A Visitor From Another Land

by The Ghost without Romance

David was what most of the real world considered a technological genius. One day he created the I.D.T., and accidentally found himself in the world of Pokemon with no way back. Or is there? Can David get back? Does he even want to? This story contains: Stuff. A lot of stuff. -Rated T for Language and Violence. Mostly Language.

21. Trapped

For update news, visit my profile.

Hey guys, I'm still breathing. Whether anyone wanted me to or not. It's been… almost two months? A little less? Anyway, this is a long chapter (16,000 words people!) and it took me a while to write. Plus, stuff happened, then some other stuff happened, then even more stuff happened. A lot was going on. I'm trying to get back to updating quicker like I was before.

Another note, I really didn't want to do this since I know it probably won't work at all, but some of you may be aware of my other story I wrote as like a Halloween Special called When the Dead Walk, the World Stops. That story is dead and gone. Cremated with the ashes buried. I do plan to have another zombie themed story, if anyone cares, and I have two ideas in mind: make it more like Left 4 Dead or more like CoD: Black Ops Zombies. I was hoping to leave the vote up to you, the readers. If you want one of those two choices, let me know any way you can. Review, PM me, I'll also have a poll set up (hopefully more successful than the last. Yeah, I'll keep dreaming.) Anyway you want to tell me.

And with that, I leave you to the chapter.

Chapter Twenty-one - Trapped

The group was currently on the move towards Hunter J's next strike point. Bianca was in Officer Jenny's sidecar, Melodi was next to her as there was no other room, May was behind Officer Jenny, and Ash, David and Brock were riding Arcanine, respectively.

"Well? So what questions do you want me to answer?" David asked.

Officer Jenny looked in thought for a moment.

"I'll start with the obvious. Have you or have you not worked with J?"

"I never have."

"Do you know who she works for?"

"No."

"Do you know why she does this?"

"Why does that matter?" David asked.

Officer Jenny gave him a hard look.

David sighed. "No."

"You said you've met her before. Was she taking other pokémon?"

"No."

Officer Jenny didn't seem pleased with the answer.

"David, what's with your arm? And how did you force through that String Shot web? I didn't think anyone was strong enough to do that." Ash asked.

David glanced at everyone, sighed, and slowly moved his arm out to the side, where it was clearly seen.

His left sleeve was ripped off from below the elbow, still attached to his glove by that dull gray tape, torn off from the web both him and Ash were trapped in. His arm itself, looked strange. It was hard to tell, since no one had ever really seen David's arms, but it seemed a little too thin to be normal. But the biggest and strangest thing was there were two semi-round gashes where you could see a shiny metal surface. David pulled off his glove and the rest of his sleeve, and then reached up at his elbow grabbing at something under his sleeve. It sounded like he was pulling something off, something like plastic wrap; his hand wasn't under his sleeve anymore, but he didn't stop. He kept pulling, past his elbow, down his arm, and off his hand.

"Oh my Arceus…"

David had pulled the skin off his arm. And underneath was nothing but metal. No muscle, nerves, veins, or bones. Just metal.

David's left arm, was made of metal. Like some sort of machine.

"What on Earth happened to your arm?!" May cried out.

"David, that's not your real arm, is it?" Bianca asked.

"No, it isn't. Something happened while I was gone, and I… lost my real left arm."

"David, what really happened when Team Rocket took you?"

"Hey, David didn't feel-"

"It's fine Bianca." David interrupted. "All of you deserve some answers. It's a long story. At least there's plenty of time."

Xx++xX

Day- I; Time- Unknown

"Uhhhh, where… am I?"

I looked around. I was in some sort of room. A bunch of medical looking machines were placed around. I realized I was strapped to a table.

"What the?"

I tried to free my arms, but it was no good.

"Where's Riolu?" I looked around franticly. "I don't see him. No point in calling out for him."

"Ah, so you're awake."

I looked towards the origin of the voice. A man in a lab coat was standing in the doorway, a black band with a red letter 'R' on the left sleeve.

"A Team Rocket scientist huh? Those guys put a bad name on science."

"You can answer our questions now."

"Questions? What the hell do you want to know? Actually, never mind. I'm not going to answer them anyway."

"Oh, you aren't are you? That might change after some 'persuasion'."

"Where's Riolu? What have you done with him?"

"So you're asking me questions now? I'm afraid it's not going to work like that. We had a couple of agents pick up some interesting information from you. You claim to be from 'another dimension'."

"I don't have a clue as to what you are talking about." I lied.

"You don't huh?"

The man pulled a small device out of his pocket. It looked like some sort of recording device. I was proved right when it replayed my confession to Brock that one night.

"Well, shit."

"Indeed."

"What are these questions of yours?" I asked, not at all thrilled about the next few moments.

"Our boss would be pleased in acquiring more information about your supposed travel here from another dimension."

"Would he now?" I scoffed. "What does Giovanni want with this?"

That seemed to confuse him.

"Giovanni? I'm not familiar with that name. He's certainly not our boss."

"You're screwing with me, right? You ARE Team Rocket, right?"

"You are correct, *we* are indeed Team Rocket. But our boss is certainly not a man by the name of Giovanni."

"Fine. So what the hell does your boss want with my device?" I asked, more irritated than anything else.

"That is something only the boss is allowed to speak of. Too bad you will never meet him." The man answered, reaching for a large, cliché lever on the wall. Probably an oversized 'interrogation' device.

"On the contrary, I think he'll meet me sooner than expected." Said another man, who had appeared within the doorway. He was wearing a Team Rocket-black duster. The duster itself was sleeveless, but he wore a gray long-sleeve shirt underneath. Over that was some sort of protection vest with a leather belt and a line of pouches going diagonally up to the left over the vest, beneath the duster. He had gray-blue pants with blue metal knee guards and had on a pair of black boots. He was wearing a turban as well. Odd.

"Ah! Sir, I wasn't aware you'd be visiting."

"Wonderful." I muttered sarcastically.

"Oh, come now. Don't be like that. I was hoping to make a little business proposition to you." He said.

I didn't say anything. I was too busy thinking very carefully about my next choice of actions. After all – making a deal with a crime boss? The Omertas taught me better. Well, I learned to be better than this anyway. I mean… Just don't make deals with crime lords, okay?

"Let's see here… what was it? I can't remember…"

"You've got to be kidding me."

"Oh, well. You give us that info and… hmm. Hmmmm. Uh, I won't pull this lever? Yeah, let's start with that." He said adjusting his tribly which was slightly crooked on his head.

"That's it? You expect me to tell you because of-"

A tone was heard playing suddenly, cutting me off.

"Ah, hold that thought." The man said.

He pulled a cellular device out of one of the pouches.

"Hello? Hey, Billy! No, I can talk. Nah, I'm not doing anything important. Just an interrogation, no big deal."

I couldn't have a bigger look of disbelief on my face.

"Is this guy for real?"

He took off his beret and began scratching his head as he leaned against the wall.

"Wait… that's not the wall. Oh crap."

The man, actually, leaned on the lever. Pulling it down and sending a course of electricity through David's restraints.

"Ahhhhhhhhherberbwuberbberbe!" I screamed unintelligibly.

"Hold on. Excuse me! Do you mind? I'm on the phone."

"Scccccccrrrreeeeeeewwww yyyooooouuuuuuu."

"Well that's rude. What were you saying? Oh, alright. Talk to you later. Bye." He hung up. "Now where was I?" He flipped the lever back.

I was gasping for breath. It wasn't a strong jolt, but it wasn't pleasant.

"You're the worst… boss… I've ever met…"

"You've met others?"

"You'd be… surprised…" I muttered, barely conscious.

"Well since that deal went out the window, send back to his cell. We'll get the info out of him later."

I couldn't remember anything after that.

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Day- 7; Time- Around Noon

I sat, slumped, against the wall on my cot in the cell. Riolu sat, hugging my leg, next to me. He tugged at the collar around his neck with his free arm. Team Rocket put it on him to prevent him from using his attacks; I wish it wasn't so small though. After all, it's not like he would've been able to slip it off. Least his scarf covered it up.

I had just returned from 'interrogation' again. Still jittery from the effects. They didn't get anything from me, though. They never did. It was so difficult sometimes. The floor of our cell was a huge glass floor. You could see all the way out of the ship like it was a giant window. It scared me nearly to death when they tossed me in here the first time. I had barely woken up as they tossed me in, and all I saw was the giant drop to blue water beneath me.

My cellmate, Jessie, sat across the room on the ground next to his cot, eying me as I tried to remain in an upright position with the little motor-control I had. What was the deal with me getting shocked anyway? I don't know how Ash 'got used to it'.

"Damn, you're really screwed up this time. They get you with the Twenty again?"

"Thirty." I stumbled out.

"Damn, they're movin' up." He muttered. "Ya know, I never really understood with they call 'em that anyway. I mean, it's a lot more than twenty or thirty volts, so why do they call it that? What do they mean? Twenty-thousand? Thirty-thousand? I'm not an electrician, but I'm pretty sure that stuff will kill you."

I chuckled at his attempt at humor.

"Okay, okay. So would you rather be…. a Pidgey who can't fly, or… any water-type that can't use water-type attacks?"

I never got to answer his question, as right then, two goons opened the cell door and began to drag me out.

"Whoa, hey now. He already got his interrogation treatment."

"Shut up, and sit back down! Boss wants him for something special this time."

The other grunt went to grab for Riolu. Riolu tried to get away, but was knocked down by the grunt before being grabbed. Seeing Riolu getting knocked aside like that made me angry. But I couldn't move at all, I just hung limply and that only made me angrier.

They brought both of us into a room. It was bigger than the last one and more open with not a whole lot in it. There was another table in this one, and glancing up, I could see that there was a large machine hanging from the ceiling.

