Disclaimer: I don't own pokemon

Chapter Three;
Surprise Rescue? Battle aftermath!

A few hours before...

'Going to be late, again! Gah, this is not good!'

The young mans thoughts were interupted as he turned the corner, and just about ran into someone's fist. A near pathetic sound escaped him as he tottered back before collapsing into a boneless heap. Though the owner of the fist wasn't in much better condition.

Flinching, Mandy nursed his wounded pride as he cradled the hand that had just pulverised, or almost, anyways, the man that now lay at his feet. Glaring at the man as if he was the cause of this, Mandy tried to ignore the knowledge of who had really done this.

But like a troublesome stain, it kept coming back. And not going away. So it seemed to continually haunt Mandy. Though this was normal, he had never liked being with Team Magma; but he was basically stuck in the role he now found himself in.

And forced to come to the terms that yet again he had failed, and ...

Mandy didn't want to dwell on that.

But it seemed the blonde haired man wouldn't be rescued from his thoughts anytime soon as a memory flickered too life. The first trainer Mandy had faced had been stronger then his Poochyena and Nidoran gang up, and had gotten past him. The screams would haunt him for the rest of his life, Mandy guessed.

And now another one would be added to that...

Shaking himself mentally, Mandy slapped himself outwardly. He could not fall into that state. If he did, he'd be seen as weak, and .. Mandy didn't want to be seen as weak. Not untill he could get far, far away and allow himself to cry into his pillow for the vicious crimes he had witnessed and heard.

And like the man he had just taken down, he was rudely shaken from his thoughts as his cellphone blared out with some sort of rap music tone. He hadn't really bothered to change it when he'd gotten it, but now wasn't a time to try, either. Muttering loudly after the startlement he had recived, Mandy all but yanked the phone from the pocket, flicked it open and put the hand held device to his ear.

"What?" He snapped out, stress aiding to the fierce tone he tried to have going for him. Mandy could just about see the roll of the eyes from whomever was speaking.

"The Boss has found what we came here for originally. So move your ass and get over here!"

Muttering an "Alright," at that, Mandy took down the directions and snapped the phone shut with a sharp metalic 'clink'. Though a small part of him was glad. There had been no snide remarks about him letting another trainer slip past.

Shoving the mobile phone back into his pocket, he started off.

Present Time

Mandy could only stare in complete and utter horror that was hard to keep hidden, as he watched that Rapidash attempted to gore the human. If only she had been stalled for another hour. If only she had wandered down another path.

Mandy wasn't the only one to flinch as the girl was knocked for a loop by one of the horse pokemon's hooves. But he was the only one wishing the girl hadn't been there. He didn't like this, he had only joined because he had thought it was about stealing pokemon, and maybe terrorising a few elderly people out of their money.

Never had he thought it'd actually be about life and death, or forcing an ancient pokemon to wake from it's eternal slumber.

He was snapped out of his thoughts as Maxie shot out orders, and finished up with; 'And someone finish that trash off,'

There was a small chance. Impossibly small, but, still he had to try!

Grabbing a pokeball quickly, he threw it forward, not caring that an Admin had already summoned a Muk onto the scene. Ignoring the startled exclimation from the more experienced member to somewhere off his right, he snapped out a command to his pokemon as it formed.

Energy colored a deep stain of red formed and shifted into a near mushroom esque shape at first, then the 'Stalk' split; branching off into thirty smaller 'stems' that were a dark brown-grey in color, and they waved fiercly as the creature heard his master's commands, and would obey to the death, as most starters seemed to form a bond so deep, it was beyond anything found in life itself...

Or it could be the fact a Tentacruel had a brain probably the size of a walnut.

The giant dark blue, red jemmed cap glistened as light reflected off it's slimy body. Eyes narrowed in the darkness past it's tentacles and twin pincer like mandibles jutted out from the darkness and sunk into the earth as an extra balance of sorts.

