If this journey had been documented as a movie, the situation would have been as follows: loud, cheesy marching music playing with scenes of Dave and I laughing about something, and being all determined and shit. Both of us were that happy. But soon we would have to come out of Movie Land and find our way back to the boring Pewter City that I was so desperate to get out of. Pewter by name, and fucking stone cold by nature.

The most fun I'd had in the hour we'd been training up our Pokémon was that I'd changed my ringtone. And I had no calls. God, I was popular.

"DO YOU THINK THAT YOU'RE BETTER THAN ME, YOU BETTER WAKE UP 'CAUSE YOU KNOW THAT'S A LIEEEE-"

"Who the hell is blasting Damageplan?"

"My phone is."

Ah, had to love Dave.

And even better, Joel was calling me. I answered the call and beckoned Dave over, with Jett following. I hadn't spoken to Joel since our little outing to Celadon and I was aching to hang out with my best ever friend again.

"I bet I know what your ringtone is, Darrell Redford. It's Damageplan, isn't it?"

"You know me so well."

"That's what I thought. I was listening to them earlier in commemoration of our friendship seeing as you have left to travel around Kanto and I am stuck here with God and his depressed-as-shit little pals. Where are you now?"

"In Pewter City. Hey, listen, Joel! I met this dude, and he's fucking badass."

I put Joel on speaker and Dave stood opposite me, listening intently.

"Oh, excellent. So when you guys get to Lavender, will we, indeed, be the Three Musketeers?"

"Absolutely. By the way, his name is Dave, and he's from Vermilion City."

"Yeah, I am!"

"That's fabulous. What's it like there? I've only ever seen it on the TV adverts, because I live in a shitty town by the name of Lavender. I do like lavender, though, helps me sleep!"

"It's not what the TV people show it as," Dave told Joel, who even through the phone, we could tell was listening intently. That was the best thing about Joel. He would joke around all the time, and was always fizzing with energy, but he listened to you and was always actually interested. "It's actually a bit shit. The area around the Gym and the harbour is nice, but the rest of it is kind of…bleh."

"Beautiful description. It tears at my very heartstrings and enables me to see the true beauty within the heart of Vermilion City…well, sounds better than Lavender Town! I got forced to go to a fucking service today. When the hell are you guys coming to see me?"

"The minute we get to Lavender Town," Dave laughed.

"Oh, Dave, I never told you about Rock Tunnel! And I never even introduced myself! You might already know, but I'm Joel. Darrell is this spoon I hang about with, but he's a cool cat. You make sure he doesn't get into any mischief, okay?"

"Will do!"

"Thanks, bro!"

"Shut up!" I laughed, pretending to punch Dave on the arm - Gary's little attack on me had made me much more compassionate and empathetic. Even pretending to hurt someone made me feel a bit guilty, but Dave assuaged me by just doing it back and laughing.

"Oh my God," Joel sighed. He was changing the subject. Something was grinding his gears. "Guess what. I'm supposed to be spending the day - the entire damn day! - with my family in Cerulean City. I may have to kill myself by any means available. Do assist me."

Dave shot me a look.

"Wait a minute," I interrupted his suicide note. "Cerulean City? That's not far from us! That's only a town away! We should meet up, dude!"

"Fuckin' please," Joel begged. "Seriously, they're absolutely dire. I'll feel bad about leaving them, because I do love my grandparents, but if we leave now I can talk to them about stuff and get about an hour of their time. That's enough. When will you guys be here?"

"Uh…"

Shit. Dave and I had a lot to do. We had to finish training up Storm so he would evolve and hopefully learn a Water attack, then we had to get past Mount Moon and probably a ton of trainers. Dave had to catch his Machop, if they even lived in Mount Moon. That would probably eat up a few hours at the most. And there was no way in hell I was going to pass up a chance of seeing Joel, when the next opportunity might not come for a long time.

"I don't know. We have a bit of stuff to do. Like beat Brock," Dave said, biting his lip. I thought that Dave had the impression Joel would get frustrated, but he wasn't that kind of guy. He almost never lost his cool.

"Ahh. That's what I thought. And you have Mount Moon to get through, don't you? Tell you what. Take as much time as you need. I'm eavesdropping on parental conversation and it appears we're spending the night there, too."

Dave showed me his watch. 2:15PM.

"We'll be there by three."

We had forty-five minutes to get to Cerulean City.

Not a problem.

Dave and I battled with Storm and Shadow until we were all too sick of battling. We had sat down together, releasing all of our Pokémon and watching them play with each other. Shadow amused me most of all. He was supposed to be scary, and terrify other Pokémon, but he was laughing. Flame and Ace weren't as intimidated as they had been. A rush of love for my team, and Dave's, coursed through me and I showed it just by smiling.

Storm, however, stopped flailing about and was completely motionless. Dave nudged me, and I got up, beginning to feel concerned, maybe he was exhausted - then he let out a weak moan, and began to glow white. Flame backed away, as did Ace, too nervous to go near Storm. I jumped up and ran to my Pokémon, but was quick to follow Flame and Ace's actions. Shadow and Jett hadn't even appeared to notice. Storm was changing form. He was evolving.

Fuck yes, I had a Gyarados.

"Well, he evolved fast," Dave shrugged. I looked at him, aghast. How the hell didn't he panic when this had happened to him?

Because Dave's not an idiot.

I looked back at Storm. He had stopped glowing. I had stopped breathing. Now he had to be at least twenty feet tall, towering above all of us. I gazed up in admiration. The angry-looking Gyarados stared down at me. This thing was mine. This badass motherfucking monster, this legendary beast of a Pokémon, was mine. And if it didn't learn some Water moves, back into the river it would go. I saw a few fishers staring at me and I just had to laugh.

"Let's go kick some ass!"

We may as well have linked arms and started skipping.