Chapter 75, everybody! Where we discuss the ramifications of running into fire like stupid people….
In other news, in discussing TMs and HMs in this and the next chapter, I realized that I had made a bit of an editing error in Chapter 72 and had to go back and fix it. The perils of writing in patchwork…anywho fixed now.
Discussing HMs also required me to look up which HMs are awarded when in Kanto and then puzzling out how they worked in this story, which then required puzzling out some of the fiddly bureaucratic bs that goes with it. Fun times, especially if you've ever had a need to go on a government website. Also fun times: Ash's complaints about getting tons of vaccines mirrors my own when I got ready to go to college—which, fair, that's a lot of people in a small space.
Moving on to reviews: big thanks to Horseman trash, Dragonkeeper10, forward-smash, Cyan Quartz, Silverwing23, griffin blackwood, deant33 (I agree, Breloom are awesome :D), talesfanjmf, Luckenhaft, Frost Glaive, guest (true, but I mentioned in earlier chapters that gym leaders have to prioritize native Pokémon), reader (you marathoned the whole thing and it was a joy to watch), VincentFS, AverageHiveMind, and epantoja521! Love reading all those reviews. :D
VincentFS, thank you for your review! I'll take it under consideration, but I'm going to have to ask you to provide some examples of fics that differ in the battle descriptions for me to read through, because as I understand it how you described the battles is basically how Pokémon battles work in canon.
AverageHiveMind, thanks for the review! It's good to see you back! :D Frenzy is too OP to use in every battle so we have to hold him back sometimes to keep it fair. And that's a fair point—we've got, at bare minimum, another thirty chapters to go (most likely a lot more) but I do have some character development planned, as there's other characters who want to see some development happening too, so stay tuned. ;)
Pokémon © Game Freak; Nintendo
And now, for something completely different:
Smokey the Bewear would like to remind you that only you can prevent wildfires.
They were released from the hospital the next morning, although they were encouraged to stick around for a few days and heal up properly. Erika set them up in the local hotel.
"Wow, what a one-eighty," Misty said.
"Sometimes people need things to be put in perspective," Brock said, looking out the window—the sky was still smudged with gray smoke. "I do wonder who started that fire."
"Or what," Misty pointed out. "What makes you so sure it was a who?"
"I'm sure we weren't the only ones Erika ticked off—someone who wasn't as nicely oriented as us could have come back and decided to take revenge."
"But that's awful!" Misty protested. "What kind of horrible people would do that!?"
"They exist, unfortunately," Brock said, before looking back at Ash, still conked out on the bed, Pikachu curled up next to him. "The good news is, everyone made it. The bad news is, we may never know what happened."
Misty groaned, flopped down on her own bed. "Of all the rotten…."
Brock half-nodded, acknowledging that trailed off statement; looked back at Ash. They were really going to have to do something about that run headfirst into danger habit of his.
Later. First thing's first—a good long rest was definitely a good idea.
Nice soft beds that most definitely weren't less than an inch of separation from rocky ground absolutely made sleep longer and harder than usual. Ash drifted in and out of sleep through to nightfall, only coming fully awake when Brock came in with takeout.
"Nnngh…what'd I miss?" he asked around a yawn, pushing himself upright.
"Police and firemen combing over the gym," Brock said, pulling out a few rice containers. "Since you and Misty both slept pretty late, I got dinner and breakfast. We have pancakes, scrambled eggs, link sausages, chow mein, teriyaki, takoyaki, rice balls, egg rolls, fried rice, donuts…."
"Can I start on a rice ball?" Ash asked, sitting fully upright and eager for food. Brock handed him a rice ball and went back to sorting out everything on the desk, pulling out three paper plates while he was at it.
"Wake Misty up, will you?" Brock asked, spooning some plain rice onto all three plates.
"Sure," Ash said, prioritizing a moment of silence and a bite of his rice ball first. He got up, crossed over to Misty's bed, chewing and swallowing before leaning over.
"Misty? Misty?" Ash hissed; she mumbled a little and rolled over. "Hey Misty, your sisters want to travel with us!"
