The trio groaned as they sat up from the wreckage. The pole had smashed in the middle of the car's hood.
"Oh, man," Naomi muttered, still dazed from the air bag deploying in her face. Matt also had the luxury of an air bag cushioning him but Antoshi did not. Luckily for him, however, he had clung to the trunk of the car like an immovable magnet, his fingertips pressed firmly into the red chassis, not realizing his hands were glowing a pale purplish color. Antoshi shook off the shock of the crash, ignoring the bystanders who had begun to encircle to car and make sure the passengers were all right. He quickly hopped off the car, pulling frantically at the trunk.
"What are you doing, young man?" a gentleman asked from the sidewalk. "There's nothing more important than your well-being in that trunk!"
"Yes, there is!" he quickly retorted, grunting with effort as he pulled on the trunk. He squinted his eyes closed, gritting his teeth, the purple hue around his hands glowing brighter. "I'm going to get you out, buddy!" The metal began to creak in his hands, Antoshi's newfound strength bending the metal away from the rest of the car, capturing the awe of the bystanders, until, with one last grunt of effort, he pulled the trunk up, the metal twisted around where he had grabbed it.
"Fire?!" he frantically spoke, shaking his friend's shoulders, finding him seemingly unconscious. "Wake up, please!" Fireball came to life just then, groaning weakly.
"Ugh," he muttered, his speech muffled from the cloth around his mouth. Antoshi laughed happily, pulling the cloth off Fireball's face and frantically untying the ropes around his hands and ankles. He helped his Pokémon friend sit up, shifting the weight of the car to the back edge as he did so, smiling as he pat his friend on the back.
"What just happened?" Fireball groaned.
"We crashed," Antoshi nonchalantly replied. Fire looked up at him with an incredulous expression.
"Crashed into what?" he asked. Antoshi pointed to the front of the car, Fireball turned and gasped as he saw the front of the car seemingly bent around the light pole. "What about--" Fire looked at his two captors in the front of the car, seemingly dazed and unresponsive. He growled softly, wanting to exact a little revenge on the two.
"It's okay," Antoshi spoke up before his friend followed through with his idea. Fireball looked at him in confusion.
"But they took our badges," Fireball said, "everything we worked for. Then they tried to kidnap me! They should be punished!"
"They will be," Antoshi reassured his friend, looking back and spotting Officer Jenny hopping off her motorbike with a shocked expression.
"Is everyone all right?!" Jenny asked with worry. Antoshi nodded.
"I got my buddy back," Antoshi said, looking back to his friend with a smile, who smiled as well.
"Doesn't look like those two are going anywhere," Jenny proudly said, ecstatic to finally get her hands on the criminals she'd been seeking. She then turned her attention to Antoshi. "I don't know who you are," she said, "or where you came from, but you're one heck of a special kid. This has to be the craziest day I've ever had on this job." Antoshi grinned from ear to ear at Jenny, just before stumbling backwards. Jenny gasped and caught him under his arms.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"Yeah," he quietly replied, his eyes fluttering. "I'm just... kind of tired right now." He gave her a reassuring chuckle as she helped him get to his feet.
"I'll get you to the hospital in just a bit," Jenny said with a nod before turning to the crowd gathered around the accident site. "All of you are going to need to move back!" she shouted in a commanding voice, not a single person disobeying her order. She then reached for the walkie-talkie on her shoulder and prepared to call in the accident. At the same time, Naomi came to life, an angered look on her face as she slowly turned her head toward Antoshi, who was chuckling softly as he held onto the car for support. She slunk out from the driver's seat, mustering the strength to get to her feet, catching Antoshi's attention.
"You... little... rat!" she roared angrily, catching the attention of more people, including Officer Jenny.
"Hey, you!" Jenny shouted. "Stay in the car!"
"Nobody crosses Team Rocket and lives!" she sprung forward, shoving Antoshi hard into the street, right into the path of an oncoming bus. Antoshi stared at it, frozen in shock as it blared its horn at him, unable to stop in time.
"No!" Fireball shouted from the car. Antoshi saw a light flash in front of his eyes suddenly as he stretched his arms out toward the truck in the blink of an eye. The last thing he saw was his arms covered in the mysterious purple light before everything went black.
***
Antoshi slowly opened his eyes, met with a bright, fluorescent light.
"Oh, no," he muttered. "Am... I dead?"
"Not even close," a familiar voice replied. Antoshi looked over, seeing his best friend sitting on a chair next to him. He sat up, realizing he was in a hospital bed.
"What... what happened?" he asked, rubbing his eyes. Fireball just chuckled, chewing on a piece of apple. He said nothing, only holding up a newspaper to the boy, who took it, gasping at the front page's headline. 'Boy Stops Bus With Bare Hands.'
"Did I... really do this?" he asked incredulously as he gazed over the black-and-white picture of him being loaded onto a stretcher, a large gash in the front of the bus that apparently did not take his life.
"Yep," Fireball replied as though he weren't surprised, biting off some more of his apple. "Nobody got hurt, by the way. Not even you. Officer Jenny made sure nobody came to bother you in the hospital." Antoshi looked at him curiously. "A lot of people saw what happened! Aside from the paper, Jenny is trying to keep it as quiet as possible." Antoshi nodded, wishing to thank Officer Jenny for all she'd done.
