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The New Normal - 3-10
🕑 Added 2023-05-26 14:23:28 +0000 UTCThe New Normal – 3-10 – An Afternoon in Olivine
I found myself sitting down at the same coffee shop that I was at the first time when I was waiting to meet Karen at the lighthouse. I was wearing an outfit akin to the tourist getup that I wore in Hoenn, and I donned a fisherman’s hat to hopefully conceal my identity. So far, it seemed to be working as no one had approached me yet for my autograph or photo.
It was a few days after Karen’s exciting announcement about D-Zigzagoon’s transformation, and I got a message from her yesterday that told me that she was coming home to Indigo on the next ship back from Hoenn.
As she predicted, she easily defeated the Dewford Gym for the final Knuckle Badge, the Fighting Types falling for the exact same tricks that Karen used against Roy for the Stone Badge. I had watched the fight over the Pokénet, and it was a huge and embarrassing stomp for Julian, the Gym Leader of Dewford.
I still congratulated her for the win, though, as it WAS impressive. I didn’t think Julian was that great of a trainer, and I felt that he squandered the fact that he had a significant type advantage over Karen.
Now, with her string of victories, Karen was gaining notoriety for her unusual methods of defeating her opponents. BattleCast were also highlighting a few of her more impressive showings, and I thought that she was starting to appear on the radars of the more serious trainers.
So, this was how I found myself idly waiting about until Karen’s ship would arrive back at Olivine. I was excited and happy about finally getting to see her again; talking to her through texts just wasn’t the same as talking to her in person. Obviously, I was equally glad to see the egg and my soon-to-be newest addition to my team. Having an actual Dark type joining my team would prove invaluable for dealing with the frustrating Ghost types that my team is relatively weak to.
Of course, the past few days haven’t been quiet. With the reveal of Sinnoh, there was an expected explosion of theories and innovation that engulfed almost everyone in Indigo and Hoenn. The newly discovered evolutions of Gallade, Togekiss, Roserade, and Froslass were unsurprisingly causing a lot of uproar from the populace, as many were now either desperately trying to acquire their own Dawn or Shiny Stones to evolve their own Pokémon, though their supply was very limited.
And with all of the public’s attention on the new evolutions, the public were thoroughly distracted from the slew of bad headlines that were targeting Pryce, and even the news agencies seemed to temporarily avoid politics for the moment as they continued to discuss and analyse the new Pokémon from Sinnoh. I suspected that Pryce was pleased about this turn of events.
Similarly, my brief foray into the scientific forums revealed that many were discussing what the Dawn and Shiny Stone evolutions meant for other Pokémon. Many theorized that there were other evolution stones that could be used that just haven’t been discovered yet. Understandably, the news reported an increase in funding for many research projects as scientists around the world were now inspired to try and discover new evolution stones and where they could be used.
I personally wasn’t optimistic about their chances. From my meta-knowledge, I was fairly certain that there weren’t any undiscovered evolution stones just lying about at the moment. Yet I wished those scientists all the best. Who knows, perhaps they’ll make a miraculous discovery that proves me wrong.
Besides the scientific boom, I participated in my first patrols around the nearby Cerulean City. Admittedly, I didn’t really do much and was mostly doing so just to show the newspapers that I was active and doing something. I did make a few arrests, but only one of those were Team Rocket and they immediately surrendered when I appeared on the back of Klaus. And that Team Rocket member was likely at the bottom of the Grunt totem pole because he knew nothing and was just some mook.
All in all, while my patrols didn’t suddenly uncover some massive conspiracy, I knew that a few reporters took pictures of me, so I believed that I had done my civic duty in keeping the streets safe. At least I also managed to speak to a few members of the Cerulean Police, and they seemed to be big fans of mine and we exchanged promises to help each other when necessary.
I had sent them a crate or two of our family’s Moomoo milk as thanks for helping to keep the reporters away from the house, which they seemed to really appreciate.
It felt nice to have fans and to be respected like that.
I was brought back from my thoughts as I heard the alarm that I had previously set on my phone going off. I quickly disabled it before I disturbed the other patrons and finished up my coffee before I made my way to the port. Karen was arriving!
