[Last edited January 25, 2017]
Chapter 2
Route 35 was a tree-lined, well-tended path that connected Goldenrod City to the National Park. A short ways from the main thoroughfare was a small pond, and under normal circumstances the clearing by the edge of the pond was not cordoned off with police tape. These were not normal circumstances, and that was why a small crowd of trainers and locals was standing nearby and trading rumors as the police conducted their investigation in peace. Among the members of the crowd were Jason, Krissy, and Travis. In Jason's mind he and his friends were no mere rubberneckers. They were on a reconnaissance mission.
"Plenty of people are saying it was Team Rocket so far," said Travis, "But I've also heard 'biker gang,' and 'guy in clown makeup,' so who knows."
Jason clicked his tongue in frustration. "I don't think we'll know for sure unless we hear it from those cops."
"Please don't tell me you want to sneak past the tape," said Krissy.
"Course not. I'm not a moron."
"Sissies," said Travis out of the corner of his mouth and in a terrible accent. "Both a' youse."
A challenge! In the face of the implicit, ridiculous dare Jason decided instead to move the goalposts. "You wanna go try it, turd-brain?"
"You wanna bet 500 I won't?"
Krissy sighed and covered her face with her hand.
"Okay," said Jason, "Krissy's getting embarrassed. Let's quit it."
"I still say we should only stop early on her birthday."
It was tempting, but Jason refrained from dignifying Travis's suggestion with a response. Instead he maneuvered his way to a spot in the crowd with a better vantage point of the crime scene. He wished he had a Marill's ears so he could tell what the cops were saying. One of them was talking to the victim, who was a trainer about their age. Just when Jason was thinking that they weren't going to learn anything else and that it was pointless to stick around here, the victim ran out the back of the area and into the woods. Jason looked over his shoulder, and it seemed he was the only one who'd noticed. Then he motioned to Travis and Krissy, and they understood and followed him into the trees.
Jason only had a general idea where the other kid had gone, so they had to move quick and keep their eyes peeled. "Travis," said Jason, "When we find him me and Krissy are gonna do the talking."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means you're a jerk and he's had a rough day and deserves better."
Krissy didn't seem pleased that their cease-fire had lasted all of one minute. "You could have put that a little more diplomatically."
"You're right, sorry. What I meant to say is that since Travis is such an intimidating badass it's probably safer if sissies like us talk to the guy."
"Thanks, Jason," said Travis, "I appreciate that." And Jason knew he really did.
Their search lasted a few more minutes until Krissy finally tapped Jason's shoulder and pointed to their right. The boy in question was sitting at the base of a tree and staring at the ground. When they got close the boy acted like he hadn't noticed.
"Hey." Jason tried to keep his voice as neutral as he could.
Only now did the kid lift his head. Everything around his eyes was red and his nose was a mess. "…What do you want?"
"What's your name?" asked Krissy.
"…Phillip. What do you want?"
Jason took over. "We're going after Team Rocket. We've just got a few questions."
"You gonna laugh at me like the police did?"
This piqued Jason's interest. He thought it was awful of course, but it was more likely there'd be some weird clue now.
"We won't," said Krissy. "Promise."
Jason was pretty sure that Travis would stick to that promise, too. He was only pretty sure because there was always the chance that Phillip would say something genuinely, hilariously dumb, in which case Travis might not be able to hold it in. Jason didn't feel bad about considering this cruel possibility because a trainer had to be ready for anything.
"The Rockets jumped us—me and Girafarig. There were two of them. We fought back, but then one of them knocked me over and I was face down and…and he pushed my head down and I couldn't tell Girafarig what to do. And then he kicked me in the ribs and when…when I got up they were gone and so was…so was…"
Phillip was crying again, and there was disgust and disbelief all over Krissy's face. "Why would the police laugh at that story?"
Slowly the boy lifted his shaking hands, which held an empty Pokéball. "This is Girafarig's. The police said the Rockets never take a Pokémon without taking the ball, too. They said this couldn't be Girafarig's ball and that I was confused. One of them was smiling. He was smiling!"
