We All Live In A Pokemon World...

by 4428Gamer

Team Rocket (Episode 2)

“Holy Guacamole…”

Coming into this Pokémon Center place was already a trip in and of itself. The doors slid upon on their own, the place looked almost as big, if not bigger, than Twilight’s castle, and finally when you came through the entrance there was this really nice breeze that came from above us. With that breeze alone I almost wanted to stand at the doorway and I probably would’ve had I not been in front of the Pokémon behind us.

“Good morning,” The second thing that snapped me out of my awestruck mind was this one lady that greeted us with a small bow from behind the reception desk. Or at least I think it was a reception desk. It had more of these weird monitors and was long enough to have three of these ladies standing behind it.

“Good morning Nurse Joy,” Max returned the bow and left me wondering whether or not I should join in. Still, I decided against it and turned to look up to see the lady herself with a polite smile. She was in a pink and white apron looking dress with her hair an even deeper pink. Almost the same color as Pinkie Pie’s hair, only instead of its poofy appearance this nurse had it dressed up kinda like a pretzel.

“At this Pokémon Center helping Pokémon in need is our number one goal. We’re here for Trainers and Pokémon alike.” She returned the smile to me as she had explained all of this “How may we help you today?”

“Professor Sycamore had told us that we needed to come to the Pokémon Center to register for the Pokémon League. Is that true?” By this point, Kirlia and my new partner had stepped up besides Max and I respectively.

“It sure is. If you both could place your PokéDex’s on these panels in front of you,” As she said that she took a moment to wave her hand over two of the weird non-hologram screens that were on the reception desk. And sure enough once she brought her hands back I could see that there was a square shape made of a thin line that pointed out where and how to put your PokéDex up against the screen.

“Huh. Alright then.” Seeing how straightforward it was, Max had pulled out his PokéDex and placed it down as instructed. What resulted was all the pictures changing around after a second or two followed by some voice coming from it.

"Max, from Petalburg City, is now registered to enter the Kalos League. Number of badges currently in your possession: Zero. We wish you the best of luck." The panel concluded its speech and Max took back his PokéDex.

"That's all there is to it? Usually there's some kind of paperwork along with it." It didn't really look like Max was about to complain about that fact though, so instead he had settled for pocketing the small device in his back pocket.

Meanwhile, “Spike, from Canalave City, is now registered to enter the Kalos League. Number of badges currently in your possession: Zero. We wish you the best of luck.”

Canalave? Is that supposed to be where I lived before coming here?

“Here in the Kalos Region, we make entering the Kalos League much simpler for both those that live in Kalos and those who visit from other regions. Although the rest of the application process will need to be filled out at the Kalos League itself.” As she explained this I was trying to figure out just how all of that was going to work.

“Well that makes sense. After all, Kalos is a touring region.” As he dismissed the idea, he turned towards me and my partner with a smile. “I guess all we have to do is get our eight gym badges.”

“That easy, huh?” Nevertheless, his attitude helped me forget about that for now as the Makuhita next to me rose up a fist in cheer.

“By the way,” Our attention was brought back towards the nurse. “Every registered trainer is eligible to receive a Kalos Region Badge Case.” She then gestured to her left, our right, as a tall and pudgy light pink Pokémon with a similar apron and cap that the nurse had on. In its paws were two small glass cases that it had held out for both of us to take.

“Woah, it’s a Wigglytuff!” As Max accepted his case the Wigglytuff held up its chin with pride before proudly taking a few steps over to me.

“A Wigglytuff…” I looked down in my hand at the PokéDex I still had with me. Curious, I held it up and activated it towards the Pokémon while its proud demeanor stood strong.

“Wigglytuff. The Balloon Pokémon and the evolved form of Jigglypuff. A Wigglytuff’s body is soft and malleable. When angered, it will take in large amounts of air and can inflate itself to an enormous size. In some cases, it has even been confused for a parade float.”

After the four-tone jingle faded away I lowered the PokéDex only to see the Wigglytuff standing in front of me. Only now all of its pride had vanished and was now replaced by a frown and a some low grumbling. And just as the PokéDex had stated, it seemed just a little bit bigger.

