Chapter 12: Fish Out of Water

"This was such an irresponsible decision," Tori sighed, he was helping carry the heavy fishing rods and equipment that Hop had bought for fishing. Tori heaved and threw them onto the ground, he clutched his chest and panted.

Hop placed his foldable chair down near a quiet and calm stream that peacefully meandered across Route 7 he lightly placed his rods down, "How? Fishing is like catching Pokemon but you don't even have to catch the Pokemon."

Tori's nagging throughout all of yesterday had done nothing to stop Hop's determination to fish today. He disappointedly propped up a chair next to him and sat down, grumbling at the wasted time that he could be spending getting to Cyllage City.

The blue stream gurgled happily under the bright sun. Tori could hear the thoughts of the occasional Pokemon swimming by. They all seemed so cheerful, Tori sighed, this was a supreme waste of time. Tori picked up a stick from the ground and poked it into the water, watching as the ripples lazily spread across the water.

"Hey, you're scaring away the fish!" Hop shouted, he tenderly watched as the ripples slowly faded away and he tried to look through the clear water to see if Tori had scared away any of his fish. Tori watched as Hop squinted at the water like it was some ancient text that he wanted to decipher.

Tori chuckled.

(Cue Intro Sequence)

Hop had set up fishing rods across his side of the stream and he had commanded Tori to watch over them, if any of them tugged Tori would have to drag the fish to shore and then he could experience the joys of fishing. The only reason Tori hadn't left yet was because Hop's Wooloo and Rotom ominously watching over him. Tori scanned each of the rods as they vibrated slightly from the weak breeze. Tori groaned from boredom and looked over his shoulder, hoping to talk to Hop. Instead, he saw Hop's head on the edge of his chair and Hop's stomach move with each breath.

The stream moved along peacefully, schools of colorful fish followed its course, all of them skillfully avoiding the rods Hop set up. Tori remembered one of them just stopped next to the hook, thinking, "Do these dumb humans think we're that stupid to just walk up to a hook and bite down. How stupid do you have to be," before he swam away?

"This sure is boring. Right, Helia?" Tori asked, he looked over at Helia who was sprawled across a rock, taking in the light of the sun. Lily stood next to Helia with her leaves wide open like solar panels trying to take in the sun.

Helia's thoughts were weak and wispy inside Tori's brain, unlike her usual sharpness, "Yeah… boring," Helia yawned, and then her thoughts cut off. Tori put his head on his hands. The sun peacefully shone over him, he started to sink into his foldable chair allowing the peaceful sounds of the stream to lull him to sleep…

One of Hop's expertly placed fishing rods shook violently. Tori shot up and he ran toward the shaking rod, he tried to tug whatever was on the end of the line up to shore. The thing on the end of the line pushed back violently, zigzagging its way around the narrow stream. Hop stirred and slowly got up from his chair to help Tori, he helped him drag the fish Tori had caught to the grassy banks of the stream. A beautiful golden Magikarp the size of Tori's torso flopped out of the water. Its scales reflect the light sunlight into a piercing gold.

"Holy Arceus," Hop said, gasping for air as much as the Magikarp, "That big of a fish, on your first catch as well, good job!" Hop put his arm over Tori's shoulder and shook him slightly.

The Magikarp seemed to not be smart enough to go back into the water, instead, it kept flopping around aimlessly. Tori picked it up and looked at it, the Magikarp thought, "Food?" after a moment of thinking he realized Tori was not food and jumped off his arms, continuing to flop around the dirt. Tori threw a Pokeball at it so that it wouldn't go far.

Hop took the Pokeball off the ground and caressed it, "Do you know what this means, Tori?"

Tori replied, "I now have a potential Gyrados."

"What no!" Hop said in indignation, he put his arms around the Magikarp's Pokeball like it was his baby, "I was thinking about eating it, Golden Magikarp are a delicacy."

