Vulpixtrainer: Not much to say right now except thanks to Negrek for accepting my request for a Beta Reader. So on with the chapter.

Miracles Happen at Odd Times

Matt was worried. The moment he stepped out into the backyard all his senses seemed to increase. Well, his eyesight went down a lot, but that wasn't what worried him. Rockets, ten of them, were creeping slowly towards the house, making a semi-circle to try to cut off any escape route through the woods. Silently flicking his hand, Matt signaled Stripes and Sir Thief to take the left and right. Well, looks like this is my trial by fire. Here goes nothing. With that thought he flung off his pack and shifted form so that he could stand a more favorable chance of getting out without becoming some Rocket slave.

The woods had been silent for almost half an hour and some of the lower grunts were getting nervous. "When are we going? We should rush in and take them while they're still scrambling around for candles," one grunt whined as a twig fell off a tree, making a loud noise that spooked the inexperienced grunt.

"No, we are going to stay put. With the adults out at that Sliph Co. convention, all we have is a lot of rookies with level forties, and we'd normally have level eighties to take them out easily. We're going to have to try to weaken them first." There is then a white light flashed three times deeper in the woods. At this all the grunts with low levels run forward, five in total. Each grunt had one Pokemon, making only five Pokemon to deal with.

"Stripes, you take those Squirtle, I'll take the Bulbasaur, and Sir Thief, you take the last two Rattata. Also, use low level attacks, they want us to tire out. MOVE!" Matt ordered as he shot forward, giving the first Bulbasaur a good hard Tackle and knocking it out in one hit. Turning, he then goes after another opponent. Already he could sense that he was stronger than the first one had been.

Meanwhile, Stripes was using some medium strength Tackles, conserving his strength. He gave the Squirtle another good Tackle, fainting it. Turning, he used a Quick Attack to stop one Rattata from using its own Quick Attack against Sir Thief, who had just taken down his first opponent. Sir Thief, turning, saw the other Rattata fainted with Stripes standing near it on his hind legs, smiling. Matt then came over, keeping his ears cocked to listen for the next wave.

"Good work guys, we showed them that we have gotten stronger," he said. At this he stops and then yells, "Battle stations! The second wave is coming in." They all separated and turned to see what stood before them. What they saw made all three fighters freeze for one second before going into defensive stances.

Standing before them were around ten Pokemon, including two Blastoise, three Charizard, one Dragonite, two Arbok, and finally two Espeon.

"This is bad, very bad," Sir Thief commented right before being thrown by one of the Espeon into the side of the house, fainting straight away.

"They're high level, we have to take out those Espeon before…" Matt stopped as he felt himself being picked up, only to be dropped suddenly. Turning around, he saw that the Espeon that had tried using a Psychic attack was charred black and staggering because of a burn. The second one locked its purple eyes on Strips but another Flame Thrower from the sky hit her and she fainted along with her male counterpart. "WHAT?" Matt choked out before another Flame Thrower blocked his vision, but instead of being burned he felt like he was getting stronger. Well, well, well, so this is my special ability. I'm absorbing the flame and getting stronger. The Flame Thrower stopped and Matt stepped forward, eyes ablaze with an inner fire that had just gotten hotter.

Meanwhile, up in the air, the Charizard that had helped out swept around and started to fly away only to be spotted by the Executives on the ground, who ordered their own Charizards to battle it. Soon the air was ablaze as the fire lizards started to battle, three against one, but the lone one had a much more noble and strong desire to protect than the three. Seated on the lone Charizard was a lady dressed in a rainbow outfit. She was trying to get her Charizard down low enough so that she could jump off and start really helping out. "Come on, you can get in a little closer, you're doing great so far. You will be rewarded for your help later," she urged.

On the ground Matt was having a difficult time fending off the Arbok while at the same time avoiding the two Blastoise, and they proved able to trap Matt once in a while. At the same time, however, Matt had used the situation to his advantage. One Blastoise charged with a Skull Bash only to connect with the Arbok. Matt, using his speed, had allowed one of the big turtle-like creatures to get a lock on him on purpose, only to dodge at the last moment. Now there was one fewer Arbok to deal with.

"They're getting tired, Stripes. Just a few more minutes and…" At this he had to stop and dodge again, only to be hit in his left hind leg, which caused him some pain and slowed him down. Of course we're getting tired as well. It's going to take a miracle to pull us out of this one.

