A/N: To coldblue: I wrote my Skype username on my profile. You can look up Skype and download it for yourself. After that go to the top of this page. Next to the cover picture of the story you'll see my username, and if you click on it it will take you to my profile. Just read through my profile description and you'll find my Skype username. Then you can add me and I'll FINALLY be able to answer your questions =)
Chapter 10 - Watery Assistance
The three trainers continued making their way in the direction of the daycare on route 5 with Melanie leading the way (seeing how she knew where the daycare was while Jacob and Jake didn't). The brunette seemed rather apprehensive about the idea of confronting a group of pokémon thieves. Maybe it was because of the fact that she was still a rather inexperienced trainer and maybe it was because she was worried about having her own pokémon taken away from her. It could be a mixture of both. Still, despite her noticeable hesitation, there was also a lot of determination in her expression.
As the rather large house in question came into view Jake couldn't help but think about the previous evening. Sure, Charmander did those Team Plasma grunts from laying their hands back on the egg he had found, but they also had this big sac filled with stolen pokéballs. Why didn't he try taking the it away from those thieves? Why did he let them get away with pokémon that already had their own trainers? Sure, finding the trainer of each pokémon would have been hard but if he had taken them all from the Team Plasma grunts he could have at least prevented Team Plasma from using the stolen pokémon like tools and making them suffer. He was certain about one thing however; this time he was going to do everything that he could in order to prevent them from having their way.
"Alright guys, this is it!" shouted Melanie once they were close enough in order to be able to read the sign in front of the house that said 'Pokémon Daycare'. She searched through her bag and took out a pokéball as well. This time, however, it didn't take her too long to find it in her bag.
"Ready?"
"Ready." said Jacob, nodding.
Jake took in a deep breath. "Let's do this." He could do this. Charmander and Vulpix had his back.
Exhaling slowly, he walked past Melanie and opened the door. There were Team Plasma grunts there alright and quite a few of them too, much to Jake's dismay because he'd thought, for some reason, that they would be up against the same two from yesterday. They had two bags that were literally loaded with pokéballs. The thieves must have forced the keeper of the daycare to give them all of these so that they could steal the pokémon from the place without difficulty. The Team Plasma grunts didn't seem to take any notice of the three trainers who were now there with the intention of putting a stop to their plans. Without even looking at the three, they ran towards an inner part of the building.
Jake shook his head quickly upon realizing that, once again, he was hesitating. "After them!" he shouted before he, Jacob and Melanie chased the group.
The short run eventually led the three pursuers into the backyard of the daycare where the keeper of the facility usually released the pokémon he was in charge of so that they could roam around and play with other pokémon. There was a fence there, of course, to prevent the pokémon from wandering off, but it wasn't very high. The Team Plasma grunts were obviously planning to make their getaway by jumping over the fence and running away from Cerulean City.
"Stop right there!"
The group of grunts came to a stop and turned around. They didn't seem too scared at the fact that there were some random trainers chasing them. Instead, they looked very much bothered and annoyed.
"Ugh, here we go again…" said one of them.
Obviously they were used to other people getting in their way. From the sound of it, however, it didn't sound like the trainers who got in their way in the past were very successful in stopping them.
"You guys can't just steal pokémon like that!" said Melanie, holding the pokéball she had with both of her hand and pressing it close to her heart. "People love their pokémon! You can't just separate these pokémon from their trainers!" Obviously she preferred to try talking things over.
"We don't care!" said another grunt, causing the other grunts to laugh. "You three were foolish enough to get in our way so we'll take your pokémon as well! Hand them over and we'll let you go unharmed!"
"Not in your life!" said Jacob angrily as he released his Bulbasaur and Bronzor from their pokéballs.
Jake placed Vulpix and Charmander down on the ground and Melanie released her own Charmander as well. Obviously now she was even more worried about having her pokémon taken away from her but she knew that she couldn't leave Jake and Jacob alone with those thugs.
"Really? Why don't you do something about it then? We have you outnumbered!" There was a rather long moment of silence before the Team Plasma grunt broke into laughter. "Oh, this is just priceless! The looks on the faces of all those foolish trainers once they realize what they got themselves into makes me feel so alive!"
The three said nothing. Maybe they really should have thought this through.
'What was I thinking?' thought Jake to himself angrily.
