Pokemon: Crimson and Azure

by Cydius

Crimson and Azure, two 13 year old girls from Pallet Town set out on their own Pokemon journeys with the same goal: To become the greatest Pokemon master there is by beating the Indigo League and catching all 151 Pokemon. The story follows the events of the Red and Blue games, but with different characters, slight changes to the story and a more mature and serious approach.

7. Chapter 5: Pewter City

Pokemon: Crimson and Azure

Chapter 5: Pewter City

In this chapter:

~Pewter City-The Science Museum-Pewter Gym-Special Training-Gym Rematch~

~Pewter City~

The Rock Grey City…

When our hero Crimson arrived in Pewter City, it was already past six PM. Since it was summer, the sun was still high up in the sky. "Finally…" Crimson thought to herself when entering the Pokemon center. She was feeling quite tired from running around the forest and catching Pokemon for hours, so whilst her Pokemon were being healed, she decided to take a break herself and take a quick gander at her Pokedex. She checked the pages of her newly caught Pokemon. Both her Nidoran could evolve two times, but it didn't say anything else. Same went for her bug types as well. Her newly caught Pikachu however, was a different story. It only had one evolution. "Huh… I thought all Pokemon had two evolutions …" She thought to herself.
After about 20 minutes of rest, she retrieved her Pokemon and headed straight to the Pokemon gym, just to be disappointed again as it was closed. Apparently the gym was only open from 7 in the morning to 6 in the afternoon, so she just missed it. "Darn it, if only I was quicker …" She mumbled to herself in front of the gym doors and sighed. "Well, might as well check out what this town has to offer."
She pulled out her trusty Pokedex and opened the map app. The big attraction of this town was the Scientific Museum, but she first decided to head over to the store to buy some extra water, and see if they had any Pokeballs on sale, as she recently ran out. For her convenience, the store was right across the gym, behind a small house. She entered and stocked up on water, bought an extra sandwich for tomorrow and some ready ramen noodles for tonight, and also saw they had Pokeballs on sale, so she bought 6. After exiting the store with all her shopping supplies, she pulled out her map again.
Suddenly, a peculiar fellow saw that she was a tourist and approached her. "Hey, have you checked out our science museum yet?" he asked.
"Uhm, no, not yet." She replied confused.
"Then you absolutely have to! Here, I'll take you to it!" He said, suddenly grabbing her hand and dragging her along.
"Um, excuse me but you do realize I have a map and can get there myself, right?" Crimson asked with a grumpy expression on her face.
"Errr… anyway, here we are!" They stopped in front of a large and beautifully decorated building. The Roof was made of green stained marble, and the walls were painted in a dark red color. The building architecture seemed quite old, and the window paneling was made of what seemed to be gold, be it real or fake.
"There's a discount on children tickets and they have a lot of interesting stuff in there! Anyway, I gotta go, bye!" The boy ran off as if he was being chased by a bunch of Growlithe. Crimson just shrugged and looked back at the majestic building standing in front of her, then at her wristwatch. It was now 7 PM. Seeing as the sun hadn't set yet and she had plenty of time to burn, she decided to enter the building and see what it's all about.

~The Science Museum~

"A rich scientific exhibit, all for a mere 50 Pokedollars!"

