A Reminiscence
Chapter Two
Lost and Found
()()()
"Okay, let's face it, we're lost." Ralph said, as the three of us, plus Rembrandt, who I had released a few hours earlier, walked upon a lovely forest trail.
"We are not lost!" I responded, carefully looking at the map.
"No, he's right, this doesn't look right at all," Rembrandt admonished. "I'm pretty sure we should have gotten there by now."
"I am the one with the map, and I assure you I have been following it to the letter! This is a very confusing map, I honestly have no idea who made this bizarre thing—"
Anne suddenly wrenched the map from my hands, looking at it with an expression of severe consternation.
"Um, a few things," she began. "Firstly, you were holding this upside down, and secondly, this is a topological map of eastern Sinnoh. You were following a canyon."
She shoved the map back into my chest, Ralph and Rembrandt both glaring at me as if I had insulted their mothers in the most severe manner. I quickly placed the map into a pocket and looked around, hoping I could see a useful landmark. I soon saw a large brown point rising up against the trees on the horizon, and pointed it out.
"Oh, yeah, we're way off," Rembrandt said. "Ain't no mountains anywhere on the route to Viridian."
"That's enough of this, let me get the correct map." Ralph began ruffling through his pack and pulled out the actual map, attempting to get his bearings. When he did, he was quite displeased.
"That's Mt. Moon," he said finally. "We've been going in completely the opposite direction we were supposed to be going."
"Thanks, Larch," Anne deadpanned. "Now what?"
"Er, if you wouldn't mind a suggestion, it might be interesting to at least take a look at Mt. Moon." The others stared at me, as I attempted to justify my idea. "I mean, it is one of the most important landmarks in Kanto, and it is regarded as being quite beautiful…and besides, we've plenty of time! It has barely even been a day, we have little need to rush the journey!" I smiled awkwardly, hoping the other two would have some amount of mercy on me. After a few tense seconds, Anne brightened up quite significantly.
"Actually, yeah, that would be pretty interesting. I've heard there are some really cool Pokémon in there somewhere!"
"Very good, then!" I turned to Ralph. "Well, how about you?"
He merely groaned and mumbled out what sounded like "Fine."
"Very well then! Onwards!"
"Oh, no, you are not leading the way," Anne said, pushing past me. "You'll probably just take us back to Lavender."
"Oh, come now, my sense of direction is not that terrible."
"Yes, it is," Ralph said, pushing past me as well. I frowned deeply, and then followed them, hoping that would be the end of that.
Thankfully, Ralph seemed to have lost interest in my error, and Anne was more interested in rambling off a series of (probably false) rumors she had heard about Mt. Moon. Eventually, we came to a fork in the road, one path heading towards the great mountain and the other away from it.
"Well, this is obvious," I said. "We must head north."
"Yeah, knowing you, that probably leads into a cave or something." Ralph smirked.
"Oh, come now, this really is a lovely forest, you should be glad we came here."
"I'd rather be where we're supposed to be, dumbass!"
"Watch your language, mister, I may have made a slight error—"
"Slight? SLIGHT? You call this," he gestured to the forest around us, "a slight error? This is a disaster! We're going to miss the boat!"
"It does not set sail for some time, Ralph. If we had actually gone to Viridian, we would just have ended up waiting about like a bunch of useless…"
"Hey, newlyweds, cram it!" Rembrandt suddenly yelled, an annoyed edge quite obvious in his voice. "I hear someone coming!"
"What?" I asked. His ears, being quite large, were much more keen than those of any human, and we thus had no idea what he was talking about.
"From down that path!" He pointed down the left path, and sure enough, we saw a man cresting the hill we were on, who was wearing a very familiar ensemble: solid black, with a large red "R" on the shirt.
"Damn!" I said, realizing what he was part of. "A Team Rocket grunt!"
"Team Rocket?" Anne asked. "Those are those useless guys, right?"
"Despite what you may have heard about them, I assure you, Team Rocket is quite vicious," I explained. "We must hide, or he will probably kill us all and steal all our Pokémon!"
