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.