Make sure to read The Team Rocket Movie, taking place between episodes 106 and 107.

Also, if you haven't seen this summer's major announcement, be sure to visit the Cosmic Quest Official Website for all the details on the newly announced Pokémon Sol Version fan game, an actual Tenno Pokémon game!

Episode 107: The More Things Change

Brenda stands in the middle of a park. Wispirit floats in front of her, ready for action. Ash and Brock are sitting on a nearby park bench watching her. Brenda proclaims, "Okay Wispirit, this is it! It's time to inaugurate our brand-new style! Use Rain of Terror!"

"Wiiiiispiriiiiit!" As with a traditional Rain of Terror, the move begins with a dark vortex of shadows opening in the sky above. From there, it takes a drastic change. The usually formless blobs of shadows instead pour from the vortex in the shape of flowers. The usually dark-purple color of the shadows take on a lighter hue. These "flowers" rain down all around Wispirit, and explode into a cloud of purple sparkles upon impacting the ground.

Ash and Brock stand to give Brenda and Wispirit a standing ovation.

Our heroes have arrived in Starnight City, the location of Brenda's next contest. And the timing is perfect, it would seem that Brenda has made a major step towards her goal of creating a brand-new style that's all her own.

Without warning, a monotone voice suddenly states, "What a pathetic use of a Rain of Terror."

The voice startles Brenda, causing her jump. This amuses Wispirit greatly. Brenda turns to see Damien, Michelle's creepy partner from the tag contest, standing right behind her. "Oh… Damien…" Suddenly she realizes the insult and puts her arms on her hips as she asks with annoyance, "What do you mean 'pathetic?'"

Damien explains, "Rain of Terror is the ultimate spooky move. It's supposed to be used to unsettle your opponents. Not… for flowers."

Brenda pouts. "I'll have you know, that's the entire point of my brand-new style. It's all about transformation. You expect Rain of Terror to be a scary move, so I transform it and make it pretty."

If Damien were a livelier person, he probably would have laughed at the concept. Instead he says, "Pitiful," and walks away.

Brenda pouts and huffs angrily, "The nerve of that guy. I worked hard on that transformation."

Brock suggest, "Don't worry about him. He clearly already has a style of his own, and has some very strong opinions about it."

Ash agrees, "Yeah, you remember how he is, he just likes to creep everyone out." To change the topic, he asks, "So what's up with the whole transformation thing anyways?"

Brenda happily explains, "I was inspired by everything that happened to us when we met that Shinx and Pichu. Nothing was like what we expected, everything changed. That made me realize that that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to focus on transformation. It's the goal of any coordinator to transform a move to make it look spectacular, but I want to take that a step forward. I want to completely transform a move into something completely unexpected. Turn one thing into something unexpected and different. I guess you could say that I'm transforming the concept of transformation."

Never ones to be far away, Jessie, James, and Meowth listen in on this conversation from behind a nearby trashcan. Jessie is feverishly jotting down notes. James comments, "I don't get it. What exactly are you doing, Jess?"

Jessie looks up to explain, "We may have failed to capture Blaise and learn of her coordinator secrets, but that doesn't mean I can't benefit from her knowledge second-hand. Whatever the Twerpette does, I'll do better."

Meowth asks, "So you're going to copy her new style?"

Jessie scoffs. "The great Princess Jessileia doesn't copy others, she supersedes them. And according to everything I just heard, I know exactly how to win this next contest. The secret is transpiration."

James and Meowth are confused. "Transpiration…?"

Jessie nods. "Yeah, transpiration. If that's the secret to contests Blaise taught the Twerpette, then that's what I too shall adopt." She pauses. "Only problem is, I have no idea what that word means."

Meowth and James glance at each other, and wordlessly decide that it's not worth it to correct Jessie.

Jessie decides, "So, we'll just have to capture the Twerpette and make her tell us."

Against his better judgement, Meowth suggests, "Or, you could just use, you know, a dictionary?"

Jessie pauses. "A what?"

