Chapter 45: A Chance?

To the trio's surprise, Lillie's Bulbasaur took an unexpected turn, and evolved into Ivysaur. This was their first time witnessing a Pokemon Evolution happen before them. They of course knew how Pokemon Evolution worked. Many Pokemon evolved in many different ways. The most common method to evolve a Pokemon was by battling against other Pokemon and Pokemon Trainers. Once they've had enough battles, give a Pokemon an extra push, and they'd likely evolve!

Given this case here, Lillie had used Bulbasaur in a few battles since they left Pallet Town a couple days ago. Her battling Pidgey and Shiny Buizel were but a couple of those battles. She did fight a few more Pokemon with Bulbasaur throughout that time period, and after seeing Lillie's determination to progress her Gym Battles, Bulbasaur found it in him to meet that resolve, and evolved!

If there was one thing to point out, the concept of "Levels" did not exist in the Pokemon World that Ricky was brought into. If it were like the video games, all a person needed to do is train up a Pokemon to a certain Level, and they would evolve. For instance, Bulbasaur only needed Level 16 to evolve into Ivysaur. One would see this happen shortly before Brock, or soon after Brock, depending on how much one grinded in the games. A lot of the starting Pokemon tend to evolve around that time. So what happens when that gets translated into here?

Lillie spent a couple days solely using her Bulbasaur in battle. And from feeling Lillie's determination to win the Gym Challenges, Bulbasaur evolved! Ricky did if they progressed too quickly these last couple of days, but if there is any lack of foundations before they enter the first Pokemon Gym, they can use this time to consolidate their battle tactics and training. He too was growing more confident that they would all walk away with a Boulder Badge!

Seeing Ivysaur before her, Lillie smiled.

"Hehehe, I really do look forward to training with you, Ivysaur. Just keep in mind too much training can be a bad thing, alright? Proper rest and downtime is essential to make sure you aren't overworking yourself. Take a nice, long rest, alright?", Lillie said to Ivysaur.

"Ivy.", Ivysaur responded, bobbing his head up and down as if responding to her. He was happy that he evolved, but also didn't want to cause Lillie any worry. They would take it easy from here, and work on some battle strategies to prepare for Brock. Ivysaur was enveloped with a red glow, and was brought back into his Pokeball.

"Guess you were the first of us to evolve their Pokemon, huh? Starting Pokemon don't have terrible conditions to evolve. A lot of Pokemon Trainers evolve them around the first and second gyms right?", Serena questioned?

"Yeah. We did spend quite a lot of time, especially today, trying to try and find what we wanted to catch. That in itself is a form of training. It's only good for Pokemon whose strength is similar to your own, so if you have a very powerful Pokemon, it likely won't gain much battle experience if you try to find a good Pokemon, let's say, Route 1.", Ricky answered.

"That makes sense. You and I didn't battle a whole lot during that compared to Lillie, so Bulbasaur evolved first. We can't slack off either. I want to start training Squirtle even quicker now. Ugh, if only this rain will let up.", Serena complained, looking out the window.

It was well into the night on Saturday now. The trio already ate a hearty meal thanks to the room's built-in kitchen. Most of their Pokemon were already called back except for Ivysaur, which Lillie had just recalled after seeing her Bulbasaur evolve. She was happy to witness a Pokemon Evolution for the first time, let alone it was her Pokemon!

Sadly, the rain didn't seem to be letting up anytime soon. They heard the constant pitter-patter of raindrops splattering against the window. It was a comforting noise to listen to, which was making them feel drowsy. Seeing as they had nothing else pressed for time otherwise, they all decided to call it quits for the night. It was just one bed, Ricky was used to snuggling with his two girlfriends by now. They quickly dozed off to the sound of the rain falling.

The next morning dawned, and it was now Sunday. The sunlight started to crack through the gray clouds, shining down below onto the streets of Viridian City. With each passing moment, the sunlight grew more and more, scattering the clouds completely. It didn't take long for a bright rainbow form, almost as if it were stretching across the entire city. It almost seemed to be landing beyond Viridian City, and into the next Route!

Waking up, Ricky went into the bathroom to clean himself first. Serena and Lillie followed after, and they all got ready for the day.

"I didn't think we'd get to see a rainbow after that storm. Almost makes you want to chase it, huh?", Serena questioned with a playful grin.

