Author's Notes:

I didn't mention it earlier but I don't own any of the characters or Pokémon in this story.

Here's the third chapter, I really enjoyed writing this one. Please review as I enjoy both criticism and praise. Even if you don't know what to say, just give me a smiley face or a frowny face. Feedback is motivation, people!

Hard Work and a lil' Elbow Grease

Jet woke up the next morning both nervous and excited. He got dressed in clothes that he wouldn't mind getting dirty or ruined like Professor Oak said. No sooner than when he just got finish tying his sneakers was he called downstairs by his mom.

Brian was waiting for him at the bottom of the steps. "Yo Jet, I couldn't sleep last night at all. Could you?"

"Yeah," Jet said while reaching down to pet Samson by way of morning greeting. Jet's mom asked, "You boys want pancakes before you head out?"

"Yeah, that would be great Mrs. B," Brian said before continuing on about their new job, "Think about it dude, today we feed a couple of sick Rattata, tomorrow we'll be catching our own Pokémon!"

"That fast, huh?" said Mrs. Brown, clearly amused by Brian's enthusiasm.

"Well, you know what I mean Mrs. B," Brian continued, "See the way I figure it, if I save all my money, in a couple of years I'll have enough to buy a Dratini!"

Jet shook his head, "Those aren't exactly easy to come by."

Brian shrugged, "I'm sure I can get one from somebody online. Anyway, I buy my first Pokémon, along with some pokeballs, and then head out to destinations unknown building the sickest dream team of pocket monsters this side of the nut house!"

Jet's mom placed two plates with a mini stack of pancakes in front of them, "Well, good luck with that."

Jet, however, said "Catching Pokémon ain't exactly as easy as it sounds."

Brian raised his eyebrows, "And I suppose you know this from your vast amount of experience?"

Jet swallowed the buttery bite of pancake he was just chewing before saying, "I watch animal planet."

XXX

They arrived at the lab twenty minutes later via the bus, both full of anticipation. When they entered the lobby, Amy was there standing next to a guy in his early twenties wearing a lab coat.

"Ahh, there you are boys."

Brian looked confused, "Where is Professor Oak?"

The guy in the lab coat laughed, "Professor Oak likes to make all staff appointments himself, but he's a very busy man. My name is Carl; I will be your supervisor."

They shook hands and followed Carl as he handed out assignments.

"Amy, you will be in this room scanning these pokeballs with this device here," Carl held up a scanner gun thingy, and scanned one of the pokeballs, "You will then take the information from the scanner and copy them down into this log. Just write the levels and stats of each Pokémon in the order that they appear on the screen."

Carl handed the scanner to a disgruntled Amy, along with a clip board with log sheets. He then said, "After you are finished with the log, input the data in this computer here. I believe you already know how to use are data base?"

Amy nodded, and Carl said, "Excellent, let me know when you are finished."

Amy did not look happy about her task. Not that Jet blamed her; there were well over a hundred different pokeballs on the shelves that she had to scan. Perhaps maybe this job wasn't going to be as fun as he thought.

They left Amy to her devices, and followed Carl for what felt like ten minutes until they ended up in another building filled with cages upon cages of bird Pokémon.

"You will be feeding these Pokémon today, Brian."

Brian nodded. While he didn't look as enthusiastic as he did before they walked in the door, he didn't seem to mind his task nearly as much as Amy.

"You want to go over there and see Will, our bird keeper. He'll show you the proper procedures for the job."

Brian nodded again and said in an undertone to Jet, "I guess I'll just see you after work."

Jet followed Carl to another building that had a sign up that read:

Aquatic Pokémon Daycare

They walked inside and went down three hallways before Carl lead Jet into a large room. The room had an indoor swimming pool that was roped off. There was a worker that looked as if he was testing the PH levels of the water. On the other side of the room were about twenty water Pokémon. They all looked rather unhappy about being outside the pool. There were three older teenagers filling up buckets with hoses by the water Pokémon, as well as preparing rags and sponges.

"He's all yours." Carl said to the one of the teenagers, who was pouring some kind of soap into one of the buckets.