Misty jerked upright so fast that she nearly smacked right into Ash.
"Wow, that worked," Ash noised, from his new position in the chair he had fallen into.
"Don't do that," she scolded, throwing a pillow at him. "What is that?"
"Breakfast?" Ash guessed, holding up the half-eaten rice ball. "Or dinner. Dinfest? Breakner? Maybe breaker."
"Breaker breaker," Brock noised, smirking. "So, Misty, which one do you want, breakfast, dinner, or a mix of both?"
"Who are you feeding?" Misty asked, pausing in the act of getting out of bed at the sight of the spread.
"You, me, Ash, the Pokémon if there's any left over…you can fill the tub and let your water Pokémon out for a meal."
"They'd like that," Misty said, standing. "Let me go get that started."
"Right. Any preferences here?"
Misty leaned over and looked. "I'll have some chow mein."
"Excellent choice."
"I'll have some of everything," Ash said, finishing off his rice ball as Misty disappeared into the bathroom. "You didn't get any ketchup packets, did you? I want to get some before Pikachu wakes up."
Pikachu's ears twitched; he stretched, rolled over, sat up a little to blink blearily at everyone.
"You eat some real food first," Brock told Pikachu, pointing a spork at him. "And yes, I got ketchup packets."
"Great! Extra scrambled eggs then."
"On it."
Once Misty came back out, food was served and everyone dug in after their moments of silence. Ash made sure to add his ketchup after he had opened his eyes back up.
"So now what?" Ash asked, holding his plate up and away from Pikachu's twitching nose; Pikachu's ketchup-less eggs and chow mein were studiously being ignored. "I mean, I got the Rainbow Badge, so Cinnabar should be next."
"Right," Brock said, rolling a takoyaki in some sauce before taking a bite. "Well, I suppose we could head east and see if the bridges have been fixed, or we could double back on that longest shortcut of ours. Or we could head west and follow the coastline down. Any way you slice it, we'll be hitting Fuchsia City before—and here's the awful truth of it—hopping a boat for Cinnabar."
Ash's enthusiasm for seeing Koga and Janine again evaporated at that news. "Ugh."
"Hey, the only other ways to get there is to either Fly there or Teleport there, and we have no Pokémon who've ever been."
"Darkrai could give us a lift."
"Darkrai wasn't sold on transporting us from the Anne to the mainland, and this would be a greater distance. Where is he, by the way? I haven't seen him."
Ash looked back outside—in the late afternoon light, the numerous workers were still pretty evident.
"There's too many people," he explained. "Darkrai's probably off in the woods somewhere, waiting for them to go away. Or for us to leave, so….If I put ketchup on your eggs, will you leave mine alone?" he asked Pikachu, who hadn't ceased in his attempts to get at Ash's plate.
"Pika," Pikachu noised, nodding.
"Great. Ketchup," Ash said, holding his hand out. Brock tossed him a packet; Ash put his plate on his lap, ripped the packet open, and smeared it out onto Pikachu's eggs. Pikachu cheered before digging in.
"It'd probably be in our best interests to stay for another day," Brock said, rolling another takoyaki in his sauce. "At the very least, you're going to want to make sure you're fully recovered from smoke inhalation, and rest is the best bet there. And the police are probably going to want our statement."
"For what?" Misty asked, spork full of rice halfway to her mouth as she looked up.
"Standard procedure. They want to know if we saw anything unusual, if there was anything we noticed…probably want to make sure we're not suspicious characters that would set gyms on fire."
"Oh please," Ash noised around a mouthful of sausages. "Like we'd do that."
"Don't talk with your mouth full. And it's all right, we have nothing to confess to."
"Calling Erika pretending we were the League," Misty pointed out.
"Darkrai," Ash added.
"And those fall under the category of they do not need to know that, don't share it," Brock counselled.
"I'm completely convinced Brock is a Darkrai in disguise, by the way," Ash said to Misty.
"That does seem like the sort of advice he'd give," Misty said to Brock.
"Do you really want to spend more than a few days in a jail?" Brock asked. "Neither of those is pertinent to the fire, they want information on the fire. It'd be the same as telling them about everything that happened at Grandpa Canyon."