As I left the shop, I noticed just how crowded the Olivine Ports were. The ports seemed to be packed full of people to the point where it was difficult to walk through. It got to the point where it was going to be impossible to spot out Karen in the midst of this maze of people.
Not wanting to fight my way through the crowd, I decided to wait at the beach, which still gave me a good view of the arriving ships and it was also far enough that I wasn’t caught up in the mob of people. In case she didn’t spot me, I also made sure to text Karen that I would be waiting at the beach.
I paced back and forth around the beach with a smile on my face as I eagerly waited for Karen’s ship to dock. When I returned to Indigo, it was not uncommon for me to reminiscence over the time I spent with Karen in Hoenn. It wasn’t even out of a desire for romance, but I simply just enjoyed the companionship that she provided me. I wanted to see how our friendship dynamic would be like when we were both in Indigo; I hoped that we would stay close in Indigo like we were in Hoenn.
I was distracted enough with my thoughts that I failed to notice the growing commotion from the mass of people waiting around the docks.
Not long later, I spotted an arriving ship that I believed was the one that Karen was on. It was just one of those commercial ones that did frequent trips between Indigo and Hoenn. And sure enough, I was quickly proven correct as it got closer.
I made my way closer to the port, still mindful to keep my distance from the crowd so I wouldn’t be jostled aside by them. Still, I could barely see anything over the huge gathering of people that were waiting around the port today. It wasn’t a holiday or anything, so why were there so many people waiting to take a ship to Hoenn?
It was very odd.
I put that out of my mind for now as I struggled to watch the people alighting from the ship. And then I saw her, Karen’s distinct hair and typical yellow outfit was just about visible even through the crowd of people. I tried to wave my hand to get her attention, but I don’t think she was able to see anything as surrounded as she currently was by the crowd.
I continued waving my hands in the air to grab her attention as she carefully pushed her way out of the crowds, until eventually I saw her eyes snap to mine and she broke out into a small smile as she made her way towards me.
The moment she got close I embraced her into a hug, which she happily returned. I was careful to make sure to not accidentally knock over or crush the egg that I knew was carefully stored in her rucksack.
“It’s weird seeing you in person rather than over a phone screen.” I welcomed her with a grin. “It’s been a while.”
“Yeah, don’t you think I look better in person? I heard that the camera adds a few pounds.” She responded in kind before she looked around Olivine as if to admire it. “I did miss this place you know. I think I’ve spent enough time in Hoenn for the time being. There’s just a bit too much water there for my tastes.”
I laughed at her comment, which received a raised eyebrow from her. I waved her off before gesturing to her rucksack. “Okay, I can’t wait any longer, can I see the D-Zigzagoon egg, pleaseeeee.” I begged.
She smirked before carefully dropping her rucksack onto the sand and slowly and dramatically took out the incubated D-Zigzagoon egg and presented it to me. Just like on the video, it was no longer brown and white like it was initially but was now sporting very dark black spots across its white surface. Without thinking about it, I immediately released Klee from her Pokéball to inspect it.
“Klee, can you make sure that the Pokémon inside is unharmed? It should have transformed into a Dark type.” Klee nodded happily and quickly went about with my request. It wasn’t like I didn’t trust the Nurse Joys, but I just wanted to make sure. Karen was content to just wait silently as we watched Klee finish up her inspection.
“Blissey! Bliss, Bliss.” Klee informed me, and I broke out into a wide smile as I thanked Klee for her efforts. Klee accepted my thanks with a smile, then she looked around before deciding to run towards the sea to play around with a few of the Pokémon casually hanging about there. I was happy to let her do so.
I turned back to Karen with a large and excited smile on my face. “Everything’s safe and it’s worked!” I confirmed, which elicited a big smile from her as well. “Thanks for all your hard work!” I high fived her.
Unfortunately, our moment of celebration was cut short by the sounds of someone shouting. My head snapped towards where I heard someone crying out for help, and I found myself staring at a nearby ship. That cry rapidly multiplied as the entire horde of people began to start shouting and running away.
