Well, there you go folks! A "quick", short chapter! As always, thanks to everyone who reviewed, and please tell me whether this is fine or if it was too short!

Random Reader: MOAR SECKS? I would have to raise the rating for that.. Heh, but maybe. MAYBE

Chapter 21: Another Eventful Night

Everything seemed to circle around him, the feeling being very similar to the one he would get after riding one of those big carnival attractions.

Well.. he couldn't really see anything, nor had he been on any carnival recently.

So.. what happened..?

Assuming that his eyes were closed, the young man made an attempt of opening his eyes and finally succeeded in doing so after a few seconds.

The first the he noticed was his senses coming back slowly but surely, with screams being heard, his nose hurting like crazy and his eyes slowly adjusting themselves to the light. Somebody grabbed his shoulders, and he instinctively pushed those arms away.. but after a few seconds, he realized that whoever had smashed his face before did so quite well, still rendering him half conscious.

"We should head back, boss.."

A very familiar voice spoke right next to him, but that was no reason for him to put his guard down.

"Ugh, get off me.."

All of his senses seemed to back back to top again, except for his eyes that were still trying to adjust themselves..

Slowly, although surely, everything seemed to get better, and it didn't take long before he remembered how he ended up in that state he was right now. Without giving any thought to it whatsoever, Jens got up to his feet and heard a few people argumenting, already knowing who a few of those persons were..

"T-Team.. We're moving out.." he said quite loudly, hoping that his team would snap that up.

Lucky enough for him, they did, but things weren't really so easy..

"Shit, my head.." he managed to mutter once before getting back to his alert-mode. "Alright, what's up?"

"We're at the airport.."

Checking to his left, Jens saw that his old fella Tom had been trying to help him out. Helping him with telling their current location was less needed though.

"Well no shit.." Jens got out and started to follow the screaming voices around the corner. "I meant what's.. uh.. shit.."

As soon as the two of them got around the corner, massive amounts of people could be seen, both inside and outside of the airport, his team only being a small part of that amount..

The rest of his group stood right in front of him, all of them having at least one pokéball ready to get thrown into the air for some reason.. and that reason was Officer Jenny by the airport entrance, having two red dog like pokémon in front of her and some amount of policemen behind her as backup.

"I think I must ask you nicely one more time.." the officer started as she glared at the soon to be criminals right in front of her. "Leave, or spend the night with me and my dogs."

Ignoring the fact that her little threat made half of his 5 man team chuckle quietly, Jens tried to figure out what the hell was going on. Jeez, he passed out for 10 minutes.. and the COPS get here?

"I told you miss, we ain't leaving without our boss."

Oh, Kolzy.. trying to act heroic, eh?

Kolzy was the only member besides himself having a pretty decent and clear mind, but to counter that, he was pretty arrogant, not knowing when to behave. Also, that 'we won't leave without boss' sounds like he was blaming it all on him, Jens thought.

"I don't care about your so called boss, mister.." Jenny replied as a matter of factly, not liking where this was heading. "So, for the last time: will you comply?"

Even if Kolzy, Tom and the remaining three members were socially stupid, they knew that acting bad right now was a bad idea. In normal cases, Jens would decide what to do.. also, because of that they were wearing their regular clothes such as combinations of jeans, hoodies and sneakers, the police had no idea that they were Team Rocket.

And it was best that way.

Kolzy gritted his teeth, what to do, what to do..?

"I.." Kolzy started and flicked his short blonde hair. "I told you, we're not going anywhere."

"Is that so?" Jenny got out, her irritation reaching the two red/orange dogs with black stripes in front of her. "Growlithe, prepare to-"

"That won't be necessary."

Deciding to step things up a bit, Jens went in front of his team, like a knight in shiny armor, his team being the helpless princess and Jenny the evil dragon.

"We will leave, if that is what you wish." Jens started with a normal tone, ignoring the many 'BOSS!' he heard from behind.

"I.. see.." Jenny got out, surprised by the sudden change of events. "And who might you be?"

"Jack." Jens replied, trying his best not to explode with laughter. "Jack Ash."

"Jack Ash.." Jenny muttered for herself, not realizing anything even after seeing the other men laugh like monkeys. "Well, do you know these people?"

"Yes. They're a part of my team."

Jens had gotten many difficult missions in the past. Assassinations, stealing, robberies and much worse.

Never did he know that suppressing a smile from this stupid officer was one of those hard missions.

"Team? What team? Soccer team?"

