The Great Butler
Hush, keep it down
“Now, the truth shall reveal itself! Go, Poké Ball!”
Having taken an empty Poké Ball from his bag, Matt threw it in a sweeping motion at the Roggenrola, who was struggling to pull herself up from the dirt. When the capsule hit the Rock-type Pokémon’s body, it split open and absorbed Roggenrola in a flash of light before closing and falling to the ground.
“I cannot say I approve of dealing with this situation in such a way…” Nikolai uttered in a severe tone while the others all watched the ball shake.
To the surprise of even him, though, shortly thereafter the Poké Ball shattered. Now freed and growling in rage, Roggenrola turned to face Matt and Charlotte.
“Looks like you pissed it off,” Nekou slyly said, fully knowing that Matt was perfectly aware of this already.
“Don’t give me that now!”
“Matt, watch out!” Olivia hastily cried.
Roggenrola was charging again, this time squarely at Matt. He hadn’t noticed because he’d turned his head to address Nekou.
Grunting, he covered his mouth with his arm and shouted, “Charlotte, Thunder Wave!”
Despite having tiny feet, Roggenrola was able to build up enough force to jump directly at Matt. Charlotte got in the way, though, and intercepted Roggenrola. She was releasing electricity from her body when they collided, causing paralysis to overcome Roggenrola while she was flung back herself. Matt barely avoided getting knocked down by his own Pokémon.
“I think that ought to do it,” he said to Bunny, Olivia and Nikolai, who were the only ones still paying attention to what was going on; Dante was already walking to the door of Mr. Pokémon’s home, while Nekou was spending her time looking at the trees surrounding the road. Sighing, Matt took out another Poké Ball and wordlessly threw it at Roggenrola. This time, the Pokémon put up little resistance and was successfully captured.
“I hope you will treat that Roggenrola properly…”
“You don’t have anything to worry about,” Matt said, dismissing Nikolai’s incessant concern while he picked up the Poké Ball that now contained his Roggenrola. Turning his head, he asked, “Nekou, what are you doing?”
“I love how the trees look in autumn…”
“I guess she’s just being herself again,” he conceded, sighing.
Meanwhile, Dante had long since stopped being concerned about what the younger members of his traveling group were doing. He was standing in front of Mr. Pokémon’s front door, waiting after having rung the bell.
“Come on, I know you’re home!” he called, his voice clearly conveying the irritation he felt.
“The Pokémon want to come in here and eat all the food I’ve got!” someone shouted back from behind the door.
“Oy, not this again… there’s no Pokémon out here that want your food, at least anymore anyway. And if you’d stop feeding them, they’ll stop coming!”
There was a hesitation, as if the owner of the voice was considering what Dante had said. The sound of many locks being undone followed, coupled with more muttering from inside the house.
“You can never be too sure in this day and age, Dante. Blasted Team Rocket taking all our money from the banks and all… this world ain’t what it used to be.”
The door was opened slowly from the inside, and the house’s owner shuffled out. Mr. Pokémon was a man about Dante’s age, however, he appeared much older due to his rumpled clothing and unkempt white hair and beard.
“You brought the thing?” he requested, shielding his tired-looking eyes from the late afternoon sun with his arm.
“Right here,” Dante replied, holding up the briefcase with the Meteonite inside.
“Good, good. Tobias and Gabriella have been riding my *** about this, and you just made it in time. They’re coming tonight.” Peering out further, Mr. Pokémon spied Matt’s group and Nikolai standing around and talking nearby. “Look at that. Look what the feminists caused, that wench over there with her body hanging out everywhere.”
“I heard thaaaat,” Nekou interrupted, speaking in a loud, sing-song voice. “So **** you, because I don’t care!”
“And now you see what I’ve been traveling with the last couple days,” Dante chuckled. “They’re good people, though. I’ve enjoyed my company with them.”
“Mr. Pokémon, I presume?” Having walked up alongside Dante, Matt addressed the strange old man himself.
“Who are you?” Mr. Pokémon fumbled a pair of glasses out of the breast pocket of his brown suit, put them on, and squinted at Matt. “Is it already happening?”
“Okaaay…” Matt took a step back before continuing. “It might be. You see, we came from New Bark Town, and Professor Juniper told us that Professor Elm had gone to visit you. Is he here?”
“Professor Elm was here, yes, but he left with as much haste as he came. Said he was going to the Ruins of Alph, if I’m not mistaken.”
Matt shrugged in response to this news. Granted, finding Elm wasn’t number one on his list of priorities, but he still would have liked to have located the professor.
“Matt, please give my farewells to Olivia, Bunny and Nekou,” said the doctor. “I must stay here tonight to present my Meteonite research to Mr. Pokémon’s guests. I have enjoyed traveling with you and your friends.”
“And it’s been an honor to get to know you, Doctor. Hopefully we’ll meet again.”
Dante extended his hand, so Matt took up the offer of a handshake with no hesitation. The magnitude his mind assigned to shaking the hand of such an important scientist was not lost on him. After that, Dante sharply turned on his heel and entered the house, then Mr. Pokémon slammed the door shut.
“Well then…”
“So what are we doing now?”
The feeling of Nekou’s hand on his shoulder made Matt turn abruptly. She, along with the others, had come up behind him while he was speaking with Dante.
“I don’t know. Finished looking at leaves?”
“I’ll remember that, smartass.” The way Nekou was smiling gave away that she was saying this in a good-natured way, for a change. “What’s going on with Dr. Fantomos?”
“He’s staying here to present his Meteonite research. He didn’t ask me to stay behind and wait for him, so I assume that we can go ahead to Violet City.”
“It’s not far from here,” Bunny piped up. She had a map unrolled in her hands and was studying their location on it. “Yeah, we only have a little way longer to go now.”
“Then let’s hit the road!” Olivia cheered, pumping her fist into the air. “Violet City and Badge number one, here we come!”
“Always so much energy… I have to admit, Olivia, sometimes you keep me going.”
With Violet City awaiting them to the northwest, the group – now minus Dante, but with Nikolai in tow – set out. The trees, their leaves cloaked in the earthy autumn colors that so enraptured Nekou, provided a warm framing for their trip down the dirt road that led the way.
“Stop.”
They didn’t even get twenty feet away from Mr. Pokémon’s home before more trouble arrived.
“What? Who said that?”
Nekou thrust her right arm out in front of Olivia and pulled her switchblade from her blouse with the left. “Someone’s here. They’re watching us…”
“I am…”
A sound like a gust of wind tore through the clearing, and one of the members of the Shadow Triad appeared, seemingly materializing from thin air. The color drained from Nekou’s face as she stood ready to fight him, while Matt, Olivia, Bunny and Nikolai all just stared at the strange young man.
“What’s going on here?” Bunny demanded. “Who are you?”
“I am… the unbreakable steel of Chaos… I do not have any orders to harm any of you unless you get in my way. Lord N, you are coming with me.”
“N? What kind of name is that?” Olivia wondered out loud.
“Tough luck, none of us is named N,” Matt harshly added. “Leave us alone.”
“I am looking at you right now, Lord N…” Chaos announced, leveling his finger straight at Nikolai. “Cease these foolish games… Lord Ghetsis has grown impatient.”
“I don’t know who you are!” Nikolai cried out. “I am just a simple trainer. Surely I am not the person you speak of!”
The striking sincerity of Nikolai’s words gave Chaos pause. In his hesitation, he left Nekou a chance to slip into the exchange.
“So Ghetsis is still controlling your Shadow Triad?” she quizzed the ninja.
Apparently having not perceived Nekou’s presence earlier, Chaos smirked beneath the mesh covering his mouth. “Well, well, well, seeing you is certainly a surprise, Black Cat. It must have slipped your mind that we, the Shadow Triad, live only to serve Lord Ghetsis and his whims.”
“Black Cat? What is this guy talking about?
Nekou went even paler at Matt’s line of questioning, but otherwise held her cool. “He’s trying to psych you and I out. Don’t listen to him.”
“You’re lucky I do not have the time to deal with you. Lord N… if you cannot remember your place in this world, I will force you to remember! Liepard! Bisharp! Banette!”
Chaos reached to his waist and threw three Poké Balls in a single motion that was so swift it nearly could not be seen. His three Pokémon appeared before him, one of which – a lithe-bodied, feline creature covered in purple-and-yellow fur – Matt noted he hadn’t seen before.
“Go forth! Bisharp, Assurance! Liepard, Aerial Ace! Banette, Will-O-Wisp!”
With Nikolai fixated in their eyes, all three of Chaos’s Pokémon lunged forward; blue light surrounded Liepard’s front claws, while Banette crossed his arms and threw flares of blue fire and a black glow surrounded both of Bisharp’s hands.
“No you don’t! Tanya, make your mark!”
“Right alongside you! Kayla, come out!”
Blocking the path of the three Pokémon with their bodies, Matt and Bunny sent out their Heatran and Mienshao respectively to provide some additional cover. Tanya’s large, bulky body was, in fact, enough to deflect the attempted attacks of the trio by itself.
“You’re going to protect him? Your loss… not even a Pokémon like Heatran will make me stand down… Liepard, Snarl!”
A single fallen leaf crunched under Liepard’s careful steps forward. He opened his mouth as widely as possible and let out a horrific screech, filling the air with shrill noise. Matt, Olivia and Bunny all had to hold their ears to protect themselves from the terrible sound. Tanya and Kayla cringed as well, but strangely, it appeared to have no effect on Nekou and Nikolai, as they simply stood still.
