Chapter 4: VS Rocket Commander

Lyra stared down the Rocket Commander as chaos erupted to their side.

"You're pretty bold to straight up attack a Rocket Base. I don't know how you found us, but whether you stumbled across our base or you're working for someone, I'm not letting you leave," said the Rocket Commander coldly.

"Oh, we're not working for anyone," said Lyra cheerily, "We're just your average everyday do gooders, cleaning up you Rockets for the betterment of society! Just part of the job!"

"Your insolence is sickening," growled the commander, "I will silence your errant tongue and you will learn not to meddle in Team Rocket's affairs!"

"Oh no! I'm too beautiful to die!" said Lyra, feigning horror.

The Rocket Commander snarled, "Enough! Primape! Sandslash! Attack!"

Lyra smirked back at him, "Magna! Amazon! Let's do Plan C!"

The two Pokémon nodded. Magna charged forward and crashed headlong into the Primape with a Double Edge, sending it flying back into its trainer. The Sandslash paused it's charge at Amazon to turn and Slash at Magna. The attack barely even scratched the Magnezone, who turned around and stared down at the Sandslash with a menacing glare before blasting it with a Flash Cannon. Meanwhile, Lyra stuffed a berry into Amazon's mouth, who swallowed it and chirruped cheerily.

"You ready Amazon? Magna! Time to switch!"

The Magnezone let out a contemptuous snort in the direction of the recovering Rocket Commander and his Pokémon as they scrambled back to their feet before floating back towards Lyra as Amazon stepped forward, its chest puffed out and a fighting look on its face.

"What are you waiting for? Primape! Cross Chop that thing!" bellowed the Rocket Commander at his Pokémon.

The Primape charged forward with a cry as Lyra called out, "Amazon! Meet him with Aqua Jet!"

The Azumarill merely smirked and launched itself off in a cloak of water, barreling into Primape, and knocking it out. The Rocket Commander looked surprised, and hastily reached for his belt.

"Sandslash! Use Earthquake!" he bellowed as he recalled his fainted Primape.

"Hydro Pump! Quick!" countered Lyra.

The Sandslash leapt into the air to perform an Earthquake but was intercepted by a massive blast of water that sent it crashing into the wall of the base. The Commander's jaw dropped as he reached for his last pokeball.

"Machoke! Annihilate this worm!" A powerful and well trained Machoke landed in front of the Rocket as he recalled his fainted Sandslash.

"Amazon, you know what to do!" called out Lyra. Her Azumarill dug its feet in, before charging at the Machoke with a pink aura.

"Machoke! Use Dynamic Punch!" The Machoke charged forward and threw a reckless punch. Amazon ducked underneath it with ease and barreled into the Machoke with the pink aura of Play Rough, knocking it out instantly. The Rocket Commander looked totally shocked.

"H….how?"

"Two words!" Lyra chirruped with the same mockingly cheerful smile. "Belly Drum!"

The Commander took a few steps back, turned around and rushed back inside, shouting commands, as Lyra just laughed.

She was cut short as a flying Raticate whizzed past her face.

"Raticate! No!"

"Eh! Sorry Lyra!" called out Crystal.

Lyra shook her head and chuckled and looked over at Amazon and Magna. "Let's go help her, shall we?"

The two Pokémon nodded affirmatively and they went off to join the fray.


"Marie! Use Earthquake!"

Violet clambered on to her Kanghaskhan's back as it jumped in the air and unleashed a massive, earth shaking shockwave, blasting a few unlucky grunts and their Pokémon who weren't fast enough to escape the radius.

"Aqua Tail! To the left!"

The Kanghaskhan turned suddenly and smacked its water cloaked tail into an unfortunate Magneton, sending it flying back into its trainer.

Violet winced. That had looked like it hurt. But, this was a battle after all, and against Team Rocket no less. It still didn't change the fact that she had to hurt another Pokémon. It wasn't their fault that they had most likely been stolen by Team Rocket. She swallowed hard. She could tell that these Pokémon didn't really trust their trainers. The hesitation when they moved, and the less than battle ready look in their eye told her all she needed to know. These Pokémon probably hadn't been treated all that well by their trainers. Not that she'd expect anything better from Rocket Grunts. She knew Marie was already pulling her punches so as not to harm the Pokémon too badly, but still… this...this was what she had dedicated her life to stopping. Her eyes narrowed with resolution as she looked at the wary grunts surrounding her. She snapped back into reality, as she realized her Kanghaskhan was looking quite fatigued.

"Marie! Good work!" she shouted. "Go Geoff!"

Her Kingler landed in front of her as Marie was pulled back into her pokeball. The Pokémon brandished his claws proudly at the opposing Pokémon in front of him.

The Rocket grunts and their Pokémon hesitated, and Violet capitalized on the opportunity, and chucked another pokeball.

"Magenta!" A Lapras came out of the pokeball with a cry.

"Use Surf, both of you! Counter sandwich maneuver!"

The two Pokémon quickly moved back to back and Violet clambered on Magenta's shell as the two faced both ways in the courtyard, and summoned a massive tidal wave each, sweeping away the Rockets, leaving them sprawled out all over the place confused, battered and soaking wet, some bowling over a wave of reinforcements coming from the right.

"Good work you two!" she said and returned them to their pokeballs. She looked over to the other side of the building, where Crystal and Lyra were and saw that a major tussle was still going on. Her heart sank somewhat, realizing that she hadn't quite drawn off as many Rockets as she would have liked. She quickly surveyed the Rocket grunts, unconscious or too hurt to move much, and quickly pulled out her Xtranciever as she pulled out a different pokeball and more Rockets came pouring out to face her.