I watched with mounting horror as the crowd of people turned into a chaotic stampede that was trampling over each other.
Recognizing the severity of the situation, I quickly gave the egg back to Karen before I released Klaus and Luna; it was too crowded to make use of my larger and physically oriented Pokémon.
“Karen, come with me. Store the egg safely.” I commanded, instantly putting her in high alert. I snapped my fingers and called out towards Klee and ordered her to return to me. As soon as she did so, I ran over to the stampeding crowd, using my Pokémon to push past them while being careful not to tread on the fallen civilians. Karen followed a few paces behind me after she safely stored the egg away.
Injured people tainted the once clean streets and ports, but I couldn’t afford to stop and help them. I had to keep going. At least nothing was on fire just yet.
My eyes swept through the crowd as I tried to figure out what was going on amidst the panicking horde of people. Eventually, I caught sight of a Pokémon fight breaking out between the security guard of the ship and a few gruff looking adults near the ramp of the ship. The guard’s lone Machoke was getting overwhelmed by the trio of Raticate and Golbats while an Eevee cowered behind the security guard.
I understood exactly what was going on as soon as I saw the Raticate and Golbat. Even without my meta-knowledge, it was now widely known that these Pokémon were frequently employed by members of Team Rocket.
I had no idea what Team Rocket was doing here, but I wasn’t going to allow them to succeed in whatever they were plotting.
I rushed forwards and quickly ordered a Thunderbolt from Klee and Luna that instantly knocked out their Golbats, and a swift Psyshield Bash from Klaus knocked out the remaining Raticate. Without letting them react, I commanded for Klee and Luna to quickly knock out the Team Rocket grunts with small blasts of Psychic.
I heard a few more shouts from above, and I glanced up at the docked ship and saw that a few equally gruff looking individuals were peering down at me from above. A few of them were shouting something at the others that I couldn’t make out, but then they suddenly released a flood of Raticate, Golbats, and Arboks at me.
I remained unfazed as I faced down the approaching Pokémon and positioned myself on the ramp in front of the security guard as I gestured for him to get away. The grunts’ Pokémon instantly began their staggered assault as they charged at me randomly, often stumbling over each other as they tried to make their way towards me. Some were charging far ahead of the others, while others tried to hang near the back. Their assault was uncoordinated, but no less threatening considering the sheer number making their way down towards me.
Klee and Luna stood by my side as if to serve as my bodyguards, while the Eevee hid behind me. I contemplated sending out the rest of my team, but there just wasn’t space for my bigger Pokémon. I made up my mind and sent forward Klaus to charge into the incoming Pokémon, using his psychic shields as platforms for additional range of movement, hopefully disrupting them and preventing them from ever attacking as one cohesive whole. Simultaneously, I sent out Zephyr and directed him to harass the approaching wave of Pokémon at a distance and to pick off any stragglers.
Klaus slammed powerfully into an Arbok, knocking it out just as a translucent screen of light shimmered into existence in front of me as Luna deployed a Light Screen to protect me. A loud screech from above drew my attention as I turned to find a screeching Golbat diving straight towards me, but a precise Ice Beam from Klee sniped it out of the air.
Despite the two quick knockouts, that was just a small droplet in the veritable tide of remaining Pokémon that were looking to trample me and my team. But I knew I could not run since I was currently positioned at the ramp where you would typically alight from the ship, so my Pokémon and I were serving as the main and only roadblock preventing Team Rocket’s Pokémon from running rampant around the docks.
They shall not pass.
A part of me should have been afraid to be facing so many Pokémon like this, but my faith in my team was absolute. We had been through so much together, facing off against far stronger threats than this tide of vermin. I knew they would not falter. Thus, I stood strong as I continued directing my Pokémon where necessary. I had no idea where Karen was, but I couldn’t stop to think about it at the moment.
The battle rapidly devolved into a chaotic mess. There was barely any time to give individual commands, as the battle was so chaotic that I had to mostly rely on my Pokémon own battling instincts to carry the fight.
