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Loyalty

Chapter 14: Links

At the Viridian Rocket base infirmary, Laiki's cell phone rang and she picked it up curiously. She didn't know this number. "Hello? Are you a secret admirer? Of course, you must be!"

"I'm not," the voice on the other line sounded very much like an old lady.

"Oh... wrong number..." Laiki frowned in disappointment.

She was about to hang up, but the voice stopped her. "Don't be so hasty, I have a message for your friends, but it seems their phones are off. Does that mean they will be joining us? If not, then please extend my invitation." The voice was very ghostly.

"Listen lady, I don't know who you are, but cut the mystery act," Laiki felt a cold chill run down her spine. "I mean it! You have no idea who you're calling here!" How was it even possible to feel someone's presence so strongly over a simple phone call?

"I do know who I'm calling, Laiki," the elderly woman replied. "Ash will need help; send him friends who can keep secrets... do not come yourself." The call disconnected.

"Friends who can keep secrets..." Laiki repeated in puzzlement, then suddenly the answer came to her. "Agatha, you're Agatha!" The call had already ended. "I can keep a secret!" Laiki huffed. Comet and Pixel were already on their way, so that left Gary...

xoxox xox xoxox

The door to Agatha's mansion opened by itself with Gary and Laiki stepping in, though she was not invited. "So much for staying in the castle." Comet grinned from his place sitting on the couch next to Pixel, who was tinkering with an odd machine.

Gary stepped past the door and towards them. "Care to explain what's going on?"

"I'm not exactly fully informed," Comet admitted.

"And neither am I," Pixel added. She took off her headphones and set them down on the coffee table next to the machine of many dials and lights. "There are too many ghosts in here; I can't track a specific flow of energy with so much interference." She looked towards the stairs, then the doors on top of the inner balcony, then the doors on that room. "We might just have to-"

An interruption appeared in the form of a Haunter holding a scroll. The pokemon dropped the scroll in front of Gary with the young researcher catching it instinctually. Just as suddenly as he came, the Haunter was gone. Gary unrolled the scroll and read it. "As I said, there are no shortcuts; you will have to go through the maze... Do not be stubborn, but be persistent, for the energy you spend will help further his purpose." That was the end of the scroll. "This means Ash, doesn't it?"

"I don't know why Agatha can't be clearer about what she wants us to do," Laiki pouted. Never mind that she had not been asked to do anything.

"There was a similar message before," Pixel pointed out. "It told us to find Ash. I guess that means looking for him by actually looking, rather than tracking him down."

"We'd best be on our way," Comet started towards the stairs. "If we split up we should find him faster, but there's so much ghostly interference here, we'll be out of communication."

"We'll just have to deal with it," Gary decided. "I'm not sure what's going on, but it sounds like Ash needs our help."

Thus the four of them split up, after Gary insisted to Laiki that she should not follow him. Gary and Comet went through different hallways upstairs, while Pixel and Laiki went their separate ways downstairs. By the time Comet and Pixel had first arrived at the mansion, there was no one there to be seen, Misty had already wondered in deep into the haunted structure before they arrived.

xoxox xox xoxox

Two opposite doors opened in a room with many ghost pokemon statues. Some appeared to shift slightly when no one was looking. The room was dim and eerily quiet, making footsteps sound off louder than they normally would. "Gary?" Laiki called out hopefully, searching for the source of the hint of non-ghostly movement in the dim large room.

"No, just me," Pixel came into view. "I haven't found a single trace of Ash or Misty anywhere."

"Me either," Laiki let out a bored breath. "I don't get what Agatha is trying to do."

"All these hallways are confusing," Pixel frowned. "I miss my digital maps."

"I really wish we had those." Laiki agreed. "Hey Pix, remember when you lost your way at HQ back when you were a rookie?"

"Yeah," Pixel laughed lightly at the memory. "That was when we first met."

"And when I saved you," Laiki chuckled.

xoxox xox xoxox

A few years prior... Pixel walked down the long confusing hallways of her new home. She was officially dead to the world at her own request. She never liked her old life, the existence of a boring civilian who never did anything worth remembering. She craved for adventure and was more than willing to throw herself into it. However, her first attempts ended in failure and she left the newly expanded tech department, with no choice but to give up her first pokemon, a Porygon she had named Prism. She ended up running around making deliveries for a while until her place in Team Rocket could be more accurately determined.

