Ash tracked the Paras as it skittered across the cave floor with her flashlight. Her Squirtle, Pat, stood on all fours on her right; her Jigglypuff, Haigha, stood on her left.
"Hit it again, Pat, Water Gun!"
Pat scampered forward, following the Bug-type in the center of Ash's spotlight and launched a stream of water from his mouth. The blast knocked the Paras out of the spotlight. By the time Ash found the Paras again with her light, it had rolled back onto its feet, but was fumbling as its tooth-pick thick feet slipped on the wet rock underneath it.
"Haigha, use Sing!"
Ash's Jigglypuff, the newest member of her team so far, stepped forward and closed its eyes. It stood on its toes and began to gently sway back and forth as it sang a soft, eight note melody. Ash took her flashlight off the Paras as she covered her ears with her hands. After a week with her new Jigglypuff, Ash had learned the best way to resist the effect of the song, but it still made her eyelids heavy.
Ash waited a few minutes until Haigha finished singing, and then uncovered her ears, searching for the Paras. Sure enough, the Bug-type was asleep in the same puddle of water it had been trying to crawl out of. Ash fished a Poke Ball out of her bag and threw it at the Paras. It hardly shook before finally giving a satisfying click.
Ash picked up her latest catch and withdrew her Squirtle, now asleep thanks to Haigha's song, and stowed both in her bag. Then, she pulled out her Pokedex. She reminded herself she would need to invest in a proper belt to store her Poke Balls that are actually holding her team members, keeping everything in her bag was slowing her down.
Even so, she had made remarkable progress — remarkable being Oak's word. The Pokedex now had 17 entries, nine of which were thanks to Ash. But Ash hadn't just ventured into Mt. Moon for the Pokemon. After all, she already had one of the rarest and best Pokemon there were to find here, a Clefairy. But Ash knew there was only one way to get her Dinah to evolve.
Ash knew the way through the tunnels of Mt. Moon, an almost maze-like complex that most Trainers didn't bother with. She knew this due to having wandered off on her own during her family vacation so many years ago. Ash hadn't realized she had no way of getting back until she had turned around and seen that almost all the tunnels looked the same in dark. She had been just seven years old at the time, and was hopelessly lost in a cave full of wild Pokemon.
But then she had stumbled on a strange sight. While she had been looking for a source of light — any source, something to orient herself with — she approached a faint pearl-colored glow coming from what appeared to be a hole in the ground. As Ash carefully slid down the slope of the cave she was in, bracing herself with her hands at either side and inching slowly downward, she had realized the ground underneath her seemed different than the ground she had been walking on a moment ago. As she had gotten closer to the light, she could then see that the glow was actually a series of glows, a small group of egg-shaped rocks that gave off a beautiful, pale white aura of light.
That was where Dinah had found her, singing a sweet tune and pointing at Ash with both fingers, then pointing up to the mouth of the cave, and urging her forward. Ash knew it was silly to trust a wild Pokemon, but with no better options, she went where the Clefairy had pointed. The Clefairy had moved ahead of her the entire time — half skipping, half floating, it seemed — and looked behind itself to make sure Ash was still following. Somehow, Ash understood the Clefairy was simply taking her back where she came from. How the Clefairy knew that in the first place, she had no idea. Soon enough, Ash found herself on the right path, and back to her parents; who were only just rousing themselves from their tent after the nap they had taken.
Her parents were uneasy at the appearance of the Fairy- type. But no matter how many times her father tried to gently shoo the Clefairy away, it only smiled in response. Ash giggled and she offered the Clefairy an Oran Berry. Ash had balanced her time between her parents and the Clefairy — they played a sort of call-and-response game, the Clefairy would sing to Ash and she would sing back. They spent the entire trip back to Pallet Town improvising and building on their melody.