A swarm of Golbats and Raticates were all simultaneously shot down by a burst of Ice Beams and Thunderbolts from Klee and Luna, while a nest of Arboks were all blasted into unconsciousness by Klaus’ Psychic. Klaus then pivoted on the spot and charged forward once again, cleaving through the opposing Pokémon with his Psyshield Bashes and managed to break up the enemy’s formation.
We were knocking out Pokémon left and right, but despite this, I must have underestimated the sheer number of Team Rocket grunts on that ship, as it appeared like no matter how many Pokémon that I was knocking out, more were endlessly streaming off the ship like a never-ending tide of Raticates, Golbats, and Arboks. There must have been north of twenty Team Rocket members on that ship, all packed to the brim with Pokémon!
Eevee suddenly grabbed the hem of my shirt and pulled me down, just as a fainted Raticate soared past my head. I didn’t have time to thank it as I quickly looked around and saw that a fight had broken out behind me. Apparently, there were more Team Rocket members hiding about in the crowd, and a few members of the crowd had also decided to join the brawl. I watched as someone’s Ampharos took down another Golbat with a surprisingly powerful Thunderbolt.
I even spotted Karen’s Honchkrow, Sneasel, and Houndoom participating in the fight as well. I couldn’t stare at them for long as my attention was brought back to the battle in front of me. The Light Screen that was protecting me suddenly shimmered as it blocked an incoming Sludge Bomb from a lone Arbok before it was swiftly picked off by a Wing Attack from Zephyr.
Then, Klee suddenly shoved me aside as a stray Rock Throw crashed into where I was just standing. At this point, so many different attacks were being thrown and fired from our two battlefields in all directions that, at the rate things were going, there was going to be a serious risk of friendly fire. I needed to take control of the battle somehow.
Thus, as another Golbat was sniped mid-dive by Klee’s Ice Beam, I began shouting out to grab everyone’s attention. As soon as I did, I started to direct the friendly Pokémon from the crowd to stay near the sides and focus on preventing Team Rocket’s Pokémon from running loose. Then I turned to Karen and ordered her to focus on hunting down the larger groups of Pokémon since her Pokémon were stronger than the others. I got a few shouts of confirmation as people began to relay and spread my orders.
The Team Rocket grunts tried to adapt to my new orders, but they lacked the leadership and discipline to do so.
Slowly, the battle behind me was steadily becoming less chaotic as people began following my orders and working together. The risk of friendly fire was heavily reduced, and as time went on, it was becoming increasingly obvious that the Team Rocket members were being penned in and systematically knocked out.
In the meanwhile, my Pokémon were also fighting admirably and were unleashing an array of attacks into the enemy lines, continuing to defend the ramp from the grunts’ Pokémon as a growing mound of unconscious Pokémon littered the area. Of course, I still had to keep an eye out for stray attacks that were heading my way from the other battle, but Klee and Luna were doing an excellent job protecting me.
Eventually, the flood of Pokémon charging recklessly down the ramp had slowed down and, with the pressure lessening, I made use of this opening and decided to push forwards onto the main deck of the ship. Surprisingly, the Eevee joined me.
As soon as I boarded the fortunately large ship, I sighted that in the distance there was a man that was seemingly giving orders to the others. He was clearly the leader of this group, but he wasn’t anyone that I recognized. More concerningly, it appeared that the Team Rocket had taken a few hostages onboard as well. Fortunately, they seemed unharmed for now.
I made use of the newfound space on the ship’s deck to release Smough as well. I didn’t trust Vordt and Tyrant to not accidentally tear up the ship when they fought, which was a problem because I couldn’t risk accidentally harming the hostages.
The leader grimaced as he saw me before he snapped his fingers and a wall of plain clothed Team Rocket grunts formed in front of him, who all immediately sent out a new horde of Pokémon similar to the one that I had just faced.
“Give it up, John!” He yelled out angrily, while sending out his own Crobat. “We have you surrounded on all sides!!”
I laughed out loud, infuriating him even more. As if these grunts were going to frighten me.
“All I’m surrounded by is fear and cowardice!” I declared provocatively, before I commanded Smough to charge forward and make a path to the leader. I remained hesitant to use any large area moves, because I didn’t want to damage the ship and potentially accidentally injure someone from any falling debris, so I was forced to limit myself to more precise attacks.
