Walking on Water

A Pokemon Fanfiction by Kasumi Todoh



Chapter 4

The First Test



Nearby, and around the same time, a giant hot-air balloon in the shape of a Meowth's head, paw and tail was gliding silently through the empty night. In the front of the balloon, Meowth was looking left, right and forward, using a pair of high-powered binoculars. Finally, it spotted what it was searching for straight ahead, although still some distance away.

"Flyin' fortress ho!" it shouted.

The only response was a couple of loud snores from behind it. Meowth turned around to see that Jessie and James had both dozed off in separate corners of the balloon basket.

"Hey, wake up!" Meowth shouted, jumping on each one and shaking them as hard as it could. Yet this had little to no effect, and the two continued to sleep away. Finally, Meowth pulled out its claws, and raked them both across the face. At last, that move got the desired results.

"What the hell did you do that for, Meowth?" Jessie demanded.

"Yeah, what's the big idea?" James added.

"I just t'ought you might like t' know," Meowth replied calmly, "dat while you two were deep in dreamland, I located de fortress. It's straight ahead o' us."

Jessie grabbed the binoculars. "Meowth's right. That means Pikachu and the twerps are probably there, too. We just have to get them before that Lawrence guy does."

"But how are we gonna get over dere?" Meowth asked. "If we get too close, he'll most likely see us an' blow us t' smithereens again."

"Not to worry," James replied. "Team Rocket always has a plan. Jessie, if you will."

Quickly, Jessie bent down and came up with what looked like a typical rocket launcher, except that instead of a rocket, the rubber end of a toilet plunger protruded from the muzzle. "Introducing the TR Ship Snarer 3000," she proclaimed proudly.

A teardrop formed on Meowth's head. "Dat just looks like a bazooka wit' a giant suction dart on de end."

"Who asked for your opinion?" Jessie snapped, whacking Meowth over the head with the end of launcher. "This'll work. Just watch."

With that, she hoisted the TR Ship Snarer 3000 up on one shoulder and pulled the trigger. There was a small explosion, and the plunger, with a rope tied to it, shot out, arced through the air and attached itself firmly to the outside wall of the fortress. Jessie tied the other end of the rope to the basket, gave a couple tugs to make sure it was secure, and then flashed a thumbs-up signal to James.

"Now, let us rise to the occasion," James said, and turned up the flames inside the balloon. The balloon slowly began to rise higher into the air, until the rope was sloping downward.

Jessie handed a wooden clothes hanger to Meowth and James. "Now all we have to do is just rappel down to the ship and let gravity do the rest."

Meowth peered over the edge of the basket. "It's de gravity part dat worries me."

"If you don't get going," Jessie shouted menacingly, "you won't just be worrying about gravity, you'll be experiencing it, firsthand! Now move it!"

****************



Ash and Pikachu slid down a long tunnel, until they came out with a thud what appeared to be a simulation of some kind. Both sat up and looked around. All around them was waving green pasture, dotted here and there with flowers. The ceiling above was a cloudy sky blue.

"This doesn't look so bad," Ash muttered, looking around.

"The landscape which you are seeing is all just a holographic image," Lawrence's voice came over the loudspeaker again. "Now instead of admiring the scenery, you might want instead to listen what I am about tell you. Hidden somewhere in this beauteous landscape is a statue of the Great Guardian, Lugia. Within the statue is a key which you will need to get to the next room. Your job is to find the statue. That's all the help you'll get from me. The rest is up to you. Good luck, you'll need it."

With that, the loudspeaker cut off. "Alright, Pikachu," Ash said. "We know what we have to do. Let's find that statue."

They got up, but quickly realized they had no idea which way to go. All that could be seen in any direction was grass, grass and more grass. Finally, the two just decided to pick a direction-north-and start walking.

After a few minutes, a sudden movement off to the left caught Pikachu's eye. It motioned to Ash by pulling on his pant leg and pointing.

"Whatcha see, Pikachu?" Ash asked.

Pikachu ran over to where it thought it had seen something moving, but there was nothing there. It searched all around, trying to locate some sign of whatever had moved, but the field was empty and still. Finally, after a couple lingering moments, Pikachu returned to Ash's side, who just smiled.

"I don't think you're going to find anything, except maybe some plants..."

