"Charmander! Ember the fuck outta it!"
"Char!"
I watched as my little orange killing-machine lizard opened his mouth, and a burst of fire shot outward, and then slammed directly into the bird in front of it. The Pidgey didn't avoid the attack, instead stumbling back as it let out a pained squawk, but didn't fall over and faint immediately. It turned its head towards Charmander, and its wing glowed as it launched forward and slammed a Wing Attack into the orange lizard.
Luckily, my Charmander was built different and barely even stumbled from the attack.
"Finish it off," I said simply, and Charmander opened his mouth again to launch another burst of flames forward. This time, as the fire made contact with Pidgey, the small bird stumbled to the side and then fell over - fainted.
"Good work," I hummed, nodding approvingly at Charmander, and then blinked in surprise as he started to… glow?
"Ah! Red, he's evolving!" Misty shouted out dramatically, jutting her finger at the glowing body of Charmander, but I had already come to the same conclusion - and I was pretty conflicted about it right now.
On one hand - yay! My Charmander is evolving! He's becoming stronger, and I almost felt like a proud parent at the moment! I was definitely happy for the little guy!
But, on the other hand?
"Against a fuckin' Pidgey?!" I groaned, reaching up and rubbing my face, "Damn it, Charmander! If I knew you were about to evolve, I would've had you fight something badass!"
I was glad he was evolving, but for his final battle as a Charmander to be against a Pidgey?! He deserved better than that! If I knew ahead of time, I would've at least found a Team Rocket grunt for him to defeat!
"Charmeleon!" Charmander responded, just grinning widely at me as he was suddenly taller and more dinosaur-looking when the light faded away.
"Eh, good work anyway, Charmander," I hummed, reaching down to pat his head, before I yanked back my hand as the flame on its tail was hot enough to start burning me even at a distance, "Fuck, forgot about that! But, good work, man."
"Char!" Charmander responded, looking proud as he puffed out his chest.
"Now that he evolved, shouldn't you stop calling him Charmander?" Jessie inquired, looking down at Charmander curiously, "Now he's a… Carmelon, right?
"A Charmeleon," I corrected, but shook my head easily at her question, "But his name is Charmander, so I'll keep calling him Charmander."
"R-Really?" Misty asked this time, looking at me with uncertainty, "You named your Charmander… Charmander?"
"I was just as confused as you are," Joy muttered, glancing over at Charmander with a slightly solemn look in her eyes.
"He likes his name!" I defended Charmander, "And it's a good name, damn it!"
"Char!" See? Charmander even agreed with me! At least, I assumed that was what he meant by 'Char.'
"...Sure it is," Joy shot back dryly, but then brightened up a bit, "Wait, does this mean we can finally head back to the hotel? My legs are tired! E-Especially after…"
"Nope," I shot her down immediately, shaking my head lightly as her expression crashed down and I ignored the end of her sentence, "The grind waits for no one, right, Charmander?"
"Charmeleon!"
"Exactly!" I grinned at his enthusiasm. Right now, we were on Route 8, one of the four routes surrounding Saffron City, as I was taking the time to strengthen my team of pokemon. With Mewtwo out of commission for the moment, I needed my little guys - aka, all my unevolved pokemon - to pull their weight.
Despite handling Misty's gym pretty easily, the battle with her had still been a wake-up call, as all my pokemon were definitely a bit underleveled. For that reason, we were in the process of EXP-farming all the poor Pidgeys on Route 8, as well as searching for one pokemon in particular.
"But, we can leave for today once I find a Growlithe," I told Joy, causing her to brighten up a bit as she was slumped over with shadows covering her eyes, "I already have a fire-type, but… I wanna ride that damn dog!"
After seeing an Officer Jenny riding on the back of an Arcanine in Saffron City yesterday - which was still overrun by Team Rocket, which in turn was the true reason I was here instead of blindly challenging the gym leader, Sabrina - I had been determined to get one of my own. A bit of poking around and question-asking had led me to discovering that they could be found here - though, I was wondering if I'd been lied to, as we had been here for hours already, and there was no sign of a Growlithe anywhere.
