It didn`t react.
I pressed it once again.
It didn`t react again.
Then Erika pressed it too and still was surprised why the heck the elevator doesn`t work. Our pokemon didn`t understand our confusion though…
And just then I noticed the small electronic lock on the door that, I guess, requires some sort of a keycard to open it and use the elevator. I tried to use one of ID cards, but it didn`t work too.
"Damn, and I was so ready!" I hit the door with my foot but it still didn`t open.
"We are trapped!" Suddenly Erika panicked a little, but I grabbed her shoulders and shook her.
"Keep yourself together, woman! You`re a damn gym leader! We can still break through… Another ladder down, remember?" I nodded in the direction of the corridor back there.
Gym leader looked at the long hall behind me and sighed.
"And what if they will come here by this elevator? And attack us from behind?"
She asks quite a lot smart questions recently… But I always have better ones.
"What if they are in front of us too? And we get surrounded?" I questioned her too. She, of course, didn`t answer and lowered her head in deep thought.
"You have a plan, right?" She hopefully asked me in return. "You seem to always have a plan, whatever it is."
"Of course, I have a plan!" At this moment I even felt myself a bit offended. "Ven`s rule #3: Always keep at least three plans! The one deadly dangerous for you, the one deadly dangerous for everyone except for you and the one deadly dangerous to everyone! Hope to never use them and think about better ones…"
"Yeah, yeah, I guessed it, but what`s the actual plan?" She now looked more disturbed than worried.
"It`s a bad plan. Horrible plan, but it`s the best among the worst!"
"Just tell me already!"
"Shush, woman! They will hear you!" I had to warn this annoying gym leader. "We`re going to split up. You can guard the elevator outside of it with everyone you`ve got. Just keep the bastards inside, and just… throw the cabin down if the situation is out of control."
Judging by her amazed and, at the same time, shocked face I think she didn`t admire my plan. But I didn`t care.
"Throw the cabin down? I won`t do that!" She angrily shouted.
"Then make sure the situation is under control, easy! I will move forward and deal with everyone by myself, so the space between and behind us stays clear – at least, I guess so."
"It`s a stupid plan."
"No, no, the plan is genius. The risk is very high, though. It doesn`t take into consideration any additional ways for them to sneak up on us and all that… You can keep them on the edge just because of the narrow pass."
She looked back at the elevator, evaluating her chances for the success.
"But what will you do? There may be an army guarding the next ladder already!"
"Don`t worry, I know how to deal with them." And then I asked myself whether I know how to deal with them. Battling with two pokemon at once was pretty hard for me just now, and who knows how much are actually there. "I will try to search the keycard at that guy and return. Or go beat a whole bunch of grunts and search every one of them. Or go even lower and observe the fourth underground level…" For some reason I felt that I can find something really interesting there. Maybe, something I would not like Erika to see. And why do I care about that at all?
"I don`t like this… Especially the splitting apart." Erika doubtfully said and looked at me. She is a gym leader. She is a strong woman, but she is not fearless. She knows how to understand real danger.
"Neither do I. But right now, at this exact moment, when the enemies are slowly coming here, I have pretty much time to listen to your BETTER ideas."
Erika had nothing to say in reply to that. Therefore, she just nodded and grabbed two ultraballs from her pocket.
"These guys will do the job." She squeezed the capsuled in her hand and cunningly smiled. I knew now that the will stand until the end.
"That`s the spirit!" I raised my thumb in approval and quickly headed back into the corridor we arrived. Back to the damn Rocket playground. Dumpling carefully followed me.
To my surprise, this place was still empty. Even the bastard we just beat looks like to come back to senses and run away. Too bad, I bet he had a keycard from the elevator.
This time I was looking at this panel maze from the other side – and I immediately noticed the line that will bring me to the other side. If I stepped here while trying to get there before would send me back to beginning and made very annoyed.
But now it was quiet useful. I jumped on the booster line, ducked and rushed forward. From one line to another, carefully avoiding the columns and sometimes jumping over the whole panels I reached the entrance. Damn, this thing now looks cool. Strange, dangerous, even crazy – but damn cool! Too bad my partner couldn't realize the true potential of this thing – he bravely jumped on the line right before me, but in the end he didn`t stop and flew near me, crushing into the wall. I even had to spend a potion on him.
