Finding our way back, and new friends.
I gotta say, waking up with everything upside down is a real trippy situation. Seeing Ash hanging by jacket directly above me is even a little creepy honestly. Sliding out from under him I look around at Brock and Misty to make sure they're okay, after that I check and make sure I have all my Pokémon. Seems good all 4 are here. That's when Brock and Misty start to wake up while hold their head and then checking their Pokémon as well.
"Good morning." I call to them with the same quiet voice, but traces of mirth behind the tone. Brock replies first.
"If this is a good morning for you, I don't want to know what a bad morning is." He says while shaking his head.
My mood falls a bit with that reply, "Ya, I guess you wouldn't." My voice stayed soft but had lost the early near laughter that the previous greeting had. If they noticed my mood change they didn't mention, not that they had time to with Ash finally coming around.
"Whoa! What are you guys doing upside down?" Ash is clearly confused by his predicament.
"Look up Ash, or uh down for you." I calmly reply. Comedic ally he looks up and then down and then side to side before flailing causing his jacket to dislodge leading him to falling to the ground.
"Ouch." He moans while rubbing the back of his head.
"Well I didn't expect you to go flopping down like that." Me
"Agh you act like I meant to do that Alan. Shouldn't you be checking on me to make sure I'm okay." Ash complains.
"I know you better than that Ash, a little fall like that wouldn't be enough to hurt you." I shoot back in jest.
"Well now that you're awake, we can get to escaping this sunken ship. The longer we take, the more water will eventually fill the boat." Me
"You're right Alan, we need to get off of here quickly." Brock lets his voice be heard.
"Abra might be able to teleport us to the surface, but I'm not sure." I hum to myself. I call out Animo and explain the situation, after I ask him if he thinks he could teleport us to the surface. Animo seems to meditate on it for a bit, before sadly shaking his head no. "I see, thanks anyway Animo." I recall Animo back into his Pokéball and continue planning with everyone.
After a few minutes we finally decided and Misty sent her Goldeen down a staircase flooded with water, eventually bringing Team Rocket back with it. Everything goes pretty much the same except with Flos carrying us across the flanking gap with his vine whip. A lot safer if you ask me, walking across the vines was not on my bucket list. Calling out Cae, my squirtle, I get ready to escape the ship.
We made it to the surface right when I was at my last bits of breath, this showed me I really need to start working out and getting better shape. Thanking Cae I recall her back to her Pokéball and put all of my Pokéballs in my bag and then closing it tight. I know what happens next. Ash calls out Pidgeotto to look around, but only ends up bringing back almost dead Team Rocket.
Several hours later James finally gets ready to kick his magikarp, but something in me gets upset thinking about any Pokémon being abused like that.
"I don't even want to be your master!" James yells out.
"Stop! If you don't want your Magikarp I'll take him, you shouldn't think about eating it or kicking it. I'll even pay you for it." Holding out 500 Poké dollars to him, with my other hand reaching out for the Pokéball. With greedy eyes, he quickly snatched the money and threw the ball to me. Walking over to magikarp I kneel down and welcome him to the team.
"Welcome to the team Colubrosus, (Col for short) I hope you like your name. I chose it because of your evolution, it means serpentine and winding." I say while petting his scales. Besides the typical flailing before I eased him into the water he didn't seem to acknowledge what I said, but something after he hit the water made me think otherwise. When he hit the water he went under and then shot back up farther away, but that's not why surprised me. Well it did surprise me a little, I only knew Magikarps to casually swim around. But what really surprised me was that it started glowing in evolution.
I can only assume it was 2 side of a coin that triggered his evolution. In the show, James kicks him into the sea after saying he doesn't want to be his master anymore, triggering him to evolve via rage. However this time he must have evolved from the strong positive emotions I had toward him, it seems genuine care for him struck a chord with him.
"Magnificent Colubrosus." He leans towards me allowing me to brush my hand across the scales on his face. "You truly fit your namesake now haha." He preens at the compliment before glaring at Team Rocket. "No need to worry about them now, I imagine we'll have plenty of opportunities to crush them in the future." This causes Team Rocket to huddle together in fear while shaking vigorously.
Patting Col on his scales before asking him a favor.
"Col, do you think you could take us to the nearest piece of land?"
With a roar to the sky, he nods his head. I grin at his enthusiasm before gathering the ropes we used to escape the sinking ship and beginning to tie them to him and the raft. "Thank you Col, you're helping us a lot here."
"Ya thanks Col." Ash and the gang respond.
With a small roar, Col begins pulling the raft.
"Colubrosus is so cool, I wish I had a Gyrados!" Ash says excitedly.
"You have some potentially powerful Pokémon yourself Ash. If you trained them with care Squirtle and Krabby will evolve into a powerful Blastoise and Kingler respectively. Rather than being jealous, you should train the ones you have to be envied by others." I say while laying down on the raft looking up at the now night sky.
"Wow Alan, that was really wise." Brock was first to respond. Misty was next. "You really care for all of your Pokémon don't you Alan?"
"I definitely do, they're the ones who will never abandon me." I reply before rolling onto my side and going to sleep.
