Who's a Pokemon master?
Chapter 4
Disclaimer:- Ours is not to question why I don't own this, Oh I could cry. I wouldn't even dream to try, the lawyers work my hide to fry.
Ah well I'm not a poet and ….. no I'm not gonna say that. Pokemon and Ranma ½ belong to their respective owners. 'Duh!'
/ Ranma \
Ranma moaned in pleasure as she wrapped her lips around the end of the chili hotdog and bit down causing sauce to ooze out of the far end. Her nimble fingers scooped it up and returned it to her mouth as she slid said fingers into her mouth sucking and licking any excess off her fingers in the process. Ranma didn't notice the number of young men she left behind her holding their noses at the sensual scene as the young appearing woman headed for a secluded spot near a tree she'd seen earlier.
"Hey Dex?" she said quietly, hardly even moving her lips.
"Yes Ranma?"
"I can't believe how good these things are."
"I wouldn't know, I seem to lack the required apparatus to make an informative statement in regards to its flavour."
"Huh?" Ranma paused for a moment to work her way through that last statement before saying, "Then take my word for it, these are real good."
"Duly noted. Ranma we have currently been at this gathering for one hour and seventeen minutes."
"Yeah, so? I'm still looking for information on prices of stuff we might be able to sell later."
"Then we may as well leave now, I have all relevant data on prices and such at this market."
"How'd ya manage that? I ain't even seen most of the stalls yet."
"True, but most of the stalls that sell items that we could conceivably make have Pokepay terminals. These allow me to access their sales computers and find out the information we needed. Also the marked prices would have done us no good as they change from location to location to reflect the local availability of goods. Taking that into account with the location of certain sites I would like you to visit I have planned a route to the first gym for us to maximize sales and training potential."
"Alright what the hells Pokepay?" Ranma asked totally ignoring the rest of what the handheld machine had said.
'Do you remember when you bought that chilidog; that the man behind the counter asked you to insert me into that slot?"
"Yeah."
"That was a Pokepay terminal. It basically accesses your personal funds and allows the proprietor to take out the money owed him. The screen on the terminal shows how much is owed and for what, it then generates a complex key that tells your Pokedex how much is to be taken out, that way the system can't be subverted to take more than it is supposed to."
"So it's like an automatic teller machine that uses my Pokedex as a keycard?"
"Exactly, you should also have a pin number for that purpose. I protected you this time but we will set up normal security measures once we're on the road okay?"
"Cool. You ain't led me wrong so far, so where are we going from here?"
"I figure if we head north towards Chep we'll make better time, there's also a few different types of Pokemon out that way that should prove interesting for you."
"There's another reason ain't there?" Suspicion of ulterior motives had almost become second nature for Ranma over the time he'd spent in Nerima.
"Well yes, to the north of Chep there's a small canyon that wends its way into the Northern mountain ranges and to one of the 'places' I told you about. We can pick up evolution stones from there. Also there are a few rare Pokemon that live nearby that take advantage of the evolution stones."
"Like?""Well Evee for one, and Vulpix have been known to travel hundreds of miles to use the site as well. Evee is the one we want though as they can evolve into seven different forms. Five of which rely on the stone you use to evolve them."
"So that means I need to catch at least seven of them right?" Ranma winced as he thought of having to train even more Pokemon.
"No I don't think so, not yet anyway. I was thinking more along the lines of evolving Evee with a fire stone so that you'd have a Flareon, or we could evolve it into an Espeon to give you a psychic type Pokemon. That is if we don't find any other type of psychic Pokemon on the way."
"So Flareon, that'd be a fire type yeah?""M-hmmm. That's correct, as I've said before it's always a good idea to have a good mix of Pokemon so that you can switch out types that are weak against a known opponent. Of course that can backfire as your opponents will try the same thing with you. This is the main reason the Pokemon must be equally trained and as strong as possible."
"Yeah well I can train them to be strong, endurance won't be a problem and neither will speed. The thing that worries me is I'm not sure how to train all these special attacks. I mean look at Skye, she's got these electric attacks thingy's, how am I supposed to help her develop those?"
