PoKéMoN
Avenger - by Ben Russell-Gough
Legal Disclaimer
Pokémon, the Pocket Monsters and their human friends and enemies are all the sole copyright and trademark property of Nintendo Entertainment, Game Freak Software and 4 Kids Productions. No breach of any copyright or legal property is intended.
Author's Notes
This is my first Pokémon fic. I don't know all the monsters or all the moves. I base my story purely on what I've seen of the cartoon. I thank all the other Pokémon writers on this board for providing plenty of inspiration. Special thanks to Charles "RocketBoy" Reilly, Wind, Joshua Falken, Chuchino and Catalina Storm for their comments, advice and encouragement.
Woo! After the negative darkness and anger of 'Sow the Wind…' I am ready to get back to my story. Be warned however, that just like Episode V of Star Wars, this Book is not a happy one. As RocketBoy pointed out to me, any fight against an organisation the size and strength of Team Rocket must have some distinctly bad patches. All together now: "To unite all peoples of our nation…"
Excuse me if this part is a bit slow-paced. Unfortunately (as you can see below) I've added a whole raft of new secondary characters. I have decided, therefore, to write a "How the Gang Got Together" part just to explain what the hell is happening.
Text in [squared-off brackets] indicates the translation of a Pokémon's language into English.
Text in Italics but not in quotes indicates thoughts or psychic communication.
Ages: Ash is 17; Misty has just turned 19; Brock is 25; Jessie and James are both 24; Richie is 17; Duplicia is 18; Sabrina is 20; Lance is 16; Joy is 29.
Censor: R (Equivalent to UK '15' Certificate)
Content Warning: Swearing, violence and mature topics
Book 2 – Team Rocket Strikes Back
What has gone before…
Ash Ketchum was a man on the verge of realising his dreams. After winning the Pokémon League Supreme Championship, he was well on the way of realising his dream of becoming a Pokémon Master. Then the cold hand of destiny intruded.
After learning that Giovanni di Rocketti, the mysterious leader of the terrorist group Team Rocket, was his father, he was confronted with his responsibility to stop Team Rocket's criminal rampage. Ash hesitated, but as he fought with his destiny, forces around him pushed him on a path he truly did not wish to pursue.
Team Rocket began to strike. First they slew Lord and Lady Viridian, the parents of one of their own Agents, James Weston. Grief-stricken, James, along with his partners Jessie and Meowth, quit and swore revenge. Then the same Team Rocket force murdered Ash's close friend Tracey Sketchitt. Realising that he could not avoid the path set before him, Ash led his four friends, Misty, Brock, Jessie and James on an attack against a Team Rocket base near Viridian City. The great crusade against the darkness had begun.
In his fight, just three things sustain Ash. First is his knowledge that what he is doing is right. Team Rocket must be stopped or countless innocents will suffer. Secondly there is Misty. Once she was just an annoying girl, but in the seven years of their journeys together, they had become closer. They are closer than friends are and closer than siblings. As lovers and soul mates they can face the world. Finally there is his uncanny ability as a Pokémon Trainer. Ash understands Pokémon better than anyone else, and can guide them in battle better than any other Trainer. The only one to share this gift is his father, and it is a factor that must, inevitably, bring them into a final conflict from which only one will return.
Now, six months after his first attack, Ash is leading a small but dedicated band against Team Rocket. However, even as they continue to strike, the forces of darkness are preparing to strike back…
And now the continuation…
Chapter 1 – The Sign of the Thunderbolt
"Put me down! Put me down for God's sake! You can't do this!"
"Stop struggling, ma'am. If you don't stay still, Venusaur might drop you and I don't want you hurt."
Reacting to the genuine concern in the voice from near her right ear, Joy Burke, the Head Nurse of the Pewter City Pokémon Centre stopped struggling against the vine whips that bound her arms to her side and held her over three metres off the ground. And to think today seemed so beautiful when it began, she thought in a resigned tone of voice.
***
It was a beautiful day in the foothills of the Icy Mountains where Pewter City nestled in its granite glory. Of course, today was a day of excitement in the usually quiet old industrial city. Everyone had either seen or heard the battle in the forest during the night. A well-equipped vigilante force had attacked and destroyed a hidden facility, rumoured to be a Team Rocket field command post, near the city. Security Police forces from as far away as Viridian City had descended on the area.
Joy had just left her house in the outskirts of town to walk to the Pokémon Centre for the morning shift. An empathic sort, she could feel the quality of fear and pain in the air from the battle. She hoped no one had been seriously hurt.
How had it come to this? She asked herself. Only six months ago, the island continent of Indigo was a fairly peaceful place. Then, almost without warning, someone had started a crusade against Team Rocket, the shadowy terrorist organisation that had been behind so many thefts of trained Pokémon and other terrible crimes. Now it was they who were the victims. In the last six months, nearly fifty of their hidden bases throughout Indigo, Johto and the nearby Orange Archipelago had been overwhelmed and destroyed. Tens of thousands of their agents were in prison. Everyone was wondering who was behind the mysterious symbol of two vertical lightning bolts through a circle. Who was Team Thunderbolt? The Security Police were helpless, and were reduced to trawling through the wreckage for clues that they knew would not be there. This poor region has become a war zone, Joy reflected. What next?
As Joy set out to work, for the first time in nine years, she thought about the over-intense son of the City's Gym Leader. He was just the sort of guy who would go off on a mad rampage, she decided. Suddenly, there was a voice behind her. "Nurse Joy?" The voice was young, just on the edge of maturity, with a slightly gravelly undertone.