“Uh...Sorry?” With an awkward look I accepted my own badge case and let it walk off with a huff, letting its inhaled air release and allowing the Pokémon to shrink back to its usual size.

“Oh, it’s alright. Wigglytuff gets like that whenever a PokéDex gives that particular explanation.” Her smile seemed apologetic, but she sounded almost humored by the exchange.

I decided to put the PokéDex in its pocket and the case in my pack for now. It’s probably best I don’t go around holding this thing out to the rest of the Pokémon in the lobby.

“Hey Spike?” Once Max got his case put away, he turned towards me. “I was going to go check the communicator one more time before we head out. That alright with you?”

“Sure,” I didn’t really mind anyways. Besides it was still only a little past noon and I was still a little groggy. The more I could try prolonging walking for who knows how long the better.

Nevertheless, Max thanked me regardless and walked off towards where I assumed the communicators were, leaving me with my partner and—

“Um,” Noticing that Kirlia was still here with us, I shuffled a little in place. “Aren’t you going to go with Max?”

“Normally, yes.” Again, that voice started to speak to me from the back of my mind. I’d be lying if I said that this was a new thing to me, Twilight had this spell as one of her lessons multiple times, but the fact that it was almost the same voice…

“However, since we’re all going to be traveling together I figured that I might as well try to introduce myself a little better than I did back at the lab.” As she explained it, she had spoken some of the words out loud as well. Of course all that I understood from her speaking was her name over and over.

“Oh. Alright then,” I glanced back up only to see Nurse Joy looking at me with a bit of an awkward stare. Once I realized that we were just standing five feet from her, I gave the nurse a cheeky smile and started walking off in a random direction.

The main doors were behind us and Max went off left of the reception desk, so that left the three of us heading to the right.

“So, can all—” “NOT so loud, please.” She broke my train of thought and made my head buzz a little at the suddenness. “I don’t want every Pokémon around here finding out that I can talk with trainers. I’m already trusting you and Makuhita with this.”

“Oh. Right, sorry.” I talked just above a whisper, but it did get me thinking. Twilight’s telepathy spell could go both ways. The only trick was that I had to do something to speak back with her. Still that left me with a problem; I couldn’t remember it right now.

“I guess I should start with the basics. I’m Kirlia, or the Emotion Pokémon like your PokéDex told you. I can sense and read emotions almost by instinct, so sorry ahead of time if it sounds like I know what you might be thinking about.” Just as I scrunched my nose, her voice chimed in again. “Yes, I know it sounds like I’m invading personal space. That’s why I wanted to say sorry ahead of time. It’s not really something I can dismiss or anything.”

“...Oh.” I shrunk a little bit as I felt a little guilty. It sounded suspicious to me but I guess it wasn’t really her fault. “Well, thanks for telling me ahead of time.” I guess…

“Well, my name’s Spike.” I tried changing the subject. “I’m uh...I’m...Kinda new to everything.” It left a bad taste in my mouth to leave it at that, but there wasn’t much I could say. “I’m an assistant to one of my friends so I guess there’s that. Not much else I can think of though.”

There was a small pause as Kirlia closed her eyes, apparently in some small thought. I tried looking towards Makuhita to get some advice, but he looked just as confused. Thankfully, the silence didn’t last too long. “Well what about skills?” Kirlia looked up towards me, sounding a bit more kinder with her words. It was almost like she was trying to help me out. “What are you good at?”

I thought about it for a few seconds before a few things popped into my mind. Thankfully none of them were obvious enough to give anything away. “Well I guess I picked up a few things from being a number one assistant.” I beamed a little a Kirlia as her smile faltered a little. I’m guessing that’s not what she had in mind.

“Well I helped out Twilight with whatever she needed, like cleaning, reshelving the books, running the library...Making lists,” That wasn’t the fondest memory but it was definitely the most common one. “Oh, then I helped Rarity with hunting for gems every once in a while.”

“Gems?” The names of the girls probably went over Kirlia’s head, but that seemed to make her chuckle a little. “Well I guess if I was a male Kirlia then this would probably be the part where I beg for a Dawn Stone.” Despite my confusion, her small giggling buzzed from the back of my mind. “Anything else?”

