Chapter 42; bonding
The first light of the sun found every member of team Sonic awake and ready for action though very sleepy from their adventure the previous night.
"Was it always this crazy when you traveled throughout Kanto?" Tails asked Sonic.
"Pretty much" Sonic shrugged.
"Damn. And to think we only have one gym badge so far. Like what else can happen?"
"Ask and you shall receive" Knuckles said.
"Knuckles no offense but I'm sleepy, I need coffee and I'm not in the mood for wise quotes. Let's just walk through the cave and get some coffee in Azalea town" Tails complained.
"How are you guys in ahead of us?" a familiar voice caused him to jolt awake.
Sonic too turned and came face to face with – what a surprise – Ash and co.
"Good morning to you too Ash" he said yawning.
"You guys look rough" Brock commented "everything ok?"
"Mostly" Knuckles said gathering everything in his huge backpack "just had a small misadventure last night".
"What misadventure?" Misty asked.
"Nothing much. A thief tried to steal Sonic's chikorita and got pummeled" Tails simplified the situation.
Sonic's gaze momentarily shifted back to the woods, remembering that kid, Silver.
"He couldn't be… could he?"
"Sonic" Knuckles suddenly said "we're out of pokemon berries. I'll go into the woods to collect some before we move on ok?"
"Do as you please. But please be quick. I need coffee" Sonic answered.
His eyes then met Ash's who was observing the team.
"You going to Azalea too?"
"Yeah. The next gym leader awaits. And with him beat I will be one step closer to fighting you again".
Sonic's lips slightly moved upwards. Just as energetic as ever. And just as determined.
"Well guess you will be taking him on first".
"Why's that? So you can see them battle and know beforehand how they battle?"
"Nnnno… Just assumed you guys were going to proceed through the cave".
"It's better to wait for you three to join us as well" Brock explained "union cave is said to be really rough to traverse. So the more the merrier".
"Are you sure you guys want to wait? Knuckles could take a while" Tails asked them.
"No problem at all" Misty answered as everyone just joined in the relaxation. The pokemon egg she was carrying when the two teams met at Falkner's gym was now visible inside her backpack. Sonic wondered what was going hatch from it.
"Probably a water type" he guessed in silence "she did mention wanting to master water types".
Ash soon got bored.
"Are we going to wait for much longer?"
"We told you" Sonic answered "Knuckles will take his time collecting berries. So if you're patient it will probably be about 20 minutes".
"As long as you're not playing smartypants I don't care if it's 120 minutes" Ash roasted him.
"Daaaamn. That was rough" Tails couldn't help but comment "are you always that savage?"
"All the time" Misty answered for Ash while holding her egg.
Bored beyond belief and unwilling to just sit down and do nothing, Ash had Pikachu practice thunderbolt as well as taking out his new pokemon heracross.
"Woah that's a big one" Sonic was impressed by the big blue beetle.
"Jealous much?" Ash asked with a grin.
"Depends" Sonic shrugged "what's its type?"
"Like I'd tell you. Only a fool would give away his advantage" Ash said still grinning and teasing Sonic.
"Bug and fighting type" Brock simply answered for Ash.
"Brock! Whose side are you on anyway?!" Ash asked angry.
This same question asked to Brock during the whole Mewtwo adventure brought Sonic back momentarily again missing his old team a bit.
"Bug and fighting huh? Nah. Too many weaknesses, too little resistances. Maybe it's strong but I'd settle for good type coverage" Sonic spoke his mind.
"And then brag about power against types that beat you" Ash murmured though Sonic heard him.
While the two travelling squads interacted, Knuckles was doing well in his quest to collect berries. Apart from straight up feeding them to pokemon, they made for great pokemon food if mushed and turned to pokemon stew.
As he collected several ones like pecha berries for poisoning or cheri berries for paralysis, he heard chewing from something big.
"What could that be?" he wondered stashing the berries inside his berry pouch.
Walking through the thick trees he found the source of a chewing. A big blue beetle pokemon was eating from a GIGANTIC pile of berries.
"Dude" he said with a look that read jackpot "a powerful pokemon for my team and berries for us? Don't mind if I do" he spoke the last phrase as he sent out his quilava.
The big beetle turned in response to the appearance of an opponent. Quilava's back burst in flames as it was filled with excitement.
The wild pokemon attacked first with its huge horn sending quilava flying. Quilava rolled on the ground for a while but bounced back up.
"Quilava use ember!"
Quilava unleashed its attack against the wild pokemon causing it great damage.
