Chapter 63; An ever growing team

Raichu tried to strike back against its opponent. Its attack was met with a mega punch.

Crashing into the wall, it felt its entire body begin to fail as rhydon was bearing down on it.

Sonic was nearby, knocked out. Raichu had tried waking him up plenty of times but was never able to.

"Say goodbye to your partner! Rhydon horn drill!"

Raichu struggled to move, its entire body burning with pain. Rhydon knealt and prepared to jump towards Raichu.

"No no no!" Raichu though in despair.

Rhydon jumped. Raichu closed its eyes.

The attack never came.

Instead the sound of the implement of flesh pierced Raichu's eardrums.

Raichu's eyes tore wide open as it looked on to witness Jolty crying out in pain, impaled by Rhydon's horn.

"No! Not again!" Raichu cried out.

Jolty's eyes met Raichu's.

"You… failed me…"

"No… Jolty I didn't…"

"Failed… "

"No. No! Nooooo!"

"Nooooo!" Raichu cried out accidentally striking Sonic and by conduction, Tails and Knuckles, with thunder punch. Sonic was shocked.

"Raichu!" Sonic began berating it before noticing its troubled face "Raichu? You ok?"

Raichu didn't answer back or meet his eyes.

"You had a bad dream pal?" Sonic tried again while petting its head.

Raichu tried to exit the tent but couldn't open the zipper with its paws. Sonic looked at his friends and Tails, although troubled by Raichu's sudden behavior nodded. Sonic opened the zipper and Raichu ran aa small distance away, wishing to be alone for now.

"Go back to sleep" Sonic said while observing Raichu "it will reenter when ready".

"Yeah we will do that" Tails ironically agreed while also taking a spot to quietly observe Raichu.

Despite Tails saying they would watch over Raichu to make sure it was ok, all 3 were back asleep in about 5 minutes. If Raichu wanted some solitude it could have it.

The latter had just lied down on its back looking at the starry sky. Reaching out, Raichu wished it had asked Mewtwo to wipe its memory.

After the revelation the previous evening that Mike was the trainer of Espeon's brother, in other words that Espeon's brother was Jolty, Raichu felt a crushing pain in its heart.

It had managed to lie to Espeon saying that it was sure it and its brother would meet again someday. But that day would never come.

"It will never come" Raichu thought as a tear rolled down its cheek, causing a small bolt to crackle on it "and it's all my fault. Jolty jumped in front of that cursed horn to save me".

He recalled that moment with a lot of sorrow. How it had crashed into the wall during its battle with rhydon, being temporarily incapacitated. And then those horrible words were spoken in a demonic voice reeking pure evil.

"Say goodbye to your partner! Rhydon! Horn drill!"

Raichu had witnessed its adversary getting on 4 legs, then the drill starting rotating like a drill. It and Sonic had crossed eyes, fearing it was the end. And at that fatal moment Jolteon, its comrade, its rival – "my friend" Raichu thought in that instance – had electrocuted the rockets trying to seize it and had selflessly jumped in the way of horn drill.

Pokemon language couldn't be understood by humans but pokemon themselves could understand each other even if they were not the same species. But in that moment, no words needed to be spoken between Raichu and Jolteon.

Raichu relieved the moment as if it was happening right in front of it, and in slow motion too.

As Jolteon was jumping in front of the horn drill, being a moment away from being fatally impaled, its eyes had met Raichu. And the latter electric pokemon couldn't believe the look of Jolteon's face.

It was a confident smile. A reassuring smile. A way for Jolteon to speak a thousand words with a single look that meant "it's ok".

And at the next moment Raichu's face had been splattered by its friend's blood.

Returning to the present, the one tear had now become a stream. A stream that Raichu knew, wouldn't be able to hide forever in front of Espeon.

"What am I going to do?" Raichu wondered still in sorrow "I can't tell him that his brother is dead. It will break his heart".

The alternative wasn't any better though. If Raichu wouldn't come clean and even worse, lie about it, it knew once Espeon found out it would never forgive him. And in Raichu's mind rightly so.

"But it also will never forgive me when it finds out the truth" Raichu assumed.

One way or another it all led to a revelation that would be hard at best and unbearable at worst.

The continuous loop exhausted Raichu that fell asleep lying on the sand.

