Chapter 3
Granbull roused from his sleep. He found himself locked in a cage that was sitting in the back of a moving truck. His clutched his chest which still ached from where he was stabbed by Toxicroak. He saw Lord Mightyena lying unconscious in a cage next to him. But the mighty beast of darkness seemed frail and weak, he was more than unconscious, he was…dying. Granbull heard rustling nearby. He looked over and saw a sack moving around, something was struggling to get out.
Murkrow poked her head out of the bag through a hole she had torn with her beak. She squeezed through and stumbled out of the bag. "Granbull are you ok?" She asked when she spotted the imprisoned Pokémon. Granbull nodded his head. "That's good, let me get Mankey out of the bag." She stepped over to the side of the sack to where the rope tie was. She tugged on the string and the knot unraveled.
Mankey tumbled out of the sack and flopped on the floor of the truck. He was unconscious as well. "Oh dear, this is not good." Murkrow examined her surroundings the back of the truck was coverless but it has very high walls. She could have easily flown Mankey and herself out but she wasn't sure how she'd get Mightyena and Granbull free while they were locked up. She'd have to find some way of getting them out of those cages. "Granbull is there any way you can see to get out of that cage?"
Without hesitation Granbull immediately threw his whole body into ramming the steel bars of the cage. That did nothing but aggravate his stab wound. Granbull felt like passing out but he shook off his pain and readied himself for another lunge.
"Granbull don't do that. You're hurting yourself." Murkrow cried to the large brute.
But Granbull stubbornly ignored her plea and rammed into the bars again. This time the lock on the cage seemed to give way a little, but not much. Now the pain in Granbull's chest was excruciating. He hunched over and geared himself to prepare for another tackle. Just as he was ready to lunge the truck skidded into a turn and halted suddenly, throwing Granbull into the cage door and busting through it.
(Elsewhere)
Ted stepped out of the driver's seat of the truck and shut the door. He walked toward the garage and entered in the code to open it on the keypad. This garage, to an outsider, seemed like a simple garage for a generic company to park their vehicles. But below was a series of offices, prisons, and labs all belonging to Team Rocket. Ted walked back to his car and drove into the garage.
He parked his truck and got out with Bundy. "Man this is going to be sweet!" Howled Bundy in jubilation. "How big do you think our pay raises are going to be?"
"I don't know, but it's gonna be huge. I'm telling you Bundy my boy things are looking up for us. Soon we'll be at the t-" Ted stopped speaking when he saw Kenneth and Angelo, his two least favorite people in the world, striding towards him.
"Well look who it is," said Kenneth, "The Goof Troop."
Angelo laughed out loud at his friends joke. "Ha, that's right. So you two dimwits back from another hard day's work of being failures?" He said with a mocking sneer.
Bundy stepped toward the two harassers and put on a grim face, putting up a tough guy guise. "I'll have y'all two know that we got 4 Pokémon sitting in our truck right now."
"Oh wow 4 Pokémon, how amazing." Kenneth snickered. "Remember when we used to think capturing 4 Pokémon was a big deal?" He asked Angelo.
"Grunts are so cute, they're like children who think they're special because they made some shitty macaroni art." Angelo and Kenneth found satisfaction in belittling Grunts, ever since they were promoted to Chiefs they had let their ego get to their heads and believed themselves better than everyone else. "So where are your Pokémon? Or are they fake, like your macho act?"
Bundy scrunched his face up in anger. "We'll show you punks." He hustled over to the back of the truck and opened the trunk door. He found himself being stared down by an uncaged Granbull that looked like it wanted to kill him. "Umm, Ted…"
Granbull hurtled out of the truck and rammed right into Bundy's ribs, sending him plummeting to the ground. Angelo and Kenneth busted into laughter. "Hey…hey Bundy…" Angelo tried to come up with a witty joke but he was laughing too hard to think.
"Bundy, what the hell?" Ted quickly grabbed a random pokeball and got ready to toss it when he was hit by a blast of dark energy that sent him flying to the wall. It was a Night Shade attack from Murkrow whose eyes were still glowing black in preparation for another attack. As Bundy was regaining his composure Granbull leaned forward to prepare for another attack but he was entangled by vines that came from behind him.
Looking behind him he saw he'd been wrapped up in the vines of a Kenneth's Tangrowth whom was standing next to Angelo's Froslass. "Granbull!" Murkrow shouted as she hurriedly flew over to assist her comrade.
"Froslass, hit that Murkrow with an Ice Beam!" Angelo ordered his Pokemon. A light blue ball formeed in Froslass' hands. It then fired light blue beams from the ball at Murkrow. Murkrow became trapped in ice and fell to the ground, frozen in place.
"Alright now then, let's take care of this mutt." Says Kenneth. "Tangrowth use Sleep Powder on Granbull!" Tangrowth blows a mist of white powder towards the entangled Granbull, forcing him to fall asleep.
Angelo had grabbed a burlap sack from him and Kenneth's truck and was now walking over to pick-up Murkrow. "Hey you can't do that!" Shouted Ted. "We caught those Pokémon."
"Correction", says Kenneth, "you caught the Pokémon, then you lost them, and then we re-captured them. So by all means, they're rightfully ours."
