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On the route, about an hour (of walking through the tall grass and battling every single pokemon that pounces) away from Root Town Nancy got an email.

The route had been long and exhausting since there was a lot of trainers along it who wanted to battle. Nan was keeping a lookout for new pokemon to add to the party and not having much success. Besides, the training was keeping them busy. She felt her pokemon were much stronger and wondered if Marple was close to evolving. "Nick, think this is a good time to stop for a snack? I think I also got a reply!"

There was among the trainers on the route a Team Gamma member who was on the lookout for people on their watchlist. The watchlist was comprised of people who'd humiliated or thwarted them or were considered threats to Team Gamma and he spotted Nancy and Nick. The man, an Ace Trainer had battled them with a Raticate and a Tranquill before defeat but those weren't his main team he used for missions, just for an excuse to approach trainers for battle.

"I better be careful, I made potato soup for lunch yesterday, they might get tired of soup even if it is this delicious." Nancy said as she slurped a bowlful and ignored Thursday who had decided that since it was somebody else's soup, Nancy's soup must taste better than hers. It wasn't easy eating around a Pokemon with the ability Unnerve."I checked that email by the way, I got the email address of that guy who saved Orre! Think we should leave out some of the more unbelievable stuff like Darkrai actually talking to us? I mean, it probably is better if we tell him the whole story but he's not going to listen if he thinks I'm crazy."
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The Team Gamma guy, whose name was Steve by the way, took out a pokeball and let out his Persian, a gloom, and a large graveler. "All right guys, here's your orders..."

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The gloom quietly made it's way through the bushes and tried to avoid catching the attention of the Mankey. It prepared to unleash a dose of Paralyze Powder on the group.

"What!? What do I do?!" Nancy said in a moment of surprised panic then seeing Emerson start kicking the Graveler made her remember, she was a pokemon trainer for heaven's sake!

"Brauner, start using hypnosis on the cat! Emerson, He's a rock type so keep fighting." The combusken nodded and knew exactly what she meant; A powerful double kick weakened the graveler and he was subjected to a barrage of the move from Emerson. Monking joined in to help take down the powerful graveler (He only got in a few hits thanks to paralysis). "Quagy, Help your trainer!" Nancy didn't need to command the little Wooper to do that, she'd already been readying a mud bomb to get the persian away from Nick. The Gloom was another problem but... "Um, Thursday, leech life the gloom!" she yelled and the Joltik complied. Shawn was flopping around using splash. It didn't seem to do anything... there was something she was forgetting...

Where was Poirot? The herdier was barking somewhere and come to think of it where was the trainer commanding these three pokemon? Voltage had run and got in the final blow on the persian and was worriedly looking at the long scratch marks on his trainer.

"Poirot? Blaze?" Nancy wondered where the other pokemon had run off to. They were missing the Boldore, the Charmeleon, and the Herdier. The current state of the chaos had the gloom trying to shake the little yellow arachnid, Monking and Emerson battling the Graveler, and Brauner, Voltage, and Quagy trying to help Nick after making sure the Persian was fainted.

Poirot had used odor sleuth and was sniffing the ground with the other pokemon trailing behind him listening to his excited yips and yaps. It didn't take long for them to find Steve and surround the Team Gamma member who still had one pokemon in reserve... A tough-looking vibrava was released from his pokeball.


(And now have fun: )

"Um, okay? Having a Gigalith does sound really awesome. Hey, what does the letter say? You can just have Blaze or Emerson burn it after you read it. It might be a death threat and we might need to take it to the police... Hey! Stop right there!" Nancy frowned deeply in the brief halt to her chatter, "Those cuts might get infected, the first thing we are doing is seeing the nurse for your injuries when we get there!"

Why was it so much more serious when humans were injured? Potions that fixed Pokemon miraculously had peculiar side effects on humans. Antidotes worked perfectly as did burn heals but paralyze heals would, instead of fixing paralysis, act like energy drinks. Awakenings left the sinuses numb for hours, and potions worked a lot like a standard antiseptic but stung much worse than one and did nothing for broken bones. Revives tended to leave a human itchy for days. Injuries that could be miraculously done away with in Pokemon would take months to heal in a human usually. (Pokemon's healing moves did have some positive effects though. It wasn't as effective on humans but did help.)

Nancy recalled Shawn, Poirot, Emerson, and Marple leaving just Thursday. "Hold still. A good spiderweb will hold the fabric in place and keep the bleeding stopped until we get there. If you move, things could get messy." Thursday waited for her cue.


