facing was likely to have a Pokémon benefiting from any items.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]So after way more training I managed to teach Zigzagoon Extreme Speed and Thief – but not Belly Drum, I wasn't settled on that yet – just in time for the Battle Squad season to start.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]The Battle Squad season against other schools lasts from March to May. We had to fight schools from Celadon, Saffron, Cinnabar, Fuchsia, and Cerulean. Pewter, Pallet, Lavendar, and Viridian were all exempted from top-tier competition, due to a lack of enough skilled battlers. Pallet and Lavendar are just too small, and I've Pewter has too many trainers obsessed with Bugs due its proximity to Viridian Forest. Viridian simply lacks enough young people, although with Gary Oak as the new Gym Leader, that'll probably get turned around in a few years.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]My freshman year in Battle Squad… may not be described as ideal. Zigzagoon was a beast against almost everything… except bulky Fighting-types, Houndour, Pumpkaboo (thanks to Will-o-wisp), Steel-types, and bulky Grass-types. I got to the quarterfinals of our tournaments against other schools a couple of times, even made semis once, but that wasn't about to net me a nomination to the All-Star Battle Squad for the Year, named by The Kanto Gazette. Luke was on the Squad too, but he was only a little bit better than me, on account of the bond he had with his Squirtle (nicknamed "Blastduck"), and the rest of the Squad was only okay, so Cerulean knocked our collective block off in the playoffs. Zigzagoon got dismantled in the first round by a Nosepass that laughed at even Seed Bomb as it Thunderbolted Zigzagoon to pieces.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]Sophomore year was a bit better. I decided to teach Zigzagoon Belly Drum that year, and it made it a lot better… but it became a bit of a hit-or-miss strategy, in that if he used Belly Drum he would either immediately annihilate the opponent with Thief, Extreme Speed, or Seed Bomb, or promptly faint to Water Gun or Ember. But mid-season, after having a discussion with Dad about it, I realized that I could alleviate many of the downsides of the move by simply teaching Zigzagoon Thunder Wave. After that the strategy got a lot more successful, although Electric-types still tended to give it trouble. That year, we actually won in the first round against Cinnabar… and promptly got steamrolled by Saffron in the next round. I personally made it to semis against Cinnabar and the second round against Saffron.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]Saffron's team was fantastic. They were very skilled at using their predominantly Fighting- and Psychic-type Pokémon to utterly obliterate my Zigzagoon, and by-and-large the rest of my team's Pokémon. In fact, I was one of only 5 Electabuzz (out of 16; Luke also made it) to get to Round 2. Only one of us, Derrick, made it to quarters, and the semis and final were just an intra-team contest among the Saffron Metagross.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] But one good thing happened in that first round against the Metagross: my Zigzagoon evolved. After Thunder Wave my opponent's Kadabra, it Belly Drummed up, but right before it used Extreme Speed, Kadabra recovered enough to conk Zigzagoon with a Psybeam, which promptly caused it to evolve into Linoone, and demolish that Kadabra. And then lose in the second round to a Gurdurr with Mach Punch and a bad attitude. I had to forfeit the match to keep Linoone from getting killed out there, and spent a good three hours at the Saffron Pokémon Center waiting for the nurses to get it back to full health.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] Then Junior year came, and it was spectacular. Linoone mastered its new body type, speed, and strength, and Luke improved tremendously, as did a lot of our teammates. Blastduck evolved into Wartortle midseason, so that really helped us out. We crushed nearly every Squad we battled, even splitting our two matches with Saffron. So we went in as the top seed and got a first-round rest week in the playoff.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] Maybe now would be a good time to talk about the rules of Battle Squad. Each Squad in comprised of sixteen members. In the first round, all are matched up against opposing Squad members in a bracket determined by regional rank; that is, the highest-ranked battler from one Squad will face the lowest-ranked battler from the other Round 1, the next highest ranked will face the next worst, and so on. Which Squad wins a match depends on the team performance; as such, it's possible for a battler from one Squad to win every one of his/her individual matchups and the match final, but for the other team to win overall due to their total performance. This is what would've happened sophomore year if Derrick had somehow, some way, won that final against Saffron: he would've been the individual champion, but we would've been knocked out of the playoff anyway. And of course, under the format, and as I alluded to earlier, it's possible to teammates to end up battling each other. Match officials do try to prevent this scenario for as many rounds as possible, but if there's no opposing Squad battlers left…[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]This happened in the Kanto High School Playoff Championship. We battled the Celadon Venusaurs in the match, with us hosting the match in Vermillion. They'd upset Saffron in the previous round of the playoffs, mercifully removing them from possibly facing us, but we knew that any Squad capable of beating Saffron was not a Squad to be trifled with, no matter how bad we might think the Venusaurs were.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]Then again, maybe we were somewhat justified. In the quarterfinals, me, Luke, Derrick, and two other Electabuzz made it, leaving only three Venusaurs to possibly make the semis; only one did. Me, Luke, and Derrick advanced. The officials shook it up, and left me and Luke having to be the Electabuzz to fight each other, something we hadn't yet done in an official match the whole season. I knew my Linoone was dominant, but Blastduck had that nigh-unbreakable shell… and a nice Grass weakness.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]The referee signaled for the battle to start. We sent out our Pokémon, not by throwing the Poke Balls as I sometimes seen in movies and on TV – that'd be stupid; you could only recall your Pokémon then by approaching the fray to pick up the Ball – but by simply clicking the release button on the capsule. The beam of energy shoots out and materializes the Pokémon within. Then, as I always now began my strategy with Linoone, I ordered it to use Thunder Wave. Streams of paralyzing blue electricity came off it in Wartortle's directions.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]And then it dodged the attack.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]Well, sort of.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]It used Aqua Jet to dart out of the way, then did it again, this time in Linoone's direction. I shifted myself to at least try to avoid the trajectory and yelled out, "Dodge it!" which Linoone did easily thanks to Extreme Speed.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"Hit it with Extreme Speed!" I yelled.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"Withdraw!" cried Luke.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]Crap, I thought, dismayed. Linoone hit Blastduck, but all it did was skid the now-withdrawn turtle's shell across the battlefield.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]So it has to come out of its shell to move… I thought. The idea hit me like a thunderclap. "Linoone, Belly Drum!" [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Luke looked startled as Linoone hit its own belly to power itself up. He knew I hadn't used Belly Drum before paralyzing the opponent in over a year. After recovering, he yelled, "Blastduck, Bubblebeam!"

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]Too late, I thought with grim satisfaction. This was my friend, after all, but I still liked seeing Linoone perform well.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]Linoone knew what to do without even being told now. After finishing its self-powering, but before Blastduck to get Bubblebeam off, Linoone rocketed into it as it was still extricating itself from its shell, stunning it.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"Seed Bomb!" I commanded.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"Protect!" ordered Luke desperately.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]The seeds slammed into Blastduck, easily knocking it unconscious. I'd had Linoone knocked out more times than I cared to recall, mostly while it was Zigzagoon, and I felt a rock in my stomach every time. And I hadn't even had it for years. Linoone wasn't even my own Pokémon technically.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]Luke rushed over to Blastduck, pulling out a bottle of Berry Juice to try to get it to swallow. In short order, he took it to the local Pokémon Center.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]I waited for the match on the other side to end, which it did very quickly, with the Celadon battler's Lombre quickly falling to Derrick's Magnemite (which he says he chose for the large number of resistances). I immediately told the official I was forfeiting the final to Derrick, then raced off to the Pokémon Center. Well, not directly to the Pokémon Center, but first to my house to grab some berries, then straight to the Pokémon Center. When I arrived, I didn't see Luke in the lobby, so I asked the desk nurse if she'd someone rush in with a Wartortle.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"Yes," she replied after a moment. "Do you know him?"

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"Yeah, I'm his friend, and my Linoone knocked that Wartortle out," I replied.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]She let me through after that.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]I found Luke in the room the nurse told me he'd be in. Blastduck was lying on the bed, looking pretty much okay, except for the crack in his shell. I grimaced. It might not look or sound like much, but that's a bad wound for any member of Wartortle's line to have.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]His back was to the door so I softly said, "Hey, Luke."

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]He spun around and looked about ready to fight me the second he saw me. "What are you doing here?" he growled.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"I'm here because I know my Linoone really injured Blastduck, and I wanted to see how it was doing because I'm your friend," I replied, my voice rising as I ended the sentence.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]Luke seemed to cool down almost as rapidly as he'd heated up at that. "Yeah, I know, I – I just…" he began, but sat down and sullenly stared at the floor.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]I didn't know what to say either. I hadn't expected Linoone to hurt Blastduck that badly, even knowing Seed Bomb was super effective against it… but how could I express that right then and there?

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]Maybe with just one word, I thought.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"I'm sorry," I finally spit out (okay, so that was two words). I held out the berries. "I brought these," I explained. "I figured they'd help Blastduck recover."

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]"Thank you," he said, standing up and taking them. The way he held them and looked at them, you might've thought I'd just handed him a nugget and a Clamperl pearl.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] Of course, neither one of those could ever replace Blastduck.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] "I'm sorry for how went off at you when you first came in…" apologized Luke, surprising me. "I was just so ticked off about it…"

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] "Well, there's no need to apologize to me," I assured him. "I should've known better with my Linoone… I should've had it use a weaker attack. Anyway… Hopefully Blastduck will be fine…"

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] "He should be; the doctor said he'd make a full recovery," said Luke.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] I nodded. "That's good," I replied. Once again, I wasn't sure what to say.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] "Thanks for the berries," repeated Luke.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] "No problem," I replied.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] "I'll see you tomorrow, I suppose," said Luke after a while.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] "You too, Luke," I returned, and walked out.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] That patched things up between us right there, and never again did we battle each other on Battle Squad; I always forfeited. We certainly stayed friends during senior year, but Luke seemed to… well, he seemed to grow a bit distant at times. But it was nothing major, and we kept having good times and won the title again.[/FONT]

So for those of you interested in continuing to follow this saga, here's the second chapter. For your potential reading pleasure, I managed to make it much shorter than the first one.