"Which I still have a hard time believing, and I was there."
"Exactly."
"Darkrai's kind of pertinent," Ash said. "Considering he saved me and Gloomy. We wouldn't have gotten out of there without him."
"Ash, you didn't tell us about Darkrai until he was right in front of us, and we were travelling with you for over a month," Brock said. "And I'm sure he'd be less than thrilled if you shared information about him with police officers who would be obligated to call the Rangers after him."
"Would they really though?" Misty asked.
"We're talking a Legendary from Sinnoh. They'd treat him as a displaced Legendary and best-case scenario would return him to Sinnoh."
Ash blinked a few times, rice suddenly losing its flavor in his mouth. "Worst-case scenario?"
"They'd probably put him down."
And now the food in his stomach had turned to lead. "So no mentioning Darkrai at all, ever. Got it."
"Good," Brock said, slicing up a pancake with his spork. "Glad we had this little chat."
"And no more running into burning buildings," Misty added.
"Agreed. Actually, no more running into danger period. You're going to do that one of these days and no one will be there to back you up."
Ash was tempted to argue the point, but recalled what would have happened if Darkrai hadn't been there. It was enough to send a chill down his back. "All right, that's a fair point too. No more dangerous stuff without letting you know first."
"It's a start," Brock sighed.
They did stick around for the next several days, both to watch work on the gym and recover. Brock did sign off on hanging around on routes near Celadon for training, after taking Ash back to the shopping center for a TM reader.
"Come to think of it we should probably be getting some HMs too," Brock mused.
"You mentioned those once, I think," Misty said.
"I did, and I've looked it up since then. HMs are hidden machines, and they're only usable by trainers who have a certain number of badges. Let's see, you have six badges, so you should be able to use Cut, Fly, Surf, Strength, Flash and Rock Smash outside of battle. Surf you need definitely if we're going to Cinnabar—"
"I've surfed on Lenny already," Ash pointed out.
"Technically illegally. And unless you want to take the ferry—"
"Okay then," Ash said quickly. "How do we get the HMs, then? It sounds like we're going to have to do a lot of hunting."
"Usually we would, but the League is experimenting," Brock said. "You just write in, say where you're currently basing yourself and how many badges you have, and they mail the HM disks to you."
"Sounds way too easy," Misty said. "And if they wouldn't get involved with Erika, why would they send us any HMs?"
"Because they're motivated to get more trainers to the Indigo Plateau and mailing CDs is less labor-intensive than dealing with a recalcitrant gym leader," Brock told her. "Come on, we need the computer at the Pokémon Center for this."
Ash was somewhat familiar with the Pokémon Center PC, having used it once or twice after one of Professor Oak's lab assistants told him he could check the status of his Pokémon that way and even put in a request to swap Pokémon out that way. Mostly he had agonized over whether to put Charmeleon back in his party, kept finding that he much preferred the concept of continuing to train a Gastly with a propensity towards self-destruction than a moody Charmeleon. Yes, that made him feel sucky for continuing to take the easy route. No, it didn't make him feel sucky enough to risk getting his eyebrows burnt off.
"So," Brock said, sandwiched between Ash and Misty as he logged onto the League website via one of the computer booths. "We need your trainer ID, that'll give them all your information, and then we can order Surf from there."
"Three copies?" Ash asked.
"No—HMs can be used more than once, like those new TMs. I think those actually use some of the same technology as HMs do, come to think of it."
"And we're allowed to use them because?" Misty asked. "You and I don't have enough badges."
"Technically certain HMs are tied to certain badges, so you and I could use Cut and Flash respectively," he told her. "The ruling on that changed when Blaine and Giovanni went off the grid. But also, as gym leaders we get certain perks—being able to use HMs regardless of badge count is one of them."
"I've really got to start attending these meetings," Misty muttered.
"It does clear some stuff up."
"Okay next question," Ash said. "How do I find my trainer ID?"
This required a lot of poking around on Ash's Pokédex until they found a section labeled personal information, which also had Ash's bank statement (which had taken a hit), name, blood type and age in addition to his trainer ID.