"We can't kill him, he's a living thing," Tori said, "He's got thoughts,"

"Really?" Hop asked, he raised an eyebrow, "What was he thinking about."

Tori said, "He…was thinking about whether he could eat me or not."

Hop chuckled lightly, "Look, man. Here's the deal, Pokemon are just stupid," Helia started growling from atop the rock she was sitting on. Hop walked one step away from Helia before he corrected himself, "Some Pokemon are just stupid, like this Magikarp. Just think of it like he was going to die anyway and believe me, this guy would've probably been killed already if we hadn't fished him out."

"Ah would you look at the time," Hop said, he walked over to his fishing rods and picked each one up, "It's lunchtime, so how about we eat this Magikarp today."

Tori felt an unexplainable tug of sympathy towards the Magikarp. He had a feeling that this fish had more capability than what most people expected. Tori snatched Magikarp's Pokeball out of Hop's hands.

"Hey, what gives man?" Hop asked.

"I caught this Magikarp, meaning I'm his trainer," Tori said, "I'm not going to let you eat him."

"Seriously man," Hop said, "Do you know how much you have time you have to spend just to make that Magikarp evolve, that dumb fish is useless before he evolves into Gyrados. And after that, it doesn't get any better because now you have a Pokemon who can destroy buildings in a temper tantrum. Just save us the hassle and let's eat it now."

"No," Tori said firmly.

Hop rolled his eyes, "Fine, but if he turns out to be useless, he's going into the pot."

Tori had to endure Hop grumbling about his Magikarp while he tried to cook a meal for them. When the meal finally hit Hop's hands he ate mournfully, as if he wished a Magikarp was in there.

Tori had already started eating his portion of his meal when he felt Helia's snout nuzzling his leg. He looked down and saw Helia looking back up with pleading eyes and he saw her thinking, "Please give me some of that food."

The food inside Tori's pot had drastically lowered after Tori gave Helia her portion. Looking at the remains of his food he suddenly remembered to feed his Magikarp.

He took out his golden Magikarp, its scales shimmered brightly, making Helia shield her eyes. Tori gave the fish a bowl and placed a few pieces of food inside it, he then turned around to eat his own food. Magikarp noticed the food inside it but was struggling to get the food in his mouth. After watching the fish struggle for a bit, Helia reached her paw to try and take some of the food for herself.

Lily quickly blocked her paw with a leaf and gave Helia a stern look. She picked up a scrap of food and fed it into the mouth of the flopping Magikarp. The fish struggled to swallow it but once it fell down his throat, he jumped even higher in joy.

Tori looked up from his plate and saw his Magikarp happily jumping while Lily was trying to feed the fish another piece of food. He watched as he happily jumped higher and higher into the air, eventually, Lily gave up on trying to feed him and just watched him contently leap into the air.

"You should participate in a Magikarp Jump contest with him," Hop said, his eyes following the Magikarp as it bounced higher into the air, "You'd probably win something."

Tori nodded, the occasional glimpses of thought that Magikarp had all said one thing, "So tasty." And those two words made Tori even more attached to his dumb golden fish.

"Target is in our sights," James muttered, a pair of Team Rocket-issued binoculars glued to his eyes as he was watching Tori out of the window of their newly repaired airship. The two other members of the Rocket Trio sighed.

Meowth tapped his shoulder and said in the tone someone would use to lecture an innocent child, "Hey James, look at this," he pointed at a supercomputer that Team Rocket uses to hack into Rotom Phones, "We have a view of everywhere in Route 7, everywhere, so these binoculars are useless."

James peeled his eyes away from the binoculars, "How dare you. These things are one of the best items on this ship. And I've already found Tori, bet your mega-computer hasn't done that yet."

"Gimme that," Jessie said, she violently took the binoculars away from James and she jammed their lenses into her eyes, "You probably just saw some… Wait that's actually him, I found Tori!"

Meowth rushed to the computer and started rapidly typing. James, appalled, said, "What do you mean you found him? I saw Tori first."