Kolzy and the others clearly got offended by this, but unlike with them, he didn't know when to shut up.

"SOCCER TEAM?" he bursted out, pressing the button his pokéball that made it grow a little more than double its size. "DO WE LOOK LIKE FA-"

"Yes." Jens calmly replied, stopping Kolzy's charge using his arm. "Care to join?"

"I'd rather not."

"Very well. Then we'll be on our way."

"Uh.."

Exactly everyone had their eyes on the confident man as he slowly went towards a bench near the wall, his hands in his pockets. When he took a seat, it only made things so much stranger.

"Come here guys." Jens started and yawned. "We have a girl coming soon."

"I told you we wouldn't find her."

"Shut it."

John couldn't help but chuckle and say the two awesome words he wanted to say from the start. He knew that doing so would probably give him a sure death sentence, but still.. watching her back as she desperately tried to open up the door with 5 keys - none of them fitting - was very tempting for him.

Meh, why not?

Before the young man could utter anything, their door somehow clicked, soon sliding open much to his surprise.

"How did you-"

"Keys are not necessary to open doors."

Shit. Now that was creepy.

"I see.."

John was very frightened to say the least, but tried his best not to show any fear or hesitation as he walked through the door she for some reason elegantly held up open for him. Also, there was always the probability of Aurora reading his mind anytime, further making his situation all worse.

"How did you do that anyway?" John started, trying to keep the Aurora thingy off his mind. "Psychic?"

"Mm..? What else?"

"Hm."

Aurora and John had both already taken off their shoes, and because it was late, at least for Aurora, they decided to prepare for bed, John having some weird important meeting with Giovanni early tomorrow. Aurora and John did not share the same room nor bathroom, something he gladly praised the home designers for.

Ugh.. he can't have thoughts like that, too risky.

"I'm gonna stay up for a little longer." John stated and yawned as he headed towards their living room. "Don't stay up for too long."

"Whatever." Aurora simply replied and went upstairs. "I'm gonna take a shower before that, peek and my fist coming towards your eyes will be the last thing you'll ever see."

"How could I possibly walk in on YOUR bathroom when I got my own?" John asked with a raised voice but recieved nothing in reply. With a sigh, the young man decided to chill on his awesome sofa for a while before sleep. "Bitch.."

"What was that?"

Beep. Beep. Beep.

That was all that could be heard.

Well, that, and Brock's strange sounds made from him trying to break the awkward silence.

"Eh.." he started and shifted a bit on the small chair he was sitting on. "How are you?"

"I'm completely fine." the nurse replied with her usual cheery voice, giving off her sweet smile at the same time. "Although I do have to admit it's strange to be the one treated.."

"Huh? What do you mean with that?"

Brock felt more confident, if only just a little bit.. but it was better than nothing.

The room was weakly lit up since the room's small lamp hanging on the ceiling was running low. Even with the moon light sipping through the curtains by the small window, that didn't help too much and gave the room quite an unique feeling and atmosphere coupled together with the silence.

"Well, I'm always used to helping other people and their pokémon, so lying here getting treated by you feels strange, you know?"

"Please don't say that.." Brock got out, his guilt feelings taking over. "I've only caused you trouble.. the one who's going to help you is Martin, he's on his way right now."

"Believe it or not, you're helping me by just sitting here with me." the nurse stated and let out a short giggle as she got into a more comfortable position on the patient's bed. "It's getting late, any sane person would head to sleep soon."

"Well, then I'm crazy, aren't I?"

"Perhaps..!"

The two of them let out a chuckle and a short giggle respectively before going completely quiet once more.

"I'm sorry, Mary."

"It's completely fine, Brock. An accident, no harm done!"

"No harm done..?"

"I should be able to get back to work the first thing tomorrow! Also, I think I have to give the other judges a call telling them I'll make it for tomorrow's talent show."

"I would rather want you to stay here and get completely healthy before doing anything else.."

"Hm? All I have to do is to sit there and judge, not so hard really, hm?"

"I guess not..!"

"Exactly! Now, I'll be fine, you can head to sleep with Dawn and Pikachu. I'm sure they're already having sweet dreams."

"I won't leave. Not until I've payed back for what I've done."

The nurse let out a long, depressed sigh before lazily looking into Brock's eyes, knowing that convincing him the opposite would be rather hard.

"It's not your fault. Period!"

"But-"

"Brock, I don't want to be stuck here and discuss these matters with you. I would gladly chat with you if it was about anything else, but I just want to make clear that it wasn't your fault. I shouldn't have locked you in like that for too long.. I did, and all of this happened. Did you get too bored?"

