Only five more Episodes to the great 'one hundred'. Well, I hope to have this arc finished by then. Well, Flame and Raichu try to stop the cake eating and Flame ends up trapped in another battle. Team Rocket won't give up without a fight, which is just what they get.

Episode Ninety-Five: Heart of Steel

We arrived at the Center just in the nick of time, the cake was being served up. If I hadn't know about Nurse Joy, I'd probably have dived in and ate more than everyone else. Because I'm like that. But I knew, so I wasn't going to get distracted by food. (Yep, you heard me. I was not going to get distracted by food. At least, not untill after I had dealt with the current problem.)

Nurse Joy was standing in the corner, watching with a smug expression as everyone moved for the food. Untill I yelled out for everyone to hold it, then she looked slightly twitchy.

"What the hell is the matter now?" Cubone grumbled, "I don't know about you, but I am hungry."

"Go ahead," Raichu told him, "eat up. Even though we have reason to believe that the food has been tampered with, probably poison."

Nurse Joy became extremely fidgity as Porygon floated up to the table, not having taken part in the food thing due to him lacking anything to eat with. His eyes glowed green for a few seconds as he scanned the food.

"Traces of Grimer poison detected in the icing," he finally spoke up, "enough to make all who eat it too ill to fight for several days."

"Allowing the Rocket's a chance to counterattack," Alpha burst out, turning to look at me, "how did you figure it out?"

"Because I saw Nurse Joy in the Rocket's base, when I was one of them, so the free cake thing just reeked of a plot," I explained, to which Raichu added, "plus, from what I gather, the Rocket's fled and left the building standing. Normally they raze any of their bases to the ground as they leg it. Obviously they had planned to take it back, now we know how."

Everyone turned too glare at Nurse Joy, all noticing that she had buggered off.

"That bitch!" Hitmonchan blurted out, "she's ran off."

"Well duh, I think we have established that," Squirt sighed as he got to his feet, "how about we chase after her instead of sitting here arguing like a bunch of morons?"

"Scyther will remain here," Scyther sighed, "Scyther doesn't feel well enough to take part in the chase, Scyther will help Blacky bury the poisoned cake."

Everyone split off into groups of two, leaving me standing around alone.

"Hey tin man!" Squirt called as he and Scout headed off down a street, "you're with us on this one."

"Righto Squirt," I replied as I caught up.

"I am not short anymore!" He yelled, "so stop calling me Squirt."

"Fair enough, Big Ears," I chuckled, peeking at Squirt's large white ears.

"Stick with Squirt."

Scout shot overhead, gaining height that he wouldn't have risked having during the war.

"I can see Nurse Joy!" He called down from above, "she's headed towards the harbor."

"Can you find us a short cut?" Squirt called back, while I just tried to keep up with my armour weighing me down.

"The third left leads strait there," came the reply.

"Righto, now stay low. We don't want her to know that we are coming," Squirt laughed.

There was one problem with that plan. I had a hunch that she knew about us, or at least the remaining Rockets did. Wanna know how I guessed this? Well the fact that the three of us came up against, you are not going to believe this, me.

"Okay, that Charmander looks just like you," Squirtle said, amazed at the likeness. Same size, same complexion. Hell, even the same scar. It definatly was not Scarlet. I didn't like the look of it, mainly because I knew what was coming.

"You are the Charmander known as Flame, correct?" Came my double's emotionless question, it even had the same voice as me.

"That would be me," I answered, knowing the answer to the question before I even asked it, "why?"

"I have been ordered to bring you in, alive or dead," it replied.

"What the hell?" Squirt asked, causing both of me too look at him.

"Stay out of this, go after Joy," I said to him, "take Scout too. I'll direct the others to you if they come this way."

Squirt nodded and took off down the road, Scout flying above his head the whole time. My double returned his gaze to me.

"Now, are you going to come on your own accord or do I have to fight for your co-operation?" It asked, which made me chuckle.

"You really oughta know the answer to that one," I laughed, "seeing as we seem identical.

My copy chuckled too, with the same laugh as me, before attacking with a fireball.

"Ack," I burst out as I sidestepped the sudden attack, "sneaky little bugger, ain't'cha?"

"I must have inherited that from you seeing as I am programmed to have a similar personality to you, but without all the backstabbing."

'Programmed?' I thought, trying to figure out what that meant and realising it pretty quickly, 'Oh crap, another robot.'

"No Mew to save your pathetic hide this time," my duplicate laughed, "we know all about that. And you are going to help us get to him."

"If that is the case," I said thoughfully, "lets get this fight over with so I can get back to helping my friends beat the shit out of your masters."

RoboMe, as I shall now all him (I call it a 'him, because it looks identical too me so I can't exactly refer to it as an 'it' without bringing my own gender into question), laughed again.

"How can you stop me?" He asked, "I share your fireproof capabilities and have an armoured internal skeleton so your little claws won't damage me either."

"Never claim you are invincible," I said in a sagely tone, "it just screams for life to turn and kill you in some other way. Like Dragonbreath for example."

"You don't know Dragonbreath," RoboMe said, widening one eye in that confused expression that I do myself.

"Yeah, but she does," I smirked as a wave of blue fire slammed into RoboMe's side.

RoboMe ended up as just a chunk of charred metal, which I broke into pieces with a few punches.

"Thank you, Scarlet," I said to the other Charmander that had appeared.

"I didn't do that for you," she replied, "I did it to hurt Team Rocket's plans. You are not the only one that can turn on them."

I smirked under my armour, I hadn't expected anything more from the other Charmander.

"It doesn't matter why you did it, you did and that is what counts," I chuckled.

"You have a point there," she replied with a chuckle of her own, which quickly vanished, "but listen here. We will fight again and I will not lose."

Scarlet turned away and vanished into a side alley, leaving me alone once more. Untill an explosion blew her back out of the dark alleyway and she slammed into a wall, slumping to the ground unconsious. Another one of the Robotic clones of me, although the colour of its scales was darker than my own, stepped out of the shadows while glaring at the both of us.

"Exterminating both renegade Charmanders," it said, again it used my voice but without my usual emotitive charm and without any kind of personality, "chance of failure: zero percent."

"We'll just see about that," I countered, clenching my fists and letting my, long built up, fury take over.

I lept forwards, without anything even resembling a plan (unless you count 'hit it untill it stops moving' as a plan) and the robot sidestepped, launching a fireball at the back of my head. It hit my armour and I felt the helmet heat up a fair bit, that robot was using very hot fireballs.

I spun round and attacked again, this time managing to dig my claws into its throat. It that thing had been a living being, that would have been a fatal injury. But robots don't have that weakness that us meatbags have. So I went one stage further and wrenched upwards, ripping the entire head off.

'I can see why Mew hates fighting these things,' I thought to myself, 'it is like fighting yourself, only harder to kill,'