I was tied down onto the table, blinded by the bright overhead light. Riolu was tied down as well.

"Why… is Riolu here…?" I asked.

"Oh, it's quite simple." Said the Team Rocket leader, who had yet to introduce his self.

Turning to a scientist, he said. "Start it up. Give him the dose."

"Dose? What is this? A bad action movie?"

Needle's came down from the machine and poked me in my arms and legs.

"Ah! Okay. Just some needles. Nothing serious."

Then they actually started injecting me. There was no holding it in. I screamed instantly. It felt as if pure molten rock was going through my veins.

"F-first you shock me, if you what more clichés go visit Hollywood's outdated storehouse."

"Hmm, perhaps I will, after you give me your knowledge of dimension travel."

"Ahhhhgh! G-go to hell."

"He's very determined. Alright, inject the fox." He said to the scientist nearby.

"What?" I shouted.

"One dose should be enough, right?"

"Don't you touch him!"

The scientist walked towards Riolu, a smaller needle in his hand. As he got closer, I looked at Riolu. I could see how scared he was, it was just like back at the Orphanage. At that point all my anger and rage I had, just built up. And I just absolutely lost it. I began wriggling in my restraints struggling more than ever to get free with new found energy from my anger.

"I SAID, Don't F****** TOUCH HIM!"

I felt all my energy sap out of me at once as a large silver shockwave erupted from me. Shattering the lights and knocking down everyone. The machine was loosened from the ceiling and came crashing down, a scientist narrowly avoiding it. Shattered glass covered the dull, metal ground.

---

"What in the name of Arceus was that?"

"I… I'm not sure, sir."

"Found out. I want to know if it will happen again."

"Y-yes, sir!"

---

Day- 32; Time- Unknown

"Has prisoner 447 spilled yet?"

"Not yet, sir. It seems, sir, his will is like a windshield – we can put as many cracks as we want in it, but it won't break."

"Excellent analogy."

"Thank you, sir."

"But, if it's like you say it is. Then all we have to do is apply more force."

The man leaned on the railing, looking out the big window in the bridge.

"Any progress in investigating the cause of Case 82?"

"Yes, sir. As you know, we suspected that the chemical we used during that interrogation was a probable cause. We have found significant results; the chemical was a mental stimulant. It was designed to enhance mental performance to make it more sensitive to emotion and brain activity, such as fear or panic, and affect the actions caused by those emotions."

"Which we used to make our prisoners more likely to reveal what we want. What about it?"

"Well, sir. It appeals that prisoner 447's mental capacity was indeed affected, in a startling way, causing a version of telekinesis in the form of pure waves of force. Analyzing the security feeds from one of the cameras that managed to remain intact, the shockwave was that telekinesis fueled by aura."

"Aura?"

"Yes, sir. The mental stimulant also seemed to have affected 447's ability to control aura. However it appears to only be possible on a subconscious level. Only occurring when stress is put on certain stimuli in the brain causing involuntary bodily action, such as Case 82. All though, both the telekinesis and aura control are only possible when my previously mentioned conditions are met, causing the shockwave and other related actions."

"Mind repeating that with a little less science in it?"

"Yes. …sir. 447 is slightly able to move things with his mind, but he can only push things. He can also control aura but can't really do anything with it. But, he can only do those things when something significant enough is happening to him to cause his body to automatically be able to do those things. Whether or not he can control it has yet to be seen."

"You didn't need to dumb it down that much. Why is 447 the first to develop these abilities from the stimulant?"

"We're not sure yet, sir."

"Mmmmphh, fine. Leave me; I need to plan what to do with 447."

"Yes, sir."

---

"447 TO ROOM 36. I REPEAT, 447 TO ROOM 36."

"Ugggghh. I don't wanna!" I complained stuffing my face into the pillow on my cot.

It had been a little more than three weeks since my anger incident. But even so, I couldn't stop thinking about it. It hadn't happened since. I thought about what might have caused it: anger, stress, fear, desperation, panic, strong desire to protect dear ones. While unfortunately, those variables where replicated, they never ever caused me to produce that bizarre, unscientifically-explainable phenomenon happened.

I climbed out of my cot and knocked on the cell door.

"Hey, Jessie. Keep an eye on Riolu, okay?"

"Sure, no problem. "

"Thanks, man."

The two guards opened the door and eyed me as I made my way down the hall.

In my entire life, nothing like that has ever happened. How could it? I was born in real life. Nothing strange like that ever happens. Nothing at all like that happens. Just boring, plain, not supernatural life.

It was scary when it happened; it felt like an extremely heavy object was forced through my entire body.
Team Rocket had to have caused it; it's the only logical explanation. But that would mean they even worse than I thought.

We are they so criminal, so evil anyway? Did I really cause all of it? Why? All I wanted was to be a pokémon trainer, catch pokémon, challenge gyms, make friends and maybe even challenge the league. But instead all of this happens. Why could I not just be carefree in the world of pokémon?

I reached Room 36; the guards that stood there opened the door and let me through.
I stood in a large gym sized room; there was a large window on the right-side wall – an observatory. There was another large, cage-like door at the opposite end.
This was one of the rooms they used for testing, why am I in here?

I heard the booming voice of the Team Rocket boss come through some sort of PA system.

"WELCOME PRISONER 447. AS YOU PROBABLY KNOW, I'M QUITE UPSET WITH YOUR LACK OF COOPERATION. SO I GIVE YOU ONE LAST CHANCE TO DECIDE. GIVE TO ME THAT WHICH I SEEK, OR FACE THE EVENTS OF WHICH TO COME."

"Not sure why you said it like that, but I'm not giving you my blueprints. Or my research."

"I'M KIND OF GLAD YOU SAID THAT. NOW I CAN WORK TOWARDS MY OTHER IMMEDIATE GOAL. FACE YOUR FATE."

The gate on the other side of the room rumbled open very loudly, revealing a very large and very angry Nidoking.

"What am I supposed to do with him?" I asked, turning to the window.

A silhouette in the window began lazily pointing to its right. I looked, and on reflex, dove to the ground to avoid the charging Nidoking.

"Gaaaahh!" I shouted.

"What the hell? Why is it attacking ME?"

My thoughts were cut off as the Nidoking swing its arm down; me barely rolling out of the way. I scrambled to my feet as fast as I could and began running with all my might. The Nidoking, in its blinding rage, charged after me. And me not being very athletic, it soon caught up to me and rendered my attempt at running futile.

It rammed me in the back, and I cried out as I was knocked to the floor. I didn't have time to lie there though, because the Nidoking then picked me up by the foot and threw me across the room. I hit the hard ground and rolled a small ways, my hood flopping onto my head. I had been attacked before, and people larger than me were no exception in the list of assaulters, but this was: One, not human. Two, had a lot more stamina. Three, was much more powerful. And four, scared me so much I couldn't think reasonably.

I wanted to get up to get as far away from Nidoking as possible, but I was already out of breath from my running, and sore all over from the beating it gave me. I tried crawling (dragging myself) away from it, but it was already right next to me. Its arm came down, hitting me in the leg. It felt like someone dropped an anvil on my leg. Then it hit me in the back, like a block of cement falling on me. I never even saw all of this coming. A month here and Team Rocket decides to dispose of me? I never stood a chance.

"I'm going to die. I, am going, to die. I'm going to die is this god-forsaken Team Rocket base-ship whatever. I'll never see Ash and the others again-"

WHAM!

"Aaaahhhaa!" I screamed.

"I won't be able to live my dream after all."

WHAM!

"Gaaaaahhhhaaah!"

"I can't even tell Riolu goodbye."

WHAM!

I couldn't even scream anymore.

"I'm going to die, like I should have in that alley."

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPP!

A loud, high pitched noise echoed throughout the room.

I tried my best to cover my ears to protect them from the noise, but to no avail. The noise got inside my head, echoing and ringing though my brain.

The Nidoking must have been upset by it too, because I vaguely heard it storm off away from me, and then I couldn't hear it anymore.

The noise stopped, and I could feel something wet on my hands.

"RETURN TO YOUR CELL, 447."

My now-sensitive ears cringed.

"I hate Team Rocket. SO MUCH." I thought. "I'm going to hang that guy with barbed wire.

I slowly pulled myself up. I was amazed I could still move. My whole backside was sore and screaming in pain. My right leg felt like crushed powder.

Sliding along the wall, I slowly limped out the door and into the hallway. The guards didn't say anything as they opened the cell door and let me through.

"Whoa, what the hell happened to you?" Jessie asked, full of concern.

I didn't say anything. Riolu was standing by my cot, looking horribly worried. I picked him up and climbed onto my cot, curling up in a ball. I tried as hard as I could to shut everything out.

It didn't work.

Day- 34; Time- After sunrise

"Hey man, come on." Jessie pleaded. "You've been lyin' there for two days now. What happened?"

I didn't answer him. He was right; I'd been lying in my cot ever since I limped back from that dreaded room. I never let Riolu go, and I could tell he knew what I was feeling. I was scared, and that made him scared, which scared me more.

How do you deal with the fact that two days ago you could have been killed, you're completely helpless, and the only people who could save you are the very ones who threatened your life in the first place?

"I'm completely at the mercy of Team Rocket. I'm going to be stuck here forever. They'll get what they want from me one way or another. They really can do whatever they want. Why didn't they finish me off?"

…

"Are people really put on Earth for a purpose? Is their life plotted out ahead of them? Or is it really just everybody fending for themselves? Making actions that affect others; having the power over other people and their lives? Do we really chose our own lives?"

"You know, you can mope around over there all you want, but if you ever want to get out of here, you got to stop."

