20. Showdown in Vermillion City
Where did we left off? Ah, right. Danny, Richard and Janine arrived in Vermillion City, and both boys were overwhelmed by its beauty. They found an almost drowned Voltorb, to which Richard quickly grew attached to, and met Lt. Surge. While Voltorb is recovering, Surge heard something he didn't wanted to.
And now where here, where we left off. I want to thank everyone for waiting, at one point I would almost hope you missed me, which would mean you actually care about this story. Never mind, hope you enjoy the next chapter.
Before the dawn three people were already awake, far before everybody else was. They quickly ate breakfast, and got on their ways. The sun was shining over the glittering sea, and a new day was about to start off.
Danny opened the Pokémon Centre's doors.
Richard opened the door towards the examine room.
Lt. Surge opened the door of his house.
"Let's go training."
"I really hope you get strong again soon."
"I sure hope those guys still have my Voltorb."
Danny quickly let out all of his Pokémon, and sat down with them on the soft sand of the Vermillion Beach, with a nice view over the ocean.
"Okay, here's how it is likely to go down: Surge uses Electric type Pokémon, so Krabby and Pidgey won't see any action, I'm sorry." Pidgey, at first, seemed a little bit sad, but when remembering its glorious victory in Cerulean City, it didn't mind. Krabby didn't mind to battle, he had trained together with Danny, but he still wasn't as strong as some of his teammates, for example Bellsprout, who already did a step forward to volunteer as a participant.
"Bellsprout, wait a minute, you fought in my last two gym battles, don't you think others should have a shot at it?" Bellsprout looked at its trainer, and shook its head. No way, if Bellsprout could battle it would battle.
"I'm actually thinking about using Charmander." The fire lizard looked up surprised. In the last two gym battle it hadn't seen much action, mainly due to the type disadvantage, but now, it could finally participate.
"I don't exactly know how many Pokémon Surge will bring to the table, but I'm betting two or three, so Beedrill, Abra, you two are in as well. I'm sorry Bellsprout, but I want to give the others a shot as well, if things go wrong, you'll be replacing any team member."
For some reason, Bellsprout seemed to be proud being the last resort Danny would be able to count on, so it didn't matter too much.
"So you guys stay near, while Charmander, Beedrill, Abra and I are going to train and improve our speed. Won't be a problem for Abra, but Charmander and Beedrill need to get a little bit more used to dodging attacks." Charmander agreed, as he knew his edges. Beedrill had a little bit of a harder time swallowing his ego, especially with Bellsprout next to him.
In the meantime, Richard was sitting on the chair next to Voltorb, who was still not okay. It was even more red than it normally was, and Nurse Joy expected it to have gotten some fever, since it might have been in the cold sea water way too long.
Last day, it had almost seemed Voltorb was getting better, it had even greeted him when he and Danny had returned from Lt. Surge. But overnight, something had gone wrong, Voltorb was getting warmer and warmer, and Nurse Joy quickly declared it had gotten a bad fever, and back to the examine room it was for poor Voltorb.
When Janine woke up, she was surprised that the boys where already on their feet, she never saw Danny on a gym battle day, so this was all new to her. After she also ate her breakfast, she quickly found Richard still with Voltorb.
"You need to take a break." She said. "I'll take it over, you go see Danny." Richard looked up, and smiled. "I don't know, what if something goes wrong?" "Then I'll call Nurse Joy, and Venonat here will go after you directly." Janine answered, while laying her hand on his shoulder. Venonat happily nodded.
"Okay, thanks Janine." He stood up, and walked towards Voltorb. "You take care buddy, I won't be gone for long." Voltorb didn't react, and that hurt Richard. He had hoped Voltorb would grow stronger soon again, but it didn't.
"Hey, Danny!" Richard quickly ran towards his friend, who was running along the shore, together with his Pokémon.
"Hey Richard, how is Voltorb doing?" Danny stopped, and looked questioning, but the look on Richard's face said enough. "Still not getting better." Danny sighed softly. "Care for running along?" "Sure" Richard decided to let Squirtle and Eevee out, knowing that Sandshrew wouldn't care for running too much, and they started running.
Eevee quickly out speeding the others, quickly followed by Beedrill and Pidgey, than came Danny, Richard, Charmander, Squirtle and Bellsprout, followed up by Abra and Krabby.
Surge opened the doors of the Pokémon Centre, and quickly walked up to Nurse Joy.
