After having set up his tent on Route 10 right outside the rock tunnel, the first thing Joey did with his team was take a long and deserved nap.
It was after he awoke at noon to a bright sun and the chirping of Pidgey in the background, that everything started looking brighter again.
He stretched, made his way outside and started preparing breakfast, or was it lunch at this point?
Very mysterious questions that needed answers as soon as possible.
It was as he was sitting down with his team slurping on the stew, that he finally put a hand on his beating heart and sighed out a big ball of anxiety.
“We’re alive,” he determined with a satisfied nod before putting down the bowl.
Then he frowned and put a finger to his chin as his gaze travelled down Route 10, past the Pokecenter in the far distance and to the river that he could barely see through the trees.
“What now?” he asked, turning to look at his team who were huddled together with their respective food bowls and chattering away, gesticulating wildly.
“Guys,” Joey said, catching the attention of his team, before pausing, “and girls!” He put his arms down on the grass below him and leaned back in his seated position.
“We survived!” he announced happily.
His Pokemon exchanged confused looks.
“What you saw yesterday was an aberration, a battle that will never occur again if I have anything to say about it,” Joey continued. “I know you’re all probably shaken, but don’t worry, it’s the League’s problem now. As for us? We only have one real priority, and that’s the eighth badge and then the conference!”
Rattata was the first to pump his fist and nod resolutely. Diglett, whom he’d have to douse in revives and potions looked down at the ground, Metapod spat some poison on the ground, Misdreavus twirled in the air while blowing a raspberry and Slugma simply tilted her head.
“I’m glad we’re on the same page,” Joey said with a nod, manifesting that reality.
“Anyway, as for the plan, we just finished up Koga barely three weeks ago and we lost to his equivalent of the eighth badge challenge and only passed because we were fighting for the seventh badge. This means we need more training before we can go face King again.” He frowned and quickly calculated.
His strategy against King was simple, based on his previous attempt. Metapod would try to poison the water and use Electroweb to clutch a win. Diglett would disperse the provided earth to create a field of mud. Misdreavus would use her by then mastered Chargebeam to become a threat and Slugma and Rattata would have to be used tactically to support the three team members who weren’t at an immense disadvantage.
The benefit of Rattata and Slugma not having anything they could really do at a water gym was that they could start preparing for the conference. After all, Joey still had seven or so months to get the eighth badge, it wasn’t really a question of if, but a question of when.
Rattata would work on his Shadow Sneak, which he’d recently decided would work better than Sucker Punch or Pursuit, and Super Fang and Slugma on her Protect.
“I’d say we take two weeks to train by this river here, which is convenient since there’s a Pokecenter nearby,” Joey said with a nod, “before taking another two weeks more up north by the sea where we might find more powerful water Pokemon to spar against.”
He left it unsaid that there was a power plant nearby and that maybe they’d get lucky and meet an electric type suited for the team.
Although, at that point, Joey would have six team-members.
No flying type, no psychic type and no water type. Basically, no Pokemon that could help him with actually getting anywhere faster, or easier.
Unless he caught a Zapdos. But, well, there was dreaming and there was dreaming.
-/-
After deciding on how to spend the next month before he’d even be willing to consider challenging King, Joey made his way to the Pokecenter to have his team checked up.
“They’re fine, although it wasn’t easy doing all the checkups with the outages we’re experiencing” nurse Joy told him with a confused look, before continuing, “They all have incredibly elevated levels of anxiety. It’s odd, I haven’t really seen that before. Wait, do I know you from somewhere?” she asked, tilting her head cutely.
“Had a scary situation in Lavender yesterday,” Joey explained briefly.
Nurse Joy then proceeded to snap her fingers. “Wait, I remember, you’re the communist revolutionary that was in the evening newspaper yesterday!” she exclaimed.
Joey took his team and left without saying a word.
There really was nothing he could respond to that.
