With very little hope of finding our actual goal, we venture into what appears to be a public park dotted with chicken topiary.
Yes, next question.
The gym leader was not in the great ball.
The old man won’t let us go any further. Sin-kun attempts to physically push him out of the way, but the mysterious isekai force of the script holds him back. That shit is getting really annoying.
There’s nothing for it.
Looks like Sin-kun is going back to school.
Our nemesis.
We head inside.
Ugh. School.
Sin-kun doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t need to be here. We’re just going to find the gym leader and leave, easy peasy lemon squeazy.
We walk up to the head of the class, hoping to find the gym leader.
It’s just Cheren. What the hell is he doing here? Maybe also looking for the gym leader? We greet him and after mumbling a few lines about pokemon hp, he asks if we’re here to find the gym leader.
… god damn it. It looks like we’re going to have to talk to everybody in here. We go to yell ‘hellooo gym leader’ but once again the script forbids it.
We have to do the legwork.
Scratch that, we have to whip Cheren’s ass, THEN we have to do the legwork.
Aw he’s gonna use a million fucking potions, isn’t he? Well, let’s get it over with.
Yeah, sure we wouldn’t want to mess up the school like we messed up our room.
Sin-kun covertly whispers to his pokemon to get things as messy as possible, and the battle begins.
… Oh my god Cheren still only has two pokemon.
Arsene is still in front, and though we’re sure she’s no match for Cheren’s oshawott, we let him have a swing at it anyway.
It does almost no damage and Arsene is almost certainly going to get completely taken apart here. We switch out for Chi-chi, who has not had a single battle yet, but who is two levels over Cheren’s oshawott, and with a type advantage.
It uses a berry to relieve some of the damage, but still only takes 3 hits from vine whip to KO.
We’re gonna have to go back to the abandoned factory and thank that kid.
After our battle, Cheren decides that yes, items are important. Even though he only used one, and he still lost.
Thanks, Chair-kun.
Time to keep looking for the gym leader. 🤷
We check the blue haired kid first, thinking maybe he has trainer energy, but he just babbles about TMs.
The brown haired kid gives us a quiz, asking us two basic questions about how to heal status ailments, and gives us a full heal in exchange for boring us out of our mind.
He’s not the gym leader either.
None of these kids are the gym leader. They all just babble about basic pokemon facts like the kids they are.
We go back to the old man just to double check it isn’t him.
Yeah. It’s not him either.
So where the hell is this fucking gym leader, then? Cheren says we just missed him, but we didn’t see anybody coming out when we came in! Is he invisible? Is there a secret exit?
Disgusted about being forced to learn things, we march out of the building in a huff.
It’s night when we come out of the trainers’ school, which really brings home just how much time we wasted in there.
Without any more ideas, we march our way back to the gym to ask the guy in front of it what gives.
Oh for fuck’s sake. Okay, fine. At least we found him!
Wait, what does he mean “a” gym leader? Shouldn’t that be “the” gym leader? Well, whatever, okay fine. Just let us challenge you.
… why does he want to know that? Sin-kun can’t remember a time in the original game where a gym leader asked you something like that.
What do you mean you THINK? Are you water trainer or not?
Sin-kun smells a rat here. We don’t know what kind, but something is definitely fishy. Before we go in, we head over to the pokecenter, heal up, and buy a few potions.
We’re greeted by a familiar face- the weirdo who hangs out in the front of pokemon gyms. This time he has a name!
Oh does he like, actually work for the gym?…
…
He gave us a bottle of water.
Thanks a lot, cheapskate.
This gym has like, a reception desk or something, so we go to check it out.
Menu? What, like a restaurant?
Is this a restaurant and they gave us complimentary water at the door?
Okay what the fuck kind of gym is this?
We step forward and discover that each tile lights up. Once we’ve stepped on all of them. the curtain opens.
We have no idea if there was a special order we were supposed to use and we got it right the first try on accident, or not.
We walk forward into the next room and…
…Okay so its a gym with a restaurant theme, and we were just challenged to a battle by a waiter.
He starts with a level 11 lilipup which is going to absolutely cream our front pokemon, Arsene. We get him out of there immediately, subbing in Ganon.
Ganon needs his exercise after all.
Despite not getting a single hit in, Purrloin goes up to level 9. Will he ever stop being useless?
The waiter doesn’t have any other pokemon, so we’re the winner.
