Chapter 47:  You’re Fired (Part A) by Michael Keens/ Exodus  

The morning sun wasn’t as welcomed as it would usually be this morning, I never 
realised how uncomfortable sleeping on the deck of a ship was.  
The girls had taken the inside cabin, and Beryl had been up all night steering 
the ship, as calm as the waters were now, there always had to be someone to 
take care of the ship’s direction.  

“Unnngh...  Are we there yet?” I groaned.  
“Almost...  Sleep well?” smiled Beryl.  
“What do you think?...” I groaned, “As soon as we reach Cinnabar Island, I need 
a hotel to rest in.”  
The cabin door opened and the girls stepped out, yawning pleasantly.  
“Good morning Tetsubo, what a great night, I’m ready to take on anything.” said 
a cheery Emily.  
“Those beds of yours are comfier than they look.” commented Abby.  
“Yeah, well I stay up late to pilot the ship normally, so I need a good bed 
when I rarely sleep cos its hard enough sleeping in a boat.” explained Beryl.  
“I suppose it would sway around in the port.” remarked Emily.  
“Sometimes, although I occasionally forget to do that.” said Beryl, slightly 
embarrassed.  
“So you occasionally sleep in an empty moving boat.” checked Abby.  
“Yeah, but sometimes I end up in the right place that way, I’m great at 
piloting but my navigational skills leave something to be desired.” admitted 
Beryl.  
“You never meant to end up in the Red Tides, did you?” I questioned.  
“No, I was accidentally heading towards Pallet Town, but that storm shifted us 
in the right direction.” grinned Beryl.  
“No wonder your fee was so low, we might have ended up further from Cinnabar 
Island than from Fuchsia City...” I groaned.  
Beryl nervously grinned and let out an unsure giggle.  
“Just sort out your maps so that we get back home in one piece within the week, 
and I won’t fire you.” I threatened softly.  
“You drive a hard bargain...” smiled Beryl.  
“Come on girls, let’s get the Pokémon healed up at the Pokémon Centre...” I 
advised.  

We shortly left Beryl’s boat and entered the resort town on Cinnabar Island.  
Many many tourists practically littered the streets and it was hard to get 
around, but we eventually arrived at the Pokémon Centre.  
Trouble was, it was so full of tourists (most of which were definitely not even 
Pokémon Trainers), that we couldn’t stay anywhere, all we could do was heal up 
the Pokémon, but the video phones had such large queues that we couldn’t trade 
our Pokémon back home.  

It was soon into midday, and Emily, Abby and I wandered around the large town 
in search of the Cinnabar Gym.  
No such luck, the only thing resembling a Gym that we found was a broken down 
building that hadn’t been used in years.  
“Hi, do you know where Blaine’s Gym is?” I asked, several times over throughout 
the day, but since most of the people I asked were busy and rude tourists, 
nothing came out of it.  
“Its not fair, its like someone’s trying to prevent me from entering the 
Pokémon League...” I moaned.  
“You sure Team Rocket or the Shadow Assembly aren’t behind this?” joked Emily.  
“It was just a cheap excuse to justify my bad luck, no need to take it 
seriously.” I exhaled.  
“Maybe we just need to be more specific, what does Blaine look like?” inquired 
Abby.  
“Hmmmm, there’s not too much information on him, but he visited Pokémon Tech 
once, one year before I enrolled, upper class students said he wore a lab coat, 
he was old, and almost bald.” I stated.  
“Okay then, that’s something.” said Abby hastily, before turning to a man 
passing by, “Hey you, have you seen an old bald guy by the name of Blaine?”  
The man appeared to jump, and repress his rage before answering, “No! Of course 
not, Blaine’s gone back into hiding due to the rise in tourists, its too rare 
an occurrence that dedicated trainers come here due to the lack of space and 
the increase in other Gyms around the world.”  
“You know an awful lot...” I said snidely, the man wore a red shirt, black 
glasses and had long curly ginger hair, but since he looked rather old, the 
hair was obviously fake.  
“You wouldn’t happen to Be Blaine, would you?” I asked, staring at his 
suspicious.  
“Of course not, why would you say that?” he shuddered.  
“Because I’m looking to have a Gym Battle to earn my final badge.” I replied.  
“Well I’m no Gym Leader, now let me go about my business.” he grumbled, pushing 
past us.  
As the man hurried away and I shrugged my shoulders and turned to the girls, 
“Come on, let’s follow him...”  