[FONT=&quot] After we won the title my senior year, then beat Cherrygrove High to win the Kanto-Johto Title, there was only about a month left in me and Luke's last year of high school. We had to start thinking about our plans for the real world. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] There were only a few options. Either get a job, go to college, join the military, or, most desirably, become a traveling trainer with aspirations to become the Champion. Everyone who knew me knew that I wanted to start traveling around with my own Pokémon after graduation. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] Of course, this didn't stop people, especially Mrs. Bishop, my art teacher, from trying to push me to attend college. She, and others, felt I was wasting my academic aptitude by wandering the land in search of powerful Pokémon for the "pipe dream" of becoming Champion. In fact, she went so far as to tape several college applications to my locker, along with a threat to knock me down a full letter grade if I didn't hand her a completed one.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] So I filled out exactly one, the one to attend University of Saffron. Of course, I didn't really want to go, so I completed it half-heartedly, and when I got to the line that asked, "What will you be studying at our university?" I put "Females". [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] She only knocked me down two points for my little joke.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] Then June came, and we all graduated. I knew I didn't want to go to college, Dad knew I didn't want to go to college and he wasn't going to make me, and Luke knew and he didn't want to go to college either. We'd already settled on traveling together as trainers, just hadn't really settled on where to start. Luke just wanted to start by heading north from Vermillion and staying close to the cosmopolitan cluster of Vermillion, Celadon, Cerulean, Saffron, and Lavendar (if you can count Lavendar as cosmopolitan) until we got stronger Pokémon, and I wanted to go west to Johto, for a bit of a fresh start, see some more exotic Pokémon and explore a place I hadn't been studying maps of since second grade. Luke asked how we were supposed to get there. I figured we could either take a boat or get to the Pokémon League gate, explain what we wanted to the guards, and get them to give us a ride to New Bark or something. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] I'd told Dad all about this. I was really kinda fishing to get my own Pokémon finally, so I didn't really expect what came a week after graduation.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] I was in Luke's living room with him, studying up on Pokémon species living at Mt. Silver, which I'd read was a relatively short distance from New Bark, while Luke was rereading a map of Route 5 and Mt. Moon he'd already looked at a million times, when there was a knock on the door. We both ignored it. It was likely enough it'd just be some salesman trying hawk a Magikarp, or maybe a new local proprietor handing out promotional items. In any case, me and him both knew his parents would answer the door. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] And when they did, no one was more surprised than me by who was on the other side: Dad. "Lt. Surge," I heard Luke's parents say, and that was all I needed to hear. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] "Dad?" I greeted, surprised. I stood and walked about halfway over to him. "What are you doing here?"[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] "What, you don't want to see me?" he asked.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] "No, it's not that, but… I was just surprised, is all," I quickly replied.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] "Well, I suppose I haven't made a habit of getting involved in your social life," he noted. "Probably much to your relief for the most part."[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] That was pretty much true, but I didn't have the courage to admit it.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] "Anyway, I came here because I have something to give you, and something give both you and Luke," he stated.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] That pulled Luke over to where we were. Free stuff is always very intriguing, after all. "What's that?" I asked expectantly.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] "Yeah, what?" asked Luke. "And what could you have to give me?"[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] That was a good question, I thought. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] Dad didn't reply right away. Instead, he walked over to me and held out a downturned fist. "I know you've wanted this for a long, long time, so here it is," he said. He turned his fist over, revealing the Poké Ball. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] I didn't know what to say. After a moment, I took the ball, stared at it for a while as though it were a pearl from the shoulder of Palkia itself, then hugged my father for the first time in… quite a long time actually.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] "Thank you, Dad," I said, and even as I said it feeling like it was not enough. Oh well, I thought, nothing much I can do about that.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] "You're welcome, Josh," replied Dad. I thought maybe we'd hug again, but that was not forthcoming. That I cared; I had a Pokémon! That I could call my very own! Then something occurred to me. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] "Which Pokémon is it?" I asked. Not that I suspected he was trying to give me a Magikarp or anything, but it would be nice to know.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] "I caught you a Pikachu," he replied.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] I smiled. Pikachu, despite its readily-apparent inability to take a hit, had always been one of my favorite Pokémon growing up, especially after I'd read about its "signature" item, the Light Ball, which could supposedly double its power while it was wearing it, presumably as an amulet. And of course, when I was little and couldn't pronounce words and tried to say Pikachu's name…[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] "I think I'll name it Peekaboo," I declared with a smile. I noticed Luke giving me a curious look and explained how that's what I called Pikachu when I was little. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] Luke slapped me on the shoulders as I gazed lovingly at the Poké Ball. "Congratulations, Josh," he said.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] "Thanks," I replied from far away.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] "Now I have something to give you both," said Dad. Me and Luke looked up. "I know how much the both of you want to go traveling the world with your Pokémon. So now, I have, if you want to take them, two tickets to ride to Olivine City."[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] I was a combination of stunned, elated, and concerned by this announcement. Stunned because I would've never thought Dad would be doing this, elated because this was exactly what I'd wanted, and concerned because it was exactly not what Luke wanted. So I was a bit worried about how this would go over.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] I turned to Luke, a bit nervous. "Do you wanna take the boat ride to Olivine?" I asked him.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] He rocked back and forth on his feet a little bit. "Well, not really," he answered flatly and honestly.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] I didn't like that answer, but wasn't sure what to do. I didn't want to turn down the tickets, and I didn't want to be wandering the cities of Kanto that I'd been to before where everyone knew me, and I didn't want to make my friend upset. It felt like I was in an impossible spot. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] "Well, then I guess we won't take the tickets then," I eventually answered with a bitter tone. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] Dad frowned and his brow creased at that. Luke heard the bite in my voice and said, "Well… maybe we could take them. I guess exploring Johto doesn't sound too bad, and we'll be doing it together so it should be alright."[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] "Are you sure?" I asked, surprised.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] "Sure, why not?" he replied, a reply I didn't feel entirely satisfied by.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] "I don't want you to do it just because I wanted to," I said. That wasn't entirely true, but I really didn't want to make him do something he didn't want to.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] "Well, come on, Josh," insisted Luke. "You were ready to sacrifice what you wanted to explore Kanto, so it's fine."[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] "Well, okay, Luke, if that's how you really feel..." I replied, still feeling a bit guilty and uncertain.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] "It's fine," he repeated.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] I glanced at him guiltily one more time, then turned to Dad and said, "I guess we'll take those tickets after all."[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] He handed me the tickets, and we both thanked him.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] Four days later, me and Luke were on a boat heading out to Olivine, the biggest, and one of the only, ports in Johto. Despite the boat being the fastest Seagallop available, though, it would still take a couple days to get there.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] Not that we didn't have anything to keep us occupied. For one thing, I was still testing out Peekaboo's ability as a battler, and, for a Pikachu at least, it seemed fairly capable. I had used it in battle on the way to Saffron to buy the supplies we'd likely need to travel Johto, when we'd been jumped by a Drowzee. It had spewed Poison Gas all over the place, but Peekaboo and Blastduck had combined to take it down. Then, of course, we all had to drink Pecha juice to avoid getting crippled by the poison. Speaking of Blastduck, I hadn't battled Luke with Peekaboo yet, since I didn't want my Pikachu's electricity injuring the Water-type again.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] Besides having our Pokémon to keep us occupied, Luke had also thought to bring cards to play Typing Circle with. In Typing Circle, you and your opponent(s) sit across from each other at equal distance and lay the cards you've been dealt face-up in a stack in front of you. Then, after you determine who goes first, you go in counter-clockwise fashion, positioning the card lying face-up anywhere in the space in front of you; the catch is it can't violate your opponents' space, and the cards will all have to be relatively evenly spaced, preferably without having to be moved (for strategic reasons), after you've gotten all the types laid out. Oh yeah, that's what I forgot to mention – each card has a symbol representing one of seventeen types (excluding Normal), and this is critical to the game: after you've gotten all your cards laid out, with each type grouped with other cards of its type, you are allowed to begin moving cards. The objective is to cover every one of your opponents' stacks with your own cards (the cards come with different colors on the backs to help distinguish among the players); however, there are a number of restrictions on movement, most limited by the number of cards in a particular stack and by the attacking effectiveness against opponents' stacks. If an opponent has a stack immune to the type you're trying to attack with and the chain you're trying to build runs into it, your turn is over; however, if you land on a stack you hit super-effectively, you can skip over an opponent's stack, or just leave your card there. Other rules are that you can never have one of your stacks hold zero cards, and you can't leave of your stacks covered at the end of your turn; since moving around your own stacks in the circle counts against you, you can only attack an opponent if you have enough cards in a stack to chain over all of your stacks that are in the way. There's some other rules that I won't go over here, but hopefully you get the gist of how to play.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] So after a couple days of hanging out, testing Pokémon, and playing Typing Circle, we finally pulled into Olivine Port. Backpacks strapped on, gear stowed within, PokéNavs (sorry, Silph) clipped to our belts along with our Poké Balls, we set foot on Johto for the first time in our lives. I was brimming with excitement. What new thrills, dangers, or adventures would be found here?[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] Well, at the start, not many very different from Kanto's. We knew there was a Gym and wanted to challenge it, but after asking around the Café near the dock, that stopped seeming like a good idea; if we combined forces, we might be able to take down Jasmine's Pokémon, but Luke had no shot against her Magnemite and Magneton, and Peekaboo, if it could even take down those two, would get chewed up and spit out – possibly literally – by her Steelix.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] So we decided to simply set off north through Route 39, in the direction of the MooMoo Farm. We'd figured that we could lodge there for the night, or at least sleep close to it; unfortunately, we misjudged the time it would take to climb the ridges, so by nightfall, we were stuck at the bottom of a long, steep slope, both of us exhausted, and neither of us sure how much further it was to the farm, assuming it we were even able to make it up the road.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] "I think we should just make camp here for the night," I suggested.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] "Well, don't you think we could make it?" asked Luke. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] "I don't care if we can make it tonight," I replied. "We gain nothing from getting up there, except being more exhausted."[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] "But the predators will be coming out—" began Luke.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] I cut him off. "So we'll leave our Pokémon out, and they can keep watch. They should be able to take down a Tauros or a Miltank together, and Peekaboo can deal with birds easy enough."[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] Luke said something under his breath, then said, "Fine, we'll do it your way."[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] It took us about fifteen minutes to set up camp, pitching the tents and rolling out the sleeping bags. We left Peekaboo and Blastduck outside their Balls to sleep, while we slipped away into blissful sleep… or at least I did.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] I got an inkling of what Luke had been doing during the night when I woke up. The PokéNav alarm that I'd set for myself began to beep. I clicked it off, rubbed my eyes, and checked the Nav's clock. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]7:00 P.M. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]I sat up, stood up, and left the tent, feeling at my belt as I did so for the Ball to recall Peekaboo with.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] A few problems with this: the Ball was no longer there, and even if it had been, there was no longer a Pokémon to recall with it. And as an even bigger problem, there was no tent set up across from mine anymore.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] It took me a few seconds for my brain to process all this information and realize what had obviously happened: Luke had recalled Blastduck, taken my Ball off my belt while I was asleep to steal Peekaboo, stowed his tent and sleeping bag, and ran off into the night. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] Luke, my best friend, my only friend, had stolen my very first Pokémon, and left me defenseless in the middle of the wilderness.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] It took a moment for this to really hit me. When it did, I just fell down on my knees and yelled, "WHY?!" at the sky and to no one in particular. And I wept I fell facedown into the grass. [/FONT]

Now, for the chapter you've all been waiting (yeah, right >.>), the third chapter of Josh's (mis)adventure in Johto. Thanks for reading.