"Well there are a couple of ways but again we're getting ahead of ourselves. The three points you mentioned will suffice for quite sometime and I believe that will take care of their special attacks as there is a direct correlation between physical condition and the strength of their special attacks, so the stronger, faster and more durable they are the stronger they'll be in other areas."
"Well that's good ta know." Ranma paused for a second as something she'd said earlier flickered through his mind, "Come to think of it, where is Skye? I haven't seen her for ages now."
"I couldn't tell you as I have not seen her either."
"Right, well if we want to leave while it's still light I suppose I'd better go and find her," as she pushed to her feet and gathered her purchases.
"Can you not use your ki senses to find her?" Dex asked suddenly. They'd covered many different subjects as they'd traveled through the forest and some of Ranma's more esoteric skills had come up in the midst of that conversation.
"If I knew her better maybe, but there're just too many people around."
"You've known her for nearly two days, and been in constant contact with her, isn't that enough?"
"Let me put it in different terms then. There's something like two thousand people here, give or take a couple' a hundred, there's a couple of hundred of ya normal garden variety animals. An to top that off there's probably several hundred Pokemon out there right now. Add in the fact that none of them are standing still and it gets even more difficult. It'd be quicker to search with my eyes than do it with ki senses, plus it'd give me one hell of a headache." Ranma crossed her arms over her chest as she regarded the little black box she had yet to pick up.
"If that's the case I suppose we have only three options. The first is to wander the fair aimlessly searching," the young red-head shook her head to that idea.
"Nah, ain't my style."
"I didn't think so. The next is to wait for a crowd of running, screaming people and follow it back to the source, or," Dex ploughed on before Ranma could protest, "we could head for the nearest explosion."
"Oh come on Dex she ain't…." KA-BOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!! "….that bad?" she finished lamely. Off in the distance a small mushroom cloud of black smoke and billowing flame rose into the sky. "Ah shit! This is your fault Dex!" as she scooped the last of her stuff up and bolted in the direction of the explosion.
"Me? What did I do?""Ya just had to go an say something like that," Ranma sidestepped a small group of children as they exited their ride to see what was going on, then jumped a concerned group of adults doing the same thing and ran smack into Professor Oak as he started running towards the same destination as Ranma, after all his Pokemon research station was over that way.
/ Skye \
Ranma's Pikachu was currently ghosting behind the pair she'd spotted earlier. She couldn't quite put her claw on it but something didn't seem right about them, as if they didn't fit in. Pikachu for one are known for their psychic ability, or at least their complete lack thereof, so Skye had to rely on her well honed ability to read body language. The body language of these two said they were predators and that they were hunting.
"PiKa," 'sneak', "PiKa," "sneak', "PiKa," 'sneak', Skye whispered after every other step as she slunk bell down to the ground, which admittedly isn't all that hard when you consider that most Pikachu have a cute little paunch which made them look like Buddha when they sat up on their hind legs. Her tail stretched out behind her parallel to the ground and kept her balance as she tiptoed across the path unseen. All in all her stealth techniques were flawless with one glaring over-sight, the fact that she was bright yellow caused all of her precautions to be useless as everyone stopped to watch the obviously deranged Pikachu sidle by muttering to itself.
On a scale of things stealthy it has been noted in research documents that Pikachu rank in the bottom ten percent along with a number of the legendary Pokemon. Simply for the fact that they don't blend in with any kind of environment, or as Professor Birch was once noted saying rather bluntly, "They stand out like dogs bollocks." This is no fault of the creature in question, it is simply a reflection on their strength. A weak Pokemon needs to hide. On the other hand the strong tend to like standing out so they can attract fights. Pikachu fall into a special sub-category, they like to fight but the simple fact is that their colouring is a calculated bluff that makes many leave them alone before they know how strong a Pikachu actually is. Back to the pursuit.
/ Team Rocket \
"Cassidy?"
"Yes?"
