Yay, new reviewer!!! And I know what you mean about that "spark" according to everyone else, it shows up in chapter six. Why, I have no clue, there's nothing really all that special about chapter six except for a scene I'm rather proud of, but meh. Glad ya like!
SB: Finish it before doing another revamp? You suggest I not try to improve my writing at all for the next few years? Anyway, it's not a revamp, I'd never revamp it after all this, o_O; just a revision.
Hey, I'm psychotically off, too! Not only that, but I found favor with the Nose Container in the Evil Hallway at school, mwahaha...
I said I would post chapter four soon, so I shall. And shortly, I'll go back and add the new revision to the old chapters!
Chapter 4: The Voyage to Midnight Island
Clothes—of all the things to spend birthday money on… But if I was gonna wait around in Vermilion for nearly a month until the S.S. Anne left for…for wherever it was going, I'd need a few more outfits. I had chosen a few cool shirts and some pants that had Poké Ball holders on them but then realized that I'd need socks and that sort of stuff. I wished that I had somehow known to grab some spare clothes when I had left home. Still, I'd had no idea that any of this would happen; I had just planned on riding around town a little while Rudy finished his chores.
I paid for the clothes and stuffed the store bag in my backpack. Outside, I sauntered along the bay toward the Pokémon Center while looking out over the horizon, awed by the endless stretch of sea that surrounded two sides of Vermilion. The cool, salty ocean breeze filled the atmosphere, and I shivered a little with the chill in the air. Though I commonly wore T-shirts all winter, I still felt cold and wanted to get inside.
I entered the Pokémon Center and strode through the lobby and into the back area toward my room. I was allowed to stay in a room, despite the fact that I wasn't a trainer, but though I wanted to have my Pokémon healed, I knew that they would check for ID when I paid. I would definitely be in trouble if they found out that I was using Poké Balls without a license. In the end, I just decided that it was pointless, as Chibi was recharged by now, and neither he nor Firestorm had sustained many physical injuries from the battle.
After unlocking the door and entering the room, I placed the bags on the table and was soon greeted by Firestorm.
"*What's that?*" he asked, sniffing the bag.
"I already told you guys that I needed to buy clothes," I replied, flopping onto the bed. With a glance around the room I saw Swift perched on a chair and Chibi sitting in the windowsill.
Firestorm and Swift usually stayed out of their Poké Balls and in our Pokémon Center room, only occasionally coming with me when I had to go shopping. I seriously didn't blame them; it was boring and they would have had to wait outside the store anyway. As for Chibi—I had no way of restraining him, and he still hadn't particularly agreed or disagreed to my keeping him. He didn't really talk much, or even look at any of us for that matter. I rarely let him leave the Center with me.
After some time I spoke up, "Hey Firestorm, I wanna practice some more."
"*Again?*" he groaned. "*Come on—if you can understand me well enough as it is, then why do we have to do this every day?*" The Charmander waddled over and sat across from me.
"I only got through half a semester of the AP Pokéspeech course, and up until then I was completely horrible at it," I explained. "Besides, they always said that the best way to get fluent was to practice all the time."
"*Couldn't you talk with Swift?*" he asked.
Rubbing the back of my head, I answered, "Um, not really…" Swift had never exactly been one to talk very much. Upon noticing that our conversation involved him, the Pidgey turned away sheepishly.
"Alright—same as always...I need to make sure I can understand you even if you say something really fast and illogical," I instructed.
He rolled his eyes at first, but then spat out a rapid string of words in Pokéspeech: "Charman'der char' chamanchr mander'char."
I raised an eyebrow. "You said, 'you are…bad at Pokéspeech'? I thought I said illogical."
"*That was,*" he said promptly with a laugh.
I shook my head, but couldn't help laughing just the same.
"*Why don't you try talking in Pokéspeech?*" Firestorm asked me.
With a frown, I said, "That won't work. I mean, I could try, but there's no way it would come out right. It's just like how Pokémon can't speak human. You can't make the right sounds for human speech, and while I could get the syllables right for Pokéspeech, there's no way I could get the tones and enunciations down. But it doesn't really matter—most Pokémon can understand humans anyway."
Firestorm nodded, taking that opportunity to jump off the bed and end the practice. I watched him grab a plastic bag and rummage for a box of cookies. Smiling, I mentally noted that I would need to buy some Pokémon food or else wind up with very malnourished Pokémon.
