Disclaimer: "I own pokémon!" a very hyper Ark9 dances around yelling, "but only the ones on my game boy! …and they really belong to Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures Inc. so I guess I don't own them after all. Darn!"
Author's notes: I am hyper! Durr…um, well, Misty's "secret" plan is expected later in this chapter and that's about it. Even I don't know what will become of it in my state right now. Do you remember the symbols? You do? Good, 'cause I'm tired of typing them! ^_^;;
Friends to the End
By Ark9
Chapter Nine
Setting the Stage
But Misty's plan didn't go according to plan. Using Staryu, she zoomed through the woods to the clearing. It had looked so huge the night before!
She recalled Staryu and sat down to wait for Ash to find her there. She started thinking and suddenly wondered if Brock had anything to do with this. She had talked to Nurse Joy while she had been at the gym, but it was unlike her to intervene. Brock could have told her and then she agreed to do that…no. Brock would only be interested in getting together with Nurse Joy.
Suddenly she heard the grass rustle.
"Who's there?" she asked cautiously.
"So she did send you here," Daisy said while stepping out of the grass. Her other two sisters came out from the grass behind her as well as Bob, Rob, and Billy Bob (the terrible triplets).
"Huh?" Misty asked, confused.
"Clueless as usual! Do you think that Nurse Joy would do that on her own?" Daisy continued.
"I guess I thought it was a little odd…" Misty said.
"We like, got her to send you here. Wait a minute! Where's Ash? I can't, like, get my revenge if he doesn't, like, show up!" Daisy yelled in a very annoyed voice.
"How am I supposed to know?" Misty exclaimed. "Two hours ago, he was asleep, but Nurse Joy called and sent me here, saying that Ash was sure to come find me, so here I am! But the only other people here are you guys!" Misty shouted, about ready to punch someone.
"Chill out!" Lilly said. "We, like, have an idea. See he'll, like, come looking for you like Nurse Joy said, and then we can, like, get our revenge!"
"That won't work!" Daisy shouted back. "He probably, like, wouldn't be smart enough to look here! And, like, his Pikachu could beat us any day!"
"We'll get him!" Bob yelled.
"Yeah!" Rob and Billy Bob chimed in.
"Do you have, like, another idea?" Daisy asked.
"Sure!" Rob said. "But Misty's going to help us!"
"What are you talking about?" Misty growled.
"You'll see," he answered slyly.
"Come on sis'," Violet said while grabbing her arm and pulling her away.
"But—"
"Don't worry! You can write the riddle to Ash to get him to come here!" Daisy said sweetly.
"If you even think that I'm going to help them, than you must be crazy!" Misty shouted firmly.
"I think that you might want to help us once you find out what we are going to do!" Billy Bob said smugly.
"Might is the key word there, and the answer is no!" Misty yelled.
"You can't reject a plan you haven't heard yet!"
"We'll see," Misty said as she was dragged into the woods again.
*************
Ash sat up. Pikachu was still asleep. He decided not to try to wake it up. After all, it didn't like to be surprised. He was just starting to wonder what to do, when a staryu came spinning under the door.
"What's going on?" Ash asked, realizing that it was Misty's Staryu.
"Haaii-yaaa!" It replied and dropped a piece of paper in his lap.
"What's this?" Ash asked, getting more confused by the moment.
"Haaii?" it asked, not knowing what it was, either.
He read the piece of paper and then replied, "Thank's Staryu!" He immediately ran out the door.
"Haaii-yaaa!" it said and used its rapid-spin attack to speed ahead of Ash and out of sight down the hallway.
"Wait!" Ash yelled, desperately chasing it.
Meanwhile, Pikachu woke up to all of the screaming and rubbed its tired eyes with its tiny eyes.
"Pika Pika-pi?" Where's Ash? it wondered out loud. It poked its out of the door. He could hear Ash running down the stairs. *Why would he leave without me?* it thought sadly and decided to follow at a distance.
Ash, on the other hand, was wondering which way Staryu had gone. He ran all over town looking for it in places where he thought it or Misty might like, because especially Misty should know that he wasn't the best with riddles.
