"Here."
Tracey, I promise I won't hurt you...
"You will!"
All right, I'll put down the club. No, don't pick it...igh...
(Half an hour later) "Hargh hah harh! I have you trapped!"
Where?
"The basement of Prof. Oak's lab."
This is unnecessary. I didn't write a basement.
"But I did." (picks up pen, which glints in the light) "Say this."
All right. I promise I will not kill, maim or hurt Tracey in any way in this chapter.
"Good."
Grumble...don't worry readers, I'll get him. Sometime. Maybe not today, maybe not tommorrow...but someday, HE WILL PAY!
Anyway, welcome to the next chapter. The gang finds the start of their adventure. But what has changed in two years? Find out in...
An Artist's Pallet
Disclaimer: Woopd. (That is Pockotokian for "I do not own Pokemon, but I do own Ad.")
"No Pokémon Centre here, so let's just go Oak's lab," said Misty.
Brock shook his head. "Count me out! That eejit Tracey's working there."
"Come on, he can't be that bad."
"Ad, you've never seen Tracey," said Ash. "He's obsessed with sketching."
"I get the feeling that this fanfic is going to be a Tracey flamer," commented Misty dryly.
"Nah, it's going to explain why everyone hates Tracey."
And why he attacked me.
"Yeah, that as well, Penpal's chum. If we must."
A kid ran into the street. He saw the gang, and shouted at the top of his voice, "Ash is back!"
A woman opened the door to her house looked around, and saw Ash. She ran up to him and hugged him.
"Ash, I'm so happy that you're back. Please, come in." Ad nudged Ash.
Ash said, "Oh, this is my mum, Delia Ketchum. Mum, this is Ad. He's guiding me around the Alternative League." Ad held out his wing.
"Pleased to meet you, Delia." Delia smiled. She turned to Ash.
"You found a new League? That's nice, dear. Now then," she reached into a basket, "in case you came back, I prepared a special bag of clean underwear for you. Ah, here it is." She pulled out the back, and handed it to Ash. He blushed, and opened his rucksack. He unzipped the 'Clean Underwear' pocket (with built in Tardisification™) and shoved the bag in. He closed everything, and slung the rucksack on his back. Delia closed the door, and they all went into the living room. Just as she was about to ask Ad what the Alternative League was, the doorbell rang. Brock opened it.
"Ah, good morning," said Oak.
From the living room, Delia cried, "Good afternoon, Samuel." The rest went outside to greet him.
"Where's Tracey?" asked Brock stonily.
Oak said: "I left him back at the lab. He's databasing the PokéBalls."
Everyone sighed in relief.
Meanwhile, at the lab, the computer was off. Tracey was fiddling round in the back of the PokéBall shelves, and pulling out the occasional PokéBall. He rewired the computer, and switched it on. A man in an electric orange suit appeared on the screen. Tracey winced at the brightness of the clothing.
"What do you want?" boomed the man.
Tracey stammered, "I've got some Pokémon, oh great one."
"Good. Now send them to me."
"Yes sir." Tracey put the Balls in the transporter, and they vanished.
"Keep it up." The man disappeared.
"By the way, what's Tracey doing now?"
"I don't know. Why are you asking me, Oak?"
"I'm not, Ash. I'm asking the narrator."
"You can't do that. That's cheating."
"Well, no need to argue: here he comes."
At this comment of Ad, Tracey came in.
"Hi, Professor."
"Hello, Tracey," chorused everyone except Oak and Delia tiredly.
"Good afternoon, Tracey," said Delia chirpily, Oak replying in the same manner.
"Hey, shall we have tea? I can sketch all your Pokémon."
"Oh boy," thought Misty, but she said: "Sure. If you must. You can go into the garden."
"Brilliant! Can I have the PokéBalls?"
"Here you go," said Misty, Ad and Ash, but Brock was skeptical. So Tracey took all the Pokémon except Pikachu, Misdreavus and Brock's Pokémon outside.
"Umm...lovely weather we're having?" offered Delia. Suddenly, the heavens opened and gallons of water cascaded down. Everyone glared at Delia. She rubbed the back of her neck and said, "Drat, I uses I should know irony well enough now to know that would happen."
"Just like when you say, "Things couldn't get any worse", they get worse?" asked Ad.
"Yeah, sort of."
Outside, Tracey grumbled, and set up a Porta-Tent™. He then opened his bag, and took out some TRBalls. Out of one he let out Scyther. He then took one of the PokéBalls from the gang and let out the Pokémon. It was Bulbasaur. Tracey directed Scyther, and the Pokémon quietly used False Swipe. Bulbasaur was too weak to move. Tracey got a TRBall, and captured Bulbasaur. He stuffed it in his backpack. He snickered. This was like taking Rare Candy from a Pichu.
"But, Giovanni, sir, Trig is doing perfectly fine as it is," sniveled the servant.
"These are the people who defeated Domino (see end of chapter notes if you do not know of this Domino of whom I speak), remember. We have to be careful."