"Y-Yes.. but I'll be here just like I promised, no matter how boring it gets! I'll help you run the pokécenter until you get back to your feet!"

"Really..?"

"Of course!" Brock bursted out and leaned closer. "It's the least I can do!"

"Did you see his face?"

"No, I did no-"

"IT WAS PRICELESS HAHAHA!"

Tom was the only one in the team who wasn't laughing frantically since he never really saw the airport manager's face by that time..

While the 5 man team kept on talking about how cool they were against the cops, the leader of that team checked the entrance of the airport constantly, still waiting for a certain someone to arrive.

As for how the team managed to get away som the police, they didn't. They just merely retreated to the roof of a nearby building not too far away.

"Hey boss.." Tom started and sighed, his team could really be ridiculous. "What are we waiting fo-"

...

"Oh. He's gone."

On the ground, not so close to Tom and the other laughing maniacs, a man named Jens was more or less sprinting for his life, depending on how you saw it.. he was, anyways, running very fast towards the airport's entrance, trying to figure out something to say after he would reach his target.

Impossible.. what was there to say?

Nothing but the truth.

As Jens finally reached the main entrance, he didn't want to waste any time, and so kicked the emergency door open instead of waiting for the automatic doors to do so. Checking to his left, his right and even above himself, Jens tried to spot the stressed up girl he was looking for but to no avail. Well, he couldn't just give up like that, could he?

Taking a huge, risky guess, Jens started to sprint towards the left side of the giant airport, in hopes of bumping into her sometime.

"Damn it.." Jens muttered under his breath after a minute of searching. "I thought she went this way.."

Out of frustration, Jens slammed some random picture of an ugly dude hanging on the wall, causing it to break instantly and fall to the floor with small pieces scattered here and there. Just when he was about to demolish some more stuff such as flower pots and seats, a loud, soothing beep could be heard, grabbing his attention.

"Good evening customers," a voice could be heard throughout the many speakers around the airport. "Flight 10 will leave in approximately 5 minutes. Please register your tickets at the gate before liftoff. Flight 11 will leave in 10 minutes, and ticket registration has already been opened by the flight gate."

The voice paused, giving Jens a moment to realize his situation.

"Have a pleasent night."

It seemed that the flight announcements had been finished, and that theory was further backed once another soothing pling could be heard.

Jens sighed, well, this was tough. The airport's design was very strange, only being a long, thin line with no turns, with the exception of the caféteria in the middle.. in other words, he could either continue down the left side where he was now or turn around to search the right side of the airport.

50/50, eh? Not only were there many other gates along the left and right line, but he assumed that the ones he was looking for were at the very edges of those lines. Either way, just standing there doing nothing would only waste his precious time. Like before, Jens was interrupted before he would do something stupid.. only this time, it was his cellphone ringing.

His cellphone..?

Jens instantly brought whatever was ringing from his pockets with his hand before replying, all of this in just a few seconds.

"Who is it?"

"BOSS, WHATZUP?"

... Eh?

Various shoutings, cracking sounds and other ear piercing noises could be heard from the simple phone he was currently holding with his right hand.

Jens knew very well that, despite the fact that a brand new cellphone had been lying inside his pocket, he did not have any time for this. The man planned to just hang up the call, but stopped once he heard a familiar voice calling out.

"Jens? Jens?"

"Tom? Is that you?"

"Yeah, but we don't have time," the person started. "Turn around now, she's at the gate and the line's getting shorter as we spe-"

Doing as his nice teammate said, Jens turned around completely and sprinted for something that looked like running for his life. Of course, as expected, Jens had long dropped the phone from his hands, not having any aerial backup or surveillance whatsoever. But, he could manage.. after all, looking for a depressed woman in doctors' clothes wouldn't be too hard.

And there she was. Waiting at the gate's line..

As Jens slowed down with his running pace, he realized he hadn't thought of what to say.

Or what to do.. shit..

He had to do something, now, since she was already talking with one of the flight personnel by the gate entrance. After a few seconds, Jens still stood there, clueless of what to do. She had, on the other hand, already planned out exactly what to do and decided to go through the short way before entering her flight on the other side of the path.

"CHARLOTTE!"

The blonde doctor with a brown leather bag hanging on her shoulder immediately stopped after hearing that voice, that call..

'Shit. What do I say now?'

He desperately tried to think up with anything, anything at all: something romantic, lame or maybe even harsh.

