Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Pokémon. For those that bring this fact to my attention without necessary provocation or reason I have something for them that they can catch. They can catch a sight of my middle fingers turned upwards in their direction and in rare cases they can catch my boot up their ass. And no, you don't have to look for 150, 250, or however many. All you have to do is catch two of each.

Chapter 4: Over the Moon

It had been a few days since leaving Pewter City and nothing significant had occurred since the departure of Naruto and Janine. Despite being a ninja, Janine didn't like running all day long the way Naruto could, but it was okay with him. Whenever she felt the need to relax and rest he found the time to train. He had promised Jiraiya that by the time the man returned he'd have the jutsu that his sensei taught him down and ready for use in combat.

But once again, Naruto and Janine were back on the road at a more reserved pace than previously on this particular day, walking instead of running… mostly because there weren't really enough trees to hop from making travel easier than outright rushing down a mountainous path.

"Where do you live anyway?" Out in front of Naruto's face as he walked he was doing his best to read the map and get down their location. At his best guess they were still on Route 3 since they were heading east from Pewter City and they hadn't run into any damn mountain that they couldn't directly walk a path over or around yet, "Why can't I just take you right home and be done with it?"

"Because I don't want to go home yet." Janine remarked idly with a smile on her face, "I guarantee if you skip around and try to find my town and drop me off it'll take way longer than if you just do your own thing and let things run their course." She put a hand on his shoulder and took her map back from him, again tucking it back into her clothes, not ruffling them in the slightest as she did so, "Just go with the flow. I'm good company."

Pretty face or not, Naruto couldn't really trust a thief… especially a ninja thief that he had fought. He'd definitely be sleeping with Ranbouen out of his Poke Ball until it was determined that Janine was seriously just travelling with him for the sake of doing so and not with any ulterior motives. He'd been burned like that before.

Getting tired of the silence as Naruto kept figuring that they were still on the right path, Janine spoke up again, "You keep on disappearing early in the morning before sunrise. What do you do? Are you training?" She asked curiously. The prospect of figuring out however Naruto managed the weird techniques that he did was simply staggering for her.

"Yeah actually." Naruto admitted, much to her surprise. She figured that he'd keep being all frosty just like he had been for the last few days to her. She didn't know though that it just wasn't in Naruto's nature to hold a grudge over something like thievery, something that didn't really affect him in this case as well, "I'm still no good at the jutsu yet so don't expect me to show you right now what I'm up to."

Yes, Naruto was a strange guy, even to a ninja like herself. But he defeated her so quickly the other night, it was evident to her that Naruto could fight and defeat her Pokémon without his Growlithe at all. While her Pokémon weren't close to being as strong compared to others like her father's own, this was true she had to admit, it was still a lone human against a Pokémon. And that was incredibly impressive.

She'd love to have those two meet up and fight. Though her father's Pokémon would turn Naruto into mincemeat if he were to try and stand against them, but that was a very special case. Her father was an incredible trainer.

Eventually the two came to the foot of a mountain where Naruto came to a stop as he shielded his eyes to look toward the peak high above them, "*whistle* This is going to suck. I thought you said this was a shortcut to the next city."

"We're not climbing it." Janine told him as she came up directly behind him. After seeing the mountain, Naruto broke out in a run towards it and left her by a stream to play catch-up, "We're going through instead of over. I'm not getting all grimy for something that would be way harder than taking the other path."

"What other path?"

"The caves through-." Eventually Janine stood next to Naruto and could see why he figured climbing the mountain was the best course of action, "Someone blocked off the entrance to the caves! Damn it, no one climbs Mt. Moon!" Going up and over would take forever for someone like her.

Naruto simply started fishing through his backpack, looking for something to use while Janine started ranting that she didn't even bring any climbing equipment, that her Pokémon would get tired before they ever reached the top, and that she wasn't riding piggyback on Naruto just so he could cop a feel. That last comment got his eye to twitch though as he tried to ignore it.

And ignore it he did, as he eventually pulled out a ball of explosive tags all put together, a grin on his face, "Here. This'll clear it out." He said, confidently striding over to the tunnel that was blocked off with multiple boulders.

Janine watched with a curious gaze at the ball of papers with the markings on them. What in the world was that going to do? Naruto simply stuffed them into the best opening between the boulders that he could find, "Naruto… what are you doing?"

"I'm blowing these boulders up so we can get past." Naruto said, making sure the explosives were secure, "Rasengan won't punch through all of these without getting me crushed, and other people need to get past too, don't they? So I'm blowing them all up."

"Oh…" Janine deadpanned, finding it easier to just accept the strange things that came with Naruto. They would explain themselves in time. No need to stress about something that he didn't see as a big deal. But still… "Wait. Blowing them up? Naruto, blowing those up might cause a-."

It was too late however as Naruto had already set the explosive tags for detonation. Noticing that Janine was not turning to run with him, he snatched her up and ran away from the mouth of the cave before the blast occurred, "Run away from the tags damn it!"

BOOM!

Naruto skidded to a stop after the explosion shot chunks of rock all over the place and the sounds of stone falling and crashing told him that it had worked, "Whew. Now I've got to make another big ball of explosive tags, but that was just as cool as I thought it'd be!"

