Before training, Gray, Yob and Tene decided to check out Fuchsia Zoo and the Safari Zone, where they encountered a variety of rare Pokemon. With safari balls at hand, Gray managed to capture a tauros, and Tene, a chansey. Yob tried to catch a dragonair by attempting to sooth it with a song, on the PokeFlute, but, upon hearing the tune, it slapped him in the face, with its tail, and swam off.
With their new Pokemon, the trio went to train on Route 15, east of the city. They continued this for a few hours until they felt they were nearly ready to face the gym leader and, eventually, Team Rocket. However, Yob was having difficulty training Haunter as it continuously kept licking him.
"Please stop Haunter," he plead, "I can't train you if all you do is lick me!"
"Yob, if you want, you could trade Haunter to me," suggested Tene to Yob's surprise.
"Well...um...I guess that would be for the best," he replied, "I love my haunter but I just can't handle the constant tongue."
As the trio were about to head back to the city to commence the trade, Gray noticed a figure riding a lapras in from the sea, standing on its shell in a confident pose, and questioned, "Is that...Tactic?!"
As Tactic made landfall he greeted his friends, "Hey guys! Long time no see!"
"What were you doing?" questioned Gray, staring at the lapras wide-eyed.
"Oh, after I got my Soul badge from Fuchsia gym, to wait out the Team Rocket occupation of Saffron, I decided to go on a vacation to the Orange Archipelago, where I got lapras from, and have just arrived back."
"Well Team Rocket haven't left Saffron yet," said Tene, "We're planning an assault on the city, we could use your help."
"Sure, anything to stop those bad guys," Tactic responded, "But first I'd like to head north, to Route 13. I've heard rumours of a a sleeping snorlax up there and want to catch it."
"That's fine, we still have to battle the gym. We'll meet up afterwards."
Tactic and the trio went separate ways, with Tactic flying off on his newly evolved charizard, which made Gray feel inferior, again, with only a wartortle.
"Aww, his thing is bigger than mine," Gray complained as Tene smirked and Yob looked at her confused.
The trio made their way back to Fuchsia City and, after healing, Yob traded his Haunter to Tene, in return for her chansey. Upon completion of the trade, Haunter evolved into a gengar to Yob's surprise and Tene's delight. After that they entered the gym, where they were greeted by Slime at the entrance, they proceeded onto the gym course, which was a large invisible maze, filled with ninjas. Tene and Yob made it through easy enough but Gray got stuck.
"This gym course is impossible! I'm going to report the leader to the Pokemon League or the police!" Gray whined.
"Gray, we just made it through ourselves," Tene scolded, "It's clearly not impossible. Also, surely countless people have challenged this gym in the past and nothing has been brought up..."
Eventually Gray made it through and the trio progressed into the leader's arena which was a dojo style room with a bridge in the centre of the floor, over fuchsia tinted water that looked toxic. On the golden podium ahead was the gym leader in a black martial art suit. The trio immediately recognised him as sheriff Synderfin of the Pewter Police.
"Hello and welcome you three, it's good to see you again," he spoke, "as you can see, I'm not just the sheriff of the police but also the Fuchsia city gym leader. I probably would have told you this if you didn't run off after the battle in Pewter, which I thank you for your help in by the way."
"It's a pleasure to see you again," Yob replied, still quite shocked.
"Shouldn't you be in Pewter and does this mean I'm going to have to battle your arcanine?" questioned Gray, "I don't want to do that. It's not fear, just a want for diversity. Yeah."
"The Pewter Police works region wide, we're just based in Pewter," Synder answered, "and no, I have a set team for gym battles, here I specialise in poison type Pokemon."
"Is that because you're so toxic to be around?" Gray enquired.
"Umm, what?! Urr, excuse me?"
"LOL, jk. Just Kidding. Ahh, got you good."
"Ugg, well then Gray, would you like to battle me first?"
