Chapter 8: Mount Moon Monster (Part A) by Michael Keens/ Exodus After the event last night, we slept on it and felt better about everything in the morning, except me. I had lied to Emily, in fact, I had lied from the start, but only to protect the ones around me. Ever since getting involved with Rockets, I had experienced fear, experienced pain, and I knew how far Bryan would go if anyone found out about him and the theft. I wouldn’t let anyone get hurt because of my mistakes. We left the Pokémon Centre and entered Mount Moon, it was quite dark but light enough to see our way through, we took a left turn, in the hopes it would be the right way out. It was quite lonely, not even any wild Pokémon going about their business, as if something had banished them, we stopped for a rest. “Emily, you sure this is the right way?” “Of course, woman’s intuition.” We reached an open roof part of the cavern, we could see the dawning sun from where we stood, it was quite a mess here, pieces of charred rock littered the ground, I took a closer look. “Moon Stones?” Not believing my luck, I picked up three of them. “Cool, we could use these to evolve our Nidoran someday.” I said, handing one over to her. “But what are they doing just lying here? I thought they were super rare.” “Well stranger things are happening here, this is just one thing that worked in our fav-uh!” I spluttered as a tiny Clefairy landed on me. “Fairy!” “Owiee... Tough gal eh, well I’m gonna-” “Please Tetsubo, can I capture it? I was thinking of training one of these.” I thought it over, and gave in, I wouldn’t want to go in Emily’s bad books and we had to share Pokémon. “Okay, but the next Pokémon is mine.” I said. “Buzzer, Go!” The Beedrill came out but it didn’t have the usual raring to go attitude, it looked down and upset. “Beee...” “What’s wrong, Buzzer, won’t you battle for me?” “Bee!” it shouted turning its head away, still floating. “Why are you so sad?...“ “Bee...” “Okay, Return. Poisoness, I choose you!” “Ni! Ni!” “Poisoness, use Poison Sting!” The Clefairy was hit but not down, she looked like she was preparing to sing, but Emily reacted quickly. “Poisoness! Tackle!” “Cle-fairy!” “Pokéball!...” It was caught. “We’ll have to decide on a name later. Let’s go Tetsubo.” “Hold it!” We looked back, there was a man in a black hat and uniform, a Rocket Grunt. “There aren’t supposed to be any kids here!” “We, er, just got lost.” said Emily. “Really? You sure you don’t know who I am?” “No sir.” “Not even wondering about the big R on my shirt?” “Maybe a little, what’s it stand for?” “Rocket.” “I’ve heard that name before.” she pondered. “Emily!” I shouted. Up to now, she had acted dumb but now the cat was out of the bag, or the Pokéball. “So you do know! Well I can’t risk you ruining our operation, Meowth! Get them!” “Meowth!” “Meowth, the Scratchcat Pokémon. Meowths love round and shiny things, they are very active at night, searching the streets for dropped change.“ “Allow me Tetsubo, I got us into this... Clefairy!” “Clefairy!” “Hold back Meowth, let’s let her make the first move.” “Clefairy, use your Doubleslap!” “Clef?...” “Pound?” “Clef...” “Sing!” “Clefairy...” It wouldn’t do anything, it didn’t have the look of an unruly Pokémon, but it looked like it couldn’t fight. “Clefairy?” “Meowth, wipe the floor with this little wimp!” “Me-owth!” “Return! Buzzer! Help us out!” “Bee...” “Please Buzzer, cheer up and fight.” “Bee...” It ‘Twineedled’ the Meowth of its own accord, the actions were there, but not any emotions on Buzzer’s face, then it floated back to Emily’s Pokéball and activated it itself, teleporting back inside. It looked depressed. I thought back a little to what Emily had said yesterday: “No! Buzzer! You have to keep going! Get back up and fight! I can’t lose this! I can’t...” Maybe it was because of that one sentence, Emily lost control of her emotions and shouted at Buzzer after they lost, or maybe because he let her down in one of her most important fights. It would take some time to reestablish a solid