"Those two boys with the Voltorb, are they still around?" He asked, frightened for what he would find out. "Yes, they are. Voltorb is in the examine room, resting. It got a bad fever."
"Can I see it? I just heard my Voltorb isn't in the Power Plant anymore, and I'm afraid this one might be mine." "Yeah sure, follow me."
Janine looked up when she saw Joy coming in the examine room together with a large man, wearing army clothes and with yellow hair.
"Hi, my name Lt. Surge." "Janine." The two shook hands. "Do I know you maybe, you look familiar?" Surge started thinking. "Nah, never mind. Can I see the Voltorb kiddo?" She nodded, and Surge walked forward, only to get the shock of his live. In the incubator, surrounded by towels filled with ice, laid his Voltorb.
"How….." He was completely shocked, ever since he got that call from the Power Plant, he had hoped Voltorb was hidden somewhere, but it wasn't. It had apparently swam over the ocean for as far as it could, until it couldn't go any further.
"But, why would it do that?" Surge said out loud. "Do what?" Janine asked slowly. "Girl, this Voltorb was in the Power Plant, over sea, easily 40/50 kilometers of sea between there and here, how on earth did it get here?"
Nurse Joy signed Janine to let Surge alone for a while, and both ladies left the room.
"I'm sorry my friend." Surge said, still in shock. "I never knew, I never knew something would go so wrong." Voltorb didn't hear him, it was still way too warm, and restless moving around.
Back on the beach, Danny had changed his training method: Charmander and Beedrill where in the middle, surrounded by Danny, Richard and all their Pokémon, all of them doing fake attacks towards them, making Charmander and Beedrill faster.
It looked a lot like the training Danny had done with Bellsprout and Pidgey earlier, and because it worked back then, it should work now. The only problem was, Charmander couldn't keep up. Beedrill had no problems with the attacks, but Charmander got hit pretty often, as he wasn't fast enough.
"You'll need to think about another strategy Danny, this isn't working." Richard said, looking at Charmander getting hit again, this time by hand of Krabby, who directly seemed afraid he had hurt Charmander.
"I know, but if we aren't fast, what then?" Danny looked down, petting his Charmander on his head after seeing the disappointment on Charmander's face, not happy about his edges.
"I know, if you can't out speed them, tank the hit." Richard said, Danny looked up strangely. "What do you mean?" "Take whatever Surge throws at you, and hit back twice as hard." Richard said, but that made Danny sigh.
"What's wrong?" "I have no idea how to do that. I mean, I know how to train to become fast, but how can I train in a way they can take hits?" Richard looked at his friend. "I don't know. Maybe you don't even have to train, I mean, you are pretty strong already, maybe you train because you think you need to train."
"Last time I didn't train for a gym battle I got defeated." Danny said. "Yeah, with Misty. But as far as I recall you didn't trained with Bellsprout before your gym battle with Brock, and you won." "Yeah, you're right."
"Of course I am." Richard softly smiled. "I'm going back to Voltorb, if you don't mind." "No of course not." "Good luck with your gym battle."
They grasped hands for a few seconds before Richard waved goodbye, and walked back towards the Pokémon Centre, followed by Squirtle, Sandshrew and Eevee.
At that moment in the Pokémon center, Lt. Surge was just coming out of the examine room.
"Do you know where Danny is?" He asked Janine and Nurse Joy, but both shook their heads. "Then I better get to the gym, maybe he's on his way already." Surge said goodbye to both woman, and ran off towards the gym, a few minutes later, Richard came walking in.
"How is Voltorb doing?" He said. "What's wrong?" Looking at Janine's facial expression, Richard was afraid something had wrong.
"No, nothing. Voltorb is holding on." Janine said. "Richard, I've got some other bad news, that's the point." "Can't be too much of a bad message, Voltorb is okay, what could beat that?"
"We found the owner of Voltorb."
Richard's face went from relieved to negative shocked. "Really?" He pushed through a fake smile, which never had the intention to reach his eyes as well.
"That's, great. Really great." He swallowed. "No, it isn't great." He sat down, now really disappointed. "You know, I had already planned everything out. Its owner would never return, after Danny had beaten the league, it would come with me." He said. Squirtle, Sandshrew and Eevee all jumped or crawled up the seats next to him, and started cuddling him.
"Thanks you guys, I'm sorry, I was really looking forward of having Voltorb in our team."
