Chapter 9: Finally Fuschia
I gotta say I was not looking forward to Gringey City, but this was a necessary evil, so Ash could catch another strong addition to his team, a Muk. I'm not the biggest fan of Muk myself, but it will help him in the Pokémon League. Thankfully this was a rather short trip and we were able to leave as soon as possible. Poor Professor Oak...
We finally got to meet Gary again, for the first time since we left Pallet Town those months ago. Of course he immediately started to taunt Ash calling him the 4th. Which I can't entirely argue with because right now he wouldn't be able to beat, me or Gary, I'm not sure about Grace though since we haven't seen her since that first day either.
Man we really need a car, maybe I should have tried to leave with Gary instead. Sigh. I've already settled with this group, and surely Gary wouldn't have near as fun adventures. The only interesting thing that happened in this whole thing is that Team Rocket's Ekans and Koffing finally evolved, I honestly thought it didn't happen until later. Their evolutions didn't help them however as they and Team Rocket were beat up and blasted off by the Diglett and Dugtrio.
With Fuschia City just over the mountain it was time to finally get our 6th badge, sadly Cae and Umbra didn't get any real battle experience on our way here, they'd did get plenty of mock battles against my other Pokémon however. Entering the mansion we come across a Venonat who we decided to follow, leading to Ash triggering a Voltorb trap. I decided to let Ash lead the way, so that I don't have to worry about getting caught in these ridiculous traps.
Ash goes up against Ninja warrior Aya and her Venonat in a 1 on 1 battle sending out Squirtle. When Aya called for a stun spore Ash had Squirtle use water gun to disperse the spore. Calling for skull bash squirtle charges forward hitting Venonat and sending it sliding across the floor. Venonat regains it's footing at shoots off a psybeam at Squirtle who with quick thinking from Ash withdraws into its shell to lessen the damage.
Ash calls for another water which sends the Venonat smacking against the wall behind its trainer, getting knocked out in the process. That's when Gym leader Koga makes his presence known and says we can't leave the mansion unless we defeat him.
Ash starts off first against Koga with me taking the match after.
"This should badge will be yours, if you defeat me of course." Koga says while holding out a scroll with the soul badge.
"Hmmm kind of looks like a sideways pair of lips, not sure how that really represents the soul, but oh well please start the battle." Alan
Koga looks at me perplexed before looking at the badge then looking towards Aya and tilting his head. He simply signs and shakes his head before announcing a 2 on 2 battle for Ash.
Again Ash is against a Venonat and he continues with Squirtle, so that he can switch over to healthier Pokémon if Squirtle goes down. This will be a good experience for Squirtle, fighting while it's just finished a match not a minute prior.
Ash starts off first by immediately calling for a water gun attack, but it misses as Venonat jumps out of the way preparing its own attack. Squirtle chases down the Venonat with its water gun and eventually catches the Pokémon before it could jump to avoid it. Ash had Squirtle take advantage of that and Squirtle charges for a skull bash, but Venonat had recovered quicker than expected and fired a Psybeam directly at Squirtle's head.
With no time to withdraw its head, squirtle is hit by the Psybeam, but still end up connecting with the skull bash, staggering both Pokémon. Venonat recovered first and started to evolve, transforming into Venomoth and gaining an aerial advantage over Squirtle. That's when Team Rocket busted in.
*Team Rocket intro*
"Here Umbra, since I won't be using you in this battle, take care of Team Rocket." Calling out Umbra I have her start with a Hypnosis attack that immediately puts Team Rocket and their Pokémon asleep.
"Umbra, use Nightmare." Using nightmare on 3 Pokémon and 2 humans seemed to be what finally triggered Umbra's long overdue evolution into a Haunter. You could see Team Rocket sweating while tossing in turning in their forced sleep as Umbra continued to feed them their worst nightmares. Literally. Personally I would have kept going, so that maybe they would stop attacking us, but I don't think the rest of the group would appreciate that.
"Umbra, try out your new Shadow Punch and send them packing." Alan
"Hahahaha Haunter!" It replies in almost creepy glee as it uses its move it learned upon evolution. One after the other each member of Team Rocket were sent flying out of the gym, creating perfect cutouts of their bodies in the ceiling.
"Please continue the match." I say to Koga and Ash while calling Umbra back. Everyone is just looking at me slightly surprised.