Gray agreed and the battle was underway. Synder sent out a koffing against Gray's butterfree. Koffing used smokescreen, filling the arena with smoke. Gray screamed that he was blind. In the daze, koffing hit Butterfree hard with a sludge. However, when the smoke cleared, Butterfree got a sleep powder off onto Koffing, causing it to go to sleep and faint after repeated super effective confusions.
As Yob and Tene cheered, Synder said, "No matter, my other koffing will be victorious!"
Synder's other koffing was released and hit Butterfree with another sludge, which was enough to knock it out. Gray sent out his wartortle next, which hit the koffing with a water pulse being following through with a rapid spin. Synder ordered Koffing to start fleeing Wartortle and a chase ensued around the arena. Koffing flew over the toxic pool and wartortle tried to swim across, damaging itself, but continued on.
"Stop running! Arrg!" Gray called.
Wartortle finally caught up to Koffing, jumping on it and holding it down.
"Perfect," spoke Synder, "Koffing, use selfdestruct!"
Koffing went kaboom, sending wartortle flying and when it crashed onto the ground, it was unconscious. Synder thanked his koffing and returned it. Gray was in shock at loosing his starter like that and sent out his tauros in response. Tauros went up against Synder's Muk next and when it tried to tackle Muk, it just got stuck in its gooey body. Muk used sludge and, with no way to escape, Tauros fainted.
"Nooo! That's police brutality!" Gray called before withdrawing his final Pokemon from his belt, "You're my only hope, Diglett."
As soon as Diglett was sent out, it was hit with a sludge from Muk, who then tried to envelope Diglett it it's body, like it did to Tauros. However, Diglett used dig, going through the sludge and hiding underground before rising and striking Muk with a super effective attack. Diglett repeated this a couple times before using a magnitude that was enough to knock Muk out. After that, a white light began to glow around Diglett, who evolved into a dugtrio, much to Gray's excitement, assuming it naturally had three times the power now.
Synder sent out his final Pokemon, Weezing, which went for a sludge on Dugtrio, who dodged and used earthquake. However, the attack did not touch Weezing, due to its levitate. All Gray could do was tell Dugtrio to use stone edge, which it did to moderate success but Weezing had the high ground, and began to overpower Dugtrio. Both Pokemon were weak at this point but Weezing was ready to deliver a final blow and prepared to use sludge.
"Quick Dugtrio! Use sucker punch!" Gray called and Dugtrio quickly lunged into Weezing, before it could attack, and managed to knock it out.
Gray started dancing with joy and put his hand up to high-five Dugtrio with no success. Synder congratulated Gray and let his team heal before battling Yob, who also managed to win, primarily through stalling with his Ivysaur and chansey and using his Parasect and clefairy to deliver the hard blows.
Finally it was Tene's turn, who was also victorious. At first she tried out her new gengar but ended up using Drowzee for most of the battle. As it beat Synder's last Pokemon, Drowzee did one last weird dance before evolving in to a hypno, which brought back memories, for Tene, of the time she was kidnapped by one but was happy with her new Pokemon none the less.
"Congratulations! You all deserve this Soul badge," Synder complemented while handing them all their badge, "May we cross paths again in the future, friends."
"Wait, sheriff," Tene interrupted, "We're planning an assault on Saffron City to kick Team Rocket out. We'll be joined by Tactic, who you already know to be a skilled trainer, and from our victories just now, I hope you can say the same about us."
Gray interjected, "Yeah, really, like how are you sheriff of a police force when you manage to loose so often, or even a gym leader for that matter? I suppose I am a pretty great trainer, though."
Tene jabbed Gray in the side before continuing, "We're ready to do this but I fear we may fail without police support. Please, could you come to battle with us."
Synder hesitated for a moment, thinking about the crazy plan, before responding, "I'll be there."
If you're wondering, yes, the dialogue about the course being impossible and my lack of PvP skill are based on comments from real users. >.>