Jason suspected that none of the police had actually laughed and it had only seemed that way to poor Phillip. More importantly, it wouldn't make sense for Team Rocket to steal a Pokémon without its ball, especially not one that was bigger than any kid their age. Yet it felt like Phillip was telling the truth about the battle, if not about the police's reaction. And he hadn't been knocked out or anything so there was no real reason for him to be confused about what had happened either. Analyzing testimony was hard. "Hey," said Jason, "if we find those thugs we'll try to get back your Girafarig."
Phillip looked up at him. "…You mean it?"
"Of course! We're pretty dang good, and we outnumber them too!"
Krissy added, "We'll do our best, at least."
"What'd help though," said Jason, "is if you've got something one of them touched."
Phillip sniffed. "One of them left his stupid card. I didn't show it to the police."
"Can we have it?" Jason thought it would probably be enough for Rabies to work with.
Phillip pointed to his left, where the crumpled business card was on the ground. Jason pocketed it, and he didn't blame Phillip for littering. "Well, wish us luck. If we can just find them, I think we've got a good shot!"
"Take care," said Krissy. "We're really sorry."
Phillip didn't say another word and returned his gaze to the ground. As Jason began to walk away he worried that he might have overpromised. Beating a Grunt in a battle was one thing and they'd done it before, but he didn't know if they keep one from running away after they beat him so they could take his stuff. He got a little lost in his thoughts before he noticed that Travis wasn't keeping up with him and Krissy. He turned around and saw Travis standing in front of Phillip for just a moment before he turned around as well and caught up to them in a hurry.
"What'd you say to him?" whispered Jason, who wasn't sure what to think.
"Nothing."
"Whatever." It was seldom worth the effort to interrogate Travis.
They kept walking until they should have been well out of Phillip's earshot as a matter of courtesy. Then Jason pulled the card from his pocket and the first Pokéball from his belt. "Let's get to work!"
He pressed the ball's release switch, and out with a flash appeared Rabies, his Growlithe. Rabies barked, wagged, and looked all over the place for something his trainer wouldn't mind him biting. Jason held the card over the pup's nose, and immediately he had to pull back again as Rabies took a nip at it. They were still working on the lesson that going after fingers counted as going after people. "Hey, no! No bite. Smell! Find him, Rabies!"
Jason moved his hand closer again and this time Rabies sniffed the evidence with his mouth closed. When the fire-type was satisfied, he barked a few more times and pointed his nose toward the direction they had come from. "No, not the kid, the Rocket. Where's the Rocket?"
Rabies presumably got the picture and turned to face another direction that went deeper in to the woods. "Good boy! Go get him!"
Rabies bolted off with a bark, and the three of them chased after him. Jason soon had to call out an order to slow his Pokémon down. He could feel the adrenaline start to pump as they dodged the passing branches.
Krissy spoke up with short breath. "Travis, we need Pokémon ready, too. May have to fight right away."
"Yeah, yeah, I know."
The thought was almost too exciting for Jason to handle. He'd never gotten to start a battle by running in with guns blazing before. Rabies's path for them suddenly led downhill and they picked up even more speed. As they ran down a draw between two ridges, Jason spotted some large boulders not too far ahead. He wondered if the Grunts might be right behind them, and his heartrate spiked when Rabies skidded around the corner and started barking his head off. The word "Charge!" burst from Jason's mouth almost on its own, so he felt a little silly when they burst onto the scene and found nobody there but Rabies, who was sitting on his hind legs and looking very pleased with himself.
Travis rolled his eyes and shoved Jason's shoulder a little. "'Charge?' Really?"
Jason took some deep breaths and felt some color in his face. "It looked promising, okay?"
Krissy was also short of air, but not as short of focus. "Well, it does look like they were here. And they were littering, too." She pointed at a few empty beer cans, snack wrappers, and a plastic grocery bag.
"This really the end of the trail?" asked Travis.
"Must be," said Jason, "Or Rabies would have kept going. Doesn't make sense to me, though—if the trail were fresh enough for Rabies to pick up, you'd think it'd end at the Grunts instead of some place they stopped along the way. Unless…" A light went on in his head. "…There's a secret entrance around here!"
Jason's and Travis's eyes went wide, and Krissy looked sorry to offer her own opinion. "I think it's more likely that they were here before the mugging and this is the start of the trail. That would explain why Rabies wanted to go the other way first: it's where the trail was fresher. He wasn't thinking about Phillip's scent."