"What?" Alan
"You just took care of them so easily, how come you never do that the other times?" Misty asked dumbfounded.
With a shrug of my shoulders I respond casually. "I have several times, you guys just didn't know about it. Any other time it felt like good training for Ash, so I just sat back and watched."
"You're unbelievable!" Misty snaps
"Hmm well I'm not going to argue with you, you'll just have to live with the fact that I don't always help if I don't need to." I dismiss as I return to spot to watch the match. "Please continue the match, I'd like to have mine once Ash is done."
Koga nods and then looks back to Ash. "Is the challenger ready to continue?"
Ash briefly looks to me with a slight frown then down to Squirtle before shaking his head. "Yes, we are ready!"
The match resumes with an intense battle between turtle and moth, Squirtle was able to land a couple crucial water gun causing Venomoth to be significantly slower. The aerial advantage was something that was tough to overcome since he hadn't had to fight too many flying Pokémon. Running out of options Ash gets desperate and tries a new move on the fly.
"Squirtle use bubble beam to cover the field." Ash
Swiftly complying with what Ash said a thick layer of bubbles cover the field and obscure the view of the floor and in the process Squirtle. Koga calls for a gust to blow away the bubbles, but Squirtle was already behind Venomoth and launched itself with a water gun up in the air to it. Squirtle grabbed onto the Pokémon and prepared another water gun, but Koga had Venomoth use a poison powder in response.
Squirtle got off the water gun knocking Venomoth to the ground but was badly poisoned in the process. Squirtle stumbled a little bit before turning to Ash and giving a thumbs up with its same cocky smile. Basically telling Ash it was ready for the next battle. Ash nods in turn as Koga sends out his next Pokémon which is Golbat, again giving him a sky advantage.
Starting with a screech, Squirtle holds its head from the pain and Ash calls for water gun at the Golbat. Fighting through the pain and the poison, Squirtle fires off its strongest water gun yet straight into the mouth of the Golbat causing screech to stop and Golbat to start choking. With Golbat still too high in the air Ash can only keep calling for bubble beams and water guns.
Squirtle's attacks continue to get weaker and slower until finally Golbat swoops down with a wing attack and sends Squirtle tumbling backwards and eventually fainting from the poison. Ash thanks Squirtle and then calls for Pidgeotto to enter the battle.
Golbat starts with another screech, but Ash has Pidgeotto charge through it with a vicious wing attack that stuns the Golbat for a second. Ash doesn't let it recover and immediately has Pidgeotto use gust from above Golbat sending it crashing into the ground. With the attacks sustained against Squirtle it wasn't able to get back up, meaning Ash had won.
Now it was my turn.
"After seeing how you dealt with those thieves I have half a mind to just give you the Soul badge, but I feel you would not accept it." Koga says
"Uh ya I would." I respond while raising my hand.
Ash and crew flop to the ground, with Misty jumping back up first. "How could you be so shameless!"
"What do you mean? Ash has gotten a gym badge from you and Brock without officially winning hasn't he?" I say with an innocent head tilt.
"Gah... I mean that was different." Misty
"Well either way I don't care. I wouldn't mind getting Cae some battle time as I had originally planned for her to battle here, so Koga why don't you decide." Alan
"Well how about we make it a 1 on 1 match and I'll use my Weezing." Koga
"Sigh, very well. Caeruleum come out, let's show them what you've learned." Alan
Weezing and Cae take the field.
"Are you sure you want to use a Squirtle against my weezing? It's one of my strongest Pokémon?" Koga asks seriously.
"Cae can handle herself, her training has come along nicely. I had planned to only use her for this Gym, so this will be perfect practice if you aren't exaggerating about weezing being one of your strongest Pokémon." Alan
"Very well, I did warn you."
"Cae start things off with hail and then dig underground just like we practiced." Alan
This seemed to surprise everyone that a Squirtle knew hail, come on guys surely isn't the most surprising thing I've done. The hail comes down in heavy sheets, pelting Koga's weezing who was still waiting in a command. I guess Koga was most surprised of all.