Turning a corner, she almost bumped into another Rocket, this one with the face of a true criminal. His deep green hair reminded Pixel of the color of moss and his dark violet eyes had a certain sinister look to them. She stepped aside and walked past the unknown man, not paying him any mind. This was Team Rocket, a criminal organization, it came as no surprise that there would be people who actually looked like criminals.

Further down the hall, she came to a room that resembled a lobby and was equipped with several vending machines. A few people in Rocket uniforms were hanging around chatting idly. She approached one of the vending machines where a red haired man had just retrieved a drink from. Unlike the man from before, this one didn't quite look like a criminal, instead having the typical face of a good boy, though there seemed to be a hint of hidden mischief in his blue eyes. She didn't know if he was a rookie or not, she didn't really know anyone all that well yet.

Retrieving her drink from the vending machine, she left off in the direction from where she came. Within the Rocket base deep under the Viridian Forest, day and night made no difference, though Pixel had the vague notion that it was night time outside, not that it mattered, as Team Rocket operated twenty-four seven. Taking a wrong turn, she went down a hall of rooms with unfamiliar numbers in a hallway belonging to the accommodations of new recruits, the place where she would take residence for some time until she was later promoted, though such hopes were still far away at the time.

The man with green hair emerged from one of the doors, spotting the blue haired girl, an obvious rookie, apparently lost. Seeing as she had taken a wrong turn, she went back to find the proper room number, though this time she was followed. "Hey, rookie."
"Me? What?" She sipped her drink with indifference; she was now a criminal too, so she saw no need to make a fuss out of a criminal talking to her. "By the way, my name isn't rookie, it's Pixel," it was a codename as part of leaving her old identity behind to exist only as one of Team Rocket's secret agents.

"You need to know who's in charge here, rookie," he snarled. "Now listen up..." He paused seeing as the girl was walking away ignoring him. "Hey!" He grabbed her by the shoulders making her turn around to face him. With little more than an angry growl she kicked him as hard as she could in the most painful place possible, taking him completely off guard. This allowed her to escape his grip and move behind him, kicking the back of his legs to make him fall. "You'll pay for this!"

He was about to get up and Pixel knew that if he did that would be bad news. She did the only thing she could do; she jumped on his back, repeatedly. Laughter invaded the atmosphere as a blond woman with two green locks framing her face arrived on the scene. "I thought I heard yelling and what an amusing scene I've found! Although, you should break it up before the squad leader sees this, the grumpy old fool will probably put you both through a lot of extra training." Pixel jumped off the green haired man's back, wondering if he would listen to the seemingly higher ranking agent. He got to his feet quickly, obviously with no intentions of listening, his anger clear on his face. "I don't think that's such a good idea," the blond warned.

"Don't meddle!" The man glanced at the blond just long enough to see the reason for her confidence. She held a gun aimed right at him, point blank.

A loud bang was heard, which effectively alerted the squad leader in charge of all the agents in that hallway. The older Rocket hurried to the scene of the commotion to find an excited looking blue haired girl with the expression of a kid in a candy shop, a satisfied blond he recognized as the resident pokemon nurse, and a green haired man, one of the recruits he was in charge of, trying to stop the bleeding from his arm. "You again? That's it!" He pointed his own gun at the moss haired man for emphasis. "I'm shipping you to Hoenn for some intensive training. When I say stop picking fights with your teammates I mean it; you too young lady."

"But I'm..." Pixel began to say, wondering if she should continue or just shut up.

"She's not part of your squad you old coot. Ever heard of retirement? Give someone hot a chance!" Laiki stepped in.

The squad leader grumbled, loosing a few more of his graying violet hairs in stress. "You know no discipline!"

"Whatever, let's go, the rookies should be just about done with a training session and I planted a hidden camera in the guys locker room!" Laiki announced happily, then hurried off with Pixel following her. Away from the moss haired man and the squad leader, Pixel thanked the blond for her help. "It was nothing, but let me tell you rookie, you need to be more careful, don't make threats you can't keep, but you have the right idea with the hit them before they hit you strategy. A surprise attack might not always work though. In cases like that, you need to look real cute and say 'hey there handsome, want to have some fun?' Then when he thinks he has you right where he wants you, slip something into his drink, knock him out and steal everything but the clothes on his back, and if he's hot, steal that too."

"Um... I'll remember that..." Pixel quietly replied.