I turned right and we immediately got back to the large hall where the ladder down was.
The third floor below the surface… We got into the long corridor with, as I could see, a dead-end with some machinery. This didn`t look like the local generator or something like that, so that wasn`t interesting to me.
One way right behind us led me to small room with another grunt carelessly sleeping on a chair near the big device, just like the one I have just saw in the corridor end, but this one was a bit… more active. Can`t tell what it actually is – I wish Bill was here with me. Maybe this is something important.
But he wasn`t here, so I carefully searched over this over responsible guy and sadly didn`t find anything that looks like a keycard. Absolutely nothing interesting.
"What a useless idiot you are!" I strictly said to him. He just mumbled something promiscuous to me in reply and snored again. Dumpling approached him and suspiciously opened his mouth – I guess, wanted to exhale some smoke at him, but I warned him with a sign. He gave me a judging look and walked away from the room with proudly raised head, and I just had to follow him.
Just one way was left to observe – and that`s a way to another large hall. Judging by the sound of buzzing mechanics, this is just another playground of theirs. And when I carefully looked inside, I made sure of it.
Another maze filled with chaotically placed booster panels. Now I slowly begin to understand its real purpose – but this thought scares me a lot.
And there also were two grunts guarding the center of maze. They were riding this booster lines and seemed to be training their balance. Their partner pokemon – Koffing and Machop – were standing near the lines, watching over their masters. With a quick look around I realized that I can`t pass near them unnoticed, so I have to think about distracting them somehow.
So I slowly moved along the wall and found another way into the maze. Right there were two booster panels – to the right and to the left, with the left one leading to the first entrance and right into the view of those bandits. This way is excluded, I get it, and so I need to find another one. And another one can`t use booster panels at all as I afraid they may hear me.
"Shut up, dumbass, I can do that!" One of grunts shouted to another one with a very challenging tone. I was interested in that and carefully looked over the corner at them. These two seems to finish their training already, and standing on the solid ground now. One of them – the thinner one showed the middle finger to another and headed to the booster panel. The second grunt looked much fatter than the first, and crossed his arms to laugh at his partner.
"Ha! I`m gonna eat my pokeball if you do that!" He seemed to be pretty sure in his words if he bets THIS…
I tried to understand what the heck is happening here, but just three theories came up in my mind. The simplest one is that these two were put here to guard the passage from us, and they got bored. Idiots.
"I don`t doubt that you will like it. With ketchup or not…"
This dialogue gave me some idea. This is going to be quite risky, but really fun if I succeed. I HAVE to do this.
"Look here!" The thin grunt carefully stepped on the booster panel that sent him right forward. Machop rushed to his trainer and screamed something with worry. Looks like this small guy is much smarter than his master. Which now ducked to lower the air resistance and slipped on the floor to the next booster panel. Well, I have to admit, he was moving and balancing pretty good. For a moment I wished to see what he is going to perform… and to see the second grunt eating his pokeball. Although… Maybe, not. Poor pokemon… I have to stop this.
The first grunt accelerated after the second booster panel and directed to the right.
"Machop, do it!"
The pokemon doubtfully replied and pressed something on the wall near him, and suddenly one of the panels on the floor changed the direction, and I finally realized the plan. The last panel sent grunt to the right, straight to another panel that will send him to the right too, where the changed panel is placed, directing him to the right too and to the very first panel. This idiot wants to create a cycle of four panels, endlessly boosting him into the infinity! What a moron. I bet he will burp the whole room after the second cycle. That`s gross…
But if I`m correct, my small intervention will save lots of things. The cleanliness of this awesome floor, the second idiot`s digestive system and – which is more important – my own nerves. I wouldn`t want to see things that can`t be unseen.
The second grunt together with his Koffing was watching over this sight much more worried than Machop. This… this gave me another just brilliant idea!
"Dumpling, let`s have some fun." I whispered to my pokemon. "Can you use Smokescreen to cover the whole room?"
Charmeleon was still a bit offended after the events at the Pokemon Tower, but he can never say 'no' to a fun. So he nodded positively to me.