Ash only let Dinah out at night, on full moons behind her house. She could tell those were the times that Dinah felt most comfortable. She did her own research online, and visited Professor Oak constantly with questions. She learned Dinah's favorite meal, a Durin-and-Wiki berry smoothie. It had been one thing to imagine owning a Pokemon, but Ash had learned the meaning of actually taking care of one. It was in those days she had realized, she didn't have much desire to use Dinah to battle. She wanted nothing more than to learn about her, and her species.
Ash's memory was interrupted as she stepped back into the larger cave she had been in as a scared, lost girl six years ago. The glow was gone.
Ash slid down the slope into the crater and walked up to the same hole she had seen them for the first time, but this time there was no glow, no egg-shaped rocks from however so long ago.
Ash pulled out a Poke Ball from her bag and brought out Dinah. The Clefairy smiled at Ash as soon as it saw its surroundings, but then looked into the hole itself.
"I know, they're gone," Ash said, "I don't understand, did your family move them?"
The Clefairy looked at Ash and shook its head. Its smile had disappeared.
"Do you think you could find them? Your family, I mean," Ash said, "Between you, Haigha, and the other two, we need at least four Moon Stones."
Dinah nodded, bobbing its entire body up and down in the process, and skipped away while singing to herself, into another cave tunnel. Ash chuckled as she watched; the idea of being alone in this cave had terrified her when she was a kid, but now she knew that Dinah would always find her eventually in Mt. Moon.
Ash sat down, dangling her feet off the edge of the hole where the Moon Stones had been. If only she had known what they were at the time, she could have taken just one for Dinah right then and there when she saw them first. But, Ash wondered to herself as she unhooked her shoe and balanced it on the tips of her toes, why hadn't Dinah already used one for herself? Was there some sort of requirement, a milestone she had to have reached first? Do wild Clefairy here live by some sort of code?
Again, Ash's thoughts were interrupted, this time by a sound. A man was whistling, the sound echoing from a different tunnel than the one that Dinah had left through. Ash froze, shoe still hanging from her toes. For some reason, this tune struck her in a totally different way. Haigha's song made Ash drowsy, Dinah's song made Ash smile, but this man's whistling sent a shiver down her spine.
Before she knew what she was doing, Ash had dropped into the hole and ducked down, listening to the whistler grow closer. There was a pair of footsteps, and when they became distinctly louder Ash knew they were in the crater with her. If they came any closer, they would see her, although why Ash was hiding at all was still beyond her.
"I thought you said there were still more left?" one voice said, a an edge in his tone, as if this was the most recent of many, obvious questions.
"Oh," the whistling stopped as the other voice answered, a lazy lilt to his voice, "I could have sworn there were more — isn't that—"
"No, idiot, Moon Stones aren't brown, they're white. How do you not know what they look like when we've been mining them all night?"
"You work the drill, I just drive the truck, man."
"Whatever, just look in there and make sure there's none left."
Ash could feel in a pang in her chest as her heart rate shot up. 'In there' is where she was. Ash racked her brain for something to do, something to say, as she heard the footsteps approaching, but nothing came.
"What the — hey, girlie, what are you doing in there?"
Ash looked up, clutching her bag. The man was dressed all in black, with a long sleeved shirt and black jeans, and even wearing a black hat with a visor that obscured his eyes as he looked at Ash from the lip of the hole she was standing in. All Ash could really see was the lower half of his face, and his hands. In the dark of the cave, he was so hard to see from the shadows he seemed almost like a ghost to her.
"Uh, I fell," Ash said.
"Oh, yeah? And did you happen to find something while you were down there?"
"What? Find what?" Ash said, shifting uncomfortably on her feet. Why do she I like I'm being set up?
The man slipped his hands in his pockets. Ash could barely make out a twinge near the corner of his mouth curling into a frown.
"Listen, girlie, don't lie to us," he said, "I can hear it in your bag. You've got Poke Balls, which means you're a Trainer, and if you're a Trainer, that means you want Moon Stones."
"What? I'm not a Trainer," Ash said, pulling her bag tighter against her side, "I'm doing research."