“Do... do you think… that’ll actually work?!” It was a struggle for Matt to speak under the influence of Liepard’s well-practiced Snarl, but he managed to force himself through it. “T-Tanya… Flash Cannon!”
One downside of Chaos’s honed attack was that Liepard was left vulnerable to a counterattack, which came when Tanya fired a large shot of silvery light from her mouth at him. As soon as it hit Liepard, the blast exploded, cutting off Snarl from continuing. Bisharp immediately picked up his teammate’s slack, jumping in and swinging his arms to dispel the smoke. Liepard arched his back from behind Bisharp, his coat discolored from Flash Cannon’s heat.
“I am one of Lord Ghetsis’s chosen hands!” Chaos appeared to be losing his composure, slipping into behavior more suitable of his name as he clenched his fists. “I will not fail him!!”
“It’ll be hard to please him when you’re in pieces.”
Out of nowhere, Nekou was right next to Chaos, swinging her knife down with his shoulder as her target. He was forced to defend himself by swiftly pulling a dagger from his belt to block the strike.
“You’re out of luck, Black Cat!” Chaos growled. “Bisharp! Lead Banette and Liepard while I take care of this one!”
A sharp grunt and a smile indicated that Bisharp gladly accepted the responsibility Chaos delegated to him. Banette and Liepard rallied to his side, and much like a trainer, he pointed his right arm forward at their enemies and spoke in his own language to give orders, which Banette and Liepard seemingly understood.
While Banette hung back, Liepard lunged forward once more, again attempting to land an Aerial Ace. Banette backed up his ally by waving his arms back and forth to generate a gust of chilled air. However, also in much the same way as the first exchange of attacks, Tanya used her body and her natural Fire-and-Steel typing to block and absorb the Aerial Ace and Icy Wind.
“I think it’s time we fought back. Kayla, use Drain Punch on Liepard!”
Moving with great speed, Kayla immediately closed the gap between herself and Chaos’s Liepard. Before the Dark-type Pokémon could react, she threw back the long, purple-tipped fur on her arm and punched Liepard squarely in the face using the fist underneath. The welt left behind quickly transformed into light, which was absorbed into Kayla’s body.
Crying out his name in an ear-splitting hiss, Bisharp leapt over the stunned Liepard, his hands glowing black in preparation for Assurance again. His target was Nikolai, but Olivia was standing close enough to also be threatened. Seeing Bisharp coming down toward her caused Olivia to cringe in fear; she’d already had one near-death experience with a Bisharp and had no desire to go through another.
“Magma Storm!”
The tornado of fire that swirled from Tanya’s mouth failed to directly connect, but it flew closely enough to blow Bisharp back with its sheer force. Once she was out of danger, Olivia ran to Bunny, but Nikolai simply remained still.
“This is not right…” he thought. Tears were welling up in his eyes, hidden from the others due to the shadow of his hat. “ Pokémon and humans fighting each other like this…”
As the Pokémon exchanged blows, Nekou and Chaos were doing the same. Sparks flew every time the metal of Nekou’s switchblade and Chaos’s dagger clashed, but neither of them could make much headway against the other, as the rapid pace of Nekou’s attack forced Chaos to defend himself instead of fighting back.
“Let’s see how you like this!” Chaos abruptly roared.
Deciding to take a risk, the Shadow Triad member dropped his defensive techniques and attempted to directly hit Nekou. The mesh covering over his mouth ended up getting cut off, but in exchange for that battle damage, he managed to slash a long gash into Nekou’s left shoulder.
Stumbling back and looking down at the red ooze slowly trickling out of her skin, Nekou spat, “****, you got me! Well, actually, you only got my clothes… I guess Ghetsis didn’t prepare you for facing me?” Nekou lightly ran her hand over the bloody wound, then raised that same hand to her mouth and licked the liquid off. Immediately, her mind began to race. “Mmm… yeah, they didn’t tell you, so I will. You might have cut me, but the thing is… a wounded animal is the most vicious!”
When she jerked her head back up, Nekou’s eyes were filled with a bright yellow glow. She screamed loudly enough to cause her voice to crack and lunged at Chaos, assaulting him in such a bloodthirsty frenzy that he couldn’t keep up. Her switchblade first claimed his gloves, which fell to the ground in pieces, then began nicking small cuts into his exposed hands and arms.
“You’re mine now, you little ****! All I have to do is beat you before that happens now!”
Chaos knew he was in trouble against Nekou if she was going to press him so relentlessly. Becoming consumed by desperation, he began to reach for a small pouch attached to his belt.
Before any of this chaotic scene could be sorted out, however, a new element entered the fray to decide the outcome. A Haxorus came crashing through the battle with her Dual Chop move, using the first swing of her tusks to fell Banette and Liepard and the second to separate Nekou and Chaos.
“That Pokémon,” Olivia gasped, genuinely surprised. “It’s…”
“You should not be using Pokémon to cause harm to those who have not harmed you,” Dante lectured Chaos as he stepped back into the clearing. “I come out here to see what all the racket is, and what do I find? Nothing more than some white-haired ninja scoundrel making trouble for some innocents. It’s rightly disappointing.”
“Stay out of this, old man!” Chaos sneered.
“Matt, Nekou, Olivia, Bunny, take Nikolai and go to Violet City as you intended. I’m sporting enough to stay behind and deal with this common thug of a villain.”
“You heard the man!” Wasting no time in agreeing with Dante’s proposal, Matt rallied his friends to evacuate Route 30 right away by recalling his Pokémon, a move mimicked by Bunny. “Let’s move!”
“Oh no you don’t! Not with Lord N!”
Of course, Chaos was completely unwilling to let his prey escape capture. Capable of going to any length to accomplish Ghetsis’s orders, he reached into the pouch on his belt, swiftly withdrawing and flinging a dart. The dart hit Nikolai in the center of his chest, and almost immediately, he started going into convulsions.
“Nikolai?” Bunny whispered, suddenly feeling terrified unlike anything else she’d felt that day.
“Listen to me, you’re going to be okay!” Matt rushed over to support Nikolai just as the green-haired young man vomited into the grass. Though he was not an expert in the field of their study, Matt knew enough about toxins to realize quite swiftly that Chaos’s dart was surely poisoned.
“Now will you be a good prince and return on your king’s decree?” demanded the shady ninja bodyguard. “That genetic suppressant ought to be working wonders on your freak body right now.”
His suspicions of a poison dart confirmed, Matt made a motion as if he was preparing to battle Chaos directly, but all the ninja’s threat earned him was a swift, high kick in the throat from a very angry Nekou.
“If you’re gonna fight dirty, do it against me, ****er!” she screamed at Chaos as he fell backward.
“Nekou, not now!” Matt shouted over to her. He and Bunny were supporting Nikolai, who could no longer stand on his own and was suffering more violent convulsions. “Look at this… whatever he had that dart spiked with really messed Nikolai up!”
“Hurry, get him out of here! Go to Violet City’s Pokémon Center. He should be able to get treatment there!”
“You heard the man, Nekou!” Bunny called out, intending to follow Dante’s orders. “Let’s go!”
It took every ounce of Nekou’s remaining restraint, but she managed to tear herself away from her fight with Chaos, even though she hadn’t yet worked through the rush she still felt. Blinking repeatedly, she forced down her aggression, and the yellow glow disappeared from her eyes. Matt and Bunny assisted Nikolai in escaping into the woods to the west, and Nekou escorted Olivia in following them.
Stumbling to his feet, Chaos yelled after the five, “Stop! You are going nowhere!”
“No, you are the one who won’t be going anywhere,” Dante offered as a correction while his Haxorus stood in Chaos’s way. “I will dispose of you myself.”
“Hmph, like there’s anything an old man like you can do! Bisharp, Liepard, Banette, attack!”
Summoning what strength they had left, Chaos’s three Pokémon all lunged at Haxorus. Both she and Dante remained calm, however. Neither of them saw the opposing trio of Pokémon or their trainer as a threat in the least.
“Haxorus,” Dante coolly directed, even closing his eyes as he spoke, “Dual Chop.”
Just like when they’d arrived earlier, Haxorus swiftly charged forward and cut Liepard down using her right tusk, then slashed Banette with the left. Both Pokémon crumpled to the ground as a result of everything they’d taken.
“Bisharp, Iron Head!!”
“It is over. Haxorus, use Counter!”
An orange light outlined Haxorus’s body, and when Bisharp’s metallic headbutt struck her, she immediately punched him squarely in the face. Because Haxorus’s attack was twice as strong as the move she had been hit with, Bisharp was defeated just as his allies were.
“Is that it?” Dante taunted the dumbfounded Shadow Triad member. “You were not even a slight challenge for me. Be on your way if you don’t want this to get any worse for yourself.”
“Ugh… I swear on my honor, I will avenge this loss in the name of Lord Ghetsis! Harmonia shall rise!”
Chaos quickly recalled his three fallen Pokémon, then disappeared using one of his ninja techniques, leaving Dante alone in the clearing with Haxorus.
Turning to her trainer, the golden-bodied dragon questioningly growled, “Haro?”
“He will present no more disobedience, so it is not worth pursuing him further. You did well, so rest awhile.”
