Type advantage gets everyone far. It also gets us out of writing long, drawn-out battle scenes.
By the time they stumbled out of Petalburg Woods, confused and tired, it was past their internal bedtimes, and they wanted a much-needed rest. Unfortunately, the first people they found were not helpful at all.
While they had trespassed onto the property of the flower shop with no trouble at all, the three sisters that lived above the shop had mistaken them for burglars, and they had a very unusual punishment in store for burglars.
"Please," Brendan begged, nearly falling out of the chair they had forced him into - if they were going to hold people hostage, shouldn't they attempt to tie them down first? "I'm a Gym Leader's son. I haven't stolen anything since that incident with the bottle of soda pop, and as far as I know, my friend here hasn't stolen anything in her life."
The punishment hadn't seemed to affect May in the same way, or at all for that matter. In fact, if Brendan hadn't caught on to the flashes of awareness, he would have thought that his companion had fallen asleep with her eyes open. But her glass-eyed stare went completely unnoticed by the florist sisters as they continued to go off on a completely memorized recitation of berry types.
Yes, berry types. What berries were for healing status effects in battle, which ones made Pokémon more friendly, and which ones were completely useless in anything besides food.
"Why don't you call the Petalburg Gym," Brendan suggested. "And if my dad's not there, call Professor Birch. Come to think of it, just skip right to the professor, he knows his daughter never hurt anybody." Or so he hoped.
One call to the professor later, and Brendan and May were set free. The rest of the trip to Rustboro City was made in peace, at least until May opened her mouth.
"That was an unusual punishment," she commented, following only three steps behind Brendan. "What happened when you stole the soda?"
Brendan turned his head, and she instantly shut up. "How did you tune them out?"
So he didn't want to talk about it. She could respect that.
The morning they woke up in Rustboro, Brendan didn't know where he was.
He remembered he was in Hoenn. It was hard to forget, though his mother stuffing him in the back of a moving truck was something he would usually put in a dream. But he forgot that he was a trainer now, and that he was on a journey.
He'd promised to battle his father one day. That wasn't an experience he was looking forward to.
But by the time he met up with May, who was waking herself up by having her Surskit use a gentle version of Bubble on her face, he'd resigned himself to dealing with it all.
"We're going to do some training before we go to the Gym," Brendan told her as he shoved an entire granola bar into his mouth. "If we can get Adam to evolve, we'll be making progress."
"And what if we don't?"
"I still have Shroomish."
May turned her Surskit around, pointing the Bubble attack at him.
The training on Route 116 was productive, at least. Two and a half hours into training, give or take a few minutes, Adam finally, finally, evolved into Combusken. More importantly, he learned Double Kick, which would definitely be useful in not only the Rock-themed Gym in Rustboro City, but against Norman when he returned to Petalburg.
So, when they went back to the Gym, our heroes were expecting an easy victory. Brendan even got to skip the warm-up trainers in this one, which he was pretty sure would not be an option in later challenges.
The Gym Leader wasn't very intimidating on her own, they discovered.
"I wasn't expecting challengers today," she said, looking up from her book in surprise. "You wouldn't happen to be Pokedex kids, would you?"
"What's it to you?"
The Gym Leader took Brendan's statement for a yes. "And which of you is the one after the Badge?" Brendan raised his hand. She put the book away and prepared to send out her first Pokémon. "Then it's time to put what I learned at the Trainer's School to good use. Geodude, go!"
"It's time to put my traning to use," Brendan said, before admitting to himself that it sounded much better in his head. Well, too late now. "Shroomish, do the thing!"
Roxanne's first Geodude didn't even put up a fight. Her second was slightly more impressive, but Shroomish took care of all damage with Absorb.
Her third Pokémon was not an Onix, as both Pokedex carriers expected, but a creature that was...
Well, it was certainly something.
It was not particularly tall, not even Roxanne's height, but it was still large. Thick from side to side, and front to back even more so, due to the abnormally large nose sitting in the center of its face. There was no center, just two eyes above the nose and a chin that doubled as a body. Brendan couldn't take his eyes off of it.
