To say I was mad was an understatement.
"I can't believe I trusted that dirty thief," I grumbled sourly as I sat eating {favorite breakfast food}. "And he had to take caterpie of all my pokemon! The one who trusted and looked up to him."
The café we were sitting in for breakfast was fairly crowded. It seemed like a fairly popular place in Cerulean and I could why. It had brightly colored walls and comfy booths to sit at. The smell of pancakes wafted through the air and a quiet chatter filled the restaurant. I relaxed into the cushioned chair behind me and took a sip out of a glass of {favorite drink}.
"I don't know, this just doesn't seem like something Jack would do," Meg said, moving a lone waffle around her plate with a fork.
I rolled my eyes. "Says the one who tried to get rid of him at every chance and has been rivals with him for like a year. Since when are you on his side?"
"See that's the thing! I've known him for a long time and not once did he do anything for himself. Sure, he would steal pokemon from people, but those always went straight back to Team Rage, if I didn't stop him first. He never kept a pokemon he stole, only ones he caught himself. Which leads to the question of why he would take Caterpie.
"Not only did he steal Caterpie, Jack never even liked it in the first place. Stealing a pokemon he doesn't like? Completely out of character." She stabbed her waffle with a fork and began cutting it into pieces.
"You and that grunt were enemies?" Adam had been quiet until now, mostly focused on finishing off his omelet.
Meg nodded, "He was one of the Team Rage grunts I came across the most, and he was pretty... loud. So, I remembered him. Team Rage doesn't have many enemies so I guess I stood out to him too."
"So, what changed? Why were you working together?" he pressed.
Meg and I traded looks. I guess we could give him an edited version of it. "Well, I raided the Team Rage camp in Pewter and he helped me on the way out. Ever since then, he's been part of the team."
Adam's fork dropped from his hand as he stopped in shock. "You raided a Team Rage base all by yourself? And came out of it alive? I thought you had known him before that; why did you think you could trust him?"
"I assumed he had decided that didn't agree with Team Rage anymore," I lied. "And like we said earlier, he needed our protection after running away." Adam frowned, but didn't say anything else.
Meg stood up and stretched. "Time to look for clues, I guess," she said determinedly. "With or without Jack, we still need to catch Team Rage." I nodded and followed her towards the door.
"Wait!" We stopped and turned around to see Adam reluctantly leaving behind a lone strip of bacon. "Don't you want to take a day to rest? I mean, you've had a busy week, right? You must be tired."
I shook my head quickly, not even considering the idea. "A day of rest for us means another day Team Rage gets ahead and the trail gets cold. They've gotten away too many times for us to let them go," I said firmly. 'Plus," I thought to myself. 'If I don't beat them who knows if I'll ever get out of here?'
"But don't you want to find Jack?" Adam tried again.
"If anyone knows where Jack is, it's Team Rage," Meg put in. "Even I don't know where he'd go. If you're feeling tired, you can stay behind and rest. You don't need to come with us; we don't want you getting hurt."
He sighed in defeat. "No, it's fine. I'll come with you." That settled that. We walked outside and looked around for a second. Nothing seemed suspicious and I didn't really know where to start.
"Maybe we could try asking the gym leader? They're supposed to know about everything that happens in their town, right?" Meg suggested. That seemed like a good enough place to start, so we made our way to the large dome in the middle of the city. The doors slid open and we saw a secretary working on some paper work in the lobby with another set of double door straight ahead.
"Excuse me?" I asked as we came up to the secretary. He looked up from his paperwork seemingly surprised.
"Can I help you?" he asked.
"We would like to talk to the gym leader, please? If they're here." We waited patiently as he dug through the stacks of paper to pull out what looked like a sign in sheet.
"Just put your name and number here and we'll call back in a few days when Ms. Misty has time to speak with you." He calmly handed us the paper and went back to signing the papers in front of him.
"A few days?" Meg squeaked. "We don't have a few days!"