"Great, then follow me."
We quickly passed near the wall to the entrance from the side of the second grunt.
"Firstly, use Smokescreen when I tell you. See that panel?" I pointed at the small device on wall near Machop. "I will throw you over this booster, and you have to pass near these guys under the cover of smoke and press… anything. And escape to the other side. Got it?"
After another approving nod from my Dumpling I raised my thumb and looked at the riding grunt. We need to catch the moment he is moving away from us… Like this one!
I clicked fingers to begin the operation.
Dumpling made a deep breath and exhaled a hell lot of smoke into the room, almost instantly covering it. Then I grabbed my 19-kilogram Charmeleon and helped him to jump over the booster panel. I couldn`t see anything at all beyond that point, so the rest was just on my partner.
As for me, I didn`t waste time and jumped on the booster panel too. I had plenty of time before to observe the room and find the best way to the other side, but now I could see nothing further than my nose. I was moving blindly through the smoke, just by my memory.
Sometime later I heard a clicking sound somewhere on the left from me. Dumpling did his job in switching the roads, and some second after that a sound of something crashing into the wall. Such a pleasant sound to my ears…
I`m sure that Dumpling can now easily proceed further, and I need to keep up with him. I continued moving along my way and riding the crazy booster lines with a zero vision. Just then a thought came to my mind that Dumpling`s interference could change something in my way too, and I can end up crashing into the first grunt.
But to my extreme surprise, the last chain of booster panels led me straight to the other side, where I hid behind the wall and met Dumpling. He looked very satisfied with this hooliganism.
"You… stupid piece of big fat damn shit!" And after that the first grunt swore very, very dirtily.
"Hey, that`s not me!" The second one tried to justify himself.
"You, you! You and your ugly Koffing! Who else?"
"Maybe it was the intruder!" Maybe, the fat guy isn`t that stupid as looks. At least, not as stupid as his partner.
"Don`t justify yourself! It was you, I know it! You know Smokescreen… I`ll smash your face!"
"Ha, you wish! Koffing, to me!"
"Machop, to me!"
Yeah, my plan worked perfectly. Now these two will be busy for some time. I carefully slipped into the corridor and headed to the end of it.
I wonder how`s Erika doing now. Is she still alive at all? At least, if she will be caught, Team Rocket won`t be able to manipulate me through her – I have nothing to take from. And why am I still did not caught? The whole base is alarmed about us, the guards are guarding… But I haven`t seen any special squads sent to intercept me. Maybe they have all their guys working on missions?
Or do they WANT me to proceed?
This is strange… But I need to be cautious anyway, and keep calm. Dumpling feels my worry, and that is not acceptable. My cunning smile should be enough to cheer him.
And soon we got into another room, suspiciously empty with just stairs down. We approached them and looked down. I could hear some quiet humming sound from down below, like a machinery of some sort.
"Well, Dumpling… Looks like we have found something more interesting than we expected." I said to my partner. He nodded again and placed his foot on the first stair. He stopped right here, waiting for me to move too.
"Let`s go, partner."
The ladder led us to the room filled with various technologies. A straight row of tables with computers, a couple of shelves with different books and other smaller devices. All this reminded me too much of professor Oak`s lab.
These bandits have an underground laboratory here? What for? Things seem to be much, much more serious than I imagined.
"Intruder!" The man shouted somewhere from the left. I looked there and noticed a man in lab coat. Not a regular grunt, but just a scientist.
"Smokescreen!" I commanded to Dumpling, and he again filled the room with dark thick smoke.
"Sound the alarm!" Another voice sounded from the right. It seems that there are more people that I wished.
"Dumpling, hold on to that gentleman! I`ll take the first one…" I rushed to the primary voice source and grabbed his arm. Judging by the sound of body falling on ground and screaming, my Dumpling got another one too.
I tried to find the chair in this wall of smoke and seat my hostage on it, and I did it with great effort. Not because he resisted – because of the damn smoke. But some time passed the smoke disappeared, revealing a lying man with my Dumpling sitting on his stomach.
"Get off me, monster!" The man shouted at my partner but didn`t move in an attempt to throw him off.
