Chapter 8 Jack awoke early, and dug out a spare change of clothes from his pack. After changing, (And cutting holes for his wings), he woke up the others. Lauren awoke cheerfully, (though whether that was how she woke up naturally, or whether it was because it was Jack who woke her up was in question), and immediately took the one bathroom that was connected to their room. Bob and David both grumbled and reluctantly got up, and then immediately started hammering on the bathroom door, yelling for Lauren to hurry up. Finally after getting through waking up and eating breakfast, they set out for Mount Moon. On the way out, Nurse Joy stopped them. "Are you going to Mount Moon?" She asked. "There have been rumors of hikers disappearing in the caves." "Don't worry." Bob responded. "We have a map. We won't get lost." They then left. They set out from the pokemon center. Bob pulled out a map. "Mount Moon is several miles away. Maybe an hour's walk to get there. As long as no one gets distracted, and chases a Jigglypuff to an abandoned mansion. Not that I'm naming any names, of course+ICY-" He glared at Lauren. "Hey, is it my fault that someone decided to hide a genetics lab in that mansion? Anyway, you shouldn't complain. You got a Charmander out of it." "Yeah, he's a cool little guy." Bob called him out of his pokeball. "Hello Charmander." "Char!" Charmander smiled at Bob. "I think I'll keep him out for now. A walk should be good for him." "Char charmander!" "That's a good idea." Jack said. "Pidgy, Growlithe, go!" The two pokemon came out of their pokeballs. "Here, have a chance to stretch your limbs." "Yeah!" David said. "Squirtle, Weedle, go!" "Graveler, Cubone, Jigglypuff, go!" With everyone's pokemon out, the group continued on towards Mount Moon. From the trees, three shadowy figures watched. "Is everything ready for the plan?" A feminine voice from one of the figures asked. A masculine voice from the other responded. "Yes, everything is set up. To bad our mascot couldn't help us." "Slow+ICY- poke?" The third figure, which was much smaller, responded. "Funny, it feels like something's missing. Like we should have been attacked or something when we said that." The male voice mused. A silhouette of a mallet appeared behind the female figure's back. It swung around and smashed the male figure's head. A large lump rose. "What are you thinking?! We've always had Slowpoke." She gained a noble look. "It is our mascot pokemon, and therefore shows the highest ideals of Team Rocket." "Yes, but a Slowpoke?" The mallet came into play again. "Quiet! Soon those trainers we saw at Pewter will come through here, and we'll catch them and steal all their pokemon!" They all started laughing evilly, except for the Slowpoke, which looked puzzled, then went to sleep. Several minutes later+ICY- "Growlithe, come back with my hat!!" Jack yelled. Growlithe, who was running ahead of the group with Jack's hat in his mouth, just laughed and ran faster. "Growlithe, I'm your trainer! Bring me back my hat!" Growlithe laughed again and handed the hat off to Abra, floating alongside. Abra drifted over and gave it to Weedle. Pretty soon, all the pokemon were involved in a game of keep the hat away from Jack, while the rest of the group walked behind, chuckling. "Come on Cubone, give it back!" Cubone whirled the hat to Jigglypuff. "Jigglypuff, please give me my hat!" Jigglypuff handed it off to Pidgey. "Pidgey, I thought you were on my side!" All the pokemon were in a group around Jack, hoping to be given the hat next, while Pidgey was staying just out of his reach. The others were chuckling and yelling pointless advice up to Jack, such as "Maybe Pidgey will give you your hat if you feed him Weedle!" or "Growlithe, doesn't that hat taste good? Don't you want to swallow it?" Suddenly, a large net that had been concealed under a layer of dirt snapped up, trapping Jack and all the pokemon. The others stopped and stared, with their mouths hanging open. They had only been standing like that for an instant, before the ground beneath them collapsed and they fell into a pit. "Oww+ICY-" Bob moaned. "I think I sprained my tail+ICY-" David's hat had come off in the fall, revealing his Eevee ears. They twitched. "Shhh+ICY- I think I hear something+ICY-" He put his hat back on. "I don't hear anything." Lauren said. "My hearing is sharper then yours. Eevee genetics, remember?" "Oh yeah+ICY-" Jack moaned from inside the net. "Ow+ICY- My leg hurts+ICY- If it's broken, I'm in trouble+ICY-" The people in the pit heard a female voice. "Did someone say trouble? Prepare for trouble!" "Make it double!" "To protect the world from devastation!" "To unite all peoples within our nation!" "To denounce the evils of truth and love!" "To extend our reach to the stars above!" "Jessie!" "James!" "Team Rocket blasts off at the speed of light!" "Surrender now or prepare to fight!" "Slowpoke?" Team Rocket fell over. The female jumped up and started yelling at the pokemon. "At the end of the motto, you're supposed to say "SLOWPOKE!!"