But he got nothing, and it didn't really get much easier when the doc turned around and ran towards him, almost pouncing on him as she jumped to hug him.

"Jens!" she bursted out and giggled. "Oh my.. you look so handsome with regular clothes!"

Jens just gave her a small smile, resisting the urge to let out a sigh.

Charlotte noticed the uneasiness and slowly let go of Jens.

"Miss..?" a voice from behind got out, presumably the flight attendant. "The plane is going to lift off in a minute, could you please-"

"Jens.. where's your bag?"

Jens opened his mouth to speak, but sadly enough, not a single sound got out.

The doc's reaction was depressing. The moment where her eyes would immediately water up, her legs tremble and her voice whimper.. all of this at the same time.

This was expected, Jens thought as he watched her half-cry right in front of him. Jens, being such a coward, couldn't take it anymore and instead looked away, wishing he had his Rocket cap to hide his face with.. instead, he had this crappy short one that Kolzy had picked for him.

What was about to come next, though, was something he did not expect.

The sound was something extraordinary.

Its echo was tremendous, reaching even the other side of the airport, for those who were listening.. it even made the flight attendant from behind gasp and cover her mouth in an attempt to stay away from this rising conflict.

As Jens rubbed his sore and soon to be red cheek, he wanted to apologize.. but she was already gone.

It was a new day for the people of Sinnoh.. a quite sunny day, with the sun standing high already even though the clock was only pointing at 10 in the morning. Many people had already woken up earlier before to head to work, while others were still being lazy lying around on their bed. Among these was a young boy named Ash, who had just woken up because of a few sun rays had managed to slip through their incredibly thin curtains.

As expected from the temporarily lazy boy, he tried to unconsciously escape those rays by turning around to face the other way, but something seemed to be in the way. Slowly but surely, the sunlight became too much, and it pretty much got impossible for him to get back to sleep. Instead, he decided to somehow punish whatever it was that had blocked his way. Opening his slow and dead eyes, the first thing he was about to see was something surprising, yet not at the same time..

May's sleeping face was something. He didn't really know how to describe it, it was something that had to be seen. He tried to do that, anyways..

Her chest and pretty much her whole middle part of her body slowly went up and down with different intervals, depending on how fast she was breathing. Whenever she exhaled, she got out these strange, baby-like sounds that immediately made Ash sweatdrop and forget that he was ever irritated over the fact that he couldn't sleep for a while longer. As a plus to all of this, May had wrapped her arms around his left, further improving her cute image.

Sigh.. was May always this cute?

Just as Ash was about to get off the bed and prepare for the new day, May's grip on Ash's arm tightened, instantly bringing him back down again. To makes things worse (or better), May also started to wrap her legs around the lower part of his body. All of this made him think that she was also awake.. meh, not really. It's not like she would make those cute sounds and go through all of that just to embarrass him.

Or would she..?

Not really important now that he thought of it, he had to get out and train.. he hadn't done that in a while.

Now, how to get out of the bed without waking her up?

'Ugh.. I should start with slowly loosen her grip by removing her hands.. her legs shouldn't be too hard.'

As the boy thought of how to execute his brilliant escape, he noticed that he couldn't move his right arm, either.

As he looked to his right, it became clear as to why his arm felt heavy.

"Mom? Why does it smell burnt-"

"Good morning, dear!"

The aroma of a splendid breakfast immediately hit the young boy's senses, and it didn't take too long before that was the only thing on his mind for that moment.

"Woah, it's too bad dad can't enjoy this!" the young boy exclaimed, thinking of saving some for his father in case he would happen to come home earlier than usual. "Should we save some for dad?"

"I prepared breakfast for him long before he went to the gym, Max." the mother replied and giggled, it was good knowing that her kids thought of everyone else. "Besides.. I'll make a nice dinner for him once he gets home."

"Alright!" Max got out and dug in with the many meals lying right in front of him on the table. "Wait a minute.."

The young boy surprised himself with this matter, not really liking the fact that he only realized this now.

"Mom.. why are you doing this? You usually don't do breakfasts like this one."

"Hmhm, that's a secret! Maybe I just felt like it..?" Caroline countered as she prepared another batch of toasts.

"I doubt it.." Max muttered and sweatdropped. Even though he knew that something was up with all of this, he would certainly dig it up later. "But for now, let's eat!"

"Well, I have to say I did not expect this.."

"Is it that bad..?"

"No, no don't take me wrong!"

Martin the doctor chuckled for a bit before packing all of his equipment in the small suitcase he had brought with him.