Even with that limitation and the overwhelming numbers, my Pokémon still utterly dominated the Team Rocket grunts. Smough slammed into a Raticate with a Body Slam and sent it flying like a bowling ball, knocking over many other opposing Pokémon before it crashed into the railings. Another Raticate tried to pounce onto Smough and bite into him with a Super Fang, but it was blasted aside by a Psychic from Klaus.
With Smough properly distracting everyone, Klee then warped the gravity on the ship, easily grounding all of the Flying Golbats before Luna came up and cleaned them all up with a casual sweep of her Ice Beam. While the leader’s Crobat was outside of Klee’s Gravity field, it found itself in an aerial duel against Zephyr. But Zephyr easily swooped past and dodged all of its attacks while slamming into it repeatedly with Brave Birds and flying away before it could counterattack. Before long, Zephyr dodged past a Cross Poison and smashed into the Crobat with a final Brave Bird and knocked it out.
As my team continued knocking out more Pokémon, one of the Team Rocket grunts, either out of rage or just genuine stupidity, actually charged me in person and tried to punch me in the face, but Luna got in front of me and folded him in half with a Rock Smash to the stomach and knocked him out.
Making use of the space created, Klaus was able to finish channelling his Teleport and successfully warped all of the hostages off the ship. I breathed a sigh of relief as Klaus and the hostages disappeared into small motes of light.
With the hostages hopefully safely out of the way, I unleashed Vordt and Tyrant as well. Moments later, Klaus also Teleported himself back onto the ship and charged back into the fray as well.
The instant Tyrant was released from his Premier Ball, he charged forwards straight towards the leader and ploughed through everything in his way. A pair of Arbok tried to stop him, but he simply grabbed one of the Arboks and used it to smash the other one aside as he continued his unstoppable dash towards the enemy leader.
Vordt went and joined Smough and the two of them were now deep in the middle of the fight, drawing almost all of the attention onto themselves. Not that it mattered, as each swing of their arms crushed another one of the grunts’ Pokémon into unconsciousness. They continued fighting back-to-back, supported by the occasional bolt of Thunder that crashed down from above and instantly took out a few Arbok, before another Psychic blasted a group of Raticates off the ship.
A bark from the Eevee alerted me to a Golbat that had sneaked up behind me before it was promptly slammed into sea by Zephyr’s Wing Attack.
I turned my head as I heard panicked shouts coming from in front of me, and I watched as members of Team Rocket dove out of Tyrant’s way as he continued his unstoppable assault.
“ARCEUS! HELP ME YOU FUCKS KILL THIS THING!” The leader shouted out in fear as he watched as the avatar of his death continue bulldozing through the grunts’ Pokémon. He fumbled briefly with the Pokéballs on his belt before he released all of his remaining Pokémon in a desperate attempt to stop Tyrant, and a Cacturne, Weezing, Mightyena, Claydol, and Primeape all appeared onto the deck.
Half of them tried to stop Tyrant while the other half went to deal with my team to prevent them from supporting Tyrant. Cacturne, Mightyena, and Claydol were charged with the unfortunate task of stopping Tyrant.
I noted that most of the remaining grunts wanted to help their leader, but Smough and Vordt were their most immediate threats, so they ordered most of their remaining Pokémon to pile onto the both of them in order to hopefully knock them out, but that was a poor decision. Smough easily tanked through their attacks and dismissively swatted away the Raticates before he grabbed an Arbok by the neck and threw it like a missile into the remaining enemies, knocking several of them over.
Apparently the Primeape had broken away from its teammates and tried to capitalize on my Pokémon’s distracted state and made a beeline straight towards Vordt. It hammered into him with a Close Combat, unleashing a series of powerful punches into Vordt’s side. Vordt’s only acknowledgement of this attack was a grunt of pain and was distinctly unamused by this interloper. He turned to face the Primeape before he bashed their heads together with a Zen Headbutt that instantly caused the Primeape to collapse and crumple into itself due to its decreased defenses.
