//------------------------------// // In One Ear, Out The Other // Story: Celestia's Rocket Adventures // by Snake Staff //------------------------------//             “I’m sorry…” said Twilight a little while later, brushing tears from her cheeks. “But you… you just can’t expect me to believe something like… that.” She sniffed.             “Like what?” asked Pikachu.             “Like the Unconquered Sun, Banisher of Shadows, Mistress of Magic, Radiant Protector, the Victor of Ten Thousand Battles was in the space of a few days captured, broken, and pressed into servitude by… by… by a band of incompetent boobs!” Twilight snapped a little more harshly than intended. Just imagining the magnitude of such an insult to her idol irritated her. Granted, it probably wasn’t intentional. “There’s no way that could possibly be true!”             Pikachu chuckled a bit. “I’ve been dealing with Team Rocket since…” he thought a moment. “Since literally the same day I met Ash. I think I’m more qualified to judge them.”             “And I’ve been dealing with Celestia since I was a foal! The idea that anyone but the vilest, cruelest, most powerful and cunning gang of villains to have ever lived could have the slightest hope of forcing her to serve them is utterly inconceivable!” She stamped one hoof.             “Maybe you’re overestimating your teacher a bit?” Pikachu hazarded.             “Impossible.” Twilight looked him straight in the eye. “Princess Celestia is the greatest hero that ever was or will be in my universe. The idea that a trio of bumbling morons like you describe could turn her to the service of evil is just impossible.”             “Maybe it wasn’t forced?”             Twilight just stared down at the little yellow Pokemon, eyes an unblinking maelstrom of unbending pride and purest contempt. Pikachu looked back into those fathomless depths, feeling his ears slowly fold down.             “Or…” he went on, “maybe Team Rocket is actually a ruthless band of hyper-competent criminals who’ve merely been stalking my trainer and I for years pretending to be nigh-harmless goofs as part of some grand and elaborate evil plan the likes of which our mortal minds can scarcely comprehend?”             “Good.” Twilight’s face was suddenly smiling again. “I’m glad you’re seeing reason!”             Pikachu breathed a small sigh of relief.             “Let’s see…” The alicorn turned away from him, beginning to pace with one hoof rubbing her chin. “They’re devious, evil, manipulative, and powerful, that much is a given. But to spend years stalking a kid and a Pokemon that isn’t even terribly rare… why would anyone do something like that? Even I can’t think of any real plausible angles for wanting to appear that weak while continuously drawing the attention of authorities. Not to mention the constant fake and unnecessary humiliations, property damage, and simple pain. Surely they have to have wills and bodies of the firmest iron!”             “Well they do keep getting back up from falling out of the sky…” Pikachu conceded. “And I guess it takes an iron will to just keep coming when it’s obvious you’ll never succeed.”             “Right, now you’re getting it!” Twilight nodded. “Don’t feel bad about not seeing this before, it’s obvious that they’re as duplicitous as they are brilliant. I don’t doubt my friends and I would have fallen for their subterfuge too if we didn’t have all the knowledge of Princess Celestia that I do.”             “Right,” Pikachu nodded back. Crazy alien princess lady.             “But after all these years of trying, why risk their illusion now? Why spend years meticulously fooling all who knew them about their true strengths and wickedness only to potentially give the game away by subduing Princess Celestia? Surely that can’t have been their end game. Even the most fiendish intelligence couldn’t possibly have predicted her arrival. So that must mean their end goal is somehow even grander and more terrible than the corruption of Sol Invictus! And they must be nearing completion even as we speak! We have to work fast if we want to stop them, save your world, and rescue my mentor!”             “Here’s my guess,” Pikachu interjected before she could work herself into another rant. “We were in a battle because they tried to steal me, again. They were losing, again. So they tossed out their new Pokemon to try and turn the tide but it didn’t help so they went blasting off, again.”             “No no no.” Twilight shook her head. “We’ve well established that Team Rocket is far too cunning and insightful to risk years of hard work cultivating their illusion simply because of a little pain and humiliation they’d endured a thousand times before.”             “We have?”             “So they must obviously have had a deeper angle to the sudden reveal. But what? Sending a message, perhaps? But what message, and to whom?”             “Aren’t you just assuming the conclusion and working backwards?”             “But you had a good idea.”             “I did?”             “Of course,” Twilight nodded. “Run me back through the first time you saw Team Rocket deploy Celestia. Maybe it’ll give me some clue as to their real intentions.”             “Okaaay…” Pikachu paused to collect his thoughts, then began. “Well, it was an ordinary day on Route 14. The sun was shining, the Beedrill were buzing, and we were all on the way to Laverre City for Ash’s sixth Kalos gym badge. Then out of nowhere this massive rubber hand just grabbed me off of Ash’s shoulder and pulled me up to a hot air balloon. Wouldn’t you know it, it was Team Rocket again, after me like every week.”             “You said out of nowhere,” Twilight interjected. “Didn’t you say Team Rocket use a gigantic balloon in the shape of Meowth’s head?”             Pikachu nodded.             “So they snuck up on you… with a hot air balloon?”             “Uh… I guess?”             “See, evil genius!” Twilight grinned. “Even you can’t deny that can only be the work of true masterminds!”             “Or experienced hot air balloon pilots… Anyway,” Pikachu shook his head “the hand was shock-proof so they just stood there, did their motto, and posed. Then they tried to float away but Ash, Serena, and Clemont called out their Pokemon, so Team Rocket called out Pumpkaboo and Inkay. During the fight some attacks knocked me loose and Frogadier caught me when I fell. Then Inkay got clobbered and Pumpkaboo was looking bad, so Jessie started shaking James real hard and shouting something at him. Then he threw another Poke Ball and out came… Celestia, wasn’t it?”             Twilight nodded, eager anticipation on her face.             “The Pokedex didn’t know what she was but she was Team Rocket’s Pokemon so I charged her. She was saying something – asking for orders, I think.”             “You think?” Twilight frowned.             “I wasn’t really listening to her, you know? Team Rocket attacks, Team Rocket sends out Pokemon, I fight their Pokemon, and eventually they go flying over the horizon.” Pikachu shrugged. “The faces change, but the routine never does. I just thought they’d just bumbled into something rare this time and I don’t like being kidnapped over and over. So I charged.”             “…Go on.”             “She kept talking for a few seconds while I got closer so I hit her with Iron Tail before she could attack.”             “She’d hadn’t done anything… and you blindsided her?!”             “Half of James’ Pokemon have started out almost every battle by hurting him!” Pikachu defended himself. “Victreebel and Carnivine kept trying to eat him, Cacnea would always give him a great big hug with literal needle arms! They all attacked me and my friends sooner or later, so why should I have thought this new girl would do anything else?”             Twilight said nothing at all.             “Anyway… Iron Tail sent her sprawling, so we hit her while she was down, then she sent us sprawling with Psychic. Then we all teamed up to send Pumpkaboo and Celestia flying back into the balloon before my electricity popped and they all went ‘blasting off again’ right into the sky. And then we didn’t see each other for about a week. The end.” Pikachu nodded. “And that’s the story of the first time we met.”             Twilight’s eyelid twitched.             “You little yellow RAT!”             Pikachu suddenly found himself grabbed roughly between two hooves, hoisted to Twilight’s eye level, and then shaken about like a like rag doll.             “The princess of all Equestria was just standing there, doing NOTHING against you, and you decided to just BLINDSIDE HER?!” Twilight screamed in Pikachu’s face. “You attacked a pure, loving, wise INNOCENT for the crime of being captured by your enemies?! What kind of sick morality do you ponies have in this crazy world?!”             “Hey!” Ash stepped off the bed he’d been sitting on, watching the Pokemon “bonding”. “That’s enough! I don’t know what you guys are talking about but I’m not just going to let you hurt Pikachu like that!”             “AND YOU!” Twilight’s baleful gaze fell on Ash, even as she kept shaking Pikachu about. “You must have ordered him to do it! Or at least not told him to stop! How can you MANIACS possibly justify falling on total stranger with such insanely disproportionate force for no crime whatsoever?!”             “I’m… warning you…” Pikachu managed as his body jerked roughly about, looking queasy. “Let… me… go…”             “You don’t even know WHAT she was saying!” Twilight ignored him, continuing to shout and shake. “She could have been vowing never to submit to their orders! She could have been promising justice for her abduction! She didn’t make a single move towards you at all until you blasted her to her knees for NO REASON! You SOULLESS SAVAGES beat the living daylights of the greatest mare alive for NOTHING!”             “Alright, that’s it!” Ash pulled out a Poke Ball, but a wave of psychic force slapped it from his hands.             “I’M NOT FINISHED!” Twilight roared. “HOW DARE YOU?! HOW COULD YOU?! IF YOU HADN”T SAVED MY LIFE I’D… I’D…” Her teeth ground together.             What exactly she would have done will remain forever unknown, as it was at that exact moment Pikachu’s patience finally snapped.             Having been thoroughly rag-dolled and mostly ignored for more than a solid minute, the little electric mouse Pokemon had had enough. His bright red cheeks crackled with energy, and then he unleashed the electrical attack that Team Rocket and so many others had come to know and dread. The alicorn princess got a taste of a point-blank Thunderbolt.             “GAAAAAAAAAAH!”             There was a scream, then a localized explosion. Twilight and Pikachu went flying in opposite directions, both smacking hard into walls on the opposite sides of the small room. Twilight slumped down to the floor.             “Pikachu! Twilight! Are you guys okay?!” Ash managed, coughing and fanning at the smoke in his face.             Pikachu forced his way up onto wobbly legs, stubby arms pinwheeling in a frantic grasp for balance.             “I… told you…” he slurred dizzily, pointing at the blank wall directly in front of him. “Don’t… mess… with… urgh…”             Pikachu fell over onto his back and lay there.             “Pikachu!” Ash rushed over to his companion, cradling the electric mouse in his arms. “Are you alright, buddy?”             From the opposite end of the room came a low moan. As the smoke faded away, Twilight was slowly revealed. The purple princess lay there in a heap on her back, twitching and sparking at random. Her eyes were little more than dazed swirls.             “Ooooowwwww…”             “That was some game a truth or dare, wasn’t it?” Meowth was saying, the next morning.             “I didn’t think it was so bad,” Celestia replied, looking down at the little white Pokemon, now dressed in a yellow clown outfit complete with red rubber nose and blue wig for the rest of today. She giggled.             “Well maybe ya should look in a mirror, den!’ Meowth chortled right back at the alicorn’s newly-dyed hot pink fur and neon purple mane.             “I never knew Wobbuffet had it in him,” Celestia shook her head. Both shuddered.             “Oh, stop complaining you two,” Jessie interrupted, pointing one gloved finger out of the balloon’s basket at a slight shimmer in the distance. “We’re already almost there!”             “Beautiful Lumiose City, here we come!” James cried out.             “Wobbuffet!”             Celestia and Meowth grabbed one another tight.