It's Time to Jump! Jump 1: Chapter 4

Chapter 4: A New Journey

My first action after leaving the Indigo Plateau had been to go back home and have a week of vacation.

Why? Because I have a family here! I didn’t plan on staying in this world forever, but nothing said I couldn’t come back at some point, Jump-chan had mentioned a “Return” option in some supplement or something she hadn’t shown me yet.

I also visited Professor Oak to introduce Mi and Beta to him, they were Pokémon that had little and nothing that was known about them, after all. I also told him about Bruno’s Ultra Beast and that he may want to look at that one. That ate up about three days of extensive research on the professor’s part, not that he had been prodding Beta or been intrusive about it, just questions and physical exams. Same for Mi.

After that I set out from Viridian City to the border of Johto which lay past the entrance of the Pokémon League. Between the two points, at the border, lay “Cascade Cave”, which was often considered the main barrier between the two other than Mt. Silver, which lay in Johto but the most well known route to it was from Kanto.

It took me two days to traverse the route to Newbark Town, the home of Professor Elm and if I was right, the starting location of “Small Town” Origins that went to Johto rather than Kanto. The town wasn’t that huge, obviously, rather quaint in fact and the lab was on the modest side as far as I could tell. Much smaller than the one Professor Oak had.

“Hello? Professor Elm?” I called into the lab, wondering if the man was in or even if he was fine or not.

“Hah! I got you thief!” I was completely caught off-guard when Officer Jenny of all people got up in my face and cuffed me. “The thief always returns to the site of the crime, you petty Pokemon thief!” Declared the officer who seemed a bit younger than the ones I was used to, namely because she seemed a bit shorter but I may have grown since last I saw her family.

And for reference, they’re all extended family.

“Officer Jenny? What do you mean the thief returned?” Asked a voice as a mousey, middle-aged man in glasses looked out of an adjacent room. “Wait, officer Jenny? That girl isn’t the thief, I told you it was a young boy with red hair!” Exclaimed the professor, clearly distressed by the fact that I had been falsely accused.

“Uh, is this a bad time?” I asked, as Officer Jenny uncuffed me.

“Sorry for that, one of the Starter Pokémon from the lab has been stolen, a Totodile. The other two have been taken already too so, if you’re here for a Starter I’m afraid I don’t have any.” He explained, apparently he hadn’t noticed Chuchu, weird.

“Ah, I’m not here for that professor. Professor Oak said you needed someone to take care of a Pokémon Egg?” I asked, which was one of the reasons I had come here.

“Oh! Then you’re Yellow? Sorry I kind of got stressed out so I forgot and, well, sorry to your Pikachu too.” He apologized but I waved him off.

After that was done I picked up the Egg and went on my way, interested in seeing the new Pokémon native to this Region.

As it turned out, Rattata and Pidgey are still the most common Pokémon of the year, Caterpy is also found everywhere so that’s a thing.

I saw some new ones, there were Sentret, which were cute, Spinarak, which are spiders so, okay? They also got Hoothoot, which are owls and I got Hedwig, and a rather displeased lot of hooting, presumably for not finding her in one year. To be fair, I was looking for her all over Kanto, and she did know I started there, right? Well, that gave me a Noctowl for my collection, the first Johto Pokémon I got.

Cherrygrove City isn’t much to talk about, it’s smaller than Viridian City and has no Gym, so no reason to stay around really. An elderly man did give me a Pokegear module for the Johto map, which was nice of him.

Near Violet City I finally caught another Johto Pokémon I liked, because she’s cute as a button! Whooly the Mareep is an Electric-type Pokémon and likes to rub her fluffy, sheep-like whool against me and Chuchu. She’s super soft and great to sleep against.

At Violet City I first went to Sprout Tower, no reason not to sight see, and used it as a training exercise for Whoolie who needed the training. The rest of my Pokémon quite frankly needed something on the scale of the Elite 4 to even feel any energy coming in.

Yeah, it didn’t help my team much to train there.

Next stop was the Gym where I found myself meeting someone who I would later find to be quite important, at least as far as my own travels were concerned.

Gold was a good-natured boy from Newbark Town who had chosen Cyndaquil as his starter. He was an aspiring trainer and quite confident.

“Thunderbolt.” I still kinda deadpanned when he and his team of Cyndaquil, Aipom and Sentret tried fighting me. I wanted to warn him, tried to stop him multiple times, but he insisted. So I decided this would be a lesson on picking your fights and evaluating people not by their looks but by examination of their Pokémon as Chuchu, as always, was on my shoulder and Pikachu aren’t exactly common in Johto.

He took the loss fairly well all things being equal and admitted to his misjudgement. I mean, I’m only like 10 inches shorter than him, I don’t look like a little kid, right? (Jump-chan: *Laughs in Benefactor*)

Anyway, I went into the Gym at that point and, after fighting my way through some low-level students of the Gym Leader with their flying-type Pokémon, confronted Falkner, the first Gym Leader. He went for his full badge team, so his best. This prolonged the battle for about ten seconds to be honest because, even at six Pokémon, I had plenty of Electric-type Pokémon at my disposal.

With the Gym behind me I prepared to head for Ecruteak City to the East of Violet City, but got stuck because a large number of odd trees barred the path and someone who resembled the guy back in Mt. Moon, was insisting on me not trying to break through since he was studying them.

With that out of the way I decided to head South to Azalea Town, cutting through the Alph Ruins where I found an odd puzzle depicting Kabuto… only to fall through the trap door and find the letters on the walls to come to life. I caught about 20 of these Unown, all of different shape, before getting out. A researcher approached me after that regarding the Unown I caught and was literally sobbing in joy when I told him I’d be willing to trade.

That is how I got myself a set of fossils for me to revive later, along with a good collection of Pokeballs and their variants, many of which I never heard of before. I went another time into the chamber due to writing on the back wall and when asking the researcher near it, he admitted he didn’t know what they said. I took one look and knew it. Unown, you see, look and correspond to, Latin letters, aka Romanji.

This read “Escape”, and going off a gut feeling I got out my trusty “Silph Corp Escape Rope™” out of my bag and showed it to the writing. It caused the wall to slide away to reveal a passage and going in I found myself falling into another room, not quite as deep as the last hole and containing a small number of items and writing on the floor.

The items were a Mega Stone (Pidgeotite), a Light Ball, two Nuggets and two pieces of what looked like meteor rock. It kinda confused me a bit as to why they were here, but treasures hidden for those who understood the letters? Okay, why it was written in English was still a question for another day. Not to mention why an Escape Rope, an extra durable piece of rope that had something inside that let it untangle itself on command and was used for climbing into and out of caves as needed.

Why in the hell the ruin reacted to it, I don’t know. But going into the hole in the floor found me reenter the lower levels of the ruins with curious Unown floating about. I left them there, no reason to engage them if they were being peaceful like this. After emerging from within the ruins again I decided that I had gotten my Oak on enough down there and headed fr the East exit of the Ruins area.

Heading for Azalea Town was a bit of hassle since the Route between Violet City and Azalea Town was pretty big and, more importantly, there was a large cave system toward the end. That meant Zubat, and that meant the swarm. They attacked me five times before I reached the tunnel in question and another three times before I got through. Stupid bats. Why did I think this was a good idea again?

Anyway, getting to Azalea Town proved that Team Rocket had moved into Johto, seeing as there was someone guarding the entrance to a large acqueduct known as Slowpoke Well. Seeing how dehydrated everything was I didn’t need to put two and two together in order to understand where the Slowpoke Tails that some creep tried selling me before I got into the Tunnel, had come from.

So I beat the guy over the head with a Catastropika and went to town on the guys inside. The Admin who was leading the operation, oddly dressed the same as all of the Grunts, went down easily but run away screaming about vengeance or something.

The Zubat then attacked again.

Getting into Town I met an elderly gentleman named Kurt who saw me get out of the well and asked what had happened. Apparently he had come to try and stop Team Rocket himself but I had finished before he could. After he checked up on the Slowpoke he invited me to his home and explained that he was a Pokeball fabricator, making them out of fruits that could be found in Johto and which are called Apricots.

He gave me five Fastballs, five Baitballs and five Heavy Balls, which was a nice gift. He also told me that he would gladly make more if I could bring him more Apricots as he had only a tree with the white variety in his garden, which produce Fastballs.

After this I went to the Gym which was just now opening again. It was a Bug-type gym, with the Gymleader being named Bugsy. Again, with my assortment of fire types, that Gym was being blasted almost apart and was close to melting. And this is no exaggeration seeing as the thing was made of glass and I had to be careful not to burn the threads that connect the areas of the Gym together.

Bugy’s Vespiquen, Mega Scisor, Volcarona, Mega Pinsir, Ninjask and Shedinja were a decent team, another case of a double Mega team, but ultimately they were all bugs so… yeah. Kinda obvious who won that battle.

With the Gym done with I was heading to Ilex Forest when a Trainer stopped me.

This little piece of work was Silver, he had red hair, wore black to black and more black, and was such an edgelord that I could swear I accidentally cut myself on him.