The admin snarled out an order to the Muk, before throwing his gaze at the offending grunt. "What is the meaning of this Mandy?" The Admin demanded, and the Magma members between himself and the offending grunt coward, but were unable to move as that'd be abandoning their positions, and none of them wanted to anger Maxie now. Not like their crazy partner in this trough of insanity.

Mandy ignored him, just having a gut feeling if he looked away now, he'd loose his nerve to actually attempt to do the right thing, just snapped out; "My Tentacruel hasn't had anything to eat lately!"

The Admin seemed to be taken aback a bit by the outburst from Mandy, but he didn't believe this blonde haired fool. But he backed off, and called the Muk away from the Tentacruel; which had been beating the Muk up with ten of it's tentacles, easily dealing damage and fending the living sludge monster off without a second thought.

The Muk let out a terrible, graiting moan of it's name as it oozed over the rock; leaving a trail of vicious green slime that gave off a terrible odor behind it. A Magma grunt too near the Muk's master muttered just loud enough to be heard, 'Looks like it's not potty trained.' He was cut off from any further remarks when the Admin, a terrible brute as it is, kicked the grunt square in the behind, sending him flailing and squawking into the crater below.

The foul smelling purple and black sludge creature let out a groan of 'Muuuu-uuku' and started to advance on the human. The Magma grunt wasn't mocked as he screamed like a pansy and scrambled to get up, making it out of reach as a slimey three fingered hand swiped the area his leg had been a moment ago.

"George, over here, come on Georgeover here, hurry!" A voice cried out and a pair of grunts waved their hands to the grunt stuck in the pit, already one was summoning a long snake like creature of purple skin and rattled tail as 'George' fled the pursuing Muk.

Mandy, taking the advantage of this distraction as the admin and everyone else was watching the plight of poor George, made several swift motions with his hands, and the Tentacruel gave a small and soft 'Tenta' as he shifted slightly, and one tentacle snapped around the Magikarp and with a light toss, sent the dazed thing flying to Mandy, who caught it swiftly, and stuffed it into his shirt, hoping no one asked where the bulge came from as the Tentacruel snapped the young woman's prone form up with a dozen of it's limbs, and pulled her up into the ebony darkness at the heart of the tentacles.

Shuddering and sighing lightly, now all Mandy had to do was wait, and hope.

Time seemed to want to inch by as he now sat by his Tentacruel as it 'digested' it's meal, eyes half closed and almost listless. Except for nudging a shoe towards Mandy, somehow or other the shoe had come off, and joined its fellow by Mandy. Seemingly further proof the girl was 'taken care of' as the giant meteorite was hauled out of the pit it'd created. After an hour of hard labour. Or atleast for the rock and ground types the grunts had.

And finally, when the last stone chip holding the meteroite in place was turned to dust at the claws of a sandshrew, several Rhydon were forced to pull it free and haul it out of the pit with the help of a Steelix, and Mandy just watched this all unfold from where he sat near his loyal jellyfish. Though they broke the stoic look they had a few times when the real idiots nearly got themselves run over by the near sphere shaped space rock.

Only when the last footstep faded into nothingness. When not even a Zubat could have heard a swear from a magma member that had his foot trodden upon, when all was silent and nothing stirred it seemed; did Mandy turn to the water/poison dual type and slowly shift onto his knees, reaching into the mess of tentacles.

"Easy Tenta, easy," Mandy murmured, not even flinching at a rush of water hit his hands, and stung slightly, or the fact his arms were being numbed by the toxic limbs of the jellyfish. But after years of handling 'Tenta', Mandy had developed an immunity to the poisons of the Tentacool line.

More water came, and finally the Tentacruel let the human he had been hiding in a pocket of sorts, fall into his masters arms. Mandy grunted as he caught her, and slowly pulled the nameless trainer out, trying to be carefull and not jostle her too much, least she become even more injured. Shifting her with caution evident in his actions, he circled an arm around her waist and squeazed slightly- then jerked his arm tight and in one motion caused the girls lungs to clear themselves of water. A ragged sounding breath was heard as the young woman, now consious, a bit, sputtered, spilling more water from her mouth and pulled in another breath.

