A/N: So, yesterday was my birthday, and so that apparently means you get a fic. Over five generation of pokemon gyms, this one was always the hardest, even when I had type advantages. The learnset used in this fic is the one for Gen I, 'cause that's the one I had to struggle through.
A/N: big thanks to an anonymous reviewer for a couple spelling mistakes. Apparently my new tablet doesn't have spellcheck. Well, you live an learn.
My name is Paul and I'm a Pokémon trainer. Shocking, isn't it? I'm not the bravest, nor the most adventurous person in the world, so I figured that to give myself the biggest advantage as possible against the gym leaders, I would get a bulbasaur for my starter.
He was super patient when I make mistakes, and he would find plants to eat while we were out on the routes. He even plowed right through the Pewter Gym without any backup, and evolved into an ivysaur at the end.
On our way out of Pewter City, I caught a spearow, and then a geodude in Mt. Moon. Neither of them had evolved by the time we got to Cerulean City, but my spearow was close and I was fully confidant about my chances with the next gym. It was a water type gym, for Arceus' sake.
I was wrong to be confident.
It took both my ivysaur and my spearow just to take down her staryu, then her starmie knocked out both my spearow and geodude in just one hit.
It was a humiliating defeat, and by a girl, no less, but all I knew was that I wasn't about to give up.
We trained constantly for the next three days; my spearow evolved, and my ivysaur learned use use poison powder. Hopefully this would be enough. It wasn't.
First, I sent my ivysaur out, but only long enough for him to hit the staryu with a poison powder and a leech seed, then switched out my fearow to actually take it down. It took a while, mainly because he had to slowly whittle it down with fury attacks. It knocked him out first, but one vine whip later and my ivysaur had finished the job.
She then sent out her starmie and I planned on using the same strategy, except as soon as my ivysaur had leech seeded it, it unleashed its hidden weapon: bubblebeam. Three attacks later, my ivysaur was unconscious and the starmie was wobbling. I figured that between the seeding and the poisoning, one more attack should make it faint. Tentatively, I sent out my geodude to finish it off.
She used a super potion on her starmie.
I was gobsmacked, and then I lost again.
The next day, we went back out to train again. I got my geodude to evolve and, after careful consideration, I caught a metapod and evolved it into a butterfree. Two days later, my butterfree had learnt sleep powder and I felt ready to try again.
My strategy was pretty much the same as last time, except I used sleep powder instead of poison powder. My fearow still didn't manage to take out the staryu, but this time it was because she was more liberal with her super potions. I decided to use my graveller to finish off the staryu and, even though he fainted, so did the staryu.
I had two Pokémon to take out one starmie, both of whom were still pretty much at full strength, I knew I could do it this time
Unfortunately, the fight started badly; it took my butterfree two tries to hit it with enough powder to send it to sleep, and took a hard bubblebeam before she managed it. Then, after I switched her for my ivysaur and seeded it, it woke back up!
When I sent my butterfree back out to send it back to sleep, she was knocked out with another bubblebeam. I was left with just my ivysaur, so I had him poison it. It wasn't as good as if it was sleeping, but still better than nothing. He did a lot better than last time, almost knocking it out twice before being knocked out himself.
I should have caught a pikachu in Viridian Forest.
"Tee hee, it looks like I win again." Misty giggled.
What a bitch.