Chapter 23 - A Real Steel
We were about 3/4 of the way to Olivine City, when I decided to set up camp for the early evening. All of my Pokemon were out of their pokeballs and helped me set up camp. "We need some wood for the fire. Scyther, do you think you could go cut up some dead trees and bring the logs back here for me?" "Scyther!" he obligingly replied, and he flew off to look for some. Then I said, "We could also use some fruit. There were berry bushes a little ways back. Who'd like to go back and pick some?" "Vulpix!" Flamefox excitedly replied, as he jumped up and down. "All right, Flamefox. Here you go" I said, and I handed him a small basket. He took the basket in his mouth and ran off in the direction of the berry bushes. The rest of my Pokemon and I continued to set up camp. Once we were done, they rested, while I started to get ready to cook dinner. I wanted to have everything set so as soon as Scyther brought back some wood, all I had to do was start the fire. All of a sudden, I heard the sounds of snapping twigs, and the sounds gradually drew closer. My other Pokemon heard them as well, propped up their ears, and then they became suddenly evasive. "What is it, guys?" I asked them. We were not alone. Something was prowling around, and my Pokemon did not like it. I loudly asked, "Is that you, Flamefox and Scyther?" Firestorm and Tauros stood with their backs to me, ready to protect me, while Vaporeon and Jolteon started to head in the direction of the sounds to check them out. Suddenly, out from the bushes leapt a Nidorino, Raticate, and Pinsir. "What the..." I began to ask, when the Nidorino leapt at me! Firestorm launched a fire blast at it, but it was unaffected! We all jumped out of the way as it landed right where I had just been standing! Then the Raticate leapt at me, and Tauros hit it with a heat butt. I heard a loud "clunk", as if Tauros had hit something metal, and he fell to the ground, dazed, while the Raticate stood, unaffected. "What is going on?" I loudly asked, confused. Jolteon launched a thunderbolt at the Pinsir, and it just stood there, unaffected, like the others. Then a Charmeleon came out of nowhere. Vaporeon hit it with her water gun - and absolutely nothing happened. This was unreal! Raticate leapt at me again, and Tauros hit it with his horn attack. As he hit it, I clearly heard a tearing and scraping sound. The skin on the Raticate had been torn open by Tauros' horns to reveal mechanical workings underneath. Before I could get a better look, the Raticate tackled my Tauros and knocked him to the ground. Before he could stand back up, there was a flash of bright light, and he was gone! "Tauros!" I shouted. The other 3 Pokemon then began to attack mine. Firestorm kept hitting Pinsir with flamethrowers, and it remained unaffected. It then tackled Firestorm, knocked him to the ground, and there was another flash of light before Firestorm disappeared. "Firestorm, no!" I yelled. I jumped up and tackled the Pinsir, myself, out of anger, but it just threw me down with brute force. Vaporeon tried her water gun against the Charmeleon again and again, but to no avail, and soon, she was also tackled to the ground, before she vanished in a bright light. All I had left was Jolteon. I stood in front of him to protect him, and the 4 super strong Pokemon all tackled me at once and I crashed to the ground. The last thing I saw before I blacked out was Jolteon being engulfed by the bright light.