! You're not supposed to say "slowpoke?"! GOT IT????" A vein appeared on her forehead when she noticed that the Slowpoke had fallen asleep during her rant. She pulled out her mallet and slammed the Slowpoke on the forehead. It didn't wake up. She screamed at it again, and then hit it several times. The Slowpoke went from a state of being asleep to a state of being unconscious. "That's better." She said, putting the mallet away. (For any of you who do not know who Team Rocket is, I will describe them for you. The female was tall, looked to be about 17, and had long red hair. The male also looked to be about 17, and had shoulder length blue hair. The Slowpoke was a Slowpoke.) Jack sweatdropped. "Who are you two? What do you want? And could you please help me out of this net? I don't know where it came from." The female figure, (I'm going to start calling her Jessie, which is her name, and the male is James.) yelled at Jack. "It's our net!!! You have been captured by the might of Team Rocket!!!! Weren't you listening to the theme?!?!?!?" Jack looked sheepish. "Um no, I sorta fell asleep." The mallet came into play again. "Ow!!" "Now give us all your pokemon and no one gets hurt!!!" "Why should we?" "Because we are the great, the mighty, the wonderful, the strong, the powerful, the" This continued on for quite a while. Finally, they concluded. "the beautiful Team Rocket!" They looked around in surprise. While they had been praising themselves, Bob's Charmander had used its tail to burn through the net, and had let Jack and the other pokemon out. Jack had then called out his Gyrados and used it to lift the others out of the pit. Team Rocket then came out of their boasts to find themselves surrounded by a circle of extremely angry pokemon. "Umm+ICY- Now we are the begging for mercy Team Rocket+ICY-" Anything else they might have said was lost in the clamor, as the pokemon attacked. After a minute, they went flying away. "Looks like Team Rocket's blasting off again!!" They yelled, as they soared into the distance. "That was interesting+ICY-" Lauren said, brushing dust off her shirt. "Lets get going. We won't get any closer to Mount Moon just standing here and talking about what just happened." And with that, they continued on to Mount Moon. As they entered the dark caves that lay under Mount Moon, they all were ready to catch more pokemon. Bob consulted his pokedex, then told them that Zubats, Geodudes, Onixs, Parases, Clefairys, and their evolved forms lived in the caves. The group had been wandering for hours. Earlier, a Zubat had flown out of the darkness and ate their map, rendering them totally lost. Other then that, they had not seen a single pokemon. "My feet hurt," David moaned, trudging along beside the group. "Why did that stupid Zubat have to eat our map? And why aren't there any pokemon?" He continued on, in a caricature of Bob's voice. "Oh, we have a map. Oh, we won't get lost. Well, we're lost now." Bob, annoyed, hit David on the head. David took a swing at Bob, and they both were starting to fight when Jack quieted them. "Shush. I hear something. I'm going to go check it out." Jack moved ahead of the group a few feet, and they all advance cautiously. They crept forward like this for several minutes, until finally David straighten and said "Well, I guess there wasn't any-" Suddenly, out of dark recess of the cave, several pink pokemon jumped onto Jack, tied him up and gagged him, and ran away with him before anyone could react, all in under ten seconds. Everyone was stunned. "What just happened?" David asked, his aching feet forgotten. "Those were Clefairy!" Bob exclaimed. "They aren't supposed to be vicious! Clefairy are very peaceful! What could drive them to kidnap humans?" Lauren was getting very angry. "I don't know what would drive them to kidnap humans, but they've taken Jack!" She screamed at Bob, "And you are going to find him!" "Umm+ICY-." Bob was thinking hard, trying to come up with a way to find Jack before Lauren killed him. David started taunting Lauren. (probably not a good idea, considering that Lauren currently appears ready to kill anyone who gets in her way.) "Ha ha, Lauren's angry 'cause she lost her boyfriend.." Lauren whirled around from yelling at Bob. "I AM NOT!!!!" she screamed, looking like she was about to kill David. David was so frightened, he changed into an Eevee and hid in Bob's backpack, whimpering. Bob