Part Six: First Taste of War
Speeding through clouds and sky, slicing the atmosphere in two was the immense Dreadnaught Euphrates, pride of the skies and the personal chariot of the insane but loveable Captain Red Thatcher. None of the passengers could ever believe that such a large thing could ever fly, especially since it resembled a whale more than an airplane. The sciences surrounding aeronautics still applied to the Dreadnaught--a vacuum surrounding the ship enabled it to fly--but it was still a sight to fly through the air.
Its destination was one of Team Rocket's bases scattered around the world, its crew set on saving the sanity of the planet from Team Rocket's iron grip. As he tried to hold his lunch down, Ash couldn't determine which was more ironic: Gary being his ally, or two former members of Team Rocket. In the past, neither party had ever gotten along with the young Pallet native, but now they were working together for a single common goal. There was something profound to be discovered in that revelation, but it certainly didn't help Ash's airsickness. He had to run to the bathroom once during the journey, hardly a profound experience, and the violent noises coming from inside warned everyone not to approach.
"Poor lad," murmured Thatcher as he picked up the sounds of Ash's retching. "Hope he gets his air-legs soon enough; our journey's barely begun. Oh hey, speaking of which, it looks like we're already there!" The crew of the Dreadnaught looked at the monitors surrounding the bridge, and sure enough, they were very near to the first Team Rocket base on their list. Captain Thatcher drew in a deep breath and turned around to bark at his crew.
"Okay, men! Listen up! We're right at Team Rocket's door! This is the first of many bases we'll be raiding and destroying! I don't need to tell you that this will be dangerous, so keep yer eyes open! Your basic mission is to flush out all T.R. agents, free the captive Pokemon, and blow the whole bloody place sky-high! Any volunteers?" A few hands raised in the air, most of them belonging to the six who had traveled from Pallet Town.
"No matter who you send, Nurse Joyleen and myself should be there with them!" stated Officer Jennifer firmly. "It's my duty as a police officer to bring these people to justice, and since we don't know what troubles we'll run into, Nurse Joyleen should be on hand!" The pink-haired nurse nodded her head, and Captain Thatcher gave them a smile of approval.
"All right. Uh, hey, you two!"
"What, us?" said Jessie. Thatcher nodded his head.
"Yeah! You two, go down there! Your knowledge of Team Rocket will be the key to winning this thing! Take Mr. Brock with you too, and Mr. Ash and Mr. Gary as well! The rest of you should stand by here!"
"But what about me?" blurted Misty. "I'm as good with Pokemon as any of those guys are!"
"Oh yah, almost forgot about'cha, missy!" Thatcher laughed out loud and let her go with the others, and of course one more stepped up to volunteer.
"Captain, you will let me go too, right? I mean, Brock and the others may need my help!" The Captain gave Lenneth a crafty smile as he stood at the helm.
"Heheheh… are ya sure it won't just be Mr. Brock?"
"N-no sir," she muttered, blushing lightly. Thatcher chuckled heartily and allowed the silvery-haired girl to accompany them.
"Aw, all right… Jus' you be careful, Lenneth. I don't like seein' pretty ladies get hurt!"
"I'll be fine, sir!" she exclaimed merrily, her arms more or less wrapping around Brock's shoulder (as the love-starved guy smiled happily). "I have Brock and everybody else protecting me."
"Just make sure ya give'm what for!" grinned Thatcher proudly. "Okay, Team! To your stations! You all better get a few parachutes, cuz' you'll be dropping in on them Rocket scum!" The team of nine nodded their heads and dashed out of the bridge, with Lenneth leading them along the way. Meanwhile, Thatcher turned around and took a deep breath, his insides all giddy from anticipation.
"Oh, man… I sure wish I could go down there with'em! It ain't like me to miss a good fight!!"
