May 19-June 11, Year 1 May 19 Journey is progressing quietly. Orquesta has a lot more energy and is fond of scouting ahead, letting me know what's coming. It seems like it's going to be a long walk but it's nice having a bit of a break.
I was worried about Sombre. She's been very lazy ever since she evolved and she refuses to battle or talk to the other Pokemon... Apparently it's nothing to worry about though. The Pokedex says its normal behaviour. Hopefully, she'll grow out of it and her trap-building habit. It's nice to have a little extra security around our campsites but I'm sick of stepping into her traps accidentally.
The Pokemon seem to be getting along well. SP is good with all the Pokemon, of course, but of all people I didn't expect Chariot to warm up to anyone he couldn't flirt with. Yet I'm watching him now talk to Qtaro and encouraging him to keep practicing his moves. Maybe it's just because Q wants to evolve into a Pangoro and needs to hang out with a dark type Pokemon to do so but it's really sweet watching them together. They look like two brothers.
May 22 Man, the journey here was peaceful but arriving at Casseroya Lake wasn't. As soon as we made it to the shore, we were immediately abushed by an Altaria. It seemed to be looking for a fight and was screeching angrily at us. It looked strong so I sent out Chariot to fight it. It should have been an easy fight but midway through battle a giant fish Pokemon called Dodonzo emerged out of the lake. I think it was looking for an easy meal (or really didn't like the Altaria) because it let loose a surf, battering us all with water. It was a free-for-all fight!
Not wanting to leave Chariot alone, I tried to send out SP but his Pokeball must have been knocked out of its usual place because I ended up sending out Q. Q was also surprised to be sent out but he recovered quickly and immediately went to Chariot's aide. My Pancham's not nearly as strong as my Bisharp but he's quick and he listens to orders. Not just mine either. Chariot sometimes directs Q where to move so he can strike weak points better. Q was happy to play distraction while Chariot cut down our enemies. The Altaria went down quickly and I caught it to get it out of the way.
The Dodonzo however was a lot more problematic. It was as relentless as Gallant was when I first encountered them. However, it wasn't because it was a legendary Pokemon or whatever. There was another Pokemon inside its mouth, powering it up. A Tatsugiri, I think. Whatever it was, it was yellow and it was making things hard. Under its orders, the Dodonzo slammed its tail into Chariot, making him flinch. But before it could deal a decisive blow, Q jumped in the way and evolved into a Pangoro. It took the blow and I had him use Vital Throw. It knocked the Tatsugiri out of the Dodonzo's mouth but before we could take it out the Dodonzo blasted Q and knocked him out. But what's crazier is then Chariot evolved. I don't know why he didn't evolve when he beat up the Bisharp with Leader Crests weeks ago but he evolved right then and there into a Kingambit. Drawing on the energy of Q, he Kowtow Cleaved the Dodonzo, making it weak enough for me to catch.
The Tatsugiri ran away after realising it was alone, leaving us the victors. I immediately healed Q up and found SP's Pokeball so he could help me secure the area.
We're now all celebrating our victory. Q and Chariot are screaming like how I imagine frat boys would, thrilled that the two of them took on three Pokemon at once. I'll pretend I'm not annoyed at them yelling - they deserve to celebrate.
May 23 Fishing really was peaceful today. Even though I encountered a Barboach, there was absolutely no fight. After the headache from yesterday, I ended up just throwing one of my Pokeballs without thinking about it. I immediately regretted it and went to go get a Pokeball with someone in it but when I turned back the Barboach was captured. It worked for some reason. Whatever.
I didn't do much after that. Prom is tomorrow so I'm conserving my strength. Gotta be ready for whatever bullshit happens.
May 24 Prom is like an American High School Prom. I had to put a suit on but honestly that's the worst that's happened so far. The weirdest thing that happened is I went through a 'door' (one of the Watchtowers scattered around Paldea) and ended up at the Academy's gym. And it's just food, dancing, and forced socialisation. I expected worse.
It lasts the whole weekend though, so I'm going to have to keep an eye on things. Luckily, I have my Stand back to help me with that.
Amusingly, Star likes SP. It's a shame SP can't see my Stand though.
May 26 I'm genuinely shocked nothing happened. After Prom, my Stand disappeared but that's really it. If anything "wild" happened, it was that I was left at the Academy and not Casseroya Lake. There's not much longer left to the trip so I'm just going to take it easy. I'll warp to Cascarrafa and just do training around there - no time to go anywhere else thanks to Prom.