sighed. "Look, you frightened him so much he changed into an Eevee. What if we had been around anyone else?" "I DON'T CARE!!!" Lauren was so worked up, all of her vines were fully extended and thrashing around in agitation. "HAVEN'T YOU THOUGHT OF ANYTHING YET?!?!" "Well, we might be able to use David's nose to trail the Clefairys. He should be able to sniff out their trail." Lauren, upon hearing this, dug her hand into Bob's backpack, and pulled out the whimpering Eevee. "YOU HEARD HIM!! GET SNIFFING!!!!!!!!" David put his nose to the ground and started trying to find the trail. Finally, he found it, and started following it. Then Lauren noticed Bob wasn't following. "AND WHY AREN'T YOU COMING?!?!" she turned and yelled at him. "I'm picking up David's clothes." Bob replied calmly. "I think he might like them when he turns human again," "Oh." Lauren said, embarrassed that she was going to run off and leave David's clothes on the floor (they probably would have puzzled the next group of hikers.) Meanwhile+ICY- Jack was confused. One moment he had been walking along, trying to find the strange noise he heard, and the next he was being carried along on the back of several pink puffballs, tied up and gagged. He started struggling, trying to get out of his bonds, until one of the pokemon started singing softly. His eyes closed, and he fell asleep. He woke up an indeterminate amount of time later, with his backpack and pokeballs missing, to an amazing sight. He was in a huge cavern, filled with frantic activity. The cave was mainly filled with Clefairy, but there were other pokemon too. There was a group of Geodude digging a tunnel, and sorting out some of the rocks they dug out, under the watchful eyes of several Clefairys. A team of Zubat was flying the rocks to the top of a huge structure, and there was even a gigantic Onix lifted large beams and carrying them into a different room. "Wow," Jack thought, "All these pokemon working together. It's stunning." A Clefairy, seeing that he was awake, came over and started tugging at him, to get him to come along. Jack got up, and was following the Clefairy, when suddenly, the Onix roared and swung its head at one of the Clefairy directing it, knocking it across the cavern. The Geodudes started picking up rocks and throwing them at the Clefairys, and the Zubats started biting the Clefairys. Most of the Clefairys pulled out tiny whips from behind their backs, and started futily flailing at the rampaging pokemon, trying to get them back to work. Finally, the Clefairys started singing, and the other pokemon slowly fell asleep. Other Clefairys ran in from adjoining chambers with chains, put them on the sleepers, and dragged them out of the chamber. Seeing how the danger was over, the Clefairy holding Jack started pulling him along again, into another chamber. This chamber was immense. Here, there were more pokemon work gangs, all building a huge structure, apparently under the guidance of a Clefable, sitting on what appeared to be a throne high up on the cavern wall. The structure was tall and cylinder-shaped, narrowing to a point at the top. Several Abras and Kadabras were working on some sort of electrical system, watched closely by several Clefables. There were more Geodudes and some Paras in chains, doing lifting and carrying. Most surprising of all, there were about twenty humans, looking tired and haggard, being forced to work. One of them came of to Jack, grimacing. "So, the Clefairys got you too?" He asked. "My name's William. I was trying to study the pokemon in Mount Moon, when I was abducted by the Clefairys. I've been here the longest out of all of us, about a year. The Clefairys have been enslaving most of the pokemon, and some of the travelers, in the mountain. As far as I can tell, this structure is supposed to be some sort of super weapon that will destroy all humans and make the world a paradise for pokemon. They haven't built the weapon part yet, but they could actually launch the thing now. From what the other Clefairys have told me, the reason why they are doing this is at the prompting of their king." He pointed up at the Clefable sitting in the throne, who, Jack noticed, was wearing an odd stone crown. "Apparently, their King was running from a Geodude, and ran headfirst into a stalagmite. He, well, he hasn't been the same since." Up in the throne, the Clefable wearing the crown started frothing at the mouth and gnawing on his own leg. "He came up with the insane scheme to kill all the humans. The Clefairys are actually rather peaceful, but their King, being insane, is having them enslave all the humans they can. I mean, look at Seymour." He pointed to a quivering little lump, which turned out