A/N: Thanks for the reviews. I'll admit I didn't know about that regarding Emile, I'll have to watch more video I guess till I reach that point.

The Houndoom and the Seviper may have been weaker than the Mega Gengar, but they were more than strong enough to completely tear through all of Ash's Pokemon and his friend's.

As the two enemy Pokemon moved to strike them however, a blue whirlwind soared over their heads and landed in front of them- a Dragonair! And it shot a Water Pulse and the Houndoom, and though the Seviper struck at the Dragonair with a Poison Fang, Dragoinair didn't let up its attack and took out the Houndoom before slamming Seviper with its tail.

"Oh, looks like your friend Lance has sent you some help," Venus said. "Too bad it's badly Poi-" she paused as Dragonair glowed and then shed a layer of its skin off. "Shed Skin- bah!"

In this momentary lull in the battle, Ash turned around to see what was happening with Lance.

Lance had sent out a red Gyarados- yeah, a red one somehow, Ash would have to ask about that later. And in addition to that, he had a Pokemon which looked like a dinosaur only it was flapping around and had humongous jaws.

Lance, however, was grinning. It was wicked, slightly sinister grin, but the thing was that even with his both of his Dragonite out, and even with being outnumbered by two people who used Mega Evolution, Lance was not only holding his ground but had enough firepower to share it with Ash and his friends.

'Just how strong is he?' Ash thought to himself.

Camilla and Archer were both snarling and had had their cocky grins completely wiped off their faces. Their Mega Evolution Pokemon had been defeated and now they seemed to be down to their last ones.

Ash looked at his friends properly for the first time since the battle started, and saw that their expressions of shock mirrored his. They too were well aware that they had no chance against this Rocket Admin, but were just trying to stall for Lance's sake.

Dragonair was now striking the enemy Seviper with Dragon Pulse.

"This was supposed to be an easy mission," Camilla said. "But it looks like we… underestimated the League Champion there…"

"Yeah, well, we're not going to let you kill Lance!" Emile said bravely.

"Eh? We never wanted to kill him… the object was to take him hostage…"

"You wanted to kidnap Lance?" Serena asked.

"Huh," Emile said as he realized something. "This was a classic hammer-and-anvil tactic, with those two as the anvil and Venus here as the hammer."

"And I would've gotten away with it too," Venus said. "If it wasn't for you meddling kids." She glared at them and her hands seemed to be trembling with rage. Her eyes fixated on Ash. "You- you're the strongest of this lot, aren't you?"

"I take offense to that," Emile said but no one paid him much attention.

"I'll remember this- and I'll remember your face too. Venus of Team Rocket does not forget those who defied her. And one day…" she trailed off. "...well, you had better hope that we never cross paths again and watch your back carefully boy..."

A chill crept down Ash's spine. This lady… she very well meant what she was saying. And Ash knew that he was nowhere near as strong as her.

She sent out a Pokemon that looked like two Koffing fused together which unleashed a dark gas from its mouth and enveloped the entire field.

"Aerodactyl! Blow the smoke away!" came Lance's voice and the smoke dissipated to reveal that the Rocket bosses were nowhere to be found.

"Well," Lance said with a triumphant grin, "who's ran away this time?" But he was clearly exhausted. "Let's go see what the action is upstairs."

"Don't you wanna go after them?" Misty asked.

"I'm in no condition to," Lance said. "And they're probably preparing another ambush in case. But the thing is that I haven't seen any Rocket Grunts with these three we were fighting, which means that they're all probably upstairs attacking the Fountain Hall while we were distracted."

They withdrew their Pokemon and rushed back upstairs to see that the Fountain Hall was in complete disarray. People were shouting and screaming and it took a Hyper Beam shot into the sky from Lance's Dragonair to get them to calm down.

"What happened here?" Lance asked.

"Rocket Grunts!" someone shouted. "As soon as you left, swarms of them came from another staircase and they began attacking us!"