“Alright, it’s decided,” Joey said. “No communication with the outside world for the next month.”
“There’s a gang of Voltorb that escaped the power plant recently, be careful!” Nurse Joy shouted after him, but Joey had already left.
The nurse watched the closed sliding doors of the Pokecenter with a frown.
“He sure was wearing an expensive outfit for a communist!” she said unhappily. “We called that champagne socialism back in my day!” she exclaimed while shaking her head at the empty lobby.
The season had barely even started yet, and most trainers were still in Cerulean, she’d have more to do when people started challenging the Saffron gym for their third badge, depending on which route they took there.
-/-
Outside Joey walked east on Route 10 with his hands in his pockets, whistling a tune that had come to his head after the baseless accusations at the Pokecenter.
“God fucking damn it,” he cursed when he realised that he’d been unconsciously whistling the national anthem of the USSR.
“I was a business owner!” he exclaimed angrily. “A red-blooded capitalist, this whole fucking region is socialist! Free health-care, education, housing for the poor, family subsidies. You’re the communist, fuck you!”
He went silent as he walked after airing his frustration.
“Nobody appreciates my humour,” he eventually grumbled before stopping his mouth as he saw a group of yellow-vested standing to his left where the route forked and you could either go south to the power plant or north towards the river bend and then west to Cerulean.
“What’s happening?” he asked the group of what must have been power plant workers going by their yellow hard hats.
The group stopped their chatter and turned towards him, before the oldest of the three, graying hair, red nose, stepped forward.
“We’re standing here to warn trainers not to explore the area around the power plant for now,” the man said. “Our Voltorb are currently on strike for better pay and they’re liable to explode at anyone who agitates them.”
“You pay the Voltorb?” Joey asked with a deadpan voice.
The man awkwardly scratched the back of his head. “Well, I guess not. We give them lodging, food, the likes and in return they give us their electricity. They want to work less hours or get better berries so they decided to go on strike!”
“And the Electrodes?” Joey asked, wondering why the man had only mentioned the Voltorbs.
“Well their output is higher so we only require them to work four hours a day, not six like the Voltorb, they’re quite satisfied.”
“Ah, so that’s why there were outages at the Pokecenter,” Joey muttered quietly.
The power plant worker nodded vigorously. “Every day of the strike the region is losing tons of money because some businesses can’t function normally! We’re under a lot of pressure.” he suddenly paused, turned around to exchange a look with his two younger co-workers, before turning back to Joey.
“Wait, you’re a trainer, right? How many badges do you have?” he asked.
“Seven,” Joey answered absent-mindedly. “Why?”
The man’s eyes lit up. “If those Voltorb keep striking, I'll lose my bonus this year!” he told Joey as if to evoke pity. “How about we hire you to send one of your Pokemon to go and beat them up a little, show them that they’re also working to be protected from the dangers of the outside world!”
Joey stared at the old man with a blank look.
What?
“You want to hire me… as a strikebreaker?” he asked.
The power plant worker quickly shook his head, lowering his voice. “Of course not, of course not! I mean, why don’t you just send out one of your Pokemon, preferably a ground-type, into a training mission! It will be mistaken for a wild Pokemon and get some experience fighting electric types. I’m sure the management can get you 300k Pokedollars to keep it subtle and keep it quiet, what do you think?” The man asked with shifty eyes.
Joey returned the look blankly.
Quite frankly, it sounded like he should call the police.
Although… 300k was a lot of money. He had millions now, but the grind never stopped did it?
His hand snaked its way into his pocket and he quietly navigated the buttons of his Pokenav to record the following conversation.
“You know what, I like your proposal, I have a Diglett, completely immune to electric attacks and can even pop underground at any hint of an Explosion,” he eventually determined, at which the eyes of the old man started shining. “Make it 400k in cash to send him out against the striking Voltorb under the guise of a wild Pokemon and you have a deal.”