"That doesn't make me feel any better," Joy sighed, waving her hand out at the tall grass in front of us, "We've been here for hours! If we haven't found one already, then we probably just won't-"
"Found it!" Joy blinked, pausing as a pokeball went sailing past her head. She whipped her gaze around, looking at the tall grass as a small, orange dog-like creature popped out of it, as if on cue, and then was immediately shoved into a poke ball.
"Alright, Charmander! When he comes out, hit him hard, but not too hard!" I ordered Charmander, who gave me a nod in response.
"Char!"
He stuck with the plan a moment later as the Growlithe popped out of the ball. Charmander lunged forward and swiped at the smaller creature with its claws, which slashed across the Growlithe, causing the pokemon to grunt in pain as it stumbled to the side. Then, another poke ball bounced off of it, and it was pulled into the ball.
The ball lay on the ground for a moment, shaking once… then twice… then a third time, before finally, it clicked.
"Well, that was easy," I hummed, walking past Joy casually as I reached down and picked up the poke ball, "Welcome to the team, Growlithe."
In a sequence almost as quick as Professor Oak shoving me out of his laboratory, a new member had been added to my team.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Bulbasaur, the water turtle pokemon! It's known for… insufficient data… insufficient data… insufficient data… insufficient data…" I stared at my 'top of the field technology', which was a pokedex, as it spouted out a bunch of useless information.
"This thing is fuckin' useless," I deadpanned, staring down at the small device as it scanned Bulbasaur, which was actually my Squirtle, "It doesn't know anything!"
"Didn't you say you were supposed to fill it up with information?" Joy asked dryly to my side, leaning around me to look at the small device, "If you don't put anything into it, then how is it supposed to know about the pokemon?"
"I've been putting information into it all this time, but it's damn slow!" I huffed, promptly snapping the pokedex closed, and then shoving it into my pocket.
I had been entrusted with the device by Professor Oak, and while I didn't even know the guy, and he had just pretty much shooed me out of town - very suspiciously, mind you, in a way that made me wonder if this body's mother had the same relationship with him that Ash's mom did - I was still at least trying to fill up the pokedex. I felt like I owed it to him after he gave me my starters, but so far, it seemed like more trouble than it was worth.
Every time I took out the device, I was reminded that it was definitely a one of a kind device - as in, it was the first of its kind, and as a result, pretty shitty. Inputting any data was difficult, as there was just a small touchpad on the bottom to use, and the pokedex didn't seem to have a very good camera in general. It couldn't recognize most pokemon, and even for those it could, it didn't have much information about them available already.
Essentially, Professor Oak hadn't given me this to help him fill out the pokedex - he had given it to me so I would entirely fill out the pokedex! As in, he had barely done any work on it so far! Considering how terrible the pokemon-recognition camera was, I imagined he had just shown the pokedex various pictures of pokemon, and not actually taken in-person pictures to implement into the device.
All in all, the pokedex was pretty useless right now, and my attempts to make it more useful weren't going very well.
"You said a pokemon professor entrusted that thing to you, right?" Joy asked, looking at me curiously, "I've never heard of a device that could scan pokemon, and then tell you about them… that would be pretty revolutionary, wouldn't it?"
"Fuck if I know," I just shrugged at her question, as I wasn't the most knowledgeable about technology in this world. If there really were no other pokédexes in other regions, then the invention of the pokedex would definitely be revolutionary - but that was only if there weren't other pokedex's in other areas.
My knowledge of the games didn't really help me out much here, since in every single game, you were given a pokedex so you could fill it up with data about pokemon. That included pokemon that originated in other gens, so theoretically, the pokedex should've already been partially filled out, even if you were just adding the new pokemon from that region.
"T-That device sounds pretty crazy to me, so shouldn't you take it more seriously?" Misty piped up, standing on my other side as she looked at me with a bit of concern, "Like, you should at least put in the right stuff! That's a Squirtle, not a Bulbasaur!"
"Actually, it's a Wartortle, but, eh, I'm sure Oak will fact-check it," I waved her off casually, "What kind of scientist would give something like this to a rookie, and trust that everything they put into it is correct? I'm sure he gave out a bunch of these anyway!"