The secretary looked back up at us, his brows furrowed. "I'm sorry but Ms. Misty is a busy person and-"
"This is a very important matter! Have you heard of Team Rage? They're on the loose right now and if we don't-"
"Ghost!" I hissed, sending an apologetic glance to the scared man. "I'm sorry, what she meant to say is we are in a bit of a rush and we were hoping we could see Ms. Misty before then. Is there anything we could do to make that possible?"
The secretary thought for a moment before responding. "I suppose if you beat Ms. Misty in a gym battle she might be able to take a minute to talk to you. However, it is quite difficult and no one has beat her in a long time."
"Thank you, sir!" I dragged Meg away, Adam following closely behind us.
"Doesn't he know how important this is? We should be able to talk to her right now. The safety of the world is at stake-"
"Ghost! Shut up!" Finally, she quieted down. "Did you hear that? All we have to do is beat this gym leader and the we can see if they know any about where Team Rage went! And plus, we get a gym badge in the process. Didn't you say you wanted to become champion before Thomas did?"
She sighed. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Plus, I'm pretty sure she's a water type gym leader. My Pikachu can easily beat all of them." She grabbed a pokeball off her waist and started to walk through the doors that lead to the main gym area.
"Well, not to brag, but I have an Ivysaur," Adam boasted. "I'm sure I can beat Misty before you can get that Pikachu of yours to beat one pokemon." He looked at Meg smugly as she glared at him.
'An Ivysaur? His Bulbasaur must've evolved. Hm, I didn't think he was going to train him Bulbasaur that quickly.' I shook my head, focusing on the arguing siblings in front of me.
"Fine then, let's make this a competition," I decided.
Adam seemed unsure. "What do I get when I win."
Meg smirked and replied, "The other two have to carry the winner around the next time we set off to find Team Rage."
The two looked at me and I nodded happily. "Let's do it!"
I pushed open the double doors nervously. Charmeleon wasn't going to do very well against water types. Last time we were fine, but dragon rage's forty health might not cut it this time, since these pokemon were a higher level.
Splashy wouldn't be able to do much either. Even though she's a water type, splash wouldn't affect the opposing pokemon at all, we could only hope to stun them with her shine.
That left my last pokemon. I hadn't trained with them much, but if I wanted to win the tournament, we had to figure out something in battle. I sighed, my sore feet below me a reminder of how much was at stake, and started battling.
After many, many battles, I was finally getting the hang of this new battling technique. And, I was in the lead too. I saw Meg and Adam getting stuck on some double typed pokemon a while back. My pokemon were all healed up and ready to face the final trainer: Misty.
"Are you ready, trainer?" the blonde asked as I reached the podium where she waited.
I nodded in response and released my first pokemon from its pokeball. "Hope this goes better than last time," I whispered to myself as a white like shone before me. "Go! Splashy!"
The gym leader gave me an odd look when she saw the magikarp but said nothing. Instead, she sent out a pokemon of her own. When the glowing light faded, I saw that it was a staryu. It was brown with a red gem in its center and closely resembled a starfish.
"Staryu! Rapid Spin!" Misty cried. The opposing pokemon quickly followed its trainer's commands and starting spinning itself towards my magikarp.
"You know what to do!" I told my pokemon as the staryu approached. The starfish pokemon spun forwards at full speed into the glowing light surrounding my pokemon, then continued through, turning and speeding back to its original position. Trainer and pokemon stood, watching as the light faded to reveal an uninjured magikarp.
Somehow, this didn't throw Misty off, instead it seemed to make her more determined. "Water gun!" she commanded. Obediently, our foe squirted water from the glowing gem in its belly and once again the magikarp in front of me was surrounded in a bright light. When the light faded, my magikarp was once again unharmed.
Misty seemed confused, but I didn't give her a moment to stop and think. "Our turn!" I exclaimed proudly. "Go, Kangaskhan! Use stomp!" The magikarp in front of me was surrounded in bright lights again. This time, when they disappeared, a large kangaskhan was in its place.