Janine looked at her friend and felt the disappointment. "Hey, look at it from the bright side, it has its trainer back, otherwise it would have needed to wait a really long time to be with you, now it can be with its trainer directly." "I guess you're right."
A loud noise from the examine room interrupted their conversation.
"Voltorb!" Richard directly ran off towards the room, and found the Ball Pokémon rolling around, and screeching as well.
Nurse Joy and Janine quickly followed towards the room, but once there, Joy started to smile relieved.
"Don't worry, Voltorb is getting better. It is now fighting the fever, and that makes a lot of noise." She said, and from relieve, Richard started to laugh as well.
"You hear that Voltorb, you are going to be just fine." Richard said, as he walked closer to the incubator. Voltorb didn't hear him, it was in a heavy fight, but it was winning.
Surge arrived at the gym the same time Danny did as well. "Are you ready for your gym battle kid?" "Sure I am." Danny said fully confident. "Then let's get rolling." Surge opened the door, and let Danny in, than rubbing his hands for the upcoming match, a man as Surge just loved to battle.
"I suggest we fight in a two on two battle." Surge said. "That's fine with me." He saw the field was one plain one, which suggested once more that Surge's team was based around speed rather than slow and defensive.
"Great, judge, whatcha think, are we ready to start?" The judge nodded. "This match will be….." He was quickly interrupted. "Don't need to be so official man, just say 'Good luck fighting' , that'll do." The judge looked indignantly, but acquiesced in his fate.
"Very well, battlers, good luck."
"Electrode, how about you start things up." A round Pokémon, a lot like Voltorb but way bigger, appeared on the field.
"Wow, never seen those before." Danny said, quickly grabbing his Pokédex.
"Always know your Pokémon kid." Surge laughed, but Danny ignored it.
Electrode, the evolved form of Voltorb. Highly concentrated electric energy causes this Pokémon to explode unpredictably. Also known as the Bomb-ball.
"I want to excuse for my language, but shit, that's one dangerous Pokémon." Danny said before he realized what he said, but Surge started to laugh.
"That's the best part of training an Electrode: I can say when it needs to explode, and even though it seems cruel, if I command it to explode, Electrode's day is made." Surge started to smile, and so did his Electrode.
"Well, we won't let you. Beedrill, come on out." Beedrill showed up, ready to fight. After the disappointing match against Misty he was ready for a good revanche.
"Electrode, start things off with Spark!" Electrode seemed to charge up, but in fact, it was rolling towards Beedrill.
"Beedrill, fly up, it can't get to you when you're up in the sky."
"That's where you're wrong. Electrode, Rollout." While rolling, Electrode made enough speed so it didn't bump into the wall, it used the wall it rolled against as a stair to mid-air, where it could smack an unsuspecting Beedrill to the ground.
"Beedrill, get it back with Twineedle." The attack landed, but didn't manage to get Electrode out of its Rollout attack, and it hit Beedrill once again.
"The best thing about Rollout is that it gets stronger every time it hits the opponent." Surge said. "And Electrode can roll all day."
"I need to think of something quick. Beedrill, use Focus Energy." Beedrill was holding still in mid-air, focusing on his opponent.
"Now you're giving me the victory kid?" Surge said, as he saw his Electrode rolling towards Beedrill once again.
"Now, use Poison Sting." Beedrill send a small sting towards the Electric type Pokémon , and it hit right between its eyes, making it stop rolling.
"Now Beedrill, use Twineedle once again." This time, the damage was visible, and Electrode had to back down once more.
"You know, I have a better idea for this turn. Electrode, Blast them away." A big smile spread from side to side on Electrode's face, as it knew what those words mend, and it started to charge, this time for real.
"Crap, Beedrill, get up as fast as you can." Beedrill flew up, but the explosion caused by Electrode was enormous, both Danny and Surge had to do a few steps back from the impact.
After the smoke was cleared, Electrode laid knocked out, but with still a big smile, on the ground. Beedrill was still nowhere to be seen.
"Beedrill?" Danny said, seeing if he would get a reaction. Finally, Beedrill flew down from above, not looking to strong anymore, but still alive.
"Electrode is unable to battle, this round goes to the Beedrill of the challenger." Normally the judge would have said 'Electrode is unable to battle, Beedrill wins the round.' But because of Surge's commentary on him earlier, he thought it would be get back on him.
