ML54: Hey guys, I know you guys are pretty used to my weird ideas by now, but this is my strangest yet.
Pikachu: Yeah, it really is strange but he hopes you like it.
Ash: ML54 doesn't own Pokemon.
Ex-Team Rocket
Oshawott and Pikachu walked next to their trainer while Sparky rode on Richie's shoulder and all the other Pokemon decided to stay in their PokeBalls. The group, right now, were travelling to Castellia City for Ash's third gym badge.
The otter, very recently, lost interest in staying in his PokeBall at all, mainly because Pikachu doesn't, so why should he. But, the thing he couldn't fathom, was why the girl was walking next to him rather than on Ash's shoulder, as she usually does...
...she was quite close too.
He cast an odd look her way, wondering why she was next to him. It doesn't make much sense. Sure, they were friends somewhat, but the two rarely talked and, if they did, it was usually about training or Ash, usually an argument about the latter. He felt someone looking his way and glanced back at Pikachu, who was gazing at him.
She caught his eyes, and looked away quickly. The otter rose a pokebrow, but didn't say anything. He looked up and saw Sparky barely holding his laughter in and started to wonder what the joke was. What was wrong with everyone?!
"Maybe it's just because they're not used to me staying out of my Pokéball..." He thought to himself, nodding. That must be it, there's no way it could be anything else...right?
"I should ask Snivy. She'll know what's going on." He resolved, waddling a little quicker so they can get to a clearing or something so they can rest...
...but Team Rocket stopped them.
The group saw the three usual culprits standing their. But, strangely enough, they weren't wearing their uniforms and weren't blurting out their motto like usual. And they looked very down. James was wearing a blue t-shirt with a darker blue jacket over it, blue jeans and blue sneakers.
Jessie was wearing a red blouse and a purple mini skirt, with a pair of black boots. Meowth was at their feet, kicking the dirt.
The five raised their eyebrows at the strange sight. "Um..." Ash started, getting their attention. "...hi?"
"Hey twerps..." Jessie sighed, running her hand through her hair. "...no need to worry, we figured we'd find you and say we won't be after Pikachu anymore..."
"Really..." Ash asked, suspiciously. He knew better then to trust these three.
"And why not, dare I ask?" Richie asked, Sparky nodding in agreement. "Cause you three have been after her ever since the Kanto League."
"Really?!" Iris exclaimed, glancing at the three, down Team Rocket members. "Persistent, aren't you?"
"Tha's te thin', te boss finally had enough of us..." Meowth mentioned, glaring at the ground.
"We were fired." James finished, shocking the five. "Well...maybe that's not quite right...All of Team Rocket disbanded, Giovanni said he had to hide from the cops and told all Team Rocket members that he'd hire new ones when the time came..."
"I heard about that!" Dawn mentioned, taking out her Poketch. "I just didn't think it was true."
"Ya..." The three then walked past them.
"Where are you going?" Ash asked, concerned. Sure, these guys had continuously tried to separate him and Pikachu, but he's grown sort of fond of them. Like those annoying cousins that you have to see from time to time.
"We're going to Castellia City to see if we can get a job or something." The group facepalmed once the ex-team Rocket started to move away again.
"Castellia city is THIS way!" Cilan called to them, causing the three to face-falter into the ground.
"Oh we can't do anything right!" The three cried, hugging each other. Oshawott and Pikachu glanced up at Ash, who started to look a little sympathetic. Pikachu kind of knew where that was coming from. Stealing was what Team Rocket did, it was all they knew. And now they didn't have that, they were lost.
And if she knows Ash like she thinks she knows Ash.
"Why don't you three come with us to Castellia?" Ash offered, causing the other four to look at him in shock.
"Ash! Are you CRAZY?!" Iris yelled at him, immediately. "These guys have been trying to steal our Pokemon on a daily basis!"
"Iris, come on! Look at them!" He replied, indicating to the three weeping ex crooks. "We can't leave them alone in the woods and, if the news is right, they aren't going to try and steal anyone now! If we leave them, we'll be no better then they were when they tried to steal our Pokemon!"
Iris recoiled after hearing that. She looked and saw that Dawn, Cilan and Richie had all agreed and so, sighing agitatedly, she agreed too. "Fine then. But Arceus you're such a kid!"
"And I'm proud!" Ash grinned back, having gotten used to her saying that. He then turned back to the three and held out his hand to them, causing to look up at him in confusion. "So, offer still stands, we can travel with you to Castellia if you want?"
"Oh thank you!" James cheered, shaking his hand so much that the boy was literally having his arm thrown up and down like a wave.
