Pokemon Tales: Red Chapter 49: Dungeons and Dragons.
After realizing that he was left behind by the group, Alex quickly followed them through the hole in the wall.
"It's kind of worrying that we're the best Team Rocket has to offer, seeing as we can't even work together for half a minute. Then again, we're getting along better than ever before. When it's time to execute the boss's big plan we may even take time to discuss things before we do them." he said as he caught up to Green.
There were corridors leading in three directions and the boy was standing there and looking around as if he was trying to decide which path to take.
"Is it really that important which way you go? There's only three options so I imagine the rest of the group each picked a different one, but it's not like we know how to reach our targets."
"I have a different goal than the rest of you."
"Ah. You want to save the Pokemon that Darkness Gang is experimenting on. I don't imagine Peter or Archer really caring about what you do but shouldn't Tarieli know where they are since she was here before?"
"They entered from another direction the last time. This place is already a maze but there's also a possibility that they were moved after that mission. I don't even know if that was all of them."
"You're not going to save anyone if you spend the entire night standing here. Since there are only three paths then it would be best if we follow the ones that Tarieli and Archer took. Peter doesn't need, and most likely wouldn't appreciate, our help but…"
He looked at his Jolteon.
"...Which way did he go?" he proceeded to ask Green.
After the boy pointed towards one of the corridors, the Admin gave his Pokemon an order "Pin Missile!"
After a while, Alex told Jolteon to stop.
"Is that supposed to be an arrow?" Green asked while looking at the damage done to the wall by the dog.
"Oh, shut up. It's not like we have practice drawing with spikes. Just go the way Archer went and I'll follow Tarieli."
Green nodded and the two of them parted ways.
. . .
Peter was running through the corridors of Darkness Gang's base while glancing at every door and sign he passed, hoping that one of them could be a clue about where he should be headed.
"This place almost seems like it's abandoned. It's hard to tell how many people are stationed here but our plan must have worked and most of them have left in order to protect the outposts or to deal with our arrival. If one of the officers went outside I feel like we would be able to tell. Does that mean that there's a reason for all of them to stay inside?" the man thought as he kept on advancing.
At some point he realized that he ran enough to probably reach the other side of the base, yet he didn't encounter anyone. That didn't seem right to him so he decided to randomly open some of the doors he passed on the way. Most of the rooms looked similar to what they had in Team Rocket bases.
"That section of the building was just living quarters and this place looks like it has various storage rooms but… Isn't all of this too small?"
That thought gave him an idea. He threw the pokeball containing Haunter and pointed at the floor below them.
"Go check if there's anything down there and report back immediately."
Haunter focused and caused itself to become intangible before sinking into the floor. It returned quickly and nodded its head.
"Rather than risk you getting attacked, let's search around on this floor." he said before two of them started going through more rooms before finally finding what they were searching for "Did those assholes from Darkness Gang really take down the sign saying "elevator room" in order to confuse us?"
He didn't want to waste time by thinking about that any more than that and the two of them quickly went inside one of the three elevators, after checking that it wasn't a trap, and made their way down. There were only three buttons: "Up" "Down" and "Alarm". Judging by how long it took them the place they arrived at must have been around 40 meters below ground. Peter didn't understand why their enemies would go to all this trouble when their base was already well hidden but he imagined that he would find out soon. As he left the elevator he immediately noticed a bunch of moving walkways going in different directions. He was about to pick one of them at random when something caught his attention. He kneeled down and touched it.
"There's some kind of slimy substance." he thought before looking at another one "That one has some rice spilled on it. The other ones look equally suspicious. Looks like they're supposed to be clues but I have no idea what they're hinting at. If Alex was..."
Peter realized what he was thinking about and got mad at himself that he would start thinking about getting help from one of the other Admins.
"Let's just go with my gut." he decided before getting on the first walkway while avoiding stepping into the slime.
. . .
In another part of the base, Tarieli, who found a similar set of elevators, also reached the underground.
