Anyway, updates might be a little slower from now on, maybe two episodes a week. And that's if I don't get much work for the summer holidays. Anyway, bit of a plot twist coming up. Poor Flame, he seems to attract these sort of situations.

Episode Twenty-Four: Friends or Foes?

We had been walking for five or so minutes before Scout stopped and turned to look at me.

"Can you please stop your hand burning, we might want to be a little more stealthy," he said. I had completely forgotten that my hand was still on fire, as amazing as that sounds. I plunged my hand deep into some loose soil, which smothered the flames. My hand was still a little sticky and was now covered in dirt, but not on fire.

Scout nodded at me and pointed with his wing towards a large overgrown bush. I climbed inside, being carefull not to ignite anything, and peeked out through some foliage. I nearly gasped at the situation. Moron and Joanne were tied up, back to back, and were being given a speech by two other Humans in white clothing. I assumed they were the Team Rocket bandits, but I wasn't interested in them. What caught my eye was the two Pokémon standing behind them.

"Squirtle? Pika? What the hell is going on? I can understand ganging up on Moron but not Perfume," I said to myself.

Scout was perched beside me and whispered in my ear, "they are not in control of themselves. That Hypno over there has them under its mind control."

I spotted the Hypno almost instantly, the ugly looking yellow furred thing. (Not Pika. Well it was more ugly than Pika. But don't tell her I said that) It seemed to be focusing on the ropes binding Moron and Joanne. I followed its gaze and noticed that the ropes were actually vines. I had a hunch of exactly who those vines belonged too.

"Bellsprout too? This is going to be tricky."

Suddenly I spotted the Hypno spin to face in our direction and raise a hand in which it held a silver disk of some kind.

"This can't be good," I muttered as the disk glinted against the moonlight. Scout screeched and plunged out of the hiding place, flopping on the floor as if losing control of his body.

"Definatly not good," I said as he suddenly stopped and flapped to his feet, staring strait at me.

I decided that there was no more need for stealth and dived out of cover, breaking into a sprint strait towards the Hypno.

Out of the corner of my vision, I could see Moron's eyes almost popping out of his head in shock. But I didn't care about that, all I wanted to do was get hold of the Hypno, the demon puppet master, and tear it limb from limb.

It raised its over hand and I expected to suddenly fall under its spell too.

"You are lucky that I can only control four victims at a time,"I heard a strange voice echo in the back of my mind. I realised that was the Hypno using its telepathy, and seeing as it couldn't control me. I thought I was in the clear to extract my revenge.

Boy was I wrong. It laughed, out loud this time, and suddenly I felt myself knocked off my feet by some sort of invisable barrier. The voice in my head laughed at me and whispered it would make my death a painfull one. I didn't want to know what he meant, but the sound of Scout's battle cry soon told me what his plan was.

I dived to the side as Scout flew past, the barrier had vanished and let him fly through.

"Scout! Stop this!" I cried, only to hear a familier giggle from behind me. I slowly turned and saw Pika laughing with a toothy grin upon her face.

"You may be a good fighter, but how to you fare against those you care about?" she shouted as sparks flew from her cheeks.

I took a step backwards, more out of shock than anything, and a blast of water shot past. Literally where my head had been a few seconds before. The force of it rushing past was enough to knock me off balance, I was glad it didn't actually hit me or I'd probably end up unconsious. A lightning bolt slammed into my chest and sent me flying a few meters backwards. They really were trying to kill me, I knew they inwardly didn't want too (Well I hoped they didn't) and I definatly wasn't going to let that Hypno get its way.

"You want a fight. Come and bloody get one!" I roared as I clenched my fists and puffed out a small amount of smoke through my snout.