A/N - In honor of reaching more than 100 followers; I wanted to make this special chapter for you and an additional chapter for you this week. I hope this will be enough for my gratitude to all of you. Thank you for following me and for reading my work.

Kind regards,

-Bossun

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A few days had passed as we backtracked our way towards Cerulean City. My Pokémon grew stronger as we each battled a few trainers along the way. Red was able to simultaneously hold his streak against many. While Blue had defeated many others with flying colors.

The increasing power and strength resulted in Red's male Nidoran evolving into a Nidorino; his Pokémon's second evolutionary stage. Nidorino had grown to tremendous size after that transformation. Retaining his spiky ears, while his horn had gotten sharper since that last trainer battle with short-shorts; his skills significantly improved.

Yellow was busy working on breeding his current Pokémon. Raticate, Dodo; his Doduo and his Pikachu. All were being taken care of and given a boost of health which only bolstered his Pokémon's strength even more.

As for me, I caught a few Pokémon in the wild grasslands of these routes.

I have to at least keep up with my friend Red. He's like doubled more catches than I could ever possibly outmatch.

Blue is not his only rival, battle-wise, but if he's concerned about retaining his winning streak; I can focus on my catches and Pokédex rankings to catch up to him.

These Pokémon are fresh catch, but I was uncertain if I should keep them in my party line or if I should deposit them into the PC?

I had caught a Bellsprout, a carnivorous plant creature that, according to the Pokédex in my hand; traps and eats bugs during its spare time like a flycatcher. It uses the root of its stem to absorb nutrients from within the soil.

Kinda like how my Bulbasaur would use his vines to absorb nutrients or reinforce them into the ground.

Bellsprout has a yellow bulb for a head and tiny, black beads for eyes. He uses his two leaves for arms and has a cute waddle with his stem like body that uses his roots to walk about the ground. His name was Bell.

The next catch that I was able to obtain was a Meowth. This one was a feisty bugger; he had scratched my Pokémon Angel quite profusely and would use rather dirty tactics to try and lower my defense.

He is quite a capable Pokémon and he may be a member if I feel that's best for him in particular. Meowth has the same look as the one we were trying to locate that was taken by Penny before. The name I wanted to give him was Chester.

He had that gold stadium shaped medallion on his forehead with cat spaced ears. Massive eyes and whiskers. His head was just about as big as his limbs and torso, and he had brown trimmed feet that gave him a unique appearance. His tail had curled up towards the back of his head and rarely did I ever see that tail uncurl at any given time.

Finally, my third catch of that day, which I found rather strange. Since we had previously known that we were limited in catching more than six Pokémon at a time. This one somehow disappeared out my hand.

At first I was concerned, but Red was quick to note that the reason my Poké Ball dissipated was the fact that; I already had more than six Pokémon in my party at a time. If I catch more Pokémon the Poké Ball's were programmed to be sent into cyberspace in the form of data storage. Which explains the rules set forth by the Pokémon League in contribution to Bill's PC technology. If we have more than six at a time, that would be too advantageous and a abuse of power in the rules of Pokémon battling.

However, this Pokémon that was sent to Bill's storage system was a Pidgey. A common catch that Red and Blue seemed to have already obtained and is a main player on Blue's team as Pidgeotto. This Pokémon's name was Freud.

He had a dark outline around his eyes. He was small and had cream feathers with an overwhelming brown coating around this Pokémon's body. It was nice to be able to catch a bird the second time around.

I had felt a bit better, knowing that I was in capable hands of coping with my Ornithophobia. There were times where I thought I would never be able to overcome that fear of mine with all that was happening in the world as of late. Especially, knowing the fate of my world being at the stake of a giant fiery, rainbow, Phoenix from hell.

We had finally arrived in Cerulean City. The town was just as I remembered it, festive, colorful and full of life. The glass dome like structure was the most apparent from my field of view. Everything else felt more industrial in comparison to Misty's modern Gym.

"Do you think the Bike Shop is close?" I asked the group.

"It's only a block away, I'd assume it's the smallest shop in comparison to the larger shopping centers in town." Said Blue.

"What type of bike you think we are going to get?" Asked Yellow.

"I know what my color will be." Smirked Blue as I watched him imagine his color on our approach.

"What do you think yours will look like Red?" I inquired with peculiar interest.

".... .... ...."

"Red, perhaps." Responded Red with nonchalance. 

I giggled from that response, while Blue looked at him with a face of astonishment.

"All you ever wear is red you moron!" Belittled Blue.

The boy turned towards Blue; his eyes fixed upon his narrow judgmental emeralds. He paused to consider his response.

".... .... ...."

"It's my favorite color." Said Red with a straight face.

Everyone of us couldn't help but bust a gut laughing, even if he didn't mean to be the comedian in the first place.

Blue, of course, was irritated by Red's response and decided instead to focus his attention ahead toward the shopping district.

Whenever Red would talk it was always a surprise; he carried very little physical expression more than he did verbal cues. Which was why it was funny to hear him respond with little to no emotion toward his own rival.

Must have made it easier for him to get past Blue's rude and rather belligerent sentiments towards him.

Yellow pointed toward a shop in the middle of the shopping district of the city. This building had a red cafe like awning that draped over the entrance of the shop. Several Bicycles were displayed not only on the outside but near the big entry level windows lining the door on either side. This shop was more traditional than the modern look of the Pokémon Shopping Center.

The door was green and had a eight sided window pane at the top of the door itself. The bell rested above the doors hinges, so if any of us were to walk through the shop. This bell would notify the owner that we had arrived and were ready to take a look.

The building was seventy feet wide in length from my guestimation and had a height of more than fifty feet. Though it was the smallest shop in the district in comparison to all the taller buildings around it.