Crimson entered the building. Inside it was neatly decorated with old furniture, the walls looked ancient and the floor was made of dark wooden planks and red carpets. She approached the reception and asked for a ticket. A single children's ticket was worth a mere 50 Pokedollars, so she quickly bought one and went deeper into the museum. On the first floor there were different kinds of fossils and skeletons. One of them was that of an Aerodactyl. The tag on the fossilized skeleton read the following: "An ancient, prehistoric Pokemon that lived on our planet millions of years ago. They went extinct, and all that's left are fossils such as these ones."
Crimson actually felt relieved that these monsters no longer existed, as they used to be huge. The skeleton was almost as big as the entire room, which was more than twice as big as the size of a Charizard!
The next skeleton was that of a Kabutops. "The remains of another prehistoric Pokemon. Kabutops were water creatures with rock hard shells. They used their large pincir-like arms to capture prey. According to studies, they used to be the fastest sea creatures to ever exist in our world."
Quite frankly, Kabutops sounded just as scary as Aerodactyls. However, it was still interesting to learn more about the past of the planet we all live on.
That was unfortunately all that the Museum's first floor had to offer, so Crimson headed upstairs. There was an attendant at the top of the stairs who told her they were having a space exhibit this month. She looked around the room. There were several things for showcasing, such as Moon Stones, which have supposedly fallen from the moon along with the mystical Pokemon Clefairy. These particular Moon Stones were found on Mt. Moon, and brought down to the museum for showcasing. Next, there were a bunch of space shuttle models, one of which was a Columbian one.
After Crimson was done looking around, she exited the museum and threw the ticket away as it lasted for only one visit, plus she wasn't planning on returning, as there was no point in it. She took a quick peek at her digital wristwatch. 8PM. She had already planned to defeat the gym leader and set out during the night, probably taking a nap in the outdoors, but the gym being closed changed her plans. Instead she went back to the Pokemon Center and rent a room for one night, paying around 500 Pokedollars. This was her first time going upstairs in a Pokemon center. It looked a lot like a hotel, it was just a straight corridor with rooms on both sides. She easily found her own room and entered it. For the cheap price, it was quite a spacey room with a drawer, a bath and toilet, a mini fridge and even a TV! Crimson pulled out her charger and began to charge her Pokedex as it was at around 30% of battery life after constant use. She then put her water and sandwich in the fridge, and opened her noodles, munching them down whilst watching Pokemon Battles on the telle. After about an hour of relaxation, she took a quick shower and went to bed at 9:30PM. The first day of her journey was quite tiresome, but she made a lot of progress for just her first day. She instantly fell asleep and slept like a stone all the way until morning.