"No they're not!" Ted was teeming with rage, struggling to keep himself from breaking into tears. "We found them first, they're our Pokémon!"
"We found them first" Angelo says in a baby's voice, mocking Ted. "Hey Kenneth I think he's gonna tell on us for not playing fair." He picks up the frozen Murkrow and drops her into the sack.
Ted runs over and snatches the sack from Angelo's hand. "No, we're not letting you take them!"
Angelo snaps his head toward his Froslass and shouts an order. "Froslass, hit him with an Ice Beam!" Froslass shoots an Ice Beam at Ted and freezes his entire body in a block of ice. Bundy is just sitting over at the side, not saying anything out of fear of being frozen. Angelo pries the sack from Ted's frozen hand. He walks over to the sleeping Granbull and stuffs him in there as well. "Hey Kenneth, don't forget they've got two more Pokémon in their truck."
"Right, you know I must thank you two." Kenneth strolls over to Ted and Bundy's truck. "This has to be the easiest capture we've ever had. It's a shame you're so pathetic, maybe then you guys wouldn't still be grunts. But you are pathetic, can't even keep Pokémon you've already captured. To be honest, I don't even know why you two even joined Team Rocket." When Kenneth lifts up the trunk lid a loud screech erupts from inside. Just as Kenneth turns his head to see what it was Mankey's fist crashes into his nose. Kenneth stumbles back a little and holds his now broken nose. "God damn it! Get that thing!"
"Froslass hit that Mankey with a Shadow Ball!" Shouts Angelo. Froslass puts its hands together and forms a black and purple ball in between them. It then fires the ball at Mankey but Mankey dodges to the right and rushes towards the Froslass in a blind fury. He jumps into the air and Mankey's arms glow white and he forms a cross with them. He then swipes at Froslass with his crossed arms but they just phase right through Froslass's body and Mankey slams into the ground on his face. He turns over and crawls away on his arms and legs, gazing up at the floating Froslass in fear with blood dripping down his nose. Angelo glares at the Mankey and smirks, "Freeze him with an Ice Beam Froslass." With an evil smirk to match her masters Froslass fires another Ice Beam at Mankey and freezes him.
Kenneth walked towards Angelo, wiping blood from under his nose, carrying Mightyena and his cage in his hand. "Stupid little bastard. I'll be sure to have him thrown into the dungeon." The dungeon being a very small cage designed for misbehaving Pokémon that was barely lit, had multiple Pokémon crammed inside of it, and they were fed only 5 times a week(as opposed to the 7 for those in regular captivity). Angelo tossed the frozen Mankey into the cage with Mightyena. He looked at the frozen Ted and then Bundy who was still just standing there not doing anything, "Don't worry, he'll thaw out eventually." Then Angelo hoisted the sack with Granbull and Murkrow over his shoulder and he and Kenneth walked off towards the elevator. As Kenneth walked into the elevator he called out to Bundy, "Thanks again for the free Pokémon, loser." Kenneth and Angelo cackled as the elevator door shut and their laughter slowly faded away as they went down to the lab.
(Elsewhere)
The Pokémon of the forest were gathered around the Great Oak and Medicham stood behind the stump that served as a makeshift podium. "What do you mean Lord Mightyena's been captured?" Shouted a Shuckle from the crowd. "That's right", responded Medicham, "humans captured him, Mankey, Murkrow, and Granbull."
"So now what do we do?" A disembodied voice said. "Well this obviously calls for a war!" Says another. "I say we rush right into town and pummel those rotten humans into dust!"
"No, that won't be necessary." Said Nidoking as he stepped up to take the podium from Medicham. Nidoking was the Duke of The Forest of The Great Oak and was also in charge of defense for the forest. Sort of like a mixture between a military general and a vice president, though Pokemon didn't tend to go to war so there wasn't an actual army he was in charge of. He would merely step in to take care of any threats to the forest and would at times gather up a small team to help him battle but at most times when the forest was invaded or there was a misbehaving pokemon in the forest it was up to him to take care of it with his brute strength. When Mightyena died or was incapacitated, as he was now, Nidoking would take the position of Lord.
"What do you mean not necessary?" Said Shuckle.
"I mean maybe we don't need to send out an army to attack the humans. We can simply send out a small team that can sneak into the human's base and try to rescue Lord Mightyena and the others instead of sending dozens of Pokémon to their death." He turns to Medicham. "Medicham, you said you saw them being taken away in a vroom-vroom, correct?" Vroom-vroom being what the Pokémon called the human automobiles.
"Yes sir, a blue one." Medicham said, adding on the extra information in hopes it would help.
"Good, you can take…umm", Nidoking stopped to think which Pokemon Medicham should take with him, "…how about Beedrill and Kecleon? Yes, take them and follow the vroom-vroom's tracks to where they were taken. After that Beedrill and Kecleon can sneak into the base and rescue Lord Mightyena and the others." After he said that Beedrill and Kecleon emerged from the crowd. "So then what do you three think?"
All three agreed with Acting-Lord Nidoking's plan. They each said their goodbyes and headed off on their mission. Meanwhile a shadow lurked behind them as they walked, waiting for it's chance to strike.