He eventually shakes himself out of it and has weezing use a sludge attack into the hole Cae dug. Usually this would be a problem, but me and Cae had though about this a lot, so she has a bunch of false tunnels down there for the sludge to get redirected too. She also knew to attack as soon as she knew the opponent started to attack the hole. Cae came shooting out from the ground directly underneath the still sludge spewing weezing and it hit it with a full power mega punch.
She didn't let up however as she immediately followed it up with a water pulse which seemed to rock the weezing and confuse it. It began to spew sludge at random and Cae nimbly dodged around weezing. Next I had her use rapid spin combined with an iron tail, and at the peak of her rotation she smashed her tail on the top of Weezing' main head sending it crashing down. With her rapid spin ending she tilts her body down and starts to dive downwards.
At the last second she spreads out her body for a powerful body slam, sinking them both into the ground slightly. Weezing seemed to still have a little fight left, so I had Cae use dig one more time, finishing off the poison gas pokemon.
Everything was quiet. Everyone just looked dumbfoundedly at the image of a Squirtle now standing on top of a defeated Weezing. A second later Caeruleum started to evolve, at long last she would make the next step to becoming a powerful Blastoise.
"You performed it perfectly Cae and evolved in the process. I'll be counting on you at the next gym as well, but don't think we'll let up on training. I still have lots of ideas." I pat her head, as I look at her proudly. Everyone is starting to come out of their shock with Koga being first. He had thanked Weezing for its efforts, returning it and then walking towards me with everyone else following.
"I must say that was an eye opening match. I don't think I've ever seen a Squirtle use hail, let alone defeat one of my Pokémon so easily." Koga
"Thank you, Cae had been long over due for an evolution, but that didn't mean we had slacked off on training and strategy planning." Alan
"Yes, that strategy was something. Either way here is your soul badge, you have proved to me twice that you deserve it." Koga
"Thank you Koga, for the match and a great fight." Alan
With 6 badges won, we only need 2 more before we can enter the Pokémon league. Just Blaine and Giovanni are between us now. I'm hoping to have everyone fully evolved by the time we reach Giovanni, which means I need to increase our training again. I still need to evolve Mortiflos to Venusaur, Caeruleum to Blastoise, Animo to Alakazam, and lastly Umbra to Gengar.
I'm going to use Caeruleum to hopefully sweep Blaine, which should be enough to evolve, but I'm not quite sure where I'll get the experience needed for the others. Oh well I can always think on that later, for now I think the Safari Zone is supposed to be around here and maybe I'll finally test if I can hold more than 6 Pokémon at a time. I mean Damian was able to do it, so surely a reincarnated person like myself can carry as many as I want. Right?
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CURRENT TEAM:
Ignea-Charizard F
Mortiflos-Ivysaur M
Caeruleum-Wartortle F
Animo-Kadabra M
Colubrosus-Gyrados M
Umbra-Haunter F
ASH's CURRENT POKÉMON
Pikachu
Charmeleon
Squirtle
Bulbasaur
Pidgeotto
Haunter
Oaks lab or other:
Butterfree
Krabby
Primeape
Muk
Author's Note: Another badge down and another couple evolutions. I'm not sure how Canon like Ash's battle style is in this story, but I do try to use moves that he's used before or unconventional strategies that pay off for him.
Really planned on doing a double Squirtle evolution and have them have a rivalry between each other, but I decided for just Cae to get the evolution. Maybe soon Squirtle will evolve, it will definitely happen on or before the Squirtle island episode depending on how I feel.
My justification for Umbra evolving so soon and "easily" is that it had to have been around for a while for so many people to know about the ghost of the maiden and everything. I'm also planning to have a lot of fun with its specialty in illusions later down the line, so look for that.
Also just fair warning these next 2 badges are going to see a lot of Ash and Alan's Pokémon evolving.
Slight spoiler: I want to have Ash have Pidgeot, Kingler, Charizard and at least Wartortle before the Pokémon League. Bulbasaur still won't evolve and obviously Butterfree is gone and Primeape/Muk are already fully evolved.
Also been really thinking on a good Pokémon to get Alan for his 7th. I think originally I planned for dratini to be his 6th, but with an already stacked team I'm thinking of maybe doing a fun one that can still cause problems. I'm thinking a wigglytuff and just have it use rest, snore, sing and dream eater or something dumb lol. Haven't decided yet though. Guess I'll keep watching the show and see what I think.
Thanks for reading
-TaediumVitae
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