And with that, the story began to unfold. The Trainers who had been on deck and still had some Pokemon capable of fighting had fought valiantly but they had been quickly outnumbered and barely had manged to stave them off from completely running over the people gathered there until for some reason the Grunts had all withdrawn and disappeared as quickly as they had come.

"They stole my wallet!" came a cry.

"They stole my necklace!"

"They stole my gym badges!"

The ship's captain pushed through the crowd and approached Lance. "And then they've taken a lot of our valuables as well, and I'm assuming that some of them ransacked the guest's rooms too."

"Well, I apologize but…" it was clearly very hard for Lance to say this, "I'm afraid that we're in no shape to go and try to retrieve them. My Pokemon have been badly injured- myself along with these brave Trainers along with me were fighting another battle beneath us with their Admins."

"B-but you're League Champion!" the captain stuttered out as there were several cries of despair and anger from the crowd.

"Yes, but they're almost as strong as the Elite Four members themselves," Lance said. "I'm sorry but it's simply too risky..."

"What about the Elite Four?" the captain asked. "Where are the rest of them? Why haven't they come to our aid?"

"They're in Johto," Lance explained. "They're quashing uprisings that have come up ever since we decided to fuse the Kanto and Johto leagues and trying to smooth over the joining of the two. I've already sent word to them, but they won't be able to get here in time. And I've checked- they have sabotaged the Pokemon Storage System and I can't get any of my backup Pokemon out either."

The people in the crowd began either sobbing or shaking their fists at the Pokemon League Champion. Lance took a few steps back as he surveyed the unruly crowd.

Ash really felt sorry for the guy at that point- while he had looked so fierce fighting the Beasts of Team Rocket he looked so unsure while facing the crowd. And the thing was that none of the members of the mob were angry at Ash or his friends- and Ash knew why.

They all thought that Lance was unbeatable, he was their Champion- he was their beacon of hope and could tackle anything. That was what Ash had thought too until now. And Lance had tried his hardest- but there was so little that he could do on his lonesome.

"T-the League will attempt to compensate you for your losses," Lance said. "I-I will talk to the Board of Governors directly. As for those of you who have lost gym badges- there's no need for worry as we keep a digital log of all gym badges that have been given out and we can have them replaced for you…"

And then the last person whom Ash expected to speak up for Lance- Serena, walked forward to be closer to the crowd- and she spoke, "Look, everyone, I know that you're angry- but trust me when I say that you weren't there with us when we were fighting downstairs so you can't know how difficult it was. Lance has done his hardest- and let's face it here, have any of you been injured? Have you lost your Pokemon? Because if not then all of that which was lost was just stuff and I'm sorry to say it, but things like this happen!"

"She's right," Misty said and stepped forward too. "What we need to do now is go back to sure and get all of our Pokemon healed up."

The crowd had calmed down a little at this point and there were murmurs of agreement. Until Gary spoke up.

"I had my Pokemon stolen," Gary said.

There was pin-drop silence the moment he said those words.

Ash saw a tear run down Gary's face. "I was fighting them when they took one of my Pokemon… it was my Raticate. He was already weakened from fighting earlier… and now he's gone…I don't know if I'll ever get him back…"

Lance hung his head in shame. "Forgive me my friends…but I will promise you this- the moment I am allowed to regroup with the rest of the Elite Four I will return and hunt down Team Rocket. No matter where they are, or where they try to hide, I will hunt them relentlessly."

Gary nodded. "And I'll become stronger… and stronger… and I'll come back for my Raticate."

When Ash had expected to go on a cruise, he imagined a nice vacation-like atmosphere would be there just like they had seen on the brochures.

The trip back to Vermillion City was one of the most depressing ones that Ash had ever been on however. Now that the immediate threat was gone, the damage to the ship was clearly visible and it looked like a typhoon had passed over it… trying to compensate them for that itself would cost more than Lance's entire estate.

And that was just what was readily apparent. Team Rocket had combed through the guest's rooms very efficiently and had taken almost everything and they had no record of what those things were aside from what the passengers claimed they had lost and there was no way to verify them.