[FONT=&quot] Half an hour later I was trudging up the steep road dug into the cliff, carrying my backpack and my heavy heart.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] I couldn't keep my brain from playing the same thought on a loop: My best friend, my only friend in my whole life, betrayed me and stole my Pokémon and left me for the Ariados to feed on for all he cared. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] And he hadn't just stolen my Pokémon. No, Luke had also kindly taken all my money, Poké Balls, and food that I'd packed for myself, and he'd even taken the Pokédex I'd been hauling, although since I'd been studying Pokémon since I was a toddler, I figured wouldn't hold me back too much. Thanks for nothing, I thought with justifiable venom.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] It had occurred to me that I could Match Call him, since he'd thoughtfully left me my Nav, but when I did, the Nav beeped twice, then, in the middle of the third one, it had cut off. Luke turning his off, I thought. Figures he wouldn't exactly be inclined to answer a call from me.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] I'd thought about calling Dad and telling him what had happened, but decided to wait before breaking the bad news. I wanted to find Luke and bring him to justice and get Peekaboo back, before he got too attached to Luke. Problem was, of course, I had no idea where he'd gone, whether he'd gone to Olivine or Ecruteak. I suspected he'd go to Ecruteak, in order to access Gym Leaders a bit less difficult to beat than Jasmine, but I couldn't be sure.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] In any event, I figured that if he had chosen to go to Ecruteak, he couldn't have too much of a head start (and definitely none if he'd backtracked to Olivine), certainly not if he wanted to challenge Morty. The more I thought, I more I was certain he'd gone on to Ecruteak; what could he gain from heading back to Olivine? Other than possibly getting a boat ride back to Kanto with his ill-gotten funds, which, at this point, I doubted would benefit him much, what with his theft of my Pikachu that my father, a Gym Leader of Kanto, had given me.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] I eventually reached the top of the cliff and looked around. The ground was pretty much flat up here, a nice change of pace from the southern part of the Route. I could see the MooMoo Farm in the distance to the northwest, so I started over there quickly, breaking into a run as I got closer.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] The farmer was carrying some hay across the field to feed the Miltank and the lone Tauros when I reached the fence line of the pasture. He saw me but didn't come over, instead turning the hay over with a pitchfork like he thought there might be diamonds in there. I thought about climbing over the fence, but since I didn't want to get Body Slammed by a Miltank, I refrained.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Hey, mister," I called out to him.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "What?" asked the farmer, clearly irritated. He was an older man, probably wondering what some young whippersnapper wanted from him. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Did a guy, a young guy about my age come through here earlier?" I asked.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "What's he look like?" asked the farmer.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Uh, he has black hair, kinda tan skin—" [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Oh, yeah, he came by earlier. We sold him a few bottles of MooMoo Milk. He seemed to be in a pretty big hurry."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] Yeah, I bet, I thought bitterly. "Which way did he go?" I asked.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Headed off toward Ecruteak way, if I recall. Said his name was Lucian, or Lucas…"[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Luke."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Yeah, that's it. How you know him?"[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "He's my… ex-best friend."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "What happened?"[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "What happened is, last night, after we made camp and I'd fallen asleep, he stole my Pikachu and all my money!" I yelled in a rage.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Really? He seemed nice, though."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Yeah, that's what I thought, until he stole all my crap. So he went toward Ecruteak, right?"[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Yep. Hey, son, you wanna buy some MooMoo Milk?"[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Well, since my best friend stole all my money, I wouldn't really be able to pay for it, would I?" I said derisively.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Nevermind that; I'll give you one for free." He shoved the pitchfork into the hay and started toward the farmhouse. I followed him, waiting outside the door for him after he went in. He returned a couple minutes later with a bottle of MooMoo Milk and two MooMoo Ice Cream Lollipops. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Thank you," I said gratefully, gazing in awe on the delights I was being presented with. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "You're very welcome," replied the farmer. "You'll be headin' on to Ecruteak now, I s'pose?"[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Probably."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Fine by me. I don't nec'ssarily believe you when ya say that your friend stole your Pikachu—"[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Why would I make it up?" I asked incredulously.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "That I don't know. But that kid seemed nice enough when he came around here, so I – I just can't quite believe it."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Whatever. Thanks again for the food."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] The farmer nodded in reply.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] I set off east toward Ecruteak, to poke around, ask around, to find Luke and… and what? I thought as I stopped dead in my tracks. I hadn't really thought about what I was going to do, except for bring him to justice and either demand Peekaboo back or get the police after him. But what that farmer said, biased though he was, got me to thinking: what proof did I have that he'd stolen that Pokémon? It was just my word against his. My dad wouldn't even be of any help, only hearing the story from me, even if he had given me the Pikachu. But then, that question: why would I make it up? The answer occurred to me even as I stood there, leaning against the fence of the Miltank pen: I simply gave him the Pikachu, then got jealous and demanded it back. "Prove me wrong," I could hear Luke say in my mind. I had little doubt that he'd have to have been rehearsing a story to claim his innocence, knowing I'd be coming after him. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] But if I wasn't going to head straight to Ecruteak to hunt him down, what could I do? Well, the easiest thing would be to head back to Olivine, call Dad via my Nav and tell him what happened, and get whisked back to Kanto for another shot at my own journey – alone this time, obviously. But I found this course of action distasteful almost instinctively, and after some thought I realized why: if I told Dad and took his help, I'd be proving every bully, every backstabber (like Luke, for instance), every critic, every complainer right, that I was that spoiled brat they all said I was, the one who had to go running to Daddy every time to something went wrong. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] Besides, I could always see in Olivine if, say, Jasmine could at least give me a Poké Ball or something, or if someone would… but I doubted it somehow. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] Anyway, I had to get back to Olivine sooner or later, and the day wasn't getting any longer.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] Even so, I was hesitant, recalling how rough it had been to get up to the farm. Don't worry, I told myself, it's all downhill from here. Yeah, all downhill from here, I thought sarcastically as I took a swig of the MooMoo Milk. The taste was heavenly as always, in rather stark contrast to my situation at the time. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] So I began the long walk back to Olivine. It was definitely easier going downhill than it had been coming up, and Olivine was in sight practically from the very beginning of my journey due to the plateau's height. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] The only good thing in sight, I thought as I tried to avoid slipping and sliding all the way down the steep cliff road. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] That was another thing. Some of the ridges were too high to jump down, so I had to climb down them, being careful not to fall and break a leg and become Raticate food by nighttime. After climbing down one particularly tall ridge, I decided to take a break, feet hanging off the next ridge I had to climb down. As I sucked one of the ice cream lollipops the farmer had given me, I gazed down upon Olivine and its magnificent lighthouse and port, the beautiful white ships, the bright sunshine glowing down on everything… the whole scene made me feel kinda like a little kid without a care in the world. The last time I'd feel anything close to that for a long time.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] A couple hours later, I made it into Olivine. I checked the Nav's clock. 2:44 P.M. Not bad, I thought, considering the long route and rough terrain. Anyway, now I had to see what I could do here.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] As I quickly discovered, not much. It took me an hour of asking around and searching before I could even find Jasmine (she wasn't at her Gym), and then when I explained my situation and started pleading with her, she flatly refused my request for a Pokémon, or even a Poké Ball. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "I don't have Pokémon to just hand out to anyone who asks," she explained wearily. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "But mine was stolen," I said, pleading.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Sure," she replied in a tone suggesting she felt anything but about my story's validity. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Why can't you at least give me a Poké Ball?" I demanded.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Because you don't have a Pokémon. It's too dangerous out there to go out without a Pokémon."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Try telling Luke that," I grumbled under my breath as I walked away.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] Predictably, the manager at the PokéMart was not any more inclined to give me a free Poké Ball. So that left me with either going home, or trying to find a way to make money. I reluctantly decided that I may as well do the latter.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] I went through the marketplace, and no one really cared for my help in their business much, and definitely no one was handing out free Poké Balls to anyone who asked. I eventually made my way to the docks, where I gave my story to the foreman. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "No can do, laddie," he replied when I asked him for a Poké Ball. "Ain't got any Pokemon either, unless you don't mind using Magikarp on your travels." He laughed nasally at his own joke. I barely managed a half-smile.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Well, then what can I do?" I asked, not necessarily to the foreman but to the world at large. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] The foreman gave me pretty much the same answer as the world at large, though. "Around here, ya gotta earn your Poké," said the foreman.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] Well, this is how it's gotta be then, I thought to myself begrudgingly. "What can I do?" I asked resignedly.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] The foreman examined more closely before making his reply. Then came that moment I might've dreaded: "Aren't you the kid you came off the Seagallop yesterday?"[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] I cursed mentally. "Yeah, I'm one of them," I replied uncertainly, but certain of where this was going.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "And now you're here, begging for Poke Balls and money?" asked the foreman, sounding greatly amused. "What happened?"[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "My 'friend' stole all my gear and money and my Pokémon, so now here I am," I replied.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] That garnered from brief sympathy from the salty foreman, but not for long. "But how'd you afford to come out here from – where, Kanto?" he asked. "And on a Seagallop, no less. That's not cheap."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "My dad has money," I replied vaguely.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] No good. "Who is he?" insisted the foreman. "Is he famous?"[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] Oh well, why the frick not this guy too? I thought vehemently. "He's Lt. Surge," I elaborated.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] At that, the foreman laughed uproariously, although I wasn't sure whether from amusement or disbelief. "You? Lt. Surge's kid? Ha ha ha!" he laughed.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] I silently unclipped my Nav from my belt, opened the Match Call directory, which had Luke and Dad registered in it, and showed it to the foreman. His eyes widened, then he laughed again while I clipped it back onto my belt.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Whaddya think of how the tables have turned, Junior Surge?" sneered the foreman. "You come in here, all rich, flashin' your cash and your fancy PokeNav your daddy gotcha, and now you're here, crawling up to an old foreman, begging for money."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] I didn't know what to say to that.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Tell you what, little Surge," said the foreman in a patronizing and sardonic tone. He bent down and picked up a mop off the dock. "I'll give ya a job. And you'll be workin' the same as everyone else, and we'll even feed ya and give you a bed – for a price, of course."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Of course," I said dryly. "Fine. I'll do it."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] The foreman laughed again as he handed me the mop. "I'll put ya on the payroll as soon as I can," he crowed. "Then you can regale us all with stories of how great being rich is."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] He left to put my name in the payroll files. I noticed the bucket of water nearby, dipped the mop in it, and started the job.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Not as great as you think," I muttered while he was away.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] I kept that job mopping the docks for a while, around three and a half months. Actually, my job was not limited to mopping the dock. I was basically a gopher for the other older, more experienced, better-paid dockworkers, and so, to avoid losing my job, I had to cover for them while one of them would drink at a bar, fetch coffee and cigarettes for them (if I'd been 21, they'd have made me fetch booze), and do personal tasks for them at their homes.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] And for all this extra work, I was, of course, paid exactly zero Poké.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] Each month I was paid 50 Poké, after all the deductions for taxes, meals, and the bed, which took off about 150 of my salary; otherwise, I'd have been gone in a month and bought a Poké Ball. Predictably, many of the dockworkers and sailors who heard my story laughed meanly and threw profane insults in my face, and generally mocked me as they breathed boozy breath and cigarette smoke in my face.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] Like I said, this kept up for about three and a half months. It was during that fourth month of my employment there that something drastically changed.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] That month was September, which is when the Kanto-Johto Pokémon League Tournament begins at Indigo Plateau. Every Trainer who's won all eight badges from the Gym Leaders of Johto or Kanto – or, as few know, any combination totaling eight of the sixteen badges between the two regions – competes to see who the best is. Generally, it's a lot, due to people trying over multiple years. So of course, it's a heavily-televised event. This year's defending Champion was Lance, who was in the second year of his reign after taking for Ash Ketchum, who relinquished his role as Champion after holding it for the third straight year.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] So I came in during one lunch, exhausted from having to help the sailors lift a bunch of heavy boxes onto the dock, sat down hard at one of the tables, and started eating the first thing that was put in front of me, which happened to be a baked potato. I'd stopped being picky a long time ago about what I was eating.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] The TV was turned to the Tournament, so naturally I looked up after a while to check it out… despite my bitter certainty that I could've made it had I not had my Pokémon stolen by my friend Judas Iscariot.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] And of course, who did I see come up to battle but… my old ex-friend Luke.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] Despite everything, I was shocked. I'd just thought… well, actually, I hadn't thinking much about what progress he might be making across the land at all, just about how angry I was at him for stealing Peekaboo. But when I had thought about him, I guess I'd just naively figured that some universal justice would prevent him from becoming something big. I guess I was wrong.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] In that moment, I was stunned, angry, embittered, and hurt, and I really, truly realized that if I was going to do anything about this, I was going to have to do it myself.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] On the TV, Luke sent out Blastduck, now a Blastoise, to square off against his opponent's Muk. The blasting turtle eventually prevailed, but it came out of the encounter crippled by poison. Luke withdrew it and tossed the ball to the medical crew, who sent it inside to be worked on. The Pokémon he sent out was a Raichu.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] It took me a second to realize this was Peekaboo, after over three months of training with Luke and the application of a Thunderstone.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] That one broke me. I just leaned forward, put my head on the table and sobbed. After I picked my head up, some of the other dockworkers jeeringly asked, "Aw, the baby cryin' cus he couldn't get his rich daddy to pay for a League title?" "You wanna bib so you can eat your potato, or do you just want a binky?" "No, I bet he just misses his mommy" (he didn't my mom was dead, and I doubt enlightening him would've helped), and much, much worse.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] After about a minute of this onslaught, I stood up. I picked up my plate of baked potato. And, as loud, as fiercely, as angrily as I possibly could, I yelled, "SHUT UP!"

