The Resistance

I demanded an explanation. Of everything.

"Not here," she said. "Follow me."

She led me West along the bank of the river, where the water was too rapid for me to cross before. At the edge of the water, she turned to me.

"You willing to hear what I have to say?" she asked.

"Yes," I answered.

"Then jump," she said, grabbing my arm. We jumped into the water together.

For a brief second I was afraid that the current would take us to our deaths, but I felt a strong hand grabbing my waist. I turned around to see a Poliwhirl comfortably taking Misty and me into his arms. In front of us, Misty's Golduck swam ahead of us. The speed of these Pokemon in the water was incredible. The current didn't bother them at all. On the contrary, they swam with the natural flow of the water, taking the quickest and safest route.

I took out Squirtle from his Pokeball and he swam behind us. I wanted him to learn from the more experienced Water-types.

Misty held up both of her hands, counting down. Ten. Nine. Eight… I just needed to hold my breath for a little longer…

Poliwhirl made a sharp right turn underwater and then jumped out of the water with great strength, then landed with equally impressive stealth.

We quickly and silently moved towards the cliff in front of us. There was a large cave entrance, and we carefully went in. After walking for about 10 minutes, she led the way down to a fork that came to a dead end with a large clearing. Only one way in, one way out. No one could overhear us here. She set Golduck and Poliwhirl on sentry duty some way back the way we came.

There was a small box that she apparently left here from a previous visit. She took out a large oil lantern and turned it on. The light and warmth it gave off was comforting.

Then Misty started whispering.

"The problem isn't just the fact that Team Rocket exists," she explained. "Even though, obviously, that's a problem."

She twisted the water out of her orange hair.

"Team Rocket is always going to be Team Rocket, just going after money and power. The REAL problem is… we don't always know WHO is with Team Rocket."

"But they're always wearing the uni-" I started.

She smacked me on my arm.

"I'm not talking about low-leveled goons, stupid," she said.

Misty was kinda cute when she was being mean.

"There's three kinds of Rockets. The first are the idiots in uniforms that advertise their identity to the whole wide world. The worker ants that move stolen Pokemon and goods between their warehouses. They threaten businesses and trainers and go after small money. Sometimes they move in bigger groups under an officer. Still, these idiots are easy to handle."

She leaned in closer.

"The second type are those who work in the shadows. We don't know who they are because they don't come out. At all. I'm talking about scientists that work in Team Rocket laboratories in top secret locations. The BRAINS. We can't take them out unless we're physically able to go in and destroy their work and infrastructure. These are the crazy people who do crazy experiments on Pokemon just to see what happens. There's at least two just in our region."

She leaned in even closer.

"The last type is the most troublesome, the biggest problem."

"The Gym Leaders..." I said.

"Yes," Misty said, looking straight into my eyes. "So you see."

It started coming back to me, the fact that the original Pokemon series had certain gym leaders and Elite Four as corrupt individuals, oftentimes in league with Team Rocket.

"Being in an official role within the Pokemon League, these Gym Leaders who secretly support or work for Team Rocket are the biggest problem."

I saw her point. It's one thing to be an independent trainer that freelanced for Team Rocket. Being a Gym Leader meant you had certain official power. Access to records and information. Power of surveillance. Training facilities to make your Pokemon stronger. If these people were corrupt, then it was hard to call them out, unless you can prove to the Police their involvement with Team Rocket with hard evidence. Even then, whether the Police were powerful enough to bring them down was another problem.

"Who?" I asked.

"First of all," Misty said, "I don't trust you fully, so I can't tell you anything. Besides, we don't know everything anyways."

"Surge and Koga at the very least," I said. "And the Viridian City Gym Leader is Giovanni, the leader of Team Rocket himself."

Misty stood up from her seat and froze, looking at me with surprise.

"What- How- HOW THE HELL DID YOU KNOW THAT?" She demanded.

"Shh," I grabbed her wrist and brought her back down. "Keep your voice down."

She stared at me with her jaws dropped.

"I don't trust you fully yet, either, so I can't tell you," I winked at her. I was just kidding. I knew that Misty was a goody through and through.

"So Brock's our ally, who else?" I asked.

Misty let out a groan of frustration and buried her face in her hands. No doubt because I knew everything she wanted to keep secret.

I put my hand on her shoulder.

"Don't worry," I tried to calm her. "I'm in."

"In?" She asked, looking up.

"Yes, your resistance," I said. "That's why you called me out here, wasn't it? In such a secret way, too? To get me to join you in your fight against Team Rocket?"

She finally smiled. I could see her opening up to me.

Misty told me that she had her hunches but couldn't confirm who is currently working with Team Rocket. Lt. Surge and Koga were almost definitely working with Team Rocket. Others she wasn't so sure about.

As a true Pokemon Doctor, Brock was one of the earliest defenders against the shenanigans of Team Rocket. He personally scouted Misty to join the resistance.