"Boring," said Travis and Jason together. But although Jason couldn't speak for Travis, he himself had meant 'boring' as in 'Stop being so smart.'
"Just as well, I guess," said Jason. "If we went the other way Rabies would've run right into the crime scene, and we'd have sure gotten an earful if that happened."
As for Rabies, he was the only one present who didn't look disappointed. While the humans were discussing what their next move would be, he sniffed around some more and grew curious with the small pile of trash.
"Rabies, get away from that ju—" Jason cut himself off as Rabies dug something out from under the grocery bag. It was a small notebook. He moved in before Rabies had a chance to tear it to pieces. "Drop. Drop. Good boy."
The notebook had a black, undecorated cover. Jason opened to the first page and saw a number of clumsy doodles, in the middle of which was a big letter 'R' written in red ink with an unsteady hand. "Oh man, you guys. This dude messed up big."
"They must have dropped their trash on it, then forgotten it was under the trash," said Krissy.
Travis laughed. "Instant karma. Nice."
Jason flipped through some more pages. "There's some stuff in here about quotas, orders from last year… Ah! This month's schedule!"
Travis and Krissy both leaned in to read. There was little besides weekly meetings, and if those were at the Rockets' hideout there was nothing they could do. One item however caught Jason's attention: a 'trade' with someone based out of Mahogany Town. The time was in four days and the location was by a river to the south of Lake Rage. "Must be under the table if they're going way out there to trade instead of just doing it at the meeting."
"Whoa," said Travis, "If these guys are breaking Team Rocket's rules too, that makes them, like, double rule-breakers."
"One of them is, at least," said Krissy. "I've heard that's a big problem for organized crime. Hard to keep everyone in line when you can only recruit people who don't have much respect for authority.
Jason was seeing more and more poetic justice in the situation. First they got the notebook because the crooks didn't have any respect for the environment, and now they were going to kick their butts because the crooks were crooks even to other crooks. "Looks like our strategy's pretty simple, then. We show up there early, and we go to town on whoever gets there next." Jason loved to see a perfect plan come together.
A few hours later the crew was walking east on one of the shady grass paths of Route 36. It was almost sundown so Route 37 would have to wait for tomorrow, but they were still on pace to make it to Mahogany Town and the site of their ambush in time. The more pressing matter was where they were going to set camp.
"Whose turn is it to cook tonight?" asked Travis.
"It's Jason's."
Travis's face blanched. "Does it have to be?"
Jason shaped his hand like an 'L' at Travis because he wasn't comfortable with sticking up his middle finger. He was this close to coming up with a more clever retort when his cell rang. "Hold on a sec... Huh?" It was Jen calling, and Jason had forgotten that she even knew his number. He flipped the lid open and put the phone to his ear. "Hi, Jen."
"Hey, Jason! How's it going?" The voice sounded like it belonged to the world's most cheerful tin can. Jason's phone may have been old and terrible, but it was virtually indestructible and therefore perfect for taking on a journey.
"Pretty good. What's up?"
"Where are you guys right now?"
Jason thought that was a weird question. "We're on 36, why?"
"Great! I was just thinking next time you were near Ecruteak you ought to come visit the gym! What do you say, how about tomorrow?"
"Uh…"
"What's she saying?" asked Travis. Jason waved him off. He had to think of a quick excuse, or at least stall.
"I don't think we can. We've already got plans."
"That's cool, that's cool. What are you up to?"
And now he was out of time to stall. He needed something plausible-sounding and, more importantly, something that wasn't 'Gonna go fight Team Rocket' or 'Ya know, stuff.'
He said, "…Ya know, stuff."
"Oh, come on! Tell me!"
Jason concentrated on the phrase 'plausible-sounding' for two seconds before he said, "…We're meeting some other trainers we know up at Lake Rage. So, like, we don't have time to stop."
"Dude," said Travis. "What's she want?"
Jen was talking at the same time as Travis. "Maybe some other time, then. Actually, I know some really good fishing spots at Lake Rage if you're interes—oh, hold on a sec." Jason heard the phone rustle on the other end followed by some words he couldn't quite make out. Then Jen was back. "Well, I'm gonna let you go now. Have fun! See ya!"