“Well,” As I tried thinking it over, my stomach took front stage as it growled. “I guess I’m not too bad at cooking either. Although I need the recipe in front of me to know what I'm making.”

“Maku?!” Suddenly, Makuhita’s focus went straight to me with a look of complete joy. His attention was on whoever was in the room.

“Well that's pretty useful.” Kirlia nodded along as we kept walking around the lobby. Although, after walking along room for so long, I finally decided to go down a hallway. Apparently this one in particular led to a few shops with a blue sign above the entryway reading ‘PokéMart.’ It was a store of some kind.

“Max and I don’t have too many skills when it comes to cooking. We had to make do with sandwiches and Pokémon food until we found Swalot. And if we have to eat a single tomato again it'll be too soon...” I had no idea whether this Swalot was a Pokémon or another trainer, but that didn’t seem to matter. Or at least, it didn’t matter right away as Kirlia stopped directly in her tracks before we came into this store.

“Uh, Kirlia?” Both my partner and I shared a look as Kirlia continued to stand there, unresponsive. Her eyes were almost entirely closed and the horn on her head looked like it was glowing with a really faint aura.

“There it is again.” She made no movements, but that was the only response we got.

“Maku?”

“No. It’s not more flying-types. At least, I don’t think so.” She looked out towards the Center from behind us and tensed up. “They’re...It's heading this way.”

“What?” Instantly the both of us went on high alert, scanning the entire room around us. “Where? W-Who?”

“Not sure.” She faced back towards the PokéMart and started to walk inside. “Hurry, in here.”

“R-Right.”
“Ma-Maku.”

All three of us hurried into the store and ducked underneath the nearest hiding spot we could towards the front of the store. It didn’t look like any of the other aisles and it seemed more like someone put together a fruit stand indoors. From the small canopy cloth to the weird striped skirt that went along the bottom.

I didn't have much more time to look as all three of us piled in underneath the stand to hide. It was able to fit us all pretty well, however by Kirlia's expression I don't think that she expected all of us to dive into the same hiding place.

“Can I help you?” All of us tensed up as a voice from behind us sounded just as awkward as it did confused.

“Maku,” My partner simply shook his head with a small smile before turning back to face forward. Not only that, but he didn't seem to realize that someone had already found us.

“Uh...Mak—” “WAIT A SECOND!” Suddenly I was yanked out from underneath the stand by my leg and before I could even register who or what had pulled me out I was yanked onto my feet and held still by the collar of my shirt.

By the time my eyes had caught up with the rest of me my face was met by the determined finger of what I assumed was the owner of the stand. And behind said finger was a girl only a few years older than me with brunette hair pulled up into these two short, unbraided pigtails that were slightly hidden behind her red and white bandana.

The rest of her face had freckles around her cheeks and a frown to finish it all. If it wasn't for the fact that she had me in an iron grip then I would've tried running away.

"So. you're the trainer of that hungry Pokémon, huh?!" I could feel the collar of my shirt getting tighter as she clenched her fist more and more. "How can you just let him run around like that?!"

"Wait, what are you talking about?!" Judging by her twitching eye, that was not the correct answer.

"You mean you don't know?!" With little effort she dragged me around the stand and forced me to face towards the red and yellow sign.

"Here. Take a look at this little stand of mine. Do you know what this is?” She managed to quiet down, but the annoyance in her tone was still very much there. So with her free hand, she gestured towards the little sign hanging off the side of the small clothed canopy.

"Berry Fields’ Produce." I read it aloud and noticed right away that it was a handmade sign. That wasn’t a bad thing, however, it actually looked pretty nice. Maybe a bit too old fashioned if you ask me, but I’ve definitely seen worse. "Huh."

As the girl gave me a moment of silence for her ‘advertisement’ I looked down and noticed that the two Pokémon were still hiding down there. From where I was, Makuhita wasn’t doing two good a job at hiding himself since he wasn’t the right size for hiding there. Meanwhile, Kirlia seemed to be small enough to hide in the center without being seen.

Upon noticing my gaze, Makuhita sheepishly shimmied his way out and stood back up, only to be completely taken by the smorgasbord of colorful fruit-looking foods. Some of them seemed semi-recognizable, but most of them were just entirely foreign to me.

