Rock Type

by TDR

Chapter 11

I ran my tongue along the roof of my mouth pressing hard against it with my hand holding my nose shut as I tried to suppress the sneeze.

It worked but barely. I pulled my shirt up over my face to block the dust and continued to shimmy down the vent.

Now you may be asking yourself. 'Self. Why in Tartarus is he crawling through a vent in the dark and stirring up dust that likely hadn't seen a cleaning in decades?'

And i would of course respond with, because I'm an idiot who still thinks he's captain of the fucking Canterlot Royal Guard or a legendary hero and not a 10 year old with two pokemon and one badge to my name.

Alright let me back up.

After i got the Boulder Badge about a week ago, i set back off along the route to continue training and to check and see if the Viridian Gym had opened.

It had not. I decided to get a spot in the pokemon center trainer rooms for the night rather than go back out camping. I was probably going to have to circle back around to this Gym or hit what ever other one was promoted if Giovanni didn't reappear soon.

Around three in the morning I had to get up to take a piss, stupid child body with still developing bladder. Of course since this was a trainer room all that was in here was a desk and bed, the showers and bathrooms were a communal thing down the hall.

On the way back to my room after trying and failing to remain sleepy after walking across the building I stepped out onto the outdoor walk way that ran between the main center and the trainer rooms. I stretched a bit and taking a moment to try and clear my head. I figured I was up for the night at this point. I used to be able to fall asleep at the drop of a hat, leaning against something, or standing in a parade formation. Knew a couple of stallions who could march and nap, never got that good.

Still thinking back as my time as a pony was a bit depressing. Mostly because of all I had seen and all those that died. Even thinking about Dawn's death slightly sent me in a downward depressive spiral.

Thankfully for my mental health I noticed a sudden silence.

When I stepped out the first time the Noctowls, Zubats and other pokemon in the night had stilled around the center, only going back to their noises and cries seeing that I stayed on the walkway and didn't do anything.

They had just stilled again.

I froze myself hearing what sounded like talking and boots on concrete.

Staying where I was i watched a pair of men heading down the road that ran next to the center, they were out a bit late, but then again so was I, and I was pretty sure there was a bar around here some where. I would LOVE a drink, but I was ten and needed to build up my resistance again.

They both wore jackets, black pants and seemed to be wearing flat caps and . At least as far as i could tell when they walked past the light cast by the pokemon center lobby.

"Damn. I would hit that." One of them whistled looking into the lobby not seeming to have really noticed me on the walkway, granted I was short and there were some shrubs between the road and the building, but I wasn't THAT short.

"Man you wouldn't even know what to say to her. This could be a game where you press A to talk and you'd still some how screw it up." His companion laughed.

It only took me a moment to realize they were talking about the Nurse Joy on duty.

I didn't see it personally, I liked mares, though pics of Ponytas and Rapidashs did nothing for me either. Either I was very picky after being with a goddess for so long or maybe I just needed to hit puberty again. Fuck that was going to be fun.

The men argued a bit and the second one shoved the first hard enough to make him stumble back into the light, his jacket flapping open showing the black shirt underneath.

And the stylized red R on his chest.

They bitched and argued continuing on, and I moved after them, in my Pajamas, with no ax, or pokemon.

Luckily they didn't go far, only to the gym, where they put in a code at the door and walked in like they owned the place.

Interesting.

The Gym leader hadn't been seen in quite a while, and at least one team rocket member, likely two, had just gone into the gym at three in the morning.

I should contact the Jennys or at least shoot a message to Professor Oak, but I needed more information. I returned to the center and started planning.

I checked over the Gym the next morning, fought a few trainers who were also there, lost a few, won a few, some of these kids were pretty good, but I came out ahead cash wise in my matches.

I also found a spot where I could climb onto the Gym's roof and after climbing a tree nearby I took note of the ventilation system on the roof. One far larger than the building likely needed.

No one batted an eye at my tree climbing either, probably thinking I was hunting bugs, not casing the joint.

I was no Rhede, but Luna and I had once robbed a Abyssinian museum that had a few Equestrian artifacts we wanted to return to Equestria.

We did pretty well too, getting past magical defenses and guard dogs , only to get caught on the way back out by an Abyssinian rent a cop. And that only happened because we forgot the damn cats could see in the dark. After that stealth became optional for the mission.

Most of the museum was left standing in the end too.

Twilight had not been happy with us.

I paused in my crawling in the vent to smirk at that memory. Annoying Princess Twilight was never as fun as pissing off Celestia, but it was close.

Rose stopped to look back at me curiously at the pause, her ears perking. I shook my head and she continued on peering out of various side vents as she passed them.

Getting down into the building from the roof had been easy. Open the side of the unit, flip the breaker, have Tank hold the big fan still, cut the breaker back on and slip down into the vents letting the fan start to spin again behind us. Air would continue to flow and if I needed to get out, I could always jam the vent from this side.

Leaving the fan running was something Rhede had taught me. Not exactly 'leave the fan running', mind you , but the idea of it.

