Holes in the Wood
XXX
It was a lovely bright spring morning in the woods.
"Which woods?" said James, looking slightly confused.
"Dunno. It doesn't say on da map," replied Meowth. Sure enough, there was a label saying, "?? Woods" where his paw was pointing to on the map.
"That's weird," James said, now looking over Meowth's shoulder. "Didn't we blast off in that direction last time? So we should be in ... that lake," he said, jabbing at a patch of blue on the map.
"Which we're obviously not, so just shut up and let me get a rest for once," grumbled an voice from within a nearby sleeping bag.
Meowth and James looked round in the direction of the voice and silently deliberated on what to do. Finally, Meowth jumped over and poked the bag with a sharp claw. "Get up!" he shouted.
It wasn't quite clear what happened next, but the end result was Meowth lying stunned and bruised with a crumpled map underneath him.
"You'd think with all that energy she'd be up by now," grumbled James as he set to work finding the cooking equipment.
XXX
Half an hour or so later, the trio were gathered around a small fire eating some sort of food. What it was, they were not sure, but it was at least edible.
"How can you not know what you cooked?" said Jessie, with maybe a little less energy than usual. Sleeping is a very energy-draining activity.
"It's hard!" said James, stung. "It's better than when you last made breakfast!"
The three winced simultaneously - although Jessie tried to hide it - as they remembered a certain breakfast of "scrambled-milk-and-roast-cornflakes".
"Yeah, true," said Meowth.
"Just because some people don't have the time and energy to waste their life studying cooking ..." said Jessie airily. "Not that it wasn't an excellent breakfast of course," she added, and glared around to ensure that no-one would contradict her.
"Uh, yeah, it was excellent," James said quickly. He recognised the warning signs of "early-morning-Jessie-Attack-Mode" and attempted to signal to Meowth not to push it.
"What're you talkin' about? It was terrible! And how come James is making all them funny faces at me?" said Meowth. Once again, there was a flurry of movement, a small dust cloud and then Meowth was lying a few feet away, a little more bruised than before.
"So what do we have planned for today?" Jessie asked sweetly.
James shivered involuntarily. It was not a good idea to upset Jessie in the mornings. "Er, d'you want to see the script?"
"Not particularly," she said, although she took it anyway.
There followed a few moments of Jessie rifling through rather crumpled papers, Meowth breaking his teeth on the so-called breakfast, and James trying to pinpoint their position on the map again. Needless to say, it was not an easy task, especially as the map was now in multiple pieces and slightly charred from accidentally being used to start the fire.
"What! Have you seen this piece of stupidity?! We have to blast off twice today!"
"Yeah," mumbled James, still engrossed in the latest piece of burnt map he had found. "Blame the writers."
Jessie looked at him incredulously. "Why are you not even the slightest bit bothered about this? We've put up with blasting off business for the last, I don't know how many years because we never age anyway-"
"Come on guys, blasting off ain't that bad," interrupted Meowth. "Not since I got us that Soft-Landing-Bounce-Poline-TM."
"Shut up!" Jessie shouted, or rather hoarsely croaked. "Ugh, get me some water. As I was saying before some idiot excuse for a Meowth interrupted me, we blast off every single day, get shown off as evil morons-"
"-which we are-"
"Water, you moronic wuss." James obediently handed her a cup of stream water (with an added fish for visual effect). "And we don't even get the money or the Pikachu to show for it!"
"Yeah, we knew dat, but whatcha gonna do about it? It's a job," said Meowth lazily. By this time he had given up on the rock-hard "breakfast" and was wondering what edible substances could be made out of an old sleeping bag and a tent pole.
"Hmm," said James, thinking.
"I got it!" Jessie said after a pause, her eyes shining. "We capture Pikachu and then ransom that yellow rat for a heap of money!"
"And then when we get the money, we give it to the boss for a promotion!"
The two human members of Team Rocket got up, high-fived and started dancing with joy. They were unfortunately interrupted by Meowth smacking their legs with a tent pole and saying something along the lines of "Shut up, ya morons!".
"Ow!" said, or rather, squealed James. He sat down and rubbed his legs where he was sure a bruise would be forming. "Why do you keep spoiling our good moments?"
