Chapter 7 Boot Camp for Rusty and a New Team for Cecilia
Typhoon managed to get to Ecruteak City where Ike had his injury looked at by a former doctor that was in Team Rocket years ago.
"How is it doc?" Ike asked as he finished looking at the injury.
"If you don't rest this leg, it will be removed." The doctor answered.
"What?" Alice asked.
"The thing is that your leader here removed the bullet but never stitched up the wound, just wrapped it. Ever since you have been moving for a while, it almost got seriously infected." The doctor told them.
Ike was silent.
"Ike?" Gabriel asked.
"Very well, I guess I have to rest it then, but you two should go out and find new members." Ike said.
Both Gabriel and Alice nodded and left the room.
"should you be doing that? Sending them into the field since you revealed your team in Olivine?" the doctor asked.
"I only revealed myself not my teammates, besides those two will be fine." Ike answered with a smile.
Alice and Gabriel were walking down the streets.
"Man, how are we going to find someone in such short notice?" Alice asked.
"We'll find someone, just be patient." Gabriel answered.
"You seem optimistic, did someone impress you or something?" Alice asked.
"A little, I saw her on the way to the hideout." Gabriel answered.
"Lead the way." Alice said.
Gabriel walked ahead and Alice followed.
"What do you mean by being fired?" Rusty yelled.
He, Marty, Harper, and Eliza were in a private room in the Pokemon Center with Sgt. Raise.
"I talked to your commander and he also saw what happened over the broadcast of the contest here on the new team and it was under your watch." Sgt. Raise answered.
"Wait a sec, we didn't know where he was and were trying to protect Jasmine the best we could!" Marty exclaimed.
"Besides, he was disguising himself as a contestant." Eliza said.
"Sorry, but orders are orders." Sgt. Raise said.
There was a knock and they saw it open and revealed Lt. Surge of the Vermillion Gym in Kanto and asked, "are you sure Raise?"
"Surgge, nice to see you again." He said.
"Lt. surge, what are you doing here?" Eliza asked.
"I heard about everything after the contest while scouting for that Ike guy and came and tried to catch him myself, also heard about Raise being here to fire your friend." Lt. Surge answered.
"Look, I didn't do anything wrong, is there anything I can do but don't fire me." Rusty said.
"I will try and talk to Surge and Drake about that, for now you will be on suspension from any ranger duties." Raise said and left the room.
Lt. Surge sighed and said, "Sometimes it feels like Raise is trying to get on Commander Drake's good side for years in order to get to his rank when drake retires."
"You were a ranger? If you don't mind me asking." Marty asked.
"Yeah, for years and we were on the same team until I became gym leader of Vermillion City." Lt. surge answered.
"Never knew that." Eliza said.
"Since I told you my business, why are you all here, especially the niece of Professor Elm?" Lt. Surge asked.
"Well, it's a long story." Harper answered.
"I've got time." He said.
They all told the story about how they all met and how Ike met them and the trickery he pulled on them back in Sinnoh. They even explained about how they defeated Team Aqua and Rusty told him about he rejoined the the rangers again in order to clean his record up. Then they mentioned all of the events that led up to the contest and how they rescued Jasmine and Maritza.
"I see, so this is not really all your fault McLane." Lt. Surge said.
Rusty shook his head.
"You shouldn't be blamed as you said." Lt. Surge said.
"No." he said.
"Let me talk to Raise, I might come up with something." He said.
"You will?" Rusty asked.
"Leave it to me, in the meantime, just chill out and enjoy the peace until you run into Typhoon again." Lt. surge said as he left the room.
Rusty nodded.
"Come on, let's see how our friends are doing." Eliza said.
"You go ahead, I'm going to take a walk." Rusty said and left.
"Poor guy." Harper said.
Marty nodded.
Cecilia was waiting at a tea shop in Ecruteak when Alice and Gabriel found her.
She saw them and asked, "Who are you?"
"We're members of Typhoon." Alice answered.
"What? Why? Why are you talking to me and not in jail?" Cecilia asked.
"We came to recruit you." Gabriel told her.
"What?" Cecilia asked.
"We found out that you and Eliza Elm have been rivals forever since you two went on your journeys as trainers." Alice said.
"Yes, what about it?" Cecilia asked.
"Have you beaten her when she fought against you?" Gabriel asked.
"No, I haven't." she answered.
"do you ever think why?" Alice asked.
"Because she's always seem to get to the top whenever I'm around and she has a professor as an uncle while I have a father that sells and helps deliver Moo Moo Milk." She answered.
