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Dogwood was relieved to have gotten the egg back finally. And it was nice to know what to expect when it hatched. Assuming the curator was right, after all.
He decided that the next thing on his agenda would be to go to Cerulean City. There, he would face the next gym leader, a water type specialist named Misty. After another visit to the Pokemon Center, he headed out the east exit, towards Route 3.

Dogwood hated wandering into the unknown, so he liked to know about what was ahead of him, if at all possible. He stopped a kindly looking hiker near the beginning of Route 3, and asked him what he knew about the area between Pewter and Cerulean.
"Oh, that's Mt. Moon," the hiker replied, "It used to be a lot more perilous, until a team of miners renovated the first floor. Now you can coast right on through to the other side. As long as you stay on the main path, you can't really get lost."
Dogwood thanked him and continued on down Route 3. The sun was still hanging around, but it would be dark soon, no doubt. This time of day always made him drowsy, but he would catch his second wind soon, and he could probably make it all the way to Cerulean without having to camp out, if the hiker was telling the truth.

Continue below.

When they walked out into the daylight Glint began to vaguely recognise his surroundings. It had been over ten years since he'd been on route three, but it had barely changed. There were trees and boulders in the same place they'd always been, as though they hadn't grown or moved even an inch over the years. Glint looked down to Gruff. "Recognise the place?"
Gruff nodded. He probably recognised the smells of the area too--all the wildflowers lining the path and the thick forests to the north lending their aromas to the wind, to make a smell unique to the route.
"Can you smell that Coni? That's the smell of Pewter City," Glint said.
"Oddish odd?" Coni asked.
"Eka~a~ns~" another pokémon said.
Glint and Gruff both stopped walking and looked into the grass to their left, where an ekans slithered out. It looked like it'd swallowed a couple of balls or something, but then it didn't look like it was in any pain. It was a pretty strange sight.
"Pidgey!"
"Hey," Glint reacted. A couple of pidgey hopped out of the grass too. They looked angry with the ekans, but apparently neither of them felt able to attack--they just hopped around, following the ekans and nattering furiously.
"Grawr?" Gruff asked. One of the pidgey turned to him and replied with a torrent of 'pidgey's, then Gruff looked at Glint. "Gruff ruff."
"So it ate their eggs," Glint realised.
"Grrr..." Gruff growled. He'd chased a few ekans away from the daycare before, but this was different.
"Gruff, wait. That's a wild ekans, and these are wild pidgey. The ekans feed on the pidgey eggs. If we stop them then they'll starve," Glint said.
"Ekans!" the wild pokémon hissed. It glared at Gruff, then hissed at the pidgey. They backed off, scared, but Gruff refused to back down.
"Gruff ruff!" he barked.
The ekans glared even more fiercely, but Gruff had seen it before and remained unmoved.
"Move along, Ekans," Glint said. But the pokémon didn't even look at him. It was focussed on Gruff.
"Ekans!" it hissed. In a flash it sprang forward and coiled itself around Gruff, knocking Coni away.
"Hey, Ekans get off!" Glint demanded.
Gruff thought more than words were needed--he let out a blue flame, which hit the ekans in the face and burned it. It responded by firing a bunch of poison stings from its mouth. They hit Gruff's cheek, but weren't powerful enough to get through his thick fur and stick in his skin.
"Alright Gruff, bite it," Glint said.
Gruff was more than happy to oblige--he clamped his jaws down on the ekans' rattling tail, just as the ekans sprayed acid from its mouth, onto Gruff's chest fur.
"Ekans!"
"Grrrruff!" Gruff barked. The ekans moved its head into position to spray some more acid into Gruff's face, but Gruff knew what was coming, and he wouldn't let it happen. He opened his mouth first, and after a deep breath, frrrrch! A blast of flamethrower scorched the ekans' face, causing it to uncoil and flop to the ground, where it choked and spat up the pidgey eggs.
"Eka~a~ans..."
"Gruff ruff!" Gruff barked. It almost seemed like he had something against ekanses.
"Alright, alright, it's going," Glint said, stroking Gruff's back. "Are you okay?"
Gruff sat down and nodded, calm as usual. But Glint was pretty sure something had got his back up. Usually fighting was his last resort, but from the start it seemed like he wanted to take on that ekans.
Glint supposed there was nothing he could do but carry on. "If you say so. Come on, Coni. Let's carry on towards Pewter."

"Yeah, I'm through now. Had a little trouble, but thankfully I set off early enough so I'm still on track to get where I'm going today," Glint said to Mezame. "We just had some more trouble, this time with an ekans, but Gruff saw to it pretty quickly. So far been a pretty eventful day. How about you? Were you up late waiting for your egg to hatch?"
"Gruff ruff," Gruff said.
"Gruff says hi too. I think he recognises your voice, even over the pokégear. Speaking of which, I see you got one of your own now."


Corresponding post from Mezame.

"Fuchsia, huh?" Glint said. "Hey, did you know about Pokéringer contests? I'm pretty sure Fuchisa is one of the towns that hosts it. Starly might enjoy it. You never know, you might enjoy it too. Maybe after you've cheered on Amie in her contest you can twist her arm into going with you to see a Pokéringer match?"
"Anyway, I'm nearly at Pewter now and I've got a couple of appointments I need to make. Can I help you with anything, while you've got me on the line, or are you happier now that the hatching's over?"



Corresponding post from Mezame.

Glint said his goodbyes to Mezame, then hung up his pokégear. When he looked down at Gruff he caught a worried expression. "What's wrong?"
"Grawr?" Gruff asked, trepidation in his voice. He looked up at the blue sky, probably searching for rain clouds.
"Oh don't worry about rain, Gruff. Mezame is on her way to Fuchsia. I can't see it raining here any time soon. Just look at the sky," Glint replied. There was blue for as far as the eye could see. Glint knew it'd take a real shift in the weatherfronts for it to rain in Pewter any time soon.
"Grawr~" Gruff said. He looked ahead to the city again, content that he wasn't about to get wet.
Glint looked at his pokégear again, while he had it out. "I should call home, now I think about it. Maybe Grampa can confirm where this address is for me, otherwise we might be scouring the city for hours.

Jetta rubbed her neck awkwardly when Chase insinuated that she was rambling. She knew he didn't mind though, and she was glad to find someone she could ramble to.
Chase seemed pretty confident about what his plans were, and pretty confident all round, really. And to want to get all eight badges as a graduate, Chase must've really thought he could go all the way to the champion and win. It would be immensely cool to do it that way. With the 'I want to bond with pokémon' line attached, he could even become a media darling.
"If it's so interesting, why not tell it?" Jetta said of the onix story. "This route doesn't look like it's going to end any time soon, and there's no grass that I can see. So come on - get rambling."

Jetta listened semi-intently, then when it really did get interesting she paid her full attention to Chase's story. It sounded like this Millie girl was a right madam, running off and leaving Chase and Onix like that. Jetta would never be so mean.
"So, let me guess, you had to catch it, right? No way you could dig it out with just your hands and a joltik. Albeit a mightily strong-looking joltik," Jetta said, tagging the last line on in case she'd hurt the little pokémon's feelings.
"Did I see a heavy ball earlier, by the way? Aren't those expensive? Don't tell me you got grant money for this journey. Or a gift from your parents when you graduated?"