Mt. Moon (Part 2)
I purposely got up earlier than the others in the bunk room and quietly snuck out in the dark. I arrived at the GPS location and saw the rock formation as I had seen in the blurry photo of the Clefairy. My Charmander growled at something behind me.
It was the girl from yesterday, shily hugging her arms.
"..." She didn't say anything. There was an Oddish at her feet. It looked up at her with loving eyes. It was clear to see how the girl treated her Pokemon.
"Am I in the right place?" I broke the awkward silence.
"Uh, yeah!" She seemed relieved that I said something to her first.
She awkwardly walked past me with a blushing red face.
"F- follow me!" she pointed at a particular passage that branched off upwards.
"I'm Erina, by the way," she introduced herself.
"You can call me Red."
We walked upwards with my Mankey guiding the way with my flashlight. The path flattened out a bit, but then we came to a small hole that we couldn't fit through.
"I followed the Clefairy and couldn't go any further," she explained.
I looked inside with the flashlight and it seemed possible for us to walk on the other side.
"Geodude, snack time!" he was happy to munch down the rocks, making the hole big enough for us to squeeze through.
As Geodude was munching, the girl said something softly, too quietly for me to hear.
"Sorry, what's that?"
"Thank you," she said. "For last night."
"Don't worry about it."
"My Oddish...," she said. "She's okay now, but it was pretty bad."
Her Oddish peeked at me with curiosity from behind her legs. I waved hi and she hid behind them again. Ah, a shy one also. Like trainer, like Pokemon, I guess.
"What happened?" I asked.
So apparently there were groups of bullies that broke the "no battle" rules near the main safe pathway of Mt. Moon. They were always in pairs, and they attacked weak-looking trainers only minutes after diverging from the main pathway. They ambushed trainers and mugged them.
"I had a group of three others that I was traveling to Pewter City with," she said. "But they had to rush back to Cerulean to go to the Pokemon Center."
"Why didn't you go back with them?"
"My pendant…" She started to tear up again. "It's a family heirloom."
They had ripped it from her neck even as they took everything of monetary value. I got the impression that these weren't just bullies on the road. This was something more criminal.
I listened to her in silence as she cried a bit more.
Once Geodude made a big enough pathway, we walked up the incline together, even though we hadn't agreed out loud to do so.
It was clear to see, both visually and on the GPS tracker, that this passage had never been explored by people. It was most likely because of the narrow entrance, but it had something to do with the uphill pathway as well. As I mentioned before the caves in Mt. Moon branch off into dozens of side branches, which each path off into the next dozen, and so forth, so that it was impossible for all of them to be explored. So which ones did those brave enough to venture from the main safe pathway explore? The ones that were easiest to access. The wides, the closest, the least-winding, and flattest paths were the ones people took. This one didn't fit any of those criteria.
Clefairies and Clefables were known to shy away from people, and it was most likely that these paths would lead to their natural habitat.
We eventually came to a dead end, but noticed a hole directly above us, leading to another level. I threw a Pokeball straight up into the hole, and it landed on the floor above. My Mankey came out of it. Then I had my Pidgey take one end of the rope I had purchased back at the Route 3 Pokemon Center, and fly it up to Mankey, who fastened it securely to a sturdy boulder protruding from the ground.
It was difficult for a bunch of kids like me and Erina - who turned out to be eleven - to climb up the rope, but with some help from Bulbasaur's vines (and floating Geodude), we made it up safely.
We had come up to another cave path, and we marked it on our GPS tracker, just in case. We felt a draft of air coming from one direction, which meant that it led outdoors. We decided to head that way.
About half an hour later, we saw flickers of daylight and emerged into a large, semi-spherical space. The ceiling was at least 50 feet high and there was a circular hole at the top, like a skylight. Directly below it, on the ground in front of us, was a flat cylindrical space, not unlike an altar. No… a dance floor?!
Whatever it was, it obviously carried a significance to those who lived here. There were little cave entrances at different levels all around the dome that probably branched out to private living quarters. And this was the large common area.
"Look, over there!" Erina whispered, pointing at one of these holes.
A Clefairy! It was poking its head out, looking around. It was cautious. No, it was afraid.
Afraid? Of what? Erina and I were still hidden in the shadows of the corridor we were in, and the Clefairy wasn't looking at us.