The old man nodded so fast Joey was afraid he’d break his neck before promptly rushing off back towards the power plant. “Thank you so much! I’ll be back in thirty minutes with the money!”
After the older man was gone, the younger two remaining turned to Joey with judgement in their eyes.
“You’re deplorable,” one of them spat.
The other one simply crossed his arms.
Joey simply rolled his eyes. “Would you say no to 400k?” he asked, which shut both of them up, although they still looked sullen.
All those allegations of being a communist…
Soon the older man came running back, clutching a briefcase of money. “Here!” he exclaimed happily. “We’re losing more than this every hour that the situation isn’t resolved!”
Joey accepted the briefcase with one hand, the other stopping the recording in his pocket. He opened the container to look at the stacks of cash inside before emptying the whole thing into his backpack. The banknotes rustled more pleasantly than a supermodel taking off an elaborately ruffled dress.
Then, when he was done, he turned around and started walking north.
“Wait, where are you going!?” the older man shouted indignantly.
“I’m going home, you fucking idiot!” Joey shouted right back. “Thanks for helping out an orphan like me on my journey out of the sheer generosity in your soul. Your charitable actions won’t be forgotten!” To underline his words he raised a middle finger over his shoulder before laughing out loud.
“What a moron,” he muttered to himself as he walked north, listening to the angry shouts of the middle-manager behind him. “Have fun reporting that to the police.”
He pulled out his Pokenav as he walked, listening to the clearly legible words that were exchanged, before sending the voice recording to Blaine as a backup.
A minute or so later his Pokenav beeped
Blaine: You’re an ass for accepting that money
Joey: Took it and walked away. What are they going to do, call the police?
A minute passed.
Blaine: You’re hilarious, kid, keep your chin up. Are you going to report it to the police?
Joey: No, I’m sick of the police for the moment, but I will camp out north of Route 10 and scout out any trainers going south to tell them I’ll break their legs if they take the job.
Blaine: There won’t be any at this time of year, but I also don’t think the power plant will try the same thing again, hahahaha
Joey: If I hear they did the recording will go to the League.
Blaine: 👍👍👍
-/-
Joey eventually reached the most northern part of Route 10, where the river bent to the west and would eventually travel beneath a mountain to lead into the sea. He settled on the shore of this river, noted that it was still only the late afternoon and called out his team onto the grass-covered plain.
“Everyone gets a day off, me included!” he announced. “Explore, have fun, or train if you want. Just try to get those cortisol levels down!”
His team quickly dispersed.
Rattata went to practice his control over ghost-type energy in preparation for Shadow Sneak, Misdreavus went into the deep grass to scare some of the low-level Pokemon likely lurking there and Metapod swung on top of a tree and started spitting poison, trying to see how deep of a hole she could corrode into the ground with a few hours of effort.
Joey turned to look at Diglett and Slugma, who’d remained at his feet.
Diglett seemed absent-minded, so Joey squatted down to pat the little mole on his head. “You probably heard everything from your Pokeball, huh?” he asked. “Sorry about that, you know I’d never do something like that,” he reassured the kind-hearted soul.
The ground-type Pokemon looked up at him with soulful eyes.
“Dig, dig, let?” he asked.
Joey frowned. “You think we should go help those Voltorb?” he asked.
Diglett nodded rapidly.
“I thought about it, you know, but I’m not familiar with the situation at the power plant and I have my own worries,” Joey explained briefly.
Also, to be perfectly honest. Working six hours a day was hardly something to complain about, but maybe that was just the boomer in him.
Diglett looked down.
“How about this,” Joey asked. “This isn’t a very dangerous route. You can probably beat anything you find here if you’re careful, as long as you don’t get too close to the water. How about you go underground, approach the Voltorb, and ask them if they need anything? Then if they ask for help, we can think about it.”
“Diglett!?”
Joey nodded with a smirk. “Yeah I’m serious, come on, you’re your own Pokemon, if that’s what you want to do on your day off and there’s no danger, who am I to stop you?”