"Yes?" she replied, turning to face the person who spoke. The first thing she saw, however, was a Venusaur looking at her in a determined way.
A Leech Seed arced through the air with pinpoint accuracy and struck her on the forehead. There was a hum of ozone and she felt a wave of weakness, nausea and fever race through her body. As the ground raced up to meet her, she heard the voice again, this time modulated by remorse and regret. "I'm sorry about this, Nurse Joy, but my needs exceed my means."
***
Now here she was, bound and carried by the Venusaur with a bag over her head. Joy was seething mad, but right now she was a helpless prisoner. She would have to wait before doing anything.
"Nurse Joy?" the voice suddenly announced. "We have arrived. Venusaur is about to put you down, but I don't want you to run. You are in no danger, but if you try anything foolish or heroic, I will have you incapacitated again. Do you understand?"
Joy nodded, then realised he probably couldn't see that through the sack over her head. "Yes, I understand."
"Good. Venusaur, please put her down gently."
"Venusaur!"
Joy felt the ground hit her feet rather hard, making her stagger. The pressure of vine whips eased around her arms. As she rubbed them to restore circulation, the sack was whipped from over her head.
Joy blinked furiously in the sudden light. She was in the forest somewhere, in a campsite set up in a small clearing. In front of her stood a tall, thin and rather mournful man with blue-black hair and a statuesque red-haired woman who wore a look of disdain. Both wore dark, subdued clothing. "Is this her?" the man asked.
"How can you doubt it?" asked the voice that had been with Joy all this morning. "Hell, she even has the same hairdo as her cousins!"
"It's uniform actually," Joy snapped, self-consciously running her fingers around the looped braids of her long red hair. "I hate these braids. Where the hell am I?" She whirled to face her kidnapper. He was about her height with a round, kind face and chocolate-brown eyes filled with kindness and humour. A Raichu hung onto the back of his jacket, looking at her with interest. The man's black hair was an utter mess, but what caught her attention was his paramilitary-style dress. I was wondering who was behind the attacks on Team Rocket, Joy thought with a sinking certainty. Now I am among them.
"You are in a forest clearing less than ten miles from the city limits," he announced. "Feel free to run. Oh, but you don't know what direction you want to run in, do you?" Joy scowled at the young man, who grinned at her impishly. A few laughs echoed from around the site.
"Look, son," Joy snarled. "I don't know what this is about, but I'm not laughing."
"Of course not," the man replied, sobering up. He suddenly stuck out his right hand. "Ash Ketchum," he said. "My name." Joy recognised the name, of course. He was last year's Supreme Champion, and now the continent's most famous missing person. What was he doing out here? Filled with uncertainty, she shook his hand.
Joy looked around the campsite again. As she watched, a heavily built young man with dark hair, assisted by a Machamp, moving a fallen log to block the track that she was certain she had been brought down earlier. A tall, almost ethereal blonde-haired woman sat in front of a tent in a lotus position, mediating. Joy's jaw dropped open when she realised that the woman was hovering six inches off of the ground.
"You've already met James, Jessie, Lance and Sabrina," Ash said with another grin, pointing out each of his companions in turn. "Richie and Duplicia are off guarding the perimeter and Brock is off scavenging some supper."
Brock? She thought. Nah, just a coincidence. Joy shook off the feeling of strangeness and turned to face Ketchum. "Well its' been nice meeting you and your gang," she said in a gentle tone. "Now, please tell me what you want."
Ash frowned slightly and jerked his chin for her to follow. As he led her into the tangled brush around the campsite, she didn't miss the fact that, while he had recalled his Venusaur, his Raichu remained out. It might be nothing, some Pokémon didn't like Pokéballs after all, but it might also be a threat.
"I won't lie to you, Joy," Ash announced in a firm voice. "You will have already guessed that we were behind the destruction of Team Rocket's field base near Pewter City last night. Now we've been pretty lucky previously," Ash sighed and Joy noted the exhaustion and bitterness in his posture. "But this time our luck ran out. One of our Pokémon was seriously injured and we lack the skills to heal him. That is where you come in."
"Well I'm flattered that you thought I was good enough to help," Joy replied. "But there was no need to kidnap me for God's sake. Just bring him in to the Pokémon Centre and we can give him the best care available." Joy suddenly stopped. Did I really just sound that naïve? She asked herself. Hello, Joy, anyone home? He's an outlaw vigilante. He's hardly going to march into a town that is now hip-deep in Security Police to have one of his Pokémon healed. Ash looked at her, noting her discomfort and embarrassment with a kind smile.
"Don't worry," he said. "It took me a while to get used to this life. Why shouldn't you feel a little out of the loop?" Ash walked forward and parted the bushes ahead. Joy walked past and stopped dead at what she saw.
A Tentacruel, one of the largest she had ever seen, lay partly in and partly out of a lake. The huge jellyfish-like Pokémon had massive rips and cuts in its' tough leather-like bell. It was lying on its side, its' giant dark eyes dangerously dull. Someone had done a fair job of patching him up, but it was a sticking plaster on a compound fracture in the face of such serious injuries.
"Tenta-aa-aah!" the massive creature groaned.
"Jeez, Tentacruel, please try to hold on," replied a distressed feminine voice.
Ash immediately raced forward and into the shallows. "Misty, how is he?" he asked urgently.
