Chapter 145: Latest Catches (Part B) by Michael Keens/Exodus Back at the Bismuth Town Pokémon Centre, Vincent yawned as he left his temporary room during the evening and strolled out into the lobby, “That was a nice nap, I wonder if my Pokémon are healed already...” Selene too left her room having showered thoroughly, however for the time being she was dressed in her pyjamas covered by a bathrobe until she could reclaim her clothes. She’d only wanted her favourite sports outfit to be washed thoroughly but one of the overly helpful Chansey had decided to take most of what she owned while she was cleaning herself up, “I’d better not end up with pink clothes or anything...” she grumbled. Both trainers ended up at the front desk at the same time, “Wonder if my Seedot and Electrike are healed yet?” “That’s more or less what I said.” Vincent replied before eventually turning to Selene, “You have a nice voice; surely it’s got to belong to an equally as attractive- Holy cow! No it’s not!” “How dare you?!” Selene yelled, “You think I’m not attractive?!” She saw Vincent’s face and gave off an annoyed exhale of breath, “I should have known it’d be one of you lot.” “I didn’t mean you weren’t attractive Selene, it’s just you’re a lot older than me and I’ve known you for so long that it just feels wrong to picture you as a girl I’d find appealing... Wait a minute, that came out wrong, I-” “I know what you meant Loser and I don’t care!... Hang on; did you just say I’m a LOT older than you?! I’m only eighteen!” On this complaint Selene intended to press a couple of fingers against Vincent but he pre-emptively stepped back expecting far worse, Selene titled forward and her moist bare feet did the rest in making her slip and fall forward and onto the floor for the second time today. Worse was the fact that Selene’s bathrobe went swaying into the air. “Why are you wearing pyjamas Selene? It’s only Six in the evening.” Selene could once again hear the odd suppressed laughter from trainers hanging out in the lobby and began to growl. Before she could get up Vincent was already stepping away before going into a steady run. “Maybe I’ll come back later for my Spheal and Dusk- Um, Dustox later...” The latter part of the statement was a lie but Vincent had just realised the mud-covered trainer from earlier could be any of the girls here and he didn’t want to admit to having managed to embarrass two girls in the same day, though he was unaware they were one in the same despite the mention of a Seedot from Selene. Vincent disappeared behind the same corner as earlier before Selene could pick herself up, refuse to chase him and stomp back to her room. As nightfall drew close to the Centre, a couple of Chansey walked oddly through the lobby doors and behind the counter to the single door more or less behind it. “So far so good.” one of them said. “Shut it!” yelled the other one, “You’ll blow our cover.” The two Rockets in Chansey costumes waddled over to the door but fell back in surprise as it suddenly opened on its own. A real Chansey came out from behind it and upon seeing the two, held the door open for them. “Freya.” Llewellyn whispered, “How do Chansey greet each other, you were paying attention to them right?” “You told me to look natural so I actually read that newspaper I was hiding behind. Besides, I didn’t know your plan would be so lame and I suck at improvising.” she whispered back in an annoyed tone. “At least my plan was thought out-” Llewellyn loudly whispered back before improvising, “Um, Chansey Chansey...” he said in as high a pitch as he could manage. “Chansey.” it replied, bowing down briefly and continuing to hold the door open for them, Llewellyn had seemed to have communicated with it without blowing the two’s cover. “Chansey Chansey...” Freya replied in thanks. They waddled inside and the Chansey gave off a questioning confused look, “Chansey?...” The two were later wandering around but had made some progress in bumping into Nurse Joy and imitating Chansey long enough to lead her to a storage room and apprehend her. She screamed a little about being needed to supervise some Pokémon’s healing but was soon tied and gagged and locked away for now. “There it is.” Freya said with satisfaction in her expression, “This is where they store Pokéballs; we’ll just take whatever we can carry and dig out the winners later.” The two had been forced to crouch all this time and were relieved as