I changed out Q and Chariot, who were more than happy to stay back and just enjoy their new forms. I pulled out Marina the Dratini and Ver the Bidoof and headed to Cascarrafa. It's not a bad place. Nice, peaceful, filled with a lot of water despite being next to a desert. Today I'll just train against the wild Pokemon. I'll decide later whether or not to challenge the gym here.
May 27 I took the elevator up to the higher parts of the city today. They have a lot of nice shopping districts up there, though I didn't bother to stay. Instead we walked out to West Province, Area 1, and trained there on some of the wild Pokemon. There are a lot of mountains in the area but with boulders and rocks falling down the peak we didn't bother traversing up it. I stayed near to the city and worked with Ver, fighting a mix of Normal Pokemon and Nymble until Ver evolved into a Bibrael.
I'll be real, opposed to Sombre's massive personality shift, I haven't noticed anything change about Ver. I guess evolution affects some Pokemon more than others.
We returned to Cascarrafa and rested up. The food is quite good here.
May 28 Today we did the same thing as yesterday, except I focused on training Marina. It went really fast though. Marina just needed a single level and evolved into a Dragonair after maybe three or so wild encounters. Eventually, I switched to Sombre to see if she would be inspired by the progress of another party member but no such luck. Oh well, I've already been very fortunate to witness so many evolutions in such a short time. And there's always tomorrow.
May 30 Even though today's training focused on Sombre, Soprano evolved into Primarina after we defeated a wild Nymble. He seemed very happy about it and spent the day serenading everyone, adding some background music to our training montage. It seemed to help Sombre focus and she listened to a few more orders than usual. Even when she was trying to pretend to be asleep, she kept turning to look at Soprano whenever he sang.
Soprano hasn't stopped singing since he evolved. When we returned to the Pokemon Center, the team had a big dance party. Marina danced pretty well for a snake, Ver bounced like a ball and Orquesta sang along. I even caught myself tapping my feet. Notably, Sombre got up on her own and danced with Ver, making Soprano's song even more excitable. Soprano has definitely caught on that his singing is helping Sombre's attitude. Hopefully his singing will help with tomorrow's training.
May 31 It definitely did help. Today while walking around Cascarrafa, we encountered a Drednaw. While I had Soprano out, I fought it with Sombre and had Soprano sing in the background to lift her spirit. With Sombre focused, catching the Drednaw was easy, and the experience really helped her. She evolved into Intelleon and had another personality shift.
Now she seems... stable. She's still a little shy like when she was a Sobble but now she's focused. Less moody. More... princely? It's hard to say but that's the vibe I got when she reintroduced herself to Soprano. I'm not going to get involved with the love lives of my Pokemon. The important thing is that she's now listening to me a lot more.
Which is good. I have plans to use her tomorrow at the gym. Our Paldea trip is at its end and tomorrow we get returned to a city of our choice. I'll go back to Kanto and start my gym challenge in Pewter City against Brock, the Rock type gym leader. This Drednaw hopefully will come in handy later as well.
I'm going to miss Paldea and its warps. It certainly made things interesting. But this bizarre adventure in the Pokemon world continues.
June 1 I arrived back at Kanto in the morning only to find my campsite invested in what I can only describe as prehistoric dinosaur birds. These beasts were all over the road, using their tooth-filled beaks to harass the locals. They were relatively weak so I fended them off with Chomp, the Dreadnaw I caught yesterday. Most of them ran off but I managed to catch one of these Archen. It resembles a Archaeopteryx so that's what I named mine.
Archen is a prehistoric Pokemon so I decided to have a look at the Museum of Science. It's quite amazing and I got to see all sorts of fossilised Pokemon and artefacts they've dug up from the mountains. They have an exhibit where they show how the Fossil Revival Technology was invented and how cloning works. It's quite a fascinating process. I was particularly interested in the rehab program and the procedure researchers go through to determine if a fossil species will safely be restored to a Pokemon.
I spent much time in the museum that the gym was closed by the time I got there. Oh well. There's always tomorrow. Hopefully, my experiences in gyms in Paldea will translate here.
June 2 I used The Squad, Bearbarian and Chomp against Brock today. We won. It was good to see the Squad are still in sync and Bearbarian is strong as ever. I was worried that since I didn't use them in Paldea, we wouldn't be so coordinated but our morning training shook off the rust. We got the badge, the rewards and the prize money - some of which I blew on treating the trio. Not that I'm worried about money anymore - between the stipend I get from the JKBA and the money I got in Paldea, I can afford to treat my companions.