"Well ladies first, I may not have seen him first but because I'm a lady I get the right of seeing him first," Jessie said smugly.

James replied, "That's not even how the saying works!"

Meowth shouted over the two of them, "Shut up! It doesn't matter who saw Tori first, what matters is now we have to catch him."

There was a silence as the Rocket Trio all tried to think of a way to capture Tori, their smartest target yet, "Uh, well then let's just get this fire-proof net and hope that his Lilligant doesn't cut it," James said, rubbing his head.

Thinking about their last failure, Jessie said, "No, we're relying too much on chance. We need to find a better way to beat Tori."

James shot up, his eyes bedazzled with another good idea, "How about this? Instead of announcing that we're going to catch him, we just catch him."

"You mean no dramatic speech?" Meowth asked.

James nodded, "We just instantly try to catch him."

The remaining two members of the Rocket Trio thought for a while, was the element of surprise really worth an opportunity to trash-talk Tori. Meowth sighed, "You know what, fine. Let's just catch him," He threw aside a manuscript of speeches he had prepared to say when they were about to capture Tori, he sulkily said, "I didn't even want to make a speech anyway."

"What a meal," Hop said, Tori eyed him suspiciously, "It would be way better if we were eating a Golden Magikarp." Tori wanted to strangle Hop, he seemed to try and hint at eating Magikarp in each of his sentences, "I mean just look at him, like seriously."

Tori turned around and saw him jumping around the jaws of Houndour. Unsurprisingly he got caught by the dog, Magikarp flopped around inside Houndour's jaws uselessly. Lily dashed in and tugged him out of Houndour's jaws and pushed the dog back with a leaf storm.

Helia projected into Tori's mind, "I mean it's not that bad of an idea, that Magikarp's an idiot."

"He may not be the smartest but that's because he's a Magikarp, it's not his fault." Lily scolded; she had just returned from dragging the golden fish away. She hugged Magikarp tightly in her hands. Helia licked her lips, and Tori saw all the ways that she wanted to cook it.

A shadow suddenly loomed over the Pokemon, a net shot out from the sky and wrapped around Tori. The net floated higher into the air; Helia leaped after it but was shot down as another weighted net was fired at her.

Hop frantically looked around for ways to get higher, he grabbed his Rotom and said, "Get to that airship."

Glad that he was finally going to be useful for once, Rotom flew into the air and whizzed after Tori.

Helia growled inside her weighted net; she squirmed around but all it did was tangle her further. Lily dropped Magikarp and knelt to try to help cut Helia out, help that Helia reluctantly accepted.

Meanwhile, Magikarp had finally noticed Tori's absence and started jumping. Hop looked at it and sighed, "I'll be eating you, no matter if Tori comes back alive." As if that was all the motivation Magikarp needed. He leaped into the air and soared across the sky until he was just a golden sparkle on the horizon leaving a very stunned Hop behind.

Rotom was chasing after Tori's screams, oddly enough it seemed like he and the net he was in were just floating mid-air. He could easily catch up, but Tori and the net were moving so erratically and in such strange patterns that whenever Rotom accelerated he would find Tori a few hundred meters in a different direction.

Strangely enough, there was a golden sparkle floating in the middle of the sky as well, it appeared temporarily before sinking back down to the ground and then reappearing in the sky. Rotom, slightly bored of endlessly chasing Tori, shot after the strange sparkle in the sky.

Even more strangely the sparkle was slamming into a part of the sky like it was fighting some invisible giant. Once Rotom got closer he realized it was just Tori's Magikarp, jumping up and down and occasionally hitting something. Rotom flew closer to the thing Magikarp was bumping into but was smacked by something invisible as it rapidly turned around. Rotom could feel the air blowing at him as what seemed to be an invisible ship turned around.

