6. Poor Misty.
The slim ginger haired girl fell through the trees as she walked. She had no idea how long she'd been walking. It felt like months, but she knew it had only been a few days, if that. Still, it was a long time alone. In the forest that she'd walked into without thinking, she was beginning to get scared. It was night, nearly - more like early evening, but it was dark nevertheless and she sat on a log. She hadn't even got Togepi's reassuring chirp and in desperation she released Psyduck from its pokéball, and, as usual it looked at her, confused.
"Hey."
"Psy?"
"Any ideas how to get outta here?"
"Psy…" It shook it's head.
"No. I didn't think so."
She shivered slightly against the cold and looked around. "I hope Togepi's okay with Brock…"
By the time Team Rocket stopped running they were miles from both Brock and their wrecked balloon, and very out of breath. They sat on the floor in a forest clearing, gasping for breath. Meowth was still holding Togepi, as well as sitting on Jessie's lap (James suspected she hadn't noticed!), but Pikachu and his glass prison were on the floor. Togepi noticed his fellow pokémon and, recognising him, jumped off Meowth's lap to greet him. Meowth jumped off Jessie to follow him.
"Pri…?" chirped Togepi to Pikachu.
"Pikachuuuu…" he said, sadly.
"Oh yeah. I forgot dat yous two know each udda." Togepi looked at Meowth at this point.
"Togepri… toge-togepri."
"I can't do dat." he said. Jessie and James had finally stopped wheezing and were watching the scene with interest as the three pokémon communicated.
"Toge-ge-pri! Togepri! Pri!" The little egg pokémon was getting angry and Meowth flapped his paws in a 'calm-down' gesture.
"Okay. Okay. Just make dat rodent promise not ta shock us." Togepi spoke briefly to Pikachu, who nodded at his captor. "Dat's better.". Meowth began to open the glass box. Jessie was the first to react.
"MEOWTH! What are you doing?"
"Togepi wants me to let out the rat."
"Are you insane? We'll be shocked!"
"He promised not ta." clarified Meowth. Despite Jessie's loud protests, he let out Pikachu. There was a tense silence as he stretched and jumped up and down, testing his freedom, then stared at everyone.
"Piiiii… kaaaaa…." everyone held their breath. "CHU!" Pikachu sneezed and Togepi giggled as the three members of Team Rocket fell over with relief.
After regaining their composure, James asked a question that had been bugging him.
"So, Meowth, what's so great about that Togepi. The Boss hated it."
"Togepi is not for dat evil-hearted, Meowth-hating moron. Dis Togepi is MINE. The one I lost to dat red-headed twoip."
"I never knew how much it meant to you." said Jessie. Meowth suddenly flipped.
"There's a lot you don't know about me. And you'll never know it!" he said, maliciously. "Now I've got Togepi I'm goin' to make my own life without you two failures." With that he took the little egg by the hand and calmly walked away, leaving the other two staring after him, open-mouthed.
Misty had been sitting in silence on the log for some time, and decided it was finally time to move. She had to go SOMEWHERE. Just as she was getting up, though, Psyduck began to forage in the undergrowth by her feet and dug up some scraps of paper. Misty picked them up. One was a crumpled piece of paper, and the other was a torn photograph. It appeared to be a diary entry and since it had obviously been rejected she saw no harm in reading it - she had nothing better to do, after all. However, she instantly regretted ever finding it…
"Hey diary,
it's me. Today I did something I never thought I'd do. I hit her. Hard. And I don't know why. I feel really bad cos I made her cry, and I've never seen her cry before, not like the way she did today. But before she really cried properly she ran off, and she even left her pokémon behind. She NEVER does that.
"I know I wanted to hit her cos she made me really mad, and I wanted to battle so I wouldn't have to, but she didn't want to battle me. She's right, it is my answer to everything. I got so mad that I made my Squirtle attack her but he wouldn't cos he knew it was wrong.
"After she ran off Brock got really mad at me and left, so now I'm all alone. I've got no Pikachu thanks to Team Rocket, no advice from Brock and no stupid girly stuff from Misty, telling me what a jerk I am…"
The diary entry abruptly ended there where he had obviously gotten frustrated and ripped it out. She put it down and looked at the torn photo. It was of herself and Ash, taken by Brock just after he'd won his last badge. He was holding Togepi and she was holding Pikachu, and they were both smiling broadly. She wondered if they'd ever be able to smile like that again. The photo was raggedly separated between the two of them. How symbolic, she thought.
She folded the diary entry and the pieced of photo and placed them in her pocket but she didn't know why. Then for the twentieth time in as many minutes, so it seemed, she began to cry, as Psyduck placed a reassuring paw on her knee.