"Spike, I think they left. I need to go tell Max, I’ll be right back." Before I could even argue against her, I noticed a small flash of light come from underneath the fruit stand. If I had to guess what happened, I’d say Kirlia knew how to teleport.

“So,” Suddenly I could feel someone’s arm wrap around my neck before pulling me into some kind of a submission hold. The girl ignored my flailing and instead picked up one of the blue berries from the cart before bringing it right in front of my face.

“Tell me,” She went on. “It’s an average oran berry, right?” She tossed it a bit in her hand and went on. “Wrong! Most average oran berries are a little too plain for my taste. Too run-a-the-mill. Our oran berries? Not a chance! These things have some actual Kick to ‘em, ya know what I’m sayin’?”

She tossed it off to the side, letting it land in Makuhita’s gloves before he quickly bit into it. He then quickly stuffed the rest of it into his mouth in hopes to keep from drooling onto it.

She finally released me with a flick of her arm, causing me to spin a complete 360 degrees before stopping myself. Once I looked back up, she beamed at me. “Don’t worry,” With a click of her tongue and a snap of her fingers, she pointed at me with both hands and a wink of her eye. “For you? That one’s free.”

“Uh...Thanks?”

“Don’t mention it!” She started pulling out a bag and started to put oran berries inside of it. Or perhaps dumping would be a better word for it. “So, how many oran berries did you wanna invest in? Seven? Ten? Oh, i know! How’s about we meet the best a both worlds at seventeen?!”

She held up the small plastic bag that looked ready to burst from all the berries.

“N-No thanks, I, uh, don’t need all of those.” I found myself slowly backing away as her eye started to twitch for the second time. My partner on the other hand seemed pretty depressed that I wasn’t into shopping here.

“...D’OH!” She slapped her forehead with her left hand with enough force to make it sound like a violent slap. “Duh! How stupid of me, you couldn’t possibly want seventeen of the same berry! Seriously, what idiot in the right mind would want oran stew for three nights in a row?!” Her nervous giggling made me think that she answered her own question.

“Still,” She tossed the bag back towards the cart, miraculously having the bag land directly on top of the remaining oran berries. “Let me try and get a read on ya.”

“I think you’re missing the poin—” “Let me guess, you’re the go-getter kinda guy, right? The kind that every lady wants to be around, huh?”

“...” Slowly, I took in a breath and fixed the collar of my shirt, puffing out my chest as I began. “Well,” I gave out the most stoic nod I could. “I don’t usually like to brag, but I guess you could say that.”

“Wohohooah~! Easy there Casanova, I can feel my heart stopping,” She fanned herself with a smile as she went on. “But still, furthers my point. Trust me when I say that ladies love a guy who can make a great dish. And what is the key to a great dish, I hear you asking? Simple. Fresh ingredients!”

“Maku-maku.” Makuhita quickly slid beside the girl with his arms crossed, nodding along to her.

“Pfft. Well, obviously. I mean, how are you supposed to have hay fries when the hay’s more than three days old? It’d just taste like sand at that point.” That’s usually why I ask for extra crispy. Restaurants are always trying to pawn off old ingredients even after they get fresh ones in that day.

“Makuhita?” My partner gave me a confused look before looking back towards the girl who was instead nodding along as though she were following along.

“See? You? You understand. We can’t just eat something from any old store. No. It’s either fresh or bust!” She stepped aside and gestured back to her stand. “So, back to the matter at hand. For you and your Pokémon, I’m thinking at least five persim, eight payapa, and...” She paused for what had to be the first time during all of this and studied Makuhita’s face intently. “...Durin berry. Definitely a Durin berry.”

“Durin?” Makuhita looked just as confused as I did. Although that didn’t stop the girl from practically diving behind her cart and looking through the few crates she had tucked away.

“Yep. Durin.” After a few more seconds, she finally stood back up and held out what looked like a green spiked fruit almost too big to fit in her hand. “It’s said to be the absolute most bitter berry there is out there. So much so that it takes some pretty special preparation since the tough outer skin of it is almost too bitter for anyone to chew on. However there are a few Pokémon out there that can handle the skin of it too.

