Anoynmous Review Replies! I mean...Reply!

LoneGarurumon: Errr, the way his luck his going in this fic, he probably won't XD. (Tbh, I'm not even sure who of them has suffered the least...) And Hitmonchan was my favourite thing in the last chapter. :D More chapter, and definitely more more comedy, coming right up! Thanks for all your comments! :)

Chapter Sixteen: This Is How You Prepare A Break-In Right?

"Is it...dead?"

Knuckles looked down at the now prone hitmonchan with caution, nudging it with a foot. It gave a sigh and rolled over.

Brock threw Knuckles a shocked glance. "Dead? What, no!" he protested. "What kind of guy do you think I am? I sent it to sleep with some stun spores," he said, stowing another tri-coloured ball like the one he had thrown at the boxing-gloved pokemon in his backpack again. "They are a useful tool to stop a pokemon attacking you when you don't want to fight it or for anyone to get hurt."

"Heh. Cool. Except...it didn't look like it was attacking you, Knux, exactly, was it...?" Sonic asked, also grinning at the echidna in a way that probably would have had him arrested in a few more traditional countries. "It seemed rather...enthusiastic about your person."

"Shut UP!" Knuckles threatened, spiked fist bunched up and shaking it at the snickering hedgehog. Next to them, most of the other members of their team had more or less recovered as well – a furious Amy was still being talked down by Misty who assured her that digletts were sometimes known for being pranksters but in all likelihood it had just really wanted to play with her, Tails was looking a bit desolately at the now ruined tip of his left tail after the shellder had finally let go of it – Pikachu was patting him sympathetically on the arm – and Ash had gently but firmly sent the girl trainer with her now unconscious shellder on her way again, just about managing to deflect the multitude of questions she had had. Sonic still continued grinning at Knuckles.

"Seriously, what did you do, dude? Boxing glove looked like they couldn't resist you for the life of them."

"I didn't do anything," Knuckles growled back. "I happened to come into its territory by accident and defended myself when it attacked. I have no idea why that caused it to become attracted to me."

Brock laughed. "Actually, Knuckles, that's rather easy. Hitmonchan flirt by fighting. As strong as you are, it must have found you a pretty and worthy mate."

"Stop saying things like that!" Knuckles snapped, at the same time pointing at a (now rolling on the floor and laughing) Sonic, "He doesn't need more fuel!"

"Oh, uh. Sorry," Brock managed (presumably) looking back and forth between hedgehog and echidna. "I was only trying to be informative..."

"Aw, c'mon, Knux. Brock is only being helpful. Take it as a compliment from the pokemon on your machismo or something and move on," Sonic said, poking his tongue out as he picked himself up and gave the human teenager a friendly nod.

Knuckles rubbed a hand across his forehead. "The one single lovesick female in the forest. Why did I have to be the one who ran into her?" he groaned.

Brock, once again, held up a finger. "Actually, Knuckles, Hitmonchan are a species that consists exclusively of males. They procreate solely by finding suitable females of other species to impregnate. Um. That...that doesn't help much, does it...?" Brock asked, trailing off after seeing Knuckles' abruptly frozen expression (and, naturally, also Sonic who had of course collapsed right back into a heap).

xxx

"We find this Emerald and we leave. I don't even care whether Shadow or anyone else might still be here. I'm not staying a second longer on this planet than I need to."

"Chill, Knux. Just because your little date went south a little..."

"I swear, hedgehog, I will force Robotnik to invent something to impregnate you with-"

"Guys. Can you be quiet for a minute?" Misty's voice cut in, effectively interrupting the hushed verbal squabble between Sonic and Knuckles. "We're almost at the museum, so maybe keep it down with the talking until we're all inside?"

"Yeah, alright..."

"Hm. Fine."

"Great!" Misty gave them an encouraging smile and with her, Brock and Ash also seemed to momentarily relax a little. They had entered Pewter City – 'Between Rugged Mountains!' as the slogan on its sign had read - about a quarter of an hour ago, and been walking along the street toward the city center since.

Any talking the furrier members of their troupe had engaged in fortunately was lost in the humdrum noise of people out for a spot of late lunch or afternoon shopping. Pewter City seemed to be slightly bigger than Viridian City, but not by much. Its backdrop of dramatically rearing mountains gave it a starker feel than the other towns which had been ringed by forests and fields, but – especially with Brock's running and enthusiastic commentary, pointing out the various sight-seeing spots such as the gym of his family and other interesting bits and pieces of town history – it gave off an impression no less charming.

