Kanto Sentai Pokéranger

(a.k.a. Power Rangers: Pocket Monsters)

 

 

Usual disclaimers apply.  These characters do no belong to me.

 

 

 

 

 

Jessie, James and Meowth slowly dug themselves out of the rocky debris they crashed headlong into after being blasted away by those Power Rangers.  It was late at night, and they were miles from civilization.  All of their Pokémon were away, and they were in a much worse mood than they previously were.

 

“I don’t get it, Jessie,” James whined, “everything was going so well!  What happened?”

 

“I…don’t know, James…” Jessie started, slowly, like she was in a trance.  James knew that she would be taking this a little hard, especially considering how well things were going with the would-be heist.  She suddenly snapped to her feet, her fist shaking in anger.  “But I am not going to take this lying down!  Do you hear me?  I don’t take shit like this from no one—not some dorky little twerps, not the boss, and especially not from some color-coordinated costumed clowns!”

 

“Nice to see she’s back to her old self,” Meowth said.

 

Jessie snatched James up by his collar.  “Mark my words, James, I will have my revenge on those wretched ‘Power Rangers’ if it’s the last thing I do!”

 

“But how are we going to do that, Jessie?” James asked.

 

“Simple.”  She let go of her partner.  “You see, someone has to be under those gaudy costumes and funny looking helmets.  My plan is to find out whom, exactly, and expose their identities to the entire world!  They’ll be humiliated right down to their very core!  And they’ll never want to put on their pretty little costumes and go around picking fights with us ever again!”  Her laugh echoed throughout the valley that housed their crash site.

 

 

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

 

 

Even into the next day, the Pewter City police department was abuzz with activity—not with the recent Team Rocket raid of the Pokémon Center, but over the appearance of the new “superheroes” calling themselves The Power Rangers.  Everyone in and around were talking about them, for better or worse.  Most of the time it was for the worse, especially with those who ran the city; the more power they had, the more ill things they had to say about them.

 

In the 13th precinct of the PCPD, Officer Geoff moved through a maze of desks and papers over to where his supervisor, Officer Jenny, was busy under a mountain of paperwork.

 

“Here are those files about the Power Rangers you asked for,” he said, placing them in a relatively clear part of Jenny’s desk. 

 

“Thank you Geoff,” she said, not looking up from her paperwork.  Her glasses slipped slightly, and she paused only to push them back onto her face properly.  “I swear, these ‘Power Rangers’ or whatever the hell they call themselves are making more trouble then they’re worth.”

 

“Yeah; hey, what do you think about them, Jenny?” Geoff asked.  “I think they’re pretty awesome.  It’s like something you’d read in a comic book.”

 

“I try not to let my personal views get in the way of my better judgment,” she said flatly.

 

“But don’t let that stop you.  Come on, you gotta have some sort of say on the whole thing.”

 

Jenny looked up from her work and addressed Geoff.  “What do I think, you ask?  I’ll tell you.  I think these Power Rangers are nothing more than vigilantes.  They’re a bunch of masked cowards ruining everything the police are trying to accomplish and making us look bad to boot.  They’re no better than the criminals they’re supposedly trying to stop!”  She rose from her seat.  “How do we know they’re not working with Team Rocket?”

 

“Jenny?  Hello?  They were the ones who stopped Team Rocket the other day!  Weren’t you paying attention?”

 

“They may simply be playing with us, you know.”  Jenny sat back down and focused on her work.  “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.”

 

Geoff fell silent for a second before saluting.  “Yes, ma’am,” he said.  He turned and walked away, leaving the exhausted Jenny to her work.

 

At least, that’s how he remembered her.

 

As soon as he was out of sight, Jenny ignored the papers around her and ran a peculiar program on her computer.  Her fingers moved like lightning across the keyboard as she accessed information that not even the local police force should have access to.  Within moments she hacked into the computer networks of the local Pokémon Center.  Characters danced across the monitor, appearing, disappearing, minimizing, being pushed to the back first in first out, as she illegally accessed information on every trainer that used the Center to heal their Pokémon in the last 24 hours.  And what she came across struck her as peculiar.