"Nothing about this place makes sense. There doesn't seem to be much on this floor so why are there multiple elevators? And it looks like someone left clues for us to find them yet they got rid of the sign which would make it easier to reach this place. Add to that the fact that these walkways don't cover the entire floor…"
All the questions made her momentarily forget what she was searching for, the Pokemon being experimented upon. It didn't feel like she would find them down there but she needed to at least check. She avoided stepping on any of the walkways and summoned her Zubat so that it could watch her back as she searched around this floor.
. . .
Somewhere above, Archer became the first member of their group to encounter someone. It was a man in a lab coat who tried to run right after noticing the Team Rocket insignia on the young man's clothes. Archer's Magmar used Flame Wheel in order to cut off the man's path, which gave its trainer a chance to catch up and grab the man by the collar.
"I'm looking for your officers. Mind telling me where I'll find them?"
"I don't know! I don't understand anything anymore! Please don't hurt me!"
"I won't hurt you… too badly… as long as you give me some useful information! Why is this place empty?!"
"It's our boss! He predicted that you would attack this base and he's ready to sacrifice it."
"Sacrifice? You're not making any sense. There are tons of your people fighting out there."
"I know it doesn't make sense! No one knows our boss's identity or what the hell is going on in their head. There's cameras around this place and he's using them to observe what is happening here. If the officers are defeated he's going to blow up the entire base."
"Huh. What if we leave this place?"
"He hears and sees everything. He'll probably blow it up before you're able to escape."
"Damn it. That sounds like a lose/lose situation for us… But wait… Why are you here if you know this place could get destroyed at any point?"
"We, me and other scientists that is, terminated all experiments and escaped through a tunnel going under the mountains but there was so much data left in this place, because of how fast everything happened, that I had to come back and salvage some of it."
"What kind of experiments?"
"We called it Project Chimera. It consisted of us trying to combine DNA of different Pokemon but also of Pokemon and humans."
"And by saying you "terminated" them you mean that…"
"Oh. We cut off their life support. We couldn't take them with us and they would die in the explosion anyway. We wanted to see if any of them would miraculously survive the termination process but alas…"
"I heard enough."
"Then you'll let me go?"
"Remember how I said that I won't hurt you too badly? I don't imagine your boss will allow me to follow the other scientists so unfortunately you'll have to take the full brunt of my anger."
"What are you going to…?"
Rather than answer the question, Archer flung the man onto the floor and started walking away.
"Flamethrower."
Magmar looked at its trainer with a confused face but, since Archer kept on walking, the Pokemon turned around and used one of its legs to pin the scientist to the floor before shooting a stream of fire at his face.
Archer kept on walking while listening to the man's screams.
"That's enough!" he ordered before taking a look at the scientist.
The man's face was burned beyond recognition and he couldn't utter as much as a word but as he lay on the ground he tried to turn around in order crawl away.
"Unfortunately for you, I'm not a killer. But I'm not about to let you run away. I will keep you in place so you can continue experiencing the pain you're feeling right now. Your only option will be to pray that this place ends up exploding. Otherwise I'll come for you and hurt you even worse."
Archer took a couple pieces of metal he found and used his Pokemon's fire to weld the scientist's limbs to a nearby wall, making it look like he was crucified.
"Okay, Magmar. We're done with this piece of shit. But we still have five… six… enemies to deal with."
He stared into one of the cameras, since he became more aware of them, before he started to retrace his steps in order to make sure that no one would follow him and learn about what just happened.
. . .
Outside of the base, the rest of the group was busy holding off Darkness Gang members while waiting for Red to meet up with them.
"Use more Smokescreen, Koffing!" Roger ordered his Pokemon.
He wasn't too good at fighting but he knew how to distract others. At least half of their enemies were keeping their distance, most likely worried that attacking through the cloud would make them easy targets. Meanwhile Angie and Dragonair were dealing with the rest.
"I didn't want this mission to happen so fast." the Admin addressed the group "I didn't have time to learn about you. Are any of you good at Pokemon battles?"
"I'm actually not that good at battles but as part of my training to become a food critic I sorta got involved with Team Rocket's medical department." Otari explained "I always have potions and other useful items with me. As for my Pokemon, there's only one but she's pretty tough."
As he ended his speech he threw a pokeball which caused a Chansey to appear on the battlefield.
"I also don't specialize in battles but my Pokemon has some moves that can make it easier for us if we would need to escape. Go, !" said Mary.