-:-
A few hours later, after the sun had set over Johto, a helicopter rested outside of Mr. Pokémon’s home. It was colored black with gold trim around the doors, and barely fit in the clearing.
The inside of Mr. Pokémon’s house was as much of a disorganized mess as he was himself. Towering computer hard drives and bookshelves lined the walls, while his tables were covered by sloppy stacks of papers, magazines and foreign coins. On the far side of the darkened room was a red couch, on which his guests were sitting. One was a man in a gray uniform and a short red cape, who was sitting with his arms crossed; the other was a bright-eyed woman dressed in a smart black business suit and tie. Both of them had long, flowing hair that covered the left side of their faces; the man’s was shoulder-length and blue, while the woman’s golden hair stretched all the way down to her thighs.
“Governor Tobias, President Gabriella, is there anything I can get either of you fine folks?” Mr. Pokémon was standing hunchbacked next to the couch and held his hands together as he tried to be polite to his guests.
“Have you got any coffee? I’d really like some, especially if you could throw a lot of sugar in!”
“I’ll just take a bottle of Fresh Water, if you would.”
The difference between the two couldn’t have been more pronounced. Gabriella was outgoing and very upbeat, while Tobias conducted himself in a serious and straightforward manner.
Mr. Pokémon disappeared into the kitchen of his cluttered bungalow to fetch the refreshments that had been ordered. Standing across the room, next to a table on which he’d placed his briefcase, Dante stepped forth to begin his presentation.
“Thank you for coming out, Tobias, Gabriella.” Before speaking further, he leaned his weight on his cane and bowed slightly, then opened his briefcase to reveal the Meteonite piece. “I merely have a small amount of research to present to you regarding the Meteonite, as I described.”
“I’m all ears,” Tobias said.
“You see, the Meteonite…” Dante was briefly interrupted when Mr. Pokémon returned to hand Tobias his water and Gabriella her coffee, but he quickly picked up again. “The Meteonite is composed of an element that does not exist on Earth. This alone warrants further study, for it is clearly not anything that is currently included on the periodic table. This element, therefore, should also be called Meteonite, unless a new name is decided upon later.”
“That’s fascinating, Dr. Fantomos, but tell me… does it actually do anything?”
“Yeah, you know, Tobias is right. A glittery rock is nice and all, but if you can’t do anything with it, it’s only good for looking at. And that’s really kind of boring, right?”
“I’m getting to that. One property this element appears to have is responsiveness to itself. As in, if you use a quantity of it to search, it will react when a second quantity is nearby. It appears to interfere with electronics when it is activated, as if it is generating an electromagnetic pulse.”
“Could it possibly have a medicinal use?”
Dante coughed before answering Gabriella’s question; the air in Mr. Pokémon’s house was rather dusty. “I suppose it is possible that the electrical pulses released by Meteonite can have a stimulating effect on living tissue.”
“Excellent! I wish to acquire some of this magic rock of yours right away, then, Dante. I’ll send it right off to my R&D department at the Angel Corporation, and we might discover some new medical treatments!”
“Surely this element is useful for more than just regenerative medicine?” Tobias remarked.
“I was getting to that. During my experiments with the Meteonite in my possession, I discovered a potential use for it that was unlike anything else.”
“Which is?”
“While I was experimenting with applying electrical pulses of differing frequencies to the Meteonite, it reacted and created energy pulses. Nearby, a pack of Pawniard and a Bisharp went wild after being exposed to that energy. I believe that this element may be capable of influencing Pokémon behavior when certain electrical pulses are applied to it. I tested several different frequencies, and it would appear that the Pawniard and Bisharp only responded to that frequency, so I theorize that different frequencies affect different families of Pokémon.”
“To think a simple rock from space could be so amazing…” said an awed Gabriella.
“It all makes sense. I will have to direct the Tohjo Continent officials to draw up emergency plans for if more Meteonite lands on Earth after the Ruins of Alph strike.” Rising to his feet, Tobias extended his hand to Dante. “Dr. Fantomos, I know Gabriella will have the Angel Corporation’s R&D do what they can, but your mind is very important for us to have on this study. You may be the only man who can truly understand how Meteonite affects living things.”
“I’ll be honored to continue working with you, Governor,” Dante responded, accepting Tobias’s handshake. “Anything I’m able to do to help the people of this country, don’t hesitate to let me know.”
“Dante, you know, I have to thank you for all the help you’re giving us, for real. Since those things started falling from the sky, weird stuff has been happening. I appreciate that someone with a big brain like you is giving us a hand figuring it all out.”
“You’re very welcome, Gabriella.” Dante shook Gabriella’s hand after releasing Tobias’s. “I’ll arrange the transfer of the Meteonite to your building in Viridian City right away. Be safe on your way back.”
-:-
Tobias and Gabriella left Mr. Pokémon’s house and Route 30 at the conclusion of the meeting, departing together in the helicopter that they arrived in. Dante, on the other hand, stayed at his friend’s home; the two spent quite some time discussing the most recent magazines from foreign nations to be added to Mr. Pokémon’s collection over some beer. Eventually, Dante decided to turn in for the night, but Mr. Pokémon remained up, working on his computers.
Outside in the bushes, beneath the moon and stars filling the clear night sky, James and Meowth were working with the R-Pad while Jessie and Wobbuffet observed Mr. Pokémon’s house using binoculars.
“Look at this data, it’s incredible!” James exclaimed, though he quickly tried to check the volume of his voice. “Maybe this is how we should have gone about it this way last time, stealing the data after letting Team Plasma take the Meteonite.”
“Oh, come on.” Meowth looked up from the charts of data steadily streaming in from Mr. Pokémon’s hacked servers and hissed, “You know that’s not helping!”
“Sorry, sorry.” As the download of the Meteonite data completed, James deactivated the computer and picked it up. Turning his head, he quietly called to his teammate, “Jessie, see anything?”
“It’s a house at night, James. Of course I haven’t seen anything.” Jessie sighed and slumped over. The job of keeping watch over the building for signs of any danger was an incredibly boring one to her; in fact, she found a lot of their current mission dull. Ever since she, James and Meowth had been dragged out of retirement by Pierce on behalf of Team Rocket, she had been hoping that it would at least be for an entertaining reason. Simply sitting around watching houses didn’t sate her appetite for action.
“Wobbuffet! Wobba!!”
Wobbuffet frantically tugging on her arm meant that just perhaps, action had found them in the end.
“What do you want?” she sharply demanded of her Pokémon.
“Wobba!”
Following Wobbuffet’s wild gestures, Jessie looked back through her binoculars at the house. What she saw made her gasp.
“James, Meowth, be quiet and get over here. Something’s happening.”
The door of the building had opened, and Mr. Pokémon had stepped out. In his hand was the briefcase containing the Meteonite, the same one that Dante had delivered to him.
“Where are they?” the disheveled old man wondered aloud. “They’re late.”
“Sorry to keep you waiting. We are here.”
From the westbound road, a woman wearing a plush coat of brown fur emerged, followed by four men in khaki uniforms. The woman’s most distinguishing feature, however, was the mask covering her face, which was designed to incorporate the beak and red-white-and-blue feathers of Braviary.
“So you finally showed up, Mercury?!” Mr. Pokémon growled. “It took you long enough. Getting this thing was hard enough!”
“Oh, cool it, we’re not that late. Séduire and I were making some preparations for the next stage. I trust that knowledge of the Meteonite’s purpose has been contained?”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” he assured Mercury with a smirk, which quickly vanished. “Your son and that girl he was taking care of were sniffing around here, though. I don’t have any reason to think they know anything beyond the word Meteonite.”
Mercury slouched; this wasn’t news she was hoping to hear. “I really would have liked that to not be the case, but it’s not your fault.”
Over in the bushes, Jessie, James, Meowth and Wobbuffet were watching this scene with awe.
“Would you look at that,” Meowth uttered in sheer amazement, “Mr. Pokémon is in with Polaris!”
“This is big… we have to tell someone. It’s worse than we thought.”
Nodding in agreement with James’s comment, Jessie added, “Dr. Zager and the boss need to know that nobody can be trusted.”
“Nobody needs to know anything!”
Out of nowhere, Chaos warped into the area the trio were using for their hideout. The sudden appearance of the Shadow Triad member startled them so badly that they stumbled out into the open, blowing their cover. Mercury seemed unsurprised by their presence, but her followers and Mr. Pokémon all jumped, shocked by the sudden interruption.
“Intruders!” Mr. Pokémon shouted before seeing the ‘R’ logo on the uniforms they wore under their trenchcoats. “Team Rocket! They’re here! It’s happening!!”
“What is it you want, Team Rocket?” Mercury questioned them in a severe tone, having secured the Meteonite’s briefcase for herself.
“They were spying on your meeting,” Chaos explained as he walked from the bushes. “They know about the Meteonite.”
“Well that is not any surprise, not after how relentlessly Team Rocket pursued the Meteonite in Unova.”
“Shall we dispose of them?” one of the men in Mercury’s team asked her.
“No,” she replied, looking down on the Team Rocket trio, who were in complete disarray. “Let me do it. Electivire, go!”
The Electric-type Pokémon, whose bulky, muscular body was covered in yellow fur and black stripes, materialized alongside his masked trainer. They both took a single step forward, meaning to intimidate the Team Rocket trio.
To a degree, it worked. Surrounded by Mercury, her men and her growling Electivire on one side and Chaos on the other, they constricted closer and closer to each other, searching for a way out.