they stretched their bent legs until they were standing high enough to see through the glass window on the door, regardless of how much their costumes were stretching to do so and destroying the point of having them on. “Freya?” “Llewellyn?” “I was just thinking. How are we going to get those Pokéballs out without drawing attention? Don’t tell me there’s Another hole in your plans.” “Of course I know... We’ll, um, yes; we’ll drop the Pokéballs into the costume, Chansey look like fat little eggs anyway.” Freya replied, pushing against the door. “It’s locked, isn’t it?” Llewellyn stated. “Grrrr, go get that real Chansey and ask it to open the door for us.” “How am I meant to do that, I don’t actually speak Chansey, for all I know I could have been telling it to give me a diamond sandwich or something, what if it alerts someone?” “What does it matter? Just point it over here, even I know the basics of what Pokémon say through their body language, the same should apply from another Pokémon, and as for catching us out, what’s it going to do? We can easily beat Chansey, and with Nurse Joy subdued how’s a Chansey going to alert anyone to stop us?” “Still, I hope that Chansey is as dim as you make it out to be...” At more or less the same time but a long distance away, Ellie and Roslyn were continuing to chase a now teleporting Ralts through the forest. Its pattern was irregular but predictable, the directions did shift slightly but not in a way to throw off the chasing trainers. Light shined through the dark and criss-crossing plant-life and another clearing came into view; however it became brighter for a moment followed by more flashes of light originating from Pokémon attacks. The open area was a rocky uneven landscape with treacherous tears in the land, several trainers were battling simultaneously but at random locations including back to back with other trainers fighting separate opponents. The strangest thing was what they wore; about half of the battlers wore blue bandanas with a white symbol that resembled crossbones, black and white striped shirts and long blue trousers with white ring designs at the sides plus black gloves and shoes. The other half wore red hoods with strange black attachments that looked either like jutting rocks or what Ellie and Roslyn made out to be animal-like ears, they wore draping red covers over their black shirts with a spiky mountain-looking symbol and long black trousers for the guys, short black skirts for any girls and red bands around their lower legs and wrists ending with black shoes and gloves respectively. Ellie instinctively thought ‘Rocket’ after the encounter with two members she had briefly met and the reason her father had banned her from coming here but it didn’t add up, she then remembered a vague mentioning of two other groups operating in Hoenn so she assumed the worse in that this might be them settling a dispute. Unknown to her, these were two criminal groups very much native to the Hoenn region, Team Aqua, a group of Water Pokémon enthusiasts with ambitions to increase the sea and its respective Pokémon’s habitats, and Team Magma, a similar group but with Fire Pokémon looking to increase the land. Her deductions were verified when she witnessed the battles getting out of hand, or rather, going smoothly for some as certain Pokémon were ordered to attack the opposing trainers head on and the targets were forced to retreat several steps to avoid various Ghost, Fire and Water attacks until their own Pokémon could strike back, usually retaliating at the opposing trainers. “Who are they?...” “Wait Roz’, they look dangerous.” “They Are dangerous, that’s no way for a Pokémon Trainer to act; attacking trainers like that and not even in self-defence... Maybe we should contact the police-” “No.” Ellie said firmly, before realising she was about to say too much, “... They’d never make it here in time, and we’re too small a number to deal with them, we should just turn back and-” Roslyn gasped, “The Ralts.” It had ended up right in the middle of the battlefields and was quivering and unable to move, if it had anything to do with sensing the evil in these trainers’ hearts, they were very bad people. “I have to save it; it’ll get hurt out- No!” As predicted, the Ralts was in danger and soon hit hard by an out of control Shadow Ball launched by either of the sides’ Poochyena and knocked unconscious. Ellie tried to stop Roslyn launching herself