I'm finally back from the mists of time. This chapter is the one that will break my seven-chapter curse that has been plaguing me for years. Even so, I don't feel it turned out as well as I hoped it would. Thing is, I have a lot of ideas for this story, and I know what will happen and when, but all the things in my mind won't happen just yet. There are more confrontations to be had before I get to that point. Anyway, I have a question for you: If I included yuri in this story, would you stop reading it? I'm not talking about lemon and obviously it wouldn't involve May as this is still an AdvanceShipping story. I'm asking this because lately I've been getting into yuri thanks to RomanticVulcanolight and CiliaRAWR, and I thought I might add some to this fic later on. If, however, you all hate it and would stop reading because of it, I won't do it. It really is up to you. I'd like to thank Varun51194 and I'm Random for reviewing consistently, and I apologize to you for making you wait this long. Anyway, don't forget to review and enjoy!
Chapter 8: Cities, Reunions and Messages
The sunlight that fell through the leaves was reddish, and May, Dawn and Drew knew that twilight would soon come. They hadn't found a trace of Team Rocket yet, and it seemed they wouldn't find them anytime soon.
"Maybe we should head back," May said uncertainly. "After all, we don't have our stuff with us, and I'm sure Brock and Ash are worried about us."
Now that she thought about Ash, it occurred to her that she hadn't seen him anywhere near Team Rocket, even though they had Pikachu. What could have happened to him? Her heart rate quickened, and suddenly she felt tiny pinpricks all over her skin.
'What if something happened to him? Did the Rockets hurt him?' she thought, as her breathing quickened.
"May, what's wrong?" Drew asked.
He had noticed the color draining from her face, even in the dimming light. May shook her head, and now Dawn and Piplup got closer too.
"Are you okay?" Dawn asked anxiously.
May didn't reply immediately. She took a deep breath and tried to calm her nerves, before turning to Dawn and Drew.
"Have you noticed that we haven't seen Ash?" she asked, her voice shaky and slightly higher than usual.
Dawn's eyes widened. "Now that you mention it; normally he'd be the first to chase after Team Rocket when they have Pikachu…" she said.
"Strange…maybe he ran into trouble?" Drew suggested, looking from May to Dawn. The girls looked at each other, and each could see the worry in the other's eyes.
"We have to go back. Pikachu is with the Rockets but at least he's relatively safe, since they want to give him to their boss," May said.
Her heart was still beating faster than it should, and she tried to calm herself down. Ash could take care of himself, she knew that. So then why was she so worried?
"Agreed. Something that can prevent Ash from going after Pikachu has to be something big," Dawn said.
She, like May, had a pulse of nearly two hundred. Ash couldn't be hurt, could he?
"You're worrying too much," Drew said, "Ash isn't one who lets himself get pushed around. Not by Team Rocket, and not by Team Galactic either. I'm sure he's fine."
Dawn wasn't so sure, but May seemed to hang on Drew's words. "I hope you're right…" she said softly.
"Even so, we should go back. No sense in making Brock worry about us," she added.
Dawn nodded. "Aside from that, we're tired. Let's go back and get some rest. We'll meet up with Brock, get our stuff, and tomorrow we'll chase Team Rocket. They can't have gone very far; they don't have any supplies either since we blew up their balloon," she said.
("Amen to that,") Piplup said.
"I suppose you're right. I didn't really bring my equipment either," Drew said, apparently annoyed by that fact. Silently, the group turned around and headed back to the city.
"Over there! Houses!" James yelled excitedly.
With darkness rapidly setting in, the Rockets and Pikachu had finally reached the outskirts of a town.
"Finally," Jessie exclaimed. "I want to take a bath and get these clothes cleaned."
"We'll need ta find a place ta break into," Meowth said. "Hopefully one of da houses will be empty."
("Break into? Why? I'm sure the Pokémon Center would be easier,") Pikachu said.
The Rockets gave each other sheepish glances after Meowth had translated.
"We're not exactly familiar with not being criminals," James said.
"Besides, aren't vigilantes wanted as well?" Jessie asked idly.
("Yes, but you haven't done anything vigilante-like yet. All you need to do is take off the Rocket uniforms,") Pikachu replied.
The notion that Team Rocket was no longer criminal was still amazing to him, but he liked the fact that they seemed to enjoy it.
('I just hope they'll still think like that if they get beaten up by some criminal,') he thought.
The Rockets and Pikachu made their way to the town, where the Rockets put on their stagehand clothes over their uniforms.
Pikachu gave them a weird look, and James explained, "This is all we had on us aside from our uniforms. It'll have to do."
"It'll do fine. Now let's go," Jessie said.
Evidently she was looking forward to a soft bed and a bath, without fear of being evicted by, for instance, the homeowner. They headed over to the Pokémon Center, where Pikachu noticed the Rockets were pretty anxious.
("Don't worry, your disguises will work. You've worn worse ones,") he said.
"Gee, thanks," James said sarcastically.
