Brass gasped in horror.

It could not be true!!

No! No! Noooo!

…

But it was, Steel and Galvin already had their badges! Steel’s badge was pinned to the strap of her backpack and Galvin was cleaning his hexagon shaped badge, the boy placed it into the sterling silver badge case and pocketed the cloth he was using for cleaning. A smirk crossed Galvin’s face.

“Hey Brass, what’s taking you so long? We got our badges, how about you?”

“Uh,” the brunette boy shifted his eyes about. “I totally got it. Yeah.”

“Good, well Steel and I are going out to the Museum. Have fun by yourself.” the duo exited the PokeCenter with Steel waving, leaving Brass to sweat in peace. 

Badge! He had to get his badge soon! It wasn’t like they were going to leave with out him… but still he needed to get one ASAP! Brass rushed up to the counter, Nurse Joy bowed respectfully and accepted his Pokémon. A few minutes later she returned his pokéballs to him.

“We hope to see you again!” the woman bowed once more. Brass was always disturbed by that statement the nurse gave as she retuned the Pokémon to their trainers. Was she really hoping for their Pokémon to get hurt? It was work for her but still; it’s kind of morbid to hear that.

The boy walked out of the center knowing he was screwed. He only had a Charmander and a Clefairy; against Brock’s Pokémon he wouldn’t do any good. Flaming Billy was a fire type and fire wasn’t truly affective against rock, Clefa Star’s metronome could produce effective results but was unreliable. Still, he had heard that a Charmander could learn skull bash or steel claw… Both of those would be affective against the rock Pokémon, the next question was where would he train? He couldn’t go in the forest; well it was more of a he WOULDN’T. The suddenly recalled a patch of grass, Brass immediately ran off to train.

Yes! It would be perfect! There wouldn’t be a bug in the grass at al-

That was until a lone Weedle popped its head out of the tall grass, Brass shrieked and commanded Flamin Billy to burn the bug, which he complied with. With his job done the salamander looked up to his trainer eager to do more combat and burning of things. Brass sighed it was the best he could do, at least it wasn’t crawling with bugs like the forest.

And so Brass began his rigorous training efforts, training both Clefa Star and Flaming Billy, slapping down his foes and burning them. Trainers that passed by gave the boy a questioning look as he cried out hysterically whenever a low-level bug Pokémon popped out of the grass.

He later returned to the Pokémon Center, but his friend had not returned, it seemed they weren’t kidding, they really went to the museum after all.

.
..
…
..
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Steel pressed her face against one of the many glass cases; her eyes sparkled, inside the cases were dulled evolutionary stones and fossilized remains of Pokémon. Positioned next to the fossils were artistic renderings of the diseased Pokémon. With out tearing her eyes away from the case she grabbed Galvin and dragged him over.

Her finger excitedly jabbed at the glass before a Helix fossil, a fossil that looked very much like a curled shell of sorts, and the accompanying picture of a small pale blue creature that had many tiny tentacles and huge yellow eyes with giant gaping black pupils, on its back was a matching shell.

“Isn’t it cute?!” Steel swooned

“It’s not my kind of thing, but kind of…” She gave him a look that crossed annoyance and rage, she then attempted to hug the glass case.

“Oh what I would do to hug one of these and place it upon my team with love and joy…” she sighed contently. Galvin glanced to one of the security guards; he just looked at the two of them oddly. Galvin nudged his friend, Steel looked up at him and blinked, he pointed to the guard leading her to a realization of the silliness she was doing. Steel stood up stiffly and waved at the man. He just stared.

“Don’t do that again…” Galvin sighed.

“Aw!!! But I wanted an Omystar!”

“Alright, but hugging museum artifacts isn’t good. I’m pretty sure it counts as an illegal act.” The girl huffed and crossed her arms.

“I was hugging the case not the fossil…” she grumbled, Galvin placed a hand on her head and sighed.

