In this chapter, our protagonists are going to be visiting Sprout Tower. In the process, they're going to meet up with Sarah. Meanwhile, Professor Elm's selecting a Pokemon trainer to take care of an egg.
Chapter 7: Return Of The Salesman
Lucy and Jake woke up after their nap. Curious, they noticed that Chris and Ned were there as well.
Unsurprisingly, Chris was waking up rather quickly. She typically did not stay asleep for long.
Lucy was rather excited to see one of her old friends.
"Hey there, Chris! Are you visiting Johto too?" inquired Lucy.
"As a matter of fact, I am. There's a lot of trainers to fight here. I couldn't pass up an opportunity like that." answered Chris. With eight gym leaders to fight, she was going to have her hands for quite a while.
However, she doubted that her Spinarak would do well against Falkner. She probably needed a different Pokemon.
Ned woke up as well.
Immediately, he stretched out his arms.
"Are you here to research Pokemon, Ned?" inquired Jake.
"Yes, I am. I caught a Hoothoot..." nodded Ned.
"A Hoothoot? I don't recall seeing those on the way here..." questioned Lucy.
"That's because they only come out at night." explained the smart boy.
"Oh. That explains it." nodded the girl. According to her Pokedex, Ledybas only came out during the morning, so perhaps she needed to watch the clock before looking for specific species of Pokemon.
"So, you want to visit the Sprout Tower?" inquired Lucy.
"You do that...we're going to fight Falkner." stated Chris.
"OK!" exclaimed the girl.
Suddenly, Ned noticed a familiar face.
It was none other than the Magikarp Salesman. Currently, he was selling Pokemon to unsuspecting Pokemon trainers.
This time, he was selling Celebi. Curious, he decided to look Celebi up on his Pokedex.
Apparently, Celebi was the guardian of the Ilex Forest.
Ned decided to go visit him.
"Get your Celebi! They're just five hundred Pokedollars!" exclaimed the Magikarp Salesman.
Several Pokemon trainers were in line to get their Celebi.
However, Ned knew from experience that the Magikarp Salesman was up to something. Something didn't seem quite right about the Pokemon that he was selling.
Ned took a closer look at the Celebi...
...and he noticed that there were zippers on their backs. Apparently, they weren't Celebi after all but different Pokemon entirely.
Curious, Ned noticed that they seemed to be hopping a bit.
He decided to unzip them. What Pokemon was really inside?
As it turned out, they were secretly Hoppips in disguise.
They were rather happy to be free, to say the very least.
"Hoppip!" cheered one of the wild Hoppips.
Immediately, they began to fly away in the wind. They heard that Azalea Town was a nice place to live in.
"What? No no no no no!" exclaimed the Magikarp Salesman, gasping in shock.
Immediately, the Pokemon trainers that were in line earlier decided to leave. At this point they realized that the salesman had been trying to trick them.
"Yes!" bellowed Ned.
At that point, the Magikarp Salesman noticed him.
"Oh, it's you! Every time you show up, you ruin my scams! if you keep it up, I'm going to run out of ideas!" exclaimed the salesman.
"You need to start living honestly." answered Ned.
"How dare you try to ruin me! This time, you're going to pay!" bellowed the salesman, pulling out a Pokeball.
Ned noted that the Magikarp Salesman hadn't changed at all since he encountered him in Kanto. And unfortunately for him, the fisherman wanted revenge.
Immediately, the Magikarp Salesman sent out a Qwilfish. As usual, he had caught a Pokemon while he was fishing.
"Qwilfish!" exclaimed the quill Pokemon.
Ned scanned Qwilfish with his Pokedex.
"Qwilfish, the Balloon Pokemon. Qwilfish can shoot needles from all directions. It is also covered with quills." explained Ned's Pokedex.
"I can see that..." nodded Ned. It would probably be a good idea not to give that particular Pokemon a hug.
To fight back against the Magikarp Salesman, Ned decided to send out his Hoothoot.
"Hoothoot!" exclaimed Ned's Hoothoot.
"You can do it!" shouted Ned.
Immediately, Ned instructed Hoothoot to use Peck.
However, when she attempted to do so, she ended up being poked by Qwilfish's spikes.
"Hoothoot!" exclaimed the flying Pokemon. She was too close to Qwilfish. Those spikes really hurt.
The Magikarp Salesman smirked in satisfaction. Qwilfish's spikes were certainly coming in handy. He would consider selling Qwilfish if it weren't for the fact that they were rather rare. If only they would swarm more often.
In retaliation, the Magikarp Salesman ordered Qwilfish to fire quills at Hoothoot.
"Qwil! Qwil!" exclaimed the salesman's Qwilfish.
"Hoothoot!" bellowed the flying Pokemon. Who would have thought that a bird Pokemon would be taking a beating from a fish?