"That was one hell of an Explosion Electrode, well done." Surge returned his Pokémon. "I see your Beedrill has some extraordinary maneuvers, taking such a hit and remain battle ready."
"Well, I wouldn't directly call Beedrill battle ready right now. Take a good rest buddy." Beedrill was ready to get in his Pokéball for a while, the rest would do him good.
Back in the Pokémon Centre, Voltorb kept screeching and rolling around, sometimes even releasing small electric shocks in its incubator.
"Nurse Joy, are you sure it's getting better?" Janine asked, but Nurse Joy nodded. "Yes, this is the process every electric Pokémon will have to go through after a bad fever, Voltorb will be okay in no time."
Richard sat on, safe to say, his chair, and was looking into the incubator, and then, all of a sudden, he and Voltorb linked eyes, and for a second, they were on one line, and Richard softly smiled, letting Voltorb know he was there. It was only a sec. though, after that, Voltorb went back into its fighting stage.
"He'll be okay." Richard said with a smile.
While minutes past, the shocks disappeared, the screeching stopped, and in the end, the rolling around stopped as well.
When they looked through the glass, Voltorb looked back to good health, of course, it wasn't completely healthy, a fever isn't gone in nearly seconds, but it certainly looked better than the Voltorb Richard was watching over that morning.
"Hi buddy, good to have you back." Richard opened the incubator, and took Voltorb out, and cuddled it. Voltorb, happy to be healthy again, cuddled along as well.
"I've got some good news Voltorb. We found your trainer." Richard said. Voltorb looked up surprised, not knowing that its actual trainer, Lt. Surge, had already been here.
"Now you're getting better, should be bring you to him?" Voltorb didn't react, as it was struggling with itself. At one side, there was Lt. Surge, who had been his trainer for quite some time, on the other side, was this young trainer, who had been so nice the last few days.
"Raichu, start off with a Double Team!" Surge commanded, as his Raichu was now facing Danny's Charmander, on the plain battle field.
"Charmander, counter with Smokescreen." Charmander released a thick, black smoke in the entire arena, which kinda ruined the effects that Double Team had, cause even though there where like 7 Raichu's in the room, neither one of them, including the real one, could see Charmander anymore.
"Charmander, use Ember, on every Raichu you think to see." Charmander's eyes where easily adjusted to the smoke, and he could easily see through.
The first two Raichu's hit where the effects of Double Team, but the third one was knocked down after being hit, making all the other Raichu's disappear.
"Raichu, show him how we fight, give the lizard a Thunder Bolt!" Surge commanded. Several lighting strikes hit Charmander, and the impact made the smoke disappear as well, and Charmander was smacked to the ground.
"Charmander! Are you okay?" Danny asked. Luckily, Charmander nodded.
"Now let's speed this stuff up, Raichu, Double Team once more." The 7 Raichu's returned, and Charmander had no idea what to do.
"Hngh, the Smokescreen trick won't work again, and besides, Charmander came out heavier damaged then Raichu."
"Charmander, use Ember, once again. Try to find Raichu." "Raichu, you go for Take Down!" Several Raichu's ran towards Charmander, and while four of them disappeared after being hit by Ember, the real own got a good possibility to launch a Take Down on Charmander, knocking it back to the ground.
"Now Charmander, Ember!" The Fire attack did what it had to do, hit Raichu right in its belly, so it had to back down a few steps.
"And again!" Now the real Raichu was revealed, Charmander kept hitting it with Ember, one after another as fast as it could, before either Raichu or Lt. Surge could react, but he couldn't keep that up for long.
"Raichu, end this with Thunder Bolt." Another set of bolts struck Charmander, and it seemed not to be able to move, at all.
"Charmander, try an Ember, once again!" Charmander had no possibilities to move, it was completely paralyzed, from head to tail.
"That's it. It's over kiddo, Raichu, Take Down!"
"Charmander, please, try to move."
Raichu came charging in again, iit didn't even seem to have suffered even a little bit from the attacks Charmander did so far, while Charmander was clearly pushed to his limits, while being paralyzed at the same time.
He tried everything he could, but he couldn't move a muscle. Charmander tried to think over the options it had, and then felt something burning up inside him, it came up higher and higher. It instantly reacted with opening his mouth, to unleash that fire inside him.
One stream of burning hot fire was shot by Charmander towards Raichu, blasting it into the wall.
"Charmander!" Danny was completely caught by surprise. "Did you just use Flamethrower?" Charmander managed to turn his head, and put on a smile.
