Locked Away, Chapter 48
With charizard leading them, the dropping temperatures were not as harsh. After what felt like a long detour finding a balloon, and hooking charizard up to pull them, they were finally on their way to the summit of the mountain. As they flew closer, a chill embedded deep into their bodies, and without knowing it, they huddled together. Pikachu and togepi were both shivering inside of Ash's jacket, and meowth, while clothed warmly himself, huddled with James and Jessie.
"How are you doing, charizard?!" Ash shouted to the pokemon and it tilted to one side slowly to indicate his concentration. From within the heavy fog they soared through, Ash could still see the gimp in the large dragon's wing. A small figment of the injury was indicated by a flinch here and there, and yet he barreled forward, pulling them at a reasonable speed. The fire type pokemon never ceased to amaze Ash, but he wondered why exactly charizard was here.
Charizard was not very specific, given Team Rocket's presence, but Ash retained the gist of it. Labratory attacked, his pokemon fled. Were the rest of them okay? Did they leave together; what about Gary and Leaf... and May, and Max? Should charizard have stayed with the rest of the pokemon? Ash wanted to ask, but now was not the time or the place. The storm was already treacherous and growing worse every second. He was not going to endanger the rest of them with answers he could wait for. Even if he didn't want to. Fear consumed the small part of him that worried for his friends, but he had to stay focused on the task at hand. Big light blinding at the top of a mountain before a horrible snow-storm in the middle of summer. If that didn't scream legendary pokemon being disturbed, he wasn't sure what else would.
Reading the lines of stress on the young man's face, James laid a heavy hand on Ash's shoulders and pat him comfortingly.
"We're almost there." James assured him from beneath his heavy scarf. With a red nose from the cold, Ash turned to him, only to see the man pointing into the distance at a trail of black smoke from the tip of the mountain.
"Charizard, let us down at the top of the mountain over there!" Ash commanded, rushing away from the trio as charizard roared in agreement, but his assurance was replace with a sudden descent. Panic settled in when charizard's sudden evasive maneuvers, when he would have been fine half a year ago—resulted in his wing collapsing, and the pokemon spiraling quickly from the air, taking them with it.
"Wai—Agh!" The world came crashing around them as the cloth balloon tilted and swerved at an awkward angle and the seven of them collapsed into the snow at the top of Mr. Coronet.
Charizard landed first in a heap of snow, half buried and unable to break his fall. Had Ash not been yelling—and falling himself, he might have remembered that charizard was already exhausted by the way his tail flickered when he flew—he came all the way from Kanto region on what should have still been an injured wing—there was no way this was easy for him.
It was cold, and Ash's body ached. The jacket he wore did little to prevent the invading snow from clouding his vision, and his legs felt heavy thanks to James landing on them with a loud, wheezing cough, and groan. On top of him, meowth was the only one to land with any sense of grace.
"..oww..." Ash groaned, thankful that at least the thick of the snow broke their fall. Ears ringing, back aching, and body growing ever colder, he almost didn't notice the innate lack of weight on his chest where it was before.
"Pika pi chu!" pikachu called while racing back over to his fallen trainer and digging his face out of the snow.
"pika!" he whined tot Ash whos vision only slowly returned. Starting with charizard, who gimped his way to sitting up, and then around and around again snapping wide.
"James, get up!" His voice was strained, yet powerful when he called to the former Team Rocket member who responded by rolling away and huffing. "Togepi and Jessie are gone!"
"Togepi, where are you?" Ash called, flipping onto his hands and knees. Every limb fell through the snow like a weight preventing him from combing through the area quickly, and now he was cursing the frozen water. Pikachu called for him again, the mouse was always an efficient lander—but the sudden intensity and switch in gravity while in the middle of the storm must have jolted them just enough...
"Jessie?" James coughed out, followed by the willful meows of meowth, who scampered about like pikachu.
Ash's vision was blurry, and his head hadn't caught up with him yet. The howl of the wind was his only visitor, and with the sun dead in the horizon, they weren't going to have much luck out here: he couldn't seen ten feet in front of him besides charizard's tail flame.
Beside him, charizard whimpered, and his mind snapped back to reality.
"Are you alright, buddy?" Ash questioned, rushing to the dragon's side who's strong huff through his nostrils melted the snow beside him. The demi-dragon's body felt like a furnace, and so while keeping his eyes on the area around him, he pet the distance of his tired head, to the edge of his injured wing.
"It's okay." Ash muttered; thinking that they may have rushed things only now. The black smog above them trailed as the only indication they were still going the right way. Their landing was a mess.
"You get some rest, I have to go find everyone else." Ash reminded charizard while kicking off in the snow, following after pikachu who glided over the ice.
"Togepi?!" Ash tried again, hearing James and meowth in the distance, "Jessie?!" Ash tried as well, a call that earned him the shriek of togepi's name from James and meowth's lips as well.
They met at the center of the landing, it didn't seem like they fell that far... Ash looked up, trees bordered the entire surrounding area; when they were in the sky, those trees looked like ants. They were lucky to be alive after that brutal landing... it wasn't even quite where they wanted to stop. Charizard passed another apology while pulling itself from the snowy ground, and against his better judgment, increased the size of his tail to work as a torch. A beacon in the dark.
James approached Ash, clearly distressed. "It's too cold to be out there alone."
"I know." Ash muttered, walking cautiously to the edge of the snow drift, they landed somewhere between a large forest enclosure and a cliff side, but near the path of the mountain slope. They could get to the top by day break if they moved fast enough...but if they were down two members, there was no way Ash was leaving.
"Pikapi!" Pikachu urged, colliding into Ash's chest with a thud that nearly knocked him over.
"You found them?"
"Cha!" The mouse yelped, hopping back into the snow, barely light enough to prance over the top of it while James and Ash trudged through it about a yard south of landing.
In the distance, they saw Jessie seated with togepi in her arms on the branch of a tree—looking for them. How clever. Her hair was tussled, and her jacket was torn where she snagged a few branches on the way down; but her scowl indicated that she was safe and mostly uninjured.
"Jessie!" James practically squealed, but the noise fell on deaf ears—Ash looked around him. The wind was too loud, too aggressive. Their voices couldn't carry that far.
