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Omnipresent Authority Figure

Stuck between a capital letter and a period.
Seen June 21st, 2010
Posted June 12th, 2010
113 posts
15.7 Years
Just Add Brains!
A Team Rocket Adventure of Unexpected Realism and Dimensional Displacement

Disclaimer:
This is just another lame self-insertion fic, but I've found the internet to be more lasting than most of my hard drives to date. It might be pretty boring to read this unless you're me.

No, my name isn't Maxwell. I just happen to love Mr. Sheffield.

Prologue: One Dude Over the Kooks' Nest



"I don't like to say things like this, but this has absolutely... positively... definitely got to be the single worst day of my life. Oh, and ouch!".

He said it all out loud to himself as he dragged the his hand across his blood-spattered face, wincing at the pain as his palm passed over the broken remains of his nose, depositing stinging sweat and gravel into the recently formed ridges in his countenance. A flick of the wrist sent a few drops of gore flying, but didn't leave his hand noticeably cleaner. Even if it had, the action would have been futile, as the bleeding was much too severe for him to simply wipe the wounds clean. "Son of a...", he began, sputtering, "As if falling through the floor during dinner wasn't bad enough, and as if dropping half a mile and landing on my face didn't add enough to it, I just had to be spirited away in the middle of taco night, didn't I? I can't tell if this is minced meat or minced me". He'd been waiting for ages to pull that pun off. Unfortunately, he noted, it had not been worth having his wounds full of hot sauce and spiced meat. Despite the blinding pain, however, the large, rotund figure picked itself off the ground and climbed to its feet, stumbling a couple of clumsy paces from the crash site. As he was still complaining to himself and making those god-awful puns, one might have assumed he was fairly unhurt - but no. Only a moment later he finally succumbed to blood loss, concussion and various other injuries, and keeled over, blindly falling headfirst into a tree. Having already reached the point where additional pain had stopped affecting him, the battered boy slid down the rough bark until he hit the ground. Good god, he thought to himself, no longer able to muster the will to speak. Why did I have to land on my face? I don't think I've ever been in this much pain - and I used to go to public school! By the way - is it just me, or is it starting to get colder? Finishing that thought, he slowly and with great effort wallowed onto his back - it had been tough to breathe with face pressed into the dust. Now he could feel his right eyebrow touching his right cheek. This had been a swell day.
...Get it?

When you're in my situation you can only think in short bursts of tired sarcasm, he thought to himself. Jokes aside, though, that was probably the only reason he hadn't gone bonkers already. His shirt was in shreds, his chest looked like a used minefield, his nose was shattered and his face so messed up as to be unrecognizable. His glasses were gone, though it didn't matter - his eyes were swollen shut anyway. He had no idea where he was. Through one microscopic slit between his left cheek and eyebrow, enough light filtered through that he could just barely make out the tree right above him. The fact that it seemed to be in Technicolor led him to believe that he'd hit his head harder than he thought - which meant that he'd hit it pretty damn hard. Sputtering weakly, he pressed his tongue between his cracked lips, and sent three yellow-tinted teeth rolling out of his mouth as he went. Licking in vain at his cracked lips, he listened hard and tried to get his bearings, even though he really knew better. It wasn't as though he really expected to hear anything he would recognize, and the place smelled like forest... and blood. If this were a forest, there would soon be other creatures catching on to the scent of half-dead human - and then he'd he be full-dead. He would have swallowed at the notion, but he wasn't sure he even could. Maxwell was a big guy, six-three at the eyes, and weighing in at close to three hundred pounds. He'd been airborne for what seemed like half a mile, and he'd broken more than one tree during his flight - more than one bone, too, and he wasn't about to move anywhere in the near future. In the distance, he thought he could hear the sound of... of... probably some predator or other. Maxwell felt a rising sense of panic.

Desperately trying to take his mind off the impending doom, he came to wonder briefly what exactly had happened - but he gave up pretty quickly. Whatever was going on, it was a safe bet Max wouldn't live to find out. His toes had already gone numb, and it saddened him that soon he'd be so clichéd as to not being able to feel his legs. Now, if only he could faint- wait a second... there was that sound again. Now that he thought about it, it sounded more like a whine, barely audible but quickly growing louder. A mortar shell? Had he landed in a war zone? As the whining sound grew louder and louder, Maxwell guessed that whatever it was, it would land right on top of him. Not that that would be a problem - being blown to smithereens that is. Compared to slowly bleeding to death through his face, he considered instant death by grenade a blessing. No such luck, though - there was a crash, yes, but no shell fragments to tear him apart. A shower of pebbles, wicker pieces and scrap metal rained down on the paralyzed boy as something large crashed into and made a huge crater out of Maxwell's crash-dent. Sitting up straight, Maxwell opened his working eye as wide as he could in surprise. The sudden motion was too much for him, however, and just as he tried to speak he blacked out, hitting the ground with a thud. From the crater, a gloved hand slowly rose toward the edge of the hole. Coming to a brief, trembling halt, it then grabbed on to the ledge. With a deliberate, grunt-strewn heave, a purple-haired man pulled his torso up from the pit. What Max would have seen come out of the creater would have caused him to faint, if blood loss and trauma hadn't beaten the sight to it.