"Don't look around but I think we're being followed," Butch stage whispered to her partner, "I said don't look!"
"Why not? There's nothing back there, though I can't believe I missed that totally cute stuffed Pikachu on the doll stand back there."
"Stop that, we don't have time for you to collect cute things at the moment." Butch raised her eyebrow as she caught sight of the yellow stuffed toy. It was amazing how lifelike it actually looked as it sat there. It seemed to be looking straight at them as it stuck its tongue out and gave the passersby the red eye. You could almost hear it blowing raspberries at you. Then she looked at the short man beside her and sighed, 'there's no accounting for taste.' She thought, even though she found it to be saccharine sweet as well.
"Alright, but I'm telling you if it's gone when we come back I'm gonna let you know just how I feel about it." The duo turned back around and continued on their way to their designated target.
/ Skye \
Skye let out a sigh of relief at being undiscovered and then sweatdropped as the nearby demand caught up with her.
"Momma! Momma! I want that stuffed Pikachu, looking out of the corner of her eye she found she was suddenly the centre of attention for at least twenty pairs of eyes that belonged to people who answered to the name of 'Momma!' in that particular tone. Rather than stick around for the aftermath Skye quick attacked her way out of the area and caught up with her targets within a few seconds leaving the quickly gathering crowd behind her and a stall holder who suddenly had a gleam in his eye.
Back with Skye, "PiKa," 'sneak', "PiKa," 'sneak', Pikachu continued her tailing operation.
/ Team Rocket \
Butch spun around on her heel. That feeling of being followed was getting creepy. When she looked back there was still no one who looked like they were paying particular interest in the two clandestine members of Team Rocket.
"What's got you so jumpy? You're like a Meowth on a hot tin roof."
"Shhh! I know we're being followed."
Cassidy looked back as well and saw a flash of bright yellow a little further down the stalls. "Hold on I just want to check something." Walking back down the aisles he was surprised to find another of those unbearably cute Pikachu stuffed animals. Must be really expensive though, look at the detail in that fur, and the eyes, looked almost like they were alive. The pose was a bit overdone in his expert opinion but all in all it would be well worth adding to his plushie collection.
"How much for the Pikachu doll?" He asked.
The stall vendor looked at his wares and wondered where that one had come from and then shrugged. 'Who am I to argue with good luck, and the man 'wants' the Pikachu. Hmmm, good workmanship, excellent quality, no visible seams.' Pulling a figure off the top of his head.
"A hundred and fifty Pokedollars young man and the Pikachu is yours."
"A hundred and fifty! You gotta be kidding!""No siree that there is a fine piece of the craft of plushie making. Don't come across work like that everyday no siree! Hundred and forty five's my best offer! Tale it or leave it?"
Cassidy grumbled for a minute as he counted the notes in his wallet. "Hey Butch lend us a tenner till pay day?" He turned a charming smile on his partner, at least as charming as his face could possibly get for something that resembled a slab of rough hewn rock with a couple of broken teeth.
"For that?""Ah come on! It ain't like I didn't loan you money when you wanted that mini."
"That was totally different, that was fashion. This is a puerile toy of a posed Pikachu flipping the bird."
"That's the point, it's like rare as Pidgey teeth."
"Pidgey don't have teeth moron."
"Exactly," he crowed triumphantly before turning back to the vendor and asking, "Sure you can't go any lower on that price?" But the vendor knew a hooked customer when he saw one and got a sly expression.
"I'm sorry but that's the best I can do. One hundred and forty-seven and that's cutting me own throat."
Cassidy swore as he turned back to his partner smiling widely as he said, "Ah come on! Pretty please, with cream and sugar and a cherry on top?" Now it should be noted that the 'Ultra cute' attack fails miserably in its intent when used by a man who's head looks like it was used as the puck in an ice hockey game. The only reason it worked this time is that Butch couldn't stomach the expression anymore, in the sense that she was about to throw-up.