~Pewter Gym~

The first challenge is always the toughest…

The next day Crimson got up roughly around 8 AM. After a quick morning shower, a free breakfast from the Pokemon center and a quick run with her Pokemon, Crimson felt ready for her first gym battle. She entered the gym at around 10 AM and was surprised at the interior. From the outside the gym looked like a normal boring building, but the inside was decorated with rocks everywhere. The battlefield was also quite rocky and seemed quite suitable for ground and rock type Pokemon. Soon after entering, she was greeted by a Nerd with glasses on next to a scoretable. "Greetings, I can see you are a rookie trainer but with a lot of potential, am I right?"
"I guess you can say that, yeah…" She replied.
"And I assume you are here to face the gym leader, am I right?"
"Of course, I'll be competing in the Indigo League challenge."
"Then you should listen to my advice if you want to reach the top! Okay, listen up: Every gym has it's own unique type tied with it. This gym specializes in rock type Pokemon. The gym leader, Brock, might appear quite kind, especially towards the ladies … but once in battle, don't expect him to go easy on you! I suggest using water or grass types here, since they work best. Fire and poison types are at risk, so do be careful with using them!"
Crimson then remembered something problematic: She had no water OR grass types in her arsenal. She had a fire type which was at a big disadvantage against rock types, a normal type which could barely deal any damage, a flying type which was very weak against rock types, two poison types in her PC which were a poor matchup as well, two bug types which were incredibly weak at first, and an electric type which could literally deal no damage to the enemy whatsoever. It was going to be tougher than she expected … but when she saw the score table and that her rival was the most recent battler, and actually won, right before the gym closed doors yesterday, she felt more hyped up than ever to win. She went ahead and thanked the kind nerd for his help and moved on. Before she could even reach the battlefield, she encountered a young scout boy. He introduced himself as a gym trainer and said she had to beat him first before she could get to Brock, so she agreed to a battle.
His first Pokemon was a diglett, a ground type with high speed and attack but low defence. She sent out her Pidgey as it had a clear flight advantage over the diglett.
"Alright Pidgey, fly straight up, then launch a tackle attack right at your enemy!" She commanded, her pidgey following her commands thoroughly.
"…Okay Diglett, dig underground, quick!" The scout shouted right before Pidgey collided with his Diglett. His darned pokemon dug a hole really quickly and disappeared out of sight. Pidgey landed in confusion. "Pidgey, don't land, stay up in the air so that it can't get you!", but it was already too late. The diglett dug back up behind her poor bird pokemon and landed a direct hit with a scratch attack.
"Darn, pidgey fly up and use gust, quick!" She used this to her advantage, her Pidgey being fast in general, flew up and used gust, landing a hit at the diglett. "Nice one, but will it be good enough? Diglett, dig underground again!"
As his Diglett descended underground once more, Crimson realized her this strategy wouldn't lead her anywhere. Then, a brilliant idea popped into her mind. "Pidgey, land on the ground!"
Her bird looked at her confused as she just said to stay up in the air at all times a few minutes ago.
"Trust me!"
It then did as it was told and landed.
Crimson waited and payed close attention to where the Diglett would pop up from. Right after it popped up behind Pidgey, she shouted "Behind you!"
Thanks to her quick reactions, her Pidgey dodged the scratch attack with ease. "Now quickly, use sand attack!" Her pidgey managed to sprinkle some sand right into the diglett's eyes by flapping it's wings at the ground. "Ha, now how are you going to dig, huh?"
"Oh boy …" her opponent looked uneasy.
"Now, Pidgey, fly up and launch your most powerful tackle attack!"
Her pidgey did as told and launcher a super speedy attack at the diglett. This time there was no escape, as it was too blinded to be able to dig. It got knocked down with one hit.
"Yeah we did it!" Crimson shouted in happiness.
"Don't be so sure, I still have one more trick up my sleeve … hehe…" The scout pulled out another pokeball.
"Crap…"
"Go, Sandshrew!"
A Sandshrew, yet another new Pokemon for her. She looked It up on her Pokedex, and all it said was that it had a lot of defense but not a very good learnset. "Okay Pidgey, use gust!"
Her Pidgey flapped it's wings swiftly, creating a small gust as it hit the guy's sandshrew, but it didn't look like it did much. "Hehe, sandshrew, use scratch!"
Crimson was actually surprised at that moment, as the land pokemon actually made a big leap, big enough to allow it to reach her pidgey and strike it down with a single attack.
"Pidgey, return… you did great." She had never felt prouder of her Pidgey before, as it has proven to be quite an agile little pokemon.
"Your Pokemon appear well trained, but are they good enough to face Brock?"
"I guess we'll find out… go, Ratatta!"
Ratatta was her second best bet against a ground type. It might have not had the flight advantage, but at least it wasn't weak to any ground type moves.
"Ratatta, use tail whip to distract sandshrew!"
Oldest trick in the book. By whipping it's tail back and forth, her little rat Pokemon managed to distract Sandshrew briefly. "Good, now tackle it twice, once from up front, and once from behind!"
Whilst the Sandshrew was still feeling dizzy from following the tail as if hypnotized, her ratatta tackled it once from up front, ran behind it and tackle it once more, knocking it down easily.
