Not All Arrogance (A Gary Oak Love Story) Part 11~Stow Aways and Storming Seas
Amy sat on her bed in the small cabin she, Duplica and Gary had decided to share aboard the SS Anne. She had her badge case in her lap, her three badges glittering up at her from it. Her eyes however were on the black velvet that they were pinned to, not the badges themselves. Her fingers ran over it softly. Isis sat dutifully next to her, leaning against her. Amy had shed a few tears, but quickly wiped them away, knowing she didn't want Gary or Duplica to come in and know she had been crying. She was angry at Gary for what he had said on deck. The ship was just now pulling away from the harbour and although it was true she hadn't seen Ash in the crowd that didn't mean he had deserted her. Gary knew that, he was just jealous. Amy knew he was just jealous. She had to calm down. The door opened and Amy looked up, a little startled. Duplica came in and shut the door behind her.
"Hey," she said crossing the room, her Ditto in her arms. She sat beside Amy.
Amy forced a small smile. "Hi," she said and then frowned again. "Gary is a jerk."
Duplica laughed, "I noticed, so why do you hang around him?"
Amy sighed and then told her about the contract her dad had made her sign. Then she had to explain why her dad didn't want her to travel with Ash, which helped Duplica understand Gary's comment about Ash deserting her. From there she explained her dad's over protectiveness in general, which led to explaining her mother, and her mother's death.
Duplica listened with rapt attention. Her eyes drifted down to the case in Amy's hands. "Was that badge case your mom's?"
Amy stared at her. "How'd you know?" she asked in surprise.
Duplica smiled sadly. "When you talked about her, you stared at it pretty hard and stroked it. I just guessed. I'm pretty good at noticing stuff like that; it helps me with my disguises and things. I am really good at disguising myself as people!" she said laughing. Amy joined in as she put away the badge case, though unsure as to what the joke was.
"So, I have to ask, do you like Ash?"
Amy stared at her "No! He's like a brother to me! I don't think I could like him that way ever! And I know he feels the same way about me."
Duplica looked at her oddly. "I wouldn't be so sure about that."
"What do you mean?" Amy asked, confused.
"Well... you have to have noticed!" Duplica sounding exasperated. "The way he looked at you when you weren't looking- oh wait I think I see the problem," Duplica laughed, as did her Ditto. Amy didn't laugh, and Duplica quieted. "So do you like Gary then?" she questioned after a moment.
Amy's eyes widened. "What? No! He's a jerk remember?"
"Well, he's jealous, sure, but he is cute."
"Great, you date him then," Amy muttered, rolling her eyes.
"Me thinks she doth protest too much," Duplica muttered to her Ditto, but Amy heard.
"I do not! It's just, he's so self-centered, and he treats me like, well, like he owns me or something..." she trailed off, seeming to go into thought. Then she froze and looked horrified. "Oh god, maybe I DO like him," she moaned loudly and flopped back on the bed, managing to hit her head off the back wall and screamed.
Duplica pulled her fingers out of her ears and winced. "Do you always share your headaches?"
Amy smiled, "Yes. I'm just a very sharing person."
"Care to share your thoughts then?"
Amy sighed. "Um... well, he drives me insane. And I know he likes me. I DID have a crush on him for a couple weeks when I was 7 or 8... he IS cute... but, well, I'm sort of stuck with him. If I do like him now, I'm going to have to pin it on Stockholm syndrome. I would have never liked him this way if things kept going like they were back in Pallet Town."
"Well you never know."
"True," Amy sighed again and rose, still rubbing her head.
"Well, it's not like you have to confess right now or anything," Duplica said and crossed the room to the door.
"Yeah okay, let's go find the guy," Amy said and rose as well. Duplica opened the door. Gary and Socrates fell forward into the room, looking up guiltily. Amy stared at him, white faced, then anger blazed in her eyes. "And now we're eavesdropping are we? Never mind Duplica, he's a jerk, and that's it," Amy glared down at him.
Gary struggled to his feet. "Hey, no! I was just following Socrates, he ran off after you, and you were talking, and I couldn't help overhearing!"
"That's the point where you tune us out or open the door! You don't stand there listening!" Duplica snapped. Isis barked something to Socrates, who looked embarrassed and jumped up to Gary's belt to retreat inside his Pokeball. Isis made an exasperated noise.
"Look, I don't know how much you heard Gary but whatever it was you'd better just forget it. I'm out of here," Amy muttered, leaving the room. Isis was at her heels. Duplica moved to follow her as well but Amy shook her head slightly and she stopped, confused, as Amy left.
