As it turns out, we weren't actually able to get to Lavender Town in a single day. We had to stop at Saffron City to rest. Also home to the psychic psychopath known as Sabrina, the Saffron City gym leader.
I made sure that we stayed in a hotel as far away as possible from the gym at all costs. Currently at this time, Sabrina hadn't encountered Ash and Haunter yet, so she's still a psycho for now. I really didn't want to find out what she would do to us if she read our minds and found out we were part of Team Rocket.
The next day, we went during the night just like James wanted to. Walking up to the Lavender Tower instead of flying there just made me more and more nervous as we progressed onwards.
We reached the tower after about 20 minutes of walking. When we did, the few townspeople who were still around hurried back into their houses while glancing back fearfully at the tower. Geez, I knew that the trio of ghost Pokemon in the anime were intimidating at first, but they were ultimately harmless and just wanted to make people laugh. You would think that they would eventually learn to get used to it, but then again I've never met a ghost Pokemon before so I'm not one to talk.
"Well," James started, "this is it. This is the place where we end up when we die."
"This is where I'LL end when I die, since this place is only for Pokemon souls." Of course, since I was basically just a human soul in a Pokemon body, I wasn't actually sure what would happen to me when I died. Maybe I would end up in Poke-Hell, who knows.
"Whatever, I can't wait! Let's go!"
James pushed the door open, and we made our way inside. We were instantly bombarded with the stench of rot and decay, not at all helped by the tower's seeming lack of ventilation. The only source of light here were torches that seemed to not get any smaller.
"Hey guys, look! This room has a bunch of recently collected skeletons! With flesh too!" James excitedly pushed the door fully open to introduce us to what seemed to be skeletons of a Psyduck, Slowpoke, and Lickitung.
I peered through the door. "Huh, the Lickitung still has its tongue on its corpse. Neat."
Jessie meanwhile was not having a good time, judging by the way she shuddered at our descriptions of the deceased creatures. Poor girl, don't worry you'll get to go to your place of choice soon enough.
While walking through the hallways of the tower, I immediately started to notice something strange. The Lavender Tower in the anime was supposed to be an abandoned mansion, with everything from a dining room to nurseries.
Weird. By this time, the ghost trio should have made an appearance by pranking us with their various cutlery. However, as we checked various rooms and went up the stairs, all that we could see were creepy tombstones and graves.
I felt a sinking feeling in my gut. Something here was definitely wrong, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to get to the bottom of it.
Jessie suddenly paled and pointed behind me.
"Meowth! B-Behind you!" I looked behind me and saw...nothing there.
When I turned back around though, I suddenly saw Jessie's face replaced with what looked to be a black ball of smoke with eyes and a mouth.
The smoke ball asked, "Meowth? Is something WRONG?!"
I heard hysterical laughter after that, which came in the form of two other figures phasing from below the floor. I breathed a sigh of relief, which was odd considering our situation, but I was glad that nothing had happened to the ghost trio.
Jessie frantically tried to wipe Gastly off her face, which proved ineffectual until it left by itself with a giggle. "What in the world was that thing on my face?!"
"That would be the Ghost type Pokemon Gastly," I answered.
"Really, that thing on her face was a Gastly? I didn't notice anything different." James decided to quip.
"What was that James?!"
"Nothing! I was merely saying that Gastly is a very beautiful Pokemon, which is why it reminded me of you!" Upon hearing this, Gastly, Haunter, and Gengar laughed even harder.
James was positively ecstatic at finally meeting ghost Pokemon. "I can't believe it! I've finally found them! Oooo I'm going to take a picture!" He pulled out a camera from wherever and pointed it at the ghost trio.
"Oh...they're not showing in the picture." He said in a dejected tone once it came out. Oh well, guess that means we could go now. I had no intention of having my soul played with, thank you.
Gengar apparently found it hilarious though.
"Heheheheh, I love these guys! They're much more fun than that boy and the ninja guy upstairs!" He clutched his belly while laughing. My ears perked up at hearing this.
"A ninja guy? What in the world are you talking about?" They couldn't possibly be talking about-no, this was the anime, these guys existing here is direct proof of that. Jessie and James shut up when they noticed I was trying to talk with the ghosts.
"What? Don't tell me you don't believe me?" Gengar asked in mock-hurt, "Why don't you tell him about it, Haunter?"