“However, it has some pretty good perks to it too. It’s the go to berry for hiccups and it makes what has to be the biggest wake-me-up energy drink there is! That is, as long as you mix it along with some...Da-dada-daa~!” She held up the bag of overflowing berries from earlier. “Oran berries!”

The previous grin I had on my face was replaced with a skeptical look. “Are you sure they can do that?” It didn’t make too much sense to me so I was having a hard time believing that. Only putting in two berries in a drink seems like nothing. Although I guess I wasn’t much to talk since I’ve never really had a smoothie before. It’s usually just been gem filled pancakes and coffee when it came to mornings.

“Well, don’t look at me if you’re skeptical. Ask your Makuhita there.” With a bit of effort she tore off the berry from the side and tossed it over towards him.

“Ma!” He didn’t even try to catch it however. Instead, he settled for having it land in his mouth. It only took a few seconds after that until all three of us knew his opinion as his face lit up in utter joy. “Maku…”

I stifled a laugh from the single tear running down his cheek. “You really like that thing, don’t you?”

“Hita!” With a swallow, he threw both hands up into the air and started to stare back towards the berry owner as she took out two more durin berries.

“Well I guess you two are in luck then. We usually don’t have too many people that want Durin berries, so we don’t have too many for sale.” She took a moment to get out a better bag to put the oran berries and the two durin berries inside, as well as some of the other berries that she had mentioned. “As a matter of fact, we only have a harvest of these once every other month.”

“You mean this PokéMart place?” Once she had finally gotten all the berries into the bag, she picked it up and brought it over to the small ancient looking cash register she had set up on a barrel.

“Pfft. Yeah, because the PokéMart always harvests their own berries.” She rolled her eyes. “No, I’m talking about my family’s farm. I help out my pops and little sister with taking care of Berry Fields south of Route 7. Or at least, I started helping them out recently. You see, my pops doesn’t know how to sell stock at all. So, I’m helpin’ them out.” She cracked her knuckles as if to get the point across.

“Riiight,” I found myself just nodding along before she get all excited again. “So, how much are these berries again?”

“Oh, just 512₽.” She flashed me an innocent smile.

“O—” I paused. “Say that again?”

“What again?”

“Did you say 500?” I could feel my brain breaking down as I repeated it.

“And twelve ₽, yes.” She blinked before realizing something. “Oh! And I almost forgot the sample of Durin that your Pokémon tried. That’s an extra fifty.”

“...”
“Ma...Ku…”

Both of us slouched in unison as the lady continued to give us the most innocent smile she could muster.

“So, are you gonna be okay? You look pretty upset about something.”

“I’m fine…” Was all Spike had to say.

“Translation: Not fine.”

I shot Kirlia a quick glance but otherwise let the question go for now. Apparently after Kirlia had gathered us all up to leave, Spike and his Pokémon had met us with a large grocery bag filled with berries and a bitter expression on his face. Err, no pun intended.

“So Kirlia, why did you want us to leave the Pokémon Center in the first place?”

“There was something there.” Instead of just speaking telepathically, she decided to cut out the middleman and just projected her voice. After all, we were already outside of Lumiose by this point. “I don’t know how to explain it, but it was just...everywhere and nowhere at the same time.”

Spike tilted his head on its side. “Well that’s confusing.”

I looked back to her. “Well was it just one person or a few?”

“That’s just it. At one point I saw two. Then there were four. It dropped down to three. At just random times the number changed around. It never stayed the same. Not only that, but it wouldn’t sit still either. I would sense it from ahead, behind, beneath us, the roof. It would never stay still. That same sinister emotion would just dart all over the place before just...Disappearing!”

All of us held our ears as Kirlia took a few seconds to try and take a few breaths. As she did I noticed her horns glowing with the same rhythm as her breathing.

“Well, isn’t that supposed to happen?” Spike was the first to recover. “I mean, if the emotion thing comes from someone then maybe they just started thinking about something else.”

Kirlia started to shake her head. “Not how it works. If someone’s emotion changed than at least it would still BE there. It’d be a different emotion, but still there. No, this one just vanished! As if it were never there to begin with! That never happens!”

“Hita, mak?”