It was looking at… a gigantic hole in the middle of the wall, on the opposite side of where Erine and I poked our heads out. We had not noticed it before, our attention caught by the majesty of this place. But now we saw it, a large whole about 8 feet high, and judging by the rubble by the entrance that contrasted with the overall neatness of this place, was created by intruders. Then we heard voices and dark shadows emerging from this hole.
"How many did we get?" a man said to another figure.
"Twenty-eight," a woman answered.
"That's pretty good, but someone said they saw one still hiding here," the man said. "Best we get it before reporting back to the boss."
They emerged into the daylight coming through the skylight and I saw that they were wearing black uniforms, complete with gray boots, gray gloves, and a red capital R on their chest...HAHAHA IT'S TEAM ROCKET!
Of course in the game, there was Team Rocket in Mt. Moon, placed there as NPCs that provided experience to level up your Pokemon. To see their uniforms in real life, however, was just too funny. Imagine adults (these two looked like they were in their mid 20s, and later I saw people as old as 40s) with gray boots and gloves, with tight black overalls with a giant red R on it.
Still, I wasn't going to underestimate anyone in this world, and thought it would be prudent to maintain stealth. I turned to communicate this to Erina, and saw her trembling.
It wasn't fear. It was... anger!
"Are you okay?" I whispered. I was praying she wouldn't go running out.
"My pendant…" she whispered under her breath and pointed at the girl Rocket.
Even at this distance, I could see the pendant glistening in the sunlight with a mesmerizing green light. It was around the girl Rocket's neck, visible over her uniform.
'Oh no,' I thought, and before I could stop her, Erina was already up and running out into the large dome area.
The Rockets saw her immediately and were on guard.
"Who are you?" the guy Rocket shouted.
"It's you!" the girl Rocket recognized her. "Back for more?"
The Rockets were smirking at Erina and her Oddish. Oddish had a battle-ready angry face on, but the little guy was trembling in fear, probably in memory of what had happened in their last scuffle.
The guy Rocket brought out a Grimer, and the girl Rocket brought out her Ekans. Urgh, why do the bad guys use Pokemon that are archetypically associated with negative things? Grimers and Ekanses need love, too.
If I was alone and wanted to take the Rockets out, I would've flanked them and ambushed them from the shadows. But even though I wasn't obliged in any way, I wanted to protect Erina and her Oddish. They'd been through too much at the hand of these jerk Rockets.
Even as I caught more and more Pokemon, I made sure I knew which Pokeball contained which, using a mise-en-place system. As Grimer and Ekans were ordered to attack Oddish, I reached for all the right Pokeballs and threw them out.
Bulbasaur came out and grabbed Metapod and Kakuna with his vines, placing them directly in the way of the attack. Have you ever played PvZ? They were like the Walnuts. Ekans' fangs connected with the super hard Metapod. The Snake winced in pain and jumped back. Grimer's poisonous/toxic body wasn't that dangerous yet, but whatever toxicity he had was absorbed well by the poison resistance of Kakuna.
At the same time, I had Mankey and Geodude flank and position themselves above the Rockets. They started taking small stones and whipping them at their torsos.
"The hospital, boys, not the morgue!" I shouted at my stone-throwers. I didn't want to murder anyone. Aiming rocks at their heads would be too dangerous.
The Rockets were totally caught off guard. They had other Pokeball on their belts, but couldn't reach them because they had to use their arms to shield themselves from the rocks.
"Ah!" the guy Rocket yelped in pain.
"Ouch!" the girl Rocket yelled.
Erina looked on at this scene with her jaws dropped.
Oddish was hopping in place, excited and happy. She even kicked a pebble at her feet. It connected with the girl Rocket's nose, which started to bleed.
The use of multiple Pokemon was hilarious in the wild. Without the "one at a time" rule of the Gyms and more courteous of battles, there was nothing to stop me from using as many Pokemon as I wanted. The only thing that was holding me back was my own multi-tasking ability, and being able to remember what my Pokemon can do.
I sent out Rattata, Nidoran (boy), Nidoran (girl), and Pikachu, my fastest and most agile team. I told them to sneak down the path the Rockets had emerged from, and report back if they saw backup. I didn't want a whole game of other Rockets coming up.
Without the Rockets giving them direct commands, Ekans and Grimer looked around, baffled and indecisive.
"We give up! Stop!" the Rockets yelled.
I held up a fist and the rock artillery team stopped. Bulbasaur still stood on guard with his dual-shield formation.
But the fight was over. The two Rockets were on the ground, writing in too much pain to put up any resistance.