A thin young woman with shoulder-length ginger-red hair rose up from behind the injured Pokémon. Her narrow, kindly face was streaked with tears and her blue-green eyes reflected an agonised empathic suffering. "Oh Ash, thank God you're back. I think…" the woman, Misty, sobbed and had to swallow. "I think we're going to loose him." She collapsed into Ash's arms. Ash hugged her and whispered some words of comfort.
The sight of the distress on the two Trainers' faces decided Joy, who was really a kindly sort. "No you're not," Joy immediately announced. Heedless that it would ruin her neat dress, she took off her heels and waded in besides Ash and Misty. "Do you have a full medikit?" she asked in a businesslike tone.
"Several," Ash said. He pointed out several open medical kits on the shoreline. Some, she noted, had the distinctive red 'R' of Team Rocket in place of the medical Red Cross.
"What happened to him?"
"A Team Rocket Scyther happened," Misty said, her voice rough with emotion. "We didn't realise until later, but one of the cuts severed a major nutrient vein in the core. He's been bleeding for almost six hours and we can't stop it. We've tried a few restore potions, but they just start leaking out after a few minutes… He… he keeps blacking out and its been getting harder to make him wake up… I… I…" Misty began to cry and Ash hugged her firmly.
Joy ducked under the huge animal's bell and looked at the damage. It was nasty all right. The damage was repairable, but Tentacruel was already almost dead. He would not survive surgery without something to maintain his energy levels. "Damn it, I need Chancey here," she muttered. Ash cleared his throat. Joy looked and saw that he was holding a Pokébelt in his hand. It was her Pokébelt with her six Pokéballs. "Where did you get that?" she asked in an icy tone.
Ash had the grace to look uncomfortable. "Well, I figured you might have trained your Pokémon to help you. I… uh… took your pass card from your handbag and… uh… broke into the Treatment Centre to get it," Ash grinned uncomfortably and shrugged. "Sorry, but I couldn't just do nothing with Tentacruel so sick."
Joy tried to be annoyed, but found she couldn't. The kindness the two young people were showing and the amount of risk they were taking on behalf of Tentacruel were good marks in Joy's book. Besides, the theft showed a certain degree of forethought and planning, indicating that Ash had known what he had to do to get the best results. This wasn't just an ill thought-out stunt but a necessary risk by a group of desperate but fundamentally good people. "I'll forgive you," she announced in a regal tone. She looped her belt around her hips and pulled out a Pokéball with a medical caccaedeus emblem and tossed it forwards. "Go Chancey!"
The ball split open and her Chancey materialised on top of Tentacruel's bell. The ball closed and leapt back into her hand. Joy liked that part. Somehow, even though she loved her work as a healer, there was a part of her that longed to be a League Trainer.
"Now," Joy said as she considered what she needed to do. "Kindly get out of our way and let us get to work."
"No," Ash replied in a firm tone. Misty shook her head too. "We'll stay and help you."
"You'll only be in the way," Joy protested.
"Look Joy," Misty said sharply. "This isn't the Treatment Centre. You don't have your staff here to help you. We've done enough emergency care in the last six months to help you." The young woman shuddered and Ash hugged her before she continued in a quieter tone. "We probably know more about combat trauma in Pokémon that you do."
"Unfortunately," Ash added.
Joy looked at the two determined Trainers and, reluctantly, realised they were right. They sound soul-sick, she realised, her natural compassion rising again. What is so important that they have to keep on this crazy war even after suffering so much? "All right," she said. "Ash, I want you to get over by the medikits and give me what I need as soon as I ask. Misty, I'll give you a portable life-signs scanner. Tell me if Tentacruel's life-readings change suddenly. Okay?" The two young people nodded firmly and Joy sighed before continuing. "Then let's begin."
***
Joy lay back against a log, thankful for the foul-tasting military self-heating coffee that Richie had given her.
The sun was just setting and the operation had been a success. Pity about the clothes, she thought in a tired way. She was wearing a leaf-green military jump suit that one of Ash's colleagues, a cheerful fawn-haired woman referred to as 'Duplicia' had produced from an apparently bottomless knapsack of disguises. She was wearing it because her street clothes were drying on a rock nearby.
One of the complications of the operation was that Joy had to cut into the super-sensitive core of Tentacruel's body, an area so vulnerable that it was usually completely protected by tentacles and the thick armoured bell. Although Tentacruel was sedated and incredibly weak, the touch of the laser scalpel against his thin hide made him thrash madly, throwing Joy and Misty straight into the water. It had taken the intervention of three of Ash's largest Pokémon to hold Tentacruel still so Joy could clamp his severed vein and repair the other damage caused by the deep wound caused by a Scyther's sword-like arms.
Somehow, the damage was repaired. Tentacruel's HP was up to 25% of maximum when Joy last checked and it was clear he would make it. Misty was effusive in her thanks, as was Ash. It was puzzling but both seemed to share an equal affection for the other's Pokémon. There was obviously a deep bond between them, despite their relative youth. For the second time today, Joy found herself thinking of Brock Slate. She angrily shook her head and removed such unprofitable thoughts from her mind.
She concentrated instead on Richie Yeager. When she first saw the young trainer, she was convinced that he was Ash's twin brother. As she continued to watch him, however, she saw the differences. His hair was a light brown shade and his eyes were coloured a deep, hypnotic blue. He was slimmer than Ash, without the other's heavy muscular build and, most importantly, his slurred accent indicated he was from Celadon City or some other part of the agricultural interior. Ash had the more precise American accent one expected from Viridian, Pallet or one of the other older settlements. Even so, the two men were still very alike. It was one of those 'only their mothers can tell them apart' situations.