The Pokemon appeared in front of her and immediately created a barrier that stopped an incoming attack, before using Mimic in order to get back at the opponent with the exact same move that was used against .
"What about you?" Angie asked Nets after he remained quiet for a while even when the others gave their answers.
"He doesn't have any Pokemon" Otari answered for his friend "but he's quite possibly the most useful out of this entire group. That is if we can bring him back to his senses."
"I tried to stay positive about his attitude but we don't really have time to help him through whatever he's going through. We need him to help us or hide so that he won't get in the way or get taken hostage or something." The Admin said while looking at two opponents who managed to get past her Dragonair.
She jumped off a piece of rubble and knocked out one of them by kicking them in the side of the neck, but the other was too close so her only option was to try and block whatever would come her way. To her surprise, something shot past her and hit the attacker in the face, making them fall backwards. As she landed, she hesitated a little let down her guard but she couldn't see what happened without doing so. It looked like her foe's face was covered with some substance that looked hard and sticky at the same time. They passed out but even if they didn't it seemed like they wouldn't be able to get back up.
"What was that?" she asked her group since the projectile came from their direction.
"I… I know that Team Rocket members aren't allowed to use any actual firearms but… I hope this doesn't count." Nets said while using one hand to point at a gun he was carrying in his other gun.
It looked more like a toy than like an actual weapon but it already proved itself effective so the Admin didn't intend on questioning its capabilities. Instead, she became interested enough to approach the boy to take a closer look at the device.
"Is this like some super strong glue gun? Did you make this?"
"Yes and yes."
"So… do you have anything else up your sleeve?"
"I wouldn't say "up my sleeve" but yeah. I brought any of my creations that I figured could be useful in the heat of battle. For example… these." he responded before kneeling down in order to press some buttons on his shoe that the others didn't notice before then.
After doing so, he took a step and that was enough to make him spring up. It happened so suddenly that the enemies didn't think to attack him. He did a somersault and landed on the opposite side of Angie than where he was standing a moment before.
"I wouldn't explain how I avoid getting sick but…"
Before finishing what he was saying, he noticed a Geodude trying to get at him, so he did a lighter step, one that would make him fly just above the Pokemon and allow him to shoot the glue gun from a short distance.
"It may work like glue but it becomes heavier after sticking to something." he said as the projectile caused the Pokemon to plummet towards the ground.
"Isn't he acting weirdly confident all of a sudden?" Roger asked Otari after making sure that his Koffing's smoke would keep the enemies away for some time.
"I think he's just getting started." stated Otari "It's not that he became confident in his fighting prowess, it's just that he makes all these inventions but he's not allowed to test them out in the field and he's too shy to ask people to do it for him."
"Wait. You mean these are untested?" asked Mary.
"Uuh… Yeah. So?"
"So there is no way of telling if they won't malfunction or something is there?" she questioned him further.
As if jinxed by her words, Nets got surprised by another Geodude and used too much force while jumping out of the way of its attack. He soared high above the smokescreen and wasn't sure if he would be able to stick a landing without making himself an easy target. A group of Geodudes followed after him, linking their arms together to form a line so that he wouldn't be able to get past them.
"Iron Tail!"
As he heard these words, Nets looked up and saw something fly past him. The Geodudes also noticed it but it was too late. Raichu fell on them while spinning and even though its attack wasn't enough to split them apart, its tail wrapped around one of them and caused the entire group to get dragged down. The rat let go at the last moment and jumped off the head of one of the Pokemon and got itself to safety.
"Be frank with me… Did you wait for me to get myself into trouble before flying in to save me?" Nets asked.
After Raichu flew past him, he once again looked up as he was falling and saw a hand reaching towards him. He grabbed it and was saved from crushing into the ground. Moments later he realized that the hand belonged to Red flying on a Pidgeot, to whom he directed his question.
"I saw you do some insane stuff as I was flying here but I really made it in the nick of time, even though it would be cool to see what else you can do with your devices."
"Ahh. I guess I got a little too excited. But it's true that I have several other ones I would like to test out."
"I know I just said I would like to watch you show off but from what I'm seeing a bunch of our allies aren't here so firstly I'd like a quick explanation about what happened while I was missing."
