Thomas dragged his tired limbs over to the Pewter city’s Gym. He had spent the past few days working tirelessly to level his Pidgey until it evolved into a Pidgeotto. Now he felt confident in facing the Rock gyms leader, Brock.

A high level pokemon that was the antithesis of Brock’s rock pokemon, would surely net him a Boulder badge.

He had to endure the berating he received from officer Jenny when he emerged from Viridian forest, about how dangerous it was and how much unnecessary risk he had taken. But honestly, listening to her blasting his ears off was considered relaxation, compared to what he had experienced back there.

That place, that from now on shall not be named, was a bloody warzone! He had been trapped in there for what felt like days, constantly fearing for his life. The fearsome Caterpie and equally fearsome Butterfree had actually been actively hunting him! Even the Metapods were dangerous! A dangerous Metapod! What had this world come too!

He had endured some much. Employed hit and run guerilla tactics. Constantly hid in shrubbery to evade detection. Even with his Pidgey’s superior type advantage, they had given him hell. He had used so many healing potions on his poor pokemon that he had started to fear it might somehow develop an immunity to the stuff.

But that was over now. He was here and he would reap the fruits of his labour with his very first gym badge! His efforts and hardships had not been in vain.

Thomas was about to push the door to the gym open, when he noticed it was locked. Curious.

He noticed a sign posted in the window.

“Apologies all. I was recently reminded about the endless journey towards pokemon mastery and my own folly and conceitedness in this journey. I have gone on a journey of mastery and to find myself, and do not know when I shall return. Best of luck to you all. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.”

Inconvenience! You can’t enter the pokemon league without all eight badges! Even the gym in Viridian city had been closed! How was he supposed to become a master at this rate? He almost died travelling through Viridian forest. Almost died!

What the fuck is wrong with these Gym leaders?!

Robin and I, finally left the pokecenter. Our attention was immediately drawn to a man causing a huge commotion in front of the Pewter gym. He was kicking and screaming on the ground like a child throwing a tantrum and for some reason aggressively pulling entire fistfulls of hair out of his head.

“Is- is he okay?”

You’re asking me?

I got close enough to read the notice on the gym window, while trying to remain a decent distance away from the crazy man.

“What does it say?” Robin asked me cautiously.

I regarded her with one raised eyebrow. “It says that we should leave- Now.”

Robin and I made our way back to where we first met, mostly in silence and definately walking this time. She did not have running shoes after all.

Along the way she asked me if I knew why Brock had suddenly abandoned his responsibilities and left Pewter city. She had suspicions due to my behaviour.

“I may or may not kind of thrashed him, way worse than what I did you.”

She gave me a blank look. “But Brock is really strong…”

“Nope, not really.”

“Even so…” she sounded doubtful of my ability to outright thrash him, how rude! “I don’t see how that would make him upset enough to leave like that.”

“I basically one-shotted all of his pokemon.” It wasn’t entirely true, I had mucked around with unnecessary attacks first, underestimating just how much of an advantage I actually held back there. But based on the outcome and output from Bulby, in hindsight, I am quite confident I could have done exactly that.

“Ooooh…” It seemed some understanding of the situation had dawned on her. “So basically you were mean to him.” She gave me a vicious grin.

I wanted to retort, but honestly didn’t know what to say without digging a hole for myself any further. “I suppose”, I relented with a sigh.

A little further on a boy bitched about the tunnel from Cerulean being tiring. Guess the next stop is Cerulean city then?

Another boy ran up to us later on:

“Oh, wow, that’s the boulder badge! You got it from Brock, didn’t you?”

How could he know that? I wasn’t some fool wearing the badge out in the open and inviting team rocket to attack me, it was inside my backpack!

“Brock is cool. He’s not just tough. People like and respect him.” The boy continued his monologue.

Yeah, not anymore they don’t, I smirked.

“I want to become a gym leader like him.”

“It just so happens, kid, I believe there is a vacancy!’ I gave him a grin and a thumbs up, that left him looking confused, and Robin giving me a difficult expression.

Finally we found the entrance to the cave of Mount Moon that should take us, eventually, to Cerulean city. And judging by the sound of that color, probably the water gym.

But before that there was a fucking pokecenter right here next to the damn entrance, if only I’d known! Actually now that I have a travelling companion, and the need for food, the trip back to Pewter city had actually been necessary, regardless.

Since our pokemon were still in tip top shape, I was about to give the pokecenter a miss entirely, when I remembered something important.

“We actually have something I need to do here.”

Robin looked at me curiously, but I simply waved her to follow me.

Inside the pokecenter, an old man sitting down at a table, rattled on about how Team Rocket was attacking Cerulean’s and causing lots of trouble. I ignored him, but made a mental note that I would soon be facing a lot of poison pokemon from those clowns in the upcoming journey.

I instead, approached a hunched over old man skulking in the far corner of the pokecenter.

“Hello there, laddie! Have I got a deal just for you!”