"And what about, you know, those two?"
"In jail," Fireball said, happy to be catching his friend up on current events. "You were right though, they will be punished. And it'll be way better than anything I could've done to them. They'll get to savor it for a lot longer," he added with a chuckle. Antoshi smiled at his friend.
"You're okay, too?" he asked.
"Never better!" he exclaimed as he got to his feet and stretched. "Antoshi," he said, looking down at his friend with a serious expression. "I didn't get to tell you this earlier, but... thanks. I don't think I can ever thank you enough for saving me."
"There is one way," Antoshi said, grabbing his friend's attention. The boy's lips curled into a smirk. "Don't run off without telling me ever again." The two of them broke out a couple of grins.
"Absolutely!" he boisterously agreed. The two of them then went silent, suddenly remembering how Matt had stolen their badges. Fireball waited until Antoshi looked away, a devious smirk coming across his lips.
"Oh, I almost forgot," Fire said, suddenly tossing something into Antoshi's lap. "That's a little extra 'thank you' present as well." Antoshi gasped, unable to keep his jaw from hanging open as he realized it was his wallet. He quickly opened, seeing all seven badges, present and accounted for.
"Fire, you... you got them back!" he exclaimed in disbelief.
"I wasn't going to go through all that trouble and get nothing out of it," Fireball explained. "I didn't really pick his pocket to get them back as much as I tore it off." Antoshi laughed, overjoyed to have everything important to him returned all in one sitting.
"By the way," Fire spoke up, causing Antoshi to look up at him. "How did you... you know, do all that stuff? First the thing with the apple, Officer Jenny told me you 'saw' me in the trunk of the car and that you flew after it, then you stopped a bus. A bus, Antoshi! That's... totally insane!" Antoshi chuckled nervously, looking down at his open palms. He wasn't sure whether to be proud of what he'd done or be afraid of it.
"I don't... know. It's like... it just happened," he muttered. "When I was in the police station, I saw you in my mind. It's like you were moving really fast outside. When I ran out there, I just saw you, like an outline, inside the car."
"But flying had to be the coolest part, right?!" Fireball asked with enthusiasm. Antoshi chuckled.
"Well, yeah, I guess so..."
"Do it right now!"
"I don't remember how to," he said. "I ran as fast as I could, then I started flying when I couldn't catch up." Antoshi swallowed nervously, clenching his fists. "I'm not so excited about all this," he said, confusing his friend.
"What? Why not?" he asked. "Flying has to be awesome!"
"It's like how I could feel your presence outside the police station. Right now I feel like something very bad is going to happen. Something that includes all this stuff I just did." Fireball mirrored his friend's glum expression for a moment, but quickly perked back up.
"I know one thing that can't be very bad, though," he said. "Getting that eighth badge." Antoshi's spirits perked up at the idea.
"You're right," he said, quickly pulling the blanket off himself, but suddenly realized his clothes were dirty, worn and torn up after everything he went through. "Good thing mom packed extra clothes for me," he said, finding his backpack on the floor and opening it, pulling out a red t-shirt and blue jeans. But when he put them on, he realized they were a bit big for him.
"Geez, Antoshi," Fireball said, looking at his friend's new apparel. "How long did your mom think you were gonna be gone? Three years?" Antoshi chuckled, cinching up his belt to keep the baggy blue jeans from falling down.
"Oh well," he said, looking over his new clothes. "I kind of like it!"
"I like it, too," he said, walking alongside his friend as they exited the room. "Makes you look like a rap artist," he added, both of them laughing at the idea. "Hey yo I'm Antoshi, rolling with Fire, he's my numba-one G, don't call me a liar."
"Ah, knock it off," Antoshi said, playfully shoving Fireball's arm. The two of them then looked for the nurse's station, talking to one to get him discharged from the hospital before finally resuming their journey.
"Hey, how long was I in the hospital?" Antoshi asked as they exited the building.
"Two days," Fire replied.
"Two days?!" he asked in shock. His expression quickly turned to seriousness. "Well, that's two days we'll just have to make up for!" Antoshi and Fireball marched their way back into the city. The bright mid-day sun shined down warmly upon them, reflecting a bit off of Antoshi's shiny hair, giving the impression of a blond ray of sunshine. A sense of euphoria surrounded them, knowing that, with their badges returned and each other by their side, they no longer had anything to worry about, and that their lives had returned to normal. The two were focused on their next destination: Viridian Gym, ready to give it their all for the eighth badge and move onto their much-anticipated goal, the Indigo Plateau. At the same time however, far away from the carefree duo, a small town in the nearby continent of Johto had been completely destroyed. Where the town once bustled with life was now a shallow crater. Absolutely nothing was left in the wake of what appeared to be an explosion. But as the law officials began to investigate, it didn't take them long at all to find the one sole survivor: a young boy with sable hair, unconscious in the very epicenter of the crater. Curiously, despite the apparent enormity of the explosion, the boy was left unscathed.
The End