Carl then walked away. The guy he was talking to stood up and said, "Ok kid, listen up. You are going to be washing all of these water Pokémon while that guy over there makes sure the pool is clean."

One of the other guys stepped forward, "Yeah what you want to do is take a sponge and dip it into one of these buckets," he gestured at a bucket with suds floating on the surface, "and scrub the Pokémon down. Just make sure you don't get the soap in their eyes, because that annoys the hell out of them and those Water-Guns hurt."

"Once you scrub them down with a sponge, dip them into one of these tubs of fresh water over here. When all the soap is off you can wipe them down with a rag and have them stand over there while you clean the rest. Got it?"

Jet nodded, "Uhh, yeah. I think so."

The third boy said, "If I were you I'd start with the Horsea. That little guy just loves baths, don't he?" One of the other boys laughed, "Yeah, he can't get enough of 'em!"

The boys then turned to leave and Jet called, "Wait! Don't you have to supervise me or something?"

One of the boys called back, "Nah you got it. Besides, it's our break time anyway."

They laughed as they walked away, leaving Jet to wash all of the Pokémon by himself. "Dicks."

Jet sighed and went over to pick up the Horsea. It jumped out the way and hissed at him. Jet was suddenly scared. The only Pokémon he has ever been around in person was Samson. However, he was pretty sure that if a Pokémon hissed at you, it couldn't mean anything good.

Jet grabbed a wet sponge and approached cautiously. "I'm just going to give you a bath, that's all. Nothing special." He reached over with the sponge to gently scrub the Horsea, and without warning, it sprung forward and tackled him in the gut.

Jet had never been hit with a Tackle attack before, but it hurt like a bitch. He flew some six feet back and clenched his abdomen, which was in pain. He wanted to swear but there was no air left in his lungs.

Jet went to get back up, but as soon as he turned over he puked. Then, all of a sudden a cold, hard, burst of water hit him full force, and he was propelled backward yet again until he hit the wall. As soon as he made contact with the wall, he became winded yet again. The side of his body where the Water-Gun hit stung like tiny needles were pricking every inch his skin.

He looked up, and the Horsea he was attempting to clean was hopping over to him, hissing and poised for battle. Around them, the nineteen other Pokémon made a large circle and began to watch, as if they were watching a fairly entertaining television program.

Jet wasn't sure what level the Horsea was at, but he did know that a human battling a Pokémon was a very dumb idea. Still, he was pissed over that cheap ass attack and he did have a job to do. He stood up and tried to walk around the Horsea toward the sponges. Horsea tilted his head back, as if he were going to release another Water-Gun.

Jet ran forward, dived, and slid past Horsea as it released its Water-Gun. It missed him by inches; the floor was soaked from the last attack allowing Jet to slide very fast. Jet grabbed a sponge mid-slide and rolled out the way as Horsea squirted some black oil at him.

Jet rolled to his feet like his father taught him, and tried to close the distance between him and Horsea. Horsea jumped up and tried to Tackle Jet. Jet, however, was expecting it this time and side stepped the tackle; grabbing Horsea from behind in the process.

Horsea wriggled around and almost got free, but Jet pulled it closer to him. He used his forearm to pin Horsea to his chest by the neck like he had it in a sleeper hold, but Horsea wasn't having that shit.

It used Water-Gun to propel them both backwards, knocking buckets over as they went. Horsea was free, and Jet was on his back. Horsea reposition himself and shot sludge at Jet again, and again Jet rolled out of the way.

He stood up and ran as Horsea used Bubble, but slip and fell on the wet floor. Most of the bubbles went over his head, but those that did hit stung as if he was being hit with a leather belt. He yelled out in pain and got sprayed with another water gun.

He slid across the floor to the other side of the room, and found himself lying next to a net. Quickly getting up, Jet grabbed the net. He stood up and looked over at Horsea, who hissed and held his head high to look intimidating.

"Game on, bitch." Fuck this Horsea. Jet then ran over to Horsea. He was careful to run around the puddles of water on the floor so as to not slip again.