I thought about leaving straight away but I figured an extra day to rest in Pewter City wouldn't kill me. It's not like I'm in a hurry and we have a long trek to Cerulean. There's only one path from Pewter City to Cerulean City and that's through Mount Moon. Without a ride Pokemon, it takes an average of two weeks to get between the two locations. One of said weeks is spent wandering through the mountain itself. No wonder the people of this world make use of warps.
June 3 I'm glad I decided to bring Freight to make my journey a little easier. Not only is the journey long but the road goes almost exclusively uphill. At least it's quiet here. Route 3 would be a relatively unassuming road if it wasn't for the various craters everywhere. No one's been able to tell me if the craters are caused by meteorites or rocks that have fallen off Mount Moon; the story seems to differ depending who you ask.
Not much happened today. I encountered a wild Serviper that seemed to want to pick a fight but Freight stomped his hooves twice and scared it off. The Pokemon here are relatively low levelled so I shouldn't have problems. Then again, I shouldn't let my guard down.
June 5 You wouldn't think the only route to Cerulean City would go through a mountain but it does. Mount Moon is insurmountable you need to travel through its sprawling caves. The Pokemon Center outside the Western entrance does provide directions but there are no roads or even signposts telling trainers how you should go through. It's basically untouched by man save for a few ladders.
Most of the Pokemon here are quite skittish so we didn't end up encountering one until quite late in the evening when Chomp accidentally stepped on a Goomy that was lying flat (probably sleeping). The Goomy woke up and started thrashing about. I calmed her down and ended up catching her, if only to stop her from angrily (and ineffectually) hitting Chomp. I've named her Gooey for now. I'll try think of a better name while I'm going through this cave.
Probably no more journal entries until I get out of here. It's hard to concentrate. It's not that I see, or I can't light a campfire, it's just I feel like I have to keep an eye out in here. Maybe it's every noise echoing, making me feel like I'm surrounded. Maybe it's the shadow that seems to be following me.
June 8 It's hard to say if I got lost in Mount Moon or it usually takes three days to walk through the caves but I'm finally out. I decided to stop outside of Cerulean City and camp in Route 4 so my Pokemon could stretch their legs and run around. Freight's taken to rolling down the gentle slope and then nudging us all to follow. Thankfully, he's fine with just one of us copying him and Hojo's been enjoying rolling around too.
I've encountered a bunch of wild Pokemon in Mount Moon but I didn't capture anyone besides Gooey. Didn't really get a chance to. There are a number of wild Pokemon around here too but besides a particularly brave Rookidee none have come near our camp. Maybe it's because they saw Chomp reach out and try and bite the Rookidee. He's been biting a lot of things lately. He listens to me for most things but he doesn't stop biting even when I ask him. I'll have to get him something like a chew toy in Cerulean City, or find a way for him to stop biting my coat whenever he thinks I'm not looking.
June 9 This morning we didn't waste time and went straight to the Cerulean City gym. Misty is an expert on water Pokemon so I wanted to talk to her about salinity regulation in water Pokemon but she told me that she has a date after our battle so she hurried me into battle.
I believed her at the time but in retrospect was she trying to get rid of me?
I used Crazy Diamond, Hojo and Qtaro against Misty. Considering I didn't bring any electric or grass Pokemon, I'm surprised I won but those three did very well. I treated CD, Hoko and Q after that to a big lunch and we went around the city.
Cerulean City has such nice waterways and the flowers are so vibrant. Being a mid-sized city, I figured it would be good to shop in so I went around the various stores. The prices are good here except for the bike shop. Apparently, they're selling bikes for 1 million Poke. Good grief, they're trying to scam people in this city.
I may go North tomorrow to explore Nugget Bridge.
June 10 I couldn't be bothered fighting all the trainers so I decided not to cross the bridge. Decided to fish instead. Caught a Finneon but let it go. Not many Pokemon in the water.
While I was fishing, I did notice the Cerulean Cave across the river. Apparently it's filled with powerful Pokemon and you can't enter it unless you're a champion-level trainer. It sounds interesting, honestly... so one more reason to do this gym challenge, I guess.
June 11 The journey down Route 5 started calmly enough but then I got attacked by a swarm of Combee. I caught one but more than fifty came out. Thankfully, they were pretty weak and despite their overwhelming numbers Chomp took them out on his own. I somehow didn't get stung but Chomp did defending me. He's not really hurt but I'm giving him extra snacks. Seems to like this jerky I bought yesterday - must be good for his teeth.