After several more hours we eventually make it to the island with the giant Pokémon. I know this because I see a huge Blastoise walking around by the beach and then the Gyrados boat holding tourists. Taking a good stretch once we reached the shore, I then turn back to Col and thank him before returning him to his Pokéball. Turning to everyone, some are kissing the ground or hugging trees. I honestly didn't think it was that bad, though I guess I did know we would survive and got a strong Pokémon out of it.
"It looks like we're at the site for the new Pokémon Land theme park, that means Porta Vista must be near by." I casually say while looking at the Blastoise in the distance. That got me wondering if Cae has ever seen a Blastoise, this could be good.
"Caeruleum come on out." With a flash a small Squirtle popped out before looking up at me.
"Have you ever seen a Blastoise before?" With a shake of her head I point behind and her and say. "Well, there you go. I'm exited to see you grow to your full potential, but you'll have to train even harder." When she turned around you could almost hear her jaw pop when it dropped open at the sight of the gigantic Pokémon.
"Squirtle Squir?" She asked while pointing at it and then herself.
"Yes, you'll finally be bigger than Ignea." I nod seriously. Once I said that her eyes glowed with determination, I'm probably a terrible person for that but it will give her a goal. Perhaps an unrealistic goal, but a goal nonetheless.
"I'll be back in a little while." I say while heading into the jungle with a slightly wicked smile, leaving all of them shaking their heads at me. After showing Ignea the massive Charizard and Flos the giant Venusaur I returned back to the group. Now 3 of my Pokémon were fired up and excited to reach the same heights as the Pokémon they saw. Too bad there was no Alakazam roaming around.
Arriving back where they were waiting for me, we march towards Porta Vista along the shoreline. 30 minutes later we made it to the beach town. One Horsea saved by Misty, and gigantic Tentacruel later we're back on our way to the mainland, to hopefully start making our way to the next gym badge. Nobody was able to evolve during the ordeal with the Tentacruel, but they gained valuable experience.
I'm excited for where the ship has dropped off at, this is where I will be able to catch Gastly, Maidens Peak. While they headed off to the festival, I immediately went towards where the Gastly is supposed to hang around and wait for night time. I've never been one for large groups and bustle of tourists anyways.
Night finally comes, and beautiful woman appears before me, it seems the time has come.
"Animo, come out. Animo that's really a Gastly, please help me capture it." With a nod Animo gets ready and flares its psychic power causing the Gastly to drop its illusion. Gastly seems to be surprised by this, before also preparing for battle.
I have Animo start with a confusion that hits the Gastly, but doesn't seem to do much. Gastly charges in for a Lick attack, but I have Animo use teleport to end up above the Gastly to use a Psychic attack. It critically hits Gastly sending it to the ground, where it gives a short wail before trying to escape.
"Quick Animo teleport, and block its escape with a protect barrier and then finish it off with another psychic." Responding quickly Animo easily defeats the Gastly and I catch it with a Pokéball. After defeating the Gastly, Animo began to evolve into a Kadabra.
"Congratulations on evolving Animo, you look really strong. Thanks for helping me catch that Gastly, take a good rest for a well fought battle." Animo coos at the praise before being sucked into the Pokéball.
Now Gastly what shall we name you?
"Gastly come out." Calling out Gastly I quickly heal it slightly with a potion.
(Quick author's note: in the show this Gastly can talk. I know people hate when Pokémon can talk, so I've decided to not have her be able to, she will still have all her illusion capabilities though. While you're hear "Umbra" means Shadow and Gengar is the Shadow Pokémon, so I felt it was perfect.)
"Gas." It bobs it's head in thanks.
"Welcome to the team Gastly, or should I say Umbra. I look forward to your progress on the team, we plan on challenging the Pokémon league so I hope you'll give your best." I say earnestly.
"Gas, Gastly." It bobs once again before I thank her and return her to the Pokéball. Finally I can go get some sleep, and hopefully Umbra and Animo will be at 100% when we leave tomorrow. I head back to the hote and go to sleep.
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CURRENT TEAM:
Ignea-Charmeleon F
Mortiflos-Ivysaur M
Caeruleum-Squirtle F
Animo-Kadabra M
Colubrosus-Gyrados M
Umbra-Gastly F
Author's Note: Okay bit of speed run in places in that chapter along with parts I didn't expect to spend so much time on. I kind of called an audible on the Magikarp situation since it just felt like something Alan would do, and I had already planned on capturing Gastly from there. Also I hope the names aren't too confusing, I try to give them shorter names and at least try to give context clues of who they are.
We now have our team of six, I'm still considering just letting Alan hold as many Pokémon as he wants, since if he could that's what he would do. But I also like the same 6 Pokémon route, and then just change up when he makes it to the next region. Maybe that's what I'll do, I'll just have him be able to keep his old Pokémon on him when he goes to a new region, rather than send them all back to Oak's lab.
Probably gonna have the next few episodes until the Saffron City go quick. Sometimes I feel like I'm rushing and then I remember there's like 80 episodes in this season alone, not too mention the other regions.
Thanks for reading
-TaediumVitae