Anonymous Review Replies!

justsomebody: I do like my cliffhangers :p Getting reviews does help me with writing chapters more quickly, though ;)

FoxFan: Sadly, I don't think even Ninetales would be able to help the complete wrecking crew that is Sonic and friends on a mission. Though after Tails saved her kit, she probably knows the kid's able to hold his own most of the time. That said, did you actually like the chapter? Only you didn't comment anything on the actual content...?

Guest: Par for the course in my fics, he's used to it :p

Chapter 17: Saturday Night's Alright For Heisting

"OH ARCEUS IT'S GAINING! RUN! RUN!"James yelled while chancing a glance back in terror, the entirety of Team Rocket racing up the staircase back to the entrance lobby, Jessy clutching the weird blue gemstone their boss wanted to her chest.

"Will you calm down!" She hissed, "We sicced our Pokémon on it, didn't we? Even a strong Pokémon would be hard-pressed to fight against Victreebell, Weezing and Arbok all at once, Weezing's Poison Gas alone should be enough to do it in for a while…"

"Y-you think?" James asked, their dash up the staircase slowing as the first wave of adrenaline was about to subside and the three of them turned around slowly to look back into the darkness of the corridor leading down to the storage cellar. There had been sounds of fighting just before, but now it was all eerily quiet…

"Yeah! Look, there! That's Weezing's work!" Jessy pointed at swirls of dark, ominous-looking opaque gas emerging from around the corner. "Our Pokémon are all poison types, nothing else could remain conscious in a cloud like that."

"Y-yeah…" James visibly relaxed and turned to his friends. "Why on Earth was it even here?"

"It…it yelled it wanted da Emerald as well when we wan past," Meowth volunteered, cattish eyes straining to see through the poisonous fog. "Why is our boss suddenly intewested in da same fing as dat weird Pokémon?"

"Don't know, don't care," Jessy stated categorically. "But hey, I think I can hear steps coming from the fog! As soon as our Pokémon are back, we book it, okay?"

"Alright," James nodded. "But, Jessy?"

"Yeah?"

"You know, those steps coming from out of the fog?"

"Yeah?"

"Jessy, none of our Pokémon have feet."

"Er…"

There was a pause. And then, the eyes of all three members of Team Rocket about doubled in size as one figure did emerge from the cloud.

Knuckles, poisonous stingers of Arbok still sticking in his shoulder, bite marks of Victreebell decorating his left arm, coughed slightly behind his glove as he stepped out of the gas. He was carrying an unconscious Arbok over one shoulder, dragging Victreebell behind him like a sack of compost, and now looked up at Team Rocket on the staircase. Violet eyes glinted like a knife unsheathed as his lips pulled back in a smirk that was all teeth.

"That all you got?"

Team Rocket's response was a collective panicked scramble back up the staircase.

"GogogogogoGO!"

"How did he defeat all of them?! That is completely insane-!"

"Oh hell no, you're NOT getting away!"

"Uh…" Meowth also threw a glance back over his shoulder, which, in retrospect, might have turned out as a bit of a mistake – mostly because that way Victreebell, thrown like a javelin, hit him straight in the face.

xxx

"Tails! Open the front door NOW!"

"Tails! Help! I've somehow released a thousand ancient snails!"

"I'm trying! Oh gods – guys, I'm sorry, the translator broke, I can't work the laptop anymore –" Tails, now having fled to a rat-free roof and feeling his adrenaline spiking at both Sonic's and Amy's panicked calls through the communicator on his other wrist, hit a button on the keyboard in the vain hope that this was what he remembered it to be – "There! Did that help?!"

xxx

"Tails!" Sonic shouted into his communicator, now barrelling downstairs to the ground floor. Behind him, there were now two guards, as well as two of the fire-spewing dog Pokémon. He knew logically Amy was down there as well, hoping he wasn't screwing up her getting to the Emerald if it was in the lab she had been looking for – and then felt his ears pricking up as he heard her screaming.

"TAILS! HELP! I've somehow released a thousand ancient snails!"

This tailed off into more incoherent screeching, both in his friend's voice as well as some sort of creature noises.

Sonic abruptly ran about 20 percent faster.

"AMY!"

xxx

Amy Rose wasn't screaming any more. Instead, it was more of a long, high-pitched whine of horror currently emerging from her mouth, as the hedgehog girl stood frozen in shock on a desk and pressed against a wall as the stone slabs of compressed fossils in front of her kept turning into more and more head-sized light blue ammonoids, pattering down to the floor like a writhing waterfall, all with big, child-like eyes and far too many tentacles.