The overall mood was dark and the only one who seemed to be somewhat cheery was Emile who seemed to smile no matter what had happened, but Ash noticed that he tried to avoid Gary's eyes for some reason… as if he somehow felt personally guilty for what had happened with Gary's Raticate. Ash had a theory on what was going on between the two, but decided not to press it.

Ash hadn't been sure what to say to Gary. And so he just said, "Sorry to hear about your Raticate Gary, but don't worry… you'll get it back one day. Some day. And when you decide to get it back, know that I'll be there with you, okay. We'll fight Team Rocket together."

Gary smirked. "Huh… Ash, you really think that I'd take you along with me? Well, if you insist, but try not to get in my way when that happens." He then sighed and cast a glance out to the sea and walked away after saying, "Smell ya later." It seemed that he wanted to be left alone, so Ash didn't probe him any further.

By evening Vermillion City's harbor came into view and there was a huge crowd gathered at the harbor. News about the attack must have spread quickly and Lt. Surge was there at the front lines to welcome all of them back.

The rest of the night was busy and Ash barely got any sleep as they tried accommodating the passengers in various places- the Pokemon Center and the neighboring hotels quickly became overfilled. Some people like Gary, as well as Ash, Emile, and his friends decided to set up tents so that space could be saved for other people.

The next morning the rest of the Elite Four arrived. Before Lance left to go and hunt down the rest of Team Rocket, he called Ash and his friends.

"I'd just like to thank all of you once for your help," Lance said. "I don't think I would've lasted long against the three of them if you hadn't stalled for time."

"it was nothing," Ash said.

"And I'd especially like to thank you," Lance said as he turned to Serena. "I-I wasn't sure how to handle the crowd yesterday. All throughout my career, I've rarely been unsuccessful. And for the first time something like this has happened and I thought I was a failure until you pointed out that I did manage to do something- no one had been hurt and no Pokemon were stolen save for that Raticate which I vow to try hardest to bring back. It reminded me to be grateful for what I'd accomplished. And for that, I deeply thank you."

Serena's face had turned a shade of red that matched Charmeleon's skin. "I-It was nothing really."

"And Ash and Emile," Lance said, turning to them. "I know that you two are very powerful fighters. If you gather all the necessary gym badges, and if you win the Pokemon League, then you can challenge us, the Elite Four, each in a successive row. If you do that, then we can fight when you're ready."

"Yeah," Ash said.

"Look forward to it," Emile said.

"I've been meaning to ask though," Ash said. "Where'd you get a red Gyarados?"

"Oh, now that's a long story, and I've got to go," Lance said. "But maybe when we meet again, Ash, we'll have even more stories to swap and tell."

As Lance walked away and out of earshot, Serena said, "Wow… he's really cool isn't he? I thought he was just being hyped before but now that I've met him… well, they hype him for a reason don't they?" Her eyes seemed distant as she said so and she was still blushing.

"Oh yeah, he's really tough," Brock said.

"Uh-huh," Ash echoed.

"But maybe he should stop wearing capes when they can get in his way," Misty said.

"Still really powerful though," Emile said.

"Yeah," Serena said dreamily before she seemed to realize that the others were staring at her oddly and then snapped back to her senses.

Brock invited Emile to have lunch with the gang and it was as they had finished that Lt. Surge walked in and said, "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

"Uh, no, but the thing is that the food's almost gone so if you wanted some…" Brock trailed off.

"Oh, no, I was wondering if you guys knew where Lance was," Lt. Surge said.

"He flew off with the Elite Four to go track down Team Rocket," Misty said.

"Oh, well, look, Ash, you've had run-ins with Team Rocket, right?" Lt. Surge asked. "Well, Lance isn't here and he's the expert on Team Rocket, but there's something odd that's shown up while Officer Jenny and I were investigating. If you could all spare a minute to come near the harbor-"

"Yeah, I'm done eating anyway," Ash said.

"So this is what we've been having a problem with," Lt. Surge said.