"You just tent-poled my beautiful legs!" screeched Jessie over him. Meowth covered his ears. "Why, you deserve-"
But Meowth was saved from a terrible fate at the hands of Jessie by a large blue Pokemon screaming "Wohhhhbuffet!" at the top of its lungs, which tripped James over on his way to tapping Jessie's shoulder, which tripped both Jessie and Meowth over and landed them all in a rather large and painful heap on the ground.
"That had better be good ..." growled Jessie, sitting up and kicking James. She wasn't exactly sure which part of him she was kicking, but by the "Ow!" that resulted, she was quite sure it was him. Which was good enough.
"Look!" wheezed James, pointing into the distance. Wobbuffet pulled itself out from the bottom of the heap (which made everyone else crash slightly more painfully into the ground) and saluted in agreement. There, at the edge of the horizon, were three all too familiar blobs.
"Twerps!" said Meowth, sliding himself off the heap and squinting at the blobs. "Is this in the script?"
"Nope," said James, trying to remember where those pieces of paper had got to.
"And they're heading straight for our 'Hole In The Ground Plus Net O' People Trap Of Doom'!" said Jessie over him. She got up and watched with anticipation.
XXX
Some time later, Team Rocket had just finished their motto and were locked into Pose #63 (part B), looking down at the net hanging in the hole. Sure, it wasn't in the episode script they were due to record today, but nothing's wrong with a little improv, right?
"Exactly!" said Jessie. James had not realised that he was talking out loud.
"Shut it and get on with it!" said Meowth. He jumped down from where he had been - James's head - and started to poke Ash with a sharp stick, cackling as he did so. "I've always wanted to do dis..."
"Can you let us out now?" said Ash weakly from inside the hanging net of people. The other two people in the net looked to be in shock. "This isn't what's supposed to happen!"
"Get the Pikachu out of there," Jessie said, ignoring him. Meowth grinned wickedly and got out yet another of those rubber glove contraptions. Pikachu, amid screams of protest, was hoisted out from the net and into the waiting glass box.
"Pokeballs?" said Meowth, searching the bag for the Pokeball Grabber v4.2. Jessie nodded. A few seconds later, some sort of high-tech magnetic attraction device had sucked in all of the Pokeballs.
"Wonderful!" said James, hugging Jessie. "Jess, what're we going to do with these twerps hanging out to dry?"
"Leave them there," answered Jessie after a moment of thought. James and Meowth shrugged, and turned to leave. Jessie waved happily at the Net O' People and followed, taking the glass box with Pikachu.
"Hey, you can't just leave us!" shouted Ash in indignation, shaking the ropes. "We're the protagonists! We have to win!"
"You tell them, Ash!" said Dawn, who had just regained consciousness. She felt around for her Pokeballs and hit Ash accidentally in the arm that had been sharp-stick-poked. "Where's Piplup?"
Ash sighed.
The next thing he knew, a paper fan had just hit him on the nose and landed on Dawn. He picked it up and read the words, "SHUT UP".
XXX
"Now that we've captured Pikachu and sent him off to the boss, what do we do?" said James, looking a little lost. After the initial bout of celebratory dancing and hugging and dancing and hugging and whatnot, the fact that Pikachu hadn't escaped had put them off a bit. Especially as they were working without a script to tell them what to do.
"Er..." said Jessie.
"We could release da twoips and amuse ourselves with deir confusion when dey find out da electric rat's gone missing," said Meowth.
"Sounds like fun," Jessie said.
"Who's that?" James said.
"What?"
But sure enough, in the distance yet another blob with a twerpish aura was walking down the path towards the 'Hole In The Ground Plus Net O' People Trap Of Doom'.
"Is that Misty?" said James, getting out the binoculars.
"Uh huh," said Meowth. "She's gonna get dem outta da trap anyways!"
"Well, this'll be fun," said Jessie.
XXX
Misty had not actually noticed the rather obvious and large hole in the ground. This was because Psyduck - who had insisted on not staying in the Pokeball (which she had thought was Starmie's, and up until a few minutes ago Misty had been very pleased that she had not brought that idiotic Psyduck with her) - had wandered off in the wrong direction and was running back the way she had come.
Of course, she thought, she could just leave that Psyduck and then it would never be able to come back and bother her with its amazing stupidity!
But then, being so utterly hopeless, it might just come back and find her because she had thought of that plan, and seeing as Psyduck never ever ever did what she wanted it to do...