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] Stunned by my resistance for the first time of my entire employment there, they all obeyed, some of them left gaping. Then I turned to the nearest verbal assailant and planted the potato right in his face. Nobody said anything. I walked over the end of the cook's counter and picked up a newspaper; I'd glimpsed it on my way in. Then I lifted it and held up an ad for all to see: the nearest PokéMart was selling Poké Balls for 25% off, at exactly 150 Poké. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] "Now I'm going to walk out of here, spend all my money on a Poké Ball, and in one year's time, with nobody's help but my own, I'm going to be on that TV, competing, and winning, the Kanto-Johto League Title," I declared bluntly, and walked out of the cafeteria, adding as a parting shot, "Oh, and f#@! All of you."

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] It was the best I'd ever felt in my life.[/FONT]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[FONT=&quot] Half an hour later I was walking north toward Route 39 with a shiny new discounted Poké Ball in my hand. Now all I had to do was catch a Pokémon. Easy, right?

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] Wrong, wrong, wrong.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] To start with a lot of "easy-to-catch" Pokémon are really fast. Which is why the smart thing to do is to weaken them with attacks from your own Pokémon. Which is slightly impossible if you don't have one. The other problem they tend to show up in packs, and while many Pokémon flee when caught away from the group, you get four buddies around them and suddenly they're more than willing to take you on… and quite possibly have you for lunch.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] So that was the essence of my dilemma as I made my way north: How could I catch a Pokémon without one of my own? Well, I thought, somebody must've managed it millions of years ago, so why can't I? Other than, of course, lack of practice, only having one Poké Ball, and the fact that the stuff on Route 39 is really, really fast for the most part.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] That's all, I thought glumly.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] On my way out of down along the unpaved road I picked up a sizable rock that I hoped I might be able to use… at least to defend myself when I ticked off an Ursaring, anyway.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] I'd ventured a little ways out of town, far enough to need to climb one of the many ledges in order to progress, when I saw a lone Ratatta, chewing on a log to whittle down its teeth. It probably hadn't heard me yet over the noise it was making. Well, hopefully it hadn't anyway.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] I hesitated, then without trying to sneak up on it – which would've stupid, pointless, and possibly dangerous – I lobbed my rock at it. And by some miracle, the rock actually hit it, landing smack on its back. It cried out in pain, a high, screechy sound, and I took what I figured would be my best and only chance to throw a Ball at it.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] The Ball shot out its compressing red beam and trapped the rat. The ball fell on the ground and shook once, twice, three times… I braced myself… click.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] I breathed a huge sigh of relief and walked over to the ball. As I stooped down and picked it up, I felt a surge of excitement, a thrill at owning my own Pokémon. Again, but with this one not to be stolen by my supposed friend. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] I stood up straight.

Too bad it's only a Ratatta, I thought. And too bad for Luke I intended to conquer Johto with this Rattata.[/FONT]

Dude!!..

I am highly anticipating the sequel. This is one of my favorite, if not my favorite, pokemon fanfics. :DD!!'

Its such an awesome fanfic. Luke deceiving Josh was completely unanticipated. I really hope there aren't much of or any shippings in this or the later part of the story.

I hoofed it back to Olivine and got Ratatta stitched up at the Pokémon Center. The nurses told me he didn't readily return to his ball after being taken care of.

"That's not surprising," I replied. "I just caught him up on Route 39."

"Hmm, well, that's something you probably should've told us," countered the nurse, walking away as she handed me the Poké Ball.

I ignored her tart tone and left the Pokémon Center.

I'd decided to nickname him Sewer. Because why not, I figured.

While I was set on eventually taking down all the Gym Leaders and becoming Champion by beating Luke, I wasn't naïve enough to think that was going to happen with just a single Ratatta, or even that I was beating Jasmine with it. So that meant I had to train it. And that wasn't going to be easy, particularly having exactly no money whatsoever to buy Potions and such.

Too bad, I thought to myself as I walked toward Route 39.

I had no idea whether Sewer would obey me or not right now, seeing as I'd just caught it and had yet to use it in battle, and what the nurse had told me didn't exactly reassure me that this would go as planned. But I had to try anyway, or else I was never going to get my revenge on Luke.

After I'd partially entered the route while keeping the city well within view, I released Sewer from his Poké Ball.

He didn't seem too happy to see me. He sat there and glowered at me, gnashing his teeth as though considering the best way to reduce me shreds. Which, I figured, he probably was. At least he isn't attacking me, I thought gratefully.

I told him firmly, "You're Sewer." I told it to him a few times until it appeared he had at least a dim understanding that this was his name.

Then another problem occurred to me: I had absolutely no idea how strong Sewer was. I had no idea what moves he knew, short of the most basic ones like Tackle, Leer, and Quick Attack. So I just ordered, "Sewer, Tackle that tree!" I pointed to the appropriate tree.

He just looked back at me and stared.

I sighed and looked around, wondering if I was crazy for even thinking I could pull this off. And then I saw the way through.

"Sewer, Quick Attack!" I commanded, pointing at the tree I'd seen while looking around.

He followed my finger, sprinted forward, then moved at about Mach 2 right through the air toward the tree… more specifically, toward the Bluk berries growing amongst the leaves of said tree. One of them was seeds before it hit the ground and several more fell to the ground rather quickly. I quickly scooped up all the berries I could and put them into my backpack. I turned back to Sewer and he was growling at me, probably wanting the fruits of his labor.

I cautiously reached in my bag and pulled out one of the berries. I showed it to Sewer, making sure to keep it well enough away so that he would have to basically attack me to get at it… something I was hoping he wouldn't do.

After tantalizing him with it briefly, I dropped it back in the bag and said, "Tackle," pointing to a tree. I immediately pulled out a Bluk and said, "I'll give you one if you do."

Sewer reluctantly trotted over and threw himself shoulder-first into the tree trunk and looked over to me. I reached into the bag and tossed him another berry, which was devoured instantly.

"Tackle again," I ordered. He obeyed, and I gave him another berry.

This quickly exhausted the supply of berries in my bag, as you might imagine. So I decided to see if I could get him to obey without the promise of a sweet treat as a reward. I told him to tackle the tree again. He did so, then turned to me, obviously expecting a Bluk berry.

I simply tossed the empty bag down to the ground. He dashed over and poked his nose around in it, quickly realizing there were no berries in there anymore.

He glared at me and emitted a low growl.

I ordered him to tackle the tree again, but, unsurprisingly, he made no move for the tree. I was half-surprised he hadn't tried to Tackle me when I gave the order.

I wanted to try again, but my better judgment said that probably would result in actually being tackled by Sewer. Somehow, I had to make Sewer respect me while simultaneously not conditioning him to expect a reward every time he did anything for me.

Somehow…

I glanced deeper into the woods and noticed a bush full of Oran berries about ten feet behind the front tree line. I peered through the trees to make sure there were no Ariados ready to jump me the second I stepped into its domain, then darted to the bushes, grabbed as many berries as I could in a few seconds, then dashed back to the path. I turned and didn't see any Ursaring behind me, so I briefly sighed in relief, then held out the Orans to Sewer. He turned his nose up at them, I scowled at him, and then I squeezed out some of the Oran's juices onto the shoulder Sewer had been using to slam into the tree. He seemed surprised by how good it felt on his sore muscle.

He still didn't try to eat it, however.

And all this training and bonding and whatnot carried on for a couple of months. During which time:

• Sewer didn't evolve into Raticate.
• He continued to get stronger.
• We managed to build a bond. Sewer would actually listen to my commands without me needing to bribe him with Bluk berries first. I began to understand that what made him loyal was simply me showing him some affection.
• I ended up surviving on Berries, water, and running odd jobs in Olivine to buy meat. Not even particularly good meat, mostly Basculin.
• Using pretty much the same techniques I'd used with Zigzagoon a million years ago on Battle Squad, I taught Sewer Thunderbolt, Thunder, and Thunder Wave. Granted, they wouldn't be especially effective, but it was better than using Tackle on everything.
• Although after two months, Sewer could use Hyper Fang, so…
• And anyway, the nearest Gym Leader that wasn't using Steel types was Morty up in Ecruteak, so I figured I'd better make my way up there soon.

And that's just what I did.

I managed to make my way up the dauntingly steep slope, Sewer right behind me taking nearly as much of a toll from the climb as I was. After we reached the top of the plateau, we followed the road which took us past the MooMoo Farm on the way around to Route 38. I eyed the farm, dying for a sip of the MooMoo Milk.

The same farmer that I'd talked to over five months ago was working out in the fields again though, and he recognized me. "Hey you!" he called out to me.

I walked over to the fence line. "Hey, mister," I replied once I got there.

He glanced at Sewer. "I see ya got yerself a Ratatta," he noted.

"Yeah, I named him Sewer," I replied.

He narrowed his eyes at me for a few moments, probably wondering what could possess someone to name a Pokémon Sewer of all things. "Funny," he said completely flatly after a while, then he asked, "You still lookin' for yer long-lost Pikachu?"

I glanced over at Sewer, who'd decided to climb up and perch on my shoulder like he thought he was a Pidove. "Yeah, but I had to get this little guy in the meantime," I explained.

"So I s'pose yer off ta Ecruteak now?" asked the farmer.

"Yeah, I suppose I am," I replied dryly. "So is there a reason you called me over here or is it just for chit-chat?"

"Well, I guess if everything's gotta have a reason for you young fellas, I'll go in a fetch ya a MooMoo Ice Cream Lollipop," said the farmer with faux irritation.

I practically started drooling over the thought of it. "Yeah, that'd be great, thank you," I said eagerly.

"Well, sit tight and I'll go in and grab you one," replied the farmer, who ambled into the house and emerged a few minutes with a stick of sweet goodness in his hand. He handed me the lollipop, saying, "There ya go, son."

"Thank you," I replied gratefully.

"Oh, by the way," said the farmer, "one of our Miltank, Bessie, laid an egg the other day. But her, Ida, and MooMoo have all been laying a lot of eggs for the last few months – guess our Tauros has been busy – so I was wondering if you'd care ta take this latest egg."

I shrugged. "Sure, I got room in my bag, I'll take it," I answered.

"Swell. I'll fetch it."

A couple minutes later, I was holding the egg, which was colored mostly plain brown, but with kind of a wavy dark brown break wrapped around the middle of the egg. "Thanks," I told the farmer, and continued on my merry way toward Ecruteak after putting the egg in my pack.

As me and Sewer passed through Route 38 and my lollipop was half-gone, I considered letting Sewer eat the rest, but I also didn't want to spoil him too much with how heavenly the taste was. Then he might expect to have it on a regular basis which, since I had neither a Miltank or a million Pokédollars, wouldn't be happening.