Never give any sign that you were there. A fan that big pulling air into a building would alert a number of people if the air started getting stuffy.

It was one reason why I was glad when I reached the first junction. There were three vents leading off from it, one went into the building itself, but the other two kept going down.

I sent Rose ahead. She was to poke around the vent after I explained the concept of a stealth mission. The first vent she went down, she came back rather quickly and shook herself. She knew we were after Rockets, and she hadn't seen any that way. So she lead into the other route and I followed with tank holding my gear and bringing up the rear.

I was the biggest one in this group, if I got stuck Tank could pull me out and If Rose couldn't fit in a vent path it was way too small for me so she led the group.

Eventually the sloping vent dropped straight down and I easily slid down the inside of it.

Hands were very useful, never could have pulled this off with hooves. Climbing back up would be a bit , but it was doable.

The next junction went four ways though the vents were large enough for me to crouch in. Two of the ways were blocked by fans pulling air from the other two tunnels as well as the above vent. I expected the vents down here were just big circles with this set up.

Before I could decide on one I heard a pokemon cry from one of them. Looking that way and glancing to my partners, we started down that vent, moving a little quicker in the larger area, though there was still too much damn dust.

I slowed at the sound of voices and the various cries of pokemon. Frowning I worked to move quieter, though I noted that both Tank and Rose looked worried, both of them looking to me then each other as we advanced. I was curious what they were hearing.

Finally we stopped at a vent in the floor that looked down over a large warehouse like room. We had passed a few others, one lead to a bathroom, the next a conference room. Had to be a hell of a smell in most of those meetings particularly if the mess here had a taco day. The next couple were empty labs and up ahead I could see we had come back on the other side of the vent as I could see the fan again around the next tunnel.

Though the last few vents opened into this big room. Peering through the slates I could see a couple of people walking around, at least three, two of them were together gathered around a cage .

The room was full of those, cages of all sizes and in nearly all of them were pokemon. Some of them were curled up on themselves, some looked to have injuries, some just seemed defeated.

Others were pissed clawing at the bars and snarling at the Rockets walking around. One of the Rockets paused as a Poochyena snarled at him, the rocket jabbed a metal pole against the metal cage and sent a jolt of electricity through the bars shocking the shit out of the pokemon in it, as well as the ones on either side of the cage that was targeted.

The man laughed and kept walking leaving the Poochyena and the two other pokemon on either side of him whimpering.

I pulled out my Pokedex activating the camera feature and sent a text to Professor Oak along with a message about where I was.

I was planning to wait there until help got here.

I'm a crazed former unicorn combat monster, but the key word there is former. I'm currently a ten year old kid with starter pokemon. I'm not jumping into this.

See Celestia. I can show restraint.

Then I saw her.

In one cage there was a large egg shaped ball of pink. She was apart from the others and nearly directly under my position.

The Chansy was holding tight to a speckled egg, both her arms wrapped tight around it. There were marks covering her body, darker lines that looked like stripes in her pink coat.

Wait, those were not stripes.

The Chansy was heavily scarred as she stood in the cage, she whimpered, clinging tighter to the egg as two rockets approached it looking at the trapped pokemon.

"Still won't give up the egg huh?" one asked.

"Nah, and my goodness, we were so surprised! The damn Pokemon was holding an Egg! We didn't know how it got there, but the damn Pokemon had it.” The second grunt shrugged. “She's been in here for a few weeks, nothing close enough to breed her. Boss only keeps her around cause she heals other pokemon in the cages if they're too bad off. Can't sell Chansys, the Joys would notice that.”

"Huh kinda surprised he cares about healing them. You ever seen his Rapidash?"

"Fucking scary shit, but I've also never seen a more powerful one, so whatever training he's doing is nuts, but it works. That's not even counting his starter, probably the only one the boss cares about given he doesn't even make him go into his ball."

"Ehh what ever. The doc wants us to get the egg from her." the first shrugged. " So how bout it pinky gonna do this the hard way or the easy way?"

The Chansy hugged the egg tighter.

"Suit yourself." The rocket shrugged and jabbed the rod into the cage electrocuting the Chansy.

The pink pokemon screamed and thrashed doing everything she could to keep the egg from harm.

There was a moment where the pokemon was spasming that she looked directly at me. Bright green eyes full of pain, and compassion for the egg she was trying to protect.

Some thing clicked inside of me.

I knew those eyes, I had seen them quite often for years. I saw them for the last time at a Apple family reunion before she died. Killed by a monster that had lead me into a trap. It was my fault she had died like she did, her body only living long enough to give birth to her daughter, though her mind had long past.

“Velkorn.” I stated.

Then all I saw was red.

Comments

[badninja]

Well that escalated quickly.

[Booster Spice]

I think some Grunts are about to very quickly turn into Squeals as tehy find out even a 10 year old kid can use overvolted cattle prods just as well as they can?

At least Arceus didnt allow him to abuse the human pokemon evolutionary link and give him an out on his Mega Were transformation ability.