Chapter 12: In Which Rocket Grunts Cause Problems

((Since we took a brief detour there for a while, let's recap the last episode... I mean chapter... that actually had to do with the plot (yes, there is one... sort of).

When last we left our heroes, they were in the Goldenrod City underground (which is a walkway under the ground), attempting to gain entry to Team Rocket headquarters. This required the use of a Card Key, which they sadly did not have. However, a certain Rocket grunt by whom they were being smirked at unpleasantly did have one...))

"You're such losers," sneered the smirking Rocket grunt, "that I bet you couldn't get this Card Key from me if you tried for years!"

"Did you just insult me?" asked Ash angrily.

"Yes, I believe I did. In fact, I believe I just called you a loser."

"Oh... you.... you..." Ash was at a loss for words, something which happened fairly often. "There's only one way to settle this, and that's with a Pokémon battle! Go, Pikachu!"

Pikachu magically appeared in front of Ash.

"Oh yeah? Well... well... Go, Ekans!"

"Pikachu! Use Thundershock!"

"Ekans, use... ow!" No, 'ow' is not a new ability for Ekans. 'Ow' is the noise that people make when someone slaps them very hard, which is what Brynna had just done to the Rocket grunt.

"What was THAT for?" he asked in surprise.

"It was just to get your attention," Brynna informed him, and proceeded to kick him in a very sensitive spot.

His face, that is, you dirty-minded people.

While he was incapacitated by his pain, she quickly grabbed the Card Key from his hand. "OK, let's go," she said, inserting the Card Key into the slot on the door. There was a click, and a green light came on.

"Now try to open the door," Brynna said authoritatively.

Brock did so.

"Hey, it's unlocked now!" Ash exclaimed.

"Of course," said Brynna in withering tones.

They went through the door to the room beyond. Once inside, they looked around. Their jaws dropped in shock, and they stared.

"Holy Miltank!" Ash exclaimed.

On the wall to their left were three largish come on, everyone together now: it's a word, because I said so levers. To their right was a series of barriers and partitions with mechanical sliding door things that cut half the room into a mazelike grid.

Tracey walked over to one of the switches. "Hmm... I wonder what would happen if I flipped this switch..." he said.

"You don't know what that does," cautioned Brynna, while Misty exclaimed, "Tracey, you idiot, don't-"

Too late. Tracey flipped the switch anyway. Everyone held their breath.

Slowly, some of the partitions slid back.

Relaxing, everyone let out the breath they'd been holding.

"Cool," said Tracey, and pressed the second switch.

More doors opened, and other ones closed.

"Is there a path through yet?" Tracey asked, trying to see if there was.

"I don't know," Brynna said. "Misty, go check."

"Why me?"

"Because the boys would probably get lost."

"Oh. Fine." Misty went and checked. "No, no path through yet," she reported.

So Tracey flipped the third switch. Some doors opened. Some doors closed. There was still no way across the room.

"Hmm," Tracey said, thinking.

Several hours and much switch-flipping later

Tracey flipped a switch. Some doors opened. Some doors closed. There still wasn't a way thought.

"This is boring," Misty complained.

"Yeah," agreed Ash. "And I'm hungry."

"Oh, shut up, you're always hungry."

Brynna sighed and stood up. "Tracey, sit down," she commanded.

Tracey did. Brynna flicked a few switches, and suddenly there was a clear path to the door on the other side of the room.

Everyone else looked awestruck. "How'd you do that?" Ash asked.

"It was quite simple really," Brynna told him. Everyone stared at her. Simple? THAT?

"I just put my hand on the switch and moved it over, much the same way that one would turn on a light. If you have that kind of lightswitch, that is," she continued.

"That's not what I meant."

"Well, what did you mean, then?"

Ash was silent, trying to figure out what he had in fact meant.

The group walked through the maze sort of thing until they reached the other door. And here all resemblance to the game ends.

"Looks like you need the Card Key again," Tracey said. Brynna took it out of her pocket and reached forward to stick it in the slot in the door.

Someone swatted her hand away.

"I'm ever so sorry," said a young woman in a black Team Rocket uniform, stepping out from a shadowy corner, "but this is private Team Rocket property. There are No Twerps Allowed Beyond This Point."

"Yeah," said an also-Team-Rocket-uniformed man, "you're not going one step further. My deepest heartfelt apologies for that."

"Oh, we're not going one step further, are we? Well, I think Pikachu has something to say about that!"

Pikachu jumped off of Ash's shoulder, ready to do battle. "Pi cha pika ka! (Darn right I do!)"

Meanwhile, Misty and Tracey stared at the woman with the same feeling they'd had when they first saw Brynna- the sensation that they were seeing someone very familiar, but... out of context, as it were.

This time, though, it was Brock who realized who she was.

"You're a Nurse Joy!" he exclaimed.

See, I told you she'd show up again.

"That's preposterous," sniffed the girl. "I can't think where you got such an idea. My name is Dalton."

Tracey burst into hysterical laughter. "Dalton?!" he gasped.

"What's so funny about my name?" she asked, glaring at him. To use a cliché, trite phrase, if looks could kill, Dalton's current one was a weapon of mass destruction.

"...It's just weird, is all."

"You're one to talk," Brynna said. "Your name's Tracey, after all. That's hardly normal for a guy."

Dalton looked at Brynna, then at Tracey. "Your name's really Tracey?"

"Yes," said Tracey defensively. "Is there something wrong with that?"