And the tide of them was rising.

"Omanyte?" one of them asked her, wrapping some tentacles around her leg, just as behind her, the lab's door to the entrance lobby crashed open from the sheer mass of molluscs now pressed against it.

xxx

"TAILS!" Sonic yelled through his communicator, tearing toward the stair case leading down to the entrance lobby. "Open the front door NOW!"

"Oh gods – guys, I'm sorry, the translator broke, I can't work the laptop anymore –"

Sonic suppressed a curse and continued running. Of course, he'd also be able to smash through the large lobby windows with an easy spin-dash but he really didn't want to attract that kind of attention in this world if possible.

"There!" Tails voice rang triumphant in his ear accompanied by the sound of a key being hit. "Did that help?!"

In response, the sprinkler system turned on and Sonic immediately lost his footing on the (now wet) stair case, going down with a scream and crashing into the entrance lobby now somehow full of molluscs.

It did not help that also two humans, one cat Pokémon, a giant snake, a purple balloon abomination and one weird-ass plant thing hit the lobby at the exact same time (their arc from the cellar stair case suggesting the lot of them had just been collectively hurled into the room), resulting in a massive pile-up of bodies, all covered in ammonite-things seemingly also really excited about the sprinklers.

"Sonic! Did that help?!"

"Tails, I am going to kill you."

"SONIC!"

Sonic forced himself to lift his head to see Amy struggling toward him. She was buried under the human man Sonic now recognized as the male half of the pair Ash had called 'Team Rocket'. The guy was mostly groaning, but Sonic knew enough how even human kids were heavy when they lay on top of you, never mind adults.

"There! Now give me that Emerald back righ n- wait, what the-?"

Sonic turned his head to see Knuckles emerging up the staircase after the group (which in retrospect explained why Team Rocket appeared to have been tossed up here…) and the echidna's eyes widened as he saw the complete and utter chaos in the lobby.

"What did…? How…?!" Knuckles briefly swayed on his feet and Sonic noticed now that the echidna also seemed to have sustained some injuries of his own, most notably what looked like a large snake bite on his shoulder.

"There!" Amy pointed to the Emerald lying not ten feet from their mass-pileup, having evidently been lost by Team Rocket and rolled across the lobby floor. "Someone try to get to it-ngh!" She strained to crawl out under the human, but had barely gotten her upper body free when-

"Oh my – who released all the omanytes?!"

"Oh shoot," Sonic commented, his and Knuckles' heads whipping around to see the guards on top of the staircase, staring uncomprehendingly at the scene of chaos below them. At the very least the tiger dogs seemed to be panicking, pulling back against the wall to avoid being hit by the sprinklers, so maybe none of them would be turned into a barbecue right this instant.

"Dammit. Tails, one more try to get the doors open, and then get Ash, I think this is about to go south fast!" Sonic snapped into the receiver before struggling out from underneath his spot under the groaning human woman and the giant purple snake. "Knuckles, get the Emerald, I'll get Amy-!"

"Wha-oh no! Dat is our Emerald!"

There was a small thump! as the cat Pokémon had managed to regain consciousness and jumped off the pile of bodies to land in front of Knuckles, teeth and claws bared. "Ya don't get ta take it avay a second time!" he hissed.

As he was pulling Amy out, Sonic could see Knuckles narrowing his eyes and privately thought that the cat Pokémon (and how did it even speak their language?) should be glad it was dealing with Knuckles and not Shadow.

Knuckles might only break one of its arms, for instance.

In the distance, sirens had started howling. Up on the staircase, the guards were staying back with their dogs, but shouting rapidly into their walkie-talkies.

Knuckles took a step forward, his feet splashing in the accumulated water on the floor.

"Listen. Cat. I am going to take that Emerald, and you will get out of the way, and then we will leave without an imprint of my fist replacing the memory of the face of your mother. Are we clear?"

The cat Pokémon noticeably bleached.

"Ve-ell, ven you put it dat way…."

"Glad to hear it," Knuckles gave him a dry stare, walking past him (even if Sonic was now sure he could detect an insecure swaying to his step, the echidna was definitely hurt), and bent down to take the Emerald-

"Okay!" Tails called out through their communicators, "I think I found how to open the doors!"

