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Lance's Charges: Kanto


A/N: This is finals week for me, so I won't be able to update again until next week at the earliest. Thanks to the few of you that have reviewed.


Chapter 4: The Rocket


David woke up before Lily and Marcus the following morning, and carefully packed up his sleeping bag. He left his pack with them, walking back the way they had come, his pokedex in hand. It only took him a few minutes to retrace their steps back to the clearing with the arcanine skeleton, which came as a relief. He hadn't been sure he would be able to find it in the light.

The group of rattata hadn't returned, thankfully, but there was one there, gnawing stubbornly on one of the arcanine's broken ribs. David wasn't sure if it had been with the original nine, but he now knew better than to expect it to ignore his presence. He brought out Theseus' pokeball and tapped it open with his forefinger.

The weedle came out and immediately zeroed in on the rattata, guessing based on the previous night that he would be battling it. The rattata turned and bared its teeth, dropping the bone where it stood. David noted that it didn't seem to recognize him; making it the tenth rattata they had seen in this clearing.

"Use string shot," David said, getting out his pokedex to scan the threat this rattata posed. He didn't like what he saw. It was notably stronger than Theseus in every category provided by the distance scan. However, even as he watched, Theseus evened the speed score by blanketing his opponent in liberal amounts of sticky string shot that even the speedy rattata couldn't dodge entirely.

"Poison sting," David said, watching as Theseus hurled himself at his foe, managing to strike it where one foreleg met its torso.

The rattata squealed in pain and responded with a tackle, knocking Theseus end-over-end and regaining the upper hand. One look at Theseus' dazed form told David that his bug-type didn't stand a chance in this fight.

"Theseus, try another string shot, we need to slow it down," David said, switching his pokedex to camera mode and flashing a couple of shots at the arcanine corpse. He wanted to send the pictures to Professor Atwood, to see if the professor might know what could do that sort of damage to an arcanine.

The rattata used quick attack to dodge the string shot, but Theseus was already backing away, out of the attack's range.

"Good try, Theseus, but I don't think we can beat this one," David said, recalling his weedle. The rattata didn't seem to like that its opponent had gotten off so easily, and growled at David. "Enjoy your meal," was all he said before turning back towards his camp. Luckily, the rattata decided against pursuing him.

Even as he sent the pictures to the professor, David was mentally replaying the battle in his mind. The rattata represented a pointed lesson for him. Though it looked just like the nine they had trounced the night before, it was far stronger than any two of them combined. David would have to be more careful in the future, he didn't want his pokemon hurt too badly, even though he knew that it was an inevitable part of being a trainer.

His main reason for getting into that battle had been the prospect of Theseus' evolution into kakuna. Bug pokemon, especially caterpie and weedle, were famous for evolving after only a few battles. He had half expected Theseus to evolve the previous night, actually. He'd have to curb that eagerness if he didn't want to endanger his pokemon any more than was strictly necessary. Theseus was injured now, so Apollo would be doing most of the battling for the day, unless the charmander's injuries were made too much worse.

When he got back to camp, Lily was still sleeping, but Marcus was up, holding his egg and looking ahead, his eyes unfocused.

"Where'd you go to?" Marcus asked.

"I was trying to train Theseus up," David explained. It wasn't quite a lie.

"Did he evolve?" Marcus had the same expectations as David, it seemed.

"No, he lost. I'm going to give him a break for a while. No reason to rush that kind of thing," David said sagely.

"Probably a good decision," Marcus agreed. "It'd be almost like me trying to break this egg open to see what's inside."

"I don't think you'd like what you'd find," David said, slightly disturbed by the images going through his mind.

"No, I doubt I would," Marcus said.

"What's happening, guys?" Lily asked sleepily, her face still buried in her sleeping bag.

"We're being attacked by a gyarados," David deadpanned.

"Ok, let me know if you need me to catch it," Lily said, rolling over and going back to sleep.

Marcus and David were unable to completely hold their laughter in, but they were quiet enough that Lily didn't stir again.


~-~-~-~


"It's like somebody flipped a switch on this place," Lily grumbled as Aerius swooped down to tackle a weedle, the sixth bug-type they had seen in the past hour.

"It's a bit strange," Marcus agreed, recalling his victorious pidgey. "I mean most of the regions where a certain type of pokemon are found this often, even seasonally, are marked in the pokedex."

"Maybe this isn't a seasonal thing," David said, spotting something hanging off of a tree. "What's that?"

"Dunno," Lily said, enlarging Vitisatoris' pokeball. "Let's find out."