But if she had just thought of that, then possibly whatever force of stupidity ruled Psyduck's brain had probably thought of it too, and now she would have to try and find him to make sure not to find him...
To look or not to look?
Just as she was pondering these heavy thoughts, she found her foot falling the wrong way and then she had landed with an "oof!" on something netty-rope-like that screamed and was hanging in a hole in the ground.
"MISTY!" shouted Ash and Brock at the same time. Misty yelped. "Get us out of this hole so we can rescue Pikachu!"
"Hi!" said Dawn, smiling broadly at her. "I'm Dawn and... oh no, they took Piplup, didn't they?!"
"Er, hi," said Misty, scrambling up the net and looking down at the three entrapped people. "Wait a moment, I'll get out my Pokemon..."
No sooner had she said those words than a vacuum cleaner-like force had sucked away her Pokeballs (plus the empty Psyduck one).
"Team Rocket!" yelled the three inside the net. Misty turned to see all three members of the Team Rocket gang doing Pose #63 (part C) and giggling triumphantly at her.
"You'll never be able to get out!" said Jessie, holding up her Pokeballs. "Have fun in Twerpland!"
James giggled even more, Meowth hit him on the head and said, "Stop sounding like an idiot!" and Team Rocket walked off.
XXX
"I thought we were gonna let dem go free?" said Meowth at the camp.
"Isn't this more fun?" Jessie said.
"It'll be like a twerp endurance test," James said.
"Survival of the fittest," Jessie added.
"Survival's only for the best!"
"So it's death for the shi-"
"Okay, okay, I get it," said Meowth, interrupting Jessie. She looked scandalised and hit him with a handy hammer.
"Don't you dare interrupt me while I'm demonstrating my powers of improvised speech!"
"This is a kids' show, guys," grumbled Meowth. "I'm just doing what I have to do!
"Those weren't really our best rhymes," said James to Jessie, looking a little worried.
"Maybe our rhyming powers depended on the twerps being free!" said Jessie, looking even more worried.
"Or the squeaky yellow thing electrocuting us!"
"I think dere's some more people over dere dat'll distract you guys..." said Meowth, pointing towards the Hole In The Ground.
XXX
May and Max did not often wander through distant woods alone, but seeing as the day was so nice...
"...and when I get that fifth ribbon from the Contest in Randomidontcare Town, then I'll be able to enter the Genericwhatever Cup Contest!" said May, spinning around in circles and demonstrating to her brother exactly what moves she would be using for the appeals.
"Cool," said Max, not really listening and wondering if a Skitty and a Wailord really could have eggs together.
And so it was that May was too lost in her own dreamworld of Contests and winners and Drew and all that to realise that she was falling into a hole until after she hit Misty, and Max was too busy setting up an imaginary Pokemon breeding centre for Skittys to notice that May had disappeared or that he was also falling into a hole.
"MAY! MAX!" shouted Ash and Brock at the same time. Dawn had fallen asleep from boredom (there really isn't much you can do in a hole), and Misty had just been crushed by the two new arrivals.
"Hi!" squealed May while Max tried to work out how they had got into this hole.
"Quick, get your Pokemon out and get us out of this hole!" said Ash. "Misty, are you okay?"
"No," grumbled Misty. "Hi, whoever you are."
"Oh... I left all my Pokemon in the Pokecentre down the road," said May, smacking herself.
"And I'm permanently too young to have Pokeballs," said Max.
"Darn," said Ash.
XXX
"Now all we need is that guy with a girl's name who got left behind in that old guy's place," said James.
"Who?" said Jessie. "Tracey?"
"Do you think dey're figure out some way to get out, like climbing?" Meowth said, looking in the tents to find something to eat. No such luck, though. "Can we get some food?"
"Yeah," James agreed, realising how hungry he was. He hadn't had anything to eat since... last night!
"We could probably get some off the twerps," Jessie said thoughtfully.
"Seeing as they're all coming today, why don't we wait for Tracey? He's bound to come sometime," James suggested.
"Why?" Meowth said. "I'm hungry now!"
"But it's more fun getting all the twerps into a trap together!" said the other two at the same time, getting up into Pose #32.
Meowth did sort of see the point - after all, the pleasure of seeing all those annoying twerps trapped in a trap with no way out would probably be a lot greater than just getting something to eat. Besides, if there was a Pokecentre down the road, they could just stock up there later... as well as steal a few more Pokemon.
