Chapter 21

Bill the Collector

Cerulean City-

Red and Blue had lunch with Lorelei and Misty after the Gym Battle. Misty's cell phone rang.

"Hello?" she said. The voice on the other end greeted her excitedly. "Oh, hi Bill! What's up?" She listened intently, said bye and then hung up the phone.

"What did he want?" asked Lorelei.

"He was just calling to let me know that a nice young Trainer happened to help him out. As it so happens, the Trainer was none other than Professor Oak's grandson. He was so excited that he gave the Trainer one of his rare Pokémon, and sent him here to battle me."

"Who's Bill?" asked Red. Lorelei answered.

"He's a well-known Pokémon researcher and collector. He's seen many rare Pokémon and lives a few miles north of Cerulean City on a northern beach."

"Oh yeah," said Misty. "He also said he had something for you and me, and we should come pick it up." She rolled her eyes. "I can't go, because I apparently have to battle the Trainer that Bill sent over."

"Oh darn I can't go either," said Lorelei. "Lance wants me to meet him and Agatha. Hey!" she looked at Red and Blue, they were both stuffing their mouths. "You guys could go pick it up for us! Just bring whatever it is back to the Gym. I'm sure we'll make it up to you sometime."

Red would normally not go out of his way for a favor, but this was an Elite Four member asking. Besides, if this Bill had many rare Pokémon it would be a great chance to go learn and prepare for future battles.

"Sure we'll go" said Red. "Come on, Blue!"

"Thank you guys so much!" said Lorelei. The Elite Four member walked with them towards the northern slope of Cerulean City. She directed them along a path that she said led straight to Bills house. They began to walk along the path.

A few minutes later, they came to a tributary of the River that ran under the Nugget Bridge. It was a gentle stream lined with thick reeds and lilies. Blue stopped and Red wondered what she was looking at. She pointed in between two reed bunches and said "Look! It's so cute, oh I'm gonna catch it."

Red saw what she was looking at. A round blue Pokémon was drinking from the stream. It had two feet and no arms. Its tail reminded Red of a tadpoles. It sensed the Trainers and turned around. It had a large white belly with a black spiral on it. It also had two eyes and a cute little mouth. Blue released Bulbasaur to battle it.

"Use Leech Seed before it can get away, Bulbasaur!" Bulbasaur shot two seeds at the little critter, and the vines made it fall over. Blue threw a blank Poke-ball. The blue Pokémon was sucked in and the ball wiggled on the ground. Eventually the wiggling stopped, and the Pokémon became registered on Blue's Pokedex.

"It's called a 'Poliwag,'" she said. "It's a Water-type Pokémon. Let's see what its attacks are… Oh! The 'dex says one of them is Bubble, and the other one is Hypnosis."

"Hypnosis?" asked Red.

"It says here that the Hypnosis attack can put its enemies to sleep," Blue smiled. "I guess I picked a pretty good Pokémon huh?"

They kept north, sticking to the path. The terrain was still covered in grass but there were now many trees and small rolling hills. They came across a hiker.

"Ahoy there," the man said. "Fancy a Pokémon Battle? I'm itching for a good battle about now."

Blue hadn't had a battle in a long time. She decided she'd take this hiker. It was too soon to use Poliwag (being freshly caught), so she decided to use Bulbasaur. It appeared from the ball with a cry.

"Go Onix!" the hiker sent out a large rock snake. It wasn't nearly as big as Brock's, but it was at least ten feet long. The hiker ordered a Bind attack, and Blue told Bulbasaur to counter with Leech Seed. The seeds burst on Onix's skin, but the giant serpent simply broke through the vines with little effort. Onix was squeezing Bulbasaur trying to make it give up when Blue's Pokedex began to beep.

"Use Vine Whip!" she said as she commanded the new attack. Vines shot from under the bulb on Bulbasaur's back, and smacked Onix hard. As it turns out, the dual Rock/Ground type is also weak to Grass Pokémon. The vines left scars on Onix as one more uppercut from a vine slammed it under the chin to knock it out cold.

They continued along their journey after visiting with the hiker for a few minutes. Along the way were a man in a karate suit and his Pokémon practicing martial arts. The Pokémon was the size of a small child, and its skin was grey. It actually looked similar to a human. Red pulled out his Pokedex and learned that it was a Fighting-type Pokémon called Machop.

Red was curious about how Fighting-type Pokémon battled, so he challenged the karate man. Red saw on his Pokedex that Flying-types had advantages against Fighting-types, so he sent out Pidgey. Pidgey had the upper hand throughout the battle, but occasionally Machop would connect with a well- timed karate chop or kick. However, a Gust attack from Pidgey sent Machop sailing into a tree, defeated.

Red let the karate man know that Machop was very impressive in the battle, despite being at a major disadvantage. The man let Red and Blue know that not only were Fighting-type Pokémon a handful in battle, and that they are great assets while performing manual labor. Soon, they were on their way again.