“Thunderbolt.” I commanded, finishing both his Ghastly and Croconaw off at the same time. It says a lot that these greenhorns think that any kid their age is automatically weaker than them or another greenhorn. In either case, he was grumpy for it and left.

Only later would I realize that Croconaw was Totodile’s evolved form, meaning that Edgelord was the thief.

While entering the forest something nice happened, my Pokémon Egg hatched! Well, partially. Happy the Togepi was an adorable little ball of happiness who had only broken partly out of her shell, with her head and extremities coming out and her able to draw them back in and fold her “Crown” into the shape she had in the egg.

And that way I started carrying a small Togepi in my arms, humming merrily through the forest.

While camping out near sunset in the forest, next to a shrine to the forest’s guardian spirit, I heard a trilling, almost jingling sound. Turning around I found a green, almost fae-like Pokémon had grabbed one of the pancakes I had prepared, admittedly they were supermarket bought ones that I put just some honey and jelly on, but still they are good tasting.

“A Celebi?” I asked incredulously, recognizing the legendary time traveller. The small green sprite finished it’s pancake, then noticed that I had noticed it. It giggled for a moment before levitating a Pokeball from my bag and before I could react, teleported away.

I blinked a moment, just trying to wrap my mind around this, then shook my head as this was kinda irrelevant. If Mi had taught me anything, then it is that legendary Pokémon are mischievous most of the time, especially the “Mystic” variety like Mew and Celebi. For what reason this Celebi stole my Pokeball, I couldn’t know.

The next morning, after beating the midnight swarming and leaving the Zubat some food since they were essentially just fiat-coerced into attacking me, no reason to be mean, I set out again into the forest, searching my way through the labyrinthine passages between the thick vegetation.

I ran into Gold halfway through my third day in the forest and he was smart enough not to challenge me again, though he did ask me about the redhead I met and that was when I learned that he had been the thief. Yeah. Happy liked Gold and Gold himself was quite happy to see the baby Pokémon as he was the one to bring the egg to Professor Elm back then.

We traveled the rest of the way, two days of additional travel time, before reaching the end of the forest. After that our path led for another day to Goldenrod City, the largest city in the Johto Region and home to a Radio Tower. It also had a huge department Store in it that had a pretty famous variety of goods.

The two of us parted ways at the Pokémon Center with me hitting the underground shopping mile that runs under the city while Gold went to participate at a Bug Catching contest North of the city. I had no interest in that one due to having my bugs of choice.

In the underground there were a number of trainers and I finally got around to testing some of the Pokémon I had but who I rarely used, like Draka the Dragonair and Polygon the Porygon. I wasn’t that inventive, okay? Anyway, this also ended up pushing Draka over the edge, making her evolve into Dragonite which just showed how close she had been at that point.

In the Underground I found a photographer who made photos for people who wanted to dress as Team Rocket grunts. No idea why that was popular, but sure. If nothing else it was a funny idea for me.

Getting back out I treated myself to some shopping at the mall, purchasing a number of items and stocking up on Potions, Revives and other goods. I also got my hand on a few… convenience items. Wait, don’t stare at them! How did you get in here? No those aren’t stuffed Animals! They’re…

…

Action Figures, yes. Action Figures.

Anyway, moving on.

With the underground explored I looked at what the nearby casino had to offer, thankfully I still had my coin case and they accepted these. As it turned out, they did “Voltorb Flip”, which basically was Minesweeper with cards. Luckily, between my observative skills, logic and some premonition, I was able to win time and time again. Since this wasn’t actually luck based they didn’t rise an eyebrow at me being great at it.

I purchased with the coins I got a Chansey they had on offer, naming her Nursery. With this healer on my Roster I finally went to the Gym.

Goldenrod City had a Gym specialized in Normal-types, though it dabbled in Fairy-types like Clefairy too. This was due to Clefairy being considered a Normal Type until a few years ago when someone had brought a Dragonair to fight one, then got their asses kicked by it.

Whitney, the Gym Leader, was a tough nut to crack, all things considered. Her Pokémon team included a Cefable, Wigglytuff, Chaneira, Tauros, Togekiss and two Miltank. No Mega Evolution this time but she sure gave it her all. Apparently, to compensate for her chosen type’s lack of advantages against other types, her Final-Gym team was aimed at being tanks. As in, the military machine.

Each of them took beatings that felled legendary Pokémon and Elite 4 members. By the time her second Miltank went down I had to seriously wonder if this woman was training them to taken on Legendary Pokémon or not. However, even knowing that I was a League contestant and had by this point ten badges, Whitney threw a tantrum. A hard one.

For several minutes I was unable to address the issue of my prize until she finally calmed down enough for me to do so. That way I got the Plain Badge, my third Johto badge.

After this I went North to see the National Park and the “Pokeathlon” stadium there. It took another day of travel though.

At the National Park I met Gold who explained that he had found out that the odd trees were wild Sudowoodo and they reacted badly to water. He also proudly showed me the Scyther he had captured during the bug catcher contest. I congratulated him on that catch and we parted ways again before I visited the Pokeathlon competition to see what this was all about.

As it turned out, mini olympics for Pokémon. And mine were some of the finest in the Region so, yeah, we totally won this one. I spent roughly a week participating in each and every one of the various contests that could be found there. And, well, what can I say? They didn’t have competition really, not in any real sense at least.

After completely trouncing the entire competition time and time again, I finally moved on and went to the next Route where an irate Sudowoodo got in my way East from the park. I balled him and named him Tricky due to his disguising himself. Again, I’m not great a names and don’t claim so, nor do they always make sense.

Following the Route North I found a few Apricot trees along the way and ran into a few new Pokémon such as Stantler or Pineco. Though I only got one of these. Namely, I had found a very young Stantler that had been injured and after I treated her she just kept following me, so I took her in.

Reaching Ecruteak City I found that the Gym Leader had gone to the Burned Tower with a friend of his, apparently they were searching for something there. This led me to the ruin that had been once the Brass Tower before it had burned down in ancient times, causing the Legendary atop to flee.

I found the Gym Leader and his friend, Eusine. The guy was a rather arrogant guy with brown hair, a purple suit and white cape. He would ramble on about how he was searching for Suicune who was waiting for the chosen Trainer, which is him. Yeah, nope to that one.

I managed, after a while, to find my way down to the lower level, searching because I wanted to make Eusine shut up so I went there. Down there I found three petrified forms, Pokémon that soon awakened and fled. One of them, blue with a long, purple mane, did a small loop, stopping in front of me, before racing away as well.

After that Eusine and Morty, the Gym Leader, come down and explained they had seen the Legendary Pokémon race off. Obviously Eusine thought it was because of him, the self-important prick. This however led Morty to return to his Gym which I followed him to.

Ecruteak City Gym was dark. Like, very dark. The floor was designed in a way that you couldn’t see it at all and there were three old ladies, the same “Channeler” Ghost type Specialists that had been at Pokémon Tower in Kanto. They were a well known cult, worshipping spirits and Giratina as their guardian deity. They were also prone to possession by ghost type Pokémon, including their own.

Dreamer made short work of the collection of Gengar, Banette, Misdreavus and Yamask that they had to challenge high-profile Trainers.

Morty also had a rather impressive team, captained by a Mega Gengar, supplemented with Mega Banette, Mega Sableye, Mismagius, Spiritomb and Dusknoir. Yes, three Mega Pokémon of all things. Luckily, I had my own answer, as during the proceedings of this gym, Eev finally evolved. Into what? Sylveon, a Fairy-type Pokémon. With the number of Ghost/Dark Pokémon he was throwing around that was needed to even get any type advantage.

Yup, this was probably the hardest gym since Giovanni, which is kinda funny considering that this is the fourth Gym I reached in Johto and, more importantly, it was a type I had to deal with at the Elite 4 just a few months before this. Same for one of the Mega Evolutions thanks to Agatha.

Anyway, walking away with a new bling to my collection of Badges I looked at my map and decided on my next destination, namely: Olivine City. This was the main harbor city of Johto and home to a Steel-type Gym from what I knew, along with the most famous lighthouse in the country which was known as the Ransei Union, named after an ancient nation that had long disbanded, even before the great war that served as the local WW2.

Yeah, this is Japan, by the way.

Anyway, it took me almost three weeks to reach Olivine City with a stop at a Miltank Ranch North of the city. There, one of the Miltank was incredibly ill and I fed it quite a lot of berries, not to mention letting Nursery have a crack on her. In thanks I was given 50 Moo Moo Milk bottles which, thankfully, wouldn’t get bad in my bag. They also gave me a Miltank of their own breed which they claimed was even used in Goldenrod’s Gym.

Considering Milky straight up steamrolled Raikou when I met him, allowing me to catch the elusive Legendary, I’d say they weren’t lying to me. I named him Thunder, by the way, I was running out of lightning puns too. However, I let him run free after capture, something I had started doing with the rest of my legendary collection after Bi had a word with me concerning their duties. I had trackers on them and could recall them at will, but other than Bi and Mi they ran free and save from capture.