"I don't really want some pointless motivational speech. Just let me lie here. Team Rocket will want me for something soon anyway."

"Are you really just going to wait every day for Team Rocket to grab you, do whatever they want, and then toss you away?" Jessie asked. "If you want something to happen, you got to make it happen."

"I can't." I muttered.

"What?"

"I said, I can't." I repeated, slightly louder. "Don't you get it? We can't do anything, Team Rocket has us trapped here, they have guards and weapons, and we're on some freaking flying ship that, for all we know, is in the middle of some ocean! Do we really know anything about this ship or where we really are? We'll probably spend the rest of our lives here."

"Well, that'll make my plan more difficult."

I turned my head back.

"What plan?" I asked.

"Oh, you know. The one that every prisoner comes up with eventually." Jessie said, like it was no big deal. "I'll need help though."

"You're serious?"

"As serious as I can be."

"… So not at all?"

"Okay, that wasn't smart to say. I'm serious this time."

"447 TO ROOM 118. 447 TO ROOM 118."

I returned to my crestfallen state with the realization of what that meant. I got up slowly, not saying anything as I walked out the door again.

"Death row, next in line."

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I was one again trapped with the rampaging Nidoking, scared witless as in another raging fury, it tried to bash me to death.

I was scared, but I had slightly expected it, and had more resolve. However little it was. Jessie said he had a plan to get out of here and it was the only hope all three of us, me, Riolu, and Jessie himself, had.

I was given some sort of instruction: defeat the Nidoking by any means.

"What the hell? How do they expect me to do that? Is this some sort of game to them? Did they give up with interrogating me and are just toying with me to my death?"

I stumbled left as the Nidoking lunged forward striking at me with its arm. I began to slow down as I ran out of breath.

"No… I have to keep running. That thing… is going to kill me."

I suddenly heard Nidoking's cry as it slammed me to the side.

"Owwwhoowww…" I cried, clutching my side, on the ground.

Hearing the Nidoking charging at me again, I quickly got back up and started running again. It slammed into the wall, causing a huge crater. It didn't seem fazed at all, and gave a thundering cry of anger when it realized it had missed me. I soon reached the wall perpendicular to the one Nidoking crashed into. I leaned on one hand against the wall, trying to catch my breath again. I closed my eyes in exhaustion. And suddenly, I saw a flash of blue behind and around me.

"What the…?" I thought, opening my eyes and the closing them again. "What the hell is this? Aura!? I can't do that! Why can I do this!?"

I saw another flash through Aura that Nidoking was coming behind me at blinding speed. I dodged to the side and Nidoking smashing into the pipes running along the wall.

The pipes burst and hot gases blasted out, hitting me in the face. I cried out in more pain as my face was burned.

Now I was pissed. I couldn't open my eyes and that f***ing Nidoking just keep charging around like some ignoramus! Trying to bash me to death, and it's so f***ing infuriating how it won't stop. It's like when someone annoys you and you start getting pissed. And they won't stop so you just get angrier. And they keep going because they know it's making you mad.
That's what I felt, and I can't stand shit like that!

"Ahhhhhggg! God damn it! Leave me the f*** alone!" I yelled in anger.

My eyes being shut from having my face burned, I could still kind of see through Aura.

The Nidoking came at me again, swinging its arm at me again.

"Go AWAY!" I yelled, getting angrier by the minute.

I tried to avoid it, but I was to slow, and got hit in the legs, and was sent flying near the other wall.

"Grrrrrr, F*** YOU! Come on, you piece of shit! Do it, you dumb BITCH! Kill me already!" I yelled in more anger.

It kept hurting me, and the pain only made me more enraged. It charged again and due to the pain in my legs and being unused to Aura I could properly avoid it. It crushed me up against the wall and I heard several things break.

I finally lost all self-control and went into anger I hadn't been in since Team Rocket took Riolu.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh! I f***ing hate you! You shit; I'm going to kill you!"

I began punching it in the face as hard as I could, ignoring the pain in my hands as I bashed it with everything I had. I wanted it dead. I wanted to feel the satisfaction of ending its life. To show the infuriating piece of shit that I was better.

I went to swing at it again with my left arm, and it smashed my arm, pining it against the wall.

I could feel my arm splinter and I felt pain worse than anything I'd felt before.

(A/N: Another graphic content warning, if you don't want to read about serious harm, such as missing body parts, I suggest you skip to the line of bold font Xs.)

I yelled out in both pain and anger. I felt something again, like someone gave me a firm push in the back. Nidoking flinched back a little and, in blind fury, I dove my right hand straight at the Nidoking's eye. I didn't even fully understand what I was doing. I just wanted to hurt it, make it level with my pain. Get back at it. My hand went right into it and I grabbed at it with all my might.

The Nidoking quickly tried to pull away from me, and in turn, aided me in ripping its eye from the socket.

Blood went everywhere, I immediately let go of the eye as I fell back to the ground, realizing what I had done. I glanced at my arm and I saw, from the elbow down, my sleeve was soaked in blood. Pieces of my arm bone was sticking out of my arm and blood dripped to the floor. I had no feeling in my arm, and simply trying to move one of my fingers was met with searing pain. My arm was a bloody pulp. I felt nothing but the pain.

I leaned against the wall, heading for the pipes that had been broken earlier. My anger was slowly dying out, causing me to become more aware of the pain in my arm and where the Nidoking had hit me. I also noticed that it gradually became harder to see through Aura and my vision began to fade.

I focused on the far wall, as I slide across this one. The door I came through was to the right of the pipes, and I slide across the wall towards the both of them, leaving a trail of blood from my arm on the floor. The Nidoking recovered, running towards me again. It swung and barely missed, hitting just behind me. I kept walking as it swung again, missing a second time.

I had ripped its right eye out and it must have been making it difficult to see exactly where I was. The third time it swung, I had to duck, which almost caused me to fall. Its arm was wedged into the wall, leaving it stuck there for the moment. I stopped leaning on the wall and stumbled over to the broken pipes. One had been slightly bent outward; I collapsed onto the ground and started kicking the pipe, trying to force it to bend out more.

It slowly stared to give, as my sight began to falter. I glanced over at the Nidoking and saw it had almost freed itself. I began kicking it harder trying to bend out as much of the pipe as I could. I almost couldn't see at all, and I was trying to will myself to keeping it longer. I heard the Nidoking rip its arm from the wall. I smashed on the pipe as the Nidoking charged again, leaning forward into the charge giving it all its might. I kicked the pipe one last time as Nidoking closed in and I finally lost all sight.

I heard one last sickening sound and painfully opened my eyes as best I could. What I saw was the pipe I had force out had gone through the Nidoking's head, blood pouring from the entry and exit wounds. The pipe pieced through the forehead, just above the eye. I looked down and saw that Nidoking's horn and stabbed me a small ways. But didn't appear to be serious.

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The Nidoking still had anger in its lifeless face and eyes, slumped slightly as gravity was denied the ability to let it fall fully to the ground.

"Oh, shit. I'm, I'm still alive." I though as I closed my eyes again, relieving them of their pain. "Oh God."

---

"Well, that was unique."

"Unique!? Sir, with all due respect, he just destroyed hundreds of dollars of scientific research! J isn't going to be happy with this!"

"I'll be able to calm her. It is of no concern; the subject seems to be making progress."

"Progress!? Sir, are you really going to waste other research just to advance this person's pre-formed abilities!? He lost half his arm!"

"This man is an alien to our dimension! Yet he exhibits extraordinary abilities of which only extinct mankind has accomplished! I will not allow this opportunity to slip by Team Rocket's hand! With this, Team Rocket will advance further than we could have hoped. If we can develop these powers, replicate them, we'll be unstoppable!"

"But, sir-"

"Go! See to 447, he's no use to us dead."

"Sir-"

"Now!"

"Yes, sir."

The scientist left the room, preparing to fulfill his orders, leaving the Team Rocket leader in the room alone.

"Prisoner, no, subject 447. You will advance Team Rocket into the glory of world domination that I will command. With you powers fully harnessed and under my control, you will become a bigger help to me than you'll never realize."

---

Day- 42; Time- Unknown

I slowly tried to open my eyes. Cracking them slightly, I quickly shut them again. Everything was blurry and my head ached, my face still burned. I tried again, everything slowly coming to focus.

"What's going on?"

I was lying down, again. Bright lights were overhead, again. But I appeared to be in some sort of medical room.

"Am I in a hospital?"

"Increased brain activity! He's waking up!" Someone shouted.

"What? What's happening?"

"How? It's too early! Sedate him!" said some woman.

"Sedate!? Okay, I don't like this! I need to know what this is!"

"Brain activity still increasing! Sedate him now!"

I felt something prick my arm, and everything started to get slow and dark.

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Day- 43; Time- 8:53

"Uggghhhh, why does my head hurt so much?" I mumbled, slowly sitting up on my right arm. I went to move my left arm to rub the sleep out of my eyes and noticed I couldn't feel it.

"Great, did I sleep on my arm again?"

I sat up fully, and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes with my right arm instead. Now somewhat awake, I glanced over at my left arm.

"…I… o-oh God, oh God, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! What the f*** happened to my arm! It- it's still there. I know it is. Of, course it is. I'm just dreaming. I'll wake up and my arm will be fine, it'll be fine!"

I rolled onto my side, stuffed my face into the pillow and screamed.

"I lost my arm! I lost, my f***ing arm. Why!? W~hhy! How!?"

"Why did this happen!? What did I ever do, to have so much taken from me!? Is something going to happen to Riolu next!? Huh!?"

"It was your own fault. Your choices caused your consequences."

"Why. The hell. Are you here!?" I practically spit out the words in thought. No way did I want to deal with this right now.