to be, on closer inspection, a whimpering human. "He was the friend of the Clefairys, but their insane King enslaved him along with the rest of the humans. Now look at him. A broken man." A Clefairy supervisor, noticing the two humans, came over and brandished its whip threateningly. "Clefairy!" It demanded. "It wants us to get back to work," William said. "I've been here so long, I can understand what they say. I wonder whatever happened to my pokemon, which the Clefairys took away when I was captured." The Clefairy waved its whip at them more menacingly. "Cle-fairy!!" "We'd better get to work. We don't want to get whipped." They went over to where the other humans were, and started working. Up in the alcove with the throne, the mad Clefable stopped chewing on it's leg, and started trying to eat a rock, with the light of insanity burning in its eyes. "Ow!" Lauren tripped over a stalagmite. "Where did David go?" After an hour of following David in the dark, as he tracked the band of Clefairys, everyone was getting short-tempered. "He ran off! When I find him+ICY-" Her voice trailed off. From up ahead came sounds of a conversation. "Eevee!" "Clefairy?" "Eev ee eevee!" "Cle!" "Eevee ee vee?" "Clefairy cle, fair fair fairy! Clefairy+ICY-" David came running back to Lauren. "Eevee!!" "Huh?" David, looking exasperated at Lauren's inability to understand him, gave her a look that seemed to say "if you made me change into an Eevee, then you could at least understand me." He then dove into Lauren's backpack. "Hey!" Lauren exclaimed as David wiggled around inside her pack. She took it off and reached inside, trying to find David. After a few minutes, David squirmed out of the other end of her pack, carrying same paper and a pencil in his mouth. "Eevee!" He said proudly, then sat down and started to write down what he had learned from the Clefairy that was even now hesitantly coming forward to join the group. Once David had finished writing, the paper was read. It turned out that the Clefairy hiding behind David had fled for its life from the King of the Clefairys, who was going to punish it for not wanting to enslave any of the other pokemon. The other Clefairys were building some sort of rocket that would, when they loaded it with some sort of weapon (the Clefairy wasn't sure what), destroy all the humans. The Clefairy told them that the King was insane. (This Clefairy, not being very high ranked, did not know the story of the Kings insanity.) "That explains why the Clefairy are abducting travelers." Bob said. "To help them build their rocket." "An insane Clefairy." Lauren shook her head.. "That's as ridiculous as a rabid Jigglypuff." David wrote a bit more on the paper. "This Clefairy is willing to guide us to the cavern where they are building the rocket." Lauren read. They journeyed through the dark caves for a while longer, (Have you got the point that they are dark yet?), until finally they saw a red glow around a corner. The group slowly crept up to the corner, and looked around. They saw a gigantic forge, run by Clefairys, with a Clefable supervisor, using several enslaved pokemon. A Growlithe was being forced to use flamethrower to heat a forge fire, while a Gyrados was using water gun to cool down red-hot metal. A Pidgey was running errands, and there were several other pokemon being used for various tasks. On a shelf in the corner were several pokeballs, and several backpacks. "Those pokemon," Bob hissed, "Those are Jack's!" "And one of those packs are his, too. You can see his name in it." responded Lauren. "We need to get rid of those Clefairy." Bob said. "Hmmm+ICY- I have an idea." He drew David and Lauren in close and started whispering to them. The Clefable supervisor was irritated. He didn't really want to enslave pokemon and kill humans, but the King demanded it, so he went along. Also, he was rather nervous around the huge Gyrados, seeing how he didn't know how they had kept it docile even this long. Suddenly, he noticed an Eevee that had somehow wandered in unnoticed. Annoyed that no one had seen it come in, he dispatched an inferior to go capture the Eevee. He didn't see how an Eevee could help the production effort, but he had orders from the king to capture all pokemon he could. The Eevee skipped into a small side tunnel, just ahead of the Clefairy he had sent to follow it. A few minutes later, the Clefable noticed the Clefairy it sent hadn't come back yet. He sent two more to the passage the first had taken, to help it if it needed help. Several minutes after that, he sent another pair, to find out what was taking the previous trio so long. A moment later, one of the Clefairys that had just left started to crawl out of the side passage, until