"This is a problem..." nodded Ned. Unfortunately, it appeared that Hoothoot's talons and beak weren't going to be effective.
What was he going to do?
However, at that very moment, help arrived.
As it turned out, one of the Hoppips had decided to stay at Ned's side instead of hopping away to be with the rest of the Hoppip. She felt that she should repay her rescuer for letting her out of that stuffy costume.
"Huh? You want to give me a hand? I would appreciate the help..." nodded Ned.
Hoppip nodded up and down. She was rather grateful...like those trio of Clefairies who had been rescued by a man in a bowler hat.
Immediately, she began to shoot bullets at Qwilfish.
"Qwilfish!" exclaimed the puffer fish Pokemon. Who would have thought that a Pokemon spitting seeds on her would hurt?
Ned quickly realized that Hoppip was a better choice against Qwilfish than Hoothoot was. She would still need to watch out for the poisonous quills though. Hoppips were weak against poison.
Speaking of which, Qwilfish was getting ready to use Spikes again.
Fortunately for Hoppip, she could simply hop over them. She was rather quick.
"Why aren't you hitting her?" asked the Magikarp Salesman.
"Qwilfish!" exclaimed the fish Pokemon. She was simply too fast.
Hoppip hit Qwilfish with another round of seeds.
Qwilfish fainted.
"Darn it! I lost!" exclaimed the Magikarp Salesman. Unfortunately, the rest of his water Pokemon were relaxing at a pool that he had obtained from the money that he had scammed out of unsuspecting Pokemon trainers.
"No more scamming for you today!" shouted Ned.
"Grr...I'll come up with another scam! Just you wait!" bellowed the salesman.
Ned noted that it appeared that he had not seen the last of the salesman after all. Apparently, he liked to travel across regions every now and then to make sure that Officer Jenny didn't catch wind of his con artist habits.
Curious, he noticed that Hoppip was now jumping up and down. He supposed that he should expect that on account on what Pokemon she was.
He scanned Hoppip with his Pokedex.
"Hoppip, the Cottonweed Pokemon. Typically, they gather in clusters to avoid being blown away by wind. However, they enjoy gentle breezes." said Ned's Pokedex.
Clearly, Hoppip wanted to be his Pokemon.
Not wanting to turn down her request, Ned caught Hoppip with his Pokeball.
"There we go." stated Ned.
Since his Hoothoot had been injured, he decided to visit the Pokemon Center.
Several other Pokemon trainers were also in the Pokemon Center, including Totodile. Totodile was currently having a toothache.
"Totodile..." murmured Sarah's Totodile.
"Maybe you shouldn't have bitten into that Geodude." suggested Sarah.
Fortunately, the Chansey were giving him hot soup that was making him feel better.
At that very moment, one of Professor Elm's aides walked in.
"Greetings! Today we're going to be giving out a Pokemon egg to one of the trainers in this room!" exclaimed the aide.
"Huh?" asked Ned.
"Totodile?" inquired the crocodile Pokemon.
Shortly afterwards, the lights went out and a spotlight appeared.
It began to circle around the room.
"It looks like they're choosing at random..." remarked Ned. Who was going to be the lucky winner?
Eventually, it stopped...
...on Sarah.
"Congratulations! You're our winner!" exclaimed the aide.
Sarah fell out of her seat.
"Totodile!" exclaimed Sarah's Totodile. Who would have thought that they would win the egg?
"Here is your egg!" stated the aide.
Immediately, he gave the egg to Sarah.
"I wonder why he's giving me an egg..." questioned the girl. Personally, she didn't know what she was going to do with.
Well, Totodile was feeling better now, so she decided to leave the Pokemon Center along with Totodile.
However, as she did so, the aide suddenly noticed something.
"Wait a minute, isn't that the stolen Pokemon?" questioned the aide.
He then gasped in alarm.
"Oh no! I gave her the egg that Professor Elm wanted to give to a Pokemon trainer to research! What was I thinking? I have to call Officer Jenny immediately!" exclaimed Professor Elm's assistant.
Immediately, he ran outside the Pokemon Center to find the nearest pay phone.
"What was that all about?" inquired Ned.
He decided to go visit his friends to tell them the good news.
Sure enough, Lucy and Jake were heading to Sprout Tower.
"Hey there!" exclaimed Ned.
"Hey, Ned. How are you doing?" inquired Jake.
"Pretty good. I caught a Hoppip!" exclaimed Ned.
"A Hoppip? Not bad." answered Lucy.
"Yeah...I also met a girl who had a Totodile...one of Professor Elm's aides gave her an egg...I wonder what's inside..." questioned the bespectacled boy.
Lucy and Jake gasped in shock.
"Huh? What did I say?" inquired Ned.
"Did that girl have pink hair and was dressed like a Team Rocket Grunt?" questioned Jake.