Tracking Blaine was a little hard, but once that was done, trailing him was, 
well, hard to say, we could keep out of sight easily and blend in with the 
tourists, even with our bright and slightly unique hairstyles and hair 
colours.  
But we still had to keep our sights on Blaine (it was pretty obvious the old 
guy in the wig was him), and it took some time, he kept on making stops at 
shops and buildings, and the many crowds of tourists sometimes provoked him 
into stopping and arguing with them.  
Tourism had ruined this island a little, there were too many hotels, shops and 
attractions, but little room for residents and dedicated Pokémon Trainers, no 
wonder Blaine didn’t want to interact with the population here.  
Finally, he stepped into a building with less tourists around, a large building 
with a big sign mounted above the doorway.  
“Pokémon Lab...  Sounds interesting, at least to dedicated trainers like us.” I 
stated, and then we cautiously stepped inside.  
We didn’t get far before:  “Hey you!”  
Uh oh, had we just got caught by a security guard or something? There was no 
one at the gate, but possibly because a guard was dealing with tourists.  
“I know you.” said the same booming voice, a little less anger in it.  
We turned around cautiously, and then looked down.  
“Heh heh heh, it works, you guys were scared of my voice.” said the short man 
with glasses, removing a megaphone from his mouth and now speaking in a higher 
but snively voice.  
“You...  I battled you back in Mount Moon.” I stated.  
“Uh huh, but I won’t ask for a rematch, I’m more of a scientist than a 
trainer.  
Look at this for instance, this megaphone can change people’s voices, I’m 
tweaking it to sound like members of Team Rocket.”  
“Yeah...  And?...” I asked, not fully interested but acting polite.  
“You know, to assist the police in capturing them.  We’re still working on 
safety protocols, a previous model was stolen and then used against a canine 
police squad.”  
“That’s really... Boring.” commented Abby, “Have you seen a man wearing a wig 
come by.”  
“Sorry, he passes by every so often but doesn’t really deal with me.”  
“Its Blaine, isn’t it?” probed Emily, “Come on, you can tell us.”  
“Sorry, that information is classified.  Hey, you were at Mount Moon too, you 
grabbed a fossil from me.” recognised the nerd.  
“Oh yeah, you’re not bitter about that, are you? I remember how paranoid you 
acted back there.” inquired Emily.  
“I am not paranoid, and-  Agh! A bug! Don’t let it sting me, I hate bug bites, 
they itch! And-”  
There was nothing there, only a piece of dust floating around.  
“Yeah, nothing paranoid about that.” sighed Emily, rolling her eyes to the 
side.  
“Anyway, if you still have that fossil, you’re in for a spectacular reward, 
I’ve developed a machine to restore old fossilized remains of ancient Pokémon 
back into their original stages, by...”  
The paranoid nerd said a lot of techno science talk that none of us understood 
for about a minute long.  
Emily waited for him to finish before she summarised it, “So you can change 
fossils into Pokémon.”  
“That’s what I said! But smarter.” grinned the nerd, adjusting his glasses.  
“Ka... Buto...” came a tiny voice, as a hard shelled rare Pokémon came crawling 
out of the nearest room, and scuttled up its owner until it reached its 
stomach.  
“Hey cool, that’s a Kabuto.” I exclaimed.  

“Kabuto, the Shellfish Pokémon.  These Pokémon’s fossils are sometimes found on 
the ocean floor, they could use two sets of eyes, one underneath its shell and 
one pair on its back.”  

“So do you still have the Helix Fossil?” questioned the nerd.  
“Damn straight I do, does that mean I can get an ancient Pokémon too?” said 
Emily excited.  
“Of course.” he replied.  
“Hey, this seems familiar.” I accused, “Back in Pewter City, a pair of Rockets 
stole a piece of Amber from one of the staff, and later managed to resurrect an 
Aerodactyl that attacked me.  You wouldn’t happen to have been a part of this, 
huh?” I questioned suspicious of him.  
“Of course not, but they did steal the prototype from us and probably figured 
out how to use it.” he replied sadly.  
“O-kay, you really Do need a security guard around here.” I frowned.  
“So, you interested?” he asked, turning back to Emily.  
“Absolutely, let’s try it.” smiled Emily.  
“Hold on Emily, what if you end up with an Aerodactyl and can’t control it? We 
had to bury the last one.” I warned.  
“I wouldn’t worry about something like that, I assure you won’t end up with an 
Aerodactyl.” explained the nerd confidently.  
“Okay then Emily, you just go along and-”  
An explosion erupted from outside, and I scurried towards the nearest window to 
check the source.  
A large tower at a high point of the island had suddenly gone up in flames, 
nearby tourists panicked and fled but there didn’t seem to be any true 
firefighters on the island.  
“Hey you!” shouted the man in the wig, “You own some Water Pokémon, right?”  
“Only one.” I answered.  
“Good enough, come with me, I’ve phoned for assistance but it’ll take too long, 
the tower will stand until they arrive, but that young boy won’t.” he briefed.  
“What young boy?” I questioned swiftly.  
“The young boy trapped up there, come on!” he shouted.  
“I’d come.” said Abby, “But my Gyarados wouldn’t be suitable, its too big to be 
of any help.”  
“Then take my Shellder.” offered Emily, releasing it from its Pokéball.  
“Shell!”  
“Shelly, help Abby with the fire, and be good.” she ordered.  
“Der...” it said, sticking its tongue out, but it hopped over to Abby anyway.  
“It may not be enough, that Shellder is rather small.” protested Abby.  
Emily sighed, “Then take this Water Stone, if problems arise, I give you 
permission to use it.”  
Emily drew out a Water Stone from her bag and tossed it to Abby, “I’ll join you 
after I de-fossilize this Pokémon, maybe it can help.”  
With that we darted off to the burning tower...  

