Chapter 15 The Phantom Strikes Back
Phantom marched straight toward the house that his two archnemesis's were in. Ash Ketchum and May Maple. He seethed at the thought of their faces in his head. It was because of them… well… mostly Ash that he hadn't been able to take the Sea Crown and become King of the Seas. He'd witnessed the boy in possession of the power it held… the ability to travel through the sea in a line of light. Perhaps there were other secrets as well. In any case, Manaphy, the baby Pokémon that guarded the Temple was out of his reach. That meant that the Sea Temple was too. Or did it?
In front of the house were a squad of policemen. They saw him approaching.
"Officer Jenny, look!"
Officer Jenny who'd been standing guard with a cup of coffee to last through the night, looked with slightly lidded eyes. She glared at the escaped convict.
"Phantom the Pirate! You are under arrest for breaking out of prison! Stop!" she put a hand up.
Phantom chuckled. "I did not escape from prison just so you could throw me back into it! Parasect go!"
He threw his pokeball and the Mushroom Pokemon emerged.
"Parasect!"
Jenny scoffed. "You're at major disadvantage against my Pokémon! Growlithe, I choose you!"
Her orange doglike Pokémon appeared.
"Growl!"
"Parasect spore! Put them all to sleep, they look like they could use a rest!" Phantom stated with an evil smirk.
"Para!"
The mushroom Pokemon shot a spore in a large radius, it hit the defending fire type and the officers behind it.
"No! I can't…" Jenny collapsed along with her men.
"Heh, only a weakling relies on others to protect them," Phantom stated as he made his way to the door.
"Wow… he made short work of those cops," Jessie said as they watched the pirate do it.
"You should try and teach your Carnivine to use sleep powder James!" Meowth said.
"Ahem!" James agreed with a nod. "I'll have to look into that."
…
In Ash's room, he and Max were laying in bed… well… for Max it was a sleeping bag on the floor while Ash and Pikachu were in the older trainers bed. Pikachu curled up at the end of the bed. Max looked up at Ash.
"Hey Ash? I was wondering… are you gonna go for my sister?"
Ash looked at his friend. "I'm not sure Max. I mean both her and Misty said they liked me."
"Well take it from me who's lived with her… I can't really recommend her. I mean she hardly had a clue about Pokémon back in the day."
"Hey… she's not all that bad. I mean I didn't know a whole lot back when I started my journey either," Ash said. "And I secretly thought she was kinda… cute."
"Cute her?" Max exclaimed.
"Yeah… the first time we actually talked to each other… she was hiding a plant behind her back," Ash said chuckling.
"Not wanting to embarrass herself huh?" Max laughed.
"Well I don't know what to do right now but I'll have to think of something, night Max."
"Night Ash."
They were silent, ready for sleep. It was now 11 o'clock, the same time Ash had still been up at the night before his pokemon journey started. His mother had come in and told him to go sleep. Then he'd been late and had to get Pikachu as his first pokemon. Of course he couldn't complain now after all he and Pikachu had gone through. But seeing the clock, Ash recalled that fond memory.
He also recalled his moments with his friends. The same day as he got Pikachu, he met Misty. She'd pulled him out on her fishing rod after he jumped into the river to get away from those Spearow attacking, he'd stolen her bike and she'd followed him after tracking him down. They argued a lot but they had a real bond. The same could be said of May though, mostly. They had both traveled together and been through so much. With May he hadn't argued nearly as much though.
Suddenly, Ash heard a crashing sound from downstairs.
...
Phantom kicked the door down as he got close. He didn't even bother with sneaking here. He would get his revenge directly. The door fell to the ground with a loud thud.
"What?" a voice called out from nearby.
Phantom reached toward the wall, flipping the lights on. He saw the dark skinned older boy whose eyes always seemed closed sitting on a nearby sofa. In another other sofa was a Mr. Mime.
"You!" Brock exclaimed.
"Me!" Phantom confirmed. "Get him!"
On his orders, the grunts of Team Rocket charged through the door and surrounded Brock and Mr. Mime.
…
Ash, Max and Pikachu all ran into the hallway. May, Misty, and Dawn were all there as well. Norman and Caroline emerged from the other guest room.
"Did you guys all here that?" Ash asked.
"Yeah! We sure did!" Norman said.
"Ash looked around, everyone upstairs was here but-
"Mom!"
He dashed to her room and looked inside. She was sleeping soundly, apparently the noise hadn't woken her. But the crash came from downstairs where-
"Brock! Mr. Mime!"
"Lets go!" Misty said.
"Pika!" Pikachu agreed as it jumped off Ash's shoulder and ran down the stairs.
"Pikachu wait!" Ash called going after it.
"Be careful!" May yelled.
Pikachu simply charged downstairs where three familiar crooks were waiting with a trap. Jessie held out their latest device and grabbed him as he charged down the stairs with it. It was a grabber, which they'd made to resist electricity so when Pikachu tried to use Thunderbolt it was useless. Pikachu struggled in the grabber.
"There we go the Pikachu grabber!" Jessie said as she held it high.
"Hey let Pikachu go!" Ash said as he and his other friends charged downstairs.
Jessie, James, and Meowth all the ran back to the rear. Ash rounded the corner and stopped as he saw the one in command of this mission against him. May was right behind him and she gasped as well at the sight of him… the man whom she considered to be her greatest enemy. He'd tried to take Manaphy, a Pokémon she considered to be her own child.
"Oh no, not you!" she exclaimed.
"Phantom!" Ash said.
"Oh boy!" Max said as he saw the pirate as well.
Misty and Dawn were there now too. Norman and Caroline had stayed behind to wake up Delia. They hadn't met Phantom before, but they saw him as a very large and scary man. Not to mention the fact that Brock and Mr. Mime were both tied up and being held by men in black uniforms with masks on. They were in a pickle for sure.
Well coincidentally I actually had a battle of a Parasect and Growlithe myself not long ago. I had the Parasect (which is my go-to grass pokemon on the game Firered) and actually managed to do a lot of damage against the opposing Growlithe which actually belonged to the 7th Gym Leader Blaine. It lost but it sure lasted long for having an extremely overwhelming disadvantage against fire types which do 4x as much damage against a grass/bug type. I was proud of it for coming so far even if it lost.
As for this, Brock and Mr. Mime are being held hostage. What will our heroes do? Please Review. Also I don't own Pokemon of course.