Our opponents stood, shocked as my magikatp-turned-kangaskhan lumbered towards Staryu. It lifted one large foot up in the air and set it down on the poor starfish pokemon, giving out a deafening roar as it did so. When my pokemon stepped back and the dust cleared, a knocked out Staryu was revealed.
"Staryu, return," Misty said quietly, stumbling on her words. She fumbled around with her pokeballs for a second before taking out a different one. "We're not done yet! Go, Starmie!" Her voice seemed to regain her energy and she did too, thrilled by the prospect of a difficult battle.
"Use hydro pump!" The command rang loud and clear and I immediately froze. That was a powerful move that would be hard to dodge if I didn't act quickly.
"Rattata! Quick attack!" I called, but it was too late. The water attack hit my pokemon head on and they fell to the ground in a pool of purple goo. I returned Ditto to its pokeball and thought. I didn't have any revives seeing as I spent all my money on food. I could try to use Splashy, but she wouldn't be able to do much in terms of attacking. However, maybe she could scare them. So, I sent her out.
For the second time, I threw out a pokeball to reveal a shiny magikarp. I watched as Misty's eyes narrowed and she tensed. "Splashy!" I called loudly, gaining her attention. "Splash. When the Starmie moves use tackle." I said the command quietly so that our opponents would hear it, but they would still see my lips move.
"Starmie, dodge!" Misty yelled quickly as she saw my magikarp start to flop around. As I'd suspected, she'd assumed that Splashy was another Ditto. Instead, the pokemon before me did as I'd told and waited until Starmie was already moving to attack.
"Tackle again!" I commanded, trying to lower our opponents' health as much as possible before Misty could get a word in. "Keep tackling!"
Misty didn't snap out of her shock until Starmie was down to half health. She shook her head. "Starmie use Rapid Spin!"
"Splashy, Splash!" The opposing starmie moved backwards to get some momentum and in that short amount of time, Splashy was able to prepare for the oncoming attack. As the starfish pokemon approached, my magikarp jumped into the air, letting our foe pass directly beneath her. "That's it Splashy! Now use tackle while their back is turned."
"Starmie! Use tackle too!" My magikarp was only able to get one tackle in before the foe's starmie began to tackle back. Splashy had more health left, but had a lower defense and eventually fainted. However, the starmie only had a couple health points left and if Charmeleon could avoid all of their attacks, we might be able to win.
I returned Splashy to her pokeball and sent out my final pokemon.
"Water gun!" Misty called, not giving us any time to recover.
"Charmeleon, dodge then smoke screen!" As soon as the water flew past him, Charmeleon began to fill the area with smoke, causing a few trainers in the gym to leave. I ignored them and focused on the battle at hand.
"Starmie, recover!" I heard from the other side of the smoke.
"Stop them, Charmeleon! Use dragon rage until it hits!" Charmeleon nodded, then disappeared into the smoke. After a few seconds, I heard a loud sigh and the smoke began to clear. Misty had returned her pokemon to her pokeball and Charmeleon stood there triumphantly. We had won!
"Good battle, trainer. Here's your badge!" She handed me a shiny blue badge that I immediately stuck in my pocket. I didn't want to lose that!
"Thank you!" I said excitedly. "But, before I go, can I ask you a few questions?"
What??? Another chapter just two days after the last one???? After not updating for a month and before that not updating for a year???????????????????????????????
Heh, I know. I'm great :)
Kidding. But wow! This chapter was over 2,000 words! Crazy, right? I'm just super excited for all the support this book has been getting (thank you so much!!) and I wanted to make sure I didn't disappoint you guys.
I hope you enjoyed this extra long chapter! I'll try to keep putting new chapters out every now and then but no promises because I have a chemistry essay that needs to get done .-.
Hope you guys are enjoying your summer break!
Thanks for reading!