We made our way inside, the tower was very tall, and had several floors, but 
not the usual sort, the centre of the tower’s highest point was the roof, and a 
staircase  spiralled up the sides where many doors were located.  
Flames blazed at the lowest floor, and were spreading upwards.  
My Staryu and Emily’s Shellder immediately started spraying water around to 
stop the flames, but the fire had spread upwards some distance throughout the 
tower already, making this place extremely dangerous.  
“Hello?!” I called, “Is anyone there?!”  
“Yipes!” came a squealing voice.  
“Where are you?! We’ll come get you!” I shouted.  
“No one’s getting me! I’m not going back to prison!” he screamed back.  
“That doesn’t sound like a little boy.” I pondered.  
“Of course not! That’s Joey Short, a well known thief around here! He must have 
started the fire!” shouted the old man.  
Now I could see the midget crook, a couple of floors up, holding a large green 
bag.  
“And I’m betting that’s the Pokémon he ordered to do so.” I said, pointing 
accusingly at a Magmar to the side of us, behind several flames, it glared back 
at me horribly.  
“Twinkill! Its no good if that Magmar starts another fire, we should stop it 
first!”  
“Star!” it yelled, spinning over the wall of flames and tackling it hard, but 
it ground its feet into the ground and pushed it back, before its left fist 
burst into flames and it punched Twinkill back, fire overwhelming it.  
“Twinkill!” I shouted, it recovered some of its health but its body was charred 
and its strength was ticking away.  
“Shellder, use Water Gun.” ordered Abby.  
“Shell!” it spat, but no water came out of its mouth, it was angry at Abby.  
“I mean, Shelly...” she groaned.  
“Shell!” it said happier, and followed through on her command, blasting the 
Magmar with a strong jet.  
Abby deliberately exhaled rudely, “What sort of nickname is Shelly anyway, 
doesn’t Emily have any imagination or pride as a trainer?”  
“And what would you call it?” I asked, back to back with Abby while Twinkill 
bravely took on more flames.  
“I don’t know, um, Clam Chowder?”  
“Emily probably named it during an impulsive moment, so don’t hold it against 
her, not all nicknames are perfect.” I stated.  
The Magmar tried to shield the water with its hands, but it was being damaged 
all over by the water.  
“MAG!” it screamed, and blew out a massive star-shaped blast of fire.  
“That’s a Fire Blast!” I screamed, “Duck!”  
I pushed Abby and Twinkill to the floor while Shelly dived into its shell, but 
that wouldn’t save any of us, the Fire Blast was shot at an angle, and had 
lowered its direction along the way and would hit us.  
I turned to Blaine, located elsewhere, on his feet and with access to Pokémon.  
“Blaine! Don’t you have any Pokémon that can help?!” I shouted.  
“I told you before! I’m not Blaine.  I don’t have any Water Pokémon to assist 
you in putting out the fire, but I do have this!”  
A large Rhydon was summoned in front of us, and caught the Fire Blast in its 
hands, the fire star pushed it back despite it grinding its feet into the 
floor, but it managed to throw it out of its path.  
Unfortunately this new path wasn’t too great either, and a wooden beam was hit, 
snapping it and engulfing more beams in fire.  
“Rhydon! Quickly! That support pole is about to go!”  
“Rhyyy Don!” it roared, jumping where a large wooden pole had broken to hold it 
up, we had to put up these fires soon, and without assistance from Blaine 
(everyone knew who he was, so I might as well write it as such).  
“Blaine! Where’s the kid!” I shouted.  
“Give me I sec, I’m still looking...  And I’m not Blaine!”  
He looked around carefully, stopped, and gasped, “Over there! Behind the 
Magmar!”  
I turned back to the dangerous Pokémon and saw a little boy cowering behind 
it.  
“Oh that’s just cruel, not only does that Magmar burn this place up, but he’s 
holding a kid hostage.  It must take after its trainer.” I stated.  
The Magmar was focussing on the boy until I said that, and then it swiftly 
turned to glare at me again, but it knocked the boy over with its fist in the 
process.  
“That’s it! You’re going down! Twinkill! Water Gun on the wall of flames, now!” 
I shouted.  
A sharp spray cut a path between me and the Magmar and I darted forward, 
drawing a new Pokéball in the process.  
The Magmar saw me do so, and reacted, blowing a small Ember flame out of its 
mouth and sweeping it across by shaking its head to the sides, I backed away 
and fell to the floor, and Twinkill tackled the Magmar unexpectedly hard from 
the side, causing it to fall the other way.  
It slammed into a support pole and the shock caused a lot of burning wood to 
come crashing down, one load on Twinkill, pinning it to the floor, followed by 
several bits on me.  
My leg was trapped under several pieces of wood, and as I looked up, a lot more 
followed...  

End of Chapter 47A  

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Chapter 47B
Back to Story List #41 - #60
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