If this pokedex really was a revolutionary prototype, then there's no way Oak would just entrust me to do all the legwork and fill it out, right? He must've given out the pokedexes to a bunch of trainers, and he'll cross-check the data when we give it back!
…
Right?
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Huh?! What the hell is a regular trainer doing here?" A woman said loudly, crossing her arms under her large breasts as she looked at me harshly, "This is serious business! This isn't the time for someone like him to be here!"
"I appreciate the vote of confidence," I deadpanned, looking at the woman, who was very familiar-looking. Mainly, because she shared the same trait that Joy did - that being that she had a huge family, which was mainly comprised of women, and most of those women happened to look very similar.
Officer Jenny had a pretty face, with shoulder-length green hair flowing behind her, and a body that was very easy on the eyes. She stuck with a theme I had quickly noticed in this world, as I wasn't sure what they were putting in the water here, but every woman I ran into was drop-dead gorgeous. Jenny was no exception, as even through her blue police-like outfit, which was thick with a short skirt and a floppy hat, her body was visible. She had a thin waist, large breasts, and a thicker bottom side, as I could see her plump thighs through her skirt, and a bit of her bubbly rear from the side.
As for why I was being scolded by Officer Jenny right now? While I was sure that this was a position that a fair share of men would love to be in, I hadn't ended up here intentionally, as instead, I'd been forced to take action - because everyone in this world was so damn incompetent!
We had been in Saffron City for three days now, and funds were definitely running low. The only way we were able to even afford the two hotel rooms at this point was because I'd luckily been mugged by a Team Rocket grunt in front of the hotel - and thus, defeated him in a pokemon battle to reverse-mug him. Saffron City was a pretty big city, having a more major-city feel than either Viridan City, Cerulean City, or Pewter City had, as there were much larger buildings, and the population seemed to be higher as well.
Overall, it wasn't a bad city to be stuck in, but I still didn't want to be wasting so much time here! The reason for the holdup was pretty simple, and pretty annoying - Sabrina wouldn't accept any gym challenges at the moment, because she was too concerned about the whole 'city being taken hostage' thing.
Which, frankly, wasn't much of a concern in my eyes, because Team Rocket was really bad at hostile takeovers. The streets were littered with grunts, but besides that, Saffron City was… not really that bad. A store or two was being robbed every day, and there was a pretty high chance that a grunt would try to rob you if you were outside, but besides that, there wasn't much more danger. Honestly, even with an organization of criminals taking over the entire city, it still felt 100x safer than New York City did in my original world, so I wasn't all that concerned.
But, no one else in the city seemed to share my lack of concern, which I had to salute - for a world full of dumbass trainers and cute little creatures, they really cared about the law and order of their cities! Granted, 'cared' didn't mean they had any systems in place to enforce that law and order, as evidenced by the current situation. Seriously, a group of twenty, maybe thirty, people in matching outfits with a bunch of mid-level pokemon could just take over an entire city for weeks?
Overall, this had led to our current situation, where we had walked into the Saffron City police station, and I was going to offer my help - or, more specifically, make them accept my help, whether they liked it or not. I needed my damn gym badge, and I wasn't going to let a bunch of grunts get in my way! For that reason myself, Joy, Jessie, and Misty were all in the back of the police station, and in a room filled with various guards. It was a pretty plain room overall, with just a couple of chairs, a light built into the ceiling overhead, and a blue carpet on the floor.
"Ah, he just came in with Nurse Joy, Officer Jenny," One of the guards in the room, a man with a clean-shaved face who was wearing the same guard uniform as the man I gave water a few days ago, spoke up, "However, I believe he was the one who supplied us with a water bottle three days ago! I was so… so… so thirsty… and that water was so… so… so good!"
I stared blandly as the man's eyes got a bit glossy, almost as if he was thinking back nostalgically on a fond memory. A fond memory, not of his childhood or anything like that, but of drinking from a water bottle. Hell, it wasn't even a full water bottle! He was thinking fondly about drinking from a small portion of a water bottle, which he also shared with three other guards!
"A water bottle?" Officer Jenny muttered, looking over at the man confusedly, but then pushed passed his words as she glanced over at Joy, "But, I see! He's with you, Nurse Joy? How have you been? I haven't seen you since that time I almost had to arrest you! Hah, it's still funny to think that you mistook a Dragonite for a Caterpie, and the future Champion thought you were trying to rob him!"