'Exploding paper?' Janine thought to herself, standing up under her own strength once Naruto stopped running away, "That was so cool…" She said in a little bit of awe before remembering what she had tried to tell him before, "Ugh… You could have caused a cave-in genius! You don't blow things up around the opening of a cave!"

"I just did." Naruto replied, almost strutting his way back to the knocked down and pulverized boulders that had once been blocking the way, "Come on, it's fine. How many other times am I going to have to clear a cave opening? Now let's-."

"Look out!"

This time it was Janine that protected Naruto. Diving at him and tackling him out of the way towards the inside of the cave as a boulder was thrown brazenly right at Naruto from a ledge on the mountain.

Sitting up from being knocked onto his back from Janine's save, Naruto rubbed the back of his head as she got off of him and looked up at the ledge to see another boulder being hoisted up by something, "What the hell is that thing? How can something that little lift a boulder like that?" Surprise aside, both Naruto and Janine darted away from the boulder that was thrown again as Naruto pulled his Pokédex out to analyze whatever Pokémon it was.

Because it was either a Pokémon or the strangest looking child he had ever seen in his life, and he'd seen a few.

It was a little humanoid looking creature that was mostly purple with brown bottoms and feet resembling short pants and shoes and with white lines on its torso and wrists resembling bandages. The top of its head had three spikes on it… and it was picking up another boulder to hurl at them as the Pokédex began stating what it was.

"Tyrogue; the Scuffle Pokémon. It is always bursting with energy. To make itself stronger, it keeps on fighting even if it loses. To brush up on its fighting skills, it will challenge anyone. It has a very strong competitive spirit."

"Why the hell is it chucking rocks at us?" Naruto shouted out as he dodged another thrown boulder. Sick of being hounded by the little Pokémon, Naruto began charging up the side of the cliff to reach the Tyrogue.

Janine just stood in place on the ground watching with her jaw dropped. No wires, no special attachments to his shoes. Naruto just ran right up a straight wall. He was seriously making her look bad and he didn't even know it.

"I'm sick of you!" Naruto yelled as he launched himself up onto the ledge and pointed accusingly at the Tyrogue, "Were you the one that blocked the cave off?" The Pokémon sneered at Naruto and then nodded stiffly, "Why?"

The little Pokémon only scoffed and put its hands up in a fighting stance before charging right at Naruto, flailing away with punches.

It was like fighting Konohamaru if Naruto had to be honest with himself. Mostly because the only thing he did was set his hand on Tyrogue's forehead, keeping it a safe distance away from him as it kept swinging away at nothing but air.

"This thing really wants to fight me?" Naruto asked as he continued to hold the small and combative Pokémon off.

Janine looked up and saw Naruto holding the Tyrogue off as it seemed to be getting angry at its diminutive size and inability to reach Naruto with its fists, "Naruto you're going to want to let go of that thing. If it was the one that threw all of those boulders down here then-."

The Tyrogue let out a grunt as it latched onto Naruto's arm. Its body started producing a white aura before it turned and threw Naruto over its shoulder off of the cliff, "Crap! This thing is strong!"

'It knows Strength!' Janine immediately pulled out one of her Pokeballs and threw it up at Naruto before he could hit the ground, "Help Naruto out Zubat! Don't let him go splat!" From the Poke Ball, her bat with its lack of eyesight flew up to Naruto with a cry and let Naruto grab onto its legs as it struggled to stay in flight with the suddenly added weight, "There you go!"

Naruto let go of Zubat once it got close to the ground and grinned thankfully at the Pokémon, "Thanks." Naruto said, giving a short salute before turning his attention back towards the Tyrogue that had picked up another boulder using Strength, "You're cutting the path off for other people! Stop throwing boulders down here you stupid runt!"

"Reh!" The Tyrogue just grunted at Naruto before choosing to ignore him again so that it could continue throwing boulders about to its heart's content.

A frown crossed Janine's face as she recalled her Zubat before it found itself in the path of the falling boulder. A Pokémon chucking huge rocks was not an opponent that she wanted her Zubat or Spinarak to go up against, "We can just leave it here. The path's open now, let's go."

"And let it block the way for someone else?" Naruto questioned, put off by allowing such a thing to happen since it wasn't really their problem, "How many people in Kanto actually carry explosives around with them? We've got to do something."

Janine puffed out her cheeks at Naruto's stubborn attitude and placed her hands on her hips, "Look, even if you beat it up and sent it away it would just be right back here later. All Tyrogues do day in and day out is train. Look at it. It doesn't care about us except for when we get in its way."

That was a problem though. Other people travelling this way wouldn't be as agile as they were, and they wouldn't see the careless little Pokémon throwing boulders until it was too late. It could kill quite a few people.

"You don't need a reason to do the right thing." Naruto said, stretching his legs out as if he were preparing for some brisk exercise, "If you can help someone that needs it you should just do it. That's what I think anyway." With that he placed his fingers into his mouth and let out a sharp whistle, "Oi! Tyrogue! Beating up boulders is nice, but how about you try it on someone that'll fight back?"