"Raichu, don't let it do this, get back there, Take Down!" While Raichu didn't seemed to be damaged at all before, now it was clearly wounded, while running, it seemed that its left paw was weakened, and it was more hopping than really running, which made it slower.
"Charmander, try that attack again, another Flamethrower." Charmander wanted to, he really wanted, but that fire inside was gone again.
Danny seemed to see it as well. "Then try Ember, that'll do as well."
As Ember hit Raichu, and nearly seconds later Take Down hit Charmander, both Pokémon seemed to be at their end of their ropes.
Raichu was standing still, right behind Charmander, not giving up. Charmander tried as well, but the damage was too big, and he fell down.
"Charmander!" After hearing Charmander falling to the ground, Raichu's motivation to keep standing fell as well, and he started to waver, before finally hitting the hard underground.
"Both Charmander and Raichu are unable to battle, due to the challenger still having his Beedrill alive, he is the victor of this battle."
"That was one heavy battle Charmander, you amazed me." Danny kneeled down by his starter, who seemed to smile. "That Flamethrower was amazing, we'll work on that when you are all better." He petted Charmander on his head, before returning the Fire Type to his ball.
Surge did the same thing with his Raichu, while still being surprised by his loss.
"Well done Danny." He walked towards the challenger. "You fought well, and you think as a good trainer as well, returning Beedrill to keep it alive, you might now be fully aware, but that was maybe your best move in the entire match."
Danny smiled. "And of course, you defeated my Raichu, that's proof that you are a strong trainer kiddo."
"Lt. Surge, can I ask you something?" Danny asked, and the lieutenant nodded. "I wondered about this quite some time, for example, if this would have ended in a tie, who would have won?"
That question made Surge thinking. "I don't really know, I guess you would win anyway, cause you beat all my Pokémon." He scratched his head. "But that doesn't matter, here, this is for you." He handed Danny a yellow badge, seemed to be shaped like a flower or the sun.
"Thank you."
At that same time, Richard and Janine came walking into the gym, Richard carrying Voltorb.
"It seems like the battle is already over, can we congratulate you Danny?" Janine asked, to which Danny happily responded by showing the Thunder Badge.
"Congratulations than." Janine smiled. "Yeah, congrats Danny." Richard said, a little bit absent.
"It seems like Voltorb is all healthy I see." Surge said, walking towards Richard, and the Electric Pokémon.
Voltorb still hadn't decided which person to choose, and it knew the time of choosing had come, so it decided to go with the one he thought was the best choice.
When Surge wanted to take Voltorb over, it turned around.
"What?" Both Surge and Richard said. Voltorb pushed itself to Richard's body, as in: I don't want to leave this guy. Surge saw it, and although he felt a little bit disappointed, he knew the right thing to do.
"It seems like Voltorb has grown attached to you." He said, and Richard slightly nodded.
"Well then, I think Voltorb should be with the one it is the most attached to. Richard, I want to give my Voltorb to you." Surge said. Richard's mouth fell wide open. "Are you sure?" Surge started to laugh at this response. "Of course I am, it is yours."
Danny looked at Janine, and whispered. "Is Voltorb Surge's?" "Yeah, he came by the Pokémon center and explained." She whispered back. Danny slowly nodded, now all updated.
Richard couldn't be happier. He took one of the Pokéballs that where on his belt, and showed it at Voltorb.
"This is your new Pokéball, what do you think?" Voltorb happily growled, and Richard touched the middle pattern, sending the Ball Pokémon straight to its new home.
Richard was happy to see the ball click directly, making Voltorb 100% his.
Danny looked at his friend and smiled, for one that Richard had Voltorb on his team, the other reason was lying in his hand.
After a few handshaking's, Danny, Richard and Janine left the gym and went back to the Pokémon center, one with a new friend, another with a new badge.
Phew, that was one big chapter, after four weeks of not writing at all, I can tell I missed it. So here you have it, the gym battle against Lt. Surge. I decided to stop following the animé here, as well as gameplay, and give Surge an Electrode instead, which would really fit with his character, at least, that's what I thought.
I think I can put the next chapter on next Sunday, so that means an end to the hiatus. I have one request. I haven't had time for the wikia in a long time, and the last chapter on it is "Rematch in the City of Water Flowers's", with other words, the last gym battle. If somebody is interested, send me a pm, and you can start working ;)