Chap 7

"You won it, so you keep it" Samantha said and folded her arms in front of her.

I had tried several times already to give her the Pokémon I won but she refused to take it.

"I won it specifically for you." I said and held the Poke ball out for her again.

"How about we battle for it" She said as if she had just had an epiphany.

"How, all of our Pokémon are unconscious?" I asked with my head tilted to the side.

We had left the forest and were now walking into a city that was bigger than Viridian. It was almost completely surrounded by mountains except for a road to the east that led out of the town. We stopped in front of a Pokémon center to finish our argument.

"After they get healed obviously" Samantha said sarcastically.

"Well, I'm not sure that's a good idea. If I use the Chinchou you will lose." I said.

"Then I'll use it" She said dismissively.

"If you're willing to use it, why are we having this argument?" I asked with my arms in the air.

She looked puzzled for a few seconds. Then her expression changed to embarrassment and she held out a hand. I gave her the poke ball and did a fist pump. In mid pump I turned and looked into the Pokémon center.

"How?" I yelled as I stared at the lady behind the counter.

"What's wrong now?" Samantha said as she tried to see what I saw.

"Either that's the same Nurse Joy from Viridian or there are three of them." I said.

Samantha laughed at me.

"Three, there are Nurse Joys all over Kanto. I think they're robots honestly" she said.

We gave her our Pokémon and stood outside while she healed them. The air had an earthy aroma to it, like damp stone. There was a feint floral sent mixed in because of the open field of flowers that sat directly next to the Pokémon center. I just liked being able to look up and see the sky. After spending the last few hours under a dense canopy of trees it was nice to see the sunset.

"Hey, let's get our Boulder Badges while we're here." Samantha said.

"Okay, does boulder mean it's a rock type gym" I asked.

"Yes, Brock is the leader. I believe this is the badge we have to get first. So, we're in luck that we stopped here first.

I didn't feel very lucky. I had just given up the only Pokémon that could help me get through that gym.

"Don't worry, we can always catch you a water type and circle back here later." Samantha said with a smirk.

I didn't say anything in response. I had a hunch that I wanted to test out. We got our Pokémon back and went directly to the Gym. My heart pounded as we approached the building. Samantha was confident. She never had to wipe the sweat from her palms like I did. The outside of the gym was annoyingly blocked by a line of trees. We had to walk completely around the building just to get to the front door. As if I needed more time to regret agreeing to go there.

The inside of the building however was very straightforward. There were two stone pillars at the front of the room. The entire perimeter of the room consisted of massive mounds of dirt and stone. There were more mounds scattered throughout the room leaving only a single path to walk on. At the rear of the room a tall, thin man with dark, spiky hair stood. I guessed he was Brock. There was another guy, standing halfway up the path on the left side. He didn't look much older than Samantha and me. We started to walk toward him when a third guy jumped out from behind the stone pillar on the right and startled us.

"Hey future champs in the...." He said just before Samantha punched him in the face. He dropped and his glasses went flying across the room.

We kept walking to get away from the weird creeper as fast as possible. The floor of the gym was just dirt. It was like the gym was built without a floor. The kid was laughing as we approached him. He must have seen Samantha knock the creeper out.

"So, you guys here to take on Brock? You gotta go through me first if you are?" He said after regaining his composure.

"Do you get a lot of people in here who aren't here to see brock?" Samantha asked sarcastically.

I snickered before gently nudging her with my elbow.

"What, it just seems like a foregone conclusion to me" She said.

We decided that she would battle first. I hoped that that would make things easier for me. In theory it should have since the entire battle was over in less than 5 minutes. Chinchou made quick work of both the trainer's Pokémon. The first Pokémon he sent out looked like a chubby, brown worm with a big pink nose. It was handled with a single water gun attack. The next Pokémon he used was a yellow armadillo looking thing. He called it a Sandshrew. It looked like a bigger threat but went down just as quickly once it was hit with water.

After watching Samantha beat him, I figured I would get a free pass, or told to come back some other time. Instead, he gave both his Pokémon something called a max revive and told me it was my turn. I didn't have a water or grass type Pokémon, but I hoped I wouldn't need one. I led off with the kitten this time.

"Hey, did you ever name that thing" Samantha asked as the kitten began rolling around in the dirt and purring.

"I was thinking of calling it Spike because of its fur" I said while stroking my chin.

"Okay it's not what I would've chosen but I guess Spike works." She said.

"Hey guys, speaking of names WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THAT THING" the trainer yelled at us.

I didn't want to cause a scene and draw too much attention to myself, so I tried to play it off. Apparently, Samantha got the memo as well.

"It's a Pokémon, duh" She said softly.

"Yeah, it's a mihumshmdum" I said while mumbling and turning away from the trainer.

"Well, I've never seen one of those before, but we do have a no turn away policy" the trainer said while fidgeting with his cap.

"If that's your policy then less talky, more fighty" Samantha said and made a circle in the air with her index finger.

The fight itself didn't take long. It proceeded the same way the fight in the forest did. Diglett, which I assumed looked like a big, brown worm actually looked more like a mole. I learned this when it leapt out of the ground and tried to scratch Spike. Spike blocked the attack and turned blue this time. Then it scratched at the diglet. The wave that hit the Diglett was blue and covered it in water when it landed. Sandshrew suffered the same fate.

The trainer started pouting and stomping his feet as Samantha and I snuck past him. Brock was a much more composed loser. He had a Geodude and an Onix. The Geodude looked like a stone soccer ball grew a face and some arms. Onix reminded me of a massive, horned, stone snake. They both got beaten with one hit from Chinchou and then from Spike. We won our first badges in minutes. What we didn't realize was that the creeper by the door had slipped out as soon as we walked in.

As we left the gym excited and showing our badges off to each other we had to stop in our tracks. The man was standing in the middle of the road talking to two members of Team Rocket. One of them was a woman with insanely long purple hair. The other was a man with shoulder length blue hair. There was a Meowth with them as well.

"Is that them right there" The Meowth said and pointed a clawed finger at us.

The four of us locked eyes for a few terrifying seconds before Samantha yelled run and we bolted. We ran to the path to the east unsure of where it was taking us, or what was there waiting for us.