"Oh damn it must be a bug type! I should have checked the dex first! No matter" he said taking out a pokeball and throwing it at the wild blue beetle before it got a chance to counterattack.
One, two and then three wiggles.
The catch was confirmed.
"Hell yeah!" Knuckles said picking up the pokeball and sending out his new catch "Sonic's gonna be so jealous. And this thing is bound to be a big help against team rocket".
He then proceeded to scan his new catch with his pokedex.
"Heracross, the Single Horn Pokémon. Though gentle and docile, Heracross possesses great strength and power, enough to topple a massive tree".
"Nice" Knuckles commented as he recalled heracross and collected as many berries as his pouch could carry.
Back at the entrance of the cave, Tails had got into a conversation with Brock who talked about his dream of becoming a pokemon breeder. Tails brought out his sentret which Misty found cute, but had to lie about the conditions of their meeting.
While they were talking Sonic observed Ash training. The training was rather simple and Sonic could think of more than 5 better ways for Pikachu to train, one of which would be for Ash to drop the idea of a mixed attacker.
"Why are you keeping quick attack if Pikachu can't take physical confrontations?" he asked Ash.
"I'm surprised you ask. Your raichu too knows quick attack".
"Indeed but mine has been built for physical combat. This is why I keep quick attack. Cause we've maximized its effectiveness".
Ash refrained from answering simply because he could see Sonic's point. He hated it when his rival's logic made sense.
"Plus" Sonic added "raichu's momentum and force of impact is increased not only by the physical strength it has built but also because of its shape. Small but strong. Like a bullet".
"Same case for Pikachu" Ash countered.
"Not exactly. Pikachu is smaller in size. That takes away from the force of impact. If my raichu was any bigger in size, the force would be greater and could actually do more damage but the speed would be less. On the contrary if like in Pikachu's case it was smaller it would be faster, but the move would be ineffective. Adding two and two together small combined with the mixed attacker idea quick attack is nothing more than a love tap for your Pikachu".
"I think I asked you not to be smartypants while we're here" Ash looked sideways.
"Hey just trying to help" Sonic shrugged.
"You're not helping by suggesting I evolve Pikachu to get… whatever you said" Ash confronted him.
"I didn't even suggest that. I simply suggest replacing quick attack with a move that puts you in a better spot during a battle".
"The moves we choose is for me and Pikachu to decide" Ash declared and went back to training while Sonic went back to observing.
Soon after that Knuckles finally returned.
"Yo guys! You won't believe what I…" he paused when he realized Ash also had a heracross "caught".
"What did you catch?" Tails asked him.
Knuckles sent out heracross. Ash's heracross approached Knuckles' gently and they began interacting – "huh guess the pokedex wasn't lying about gentle and docile" Knuckles thought. Ash of course took that personally.
"Copying me Knucklehead?"
"Why would I need to copy you?" Knuckles countered "I actually aim to beat Sonic in the league".
"Oh yeah? Heracross show him your horn attack!" Ash ordered the attack.
The heracrosses looked at Ash in confusion.
"My heracross not you heracross" he said referring to Knuckles' heracross.
"Yeah… anyway. Should we begin? The cave will be long" Knuckles suggested recalling his heracross leaving Ash with the battle desire.
"Sure thing" Brock agreed.
Knuckles took out a flashlight and then took the lead as the 6 trainers walked into union cave.
The cave wasn't particularly dark. Knuckles' experience also made him proficient in traversing wild hazards like caves, canyons and of course ruins. If anything came to wild exploring, he was the echidna for the job.
Brock followed close by. Misty and Tails each holding their egg and pokemon respectively were right behind while Ash was second to last on the line with Sonic dead last, his mind drifting once again back to last night.
"Could Silver be Giovanni's son? Could Giovanni even have a son?" were the first questions to pop in his mind.
The respective answers where he could be and probably. Giovanni was certainly old enough to have been married or at least in an affair with someone.
"But if that kid is his son… why didn't he come after me right after team rocket's downfall?" Sonic wondered.
There was of course no answer for that, only speculation.
"More than that. The theft of totodile… it no longer seems to be a coincidence. For it to happen on the same day we arrived in new bark town… he must have been waiting for me. But how would he know when to act? Or even that I would be there at all?"
Too many questions. And too few answers.
Ash in the meantime, looked ahead, observing Knuckles expertly navigate through the cave, leading everyone forward.
"Hey Knucklehead".
"It's Knuckles, Ketchum" Knuckles answered.
Ash continued.
"Did you teach Sonic how to navigate?"
"I did give him a hint or two during the Kanto journey. Why?"