Another set of footsteps as the second man approached, dressed identical to the first, watching the exchange. Ash could see he was hefting a large duffel bag on one shoulder. The feeling that if she said the wrong thing, something terrible would happen, only increased.
"What's this research about, then?" the first man said.
"It's about Pokemon," Ash said, "I just need Stones to help mine evolve."
"You said you weren't a Trainer," the second man said.
"I'm not," Ash said, "I use them for… research."
"So," the first man said, "you don't have any Badges? Not even one?"
"… No?" Ash said.
"Good."
The man pulled his hands out of his pockets, revealing two Poke Balls, and released them. An Ekans emerged from the Poke Ball in the man's right hand, coiled up and already rattling its tail like a maraca, yellow eyes gleaming in the darkness. A Golbat emerged from the other, but it only stood at attention, its massive wings wrapped around its body like a cloak, and staring at Ash from over the top of its wings.
"You guys are Team Rocket, aren't you?" Ash said, still clutching the straps of her bag.
"That's right, girlie, and if you know what's good for you, you'll hand over that bag."
"I don't have any Moon Stones," Ash said, and then turned so her bag was out of sight, "and even if I did, I wouldn't give them to you. Everyone knows all you do is steal. You don't deserve Pokemon at all, let alone the Stones that they need to evolve."
"Bad answer, kid."
Ash looked to the left. The other man now had his own two Pokemon released, a Sandslash and a Raticate. Both were poised on all fours, spines on their bodies perched up, making them look like a pair of spiky boulders.
Ash ducked and rolled as the Ekans lunged forward, its head striking the spot Ash had been standing in a moment before. Ash scrambled to her feet and stepped on the Ekans's head, climbing up the side of the cave and pulling the Ekans's body back down. Ash felt her knee scrape against the side of the hole as she climbed out, suppressing the urge to cry as she looked up and saw the Golbat hovering over her, flapping its enormous wings. The Golbat dropped as it brought its wings together, trying to sandwich Ash between them, but Ash ducked again and crawled away. She could see the Raticate and Sandslash each blocking a tunnel behind her — there was no way to escape.
Again, Ash felt her knee scrape against a jagged rock on the ground as she crawled away and yelped. She could already feel a warm trickle of blood smearing against her knee. She got to her feet and turned to see the Ekans slither out of the hole, with the Golbat hovering right beside it and screeching incessantly. She stood, facing them and turning her back to the Raticate and Sandslash.
Without thinking, Ash reached in her bag and brought out a Poke Ball.
The men laughed as Ash called it, a Nidorino. It chittered restlessly as it looked at the two Pokemon in front of it.
"Okay, miss I'm-not-a-Trainer, let's see how that does against all this," the lazy one said, throwing his arms out and gesturing to his larger Pokemon.
"Nidorino," Ash murmured, and waited for her Pokemon to glance behind it, towards her. "There! Double Kick!"
Ash whipped around, and pointed to the Raticate blocking the entrance to another tunnel. The Nidorino immediately ran past her and jumped with impressive height, back-flipping in the air and landing on the Raticate's face with both feet striking it at the same time. The Raticate screeched and reeled back in pain. Before either of the grunts could react, Ash immediately withdrew her Nidorino and ran for it, running past the Raticate and into the tunnel she had just cleared for herself.
Her knee sent shocks of pain up her leg with each step, but Ash ran as fast as she could, already hearing the two grunts after her with their own Pokemon. That trick wouldn't work again, she knew, and if she was going to have any chance at all, she needed—
Ash had barely run past another opening in the side of the tunnel wall when she saw a shadow move on the ground in front of her, almost in time to look up and see a boy just before she ran into him at full speed.
"Oof!"
"Ow! Ash, what's your problem?"
They had tumbled over each other, and only when Ash raised her head again did she see him — Josh.
"What are you doing here?" Ash gasped.
"What happened to your knee?"
"It doesn't matter," Ash stammered, looking behind her, she could see the two silhouettes of the grunts running after her, "we have to go, follow me, run as fast as you can!"