"Now that I thought of it...she was dressed like a Team Rocket Grunt. There was a purple S on her shirt instead of a red R though..." remarked Ned. He thought that they had gotten rid of Team Rocket.
"Ned, that girl stole that Totodile!" exclaimed Lucy.
"What? She did?" inquired Ned.
"Yeah...we need to get him back to Professor Elm!" shouted Jake.
"But I'm not sure where she went..." answered the boy.
"Well, we might want to look for her..." remarked Lucy.
Immediately, Jake, Lucy, and Ned went to look for Sarah.
However, they didn't seem to find her anywhere. This was a rather large city, after all.
"Darn it! Where did she go?" inquired Jake.
"I guess we're just going to have to keep looking for her..." remarked Lucy. Maybe she went to the Sprout Tower?
Lucy and Jake went to the tower immediately.
Quickly, they noticed something rather interesting.
The tower was full of Bellsprouts!
"Bellsprout!" exclaimed of the Bellsprouts.
"This tower is quite peculiar..." remarked Lucy. There were even statues of Bellsprout close to the entrance.
Meanwhile...
"This egg feels rather warm..." stated Sarah. Since there were shapes on the egg, Sarah wondered if someone had been doodling on it.
At that very moment, Officer Jenny showed up.
"You're carrying a stolen Pokemon. You need to give it back to its owner at once!" demanded Officer Jenny.
Sarah's Growlithe barked at her.
"Hmm...should I give Totodile to her or shouldn't I?" inquired Sarah.
On one hand, her employer had never said anything about stealing Totodile. She COULD give him back to Professor Elm.
On the other hand, Totodile was her best friend. She would certainly miss him.
However, as it turned out, Totodile wished to stay with Sarah.
Immediately, he squirted Growlithe with his water gun.
"Growlithe!" exclaimed the puppy Pokemon.
"Growlithe!" shouted Officer Jenny.
Unfortunately for Growlithe, he was a fire type and Totodile was a water type.
Not only that, but he had much bigger jaws than he did. He didn't stand a chance against him in a fight.
Growlithe began to run away.
"Growlithe!" exclaimed Growlithe.
"Come back!" ordered Officer Jenny. Unfortunately, her Growlithe was rather young and therefore was rather frightened easily.
At that very moment, she encountered the Magikarp Salesman.
"Hello there! How would you like a shiny Magikarp?" inquired the salesman.
Immediately, he pulled out a blue Magikarp.
"Magikarp!" exclaimed the fish Pokemon.
"It's yours for just one thousand Pokedollars!" shouted the Magikarp Salesman. If this scam went well, he would be painting more Magikarps in the future. He already had several paint cans.
"That seems like a nice deal..." stated Officer Jenny.
However, Sarah's Totodile caught on to the deception.
"Totodile!" exclaimed Sarah's Totodile.
"What? That's not a shiny Magikarp?" inquired Sarah.
"Totodile!" shouted the crocodile Pokemon. Real shiny Magikarps were yellow, not blue!
"It looks like she's being scammed...maybe we should do something." suggested the girl.
Fortunately, Totodile knew what to do.
Immediately, he splashed the painted Magikarp with water...causing the paint to wash off.
"Uh-oh!" exclaimed the Magikarp Salesman.
"Trying to scam me, are you? You're under arrest!" shouted Officer Jenny.
Immediately, she stuck handcuffs on the Magikarp Salesman's wrists and took him to her car.
At that very moment, her Growlithe returned. Apparently he had noticed what Totodile had done and had decided that he was a good Pokemon.
Officer Jenny apologized to Sarah after locking the Magikarp Salesman inside her vehicle.
"Thanks for your help. I think I might have gotten you mixed up with someone else..." answered Officer Jenny.
"It's OK." stated Sarah.
Immediately, Officer Jenny drove off.
"Totodile!" exclaimed the water Pokemon. What should they do now?
"Let me think..." stated Sarah.
Perhaps they could examine their egg more closely. They might notice something interesting.
"Let me see..." thought the girl.
It certainly was a rather interesting egg.
"Maybe there's something inside?" questioned Sarah.
However, she didn't want to break it if she didn't know for sure. Besides, it looked rather sturdy.
"I guess I'll just put it in my bag." stated the girl.
Immediately, she put it inside her bag.
"I wonder if there are any other Team Shadow Grunts in the area..." answered Sarah.
If there were, she was going to look for them.
Quickly, she began to look around the city.
"Where could they possibly be?" questioned the girl.
It looks like Sarah got a free egg and Ned got a new Pokemon. Also, the Magikarp Salesman showed up again. This time, he ended up getting arrested! Perhaps he should have listened to Ned. However, it's probably not going to be the last that we see of him. He did show up several times in the Pokemon anime, after all.
In the next chapter, Jerry's going to make another appearance. This time he's going to be at the tower trying to collect the prize that awaits him.