Rotom closed his eyes and sent waves of electricity around the top of the ship. The invisible ship groaned, Magikarp jumped up and hit the airship one more time. Rotom saw the thing carrying him against the wind flicker in and out of existence before the Rocket Airship just suddenly appeared in front of him.

The ship stopped turning and Rotom leapt out of the way. Magikarp's leaps were weakening and soon the golden fish had lined himself up with one of the doors in the airship. Rotom gladly entered the security of the airship through it. After some easy hacking, he now fits snugly inside the mess of code that controlled the rocket airship. With complete access to the security of the airship he opened the door and Magikarp jumped onto the ship.

Rotom effortlessly located the control room of the airship, he saw the Rocket Trio were just staring at a live camera footage of Tori swinging around on a net. With Team Rocket distracted, the impish Pokemon decided to do some trolling.

The many fancy screens of the main control room all started flickering. The lights followed soon after. Rotom snickered as he watched the Rocket Trio frantically run around the control room to try and find the issue.

Jessie shouted over the hacked speakers that were blaring an annoying screaming goat, "Just turn the control room off and turn it back on again."

"What a great idea," Meowth shouted sarcastically, he jumped up angrily and screamed, "Problem, the airship's going to get turned off we're going to fall and then probably die."

Rotom was tumbling laughter, he increased the volume of the annoying goat and watched the Rocket Trio expectantly.

James, who had covered his ears tightly, shouted, "Screw this!" He ran to the main control panel and pressed the shut-off button. Rotom could feel the electric space he was in disappearing as the code vanished into a black void. The void wanted him as well and tried to drag Rotom into its clutches. Rotom frantically broke through the weak security and popped out inside the control room. His bright electric body was now hugging the roof of the airship as it rapidly descended.

James smashed the button again, and the airship's systems slowly booted up again. Rotom could hear the low whir of the engine reviving itself right before the airship hit a mountain over Connecting Cave. James tugged the steering wheel, and the ship barely avoided hitting the mountain. James leaned on the steering wheel proudly, "That was close, if we hit that mountain we could've exploded again like last time."

"Yeah too close," Meowth said, wiping some sweat off his forehead. James looked up at the window and realized that he was about to crash into some trees. He frantically dragged the steering wheel upward. Rotom felt the trees graze the underside of the airship, shaking the hull. Suddenly Magikarp burst through the door, and he directly jumped out of the window, making glass shards fly across the room.

Strong winds blew out of the window, dragging all loose objects out of the ship. Wanting to prevent a repeat of their last disaster, James pulled on the steering wheel and the airship slowed down. The airship broke through all the trees in its path, spraying dirt in every direction, and finally stopped.

Jessie clutched her chest, breathing heavily, she asked, "What insane thing was that?"

Meowth replayed footage from the security cameras, "I think it was some sort of Pokemon."

"How did that thing get into the ship," James asked, his hands still tightly holding the steering wheel as if he feared it would move.

Rotom barged back into the security systems of the Rocket Airship to hurriedly cover the tracks of him and Magikarp infiltrating the Airship, afraid that Team Rocket would recognize the golden Magikarp as Tori's and see Rotom's tampering. Afterward, the Rocket Trio would try to capture Magikarp and Rotom to prevent them from saving Tori, and now they would be trapped with Tori. Not wanting to be captured in a net as well, Rotom searched for where the security feeds were in the maze of code. He hoped that Tori wasn't hurt by Team Rocket's rough landing.

Meowth scanned through every camera on the ship, "It seemed like a few minutes ago our invisibility shields went off maybe it got in then," Rotom hurriedly blurred out the golden sparkle that would've revealed what Magikarp would've been doing.

Hehen he suddenly appears in our hallway footage," Meowth muttered, Rotom jumped, he didn't think Meowth would look through the footage so quickly, he hurried to look at the next few seconds of footage and started to smear Magikarp's image in each frame.

Meowth smacked the computer loudly, "What's wrong with this stupid thing."

"What do you mean," Jessie said, she walked over to see the footage herself.