forward but wasn’t able to do so quietly, the rustling alerted a member from either side who took highly skilled leaps to land in front of them. “Get out of here Stupid Kids!” yelled the Magma, even though she was probably younger than the girls. “This is none of your concern.” added a calmer woman dressed in Aqua attire but with a blue cape. “Okay, no problem, we don’t know what this is about and...” Ellie said trying not to provoke them. “Move aside! Your horrid battle is hurting an innocent wild Pokémon!” Roslyn yelled. “Roz!” Ellie complained. The two looked back and spotted the fallen Ralts. “Hey, that’s a Psychic Pokémon.” noted the Aqua lady. “I saw it first Loser! And I thought I made myself clear to you!” yelled the Magma girl. The latter comment was directed at the girls as in a combined assault, a Slugma and Staryu aimed their attacks at them, a Flamethrower followed by a Water Gun attack... Selene wandered out of her room, “If they have a tumble dryer surely my clothes should be ready by now and I can actually wear something credible and get some food without being laughed a-” She was cut off as a pair of pink hands wrapped around her mouth and with a lot of strength pulled her back and out of the lobby. Vincent wandered over soon afterwards and leaned on the front desk in boredom, he looked around and noticed a hotel-like bell surrounded by clutter, “Oh, could have used this all along to alert someone, I just want to see my Pokémon before they rest for the n-” Vincent too was victim to a pair of hands suddenly grabbing him and abducting him into the shadows... Rather than run away, Roslyn pushed forward and passed the sides of the skirmishes into the open space with Ellie panicking and forced to follow, the bushes behind burst into flame but were extinguished and left blackened by the following Water Gun. Roslyn zigzagged and curled around the separate battles not drawing attention to herself, an out of control Mud Shot blast was dodged by its target and the attack instead headed in her direction but she nimbly leaped over it and landed gracefully, her dancing ability coming in handy. Ellie followed as best as she could, thinking about how many Water Pokémon her Treecko might be able to take out if it needed to given she was headed into the sort of danger her father had tried to prevent her from doing. She didn’t dare bring out her father’s Pokédex to get freebee scans of many Hoenn Pokémon, it’d be too distracting and she’d likely get the device smashed to pieces. The graceful Aqua member tried to nimbly navigate the battles past the others but was barged aside by one of her own and quite frankly rough and uncaring underlings and into a Magma who engaged in battle with her. The young fiery Magma girl was a lot swifter in navigating the battles but rough when she had to be, an Aqua member backed into path only for her to leap up into a spin and send the man stumbling forward towards its opponent with a strong kick. Roslyn only had a few seconds head start to retrieve the Ralts and attempt to trace back her steps to simply flee the area and leave the thugs to their own doing. The Ralts barely opened its eyes to see the determined look of Roslyn focused on getting out of here with it, it acknowledged this and let its eyes drift back shut. Ellie waved an arm frantically for Roslyn to get back to her, the talented dancer had gotten well ahead of her so she’d slowed down and instead watched her friend’s back for her. Roslyn closed in but Ellie failed to see the Magma girl catch up followed by her slow-moving Slugma and order a Flamethrower at both Pokémon and rescuer. “Look out!” Ellie screamed. “Nya-Agh-Hah!!!” cried out Roselyn’s Skitty who had been forgotten up to now taking the full force of the attack by leaping in its way, it was dealt a lot of damage and went flying into the heart of the battle. “Kit!!!” Roslyn screamed. The Ralts woke up again and sensed the compassion in Roslyn’s heart for her Pokémon, it also sensed the rotten heart of the girl and Pokémon who’d intentionally tried to hurt them both and its eyes glowed. “What the- Agh! No fair!” she screamed. “Slug-Ma!...” her Pokémon replied in kind. Both were blasted quite a distance away with a powerful Confusion assault. Roslyn exhaled but quickly chased after her Pokémon regardless of the risk, Ellie bravely followed but decided to be of more help by actually having a Pokémon on hand, she drew a