"Um…" the grunt said, having walked up to us. The four of us wheeled around in surprise, not knowing what to do. "I was actually just headed down the path. Also, we don't just kill people at random, I'll let you know, we have a very specific way of doing…"
He was interrupted by Anne yelling out "Dante!" and revealing a great hellhound, a Houndoom, that infamous creature of darkness…who immediately leapt upon the criminal and began happily licking at his face, as the goon panicked wildly, flailing about and screaming about how Dante was "eating his face off".
"Down, boy!" Anne said, stepping to the cowering goon, getting an idea. "Where's your base?" she demanded.
"I'm…I'm not telling you."
"Well, we know it is probably somewhere over there," I pointed out. "We could easily search for it. We have more than enough manpower between us and our Pokemon."
"You'll never find it!" he yelled. "No other team has better hidden bases than we do!"
"Look, tell me where the base is or I'll actually have Dante eat your face off," Anne responded.
"What?" Dante asked, finally chiming in. "I don't want to eat his face. He smells like cheap cologne and beer."
Anne stifled a laugh and looked back down. "Wow, he's certainly creative when he wants to be. Now, I'll ask again before he tries to eat you: where is the base?"
The goon looked one last time at Dante (who was glaring quite strongly at Anne), wondering what horrid things were supposedly lying within his brain at the moment (for he did not have a translator of any sort), and finally cracked. "Okay, it's down that path! The first tree on the left at the base of the hill is a fake entrance!"
"See? You could have just said all that and saved us all the trouble!" she said. "Now how about you go turn yourself into the police while we take a look at your base?"
He nodded and clambered up, then ran off as Dante shot Anne a very dirty look.
"That was completely unnecessary!" He admonished. "Not to mention using our stereotypes so callously! I'll have you know, we Houndoom are a proud and gentle race, and would never even consider tearing a man's face off…"
As he continued his rambling, we began talking about the plan.
"So, now what?" Ralph asked. "We know where the base is, do we report it to the police?"
"I think we should check to ensure the base is actually there first," I proposed. "We might get fined for wasting their time otherwise."
"Hey, what if we just took them down here and now?" Rembrandt offered. "Think of the reward money we'll get! And if we take down this base, we might be able to get info that can help the police take care of them once and for all!"
"I like the sound of that plan!" Anne concurred. "We should do that!"
"What?" I asked. "That's absurd! We don't have nearly enough manpower to do such a thing!"
"Oh, please, it'll probably just be a bunch of bored losers with Rattata and stuff," Rembrandt countered. "Might not even have guns."
"Good point," began Ralph. "I heard that Team Rocket just puts them out here in places like this to poach Slowpoke for their tails. I doubt they'll be heavily armed."
"B-b-but…" I sputtered, before slouching in defeat. "Fine, we can go into the base ourselves. Be prepared to bring out your Pokemon in case things go south, though."
We all nodded and headed off, having reached an agreement and Dante having reached the end of his rant.
It took us only a few minutes to reach the base of the hill, and the false tree was immediately obvious from almost everything about it: it resembled no actual species, the trunk had no texture or even ridges in the plastic bark, and the leaves were quite obviously just fabric.
"Oh, this is embarrassing," I said, taking the whole of the tree into account. "How in the hell could this have fooled anyone?"
"They're colorblind and stupid?" Anne suggested.
"Even then, this is terribly obvious." I knocked upon the false trunk and a deep, hollow note rang out. "No wonder nobody takes Team Rocket seriously."
"Okay, so how do we get in?" Rembrandt asked. "Is there, like, a secret code or something?"
"I think if we just knock it over it'll reveal something." Ralph suggested.
"Would we be able to do that?" I asked. "This does seem quite firm in the ground."
"Maybe if we cut it open?" Dante asked.
"With what?" I asked.
"Ooh, I know!" Anne suddenly yelled, pulling out another Pokeball. "I just taught Bill Steel Wing, maybe he could use it on that?"