"No, it's just funny!" she laughed. Tracey looked annoyed.

When she had stopped laughing enough to speak, Dalton said, "You do know that Tracey is a girl's name, right?"

"It's not always a girl's name! It can be a guy's name too! Besides which, I can't help the name my parents gave me. And I'm not gay," he added quickly.

Dalton gave him a very odd look. "I never said you were."

"Everyone else does, though. I think it's because I have a girl's- I mean, because of my name."

"That's just weird. Sexual orientation is not determined by your name."

Tracey shrugged. "Never made any sense to me either."

Dalton's partner, who had been fairly silent up until now, poked Dalton. "Hey, Dalton, we have to say the motto now, remember?"

"Yeah... we do..."

"Wait... what is our motto? I don't remember it?"

"Shh," hissed Dalton. "Neither do I. Let's just used someone else's, they'll never know the difference."

"Um... okay, whose can we use then?"

"How about the one that belongs to those losers who are obsessed with stealing that Pikachu? They don't get around that much, people won't know their motto."

"OK. Who has to start, then?"

"Um... you do."

"All right."

If they hadn't been standing in front of the door as they conferred, Brynna would have tired to get through while they talked. But as it was, she waited impatiently for them to finish.

"Prepare for trouble!"

"Make it double!"

"To protect the world from devastation!" He then turned to Dalton and whispered, "Why do we want to do that? I thought we wanted to bring devastation to the world!"

"To unite all people within our nation!" said Dalton, and then hissed, "I'm not sure, but that's how the motto goes."

"To denounce the evils of Truth and Love! (that's more like it!)"

"To extend our reach to the stars above! (just shut up and say the motto, will you?)"

"Bob! (Which do you want me to do, shut up or say the motto?)"

"Dalton! (You know what I mean!)"

"Team Rocket blasts off at the speed of light, surrender now or prepare to fight... yeah, we know. Can we get on with it now?" Misty interrupted.

"Fine," said Dalton. "Go, Golbat!"

And she threw her Pokéball. But the Pokémon that emerged was most definitely not a Golbat, or indeed a very Team Rocket-y Pokémon at all.

"Chansey?" it said, by which it meant, "What's going on? Where am I? One minute I was perfectly happy at the Pokémon Center, then you stuff me into a Pokéball and the next thing I know I'm here! And why are you wearing a Team Rocket uniform? You haven't joined Team Rocket, have you?" But Dalton didn't understand all that, so she didn't answer. She just stood where she was and looked embarrassed.

"So you are a Nurse Joy!" exclaimed Tracey.

"Was there ever any doubt?" sighed Brock. "Only a Nurse Joy could be so beautiful. Only Nurse Joys have that hair... those eyes... that smile... those-"

"We don't wanna know, Brock," Misty told him.

"Know what?"

"What you were going to say about Nurse Joys."

"What? It wasn't going to be anything objectionable. The last thing I want to do is offend the beautiful ladies."

"Still... I don't wanna hear it. It may be new to this girl, but the rest of us have heard it, oh, I don't know, only about a million times."

"Hey, having a Chansey doesn't make me a Nurse Joy, you know," Dalton said, a bit annoyed at having been forgotten in the argument between Misty and Brock.

"Then why has it got a nurse hat on?" asked Brynna.

"I... I stole it from a Nurse Joy!" Which was true, Dalton told herself. She had stolen it. They didn't need to know that the Nurse Joy she'd stolen it from was in fact her older sister.

Brock sighed. "It's a shame that a pretty girl like you had to turn to a life of crime. If we'd met under different circumstances, I really think we-"

He was interrupted by Misty grabbing his ear and dragging him away from the girl. "Stop it, Brock, it's really annoying, and besides, how old is she? Fifteen? Sixteen? She doesn't look much older than that. You're twenty-four. That's kind of sick."

"I'm seventeen," said Dalton, glaring at Misty. "Almost eighteen." ((It's true, by the way.))

"Sorry. And I apologise for Brock. He does this all the time."

"I know," Dalton said, recalling the time that he- it must've been him, there weren't many people like him, thank goodness for that- had come to the Pokémon Center that her mother ran. "I seem to remember that he hit on my mom once. It was quite funny."

"Your... mother?" said Brock weakly. "How old is she?"

"Oh, she's in her forties," replied the person who might or might not have been a Nurse Joy i.e. Dalton gleefully.

"You must have me confused with someone else. I don't flirt with people who are THAT old."

"Oh, I don't know," said Brynna innocently. "Nurse Joys usually look younger than they are, don't they?"

"True," Brock agreed. "Not one of them looks a day over twenty." He then was lost to the world for several minutes as he contemplated the looks of Nurse Joys.

Pikachu was getting fed up, so he thundershocked both of the Team Rocket members and the Chansey, stole the Card Key from Brynna, and unlocked the next door.

((...Oh no, Pikachu's exercising free will again!))

"Pika pikapi(-CENSORED-)," said Pikachu angrily, glaring at the author.

((Oh, fine. Since without you this scene might've gone on forever, you can be forgiven this time. Just don't do it again.))

They all went through the door, and started down the hallway beyond. At the end of it was- you guessed it- another door. They looked around warily for any Team Rocket members who might be hiding in the shadows and waiting to spring. Seeing none, Pikachu inserted the card key and they opened the door. Standing a few feet in front of them, backs to the door, were two Team Rocket members.