May said it best, as if she were doing research for a story: "So how big are its boogers, on average?"
Of course, she had all the bluntness of a curious twelve-year-old, but because she actually was a curious twelve-year-old, Roxanne let it slide.
"Nosepass is a sturdy Pokémon," she said, and May looked away from the giant nose to focus on the young woman commanding it. Brendan wasn't quite that strong. "It's one of Hoenn's best Rock-types, and the mascot of the Rustboro City Gym."
"It's only the Gym mascot because you made it the Gym mascot," May said, almost exasperated. "That doesn't answer the question. I'm Professor Birch's daughter, and I've never been this close to a Nosepass before. Dad thought it would be wrong for me to study Nosepass snot."
"Don't say that out loud," Brendan complained. "I came here for a battle, not a discussion on Pokémon boogers."
"I was only helping her with her research," Roxanne protested, "but, yes, I did get a bit distracted. You wouldn't mind if we continued this conversation after the match, will you?"
"Don't bother." May looked over the Nosepass, and pulled out the green sparkle pencil and idea book. "I think I'll be able to guess."
If that was the creative process at work, Brendan was very happy that he wasn't a writer. "Shroomish, Absorb again!"
"Nosepass, use Rock Tomb!"
The Rock Tomb finally managed to take down Shroomish, the Absorb doing the minimum amount of super-effective damage. Brendan didn't even flinch as he called him back to his ball. After all, he had a Plan B. "Adam, do the thing!"
"Rock Tomb again!" Roxanne commanded, but Adam's Double Kick was faster. When the Nosepass fell, the amount of dust it kicked up completely obscured it from view.
"I'm instructed to give this to victorious trainers," Roxanne said, handing Brendan a small item she referred to as a Stone Badge. "With it, you'll be able to command some traded Pokémon, and it gives you the authority to use Cut outside of battle."
Brendan turned the Stone Badge over in his hands a few times before placing it into its slot in the Badge Case. "So where can we get Cut? More importantly, will we ever really need it?"
"I'm pretty sure someone has an HM in town." Roxanne drummed her fingers on the cover of her book, trying to find a way to put her thoughts into words. "I'm not sure where you'd need to use it that you can't take a longer way around, though. It's not necessary, I suppose."
Brendan looked at the Badge Case one more time, and then put it away in his bag. "Thanks for the battle, anyway. Hey, May, are you picking out a new Gym?"
"Give me a second," May answered at once, and then held out a map. "We could go through Rusturf Tunnel, where we'd end up in Verdanturf Town and can head over to Mauville City. It's right past Route 116..."
"Rusturf Tunnel is closed," Roxanne interrupted. "You could go through Petalburg Woods and back into the city -"
"Not likely," Brendan said, reaching over and swiping the map from May. "I promised the Petalburg Gym Leader that I'd only challenge him once I got four other Badges."
"And how did he expect that?" Roxanne leaned over Brendan's shoulder to look at the map herself. "Only Rustboro, Petalburg, Mauville and Lavaridge have Gyms here on mainland Hoenn, and you can't use Surf without the Balance Badge."
He'd forgotten that she didn't know that Norman was a father. Or at least that he was Brendan's father. He wondered if claiming family ties would get him all of the Badges, an easy pass to the Hall of Fame, and the ability to eventually claim the Hoenn region as his own.
Or not, world domination kind of sounded boring. Sure, the power sounded nice, but the paperwork would just be too much to handle.
"Do you think anyone has a boat we can borrow?" May suggested, and Brendan clipped Adam's ball back into place on his belt.
"Borrow, steal, it doesn't matter as long as it gets returned. Your dad's Professor Birch and mine's Norman, if we play the research card we can do whatever we want."
"I'm pretty sure laws still apply, Brendan," May started, but was caught off guard when her friend started to drag her off to the Pokémon Center, where they would heal Adam and Shroomish before starting on their way to Dewford Town, the small island that promised a Gym.
Of course, no sooner had they left the Gym than they heard a loud, surprisingly familiar voice crying for help.
"Stop that thief! He took the Devon Goods!"