Once morning came and team Sonic was slowly waking up, Sonic himself found Raichu still outside.

"What the… it slept outside? That's so unlike it. I wonder what's going through its mind".

Tails woke up as well, eager to begin a new day on their journey.

"Morning blue leader".

Sonic didn't respond.

"I said morning".

Still no response.

"Earth to Sonic do you copy?"

"Huh?"

"What's on your mind?"

Sonic silently pointed to the still sleeping Raichu.

Tails too wasn't sure what to make of it.

"Maybe it wanted to stargaze to relax from the night terror and fell asleep?" he asked though it was obvious he didn't believe it to be the case.

Sonic nodded negatively but didn't outright deny it. Regardless of what was actually the case, one thing was for certain. Raichu was bothered by something.

"Go wake up Knuckles. We need to start packing up if we are to visit the safari zone today. I'll go see what the matter is with my partner pokemon".

Tails took one last look at Raichu and nodded. Sonic nodded as well and approached Raichu.

Sitting on the sand next to his partner, he put his hand on Raichu and very gently shook it.

"Hey buddy. Wakey wakey".

Raichu's eyes slowly opened, not immediately registering it was morning.

As the electric type's mind started processing its surroundings, it came to question why it was sleeping outside the tent. And that was when the memories of last night's painful dilemma returned.

For a moment Raichu contemplated telling or rather, mimicking the fact that Tails' Espeon was related to Jolty, to Sonic. If anyone had a good idea on how to proceed under such delicate circumstances, it would be Sonic.

The train of thought was stopped when Raichu caught eye of Espeon, having woken up and pacing up and down in the sand excitedly, clearly ready to begin a new adventure. And that image was enough for Raichu to make its choice. It knew what the consequences could possibly be but still made it.

"He won't learn. He mustn't learn about his brother's demise. Or that it was my fault".

With its decision made, Raichu hopped up, an excited smile etched on its face, looking just as ready as the rest to tackle the new day. Sonic smiled.

"First time for everything I guess" he thought relieved it wasn't anything serious "hope you got some good rest pal. A new day awaits" he told his partner.

"Rai rai!" Raichu excitedly cried out.

As Sonic went to help Knuckles and Tails pack everything up so they could set out for the safari zone, Raichu followed, it's seemingly confident and optimistic look, faltering for just a moment. Determined, it kept smiling.

Espeon wouldn't know. Its heart didn't need to break like that.

After team Sonic packed up, they made their way to town to restock on supplies before heading for the beginning of the mountain pass that led to the safari zone. A new, easier to traverse way there was currently under construction but wouldn't be completed for another month.

Of course team Sonic didn't have the time frame to wait for the easy way so they quickly decided they would take the mountain pass. Knuckles backed this up by jokingly saying 'go hard or go home, and I sure as hell am not going home yet' to hype up his friends for the journey there.

The three friends quickly found the start of the path and, with a couple of donuts for breakfast, began the hike.

The path soon became steep and narrow, though without any immediate danger. Tails was slightly nervous as he used to be afraid of heights. He was over that a long time ago but the circumstances he found himself in were a bit anxiety inducing.

"You'd figure the path would be rough to walk, not straight up hazardous" he commented he looked down, verifying that falling would lead to serious injury if not straight up passage to the afterlife.

"Just stick to the path and we'll be fine" Knuckles assured him.

Every now and then, the path included small caves. Those were more tunnels than caves as the path didn't naturally go forward by itself.

While into one of the longer tunnels, Sonic voiced his excitement for the safari zone.

"I can't wait" he suddenly said sending a small echo throughout the tunnel "just imagine what powerful pokemon could be waiting for us there".

"If we're half as lucky as you were when you found Pinsir back in Kanto, I will see it as an absolute win" Tails agreed.

"Speaking of lucky, have you had any luck with Cosmo yet?" Knuckles seized the opportunity to tease his friend again.

"Well…" Tails stuttered while blushing like a strawberry "she did suggest I should come by first chance we get".

"Seriously?!" Sonic exclaimed, this time sending a bigger echo through the tunnel "my dude she's going all out".

"Lucky you foxboy" Knuckles rubbed his huge palm on Tails' head.

"I'm very nervous" Tails admitted "I know our next visit there won't be any time soon but what do I do when it is?"

