Gerbils!

---

I'm bored of this town. Granted, I haven't explored much of it yet, but it's so senior-citizen-y that I don't think I can take much more of it.

The exit is blocked by a lake. Simple enough; I can just get Flagrant to swim me across! I toss her into the lake and grab hold - and we both immediately sink. She has no trouble breathing under the water, but I'm a human and I don't have the means. Sputtering, I climb back onto the shore. I sit on the ground with my back to a tree and hit the back of my head against it in frustration.

And out falls a grinning monkey. I don't want this to be on the team. I really don't. I want to capture it and force it to live miserably inside my computer until some actual Y2K happens.

Justice is so sweet. And for this, Flagrant, I forgive you for being unable to swim like every other fish.

So I guess it's a demented monkey-opossum? I can't stare into its eyes for too long without feeling a horrible sense of dread...

[Boxed!]

I'm obviously not going to get anywhere this way, so I head back to the town. There was something the locals were mentioning about two towers that were once the roosts of legendary Pokémon, except one was burned into rubble and the other was off-limits to the public.

I guess I know which one this is.

The inside is pretty much what I could have expected. A charred wooden floor with holes in it, a bunch of boulders for some reason, a devilishly attractive red-head...

...! Again? Really? Knabbs, you card. You're clearly stalking me by this point. And I like it.

He says something about the legendary Pokémon that supposedly still live here. He tells me that he should be the one they wake up to, because he's so obviously much more talented than I am. Yeah, sure. We'll see.

You should get a haircut, Knabbs. And you should send me the clippings. All of them.

Nyuh? Battle? Oh, all right...

His team is largely the same as before with a couple replacements that are likely just evolutions. This seems to be the foul-mouthed ball of gas he had before.

And this was once the squashed rodent. Admittedly, it's sort of cool now... Nowhere near as cool as Garrison, of course...

I defeat Knabbs easily and he leaves in the same grumpy fashion as always. If he hates me so much, why do I keep seeing him everywhere? Perhaps he is unwittingly intrigued by my greatness. Ha-ha. You will see things my way some day.

The tower, while pitfall-ridden, is easy to traverse. The worst I have to deal with is fat guys in clown suits.

...I'm not going to make a joke here. I must preserve my integrity.

On a kid-friendly note, why is he looking so pale now? I couldn't have actually killed him, could I? Oh well. Let's see what that item over there is. I walk carefully towards it, taking note of the pitfall. I'm about to reach it, but Garrison suddenly gets spooked at a particularly spooky rock and pushes me sideways. I suddenly feel a lack of floor.

Ow... Good thing I've been through this treatment before at the Ruins of Alph and I'm used to it... This must be the tower's underground basement. I look around a while and don't see anything particularly interesting. I'm about to head for the ladder back up to the main floor when I hear a low growl behind me. Three huge, shadowy figures loom down on me. But as I look closer, it seems they're just statues.

Until they suddenly glow with life and race out of the cave all around me, that is. Excuse me; I'm going to go lie down for a while.

Or I guess I'll tackle the gym. Gyms are comforting places. Besides that ordeal with the hell-cow, they've all been pretty much serene.

I walk inside. It's just a number of old people standing on a big black floor. This should be a piece of -

...There's that lack-of-floor sensation again.

Oh, what? And it somehow drops me to the beginning? Ughhh. I need to find some answers.

I go as carefully as I can across the trick floor, making note each time I fall of where there's actually floor and where there isn't. Eventually I reach someone willing to talk.

But she seems to be having her own problems at the moment. Her team is easy to take care of (just more ghosts like the one Knabbs owns), and upon defeating her, a deep guttural voice from something inside her spits this out:

At first I take this to mean that she and her resident possession can actually see the path, but then I realize it's much more literal than that. The path extends in front of where all these old folks are facing. With this in mind and with my nimble-as-a-hare-on-steroids feet, I reach the leader in no time.

By appearances, I'm guessing he's a morbid hippie. His team must be all ghosts. Ghosts aren't the toughest Pokémon I've faced, but not all of my team members can actually damage them efficiently. This is going to be the greatest battle of my life so far!

It's... over? I must have fallen asleep. Oh well.*

*[Note from real-life Frez: Ahhhh-ha, whoops. I completely forgot to take any screenshots of this battle. And it was actually pretty intense, with Flitwick pulling all of the weight in the end. Won't happen again, for srs.]

With my new badge, I supposedly gain the right to use my Pokémon to ferry me across water, provided they've been taught the proper technique. I'm told that a man in the dance theater has access to the technique, but I'll have to properly impress him.

This is the theater, huh? Looks a bit on the small side. Inside, there's a rather distinguished gentleman watching five kimono dancers on a stage. He has a Pokémon with him that looks to be an upright dinosaur-rhinoceros hybrid. He says if I can beat all of his girls in battle, he'll give me the surf technique.

They don't seem too menacing. I mean come on, they're just five girls in fancy dresses.

They actually are adequately challenging, and each of their Pokémon bears a resemblance to each other. And come to think of it, they kind of look like mutated Wilsons.

So many mutations... Does this mean I could get a toxic Wilson if I were to dip him in a cess pool? Or could I get a cheese-element Wilson?

The gentleman breaks me from my muse and gives me a disc. I recognize its quality - it must be as durable as Flash and Cut. All of the others have broken upon use, but not those two.

Fear me, mortals, for I now have the capacity to traverse water! No one is safe.

NEXT TIME: Some out"rage"ous things happen! Dip me in butter and roll me in bread crumbs!