The grass-type brought it down to Lily for closer examination, but it was Marcus who recognized it first. "It's pokemon bait."

"What?" David asked, having never heard the term before. Lily looked equally stumped.

"That's not really what it's called," Marcus explained. "It's just pokemon food, but the kind with a really strong smell. If you sent Theseus out, I bet you'd find that this pokemon food was especially tasty to bug-types."

"Look, there's another one over there!" Lily said, pointing at a tree a few yards behind them.

"I wonder who put these up," David said, looking at the small feeder in a vain attempt to identify something personal about it. There was nothing, of course.

"The feeders are mine," a boy said, stepping out from behind a tree. He blended in quite well. He was about average in height, but very thin. He wore a brown shirt and pants of the same exact color as the tree trunk he stood beside. His skin was tanned, and his hair was sandy in color. The only things about him that stood out were his bright green eyes.

"Trying to catch bug-types?" Marcus asked.

"Just one," the boy said. "Both of my current pokemon share a weakness against psychic-types, so I figured I could catch a bug-type here and maybe cancel out that weakness. All I've been able to find are weedle and kakuna, though, which are poison as well as bug."

"That's too bad. We've seen a caterpie or two today, though, so don't give up," David said.

"Thanks, but I'm honestly sick of searching at this point. Want to have a battle?" He was asking David, and a look at Lily and Marcus told him they weren't offended at being left out.

"Sure," David said, smiling and pulling out Apollo's pokeball. "Two pokemon each?"

"That's perfect, I've only got two pokemon anyway," he said tossing out a pokeball and releasing a koffing.

"Pretty unusual pokemon, is that your starter?" David asked, releasing Apollo.

"No, I caught him a few days ago," the boy said. "Carvano, use your poison gas!"

The koffing swelled ominously before releasing a puff of highly toxic gas towards Apollo. It was moving slowly enough that the charmander had no trouble at all evading it, but rather than dispersing, the dense cloud of gas remained, making one area of the battlefield effectively off-limits to Apollo.

"Hit him with an ember," David said, smiling grimly as his charmander shot a series of small flames at his opponent, scorching the koffing's side with the embers that hit it.

"Tackle it," the boy said, and Carnavo hastened to obey. Unfortunately, Apollo, like all other charmander, had a fantastic defense against such a straightforward attack. He swept his tail forward, batting the koffing to one side with it and worsening his burns slightly in the process. At that point they weren't more than a couple of patches of extremely tender skin, but that made Carnavo more susceptible to attacks in those spots than he should have been.

"Use smog," the boy called out, realizing that his koffing couldn't win a melee battle against the fire-type. The cloud of gas that the poison-type emitted this time moved far faster than the other time, but Apollo was able to disperse it with an ember after a quick order from David.

"Scratch it, but be ready to dodge if it tries any more poison moves," David said. Apollo obeyed, running forward and leaping into the air, but the koffing was able to levitate higher, pulling itself just out of reach.

"Try poison gas again, Carnavo!" the boy shouted.

"Ember!" David called out. The two attacks met in midair, but the ember broke through and slammed into Carvano, worsening his condition quite a bit.

"All right," the boy said, casting a worried look at his pokemon. "You win this round. Let's try our other two," he said, recalling his koffing and sending out his other pokemon, which turned out to be a makuhita.

Lily, who was ready to cheer for David after his first win, could only gape in surprise at the boy's other pokemon.

"You're not from around here, are you?" David asked, also staring in surprise at the rare pokemon.

"I'm from Hoenn, actually," the boy said. "I flew in to start my journey in Kanto. My parents don't think Hoenn is a good place for new trainers right now."

"Why not?" Marcus asked as David tossed Theseus' pokeball back and forth between his hands.

"There's all this gang warfare between the two dominant groups, Aqua and Terra. They're basically cults, with their members blindly following the completely psychotic higher-ups. The leader of Aqua wants to completely cover the world in water, and the Terra guy wants to get rid of the oceans altogether. Like I said, completely psychotic."

Lily let out a low whistle. "That's pretty messed up, but things aren't all that safe here either. We've got the Rockets to worry about, and they don't have a rival group to target, they just go after everyone."

"That's what my aunt said," the boy said, looking troubled. "I just came from her place in Saffron a couple of hours ago."

Lily brightened up at that. "Saffron? That's where we're-"

"Lily," David began, "do you think maybe this conversation could wait until after the battle?" Theseus was now out, and seemed as impatient as his trainer.

The boy flushed. "Right, sorry about that. Let's get started. Nopargo, tackle it!"