They thought that they could see a beach through the trees as they continued their errand. They picked up their pace and decided to follow the sandy shoreline all the way to Bill's house (given that it was on the beach itself). They were stopped by a young girl trainer, who challenged Blue to a battle. The girl wanted to try out her pet Pokémon in battle.

"Go, Slowpoke!" she said. Out of her Poke-ball came a rather odd looking Pokémon. It was about two feet tall, and walked on four legs. It was pink and had a long pink tail tipped with white, it wore an unchanging stupid expression on its face (scientists actually dubbed Slowpoke the "Dopey" Pokémon).

Slowpoke's expression remained the same no matter what it did. Occasionally, its eyes would move very, very slowly. Blue saw no immediate threat, so she sent out Metapod thinking it would be a low-risk opportunity to gain some experience for the crescent-shaped cocoon.

She ordered a Tackle attack, and Metapod slowly rocked its way over towards Slowpoke to get in range. Slowpoke seemed to have a look of fear in its eyes, and tried to get away. It was a pet, and really only trained as a pet. It turned around to run back to its trainer, but it ran literally in slow motion. It took seconds for it to pick up and move one leg. A minute later, it had traveled about ten feet, more than enough time for the similarly slow Metapod to catch up to it. The green Bug-type Pokémon slammed into Slowpoke with surprising force, and Slowpoke was knocked out.

Even Blue could tell that this Pokémon really shouldn't be battling. "I know battling is exciting," she said. "But maybe Slowpoke should stay as a pet for you guys before it gets hurt." The young girl understood, hung her head, and carried Slowpoke away. Blue looked over to Metapod to recall it into its Poke-ball, but she cried in horror at what she saw.

Metapod had turned from green to brown, and lay on its side. It had a deep gash in its back like someone had sliced it open with a sword.

"Oh my God, Blue!" screamed Red. "What did you do to Metapod? I think its dead!" Blue knelt down by the withered carcass and tears welled in her eyes. It was her little buggy bundle of joy… suddenly, she felt something light land on her head. She reached up to wipe it off and it was gone.

"Blue, look right in front of you!" Red said. He stared in awe. Blue looked up, and sure enough there fluttered in front of her face a beautiful blue butterfly with white wings. It was two feet from head to its two little feet. It had two small hands on its belly.

"Of course," said Blue. "How could I be so dumb?" She pulled out her Pokedex and her list of Pokémon had changed. There was no more Metapod, but now there was Butterfree, the final stage in its evolution. It had started at the little green Caterpie, bided its time as the cocoon-like Metapod, and had hatched into the butterfly.

Butterfree fluttered alongside the two Trainers as they ran to Bill's house (which they could see a bit further along the shoreline). Bill was already waiting for them as they arrived. He was a short skinny man with well-kept hair.

"Ah, you must be the Trainers that Misty said were coming," Bill turned back inside. "It's so good to see young Trainers taking interest in Pokémon these days. Why, I met Professor Oak's grandson, Green this morning, and he's a real hot shot. Anyways, I'll be back out in a second. Go ahead and release your Pokémon, I'm sure they'll have fun on the beach!"

Red and Blue were more than happy to oblige, and their Pokémon even happier. Wartortle immediately ran for the ocean; Pidgey rode on the plant on Bulbasaur's back up and down the beach; Pikachu lay in the sand apparently sunbathing; the newly-captured Poliwag was nervous about being around Pokémon it didn't know, and Nidoran introduced it to the Blue and Red's Pokémon; Butterfree flew over and lifted Poliwag with its tiny hands and dropped it into the shallow ocean. Poliwag seemed to find its comfort zone as it and Wartortle played tag in the shallows.

Bill came back holding two tickets in his hands. "These came in the mail yesterday," he said. "They're tickets to the new luxury liner in Vermillion City. There's a high-class party for Trainers and Collectors, like me, and apparently many others have been invited. There's going to be a small battling tournament on the ship as well. It's the S.S. Anne's grand opening!"

Red called Lorelei on the cell phone feature on his Pokedex. She explained that she couldn't go and she was sure that Misty couldn't either. She gave permission for Red to take the tickets.

"Blue," he said when he came back from the phone, "We're going on a cruise!" She screamed and hugged him.

"Oh I've always wanted to go on a cruise; this is going to be so much fun!"

Cerulean City Pokémon Gym-

Misty sat watching the film of a battle that just took place in her Gym. The trainer was a spiky-haired Trainer from Pallet Town named Green. The trainer she had put in place as her qualifier couldn't even touch his Pokémon. The little Spearow he used could dive into the water like an eagle searching for fish, and the other Pokémon he used what looked like a jumble of pink eggs that sapped the energy out of her Water-type Pokémon. She looked up this strange Pokémon in her field guide, it was an Exeggcute an exceedingly rare Pokémon that had Grass and Psychic type powers.

"I guess I've got my work cut out for me again."