I decided it wasn't worth the risk of giving him a taste.

Then I got to thinking about what the egg would hatch into. Given I knew who the parents were, it seemed to me that the egg had the rough look of a Tauros, so I guessed that was what would hatch from the egg. The mystery then became when the egg would hatch.

Oh well, I thought. It'll hatch when it'll hatch.

We rolled into Ecruteak at around noon.

Seeing as I had no money, I didn't really see the point of stopping for something to eat or going anywhere where someone might ask me to pay for something. I asked someone standing around on the street where the Gym was. He pointed me toward the southwestern corner of the city. I made my way over and saw the standard Kanto-Johto League Gym structure up. The exterior was exactly the same in all sixteen Gyms across both regions: a sophisticated oval-shaped steel structure with black glass windows with a steel-and-glass dome on top. I've always wondered why this standardization was deemed necessary by the League since all it does is leave any ignorant challengers clueless as to what Pokémon the Gym Leader within might be using.

Then again, maybe that was the point… for some reason.

I'd seen challengers at Dad's Gym before, plenty of them. All you had to do was walk in, declare your intent to challenge, and then battle was underway. I sucked in a deep breath, then opened the door and walked in.

I knew who the leader was: Morty, an alleged master of using Ghost-typed Pokémon. As such, most of Sewer's attacks wouldn't even be able to touch his Pokémon. Of course conversely, none of his Ghost attacks could touch Sewer.

Some consolation, I thought.

Morty was sitting there, back to the entrance. It looked like he was meditating.

"Um… I'm here to challenge the Gym," I called out, Sewer coming up alongside me.

The leader didn't reply right away. He simply sat in silence for a while. I was about to call out again when he finally began to speak, the quiet, empty Gym echoing his words around.

"What is it about the younger generation? Always insisting on trying to upend their elders, on flipping the world upside-down? Is it some shame they feel on behalf of their parents? Is it human nature? Is it simply necessary?" Pause. "And what of their dreams? They always seem so capricious and fleeting to their forebears, as if the children are making every decision on a whim. But in the grand scheme of things, perhaps that is how all our decisions are made… the Universe scarcely notices our existence, so to it, all our desires, no matter how strongly held, might be considered a fleeting, childish whim. So be it." He stood up finally, and turned to face me. "Be that as it may, a whim has brought you here to my doorstep, to challenge me for my Badge." Morty briefly glanced at Sewer. "Is this your only Pokémon?" he asked pointedly.

"Yes, he is," I replied, suddenly slightly embarrassed.

"You understand that you will need to defeat three of my Pokemon to win the Fog Badge?" he inquired.

"Yes," I replied.

"Very well. As long as you understand the rules…" Morty let that hang there as though waiting for me to contradict him. "Let the battle commence!" he finished, and pulled a Poké Ball off his belt. He clicked the button and released a Gastly onto the field.

"Go, Sewer!" I called out, my voice hollowed by the vast emptiness of the building. Sewer jumped several feet in front of me in the direction of the Gastly.

Nothing happened for several seconds. I'd forgotten that the challenger always got the first move in a Gym match. Stupid, stupid, stupid, I mentally berated myself.

To be honest, I don't know what I was thinking… I mean, sure, me and Sewer had been training for two months, but… to go into a one-on-three Gym match with the odds not in my favor and a bunch of well-trained Pokémon on the other side was insane. I mean, it was downright stupid of me to think I had a shot at winning.

Anyway…

"Thunder Wave him!" I cried.

Similar to what had happened when Linoone would use the move, sparks of blue electricity came off Sewer's body and flew in the direction of Gastly.

"Protect," said Morty calmly and evenly, with a poise I envied under the circumstances.

A green, spherical shield surrounded the Gastly, dissipating the paralytic bolts. I hadn't thought of Gastly having that move.

"Hypnosis," ordered the Ghost Leader.

That really wouldn't be good. "Dodge it!" I ordered in desperation. The Gastly's eyes fired waves of swirling, purple beams at Sewer, but he, with his speed, was no longer there, but a dozen feet off to the ghost's right.

"Thunderbolt 'im!" I yelled, seeing the only opening I'd likely get.

Morty tried to issue a Protect order, but the searing yellow bolt arrived first, stunning the Gastly briefly. It still tried to bring up the protective shield – I could see in its eyes the effort – but it couldn't do it. I realized that it had been paralyzed briefly.

"Bite!" I called to Sewer.

"Protect," urged Morty, his cool demeanor strained a bit now. Sure, he had two equally strong or stronger Pokémon in reserve, but nobody likes having a Pokémon knocked out.

And that was also where my luck ran out.

As Sewer bounded toward Gastly to sink its teeth into it, the Gastly tried with redoubled effort to Protect itself… which it did just before Sewer could get there; in fact, while Sewer was leaping to perform the attack. The force of being hit by the shield knocked him to the floor, which was the only opening Gastly needed.

Now at ease, Morty, with grim punsmanship, called out, "Payback time."

Funny, I thought.

The shield fell before Sewer could recover, although I gave the impossible dodge order anyway, and a small orb of dark energy came off the ghost and slammed directly into Sewer, breaking the ball apart.

All credit to Sewer, he did try to keep fighting to the bitter end, hobbling back from the Gastly to better dodge the next attack, but that Gastly surely knew a downed opponent when it saw one. I looked at Sewer, I looked at the smirk on the nearly uninjured Gastly's face, I looked at the pitying look on Morty's face, back at the crippled yet still kicking Sewer… but this wasn't some kind of action movie where the hero's Pokemon comes back from impossible odds.

"Forfeit," I said quietly, allowing the acoustics to let my heavy words of defeat reach the leader's ears.

Morty nodded in understanding and withdrew his Gastly without a word. Sewer seemed confused, and looked back at me, wondering what was going on, why his opponent had been recalled.

I walked over to him, my hollow, heavy steps echoing throughout the building.

"Come on, pal," I said, feeling incredibly sad and tremendously proud at once. "Let's get you healed up." I picked him up, cradling him in my arms as I started the exit from the Gym.

"I look forward to seeing you again," said Morty as I was leaving.

"Yeah, I'll be back," I called back, my words ringing hollow around the Gym and in my ears.

I jumped up to what looked to be the remains of what had once been the second floor of the Burned Tower but was now little more than a few charred boards. I managed to lift my forearms up onto the "ledge," but then I heard a crack and decided that staying up here might be hazardous to my health, and so dropped back down to the ash and dirt before the boards could give way.

Getting Sewer in and out of the Pokémon Center had been quick enough. His wounds hadn't been… too bad. Blastduck's injury at the hands (paws?) of my Linoone had been significantly worse. It had only taken a few hours before Sewer had been returned to me. Now he was perched on my shoulder again, this time at my own insistence, as we explored the Burned Tower, a crumbling, charred structure… similar to my dreams of becoming Champion, I thought melodramatically.

I jumped up onto a sturdy beam, still fairly sturdy between a surviving wall and column, stuck the landing, and surveyed the Tower floor. Not that I could actually see any real floor, seeing as it was covered with dirt and ash. From my perch, however, I did see something shiny amidst in the dirt, so I jumped down toward it to check it out. It turned out to be a tarnished gold piece that had been forged to be a paw of some kind. More searching turned up two more pieces, likely coming from a statue of some kind of Pokémon. Of course, there was no real way of knowing which Pokémon had been depicted. Or of what had happened to the rest of the statue. Probably looted, I figured.

That got me thinking about something else. "I wonder why archaeologists aren't all over this place," I said to Sewer, obviously not expecting an answer.

"Because the people here are a bunch of superstitious ninnies."

I practically jumped out of my skin, then turned around to see a black-haired girl roughly my own age approaching from the other side of the ruin. Given the amount of debris in the middle of what was left of the ground floor and how large that floor was, it wasn't too surprising I'd missed noticing another person exploring the ruin.

She continued speaking without waiting for me to interject. "The locals of Ecruteak have some kind of legend that says there are three Sleeping Beasts sitting in the basement level of this tower that will wake up 'when the time is right,' and they don't want archaeologists disturbing them," she explained. Her piercing blue eyes stared coldly at me; I hoped they didn't reflect the person behind them.

I took a moment to absorb all this information, then replied, "Okay. Good to know."

She smirked, probably at seeing I still hadn't completely regained my composure from being surprised. "My name's Gea," she said.

"Mine's Josh," I replied.

"Cute Ratatta," she commented. I couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not.

"Thanks," I replied carefully.

"So what are you doing here?" she asked pointedly.

"What are you doing here?" I countered, not wanting to admit that I was out here feeling sorry for myself.

"Treasure hunting," she replied.

"Treasure hunting? Here?" I asked dubiously. You know, despite the fact I'd found three small, tarnished gold pieces.

"Sure. In fact, I'm positive I've already found some kind of artifact. Follow me if you see it."

I followed her over to the corner she'd been examining earlier. "Watch and learn," she said to me before stomping on a spot of ground.

Turned out it wasn't as stupid as I initially thought, because a muffled clang could be faintly heard from the spot.

"And now all I have to do is dig it out," she said as she dug the dirt on top of the object away with her hands. As she dug, what appeared to be an ornate sword handle was revealed in the dirt. It was steel with intricately carved gold trim running on it.

"Jackpot!" exclaimed Gea excitedly. She tried to pull it out of the dirt, but it was stuck fast and wouldn't budge one bit.

She tried a couple more times, then turned to me and, sounding quite annoyed, asked, "You wanna help a little?"

"I don't know, will you give me a cut of whatever bazillion Poke you make off selling that?" I asked.

"I'll give you half," she promised.

"Great," I replied and strode over to help. No good; it felt like it might as well have been stuck in concrete for all the good I was doing.

"Move over," said Gea after watching my ineffectual attempts. I walked back and leaned against a column that had fallen forty-five degrees to the ground but was staying propped up a stack of debris. Gea cleared some more of the dirt away, enough to reveal the entire hilt along with part of the sheath. I noticed a blue ribbon fall free as the ash and dirt around it was dug away.

A blue ribbon, I thought. My eyes widened as it hit me right as Gea was leaning down to grab the sword that was no sword at all.

"Wait, isn't—" I started to warn her, but it was too late.

She reached down for the sword and seized the hilt. The blue ribbon suddenly, as if of its own volition, wrapped itself around her wrist. I watched in horror as she silently screamed as though she were in great pain but failed to make a sound as what looked like dark energy flow from the sword into her.

Of course, this wasn't really a sword, but a Honedge, which, unfortunately, has the power of possess anyone who takes hold of it.

I knew I had to get ready to battle, and preferably find help in town. I straightened up and made my way toward the gap between the surviving wooden paneling and debris stack, making sure not to take my eye off the Honedge, which was just driving its way out of the dirt…

…and because I wasn't looking where I was going, I tripped over a fallen crossbeam that I had of course had to step over earlier but forgotten was there. Sewer saw my fall coming and leapt off my shoulder safely to the ground. I tried to get up and call for up, but my mouth was filled with ash and loose dust, so even as I got to my feet, I couldn't manage more than a cough. Sewer was looking up at me, then away, quite apprehensively – understandable, since a now possessed Gea was walking, slowly but surely straight toward us. And thanks to my fall, she was a lot closer than she might be.

No, the Honedge, I thought, trying to regain focus. The Honedge. If we defeat the Honedge, this whole mess is behind us.