A tick mark appeared on the Tyrogue's head as it glared down at Naruto and took that as a challenge. It jumped down to the ground and crossed its arms over its chest, trying to look as intimidating as possible despite barely standing two and a half feet off of the ground.

'Which Pokémon is he going to use?' Janine wondered. Naruto still only had his Growlithe and his Shellder, but depending on whichever one he used that would tell her what kind of person he really was since both of those Pokémon were polar opposites in every way. And then Naruto set himself in his own fighting stance, 'What? He's going to fight it by himself?'

That didn't tell her anything, and would only serve to confuse her further on just what made Uzumaki Naruto tick.

"Bring it on shorty!" Naruto beckoned brazenly, getting the Tyrogue to growl and charge right at him. By now he had seen enough of them to where Naruto knew a Tackle when he saw one and just sidestepped it before pushing Tyrogue on its back with his foot to knock it to the ground, "Different than throwing rocks isn't it?" He taunted.

Tyrogue pulled its face out of the dirt and jumped back up to rush at Naruto again, not deterred by his bigger size or apparent fighting ability.

Instead of being fully thrown into the fight, Naruto found himself grinning at the Tyrogue as it tried to punch and kick at Naruto. Its moves were very clumsy though despite the fact that it was giving its all to hit him.

Trying to trade hand-to-hand with Naruto after he had spent the last two months straight getting kicked around on the deck of a swaying ship by Jiraiya was not wise for a baby Pokémon, even one that was a fighting type.

Eventually the Tyrogue backed off and stomped its foot angrily on the ground, "Rah… rah!" It pointed at the ground and drew a line with its foot as if it were daring Naruto to take the initiative and make the first move this time instead of just waiting and defending.

Naruto just shrugged and ran zig-zags at Tyrogue before slipping right past the line and punching through the little Pokémon's guard, getting it to stumble back. It was tough to not be knocked off of its feet, but Naruto was taking that challenge to attack seriously and was looking to make Tyrogue realize that whether attacking or defending there was nothing it could do to beat Naruto.

As this continued on, Janine had to keep reminding herself that Naruto wasn't a normal person or ninja for that matter, and that even she could have beaten the Tyrogue with her own hands and feet if she had to. But fighting a fighting Pokémon head-up was just absurd.

XxX

(With Jiraiya – Mount Myoboku)

Nursing the bumps on his head and the ringing in his ears from Shima's scolding about knowing when to take a hint when it came to the summoning, Jiraiya walked along with the two diminutive and elderly toads through their home environment.

Jiraiya dealt with this for the most part until they reached an area of the mountain where the two toads had been leading him since reverse summoning him to the mountain. They themselves didn't know the answer to his question, saying that it was before their time.

Before their time? They were both 800 years old give or take.

After stating such and laughing at it… and nursing more bumps from Shima… he was reverse summoned to Mt. Myoboku to speak to the only person in the world that could possibly give Jiraiya his answers.

And there he stood before him. A toad the size of boss summon, rusty red in color, covered in wrinkles from age with a chain of beads around his neck as he sat in a special throne dictating his important position in the culture of the toads.

Jiraiya immediately bowed to the toad upon standing in front of him, "Great Toad Sage. I've been summoned to the mountain in order to ask you a question. If you would be willing to grant me the time to do so of course." He showed his respect to the oldest of the toads, the most revered creatures on the mountain. No joking around at a time like this, "I have Naruto back by himself somewhere safe, but I'll need to get back as soon as I can with some news."

The large old toad simply kept his eyes closed as he smiled widely in a kind manner, looking down on the favorite summoner of his clan for decades, "Jiraiya… I'm quite certain that whatever you request of me… it is worth the time spent to answer it. So by all means… ask away." He then smacked his lips and lifted a webbed finger before Jiraiya could open his mouth, "But I have to ask first… who is this Naruto that you speak of?"

Jiraiya's eye twitched as he stood back up on his feet, "Naruto… the newest summoner of the toads. You have to know about him. Don't you?"

"Ahh, Naruto. Of course I do. I remember him now."

'No you don't.' Jiraiya thought to himself deciding to just get down to business. He had waited for quite some time and travelled a long way just to be able to summon. He really wished to know just why, "We'll save that for later. My true question. Honorable Great Toad Sage, I need you to tell me why it is that neither Naruto nor myself, recognized holders of the toad contract, cannot summon any of your clan overseas in the land of Kanto."

A serious look came over the massive, elderly toad's closed eye face as he listened to Jiraiya's question. They simply stayed still, the both of them as Jiraiya waited patiently. But eventually the minutes dragged on, much to Jiraiya's confusion.

"Zzzzz…"

Jiraiya palmed his face as the head of the Great Toad Sage began to lean forward, showing that he had nodded off in the middle of the conversation.

This was going to take longer than he thought.

XxX

(Kanto – Foot of Mt. Moon – Two Hours Later)

The fight between Naruto and Tyrogue was still going on even though it was starting to look more like a good-natured spar at this point. Neither Naruto nor Tyrogue looked winded, and Tyrogue had stopped trying to bore a hole through Naruto with its eyes out of hate.

Was it… enjoying the fight?

Either way, Janine had taken a seat a long time ago on the ground to watch the fight. And then it started dragging on into a never-ending encounter of the bullheaded kind.