He had just about decided to give up or try using Blastoise when he realized that he hadn't looked in the forest yet. He knew that Misty would normally try to stay away from forests as much as she could, but he had shown her a clearing. It was the only place left that he knew she knew where was that he hadn't looked yet.
He didn't really think that she would be there, he just wanted to go there to think. He wasn't one who liked to sit around and think very often, but even he had to did it sometime.
Along the way, he thought he heard screams, but decided that it was just his imagination playing tricks on him. Well, that's what he kept telling himself…but he just had the feeling that he was being followed. Occasionally, he would turn around, just to see that there was never anything there.
*************
But Pikachu was still following. I was usually clever and it also knew that Ash frequently acted without thinking. That was why it was still following. In the trees, it could watch without being detected, but if he would fall into trouble (which tended to happen a lot) then he would reveal that he was there to get Ash out of whatever mess he got into.
The screams were also real. Who would wonder out there? Actually, another group who were trying to get their revenge over Misty.
*************
"So we just follow this twerp to the other twerp and then we'll teach her for making all of our customers leave!" James said in a clearly annoyed voice.
"Yeah, and while we're at it, we can snatch the twerp's Pikachu!" Meowth added excitedly.
"We don't want Pikachu, Meowth!" Jesse said, unusually agitated. "We just want our customers back!"
"Right!" Meowth said, not wanting to make Jesse mad right then, since they were already in a "hole" lot of trouble.
*************
Ash finally stumbled upon the clearing, but, to his surprise, there were three voltorbs sitting in the middle of the clearing.
They all started saying "voltorb" over and over again as soon as he arrived. Then one used an explosion attack and then disappeared. The second one did the same. The third one was about to blow itself up along with the other two when what looked to Ash like an electric shock had hit it.
"Volt!" it said in surprise.
Then Pikachu jumped out of the tree and sent its shock message again.
"Why are you exploding?" Meowth interpreted out loud.
Ash looked into the bushes behind him to see the former Team Rocket trio that always was getting in his way.
"What are you three doing here?" he shouted at them.
"We're looking for the other twerp, who wrecked our business!" Jesse shouted back. Ash didn't even want to think about what Misty might have done to upset them. She didn't think things through very often, either.
Meanwhile, Pikachu and Voltorb had finished their discussion, with the Voltorb still determined to explode.
"What did it say, Pikachu?" Ash asked.
"Pikachu pika pika." It says that the others are straight ahead of you.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Ash exclaimed. "Others?"
"Pikachu." Follow me. It took off into the woods, following a straight line back through the woods.
Eventually, they came to another clearing. But this one had a little cabin in the middle of it.
Dark vs. Spark
Suddenly, some funny music started playing and six dancers—three in girls' costumes and three in boys' costumes—streamed out from the woods.
*This keeps getting stranger and stranger* Ash thought, sweat-dropping.
The dancers continued their mysterious dance to go along with the song. When the song came to a close, they all froze out front of the small group Ash had accumulated. Then they took off their costumes to reveal…
"You!" Ash shouted.
"Chu," it questioned, sensing some danger in these people, who were normally friendly to him.
…(you guessed it) Daisy, Violet, Lilly, Rob, Bob, and Billy Bob.
"Yes, us," Rob said arrogantly, "Get him, Umbreon!" he shouted as an umbreon appeared out of the shadows with a rope.
"You, too, Houndour!" Bob yelled as a houndour appeared out of the shadows with another rope. Acting very much like Officer Jenny's Growlithes, they tied Ash and Pikachu up.
"Hey, don't forget about us!" James wailed.
"No, we're not here at all," Jesse and Meowth immediately yelled, picking up James and dashing away.
"I told you that I would, like, make you pay!" Daisy said, feeling very pleased with herself.
"Now you're final poké-problem! Goooo, Murkrow!" Billy Bob shouted. From somewhere in the treetops, a dark bird pokémon that looked like it was wearing a witches hat dove sharply down towards Ash, armed with yet another rope. It looped its rope around them and tied them in a tree.