"Easy, easy, you're safe.. ish.." Mandy muttered. The damp haired girl muttered something as her head drooped slightly, and Mandy sighed. "Amazed you survived this long in there," he softly spoke while scooping the girl up as if she wieghed like a twig. Looking at Tenta, he nodded, and the Tentacruel uttered it's name softly again, eyes focused on the young female human for a moment; he had wished no ill to her. For he hadn't been told to attack her, so had no reason to want to harm her.

The Tentacruel then reached out with a apendage and tapped the pokeball that he called home, and disappeared into it on his masters belt. It was around this time Caim had 'woken' up, and began thrashing, uttering Magikarps like no tomorrow before finally freeing himself from his prison, and landed on his trainer.

Swearing lightly at the orange fish, even knowing it was useless as the fish stared up mindlessly and blankly at him, Mandy started forward. Atleast something wasn't affected by the knowledge of how badly the trainer in Mandy's arms could be off thanks to the double beating her body had recived; a hoof to the head and poison to her body.

"This isn't a game anymore, you brat," Mandy muttered suddenly, but didn't take his gaze off of the slight flicker of light at the end of this tunnel. "This is life. It's not fair, and to 'lose' means to die. .. and there's no second chances. And I won't be there to save you again."

Mandy didn't say anything else, knowing it was useless to speak to the girl in her condition. Half dead and not getting any better. But atleast he could say he had warned the kid. So his 'shoulder angel' couldn't nag at him or try to make him feel guilty.

And as Mandy sought to get the girl to the pokemon center or better yet; a hospital in Cerulean city, Maxie was already plotting his next move now that he had gotten the meteorite from Mt Moon, and it lay in the Radio Tower that had been put up recently just outside of Lavender town, and then in Saffron, for the head opperations of Silph Co. Then his dastardly plans could be set into action. And it did not help he was still on a rush for getting away with murder. Again.

Or atleast, so he thought.

-

Angel didn't know how long she was out. All she could remember was .. fighting an idiot... and Hades being hurt! .. then .. finding the fossil egg... and .. and a flash of something, something blurred, being struck, and .. and nothing.

Snapping upright, or trying to get into a seated position, even if she was prevented by doing that for being tied to the bed to prevent herself from getting out of bed untill she was fully healed, Angel struggled. Weakly, but she kept struggling. 'It isn't fair!' Angel thought acidly before slumping bonelessly into the hospital bed. She hated it here.

It stunk of cleanliness; antibacterials and bleach. And another thing.

Defeat. To be here she had to have been defeated. Her pokemon had been defeated. She was weak. They were weak.

Clenching her eyes shut, Angel tried to keep the tears from coming. She couldn't cry, weaklings didn't achieve their dreams. She couldn't be weak. But still, pushing past her struggles and denials, the tears leaked past. Seconds trickled by and seemed to turn into minutes, when it was only maybe the span of one, and Angel slumped again, weary, tired, and just let herself cry.

It didn't help words echoed inside her mind, words she didn't want to aknowledge for it meant to come to terms she'd be dead, that she was weak. That she didn't belong here, or belong on the path of her dreams.

Once again shutting her eyes fiercely, Angel pushed those thoughts away. She couldn't think those thoughts, she really would be defeated and pathetic like those Geodudes and Zubat's had been that she'd defeated using Caim. She was strong. Her pokemon were strong. She'd just been cheated by a stupid blonde halloween trick or treater.

Opening her eyes, the lost look that they had held for a brief time was gone, lost in the seas of a boiling surge of raw emotion. She would get better. Her pokemon would heal. She'd defeat the next gym and be one step closer to her goals. Nothing would stop her.

Nothing.

Or atleast so she thought.

To Be Continued In
Chapter Four: Recovery and the fierce battle of Fire and Ice! Part 1!