What kind of Pokémon are you, Bill? FireRed says you're a Clefairy, but the TV Tropes page for Let's Go says you're a Nidorino instead...
A man named Bill was said to live close by, in a cottage on the other side of a bridge. Red probably wouldn't have cared, if it weren't for the fact that Bill had a lot of Pokémon and was willing to show them off to travelers. If he met Bill's Pokémon, he could fill his Pokedex without having to have every kind of Pokémon in Kanto split between just two people.
Actually getting across the bridge was a bit of a challenge, however. As soon as they approached it, Blue came charging at them from the other side. His Charmander was out of his ball, and stopped to threaten someone on the far side of the bridge. Blue didn't notice, and Charmander fell behind.
"So you finally decided to show up!" Blue laughed, as Charmander finally caught up with him. "How many Pokémon have you got?"
"Five," Red answered immediately, deciding that counting both teams together was a better answer.
"Only five?" Blue snorted. "I've got a lot more than that!"
"WE stop to actually train them."
Blue's smug laughter faded, and his sneer made it obvious that Red had pushed the wrong button. "You want to fight? Come on, show me just how much you've trained!"
That was not what Red had meant to do. He couldn't let Blue know that he only had two Pokémon on him. Luckily, Leaf stepped in.
"Why don't I battle you instead?" she asked. "I've only got three. Easy win, right?"
"My problem isn't with you, Leaf. It's with your brother."
"My brother is my problem, too."
"Your brother can hear you," Red hissed.
Leaf ignored him. "I have something I want to show you. If you can sit through the whole thing without laughing, Red will admit defeat for this one occasion."
"Bring it on!" Blue declared, as Red, knowing exactly what it was that was going to be shown, sighed in pure disappointment.
Half a minute later, Blue was on the ground laughing, and was promptly dragged away by an apologetic Charmander. The siblings could cross the bridge without having to battle Blue.
The Rocket grunt's half-baked attempt at a villain song was good for something, after all.
The bridge had a trainer every other step, each one waiting until the siblings stood right in front of them to challenge them. It was easy to defeat them by taking turns, which led to not only Kakuna evolving into Beedrill, but to Rattata becoming Raticate as well.
"We really ARE doing better than Blue," Leaf commented, as her Squirtle looked on in jealousy at his three evolved teammates. Jigglypuff simply wandered off to play, ignoring everything else.
"I still need to catch as many Pokémon as possible," Red reminded her. "I can't become Champion with only two."
"We'll get there." She took a moment to throw Red in front of her as they reached the end of the bridge. "It's your turn."
The last person there was not there to challenge them to a battle. He was an adult, clearly in charge of the bridge challenge, and looked almost proud. "You won! Not in the usual way, but you're the winners!"
"What did we win?" Red asked.
"Well, your main prize is a Nugget. To share," he added, and they looked disappointed. "But your second prize is the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join Team Rocket!"
Team Rocket? The siblings shared a look, and then Red spoke again.
"I'm eleven."
"Junior Rocket," the recruiter corrected. "The boss has a kid. Someday that kid will take over the family business. He's not much younger than you. As strong as you two are, maybe you can be his executives."
"We've had an encounter with Team Rocket before," Red admitted. "It wasn't good. How would being members of Team Junior Rocket be any different than ambushing kids in a dark cave and writing terrible parodies of Disney songs?"
The recruiter went silent. "The boss's kid says that the songs are stupid."
"That is an improvement," Leaf said under her breath.
"So you'll join?"
"Absolutely not," both siblings said together.
The recruiter fell to his knees. "Please! The kid doesn't want anything to do with Team Rocket! The boss said that if we found him some minions of his own he might consider it!"
Red felt deep second-hand shame. "Is earning the respect of a ten-year-old that important to you?"
"He's nine," the grunt almost whispered under his breath.
"He's younger than us and having a teen rebellion phase already." Red was impressed.
Leaf laughed. "That's adorable."
"No, it's not! It's depressing!" The recruiter reached for a ball. "Come on, then! I'll make you join Team Rocket by force!"