This time, it was Haunter who spoke. "Well, a couple days ago, an angry spirit came into our tower. It tried lashing out at us, which wasn't very fun, so we tried fighting back. The only problem was that we weren't having much success, because we honestly kinda suck at battling. We would rather have fun than fight people."
Gastly nodded, "Yah, yah, we suck at battling! But then this ninja guy came and promised us that if we let him use our tower, he would drive the spirit out of the tower himself! And he did it! Using his own Gastly no less!"
"And then yesterday, some random boy with orange,
An angry spirit? Were they referring to the Marowak ghost? Also, this "ninja guy" sounded suspiciously like…
"Hey, Haunter? What did the ninja guy say his name was?" I asked in what I hoped was a neutral tone.
"Oh. Err think it was something like Kogi? Yoga? Oh! It was Koga!" He seemed proud of himself for remembering that.
My eyes widened, I couldn't help it. "That's...that's impossible..."
Koga, the Poison type Gym Leader. In Lavender Tower. I instantly wanted to deny it, to say that there was no way it could happen, but I just couldn't ignore the truth. Why else was the Lavender Tower a mass graveyard and not an abandoned mansion like in the anime?
Because for whatever reason, the manga world was combining with the anime world. But why? Was it because of me coming here? I honestly wasn't sure what to think anymore.
I shook my head violently. Now wasn't the time to get stuck in hypotheticals.
"Thanks for the info champs." I said before turning to my teammates.
"We have to hurry upstairs, trust me on this!" I sprinted towards the stairs before my teammates could respond. They looked at each other once, before following my lead.
"You better have a good explanation for making us spend more time in this Arceus-forsaken tower, Meowth!" Jessie muttered under her breath.
After a couple of minutes, Gengar suddenly remembered something, "Wait, didn't Koga tell us we were supposed to stop intruders from passing through?"
"Eh, what's he gonna do, kill us?"
"AHAHAHAHAHA, you're right!"
.
.
.
"Heyyy, kid, I don't suppose you could let us go on through, ahahaha…" Jessie trailed off when she saw the boy's lifeless stare.
'So that's Green then,' I thought to myself. He was pretty recognizable, he almost looked like a carbon copy of Gary, except with slightly lighter hair. And a noticeable lack of cheerleaders around him.
"He's being possessed by Koga," I said to my teammates.
They looked shocked at this, and James replied, "And how do you know for certain, Meowth?"
"The ghost Pokemon from before told me so," I lied. It's not like they would know our conversation, and I'd rather not reveal why I know so much just yet.
"Charmeleon, Fire Spin," Green spoke in an emotionless voice. The fire lizard swished his tail, bringing about a huge ring of fire around him and Green. Our eyes collectively widened when we saw it growing towards us.
"Alright gang, do we have any options left?" James asked.
"Cry in the corner?"
"...Not exactly what I was looking for."
I tried to rack my brain for any solutions to beat Koga's Gastly. In the manga, Red used his Bulbasaur to absorb the Gastly's smog form and shoot it out in a Solar Beam. But we couldn't exactly do that here. So what else…
As if a light bulb went off in my head, I got an idea, albeit a risky one.
"James, can you bring out Koffing and Shimazaki? I think I have a plan."
James inquisitively tried to figure out what I was up to, but came up with nothing.
"I hope you know what you're doing." He picked out the two Pokeballs from his pocket. "Come on out, Koffing! Shimazaki!"
Once they stopped glowing, I immediately started to tell them what was going on.
"Okay, so Koffing? I'm going to need you to start absorbing that smog around that boy over there." I pointed at Green, still possessed. "Can you do that?"
"I mean, I can but-"
"Awesome! You should probably start now, or that Charmeleon is going to kill us all." I knew I was being a little rude right now, but it's now or never if we're going to survive.
"O-Okay!" Koffing floated over to where Green was and started to absorb the smog that made up Gastly's body.
Shimazaki walked up to me, "So is there anything you want me to do? Or can I go back to sleep?"
I nodded, "Yes actually, I want you to use Rain Dance around Charmeleon to stop the Fire Spin attack so that Koffing has more access to absorbing Gastly's body. Make sure it doesn't go too far in, we just want to stop the Charmeleon, not kill it."
"Alright, I can do that." Shimazaki concentrated and created a blue ball of energy in both her hands. When she shot it up, it disappeared in a burst of light. Rain started to fall soon after, and just like I predicted, Koffing was able to suck Gastly in faster.
Said poisonous gas Pokemon was understandably not at all pleased with getting sucked.
