Awakening

Chapter 8: Thunder and Rockets

After things were more or less resolved between Zero and Ashimi, they managed to track down an umbrella in the building and intended to leave Silph and spend the rest of the night at the pokemon center, where they had proper beds. Zero didn't mind as long as he had a quiet corner to sit and run his debugging programs and an electric outlet to stick a straw into and feed. He could eat normal food, but he did so for the taste rather than for the energy. He actually wasted energy disintegrating the food once it was in his mouth, as his body had no use for it. Ashimi was very much looking forward to getting a good night's sleep.

When they reached the front exit, no one was out in that weather so no one would see them anyway, Zero paused as if remembering something, then approached the elevator and pressed the button to call it. The doors opened and out crawled a light green haired boy with oddly colored eyes, one being brown and the other being somewhat pink due to lack of pigmentation, though they were still very much human eyes and elicited no special reactions from Ashimi.

The fifteen year old boy dizzily stood up, using the wall for support while Ashimi watched on with questioning eyes. Zero turned towards her and pointed back at the teenager with his thumb. "He followed you here muttering something about becoming the future boss' right hand man. That was when you were battling it out with the stairs. He was actually stupid enough to take the elevator, so I trapped him in and kept the elevator going up and down really fast this whole time."

Ashimi observed that the teenager was wearing a Rocket uniform. He dizzily looked towards her and saluted, or tried to. His hand flew over his head on the first attempt, then collided with his nose on the second, before he finally gave up and just held on to the wall. "I'm here to assist you, Madame Ashimi, loyal as always!"

Ashimi tilted her head in confusion, "do I know you?"

"You don't remember?" The green haired boy looked hurt.

"Of course I know you..." Ashimi tried to come up with a name that matched the face, but she wasn't quite sure. "You're Vincent, right?"

"That's not my name," the boy frowned.

"According to my data his name is... That's odd, I have two entries for that. Is it Cecil or Bartz?" Zero inquired.

"No and no!" The teenager pouted.

"Oh well," Ashimi shrugged. "I don't want any help anyway, I have to go through my pokemon journey my own way. Transportation is okay, but that's just about it and I already have Johnny to take care of that. See you around... um... Squall." She yawned, "let's go to the pokemon center, I want to get some sleep already." Her pokemon were already sleeping in their pokeballs, save for Pichu, who was sleeping on her head. "C'mon Zero, get under the umbrella."

"I'm not going to catch a cold..." Zero reminded.

"It doesn't matter, friends share their umbrellas," Ashimi stated. Zero shrugged, not questioning her logic any further and they both left.

The green haired teenager was left standing there looking frustrated, his name wasn't Squall either. "Jonathan..." He growled the name of his most hated rival.

xoxox xox xoxox

Meanwhile, at Vermilion City, after spending the day making sure that by some twist of fate the carwash employees wouldn't discover the lethal customizations of the car, Jonathan was, for once in his life, ready to stop paying attention to vehicles. He locked the secrets away and set the car's system to blend in, so unless they looked under the hood they wouldn't know and that was locked too, but he was still uneasy, so he had been with the car the whole time. The employees assumed he was just a kid who took his father's car for a joyride and wanted to make sure it was fixed and returned in secret. At least the interiors were as good as new and he had the rest of the night to himself. He wasn't sure what Ashimi's business was that guys wouldn't understand, but perhaps his confusion was all the proof he needed that he would indeed be unable to comprehend whatever it was. Ashimi was a bit of a tomboy most of the time and despite occasionally calling her princess, Jonathan did at times forget that she was a member of the ever perplexing female species.

A storm was hitting Vermilion City harshly and Jonathan considered spending the night at the pokemon center resting. But it was about time to send the boss something good, and if Ashimi returned in the morning wanting to rush towards the gym, he wouldn't have much time to do anything big if he waited. He scanned Vermilion City's official website looking for ideas. The weather report was linked to the front page, which was not surprising given how fierce it was, people would want to know when the storm was expected to pass. The large group of clouds reached all the way to Saffron City, though the storm was still relatively gentle there. Vermilion City was definitely getting the worst of it and people were advised to stay indoors. Ignoring the warning, Jonathan continued examining the website.

After looking through a few pages featuring upcoming activities, holidays and advertisements for the local commerce, he found that there would be an exhibition on a newly remodeled museum not too far from the pokemon center. Fossils had become rarer as time went by and the few that were preserved were already dug up. He had heard stories about how one of Team Rocket's past rivals, Team Plasma, was said to have revived a fossil pokemon originally from Kanto and upgraded it to a whole new level. Rare pokemon fossils were classic valuables that he knew would always be welcomed into Giovanni's collection, so it would be a good idea to steal them.