what looked like a vine wrapped itself around one of its feet and pulled it back in. Alarmed now, the supervisor sent all but a few of the remaining Clefairys into the tunnel to hunt down whatever it was that was attacking the Clefairys. This time, you could hear audible thuds and cries of "Clefairy!" The supervisor, extremely nervous now, realized at the same time the Gyrados did how few Clefairy there were left to control the pokemon. He ran into the side tunnel, along with the rest of the Clefairy, just ahead of the water gun the Gyrados fired at them. Then, there was darkness. Lauren picked up the last four Clefairys in her vines and banged their heads together, and then deposited them on the large pile of groaning Clefairys behind her. "Let's go." The group walked out into the cavern, watched warily by the chained pokemon. Lauren walked over to the chained Gyrados and started petting it on the head. "Those nasty Clefairy chained you up? Don't worry, we'll have you out, and then we can go find Jack." She walked over to the wall and returned all of Jack's pokemon to their pokeballs, then walked over to the chained but uncaptured pokemon, and broke their chains with her vines. She then turned to the Clefairy hiding behind David. "Now, where to next?" she asked. Jack was exhausted. He had been working nonstop for hours, wiring electrical circuits. His shirt was soaked with sweat, his hands were sore, and he was exhausted. He wondered if his friends would ever be able to find him, let alone rescue him from the middle of the Clefairys' stronghold. Suddenly, he saw a disturbance at the other end of the chamber. A large group of Clefairys and Clefables were fighting something, but exactly what was obscured by the fighters. His spirits lifted. "Maybe that's my friends, come to rescue me!" he said. "I doubt it." William didn't want to crush Jack's hopes, but he thought it was best that Jack not get his hopes up over nothing. "It's probably just another attempt of the enslaved pokemon to break away from the Clefairys. They will take care of it quickly." "Oh." Jack's face fell, dejected. Still, he stopped working for a moment to watch the commotion. There was a battle going on, but the only result that could be seen was the occasional Clefairy flying across the room to hit the opposite wall with a thud. Jack had been watching for a few moments, when he caught sight of a flash of blue hair. He perked up again. "Those are my friends! They've managed to track me here!" He grabbed a large rock nearby, ran up to the battle, and started smashing Clefairys with it. This close to the battle, he had a much better view of everyone. He could see Lauren's Cubone, Graveler, and Jigglypuff smashing away, while David's Squirtle and Weedle were attacking, along with a small Eevee that must be David himself. Bob was there too, directing his Abra in teleporting, punches, and throwing his Metapod at Clefairys, while his Charmander was using tackle and scratch. Jack even saw his own pokemon there, his Gyrados water gunning, his Pidgey using gusts and wing attacks, and his Growlithe using tackles. "Growlithe!" Jack called. "Let's end this with a flamethrower!" Growlithe, upon hearing his voice, called out "Growl!" affirmatively, then took in a deep breath, before releasing it in a huge blast of flames straight through the middle of the Clefairys. The other pokemon (and enslaved humans) had taken the opportunity that the Clefairys distraction had given them to flee. Most of the pokemon had already ran away, as the blast of fire sped through the group of Clefairys+ICY-and out the other side, straight at the base of the rocket. "Run!!!!" Someone shouted, as super-hot flames burst from the bottom of the missile, sending it flying straight upwards. All the rest of the pokemon, the Clefairys, and the humans scattered and ran down the side passages. Somehow, Jack managed to stay just a little behind his friends, and follow them through the caverns. When everyone finally collapsed, gasping for breath, far away from the missile chamber, Lauren started screaming at the Growlithe. "How could you launch that flamethrower?!?!? That might have been the chamber where Jack was, and now we might never be able to find him!!!!! How could you do that?!?!" Lauren started sobbing. Jack walked over, surprising everyone. "Uh, Lauren? I told him to launch the flamethrower." Lauren looked up. "Jack?" She said tearfully, then jumped up and hugged him, not only with her arms, but with her vines too, until you couldn't see them because of all the vines wrapped around their forms. "Wow." Jack said, stunned, after the hug had ended. "That's the first time I've ever been hugged by more then two