“Jessie, James, you know, now would be a really good time for one of you to come up with a plan!!”
“We’re sitting ducks here,” James concurred with Meowth. “What should we do?”
“There’s no way out of this one,” Jessie quickly concluded, taking another Poké Ball from the pocket of her coat, “so the only right thing to do is go down fighting!”
“That’s my kind of talk.”
Jessie and James each opened a single Poké Ball simultaneously. Jessie’s ball released a plump bat Pokémon with a heart-shaped nose and a midsection covered in white fur, while James’s gave rise to a golden coffin cloaked in a shadow that formed four long arms and hands. These two Pokémon, immediately becoming aware of the threat they faced, moved to shield their trainers with their bodies.
“How quaint!” Mercury blew her opposition off. “Two agents of a dying crime group trying to stand up against me.”
“You be quiet!” James shot back, his emotions finally boiling over. “We don’t know what Polaris is planning, but I’ll tell you that Team Rocket will prevent you from doing it so we can rule the world!”
“If that’s what you believe in, defeat me.” Shedding her lighthearted cockiness, Mercury steeled her stance and became serious.
“So what are you two mooks waiting for?!” Meowth loudly griped at his teammates.
“Nothing! Swoobat, use Heart Stamp!”
“Cofagrigus, combine your Will-O-Wisp with that!”
Cofagrigus’s red eyes, which were peering out from an opening in the upper part of his coffin, flashed brightly. He then made a flicking motion with each of his four hands, forming a ring of blue fireballs. When Swoobat started to glide toward Electivire, these fireballs surrounded her, complementing her glowing, heart-shaped nose.
“I’ll give you credit for having the courage to attack head-on. Foolhardy, but courageous. Electivire, take all that out with Electroweb!”
Electivire thrust his right arm forward, directly at the oncoming attacks aimed his way. From each of his fingers, strings of electrically charged webbing lashed out, washing over and knocking down Swoobat while dispelling the Will-O-Wisp flames.
Once Swoobat was down, Electivire released a second, more intense shock through the web, causing the bat Pokémon to cry out in pain.
“Swoobat!” exclaimed a dismayed Jessie. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you out of there. Right, James?”
“I’ll try! Cofagrigus, use Will-O-Wisp to burn the webbing!”
“Electroweb!”
Cofagrigus started to form more wisps of fire around himself, but Mercury’s Electivire cut him off. The Electric-type Pokémon now thrust up his left hand and released an even larger amount of web, now creating a massive net that held down both Cofagrigus and Swoobat.
“Now it’s time for this to end. Electivire, shock them.”
With both hands now controlling the wide net he’d cast, Electivire sent a massive surge of electricity flowing through it. The web ultimately burned away, but not before acting as the conductor for enough energy to leave Swoobat and Cofagrigus as twitching wrecks on the ground.
“Finish them off! Wild Charge!” Mercury wasn’t paying attention to the Team Rocket members, but if she was, she would have seen that they smirked slightly when she gave this command.
A shroud of yellow electricity completely enveloped Electivire’s body, and by using his powerful legs to propel himself, he lunged for Swoobat and Cofagrigus.
“Now!” Jessie screamed. “Wobbuffet, Destiny Bond!”
To protect his trainer, her friends and her Pokémon, Wobbuffet jumped in between them and the charging Electivire. Just before Wild Charge struck him, his entire body flashed with purple light.
Left with a wide swath of his skin seared by Electivire’s power, Wobbuffet crumpled to the ground. Electivire backed up to survey his work, only to be suddenly overcome by the purple light. Despite his best efforts to tear out of its influence, Electivire was unable to escape, and ultimately ended up falling as well.
“Well played!” Mercury said while sending Electivire back to his Great Ball, genuinely impressed at Team Rocket’s tactics.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet!”
Meowth charged forward, setting his sights on the briefcase containing the Meteonite shard, which Mercury had set down on the ground when the battle had begun. As soon as they realized what was happening, Mercury’s men all drew Poké Balls of their own, but it was once again Mercury herself who threw her Net Ball. Just as Meowth secured the case, a Pelipper appeared and impeded him.
“Outta my way, you lug!”
“Not with our Meteonite, Meowth. Pelipper, use Soak!”
Before Meowth could escape, Pelipper opened her large bill and sprayed a shower of water over Meowth. He wasn’t hurt by the attack, but he hated being covered in water and tried as hard as he could to shake it off.
“What do you think you’re doing?!”
“Taking back what rightfully belongs to Polaris. Seed Bomb!”
Pelipper opened her bill again, but what came out this time was a barrage of round seeds. Meowth tried to run, but no matter which direction he took the case, he couldn’t escape. He found himself trapped within a field of small explosions that wracked his body like that of a rag doll.
However, something else happened in addition – the explosions threw the briefcase into the air, and while it reached the peak of its flight, it slipped open and the Meteonite shard fell out.
“That’s the Meteonite!” Jessie exclaimed, having recalled all her Pokémon along with James.
“Meowth, get it!”
“I’ve got this!” Meowth lunged for the rock with his arms outstretched, and surprisingly enough, he safely got under the falling Meteonite with little effort.
The Meteonite landed squarely in Meowth’s grasp, prompting him to smile in relief once he realized he had it. That happiness would not last long – sparks suddenly started flying from the glowing Meteonite, followed by a radiant energy blast that blinded everyone in the clearing, including Mercury and her followers.
At the center of it all, Meowth felt like his mind was being torn apart. Horrifying images of death and despair flashed rapidly through his imagination, and he could feel his soul warping with every vision.
When the light faded and both opposing factions recovered their sight, they found Meowth standing at the epicenter of the event, eyes closed and holding the Meteonite in his arms.
“The Meteonite became unstable again…” James immediately observed.
“Wait, what’s wrong with Meowth?” wondered Jessie.
On the other side of the clearing, Mercury knew exactly what was going on. “Meowth, come over here. Be a good boy and give us the Meteonite piece back.”
“Yes, as you wish…” the feline Pokémon mumbled. He turned and shuffled to Mercury to hand over the Meteonite, and it was not until then that he finally opened his eyes.
Meowth’s eyes were filled with red.
“What have you done to him?” James angrily demanded, stomping his foot into the ground hard enough to leave a relatively deep footprint.
“Isn’t it obvious? The Meteonite can control the minds of Pokémon! You know that! Your Meowth just exposed himself directly to its power as it became unstable, so it has changed him. He is now one of us!”
“That’s a lie! Meowth, you’d never betray me, right?”
The silence that Jessie was met with told her everything she needed to know. Something really had happened to force Meowth to switch sides.
“Well, I would call this a successful meeting. We’ve got the Meteonite and Team Rocket’s Meowth is now a Polaris member. I’d say it’s time for us to call it a day. Pelipper, Gunk Sh…”
Mercury’s final command was cut off by the sound of a speeding car. A short, black limousine came tearing into the clearing, spinning to a stop near Jessie and James, and the flash of a Poké Ball from inside released an Arbok.
“Arbok, Thunder Fang!” Ariana commanded from inside the car. Arbok immediately went off lunging at Pelipper, so Ariana then called to Jessie and James, “Hurry unless you want to get captured or killed!”
“But they got Meowth!” James yelled back.
Ariana let out an exasperated, exaggerated sigh. “Then I’ll have to just pick you up on my own. Arbok, Poison Tail!”
Pelipper was already stunned by the time Arbok brought his tail down on her. Smashed into the ground and unconscious, Pelipper would no longer be a problem for Team Rocket’s goals.
However, before they could do anything, Jessie and James had their path to Mercury and Meowth blocked by a Gastrodon, a Porygon2, a Sandslash and a Weavile. The four Pokémon under the ownership of Mercury’s henchmen glared menacingly at the now helpless Team Rocket members.
“Jessie, what do we do? We’ve got to get to him!”
“I-I don’t know!” Admitting helplessness was something Jessie hated doing, but the situation gave her no other choice. “Meowth, snap out of it!”
“If that’s the best you can do,” Mercury taunted them, “give up now. You’re in over your heads.”
Jessie and James both opened their mouths to respond, but before they could, Ariana’s Arbok slithered and coiled around them, then dragged them into Ariana’s car.
“Hurry, stop them!” Mercury ordered her subordinates.
Before the four Pokémon still under her squad’s command could launch any kind of attack, a weapon installed in Ariana’s car discharged a thick smokescreen. With their sight impaired, the Pokémon were powerless to prevent Team Rocket’s escape.
Inside the plush interior of the car, however, there was no feeling of victory. Both Jessie and James, while still trying to maintain some air of respect for their superior, felt completely outraged at what they’d been forced to do.
“How can you make us leave Meowth behind? They brainwashed him!”
“You and Dr. Zager didn’t tell us everything we needed to know!” James added. “Team Plasma? Mr. Pokémon being a Polaris member? We weren’t prepared to deal with this!”
Ariana kept her gaze fixed straight ahead and continued driving as she responded to them. “There are things even we didn’t know. We thought Ghetsis was the only Team Plasma member involved in this, and we had no intelligence to indicate that Mr. Pokémon was one of them. I’m sorry about Meowth, but there’s nothing we could have done back there. I’m taking you two back to Dr. Zager and we’ll talk to the boss.”
“Well, make it quick, because James and I are going to get him back.”
“We’ll make them sorry they messed with us. It’s personal now.”