"It's not like there's any pot of gold at the end of it. That's just a fairy tale. While it could make for an adventure, I don't see a point in doing that.", Lillie said, shaking her head in response.

"You might be leading onto something, Serena. Not that literally of course. We might get to witness something if we act quick enough. Let's go get our stuff and head out of the city. It might be me overthinking this though...", Ricky uttered. After all, when it came to Rainbows, and especially around Pallet Town and its surrounding routes, that only meant one thing.

One of the legendary Pokemon, Ho-Oh! It's said that wings are prismatic, and on occasion, it leaves behind a rainbow in its wake. Ricky couldn't help but recall the intense lightning storm that powered up Ash's Pikachu to unleash a mighty Thunder, which struck against that flock of Spearow and Fearow that were trying to attack him, only to successfully ward them off. This happened shortly after Ash departed Pallet Town to begin adventure with his newly acquired Pikachu.

Granted, Ash won't be setting off until three months later. Ho-Oh only appeared during that scene. To add to that, people didn't know that Pokemon was in fact, the legendary Pokemon, Ho-Oh. There were still a lot of unknown Pokemon back then. But now, over a thousand Pokemon have already been discovered. As Ricky said, it might just be him overthinking it.

But when Rainbows are involved, especially when Pokemon Trainers are in the Kanto or Johto regions, if they knew about Ho-Oh, they should definitely go test their luck to see if they could witness it!

Either way, just seeing that Rainbow appear prompted Ricky to urge Serena and Lillie to set off earlier than anticipated. They cut their breakfast time down and quickly ate a meal. Lillie couldn't help but ponder what Ricky was referring to while they ate breakfast.

"Say Ricky, you wouldn't happen to be referring to one of the legendary Pokemon, Ho-Oh, are you?", Lillie questioned, coming to her own conclusion.

"Wait, seriously?", Serena questioned.

"The very one. Ho-Oh is said to leave behind rainbows whenever it flies around. Why not test our luck to see if we can actually see one?", Ricky suggested to the two.

"Hehehe, that does seem like fun. You're not actually looking to catch Ho-Oh, right? You have a Legendary Pokemon already, Mew!", Serena replied with a playful giggle.

"Heh. Who knows? I could become a Trainer who likes to seek out catching extremely rare Pokemon. Hell, even mom has an Articuno, so there will be trainers who are bound to have them.", Ricky retorted. Maybe he should try to catch some other Legendary Pokemon? They were all equally strong, and far more powerful than an average Pokemon. There were plenty of Trainers that used them in battle too. Ash has battled them on several occasions, mostly through the movies. But there were certain episodes that also made Ash face off against them. Such one episode was when Ash faced off against an Articuno with his Charizard!

If there were chances given to Ricky to catch these Legendary Pokemon, which ones would he consider? Even one of Ash's travelling partners, Goh, who would appear in Pokemon Journeys, also recruited a Suicune to stay beside him to watch over his other Pokemon. Unlike Ash, Goh was a catching fanatic. He would catch Pokemon everywhere he went.

"Yeah. There's definitely lots of Pokemon out there. I'm sure our teams will continue to expand. If we do have such a chance to see a Legendary Pokemon, we should head out!", Lillie happily responded. It was clear she was excited to encounter such a possibility.

"Don't run off without us, Lillie. We do have enough food in our Item Pouches to spot us for a week or two, should you two decide to stay for that long inside Viridian Forest. Are you two all set? We won't be going shopping for a good while once we leave.", Ricky said, reminding the two. Hearing that, they pondered for a moment, and shook their heads.

"I'm good. We got all of our essentials and stocked up on healing items and various kinds of Pokeballs. We can expand our inventories more once we reach Pewter City. I am not sure if they allow battle items or not, so it'll be good to find that out once we reach there.", Serena responded, concluding she was fine as-is.

"I'm good too. I'll try to be careful not to overdo it once we're inside the forest. We'll be pretty far away from a Pokemon Center, so we won't be able to quickly heal our Pokemon without those items.", Lillie responded, being on the cautious end.

"Good. Then let's head out!", Ricky happily responded.

The trio were now ready to depart for the day. This would likely be their last visit in Viridian City for the coming days, unless they flew back in later on. From here on would begin their next stretch of their journey. Route 2, leading into Viridian Forest, and then Pewter City, where the first Pokemon Gym was! And they would leave Viridian City with growing curiosity, wondering if they'll come across one of the Legendary Pokemon, Ho-Oh!