The scout just stared amazed. Such quick reflexes … such good co-operation between trainer and Pokemon …
"Sandshrew return." He returned his Pokemon and handed Crimson her well earned prize money.
"You're pretty good, you might even defeat Brock at this pace! You can proceed now."
"Thank you." She smiled at him and proceeded to the main battle arena, looking back briefly as the nerdy guy was sitting on a rock and giving her a thumbs up as if trying to say "You did a good job out there!"
She looked towards the battle arena and noticed somebody exiting a room at the back and approaching her. It was a roughly 16 year old boy with spiky hair and a darker skin tone than hers.
"Welcome to the Pewter City gym. I am Brock, the gym leader. I specialize in rock type pokemon, and I am also learning to become a Pokemon breeder."
"A Pokemon breeder?" She asked confused, as this was the first time she heard that word.
"Yes, a Pokemon breeder is somebody who specializes in the medical study of Pokemon. Breeders can also prepare the perfect food for Pokemon and take care of Pokemon in a different way than trainers do. Of course that's not to say they aren't good at battling." He smirked, his white teeth shining as if tyring to impress her.
However, Crimson just rolled her eyes.
"Ohhhh, I tried." Brock looked down ashamed.
"Anyway, I assume you beat my best trainer back there."
"Yes I did, and I feel like I am ready to fight you."
Brock nodded. "Very well. Let's begin."
The same trainer from before approached the battle arena and stood in the middle on the side of the arena. "I will be the judge of this match. This is going to be a 2 on 2 match with no time limit. Only the challenger is allowed to make substitutions. The winner will be determined when one side runs out of usable Pokemon. You may now begin."
"Go, Geodude!" Brock sent out a rocky Pokemon with two big arms sticking out of it. It didn't look as intimidating as Crimson thought, and seeing as her Pidgey was knocked out, her Pikachu was completely useless in a battle like this, and her tiny bugs stood no chance, she decided to sent out her Ratatta.
"You may start. As they say, ladies first." Brock smirked at her.
She just looked at him with an unimpressed face, then set out her first command. "Ratatta, use Tackle!"
Brock didn't do a thing. He didn't even command his Geodude to move or anything. Her Ratatta landed a direct hit easily, however it looked like her ratatta took more damage than her opponent. Crimson wasn't surprised. She studied the type matchups a bit more before bed last night, and remembered that normal types were a really poor matchup against rock types.
"Geodude, now you use tackle and show them how it's done!"
"Geodude!" His geodude said and launched straight for her ratatta with surprising speed, knocking it down in one hit.
"Ratatta is unable to battle, this round goes to Brock and his Geodude!" the judge announced.
Crimson returned her Ratatta "You did your best, Ratatta."
She then pulled out Flare's pokeball and sent it out.
"A fire type, huh? Interesting choice. Don't you know fire types are weak against rock and ground types?"
"Of course I do, but it's all I have …"
"I see…"
"Round 2, begin!" The judge said.
"Flare, use grow!" Her charmander growed at Geodude. Although with a clear disadvantage, it still managed to startle the geodude a bit. "Good, now use Ember!" She knew that fire type moves like that weren't very effective against rock types, but with some research she found out it was a more powerful attack than scratch in general. Whilst Brock's geodude was startled, the fiery lizard spat out a bit of fire, landing a direct hit as the geodude appeared to take quite some damage.
"Wow, I'm impressed. You raised your Charmander quite well. But will it be enough? Geodude, use tackle!"
Brock's geodude quickly snapped out of it and launched a tackle attack at charmander.
"Flare, dodge it!"
Her charmander managed to jump up just as Geodude was about to collide with it. "Now quickly, fire down an ember attack at it!"
Flare bursted out flames again, landing a direct hit at the geodude a second time, knocking it down.
"Geodude is unable to battle, the round goes to Crimson and her Charmander!"
Brock returned his geodude. "Very good timing, I am impressed… although your charmander is looking tired." As he said that, Flare was panting and sweating, indicating it was slowly but surely running out of energy.
"Now, go, Onix!" Brock sent out his second Pokemon, which was a scary looking and humongous rock snake. Crimson lost almost all hope after seeing what Flare had to face.
"Round 3, begin!"
"Flare, use growl, then flamethrower!"
Flare did the exact same combination as before, but unfortunately it wasn't as effective this time.
"Onix, use rock throw!"
Brock's onix managed to actually pull out a giant rock from the battle field and throw it straight towards Flare. "Flare, dodge it!" She shouted. Her charmander jumped out of the way but still got hit by the side of the boulder, getting knocked down easily.
"Charmander is unable to battle. The victory goes to Brock!"
Crimson expected defeat. She just stood no chance with her current team. She hurried over to her Charmander. "Flare, you okay?" She asked, picking it up from the ground. The cute little lizard slowly opened it's eyes and looked up at her, then smiled. "Char!"
"I'm so glad. You did your best." She said. "Return."
"Onix, return." Brock retrieved his onix then approached Crimson.
"I'm sorry for your loss, but you just stood no chance. And I'm afraid to say you cannot find any water or grass type pokemon around these parts."
"That won't discourage me. I WILL beat you." She said with a grumpy face and exited the gym before they could even say a word. She hurried over to the Pokemon center, quickly healed her Pokemon and then exited town for some special training.

