Alright here's chapter 33! I had a little trouble with this one-it was almost 6,000 words so I rewrote half of it because I wasn't happy with it and took parts out to make it shorter. Ultimately, I broke the chapter into two parts (the second part I'll upload later this week because, well it gets pretty intense!)

Just a reminder:

Nova: Eevee

Poison: Nidoran (Male)

Gold: Sandshrew

Missile: Beedrill

Anyway, enjoy!

Poison, Gold and I all escaped the battle for the Thunder Badge with minimal injuries (although Poison was kind of roughed up) we were all ready to leave town the next day. Now fully packed with new gear, we were off in search of our fourth gym badge.

"Where to next?" Rae asked Sam, stretching in preparation for what was likely to be a very long walk.

"Uh…" Kurt struggled with the map. "This one's pretty confusing. Looks like we have to go across Route 11, then take Route 12 until we get to Lavender Town."

"What?" Sam said, turning towards Kurt in surprise. "That could take a week."

"Better get going, then." Rae said, gesturing to the grassy route in front of them. "That is, if you want to finish in time to challenge the Pokemon League this year." She teased.

"Alright, alright!" Sam said, grabbing his backpack. "Let's go, Nova!"

The first day, we didn't get a lot of distance. Wild Pokémon came out in abundance. Later in the afternoon, Sam managed to step on an egg (it didn't even crack) upsetting a flock of Pidgey. Sam called me and Poison out to take care of them. Surprisingly, Rae sent Azurill out too and told her to do her best.

"Rae?" Sam called in surprise, protecting his head from a swooping Pidgey.

"Azurill needs more experience! Use Water Gun!" A thin but fast jet of water shot out, nailing a Pidgey in the face. It beat its wings furiously in order to avoid crashing into the ground. "Keep 'em up!"

Grinning, I held up a struggling Pidgey in my mouth and motioned to it. Azurill nodded and caught it with a Water Gun that left him limp in my teeth. I set him down where he was and looked for another Pidgey to take down but the remaining conscious Pidgey were dropping to the ground with a glassy look in their eyes. It seemed like Poison had managed to get the poison side effect on the other Pidgey.

"Nicely done, everyone!" Sam smiled, dusting off the egg he had stepped on and placing it next to one of the Pidgey. "You really shouldn't keep this on the ground, you know."

—

It was two days later, early into the day's travel when I caught a scent that felt slightly familiar to me. I looked around and followed Sam cautiously.

"Who are they?" Kurt asked, pointing ahead. In front of them were three men in gray and brown camouflage outfits and berets. "Cool! They wear camo too!"

When we had come closer, Sam raised his voice to greet them. "Hey guys! Can you tell me how close we are to Lavender?"

The three men froze. Finally, the one in the middle laughed. "You're such a noob! We're nowhere near Lavender!" His face became serious suddenly. "And unfortunately for you, you won't be getting any closer. Not now that you know that Team Magna is hanging out on Route 11!"

"Team Magna?" Rae asked in confusion, her sentiments reflected in Sam and Kurt's confused faces too. I felt my heart race. Team Magna… I had heard of them before when Gold and I had been on our own. I had seen two members that had tried to catch us, and they were doing some kind of digging project. They were dangerous.

I looked up at Sam, communicating my concern. He looked back up at the three Team Magna members. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, loser, that you and your friends aren't gonna leave here in one piece! We can't have kids meddling in our business!" With that, he and his friends released their Pokemon: two Raticate and four Ratatta, two Polywag, an Ekans and a Diglett.

Sam stepped back, scared and realizing that these people might be trying to kill him. "Go!" He threw all of his remaining Pokéballs and I watched the rest of my team emerge. Kurt and Rae did the same.

"Gold, it's Team Magna!" I called to him.

"Good, I've been meaning ta pay 'em back for what they did last time," he remarked, not missing a beat. I meant to respond but I got a face full of water.