Isn’t it kind of unsanitary to be having pokemon battles in a restaurant?
Says the guy who battles with one normal type pokemon.
Oh well. Let’s keep going.
We step on the grass tile and the curtain opens up. We’re not sure if this is a puzzle or- … wait.
We realize that the fire curtain opened when we stood on the water tile, and the water curtain opened when we stood on the grass tile.
Its about type match ups.
Because of course it is.
Well, whatever. We head into the next area to beat up another waiter.
Sorry, not waiter. Waitress.
…
…
lady please have more self-respect than that.
She leads with a patrat and we switch Arsene out for Ganon again. Ganon creams the rat, but takes some heavy damage, so we switch out for Mrs. Beaver when the self-deprecating waitress sends out a fucking purrloin.
The purrloin is a level higher than Mrs. Beaver but our darling lady rodent still outclasses it in damage by a good deal.
Mrs. Beaver gains a level from the battle.
We step on the fire tile and of course, the grass curtain opens. Seems like this should be the last room, right?
We take a minute to give Ganon a potion.
We head up to face the gym leader.
…
…
Oh for fuck’s sake.
Sin-kun demands to know what gives with the triplet act and the restaurant and everything else.
well?
WELL???
Sin-kun has no idea how this can be tournament legal, but they’re gym leaders, so it must be, right? even if it feels like a bait and switch.
So no matter what pokemon we had chosen at the beginning, we’d be at a disadvantage here.
Whatever! Who cares! Just bring it on, we’ll whip your ass with any type! The first time Sin-kun beat Fire Red he only used a charmander/charmeleon through all of Brock’s gym.
We can take you!
Bring. It. On. NERD!!
The vain prettyboy leads with a lilipup. Since we know Ganon will be next to useless against whatever his main pokemon is, we send out Ganon against it.
Ganon nearly crushes it, but thanks to still being slightly wounded, he goes down. We send Arsene out to get the EXP.
… Cress uses a potion on his lilipup and we immediately regret our choices.
However, despite that, Arsene is actually doing pretty well in this battle.
The bite that lillipup keeps using isn’t very effective, but it does make Arsene flinch, which is an issue. We go ahead and use a potion on Arsene.
…
This was a terrible idea. After two potions we go ahead and swap Arsene out for Mrs. Beaver.
… Lilipup is faster than Mrs. Beaver, the bite makes her flinch, and she faints immediately at the second bite.
Things are not looking good. We don’t have any revives. We have to save Chi-chi for his other pokemon. We send out Chloe and pray.
… Chloe gets anhilliated in two bites. Its down to Arsene and Chi-chi.
Without much hope, we send out Arsene.
Arsene immediately faints to that fucking bite.
It’s all down to you, Chi-chi.
Here’s the question, is Chi-chi faster than this fucking dog?
…
Chi-chi is faster than the dog! One vine whip later and the beast goes down!
We’re on the ropes. Our whole party has been nuked by one angry puppy. Chi-chi hasn’t gained a single level since we got her, and the gym leader’s water monkey is four levels higher.
If we manage to pull this off, it will be purely thanks to type advantage.
Sin-kun is vibrating as he yells his command to Chi-chi. Battles in the game were exciting enough, but he feels like his heart is about to burst out of his chest. He was overconfident, not going back to the pokecenter before facing the gym leader. Did he fly too close to the sun?
Will his first gym battle end in failure?
The other pokemon, Panpour, is faster. It gets a critical hit, despite not being very effective. Meanwhile Chi-chi’s attack barely does any damage despite the type advantage.
Sweat pours down Sin-kun’s face. Is he a bad trainer? Roughly, he calls out to Chi-chi.
There’s only one strategy, success or failure- ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK!
The panpour uses a defensive move that increases its attack state. Vine whip takes out another chunk of its health.
Sin-kun’s stomach is doing flip-flops. Watergun takes out another chunk of Chi-chi’s health.
Another water gun takes another chunk of health out of Chi-chi. Sin-kun is starting to shake.
There’s two ways this can end. Cress can use a defensive move, and Chi-chi’s vine whip- provided it hits- will score a victory by the bare skin of her teeth, or the panpour will attack, and Chi-chi’s done for, and we’ll have flown too close to the sun.
With a strange sense of calm, Sin-kun calls the last attack. Whatever happens, his pokemon have done their best.
It’s all over.