Misty, when asked, just laughed. She thought it was funny that they looked so alike. "A bit like you and your cousins," she announced, making Joy frown. She hated her resemblance to the other daughters of the vastly extended Mandeville family, all of whom seemed to end up in medicine. She had taken up the medical arts, not out of choice, but out of a certainty that it was somehow expected that she join her cousins.
"Richie," she said quietly.
"Yo."
"What are you doing fighting a war? You are a good enough Trainer to fight in the Leagues."
Richie laughed. "And I have," he admitted. "But Team Rocket has been causing more and more trouble and someone had to do something. When Ash formed his little group of adventurers, I was back home in Celadon. Then they came and levelled a Team Rocket base nearby. I recognised his style; no one is quite as original as he is. I sought him out and asked to join up." Richie shrugged. "We aren't friends, rather cheerful rivals if you like. But he had a dream of finally stopping Team Rocket's predation on ordinary Trainers. That decided me. I wanted in."
Richie stood up and stretched, disturbing his Pikachu, who he had already introduced as 'Sparky.' He settled the little electric mouse to his shoulder and walked over to sit besides Joy. "We've all got our reasons for being here," he explained. "Lance wants what I want: an end to Team Rocket's pillaging. He might look young, but he's already a Fighting-type Master. His Hitmonchan is the best trained I've ever seen. Duplicia… Well she's a weird one. I think she's just got this kooky attraction to heroic causes. She's actually a Ditto Master and a travelling entertainer, but she's also a brilliant infiltration expert and a deadly fighter. Sabrina…" Richie shook his head. "Sabrina is just about as weird as you can get. She's a psychic-type Master and a Gym Leader. I've heard stories about her that would make your hair turn white. She's a telepsychic in her own right and actually contacted Ash in a dream. She simply told him that it was her destiny to fight in this 'jihad' that Ash has started, her words, and teleported in with her Pokémon in the morning. She's got every psi-type in the book and then some." Richie leaned closer. "Don't spread it about, Joy, but she's got a Mew."
"A Mew!" she gasped. "I thought they were extinct centuries ago!"
"So did I," Richie said. "But she has one; a cute little critter really."
"What about Jessie and James?" Joy asked. "I'm sure I've seen their faces somewhere else, but I can't place them."
Richie grinned. "Working in a Pokémon Centre, you would have: on wanted posters." Richie seemed to enjoy the look of shock on Joy's face as he continued. "They used to be top agents of Team Rocket. They have lied, stolen and terrorised for almost a decade in service to Team Rocket."
"What the hell are they doing working with Ash?" Joy asked. "Is it some kind of trap?"
Richie shook his head. "It's a long story, but to cut it short: About six months ago James' family were slaughtered by Team Rocket during one of their little loot & pillage raids. Because of that Jessie and James finally figured out that Team Rocket had basically been lying to them and using them from day one. They quit, joined up with Ash, who had been exchanging lumps with them for seven years, and got down to a little revenge."
"Oh my God," Joy whispered. Now she understood the terrifying blank emptiness in James' green eyes and the perpetual worry in Jessie's posture. They were marked people, and living with a death mark was a difficult thing.
"As for Ash and Misty?" Richie continued, almost to himself. "Well, Ash doesn't talk about it a lot. I know Team Rocket murdered a buddy of his, but there is something deeper at work. He acts as if fighting Team Rocket is his duty or something. I can tell he hates it, but still he fights. Misty is the other half of his soul, so where he goes, she goes." Joy nodded; she had seen the connection between those two herself. "Brock is their closest friend bar none. He loves them as a brother and he would never, ever abandon them to fight alone."
"Brock?" Joy said, suddenly sounding worried. She had heard the name mentioned in the camp before, and needed proof that this wasn't the Brock she was thinking of. "Tell me about him. What is he like?"
Richie looked surprised at the sudden concern in her tone. "Here he is now," he said, pointing to the trail leading into the clearing.
"Okay, folks, I'm back," a cheerful voice announced. "I hope no one minds doing a little skinning first, though, I'm afraid there was no way I could get close to the shops in the town with all the SPs running around."
Joy looked up and saw the tall black-haired oriental man with the khaki pocket vest, accompanied by a Ninetails and carrying a stick with a half dozen rabbits hanging from it. She looked and was instantly nine years into the past. He was 16 and on a hormone high. She was 19, fresh out of college and lonely. She had been flattered at the young man's attentions. They had met, become involved and ended up sleeping with each other and… breaking each other's hearts clean in two.
"Brock Slate you fucking bastard!" she screamed, launching herself towards him. "I've got a bucket full of pain I owe you, you shit!"
Brock froze at the sudden unexpected attack, but seeing Joy broke him out of his paralysis. "Joy Burke… You… whore! If you want trouble you've come to the right place! Ninetails, Ember attack!"
Joy somehow stumbled forwards, dropping below the sphere of burning phosphorous that Brock's Ninetails vomited at her. She staggered to her feet and shoulder-charged him, knocking him back. She managed to get her hands around his throat before he slapped her arms away from him and put her to the ground with a solid left hook. He was about to jump on her when she kicked him in the groin. Brock folded with a groan, making Joy grin in pleasure.
Joy fastened her hands around his throat and began to squeeze. Suddenly his hands were at her throat and she was having a hard time breathing. A light-flecked blackness began to close in on her field of vision, but she was too boiling mad to notice. Both ignored the shouts from around them.
"Brock, don't!" That was Misty.
"Get off of him you crazy bitch!" Lance Hook… perhaps.
"Brock, let her go!" an authoritative voice shouted, Ash. "Joy, back off right now!"
