We all charged out of the elevator at breakneck speeds, going for the first grunts that we caught sight of (which created quite a few painful situations in which several people targeted the same grunt and ended up colliding with each other).

"Jade!" I heard Travis' voice yell, as I attempted (rather unsuccessfully) to wrestle a heavy-set grunt to the ground. "Pokéballs! That way!" he pointed left.

I slipped away from the grunt and punched him with all my strength in the face before going after the Pokéballs.

Travis was the first to reach them, closely followed by yours truly. We both grabbed one, and threw them, trusting in dumb luck.

Which was stupid.

As I later figured out, the second floor was the floor with the least security wherein they stored Pokéballs. Ergo, they only kept the weakest Pokémon that they would sell for the cheapest prices. Which, in turn, meant that we were left with horrible Pokémon (Travis had a Metapod, whereas I was left with a Paras).

I had nothing in the way of pure offensive power, but I had intelligence and tactics on my side.

I could defeat all the Team Rocket grunts with one move, but I didn't want to attack my allies as well (which I would have done, if I'd gone with my original plan).

"Alright guys," I announced, picking up my Paras to protect him, "We need to all gather in one place."

"Why – " someone began to ask.

"No time to explain!" I yelled impatiently.

It only took a couple of minutes for me to implement my plan – once we were all gathered in one place, surrounded by grunts, I knew I had to act fast (or else we would all get shot – it really wasn't a pleasant thought).

I chucked Paras into the air behind the grunts and yelled out, "Stun Spore!"

Wherever the tiny yellow particles touched their skin, the grunts would freeze, completely paralysed. I made sure that the attack only touched the grunts and not us (hence why I had gathered us all in one place; if we were still dispersed throughout the room, I would have ended up paralysing us all).

"Ok, Paras," I said, when I saw that every single grunt had been dealt with, "You can stop now."

Paras promptly did and once I was sure that all the spores had settled, I gave the signal for us to march over to the Pokéballs, where we carefully checked them for any of our Pokémon (we decided that we would come back later to retrieve the other Pokéballs in order to return the Pokémon to their respective owners after we'd dealt with the grunts on the other floors).

The only Pokémon of ours we were able to find was Deonaé's Wobbuffet. That's it. And while this made Deonaé quite happy, it wasn't great news for the rest of us.

"Great," I thought, "we now have two useless Pokémon."

As we walked back to the elevator, I fingered the solitary Pokéball in my belt, regretting that I hadn't had a chance to use the awesome power that was Nidoking.

"I knew we would be fighting indoors," I lamented, "But I had no idea that it would be this cramped!"

As the doors of the elevator started to close (we had opened the doors using the same method as the first floor, and it had worked again, despite Chad's adamant proclamations of, "Security cards don't work that way!") I yelled to Paras, "Keep doing that Stun Spore! Make them pay for what they did to you!"

"Paaaaras," Paras replied, saluting me with one claw – he seemed to be positively enjoying making those grunts suffer.

Once inside, I noticed something odd about the elevator buttons. I wasn't sure if perhaps I was seeing things, so I checked again. And again. And a third time, just to be sure.

Until finally, Travis got fed up with waiting and said, "Just push a button already!"

"Our plan involves going through each floor systematically," I replied, trying to wrap my head around these odd buttons.

"Riiiiight…"

"Well, how can I do that, if those buttons say what they do?" I asked indignantly, pointing accusingly to the buttons in question.

After everyone had inspected them, they immediately saw the problem.

There was no 'BF3' button.

And it hadn't been taken away, either, because the button panel was perfectly intact.

"Maybe," Michael said, "Team Rocket is superstitious, and didn't include a third floor?"

I reckoned that he deserved a whack on the head for his lack of knowledge about superstitions, and I was glad to provide it.

"Three is a lucky number, you utter ignoramus!"

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realised the importance of what I had just uttered.

"Maybe you're right... maybe Team Rocket is superstitious!"

I tried to pace up and down (as stated earlier, pacing helps me think), but couldn't as the elevator was too cramped, so I ended up bouncing from one person to another, rather like a pinball.

"Could you please explain what the hell you are talking about," Jondré requested after a few minutes, "to all of us non-geniuses?"

"Non-genii," I automatically corrected him, "Maybe they thought that the third floor was the best place to keep the strongest, most valuable Pokémon…"

"Like my Dragonair?" Travis asked excitedly.

"Right. Like your Dragonair. You cannot access it from the elevator, so presumably there's another way. I didn't see any stairs on the second floor? Did any of you?"

They all shook their heads.

"In that case," I mused, "You must be able to access it from the fourth floor." And so I promptly pushed the 'BF4' button.