The two ran down the tunnel, with the two grunts shouting after them, until they reached a new opening that led into another larger cave.
Ash turned, releasing her Nidorino again.
"Who are those guys? What are we doing?" Josh panted, realizing Ash was still faster than him.
"They're Team Rocket," Ash said, "they're here for Moon Stones, I don't know why."
"What?!"
"Oh, great, now there's two of them."
The two Rocket grunts had reached them, standing alongside each other with their Pokemon in front of them.
"How many Pokemon do you have?" Ash asked.
"Four, but two of them are weak, I just caught them," Josh said, "You?"
"Six, but two of them are asleep," Ash said, "and one of them — well, only three, I guess."
The Raticate lunged forward, but Ash and Josh dodged to either side just in time for the giant Normal-type to bury its face into the ground where they had just been standing.
"You know what happens if we lose this?" Josh called out.
"Let's not find out!" Ash said.
Josh called out Hades, a Zubat and commanded him to use Bite, but the Golbat slapped him away with its wing. The Raticate lunged at Ash again, but her Nidorino sent it flying back with another Double Kick. Josh's Zubat hardly had time to get off the ground before the Ekans spat an Acid attack in its face, knocking him out. Ash's Nidorino, likewise, took a Slash across its back while it focused on the Raticate, and howled in pain.
Josh recalled his unconscious Zubat and sent out Hephaestus, a Geodude, which was immediately latched on to by the Ekans. While the Geodude struggled to wrestle his arm out of the the Poison-type's jaws, Josh commanded him to use Rock Throw. Hephaestus dug his hand into the ground and hurled the rocks at the Golbat, but the Flying-type hardly needed to dodge since the rocks were so poorly thrown. It was only as the Geodude threw the last rock before fainting that Ash spotted a cone of white light poking out from the small hole that the Geodude's hand had made. As her Nidorino was piled on by both the Raticate and Sandslash, Ash ran for it, dove forward, and dug her hands into the hole. She held her hands up, along with the dirt and dust that now coated her fingers was a perfect, oval-shaped Moon Stone.
Ash whipped her head around, just in time to see the Sandslash rear back and withdraw its claws, hugging its own stomach. Josh shouted something, but Ash paid no attention as she yelled out:
"Nidorino, here!"
Ash threw the Moon Stone. It arced in the air and the Nidorino jumped forward to meet it. The Stone's glow brightened as the Poison-type reached it, and it became blindingly bright as the Nidorino became nothing but a white mass as it touched the stone with the tip of its horn. Ash, Josh, and the grunts all shielded their eyes, until a deafening crash knocked them all off their balance and they fell over.
Ash opened her eyes. What was once her battered Nidorino was now a massive Nidoking. It now dwarfed Ash, the grunts, and every Pokemon in the cave.
"Nidoking, Double Kick!" Ash said, and watched as her Nidoking charged forward — somehow even faster than it was before — and sent the Raticate flying into the cave wall with one powerful kick, then did the same to the Sandslash.
The Rocket grunt fumbled with his Poke Balls, dropped the duffel bag, and recalled his two defeated Pokemon. The second Rocket grunt turned his attention to the newly evolved Pokemon, but it was too late. Ash gave the order, and her Nidoking got down on all fours and charged with a Horn Attack. The two grunts panicked, ran into each other as they tried to flee back into the tunnel, and barely managed to trip over themselves and out of the way as the Nidoking buried its horn into the wall, bringing down the entire roof of the tunnel and closing the tunnel behind them.
Without the noise of the Golbat's screeching, the Ekans' rattling tail, and her own Pokemon, Ash suddenly heard nothing but the pounding of her own heart in her chest. She was drenched in sweat, bleeding down her leg, and had dirt all over her hands.
Josh shook her on the shoulder.
"That was… that was crazy," he said.
#
Ash laid back on her hands as she rested against a rock that was roughly the height of a bench as Josh carefully wrapped the bandage around her knee.