They entered the Center and walked over to the counter.
"Hello, can I help you?" Nurse Joy asked.
"Yes, um, we'd like to…get a room?" Jessie said uncertainly, a sharp contrast with her normal confidence.
"Of course. Two people?" Nurse Joy asked, not picking up on Jessie's nervousness.
"Two? What about…" Meowth began, before Jessie pushed him down and frantically yelled, "Yes! Two will be fine!"
Nurse Joy gave her a sheepish look and said, "Alright, here is the key to your room. It's at the end of the hall, last door on the right."
Jessie accepted the key and said, "Thank you."
Nurse Joy gave her a friendly smile. "You're welcome."
The Rockets and Pikachu went over to the room, where Jessie turned to Meowth and shouted, "You almost got us caught, you idiot! Your uniform got torn too badly to wear during our blastoff, remember?"
"What, don't I count as a full person by now, even without uniform?" Meowth shouted back.
("Meowth, just because we know you're not evil anymore doesn't mean they do. Everyone knows Team Rocket has a talking Meowth; you'd attract unwanted attention. Once you've established yourself as vigilantes you can reveal yourself some more,") Pikachu tried to soothe him.
"Anyway, does anyone have a clue what town this is?" James asked, changing the subject.
"We'd be looking pretty stupid if we went around asking," he went on.
Jessie sat down on one of the beds. "I suppose we should just go out and find a town map. Once we know where we are we can work on…what, actually?" she wondered, confused.
("Well, I'd like to get back to Ash soon. I don't know where he went, but I do know he'll need my help sooner or later,") Pikachu said.
James nodded. "Our best bet would be to go back to Hearthome anyway, and see if Team Galactic is still there. If they want the twerps…um, I mean Ash's friends, I doubt they'll have left yet. Since we're vigilantes now, shouldn't we be fighting people like Team Galactic?"
"Yes! I'd like to give Cyrus my opinion of him, that arrogant…" Jessie fumed angrily, cracking her knuckles.
James and the others sweatdropped, and then Pikachu said, ("Well, let's go out into town and see where we are. We could be halfway across Sinnoh for all we know.")
"So, they're not here anymore either?" Brock asked the attendant of the Contest Hall.
The man shook his head. "I'm sorry; we haven't seen them anymore since things quieted down."
Brock nodded. "I see…well, thanks for the info anyway," he said.
The attendant nodded and Brock turned around.
'So, they're not here…Where could they be? Are they chasing Team Galactic?'
Brock had gone to the Contest Hall, and once there he'd searched around for a bit, trying to find any clue as to the whereabouts of his friends. He wasn't the only one, as many relatives and friends of the Coordinators had rushed over to check on their friends.
After a while, he'd given up on looking and he'd sought out several attendants, who were all over the place directing people to their friends and family. Several of them had seen May and Dawn, but none of them could tell Brock anything about their current location. As Brock walked away from the Contest Hall, he figured that May and Dawn had probably set off to chase Team Galactic as well.
'They're probably with Ash by now,' he thought as he walked through the main street towards the Pokémon Center. He soon found out, however, how wrong he was.
"Brock! Hey!"
Brock turned around and saw May waving at him. With her were Dawn and Drew.
Brock ran over to them and asked, "Are you okay? Did you run into Ash?"
May and Dawn exchanged a worried glance, before May said, "We were hoping Ash would be with you…"
Brock saw their faces and frowned. "Tell me what happened while we're walking to the Pokémon Center," he said.
The group started walking and May explained about Team Rocket and the pursuit, and how they'd given up when darkness started to set in.
"Hmm, so the Rockets have Pikachu…Then Ash must have run into trouble with Team Galactic," Brock said.
"You never did tell us why Ash and you separated anyway," Drew said with a slightly accusing tone in his voice.
("Trying to impress May with his smoothness, slimy little…") Piplup muttered evilly. Dawn sighed, but she didn't reprimand Piplup because she felt the same way he did.
Brock ignored Drew's tone and said, "He was going after Cyrus to get all the Pokémon back. You know he'd never let anyone get away with so many Pokémon. I don't know what happened then."
He noticed the worried look on May's face and he said, "Don't worry. If anyone can take care of himself it's Ash. He's been in tough situations before, I'm sure he'll be fine."
May smiled at Brock, slightly reassured, but despite Brock's words she still couldn't dismiss the hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach.
"Solaceon Town? Really?" James groaned when he saw the city map at the town edge.
("Well, that's not too bad, right? I mean, it's only a day or two of traveling back to Hearthome,") Pikachu said.
James shook his head. "That's two days of head start Team Galactic has on us. In that airship of theirs they could be halfway around the world in the two days it takes us to get back," he said, looking more serious than Pikachu had ever seen him.
"That sneaky little worm!" Jessie said angrily. "We have to get back there before they escape!"
("That's gonna be hard. We'd better contact the Pokémon Center of Hearthome first, to let them know about you, and that we're okay. That'll at least give us the edge of not being hunted by my friends,") Pikachu said thoughtfully.