"Pikachu, use a small thundershock as a beacon." Ash murmured, realizing charizard was just far enough away to blur his light source. Pikachu ignited a small zap from his cheeks that alerted Jessie and togepi nd Ash and James stuck out both arms to wave at them.
Her face was distorted from the gust, but relief washed over her.
Fear followed next, then she vanished in a white light.
"Wait!?" Ash yelped, prepared to run ahead but James grabbed him before he could, hearing the soft thud of the egg pokemon and Jessie hitting the snow beside them.
"Togepi!" Ash shouted, rushing past Jessie to snatch the tearful egg out of the cold snow. Where he was brave and determined, he was still an egg-a baby.
"Yea, just worry about the egg, you twerp." Jessie muttered. " It wasn't like I was the one who caught the damn thing." She added sinfully while standing up and brushing extra snow off her coat and boots. Up close, the tears in her jacket were more defined.
"I'm sorry, thank you." Ash corrected himself while the egg burrowed itself into Ash's jacket. "Are you alright?" He gestured to the very clear tears, and Jessie shrugged.
"Could've been worse." She smiled faintly while James and meowth snatched her into a short-lived, affectionate hug that she was hesitant to return right away.
"Thank goodness." "Meooww" They said in unison, releasing her as she nodded appropriately, then faced the mountain.
"...How did you two get so far away?" James questioned, pointing quietly at the shivering pokemon that curled into Ash's warm embrace, the same way he used to hold it when he was still an unhatched egg.
"I guess togepi can use teleport?" Ash mumbled quietly while prancing back through the snow to charizard. The faster they made it up the mountain, the better.
"No, he used metronome..." Jessie snarled. "We could have easily been blown up."
"but you got lucky—twice." Ash defended. "He was scared. He's not like us, he's still a..." Ash looked down to the egg who look ashamed of the situation. They had only ever been separated a handful of times, and generally, togepi was in trusted hands.
"Well, a baby." Ash zipped his coat higher to be sure that the same mistake wouldn't happen twice. Pikachu hopped on his shoulder in agreement, and Ash threw his arm forward.
"We have more important things to worry about, we have a bit of a walk to the top of that mountain, so let's move." Ash pointed to the top and while Jessie and James would have enjoyed questioning him and his pokemon further, they followed in silence.
Their supplies stayed attached to the basket of the balloon, which was torn down the middle when they collected their hiking gear. Unfortunately, they were in for a cold evening, since the majority of the hike would be night time. Luckily for them, charizard assured them he could lead the way, and wasn't too exhausted to do so. He was clearly lying, and they all knew it. But emotions were high, and they were all tired, so they didn't argue with the temperamental dragon.
Up each slope was a new challenge, at one point, charizard carried each trainer up a small cliff side one at a time, they held hands to ensure they wouldn't be separated by the snow storm, and worked endlessly up what felt like a never ending mountain side until the sound of the howling wind died progressively, and the arrived at the first break in their mission. Hours later, with the sun barely peeking over the horizon, they arrived at the peak.
The top of Mt. Coronet was nothing like Ash remembered it. It was dark, and eerie and the entire place smelled like...gun smoke? All around them black fog dissipated slowly, and while charizard took the break as a time to collapse onto what was left of the concrete surface, the remaining group looked around. Here at the top, they must have stepped into the eye of the storm, because it was painfully silent. No wind, no snow, nothing out of place.
A shrine once lived here, much larger than Ash ever dreamed of it being, expanding far beyond the normal reaches of the mountain top—only now, the wondrous place was buried in snow, and smoke.
"Has...has it always looked like this?" Ash asked, and both Jessie and James seemed grim.
"...sort of." James answered, looking to meowth.
"Homes of legendary pokemon aren't as preserved as they were in your dreams." Meowth answered back while flicking his paw beneath his chin, and standing on his hind legs, he pointed over the crest of the hill. "But there might be somethin' more over there, the scorch marks aren't normal"
"They've already been here." James added nonchalantly while folding his scarf over his nose to hide his bitter expression. Jessie followed behind them, and Ash tried to put meowth's words at the back of his mind.
Places of worship weren't preserved in this world, but that should not have come as a surprise to Ash—people could not get close to legendary pokemon like he remembered—it was like Misty said, it was years since the last one of seen spotted, and she herself never saw one until.. Ash shook his head.
"If they got here before us, that must have been the light that I saw." He exhaled, pikachu read his thoughts and bolted seconds before Ash did. "Maybe they were giving out a distress signal!" Ash shouted, rushing up the steps of the fallen temple.
James glanced at Jessie, who was surprisingly very quiet since reaching the summit, and then with her wave of dismissal, he and meowth both bolted after the hot-headed pokemon trainer while her gaze fixed on charizard who slumped tiredly against the rocks. Once they were at the foot of the steps, she removed the glove on her right hand and pulled it back to see what she suspected. Blood.
Funny, she didn't feel like she was injured at all—her body must have been numb from the cold. With a hiss of pain, she tugged her glove back over her hand, and assured herself it wasn't that bad, a little swore. A branch must have cut her.
"...grrraa." The dragon groaned, seeing the blood on her hand while flicking his wing at her. Jessie nodded respectfully as charizard moved to walk with her.
"You and me both." She groaned as they both took a few uneasy steps forward.
The Spear Pillar, once a wonderous place of legend, with high roaming towers as far as the eye could see that sat at the top of the mountain, undisturbed for hundreds of years, now laid in ruins around them—years of disrepair ran fatigue over the godly monuments outlining the history of pokemon, of time itself—and only small images cast upon what remained of the pillars told a story of the legendary pokemon's heritage here.
"Dialga and Palkia were the first decent of Arceus, the godly pokemon..." Jessie groaned from behind them, a few steps behind now that the numbing sensation faded from her bones.
"They watched over Sinnoh during olden times of legend and... blahblahblah." She groaned watching Ash leap at the sight at the end of the stairs. It was nothing that Team Rocket wasn't already prepared for—what they were used to at this point, but for Ash, it was like being kicked in the chest.
"What happened to this place?" He hissed while falling to his knees in exhaustion.
Before him was a flat grove of snow. What was left of the grand arches was buried—ashes danced from former fires dying out, kicking up the black smog they saw from before, and destruction stared back at him. Guns, tanks, pokemon-catching equipment larger than his snorlax decorated the outskirts of the field, where for all intensive purposes, looked like a grand battle took place.
