Chapter 13: In Which They Arrive At Team Rocket Headquarters and Really Start to Mess Things Up

"Hmm," said Ash loudly, "they look familiar."

The two people turned around.

"Prepare for trouble! (See, James, I told you we were guarding the wrong side of the door!)"

"Make it double! (Well, Jessie, how was I supposed to know which side to guard? And anyway, it worked out all right in the end, didn't it? We caught the twerps!)"

"To protect the world from devastation! (You're an idiot.)"

"Quick!" Brynna hissed. "Let's make a run for the next door before they finish that ridiculous motto!"

The five-

"Pika!"

Er, the six people raced down the hall, and tried to open the next door with their card key.

"It's not working!" hissed Misty, dismayed.

"You've got to do it more slowly," Brynna told her. "It can't read the card properly if you pull it out too fast. It's like a hotel room key."

"Oh."

They managed to get through the door before Team Rocket could catch them. Once safely on the other side of it, they paused to catch their breath, and heard Jessie rattling the door handle.

"Damn! It's locked! James, where's our Card Key?"

"I think I left it in the pocket of my other skirt. Sorry, Jessie..."

There was the sound of James being smacked with something painful.

"Ow!"

"You're an idiot, James."

"You're both idiots!" exclaimed Meowth. "Jessie, you shouldn't've let James have the key in the first place!"

"Well, at least we didn't blast off that time."

"And it's a good thing too, because the ceiling here is really low."

Ash, Brock, Misty, and Tracey rolled their eyes well, maybe not Brock, because he hasn't really got eyes, and they (and Brynna and Pikachu) continued down the next hallway. Just as they were about to reach the next door, another pair of Team Rocket members materialized out of nowhere.

"Going somewhere, twerps?" said the woman, idly flicking a strand of her long brown hair behind her ear.

"Yes!" said Ash. "And I'm not a twerp."

"Oh yes you are," said the woman, taking out a shiny black device that looked like a Pokédex. "'Twerp' is the official name for anyone who is foolish enough to mess with Team Rocket."

She pointed the Pokédex thing at Ash, and then looked from its screen to him to the screen again in surprise.

"So you're the one with the Pikachu that my esteemed colleagues-" something about the way she said 'esteemed colleagues' turned it into a nasty insult- "are so intent on catching. It says here that you're thirteen. You don't look thirteen."

"I'm not."

"Hm. Must be a problem with the TwerpDex, then."

Ash turned to Misty. "What's a TwerpDex, Misty?"

Misty shrugged. "I dunno." She looked at Brock. "What's a TwerpDex?"

"Not sure. Tracey, what's a TwerpDex?"

"I don't know. Brynna, what's a TwerpDex?"

"Well, obviously it's a list of information about those who go against Team Rocket."

"Brilliant. Give the girl some points for intelligence." The woman applauded sarcastically. Just how it is possible to applaud sarcastically, I'm not sure, but she managed it.

"Honestly," Brynna said to her companions. "Must you all be so dense?"

"Well, well, well," said the woman, interrupting what might have been yet another argument. "You've managed to get this far. Commendable. I'm almost sorry that I have to defeat you now."

"You are?" asked Ash hopefully.

"No," said the woman with an evil smile that one rather expected to show her fangs. "Not in the slightest." Then she sighed. "I suppose we have to say that idiotic motto now." She rolled her eyes, and began.

"Prepare for trouble!"

"Make it double!"

"To bring destruction and devastation! (Ferris, you're not supposed to talk, remember?) To rule all people within our nation! To hide the truth and crush the love! To extend our reach to the stars above! Gretchen!"

There was a pause, and then the woman- Gretchen- poked her partner. "Say your name," she instructed.

"But I thought I wasn't supposed to talk!"

"You can say your name. That's the exception."

"Oh. Okay. Ferris!"

My younger sister will probably kill me if I don't mention that Gretchen was originally her OC, although I stole her for this story and wrote nearly all of her lines.

