Pokemon Tales: Red Chapter 54: Spooks and Spoons.
Since Sabrina put out a notice that she wouldn't be accepting any challengers for a couple days, she didn't bother to turn on most of the lights in her Gym which left the place quite dimly lit which wasn't appreciated by the other leaders. She didn't think to take that into consideration but she took note of it when she saw that kept glancing up at the ceiling as if he was expecting the lights to turn on from a stern stare.
The Gym leaders were gathered around a table with a built-in screen which at that moment was displaying the map of Saffron City. Using their fingers, each of them could mark spots around the city which they thought could be crucial in the supposedly upcoming battle.
"Isn't it possible that they would attack this place?" Erika asked, but instead of pointing somewhere on the map, she motioned around with her arms.
"Strategically, that wouldn't make much sense." Surge responded without taking his eyes off the map.
"How can you say that with so much certainty?" Brock asked "I think you shouldn't be so dismissive."
"I'm sorry but I think you don't realize why Red wanted me to lead this group. I have military experience and so I have a good understanding of how big, organized, forces work. Even if Sabrina is the strongest trainer living in Saffron, by herself she wouldn't be considered too big a threat. Police stations, entry points to the city. Even if they're not the main goal, these kinds of places are more likely to get targeted if Team Rocket want to gain complete control of the city." Surge explained.
"Care to weigh in?" Koga asked Blue who was hanging away from everyone and observing the conversation.
She walked a little closer. She was used to getting attention from the people who would observe her fights against Snorlax but it was somehow different when it was five Gym leaders.
"How about here?" she said, not completely confident that she wasn't making a fool out of herself.
"A TV station, huh?" Brock pondered the possibility.
"Depending on how they want to go about it, it is something they could try. Controlling the news and what not. There's a couple of them but we should probably only focus on the two or three biggest ones." the ex-soldier said while marking a couple places on the map.
"What about radio stations?" Erika wondered.
"They don't necessarily need the stations themselves. The towers should be enough. It's hard to tell with a map… Do you think we can…"
He wanted to ask Sabrina a question but when he turned towards where she was supposed to be standing, the woman was gone. It was dark so it was possible that she moved to another spot without him noticing but, when he looked around, she was nowhere to be found. Erika and Brock were equally as confused as Surge.
"You're looking for Sabrina? She teleported out of here around half a minute ago." Blue stated, leaving the leaders dumbfounded.
The only one besides her who wasn't surprised was Koga, who at that moment was smiling proudly after noting his students observation ability which was part of her training.
"Don't just stand there with a stupid smile." Surge got annoyed after looking at the ninja's face "We need to go after her."
"Leave her be. If she didn't say anything before leaving then it's probably nothing important."
. . .
Sabrina and her Kadabra appeared on top of one of the tallest buildings in Saffron, where waiting for them was her Alakazam. The Pokemon was sitting in a meditative pose with its eyes closed but their arrival made it turn its attention towards them.
"I sense that you are worried but you need to calm down so that your thoughts are coherent to me when I take them in."
Alakazam nodded and once again closed its eyes. It tried to sync its breath and heartbeat. This helped it focus and give its trainer what it learned in the simplest terms. She touched the Pokemon's forehead and took in its thoughts.
"A lot of them in the sky. They aren't Pokemon… They must be helicopters."
She let go and started walking around the roof. She took note of every building that had a landing pad, but also those who didn't have one but had enough space.
"That's still not going to be enough. They're not going to take turns landing. So what is it they're planning to do?"
She knew that Team Rocket was going to appear from the west so she turned her gaze that way and saw them far away, barely dots in the sky. Her two Pokemon stood by her side and she could feel their concerns.
"We could inform the others about it but we can't just shoot helicopters out of the sky. We have to wait for their arrival."
She wondered if there was anything else she could do. She put her arms on her Pokemon's shoulders and used them to boost her psychic abilities to hear what the people left in her Gym were talking about. The group was continuing their conversation regarding various ways Team Rocket could control information. That gave her an idea. She couldn't prevent the attack but she thought of a way to minimize the damages.
"We have around 15-20 minutes until they arrive. I think. We need to visit two places before then."
The Pokemon understood her without the need to hear any more and the trio teleported away.
. . .
