I’d also gotten 80P for that fight. Why? I have no idea. What is this GTA? Beat up people for money?

I can’t remember what Bulbasaur’s stats are like compared to other pokemon but I did notice the stat boosts he got for that level up was pretty evenly spread out across the board. So he seems like a decent all rounder, but we will see.

“Excellent” Oak clapped, despite the damage to his lab? “If you win, you will earn prize money and your pokemon will grow.”

‘Prize money’ Is that what we’re calling mugging people. Well, no skin off my back.

“Battle other trainers and make your pokemon stronger.”

Gary looked up with a face somewhere between sulky and determined. “Okay, I’ll make my pokemon battle to toughen up!”

I could totally see him repeatedly picking a fight with a Dragonyte to this end.

“Ben! Gramps! Smell ya later!”

Dick.

After Gary stormed out, and Oak started cleaning up the mess we had made, I briefly eyeballed the Squirtle still on the table. Tempting as it was to snatch it, I suddenly felt a bit guilty. It was that nut job scientists last pokemon after all.

I once more sighed and left the building.

Once more outside, there was clearly little left for me to do here, so I would have to head on out to the next town. Pallet town, the river aside, only had one exit, a ‘bushy’ forest trail.

Approaching it, I passed Gary’s house on my right. I had a brief moment of regret, where I wish I had chosen Charmander. Could have set fire to his house that way. Maybe even burn off his stupid perfect hair.

Sigh.

I stepped onto the trail and into the brush. And the very first blood bush I step through, Bam! A Rattata jumps out and starts squeaking threateningly. Well as Threatengingly as a stupid little level 3 cannon fodder mouse can be.

Nonetheless I fumble for my pokeball and summon Bulbasaur. In a moment of clarity I realise that I had forgotten about Bulbasaur’s health. The moment however passes when I realise he has been topped up back to full HP. Must have been the encounter with Oak that did it.

I order Bulbasaur to go straight for tackles, this thing is likely too weak to waste turns on growls.

Bulbasar takes out a nasty chunk of the Rattata’s health, making it tumble across the ground, it responds with a tailwhip of its own, which lowers Bulbasaurs defence.

Such a waste, you’ll basically be dead before you can put that to use.

Another tackle followed by a response of tailwhip, just left me rolling my eyes. Forgot how stupid the ‘AI’ can be. Total random attacks. Another tackle and the Rattata was down for the count without even having landed a single blow.

Hmm. The Rattata was now just laying there in the grass, unconscious, on its back, with one of it’s paws still twitching. I don’t have any pokeballs on me to capture it. Not that I would want to catch that in the first place. I am not one of those collectors. No, it’s better to keep your pokemon ranks smaller and only keep the pokemon you actually intend to end up with on you. That way you don’t dilute or waste any of the XP you get on throwaways.

Or at least, that was my take on it.

Continuing on, another level 3 Rattata jumped out of the bushes a fair distance later. This one ended up getting one hit in before it went down, but in exchange it boosted my Bulbasaur to level 7.

Also, he learned leech seed, which is a really cool attack for general levelling. Its damage is low making it not so great against strong opponents, but the general bushwacking pokemon in the game are usually lower level than you. The drain from the leech seed can usually keep up with the lower levelled enemies damage output, keeping you topped up on health, no matter how long you go at it without a pokemon center.

Finally I came into a small clearing. There was an older woman here, for some reason. When I approached her...

“Hi I work at a pokemon mart. It’s part of a convenient chain selling all sorts of items.”

“Please visit us in Viridian city.”

“I know, I’ll give you a sample, here you go.” She handed me a basic health potion.

I said my thanks and left.

The woman is clearly a little batty in the head. Why the heck is she trying to advertise her shop in the middle of the forest. Besides the only thing this way is Pallet town, with it’s staggering population of 10. Although I wouldn’t be able to tell you where 5 of those people live to be honest.

I started following an actual road this time. Although for some reason the road kept running into either lines of trees or cliff faces, forcing me to go around, usually through bushes to get back to the ‘road’. The whole thing was kind of weird.

I did encounter one guy in the bushes who told me about how jumping down the cliffs was a shortcut back to pallet town.

And I was like, “you do you”.

I encountered a Pidgey, the bastard did quite a bit of damage to my Bulbasaur. Despite the fact that an early planted leech seed was regenerating me the whole time.

Further down the trail I had to deal with another level 3 Rattata. Naturally I kept up the first leech seed, then tackle tactic.

After that, with a very low on health Bulbasaur, I finally made it to Viridian city. Honestly, I was actually physically tired now. That journey had been much longer than it was in the game, it had literally taken me about an hour to get here.

The first thing I did in Viridian city was pop into the local pokecenter. I was highly expectant of my encounter with nurse joy. Honestly the nurse uniform is a fetish of mine.