"You fight like me little guy!" Naruto exclaimed, honestly seeing a lot of himself in Tyrogue as he continued to watch it come barreling at him like a brawler trying to hit him any way it could. Instead of just knocking Tyrogue out cold, Naruto had found it too much fun to stop letting the Pokémon keep coming at him, giving it little jabs and trips when he saw it make a mistake.

"Naruto… we've got to go." Janine said with a deadpan look on her face as she pointed at the position of the sun and the position in the sky that let her know it was getting to be kind of late in the afternoon, "What, are we going to camp outside at the foot of Mt. Moon, because I'm not sleeping in that cave with all of the Zubats."

Hearing his new traveling companion's concerns, Naruto jumped back out of the fray with Tyrogue and stopped to look at Janine, rubbing the back of his neck as he took a look at how the countryside seemed to begin being bathed in an orange glow. She had a point. Sleeping in a cave wasn't the best idea with wild bat Pokémon roaming about that could potentially try to drain their blood in their sleep.

"Okay." He eventually conceded. He walked back over to Janine and helped her up to her feet before yawning, "It is getting kind of late. I guess we should get moving if we want to get through the mountain before it gets too dark." As Janine dusted off the stubborn dirt from her skirt after having been seated for so long, Naruto turned back to the Tyrogue, "I've got to go now. But you've got to stop chucking boulders all over the place. You can train, but when your training hurts people you shouldn't be doing it."

After two hours of trying to beat Naruto up, Tyrogue was well aware of the fact that Naruto was the superior combatant. Even though it didn't like it, Naruto was for all intents and purposes its senpai in physical combat, thus a stiff nod came from the little Pokémon. Its jaw then dropped when it saw Naruto and Janine begin to walk away.

"Ow!" Naruto yelled as a small stone bounced off of the back of his head. He turned around to see that Tyrogue had been the perpetrator that had tossed the stone. He saw a defiant look in its eyes and knew what it wanted, giving it a stiff nod before turning back around, "One sec Janine. I've got to finish this."

Without saying anything, Janine just nodded. She knew more than enough about fighting Pokémon to realize that they saw combat as a serious matter. As far as the Tyrogue was concerned, Naruto never finished their fight and it would be offended if he didn't do so.

Naruto set himself back in his stance of preparation as Tyrogue charged at him, putting all it had in one move to knock Naruto flat or go down swinging.

However it didn't expect the response of the smirking Naruto as a quick few motions of the hands put a Poke Ball in Naruto's hand that he then chucked right at Tyrogue's head. The orb bounced off of the little creature's head, turning it into red energy and trapping it within. There was barely a struggle at all before the noise went up to let Naruto know that his capture had been successful.

With a shrug, Naruto picked the Poke Ball up and dusted it off, "Yeah, you're not going to like that when I let you back out later, but whatever." He snickered, "Now at least you can fight me and try to beat me as much as you want later, eh Fukigenko (Grumpy Child)?" Hey, it was an angry little Pokémon and he would name it accordingly.

"It's going to try and kick your ass later when it gets a chance." Janine said, shaking her head despite the fact that she was actually amused by the end of the little scuffle. It still didn't have to take two hours… but maybe that's why it was so easy to catch; because two straight hours of fighting exhausted the Tyrogue. Speaking of exhaustion, "Aren't you tired?"

Naruto pocketed the Poke Ball as the two of them got moving again towards the mouth of the Mt. Moon cave, "Well, a little bit. But I didn't even use any chakra so it's no big deal. I'm good."

Him and that chakra of his again. Whatever.

"Chakra…" Janine said to herself, testing the word in her mouth as the echo of her words started reverberating off of the walls of the cave, "You keep using that word. I'm pretty sure it's whatever lets you do all of that weird stuff." She told herself that she would stop being amazed by the things that Naruto could do in case there was anything else he was keeping under wraps, "Come on. And stay close or we'll get separated."

An offended scoff came from Naruto as he walked slightly behind Janine with his hands behind his neck and his eyes closed, "Oh whatever. How can we get separated? You're right here."

XxX

(Forty-Five Minutes Later – Interior of Mt. Moon)

"Did I seriously lose him? I said to stay close!" Janine yelled to herself inside the depths of the cavern. The decibels of her loud shout shaking the rocks and scaring some of the more timid Pokémon away from her as she came just short of choosing to throw a temper-tantrum.

She was not going to freak out. She was a ninja, a calm, cool, collected warrior of the shadows; trained by the greatest on the continent with her skills having been acutely honed like the iron of a fine blade in a blacksmith's fires.

But seriously, Uzumaki Naruto was a fucking headache and a half!

"You are not ditching me in this cave you prick! Do you hear me?" She shouted again before sighing deeply and massaging her temple. He didn't run out on her. Even after a few days she knew that he wasn't that kind of guy. The same person that would go out of his way to pick a fight with a Pokémon because it was blocking a path for others wouldn't just sneak away without a word, ninja or not.

So she'd have to find him. But why the hell did he have to get lost in a freaking cave?

"Did you hear that voice?"

"It was some girl, but didn't we have the only way into Mt. Moon covered on the other side?"