Red directed Pidgeot towards Team Rocket while putting Raichu back in its ball. On the way there, Nets gave him a rundown of what he knew about their situation.
"Red! It's great to see you're ok!" Roger exclaimed.
"Y-yeah…" the boy responded while waving his hand, although his eyes wandered towards another member of their group and saw that person looking back at him before she quickly turned back and continued to give her Dragonair orders.
"So was your entire plan to wait for me?"
"Yeah. Kinda." answered Mary.
"And were these guys giving you trouble?"
"We're not exactly battle focu… We just went through this while you were doing whatever. I don't want to explain it again. But I guess that now that you're here…"
"We can go inside."
Red looked at his Gyarados who was managing to scare away most opponents without doing a lot of fighting. The boy whistled loudly to get its attention.
"I have an idea but I'm going to need your help, Angie."
The Admin approached him but she was still trying to avoid looking at him.
"What's your plan?" she asked while keeping some distance.
He moved closer and, feeling that she would try to step back, grabbed her hand, before whispering in her ear. She didn't have time to react to his movement since what he said was enough to completely change her mood.
"That's even more dangerous than what we did before!" she yelled at him.
"As long as we stay inside we should be alright so there shouldn't be a problem."
"I could just try to hold the enemies back and…"
"A risky plan is better than no plan. I trust in you… but doesn't mean that I wouldn't be worried that something may happen to you if you serve as our rearguard."
"Do you think they're actually coming up with a plan or just flirting?" Otari asked Nets, loud enough so that the people in question could hear him.
Red looked down and realized that he was still holding Angie's hand. He quickly let go and sideyed Otari.
"Alright. Let's do it." Angie decided.
"I mean your plan. Not the other… stuff." she added before Otari could make another snarky comment.
"Everyone, put your Pokemon back in their balls, especially you, Roger!" Red ordered the group.
"B-but… It's keeping so many of them away from us! Are you sure?!" Roger didn't understand what Red planned to do so the fact that he would worry was to be expected.
"Yes, I'm sure! That smoke is going to get in the way! Nets, turn off those shoes for a while and everyone huddle together so that you don't get burned!"
"Burned?" Mary asked in a confused tone while putting in its pokeball.
She looked at Nets but he was similarly puzzled. Nevertheless, all of them did as they were told. The six of them were standing with their backs to each other and Darkness Gang members started closing in after the smoke began to dissipate.
"Gyarados!"
"Dragonair!"
Red and Angie called out to their Pokemon and motioned for them to move towards them. After they were close enough it was time for the boy's plan to be set into motion.
"Start moving around us in a circular motion! Once you're fast enough use Twister!" Red told his Pokemon.
"We can't help you with this part since Dragonair forgot Twister long ago but we'll make sure to do our part." Angie assured Red "Dragonair, once I give you my word you're going to spin around and shoot your Flamethrower outwards."
Darkness Gang and their Pokemon got more confident since many of them assumed that their foes' formation meant that they were getting tired and decided to switch to defence.
After it made a couple circles around the group, Gyarados used Twister which combined with the pressure of air created by it moving around and grew to a bigger size than it normally could, effectively creating a wall of air with Team Rocket inside it.
"Now!" Angie shouted.
Dragonair spit out a stream of fire which got carried by the wind, changing the barrier into a fiery one. The two serpents had to keep on repeating their moves for some time because otherwise their protection would disappear but otherwise they provided their trainers, and the rest of the group, a perfect defence.
"That's so awesome!" Roger said while acting all excited.
"Do you have a name for this one?" Nets asked Red.
"Maybe something like "Fire Tornado"?" proposed Otari.
"Isn't that already taken?" wondered Nets.
"Who cares?!" Mary interjected "Let's just use this to get inside before someone figures out that they can still get in from above!"
"Wait. Won't we still need someone to protect our rear even if we get inside? Otherwise what's stopping them from going after us?" Otari realized that there was a hole in Red's strategy.
"I've accounted for everything! We're going to use Roger's Koffing!" explained Red.
