Robin and myself entered the robbed house, and it was a mess! Fallen over and broken pot plants and furniture. A wrecked cabinet and a trail of some pokemons dirty footprints leading to a giant hole in the back wall. I almost burst into laughter when I saw it. I did not however actually laugh, as the man present was definitely bigger than me.

“Those miserable Rockets! Look what they’ve done to my house!”

“They stole a TM for teaching pokemon how to dig holes! I was going to use it on a Mankey or a Sandshrew… That cost me a bundle, it did!”

He ranted on.

“Team Rocket must be trying to dig their way into no good!”

His daughter chimed in.

Robin and myself exited the house through the very same hole. This rear area behind the house, which was normally completely fenced off and did not have any kind of discernable back door, had a path leading away from it for some reason.

It also had a Team Rocket grunt waiting for us. Seriously Officer Jenny, a little lax today aren’t we? The criminal is standing like several meters away from you and in uniform!

“Hey! Stay out! It’s not your yard!”

“It's not your yard either dude! Could you be anymore obvious.”

“Huh? Me? I’m an innocent bystander! Don’t you believe me?” The grunt retorted.

I caught Robin out the corner of my eye burying her face in her hand in exasperation. It seems even your fellow NPC’s are getting tired of your stupid responses hey.

First out was a level 17 Machop. A breeze once I switched my Karp over to Nido. Two pecks later and he was down.

Next came Drowzee. Well that was new. I did another KarpNido switch and ended up getting Nido put to sleep as a result. Drowzee threw out some minor attacks, before he managed to wake up. But also earned himself a poisoned status for his efforts. Since the poison type was taking entire chunks out of the psychic pokemons health at a time, even while Nido slept. I would say that Nidoking is pretty much Drowzee’s perfect counter.

By the time Nido could act, one Megapunch was all it took to finish the job.

“Okay. I’ll return the TM I stole.” And so he did. And then, for some reason, the grunt ran off. Well that doesn't normally happen.

The TM28 Dig could currently only be learnt by Nidoking. If I did, it would have to replace Rock tomb, since that would give me the greatest range of type advantages. And while it's true that I do prefer the Rock type to the Ground type and that it would improve type conversage a bit, not to mention Dig mostly has better specs than rock tomb, PP aside.

I am reluctant to replace it with such a similar type and for such a small improvement. I think I will rather save it for another pokemon that I obtain later on. I know of at least one pokemon I intend to collect that can use it.

We followed the path all around the outside of town, trapped between picket fences, hedges and trees. Near the other side of town, there were two downward sloping paths leading to another one of those ‘toll booth’ buildings. Trapped between the two paths and between two columns of white picket fence, was an additional path leading down, with a series of small ledges and patches of bushes.

This ultimately led to the Pokemon day-care. We talked to the man inside the building, but I did not leave any pokemon there. If my Magikarp had been a lower level I would have left it there a bit to level more easily. Unfortunately, at level 19 he was about to evolve, so this didn’t really help me with that goal. As for my other pokemon, I did not wish to risk messing up any of their current movesets by leaving them at the day-care. So in the end, I just let it be.

Entering the big ‘toll booth’ building, a guard complained, “I’m on guard duty. Gee, I’m thirsty, though!”

“Oh, wait there, the road’s closed.”

“I guess we’re not going this way” I remarked to Robin.

Exiting the ‘toll booth’ we entered a smaller side building, that was a strange hotel lobby like room, with a staircase in the middle leading underground.

There was a little girl here, “Hi! Do you have a Nidoran (male)? Want to trade it for my Nidoran (female)?”

Yeah, not happening!

“That’s too bad.”

We entered an underground passage. It was quite long and took us a long time to reach the other side, with a staircase leading up.

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Another lobby room with another little girl. “People often lose things in the darkness of the underground path.”

Oookaaay.

We exited the building and were on the other end of whatever area the ‘toll booth’ was meant to obstruct. As there was another security guard in the one, blocking our way.

Ignoring it for the time being, we made our way along the path to Vermillion city.

And it was time to face off against Bug Catcher Keigo, who brought out a level 16 weedle.

I decided to see if Karp could hold him down or not. And... his attack missed and he was immediately poisoned. Jesus, does Magikarp also have a low luck stat or something?

I switched out to Nidoking instead and rock tombed the little bitch.

Next he brought out Caterpie and I took the time to cure my Karp before bringing him out again.

I ultimately let Karp do the rest of the work there, just tackling his way through it.

Another weedle came out after that, so I went back to Nido and rock tombed it.

Then came Camper Ricky and his squirtle. Well there’s something you don't see every day. Nido was now close to Bulby’s level, so I let Bulby handle this one quick and easy.

Next was Picknicker Nancy and her Rattata. A quick switch to Nido and a single doublekick was all that was needed there.

Next the little fucker pulled out a Pickachu of all things! I did the KarpNido switch and earned a tailwhip. Two rock tombs later and he was done.