"Very well, Big G. But I tell you, this is a waste of money, time and resources."
The thin man disappeared. The fat man thought, and stroked his Persian.
"Trig is one of my best agents. He must not fail." Persian purred. The man snapped up.
"That reminds me, he sent those Pokémon. I'd best go and check them." His pager rang.
"Hello? Is that Viridian Gym? What, a challenger? I'll be right over." He turned his pager off.
"The PokéBalls will have to wait."
It had been raining for about two hours.
"I wonder how Tracey is doing. He's probably soaked to the skin," mused Delia.
"It's lucky oil paints are water-resistant. Poster paint, on the other hand, smudges everywhere. A professional artist like Tracey wouldn't even bother going outside if he was using poster paint–"
"What oil paint? Tracey only uses poster paint."
Something clicked in Ash's mind. "But that means he isn't painting." Misty stood up.
"So what is he doing with our PokéBalls then?"
"I told you not to trust him!" said Brock as the gang rushed outside.
The PokéBalls rested on the table underneath the PokéBall receiver. They wobbled a bit. The light was bright. The light waves made them wobble a bit more. If the Meowth had patted them instead of just looking, there is a possibility they would have wobbled even more. But as it was, they just wobbled a bit. Not a lot, a bit. They wobbled a bit more as time passed. Eventually, they stopped wobbling. But that was as Meowth patted them, so they started wobbling again. They wobbled.
Tracey had now finished with Ash's Pokémon, and loaded all the TRBalls into a net. He was about to capture Alakazam, when the tent door burst open.
"What on Earth do you think you're doing?" screamed Brock.
"Go, Pikachu!"
"Go, Misdreavus!"
"Go, Onix!"
"Go, Scyther!" The three Pokémon looked at Scyther. It looked at them. The three looked at it again. It was at the centre of the triangle the three had formed. They all dove at the Scyther, and collided in mid-air. Scyther bounded away, and used False Swipe. It just shaved Onix's horn. Scyther used Double Team, and split in two. The two halves split in two. Soon, the whole room was filled with images of Scyther. Pikachu waded through the fakes, and crashed into the real one. The Scyther prepared to use False Swipe. But the attack vanished the images, and Misdreavus fired a Shadow Ball. It distracted Scyther.
"We don't have enough firepower! We need our other Pokémon!" The three Pokémon nodded, and moved behind the net bag the TRBalls were in. Scyther leapt at them, using False Swipe. Before Tracey could yell, "NO!" Scyther had cut through the bag. The gang burst in and grabbed the TRBalls. They called out all their Pokémon. Scyther stepped back, intimidated. All of the Pokémon used Tackle. Scyther flew through the wall of the tent, and into the sky. It disappeared with a 'ping' and a twinkle.
"Only Team Rocket disappears with a 'ping' and a twinkle!" cried Ash.
"So Tracey must be..." said Brock.
"That's right!" said Tracey. "I am Team Rocket agent Trig!"
"So that's where my PokéBalls have been disappearing to! And why you keep rewiring everything!"
"Yes. But I see I am outnumbered. So, I bid you farewell!"
And he leapt up and through the tent. As he went, he said, "I must dial 4281 and warn Big G" quite loudly.
"4281...that sounds like a PokéFax number. I'll check the ball transporter," said Oak.
They were back in the lab by now.
He checked. "Yes–it's Celadon City, underneath the Game Corner."
"That's the Team Rocket HQ!" exclaimed Ash.
"Well, they have some of my PokéBalls on the table. If I reverse the connection–there. Now, I press the button and..."
The PokéBalls vanished, and appeared again in the lab. They were no worse for their ordeal, apart from the fact they wobbled quite a bit, and Oak put them back on the shelf. A Meowth also appeared to have been transported. Ash opened a PokéBall and let it in. Oak put that ball on the shelf as well.
"Well then, I guess I need a new assistant. Brock, you can't stay here, can you?"
"No, I cannot! Because if I do, some other idiot for everybody else to hate is going to turn up with them!"
"Okay, okay, no need to get so touchy."
"Well then, I guess we can go now. It's been nice visiting Pallet, but we've got to go. Goodbye!"
"Bye, son! Bye, everyone! Come back soon! And don't forget–"
"To change your underwear every single day," chorused Ash, Misty, Ad and Brock like tired monks.
And so we leave our heroes as they set off to Viridian City.
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So then, a bit of a twist in this chapter. We're getting into Gymish territory now, but the long journey is finished. Anyway, you know I promised that I wouldn't harm Tracey in the chapter? Well, the chapter's over now, so...
Tracey lay back, enjoying life at TR HQ. Suddenly, a hand appeared out of nowhere. It slapped him. "Ow! What's happening?" The chapter's over, so I wrote in a giant comedy hand pen glints in light again. It slapped him again. "Ow!" And again. "OW!" And again...
GOODNIGHT!
Domino appeared in the movie Mewtwo Returns as a Team Rocket agent otherwise known as the Black Tulip. She was one of the main evils.