The big mountain that is Mt. Moon lies behind us now and we can continue on to the next big stop in our journey: Cerulean City.
Cerulean City is home to Misty, the water type gym leader.
My team was nowhere close to being strong enough to take on Misty. Besides, I had no good counter on my team either. Niall, Balboa, Lisa and Marit where all weak to Misty's Pokémon, so I only had Hope and Wally who could at least try.
"We need to get some kind of counter for Misty." I told the team. Hopefully they could come up with something. To be honest, I was mostly counting on Hope. She really knew a lot about the Pokémon world.
"I am part bug you know, I can help out." Lisa said. At first, that didn't even sounded like a bad idea, but the risks where too big.
"You are also part poison and I heard Misty's Staryu and Starmie are both Psychic types. So even though your bug typing will help out you are still weak to them."
"Only Starmie is actually, Staryu is just a water type." Hope told me.
"Well, that doesn't changes a thing. It still leaves us without a counter."
"Maybe we can find someone around here that wants to help us out." Marit asked. "I'm sure there are some kind-hearted Pokémon here as well."
Marit was definitely the most optimistic team member so far.
"Maybe you are right Marit, let's hope there are some nice Pokémon that can help us." I said. I heard Hope sigh but I decided to ignore it.
"Let's go then!" Marit directly flew off to the nearest forest.
"Wait Marit!" I ran after her, followed by the rest of the gang.
When we reached the forest Marit was nowhere to be found.
"Just great. Who's idea was it to add the happy go lucky bat to our team?" Hope said irritated.
"There she is." Wally said and flew towards the place Marit was also flying. Underneath her was a Sandshrew.
"So you really don't want to join our team." I heard Marit ask.
"Stop asking that and get down here so I can kill you." The Sandshrew reacted angrily.
"But it's a lot of fun on my team and you are welcome. It will all be really joyful." Marit tried again.
"Just shut up." Was the response.
I ran towards them.
"Leave her alone." I said to the Sandshrew, who saw the other five Pokémon behind me and decided to flee.
"Marit, you can't just fly off like that." I said on a firm tone. "We are a team and we should always stick together. We are always at risk and together we have better surviving changes."
Marit looked really sad. "B-but I really thought he would join us. He seemed so nice."
"Everyone knows most Pokémon are bad. How young are you that you don't know that?" Hope asked but I gestured her to stay out of it.
"Listen Marit. Hope is right, most Pokémon out here are dangerous and don't want anything to do with us. There are a few that don't feel the same way, like the members of our team. Those Pokémon will either find us or we have to find them, but we do that together. Okay?"
"O-okay."
I smiled.
"Master Lucas."
"Yes Balboa, what's wrong?" I turned around and saw a worried look on the faces of my Pokémon.
"About that staying together part, Niall just ran off." Wally said.
"What!" I had no idea where Niall could have gone. Why would he go off by himself?
"He said he had to do something and just ran off." Lisa further explained.
"Hey, stop that!" I head a familiar voice say and I ran towards the sound, once again followed by my team. Man, I really need to lecture my team better otherwise I'll keep chasing after them.
"Isn't that the nice guy that gave us the fossil?" Marit asked. It was indeed the nerd that lost the battle against me and, reluctantly, gave me the fossil.
"Hey you. Stop that Charmander of yours." The nerd said. At least I found Niall. He was busy burning down the Nerd's Voltorb.
"Niall, what on earth are you doing?"
He turned around. "This guy had it coming. He was planning to kill Lisa, now I kill his Voltorb."
That actually did sound fair, and it wasn't like the Voltorb was such a sweet Pokémon.
"Don't talk to it, stop it." The nerd said hysterically.
"Sorry man. Niall is right." He looked confused, but directly shocked when he saw the remaining's of his Voltorb, all burned down.
"B-but. It had the lowest kill streak of my entire team." He stuttered.
Niall looked triumphant and his smile widened when he started to glow all white.
I realized I was looking at the third evolution within a few days.
Before I could react the white light was gone and Niall had turned into a Charmeleon.
"Congratulations Niall." I said dumbfounded. Man, my first Pokémon had evolved. I suddenly looked back at the guy I was a short week ago. When I was standing in Oak's lab, demonstrating against the whole 'going on a journey'- thing. Now I was enjoying it more than anything.
"Thanks Lucas. Hope told me I should be getting closer to evolving so when I saw the nerd with his Voltorb I just had to go for it." Niall the Charmeleon said.
"That explains it." I answered. I looked around and saw my team was still complete.
"Now how about we go check out Cerulean City?" I asked the team and they all nodded.
Cerulean City looked like a decent city, nothing that really differs it from other cities. There were a lot of lakes north of the city. And it had a gym. Nothing could go wrong if you'd ask me. Of course, I am never right.