May 19-June 11, Year 1
May 19-June 11, Year 1
May 19
Journey is progressing quietly. Orquesta has a lot more energy and is fond of scouting ahead, letting me know what's coming. It seems like it's going to be a long walk but it's nice having a bit of a break.
I was worried about Sombre. She's been very lazy ever since she evolved and she refuses to battle or talk to the other Pokemon... Apparently it's nothing to worry about though. The Pokedex says its normal behaviour. Hopefully, she'll grow out of it and her trap-building habit. It's nice to have a little extra security around our campsites but I'm sick of stepping into her traps accidentally.
The Pokemon seem to be getting along well. SP is good with all the Pokemon, of course, but of all people I didn't expect Chariot to warm up to anyone he couldn't flirt with. Yet I'm watching him now talk to Qtaro and encouraging him to keep practicing his moves. Maybe it's just because Q wants to evolve into a Pangoro and needs to hang out with a dark type Pokemon to do so but it's really sweet watching them together. They look like two brothers.
May 22
Man, the journey here was peaceful but arriving at Casseroya Lake wasn't. As soon as we made it to the shore, we were immediately abushed by an Altaria. It seemed to be looking for a fight and was screeching angrily at us. It looked strong so I sent out Chariot to fight it. It should have been an easy fight but midway through battle a giant fish Pokemon called Dodonzo emerged out of the lake. I think it was looking for an easy meal (or really didn't like the Altaria) because it let loose a surf, battering us all with water. It was a free-for-all fight!
Not wanting to leave Chariot alone, I tried to send out SP but his Pokeball must have been knocked out of its usual place because I ended up sending out Q. Q was also surprised to be sent out but he recovered quickly and immediately went to Chariot's aide. My Pancham's not nearly as strong as my Bisharp but he's quick and he listens to orders. Not just mine either. Chariot sometimes directs Q where to move so he can strike weak points better. Q was happy to play distraction while Chariot cut down our enemies. The Altaria went down quickly and I caught it to get it out of the way.
The Dodonzo however was a lot more problematic. It was as relentless as Gallant was when I first encountered them. However, it wasn't because it was a legendary Pokemon or whatever. There was another Pokemon inside its mouth, powering it up. A Tatsugiri, I think. Whatever it was, it was yellow and it was making things hard. Under its orders, the Dodonzo slammed its tail into Chariot, making him flinch. But before it could deal a decisive blow, Q jumped in the way and evolved into a Pangoro. It took the blow and I had him use Vital Throw. It knocked the Tatsugiri out of the Dodonzo's mouth but before we could take it out the Dodonzo blasted Q and knocked him out. But what's crazier is then Chariot evolved. I don't know why he didn't evolve when he beat up the Bisharp with Leader Crests weeks ago but he evolved right then and there into a Kingambit. Drawing on the energy of Q, he Kowtow Cleaved the Dodonzo, making it weak enough for me to catch.
The Tatsugiri ran away after realising it was alone, leaving us the victors. I immediately healed Q up and found SP's Pokeball so he could help me secure the area.
We're now all celebrating our victory. Q and Chariot are screaming like how I imagine frat boys would, thrilled that the two of them took on three Pokemon at once. I'll pretend I'm not annoyed at them yelling - they deserve to celebrate.
May 23
Fishing really was peaceful today. Even though I encountered a Barboach, there was absolutely no fight. After the headache from yesterday, I ended up just throwing one of my Pokeballs without thinking about it. I immediately regretted it and went to go get a Pokeball with someone in it but when I turned back the Barboach was captured. It worked for some reason. Whatever.
I didn't do much after that. Prom is tomorrow so I'm conserving my strength. Gotta be ready for whatever bullshit happens.
May 24
Prom is like an American High School Prom. I had to put a suit on but honestly that's the worst that's happened so far. The weirdest thing that happened is I went through a 'door' (one of the Watchtowers scattered around Paldea) and ended up at the Academy's gym. And it's just food, dancing, and forced socialisation. I expected worse.
It lasts the whole weekend though, so I'm going to have to keep an eye on things. Luckily, I have my Stand back to help me with that.
Amusingly, Star likes SP. It's a shame SP can't see my Stand though.
May 26
I'm genuinely shocked nothing happened. After Prom, my Stand disappeared but that's really it. If anything "wild" happened, it was that I was left at the Academy and not Casseroya Lake. There's not much longer left to the trip so I'm just going to take it easy. I'll warp to Cascarrafa and just do training around there - no time to go anywhere else thanks to Prom.
