9 Chapter 9

By time you had found and defeated Scyther with the help of Kingler, it was already around noon. At this point, it wasn't worth setting up for lunch when you were so close to the end of the forest.

If you were quick, you might even be able to get your gym battle today.

So after praising kingler for a job well done and returning him to his pokeball. You continued on your way towards Pewter City.

You were closer than you thought you were honestly, reaching the end within an hour. And even passed by like ten downed Beedrill on the way, probably what Scyther was fighting before you came across him.

The path leading out of Viridian Forest, opened up into hill, that was thankfully padded with stairs.

You took in a deep breath of fresh air as you looked out over Pewter City. It was once the premiere frontier town of Kanto. Your eyes lingered on the rocky remains circling the entire city, making large defensive walls.

As far as history was concerned, Pewter City used to be the biggest mountain in Kanto. Until the three legendary pokemon Moltres, Articuno and Zapdos fought here hundreds of years ago and erased it nearly entirely from the map, the large walls surrounding the city being the only remnant of the once towering mountain that pierced the clouds.

You took a few moments to admire it, before hopping down the stairs two at a time and walking towards the city at a quick pace.

It took maybe five minutes to make your way down the hill and enter the city. Kingler and Scyther had taken quite the pair of beatings in their battle. So your first thought was to head to the Pokemon Centre.

While consulting your map though, you noticed that the PokeMart was just a few blocks before it on your way, so you decided to stop in there to see if you wanted to get your hands on anything.

If nothing else, you had to stock up on a few pokeballs.

You stopped in front of the large mart building. It was easily recognizeable with its neon blue roof, and any town or city generally had one. They were a chain of stores owned by the league, dedicated to providing service to pokemon trainers. Even Pallet Town had one, and it was so small it could barely be considered a town at all.

You were just about to enter it, when a commotion from the alley beside it rang in your ears, sounding like a bunch of garbage cans falling over.

Curiosity getting the better of you, knowing that there were some types of pokemon that liked to live in urban areas and scrounge food from humans. Peeking in around the corner of the mart, you noted a bunch of silver garbage cans knocked over, their lets ajar and their contents spilling out into the alleyway making a right proper mess.

And leafing through the contents, its fur matted and dirty, was an incredibly familiar pokemon that nearly anyone would recognize.

Its ears twitched as you took a step and it whirled around in fright, staring up at you with big adorable eyes.

"Vee?" it squeaked out, eyeing you almost fearfully, backing up a bit as if getting ready to bolt.

Seeing its frightened visage, you lowered yourself down slowly to make yourself look less threatening at the edge of the alleyway. You sat down cross legged, and took a handful of pokechow from your pocket and held your hand out open, filled with food in your lap.

"Here little guy," you patted your lap with your free and and indicated to the food, "You hungry? Come on over, I've got some food here."

Eevee eyed you wearily still, but ever so slowly it inched closer. It sniffed your hand full of food and you didn't make a move. Finally after sating its curiosity for a few more moments, it smiled up at you and jumped into your lap, you had to admire how soft it felt even with its fur all dirty.

"There's a good Eevee." you cooed, gently rubbing it behind the ears and holding the food out for it to eat.

The small normal type eagerly munched on the food out of your hand. And you laughed at how ticklish its little soft tongue was on your palm.

After a minute or two, it gobbled up all the food and looked back up at you expectantly. You smiled and lifted it up to eye level, butting your nose gently to its. It giggled and rubbed its nose back on yours, "Hey little buddy, you wanna come with me?" you asked gently, "I'll be battling a lot, but I promise to train you up nice and strong, and you won't ever have to worry about food."

...

"Vee!" to your surprise, the little furry fox pokemon didn't even hesitate, it eagerly agreed and you couldn't stop the grin form splitting your face.

"All right then!" you cheered yourself, pulling out an empty pokeball and gently tapping it to Eevee's face.

Eevee was sucked inside a moment later, and capture without issue. You didn't get the chance to admire your new pokemon's pokeball for long though. Because instantly it shone with bright white light, and disappeared.