The group quickly moved towards the building and once the tornado hit it, it started to get distorted, being unable to immediately tear down the metal. Gyarados also couldn't keep on using Whirlwind without hitting a whole so their shield began to disappear from the ground up and everyone ran inside the building through the hole created by Archer. Red and Angie put the Pokemon back in their balls while Roger summoned his.
"Fly up and use Poison Gas and Self-Destruct!" Red shouted.
"What he said!" Roger commanded his Pokemon as quickly as he could, even though he wasn't sure how that combination of moves was going to help them escape.
The resulting effect was that the fire inside the tornado caused Koffing's explosion to be much greater than normally, making the wall of air get blown away in all directions, carrying the stench of Poison Gas with it. The entire compound got covered in a mist of poison that wouldn't disappear for some time. Many of the Darkness Gang members and their Pokemon fell unconscious while some managed to escape the attack's range.
Roger put on a small breathing mask, which was a device distributed to all Koffing trainers in Team Rocket, and ran outside to grab his Pokemon as it fell down, but, to his surprise, the Pokemon suddenly grew larger and, as he soon learned, heavier, causing the man to fall on the ground.
"Hey, your Koffing finally evolved. That's great." Red said after seeing what happened from inside the building.
"Y-yeah. Great." Roger responded while massaging his sore back, after putting Weezing inside its pokeball.
. . .
Sometime earlier, Peter managed to reach the end of the moving walkway and arrived in front of a big metal dome. He noticed that he passed other similar structures on his way. Another thing he noted was that there were other walkways that ended near him which led him to believe that there must have been other elevators leading to this place. After he stepped off the walkway and onto a mat in front of the doors, he saw all the walkways stopping.
"So no matter which elevator you use, you get five walkways you can choose from but once someone reaches a dome, all the walkways leading to that dome will stop." he analyzed the situation "There's five of us inside this place so if all of us reach the underground then this is a way of making sure that we're split up and each of us has to face another executive. The question is… what would happen if someone didn't pick any of the five paths?"
He stepped forward and the doors opened.
"Well. It won't matter anyway." he said to himself "I'll take care of whoever is inside this dome and then move onto the next one. I'll finish them all before the rest has a chance to get here."
"You seem awfully confident." a weirdly nasal voice echoed inside the dome.
Once Peter was inside, the doors immediately closed and the previously pitch-black room became lit up and the Admin could finally see what he assumed to be the first of five opponents he was going to take down.
I'm back after like half a year. There is really no good explanation for this break. I just didn't feel like writing and stopped halfway through this chapter. Finally something clicked and I felt the urge to write again so here I am.
The chapter names in this arc have a naming scheme where each is named after a video game, so the first one is Bad Company and then this one is Dungeons and Dragons. I know that D&D isn't known for being a video game but there are video games in the franchise and the name fit for this chapter where half of the cast explores what's basically a dungeon and the others fights using two dragon/dragon-like creatures.
I gave the side characters some spotlight even though it wasn't much and Roger finally had something nice happen to him. I'm not sure about the match ups in the fights between TR and DG, especially since now it's going to be 11 vs 5. The weirdest thing is that I don't remember the fifth Darkness Gang executive and have no idea what the rice clue was supposed to mean so that'll be fun to figure out.
Also, I think for the first time I rewrote a scene after finishing it. Six months ago I wrote that Archer killed the scientist but it felt like the readers don't know enough about him to judge if that was going too far or if they should have expected something like that from him, so I changed the scene to something that is morally less evil but actually will hurt the scientist more.
Red. Team: Eevee, Gyarados, Pidgeot, Raichu, ?, ?.
At hand but not officially his: Scyther.
At Team Rocket Base: ?.
Badges: 4
Green. Team: Venusaur, Jigglypuff, Nidorina, Hitmonlee, Vulpix, Seadra.
At Team Rocket Base: Jynx.
Badges: 3
Blue. Team: Weepinbell(Bell), Blastoise(Tori), Golbat(Ken), Graveler(Grimm), Ponyta(Dasher), Electabuzz(Buzz).
Badges: 3
Alex. Team: Ditto, Vaporeon, Jolteon, Flareon.
Angie. Team: Dragonair, Sandslash, Seaking.
Peter. Team: Dodrio, Haunter, Gengar.
Blaine. Team: Magmar, ?, ?.