Retake Rock Tunnel

It loomed over the three of us like an ominous cloud looms over the doomed village. We were the rebel villagers ready to kill the great beast. We had spent a whole day training up a navy, and the air force had grown quite a lot in all the training as well. Then there was the brain behind the task force. The three of us stared into the dark, eerie, and no doubt evil, cave. "How the heck are we going to see?" Braveheart the Fearow asked.

"With this!" Live Bait the Gyarados said holding up Blast the Voltorb's dead body with his mouth.

"Ew! What's wrong with you? Put it back!" Braveheart said, disgusted.

"Nothing is wrong with me! You're the one who wanted to eat me earlier!"

"Guys, stop fighting!" I yelled. They'd been doing this ever since Live Bait evolved. Of course, the name didn't fit him at all now. It made me wish that I had named him something cooler. In fact, when I told Harold that I caught a Magikarp, he started talking about how it would be the last pokemon I had left, and it would evolve and yadda yadda, so he wasn't too far off in his prediction. "Why do you have the Voltorb carcass?" I asked Live Bait.

"For light!" He said with the body in his mouth. He shook it up and down and suddenly, it started to illuminate.

"Oh my Arceus! Live Bait, you're a genius!" I said. "Come on, let's go make Rock Tunnel wished it never messed with us!"

"Master, I think you need to be careful still." Braveheart said as we walked through the dark depths of Rock Tunnel, or at least they would be dark had we not been lighting it up with random charges of light from the Voltorb body Live Bait had in his mouth.

"Why? We have a good water type now, and he knows water type moves, what could go wrong?" I asked, feeling good about all the Pokemon that we were seeing, and depending on who it was, they either died from Water Pulse, died from Water Pulse, or died from Water Pulse.

"He's not just a water type." Braveheart said. "He's also part flying!"

"I don't get it." I said mockingly. "Are you implying that I should replace you with him?"

"No! No I didn't mean it like that!" Braveheart said, scared of the thought that I would replace him. (I wasn't going to. He was freaking level 35! For Rock Tunnel, that's pretty damn good.) "I- I just meant-"

"Admit it!" I said. "You're jealous that I'm giving him all this training attention."

"Of course I am!" Braveheart said.

"Ha!"

"Shut up! That's not the point!" He seemed rather serious so I motioned for him to continue. "The point is…" He said calming down. "The point is that a move like Rock Slide will still manage to kill him!" And then it sank in. The cold truth. I thought I had trained my pokemon a lot, but Braveheart was right. And Rock wasn't the only type we needed to watch out for either. If (Arceus Forbid) we run into another pokemon with Shock Wave, we were toast.(Not breakfast toast, like toasted, y'know, no chance of winning. What would it be like to be breakfast toast? Hmm. Now I'm hungry. I think I'll have some toast.)

"I hate to ruin your tea party." Live Bait said. "But we just went in a complete circle! Can't one of you pay attention to the direction we're going! I'm tired, kind of low on health, and I'm running out of Water Pulse energy!"

"You could just use Bite." Braveheart said mockingly. "Water Pulse isn't your only move you know."

"Okay, that's it." Live Bait used his giant tail to pin Braveheart against the wall of the cave. "You listen here, turkey! I've been carried miles from my home in the Lake of Rage from currents heading toward Kanto, then when I thought I saw food, It was just a little kid with poor pokemon that knew they were going to die. I was put in the box for oh, I don't know, 2 freaking weeks! It stinks in there! You wouldn't understand though, because you're so high and mighty that you've never had to visit it. Finally, when I was taken out, I was put through the most abusive training ever! I still have scars from that fucking tree. That Butterfree was a pain in my ass, and I didn't know how to swim, so you can be sure I was scared to death when you guys put me in that water! Now, you know as well as I do that I don't decide what moves I use, and you have the nerve to act all superior and special and just mock me like that? I'll give you a warning turkey! The next time you mess with me, Hank's going to have one less team member!"