No sooner had Matt thought this than the rainbow lady, as Matt had dubbed her, fell right next to him and, pulling out a pokeball, threw it, yelling, "Dewgong, Ice Beam that Dragonite." With those words a white seal-like creature appeared and sent a pure beam of ice against the still-waiting Dragonite.

"Dragonite, use a Hyper Beam at that beast," The Executive closest to the Dragon-type Pokemon shouted. "Don't level the house, we need to make it look like they were kidnapped, not forced out."

The Dragon Pokemon just nodded took to the air only to be rammed by one of the remaining two Charizard that were still battling the rainbow girl's Charizard. The Charizard that rammed into the Dragonite fainted and fell to backyard, making a loud thump. The Dragonite then went after the Charizard out of pure annoyance at being lead into fainting a comrade. The Rockets were very lucky that no one had yet been awoken by the sounds of the intense battle.

A Pidgeotto suddenly flew over the rooftop, and on its back was a small Pikachu which sent a Thunder Bolt at the two Blastoise that were engaging the Dewgong. With this super effective attack and a final Ice Beam the two Blastoise collapsed, leaving one Charizard, one very weak Arbok, and one Dragonite.

The grunts, realizing that they where losing, decided that the only thing left to do was to make a last, desperate attack, seeing as how Becky had now joined the battle in the backyard, taking out the Arbok with a well-placed Flame Thrower and leaving the two strong Pokemon that where proving the most difficult.

"Matt, you get going and take care of that…" At this the last Charizard fell with a bigger roar then the last ones, waking up the neighbors next door. Seeing this, the last Executive recalled his Dragonite and ran along with the rest of Team Rocket and the other Pokemon who had been hiding in the bushes, waiting with bated breath. Finally the light at the Sparks residence turned on and they all came out to try and plan what to do next.

"Great, they're still at large," Stripes muttered as he looked for Matt and Becky. He finally found both of them, only to rush forward, becoming very worried. Both had passed out in their Ninetales form and were breathing very slowly and shallowly. "Come on, you two, wake up, wake up! Guys, you've got to wake up, we still have Sir Thief to take care off."

Stripes then noticed that there was a Dewgong and a female trainer. He had been so focused on trying to keep himself up and trying to faint the enemy Rockets that he hadn't noticed her. So he ran up to her, shouting as loud as he could, "Furret, Fur Fur fur Furrretfurret, et et ret." (Please, you've got to help my friends out now) The lady looked at the Furret right in his eyes. (Furret are 5' 11")

"What is it?" she asked, before looking over to where the Furret was pointing and just nodding. "You want me to use revive on those two, don't you?" The Furret nodded and ran over to the Ninetales, and he started trying to wake them up again as best as he could. The lady pulled out two Revives and handed them to the Furret. "Use these by putting them into their mouths," she explained. Stripes just looked at her, confused. "Hey, I've got places to go, people to see. I just happened to be flying by and saw the battle. I had to help you guys out, as I don't like Team Rocket one bit. They think they can control the world. Well, guess what, Ho-oh does that, she's just waiting for everything to straighten out first," the lady told him. She then got up and climbed onto her Charizard, and they both took off into the midnight sky.

Stripes then used the Revives on Matt and Becky and almost instantly they woke up, jumped to their feet and spun around wildly, looking for the next attack. "Easy there, they're gone, we got some help from some lady passing by and, well, she sent them packing," Stripes explained.

"That's good, at least now Team Rocket knows that we are not going to be such pushovers…" Matt then cocked his ears to the woods turned his body to the forest, getting this look on his face that any Pokemon could tell was one of "What now?" only to have a Flareon stumble out of the trees, looking lost hungry, and almost fainted. The moment the Flareon got into the open space of the backyard he fainted out of sheer exhaustion.

"Becky, go home and get some blankets. I'll get him inside and we'll see if we can help him out." With those words Matt jumped into action, grabbing a blanket from his own house and then, putting the Flareon on the blanket, started to drag the Pokemon towards the house, thinking, This is really grating my nerves. I mean, come on, Flareon don't just walk right up to you from the wild. He must have been lost out there, poor thing. I think I know how it feels…I could never survive out there. By this time Matt had dragged the pokemon through the sliding glass door that lead into the house, only the glass was shattered from a stray Swift attack. I've got to clean this up now, also. Great, tonight is definitely going to be a long night.

VulpixTrainer: Okay, this was my first major battle scene so I really need input about how it went.

Kyle: Touché, Matt, touché.