James groans. "Here we go…"

Meowth complains, "Oi vey…"

Brenda walks down a sidewalk, with Ash and Brock following her. Brenda walks with a heavy step, demonstrating that she's still upset about Damien. Ash tries to catch up to her and asks, "What's got you so upset, Brenda? What do you care about what Damien thinks?"

Brenda stops and sighs. "Don't you remember the reason why Blaise first brought up the concept of a style to me?"

Ash contemplates for a moment. "No, not really."

Brenda explains, "She said that a coordinator's unique style says a lot about their purpose. I don't know what my purpose is. I thought I just started doing contests because they looked fun, but Blaise was right, I care way more about contests than that. The thing is, I don't know why. To become a better coordinator, I need to figure out my purpose, and to figure out my purpose, I need to discover my own style."

Brock nods in understanding. "So, when Damien insults your new style, he's actually insulting you personally."

Brenda nods solemnly. "That's it exactly."

Ash asks out of curiosity, "So if you've figured out your new style, does that mean you've figured out your purpose?"

Brenda slouches slightly. "No…" After a pause she adds, "I still haven't even made the style my own. I still need to work on it and refine it. Truly make it something that reflects me. Not until it's perfect it will I truly realize what it means about me."

Ash ponders, "You know, Damien has a pretty clear style of his own, I wonder what it says about him."

Brenda ponders this. "That's a good question. Actually, that makes me wonder…maybe, if I analyze someone's style, I can get some sort of insight into the person. Maybe that can give me some sort of advantage over them." With that, she runs off suddenly.

Ash calls out, "Where are you going?"

Without stopping, she answers, "To test my hypothesis! I'm going to go gather some more information!"

Ash looks to Brock and asks, "Should we follow?"

Brock nods. "Yeah, let's-" He cuts himself off when he sees an Officer Jenny walk by. He picks back up, "not, I'm sure that Brenda can handle herself." He then runs off after Jenny, calling, "Oh officer, I'd like to report a robbery! Of my heart!"

Ash contemplates what he should do, shrugs at Pikachu, who shrugs back, and decides to follow Brock.

Brenda locates Damien. He's sitting on a park bench reading a book. Brenda takes a deep breath to fortify herself and then approaches Damien from behind. With a clearly forced charisma, Brenda greets, "Hi Damien, what are you reading?"

Damien looks skeptically at Brenda. "What do you care?"
"It must be pretty interesting for you to be out here reading it instead of doing something else."

Damien raises a brow above his glasses. "I happen to enjoy reading, thank you very much."

Brenda backpedals, "Of course you do. Why wouldn't you? I didn't mean to imply otherwise. There's nothing wrong with reading."

Damien simply responds, "Right," and returns to reading.

Brenda tries to figure out what to say next. "So… how's your day going?"

Damien snaps his book closed and turns to Brenda. He asks with annoyance, "What do you want?"

Brenda feigns ignorance. "I just want to chat. Is something wrong with that?"

"Look, unlike some people, I'm blunt. Normally girls do whatever they can to avoid me. I can tell something is up here. So how about you just tell me what you want from me so we can get this awkward conversation over with, and I can get back to my reading?"

"Come on, Damien. Can't we just chat?"

Damien sighs. "Fine. Chat away."

Brenda suddenly isn't sure what to say.

Damien nods. "I thought as much." He looks back down to the closed book in his lap.

Brenda decides to just say it. "I was wondering if you could tell me about your contest style. It certainly is…" She's at a loss for words.

Damien finishes for her, "Unusual, weird, bizarre?"

"I was going to say unique."

"Same thing."

Now Brenda sighs. "You give me the whole 'poor me' story of no one wanting to talk to you, but you know what? If this is how you talk to everyone, it's no surprise."

Taking an even more blunt attitude, Damien points out, "Did ever occur to you that maybe I don't want to talk to people? You think you're being so polite." In a mocking voice, he imitates, "'Oh, that poor Damien looks so lonely, maybe I should try to talk to him?' Well don't. I'm alone because that's how I'm most comfortable. You're not being polite, you're just bothering me."

Brenda puts her arms on her hips in a show of annoyance. But before she can object any further, a massive net falls from the sky and ensnares both Brenda and Damien. They're scooped up and towed into the sky. This action causes several of their Pokéballs to dislodge from their storage and fall to the ground. Notably, one Pokéball doesn't slip through the net, and instead becomes lodged in one of the holes.

