I'm actually working ahead on this one for once. Blame it on the upcoming holiday. Also, I stupidly forgot to add the group getting Cut. (I mentioned the seasick captain, but I never wrote the scene where Red helps him to cure it.) One for the rewrite, I guess. So let's move this story along a bit, shall we?
After one night at the Pokémon Center, the time had come to challenge Vermillion Gym. The path to the Gym's entrance was a narrow one; only a few feet between the outer wall of the Gym and the sea below. The trio entered the Gym, one large room filled with neat rows of mostly empty trash cans and an electronic gate in the back wall. Red could barely see a towering figure behind the glowing bars of light.
There were a few trainers scattered throughout the Gym amongst the rows of garbage cans. Red approached one as his companions all did the same. As soon as Red stopped before the man, a well-dressed gentleman with gray hair and a mustache, he smiled at him. "I bet you're wondering what's up with this Gym?" he said kindly. Red nodded. "Well, Lt. Surge was always famous in the army for being very cautious. I'll give you a clue on how to get past them if you defeat me in a battle."
Red nodded again and sent out Charmeleon. He didn't know what the theme of this Gym was, so it was best to be safe and lead with his best. The gentleman sent out… well, it looked like a Pokéball. It had eyes, though and seemed to be able to move around on its own. Neither Red nor Charmeleon knew what to make of the strange object/creature and the gentleman took advantage of that.
"Voltorb, use Sonic Boom," the gentleman ordered. The already angry looking Pokémon grimaced and unleashed a pressure wave from where its face should have been. Charmeleon retained his senses well enough to dodge, and Red was quick to give his orders. He noticed that the sonic attack struck one of the garbage cans, but it didn't even shake.
"Charmeleon, Slash!" With amazing speed, Charmeleon rushed forward and raked his claws across the length of the odd Pokémon. That was all it took.
"Well done, son," the gentleman praised, "But we're not done yet." He threw another Pokéball, calling out a levitating machine-like creature. It was an iron or steel ball with a large eye in the center. On the top of the ball was a lose screw, as well as two more side by side under the eye. On either side of the ball were two horseshoe magnets. "Magnemite, use Thundershock."
Again, Charmeleon was fast enough to get out of the way of the electric jolt. "Slash again," Red ordered. Charmeleon had this Magnemite clearly outpaced and was able to close on it in a blink. Charmeleon's claws hit it, but seemed to do little. Charmeleon was clearly better trained, but Magnemite was no slouch and probably had a type resistance to Slash Red reasoned. That also left out Mega Punch and Mega Kick.
"Magnemite, use Sonic Boom now," the gentleman ordered calmly. The foe unleashed the same type of sonic wave that Voltorb had. Once again, Charmeleon was too fast and ducked out of the attack's way. The sonic wave hit another trash can, but this time it was blown over, spilling crumpled up paper all over the floor around it. Something about that struck Red as odd. The gentleman took advantage of Red's hesitation to call for another Sonic Boom attack.
Red snapped out of his thoughts after the second attack knocked over another trash can. "Just dodge!" Charmeleon wasn't sure why he wasn't going to counterattack yet, but he saw the confidence on Red's face and trusted him. A few more Sonic Booms forced Charmeleon in among the rows of trash cans. Sonic Boom after Sonic Boom knocked down Charmeleon's cover, but the elusive reptile remained untouched. Red vaguely heard Blue say something about not helping clean up the mess his Charmeleon was making, but Red ignored him.
Eventually, the gentleman saw that Sonic Boom wasn't going to be enough. "I had hoped I wouldn't have to use this move, but Magnemite, use Shock Wave." The magnets on either side of Magnemite started to spark and together loosed an almost blindingly fast bolt of electricity. The attack was too quick for Red to react to, but Charmeleon had just enough time to remember what he learned about lightning rods from his battle with Pikachu. He grabbed and tossed a nearby trash can into the air, catching the bolt safely away from him. After the can started to fall, he kicked it in the direction of Magnemite. The metal Pokémon swatted it out of the way with ease with one of its magnet arms.
Red saw that the trash can that was being batted around ended up hitting the first one that had held fast as well as the one standing next to it. Neither of them moved. As much as Red was curious about that, his experiment had to end. Charmeleon avoided that by pure luck, and there was no way he was going to be able to dodge an attack like that. "Charmeleon, Smokescreen!" Red ordered. Charmeleon was quick to blast the foe with a thick cloud of smoke.
"Unfortunately for you, Shock Wave can hit targets even in these conditions," the gentleman said as Magnemite levitated above the cloud. To its surprise, Charmeleon was nowhere to be seen. Reasoning that it must be somewhere in the smoke cloud, it aimed its magnets blow it and charged another Shock Wave.
"It won't hit if Magnemite's knocked out by Ember," Red grinned. Charmeleon took the cue and leaped out of the smoke by vaulting off one of the suspicious trash cans. With a spin, Charmeleon put his full body into knocking Magnemite out of the sky with his fiery tail. Charmeleon landed ready for the next exchange. Magnemite didn't.
"That's very well done, son," the gentleman smiled as he recalled his knocked out Magnemite. "I'd tell you that the way past the electronic gate is to find the hidden switches at the bottom of two of the trash cans, but you already figured that out, didn't you?"
"So that's what you were doing," Green smiled as she approached and started rooting around in one of the unmoving cans.
"I just noticed that one didn't move when hit," Red assured, "That's all."
"Yeah, you just got lucky," Blue agreed snidely. There was a beat as the two of them looked at each other. "What? I'm not digging through that. You can do that."
Red rolled his eyes before reaching in. The can was filled with clean crumpled papers and nothing more. Still, even without stray tissues and banana peels, it was still off-putting sifting through garbage. Finally, Red found the switch at the bottom. Green had already found hers and they both hit them. With a click, the light of the electronic gate faded.
"It'd be unfair to see the Gym Leader before my battle, so I'll wait here."
Green turned to her quiet friend, "Wow, a full sentence!"
"Well, if you're not going to go, I'll go!" With that, Blue was off like a shot.
Red shrugged, "Ladies first…" He and Green enjoyed the joke at his expense and waited for his battle to finish. It took a few minutes, unusual for Blue, who liked crushing his opponents as quickly as possible. Once he approached, showing off his new Thunderbadge, Green made her way to the Gym Leader.
Blue passed by Red, clamping a hand down on his shoulder, "This Gym is pretty tough. You don't really stand a chance, so you should just give up now. I'm heading back to the Pokémon Center. Smell ya later!"
Eventually Green returned in triumph, flashing her own Thunderbadge. Red stepped forward and was greeted by a tall blond man in a green military field exercise uniform, fingerless gloves and boots. "You're the one who figured out my puzzle, right? You're clever, but you don't got the guts to beat me. My electric Pokémon zapped my enemies into paralysis and saved me during the war. That's something a civilian like you wouldn't get! You can try to use as many Pokémon as you want to win. But if you need more than three, you ain't getting a badge, got it?"
Red nodded and drew a Pokéball, "Let's get started."
This I like. I think the characters come through and I feel like the battle was satisfactory. Interestingly enough, Magnemite can't learn Shock Wave through TMs in gen five, but it can in three and four. (I had a heart attack when I didn't see Shock Wave on Magnemite's moveset since I kind of needed it for the battle I had planned…)
This actually works out better pacing-wise if I do it like this. I have the rest of the series pretty well planned out, so I hope I can get this out in a timely fashion. A boy can dream…