In which Lyra lives out a childhood dream for many players.
The trip to Goldenrod City was surprisingly not infested with Team Rocket agents. Or, at least, not the ones in-uniform, since they couldn't tell what the humans they bumped into were. Lyra was dedicating herself to teaching Jolteon new moves, and though he picked up Pin Missile surprisingly fast, there was no Electric-type moves coming up.
"Maybe my grandparents can help that, too," she said to herself. She left Jolteon out of the ball, being very careful to keep Marill, Venomoth and Skyrocket close, and took the lead.
The reason for this became clear: she walked right into the Radio Tower and demanded to see the Rocket leader.
Naturally, she was laughed at. "Yeah, right," the grunt scoffed. "Like I'd take you to Petrel." A curious look was given to Jolteon, and the grunt made his intentions clear by bending down to pick him up, receiving a Pin Missile in retaliation.
Lyra backed away quickly, grabbing Ethan and Kris on the way.
"Plan B," she declared. "Visit Grandma and her Jynx."
Well, it seemed the Jynx had been hard at work, even when she wasn't helping Girafarig with Ditto removal. Her icy fingers and powerful psychic energy had apparently put together not one but three Team Rocket uniforms, one for each of them.
"That's what you talked to your grandmother about?" Kris inquired, more than a little uncertain about her friend's motives. "You wanted to dress up like Team Rocket?"
Lyra smiled brightly. "I even asked Jynx to make uniforms for you two," she said happily, ignoring that both of her friends were giving her strange looks. "I had a hunch we might need a few disguises. That, and I thought the uniforms looked pretty ridiculous, so I wanted to give it a shot."
Ethan and Kris shared a look, but didn't comment, instead reaching for their own uniforms. Lyra's fit perfectly even over her Mario costume, but Kris and Ethan's were a bit too big. Overestimated, they supposed.
But it was easily fixable, and soon enough all three were ready to use the extra layer of clothing to sneak around Goldenrod City. It was kind of heavy, but Ethan was sure that it would be easier to take off the uniforms on the run if they didn't have to worry about changing normally.
He looked over at Lyra, who was straightening out her hair as Kris twisted hers into a braid. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"That if My Little Pony wanted to have a character named Fancy Pants, they should give him some actual trousers?" Lyra guessed, knowing she was probably way off but voicing her thoughts anyway. From the looks of it, Ethan hadn't expected even her thoughts to be anywhere near that location.
"Uh, no." He didn't even know Lyra watched My Little Pony, and he'd known her for years. "Besides, if a My Little Pony character wore pants, their butt tattoos wouldn't show. I was talking about these Team Rocket costumes."
"Oh." Lyra returned her attention to her hair, her interest lost. "Were the costumes a bad idea, then?"
"No," Ethan said, swapping his normal hat for a pure black one Lyra had picked up at a thrift store. "It's actually a pretty good one. Professor Elm compared this to secret agent work, so why not go undercover?"
Kris looked up as she snapped her hair tie closed. "You mean, you were actually considering doing work for the bad guys instead of just sneaking past the guard?"
"What would you suggest?" Ethan retaliated, adjusting his new shirt. "Sending Skiploom and Venomoth to put everyone under Sleep Powder and not find out what they're planning?"
Kris hung her head in shame. "Actually," she said quietly, "that was what I was thinking."
"Well, don't be sad!" Ethan laughed, throwing an arm around Kris. She squeaked in surprise and looked at Lyra for help, but Lyra pretended to be absorbed in getting a particularly difficult knot out of her hair. Ethan didn't notice at all. "You have me to come up with the ideas, and you and Lyra can act as my wingmen! Wing women. Whatever."
Ethan had never known what Lyra liked so much about cosplay, but now that he was walking down the streets of Goldenrod City in a Team Rocket uniform, he finally had an idea. This was actually pretty fun.
His favorite part was walking into the department store, seeing a bunch of people looking scared, meanly snapping that he's there on Team Rocket business and handing out free Lemonades. The looks of utter confusion on their faces made the heaviness of wearing the costume over his regular outfit worth it.
He reminded himself that the mission at the radio tower was the most important part. Once they chased out Team Rocket, he could do good deeds in the costume all he wanted. So, he stashed the rest of the Lemonade he'd collected in his bag and joined his friends once again.
Kris was still uncomfortable with wearing the uniform of her enemy. Ethan and Lyra could understand, but they had a mission. The mission led them to the Radio Tower, where they were once again stopped by the guard grunt.
The grunt looked them over, humming in thought. "Aren't you kids the same ones with the Jolteon that tried to Pin Missile my face?"
Lyra put on her best clueless face. "Does it look like any of us have a Jolteon?" she asked in return, and the grunt shrugged.
"Can't say it does," he said after a moment of thinking. "I just remember seeing three little kids, two girls and a boy, and they looked a lot like you."
"Well," Lyra said, straightening herself up to her full, completely unimpressive height, "I'll have you know that none of us are little. We're just short."
The guard stepped aside. Lyra smiled happily. "Thank you," she said, and made to lead her friends up the stairs.
Unfortunately, they weren't the only ones that disliked Team Rocket enough to come storming through the Tower doors.
