'Pansear: OK. Now that all that's worked out, we have a problem.'

'Ferroseed: Wot?'

'Dewott: Christmas is approaching, and aside from the party, we've done NOTHING! NOTHING!'

'Pansear: And we came in late, too! (I knew we should have used the Particle Messaging System).'

'Litwick: Party?'

'Pansear: You weren't there. So me and Dewott propose a Christmas part.'

'Stoutland: What about non-christians?'

'Litwick: We throw a party and invite those 'reader' guys you keep talking about?'

'Stoutland: …No. They can't get in here unless there's a gigantic roleplay on a forum. Which isn't a bad idea, but it's complicated. So can we just go with a giant Christmas reference chapter?'

'Unfezant: …I still want the party…'

'Dewott: … … …Look. A blimp. '

'Unfezant: A blimp! Yay! I'm happy. Let's do this chapter!'

'Pansear: …what. The.'

'Stoutland: O_O'

'Dewott: That's randomness taken to the extreme. So we've got 4/5 pokemon support. Let's do this!'

…

…

'Stoutland: Uh, zzzp2? You're supposed to start.'

Oh. Sorry.

Chapter 37: Jingle bells will wake Cobalion

Misaltron cave was dark.

I know that sounded incredibly obvious, but in Chargestone I could see everywhere. In most pokemon games there's a REALLY dark cave, somewhere. That requires the use of Flash to see.

This was that cave.

However, most of the challenge was made redundant by teaching Flash to Litwick, lighting up the place.

'Litwick: …So what Flash does is it makes my flame give off light?'

'Pansear: It didn't before?'

'Litwick: Well, no. It's a ghost flame! …Or something like that. I don't really know.'

When Litwick used Flash, it enlarged the circle of light around me to a pretty big size. I couldn't see stuff at a mediocre distance, but it was enough for navigation.

To the right was a Strength rock, in the other direction. Conveniently making a 1-way road.

'Unfezant: If I didn't know better, I'd say someone made this place just to make you go around!'

'Dewott: Then you don't know better?'

The only way available was down, and that was blocked by a Boldore. Boldores have a blue, triangular rock body, with red crystals all over. Two rocks acted as legs, and their pure Rock typing made them have a lot of weaknesses.

Which Stoutland exploited with Crunch.

Farther down, I could see a Strength rock, but a Woobat distracted us with a battle.

'Woobat: Oy, you look so tired. It's dark out! Please, come in t-

'Stoutland: …no. This isn't the 1900s. What the heck are you thinking?'

'Woobat: …children these days..'

'Stoutland: I AM NOT A CHILD!'

A crunch got the random Woobat out of our way, and I headed down to get a full view of the strength rock. I pressed A on it… and then realized I didn't have anyone who knew Strength.

Stoutland to the rescue!

'Stoutland: OK. So by doing this, I'm forgetting how to tackle and learning how to tackle harder?'

"Uh, yes."

With Stoutland's Strength, I got the boulder in the hole, and I could now pass it by standing on it. The path led farther down into the cave, where I could see a Hiker standing there.

He had a Drilbur, a steel-clawed mole that I described before, and a Gurdurr.

'Drilbur: Can we get on with the battle? Trainer's making cookies.'

'Ferroseed: Cookies? Wot are those?'

"There's only lava cookies in pokemon, which restore status ailments, but that's beside the point."

'Pansear: What's beside the point? Ah, nevermind.'

Upon defeating the Hiker, he offered me a Lava Cookie as a present, and I gave it to Ferroseed.

'Ferroseed: Wot? Oh, the cookie. It's… wot's the word? Good? Yeah, good. I like it!'

Another Strength rock got pushed, another Boldore battled, and another level-up occurred before I headed upwards.

And a Woobat appeared.

'Woobat: Can't you just come? Please? You made me use my only reviv- AAAH!'

'Dewott: And that is why you don't annoy higher-leveled pokemon. '

A Hiker had a Boldore, and Dewott Surfed and 1-hit KOed him. Or would have, if not for the Boldore having the ability Sturdy, enabling him to have 1 HP when 1-hit KOed.

But an Aqua Jet solved that problem.

To the right of the Hiker was a Max Repel, and also another Boldore which got Litwick to level 37. And after that, the Woobat appeared again.

'Woobat: Good thing Cynthia gave me a Reviver Seed. Anyway, you've denied my hospitality. Why? I Curse you, young Dewott. If you faint me, you'll lose your arms and have to walk on all fours for life!'

'Pansear: …that's called evolution. It happens naturally.'

'Woobat: No! Everyone I've cursed has changed radically! And you expect me to believe? What do they teach people nowadays? Back in my day, we didn't go around fainting others for fun. We went to Colorado and saw improv! And we didn't go fainting our friends. What has the world come to?'

'Dewott: A new generation more in touch with game mechanics. Bye, and don't come back please.'

To the left of the Hiker was that Strength rock I saw earlier, and I pushed it down, making a shortcut. And down from there: Were stairs going up.

On the second floor were more rocks waiting to be pushed here, starting with the one a bit to the right. I pushed it, and then climbed up some stairs on a little ledge to the right. Up from there was another boulder, and beyond that was the TM for Rock Slide. It does a bit of Rock-type damage and is a good TM to have. On my way back to the boulder, I ran into a little cyclone… and came out with a Dragon Gem?

'Ferroseed: Wot's that?'

"I don't know, actually. A new item?"

The boulder led to some more stairs… which led to the 'Guidance Chamber'. Which didn't need flash!

'Unfezant: Oh, I can see now! I feel so happy!'

'Ferroseed: Why? It's just light?'

'Unfezant: I'm happy now, I'm happy now, because there's light all the way!'

'Dewott: She's… singing?'

I headed right, and an old man spotted me. He told me about Cobalion, Terrakion, and Virizion. They helped protect pokemon from a raging forest. Because of them, the war that started the fire was ended. However, they learned that humans couldn't be good, so they cut themselves off from people and disappeared. They faded into myth…

And he had found that one of them lived in the cave. If humans approach, though, they would attack. So they convinently needed someone to show them that the world has changed.

In short, I got to catch Cobalion.

'Unfezant: Oh what fun it is to listen to an old man ramble away!'

I found a Dusk Stone beside him, and then continued up on the path, past the old man. A passing Boldore Rock Slided Dewott, fainting him, so Unfezant got put in first place. While singing.

'Unfezant: Jingle bells, jingle bells, I'm singing all the way! Until we catch Cobalion and show him our good way! Oh, jingl-'

'Cobalion: STOP IT!'

'Pansear: !'

'Cobalion: I can't believe you came! It's annoying! Do you know what you just did? YOU JUST MESSED UP MY HIGH SCORE! Virizion's gonna kill me for all the bandwidth!'

"…uh, high score?"

'Cobalion: Yeah! Oh, do you have a pokegear by any chance?'

"…no, why?"

'Cobalion: DAMMIT! I TOLD Virizion to set up Virizion Wireless in Johto!

I

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