Horsea tilted his head back to use Water-Gun again, so Jet pulled off another daring dive to get close to Horsea. It worked, and he wasted no time at all putting Horsea in the net.

As soon as Horsea was in the net, it used Water-Gun to make them slide all over the room. Jet held on for dear life, knocking over more buckets along the way. The Pokémon in the background cheered and jeered, evidently quite entertained by the proceedings.

When the water-Gun finally stopped, Jet got to his feet. Horsea, who was far from giving up that easy, used Water-Gun again. This time, however, instead of Jet sliding across the room, he was able to stay in one spot while keeping hold of the net. The net itself, as well as the Horsea within, was flying all over the place, using Jet as its pivot point.

The net picked up more and more speed as Horsea fought fin and flipper to get free. Finally, Jet purposely let go of the net, but only because its trajectory was headed toward a nearby wall. His plan worked perfectly; Horsea slammed into the wall head first in his desperate attempt to break free of the net.

Temporarily dazed, the Horsea did not fight back as Jet grabbed a nearby sponge and hastily scrubbed its little body head to tail. It regained its senses, however, after being dunked in the tub of fresh water. Horsea used Water-Gun.

It shot up from the tub, into the air, and landed in front of Jet, ready for the next round. Jet, however, smiled.

"Do what you want, you're clean now."

Horsea looked from Jet, to the sponge at his feet, to the tub beside him. For a moment Horsea looked simply stunned, and then angry. It shot sludge at Jet, which he ducked, and missed by mere inches.

All of a sudden, Horsea began to glow, as if it was turning into light itself, and then it disappeared. Jet was shocked, "What the-"

It was then he saw the source of Horsea's disappearance. Professor Oak was standing at the door way holding a pokeball. Jet suddenly realized that it was Horsea's pokeball, and that Oak had recalled it.

Professor Oak walked over to Jet and grabbed his arm, "Are you hurt?"

Jet shook his head and Oak let go. Behind Oak, the guy who was cleaning the pool earlier said, "You see, sir? Tha Horsea jus' wen ballistic an stauted attacking tha kid, ya know?"

Oak looked down at the pokeball in his hands, and then turned the button in the middle of it until it clicked. The pokeball suddenly shrink to half its original size. Oak then looked at Jet and asked, "What the hell happened?"

Jet explained the entire story about his little battle with Horsea. When he was finished, Oak asked, "Didn't Darrel warn you not to touch that Horsea because of his aggression issues?"

Jet was confused, "Darrel?"

"He was the one who was supposed to train you today!"

Jet shook his head, "There were three guys in here when I came in. They just told me to scrub and dunk all of the Pokémon and to start with the Horsea. They said he liked taking baths."

As Jet said it he saw the three guys who were apparently supposed to train him standing in the door way. One of them said, "Professor, we just heard-"

But the Oak cut him off, "You were supposed to train him today! Not trick him into provoking the Pokémon to attack him!"

For a moment, the boys were all silent. Then one of them said, "We thought he would stop trying to wash the Horsea if it snapped at him. We didn't think-"

"Exactly," snapped Oak, "you didn't think at all. Finish cleaning the rest of these Pokémon and then go home, I'll send you your final paycheck in the mail. And you're lucky I don't call the police."

The three boys looked hurt and ashamed, "Yes, sir," they said in unison.

Oak then turned to Jet, "You head home as well, and take tomorrow off. You will still get paid for the hours," Oak said cutting over Jet's look of protest, "Right now you are in no position to work."

Oak looked down at Jet's shirt, which Jet just now notice had blood stains on it. He quickly pulled his shirt of and saw that much of his left side had bruises and scrapes from where the water gun hit.

Behind him, the pool cleaner let out a low whistle, "Ya got some preddy mean welts on ya back ere, you!"

Jet ran his fingers over his back and felt the welts, "Yeah, I guess that must be from Horsea's Bubble."

Oak had a pained look on his face. "If you no longer wish to work here because of this incident, I understand."

Jet shook his head, "You kidding me sir?" he said with a pained smile on his face, "most fun I had all summer!"