Why neither Mi nor Bi? Well, Mi is an infant Mew, she sees me as her mother basically and is clingy as hell. Bi on the other hand had nowhere to go really, so he stays with me instead. Though he’s too Tsundere to admit it *giggles*

Ahem, anyway. At Olivine I found out that the Gym Leader was taking care of a sick Ampharos, which I found rather concerning due to the Ampharos being the light in the Lighthouse. Not to mention that Whoolie was a pre-evolution of Ampharos who I kept from evolving because of… reasons.

Meeting her I found that there was medicine in Cianwood City, which lay on an Island to the South-West of Olivine past the Whirlpool Islands, but that she couldn’t go herself. I decided to help out in that regard, setting out soon after with Serene onto the oceans as no ship could sail without the lighthouse.

Getting past the Whirlpool Islands wasn’t that hard, they were inaccessible due to the titular whirlpools but didn’t block the entire sea route between the cities. A lot of endurance and olympics swimmers made this Route their home like most sea routes but they weren’t an issue really, the Tentacool on the other hand, not to mention the Swarm.

At Cianwood City I got the medicine easily enough before I made my way to the local Gym, which was a Fighting-type Gym. And, well, it went as expected with the Gym Leader, Chuck, using a Team of Machamp, Poliwrath, Mega Lucario, Hitmonlee, Himonchan and Mega Medicham. This got me the Knuckle Badge and one step closer to the Johto League qualification.

With that complete I took my way to Olivine rather quickly by way of Storm, aka, my Pidgeot. There I got the medicine to Ampi up top before getting down to challenge Jasmine, the Gym Leader, at long last. There were no Trainer that stopped me before the battle, strangely, but aside of using Mega Lucario, Mega Steelix and Mega Aggron, Jasmine didn’t have much to offer up against my own Fire-type Pokémon.

Unlike a certain other Gym Leader, there was no tantrum this time after she lost.

With that done and finished it left me to backtrack to Ecruteak and from there to Mahogany City where I was prepared to get my next Badge. Sadly, the Lake of Rage and Team Rocket got in the way and I had to calm down/catch a Shiny Gyarados that was rampaging there. After this Lance approached me and explained how he was going to track down the signal and asked for my help, which I was happy to lend.

The signal come from a shop in Mahogany City where we found Gold and Silver already preparing to storm the base which we took as an opportunity to team up. Turns out both of their Starters, Silver’s theft of Totodile was mentioned by neither Gold nor myself, had evolved to their final stage already making them a lot more capable in Pokémon Battle than before.

To put it bluntly, we made short work of the base, ripping it apart piece by piece before we were confronted by an Admin, a red head who was guarding the reactor room. Silver, for some reason, didn’t want to go there after I spotted her and went off on his own.

The battle was short, it was brutal, and it left Team Rocket eight Lectrodes and the entire radio emitter poorer. I deliberately destroyed the entire thing after catching one of the wild Lectrodes and knocking out the rest that Gold captured. My own I named Ultra. Why? Ultraball, obviously. Way too big to be a normal Pokeball after all.

With that out of the way Lance gave me, as a way of reward, Gyaradosite for my newly caught Shiny Gyarados, yes. I got a Mega Stone for this. Then Team Rocket begun to broadcast again. This time from Goldenrod City. I kinda wonder if those people had something against normal radio stations considering their obsession with making their own transmissions.

As such I travelled to Goldenrod City, and went to Town on them.

I busted them one by one, including the fake director of the Radio Tower who was just another Team Rocket admin, then went to the Underground where I found the actual owner being held hostage under the Mall, busted him out, took the keys, then went to the top of the tower where I found two old friends. Well, not friends. But you get it.

Giovanni and Archer were waiting there, along with the three Admins I met in the Johto Region before. They had apparently decided to stop my meddling right then and there by force.

“Prepare for Trouble!” Oh yeah, forgot those guys. Yeah, the Team Rocket cell that I’ve met since Mt. Moon were also present, trying to look somewhat intimidating. Considering they were still just packing Wheezing and Arbok along with the Meowth, that’s not much.

I took them down, one by one. Apparently they thought that I would tire out that way but then I called in some favors and… yeah, not gonna win when I have three Mega Evolutions and half a dozen Legendary Pokémon on call. Raikou was quite happy too and brought Entei along, which may have been a bit problematic. At least if there hadn’t been a strong set of psychics to keep a barrier up to halt the brunt of the hellfire that Entei produces.

The eight of them just stared a few minutes after I finished wiping the floor with their collective Pokémon. “So, I’m on my second Gym Challenge and have six of seven badges, all of you got busted by me already. Tell me how did you expect this to go differently?” I asked, crossing my arms as I raised an eyebrow at them. Seriously, by this point I felt like a schoolyard bully.

“Well, it seems that we have to retreat once more, quite annoying to see my work undone so easily but what can you do?” Asked Giovanni with a smirk and I frowned.

“Who says I will let you escape? You’re quite literally the biggest criminals in Kanto and I have all the Pokémon I need to stop you.” I threatened, Bi taking his cue to prepare a Shadow Ball to be thrown at the assortment of criminals.

“It’s quite simple, really.” Stated Giovanni and placed a hand on the shoulder of that creepy copycat guy. “You’re not the only Psychic.” It took me a moment too long to realize that the rest of them had also placed their hands on that man, allowing them enough time to teleport away with him, escaping instantly.

…

“Bi? Next time, please remember to put up a barrier that stops teleportation.” I stated, my eye twitching due to the fact that they all escaped. They didn’t even leave the trio behind!

The remainder of my journey through Johto went comparatively calmly.

With Team Rocket gone there was one drawback taken care of after all and I waltzed through the remaining Gyms at Mahogany and Blackthorn as if they were nothing. Even Claire’s bitchiness in refusing to give me the badge until I went through a test in the dragon sanctuary was only a mild annoyance ultimately.

This left me with 4 months of time before the next League meeting and I decided to take the time and go to Mt. Silver, the highest peak this side of Sinnoh. It was here that I trained for almost a week before I was being approached by someone at the peak. I had met a group of Kimono Dancers in Ecruteak City, way back when I accidentally awakened the Legendary Beasts, of whom Entei had also found his way into my collection by the way, though I haven’t been able to challenge Suicune since she was always running away.

Anyway, one of them was approaching me, if her Kimono was to be believed she was the one who trains a Espeon. Turns out that Ho Oh had called for me, the legendary Pokémon of the Bell Tower, and she was to bring me to the tower of a ceremony.

Long story short, a beautiful dance ensued and Ho Oh come to challenge me. It was one hell of a fight and was made even harder due to Suicune stepping in too. But in the end, I defeated and caught both of them, but as before I let them run freely to attend to their duties. Before leaving Ho Oh gave me a bag of Sacred Ash, a powerful healing item of legend, and a vision of something waiting at the Whirlpool Islands for me.

And that’s how I found myself dungeoneering in search of Lugia. Where that Silver Bell come in handy since it was what called the Deep Diver Pokémon out from it’s hiding place. This was also the first time I saw a Legendary Pokémon with a child, namely this Lugia was a mother to a much smaller and cuter version of herself. After besting the mother Bi explained that it was a test and that she entrusted her son to me so he may become strong under my tutelage.

Admittedly, that’s kinda cool.

So I returned to Mt. Silver for training for another month before I was interrupted by another arrival.

“Oh, hello Yellow.” I blinked at hearing this and, turning around, found Red standing there, his Pokémon team with him.

“Ah, hey Red. Did you come here for training as well?” I asked, looking at the boy who had changed his usual red and white jacket for a long sleeved one that seemed warmer. To be fair, I had also put on some winter clothes since Mt. Silver was snowy as hell all year.

“Yes.” He stated, as usual he wasn’t the conversational type. “Battle?” He offered, raising an eyebrow at me.

I contemplated this for a moment, then nodded. “Sure, got another two months before the League after all.” I noted before moving to the side so we had a clear space between us. “Go Chuchu!” I commanded, sending out my Pikachu.

“Go Pikachu!” Was Red’s command at the exact same time as from the Pokeball emerged a male Pikachu to counter my female companion.

“Heh, guess we both decided to bring out our Mice, eh?” I asked, watching the two look at each other curiously, male and female of the same species, I could see the sparks fly between them. Hell, Chuchu was blushing!

And that is the story how I got my hands on a Pichu egg and discovered how Pokémon reproduction looks like. Luckily, I have a couple psychics to brain bleach myself and Red of the details and awkwardness.

We never got to the fighting though.

It's Time to Jump! Jump 1: Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The Adventures Continue

I sighed as I sat on a bench near where I had been training East of Vermillion City.

I had helped the captain with his sea sickness, I had some medicine for that sort of thing just in case, who then gifted me a strange item. He called it a “Mega Z Ring”, basically a Bracelet inlaid with a small gem at the inside of the wrist and a large plate with a strange design at the top of it. He also gave me “Pikanium Z”, a small yellow crystal that supposedly allowed Pikachu to use a special attack, a Z-Move. The Gem on the other hand would allow me to invoke Mega Evolution but I needed a special gem to do that.