“I never seen you around here, are you good?” Bug catcher Elijah challenged me, with his level 20 butterfree. Oh nice! I was about to insult him, but at least he has one pokemon worth a damn.

I switched to Nidoking and earned a paralysis. Since the paralysis might waste some moves and rocktomb only had a max PP of 10 I decided to deal with this with Peck instead, it would still be effective against Butterfree.

Even though the bloody thing also confused me. Nido’s specs were way superior and eventually got his second peck in to finish Butterfree off.

And then it happened, Magikarp grew to level 20 and Nidoking to level 22 and wants to learn Thrash. I opted not to learn it though, it was only a little better than Megapunch, but had too many downsides.

Finally, after all this time, Magikarp evolved into Gyarados. The bright light from the evolution finally subsided and before us stood the majestic sea dragon. It was fucking huge!

Robin’s mouth was hanging open and the little bug catcher and picknicker pipsqueaks had all run for the hills all of a sudden.

Gyarados immediately learned Bite. Which means I also had something to use against ghost types now. Bite was a more than good enough attack for now. Also his HP was so superior to Magikarps that even though Magikarp had lost two thirds of its HP already, Gyarados’ HP bar was practically full.

I also gave Gyarados the water pulse TM to round him out a bit, since it would be a while before he learned any water attacks of his own.

I put Gyarados back in his pokeball.

I noticed Robin was still gawking.

“Hey, I told you so!”

She regarded me with a tired expression. “I know.”

She sighed. “I know. Honestly, the things you do don’t even surprise me much anymore.”

Liar, you were totally flabbergasted just a moment ago.

I just smiled at her and we went on our way once more.

Further along the route, two more kids wanted to ‘play’ with us.

Picknicker Isabelle called out Pidgey, and I… Well I called out Gyarados.

Picknicker Isabelle went pale all of a sudden and I’m pretty sure I saw Pidgey shed a few feathers. A bite and a water pulse later and Pidgey was an unconscious pile of feathers.

Isabelle called out another Pidgey and I just did it in with two tackles this time. Despite Tackle's lower power output, it did more damage than water pulse. I doubt Gyarados has a much higher physical than special attack though, so it was probably just Pidgey’s incredibly weak defense stat.

And once more a Pidgey, rinse and repeat.

After that it was Camper Jeff, and his Spearow and Raticate. The level 16 Raticate put up quite a fight against Gyarados, finally bringing him into the red.

After this, we finally reached Vermilion city. The beach city. The whole thing was practically on a beach after all.

We healed up at the pokecenter and I noticed that the path to the Gym was blocked off. We were probably gonna need Cut for that. Curiously, I tried to climb over the white picket fence instead, to bypass the need for Cut. The Gym however appeared to be locked. Clever bastards, force me to play the game, hey.

Robin, meanwhile, had other thoughts on her mind: “The Beach! The Beach!” She smacked my shoulder excitedly. Practically jumping out of her own skin. I’m guessing she’s never been to the beach before.

“You wanna go to the beach so long? I need to just take care of some stuff in town first.”

She nodded enthusiastically.

I agreed to meet her here when I was done.

I left Robin to play on the beach. I first went to the far corner of town and talked to a fisherman guy.

“I’m the fishing Guru! I simply looove fishing! I can’t bear to go without.”

“Tell me, do you like to fish?”

I responded, “Yes”.

“Grand! I like your style. I think we can be friends. Take this and fish, young friend!”

He then gave me an old rod.

“Fishing is a way of life! It is like the finest poetry.”

“From the seas to rivers, go out and land the big one, my friend.”

I just smiled, but dear god, this guy can drone on about fishing. I’ll probably donate the rod to Robin as a gift. I have a feeling she’ll like it, even if it isn’t really good for much more than catching Magikarp.

The pokecenter only had people trying to teach you about different aspects of the game.

There was however one person:

“The urge to battle with someone you’ve tangled with before. Have you ever had that urge? I’m sure you have.”

“I wanted to battle certain people again over and over, too. So, I’ve been giving these away. Please take one!”

I now have the VS seeker. Not that I care.

“Use that device and you’ll find trainers looking for a rematch. You have to charge its battery to use it, though.”

After a while I reached the pokemon fan club. Most of the people in there were uselessly gushing about their pokemon. One old dude in particular (the only old dude amongst all these kids, so basically the pedophile) gushed on extra fucking long about his Rapidash. It was worth sitting through it though as he gave me the long awaited bicycle voucher.

Another house had a girl that would trade me a Fearow for a Farfetch’d

The last house I visited just wanted to teach me all about the mail system. Next!

I ended my run by the pokeshop. Here the people were mostly discussing Team Rocket and other moral quandaries. I definitely ignored them.

I restoked myself with another two super heals and I also bought two new ice heals. The rest of my stock seemed fine.