Next to the port where the S. S. Anne was docked was a small strip of land on which there was a single truck with a red 'R' painted on the side. And that was it. Just a suspicious-looking truck. An Officer Jenny was standing next to the truck.

"So, it's a truck?" Ash asked.

"We can't tell why it's there or what it was supposed to do," Lt. Surge said. "It doesn't make sense for Team Rocket to have only one truck if they were planning to invade the ship right here, and as it stands they attack at sea didn't they?"

They rode out to the strip of land on a small boat. Ash had to agree with Lt. Surge on one thing- in that it was really weird that a truck managed to get there in the first place.

"Did you find anything nearby?" Emile asked as they disembarked and he hopped on to land.

"No," Lt. Surge said.

They checked the inside of the truck- it was empty.

"But we haven't checked underneath the truck," Emile said and got down on all fours and crawled under the truck only to come back out and say, "there's nothing." He looked crestfallen.

"What? Were you expecting something under the truck?" Lt. Surge asked.

"Yeah," Emile said. "Mew." He sounded bitterly disappointed- like a kid who had found out that Santa Claus wasn't real.

Ash wasn't sure whether he was serious or not.

"Hey, I've found something," Serena said as she saw a small box south of where the truck was. She opened it to see that it was full of cookies. "Huh, why is this here?"

"Using my excellent deductive reasoning skills," Brock said, "I can only infer that the reason that someone bought them was to… eat them." Misty pulled his ear saying, "Oh, you're a real Sherlock Holmes aren't you?"

"Those are Lava Cookies," Lt. Surge said after examining them. "How strange. They're banned in Kanto."

"Really? Why?" Ash asked.

"Because they're used in Hoenn to heal status conditions, and are as good as Full Heals but cheaper," Lt. Surge said. "And so the Pokemon Marts lobbied the Pokemon League to get them to ban them on grounds of safety and saying that there was no real quality control on what was in them, you know, the usual stuff when companies want something foreign banned. But this is only one box, and it was unopened. What was it doing to the far side of the truck? And I don't think they can exactly be sold for a great deal on the black market, at least not much more than with Full Heals."

"I've finished examining the rest of the truck, there's no evidence left," Officer Jenny said. "This all comes out as very strange. Were there already Team Rocket members on board when you had been attacked?"

"I don't think so," Ash said. "We gathered everyone we could see and I don't think someone could have snuck down to join Team Rocket."

"Huh, well, we'll document this then," Lt. Surge said. "It leaves a bad taste in my mouth though, this whole thing. There's something weird that happened here. I just can't put my finger on it."

The weirdest thing of all was as to how the truck got to its current position in the first place- there was no road connecting it elsewhere and there was only the sea around it.

With little to do now and relief from the Pokemon League now streaming in along with a large crowd of reporters, many of whom seemed to be very eager to follow Ash or Gary or really anyone who was on board, they all decided that it was about time that they leave Vermillion City sooner or later.

Lance and the rest of the Elite Four returned sometime around midnight- they said that they had combed half the sea on the southern edge of Kanto but had found no trace of Team Rocket.

Gary had already left the next morning without telling anyone apparently- Ash guessed that he had taken the news that Lance was unsuccessful badly and just wanted to get away from everything. Despite their rivalry, Ash wouldn't wish a person's Pokemon stolen from his worst enemy, and Gary and he were as much friends as they were rivals.

Later on that morning, Emile announced that he too was leaving.

"Huh? But we never finished our fight!" Ash said.

"Yeah… but we did fight, didn't we?" Emile said. "And that Rocket Admin said that you were stronger than me…. and I hate to say this but I think she was right, at least for night. My Pokemon have just recovered, and if we fought again both of ours would be injured badly enough so that we'd have to stay here for another day or two before moving on, and I'm kind of falling behind schedule as it is. I haven't even beaten Lt. Surge yet and that's probably going to be tough even with an Ivysaur and I'll probably need healing after that fight too. But don't worry- we'll get another fight later, and I'll be stronger then."