"Want to do anything about it?" Gabriel asked.
Cecilia was silent.
"well?" he asked.
"I'm in." she answered.
"Good, welcome to the team." Alice said as she handed her a dagger that was sheathed.
Cecilia took it and they left so Cecilia could meet Ike herself. He welcomed her to the team and said, "Good, we have our starting team and now onto finding more."
"More?" Alice asked.
"Yes, we need a driving force and in order to do that is to find more people who are willing to join our side. All of you in or not?" Ike asked.
"Yes sir!" they exclaimed.
"Now go and find more people!" Ike exclaimed.
The three went out and did so.
Back in Olivine, Eliza found Rusty looking out over the ocean with Sparkplug next to him.
"There you are, I was looking all over for you." She said.
He was silent.
"Good news, Maritza woke up but she's pissed about Ike cutting her hair off." Eliza told him.
He smiled.
"Don't tell me you're still depressed about earlier."
"How else should I feel?I worked hard in becoming captain and now it's going all away because of Ike."
"But you still have me and the others."
He sighed and said, "What am I to you guys if I can't protect you all?"
"Are you saying that you being a ranger is more important than us?"
He went silent again.
"Figures."
"Eliza, I didn't…"
"Save it for everyone else who's a ranger." She said and ran off.
He watched her go and yelled, "Damn it!"
"You okay?" he heard Lt. Surge asked.
"Yeah, just girl troubles. What happened with you and the sergeant? Will I be out of a job?" Rusty asked.
"No, but you need to prove yourself."
"Prove myself? I thought I did enough of that by being a ranger after Aqua's capture two years ago?"
"Actually, Raise wants to see it for himself since he knows about what you did and doesn't trust you and haven't been for a long time even while you were captain."
"What does he want me to do?"
"Boot camp."
"Wait, I already done that back in Sinnoh."
"He wants to put you to the test and able to show you're a real ranger at the boot camp in the mountain range near Blackthorn." Lt. Surge answered.
"Fine, I'll do it. I will show that bastard what I can do." Rusty answered.
"very well, I will have you board the next bus in a few hours." Lt. Surge said and left.
Rusty sighed.
He told Maritza, Marty, and Harper later on about the boot camp thing and they were surprised but he explained that if he didn't do it he will be fired.
"What does Eliza say about it?" Maritza asked.
"Nothing, she wasn't with me when I talked with Surge."he answered.
"Wasn't she with you?" Marty asked.
"Yeah, but she and I had an argument. Nevermind that now, I will be heading to Blackthorn." He said and walked away.
"Rusty!" Marty yelled.
"Great, this is not good. First the Typhoon thing and then Eliza and Rusty having problems and now Rusty doing boot camp? What is going on?" Harper asked.
"I don't know, but it feels like we're being ripped apart." Marty answered.
Three hours later, Rusty said his goodbyes to his friends and boarded the bus to Blackthorn with Lt. Surge and Sgt. Raise. They watched the bus leave and headed back to the Pokemon Center in hopes of seeing Eliza but John gave them the news after leaving the recovery room with bandages on his body that Eliza went ahead and tried to see if she could stop Typhoon on her own.
"What? It can't be!" Marty exclaimed.
"It is, she didn't want to feel like a burden to the rest of us by telling us about what happened so she headed for Ecruteak where she was tipped off that Typhoon headed there right after their defeat." He answered.
"What should we do?" Maritza asked.
"Follow them of course." John answered.
They nodded.
"who will follow who?" Maritza asked.
"Maritza, you and John go and find Eliza while we go to the boot camp to meet up with Rusty." Marty answered.
"Shouldn't it be the other way around?" John asked.
"You're still injured and if you end up on any of the training fields, you would rip your stitches and we can't risk you dying and besides my sister and Eliza connect pretty well." He answered.
"Right." John said.
They made their final arrangements and got some directions from Officer Jenny for Ecruteak and bus information from Nurse Joy. Both Marty and Harper headed for the bus station while Maritza and John headed for the northern route in order to get to Ecruteak City. What will be waiting for them, find out in the next chapter!
Author's commentary
Hey guys, I hope the few of you are enjoying the story. As you saw earlier, I did have the whole Lt. Surge being a ranger, I thought it would be easier to add a bit of back story to a gym leader. You never know most of the gym leaders' back story except for Norman in Peddleburg in Hoen during third generation. With the whole family thing and everything. Well, I guess that's about it. See ya!
