Chapter 11: Thieves of Magma and Aqua.

From the perspective of a Team Magma member

Staying in stealth fully out of sight is difficult in Team Magma uniform, but I had to manage. I had to see if it was true. I snuck through the edges of Petalburg Forest.

It was just as I was told. I could see the girl handling a mightyena and a white ninetales in quite an amateurish way. Even from a distance I could see that not only was the girl stupid enough to let them get the upper hand and do what they want, she was also seemed a bit nervous, which would solidify the two Pokémon's belief that they owned her, not the other way around.

The question is why did that strange lady tell me about her?

That lady with her injured rapidash gave me the information as if she thought I'd need to actually steal mightyena from people to get enough for my quota… Team Magma doesn't care about how many I get, as long as we get some and Team Aqua doesn't. Mightyena are most useful in teaching recruits how to properly handle Pokémon, nothing beats a mightyena at removing any unnecessary lenience from the minds of a trainer when getting Pokémon to obey. It is clear that the mightyena this girl has gotten isn't anywhere near as vicious as all others I've seen before.

A flicker of blue to my right, Team Aqua! Instinctively my hand reached for my Poké Balls…

"No need for that," a familiar voice, followed by the cute giggle that had me fall in love, "it's only me. I suppose you have to be a bit on edge to be doing what we're doing, playing both sides of the Aqua and Magma feud. I know that evil lady told you to go after the girl too, just for a mightyena, but I can tell you what she didn't tell you. Her conscious mind tells her that the girl is unbeatable and desires to take what little she has left away, before taking the position she once had in the grand order. On the other hand her unconscious mind doesn't communicate well with her conscious mind and says she not only underestimated the rather clueless girl's weak Pokémon, but also the guilt of ruin the girl's life once before made it hard to do it again… The rest of the mind was messed up with artificially induced delusions and amnesia, thus I'll have to meditate on it to find what it all is about."

She was tall and slim, quite an attractive figure overall. It was just too bad about her blue dyed hair lying lifelessly down her neck, only long enough to reach her shoulders, and the fact her eyes were always dilated to the point her whole eyes looked black… I suppose I should be more hateful about her Team Aqua outfit, but I know profit and promotion comes easier to those who cheat to get to the top, profit instead of loyalty to Team Magma's goals.

"I'm starting to see why you keep the fact you're a telepath secret," I laughed as though it was the first time we had talked about this, "I'm just glad I'll never fear your gift, at least until the telepathic resistance fails. Its just too bad I only got the prototype shot of it and not the recipe as it'd be much more profitable than our current jobs… Now I've finally told you my secret that you've hounded me for in the past, so tell me something of yourself. I mean anything but your name, we could be forced to betray each other to our teams"

"I wouldn't try reading your mind here even if I could. Something powerful is scanning the area for psychic disturbances. Since it isn't from a human it'll be dangerous for me to try to disrupted it," it was odd how she could go for joyful to completely serious so quickly, though nothing compared to how weird it was for a telepath not to be mentally scared by their powers, "…I never told you about the problems for psychics when trying to affect Pokémon. It's similar to the problem psychic Pokémon have when trying to affect human minds. For now we'll have to set a trap to steal that mightyena when the girl decides to head through the forest tomorrow morning. You'll have to wait to know my secrets, but you will be told someday even if I have to tell you in my last breath."

"So we steal the mightyena and kill the girl just as the lady told us to? Doesn't sound like your style and it'd be quite a risky since neither team stands for unnecessary stealing or kil—"

"I thought it'd be obvious that the lady we met was responsible for the massacre we heard about. I guess I underestimate how much my abilities show me. We are to leave the girl unharmed, and we're only taking the mightyena as it's too soft to be of any help in a fight. Both Teams want revenge for what happened but the lack the power to stop her… That girl on the other hand will be much harder for her to kill, thus it is the best way to get revenge. Perhaps once its all over we can return her mightyena if we can't force it to become vicious enough for our purposes. I suggest a harmless pit fall trap with a few upgrades of my own design."

It was going to be a long night making the trap, but how could I possibly refuse to help her?

One cannot regret not getting any sleep when one works on a masterpiece, but I could regret that it'd only be a one-use thing. Waiting to see it in action was the worse part, especially when I could see clouds rapidly building up on the horizon, coming closer every second. I had taken cover behind a tree, and watched the road waiting for the girl.

She came, with both her Pokémon walking with her, though I could clearly see that her ninetales was growling at the mightyena to make it keep its distance from the girl. They walked right onto our trap, the ground breaking at exactly the right moment to catch them as it was triggered by remote, not weight. The slanted greased sides made sure they slipped into each other and would have to stand on each other to get up, in theory causing a bit of trouble for them. And by the sounds of their muffled shouts it was a success.

"Looks like you fell into our trap," I called out, stepping out from behind a tree, "and you should blame this on yourself as you angered one who can afford to get help dealing with problems—"

"—Lucky for you we aren't very good at taking orders," the telepath continued, as she stepped out from behind a different tree, "we were meant to kill you and just grab your mightyena, but we much prefer to have an enemy enraged with a lust for revenge. We'll even leave you with your ninetales as it wouldn't be sporting otherwise. Now you go to sleep for a short time."

It was suddenly quiet from the pit, the sleep powder bombs hadn't even made a sound when the telepath activated them and all within the pit were knocked out with ease.

"We have to hurry to make sure one of the Pokémon isn't obstructing the girl's breathing," I could see in my companion's face, a tear ran down her cheek, that she hated to do this to the girl, "then we can get the stupid dog, tie it up and carry it back to the cages before dividing them equally between us. Remember as far as our superiors are concerned we didn't let each other get a single one."

"Go Angela, you heard the orders!" I called out as I tossed a Poké Ball into the air, calling upon a Pokémon that was certainly not one of Team Magma's favourites (I was only allowed to have since it was too useful to go without) and the rest happened was like a trance…

… The mightyena whining snapped me out of it. I found I was walking through the forest following the Telepath. The mightyena on my back, it's paws all tied together and its mouth muzzled all with some of Tangela's vines. It had finally woken up and we were almost at the cages, just over the next hill. The cages were just basically two metal cages, with thick bars that could easily be electrified if needed, designed to be hooked up to a helicopter for transport…

"Someone is messing with the cages and freed the mightyena we've already captured!" I screamed as I dropped the dog, and ran towards the boy tampering with the cages assisted by a skarmory. I felt like something was wrong with the situation. The kid didn't look like a professional, with his yellow vest, white tee shirt, blue jeans, and brown hair, but there was just something wrong.

She was no longer with me! The telepath had run off. She would never abandon me when it was just a kid either of us could beat. She would usually stay to make sure I didn't cause too much harm. Why would she leave now—She's a telepath. She would know exactly what kind of threat the kid was, thus there must be no chance. It was too late the boy had seen me.

Thus I had made my first mistake.

"Thorn," He called out as if he was an about to give a Pokémon an order to attack. Thorn was probably the skarmory's name.

I didn't focus of hearing what command he was giving. I was too busy grabbed all of Poké Palls and tossing them into the air, "Attack!"

A second mistake, the skarmory had flown right at me, far too close for me to have any chance of escape. I didn't even stay conscious long enough to feel the pain of several of my ribs cracking under its powerful attack.