"You are in great emotional distress. I'm here to make sure you choose the correct choices from now on, using what we know from everything that has happened so far."

"Bullshit. What the hell happened to you? Something's not right." I clutched my arm. Still praying that this wasn't real.

"I am merely fulfilling my role of your conscience and reasonable thinking."

"Tch, alright then." I scoffed in my thought. "Humor me. What are my options based on what has happened."

"Very well, as is my duty. Starting from the beginning, Team Rocket took you here because of your knowledge of breaching through dimensional barriers in order to gain access to other planes of existence."

"You make in sound so much better than I did…"

"We don't know much about where we are, except for that we're on a flying ship above a large body of water. We don't know what Team Rocket and the assimilated Team Galactic want with the knowledge but, needless to say, it would probably be a good idea for them to not acquire it."

"Yeah, common sense. You don't give the big bad evil guy what he wants. That's easier said than done. They usually use something as leverage to force you into caving in. Hold a loved one hostage; threaten a precious person or place or item. Or-"

"Control your thoughts. You're rambling. They tried to use electrocution, waterboarding, other miscellaneous forms of Chinese torture. Even that one thing with the plastic bag."

"Please don't remind me. There's a reason they call it torture. That plastic bag one was cheap, but very effective."

"And then they tried to use a mysterious chemical. When that didn't produce results, they turned towards Riolu. As we both know, you would simply not allow anything of the sort. Then the strange occurrence happened, some unknown shockwave expelled from your body like a sort of reflex. Of which never existed before. Which would mean that something recently has caused this. It could be an unforeseen mishap as a result of our arrival into the dimension, but as scientific laws and theories as well as popular fan-made works show, these abilities probably would have been revealed upon arrival. Another possible cause would be something Team Rocket has done, but it still best not to jump to conclusions."

"How come you get to monologue…?"

"Pay attention. After Team Rocket became aware of these abilities, they proceeded to reduce the amount of torture and instead made drastic changes such as locking you in a room with a rampaging Nidoking bent on murdering everything with absolutely no forewarning."

"Yeah, that was pleasant."

"Fearful of death, you did everything to stay away from that foul creature and when it was almost over, Team Rocket called it off. Why? What is their reasoning for that?"

"They obviously still want me alive. But was Nidoking just another attempt at getting me to talk?"

"Or was it something else? The second time they locked you with Nidoking, they told you to defeat it by any means necessary. That doesn't sound like interrogation. That sounds more like… like training."

"Training? Why would they train me? And what the hell for? This doesn't make any sense. You're screwing with me aren't you?"

"Of course not. I would say think over the facts yourself, but that's technically what we're doing right now."

"Another thing – how can you be my conscience AND reasonable thinking. Wouldn't one influence the other?"

"No, I am both, yet I am also only one."

"Don't go all cryptic riddles with me."

"Fine, I am both, but I can only be one at one time. I can't be your conscience and reasonable thinking at the same time."

"See? That's so much easier to understand when it isn't a freaking riddle."

"It's not any fun either."

"True. Alright, back to the topic."

"So Team Rocket could possibly be training us. Reasons, unknown. These abilities have to be involved though. Through your second fight with Nidoking you discovered that you could see using Aura."

"Yeah, that was pretty cool. Too bad I was scared shitless at the time. I wonder if I could do other things like shooting projectiles and barriers and stuff."

"I'm pretty sure that even the most skilled Aura Guardians had to use both arms."

"Okay, that was a low blow purely set on crushing whatever dream I was just having. Since when did thinking reasonably mean you have to be a dick about it? I just lost my arm, asshole."

"Pure, un-constricted facts. Taking what information you know and making logical, rational choices based on it. That's what reasonable thinking is. I don't have to be nice or mean about it."

"Whatever, guess I can x-out that wish. Continue, if you must. I knew this helpfulness was too good to be true."

"Since Team Rocket has helped with learning more about these abilities, whether it was enjoyable or not, it would most likely be best to go-along with their actions, but with extreme carefulness and attentiveness."

"Knowing more about my abilities would be good. But have you forgot that these f***ers made me lose half my arm!?"

"They didn't exactly cause it. They simply locked you in a room with a Nidoking and told you to fight it. They couldn't have known you would lose your arm. Anyway, it would be best to continue developing the abilities. It might be possible to use them to escape."

"Of course it's their fault. But fine, I'll play along. But those assholes are getting what's coming to them."

I heard someone approaching the room I was in. They came in through a doorway I would have known existed if I had been more aware of my surroundings.

It was their leader.

"What do you want Team Rocket?"

"Please, call me… Mr. Wise."

"Uh, okay? Any reason you paused be for you said that?"

"No. Not really. Now that introductions have been made-"

"A little late, don't you think?"

"-I must express that I am deeply sorrowed by the loss of your arm."

"Do me a favor and blow your false sorrow out your ass, prick."

"False? But if it was false, why would I have arranged a solution to your missing limb?"

"A solution?" I repeated skeptically. "How do you fix this, huh?" I asked, waving my stub arm.

"Team Rocket has the most gifted mad scientists. One of them claims he has a way to fix your problem. I just didn't have the heart to deny him. Although it is rather unfortunate that you woke up. Between your trip here and having to comatose you for medical treatment on your arm and the poison in your system, we've put so much of our sedatives into you. It's quite costly, so you'll just have to sit still for this one."

"Sit still?"

He started to walk out of the room as a man wheeling in a table full of equipment and machine parts came in.

"What the hell is that stuff?" I said, slight fear in my voice.

"Boss says that I get a promotion if this works! Oh boy, I'm so excited! I never get many people to try this on!"

"What do you mean 'if it works'?" My fear grew.

"Well, it's never really worked before, but now I'm certain!"

"I'm not okay with this!"

"This'll be so much fun!" He shouted, grabbing a saw.

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I walked slowly down the hallway, holding my left arm against my stomach. I slowly reached my cell door. I took a deep breath and exhaled.

Jessie and Riolu were in that room. I had been gone awhile. How would they react when I told them about my abilities and showed them my arm? On one hand, Riolu would be fine with the Aura but would be scared seeing my arm. Jessie wouldn't know much about Aura and he might flip seeing my arm.

I took another deep breath and walked to the guards, opened the door and stepped through.

"Hey, you're back! Man, we thought you were gone! I had to do my best to convince Riolu you were coming back. See Riolu? I told you everything would be okay."

Riolu, who was sitting on my cot wrapped in my blanket, came running to me. Moving my left arm inside my jacket, I picked him up. He started hugging me, sobbing uncontrollably.

"I'm sorry, Riolu. I'm sorry I took so long to come back. Don't worry, I'm here now."

"They locked you up with Nidoking again, didn't they?" Jessie asked.

"Yeah. They did."

"Hmm? Something wrong?"

I sighed. "This is going to sound weird, but… Things happened, things I don't fully understand. Team Rocket did something. Accidentally, I think. It's weird, but I think I can do some things with Aura. Like see with my eyes closed and stuff."

"Aura, you mean like the Aura Guardians? I thought they were the only ones who can do that?"

"I don't know. And there's this other thing too. When I'm angry I feel like something is being pushed through me, forcing things around me away. And then my head hurts, like I'm straining my brain or something."

"…what?"

"I'm serious! I don't know how, but it's true!"

Jessie was still looking at me skeptically.

"I'll prove it. Uh, Riolu stand over there!" I said, pointing to a spot on the floor. "I'll toss something to you with my eyes closed. That'll prove it, right?"

"Whatever."

I grabbed the blanket off my cot and wadded it up into a ball. Making sure I was facing opposite of Riolu, I closed my eyes.

"Okay Riolu, now move somewhere else." Jessie asked.

I waited, hearing Riolu move somewhere else in the room. Keeping my eyes closed, I tried to bring back that ability I had when Nidoking was attacking me.

After a few seconds of hard concentration, a faint blue vision began to occur. It was like a small window, and it was hard to make out details, but I could roughly see where Riolu was. Turning around with my eyes closed, I wadded the blanket up a second time and tossed it over to Riolu, where he promptly caught it.

Riolu looked from the blanket to me with a look of awe and surprise. And that made me feel kind of happy.

Jessie looked surprised, but didn't seem as disbelieving as before.

"Okay, so maybe you can use Aura or whatever, or maybe you were just lucky. I don't know. But if you can use Aura, I'm thinking it'll make it easier to get out of here."

"How are we going to do that exactly?"

"I'm… still planning it, actually. So I don't know for sure yet."

"Well, what do we do then?"

"We get our weekly rations tomorrow, right? I say while we're on our way to the cafeteria we take a look around. Try to learn more about the ship. We can do that a few times to get a better layout and hopefully find a way off this ship."

"That actually sounds pretty good. How do you come up with plans like this?"

"I've been here awhile. Long periods of time alone get you thinkin', you know?"

"Yeah…"

A moment of silence passed by, not weird or awkward, just an understanding silence.

"I should probably mention something else." I admitted, starting to get cold feet. "You see a small, teensy-weensy, little mishap happened to me will I was gone for a week. Actually, it's kind of the main reason why I took so long to get back."

"What'd they do?"

"Uh, this." I said nervously, pulling my arm out of my jacket to show them.

"Holy crap!"

"Yeah, I kind of had to get a replacement."

"A robot arm! I didn't even know we had medical treatment like that."

"It wasn't a doctor who gave me this arm. And believe me; I don't think anyone would want to go through what I did." I said, putting my arm down.

"Ri?" Riolu asked with a hint of fear, poking my mechanical limb.

"It's okay Riolu, it doesn't hurt. Honest." I rubbed my elbow, where I felt a slight tingle.

"So. Did Nidoking do it?" Jessie asked.

"Yeah, it pinned me against a wall and - you know."