"They must have known we would come this way!" Ash groaned, slamming his fist into the solid stone below him. In under twenty four hours, Team Rocket established control of the two legendary pokemon, and ruined the peaceful region of Sinnoh.
"This is awful." James mouthed while meowth tugged at their pants legs, pointing to a rather destructive, metallic monster that was cracked in half, and missing part of the engine. The culprit of the catch.
"I never thought they would get the machine to work." Jessie's voice cracked, alerting Ash to their stunned expressions.
"What do you mean?" he asked, glancing at the machine they indicated to. The base was buried in at least two feet of snow, but the lethal canon matched with metallic rings around the head of the ship reminded them sorely of how selfish they used to be.
"We helped make that!"Jessie snapped, throwing snow at the metal beast-their creation.
By this point, he should not have been surprised anymore, yet he was. "Why would you do that?"
"Power and greed makes people blind." James soothed, grasping her shoulders to calm her.
"But you guys weren't-" yes they were, at least a little.
"We were stupid, and misinformed, but it's not a good excuse." Jessie hummed, sinking into a squat to gather her thoughts. Meowth pressed forward, prancing over the snow with ease and arriving at the beast.
Maybe now wasn't the time, at the top of the hill, staring at their inability to arrive sooner—to prevent another poaching. Still, the scenario didn't make sense. He knew he recalled them always pinning for Giovanni's affection, they should have been far from his second hand men. Because more than anything, they looked devastated by what they saw ahead of them. Not guilt. In fact, they did a bunch of bad things for good reasons, but never seemed remorseful unless someone—or something was hurt.
They were still bad people, Ash reminded himself, glancing over his shoulder to see the two of them huddled together, a stern expression over James' face.
"...what was Giovanni to you three?" with good intentions, he argued as an after thought.
A boss, a friend, a confidant. Meowth thought bitterly, and Ash snapped over at him to meet his gaze.
"A traitor." Jessie added, with an affirmative nod from James. "A liar."
"But why would you help him for so long? You three aren't bad people. Look at what you made! You had to know this came with drawbacks—what in the world were you thinking helping him get the legendary pokemon!?" With each question, his voice grew louder, surprising himself with his outburst.
"Hey, we already told you we made a mistake!" Jessie sneered, but that answer wasn't good enough anymore.
"Why would you help him!?"
"Because we wanted to!" James hissed, alleviating the truth to Ash. "Because we wanted power, and fortune, and fame for all the years we were shit on by the system! But we didn't want this! We didn't help him for this!"
Awestruck, Ash stepped away from James, who huffed in his own anger.
"You can think that fairy tale world you concocted for us in your head is true—but in the real world, we are bad people! Look at what you've had to do to survive the last few weeks! Steal, cheat—lie! We did what we had to do to survive, and maybe for once it was nice to be the ones with all the power! So we did help him, and yeah, we regret it now, but that's apparently not good enough for you heroes!"
Shaking, James brushed past Ash to examine the surrounding area, leaving a stunned Ash facing Jessie, who wasn't as eager to move around. He didn't know them—at least, not outside of the fake memories he made for them in his imagination. Shamefully, Ash looked down. Everyone's lives were different here—his, Misty's, Brock's; why not Jessie and James, too?
"...I'm.. I'm sorry." he said, but Jessie shrugged her shoulders.
"I don't care." She muttered nonchalantly, clearly detached from the situation. James had always been the more emotionally unstable in terms of guilty consciousnesses. "I don't feel bad for what we did—it's James you should apologize to."
Glancing down at his feet, which looked much more interesting than Jessie's knowing expression, Ash nodded and followed after James with a silent pikachu at his side. Ash was all too familiar with that look of utter betrayal and disgust on James face, because Ash shared it, too, when he saw himself in the mirror waking up at the hospital. Being ripped in two pieces and one half growing numb.
"James..."
"Don't worry about it, kid." he shook Ash off while digging through the snow to toss away some of the empty guns left lying around.
"Just go check out the area, see if we can find any clues."
But, Ash wanted to start, but knew that he made his mind up when he sulked away to find meowth clawing through some of the machine's hard wire. It was much too quiet for Ash's comfort, and he never felt like more of an outcast among the thieves. When his back was turned to James, ready to look for clues, the older man choked.
"It's just been a really long road for us."
"You slept in a peaceful world, content for ten years while Jessie and I...we had to live through this. Never knowing if we were making the right decisions—turns out everything we did was wrong. For the wrong reasons, for the wrong people. At one point, we were ready to take another person's life, Ash." James inhaled, the way that he spoke Ash's name made his skin crawl. He was the one they almost killed, after all.
"If we had killed you that day... it's possible the visions would have stopped, all of this mayhem could have been avoided and Jessie and I could have left Team Rocket...but..." James gazed at Ash, fire burning in his green eyes.
"We changed that day. I promise you." James both assured Ash of their intentions, and refuted the deep embedded distrust he had for them with one look and Ash nodded, lips twitching.
"Okay." then with one nod, they reached a new understanding of one another.
XOX
An hour into the search, Jessie who sat the first part of their arrival out at the steps, made bold claims that there must have been another complex like Unova in the world. Otherwise, they had no place to put the legendary pokemon they were stealing—how they managed to take out, or even ward off Dialga and Palkia was a honest surprise to the both of them anyways. Since Jessie and James never gave them the information to find the two, the information must have came from Ash, and Giovanni was and has been collecting far longer than they expected. A capture like this, didn't happen over night.
"Someone will notice though, right? When they send people up here to investigate." Ash asked offhandedly, but James assured him that anyone who would arrive at the top of the mountain would probably do so long after the storm cleared, and the evidence was hidden under miles of snow. If the snow ever cleared without the balance of the two legendaries.
By the time the sun tore a small hole into the terrible, foggy weather above them, the permanent chill in their body was irremovable. Ash felt like a human Popsicle, even with charizard near him. The pokemon's tail grew dimmer each hour that passed, but when Ash brought it up, the pokemon would huff in Team Rocket's general direction, and fly off to be alone for a little while.
Pikachu stuck to the dragon like glue. Charizard was injured and Ash directed pikachu as his supervisor. The mouse also wanted to be ready in case Team Rocket came back at any time, to both defend his friends, and protect the weakened charizard.