"See the footage's unclear," Meowth said, pointing at the hurriedly edited image of Magikarp, "You know I think there's a virus in here," he activated the anti-viral system of the ship and said, "If there is a virus, Giovanni would want an answer to how it got in there, meaning."

The Rocket Trio all collectively groaned, "More paperwork."

Rotom was still dancing around the code in the security system trying to make Magikarp's useless trek around the Rocket Airship disappear from the camera footage. He was so focused he didn't notice a small red icon looming behind him. Its cold tentacles reached out and touched Rotom. Rotom jumped and fired a shadow ball at its tentacles. The sphere phased through the Anti-Viral Software, leaving a few lines of code on the ground. The red Anti-Viral Software's head just tilted and the icon that looked like its face grinned.

A mouth grew out of the icon, it went on all fours and grew even more tentacles. It roared loudly, revealing the many rows of teeth inside its mouth. Using its tentacles it creepily ran toward Rotom. Rotom could feel the Software breathing behind him, trying to suck him into its jaws with each breath.

Rotom shot ahead of it and fired a barrage of electricity at the Anti-Viral Software. The icon absorbed all the bolts of electricity, it glowed brightly and the whole Anti-Viral Software grew in size. It roared even more loudly, shaking the code making up the security system.

The Anti-Viral software pounced on top of Rotom who was just able to use shadow sneak to get away. One of the many slimy tentacles latched onto his arm but the voltage on it was too strong and after being shocked the tentacle loosened away.

The exit was in sight, glowing weakly and Rotom ran toward it, throwing behind the footage he was editing. He shot into the exit, but his tail snagged on a line of code, the red Anti-Viral Software behind him licked his lips and used a tentacle to grab onto Rotom's tail. Its slimy suction cups trapped Rotom while the Anti-Viral Software edged closer. Rotom could feel its warm breath blowing at his tail while the teeth bit into him. Rotom was being dragged back into the security system by the Anti-Viral Software, sparks of electricity uncontrollably came out of Rotom as it struggled to fight against the tugging of the software.

Hurried footsteps echo across the long empty hallways inside the Rocket Airship. Rotom saw Tori stick his head around the corner and look around as if checking whether there were any rocket grunts. Realizing this was his chance of escape Rotom lit and unlit himself like an uncharged flashlight, creating periodic flashes of bright light.

Tori saw the light and rushed over, he grabbed onto one of Rotom's feelers, shocking him. Tori grunted as electricity flowed through him like he was a human battery and tugged against the anti-viral software, his hands turning raw as it was being shocked every single second. Rotom felt like he was going to be pulled apart by the two forces but finally, the tentacle of the Anti-Viral Software loosened and Rotom popped out of the screen like a cork, hitting the opposite wall. He landed, dazed but mostly fine.

Tori used his slightly pick hands to pick up a small line of red code from the Anti-Viral Software and it crumbled like sand in his hands. He looked at a very weak Rotom and asked, "So what happened?"

Rotom could hear the echoing of more, louder footsteps, and Tori also heard it as he picked up Rotom and ran into another hallway. He said, "Alright tell me later."

Rotom thought how Tori could've possibly gotten out of his net without being injured by the Airship's rough landing. "Oh, I escaped way easier than that."

Tori, confused at why Rotom had stopped thinking, looked down and saw him grumpily looking up, "Sorry didn't mean to invade your privacy, I just couldn't help but hear."

Rotom looked at him in anticipation and thought but do tell me.

Tori chuckled, he suddenly stopped running and hugged the wall, he waited until a security camera could no longer see him before running again, "Well it started like this, I was trapped in a net hovering thousands of feet in the air with only my own screams to keep me company when I heard Magikarp thinking where is that human who cooks well and I responded by shouting at him that I was under the ship. After that, we talked for a bit longer before I could no longer hear his thoughts. Then the Airship almost crashed into a mountain!"