The wind struck the window as I looked out towards the overcast gray sky. Three more weeks in Vermilion…
I sighed and flipped slowly through the remaining money in my wallet. Between the clothes, food, and staying in the room the past few weeks, I had spent almost all of my cash, despite the fact that staying at a Pokémon Center was dirt-cheap. Every now and then, I pulled out the card I had been given and read it again. It said meet in Vermilion prior to December 7 for further instruction, but I hadn't seen the guy with Charizard at all and the seventh was coming up in two days. For a while, I had wondered how I was even gonna afford the ticket to board the S.S. Anne.
I stood up from the bed and replaced my wallet in my pocket before departing the Center again. I walked outside with Swift perched atop my shoulder and Firestorm at my heels and stared at the large array of ships in the harbor. A few days earlier, the S.S. Anne had arrived, and the crew had begun preparing for the voyage. The ship was huge and almost all white except for the top of it and the railing along the deck, which were shiny silver and black along the smokestacks; it was the typical cruise ship design. I was gazing up at the ship when I heard a rushing of air behind me.
"There you are, I knew I was forgetting someone," someone said. The voice was vaguely familiar, and I turned to see the guy I had met in the forest flying down on his Charizard.
"Oh, hey," I said.
The Charizard landed, and the tall, teenaged trainer climbed off the orange dragon's back. "Since you're here, I'm assuming you want to join the rebellion." I nodded and he continued. "Good, cause you're one of the only ones left that I haven't talked to out of the people I gave cards to. First of all, I wanna make sure you're really willing to do this. I don't want anyone joining and then deciding to quit after they realize that there's danger involved."
I shrugged. "Yeah I'm serious about it, but only mainly cause I got nothing better to do." I then added, "I also have a bit of a score to settle with Team Rocket."
"Okay," he said, pulling a small, stiff piece of paper out of his wallet and handing it to me. I took it and skimmed what it said quickly. Gasping slightly, I said, "This is a S.S. Anne ticket."
"Well how else would you be allowed on the ship?" he asked rhetorically.
"Yeah, but…if you're giving tickets to everyone whose joining the rebellion, then—" I started before he cut me off.
"I've got a ton of money to spare. I told the crew of the ship that I wanted tickets for the Pokémon Trainer's party on board and then bought two hundred or so of 'em. I only have a few left over."
I stared. "Holy crap, you must be rich."
He shrugged and said, "I won a lot of prize money in Pokémon League competitions. I actually placed second in the World Championships last year. Still, I spent a lot on the tickets and renting the stadium we're gonna use as headquarters."
"Which is where…?" I asked, for I had been wondering it for a long time.
"Oh, Midnight Island," he said, as though that answered my question. I had no idea where that was, but didn't decide to ask him. There was one other thing I had been wondering at, though.
"Wait, one thing I'd like to ask…you said you were recruiting beginning trainers. Why? Why not more experienced ones that would have a better chance when fighting Team Rocket?" I said, thinking back to the incredible way Ajia had battled.
"Beginning trainers are able to change their strategy easier than trainers who've been battling the same way for years. You need to be able to adapt to whatever opponent you face and I also figure I could help train beginning trainers on how to fight Team Rocket a bit more easily. By the way, did you get any more Pokémon?" he asked.
"Oh, yeah, I have a Pikachu back at the Pokémon Center," I said, leaving out the fact that Chibi was only about eighty percent Pikachu, and twenty percent Zapdos.
He nodded. "Your Charmander might be a pretty good fighter if you can evolve it. Same with the Pidgey," he added. He then walked over and got back on his Charizard's back once more. "Guess I'll be seeing ya with the others at Midnight Island."
"Yeah, later," I said, watching him fly off on his flame dragon. Right then, something occurred to me. "Hey! What's your name?"
"Stalker," he replied before soaring out of sight. I then returned to the Pokémon Center feeling a bit more anticipation for the trip than before.
"Ticket?" the man at the top of the ramp leading onto the ship asked. I retrieved the ticket from my pocket and handed it to him. He looked it over before placing it through a machine, handing me a card key of some sort and saying, "First and last name?"
"Jade Arenesa," I answered.
He entered it in on a computer and then said, "Alright, you're clear, welcome to the S.S. Anne."
I walked onto the deck of the S.S. Anne and into the bustling crowd of trainers. Many of those who were invited to Midnight Island had their Pokémon out with them for the Pokémon Trainer's party. Chibi, who had been walking alongside me the whole time, glared into the crowd disdainfully. I wasn't so sure about having him unrestrained around everyone, but there wasn't much I could do about it.
"Um…Chibi, can I talk to you alone?" I asked, wanting to discuss something with him before the party.
For a while, he didn't respond. I stared at him expectantly; finally, he nodded. I glanced around, found some stairs leading down to the cargo area, and descended into the immense space filled with crates and boxes of tools and various ship parts. Chibi followed me.