"Hey, don`t insult my Dumpling! Shut up and I will come back to you later." I turned my head to the suspicious scientist sitting right before me with his hands behind. "So… man… Tell me your name."
"Ge… George…" He sounded quite scared. Not sure whether he was scared of me or his future because of me.
"Nice. Calm down, George. I will not ask you how you managed to fall so deep to work for Team Rocket. I will not ask whether they pay you or threaten you. I will not even as what the heck you are doing here… at least, not now. But I`m very interested in this too. Right now answer me two things: where is your boss? And what is on the deepest level of this structure?"
The quiet roar from Dumpling distracted him, so he delayed the answer a bit, trying to put himself together. Finally, some sane man that doesn`t spit in my face but is actually scared of it. This is a material I can work with.
"Oh, and, by the way, would you please give me the keycard from the elevator on the third floor?"
Dumpling for some reason barked again, trying to get some attention.
"Not now, boy, I`ll praise you later. Now, George. The keycard."
"I… I don`t have it. But he has!" He pointed at someone behind my back. I turned my head to see a grunt with baseball bat swinging at my face.
"Crap…" My reaction was enough to dodge that hit, so the bat smashed poor George`s face pretty badly. I rushed to the grunt and overturned him to the ground, grabbing both his bat and neck at the same time.
I gave a quick look at Dumpling that now was giving me a mistrustful look. I think he was barking about this threat all the time.
"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Sorry!" I apologized to Dumpling and then quickly looked at George. The hit was pretty strong, sending him and chair to the floor and into the fainting. "Sorry too!" I apologized to George and returned my attention to the angry grunt.
"You`re not going away with this!" He threatened me. I didn`t reply immediately and slightly punched him in the face.
"This is my fist`s Rollout move. Becomes stronger each time. And hits each time you don`t tell me what I want to hear."
"Screw you!"
The second punch was a bit stronger but already gave my interlocutor a good bruise.
"You probably had listened to me talking to this George guy here. So you know what want to hear."
I gave him a couple of seconds to react at least somehow to my words. But he didn`t. So I did the third punch. 120% of power. This makes him angrier, but not more accommodating.
"So… Do you want to talk now? Should I repeat my question?"
"Go to hell!" He tensed body to resist my pressure, but failed again. Am I really that fat? Have never thought about it.
But now this bored me. I punched him from all strength I still have after so many restless days and sent him to the knock-out.
"Critical hit, bitch." I raised over the criminal and observed him. In the right pocket I found something that actually could be a keycard, together with two pokeballs. Not empty ones. But I grabbed just the keycard and gave a look to the last opponent remaining here.
"You…" I angrily said to him and slowly approached. "You look like a smart guy. You have eyeglasses, dude! I have them too. We`re just eyeglasses brothers! Please don`t make me hit you too, my hand hurts already."
"I`ll tell! I will tell! You take your pokemon off me!" He shouted to me in fear, letting me exhale with relief.
"Fine. Dumpling, let him stand up. The adults need to talk."
Charmeleon hurried to crawl away from the scientist, and I helped the man to stand up. He looked frightened enough to talk now. Talk seriously.
"This thing is a keycard indeed." He proved my guess. "But this hideout has only four levels. The elevator can get you here… But in the other part of building. Straight to our Boss office."
"Boss? I would like to talk to a… commander or coordinator of yours, actually. The one that directly controls the operations in the region."
"We don`t have one. Everything is controlled by the Great Giovanni himself!"
"Wow, what a responsible bandit boss. I guess I have to give my question directly to him then." The things seem to become a little bit easier now. But the fact that this man gave me all the information so easily bothers me quite a lot.
"Who the heck are you, anyway? And why these stupid mafiosi need scientists like you?" I didn`t broke the promise as I didn`t promise anything to this one.
"Hey, I`m just an engineer! I just operate the barrier cages, the ones pokemon are transferred in." He pointed at the farthest table with an interesting device. This actually looked like the cages I saw at hunters` lair, but… newer ones, maybe?
"Why Team Rocket uses these cages instead of pokeballs?
