Chapter 21 Saved by a Sacrifice
Well no reviews last and lost some faves. Ah well what can you do? Just gotta keep going till the end no matter what. I planned on getting this chapter out on Saturday but got distracted so it might be late. So hard to concentrate on writing when you're connected to the internet. If you have a problem like that locate a spot where your laptop or whatever doesn't get a signal, or disable it yourself. That can help.
Saffron City had started out this morning as a brilliant city, with lots of tall buildings, but now parts of it were in ruins. The citizens mainly screamed and ran. A few brave trainers came up and tried to stop them.
"Squirtle use water gun!"
"Pikachu thunderbolt!" Ash ordered.
"Pikachu!"
The little Squirtle had no chance, its trainer was only one of three months. Both of them got shocked as Pikachu used its signature electric move.
"Why are you… doing this?" the trainer asked.
Ash glared at him, but he gasped slightly, as did Pikachu.
Ash groaned. "Pikachu…"
"Pi-
Butch and Cassidy watched their pawns carefully. All of Ash's other companions were feeling the remorse of what they were doing making similar expressions of regret. Hypno appeared to be struggling with maintaining its control over all the human emotions.
"This might not work!" Butch said. "Its might allow us to control humans as well, but the small size of the device on Hypno's arm doesn't let it control a limitless number of people or pokemon."
"Its too bad cause then we could have more. Ah well, if today's mission is a success maybe we can have Professor Namba build us another of the machines we had back in the orange islands," Cassidy said. "Then we can have an entire army from this whole city… maybe even the entire region!"
"Stop right there!" a voice called.
"Haunter!"
A woman in a red shirt and dark hair with a floating purple pokemon that had no legs. Sabrina, the Saffron City Gym leader. Also near her were several people in white uniforms with belts around their waists. Karate students that would likely favor fighting pokemon, one of them, a middle aged man with a Primeape, saw Ash, as did the Primeape at his side. Both of their eyes widened, along with Sabrina and Haunter as they recognized him.
"Ash!" Both Sabrina and the man said.
"Haunter!"
"Prime!"
Ash looked in their direction his eyes widened. "S-Sabrina? Anthony? Primeape? Haunter?"
The gym leader as well as the man named Anthony were people that Ash knew from his travels. He'd managed to beat Sabrina, though it had been a fluke back then. He also saw his old Primeape. A pokemon he'd never gone back for… just like Pidgeot! Seriously what kind of trainer was he sometimes? He should have gone back for Primeape before competing in the Pokemon League. So much had happened of course though, and his mind had gotten sidetracked in all his journeys from Kanto, the Orange Islands, Johto Hoenn, and Sinnoh. As for the Haunter, he'd never really caught that one but it had followed him to Saffron and then decided to stay with Sabrina as her friend. What were the two of them doing together?
"What are you doing Ash? And Brock and Misty too?" Sabrina asked. "I sense a powerful psychic attack going on."
Sabrina's eyes lit up as she called on her own psychic powers that she'd been born with. Butch and Cassidy gasped…. It was a rare thing for a human to be born with psychic powers. Sabrina gazed around, looking at Ash and his friends to the energy controlling them and following its path to Hypno.
"I see. So you have them under a hypnosis spell do you?" Sabrina asked.
She focused her gaze on Hypno who was suddenly levitated into the air.
"Hypno!" it exclaimed.
"Hypno! Have Pikachu and to other Pokemon attack that Gym Leader!"
Through its fear Hypno managed to get control with its Hypnosis. The released captive trainers pokemon shot their attacks at Sabrina. Charizard and Blaziken flamethrowers, Pikachu thunderbolt, Gyrados hydro-pump, and Mamoswine blizzard. Sabrina's eyes narrowed in determination as she put her hands up. A light screen appeared in front of her. She'd prepared herself for such a scenario like this, ever since that time Haunter had held up a bomb in front of her… even though that had turned out to be fake, she had decided to prepare herself against such a scenario should it turn out to be real. Her human lightscreen wasn't as strong as a psychic pokemon's, but it would hopefully protect her from the worst.
At the same time, Hypno fell to the ground on its bum. All the people and Pokemon it had hypnotized were freed.
Ash and the others looked around in shock. The attacks pushed against Sabrina's lightscreen which held for a moment, then broke. The gym leader was hit with the powerful attacks. She was shocked, burned, frozen, and hit with intense water pressure. The combined attacks knocked her off her feet.
"Sabrina!" Anthony shouted. "Ash! How could you!"
"I-"
"Primeape!" Ash's own Primeape ran at him.
It punched him with incredible force, giving him a black eye.
"Ow!" Ash said.
"Ash!" May called.
"May!" Ash looked at her, in the Team Rocket uniform.
May clutched her head as Butch and Cassidy looked at Ash.
"They're free from from the hypnosis!"
"Hypno come on, put them back under it!" Cassidy ordered.
"Hypno! Hypno! Hyp-"
"Oh no you don't!" Norman shouted as he ran at the psychic pokemon.
He'd been on the other side of Ash and the others who had launched their attacks at Sabrina. Max stood close to him as well so they hadn't been part of the group that attacked Sabrina. The Hoenn gym leader grabbed hold of the yellow psychic pokemons wrist, preventing it from using its powers. Hypno struggled as Norman shouted.
"Run! All of you need to get away!"
"Dad! No!" Max shouted.
May felt tears leak out of her eyes. She'd been angry with her father since Misty had confessed her feelings to Ash, but now that feeling was gone. She wanted to help him, but she knew he was right. They had to get away while they had the chance.
"Max come on!" she shouted.
"Lets get out of here!" Brock shouted
Ash, Misty, May, Brock, Dawn, and Max called their freed Pokemon all ran away through the streets of Saffron. Soon enough, Norman was thrown off Hypno by a psychic attack and then had his hypnosis reapplied, Hypno then did the same to Anthony and his fellow martial artist fighting pokemon trainers who were too slow to react, not knowing the full thing that was going. Haunter meanwhile, grabbed Sabrina by the hands and floated after Ash and the others.
"They got away," Butch snarled.
"Doesn't matter… with the other robberies going on we will be able to upgrade our hypnosis technology soon," Cassidy said. "And I doubt they will be getting off easily for a while."
Sure enough, as Ash and company ran… they were surrounded by police cars. Saffron City's Officer Jenny approached them.
"Stop right there! You are all under arrest for destruction and assault on this city!"
Well that certainly changed things up from my original idea. My plan was to have them stay on Team Rocket for a few months and by then Ash and May's birthdays would have both passed and they would have been able to legally date after Team Rocket were defeated. Still, Team Rocket has Ash and May's parents and have probably managed to … this isn't over. I might be looking to speed things up and get to the ending a bit sooner then planned but we'll see. I'm just making this up as I go. I had planned on bringing Primeape back sooner or later like Pidgeot.