This shop is really pretty.

It had all kinds of different bikes of varying styles and colors. There was one that had bent handle bars that curved upward and a basket if you needed to store Pokémon or items that were difficult to carry all on foot. This one had black and white tires and had a light blue color.

I want that one! I signaled with a shimmer, observing the cute classic body with longing interest.

"Well should we go in?" Inquired Yellow.

We all nodded in response, this shop was the only thing that we needed in order to make our rounds to the next Route ahead. We approached our way toward the door, Blue had reached in to open the hinge. Swinging it open as the golden bell above us made a chime that would wake a sleeping Snorlax.

The inside of this shop was nice and warm, especially since winter was upon us. It was cozier to be in this building than it was making the trek outside from the Routes we traveled from.

There were so many bikes in this shop. Sport bikes with a nice shade of red base color and accented, blue and yellow lightning bolt decal. This one seemed to fit more into Red's sleek, sporty style.

Another bike I inspected, was next to his in the shade of sacramento, green color and had a more modern look to it. The bike to the left of it had front level handle bars, a clutch mount on the left and a break lever on the right. All of these bikes came with that feature, of course, but this one had a different color. A pineapple, yellow stood out like a sore thumb in the aisle row.

The Shopkeeper in the establishment took a moment before he noticed all four of us enter into the shop to observe his product around us.
Reading a piece of newspaper in his hand; he instantly dropped the parchment and started to recite his opening statement to us new customers.

"Hi, welcome to the Cerulean City Bike Shop, you all have the choice of picking either a Plain City Bike or a Mountain Bike!" Gruffed the middle aged man with a black receding hairline.

"Uh, we were thinking of having a Mountain Bike—

"Perfect choice, that will be one million PokéDollars!"

"Wait-wait, that's too much!" I shouted.

"Excuse me!" Furrowed Blue.

"..... ..... ....." Slumped Red.

"Are bikes really that expensive?" Shirked Yellow.

"Nonsense! That's about how much it costs to purchase these amazing vehicles in the first place! We refurbish them more than twice a day and keep them in pristine mechanical condition."

That was unexpected, we just got free vouchers from the Pokémon Fan Club Chairman to obtain a new one. There had to be a mix up on the expectations of Pokémon Trainers arriving for the goods?

"Well that's nice, have we just been swindled from the Chairman, Leaf?" Snorted Blue in disgust toward my direction. His arms folded up against my better judgment.

"But, we don't have that kinda money, we barely can make more than a thousand PokéDollars let alone ten thousand." I asserted.

"Then I am afraid you'll have to save up your money and come back for the bikes some other time. I got to make a living too, you know.

"W-wait! What about these voucher tickets?" I shouted in desperation while swiftly pulling out mine. Stuffing the thing in front of his nose to verify the Bikes we had come to collect were ours for the taking.

Everyone else, among the group had pulled out their tickets in unison and presented it to the Shop Clerk with haste. We had to be sure that our vouchers were valid, otherwise, we would be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The man sighed from all of us pulling out those voucher tickets. He seemed rather disappointed that we weren't customers looking to purchase the bikes at the full price tag he offered.

"Unfortunately, I'll accept those tickets. It seems like you both want to register for the Pokémon Bike Racing Contest, am I correct on that?"

We all nodded in answer to his question, hoping that we could obtain the items that we needed. I was sure that if we didn't get the item and register for the contest; we would have a long rugged journey through the rocky terrain ahead.

"Ugh, alright, I'd rather you guys buy my bikes instead of having the Chairman of the fan club handing out vouchers like candy. Go ahead and pick whichever one you'd like on the aisle along the wall." He gestured with a point toward the back inventory. Motioning for the three of them to grab their meal of the day.

"I noticed that you had an interest in the bike at the front young lady? Would you like to come outside and take a look at it?" He asked.

My eyes sparkled with glee from his question. I couldn't help but nod with excitement that all I could really say to him was this.

"Yes! I would be honored."

The man lead the way from around his desk toward the front of the shop. Opening the door for me to go on ahead of him.

"Ladies first." He smiled with kindness.

"Thank you." I beamed.

The Shopkeeper motioned me toward the sky, blue colored bike that I had initially observed when I arrived on location. Upon further observation, it had a body that was detachable and could be folded to even fit inside the mold of your backpack. Not only that, this Bicycle had a classic look to it. Which sort of fit my style, it was simply retro. It had a rear and front rim surrounding a portion of the tires. The wheels tread was thicker in comparison to the bikes on the floor. It had a headlamp, with a squeaker horn on the front and a tail light in the back. It was certainly street grade.

Why did he want me to look at this one?

"I can usually tell when a lass like yourself is looking to find a ride that is you. It's a bond that I sense between man and machine. In all my years of working in an establishment like this. I can usually tell who is connected to which product I own in this shop."

"I, I do want this one, but.... It's not a Mountain Bike grade."

"Doesn't need to be, in fact this thing will get you to where you need to go lickity-split without the need for an exchange or an upgrade. You see this thing can be both a Plain City ride and a Mountain ride if you treat her right."

"Are you okay with letting me take this one? This one seems to be a premium sell and it's antique?.." I asked with softness.

"Nonsense! I know good taste when I see one and it makes my day to help a customers bond more than it is about the sale. Keep the Bicycle, she's earned you; more than you earned her."

I was at a loss for words, I couldn't express how appreciative I was for allowing this kind person to let me take this bike from off his hands. There are good people in a world full of hustle and bustle. There was nothing else that I could express to him other than my humble gratitude for giving me such a wonderful device to use as transport for the journey ahead.

"Thank you so much, I'll take good care of her for you Mr. Shopkeeper."