"Team Rocket destroys at the speed of light! Surrender now or prepare to fight!"

There was a very long pause.

"Say your line, Cassandra," commanded Gretchen.

Do I have to? said a voice inside their heads.

"Yes."

But it's so... so demeaning!

"Say it, Cassandra."

Espeon, that's right. There, are you happy now?

An Espeon came up to sit in front of Gretchen.

"Wow, your Espeon talks?" Ash said excitedly. "Cool!"

"Cassandra is highly intelligent. Of course, that makes her stubborn, vain, finicky, pessimistic, bossy, and a number of other things. Well, she'd probably be that way anyhow. But now she can make her personality more evident."

"And now, twerps, prepare to DIE!" interrupted Ferris, reaching for a Pokéball.

"Ahem," said Gretchen loudly, grabbing his arm and stopping him mid-reach. "What are you supposed to be doing, Ferris?"

"Um... guarding the door?"

"And?"

"Um, um, um, learning?"

"Right. And you learn by doing what?"

"Er... watching and listening?"

"And what don't you do?"

"Talk," said Ferris resignedly.

"Good, maybe you're not as stupid as I thought. Though that wouldn't be saying much." Gretchen reached into the bag she was carrying and produced a thick book that looked something like a dictionary. The cover read, "Gretchen's Evil Phrases for All Occasions."

"Study this," she said. "I'll quiz you on it in fifteen minutes when I'm done with these twerps. I expect you to have it memorized by then."

"Are we gonna have a Pokémon battle?" Ash asked.

"Me? Battle you? No, I think not."

"Why? Are ya scared?"

Gretchen laughed at that for about fifteen minutes. "Scared of you? Sure, when volcanoes freeze over. No, it's because although I am evil, I like to think of myself as being above massacring innocent Pokémon whose only mistake was allowing themselves to get stuck with an imbecile like you."

"Huh?" said Ash, confused by the big words.

"She thinks you're stupid and if you battled her she would win," Tracey simplified.

"Oh yeah? Well, I bet my Pikachu could take on your stupid Espeon and win faster than you could say, "Espeon, use Psybeam!"

"I hate to interrupt," said Brock suddenly, "But, Gretchen, I can't help noticing your astonishing beauty. Would you like to go out with me next Saturday?"

"I'd like to, but- er, that is to say, YOU WILL NEVER BE GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME, PATHETIC MORTAL! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!"

Brock shrugged. "Well, it was worth a try. It always is, come to that."

Meanwhile, Pikachu was talking to Gretchen's Espeon, saying something along the lines of 'I know my trainer's an idiot, but will you battle me anyway? It'll make him happy, and besides which, I'm quite a capable Pokémon.' Cassandra relayed his words to Gretchen, who nodded.

"All right, Ash," she said, "I will allow you to battle me. Three Pokémon each, if I win you leave, if I lose you keep going. Ferris will referee. Hey, Ferris, come here and referee this Pokémon battle!"

Ferris considered for a moment, then went. Pikachu handed the Card Key to Brynna.

"I choose you! Rattata!" Ash said, throwing a Pokéball. Pikachu was shocked (I swear that pun was unintended).

"Go ahead, Cassandra, do your stuff," said Gretchen disinterestedly.

While the two were battling, Tracey, Misty, Brynna, and Brock snuck down the hall to the next door. They opened it, and found themselves in a smallish vestibule, with three doors leading away from it, not counting the one they'd come through.

They heard footsteps approaching, and Brynna opened the first door she came to, which led to a storage closet. They all ducked inside.

Someone pounded on the door they'd just come through. "Hey! It's me, Ash! Let me in!"

The others exchanged glances. Finally, Tracey came out of the... er, that is to say, exited the storage space and opened the door for Ash.

"So you won your battle, huh? Misty said, surprise evident in her voice.

"I guess so."

"What do you mean, you guess so?"