The Pokemon Center was a welcome sight indeed. Nancy looked forward to a safe place to clean up, prepare for the gym, and write the letter to the hero of Orre. She had never seen a Gigalith in person so was very excited to see what Rogge would look like.

(Wow that's a lot of action. Didn't know Aipom could use Solar Beam. Then again, Primeape using thunderbolt didn't make much sense either in the games. Pokemon logic is weird.)

The sheer number of people who recognized them overwhelmed Nancy. Oh no, did they see me freak out? she thought as they pestered Nick, apparently they had sensed that he was a better strategist. Nancy watched the battle while she typed on the tiny X-Transceiver screen and stopped when the battle got close. The guy with the Aipom knew what he was doing and Nancy took a few mental notes while shooing Thursday away from her X-Transciever. "I guess there is a downside to being known. You okay?" She thought a bit. Losing pokemon battles was always a downer but she was a little more used to it than Nick because he was much better at battling. "On the bright side, you've got a few tons of rock that are loyal to you along with your other friends." She tried to think of other ways to get Nick's mind off the recent battle. "I'm almost done with the letter, I included the more incredible bits and I'm wondering if I left anything out, wanna proofread?" The email to Wes of Orre was an accurate account of what Nancy knew of and she only had a few punctuation errors despite the difficulty of typing on the small screen but she figured it would distract Nick.

Thursday happily sucked static electricity off of Nancy's coat.

Blossom, the gym leader had been watching from the back of the crowd since she'd passed by on the way from the berry shop where she'd been restocking. She'd heard rumors of the Barton Town takeover and had been interested in how things would play out. Like the crowd she'd been disappointed that the trainer had lost but saw the potential in Nick's creative resourcefulness. The gym battle would be interesting.

It also gave her hope that Team Gamma had lost to ordinary trainers. Maybe the news had been exaggerating about the threat but Blossom would remain wary. She realized she was the only one left and flushed an embarrassed shade of pink before disappearing like the rest of the crowd and retreated to her gym.





For future reference about the gym

The guy had been so quick that Nancy missed it when pulling up the letter draft. She looked up to see Nick hiding a letter. He actually read it? I wonder what it said? "He'll be practically immune to poisons at the very least and like I said, he's big! Wanna hold Marple? She's a good antidote to depression." Nan said as she jogged to keep up with Nick on the way to the Gym.

"Well, we're here.... They only take one challenger at a time and I need to practice anyway with my Pokemon. Not to sound like a wimp but you want to go first?" Nancy had given up on keeping Thursday away from her X-Transceiver and returned her to the Pokeball. "I was going to go check for woods nearby, I hear oddish live in the area and there should be water for Shawn to swim in." She thought Oddish were cute little things and had abandoned strategic planning in favor of cute pokemon.

(I'll write for Blossom. Still need more people.)

(Monster punching is a manly sport. Oh wait, read that one wrong, he was pokemon battling.)

Nancy liked the forests but made certain to stick to the paths due to the incidents lately. The girl found a creek for Shawn to swim around in while she looked in the grass for an oddish.

"Say, Shawn, do you think Nick'll be done before an hour?"
"Karp-karp."*
"Probably less, I guess I should head back soon, haven't had much luck here... Oh right, he can call me when he's done!"
"Magikarp."

Nancy started to toss small bits of bread into the air for Shawn to catch as a sort of training while she considered where to look next for pokemon and did not notice the smoke until the massive
KERFLOOM
that only a combination of earthquake, focus punch, and Hydro pump could possible make. The girl recalled Shawn and let out Emerson, he was much better in a fight and as much as the magikarp needed training, safety was important.


A very hungry Deino was lost in the woods. The little dragon was, true to its nickname. very irate. It had a trainer before who fed it and had tried training it but didn't have the patience to keep up with the blind, energetic, and hungry pokemon and so had decided to release it in the woods but had forgotten to make sure it knew how to hunt in the place. (The trainer may be forgiven for this since he had spent a good two hours trying to get the Deino to stop biting him playfully when releasing him.) It found bushes of oran berries here and there but the dragon wanted more filling things like meat. It sniffed the air and caught scent of something that could possibly be food. The Deino's curiosity led it trampling around through bushes and into trees in search of the smell's source.

The source of the smell? Nancy.



Blossom was feeding a bulbasaur spoonfuls of loam when Nick arrived. She stopped and brushed her hands off on the canvas apron when she saw there was a challenger. "Excuse me, are you here for the badge?"



*"Why are you asking me? You don't speak fish."
"You forgot about that?"