 

Five trainers – only one of them a native of Pewter City and only three of the five native to the Kanto region – checked in to said Center yesterday…shortly afterward, Team Rocket struck.  And so did the Power Rangers.

 

She smiled a wicked smile.  As she removed her glasses, her eyes turned from blue-green to a deep crimson.  She quickly copied the data to a CD and shut down her workstation.  Once she was done, she walked to a secluded part of the station, and when she was sure no one else would notice her, she flung her hand at the ground.  The ground magically split open, and she promptly disappeared into the magical fissure.

 

 

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

 

 

Pandion paced slowly around his throne room, hands behind his back, his gaze shifting from the floor to the ceiling every so often.  There was a bit of tension in the air, and Melkid could feel it.  His blue face spun forward as he tried to work up the nerve to address his master.

 

Eventually he found said nerve.  “Um, sir?” he asked.  “Is everything alright?”

 

“She is late,” he said flatly.

 

She, sir?  Who’s she?”

 

Pandion spun around and faced his loyal yet bipolar servant.  She...oh yes, you haven’t been introduced to her yet, have you?” Melkid shook his head ‘no’.  “No matter, you two will have plenty of time to get acquainted when she arrives.  Her name is Shadowench, and she has the power to assume any human form she desires.”

Melkid’s white face spun forward.  “So she’s a changeling, huh?  Interesting.”

 

“I plan to have her infiltrate the human world and find out just who is underneath those helmets.  Once we have the identities of the Power Rangers we can truly break them.  The very people they work so hard to protect will be the first to turn on them.”  Pandion’s cackle echoed throughout the cavern.

 

A flash of light interrupting his laughing fit.  He and Melkid turned to the source of the disturbance.  Officer Jenny of Pewter City was standing before them, her catlike eyes fixed on Melkid.  “I have returned, my lord,” she said.  Her human guise melted to reveal her true form.  In her true form, she had dark green skin and white hair, with the aforementioned crimson eyes.  She wore blue steel armor around her chest and shoulders (with plenty of armor on the shoulders and biceps) and around her groin, leaving her legs, forearms and flat stomach exposed.  Her gauntlets had large spikes on the knuckles, while her shin guards had several curved blades like claws.  On her hip was a thick, leather bullwhip, curled up as though it would strike on its own.

 

“Give me your report,” Pandion said.

 

“Those imbeciles calling themselves Team Rocket did much more for us then they could ever do for themselves,” Shadowench explained.  “After their terrorism shot in Pewter the whole city became divided over the presence of the Power Rangers.  And when the cops decided to investigate them…” She drew the CD with all the hacked information out from a satchel on her belt.  “…I did some investigating of my own.”  Shadowench tossed the disc to Pandion.  He glared at it, and it came to a halt about a foot from his face.  It drifted into his open hand.  With a small incantation, the data projected itself above the disc like a hologram.

 

“Interesting,” Pandion said.  His attention was brought to the images of five trainers who had used the Pokémon Center moments after the Power Rangers defeated Team Rocket.  “Who are they?”

 

“These so-called trainers,” she explained, “showed up after both Team Rocket and the Power Rangers disappeared.  From what people said, they acted as though very little went wrong at all.”

 

“Then perhaps they are connected somehow.”  Pandion took his seat on his throne.  “Find out as much information about these five individuals as you can—where they live, what they’ve done, who they are.  We will start our search with them.”

 

“Yes, my lord!” She saluted with a fist across her chest before disappearing in a magic-made crack in the floor.

 

“As for you, Melkid,” he said, turning his attention to his loyal servant, “I have a job for you…”

 

 

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

 

 

“You were stopped by whom?” Giovanni growled into the telephone.