Now visible at the end of the road on a small plaza was a tall, imposing building, which was presumably the museum. Its upper storeys were a sleek and shiny glass facade, while roman-style stone pillars framed the main entrance beneath. Through the glass sliding doors and the floor-to-ceiling window front, a lobby area and gift shop was already visible, a couple of visitors just leaving. Above the entrance hung a banner, illegible to Sonic and the others until they had almost reached the doors and the sign came into the twenty foot radius of the translator device; as soon as it did, the bright, cheerful script dissolved into recognizable Mobian letters and read 'Pewter Museum of Science - Our Exhibits Rock!'

"This is some sort of terrible play on words, I suspect," Knuckles said flatly. "Anyone can explain how on Mobius this managed to get translated into our language, or-?"

"Oak's thingamajiggy must have a built-in punslator, I suspect," Sonic replied entirely without shame as they entered through the glass sliding doors. The entrance hall of the Museum was wide and high-roofed, landscape paintings on its walls striking a balance between a dignified yet welcoming atmosphere.

They approached the ticket counter (Ash seeming like he was very pointedly ignoring the far-too-discerning-for-Pokemon-gazes of the Mobians who, as soon as they had stepped into the lobby, had started to study the locations of cameras, ventilation shafts and side doors a quite a bit more thoroughly than your average visitor probably would).

Stepping up to the counter, he summoned a smile. "Hello! Three tickets for the museum, please!"

"Sure. That'll be...uh..." the young woman manning the ticket counter of the museum raised an eye brow as she saw the entourage behind the three kids in front of her register. "Are you planning to take all those Pokemon inside with you? Normally our visitors don't have that many..."

"Oh, but they're all really well-trained," Brock stepped forward, employing what was probably his best 'trying-to-appear-like-a-responsible-15-year-old' voice. The woman looked skeptical.

"Um..."

"And also...a gorgeous beauty like you would of course see the beauty of education for all, wouldn't she?!" He asked, suddenly somehow having flung himself across the counter and having grabbed her hands, squinting intensely into her (now slightly shocked) eyes. "Those gem stone eyes of yours must be prettier than all of the jewels in the exhibit, surely?" Brock asked, voice hot with passion, "I would queue for a ticket just to gaze upon that face of yours-!"

Misty stepped forward and shoved Brock rather rudely away. "If you just give us the tickets, I will get him out of your face. Deal?"

xxx

"Oh wow! Let's look at the fossils! No! Let's look at the space shuttle! NO! Let's look at the-!"

"Tails," Sonic said mildly, trying to keep his practically vibrating kid brother in one place before he could possibly crawl into one of the exhibits, "I thought we were here to plan our break-in?"

"Yeah-break-in-yeah-sure-but-Sonic-there-is-a-SPACE-SHUTTLE-!" Tails was now straining against the grip Sonic had on his wrist and pointing frantically at the sign announcing that said space shuttle was on display on the first floor, "And we NEED to go see it NOW!"

"Oh yeah?" Sonic asked amusedly, but then shrugged. "Anyone of you guys mind going to see the space shuttle first?"

"Nope. It is pretty impressive," Brock admitted and so, the group (led by a very enthusiastic, bouncing fox who had to be told twice to stop hovering) ascended the staircase toward the first floor.

The museum itself seemed to consist only of the ground floor and the one above, as the guide map had told them. The exhibition area was roughly divided into historical and archeological artefacts like petrified skeletons of extinct pokemon species down below, and exhibits relating to space and the exploration thereof on the upper floor. Centerpiece of the area they were currently in was indeed the cockpit of a real-life, accessible space shuttle that Tails had already disappeared into, excited fox noises all that could still be heard of him.

The rest of their group had taken in the area with interest but was now already crowding around the map on the museum pamphlet instead, having spread it on the floor and checking it against the actual lay-out of the building while occasionally pointing at stuff and then drawing on it with a ball-point pen.

(As professional preparation for a midnight heist went, this probably wasn't quite up to 'Ocean's Eleven' standards, but, seeing as the room was currently quite empty apart from them themselves, they supposed it didn't really matter.)

"Okay," Knuckles said. "So, the actual building has about ten stories, judging from the outside, but only two are open to the public. What's with the rest?"