Ash wished to hell and back that charizard brought his pokeball with him, but that wasn't the case.
"Togee brii." The egg eventually apologized for his behavior earlier. Sitting in the dark was terrifying enough, sitting with Jessie was jarring; even if the woman was scary. Togepi noted that Jessie was very nice, and sent his apologies to the woman who brushed the eggs kind words off. In the twinkle in her eye, Ash could see the appreciation, and wondered if anything was getting through to them.
"There's nothing up here, guys." Ash groaned, walking off in his own direction, away from the battle parts they tried to remove from the ancient ruins.
Unfortunately, for trouble-magnet Ash, moments after making the announcement and was a few yards away from the rest of his team, he slipped down a slope, and barreled quickly into the snow below. The ground went fast, the snow trickled to his knees, and he landed face first.
Just his luck!
"Great." he muttered while wiping his face clear of snow. Togepi let out a chuckle while Ash tried to dig himself out immediately. That's what he got for being too wrapped up in his own head about what was right and wrong anymore! Should have watched where he was going—but he was nothing if not clumsy!
"Togeee" The egg silenced his trainer, his spikes poking up from the collar of Ash's jacket, warning him of of another sound coming up the mountain.
"Did you hear that?" Ash asked the egg, watching the eastern entrance of the ruined Spear Pillar—or at least where an entrance and trail would have been if it wasn't covered in thick snow.
Down the path, a group of Team Rocket grunts made their way one grueling stomp at a time, holding familiar weapons that they found in the summit. Every nerve in Ash's body froze upon seeing them, and while the need to fight surged at every corner of his body, as did the need to to call for help.
He reached around for his pokeballs, only to find that thanks to being buried waist deep in the snow, they were inaccessible without drawing too much attention to himself—not that a moving, black blob in the center of white nothingness was hard to spot.
"What is that?" one of the grunts mouthed off, watching Ash squirm to reach the balls on his belt.
"It's a survivor!" They added, preparing to lift their weapons and Ash dug desperately at the snow while togepi popped from his chest to try and help.
Shit shit shit! Ash thought while the primitive aggression that every Rocket member seemed ot have crossed their faces.
'Aww—he's stuck." One laughed while Ash stared at togepi in desperation.
"Okay, togepi, if you have another metronome in you, now would be the time to use it!" Ash shouted loudly, hoping to alert his companions where he was while the egg faced the men, glowering.
"Or safeguard! That works with bullets, right?" Ash was almost there, he only needed to reach snorlax, and the rest was history!
At the first gun shot, all ears twitched, and Jessie, James, meowth, and Ash's two pokemon shot from the battle ground, racing after the sound with charizard and pikachu at the lead.
"He wasn't supposed to go that far!" Jessie screeched, a full stride ahead of james before coming to a stop at the bluff Ash fell from. Below them, togepi's best attempt at a secure safeguard deflected the one bullet, and left the men in chuckles.
"Wow, how scary!" One of them laughed egotistically, and Ash growled.
"Hey! Why don't you put those away and we'll have a real fight!" Ash yelled back, throwing his arms up wildly. Ash was mortified, staring down the barrel of a gun for the third time in his life. He thought it wouldn't be as terrifying, but physically unable to move, kicking at snow and waiting for the stinging pain to meet his head made his mind go numb of other solutions. Of course they wouldn't go easy on him, but if he could keep them joking and distracted long enough then—fire trickled above them, melting the snow before them instantly when charizard swooped down, dropping pikachu off in front of Ash's predicament, and directly before togepi—electricity ticking from every pour in his body.
Pikachu's hairs stood on end like sharp spikes, eyes dark and patience drawn thinly as the fire dissipated and charizard prepared to circle back around. Ash had never seen the pokemon so angry before.
"Why don't you stick around for awhile?!" James sneered at the top of the hill, distracting the men while they slid effortlessly down the side.
"Would you look at that?" They laughed, backing up into a group formation. "The boss will be pleased to see that Jessie and James are still around."
"If you come peacefully, we won't hurt you—Ahh!" the group screamed, their hisses causing a small avalanche to drop from the trees above when an electrifying wave cut through the air, unleashing a lighting bolt from a thunderstorm that landed directly against the men not once, but twice. Coursing through metal weapons, bouncing off each other, until the once threatening group of men crumpled to the snow.
Lifeless.
A long, howling silence tore through the group while they watched smoke rise from the bodies of the invaders. Their bodies twitched from the remaining jolt, as the watcher's blood ran cold and meowth and togepi looked alarmingly at the mouse.
His small claws were buried in the snow, tail raised threateningly while charizard whined from the sky above.
"...Pikachu." Ash called to his companion, breaking the concentration he trained on the smoldering pile of men before him, and quickly faced Ash with blurry vision.
"Pika!" It whined, not moving towards him.
This wasn't the first time this situation came up. During their flight through the underground tunnel, Ash gave the command for pikachu to attack himself—but he never imagined it was so powerful against humans. The pokemon's cheeks surged with blue electricity when tears stung his eyes at Ash's hesitation, and he finally snapped in to hold the mouse close and brush his hands over his ears.
White noise.
An accident.
"We told you to be careful!" Jessie scolded, approaching Ash while meowth checked out the situation with the grunts—no doubt, they weren't getting up any time soon, but he poked at them regardless.
"If they're here..." Meowth wondered, rushing to the tree line while James and Jessie pulled Ash up with a heave.
"Togee brii!" The egg chirped at pikachu who had not moved from the corner of Ash's neck, ears down and huffing.
"It's okay pikachu." Ash muttered, refusing to look back at the damage the mouse caused.
There wasn't really time to talk about it, they wanted to, at least touch base with what they just witnessed, but meowth's call beckoned for them, and they moved like a blur-time seemed to move dangerously fast.
"We have a way down this mountain—and in style, too!" The cat pokemon mewed up to them while prancing down a trodden slope that was used more recently than the trail they used.
Questions went without being asked, and they ran after them to see a small tank resting at the foot of the hill right before the members thought to climb up and they each released a sigh of relief. Meowth cleared the distance there, jumped into the machine, and reappeared within seconds.
"And we got their next destination!" he sung happily, a note snagged to his claw before they all barreled down the hill and Ash called for charizard.