"Easy. You seize the chance this time" Sonic answered, sounding optimistic about his friend's odds.

"You think she will reciprocate?"

"Dude. She literally gave you her number on her own and now suggests you go to her. If those are not clear signals I don't know what is" Knuckles argued.

"Have you ever dated?"

"Well… no".

"Then how can you be sure?"

"It doesn't take a genius mate. I've already said it once and the more time passes, the more I believe I am correct. She is ready to serve herself on a silver platter for you".

Tails' heart beat a million times a second at the thought something would happen next time. He fought to not think of what if this or what if that, as he was sure it would cause his mind to short circuit.

After exiting the tunnel, they found their path blocked by pile of boulders.

"Seriously?" Sonic said frustrated "I'm starting to agree with Tails. A hard path to walk is one thing. This…"

"Chill pal" Knuckles said walking forward "I am here. I will climb up and then pull you up".

"We don't even need to do that" Tails smiled turning into a foxcopter "I can lift you over".

"I'm starting to get jealous" Sonic jokingly admitted as Tails grabbed his hands and lifted him over to the other side with ease.

Tails then went to lift Knuckles. Sonic was expecting then to soar over the pile of rocks but instead heard Tails groaning.

"Everything ok?" he called out to the other side.

"No" Tails voice replied "I can't lift him".

"Put me down. Don't strain yourself" Knuckles said.

Tails without an ounce of objection did so.

"Argh. My back. You're really heavy Knuckles".

"That's because I am one million percent muscle" the echidna jokingly gloated.

"Easy there heavyweight champion" Sonic roasted his friend.

"Well, back to plan A" Knuckles said walking up to the pile of rocks wearing his spiked gloves "I'll just climb over".

"Good" Tails said relieved as he flew on top of the pile of rocks.

Knuckles prepared for a moment then attempted to dig into the rock. A second later he cried out in pain.

"What happened?" Sonic asked, wondering what could have happened.

"Rock's too hard. I couldn't dig in".

"What?" Tails exclaimed looking down towards Knuckles "but I personally reinforced the spikes with a stronger material back in Green hills. This shouldn't be possible".

"Impossible yet very possible" Knuckles groaned rubbing his knuckles.

Suddenly the pile of boulders started shaking. Tails immediately flew off.

"What the hell?!" he shouted as the pile began moving.

"The rocks are moving?!" Knuckles wondered aloud.

"This is not a pile of rocks!" Sonic said in realization "this is a pokemon!"

"A pokemon?!" Tails and Knuckles exclaimed in unison.

The rocks then started lifting upwards.

"Pokemon disgusting as a pile of boulders… too hard for Knuckles to climb… only one pokemon we know fits the bill" Sonic surmised remembering his battle with a certain Hoenn region trainer.

The pile of rocks wasn't what it seemed. It was a wild…

"Steelix!" Tails said in shock.

The steelix roared in pain, looking around to see who punched it. A part of Sonic was impressed. Steelix was clearly hurt by Knuckles' attempt to climb it, even though the pokedex entry said its skin was hard as diamond. This was a very strong indication of how strong Knuckles was.

Steelix quickly realized it was surrounded from all sides. And that was never a good thing.

Grabbing an actual rock with its tail, it launched it towards Tails who was barely quick enough to get out of the way. Steelix wasted no time picking up another rock.

"Tails look out!" Sonic tried to warn his friend.

Steelix launched the rock. But this time the target was Sonic.

Sonic ducked out of the rock's trajectory, finding himself flat on the ground, his still short life having flashed before his eyes. On the bright side what he saw, which was his entire journey through Kanto, was awesome which did bring some momentary peace to his soul before remembering they were in a pickle.

Steelix and tried throwing a rock again. Knuckles, not being able to understand if it was aiming for Sonic or Tails, tried to distract it.

"Hey! Leave my friends alone you iron snake!" he shouted as he punched Steelix's body again.

The Steelix was surprisingly distracted, causing it to miss the attack, which was aimed for Tails. The huge pokemon then menacingly turned its attention to Knuckles, growling, clearly pissed off.

"Oh boy" Knuckles muttered.

Steelix roared and lunged at Knuckles. The echidna dodged to the side, playing right into the pokemon's hands. Steelix wrapped its tail around Knuckles, binding him in a devastating lock.