"I think I read something here that the glassy part of the building was built on top of it as office space and conference rooms for the Research society," Amy replied, leafing through a brochure from the ticket counter. "Says here their president has her bureau there, too."

"That's the research society that the Emerald was given to, right?" Sonic asked. "Okay. So they basically own the building and the Emerald should definitely be here. What's up with the public floors, though? Like, look, if the ground floor down below and the first floor here are supposed to be both open to the public, then why is the ground floor only half as big? What's kept here?" he tapped the white space of the map where the second half of the ground floor should have been with a finger.

"Oh, that. That'd be the research laboratory," Brock said, also leaning in. "It's not on the map because it's not really a place where visitors can go, but we once went there on a school trip."

"Research lab, huh? Sounds interesting," Knuckles replied, violet eyes narrowing at the blank map area.

"I also checked the elevators when we passed them," Amy added proudly, "And even if it doesn't say anything about it in the brochures, there was a button for a basement. It had a key hole beside it, so it's probably also off-limits. That means they do have another storage area where they could potentially keep new exhibits."

"Good observation," Sonic nodded, making a third mark on the map. "Okay, so that means we have at least an idea of the dimensions of this place. That means, next step-"

"What are you doing?" Now Ash had also bent over them, studying their drawn-upon map curiously.

"Trying to narrow down where they could have put the Emerald," Sonic replied, scratching his ear as he continued frowning at the map. "Because this building is also the research center and the HQ of the organizations that owns it now, we can be reasonably sure it's at least inside here, but we need to figure out where exactly."

"Oh. Right. But...that should be fairly easy to find out, right?" Ash asked with a frown. "I mean, all you gotta do is...hello! Excuse me?" Ash had suddenly started, snatching up the map and waving at a nearby museum guard that had just walked past the door to their room.

"Wait, what-?" Sonic had begun, raising a hand to stop him, but snapped his mouth shut just in time as the guard stopped and looked at them.

"Yes?"

Ash gave him a bright grin. "We're looking for that gem stone that was in the newspaper?"

"Oh. I'm sorry," the young man replied with a apologetic smile. "but it's not going to be exhibited for a while yet, the tests on it are still ongoing. But we do have plenty of other interesting geological exhibits you can enjoy."

"Oh, yeah, we know it's not on display yet," Ash shook his head with a friendly smile. "We just wanted to know where you kept it, exactly. You know, at night?"

"Uh..." now the museum employee looked slightly consternated, "I'm sorry, but that's, er, not exactly public info – say, is something wrong with your Pokemon?" he asked, casting a glance at the assembled group of Mobians behind Ash who were currently making frantic shushing noises and panicky cut-throat gestures (all with the exception of Knuckles, anyway, who had smacked his forehead into the palm of his hand a while ago).

"Um, y'know, you're right, I think they might be getting a bit antsy to move on," Misty quickly said, cheerfully stepping between Ash and the consternated guard. "Let's have a look at another part of the museum, okay, guys?"

xxx

"What were you thinking?! That's no way to prepare a break-and-enter!" Knuckles hissed as soon as they were in another (largely deserted) exhibition area. Ash looked miserable.

"I'm sorry! I'm just not used to stealing things, okay?"

"Not stealing. Maybe...think of it as taking it back?" Tails (who had been quickly pulled out of the space shuttle) suggested with a helpful smile. "But anyway, everything should still be fine. We can just enjoy the afternoon at the museum, check out the layout, and then come back later tonight."

"Sure. Just like that," Ash sighed defeatedly.

xxx

"Can we leave yet?"

At the whine, Knuckles glanced up. "How long did he make it this time?"

"We've been standing here..." Tails looked up from the fossil exhibit he had had been studying – the plate informing the visitor about how this particular extinct pokemon apparently had once been worshipped as the god of the mysterious helix religion - and glanced at his watch. "...now all of two minutes, almost. He's improving."

Sonic glowered at them. "Very funny."

"Aw, c'mon Sonic, enjoying the museum now isn't that bad, right? We deserve a bit of relaxation before tonight, don't we?" Amy nudged the blue hedgehog with a small smile. After talking to the museum guard, the group had wandered around some more in the exhibition, drawing in a few more windows and emergency fire escapes on their map, and was now mainly ambling along the rows of exhibits with no particular goal in mind.

