A/N: Thank you to those who have read my story! As always, if there's any character you'd like to see more of or any character that's being left out, please tell me in a review! There's so many characters! I will do my best to update in the future and another chapter will be up shortly.
Read, review, and enjoy the story!
Chapter 9 – The Sinjoh Ruins: The Valley Pursuit
The isolated snowy cabin in the frigid morning was filled with nothing but warmth with the smiling bodies inside. Ash's body was one that had yet to get off the bed.
"Wake up, Ash," Dawn said to him.
"Come on, Ash," May nudged him, "breakfast is waiting!"
"Breakfast!" Ash yelled running out the door.
All of Ash's friends were already eating and happily greeted Ash when he entered.
"Good morning, Ash!" they all said.
"Are you ready Ash?" Misty asked him.
"Today's your big day!" Tracey told Ash.
"We can do this, Ash!" Brock affirmed.
"Yeah!" Ash responded while grabbing his food. "Today I'm going to save Pikachu!"
"I'm sure Pikachu must really miss you," Serena said.
"Yeah," Bonnie sadly agreed, "Pikachu must be so lonely right now…"
"No need to worry," Dawn assured. "We'll be back with Pikachu in no time! Isn't that right, Ash?"
"Yeah," Ash agreed, "right!"
"It's hard to believe that we came this far to help you, Ash!" Clemont said. "Either way, we're glad to help!"
"This is so cool!" Max said. "I'd rather be fighting off bad guys and saving legendary Pokémon than go on a cruise!"
"But we still have to be safe," Iris told him.
"There's a great risk to doing this," Cilan commented.
The Team Rocket trio kept to themselves without socializing with Ash's friends.
"Technically we're still on our mission…" James said.
"To get Pikachu…." Jessie added.
"But we also to save Pikachu now!" Meowth finished.
"Are you guys all ready to go?" Ashlyn asked them all.
"Yeah!" they all chanted.
"That was some good breakfast!" Blaziken Mask said, rubbing his belly.
"Ok everyone," Donovan commanded, "now let's go to the snowmobiles outside so we can head out."
The 18 of them cleaned up the kitchen as quickly as they could and rushed out the door. Three passenger snowmobiles in the colors red, green, and blue were perched right in front of the cabin ready to roll. As they all stood outside in the snow, they needed to figure out who was driving and with which people.
"Who's going to pilot the third snowmobile if Ashlyn and Donovan are the only one who know how to use the vehicles?" Clemont asked.
"I will," Blaziken Mask volunteered. "Let's just say I've had a lot of experiences with my Blaziken so I know how to do this!"
"So who's riding with whom?" Ash asked.
"I can take the girls," Ashlyn said. "Misty, May, Dawn, Iris, and Serena can ride with me!"
"Ok!" the girls agreed.
"What about me?" Bonnie pouted.
"Don't worry, Bonnie," Clemont comforted.
"Jessie, James, and Meowth," Donovan said, "you can ride in my snowmobile."
"Right," the trio agreed.
"I'll also take Brock and Cilan with me," Donovan added.
"Ok," Brock and Cilan said in agreement.
"That means the rest of you are with me," Blaziken Mask told them. "We have Clemont, Bonnie, Max, Tracey, and Ash."
After the 18 of them got in their passenger snowmobiles and buckled their seatbelts, they finally left the cabin. Ashlyn and Blaziken Mask's snowmobiles followed right behind Donovan's.
The Ambush
Donovan and the other drivers sneakily passed by the cliff where they first saw the Team Rocket tents. It was here where they originally spied on Team Rocket, but they had to move on.
"Team Rocket must be very serious about this mission," Cilan commented.
"Yep," Donovan said from the vehicle while looking at the tents.
"They're serious all right," Brock noticed.
"I wouldn't be surprised if they already know we're here!" Cilan pointed out.
All of a sudden, a flash of realization came upon Donovan as he remembered something that happened only a few years ago.
"Archer must be the exact same Archer I met back a few years ago before I got married," Donovan thought to himself. "He's probably going to destroy me if he remembers who I am…"
The snowmobiles made a sharp left turn after that point to drive along the cliff that went around their campsite. Fortunately, they went undetected the entire time and were able to make it around to the other side of the valley. From there they continued northwest along the cliff until they got to the ambush point. When they finally arrived, everyone hopped off of the passenger snowmobiles.
"So this is it, huh?" Ash said.
"Yep, this is it," Clemont answered.
"This is short passage of snowy valley is what separates Team Rocket from the ruins," Donovan explained.
"I see," Serena noticed, "the Sinjoh Ruins are on the left and the tents are on the right."