 

“The Power Rangers, boss,” Jessie explained.  She, James and Meowth were crammed into a phone booth at a rest stop on the side of Route 2.  “Don’t you watch the news?  The networks can’t keep them out of the public eye if you paid them!”

 

“Hmm…I do recall hearing about a raid on the Pewter Pokémon Center stopped by a group of costumed wannabe superheroes…is it safe to assume that was you?” Jessie shivered at the tone of his voice.  She could practically see him speaking through his gritted teeth.

 

“Y-yes, that was us,” she stammered.

 

“Unbelievable!” he shouted.  Giovanni’s Persian growled in anger.  “How could you let yourselves be beaten so easily?!”

 

“You don’t understand, boss, they were for real!” James suddenly snatched the receiver from Jessie’s hand.  “They weren’t playing around, they were the real thing!  They shot down our balloon like it was held together with duct tape and faith (and the duct tape wouldn’t hold up any longer)!”

 

“Well, what did they have?”

 

Jessie regained control of the phone.  “It was…I dunno, they were unarmed at first and then they were…I guess you could call it…magical technology.”

 

Giovanni paused.  “…isn’t that an oxymoron?”

 

“Well they did draw their weapons out of thin air, boss.”  She twiddled with the phone’s cord.  As they spoke to the boss they glanced out the windows of the booth.  There weren’t many people around, and the few who were here probably wouldn’t recognize them.  “And they had swords, guns, hammers, you name it.”

 

“I see.”  Giovanni leaned back in his plush, leather chair.  “This complicates things.  I was not expecting you to cross paths with these costumed do-gooders.  But since they interfered with Team Rocket, well then, their fates are sealed.  Where were they last seen?”

 

Pewter City, sir.”

 

“Very well.  Now listen closely.  Your new purpose in life is to find out who these so-called ‘Power Rangers’ are at all costs.  Torture whoever you have to—city officials, common folk, I don’t care.  So long as you bring me their heads, I don’t care what levels you stoop to.”

 

“You got it, boss!” Jessie saluted the receiver, a smile on her face.

 

“And one more thing…” Jessie, James and Meowth fell silent on the other end, their ears as close to the earpiece as possible.  “Don’t show your face around Team Rocket until they have been destroyed.”  Giovanni hung up the phone.

 

The Team Rocket elite members stared at the phone as the dial tone clicked on.  Jessie hung up the phone, and the three pushed their way out of the crowded space.

 

“Well,” Jessie said, “that didn’t go half as badly as I thought it would.”

 

“True,” James agreed, “the boss usually launches into a tirade when we report this kind of stuff to him.”

 

“He must be in a good mood,” Meowth said.

 

“No, he was plenty upset,” Jessie reassured.  “I mean, he told us that we don’t destroy the Power Rangers we aren’t to show our faces around Team Rocket anymore.”

 

“That’s harsh.”

 

“But Jessie,” James started, “as ridiculous as they look, these Power Rangers are pretty bloody strong.  We’d have to build a pretty powerful war machine to stand up to them.”

 

“Don’t worry Jimmy,” she crooned.  “All in good time.  Besides, who said the next time we run across them we’re going to fight?  I figured we could pick up on their trail, observe how they act in combat, figure out their weaknesses and the like and when the time is right…” she clenched her fist tightly.  “…smash them!”  She laughed heartily at the notion.

 

“And how long do you think this’ll take?” Meowth asked.

 

The Pokéball containing Wobbuffet snapped open on Jessie’s belt, releasing the big blue Pokémon inside.  “Wobbuffet!” {“Oh shit, son!”} it shouted.  Jessie returned it back into its ball without missing a beat in her explanation.

 

“We weren’t given any deadline, so I suggest we take our time on this.  After all—hey, what are you two doing?”  Jessie was upset that her two associates suddenly holed themselves up in the phone booth without much pretense.  And when she glared at them, they merely pointed to her left, back towards the parking lot.  “What are you…aaaaaaaaaaaie!

