The sun was beating down strongly on Nate's neck and causing him to sweat profusely. This in turn made his hand even sweatier than it already was held firmly in Zoe's grip. Zoe had insisted the three of them walk together hand in hand, and although it had been quite pleasant at first it was becoming increasingly more awkward.
Clutched in Zoe's right hand Mac blushed bright red and felt something that was definitely not a pokeball moving inside his trousers. He had never really hung around with girls before especially not ones like Zoe. Zoe was genuinely nice if a little eccentric but her touchy feely attitude was something Mac had yet to get used to.
Suddenly Zoe dropped the boy's hands and pointed madly ahead of them.
"MAC! NATE! It's Pewter City!"
And she was right. A vast expanse of buildings littered the valley in front of them. Mac stared at the huge Pewter Geodude fountain but Nate couldn't take his eyes off the Pewter City gym. It loomed tantalisingly in the middle of the city it's walls gleaming in the sunlight. Zoe turned to the two boys her spunky hair bobbing in the light breeze.
"So which of you fella's gonna come with me to take on Brock?" Mac looked to Zoe, he would like to challenge Brock, and he might even win. But what if he didn't? And Zoe saw him lose and laughed?
"I don't want a stupid badge." Mac replied moodily.
"WUSS!" Mac winced at the word yelled from Zoe's lips.
"Hey, Zoe I'll take him on and beat him too!" Nate said. Zoe grinned widely and grabbed Nate by the hand. She dragged him recklessly through the streets with Mac struggling to keep up. As they turned a corner, Zoe pulled Nate headfirst into Street vendor's stall throwing the assorted colourful fruits into the muddy street.
The vendor grew red in the face and turned on the three kids. Unfortunately Mac was the only one still there at the time, Zoe had already hurried off, giggling, hauling an apologetic Nate. Mac cursed his two "companions" as he emptied his wallet into the Vendor's fleshy fist. "Typical," he thought, "They've run off and forgotten about me. And now I have no money. How will I call my mum?"
Out of the corner of Mac's eye he spotted a brightly coloured poster with a message printed in block capitals. Turning to look more closely, he noticed "£500 grand prize!"
Zoe was lost. But she'd never admit it. She was sure she had been done this street before. Yes she had, there was that vendor they had brushed past. As they hurried past the vendor shook his fist furiously, Zoe blew him a kiss. Nate tripped over a loose paving stone and pulled Zoe to the floor with him.
"Wow, Zoe…" Nate began but Zoe cut across him,
"I'm LOST! Where is this stupid place?"
"Zoe…"
"Shut up! I need to think… it was near that fountain…"
"Zoe…?"
"SHHHH! We passed that vendor before, I vaguely recall him yelling at us."
Nate gave a sigh and pointed behind Zoe. Finally Zoe got the hint, turned around and the two of them gazed up the building in front of them.
PEWTER CITY GYM
Was printed in giant red letters over the front arch. With a high pitched excited scream Nate and Zoe charged up the steps two at a time and reached the door together. With a deep breath they pulled on the large iron rungs and…
Found it was locked!
Nate looked as though he might cry and even Zoe looked phased. "But… gym…Brock…badge…locked!" Nate muttered wide-eyed. Zoe began to think up a new strategy.
"We'll break into the gym… NO! It's gonna open again we can go to the pokemon centre and wait it out… OR we could keep going and get the next badge and come back later… OR we could dress up as Rhyhorns and rob a bank!"
Zoe was talking rapidly and Nate found it difficult to pick everything up. Apparently Zoe thought they should break into the pokemon centre and steal some Rhyhorns or maybe she'd said keep going, get the next badge, steal some Rhyhorn. Damn it! Nate couldn't get Rhyhorns off his mind now. It was all very confusing.
"Hey!" A loud cry brought Nate and Zoe away from their bank robbing fantasies.
"You guys want to get the Boulder Badge?" The yell came from a small curly red haired kid in ripped jeans and a grubby T-shirt. "Name's Aaron and I know where you can get the badge."
He started to walk off and then came back angrily,
"HEY! Are you coming or what?" Nate looked at Zoe, they both weren't sure about following some random kid. You heard stories about poke hijackers. Nate turned to the boy and began to speak when he realised he had already gone. In a panic Nate turned to Zoe for answers. She was also gone. Howling angrily Nate sprinted down the road after the two of them.
Meanwhile Mac was sitting on a wooden bench beneath a blinding neon strip light wondering if perhaps he had made the wrong decision. All around him people were letting their pokemon out. They all looked pretty strong. He looked up as his name was called. He gulped down his fear and stepped out in front of the crowd.
Nate and Zoe were surprised to find themselves opening the front page of a pokemon writing test, whatever that was. They had been ushered inside the room by four red haired children and told to do the exam in silence. With a sigh Nate opened the paper and looked at the first question:
"What colour is a Charmander?"
Well that was easy, he had one of his very one strapped to his belt but then we went to circle he found it was not there. He paused for a moment as he looked at the other answers.
Crimson
Magenta
Ruby
Scarlet
Nate groaned to himself, he hated tests. And this one was no small feat, spanning over twenty pages on 482 different pokemon. Nate was in for a LOOOOOOOONG day.
"Go, Corphish!" Yelled Mac as the crowd applauded him happily. Well crowd was a bit of a stretch round about thirty people sat in the stands but they all were looking pumped after seeing so many coordinators.