"String shot," David said, using his standard opening move. The sticky strands slowed the makuhita down, but they by no means stopped it. Theseus was slammed into the ground, an attack that might have knocked him out had he not managed to slow down Nopargo's momentum.

"Keep hitting it with string shot!" David shouted, smiling grimly as the fighting-type tried unsuccessfully to fight through the thickening layers of string around it.

"What's he doing?" Lily asked, pointing at Theseus in shock. He had stopped aiming his string shot at his enemy, and was now shooting it at his own tail, freezing it in a slightly curved position. Carefully balancing atop his string-covered tail, Theseus began to shoot the strands straight up while Nopargo continued to struggle to break out of its bindings.

"It's evolving!" Marcus exclaimed, sharing a grin with David. "Looks like you got your wish after all."

"Yeah, although his timing is a little questionable," David replied. Finally, when Theseus was completely covered in silk, he began to glow. Soon, his body reshaped slightly, growing nearly a foot in length as he evolved into a kakuna.

"Harden and then use poison sting!" David called. The attack that Theseus was about to perform was technically a tackle, but he would only use it in response to a command to use poison sting. Pokemon researchers theorized that because both weedle and beedrill used poison sting, kakuna was actually using the same attack, it just lacked the poisonous stinger on the outside of its shell.

Theseus' color changed from yellow to gray momentarily as he hardened his outer shell, but he was back to yellow a second later, and hopping at Nopargo, who had just about removed the last of the string. It hadn't removed it fast enough, though. Right after tearing off the last of it, Nopargo found itself on its back on the ground after being slammed into by its slow-moving opponent.

"Use arm thrust," its trainer said.

"Harden again!" David commanded. It was a good thing that kakuna evolved into beedrill so early. Fighting against low-leveled pokemon without many move options was the only way a kakuna or a metapod could hope to beat something at their level. As it was, the makuhita was simply too young and inexperienced to use a strong arm thrust attack. The result of that attack on a kakuna that had used harden twice was Nopargo wincing as it flexed its bruised fingers.

"Poison sting again!" Nopargo was able to deflect Theseus' attack with a well-timed arm thrust, but its palm would have a bruise as a result. The kakuna was simply too hard to hit without feeling it. Nopargo turned back to its trainer plaintively.

"Damn, looks like I give again," the boy said, exchanging a silent look with his pokemon. "That was a fun battle, though. We should do it again sometime."

"Count on it," David said, recalling Theseus and walking over to shake his opponent's hand. "What's your name?"

"Mike Mallory," the boy said easily.

"I'm David Dowling. These are Lily Adams and Marcus White."

"Hey, maybe I'll get to battle one of you next time," Mike said, offering them a smile.

"Something to look forward to, I think," Marcus said, grinning back. "That was a great match. Did you catch that koffing here or in Hoenn?"

"I caught him in Saffron, actually," Mike said. "My aunt's neighbor kept complaining about a smell in the basement and it turned out to be Carnavo. You know, I should really get back to the search. I'd hate to imagine how badly I would've lost if you had a psychic-type."

"Good luck," Lily and David said together.

"He was pretty cool," David said a few minutes later when they were back on the trail. He was relieved by the fact that their battle seemed to have scared most of the nearby pokemon away, something that Mike was no doubt lamenting right then.

"Weird taste in pokemon, though," Lily said, her voice low.

"A bit," David agreed. Most trainers didn't like pure poison-types that much, with only a few exceptions, and koffing certainly wasn't one of them.

"His makuhita was pretty cool, though," Marcus said. "I wouldn't want one, or anything, but I'd love to catch something from Hoenn."

"Just imagine what they'll think of us when we travel out there," Lily said. "Sure, we have a lot of pokemon in common with them, like koffing, but I doubt any of them will have seen any of our starters in person, and definitely not Theseus."

"He said he came from Saffron, right?" David asked.

"Yeah, I wonder how close we are," Marcus said thoughtfully. "Probably at least an hour out, since he wouldn't want to put the bait too close to the city."

Neither Lily nor David had a better estimate.


~-~-~-~


It had been well over an hour, but the forest had, if anything, grown denser around them. Finally, when they came to a stream, Marcus and Lily agreed that a break to refill their water bottles was a good idea. David, whose bottle was still half-full, decided to walk downstream a bit and see if he could find any water pokemon. They wouldn't be useful in Vermillion or Celadon, but there was still no harm in carrying one around, and he'd be happy to have one for some of the other gyms. Realistically, there were so many water pokemon in the world that a well-rounded trainer couldn't justify not having one.