"But what about-!" Ash tried, but with a gentle nudge, both Jessie and James helped throw him into the cargo of the vehicle, and climbed in after one at a time. Above them charizard groaned his displeasure of using enemy vessels, and Ash walked around in a blurry stupor.
"What about the bodies!?" He snapped out, alerting the rest of the group who fell into immediate silence.
"...we leave them." Jessie mumbled quietly, to which pikachu released a tired squeak and a slow wetness coated his shirt with tears.
"Togeee!" The egg assured pikachu, knowing well that he did what he did to defend Ash. There was guns pointed at his head, if togepi had the power—he would have.
"Enough!" Meowth hissed, digging his claws into the control panel. "we're unbalanced, pokemon feel it more than humans—stop whinin' and let's get going."
What else could he say? Ash looked up at charizard who nodded daringly, high up in the sky once more, assuring Ash he wouldn't take any sudden crash landings until reaching the end of the mountain.
Ash stroked pikachu once more, who didn't relax the slightest at the information provided by mewoth.
"Where to, then?" Ash huffed, and Jessie and James read over the letter, a bit more open with Ash now that they were seated in protected cover, and not running aimlessly.
"Ecruteak City." They answered in unison.
Ash sat back with bags under his eyes, sleep pulling at every sore bone. "And what if we run into the ones that stole Dialga and Palkia?"
"Then we'll take care of it." Jessie responded while taking the protection of the tank to remove her coat and patch the wound she kept easily hidden. Ash watched when James panicked along side meowth who was driving.
He watched their expression, each line of distress, every angry turn of their lips, and their hands while the fumbled to close the wound. Coagulated blood decorated her under clothes, as well as the jacket she was wearing, but the wound itself was nothing more than a long cut—a tree branch snagged her on the way down.
But it was gruesome, he never thought something could bleed so much. Glancing down at pikachu, he still couldn't hear—after the gunshot, his ears were ringing, and he was sure that pikachu had panicked. Jessie and James didn't have weapons, they weren't equip to handle an assault, and pikachu thought faster than any of them—and reaped the injustice of it.
Ash swallowed down the knot forming in his throat, knowing better than to let the heat rushing to his eyes fall down his face in tears.
He wasn't sure he liked what this was doing to him. His insides felt all torn up on behalf of pikachu—carved out from stealing. Worst of all, he felt wounded because he actually felt numb to the situation. Accepted that these were the things that were going to happen, and so soon after separating from the very people who kept him grounded for so long. Overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude that these were the kind of situations he was protecting the rest of the world from—protecting his friends and family from; and he knew pikachu felt the same way when he bit hard on his lip to contain his tears. It wasn't an accident, but he wouldn't tell anyone else that. It would be their secret.
For once, Ash knew that it was not coincidence that he stood alongside Jessie and James. What was necessary wasn't always good, but it was right; and Ash had to accept that. Especially now. What would have happened if those men escaped? One of them could have been shot, their entire plan revealed, or worse. This wasn't a game—the wound on Jessie's back, as minor as it was—the bruises on Misty's legs—strong reminders that no one was safe.
If they couldn't take the plunge, they weren't going to win this. Determination and motivation wasn't enough—Ash couldn't talk himself up and out of this, he couldn't blindly pose his optimism to victory, and he couldn't rely on his luck anymore. This was real, and happening now. No place was safe until Team Rocket was gone.
Glowing brown eyes danced to the duo who made easy work of the small wound with just a fraction of the supplies other people would have needed and Ash inhaled.
"How are we getting to Ecruteak City?" He questioned boldly, the sound returning as they looked up at him.
"Hijack a plane?" Jessie mouthed, blinking playfully at James. Typically, Ash might have questioned it, could they really? But instead, he shook his head.
"There's an airport just outside of Eterna City with several smaller planes that I saw when I was there—it's fairly unguarded and thanks to the storm, a lot of them might be grounded." Apparently, he missed the part where they were joking.
"It's faster than a boat, and I'm sure we can fly it out of here."
Floored, James narrowed his eyes. "We'll have to steal it."
Ash wasn't sure what to say, he knew that, but a fraction of his heart was still so guilty for nodding as quickly as he did. "That's fine, we'll pay I back later—right now we need to focus on beating Team Rocket to the city."
"Which pokemon is located there, anyways?" Jessie asked while throwing her coat on over her cold shoulders.
"I'm...not sure, I never actually met it, you three know that." Ash exhaled. "But the legendary monument is in the middle of Ecruteak City, we can't let them destroy that."
"They won't...shouldn't anyways."
"They hid an entire region for years, I think if they wanted to attack Ecruteak City, they could."
"That's pretty close to where you're wanted by the police."
"I'll just have to hide better." Ash mumbled, swallowing the lump in his throat. The air grew thicker as they rode, each bump rocking them back and forth and Ash exhaled.
"They're taking notes from the list that I made at the nursing home—Ecruteak City was one of the last things I wrote about before turning my notebook in, there's no telling how many other legendary pokemon they have found—"
"Hey." Jessie reached out, latching her hands over Ash's shoulder. He was shaking violently, he hadn't even noticed.
"Relax, it's going to be okay." She assured him with a slow
"We're running out of time!" Ash snapped back at her, and she remained surprisingly calm when she shook her head.
"No, we're not. We have as much time as we need, Ash, don't lose yourself in this." She breathed. "Like you said, we're going to take out the bad guys, and you're going to go home and have a normal life; so relax, you're not alone."
"You and your pokemon have friends everywhere." James echoed her words, and while pikachu sobbed in his arms, Ash nodded once more—exhausted while his eyes stared widely at Pikachu in his lap, and tears pooled.
XOX
"So...you're really wanting to get the rights to build another Silph Co in Eterna City?"
"Yeah," Smoothly, Drew replied and smacked his lips together. "Dawn is very interested in bringing the life-line of pokemon training a little closer to home now that we've settled the issues between battlers and coordinators."
"Well," The man at the reception desk wondered while looking over his notes. "We don't have any available meetings with the president until..."
"Are you telling me that you're going to make Dawn wait?" Drew laughed, hotly flipping his hair and shaking his head venomously.
"Why do I not think this will ask—we could always ask your rivals—who were they...Aeth.."
"No, wait." The receptionist groaned, rubbing beneath his glasses. He glanced around the lobby.