As if this is no more an inconvenience than Brenda's conversation, Damien moans, "What now?"

Brenda strains to get a look up above the net and shouts, "What's going on!?" She realizes that the net is being towed upwards by a hot air balloon, more specifically, Team Rocket's balloon.

Jessie leans down over the edge of the basket and responds with, "I'd say prepare for trouble, but it's already too late!"

James peeks over and adds, "And I'd say make it double, but you're in no state!"

"To capture a twerpette and learn a word!"

"To be clear, Jessie is plainly no nerd!"

"To bolster my drab vocabulary!"

"How'd she know those words without a library!?"

"Jessie!"

"James!"

"Team Rocket learns new words at the speed of light!"

"Surrender now or prepare for a word fight!"

"Meowth, that's right!"

"Wobbuffet!"

Wobbuffet appearing causes the group to suddenly lurch forward and nearly fall over the edge of the basket. Mime Jr. appears for its part, but this only puts James further off balance. He begins to flail his arms in an attempt regain his balance. This causes the basket to sway and rock. This rocking causes the lodged Pokéball to slip from its place in the net and fall towards the ground.

When it hits the ground, the Pokéball opens and Wispirit appears. "Wisp!" It looks around but sees no one. It looks up just in time to see Team Rocket's balloon passing out of sight. "Wisp?" It floats off in pursuit.

Back in the air, Team Rocket has regained their balance. Brenda attempts to shove her way out of the net, but it's useless. She falls backwards and lands on top of Damien.

Damien shouts in annoyance, "Get off of me! This is an extreme invasion of my personal space."

Brenda attempts to move but can't. "Okay, sure. I'll just move over there where there's plenty of room."

Damien attempts, but fails, to cross his arms. "Point taken."

Brenda attempts to grab a Pokéball but finds that they're all missing. "My Pokéballs are gone!"

Damien tries to get one of his. "Mine too!"

Up in the basket, Team Rocket is celebrating their victory. James says, "And now that we've captured the Twerpette plus one, we'll be raking in the Pokémon.

Jessie scoffs, "That's not why we captured them. We need to land and interrogate them on what that mysterious transpiration word means."

Meowth groans and says to himself, "You'd really think that having a movie made about us would have had a little more positive effect on our character…"

The entire balloon suddenly rocks. This seems to have been caused by a glancing blow to the balloon by a beam of silvery-gold energy. James shouts, "What's the big idea!?"

Team Rocket looks to the source of the attack to see a group of Trevenant and Phantump beneath them. One of the Trevenant angrily shouts, "Treve! Trevenant! Treve!"

Jessie looks down to Meowth. "Translation?"

Meowth says, "I'll spare you the Pokémon's colorful language, but it's saying that we've invaded its territory. This section of the forest belongs to the Trevenant."

James suggests, "Well tell them that we're just passing through."

Before Meowth gets the chance, another Solar Beam is aimed at the balloon, and this time it doesn't miss. The balloon explodes, sending Team Rocket in one direction and Brenda and Damien in the other. As they disappear, Team Rocket shouts, "We're blasting off again!"

Brenda and Damien land on the ground with a thud. They are freed from the net, but as they stand up, they find themselves being approached by the angry Trevenant gang. Brenda and Damien take one quick glance at each other, and then run away. The Trevenant and Phantump pursue.

Ash and Brock walk through the park from earlier. Brock looks mopey. He laments, "Officer Jenny, why?"

Ash suddenly stops. "Brock, look!"

Brock looks up with hope. "Officer Jenny?" He is disappointed when he sees her nowhere.

Ash shakes his head. "No, on the ground there." He's pointing to the spot where Brenda and Damien were abducted. Their Pokéballs sit where they fell. Ash runs over and grabs one at random. From it, he lets out Kappaqueous.

The Pokémon looks around with confusion, trying to find Brenda. "Kappa appa?"

Brock realizes, "Kappaqueous? Those must be Brenda's Pokéballs!"