After the S.S. Anne had left Port I had gone to Digglet Cave, where the construction Work had been done after three days, and went hunting for a Digglet. Better yet, I found a Dugtrio instead who I named Digger. I trained with this new addition for three days in which Burst, my Charmander, evolved into Charmeleon after all and I managed to teach Digger and him Dig.

Digger also learned the move Bulldoze, a ground-type move as well, which made me confident to beat Lt. Surge and his electric type Pokémon. Oh boy was I wrong.

He wiped the floor with my Team and me, even with type advantage his Pokémon were trained to take on ground types and other assorted Pokémon. While he hadn’t come in with his A-Game, it was still a pretty decent team that used every trick in their book to beat us. It didn’t help that we had to first fight our way through the test Trainers and also solve a puzzle, which had made my temper a bit bad due to the annoying nature of it.

That was one week ago.

Since then me and my team have been training non-stop in order for us to successfully beat the gym. Anti-Electric training, resistance to all of his strategies and known moves, evasion training and speed. Digger had been taken out back then by a Hyperbeam, coming from Surge’s Raichu. Which had pretty much kicked my Strategy out of the window.

The Zubat also kept up their assaults, ten years of this would probably make the journey significantly more annoying but I had taken the Drawback so I had to endure. At least they’re easy enough to deal with.

“Excuse me, are you a trainer?” That voice interrupted my small reveree and I saw one of the Officer Jennies approach me. The badge on her hat showing that she was the one from Cerulean City. She was holding a Squirtle in her hands.

“Ah, yes ma’am? Is something wrong?” I asked, not sure what was going on now.

“Well, I noticed that your Pokémon seem to obey you fairly well. So I would like to ask you to take this Squirtle in. He is quite a handful and we need someone who can manage him in some way.” Explained Officer Jenny.

That was the way I got Blasty, my newest recruit for the team, on. Mind you, by this point I had quite a collection. Eight in total to be exact. I continued training after this point, getting Blasty up to not only obeying me but also evolving him into Wartortle. Thankfully he wasn’t that far behind the curve.

After this come my next and, luckily, final attempt against the Gym Leader Lt. Surge. I managed to put his Raichu to sleep with Flora’s Sleep Powder, then finished him with Digger’s Bulldoze. His Voltorb failed to defeat Digger either as it’s explosion wasn’t strong enough to reach underground. His Magnemite didn’t last this time around at all, thanks to it’s double disadvantage.

Thunder Badge archieved.

After that I decided to go to Lavandia Town but found the bridge on the way from Vermillion to there, to be very robust with an absurd weight limit. Why do I know that? ‘cause a Snorlax was sleeping on it! I swear, this thing is made of some sort of super wood!

Anyway, I fixed the problem quite easily, namely by throwing one of my Masterballs at it and keeping it in the bag. Thank god I have reserves of that. I went to Lavander and found Blue and Red arguing near the graveyard tower, or Pokémon Tower as it was called.

“And I tell you again! There are no ghosts!” Shouted Red angrily at his rival, he could get quite heated when he wanted, yes.

“Then what the fuck were those things in that tower huh? They sure didn’t look like Pokémon!“ Argued Blue back, red in anger. Ironic yes.

“Erm, what’s going on?” I asked, looking at the two hot heads as I wondered what this was about.

Then Blue rounded on me. “Yellow! Tell Red that this place is haunted! Aren’t you some kind of psychic seer or something? You must feel it!” I was taken completely aback, luckily I knew that he wasn’t making it up since he and Red were the first withnesses of my first true prophecy and me discovering my psychic powers.

For those wondering, the prophecy was as follows:

Silent Red who travels the stars

Blazing through the endless night

Greater yet the Green that Strikes

For else only ashes is what remains.

Do not ask me what the hell this all meant, I’m the oracle, not the writer of this shit.

Anyway, moving on from this, I looked at him strangely and answered: “Blue, I may be prophetic at times, and psychic, and yes I have Aura awareness, but I’m not a Medium. Aka, I can’t tell the difference between a Ghastly and a The Ring ghost until I hit it with something.” I stated with a frown, I also didn’t like the idea of trying to communicate with the spirits of the dead or something like that.

As it turned out, there was some kind of ghost like apparition in the tower, or rather, a whole army of them. They seemed to possess the Exorcists who worked at the place and somehow scared Pokémon so they couldn’t move. It made going up pretty much impossible to a certain point and there was some kind of extra big and extra scary one to the last floor. Blue had been there already, and it spoke so… yeah.

I decided that I would try and leave it for now, chances were that it was the local Ghost Pokémon population running another prank or something, or they were upset by someone but who knows? For this reason I booked it to Celadon City, which lay directly West of Safron City and was, like Cerulean City and Vermillion City, connected to Lavender Town by an underground tunnel.

The first thing I realized after arriving there, taking two days where I had to camp out in the open and fight off the Zubat once more, was the presence of Team Rocket. Weirdly enough they were playing nice, giving flyers to a local casino. Even to me. They also handed out free coin cases which made me suspect that they were actually involved there in terms of business, which made the whole thing rather suspicious.

I still decided to go there and, luckily, managed to get premonitions on the Roulette that never failed. I still kept a low profile by placing more than just one bet on the table so it seemed just that I was lucky, and for good meassure I kept losing too, just so no one realized that I was literally predicting the ball’s landing. By the time I went to investigate the Rocket Grunt at a poster nearby, I had managed to purchase a Porygon and a Dratini with all the coins I had won.

One quick demolition later I found a secret switch behind the poster and a Rocket HQ under the casino. A HQ filled with low to mid level grunts, the pair in white costumes, and the Big Bad Evil Guy. In a nice suit.

Giovanni was the name, and he was Team Rocket’s boss, the Head Honsho, the Godfather of this Mafia.

I think he had been traveling light because Arceus, his Team went down like a bunch of pussies! I steamrolled the lot of them without breaking a sweat and he ran away along with his cronnies.

When I was leaving I got accosted by a Team Rocket Admin named Archer who I also beat. On my way up from the whole thing I encountered a member of the international police who was undercover. She was quite shocked by me actually beating the boss of Team Rocket and gave me as a gift, for taking out the Team Rocket presence in the city, a Team Rocket costume. It wouldn’t fool them with my physique, but it was an interesting cosplay option.

Chuchu got her own copy too, for little Pikachu apparently which I found adorable.

After leaving the casino I went for Celadon Gym where Burst finally evolved into Charizard and Storm into Pidgeot. We won the Badge, naturally. At this point it was a foregone conclusion when fighting Gym Leader with a type disadvantage against my Pokémon.

With Celadon done I went back to Lavender Town using the Sylph Scope, which Giovanni had lost it seemed, to uncover the Ghost Pokémon lurking around as well as, near the top, the identity of the greater ghost.

“Marowak!” Shouted the red glowing ghost of Marowak. Blue had told me about his suspicion of this being the ghost of a Marowak that was killed by Poachers a few months before and whose child, a Cubone, had been taken in by Mister Fuji, owner of the Pokémon House in the town. He was missing right now.

I was about to try and calm it down with Aura, a neat trick I had learned, when another cry erupted. “Cubone!” Turning around in surprise I watch Cubone, Marowak’s child, run in crying. Marowak’s eyes widened and she dropped her bone, her Aura almost being blasted away into gold as she embraced her child.

I smiled sadly as I watched the reunion but ultimately Marowak had to pass on. Red entered at that point and took Cubone back to the Pokémon House while I moved on.

And had to stop the not-so-terrible trio from harassing Mr. Fuji who wasn’t even aware they were there. Geez, talk about ineffective villains. And yes, that Meowth can be called part of the group beyond a simple Pokémon.

After escorting him back out of the tower he gave me a Pokeflute, which when played would awaken any sleeping Pokémon, but he warned me that they tended to be rather grumpy after waking up. He also gave me a small stone which he claimed he had found when he was younger while vising the Kalos Region. My Pokedex was able to identify it as Charizardite-X, a Mega Stone. I also decided to adopt Cubone, taking the little cutie with me and naming him Shirou. I have no idea why, I just had a strange feeling that it would fit.

Also, little note: I caught an Abra while leaving Lavender Town. I named her Dreamer because of her sleeping issue.

On my way South to Fuchsia City I had plenty of practice time with both the Pikanium-Z and the Charizardite-X. The first of which needed a small dance that was taught to me by the captain but I didn’t have much time to practice. Luckily there were plenty of fisher in this part of the Region and they were perfect training dummies. Mega Evolution on the other hand was a bit harder to get right.

The process changed Blast into a Dragon-type, which was about damn time. It increased his effectiveness with claw or punch based attacks and gave him a sweet new look to boot. He had a bit of a temper in the form but we managed to work with it.