END of CHAPTER 6
Having taken an empty Poké Ball from his bag, Matt threw it in a sweeping motion at the Roggenrola, who was struggling to pull herself up from the dirt. When the capsule hit the Rock-type Pokémon’s body, it split open and absorbed Roggenrola in a flash of light before closing and falling to the ground.
“I cannot say I approve of dealing with this situation in such a way…” Nikolai uttered in a severe tone while the others all watched the ball shake.
To the surprise of even him, though, shortly thereafter the Poké Ball shattered. Now freed and growling in rage, Roggenrola turned to face Matt and Charlotte.
“Looks like you pissed it off,” Nekou slyly said, fully knowing that Matt was perfectly aware of this already.
“Don’t give me that now!”
“Matt, watch out!” Olivia hastily cried.
Roggenrola was charging again, this time squarely at Matt. He hadn’t noticed because he’d turned his head to address Nekou.
Grunting, he covered his mouth with his arm and shouted, “Charlotte, Thunder Wave!”
Despite having tiny feet, Roggenrola was able to build up enough force to jump directly at Matt. Charlotte got in the way, though, and intercepted Roggenrola. She was releasing electricity from her body when they collided, causing paralysis to overcome Roggenrola while she was flung back herself. Matt barely avoided getting knocked down by his own Pokémon.
“I think that ought to do it,” he said to Bunny, Olivia and Nikolai, who were the only ones still paying attention to what was going on; Dante was already walking to the door of Mr. Pokémon’s home, while Nekou was spending her time looking at the trees surrounding the road. Sighing, Matt took out another Poké Ball and wordlessly threw it at Roggenrola. This time, the Pokémon put up little resistance and was successfully captured.
“I hope you will treat that Roggenrola properly…”
“You don’t have anything to worry about,” Matt said, dismissing Nikolai’s incessant concern while he picked up the Poké Ball that now contained his Roggenrola. Turning his head, he asked, “Nekou, what are you doing?”
“I love how the trees look in autumn…”
“I guess she’s just being herself again,” he conceded, sighing.
Meanwhile, Dante had long since stopped being concerned about what the younger members of his traveling group were doing. He was standing in front of Mr. Pokémon’s front door, waiting after having rung the bell.
“Come on, I know you’re home!” he called, his voice clearly conveying the irritation he felt.
“The Pokémon want to come in here and eat all the food I’ve got!” someone shouted back from behind the door.
“Oy, not this again… there’s no Pokémon out here that want your food, at least anymore anyway. And if you’d stop feeding them, they’ll stop coming!”
There was a hesitation, as if the owner of the voice was considering what Dante had said. The sound of many locks being undone followed, coupled with more muttering from inside the house.
“You can never be too sure in this day and age, Dante. Blasted Team Rocket taking all our money from the banks and all… this world ain’t what it used to be.”
The door was opened slowly from the inside, and the house’s owner shuffled out. Mr. Pokémon was a man about Dante’s age, however, he appeared much older due to his rumpled clothing and unkempt white hair and beard.
“You brought the thing?” he requested, shielding his tired-looking eyes from the late afternoon sun with his arm.
“Right here,” Dante replied, holding up the briefcase with the Meteonite inside.
“Good, good. Tobias and Gabriella have been riding my *** about this, and you just made it in time. They’re coming tonight.” Peering out further, Mr. Pokémon spied Matt’s group and Nikolai standing around and talking nearby. “Look at that. Look what the feminists caused, that wench over there with her body hanging out everywhere.”
“I heard thaaaat,” Nekou interrupted, speaking in a loud, sing-song voice. “So **** you, because I don’t care!”
“And now you see what I’ve been traveling with the last couple days,” Dante chuckled. “They’re good people, though. I’ve enjoyed my company with them.”
“Mr. Pokémon, I presume?” Having walked up alongside Dante, Matt addressed the strange old man himself.
“Who are you?” Mr. Pokémon fumbled a pair of glasses out of the breast pocket of his brown suit, put them on, and squinted at Matt. “Is it already happening?”
“Okaaay…” Matt took a step back before continuing. “It might be. You see, we came from New Bark Town, and Professor Juniper told us that Professor Elm had gone to visit you. Is he here?”
“Professor Elm was here, yes, but he left with as much haste as he came. Said he was going to the Ruins of Alph, if I’m not mistaken.”
Matt shrugged in response to this news. Granted, finding Elm wasn’t number one on his list of priorities, but he still would have liked to have located the professor.
“Matt, please give my farewells to Olivia, Bunny and Nekou,” said the doctor. “I must stay here tonight to present my Meteonite research to Mr. Pokémon’s guests. I have enjoyed traveling with you and your friends.”
“And it’s been an honor to get to know you, Doctor. Hopefully we’ll meet again.”
Dante extended his hand, so Matt took up the offer of a handshake with no hesitation. The magnitude his mind assigned to shaking the hand of such an important scientist was not lost on him. After that, Dante sharply turned on his heel and entered the house, then Mr. Pokémon slammed the door shut.
“Well then…”
“So what are we doing now?”
The feeling of Nekou’s hand on his shoulder made Matt turn abruptly. She, along with the others, had come up behind him while he was speaking with Dante.
“I don’t know. Finished looking at leaves?”
“I’ll remember that, smartass.” The way Nekou was smiling gave away that she was saying this in a good-natured way, for a change. “What’s going on with Dr. Fantomos?”
“He’s staying here to present his Meteonite research. He didn’t ask me to stay behind and wait for him, so I assume that we can go ahead to Violet City.”
“It’s not far from here,” Bunny piped up. She had a map unrolled in her hands and was studying their location on it. “Yeah, we only have a little way longer to go now.”
“Then let’s hit the road!” Olivia cheered, pumping her fist into the air. “Violet City and Badge number one, here we come!”
“Always so much energy… I have to admit, Olivia, sometimes you keep me going.”
With Violet City awaiting them to the northwest, the group – now minus Dante, but with Nikolai in tow – set out. The trees, their leaves cloaked in the earthy autumn colors that so enraptured Nekou, provided a warm framing for their trip down the dirt road that led the way.
“Stop.”
They didn’t even get twenty feet away from Mr. Pokémon’s home before more trouble arrived.
“What? Who said that?”
Nekou thrust her right arm out in front of Olivia and pulled her switchblade from her blouse with the left. “Someone’s here. They’re watching us…”
“I am…”
A sound like a gust of wind tore through the clearing, and one of the members of the Shadow Triad appeared, seemingly materializing from thin air. The color drained from Nekou’s face as she stood ready to fight him, while Matt, Olivia, Bunny and Nikolai all just stared at the strange young man.
“What’s going on here?” Bunny demanded. “Who are you?”
“I am… the unbreakable steel of Chaos… I do not have any orders to harm any of you unless you get in my way. Lord N, you are coming with me.”
“N? What kind of name is that?” Olivia wondered out loud.
“Tough luck, none of us is named N,” Matt harshly added. “Leave us alone.”
“I am looking at you right now, Lord N…” Chaos announced, leveling his finger straight at Nikolai. “Cease these foolish games… Lord Ghetsis has grown impatient.”
“I don’t know who you are!” Nikolai cried out. “I am just a simple trainer. Surely I am not the person you speak of!”
The striking sincerity of Nikolai’s words gave Chaos pause. In his hesitation, he left Nekou a chance to slip into the exchange.
“So Ghetsis is still controlling your Shadow Triad?” she quizzed the ninja.
Apparently having not perceived Nekou’s presence earlier, Chaos smirked beneath the mesh covering his mouth. “Well, well, well, seeing you is certainly a surprise, Black Cat. It must have slipped your mind that we, the Shadow Triad, live only to serve Lord Ghetsis and his whims.”
“Black Cat? What is this guy talking about?
Nekou went even paler at Matt’s line of questioning, but otherwise held her cool. “He’s trying to psych you and I out. Don’t listen to him.”
“You’re lucky I do not have the time to deal with you. Lord N… if you cannot remember your place in this world, I will force you to remember! Liepard! Bisharp! Banette!”
Chaos reached to his waist and threw three Poké Balls in a single motion that was so swift it nearly could not be seen. His three Pokémon appeared before him, one of which – a lithe-bodied, feline creature covered in purple-and-yellow fur – Matt noted he hadn’t seen before.
“Go forth! Bisharp, Assurance! Liepard, Aerial Ace! Banette, Will-O-Wisp!”
With Nikolai fixated in their eyes, all three of Chaos’s Pokémon lunged forward; blue light surrounded Liepard’s front claws, while Banette crossed his arms and threw flares of blue fire and a black glow surrounded both of Bisharp’s hands.
“No you don’t! Tanya, make your mark!”
“Right alongside you! Kayla, come out!”
Blocking the path of the three Pokémon with their bodies, Matt and Bunny sent out their Heatran and Mienshao respectively to provide some additional cover. Tanya’s large, bulky body was, in fact, enough to deflect the attempted attacks of the trio by itself.
“You’re going to protect him? Your loss… not even a Pokémon like Heatran will make me stand down… Liepard, Snarl!”
A single fallen leaf crunched under Liepard’s careful steps forward. He opened his mouth as widely as possible and let out a horrific screech, filling the air with shrill noise. Matt, Olivia and Bunny all had to hold their ears to protect themselves from the terrible sound. Tanya and Kayla cringed as well, but strangely, it appeared to have no effect on Nekou and Nikolai, as they simply stood still.