Ash surmises, "And there's no way she would just leave them on the floor like that. Something must have happened to her!"

Brock, looking oddly excited, asks, "Do you know what that means?"

This confuses Ash. "What?"

"This is the perfect job for Officer Jenny!"

Ash and Brock, with Brock proudly leading the way, march into a police station. Officer Jenny sits behind a desk. She looks up, saying, "Is there anything I can…" She trails off as she recognizes Brock. "Oh no, not again. I told you that I would arrest you if you bothered about anything that wasn't an actual crime!"

Brock defends, "But my dear, sweet, lovely Officer Jenny, this is an actual crime! Our friend is missing!"

"Well, why didn't you say so? Let's go!" She gets up from her desk and runs out. Ash and Brock follow.

Who's that Pokémon!?

They are known to charge so wildly that if a train were to enter their territory, they would send it flying.

Brenda and Damien slow down, having fled to a safe distance. Damien seems especially winded. Brenda comments, "I think we lost them."

Between pants, Damien says, "Good… I could… use a break…" He falls to the ground and rests against a tree.

Brenda ponders, "I wonder what's got those Pokémon so riled up." She pulls out her Pokédex to look for an answer.

It says, "Trevenant, the Elder Tree Pokémon and a Ghost and Grass Combo-Type. Trevenant will stop at no ends to protect the forest they call home. It is advised that travelers avoid forests where these Pokémon live. Evolves from Phantump via trading."

Brenda surmises, "I guess they think we're invaders…"

Damien scoffs, "You're the invader here."

Brenda tilts her head. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Spooky woods, ghost Pokémon, secluded and quiet. This is my sort of place."

Brenda glares at him. "I guess that's why you were running in fright."

"That was only because I was following your lead. I realize now that was a mistake."

Brenda continues to glare silently at him. She decides it's not worth it, so she suggests, "I'm pretty sure Team Rocket flew us in from that direction, so we should go that way."

Damien points out, "That's the direction the Trevenant are in."

"I thought you weren't afraid of them."

"I never said I was. I'm thinking about you here."

Brenda sarcastically responds, "You're so considerate." After a pause, she continues, "While true, there's no other option if we want to get out of the woods. Maybe we'll get lucky."

Damien agrees and they walk off.

It's Bouffalant!

Officer Jenny inspects the dropped Pokéballs. She says, "This is unfortunate."

Brock hopefully suggests, "That you're not my girlfriend?"

Ignoring him, Ash asks, "What is it, Officer?"

Jenny explains, "Judging by the pattern these Pokéballs fell in it, would seem that your friend was taken in that direction." She points to the woods that boarder the park. "And that's the last place your friend will want to be."

Ash asks, "How come?"

"Those woods are protected by a group of extremely territorial Phantump and Trevenant. Suffice it to say that they do not take kindly to strangers."

Brock says worry, "That is unfortunate."

Ash says with determination, "We have to go after her."

Jenny says, "We're going to have to be careful, but I agree."

Brenda and Damien walk cautiously through the woods. Brenda suggests, "So… how about that chat we started earlier?"

Damien groans. "Must we?"

"You got a better idea on how to pass the time?"

"Yes. Walking in silence."

Brenda sighs.

And so, they walk in silence for some time more. But the silence is abruptly shattered when a Trevenant bursts out from behind some trees, flanked by two Phantump. Roots burst up from the ground around Brenda and Damien.

Brenda cowers back in fear. Damien takes an unflinching step forward and shouts, "Trevenant! Stop this! We don't want to hurt your forest! We just want to get out!"

Brenda is surprised by this course of action.

Trevenant seems to not care. One of the roots swipes at Damien, knocking him back.

Brenda helps him to his feet and says, "I think it's time to run."

Damien nods. "Agreed." The two flee once more. Trevenant seems uninterested in following them.

Damien suddenly collapses onto the ground from his sprint. Brenda turns to look back at him. "What's wrong?"

"It's my leg, I think I hurt it when Trevenant attacked me. I can't run anymore."