"Yeah… See ya." Jason hung up, but he still had a weird feeling for some reason.
"Hey man, you gonna tell us what that was or what?"
"She just wants us to visit her gym sometime. No big deal."
"Oh, does she work at Morty's gym?" asked Krissy.
"No, she's got her own. Not a real one. I mean, it is real but—"
"Whoa!" Travis cut him off with a start and pointed down the trail. Where a moment ago there had been nothing there now stood an Alakazam. Its back was turned to them and it was moving its head as if searching for something. Then it spun around and looked straight into Jason's eyes. It wore a stern expression that seemed to have been carved into its face. Just as Jason was reaching for one of his Pokémon, the two spoons that the Alakazam clutched in its hands bent an inch. The creature teleported away again as quickly as it had come.
"What the heck was that about?" asked Travis as he absently took a few steps closer to where the Alakazam had been.
Within the next second the following things happened: the Alakazam reappeared inches in front of Travis, it pressed its right spoon against the boy's chest, and they both disappeared as Travis's cry of shock was cut off halfway.
"Travis!" The scream was Krissy's. Jason's mouth was stuck open but his own scream got caught in his throat. The air in front of him and behind him was sucked into the spot where Travis and the Pokémon had stood. It didn't seem real.
Krissy's brain wasn't as frozen as his was. She grabbed his arm and yelled, "Come on, move!"
They ran forward a dozen yards, which should have been enough to give them a fighting chance. They turned around again to send out their Pokémon. Krissy was slightly faster.
"Go, Frostbite!"
"Go, Ali!"
Krissy's Sneasel and Jason's Ledian stood in front of them. In the spur of the moment, all Jason thought of was using a fast Pokémon with a type advantage. It suddenly occurred to him that Ali couldn't be strong enough to handle an Alakazam regardless. He also realized that Ali's only bug-specific move was Silver Wind, which would undoubtedly hit Krissy's dark-type Pokémon as well. And now it was too late to pull Ali back as their opponent was standing next to where they had just been.
While its back was turned Krissy shouted, "Feint Attack!"
As Frostbite contorted herself and seemed to turn into a shadow that fell away to the side, Jason called out the first other attack he could think of. "Comet Punch!"
Ali flew straight ahead as the Alakazam turned around and levitated just enough that the claws of its feet barely touched the ground. Jason's Pokémon threw a jab with one of his four small fists but missed by a hair. He kept trying to land a hit, but the Alakazam always ended up a centimeter or less away from the blow. All of the psychic-type's muscles were relaxed; it didn't appear to be moving of its own power. Then out of nowhere it planted its feet and braced itself as Frostbite emerged from some impossible blind spot and swung one of her claws. The Alakazam absorbed the punch from Ali and the slash from Frostbite with only a twitch and a grunt, and at the same time it shot out its arms and touched the two Pokémon with its spoons. All three disappeared.
Krissy covered her mouth with both hands and Jason fell to his knees. This couldn't be happening, he told himself. Everything seemed to stop to him, and he didn't remember that the smart thing to do was to run anywhere from their current spot. Only two seconds later the Alakazam stood between him and Krissy and he felt something metal press against his arm. The forest collapsed in on itself and dissolved. His stomach was tied into knots and his whole body spun forward and sideways at the same time.
And then where there had been forest there were now walls. He was barely on his own two feet and he had no idea where he was. Then without warning someone grabbed him from behind and hoisted him up.
"Heeeeeey, Jason!"
It soon sunk in that the word was 'bear-hugged' rather than 'grabbed,' and that rather than 'someone' it was 'Jen.' After she set him down Jason got more of a grasp on the situation. They were in the North Ecruteak Gym clubhouse. Travis and Krissy were both leaning against the wall in a daze. Ali was flying around in confusion while Frostbite was struggling furiously to escape the jaws of Jen's calm Arcanine, Summer. And sitting at the table was a woman whom Jason recognized as Jen's friend Hanna. She had a laptop out which had a map of Route 36 on its display. Plugged into the laptop was a pink cell phone that Jason was pretty sure belonged to Jen.
Hanna smiled and waved at him from her chair. "Hi, Jason. It's been a while."