"The bitch must have been hiding."

Upon hearing unfamiliar voices that sounded none too friendly, Janine called out her Spinarak and held it in her arms, gesturing her head up to prompt the little spider to use String Shot to pull them both up to the ceiling and out of the open before the loud footsteps coming from around a large rock outcropping made their way to where she was standing.

Two young men wearing black boots, black turtlenecks, black pants and a utility-looking belt as well as a young woman wearing black knee-high boots, a black skirt, and a black turtleneck ran out around the area to investigate. All of them were wearing black caps and on the front of their shirts they had large red 'R's emblazoned upon them.

From her place holding onto strands of her Spinarak's webbing on the ceiling, Janine narrowed her eyes and almost let off an audible scoff of either annoyance or disgust, 'Team Rocket. Really? What are these idiots doing here?' She looked at Spinarak and gestured her head down before letting go and falling, trusting her Pokémon to catch her from her fall.

Spinarak's webbing did just that, tying around its master's ankles as Janine hovered above one of the Team Rocket members that had separated from the other two somewhat to search a certain area. With her fall stopped so that she hovered directly above the person's head, Janine grabbed onto the person and covered their mouth as she was retracted back up to the ceiling with not a sound being made.

This process was repeated until all three Team Rocket members were stuck to the ceiling with webs keeping them stuck and silent, mouths bound.

Janine dropped to the ground gracefully with Spinarak on her back. She recalled her Pokémon back to its Poke Ball and spared a glance up at the ceiling, "Whatever these guys are doing here, I know there are more." There always were, "Great… so now I've got to find Naruto." She said, tossing another Poke Ball that housed her Zubat which she was going to use for reconnaissance.

After all, who would notice a single Zubat flying about in a cave where there were tons of them?

This was more trouble than it was worth. The other ninja of her ilk had been having troubles with this group in the past. They were the most prevalent of the criminal underworld in Kanto and if they were roosting in Mt. Moon then it was clear that there was a dilemma afoot.

XxX

(With Naruto – Elsewhere in Mt. Moon)

"You bastards…" Naruto muttered to himself, in full defensive mode, but not making a single move. Ranbouen was out and by his side, holding still as well as he growled angrily.

In front of them were around a dozen beaten-up, burned Team Rocket members, but still further ahead were multiple normal folks, travelers and trainers of all sorts that had been passing through, all tied up and captured. This had been what had started Naruto's outright buttkicking of Team Rocket which had started out stealthily, but turned into an outright dogfight… and that wasn't just a pun for his inclusion of Ranbouen.

How had all of this occurred?

He had gotten separated from Janine when he broke off to take a quick leak and didn't want to hear anything from her (If Janine was anything like Sakura was he didn't want to hear her mouth over something that was a natural bodily function), but this was not smart because he then lost her. He had more fluids than he thought and when he went back to find her she was gone.

Stupid cave.

And in the middle of his search for his lost ninja companion he had come across these jerks in black uniforms. Not knowing they were bad guys, he stepped out and prepared to ask them if they had seen Janine, this led to them asking why he wasn't tied up like the others and Naruto preemptively knocked them out, having never associated a question like that with anything good coming in the future.

Eventually it led to Naruto using Ranbouen to find a corridor of the cave where over twenty people were kept captive, with multiple Team Rocket members watching over them. He took out as many as he could, but as the numbers dwindled they eventually caught on and called him out.

Still no problem. Naruto proceeded to beat the crap out of them before they could even call their Pokémon out, until the captured people were threatened by those Team Rocket members remaining.

"Don't do anything stupid kid. You don't want Sandshrew's claws to nick an artery here do you?" One of the thugs said as his Pokémon, a yellow, mouse-looking Pokémon with a tough, earthen hide and small sharp claws stood next to a group of tied up hostages, holding said claws to the neck of one of the captives.

Naruto grit his teeth and held still, locking eyes with the young man that seemed to be around his age and the other terrified people tied up along with him, "Don't worry. I'll figure out some way to get you all out of this."

The Team Rocket members just laughed at Naruto's declaration, "A runt like you? Yeah, you might be some kind of freak to be able to take out so many of us, but junior we're top of the line. No matter how many of us you beat there are always going to be more."

And with that, many of the other Team Rocket members released their Pokémon, mostly Rattata and Zubat, but with several of them all moving and flying towards Naruto it wasn't going to matter what they were in just a moment.

"Why are you even doing this?" Naruto asked. He wasn't about to just sit back and let them kill him either if that was their aim. He just needed an opening.

"It's our orders." One of the Team Rocket members said, "To take control of Mt. Moon long enough to locate a sufficient supply of Moon Stones and fossils. Capture any trainer fool enough to intrude on the operation and relieve them of their Pokémon. And use whatever force required to make the mission a success."

So what, they were bandits or something? Well it was a good enough choke point for an ambush where people would be cut off from anyone missing them, so at least they had tactics. Well, not these guys, but whoever was heading this whole thing up.

"So just die like a good boy."

Before any of the Pokémon could act and attack Naruto and Ranbouen, an ear-splitting Supersonic was let loose that brought the Team Rocket members to their knees and even affected their Pokémon.