 

Seeing what they were pointing at, Jessie banged furiously on the door of the booth, desperate to gain entry.  The sight of an animated suit of samurai armor with four faces made her skin turn as white as her uniform.

 

“Grrrr…where are those miserable Power Rangers?” Melkid grumbled.  “Why haven’t they showed up yet?”  Melkid looked at his surroundings.  There were a few people standing around, looking no doubt at him.  Their faces displayed expressions of fear.  “Perhaps they’ll come out of hiding if I start blowing some shit up.”  And he did, launching a wave of neon green energy at a cluster of parked cards.  They exploded in a fiery blast.  People immediately started to scream and run in terror.

 

 

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

 

 

Ash rushed into the command center, his fellow Rangers hot on his heels.  “I got the message, what’s the problem?” he asked.

 

“It’s Melkid,” Degenhart explained.  “He’s attacking a rest stop out on Route 2.  For what, though, I don’t know.”

 

“And check out who else is in the area!” Max shouted.  One of the monitors zoomed in on a group of five phone booths on the edge of the parking lot.

 

“Team Rocket,” May said.  “What’re they doing there?”

 

“I have no idea, sis.”

 

“They cannot learn your identity, Power Rangers,” Degenhart said.  “Once you engage Melkid, do not demorph until you’re clear of them – especially those two – or back here at the lab.  If they find out who you are, this town will be smothered by Team Rocket.”

 

“That’s not going to happen,” Brock said.

 

“See to it that it doesn’t.  Go, Rangers, and put a stop to Pandion’s forces.  And may The Power protect you.”

 

“Right,” Ash said.  He grabbed his Pokémorpher.  “Ready?”

 

The others did the same…  “Ready!”

 

…and went through the motions.  “POKÉRANGER!  GO!”

 

 

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

 

 

Five flashes of light – white, blue, red, green and yellow – flared up in the middle of the parking lot, and when the light dissipated, the five Power Rangers were standing there.  They turned towards Melkid, who had sliced through an eighteen-wheeler with his pike.  When he noticed them, he approached, not flinching at the huge explosion it made.

 

“I was wondering when you were going to show up,” Melkid said, his blue face in front, “I was bored to tears!”

 

“What do you want, Melkid?” Pokéranger White shouted.  “If it’s a fight you want, then look no further!”

 

“I think the real question here is whether or not you five can give me a challenge,” Melkid said through his white face.  He thrust out his hand, sending another wave of green energy at the Rangers.  It exploded around them, blowing them off their feet.  They quickly regained their feet.  “Oh.  I see.  So you mean business.”

 

“Protecting the world from scum like you is our business!” Pokéranger Blue shouted.

 

“I don’t have time for this.”  He raised his arms, and a great wind whipped up around them.  It was one of those winds that were used to create Fossiloids.  And that’s just what it did.  Twelve fresh Fossiloids stood between Melkid and the Rangers, their dusty bodies shambling this way and that.

 

“We do not have time for this,” Pokéranger Red said.

 

“I know,” Pokéranger White said.  “Just keep collateral damage to a minimum if you can help it.  Now let’s go!”  The Rangers charged forward, meeting the charging Fossiloids.  This time, there wouldn’t be any breaking down into Ranger-vs.-Fossiloid groups like usual; everyone went after whatever enemy was closest and not fighting an ally.  Although, only the Rangers knew what an “ally” was in the truest sense of the word; the Fossiloids knew only one thing—destroy the Power Rangers.

 

And they tried.  But it wasn’t good enough.

 

The Fossiloids the Rangers faced this time around were a little stronger than last time, but in their morphed forms, the Power Ranger didn’t notice it much.  If there were a few more of them, the Fossiloids would have more of an advantage.  But as it stood, they were merely to distract the Rangers from the bigger issue at hand.