"Oh!" said Jen with a snap of her fingers. "Let's do introductions. You must be Krissy! Hi, I'm Jen, Jason's cousin. That's Hanna, she's visiting from Cerulean City. Oh, and Hanna, this is Jason's bestie Travis. I think everyone knows everyone now?"
While Jen was establishing all this, the three kids were struggling to get a word in edgewise until finally they asked in unison and exasperation, "What was that?"
A few minutes later all the Pokémon were away and everyone was sitting down at the table. The room was much calmer, but Jason was still bewildered.
"Now, Jason," said Jen, "we felt we had to teach you a lesson because you're being a huge idiot. Same goes for you two." She said this with a pleasant smile.
There was only one thing she could be referring to, but Jason decided to play dumb just in case. "What do you mean we're being idiots?"
"You're not fooling anyone, bud. We know you've been picking fights with Rocket Grunts, and that's not very smart."
Travis joined in the playing-dumb game. "Who told you that?"
"Some kid who visited the gym a few days ago. We were chatting and it turned out he knew Jason. That's not what we're talking about, though."
Jason bet it was that twelve-year-old, Patrick. Patrick was a jerk.
Jen continued. "Anyway, we wanted to talk to you about it face to face, so I called you and Hanna did some of her magic computer stuff to track the location of your phone, and Marie knows how to teleport by longitude and latitude so that was that!"
"The program's not actually that complicated," said Hanna. "Took me a while to train Marie to work with it, though."
Krissy put her hands on her head. "But why? Why not just teleport over to us and talk?" Implicit in her voice was the additional question, 'What is wrong with you?'
"Well…" said Jen, "If it were just you and Travis we would've tried that, but you've got Jason."
"Huh?" Jason had no idea what she meant.
Jen kept talking while still facing Krissy. "Here's the thing: Jason hasn't really changed since he was four years old, and I'd know. If I ever told him, 'Don't touch that Weedle, it's poisonous,' he'd touch it every time. When he got older I tried saying nothing in case I was just encouraging him by saying no, but he'd still go do whatever dumb thing it was anyway. He was impossible to babysit, and he'd only ever learn by messing up."
Jason was turning red from embarrassment. "What's that got to do with it?"
"It means I know you're not going to listen to reason, so I asked Hanna to show you how hopelessly unprepared you are. You three just had your butts handed to you by one Pokémon whose trainer was miles away."
Krissy objected. "It wasn't even a Pokémon battle, though. Your objective was totally different!"
"You're proving our point," said Hanna. "Team Rocket isn't going to try to beat you in a Pokémon battle. They are going to try to get you and hurt you. They don't play by the rules, you won't know when they're coming, and they have Pokémon that are as strong as Marie is smart."
Jason recalled Phillip's story and swallowed. That one wasn't a real Pokémon battle either.
Jen took over again. "Now take the situation you were just in and imagine you'd been up against someone who doesn't love you and isn't trying to keep you safe."
Jason glanced over at Travis to see if he'd help out on defense, but his friend's mouth was closed as if with a vise and his eyes were looking straight down.
"I know what you're thinking," said Jen, "and you won't be ready the next time a surprise attack comes, either. If Marie weren't such a good girl she could have knocked you on your backs literally just by thinking it. You'd have no time to do a thing and you'd probably need a doctor. And a bad guy with a decent Haunter could have put you to sleep almost as fast. So far you've probably only met the dumbest Rockets with the worst Pokémon, and if you give them a reason to send anyone better at you, you're toast. Is that clear?"
The transition had been slow, but Jen's voice was no longer pleasant. It had moved past her seldom-used 'strict babysitter voice' and into uncharted territory. The last thing Jason wanted to do was give up but there was no way he could keep arguing without sounding like a moron.
"Jason, you've got five seconds to tell me you understand and won't do it again, or I'm calling your mom."
Jason's spine turned to ice. This was far scarier than the lopsided 'battle' with Marie had been.
"One… Two…"
He had to buy more than five seconds. "Can we talk it over first? I mean, the three of us?"
Jen's face relaxed a little. "Go ahead."
The room wasn't that large, but they tried to get all the privacy they could by huddling up in one of the corners.
"Jason," whispered Travis, "your other scary cousin has a point. And your mom would definitely call my mom."