Sure, Charmander wasn't going to storm off and desert him. He knew that. But he was no trainer! Heck, the only thing he did know about her was that she could use Ember! Vulpix probably knew the move as well and, according to Jacob, also possessed this move called Attract, but the point still stood that he was in way over his head. Now that he was thinking about it, as disheartening as it sounded, wouldn't his father have been just as powerless if his pokémon hadn't abandoned him back then?
"You're not taking anything away without a fight!" said Jacob all of a sudden, snapping his friend back into reality.
"As you wish…" About a few seconds later the three young trainers found themselves standing in front a row of 10 pokémon. They were all Unova pokémon so both Jacob and Melanie were unable to recognize any of them.
"Let's get this over with."
Jake knew that the odds weren't really in their favor but the least he could do was to not let these thugs get their hands on Charmander, Vulpix or the egg as long as they could still fight.
"Charmander, use-"
"Starmie, Hydro Pump, now!"
Suddenly what appeared to be a much more powerful form of the move Water Gun appeared from the side and hit the row of pokémon belonging to Team Plasma. The move was so powerful that all 10 pokémon ended up in a pile after the water sent them flying straight into one another and the fence that surrounded the backyard they were all in. Jake, Melanie and Jacob all looked in surprise in the direction from which the attack had come from. They saw a girl who seemed to be about as old as they were. She was wearing a white swimming suit with blue stripes and a light-blue jacket. Without wasting time, she quickly tossed another pokéball into the air.
"Come on out Lanturn! It's your turn! Use Thunderbolt!"
The Team Plasma grunts watched with their mouths wide open as all of their pokémon were knocked out after the girl's Lanturn carried out its trainer's order and used Thunderbolt. After all water was quite a good electricity conductor so it only took one attack to hit all of their pokémon, who were already packed closely together as it was.
"You've gotta be kidding me!" exclaimed one of them in shock.
"Well, well, well... What do we have here?" said the girl as she returned her Lanturn into its pokéball, leaving only Starmie outside. "You know what they call people like you? Pests!"
"Listen missy, you better go back to your little swimming squad and stay out of Team Plasma's way!" said one of the Team Plasma grunts angrily as he took out another pokéball. "I'll show you! Go, Zebstrika!"
"An electric type… How predictable…" the girl didn't seem too worried about the type disadvantage she was now at. "Starmie, return!" She brought out another pokéball. "Quagsire, come out!"
"Zebstrika, use Shock Wave!"
"Isn't she going to have her pokémon dodge that?" asked Melanie, looking at Jacob.
Quagsire however didn't seem affected by the electric type move at all. "What?!" exclaimed the Team Plasma grunt in surprise.
"Smooth move, Einstein…" said the girl as she let out a fake yawn of boredom, "Quagsire is also a ground-type pokémon. You should do some research on the pokémon that are common in the region you want to steal from…"
"You're going to have to do better than that little girl!" said another Team Plasma grunt as he too took out a pokéball of his own. "Go, Simisage!" A grass-type, clearly, by the looks of it.
"My oh my, you certainly did come prepared for a scenario where I show up…" again the girl didn't look too impressed.
"Simisage, use Vine-"
"Quagsire, Blizzard!"
"Well, so much for type advantages…" said Jake to himself with look of slight bewilderment as he watched the ice-type move knock out the Simisage.
Watching how that trainer was able to overcome the only 2 types that water-type pokémon were weak against was quite impressive.
"Give back all the pokémon you stole." said the girl in a rather demanding tone.
"Stupid Gym Leaders! Always getting in the way!"
In light of Unova's Gym Leaders interference in N's castle during Team Plasma's first attempt to take over the region, the organization obviously wasn't very fond of Gym Leaders.
"Whatever, you can take the useless pokémon back! We can always steal some more! Mark my words: one day you and the other Gym Leaders will pay for opposing Team Plasma!"
With that the Team Plasma grunts took their own pokémon and made their escape by jumping over the fence and running away in the direction of Saffron City.
"Hey, they're getting away!" said Jake, and was about to give chase when Misty stopped him.
"Let them go." she said, "I contacted Sabrina, the Gym Leader from Saffron City. She and the police will be waiting for them there. Quagsire, return!" *
"That was so cool!" said Melanie, finally putting an end to the rather tense mood. "There were so many of them, but you defeated them all!" Now that the danger was over Melanie seemed to have returned to her typical behavior. "Oh, don't get me started on the looks on their faces!"
