Chapter 12: One of my exes… FUCK.

Start Chapter: 96 HP. Team: Henry the ivysaur, Jane the rattata, Lemon the rattata, Doreen the metapod, Shelby the nidorina, Lionel the zubat.

"Well, nice little training session, everyone!" I addressed the team. Well, minus Doreen. She annoyed me and I still wasn't bothering to train her to evolve her, so she was still pretty much pokéball-bound.

And, honestly, I was only talking to the big wheels of my team – Jane, Henry, and Shelby, who had recently evolved. I was pretty sure she didn't even quite understand what evolution was. Honestly, she acted like a fucking five year old, asking about everything and knowing about nothing. But it was kinda funny, too, and she could already kick ass, so I wasn't really complaining.

"Now, off to Mt. Moon!"

As expected, Mt. Moon was dark, dank, and swarming with Rockets. Though Lionel was able to guide us easily through the cavern, there usually wasn't much we could do to avoid the Rockets. No matter how well Lionel guided, I'd still inevitably trip on a rock. And tripping led to falling, and falling led to cursing, and cursing led to someone hearing and that led to battle.

Of course, after a while I stopped even bothering trying to hide from them. Because the fact of the matter was, we were decimating them. And you can be sure that I had well-placed aggression that I wanted to let loose on those motherfucking bastards.

"So could you explain why we're fighting these people?" Shelby eventually asked.

"And why we have to knock out the trainers, too?" Jane asked. Understandably, she was still a bit reluctant to battle, especially as all-out as I was requiring for here in Mt. Moon.

As I continued to walk carefully through the darkness, I said, "These guys are bad. Evil bastards, for sure. They'd kill us without a second thought if they knew we were a threat, and now they know that we are. So we've gotta be ruthless."

"That's harsh," a voice came out of the darkness, and suddenly a flashlight was shining right in my eyes. I couldn't see its holder, but… I recognized that voice. The guy continued, "We're just here on a bit of a historical dig. Fossil huntin', right? But I hear some girl's been messing with our plans. I'm afraid I'll have to punish you, little miss… I'll knock out those pokémon of yours, and then I'll deal with you personally. Not often we get pretty girls like you to punish." He said the last one with an innuendo that was hard to miss.

Fuck. Definitely him. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. If he recognized me… He didn't seem to yet. Since I hadn't washed my hair in a while, the color was staying well, and I'd gained a lot of weight and changed my style a lot since two years ago, so maybe he wouldn't be able to tell…

Goddamnitfuck. Why did one of my past boyfriends have to still be in Team Rocket? And end up HERE, of all places? Mike. Damnit, he'd been one of the better boyfriends, too, but that was as a boyfriend. As a Rocket with a girl three years younger than him to 'punish'?

Well, let's just say I sure as fuck wasn't going to let him win.

And my three star pokémon made sure that he didn't.

A rattata first. Level 13.

Dear Arceus, he was making this easy.

"Shelby, be a darling and knock it out for me, will you?" I said, raising my voice to make it less recognizable, as well as dropping my usual coarse language and making it a bit more girly. I cursed so much back then that he could probably recognize me from my cursing alone.

One double kick and the rattata was down.

I still couldn't see Mike's face, but I had no doubt he was caught off guard by this. He probably thought he was hot shit, just 'cuz Team Rocket had given him a couple pokémon.

"All right, Zubat, show this bitch who's boss!"

I rolled my eyes. A zubat. No offense to Lionel, but if that was Mike's best shot, he might as well've just stayed on the streets and out of organized crime. "Jane, if you're up for it?"

Jane nodded, and went in for a hyper fang. Another one hit K.O.

"Shit! Those were my only pokémon, you little bitch!" Mike shouted, coming towards me angrily.

Oh, Mike. Always the sore loser. It was so predictable, so much like him. And since the battle was already over, I dropped my guard and dropped my fake voice as I said, "Henry, no need to be gentle with this motherfucker."

