CH27 (88), Viridian City (2)

Bright and early, well ok, not bright and early, but right after breakfast, I returned to Viridian City to finish visiting the places I had no time for yesterday. Right at the top of my list were the Major Gym, the 3 Halls, and the Battle Club.

If, after that, I still had some time, I could scout out the stores selling Pokemon. That way I could see if there were some wort buying either for myself or my family, but mostly my family. Still, since I was still unsure if there was an active crime organization operating in Viridian or not, I was not planning to go overboard.

Yet, purchasing Pokemon from Viridian City would allow us to distribute our purchases to multiple cities and as long as we did the same while identifying them, we would attract less attention. Which was exactly why I decided to look around the stores despite my misgivings.

Anyway, the first place I visited was the Major Gym, and I can say the looks bigger than either the Minor Gym or the Gym I have seen before. The alliance seems to have knowingly set certain size standards to the gym buildings depending on their rank. So, Minor Gym < Gym < Major Gym, and it honestly made sense, at least it did to me.

Where was I? Ah, yes! The Major Gym. After I entered the Gym I could honestly say that it was an overall better-looking place than the lower-ranked gyms I had visited before, even if there were only 3 of those. From what I could see, they invested a lot into it, since it did kind of represent the highest, or more like one of the highest, powers of the alliance, and it showed.

From its design to its furnishing, everything was great. Nothing that said too much but still enough to impress those that saw it from either the outside or the inside. After asking around for a bit, I learned that all Major Gyms had a theme going depending on their type, but the Viridian Gym had none since it was a generalist gym.

The Gym Leader simply decided to go for a classy look instead, unlike the Pewter Gym for example, which had a rock theme going. After a lot of asking around, I also learned at what stage the Pokemon the Gym Leader used for his battles were at, and which Pokemon he commonly used.

1-Star challengers, who wanted to earn a 1-star S-Rank Badge had to win a 4 vs 4 battle, against a team of (mid) to (high) silver-stage Pokemon. There were apparently 8 Pokemon he used the most against these challengers. Those Pokemon were, Butterfree, Arbok, Raichu, Sandslash, Persian, Golduck, Primeape, Hypno.

2-Star challengers had to win a 5 vs 5 battle, against a team of (low) to (mid) gold-stage Pokemon. Apparently, he used 9 Pokemon here, instead of 8. Probably because the number of fighters per battle increased, and he did not want to overwork them. Those 9 were, Fearow, Wigglytuff, Vileplume, Slowbro, Rapidash, Marowak, Hitmonchan, Pinsir, Tauros.

As for those who wanted to earn a 3-star S-Rank Badge had to win a 6 vs 6 battle, against a team of (mid) to (high) gold-stage Pokemon. His 10 most commonly used Pokemon in this category were, Crobat, Poliwrath, Golem, Gengar, Exeggutor, Electabuzz, Forretress, Houndoom, Exploud, Altaria.

In case someone wanted to challenge his main team, they only had to win a 4 vs 4 battle, but they still only got a 3-star Badge. It's more like a self-inflicted difficulty raise since some people like to make things hard for themselves.

He mostly used these 8 Pokemon for this, Pidgeot, Arcanine, Gengar, Kingler, Electrode, Umbreon, Gardevoir, and his ace Rhydon. Unfortunately, I only knew that they were at the dark gold stage, but nothing specific.

Learning about the first part was not that hard, I simply asked the gym employees, but learning of the Pokemon he actually used for those battles took me quite some time. A few hours actually, since I had to ask a large number of people, and search the internet for information.

The gym employees kept mum about the Pokemon, so I had no choice but to do so. Still, they told me that the other gyms also used the same standards for their challenges, so that was helpful. From all this, I could conclude, that 1-Star Badges were mostly aimed at Senior-class trainers, while 2- and 3-Star Badges were aimed at Expert-class trainers, at least prowess-wise.

After I left the Viridian Gym, I visited the Halls next and spent around 1 hour at each Hall to learn more about them. Mostly because I was curious, and not because I was planning to challenge them any time soon.

It turned out, that the ground-type Hall was the strongest among the 3. The Hall Master from what I heard was not far from becoming an Elite, while the Hall Masters from the flying-, and electric Hall were "only" strong ACE-Class trainers.

The name of the ground-type Hall Master was Lin Beifong, and I had to laugh when I heard that. Her ace Pokemon was a Rhyperior, and I honestly wondered why the Gym Leader had not evolved his Rhydon after learning about this.

My guess was, that either material needed for the evolution was really hard to get, the requirements were hard to fulfill, he had some personal reasons, or maybe all of them were true. Anyway, back to the Hall Masters. The electric-type Hall Master had a Magnezone as his ace, and the flying-type Hall Master had a Honchkrow as his ace Pokemon.

Trainers that visited the Halls could schedule fights against Hall members if they wanted to, but to be allowed to challenge the Hall Master they needed to beat 3 high-ranking Hall members first. The Halls made money through these challenges, and honestly, it seemed like a good place to battle against good trainers.

All the things I learned so far, show that everything the alliance does seem to be aimed at allowing trainers to get a good challenge. They do this to provide those who work hard enough, the chance to get strong. They prepared a great foundation for the growth of their future assets. This shows how important strong trainers are for the alliance and humanity as a whole.

Once I was done with checking out the Halls as well, I ate a pizza at "Aldini's Delightful Meals" for a slightly late lunch. After the best pizza I ever had, well ever, I went to the Battle Club to check it out.

I have been thinking if I should register or not because I did not want to stand out in Viridian just yet. Since I was still unsure if I wanted to attract any attention to myself in Viridian City, not even to one of my aliases.

Still, after I entered the Battle Club and talked with some of the employees for a while, I decided to register, but I was not planning to participate in any battles yet. I confirmed that Cyan City had a Battle Club as well, so I could participate in battles once I arrived at that place, if I wanted to.

