Me: Alright, so the last chapter was in tandem with an episode of the Sinnoh animé, so you know what this chapter is going to be.
Jack: Yes, yes they do. And we also find out what happened to Aura during the battle.
Me: Stay in the present moment please.
Jack: Right, let's start it then.
Jack and co. walked through Veilstone City, intent on seeing the sights before bed. They stopped momentarily to decide where to go next, and Jack remembered what he wanted to ask Aura.
"So," Jack asked. "What exactly happened at the gym?"
"Yeah," Katana added. "We'd all like to hear about it."
Aura slithered up onto Lucy's back. "Well..."
Aura watched the battle with great interest. Mentally noting strategies that she could practice herself. She was so intent on the action, that she only noticed Croagunk get up and leave because he momentarily blocked her view in doing so.
Now unable to concentrate on the battle, she let her curiosity get the better of her, and followed the Toxic Mouth Pokémon out of the arena. She followed him down a hall to the training room. Once there, Croagunk stopped.
"Is there any particular reason," he asked, without turning around, "Why you are following me?"
Aura was slightly taken aback, but she didn't show it. "Just curiosity. Are you going to do some training?"
"Seeing as how I'm standing outside the training room," Croagunk dead-panned. "That would be a safe guess. Come in, if you want."
Aura entered the training room with him, and they sparred a little; Croagunk was exceptional at the 'dodge and counter' technique. Before long though, they heard a noise outside. They turned towards the door, just in time to see a man, a woman, and a eowth peeking around the door.
The three figures quickly pulled back; Aura looked around for Croagunk, but he was gone. (This is where I catch up to you.)
A second later, she heard an explosion behind the door. She looked, and saw Croagunk contemplating a hole in the ceiling.
"Who were they?" Aura asked.
Croagunk walked back to the training room as if nothing had happened. "Team Rocket. They're a nuisance."
The name vaguely struck a bell in Aura's memory, but she couldn't make heads or tails of it.
"We trained for a while longer," Aura finished, "before rejoining the rest of you after the battle."
"Team Rocket," Jack puzzled. "Coincidence?"
"No such thing," Jason corrected him.
Before the conversation could go any farther, the sky was lit up with a bright blue glow. The group, and the entire city with them, looked up to see several pillars of blue light piercing the night sky. But more than that, Jack and Jason both felt a strong auric disturbance emanating from the lights. They looked up in amazement for a few seconds, before Jack had the presence of mind to realize that this couldn't be a good thing.
"Come on," he cried, snapping the rest of his team out of their shock.
They bobbed and weaved through Veilstone City in the general direction of the lights. Then, as quickly as they appeared, the lights faded. The disturbance in the aura, however, did not.
"Alright," Katana asked. "What was that?"
Jack's eyes glowed gold. "Let's find out."
Jack threw out a mental probe towards where the lights were. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary however, until it reached the meteor field; there, he saw a group of people with green bowl-hair running around. As the image focused in, he saw that they were sticking glowing... things, into the meteorites.
"It's at the meteor field," Jack said as he recalled the probe. "Come on!"
The group made a Beedrill-line for the meteor field; the auric disturbance got stronger as they went. They raced around a corner, and saw airships hovering low over the meteorites, and picking them up.
"Oh, no you don't," Jack muttered, putting on a burst of speed that shot him well ahead of the rest of his team. He arrived at the site just in time to see one of the strangely dressed people, with blue hair instead of green, bring a Toxicroak out of a Pokéball.
"Toxicroak," the man said. "Sludge Bomb."
Then, Jack got a good look at Toxicroak's target.
"Team Rocket!" he exclaimed, perfectly in sync with the other voices from across the field.
Jack's mind slipped into warp-drive to do a head count; about a dozen green-haired people, their blue-haired leader and his Toxicroak, the three members of Team Rocket, and now Ash, Dawn, Brock, Maylene, and the Pokémon associated with them had also arrived.
"That escalated quickly," he thought. "None of them have noticed me yet; maybe I should save the element of surprise until I can use it to greatest effect."
"Team Rocket," Ash repeated. "Are those guys friends of yours?"
Jessie was thoroughly outraged. "Sure; best friends like you!"
"So," Jack observed. "They know each other too. This just gets more and more interesting."
Then James spoke up. "Those fashion freaks stole our meteorites!"
"Fashion?" Dawn muttered. "Since when?"
"So, Team Rocket are still the bumbling idiots I remember. And they were here to steal the meteorites; then what were they doing in the gym?"
Jack was snapped from his thoughts by the sound of an explosion; Toxicroak's Dark Pulse, meeting Lucario's Aura Sphere. What surprised Jack, and his friends across the field, was that they were evenly matched.
"We don't care about your landmarks," Blue-Hair said. "But these meteorites must take the necessary forms."
"Necessary for what?" Dawn asked.
"I'm talking," he said, as if addressing children, "About the forms required to build the new world!"
Jack groaned, "Do the bad guys have some sort of contract? They always go on a monologue and give away their plans; some day, that little tidbit is going to be their downfall."
And then, as if things weren't getting complicated enough, who should arrive on the scene but Officer Jenny. She shot her motorcycle up a ramp, launched it into the air, dismounted, and struck a pose.
"Thanks for the tip-off Maylene," Jenny tossed over her shoulder.
"My civic duty," the gym leader replied.
Jack's sensitive ears picked up a conversation between the members of Team Rocket. He smiled; the heat was indeed off of them, for now.
"You took the meteorites, right?" Officer Jenny accused Blue-Hair.