"I can get you in to see the facility, and a meeting tomorrow."
Drew acted as if he has to think it over, puffing a strand of green hair from his face—sealed the false unimpressed appearance with a glance at his nails and resolved to huffing.
"Alright, we can do that."
"Oh thank god." The man muttered under his breath while Drew fought the urge to smile.
Behind the building, just past a dumpster where they knew they could be seen by security footage—but also knew that the security guard was at lunch until two. After waiting for him to leave, they made their move to infiltrate the building.
"Are you sure we shouldn't have gone in there ourselves?"
"It would have drawn way too much attention if I walked in there flashing my title, Brock. We wouldn't be able to snoop around without being watching."
"...I guess, but what if Drew can't convince them to let him in?"
Misty hummed. "Then I'll follow up with using my title."
Brock mumbled to himself about a faulty plan—neither of them knew Drew better than the few sentences Dawn made, and the time they spent traveling here—and in that short time, they discovered very little about the pokemon coordinator. He didn't like cheaters, or misconduct, and for some reason worked alongside Dawn. That didn't mean he was on the level of getting them inside Silph Co—what if he was a traitor, or something, and he turned them in-
The door creaked open to the left of them, and a purple jacket and green hair poked from the door, smiling.
"Did ya' miss me?"
"See—I told you Brock, nothing to worry about." Misty hummed gleefully while clearing the distance between them with a few short strides, and Brock right behind them. The back stairwell entrance was easily off the beaten path, so it was only natural that Brock and Misty be extra weary.
"Where is everyone?"
Drew stuffed his hands into his pockets. "They let me in by myself. To have a look around the first floor compound where they have all their goodies."
"...Why would they leave you alone?"
"Make enough of a fuss about personal space and hair care and anyone would get sick of you."
Misty narrowed her eyes, blinking a few times in confusion while Brock was appalled.
"Fair enough." Misty nodded after a time, knowing that half a second into her own sisters hair-topic, she was conked out into some distant, imaginary world far away, if physically leaving wasn't an option.
"This is the stairwell we read about, Brock. We can take this up to the third floor where the scientist are operating. Maybe shake down a few trees and get some information." Drew realigned their sights while grasping the railing and starting up the first few steps. The rest followed.
"Are any of you tech savvy? Maybe we can just get the information from a computer." Though she knew that none of them were particularly skilled with computers—Ash had an easier time cracking the code of the one at the Unova facility and he was in a coma for ten years—she couldn't imagine what it would be like trying to hack a computer in the embodiment of technology.
"Guess we'll just ask around." Drew offered, though the look Brock and Misty shared made his skin crawl.
Then, Misty sneered at him. "Like that's going to work." she said once they stopped at the third floor.
"We'll look for someone out of the loop, and make them tell us." Misty chuckled as an afterthought.
"Are you nuts? We'll get thrown out of here?" Drew panicked, not familiar with her sense of humor, apparently.
"We're not really going to do that." Brock rolled his eyes, and Misty kicked the door open, checking around to make sure no one in the shiny, white, metal hallway was around to see them use the fire exit doors, and then one at a time they slipped inside. Her boots scuffed the white tile flooring, silence so deafening she thought she lost her hearing for a moment.
"...What now?" Drew pondered aloud, earning a shh from the two others.
"Are you always so full of questions?" Misty whispered while Brock chuckled quietly and they made their way through one of the entries, and directly in front of a large, glass window.
Inside, at least a dozen scientists worked on what could only be every type of pokeball, studied the schematics of pokedex, poke-phones, and a ton of other blueprints they couldn't make out. Their heads turned in awe at the structure—how neat they were, lacking human emotion with robotic movements, step by step repeating the same tasks perfectly... and then coming to the painful realization that they were robots; or at least machines.
"What in the.."
"What are you doing up here?" a pained voice interrupted Brock's interrogation of the scene, and the three of them whipped around to see a frazzled, blonde haired scientist dawning a pristine white coat, and cracked glasses.
"You can't be up here!" He almost shouted, flinching when Drew stepped forward. Then, the mind-numbing, heart racing, panic set in.
Think fast! Misty shouted at herself and inhaled
"Y-you know who we are." Misty said weakly, and the man's distress turned to a slow deflation... That wasn't the reaction either of them excepted at what was a horrible attempt to get him to calm down.
"They never tell me when they switch messengers." he practically croaked, walking from the three of them, and down the white hallway into the other direction. "How can I work if they keep sending me..." And he rattled off comments that concerned each of them—and Misty blinked thoughtfully.
This man was awfully familiar for some reason.
"Is he talking about.."
"He must think we're with Team Rocket." Brock deduced.
"Go with it." Misty nodded, encouraging them forward by taking the lead.
They followed the man step by easy step until he stopped at an ajar door, and slipped inside. Inside, the room wasn't nearly as clean or as tidy as the rest of the facility—food crumbs were spread across the white floor, a sleeping mat was rolled out, and he was clearly alone when he took a seat at the desk and ran his hands through his growing, bright blonde hair, and then started scribbling down notes again. Still muttering.
"...Are you living here?"
"Can't leave." he added, voice shaking. "Won't let me, remember? I know too much." He sniffled. "Too much to know."
"He's nuts." Drew hissed, kicking away a soiled blanket.
"...No, he's a prisoner." Brock added sympathetically while he approached the boy much closer to Ash's age than his own.
"We're here to help." Brock muttered, stepping near the boy at his desk.
"You never help." He hissed, glaring at Brock with bight blue eyes full of disdain. Meanwhile, his hands prepared what ever information from the computer screen that he supposed they wanted, and Brock blinked several times. This scientist, who ever he was, wasn't evil by any means.
"We don't work for Team Rocket." Brock said neatly, earning a shriek of panic from Misty.
"Don't blow our cover because you're feeling-" She started in on him when the boy wheeled backwards and looked at the three of them—coming to the realization himself that they weren't dressed, or acting the way that any normal members did, and he blinked in dull confusion.
"He was awfully chatty a minute ago to be so quiet now." Drew remarked to the sudden silence, which broke through the scientists awe.
"Why are you here?" his voice practically echoed the intense heartbeat in his chest when he spoke and his shoulders craned backwards when Brock knelt beside him to watch him evenly.
