Review some tapes

If you don’t want to fall behind Blue, you need to improve your Pokémon’s power and your abilities as a trainer. You doubt you can beat Brooke with just your Charmander, even if he does know Metal Claw. The thing is, your other two partners really can’t do much against rock/ground types. Pidgey is weak to rock types and can barely hurt them, and Pikachu’s electricity won’t do anything against ground types.

Blue had been able to win thanks to her **** type advantage, but if you don’t have that, what is the best move? Hm… what other trainers do you know who have beaten Brooke? Gabriel and Sylvia, who you met briefly, as well as Aiden and Leah. Maybe if you go watch the footage of their battles, you’ll gain some inspiration.

With that decided, you make your way back to the Pokémon Center, intent on heading up to your room. The lobby is more filled with people than you’ve ever seen before, nearly twenty individuals all chatting excitedly amongst each other. You manage to catch bits of their conversations.

“Only needed one Pokémon.” “A prodigy?” “SO sexy!” “Really wanna challenge her.” “I came so hard, dude.” “That Squirtle is too cute.”

Looks like Blue’s victory is the talk of the town, and people are impressed. You can’t help but wonder whether or not you’ll generate the same amount of excitement once you’ve beaten Brooke. Once you’ve moved through the lobby, after saying a quick hello to Nurse Joy, you run up the stairs to the third floor and enter your bedroom.

You hop onto your bed and grab the remote, flicking on the TV. You decide to start with Sylvia, and quickly find the few year old video of her victory over Brooke. Though it is swiftly brought to your attention that this may not actually prove that useful, since this was Sylvia’s ninth gym battle. Brooke’s team is entirely different, a powerhouse rock type team of Graveler, Rhyhorn, Omastar, Kabutops, and Onix, a very impressive team. What’s even more impressive though, is that Sylvia only ended up using two Pokémon to win; Octillery and Bellossom.

So, ‘use water and grass types’ is what you learn. That would be great, if you had any. The battle is quite entertaining at least, as is the forfeit afterward. One quick fap later, and you decide to check someone else’s video next.

Gabriel’s would probably just be more of the same, since he beat Brooke as his sixth gym badge. Could be entertaining, but not the most helpful. That leaves Aiden and Leah, who both got the Boulder Badge as their first. You know both of the teams they used, Butterfree and Beedrill for Aiden and Geodude and Nidoran for Leah.

Between the two, you’re more curious about Leah. The battle starts off fairly boring, honestly. Just the two sisters Geodude’s ramming into each other over and over until Leah’s was victorious. Then, Brooke’s Onix bound the smaller rock type in its grasp, crushing it into fainting. The next bit is definitely the most interesting though. Leah’s Nidoran, a small spiky purple rabbity thing, uses Double Kick, a fighting type move. This makes quick work of the Onix, winning Leah the battle.

A Nidoran could be a lot of help… where did Leah catch it? Wait, she mentioned this to you… Route 3! To the east of Pewter City, leading towards Mt. Moon. If you head out that way, you can catch one of your own and stand a good chance against Brooke! That sounds like as good a plan as any, and you’re about to get up and leave, when you realize there may be something in the video that you want to watch…

However, in the event of two trainers being related, there is an ‘**** clause’. The victor can invoke this during official matches to forgo their otherwise required forfeit if they are related to their opponent. The key word there is can, note. Some choose not to invoke the clause… but that is not the case here. Leah opts out of her forfeit, meaning that the video ends there and it’s time for you to be on your way.

Shutting off your TV, you now know what you need to do. Route 3 takes slightly less than a day to travel all the way down, but you just need to search it for a Nidoran. The Route is a fairly popular training spot, so you may wind up battling some people along the way. With a plan set, you leave your room and prepare to head out toward Route 3.