I fumble the keys in the lock. Come on, one of them has to work! Pairing, Equality, Union, no, try this one– I tremble too much. I drop the keys.
Hey! Is that you? a voice calls out behind me…
–* * *–
Charizard hurtled through the thin air with the intensity of a meteor, single-mindedly focused on his one goal: incinerating that obnoxious feline. Ash ignored the vicious sting of the wind, clinging tightly to his mount's back, thinking similar thoughts about the one whose loathsome song still resounded in his mind.
"Almost there, Charizard!" Ash encouraged. "You're gonna pay for what you did, Meowth! You messed with the wrong Pokémon trainer!"
James squirmed in a panic. "Oh no, they're getting closer! What are we gonna do, Jessie?"
"They're approaching too fast," she replied. "We can't outfly them! Quick, Cinnabar's just up ahead. Maybe we can lose them on foot."
"Nyaaaaah, too late Jess!" exclaimed Meowth. "They're comin' this way!"
Ash held on firmly. "Charizard, they're in range – Flamethrower attack now!"
"Ri-ZAAH!" he roared, bathing the balloon in a sea of red fire. The membrane vanished in a burst of soot and smoke, dropping its payload into a perilous free-fall from 1,000 feet.
"We're losin' altitude!" Meowth groaned.
"Abandon ship!" said James. They jumped out of the basket and deployed their R-emblazoned parachutes, aiming for the soft sands of the Cinnabar Beach.
"Gaaah, I didn't land on my feet…" Meowth complained.
"No time for talking, Meowth!" said Jessie. "Let's scram!"
In front of them, a Pokéball fell down from above, and out popped Misty, Brock, and Pikachu. "Going somewhere?" asked Brock, as he took out a Pokéball of his own.
"No, not this way!" said James. They turned around to run in the opposite direction – only to be blocked by Charizard touching down with a resounding boom.
Ash dismounted, directing his rage towards the hapless Team. "So, you think that's funny, do you!"
They began to sweat nervously. "Oh yes, terrific joke, all in good fun! We'll be running along now! Good bye!" stammered James.
"You're not going anywhere!" said Brock. "Go, Onix!"
"You too," said Misty. "Go, Starmie!"
"Pi-ka-chu!"
"Oh no, we're surrounded!" cried Meowth. "Whadda we gonna do, whadda we gonna do…"
"Listen, you two," answered Jessie, ever so slightly calmer than them. "We're not going down this easily. We have the Universal Technical Machine, remember? We can make any Pokémon we want!"
"Good idea, Jessie," James agreed. "We can win this for sure! Make it summon a Pokémon that can defeat any other Pokémon."
"But James," said Meowth tentatively, the rusty engines of logic beginning to crank inside his head. "What if they copy it with a Ditto?"
"Hmm, good point," said James. "How about, a Pokémon that can defeat any Pokémon, including itself!"
"No, that won't work," Jessie said. "Then it'll just self-destruct on us. Let's do… a Pokémon that defeats any Pokémon other than Pokémon which defeat Pokémon other than…"
"Gaaaah, I'm so confused!" shouted Meowth.
Ash had reached the end of his patience with Team Rocket's dithering. "Charizard, Fire Blast!"
"Onix, Rock Throw!" "Starmie, Hydro Pump!" "Pi-ka-CHU!" the others followed.
Jessie and James attempted to hide behind each other. "I never thought it would end like this…"
"Enough already!" Meowth grabbed the Machine from Jessie and switched it onto voice-activated mode. "Machine, I order you! Make a Pokémon that defeats all Pokémon other than Pokémon that defeat themselves!"
"…"
"…"
"…"
"…"
"…"
James timidly looked up. "Wh– what just happened?"
Charizard, Onix, Starmie, Pikachu, Meowth – all five stopped dead in their tracks. The projectile attacks hung motionless in midair, mere inches away from their targets.
"I don't know, James," Jessie replied. "Meowth, what did you just do? Hello, Meowth?"
Meowth stared blankly ahead, still holding the Machine, not moving a muscle. A sparkly purple and orange dust began to issue from the Machine…
Ash looked around. "What's going on? What happened to all our Pokémon?"
Jessie stood up and laughed. "Well well well. Not so tough without your little pets to do your dirty work, are you, twerp?"
Ash groaned through gritted teeth. "I've had it with you, Team Rocket! Give it to us!"
"Ah ah ah, you didn't say the magic word," said James, taking the Machine out of Meowth's unmoving paws. The glittering dust, meanwhile, had assembled into a large block-like structure.
"What in the world is that?" asked Brock in amazement.
Ash pulled out his all-knowing Pokédex. "ERROR: MISSING NUMBER."
"Nnng, I don't know what kind of trick you're playing now," said Ash, "but I'm not falling for it!" He ran over to grab the Machine from James, who moved aside, allowing Ash to face-plant into the sand.
"I say we teach him a lesson in respect for his elders," suggested Jessie.
"I agree," said James. Using the Machine's controls, he directed the blocky Pokémon over towards Ash, and pressed a button. "Go, Missing Number!"
It swirled around and around, faster and faster, surrounding Ash in a haze of unnatural colors. The hiss of the whirlwind grew into an outright screech, as he was lifted off his feet and into the air. His groans of discomfort quickly became screams of primal agony, with a feeling of having all the pain receptors in his body activated at full volume all at once.
"Help… me…" was all they could hear him say.
"Put him down, you evil scum!" yelled Misty. "Brock, we have to do something!"
Brock thought as fast as he could. "Misty, the Machine!" With all his strength he threw himself at James, who lost his grip and tossed it into the air. Misty dove to snatch it away from Jessie's grasp, and desperately ripped the cartridge out of its socket.
The Pokémon resumed their suspended attacks, propelling a barrage of earth, water, lightning, and fire into the now-empty space where Team Rocket had stood; while meanwhile Meowth looked around in bewilderment. The blocky apparition vanished in a mosaic of horizontal stripes, and Brock and Misty turned towards Ash, who collapsed lifelessly onto the ground.
"Ash! No!"
[Author's Note: To be continued, next Friday...]