"What the fuc-!?" you shot up in a panic, eyes widened, before remembering that you already had six pokemon, so Eevee must have been sent to Professor Oak.

You sighed in relief. The good old professor knew far more about pokemon than you, so he'd be able to give it a good check up before you transferred it back over to your party.

Damn rules. You knew it was to make it easier for new trainers, but it was still annoying.

Well, with your panicked thoughts on Eevee disappearing soothed, you continued on into the Pokemart. They had quite the selection, and while you originally just wanted some pokeballs, you ended up splurging on a few different things and forgetting about the capture balls altogether.

You ended up buying two sets of Macho Brace's, which would be good for training your pokemon's physical strength and endurance, not to mention yourself. Gotta keep in shape after all, no telling what you could run into one day and who you might need to punch out.

Honestly, you used to be quite proud of how naturally strong you were. Then you saw Ash Ketchum punch out a fucking Nidorino a few months ago and your ego was very quickly shattered.

That guy was so absentminded. Nice enough if you didn't get him riled up. But god damn Mew above was he a freak of nature. You didn't understand quite where Gary found the balls to mock him. Maybe it came from being his best friend growing up, but Gary wasn't as physically fit as you, never mind that beast of a boy.

He probably didn't even need a starter pokemon. He could go out and punch out whatever pokemon first caught his eye himself.

You shook your head. Either way, you ended up picking up two of the Macho Braces, a few potions and even splurged a bit on a TM for Mega Drain. It hurt to spend more money than you'd ever earned in your lifetime before becoming a trainer, but teaching Bulbasaur the move would definitely be worth it.

You'd seen a Beedrill use it once, and it was such an awesome move. It red rays of energy from the pokemon eyes and drained the target of their energy and gave it to the attack user. It would be mighty useful once you continued on out of Pewter, either in Mt. Moon or over the Diglett Cave. You remembered that guy you battled in Viridian City telling you about how he caught his Ryhorn atop the Diglett Cave mountain.

You took the time to teach the attack to Bulbasaur. It was as simply as pressing the TM disc to your pokeball, and once the knowledge of the attack was passed on through it to your pokemon, the green disc faded to a muted grey.

True story. So, after you tossed that in the the nearest trash can, you continued on to the pokemon Centre.

Of course, your luck just had to take a nose dive.

As soon as you turned the last corner and swung around to see the large red roofed building, the chanting met your ears.

"ry- Gary he's our man, if he can't do it, no one can!" A bunch of older, gorgeous girls waved pompoms in the air and struck their legs out cheering.

Cheering for, the moron you were just thinking of a few minutes ago at that. You couldn't hold back your groan of annoyance. There he was, waving arrogantly from the back of his polished red convertible.

"Fucking hell." you uttered in disbelief. What a moron.

"Thank you, thank you my adoring fan-" Gary waved to them all, accepting their praise, until his eyes roved over them all, and landed on you walking towards them since they were outside the Pokemon Centre. His smile dropped into a scowl, "Well, well, well look what the Persian dragged in." he drawled, sliding off of the back of his car and walking over to stand in front of you.

"Waiting for your boyfriend, Grace?" you taunted him back, moving to walk around him.

Gary took a step to his side and cut you off though, scowl deepening, "I told you to shut the hell up about that crap," he hissed, before taking a deep breath and growling out, "Think you can skip on ahead after grabbing your first pokemon after insulting me like that."

The threat in his voice was like that of a baby Growlithe yipping at you. You snorted, "Yeah, got a problem with that?" you asked back flatly, you noted the girls having stopped cheering and you idly glanced at them, smirking and throwing a wink at the one on the far left with the long brown hair when she met your eyes.

"In fact I do," Gary seethed. It was funny, he loved to mock others, but couldn't really take it himself. He held up a pokeball and pointed it at you, "How about we settle this with a battle and I'll show you just how much of a scrub you are."

Ugh, he sounded like that asshole Cross.

You shook off the rising anger and smirked at the brown haired boy, "Sure, Grace, bring it on." you replied, snatching a pokeball from your own belt