I considered this option for a moment. "…Actually, that is quite brilliant. Give it a go!"
Anne nodded and released the Charizard, who looked around in confusion.
"Where are we?"
"Near Mt. Moon," Anne said. "Could you use Steel Wing on that very obviously fake tree?"
"I guess?" He bucked up and put out his left wing, running head-on at the false tree and bouncing off of it immediately.
"Ow! What the hell?" He asked, rubbing his slightly injured wing.
"It deflected a Steel Wing attack?" I wondered aloud. "What is this tree made of?"
"Wait, I have an idea!" Ralph said, walking up to the tree and looking it over a few times. After his inspection was complete, he kicked the base of the tree with the heel of his shoe, which had no discernible effect.
I shook my head a few moments, attempting to comprehend his logic. "How could you possibly think that would work? Why would just kicking the base of the tree at random reveal anything of importa—?"
I was interrupted when a hidden panel slid up, revealing what appeared to be some sort of elevator hidden within the tree.
"Wh…how…that…" I sputtered as Anne recalled Bill and Dante and walked over to Ralph.
"Nice job," she congratulated, climbing inside. "Should we go down?"
"That's what we're here for, isn't it?" Ralph retorted, climbing in with her. I followed her in, first recalling Rembrandt after a moment's recovery.
"So, which level do we want to go on?" I asked, observing a keypad that was labeled one through four.
"The deepest one is probably the command center for the whole thing," Ralph postulated. "If we take that over, contact the police…path of least resistance, really."
"But surely that area would be the most heavily guarded?" I asked.
"With what, exactly? What would the command center guys have? Surely it would be the thugs that would be heavily armed?"
"They would probably have thugs there, with machine guns. I heard they used tear gas and flash bangs as well. And of course, very high-level Pokemon that know outlawed techniques."
"I have a fire-breathing dragon, a literal hellhound, a giant fire dog, and a vicious bastard of a canine. I think we can beat them."
"This is very risky, you all realiz,." I said, reaching over to press the button that would take us to the bottom level.
"Eh, risks are worth taking, and besides, I'm bored," Ralph shrugged, as the door closed and we descended, discussing what we should do.
()()()
After some time, we reached the bottom level, holding out the PokeBalls of our most powerful members. As the counter finally switched from three to four, we tensed up, then enacted the plan we had come up with. The doors opened, revealing a small, dimly lit room with two desks, each with two computers and someone manning them, along with a mini-fridge and an emergency exit.
Before any of the men were able to react to our intrusions, a red flash appeared, congealing into the form of Bill, who roared at them quite fiercely as a way of greeting. The group of men evidently paid the greeting no mind, however, as they all panicked and ducked behind the desks in fear of the massive dragon.
"Alright, here's how it's going to work!" Ralph said, stepping out of the elevator next to Bill. "You give us control of the command center or we burn this mother down!"
"Uh, we might be somewhat lenient on that part, though!" I shouted from inside the elevator. "We would not want to cause a safety problem, after all!"
Ralph rubbed the bridge of his nose, and then looked back up. "Alright, where's the PA system?"
One of the thugs gestured to a button in the corner to the left of us, which Ralph quickly made use of. I attempted to voice a concern, but had no chance to as Ralph began a false announcement.
"Alright, everyone, listen up, we've got an emergency situation down here, so please evacuate at once through the nearest exit. Do not panic, we'll try to get this under control as soon as possible. Thank you." Ralph released the button, and then pulled out a vial of something from his coat.
"Uh, say, Ralph, what would that happen to be in there?" I asked, but I received no answer. Instead, Ralph simply threw the vial, which broke apart into a cloud of purple dust. When it cleared, the men were out cold.
"Was that concentrated Sleep Powder?" I asked. "Isn't that illegal to possess?"
"I have a license," Ralph answered. A knock on the exit door suddenly rang through the room, causing us all to tense up. Anne quickly recalled Bill, and I reached for Artie's PokeBall.