By the time we arrived at Fuchsia City to face Koga I had the trick figured out and we still had six months until the next meeting of the Pokémon League at the Indigo Plateau HQ. For reference, the League meets every year on December 1st until January 1st to accept challengers for the Elite 4 and the ruling champion. The latter is generally not well known as far as I know, but it is a rather fluid position with the first guy to claim it each year holding it.

Kanto’s E4 is also shared with Johto with the current lineup being Bruno, Lorelei, Agatha and Lance, being Fighting, Ice, Ghost and Dragon type experts respectively. For those and some other reasons like it I had been careful to train my biggest hitters as well as maintain a number of contingency teams just in case as I would be uniquely capable of switching Pokémon between active and inactive groups.

For that same reasoning I had kept up training for my Snorlax, Lax. He was the biggest tank I had and knew Sleeptalk, Snore, Hyperbeam, Recover, Bodyslam, Dark Aura and, for some reason, Psybeam. I had also managed to train Dreamer up to evolving into Kadabra, and surprisingly she had kept her sleep problem so we tended to fall asleep with one another because, well, narcoleptic attacks.

Before facing Koga I wanted to go into the Safari zone where a lot of rare Pokémon are found. While I had no hopes of finding any Pokémon that would still be trainable into being ready for the next League, I was hopeful to find one that may be a good addition for later in my journey.

As it turns out, I did find something. For starters, on my first try I accidentally caught 30 Tauros. They kept running into my Safari Balls for some reason. On my second attempt I found a wild Eevee, don’t ask me what it’s doing in the Safari Zone but I managed to catch it. Vee likes to sit on my shoulder opposite Chuchu, and is female by the way.

Toward the end of the Safari Zone, after catching a Exeggcute, I found a set of golden teeth and a building where I got, as a reward for reaching the place, an EXP-Share, a device that allows all Pokémon in presence to gain power.

…

And that asks for another explanation on how that works, especially because of the terminology. EXP or Experience Points, are a quantifiable energy that can be meassured. This energy is released by a Pokémon upon fainting and is absorbed by Pokémon nearby. It is theorized that this is a mechanic introduced by Arceus or nature itself, to mitigate undue death while maintaining the natural drive for strength built into Pokémon.

This comes from the fact that the act of letting another Pokémon live means that you can fight another day, allowing continuous training without running permanently out of opponents. As such beating other Pokémon with your own is the best way to train them. Also, the bigger and stronger a Pokémon is, the more EXP it gives. So knocking out the Dragonite of Lance would net you an absurd amount of EXP while knocking out a Rattata on Route 001 would barely even register.

The EXP-Share on the other hand basically splits the energy and gives it evenly to any Pokémon currently in custody. Which for me, means that every Pokémon I have gains EXP now. Which is a neat trick to have. After leaving the Safari Zone I overheard someone talk about how the warden of the Safari Zone for some reason can’t talk anymore and that he seemed to have no teeth. I suspected this come from the pair of teeth I had found.

And as it turns out, they were his. Thank god I had the sense to wash them beforehand. Anyway, as a thanks for my help he gave me a small crystal he had found a while back on a trip to Alola, said he had found it at some kind of shrine after defeating a local water Pokémon that had assembled a giant form with thousands of it’s kind. As it turns out, this was Waterium-Z, a Z-Crystal for water-types. Perfect for me.

With this in preparation I headed to the gym and thank Arceus for teleport, Koga was pretty startled when I teleported in personally right next to him but didn’t complain about it. My fifth gym battle went rather one-sided thanks to Dreamer and Shirou who wiped the floor with Koga. Strangely Shirou had at some point picked up the ability to project more bones out of thin air and was pretty skilled at it.

Anyway, this got me the Soul Badge from Koga and on asking him why the Soul Badge was here and the Marsh Badge was in Saffron City, he told me that it was a mix up and neither he nor Sabrina had bothered to complain so far. Too much of a hassle apparently.

This reminded me of the situation in Saffron City so I flew on Storm there. I got almost instantly assaulted by Team Rocket, 15 Grunts at once. Thankfully they weren’t ready to face my team. I made my way to Silph Corporation where I met Blue, Red and a girl who introduced herself as Green and who had the Blastoise from Professor Oak.

We made our way in and along the way to the top, where I knew Giovanni was waiting, Blastie and Flora finally evolved into Blastoise and Venusaur. Fighting out way through hordes of Team Rocket members, including Archer and the Team Rocket Trio, I confronted Giovanni while the others were dealing with the rest of the criminals. I was also gifted a Lapras, Serene I named her.

The battle was this time even shorter as I had the superiority in almost any regard possible and beat the living shit out of him. To my surprise my reward as a Masterball alongside a letter of recommendation for if and when I went to Hoenn, as Devon Corp., one of Silph’s rivals on the market who was on good terms with the company thanks to the CEOs of both sides being good friends.

With that out of the way I was about to head into the Saffron City Gym but a Blackout occurred suddenly and as it turns out, there was something with the powerplant near the Rock Tunnel East of Cerulean City, which I had skipped all the way back then.

I then volunteered to go look and went to the Powerplant that was basically working under automatic systems for years now. Going through I caught a Electabuzz I named Tiger and found the culprit. A hurt Zapdos, aka, a Legendary Pokémon. It had been feeding on the Powerplant to speed it’s own recovery up and, after knocking it out because of it’s aggressive behavior, I caught it to bring it back into a Pokémon Center.

This luckily also solved the blackout since it come from Zapdos eating all of the electricity before it could transfer out.

That was how I caught Raiga, the first Legendary I would encounter.

The fight against Sabrina was, as expected, rather simple. My team was heavily overleveled and I had also been able to bring Raiga to bear after calming him down and him accepting his capture.

This earned me the aforementioned Marsh Badge from Sabrina and evolved my Dratini, Draka, into Dragonair. I even convinced her to give me some psychic lessons while I was there. It was a pretty big boost to my skills there. That left me with two gyms in total, Cinnabar Island and Viridian City.

I decided to go through the Seafoam Islands from Fuchsia City to reach Cinnabar first, the Fire Gym there would be the ideal testing ground for the Z-Move and give me some more preparation before going to Viridian City. The sea travel was… weird. The local Trainer were being dicks, challenging me every two minutes and somehow, Team Rocket had set up ambushes everywhere!

When I finally got to the Seafoam Islands I found, for some reason, the entire area was frosted over. As you do in such situations that make it obvious that some powerful Pokémon is messing with the area, I ventured inside the caves.

The entire area was a bit hard to traverse, and the damn Zubats! Anyway, along the way I caught a Dewgong and a Jynx, to add some Ice-types to my line-up. This was added further onto when I met the cause of the frost. A Arcticuno. The legendary Ice/Flying type Pokémon had evidently sought shelter in the islands and used it’s icy power to ward off offenders while it recovers from a wound it had gained.

I managed to calm it down and convince it to let me catch it so I could bring it into a Pokémon Center for healing. This solved the local problem. I also ran into the Team Rocket Trio, again. They make nice pinging sounds when they blast off by the way.

From the Seafoam Islands it was only a short way to Cinnabar Island where the seventh Gym I was visiting lay. The island was volcanic in nature, with a passive volcano sitting in the middle of the island. As for the Gym, for some reason it was locked with the key indicated to be in a nearby mansion which, as it turns out, had a number of switches to be triggered for me to even get through. *sigh*

Anyway, along the way I caught a Ditto, calling it Copy. I’m very imaginative, thank you, as well as a Vulpix I named Inari, ‘cause I heard that’s fox goddess or something. I found the key to the Gym after reading through dozens of lab reports that speech about some kind of cloning experiment for Mew, a legendary Pokémon, from an eyelash that had been fossilized.

I even found the lab, at the bottom of the mansion. There were five tanks, one very large one and four smaller ones. The largest of them had been broken out of with a small amount of liquid remaining inside. Another, one of the smaller ones, seemed to have been opened normally but I couldn’t figure out what was inside the smaller ones, but the larger one was likely the “Mewtwo” the notes had been talking about.

Making my way to Cinnabar Gym I found a number of puzzles that were required to be solved if one didn’t want to waste time on the Trainers. I still beat the tar out of the Trainers for training but also solved the quiz questions. They weren’t hard, I’m 10, nearly 11, not 8.

Blaine was a nice guy, I’ll admit that, but I curbstomped him. Between all the advantages I had and the fact that I had a Z-Move up my sleeve, meant that Blaine had no hope of winning this fight. This earned me the Volcano Badge.

If you´re wondering about the Articuno, Snowie made a full recovery and decided to stay with me, surprisingly. So yeah, I got an Ice-type legendary now. Snowie and Raiga got along like water and oil, so yeah. They’re not big fans of one another, at all.

At the time I left the gym I got interrupted by Bill who informed me that he was going to the Sevii Islands and wanted me to come along, still as a thanks for my help earlier. That’s how I got to Island #1 of the Sevii Islands. Also how I knocked out some of the problems on the three islands I could reach and even managed to catch a Moltres (Tria) along the way.

