I have a lot to say right now, and I don't know if you guys read this part, but I'm gonna talk, or, um, type, this anyways. Well, I cannot wait for the new Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire games to come out even though I don't even have either of the new X or Y games yet *Mentally curses at self for not having any money. Also, I feel super guilty about not updating my other chapters, but I always have writer's block and this one is just way too much fun to write. I have one more thing to say but I guess I'll wait until the end! Also, please don't make fun of the name of this chapter. I know it's terrible, but I had nothin'.
I wish I owned Pokemon. BUT I DON'T.
Chapter 18: Um, Janie?
Tuesday, February 25th
After that nightmare, I hadn't gone back to sleep that night. It had been about five in the morning, so I just did some laundry, took an ice cold shower, then chugged down two cups of black coffee, all in hopes of magically whisking away the darkness that resided underneath my eyes. It was still pretty early by then, and Janie showed absolutely no sign of waking up, so I asked Nurse Joy to allow me into the indoor battle field, where I continued to perfect our routine.
I had finally decided on a pattern to create that showed off Ruby's speed, smarts, and beauty. It was the complicated design of a carnation flower, seen from directly above. Ruby was to create the design vertically, in order for everyone to be able to see it well. It took a while to get the design the way I wanted it in the air, but by the time we were done, I was very happy with it. I even added a little bit to the beginning of our routine!
I told Ruby as we went back to our room, "You know, this day didn't start out the greatest but I think that it's going to get better!" Janie was just beginning to wake when I got to our room, Free curiously watching her.
"Wakie wakie!" I sang to her. The young girl yawned, sitting up in bed groaning while refusing to open her eyes. "Time to go downstairs for breakfast,"
"Waffles!?" Janie miraculously became fully aware at the mention of food, and I fought the urge to smile smugly at her.
"Sure, but first you have to make your bed and we need to brush that bedhead of yours out too." She nodded furiously, jumping out of bed and pulling on her socks. The young girl was still wearing the overall shorts and turquoise t-shirt she had on yesterday, but it's not like I had anything that she could wear, so I didn't say anything. Janie quickly made her bed then sat at the desk in the room, in front of a mirror, so that I could yank the hair ties that were still in her head from yesterday out, then pull a brush through it.
For a kid Janie was surprisingly willing to let me roughly pull the ties out of her tangled hair, but once they were out I had her put her head in the bathroom sink, wet it down, then condition it. It was much easier to brush after that, and since Janie was just a child, she didn't care much about her looks. I had no need to blow dry her hair and instead pulled the shoulder length dark brown hair into a side ponytail.
Then, Janie, pulled on her tennis shoes, and Free followed us down to the cafeteria. It was bustling with people, mostly coordinators and people coming to watch the Contest tomorrow. After filling up a plate with fruit and waffles I took Janie into the slightly less crowded lobby where we sat on the floor in front of a coffee table and played cards while all of us, including my Pokemon and Free, ate.
"I win!" Janie called out gleefully. I smiled happily, possibly just a little irritated at having Janie beat me at Go Fish for the fourth time. We'd finished our food long ago, but she'd insisted on staying to play cards.
"You know, if this were a real card game, you'd have no chance." I was answered with a small pink tongue and some spit. I laughed, packing away the cards.
"Are we gonna go see my papa now?" Janie asked excitedly. I still had no idea of how to get to her father, but what choice did I have?
"Yep, we're gonna go see him right now!" She nearly screamed in excitement, earning us a few stares from nearby trainers. After I'd put everything away and gotten our coats from my room, Janie dragged me outside, skipping down Route 205 towards the Valley Windworks. As we walked, Janie played with Electra who'd she'd taken quite a liking to. Free flew overhead.
I thought about how strong Janie was. Most children would be screaming and crying if their parent was being held captive like that. But Janie was running around playing with my Shinx, happy as any normal child. Soon my mind had wandered to other topics, including the one of Electra. She'd come so far from that dirty creature living off of trash in the city. Now she was a happy go lucky, confident, and expressive Pokemon.
After we'd made it to the power plant, where the wind had almost mysteriously died down, my heart dropped. There was no one outside of the Valley Windworks guarding it. I tried my luck at the door anyways, and, much to our dismay, it was still locked.
I thought about trying to knock it down, but that would only bring a hoard of G Team members in to destroy us.
"Janie, are there any windows in this building?" She shook her head.
"Only a couple and they're super thick and really hard to open!" I grimaced, deciding that knocking down the steel door was probably the only way to get in. Mazey's combination move, Leaf Sphere, was the only move any of my Pokemon could use that would be powerful enough to even have a chance of forcing open the door. The grass type was quickly released from her capsule.
"Mazey, use Leaf Sphere." Mazey gathered up her energy, and attacked the metal barrier. I had my fingers and toes crossed, but when the smoke cleared, I was met with only a blackened door, still blocking our way.