With that plan in mind, Jonathan put on his Team Rocket uniform and snuck out of the pokemon center through the window... And got soaked to the bone. It was a short run to the museum, but picking the lock with the rain beating down on him so harshly, took longer than he thought. At last he let himself in through the back door and tried to wipe away some of the rain water from his face. "Should have brought an umbrella..."

He moved forward, leaving little puddles of water where he stepped. His uniform this time was black, though he also had a white version he used during the day when dark colors wouldn't make much of a difference in blending in. Yet the bright red R on his chest would still let everyone know what organization was responsible. It didn't do much to help Ashimi turn the public opinion around about Team Rocket in the future, but for the time being there was the present to think about and Jonathan had his duties as a Rocket to fulfill.

He reached the main exhibit room, which had two doorways on the sides, and there he found a figure stuffing the main fossil, a kabuto, into a sack. The person looked ready to get away until the lights suddenly came on. Jonathan ducked at the entrance to the room and observed quietly. The person with the sack was Daala. "Hold it right there!" A blond boy wearing military style clothes called out, he had been the one to turn on the lights from the opposite side of the room.

Daala looked at the new arrival, neither she nor he had noticed Jonathan. "You..." She glared, "you're the gym leader."

"That's right, I'm gym leader Volt and I won't let you steal the fossil!" The blond declared, his teal eyes glaring.

"You fool!" Daala chided. "The Vermilion mayor intends to gift this fossil to Giovanni in exchange for favors from Team Rocket!"

"Johnny?" The sudden whisper in his ear and the warm breath on his neck made Jonathan jump in surprise and nearly yelp.

Fortunately, he swallowed the sound on time and managed to remain quiet. "Dorme, what are you doing here?" She was also in her Team Rocket uniform. He blinked, taking note of a peculiar fact. "How are you dry?"

"I had a raincoat," Dorme pointed at the discarded wet plastic garment a few feet away. "Are you here to steal the fossil?"

"Yes, but Daala, that girl with the sack, stole it first. She said the mayor was going to give it to Giovanni," Jonathan quietly explained.

"That's true, but the boss doesn't want it like that. He wants that guy out of the race and if he can't even guard the exhibit, that will make people think less of him. Volt wasn't a part of this plan." Dorme shook her head. "I don't know how you know Daala, but I've been keeping tabs on her and another suspicious individual. They appear to be working separately, Daala seems to be on her own. I dropped some information about the fossils and here she is. I was going to let her get caught by the cameras, maybe chased by the local Jenny, then take the fossil for the boss."

"I was just going to steal it..." Jonathan admitted. He was curious about the other suspicious person Dorme mentioned, but the arguments and noises from the exhibit room became more intense and caught his attention. Daala and Volt were battling.

"Let's see if Volt is as tough as his brother..." It was clear that Dorme intended to let the battle continue without interruptions.

"Brother?" Jonathan felt somewhat out of the loop. He knew Surge had two sons, but other than the youngest being gym leader Volt, he didn't know anything about the oldest.

"Thor," Dorme spat the word out like venom between clenched teeth.

"Thor? As in General Electro? That's Surge's elder son?" Jonathan did not have pleasant memories of the man. He had never spoken about his family or about anything at all that was even remotely personal. "Everyone just assumes he's a Rocket experiment gone wrong or some sort of angry deity. It's hard to believe that man was actually born from human parents."

"I know what you mean. He's the head of the Rocket military, the most feared Rocket agent trainer in the whole organization. Last summer was hell," Dorme shuddered.

"At least you didn't get stuck with the winter training. Worse two months of my life," Jonathan got nightmares to even think about it. "A bunch of us got fed up with his overly critical attitude and tried to teach him a lesson. There were at least twenty of us between fourteen and twenty years old and he somehow managed to beat us all like it was nothing! I've never been so sore in my life, even my bruises had bruises."

Dorme could feel identified with the experience. "Do you have any idea how many times I had to practice kicking? My feet hurt so much I could barely walk. The rumors say that Thor and Volt don't get along and that Volt is on the fence about Team Rocket, while Thor is all too happy to lead the military. None the less, Volt respects his father a lot."

After their brief conversation, Dorme and Jonathan grew silent, instead focusing on the battle going on between Daala and Volt. Daala had called out her Houndour, while Volt commanded a Raichu. Unlike Surge's Raichu from years prior, Volt's Raichu had been trained for speed as a Pikachu and only just recently evolved. "Raichu, use thunderbolt!"