"I hate this thing!" I shouted, punching the wall with me mechanical arm and not feeling the smallest bit of pain. "I'm a freak now! How many other people have you met with mechanical limbs!?"

"Maybe it's not all bad? At least you have two arms still. That's better than only having your real one, right?"

"No, I'd rather have both real arms."

"Well, if you're going to be like that. You better get used to that arm, because you're never getting your real one back." Jessie said sternly.

"Geez, that's unlike you. You don't have to be so blunt about it. Fine, I'll get used to this arm. Happy?"

Jessie had moved back to his cot and was lying down, facing the wall.

"Yeah, why not?" He yawned. "Just remember the plan."

I mover over and crawled into my cot. Riolu climbed up and joined me. Realizing that my jacket sleeve still had dried blood on it, it took it off and laid it on the ground.

"I'm surprised they didn't notice the blood."

Putting my left arm under the pillow, I slowly drifted off to sleep.

Day- 44; Time- Noon

I hated going to get rations. It was the only time were every prisoner Team Rocket had on this forsaken ship was put into one room. It goes about as well as you would imagine.

Every time, about two guys will get into a fight, a little ruckus results, and Team Rocket goons come in like some sort of riot squad.

That happened about five minutes ago. Now that things had started to calm down people began to look around more to find anything that interests them while they stood in the long waiting line. Usually they would just talk about other prisoners, and since I now had a metal replacement arm, they talked about me.

They whispered to each other quietly, I only heard a few things like "Look at his arm" and "The hell is that thing".

I really didn't care anymore. I just wanted to get the rations, go back to the cell and lie down. But, Jessie said we needed to look around first so I had to spend more time away from the comforting solitude of our cell.

After another twenty minutes (making a total of about two hours waiting) we reached the counter. Two guards stood on either side of the counter, one male, the other female.

The Team Rocket behind the counter was what appeared to be a High-ranking Officer. He had his head resting on his hand, clearly just as tired as we were of the long line.

"Number." He said, voice lacking any emotion.

"385," Jessie answered.

"447," I said.

"Names." Again, in the same monotone.

"Jessie."

"David."

"State your ration request."

"Two adult, one pokémon." Jessie answered.

"Show your proof of pokémon admission."

I dug into my pocket and pulled out the paper. I was a simple paper stating that I was granted permission to have Riolu with me. Apparently I wasn't the only one with a pokémon in their cell with them. Hard to tell, because the guards didn't allow the pokémon to go with prisoners to get rations.

The officer looked over the paper, verifying its legitimacy, before signaling to the two guards that we were cleared.

The guards handed us two large boxes and a smaller one, two adult weekly rations and one pokémon weekly ration respectively. Jessie took the two large boxes and I took the smaller one.

Walking out of the cafeteria, we headed to some barrels in the hallway and fished out two rutsacks.

"So why are we going to look around while carrying our rations with us instead of doing it before we grabbed the rations?" I asked, putting the box into my rutsack.

"Because now we can spend as much time as we think we can get away with looking around. And we don't have to worry about getting rations afterwards, when for all we know they could have closed up. Does going a week without food and water sound good to you?"

No, no it doesn't. Especially with how often I like to eat. And with what happened the last time I went an extended period of time without food, i.e. the Orphanage. That sound familiar to anyone?

"Yeah, okay. That- that doesn't sound good, no."

"So," Jessie stated, putting on the rutsack. "Now we look for anything of interest."

"Like?"

"Anything. Find out where the Team Rocket barracks are? Mark it down. Find the control room? Mark it down. Reactor room? M-"

"Mark it down. Okay, okay I get it." I said, answering for him. "Obvious stuff, alright. Now can we get this over with? I'd like to get back to Riolu soon."

And so we scouted around. Luckily, since there were so many prisoners, most of the guards and such were in the cafeteria to maintain control. Understandable considering that when all of the oppressed are in one spot, it's not hard to band together and rebel.

Peeking around the corner into another hallway, I saw that not all guards have left their posts. Two guards were standing by a rather important looking door.

It looked like the door was labeled (as apparently most doors are) but from this angle I couldn't tell what it said.

Needless to say, I'll mark it down as important.

Apparently, Jessie didn't consider that this could be a multi-floor ship, involving an elevator or stairs to fully access the rest of the ship.

Because that's what I ran into. An elevator.

I marked it down and decided that it would be a good idea to inform him of it. Since it's indeed a multi-floor ship, it wasn't a surprise to find that most of this floor was either prison cells or testing rooms.

Who puts prison containment and research on the same floor!?

Anyway, questionable work placement aside, I found what appeared to be their main research lab. Marking it down, I headed back to our cell since it was nearing the time we set to call off our investigating before it got any more dangerous.

I made it back, guards asked a few questions but I was able to brush them off.

An hour later, Jessie still hadn't arrived.

After another long wait, I heard commotion outside the cell door and Jessie rushed in, and then leaned against the wall.

He was covered in dirt and bruises and breathing heavily. I felt guilty realizing that I had more-than-likely made Riolu and Jessie just as worried when I spent days away from them.

"Jessie, what happened?" I asked, full of worry and concern.

"Agh." He moaned in pain. "Don't worry about it. I figured I follow in your footsteps and take a trip through the vents."

"What's about the bruises!?"

"Geez, calm down. It was just some vertical vents I fell down." Jessie explained.

I didn't buy it, but I didn't press him any further.

"So what were you doing in the vents?" I asked.

"Well, I found out the ship was more than one floor so I figured I could use the vents to check out the other floors. I mostly skimmed by but I found that there are four floors. The highest being the bridge and I think it's also has the Team Rocket leader guy's quarters. The floor below that seems to be mostly stuff for the Team Rocket grunts and the like, I also managed to glimpse some sort of storage room. The floor below that one would be ours, and I'm not sure what the last floor is, but I believe it's the mechanics of the ship since I noticed a sign pointing to it that read 'Engine Room'."

"Wow, you scouted out a lot. I'm actually ashamed of myself; I mostly looked around our floor. I found an important looking door that I couldn't figure out what it contained and I conformed that this floor is mostly a bunch of holding cells and testing labs." I paused for a moment. Then suddenly I realized something. "How did you find all that stuff out so quickly and easily? That normally wouldn't happen unless this was a videogame or some other form of media and the creator either wanted to speed things up or simply ran out of ideas. And as far as my experiences go, I can't consider this a game. Or a cartoon."

"I've been locked up here for two years. Team Rocket took everything: my family, my wife, my happiness, my freedom. They took my whole life, you know this. I'm determined to get out of here and put my life back together. If I have to crawl through some vents as fast as possible and find a way to get off this damn ship, then by Arceus I'll do it."

"Alright, alright. Noble enough, I won't bug you about it." I tried to quell my raising emotions as I added, "I'm sorry about being all depressed and pessimistic. I just didn't see how we would get out of this. I just couldn't see it with all Team Rocket had done. I guess it just kind of clouded my thinking."

"It's okay man, life might try to get you down like that, but you just got to look past what's putting you down, see past the torment. If you can just shut it out temporarily, you can recollect yourself to force through it. Keep your mind clear, keep rationalizing you options. Alright?"

"You're like some sort of mystic therapist, you know that?" I asked jokingly.

"Hey man, I'm tryin' to help you out!" Jessie shouted in mock annoyance.

We both ended up laughing at each other.

"Alright, let's go to sleep. Next week we'll look around some more, start locating the important stuff."

"Okay, we'll be out of here in no time."

Day- 128; Time- Unknown

I crawled through the narrow space, walls clinging to me, up to my waist in dust – I traveled slowly downwards towards the engineering floor.

Reaching the end of my tunnel, I jammed my mechanical fist between the folds of the vent cover before bending my hand back to rip the cover off the wall. Dropping it on the floor, I slowly eased my way out, landing on the floor with a stumble.

I glanced around, there didn't appear to be any patrols nearby. Holding back a yawn, I cautiously moved my way down the hall. After a few turns and corridors, I found my destination: the engine room.

Since it's been a few weeks, I'll bring you up to speed.

Over the past few weeks, Jessie and I checked out the floors of the ship as best we could, and thus hatched a few plans for trying to get off this prison.

The first one was to fight our way to the bridge and make their leader let us go, easy to see why that one was scrapped.

The second was to try to unite the other prisoners to rebel with us in one massive riot, and fight our way to the bridge to over throw those in charge and seize control of the ship. After a few attempts at convincing the fellow captives and taking a look at bridge security, that too, was scrapped.

The third was to try and escape through the main hanger, but we found out that the door controls were relayed through the bridge.

Another was to try and use some of the weapons from the armory we found to simply just fight our way out of the closest airlock, Scrapped because of lack of knowledge on what to do once out of the airlock.

Everything else was some variant of those plans I listed. So out of shear laziness and desperation, we figured we would make a distraction at something important and then try to override the hanger door controls our at least make some sort of exit there to make our escape. We had a few suggestions for where we would make the diversion. Due to my technological know-how, we figured it best to consider making a distraction at the engine room.

So that brings me to right now, as I'm currently on my way to check out said engine room. Just find a way in there, take a look around, see what we could do with it, and get back. Easy-peesy.

I finally reached the door to the room. There weren't any guards standing guard (what else do guards do?) at the door so I walked over there to find a way in.

Seeing that there were large bolts jamming the door to the ground, it was locked up tight. However, unlike the only doors that automatically locked when the day guards went off duty, this one had a panel. A panel that had a very easily removable cover. Sounds just like my cup of tea to tamper with. Except I don't drink tea.

I didn't have my screwdriver with me, since it was confiscated when I got here. But I was fortunate to be curious enough to have tinkered with my own mechanical arm. A tech-junkie with a mechanical arm, of course I'm going to mess with it. Carefully of course, this thing is hooked up to my nerves, as I expectedly found out the hard way. I've lost count how many times I've hurt myself while screwing with technology.