“I...I don’t know,” She fidgeted a little. “It might’ve been the same as earlier. Although that one didn’t vanish. No, that was something else entirely.”

“Kirlia, what are you talking about?” She looked back up at me with a very worried expression. Her voice wasn’t cutting in and out so she was at least able to keep herself calm enough for the moment. The voice wasn’t what I was concerned about however.

I had never seen Kirlia this scared before. She was acting all twitchy and worried, almost as though she were a different Pokémon. Usually she was accepting of something she didn’t understand. In fact she was always open and adventurous to what she didn’t understand.

The only time that she ever broke her ambitious personality is whenever she saw someone either in pain or when she saw someone who was entirely enraged beyond belief. At times like that she would be much more soft spoken.

There would even be times where she would apologize for something that wasn’t actually her fault. In normal circumstances, she would be just stubborn enough to only apologize if something were her fault directly, like losing a battle for instance.

So when she had literally broke out into a run when she found me I knew that something was wrong. Already this ‘crimson red’ emotion made me understand that it was that same enraged emotion that she hated coming across. Although, usually it was something like a fiery red or a vibrant red. Only a few times was it a dark red, and even then we at least knew the situation. We were able to work with that.

However, it was never crimson red. Just the thought of only seeing a crimson red aura in literally every direction sounded terrifying. So to see her be on the receiving end of that...

I needed to get her out of here. Now.

“Kirlia, let’s go ahead and—” As I turned to look at Kirlia I noticed that all of them were no longer talking about any of this. In fact none of them were even looking at each other. Instead, they had their heads craned upwards as they were looking at something up in the air.

“Hita.”

“Cat?”

“Crimson.”

All of those words could easily be used to describe what was currently floating towards us from the sky. Although green, balloon, and annoying would work too. Except none of those words are what I would use. In fact, there were really only two words I could manage to say in the face of this nightmare.

However, it looks like the nightmare had a few words to yell at us from over their speaker.

“Prepare for trouble, it’s a blast from the past!”

“And make it double, for we’re here to last!”

“To protect the world from devastation!”

“To unite all peoples within our nation!”

“To denounce the evils of truth and love!”

"To extend our reach to the stars above!"

“Jessie!”

“James!”

“Team Rocket, blast off with a memorable speed of light!”

“Surrender now, or prepare for a nostalgic fight!”

“Meowth! That’s right~!”

“Wobbuffet~!”

“Is...Was that some kind of performance?” Spike and Makuhita were confused a great deal, but explaining could wait for now. Right now, I felt almost weak-kneed from the memories that were coming back.

“No...You can’t be serious.” Every thought I had all made its way back to the same conclusion. The same name. Even after three years I could never forget that stupid Meowth balloon no matter how hard I try. For that matter, I couldn’t forget any of the three of them either.

“Well, well, well. It looks like the kid twerp remembered.” First there was Jessie, and just like Harley she not only messed with all of us, she messed with May’s chances when it came to Pokémon Contests.

“They really do grow up so fast. Not only that, but he remembered to bring a gift after all this time.” Then there was James. He never stood out to me as much, but that didn’t make him any less painful to run into.

“Then I guess it’s time ta collect!” Finally, Team Rocket’s own talking Meowth. Somehow he ended up being the smartest one of them despite not knowing how to battle.

“Look out!” Spike and Makuhita suddenly dived off to the side as two retracting, three fingered claws shot out towards us as record speed. The first one looked to be aiming for Makuhita, who had the chance to dodge it.

“GAHHHH!” All of us flinched at the yelling that scraped at our minds as Kirlia was electrocuted on contact from the claw before she was dragged through the air and into the balloon.

“So much for da two fer one deal.” Meowth stood at the edge of the basket and looked down underneath it with some sort of control mechanism in his paws.

Underneath the basket itself were two separate glass boxes where the claws had come from. Although one of them was still empty with claw struggling to get out of the ground, the second one now had a restrained Kirlia inside of it.

“Kirl! Kirlia!” She attempted to get herself free from the claw, but every time she tried using psychic it just administered some kind of controlled shock.

“Well then get that claw out of the ground and claim our other prize already!” Despite no longer using their speaker I could hear Jessie’s voice loud and clear. As I turned to look at the second claw, I noticed Spike and Makuhita getting back up off the ground.