And that's how you escaped? The net was grazed, and you somehow jumped off? Rotom thought he imagined Tori jumping off the net and into a mountain. Rotom giggled maliciously at the image of Tori turning into an impaled meat pancake on some sharp rocks.

"Thankfully that didn't happen," Tori said, he took a sharp turn and ran quicker than before, "According to Magikarp he jumped out of the window of their control room and that's how he got a shard of glass," Tori shook his head like he didn't believe that happened, "What I saw was he suddenly appeared at the head of the ship and he jumped his way over to me in the net. I took the glass shard in the net and waited for the airship to go lower so I could cut the net. I don't know what the Rocket Trio were thinking but the airship just randomly descended," Tori walked over to a door with a keypad that wasn't working and tapped it, the door opened loudly but randomly jammed in the middle. Tori squeezed through the gap and started running into the woods, Rotom looked back and recognized the door as the one that he used to hack into the Airship's security, "Then when the net was right above the ground, I cut it and jumped out. I ran into the woods until I randomly found Magikarp."

Tori looked behind him to make sure nobody was following him, and he took a confusing route through the woods to a small pond. Inside the pond was a Golden Magikarp contently swimming around. Tori continued, "Then Magikarp led me back to the airship and told me to go through this door to rescue you, so I did."

"See Magikarp is kind, and really smart," Tori said proudly.

Magikarp jumped out of the water and responded to Tori's compliment by saying, "You're welcome."

Tori didn't know the beginning of it, Rotom thought, if all Tori said was true then Magikarp might be a secret genius. He might've jumped out of the window to give Tori the glass shard knowing that it would also force the Rocket Airship to land, making it possible for Tori to safely escape. Magikarp was also the first to discover the airship while it was invisible and if it wasn't for him Rotom would've never been able to see it.

Magikarp loudly hit his head on a rock, making water fly everywhere. Magikarp then repeatedly hit his head on the rock, and even more water rained onto the ground. Tori had to fish Magikarp to make him stop hitting his head.

Or he's the luckiest idiot in the world, Rotom thought. He leaned closer to Magikarp and looked at him, trying to determine whether he was a genius or not. A loud ringtone came out of Tori's pocket, shocking Rotom because he thought Magikarp had somehow copied the noise of a phone ringtone.

Still hugging Magikarp, Tori took out his vibrating phone and responded.

Hop's voice came out of the old speakers, "Thank Arceus you're safe, I've been calling you for so long."

Helia forced her way into the camera and looked at Tori intently. Tori said, "Sorry, Helia I can't hear your thoughts."

Lily pushed Helia out of the way and looked at Tori closely, he turned around slowly and said, "Lily I'm fine, see no injuries," Tori saw a few red scratches at the back of his shirt, and he sighed, "Mostly fine."

"Oy whose call is this!" Hop barked, Lily blushed and politely stepped out of the way, "Man it's so nice that I don't need Rotom to make calls and to know that you're safe, especially because it took so long for Rotom to save you," Hop glared at Rotom, the Pokemon uncomfortably looked away.

Tori put his archaic phone on a rock and displayed a flopping Magikarp to the camera, "He also helped."

Hop raised an eyebrow, "Really?"

"If it wasn't for him, I couldn't have escaped from the net," Tori said.

Hop sighed, "Alright whatever. Do you know how to get back to us? Or should I give you directions"

"Actually, it might probably be better if you come to us," Tori said, he raised his phone and showed Hop a large mountain.

Hop took a while to reply, "What even is that?"

"Connecting Cave, our ticket to Cyllage City!" Tori said excitedly, a cloud of smoke erupted from the direction of the Airship, "You might want to be careful, Team Rocket's nearby."

"Fine, I'll go to you," Hop said picking up his backpack, Hop and Tori's Pokemon got up to follow Hop, "But it'll probably take a while for us to get there," He kicked a fishing rod he set up earlier angrily he muttered, "I totally didn't want to keep fishing but I guess facing off against Grant again would be cool too."