Taking this move as a gift from Kami, Naruto ran forward with a clone created instantly, "Ranbouen, you know what to do!" He shouted as he and his clone formed a Rasengan between the two of them. Ranbouen fired an ember at the Rasengan, engulfing it in orange flames as the two Narutos continued towards their target Team Rocket member, the one that had been holding the people hostage with his Sandshrew until it became confused.

"Katon: Rasengan (Fire Release: Spiraling Sphere)!"

Naruto and… Naruto, both slammed the Rasengan into the immediate threat, the Sandshrew, forcing a blast to occur that engulfed its body in flames onto contact as it went flying backwards. In a method of a defense mechanism it curled into a ball, a flaming ball. That flaming ball flew right into the chest of the Team Rocket hostage taker and knocked them back into the far wall, with the original force of being propelled by Naruto's jutsu slamming into the man like a cannonball.

There wasn't time to care about how successful his newly worked out jutsu was, or how awesome it looked after painstakingly practicing it with Ranbouen since he had captured the Puppy Pokémon, suffering innumerous burns and losing clone after clone in the process of working it out.

There were people that needed help, and Naruto pulled out a kunai to begin cutting folks free.

"Zubat, Air Cutter!"

Janine's Zubat appeared from its hiding place at the top of the cave where it had unleashed its previous attack and let loose several blue blades of wind from its wings, cutting down many of the confused Pokémon that had been suffering from Supersonic and fighting amongst themselves.

"You're so lucky." Janine said brightly, dropping smoke bomb to conceal her fall to the ground from her hiding place. The Team Rocket members with defeated Pokémon heard her voice inside of the smoke and rushed in to dogpile on her only for the smoke to fade and reveal that she had dropped a wooden scarecrow in her place for the lot of them to crash into. She then dropped into view, hopping on the heads of the grunts to defeat them before they finished getting back up, "Aren't you so glad we're friends Naruto?"

Ranbouen sat on his haunches, panting happily while Naruto freed the rest of the people with his kunai now that they had beaten every Team Rocket member in the cave. He just grunted as he finished cutting the last people loose, letting a grin slide over his face as he spun the blade around his finger by the ring.

As everyone ran off to a large sack filled with their Poke Balls, Janine walked over to the beaten Team Rocket member and his badly burned Sandshrew. Even the man himself was bleeding from the mouth and his shirt had been burned through by his formerly flaming Pokémon.

"So is this the 'jutsu' you've been working on?" Janine asked as she stood back up and watched Naruto tie up the Team Rocket members all together.

Naruto shook his head as he tightened his bonds on the enemy, dusting his hands off for a job well done afterwards, "Nope. This is something else I came up with after I caught Ranbouen. Cool huh? It's something new I added to one of my other attacks in secret. I didn't want Ero-sennin freaking out over me messing with fire on the ship." Naruto looked down at his hand that had suffered a few burns after the explosion that happened on contact, but it was fine. He'd bandage it and be fine by tomorrow afternoon, "So who are these guys?"

"Team Rocket." Explained Janine as her Zubat landed on her shoulder. She spared one of the tied up Rocket grunts a kick to the leg that elicited a grunt from him, "They steal Pokémon, technology… really anything they think is useful to their goals. A bunch of dishonorable jackasses." She noticed Naruto giving her a dry look and laughed a bit before further deliberating, "I mean, I get paid to steal things from time to time too but at least I'm charming about it."

Ignoring that in exchange for walking on ahead, Naruto let out a noise of acknowledgment, "So what are their goals?" If she said something like 'to capture jinchuuriki' he was going to hightail it back to Pallet Town and try to leave. He had enough of that to worry about back at home, he didn't need it there too.

"No idea… the police force in this country can't stop them really. They don't know enough about their operations." Seemingly not caring about this fact she had just mentioned to Naruto, with a small grunt Janine picked up a sack that Naruto hadn't seen previously until the rustling of it and its clicking contents inside got his attention, "We're going to take these and sell these and finally make some money."

Raising an eyebrow in confusion and helping the kunoichi set down the rather heavy sack on her back, Naruto's eyes widened at the sheer amount of black shiny stones inside, "What are these supposed to be?"

"Moon Stones. They make certain Pokémon evolve." Naruto had to take a step back from the gleam of dollar signs in her eyes as she picked up a stone and rubbed it against her cheek, "Oh… selling just one of these gets us 1050 yen. There's got to be like fifty or more of these things in here. This is a pretty good payday." She then remembered that Naruto told her not to steal and sighed, "But I guess we have to put these back don't we?"

A nod did not come from Naruto as she expected. Instead he picked the sack up himself and slung it over his shoulder, "Looting isn't the same thing as stealing. We won this stuff."

Naruto wasn't as dumb as he normally seemed about quite a few matters. He understood the value of money and realized that his pay of 3000 yen from his work at the museum and his pay of 1400 yen from beating Brock was not a lot of money after he bought goods from Pewter City's store for his Pokémon.

"Right!" Janine chirped brightly at the idea of having some money in her pocket for the first time since she set out from home to take the ill-fated mission of her client in Viridian City, "As long as we steal from criminals it's not a bad thing. And after the good deeds we did today we deserve a good reward don't we? A fifty-fifty split between partners."