Pokéball, turned it around and manually activated it so that the energy release hit her shoulder as she ran, her Treecko appeared and instinctively gripped it for now. “Shredder, I know you and Sneak don’t get on but he’s not here and I trust your abilities.” “Tree?...” “I know Roslyn was an opponent but we’re actually good friends now and she needs whatever protection you can offer-” Ellie explained, stopping herself dead as a random flame shot in front of her and then continuing, “Her and me both.” Roslyn made it to her hurt and burnt Skitty and shifted the Ralts slightly to carry both Pokémon; however she was stopped by the female Aqua member from earlier. “Drop it, in fact, drop both of them and I’ll let you walk out of here in one piece.” Roslyn turned to the Ralts but it didn’t seem capable of repeating another attack in its condition, the Staryu prepared itself but was beaten to the punch as it stumbled back after energy was drawn away from it and into the Treecko. “You again?” the Aqua complained, “Water Gun the brats first.” Roslyn had subtly drawn out her Pokéball and released her Roselia moments before the attack; however it was sluggish due to the earlier poisoning. “Star!” the evil Pokémon yelled, shooting a strong blast of water mostly at Roslyn, she was forced back and the Pokémon fell away from her. Her Roselia grounded itself but rose back up with a mad scowl on its face as it saw how wet and improper it looked. As it dealt with the opponent with its first time use of Magical Leaf attack and Shredder took initiative by pounding on the Aqua herself, Roslyn and Ellie were fully concentrating on the weakened Pokémon. Roslyn scrambled up and retrieved her Skitty and then looked desperately for the Ralts. “Over there!” Ellie shouted, pointing to a white hand gripping the edge of one of the chasms. The two battling Pokémon after sending their opponents packing stopped and looked at each other, the Treecko recognised the Roselia and vice versa, both had attacked each other in their previous battle. The Roselia turned away from Shredder and tried to remove the remaining water on it, however the poison hit again and it slumped to the ground weakly, however the Treecko surprisingly jumped forward and propped it up, causing the Roselia to blush a little. Roslyn dived for the tiny Ralts’s hand but just missed as it slipped away, it was clearly too tired to even teleport itself to safety and began to plummet. “Pokéball!” yelled Ellie. “R, Right.” Roslyn nodded, throwing a Pokéball directly down into the hole. “Shredder!” called Ellie, “Please retrieve that Pokéball before it hits the ground!” It looked at her for a moment but then nodded and scurried towards the hole, letting go of the Roselia completely who dropped to the floor, sat back up and yelled angrily “Sel-Lia!!!” The Pokéball connected with the Ralts and drew it inside, given it had been knocked over, poisoned and blasted with an super effective attack, it was no wonder there was no resistance at all this time. However both Ellie and Roslyn worried about the force of the impact even inside the Pokéball hurting the Ralts should it fall deep into the chasm, they needn’t had worried though as Ellie’s Treecko was a natural and dived down the hole, bouncing deeper and deeper from wall to wall until it could no longer be seen. Ellie and Roslyn waited, and luckily for them, the feud kept on going between the remaining members of the two groups until the whooshing sound of a lizard traversing walls was audible and Shredder soon returned with a Pokéball held by its tail. “Oh Shredder, thank you.” Roslyn said nearly in tears and shocking the Pokémon by kissing it on the head, it rubbed it afterwards, crossed its arms and looked away so its facial expressions couldn’t be seen; Ellie smiled and gave Shredder its likely wish of wanting to be recalled now. “Let’s get the heck out of here.” Ellie stated, “Once we’re out of danger, feel free to call the police, maybe these guys will still be here by the time they get here.” “Why are you telling me this now? And why couldn’t you be the one to-” “One step at a time Roslyn, let’s get to safety before anything else...” Ellie interrupted, trying to hide her little secret a little longer, it was the last thing she wanted to think about right now. Nightfall came to the Pokémon Centre in Bismuth Town, most trainers had moved out of the lobby and either to their rooms or the dining area for