"Hello? Brock? This is Violet. We have located a Rocket Base and require immediate backup. I'll send you the coordinates right away….."


The base was in total chaos as Indigo hastily snuck through the base. He'd already dodged a few groups of Rockets running around, more concerned with the blaring emergency sirens and the crazy trainers outside who had literally waltzed up to their base and started attacking. He rounded a corner and his eyes lit up as he found what he was looking for. The imposing door of the communications area of the base stood before him. He looked down at the security card scanner for a second before trying the handle. No such luck. He pulled out an old gift card out of his wallet and ran it through the scanner. The display lit up green and the door unlocked. Indigo chuckled as he strode through the door. Team Rocket really needed to up its security budget. He knew that there were far better door security options on the black market that wouldn't open for a card with faked Rocket credentials from 5 years ago. Not that a better system would have stopped Dux, but this was just outright embarrassing.

He glanced up at a security camera looking down at him.

"Dux, you still with me?"

The head of a Porygon Z appeared in the lens of the camera and emitted a cry in the affirmative.

"INTRUDER!"

Indigo jumped and looked down the hallway at a scientist who immediately ducked into one of the doorways. Suddenly, everything locked down, and all the doors slid shut. Indigo rolled his eyes.

"Dux, can you get the door to the security room?" he said up to the camera.

After a few seconds, one of the doors slid open. Indigo rushed into the room, releasing his Arcanine as he did.

"Jaws! Watch my back!" he said as he woke up one of the computers.

Jaws yipped and turned around to face the door.

They heard a terrified squeak from the corner, where Indigo saw a terrified grunt cowering. He reached for his pokeballs.

"Delta, use Spore! Put him to sleep!"

A Breloom appeared in a flash of light and breathed out a cloud of green particles at the grunt. Shortly after the particles touched him, the grunt fell over, sound asleep.

Indigo walked up to the computer and refreshed the page. He muttered under his breath as he saw it was a login page.

"Dux, I need a password!" After a moment, the password began filling itself in and he slapped the login button. Indigo waited in agitated anticipation as the computer loaded at a frustratingly slow rate.

"Why does Team Rocket ALWAYS skimp on their computer budget!? This thing's from the stone age!" he muttered to himself, before growling in frustration when he saw the Silph '94 operating system logo appear. Why Team Rocket using a 25-year-old fossil to run their security was beyond him.

Suddenly, Jaws perked up and sniffed the air. Delta's head snapped around before hopping over to take a position next to Jaws.

"What is it, Jaws?"

The Arcanine suddenly lowered itself into a battle-ready stance and growled. Delta also took a fighting stance.

"Jaws, use Roar! Dux, what's going on?"

The Arcanine poked its head out the door and let out a terrifying roar, echoing down the hall ways. There was a shout of surprise and sounds of confusion down the hallway and Indigo heard a soft thump through the thin, hastily made walls. Apparently, one of the scientists had fainted.

A few seconds later, the door slammed shut in front of Jaw's nose. The command window appeared on the screen and text began to appear.

"Hostiles successfully quarantined in the hallway. Awaiting further instructions."

"Good work guys!" said Indigo as he sat down and swiftly flipped through the views of the various security cameras and muttered something under his breath. He flipped through them again, and then once more. He quickly switched on his radio.

"They're not here! Yellow and Orange aren't here!"


Crystal paused in surprise mid battle.

"What do you mean they're not here!?" Turning her attention back to the battle, she said "Venee, use Leaf Storm!"

"There are no prison cells at all on this location! Pull out, now!"

"No!" said Lyra behind her, "We aren't leaving you behind! Get out of there!"

"I can't! I'm downloading the stuff for later! Don't worry about me, I'll be fine!"

"How many Rockets do you have outside the door?" asked Lyra with knowing frustration.

"Dux, how many of them are there?"

Lyra sighed in frustration, "You didn't even bother to look? And what are you even trying to get!?"

"I'm pulling admin credentials!" he paused for a moment. "Dux says there are 14…..oh wait, make that 19. Apparently, they can't get through the door. Don't worry, Dux is giving them a hard time!"

There was faint sound of crackling electricity in the background and a very muffled yelp of surprise from what sounded like a group of unlucky Rockets.

Violet's voice crackled over the radio, "Not to worry! Brock is on his way. ETA of 5 minutes! We need to hang on till then!"

"Violet! Where are you?" asked Crystal. "Hitmonee, use Mach Punch, quick!"

"Distracting! On the side!" There was a massive crash heard in the background, "Just doing what Indigo would do, wanton property damage!" Crystal glanced up and saw a cloud of dust from one of the walls on the left-hand side.

Indigo growled back, "Hey, I don't….. Oh no, that's a Machoke! Dux, knock it out, stat!"

A heavy thud came from his voice channel. "Aw shoot, the door! Delta! Use Spore through the hole!"

"Indigo! Get out of there!" Shouted Lyra into her radio as more crashing sounds were heard.

"2 percent left! Not going to give up now! Dux, get into my snag machine! We'll have to bail fast!"

Suddenly, Indigo's radio picked up Indigo shouting in surprise, a crash and shouting in the background before abruptly crackling off.

"INDIGO!" shouted Lyra. "INDIGO, RESPOND!"


No Dexholder Manual entry this time - there will be one for the next chapter. Thanks for reading!