“Do... do you think… that’ll actually work?!” It was a struggle for Matt to speak under the influence of Liepard’s well-practiced Snarl, but he managed to force himself through it. “T-Tanya… Flash Cannon!”
One downside of Chaos’s honed attack was that Liepard was left vulnerable to a counterattack, which came when Tanya fired a large shot of silvery light from her mouth at him. As soon as it hit Liepard, the blast exploded, cutting off Snarl from continuing. Bisharp immediately picked up his teammate’s slack, jumping in and swinging his arms to dispel the smoke. Liepard arched his back from behind Bisharp, his coat discolored from Flash Cannon’s heat.
“I am one of Lord Ghetsis’s chosen hands!” Chaos appeared to be losing his composure, slipping into behavior more suitable of his name as he clenched his fists. “I will not fail him!!”
“It’ll be hard to please him when you’re in pieces.”
Out of nowhere, Nekou was right next to Chaos, swinging her knife down with his shoulder as her target. He was forced to defend himself by swiftly pulling a dagger from his belt to block the strike.
“You’re out of luck, Black Cat!” Chaos growled. “Bisharp! Lead Banette and Liepard while I take care of this one!”
A sharp grunt and a smile indicated that Bisharp gladly accepted the responsibility Chaos delegated to him. Banette and Liepard rallied to his side, and much like a trainer, he pointed his right arm forward at their enemies and spoke in his own language to give orders, which Banette and Liepard seemingly understood.
While Banette hung back, Liepard lunged forward once more, again attempting to land an Aerial Ace. Banette backed up his ally by waving his arms back and forth to generate a gust of chilled air. However, also in much the same way as the first exchange of attacks, Tanya used her body and her natural Fire-and-Steel typing to block and absorb the Aerial Ace and Icy Wind.
“I think it’s time we fought back. Kayla, use Drain Punch on Liepard!”
Moving with great speed, Kayla immediately closed the gap between herself and Chaos’s Liepard. Before the Dark-type Pokémon could react, she threw back the long, purple-tipped fur on her arm and punched Liepard squarely in the face using the fist underneath. The welt left behind quickly transformed into light, which was absorbed into Kayla’s body.
Crying out his name in an ear-splitting hiss, Bisharp leapt over the stunned Liepard, his hands glowing black in preparation for Assurance again. His target was Nikolai, but Olivia was standing close enough to also be threatened. Seeing Bisharp coming down toward her caused Olivia to cringe in fear; she’d already had one near-death experience with a Bisharp and had no desire to go through another.
“Magma Storm!”
The tornado of fire that swirled from Tanya’s mouth failed to directly connect, but it flew closely enough to blow Bisharp back with its sheer force. Once she was out of danger, Olivia ran to Bunny, but Nikolai simply remained still.
“This is not right…” he thought. Tears were welling up in his eyes, hidden from the others due to the shadow of his hat. “ Pokémon and humans fighting each other like this…”
As the Pokémon exchanged blows, Nekou and Chaos were doing the same. Sparks flew every time the metal of Nekou’s switchblade and Chaos’s dagger clashed, but neither of them could make much headway against the other, as the rapid pace of Nekou’s attack forced Chaos to defend himself instead of fighting back.
“Let’s see how you like this!” Chaos abruptly roared.
Deciding to take a risk, the Shadow Triad member dropped his defensive techniques and attempted to directly hit Nekou. The mesh covering over his mouth ended up getting cut off, but in exchange for that battle damage, he managed to slash a long gash into Nekou’s left shoulder.
Stumbling back and looking down at the red ooze slowly trickling out of her skin, Nekou spat, “****, you got me! Well, actually, you only got my clothes… I guess Ghetsis didn’t prepare you for facing me?” Nekou lightly ran her hand over the bloody wound, then raised that same hand to her mouth and licked the liquid off. Immediately, her mind began to race. “Mmm… yeah, they didn’t tell you, so I will. You might have cut me, but the thing is… a wounded animal is the most vicious!”
When she jerked her head back up, Nekou’s eyes were filled with a bright yellow glow. She screamed loudly enough to cause her voice to crack and lunged at Chaos, assaulting him in such a bloodthirsty frenzy that he couldn’t keep up. Her switchblade first claimed his gloves, which fell to the ground in pieces, then began nicking small cuts into his exposed hands and arms.
“You’re mine now, you little ****! All I have to do is beat you before that happens now!”
Chaos knew he was in trouble against Nekou if she was going to press him so relentlessly. Becoming consumed by desperation, he began to reach for a small pouch attached to his belt.
Before any of this chaotic scene could be sorted out, however, a new element entered the fray to decide the outcome. A Haxorus came crashing through the battle with her Dual Chop move, using the first swing of her tusks to fell Banette and Liepard and the second to separate Nekou and Chaos.
“That Pokémon,” Olivia gasped, genuinely surprised. “It’s…”
“You should not be using Pokémon to cause harm to those who have not harmed you,” Dante lectured Chaos as he stepped back into the clearing. “I come out here to see what all the racket is, and what do I find? Nothing more than some white-haired ninja scoundrel making trouble for some innocents. It’s rightly disappointing.”
“Stay out of this, old man!” Chaos sneered.
“Matt, Nekou, Olivia, Bunny, take Nikolai and go to Violet City as you intended. I’m sporting enough to stay behind and deal with this common thug of a villain.”
“You heard the man!” Wasting no time in agreeing with Dante’s proposal, Matt rallied his friends to evacuate Route 30 right away by recalling his Pokémon, a move mimicked by Bunny. “Let’s move!”
“Oh no you don’t! Not with Lord N!”
Of course, Chaos was completely unwilling to let his prey escape capture. Capable of going to any length to accomplish Ghetsis’s orders, he reached into the pouch on his belt, swiftly withdrawing and flinging a dart. The dart hit Nikolai in the center of his chest, and almost immediately, he started going into convulsions.
“Nikolai?” Bunny whispered, suddenly feeling terrified unlike anything else she’d felt that day.
“Listen to me, you’re going to be okay!” Matt rushed over to support Nikolai just as the green-haired young man vomited into the grass. Though he was not an expert in the field of their study, Matt knew enough about toxins to realize quite swiftly that Chaos’s dart was surely poisoned.
“Now will you be a good prince and return on your king’s decree?” demanded the shady ninja bodyguard. “That genetic suppressant ought to be working wonders on your freak body right now.”
His suspicions of a poison dart confirmed, Matt made a motion as if he was preparing to battle Chaos directly, but all the ninja’s threat earned him was a swift, high kick in the throat from a very angry Nekou.
“If you’re gonna fight dirty, do it against me, ****er!” she screamed at Chaos as he fell backward.
“Nekou, not now!” Matt shouted over to her. He and Bunny were supporting Nikolai, who could no longer stand on his own and was suffering more violent convulsions. “Look at this… whatever he had that dart spiked with really messed Nikolai up!”
“Hurry, get him out of here! Go to Violet City’s Pokémon Center. He should be able to get treatment there!”
“You heard the man, Nekou!” Bunny called out, intending to follow Dante’s orders. “Let’s go!”
It took every ounce of Nekou’s remaining restraint, but she managed to tear herself away from her fight with Chaos, even though she hadn’t yet worked through the rush she still felt. Blinking repeatedly, she forced down her aggression, and the yellow glow disappeared from her eyes. Matt and Bunny assisted Nikolai in escaping into the woods to the west, and Nekou escorted Olivia in following them.
Stumbling to his feet, Chaos yelled after the five, “Stop! You are going nowhere!”
“No, you are the one who won’t be going anywhere,” Dante offered as a correction while his Haxorus stood in Chaos’s way. “I will dispose of you myself.”
“Hmph, like there’s anything an old man like you can do! Bisharp, Liepard, Banette, attack!”
Summoning what strength they had left, Chaos’s three Pokémon all lunged at Haxorus. Both she and Dante remained calm, however. Neither of them saw the opposing trio of Pokémon or their trainer as a threat in the least.
“Haxorus,” Dante coolly directed, even closing his eyes as he spoke, “Dual Chop.”
Just like when they’d arrived earlier, Haxorus swiftly charged forward and cut Liepard down using her right tusk, then slashed Banette with the left. Both Pokémon crumpled to the ground as a result of everything they’d taken.
“Bisharp, Iron Head!!”
“It is over. Haxorus, use Counter!”
An orange light outlined Haxorus’s body, and when Bisharp’s metallic headbutt struck her, she immediately punched him squarely in the face. Because Haxorus’s attack was twice as strong as the move she had been hit with, Bisharp was defeated just as his allies were.
“Is that it?” Dante taunted the dumbfounded Shadow Triad member. “You were not even a slight challenge for me. Be on your way if you don’t want this to get any worse for yourself.”
“Ugh… I swear on my honor, I will avenge this loss in the name of Lord Ghetsis! Harmonia shall rise!”
Chaos quickly recalled his three fallen Pokémon, then disappeared using one of his ninja techniques, leaving Dante alone in the clearing with Haxorus.
Turning to her trainer, the golden-bodied dragon questioningly growled, “Haro?”
“He will present no more disobedience, so it is not worth pursuing him further. You did well, so rest awhile.”
-:-
A few hours later, after the sun had set over Johto, a helicopter rested outside of Mr. Pokémon’s home. It was colored black with gold trim around the doors, and barely fit in the clearing.