"He effortlessly found the nest of the titan Moltres in the orange islands when we went to find the treasures".
"Ash I merely navigated to make sure we wouldn't get lost" Sonic interjected "we were in a race against time back then. There was no room for mistakes".
"How did you even know to look there Sonic?" Misty asked him.
"My friends here helped me with everything. Tails researched the climate of the islands and that way we were able to surmise that the titan Moltres was in trouble. Knuckles filled me in when it came to the legend of Lugia".
"Oh that's what you meant when you said you were well connected" Misty realized looking back at him.
"Exactly" Sonic smiled proud of his friends.
While the two teams were pushing on together, Pikachu kept a close eye on raichu at all times. While their rivalry was still strong, Pikachu had to admit that its rival taking down its charizard friend, and in just one hit, was a rather impressive feat.
And now as Ash's undisputed strongest pokemon, Pikachu had to grow stronger.
Strong enough to stand against its rival.
"Hey Ash?" Knuckles said from the lead of the group "do you mind bringing out Charizard? We could use a fire type to light the path and scare away those annoying zubats".
Ash didn't respond, merely looking down as if he was trying to avoid everyone's gaze.
"Ash?" Knuckles stopped and looked back.
Sonic realized something was wrong.
"Hey you ok?"
"Yeah… just… Charizard is not with me right now".
Sonic was taken aback at this response. Their battle had actually taught Ash something?
"Where is it then? Did you send it home in order to focus on the new team?" Tails asked.
Misty waved no at Tails, suggesting he just not bring it up.
"No" Ash answered as a tear could be seen on his right cheek, right under that small lightning shaped feature he had on his cheek "I left it at the charicific valley".
"Charicific valley? What is it, a heaven for Charizards?" Knuckles asked.
"In a way" Brock explained "let's move forward. Ash is it ok if I fill them in on the rest?"
"Go ahead" Ash said still looking down. Pikachu climbed on his shoulder to make him feel better.
"After we left Violet city we kept on our path until we came across the entrance to the charicific valley on the west of the path. There lived a charizard trainer and many powerful Charizards and if I may add, bigger in size than Ash's".
"That is to be expected" Tails agreed "pokemon biology is different per organism. Just like humans".
"You know a lot about pokemon don't you?" Brock asked Tails intrigued.
"Well I had to learn. My friend run off to become a trainer. Had it not been for me, Knuckles and his brother Jet, he would have landed roughly a lot of times".
"Landed?" Ash asked confused.
"Figure of speech dude" Tails joked.
Everyone laughed, even Ash. He wondered how Sonic, Tails and Knuckles were friends when they were nothing alike at least in his eyes.
"As I was saying, Charizard immediately challenged the other charizards to battles and lost. All of them. Badly" Brock continued his explanation.
"After that I left Charizard there. So it could grow stronger. It had a lot to learn. So the sooner it got started the better" Ash ended the story.
Sonic nodded though no one saw. He understood this. His pokemon also parted ways with him, only their reason was self fulfilment. Though he still had access to them whenever he wanted as the battle with Falkner had showed, he still understood why it was better for them to be apart for now. The pain of separation wasn't any less though.
"I understand you dude" Sonic said after a while "I too miss my Kanto team a lot. Raichu does too. They were its first teammates. I am sure your Pikachu also misses his Kanto team teammates right?"
Ash looked back, momentarily wondering if Sonic was sincere. Afterwards he nodded.
"It does. A lot. But we both feel better when we look ahead. Every day is filled with a new adventure. And besides it's not like we will never see our friends from Kanto again. They are chilling at professor oak's lab back in pallet town. Where's your old team?"
Sonic hesitated to answer momentarily.
"Back in our hometown" he lied trying to sound sincere "enjoying a calm routine at my parents' house".
He hoped they would believe his lie.
And as it looked like, they did.
"I see. I hope you can access them though. I intend to do a little mixing in the johto league. You better be prepared" Ash said smiling mischievously.
"You mean you will use pokemon from your entire pool of choices?" Knuckles asked him.
"Yes. Everyone of my partners will have a share in the glory of our soon to be victory".
"Heh. We'll see about that Ketchum. You have two roadblocks in your way".
"I will run over both you and Sonic" Ash declared confident.
"One step at a time Ash" Sonic reminded him "we're still at the start of the journey through Johto. Focus on the present and grow your pokemon like me and Knuckles do".
