And so... let's go!
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Chapter Two
Big Lights, Bigger Cities
And so I depart my house for the very last time. It is a sad experience. I trudge down the stairs, looking forlorn. My mum cooks me my favourite Cinnabar Burger breakfast, which I eat with a glazed expression. She too looks on with a grim expression. Us two have always been together, and now she will be all alone in this tiny village. I collect my belongings, and, sighing, journey onward.
HA! Just kidding. I run down the stairs, get my backpack and don't even say bye to my mother. Damn broad didn't even look from the television screen!
I leave and travel east towards Sandgem City again. I enter the local poke-mart. I look around, and I'm surprised with how small it is, and how the wares are just jammed into the shelves. I approach the lone clerk, and taken aback with how easily he could be overpowered.
Even stranger, without any sort of identification, he willingly sells me medicine to me, a minor. Making sure to phone Trading Standards on this sham of a business, I venture north to Route 202 and encounter... Dawn. She must have been waiting a good while in the grass.
She decides it's time to show me how to catch pokemon. Contrary to what I believed, setting bait traps and bug nets just isn't enough. She demonstrates with her pokeballs how to catch a Bidoof.
Attachment 45560
Seriously? That health bar looks mighty healthy still to me
Despite giving me a rather poor lesson on how to catch pokemon, she nonetheless kindly gives me five pokeballs so I can show you how it's really done. At this early stage of the game, the only option really is to just whack the victim until it's health is critical, and then just throw that ball in it's face.
Using this method, I caught and levelled up the following pokemon to the early teens. Yes, this took rather a while.
No.2
Sirus
Pokemon: Shinx
Inspiration: I guess it suits it I think.
No.3
Arcus
Pokemon: Starly
Inspiration: Erm.. it sounded cool on it?
No.4
Normalin
Pokemon: Bidoof
Inspiration: For a HM slave, it sounds rather apt.
No.5
Cimmamon
Pokemon: Kricketot, later Kricketune
Inspiration: Cimminy Cricket man!
Finally, after all of this, I could continue with the story. I re-renter Route 202, and smash through three incredibly easy trainers. It's a wonder how they caught their pokemon in the first place.
I investigate the patch of grass to the left, and happen upon a stray potion that undoubtedly a Starly would have ingested and choked to death by. Good thing I'm here right! Having explored Route 202 more than a cartographer ever would, I eventually venture into the perimeter of Jubilife City, but not before showing you guys where to get a quick cash injection this early in the game!
Climbing the stairs, I see Dawn, once again. She must be stalking me, I say to myself. She walks towards me and I swear she is staring at my crotch. I found it highly awkward, and I was about to protest when I realised she was counting the number of pokeballs on my belt. Relieved, she congratulates me for catching four pokemon. How difficult!
Still, she is kind enough to show me the Pokemon School in the City, which I thought was a good idea, and maybe Ace was there so I could deliver my package to him.
On the way there though, we notice this... unshaven, odd man, behind a lamppost. It was late at night, and we were only two kids, so I was nervous that this guy might be homeless and looking to rob us and my stardust.
He then skulks behind another lamppost, and us two confront him. We begin to ask who he (and I was prepared to unleash my mighty Normalin on him) was when he interrupts Dawn and, astoundingly, reveals to us he is an agent of the 'International Police'. We rebuke him, but he then shows us his badge, and we feel much calmer.
Attachment 45567
"Well.. ur actually... you know what? Yeah. Extraordinary. Let's go with that."
He informs us his codename is Looker, and that he is on the hunt for people who have stolen other people's pokemon. It sounds like a rough job, but he tells us to stay vigilant. Finally, he gives us a Vs. Recorder. He states that it is of no use to him as he is not a trainer, which sort of begs the question why he had it in the first place. Still, I feel glad that he gives it to me, not Dawn. Dawn then shows me the Trainer School, and departs back down to Sandgem Town.
No doubt I'll see her again soon enough. I enter the Trainer school anyway. It's a fairly small school, but it houses a battling area and a chalkboard and computer. Probably charity funded, I imagine. I spot Ace studying in the blackboard and give him my package. He is thankful, and opens it up to find two maps! He's grateful, but he doesn't need two maps. I tell Ace why his mum packed two maps in the first place. He shrugs. He gives me the spare map though, and we both study it carefully.
"It seems Oreburgh City is the place for me! It has a gym!". He then runs off, as usual. I study the blackboard, and notice the lesson is on status ailments. After conversing with the rest of the students and picking up the X Attack, I take on the two in the battling area.
The girl is pathetically easy, while the boy first uses an X Attack, it has little effect on the outcome.
After smiting the two, Normalin learns Rollout, a very powerful move at the time. I also obtain a potion, for no good reason at all.
I exit the school, and I then bump into some fat guy. He spouts stuff about being some president of the Poketch company, and how they're running a campaign right now: find and answer correctly questions from three clowns, and I will be gifted an expensive Poketch. Coming from a poor family, I've never own a Poketch, and he says I am a rare case indeed. I can only infer to this that the entire society is bourgeois.
Gee, my luck really has spiked.
So off I go then. Amazingly, all the clown's questions are answered with a yes. How easy. At least with the last clown I learn about STAB (Same Type Attack Bonus), a very easy boost to exploit.
Having collected all three coupons, I return to the president...
Huzzah! A Poketch. A clock, pedometer, calculator and info screen all in one. Neat. I enter the poke-mart, and I purchase five more pokeballs for me to use. At this point, I only had 80 poke. Time to sell off that loot! The stardust sold for a cool 1000 poke. So apparently, five antidotes is equivalent to rare astronomical dust. Huh. For completion's sake, I purchase a single heal ball (that I probably won't use) and a air mail (that I definitely won't use).
As the golden rule of gaming states: Talk to everyone. I do so. The most funniest exchanges are below:
At the condominiums (snigger) I obtain a quick claw, which occasionally gives me the first strike. A decent enough accessory for my slowest fighter, which at this point was Normalin. Naturally, I gave it him. The blasted clown is blocking the entrance to the Television Station. No deal. I'll have to come back later. Meanwhile, in the Northwest of town, the Poketch company building has nothing of interest.
Deciding to call it a day, I enter the condominiums, and, annoyed that there is no bed, sit up a stool and crash.
Fin~
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The next chapter will probably be shorter, as while all the storyline objectives in Jubilife City is over, there's still stuff to do, including optional activities. :D