"Yet another g-graceful landing...", said the glove-wearing man, despite looking very much like he'd been run over by a barbed bullet train on fire. His shoulder was actually sizzling still. "Yeah", came a much squeakier voice in reply, from deep down in the pit, "about as graceful as a tailless cat!". There was a classic cartoon 'BAFF' sound, and out of the crater came flying a white-furred little creature with a golden coaster glued to its enormous head. "Will you two stop complaining complaining already!", an angry female voice followed as a scarlet-haired woman in her mid-twenties clambered out after the other two. "James, Meowth, salvage what you can from the balloon while I try to get find out where we are. We've got to get back on track and get that Pikachu!", she commanded without so much as a glance at the others. "But Jessie", Meowth whined, "we just landed! Let's have a catnap before we get back to woik!". "He's right, Jessie!", James agreed, "it'll be dark soon, and those Squirtle really had us flushed. I feel all washed out - let's rest". There was a momentary pause before Jessie replied, and the air around her only grew intensely ominous in the meantime. "No!", she roared, her head suddenly growing huge as she started to bellow something about their mission as Rockets, their duty to the boss and stuff like that. Since everyone had already heard it all a million times before, no one listened very intently. It was a good while before any of the Rockets noticed the guy who'd passed out in a pool of his own blood.

"Hey, wait a second - who's that?", said Meowth, interrupting the squabble as he finally noticed the slumped form. "Beats me", came the reply, "but something tore him up bad". James folded his arms, obviously entirely unconcerned, and said, "I doubt he's even alive". Jessie turned to regard Maxwell's lifeless body with mixed feelings of disgust and curiosity. "With that sort of a fashion sense, I'd say the world is be better off without him". It appeared for a moment as though the Rockets would simply resume their argument and leave the protagonist of the story to his doom, but then they suddenly and for no tangible reason changed their minds - though, some might argue, most things in this series happen for no good reason. Jessie raised her index finger and exclaimed, "But on the other hand - what if he was beat up by a powerful pokémon! If we could capture it, it could help us steal that Pikachu! I think I've got a potion here somewhere". The Rockette pulled a small, purple spray container from out of hammerspace and knelt down beside the wounded boy. "This'll sting a little!", she twittered gleefully and sprayed his chest and face with healing liquid. First nothing happened, as Jessie got up and put a few paces between her and her patient. Right as she turned back to watch it took effect, sparking a reaction as sudden and unexpected as laughter in Cheers.

"Oh, GOD! It burns!", Maxwell shrieked, convulsing like a spastic worm as he clawed at his face. Apparently, the potion wasn't really intended for human use. None the less, it did seem to work - it had brought Max back to life and energy, at least. After about half a minute of agonized writhing and moaning - to Team Rocket's great amusement - Max slowly climbed to his feet. The pain was incredible, but at least he was alive and could feel his legs again. Hesitantly touching his face, he confirmed his suspicions - his wounds were rapidly diminishing. As soon as he regained his sight, he spun around to face the sound of laughter, to thank his saviour. Unfortunately, he noticed as he opened his eyes that the potion was aimed at his face once again. Before he could utter a word of protest, he was back to writhing helplessly on the ground. Another half-minute later, he was finally back on his feet and mostly healed... though mentally scarred and in severe pain. "Well", he panted, exhausted from all the writhing, "thanks a bunch. I guess you saved my life". He'd begun looking around for a suitably heavy and knobbly branch with which to fully express his gratitude - right across their faces - but before he could react, both of the human Rockets were in up his face. Arms folded and with self-assured smirks on their faces, they proceeded to do their motto, as they always did. Maxwell noted that, oddly enough, their clothes were suddenly back to mint condition, and their faces showed nary a trace of the damage the crash had - or should have - caused. Maxwell made a mental note to find out how that worked and steal the idea. "Don't you worry about it none, little boy. You'll be paying us back momentarily", said Jessie. "Yes, because you'll soon tell us...", James continued. "Which pokémon it was that thrashed you!", the two finished together. At about that time, Max's brain caught up with his senses, and he realized to whom he was talking. It was probably fortunate that he'd already reached his trauma quota for the day.

