The Cinnabar Gym is locked up tight. Not much to puzzle out though; there's only one other structure in town, the mysterious Pokemon Mansion. So the key is inside there, duh. The Mansion's big deal is a bunch of shut doors that you need to hit the appropriate switch to open them. The switches are all embedded in Mewtwo statues, so it's just trial and error to open each door in turn and fully explore the ruins of the abandoned mansion.
There's also some leftover diary entries (isn't there always) that slowly reveal what actually went down that blew the place up. This is where those crazy scientists tried to clone a new Mew... and ended up birthing the sinister and superintelligent Mewtwo instead. Oh, science!
No Mewtwo to be found inside, though. If you'll recall from the cartoon, he went nuts and escaped. So all that's in here are a ton of Raticates and other opportunistic pokemon.
Upon finding the key, I lit into Gym Leader Blaine. This is pretty much the one gym where having started with a water-type is going to pay off big time. My Blastoise drenched all of Blaine's fire-types, as the rock-paper-scissors effect would demand.
What is more interesting is that as soon as you leave the Cinnabar Gym, good ol' Bill is outside waiting for you. As his urging, you both board a jetboat to a hitherto unknown chain of islands to the east. Seven of them, wonderfully named "One Island," "Two Island," etc. And you though Pacifidlog was a terrible name.
As soon as we landed, Bill went into tech geek mode with his buddy Celio, setting to work on networking the Islands' PC system with the mainland. I haven't talked to either of them since; I've been out exploring. These Islands are new to the LeafGreen/FireRed remakes, so, aside from some minor alterations, this is the first totally new portion of the game. One Island contains Mt. Ember, an active volcano hiding a Moltres at the top (caught him on my first attempt, after only a half dozen Ultra Balls!). Two Island has some batty old lady who wants to teach a special attack move to an undisclosed pokemon type, as well as a guy who lost his daughter. Her name is Lostette, which is almost too ludicrous to believe. She is believed to be on Three Island, so I'm heading there now.
As for new pokedex captures and evolutions, wandering around the Islands has netted me a Persian (yay, now I really don't have to evolve my beloved Meowth, who has picked up two more Nuggets since last post), a Poliwhirl, a Ponyta, a Rapidash, and a Magmar. Found a Ditto inside the Mansion. My Old Amber fossil contained an Aerodactyl. My Gengar is still leading the pack, but I've been trying to keep him aside so the rest of the squad can level up. I don't know what level Growlithes turn into Arcanines, but it better be soon.
And wow, all three legendary birds! They were a hell of a lot easier to grab than those Regis from Sapphire.
Time: 37:20
Badges: 7
Pokedex: 85 (Seen: 134)
Party: Growlithe lv43, Blastoise lv47, Katamari (Meowth) lv38, Gengar lv54, Gyarados lv34, Snorlax lv47