The inside of Mr. Pokémon’s house was as much of a disorganized mess as he was himself. Towering computer hard drives and bookshelves lined the walls, while his tables were covered by sloppy stacks of papers, magazines and foreign coins. On the far side of the darkened room was a red couch, on which his guests were sitting. One was a man in a gray uniform and a short red cape, who was sitting with his arms crossed; the other was a bright-eyed woman dressed in a smart black business suit and tie. Both of them had long, flowing hair that covered the left side of their faces; the man’s was shoulder-length and blue, while the woman’s golden hair stretched all the way down to her thighs.
“Governor Tobias, President Gabriella, is there anything I can get either of you fine folks?” Mr. Pokémon was standing hunchbacked next to the couch and held his hands together as he tried to be polite to his guests.
“Have you got any coffee? I’d really like some, especially if you could throw a lot of sugar in!”
“I’ll just take a bottle of Fresh Water, if you would.”
The difference between the two couldn’t have been more pronounced. Gabriella was outgoing and very upbeat, while Tobias conducted himself in a serious and straightforward manner.
Mr. Pokémon disappeared into the kitchen of his cluttered bungalow to fetch the refreshments that had been ordered. Standing across the room, next to a table on which he’d placed his briefcase, Dante stepped forth to begin his presentation.
“Thank you for coming out, Tobias, Gabriella.” Before speaking further, he leaned his weight on his cane and bowed slightly, then opened his briefcase to reveal the Meteonite piece. “I merely have a small amount of research to present to you regarding the Meteonite, as I described.”
“I’m all ears,” Tobias said.
“You see, the Meteonite…” Dante was briefly interrupted when Mr. Pokémon returned to hand Tobias his water and Gabriella her coffee, but he quickly picked up again. “The Meteonite is composed of an element that does not exist on Earth. This alone warrants further study, for it is clearly not anything that is currently included on the periodic table. This element, therefore, should also be called Meteonite, unless a new name is decided upon later.”
“That’s fascinating, Dr. Fantomos, but tell me… does it actually do anything?”
“Yeah, you know, Tobias is right. A glittery rock is nice and all, but if you can’t do anything with it, it’s only good for looking at. And that’s really kind of boring, right?”
“I’m getting to that. One property this element appears to have is responsiveness to itself. As in, if you use a quantity of it to search, it will react when a second quantity is nearby. It appears to interfere with electronics when it is activated, as if it is generating an electromagnetic pulse.”
“Could it possibly have a medicinal use?”
Dante coughed before answering Gabriella’s question; the air in Mr. Pokémon’s house was rather dusty. “I suppose it is possible that the electrical pulses released by Meteonite can have a stimulating effect on living tissue.”
“Excellent! I wish to acquire some of this magic rock of yours right away, then, Dante. I’ll send it right off to my R&D department at the Angel Corporation, and we might discover some new medical treatments!”
“Surely this element is useful for more than just regenerative medicine?” Tobias remarked.
“I was getting to that. During my experiments with the Meteonite in my possession, I discovered a potential use for it that was unlike anything else.”
“Which is?”
“While I was experimenting with applying electrical pulses of differing frequencies to the Meteonite, it reacted and created energy pulses. Nearby, a pack of Pawniard and a Bisharp went wild after being exposed to that energy. I believe that this element may be capable of influencing Pokémon behavior when certain electrical pulses are applied to it. I tested several different frequencies, and it would appear that the Pawniard and Bisharp only responded to that frequency, so I theorize that different frequencies affect different families of Pokémon.”
“To think a simple rock from space could be so amazing…” said an awed Gabriella.
“It all makes sense. I will have to direct the Tohjo Continent officials to draw up emergency plans for if more Meteonite lands on Earth after the Ruins of Alph strike.” Rising to his feet, Tobias extended his hand to Dante. “Dr. Fantomos, I know Gabriella will have the Angel Corporation’s R&D do what they can, but your mind is very important for us to have on this study. You may be the only man who can truly understand how Meteonite affects living things.”
“I’ll be honored to continue working with you, Governor,” Dante responded, accepting Tobias’s handshake. “Anything I’m able to do to help the people of this country, don’t hesitate to let me know.”
“Dante, you know, I have to thank you for all the help you’re giving us, for real. Since those things started falling from the sky, weird stuff has been happening. I appreciate that someone with a big brain like you is giving us a hand figuring it all out.”
“You’re very welcome, Gabriella.” Dante shook Gabriella’s hand after releasing Tobias’s. “I’ll arrange the transfer of the Meteonite to your building in Viridian City right away. Be safe on your way back.”
-:-
Tobias and Gabriella left Mr. Pokémon’s house and Route 30 at the conclusion of the meeting, departing together in the helicopter that they arrived in. Dante, on the other hand, stayed at his friend’s home; the two spent quite some time discussing the most recent magazines from foreign nations to be added to Mr. Pokémon’s collection over some beer. Eventually, Dante decided to turn in for the night, but Mr. Pokémon remained up, working on his computers.
Outside in the bushes, beneath the moon and stars filling the clear night sky, James and Meowth were working with the R-Pad while Jessie and Wobbuffet observed Mr. Pokémon’s house using binoculars.
“Look at this data, it’s incredible!” James exclaimed, though he quickly tried to check the volume of his voice. “Maybe this is how we should have gone about it this way last time, stealing the data after letting Team Plasma take the Meteonite.”
“Oh, come on.” Meowth looked up from the charts of data steadily streaming in from Mr. Pokémon’s hacked servers and hissed, “You know that’s not helping!”
“Sorry, sorry.” As the download of the Meteonite data completed, James deactivated the computer and picked it up. Turning his head, he quietly called to his teammate, “Jessie, see anything?”
“It’s a house at night, James. Of course I haven’t seen anything.” Jessie sighed and slumped over. The job of keeping watch over the building for signs of any danger was an incredibly boring one to her; in fact, she found a lot of their current mission dull. Ever since she, James and Meowth had been dragged out of retirement by Pierce on behalf of Team Rocket, she had been hoping that it would at least be for an entertaining reason. Simply sitting around watching houses didn’t sate her appetite for action.
“Wobbuffet! Wobba!!”
Wobbuffet frantically tugging on her arm meant that just perhaps, action had found them in the end.
“What do you want?” she sharply demanded of her Pokémon.
“Wobba!”
Following Wobbuffet’s wild gestures, Jessie looked back through her binoculars at the house. What she saw made her gasp.
“James, Meowth, be quiet and get over here. Something’s happening.”
The door of the building had opened, and Mr. Pokémon had stepped out. In his hand was the briefcase containing the Meteonite, the same one that Dante had delivered to him.
“Where are they?” the disheveled old man wondered aloud. “They’re late.”
“Sorry to keep you waiting. We are here.”
From the westbound road, a woman wearing a plush coat of brown fur emerged, followed by four men in khaki uniforms. The woman’s most distinguishing feature, however, was the mask covering her face, which was designed to incorporate the beak and red-white-and-blue feathers of Braviary.
“So you finally showed up, Mercury?!” Mr. Pokémon growled. “It took you long enough. Getting this thing was hard enough!”
“Oh, cool it, we’re not that late. Séduire and I were making some preparations for the next stage. I trust that knowledge of the Meteonite’s purpose has been contained?”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” he assured Mercury with a smirk, which quickly vanished. “Your son and that girl he was taking care of were sniffing around here, though. I don’t have any reason to think they know anything beyond the word Meteonite.”
Mercury slouched; this wasn’t news she was hoping to hear. “I really would have liked that to not be the case, but it’s not your fault.”
Over in the bushes, Jessie, James, Meowth and Wobbuffet were watching this scene with awe.
“Would you look at that,” Meowth uttered in sheer amazement, “Mr. Pokémon is in with Polaris!”
“This is big… we have to tell someone. It’s worse than we thought.”
Nodding in agreement with James’s comment, Jessie added, “Dr. Zager and the boss need to know that nobody can be trusted.”
“Nobody needs to know anything!”
Out of nowhere, Chaos warped into the area the trio were using for their hideout. The sudden appearance of the Shadow Triad member startled them so badly that they stumbled out into the open, blowing their cover. Mercury seemed unsurprised by their presence, but her followers and Mr. Pokémon all jumped, shocked by the sudden interruption.
“Intruders!” Mr. Pokémon shouted before seeing the ‘R’ logo on the uniforms they wore under their trenchcoats. “Team Rocket! They’re here! It’s happening!!”
“What is it you want, Team Rocket?” Mercury questioned them in a severe tone, having secured the Meteonite’s briefcase for herself.
“They were spying on your meeting,” Chaos explained as he walked from the bushes. “They know about the Meteonite.”
“Well that is not any surprise, not after how relentlessly Team Rocket pursued the Meteonite in Unova.”
“Shall we dispose of them?” one of the men in Mercury’s team asked her.
“No,” she replied, looking down on the Team Rocket trio, who were in complete disarray. “Let me do it. Electivire, go!”
The Electric-type Pokémon, whose bulky, muscular body was covered in yellow fur and black stripes, materialized alongside his masked trainer. They both took a single step forward, meaning to intimidate the Team Rocket trio.
To a degree, it worked. Surrounded by Mercury, her men and her growling Electivire on one side and Chaos on the other, they constricted closer and closer to each other, searching for a way out.