In my haste to get away from said Honedge, I clumsily tripped over my own feet and was on the ground again. Fortunately, I was actually able to speak this time; I ordered Sewer in what was little more than a whisper, "Bite Honedge." He stared blankly. I sighed; of course he doesn't know what a Honedge is, I thought. Pointing, I just said, "Bite, Sewer! Bite!"

After a moment of hesitation, Sewer leapt toward Gea to sink his teeth into her. I gritted my own teeth, hoping he wouldn't kill her. The Honedge leapt – er, swung – into action, a mass of dark energy gathering at its point and aimed directly at Sewer. The attack happened very rapidly, but did nothing to Sewer – I later realized this was a Shadow Sneak attack – and Sewer ripped off a chunk of Gea's left shoulder. Unfortunately, this was not the shoulder on the sword arm, and more unfortunately, the Honedge, unlike me, was smart enough to actually step over the fallen beam with Gea's body. So while I struggled to get my grimy body to my feet and back away from the advancing zombified Honedge-wielding Gea (or, rather Gea-wielding Honedge), it just kept closing in, slowly but surely.

Boy, I can really pick 'em, can't I, I thought to myself, wondering if I was going to die here.

I reached my feet and yelled, "Sewer, attack!" Sewer came bounding over to strike again, but the Honedge wasn't going to make the same mistake twice. The tip of its blade shone bright and it struck with surprising speed on Sewer's head, knocking him to the ground, stunned. I took a step back, with my gaze locked on Sewer, concern for his safety filling my mind.

While I was still in my daze, the Honedge swung itself into my forearm, the cold steel making me gasp and forcing me to focus on the situation at hand.

"Sewer, attack again!" I called as I tackled Gea to the ground. This brazen move took the Honedge by surprise, enough surprise that it allowed itself to be Bitten by Sewer. As a result, I was able to flip Gea's possessed body over and pull a Poké Ball out of her bag, which I'd finally recognized was the only way this battle could end favorably for me. I regretfully kneed her in the back as I got up, knowing that she herself wasn't responsible but that hurting her was the best way for me to hurt the Honedge.

I backed away, knowing that the Honedge wasn't nearly weak enough to risk my only Poké Ball on. Even after the abuse its unlucky vessel had taken and the Bite Sewer had sunk into it, the Honedge wasn't about to give up the fight just yet – not even close. It forced Gea's damaged body to its feet and kept coming.

"Sewer, Bite the sword again!" I yelled, backing toward town, wanting to run for Ecruteak but not wanting to leave Sewer behind, to the mercy of Honedge. Sewer valiantly obeyed, but was struck down again by what I later realized was the faux sword's Iron Head attack.

Then the battle tipped.

After getting cast to the dirt for the second time, I guess Sewer finally decided it'd had enough, because right as he hit the ground again, his whole body began to glow with a bright white light. The Honedge appeared to ignore this; quite fortuitously for me and Sewer, because I realized that Sewer was evolving into a Raticate… and he was ticked off.

Now over three times his previous size, Sewer sank his now much larger fangs in the sword, which now seemed quite surprised by his foe's abrupt increase in size. The Honedge wilted before the assault, and now set Gea's legs pumping straight toward me. I was surprised and slow to react to this sudden quickening of Honedge's pace, so I practically stumbled back somehow keeping my feet, mind racing with how to get out of this new mess, and reached one high undesirable conclusion.

No two ways about it, I thought with no pride in the order I was about to give.

"Sewer, Thunder!" I yelled.

Arceus protect Gea, I thought, hoping some divine intervention might get me out of this mess and keep Gea alive.

Sewer's body briefly cackled with static, then a surge of electric arced up through the clouds at the speed of light and, of course, was drawn, as I knew it would be, by the one metal object in the vicinity: Honedge.

And unfortunately, this would mean it would have to get grounded out through Gea.

Sure enough, though, the electric surge had the desired effect of dazing the Honedge. It even seemed to be paralyzed by the strike.

"Thunderbolt!" I commanded as the Honedge still demanded its broken vessel keep coming at me. I might've ordered Thunder again, but I certainly didn't want to kill Gea.

Roughly the same result happened again. Finally, though, the Honedge couldn't push either its spirit or Gea's damaged body any further. Gea fell to the ground and lacked enough the strength to continue to hold Honedge's hilt.

She was freed of her possession. But now she had to feel all the pain. "Ahhhh!" she shrieked in pain, finally drawing the attention of the some locals, who started to come running toward the Tower to check it out. I chucked the Poke Ball at the Honedge to prevent it from being a threat again and picked up Gea's shattered body and raced into town to meet the crowd.

I only hoped I wasn't too late.

I am definitely following this story. Please keep this up.

But I have little comments on it. I mean, it's just good. And inspiring. It kind of captures that world feeling present in the original games, as well as how it would be like to live in an "impoverished" (Not sure if that would be the right word), down on your luck state.

Love Sewer, and what it takes to get even the lowliest pokémon (For us, as players) turned into an actual battler. As well as the process of training. That was really good.


I have some critique, however. It is only from a world building perspective, but may just be just too specific, nitpicky, and influenced to my own views on what the pokémon world is.
For example, things like death by cancer, and referring to the schools as 'middle school' and 'high school'. That's a bit too much of a parallel to the real world, and could have been conceived more creatively. It's things like this that very much wreck my willing suspension of disbelief.

However, back in time in the classic days this sort of thing happened a lot too; certain bits from the original pokédex entries sounded outrageous, as well as that very phrase "The Lightning American", which you well attempted to damage control.

I sat in one of the chairs in the hospital lobby, waiting for a doctor or somebody to tell me if Gea had pulled through or not.

I'd come in with several other guys who all looked a lot tougher than I did, all of us helping to carry Gea into the hospital. The doctors and nurses had been starting to ask questions – and then they saw her, her charred, battered body and realized whatever was to be done to help her had to be done now.

So far, nobody had come up to ask me what had happened. Not that they knew I had any more to do with it than anyone else, but I was sure some nurse or some detective was making the rounds, asking everyone who'd helped bring her in if they'd seen anything or been involved somehow. The only thing anyone had asked me was if Sewer, who'd followed me from the Tower, was okay, so I'd eventually had to withdraw him to keep the questions at bay.

Understandably, I was dreading the prospect of eventually being questioned on my involvement with what had happened to Gea, as I realized I inevitably would be, since the guys who'd helped would remember I'd been rushing out of the Burned Tower carrying her, not to mention I wasn't any kind of local to Ecruteak.

So predictably, a nurse accompanied by a detective approached me after a time.

"This is one of the men who brought Ms. Henderson into the hospital?" asked the detective, pointing to me. I assumed "Ms. Henderson" was Gea.

"Yes," replied the nurse.

"Thank you," answered the detective, now turning to me. "I'm Detective Eric Leeds with the Ecruteak Police, and I've been asking around about what happened to a Miss Gea Henderson. Now, I've heard a lot of people – the staff, a large number of locals – have all described someone who looks a lot like you as appearing to be there when whatever happened to the victim happened. None of them were able to give me a name, however, so who are you?"

I stood up. I took a deep breath and said, "My name is Josh Surge, and yes, I was there when Gea – Ms. Henderson, I guess – was injured."

"Can I see some ID?" asked the detective.

I showed him my ID, put it away once he nodded, then he asked, "Now you said you were there when she was injured?"

"That's right," I replied.

After I failed to elaborate, Detective Leeds asked more pointedly, "And how was she injured, Mr. Surge?"

"Um… mostly by me and my Raticate," I replied honestly.

A long pause. "And you'd better have a first-class reason why you did that," said the detective.

"Well, believe it or not, she was treasure hunting in the Burned Tower, and I was there because I was feeling sorry for myself after losing to Morty, and she found what she thought was an ancient sword that'd be worth a lot of money, but it was really a Honedge. So it possessed her when she grabbed it, and then me and my Raticate, Sewer—"

"You named your Raticate 'Sewer'?" questioned Leeds.

"Why, is that a problem for you?" I asked heatedly.

"Not at all. Continue."

"Well, so, me and Sewer, we had to get her and the Honedge separated, so the way we ended up doing that was by attacking both her and the Honedge. I had Sewer use Thunderbolt and Thunder…"

"You taught a Raticate Thunder and Thunderbolt?"

"Yeah."

"Are you related to Lt. Surge over in Kanto?"

Took you that long to think of that, huh? I thought. "Nice deduction, Detective. Yes, I am; I'm his son."

The detective harrumphed at my sarcastic tone and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Well, I'm gonna have to take you down to the station while I check out your story, because I haven't heard anyone besides you mention a Honedge."

"Well, no one else was there."

"What, you beat it down so bad that it didn't pursue?"

"Probably. But I also threw a Poké Ball at it, so if you want to do some field work, maybe go to the Burned Tower and look any Poké Balls lying on the ground."

"Maybe I will. But I'm still going to need you to come with me."

"Fine." I followed him straight to the local police station, where I sat in a holding cell for about twenty minutes while Sherlock went to Burned Tower and discovered a Honedge inside a Poké Ball. He came back after about that long and told me, "Well, Mr. Surge, we did find the Poké Ball you said you threw at the scene, with a Honedge inside. Of course, that's not about to get you off the hook."

"Of course not," I said resignedly.

"Because who's to say that's not just an irrelevant Honedge you caught and that you didn't just come up with a cover story featuring it?" asked Leeds rhetorically.

I'm to say that's not what happened, I thought in reply.

"So we'll have to wait until Ms. Henderson comes around and get her testimony before I can decide what to do with you," said the detective. He waited for a moment to see if I had anything to say (I didn't), then left.

Of course we'd both left unasked the obvious question: "What if she dies?"

Hopefully that won't need an answer, I thought.

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The next day Detective Leeds came back with some regular cop by his side. The regular cop got set on unlocking the cell door while Leeds explained what had happened since our last visit together: "Well, you got lucky. Ms. Henderson pulled through and, thanks to nearby Blissey and an emergency Audino brought in from Goldenrod, was well enough to testify. She corroborated your story about the sword, and says the last thing she remembers before apparently blacking out was grabbing the sword handle and seeing a blue ribbon move on its own and kinda… 'grab' her wrist. Then the next thing she said she remembers was being on the ground, in a completely different spot, in a great deal of pain. And despite fading in and out, she remembers you helping to carry her to safety, although she, like everyone else besides you, remembers nothing about any Honedge. Although I will allow that it's probably safe to assume the sword and the Honedge are one in the same." The cop finally slid the cell door open, and Leeds tossed a Poke Ball in toward me, which I managed to catch. "In the light of this evidence, and the injury you received that I noticed on your left arm, I've decided you weren't totally trying to feed me a bunch of crap. That ball holds your Honedge, by the way. I'll let you keep it."

"Thanks," was all I could manage to give this prick as I walked out of my cell.

"Have a nice day," added the detective in an insincere tone as I walked away.

"Go rot," I muttered under my breath as I headed up to the main lobby of the station.

I walked out the door and headed straight for the hospital. I asked that nurse at the desk if I could see Gea Henderson. "Detective Leeds told me that she'd recovered," I added.

"Are you family?" asked the nurse.

"No," I replied.

"Then I'll have to call up and see if Ms. Henderson wants to see you," explained the nurse. She picked up the phone, made the call, put the phone down, and told me, "She'll let you see her."

I thanked the nurse and headed up stairs. It wasn't too difficult to find her, actually: there weren't any other patients playing classical piano on the upstairs floor. And as much as I'd like to tell you I went up there and identified the piece instantly as "Piano Suite No. 57" by Asakamo Junichi (or one of those guys), I just walked over to Gea and asked gently, "How are you doing?"