Aside from the pain in his face and a sense of surprise at being called 'little' by a pair of four-foot fashion freaks, Maxwell was a tad distracted by the current of thoughts rushing through his consciousness. He now knew where he was, and who he was talking to - though not when. Torn between thoughts of wow, what an opportunity and thoughts of oh noes, what about my stuff... oh, and my friends and family and all that, he struggled to clear his head enough to speak. Slowly and deliberately, he lifted his hands in an averting gesture, responding with a weak, "no, no, it wasn't a pokémon". Jessie and James were on him in an instant, their fists up by their chins as they stared at him with distressed expressions. "You're lying. It must have been a pokémon! Tell us you're lying!". Maxwell merely shrugged sighed a "Sorry", and the Rocket duo crashed to the ground in disappointment, bemoaning their misfortune. "However...", he continued, smirking as he brought his right hand up to scratch his chin in a supercilious fashion (and as he did, he noticed his pain fading slightly faster), "I think I might be able to help you anyway...". As Maxwell let the sentence trail off into nothingness, Jessie and James looked up, suddenly distracted. Meowth was still knocked out from his flight out of the crater.

Wannabe Psychic Maxwell would like to battle! You've been challenged by Swingers Goldie and MacIntyre! Bewitcher Agnes is picking a fight!

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Omnipresent Authority Figure

Stuck between a capital letter and a period.
Seen June 21st, 2010
Posted June 12th, 2010
113 posts
15.7 Years
Chapter 1: That Stinking Feeling.

Maxwell pulled at the collar of his t-shirt and looked down with an impressed smile at the nigh-invisible stitches crisscrossing the black textile. Finally, something positive about this day. What had recently been nothing but a blood-spattered rag was once again his favourite shirt - clean once again and expertly sown together. Now that he thought about it, it actually looked better than it had in years - though the whole cartoonish pastel texture it had taken on might have had something to do with it. "Impressed? Oh, that was nothing - nothing at all. You should see me patch together our uniforms". The scarlet-haired Rocket agent waved one hand dismissively while she covered her mouth with the other, in a pose that made her bulbous, inflated ego almost tangible in itself. Maxwell's first reaction would have been to slap her silly, but... he had to admit she'd done an amazing job - unrealistically amazing, which was probably what he should expect from characters in a cartoon. Now that he'd had time to gather his wits and think his situation through, he'd begun to examine his own appearance. Though things were still pretty blurry to look at without glasses, it turned out that he, not surprisingly, had taken on the same pastel hues as everything else, along with a more... shallow complexion than usual. His movements hadn't changed much from before - his frame rate and quality of animation were vastly superior to that of the Rockets. At this thought he felt the pain in his face returning. He winced, clutched his face and the pain disappeared as suddenly as it had blossomed. The Rockets seemed not to have noticed.

All four of them were comfortably seated on a row of conveniently located tree stumps - one of which Maxwell suspected he'd had a hand in creating during his flight. It was quiet - no birds sang in the trees, no frogs were croaking in the distance, and there weren't even any bugs crawling around. It was with gratitude Max noted that last absence. "So...", said James with a smirk, "now that we're mercifully free of the sight of your pasty dough-boy torso, how about telling us how you're planning to repay us for saving your life. And it had better be good". The purple haired Rocket twirled a rose between his thumb and index finger for a brief moment, and then his cool facade shattered. "With money?", he squealed, a dumb grin on his face. "With jewels?", Jessie chimed in, eyes twinkling. "Is it food?", Meowth suggested, and was promptly punched off his stump by other two. Watching them have at it, Max felt a profound urge growing in the depths of his nerdy soul, to appease his need for cheesy theatrics. Random acts of melodrama didn't fit in too well with reality, but wasn't this weird dream the perfect place to act it out some? Rising from his seat, he folded his arms and looked down at Team Rocket - easily done, being one and a half times their height. As he let a self-assured, vicious grin take form on his face, he could almost feel the background turn a dark purple as he towered over them. Max laughed theatrically. "Team Rocket - you should be thankful you met a man such as I! Out of gratitude, I will let you extend your reach to the stars above... as I get you Ash's Pikachu!", he exclaimed, shifting into a heroic pose with one hand pointing to the sky. The Rockets looked at each other with anticipation. That's when Maxwell realized that, sometime during that last line, a pair of glasses had materialized on his face.