I felt in terrible pain as I awoke to the feeling of my body being shaken. Scyther was shaking me back and forth, trying to get me to come to. As I opened my eyes, Flamefox ran over to me and started licking my face. I could taste my bloody lip in my mouth. Then I sat up and said, "Flamefox, Scyther, thank goodness you guys are okay. But what was that all about? Those Pokemon were unstoppable!" Flamefox then ran over to the spot where Tauros had been battling the Raticate, and he shouted, "Vullll vulpix!" "What is it, Flamefox?" I said as I attempted to stand up, but then I started to fall back down. Scyther caught me before I did. Then he helped me to stand up, and also helped me walk over, as I was still a little wobbly. There on the ground by Flamefox was shrapnel and what appeared to be broken microchips. "This is from that Raticate" I said, as I picked up a piece to observe it more closely. "Something very strange is going on here. We have to find those Pokemon and figure out what they did with Firestorm, Tauros, Vaporeon, and Jolteon. But where did they go after they attacked us?" "Scyther, scyther!" my Scyther exclaimed. "You saw which way they went?" I asked him. "Scyther!" he shouted, and nodded. "It's up to us to find and rescue our friends, wherever they are. Come on, Flamefox! Let's follow Scyther!" Scyther took to the air and flew above as Flamefox and I followed him down below on the ground. "Where are you leading us, Scyther?" I asked him. "Scyther!" he shouted, and pointed his scythes up ahead. As Flamefox and I reached a clearing, we could see a large, old, seemingly abandoned factory building, in the middle of nowhere. "Now this is strange" I said. We snook up to the back door and I tried to open it. "It's locked!" I said. "Scyther, use your fury cutter." He did so, and slashed at the old door with his scythes, and demolished it to sawdust. "Good work, Scyther!" I exclaimed. Flamefox, Scyther, and I entered the old building. It was pretty spooky inside. We walked down seemingly abandoned hallways. "Are you sure this is where you saw those Pokemon go, Scyther?" I asked him. He nodded. "Flamefox, see if you can pick up the scent of any of the others". My Vulpix put his nose to the ground, and we followed him as he walked ahead.
As we continued to walk, Flamefox led us downstairs. "Vulpix" he exclaimed. "They're up ahead?" I asked him. He nodded, and we all ran up the hallway. I heard activity just ahead. All of a sudden, the Pinsir and Raticate from earlier jumped out at us. I could now clearly see the gap in Raticate's skin, exposing circuitry and mechanical workings underneath, as well as hanging wires, most likely also damaged by Tauros' horn attack. "They're not real Pokemon!" I said to Flamefox and Scyther. "Flamefox, I have an idea. Aim your flamethrower at the exposed area on Raticate!" He did so, and launched a steady stream of flames into the mechanical workings. They became so hot, that the mechanical Raticate began to overheat, and smoke began to come out from it's ears, nose, and mouth. The Pinsir was about to jump Flamefox, but Scyther stopped it, and attempted to wrestle it to the ground. Then he used his fury cutter on the mechanical Pinsir, which slashed off the fake outer skin to reveal an entire robotic skeleton of Pinsir. The now fully metal robot whacked Scyther with it's arm, and knocked him down. Meanwhile, Flamefox continued his steady stream of flames at the mechanical Raticate, and it finally burst into flames from the extreme heat and it fell over onto the floor, destroyed. Then Scyther got back up and slashed at the wires on the mechanical Pinsir skeleton, which caused it, also, to fall over, no longer functional. My Pokemon had successfully destroyed 2 of the mechanical Pokemon replicas, but I knew there were more. The questions now were "who built them?" and "where were my other Pokemon?" Suddenly, I heard rumbling. We looked to see a Golem come rolling at us from down the hall. "Now what?" I asked. It rolled right up to us and stood up. Flamefox and Scyther were both pretty worn out. Then there were 2 flashes of light, and my last 2 pokemon vanished before my eyes. "What did you do with them?" I shouted at the Golem. Suddenly, he blew a powder at me from his nose, and I felt myself blacking out again, and I fell onto the floor.