“You know what I mean…”

“Humph! I’ll get an Omystar one day! Just you wait!” Galvin just sighed and dragged the girl off to a different part of the museum.

Back with their Entomophobia friend Brass, he completed his training and walked to the gym with a proud grin on his face, as for behind him was a Charmeleon equipped with the attack Steel Claw. He pushed open the door and gazed upon the gym, there were two paths carved out of stone, one leading straight forward to Brock but that path was protected by the gym leader’s only trannie or lackey, heck Brass didn’t know, but the other path lead straight to Brock without anyone blocking his way.

Brass knew what he must do; clearly it was to take the path right to Brock. The boy approached the gym leader, he pointed to the Gym leader, who was sitting on the floor crisscross.

“Brooooock!!!” the man didn’t even bother to look up

“You don’t have to yell, I’m right here.” Brock stated bored, he pulled himself to his feet and dusted his green cargo pants. “So, let us begin!”

Pokémon Trainer Brass vs. Gym Leader Brock

“Sweet!! Flamin Billy go!!” the two trainers threw pokéballs, a floating rock took centerfield before Brock and a red salamander with a bump on the back of its head stood before Brass, it waved its sharp talons at its opponent to threaten it.

“Start off with a Steel Claw!” the right arm and talons of the Pokémon glowed silver, in seconds they became steel plated and smashed right into the face of the rock Pokémon. The Geodude went flying and crashed right into the ground, but Brock’s Pokémon was hovering once more in seconds, and leader and Pokémon nodded at each other. Geodude already knew the plan; it quickly swooped down and scooped up some rocks.

“Geodude! Use Rock Throw!” The rock launched its ammo to the salamander who did all he could to avoid the rocks but unfortunately he was pegged on his head and buried under stones cutting a huge chunk of the Pokémon’s health.

“Flaming Billy!!!” Brass cried in horror. Did his Pokémon faint? Was it critically hurt? Brock smirked.

“You should have thought this plan through, using a fire type against my ground and rock Pokémon!” Brass lowered his head in shame. It was all over now…

Suddenly Flaming Billy burst from the pile of stones, sending them flying around the arena. Brass grinned.

“Billy!! You’re alive!!!” the Pokémon snorted smugly. “Alright! Steel Claw again!!!” Flaming Billy dived down for the attack and struck Geodude once more, this time knocking it out. Geodude fell to the ground with a loud thud, Billy returned to his trainer, causally flicking his flaming tail about.

“You were lucky with your Charmeleon, but I’d like to see it to sand up to Onix!!” Brock let out his last Pokémon, a giant snake composed of stones. It leaned down and let out a fierce roar. Brass gulped, he shook his head. No time for fear! This Onix must be kocked down!

“Flamin Billy, go for the kill! Steel Claw!”

“Onix, Dig!” the stone snake dove into the ground head first, easily creating a tunnel for himself. Brass flinched. This was not good! Brock’s Onix could be anywhere under their feet, and it could strike from anywhere and they wouldn’t even know it!!

The Pokémon clearly took this to its advantage; it burst from the ground and held Flamin Billy in a tight hold not allowing the Pokémon to brake free. Brock smirked as Onix squeezed tighter on its pray.

Brass clenched his jaw; he had to think of something fast. He panicked and shouted an unlikely attack.

“Ember!!!” Flames spewed and lapped Onix in its face, causing it to drop the Charmeleon. “It worked…?” Brass grinned “Alright it worked! Now hit it hard with a Steel Claw!” Flaming Billy struck, he nailed its target in the head and landing a critical hit.

Onix fainted!

Brock stared wide-eyed. Brass ran across the field to hug his Pokémon with pride.

“You did it Flaming Billy!!! We won!” Brock chuckled.

“Seems so and as proof of your victory,” the gym leader walked up to Brass and placed a gym badge of his own into the hand of the boy. Overjoyed Brass took the badge and ran right out of the building, making a beeline to the museum to show it off to his friends.

Unfortunately for him, they already left the museum.