After Meowth had translated for the Rockets, Jessie said, "How will we do that? If we contact them, and they see you, they'll call us out for who we are. For now, we can't use that. We need to find another means of contacting your friends."
A silence fell over the group as they pondered how to get in contact with Ash's friends without revealing themselves.
"What if we get someone else to contact them for us? You know, with a message only they would get?" James asked thoughtfully.
"Wow, you're really getting smart all of a sudden," Jessie said teasingly.
"Yeah James, never knew ya had it in ya," Meowth chimed in.
He had been silent for a while, but since there were no other people in the direct vicinity he could speak without fear of detection.
("Do you know anyone here we could ask?") Pikachu asked, ignoring Jessie and Meowth.
Meowth translated, and James answered, "It doesn't necessarily have to be someone we know. We could ask anyone. What's more important is the message itself. We need to be able to tell someone the message without them realizing what we're talking about, but it has to be phrased in such a way that Ash's friends will know."
"So what do you propose, genius?" Jessie asked.
She was amazed by the intelligence James suddenly displayed. Okay, he had bright moments all the time, but it seemed like he was actually completely serious now. Why would that be?
"Let's just figure that out over dinner. I'm starving," James said sheepishly. The others sighed. Of course the seriousness wouldn't last…
May, Dawn, Brock and Drew were in the Pokémon Center. An uncomfortable silence filled the air between them. For a while, they'd tried to come up with places Ash might be. The outcome was that he had probably been taken by Team Galactic. After that glum conclusion, the conversation had stalled. All of them were now caught up in their own thoughts.
May was afraid that Ash was hurt, Drew kept his eyes focused on May, and Dawn was mentally punching Drew for obviously not thinking of a way to save Ash. Brock, meanwhile, was worried about his friend, but more so about Cyrus' plan.
'What could Cyrus want with all those Pokémon? If he wants to get his hands on Dialga and Palkia…' he thought, frowning because he just couldn't seem to figure out what the connection between a large number of regular Pokémon and the Legendary Dragons was.
"Excuse me, but you are Ash's friends, right?" Nurse joy asked, walking over.
Everyone looked up, and May said, "Yes! Do you know where he is?"
Nurse Joy shook her head. "I'm sorry, no. But I do have a message from Solaceon Town, for Ash's friends."
May looked at the others, who looked back at her with the same confused look on their faces.
"What kind of message?" Dawn asked.
"And who sent it?" Drew added.
"Just a teenager; he didn't tell me his name. Anyway, here is the message: Pikachu is fine; we're on your side now."
May's eyes widened and she shot a glance at the others.
"Thank you…" she whispered to Nurse Joy, who bowed and walked away to leave the group in private.
"That could only have come from Team Rocket," Dawn said excitedly.
"So they're in Solaceon Town…That's not too far from here," Brock said, pondering.
"Why would they send us a message? It makes no sense to alert your enemy to your location," Drew said, narrowing his eyes.
"Didn't you listen? They're on our side now," Dawn said, harsher than she had to.
"And you believe them?" Drew asked incredulously, looking straight into her eyes.
"Why wouldn't I?" Dawn shot back with a glare. She relished even this indirect confrontation with Drew. Finally she could vent at least a small part of her frustration.
"Maybe because they have double-crossed you countless times before?"
"This isn't a double-cross. Trust me," May said, stepping in between Drew and Dawn to diffuse the situation.
"How can you be sure?" Drew asked, but the fire was gone from his voice.
May shook her head. "I'm not sure…but I feel it's the truth."
"Then why didn't they contact us themselves? Has it occurred to you that this might just be a scheme to get us to believe they're in Solaceon while they make their escape?" Drew pressed.
"I think May is right," Brock said, placing a hand on Drew's shoulder.
"You have to realize that we know Team Rocket better than you do, Drew. This is not their usual style, and Jessie and James are nothing if not traditionalists. Of course they wouldn't show themselves for fear of recognition. I don't know what made them change sides, but I think we should accept this as a welcome break and send a message back for them. If Ash is indeed with Team Galactic, Team Rocket might be our best lead for getting to him."
Drew wanted to argue, but he couldn't find the words to counter Brock's arguments so he just flicked his hair and said, "Fine. But don't say I didn't warn you."
With that he walked out of the room, heading for his own bunk. Dawn stuck out her tongue while he walked away, much to Piplup's amusement.
("You have no idea how happy I am to see you doing that,") he said contently.
Dawn gave him a sheepish smile and whispered, "Okay, he was pissing me off too."
Piplup grinned at her. ("I knew you'd see it my way sooner or later,") he said smugly.
So, that's it for chapter 8. What happened to Ash? Will May and the others meet up with the Rockets and Pikachu? You'll see next time…whenever that's gonna be. Don't forget to review, and I hope you liked the chap despite it not being as good as I hoped. See you next time!