"You don`t understand what you are meddling with, man. Don`t underestimate our Boss. Whatever you need from him, you have to pay the price high enough." The scientist tried to warn me, but this wasn`t effective. Warnings change nothing.
"Oh, I have my own methods of exchange. Don`t worry, have some sleep." I pressed one exact point on his shoulder to send him to sleep immediately.
Dumpling questionably looked at me and pointed at all the mess we`ve made here. Three fainted men, one broken chair and slight veil of smoke still dissolving in the air. Could be worse. The lair of hunters worth remembering.
"Let`s go, Dumpling. Erika is waiting for us."
He barked to me in reply and followed the ladder up to the third level. Too bad I haven`t seen the elevator in this room. And it doesn`t seem to have doors to other rooms… It`s whether the scientist lied to me or the builders are complete morons. For some reason I feel the second one is correct.
But suddenly one table on the right attracted my attention. The ten small boxes looked suspiciously familiar to me. Maybe it`s because of some device drawn on its right side. Very familiar device…
The Silph Scope!
They have bought a whole bunch of these. So I ran to the table to look closer at it. Why didn`t I notice this before? Damn, how convenient.
A small note was lying near the boxes. Looks like the report of the mission result.
Finally these three idiots managed to do what was ordered. Well, I couldn`t think of a mission easier than go to PokeMart and buy every single Silph Scope. At least, now our Squad 3D is ready to assault Pokemon Tower to save our Squad A4, if these idiots are still alive. But I still think we should fire these clowns from 10C and sell their rare Pikachu. Their chase for that damn Meowth costed us too much.
Well, not everything is so good in Team Rocket. But their purchase will help me a lot. Not all of them. So I took the nearest Silph Scope box, opened it and hung the device on my neck.
"Dumpling, I let you train your Metal Claw on the rest."
He nodded in reply and grinned. A single powered-up Metal Claw tore the boxes literally into pieces. Now I am sure the Rockets won`t send the reinforcements to the Tower. Or, at least, we will be able to pass the ghosts… What they possible will not.
"Now we`re done here." I looked around again to observe anything interesting to me, but nothing connected to the mass capture of wild pokemon or operations on Route 3 appeared in my eyesight. Maybe I should check books or computers, but this will take much more time. I don`t have time. Their boss will tell me everything.
So we left this place and returned back to the third level. After a corridor we got to the last 'playground' with two psychic grunts. Koffing and Machop are both fainted, and now the two grunts are just swinging their fists in the air trying to get each other. Looks really pathetic.
This time I didn`t try to pass them stealthily, and just approached these two. They noticed me and angrily shouted:
"YOU!"
"I don`t have time…" I replied and collided their heads together. After a hit like this they could just fall on the floor and hold to their heads cursing me with the best worst words they could.
From this side I easily could get through the booster maze and head to the ladder up.
Crossing the second floor in the second time was easy enough too. Now I can ride these crazy booster lines like a pro and know where to head. But now I noticed a door in the wall opened, and that worried me very much. I guess Rockets use this to pass by the maze using the side corridor. Does that mean someone BUT Erika was there?
"Hurry, Dumpling. Erika is in trouble!"
We ran into the corridor and it obviously led us right into the room with elevator that Erika was guarding. But the woman didn`t seem to be needed in saving – a pile of snoring grunts and their pokemon was accurately placed in the corner with Erika sitting on the top of it and boringly looking at me. Her Vileplume and Ivysaur were out, together with another pokemon that looks like a very low and fat palm tree with three creepy heads in the krone.
"Stop, Dumpling. Erika is fine." I looked around to make sure everything is okay and this is not a trap. Very unusual trap.
"Of course, I`m fine…" The gym leader jumped off the bodies pile and smiled to me. This looked adorable and terrifying at the same time. "And you two… Did you succeed in your task?"
"Heck yeah, we did!" I showed her a keycard with satisfied look. "We have found the laboratory of some sort. And if I have been told the truth, this elevator will take us straight to the office of their boss."
"Really? You didn`t find any answers in that lab?" Erika sounded pretty disappointed and surprised.
"No, but I didn`t look for them too good. This… Boss of theirs is the only one in charge here. He must know everything. And if we take him, we`ll get the answers."