Silver stopped mid-step, looking from Lyra to Ethan to Kris and back to Lyra again. For a moment, it looked as though he'd suffered a great betrayal, not unlike Eusine when he'd seen Suicune with Kris. And then he stormed up to the trio, his usual fury plain to see.
"I thought I could trust you!" he snapped, yanking Lyra's hat off her head. "I thought you were the only ones capable of hating Team Rocket as much as I do. But you're a disgrace! All of you! You wear that uniform, and you don't even..."
He ripped the Rocket uniform from Lyra's body, revealing her Mario cosplay underneath it. For a moment, she and all the others stared at the shredded uniform on the ground, the hard work of her grandmother and the kind Jynx.
The next thing Ethan knew, Lyra had slapped Silver so hard that the redhead was sent stumbling back.
"You can call me names," she hissed. "You can pick on my friends. A verbal battle is almost as much fun as having our Pokémon compete. But you do not, and I repeat, not, yank off a lady's clothes!"
Silver cringed. This scenario had gone so much better in his head. Well, actually, it hadn't, since he had only seen the three in their uniforms and had snapped, thundering over without making a plan, but he certainly hadn't expected to get hit. Not by a girl, anyway.
He'd later acknowledge that she had quite a good hit, too. But at the moment, with the handprint on his face only a few shades off from his hair, he did the only thing he could think of in this situation: pull Kris and Ethan down with him. "And I suppose those two must be General Stupid and Colonel Smartmouth?"
The grunt looked again at Ethan and Kris, who stared back innocently. And then Kris picked out a Pokeball, throwing it into the air.
"Skiploom, use Sleep Powder!"
Ethan would later admit that perhaps Kris wasn't the worst idea-planner he'd ever met.
The quest was long, and the battles tiring, but our heroes trudged on. Team Rocket wasn't trying to let them pass, of course, but after losing badly to three kids, they didn't want to admit to failure and call for reinforcements. A big mistake in Seizing Towers 101, but making it easy for Ethan, Kris and Lyra to approach their destination.
When they reached the top floor, which held the tower's director, they realized something was wrong almost immediately. The guy wasn't being held hostage.
"Thank you for getting rid of Team Rocket for me," he said. "I was starting to worry that I wouldn't be able to do it all myself. A man takes a ten-minute bathroom break and all sorts of chaos falls on the studio." He laughed loudly, as if he were inviting them to join in. They didn't. "Anyway, it seems you've cleared the grunts, time for you kids to go home. Your parents must be worried."
Ethan's hand twitched toward a Pokeball. "You won't get rid of us that easily," he declared. "You're part of Team Rocket yourself."
The man cussed and glared. "What gave it away?"
"Team Rocket grunts don't like not having someone to give them orders," Ethan explained. "I think it makes them feel useless. Someone had to be pulling the strings here."
The man cracked his knuckles. "All right, so you figured it out," he said. "Big deal. The real director isn't here. And you aren't going to see him again."
"You handle this guy," Lyra whispered. "Kris and I will try to find the real director."
The man heard her, and laughed again, this time making sure they didn't take it as an invitation. "You're going to need the Basement Key for that, little girl."
Kris snatched a key from the director's desk and waved it pointedly. "You mean this Basement Key?" She took the man's sudden swipe for it as confirmation. "Yeah, I thought so. Come on, Lyra, let's speed this thing along."
"You meddling kids will never get away with this!" the man howled, and sent out a Koffing to chase after them. Ethan, however, had a Togetic with Extrasensory, and a Slowking ready to finally have another important battle.
Despite having the Basement Key, Kris and Lyra had no idea where the basement in question actually was. The final brainstorm was the Goldenrod Underground, where they had a brief conversation with a Kimono Girl who told them that they were going in the right direction. They thought they had a straight shot to the finish line, until they found someone else down there with them.
"Silver," Lyra groaned. "I really don't have time to deal with him right now."
Kris was oblivious to her friend's desperation, and looked nothing short of impressed. "Wow," she whispered. "He's starting to bruise. How hard did you hit the guy?"
"I don't know," Lyra whispered back, trying very hard to remain indifferent when she wanted to be smug or sorry. "I just got mad and put my anger into it."
Silver stormed up to their hiding place, pretending not to notice the large brown mark on his face. "Where is he?" he demanded, and the two shared a meaningful glance.
"If you mean Ethan," Lyra finally started, "he's caught up in another battle. This one's really important. He can't come to battle you."
Silver's eyes flicked between the two for a moment. "And he sent you here alone? Did he really think that you could handle the likes of Team Rocket on your own?"
"We don't really have a problem with using Sleep Powder on Rocket grunts," Kris explained. "We can handle ourselves out in the big, bad world."
Silver didn't take long to warm up to the idea, and when he did, he smiled for the first time in either memory. "I know you can," he admitted, gently touching the spot where Lyra's hand had left a mark. "I want to know if I can help."
Kris opened her mouth, perhaps to agree, perhaps to object. But it was Lyra that spoke over whatever sound her friend made: "Personal issues?"
"Too personal," Silver admitted.
Lyra grabbed him by the sleeve. "Well, you aren't going to get revenge sitting here talking to us. Come on, let's do this."