The next few days were quite peaceful, we trained a lot, Umbreon was getting used to his new form, and Meowth seemed to be settling down a bit. After all, we hadn’t seen any sign of Team Rocket for quite a while.

‘Y’know Meowth, I think they might have given up looking for you.’

‘Why? Ain’t I worth it?’

‘Well, we haven’t seen them for ages.’

>DING!< A small sparkle of light flickered in the sky, and 3 figures fell out of the heavens to crash on the path ahead of us. They were confused and charred, but nevertheless, they were Team Rocket.

Meowth looked extremely irate. ‘What are you guys doin’ here?’

James coughed. ‘We just got blasted off by the twerp and his Pikachu, thank you for your concern, Meowth.’

Now Meowth looked confused. ‘You’re still chasin’ the twerps?’

‘Well, duh! It’s not like we would just give up after two years! Now we just have to do two jobs instead.’

‘Wooooaaaaaaa…. buffet!’

Then Meowth started yelling at them. ‘Well you guys can just forget about me rejoining Team Rocket, so I’d tank you t’leave me alone!’

Jessie looked at him imploringly. ‘Please, Meowth. We need you. We had to change the motto and everything…’

‘Look, guys, we weren’t any good at anyting, can’t you see dat it’s pointless? You’d be better off gettin’ good jobs, dat way you’d earn someting.’

‘Well, if you won’t come quietly…’ James pulled out a box with handles, ‘we’ll have to take you by force!’

I never got to know what the box did, because Gary had already released his Kadabra and was signalling an attack.

‘Confusion attack, Kadabra!’

Jessie, James and Wobbuffet were lifted into the air by a purple force and flung into the distance until they disappeared with a >DING!< and a shiny speck, the same way they had made their entrance.

We walked on normally after that, discussing Team Rocket.

‘So what happens to the pokémon that get stolen?’

‘We give ‘em to the Boss, and he used them in his Gym at Viridian City. But then the Gym got destroyed, so he uses them to get more powerful pokémon and recruit more people. Maybe he’s planning a comeback.’

‘Why were you in Team Rocket, Meowth?’ I inquired. ‘Did they steal you from somebody?’

‘No, I went voluntarily. I thought dat kind of work would bring in big bucks, and I’d do anyting to get rich. ‘Course, being in a team with dose two, we’d never make any money, except from selling food.’

‘So you left because you were broke?’

‘Well, we had no money, and the way we lived was terrible. We had instant noodles 3 times a day and we slept in places like playgrounds and stations. Once, I was right at the top. The Boss’s right hand cat. I got premium cream and as much catnip as I wanted. Then one day he comes back from a trip with a Persian. It was from the city, so it was used to stealing as an alley cat. I was one once too, but you can’t run as fast on two legs as you can on four,’ he said sadly. ‘Then he went away to somewhere tropical, and the Persian got the scent of a wild pokémon. It tracked it, and came back with some fur in its mouth. They took the hair to a lab, and examined it.’

‘What was it from?’ asked Gary.

‘Mew.’

‘But that’s impossible! Mews are extinct!’ I shouted.

There was a pause.

‘Aren’t they?’

‘Maybe. But they explored the area and found what must have been a Mew’s habitat. That clinched it, the Persian was the flavour of the month, and I was last week’s cat litter. He said I could come back if I could get him a pokémon as rare as Mew.’

We carried on in silence for a while, then Gary voiced a question which must have been on his mind for some time. ‘So, how come you can talk, anyway?’

Meowth’s face screwed up in the recollection of a repressed memory. And then he fell over.

‘Are you alright?’ I said, running over.

‘Yeah…’ he sat up, rubbing his head. ‘I tripped over this…’

We looked back at the path, where something round and shiny sat poking out of the dirt. I pulled it out. It was a small ball, the bottom half was white and the top half black with a yellow stripe on it.

‘It’s an ultra ball,’ said Gary.

I enlarged it to fit my hand. ‘Do you think there’s anything inside it?’ I pressed the white button that lies on the front of all pokéballs. It popped open, revealing the mechanical inside. No pokémon.

‘I say you keep it,’ said Gary eagerly.

‘But it’s not mine…’

‘Ah, no-one’s going to miss a little ball,’ he said, taking it from me and spinning it expertly on his finger. I grabbed it back.

‘Finders keepers,’ I grinned.

‘Awww, just let me have some fun with it!’ Gary tried to snatch the ball. ‘Do you know how long it took me to learn how to spin those things on my finger?’

‘I suppose you could look at it for a while…’ I said while giving him a slanted grin. ‘But you’ll have to catch me first!’ I ran as fast as I could away from our group. After a few moments Gary realised and ran after me. We all ran for a while, and started to get tired. I was thinking of stopping when I noticed a tree root sticking out of the ground – but by then it was too late. My foot got snagged and I fell forward onto my face, and the ultra ball slipped out of my hands.

‘Hey, are you okay?’ Gary asked, catching up.

‘Yeah…’ I stood up and brushed myself off. ‘But the ultra ball’s gone. I dropped it.’

‘Well, it can’t have gone too far…’ Gary looked behind some bushes at the side of the road. ‘Hey! There it is!’ he said, handing me the ball.

‘Thanks…’ I said, taking my ultra ball back and looking around while I slipped it into my pocket. ‘Wait a minute… look down there! A town!’ Just down the road was a small town with the pokémon centre clearly visible.

Gary was studying the map. ‘Well, we were going to stop off here on the way to Ecruteak… but we got here awfully early.’

‘We did run most of the way, didn’t we!’ I grinned, as we walked off to our new destination.