"You have some information about a microchip being distributed through this facility that wants to disrupt all the peace in the world and we need a way to stop it." Brock inhaled, "Please, we need your help."
If there had been a clock in the room, a minute would have ticked by before the man gave any indication that he even heard Brock, first curling up as if his stomach was twisted up in knots, and then biting down on his already chewed up lips, and finally Misty's own heart gave a little.
"If you help us, we will get you out of here." Misty assured him determination coursing through her veins when his doltish eyes watched her.
"...Really?"
"How long have you been in here?" She rushed forward, grasping his shoulder. "We can get you out of here right now." seeing now what Brock saw the moment their eyes made contact, this man wasn't evil, far from it.
"...Can't leave." he said quietly. "No door."
Hearing that, both Drew and Misty spun around to look for the way they came in, and not-so surprisingly, they found that the door was in fact gone. Hiding flush with the rest of the white metallic walls.
"Well, this could be bad." Drew remarked, but Brock wasn't phased by the news. They've been in worse. If all they had to worry about were some white, metallic walls, they would have never gotten this far.
"It's fine." Brock assured him. "We can get out of here, but first, we need that information."
"You can't stop them." the boy hiccuped, suddenly very upset by their insinuation. "You need to go!"
"You said there was no way out." Misty reiterated sarcastically, and Brock shot her a nasty glare to which she shrugged—it was the truth, after all. They didn't need to panic yet, and the only scientist they ran into was a crazed, young man. This was by all means manageable by her standards.
"Okay, so we might not be able to stop them—but what's showing us going to hurt?"
After a brief internal conflict with himself, accented by his eyes, the blonde nodded, and pointed to the computer on his desk, then rolled that way.
"They keep me in here so I don't give out information. They're bad people, but I don't know what they're doing." he pulled up a few files, and even from their dim-witted knowledge, they knew whatever script he presented them with was coded.
"They keep the important stuff encrypted. I only get blueprints."
"That's.. that's very helpful, can we have a copy of this?" Brock asked politely, and Misty leaned over to view some of the letters—she couldn't be sure of anything, but some of it looked like the information that was on that terminal in the Unova compound, and she was about to say as much when the boy clicked a few buttons to clear the screen, and then popped a CD from the computer and handed it to Brock.
"...That easy, huh?" Misty muttered, watching while the blonde once again retracted into his seat and exhaled.
"Maybe Jessie and James can read this?" Brock danced the CD between his fingers, and then slipped it into the front pocket of his vest between a sheet of paper.
"Can you help with anything else?" Brock asked him, and he shook his head.
Still, he looked familiar, his face was scruffier, hair longer and messy—face a little more thin than when she saw him last—but he was underlying familiar, and by all means friendly without having a good reason to be. What was that name Ash asked her to look up?
"Are you Clemont?" she finally managed, eyebrows raising.
He reacted in much of the same way that anyone who wasn't supposed to know his name might have, by shooting out of his chair, eyes wide and shoulders raised.
"It was a trick! You are with Team Rocket, aren't you! You were testing me and I failed." The sudden panic and terror in his voice made each of their hearts crumble and Brock stood up and glanced at Misty while she sought to rectify the response.
"No, no, no!" Misty raised her hands. "Honest, we aren't with Team Rocket—my friend—he knows you."
Now, he clearly didn't trust them. "Your friend?"
"You might not know him—Ash Ketchum ring any bells?"
Very slowly Clemont shook his head and Misty sighed. "It's a really long story, but..."
What in the world would make him feel any better? Clearly, he has been living here for some time. Running the third floor, trapped behind white walls for years, at least since that article that dubbed him the new engineer selected for the Silph Co. production—it was no wonder that she couldn't find any information on him outside of that. His name was everywhere, but never any photos.
"We're taking you out of here, okay?" Misty said reassuringly, but Clemont shot backwards.
"I'm not leaving, you can't make me!"
"Too bad!" Misty shouted, and where Brock agreed with her—the tactic was a little...
"No!" Clemont screamed, fleeing past Drew and out the door.
"Clemont, wait!" Misty called for him—she wasn't nearly as good at this as Ash. Ash could convince a house fly it was a dog, and she struggled with the basic human principles of convincing people to come with absolute strangers. Like that was a normal thing! Seriously, that was a skill only he had.
"We can't make him come with us, you two!" Drew barked as the voice of reason. "We got what we came for, now let's get out of here."
"We're not leaving without him."
"You don't even know him!" Drew protested, confused by her behavior.
"But Ash does!" Misty snapped, looking over her shoulder heatedly at Drew who flinched.
"I'm going to go get him, you two get that door open." Misty shouted, heels stomping against the tile as the sound of her resolve.
"..Are you trying to get us all caught?" Drew muttered mostly to himself but Brock looked at him with quiet understanding.
"It's more than that, I assure you." Brock commented. "Anyways, let's get this door open." And with that, Brock enlarged a pokeball, and took a warning step back that Drew followed.
Down the hall, until she could no longer see her companions, she caught up with the ill-fit scientist, and snatched his wrist tightly.
"I said stop!" She hissed while he tried to pull himself away with grunts and groans, but compared to Misty's strength, didn't move an inch. He was paper thin.
"Leggo!" he whined like a trapped animal.
"Why do you want to stay here?"
"Because they're bad people!"
"We know that but-"
"They take people!" He screamed at her, eyes watering to the brim as unsolicited tears started falling from his eyes and she finally let him go, only to watch him fall backwards and wipe at his face.
"Who did they take?" Misty asked, kneeling beside him while he howled tears. Not much of a crier herself, she found her eyes watering in sympathy to the sudden explosion of emotions, and gently brushed her hand against his back while he wept.
"M-my dad." He sniffed, shoulders shaking violently. "And t-they threatened my mom and my sister."
"Oh no..." Misty muttered quietly while he shook like a leaf.
"That's why I can't leave, I can't let them hurt anyone else."
"...I understand but..." behind them, the sound of a violent explosion tore them from their conversation and Misty had to think on her feet. What would Ash say in this situation?
"Would you rather sit in here, helping the enemy, or be out there actively helping your family, too?" She inhaled. "You can help a lot more out there than you can in here and if they're threatening your family we can help."
"You can't." he sounded so defeated when he spoke, that when Misty shook him, his glasses fell off.