"Maybe, and maybe not," he retorted.
"Oh sure," Jack thought ruefully. "Now he's being cryptic."
"All communications are down because of your tricks."
"I'll bet they're responsible for the Pokémon Centre breakdown," Brock said.
"Not just the Pokémon Centre," Jenny corrected him, "But every piece of sensitive electronic equipment in Veilstone."
"Okay," Jack revised. "So they're not as dumb as they look; they planned this out pretty well."
"Do you think," Officer Jenny asked, "That the Sinnoh Special Police aren't aware of all the behind the scenes activity going on around here lately? Well, you're busted; you're part of the criminal organization, Team Galactic!"
Jack groaned again. "As if Team Rocket wasn't enough, now there's a Team Galactic too?"
Jenny continued. "Tell me exactly what you intend to do with those meteorites."
Blue-Hair chuckled. "That would be a waste of time, but I will say that it's all part of our plan. Toxicroak, Dark Pulse."
"Pikachu, Thunderbolt!"
"Piplup, Bubblebeam!"
"Lucario, Aura Sphere!"
The attacks collided with a large explosion, scattering Dark Pulse all around the area; one of them heading straight for Brock. Before anyone could register what happened, Croagunk leaped into the air, and smacked the ring of energy out of it with Brick Break.
"Thanks Croagunk," Brock said. "You saved me."
To this, Croagunk just croaked. Then it stared at its evolved counterpart with clear hostility; the two locked eyes in a fierce battle of will.
"There's history between those two," Jack observed.
Jenny tried once more to get the situation under control. "Surrender peacefully, while you can; unless you'd rather leave here kicking and screaming in handcuffs."
Jack observed Team Rocket trying to make a getaway; no matter, he'd catch up with them later. However, his attention returned to the other team in the area, as they released a veritable swarm of Golbat; these Golbat then proceeded to use Air Cutter on everyone who wasn't a Galactic.
"Now?" Jason asked.
Jack realized that the rest of his team had arrived without his noticing, and he smiled.
"Now!"
After that one word, Jack lost track of the action; his team jumped into the fray, and began systematically taking down every Golbat in sight.
Jack, on the other hand, used the confusion to make a leap for one of the Galactic airships. With much difficulty, he climbed aboard one, took out every Galactic grunt on it save the pilot, and forced it to drop its meteor. He then proceeded to the next one; the ships were reasonably close together, so he just jumped from ship to ship with a little help from Psychic. He noticed that the others had taken care of all the Golbat, and were now working on the meteorites as well. Mostly catching them as they fell. Then, as Jack leaped to the last airship, it moved away, causing Jack to drop to the ground. He only just managed to land on his feet.
He looked up, in time to see the airships, one of them still carrying a meteorite, flying away. The Pokémon made one last attempt to stop them, but the ships were out of range.
"They got away, with one meteorite," Jack stated the obvious.
"Yes," Officer Jenny confirmed. "I just wish we knew what they're planning to do with that meteorite."
"But," Dawn said, an optimist if ever Jack saw one, "We saved most of them, and I get the feeling that now that they're gone, the Pokémon Centre should he back to normal."
"You know, we never really introduced ourselves properly," Jack said. "I'm Jack Storm, and this is Jason, Cap, Katana, Lucy, Wendy, Aura, Toby, and Solomon."
"I'm Ash Ketchum," Ash replied. "From Pallet Town; and this is my partner, Pikachu."
"My name is Dawn, from Twinleaf Town, and this is Piplup."
"And I'm Brock, from Pewter City, and this is Croagunk; it's nice to meet you."
"Same here," Jack assured him. Then he noticed a new face, but not a new face, "Do I know you?"
The man walked over and took a good look at Jack. "I don't think so; I'm Reggie."
"Reggie," Jack pondered it for a second, before putting it on the back burner; he'd figure all this stuff out after a good night's sleep.
The entire group went to the Pokémon Centre to get their Pokémon healed, and to get rooms for the night.
"Hey Jack," Ash asked. "I was just wondering, why are all your Pokémon out of their Pokéballs?"
Jack hesitated. "Well, I just like spending time with them, that's all."
"And I can see that," Brock said, kneeling. "It's obvious how well you take care of them; they're well-trained, well-fed, and well-groomed." Jack glanced at Katana; he certainly hadn't been grooming them. The Bug-type shrugged, but she was smiling; Jack rolled his eyes.
"But what I really want to know," Brock continued, "Is how do you have eight Pokémon?"
Jack hesitated again. "Well, Cap and Katana aren't actually mine; technically, they're wild."
"And yet they follow you," Brock said, amazed.
"I have a magnetic personality, I guess."
The second he said it, he realized that it was true; people, humans and Pokémon alike, and even complete strangers, tended to trust him on sight.
"One more mystery," he thought. "But let's test it."
"So Ash," he asked. "What are you going to do now?"
Ash answered without hesitation. "We're going to Pastoria City for my next gym battle."
"Do you mind if I come with you after mine?"
Once again, Ash didn't give it a second thought. "Sure; besides, I'd like to see your battle with Maylene too."
Jack thanked him, and said he'd make it a battle to remember, then Jack and his friends went up to their room. He had a lot of things to think about.
Me: So, it's good to note that as of now, Saturday is our official update day. If we don't update on Saturday every week, then that means that something has happened to us.
Jack: Also, we are overjoyed to announce that Matthias Unidostres is now Beta-Reading our story. Please go and check out some of his works too; he's an excellent writer.
Jason: We've got nothing else to declare; please review, and we'll see you next time.