 

And they did that mostly because they didn’t know what that bigger issue was.

 

Half of the Fossiloids battled the Green Ranger after he grabbed two of them and smashed their heads together, resulting in four more pouncing on him.  The other six bounced back and forth, from one of the other four Rangers to another.  Also, a lot of the aforementioned bouncing came from as the Rangers struck them, sending them sprawling away.

 

Brock had one cornered, and for a moment, he forgot about the four or five other Fossiloids he was brawling with.  He laid into it with a few hard punches into its chest and stomach, and finished with an uppercut that made it dissolve into the same dust used to summon it.

 

Meanwhile, the other four approached in formation behind him.  With each holding up the wheel of a large SUV above their head.  Brock turned around as he saw the shadow of the car fall over him.  Just as he turned around, the Fossiloids all gave a mighty heave, and tossed the SUV onto Pokéranger Green.  It crumbled on impact, sending the heap of now scrap metal crashing down all around him.  Only his helmet covered head poked out from the wreckage as two of the terra cotta soldiers danced in joy atop the wreck.

 

“Brock!” Tracey shouted.  His attention was brought to the wreck as the car slammed to the ground with a loud crunch.  This left him wide open to the Fossiloid he just ignored, prompting it to jump on the Yellow Ranger’s back and try and choke him out.  Tracey was focused on fighting again, and after a few moments of struggling, threw the creature off him.  Now that he was free, he snapped his wrists down at his sides, summoning his ScytherSickles.  “Screw this,” he grumbled, slashing into another Fossiloid.

 

Brock wasn’t the only one who had Fossiloids using cars as projectiles.  Two Fossiloids managed to get under a Volkswagen Beetle, one for the front and one for the back.  They threw it at Pokéranger White, driver’s side first.  Ash reacted quickly, though, cutting the car in half with one clean slash from his Pikatana.  Ash wasn’t about to throw one of the halves back at them, as he had less confidence in his physical strength than, say…Brock.  But he did feel good enough about his quickness and reflexes, and his skill with his sword.  He rushed in at one of the Fossiloids, cutting it down with a cross slash followed by a rising slash.  The other one tried to hit him from behind, but Ash stopped it with a well-placed kick before jumping, twisting his body around, and impaling it on his sword, disintegrating it.

 

“Alright, on the count of three…” Brock explained.  Having dealt with the rest of the Fossiloids, the Red and Blue Rangers worked to get the Green Ranger out from the broken care he was under.  “One, two, three!” With a might shove, the remains of the car rolled onto its side, allowing Brock to free himself.  The Yellow and White Rangers ran over to the others, the remaining Fossiloids defeated.

 

“Brock, are you alright?” Ash asked.

 

“Eh, I’ll manage,” he said, dusting himself off.  They turned their attention towards Melkid, who was trying to get some strange blaster to work.

 

Melkid’s black face was spun forward, and he cackled with glee as he brandished the weapon.  “Excellent,” he said, “now that this is up and running, the Power Rangers will never know what hit them!”

 

“And if you don’t mind, we’d like to keep it that way!” the White Ranger shouted.

 

Melkid didn’t seem too worried that the Power Rangers all had their weapons out.  After all, if Pandion was right, this would be greater than anything they could dish out.

 

Melkid’s white face spun forward.  “Perhaps you don’t see what this thing is capable of,” he said.  “Allow me to demonstrate.”  In the blink of an eye, he angled the gun at 45 degrees and fired a grenade-like projectile out of its lower barrel.  The projectile sailed clean over the Rangers’ heads and exploded upon impact with a line of phone booths.


The same booths Team Rocket was hiding in.

 

The resulting explosion shot them into the sky.  “Looks like Team Rocket’s blasting off agaaaaain!” Jessie, James and Meowth wailed as they disappeared over the horizon.

 

“Was that Team Rocket?” May asked.

 

Was,” Ash answered.  They could tell he was smiling underneath his helmet.