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With the wind billowing beneath them and a steep drop below, it was no wonder that even the bravest among the nine were afraid to make the first jump. Officer Jennifer assured everyone that their parachutes would open properly, but that barely made anybody more comfortable. Lenneth slowly wiggled her way over to Brock, and gave him a weak smile as she touched his hand.
"You ready?" He nodded his head and smiled.
"With you here, Lenneth, I'm not afraid of anything!" She chuckled merrily, and together, the two of them leaped from the Dreadnaught first, followed closely by the brave Jennifer and Joyleen. Gary pursed his lips and prepared himself for the fall, and leaped off next, followed by a determined Ash and a nervous Misty. Finally, Jessie and James stared down at the tiny speck of land beneath them, clenching onto each other in terror.
"We… really shouldn't be so scared!" she quivered. "I mean, we've fallen from much higher places than this before! And we always manage to come out without hardly a scrape, right?"
"Speak for yourself!" wailed poor James. "I'm too scared to fall!"
"If Blobbafett were here, we would've probably fallen halfway there by now," remarked Jessie. She halfway expected the annoying blue creature to pop up at any time, but luckily for them, it had not followed them when they were terminated from the Team. Sighing, both former Rockets looked at each other, clasped their hands tight, and leaped off the Dreadnaught screaming.
Everyone opened their parachutes safely and floated gently down to the surface, where they were immediately greeted by a group of Team Rocket agents who had spotted the Dreadnaught on their radar. Not wasting any time, the first four people to land on the surface prepared for a battle. The twelve agents there each summoned a Magnemite, combining all their powers into one electrical conduit of power; Brock called up his Onyx, one impervious to shock.
The enormous serpent of rock plowed through the agents and their Pokemon, blasting through them like a drill would shred through paper, scattering stones, Magnemites, and people into the distance with an enormous whip of its tail. It hurtled them into the air with the large spike on its head, and coiled around them, crushing the Pokemon and the humans alike. Alarms went off in the base as the brief scuffle outside heated up, and more agents stormed out, these with different varieties instead.
"This is looking less good by the minute," observed Brock darkly. The new batch of agents threw out one Wartortle, a creature that towered over Onyx easily and blasted it away with its large water gun. Brock called his creature back inside and summoned out a Zubat instead, and was quickly joined by Ash's Bulbasaur and Misty's Staryu. Together, the plant and water-type charged the Wartortle, slashing it to pieces with razor leaf and slapping it into unconsciousness with Staryu's tackle. The remaining agents cursed, and drew out more Pokemon for their next wave.
"Ash, you're pathetic!" shouted Gary as he fell from the sky. He threw down an Alakazam and a Kangaskhan as he floated to the surface, and watched as the two powerful creatures overtook the Team Rocket agents. With a powerful psychic wave, half of them were thrown off the cliff and into the sea below, while the other half fell to their knees as Kangaskhan trembled the ground. Gary smiled and let out a little laugh; Ash merely snorted.
"Whatever!" he snapped. "Let's get inside and blow this place to kingdom come!"
"Not so fast!" shouted Jennifer, pulling on his collar. Another wave of agents came out of the building, each with a utility belt full of Pokeballs. Ash squealed in shock as he saw just how many there were before them.
"Aah! How many are there in there?"
"Not enough for the likes of us!" shouted James as he joined the party. "Prepare for James and make it Jessie! To unite the world with truth and Pokemon freedom! Igniting the gasoline that makes our cars run fast… or something."
KA-POW!!
"Darn it James, you're starting to annoy me!" snapped Jessie angrily. "Just forget the stupid motto and attack! Arbok, poison sting!" The large violet serpent emerged and rained down a shower of needles on the Rockets, some connecting and some forcing them to flee. James laughed out loud and summoned Wheezing to cloud the area in a smoke screen, wherein the entire group made their escape into the base.
"It's not always who has the strongest Pokemon who wins!" he noted to Ash. "Sometimes, you have to use strategy!"