"It's no use ya brat!" I grit my teeth hearing the voice of one of the grunts, muffled by the door between us. "The only way to get in is with the Works key, and I have the only one!" He was laughing at us now, and I fought the urge to kick the door, which would only further fuel the grunt's amusement and ego. "Well, besides of course my cohorts in the flower patch," He added, still laughing.
Until he realized what valuable information he had just given away. Smirking, I lightly knocked on the door. No answer. He was so totally still there.
"Thanks for the news, nincompoop!" I bubbly told him, taking confused Janie's hand and leading her back towards Floaroma Town.
"Wait! What about my papa?"
"Don't worry kiddo, we'll get him very very soon." To this the little girl grinned, then asked another question.
"What's a nincompoop?"
"It's a very nice way of saying some very bad words to the spacemen!"
It wasn't hard to find the flower patch, apparently Janie's father takes her there all the time. I would've stopped to admire the gorgeous flowers popping out of the snow if I weren't on such an important mission.
Then, when I saw two of the clone-ish looking grunts hassling a man about in his forties, who was desperately guarding a cart full of... jars of honey? Anyways, I was so sick of these guys hassling people. First the Professor, then Janie and her dad, and now this poor guy. It was about seven thousand miles past irritating, and just two miles south of infuriating.
"Shut your yap already and just hand over that honey," One of the arrogant and bored looking grunts demanded.
"Yeah, do as we say! There's no denying Team Galactic!" The other grunt was much more excited and obnoxious. "We need to attract Pokemon in great numbers!" The first grunt elbowed the second in the ribs, hard, giving him a hard stare. The man backed up a little, his face suddenly lighting up with hope with the sight of me. The grunts whirled around, the loud one appearing surprised while the bored one appeared bothered, as if he thought the idea of dealing with me was tedious.
"Now what'll we do? Your obnoxiousness attracted some witnesses Gill, and we're screwed if girly here runs off and tells somebody." I did not like the look this guy was giving me. Rapist creeper.
"The answer's simple! We ensure the brats stay quiet!" I quickly pushed Janie behind me, grasping a Pokeball in my bag discreetly. One of the things I loved about battling was the picking out of your Pokemon. Each time I touched a Pokeball, I could instantly tell which Pokemon it was by just the feeling I got. When I touched Electra's and got ready to throw, I could feel her excitedness, and faint tingling shocks running through my hand.
To my relief the grunt got out a Pokeball of his own. His partner observing this action appeared disappointed. Perv.
The grunt let out a Stunky, and I also released Electra.
"Stunky, use Poison Gas!"
"Dodge it!" I realized that Electra was a bad choice for this battle. I had no intentions of getting her poisoned, and Electra knew no long range attacks. Oh wait, duh. "Now use Thunder Wave!" The Stunky was quickly paralyzed and it didn't take long after that to knock the poison type out. Weak.
"...I'm going to be stuck as a grunt forever, aren't I?" The other grunt rolled his eyes and elbowed the obnoxious one out of the way, taking a Pokeball of his own out.
"Zubat, don't disappoint me." I grimaced. The way these people treated their Pokemon was unforgivable. "Use Bite,"
"Use Spark!"
"Dodge it! Use Astonish!" Zubat flew up and over Electra, ramming into her from behind while making an eerie noise which sounded a bit like laughing. "Supersonic!"
"Thunder Wave!" I'd called out the attack just in time for Zubat to be paralyzed but Electra to become confused. Neither Pokemon were able to do a thing.
"Come on Zubat, control yourself!"
"Snap out of it Electra, I know you can!" Zubat had dropped to the ground and was violently shaking, trying to control it's numbed body. Electra, who was also attempting to shake herself out of this status ailment, was stumbling unpredictably around. Neither Pokemon showed any signs of regaining control of themselves.
"Screw this," I looked up to see the grunt reaching for another Pokeball, and I quickly did the same, if only to be able to protect Electra from an unfair assault. He let out another Zubat, and yelled out it's first attack. "Leech Life!"
"Ruby, Flame Wheel!" I called out, releasing the fire type Pokemon. Her attack easily countered Leech Life, so that it did no damage to either of my Pokemon.
"Poison Fang!" Zubat sunk it's small, glowing purple fangs into Ruby's right shoulder. She whinnied in pain, and began to shake. Without legs or arms to keep itself on Ruby, she shook the flying and poison type free.
"Stomp!" With Zubat on the ground, Ruby was able to easily bring her foot down on the Pokemon. "Finish him with Flame Wheel!"
"No!" With one Pokemon down, I only had one more to go, and looking over, I saw that Electra had recovered from her earlier confusion.