Anyway, I would be able to remove this panel without a screwdriver.

"Panel off… reconnect a few wires… disable a few terminals and… done."

The bolts unlocked, and the door slide open. I peeked in, and saw that it was empty. I walked in, and realized I hadn't walked into an engine room; I had walked into my version of a candy store.

I quickly began inspecting all the different machines in the room, when I located the large one in the back. It definitely was the main engine. The machine was in the back-center of the room with two secondary engines on either side. Behind those were a pair of cylinders containing a liquid I assumed was coolant. Examining the glass showed that it was made of the same glass as our cell floor, it wouldn't be breaking anytime soon. Connected to the engines was a quadruplet of relay generators, in groups of six. From there, large cables ran to two large machines and then out of the room into the other parts of the ship.

Scratching at the slight facial hair I had apparently started growing, I began trying to formulate a plan for making a distraction using the engine, examining the cables as I did so.

"Maybe I can disrupt the coolant flow and overheat the engine… No, the secondary engines would activate, those don't require coolant…"

After a few more ideas, a came to a fearful conclusion. There wouldn't be a way to turn off the engine. Not within the small amount of time we would have.

If the main engine was disabled, the second ones would kick in. If those were disabled, the relays would cover the slack long enough for someone to come down here, find the problem and fix it.

The relays also double as overflow storage. Any extra output that wasn't needed or wasn't requested would be stored in the relays to prevent energy waste.

Amazing how much you can find out by looking at things. Of course, you also have to have some understanding of what you're looking at. I made a few notes of these machines to help with my future creations. But fact of the matter was, we'd have to use some serious sabotage to stop this engine.

Not seeing much else to do, I headed back to the cell, grabbing my rutsack of rations I had stashed along the way.

Day- 129; Time- Before Noon

"So what's what you got from the engine room, huh?" Jessie asked.

"Yup, that's about all I found out."

"Crap. How are we going to find something to sabotage the engine room?"

"Maybe we should try somewhere else?" I suggested.

"Nah, the engine room is perfect; it's only a floor below us."

"Well, if I can't turn the engine off… a substantial amount of damage to the whole thing would shut it down."

"Smash it? I like it! But what are we going to smash it with?"

Jessie rubbed his chin in thought for several moments.

"I got it!" he said triumphantly. "We'll use some of the weapons from Team Rocket's armory."

He was smiling smugly.

I looked at him for a couple of seconds.

"I don't think guns will be enough to break the engine."

"We'll find something."

I was still doubtful.

Day- 136; Time- Early Afternoon

I sat on the edge of my cot, handing Riolu his rations while waiting for Jessie to come back.

He had said that after getting our rations, he would head to their armory while I made it back to the room.

Eventually he came back, covered in dirt, dust and bruises like before. I didn't question him about it.

He walked over to his cot and gestured me over. When I got to him, he gave me the rutsack as he took the rations out of it.

"So what's the weapon we're using?" I asked, growing slightly impatient.

"Don't worry, it's in there." He said, pointing to the rutsack in my hands.

"Okay, so what is it?" I asked.

"A bomb." He said, completely nonchalant.

"What!?" I shouted in panic, dropping the bag on his cot as I backed away with fear.

"Whoa, Arceus man! Be careful! You trying to blow us up?"

"Blow us up!? You're the one who brought the bomb! What the f***!"

"Relax! I know a thing about explosives. All you got to do is place it in the engine room, set it, and arm it. Easy."

"You're crazy! I'm not carrying a bomb!"

"All you got to do is bring it there tomorrow.! That's it! Then we're out of here! We'll be free! You can go back to your friends and that girl you like!"

"I never said I liked her!" I retorted, knowing full well that this was changing subject.

"It's obvious! Anyway, the point is that this isn't that big of a deal. It's the end!"

I was fed up with arguing.

"Grr! Fine! I take the stupid bomb! I better not end up a pulpy blood splatter in some corridor!"

I picked up the rutsack and brought it to my side of the room, but as far away from my cot as possible. I angrily crawled onto the cot and lied down, hoping that the bomb wouldn't go off in my sleep.

Day- 137; Time- Very Early Morning

I yawned as once again I found myself slowly crawling through the vents towards the engine room. I'm getting really sick of vents, but it is our only means of moving around. It's not like we can strut around freely.

I don't know what time it is, but it's very early. The sun hasn't come up yet.

I slipped out of the vent, and made my way to the door. Luckily, our timing was perfect. No patrols appeared to be out yet. I forced the door open the same way I did last time.

As soon as the door opened, I dove behind a machine. The room wasn't empty; there were about five T.R. members in the room still working. One of them glanced back at the open door, looked confused for a moment, and then shrugged it off as the door closed automatically.

"Why does it feel like someone is screwing with me like it's an attempt at making a moment of entertainment? Seriously, it's like some of the things that have happened have just been used as random plot.
Now by some manner of luck, or by some plot device, I have to make it over to the engine without getting caught."

I decided to shimmy along the wall towards the back of the room, using other various machines to hide. Now I was behind the engine, out of sight of Team Rocket. I don't know much about bombs, or any explosives for that matter. But it would be best if it was in an area that gave it the easiest way to hit your targets, right? Behind the engine would make it difficult to hit the relays, putting it on either side would make it hard to hit the opposite secondary engine. Putting it directly in in front would be unlikely with all of the Team Rocket workers around.

Readjusting my rutsack, I did what I figured would be the only solution. I started climbing up the engine. Being careful of moving parts, I slowly reached an area I could stand on. This part of the engine was thinner than the rest, with an overhang where the engine jutted back outwards. The engine, however, had enough space so I could get around to the front. Which is what I planned to do.

Crawling on my hands and knees I inched my way around the corner, then I crawled to the other one, and peered around it. I leaned back away from the corner, took off my rutsack, took the bomb out of it and examined it.

It had two counters on it, one that had numbers and another that read 'secs'. Pushing the up arrow for that counter, it now read 'mins'. Scrolling through showed me that there were ones for hours, days, weeks, months, etc.

"What an odd bomb." I thought, staring at the weird bomb. "Who makes a timer that lasts that long?"

"Right, that Team Rocket guy does." I thought, answering my own unspoken question.

I noticed the numerical counter had a decimal point in it.

"That can't really mean-" I pushed the up arrow. "Yep. Of course. Why wouldn't it?"

The counter went from one to one-point-five. Meaning one and a half of whatever I set it to.

I set it to four.

"Now it should be set to four days…" I thought to myself, repeatedly taping the up arrow to reach the desired counter.

"REQUESTING ESCOT FOR 447, 385 AND p#34 (Riolu) TO TESTING ROOM 1337. ESCORT 447 AND 385 AND p#34 TO ROOM 1337."

I jumped as the loudspeaker voice boomed and ricocheted off the walls of the engineering room. I hit my head on the overhang above me in my startled panic. I felt my elbow brush against something, and I heard a quiet beep.

Rubbing the sore spot on the back of my head, I quickly looked down at the bomb. I must've hit the button to arm it. Glancing at the timer I saw it had been primed to go off in…

4 months.

"F***. I don't know how to reset this thing. Damn it, I better get back before that escort arrives and finds me not there."

I scrambled out of the room as quickly and quietly as I could, not being nearly as stealthy as when I came in. I scrambled down the halls and back into the vent towards the cell.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"So why are we going to this room?" Jessie asked one of the guards for the fifth time.

"You'll find out when we get there, now shut up!"

"She's friendly, isn't she?" Jessie whispered to me.

"It's Team Rocket, when are they ever friendly?" I whispered back.

"Good point, what do you think they want with us?"

"I dunno, but past events aren't exactly giving me the most optimistic thoughts." I answered (in whisper), glancing down to make sure Riolu was next to me. I didn't like the look that guard behind me was giving.

We reached the door, and I recognized it as the door I had saw the first time Jessie and I went snooping around. The same one that had the label I couldn't read.

I still couldn't read it, do to the door being currently open. One of those little curiosities I'll never find out I suppose.

We walked through the doorway in to a large white room. The Team Rocket leader, Mr. Wise as he calls himself, stood in the middle in front of a large, metal double-doorway. I woman in a red robe, with silver hair and a red visor on was leaning against the wall near the door we came through. Our two escorts left us to join Mr. Wise by his side.

"Ah! Welcome, welcome! David and 385, glad you could come! Not like you had much choice." He said, tilting his cowboy hat.

I glanced at Jessie, who seemed to be quite angry at the lacking mention of his name.

"What do you want this time?" I asked angrily. I hated this guy and everything he had done. I felt that anger resurface itself.

"Why be so hostile? To think, I had gone and done so much as to let you out of your cell to allow you some exercise. Let you stretch your legs a bit."

"Stretch my legs? You going to send another Nidoking to chase me down?" I asked, gritting my teeth.

"Hey man, calm down a bit." Jessie said.

I barely heard him.

"Seeing your impolite manner, I'll get start to the point. You and your friend there are going to walk through those doors behind me and do a few challenges for me." One of the guards began to walk to the door behind us.

"Why would I want to do that?" I asked.

I felt something hit the back of my knee. My leg gave out as I was forced into a kneeling position. Something smacked the side of my head, knocking my glasses off as I fell over.

I looked up and saw a blurry grunt pointing something at me. I slowly raised my arms up as my mind went blank with fear. I heard Jessie shout in alarm.

"Hand me that gun." I barely heard Mr. Wise say, as his blurry form walked over.

The grunt threw the gun over to Mr. Wise.

"Now that we've come to an agreement. You will go through those doors and get through each room you come across. Got it?"