"Glad I'm not on the receiving end of Wheezing's attacks for once!" he remarked. The group wasted little time in distancing themselves from the coughing agents outside, and ran straight into the small base, wherein they met up with a three-way fork in the road. Seeing as how there were nine in the group, they each split up into three groups and went down a different path.
Running at full speed, Jennifer, Joyleen, and Ash made their way down a long hallway, not encountering any opposition for quite some time. There were no doors or windows in the hallway, just a long path with halogen lights brightening the way. A few minutes down the road, the ceiling gave way to reveal a machine that resembled a Rhidon, whirring madly and destroying the hallway as it drilled towards the three invaders. Officer Jennifer was surprised for only a second before she pulled out her gun, and with a few expert shots, the machine was already slowing down.
"Pikachu, finish it off!" shouted Ash. The yellow rodent was more than happy to comply, and with a shout and a blast, it fried the machine before it could do any damage. Carefully, Jennifer helped Joyleen and Ash crawl over the machine, but before they could even move three steps, two more drill machines emerged right in front of them!
"Oh no, two more!" shouted Ash. Pikachu stepped up to once again blast them, but one of the machines spat out a small glowing orb that exploded in a blinding flash of light. The four invaders screamed as their eyes were tortured by the blinding light, and the mechanical drills rolled forward, destroying the hallway and anything else in their path. Clenching her teeth in pain, Nurse Joyleen summoned a Ghastly from her own stash, who used its powers to darken the room and negate the bright light.
"Now, Ghastly! Attack those two drills!" The Ghastly moaned and passed through the drills, frying their circuits as it floated through. They were instantly disabled, leaving the three invaders to proceed once again. After a few more cautious steps, they came to the end of the hallway, where they found a room full of caged Pokemon.
"Oh no!" exclaimed Ash in shock. "It's the Pokemon that those Team Rocket agents captured! We'd better free them quickly!" He, the Officer, and the Nurse quickly began freeing the Pokemon, setting them all loose one by one. Joyleen secretly hoped that the other members of the strike team were doing as well as they were. It would be sad to know that others were being hurt already, on this first of many missions.
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James, Jessie, and Gary leaned on their knees wearily, trying to catch their breath as the trudged past the defeated Team Rocket agents they had just plowed through. There was apparently more resistance down this one hallway than anywhere else, because as the alarms blared to life, more and more of them seemed to stream towards their direction. The first dozen or so were fairly easy to overcome, but by the time fifty had been taken down, even Gary was tired out. Now, though, it seemed that there was no longer any opposition.
"Whew… That was tough…" managed James. "I… didn't think… we'd be able… to do it…"
"Looks like these members of Team Rocket are blasting off again, eh?" joked Jessie. She smiled weakly, and tried to stand up, but ended up slipping to the floor, where she stayed as she caught her breath. The battles had been so harrowing that sometimes, it came down to hand-to-hand combat with the Rockets, which none of the three were experienced in. Wheezing, Arbok, and the other Pokemon were exhausted from so much fighting.
"At least there's not as much for the others to worry about," remarked Gary. James and Jessie quietly agreed. "Well, we shouldn't stay here for long. Let's rest for five more minutes before we continue. Who knows what else awaits us in this base?"
"I'd say that the main control room would," sighed James as he sat down on the floor. "If this place didn't change from the last time I was here, Ash went down the hallway where the Pokemon would be stored, and we're going down where the main control room is."
"Which is probably the best place for us to be," noted Jessie. "We could activate a self-destruct sequence there. Most Team Rocket bases have one, or at least they did when we were in there."
"You think they've changed?" wondered Gary. The redhead shook her head.
"Maybe one or two, but it's unlikely. The boss put them in there just in case people like us came through and wanted to download some data. If we got too close, the place would go boom and the data would be lost to everyone--except for the boss, of course. And of course, the invader would be lost too." A dense silence overcame the trio as they sat and rested, the older two reflecting on the dark secrets of their former life. There was much hidden behind the scenes in Team Rocket, more than just capturing Pokemon and making trouble across the world, and it truly was a stoke of luck that James and Jessie held such a friendship with Ash and the others.