"How do they know my blood type?" Ash asked.
"They probably got it from your medical records," Brock said, tapping the ID in. "Your sponsor probably requested them from your family, making sure your shots and such are up to date and you could actually physically handle a trainer journey. No one wants to get sick or die on a gym run, after all."
"I don't think they want to do that under any circumstance," Misty pointed out.
"True, but on a gym run specifically puts a black mark on the League's records."
"So that's why I had to be a human pincushion as part of my trainer preparation?" Ash demanded.
"You are encountering a lot of stuff you wouldn't otherwise run into."
"I mean yeah but not all of that's my fault," Ash said—blinked as the League website popped up. "Oh wow."
"Well let's be fair, government websites don't often have a need to update," Brock said, scrolling through the information before clicking on Hidden Machines and scanning the new page. "Yup, here—to streamline the new trainer experience, trainers with a certain number of badges can either request the following HMs through their sponsor or order them direct from the League website using the form below. Okay so we have two options—one, we can order them right now and see what the expected wait time is. We're still going to be hanging around Celadon for a few days, so there's that. Two, you call your sponsor and request the HM, and if he has it on hand he can send it to you, which is potentially faster."
"How is the second option faster?" Ash asked. "Wouldn't Professor Oak have to mail it to me?"
"Usually, but recently Pokémon Centers have item transfer devices installed so sponsors can send important items faster," Brock said. "It runs on the same technology that Pokémon transfers do. Now I heard that they're working on item storage too, but I'm not sure how far along that is, which is why we shipped a bunch of stuff back."
"Okay that was my next question," Ash admitted. "But I can call Professor Oak real quick and we can see about that."
"Probably faster than dealing with bureaucracy," Misty muttered.
"Misty, Slowpoke are faster than bureaucracy," Brock told her.
Professor Oak was glad to be able to hear from Ash, who had the good luck to catch him when he was actually in his lab and not off somewhere.
"I just got back from visiting Professor Elm in Johto," he said. "They're discussing opening the region to outsiders soon, that might be a thing you want to look into. Now, you wanted something?"
"Yeah," Ash said, filing away a trip to Johto in his things to do before I turn eleven folder. "Brock says that I can get HMs if I've got a certain number of badges, and I just got my sixth one—"
"Oh wow, you're making good time! Most starting trainers haven't even gotten their fourth badges yet," Professor Oak said, looking impressed. "But yes—it used to be that you had to find where the HMs were hidden, hence the name, but we found that that wasn't exactly fair to trainers who started out later, since we could only hide so many. That and some people just took all of them to keep from having so much competition," he grumbled. "Which ones do you want? Technically the only one you can't use yet is Waterfall, but I can see if there's any on hand—which, seeing as how you're on the upper end of the curve, I shouldn't have run out yet."
"I'd really like Surf," Ash said, rankling a bit at the thought of someone else getting ahead of him—and who, exactly. "Gary's on the short list, isn't he?"
"He's ahead of you, yes," Professor Oak admitted. "And I have Surf here—have to always order extra of this and Fly, everyone always goes for those two first."
"I don't really have anyone who can use Fly, I don't think," Ash said, sorting through the Pokémon he had in his head.
"Technically that Aerodactyl you sent could learn it, but we're still busy studying it," Professor Oak told him. "Also Charizard could learn it, if you want that Charmeleon of yours back."
Oh 'karp. "Uhhhh maybe not a good idea—we're gonna try for Cinnabar next so that'd be a lot of water for him to deal with—"
"Ah," Professor Oak muttered, looking and sounding mildly irritated before changing tacks. "Wait, you're not going to try for Blaine, are you? I've already warned Gary off from that—I doubt Blaine is even still in Kanto at this point."
"So Gary doesn't have the Volcano Badge?"
"Not for lack of trying—he went to Cinnabar and looked but couldn't find him. Currently he's exploring the Seafoam Islands before taking the ferry back."
That cinched it. "Thanks for the info, Professor, but we're gonna try anyway."
"Can't say I didn't warn you," Professor Oak sighed. "Well, good luck—you'll need it."