"I'm making that one the first on my list," I growled, facing the offending Polywag. It was roughly my size, and I was used to having to fight Pokemon bigger than myself so it was probably good news for me. I rammed into it, straight in the middle of its stomach spiral, knocking it back. When it opened its mouth to attack, acting on impulse, I shoved my paw into its mouth. It squirmed underneath me, trying to summon enough power to shoot out an attack but it couldn't muster it. Yeah, I was angry. Its trainers had just threatened the life of everyone in the world that I cared about. I removed my paw and bit the tadpole creature, who fainted immediately.

I surveyed the scene for another opponent when I felt the presence of a Pokémon, I whipped around and made quick work of the Raticate.

I turned towards Gold, who was growling at the Raticate. They looked pretty similar next to each other like that, not like I'd ever tell him. Behind him a Polywag was charging up an attack, I realized, aimed at him.

"Gold! Watch—" The Polywag, shot off a pretty intimidating blast of water towards Gold. Right before it hit him, Gold disappeared.

"Huh?" I swung my head around. The water gun hit Raticate instead. Behind the Polywag were Gold and Abra. Had Abra teleported them? Abra reached out his hand and started to open his eyes, which glowed light purple, sclera, iris, and pupil. A purple aura surrounded the Polywag and it thrashed in pain before falling unconscious to the ground.

"Nice!" I heard Poison say from where ever he was.

"Igglybuff, return!" Rae called, and several of the battling Pokemon looked over to see what had happened. Igglybuff lay fainted on the ground as she was recalled and Azurill and Cleffa moved closer to each other, exchanging a worried look.

Within minutes, they defeated all of the grunt's Pokemon, most of that time spent engaging in whack-a-mole with the Diglett until Azurill got frustrated and started unleashing Water Guns into the holes he made.

The look on the grunt's faces was priceless. "W-we lost? Alright, you can keep going! Just leave us alone!" The middle grunt threw done some Poké on the ground in an attempt to distract us from going after them. We just silently watched them go until they were out of view. Then Sam bent down to pick up the money.

"Huh? Only 200 Poké?" Sam said. "I guess crime doesn't pay well…"

"Let's keep going, there's obviously something going on here that they don't want us to see." Kurt pointed out.

"Are you sure that's a good idea? We could go back to town and get Officer Jenny's help." Rae reasoned. She only had three Pokemon at the moment.

…Where had Oddish been in the battle? I looked around. It was difficult to find an Oddish among other plants, but finally I located her. You're kidding me.

Oddish was lying out in the sun with not a scratch on her. She hadn't participated in the battle at all. Rae had noticed too but hadn't been able to do anything about it. Oddish really was a stubborn Pokémon.

"We can't go back for back up, it would take days and they'd have plenty of time to clear out by then!" Sam urged them. "And, if it's bad, we can get out and report it in the next city."

"Let's go for it!" I cheered on my team.

"If Nova wants to do it, I guess I'll do it too," Poison decided.

"I'm never against bashing heads." Gold grinned.

"…I hope that they aren't too strong," Missile pondered, "but even if they are…I'll do all I can."

"That's awesome, you're so cool, Miss!" Azurill laughed, pulling on his wing.

"There are several reasons why Miss isn't a good nickname for Missile, Squirt." I told her sternly.

"Missile, can you scout from the air? To see what they're doing? We're going to follow as quietly as we can." Sam asked. Missile flew away to check.

Quickly, the grassy plains melted into rock quarry and the sharp pings of mining struck my ears. I pulled them back uncomfortably and moved closer to Gold.

"This is the same as last time but I don't hear a drill. I'm worried that they'll be a lot more grunts here too though." I whispered.

Gold looked at me. "We weren't strong enough to battle them last time. But that was weeks ago and we're stronger now. And we have back-up. We won't lose so easily this time."

I smiled. "Right."

Sam, Kurt and Rae crouched down in some bushes right off of a cliff face. It was the opening to the rock quarry.