Anyway, I did not only decide to register while talking with the employees and trainer in the Battle Club. I also learned about the ranks of the members.

It was kind of obvious now that I thought about it, but all specialist clubs derived their rank titles from the Battle Club, or they, at least, allowed themselves to be heavily inspired by the Battle Club, and it showed.

Everyone started as a Page, and those that stayed Pages for a while were equal in prowess to Rookie-Class trainers. After achieving 15 wins in a row, or a total of 100 wins, against someone of equal rank, their rank was upgraded from Page to Squire.

A Squire was mostly equal in prowess to Junior-Class trainers, and after 20 wins in a row, or a total of 150 wins, they ranked up to Knight. Knights, generally, had the same prowess as Senior-Class trainers, and for any advancement after Knight one needed to fulfill an additional requirement to rank up, after fulfilling the first one.

The extra requirement was to beat a certain number of opponents at the rank one wanted to achieve. One would think that since the plan was to rank up, beating a few people of the rank one aimed for should be no problem, but the catch was that one only had a certain amount of chances to achieve the goal.

Those that failed to do so had to fulfill the first requirement once more. So, to rank up from Knight to Knight Commander, one first had to achieve 25 wins in a row or a total of 200 wins. Afterward, one had 3 chances to challenge a Knight Commander and needed to win at least 1 of them.

Those that succeed became Knight Commanders, and those that failed had to achieve 25 wins in a row, or a total of 200 wins once again. Knight Commanders, typically, had the same prowess as Expert-Class trainers. The next ranks that followed were Lord/Lady, Duke/Duchess, King/Queen, Emperor/Empress, Sovereign.

These were the ones the specialist clubs simply adopted after adding their element in front of it. Anyway, after conversing for a while with whoever was willing to talk to me, purely to gather information, obviously, I decided to watch a few battles. Since I could battle Junior trainers anytime I wanted, I chose to watch 2 Senior/Knight battles instead. There were no higher-ranked battles scheduled that time, so I could watch any of their battles.

The battles were quite interesting, and I noticed that compared to Rookies and Juniors, all Seniors had at least one or more rare (high BS) Pokemon. I did not get to see that many samples since Knight battles were 3 vs 3, and some of the trainers had the same Pokemon, but there were a few rare ones among them.

The first battle was a Guy with a Parasect, Muk, and Lickitung, against a Lady with a Rapidash, and a Machamp. The reason I did not mention her 3rd Pokemon was that I did not see it, since she won without having to use it. Still, after she called out her Machamp I had to laugh a bit, seeing such a refined-looking woman standing beside a Machamp looked funny to me.

As far as the battle was concerned, it was good but less exciting than I expected. That was probably due to the less-than-ideal matchup between the Pokemon. Rapidash made short work of Parasect with a few uses of a Flame Charge and Flame Wheel combo that turned into a pseudo-Flare Blitz, without the self-damage.

The guy tried to have his Parasect at least paralyze or poison the Rapidash, but the flames burned the powder before it could come into contact with its skin. It looked a bit sad really how fast he lost, he should have at least taught it how to use Dig, that way it would have held out longer.

After that came the fight against Muk and the Lady had her Rapidash attack from a distance using Fire Spin, Flamethrower, and a final Fire Blast, but the Muk did not just stand there letting Rapidash attack it without retaliating. Muk used moves like Shock Wave, Sludge Bomb, Mud Bomb, and Sludge Wave to dish out as much as it got hit.

Naturally, there was some dodging involved, but in the end, Rapidash won. Still, it took some damage and got poisoned. As a consequence, it got taken out by the guy's Lickitung, after being hit by two Rock Slides. After recalling her Rapidash the women called out her Machamp, who proceeded to trash the Lickitung.

The Machamp used what looked like Bullet Punch to arrive in front of Lickitung, then it chained that with a Low Sweep to break its balance before it used a Vital Throw. After that, it lifted the Lickitung from the floor and used a Seismic Toss.

The fight was over pretty fast but the fluid chaining of the moves by Machamp impressed me. Each move prepared the opponent for the next one, allowing Machamp to execute his string of moves without giving the foe the chance to counter, at least Lickitung couldn't do it.

Pokemon with enough endurance, those with enough pain resistance, or those fast enough could probably break the chain, but it was still impressive. The second battle was a lot less impressive than the first one, except for the last fight. If the first battle had a less than ideal matchup, then this one was just sad.

I couldn't stop laughing at the face of the losing trainer when he saw the Pokemon the winner called out. The loser used a Parasect, a Vileplume, and a Venusaur, but the winner only used an Arcanine. Parasect versus Arcanine was just sad, Arcanine used a single Fire Blast to end that one.

It dodged all of Vileplume's attacks and best it after hitting it with 2 Flamethrowers. Now, the last fight was much more interesting, but there was only so much the Venusaur could do against the Arcanine, especially since it looked like Arcanine was stronger than Venusaur regardless of the type disadvantage.

Still, Venusaur did its best, using moves like Earthquake, Sludge Bomb, Vine Whip, Stomping Tantrum, and a final Hyper Beam to take out the Arcanine. Still, in the end, it fell. Arcanine successfully dodged most of Venusaur's attacks, and it used the pause after Hyper Beam to end the battle by using what looked like a combination of Flame Wheel and Giga Impact, which I now dub Flame Impact.

By the end of it, Arcanine looked really exhausted, but the battle was over, so it was inconsequential. After watching those two battles, I left the Battle Club and visited a few stores, during the 2 hours I had until dinner, to look for any good Pokemon. I saw a few that were good enough to earn some bucks off them and decided to bring my mother here the next time it was time to buy some Pokemon for the family to sell.

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