~Special Training~

Not everything in the Pokemon world is easy…

Crimson knew it would be tough to beat brock with her current party, but she also knew it was possible. With lots of training, anything was possible. She went back to the short route connecting Viridian Forest and Pewter City as there were quite a few wild Pokemon around this area, and she began her special training. She battled all the wild Pokemon she could find and slowly leveled up her Pokemon one by one. She occasionally had to return to the Pokemon center to heal all of her Pokemon, but by 3 PM she was done, her Charmander had reached a higher level and learned a new move: Smokescreen. Her Pidgey had reached level 15, her Pikachu got some training too, but not as much. It was now level 12 and knew quick attack and tail whip. Her Ratatta was level 16 and learned a powerful move: Bite.
And finally her two bug types were fully evolved, both on level 15. Her Caterpie evolved into a Metapod and later a Butterfree, adding two more pages to her Pokedex. It had also learned Sleep Powder, Poison Powder and Stun Spore, all of which cause different status effects on the opponent, which would prove useful for against Brock. And finally, her Weedle had evolved into a Kakuna and later into a Beedrill, however it didn't even know Twineedle yet.

~Gym Rematch~

Second time's a charm...?

She entered the gym with her newly trained Pokemon for a rematch, passing by the boy scout and the nerd without saying a word. In the meantime, Brock was reading a book on the other side of the battle arena. He looked up and saw the same girl from earlier today approaching him. "Well well, if it isn't the lovely Crimson. Did you come for a nice dinner or a cup of tea maybe?"
"No, I'm sure you are fully aware of why I'm here … I request a rematch."
She could hear the two guys behind her gasp.
"Oh my, have you caught a water type already?"
"No, but I did a lot of training and I feel ready."
"Okay, if you say so…" Brock closed his book, rested it aside and got up. Crimson got to her side of the battle arena, and the judge got in position as well. "The rematch between Brock the Pewter City gym leader and Crimson from Pallet Town is about to go under way. The rules remain the same as before. Begin!"
"Go, Geodude!"
Brock was starting out the same as before. Crimson sent out Butterfree.
"Ah, I see somebody has been busy… that looks like a well raised butterfree. Let's see it in battle, shall we?"
"You're on … Butterfree, use sleep powder!" She commanded, her butterfree flew up high and sprayed sleep powder all over geodude as it instantly drifted off to sleep.
"What!? Your butterfree must be at a very high level to know that move …"
"Hehe, Butterfree, use tackle!"
Her Butterfree charged right at the geodude, hitting it hard as it took some damage on it's own.
"Geodude wake up!" Brock shouted, but Geodude did not listen.
"Butterfree, use tackle again!"
Butterfree did the same thing as before.
"Geodude, you gotta wake up!" Brock kept shouting, but no matter how much he tried, geodude would not wake up.
It took Butterfree around six more tackle attacks until it finally knocked out Brock's geodude.
"Geodude is unable to battle, Crimson is the winner of round 1!"
"Geodude, return. Your butterfree is well raised, I am impressed. But now it gets serious. Go, Onix!"
Next was his Onix again. The big guns. Crimson's butterfree was already too tired to launch any tackle attacks, but she hoped it could at least use another powder attack.
"Round 2, Begin!"
"Butterfree, use Poison Powder!"
Her butterfree flew up high and fast and powdered some poison powder on Onix. It was successful due to Onix being too big and slow to properly dodge it.
"Onix, use tackle!" Brock commanded right when Butterfree was up close. Onix did as asked and hit the butterfly pokemon with it's rock hard head, knocking it down instantly.
"Butterfree is unable to battle, the victory of this round goes to Brock and his Onix!"
"You did brilliantly, Butterfree. it's your turn, Flare!" She sent out her charmander again.
"Charmander again? This should be easy…"
"Round 3, begin!"
"Onix, use rock throw!"
Crimson knew this was the most devastating move Brock's onix had, so she quickly gave the command to use Smokescreen. Her charmander did as told and spit out smoke, covering the entire arena right before Onix could get it's hands … er, tail, on a rock. "Focus on Onix's movement and use ember!"
