On Our Own By: AbsolDragon Element 1: Grass Chapter 1: Left Behind I have the best trainer ever! We just defeated the second Gym Leader on our first attempt! Buizel had a type disadvantage, and Ryan still commanded him to victory! Oh, sorry. You are probably a little confused. I am Turtwig. I am an eleven-year-old named Ryan’s first Pokémon. He received me about two weeks ago. After me, Ryan caught a female Pikachu. Pikachu surprised us when she gave Ryan a concussion with her Iron Tail attack. Wow, was it strong! He is still recovering a bit from that hard hit. Then Ryan caught a Buizel. He was the runt in a pack of Buizel that live in Eterna Forest. He was always picked on by the others, so Ryan captured him. Now he’s a happy Buizel, and the biggest of Ryan’s Pokémon. Ryan travels around with a girl and another guy. The girl is Rose. Rose was a quiet eleven-year-old girl, and pretty short for her age. She didn’t have any friends until Ryan found her and her Bonsly lost in Jubilife City. Rose has captured a Chatot and rescued a baby Pachirisu since then. And she has also begun to open up from her shell to greet the world. And I think Ryan likes her!!! Then there’s T.J. He’s a totally unique human being. At ten, he is the youngest one of the group, but also the tallest. He’s five feet and nine inches! I don’t know if there’s anyone else like him. He is one of the bravest people I’ve met, but also one of the biggest babies. He will stand up for anyone, except himself. He likes to draw, but he won’t show anyone any of his masterpieces. When we first met T.J., he was hiding up in a tree. A Carnivine was down below the tree, and T.J. was scared. A lot. But we fixed that. We asked the Carnivine why he was scaring him and the grass-type replied, ‘Carni, Carnivine! Vine vine Carnivine!’ Let me translate. ‘He has food in his back pocket! Give me food, now!’ So T.J. gave him food, and, while he was chowing down, captured him and a Wingull. There’s the group! Now let’s get back to the fun stuff! “You did great, guys!” Ryan cheered and started walking towards the door. “Yeah, you three were terrific!” Rose exclaimed. “Before you go, let me remind you of the Team Rocket sightings around town lately. Be careful, Team Rocket will do anything to get what they want.” Gardenia alerted us. “Who’s Team Rocket?” asked T.J. Rose looked a bit uneasy. Gardenia replied, “A group of evil-doers far worse than Team Galactic. This is the first time they’ve been seen in Sinnoh.” We thanked her for the info and left the gym, heading towards the Pokémon Center. Nurse Joy greeted us at the door, but there was something strange about her. She seemed a little too happy. . . “Welcome. . . Please, please, come inside. Let me steal---I mean, heal, your Pokémon for you. . .” Apparently, Ryan and the others didn’t find this as strange as I did. The trainers handed all of their Pokémon over to the fake nurse. “Thank you . . . thank you very much! HA!” She began to cackle and ripped off her Nurse Joy outfit. Instead of the nurses’ outfit she had worn, she wore a black jumper with a bright red R on her chest. Her pink wig lay in the cold wooden floor, and in place of that she had dark green hair bestowed upon her head. “Who are you?!” T.J. hollered as Rose crouched behind his tall figure. “I am Team Rocket’s very own Nadia Partisan, advisor and wife of Giovanni!” “. . . Who is Giovanni?” Ryan asked. If only I were out of my Pokeball, maybe I could’ve assisted. . . “You disgrace! How do you not know Giovanni? He is one of the world’s greatest leaders and will one day soon rule the world!” Nadia updated us. “Giovanni will never rule the world! He is hardly able to control Team Rocket, much less a whole region,” Rose spoke up. “How the heck do you know this?” Ryan inquired. “Oh, uh, well I used to live in Kanto, the main region of Team Rocket. They tortured me and Bonsly until we ran away. . .” There was a lot to Rose I don’t think any of us knew about. “Melissa Rose! How dare you talk about your father like that?” Nadia confused us all. “Don’t call me Melissa! That’s a stupid name Giovanni gave me so he could remember Mom better. And he is NOT my father!” Rose seemed infuriated. She pounced at Nadia and nailed her to the ground. Nadia kicked Rose off her and pulled a knife out of her backpack. “Now, now, Melissa Rose, don’t treat your mother like this,” Now I was baffled. How was the imposter Rose’s mother? “You aren’t my mom! You’re just some trophy wife Giovanni used to replace Mom!” Nadia chunked the knife at her step-daughter but Rose pulled an unused Pokeball off her belt and directed it at the knife, bouncing off the sphere to the floor. “Hold on a sec,” Ryan interfered with the step-mom/step-daughter bonding. “What’s going on here?” “I’ll tell you what’s going on. Three preteens are about to take a little trip to Snowpoint City: Team Rocket Headquarters. There, you will be held hostage with some other trainers so that Team Rocket can get some ransom money to build a ray that will bring Palkia and Dialga back.” Nadia explained. “Oh, yeah, and your Pokémon will be drained of their energy to power up the machine. Happy?” I was nowhere near happy, if you asked me. But no one did, so . . . “No way! You aren’t doing that to us!” T.J. proclaimed. “Too bad, little---well, actually pretty big--- boy! Company helicopters are already in town to take you away!” said Nadia. Nadia slipped a grappling hook out of her bag and in a single movement wrapped all three of us together. “Crud . . .” My discontented trainer mumbled. “You’ll never get away with this!” Rose yelled. But we knew she would. A couple of minutes later we had been gagged and put in an old utility closet. Nadia exited the musty closet shortly after we had been locked up. We heard her speaking to someone on a walkie-talkie with a very deep voice about “Phase D.A.P.P.E.R.” and then she stopped talking. A helicopter was overhead. Rose wriggled around, trying to free herself from the tight grasp. Somehow, she managed to reach her trainer’s belt and grabbed a Pokeball, tossing it into the air and letting loose her Pachirisu. The frightened squirrel quickly pulled off her gag and Rose murmured to it, “Pachi, I want you and the others to go away from here, okay?” The squirrel looked stunned. “We’re going to be fine. But I want you to be safe, so go and don’t come looking for us. We will escape and come back for all of you.” Pachirisu began to cry and nodded. She pressed the release button on the other Pokeballs and all of us came out. We made our final goodbyes with our brave trainers and hid. As soon as we were all hidden, Nadia and another Team Rocket member, a man, came and picked us up. It was a little difficult to pick up T.J. but. . . I watched our trainers be hauled away by cruel people. I don’t know about the others but I had tears streaming down my face. Or whatever you’d call a Pokemon head. Ryan looked at me and smiled, as if he knew everything would be fine. I smiled uneasily back, but on the inside I was broken. The helicopter began to fly away and we all left the Pokemon Center. Then I spoke up. “Let’s go.” Pikachu looked at me like I was a lunatic. “They told us to stay. What do you mean ‘let’s go?’” “We’re gonna go find them. I’m not going to be left behind without Ryan,” I stated. “C’mon.” I walked slowly towards nowhere in particular, just trying to get away. And, to my surprise, they all walked to nowhere with me. Maybe we wouldn’t be left behind after all. *&******************************************************************************************&* Author’s Notes! Thanks for reading! I hope you like it so far! Please review! I do not own Pokemon or any of the towns or regions. I do, however, own Ryan, Rose, T.J., Nadia, Phase D.A.P.P.E.R., and the Pokemon characters in my fic, not the real Pokemon species, but the single Pokemon in it. __AbsolDragon__