"Brock was the one that suggested we work together to make the Mt. Moon passage between Pewter and Cerulean safer. It took months for us to set up the lights inside," Misty explained. "It's just too damn big inside to make it all safe…"

"Who else is with us?" I asked.

Bill and Prof. Oak supported the resistance by providing information only they could gather. There were plenty of individual trainers that offered their help secretly.

"We're not sure about Erika in Celadon City. She's always been a recluse," Misty said. "Brock and I tried to reach out, but we were afraid our phones were being tapped. You can't depend on her. We DO, however, have an agent in Celadon City. GREEN, his name is. Brock and I sometimes get hand-written messages, always hand-delivered to our door. GREEN gets the latest news about Team Rocket stuff. You have to get to Celadon quickly. The latest message from him was weeks ago, and we haven't heard back since. There's apparently something big going down in Celadon, Saffron, AND Lavender, the three cities we call "The Belt" because they're laterally on the same line."

"Why can't you and Brock come with me?"

Pleasepleaseplease that would be so awesome, just like the anime-

"No," Misty crushed my dreams. "Team Rocket agents have already contacted us both, not knowing we're actively against them. They asked us to JOIN Team Rocket. They're threatening to hurt the people who live in Pewter and Cerulean. We're currently appeasing them by paying money to be left alone."

"What?!" I said. "That's outrageous!"

"Relax," she said. "At least this will keep them off our backs until we can gather enough people to stand against them with us. Brock and I need to defend our cities."

I got lost in thought. Things just got more complicated, more complicated than just being a strong trainer. This gave me a deeper purpose.

"Don't worry," she said. "I know you can help us."

I was the perfect candidate. Having turned into a Pokemon trainer a week or so ago, I was still totally under the Team Rocket radar. Even though I foiled Rocket plans on Mt. Moon and a little bit on the Nugget Bridge, they didn't really know who was responsible.

She gave me the names of resistance contacts in each city, if I ever needed local help. I could also use Bill's private server to contact Brock and Misty safely.

"For obvious purposes," Misty warned, "Keep this a secret. TRUST NO ONE."

"Is there a secret sign or password between resistance members?"

Misty explained that we once had a secret sign, but it was leaked and not used currently.

"Now that Bill's back to work - he's really thankful for that, by the way - he says he could create a server with our member information on it so he can check if people who claim they're on our side are not affiliated with Team Rocket."

"Smart," I said. "And his protection?"

"Don't worry, even Team Rocket sends him their Pokemon for research, not knowing that Bill can see through their fake identities," Misty explained. "As long as Bill provides Team Rocket his services, and we don't link him with us openly, he should be safe. So I think-"

We were interrupted by loud noises at the entrance of this small opening. Poliwhirl and Golduck were pushed back into our space by some sort of attack. They were visibly hurt by whatever had attacked them.

Misty ran towards them with concern, but her Pokemon guarded her from the attackers that now came into our sight: a Marowak, a Rhydon, an Arbok, and a Kadabra.

I was trying to see if it was Team Rocket that had found us, or some random punkass trainers that were ambushing us, but it seemed like the Pokemon were attacking us on their own.

"Damn it," Misty cried out. "They've never come this close to the entrance before."

Then I remembered all the stories of Pokemon in the Cerulean Cave being extra aggressive… this was the Unknown Dungeon!

We needed to get into this battle. The four wild (?) Pokemon were blocking our only way out.

I immediately threw out my best team: my starters, Pikachu, Geodude, and Mankey. I also had Pidgey, Butterfree, Beedrill go as high as they could to provide some air support. Misty had also brought out her Staryu and Starmie as well.

"We gotta get out of here!" She shouted at me. I nodded.

All at once my Pokemon started to attack as a group. We had the advantage in numbers. The problem was that the wild Pokemon were bigger and could soak up so much damage without being hurt. And they were aggressive. Too aggressive. Something was wrong. Wild Pokemon don't attack like this in groups of different species. It was as if they were being controlled by something else.

Marowak was adept at using her bone boomerang. She threw it at my Pokemon, hitting multiple targets. Even Bulbasaur, my tankiest, was bruised by it. He started limping in his front right paw.

Squirtle countered with Water gun, which streamed at Marowak (who evaded it easily), and then started hitting Rhydon. Rhydon seemed more annoyed than hurt. Charmander was able to use Ember, which was basically throwing small fireballs from his tail by spinning his body, which seemed to have the best effect, especially on Arbok. The problem was, the big snake wasn't being knocked out, and Charmander was becoming tired.

Rhydon was a menace just by being as big as he was. Standing 10 feet tall, he filled up the small space with his massive body. He spun his tail and we all had to jump to avoid it. Poliwhirl grabbed Misty, and I grabbed onto both Butterfree and Beedrill to get up in the air.

The rocks that Mankey and Geodude were throwing were hitting their targets and were effective because I told them to aim for the eyes, but it wasn't enough. Marowak had a thick skull, and she threw her bone boomerang to disrupt the rock throwers.

The whole situation seemed dire.