Hands grabbed Joy's shoulders and pulled, but she resisted, just as she could see Brock resisting Richie and Sabrina's attempts to pull him away. "Let go," That was Ash, all right. He was right between them, looking at them with an anger that would intimidate a demon. When neither combatant complied with his order, he scowled dangerously. "Okay, if you two children want pain, I can arrange that. Back off, people." The others all released their holds and stood back. "Raichu, Thundershock."
"Rai-CHU-ai-rai-rai, Rai-ai," [One knockdown special coming up, Ash,] Raichu responded, electricity sparkling around his cheek pads.
The next thing Joy experienced was an agonising pain that made her whole body go stiff and unresponsive. Her hands spasmed open and her lungs refused to work. She heard Brock make a sound like a gargling choke, before the hand of pain released her. Joy hit the ground, her new jump suit smouldering with electrical burns.
Joy rolled over and enjoyed being miserably sick for a moment. She looked over her shoulder to see Ash helping a smouldering Brock to his feet. Brock lunged towards her but Ash stopped him with a look. "I can tie you to a tree trunk if you don't want to calm down, Brock," Ash warned him. Brock scowled for a moment, then shook his head and stormed off.
Joy staggered to her feet with Misty and Duplicia's help. "Alright," Ash snapped. "Do you want to tell me what the hell that was all about?"
"Ask Brock," Joy rasped. She turned and stormed away from the campsite.
***
"Do you want to talk about it, Brock-o?" Ash asked.
Brock was sitting down by a tree, grooming Ninetails, something he always did to calm himself when he was really mad. "It's none of your business, Ash," Brock snarled.
"But I think it is," Ash said, squatting down opposite his old friend. "Christ, Brock, you two were ready to kill each other with your bare hands… you ordered Ninetails to use an attack that would have permanently maimed her if Togepi hadn't kinetically pulled her feet from under her."
"It is what she deserves for what she did to me," Brock continued darkly.
"Don't do this to me, man," Ash warned. "Don't succumb to hate. Bad enough that I have to hunt my own father, I don't want you added to the list."
Brock took in Ash's genuinely worried expression and relaxed slightly with a groan. "We did a pretty good job on each other, you know," he said. "Have you ever wondered why all the Nurse Joys have such an effect on me?"
Ash grinned. "Me, I always thought it was because you were pathetic," he offered with a dry laugh.
Brock managed to smile in return. "She was the first, Ash: My first Nurse Joy and my first lover. Nine years ago it was. I was a teenager, just qualified to be my dad's assistant at the Gym. She had just been assigned to the Pokémon Centre as a junior nurse. What can I say? I've always been a sucker for red-heads." Brock shook his head. "We were lovers. It was quite a show Ash: Passionate, careless and spontaneous. But then things went horribly wrong and we ended up breaking each other's hearts. She killed a little part of me. The things I said when I found out…" He was crying, Ash realised with a start. Brock, the stalwart, the strong one, was crying with grief. Ash put his hand on Brock's shoulder as he lowered his head. "I said things to her that were horrible, venomous lies… but I said them anyway. I thought she had ruined my life, so I ruined hers." Brock gasped in a breath. "God I did things to her that were unforgivable. I said things… treated her like property rather than a person… I had no right to hurt her like that." Brock took a moment to get control of himself. Ash stood back, respecting his friend's feelings. "Why is she here anyway?" Brock managed to ask after a moment.
"I needed a full medic to help Tentacruel," Ash explained. "Pewter was the nearest Pokémon Centre to hand. I'm sorry, I should have asked."
"You weren't to know," Brock said kindly. "Besides, Joy is the best you could have found. What she does not know about Pokémon medicine isn't worth the knowing. Tentacruel is fine, isn't he?"
"She put him back together," Ash confirmed. "It was a miracle really."
"Miracles are Joy's business," Brock replied with a game smile. "They always have been."
***
Joy was sitting against a tree, crying her heart out. The bruises on her throat had settled down to just a dull throb now, and she couldn't even feel the electrical burns any more. What she could feel was her broken heart. She didn't look up when someone joined her. She guessed it was Misty.
"I brought you some burn cream," Misty said in a businesslike tone. "I've needed to fix myself up after Raichu got mad more than once, so I know the feeling." Joy managed a smile of thanks as she accepted the tube of cream from the young woman. "Do you want to talk about it?" Misty asked.
Joy shrugged. "It…" she coughed as she choked on a sob. "It's an ugly story, Misty. You don't want to hear it. No one comes out particularly well."
"Maybe I do want to hear it," Misty contradicted. "Brock is one of the most gentle people I know, and you are a nurse, a healer, yet you were both ready to kill. What could happen that makes you ready to do that?"
Joy swallowed again and looked into Misty's kind, compassionate eyes. She managed to laugh a little. It was ironic; usually it was she listening to some young Trainer's heartbreak, not the other way around.
"Nine years ago, Brock and I were lovers," Joy said. "Oh it was wonderful Misty. He is so kind and loving. He made me feel so feminine and alive. He was full of dreams and ambitions to become a top Breeder. I wanted to be there, to help him fulfil his dreams…" Joy's eyes misted over as she remembered those far-off days. Then her voice hardened. "But we were careless. God, I make it sound like we spilled a bottle of juice or something…" Another swallow. "He was young and on hormone power, but I knew better and should have warned him, but I guess I have always enjoyed taking dumb risks. I became pregnant with his child…"
"Brock has… a child?" Misty asked in surprise.
