Grind 3.1 Catch Them All?
Dennis sat on my right, with his hand clamped onto my shoulder. It took me five minutes to convince him not to tape his hand there. It was pretty funny how he rambled about what if he twitched at the wrong moment and accidently let go of my shoulder before the game started. Though I could do without his fingernails digging into what little muscle I had.
"Dennis, if you grip my shoulder any harder you're going to leave a bruise." Looking sheepish he relaxed his grip a bit.
"Sorry, I just don't want to get left behind."
"I know, I heard you the first ten times. Now just relax, alright?" Dennis nodded looking mollified.
"OK so Pokémon right? Which one, this thing has at least a dozen?" I asked waving the little game system with my left hand.
"The classic of course, you want either Red or Blue." Dennis said as he intently stared at his shoes, he was hiding something.
"Dennis what aren't you telling me." I asked, fixing him with my best stern expression. The resulting fidget from my teammate confirmed my suspicions. I was torn about that. Honestly I was annoyed that he would try to manipulate me. On the other hand, having friends I knew well enough to catch in the act of trying to slip something past me was awesome, especially after the past few years.
Dennis sighed. "Alright, alright, the main character is a guy. I know you'd rather stick to girls but if you're going to play Pokemon you should play the original." Huh, I had run into plenty of literary purists online, not to mention my Mom, people who always sided with the book over the movie, things like that. I'd never thought people might have similar feelings about video games before.
"OK look I get what you're saying, really I do. But you said that even if we run through this game as fast as we can were going to be at this for at least a day. Dennis," I paused starring him straight in the eye making sure I had his attention. "I do not want to spend an entire day walking around with the wrong kind of anatomy. Now, do any of these games have the option for a female protagonist?"
Looking abashed Dennis nodded. "Yeah, OK, I get that. Well, we still want to stick with the original feel, so I guess the next best thing is the remakes. That means Fire Red or Leaf Green." Scrolling down the list I found Fire Red and started it up on the small screen. Selecting the female for the main character I named her Taylor, no reason to get complicated about this after all. Still feeling slightly annoyed with Dennis I decided to give my rival his name.
As the little cartoon scientist in his lab coat told me that my very own adventure was about to begin the familiar sensation of being dragged pulled at my hands. As the sensation crept its way along my arm I closed my eyes, Dennis yelped in surprise. As the sensation faded I opened my eyes to the black room, what I saw though caught me off guard. The wall of lights was almost baron. Only two lights greeted us in the blackness, our names written beneath them.
Dennis swore under his breath. "Great, just great, I was supposed to take the role of your starting pokemon so I could feed you advice as we go. Without that this could take way longer."
"Dennis relax, it's not the end of world. This can't possibly be as bad as Mario." I hope. "Though I'd really, really rather have company for this." I said frowning.
Dennis nodded. "You're telling me. At least you'll be running around doing stuff, I'm going to be stuck at different spots just waiting for you to get to me."
"Look, normally I can go off script a bit. Just try to stick around, we may get lucky." I really hoped we would. I really hated the idea of doing this alone. "Come on, we might as well get started."
With that we walked up to our respective lights and reached forward. Just before I touched mine I heard Dennis say, "Let the games begin." My nervous laugh was choked off as I found myself in a slightly pixilated room, wearing a big sun hat. I wanted to call it goofy, but honestly it looked pretty good. I'd have to think about buying one, once we go out of here.
I looked around the room. The game system and television didn't really respond to my poking at them, the computer on the other hand had a folder I could access. Clicking on the item marked potion a little purple spray bottle materialized on the desk next to the computer. That was, different. I put the bottle away in my bag and headed downstairs and outside.
The area was small, not even large enough to call a town. One large building and a few houses, the locals didn't seem to have anything interesting to say. I decided to skip searching the buildings for people and instead headed off to start exploring. Just as I stepped into the grass Professor Oak showed up to and dragged me off to his lab.
"Taylor there you are. Been waiting here for like five minutes already, bout time you got here." Dennis greeted me. Rolling my eyes I shot back, "Yeah well I'm here now so what's next."
