I spent a few days training on Route 11 with Shakespear, Royal and Dustin. I really wanted Royal to evolve before moving on to my next challenge in the Kanto region. I felt strongly that he and Dustin were about to replace Arnold as my star Pokémon, but they weren't ready for that yet. Dustin's only ability when I met him was to put opponents to sleep. As I knew from working with Arnold, that was incredibly useful, but also required you to actually harm your opponent to win a match. Royal could now slap his body into his opponent's body, but I really needed more than flopping around like a fish out of water before I could rely on him.
My training was interrupted after a few days by one of Professor Oak's lab technicians. Royal had just finished tackling and scaring off a wild Ekans when I saw him approaching, his lab coat flapping around his waist in the breeze. I stooped down to rub Royal's scales and watched as the aide approached. He looked utterly exhausted and completely out of his element out on the road and not behind a microscope.
"Fox!" he called out to me. "I've been looking everywhere for you!"
"Here I am," I smiled weakly.
"Professor Oak hasn't heard from you in a while. Don't you check your emails?" The aide had a brief angry look cross his face. "Well, never mind that. I can see you're busy with training and research. Can I see your Pokédex?" he asked and extended a hand. I stood up and Royal began to flop around aimlessly. I pulled the Pokédex out of my back pocket and handed it to the lab tech. He pushed a few buttons and nodded to himself while I wondered what this was all about. "I see your work is coming along nicely. The Professor wanted me to make a detailed report on your progress. He also wanted me to give you this." He handed me back the Pokédex and pulled a strange device out of his lab coat.
"What is this?" I asked as I took the two-pronged instrument from his hands.
"The Professor calls that an Item Finder." He laughed. "Pretty simple, right? Basically it will light up when you are near a Pokémon enhancing item." He held out a small technical machine and the lights on the end began to flash brightly. "It's designed to pick up on the subtle radio waves… well, you don't need the boring details. The gift comes at a small cost, however. Professor Oak wants you to head to Lavender Town to do some research there. There have been some very strange sightings in that town and we believe Pokémon are involved."
"I don't understand," I admitted. Surely, I could just bike over to Lavender Town and there was no need for this strange contraption.
"The only way into Lavender Town these days is through the Rock Tunnel and to get through the Rock Tunnel, the Professor believes you will need to teach one of your Pokémon the hidden move called Flash. And well, you see, the thing is… the Hidden Machine that will teach Pokémon Flash was lost while doing research at the far end of Diglett Cave." He stammered to get out the last sentence. I could tell it was his fault the machine was lost and finding me was his penance.
"So let me get this straight," I began. "I need to use the Item Finder and head through Diglett's Cave. Once I find the HM Flash, I need to head to the Rock Tunnel and take that path to Lavender Town to investigate something for Professor Oak." This felt like a real round-about way to get somewhere. Diglett's Cave would dump me out near Pewter City in western Kanto, and Lavender Town was about as far east as you could get and still be in the Kanto region. Still, I owed the Pokémon Professor a great deal of gratitude and I was out here doing his field testing on the Pokédex. I didn't feel I had much of a choice. At first I was a bit irritated, but after the aide had dismissed himself I began to think Diglett's Cave might be a great place to train up Royal. There was some silver lining after all.
I found HM Flash as well as a surprise Technical Machine (TM) that taught Pokémon the move Dream Eater. While Hidden Machines had the capacity to teach moves repeatedly, Technical Machines at the time did not. Dustin was the easy and obvious choice for Dream Eater. After lulling Pokémon to sleep with his powers of Hypnosis, he could then feed on their hopes and fears with this devastating psychic attack. Unfortunately, he was also the only Pokémon on my roster who was able to learn Flash and so Flash he would learn - a move I would come to regret.
I emerged from Diglett's Cave on the Pewter City side. I spent a day there recovering. I had a nice visit with Rascal Sr. at the Pewter City Pokémon Gym where he was thriving. I can't believe a month has passed since I was last in Pewter saying goodbye to Rascal Sr. So much had changed since then! I was tempted to challenge him to a battle against Rascal Jr., but I really didn't want to waste too much time in Pewter City when Professor Oak was counting on me to head to Lavender Town. So the next day, I biked over to Cerulean City. I left a small food offering for Nibbles as I passed Mount Moon, but I'll never know if he found it. I really missed that guy. Beyond Cerulean City was the rocky path up to the Rock Tunnel. I didn't see any wild Pokémon as I quickly pedaled through, but I would be set upon by non-stop Zubats as soon as I set foot inside the pitch black caverns of Rock Tunnel.
Now, I need to get this off my chest. I hate Rock Tunnel. This very moment of this very day all these years later, I still absolutely hate it. I hate that I was in Kanto at a time it was nearly mandatory to pass through to get to Lavender Town - thanks to the Saffron City lockdown and a couple of tremendously frustrating Snorlax. Like Mount Moon, the Rock Tunnel is absolutely infested with Zubat. I love all Pokémon, but my tremendously bad experiences with trying to desperately train Vesper to be worth using in a battle had left me pretty jaded. I couldn't even bring myself to catch another Zubat because Vesper was such a disappointment.
I also want to say that the darkness of Rock Tunnel is the worst. Mount Moon had enough light filtering in from outside combined with lights set up by fossil hunters at famous dig sites that there really weren't many issues finding your way through the twisty tunnels. Rock Tunnel is absolute darkness. Without a Pokémon capable of lighting up like a Christmas tree, you can't see your hand in front of your face. For such a well traversed passage, much like Mount Moon, I couldn't understand why someone didn't think to set up lights along the trail to guide you through this senseless labyrinth of stone.
I guess all those Zubat were good for something after all.
Current Team:
Attacks in Blue are recently learned.
Bill's Storage: Kiwi (Pidgeotto) & Vesper (Zubat)
Old Man Daycare: Charlie (Pidgey)
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