"You won't regret this!" Jessie and Meowth added, expressing their thanks as well. And so, the group continued.
Oshawott glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw Meowth trying to talk to Sparky, while Sparky tried to be polite back. Though it was hard since, well, they were Team Rocket.
He felt someone try to get his attention and turned to find Pikachu there. He rose a pokebrow at her and nodded, showing he was listening. "Do you think we can trust them?" She asked, fearfully. The otter thought for a while. Could they?
"Well, I've never seen them out of their uniforms. And they did look genuinely upset about something. Plus, Dawn did say she heard this on the news...but Pikachu is Ash's best friend and Pokemon..." Though it pained him, he knew that he was not Ash's main Pokemon and never will be.
He looked back, determined. "Pikachu is the one that keeps this team together, I won't let them steal her if they are faking it." "I don't really know, but don't you worry. I won't let them hurt you if they are faking." He saw her eyes fill with gratitude and felt her tail rub his, causing him to jump slightly.
"Thank you..." She replied, before turning away. She felt a lot safer now that Oshawott had said that.
She didn't realise, however, that Sparky and Meowth had heard the ENTIRE conversation. Meowth grinned. "Aw...Young love." Sparky had to hold a paw over his mouth to stop from bursting out laughing.
"Yeah. Unfortunately it seems pretty one-sided." Sparky replied, pointing to the blushing Pikachu and the confused looking Oshawott. Meowth's smile faltered a little seeing this.
"Well dat is a conundrum. Who else knows abou' dis?" Sparky held a paw to his chin, thoughtfully, before nodding.
"Buneary and Snivy I think. Why?"
"We need a plan ta ge' dose two toget'er, why else?" Sparky rose a brow at him, confused.
"Why do you want get them together?"
"Well. I know wha' dit's like ta get rejected...An' we put Pikachu through a lo' when we were Team Rocket. I jus' wanna do someting to make her happy...I like ta tink we're somewhat friends...We had our moments." Meowth explained, memories flying through his head like a tsunami.
Sparky's mind sort of started a battle against itself. On the one hand, he knew this guy was a bad pokemon but the other saw this entirely different pokemon who he completely seemed to ignore. He hummed in thought and put a paw in his turf of fur he likes to call his hair.
"Thinking about it..." He started in his head, glancing at all the humans talking amongst themselves, such as Cilan and Ash asking James what he was going to do while the girls were talking to Jessie...well Dawn was saying how they needed to go shopping since apparently a blouse should never go with that short skirt when the colours clashed. He doesn't understand but he's not a human or female so he wouldn't.
But mostly, he was worried about how the other Pokemon were going to react.
When everyone were released from their Pokéballs, there was a moment of confusion. Team Rocket's Woobat, Frillish, Serviper, Wobbuffet, Yanmega Amoongus, Carnavine, Mime Jr., and Yamask raced to one side while everyone else on the other five's team raced to the other to battle. That was before Cilan blew an air-horn and allowed them to explain what was going on.
So, they weren't going to fight, but they still seemed to stay in their own groups. The only ones that weren't were Sparky and Meowth, who were talking, and the rest of Richie's team as they didn't know who the Team Rocket Pokemon were.
Oshawott plopped down next to Snivy, making sure that Pikachu wasn't around. She seemed to sit next to him a lot more often too, which again worried him. He sort of wondered who most of Team Rocket's Pokemon were since he personally only really fought four of them.
Snivy rose a pokebrow at him, she usually likes to eat alone so she knew Oshawott must be stuck with something. "Sup, buddy?" Oshawott sighed, glancing at Pikachu, who was sitting with Buneary right now.
Once he was sure that the mouse wasn't listening to him, he asked. "Do you think something's wrong with Pikachu?" Snivy was sort of surprised that the otter noticed. He was usually quite oblivious to what goes on around him.
"What do you mean?" Oshawott sighed, of course the snake wouldn't have noticed, she usually stayed in her Pokéball until the time calls for it.
"I mean...well...I'm not sure how to explain it really..." Snivy was relieved that he couldn't tell she was acting as if she didn't know what he was talking about, but sighed at his stupidity. He wasn't very good with words. "Well...She seems to be walking next to me more often...She sits next to me during lunch...Plus she always watches me during training."
Snivy sighed again, running a hand over her face. Of course he'd notice Pikachu watching him battle, as the girl would literally GAWP at him! She needs to be more subtle!
"I don't know what to tell you, Wott..." She shrugged, using a little nickname she came up with for him since, well, Oshawott was kind of a clunky name. "Maybe you should ask her."