Over the communicators, there was the sound of someone hitting a key, and then the boiler room exploded downstairs.

xxx

"...so, any of you guys able to sleep?"

"Nope."

"Pikachu."

"Yeah, me neither." Ash groaned as he stared at the underside of the bunkbed above him where Brock lay.

"Pika?" Pikachu, who had been curled up beside his head, poked the side of his face with his nose, sleepy eyes questioning.

Ash sighed.

"Right." He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. "We're going to see if they're doing okay."

xxx

Sonic barely had time to grab Amy and turn his back to the explosion to take the brunt of the blast.

Fortunately, the wall of flame rushing toward them from the lower stairwell was extinguished partially by the sprinklers before it hit them and their fur was far too wet to catch fire, but the shockwave still caught them full blast. Sonic could feel himself being lifted off his feet and violently hurled through the air in an already familiar way in an instant. He just about managed to turn again in mid-air so when he and Amy in his arms smashed through the large glass front windows it was his quills absorbing the main impact and not his face. Next to him he thought he could sense Knuckles and the humans with their Pokémon crashing through the glass panes as well, right before the shockwave hit the remaining windows too and they were all hurled onto the street in a shower of splinters and water and ammonites and pain.

"Agh!" Sonic grunted as he impacted on the ground, Amy on top of him, skidding through fragments of the windows and over the rough cement, eyes squeezed shut and teeth gritted together in pain at the cuts and abrasions. Next to him there was an impact and a choked cry that sounded like Knuckles and Sonic blinked, blearily tyring to open his eyes as molluscs rained down around them.

"Ugh…Knux, Amy, you okay?" he asked over the ringing in his ears. The echidna was lying on his side, trying to push himself up.

"I…yes, I think…nothing's broken, I-"

And then all of their eyes widened as they beheld the bright comet overhead, the people and Pokémon it consisted of somehow, physically impossibly, having been blasted through the front windows of the museum straight toward the horizon.

"Team Rocket is blasting off again…!"

Knuckles stared after them, jaw hanging open. "-what, again?! Is this entire place running on cartoon physics, or-?!"

"Guys, we have no time for this!" Amy shook her head, pushing herself up. "Where has the Emerald landed, we need to-!"

The howling of a siren interrupted her and then there was already the first of an armada of police cars screeching to a stop in front of the museum. The air was acrid with the smoke wafting out of the destroyed lobby and Sonic could feel splinters of glass shifting in his fur as he tried to struggle to his feet when the first police women already leapt out of the squad cars.

With them also came more of the tiger dogs bounding out of the cars, barking wildly and forming a circle with the vehicles, some of the Pokémon surrounding them while others were running into the destroyed lobby. Amy instinctively stepped closer to Sonic, her hammer appearing in her hand. "Uh, Sonic…"

"Dammit," Sonic hissed, trying to look around to spot the Emerald that surely had to have been blasted out with them. "Knuckles, you may have to punch us a way down into the sewers or else-"

"I might…not…"

Sonic's head snapped around at his friend's tone, the echidna having gotten back to his feet but now definitely swaying unsteadily, his muzzle ashen. "Sonic, I think the Pokémon of those humans may have poisoned me after all, I may be…."

Knuckles' eyes closed and he toppled without warning.

Sonic was barely able to catch him, staggering under his weight. "Knuckles!"

"Sonic, we need to leave!" Amy pulled at his arm, nervously looking at the police officers staring at them now with wide eyes, while still subtly fanning out to cut off their escape routes. "To heck with the Emerald, I don't wanna be captured by them!"

"Easier said than done, Ames." Sonic swallowed. Behind them, the guards that had been inside the museum were being lead out, sometimes dragged out by their dog Pokémon, but that only meant that he and the others were now, in fact, soaking wet, bruised, completely surrounded by humans with guns (that Sonic definitely wasn't able to outrun while carrying two of his friends) and at least half a dozen Pokémon who could incinerate them with one breath.

The Emerald, that he finally managed to spot on the street not twenty feet away from him, had never seemed so far.

xxx

"…Huh? Where are the thieves? And what kind of weird Pokémon are those?" a woman that seemed to be the leader of the officers, had arrived at the scene and at least lowered her gun, looking at Sonic and his friends confused. "And who let all those omanytes out?!"

"Tails?" Sonic spoke into his communicator again. "I think we're about to be captured. You need to get Ash and the rest to he-"

"Officer! Officer Jenny!"

