With thanks to Beta Daisy and also to; BouncyBluePenguinv2, Demon who is a Geek, Subieko, ZurumiNokori, and any other reviewers I may have missed due to my bad memory and worse attention span.

FrostQueen4eva; YAY! My first returned flame! Maybe I should get it framed and hung on the wall. Oh, and see those large, blocky patches of text? Those are paragraphs. I use lots of them. But of course you wouldn't have noticed that as you just went straight to the Review option in Chapter One, eager to throw my own words back at me without rhyme or reason.

Announcement; After this fic is completed, I intend to stop writing fanfiction. (ducks tomatoes) And I'll focus on original fiction instead. The reasons for this are twofold. Firstly, intense writer's block on everything except my original works. Secondly, ff-dot-net itself. There are some very good authors here. Unfortunately, they're buried under layers of Sueage and badfic. So, there's the announcement, hopefully none of you will hire hitmen to come and kill me.

'Why is it,' Pikachu reflected as he leapt off the treestump, 'that Butch and Cassidy only show up at the most inconvenient moments?' He raced towards the Rockets, ducking hastily behind a bush when they glanced in his direction. He needn't have bothered. The Rockets' eyes had a distinct glazed quality to them, which Pikachu was starting to recognize. Sue-influence. Dam – darn. What were they here for th-

"We're here to get that girl, and her little blueprints too!"

Well, that was convenient. "Nobody hurt them, they're trying to kidnap Celandine!"

"Pikachu, no need to shout, we're right behind you." Vulpix remarked, sliding into the bush beside him. "Do you think they'll succeed?"

"Knowing Celandine, no. Which would be more fun, watching Butch and Cassidy fail or watching Celandine fail?"

"Celandine. Duh." Togepi scrambled onto Pikachu's head to get a better look, apparently not realizing – or not caring – that it's rather painful to have someone else's foot in your ear. "Uuuurgh! Pikachu, there's still soup in here!"

"Get out of my ears then! Oh, Butch brought out Raticate... against the Sue's Flareon. I thought Rockets were supposed to be good...."

"It's not really his fault...Celandine lowers the intelligence of everyone around her... Except us."

"Yeah, except us." Vulpix put in, still watching. "Oh, she's done Fire Soul attack, does that even exist? And the Raticate's dodged it...WHAT? What was that supposed to be?"

"A karate kick? Looked a bit like one...why is the Flareon doing karate kicks?" Pikachu scowled at the offending Flareon and picked up a pebble, weighing it absently in one paw.

Celandine twisted slightly, glared at the elite commandos – who promptly made faces back at her; Togepi's was particularly grotesque – then smiled prettily at the Twerp Trio.

The Rockets said something unrepeatable concerning Celandine, her ancestors, her mother, and her Pokemon. Good for them. Then they brought out a net. From where, nobody knows. Maybe it was concealed in one of Cassidy's earrings. They're certainly big enough.

"Oh, so now they have a net....."

"Maybe they've been studying Jessie and James's attack strategy. Or maybe they're just thick." Vulpix remarked.

"Look! They've netted her! And they're dragging her away! Throw a party!" Togepi spun round, threw up his paws, and confetti and paper streamers fluttered down.

"Hey, Togepi, easy on the displays of superpower. That's called 'showing off'."

Newly heartened, the Pokemon waved goodbye to the Sue as she and her Rockety captors vanished over the horizon (which was about six feet away, proving once again that Sues suck at geography).

"Nooooooooooooooooo! Celandineeeeeeeeeee!" Brock cried, throwing himself to the ground and tearing at his hair in an overly melodramatic fashion. "My one trueeee loveeeeeee!"

"If he's so desperate to get her back, why didn't he go after them when they were very slowly dragging her away?" Squirtle asked, scratching his head.

"That's logic. Remember what I said about logic?" Pikachu asked, watching Brock flail about on the ground with detached scientific interest.

"Um....that it doesn't exist."

"Correct, my young Padawan. Looks rather like a headless Pidgey, doesn't he?"

"We've got to get her back!" Brock proclaimed, leaping to his feet and pointing over the horizon (still six feet away, in case anyone's interested).

"No! Bad faceless person! Keep being a headless Pidgey!"

"Look, she's left a trail!" Ash exclaimed, pointing at the ground to where a surprisingly wide and regular path vanished over the horizon (no, it hasn't gotten any further away since last time).

"Oh, darn, this is not a good day!" Pikachu cried, as Ash grabbed him and swung him up onto his shoulder. Then, with a yell (partly of going-to-beat-Team-Rocket joy, partly of going-to-save-Celandine anguish) they leapt over the horizon.