"Why is she so mad at me?" Gary asked Duplica. Duplica sighed.
"I'm not sure it's just you, I think she's mad at herself."
"What are you talking about?" Gary grumbled, folding his arms and scowling.
Duplica scowled back. "Don't take that attitude. I mean she, well, how much did you hear?"
"Everything from Ash is like a brother to me," he said raising his eyebrows and smirking. Duplica frowned.
"Well she likes you, but she doesn't really want to because you're well, a jerk. Plus she feels trapped with you and I think when you fell in here," she grinned, "she might have thought you looked cute, so to hide that she blew up."
Gary cocked his head to one side. "You think?" Duplica nodded solemnly. "I'm going to go find her," Gary said heading for the door.
"Yeah well I'm going to check out the main room, they have a buffet! I'll see you guys later," Duplica said smiling and Gary shrugged as they left the room and headed separate ways.
*****
Amy meanwhile went up to the main deck and stared off the side of the boat at the water moving below and the ocean spray. She thought she saw the top of a Wailmer but she couldn't be sure. Wingull and Pelliper flew overhead, attracted by all the food on the deck. Trainers were feeding them. Isis was happily chasing away any that got too close.
Amy wasn't exactly sad or happy, she was just thinking. She wondered how she was going to be able to face Gary again too. This was going to be difficult. However, she assumed it would be necessary. After all, they WERE traveling together. Under contract, true, but even so... she sighed and turned around just in time to see Gary searching the crowd for her. Amy slightly shrieked and grabbed Isis before darting behind a pile of crates. A young boy with his mother stared at her and she grinned wanly at him before peaking over the crates at Gary who still looking. She breathed a sigh of relief although she knew she'd have to face him eventually.
Amy's eyes widened as Gary tapped a girl with long light brown hair like hers on the shoulder and said something. She turned and he stepped back a bit and started apologizing. Amy stifled a laugh. Then the other brown-haired girl's muscle head of a boyfriend appeared from nowhere looking ready to pummel Gary to a pulp. Embarrassed or not, Amy couldn't watch this.
She debated just closing her eyes but relented to reason and ran over to Gary, grabbed his arm, and pulled him away from the first blow.
"Amy? What-?" Gary said in confusion but Amy glared him to silence and gave the muscle head a look of distaste.
"I don't know what you think you're doing but I'd put those guns away if I were you," she said in the same calm tone she had used on Lt. Surge previously. By guns she was indicating his biceps, but that didn't seem to register right away and Amy and Gary marched off before he could say anything else. Amy was dragging Gary who seemed completely stunned by the arm.
"Idiot," Amy hissed when they were a safe distance away, hidden by the crowd.
Gary glared back. "Hey, how was I supposed to know that she wasn't you? Or that she had an enormous boyfriend..."
"I'm not talking about that!" Amy snapped. Gary stared at her.
"So what ARE you talking about?" he asked crossly.
"I'm talking about when you were eavesdropping! Although," she sighed, "I probably would have done the same thing."
"Really?" Gary said sounding surprised.
Amy nodded, and then glared again. "But I wouldn't have made it so obvious! Next time, get better footing, and raise your hand so that should the door open you won't fall forward and it will look as if you were about to knock. Also, a slightly surprised expression would be good as the door opens though if you weren't expecting it you'd have one anyway."
Gary just looked confused. "Okay..." They were silent a few moments. "Thanks for saving me anyway," Gary said absently. Amy stared at him.
"Oh, it's okay..." She felt herself blush and turned away. Gary reached towards her but drew back. This was too awkward. Luckily, Duplica appeared just then with arms laden with food from the buffet. Strangely enough, Ash, Misty and Brock were just behind her.
"Hey! Amy, Gary, look who stowed away!" Duplica laughed.
"Hi there!" the three new arrivals said in unison. Pikachu chirped a greeting as well.
"You stowed away?" Amy asked, happy for a distraction, but not believing this.
"Well not exactly, but in the crowd there were some guy, a girl, and a, well, I think it was a kid, and they said they couldn't go and gave us their tickets," Ash said smiling. Amy stared at him.
"What, um, did they look like exactly?" Amy asked glancing off at the waves. The land wasn't visible anymore. This boat went out to sea fast. She wasn't sure if she liked this...
"Well, um, the boy had long red hair, and a brown moustache, and the girl had short blue hair, kinda weird I know, and heavy make-up, and the kid, well, actually he almost looked like he was wearing a Meowth costume under his clothes," Brock said as if this was normal. Gary and Amy stared at him.