free complementary food for travellers. Two dodgy-looking Chansey or rather two Chansey costumes came stumbling through the doorway, one crashing into the other. “Watch it!” “I’m up to my eyes in Pokéballs; I think I’m carrying a few more than you are!” “At least yours are clean; some of these Pokéballs are filthy. Don’t trainers take care of them anymore?... Hold my hand; we just need to get out without making a ruckus or alerting that silly real Chansey.” The two hurried forward only for Freya to crash into the automatic doors which hadn’t opened, “What the?! It’s not closing time yet!” Freya left Llewellyn at the entrance and ran to another door on the right but it too was closed. The lights in the lobby all came on at once, and several Chansey and the Centre’s Nurse Joy came out of hiding, along with Vincent and Selene who had been alerted by the suspicious Chansey to quietly gather the other Chansey and locate Nurse Joy and operate the computerised locks respectively. “Dammit Llewellyn.” Freya said as one particular Chansey leapt onto the front desk and complained at them in its language, “You messed up and made that one Chansey suspicious!” “Maybe it was you with that phoney thank you!” “Actually it was a combination of both.” Nurse Joy stated with a stern expression, pressing a button so a monitor slid down and displayed footage of them putting Nurse Joy in the storeroom while a single Chansey watched, stretching their costumes to see through the door which looked like people were trying to push their way out of a Chansey and finally, the pair of them inserting Pokéballs into the costumes through the mouths. “We didn’t understand what this Chansey was saying but this footage pretty much said it all.” Vincent stated. “Okay, so maybe that Chansey is better at communicating than I gave it credit for, but there’s no way even ten Chansey can beat us.” said Freya. “Joy, where are our Pokémon resting?” Selene questioned. “I’m afraid they were seen to by the Chansey and placed in their Pokéballs, the facilities have been needed to treat Pokémon so we couldn’t let them stay on the beds.” “So the bad guys have them? Oh no...” Vincent groaned. “Chan-Sey!!!” yelled the leading Chansey, jumping forward and charging at Llewellyn. “What are you doing?! Get your Girafarig!” yelled Freya. “I can’t! My Pokéball is among all the others!” Freya struggled to retrieve her own Pokéball which was secured better to her person but by the time she could manoeuvre enough to get her Pokéball out of the mouth of the costume the Chansey had slammed into Llewellyn and caused several Pokéballs to be forced out of his costume. “Are any of those Pokéballs yours?” Joy questioned. “I can’t tell, I never marked mine.” Vincent stated. “But mine are.” Selene said with a slight but subtle smile, picking up a slightly dirty Pokéball which obviously hadn’t been washed since it wasn’t the Centre’s responsibility to do so. “Go Storm.” “Elec-Trike!” said the newest member of Selene’s team, a four-legged green and yellow Pokémon with a flat-looking head. “Skarrr!!!” screamed a Pokémon from across the room, the iron bird Skarmory then charged forward to attack the Chansey. “Thunder Wave.” Selene ordered, pointing at the Skarmory, a flurry of currents were shot at it and bound it briefly before scattering around its body, the Skarmory became temporarily paralysed in mid-flight and crashed onto the floor. Vincent hurried in front of the Skarmory while it was down and carried several of the Pokéballs to the first desk where he chose one randomly, found it didn’t belong to him, returned it, placed the Pokéball into the start of a new pile and repeated the process. Several of the Chansey were not battlers and only appeared in number in the hopes of getting the thieves to surrender, so they made themselves useful by joining Vincent in searching for Pokémon that belonged to him. The Skarmory picked itself up, shook its dizziness away and followed Freya’s next order to use Swift attack, luckily, another Pokéball exploded open in the nick of time and Selene’s Seedot used Bide attack to take the damage full on and then batter the opposition with the power of its own attack and more with a white explosion equal to twice as much damage. “Sandshrew, no... Lotad, no...” Vincent said opening Pokéballs and recalling Pokémon, “Girafarig-” “Over here Galeno!” shouted Llewellyn, this was the Pokémon he had lost among the