"And also, Sonic, this is really fascinating," Tails tried. "They have really similar technology in function to us, but the way it works is often totally different, they seem to have taken certain ideas in chemical and medical science directly from certain Pokemon-types for example-"

Sonic groaned and shot a look at Knuckles for help. The echidna shrugged.

"Actually, Sonic, I was about to say something similar about their archeological section. Some of the fragments of ruins they have here-"

"I am surrounded by nerds. What have I done to deserve this," Sonic muttered. He turned to Amy for a last resort, voice pleading. "Hey, uh, Amy, wanna-?"

"Hm? Oh, I'm sorry. Misty and me wanted to go look at the jewel section next, they looked pretty," Amy said sweetly. "Wanna come?"

Sonic gave a very big sigh.

xxx

"Okay. So now we...prepare for the robbery?" Brock asked, before looking at Misty and Ash. "How do you prepare for a robbery?"

"Oh, you don't have to prepare anything, we'll be fine," Tails smiled up at him. "We do infiltration missions in enemy bases at home all the time!"

Sonic, correctly interpreting the expression on the humans' faces as the unspoken question of 'Where do you live, a war zone?', smartly stepped in and tried his most confident expression. "Keep calm, everybody, Tails is right. We're fairly good at getting in and out of places without too much trouble. You three can just stay in tonight" - he made a sweeping hand gesture to indicate the boys' guest room of the Pewter City pokecenter they had commandeered for the night and made their centre of operations - "And leave the rest to us."

"Are you really sure that's a good idea, though?" Brock managed the impressive feat of looking worried while his eyes were technically still closed. "I mean…if somebody sees you. Everyone here has Pokeballs, they can catch you and you're not registered to a trainer. What if somebody captures you and keeps you?"

"No worries. We often operate on the principle that if anybody gets out their balls, we run," Sonic replied with a perfectly straight face, causing Knuckles to have a sudden coughing fit in the background, Amy to cast Misty a I'm-so-sorry-for-EVERYTHING -glance, and Tails and Ash to blink slightly cluelessly. Brock still looked like he had a toothache about the whole thing, but Sonic was already cheerfully continuing;

"So yeah, no worries, we'll be in and out of there and hopefully with minimum property damage. Tails, you got the schematics of the place hacked yet?"

"This is so illegal." Misty had her head in her hands. "We're all going to go to jail."

"Nah, no worries, I didn't leave a trace," the small fox replied brightly, pushing the laptop they had brought for just such an occasion from Professor Oak's lab a bit away from him so everyone could see. Currently, its screen was showing a blue-hued 3D Model of the large, high-tech building, which was circling in the proper way blue-hued 3D models in heist movies are supposed to do.

"I've isolated three places where the Chaos Emerald might be reasonably kept at the moment," Tails said as everyone else in the room leaned in to listen closely, "The laboratory on the ground floor, the safe room in the basement and the bureau of the museum's director – that was the lady in the middle of the newspaper picture – at the very top." As he spoke, the various rooms on the model lit up at a few of his key strokes, the eyes of his friends narrowing as they all committed the locations of the rooms to memory.

"So I think the best and fastest way would be if we all split up, each of us taking one room," Tails suggested, face lit up by the monitor's glow. "I'll monitor your progress from outside – I've made these communication devices so we can keep in contact - and unlock the doors you need as soon as I've logged onto the system."

Knuckles peered at the wrist strap devices Tails had held out to them. "Where'd you get these?"

"I...may have butchered the radios in the last two Pokecenters' kitchens a bit. Um." Tails blushed. "But I swear I can put them back together afterwards!"

"Okay," Sonic nodded (for a moment ignoring the three humans who looked like they'd stumbled into the wrong genre of anime and were worrying how they were supposed to get back to the afternoon programme), reaching for one of the communicators. "In that case, I'll take the top floor with the bureau. Racing up there should be a piece of cake."

"You do that. I'll burrow into the cellar," Knuckles agreed, cracking his namesakes. "That means you, Amy -"

"- take the ground floor. Gotcha," Amy nodded. "Then we're all set."

"Oh yeah," Sonic grinned. "Maybe they're trying to catch'em all here, but they certainly aren't gonna catch us!"

To be continued...

Well, well, the plot thickens - let's just see who ends up with the Emerald tonight, shall we? :p Hope you liked, and if you read, please review! :D