"Alright, look," I said flatly. "We need to settle this. I'm sorry, but I still don't entirely trust you. That whole time in Vermilion, I wanted to let you out of the Center more, but I didn't want you to, well…cause havoc or anything. I want you to just…I don't know…be normal?"
Normal? It wasn't really the word I was going for, but Chibi got what I was trying to say. I was asking him to act more like a Pikachu. He turned and said simply, "*I'll be myself,*" I wasn't sure whether it was progress or not, especially since I knew he had more to say. I was about to ask him what, but he cut me off.
His ranting in Pikachu was quiet as to not alert those upstairs, but filled with as much rage and infuriation as the time he attacked the Rockets and their ship. "*I'm sick of it! Stop treating me like some demented raging animal or something! It seems like you just think that if you release me around people, that I'll go on a killing rampage! Would you treat any of your human friends, even one with, like, I don't know, an anger problem or something like this?!*"
The question penetrated me, but Chibi didn't give me time to think about it. "*You act like you're in control of me. Yeah, you're the human, I'm the Pokémon, but if you really want us to get along, then treat me like a equal, not a dangerous pet. And as for battling…*" Here he paused before continuing. "*I'm not like other Pokémon…I don't need a trainer in order to battle successfully, but I'll listen to you if you want me to during a battle. Just so long as you don't pull that whole, 'I'm the trainer so you have to obey me' thing.*"
He didn't need a trainer? Was he really that self-centered, or was it true? I stared long and hard at him, going over what he had said in my mind. Finally, I nodded slowly before holding out my hand. He studied my expression for some time, apparently thinking hard before and then shook my hand. Without saying a word, we then began to ascend the metal stairs back up to the trainer's party.
Suddenly, Chibi stopped and twitched his ears. He turned back toward the crates, glaring apprehensively.
"What?" I asked, slightly lost.
"*Someone's back there…*" he whispered, running back and taking small, silent steps. I followed extremely slowly and noiselessly after him, wondering what he had heard that had alarmed him. Finally, he stopped and slowly peeked around the corner of a crate, pulling himself back again almost immediately. "*Listen,*" he muttered. I strained my ears to hear what only he could hear, apparently. Right then, however, whoever it was started talking and I realized that more than one person was there.
"D'you think the kid and the Pikachu are gone?" the voice whispered.
"Most likely. I heard footsteps going up the stairs," the second said. "Good thing, too. She could've been one of the ones on this ship that're gonna join that rebel team."
My heart skipped a beat when he said that. They had to be on Team Rocket, but how could they have known about the rebellion already? I mean, it hadn't even started yet! What the first Rocket said next, though, made me feel better.
"How do we even know that this thing is even really gonna exist? We're just going by a bunch of weird rumors going around with the new Pokémon Trainers."
"Not exactly. A few of the kids that got cards were actually among our new recruits. We know the rebellion's real," the first Rocket explained. "Unfortunately, though they waited in Vermilion, they never got a ticket. I guess whoever's behind all this made sure no Rockets could get within his or her ranks. I s'pose that's the only reason we're on this mission."
"Cinnabar Island…" the second muttered. "Cinnabar Island, why start a rebel team there? Besides, the island's pretty populated."
"Who knows?" the other said, with a tone of finality, as though he didn't want to talk anymore with an underling who was uninformed of the mission. I, however, was thoroughly confused. Cinnabar Island? The ship was going to Midnight Island. The Rockets obviously had their facts wrong, which was a good thing for Stalker. Otherwise, he'd never even get a chance to start the Team Rocket rebellion.
I headed back toward the stairs and motioned for Chibi to follow. We walked up the stairs, making sure not to create any noise, and returned to the main area of the ship.
I finally found a map framed on one of the elaborately decorated walls and stared at it before finally figuring out that Midnight Island was just off the eastern coast of Kanto near a tiny town called Lavender. Cinnabar, on the other hand, was quite some distance from Kanto's southwestern tip. Why did the Rockets think we were going there? I then wondered why Stalker hadn't just bought us tickets for some ferry in Lavender Town. It had to be a lot cheaper.
Later that night, I lay in bed inside the room that corresponded with the card key I had been given. The past few hours had been very boring, seeing as I couldn't participate in many of the trainers' activities like special battles, contests, and such, and the Team Rocket matter had been constantly lingering in my head.
Whatever the Rockets were going to do, I doubted they would do it while everyone was still at the party, but I didn't have any idea what their plans were.
Firestorm was on the floor, his tail resting on some non-flammable cloth, Swift was perched on a chair, his head buried in the down feathers on the back of his neck, and Chibi had snuggled down into the sheets. Finally, I just set my watch to go off in the middle of the night and eventually drifted off to sleep.