"He'll help us...", Jessie began. "Catch that annoying...", James took over. "Twerp's Pikachu?", Meowth filled in. Simultaneously folding their arms, the three nodded sagely at each other. Then, suddenly, their eyes widened and they crashed to the floor with a loud, unified, "What!?". After an instantaneous recovery, the three flew up in Max's face. "H-how do you even know about that!? Who are you - a spy of the boss'? A friend of the Twerps'? Some random clairvoyant psychic?". Catching their collective breath, the Rocket agents jumped back and brought out their pokéballs. "You'd better tell us who you are right this instant, or we'll be forced to take drastic measures", said Jessie and James, soon followed by a cocky, "yeah, like beating you up!", from Meowth. Maxwell felt a twinge of irritation and remembered his earlier resolution to clobber the dastardly duo. He grabbed on to a nearby branch, twisting it off. "You? Beat me up?", he said, swatting his palm with the heavy branch. "Meowth, that's right!", called the shortest Rocket and leapt at the giant, "taste my Fury Swipes!". But Maxwell knew, of course, exactly what he was facing. The leap was intercepted by Max's club, and Meowth was sent flying into the underbrush. Making a leap of his own, our protagonist was met by the pokéballs of Jessie and James, a Koffing and an Ekans appearing in the air before his assault. He knew about that too.

Jessie's purple snake was stomped into the ground before it had time to react, as Maxwell simply walked right over the little thing, his size 50 boots crushing Ekans without even having to be aimed. As Koffing popped out into the daylight, it was immediately greeted by two feet of wood to the face. It gave a deflating cry of, "Koffeeeeeng..." as its face caved in from. Maxwell turned toward James and Jessie, raising his improvised club to carry on his mad charge. However, his triumphant march turned into a flailing collapse as a hissing sound revealed the one fatal flaw in his plan: do not compress anything that's permeable and full of poisonous gas. Before our club-wielding hero could do much anything, he was completely enveloped in a purple cloud. Dropping his club, he dropped to his knees and face. Clutching his throat with one hand and clawing at the dirt with the other, he gasped desperately for air. Soon, he keeled over in front of the rockets and fell on his side, eyes bulging and foaming at the mouth. Jessie and James, who had been frozen in a frightened huddle for most of Maxwell's rampage, slowly thawed and crouched to prod the motionless boy. Looking up at one another, they smirked.

When Max finally woke up, he found himself tied up and staring into the gleeful faces of the two Rocket agents and Meowth, standing above him and on his belly respectively. "Now who's worthless, huh?". Enthusiastic kicks rained down over his face and body, but they were hardly noticeable compared to the poison. Max was nauseous and aching all over, and his gaze fell on an empty, yellow spray bottle on the ground - an antidote, if he knew his items right. All of a sudden, James' gloating grin appeared before him as a gloved hand slapped him mockingly in the face. "Hah hah hah! You almost died, you know that? And all from just a little of Koffing's Poison Gas! How pathetic! Who's ever heard of someone dying from a little deadly poison?". Jessie scoffed. "We've saved your life twice now, kiddo, and your clothes once. Now you will start explaining everything from your identity up to how you're gonna get that Pikachu for us", she demanded. "Yeah", added Meowth and extended its claws, "and it had better be a good explanation too, unless you want to become my new clawing board". Maxwell strained against his bonds at first, but soon heaved a defeated sigh. Twenty-five minutes later, the exposure was over and Max splayed his arms out as he waited for the Rockets' reaction to his story. The trio made a perfectly coordinated series of thoughtful hums. "So, in short, you're the son of a famous master spy and you've come to spy on the twerps for your vacation?". Never having been good at coming up with believable stories, Maxwell grinned stupidly and scratched the back of his head. Had he ended up signing his death warrant? Only a complete idiot would fall for that. Then again...

"Well, he did know about us and that Pikachu, so he might be telling the truth...", James suggested, but Meowth was less than convinced. "Are you out of your mind!? That's story's so far-fetched I've half a mind to grab a leek and- oww!". Meowth crashed to the ground, smacked down by Jessie's fist. The crimson-haired woman held her hand to her mouth and laughed. "Ah-hah-hah! Meowth's stupid puns aside, no one who compliments my sowing can be all bad. How about we let him prove himself? We've got nothing to lose, after all". James nodded sagely. "Indeed - a very good point, Jessie", he agreed. "How about it, then, master spy? Up to proving your skills? Of course, if we find that they're not up to our exquisite Team Rocket standards, you will...", he trailed off, dragging the stem of his rose across his throat... and cutting it open with a torn. Maxwell watched in surprised amusement as James rolled around on the ground, clutching his bleeding larynx. Still scratching the back of his head, Max thanked the powers that be for Team Rocket's stupidity and agreed to show his "skills". Having seen these episodes before, he naturally knew what was going to happen. In this place, he'd practically be able to see the future! Maybe it would be worth staying here for a while. Too bad about his family and friends, but... here he could strike it rich!

As soon as he could establish just when and where he was - and get the smell of Koffing out of his clothes - he'd do just fine.

Wannabe Psychic Maxwell would like to battle! You've been challenged by Swingers Goldie and MacIntyre! Bewitcher Agnes is picking a fight!