"Alright Electra, Spark!" With two fainted Pokemon on his hands, the grunt began delivering different curses all over the place. I promptly covered Janie's ears, attempting to hide a small smile on my face.
"Geez, this kid is like, super tough! Tougher than I can even put into words, and I know a lot of words!" The grunt who was obviously the leader of the two was infuriated, and shot the loud one a murderous look.
"Shut up Gill! We're getting out of here." The grunt apparently named Gill frowned.
"But, the honey-"
"Now." And with that, the G Team jerks pushed past us and left.
"Hey," The man the jerks had been hassling bent down and picked up a small, shining object from the ground. "They've forgotten it..."
"That's the Works Key!" Janie squealed, grabbing the key from the man's hand. The man laughed awkwardly, not knowing how to respond to Janie's excitement.
"Well, I have no use for it, so you two may as well have it." I smiled kindly, putting an arm around Janie's shoulders and pulling her close to me. I was glad that she was going to be okay, her life would go back to the way it was. "And thank you so very much young lady, you surely saved me!"
"Oh, it was no trouble."
"Those goons were trying to take my legendary honey!" I cocked my head at the man, suddenly curious.
"Why would they want honey in the first place?"
"I'm not sure, but they sure were weird. I mean, you saw how they were dressed, right?" I nodded my head.
"Yeah, I've run into those jerks before, and I'm not sure what their deal is, but I'm glad you're alright sir."
"Oh me too, me too, and to repay you, I want you to have this!" The man turned around and grabbed a golden jar from his cart, then held it out for me to take.
"Um, thanks?" I said. What are you supposed to say when the man you saved from Team G gives you honey?
"You can slather that stuff just about anywhere to attract Pokemon! Now have a good day kids!"
"You too!" After returning the Pokemon, I looked down to Janie, grinning. "So are you ready to see your dad Janie?"
"Yeah!" I laughed, and took the little girl's hand, and together, we started to run. When we finally got back to the Valley Windworks, I smugly spun the key on my finger before inserting it into the lock, and turning it counter clockwise. A satisfying ker-chunk was heard, and Janie and I looked at each other, then smiled. Free stood behind us, intently watching the door. As I pushed my weight up against the heavy door, it swung open, and there, sitting at a small wooden chair, was the grunt who had originally slammed the door in my face. Looking up, his jaw dropped, as did the cards he had been playing with. I waved innocently.
"Wha-what?! How did you-" I held up the key, swaying it back and forth on my finger. The grunt choked on his words, unsure of how to respond. "Ga-ah! Commander!" The grunt bolted down the hallway before I could stop him, and I immediately began to panic. The last thing we needed right now was a Team Galactic hoard on our butts.
Luckily for me, Free pushed his way past Janie in and I, and being surprisingly fast on his feet, caught up with the grunt and jumped onto his back, pinning him to the ground. I skipped over to the man, probably about twenty or so, like the rest of the grunts, and slapped my hand over his mouth before he could shout.
"Now sir, I'm sure you're very aware of the large bird Pokemon sitting on your back," I started sarcastically. The grunt glared up at me. "So I would strongly suggest that you keep quiet, otherwise I might not be able to keep Free here from sticking his beak in your ear and eating out your brains!" The grunt now appeared horrified, and rightly kept his mouth shut while we quietly made our way down the hallway.
Peeking around the first corner, I saw two grunts playing darts at the end of it, right next to the door which apparently led to the main area of the power plant. I really did not need either of them running off to tell their boss or whatever about me, so I needed a way to distract the both of them.
"Hey Janie, is there any way we could get them out of there?" I just have to say it, this little girl's hard thinking face was freaking adorable, and very helpful by the way.
"Well, there's the generator itself,"
"What about it?"
"If you press certain buttons on it it flips out and makes a bunch of noise and nothing works right, but nothing gets broken either."
"Where is it?" Janie gently took my hand and led me all the way back past the entrance, where there was a door which I hadn't noticed before. It was open, and Janie quickly made her way down the steps inside.
It was relatively noisy down there, and got worse and worse when Janie pressed a series of what appeared to be random buttons on the generator. But, as she said, the gauges on the thing went nuts and the noise was deafening. Smoke could be seen coming up from the machine and the lights even began to flicker. We hid behind a bunch of boxes, and after a few minutes, two grunts, who I hoped to be the same ones from earlier, came down the steps to try and fix the generator.
Janie and I quickly ran upstairs and into the main area of the power plant. There was only one other grunt around, and I quickly beat him in a battle then continued on. There were a lot of strange machines around that must've been part of the building, as Janie didn't seem to take notice of them. The place must've been kept clean for the most part as well, the walls were pristine, but the floor, white tiled, was streaked with mud here and there.