"Houndour, counter attack with flamethrower! " Daala commanded. The fire and lightning collided, but the electricity broke through the flames, reaching the target. "Houndour!" Attacking from a distance wouldn't work. "Get close and bite him!"

"Evasive maneuvers, Raichu, quick attack!" Raichu sped out of the way as Houndour dashed towards him on the offensive. Moving very fast, the electric pokemon collided with the fire dog from the side, knocking him to the floor.

"Houndour, bite him, quick!" Daala voiced, but it was too late.

"Raichu, Thunder!" The electricity surrounded Houndour, leaving him paralyzed. "Finish him with brick break!"

Seeing as there was no hope in this battle, Daala quickly recalled her pokemon. "Houndour, return!" The Raichu's strike collided against the floor, breaking the tiles. "I'm not finished yet, go Donphan! Roll up and bulldoze that Raichu!" Being a ground type, Donphan was protected from Raichu's electric attacks and he had though armor against his physical attacks. Donphan rolled towards Raichu, who put everything he had into quickly evading.

"Keep moving, Raichu, don't stay still!" Forced to be on the defensive, Volt couldn't see any opportunities to strike.

"It looks like the battle is turning around, wouldn't you say, Johnny?" Dorme turned to look at her fellow Rocket, only to realize that he was no longer next to her. She looked around for him and spotted him quietly making his way over to the sack with the fossil, hiding behind several displays and information panels.

While Daala and Volt were focused on their battle, Johnny grabbed the sack and quietly made his escape. It looked like he was going to make it back to Dorme unnoticed, until the effects of running around in a wet uniform caught up to him and he sneezed very loudly. He quickly dropped behind one of the displays, but knew he wouldn't be able to remained unnoticed for long. Alerted by the sound that didn't belong, Daala and Volt began to look around. Their eyes were immediately drawn to the source of the sound in Jonathan's direction. He wasn't visible from their angle, but it was obvious that there was enough room for someone to be hiding there.

"Achoo!" Dorme loudly faked a sneeze, jumping out of the doorway. She held her raincoat bundled up in her arms as if hiding something, though it was actually empty. "Oops... bye!" She attempted to make a hasty escape as if she had the fossil with her, but Daala and Volt wouldn't let her go that easily.

"Donphan, stop her!" At Daala's command, Donphan changed course and rolled towards Dorme.

"Raichu, catch her first!" Raichu dashed forward, stepping in front of Dorme. At the same time, Donphan came up from behind and tripped her up, rolling on top of her. Raichu got caught under Dorme and was flattened under Donphan's weight as well.

"Ow..." was all Dorme could say. As she fell she had dropped the raincoat in front of her, right on Donphan's path, and the heavy pokemon had rolled over it.

"You destroyed the fossil!" Volt rushed to examine the discarded raincoat, blaming Daala's pokemon for the incident. However, when he looked at the raincoat, he realized it was empty. "It's... not here..."

A bright light from the other side of the exhibit's main room caught Daala and Volt's attention. Behind a curtain of fire a figure could be seen holding something. "Is this what you're looking for?" Jonathan asked in an exaggerated fierce voice , knowing they couldn't see him clearly enough behind the fire to be able to recognize him later. Daala most likely already knew him, as she knew Ashimi, but he didn't want Volt to know he had been involved in the fossil theft later when he tagged along with Ashimi for her gym battle. He turned around and began to walk, with Foxtrot creating more fire effects on his way. Once the fire was enough to cover their escape, they made a run for it. Hopefully, they would leave Dorme alone and chase after him, since he had the fossil.

"Ow... Walking through the fire like a video game villain... That's so hot..." Dorme meant it both literally and metaphorically, plus Jonathan didn't abandon her. Granted, she had done the same thing for him first, but she was still happy he would help her escape by providing a distraction.

"Donphan, after him!" Daala commanded. Seeing as there was someone standing there moments prior, Donphan assumed that the curtain of fire was very thin and he could roll through it with some help from his defense curl and if he caught a bit of the fire, it would be put out so quickly he wouldn't even feel it. The elephant pokemon didn't realize that the Flareon had added more fire to the hallway beyond the first series of flames, closing off the route so that they couldn't be followed.

"Raichu, thunderbolt them before they get too far!" Volt urged. Donphan rushed forward into the fire while Raichu ran to get closer to the hall to try to get a shot at the retreating thief.

While the others were distracted, Dorme slowly got on her feet and called out a pokemon. "Hitmonlee..." The pokemon kicked the air energetically, ready for a battle. The command that his trainer gave him, was not what the fighter was expecting. "Carry me..."