I was however a bit taken aback, when I realised that for some reason, nurse joy was an android? She smiled at me and helpfully healed my Bulbasaur by putting his pokeball in a machine that did exactly that.

An android huh. I guess that explains why there are so many of her.

After that surprising encounter I started talking to everyone I could find, since some of them might give useful shit or even ‘quests’.

After going around the town and eventually talking to everyone I could, the shopkeeper gave me some parcel to return to Professor Oak.

I was tempted for a moment to see what was inside, but I didn’t want to risk messing the ‘story’ up. Who knows what would happen then.

So I painfully returned to Pallet town. I actually did jump down those bloody cliffs all the way back as a shortcut. Some of them were a little on the scary side.

Finally reaching Oak, he gushed over my Bulbasaur’s progress and how I am such an amazing trainer. No I’m not making this up, the guy actually said this to me!

I then handed Oak his parcel. After that a slightly more civil Gary pitched up and Oak gave us each a pokedex and some pokeballs, because… I guess it was time?

He then proceeded to launch into a tirade about how you catch them. But the gist of it was, find some innocent, unexpecting pokemon in the wild, beat them until they are black and blue and then throw a hard metal ball at their face to finish the job.

He also left a parting comment about how we should fill the pokedex with all the pokemon of the world because it was his dream to do so and he is too old now.

I mean, live your life through your kids much? Sheesh!

Of course Gary took up the challenge eagerly and then told me I am not needed for this endeavour, in typical Gary fashion.

I just gave him a blank tired look, “Knock yourself out bro.”

Also apparently his sister has town maps, because, reasons. And he was going to tell her not to give me one.

Well at least I got 5 pokeballs out of this.

I visited his sister regardless, in their house, and she gave me a map anyway. Maybe he forgot about his intended spitefulness?

I was about to begin my journey back to Viridian city when suddenly something unexpected happened.

‘Grrrrrrr’

It was not something that would normally be unexpected, but under these circumstances, it did raise some rather concerning questions.

I was getting hungry. Actually past that point already. What the heck was I supposed to eat? Why was I getting hungry inside a pokemon game in the first place?

Hmm. Well, what does a 10 year old kid normally do when he gets hungry? Actually in retrospect, I guess the answer is kind of obvious.

I popped into my house and greeted my in-game mom. She was still sitting in the exact same place I left her. Honestly if she wasn’t so gorgeous I’d be seriously creeped out by her.

“Ben, you look tired, you should tak-”

I had no patience right now for whatever spiel the game was going to throw at me and simply interrupted her, “Mom I’m actually really hungry.”

She froze mid sentence and looked really confused. And when I say froze, I mean, like a fucking buddah statue, froze. For a moment I was concerned I’d ‘broken character’ enough to glitch the bloody game.

After a while however, she seemed to ‘unstuck’ herself.

“Okay, just wait here, I’ll fix something up for you.” She smiled heartily before busying herself in the kitchen. A pan and plates and other items started appearing out of the way too small cupboard below the kitchen sink. Heck even food ingredients were coming out of there! I decided to look away just in case my brain suddenly exploded from the paradox or something.

I kept myself entertained browsing through my hopelessly empty pokedex, examined the map, played catch with Bulbasaurs pokeball, watched with fascination as it spun through the air each time.

My mom eventually returned with a plate filled with scrambled eggs, strangely colored fried bacon and some sausage. Honestly it smelled great and my stomach was on its hands and knees begging for the feast laid out before it.

“Thanks mom!” My mother simply smiled with that motherly love that only a mother could pull. It was actually really nice to have for once.

I eagerly grabbed my knife and fork, ready to dig in. Itadakimas!

Before I brought the sausage to my salivating mouth, I suddenly had a moment of clarity.

“Mom what’s in this sausage?”

“Why silly, meat of course?”

“Yeah I guessed, but what kind of meat?”

“What do you mean? It’s just meat.”

“Okay, let’s try this, where did you get the meat from?”

“Why, from the shop of course.”

“Setting aside that there is no shop in Pallet town, where did the shop get the meat from?”

“Hmm. Probably a farm?”

I could see where this was going. PG bullshit.

I simply put the thought out of my mind and popped the sausage into my mouth. I was either eating ground up Taurus, or maybe even Rattata fillet, who knew? I was too hungry to care.

But man was it delicious! The scrambled eggs, which if memory serves me correctly could be any one of the 151 pokemon’s eggs, the sausage, the bacon - do you even get pig pokemon?, it was all delicious. Each was carefully prepared with a unique palatable and complementary seasoning and taste that went far beyond the level of home cooking. This was the kind of shit you served in fancy restaurants! Was my mom actually some kind of fancy chef?

It got me really excited to try out some things in future, like maybe magikarp sushi! Or maybe kentucky fried pidgey! Heck if I remember correctly, a farfetch’d even comes with one of the ingredients needed to cook it!