Once everyone gathered in the Gym ran out of ideas of how Team Rocket was going to attack, they went quiet and started to get restless because of Sabrina's absence. Surge looked at one of his pokeballs before walking up to Koga who was standing near a window.
"Someone will have to go look for her. I think that you're the…"
"Quiet." the ninja said while his hand up against Surge's face.
The other leader didn't like this treatment and was about to give Koga a piece of his mind but then the Poison type specialist quickly passed him by and walked towards the TV. The other's also started hearing some sounds but they were coming from outside so they were confused about why Koga would want to watch television. Once the device's screen lit up, everything became clear. The group gathered around to make sure that their eyes weren't playing tricks and that it was indeed Sabrina's face and voice that they were witnessing. The woman was accompanied by a man who, according to a description at the bottom of the screen, was the mayor of Saffron City.
"Is she insane?! Does she want to cause mass panic?! We don't even know that Team Rocket is going to come!" Surge shouted while stopping himself from grabbing the TV in anger.
"I think that she did this because they're already here. That sound…" Brock couldn't quite put a finger on it but everything became clear when the screen cut to another camera, one pointed at the skies above the city.
What they saw could have been easily described as a swarm of helicopters. Some of them were lowering their altitude to most likely try and land, but others remained almost stationary while Team Rocket members started jumping out of them and using various means, such as parachutes, Golbats and Koffings, to descend safely.
"Thanks to her fast action, the people who are watching this will stay in their homes." said Koga.
"And it looks like she was able to get them to broadcast it on almost every local channel." Erika pointed out while pushing various buttons on the remote.
"I would prefer to act right now but we still don't have a plan. If I knew that they were going to attack in this way…" as the one who was supposed to lead them, Surge couldn't help but beat himself up about overlooking the possibility of an aerial invasion.
"She's not there anymore." Blue said after noticing Sabrina's absence when the screen cut back to the TV studio.
"And she hasn't come back here either." Erika added after taking a look around the room.
"We haven't established any means of communication so we can't even ask her what she wants to do next." Brock realized.
"Surely she's not planning on fighting by herself…" Erika said in a worried tone.
Koga took a deep breath to prepare himself for disciplining the group, but Surge was faster to do so.
"Shut up! Shut your damn mouths for a couple seconds! What we just saw was Sabrina showing us that she's probably the most level-headed person here. This isn't the army so I can't really do anything about her going on her own but there's one thing that I'm sure of; she isn't someone who will foolishly put herself into danger."
"There's hundreds of Team Rocket members in the city…" Koga started "...but that's just it. They're scattered all over the city. A Gym leader should be able to take on at least a dozen of some lowly thugs at once. If we divide and conquer then we can easily deal with most of Team Rocket."
"I see what you mean but that's still a lot to deal with." said Brock.
Surge responded "The only ones we should be worried about are the higher-ups. We know that Giovanni wants to free Mewtwo and take control of it. Misty promised to inform us if anything happened in Cerulean so for now we're left with a couple questions regarding the situation here in Saffron."
"Is Giovanni here?" Blue pointed out one of the things.
"Are any of these so-called Admins here?" Erika added.
"What are they planning to do until Mewtwo shows up here and what will they do if he doesn't show up?" Brock also joined in.
"That's what Sabrina is most likely trying to figure out right now." Koga explained.
"We can't just go out there, start random fights and hope for the best. Let's try working out a plan with the new information we got and wait for her to return and maybe enlighten us more. But we also can't be too optimistic." Surge said before putting up two fingers.
"Two hours?" Brock asked.
"If she doesn't show up here in two hours then we'll have Koga look for her, but we'll give him a communicator so that if anything happens, he can inform us and we'll be able to adjust and help out however we can."
Everybody once more gathered around the map and started exchanging thoughts and ideas. Only Blue kept mostly to herself while sitting in an armchair some distance away from everyone else.
"There's a chance that Red is somewhere out there but I can't go searching for him. The leaders think that since we got that message we're the ones who need to deal with this whole mess but I'm sure that he's also going to do whatever he can."
. . .
In Team Rocket's base located under Saffron City, Giovanni was sipping wine while observing what was happening in the city above by using a big TV screen in his lounge. His secretary, Resse, was there together with him but she was much more tense. She couldn't help but feel like something was going to go wrong and she would have to witness one of the rare times when Giovanni would get angry. Instead of a wine glass, she was holding a laptop that she was ready to use in order to relay any orders that her boss would want the troops to hear.