"I guess you'll be walking a lot slower until this heals," he said.
"That's okay," Ash said, admiring her Nidoking. He was still standing at attention, a massive, hulking beast that Ash had first encountered as a small, aggressive Nidoran that came up no higher than her shins on Route 22. It was incredible how fast they grew.
"Was that your first Pokemon battle?" Josh asked.
"Against other people, yeah," Ash said, "are they always that chaotic?"
"Not at all," Josh said, "in the Gym, they even had a referee and everything. They ask you if you want to continue after each knock-out."
"A 'knock-out'," Ash said, now looking her Nidoking in the eye. There were days, years ago, when Ash would cheer her head off watching the matches at the Indigo Plateau, and even cry in disappointment when her favorite Trainer's final Pokemon was defeated. But Ash remembered hearing the occasional story about a missing person, or a violent incident that happened in broad daylight in the cities not far away from Cerulean. Her parents would always change the channel when that kind of thing came on TV, but Ash still remembered what she heard. She hadn't thought much of it, at the time.
"That doesn't seem like much of a big deal, compared to what could have happened to us just now," Ash said. Then, she sucked in a sharp breath and jerked her leg away in pain. "Ow!"
"Sorry," Josh said, "I'm almost done, promise."
Ash pursed her lips together and nodded.
He wrapped the bandage around Ash's leg as gingerly as he could, tightened it, and tied the loose ends into a strong knot.
God, she's skinny, Josh thought to himself.
"Okay," Josh said as he finished, "are you going to tell me how all that started now?"
"I came here looking for Moon Stones," Ash said quietly, "I wanted to evolve my Pokemon for the Pokedex. Then they showed up, assumed I had them, and they attacked me."
"Jeez," Josh said, "and you just beat them."
"Hardly," Ash said, "if your Geodude hadn't dug up that Moon Stone by accident, we'd be toast."
"So you started a fight with Team-freaking-Rocket and had no plan?"
"I sent Dinah out to look for Moon Stones," Ash said, wincing as she stood up and limped across the cave, "but if she's not back by now, I think I know why."
Ash walked to the duffel bag the grunt had dropped and unzipped it. The light from inside the bag was the same pale glow as it had been six years ago. Ash frowned as she looked at it.
Josh stood alongside her, marveling at the sight. "How much do you think this is worth?" he asked.
"That's not the point," Ash snapped, "these are Moon Stones, Josh. As in, they're from space. Once they're gone, they're gone. Those guys were going to sell them and do who knows what, they didn't care if it hurt the Pokemon who live here and need them.
"So, what do we do with them?" Josh asked.
Ash bent down, awkwardly balancing on her good leg as she did, and zipped the bag back up. She tried to lift it, but it hardly budged.
"Let me help—"
"No, I've got it," Ash said, dropping the duffel bag and pulling her own bag aside, "I'm carrying too much weight as it is, take this."
Ash pulled out a large, brown rock and shoved it into Josh's hands.
"What the — what is this?" Josh said.
"It's a fossil from Pewter City," Ash said, "I told Professor Oak I'd carry it for him but I can't do that with my knee and two heavy bags."
"Well, what am I supposed to do with it?"
"Take it to Cinnabar Island and give it to the Professor's contacts there."
"Cinnabar Island? That's all the way across the region, I'd have to backtrack all the way to get there!"
"So? There's a Gym there, I thought you wanted to go there anyway?"
"Yeah, but," Josh stammered, hefting the fossil with both hands, "not with this weighing me down the whole time."
Ash scoffed and closed her bag, shouldering it on one shoulder and the duffel bag on the other. She looked silly, but her tone was like a teacher when they scolded Josh in school.
"I just saved both our lives," she said, "I've put more Pokemon in the Pokedex than both you and Ryan, and I have a large, fully-evolved Pokemon to back me up. You're doing this for me."
And with that, Ash turned on her heel, and limped away.