"I meant the other way around." Martin continued and gave the nurse on the bed a quick smile. "I'm very surprised with how fast you recovered, I expected it to take at least days before you would even wake up."

"That's a huge relief.." Brock added and sighed, happy over that it would be okay.

"But.." Martin started again, about to bring forth some bad news. "Even though there's no sign of any serious damage whatsoever, and that you've recovered so quickly.. it's still quite risky to let you return back to work. That's why-"

"I need to rest for the next few weeks.." the nurse interrupted and sighed before going on. "and also only being allowed to do simple tasks."

"Precisely, Mary!"

"But who will take care of the center..?" the nurse wondered and sighed once more.

"I can do that."

The doctor chuckled, happy that things seemed to go so smoothly, despite the accident. Brock wasn't a bad person then after all..

"Excellent!" he exclaimed before giving Brock a small pat on his back. "But are you sure? Taking care of a pokécenter is alot of work I believe."

"It is." Nurse Joy said before throwing Brock a comforting smile. "But, he has alot of experience with taking care of pokémon, and so far, it's been going great. I'm sure it won't be a problem at all for him to help me with the center while I'm resting."

"Very well!" Martin exclaimed again, soon about to get impressed by this Brock person. "I'll have to go now.. Mary, Brock, I trust you know how often to take those tests?"

"Yes.." Mary got out and sighed. "Brock will help me do them every 6 hours, as you've instructed."

"Splendid! Now, I must wish you good luck, Brock, and Mary; you don't have to worry, with Brock here, everything should be fine."

With that said, the doctor took his suitcase and headed towards the room's door.

"But.." he started before leaving. "If anything comes up, anything at all, just give me a call and I'll come do what I can."

"Of course." Brock and Nurse Joy both said simultaneously with a nod. "Goodbye."

After that short conversation between the three persons, Martin left, leaving Brock and Mary alone once more.

"So.." Brock started and sighed, more or less breaking the awkward silence between the two of them. "Did you sleep well?"

"I did.. In fact, I haven't slept this well for a while. I'm usually interrupted in my sleep by hurt pokémon needing assistance.. That reminds me, did anyone come during the night?"

"Only returning trainers or visitors, luckily enough..!"

"Thank goodness.. Although I doubt that you would get any problems if there were any hurt pokémon to come."

…

Awkward.

"Well.." Mary started and shifted a bit on the bed she was lying on. "I assume Dawn will be up soon, and that she wants to head to the city.. You should join her, Brock. And the others. I'll be fine."

"Are you kidding me? I can't possibly leave you like this!"

"But I thought you wanted to get out of here..?"

"I.. I did, yes, but now I'd rather stay here and help you for as long as it takes."

"Are you sure..? The festival doesn't last forever, Brock."

"Who cares about that really.. I can always come back next year, right?"

"I guess.."

Just like before Martin came, and long before that.. the room fell quiet when both of them had nothing else to talk about.

"Hey, Brock..?"

"Yes, Nurse Joy?"

"Thank you."

It was just so, so cute.. She couldn't even describe it! If she had done her counting right.. This would be the 37th time she watched that recording, and it certainly wouldn't be her last time.

Her sister had grown up. She really had. Not just mentally..

Glancing at her sleeping sister, Solidad made sure that she was still asleep, using many strange methods to confirm that. After poking and whispering strange things into Amelia's ear, it was almost completely safe for her to check that recording once more before she would hide it somewhere. Watch it without sound, of course..

Even though she had watched it so many times, seeing Amelia and Drew act like that was simply amazing. She never knew that Amelia, or even better Drew had those sides in them.

The recording, or clip that she just played without sound on her digital camera was only around a few minutes long, but was probably the most important clip out of her hundreds of other photos and videos stored in it. Because of that, she had to make sure that it would be hidden in a very safe spot. Now what could that be?

Before she could finish and decide, a noise from behind could be heard, causing her to immediately react and hide her small silver digital camera. Once she had turned around with her camera behind her back, she saw that it was just Drew who had fallen off the sofa in her livingroom.

Sigh.. maybe he was awake?

After giving Drew a bad time in his dreams by checking if he was awake, too, Solidad could be sure that he hadn't seen anything. But what now? He can't sleep on the floor.. and bringing him back to the sofa would probably make him fall sooner or later. Hm.. maybe her bed?

Hehe.. wait a minute.

With that, the girl hid the camera and its memory card in the safest place she could find before giving Drew a much, much better place to sleep in.