After a lot more banters, roasts, jokes and discussion including but not limited to Tails narrating to Ash's team the events of the night raichu evolved from Pikachu and their encounter with Zapdos – which Sonic added was the same Zapdos Mike used in the league against him -, Sonic revealing his discovery of team rocket's plans and how he had managed to recover and break the master ball the very same day Ash got the marshbadge and lastly his legendary battle with Moltres and how it took place on top of Cinnabar island's volcano – Ash revealed that he fought and beat Blaine at the same place – the gang finally saw light at the end of the tunnel.
Exiting the cave they were all blinded by the harsh sunlight but there it was. They had done it.
"Azalea town. I can't wait to challenge the gym leader" Ash said pumped.
"You guys coming?" Brock asked team Sonic.
"Nah. We need something to eat pronto" Sonic said and as if on cue his stomach growled "see? It agrees with me".
"Ok then so long for now. Knuckles thanks for leading us through the cave" Brock thanked the echidna as they shook hands.
"Anytime".
As Ash's team left to get to find the gym, team Sonic found a place to sit down and grab a good old sandwich.
As Sonic was chewing and cutting a piece to give to raichu, he couldn't help but feel a sense of uneasiness about the place. As if something was out of place here.
While the team was eating, raichu decided to stroll around for a moment, though Sonic warned it not to stray too far away.
Not even 5 steps away from the café, Raichu immediately got distracted by a wild spearow. Annoying creatures.
As raichu chased the spearow, he suddenly stopped as two very distinct sounds reached its ears.
A punch and a gasp in response.
Raichu forgot about the spearow and looked for the source of the sound.
It didn't take long to find it.
In an alleyway, a man was getting beat up.
By a team rocket grunt.
"Rai!" raichu almost cried out but refrained.
"Has that refreshed your memory buddy? Are you ready to tell me for real? Did you snitch on us?"
"No… I didn't. The manager sent me" he said as he coughed "to tell you that he is waiting".
"Your manager better be telling the truth cause if he or anyone in your stupid restaurant snitches on us, team rocket will retaliate with full force".
Raichu's eyes widened at the mention of team rocket.
"As for the waiting, tell him that he will get the slowpoke tails when we are ready to deliver. After all we're the only supply. And tell him admin Archer sends his regards" the grunt said and left.
Raichu immediately rushed to a couple passing nearby and directed them to the alleyway to at least get some help to the guy who got beat up. Before the couple noticed Raichu had slipped away and rushed back to the restaurant in a fit of panic.
"Raichu?" Sonic asked worried when he noticed his partner's panic "are you ok? What's wrong?"
"Rai rai raichu rai! Rai!" raichu cried out while pointing on all directions.
"What is it saying?" Knuckles asked Sonic.
"I don't know. Tails the voltmeter".
"I can't. The algorithm got scrambled remember?"
"Damnit".
Raichu kept crying out its name when suddenly an idea came to its mind. It first dropped down and took as best as it could the relaxed posture of a slowpoke.
"Raichu get up you're not a slowpoke" Sonic said in confusion.
"Rai rai!"
"Wait could it be panicking about slowpokes? There is an attraction here called the slowpoke well. It was one of the things on my to-visit bucket list" Tails explained.
Raichu started nodding extremely fast and then did another depiction. Standing on its tail momentarily it put its hands on its sides and looked up taking the shape of a rocket.
"Now what is it doing?" Sonic asked Tails.
"I think this is a reenactment of rocket launching" Tails said before realizing what he just said.
"Team rocket!" all 3 said at once as raichu sighed in relief.
"What does that mean though? Team rocket is at the slowpoke well?" Sonic wondered "why would they bother with slowpokes?"
Knuckles knew the answer.
"Slowpoke tails are edible. And extremely expensive".
"What?!" Sonic and Tails asked in unison.
"I remember having them once. They were really delicious. But back then I was only a kid. Later on too, I learned that the restaurant in which I had them was shut down for illegally harvesting them. The process is long and monitored because just cutting the tail causes excruciating pain to the slowpoke. Normally slowpoke water farms are where tails are harvested under special measures to spare the slowpokes the pain".
Sonic felt his blood boil.
"Of course. And let me guess the place is a sanctuary for slowpokes so people usually don't go in there right?"
"Exactly" Knuckles reaffirmed.
"Damn rockets. Every time they sink into new lows of evil. They must harvesting the tails as we speak" Sonic said and then sprang up "get up team Sonic. Our first battle approaches".
Tails and Knuckles also got up equally determined.
Team Sonic exited the café and started walking down the street towards the slowpoke well. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Raichu.
"We warned you team rocket. Now we're coming for you" Sonic thought eager to finally do what he had come to Johto for.