"You can see the ruin entrance from here!" Max pointed out.
"Does anyone know when they will be coming through the valley?" Cilan asked.
"According to my data," James stated, "they should be arriving in about 20 minutes from now."
"Now would be a good time to set up then, Clemont," Tracey told him.
"Yeah," Misty followed, "I think it would be best to set up now."
"Ok," Clemont agreed, holding four cubes in his hand, "I'll set up the cubes right now. The only thing is that I need a flying Pokémon to watch me just in case I fall."
"My Charizard can help with that!" Ash said while calling his Pokémon out.
"Thanks Ash," Clemont gratefully said.
"I think it would be good to have a Pokémon in the air to watch out for their arrival," Brock suggested.
"Togekiss, go!" Dawn said. "I can take care of that, Brock. Togekiss also blends in well with the snowy air and flies much quieter than other flying Pokémon."
"There are also these two generators here that I think your buddy Clemont wanted to use," Meowth pointed out.
"I'm on it," Iris volunteered, "Dragonite, come on out and carry one of those generators to the other side of the valley!"
"The rest of us need to hide behind that bush so that they don't spot us," Donovan told them all. "When we're there, we can discuss more about the plan."
"Right," the rest of them agreed.
Meanwhile, Clemont had just finished bolting two of the four cubes on the closer side of the valley.
"Is there anyone that can set up the generator on this side while I'm on the other side?" Clemont asked.
"I can," Blaziken Mask answered, "let's just say I know a lot about these things!"
"Thanks, Blaziken Mask! Charizard," Clemont asked, "could you take me to the other side of this valley?"
Charizard happily accepted and eventually all four cubes and both generators were finally set up.
"Dawn," Ash asked her, "how's Togekiss?"
"They're coming right now!" Dawn announced. "Look!"
"Everyone behind the bush!" Ashlyn told the remaining people who were out in the open.
The snowmobiles were also conveniently hidden before they finished their setup. Also, a camera was placed next to the closest cube so they could spot exactly when to deploy the synthetic wall.
"Aww man," Clemont said with sadness, "I should've tested the wall out before I left…"
"It's ok, Clemont," Serena comforted.
"Don't worry, Clemont!" Bonnie affirmed.
"No need to worry!" Dawn assured.
"You got that right!" Ash told Dawn.
"Look on the screen," Jessie told all of them behind the bush.
"There they are," James commented.
Team Rocket brought a seemingly massive army through the snowy valley. The majority of the team was comprised of grunts and low-level members in the back. Right in front of the huge majority was the few elites and the notorious executives: Ariana, Atlas, Petrel, Proton, and Archer. Finally, leading the way very far in front of the executives was the leader Giovanni himself. Giovanni was the only person out of the entire team to have a vehicle and the behemoth of a snow vehicle bulldozed its way through the passage. All of Ash's friends could tell that Arceus, Uxie, Azelf, Mesprit, and Pikachu were locked up inside.
"Look at all of that space!" May pointed out.
"There's a huge gap between Giovanni's truck and the executives!" Max continued.
"Just as we suspected," Meowth told them all.
"Clemont," Cilan said, "are you ready to go?"
"We'll give the wall a go when the time is right," Clemont answered.
The truck was surprisingly slow moving to match the pace of the grunts walking behind it. But the truck was moving all right, and when the truck finally passed five meters in front of the cube boundary line, Clemont spawned the massive wall.
"Clemontic gear on!" Clemont yelled, pushing the deployment button.
The four cubes from all four sides connected with each other to create a seemingly unbreakable force field. The synthetic wall was a success and Team Rocket was in for a massive shock! All of their attention turned to the screen for what was going on with Team Rocket down in the valley.
"What?!" Proton yelled.
"Someone blocked us off?" Petrel trembled.
"How is this possible?!" Archer shouted.
Giovanni, who was slowly driving in his truck, looked at his rearview mirror and saw what had happened. He stopped the car, got out, went behind the truck, and took out his megaphone to talk to his team.
"Urgh…" Giovanni announced , "whoever did this must pay! But it doesn't matter; the priority is getting Arceus to the Sinjoh Ruins as quickly as possible. Because of that, I'm afraid I'll just have to leave you all here for the time being!"
"You can't leave us here!" Archer protested.
"I didn't say you couldn't come along," Giovanni reiterated. "Do your best to break the wall and proceed to protect us immediately after."
"Sir yes sir!" the five executives and the rest of the many grunts answered from behind the transparent wall.
"Good," the pleased Giovanni said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to speed off!"
Giovanni hopped right back into his snowmobile truck and pushed down the gas pedal. The only difference was that Giovanni was going much faster than before, having no need of waiting for his team.