Joy began to cry, silent tears streaming down her cheeks. "It wasn't his fault Misty," Joy insisted. "Like I say, he was young and wasn't thinking straight. He found out, of course, he is just too observant to miss stuff like that." Joy hid her face in her hands before continuing. "He wanted to marry me. He said that he would give up everything to be with me and care for our children…" Joy coughed and had to pause before continuing. "I couldn't let him do that, Misty. I couldn't let him throw away his dreams because I was too wrapped up in having a lover to take the proper precautions. So… so I had an abortion…" Joy began to cry out loud now. "Oh God… I murdered our baby… I felt like shit… I still do… Just because I loved him."
Misty sat besides Joy and hugged the weeping woman to her. With a vague feeling of prescient dread, she knew what was coming next.
"Brock… was furious," Joy said after weeping for long minutes. "He called me things… names… horrible things…" Joy shook her head. "But what hurt the most was he was only saying what I felt about myself too. We had a fight…" Joy sobbed again. "He hit me… I called him names too. I turned on him and said things about him that I knew would hurt him… He started playing these hurtful pranks, trying to make me miserable… I… Oh god I am such a whore… I seduced his father and slept with him… tried to get myself pregnant by him because I knew that would hurt Brock more than anything else."
Misty hugged the other woman again, feeling the utter emptiness in Joy's soul. Thank God she had never experienced hurt like this. "Easy, Joy," Misty counselled. "Just let it all out."
"Before I succeeded in my plans, Flint suddenly left Pewter City without so much as a word of explanation to either of us," Joy said. "Brock blamed me… hell I blamed me. It wasn't until years later we both learnt that Flint wanted to become a League Trainer. I was convinced that I had broken his heart the way I had broken Brock's. I…" Joy managed a shaky look into Misty's eyes. "I threw myself from the top of the Boulder Gym… all for effect, cry from the heart and all that…" She shook her head. "Would you believe that it was Brock's Zubat that caught me as I fell? Brock just looked at me, recalled Zubat and walked away from me. The… disdain in his eyes… As he walked away, he took my soul with him. I have never loved or even thought of loving since." Joy finally stopped crying and straightened up, wiping her red eyes in an angry way. "So, Misty, there you have it. Brock managed to destroy my soul, but not after I had maimed his beyond all recognition. Ash shouldn't have broken us up. He would have done us a favour, letting Brock kill me."
"No he wouldn't have," Misty insisted. She shook her head and continued in her usual forthright way. "God, Joy, you are so selfish, going on a and on about your pain. Brock hasn't lost his soul and neither have you. You hurt each other, yes. But if Brock is angry, it is mostly at himself for letting you hurt yourself. I know him. He is the kindest man alive and I can see his pain when he so much as looks at you." Misty stood up and thrust her hands into the pockets of her khaki pants. "If you want advice, Nurse Joy, I would try to make some kind of peace with Brock. It is time for you to stop obsessing about what happened a decade ago. You both need to move on after all this time." Joy watched in some surprise as Misty walked off. Then she sighed and banged her head against the tree trunk, trying to think.
***
"So ends the tale of Brock and Joy," Brock announced. Ninetails looked up at him in worry and licked his hand in affection. Brock smiled grimly and tickled her between her ears. "I treated a wonderful, kind woman practically as if she were my private whore. I got her pregnant and expected her to drop her life to fulfil my private romantic fantasies. I broke her heart and dared to interfere when she tried to start a relationship with my father. Everything I did was to hurt her." Brock sighed and leaned back. "It would have been justice if she had throttled me out there. You should have left her to finish the job. God knows I owe her that much."
Ash shook his head in disbelief. "You talk so much shit. You know that, don't you Brock?" he said in a surprisingly tender tone. "What is it with people who have difficult emotional relationships," Ash asked, his voice getting louder with anger, "that it has to be their fault when things go a strange shape? Remember that you are talking to the expert here, Brock. When I was around 13 or 14, I almost topped myself more than once because I figured Misty would be better off with me dead." This came as a shock to Brock, who stared at his young friend in worry.
"I tell you what you are going to do," Ash said. "You are going out there right now and you are going to apologise to Joy, completely and honestly. And she is going to apologise to you. And if you don't, damn it, I will have BJ use String Shot to hang you both from a tree limb until you do. Are we clear on this?"
"Ash it isn't that simple…" Brock protested as Ash stood up and stormed off.
"Save it for the shrinks, I don't care," Ash responded in a harsh tone. "I'll give you five minutes to rehearse, then I'm sending Quilava in to flush you out."
***
"Are you sure this is a good idea, Ash?" Misty asked, her face showing worry.
"Good?" Ash asked. "No, but necessary, yes. The two of them have been poisoning their lives for the last decade over this, and I don't want it to carry on. It is the least we owe Brock, and Joy needs our help. Next time, there won't be a Zubat to catch her." He shrugged and smiled at her. "We formed this little crusading band to help people, didn't we?"
"My hero," Misty responded, shaking her head. "There are literally millions of ways this can go wrong."
"Ten dollars says she kills Brock on sight," James added.
"This isn't a joke, James," Jessie snapped.
James grinned. "Isn't it, my rose? I'm laughing hysterically here." Jessie snorted in disgust and Meowth sniggered nastily behind his paw.
"I'll take that bet," Ash announced. He spat in his hand and clasped hands with the former Team Rocket terrorist. He would pay for this from Misty, he knew, but it was worth it to have one up on James.
