After resting up at the Cerulean City Pokémon Center, Axel decided that before they would attempt to take on Cerulean Gym, some more training would be in order, so they headed back out to Route 4. A number of inconveniently placed rocks and ledges prevented them from backtracking to Mt. Moon, but there was a patch of grass accessible to them containing many wild Pokémon against which to hone their skills, and the whole team demonstrated just what they could do against them. Even Kraken surprised everyone by demonstrating a newly learned Tackle attack against a particularly vicious wild Spearow, even emerging victorious against it. He still took a while to win battles, but at least now he could win them on his own.
Whenever they needed breaks from training, Axel and Battery would walk around Cerulean City, taking in the sights. At one point, Battery even called Axel's attention to another Rare Candy on the ground, which Axel put into his bag. And then, after overhearing about the Nugget Bridge challenge at the Pokémon Center, Axel decided to check it out. He made his way north of town- the challenge, he heard, entailed defeating the five contest Trainers in order to win a special prize. Not only did this prize sound enticing, he figured it would make for some good training as well. And then, as Axel made his way to the long bridge stretching across a river just north of town, his heart sank as he saw who was crossing the bridge, making his way south.
'Yo! Axel!" smirked Zack. Axel did not respond- this was the first time encountering Zack since... since Flutters. Even Battery growled, his cheeks sparking threateningly, but Zack paid no attention. "You're still struggling along back here? I'm doing great- I caught a bunch of strong and smart Pokémon! Here, lemme see what you caught!"he added, throwing a Poké Ball. "Spearow!"
"Battery," Axel finally spoke up as Zack's Spearow materialized. "Thunder Shock!"
"Piiikaaaaa... CHUUUUUUUU!" replied Battery, assaulting Spearow with a powerful electric shock. Spearow was shaken, but not taken out- on Zack's order, it dive-bombed the Pikachu to deliver a Peck attack, In retaliation, Battery let loose another Thunder Shock, and this one sent Spearow spiraling to the ground.
"Come back, Spearow!" scowled Zack, a ball in each hand- one to withdraw Spearow, the other containing his next Pokémon. "Sandshrew!"
"Battery, get back!" ordered Axel, also throwing a Poké Ball. "Vlad! Supersonic!"
But Sandshrew was able to deftly evade the volley of sound waves, even striking back with a powerful Scratch. It also unleashed Sand Attack- while obviously Vlad had no eyes for the sand to get into, the flying grit was messing with its echolocation capabilities, causing it to misfire Supersonic. Eventually, however, it managed to hit its target, and Sandshrew began to stumble about in confusion.
"Now! Bite it!" Axel called.
"Sand Attack!" snarled Zack. Indeed, as the Zubat dove down, more flying sand interfered with the sound waves it was using to try and get a lock on its target's location, and it missed completely.
"This isn't working," Axel murmured, holding out the Zubat's ball. "Come back, Vlad! Go, Itchy!" he added, tossing another sphere which unleashed his Rattata.
Unfortunately, Sandshrew chose that exact moment to shake off the confusion altogether. It lunged at Itchy, delivering a powerful Scratch.
"Itchy! Hyper Fang!" ordered Axel.
"Scratch it!" commanded Zack.
The combatants lunged at each other, their attacks hitting their marks near-simultaneously, but neither of them looked ready to give in just yet. "Now! Quick Attack!" called Axel, and almost before he stopped speaking, the Rattata was already slamming into Sandshrew, sending it tumbling to the ground.
"Come back now, Sandshrew!" scowled Zack, already throwing a third ball into the air. "Rattata!"
"Itchy, you got this?" asked Axel.
Itchy nodded. "Rrrrrattata!"
Axel nodded back. "Then use Quick Attack!"
"Tackle!" ordered Zack. With that, the pair of rodents rammed into each other, appearing to be evenly matched.
"Itchy! Hyper Fang now!" called Axel.
"Rrrrattata!" screeched Itchy as he sank his fangs into his identical opponent. This proved too much for Zack's Rattata, however, who sank to the ground.
"Gah! Come back, Rattata!" snapped Zack. "Now, Eevee!" he cried out, throwing his fourth and final Poké Ball, unleashing the Eevee, who, while looking ready for battle, couldn't quite seem to look Axel in the eyes. Axel realized at this point that Eevee had still not forgiven itself for killing Flutters.
Axel hadn't even decided whether to let Itchy continue fighting or not, but the decision was very quickly made for him- a flash of light emerged from his belt as Needles let himself out of his ball, growling at the Eevee. Evidently, Eevee wasn't the only one who couldn't forgive Flutters's murderer, Axel realized. Without even waiting for orders, Needles lunged forward, delivering his most powerful Double Kick yet. Eevee squealed as the move hit a weak spot, and it made no effort to fight back.
"Riinooooh!" roared Needles, not satisfied with Eevee merely passing out.
"Hey! HEY!" Zack exclaimed as he hastened to withdraw his unconscious Eevee. "Take it easy! You won already!"
"Needles, he's right for once in his life," added Axel, ignoring the glare Zack was shooting him. "It's not what Flutters would've wanted you to do."
"Riii..." growled Needles. Deep down, he knew Axel was right, but there was just something so unsatisfying about how he would beat Eevee every time he tried to avenge his Metapod friend...
"Heh, guess what?" smirked Zack as Axel withdrew Needles. "I was just at Bill's house- he created the Pokémon storage system for the PC. And I got him to show me his rare Pokémon! It added a lot of pages to my Pokédex! And you're probably using his storage system, so you might wanna go thank him . Well, I'm outta here. Smell ya later!" And with that, he walked off. Once he was gone, Axel continued onward- he did like the idea of thanking Bill, but first, he had some training to do.