"Well, we'd better get moving," grunted Gary as he stood up. "We should get to that control room as quickly as possible. I just hope the others will get out of here once their job is done. I wouldn't even want Ash to be in here when the place blows."
"And certainly not ourselves!" exclaimed James. Gary chuckled morbidly and followed the older ones as they led him into the control room.
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Brock, Misty, and Lenneth had encountered only minimal opposition as they scurried down their side of the base. The hallway was particularly large with plenty of doors for enemies to pop out of, but so far, they had only met up with a few annoying obstacles, mostly stray Pokemon that wandered around the area. Lenneth was keeping a good pace with her new companions, easily holding onto her smile (and Brock's wrist) as she ran down the hallway. Misty could tell that the pretty girl liked Brock, though she didn't exactly understand why, nor did she need to during that time.
"It… looks like… we took… the easy path!" said Brock as he led the charge. It was difficult for him to talk and run at the same time, so his words came out scrambled. It was indeed strange to not find any opposition in the hallway, especially since the alarms were still blaring. Misty could only come up with the conclusion that the other two teams were being bogged down.
"I hope everybody else is okay," she remarked. Suddenly, as if to mock her, the entire base trembled ferociously. Ahead of them, the wall crumbled to pieces as a giant piece of machinery lumbered through, armed with multiple deadly weapons, the largest of which being a noisy buzz-saw. It trembled towards them slowly, barring the way and ripping apart the very hallway itself as it closed in on them.
"What in the world is THAT!!" screamed Brock. "Is it part of the security here??!!"
"Leave it up to Captain Thatcher to choose a base where the security is tight," muttered Lenneth wearily. "Here, stand back. I'll take care of it."
"Lenneth, don't!" shouted Brock and Misty as they grabbed her shoulders. She turned around and calmly smiled at them.
"It'll be okay. I'm certain that this thing will not be a problem for me. Just make sure you're both safe." She gave them one of her pretty smiles, and to their shock, walked towards the machine like it was nothing at all. Its buzz-saw sang out wickedly as it waved around in the air, but Lenneth was unfazed. She calmly walked right up to it and placed her hand upon its metal shell. Suddenly, the machine froze as snakes of electricity ran across its body, frying its circuits and deadening its body. With a whine of defeat, the machine sunk to the ground, and was utterly terminated in a matter of moments.
Needless to say, both Brock and Misty were petrified.
"Lenneth! How'd you DO that?!"
"Do what? Oh, disable the machine? Well, it's nothing really special… It's just something that I've been good at for awhile…"
"But that was astounding!" exclaimed Brock in surprise. "I've never seen a normal human DO that before!!" His mouth was wide open in amazement, but Lenneth quickly became saddened by what he said. She shied away from him, hanging her head miserably as she stared at the machine she effortlessly destroyed.
"So… you think I'm not a normal person…?" Brock instantly knew what was wrong, and slowly walked over to Lenneth and apologized.
"Lenneth… I'm real sorry. Please forgive me. It's just that… I've never actually seen somebody do that before! How did you…" Lenneth kept her back turned on him, quietly keeping her innocent blue eyes locked on the dead machine. It was obvious there was more to the girl than met the eye, but perhaps that something was a secret that the beautiful but mysterious girl didn't want to share.
"Ash and Gary are good at capturing Pokemon," she began quietly. "They both share a bond with them. They have empathy, and care for them deeply. Jessie and James may seem like blundering fools, but they've gotten out of many scrapes before with little effort. They're just very good at avoiding problems that would defeat anybody else, and their tenacity is second to none. Misty, you're a great water-Pokemon trainer, and Brock, you're a great breeder. Officer Jennifer excels in security and law, Nurse Joyleen is an excellent doctor, and Captain Thatcher is the best commander I've ever known. Everybody is good at something, Brock and Misty. This is just what I'm good at, and that's all there is to it."