 

“And a much worse fate is in store for you, Power Rangers,” Melkid said, taking aim.  “This here is far superior to those puny little pop guns you carry around.”

 

What Melkid failed to notice was that they weren’t going to use those “silly little pop guns”.  Instead, they took the time to assemble the Master Blaster and take their appropriate positions around it.  It gleamed in the sunlight as Ash held it in his hands.

 

“If you don’t mind,” Ash started, “we’d like to test your little hypothesis.”

 

Melkid’s blue face spun forward.  He didn’t make a sound.  There was no time to.  The Rangers didn’t give him the chance to react.  Readyaimfire!” they shouted simultaneously, firing the Master Blaster at Melkid.  The impact didn’t kill him, but it did send him flying and onto his back a few yards away.  The strange gun clattered against the ground some distance away.

 

The Rangers slowly advanced, Ash holding the Blaster in his hands, trained on Melkid the whole time.  He struggled to a half-sitting position, one hand stretched out.  When he did get to his feet, he sensed the mission was going to be a bust.

 

“Forgive me, lord Pandion,” the blue face whimpered, “I’ve failed you!” He pointed at the ground, and a magical fissure appeared, which he disappeared into.

 

With the threats gone, the Power Rangers disassembled the Master Blaster.  Since they were still in public, though, they didn’t demorph yet.  “So much for Melkid,” the White Ranger said.

Pokéranger Blue approached the mysterious weapon Melkid left behind, and picked it up.  “What do you suppose this is?” she asked.  “It must be pretty important, the way he was carrying it around.  You think there’s something more to it?”

 

“Could be,” Pokéranger Red answered.  “I’ll have my brother look at it when we get back to the lab.”

 

“Good idea,” Pokéranger White said.  “Let’s get back to the command center and see what this is about.”  In that next instant, the Power Rangers disappeared in a flash of light.

 

 

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

 

 

About a half hour passed while Max analyzed the weapon.  Aside from the grenade launcher, there didn’t seem anything too extraordinary about it.  Until the ammo clip came off.

 

Max looked at the clip thoroughly.  He pulled the ammunition from it and found something strange.

 

“These look like tracking devices,” Max explained.  “I think the idea was to plant them on you and discover your secret identities.”

 

“What would be the point of that?” Ash asked.

 

“If Pandion or any one of his minions found out your secrets,” Degenhart explained, “they would be able to go after not the Power Ranger him or herself, but rather, the person under the helmet.  They would attack your families, your friends, anything to bring about your destruction more quickly.”

 

“Well, let’s be thankful that we didn’t let that happen,” Ash said.  He looked at the devices in Max’s hand.  “Hey Max, do those things only trigger when they’re launched, or re they sending out a signal now?”

 

Although he didn’t mean to, everyone in the room suddenly became very frightened.  What if what Ash asked (innocently enough) was true?  What if, at this very second, they had information on every last one of them?  Were they and their loved ones screwed?

 

Max looked over the bullet-like projectiles again.  “No, I’m pretty sure they only activate when fired.”  Everyone exhaled at once.  “And even then, if they somehow missed and hit someone else, it would’ve been a waste.”  Max tapped the tip of one of the bullets.  Nothing happened.  He tapped it again, three more times.  It accidentally went off, flying across the room in the blink of an eye and landing in Brock’s forearm.

 

“Yeow!” Brock shouted, clutching his new wound.  It was only in his arm for about a second, but that was all it needed.  The light on the end of the device started to glow a pale green, even as it fell to the ground.  Misty was quick to step on it, and it cracked under her heel.

 

“I think we better run the rest of them through a garbage disposal,” Tracey suggested.