Bill managed to get whatever the problem was back under control after I brought along a ruby gem of some sort that I had found on the islands and he slotted it into the machine he had been working on with his buddy. Something about Infinity Energy and connecting to other worlds, or something like that.

Bill did mention something interesting, a lab on Cinnabar Island that specializes on reviving Pokémon from fossils and I happen to have a whole bunch of them on my person.

As it turns out, they could. My fossils thuse turned into the following:

Dome: Kabuto (Chrome)

Claw: Anorith (Buggy)

Feather, or rather Plume: Archen (Icarus)

Tooth: Tyrantrum (Buddy)

Shell: Tortouga (Leo)

And finally the odd fossile that I found and not even the guys here could identify: Mew.

…

Yes, I found a fossilized Mew. I kid you not. There was a Mew Fossile in Mt. Moon and Team Rocket almost got it if not for my intervention. I named her Mi. No real reason why.

With six Pokémon added to my collection I made my trip to Viridian City for my eighth badge. Arriving in the city I found it swarming with Team Rocket grunts who, strangely, weren’t doing anything of note. They also took one look at me each time, then went running. I didn’t know what was going on until I grabbed one before he could run away, using my psychic abilities, and asked. Turns out I had a new note on my file in Team Rocket.

Run on Sight, Admins and above Only.

Yup. I screwed them over so hard, they’re afraid of me.

Going into the Gym I found it mostly deserted until I reached the final room, which was a lavish office space with Persian statues lining it’s sides, the large main battle field sitting in the middle. And who’s the Gym Leader? I was kinda expecting it, after all the grunts had been running rampant in the city and the Gym Leader, strongest in Kanto’s roster I may add, didn’t move a finger.

Who else could it be, but Giovanni? Well, he also had the trio and Archer with him, who tried beating me or at least weakening me. I didn’t even slow down thanks to them. The final Gym Battle of Kanto for me was a rather interesting one. Giovanni pulled all the stops out, he had all of his best Pokémon with him and even used items in battle.

I was ultimately able to defeat him and he had the decency to finally award that Earth Badge he had been holding out on all this time. He then also proclaimed that Team Rocket wasn’t finished yet as they were moving their operations to a new location and that I hadn’t seen the last of him. Yada Yada Yada, you get it. He was really a cartoon villain, isn’t he?

He did drop a hint to me that there was something he was concerned about at Cerulean Cave, apparently that’s where the Pokémon he had ordered to be created had fled to, Mewtwo. Since I had Mew already and my collection of Legendary Pokémon was almost complete except for Mewtwo, who was technically one too, I followed the lead and went to Cerulean Cave.

I beat Mewtwo in a battle fair and square, I could’ve used a Masterball, true, but that would’ve felt cheap to me. I caught him instead in a Ultraball after knocking him down into being tired enough to be caught properly. This basically added another psychic-type to my roster. I named him Beta, as in two. It fit in my opinion.

With all that out of the way, I had another four months left to train. Plenty of time to get my entire collection up to speed before heading into the League encounter.

When the month finally come where the Pokémon League Meeting took place, I headed there with all due haste, beating out Blue for first try at the Elite 4 in the process.

“Well, looks like my first challenger has come.” Noted Lorelei, the red haired ice mistress of the Kanto Elite 4 as I entered the first chamber. I noted that it was an ice and water field, which was pretty obvious considering that she was known to use Water/Ice types among others. “Let’s begin, shall we? Jynx I choose you!” Declared Lorelei before releasing the Ice/Psychic type onto one of the ice floats.

“Okay Blaze, heat’s up!” I declared in return, sending out my one Mega Evolving Pokémon who took to the air immediately. Lorelei seemed to notice the Mega harness that was draped across Blaze’s neck with the Charizardite-X in it.

“Mega Evolution? That’s something you don’t see every day. Okay Jynx go for a Icy Wind!” Declared Lorelei and her Pokémon did as commanded, a freezing cold wind erupting from her lips.

“Heat Wave!” I countered immediately and Blaze let loose with a flap of his wings, a gale of blazing hot air blasting down and breaking up the ice move before hitting Jynx with barely lost power. “Okay and now Firestorm!” I followed up and Jynx didn’t have much time to react before being hit by the strongest fire-type move outside of specialized moves. She went down immediately.

“Well, that was quick. Return Jynx.” Stated Lorelei, recalling her defeated Pokémon who drifted on the now rather warm water with the ice slowly melting. “I didn’t see this coming to be honest, your Charizard did an amazing job there.” Noted Lorelei as she put the Pokeball back onto her belt before grabbing a new one. I did note that they were all Ultraballs.

“Let’s go Dewgong!” Declared Lorelei as she released the water type. “Icebeam on the water!” Ordered the Elite 4 member immediately to my surprise before her Pokémon froze parts of the water and cooling it down. “Want to change your Pokémon? A challenger is allowed to do that.” Noted Lorelei and I took the offer.

“Alright Chuchu, let’s shock them!” I shouted, letting Chuchu take the stage instead.

“A Pikachu huh? Well you had her riding your shoulder so no big surprise, but I would have thought you would’ve evolved her by now.” Noted Lorelei, watching Chuchu as Dewgong sat passively before us.

“We don’t need her to evolve, she’s plenty powerful already!” I declared, the decision had been made ages ago and we hadn’t regreted it yet. “Show her our training Chuchu! Thunderbolt!” I declared and Chuchu grinned, lightning sparking from her cheeks.

“Icebeam Dewgong!” Countered Lorelei and her disadvantaged Pokémon fired the beam that was immediately met, just moments before hitting Chuchu, by the Thunderbolt.

Now, remember those months upon months of training we did, and the fact Chuchu has been with me since the very beginning? “CHU!!!” Well, this cry is one of effort, because moments after the two attacks meeting, Chuchu completely overwhelmed the Icebeam and struck Dewgong with the kind of Thunderbolt that brought down Tria back on the Sevii Islands.

Dewgong was, frankly, down for the count in a second while Lorelei looked torn between gaping and applauding because of that. “Well, that was a bit underwhelming on my part. What do you feed your Pikachu? Rare Candy syrup?” Asked Lorelei and I giggled at that, for reference, Rare Candy are a special chemical compound in candy form that maxes out the EXP energy of a Pokémon just up to the next “Level”.

“Nope, just months of training and her being my Starter Pokémon.” I answered with a grin as Lorelei recalled her Dewgong, who looked just a bit on the raw side of well grilled through. “So, any more fish for me to grill?” I asked jokingly, there weren’t that may Ice-types that couldn’t be countered easily by a Charizard, mainly due to secondary typing and even then, only Water-types were that good at that aspect.

Sadly for Lorelei those were vulnerable to my Chuchu Grill. “Well, I heard about the incidents with Team Rocket already, but to think that you had such a formidable little mouse at your disposal… I suppose it was good that I called in some favors.” She stated, smirking as she picked another Pokeball. “Go Mamoswine!” Declared the Elite 4 member as she threw the Ultraball forward and from within appeared her Pokémon of choice.

This one looked like a huge pig with long, brown fur and a white/blue face coloration. It had two huge tusks on the front sticking out of it’s snout. “Mamoswine? Isn’t that a Pokémon from Sinnoh?” I asked, surprised to see the Ice/Ground type there.

“You’re partly right, Mamoswine’s pre-evolution is native to Johto and people simply didn’t learn how it’s evolution works until some were imported to Sinnoh and evolved there.” Explained Lorelei as I frowned, that was troublesome.

“Come back Chuchu, that’s not one for you.” I stated, recalling my Starter who come running back to me. “I guess I have to knock this one out the hard way. Blastie go!” I declared, throwing my next Pokeball forward from which my Blastoise emerged, blasting two jets of water from his shoulder cannons in celebration.

“A Blastoise too? Well, aren’t you one full of surprises.” Noted Lorelei as I took out a Z-Crystal. “Now what are you doing there?” She asked, noticing this.

“I’m about to import something on my own.” I stated before innitiating the Z-Move dance for the Waterium-Z. Lorelei stared at me blankly for quite a few seconds until I completed the dance. At which point she was taken aback as golden energy erupted from me, surging into Blastie who cried in triumph.

“Wait what-” Lorelei was about to ask what that was about, I’m sure about that, but at that point Blastie fired Hydro Vortex, the Water-type Z-Move.

…

Holy shit that’s a big hole. And is that Bruno down the hall?

After Lorelei recalled her Mamoswine, looking just a tad taken aback by this turn of events, I took another Pokeball. “Well, I wasn’t expecting you to basically one-shot one of my best Pokémon with an Alolan Z-Move like that, but by the looks of it, you didn’t think it would go that extremely either.” Noted Lorelei, sounding just a bit nervous at the kind of shit I was packing.

“Weavile come out!” Declared Lorelei, sending the Ice/Dark-Type out onto the field who appeared with crossed arms. Then he took a look at the trench the Hydro Vortex had cut into the ground, and the hole behind him, then gave Blastie a disbelieving look which he answered with a shrug.

