Episode 10: Pewter City

Pewter City lies at the Western base of Mt. Moon, which is visible from anywhere within the city. The mountain's massive body casts a massive shadow over the city in the morning, coming up to warm up the air in the early afternoon.

Alan and I went to the Pewter City Pokemon Center together and checked in our Pokemons for healing services.

"What're you going to do now?" Alan asked. "Straight to the gym?"

"Hmm, I don't feel like I'm ready yet," I said honestly. "I think I will spend some time training and exploring the city first."

"Alright," Alan said. "Here, I'll give you my number. I'll prob spend a few days here and then head back home to Cerulean City. My family owns a restaurant there. Look me up when you get there, yeah?"

I added Alan's number into the phone. It was one of those old-school 2G type phones. Apparently this world had amazing Pokemon-related technology, but not so much in the way of human telecommunications. What a weird afterlife.

After I got my Pokemon back, I went to the reception area in the Pokemon Center to gather a bunch of pamphlets with information about local attractions. A lot of it was related to Mt. Moon, of course: "Guided Tour of Mt. Moon," "Moon Stone Mining," and so forth. There was a pamphlet with information of local bed and breakfast places, so I grabbed one of those. And… Oh, that's right! There was the Pewter City Museum of Natural History! I decided to check it out.

On the way to the Museum I saw the Pewter City Gym, of course, on the left. Even from far away I could see a small group of Pokemon trainers standing in a circle, watching two trainers battle it out. It was exciting.

The museum was free to view, so I took my time looking at fossils of ancient Pokemon. There were also sections on natural herbs and minerals with different properties that affected Pokemon, so I took notes on those. For example, a certain species of red berries were too bitter to eat (although not poisonous), but could be crushed up and applied on burns and small cuts. Important things to note, I thought, if I ever find myself in the wild away from spray meds for Pokemon. Those spray things add weight to my backpack, after all, and there was a limit to what I can carry.

Then I remembered… wasn't there an old amber that I can find around here? I walked around the museum until I found the labs that researchers used to preserve and study fossils. I found some people in lab coats in there, and asked about any interesting amber discoveries.

Then these nerds got excited.

They were so happy to see a "young natural history enthusiast" that they blabbed about a section of wooded area near Mt. Moon cave entrance where new ambers were being discovered in dig sites.

"This one here is especially exciting," one of them said, showing me an old amber in a plastic case. "We're hoping that our colleagues in Cinnabar Island can finish their research soon so we can try to extract the DNA from things like this."

"Oh, cool! My Uncle Blaine lives on Cinnabar Island," I lied.

The lab coats all stopped what they were doing, stunned.

"You… you know Blaine? The Cinnabar City Gym leader?" One of them asked.

"Uh huh, he used to come up to Pallet Town all the time and show me his fire Pokemon."

They lost their minds. One of them asked me if I could get him a signature. Another asked if he had seen a Magmar in real life.

I listened and responded to them for a while, then said, "I think Uncle Blaine would be interested in that amber."

And that's how I was given the Old Amber with the DNA of an Aerodactyl inside.

Afterwards I called ahead to a bed and breakfast place in the West part of the city. It was run by an old couple, and had two other trainers staying there. One of them challenged me to a battle.

His Rattata was easily defeated by my Charmander. He was becoming quite a boxer, but instead of blunt fists, it was sharp claws. It was hard to hit him in close quarter battles.

The trainer used his Pidgey next and told him to use gust from the air. It was an attempt to stay away from my Charmander, and it was smart. However, the Pidgey had to get close to a certain degree in order for the gust to do any damage, and in that distance, I told Charmander to make his tail flame as big as he can, and try to get directly below the Pidgey. I actually wanted him to jump to get the flame closer to Pidgey, but he needed to concentrate to make the flame big, and it was already costing him his focus and stamina. The Pidgey tried to get away, but Charmander kept on following him, standing directly under the bird Pokemon with his flame. The heat from the flame and the flying around eventually depleted Pidgey's stamina, bringing him down to the ground. Charmander finished him off with some scratches.

"I have one last Pokemon!" the trainer shouted, bringing out a Geodude. "I caught him from Mt. Moon last week!"

This was great! I got some practice against rock types before going to the Pewter City Gym.

I recalled Charmander and brought out Bulbasaur.

Geodude's two main attacks were throwing small rocks and punching with his big fists. Bulbasaur was able to take both types like a boss (for experimental purposes I told Bulbasaur to buckle down and take the hits, rather than wasting energy to avoid them). One time Geodude came in for a punch and I told Bulbasaur to wrap his vines around him, rather than just whipping him with it. Geodude couldn't move. I told Bulbasaur to start whipping Geodude on the ground left and right, and it was quite funny. The battle was over.

I made enough money to cover the BnB costs and then some.

Tomorrow was going to be another day, and I already had plans.

"Where's the nearest body of water?" I asked the old couple.

It was time to up my water game.