Laiki giggled, "the name's Laiki, by the way. What do you call yourself, rookie?"

"Pixel," she replied a little shyly.

"Pixel... you look like a rookie, a defenseless girl... but you have quite the mean streak in you. I bet you're a total sadist at heart! So, want to join me in some man watching?" Laiki offered.

"I... I think I better get ready for my next assignment," Pixel ran off, this time going down the correct hallway.

Laiki giggled, "I have a feeling this isn't the last I've seen of her."

xoxox xox xoxox

Laiki's guess turned out to be correct, as a few days later Pixel made her way to the infirmary even if she had no necessity to be there. "Sunglasses indoors, that's the in thing, huh? Well, have a seat my peculiar friend, I thought you'd come by."

"I'm just being careful," Pixel replied as she sat down on one of the unoccupied beds of the infirmary, then resolved to lie down and rest, removing her sunglasses and folding her arm over her eyes to shield out the brightness of the white room. "How did you know I would come? I have no pokemon that need treatment."

"You're an outsider, someone with no previous criminal experience," Laiki explained, she had her ways to obtain such information. "As such, it's easy to guess that you would be drawn to try to find an ally in Team Rocket. Given what happened the other day, I guess that ally is me. Don't get me wrong, I only stepped in because I saw you have guts, normally, I show no mercy to sheltered rookies, I guess you're not that way after all. A bit naive to how a criminal lifestyle works maybe, but I think you can get the hang of it. I'm not one to help the helpless, so make sure you become a worthy ally. Speaking of which, if you tell me you're scared of Salacious, who by the way is many miles away in Hoenn by now, and are actually trying to hide your identity with sunglasses, I'm going to be very disappointed."

"Salacious? Who's that?" Pixel inquired.

"The guy whose hair looks like moss," Laiki informed.

"Oh him, I had forgotten all about that jerk," Pixel laughed. "I wasn't wearing sunglasses to hide from anyone, the doctor told me not to stare at anything bright for the next few days. This means I'm banned from video games and the internet so I'm dying of boredom, but I really don't want my laser surgery to get messed up or I might end up with even thicker glasses than before."

A moment of silence followed, until it was shattered by Laiki's giggles. "So that's it, you know, I can actually picture you with geeky glasses, but somehow you'd probably look cute in them. Ah well, I guess that's a thing of the past if you got your eyes fixed."

"Yeah, I like this new high definition world," Pixel laughed. "I might have been demoted to the bottom, but I'll just take it easy and not worry. I'll do what I can and things will turn out well, I just need a change of strategy I guess."

"You're sure confident for a rookie dealing with demotions right from the start. Just as I said, that's having guts. So... are you ready to put your recently healed eyes to good use? I'm sure you'll very much enjoy some high definition man watching!" Laiki cheered.

Before Pixel could reply, someone from behind the white curtains that separated the infirmary into sections got up and headed for the door. Pixel sat up to curiously look at the source of the footsteps. It was that red haired young man she saw near the vending machine before, but he look like he went through quite a beating. He had several visible bruises in shades of black and purple and a black eye along with a few cuts here and there.

"Aw, did we wake you from your nap, Comet?" Laiki teased.

"I'm probably better off not hearing your conversation. There are things I don't want to know," Comet approached the door.

"Wait," he stopped at Laiki's voice and turned around.

With a grin that didn't match his current state, but was still real, he assured. "I just got a promotion, I should be happy, I mean I am happy. I'm just busy; I need to train my pokemon and myself to make sure I'm ready for my next mission." Then he left.
"Was he another rookie?" Pixel curiously asked.

"Comet?" Laiki laughed, "Yeah right, he's more like the opposite of a rookie. He was born and raised in Team Rocket, I joined when I was really young, but Comet has never lived outside of Team Rocket. He just got promoted and if you've seen the ranking charts, that's really something. Things just got a little rough for him on his last mission, but he managed to get it done. He's been upset over the setbacks, even if the boss still recognized his against-all-odds victory. Although, Giovanni doesn't know he had help... Somehow, I think he cheered up just now... Ah, but don't go getting all shy around him. Let's see some of that predatory spirit!"

Pixel shook her head with a slight pink tint on her face. "I'm not... um... maybe I should go rest in my room. See you later, Laiki." She hurried away.

"Wait a minute, what about man watching?" Laiki called after her to no avail. "I guess she won't be joining me this time..."

To be Continued

Almost done... almost... XD