Pokemon The Novel: Next Generation

Chapter 9: Their First Gym Badge

After leaving Pallet Town for a few days, the girls set up camp and caught a few Pokemon except Crystal, who instead catches Water types like her mother, Misty. However, she still fills up the Pokedex for Professor Gary; during their camping, Crystal is happily fishing at the lake until she hears one of her sisters yelling, telling her to come for food, which she sighs in annoyance. Still, her finishing rod caught a Pokemon, and she struggled to pull it out. "HEY, HELP ME OUT HERE," she yells for her sister's aid. Mizu and Yellow rushed to Crystal's aid. As they reached the sight, they saw Crystal finally pull out her finishing rod and out came a Red Gyarados. It roared, coming out of the water and scaring the three siblings. Without knowing what was going on, the Gyarados whisker tapped onto Crystal's Pokeball, and she caught it with all three of them with a dumbfounded look on their faces. "So...I caught the Legendary Red Gyarados...Heh...Heh...Heh." she says, trying to wrap her head around current events. "Lucky," says Mizu with an annoying face to her sister. After they all calmed down after their current encounter, the siblings returned to their camp and enjoyed Yellow's cooking after being taught by Misty for their planned journey. Then, five minutes later, they get a phone call from Crystal's PokePhone. She brings it out of her pocket, only to have her face pale at seeing who is phoning her. "Um...Mother is calling," she says in a shaken tone, but Yellow takes her phone off her as she answers it.

Yellow sweat drops put her sister's phone on a loudspeaker, and the other two place their heads on each side of Yellow's shoulders. "Um...HI!?!." They all say infusion, but then their eardrums get destroyed by Misty's yelling attack (super effective, too), "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAUGHT LEGENDARY THE RED GYARADOS." She then paused to let her daughter explain how she caught it. "Um...I went fishing...Hehe." she says nervously, sweats dropping while her sisters are also sweating from the sudden outburst from Misty. "You fished out a Gyarados?." she asked her daughter, very confused. "Um...Yeah, Mother, I did," said Crystal, trying to get out of her little shock from her mother. "You're lucky...Not everyone gets that chance, even what you caught," she says. Then she tells her daughter she's proud of her step-daughters for the Pokemon they've caught. With the girls happy to know that Misty is proud of them, they go on their continuous journey the next day, and finally, they all reach Pweter City for their first badge, but as they get to the edge of the city, they bump into Manny who was waiting on them while he was there. All three ran up to their brother, but when Manny noticed them, he slowly started to walk, only to be knocked off his feet by his sisters as they embraced each other. "HAHA!!, Okay, I've missed you three too." he says. Then, he and his sisters get back on their feet and start catching up about their journey. Manny is impressed by their stories but surprised by Crystal's finishing story, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'VE CAUGHT THE LEGENDARY RED GYARADOS?" he shouts, almost catching other people's attention. "Haha...Mama Misty had the same reaction," says Yellow, who couldn't help but laugh at Manny's reaction, followed by some chuckling and snickering from Mizu and Crystal, but Macechu was rolling on the ground laughing too hard.

After everyone has calmed down from Manny's reaction, they all head for the Pokemon Centre to stay for tonight. Manny explained that the gym leader had a lot of people today and wouldn't take on any other challengers until tomorrow. In contrast, they have a day for themselves. Manny suggests training before their first gym battle, and the girls agree to the idea as they follow their brother to a clearing for some training. They all trained hard, and even though Crystal only had two water Pokemon while her sisters had a few, they didn't use their strongest Pokemon when they sparred with Crystal. After a day of spending time like a family again and so much training, they all went to the Pokemon Centre to leave their Pokemon there to heal. They all spend the rest of the remaining day going out for dinner, but while heading for a restaurant, they bump into Commander Mars by mistake from Crystal as she was too busy talking to her family about who goes up against the gym leader first. "Oh...It's my lucky day. It's Ash's four offspring." Mars says as she has her hands on her hips and is ready to tell Crystal to watch where she is going until she sees who bumps into her. "Wait...!" says Manny as she looks closer at Mars. "Your Commander Mars?." he says in a questionable tone, then she nods, saying yes, "Before you four say anything, no, we're not catching Pokemon nor doing anything evil. We've been reformed after Ash stopped my former boss," she says, crossing her arms and saying her words in a severe tone, surprising the others and looking dumbfounded at the same time.