"What's going on in there?" a deep, gravelly voice from the other side of the door asked. "We heard there was an issue."
"Uh, don't worry, it's fine now, everything under control," Ralph blurted out, gesturing for us all to duck down behind a desk. We did so, and waited for a few moments before the door opened and to our sudden shock, a loud volley of automatic fire rang out, tearing through the computer screens and sending sparks flying everywhere.
"Holy—!" I shouted, ducking my head down so as to avoid being punctured by one of the bullets.
Ralph, evidently, had no such qualms, as he had somehow produced a sizeable handgun and leapt out, firing several shots of his own and forcing the men to hide themselves, temporarily stopping the fire.
"What the hell was that?!" I yelled, trying to collect myself after nearly overdosing on raw adrenalin.
"Okay, yeah, in hindsight, doing the PA thing was a bad plan," Ralph noted. "And now we're in a standoff."
"What's this 'we' stuff?" Anne demanded. "You're the only one of us that actually has a gun!"
Ralph quickly produced a second handgun and handed it to me, but I panicked and fumbled about with it for several seconds before getting a good grip on it.
"You realize I have no idea how to use one of these, correct?" I deadpanned. Ralph groaned and took it back, then leapt across the gap, firing both guns wildly at the enemies. Although not even a single one hit successfully, he managed to put them in enough of a panic (although it was doubtlessly, in part, sheer awe) that he was able to run up to them and do a rapid series of complex judo techniques to disable them all in a matter of seconds and seize an assault rifle.
"Holy shit!" Anne yelled, staring at the dispatched men in awe. "Where the hell did you learn to do that?"
Ralph looked down at the thugs, then back to us. "I'm not at liberty to discuss that at the moment."
"Oh, that's not worrying at all," I said.
"Yeah, yeah," Ralph replied, picking one of the men up and walking over to the PA again. Slowly, the man came to, and realized his predicament.
"Hey, what is this? What's going on here?" he demanded.
"I beat you and your friends up. Now tell everyone that the situation is under control."
"What? No!" The man struggled, but Ralph shook his collar repeatedly until he gave in. "Alright, fine." He rudely pressed the button, and informed the rest of the base that the situation had been contained. Upon completing the task, Ralph smashed his head against the wall, knocking him out instantly.
"I think you might have just given him a concussion." I said, looking at an alarming bruise that had started to form on his forehead.
"He'll be fine once the police get in here," He said, pulling out a cell phone.
"From all the way down here?" Anne asked. "We're like, a hundred feet underground."
Ralph looked up. "Oh, yeah. We'll need to get up some."
"Perhaps we could take that emergency exit?" I offered. "The police will probably have to use that, so it would be useful to know where exactly it leads to."
"Good idea, Larch," Ralph commended. "We should probably put on these guy's clothing as a disguise."
Anne and I glanced at each other, before responding with a sound "No."
"Come on, guys, we need to disguise ourselves so the thugs won't recognize us!"
"Have you possibly considered not opening the doors and letting them see us?" I asked.
Ralph raised a finger, ready to protest, then put it back down when he realized my idea was better and would not reveal anything potentially unpleasant.
"Also, could you put that away? It is starting to make me quite nervous." I pointed to the assault rifle he had grabbed, which he gingerly set onto the ground.
"No, hold on, I think you should take that with you, just in case," Anne suggested.
"Is that thing even licensed?" I countered. "I highly doubt something like that is legally owned, especially considering Team Rocket."
"I think it would be best to just leave it here," Ralph decided. "I don't want to keep something they probably stole."
"Very well, then, let's head back up."
()()()
As we made our way up the stairs, not much happened, although we realized that we were very lucky to only have a few thugs sent down, since the third-level casino had the exit door wide open, and it contained almost a small army, although luckily for us, all of them were distracted with the likely-rigged games of luck.
Of course, as said before, not much actually happened, and we left the base entirely through a disguised trapdoor.
"I must say, they did a much better job on the trapdoor than the tree," I said. "Who has a phone?"