 

 

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

 

 

Back in the lair of Pandion, deep within his secluded, salt marsh, Shadowench fiddled in vain with the receiver that went along with the tracers in Melkid’s blaster.  Those tracers were supposed to be imbedded within the Power Rangers’ individual persons.  But that didn’t happen.  Not only did Melkid fail in his mission – a mission that was her idea and made her look bad because of his failure – but those damn Rangers got the weapon as well.  Of course, that didn’t really matter, as it only had five shots and served them no use.  I mean, they had no way of figuring out where they were, and they wouldn’t dare set food in Pandion’s lair; their lives would be forfeit.

 

Pandion was in the middle of accosting Melkid when Shadowench shouted at them.  “Quiet, you two!” she yelled.  “This thing is picking up a signal.  Apparently one of them went off anyway.”

 

Pandion and Melkid turned to Shadowench.  The former slowly rose from his throne and approached her.  “What is it?”

 

She looked at her radar again.  She remembered seeing a green blip, but it was now gone.  “I…” she stammered, “I had one of them.  It was only for a moment, but it’s gone.  They must’ve destroyed it somehow.”  She looked at Pandion.  “And it was a green light, too.  Meaning…”

“It appears you’ve found the Green Ranger,” Pandion finished.  “It’s not much, but we can at least track him.  Where was he last?”

 

“It…” Shadowench looked at the locator.  The blip was gone, but she could still see it as though it was still there.  “It was in a town called Pallet.”

 

 

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

 

 

Somewhere in the Viridian Forest, Jessie, James and Meowth were still in what’s left of the handful of phone booths – one of which they were in – that were destroyed and launched miles away from the Power Rangers’ last sighting.  The three Team Rocket members made little effort to move from the crash site, as their morale was far too low to warrant any real movement.

 

They had been silent for about a half hour before James finally spoke up.  “Hey Jess,” he said.

 

“What is it, James?” she asked.  Her tone indicated she wasn’t in the mood for talking.

 

“Do you remember that fight with the Power Rangers and those…whatever the hell they were?”

 

“What about it?”

 

“I’d like to forget that if it’s possible,” Meowth added.

 

“Well anyway…moments before we were…evicted from the premises, I couldn’t help but notice that the Rangers didn’t call themselves by their code names.”

 

“Code names?” Jessie asked.  She was now sitting up straight on one of the few not broken glass panels.

 

“Yeah.  They would’ve at least called themselves by their colors, right?  I swear, it was only once, but I heard one of them call another one ‘Brock’.”  Jessie and Meowth now gave James their undivided attention.  “Now where have you heard that name before?”

 

“Brock…you mean the twerps!” Jessie shouted.

 

“What?” Meowth shouted.  Them?  The Power Rangers?  Are you sure?”

 

“Wait…there’s usually only three of them at a time.  And that little brat with the glasses is too small to be one of them.”

 

“Well…there’s the main twerp, the black twerp, the red-headed twerp, the coordinator twerp—May, I think her name is…”  That last one drew a disgusted grumble from Jessie.

 

“That’s four,” Meowth said, ticking them off on his fingers.

 

“So who’s the last one?” Jessie asked.

 

James paused to ponder that question.  Who, indeed.  “Wait…remember when we went to the Orange Islands?  That twerp who drew a lot—the ‘islander twerp’!”

 

“That’s all five of them,” Meowth said.  “Wow, this could be big, Jimmy.”

 

“Could it be?” Jessie questioned.  “Could those five costumed superheroes, with all that weaponry and power, really be the twerp and his little posse?  Are the people we’re trying to hunt down and present to the boss as trophies really them?”

 

James and Meowth were silent, still trying to process all of this information.  While they have seen some pretty strange stuff in their career as Team Rocket members, this just seemed unfathomable.  But this was way, way out there.  And they’ve been blasted (repeatedly) by legendary Pokémon.  It seemed too good to be true.  Almost too easy.

 

Jessie, James and Meowth looked at one another.  Then, at the same time, they all came to the same conclusion.  Naaaaah,” they said, each shrugging his or her shoulders.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TO BE CONTINUED……………