“Jessie, James, you know, now would be a really good time for one of you to come up with a plan!!”
“We’re sitting ducks here,” James concurred with Meowth. “What should we do?”
“There’s no way out of this one,” Jessie quickly concluded, taking another Poké Ball from the pocket of her coat, “so the only right thing to do is go down fighting!”
“That’s my kind of talk.”
Jessie and James each opened a single Poké Ball simultaneously. Jessie’s ball released a plump bat Pokémon with a heart-shaped nose and a midsection covered in white fur, while James’s gave rise to a golden coffin cloaked in a shadow that formed four long arms and hands. These two Pokémon, immediately becoming aware of the threat they faced, moved to shield their trainers with their bodies.
“How quaint!” Mercury blew her opposition off. “Two agents of a dying crime group trying to stand up against me.”
“You be quiet!” James shot back, his emotions finally boiling over. “We don’t know what Polaris is planning, but I’ll tell you that Team Rocket will prevent you from doing it so we can rule the world!”
“If that’s what you believe in, defeat me.” Shedding her lighthearted cockiness, Mercury steeled her stance and became serious.
“So what are you two mooks waiting for?!” Meowth loudly griped at his teammates.
“Nothing! Swoobat, use Heart Stamp!”
“Cofagrigus, combine your Will-O-Wisp with that!”
Cofagrigus’s red eyes, which were peering out from an opening in the upper part of his coffin, flashed brightly. He then made a flicking motion with each of his four hands, forming a ring of blue fireballs. When Swoobat started to glide toward Electivire, these fireballs surrounded her, complementing her glowing, heart-shaped nose.
“I’ll give you credit for having the courage to attack head-on. Foolhardy, but courageous. Electivire, take all that out with Electroweb!”
Electivire thrust his right arm forward, directly at the oncoming attacks aimed his way. From each of his fingers, strings of electrically charged webbing lashed out, washing over and knocking down Swoobat while dispelling the Will-O-Wisp flames.
Once Swoobat was down, Electivire released a second, more intense shock through the web, causing the bat Pokémon to cry out in pain.
“Swoobat!” exclaimed a dismayed Jessie. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you out of there. Right, James?”
“I’ll try! Cofagrigus, use Will-O-Wisp to burn the webbing!”
“Electroweb!”
Cofagrigus started to form more wisps of fire around himself, but Mercury’s Electivire cut him off. The Electric-type Pokémon now thrust up his left hand and released an even larger amount of web, now creating a massive net that held down both Cofagrigus and Swoobat.
“Now it’s time for this to end. Electivire, shock them.”
With both hands now controlling the wide net he’d cast, Electivire sent a massive surge of electricity flowing through it. The web ultimately burned away, but not before acting as the conductor for enough energy to leave Swoobat and Cofagrigus as twitching wrecks on the ground.
“Finish them off! Wild Charge!” Mercury wasn’t paying attention to the Team Rocket members, but if she was, she would have seen that they smirked slightly when she gave this command.
A shroud of yellow electricity completely enveloped Electivire’s body, and by using his powerful legs to propel himself, he lunged for Swoobat and Cofagrigus.
“Now!” Jessie screamed. “Wobbuffet, Destiny Bond!”
To protect his trainer, her friends and her Pokémon, Wobbuffet jumped in between them and the charging Electivire. Just before Wild Charge struck him, his entire body flashed with purple light.
Left with a wide swath of his skin seared by Electivire’s power, Wobbuffet crumpled to the ground. Electivire backed up to survey his work, only to be suddenly overcome by the purple light. Despite his best efforts to tear out of its influence, Electivire was unable to escape, and ultimately ended up falling as well.
“Well played!” Mercury said while sending Electivire back to his Great Ball, genuinely impressed at Team Rocket’s tactics.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet!”
Meowth charged forward, setting his sights on the briefcase containing the Meteonite shard, which Mercury had set down on the ground when the battle had begun. As soon as they realized what was happening, Mercury’s men all drew Poké Balls of their own, but it was once again Mercury herself who threw her Net Ball. Just as Meowth secured the case, a Pelipper appeared and impeded him.
“Outta my way, you lug!”
“Not with our Meteonite, Meowth. Pelipper, use Soak!”
Before Meowth could escape, Pelipper opened her large bill and sprayed a shower of water over Meowth. He wasn’t hurt by the attack, but he hated being covered in water and tried as hard as he could to shake it off.
“What do you think you’re doing?!”
“Taking back what rightfully belongs to Polaris. Seed Bomb!”
Pelipper opened her bill again, but what came out this time was a barrage of round seeds. Meowth tried to run, but no matter which direction he took the case, he couldn’t escape. He found himself trapped within a field of small explosions that wracked his body like that of a rag doll.
However, something else happened in addition – the explosions threw the briefcase into the air, and while it reached the peak of its flight, it slipped open and the Meteonite shard fell out.
“That’s the Meteonite!” Jessie exclaimed, having recalled all her Pokémon along with James.
“Meowth, get it!”
“I’ve got this!” Meowth lunged for the rock with his arms outstretched, and surprisingly enough, he safely got under the falling Meteonite with little effort.
The Meteonite landed squarely in Meowth’s grasp, prompting him to smile in relief once he realized he had it. That happiness would not last long – sparks suddenly started flying from the glowing Meteonite, followed by a radiant energy blast that blinded everyone in the clearing, including Mercury and her followers.
At the center of it all, Meowth felt like his mind was being torn apart. Horrifying images of death and despair flashed rapidly through his imagination, and he could feel his soul warping with every vision.
When the light faded and both opposing factions recovered their sight, they found Meowth standing at the epicenter of the event, eyes closed and holding the Meteonite in his arms.
“The Meteonite became unstable again…” James immediately observed.
“Wait, what’s wrong with Meowth?” wondered Jessie.
On the other side of the clearing, Mercury knew exactly what was going on. “Meowth, come over here. Be a good boy and give us the Meteonite piece back.”
“Yes, as you wish…” the feline Pokémon mumbled. He turned and shuffled to Mercury to hand over the Meteonite, and it was not until then that he finally opened his eyes.
Meowth’s eyes were filled with red.
“What have you done to him?” James angrily demanded, stomping his foot into the ground hard enough to leave a relatively deep footprint.
“Isn’t it obvious? The Meteonite can control the minds of Pokémon! You know that! Your Meowth just exposed himself directly to its power as it became unstable, so it has changed him. He is now one of us!”
“That’s a lie! Meowth, you’d never betray me, right?”
The silence that Jessie was met with told her everything she needed to know. Something really had happened to force Meowth to switch sides.
“Well, I would call this a successful meeting. We’ve got the Meteonite and Team Rocket’s Meowth is now a Polaris member. I’d say it’s time for us to call it a day. Pelipper, Gunk Sh…”
Mercury’s final command was cut off by the sound of a speeding car. A short, black limousine came tearing into the clearing, spinning to a stop near Jessie and James, and the flash of a Poké Ball from inside released an Arbok.
“Arbok, Thunder Fang!” Ariana commanded from inside the car. Arbok immediately went off lunging at Pelipper, so Ariana then called to Jessie and James, “Hurry unless you want to get captured or killed!”
“But they got Meowth!” James yelled back.
Ariana let out an exasperated, exaggerated sigh. “Then I’ll have to just pick you up on my own. Arbok, Poison Tail!”
Pelipper was already stunned by the time Arbok brought his tail down on her. Smashed into the ground and unconscious, Pelipper would no longer be a problem for Team Rocket’s goals.
However, before they could do anything, Jessie and James had their path to Mercury and Meowth blocked by a Gastrodon, a Porygon2, a Sandslash and a Weavile. The four Pokémon under the ownership of Mercury’s henchmen glared menacingly at the now helpless Team Rocket members.
“Jessie, what do we do? We’ve got to get to him!”
“I-I don’t know!” Admitting helplessness was something Jessie hated doing, but the situation gave her no other choice. “Meowth, snap out of it!”
“If that’s the best you can do,” Mercury taunted them, “give up now. You’re in over your heads.”
Jessie and James both opened their mouths to respond, but before they could, Ariana’s Arbok slithered and coiled around them, then dragged them into Ariana’s car.
“Hurry, stop them!” Mercury ordered her subordinates.
Before the four Pokémon still under her squad’s command could launch any kind of attack, a weapon installed in Ariana’s car discharged a thick smokescreen. With their sight impaired, the Pokémon were powerless to prevent Team Rocket’s escape.
Inside the plush interior of the car, however, there was no feeling of victory. Both Jessie and James, while still trying to maintain some air of respect for their superior, felt completely outraged at what they’d been forced to do.
“How can you make us leave Meowth behind? They brainwashed him!”
“You and Dr. Zager didn’t tell us everything we needed to know!” James added. “Team Plasma? Mr. Pokémon being a Polaris member? We weren’t prepared to deal with this!”
Ariana kept her gaze fixed straight ahead and continued driving as she responded to them. “There are things even we didn’t know. We thought Ghetsis was the only Team Plasma member involved in this, and we had no intelligence to indicate that Mr. Pokémon was one of them. I’m sorry about Meowth, but there’s nothing we could have done back there. I’m taking you two back to Dr. Zager and we’ll talk to the boss.”
“Well, make it quick, because James and I are going to get him back.”
“We’ll make them sorry they messed with us. It’s personal now.”
END of CHAPTER 6