Joy stood in the centre of the clearing, her body language indicating that she would rather be somewhere else, anywhere else. After a moment, Brock walked out of the woods and stood just outside of punching range. He shot Ash a desperate look. To either side of the erstwhile lovers, Lance's Machamp and Ash's Graveler stood, watching the two humans closely. Between them, these two Pokémon could easily separate even the most determined of combatants. It might cost said combatants the use of some of their limbs but, hey, c'est la guerre.
"I sense no increase of hostility yet," Sabrina reported to Ash, grinning like a wicked witch, something that Ash secretly suspected she was.
"Um… Joy…" Brock finally said, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
"Yeah, Brock?" Joy replied, trying to sound casual, but failing
"Um… look, I should have said this a long time ago," Brock said. "Those things I said and did. I was wrong, God how I was wrong. I had no right to ask you to give up your life to bear my child and I had no right to decide who you slept with or didn't. I'm sorry. I am so very, very sorry. If I could take it all back and stop it from ever happening, I would."
Joy looked horrified. "Why are you blaming yourself?" She asked. "Brock it was my fault. I was acting like a stupid, spiteful little cow. You can't blame yourself. I am the one who owes you an apology." Joy's voice began to break into sobs. "I shouldn't have tried to hurt you the way I did… and I shouldn't have killed our baby. I'm sorry and I always will be sorry."
Jessie gasped off to one side. Ash took a quick look at her horrified expression. Of course, she hadn't even heard the story yet.
Brock's eyes filled with tears. "But I hurt you so badly, Joy. I said things, did things…" He straightened up and looked her in the eye. "Look, I can't ever really make up for what I did, but I can say this. I bitterly regret everything that happened between us, except at the beginning. That was the most wonderful time of my life, and I thank you for letting me share you."
"Oh Brock," Joy said, smiling in a silly way. "I was always yours body and soul. You made a homely little girl back from medical school feel so good about herself. I am sorry that I broke your heart, and I am sorry for all the trouble I caused you and your family. I have always felt that I was wrong… evil… to do that. Please only remember the good times if you can. The bad times are my burden alone."
Brock suddenly stepped forward and held Joy's shoulders in an automatic gesture of compassion. Ash winced and waited for the first blow, but, to his surprise, nothing happened. "No, damn it," Brock shouted. "You are not going to torture yourself about this. I know my own responsibilities and failings and those are my burden alone, mine. You are free, Joy. You always have been. I am the one who has to answer for what happened. Just pity Brock Slate, 'who loved not wisely but well.'"
"Shakespeare?" Joy asked with a slight smile.
Brock grinned back. "Othello, Act 5, scene 1," he confirmed. "I always felt it fitted us better than Romeo and Juliet."
Joy laughed. "You are so weird," she announced. She shook her head. "I could never stay mad at you in my heart. I want it over, Brock. I want to be free and I want you to be free." She looked at him and continued in a firm voice. "It is over. What is done is done and we must move on. I don't want the good things we shared poisoned forever."
Brock raised his chin and looked Joy in the eye. "The past is the past," Brock replied. "It is dead and gone. I would be glad to have you as a friend, Joy, if you can accept me. I want to remember our first time without tears."
"I will always remember with tears," Joy contradicted. "Only they are tears of joy. I loved you so very much, Brock. It was a good time." She was crying, Ash noticed. Brock, with an air of daring, reached out and wiped the tears away. She managed a laugh. "I would be happy to be your friend," she confirmed. "Besides, I am sure you have managed to score with one of my cousins by now."
"Oh," Brock said, his face flaming with embarrassment. "You know about that, do you?"
"How could I not know?" Joy asked, her eyes twinkling with mirth. "There is a fax with your face on it that circulates all the Pokémon Centres in the world saying: 'Nurses beware. This man is Pathetic.'"
"I bet you kept mine in a special place," Brock suggested, waggling his eyebrows. "Maybe blown up to life-size with a massive kiss on the face?"
"Actually I used it as a dartboard," Joy said tartly. Brock frowned with an angry expression.
Uh oh, Ash thought. He stepped forward. "Alright," he said a little too loudly. "You've made up and made nice. Now, I think we should get on with deciding what happens next."
"Actually, I think your cousins were mostly a rebound thing," Brock told Joy in a snide voice. "It wasn't the same, though."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, they were much too nice to be anything like you!"
Misty stepped forward too, fearing an explosion any second. "Graveler, could you separate them please?" she asked.
Graveler floated forwards as Joy replied with some venom. "Nicer?" she spluttered. "My God, Brock, they are pathetic. They are worse than you are, all full of light, cheer and sucrose! I can't see what anyone could see in them. I need an insulin booster every time I meet one!" Neither resisted as Graveler separated them and held them at arm's length.
"You know, Joy, that is your biggest problem," Brock said firmly. "You have never seen how anyone could choose to live a life differently from you." Joy frowned, but didn't reply. "They were so like you, physically anyway," Brock continued, "that I could tell myself it was you."
"Aww, how cute," Duplicia said with a giggle. Ash impaled her with a glare and she subsided.
"Really?" Joy said in some surprise.
"Yep, that and I was hoping that if I scored with one of them, it might make me forget it wasn't you," Brock added with a waggle of his eyebrows.
"That was the only reason? You wanted another tumble and they… looked like me enough to…" Joy started spluttering. "My God, that's pathetic… I… I… Ugh!" Joy turned and stormed off, her face twisted with disgust.
"Hey, where are you going?" Brock shouted around Graveler at her retreating back. Misty's eyes were suspiciously bright and even Sabrina was trying to hold down a laugh. Brock appealed to the only other member of the gang who was near his age. "James," he asked. "What the hell did I do wrong?"
