Liberty is the same about her own order of food (sharing it, that is). Orders do arrive and food is had. Soon after, though, Liberty smiles and stands. "Well I'm ready when you guys are!"

Scene flip:
The group arrives at the rock gym. There is some kid waiting there near the entrance. He smirks. "You can't hope to face the gym leader unless you can defeat my Pokémon! Now which one of you is planning to try my skills first?"

Battle music ensues!

"How do you expect to grow stronger if you don't fight?" Buzzkill asked in surprise.

When the rock gym kid throws down the gauntlet, Humphrey busts out of his pokeball and answers, "That would be me!"

"Buzzkill, I choose you!" Jake says, throwing the appropriate pokeball.

"Wait, what?!"

Out pops the weedle.   "Buzzkill!"

"But..."

"Buzzkill!  Trip 'em up with your silk strands attack!"

"But..."

"Bonzai!"

"Hey!  I'm really good at fighting rock types!"

"Yes," Jake answers, "And your teammates are good at helping you win."

"I don't really need the help.  I can handle this myself!"

"There's no 'I' in 'team.'"

"...Huh?"

  "While I won't say you couldn't beat this guy yourself,  it's a little more questionable if you could beat all of them yourself Humphrey."

  "Pidge, these idiots won't even know what an accuracy stat is when I'm done with them.

Because the "trainer at the entrance of a gym" is just someone to throw XP at the players and/or serve as a warm-up before the REAL fight, Jake wins without much effort.

"Wow... looks like I underestimated you! I need to train harder!" the trainer exclaims and runs off.

Before you all is Brock the Rock, leader of the Pewter City gym. "Welcome to my gym." Brock says, "You all are going to need to decide who goes first."

Liberty looks at her friends. "Say... I have a thought. We each take turns being first at the gyms. Jake and I are the same age, so maybe we go by last name?" she realizes that would put her last, but she just wants to be fair and she would go first eventually.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:07, Tue 21 Jan 2014.

"I... wasn't saying I could take on the whole gym..." Humphrey answered bashfully.

"If you like I could give some...  advice," Jake said to his quickly disappearing opponent before addressing his allies, "Boy.  He sure left in a hurry.  I get the feeling he didn't know plant types are strong against rock types."

He nods to Lib.

"Taking turns sounds fair.  I'd recommend Megazurd's team first if we want the highest chance of success."

  "Looks like it." He's a bit hazy on if they get to share badges or something, but hey going first is a change of pace for his more reactionary tendencies when it comes to the whole BATTLE CRITTERS thing.

  Max shrugs, "Guess I'll enjoy the show."

  Joe looks to Brock, the eyeless wonder.  "Seems like I'm going to be taking you on first, so far as me standing here offering moral support counts there."

  Superbird wing salutes, and steps up first.  "Operation Huge Jerk is go, Pidge.  Avenge my concussion induced fainting."    "I guess, don't go down on the first swing and embarrass yourself or anything."  Megasaurd drones as the bird gets ready to do two things, dodge slow rock idiots as much as possible, and spam accuracy debuffs until it gets old or he takes a boulder to the face.

Brock waits for Joe to enter the arena and then begins the match. "Geodude! Dig!" and his geodude burrows into the ground! Brock folds his arms. "Pokémon battles are not always about what type is better, but also about strategy. No plant type can attack a Pokémon who used dig until it comes back to the surface."

Jake can't help but think on the more practical uses of "dig" than avoiding attacks.  Mining, tilling soil for agriculture, excavating foundations for new buildings, tunneling for highways....

"As useful as that ability is, it does have it's limitations."

Pokemon who can fly can dodge it then immediately retaliate for example.  Leech seed continues to work for another.  Jake's Pokemon cheer Superbird on.

  Joe looks to Megasaurd and asks "Is he right about that?"  The bulbasaur shrugs, "That depends on if we go by common sense logic, or video game logic."  That Dragoon jumped!  Now how is that flying helicopter supposed to shoot him!?

  Superbird manages to fly and facewing at the same time.  "Chirp, he stole my idea about being annoying.  How dare he."

Jake is forgetting something; Geodudes don't have feet and hove aloft. Which means when this geodude bursts from the ground, he dashes at the face-winged Superbird.

Liberty is tense as she watches the fight, hoping for her friend's victory.

"Watch out, Superbird!" Joey warns.

"It's not against the rules to warn our friend... about something he was expecting anyway... is it?" Jake asks.

  Superbird drops like a rock, which narrowly avoids the rock, sent by Brock, we are running this into the ground, which is often made or rock.

  "Pidge, Superbird used being cooler than you.  Geodude's accuracy fell, but it wasn't very good to begin with."