"Aaaargh!" Knuckles groaned as he was trying to push the tail off of him, but only being able to give himself room to breathe.

"Knuckles!" Tails tried to rush in only for Steelix to spin, surprisingly quickly for its massive size, sending another boulder towards Tails who barely got out of the way. Steelix then squeezed Knuckles even harder.

"Any day now guys! That thing is super heavy!" Knuckles called out to his teammates, a vein now visible on his forehead from the massive effort.

"Raichu! Brick break!"

Raichu attacked Steelix, but once it was too close to dodge, Steelix repeated the attack it used against Tails. Raichu was slammed into the boulder which then proceeded to slam into the rocky terrain around them. As Raichu's body took the impact of both the rock and the collision with the terrain, Sonic cried out in pain and knelt while grabbing his shoulders, feeling Raichu's pain to some extent.

"Sonic you ok?!" Tails called out to him while still airborne.

Steelix roared and squeezed even harder, completely wrapping its body around Knuckles.

"Aaaaaaaahhh!" the red echidna screamed as he felt his body being mushed like a potato.

Both Sonic and Tails reacted in an instant, with Sonic forgetting the pain. Each took out a pokeball without thinking and threw it towards Steelix.

Sonic's pokeball smacked Steelix and opened unleashing Quagsire. Before Quagsire could attack however, Tails' pokeball smacked Steelix. The pokeball was revealed to be empty, therefore transforming Steelix into red energy, absorbing it into the ball and freeing Knuckles. As the latter breathed heavily from all the squeezing, all 3 witnessed the ball shake once, twice, thrice. And lastly the catch sound.

As the pokeball laid there, with Tails' unexpected new team member, the three heroes were speechless.

Knuckles was the first to speak.

"Nice going Tails! Thanks for the save".

"That was some quick thinking" Sonic complimented Tails, deeply impressed.

"I wasn't thinking" Tails admitted as he landed next to the pokeball "I was just trying anything to get it off of Knuckles" he explained picking up the ball.

After making sure Knuckles was ok the three friends continued on their way.

"Admittedly, we started off quite good" Sonic said with a sudden memory jolt "Steelix is quite strong. Remember how much trouble Harrison's Steelix gave me? Had Raichu not been as battle hardened as it is, I don't think we would have won".

Raichu reacted to this statement by slightly electrocuting Sonic via contact with its left cheek.

"And this one is surprisingly fast" Knuckles continued Sonic's line of thought "did you see how quick it could throw those rocks? Imagine what it could do with a powerful attack like rock slide".

"A surprise to be sure but a welcome one then" Tails smiled while looking at his new pokemon's ball.

"Not to mention it will be devastating against team rocket" Sonic added "steel and ground? Super effective against poison types and immune to them? The perfect counter".

"That makes 4 for you right?" Knuckles asked Tails.

"Yeah. Two more and I got a full house".

"I believe a full house is 5 cards" Sonic teased him.

The three friends embraced the opportunity and got to joking and roasting each other as their way continued with their ups and downs, tunnels and steep paths.

Until it didn't.

Finding themselves on ground level again, the path suddenly ended. Or at least that was what it looked like. Upon closer examination, Knuckles figured out that the path had collapsed due to the constant corrosion from the sea.

"It's only natural that the sea eats away at the land over the years. That's how the earth changes".

"That's good but what now?" Sonic asked "how do we cross this?"

"Tails could lift you over and I could climb over the cliffside".

Upon attempting to dig into the rock with his spike gauntlets, a crack appeared on the surface of the cliffside.

"On second thought swimming would be preferable" Knuckles stepped back, having had his fair share of accidentally caused landslides during his work as an treasure hunter.

"Swimming would ruin our supplies" Tails argued.

"Well then I guess we sit down and try to figure it out" Knuckles shrugged, sitting on the edge of the path, feet dangling over the seawater and rubbing his chin going into deep thought.

Tails started flying in a serene way which as he had figured during their training, calmed him down immensely.

Sonic took to observing the distance they would have to cross to continue on their way. It was rather long and rather deep for a shoreline area. Tails was right, their supplies would be ruined by the seawater. Swimming was out of the question.

Tails wouldn't be able to carry Knuckles over and Knuckles would probably cause a landslide if he dug into the cliffside.