relationship with her Beedrill. “You’ve got one last chance to get a Pokémon that can fight or my Meowth here will slash you up!” “Lucky! I choose you!” “Chansey!” “Lucky! Doubleslap!” “Meow, meow, meow, meow, Me-owth!” screamed the unlucky cat getting slapped around. “Pound!” “Meow!” “Scratch it Meowth!” “Meowth!!!” Emily waited until the last moment. “Egg Bomb!” The Meowth was blasted in mid-air, and fell down, burnt by the exploding eggs. “Me-owth...” it groaned. “Grrrr, you’ve made a powerful enemy, wait until I get our boss on you!” He ran away, we weren’t sure what Rockets would want with Mount Moon, but that was probably why there were no Pokémon around, Team Rocket had scared them off. We hurried through, eager to avoid as many of the Rockets as we could, and get to Cerulean City. Darting around another dark corner, I pulled on Emily’s shoulder and stopped her. “Emily, that shadow...” Around the next corner was a flickering shadow. “It could be another Rocket.” “I’ll take care of it, Discharge! Thundershock!” “Magnamite!” shouted the Pokémon in its mechanical voice and shot a blast which circled round the corner and hit. “Aaargh!” screamed the victim, falling down stunned and paralysed. “Chad?!” I shouted. “You know this guy?” asked Emily. “Owiee... What’d you shock me for?!” “We didn’t know it was you and-” “Are you a Rocket?” asked Emily. This angered Chad, “I am Not a Rocket!” he screamed, “I WOULD NEVER JOIN A TEAM LIKE THAT!” I was about to congratulate him on his sense of pride and justice. “Perhaps if they actually won once in a while and were successful Pokémon gangsters, then maybe, but the mighty CHAD THE CHOSEN NEVER LOSES! I AM STRONG, COURAGEOUS, AND A HIT WITH THE LADIES, BUT ALSO MODEST.” All respect for Chad flew away in a second. “Chad the Chosen, huh?” “Yes! CHAD THE CHOSEN! Remember how I thwarted the plans of those evildoers Butch and Cassidy in Pewter? I WAS MARVELLOUS.” “And if I recall, I did all of the work while your Pokémon finished the job, and then you took all the credit and left me with nothing. I suppose that’s an example of your so-called modesty.” I said, with no expressions expect the odd spark of anger and sarcasm while I brought up the facts. “Yeah well, I was busy that day, I had to rush out on my Pokémon Journey so I didn’t have the time to inform the people of your assistance, which I really didn’t need.” “If you were in such a rush, how come we caught up to you? We’ve been spending a lot of nights on the road and at Pokémon Centres.” “Well, I had to save some people from danger, so I fell behind a little.” “If you stay too far behind, your friend Bert is going to catch up with you.” “Not that its your business but of course not, he lacks the courage and strength of myself.” “But he shows a lot of intelligence and thought, he’ll do well provided he catches the right Pokémon.” “Say, Chad.” asked Emily. “Aha, a beautiful girl calls my name, a little young for me, BUT I SHALL HELP YOU NONE THE LESS.” “Yeah...” said Emily, “Perhaps we should work together to get through this cave, there are a lot of Rockets roaming around, and we’d rather not get outnumbered, how would you like to escort me to Cerulean City?” “What about the kid?” “He must come too.” “Well, normally I wouldn’t, but he did me a favour so, I, CHAD THE CHOSEN SHALL FIGHT OFF EVILDOERS AND PROTECT YOU BOTH FROM DANGER!” Chad said dramatically. “Not so loud, the Rocket’s will hear you!” “Aha! I thought I heard something.” This guy was different, he wore a purple royal-like uniform with orange cuboid shoulder pads, he wore a general’s hat and had neat dark blue hair that hung to the sides. He was probably an Elite. “I am Claus, the leader of the Elite Rockets, and you have interrupted a delicate operation, you must be made to forget...” “NOT ANOTHER PSYCHIC!” yelled Chad, he was awfully loud in all the ways he spoke. “No, I meant my Pokémon are going to kill you all.” Claus put simply. End of Chapter 8A Back to Chapter 7B Chapter 8B Back to Story List #1 - #20 Back to the Pokézone