"I hope those two weren't too rough…" Giovanni muttered to himself.
"Excuse me?" Resse asked, unsure if she was supposed to hear his words or not.
"Sabrina must have used her renowned psychic powers to detect our people. I wish we could have somehow warned the populace so it was nice of her to do it in our stead. This way, the civilians won't get hurt and we will have less to do but… she's apparently left the studio. I hope she doesn't plan on getting in our way or getting the police involved."
"He really was expecting things to go peacefully?" Resse wondered in her mind.
It seemed almost as if he could hear her thoughts since the man turned towards her and immediately gave an order "If Peter or Alex run into her, they have to prevent her from escaping. They need to defeat her quickly and lock her somewhere where she will stay out of the way. I'm not sure what the extent of her powers is but if there's a chance that she could mess with M2 then…"
He didn't finish and turned back towards the TV so Resse took the first part of what he said and messaged the Admins.
Giovanni watched as the feed cut to some of the Team Rocket members performing acts of vandalism. Things like breaking car windows and setting trash cans on fire. His brow furrowed.
"Soon."
. . .
Peter was already on the ground when he received the message from Resse.
"I don't know how likely it is that one of us would run into this Gym leader. I could spread the word to others but…"
Seeing how some of Team Rocket members were throwing bricks stones at windows and stealing from small shops, he couldn't feel confident to trust in any of them. As he was considering other options, the first person that came to his mind was Green.
"I don't know where he landed and there's no way of communicating with him without others being able to hear what I say." he said defeated "Why… Why did I even think of him?"
He became worried that someone would notice how bothered he was by his thoughts and decided to get on the move. Outside of these new orders and taking control of the city, he and Alex were given the task of taking over the tallest skyscraper in the city. The top floors were owned by the CEO of Silph Co. but Giovanni wanted them for himself, probably for a big announcement after getting M2 back. Peter thought that it would be best to head over there and try to look for Sabrina on the way.
"If she doesn't know that the tower is our goal and then we probably don't even have to worry about her, but if she gets too close then I'll have to rough her up." he thought before reaching for one of his pokeballs.
He released his Dodrio and got on the Pokemon's back. The bird ran across the street before getting enough speed to jump onto a parked car and from there onto a lamp post and then a roof. Peter could see the place they were heading to from far away but he figured getting there this way would make it easier to spot Sabrina if she was somewhere on the streets below them. They managed to cover about half the distance to their destination when some voices started coming through the communicator, so Peter ordered Dodrio to stop so he could listen in.
"... went to check out Turmeric Street since we lost contact with the groups that landed over there…" the person speaking was clearly panicked, not only because of the tone of their voice, but also because that message was being broadcasted to everyone who was in the 5 kilometer range.
"Things started floating and I'm not sure what it was I saw but…"
The voice stopped and got replaced by some static before the communicator went completely quiet.
Peter acted quickly and talked to everybody in the same way that the other person did "This is Admin Peter. Everyone, stay out of that area. I'll check things out and call for backup if necessary."
He checked the map of the city on his phone in order to learn how to get to Turmeric Street.
"We're going that way."
He pointed west and grabbed onto Dodrio before the Pokemon started moving once more.
. . .
Red and Green were sitting on a rooftop some distance away from both Peter and the place where he was headed to but they could still hear the messages on their communicators. Red seemed to ignore and kept observing what was transpiring on the streets below.
"Shouldn't we check that out?" his friend asked him.
"We can't get distracted."
"Distracted? We're just… Are we waiting for something or someone?"
"Yes and yes. Should I just tell you or do we play charades?"
"We have time for charades?
"Actually, I'm not sure how I would tell you… Okay. Who did we hear speaking through the communicators?"
"Some person I didn't recognize and then Peter."
"And then?" Red asked with a sly smirk.
"What do you mean "And then"? There was no… Wait. We didn't hear Angie or Alex. Even having mellowed out a little, those guys still argue all the time. The fact that we didn't hear the other two means that they're either in another part of the city or that… they're not in the city at all."
"That's why I don't want to act yet. We're still at the stage where we need to gather information."
"One or both of them could have been sent out to free Mewtwo."