"Oh," Ash said. He glanced over at his friends who were currently wolfing down breakfast and who were motioning for him to join them and added, "Is something worrying you about Gary's Raticate? You looked pretty down about it."

"Oh, uh, see…" Emile began and immediately looked downcast. "…The thing is that I fought Gary before, and I was the one who damaged his Raticate in a battle on that ship. I don't think it managed to recover in time… and so it was partially my fault that it was weak enough to be captured."

"That's silly," Ash said. "There's no way that you could've known…"

"No, see, that's the bad part," Emile said. "During the fight Gary knew that his Raticate was about to be defeated and had thrown in the towel and asked me to stop but in…. well, I was just so caught up in the battle that it didn't register in my mind and I ordered my Ivysaur to give a full-fledged attack even though Gary had given up by that point. I said I was sorry afterwards, it was a rush-of-the-moment sort of thing and I didn't mean to cause it extra damage… so it was my fault…"

"Oh," Ash said. "Well, you didn't mean it. And I'm sure we'll get back Gary's Raticate some day or the other."

"Yeah, but you know, if someone stole my Pokemon," Emile said and then shuddered. "Well, it was nice meeting you. Maybe we'll meet up later on."

"Yeah," Ash said. Now that Emile had left also, it occurred to him that he should probably get going to Celadon City. He turned to the breakfast table that Brock had set up and as the others were finishing he started grabbing whatever he could find.

Misty shook her head- she had given up trying to correct Ash's table manners a long time ago and Brock didn't care for it. And as for Pikachu… well, Pikachu ate sloppier than Ash. At least Ash thought so.

As Ash was finishing and helping Brock put away the plates, a Trainer approached the and said, "Is one of you Ash Ketchum? Professor Oak has placed a phone call for you at the Pokemon Center."

"Okay," Ash said and went to the Pokemon Center where he saw Professor Oak who had clearly been waiting for some time for him.

"Ash, don't you ever bother calling?" Professor Oak asked. "I thought you had almost forgotten about the samples you sent."

"What samples?" Ash asked.

"Did you really forget? The Pokerus samples!" Professor Oak said.

"Oh, those, it's been so long since I sent them to you I kind of thought you'd forgot about them," Ash admitted.

"Forgot? Do you know how long it takes to clone a Pokemon virus in artificial tissue culture, isolate it, and then sequence… oh who am I talking to about this? You wouldn't know the complexities of viral sequencing and identification if it snuck up behind you and tied your shoelaces together… Anyway, the strain that's infected your Charmander seems to be peculiar in one respect," Professor Oak said. "Normally, in my experience, the virus makes Pokemon stronger, but it becomes non-infective after a period of around two days. But with the case of your Charmander, the virus seems to have completely fused with its stem cells and is still infective and replicating at massive rates even after all this time. But this doesn't seem to extend to your other Pokemon though, and they're currently non-infective and can't spread the virus."

"Is there anything I should be worried about?" Ash asked.

"I don't think so- Pokerus isn't known to cause any major symptoms besides from maybe a mild rash and cold," Professor Oak said. "But the strain that has infected your Charmander is something I haven't seen before. I'll send them to some experts on Pokemon Virology and maybe then I can get their opinion on them."

"Uh, Professor," Ash said, "can I ask which starter Pokemon Gary chose?"

"Huh?" Professor Oak said. "Why this all of a sudden? Ash, if you're looking for information to beat Gary, well, I'm not about to hand it over to you."

"No, no, does he have a Squirtle?" Ash asked. He hadn't asked Gary about those weird ruins and what he had seen back in that abandoned village; it would've sounded stupid and Gary had enough on his mind with his Raticate gone.

"Why, yes," Professor Oak said. "Come to think of it, how is he taking having lost his Raticate?"

"You know?" Ash asked.

"The Pokemon League of all people had to tell me- that boy rarely talks to me anymore," Professor Oak said. "But it must be hard on him in ways that you can't imagine. Ash, Lance needs to find a way to get Gary's Raticate back before Gary ends up growing bitter and cold."