"So you're the Gym Leader here in Cerulean City?" asked Jacob, returning his pokémon to their pokéballs.
"Yep! I'm Misty!" She smiled at the three trainers in front of her. "Thank you, by the way, for stalling them and buying some time for me to get here."
"Well, to be honest we were lucky that you showed up…" said Jake as he rubbed the back of his head.
It didn't feel too good to admit that they would have lost to those Team Plasma thugs if it weren't for her but honesty was more important than pride in his opinion. Overconfidence was nothing but an illusion.
"You three are new faces," said the water type trainer, "I can only assume that you're here to challenge The Cerulean Gym."
"Well, maybe…" said Jacob, exchanging a few nervous glances with Melanie, "We only began our journey about a week ago…"
"Yeah, we don't think we're ready to take on a Gym Leader yet…" said Melanie, smiling sheepishly.
"And to think that I was planning to use Bulbasaur…" added Jacob after a short silence.
Obviously he was going to have to train hard in order to be able to take on a trainer like Misty. It seemed like she had her own ways to deal with pokémon that had an advantage over water-types.
"We did plan to stop by at the gym and take a look, however."
"Not a problem! I'll be happy to show you the Gym!" said Misty with a smile. "I'm sure you can also get some training there, too!"
"Really?" asked Jacob, surprised. "You'll help us train even though our goal is to eventually challenge you?"
"Hey, I'm a Gym Leader! It's what we do!"
There was a short silence during which Jacob and Melanie exchanged a few words quietly. Jake was unable to hear what they were saying but he could tell that they were both excited about the idea of training with Misty.
"But first things first," she went over to the bags filled with pokéballs that Team Plasma left behind and picked up one of them, "I'm sure some of the trainers who left their pokémon here have already heard of what has happened and are quite worried. I say we should take all these pokémon to the pokémon center and make an announcement so that the trainers will know to search for them there. Some of the pokémon might be hurt, so the pokémon center will be the best place for us to bring them to."
"Good idea. Here, let me give you a hand." said Jake, walking over and picking up the other bag.
He woke up the following morning to find out that Jacob had already left. The must have gotten too excited about going to Misty's Pokémon Gym that it made him too impatient to wait for Jake to wake up. At least he allowed him to continue sleeping for as long as he wanted to. It was possible that Jacob thought that Jake wouldn't want to also go to the Gym. After helping Misty take the stolen pokémon to the nearest pokémon center yesterday Jake, Jacob and Melanie found an inn to spend the night at. Jake and Jacob rented a room for the night together while Melanie rented the room next door. It wasn't until Melanie had fallen asleep that Jake and Jacob were able to get some shuteye because she never bothered trying to keep quiet while telling her Caterpie just how cute she thought he was until a pretty late hour.
Jake stretched and let out a comforted sigh as he continued to lie on the bed. It felt so good to sleep on an actual one after 7 years. He took a look at the inn room he and Jacob had rented and smiled when he realized that it had the size of an actual room. That small bedroom in his previous apartment was almost as small as a closet, so it was obviously nothing in comparison to this.
Charmander was sleepily resting on an improvised pillow which was covered by a fireproof cloth and Vulpix was still fast asleep. Jake couldn't help but smile as he saw how the fox-like pokémon was peacefully sleeping against him as if he were a pillow. She sure was pretty warm and fuzzy because of all her fur. Much cuddlier than Charmander, of course. Every single pokémon out there sure was a lot different from other species, it seemed.
As much as Jake didn't mind staying in bed all day like a lazy bum he was also quite surprisingly eager to go to the Pokémon Gym and check it out. He couldn't stop thinking about the way Misty had won against those Team Plasma grunts without any difficulty even though she had a clear type disadvantage. It made him realize that type advantages were not the only important thing when it came to pokémon battles. Another reason was, as much as he hated thinking about it, was the fact that he was weak. This Team Plasma seemed to be all over the place and he wasn't going to always have some Gym Leader or another trainer come to his rescue.
Even though it was the last thing he thought he'd ever do, there was no mistaking its necessity. He needed to start being an actual trainer.