“I’ll let you have a secret pokemon - a Magikarp - for just 500P!”

Hahaha! Finally!

“So, you’ll buy it, am I right?”

“Sure thing geyser, sure thing!”

“Ben.” Robin leaned over and whispered in my ear. “I think you’re busy getting scammed. This guy is really suspicious. And isn’t Magikarp like a really weak pokemon? Isn’t 500P a lot for it?”

She launched her concerns one after the other. I paid the old man and received my pokeball, a level 5 Magikarp.

We left the pokecenter and made our way for the cave. Along the way, I ordained to depart my infinite wisdom upon my travelling companion.

“Firstly, he is the only person I know of that sells a Magikarp. Secondly, even though I can always catch one later with a fishing rod instead of paying 500P for this one, I’d rather spend the time until then training this one up. Magikarp’s are a bitch train, because like you said, they are really weak!”

“Then why-”

“I’m not finished. When Magikarp reaches a certain level, it evolves into Gyarados.” I paused for a moment to let that sink in.

“Gyarados?!” She looked genuinely shocked and I really enjoyed the expression of her cute wide eyes about to pop right out of her head.

“Yes.”

“You’re messing with me!”

“Nope.”

“That’s incredible. That’s a really famous pokemon. Although not famous in a good way.” She seemed a bit troubled by that. Likely some Gyarados shaped natural disasters she’d been hearing about.

Also it was appalling how lousy and poorly educated the trainers of this world were!

Sigh. What I wouldn’t give for a water stone right about now.

“How are you going to train it? I’m pretty sure all it does is flop around uselessly on land. Even in water I’m quite sure it doesn’t have any attacks.”

“Any pokemon participating in a battle share experience, even if that participation is limited to just tagging in another pokemon. So I’ll just swap him out each time to get his cut of the XP.”

“I see. Sounds troublesome” She sympathised.

“It is, but it will be worth it in the end.”

It was indeed going to be troublesome. Two low level pokemon, one that can’t even attack, that need to be levelled. What's worse, I’m pretty sure the upcoming cave has a lot of poison pokemon. The rock and ground ones will be alright, but the poison ones are going to suck. I don’t exactly have a balanced team at the moment. Not to mention all the upcoming fights with Team Rocket and all their poison pokemon!

Ash always just threw Pickachu at them in the anime, for some reason? Instead of a nice rock type.

We then found ourselves at the entrance to the Mount Moon caves. Entering the inside was incredibly spacious and a little uncomfortably uniform as far as caves go, like someone had sculpted it out with a particular shape and structure in mind, almost like it was developed for a game, I mused sarcastically.

The first pokemon we encountered in the cave, was of course, a fucking Zubat, level 7.

“So how do you want to do this? We take turns on encounters? I’ve never actually pla- Ahem- done this with someone before.”

“Me neither, but that sounds fine.” She paused for a moment before adding, with a worried look on her face, “Just- you handle the trainer fights, okay? I am really not confident going up against other trainers for the time being.”

Maybe I accidentally scared her? Oh well. “Sure, sounds fine. Do you want to start with this one?”

“No, you go ahead”, she offered.

“Yay”. I mumbled under my breath.

I started off with my Magikarp. The Zubat as always, acted menacingly, but actually waited patiently. Game mechanics, what can I say. I Immediately sent out Nidoran. As expected, my uselessly flailing Magikarp was automatically unsummoned.

Guess you definitely can’t have more than one out at a time. I also idly wondered if Magikarp would eventually die of oxygen starvation if I left him out too much. Oh well, if he does die, then it’s straight to the sushi chopping block for you. After all, that old man did not have a spare sushiKarp to sell me, I know, I asked!

Zubat used leechlife, making me a tiny bit jealous. Of course a grass attack meant little to Nidoran. Then, Robin watched with fascination as I once again switched Nidoran out for my mainstay, Bulby. Letting Zubat get another free hit in. Although, I was confident in Bulby’s double overlevel for the area and the fact that he can just stock up on HP with some leech seed. We should be good for a while still.

After that it was one, two tackles and Zubat was down.

We carried on exploring and I found a TM for bullet seed. Although It had slightly less power than vinewhip, I considered learning it as it had much more PP, something that my workhorse Bulby constantly ran out of.

I checked with Robin, but she assured me I can keep all the loot, as she was just the tag along, basically free-loading off of my capabilities.

In the end I decided to hang on to the TM and only use it if Bulby was fresh out of PP, since vinewhip is slightly better, the issue of PP aside.

The next Zubat we encountered, went to Robin, or I should say Jigglypuff. It didn’t have too much trouble defeating it and if in a tight spot it could always sing its way out, even if that ability has a really shitty accuracy for some reason. Robin opted for not capturing the Zubat, said they were too creepy.

Repeating the same process, the next Zubat sent my Ivysaur to level 19.

I sighed. I never did like this cave in the game, it always felt way too dragged out.