I changed out Q and Chariot, who were more than happy to stay back and just enjoy their new forms. I pulled out Marina the Dratini and Ver the Bidoof and headed to Cascarrafa. It's not a bad place. Nice, peaceful, filled with a lot of water despite being next to a desert. Today I'll just train against the wild Pokemon. I'll decide later whether or not to challenge the gym here.
May 27
I took the elevator up to the higher parts of the city today. They have a lot of nice shopping districts up there, though I didn't bother to stay. Instead we walked out to West Province, Area 1, and trained there on some of the wild Pokemon. There are a lot of mountains in the area but with boulders and rocks falling down the peak we didn't bother traversing up it. I stayed near to the city and worked with Ver, fighting a mix of Normal Pokemon and Nymble until Ver evolved into a Bibrael.
I'll be real, opposed to Sombre's massive personality shift, I haven't noticed anything change about Ver. I guess evolution affects some Pokemon more than others.
We returned to Cascarrafa and rested up. The food is quite good here.
May 28
Today we did the same thing as yesterday, except I focused on training Marina. It went really fast though. Marina just needed a single level and evolved into a Dragonair after maybe three or so wild encounters. Eventually, I switched to Sombre to see if she would be inspired by the progress of another party member but no such luck. Oh well, I've already been very fortunate to witness so many evolutions in such a short time. And there's always tomorrow.
May 30
Even though today's training focused on Sombre, Soprano evolved into Primarina after we defeated a wild Nymble. He seemed very happy about it and spent the day serenading everyone, adding some background music to our training montage. It seemed to help Sombre focus and she listened to a few more orders than usual. Even when she was trying to pretend to be asleep, she kept turning to look at Soprano whenever he sang.
Soprano hasn't stopped singing since he evolved. When we returned to the Pokemon Center, the team had a big dance party. Marina danced pretty well for a snake, Ver bounced like a ball and Orquesta sang along. I even caught myself tapping my feet. Notably, Sombre got up on her own and danced with Ver, making Soprano's song even more excitable. Soprano has definitely caught on that his singing is helping Sombre's attitude. Hopefully his singing will help with tomorrow's training.
May 31
It definitely did help. Today while walking around Cascarrafa, we encountered a Drednaw. While I had Soprano out, I fought it with Sombre and had Soprano sing in the background to lift her spirit. With Sombre focused, catching the Drednaw was easy, and the experience really helped her. She evolved into Intelleon and had another personality shift.
Now she seems... stable. She's still a little shy like when she was a Sobble but now she's focused. Less moody. More... princely? It's hard to say but that's the vibe I got when she reintroduced herself to Soprano. I'm not going to get involved with the love lives of my Pokemon. The important thing is that she's now listening to me a lot more.
Which is good. I have plans to use her tomorrow at the gym. Our Paldea trip is at its end and tomorrow we get returned to a city of our choice. I'll go back to Kanto and start my gym challenge in Pewter City against Brock, the Rock type gym leader. This Drednaw hopefully will come in handy later as well.
I'm going to miss Paldea and its warps. It certainly made things interesting. But this bizarre adventure in the Pokemon world continues.
June 1
I arrived back at Kanto in the morning only to find my campsite invested in what I can only describe as prehistoric dinosaur birds. These beasts were all over the road, using their tooth-filled beaks to harass the locals. They were relatively weak so I fended them off with Chomp, the Dreadnaw I caught yesterday. Most of them ran off but I managed to catch one of these Archen. It resembles a Archaeopteryx so that's what I named mine.
Archen is a prehistoric Pokemon so I decided to have a look at the Museum of Science. It's quite amazing and I got to see all sorts of fossilised Pokemon and artefacts they've dug up from the mountains. They have an exhibit where they show how the Fossil Revival Technology was invented and how cloning works. It's quite a fascinating process. I was particularly interested in the rehab program and the procedure researchers go through to determine if a fossil species will safely be restored to a Pokemon.
I spent much time in the museum that the gym was closed by the time I got there. Oh well. There's always tomorrow. Hopefully, my experiences in gyms in Paldea will translate here.
June 2
I used The Squad, Bearbarian and Chomp against Brock today. We won. It was good to see the Squad are still in sync and Bearbarian is strong as ever. I was worried that since I didn't use them in Paldea, we wouldn't be so coordinated but our morning training shook off the rust. We got the badge, the rewards and the prize money - some of which I blew on treating the trio. Not that I'm worried about money anymore - between the stipend I get from the JKBA and the money I got in Paldea, I can afford to treat my companions.