"Don't ask me," James replied. "I don't know anything about women. They are as big a mystery to me as Ash's Legendary Pokémon."
"A mystery?" Jessie asked, outraged. "That is not what you told me last night, James. In fact you seemed very skilled in knowing what I wanted both in words and actions. You told me I was the key to your soul and that 'our joining completed you…' ooh… Oh Christ I didn't mean to say that out loud." Jessie's face flamed with embarrassment and she fled with James in hot pursuit, shouting reassurances.
It was the final straw. The other three women were all laughing their heads off. Sabrina was on the floor, holding her sides in pain and Duplicia was repeating bits of the preceding conversations and convulsing with laughter.
Ash, Richie and Lance looked around them at these events with a look of profound incomprehension and poor Brock looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him up.
***
"Primape, close up and give 'im a fast kick and chop!"
"Dynamic Punch, Geodude!"
Joy's Geodude turned into a whirling rocky bludgeon and knocked Ash's Primape flying across the clearing. "Woah!" Ash said. "Nice move Joy. I yield. Primape, return."
"Prime-ape-ape, Ri-ape!" [Cool move, Rocks!] Primape told Geodude before he disappeared and returned to his Pokéball.
Joy smiled in triumph as she recalled Geodude. She and Ash bowed to each other and she rejoined Misty, Jessie and James in kneeling in a semi-circle around Ash. She petted her Bulbasaur, who was still recovering from a toasting he received from Raichu and a soaking with Full-Restore Potion. "I am glad to meet your standards, Ash," she said.
"You do, and that surprises me," Ash replied. "I expected that you had 'adopted' some of the orphans that the uncaring creeps who claim to be Trainers dump at the Treatment Centre, but I hadn't expected you to keep training them. For a bunch of first-levels, they are pretty impressive." Joy shrugged modestly. "Now there is something you want to ask me," Ash added with a sly smile.
Joy opened her mouth in surprise. "How…?"
"Ash doesn't miss much," Misty explained, shooting a proud look at her lover. Ash smiled in response and bowed to her.
"So what is it you want to ask?" Ash asked. "You should talk to Raichu if you want to buy a 'Shock Brock' certificate. It only costs a bottle of premium tomato ketchup." He grinned and winked. "A 'Shock Ash' costs only half a bottle."
Joy giggled and took a moment to sober up before continuing. "The thing is that I want what Richie and Lance want," she told Ash. "I want Team Rocket to stop raiding Pokémon Centres and attacking Trainers. I want some kind of peace restored to our homes. The Security Police have spent decades doing nothing except making sympathetic noises." She looked Ash right in the eye. "Now someone is doing something about Team Rocket and I want a part of it. I want to join you Ash. You need a qualified Medic, and I hope I have proven to you that I can hold my own in a fight."
Ash nodded. His eyes narrowed as he considered the deceptively sisterly looking woman. "Do you know what you are asking of me, Joy Burke?" He asked. Joy opened her mouth to reply, but Ash rode over her. "This is not like any battle you have ever known, Joy. It is a war, without any quarter asked or given. It can only end with the destruction of Team Rocket or the destruction of this small band you see around you." Ash walked over and crouched right in front of Joy, looking her in the eye with an intimidating intensity. "If we succeed, we can go back to our lives. But if we fail, then we all face imprisonment, torture, rape, brainwashing, death or worse. Now, I will ask you again. Do you understand what you are asking of me?"
"I understand," Joy replied. "My father once told me that allowing an evil to go unchecked was as bad as being part of that evil. Now the chance has come to me, I can't turn my back on it. Whether it leads to the stars or two the abyss I must follow this path. So, Ash Ketchum, I am in. Whether this leads to victory or death of one form or another, I am in."
"So be it," Ash said, approval lighting his expression. He rose and stood back. Joy rose to her feet too and the two grasped each other's forearms. "I welcome you to this brotherhood of the hopeless, the insane and the simply heroic. I welcome you to Team Thunderbolt."
***
Next morning, the camp was packed away and the ten Trainers and their friends were ready to go. Ash was looking at an Ordinance Survey map of Indigo Island and talking to James. "So as I understand it," Ash said. "This base, somewhere towards the coast from Celadon City, is the home of Team Rocket's fleet for the Southern Sea."
"That's right," James replied. He traced out the Great Bay from Pallet around to Fuchsia City. "It is here, somewhere. Unfortunately, neither Jessie nor I know exactly where it is. Our base was always the HQ facility on Black Island."
Jessie nodded. "It was your father's greatest act of genius, creating this cell-like structure. It means one breach of security can't bring the whole organisation down."
Ash, who was considering the map, frowned and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "It is clever," he admitted. "Foolproof, indeed, against a conventional enemy. But we aren't a conventional enemy."
"Have you got a plan, Ash?" Brock asked.
"Yeah," Ash replied with a wild smile. "It's nice and simple, Brock. Lance will appreciate it, I think," he added, winking at the Fighting Master.
"What is it?" Misty asked in some exasperation. She hated it when Ash got into his 'role' as a mysterious leader.
"Simple, we find someone who does know, and get them to tell us." Ash looked around at his friends. "Didn't I say it was simple? Come on, let's get moving." Ash shouldered his pack, and with Raichu riding on his shoulders, he led Misty, Brock, Jessie, James, Lance, Sabrina, Richie, Duplicia and Joy… Team Thunderbolt, towards the Great Bay and the war they had sworn to fight.
To be continued…