"You mistook a Dragonite for a Caterpie?" I asked dryly, glancing over at Joy. How the hell was that even possible?!
"N-No, wait! I'm not the Nurse Joy from here! I used to work in Viridian City!" Joy held up her hands defensively, shaking her head quickly as she looked back to me, "I would never mess up that badly, Red!"
"How does anyone mess up that badly?" I asked her dryly, to which she leaned over, talking hushedly as if she was telling me a huge secret.
"Between you and me, the rest of the Joy's might not be… very competent," Joy explained a bit sheepishly, but then puffed out her chest proudly, causing her large breasts to jiggle in the process, "There's a reason I have the name Joy Joy, y'know? You have the best nurse in all of Kanto with you!"
"If the best nurse doesn't even know what an Abra is, then this region is doomed," I countered dryly, causing Joy to blush lightly and glance away, "I thought only the trainers were stupid, but the nurses too?"
"Don't put them in the same tier," I blinked, caught off guard as Joy's blush instantly vanished, and her face became deathly serious, and even a bit cold, "My family may be incompetent, but never put them on the same level as those trainers, alright?!"
Her words were only a small solace after hearing that one of the Nurse Joy's mistook a Caterpie for a Dragonite, but as her expression was so serious, I decided not to argue with her.
"From Viridian City?" Officer Jenny finally intervened, looking at Joy curiously, "I heard they were having some Pokemon Center troubles lately, but… what are you doing all the way in Saffron City?"
"Well, if you must know," Joy smirked, looking down her nose at Officer Jenny as she suddenly got overly proud, "I happened to find a super-genius pokemon trainer, and I followed him here! He might just be getting started, but Red will be the next Champion in no time!"
"She's followed me here because she's a stalker."
"I-I am not! We're dating!"
"A… super-genius pokemon trainer?" Officer Jenny asked doubtfully, glancing over at me with a strange look on her face, "Him? He's a genius?"
I wasn't sure if I should be offended or not, but I decided not to be, as I just shrugged instead. Judging from my personal experiences with trainers in this world, using the word 'genius' in the same breath as 'trainer' definitely didn't sound like something that should ever happen.
"Yup! He got two gym badges in only three days, and he caught this super dangerous pokemon in Cerulean-" I reached up, quickly covering Joy's mouth with my hand as I glared over at her lightly.
I still had Mewtwo in my backpack, but I definitely wanted to keep that under wraps. I didn't know who knew he was in Cerulean Cave besides Lance, but I definitely didn't want knowledge of me catching him spreading - because that was just placing a huge target on my back. I couldn't control Mewtwo yet, so any genuinely competent trainer - which I still wasn't sure there were any, but at least any trainer with a powerful team - could try to rob me, and all I'd have to defend myself was my collection of second-evolution pokemon.
"I don't know about genius, but I'm at least competent," I downplayed Joy a bit, and wasn't even lying. I didn't think I was some kind of super-genius prodigy of a pokemon trainer - I was just above-average when everyone else was a moron!
"I'll help you deal with the Team Rocket problem, so that I can challenge the gym here," I continued, locking eyes with Officer Jenny as she still looked at me doubtfully, "Honestly, I don't really care about what they're doing, but as long as their here, Gym Leader Sabrina won't take on challengers, right?"
"Yes, as the gym leader of Saffron City, Sabrina has a responsibility to keep the city and its citizens safe." Officer Jenny nodded at my question, giving me some information I hadn't known, "Until this situation is resolved, it would be irresponsible of her to continue holding gym challenges!"
The gym leader was supposed to protect the city? I thought Sabrina was just going over the top with trying to kick out Team Rocket, but it came with the job of being a gym leader? Then what the hell was the point of the police?!
Granted, in a pokemon world, it did make some sense. It wasn't like Officer Jenny or any of the guards had guns - instead, they just had their own pokemon to battle against evildoers. Since gym leaders were considered the cream of the crop amongst pokemon battlers, it would make some sense that they would be called in for problems like this. In a way, they were the strongest deterrent to crime that a city had.