Finding more fire than he could handle, Donphan rolled back the way he came, covered in flames. Raichu didn't expect the ground pokemon to go on the retreat and was caught off guard with Donphan running over him and leaving some of his flames on the electric mouse. Raichu panicked just as much as Donphan was and started rolling around the floor much like Donphan. The two pokemon were focused on putting out the flames and not paying attention to each other or their trainers. Just as the flames on the pokemon were put out, Donphan ran into Raichu, Raichu automatically released an electric attack and they knocked each other out.

Though the pokemon were safe from the fire the museum wasn't. The fire had spread over the room, leaving only a small space to escape through on the other side. Coughing from the smoke, Daala and Volt recalled their respective pokemon and rushed to get out of the building. They saw no sign of the Rocket girl who had served as a decoy. Outside, the rain had stopped and Daala wasted no time in throwing a pokeball high with the skill of a big league pitcher. The ball landed on the ceiling of the shop next to the museum and a large pokemon emerged from it.

Just as Volt was about to stop Daala, officer Jenny called out to him, arriving at the scene on her motorcycle. The fire department got there as well and they quickly got to work on putting the fire out. In that small moment of distraction, the large pokemon that had been released on the ceiling extended a pair of vine whips and lifted Daala onto the ceiling as well. She recalled the grass type and ran, jumping from one roof top to another. "Come back here!" Volt shouted after her.

"Volt! What happened here?" Jenny demanded to know.

Volt frowned, even if he managed to catch that girl, she wasn't the one who got away with the fossil in the end. There was no sign of the real thief, whom he assumed to be a Rocket, as the girl who created a diversion was wearing their uniform. They were both gone, the fossil was lost. "Team Rocket..." He growled at Jenny, "it was Team Rocket."

Hidden on the rooftop of the building across the street, Jonathan and Dorme watched the scene unfold. "Looks like everything worked out in the end... Sort of..."

"Speak for yourself..." Dorme grumbled, rubbing her sore back. "Hitmonlee, you really have to learn to give those massages were the therapist walks all over the patient's back. I could use one of those right about now," she breathe. "About that fossil..." She eyed the bag with the prize.

"I thought you might bring that up... I was kind of planning to run off with it," Jonathan admitted, then added, "until I messed up by... ah... achoo!" He sniffled and continued. "I guess I owe you one, so it's yours."

Dorme snatched the sack away and looked inside. "I'm no archeologist, but this thing looks pretty valuable, the boss will be pleased. I guess I could mention you helped me get it so he doesn't think you're slacking off too much. We make a pretty good," she was interrupted by his sneeze, "team..."

"I guess so... But right now I only one to team up with a soft pillow, this cold is making fast progress." Jonathan looked at the horizon where the first few rays of the sun were barely beginning to peek out. "If Ashimi decides to go to the gym in the morning, it's going to be a long day." He began to make his way down from the roof, before it became too bright for it to be an effective hiding place.

"Ashimi..." Dorme paused, unsure if she should say anything.

"What is it?" Jonathan inquired.

His curiosity was on her and Dorme knew that she wouldn't be able to take it back now. "Yesterday at the plaza, some kid stole Ashimi's Pichu and she ran off in a panic like a crazy person. I tried to follow the boy, but he slipped away and before I knew it, I lost track of her too."

"Ashimi is... achoo! In trouble?" Jonathan coughed. "Why didn't you say so? I have to find her!" He tried calling Ashimi's cellphone, but by that time, the situation at Silph was resolved and Ashimi was sleeping at the pokemon center with her phone on silent. "There's no answer, but her phone's GPS says she's in Saffron, why did she go back there?" Not waiting for a reply, or even expecting one, Jonathan hurried towards the parking lot behind the pokemon center where he had left the car.

Dorme frowned as she watched him go. "Me and my big mouth..."

To be Continued

The names Ashimi and Zero incorrectly guessed for the green haired boy, are all from Final Fantasy. The pokemon mentioned with Team Plasma are Kabutops and Genesect. Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII and Shizuru from Phantasy Star Portable 2 are some of the video game villains who have done the whole walking through the fire scene. Volt and Electro's name were chosen based on electricity, obviously, and Electro's nickname, Thor, is based on the mythological character. Next: Chapter 9: A Fiery Spirit.

Volt: Surge's 13 year old son. Like his father, his team's main focus is electric types and he recently became the Vermilion City gym leader. He has teal eyes and blond hair. His greatest rival is his older brother, General Electro alias Thor, who is quite the military man.