Near the back of the building, was a room that looked as if it was meant to be an office. There was a bookshelf, a desk with a computer, and several people who were obviously not the clone-ish grunts. One was very obviously part of Team Galactic, with her strange metallic colored dress and the small G symbol on the back of it. I couldn't see her face from here, she was leaning over the desk, but her hair was a very bright red. There was a strange looking old man, with light purple hair, and who wore a scientist's lab coat. He was relatively short, but I couldn't tell what his part in this was. And finally, another man in a scientist's lab coat, but who wore glasses, and had glossy black hair which was sticking to his forehead with sweat. He was working on the computer, and was obviously very stressed.
"I still do not understand why we had to make this incompetent man do this work, I could have done it just as well with half the trouble." The creepy scientist complained. The Galactic woman turned around to snap at the man.
"If you have a problem with this old man, I suggest you take it up with the boss." The said old man turned his head away, and the woman rolled her eyes and scoffed in annoyance. That was when she noticed me. Her hair was styled so that it framed her face in a way that an ancient helmet might, or at least that's how I imagined it. A piece also stuck up atop her head. Her eyes were also red, but appeared more red-brown than her hair. She really was pretty, and looked at me with an emotion I wouldn't expect from a member of Team Galactic. Relief?
"Finally, something to get my mind off of this god awful job," She muttered before clearing her throat. "And who might you two be? Sorry but we're not taking visitors." At first she seemed nice enough, but when she said 'sorry', a streak of superiority and arrogance clearly came into her voice.
"We're here to take back the Valley Windworks." I stated, crossing my arms across my chest and glaring at the woman. She in turn narrowed her eyes and put her hands on her hips. Janie knew this woman, I could tell. She was scared, hiding behind my larger body.
"Oh really," She seemed to notice Janie now, looking past me. "Oh I remember you kiddo, do you miss your daddy?" The mocking in her voice was infuriating to me, but terrified Janie, and I pushed her farther behind me. "Well, if you two aren't going to use your manners and introduce yourselves, I suppose I'll have to be the good example here." Her tone started out amused, but gradually became more proud as she began to speak. "My name is Mars, and I am one of three-"
"Ah-hem!" The creepy man behind her cleared his throat obnoxiously, and Mars rolled her eyes again. It saddened me to think she was part of Team Galactic, she was only about twenty or so. She could so easily have been a model, or even a coordinator, that is if her Pokemon skills were any good.
"Excuse me, four commanders who are part of Team Galactic. Now you," I glared at Mars. Like I was just going to tell her who I was. "Fine," She waved me off. "Be that way. So I'm guessing you're a trainer," She looked at me, apparently expecting an answer. "Right?"
"Yes."
"And you're going to try and kick us out of here, right?" Suddenly Mars smiled and shook her head. "Never mind that, I remember you. You were at the police station trying to do the same thing." I dug into my memories, trying to recall what it was she was talking about, when I remembered. She had smirked at me, knowing that I could do nothing to convince Officer Jenny that Mars had forcefully taken over the Valley Windworks. Not a happy memory. Any good thoughts I'd had left of this woman were gone.
"You know, people show so little understanding of what we're trying to do." Mars pulled a spinny chair up to her, sitting on it backwards and resting her head and arms on the head of the chair. She actually looked kind of disappointed, as if she really thought that what they were doing was actually a good thing. "The boss wants to create a new world, one better than this hellhole. Do you understand where I'm coming from?" Mars looked genuinely curious, and as much as I hate to admit it, I did understand. This world is far from perfect, and I myself is a great example. I'm hated by my own hometown, and have never had a normal life. A new, better world, is something I would've loved to see. And now, looking at Mars, there's a reason for her joining Team Galactic. Cyrus probably preyed on her past, and convinced her to join him, to create a better world. But this was not the way to go about doing it.
Mars sighed, looking away from me. "Of course you don't. I wouldn't expect a kid like you to understand. It's almost saddening..." For a split second, I could see past Team Galactic's commander Mars, and into the girl she once was. A broken girl with no one in the world. Then she was gone.
"So," Mars stood suddenly, pushing the chair away. "Let's decide what we shall do next. How about a battle? If I win, you leave and never bother us again. If you win, Team Galactic will leave."
"Sounds fair to me." She nodded, smiling arrogantly. I looked past Mars and saw the man who wasn't part of Team Galactic, staring at me wonderingly, hopefully. He must be Janie's father, I thought. My thoughts were confirmed when his eyes wandered to the child behind me, and he smiled, waving. Janie waved back as well, looking as if she might cry.
"Zubat, you're up!"
"Ruby, I choose you!"
Done! Now about that last thing I wanted to type to you guys about... Well my Youtube channel! Check it out! I've made some shipping themed videos, and even though they aren't amazing, they have very few views and it makes me sad :'(. Anyways, the username for my Youtube channel is peaches8885, check it out and let me know what you guys think! Review please!