* * *

The first things I noticed when we got into town were the posters taking up every spare inch of wall space. They were large green sheets, proclaiming the message ‘Grass Pokémon tournament on Tuesday. Sign up at entrance.’

Meowth leapt up. ‘Tuesday? That’s tomorrow!’

‘Yeah… it is…’ I said, and turned to Gary. ‘Are you gonna enter?’

‘Might as well,’ he said with a shrug. ‘You?’

I took a moment to check my brain. ‘Nah, I don’t have any grass types. But we’ll come and cheer you on!’

We went out and fought local trainers for a while, then we went to the pokémon centre to get beds for the night. After Gary called Prof. Oak to get his grass pokémon for the tournament we went up to our room.

* * *

I woke up in the middle of the night in the pokémon centre bunk bed, in a cold sweat. My heart was racing, and I came to the conclusion that I had been having a nightmare. I saw a movement beside me and I jumped back in fright, but it was just the curtains in the wind. I climbed out of the top bunk and went to close the window, but when my hand touched the handle something happened that made my blood run cold. An eerie howl rang out across the night, making me shiver. I looked out of the window but it was too dark to see. I turned to go back to bed, but whatever it was started howling again, and I changed course to the hallway to get a glass of water.

When I got outside the room I saw a figure standing at the hall window. I went over, and found that it was Nurse Joy.

‘What’s the matter?’ She asked me. ‘Can’t you sleep?’

‘I’m not sure. I heard…’ I paused and looked out of the window. ‘I heard something.’

The ghostly howl ripped across the air once more, and I shook briefly.

‘Oh, that,’ said the Nurse. ‘It’s just a wild pack of Houndour and Houndoom. They live around here.’

‘D-doesn’t the sound bother you?’

‘Ah, I’ve been here for long enough, I can almost understand them. I don’t think they’re really trying to scare anyone, but they can’t help it.’

‘Well, even if they don’t mean it, they’re doing a pretty good job of it.’

I left Nurse Joy and walked back to our room, forgetting about the water. When I came in I saw Gary sitting on his bed, handling something. It looked like a pokéball, but there was something odd about it. Then I realised it was only half a pokéball. When Gary saw me he put it away, so I forgot about it.

‘What are you doing up?’ I asked him.

‘I woke up when you got out of bed.’ I looked guilty for a moment, but then realised he didn’t care. In fact, he was grinning. ‘Did you hear those howls?’

‘Yeah, I was just talking to Nurse Joy. It’s a pack of Houndour.’

‘Houndour?!’ Gary looked like someone had just told him it was his birthday. ‘What are we waiting for? Grab your pokéballs and come on!’

He ran out of the door, and I had no choice but to grab my stuff and follow him. I went as fast as I could out of the centre, and found him waiting outside. Then we heard the howls again, and Gary sped off in the direction they came from. He ran down a road and out of the town. I tried to keep up with him, but sometimes we got separated in the darkness. We ended up in a wooded area, where there was a clearing before us bathed in moonlight. 7 Houndour and a couple of Houndoom were in a formation, howling at the moon. Gary stepped forward and addressed them.

‘Hey, excuse me, I hope I’m not interrupting…’

All the dogs jumped back and growled, trying to look as ferocious as they could. For some reason Gary was not intimidated, and continued.

‘I wish to request a battle between my pokémon and your pack.’

I entered the clearing and stood beside Gary, and announced that I wished to do the same. One of the Houndoom motioned with its head towards 2 Houndour, and they marched forward to meet us. Gary and I got our pokéballs ready.

‘Poliwrath, go!’

‘I choose you, Marina!’

Our pokémon appeared, and the 2 Houndour leapt towards them and administered powerful bite attacks. Gary’s Poliwrath used a submission attack, and hurt one of the Houndour pretty badly. I called for a water gun attack which drenched the other one. They let loose flamethrowers which didn’t hurt our pokémon that badly, but they were burned.

‘Use ice beam!’ Gary and I both yelled, and a blue ball formed between Poliwrath’s hands and Marina’s mouth. Icy lightning bolts came out of them, and hit the Houndour square on. They both stopped, completely encased in ice. They were frozen.

‘Now’s our chance!’ said Gary, and threw a pokéball at the Houndour that Poliwrath had been weakening. It was drawn inside and made a small effort to break free, but it soon stopped. I brought out my ultra ball and threw it at the stationary pokémon, but the ball suddenly stopped in mid-air and opened. White energy poured out of it and a small pokémon appeared on the field. It had yellow and brown stripes and what looked like a plant sprouting out of the top of its head.

‘Sunkern kern!’ it said brightly.

‘What!? How did a…?’ I stared at the tiny pokémon for a few moments in disbelief, while one of the Houndoom shot a flamethrower at the Houndour which melted the ice. It scampered off back to the rest of them.

‘Gary, what’s going on? How on earth did a Sunkern get into my ultra ball?! When we found it I opened it and nothing came out so -…’

‘It was when you tripped over,’ Gary cut me off. ‘You dropped the ball and it flew into the bushes. That Sunkern must have been in the wrong place at the right time.’

I watched the pack of dark pokémon for a bit, disappointed that I hadn’t been able to catch one, but on the other hand having a Sunkern made it better. I brought it back into its ball.

‘Come on. We’d better get back to the pokémon centre.’ Gary led the way out and back to the town, holding up the pokéball containing his new Houndour the whole way. We made it back to our room where Meowth was still snoozing and I went back to bed. After turning a few things over in my mind I drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

'Kay, thanks for reading! Review if you think I need help with this!