A pause.
"…I see," he whispered. He laid his hands on her shoulders and apologized again, but all Lenneth gave him was a smile.
"I'll admit that it's a very strange gift I've been given… and it's not just effective on machines. I can disable a few Pokemon as well, and there are other talents that I have that are just too strange to tell. But I'm your friend, that's all you need to know, and I'm willing to help however I can."
"What a beautiful speech," sighed Misty warmly. Brock sighed warmly too, and not just because of the beautiful speech.
"Yes indeed, a lovely speech from a lovely lady! Lenneth, you're a wonderful and special young lady! I consider it an honor to travel alongside you! …Wouldyouliketogoonadatewithme?"
"A date?" she giggled, blushing lightly. "Brock, this is hardly the time and place to ask! …Though I will admit, you're a very sweet young man. I'd be a fool to pass it up. I'll give you my answer once things have settled down, but for now, we should concentrate on this mission!" He nodded in agreement, and so without any other delays, the group climbed over the dead machine and ran through the rest of the hallway, flushing out the opposition and freeing as many Pokemon as they could.
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"There! That should do it… I hope…" James wiped the sweat off his forehead, and a second alarm replaced the first as it rang out across the Team Rocket base. The self-destruct sequence had been initiated, and nothing short of conflagration could stop it. Without wasting a second, the three invaders turned around and dashed out the way they came in, pushing past anything that got in their way. A few stubborn Rocket agents remained to slow them down, but luckily, Jessie's kicks negotiated with them well.
"HYAAA!!!" People flew away left and right as she slammed her boots into their bodies, and any Pokemon they might have summoned were sent packing with James' attacks. Gary went on ahead to clear the rest of the path, stumbling across the occasional roadblock here and there, until finally he came to the three-way fork in the road, where he spotted his rival running out from.
"It looks like you made it safely!" he shouted. Ash smiled proudly and nodded his head.
"Yeah! We already set the Pokemon free, so don't worry about them! Jennifer and Joyleen are carrying all the wounded Pokemon away, so they'll be awhile!"
"I hope… they hurry!" he panted. Without another word between them, Ash and Gary burned the rubber soles on their sneakers as they dashed out of the base and climbed aboard the platform of the Dreadnaught, which had descended back down once they got word that the self-destruct sequence had been engaged. Together, the two rivals leaped on the platform and waited for their other comrades, helping Jessie and James first and then Jennifer, Joyleen, and the injured Pokemon.
The countdown slowly ticked closer and closer to destruction, and even as 2/3 of the team made it safely onto the ship, the other three were still missing. Worried, Ash wanted to run back in and check up on them, but there was barely enough time to get to the base, let alone find his friends. All the Pokemon were too weak to sprint anyway, so there was little anybody could do except wait and hope.
Finally, their nerves were relieved as Brock, Lenneth, and Misty emerged from the blaring base, atop three Pokemon they found along the way. With a few shouts exchanged, the party slipped into the Dreadnaught with only a few seconds to spare, and the call was made to Thatcher, who closed the hatch and lifted the Dreadnaught in the sky just as the first Team Rocket base exploded in a violent flame.
Everybody breathed out sighs of relief, and took a few minutes to rest as the Dreadnaught escaped the blast. Nurse Joyleen began checking for injuries, and found that none of the humans were terribly hurt, just some of the Pokemon. She got her staff to rush towards the platform, and everybody there volunteered to help her take them to the medical ward where they would be recovered. Congratulations went all around as rivals and former enemies put aside their differences and cheered for their first victory--their first, but hopefully not their last.
"Y'all should take a break," said Thatcher once everybody assembled in the bridge. "I got a feeling that our next few missions will be just as difficult as this one was. We set out tomorrow, so get some rest for today."
"Yes, sir!" Thatcher was soon left by himself in the bridge as everyone went to rest up, and as he paced around the large command center, he wondered if and when it would all be over.
To be continued…