Brenda looks around. "I don't think that the Trevenant was interested in chasing us anyways." She contemplates this fact. "Which is unusual. If it really were about protecting the forest, you'd think it would chase us no matter where we are in the forest. Instead, they seem to only attack when we get close to certain point. Hmm…"

Damien props himself against a boulder and elevates his leg on another rock. "It doesn't really matter, either way they're stopping us from getting out of here. And now with my leg hurt, I don't know what we're going to do."

Brenda suggests, "I don't think we have much of a choice. If we want to make it out, we have to try to make it past them again."

Damien looks up to her like she's crazy. "What do you expect to change? We're just going to be put into the exact same scenario again. What's the point? Besides, I can't walk anywhere."

Brenda shakes her head. "No, you're wrong. Everything changes. Nothing is static. Maybe things will turn out the same, but maybe they won't. There's nothing we can do but try."

Damien beckons to his leg. "Did you not hear the part about my leg?"

Without warning, Brenda grabs ahold of Damien's side and pulls him up. She slings one of his arms over her shoulder to support his weight and help him walk. "There. Now we move."

Damien winces. "Human contact…"

Brenda sneers at him, "You think I'm happy about this? Let's just move on and get this over with." They slowly trudge forward.

As they continue their trek, Damien posits, "You're wrong, you know."

Brenda is taken aback. "Huh?"

"What you said earlier, about everything changing. That's just not the truth. Nothing truly changes. This world is static."

"Why would you say that?"

"Because that's just the way life is, and the sooner you accept it, the sooner you'll stop being disappointed."

Brenda eyes him suspiciously.

He continues, "I'm the creepy kid. Always have been, always will be. You're the pretty girl, always have been, always will be."

Brenda raises a brow and questions, "You think I'm pretty?"

"That's not the point."

"Okay, what is then?"

"The point is what I said. Things are what they are, and the best we can do is work with what we're dealt." He pauses. "You asked me about my contest style, that's what I mean. I'm the creepy kid, that's not going to change, so instead I own it and everything about my performances becomes creepy."

Brenda stops for a moment to contemplate this. "I can't accept that. Change is fundamental force of life. I've changed so much since I started off as a coordinator. You can't tell me that doesn't mean anything."

"The 'change' you refer to is nothing but an illusion."

Brenda shakes her head. "You're wrong."

They walk in silence for a while longer. Eventually, Brenda breaks the silence by saying, "If I've been tracking our distance correctly, I think we're nearing where the Trevenant attack. They could appear at any-"

"Wisp!" Wispirit manifests behind Brenda.

Brenda leaps upwards, dropping Damien in the process. "Yikes!"

Damien, despite being dropped on the ground, cracks up in laughter.

Once Brenda realizes what startled her, she puffs her cheeks in anger and asks, "And what's so funny?"

Between laughs, Damien says, "You just got scared by your own Pokémon!"

Brenda puts her hands on her hips. "For all I know, it could have been Trevenant."

Damien just continues to laugh, but then he too leaps up in shock when Wispirit appears behind him and shouts, "Wisp!"

Now both Brenda and Wispirit laugh at him.

Brenda looks to Wispirit and says, "Wispirit, I'm so glad to see you," she pauses, "despite your introduction…"

Wispirit laughs, "Wisp wisp wisp wisp!"

Brenda looks to Damien and makes the point, "See, something has changed. We've got Wispirit on our side now."

Damien shakes his head. "It's not going to matter. That one Pokémon up against all those Trevenant and Phantump. We still have no chance."

Brenda hoists Damien back up. "I guess we'll just have to find that out first hand."

After walking further, Brenda comments, "Strange, I can say for a fact that we're well past where we've ever made it before. I thought for sure we would have been attacked by now." She looks to Damien. "How's that for a change?"

"Nothing has changed, we've just gotten lucky. That doesn't mean we're not going to be attacked."

On cue, a voice shouts, "Trevenant!"

Brenda and Damien both flinch in anticipation, but no Trevenant or Phantump show themselves. Brenda breathes a sigh of relief.

She and Damien cautiously peak around a tree, towards the source of the voice. They see into a clearing, where the group of Trevenant and Phantump stand gathered. They encircle what looks to be some sort of shrine made out of wood. The shrine looks extremely old, and as if it could fall apart at any moment. The Phantump and Trevenant have each formed their own ring around the shrine.