Unfortunately, the only water pokemon he found were a pair of goldeen trapped in a reservoir. If the water-types had really wanted to, they could have hopped out and into the main stream, but they both seemed perfectly content where they were.

An anguished yell from ahead of him drew David's attention away from the pokemon. A second shout had him rushing ahead, hoping he could help whoever was in trouble. When he realized what was happening in the clearing up ahead, his blood ran cold. It was Mike, being held upside down by a large ursaring. The normal-type's trainer was leaning against a tree nearby. He was tall and broad, like his pokemon, with long straw-colored hair tied back in a ponytail and five o'clock shadow of the same color. He wore the same kind of wide-brimmed hat that some ranchers had, and had a plaid shirt unbuttoned over a t-shirt with the large red letter "R" in the middle of it, marking him as a Rocket.

"C'mon now, boy," he said contemptuously, his inflection sounding foreign to David's ears. "It's not like ya put much effort into training it yet, just hand over the makuhita and nobody has to get dead."

"Why do you want my makuhita? They aren't even rare!" Mike shouted, swinging vainly in the ursaring's grip.

"Maybe not where you come from, but 'round here, they ain't so common," the man said, scratching the stubble under his chin. "I know a few folks that'd pay a pretty high price for a Hoenn pokemon, especially one born 'n bred at the Mallory ranch."

David had heard enough. In his second stupidly suicidal move in less than twenty-four hours, he sent out both of his pokemon and stepped out into the clearing, giving Apollo a command immediately. The charmander streaked forward with speed brought on by desperation and slammed his tail into the ursaring's wrist, causing the massive pokemon to wince and drop Mike, who quickly ran to David's side. Apollo joined him a moment later.

"Interfering isn't a good idea," the Rocket snarled. "Only chance to leave here unharmed, kid. I got business with this one, you best leave well enough alone."

"Run," David whispered to Mike. Offering David a disbelieving look, Mike shook his head.

"Just go! Call the cops in Saffron and tell them to get their asses out here!" Finally, Mike agreed, clapping David on the shoulder before taking off. Swallowing the lump in his throat, David faced forward once more.

"You'll pay for that," the man said. "Madjaso, use take down!" The ursaring dipped its shoulder and ran at them. Theseus valiantly hardened his shell and jumped in the bigger pokemon's way but he was swatted aside, through the air and into a tree. Apollo was similarly knocked away. The attack itself was aimed at David, and he heard a pair of wet snaps as he was hit. He felt the air rushing through his hair and fingertips as he flew, and then he couldn't feel anything after hitting the ground. His vision was swimming, but he was awake enough to hear the Rocket's parting words.

"Still alive, are you? Next time you won't be so lucky. Be happy that your pokemon are too pathetic to steal, or I'd take 'em with me." The last thing David heard was a high-pitched siren before the world went black.


~-~-~-~


"David? Lily, look, he's waking up!"

"David? Oh David!" the words started to come into better focus when he felt his hand being squeezed. David opened his eyes, or tried to, before being blinded by a white light.

"Too bright." David's voice rasped. His throat felt dry and painful, but it was nothing compared to the throbbing that came from his right side.

"Turn off the lights, Marcus," he heard Lily snap. A second later, the uncomfortable feeling encroaching on his eyelids lessened considerably.

"Thanks," David said, opening his eyes. The first thing he saw was Lily. Her eyes were bloodshot from crying, but she still managed to look as pretty as ever.

"What the hell happened?" Marcus asked. His eyes weren't red, but they were wide with concern. "We got there and found you and Theseus unconscious with Apollo guarding you. And he looked about ready to pass out as well!"

"There was a-" David paused and coughed, feeling every bruise in his body as he did. "Can I have some water?" Lily smiled tremulously and brought a cup forward that she had apparently been holding in her other hand. David took it in his free one and took a long, slow sip. "Thanks, that's much better," he said, handing it back. "So where was I?"

"You hadn't said anything yet," Lily said impatiently, giving him a warm smile.

"Well, there was a Rocket in the forest," David said.

"Wait, you mean-" Marcus began.

"The murdering, thieving kind, not the spaceship kind," David confirmed.

"What was a Rocket doing in there?" Lily asked.

"He was after Mike's makuhita," David explained.

Marcus frowned. "I know it's almost impossible to find one /here/, but they're downright common in Hoenn."

"Which is the one region the Rockets haven't expanded to," Lily pointed out. "That's why Johto's branch of the Pokemon League hates ours so much."

"Because we couldn't control our little /problem/," David finished.

"Is Mike ok?" Marcus asked.

"I think so," David answered. "He ran off to get the Saffron police."