“Return Blastie.” I commanded, recalling him now that there was no Ground-type around for him to blast into oblivion. “Blaze heads up!” I called, throwing Blaze’s Pokeball forward where my Charizard appeared in the air. “Give that Weavile a Fireblast!” I ordered and watched the agile Ice-type squeak in fright as the powerful fire move come screaming down in seconds on his position, which he dodged barely.

And then the water got hot, again. “Flamethrower! Keep blasting after him!” I ordered and Blaze did just that, launching the fire move at the fleeing Weavile, cooking the water and destroying the floats until Weavile had to jump onto the side of the Arena. “Now! Blastburn!” I commanded as the Ice type was catching his breath. Seconds later an explosion of flame and heat engulfed him.

Lorelei visibly winced as her fourth Pokémon went down with a cry of pain. “Well, that went badly. Now I have one Pokémon left in accordance to the league’s regulations.” Noted Lorelei, sounding a bit strained. “Lapras go!” She called, releasing the large and gentle Water-type who looked around, a bit startled because of a lack of water in the pool.

“Return Blaze, Chuhu, let’s finish this.” I stated as Chuchu ran forward and Blaze returned to his Pokeball.

“Well, I have no delusions on the outcome, but I won’t go down without a fight! Lapras Aurora Beam!” Declared Lorelei as her last Pokémon fired it’s attack.

“Thunderbolt Chuchu!” I returned the favor as Chuchu launched the high-level electric move in return, which blasted apart the Aurorabeam and hit Lapras with full force. To my surprise, Lapras didn’t go down immediately, though a static shock showed it was paralyzed. “Okay let’s finish this with Thunder!” I called and Chuchu obeyed as the Water-type gave a small squeak of fear before being blanketed in lightning.

This was the last straw for Lapras and it collapsed to the ground in defeat. Then a loud sound come over the loudspeakers, proclaiming the end of the match. “Well, looks like I’ve lost. Pretty impressive show there I must admit.” Stated Lorelei as she recalled her Lapras and the Arena between us had plates move into position to cover the pool or what was left of it.

“Thanks, I just hope the rest goes as smoothly as this.” I stated with a grin as I left the Trainer platform I had been on so far.

Walking through the normal hallway instead of taking the hole I had accidentally, I swear, made through the wall, I arrived in the next chamber where Bruno was waiting, his field was a rocky battlefield, albeit it had only a few rocky outcroppings and was otherwise mostly flat and sandy. Perfect for Martial Artists and Fighting-types like his own team.

“Welcome challenger, it appears that I shall be the next one to face you.” Stated Bruno, his eyes narrowed to a frown before taking a Ultraball from his belt. “Go Steelix!” He declared, first surprise of the battle appearing as the great steel and rock snake which looked as friendly as ever.

“Get the heat up Blaze!” I declared, throwing my own Pokeball forward where my Mega enabled fire type took shape in the air above Steelix.

“A Mega Stone huh? Good thing I prepared then.” He stated, and on one of his hand cuffs I saw a Keystone and, when his Steelix opened it’s mouth, I discovered that it had a Mega Stone hidden in the top of it’s mouth. “Alright Steelix! Let’s show our strength!” Declared Bruno as light emerged from his Mega Cuff and connected to the Megastone, creating a bright light that engulfed the steel type, covering it

It resembled evolution and indeed, the shape of Steelix was clearly changing and strange pieces of crystal manifested around it. And as soon as this was over, the light was pushed out and Mega Steelix took to the stage with a roar.

“Well, I won’t disapoint you then!” I countered, raising my own Z-Ring/Mega Ring. “Roar into the heavens Blaze!” I declared as Blaze answered my call, energy erupting from the trinket and connecting us. The evolution occurred just like with Steelix, but the result was different. For one thing, Blaze’s body become blackish blue in color with the insides of his wings now light blue and blue flames emerging from his mouth. His tail flame was likewise blue.

Next was the fact that his horns had gotten blue points now while he had grown a bit in the transformation and his eyes were turned crimson. This was Mega Charizard-X, it changed his type to Fire/Dragon and altered his ability from Blaze to Tough Claws, which was a physical attack boosting ability.

“Alright Mega Steelix go for-” “Blast Burn Blaze!” My interruption caught Bruno mid-sentence, throwing him off as Blaze let loose with the colossal fire move. This was, basically, a small hydrogen explosion going off on the opponent and it showed as Mega Steelix fell and reverted to normal with one hit.

Bruno stared for a few moments, trying to compute this before laughing. “Heh, you took me by surprise there, going for an instant ko like this is a pretty good strategy.” He admitted, recalling his Steelix as I recalled Blaze. Blastburn is the kind of move whose absurd power is comparable to Hyperbeam, and like that move it takes a short while to recharge after using it. In exchange the chances of being able to keep standing afterward are low.

“Anyway, I don’t intend to lose this easily, my pride as a member of the Elite 4 demands that much.” Stated Bruno with a smirk before throwing then next Ultraball. “Go Machamp!” He declared and from the ball emerged the superpower Pokémon with a cry.

“Time to shine Dreamer!” I declared, throwing forward the Pokeball as my Alakazam, having evolved after getting a second spoon, appeared before me. Dreamer yawned, still as sleepy as ever, but focused on the opponent at hand.

“Well, this is getting almost a bit annoying, you got a lot of Pokémon prepared for us, don’t you?” Asked Bruno as he eyed the fully evolved psychic-type.

“The Elite 4 is pretty famous so naturally I knew the general types I need.” I stated, not mentioning that I had over 30 Pokémon to draw on for this. Thank god no one could complain about me changing up my team before every battle to accommodate each member.

“Well, regardless, Superpower!” Declared Bruno and his Machamp went in to try and attack Dreamer.

*Crash*

Sadly for him Dreamer had a tendency to do whatever she wants and, well, Psychic from a Alakazam isn’t something to sneeze at. Because Machamp’s now lying on the floor behind Bruno, a Machamp-shaped imprint in the wall.

“Yeah I may have trained her a tad too well.” I admitted, scratching my cheek because, holy shit that was fast.

As Dreamer yawned again and Bruno recalled his Machamp I wondered what would come next. It was 2:0 for me so far and Elite 4 members were only allowed to bring five Pokémon into battle, therefore he was down to 3 Pokémon, again.

“Heh, looks like you’re pretty good, nice to see that the next generation got such a good start already.” Noted Bruno with a smile, he was known most well for his sportsmanship and sponsoring of young trainers as a coach. So it wasn’t unusual for him to be happy about a Trainer showing promise in battle. “Not that I will give up that easily. Marshadow you’re next!” Declared Bruno and to my surprise a new Pokémon took the stage.

This one was fairly small, dark gray in color with a whispy appearance to it. I had absolutely no clue what that was. But I had a Pokedex so…

[Unknown Pokémon, this Unit is not equipped with data on the subject.] This made me blink in surprise, because my Pokedex was completed so, why didn’t it have data on this one?

“Smart idea to try and figure out my Pokémon’s data, but Marshadow isn’t the kind of Pokémon you would find there. They’re extremely rare and extremely hard to even find as they usually hide in people’s shadows so they can avoid detection and observe. I got mine only thanks to finding his egg years ago.” Explained Bruno and I frowned, well that was interesting.

“Alright Dreamer! Then let’s start this off with Psychic!” I declared, deciding to take advantage of the fact that Bruno’s Pokémon was likely still a fighting-type even though it looked kinda ghostly in appearance.

“Shadow Sneak!” Declared Bruno and I was caught off-guard as Marshadow slipped into it’s own shadow, avoiding the psychic force and racing forward.

“Teleport!” I quickly called and just in time as Dreamer teleported out before Marshadow could reach her. “Pin it down with Psychic pressure!” I called and as Marshadow come out due to the move’s limitations, he was hit with a floor-wide psychic, unable to dodge or avoid the attack again.

“Shadow Sneak again!” Shouted Bruno and Marshadow sunk into the shadows again before rushing forward. Before I could command another teleport Bruno was already on the ball. “Now Dark Pulse!” From out of the shadow blasted a aura-based wave of dark-type energy, hitting Dreamer before she could react, throwing her back against the wall.

“Come back Dreamer!” I returned her before she could be properly brought down, from the looks of it Marshadow was a high-power counter to psychic-types. “I seriously underestimated what that Pokémon can do, haven’t I? Is he, byhaps, counted among the Legendary Pokémon?” I asked, it was a suspicion I had about this Pokémon mainly due to it’s strange nature to be honest.

“You’re right on the ball, albeit “Mystic Pokémon” is more accurate, they’re also legendary but they are more along the lines of Mew or Celebi.” Explained Bruno and I nodded, that would explain a lot.

“Well, then I have no reason to keep this secret.” I commented, unplugging one of my current Pokeballs from my belt which made Bruno stop.

“Secret? You don’t mean you have some ace up your sleeve to counter that, do you?” He asked, intrigued by the prospect.