"Better," was all she said.

"You definitely look a lot better than last time I saw you," I commented after a pause, speaking a nominee for Understatement of the Year.

"Thanks," replied Gea. She still hadn't stopped playing the piano in case you're wondering.

I glanced behind me into the room where she'd been staying and nearly jumped in surprise. There was an Alakazam levitating, a Tropius chewing… something, and a Delcatty napping on the floor.

"Impressive team," I complimented, not quite able to take my eyes off her team.

"Thanks," said Gea once again, now stopping her piano playing. I turned my head toward her and saw she'd turned to me. "It took me some time to assemble even just these three Pokémon. Arlene there – napping, as usual – was my first, as a Skitty. I didn't catch Kolta there until I managed to teach Arlene Thunder Wave so that the annoying thing didn't just Teleport away, and then I managed to find Peel there so that I could have a Pokémon that could fly me and my team around." She seemed to run out of things to say suddenly. "Well, that's the story behind my squad."

"Well, say hello to the fourth member of your squad," I said, holding out the Poké Ball.

Her brow creased. "What's this?" she asked, confused.

"It's the Honedge that possessed you," I explained.

Or not, since Gea seemed completely floored by the idea. "I was possessed by a Honedge?" she asked, shocked.

"What, the detective didn't tell you and you didn't put it together?" I asked, confused myself now. "You touch a sword hilt, a blue ribbon snares your wrist, you black out, and wake up in immense pain? I had to take a Poké Ball out of your bag to catch the Honedge once I got it away from you."

"Well, thank you for that," said Gea gratefully.

"Don't thank me just yet," I cautioned. "I'm sorta the reason you're in the hospital: me and Sewer, my Rattata-turned-Raticate, had to attack the Honedge, and you sort of turned into collateral damage. I… I felt terrible about it…" I finished, my voice trailing off.
Gea stared at me, considering my words. After what felt like a long while, she spoke, saying, "Well, I guess I have to forgive you, since if you hadn't done what you could, I guess I'd have been walked into town by that Honedge and these superstitious hicks around here might've straight up killed me."

I internally sighed in relief. She had accepted it, even if for the wrong reason. "So, do you want this Honedge?" I asked.

"No," she replied, waving the ball away as if she hoped it might disappear by magic. "I don't want something that managed to possess me hanging right on my belt. You can keep it if you want."

"I guess I will," I said after a moment. Then after another moment, I added, "I think I'll name it Excalibur."

"Clever," commented Gea dryly. "A totally original name for it."

I laughed. "Yeah, maybe a bit overused," I agreed. Neither of us said anything for a moment, then I asked, "So when are they releasing you?"

"What, you see a hospital gown on me? I can go anytime, really. I just… kinda wanted to talk to you. You were the last person I remembered seeing, so… I don't know. I guess I assumed you'd come find me," said Gea.
Another pause. "So… what are you going to do now?" I asked with a trace of longing in my voice.

She got it, and shook her head slowly. "Josh, Josh, Josh," she chided. "What do you think this is?" She made a wide motion with her hands, to indicate seemingly the whole world as this. "This isn't some movie where you're the knight in shining armor who gets the beautiful woman by your side to accompany you on your travels. I really did only want to talk to you for the reason I said I did. And if you really, in all sincerity want to know what I plan to do now, I'm probably going to make my way home after this near-death experience. I'm actually from Hoenn – Mauville, if you care to know – so I'll be going back to familiar territory. Without you." Pause. "It was nice to see the man who saved my life, though. Bye, Josh."

"Bye, Gea," I replied. I stood and stared at a potted plant while Gea recalled her team and left the hospital.

A couple minutes after she left, I looked down at the Poké Ball in my hand. I was now the proud owner of a Honedge I'd dubbed Excalibur. Yippee, I thought. I briefly wondered if I should rechallenge Morty, but quickly put it out of my mind: Excalibur would be weak to Morty's Ghost attacks, and while Sewer might have abruptly become much stronger, I knew that Morty likely had a much stronger Pokémon than that Gastly in his party.

I walked out of the hospital. I looked left and right; Gea was indeed long gone. I sighed briefly, reflecting on the "girlfriends" from school who hadn't cared a lick about me. Then finally, along comes a substantive woman my own age…

I shook off the wave of self-pity and started south. Next stop: Goldenrod. And the only route there was to just keep on going.

When are we gonna see the next chapter? Argh! You are making me restless. This is one of my favourite fanfics, and don't make me wait for eternity for the next part, please!

nishthelegendarytrainer said:

When are we gonna see the next chapter? Argh! You are making me restless. This is one of my favourite fanfics, and don't make me wait for eternity for the next part, please!

Click to expand...

I'm with what he said. Just because threads here in the Writing section don't get too much posting activity doesn't mean your story isn't being read or enjoyed.

It very much is. Do take this as words of encouragement.

"WOW this took forever to get churned out" - every single fan of this fic.

Apologies for that.

Chapter 8

Me and Sewer, now once again released, made our way south along Route 37. It was mostly uneventful, although we did see a herd of wild Mareep and Flaaffy being led by Ampharos as we climbed down the plateaus along the most direct path south. There was another path that had no plateaus, but it looked wilder than the plateau path. Not to mention that, in my experience, the more vertical an area, the fewer wild Pokémon to try to attack you.

We made our way down to Route 36, and I have to say that short of Viridian Forest, I've never seen so many trees in one place. I could barely see the path as we made our way through the trees, but I was far less worried about getting lost than I was of a wild Pokémon jumping us because there were too many trees to be able to see it.

We circled around an Ariados' spider web, the eight-legged Pokémon waiting patiently for less-wary prey to walk into its trap. We spotted a few Silcoon, Cascoon, Metapod, and Kakuna on our path down the trail, awaiting their inevitable evolution. I could manage to see through the trees into the clearing when I saw the Ursaring start coming.

The first thought that went through my mind was how to me and Sewer could hope to subdue the thing – okay, that's a lie, the first thought that went through my mind was, "Oh crap! we are so dead O.O" or something to that effect. After my brain started functioning again, then I thought about how to take it down. My first thought was to use Thunder Wave on it, but then I remembered that thanks to Guts and Quick Feet, that would only make it stronger and faster. That made me think of how fast it was anyway; I remembered learning that it was actually relatively slow until it built up momentum.

Until it builds up momentum, I thought as the bear built up steam and came rushing at me. A light bulb came on in my brain.

And right as the thing was almost on top of me, I dashed to my right, down toward Route 36 and yelled, "Sewer, run! Run!"

As the snarling, roaring Ursaring turned its red-tracked eyes on him, Sewer didn't need to be told twice as he raced away from the beast as fast as his tiny pink feet could carry him. I ran about thirty feet, then turned around to see where the Ursaring was. It was after us again, but this time was moving a bit slower in order to weave around the trees, allowing us to gain ground on it. I turned my head back around saw we were approaching the end of the tree line. We cleared the woods, then I turned back again and saw the Ursaring was far behind us. It seemed to know it too, since it stopped and glowered at us. And then it Roared. Not the wild, onomatopoeic cry, but the actual move.
Some of the leaves on the trees were shaken off. Some of the skinnier trees shook. Sewer used Quick Attack and took off. I heard the wind rush by as he ran, so I turned to where I'd seen him last. I was shocked when I didn't see him at all… and then I realized that was because there a ten-foot drop right in front of me.

Crap, I thought.

There was no chance I could stop before going over the cliff. On the other hand, it was highly unlikely a ten-foot fall would kill me, or even injure me too badly. So I just jumped off the top of the cliff.

I tried to jump short so I'd hit the grass and not the path. I succeeded – mostly. I hit the grass, but twisted my ankle, lost my balanced, and fell down in the dirt path, barely managing to get my arm under my head so my face didn't get busted. I stood up limply after a moment, with Sewer sniffing me, nudging me, apparently urging me to get up. He, of course, had seen the drop-off before I had and had reached it with, um, much more grace than I.

I dusted myself off a bit, then backed up into the grass and sat down again to nurse my ankle. I sat there, rubbing it for a while, and after a few minutes, a group of middle-school boys came walking by.

Predictably, they decided to talk to me.

"Hey, you hurt your ankle there, mister?" asked one of them.

"Yeah," I replied.

"How'd you do that?" asked another as the group slowly trundled by.

"I fell off the cliff up here," I said, pointing up.

A wave of snickering ran through the crowd. "What, you didn't see it?" asked a third one, sounding like he could barely contain his laughter.

I did at the last second, I thought sarcastically. But I replied, "Well, when you're getting chased by an Ursaring, and you've got a choice between being dinner or falling ten feet… well, the decision's pretty much already made."

The group, which had mostly made its way by me, stopped. "There was an Ursaring chasing you?" asked another boy, sounding awestruck, like being chased by an Ursaring and getting away alive was the coolest thing ever.

I paused for a moment. I could have some fun with this, I thought. Maybe tell a good, ol'-fashioned tall-tale. "Yeah, that Ursaring was right on my heels," I answered proudly.

"How'd you get away?" asked the second kid.

"Well, Ursaring may be fast—" Or not, I thought, "—but they sure aren't smart," I replied. "Dumb brute thought I'd just stand there and let him run me down. But I started jukin' and jivin', and that Ursaring didn't have a chance at catching me. I was running circles around him so bad, I just climbed into a tree while he was still trying to see straight."

"And then what?" asked another awestruck twelve-year-old.

"Well, if you stop interrupting me I might tell you," I reprimanded. A sullen silence fell over the crowd as I continued, "Then the Ursaring threw itself at the trunk of the tree, shaking it. After a couple times of that, I realized that even I wouldn't be able to hang onto the branch, so I jumped out of the tree and landed on its back. I rode him like a Rapidash as he ran around in circles for about thirty seconds, then I jumped off his back and raced for the cliff. The Ursaring gave chase, but he didn't wanna go over the cliff too, so he just roared after me in frustration. That's why I turned my ankle."

"Whoa, that is so cool!" said one of the kids after a moment.

"Well, that's what I do," I said with a smile.

The group started off again, buzzing with conversation on my fabricated exploits. "Hey, where are you guys all headed to?" I asked.

"We're going to the National Park," said one. "It's Thursday, and there's a Bug-Catching Contest today."

"Hm," I replied as I thought about this. "Thanks for the info."

"No problem," said the kid, and the group continued on out of sight.

I nursed my ankle for a few more minutes, then stood up and started walking in the direction those middle-schoolers had gone. It didn't take long for the gatehouse to the National Park to appear: the structure had an ugly orange roof that looked like it might be made out of cheap plastic that stood in stark contrast to the shiny, polished stainless steel walls holding it up.

There was an armed ranger standing in front of the gatehouse. The emblem on his shirt identified him as working for the Johto National Police. When I came by to enter the gatehouse, he stopped me and said, "You'll need to put your Raticate in its Poké Ball."

"Why?" I asked in protest.

"We don't want it to potentially concern the other people in this complex," the ranger explained.

"'Complex'?" I repeated, surprised. "What else is in here, beside a route to the Park?"

"Well, you can actually bypass the park entirely to get to Route or go the Pokéathlon Dome," said the ranger.

"Oh, I've heard of that," I replied, searching my brain for the dim memory of the place.

The ranger didn't catch it. "Well, alright then," he said.

I stooped down next to Sewer. "Sorry, Sewer, I'm gonna have to put you in your ball," I said softly. I pulled out the appropriate Poke Ball and withdrew Sewer.