I didn't say anything, my mind was numb.

"Got it?" He repeated, slight threat in his voice.

I nodded dumbly, still lying on the floor.

After a few seconds of not moving, he sighed in frustration, I heard a bang, and all I felt was my leg on fire.

I screamed in pain, Jessie and Riolu screamed in panic as Mr. Wise walked out of the room.

"Get them through the doors." He said to the guards, voice full of annoyance.

I was vaguely aware of being half- carried half-dragged through the doors as I clutched my leg. Jessie and Riolu had tried to get to me, but other grunts had held them back.

I was dropped on the floor, as Jessie and Riolu were shoved through. The guards locked the door, as Jessie ran over to me.

"Oh crap! Uh, okay, okay, I'm going to help you, alright?"

I remained on the ground, going through some of the worst pain in my life.

Jessie looked around and spotted a First Aid kit on the wall. He ran over to it muttering something about luck.

Riolu was standing next to sobbing and crying in fear.

Jessie ran back over.

"Alright! How do you feel?"

"How do I feel? I'm in pain!"

"Ahhhhhhhhhhaaaahhhh! It feels like fire is crawling out of my leg!"

"Okay, try to hold still!"

Jessie tried to hold my leg still as he rolled my pant leg up. He grimaced at the sight of my blood covered leg.

"I don't see an exit wound! I think it's still in your leg!"

"Gaaaahhhh! Get it out!"

I barely saw him jab something in my leg, and the pain slowly died away, but I could still feel it burning.

"Damn it, hold still!"

I saw him grab some sort of clamp and he looked at me hesitantly.

"This will probably hurt."

I felt something enter the bullet hole and all the pain came back. I screamed even louder, and I jerked my leg.

"I said hold still!" Jessie yelled, pushing down on my leg.

It was like he was digging out the insides of my leg. Then, it felt like something was being pulled out of my leg. I felt it tug free, I and I screamed in a higher decibel than before.

"Okay, I got it." Jessie breathed out heavily. "It's out."

I had stopped screaming. It was more groaning in pain.

Jessie was wrapping up my leg. I felt tired; I was just lying on the floor now.

Jessie finished wrapping my leg, and had turned his head towards the rest of the room.

There was a door, a few buttons and a large sign with something on it. Jessie got up and walked over to the sign. Then he walked over to me.

Riolu was still scared; He sat next to me trying to make sure I was alright.

I was still scared, my leg still hurt, but I tried to help Riolu calm down.

"We're going to have to get moving, David. Think you can walk?"

I slightly nodded my head.

Jessie helped me sit up. Then he helped keep me upright as I tried to stand using one leg. I got to standing, but when I tried to walk my leg filled with pain and I let my legs buckle causing me to land on my backside.

"Ahhh! No, I can't move. Ah, that hurt!"

"We have to leave this room. Here, maybe you can lean on me."

He helped me up again. I put my arm over his shoulders and he grabbed it, holding me up. Putting my weight on my uninjured leg we made our way to the sign.

"A Pidgey famer also has Milktanks. He has thirty pokémon for a total of seventy-four pokémon legs. How many Pidgeys does the farmer own?" Jessie read.

There were three buttons with numbers on them.

"Twenty-three, fifteen, and twenty-six. It had to be a puzzle." I said.

"You're smart; you can figure this out, right?"

"I'll try." I answered, flinching at the pain in my leg.

I read the question over again.

"Great… I LOVE algebra. Not."

"Okay. Seventy-four legs. X plus Y equals thirty pokémon. X is Pidgeys, Y is Milktanks."

"What? X and Y? What are those?"

"New pokémon games." I said quietly.

"What?"

"They're variables. Substitutes for the Pidgeys and Milktanks. Pidgeys have two legs, Milktanks have four. Two times X plus four times Y equals seventy-four."

"Uhh…"

"X equals thirty minus Y. So that means four times thirty minus Y plus two Y equals seventy-four."

"You're losing me."

"Don't worry about it. One hundred and twenty minus four Y plus two Y equals seventy-four. Negative two Y equals seventy-four minus 120 equals negative fourty-six."

"Too much math." Jessie complained.

"Shhh. I'm thinking. This means… the answer's twenty-three Pidgeys. The farmer also has seven Milktanks by the way."

"Uh… So we push twenty-three?"

"That's the answer, yes."

Jessie pushed the button and the door opened.

"Yeah! Alright!"

"Great, can we get through the door? I need to sit down."

"Oh, sure."

We walked through and the door locked. Luckily Riolu was right behind us. Jessie led me over to the wall and I sat down.

"Ah!" I said; glad to relieve the pain in my leg (even if it was only slightly.)

Jessie sat next to me.

"Hey, I should of asked earlier. How did the bomb thing go? How soon do we need to get out of here?"

"Oh, um…" I hesitated. "Well, uh… It's armed." I answered lamely.

"So we need to get out of here quick!" Jessie exclaimed, standing up. "Come on, I'll help you up!"

"Well, actually… It's not going off that soon."

"Huh? Why, not? What's it set to?"

"Uh… Four months."

"What!? Four months!? Why!?"

"I accidentally set it to that while arming it. My arm bumped it."

"How could you be that clumsy!?"

"The loudspeaker came on and it startled me! That thing was loud in the engine room!" I defended myself.

"Well, let's hope we don't complete this too quickly."

I looked up at the room. There was a crate in the middle, the opposite wall had the door and at the top of the wall was a bunch of painting slightly blocked by a wall of glass.

Riolu wandered over to the crate and forced it open. He turned around and triumphantly showed us two fishing poles.

"Fishing rods?" I questioned.

Jessie took a fishing rod from Riolu and stood up. He walked to the crate and put his hand on his chin in thought.

He winded his arm back, and cast the rod up at the paintings. His hook stuck right through one of the paintings.

"What the hell are you doing!? Those are paintings! You're ruining art!"

He then reeled in his hook completely ripping the painting from the frame. Pulling at all way down, a hollow space was revealed.

"I bet there is something back there." Jessie said.

" You already ruined one, might as well ruin them all. Well, I'm not fishing anytime soon, so have at it."

He began ripping down painting after painting. After five paintings, Jessie could make out a lever in the hollow space. (I still couldn't see anything.) After a few attempts at hooking his rod on it, he finally got it stuck on the lever. Yanking his rod back, he flipped the lever and the do opened. Jessie put his fishing rod down and walked back over to me. Riolu was trying his best to help me up as I used the wall. Jessie helped me up the rest of the way and I leaned on him like before.

"Thanks Riolu." I said.

"How's your leg?" Jessie asked.

"Still hurts like crazy." I said through clenched teeth.

We walked through the door, and this time there was no door or anything. There was just a circular hole in the floor. Walking over to it (I limped), we saw that it was about a one floor drop. I couldn't see the floor, but there was water underneath the hole, I couldn't tell how deep through.

Jessie looked around the room.

"Well, guess we have to go down the hole."

"We can't do that."

"Why not? There's water down there. We'll land in it."

"That's the problem."

"Oh, don't tell me-"

"Yes. I can't swim." I admitted, feeling completely humiliated.

"Look, it'll be fine. I'm right here; you're not going to drown."

"No, I'm not going down there." I said defiantly.

"We have to! There is nowhere else to go!"

"I can't!"

I suddenly felt myself falling forward. It was a slight moment of confusion before I realized what was happening. When I did, I panicked.

I felt myself slip from Jessie's shoulder. And then I saw the blue water rushing closer to me. I closed my eyes and felt myself hit the water. For a few seconds I froze up. Opening my eyes, I realized I need to swim up. I tried, but the pain in my leg made me stop. I tried again, using one leg. I saw myself getting closer to the surface. My arms were quickly tiring out. I saw some sort of platform above the surface. I reached out to grab it, but my hand slipped off. I felt myself sinking again, but my arms were too tired to swim up anymore.

A hand appeared, grabbed my wrist and started to pull me up.

Emerging from the water, I saw it was Jessie with the help of Riolu.

I inhaled deeply as they pulled me onto the platform. Lying on the ground shivering, I tried to calm my breathing.

"O-okay… who pushed me?" I stuttered.

"Actually, you slipped."

"Oh."

'Are you okay?'

"Yeah, I'm fine, Jessie." I answered.

"Hmm? I didn't say anything."

"What? Didn't you just ask me if I was okay?"

"No, I was checking the room."

"Then who…?"

I glanced around. No one else was here; there weren't any speakers that I could see. Jessie didn't see any either.

"Who spoke to me?"

'I did.'

On some odd chance, I glanced curiously at Riolu.

"Did you ask me?" I thought.

Riolu looked up at me and nodded.

"Whoa, what? You can hear my thoughts?"

Riolu nodded again.

"That you who asked me if I was okay?"

'Yeah.'

"Okay. I not crazy, right? This IS happening right now?"

'Twenty-nine percent, remember?'

"Uh, yeah. I forgot you can hear my thoughts."

'Right.'

"So could you always do this, or…?"

'No. At least I don't think I could.' Riolu thought.

"This is… unique. This is like some sort of telepathy stuff. Maybe this has something to do with Aura?"

'I don't know.'

"Well, this is cool though! I can talk to you now!"

'Yeah, this will be great!'

"… So, uh. What should we talk about?"

'I'm not sure.'

"Well, it's not like this power is going anywhere. Or maybe it will. We need to get out of here though."

'I don't like it here.'

"That reminds me… are you okay? Do you, you know, need anything?"

'I don't want to be here anymore.'

"Well, get out of here. We'll meet up with the others and everything will be like it was. We'll travel with Ash as he collects gym badges, we'll watch May and Dawn compete in contests, we'll enjoy Brock's cooking. We'll be alright."