"I want to take a look at the city from the sky but I can't use Pidgeot and Charizard would draw too much attention so I'll have to wait until those helicopters are all gone. I want to check what's happening on Turmeric Street but if Peter or someone else notices us, that may arouse suspicion."
"We don't even know anything about Giovanni's whereabouts. Team Rocket has a base in this city but we don't know where it is or if he's inside it."
"I'm worried that he won't show himself until they manage to get Cross but if they get Cross then it's basically game over. Even if the other leaders got my message and arrived in Saffron, we don't have any way of contacting them."
They remained quiet for a while, until Green's eyes lit up.
"I may have an idea."
"Alright."
"But it would involve me…" he stopped, worried what Red would think about him for saying this "...stealing something."
"Green, we're basically trying to save the world. As long as your plan doesn't involve killing baby Meowths then I'm okay with it."
"Weirdly specific but okay. I'll steal some burner phones, one for me, one for you, and a couple for the leaders. I just thought about it and realized that if they are in the city, the local Gym would be a likely meeting spot for them."
"Like a base?"
"Yeah. I'll visit the closest library I can find or a similar place and try to get the info about this Gym."
"Then you go there and hand out the phones so that all of us can stay in contact."
"That's the plan."
"I still want to do the sky recon and check out Turmeric Street so I guess this is where we split up. Good luck."
The two of them bumped fists before Green jumped off the roof. He summoned his Jynx which created an icy slide that allowed the two of them to safely reach the street.
. . .
Peter arrived on Turmeric street and immediately put Dodrio back in its pokeball in order to stand out less. He hid on one of the roofs and peeked beyond the ledge. He was being careful since it seemed like the street was empty so it was possible that he was walking into a trap. He noticed some movement and immediately started sprinting to jump onto another roof. He almost missed the jump but was able to hang on by using a curved knife. The knife broke but not before he got himself to safety. From that position he could see a Team Rocket member, sitting on pavement, leaning against a shop window. He took one of his pokeballs, clicked the button and left it on top of the building before jumping onto a lamp post in order to slide down to the street level. He walked very slowly and when he reached the grunt, he kneeled down next to him but with his back also against the window so that he could have a good view of his surroundings. When the other person didn't react to his arrival, he checked their breathing and pulse and found out that they were unconscious but alive. He stood up and took a step forward so that the Pokemon he left on the roof could see him better.
"So it is a trap. But where…"
As he looked across the road, he could see his own reflection in a shop window. It was far enough where he couldn't be sure if he was seeing correctly but it looked like there was someone in the shop behind him and they were about to assault him. He leaped forward while turning his body around so that he could instantly counterattack by throwing a couple knives. The window shattered and a rain of glass fell all around, mostly missing Peter. Those that hit him couldn't penetrate his cape. His knives were able to fly towards the attacker without being obstructed by the glass but they suddenly stopped and dropped to the ground before striking the target. It turned out that his foe was an Alakazam that used its telekinetic abilities to block the knives.
"Sabrina." Peter snarled through gritted teeth.
The Gym Leader used the hole in the window to jump outside together with Kadabra who was supposed to strike the Admin before he could have a chance to react. They didn't realize that he had backup. A Shadow Ball flew in front of Kadabra's face and the Pokemon had to duck in order to avoid it which gave Peter a chance to increase the distance between them. Sabrina was able to tell where the attack came from but Haunter, the one responsible, was already gone from there and appeared beside its trainer.
"You're not dressed like the others." the woman pointed out "Are you perhaps one of those so-called Admins?"
A devious smile appeared on Peter's face.
"You should be more careful with what you say. That one question was enough to give away something you probably wanted to stay hidden."
"You realized that I'm not working alone?"
He was surprised to hear just blurt it out.
"It won't matter once I defeat you. I'll leave you with enough strength to have you answer some other questions but you won't walk away from here to tattle on me." she added.
"We'll see about that." Peter responded before throwing a knife in her direction.
He knew that one of her Pokemon would stop it but he did it to have enough time for his Gengar to appear from its pokeball.
"Only two Pokemon? You're trying to make this a fair fight?"
"Two? Count again!"
Haunter and Gengar formed a line in front of its trainer. He walked through them and the Pokemon seemed to disappear while his appearance changed.
"Graveyard Shift."
"What is that… grotesque transformation?" Sabrina couldn't believe her eyes.