The small orange crab looked to Mac confused. Mac wasn't all too sure of himself either.
"Um… Corphish use bubble, a big one!" Corphish nodded and raised a claw creating a huge bubble, which floated up in front of the audience.
"Now bubblebeam through that bubble!" Corphish shot a stream of bubbles into the bubble they passed through but were contained inside the bubble bouncing off the sides stuck inside.
"Wow, a fantastic snow globe like combination!" Yelled the MC.
"Finish it with a Vicegrip!" Corphish darted into the air and popped the giant bubble with a slice of its claws. The tiny bubbles were released and floated out over the audience popping above them. Mac congratulated Corphish and then looked nervously to the judges.
"We give Mac 76 out of 100."
The crowd (well the group) went wild. 76 was pretty high for a first timer and Mac grinned all the way off the stage.
The rest of the coordinators seemed pretty impressed as well. As he returned backstage another coordinator approached him. She had long brown plaits and a freckly face, she wore a beanie a cropped bright orange T-shirt and a pair of ripped jeans, which showed some badly, bruised knees. She was grinning cheekily at Mac.
"Hey dude," she said. Mac could barely take his eyes off her.
"Um…uh… hi." He burbled.
"I'm Allegra. And I've come to congratulate you on that impressive 76 you scored. I've never seen a newbie get such a high score. I mean my first contest I totally screwed up" She talked easily and naturally and it calmed Mac down.
"So what did you get?"
"94. Yep, my Eevee did pretty well. And I can't wait to get my second badge!"
Allegra pulled out a blue case and slid the cover open. Inside it were the indentations of many badges; one was filled with an orange badge with a picture of an egg on it. "The pallet town contest, for new beginnings. Last year I didn't win a single tournament but this year, I feel lucky."
Mac laughed completely at ease "if only Zoe was this easy," he thought to himself.
Zoe and Nate stretched their wrists after their hardcore writing day. Suddenly it occurred to Nate they still had no idea where Brock was.
"Hey, where do we get the Boulder badge from?" The four red haired children turned to them,
"You have to battle mu… Ms. Tucker"
"She's real good"
"I beat her once"
"Doesn't count she let you win"
"Nu…uh"
The four children began to yell loudly over one another and Zoe sighed it was like she was home again, she had missed constant arguing Nate and Mac weren't very good at it.
"KIDS!" Zoe yelled. The children looked to her midway through angry conversation
"I want the Boulder badge, so go find me Ms. Tucker so I can kick her ass." The four glared angrily at Zoe,
"You can't talk about her like that, who do you think you are,"
They advanced menacingly towards Zoe and Nate. Nate closed his eyes preparing to be beaten up a horde of small children. "Tell you what we'll battle you, two on two! If you win we'll find…Ms. Tucker."
Zoe laughed derisively, "Whatever kiddies, I'm happy to play for a while."
The two red haired girls threw out their pokeballs and from them came a small floating rock with two arms and a small pink one with large floppy ears. "We choose Geodude and Whismur," stated the girl with the red ponytail.
Zoe giggled to herself before throwing out her two pokemon, "Poochyena and Nidorina come on out!" Zoe's two pokemon eyed up their opponents confidently.
"Whismur hit Poochyena with a pound!" The little Pink pokemon darted forwards,
"Nidorina, Double kick," Zoe replied lazily. Nidorina ambled into the path of the oncoming pokemon and stopped Whismur abruptly with a kick to the stomach and then a follow up in the face. Whismur keeled over unconscious.
"Whismur!" cried one of the girls
"Give me a break this is way too easy," Zoe sighed.
"Grrr… Geodude hit him with rock throw!" Geodude surged forwards at Poochyena.
"Poochyena, Bite!" Poochyena caught Geodude at the perfect moment and latched its powerful teeth onto Geodude. Geodude wailed and cried attempting to throw Poochyena off, but to no avail. Moments late Geodude fainted as well.
"So where's the gym leader?" But the girls weren't listening; they had run off crying about their distressing defeat.
Before he knew what was happening Nate was preparing to battle the two boys. "Poliwag and Spinarak come on out!" A small blue tadpole with a swirl on it's front and a spider with a spiked barb appeared.
"Taillow and Charmander, Go!"
"Poliwag use bubble!" Poliwag shot a bubble across the battlefield and it hit Charmander before Nate could do a thing. Charmander looked tired already.
"HA… come on Nate… pull it together…" Zoe half-encouraged half-berated. Nate began to think of a good strategy when, "what on earth is going on here?"
A tall slim woman with long vivid red hair strode out across the field. She wore a knee length brown skirt, long socks and a black jumper. You could tell from her physique that she was young however the bags under her eyes disagreed. Her voice was kind but authoritative at the same time. The two boys returned their pokemon and ran up to the woman.
"Ms. Tucker, Ms. Tucker, they wanna battle you!"
"What… no… I wanna battle the gym leader…" Nate demanded, thoroughly tired of battling randoms.
"Sorry to disappoint you… but I'm afraid, I am the gym leader." She giggled.
"WHAT!" cried Zoe and Nate.
"Mum, are you gonna battle?" asked one the curly red headed boy.
"MUM!" Chorused Zoe and Nate.
Thank you for reviewing again AmoreanAnd for giving me the character of Ms. Tucker
Everyone else please review!
I will try to continue quickly
But I have exams (LONG)