He was suddenly interrupted by an explosion of dirt that shot up right in front of them. A large shape appeared, rising out of the ground, into the air, and landing at their feet. The creature that stood before them was at least seven feet high. It had the long ears and hind legs of a rabbit Pokemon, but also had a row of spikes rising off its back and a fur coat of contrasting black and red. Its front legs were small in comparison to the rest of its body, but had eight powerful claws for digging through the dirt. The creature glared at the them with glowing red eyes and opened its mouth in a low growl, revealing two rows of spiked teeth.

"What the hell is that?" Ash muttered. He reached for Dexter, his Pokedex, and flipped it open in hopes getting some information.

The results were not encouraging. "Unknown Pokemon," Dexter stated. "No information is available at this time."

"Damn. How I am supposed to battle this Pokemon if I don't know what it is or what its weaknesses are?" However, Ash's training instincts quickly took over. "Okay, it appeared out of the dirt, so it must be a ground type. Which means I'll need a flying type if I want to have an advantage." He quickly pulled out a Pokeball, pressed the release button, and threw it, shouting, "Knoctowl! I choose you!"

The ball landed on the ground, bounced twice and opened. A beam of light shot out into the air, and from it appeared the tan-coloured owl Pokemon, flapping its wings to stay aloft.

"Knoctowl! Use Hypnosis!" Ash shouted. Knoctowl flew out in front of the giant rabbit so it was looking the creature in the eyes, and then its own eyes started to glow. Yet nothing happened. The monster was totally unaffected by the Hypnosis attack.

"That can't be!" Ash cried. "Something's not right here."

Just then, the giant monster used its powerful hind legs to leap into the air, straight toward Knoctowl.

"Knoctowl, dodge it!"

Flapping its wings, the bird rose higher, out of the range of the monster's Tackle attack. It landed on all fours on the ground below.

"Better use a different approach," Ash called out. "Knoctowl, try a Whirlwind attack!"

Knoctowl flapped both wings, blowing several large gusts of wind which quickly formed into a small tornado. The tornado dropped down onto the rabbit, lifting it clean off the ground and spinning it around in the air. Then the winds died out and dropped the creature back to the ground with a loud thud and an even louder crunch. When it got up again, Ash could see a large chunk was missing from the monster's shoulder. Metal gears and a few coloured wires, some of them sparking, could be seen through the hole.

Suddenly Ash understood why Dexter couldn't get a reading on this creature, and why Knoctowl's Hypnosis didn't affect it. "That's no Pokemon! It's a robot!"

Suddenly realizing it was wounded and at a disadvantage, the robot opted to retreat, burrowing back underground. Within seconds it was gone. Ash and Pikachu waited several minutes, but it did not reappear, so finally he recalled Knoctowl back into its Pokeball.

"I guess that's that. We'd better get going before it decides to come back."

With that, Ash and Pikachu continued on, now half expecting the ground under their feet to give way at any second. Although this did not happen, it added a sense of urgency to their mission.

Ash was busy trying to keep an eye out for anything resembling a statue of Lugia, that he didn't notice the edge of the cliff until he nearly fell off it. Looking ahead, he could see a dense forest on the other side. But a long, wide strip of seemingly bottomless canyon separated the field part from the forest part.

"Great." Ash looked down at Pikachu. "How are we supposed to cross that?"

Pikachu looked around a quickly spotted the answer, pointing out a rope bridge a short distance away. However, when they approached the bridge, that answer became less of a certainty. Several of wooden planks were clearly rotted, and the rope was frayed in a couple places. The thing clearly hadn't been used in years, if at all.

"Well, if that's the only way across, then I guess we have no choice." Ash looked at his Pokemon again. "Pikachu, you go first. Since you're smaller, you'll probably have an easier time getting across."

Pikachu hesitated, but when it saw that Ash wasn't going to go until it did, it quickly ran across the creaking bridge to the safety of the other side. Then Ash started across. The process was slow moving, as the bridge sagged under his weight and the boards creaked louder in protest with every step. When he was almost halfway there, Ash stepped on a rotted board that broke under his leg, causing him to lose his balance and grab the ropes for support.

"Pikapi!" Pikachu cried out in concern, seeing its trainer in trouble.