others, “Use- Oof!” Vincent had thrown the Pokéball in the man’s face in a feeble attempt to stop him joining the fight, “Thunderbolt!... Nice try Kid and thanks for returning this.” grinned Llewellyn. “Giiiiii-rafffff!!!” the giraffe Pokémon with a dark sentient tail squealed, energy glowing around it and blasting at as many enemies as possible. However, after their release, the lines of power twisted and turned and shot solely at Selene’s Electrike, who braced a little of the strong attack with signs of uneasiness but then changed to a comfortable expression, after a simple nod from Selene it released the energy the only way it knew how and paralysed the Girafarig like it had done the Skarmory. “Lightning Rod.” said Selene after observing the enemies’ puzzled faces, “So I wouldn’t recommend throwing any other attacks like that around.” “Duskull, no. I mean Yes! Solo! Use Night Shade!” Vincent said upon finding one of his own. “Skull!!!” “Wait a minute...” Selene stated as she noticed the new addition. The Girafarig flinched as the attack hit it but no damage occurred. “Not the Girafarig... It’s a Normal Pokémon...” Selene finished. The Duskull shrugged and blasted the Skarmory instead as it attempted to get up again and then on Vincent’s orders used its Faint Attack to take a swing at the Girafarig. “It’s not over!” Freya growled, “Sashenka! Air Cutter!” “Galeno! Psybeam!” “Storm... I could use a Spark attack here...” Selene said calmly but with faith in her new Pokémon. Its features scrunched up as it put everything into an offensive Electric attack, although Selene didn’t really show it she had confidence and respect for her Pokémon and it showed in their skills. A bright ball of electricity was fired and hit the Skarmory in the beak then separated into bouncing arcs which affected all of it, it’s flight was compromised and it spun out of control only to fire its attack at its team- mate, who managed to delay its own attack which it aimed to release upon its enemies, human and Pokémon alike. “Frosty! Powder Snow!” “Spheal!” cried Vincent’s Spheal happily, blasting the area with ice around and underneath the Girafarig which instantly caused it to slip and its flat feet to slide together. The Girafarig crashed down and while trying to get up, accidentally fired the beam directly below resulting into a small explosion that blasted the bad guys through the front doors of the Pokémon Centre while damaging the Skarmory now lying on the lobby floor. “Pathetic. Why don’t you fools just give in?...” Selene sighed. “We’ll never give in to the likes of two trainers...” Freya threatened. “I’ve just contacted the police.” Nurse Joy announced, only having done so after the Pokémon were no longer able to threaten her. “Ooh... Ten or twenty cops... That’s different... Bye!” Freya said, the pair recalling their Pokémon and running. “We should go after them.” suggested Vincent. “Oh no.” Joy said firmly, putting a hand on his shoulder, “You young ones have done enough and I’m grateful but I can’t let you risk your lives any more than you have done.” Vincent sighed and shrugged giving in to the nurse, he turned but bumped into Selene who had positioned herself right next to him, “Sorry Selene, nice battling by the way, I think we worked well togeth-” Selene cocked her head and glanced at the Pokémon floating by his side then gazed back at him, “Nice Duskull, yours?...” Vincent nodded with a guilty expression in realisation, “You were the muddy trainer?...” “That’s three times you’ve embarrassed me Runt, and for your own good you’d better not bother me again.” Selene said firmly with an accusing finger, “Nurse Joy I think my Pokémon could use another rest...” The next day Selene left the Centre early followed by Vincent while Fighting Pokémon with muscular limbs like Machoke and Hariyama were called to assist in repairing the broken doorway. Vincent yawned considering his sleeping pattern had become a little irregular lately and walked with his two refreshed Pokémon out and about. “You’re more trouble than you’re worth sometimes Solo, you know that? I can’t believe I humiliated Selene three- Hang on. What did she mean Three times? What other time?... This is going to drive me nuts...” And thus four trainers in the Hoenn region began a brand new day with the prospect of newer more exciting adventures... End of Chapter 145B Back to Chapter 145A Next Chapter Back to Story List #141 - #160 Back to the Pokézone