arms." David, meanwhile, went digging through Bob's pack and pulled out his clothes, then dragged them over behind a stalagmite. Slowly, muttered "Eevees" became more like English, until you could hear him cursing underneath his breath at the aches and bruises he had gotten while fighting. Meanwhile+ICY- The Clefable King, seeing all its subjects run away, jumped out of its throne and walked over to the middle of the chamber to yell at the Clefairys to come back. After ranting for a minute, the King became aware of a loud whistling sound. It looked up, and froze. The missile that had been launched moments before was now coming straight down, back to the point where it launched from. For one last time, sanity returned to the King's eyes. It had just enough time to give one last "Clefable" of despair for what it had done, and for what was about to happen, before the rocket hit. If there had been anyone watching from outside of Mount Moon, they would have seen a long, pointed shape soar up on a tail of flame, reach a point high up in the air, and then do a flip and go straight back down. A minute later, they would have heard a loud crash. Back in the caverns, everyone paused when a resounding crash echoed through the caves. The Clefairy that had guided them around the caves was startled by the noise, and jumped behind David's legs, recognizing him, even though he wasn't an Eevee anymore. David, noticing the Clefairy, bent down to comfort it. "It's ok. We got our friend back. You can go back now." the Clefairy shook it's head and hung on to David's legs. "You don't want to go? You want to come with me?" The Clefairy smiled and nodded. "Clefairy!" It said. "Ok, then" David held out a pokeball. The Clefairy tapped the button, and was zapped inside. "Yeah! I caught a Clefairy!" Unnoticed by anyone, Jack's Pidgey and David's Weedle had started glowing. This finally caught Bob's attention, and he pointed it out to David. They both watched as the pokemon evolved. "Pidgeotto!" "Kakuna!" "Wow. I guess defeating all those Clefairys gave them a ton of experience." Bob commented. David returned his pokemon, then walked over to where Jack and Lauren were still hugging and staring into each others eyes, and tapped Jack on the shoulder. Jack tore his eyes away from Lauren's. "What?" He asked irritably. "I thought you might want to return your pokemon." David said. "Or you might want to say hello to your Pidgeotto." "I'm busy." Jack started to turn back to Lauren, then did a double take. "Wait+ICY- Did you say Pideotto?" David chuckled, pointed out the pokemon to Jack, then walked back to Bob. "So, how are we getting out of Mount Moon?" David asked. "Well," Bob said, grinning, "You could always change into an Eevee, and then we could throw you against the walls until they broke and let us out+ICY-" "No! I've had enough of changing into an Eevee for today." David scowled at Bob, then pointed out a large bruise on his arm. "See this? I got it when a Clefairy body slammed me! Did I see you out there fighting? No! You were staying behind and calling out orders!" Bob looked startled by David's outburst. "Sheesh. It was just a joke." He said. "My real idea is that we go back to where the rocket was launched, and climb out of the hole it launched from. Then, if the hole is on the Pewter side of Mount Moon, we can always climb around the outside." After retracing their steps, they ended up back in the cavern. Several things had changed in the time they had been gone. There was no other living thing in the cavern, and the rocket was lying crumpled in the center. The four travelers ignored this as they stared up at the small patch of sky, far above their heads. "How are we going to get up there?" David wondered. "Well," Bob said, grinning evilly, "You could always change into an Eevee, then we tie you to this long rope that I have in my backpack, and throw you up until you catch on the hole." Bob pulled out his rope to demonstrate. "NO!!!!" David thwacked Bob on the head. Bob fell to the ground, dazed. Jack had been thinking this entire time. "Hmmm+ICY- Let me see that." He said, taking Bob's rope. He compared it to the height of the cavern, then nodded. "I'll be back in a moment" he said, taking off his shirt. "What are you doing? Where are you going? +ICY-And why are you taking off your shirt?" Lauren asked, puzzled. "I'm getting us out of here. Watch." Jack's wings, which everyone else had forgotten in the excitement, shimmered into view. He started flapping them, and flew up, clutching the rope, to the top of the cavern. Everyone waited. Several minutes passed, while the dangling rope twitched. Finally, Jack glided back down. "I tied the rope to a tree. It should be safe to climb up."