Peter took a couple steps before seemingly tripping and taking a fall.
The female trainer wasn't about to waste this kind of opportunity even if she wasn't sure what she was fighting against.
"Kadabra, Psybeam!"
The Pokemon attacked but hit nothing. Peter disappeared.
"Psycho Cut!"
Alakazam spun around on one foot and slashed with one of its spoons. It hit Peter who appeared in that spot thanks to Phantom Force. This move managed to cut open the man's cheek which was a waking up call for him. He underestimated his opponent by trying to pull a stunt like that and so he decided to once again put some distance between them.
"You may have somehow combined with your ghosts but me and my Pokemon have an even deeper connection. We can feel and see what the other feels and sees so surprise attacks are useless against us."
"Does that mean that if I kill one of those mustached freaks, I'll have to dig three graves?" Peter didn't want to show that he lost some confidence.
"Calm Mind. Future Sight."
Sabrina knew how to play with people's expectations. Peter must have expected her to continue the chit-chat so her announcing new orders would cause any reaction to be delayed which was useful since during these moves her Pokemon needed to remain stationary for a couple seconds. Peter tried to stop Kadabra by sending a Dark Pulse in its direction but he was too late and the Psychic Pokemon teleported out of the way, causing the attack to destroy another window.
"Kinesis."
When Peter found where Kadabra teleported to, he saw the Pokemon using the power of its mind to break the spoon. He didn't know what that was supposed to accomplish so he became a little worried but didn't want to waste time since Alakazam could attack him from another direction at any moment. Four ghostly arms sprouted from his body and performed Shadow Ball and Dark Pulse at the same time.
"Calm Mind." Sabrina repeated the command she gave Alakazam.
First of Peter's attacks veered off-course right as it was about to hit.
"Psybeam."
Sabrina decided that it was better to counter-attack rather than teleport since the latter was what her opponent was most likely suspecting she would want to do. Dark Pulse proved stronger and Kadabra was hit with the combined force of both moves. Peter wanted to follow-up with a barrage of Shadow Punches but as he jumped towards Kadabra, he felt something akin to a strong wave pull him backwards before throwing him on the ground.
"What the hell was that?!"
"Calm Mind." Sabrina continued issuing the same order.
"Is that other Pokemon doing it? But it hasn't moved. These Psychic types are annoying."
He got up and took a breath before making Gengar and Haunter leave his body.
"It looks like our usual way of doing things won't work but I just thought of something. Haunter, use Shadow Ball and Dark Pulse to keep Kadabra in check. Gengar, wake up the other one with Shadow Force."
The Ghost Pokemon immediately flew towards the opponents their trainer picked for them while he himself ran right behind Gengar until the Pokemon sank down into its shadow. Alakazam opened its eyes and was ready to counter Gengar who appeared by jumping out from the ground, but Peter was running at it from the other side and it was unclear what he was planning. For the first time in this battle, a look of concern appeared on Sabrina's face.
Alakazam blocked Gengar's attack but left itself open to Peter. Surprising everyone, the man used the Pokemon as a stepping stone and jumped over it, getting close enough to Sabrina where he could throw knives at her without worrying about one of her Pokemon protecting her. Three small knives, thrown in a way where they would be easy to dodge and grant a false sense of security. Followed by a bigger knife that he slashed with in a downwards motion as he landed. Another distraction. Lunge forward with a second knife held in the other hand. Contact. A stab wound in the abdomen. 7 centimeters deep.
Peter didn't want to get cocky since his plan worked and so he jumped back to a distance where Sabrina wouldn't be able to strike him back with his own weapon.
"This isn't good." Sabrina thought "The pain is unbearable but if I pull this out then I'll have to stop the bleeding somehow. He must have thought that if he takes me out he will beat all of us because of our connection. I'll have to either finish this fast or run away. That is… if he gives me a chance to do so."
Seeing that she was hesitating, Peter didn't want to waste the opportunity and ran at her once more, making sure to keep Gengar between himself and Alakazam. Even if the latter teleported, it was obvious where it would be headed so his Pokemon could easily improvise.
"Water Gun!"
A stream of water suddenly hit Peter's leg and threw him off balance. His landing wasn't too graceful. It felt to him like he dislocated his shoulder after hitting the pavement. He managed to quickly get up despite that and started looking for the one responsible. He found him. An unfamiliar teenage boy hanging out from a second floor window and a Wartortle standing on an awning below him.