I thought about leaving straight away but I figured an extra day to rest in Pewter City wouldn't kill me. It's not like I'm in a hurry and we have a long trek to Cerulean. There's only one path from Pewter City to Cerulean City and that's through Mount Moon. Without a ride Pokemon, it takes an average of two weeks to get between the two locations. One of said weeks is spent wandering through the mountain itself. No wonder the people of this world make use of warps.
June 3
I'm glad I decided to bring Freight to make my journey a little easier. Not only is the journey long but the road goes almost exclusively uphill. At least it's quiet here. Route 3 would be a relatively unassuming road if it wasn't for the various craters everywhere. No one's been able to tell me if the craters are caused by meteorites or rocks that have fallen off Mount Moon; the story seems to differ depending who you ask.
Not much happened today. I encountered a wild Serviper that seemed to want to pick a fight but Freight stomped his hooves twice and scared it off. The Pokemon here are relatively low levelled so I shouldn't have problems. Then again, I shouldn't let my guard down.
June 5
You wouldn't think the only route to Cerulean City would go through a mountain but it does. Mount Moon is insurmountable you need to travel through its sprawling caves. The Pokemon Center outside the Western entrance does provide directions but there are no roads or even signposts telling trainers how you should go through. It's basically untouched by man save for a few ladders.
Most of the Pokemon here are quite skittish so we didn't end up encountering one until quite late in the evening when Chomp accidentally stepped on a Goomy that was lying flat (probably sleeping). The Goomy woke up and started thrashing about. I calmed her down and ended up catching her, if only to stop her from angrily (and ineffectually) hitting Chomp. I've named her Gooey for now. I'll try think of a better name while I'm going through this cave.
Probably no more journal entries until I get out of here. It's hard to concentrate. It's not that I see, or I can't light a campfire, it's just I feel like I have to keep an eye out in here. Maybe it's every noise echoing, making me feel like I'm surrounded. Maybe it's the shadow that seems to be following me.
June 8
It's hard to say if I got lost in Mount Moon or it usually takes three days to walk through the caves but I'm finally out. I decided to stop outside of Cerulean City and camp in Route 4 so my Pokemon could stretch their legs and run around. Freight's taken to rolling down the gentle slope and then nudging us all to follow. Thankfully, he's fine with just one of us copying him and Hojo's been enjoying rolling around too.
I've encountered a bunch of wild Pokemon in Mount Moon but I didn't capture anyone besides Gooey. Didn't really get a chance to. There are a number of wild Pokemon around here too but besides a particularly brave Rookidee none have come near our camp. Maybe it's because they saw Chomp reach out and try and bite the Rookidee. He's been biting a lot of things lately. He listens to me for most things but he doesn't stop biting even when I ask him. I'll have to get him something like a chew toy in Cerulean City, or find a way for him to stop biting my coat whenever he thinks I'm not looking.
June 9
This morning we didn't waste time and went straight to the Cerulean City gym. Misty is an expert on water Pokemon so I wanted to talk to her about salinity regulation in water Pokemon but she told me that she has a date after our battle so she hurried me into battle.
I believed her at the time but in retrospect was she trying to get rid of me?I used Crazy Diamond, Hojo and Qtaro against Misty. Considering I didn't bring any electric or grass Pokemon, I'm surprised I won but those three did very well. I treated CD, Hoko and Q after that to a big lunch and we went around the city.
Cerulean City has such nice waterways and the flowers are so vibrant. Being a mid-sized city, I figured it would be good to shop in so I went around the various stores. The prices are good here except for the bike shop. Apparently, they're selling bikes for 1 million Poke. Good grief, they're trying to scam people in this city.
I may go North tomorrow to explore Nugget Bridge.
June 10
I couldn't be bothered fighting all the trainers so I decided not to cross the bridge. Decided to fish instead. Caught a Finneon but let it go. Not many Pokemon in the water.
While I was fishing, I did notice the Cerulean Cave across the river. Apparently it's filled with powerful Pokemon and you can't enter it unless you're a champion-level trainer. It sounds interesting, honestly... so one more reason to do this gym challenge, I guess.
June 11
The journey down Route 5 started calmly enough but then I got attacked by a swarm of Combee. I caught one but more than fifty came out. Thankfully, they were pretty weak and despite their overwhelming numbers Chomp took them out on his own. I somehow didn't get stung but Chomp did defending me. He's not really hurt but I'm giving him extra snacks. Seems to like this jerky I bought yesterday - must be good for his teeth.