Chapter 9: Burn Away this World

The rain stopped. Somewhat abruptly, but it stopped. Mewtwo, looked at the 
downed figure of Growlithe and lowered its head. 'Pathetic', it thought 
somewhat solemly. 'Simply pathetic. To think I lost my self over this...'

Giovanni strode over to look at the girl and then over to look down at the 
boy. He jumped over a puddle (Mewtwo looked a little amused by this, Giovanni 
jumping a pudle) and kicked Chris right in the face.

"He's still conscious..." drawled Giovanni looking down at him. Chris groaned 
and Giovanni kicked him again. Harder.

<><><><><>

Chris coughed. Someone slapped him. "Wake up."

He opened his eyes and he was in darkness. Sorrounded in darkness. A voice 
drifting from his left, "Wake up!"

Chris was wrong. Someone hadn't slapped him. Someone had kicked him. Right in 
the face.

Karma's face loomed out of the darkness and she was above him like some 
ghostly figure. A purple ghost.

Chris nearly screamed.

"Shut up! The guards only just left!" Karma hissed. Chris got up, or at least 
as up as he could get. More like a sitting position. His hands were tied 
behind his back tightly with a rope, but his legs were free. He tried to look 
around but the room was too dark to see much.

"What's going on?" Chris said woozily. A numb feeling on his lips and nose. 
"Where are we?"

"Celadon," said Karma. "The guards were having a nice long conversation and 
they mentioned going to the Game Corner after their shift. Celadon's the only 
city with one...in Kanto anyways."

"Celadon? But how did we..." Chris suddenly recalled the events that had 
brought them to their current situation and he sprung to his feet. He had 
been sitting and jumping up from the position tangled up his legs and he fell 
face down hard. A simple moan escaped his lips. He felt wobly.

"Don't get up too fast...we've been drugged," said Karma as she slowly got 
up.

"Drugged?" asked Chris as he got back into his sitting position. His face 
felt warm. He recalled having been recently kicked alot.

"Yeah, injected in our legs. Don't tell me you didn't notice? They're 
numb..."

Come to think of it, she was right. Chris' legs did feel numb. Actually. It 
felt like he had no legs at all, but they seemed to move easily enough. 
"Where's Growlithe?"

"Obviously locked up somewhere," she answered.

Karma jumped into the air. In one swift motion, she crouched her body and the 
swung her arms under her legs. When she landed, her arms were now tied in 
front of her body. Chris could only watch mouth agape at her action. He 
certainly couldn't do anything like that.

In her new position, she nelt down on one leg and examined the rope that 
binded her arms together. Chris was about to ask what she was looking at 
exactly when she sighed. "Really, this is too crude. Even for Team Rocket..."

Suddenly, with a slight snap. She pushed her arms apart and the rope ripped 
off. The skin where the rope had tied was slightly red. "Hurry up and get 
your's off."

Chris looked at her with an open mouth. She gave him a can't-you-do-anything 
look, and turned his around. Chris had about a second to enjoy the sensation 
of her hands holding his before he felt a burning in his wrists. With a sharp 
snap, the rope came off. The red of his skin a testament to how hard she had 
pulled which whipped away any thoughts he may have had earlier.

The cell they were in was dark, with no lights inside. The only source of 
illumination was the room on the other side of the door. The door had small 
bars in it which the Grunts used to look into the cell. This small hole only 
lit up the center of the cell and left the corners and walls pitch dark.

Chris got up carefully while rubbing his wrists and approached the door. 
Since the Grunts just used rope to tie them up, he was hoping the doors would 
also have a simple lock. Unfortunatley, this was not the case. It looked like 
Team Rocket used key cards as security, there was no number pad to guess or 
key to steal. Well actually, Chris supposed, a card key was only as useful as 
a key.

Suddenly the door to the bright cell room opened and a Grunt appeared 
mumbling something about golf. Karma appeared suddenly at his side and shoved 
him against the wall directly to his right. With his numb legs, he easily 
slipped and slammed into the darkness of the corner. When he looked up, he 
saw that Karma had hidden herself on the left corner of the wall, right 
opposite to him. She raised a finger to her mouth. A simple sign that meant, 
'shut the hell up.'

The Guard's face appeared in the bars of the cell and his eyes quickly 
scanned the dark cell. For a moment, Chris thought his small beady eyes had 
stopped and rested on Chris but obviously he did not, as he moved on.

The guard cursed loudly. "Where da' hell those brats go?!"