Thinking about it, though, going to Misty's Gym would probably mean continuously losing to every single trainer there. Since the only two pokémon currently in his possession were both fire types, his biggest challenge was obviously going to be dealing with water-type pokémon and whatever other types that had an advantage over fire-types, so he might as well start working on that by facing some water-type trainers. Plus fire types in general were just the coolest. Might as well lose to some fellow trainer instead to some Team Plasma grunt when there was a lot on the line... After a short moment of thinking his eyes fell on something that lay on Jacob's bed: Jacob's pokédex. His friend must have accidentally left it behind.
"Hmm…" he stared at the electronic encyclopedia for a moment before making up his mind. When Jake set his mind on something there was no stopping him from finding out everything about it or achieving it. "Time to do some research…" Aside from water, what other weaknesses did a fire type have?
"Okay, so fire-type pokémon are weak against water, rock and ground type moves." said Jake to himself after a while.
It took him some time to figure out how to turn on the pokédex and work with it but it turned out to not be as complicated as he had expected it to be.
"Fire-type moves are strong against ice, bug, grass and steel type pokémon and aren't very effective against dragon, rock, water and other fire type pokémon."
He fell silent for a while and continued looking through Jacob's pokédex for more information that might be useful.
"There has to be some way to deal with water, rock and ground types just like Misty dealt with grass and electric types yesterday…"
There had to be more than one way to overcome the weaknesses of fire-type pokémon, but the pokédex didn't seem to have any information on how to do that.
"I guess I'll just have to find out for myself."
Facing rock, ground and water types was obviously the best way to learn how to deal with them. Sure, he would probably lose (a lot) at first, but it was the best way to learn and get better.
"Char!"
Jake looked over his shoulder and saw that both Charmander and Vulpix were fully awake and that they were standing behind him while curiously trying to figure out what he was up to.
"I can't believe both of you slept longer than I did." he said with a chuckle, smiling and petting both of them as he did. "Alright, listen up... I know that it's not the nicest thing to admit to, but we can't really do much in our own defense right now... In order to become stronger we're going to have to face our weaknesses again and again. Now I know that we'll probably lose… a lot, and that it will be very difficult at first… but I do believe that it will eventually pay off. I don't want to force either one of you to battle for me though, so if you don't want to do this then it's fine with me."
It did occur to him a while ago that maybe there were some pokémon that didn't want to battle at all, which was why he wanted to make sure not to force either Vulpix or Charmander into doing something they didn't want to. To his surprise, however, both of them gave him a nod of approval without even thinking about it.
"Okay, we're in this together then."
Heck, he wasn't even a novice trainer now that he was thinking about it but surely Misty, being a Gym Leader, would be able to give him some good advice. Jake was about to say something else when his Xtransceiver began ringing. He answered the call and Jacob's image appeared on the screen.
"Oh good, you're awake!" said Jacob, "Listen, I know this doesn't appeal to you all that much but you have to come over here! This place is so cool!"
"I was, in fact, about to make my way there right now." said Jake as he organized his backpack, putting a few healing items and the pokémon egg in it because he didn't want to leave it on its own.
"By the way, I think I've accidentally forgotten my pokédex on my bed. Can you fetch it from me?"
"Yeah, I'll bring it." Jake was about to hang up the call but then he thought about something else. "Oh, Jacob?"
"Yes?"
"If Misty's not busy, can you please tell her that I'd like to have a battle with her?"
Jacob seemed to stare at him for a rather long moment before finally making his answer. "What?" There was another long pause. "Are you serious?"
"Yes. I'm also sober, so don't even ask."
"Your pokémon are both fire-types, you'll lose to an experienced water-type trainer like her for sure!"
Jake let out a sigh. "That's the point, Jacob…"
He had no doubt that Misty was going to win the battle in less than half a minute, but he wasn't planning on winning. His goal was to train and to learn.
"There are other water-type trainers there as well, right?"
"Um… Yes." said Jacob, still sounding quite confused.
"Good. I want to battle them as well."
Jacob let out a sigh, "Honestly Jake, sometimes I just don't understand you."
"I can live with that." said Jake before waving goodbye with his hand in a silly manner and hanging up the call. He put his backpack on his back before looking at Charmander and Vulpix. The two pokémon seemed quite eager to hit the road.
"Alright, let's roll."
* The Gym Leaders look exactly like they do in HeartGold / SoulSilver. I'll do my best to also stick to the pokémon teams they have in those games.