Marcus looked immensely relieved to hear that. "Well he succeeded. They came up right after we found you."

David grinned. "Glad he made it. I hope he goes back to Hoenn, 'cause this place really isn't safe for him."

"So far, it's proven even less safe for you," Lily said.

"Fair point, but I'm not going anywhere," David said. "Unless you were dumb enough to call my parents...you didn't!"

"Of course not," Lily said defensively. "You were out for less than a day, so I'm sure they aren't even worried yet. We could still be in the forest, as far as they know."

"That's a relief," David said. "What do you think, should I tell them what happened?"

"We still don't know exactly what happened," Marcus reminded him.

"I got hit by that stupid Rocket's ursaring," David said impatiently. "Me and both of my pokemon. Speaking of, where are they?"

"I took them to the pokemon center for you," Marcus said. "Just got back a couple of minutes before you woke up, actually."

"And they're ok?"

"Pokemon are way tougher than people," Marcus said. "Well, except for Bruno and other nutcases like him."

"I'm glad they're all right," David said.

"We're glad you're all right," Lily shot back, giving his hand another squeeze.

"I am, too," David said, meaning it. "Any idea when I can get out of here?"

Marcus shrugged. "The doctor said something about having another test that they needed you awake for, but I didn't get the impression that it'd take too long."


~-~-~-~


An officer was waiting for David when they left the hospital. He questioned him briefly, and was noticeably disappointed by the lack of details that David could provide. Still, he thanked him for his testimony before disappearing into the massive crowd that seemed to perpetually be walking around Saffron, the largest city in Kanto.

"You know," David began, scratching his bandaged ribs, "I don't think I'm appreciating this place quite as much as I should be."

"We're only passing through, anyway," Marcus pointed out. "The gym isn't even of interest to us yet."

"And I didn't become a pokemon trainer to check out the tourist traps," Lily added.

"I doubt any of us did," David said, laughing until his side hurt, which happened immediately. "There's a tram that goes across town, right? I really don't feel like walking through ten miles of this crowd."

"Yeah, the stop is just at the end of the block," Marcus said. "I was thinking we could stay in the pokemon center at the south end of the city, though. No point in camping out tonight if we don't have to."

"I think I could stand to slow down after that last battle, too," David said, knowing full well that Marcus had only suggested that because of his injury.

They'd only had to wait a few minutes for the tram, which ran once every half-hour. The three trainers didn't get on quickly enough to get any seats, but standing up was an adventure in itself. Lily in particular had a lot of fun trying to stand up without holding the handrail, much to the chagrin of other nearby passengers.

They disembarked at the southernmost stop and found the pokemon center without any real difficulty. It helped that Marcus had checked his pokedex and found a map of Saffron with all of the trainer-relevant places marked.

The center itself was smaller than the buildings that surrounded it, but they knew that it was actually one of the largest of its kind in Kanto. Even so, it was quite busy. Marcus volunteered to try to get them a room while David and Lily looked around. He was the only one who had already been in one, after all.

The entryway was fairly spacious, though not nearly as spacious as the waiting room. Straight ahead was the main check-in station that was used for common, everyday injuries. None of their pokemon's injuries earlier had justified the use of the emergency or specialized care units, which lay a bit further back, right by the larger side doors. Most of the facility fell under those two units, primarily the healing areas for large pokemon like onix. Pokemon centers in rural areas often had to locate those outside, but the Saffron pokemon centers were exceptions.

Marcus returned just then, looking exasperated. "I got us a room, let's get out of here before another one of these idiots challenges one of us to a battle."

David frowned. "What are you talking about? How can we have a battle in the middle of the city?"

"No one here seems too concerned about that," Marcus said. "They're anchored."

David and Lily's expressions immediately soured. Calling someone anchored was one of the lowest insults one trainer could level against another. It referred to the idea some trainers had of staying close to a pokemon center so they could battle their pokemon as hard as they wanted, without any form of self-restraint. The attitude among those trainers was that if the healing was so readily available, why not battle harder? Pokemon researchers hadn't found any correlations yet between anchored trainers and unstable pokemon, but that was mostly because no one was willing to put the theory to the test in a lab. No one wanted to be that abusive to pokemon. While anchoring was not illegal in itself, far more cases of pokemon negligence and abuse had been leveled against anchored trainers than non-anchored ones.

The trainers hurried upstairs to one of the spartan rooms provided for trainers. They attracted stares along the way, but no challenges were leveled, presumably because David's injury put the other trainers off. Anchored trainers didn't like the reminder that human injuries couldn't be treated nearly as quickly as those inflicted on pokemon.