Chapter 18:  The Long Road Ahead (Part A) by Michael Keens/ Exodus  

Morning came, we woke up in the Cerulean Pokémon Centre, today would be a long 
walk to get to the Rock Tunnel, then it would take even longer to find our way 
through.  
I had already chosen to take Twinkill, Needle, Pollen, Flutter, Psychot and 
Digda for this trip.  
Digda and Flutter hadn’t really been used since I got them and I had to use 
Digda after going through the trouble of catching him.  
Emily made some minor changes to her team too.  
It would probably take a day’s walk to get to the Rock Tunnel, so we made a 
start at it early.  
“Em’ its gonna take a couple of days until we reach the next town, you got 
enough supplies?”  
“Sure thing, Tet’” she said cheerfully.  
We set out and spent half a day of walking, enjoying the peace, which would 
undoubtedly be broken any time now.  
“Hey!”  
I knew it.  
“Would you like a Pokémon Battle, I’m a beginner and I need my Pokémon to fight 
and get stronger.” said a kid with short orange curtain hair.  
“Beginner, eh? Okay then, two-on-two battle? I’ll use some of my newest 
Pokémon.”  
“Okay, I choose Shellder!”  
“Go Digda!”  

“Shellder, the Bivalve Pokémon.  Its hard shell can withstand practically any 
attack, it is vulnerable only while its shell is open.  Shellder hides on the 
sea floor and catches prey with its soft tongue.”  

“You used that Diglett, what sort of decision is that?” asked Emily surprised.  
“This is only a friendly battle, Emily, and if Digda never battles anyone 
outside his type advantage, he won’t get stronger very fast...  Don’t worry, 
Digda and I have been training when you weren’t looking...”  
“Water and Ice beats Ground, this’ll be easy.  Shellder, use your Aurora 
Beam!”  
“Shell-Der!” it shouted in a high pitched voice, its eyes and tongue disappeared 
into its shell, then the multi-coloured beam blasted out, it was an Ice attack 
and that would do maximum damage if Digda didn’t avoid it.  
“Digda, Dig underground!”  
“Dig g’ lett, Dig g’ lett...” said a muffled voice from below, the beam 
completely missed.  
“Shellder, um...  Withdraw...” said the kid a little nervous.  
The Shellder disappeared into its shell which closed up, twenty seconds passed 
and nothing happened, the Shellder opened up and took a peek at what was taking 
so long.  
“Now!” I shouted.  
“Dig g’ lett Dig!” shouted Digda bursting out of the ground and sending the 
Shellder flying.  
“Shellder, Clamp it with your shell!”  
“Digda, Sand Attack!”  
The Shellder was closing in, Digda waited for a moment then sunk its head down 
and brought it back up scraping the ground and forcing dust upwards, the 
Shellder flew down, not able to see.  
“Okay, finish it with Slash attack.”  
“Diglett!”  
Digda flew at the Shellder and a scraping sound occurred, I had no idea how a 
Diglett could perform the move but I assumed it had something sharp on its 
lower body that no one ever saw.  
The Shellder fell down defeated.  
“But... I had the type advantage...”  
“Kid, I learned it the hard way too, you have to put type differences aside 
sometimes, Pokémon’s natural abilities and their physical shape can affect a 
match greatly.”  
“Okay, I choose Omastar!”  
“Omastar?!...”  
“STAR!”  

“Omastar, the Spiral Pokémon.  It is one of the supposedly extinct Pokémon, it 
has sharp beaks around its mouth but its overly-large heavy shell makes it 
quite sluggish.”  

“I don’t know where you got that from but things will get interesting now.”  
“Omastar, use your Spike Cannon!”  
“Digda, try your Earthquake.”  
“Dig... lett!”  
Digda sunk underground and I could feel the quakes forming.  
“Omastar, leap up and fill the cracks with your Water Gun.”  
“OMA... STAR!”  
The ground burst and shards of rock flew upwards, the Omastar was already up in 
the air and shot the water down, the holes were soon filled up.  
“Diiiiggg!!!” I heard, and Digda appeared elsewhere, weakened.  
“Don’t worry, you did a good job Digda, Return.  You’re learning kid, that was 
great, now I’ll use Flutter, Go!”  
“Freeefreeee!” shouted the Butterfree, I had already seen what this Pokémon 
could do.  
“Flutter, use your Sleep Powder.”  
“Omastar, Withdraw!”  
It did so immediately and the dust had no effect.  
“Okay, Omastar, use your-”  
We were all interrupted by Flutter’s immediate Supersonic, affecting Omastar 
straight after he opened up.  
“Flutter, I didn’t tell you to-”  
“Free!” said Flutter decisively as if to say ‘It worked, didn’t it? I know what 
I’m doing!’  
I didn’t take Abby for a cheating type, but she did play a couple of tricks in 
the last battle, could that have rubbed off on this Butterfree?  
“Well since you’ve taken initiative, finish it with a Psybeam!”  
“Freeeeeeee!!!”  
A huge multicoloured beam shot out of his antennas and blasted the Omastar 
back, it wasn’t quite ready to go down.  
“Spike Cannon!”  
Its horns blasted off and quickly grew back, Flutter was hit, it suddenly 
glared at the Omastar and flew forwards, flapping its wings almost violently, 
the Omastar flew backwards and its face hit the floor.  
“Tackle it Flutter.”  
“Freeee!”  
One more clash and the Omastar stayed down.  

“Omastar...  I lost again.”  
“Don’t get down kid.  I’ve got a lot of experience and you battled great.  
You’re well on your way to stepping outside of learning type differences and 
beginning to use other aspects to win.  I’m sorry about my Butterfree, that 
initiative thing seems to rubbed off from its former trainer, but you might 
have beaten me if it wasn’t for that.”  
“You mean Abby’s a cheat.” said Emily rudely, I didn’t see why she still 
disliked the girl, it must have been the clash in their personalities still.  
“No, of course not.”  
“Well she tried to cheat me, remember?”  
“Yeah, but she needed to see if you were ready for tricks, cos bad guys 
wouldn’t give us a second chance.”  
Emily’s eyes rolled back and she turned away, she really didn’t like Abby.  
“Where are you headed, kid?”  
“The Pokémon Centre at Rock Tunnel.  I’m meeting some friends there.”  
“Do you have any badges?”  
“Not yet, that’s why I stayed here, to battle trainers passing by.”  
“Do you need any help with your Pokémon, I might be able to offer advice.”  
“Well sure.”  
“But why don’t we do it on the move?”  
“Okay then.”  
“I’m Tetsubo and this is Emily, what’s your name?”  
“Ryan.”  
“Tetsubo, about Abby.” interrupted Emily, “Why do you keep sticking up for her 
when you don’t even get any gratitude for it?”  
“If you must know, I’m worried about her, she doesn’t seem to have any friends, 
and back in the Safari Zone, the one that looked like her, was really startled 
when I called out to her, perhaps she changed a little after that.”  
“Okay then.”  
“Emily, why don’t you like me being around her?”  
“What?...  I, er...  What do you mean?” panicked Emily.  
“I mean, you’re always trying to come between us, I only want to be friends 
with her, if anything.”  
“What are you implying?”  
“Never mind.  Let’s get going...”  

End of Chapter 18A  

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Chapter 18B
Back to Story List #1 - #20 
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