"Though it's hard to believe that she was Cerulean City's strongest soldier," I muttered, glancing over at Misty, who blushed at my words, "Anyway, let's just get to it, alright? I've been grinding up a bit the past few days, so whatever Team Rocket has, I'm sure we can work together to handle."
The 'grinding' in question was pokemon grinding, as while waiting for Team Rocket to be dealt with, I didn't have much else to do. Over the past three days, I had been visiting the nearby routes in every direction of the city - that being Route 5, 6, 7, and 8 - to help my pokemon get some more battling experience, as well as sort out their moves. I'd also been trying to fill out the pokedex in the process, which had led to my discussion with Joy and Misty about it two days ago, but that had ended up being a lot more difficult than the grinding itself.
That was because, surprisingly, grinding up EXP was really easy! Two of the routes, those being Route 7 and 8, both had a lot of higher-level pokemon, even if they were still largely weak - as they were Pidgeys, Oddishs, Ekans, and the like. I still wasn't entirely sure how the whole real-world EXP worked, but considering the amount of progress my pokemon made in the past three days, I assumed the method I was using was pretty efficient.
Overall, over the past three days, Charmander had evolved into a Charmeleon, Bulbasaur the Squirtle had become a Wartortle, and Bulbasaur the Bulbasaur evolved into an Ivysaur. It was difficult to train Gyarados in the grassy route because… he was a fish, but Pikachu had also become a lot stronger - not that he needed it. The little electric mouse was packing some serious power, and judging by how he could use Thunderbolt now, I figured he was a pretty high level. I suspected that the whole 'knocking out every pokemon in the Cerulean City river' probably had something to do with it, but I wasn't going to complain, because Pikachu was at least level 25 now.
Besides that, I was still struggling with Ho-Oh Weedle, my Abra, because all he knew how to do was teleport, which wasn't very conducive to defeating other pokemon and gaining EXP. I had tried real-world switch training, and I wasn't sure it was working, but I at least felt like Abra looked a bit stronger. He evolved at a pretty high level anyway, so I wouldn't really find out just how much progress he had been making until he evolved into a Kadabra.
"No offense, but even if you're a friend of Nurse Joy's and of the Cerulean City gym leader, this isn't a situation for civilians to be involved with!" Officer Jenny shot down my offer, shaking her head lightly, "Much less a rookie one at that! Leave this to us, and we'll have Team Rocket out of the city in no time!"
"In 'no time?'" I repeated dryly, raising an eyebrow at her, "So, how long have they been occupying the city already?"
"W-Well, it's been a few weeks, but that's because we were shorthanded!" Officer Jenny blushed at my question, not meeting my eyes as she spoke, "The guards were busy with… something else, but they're here now!"
"They were busy with being 'thirsty,'" I deadpanned at her, only causing Officer Jenny to blush deeper, "And, a few weeks doesn't sound like 'no time' to me. There's not even that many of them, y'know? Why aren't you just arresting them all?"
"Well, to arrest someone, you have to beat them in a pokemon battle first!" Jenny shot back, looking at me as if I'd asked a stupid question, "Unfortunately, I only have my Arcanine, and he's been pretty tired from carrying me around… so we haven't been able to beat any of the Team Rocket members…"
I stared at her blankly for a moment before slowly speaking again, "You… you have to beat someone in a pokemon battle to arrest them?"
"Yup! That's proper protocol!" The guard supplied helpfully, nodding at my words as he saw no problem with that strand of logic, and I just stared at the two law enforcement officers incredulously.
"Why the hell would you have to do that?! Just put the cuffs on them! They're taking an entire city hostage!"
Like, seriously, you had to beat them in a pokemon battle? That was like telling the police back in my original world that they had to win a shootout against any criminal they were arresting! Why was there a skill check for the police officers?!
"Even worse, you only have one pokemon?!" I spat out, staring at Officer Jenny incredulously, who at least had the decency to glance away with a red face, "You have to beat the criminals in a battle to arrest them, but you only have one pokemon to do that?! Have you ever arrested anyone?!"
"H-Hey! I'll have you know, I made an arrest just earlier today!" Officer Jenny shot back, huffing defensively, "There was a bug catcher trying to smuggle a seventh Weedle into the city, and my Arcanine and I took care of him!"