Oshawott snorted. "Yeah, I walk up to her and ask her why she's acting weird. That'll go down well." He replied, sarcastically. Riptide then came over to them.
"Hey guys, what you talking about?" Riptide had asked, sitting down next to the other otter, raising an eyebrow. Since him and Oshawott were both of the same species, they were quite quick to make friends. Oshawott sighed.
"Not anything important." He replied, getting up. "Thanks anyway Snivy. See ya later." With that, he left the two alone. Riptide turned to Snivy, smiling.
"Hey, I'm Riptide." Snivy glanced at him before nodding, smiling.
"My name's Snivy, pleased to meet you." She replied, holding out a vine for him to shake, which he did so. "So, you're with Richie then?"
"Yup! He and Sparky saved me from a pack of Bisharp and Pawniards. If they were a second too late, my head would have been cleaved straight off." The snake flinched, remembering some not-too-fond memories from her old trainer.
"Is that what happened to your ear?" She asked, noticing the tear that almost made it look as if he had three ears.
"Yeah. But hey, better than being dead, right?" She nodded, looking away from the ear.
"Yeah, I suppose so. But, well, doesn't something like that haunt you or anything?" She, unconsciously, moved her tail away at that point, remembering an old wound that was inflicted by her old trainer.
"Oh, everytime I see my reflection, yes. But you learn to live with it and move forwards." The otter said, shrugging his shoulders, smiling. "No point dwelling in the past, I just look to the future."
"Wow, wise words." She thought to herself, gazing at the Unovian starter with respect. Not a lot of Pokemon can move on from experiences like that, but he seemed to shrug it off like it was nothing. Unlike her.
See, her old trainer was very strict and did not accept failure under any circumstances. But she had only just joined the team when he was to face the Castellia City gym, but with Burgh's pokemon being bug types, she lost quickly.
After that, her trainer had got a knife and had rammed it straight through her tail and left her in an alley way, muttering something along the lines of 'useless Pokemon' and 'deserves to die'.
She had managed to free herself, just, and had to hold onto the wound tightly and retreated to the forest to find someone to her. Luckily for her, there was an Audino there and the Pokemon was able to nurse her wounded tail.
However, her tail had a scar where the knife had embedded itself, a red line on the left, leaf like appendage. That was also why she wasn't very trusting of Ash right away, she was afraid of a repeat of what had happened, but after seeing Ash for who he was, she allowed him to try and catch her. And catch her he did.
"Yeah...right..." She let the conversation drop there, waving her tail round away from Riptide to hide the scar. Only Oshawott knew her story and that was only because they were best friends. She barely knew the new Water-type at all.
"Hey Buneary..." Pikachu tried to get the attention of her best friend. Buneary turned and nodded for her to continue. "...do you...Do you think Oshawott will ever like me?" The rabbit nodded.
"Of course Pikachu. I'm sure he'll start flirting with you in no time." The Electric-type sighed and glanced around to find said Water-type. She growled, however, when she saw that Emolga was, once again, leading him on.
Buneary followed her gaze and saw what Emolga was doing. Before she could do anything though, Pikachu had gotten up and rushed towards them. Panicked, the Sinnoh Pokemon followed.
But what she saw may have been a little deceptive.
Five minutes earlier
"Hey Oshawott, can I talk to you real quick?" The otter glanced up and saw the dual-type Emolga there. Curiously, he nodded. "Well...um...I just uh..."
"What's up?" He asked, curiously. She sighed, ears flat against her skull. This was going to be tough. She knew Oshawott was a sensitive guy, but she had to make this clear to him.
See, she found herself talking to Axew and Scraggy earlier and the kids had asked her why she got 'Uncle Oshawott' to do stuff for her all the time when the pair weren't mates.
She had begun to think about before realising she didn't have an answer for them. She couldn't really explain it, it was more like an opportunity thing to get food or something like that. But, when she said that to them Axew called her mean. And it hurt to hear her own team mate call her that.
So, to clear her conscience, she had to break it to Oshawott. "I know this'll be tough to hear...but...I'd appreciate it if...maybe you'd stop flirting and doing stuff for me..." Oshawott tilted his head to the side, confused.
"Why?"
"Because...well...I kinda just don't like you that way." Oshawott's eyes had widened and he felt his chest start to clench, painfully. "I think...I think it'll be better if we were just friends..." This was another reason she didn't want to tell him the truth, it was just easier to let him believe the lie then to have to see him cry.
She heard him snivel and saw a few tears start to form. She didn't even notice Pikachu racing towards them, so wasn't aware of how much trouble she was in. "C'mon Oshy...Please don't cry."