“Spike, be careful! They’re trying to take Makuhita too!”

“What?!” He flinched at the claw as it finally freed itself from the ground and turned towards the two of them.

Not having too much time to react, Spike got between the claw and Makuhita before taking in a deep breath, “Ack-” And almost immediately choking on air for doing so. “ow”

“Ha! You think a road block’s gonna stop this baby?!” Meowth yanked one lever back and the other forwards as the claw quickly navigated around Spike like a snake before opening the finger-like appendages opened wide.

“Mak!” Makuhita had been wise enough to take a few steps back during Spike’s distraction and had time to react. With one final step he jumped back in an attempt to dodge the oncoming strike and managed to clear almost seven whole feet before even hitting the ground again.

James’ brow furrowed. “Hm? That’s odd. I thought Kirlia was the ballerina of the group.”

“Kirl!” Kirlia tried to argue as she struggled, but none of them paid her any mind.

I looked back towards the others. “Spike, you need to make sure that Makuhita doesn’t get caught! Team Rocket’s a group of thieves!”

His expression grew shocked as he turned to study the balloon for a second before he quickly tried to steel his nerves as well as he could. “R-Right! Makuhita!”

“Hita,” Without any command Makuhita got into a boxer’s pose while the claw pulled itself back. Team Rocket wanted to make sure that they hit their mark this time.

“And I thought prize grabbas were a pain!” The claw lashed out again, only this time they were ready for it.

“Go right!” Spike ran forward as he gave the command. Then, as Makuhita dodged the next swipe, Spike and I tried to grab the arm of the claw in attempts to slow it down.

“Oi! Hands off da merchandise!” The entire arm coiled about, sending both of us back to the ground before rushing forward again.

“Makuhita, uh, j-jump!” Spike had only just managed to get the command across before Makuhita did as instructed, jumping up into the air above the claw.

Jessie started to growl from their balloon before yelling into the speaker by accident. “Alright enough of this! Meowth, catch that pudgy thing already!”

“...”

Makuhita reached the height of his jump just as the claw began to reposition itself like a baseball mit beneath him. And with no way to adjust himself in the air he began to fall.

“Oh no,” Spike tensed up as he realized his mistake.

“Gotcha now!”

“...Wait,” His shoulders slacked as he saw Makuhita falling towards the claw. “This is kinda like...Makuhita! The Bullet Punch thing!”

Makuhita’s attention drifted to Spike for a moment before he began to wind up his arm and gaining momentum as he did. As he did the distance between him and the claw shortened. Once he was within striking range, that’s when he acted.

Just like with Harley, Makuhita’s entire arm gleamed with metal as his arm winded up one last time before he brought it forward with a haymaker-esque punch directly into the palm of the machine’s claw.

Instantly, Makuhita’s entire body was covered in static as the claw electrocuted him the same way it had done to Kirlia. However, the momentum behind Makuhita’s haymaker forced him to drive his arm through the entire claw regardless until his fist met the ground below it. This in turn ceased the electricity and forced the appendages to go flying off in different directions with one of them almost landed near the two of us.

“You twerp! Do you know just how much that cost us?!” Jessie looked almost ready to pounce out of their balloon and towards Spike.

“I’m not paying for it!” Instantly, Spike held up his arms in defense with a look of terror on his face.

“I think it’s time we take our winnings and retreat.” James started to back up as the rest of the robot arm started to go slack due to part of it now currently in pieces.

“Oh no you don’t!”

I ran forward for the the arm and latched onto it with the intent of climbing up there myself. No way was I about to let them make off with Kirlia!

“Nice try bozo, but dis jungle gym's closed fer da day!” From above I could hear Meowth as he pressed something on his little control panel. Next, before I could even make it ten feet off the ground, I felt the arm go slack as the joint that connected it to the balloon suddenly unlatched. So with a grunt I fell to the ground along with it.

“Kirlia!” I looked up only to see Kirlia still restrained inside the glass box. She had only managed to get a hand free and the claw was still electrocuting her with each attempt at using a move.

“Sorry, but your weekly running of Team Rocket has concluded for today!” James began to speak as though they were part of some television series as the balloon began to float out above the treeline of the forest.

