Charizard was not happy. It was bad enough that he had to make peace around those Team Rocket weaklings, as he saw them. But having to deal with so much water around meant that he was at a disadvantage if they decided to double-cross them and he needed to fight. And to his concern, the water seemed to be rising as they progressed.
Brock noticed it, as well, frequently glancing around—and then doing a double-take as he noticed the narrow pathway they had been traversing was growing even more narrow as time went on.
"The reservoir is rising far more quickly than usual—the water source that feeds it must've been unblocked by the explosion and is flowing faster than it's supposed to!" he realized aloud.
"What!?" Meowth cried. "Dat's bad—really bad! Dis whole place could be flooding—with us stuck down here in it!"
Brock suddenly exhaled.
"That's why all of the Pokémon that lived here cleared out; this flood has been coming for a while, but whatever caused that explosion just sped it up!" he said.
"Chaaabok, chaaa!"
"He's right; how do we clear outta here!?" Meowth wailed.
"We need to pick up the pace and find the source of that fresh air, and pray that a way out isn't blocked—that may be our one and only shot at getting out of here," Brock said.
"How can ya say dat and be so calm!?" the cat asked, staring.
"Because panicking isn't going to help us," Brock answered. "Remember when we were stuck on the St. Anne after it capsized?"
Charizard scowled as the other Pokémon nodded; he'd only been a Charmander then, and narrowly avoiding a deluge of water and then getting stranded on that island of mechanical Pokémon had been a harrowing experience. It was largely why he resented having to ally with Team Rocket's Pokémon again now; it reminded him of what happened back then—back when he was a weak little lizard, scared for his life.
"If we had panicked in that ship, we never would've gotten out of that," Brock continued. "The same thing applies here—we can't afford to panic and do things without thinking when we only have a limited amount of time to work with. Let's just keep going in the direction we were heading and go from there."
Meowth gulped, but nodded, quieting down as they continued onward. Brock let Team Rocket's Pokémon get a bit of a lead before turning to Charizard.
"You okay?" he asked quietly.
Charizard looked to him in surprise.
"I saw how upset you got when I mentioned the ship; I didn't mean to bring up any bad memories," Brock added. "I know you've been through a lot—even before we met you. And I want you to know that we all know and appreciate how strong you are for making it through all of that."
Charizard managed a nod. Yes, he had been through a lot on account of Damian—but even he had to acknowledge the difference. With Damian, he'd more or less had to struggle along by himself, without any sympathy, for Damian had always blamed him for being weak. With Ash, anything he'd gone through, they'd gone through together—and Ash had never blamed him for anything, even after he'd been unruly after his evolution.
It was realizing that during that long night in the Orange Islands that had snapped him out of it, vowing that Ash would have his loyalty from that moment onward.
And Charizard also felt that he owed Brock that loyalty, too—for it had been him, along with Ash, who had saved him that day they first met. It was why he had obeyed Ash's order to go into the chasm to save Brock without any question—and why, upon Brock's request, he had stood down from fighting with Team Rocket's Pokémon.
Both Brock and Charizard were then distracted by Meowth's sudden exclamation—
"Hey! What's dat—floatin' on the water over there!?"
In the dim firelight from Charizard's tail, they could see something glittering.
"Hey, Weezing, can you gimme a boost over there?" Meowth asked, hopping on top of Weezing.
Weezing grunted and floated over the water, allowing Meowth to lean over and pull the object out of the water. Brock took note of the sudden, stunned expression on the cat's face as Weezing brought him back to dry land.
"What is it?" Brock asked.
Silently, Meowth held the object up to allow Charizard's flame to illuminate it.
It was the charred remains of an explosive device—no doubt the device that had caused the cave-in earlier. The sparkling was on account of a gold-plated pen that was sticking up out of the device.
"…Something tells me that you know exactly what this is," Brock realized, referring to the expression on Meowth's face.
"This is a special charge issued by Team Rocket alright," Meowth admitted. He winced as Charizard growled again. "But I'm tellin' ya—we didn't set this. Look—see dis gold pen? That's what was used to allow the timer to be set on dis charge; it's a safety mechanism—you need to stick somethin' narrow in there like a screwdriver tip or a pen nib before you can set the timer so that you don't set it by accident. Whoever had this gold pen was the one who set this charge."
"It still has Team Rocket's logo on it," Brock pointed out. "You're not exactly helping your case."
"Look, Kid, do you think Jessie, James, and I would be carrying around a gold-plated pen like dis?" Meowth pointed out. "With how hungry we always are? We'd have sold dis thing to buy some grub the moment we'd gotten it! And anyway, they don't issue these fancy-shmancy pens to guys of our rank! Dis is somethin' that they give to…"
Meowth trailed off as the realization sunk in.
"…Yes?" Brock prompted.
"…Dis is somethin' that the Boss would give to his executives," Meowth finished. "They get a new one of these during the quarterly meetings, so even though they ain't cheap, they can be used for the special charges in a pinch since there's more where dat came from. But then dat means that whoever set this charge is…"
"…One of Team Rocket's executives," Brock finished. He paused, realizing why Meowth had trailed off. "Didn't they know you were in the cave…?"
There was an awkward silence as Meowth exchanged concerned glances with Arbok and Weezing.
"There was only us in the cave… I think? It's… it's gotta be a miscommunication or misunderstanding or something like dat," Meowth rationalized. "I mean, sure, we mentioned we were gonna wait for youse guys in the cave, but if one of the executives was doin' fieldwork, they might not've gotten the memo of us being there. And if they were in the cave doing work, we missed them, and…" The cat trailed off again, shrugging helplessly. "Dat's gotta be it, right?"
Brock wasn't so sure of that; surely someone would've known that the executive was in the same cave, or would have informed the executive of their presence. But if that was the case, then Brock understood why Meowth didn't want to think of that possibility—for it meant that one of their superiors had just tried to get rid of them.
"I'll, uh… I'll hang onto dis and if… when we find Jessie and James, I'll see what they think," Meowth decided, looking visibly upset.
Brock exchanged a glance with Charizard; even the winged lizard looked sympathetic now. But they both knew that this was a problem for later that didn't really concern them in the first place.
For now, they would have to continue on trying to get out in one piece.