"Fine," he said. "But if he doesn't come in da next five minutes, I'm taking your credit card and buying up the whole of the next Pokemart I see."
Jessie shrugged. "It's not even my credit card anyway."
XXX
And of course, Tracey was indeed just walking along the road.
Having slightly more brainpower than the other six twerps who were currently sleeping in a hole, Tracey actually noticed that was a hole in the ground before he stepped in it. Putting away his sketchbook and pencil, he knelt down and realised that the ropes at the sides were holding a net at the bottom of the very deep hole trap.
"Hello?" he said.
"Hello?" came a voice.
"Misty?" said Tracey.
"Tracey?" said Misty.
"What're you doing here?" they both said at the same time.
"TRACEY!" yelled Ash. "Please, please say you have some Pokemon to get us out with!"
"Ash, you just burst my eardrums," said May, rubbing her ears. She sat up and pushed Max off her shoes. "Are we getting out yet?"
"Hopefully," said Ash, grinning.
Unfortunately, their happiness was all too short-lived, for Tracey suddenly felt an unexpected foot in his back and three seconds later, he was sprawled winded on top of Misty and Max. Two seconds after that, he felt his Pokeballs vacuumed up out of the hole by a certain Team Rocket gadget.
"Great," said Brock, looking up towards the faraway light at the top of the hole.
"Mwahahahaha!" laughed Team Rocket, high-fiving each other and doing various victory poses.
"How'd all you guys manage to end up in the same hole at the same time anyway?" said Misty, trying to ignore the cheering coming from the top of the hole.
"Bad luck?" suggested May. "This can't be a coincidence..."
"Team Rocket couldn't think up such a great plan to get us all here," said Ash. "And... and, they took Pikachu!"
May, Max, Misty and Tracey looked suitably shocked. "Really? But you're the hero!" said Misty.
"And Pikachu is too cute to be stolen!" added May with a hand over her mouth in astonishment.
"Mwahahahahahahaha!" laughed Team Rocket again.
"You're right, this really is much better than eating," said Meowth.
"Now that you've had your fun, can you let us out?" said Brock.
"No!" said James.
XXX
Psyduck was still wandering around in the woods wondering how best to be stupid. It all depended if Misty came looking for him or not, and whether she wanted to find him. Using his psychic Psyduck powers, Psyduck would then do exactly what Misty wasn't planning. It was a great plan, and one that had always worked for him in the past. He quacked in a laughing sort of way to himself and ran around in a few more circles.
What Psyduck had not really expected to hear was the psychic call for help by no less than seven distressed people lying at the bottom of a deep hole trap.
Now, normally Psyduck would go in and rescue them, but seeing as Misty was there and he had made it his mission in life to be as annoying as possible to her...
But, he supposed, there were six other people who needed help down there, which therefore cancelled out the previous mission in life goals.
Psyduck quacked in a decisive sort of way, hit his head on a nearby tree to improve his headache, and set off for the hole.
XXX
"What's this Psyduck doing here?" said James, pointing at it.
"Beats me," said Meowth, turning on yet another Pokemon-grabbing contraption. "Come to daddy!" he laughed at the hands went out to grab Psyduck.
"Psy!" squawked Psyduck. Meowth was blasted back by a suitably strong burst of Psychic power and rammed into a tree.
"Hey!" screeched Jessie. "You can't do that!"
"Yeah! Dat's just mean!" shouted Meowth, peeling himself off the tree and shaking the now-broken Poke-Grabber.
"Psy?" said Psyduck, wondering why he couldn't do that.
"That's right!" said James, coming to stand by Jessie. "You're just... not allowed!"
"Psy psy DUCK!" said Psyduck, which meant something like, "Oh shut up you idiots."
Meowth was halfway through through translating that one before another blast of Psychic power blasted them off.
You know, off. Just like usual.
XXX
So in the end, Misty, May, Max and Tracey set off on their separate paths, and Ash, Dawn and Brock set off on their never-ending quest to win more badges, win more ribbons, and are still wondering when Pikachu will get back to them (because Pikachu inevitably will come back, as will the rest of their Pokemon - as for how they got out of the hole, that we will never know). Jessie, James and Meowth landed in another distant wood and are presumably planning what to do with the money they are sure to get from the promotion Pikachu will bring them. Hopefully.
THE END.