Chapter Twenty-Two: The Dragon Clan Gets Even

Later…

"Okay, I wanna' be next! Me! Me! Me!" Amanda claimed as Julie and Michael came out of the Pokémon Center.

"Boy, someone's excited!" Gloria commented.

"Yup! Yup! Yup!" She said, jumping up and down in her excitement.

"Okay, okay, point taken." Gloria said back. "You're next."

"Cool!" She did one more hop. "Sorry. I'm just so excited! I always get jumpy when I'm excited!"

"I can tell." Michael said.

All of a sudden, a trumpet sounded playing the "charge" theme and a smoke bomb went off from somewhere. Just before it did, Gloria recognized the silhouette of a Fearow come from the grass.

"Gah! Wah! I can't see!! I can't see!!"

"What the #$?!"

"What's going on!?"

"Hey! Hey! Hey!"

"Ohhhh!! Who turned out the lights?!?!"

Then the smoke began to clear. Out of the quickly vanishing smoke came none other then…

"I'm BACK!" Said Lucy triumphantly.

"Always flamboyant, huh?" Gloria said, shaking her head disapprovingly at Lucy.

"Hee, hee, hee! I've always loved making a scene!" Lucy announced proudly.

"Oh wait a sec, don't tell me what you're here for just yet." Joshua said quickly, making a "time out" sign with his hands. He paused for a moment. "You want to get back at us for mysteriously evading your gang and you want the money, right?!"

"Oh, its something like that." Lucy said. "We can do this the easy way, which is you come with me and don't resist, or I can do it the hard way which is…um…not very nice to say the least."

"I will not be ordered about by the likes of you!!!" Julie said fiercely.

"Charrrrrrr…" Charmander growled in agreement from his spot atop Julie's head.

"Well then!" Lucy said pulling a gas mask out quickly. "I'm just going to have to do this." She took what looked like a peanut out of her pocket, threw it on the ground then stepped on it. A green gas came out of the thing and Gloria started to feel herself get very dizzy. Before she lost consciousness, she heard Lucy yell quite loudly, "Nothing personal!"

Gloria awoke staring at something gray and stained. She propped herself up with her arms quickly, wincing slightly at the pain in her left shoulder, and scouted her surroundings. She was lying on her stomach on a concrete floor. The room appeared to be a holding cell of some sort; the door was barred and the window had no glass, but iron bars across it vertically. Suddenly, a thought came to her: where is Bulbasaur?! She rolled to a sitting position and looked again. She then heard banging noises and looked toward the door. Gloria saw Bulbasaur by the door, seemingly trying to knock it down by bashing into it. Then Bulbasaur stopped trying to ram the door down and ran to Gloria.

"Bulb, bulb bulba bulba-bulb!" He said hopping up down and pointing one of his vines at the door.

"Yes, I see that." Gloria replied, "That door is reinforced with bars. You won't be able to bust it down that easily. You'd have to burn it."

"Bulbaaa!" He chimed. He raced to the door and spat a fireball at it. The door started to burn down, the bars melting in the intense heat.

"I'm sure glad I managed to teach you Metronome!" Gloria laughed, leaning down and hugging him.

"Bulbasaur!" He said happily.

Gloria put down Bulbasaur and stood up. "Hold on, I think I have a treat in here…" She reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out a tiny brown ball. "Here. Just because you're such a good boy." Gloria grinned as she scratched her Seed Pokémon on the head where he liked it and put the treat on the floor, which Bulbasaur ate promptly before returning to his position at Gloria's side.

"Darn!" Gloria said in anger, stamping her foot, "I almost forgot. It'll be too hot for us to cross…"

"Bulb…" Said Bulbasaur, hanging his head.

"…I guess I can do it, but can you watch so nobody comes?" Gloria asked.

"Bulba!" He replied walking over carefully to the now destroyed door. All that remained of it now was a pile of molten metal.

Gloria transformed into her Illicuno form. She walked over to the metal and said to Bulbasaur, "Better get outta' the way. There is gonna' be some really hot steam in a moment." Bulbasaur stepped back. Gloria then used her Hydro Pump on the metal and hopped back. After the steam cleared, Gloria was back in her human form and approached the metal with caution.

"I think it should be cool enough now." She said touching it carefully with the back of her hand. It was only warm now instead of searing-molten hot. "It's a little warm, but we can tolerate it, right?"

"Bulba!" Bulbasaur said.

"Good. Let's go." Gloria crossed over the metal, Bulbasaur on her shoulder. "Now to find out where everyone else is…" The area beyond Gloria's cell appeared to be a hallway lined with doors similar to Gloria's. She suspected the other rooms were holding cells too. That was when she saw Lucy cleaning the floor.

"Hey, you!" Lucy yelled as she turned around in the hall, nearly kicking the bucket at her side, "You finally woke up, huh?"