"You named your Raticate 'Sewer'?" questioned the ranger.

"Yeah, is that a problem?" I asked venomously.

"Not at all," answered the ranger, seemingly taken aback a little by my tone. Just what I'd intended.

"Glad to hear it," I said as I entered the complex.

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I wandered my way through the complex over to the "real" National Park gatehouse. It's actually possible to bypass the entire park within the complex, as there's a section taken up largely by a food court that wraps around the southeastern corner of the park.

As for the gatehouse itself, it looked like it'd been there long before the rest of the complex and had simply been refurbished when the complex surrounding it had been built. And currently it was jam-packed with middle-schoolers and other archetypal nerds out for the thrice-weekly Bug-Catching Contest.

I made my way into the group. The park attendant walked out from behind the counter, walked over to the door that led out to the Park, and said to the group, "Okay, I'm going to need everyone here to sign up on this sheet so that we can keep track of who all's in this contest."

We all lined up to sign our names on the sheet in turn. While I waited in line, I noticed that there was a pretty blonde girl about my own age in line. As she left the line after signing her name, I watched her walk off to join the group forming, a group that for the most part looked like it was ready to bust the gatehouse doors down. She was wearing a reddish-pink T-shirt and denim shorts. After I signed my name, I casually walked over to her general area. I stood near her, acting like I didn't notice her (which, in that sea of geeky middle-schoolers and nerds, would be impossible), but then turned to her and asked her in a deadpan, "Are you lost?"

She looked at me, startled, as if noticing me for the first time (which, in that sea of geeky middle-schoolers and nerds, is completely understandable :/). "What?" she asked warily.

"I mean, you, uh, look a little out of place," I replied, looking around at the cast of people to highlight my point.
She shrugged. "I don't care," she said indifferently. "I'm just here to catch a Pokémon." Pause. "Not pick up a date."
Aaaand there you go, I thought, turning back around. I held my back to her for a few seconds then turned back around and pointed out, "Well, it doesn't have to be like that. …Maybe I'm just wondering what a pretty girl is wanting to catch a gross Bug Pokémon for."

"Butterfree aren't gross," replied the girl defensively.

"Butterfree? That's pretty specific. Tell me more," I requested with a sarcastically innocent smile.

"Well, I guess I could settle for Caterpie or Metapod, but I'm not very good at battling, so I'd really rather get Butterfree," said the girl.

"Why do you want a Butterfree at all if you're not going to battle with it?" I asked, puzzled.

She looked at me like I was an idiot, and I saw that I was when she replied, "I do Contests."

And then it all made sense to me. Butterfree would probably make a really good Contest Pokémon, with all the shiny moves it could pull, I guess? I thought. I wasn't really into Contests, frankly, although I did have to grudgingly admire anyone who had the artistic acumen to coordinate all the routines. "Oh," was I all I could say at first. "I, uh, I didn't realize that."

"Obviously," noted the girl tartly. Before I could say anything else (because really, what else was there to say?), she asked pointedly, "So why are you here, looking to catch 'gross Bug Pokémon'?"

"Well, uh, I'm hoping to challenge the Kanto-Johto League next fall," I replied. "And I only have two Pokémon, so I was hoping to catch another here."

"Anything specific? Like I had?" she asked.

"No, just something that seems pretty good," I replied. "Maybe like Scyther or Pinsir or something."

"I guess they look tough, but wouldn't use them in a Contest," she commented.

Well, I wouldn't use Butterfree in a real fight, I thought bitterly in retort. However, I wisely refrained from saying it out loud, and instead changed the subject. "You know, talking about challenging the League next fall reminded that it's getting around November, but it's not really all that cold," I noted.

"Well, we're pretty near the coast, so it's not going to get freezing or anything, even in January," answered the girl.

"Yeah," I conceded. "And—"

Whatever I was about to say was lost as the attendant finally returned to the front of the group and said, "Attention, everyone! We finally have everyone signed. We'll distribute a Park Ball to everyone for use during the Contest. Please note if you are caught using more than one Pokémon during the Contest, you will be disqualified. Also, you may not use any Balls besides the Park Ball we give you to catch Pokémon. Further, this will be the only Park Ball you get, so use it wisely." Pause. "Does everyone understand the rules?"

"Yes," we chorused.

"Good," said the attendant, nodding. "I'll hand each of you a Park Ball on your way out the door, and then you'll be on your own. Good luck."

I turned to the girl and said, "Hope you catch that Butterfree."

She seemed startled by this. "Thanks," she said after a moment. "Hope you catch some tough Pokémon too."

"Thanks," I said after a terse nod.

I passed by the attendant and he handed me the Park Ball. "Don't use it all up in one place," said the attendant.

"Funny," I commented dryly as I pushed out the door.

I entered on a stone walkway that went around a huge swath of wilderness right in the center of park. Well, huge relatively speaking, anyway; in any case, it was a lot bigger than I would've generally expected to encounter in a park. But knowing I wasn't going to catch anything by standing there gawking at it, I decided to just rush headlong into it.

Well, sort of, and after I'd sent out Sewer for protection when I eventually found trouble in the form of a Bug Pokémon. Then I rushed in with my head up and watching to make sure I didn't unsuspectingly run into an Ariados' nest or something.

As we walked through, I looked for tough Bug Pokémon to catch. I saw a few Galvantula up in the trees, but they seemed to know the drill and were staying up there… not to mention I figured that even if Sewer could take one of them, they would probably tear him up. I noted that all the tough Bugs remained frustratingly hidden, leaving mostly Burmy, Wurmple, Caterpie, and the like exposed, which, of course, nobody really wanted.

I found trouble a couple minutes later. A group of middle-schoolers had found a Scyther and decided to gang up on it with their Joltik, Wurmple, Weedle, and Sewaddle, but they weren't having much luck. In fact, it looked like the Scyther was beating up on them. It was zipping around the battlefield despite the uneven numbers like it was just a game to it. And every time one of the nerds' Bugs spat a String Shot the Scyther's way, it either evaded it or cut itself free in about three seconds. It had gotten to the point where a couple of the trainer's Bugs had fainted, and the Scyther was going after the trainers themselves, nearly decapitating one that I saw.

All right, enough of this, I thought.

"Sewer, Thunderbolt him," I said.

Sewer leapt forward and launched a yellow bolt of electricity that easily found its mark right on Scyther. The blade-armed bug seemed quite surprised by the attack and for once was slow to react. "Hyper Fang it," I commanded. Sewer promptly sunk his teeth into the Scyther, but the bug managed to dodge enough to merely… have his leg nearly bitten off. Still, the Scyther attempted to fly off. Sewer then, of his own accord, leapt and bit its wing, crippling it and forcing it down from its escape flight. The trainers' Bugs were then finally able to corral the Scytehr with their String Shots, grounding it for good. I pulled out my Park Ball and tossed it the Scyther's way. The Ball's beams tore the Scyther from its bonds and into the Poké Ball. Seconds later, it was mine. I picked up the Park Ball, put it on my belt, and started to walk away.

"Hey, that's not fair," cried one of the middle-schoolers.

"Yeah, we put all that work into taking that thing down and you just come in and walk off with it?" demanded another, backed by a chorus of approval.

I was already tired of it. "Okay, look, you little booger-eaters," I reprimanded. "If I hadn't come along, you guys probably would've gotten yourselves killed. I mean, that Scyther about took one of your heads off. Then instead of not having a Scyther, you wouldn't have a head." I paused. Silence. "And besides, when you had gotten it beaten down, how would you have decided who got it anyway?"

"I would," said about four of them at the same time. All the kids then looked at each other, as if offended.
"I rest my case," I concluded, and walked back toward the gatehouse.

What I hadn't mentioned was that the Scyther obviously needed medical attention after the pounding Sewer had given it. Would any of those kids have thought of that? Not likely, I thought as I entered the gatehouse.

"Finished with the Contest?" asked the attendant.

"Yeah," I replied. I took the Park Ball off my belt and tossed it to the attendant. "The Scyther in there needs some healing, so if you could get that done, or at least tell me where the nearest Pokémon Center is, that'd be great."

"No problem, I might be able to call a nurse in here," said the attendant. He picked up the phone, basically repeated what I'd said into it, paused for a moment, and said, "Thanks," then put it down. He looked back at me and told me, "They sent a nurse up."

Sure enough, a few minutes later, a nurse came in the door. The attendant stood up and handed her the Park Ball.
The nurse released the Scyther within and surveyed the wreckage. Then she sent out her own Audino and had her Pokémon use Healing Pulse on the Scyther, and within a couple minutes and a few of my fellow contestants returning to the gatehouse as well, the Scyther was good as new… much to the disappointment of said contestants. The nurse returned the Scyther to the attendant as she said, "There you go."

"Thank you," said the attendant, who promptly stared at me with narrowed eyes as the nurse walked out the door, but I still didn't say "thank you".

Within about forty-five minutes, all the contestants had returned to the gatehouse and handed the attendant their Pokémon, including the girl I'd spoken to before the contest. The attendant had then taken them all back out into the Park for several minutes before returning. He called out everyone's name and gave them the Pokémon that they'd caught in the Park. He then returned to the front of our group.

"Now, the moment you've been waiting for: the contest winners," announced the attendant. "In third place: Kelly, who caught a Butterfree. Kelly, come up and take your prize, which is this sack of assorted berries."

Turns out this was the girl I'd spoken to earlier, unsurprisingly. She strode up to the attendant took the sack of berries and hung around the gatehouse-complex entrance-exit, apparently to wait out the results for whatever reason.

"In second place, Brandon, who caught a Wormadam. Brandon , come up and take your prize of 100 Pokédollars and one Sitrus Berry."

Some smug, twenty-something guy with glasses ambled up to the attendant, took his cash prize and his berry, bowed to the crowd, and left the gatehouse.

"And in first place, with the Scyther he caught, is Josh!" announced the attendant.

Well, that wasn't that surprising, considering second- and third-place. Still, I was glad to win, and wondered what the first-place prize was.

"Josh, come up and take your prize of 250 Pokédollars, two Sitrus Berries, and a Great Ball!" called out the attendant.

I walked up to the front where the attendant was slightly entranced – I was going to have money! and a Poké Ball! and berries! – and received my prizes from the attendant. I shoved the cash in my pocket, put the Great Ball in a side pocket (since I happened to have a Tauros egg in my bag), and simply carried the berries in my hand in the sack they came in. I smiled for the crowd as I went to walk out the gatehouse door and the attendant announced the consolation prize for all contestants.

Unexpectedly, I was hooked by Kelly on the way out the door into the complex. "So I guess you caught the tough Pokémon you wanted," she said as we simultaneously pushed into the complex.

Wondering why she was bothering to talk to me and wanting to get to Goldenrod soon to challenge Whitney, I stopped, turned to her, and simply replied, "And I guess you caught the Butterfree you wanted."

Awkward pause. "What, you don't wanna continue our chat about the weather?" replied Kelly with a touch of sarcasm.

"How about this: I'll weather all obstacles I have to win the Kanto-Johto League next year," I wisecracked. Before she could reply, I asked, "So what are you gonna do now?"

"I'll probably head to Goldenrod to train for the Contest there," answered Kelly after some thought.

"Funny, I'm going to be heading there to take on Whitney," I noted. Pause. "Well, maybe I'll see you there."

"Yeah, maybe," said Kelly as I turned and started walking south toward the Route 35 Goldenrod side exit. I turned back, but she didn't say anything else as I kept walking.

I wondered how it would feel to leave the world, and especially Luke, speechless.