Red did not want to battle this guy, but unfortunately, seeing footage of Team Rocket's villain song wasn't likely to distract a Team Rocket member. The winner was determined quickly, Ralph and Raticate not having much competition anywhere. The Team Rocket recruiter threw his hat down in rage.
"What will it take to get through to you kids?"
"You already ruined your chances," Red pointed out. "And you lost the battle, so leave."
"The other boy just laughed at me. He didn't chase me away!"
"Blue isn't the type to care about other people."
"So he would have been perfect!"
"He also doesn't do teamwork that well," Leaf added.
The Rocket grunt stormed away, mumbling something about meddling kids. Neither of them paid much attention, choosing instead to head over to Bill's house.
More trainers were waiting for them, but Red had a plan. "Beedrill?" Beedrill looked over, curiosity winning over the fact that he wasn't Red's Pokémon at the moment. "I need you to go in there and scare them away."
The giant bee buzzed with excitement. "My time has come."
The siblings watched, wishing they had popcorn, as all of the trainers ran screaming at the Beedrill buzzing around like a maniac, even the ones closer to Bill's house. Bill did not seem to notice.
Then again, that was because he had a much bigger problem, as they discovered when he gave them permission to open the door.
"Stop LAUGHING!" Bill hissed, which was nearly impossible, considering that he had somehow managed to fuse himself with a Clefairy. "Stop laughing and HELP me!"
"I'm eleven," Red said once again. "I don't know how to help this...uh..." he gestured to Bill, making a sound that could not be spelled as he fought more laughter.
"And my witchcraft only goes so far," Leaf added from her position on the ground, where she was struggling to catch her breath.
"You don't need witchcraft," Bill told them. "All you need to do is turn on my Cell Separation System. I built it just in case this happened. I've seen enough movies."
Red had not seen enough movies, and he hadn't operated enough complicated machines to understand which button would turn on the Cell Separation System. "So how do I do that?"
"Just wait until I'm in the teleporter and press the big blue button. Should be easy."
And he walked right in, leaving Red to do whatever it was he needed to do. Red shrugged and stepped over his still-laughing sister, pressed the button, and watched the show.
There wasn't much to watch. A few flashing lights on the top of the machine, and then the doors opened and Bill stepped out of one teleporter, a Clefairy out of the other.
"Thank you," Bill said, ignoring the girl still on the ground. "I suppose I should let you see my Pokémon collection, but...well, that would just be a bit of a letdown. Instead, I'll just give you this."
"But -" Red started, only to be cut off as Bill handed him a paper.
The paper was apparently a ticket to the S.S. Anne, which (apparently) was a boat docked in Vermilion City. The ticket did allow a date, but since he was completely uninterested in that sort of thing, Red immediately decided to bring his sister instead.
Bill was halfway through a monologue, not letting the kids explain that they came here specifically to see his Pokémon. "I'd go myself, but I have a Pokémon Box System to upgrade." Which would explain the teleporter accident. "I've got a friend in Hoenn helping me out, but she's pretty busy herself, so I can't force it all on her. And Sinnoh...I don't even KNOW what's going on there."
"Is there a shortcut to Vermilion City?"
"Usually," Bill said, "but it's been blocked off by the police. They're trying to catch some criminal in Cerulean."
"Rocket," Leaf sighed, the last of the laughter gone.
"No doubt," Red agreed.
"We'll handle it FOR the cops, won't we?"
"Probably." He held out a hand to help her up. "Ready?"
"Pokémon Center first."
That, Red agreed to, and they took a shortcut back to Cerulean...where they found a Rocket grunt sitting behind a bush in someone's backyard, grumbling in frustration that the cops had the place surrounded.
"You'd think the leader of a criminal organization would hire minions who could do the dirty work and actually make an escape," Leaf commented.
"Maybe it's a good thing the boss's son doesn't want to get involved," Red finished. "He might make it more competent."
Leaf didn't believe him. He didn't believe himself.