Brenda whispers, "It looks like they're performing some sort of ceremony."

Damien comments, "How unusual."

Brenda suddenly realizes, "This is it. This is why they were only attacking us when we got to certain areas. They're not angry we're in their forest, they didn't want us to get near that shrine."

Damien nods. "That's good news. That means if we can make it past this shrine without them noticing, we're home free."

Brenda asks, "Did you hear that, Wispirit? Looks like we may not need your help after all." Wispirit is not there to respond. "Wispirit?"

With an uncertain look, Damien points to one of the Trevenant. "We may have a problem…"

Brenda looks, and notices that Wispirit is sneaking up behind the largest Trevenant. "Oh no…"

Wispirit lunges forward and shouts, "Wisp!"

This doesn't seem to startle the Trevenant at all, which confuses and disappoints Wispirit. The Trevenant suddenly turns around and shouts angrily, "Trevenant!" This startles Wispirit into fleeing. All the Trevenant and Phantump move to pursue it.

To help it, Brenda and Damien run into the grotto as fast as Damien's hurt leg allows. Brenda shouts, "Wispirit, let's try to distract them with our special technique!"

Damien objects, "No, these ghost Pokémon are creatures of darkness, your pathetic pretty attacks won't mean anything to them! You have to try to speak to them in their own language! Wispirit has to be creepy!"

Brenda stops to contemplate this for a second, dismisses it. "No, we are going to change things up! Wispirit, use Rain of Terror!"

Wispirit stops fleeing and turns to face its pursuers. "Wiiiiiiispiriiiiiit!" Wispirit opens a vortex above, and, just as earlier, from the vortex pours shadows taking the form of flowers. Wispirit also improvises and throws some leaf-shapes into the mix, perhaps to cater to its audience.

The Trevenant and Phantump are instantly transfixed by the spectacle. One says, "Treve…"

Damien says with disbelief, "It's actually working…?"

With the Pokémon transfixed, Brenda shouts, "Phantump, Trevenant! We aren't here to harm your shrine! We just want to get out of the woods and leave you alone! Please, we beg you to let us pass!"

The lead Trevenant looks to Brenda, looks around at the still falling flowers and leaves, and then looks to Wispirit. Wispirit nods, as if encouraging the Trevenant. After a moment more of contemplation, the Trevenant nods and happily announces, "Trevenant!"

Brenda asks with excitement, "Really?"

Damien asks with disbelief, "Really!?"

That's when Ash's voice can be hear shouting, "Brenda!"

Brock's voice follows, "Are you there!?"

This riles up the Trevenant. They prepare to go after the voices.

Brenda waves her arms and shouts, "No, those are my friends! They're looking for us! They'll leave with us!"

Trevenant eyes her skeptically, but nods.

With that, Brenda, Damien, and Wispirit leave to find the source of the calls. Brenda looks back and waves. "Bye!" The Trevenant and Phantump wave back.

Before long, they find Ash, Brock, and Officer Jenny. Ash exclaims, "Brenda! You're okay!"

Brenda smiles. "We had a run-in with Team Rocket, and then some Trevenant, but we made it through."

Officer Jenny asks with surprise, "You made it past the Trevenant? How!? They don't let anyone pass through this forest."

Brenda explains, "It turns out that they're not guarding the forest, but a shrine in its center. It looked really old."

Officer Jenny realizes, "I've heard of that shrine before. It was constructed over a hundred years ago by settlers in this area. It was created from the wood of the largest and oldest tree in the woods."

Brock surmises, "I'll bet that tree was important to the Trevenant. After all, a forest is an extension to the body of a Trevenant. They lost their tree, so they swore to protect what remained of it over the generations."

Officer Jenny nods. "That would explain the Trevenant attacks. Wow, this changes everything."

Brenda grins at Damien. "Everything changes."

That's certainly true for Brenda. Her new style is about to change everything about her way of performing in contests. With this new style to work with, her performances are going to take on a whole new life. Don't miss this change!

To Be Continued…