"Ahhh! Let me go you stupid balloon!" A few seconds later, Gastly's body was all but completely inside him. Seems like my plan worked without a hitch. All we had to do now was figure out what to do with Gastly's body.
"Urrghh," Koffing groaned, "I really don't feel good guys…" His body started to glow red.
"Umm, Meowth, what's happening to Koffing?" Jessie tentatively asked.
When Koffing started to glow at a faster rate, I realized what was going on.
"OH SHIT, HE'S GONNA BLOW!"
We all started desperately trying to back away, but we just weren't fast enough. Koffing had started turning bright orange at this point.
"I-I can't hold it any longer!" At these words, Shimazaki jumped into action. She teleported at Koffing's side, then teleported him and herself out of sight.
About five seconds later, she popped back into existence, accompanied by a bruised and smoking Koffing.
Silence reigned over us all as we came to terms with our near death experience. I asked Shimazaki, "Uhh, where exactly did you take Koffing to?".
"Oh don't worry! I took him to a place without any humans or Pokemon around." I trusted her words. As apathetic as she pretends to be sometimes, I can tell that she does want to be with us. If she didn't she probably would have just crushed her Pokeball and teleported away.
When the smoke cleared, James instantly rushed over to Koffing and tightly hugged him.
"Koffing, no! Please tell me you're alright, I'm sorry that I agreed to Meowth's stupid plan!"
"Hey!"
Koffing started coughing up smog and some blood as well. Shit, did I fuck him up too much? I hope I didn't.
"Please stop squeezing me so hard, master…"
"James, you should probably return Koffing to his Pokeball right now."
"Right, right. Koffing, return."
"So," Jessie started, "is that it then? Can we finally leave this Arceus forsaken hellhole?"
"Well, actually-." As I was about to tell her about the Arbok upstairs, I was interrupted.
"I'm afraid not." A level voice answered.
We turned around and saw the boy from before had woken up. He cooly assessed us, lightly scoffing when he saw me.
"Thanks for saving me from that Gastly. I don't know how long I would have stayed like that if you guys hadn't come along. I certainly didn't expect to meet a talking Meowth, of all things." He actually looked slightly impressed at that.
"But I wonder, who exactly are you guys and why did you decide to come to this tower, in the dead of night of all times?"
My teammates darkly chuckled, now posing ominously in the moonlight. Don't tell me they're going to do what I think they're going to do THAT right now?
"Prepare for trouble!" Yep, they were.
"And make it double!"
"To protect the world from devastation!"
"To unite all peoples within our nation!"
"To denounce the evils of truth and love!"
"To extend our reach to the stars above!"
"Jessie!"
"James!"
"Team Rocket, blast off at the speed of light!"
"Surrender now, or prepare to fall in the night!"
I rolled my eyes. "Meowth, that's right."
The boy just raised an eyebrow, then sighed. "I don't really know why Team Rocket grunts are helping me, but I guess it doesn't matter." He then gritted his teeth in frustration.
"I'm going to make that bastard pay for putting that spell on me!" He started walking away up the stairs. I decided to let him go by himself, since in the manga Green beat the Arbok entirely by himself without Red. In fact, you could argue that Red was actually slowing him down since Red didn't even try to fight it.
But before he went though, I wanted to do a little test. Mostly to assuage my own doubts.
"Hey, wait!" He didn't stop.
"Do you happen to be Gary Oak? Grandson of THE Professor Oak?" I willfully acted ignorant to see how he would respond.
He finally stopped in his tracks and turned around. I could see that he grew a slightly irritated, but resigned expression.
"No, I'm afraid not. Gary is my annoying younger brother. I'm Green Oak." He formally introduced himself for the first time. It took all the acting skills I had to act surprised at this.
"Ah! I see, yeah that makes more sense. By the way, are you sure you don't need any help with your whole revenge-on-your-captor thing?" I knew he would be fine, but I just offered it out of politeness-sake.
Fortunately, he refused, "Thanks, but I can handle this myself," he said, already walking away.
Once Green was out of sight, we all just took a moment to digest everything that happened to us tonight. It was supposed to just be a fun night of ghost seeing and maybe pranking a couple pranks on Jessie and James. Not whatever the hell kind of surprise revelation I got.
"So...I guess we can cross off Lavender Tower off of our bucket list then." Jessie stated, breaking the silence. "And thank Arceus too, MY chosen destination is much better than this."
"Do you think that we could at least take some pictures of those corpses that we saw before going?" suggested James.
"NO!"
"NO!"