"Yeah," added Krissy. "Do you think this is worth maybe losing your license?"
"Guys, slow down. This is too important for us to just quit right away. What about Phillip? You think the police are ever going to get his Pokémon back? You never hear about the police getting anyone's Pokémon back, but we've got a real chance."
Krissy sucked in her breath. "Do we, though? What if we're out of our league?"
"Not against these two, they're just regular Grunts. We know from the notebook. We'll beat these two and they'll be the last ones. Just one more fight. We'll be fine."
Jason could see in their eyes that they were convinced. He knew especially that Travis wouldn't be the first to blink and expose himself as a sissy little coward.
"So do we lie?" asked Krissy.
"Yeah. I know me and Travis can fool her. Can you?"
"…Sure. I'm not a bad actor."
And as Jason expected, Travis didn't blink. "Let's do it, then."
"Everyone act disappointed. Okay, break."
There were three beaten faces in the room as they returned to the table. "We'll stop," said Jason in the lowest tone he could manage while still being natural.
Jen sighed. "That's a big relief. Thank you."
"Hmmpf."
"I know this isn't easy, but you don't have to prove anything to anyone. You've all got so much time ahead of you to make a difference, and someday I'm sure you will. Just be patient."
"And we're sorry if Marie scared you," said Hanna.
With that, Jen was Jen again. "Oh, I'm not sorry about that. You're not on a journey if something doesn't give you nightmares at some point. Ever been in the Ruins of Alph at night?"
"…This was worse," said Krissy.
"Oh, whatever. You're gonna laugh about it eventually."
Travis slumped on the edge of the table. "…Jason'll probably be pulling the same kind of thing eventually."
"Shut up." Jason took note that Travis was doing a perfect impression of someone who was still mad but was trying to feel better.
Then as Jen started talking loud and fast about something, Jason spotted Hanna staring at him. For a moment he froze up. Her eyes were exactly like that Alakazam's. She knew. He could feel it. Or he thought he did. Now he couldn't tell if she was just trying to unnerve him on the chance he was lying, or if she was actually staring straight into his brain. Either way, the moment passed when Jen said she was going to let Summer out of her ball so Rabies could play with his mama.
If Hanna did suspect them, she said nothing about it that evening.
In a place miles away from the gym there were six large tree trunks lying on the ground, all of them freshly torn from their stumps. Three Pokémon had recently finished a battle here and they were now back in their balls. Two of them were cut and beaten to the worst shape of their lives, while the other didn't have a scratch. There were also two trainers present who were wearing matching uniforms, mismatched bruises, and zip-ties on their wrists and ankles. One of them was out cold and the other one was waking up again. A third trainer was wearing a ski mask and gloves, and he hadn't said a word the entire fight. He was almost done tying the others to a tree that was still standing.
"You're a dead motherfucker, you know that?" hissed the Grunt who was no longer unconscious. He was hissing because he had just lost a tooth. "Soon as our guys find you they're gonna rip your nuts off and feed 'em to you."
Derek said nothing back to him. He wasn't about to give away any clues, especially not when he might have to do business with them once their boss paid their bail. Instead he pulled the knot tight, grabbed their bags, and walked away. He wasn't worried about them getting loose before the uniformed police arrived. Since his Pokémon was only mostly under his control, his victories tended to be excessively thorough. He was more concerned about remembering to call in the hint—anonymously, of course. This wasn't one he wanted to fill out the paperwork for.
When he was a mile away he opened the bags. Each held a good number of black-colored specialty Pokéballs that he didn't recognize. Though the red 'R' on their fronts made no secret as to the manufacturer, something didn't add up. Making custom balls could only help you catch and breed Pokémon; it was pointless if you were out to steal them. His best guess was that these new balls boosted strength and aggression, and that perhaps Team Rocket was preparing for something bigger than stealing Pokémon. He didn't know and didn't want to rush to conclusions. He tried to open one, but the release switch wouldn't respond to his thumb, which was surprising. It also meant they might be interesting enough to get Hanna off his back.
Aside from the balls he found a notebook, and only one. Apparently the other Grunt had lost his somewhere. Derek read through the book and took interest in the trade that was scheduled to take place in a few days.