"Oh God," Rae shifted to get a better view. "There's too many of them." I hated to think it, but Rae was right. Milling around the rock quarry was over a dozen Team Magna members. The two from last time were there—Maylin in her kimono and Gil wearing a white suit which was dusty on his pant legs, searching through the mined rocks, lifting them up and appraising them before throwing them down again. It was apparent they weren't finding what they were looking for. A large drill lay in disuse on the side, a man behind the wheel trying to coax it back to life while the engine merely gurgled. Drilbur walked in and out of thick cracks in the cliff carrying more rocks. A menacing Excadrill carved chunks of the wall with his long, powerful claws. Several Geodude helped move the broken earth, they were strong looking Pokémon and I really didn't want to be on the receiving end of a Rock Throw. The sheer amount of foes sent shivers down Nova's spine.

"Rae's right, we can't fight them like this," I admitted reluctantly, nudging Sam's leg a little. He had a deer-in-the-headlights expression on his face.

Kurt put a hand on Sam's shoulder. "Dude, there's no way…" Sam's hand went to the spot in his jacket he carried his badge case and he tightened his hand on it.

"I—" He started. A Nidoran sauntered over to Maylin and she leaned down to it. Nidoran looked directly at us with a piercing gaze and Maylin's eyes sharpened.

"Intruders!" Maylin yelled. Before we knew what was happening, blurs ran up the slope and behind us. Knowing we had been caught, Rae, Sam and Kurt stood up, hands slightly raised in surrender. The Raticate behind us pushed forward, driving us down the slope and into the center of the quarry in front of Maylin and Gil.

The grunts that had been mining turned to stare with smug faces. "Those nosy trainers are gonna get it," I heard one whisper. I growled at him but he was barely intimidated at all.

"What are Team Magna doing here?" Sam asked.

"Getting the means to control the world!" Gil retorted, pulling on the cuffs of his suit.

"Gil, don't give the interlopers any information." She turned to us. "What are you doing here?" Maylin demanded.

Rae and Kurt stood up as well. "Well, I guess we're here to make sure no one takes over the world." Kurt shrugged, releasing Abra.

"You want to fight?" Gil smiled.

"We can't just let you win. And we know what might happen if we surrender." Sam explained. "Let's go, everybody!" Poison tensed behind me and I pawed the ground as I heard Rae release her team, except for Igglybuff who had fainted.

Maylin smirked, spinning in a circle, pulling her Pokeballs from the sleeves of her kimono. Her matching red eyeshadow and lipstick making her look even more intimidating. "May all who see us stop and watch in awe! May the winds cease and the rain dry! May the sky and sun always fear the ground in its Magnitude!"

"Defeat them!" Maylin and Gil threw their Pokéballs. Paras, Froakie, Machop, Magby and Electrike appeared. Maylin turned to the grunts. "Call out your Pokémon but keep working!" Immediately, a dozen more Pokémon that had not been helping in the excavation were released—Pokémon like Spearow, Butterfree, Ekans, Breloom and Tentacool. The miners continued to mine and Maylin and Gil searched through the rocks.

Pokémon surrounded them on every side and the magnitude to the situation fully bore down on me. If we lost, Team Magna would capture us or kill us where we stood for knowing too much. I was scared and didn't know if we could win. Our team had always come out on top when we worked together…but this was something else entirely. I tried to slow down my racing pulse as waves of hopelessness crashed down on me. There were about twenty-five or thirty Pokémon surrounding our team of eight Pokémon.

"Aiming for the grunt's Pokemon first might be best. To cut down their numbers." Cleffa squeaked.

"I think you're right, Cleffa." Gold said. "But we're gonna have to distract Gil and Maylin's Pokémon somehow."

Abra whose head had lolled to the side as he slept standing up, slowly came back up.

Can you hear me?

Everyone turned to face Abra in surprise. His voice had just come through all the minds of the Pokémon. Looking at his face, it didn't look like much was going on with him mentally. I waved a paw in front of his face, which was ignored.