"I do!" Anne said, pulling it out and dialing in 911 in a single movement.
"Hello, police?" she asked. "We've found a Team Rocket base in the forest outside of Mt. Moon." She paused as the man on the other side asked a question. "Uh, we found a Rocket goon walking around and we got him to tell us where the base was. It was an elevator hidden in a really bad fake tree." She paused once more. "You already have my location? Okay, good, are you sending anyone over?" Another pause. "I'm sorry, how many was that? Wow, really? That many? And the helicopters, too? Okay, good. Bye." She put the phone back in her pocket, and turned back to us.
"How many are they sending over?" Ralph asked.
"Like, a small army. They must really want to take these guys down."
"Well, Team Rocket has been a thorn in their side for decades. This probably will be quite important for them."
"Perhaps we should just leave them to it, then. I think it would be a rather poor idea to stick around here," I suggested.
"They might want to ask us a few questions, though," Ralph countered. "I think it would be best for us to stay here instead of leaving."
"I'm with him," Anne said.
I thought about the options for a moment. "Very well, we shall stay here."
We milled around for a few minutes, until we suddenly heard the sound of several helicopters and heavily armored trucks coming towards us. Soon after, a large blockade of SWAT trucks pulled up next to the tree and three helicopters touched down next to them, and a small army clambered out of them, some holding large body shields. As they did so, an investigator walked towards us.
"Are you the ones who called?" He asked.
"That is correct," I said.
"Where's the entrance to…whatever this thing is?" he asked, gesturing towards the "tree".
"Right there." Anne said, pointing to the trapdoor entrance. A small group of the SWAT members ran over and forced it open, the rest of them pushing past us and clambering down the stairs. A few moments later, the sound of a smoke grenade and shouting people came from below, although it was quickly silenced and replaced with shouting orders to get to the lower levels.
"Uh…" I began.
"Don't worry, they'll have a handle on the situation," he said. "Who are you?"
Ralph walked up to him and pulled out his wallet, showing the investigator something within it. "They're with me."
"…I see," he said. "Very well, then, I'll just leave you to yourselves. Now, on the subject of reward money…"
"Reward money?" I asked, suddenly very interested.
"Fifty thousand dollars for any information regarding Team Rocket leading directly to arrest of their constituent members or leaders. You've quite obviously done so, so…" he pulled a cheque out of his coat, handing it to Ralph. "Here you are."
"Uh, Ralph?" I asked, gesturing for him to come aside. When he did so, I leaned in and started asking questions.
"Who are you and why did the investigator stop asking questions?"
He looked at me in a very honest way, and then replied, "I'm very important. That's all you need to know."
"Are you done?" the investigator asked. We both turned around, nodding. "Where were you headed?"
"We were going towards Vermillion City," Anne explained, "but Magellan here was using the wrong map and now we're out in this place."
"Well, in that case, I can't help you much. We came over from Viridian, and using a helicopter for that purpose would be highly inappropriate."
"Thanks anyway," Ralph said. "Say, Anne, would it be possible for Bill to carry us there?"
"I don't know, I've never tried."
"I think it's worth a shot," I said.
"Well, alright then!" Anne pulled out Bill's PokeBall and released him, telling him the plan, much to the investigator's confusion.
"Did you just talk in Pokémon speak?" he asked.
"Ah, yes, I can be thanked for that," I said, pulling out my translator. "You see, this brilliant invention of mine can translate between Pokémon speech and human speech perfectly, allowing for total connection between trainers and their teams. Quite brilliant, if I do say so myself."
"Is that so…" he said.
"Anyway, I think we should really be off, since you seem to have the situation handled perfectly," I said, pointing to the officers coming back up from the hidden base, holding the various goons in custody. "Thank you for your assistance!"
"You're quite welcome, sir," he responded. "You've done Kanto a great service today."
As Ralph and I climbed onto Bill's back, I could not shake the feeling that the investigator, whoever he was, seemed quite interested in me, and kept staring at us as we flew off…