Live Bait let go of Braveheart and he fell to the ground. He got up easily, but I decided to walk with him and try to find out why he was acting so ill mannered toward Live Bait. "I don't know!" he said. "I just feel kind of pissed off because almost everyone I know is dead, and I don't really want friendly relationships with anyone else in the party for my own mental sake, as well as his! I don't want him to mourn over deaths either!"

"Well, Live Bait is different. He doesn't have a past like that. He also has a gentle nature so to make him spew words like that, you must have made him really angry. He's actually nice. You just need to start over with him." I said. "Try to see things from his side of the spectrum."

"Okay."

Now that I had gotten Braveheart to calm down, it was time to work on Live Bait. "Give me the lantern." I said, holding my hand out for the Voltorb carcass. He gently put the body in my hand and the vibration I made while walking kept it lit. "Do you know what I'm going to say?" Arceus I sound like my mother!

"Yes." He sighed. "I over reacted didn't I?"

"Bingo. Live Bait, you have to understand that Braveheart has also been through a lot. He's been on this team since he was a little Spearow."

"Seriously? That long?"

"Before we even reached Cerulean City."

"Wow."

"Yes. Most of the friends he had, are dead now, and the ones who are still alive, aren't really going to be used for the rest of the journey, except maybe Dove, but that's another thing. He goes everyday wondering if he will see her again."

"His girlfriend?"

"Yes. He's seen countless tragedies, and lost many friends. He's going through a state right now where he feels like having a good relationship with someone in the party is a bad idea. He doesn't really want to taunt you like that, he just doesn't want to have to put up with yet another death and he also doesn't want you to feel the same feeling of loss."

"I didn't know. Poor guy, most have been through even more than I had."

"You don't know the half of it. I already talked to him, and he understands your side of the story too. I think if you two just tried talking to each other, you'll become friends in no time." As I finished the statement, we saw the end of Rock Tunnel. Ha! Take that! (No in real life, this took like I don't know, 10 minutes (Mostly due to pokemon battles)). We beat you Rock Tunnel! You and your stupid pokemon!

"Hey man, listen." Braveheart said to Live Bait as we walked out into the sunlight. "I'm sorry for the ways I was treating you. I know it must be hard to adapt to new situations, in fact, I remember when I was first caught, I needed the words of a friend to help me trust everyone. I'm sorry man."

"It's fine." Live Bait said. "Really. I should be the one apologizing. I shouldn't have gone ballistic on you like that. You were only trying to protect your own mind as well as mine. I'm sorry for over reacting."

"Hey, it's okay." Braveheart said. "Are we cool G?"

"What?"

"G, you know, Gyarados!"

"Oh. Yeah, we're cool. We're cool, but don't call me G again. That was weird."

Later in Lavender Town…

"Name Rater!" I said as I burst open the door. "My Gyarados needs a new name! It needs to be official."

"Ugh. What does it want?"

I turned around and looked at live bait. "What do you want your name to be?"

"It should be something great!" Braveheart said. "Maybe throw in how you're completely blue too."

"That's perfect!" Live Bait said.

"What? Blue? No, that's off limits. No naming after video game characters."

"Not Blue, you idiots." he said. "My name will be Great Blue!"

"Yeah like a Great White only blue!" I said.

"Or like the ocean!" He said.

"Or maybe just because he's great, and he's blue!" Braveheart said.

"It doesn't matter why." The Name Rater said. "His name is now Great Blue! It's ten thousand times better than the last name!"

All three of us exchanged looks, and a short while after we left, the Name Rater's house was destroyed in a flurry of Dragon Rage, which Live- I mean Great Blue, had learned in Rock Tunnel. "Hank! There you are!" A man said running to us. Looker. Oh please tell me that I don't have to fight Team Rocket. "Team Rocket is still in the tower, but you can't reach them without a Silph Scope! You'll need to infiltrate their hideout at Celadon City and retrieve the goggles so you can see the ghosts that they have summoned. The hideout is cleverly hidden, and it is probably over run with grunts that you need to defeat!" Looker, I'm pretty sure I hate you. "There is also a grass Gym in Celadon, in case you want to train that bird of yours." Looker, I'm pretty sure I simultaneously hate and love you.

"Well guys." I said. "Off to Celadon!"