Chris suddenly understood. Karma was banking that upon seeing that Karma and 
him were bothing missing, he would open the door to check inside. Chris was 
sure the Grunt would simply turn on the lights. Or call for back-up. There 
was no way he would just open the cell door, no one was that stup-

Chris spoke to soon. With an electronic click, the door opened and the Grunt 
stepped into the room hurriedly. He spun around and in an instant Karma 
struck. In what seemed like a speed up of a martial arts film. She leaped out 
of her shadowed corner, and round kicked the Grunt in the face. A purple 
kick, mused Chris.

The Grunt toppled over. His key card sliding smoothly out of his hand and 
landing on the floor. Karma scooped up the key card and inspected it. Chris 
tried again to get to his feet. By the time he was up, Karma had turned to 
him.

"We have a key card now. Shouldn't that make getting around alot easier?" 
asked Chris.

"I doubt it," said Karma with disgust.

Chris was lost. "But we have a key card! If all the doors require key cards, 
doesn't that mean we have complete access?"

Karma looked at him with an eyebrow raised and held the key card up to his 
eyes. "Clearance D-Grunt?"

"Yup. This place may hire idiots, but I doubt they entrust complete security 
to such fools," This will get us throught some rooms, but if this place is as 
big as I suspect, we won't get anywhere near where Growlithe should be..."

Chris could see Karma had a point.

She truned and walked right out of the cell and entered the bright room 
beyond. Chris followed. "It doesn't matter anyways. Even with the proper 
clearance cards. Some kids without the proper uniform wont go far without 
getting noticed and recaptured..."

"So how are we going to get around?" asked Chris.

Karma pointed up, Chris looked and saw a ventalation shaft opening. "Were 
going to scale the shafts."

"You think that will get us far?" asked Chris.

Karma began to pull a desk from the corner of the room directly underneath 
the shaft. "Of course, even the bosses need air."

<><><><><>

The scientist looked down at the readings and his mouth hung agape. No way!

He typed a few more figures into the computer and more figures sprung up. 
Each more impressive than the last. This was the type of thing that cemented 
your legacy and reputation at a place like Team Rocket. This kind of 
discovery...as long the scientist could give the boss the impression that he 
knew exacty how to extract the energy...give the impression that he had 
ideas. Cement the idea of the mutt and his name together. Make himself 
indispensible to the project...

The scientist looked up and through the glass, right at the specimen. A small 
puppy tied up as blue energy was sent through its body in long bolts. It was 
staggering to know such a small frame contained such amazing propects...

With shaking fingers, the scientist picked up the phone.

<><><><><>

The alarm finally sounded. About damn time, thought Chris. They had been 
wandering around the shafts for about an hour and 40 minutes. Getting a feel 
for the locations and rooms around the base. They had found the kitched, 
lounges, and even bathrooms. They were looking for Growlithe, but they also 
realized that they needed back their pokemon if they stood half a chance of 
making any sort of escape.

An explosion rocked the base around them. The duo frooze wondering what that 
was about. Some sort of alarm? When nothing else happened they continued.

Karma was leading Chris. The vents themselves were actually pretty dirty.

Below them in the hallway a group of grunts marched off. Karma stopped in 
front of Chris. The shafts were small and they were on all fours. Chris 
looked up, directly at Karma's butt and looked down quickly. His face felt 
surprisingly warm.

"Hey...let's try this room," said Karma. She stopped crawling and turned 
left, heading along another shaft. Chris followed. They entered a dark room. 
It looked sort of like a janiter's closet. Karma banged on the shaft opening 
and it popped open. She jumped down and landed gracefully. Chris tried to get 
into a position to jump down but when he did, all he managed to do was land 
on his back.

Karma searched across the dark wall with her hands when she came across the 
light switch. She flicked them on, and they found themselves in what actually 
did amount to the Janiter'r closet. A desk, several cleaning instruments, and 
a drawer.

Karma opened each desk cabinet, while Chris looked into the drawer. "This 
could be useful." He said opening the drawer for her to see. Several Team 
Rocket uniforms were stored inside in their standard black. Karma looked up 
and studied them.

With a nod she acknowledged them. "That could help us look aound, we haven't 
had much luck so far in the vents." Karma pulled something into view. A key 
card. "Clearance S-Services. It wouldn't surprise me if Janiter's got more 
access than the average Grunt."

"Let's change into Rocket gear and look for a map." said Chris.