Looking around the room revealed that the floor was water with small platforms all over the place; there were buttons and levers in various places.

Jessie took another glance at the room.

"I'm gonna go back on what I said. I don't think we're getting through this anytime soon."

It definitely wasn't a quick completion, as we spent almost four months trapped in room after room. We went through so many tests and challenges it felt like Portal. We had been separated several times, we were only given food and water at the completion of every three rooms, I had never dreamt of a warm bed and a hot shower so much.

I remember a large maze were one of us guided the other from above the maze. There was a color puzzle which I'm sure took us an hour to do. Then there was one room that had us separated with a wall of glass. The floor was covered in square plates that pressed down when you walked on them. We spent a good forty-five minutes trying to find the plate that opened the doors, only to see buttons above our respective doors. Infuriating. All I want to say.

We walked out of the last test chamber, which contained a puzzle with sand falling from the ceiling. Water, sand, giant empty rooms filled with glass, how does all of this fit on this ship? I'm still on the ship, right?

This was an empty room with a table in the middle. It seemed to have a couple of bags on it as I neared it. Reaching the table, I saw my backpack and a duffel bag.

I grabbed my pack and checked its contents. Everything was still there.

Jessie grabbed his duffel bag and began walking towards the exit. Putting on my bag, I followed him.

Team Rocket was in this room. Mr. Wise, a couple of grunts, some high-ranking officer and that lady I saw before we entered these tests.

"Ah, you've made it out! Great! It was quite entertaining to watch, if only we had audio, to hear your frustration would have made it much more enjoyable."

"Nice to see someone enjoyed our pain." Jessie said sarcastically.

"Unfortunately, both of you are still here." He said, with mock despair.

"How's that unfortunate?" I asked. Every time I talk to this guy I get angry.

"Because now we have to do this." He answered, pulling out a handgun. The same handgun he shot me with.

"So I'm thinking rock-paper-scissors to see who lives, two outta three, that okay?"

"Why would we do that?" I asked, realizing how dumb of a question it was after I said it.

"Only one of you two is leaving alive. I'm letting you decide."

"No way! We're not-"

"Let's just do, David."

"What!? Are you serious!?"

"Do it!" Jessie yelled, getting his hands ready.

"Eyyyy, nice to see some enthusiasm! See, you grunts could learn something."

I reluctantly readied my hands. I don't want to win but I don't want to lose either. I settled on picking rock.

"Rock, paper, scissors." We said together.

I went rock, Jessie went scissors. I grew nervous.

"Rock, paper, scissors."

I choose paper, Jessie stuck with scissors.

"Rock, paper, scissors."

Both of us picked paper.

"Rock, paper, scissors!"

Both of us picked scissors.

"Rock, paper, scissors!"

Both of us picked rock.

"Rock, paper, scissors!"

My heart leap into my throat. I struggled to say something.

I choose paper. Jessie picked…

… rock.

I didn't know what to say, I didn't know what I could say.

"Well that's settled, here make it quick."

I looked at the Team Rocket leader. He was offering the gun to me.

I don't what I was doing. My mind went on auto-pilot as I took the gun from him. I glanced at the leader as a thought rose in my mind. The grunts behind him raised their weapons, as if they read my thoughts. Even the lady behind them raised her gauntlet thing.

I looked back at Jessie. He was already on his knees; I felt my hands start to shake.

"Do it, just get it over with."

"What is he saying!? I'm not doing this! Out of all the crazy things I have done, this is crossing the line! I can't do this. This immoral! I can't take someone's life!" The thought of the Nidoking entered my mind.

"No…" I said quietly.

"Do it! It's fine!"

"No, I can't…"

"Do it!"

"No! I… I can't do it, man. I can't kill you."

Jessie grabbed the gun and held it to his head.

"Listen, it's okay, man. I'm fine with this. Do it, but promise me that you'll return to your friends."

"H-how can you be okay with this?" I managed to ask.

"It'll be fine. I'm going to see my family again. Please, do it."

I looked away and tried to steady my shaking hand.

"I promise."

I squeezed the trigger and felt the recoil of the gun. I mistakenly glanced back at him. He fell forward to the ground; my shaky hand dropped the gun.

"Oh, God. Oh, God." I thought as I fell and crawled backward.

I couldn't stop staring at him, his lifeless body as the puddle of blood formed.

I felt sick to my stomach, I couldn't control my mind.

---

On a lonely back road, two automobiles sat smashed against each other. A small blue family car with a green SUV sitting on its crumpled hood, just in the windshield.

Inside the family car, a small boy around the age of five or six slowly began to wake up.

"Mommy, are we there yet?" He said with a yawn.

"Mommy?" He questioned when he heard no response.

Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, the boy saw his mother slumped against the passenger window, unobservant of the red that decorated the glass.

The boy undid his seatbelt and stood on the carpeted floorboards behind his mother's seat. Moving in-between the front seats he began to shake his mother's arm.

"Mommy? Wake up~" After a few seconds of silence he added, "Why won't you wake up? Please mommy, wake up."

Turning to the driver seat, the boy began shaking the arm of his father, who lay slumped over the steering column.

"Daddy, why aren't we moving?"

The boy's father remained still and silent.

"Mommy won't wake up. Why won't mommy wake up? Daddy?"

The boy shook his father's arm harder.

"Daddy, why won't you wake up?" the boy whined.

The boy turned back to the passenger seat, and tugged at his mother's arm.

"Mommy!"

His mother's head rolled to the side and the boy quickly became quiet. His mother's lifeless eyes stared past him towards the ground. Her still face ingrained into the boy's mind as blood trickled from her forehead.

"Mo-mommy?"

The boy began to cry, he didn't fully understand what was happening. Sobbing loudly, the boy began to wipe at the tears in his eyes.

He heard another soft cry behind him.

The boy turned around and saw a car-seat leaning against the driver seat. The seatbelt system appeared to have failed. The boy pushed the seat back to reveal a younger child. The small child cried a few more times before he too, grew still and quiet. The boy cried out loud a few more times before collapsing to the floor, trying to shut out the world as he cried out against the world.

---

I turned over and vomited. My mind felt numb and cold.

BOOM!

"What on Earth was that!?" Mr. Wise asked.

He turned to yell at the grunts behind him as another explosion was heard.

I couldn't think anymore, I once again felt out of control.

I felt as though I was watching a movie. I grabbed Riolu's arm and ran past the group who was completely unaware. I slammed through the door and was out into the hall. My peripheral was clouded as I ran and stumbled through the hall as more explosions rocked the ship. I must have re-opened the wound in my leg as the pain came back and my leg began to feel wet. Warning lights and sirens blared as I ran up the emergency staircase as quickly as I could. Guards appeared to be unaware of me as the rushed towards the bottom floor. I emerged into the hanger and saw that the control panel to the door was dead and unresponsive, and the doors where too thick for me to get past them anytime soon. I numbly sprinted back into the hall. I ran into an unmarked room and saw that it was filled with hundreds of golden statues of different pokémon.

A small part of myself tried to remind me of what that meant, but I ran on until I found a large disk.
It was the same platform I saw under the statues. I remembered them being the platforms Hunter J used to transport pokémon.

I heard a large booming down the hall, like something was smashing its way towards me. I could feel it getting warmer in the room.

"This is bad. There's no time to get out of here. Perhaps I can freeze myself and hope it'll protect me.

Yeah, that sound's stupid. Oh, well."

I reached in to my bag and pulled out Riolu's ball.

"Riolu, get in the ball." I said.

Riolu shook his head defiantly.

"Riolu, we don't have time. Get in!"

He shook his head again. Before he could react I activated the recall and sucked him inside.

"I'm sorry Riolu; it's for your own good."

I stepped onto the disk as I felt the heat increase even more, and the booming seemed like it couldn't be any closer.

I glanced down and saw a small switch that read 'Shielding'. I activated it and stood back up. Nothing happened.

The doors suddenly burst open as a wall of fire came rushing into the room. My eyes widened as I clutched Riolu's ball in my right hand as hard as I could and shielded my face with my left arm.

When the heat became almost too much, I heard a noise and suddenly everything went black.

Xx++xX

"I had put myself inside of one of Hunter J's transport disks. I actually set off the mechanism which froze me solid the same way Pikachu was. The glass formed around me in a protective shield as the explosion blasted me through the side of the ship into open sea." I finished, rubbing my metal arm. "I still can't believe it worked."

"So you made it to land, got free and made your way back to us?" Ash asked.

"That's right."

"The things Team Rocket did to you were so horrible!" Bianca shouted.

"I never knew Team Rocket could be so cruel." Brock said.

"So what was the ship?" May asked.

"The ship was actually a transport ship used by both Team Rocket and Hunter J. Team Rocket kept prisoners and test subjects there while Hunter J used it for storing stolen pokémon."

"That must have been the ship we were looking for half a year ago." Officer Jenny stated.

"We'll be able to stop Hunter J, and then we'll stop Team Rocket. I'm going to get back at them for all they did." I finished, hate filling my voice.

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Special thanks to Transmorphic Wyven, ultima-owner, and Cecil Lucario for following and/or favoring this story and/ or me.

Review Replies:

th3 br0 (guest): I'll sure try.

Okamisu: I'm glad that you are humbled.

Insert Unoriginal Title Here: Your right, so far its fine, but will that change? I love your name by the way.

Antex-The Legendary Zoroark: Thanks man! Even though its two months after you said so.

Species Unknown: Yeah, it was an experiment. What do you think of this as an answer?

Hotaru Shoharu (Ch. 6): I was trying to go off of Brock's observation of being able to tell whether or not he was lying or not since Brock was also suspicious of David when he was hiding his identity. Therefore, Brock would know how David acted when he was lying and Brock would be able to tell that David was telling the truth.