"Alright, alright already. Jeez here take it!" Emptying her pockets she handed over thirty dollars and some change before bolting in the opposite direction looking for a trash can. Cassidy gloated as he handed over the money and received his three dollars change.
The vendor smiled a big toothy grin as the man accepted the three dollars and picked up the stuffed animal. Why the Pikachu had remained stationary as he sold it he didn't know but he wasn't going to question such good luck as he pocketed the hundred and sixty two dollars the strange little man had given him. He did wonder for a moment whose Pokemon he'd just sold but dismissed it as none of his concern, plus when he left tomorrow morning there'd be no proof he'd sold it. He just prayed that Officer Jenny never figured it out.
/ Skye \
Skye looked out of the flap on the mans small back pack, it'd been a tight fit when she'd been shoved in, and she wasn't ready to forgive the comment about how lifelike she was in the weight department either, but all in all this was a much better way to trail the two. As an added bonus she couldn't lose them in the crowd. As the crowd thinned her current traveling partners began to speak more freely and she blinked as it became apparent that she'd been right about the odd couple.
"You know you wasted that money don't you?""Nah, I got what I wanted. It could have been gone by time I got back there, and I mean it ain't like I'm gonna let him keep the money. We'll be waiting for him when he leaves Pallet town tomorrow morning wont we Mikado?"
"You imbecile! I've told you not to use my real name when we're in public like this." Butch yelled
Cassidy or the career criminal better known to his parents as Azusa Shiritori mumbled through the hand over his mouth and waited for his partner to relent.
"Ah come on, what public? They're all back there at the fair. Ain't anyone here but us Team Rocket types." He batted his eyelashes as he chuckled at his own joke, a move that went down as well as the 'Ultra cute' attack.
"Oh Puhleaze. As if that'd work on me. You do have a point though, we do seem to be alone for the moment. So what's the plan? Oh and release your Pokemon, they might as well all hear the plan, Raticate, Graveler, Houndour I choose you!" A beam of red energy lanced out from three separate Pokeballs and coalesced into the Pokemon she'd named. The Raticate's bucked teeth glinted in the afternoon sunlight, surrounded by brown fur, the imposing mouse Pokemon stood at just over two feet in heigh. Graveler looked more like a boulder with two sets of arms and a craggy face, it was larger than its ratlike team mate by over a foot but weighed nearly six times as much being as it weighed close to two hundred and thirty pounds with the rock armour it carried. Houndour looked like a Rottweiller, except for the metal protrusions that covered its body like armour and the fact it was only half the size. Butch surveyed her Pokemon and smiled at the formidable array of power. Pity that Houndour hadn't evolved into Houndoom yet, now that was a useful Pokemon.
Cassidy looked on for a moment before calling out his own, Pidgey sat there and called out a few times as it settled its feathers along the crest of its head. Hitmontop was next in his lineup, he'd got it as a Tyrogue when it was all cute. Pity it hadn't stayed in that form but ah well, Raymone was always a little feisty like that. Last in his lineup and the pride of his collection was the Sableye Amie, the fact it was a dark\ghost type freaked him out as being too scary but he'd live with that as long as it was the most powerful Pokemon he possessed, just like the Sableye would live with the fact his owner had given him a girls name.
"We enter just like we got business with the Professor, cause we know he's making a speech at the moment. We gotta use Sableye to get past those Squirtle he's got in the garden once they realize we do mean harm that is." He let out a rumbling chuckle before continuing. "Once they're down we head for the south wall and I make like the big bad wolf and use some of the C4 I brought with me to blow the Professors house down." He took his pack off pulled Skye out of the bag and placed her to one side before reaching back inside to pull out a few of the small bombs he'd.
"You're not going to blow the house down! The boss wouldn't like it if we failed like those two incompetents always do."
"Ah come on, it was just a joke. I'm only gonna take out the wall into the Pokemon storage facility. While our Pokemon keep anybody from checking out the explosion you steal as many of the Pokemon as you can. I'll take the safe, the plans the boss wants should be inside it." He'd learned his lesson the last time he'd stolen a safe for the boss. The boss gets what's in the safe and then Cassidy could name the damn thing anything he damn well pleased and keep it.