"Who does he think he is, leaving us here like that?!" Ariana pouted.
"He can't do this to us!" Atlas yelled.
"We have no choice but to attack the wall," Archer directed all of the grunts. "Everyone, send out your best Pokémon and attack!"
The 17 humans watching, along with Charizard, Togekiss, Dragonite, Dedenne, Piplup, Axew, and Meowth, witnessed the entire scene without being caught. Their primary concern was Giovanni more than ever now that he was speeding off.
"Oh no!" Dawn cried.
"Giovanni's getting away!" Ash yelled.
"Everyone get in the snowmobiles!" Donovan told all of them.
"We have no choice but to chase after him!" Ashlyn shouted.
"We have to do this," Blaziken Mask assured, "even if it wasn't according to plan!"
All of them desperately rushed to get back on the snowmobiles without returning any of their Pokémon. Within 30 seconds, the snowmobiles were about to plunge down the steep, snowy slope!
"Here we go!" Max said putting his hands in the air.
"Yipee!" Bonnie said, also putting her hand in the air.
"Wait!" Clemont screamed. "I'm afraid of – aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
It was too late; the snowmobiles were already rocketing down as if it were a roller coaster!
"Aaaaaaaah!" they all yelled loudly. Some were afraid, but many were yelling out of exhilaration. The three snowmobiles hastily sped down the drop from top to bottom. The Team Rocket members watched furiously from behind the wall as they saw them get away.
"There they are!" Petrel yelled.
"It was those meddling kids who did this!" Proton grunted.
"They're going to pay for this!" Ariana shouted.
Atlas thought of a way to bypass the wall. "Guys, we can fly our Pokémon up overhead above the wall! Then our Pokémon will be able to catch up to them!"
Meanwhile, the three snowmobiles finally made it to the bottom of the slope. Before they turned left, they briefly met with each other for a few seconds.
"Let's follow Giovanni," Donovan told them all.
"We need to get Pikachu back!" Ash added.
"Right," the rest of them agreed.
After making a sharp left turn, Donovan and the other snowmobiles followed Giovanni's vehicle down the valley to the ruins.
Back behind the wall, the Team Rocket members were still unfortunately trapped. It got even worse for them when they tried flying over!
"Try to fly all of your Golbat over the wall!" Archer told the grunts.
"Sir yes sir!" the grunts replied while directing their Golbat.
As soon as they reached the top of the wall, a massive electrical surge electrified the Golbat, sending all of them crashing down.
"What?!" Proton said in shock.
"But how?!" Petrel said in disbelief.
"Who's the maniac that did this?!" Archer yelled.
"Calm down, Archer," Atlas said to Archer.
"We still have our secret weapons," Ariana stated.
"That's right," Proton remembered. "We still have the Genesect!"
"Good point," Petrel said in agreement.
"Hold on just a second," Archer declared. "This 'inventor' of theirs must have considered our Genesect by now."
"They probably spied on us the entire time!" Proton added.
"So we're going to try a different approach," Archer said. "Instead of sending the Genesect out head on, we'll send decoy objects up to those generators. While the generators are busy, we can then get a direct hit at those cubes with Techno Blast!"
"Good thinking, Archer," Ariana complimented.
"Let's do this!" Petrel exclaimed.
After sending five Golbat up with decoy objects, the generator unleashed huge amounts of electricity at them anyway. It was at this time where four Genesect were sent to each corner to fire at the cubes holding the wall.
"Genesect," they all commanded, "use Techno Blast!"
Their first attack nearly took down the corners of the wall for good, but the wall was still standing. All of a sudden, the generator's attaching feature activated; the generator was ready to split and latch on!
"The generators are flying straight towards the Genesect!" Ariana pointed out.
"They're attempting to destroy the Genesect's power supply!" Atlas yelled.
"Watch this," Archer smirked, "I'm going to outsmart that inventor! Genesect, eject your drives and attach them to the cubes holding the wall up! Then fly back to where we are!"
The Genesect did just as Archer told them to and gave up their drives. It turned out the only thing the drives did was give the power to their attacks, not their mobility. However, what happened next because of the drives was incredible to the grunts! Instead of attaching to the Genesect, the split generators attached themseleves to the drives the Genesect placed on the cubes! Now the only power source being destroyed was the synthetic wall's power! The generator's attaching operations ended in an overload explosion that destroyed the wall for good!
"Yeah!" all of the grunts cheered.
"That was amazing, Archer!" Petrel complimented.
"With the wall out of the way," Petrel commanded the team while pointing forward, "let's move on to the Sinjoh Ruins!"
"Yeah!" the team chanted.
To be continued…