Professor Oak interrupted our conversation telling me to pick a pokemon. "That." Dennis said with a goofy grin. I stuck out my tong and headed over to the table on which three red and white spheres sat.
"So which one should I take?"
After an uncomfortably long silence I spoke up again. "Dennis, which one should I take."
"Well, Bulbasaur has the type advantage against the first three gyms, so it lets you blow past them. It would probably be the fastest way out of here, as long as the rest of your team balances well."
"Which one is Bulbasaur." I asked peering into the orbs. Each one contained a little creature a red lizard a blue turtle and a green, plant, toad, thing. "The Green one with the plant on its back." Dennis answered.
Reaching out I touched the ball.
Professor Oak said something I didn't pay too much attention too. I held the ball up in front of my face too get a better look at my new partner. Big intelligent eyes looked back at me, the turtle may have been cuter but I had the distinct feeling this was the right choice. I moved to step back and suddenly Dennis rushed the table and scooped up one of the remaining two balls. "Which means I get Charmander!" Dennis crowed as the balls we had selected shrank to about the size of baseball. Dennis lifted his to his lips and gave it a dramatic kiss. "This is going to be the best! You and I little pall! Even if we have to lose in the end we'll give her a good fight every step of the way, wont we!"
Shaking my head I started to head out of the building. "Come on Dennis we should get going, this is probably going to take forever so there's no sense in wasting time."
"Hold on Taylor, lets battle! And no I'm not just saying that. We actually have to battle now."
"What really?"
"Of course, that's how this works. Hey did you get the potion out of your PC?"
"Yeah, I've got it right here in my bag. Why?"
"Because, using that potion is the easiest way to win this fight. The pokemon are basically even right now and the rival usually gets in the first hit, so you have to use that to heal your pokemon when its health gets low. If you do that you should win. Now fallow my lead, Charmander I choose you!" Dennis threw the ball in front of him. Out popped a little red lizard with a flaming tale. The ball bounced back to Dennis's hand.
"OK then, Bulbasaur, go, I guess."
The battle that followed was far from an epic clash of the titans. In fact it could be aptly summarized as Dennis shouting scratch where as I yelled tackle. Really it was kind of lame. I mean watching them fight was a bit cool but I could already tell that the endless repetition was going to get old.
After I won Dennis, following his lines, said something vaguely rude about smelling me latter, actually it was kind of creepy, and then he ran out. Crap, I really hoped he'd be able to stick around after the fight but I guess I really was on my own here. As I made my way out of the lab and into the sunlight I sighed. This wasn't how I wanted things to go.
"Hey Taylor!" Dennis shouted in my ear. No matter what Dennis says, I did not scream, nope, absolutely not.
"So, looks like I have to run off screen after our battles, but seems like I can still stick around and give you advice! This is great we are going to have such an awesome time. First we need to get you a Pikachu, because it's basically a must. There are other electric types, but we won't be able to get to them for awhile and by then they'd be a bit behind on EV's, which is totally different from Eevee. The first is an abbreviation for something, forget what, but basically every time your pokemon win a fight they get a few extra of these hidden points which add up after awhile. You want them, trust me. The latter is this really adorable pokemon, you'll get one latter, don't worry about it for now. Then we have to fight Brock and get you a Magikarp from the team Rocket guy and go through mount moon and!"
"Dennis! Holly crap. Breath, we'll get to everything, not like we're getting out anytime soon. God, just, slow down, alright?"
Blushing, Dennis mumbled an apology and shoved his hands into his pockets. Crap, maybe I was a bit harsh. I reached out and grabbed his shoulder. "Hey, look I'm sorry, just way too much information, way too fast. Now come on, I need your help, where do we go first, and what's a Pikachu?"
Dennis took a deep breath before nodding and flashing that brilliant smile of his. "Right, this way, were heading out of town. Pikachu's an electric pokemon it's pretty cool not a power house but still…"
Dennis continued to chatter away. I tried to pay attention, it was information I needed to know. Still I felt like I was only getting half of it. Oh well, I'd have plenty of time, after all this was going to take awhile.