I stared at the woman blankly, then slowly glanced over at Joy, "Was that also the stupidest thing you've ever heard? I'm not crazy, right?"
Seriously? The entire city is being taken over by a gang of criminals, stores are being held hostage, and civilians are being robbed right now, but Officer Jenny's only arrest was on a kid with seven Weedles?! No wonder she won the battle - she has an Arcanine, and he had a team full of Weedles!
"Um… yeah, I do think there might be more pressing concerns than an extra Weedle," Joy agreed, glancing over at Officer Jenny, who flushed for what felt like the tenth time this conversation under the pressure.
"Well, you can't have more than six pokemon with you at a time, so it sounds fair to me!" Misty supplied helpfully, just causing me to turn my dry gaze to her.
"Right. Criminals are taking over the city, but little Timmy with a seventh Weedle needs to be thrown in the slammer. Let's just ignore all the robberies going on, and focus on making sure no one has too many Weedles," I said dryly, and then promptly turned around and started walking away from Officer Jenny, "Whatever, it's my fault for thinking you guys would be even slightly competent. I'll go deal with this situation myself."
"W-Wait, where are you going?! Don't do anything stupid!" Officer Jenny called out after me, watching as I headed towards the doorway.
"Yeah! And who are you calling incompetent?!" The guard huffed as well, causing me to give one last dry statement over my shoulder as I walked out of the police station doors.
"The guard who let the city be taken over because he was thirsty, and the woman who arrested a kid with seven Weedles while Team Rocket was actively mugging someone," I called back, "If you guys aren't incompetent, then I don't know who is."
I walked through the doors, then started to descend the stairs in front of the station as Jessie, Joy, and Misty rushed out behind me.
"W-Wait, Red, I don't think this is something we can handle alone!" Jessie called out, running up to my side as she glanced at me uncertainly, "I used to work for this group, remember? I know how they can be… they're all crazy! They'll cheat in battles, and they have a ton of strong pokemon because they steal them all!"
"Who's 'we?'" I shot back to her, shaking my head lightly, "I'll handle this on my own. If you guys joined in, then it would be too easy."
"Too easy?" Joy repeated, looking at me doubtfully, "This is a criminal organization that even the police can't handle, Red. I think you're underestimating them."
"Honestly, I really don't think I am," I said blandly, "If the police are all like those two, then I don't think they could handle anyone besides bugcatching kids."
I'd been walking on eggshells in some of my battles so far, abiding by the stupid and seemingly random 'trainer rules' that every trainer seemed to swear by - all because I was afraid of being thrown into a jail cell. But, if the police system in this world was really this incompetent? If they had to beat the criminals in a pokemon battle, and do so with only one Arcanine that they worked to the bone because they couldn't bother buying a car?
Then, I suddenly didn't feel like I had to fear the law much anymore. I had yet to lose a battle in this world, and with a system that heavily weighed down with stupidity, I didn't think there were any Officer Jennys in the world competent enough to defeat me.
"But, I'm hoping these Team Rocket guys will give me at least a bit of a challenge," I hummed, reaching the bottom of the stairs as I reached into my pocket, and rested my palm on a poke ball, "I don't mind easy fights, but…"
I wanted a challenge, damn it! I definitely wasn't mad that I was curb-stomping through this world so far, but a big part of what made pokemon battles fun was the challenge! You could only have so much fun stomping through the games with an overleveled starter, and that's what I felt like I was doing right now - even though my starters were actually still a bit underleveled.
Overall, I wanted a challenge. My hopes for the future gym leaders had been a bit scorned after how both Brock and Misty performed, but there was still a man in this city whom I had some confidence in.
"Hopefully you'll give me a good battle…" I muttered, glancing up at the tall, towering skyscraper that was easily visible from any part of Saffron City.
"Giovanni."
Luckily for me, while I didn't know it yet, I was about to truly face my first real challenge in this world.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AN: I took a break, but I'm back! Chapters will be posted regularly again!
Though, as always, this story is updated twice as often on my Patreon (Patreon.com/Koyon) as the next 8 chapters are already posted there! (Only available to the Max and Earliest Bird tier)