"Does that always happen?" Ash asked.

"With some people who lose their Pokemon, yes, it leaves a large negative impact on their psyche," Professor Oak said.

"You're talking as if you know someone like that, Professor," Ash said.

"Well, only one person who I really knew personally," Professor Oak said. "He was a doctoral student working under me way back when I used to work at Kanto National University. He was very brilliant but always seemed to isolate himself and he… he didn't seem to care very much about other people and things, and would refrain from socializing with the other fellows. I heard one day that he said that he had lost his Nidoking in the forest one day as a child and since then he had found it difficult to trust people. His Pokemon hadn't been stolen, but lost, and still it was enough to break his heart. It's funny- sometimes a broken bone won't grow back properly if you don't fix it back properly. A heart's sort of the same- it might heal after being broken, but if it isn't treated properly, well, it'll grow back twisted and unable to bear the loads that it once could. Don't let that happen to Gary, Ash. Don't let him know I said anything either."

"Did he ever get better?" Ash asked. "Your student, I mean?"

"I don't know," Professor Oak said. "Strange thing is that once he completed his thesis on how Pokemon species originated and changed over time- we call that 'evolution' but different from the normal Pokemon evolution you're familiar with- he just disappeared. I always expected great things from him, so of course, I was surprised by that. I expected him to land up as the head of research in some big corporation like Silph Co. or some national lab. Silph Co. was a very small company back then and I'm sure that if he had joined he would be at a high position today. But I haven't heard a word from him ever since or heard of him from my other colleagues. Been nearly twenty years too and I don't even know what he's doing or where he is. Oh, but where am I getting to, you called me for some other reason. I doubt that it was to hear my rants about Dr. Giovanni."

Ash opened his mouth to speak before he had processed the name that Professor Oak said. Was that his dad? Professor Oak mentioned Pokemon evolution and he had talked about it too so…

"Well, what did you want to know if Gary had a Squirtle for?" Professor Oak asked.

Ash wondered about whether or not to tell him about what he had seen- and decided against it. Professor Oak was smart, but he wasn't the kind to believe in something that he couldn't see with his own eyes. Take that strange Pokemon that Ash had seen at the beginning.

"N-nothing," Ash blurted out. "So are there any real precautions I should take with my Charman-Charmeleon?"

"Oh, it evolved?" Professor Oak asked. "Hmm… maybe you might want to send another sample in case the evolution has impacted on the virus somehow. I wouldn't say that you need to be very careful about the virus spreading- it seems benign enough. But I would advise you to keep an eye out for Team Rocket."

"Team Rocket?"

"Yes, they have a strange interest in learning the secrets of the Pokerus virus," Professor Oak said. "Two of their agents- called Benedict and Cassidy tried to kidnap me once and interrogated me about what I knew regarding the virus. 'Course, at that time all I knew was that it was made from a fusion of the words 'Pokemon' and 'virus' so they didn't get much."

"Alright, Professor, I'll be careful," Ash said. "And I'll ask Nurse Joy about sending some more samples now."

Alternate Lines:

"What were you expecting underneath that truck?" Lt. Surge asked.

"Mew," Emile answered.

"Don't you know you need a level hundred Pokemon with Strength before you can do that?" Lt. Surge asked.

"Really?" Emile asked, sounding excited. "Does that really work?"

"Of course it doesn't- how on earth are you so gullible?" Lt. Surge asked. "I can't believe you believed that for a second!"

Even More Alternate Lines:

"I was kidnapped by Benedict and Cassidy," Professor Oak said. "They wanted to know the secrets of the Pokerus virus."

"Isn't that the name of that actor who played Doctor Strange?" Ash asked.

A/N: And that's it. Well, it's been twenty chapters already, and we're pretty far from Viridan Forest at least for now. Thanks for reading, and I'd like to ask you guys regarding how you liked Lance. Was it okay, the way I wrote him?

And in case you're wondering, yes, I've read the Creepypasta on Gary's Raticate.