"When we return successful we'll be rewarded by Giovani, unlike certain people I could mention. Right is everyone clear on the plan."
"Raticate!"
"Graveler."
"Houndour."
"Pidgey."
"Hitmontop!"
"Sableye."
"Pikachu."
Butch looked at her partner, "Pikachu?"
"Hey don't look at me I ain't got a Pikachu!" Cassidy and Butch looked around frantically as they tried to figure out where the last call had come from turning around he found the stuffed Pikachu leering at him with a manic grin on its face just before she threw a Thundershock at the people she knew were going to try and steal from her friends. When the massive form of Graveler interposed itself between Skye and her target without even blinking Skye decided that discretion was the better part of staying in one piece and bolted back down the path, this was more her trainers style.
"Get that Pikachu!""Don't let it get away. Graveler Rollout attack!" Butch yelled.
"GRAvelER!!" 'Here little Pikachu!!' "Vel gRaVELer!!" 'I'm comein' ta getchu!!'
"PIIIKKAAACHHUUUUU!!!" Which is Pikachu speak for, 'Run away!!!' of course the number of exclamation marks is up to the runners discretion.
Skye could feel the massive Graveler bearing down on her even at her full speed. It was an evolved form and she wouldn't stand a chance against it, not that she that she was going to stand around and try another attack, it had barely blinked at the first Thunderbolt. That didn't stop her trying to distract it though as she threw a massive Thundershock over her shoulder narrowly missing the large stone rolling towards her. The errant bolt did more good than she'd thought possible though as it smashed into the midst of the rest of the chasing pack and rendered everything unconscious except for Hitmontop who wobbled shakily out of the smoke and Houndour who barely shook its head at the electrical attack.
The second attack she fired off headed back towards the team leader as her aim was thrown off even more by having to dodge as Gravelar ran through the space she'd been just a moment before. Pikachu knew her attack had kind of failed as it hit nothing really important, that is until the explosion rocked the clearing throwing unconscious Pokemon around and a massive cloud of black smoke and flame into the sky.
"KApi PiCHu!" 'Cool! Bonus!' As the young Pikachu watched the mushroom cloud rise into the clear blue sky.Graveler looked back at the devastation and began to roll back to its trainers and find out if they were all right choosing to forget about the Pikachu for the moment. "Grav Ler, GraVELer?" 'What the #!?' Pokemon pick up language skills from their trainers and so his language was just a little coarser than the normal, a little like his hide.
/ Ranma \
Ranma paused only long enough to help the professor to his feet before running off in search of the source of that explosion.
"Ranma be careful. I don't know what could cause an explosion like that." Professor Oak yelled at the rapidly retreating form of his newest protégé.
"Don't worry about me Professor, I can take care of myself." Ranma launched herself into the air and hit the ridge pole of one of the stalls causing the whole thing to shake. She rapidly decided to switch from normal Roof-hopping to the more advanced Twinkle Toes technique, or AGATT as Ranma preferred. Why Twinkle toes? Put simply the only people able to master the required control of ki manipulation and stores were the two ancient masters of Nerima and Ranma. The name had been suggested as a joke by Nabiki when she was razzing Ranma one time and unfortunately Elder Khu Lon had overheard and said "I like it!" The name stuck and Nabiki laughed herself sick at the expressions on the faces of the two male practitioners of the technique. Ranma decided to go with the acronym he'd worked out, Anything Goes Advanced Twinkle Toes technique, as AGATT sounded much more manly.
A large number of people saw Ranma heading for the canvas on the top of her next target and gasped thinking she was going to crash through the flimsy material or squash the stall itself with the speed of her decent. Mouths opened wide to yell out a warning and stayed that way as she struck with all the force of a feather and rapidly disappeared from sight. She hit the far side of the fair in under twenty seconds, used a post sunk into the ground as a redirect and pushed off in the direction she wanted to go, once her feet touched solid ground her speed picked up even more. Ranma barely registered a yellow blur coming in the opposite direction as a Pikachu using quick attack to get extra speed but was able to scoop it up none the less as she came level with Skye; who still hadn't realized that the Graveler had turned around to revive its trainers.