"What the…" Brock couldn't see what was going on in front of him, but a flame burst instantly blew the smoke away, hitting Onix directly. This attack was more powerful than the one earlier today however.
And don't forget, Onix was also slowly taking damage from the Poison deployed to it by Butterfree earlier, so it was already looked pretty slim for Brock.
"Onix, use wrap!"
His Onix quickly grabbed a hold of Flare before it could escape andesqueezed it. "Chaaar!"
"Flare, I know you can do it! Now's our chance, use ember!" Crimson shouted. Flare looked up at Onix's head and shot out it's most powerful burst of ember, landing a direct hit, making it release it as it fell to the ground, but quickly got up again. Smoke had covered the arena again from the ember, but it quickly went away to reveal Onix lying on the ground, however, it managed to get up, still able to fight.
"Oh no…" Crimson thought to herself
But just then, Onix collapsed again from the poison.
"Onix is unable to battle, the victory goes to Crimson and her Charmander!"
"Yes, we did it!" Crimson shouted in excitement, but just they all witnessed something incredible. Charmander suddenly lit up and changed in a matter of seconds. After it's aura went away, it was now much bigger and looked much more intimidating. "Woah… you Charmander evolved! Congrats!" The nerd said from behind.
"Really?" Crimson pulled out her Pokedex and saw the new page of Charmeleon. Her Flare was now level 16.
"Onix, return."Brock returned Onix to it's pokeball and then approached Crimson. "I apologize for my immature behavior. You taught me a very valuable lesson today that every trainer and breeder should know: That type matchups don't always matter. You have proven yourself worthy by defeating my best pokemon with types that are considered weak against them. Here, I'd like you to take the Boulder Badge." He smiled and gave her the Boulder Badge, Crimson's first badge. "Thank you very much." She bowed politely and took a closer look at the shiny badge.
"Oh, and take this, a gift from me." Brock said, handing her over a small disk.
"What's this?" She asked, taking it and examining it.
"It's what we call a TM. It's a special disk you insert in your Pokedex. It will allow you to teach a pokemon move to any suitable Pokemon instantly, but be aware as it will be depleted once you teach it, so make your choice wisely. In order to use it, simply slide it in through the top of the Pokedex and select which Pokemon you want to teach the move to. However, the selected Pokemon MUST be in it's Pokeball when doing so, otherwise it won't work. This TM contains the move Rock Slide, it's a more powerful version of the rock throw move I used on you earlier. Teach it to a rock or a ground type Pokemon! I didn't use it in battle since I thought it wouldn't have to come down to it…"
"Thank you very much." She bowed again and put the disk and the badge in a special pocket in her bag.
Brock laughed playfully. "You deserve it for amazing us all here today. And to see your Charmander actually evolve right in front of our eyes was a truly amazing sight."
She just smiled at her new Charmeleon, as it smiled back at her, then retrieved it to it's pokeball.
"Anyway, you are truly a gifted trainer. I recommend you go to Cerulean City next, there is a gym there. You will have to take the Mt Moon route to there though."
"I will keep that in mind, again, thank you, and goodbye." She turned around and headed for the exit, but the nerd stopped her. "Yeah, that was an awesome battle, Crimson! I knew you could do it!"
"Yeah… thanks…" She said awkwardly before walking away from him and outside. He sighed. "I guess it's time for me to get going too, see ya guys!" He said his goodbye to brock and his helper and went outside after Crimson. He had to change gyms again as that was his job: A gym guide.
Our hero Crimson felt more thrilled than ever after winning her first badge. She stopped by the Pokemon center to gather all of her things and to heal her Pokemon. Since her bug type Pokemon were fully evolved, she decided she didn't need them for now, and stored them in the PC box, withdrawing her Nidoran instead to level them up on the way to the mountain. She also had a quick snack before she set out to Mt Moon at 5 PM.

Next Time: Mt. Moon