“Not quite, at Cinnabar Island I had a pretty big number of fossil Pokémon revived from fossils I found on Mount Moon. One of them was particularly noteworthy.” I stated, enlarging the plain Pokeball in my hand. “I didn’t want to play my hand like this yet, but I suppose I need to.” I stated before throwing it forward. “Go Mi!” I shouted before the Pokeball released it’s contents in a bright light.

“Mew Mew!” Exclaimed my youngest legendary, being revived didn’t make it the same as the one that died all that time ago, after all.

Bruno’s slack jaw was only surpassed by Marshadow’s own hitting the floor, quite literally. “Wait, are you telling me you found a Mew fossil?” He asked shocked by that idea, taking a step back in shock at my revelation of my third Pokémon for this battle.

“Yup. The rest were pretty normal Pokémon though.” I admitted, shrugging. “Anyway, Mi! Shadow Ball Max Spread!” I commanded and got a giggle from Mi who popped a bubble around herself before forming what may as well be called a thousand shadowballs on it’s surface and firing them in every direction, only to continue the barrage with three salvos of this size per second.

To say that Marshadow didn’t stand up after that one was putting it mildly.

Bruno was groaning into his hand, clearly not prepared for a sudden butt-kicking of his ace. “Now I know why Lorelei didn’t last all that long against you, if that’s the standard.” He admitted before shaking his head and recalling the young legendary. “Alright Pangoro you’re next!” Declared Bruno as a tall, Panda-like Pokémon appeared. Unlike Marshadow I knew about this one, a Fighting/Dark type Pokémon.

“Alright Mi you come back.” I ordered, recalling the small feline in pink. Eyeing the fourth Pokémon of Bruno’s team I decided to go with brute force here. “Alright Chuchu, let’s show him how it’s done.” I stated with Chuchu jumping forward.

“A Pikachu huh? Didn’t think you’d send her out. But I’m also afraid that you’ll lose this fight.” He stated.

I smiled in return before lifting my Z-Ring. A yellow crystal slotted in. “Says you.” I stated and then begun, under the confused eyes of Bruno, the little dance that was for Pikanium-Z and which was joined by Chuchu. She then jumped into my arms. Shining brightly as I threw her into the air. “Catastropika!” I declared before Pangoro got hit by the upgraded version of Volt Tackle. Chuchu had learned the move from a lady who had I don’t know how many Pikachu.

Pangoro fell like a tree, by the way, while Bruno looked like I had just punched him in the gut. “Z-Moves, that explains the hole I guess.” He muttered and recalled his Pangoro. He was down to one Pokémon at this point which I counted as quite an accomplishment since he was the second Elite 4 Member I had challenged.

“I picked that one up quite a while ago, actually. It’s Pikanium-Z.” I explained, not mentioning that I had exactly one other Z-Crystal as it was.

“Well, I have one more Pokémon left for this fight, I didn’t think I’d be this desperate at this point but this big guy is probably the best I have.” Stated Bruno, taking out a weird blue Pokeball with yellow spikes along the sides and a strange concentric circle pattern. “Alright, go Flexer!” I almost fell over at that word but lost my balance fully when, with a quaking thunder, a gigantic bug landed on the Arena.

Almost three meters tall and decked out in an exoskelletton of red, orange and black, this thing was a hulking mass of semi-transparent muscles with a huge mosquito spike in the face but no discernible eyes. And it started doing what it’s name says, flexing. Quite well at that.

“Okay, what in the Distortion World is that?” I asked, completely taken aback by that weird… was it really a Pokémon? It’s Aura was off that was for sure.

“Not quite, you’re not the only one with a souvenir from Alola. This big guy’s one of the Ultra Beasts, basically Pokémon-like aliens from another dimension. The Beastball I used to catch him was basically a prototype and is one of the few Pokeballs that work on them properly.” Explained Bruno and I blanched. Great, the only thing I can possibly know is that it’s probably a Bug/Fighting type.

“Chuchu come back, I’d rather not have you go ten rounds with mister Universe there.” I called and Chuchu gladly obeyed my command, Flexer ignoring us as he was want to do.

Contemplating my next move I grabbed a Ultraball that I had prepared in case I needed him. “Guess I need to take off the gloves already.” I muttered, rolling the ball in my hand.

“Oh? Another secret weapon?” Asked Bruno, intrigued by what I had in mind as I contemplated the wisdom of this.

“Yeah, I had him along actually to fight Lance, but I don’t know anything about these Ultra Beasts and it has an odd Aura to it, so I won’t risk anything.” I stated, which wasn’t quite true since he was on my current active roster anyway because, well, Bruno´s an Elite 4 Member and I was lucky of having thought t bring my legendary Psychics along for this fight.

“Well, I’ll have to see this super Pokémon for myself.” He stated, crossing his arms as Flexer continued to flex randomly. Or not, there seemed almost a sort of pattern to it’s movements to be honest. But I couldn’t figure out for the life of me whether this was a form of communication or just machoism.

“Alright then, let’s see if you can face my own never seen Pokémon. Go Beta!” I declared, throwing forward the Ultraball into the Arena where it opened and Beta emerged. He was tall, and a rather strange looking Pokémon with a purple tale with little resemblance to Mew in form or temper. He floated a few inches above the ground with psychic force.

Bruno blinked as Beta eyed the alien entity before him, clearly seizing him up. “What in the blazes is that thing?” He finally asked, clearly confused.

“Dunno the name Beta, it’s apparently something called an “Ultra Beast”, which is apparently some kinda alien Pokémon from another universe. Anyway, care to help me out?” I asked, and got a sigh from him. “Remember, I beat you fair and square so don’t you go pull the “You didn’t prove yourself to me card” like last week.” I also pointed out, he had been… rather prissy about his captuure and still insisted that I had to prove myself.

“Fine, but we will have words after this.” Stated Beta, glaring at me.

“You said the same last week, so please stuff your Tsundere.” I shot back, he had, actually. And calling him a Tsundere worked fairly well actually.

“Alright Flexer, then let’s go with Super-” Bruno didn’t even finish before Beta picked up the flexing monstrosity and foce-pushed him through the wall.

I groaned, as the collateral damage just kept mounting. “Beta, a little less “destroy the building” please?” I asked, already dreading the possible outcome of this particular nightmare. After all, what kinda bill do I get for wrecking the rooms?

“No worries about that kid, we’re used to seeing people wreck the place like this, you’re even just about the third challenger I’ve had to face with legendary Pokémon. That’s why we got legendary Pokémon of our own, if one of us spots the possibility, or something like Mega Evolution, we get an alert and prepare for that.” Stated Bruno and I nodded, that made sense, since he had a Mega Stone on demand for my own Mega Stone.

It was at that point that Flexer come rushing out of the hole, ready to crash into Beta who in turn erected a force field around himself and took the brunt of the assault with it. “I’m having Flashbacks here!” Growled Beta as Flexer actually strained the field before jumping back and going in for another attack, creating cracks with a punch. “Oh hell no to that!” Declared Beta before using his psychic power to slam Flexer into the ground only for the Ultra Beast to, and I kid you not, jump up while still under the pressure of his psychic and do some more flexes.

“What in the hell? Beta’s a genetically enhanced Mew clone, how is that thing standing like that?” I asked, not even bothering to keep that a secret.

“I won’t even ask, but for your question… I don’t know. The guys at the Aether Foundation didn’t know either, they barely could make the one Beastball I’ve used and it was an untested prototype that they gave me to use in desperation since this guy was wrecking the place.” Explained Bruno and I had to remember what that was. The Aether Foundation was a Pokémon protection organization who did a lot of good in Alola and had some branches in other regions. They worked closely with Pokémon Rangers too.

“Well, then I guess we’ll have to break him out of that.” I stated, nodding to Beta to let him know that he didn’t need to hold back. Because OMA, this thing was going down.

I sighed 30 minutes later when I exited the Pokémon headquarters, that was a pain.

Flexer beat not just Beta but had a double tap with Mew, so I won but still lost my two psychics. Thing was that you couldn’t heal knocked-out Pokémon during the challenge and they were permanently disqualified from participating for the duration of the challenge. Agatha then come along next with Giratina of all things and Lance took the rest of my legendaries and team down using a Latios and Latias on top of his normal line-up, both of them even Mega Evolved and kicked Blaze’s scaly ass!

“Well, if it isn’t Yellow. Looks like you lost eh?” I glared up at Blue as he waltzed past me, arrogant prick.

“Yeah, you try beating Lance when he’s rocking a Mega Latios and Mega Latias after Agatha’s Giratina chewed you out.” I shot back, which made him stagger. I grinned, because there was no way he would be able to claim the same amount of challenge I had to go through for my own battle.

“Where are you going?” That question, I realized, come from Red as he also walked into the building, his Charizard with him.

I sighed, stretching a bit before answering: “Probably Johto, it’s the closest Region to here and I need to train some more.” I explained as I continued onward. I wouldn’t know who become champion of the year for a while after this, but I had a new goal set out before me and I was intending to go through with it.

Pokémon Leagues are, after all, found in every region, not just in Kanto, so why not hit them up one by one? It’ll take a while to run out of gyms to challenge at least.