In the skies above the ship, Weezing was having trouble trying to land a Sludge Bomb on my much faster Zephyr. It eventually swapped over to the more accurate Flamethrower, but Zephyr was more than proficient at avoiding the stream of fire before continually striking with hit and run Brave Birds, always managing to fly away before Weezing could land a hit. Understanding its inevitable defeat, Weezing ultimately decided to Explode just as Zephyr was approaching to strike once again with another Brave Bird. Fortunately for Zephyr, he had caught onto Weezing’s intentions and managed to swoop away and form a Protect shield just before Weezing exploded, protecting himself from the brunt of the damage.
Back down on the ship, the force from Weezing’s Explosion actually caused many of the grunts’ remaining Pokémon to stumble and fall over, allowing my Pokémon the freedom to focus down the larger threats for a brief moment. Using this opportunity, Klee and Luna both targeted down as many of the grunts’ Pokémon as they could with a dual sweep of Ice Beams before they blasted everything with a Psychic to ensure that they stayed down.
One of those Raticates was knocked far into another corner of the ship, separated from the rest of the battle, where the leader’s Cacturne, Claydol, and Mightyena was battling and getting figuratively torn apart by Tyrant. Tyrant had apparently immediately grabbed Cacturne, ignoring a Pin Needle to the face, by the waist and bashed it repeatedly into the enemy Claydol. The Mightyena tried to sneak around Tyrant and deliver a critical Crunch to the neck, but Tyrant realized its’ plan and punted it off the ship with a devastating Mega Kick.
Tyrant then turned his attention back to the Claydol, who was about to charge up a Psychic, before he struck it with a savage sucker punch to its body. Showing no mercy, Tyrant then slammed the two weakened Pokémon together, creating a loud BANG, and knocking them both out together.
Seeing that the battle was rapidly turning in my favour, I spared a quick glance down below to see how the others were managing. I was greeted with the sight of a mass of fainted Pokémon scattered around the port, turning the once pristine and bustling port into the aftermath of a warzone.
In the distance, I could see the distinctive blue uniforms of the Officer Jenny’s hurriedly approaching the port on their Arcanine, so I was reassured that the bystanders would be safe. Turning my attention back towards the rest of the ship, I saw a slew of unconscious Pokémon forming a semi-circle around where I was standing like something straight out of a horror movie. The remaining grunts that hadn’t managed to run away in time had also been knocked out by a small blast of Psychic from Klee and Luna.
In the corner of my eye, I saw the Eevee tapping a few of the unconscious grunts with its paws to make sure they were actually unconscious. They were. Tyrant eventually decided he was done playing with his new toys and smashed the two Pokémon together one last time to knock them out.
The leader himself tried to escape as soon as he noticed that the battle was lost, but Klaus caught onto that and rammed him with his horns and slammed him into the ground, leaving him lying prone on the on the deck of the ship, gripping his stomach while groaning in pain. Flanked by Klee and Luna, I made my way to the supposed leader, whose face was now a mixture of despair and rage. His eyes were ablaze with anger as he saw me approach.
“Fuck you. You dog of the League.” He spat out into my face, before Luna punched him again in the gut and pinned him into the ground. “Fuck you! I ain’t saying shit!” He tried, and failed, to wriggle free from Luna’s solid grasp.
“You will.” I replied coldly. “I don’t think you’re in any position to resist.” I secretly gestured with my hand to Klaus, who silently fired off a small Confuse Ray at the downed leader. If he were a stronger trainer, then there was a chance that his innate resistances would have allowed him to resist the effects of Confuse Ray. However, judging from his Pokémon’s performance just now, he was nowhere close to that level.
Thus, the confusion instantly took hold, and I watched as the leader’s eyes glazed over, turning from burning anger into unfocused uncertainty. I gestured for Luna to release her hold on him.
What I was doing was definitely illegal, but I didn’t quite care at the moment, and I was sure that there were no witnesses as Klaus reassured me that all of the surrounding Team Rocket grunts were knocked out.
“…wha-what? Where am I?” He muttered blankly, and I watched as his eyes slowly focused on me. “Did…did you help me?” He asked confusedly.