"Okay…" Erika hurried to return her pokemon except for Ivysaur back to pokeballs. "But… don`t you think this was… too easy for us to break in?" This woman just read my thoughts.
"I do, Erika. I do. They didn`t resist too much. Who knows – maybe, their Boss is somehow… wants us to come. Have a deal, maybe?"
"What? I will never work with these bandits!"
"I will not too. But let`s put our lives to risk one more time and see what happens."
I opened the elevator with a keycard and offered the lady to come in first. She just shook her head, but went into it without questions.
Our pokemon quickly followed her inside and I was the last to step in. That means I will be the first to step out into the… whatever awaits us there. I pressed the fourth level, and the cabin began to move.
One exact thought stuck my mind. Not a good thought, though.
"Take this for a while…" I took the Silph Scope from my neck and handed it over to Erika. "It will be safer with you."
"Why would it?" The woman questioned me.
"You know… There`s some chance that I will get into a fight. A real one, not a pokemon fight. So… Keep it safe, okay?"
She understood me and after putting it on her nodded in reply. We continued our way to the very down…
The realization of what actually happened came pretty fast – at the exact moment the doors opened and two guns stared at us. The owners of these guns also had pokemon covering them from behind – Sandslash from the left and Arbok from the right.
"Hands up, all of you! Come out of there!" The tall bandit with Sandslash shouted at us menacingly.
The fate of being shot right here and now was not in our plans, so we had to obey. Dumpling raised his hands too, and Ivysaur raised his vines. That looked funny enough.
"Stay here, you!" The other one with Arbok addressed our pokemon, stopping them from moving out of lift. "Dare to move – and you have a trainer no more!"
This worked, and Dumpling with Erika`s Ivysaur had to slowly move back into the elevator. Bandits surrounded me and Erika, cragging.
"Okay now, Erika, listen to me very carefully and do exactly as I say." I exhaled loudly and discontentedly. "First, you need to distract your opponent with something. With a senseless speech, for example. They are stupid enough, so this should work."
"What are you..?" The grunt from my side confusedly shouted.
"And then, when the time is right…" I immediately struck bandit`s hand and caught his gun in the air, grabbing his neck with my free hand and pointing my newly acquired weapon at the other one. "… you just take the advantage and that`s all!"
Grunts and Erika didn`t even realized what happened right now. But the opposing pokemon slowly and menacingly approached us.
"Hey-hey-hey, you, poke-villains! Dare to move– and you have a trainer no more! Trust me!"
Sandshrew and Arbok listened to me and stopped moving. Now my gun is pointed at the second grunt while he`s aiming at Erika. But I also have his friend`s neck in my hand! It`s 2-1 in our favor now!
"Drop the gun." The grunt growled to me.
"Drop the gun." I answered him.
"I`ll shoot her!" And he slightly shook the weapon near woman`s head to show his seriousness.
"I wouldn`t do that. You`re gonna be sorry about that for the rest of your pitiful life. She has such nice head. Also, who`s gonna clean mess after that? YOU will!" I teased him.
He had nothing to reply, just crag again.
And then loud sound of shot literally right behind deafened me. I was startled by this and dropped the gun. Judging by the click behind me, the first grunt targeted me again.
"Stand up, clown." He strictly ordered me.
While the clown… I mean, I… was standing up, I managed to understand everything. Despite of me keeping his neck, he had completely free hands. My mistake. So he just took another gun and shot into the air – just to scare me. Damn, that worked.
"Okay now, Erika, remember my lesson." I pulled my thoughts together and continued talking like it was nothing. "First, you need to distract your opponent…"
"This won`t work second time, jerk!"
"Aww crap." I`m really going to take offence at this guy.
"Move. You two have gone too far. I think you deserve to be punished by our Boss personally." The second grunt threatened us again and pushed me in the direction of the corridor to the right.
"You, make them move too." The first grunt ordered Arbok and Sandslash to escort our pokemon too. They menacingly hissed at our guys, and they followed us to the end of corridor.
The large doors leading to the office of Team Rocket boss. I wonder who`s that gonna be? Someone with scary and suspiciously familiar name Giovanni. Or is that a surname? Anyway, we will find out now.