This time, I decided to leave myself out of the fighting completely, and go on a hunt for Pokéballs. I really wanted to take part in the battle, but figured that I couldn't without my Pokémon. (At least, I couldn't win without my Pokémon.)

So, I was relying on the others to distract the grunts so that they wouldn't shoot at me.

No such luck.

I was shot at twice before I even made it halfway across the room, and twice again as I made a swift retreat.

Only a combination of the grunt's horrible aiming and mad dodging skills kept me alive.

"Well," I said, as I dived behind a pile of metal crates, "That went badly."

I then jumped as Amy, who was also hiding behind the crates with me, screamed rather loudly.

"Are you trying to give me a heart attack?"

I then became aware of a slight twinge in my left arm. I looked down – and froze in shock.

It turns out that I hadn't come out completely unscathed, as I had previously thought. A bullet had grazed my left arm and blood was slowly trickling downwards. It wasn't a lot of blood; I didn't even hurt very much, but it infuriated me. It was then I realised how despicable Team Rocket really was; they would kill a fellow human being without a second thought. Of course, I had known this from the very start, but there is a vast difference between merely knowing something and actually understanding it.

I had heard tales of the awesome effects adrenalin can have on the human body, but one cannot truly comprehend it until one has experienced it first-hand.

Before I knew what I was doing, I rushed forward, not caring that more bullets were grazing me, and grabbed the gun of the first grunt that I saw. I then proceeded to throw it at another grunt's head, while simultaneously kicking the first grunt's feet out from under him.

By the time both had dropped to the floor, unconscious, I had more or less regained my calm. That is, I could think clearly again; clearly enough to resume my search for Pokéballs, but I still had enough adrenalin in my veins to give me a ridiculously high pain threshold.

I grabbed Pokéballs in each hand (they were really not that hard to find) and started throwing wildly, neither noticing nor caring what Pokémon I was unleashing.

That is, until I found my Sandslash.

My first reaction was, of course, unadulterated joy. But then it changed to anger; how dare those dirty Rockets classify Sandy with the mediocre Pokés?!

Honestly, it was only common sense (I really did not want to go to jail) that kept me from ordering Sandslash to massacre those Rockets. (I knew she was quite capable of doing so; I've seen those claws do some serious slashing.)

Instead I yelled, "Destrrrrrrrrroy their guns, Sandy!" (I may have savoured the "r" sound a bit much in my fervour to get revenge.)

She leapt into the air, completely ignoring the multiple gunshot wounds she was recieving. The guns were no match for her long, gleaming claws and they fell to the floor with a clatter in countless pieces. Soon every grunt in the room was without a weapon, some of them clutching their bleeding hands where Sandy had been particularly ferocious.

Michael said, "That was…"

"Unexpected? Magnificent?" I supplied a few adjectives.

"…Unfair," he finished. "I'm the ninja here. I'm the one who cuts things up into tiny pieces. Got that?" He addressed the last remark to my Sandslash, poking his sword menacingly at her back.

"Slaaaaash…" she replied tiredly, before toppling over onto her snout.

Michael hurriedly sheathed his sword.
"Did I kill it?"

"Her," I corrected him, giving him a smack on the head for his idiocy, "And no. She's just tired."

I didn't say it as I returned her to her Pokéball, but some of those gunshot wounds looked pretty severe. Probably the adrenalin had kept her standing until the pain and fatigue had simply become too much.

And I became forcefully reminded that the same could apply to humans, as my personal supply of adrenalin wore out and the combined force of my multiple wounds brought me to my knees.

I didn't understand; I hadn't suffered any serious wounds… Well, that's what I thought.

However, as I struggled to my feet, putting my hand on my knee for balance, my fingers touched something warm. Slowly, I lifted my hand up and saw blood.

I soon deduced that the wound was located on my upper right thigh. It wasn't really a serious wound, as such, but it was the one wound I had suffered where a bullet had actually pierced through my flesh, instead of just grazing me.

As I was struggling to my feet, attempting to walk without any aid, one of the grunts noticed my weakness and pulled out a tiny pistol that no-one had noticed up until that point.

He aimed it at me (probably because I was the owner of the Sandslash that had caused him so much humiliation) and pulled the trigger. I knew that, even if my leg had been in full working condition, I wouldn't be able to dodge a bullet that had been fired from five metres away. I tried to at least move into a position that would cause a non-fatal injury, but I didn't have much hope.

And then Michael's sword flashed through the air and the bullet was split neatly down the middle.

No-one made a sound.

"Told you I'm the one who slices things up around here," Michael stated.