"Who the f #k is that brat?!"
"I have no idea." Sabrina said with genuine confusion.
"I'm just a nobody!" the boy announced.
"Me too!" shouted a female voice.
Its owner, a young girl, appeared from an entrance to one of the nearby buildings, accompanied by a Butterfree.
"I know you and the mayor told us to stay in our homes…" another person interjected "...but it's one thing when Team Rocket is destroying cars and throwing trash around and another thing entirely when they're trying to kill our city's Gym leader."
It was an older man with a Monkey.
More and more people started appearing on the street, ready to protect Sabrina from further harm. Peter was sure that he could take out any of them in a matter of seconds but their numbers put him at too much of a disadvantage and he had to start considering a retreat.
"Stored Power."
Alakazam crossed its arms and released a powerful blast of energy that threw Gengar across the street, towards its trainer. Haunter also was having trouble keeping Kadabra in check. The gathered people started gaining confidence and began closing in. Something cast a shadow over them and Peter assumed it to be someone trying to attack him from the sky but the truth was the opposite.
"Grab on!"
Red arrived, riding his Charizard and reached a hand out towards the Admin who instinctively took hold of it. The lizard flew up quickly and the Ghost Pokemon tried to follow it. Peter spared them the trouble and returned them to their pokeballs after climbing onto Charizard. Everything happened so fast that most people couldn't even tell what kind of Pokemon they saw, let alone that someone was riding it. Sabrina was the only one who could be certain.
"Weird. That person felt different than the rest of them." she thought, before remembering the pain coming from her wound.
She fell to her knees and people started swarming her so Alakazam and Kadabra had to push them back until one of them claimed to have medical training and was allowed to tend to the Gym leader.
Up in the sky, with all the helicopters gone, Red could fly freely without being seen by anyone besides the person sitting behind him. He didn't get a good look at what was transpiring on Turmeric Street but he realized that Peter was in trouble and that was part of why he came to his rescue. The other part was an ulterior motive, him wanting to gain the trust that would make the Admin spill the beans about where he was headed before getting side-tracked.
"Do you want me to land near one of our groups or is anywhere fine?" he asked.
"No, no. My Pokemon didn't get hurt too badly so for now… fly towards that building." Peter responded while pointing towards the tower that he and Alex were supposed to take over.
How about that? You didn't have to wait half a year for another chapter. I will probably jinx myself if I say anything about returning to form and I just did that and oh no...
Since we're back in the originally planned chapters, I can once again reveal what my notes for a given chapter were. "Sabrina fights Peter". That's pretty much it. In the original plans the leaders weren't as organized and there were no scenes for Giovanni or Red and Green.
There's a lot of suspension of disbelief when it comes to this part of the story because you have to believe that Team Rocket was able to easily take over the city. That's why had the part with the mayor, to kinda explain why it was easy, and then the part with the citizens coming to help Sabrina to show that it wasn't actually that easy. You can assume that there are people who didn't listen to the mayor or people who didn't watch the broadcast and got into a scuffle with Team Rocket but Saffron is a big city and I can't cover every little thing.
Neither Alakazam nor Kadabra have Psychic because both of them have innate telekinetic abilities. Both of them have Teleport so they're limited to three moves. Alakazam is based around using Calm Mind to boost Stored Power while Kadabra is more diverse.
I wish I came up with the name "Graveyard Shift" before now.
There's a lot of characters for me to juggle but I'm having fun with it and in the next chapter we'll focus on completely different ones(as in, not Peter and Sabrina).
Red. Team: Eevee, Charizard, Raichu, Gyarados, Vileplume, Nidorino.
At hand but not officially his: Scyther.
With Koga(?): Pidgeot.
Badges: 4
Green. Team: Jynx, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?.
At Team Rocket Base: ?.
Badges: 3
Blue. Team: Weepinbell(Bell), Blastoise(Tori), Golbat(Ken), Graveler(Grimm), Ponyta(Dasher), Electabuzz(Buzz).
Badges: 3
Alex. Team: Ditto, Vaporeon, Jolteon, Flareon.
Angie. Team: Dragonair, Sandslash, Seaking.
Peter. Team: Dodrio, Haunter, Gengar.