"I might not be able to, but you can do this. Don't let them beat you! We can still beat them. I know you want to help because otherwise you wouldn't have even thought about giving us that information—you would have turned us in! So come with us! Please!"
"You don't even know me." he groaned, trying to brush off her words.
"I don't!" Misty shouted. "But I know someone who knows you, and I believe in him."
"Misty, we got to go!" Brock shouted after her, hearing the faint hum of alarms springing off in every direction while the lights started to dim one at a time.
"Come with us." She urged once more making eye contact. She wasn't sure she was convincing him—after all, it was impossible to change the way people thought on their own. They had to want to.
"...Okay." Clemont finally muttered, and Misty dragged him to his feet and pulled.
"Then c'mon!" She yanked him down the hallway—much of the same way she used to be able to handle Ash when they first met after the hospital, he was a leaf, and she was a boulder.
"C'mon, they're going to know it was us!" Drew yelled while Brock returned golem to his pokeball with a rather obnoxiously proud smile.
"You're coming too?"
"Y-yeah." Clemont spoke, utterly surprised to see such a small group so fierce and actively fighting against someone who had three times more power than they ever would. His heart skipped into his throat, and his lip quivered when he finally came to a stop at the exit.
She nearly fell backwards down the steps when he wriggled himself from her grasp.
"I can't go." he swore. And they all stopped dead in their tracks.
"We've been over this!" Misty hissed and Clemont, with that crazed, delusional look in his eye gone, spoke with a new determination.
"They're going to see you three on the security camera, and it'll be only a matter of time before they find you." He inhaled. "I can make that go away—and then blame the explosion on an experiment—but you three need to go!"
"But-"
"I'll be okay!" He assured them, and while their time together was short—the change in his voice pushed them forward. They knew he would be. Misty was still persistent, as was Brock, but lucky for them—there was a third party pulling them down the stairs slowly.
"Just—just find my sister for me!" Clemont shouted, nodding at the three of them. "Her name is Bonnie! Tell her I'm okay!"
He hiccuped, the sound dying around them while he forced the tears at bay. "And tell that friend of yours I said thank you."
Misty's heart stopped in her throat, and found it impossible to speak walking backwards down the hidden fire exit, and Clemont cracked a smile.
"And thank you."
And like that, he disappeared once again, and they could hear him shouting about a fire and explosion, playing off the idea that he messed up. And they were never even there.
As they reached the end of the stairwell, the three of them bolted out of there without a second thought, running from the door, through the small alley way, and down the street. On the outside, not a single sound wasw displaced, on the main floor, no one was stirred into a panic—but the once empty room of security guards was suddenly capsizing and so they veered into a side street.
For what felt like forever, the only sound either of them could hear was the thud of their feet, and beat of their hearts. Adrenaline fueled them to run, but it was the same adrenaline that brought that to a veering stop outside of the Saffron City forest. Huffing and puffing, they tried to regroup.
"I said to open the door—not blow a hole where a door was!" Misty finally snapped in her two cents, hands gripped tightly on her knees and breath caught halfway between a groan and a sigh.
"Technicalities." Brock wheezed, falling backwards onto the dirt and holding his heart. He didn't exercise nearly as much as he should have. Drew was in the same boat, but would be caught dead before exposing himself as not perfectly composed at all times. He inhaled.
"There was no way we were getting through that door without breaking it."
"Why didn't you mention it was a one-way!"
"Because the prints that we were given weren't very clear!" he shot back at her and Misty stood up straight and looked up at the tall tower in the distance. Not a single stone was out of place.
"...do you think he's going to be alright?" Misty asked aloud and Brock nodded.
"I think so."
"I hope so." Drew added, a reminder that while he never lost sight of the goal, he still cared. Misty smiled, and pat Brock on the chest before helping him up.
"But in the meantime—we have good news. We should try to get a hold of Ash as soon as possible." Misty hummed bitter sweetly and Brock nodded with a grin.
"We got it." He hissed, and then elation over took him, and he grabbed both Drew and Misty into a tight hug.
"We got it!"
XOX
All great achievements had to end—and for their small victory, it came much to soon.
"They said that they would call us when they got a chance—and I know Ash has my number memorized." she said quickly while they left the store on the small side of town. Misty's hair was pulled up, and a droopy cap was carefully place to hide her face while they made preparations to reactivate her phone.
"Do you think they've had any luck? If their luck is as good as ours.." Brock couldn't stop the smile. They had a few set backs, but in the end—if things remained as bright as they were now, it was only up from here.
Misty, practically giddy from her own excitement, shook while her phone did the necessary updates; delivering long-standing messages, phone calls, and two voice mails.
"Oh, I already have a voice mail." She hummed, quickly skimming over the information, and selecting the number that wasn't her sisters number—which was the other voice mail that she received before they lost their phones the first time. The other was delivered only a few days after that—but she thought that because her phone was deactivated for so long, the messages were all inaccurate.
Still, as excited as she was, she had to stop her hopes from getting too high. Containing her glee, she played the message eagerly, and clicked the speaker button for them all to hear.
"..Huh." A young man's voice came on—too shrill to be Ash's, and much too quiet. But oh-so familiar to the red head, and entirely new the Brock and Drew.
"I.. I don't know if you'll get this—but-" Crash. "Those guys I told you about, they're here—they took the pikachus and..and.-Wait!" screech-beeeep.
The line was cut, and Misty's face went from the happy pink that it had been, to the lightest shade of white that Brock had ever seen her in.
"...Misty, who was that?" Brock asked, but she already zoned out—so much so that the new phone she purchased slipped from her fingers, and crashed to the concrete below. Brock shouted at her, but the sudden ringing in her ears prevented her from hearing.
They take people! Clemont's words echoed in her mind, causing a shudder while she bit down hard on her lip and the rest of the world fell away at the realization.
How stupid were they to not realize what they were reading?
'Contained'.
They took Delia and Cole weeks ago.
Author's Note:
Using that whole trainer feels what the pokemon feels there at the end.
I love reading the nice (and sometimes not so nice) comments people have made about this story, because it's been a lot of work to get this far. Also, since I didn't mention it last chapter, THANK YOU so much for anyone who has fav'd/ravorited this story. 300 plus is a huge feat for me and I'm so excited.
THANK YOU.
NINT.