It looks like you can. Missile and I will be able to hold back the six stronger Pokémon. We can buy you about five minutes.

"You can talk?" I had to ask.

I never felt the need to before, is that strange?

I was going to tell him that yes it was but refocused on what was going on in front of us. "Alright, thanks for buying us some time. We'll take as many out as possible."

The offending Pokémon drew closer to us, acting like a trigger for our counter-attack. Without warning, Gold lashed out a Raticate, hitting it hard enough to break off part of the rodent's tooth. Acting on instinct, I bit the scaly skin of an Ekans that thrashed under her. It was impertinent that none of us get injured or exhausted before we faced the second wave of Pokémon. I was confident that the Ekans was under-leveled for a battle against me. He swiveled his head to glare at me and I felt my limbs lock up, I looked away quickly enough to avoid paralysis.

"That's not gonna work on me, pal," I growled, getting a secure grip on the snake's side. I realized that even though Ekans was several times longer than her, he was about my weight. I hoisted him into the air near the base of his neck and slammed him down hard on the rocky ground.

I ran over to Sam's who was fending off a Raticate with a stick and tackled it so it retreated a little way. I looked at Sam expectantly.

"Alright Nova, gimme your best! Show 'em you're the strongest Pokémon around!"

"Of course!" I nodded. I sprinted straight at the Raticate and at the last moment, vaulted over its snapping teeth. I dove for the tail, biting the base of its tail with all my strength. The action had the desired effect as the Raticate struggled desperately, I released him, delivering a hasty blow to the back of his head.

The rate I was fighting was impressive but unmaintainable. I was already getting tired.

Tentacool had its two tentacles tightening around Gold's neck. He struggled weakly, flinched as if he were constantly taking damage. A wrap and poison combination. If someone didn't intervene soon, Gold would faint. My path was blocked by two Breloom. Their fighting-type advantage would make this battle almost impossible. I looked to Sam for instructions but he was directing Poison, who had stepped into Gold's battle. Their combined strength as well as Poison's natural poison immunity was pushing the Tentacool back.

Instead, I made eye-contact with Rae whose sharp eyes quickly appraised the situation and what must have been a desperate look in my eyes.

"Azurill! Cleffa!" Rae yelled, immediately, they abandoned their fight with a Sparrow and ran up to me. "Pull the focus!" Rae ordered. Azurill and Cleffa began firing weaker but quick attacks and evading damaging blows.

"Rae's buying you time! Please take out the others!" Cleffa said. I nodded and ran over, quickly finishing off the weakened Spearow.

In the sky, Missile dodged elemental attacks and fired off quick pin needles and poison stings, keeping the six Pokémon from getting too close. Abra teleported around using confusion. They were clearly on their last legs.

Panting, I fainted another Raticate, this time having taken some damage. Lightning crackled above and something landed in a heap on the ground.

"Missile!" Sam yelled. The bee Pokémon weakly tried to pull himself up but fell back down. He recalled him immediately when the Electrike charged up another move. Abra, distracted, didn't teleport fast enough to avoid being caught by the throat by Machop, being punched in the face.

"Abra, return! You did great." A red light enveloped the limp Abra and brought him back into his Pokéball.

"This isn't good," Poison moaned as we backed up into a tighter circle as we were surrounded again. This time by Maylin and Gil's Pokémon, the three Breloom, a Spearow, Drilbur and Geodude.

The large Excadrill paused from destroying the wall as if noticing us for the first time. He stared at us with coal eyes and released a terrifying tumbling roar. Slowly, he approached. He was huge.

Beside me, Gold had recovered from the poison but was cradling his arm, Poison was breathing very heavily and Rae had an injured Azurill in her arms. We didn't stand a chance. Even in this single battle, I had grown stronger but my paws were weary with hopelessness and I knew it wasn't enough.

"Hey Sammy, need a hand?"

Dun dun dun dun! Who is it? Hint: You've met them.

Please review and watch for the chapter that'll be up later this week!