CHAPTER 14

The Fleet

Our trek to the beach did not last much longer. We walked single file, with Ash in the front, followed by Gold and me, and Silver swaggering along in the rear. Finally, the golden sands came into view.

"Finally, the beach!" Gold exclaimed in relief.

"Goody," Silver said, rolling his eyes.

"All r ight, water Pokemon out!" Ash declared. In a huge flash of red light, four water Pokemon appeared; my Politoed, Ash's Blastoise, Gold's Gyarados, and Silver's Lapras.

"Silver, when did you get a Lapras?" Gold asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Last year," Silver replied, "When you weren't harassing me."

"Hey, let's not forget who was harassing who."

"Can we just forget it?" I put in. "Come on, Cianwood awaits."

"Right," Gold said, taking a deep breath, "To Cianwood!"

Our Pokemon waded into the water, and we climbed aboard and we were off! It was truly exhilarating to ride the waves on the pack of my Politoed. The wind swooshed past my ears and the waves jumped up and slapped my legs. If this was a dream, it would go down in history as the best one I ever had. But I pinched myself quite hard, and nothing happened, so I guess it was real.

"Wake me when we get there," Silver muttered, leaning back in Lapras's saddle and closing his eyes. "Lapras, try not to lose the losers." Lapras rolled her eyes and grunted.

"So, how far is it to Cianwood, exactly?" I asked.

"If we keep up a constant pace, we should be there in about an hour or two." Ash replied. "Trust me, I've been this way dozens of times."

"So have I," Gold said, smirking. "In fact, I think our experiences are equal, except that I actually bothered to pick up the Johto gym badges!"

Ash glared at Gold evily, and then flopped down on Blastoise's shell and said, "Shut up and surf."

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Bleep... bleep... bleep... the green radar screen beeped quietly again and again, and for a few moments here and again, a pair of eyes watched it. This pair of eyes was attached to a girl... Lt. Yoi, Giovanni's daughter. She had been patrolling the seas for three days, training the new recruits brought to them by Hulk and Greystorm's squad. She was very proud; so far they had trained over 70 new members... not all of them willingly... some of them had to be pulled from their homes and from their sleep... Yoi smirked as she remembered the operations from last night. A man and his girlfriend had been sleeping naked, when a crew of Rockets burst through the door, looted the house, and grabbed the couple and dragged them all the way back to the waiting sub, not even giving them any clothes.

Yoi sighed and leaned back in her chair, brushing her long, dirty blonde hair behind her head. She loved her job... she wouldn't give it up for anything in the world. She got to travel to far away places... she had even been to countries past Hoenn, and seen Pokemon nobody else knew about. She got to meet all kinds of people, whether they were her victims, or friends, or enemies... the only thing she didn't like was that there were no cute guys on the team. She was 19 years old, she should have at least had 1 boyfriend by now.... but all the guys were either pervs or just not her type. She kept telling herself she would meet someone eventually, but she was starting to lose hope.

"Lt. Yoi?" came a voice over her walkie talkie, "Check the radar on sector 17, I think we have something."

Yoi sat up and looked at the radar screen, and observed four blips of light, moving slowly south. "Intruders in our midst," she said with a smile. "Perfect."

"Should we apprehend them, boss?"

"Hmm... yes. Capture them and bring them to me. They will become our newest members."

"Very good, boss."

Lt. Yoi grinned and flipped on the video surveillance. This would be fun.

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We had been surfing for about 45 minutes when I said, "So Ash, why did you never pick up the Johto Gym Badges?"

"None of your business!" Ash snapped.

"He's too weak," Silver spat from my left. "He's afraid he'll get beaten to a pulp."

"No, that's not it! I just didn't get around to it, that's all."

"And yet, you still managed to get your Pikachu to level 80," I said.

"Yes I did." Ash muttered. "And if you don't shut up about the badges, you're going to make me angry. And when I get angry, my Pikachu gets upset. And when Pikachu gets upset, people get ZAPPED!"

"Ripoff!" I coughed. "Ripoff!"

"What was that?" Ash said softly.

"Nothing, nothing..." I said, looking at the sky.

"Hey can we stop fighting please?" Gold said. "Let's talk about something happy, such as...."

But Gold never got to say his happy thought, because suddenly an amplified voice shouted over a megaphone, "DON'T MOVE! THIS IS TEAM ROCKET, YOU ARE SURROUNDED!!"

We looked around, and from behind, in front, and to the sides were looming, steel-gray battleships, gaining on us rapidly.

Silver sat up and scratched his head. "This can't be good," he said.

"Duh," I shot back at him. "Should we try to make a break for it?"

"We move too slow," Ash said. "We have to fight, we have no choice."

"Right..." I said, and I inched forward on Politoed's back and kept my hand on my Poke Balls. "Fighting solves problems."

"Like you wouldn't believe," Silver whispered.

"Like you wouldn't believe...." Gold echoed.

The ships drew closer.