"I didn't tell him to do it, but Pikachu did this really huge thundershock and knocked out Gretchen, Ferris, and Cassandra. And then we ran- I figured we'd better hurry, because it'd only take them a few minutes to recover."

"Hey, look what I found!" exclaimed Brock from the back of the closet.

"What?"

"Team Rocket uniforms!"

"So?" said Ash, not understanding the significance of this discovery.

"So we can dress up as Team Rocket members!"

"It won't fool them," Misty said.

"Why not? They always manage to fool people with their stupid disguises. I see no reason why we couldn't do the same."

"It's worth a shot, anyway," Tracey agreed.

"Oh, okay," said Brynna. "I wear a women's medium; can you find one in my size?"

Some time later

"I feel ridiculous," complained Misty. She didn't quite fill out the Team Rocket top she wore, and the boots were half a size too big and slid around on her feet when she walked. In addition to this outfit, she wore very large, very dark sunglasses that made it almost impossible for her to see in the dim light of the closet.

"Yeah, well that's because you look ridiculous!" Ash told her.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!" Misty roared.

Ash cringed.

"Shh, Misty, keep it down. We don't want Team Rocket to know we're here before we finish changing, do we? It'll mess up our plans completely."

"What is our plan, anyway?" asked Brynna.

"I'm gonna tell Giovanni that I know all about his evil plan, and then I'm gonna challenge him to a Pokémon battle!"

"Somehow," said Brynna, "I don't think that'll work. If you guys create a distraction though- pretend to be grunts confused about your orders, draw Giovanni's attention away for a while, I can hack into his computer and wipe any files that look like they might have to do with world domination. OK?"

"But won't he have backup? Or hard copies?"

"Those I can steal. And anyway, evil people don't usually. They don't think things all the way through. Which is why Good usually wins, unless Good," she glanced at Ash, "is Dumb. I shudder to think what might have happened had I not come with you."

Everyone glared at Brynna as they left the closet and started down the hall through one of the other doors (behind the third door was just another storage closet).

'Giovanni's Office This Way,' said a sign at the first intersection, with an arrow pointing left. They followed the signs until they were right outside Giovanni's office.

"Now remember, Ash, don't say anything that might mark you as anything other than a confused Rocket grunt, all right? You are not Ash, you don't come from the future, and you're not trying to foil his evil plans. Okay?"

"Okay," Ash replied.

'Giovanni's Office- Do Not Enter. This Means You. Yes, You, You Idiot,' read a sign on the door of Giovanni's office. They went in. Giovanni was at his desk doing paperwork.

"What do you want?" he asked, without looking up.

Before anyone else had a chance to say anything, Ash blurted out, "I come from the future, and I've been sent back in time to foil your evil plans!"

"Which evil plans?" Giovanni asked, looking confused.

"You know, your evil plans to take over the world-"

"'s supply of noodles," Misty interrupted. "You're going to steal every noodle in the world, and then, since you'll be the only one who has the noodles you can ask whatever price you like for them and people will have to pay it. You'll become rich and powerful, and it will help you with your plans to take over the world."

"Why'd you do that?" Ash whispered.

"Well, I wasn't sure if he'd actually come up with his plan to take over the world yet, and I didn't want to give him any ideas."

Giovanni looked more confused than ever. He stared at them for a moment, then picked up his phone and dialed. "Jena?" he said. "There are a bunch of twerps in my office. Send some of your people to remove them, will you?"

"Sure, Boss," said the person on the other end, whose name was apparently Jena.

After that, things were a bit of a blur. One minute they were being hit on the head by Team Rocket security guards, the next they were lying in the street in Goldenrod with people giving them funny looks and a wide berth. They got up, dusted themselves off, and looked at one another.

"Well," said Brynna finally, "you lot really screwed that one up, didn't you?"

((Gretchen, Ferris, their motto, their talking Espeon,the Twerpdex, Gretchen's Evil Lines for AllOccasions, etc.belong to my little sister. I'm just borrowing them because I ran low on character ideas. I did write the rest of their lines, though.))