"Neh, neh!" Billy Bob yelled and pulled down the skin under his eye. They all ran, laughing, into the woods, in the general direction of Cerulean City.
"Can you wiggle out, Pikachu?" Ash asked, hopefully.
"Pi-kaaaa," No. it said sadly.
"Aw…I can't reach my pokémon like this either!" he frowned. Then he smiled a fake smile and said, "Well, look on the bright side, Team Rocket isn't trying to steal you and we have some time to think of where Misty is."
"Pika?" Bright side? it questioned, a very sad and depressed look planted on its normally cute face.
"What are we going to do?"
"Pikachu." I don't know.
Immediately, a flock of spearow and fearow started attacking them, thinking that they were dead, but soon Pikachu shocked them, and the ones still left un-fainted acted like they were going to attack again, with a angry gleam in their eye.
Then came a giant Gyridos. Ash thought it was odd, even if Gyridos was a flying type, that one could be able to fly. But it did, and the attackers were swept away in a current known as surf.
*Two types of pokémon that I'd like to forget* Ash thought gloomily, while he remembered his pathetic first day of trying to raise pokémon and collect events leading up to the gyridos that he had gotten Misty.
Then Misty herself appeared out of the trees. "What are you hanging around here, for?" she shouted at them, trying to sound annoyed but really feeling very guilty about what she had allowed her sisters to do.
"Huh?" Ash wondered out loud.
"Pika CHU!" Get us DOWN!
"Alright! Staryu, use your rapid spin!" Misty commanded.
"Haaii-yaaa!" it shouted, and sliced the ropes.
Ash and Pikachu moaned with swirly eyes after hitting the ground.
"Sorry," Misty said. "Staryu, return!" Misty ran over to where Ash and Pikachu were.
"I can't believe that we looked everywhere trying to find you, and then you help your sisters and their friends set a trap on us and get Pikachu and I stuck up in a tree," Ash shouted angrily, feeling betrayed.
"Hey! I didn't have to come and get you down you know!" Misty yelled.
"We didn't have to come after you either!" Ash fired back.
"Pikachu!" Stop fighting! Pikachu said, trying to stop them without using electricity, because it would need it later for the match.
"…Fine!" Ash shouted. "Come on, Pikachu. Let's go!"
"Pi pika," Sorry, Misty. it turned around and said. Then, it ran and caught up with Ash. "Pikachu!" Now you blew it! it yelled at Ash.
"It's not my fault that she helped them get us stuck up in a tree," Ash retorted.
"Pika pika!" Her sisters and their friends did that!
"Yeah, but she helped them. If she hadn't helped, then I wouldn't have gone."
"Pikachu," You're right.
"Do you want to see who else is here this year, Pikachu?" Ash asked, a smug smile appearing on his face.
"Pika!" Yeah! it said, curious to its trainer's change of mood.
Ash started sprinting. "Race ya to the computer!" he yelled back over his shoulder.
"Pikachu!" it yelled in mock annoyance. Then it used its agility to speed there first.
"No fair!" Ash yelled once he got in their hotel room.
"Cha!" it smiled happily and turned on the computer.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
That was depressing. Sorry…I guess I'm not hyper anymore. Oh, well! *smiles* Now I won't have to be all depressing for the rest of the fic (I think). (I'll leave that to the people who like to write drama!)
Thanks to everyone who has reviewed! I almost have thirty reviews! *smiles even bigger* Yippee! 35 reviews and I put up a new chapter!
Just a question…how many of the battles do you want me to type? I can type all of them, but that would be eight battles until you found out who the champion is. I need your input to continue!
I think that I'll definitely type the first battle for next time, but maybe just have Ash discussing the next ones with Brock later. (Wait a second, I haven't gotten Brock back in it for all of you, have I? Oops! I guess I am giving some of it away after all. ^_^;;)
He, he…well, review! With next chapter comes the first pokémon league battle, and *swallows hard* putting Brock and Casey back in. (Oh, no!)