“Yes, I did.” I lied, my face a mask of false concern as I helped him to sit up. “Could you tell me how you got here? Why were you on this ship?”
“Uhhh...wait…that sounds familiar…I think I was trying to go somewhere…” He mumbled slowly, evidently trying to piece things together in his head. “Yes…I think someone told me to take a ship somewhere…but I…don’t remember…”
Unsurprising, considering that there were so many Team Rocket members on a ship. Did they intend to commandeer this ship and take it somewhere? This ship was typically headed for Hoenn, so perhaps that’s where they were going.
I also noticed that all of the Team Rocket members on the ship weren’t wearing their typical uniforms, choosing instead to don regular outfits that wouldn’t stand out in the crowd. Was that it? Did they disguise themselves to not alert the authorities about their plans?
I needed to know more. I crouched down so that I was at his eye-level and continued to gently probe him for more information. “I’m sorry, but this is important. Do you remember anything else about why you’re here on this ship? Who gave you the order?”
“…the boss…” His face scrunched up in thought as he pushed himself to recall things through the fog of confusion. “…he said we were moving somewhere…said that it was…too dangerous…to stay…”
“I see…is there anything else that you know? What is the name of your boss?” I asked once more, and this time the leader just furrowed his brow before eventually shaking his head.
“Understood. Thank you very much.” Having extracted as much information as I could, I gestured with my hand and Luna struck the leader with a restrained Brick Break to the back of his head, knocking him out cold. I could’ve asked more questions to fish for more information, but I didn’t want to risk him breaking through the confusion and remembering this conversation.
I was sure that the confusion would run out by the time he was questioned by the Jenny’s at the station so that there will be no traces of my illegal confusion remaining; Klaus was amazing like that. With the battle finally over, I let out a sigh of relief as the tension began to leave my body. It had barely been over ten minutes, and yet I was exhausted.
I regretted having to resort to such methods of gleaning information, but in my mind, I labelled these sorts of actions against terrorist groups as warranted considering the potentially world-ending scenarios that they often get tangled up with. If I could obtain information to stop them from messing with Legendaries, then I would.
From what I could glean from his words, it appears that Team Rocket was trying to flee from Indigo due to the strict crackdown on all of Team Rocket activities. I suppose that Proton wisely decided to cut his losses and move away to potentially safer ground, since he probably believed that staying in Indigo was far too high of a risk at the moment.
And this explained why all of the Team Rocket grunts were wearing plain clothes and were loaded with Pokémon, because they wanted to sneak away to Hoenn before anyone realized that they were gone. However, with this group in particular, someone must have made a mistake that brought attention onto themselves, which led to my intervention and their subsequent arrest.
Despite this, I remained concerned about what I had just learnt. Considering that Proton isn’t here, I suspected that this group was just one of the many groups that were leaving to Hoenn. So, how many of Team Rocket’s members managed to make their way to Hoenn undetected?
And then another concerning realization popped into my head. I glanced around and looked for the knocked-out Pokémon that the leader used, and there were a couple of them that were from Hoenn. Did this mean that Team Rocket already had a base of operations somewhere in Hoenn already so that they could procure these Pokémon for their leaders to use?
Giovanni had been repeatedly saying how annoyed he was that he failed to locate Team Rocket’s new backer, was this because the backer was located in Hoenn, outside of Giovanni’s reach?
I quickly noted all of these thoughts down in my notepad before I heard footsteps slowly approaching from behind me. Sensing no hostility from whoever it was, I finished up writing down my thoughts in my notepad before I turned around and was greeted with a solemn Karen with her huge rucksack and her Houndoom, who looked very winded and was panting heavily. It must have been difficult to have been fighting while carrying the D-Zigzagoon egg.
“Woah, hell of a party here, wasn’t it?” She deadpanned tiredly as she looked around at all the fallen bodies.
“Got a bit out of control, but I’m fine.” I quipped back and she smirked for a bit before she turned serious.