Amazingly and miraculously, the ropes held, allowing Ash to pull himself back up and continue on. He had just about reached the other side when he suddenly heard a loud snap and felt the bridge start to drop from under him. The weakened ropes, strained to their fullest capacity, had finally given out. Frantically, Ash jumped, grabbing the edge of the cliff with both hands and hanging on until he could scramble onto more solid ground, with a little help from Pikachu. Together they watched as what was left of the bridge tumble down and disappear into the darkness of the canyon.

"Well," said Ash to Pikachu with a weak smile, "I guess we won't be going back, at least not that way."

Surprisingly enough, they found a path leading into the forest. The fear of getting lost, the uncertainty of what else might be out there and the treacherous-looking terrain on either side quickly made them decide against going off directly into the woods, and they decided to stick to the path. As they ventured deeper and deeper into the forest, the sun was all but blotted out by the thick canopy of trees overhead. It was eerily quiet, with none of the usual chirping of birds or buzzing of insects.

Finally, Ash and Pikachu came to an apparent dead end. Sitting in the middle of the path was a small shrine made entirely of tree branches. On a shelf in the middle of the shrine was a small golden statue in the shape of Lugia, the seas' great guardian.

"That must be the item we're looking for," Ash exclaimed. He started to run toward it, but then the ground started to shake.

"Oh no! Not again!"

He was knocked backwards as the ground erupted and the giant rabbit once again appeared between them and the shrine. Ash looked at its powerful hind legs and realized it had probably cleared the canyon and made it over to their side with one jump.

This time the creature wasted no time in attacking, lowering its head and pointing the spikes on its back at Ash and Pikachu. The spikes glowed and then shot a laser beam from each one. Pokemon and trainer barely managed to jump out of the way in time.

Quickly Ash reached for the Pokeball containing his Knoctowl, but then he noticed the electrical sparks still shooting out from the robot's damaged shoulder. This gave him an idea.

"Pikachu, use your Thunder Bolt to overload the robot's circuits!"

Pikachu nodded, and unleashed its strongest Thunder Bolt attack directly at the giant rabbit, catching it in a powerful electric current. Within seconds, small explosions began to wrack the robot's body, followed by larger ones.

"Keep it up, Pikachu!" Ash encouraged. "It's working!"

The small yellow Pokemon responded by pouring even more electricity onto the metallic monster's now incapacitated frame. Finally, the robot could take no more, and was blown to smithereens, partly from Pikachu's attack, and partly from its own systems overloading.

Ash stepped over the burning remains and grabbed the Lugia statue from the shrine. Almost immediately a secret compartment opened up and a key dropped into his gloved hand.

Instantly the shrine, the trees, the canyon and the field behind them all disappeared to reveal a large, yet empty, grey-walled room with a door in front of them.

"Impressive." Lawrence's voice came over the loudspeaker again, booming off the large metal walls. "That test was the easiest, so I'm not surprised you made it through so quickly. A note of warning, though, with each test the difficulty level doubles, so the next one will be twice as hard. Are you ready to back out now?"

"No way!" Ash shouted. "I'm staying in this thing 'til the end!"

"I had a feeling you might say that," Lawrence replied casually. "Very well. Take the key you have in your hand and insert it into the lock on the door in front of you. That will take you to the next level."

Ash walked forward, placed the key in the lock and turned it to the right. The door opened easily. The young trainer, along with his Pikachu, then strode purposely into the next part of their test, the door slamming shut behind them.





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Phew! I finally, finally finished this chapter! I don't even remember when I started this chapter, which is kinda sad, really. I took some time off from this 'fic to finish a chapter of a book I'm writing, and start another one (chapter, I mean, not book). Then I was forced to take more time off when writer's block fell on me, snuffing out my inspiration right after the part with Team Rocket. But enough with the excuses.

I would like to especially thank my friend Alicia, whose suggestions pulled this chapter, and a lot of my inspiration, out from under the writer's block, performed CPR, and administered the defibrilator paddles on it. I am forever in her debt.

Anyway, I don't know when I'll have Chapter 5 up. It could be sooner (though even I'm starting to doubt it), or it could be later (more likely). It will, however, be coming eventually, so just be patient, folks, and don't sue me. Please.

Kasumi Todoh.

^_^