"Hey Skye fancy meeting you here." Ranma said in greeting.
"Pika! PI PIKachU!" Skye pointed frantically in the direction the smoke was still rising.
"Yeah that's what I reckon too. Let's go have a look." Ranma slowed down considerably once she realized her Pikachu was fine. (For anyone wondering, no Ranma doesn't understand what Skye's saying but the body language was pretty clear.) Ranma jogged into the cloud of clearing smoke to find a large ball of stone in the middle of a crater.
"Is that what caused the explosion?""PI." Skye shook her head at him and gestured to a pair of feet that withdrew quickly behind the large rock, a rock that hadn't been there earlier when they left the professors lab.
A few moments later a squat curly haired man stepped from the left side of the rock. "Prepare for trouble..." he said while striking a pose. A moment later a tall blond stepped from the opposite side of the boulder.
"and make it double!" the pose she struck was the mirror image of her partners as they both pointed at Ranma.
"Here's our mission, so you'd better listen!" they said in unison.
"To infect the world with devastation!" Cassidy's right fist slammed into the palm of his left hand.
" To blight all peoples in every nation!: Butch swept her hand out as if to encompass everything.
"To denounce the goodness of truth and love!" his voice descended to a bass rumble
"To extend our wrath to the stars above!" her voice rose half an octave as she swept her arms to point at the sky.
"Cassidy!"
"And Butch of course!"
"We're Team Rocket's 'Golden Pair', circling the earth day and night!"
"Surrender to us now or you shall surely lose the fight, fight,fight!" Butch finished off their little intro number and then a slight grinding sound could be heard as the rock turned on its axis to reveal a face only a mother could love.
"Graveler!!"
Ranma watched in stunned disbelief, 'Oh brother what a song and dance!' that was before the rock introduced itself.
"What the Fuck it that?!"
"Graveler, a rock and ground type Pokemon. It eats up to a ton of rocks a day."
"Right Skye let's deal with this sucker, do that electric thingy you did before." Luckily for Ranma she said that in Japanese and saved everyone from doing a massive face plant into the pavement. Dex on the other hand metaphorically bit holes in his tongue as he translated the command for his owner.
"Skye! Thundershock!" Dex yelled a second after Ranma's exclamation. Even though he knew it wasn't going to work, it would make Ranma reassess his options if he had to figure out how to deal with the rolling rock.
"You're kind of cute little girl. So after Graveler has finished with you I'll kiss it all better." Butch exclaimed, "Graveler Rollout attack!"
"Back off ya old hag! Ain't no way your skanky lips are gettin' anywhere near mine!" Ranma jumped aside as Graveler rolled towards her, and took note that the Thundershock had struck home, in fact it nailed the rock right between the eyes, which didn't have any effect on the Pokemon other than to temporarily blind it and give Ranma some space to add more insults.
"What kind of sick person wants to kiss a thirteen year old girl? You some kind of Pedophile?" Ranma used part of the history Dex had made up for him.
"She's kind of got a point there you know? I mean ain't she a little young for you. Mind you she is disturbingly well developed."
"Shut up you little brat! For stealing my one thousandth kiss I'll beat you. No more miss nice guy!"
"Yeah right, like you were ever a nice guy! Skye Thunderbolt!" He'd meant to say Thundershock but misinterpreted what he'd heard Dex say.
Skye blinked at the command, she didn't know that move. Oh she knew it was a more powerful version of Thundershock, but she'd only ever seen it in action from the older Pikachu in the troop. Determined to do the best that she could Skye gathered all her energy and pushed it into one attack. And watched disappointed as it still came out as a Thundershock.