“Everything okay?” She asked, and I shook my head. She grimaced before continuing. “Well, good news is that, luckily, the damage wasn’t as bad as it could have been. It looks worse than it is. The Jennys say that we had quite a few injuries, many broken bones that probably need to be looked at, but most of that was self-inflicted from the initial stampede. It seems like the Team Rocket members weren’t here to explicitly hurt people. Plus, once the other trainer’s Pokémon joined the fight, they were able to at least put a stop to more injuries. But the Port itself was badly damaged and in need of repairs.”
“That’s good...it could have been a lot worse. Thanks for helping to keep everyone safe, Karen.” I thanked her, relieved that my decision to focus on defeating the leader didn’t inadvertently expose the civilians to any serious injuries. I would have been very upset with myself if it did.
“So…did you get them all?” Karen asked as she gestured to the many unconscious Pokémon and grunts.
I nodded and pointed towards the unconscious leader. “Bagged the big guy, at least. But he was only the leader of this lot, and I think more of them escaped to Hoenn on other ships.”
Karen frowned and remained silent. It was then that Eevee suddenly bounced up to me and I watched curiously as it started rubbing itself on my leg. Karen saw this and looked amused.
“Where did you find this little guy? It looks like it likes you.” She observed with a grin.
I crouched down and picked up the Eevee, carrying it in my arms while stroking the top of its head. Upon closer inspection, I could see that it was female.
“You have an owner, little girl?” I asked softly, and the Eevee shook her head. I frowned slightly, did a member of Team Rocket try to steal this Eevee? Was she the cause of the fight? I remembered seeing that the Eevee was cowering behind the security guard at the beginning of the fight. Did the guard notice that the Eevee was acting suspiciously and went to investigate, causing the fight?
I was broken from my thoughts as I heard a few people shouting from below. I looked down from the ship and saw that the Officer Jennys were busy handcuffing all of the Team Rocket members and interviewing the eyewitnesses. One of the Jennys then spotted Karen and I abroad the ship and waved at us before starting to make her way towards us, obviously intent on questioning us about what happened here.
I sighed as I knew that I would be drilled over my involvement here. Karen gave me a sympathetic smile and a pat on the shoulder as Eevee copied her actions and rubbed her face against mine. I smiled at just how cute the Eevee was, before a thought popped up.
“Hey, Eevee, would you like to join me?” I asked her gently. “I know we’ve only known each other a short while, but you were brave enough to join me on the ship when you could have run away. You even helped and warned me twice during the fight.” I praised while continuing to rub her head. “I can see that you have potential, so I would love to be your trainer and watch as you grow into your full potential.”
Eevee quickly nodded and wrapped her tail around my neck and pushed herself deeper into my neck, and I let out a quiet chuckle as I rubbed it once more on the head.
“Always the charmer, aren’t you?” Karen spoke up as she stared at the cute scene in front of her, and I chuckled slightly at her words.
Hearing the sound of the approaching Jenny’s footsteps, I straightened myself as I gently moved Eevee over to Klee’s arms, who immediately started cooing over her. I then tasked Klaus and Smough with guarding the unconscious grunts and their Pokémon just to make sure they weren’t about to cause any harm if they woke up. I then tried to tidy up my appearance as much as possible before Karen and I got ready to speak to the Jenny.
I also made a mental reminder to contact Drake, Giovanni, and probably Lance and inform them in person about my suspicions that Team Rocket already had a base ready for them in Hoenn. I was determined to make sure that Team Rocket was not allowed to freely re-establish itself in Hoenn.
I could only hope that my actions here would stop the remaining Team Rocket members from escaping to Hoenn.
A.N Hope you enjoyed this BIG chapter (longest chapter to date!) and that chaotic battle! This was my first time writing such a big battle, and it was much harder to write than I expected. I spent way more time than I wanted to try to flesh it out, so I hope it remained coherent, understandable, and most importantly, enjoyable.
Also, I know Wyrdeer doesn’t use Teleport in the games, but I figured that if a non-psychic like Blissey can learn it, then it would reason for Wyrdeer to do the same.
This chapter was BETAed by Allute. Thanks again!
Comments
Matthew
Best chapter yet.
The Tallest Tree
Very well done. You showed the initial confusion and panic, the chaotic fighting, and then John's teams professional calmness in a great manner. I really enjoyed it