The guy stopped in his tracks and suddenly raised the flashlight with new interest. "No. Fucking. Way. Arrowfoot? That you?" he lowered the flashlight onto my shoes and, of course, saw the freshly sharpied arrows there.

Fuck. Why'd I have to go and be so damn sentimental about shoes?

"Hell, girl, I didn't even recognize you! Change yourself quite a bit, haven't you? How long's it been? Two years? Three? You've certainly filled out in all the right places."

In the light of the flashlight, I saw Henry and the others look up at me, obviously confused.

I was not about to fuck with this guy. "Henry, you heard me. No need to delay."

"Aw, come on, Arrow, don't be like that?" he said as he stepped closer, dropping the flashlight's beam a bit. "Why don't you give me some love? For old time's sake?"

Regardless of how confused they were, my pokémon nonetheless stepped in between him and me. "Arrow? You know this guy?" Henry asked.

"No, now hurry up and-"

"Know me? I fucked with her!" Mike said, taking on his usual, domineering attitude. "You mean she never told you about the best guy in bed she ever met?"

"I was fucking fourteen, you bastard," I said. "You were four years older than me. You think I brag about being taken advantage of? You're sick."

"Me? Take advantage of you? On the contrary, you were always jumpin' around from guy to guy, taking advantage of us. Getting our protection when other relations went sour. At least I didn't beat you, like Tom. Or do whatever sick things with you Jake did. I think I was pretty darn good boyfriend, don't you?"

I let out a huff, but he was catching me off guard by bringing up memories that I wasn't exactly proud of. "Yeah, and you know what happened to Jake. Want me to do the same to you?" Without even thinking, I pulled my knife out of my pocket.

Though I couldn't see him, I could tell that he was angrier when he spoke again. "You think you're better than me, now that you're out of this life? Now that you've got some fancy-ass pokémon with you? You're still the same whore you always were. What the hell happened to you, anyway? Why'd you just disappear? We all thought maybe you'd finally ticked off the wrong guy, or maybe Team Rocket had decided to knock you off. You never were good at following orders. So what was it? Or did you just run away from it all like how you ran from everything else, Arrowfoot?"

"Henry, either knock this bastard out or I don't know if I'll be able to hold this knife back any longer," I said, my voice dangerous. "Got it? And Mike, you tell anyone I'm still alive, and I'll make sure I do to you exactly what I did to that sicko Jake. Comprende?"

Henry saw that I was serious, and didn't waste any more time. Before Mike could even respond, a couple vine whips to his head knocked him out cold.

I didn't look down at my pokémon. I pocketed my knife and started walking away, to grab his fallen flashlight.

But Jane stepped in my way. "I thought… I thought you said you'd never use that knife."

I sighed, took off my hat, and ran a hand through my hair worriedly and sat down. Meeting that bastard here had taken more out of me than I'd thought. "I don't think I could've, if it had really come down to it," I said, truthfully, and I knew that she could hear the honesty in my voice. "It's just… Getting confronted with the past like that brings the worst out of me, I guess."

I felt a vine placed gently on my hand, and I looked over to Henry. "Arrow… We need to talk, and you need to explain. To all of us."

I sighed again. "Yeah, I know, I fucking know. Let's get out of this Arceusforsaken cave first, and Arceus help whoever's idiot enough to fight me next."

That idiot was some geek freaking out about his precious fossils. I punched him in the face and took one of 'em just because I was pissed.

And I hadn't seen Green at all. He'd probably gotten through the tunnel before Team Rocket had even shown up, and I probably went through all of that for nothing.

Guess who has a new favorite hated place? ME. FUCK MT. MOON.

End Chapter: 96 HP. Team: Henry, Jane, Lemon, Doreen, Shelby, Lionel.


This chapter (or maybe one or two after it) will probably be the last one for a while, as I'll probably take a break for a bit. We'll see.