Disclaimer: Oh, you know the drill! I don't own it.

Chapter 3

"Pikachu!" screamed Ash at the top of his lungs.

"Oh, Ash," sighed Alassa. "I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"I never should have directed you here," she explained.

"Would you rather we were still swimming for our lives in the open sea?" asked Brock kindly. "Don't worry about it, Alassa. At least we have somewhere to stay for a while. We should get some sleep. Things will be better in the morning."

Ash and Misty were reassured by Brock's kind words and fell asleep promptly but Alassa still wasn't reassured. She spent ages tossing and turning until she decided she had had enough. Removing one of the clips in her hair she began to pick the lock on the cell door. When she had finished she awoke her companions, expecting them to be very impressed. However, she never thought that Brock would order her to relock the door and go to sleep, which was exactly what happened. Suitably put out and slightly bewildered, Alassa locked the door and tried to get some rest.

In the morning Alassa was not so calm about last night's events.

"Why did you make me lock us in? That was probably the only chance we had of escaping!" Alassa woke the whole building by yelling.

Brock replied calmly, "Why do you want to escape? What is wrong with here, for the moment, Alassa?"

"We're not free! Isn't that important? Running, laughing, singing, smiling at the sun, having a free spirit! When you're free you can choose what you do, when you do it and how you do it! I need to be free to live! Everyone needs to be free to live! Don't you understand that concept? Do you know how to live? Do you?"

Brock didn't reply. Ash and Misty exchanged worried glances. There was silence in the cell. It was only broken ten minutes later by the sound of faint, tuneless whistling, echoing round and round the musty cell and growing louder and louder.

"Mornin', prisoners!" said a cheery face that appeared in the barred window in the door. The face opened the door and set down a tray with four slices of bread and a pitcher of water on the floor. Alassa shot Brock a look that said, 'See?'. The guard caught the look but misinterpreted it.

"Aww, sorry, aint that what they feed prisoners? Well, what do we feed ya, then?" asked the guard. The four looked bewildered so he went on to explain, "Well, we never 'ad any real prisoners before, so we aint 'ad no practice, 'ave we?" The four still didn't say anything so the guard left, casting bemused looks over his shoulder and whistling.

It was about 3 o'clock and still nobody had spoken. The guard's whistling came back and his face once again appeared at the door.

"Oi, yoos lot!" he boomed, "The council wants to see ya. Now come on out an' walk in front of me. Tha's right. An' don' try any funny stuff."

"Yea!" whispered Alassa to Misty.

"I don't see the bright side," Misty replied.

"Think about it. They've sent one really stupid guy to escort the four of us to the council." Alassa said, as if it was obvious.

"So?"

"So, it means that they think we aren't a threat, because we don't have our pokemon," Alassa said. "If we had them, they would have to send at least…" she paused to think. "Oh, at least eight guards to escort us."

Misty giggled. "They have seriously underestimated us!"

The girls' chat was interrupted by the guard shoving them all outside. They blinked. They had all completely forgotten that they were on a tropical island in the middle of the sea with no transport off. Their only chance would be to cooperate.

Before them lay a ring of stones with a gap right where they were standing. At the other end there was a long table draped with a floor length white cloth. Six people were sitting at the table, opposite the four prisoners. The seventh and middle chair was unoccupied. Suddenly the seventh chair moved. The four stiffened. A huge Feraligatr emerged from behind the tablecloth and sat on the chair. It motioned them forwards.

Ash, Misty, Brock and Alassa stepped forwards, into the circle of stones.

"Bow," Misty hissed. The other three obeyed and they all bowed a sweeping bow.

"Like, oh my gosh, what are you doing here?" asked the Feraligatr in an American cheerleader's voice. This startled the four because she appeared so ferocious and radiated so much power and had the girliest voice they had ever heard. She saw their looks and understood. "Oh, I like, totally understand! You think because I'm, like, a Feraligatr I'll be totally scary, right?" she giggled. "Everybody thinks that! There was this one time, yeah, when there were, like, these cute guys and-"

She was cut off by one of the people around the table saying, "Can we continue, your greatness?"

She looked flustered but said, "Ah, yes. Now, you," She pointed at Ash. "You are, like, a pokemon trainer, aren't you?"

"No," replied Ash. "I am not like a pokemon trainer, I am a pokemon trainer!"

"Wow! Well, you see, we have, like, this totally huge problem that just won't go away and we need a pokemon trainer to come and totally sort it out!"

"Hey, Ash, maybe they'll let us go if you help them," whispered Brock.

"Why do you want to escape, Brock? What's wrong with here?" Alassa shot at him.

He glared at her but made no reply. Ash thought for a second before saying, "I will help you sort out this problem! What is it?"

"Well, there are like, totally, these two people who keep traveling to the island, resisting our officers and demanding that we give them money else they'll, like, totally bust up our village! So we give it to them but that's only because there are, like no pokemon trainers on the island to sort them out!"

"And you want us to sort them out?" asked Ash. "What do they look like?"

"Well, there are, like, two of them and one is a boy and one is a girl. The boy is kinda cute! Oh, and they have totally weird tops with 'R' on them."

"It's Team Rocket again!" shouted Ash, Misty, Brock and Alassa in unison.

Note: Yay! I have reviews! I also have a rubbish spell check. Of course 'yay' is a word! Dumb thing Whacks comp I am sorry if I offended anybody with the American cheerleader thing but they were, like, totally the only words that I could think of to describe Feraligatr's voice! Oh, it is now rated K+ because of dire peril in dungeons… cackle I hate this chappie, though, because nothing very much happens! Oh, well, please R&R!