Author's note: Tw: (animal) pokemon cruelty
Cupid followed the old man's scent. With her nose to the ground, she led us to a stone well with a gaping mouth as wide as my arm-span. The dull sound of rushing water floated up to us. "Do you think he went down there?" I said.
"There's a ladder," Luca said. "He might've climbed down."
"I'm going in." I swung my leg over the side.
"Wait." Luca snagged my arm. "Before you do this, think for a moment. Now that we know where he went it's better for us to call the police and wait for them to come."
"And what of the old man?" I said. "He could be in danger now." I paused and narrowed my eyes at him. Luca didn't say anything about disapproving of my actions. "Are you not going to stop me?" I said.
Luca bit his lip. "I knew you would go after him. And I don't want you to go alone."
He and I clambered down the ladder and found the old man, Kurt, at the bottom of the well. He groaned and rubbed his back. I ran to his side. "Are you okay, sir?" I asked.
"I fell hard on my back," he said. "I scared the hooligan up at the top and he shot down here like a furret. But I tripped on the ladder rung and fell. If I were in better shape I'd go after him."
"Who was he?" I said. "Did he have something to do with the slowpoke?"
The old man looked at me, his eyes tired. "Do you know Team Rocket? They're down here. You two trainers?"
We nodded yes. "Go get them for me," Kurt said. "I'll be fine here."
Luca, me, and our pokemon plunged into the cavern.
"He said Team Rocket, right?" Luca said. We splashed through puddles. Despite the well exterior, inside was a cave with streams and rivulets of water. Some of the pools went higher than our knees. "I thought the Kanto champions took them out three years ago. Do you really think they're back?"
"They could be imposters." Cupid squealed when she stepped in water. I didn't want to think what would happen if Kurt was right and they were back.
Inside the well were human-made plateaus to walk on. We climbed up the stairs to one. A flash of black crossed my vision. "You there!" Luca said. "Stop!"
He skidded to a stop. He wore all black with a blazing red R on his shirt, picturesque of the Team Rocket members I'd seen on the news. Evil people with battered pokemon. Grunts that guarded the sieged Silph Corporation. Criminals that stole pokemon. "Commander Proton!" he yelled. "Intruders!"
"Ulric, grab his leg!" To my command, the chikorita lashed out a vine and snagged the man as he took off. He fell like a sack of potatoes. He grasped for a pokeball at his belt but Ulric slapped it away. Ulric might've been as mad as me. "Are you taking slowpoke?" My words came out like fire. "Answer me!"
"Astrid," Luca said, surprised.
The man's face turned white. Cupid, shivering between my legs, growled at him. "I – I can't disobey Commander Proton," he said. "You want to see him, go down into the well. Don't hurt me!"
I imaged punching him, hard enough where his teeth flew out. Luca put a hand on my arm. His skin was cool, a contrast to my blazing hot body. "It's not worth it," he said under his breath.
I jerked my head to the side. "Ulric, release him."
Ulric let go. The man scrambled to his feet, and with a panicked howl, he ran further into the cave. Ulric tilted his head at me and frowned. He wanted the man to be punished like I did.
We hurried after the man. Weeping slowpoke appeared in pink dots as we climbed. A lot of them were dead. At the end of the cave, a gaping, blue tinted crevice in the wall, the grunts appeared. They held a net full of slowpoke at one end, and a chopping block at the other. One grunt held a slowpoke down while the other readied a butcher knife. "Stop!" I screamed.
She brought it down. The slowpoke tail sliced off and fell to the stone floor. At first, the slowpoke did nothing, but then, the pain registered, and it wailed.
A wordless scream tore from my throat. Luca gripped my arm. "So here are the intruders," a cool voice said.
We whirled around. There was a tall man standing before us with dyed blue hair underneath a black hat, which he pulled the brim back from his eyes. His uniform was different than the grunts, still all black, but with white tall boots and white gloves that went to his elbows. His smile was cruel. He might've been handsome, if not for the cold, sharp look to his eyes.
"My name is Proton," he said. "And yes, we're in charge of the slowpoke kidnappings. I'll have you know their tails sell for a big price on the market."
My body quaked with so much rage it went numb. I couldn't speak. Luca said, somehow calm, "We're here to peacefully ask you to stop. Please leave this place."
"Oh, such heroism," Proton said with a sneer. "Too bad us baddies won't listen to peaceful protests. We're just going to cut your pokemon up and sell their organs. Maybe yours too, but that's not my style."
That was when I realized I was going up against someone far more powerful than I thought.
I stepped forward. "Ulric," I said quietly.
"Astrid, stop," Luca said.
"You're going to fight?" Proton tilted his head back and leered. "Good. I like toying with my prey first."
A zubat came screeching out of his pokeball. Ulric batted it away with his vine before it could dive at my hair. "Ulric, use razor leaf!" I said.
The zubat was too fast for Ulric to prepare but he still managed to swat the zubat away with his leaf. The zubat came back biting. Without me having to call, Ulric assumed a defensive position and slapped away the zubat's attacks. "I like feisty girls," Proton said.
"You misogynistic pig!" I said. "Ulric, finish it!"
Ulric slammed the zubat away with his vine and swung his leaf. A hundred tiny leaves shot from under it and struck the zubat. The enemy pokemon fell to the stone floor and didn't move. Proton returned it, only seeming amused. "What a useless creature," he said. "How about my next one?"
He sent out a koffing, a bulbous purple pokemon with black smoke drifting out of its pores. "Koffing, kill it," Proton said.
The koffing surged toward Ulric. Ulric moved to dodge it, but he was too slow. The poison pokemon slammed into him and Ulric careened backward with a cry. "Hit it with your –" I said, but the koffing attacked him again. Ulric batted it away with his vine. The noxious fumes wafted my way and made my head feel like mush.
The koffing tackled Ulric again. Ulric's peachy body freckled with bruises. The koffing was merciless, hitting Ulric over and over. I couldn't call commands fast enough. "Ulric!" Luca yelled. "Ulric, hit it to the ground!"
Ulric heard him. In any other situation, having another trainer call commands for your pokemon was cheating, but I was grateful for Luca's outburst. The chikorita leaped just as the koffing zoomed in for a tackle, and Ulric landed on the poison pokemon. He used his body weight to punt the koffing to the stone floor and its round body squashed like a beach ball. As Ulric bounded away, the koffing bounced two times away from us. It didn't move.
Proton returned it. I keened in on the vein bulging at his forehead, and his cruel smile was fixed. "So I'm out of pokemon," he said. "But this setback means nothing to the thousands of us. I hope to see you again, little girl."
He reached for his belt, which I thought was another pokeball, but he threw a smokeball to the ground and it exploded. Luca grabbed onto my arm and coughed. "Don't lose me!" he said.
Once the smoke cleared, the Rockets were gone. I coughed up the remaining smog from my lungs. "Astrid, are you okay?" Luca said.
"I'm fine." Ulric bounded to me and wrapped me in a hug with his vines. That was scary! We need to get out of here.
Ulric was right. Luca ran to the slowpoke in the net and released them. "Go! You're free now!" he said. The slowpoke took a moment to process the information, and then they lumbered out. I ran to the pokemon on the chopping block. It whined a low, pain-filled cry. I gathered it in my arms and ignored the blood dribbling on me from its tail. "Hey, you two!"
It was old man Kurt. He held his back, wincing, but he was up and moving. "I saw those fools run out," he said. "You've done good. Let's get out of here."