Brock says, "Sockem! Rollout!" and with that, Geodude then begins rollin' like a boulder at Superbird. And will continue to do so several times, hit accuracy and damage increasing with each attempt by a factor of 2.

Liberty glances at Jake, "I... think it's OK? Maybe?"

"Ugh, rollout!" Humphrey groans, "Your only chance now is to knock him out fast before he gains momentum."

"That would discribe most of these battles," Jake comments.

  "Oh, well that's not good.  You want to back out now or take one for the tea-"  "SUPERBIRD WAS PIDGING CALLED BACK SWEET PIDGING PIDGE! "  It was rather bizarre watching the Geodude 'roll' After the bird flying up by the ceiling, but Joe yoinks Superbird out of the way with his hardly used Pokeball right before they can get flattened against a florescent light (Rock and Electric at the same time, that would really suck for a bird).

  "Guess I am up then, this could sting a bit."  Megasaurd walks into battle, as the Geodude's cumlative attack power slams into his face.  "Or not.  Type differences are a censored, aren't they Rocky." The Bulbasaur drones (somewhat muffled by the rock pokemon fist), as he goes to vine whip grab it's arms, intent on seeing if you can spin a rock type hard enough to make it puke pebbles.

Brock's geodude gets hit. Vine whip is super effective and takes a 3rd of geodude's hp. But rollout continues and hits twice as hard as before! ....thankfully, it will only be able to attack one more time after this.

Liberty is holding her fingers to her mouth, looking anxious and nervous.

Brock says, "The battle isn't over yet!"

The geodude didn't puke pebbles. But the fact he's still using rollout is just a testament to that power... or its users.

Humphrey is excited now that Megazaurd is in the fight.  "Vine whip!  That'll teach 'im!"

And when vine whip is used, "Yeah!"

"I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be Megazaurd's human giving the tactical..." Jake begins.

And when vine whip is used, "Well... I guess I was wrong."

"You got 'im right where you want 'im!  You can let his roll out pull you in to add momentum to your headbutt!"

  "Well, Megasaurd used vine whip on his own before any advice so why say no to a good thing?"  This said as he pops open Superbird's ball, the Pidgey landing on his shoulder.

  "I guess I could do that.  Or I could do this instead of smashing my face into a rock."  Is s Mule Kick even a move in Pokemon?  Cause Megasaurd is totally going for that instead of headbutting a boulder, even with type differences involved.

Another third of HP taken. Then geodude's rollout hits maximum damage! Should Megasaurd get hit with it, that will hurt rather badly.

Liberty says, "You're doing great! Just hang in there!"

Brock says nothing as he inwardly braces for geodude's defeat.

Jake is surprised Brock hasn't used a healing potion yet but figures he must be bound by league regs to not use items during badge battles.

"A potion might not be a bad idea right now."

"Awesome!" Humphrey cheers, "Did Megazurd just invent a new move?!  We're witness to history in the making, everyone!"

Joey headshakes.  "Pokemon can fight with more than just what's on a moves list."

"Really?  I didn't know that," Jake says.

"Yeah.  But generally anything not on the move list is usually weaker than what is.  I can wag my tail, but until I learn the move, wagging my tail won't do much of anything in combat."

  Megausaurd learned Flavor Text, the audience is confused.  The Audience hurt itself in confusion, that can't be good for our show ratings.

  Joe knows the Bulbasaur is doing well overall, but he somewhat suspect victory will also involve Brock [airquotes]fighting kids younger than he is[/airquotes] and going easy on them.  Unless they don't, and his Dad is right about things like that Gym full of Ninja's being made up of a bunch of wusses.

  Either way, Vine whip strikes again.

The geodude goes down. Brock then calls out ONIX! So... flying boulder about 2 feet in diameter replaced by 15-foot tall rock snake monster.

Liberty gulps... she had never seen an Onix in person before.

Jake's eyes go wide and he staggers back several steps with a gasp.  Knowing all the nerdy data on Onyx didn't prepare him for meeting one in person.  Joey scurries to stand protectively in front of his humans.  More to calm them down than for any worry that they're in any danger.

"Rock on!" humphrey cheers, "Get 'im, Megazurd!  The bigger they are, the harder they fall!"

  Well of course a Gym leader would have at least more than one pokemon.  The question now is Megasaurd dealing with both of them.  At the very least, leech seed should help drag out a loss if it doesn't make the monotone plant more likely to win.

The Onyx charges at Magazurd, letting out a roar that shakes the arena! Brock isn't giving commands, it seems.

Liberty is calmed a little by Joey's actions. If partly because a cute little vulpix standing defensively made her squee inside. However, that is one impressive roar and Liberty shakes a little, but refuses to let the Onyx's intimidating presence keep her from being ready to aid her friends.