"My name is Gloria. Please use it." Gloria replied back.

"Oh. Sorry about the rough greeting and all, but all we want is a little money. We're just a bunch of poor, innocent-" Gloria gave Lucy a glaring look. "Okay, okay, semi-innocent kids looking for a quick buck…"

"How am I supposed to believe you aren't connected with Team Rocket?"

"Who?" Lucy looked utterly baffled.

"Team Rocket! You don't know about them?"

Lucy shook her head. "Are they like our Dragon Clan?"

Gloria had begun to doubt her suspicions after that. "They're anything but! They steal Pokémon and now they're after me!"

Lucy looked startled. "I knew those geeks were weird! Now I think I know what they were up to!"

"Huh?" Gloria was confused.

"I met up with these really weird guys who wanted my group to capture you and your pals, but-"

"Hold on!" Gloria interrupted, "Were they wearing white uniforms with a red 'R' on them?!"

"Why, yes! But how did you know?"

Gloria paused for a moment trying to find out how to put it. She then decided to just say it. "That is what all Team Rocket members wear. Most of them also have a bad habit of repeating their motto over and over."

Lucy gasped then began to cry. "I'm sooooooooo sorry, Miss Gloria!!" She sobbed, "If I'd known that they were really Team Rockets or whatever, I'd never have agreed!"

"It's alright, Lucy." Gloria said, crouching down and putting her hands on Lucy's shoulders, "I understand. You didn't know."

"Whaaaaaaaa! " She cried again, burying her face in her hands. "I know you forgave me, but I don't know if I'll ever forgive myself…"

"Lucy." Gloria put a hand comfortingly on Lucy's shoulder. "Trust me. I've had so much worse things done to me that this would seem like a birthday party compared to it." Gloria said softly. "Much worse." She thought to herself.

Lucy took her hands off her face. "You mean it?" She looked like she'd never heard a response quite like that before. Gloria couldn't blame her for what she did.

Gloria nodded. "Do I look like I'm lying?" She said, trying to sound as truthful as possible.

Lucy smiled a little. "No. I guess not." She sniffed and wiped her eyes. "In fact, I ought to show you around the S.S. Sea Spray, huh?"

"What! You mean to tell me you flew us all the way out to sea?!"

"Like I said, I'm sorry, but that's how it went. The Sea Spray is actually Raven's ship, so I suggest you go meet her before she mistakes you for a stowaway..."

"Raven? Who's Raven?" Asked Gloria.

"She's our leader. You just gotta' meet her! She's the coolest!" Lucy began to walk toward the stairs then seemed to remember something. "Your buddies are above deck here. I gotta' finish cleaning the floor…"

Gloria went up the stairs. Sure enough, it was a ship! Many kids were playing on the deck. Just then she heard a familiar voice…

"Go ahead and pet her. She won't bite you or try to burn you if you don't pull on her fur or try to hurt her. Remember, Fire-Types can decide if they want their flames to hurt you or not. She's actually very gentle with most people despite her fierce appearance…"

"Michael?" Gloria thought. She walked around to the back of the ship where she heard the voice and, sure enough, there was Michael! He had all his Pokémon out and a large group of kids was curiously watching.

"Gloria!" He said as he walked out from the crowd. "I was wondering where you'd gone off to."

"I'd rather not say…"

"Oh. I understand. These kids are all over my 'cute little Eevee-creatures'! I guess they'd never seen the evolved forms of Eevee before."

"Well, I'm gonna' go look for the others. You can come with me if you want." Gloria continued to search the ship. She saw Julie entertaining a group of kids who were laughing at her.

"You think that's silly?! Get a load of my Seel impression!!" She got on the floor and started clapping her arms together, making "Urk! Urk! " noises as she did. The kids laughed again.

Gloria smiled. "Hey, Julie!"

Julie jumped up, startled. "Oh! Geez, Gloria! Don't you dare do that again, you hear me?!"

"Sorry!" Gloria said. "Anyhow, I was looking for you, but now I know where to find you. If you want you can help me look for the others."

"No need," Julie said as she sat up, "Amanda's on the other side of the deck showing off her cross-breed Pokémon, Michael's just down this side with his Eevees, and Joshua's talking to someone on the bridge. I think she said her name was Brazen or Rave or something like that."

"Would her name be, by any stroke of luck, Raven?" Gloria wondered.

"Yeah, that's it, Raven! That's her name."

"Ok, 'cause Lucy said Raven wanted to talk to me. Lucy told me Raven's the leader."

"Oh. I'm gonna' stay here and show off my extensive variety of impressions!"

Gloria giggled. She found it tough to admit, but Julie's Pokémon impressions were very good. She walked to the bridge; she wanted to have a talk with Raven…