"Harder Skye, push it!" Ranma watched as the Graveler stopped in its tracks once again as it tried to force its way into the constant stream of energy. Skye gritted her teeth and pushed even deeper in search of more reserves for her attack when something seemed to click between her eyes, the attack stuttered and seemed to flinch back from the massive stone creature and then it shot back as a thick torrent of energy shot forth and collided with the Graveler which fell over backwards as it couldn't stand in the stream of power. The remaining attack shot over the recumbent its form and smashed into Houndour who fell over sideways without a whimper. Hitmontop was still reeling from Skye's first attack and was in no condition to help Butch or Cassidy.
Skye, having pushed her reserves as far as they'd go simply collapsed into the ground.
"Skye has learned Thunderbolt!" Dex intoned with a sense of urgency in his voice causing Ranma to look down ready to congratulate his friend, when he saw her slumped over figure he reached down and scooped her up. "Hey Skye are you alright?"
'Pikaaa…" was all she managed to whisper before her head lolled backwards and she passed out.
"Hey kid! Don't you know anything? You must be a total amateur when it comes to Pokemon if you don't know that rock and ground types are immune to elextricity."
"Yeah so do us all a favour and hand over Rafael before things get nasty." Butch swore in the background, 'Damn he's named the Pikachu. There's no way we're gonna get out of here with any of the professors Pokemon at this rate, and there'll be hell to pay if we didn't get the plans.'
"Rafael? Um, you do know this is a girl dontcha?" Ranma asked as she tried to buy some time to think this through.
"Where I come from that's a girls name too." Cassidy said, which was total bullshit that had Butch rolling her eyes.
"I guess that explains why you got a girls name," Ranma snickered.
"Hey! I'll have you know I only got that name after my partner was assigned as Butch. I hate being called Cassidy." Years of frustration welled up as he remembered the snickers he received whenever they were at headquarters.
"You think Cassidy is bad? You want to try being a woman whose called Butch. I tell you whoever thought up these stupid aliases needs their asses kicking."
"Hate ta tell you this Butch, but they only called you that after they found out you like to kiss girls. Pity they didn't go with their first suggestion of Dyke." Cassidy smirked at his partner.
"Why you….At least that would have been appropriate to you Dick."
Ranma tuned the two out as he turned to Dex. "So if electricity don't work on that thing what will?"
"Well they're vulnerable to water, ice and fighting style attacks. Grass and steel based attacks are also very effective against rock types."
"Well I've got a water type, that Squirtle."
"That wouldn't be a good idea. We don't know how strong she is, and even if we did she may not have any water based attacks, depending on what she's been taught by her previous trainer.
"Well what am I supposed to…hey, wait a minute, fighting and ice you said?"
"Well yes, fighting you could use your Mankey, if you hadn't left your Pokeballs in Officer Jenny's office, but you don't have an ice type Pokemon."
"Nah, I don't need one. I can take that ugly thing out by myself." Butch and Cassidy stood watching the diminutive red-head as she crowed about her ability to take down their Graveler without the aid of a Pokemon and laughed.
"You, you, think…" bwa-ha-ha-…, "you can take my Graveler on bare handed? Oh-ho that's rich little girl."
"Will you stop calling me 'little girl'!" Ranma yelled.
"Ooooh! Struck a nerve did we little girl? Alright then little girl, I'll stop calling you little girl. I don't know about my partner here, he tends to call everyone little girl. Oh and by the way, Graveler Double edge, get the little girl!"
Ranma couldn't believe how fast the Pokemon went from a standing stop to full tilt as it headed in her direction with hands outstretched to strike in a double knife hand attack. Stepping back rapidly she dropped into the 'Soul of Ice' and caused her cold ki to coalesce in her fists even as she leapt back towards the descending bulk of the Graveler with a yell of "Ice punch, Stone breaker!" Both punches landed within milliseconds of each other.