“Ta-taa~!” They all began to wave happily as the distance got farther and farther from us with Kirlia trying to escape all the while.

Once they were too far away to even hear from the speakers, I felt my knees hit the ground below me as I sat there stunned. Kirlia was getting farther and farther from me and I…

I’m still here.

It felt like this wasn’t really happening. That any second now she’d teleport right next to us with an annoyed look on her face and some aggressive remark about the whole thing.

“That must be the Team Rocket you’re always talking about.” Or something along those lines. It’d be sudden and none of us would instantly recognize it as her.

Except that didn’t happen. Instead, we could only see the giant Meowth head getting farther away.

So instead of Kirlia appearing, Spike and his Pokémon rushed to my side instead, asking and checking to see if I was okay. I wasn’t, and they knew that, but it didn’t stop them from checking up on me.

“Max? What do we do?!” Spike kept looking between me and the balloon once he realized I wasn’t moving.

“...”

From the right of me I saw Makuhita’s expression. He was worried about me, but as he looked back towards the balloon his expression darkened. Of course I didn’t expect him to have an answer either. Neither of them have run into Team Rocket before.

“Why did they just…” Spike turned back to me and saw that I still wasn’t reacting. “Hey! Snap out of it already!”

“And do what exactly?” I looked at him from the corner of my eye. “We can’t keep up with them like this. We don’t even have a flying type to help search for them.”

I tried running every time I had run into them before. When they interfered with contests May was able to handle it or we had someone helping us take them down. If they actually managed to take Ash’s Pikachu or another Pokémon, we had enough of us to track them down. Even when the group got separated we were at least in small groups a majority of the time.

But this time, I didn’t even have any of the others with me. Kirlia was the only Pokémon I brought and now she was gone.

“...” As Spike stood up, he turned to look at his Pokémon. “Makuhita, you’re pretty fast, right?”

“...Maku,” He nodded.

“Do you think you can try to follow that balloon? At least for a little bit?”

“Hii,” Makuhita studied the balloon for a few seconds before rolling his shoulders. He was about to start running.

“When you start going, try and leave a trail behind you. Like a stick or something, okay?” I looked up towards Spike as he explained all of this to Makuhita. He didn’t look like he was too sure about any of this idea. In fact, it looked like he had no clue what he was doing.

“Maku-ku,” Without another word, Makuhita hopped back a step before dashing forward, clearing the distance between here and the treeline in a small amount of time. Then after about ten seconds we heard a dull slam from in the forest.

“You think that’ll work?” I bit the inside of my cheek as I tried listening to more noises from the forest.

“Uh...I don’t really know.” He gave out a sheepish shrug before offering me a hand up. And while it wasn’t the answer I was hoping for, I still took the help to get to my feet. “It’s just a trick that one of my friends told me about. But what I do know is that their hot air balloon can’t get too far away from here.”

“Really?” I took a moment to think about it and it did seem to match up with what I knew about Team Rocket. Their balloon never made it too far away. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because there used to be this one balloon back in Po...Canalave City.” He coughed a little before going on. “That one was smaller and was only able to ride for an hour or so. There balloon had a better heater, but it was bigger and probably heavier. Plus there were a lot of them inside of it. And since they flew toward us, then they were already up there before they found us. At least, I think that’s how it works.”

He didn’t seem so sure about his guess, but he still sounded like he knew about the subject in general. Regardless of whether he was right or not, he at least knew more about it than I did.

“Well then where do you think they landed?” As I asked that I pulled out the PokéNav and brought up the map. Once I had zoomed out the map and showed him how to move the view around, he started to mess with it.

“Um...Maybe...N-No…” It took him almost a minute of trying to move the camera around with his tongue sticking out the side like a fool, but eventually he stopped the camera and held it up to me. “I think that’s the best guess I have.”

I put a mark on the location and let the Nav do the rest. What came up was a pathway and a clock that told us when we would get there.

“It’s twenty minutes from here. Think you’re ready to run?” I picked up my pack and quickly slung it over my shoulder before seeing Spike test the weight of his before nodding along.

“Good. Then let’s go.” And with that, we began the chase.