But he couldn't help it. This was the ninth time a female had refused him and it was starting to become too much. So he cried, and he cried hard.
"EMOLGA!" She jumped, and turned to face Pikachu, startled and a little frightened by how angry the mouse was. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?!"
"I...I-I was just saying th-that it'd be better if we were friends, that was it! I swear!" Pikachu turned and saw the otter crying into his paws, tears still running down his chin. He actually thought he was making progress with Emolga.
Pikachu seemed to lose it and was about to jump and attack poor Emolga, who was trying to do the right thing! She was stuck, however, and felt her feet get really cold all of a sudden, causing Emolga to look extremely relieved.
She glanced down and saw that her feet were frozen to the floor and turned to Buneary, who had started leaning on her knees, panting hard. "Jeez! I forgot how fast you were!"
"Buneary! Let me go!" Buneary looked at Emolga, ignoring her angry friend.
"You'd better run, she'll thaw out soon." Emolga nodded, looked at Oshawott apologetically, and raced off to their trainers, knowing full well that Pikachu won't try to attack her there.
Once she got there, Pikachu smashed the glass away with Iron Tail and glared, furiously, at Buneary who grabbed her by the shoulders. "Look! I know your angry that she hurt Oshawott, but she isn't going to be leading him on anymore! She was just doing the right thing!"
The mouse glared at her for a few more seconds, before dropping it and turning to Oshawott, who wad run out of tears at this point, looking at the ground defeatedly. "Are you okay, Oshawott?"
"Do I LOOK okay?" He retorted, sarcastically. He looked up her, eyes red and blank, like part of him was just yanked out of him. "Why? Why? What's wrong with me?! Why doesn't anyone want to go out with me?!"
"There's nothing wrong with you, Oshawott." Buneary stated, firmly. "You just haven't found the right girl yet." Pikachu gave her a look. "O-or maybe they should try to find you." Pikachu glared at her, causing the bunny to mouth 'what do you want me to say?!' back.
He shook his head and stood up, glaring at his ground. "Well, you know what! I'm sick of getting rejected all the time! Sick of trying my very hardest and getting no-where!"
"Man...Emolga just shattered his self esteem..." Buneary thought to herself, seeing him push past Pikachu and look at his reflection in a nearby puddle.
"I'm just going to stop! No more of this stupid 'trying to find a girlfriend' stuff! Nothing! I'm done with it!" With that said, he went back to the group, leaving a stunned Buneary behind with Pikachu.
The rabbit, at this point, was afraid to look beside her, in fear of what Pikachu's reaction would be. Oshawott was the first guy that Pikachu had felt this strongly about. But now he said that he's not going to bother trying to find a girlfriend anymore!
But, curiosity got the better of her and what she saw made her heart break a little. Her eyes were watering, her form slouched and sitting, her electrical charges sending out tiny, weak sparks into the ground. She heard a sob, then a snivel until Pikachu had now started crying.
"Oh this is bad!" She thought to herself, hugging her best friend, supportively, ignoring the static charges that were being transferred to her body. "I'm sure he didn't mean it...C'mon Pikachu...We both know he won't give up that easily."
"This is n-not something h-he's g-going to g-get over...*sniff*...he's been t-trying t-to get Emolg-ga to like h-him since before you came h-here...a-at least a month...a-and since she's b-been using him...h-he probably f-felt he was making progress..." Buneary's eyes started to water hearing that.
"What a heartless Jynx! Why do that to such a sweet Pokemon?!" She shook her head, she needed to be strong for her friend here.
Meowth and Sparky had also saw what had happened, and looked down. "Damn...Oshawott's goin' ta be tough ta bring aroun' now..."
"You think we can bring him around, at all?" Meowth nodded to the Electric-type, determinedly.
"Oshawott's bin lookin' for someone since he joined you guyz, he ain't goin' ta give up! Especially if someone DOES return his feelin's." The Pikachu nodded, that made sense.
He looked at Pikachu and had to look away, sighing. It hurt him to see his sister figure so heart broken, but he couldn't confront Oshawott about this since, not only does Oshawott not know what he's done, but he'd accidentally tell the otter, Pikachu's feelings. So if Oshawott really doesn't like Pikachu like that, it would make the situation worse!
So he really has no choice but to trust the Cat-Scratch Pokemon and hope to Arceus that something goes right for once.
ML54: Well here it is, I hope you guys enjoyed it.
Oshawott: I didn't...
Mew: I don't think you were supposed to.
Sparky: ML54 would like reviews, but do not flame him.