The first punch froze a patch of the creatures armour about a foot and a half across, the next did exactly what it said it'd do, the brittle stone shattered into a thousand pieces. Sending roughly half of them into the elephant like hide beneath the rest showered the pig-tailed martial artist. The force of the second blow sent the rock flying backwards between the two criminals who had gone back to arguing over the relative anguish of being known as Butch or Cassidy. Neither of them believed what they'd just seen as their heads snapped around to follow the flightpath of the normally groundbased Pokemon, then they snapped back around to look at the nonchalant expression on the young girls face as she buffed her fist on her silk shirt and whistled innocently.
They looked at each other before reaching for their Pokeballs and recovering all their unconscious Pokemon, before reaching down and pushing buttons on the side of their boots. Little wheels popped out of the base as they turned into inline skates and began to pelt away at high speed to get away from the monster.
"Aaaaah! Skate away!!!!" Which is human for I ain't sticking around with someone who can punch out a Graveler. The number of exclamation marks is still up to the person saying it.
The appearance of the skates was an epiphany for Ranma as he suddenly realized why he'd been having a severe case of dejavu since she'd discovered the weird pair. The following course of action was decided by her past history with the 'Golden Pair' as she dropped a massive Mouko Takabisha on their retreating forms. She barely heard them yelling.
"Looks like Team Rocket's blasting off today!!" As they disappeared into the distant sky.
Ranma looked around at the damage and decided it was just like home, except the crazies didn't come after her with martial arts but with big ass Pokemon. Then slumped down feeling dejected. The whole point on this new world was to let his Pokemon do the battling for him if what Dex told him was true, and he'd just stepped in and solved all his problems with his fists.
"Why so glum Ranma?" The Pokedex asked as Ranma went to check on Skye, she gave a little sigh of relief when she found that the Pikachu had only passed out.
"You figure it out Dex, you're so smart!"
"Hmm, I'm not sure, but would it have something to do with not using Pokemon in that battle."
"How'd ya figure that out?"
"Simple really, you take great pride in your own physical skills and it must have been a blow to your ego when I told you that Pokemon do the fighting here. Thus when you gave in to the way things are, you decided that you couldn't use your own skills in battle. Which is silly if you ask me. Certainly it's true that if anyone challenges you it will more than likely be to a Pokemon battle, but when it comes to something like Team Rocket who are known hardened criminals, then you do whatever you can to make them suffer. Who knows, if they suffer enough they may even turn back to decent human beings."
"You think so? I don't know as much, I think that Azusa Shiratori guy's too much of a kleptomaniac to do anything else with his life. As for Mikado Sanzenin the next time I see that bitch I'm gonna teach her not to mess with me like that again."
"Ranma?"
"Yeah?"
"Would you mind telling me how you knew their real names, I'm just accessing the police files on Team Rocket and they only speculate that the two you just named and the team you just beat are one and the same."
"You mean I was right? Oh goody, just what I needed those two freaks are on the same planet as me. That's gotta be the most messed up shit I've ever seen!"
"What's that?"
"Well on my world they're different physically, I mean totally different. For one thing they're the wrong gender here and for another I gotta say that Azusa guy was Uuuugly. Guy musta fallen outta the ugly tree and hit most of the branches on the way down. Then again, I suppose it was different for him. A cute girl steals something and people make excuses or are more forgiving. A guy steals something from ya you're more likely to try and beat his head in. That's explain the shape of his head."
"You're serious?"
"Yeah. Wish I weren't but the skates were kind of the clincher. They had me worried with calling themselves the 'Golden Pair'. Damn that's got me freaked now, if they're here, then that means the others could be here. An if they're all as different as that then I won't recognize them until it's too late."
"Give me a list of names later and I'll see what I can find. For the moment you need to deal with these people coming up behind you.
/ To be continued \
Author's notes:- Sorry for the delay, and the small size of the chapter but for some reason the introduction of 'Butch and Cassidy' into the fanfic didn't gel the first number of times I tried to write this. The size is due to the fact that this is a good point to stop, and I've gotta go to work now anyway.
So like I always say, REVIEW, please. All comments are welcome as long as they pertain to the fanfiction and not my supposed parentage. Lol.
Till next time!