"What would Ash do?" he thought silently.

He wondered for a moment why he was asking himself this question. But upon recalling Ash's quick improvisation on how to get to the island of ice during their adventure at the orange islands he had his answer.

Ash's way of thinking was unique. Which was why Sonic was super hyped about battling a full power Ash during the Johto league.

He hoped only Ash wouldn't make the same mistake of not evolving his pokemon like he did in Kanto. He had teased him about it when they were riding Blastoise to New Island but truth be told, it was disappointing.

"Wait a minute" he suddenly said.

Tails and Knuckles looked at him in hopes he had an idea.

Sonic rolled back his thoughts for a moment.

"When we were riding Blastoise to New Island… riding…" he thought.

"That's it!" he screamed, causing an echo throughout the cliffs.

"You got something?" Tails landed next to him.

"I think I do. But I need a few moments" he said closing his eyes.

Tails and Knuckles exchanged a glance of question.

Sonic, with his eyes closed, reached out.

"Alakazam can you hear me?"

In Mewtwo's cave Alakazam jolted its head in shock. Mewtwo immediately knew what was going on.

"Sonic?"

Alakazam nodded.

"Alakazam can you hear me? It's Sonic" Sonic's voice echoed in the cave, causing all of his Kanto team members to rejoice after having gone so long without hearing it.

"We hear you" Mewtwo answered for Alakazam.

"Hey Mewtwo" the voice answered "we need some help here. Can you send Blastoise over?"

Mewtwo turned to the big, scarred turtle pokemon.

"He needs your help".

Blastoise's eyes gleamed as it nodded positively. Mewtwo smiled.

"Take him to your friend" he said to Alakazam.

Alakazam nodded and, using teleport as he was tutored by its mother to remember it for this purpose, temporarily forgetting shadow ball, disappeared in a flash along with Blastoise.

Sonic opened his eyes with a wide smile as well.

"Help is on the way" he let Tails and Knuckles know.

"Wait…" Tails seemed to realize what Sonic had done.

Raichu's ears perked up as it heard water splashing coming from the ocean. Looking towards the sound, its face gleamed as well and it started calling out to something.

Tails and Knuckles turned both wondering what Raichu was calling out to. Sonic was simply smiling.

And there, in the distance was Sonic's Blastoise, swimming towards them, crying out back at Raichu.

"You called Blastoise for assistance?" Tails said pleasantly surprised.

"Yeah. And more than just that. I'll explain later".

As Blastoise finally reached shoreline, Raichu jumped on it, rubbing against the shell, causing a pokeball that was on the shell to fall into the water. As Tails flew to retrieve it, he realized it was Blastoise's pokeball.

"You asked for Blastoise's pokeball to also be brought along?"

"I did" Sonic confirmed.

Blastoise positioned itself against the rocks and cried out. Sonic hopped on it. Raichu, Tails and Knuckles were quick to follow.

"We're all aboard Blastoise".

Blastoise let out another cry and started swimming for the other side.

After reaching the other side, they all climbed off of Blastoise. Sonic, retrieving Blastoise's pokeball from Tails, thanked it for the assist before recalling it, to his friends' surprise.

"Aren't you going to send it back?" Knuckles inquired.

"Nope. Not yet anyway. Doing so will get us stuck on this side. And plus… Blastoise can help with our training".

"But now you are carrying 6 pokemon" Tails said in concern "whatever you catch in the safari zone, you will not be able to call out until you send another one away for a while".

"I know. Stupid system in my opinion. In any case, Blastoise will stay with us to get us back and help us train. Afterwards it will return to Mewtwo's cave. But not to worry guys" Sonic smiled "it will be back for the Johto league. All of them will. Right pal?"

"Blastoise!" Blastoise cried out.

"You will do mixing of your own?" Tails asked his friend.

"Ash says he will go all out. It's only fair I do the same".

After that exchange team Sonic once again set out to reach the safari zone wondering what that place had in store for them.

Elsewhere, more specifically by some weird game of fate, in the same abandoned building were Sonic and Silver had had their confrontation, team rocket admin Ariana was waiting patiently. The grunts were scheduled to return shortly.

It was time to start getting to the bottom of just how big of a threat team Sonic was to them.