Diglett rapidly nodded, before disappearing underground.
“And you Slugma?” Joey asked, turning to the fire-type.
“Slug,” the Pokemon exclaimed before slowly starting to lose its form and becoming a puddle of sentient magma on the ground.
“You’re feeling lazy?” Joey asked.
The remnants of the head still sitting atop the puddle nodded, and Slugma closed her eyes.
Joey had rushed his Pokemon through the rock tunnel tonight so it was understandable that they were sleepy.
As for himself, he stood up, walked closer to the river until he was sitting on the last piece of grass before the small incline leading down to it, and sat down.
Then he pulled out his Pokedex and started reading up on the Voltorb line.
To his knowledge the Pokemon feed on electricity, so he didn’t quite understand why they were being used to generate it.
It was an interesting question.
-/-
A few hours passed and the sun slowly started kissing the horizon to the west.
Joey had spent the time reading, for once, not out of trainerly duties, and had found out that Voltorb fed off electricity, but like all electric Pokemon, were capable of producing more of it than they needed to consume, which made perfect sense when you thought about it.
Thus, Voltorb and Electrode found wide-spread industrial use at powerplants where they donated their electricity daily and in return received electricity that wasn’t their own to feed on.
Funnily enough, the power plant in Kanto Joey that had just walked by earlier was actually under threat of being shut down because most cities were building their own infrastructure so as to not rely so heavily on a single producer.
Ironically it seemed that the strike was going to be quite irrelevant, reduced hours or no, since that power plant was going to go out of business soon. This lined up pretty well with Joey’s memories of the games in which the power plant had been abandoned instead.
“Still,” Joey determined. “A decentralised system is always more reliable long term.”
A voice suddenly exclaimed from back at the campsite.
“Diglett!” the ground Pokemon shouted.
Joey put away his Pokedex, stood up, dusted himself off and started making his way back.
Once there he found that his Diglett had returned through a rather large tunnel leading directly to his campsite, and had brought along a friend as well.
“Vol, vol, Voltorb,” the pokeball looking Pokemon exclaimed while looking around and narrowing his eyes as it beheld Joey.
“You brought a friend?” the trainer asked, at which point Diglett started recounting an exciting story about how he’d snuck past the blocked route to the power plant and approached the group of Pokemon striking in front of it. After a minute or so he finished explaining.
Joey scratched his head and wondered how he’d gotten into this situation.
“So the Voltorb are getting hungry, but can’t discharge enough electricity to cause a static atmosphere without it being potentially viewed as an attack and thus causing a breakdown on the strike?” he asked.
The angry-looking Voltorb nodded, before turning to Diglett. “Vol, to, to.”
Diglett then turned to Joey. “Diggggggg,” he complained.
“Voltorb can’t eat their own electricity,” Joey muttered to himself. “That’s why they’re reliant on grouping up and supercharging the atmosphere to purify it. The previous strikes failed because they got too hungry and were forced to give up. The one time they tried to feed themselves with the natural method the power plant staff used it as an excuse to hire a trainer to disperse the strike.”
“Diglett!”
“I see,” Joey nodded with a frown. “And you want to help them?” he asked one last time to clarify.
Diglett nodded rapidly while Voltorb remained suspicious.
Joey sighed. “Well, I guess what you guys need are batteries, and lots of ‘em.” He suddenly grinned.
“Thankfully someone was recently kind enough to donate a large amount of money to the welfare of Pokemon unions across Kanto,” he said with a grin, remembering the 400k pokedollars stuffed haphazardly into his backpack.
It was only right to use some of that money to help the cause which had brought it to him, right?
“Well, other than training, I guess I know what we’re doing for the next week or so,” Joey determined with a sigh.
“I am really not beating the allegations…” he muttered to himself quietly while Diglett and Voltorb exchanged looks before both cheering loudly.
“Diglett!”
“Voltorb!”