This time when I came to, I was tied to a chair, in a room full of robotic parts, as well as some half assembled mechanical Pokemon skeletons and a lot of fully assembled ones, with no outer skins yet. There were 2 people dressed as scientists, a man and a woman. They had their backs to me as they assembled more robotic Pokemon skeletons, until I yelled, "What did you do with my Pokemon?" They turned to me, and the man said, "I see you finally came to. That sleep powder we put in robotic Golem is pretty potent! Your Pokemon are fine. It wouldn't suit our purposes to harm them. They're right on the table." There were 6 pokeballs on a table next to him. He continued, "Thank you for volunteering for our little test, not that you had much choice. You see, we wanted to find out how reliable our robotic Pokemon, complete with built-in pokeballs, and skin that's protective against most special attacks, would be before we presented them to the boss. Of course, I see we still have some bugs to work out, as your Scyther and Tauros have shown us, but we're sure the boss will tell us to proceed building more robotic Pokemon replicas, which we can then use to steal lots of real Pokemon!" I looked at them with contempt and said, "Team Rocket." The female scientist laughed, "The one and only! Of course, now that you're aware of our little operation, you understand we can't possibly let you go." They both laughed, then they walked out of the room. I saw my backpack was also by the table, with my Pokegear inside. I started hopping myself, chair and all, in the direction of the table. I almost reached the table, when I tipped over. Lying on the floor, on my side, tied to a chair, I kicked at the leg of the table. One of the pokeballs fell off the table and it opened. "Scyther!" I heard, as I saw his large green feet in front of my face. "Scyther, thank goodness! Quick, cut these ropes!" He went behind me and sliced the ropes with his scythes. Freed from the chair, I stood up and said, "Thanks, Scyther!" I immediately released my other 5 Pokemon from the pokeballs. "Is everyone okay?" I asked them. They each responded, in unison, with their individual calls. The Team Rocket scientists ran back into the room. The man asked, "How did he get loose?" The woman said, "Never mind! We'll just send the robots after them!" Ten of the robotic Pokemon skeletons came at us. "Jolteon, use your thunderbolt to overload them!" I shouted. "Jolt, jolt!" he yelled, as he launched the electric attack, and he fried all ten robots at once! They all collapsed, but more came at us. Since they didn't have their protective skins, I had a plan! I commanded, "Everyone, exploit their weaknesses! Flamefox, Firestorm, overheat them with flamethrower! Jolteon, keep up the thunderbolts! Vaporeon, use your water gun to short circuit them! Tauros and Scyther, tear at their wires! Go!" Robotic Pokemon skeletons came at us from left and right. Flamefox and Firestorm launched their flamethrowers, which caused the robots to burst into flames. Jolteon's thunderbolts continued to overload the robots, while Vaporeon's water gun made them crackle and sizzle as they short circuited. Scyther slashed at the robots' wires with his scythes, while Tauros did the same using his horns. The robotic Nidorino and Charmeleon came at us next, with their protective skin intact! "Scyther, Tauros, tear off the outer skins with your fury cutter and horn attack! Then tear their wires!" Tauros and Scyther proceeded to do so, and once the mechanical workings were exposed, they were no match for my real Pokemon! We defeated every one of the robotic Pokemon! The Team Rocket scientists just stood there, and clutched each other, as they looked at us in fear. I glared at them, then said, "Let's take out the garbage! Jolteon, thunder!" Jolteon launched his powerful lightning attack on the Team Rocket scientists, and they were shocked out cold! Then I tied them up. When they awoke, Tauros and Scyther were breathing down their necks, and they whimpered in fear. I called the Olivine City Officer Jenny from my Pokegear, and soon heard the police helicopter as it landed outside. Officer Jenny came in and took the Team Rocket agents into custody. She had her men confiscate the remaining robotic parts. She then said to me, "Good work! Thanks to you and your Pokemon, Team Rocket's robot Pokemon plan has been foiled! I'd say they tangled with the wrong trainer!" She then told me, "This building has been on the list to be condemned for quite some time now. In light of what happened here, I think the demolition will be moved up sooner, so no one else can use this building for ill purposes." Since my Pokemon were pretty worn out from the intense battle, Officer Jenny let me ride in the helicopter back to Olivine City. We just made a quick stop to gather up my campsite. Flamefox and Firestorm remained out of their pokeballs, but I recalled the others to let them rest. Once we arrived in Olivine City, I brought my Pokemon to the Pokemon center to be treated. I was also treated for bruises and abrasions. We stayed there for the night to get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow, we'd search out the Olivine City Gym!