Karma looked blankly at him, she pointed to directly behind him. A large map 
was tacked onto the door of the room. Something which looked like a map of 
the base.

Chris gaped. 17 different floors?!

The map depicted what amounted to 17 basement levels. According to the map, 
they were actually underground. Under the Game Corner in Celadon to be 
precise. It seemed as if the bosses quarters were on B17. Also, the map 
depicted that they were on B6. By quickly scanning the map, Chris found that 
the basement floors, as they descended, got smaller in terms of rooms.

"There," said Karma, as she pointed to a single room in B12. "'Confiscation 
Room', I'd bet that's where Team Rocket keeps everythng they steal."

As Chris studied the map, Karma turned to the drawer and removed a Rocket 
uniform. "Turn around," she said simply.

"Huh...riiight," Chris said with a smile.

"Turn around unless you want to be blind," she said, without the hint of a 
joke.

Chris complied. Unsure wether she was kidding or not and not willing to take 
the risk.

They got to the 'Confiscation Room'. It had been pretty simple. Dressed in 
Rocket garb, no one had even given them a second look. They had found that 
the 'Clearance S card did indeed give them access to more than a great deal 
of rooms, but a few they could not open. Key Card locks marked A seemed 
closed, even to janiters. Yet that had not made a great difference. The base 
really was designed like a maze. Even if one way was blocked off, it simply 
required the use of detours to get back on the right track. This bothered 
Chris as it really only meant many of the passages were only for convenience.

It bothered Karma more, because it bacame even more obvious that in Team 
Rocket, a promotion to a Grunt would grant them nothing more than just that: 
convenience. That and a small pay raise and more hours probably.

Another smaller explosion rocked the building clearing their minds of their 
thoughts. What was up with those explosions?, wondered several moments after, 
a small earthquake seemed to shake the base.

Karma slipped the 'Clearance S' card into the 'Confiscation Room' card slot 
and it beeped. The door opened and Karma swung it wide. Not for the first 
time that day, and not for the last, Chris gaped. The room was piled with 
shelves of pokeballs. Boxes of backpacks and purses. Stacks of papers and 
documents. On a table directly across the room, lay Chris' and Karma's 
backpacks. Accompanying them were their pokeballs.

Chris slung his backpack onto his back and grabbed his two pokeballs. He was 
about to release his pokemon when Karma smacked him. "Don't make a 
commotion!" she hissed. She pointed and he saw a camera above their heads. 
"They're looking for us! They know we escaped! Don't you think they know we'd 
come here looking for our pokemon?!"

"But..." stammered Chris.

"Yeah! They probably already know we're here. So go! Grunts are probably 
converging here now!" Karma slipped on her pack, grabbed her pokeballs and 
strode to the door.

"Hey! But what about these pokeballs?" asked Chris motioning to the spheres 
around the room. Hundreds of probably stolen pokemon, offered as prizes above 
at the Game Corner. It sickened Chris.

Karma didn't turn around. "There's nothing we can do about that. Let's go." 
She strode out of the room. Chris hesitated and followed her.

Chris and Karma jogged down the corridor, intending to get to the elivator 
when they were simply over run.

Doors to their left and right suddenly opened and Grunts literally flooded 
the passage. An explosion seemed to rock the base. Chris and Karma frooze. 
They thought they had been captured, they reached for their pokemon but 
before they could summon anything the Grunts had passed them.

Chris and Karma looked surprise. Giving each other mistifying looks they 
followed the stampede of Grunts. The Grunts led them to the elevators where 
they were slamming into available shafts by the tens. Another explosion 
rocked the base.

Eventually only Chris, Karma, and an elderly Grunt were left. The Grunt 
looked like he was half sick and half terrified. Chris took the chance and 
asked the Grunt. "What's going on?"

The Grunt truned around and stared at Chris in amazement. "Are ya mad?! Don't 
you feel those explosion?! It's a breech! The Red-4 alarm is sounding!"

An elevator finally opened up behind them and the Grunt practically flew into 
it.

Chris rushed to ask him, "Breech? I thought the alarm was sounding because of 
a prisonner escape?"

As the elevator doors closed the Grunt looked at him strangely. "A prisonner 
escape? Yeah! Something escaped out of quarantine! An experimental pokemon! 
This is RED-4! This is practically war! The boss has sent out Mewt-," the 
doors closed before the Grunt could finish his sentence.

Chris and Karma looked at each other in surprise. "What could have happened?" 
asked Chris.

Karma looked just as lost as him.