"And, um, that doesn't sound strange to you or anything?" Gary said raising an eyebrow, which twitched slightly.
"No, it sounds lucky to me!" Misty said happily. Duplica nodded in agreement.
"It sounds great! Now we can all keep hanging out!" Duplica said. Amy and Gary gave each other sideways glances, looking equally shocked and disgusted that Ash and his friends were so easily deceived. Obviously Duplica wouldn't know, she wasn't there when Jessie, James and Meowth attacked the Viridian Pokemon Center before.
Gary apparently couldn't take it anymore. "Isn't it obvious? That was Te-" but Amy cut over him.
"Ignore Gary, um... we were sort of talking, so he's mad, um... hey I know! You guys go down to the main room, we'll be right down." Amy said with false cheeriness which clearly Ash and friends didn't pick up on.
Gary did though, and gave her an odd look. He started to say something else but Amy discreetly stamped on his foot. He bit back a yelp of pain and his eyes watered. Ash however was looking at Amy, a bit put out.
"Oh, um, okay, if that's what you want," he muttered as he turned away. Brock looked confused a moment, then seemed to understand something and started walking with Ash, talking to him.
"What's going on?" Misty asked Duplica who cheerily offered to explain everything. Amy feel a drop of sweat at this but figured that Misty finding out about her messy love life was the least of her problems right now. Jessie and James seemed incompetent... and weird. Therefore leading Ash and the others onto a ship wouldn't be their style. There was something big up and Jessie and James' incompetence does not appear to be the norm with Team Rocket. Gary seemed to understand that too.
"Yeah okay, they're gone, so why exactly didn't we inform them about Team Rocket?" Gary asked looking annoyed. Amy sighed, rolling her eyes.
"Because, they'll feel awful knowing how easily they were tricked for one thing, and for another, knowing Duplica at least, if she found out about a Team Rocket invasion, we could have a serious panic. We don't want that, not with land so far away and we don't know how many of these people are Rockets. We need to do some spy work first. Up for it?" Amy said with a hard smile. Gary stared a moment and then smiled back a bit.
"Okay but won't they think something's wrong if we don't show up? You said we'd be right down," Gary pointed out.
Amy nodded. "That's true, so how about you go and see what you can find out and I'll hang out with the others. You can meet us in the main room in an hour with whatever you find out and we can figure out what to do from there," Amy explained. Gary frowned, but nodded.
"Right. I guess that's best, I mean, the others don't like me much anyway do they?"
"Well can you blame them?"
"I guess not," Gary sighed, "I don't actually try to be such a, um..."
"A jerk?" Amy supplied and Gary closed his eyes and gave a slight nod. "Just comes naturally? Glad you admit it anyway. Right, well, let's do this then," Amy said smiling a bit as she took Gary's hand, squeezed it, and then took off after Ash and the others. Gary stared after her a moment, looked at his hand, and then smiled. Time to find some Rocket slime.
Gary disappeared below deck and decided to first watch any crew members that seemed suspicious to find out if the ship was actually being controlled by these guys. He began by searching for crew members. He saw a couple men in uniform and trying his best to stay out of sight he headed after him. He was sure they had spotted him once but he didn't think they knew he was following them. No way.
The two crew members disappeared into one of the cabins. Gary waited a minute at the door and then opened it just a crack. It felt pretty safe since the room was full of people. He glanced off to one side and saw a boy with green hair and a dark-haired girl staring at him. He glared at them and suddenly felt himself dragged into the room.
"So this is the kid who's been following us, check his ticket?" one voice said. Gary couldn't see who had spoken as both men were behind him. He felt a hand reach into his pocket as the door was closed by a 3rd man dressed in a Rocket uniform.
"Hey look Rick, he's got Bill's invite!"
"Bill? So this is Bill? This is excellent!" they sounded excited, why?
"Hey I'm not-" Gary started trying to wiggle away but abruptly a sharp pain spread over the back of his head and everything went black.
"Quick, let's bring him to Ben before he wakes up, we'll take the back way."
"Right," the other two men said together. Listening outside the door, Drew turned to Michaela.
"This doesn't sound good."
Michaela nodded. "Right, but what do we do?" Drew narrowed his eyes. He'd have to think of something.
((Joyful Note: Yes I added Drew. Back when this was on Quizilla with this fanfic, I had a friend with a Drew fic and I gave her a part in my series. So Michaela is my Quizilla friend, Drew is her favourite character, and later on her OC character Violet appears... with my own take on each character. I'd write her out for this upload but she sort of plays a largish part so I'll leave her in. Just thought I'd explain her presence.))