For some reason her grin at finally having some loot put a grin on Naruto's face too. The trainers and other travelers had all gotten their respective Poke Balls and had hightailed it out of the vicinity leaving them as the only conscious people still there as Janine led them once more on the way out towards Cerulean City with a practiced kind of calm.

Hey, she even offered to split the money they'd get with him. If it were Jiraiya the man probably would have tried to confiscate the lot of stones, sell them in the next town, tell Naruto he was going to keep the money for the both of them, and then spend it on pleasurable company and alcohol… and then he'd try to pilfer Naruto's wallet for some extra funds.

Now Naruto had not seen any houses of ill repute since arriving in Kanto, but that didn't mean that there weren't any, it was simply that he hadn't looked. What the hell kind of use would a kid like him have for something like that, especially a broke kid like him? And if there were he was quite certain that Jiraiya would have made like a bloodhound and would have sniffed them out in a heartbeat.

Where the hell was he anyway?

XxX

(With Jiraiya – Mt. Myoboku)

A snoozing Jiraiya, lying down on the ground at the foot of the Great Toad Sage's throne let out a sneeze and shivered before sniffling without stirring from his slumber. He kicked around like a dreaming puppy momentarily and mumbled, "Mmm… no Tsunade-hime, I've got all the time in the world for you. *gasp* Shizune too? Of course. There's more than enough Jiraiya to go around don't you know?"

The two elder toads Shima and Fukasaku had already gone to their home for the night while Jiraiya had chosen to stubbornly wait out the Great Toad Sage's nap. He valiantly stayed awake deep into the night, but the crushing boredom eventually won out and put him straight to sleep.

Suddenly the Great Toad Sage's eyes popped open momentarily before returning to their normal closed state and he started to make a pondering noise of thought as if he hadn't fallen asleep randomly for several hours while in the middle of a conversation, "The reason our clan is unable to respond to a summon whilst in the land of Kanto…" He said before looking down and noticing that Jiraiya was asleep, "Oh. *laughs* Well, it is a matter that can wait until when you wake up…" Letting out a yawn his head sank back down into a pre-slumbering state, "…Myself as well."

From that point the only sounds that could be heard in the area until morning were the sounds of the many insects that populated the toad paradise mountain and the sound of both Jiraiya and the Great Toad Sage snoring in stereo.

XxX

(The Next Day – Kanto – Mt. Moon)

The Team Rocket members were kept trapped within the cave all tied together and suffering from various bumps and bruises until their savior came the next morning. Too bad they were more afraid of their savior than the person that put them there in the first place.

"You're telling me that two children disrupted the site and defeated all of you…" There was an underlying threat in the calm voice of the smartly dressed Team Rocket Boss that all of the previously beaten Team Rocket members quivered at, "Are you really this inept? Was I that wrong to refrain from sending an admin to keep an eye on this operation that the lot of you apparently couldn't handle?"

One of the braver members that endeavored to save his and his comrades' respective skins spoke up, "Boss, you don't understand. There was this one kid, he was like some kind of monster or something. He didn't even need his Pokémon! He beat up most of us before we even got out Poke Balls out to stop him, and he had some girl as backup that we never even saw until it was over!"

"Yeah! I swear I saw that kid jump fifteen feet in the air!"

Hearing this put a curious expression on the face of Giovanni who walked over to the first man to speak and stared into his eyes intently, "This boy you speak of. You can describe him to me can't you?" It couldn't just be a coincidence. How many kids in Kanto were there that had a ten-plus foot vertical leap?

"Y-Yeah. Orange clothes, blonde hair, blue eyes, a-and weird marks on his cheeks."

Giovanni's eyes widened before he simply started laughing, walking away from the very confused and still quite scared Team Rocket members. He laughed all the way back to his sleek black car, and even when he got inside he still laughed as he used the car phone to dial a number, finally letting his mirth die down, "Ah, and he just went through Mt. Moon. That means he's heading towards Cerulean City." He let the phone's dial tone go for a few seconds until he got a response on the other line, "Yes. There's a potential recruit coming your way. If he accepts reward him greatly. If he refuses… well I'll let you use your imagination on how to solve that."

With that, the short conversation ended.

A person like this boy he had run across in Viridian City. Even if he were a bust in the talent department he could still be used as a grunt like the other cannon fodder, and if he were a hot prospect he could be a very useful admin in Team Rocket.

"And even if he refuses and gets past the recruiter… he won't be trouble for much longer afterwards. The boy will run into Lt. Surge sooner or later and that will be the end of that." Giovanni said to himself before choosing to address his driver, "Return to base. There's still much work to be done." He ordered as the car pulled off.

Omake: Konoha no Kiiroi Senkou in Kanto 3: Mt. Moon

Minato clawed his way over the top of a cliff with a large grunt of exertion. While he was there he might as well try to get some training in, and he was always told that he could stand to work on his physical abilities. In the previous words of his current girlfriend back in Konoha, even though he was a powerful ninja and faster than pretty much anyone alive he was also 'girly' and 'flaky' (Kami he missed Kushina), thus he chose to forego climbing with chakra, instead using his muscles to do the work for him.