A tiny beeping noise awakened me at one in the morning. Groaning to myself, I reached to turn it off and slowly lumbered out of bed. I pulled on some shoes and regular clothes and walked toward the door.
"Char…?" Firestorm sleepily said.
I turned back to see him opening his eyes and lifting himself up to look at me. I replied, "I'm goin' out to figure out something. If any of you want, you can come."
"*I'm pretty tired, so I guess I'll pass, but I'll ask Swift and Chibi,*" he said, walking to the front of the bed and pulling up the covers, revealing Chibi curled up in a ball with the spikes of his fur sticking out.
"*Hey…*" Chibi mumbled.
"*Just wanted to tell you…Jade's leaving to go figure out…uh, something,*" he said, looking back at me questioningly. Chibi raised an eyebrow at me and I whispered, "Team Rocket."
His expression hardened. The Pikachu nodded in realization before jumping off the bed and walking over to me.
I noticed Swift hadn't stirred yet, but I decided not to wake him. I turned to Chibi. "Guess it's just you and me," I said as we walked out in the darkened hallway.
Very few people were still awake and most of the lights had been dimmed. We entered the main room to find it completely dark. All of the lights had been turned out, though in several other rooms that came out from the central area, light could be seen through the doors. I walked with Chibi down the side passage and opened the door to the cargo bay. We silently tiptoed down the metal stairway and into complete darkness. I felt my foot collide with something, and I quickly struggled to prevent myself from tripping over a crate of supplies at the end of the stairs.
"It's too dark to see. Chibi, could you make it just a little bit brighter?" I asked. He nodded and strings of electricity formed around his body as he began to glow with a dim yellow light. I don't know why he took the precaution, though. It didn't matter if it was a dim light or if it lit up the whole room, Team Rocket would see us if they were here.
Apparently they weren't here, because they sure weren't where they had been previously. We ran back up the stairs and looked around. Any paths leading out of the main room either had one of the crewmembers in it or led to the passengers' rooms. Wherever the Rockets were planning, they obviously had already started it in a remote part of the ship. I looked back at the passage to the cargo bay, which continued further into the shadows.
"Of course…" I muttered to myself. "Come on Chibi," I said as we slowly walked down the hallway and down another flight of stairs that descended into seemingly infinite blackness. Chibi had stopped glowing a few seconds earlier, for he knew it was crucial for us to not be seen. At the bottom was a second corridor along which we continued for nearly a minute. I could hear distant voices and footsteps. Chibi had raced ahead noiselessly to see if it was just crewmembers or the Rockets. The latter was more likely, for I seriously doubted that the crew would be down here with it so dark.
I knew I was nearing the end of the passage when Chibi ran back to me.
"*It's them—they're a little ways ahead,*" he warned.
I could see the glow of several flashlights piercing the blackness as we neared the Rockets. They were in the engine room, and fortunately, it didn't look like they had gotten there more than ten minutes ago. I knelt and walked with my back along the wall. The second I made it to the large chamber, I ducked back behind some storage crates and listened, though I couldn't pick out most of what they were saying.
"Chibi," I whispered. He turned and ran over to me. "Hey, can you hear what they're saying?"
"*Yeah, sure, but unfortunately it sounds like they've already been all over the ship,*" he said, his voice lowered.
"Doing what?!" I asked frantically.
"*Hold on,*" he muttered, twitching his ears and making occasional glances around the side of the boxes. After a few seconds he turned back to me and said, "*Not good…they've got explosives set up all over the ship. They're rigged to go off when activated by some remote thing that the leader's got. I guess they're gonna get off this thing and then blow it up.*"
"We gotta stop them and getting the controls is our best bet," I said.
"*Couldn't I just knock all of 'em out?" he asked.
"We can't risk it. If one of them is holding on to it, it'd get short-circuited, and that could activate the explosives."
"*Fine then, I've got an idea,*" he said.
"What can I do?" I asked eagerly.
"*You can be there to catch the remote when I throw it to you after getting it away from them,*" he said.
"Hey," I said and was about to protest but he had already jumped out from behind our hiding place.
He turned back one last time, gave me a skeptical look, and said rather loudly and noticeably, "*Come on, fighting Rockets is a Pokémon's job. What else could you do?*" Of course, the Rockets probably couldn't understand him, but they sure had heard him.
"A Pikachu?" one of them asked. Another one turned his flashlight on Chibi, who stood completely still, eyeing them. The Rocket studied Chibi for several seconds before finally recognition hit him.
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