A voice that Sonic had never been more relieved to hear startled the police woman. "Ye-yes? Who are you?" she asked, staring wide-eyed at the black-haired boy and his friends running up the street and through the crowd of anxious citizens that had been woken up by the explosion and were now poking out of their houses, staring at the smoking massacre and the first news crews. Ash finally stopped before her, panting.

"I-I'm Ash…Ketchum. These…these are our Pokémon. They belong to us."

Misty looked at Sonic wide-eyed. "Did…did you DO this?"

"Um." Sonic looked at her sheepishly. "We kinda broke the translator. Sorry."

"Oh," Misty winced. "You broke the translator, huh? Though maybe it's honestly better you're not talking right now…" she muttered something that Sonic distinctly thought didn't sound like something she'd have wanted him to understand. Then the human girl turned to the police woman again, smiling brightly but apologetically.

"Yes, Ash is right. we, uh, captured them today. They're not…not very well trained yet. Um. We're so sorry for the damage they caused…"

"Damage?" Officer Jenny blinked, though by now she sounded far less confused and more confident - or, at least, Sonic wasn't getting an aggressive vibe off her like she wanted to lock them away. "Nonono, your Pokémon are heroes! One of the guards we found tied up in the basement told us that Team Rocket broke into the building! Without the commotion they'd have caused, we'd have had no idea that they're there!"

"What…what is going on?" Knuckles seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness, making a grimace as he was still partially supported by Sonic.

"I…dunno. Ash and the others seem to be talking us out of this and it may be working?" Sonic replied. "We need to tell them that you need to get to a hospital, though..."

"I'll…I'll be fine," Knuckles pressed between gritted teeth. "What about the Emerald?"

"Yes! It's only thanks to your brave Pokémon that we still have this precious gem stone!" another police woman nodded enthusiastically, gesturing toward the Emerald that one of the officers had picked off the ground. "If Team Rocket tried to steal this stone, it must be far more valuable than we expected!"

Knuckles frowned. "Somehow I think there's terrible irony happening here."

"SONIC!" The police women and dogs startled as suddenly a (quite torn-up) fox kit dropped from the sky, clutching a badly-scratched laptop and hurling his thin arms around Sonic. "Sonic the translator broke and I am so sorry!"

"It's…it's okay, kiddo," Sonic said with a sigh, wrapping his free arm around his distraught kid brother. "Nothing's fun if it's too easy, right?" he added with a wry smile.

Tails looked at him with tears in his eyes. "Also, Sonic, I got bitten by rats. What if I have Pokémon rabies now?"

Sonic sweatdropped. "Li'l bro, I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as Pokémon rabies," he said, mentally adding this universe seems far too wholesome for that, anyway.

"Stop…talking," Knuckles gritted out. "And take the Emerald from them. By force if you have to."

"Yeah, no, definitely not," Amy frowned at him, meeting the echidna's dizzy glare. "You and Tails need medical attention first and we're not getting that if we behave like criminals and have to go on the run."

"Speaking of which…hey! Ash!" Sonic called out, and even if the boy couldn't understand his words any more, he definitely reacted to the sound of his name. "We…kind of need some help, here," Sonic said, a bit awkwardly shifting a protesting Knuckles around so the echidna was more prominently displayed to the kid. Ash blinked for a moment, but then seemed to get the gist. He turned to the police leader.

"Uh…Officer?"

The blue-haired woman that had just been trying to dodge a microphone waved by a journalist into her face seemed glad about the interruption. "Yes?"

"Officer, I'm glad Team Rocket's theft got prevented and all, but do you think we could take our Pokémon back to the Pokémon center?" Ash was saying as he pointed at Sonic and the others. "They are pretty badly hurt…"

The officer glanced back at the reporter briefly, and then nodded enthusiastically. "Ah! Yes, of course! In fact, let me give you a ride to the Pokémon center! Get in the car!"

"No! Officer Jenny, wait! This stone definitely needs more publicity if a nationwide crime syndicate wants to get their hands on it- yes? Comment?!" the journalist was shouting after them even when Ash, Misty and Brock all hurried to get Sonic and the others in the car with the police officer, their gestures suggesting that this was where the echidna could get medical treatment for his injuries. Knuckles shot Sonic a bleary glare.

"If I don't die from the poison before the night is over, I'm convinced the situation will somehow be worse tomorrow and it'll be all your fault."

To be continued...

Well, that went about as well as could be expected.^^; Still, at least everyone is still alive? Hope you liked, and if you read, please review! :D