Rolling onto his back as he reached the top of the mountain, Minato wiped the sweat from his face and sat up to look in the dark night sky at the hooting Pokémon that had been flying around him throughout the entire climb.

A round-bodied brown owl with stubby wings, a beige underbelly, large red eyes, eyelash markings around the eyes, and black arrow crests on the top of its head flew around a bit more before landing on Minato's shoulder, perching itself with only one leg where he rubbed the top of its head with a smile, "Hah… that was one hell of a workout. Not for you though eh Hoothoot?"

The owl let out a few more happy cries as Minato had just captured that Pokémon the night after he left Pewter City. He found that his Beedrill didn't exactly have the advantage despite its imposing appearance and almost lost the battle due to Hoothoot's unique attack skills until he ended it himself with a well-timed toss of a Poke Ball.

But that was all in the past.

Minato stood up and started walking along the mountaintop until he came across a very, very, very large stone three times his size that was pitch black and had some kind of power radiating through it. Hoothoot flew off of his shoulder and perched onto the stone while Minato placed his hand against it and shut his eyes to feel the strange energy flowing through it, 'It's like chakra… but it definitely isn't. It doesn't even feel like it's from this world.'

Hoothoot watched Minato curiously as he let out a sigh and leaned against the gigantic Moon Stone after failing to try and analyze what it was. From what the little owl Pokémon had seen, Minato was quite brave and was rather wise for a human, especially when he said that he didn't know much of anything about Pokémon or Kanto in general.

So it had to wonder why Minato was leaning against a stone that was not secure to try and get a quick nap to curb his exhaustion. Oh well. Hoothoot simply flew off of the stone the second it felt its weight shift, and it wasn't wrong as it only took a few moments more for the Moon Stone to dislodge itself from where it had been sitting.

Minato felt the stone begin to fall and jumped away from it only for his jaw to drop as he saw it roll away from him down the mountain, bouncing, crashing, and smashing into multiple peaks and breaking off chunks on its way down out of his sight. Even when he couldn't see it he could hear it hitting things until it stopped with a mighty sounding crash through trees at the bottom that echoed even up to where he had climbed.

A mortified look was pasted on the travelling Konoha shinobi's face as he looked at the Hoothoot that had landed back on his shoulder, "Uh… I think that's as good a sign as any to keep moving to the next town. I'm wide awake after that."

"Hoo hoooo!"

With a nod, Minato started descending the mountain towards the other side to try and put as much distance and blame away from himself and that fallen boulder of doom that he could. For Kami's sake he could have possibly killed somebody with that thing.

This would mark the beginning of a small period of time that denizens of Pewter City and Cerulean City would deem the most dangerous/profitable time in the history of their cities. The Moon Stone that Minato knocked down from the summit of Mt. Moon that chipped off all over on the way down resulted in the allowance of many evolutions of Clefairy, Jigglypuff, Nidorino, and Nidorina in the area into their strongest states.

Trainers came from all over to catch the already pre-evolved Clefable and Wigglytuff Pokémon and to keep the Nidokings and Nidoqueens from rampaging all over the towns with their newfound strength.

When this phenomenon would be mentioned by Professor Oak with quite a bit of amazement upon his next Hiraishin back to the man's lab for a progress report some time later, Minato would only be able to blush and offer a heartfelt, "My bad."

Naruto's Current Pokémon Team

Ranbouen (Growlithe)
Attacks: Bite (Dark), Roar (Normal), Ember (Fire), Odor Sleuth (Normal), Leer (Normal), Dig (Ground), Skull Bash (Normal).

Hogohei (Shellder)
Attacks: Tackle (Normal), Withdraw (Water), Supersonic (Normal), Clamp (Water), Ice Shard (Ice), Water Gun (Water).

Fukigenko (Tyrogue)
Attacks: Tackle (Normal), Strength (Normal), Foresight (Normal)

Janine's Current Pokémon Team

Spinarak
Attacks: Poison Sting (Poison), String Shot (Bug), Scary Face (Normal), Constrict (Normal), Leech Life (Bug), Night Shade (Ghost).

Grimer
Attacks: Poison Gas (Poison), Pound (Normal), Harden (Normal), Mud-Slap (Ground), Minimize (Normal), Sludge (Poison).

Zubat
Attacks: Leech Life (Bug), Supersonic (Normal), Astonish (Ghost), Bite (Dark), Air Cutter (Flying).

Hello world. It's your faceless purveyor of stories that are not originally based off of his own merit and are the brainchildren of people far more talented and ambitious than me that know money-making ideas when they have them (yes, this includes Kishimoto).

Alright, now that this is done I've got to go cash my friggin check and buy a fucking CF memory card for my university projects… I hate spending money on things I don't want otherwise. I'll probably be the angriest parent of all time if I have kids because babies are like… way more expensive on a regular basis.

But by then I'll hopefully have money and a stable career to raise children in a loving and caring environment and make the next generation of Kenchi for the entire world to enjoy. And then me and my children will take over the entire world for Kenchi to rule over forever more.

…And you'll enjoy it… just like I hope you enjoyed this.

Later. Kenchi out.