Chapter 15: Hyper Beam

Every now and then, the Starmies would spray Aerodactyl with Water Gun, weakening it and causing it to fly lower. Eventually, about three miles from the Flame Force base, they brought it down.

Nick and Alex charged the Boss of the Flame Force! He summoned his other Dragonite and Onix, and recalled Aerodactyl. 

"Dragonite's mine," Alex declared.

"You can have it," Nick replied. He summoned all his Water Pokémon. Starmie lined up with them. "All right, everyone! Water Gun attack!"

Onix got blasted with Water attacks. When it charged Nick's crew, Starmie flew up and used Counter, blocking it's path. The others kept attacking with Water Pokémon and it was all over for Onix. Dragonite blasted Jynx with it's Hyper Beam attack, but it was still kicking... barely. 

Lapras roared, summoning a cloud of icy shards, which it sent straight at Dragonite! Cloyster
opened up with Aurora Beam, and Dewgong used Ice Beam. Dragonite roared. 

"Dragonite... Onix... Return..." The Boss of the Flame Force fell to his knees. "Beaten by children... I can never face my troops now..."

"You aren't going to anyway!" Alex declared. "I've had enough of you, and your Flame Force bastards! The PLM has officially kicked your ass, pal! Dewgong! Ice Beam this creep!" The Boss was frozen solid! "The Boss of the Flame Force, put on ice!" Alex announced. "There's nothing sweeter!" 

"Let's get back," Nick suggested. 

"What'll we do with him?" Alex asked. "Booster will want him." 

"I know!" Nick snapped his fingers. "There was a base not far from here. Tentacruel, come out!" The seven foot tall jellyfish appeared. "Tentacruel, there's a Pokémon Liberation Movement base about ten minutes that way." Nick pointed. "Take this frozen pop over there, okay?" Tentacruel nodded. "We're counting on you Tentacruel!" Nick and Alex recalled their Pokémon
and flew to the front lines on their Starmies.



Gyarados began lancing the Flame Force troops with Hyper Beam before they even landed. When they did, they attacked in full force!

There happened to be a great concentration of Grass Pokémon where Gyarados landed. Erin, Patrick and Booster summoned their best Pokémon and ripped into them! Geoff called Dragonair, and it bashed up and down the enemy lines, sending soldiers flying through the air. 

When Fire types threatened the Grass and Bug types, Showers launched a full scale Water assault which stopped them cold. Thunders attacked anything that fought against them with Thunder power, frying many Flame Force Pokémon. 

It wasn't long before this part of Fire Strike cleared a path to the PLM warriors. After identifying themselves as Fire Strike, they attacked anew alongside their comrades. 

A Ninetails sent Embers flying at Matt's Grass types. Vaporeon used Mist to shield the Grass types, and responded with a superstrong Water Gun. Gyarados and Dragonair made use of their long powerful bodies to Slam everything and anything in their way. 

Patrick's Venomoth, Butterfree and Beedrill combined Poison and Psychic powers to wipe out large numbers of Grass types. After, Butterfree and Venomoth flew around dumping Sleep Powder everywhere, and Beedrill just flew around stabbing things, Poisoning many of it's targets. 

Erin's Poison Pokémon evolved after they took out a squad of Tangela. Ekans evolved into Arbok, Koffing became Weezing and Grimer turned into Muk. The Nidorans weren't set to evolve yet, but it didn't matter- they still fought valiantly alongside their evolved companions. 

Flames lanced the fighters from all directions. Showers used Vaporeon to blast many of the sources, but she needed help.

"Miss us?" Nick asked as they landed with Fire Strike.

"How'd it go?" Booster asked.

"Iced him!" Alex shouted. "You hear that, Flame Force? *I* iced your Boss!" 

"With my help, of course," Nick added. "My Tentacruel is bringing the chilled leader to one of the PLM bases set up outside."

"Great!" Booster declared. 

"Less gab, more fight!" Thunders shouted at them. "Jolteon, Pin Missile attack!" 

Alex and Nick redeployed their Water types and they joined the assault. 



Meanwhile, it wasn't going well against Sunder at the top of the Flame Force fortress.

Kadabra's fatal flaw had been uncovered- it was very slow. It was defeated by Sunder's Pincir, who Vicegripped it from behind and refused to let go no matter how much Kadabra blasted it with Psychic. His Electabuzz had also taken down Kabutops and Wartortle, and his Gyarados defeated Sandslash. 

"Raichu, go!" Uiru shouted. Raichu appeared, and with a single mighty Thunderbolt sent Gyarados to dreamland.

"Ivysaur, go!" Sunder called his Grass Pokémon, Ivysaur, to battle Raichu. Raichu shocked it but got tangled up in Vine Whip. It got slammed against the wall. Uiru recalled it.

"Marowak, attack!" Marowak flung a Bonemerang at Ivysaur! Just to be a pain, Ivysaur used it's Vine Whips to knock the Poké Ball out of Jessica's hand! Then it got nailed by the Bonemerang. It used Mega Drain on Marowak, weakening it considerably, but was struck by the Bone's return and fainted.

"Arcanine, attack!" Sunder shouted. 

"Marowak, can you still fight?" Jessica asked. It nodded. "All right, Marowak! Bone Club!"

Jessica knew that Arcanine would charge immediately- and Bonemerang wouldn't work properly if the target was too close. So, she had Marowak clobber Arcanine from close range. Marowak expertly hit it between the eyes with Bone Club, then bounced away and attacked with Bonemerang. Arcanine blew fire at Marowak, but it didn't hurt it that much, and Marowak beat it into a coma with Bone Club. "Damn! Return! Rhydon, attack!"

"It's a Rock type, so Bonemerang's effective on this one too!" Matt shouted. 

"You heard him!" Jessica shouted. "Bonemerang!"

Rhydon actually caught the bone! Jessica gasped. "How did it do that?" she asked.

Throwing it aside, it attacked with Skull Bash! Marowak flew across the room, landing at Jessica's feet.

Sunder laughed. "Rhydon! Horn Drill attack!"

From across the room, Rhydon prepared it's devistating attack. 

"Horn Drill will kill Marowak!" Matt shouted. "Call it back, quick!"

"I dropped the Poké Ball!" Jessica replied. 

"It's over here!" Allison shouted. "I'll get it!"

"Now, Rhydon!" Sunder bellowed. "Destroy that puny Pokémon!" Rhydon lowered it's head, and the large sharp spike on it's head shone. It charged!

Allison was too far away. Rhydon was coming in fast. Jessica jumped in front of Marowak! "No way!" she shouted. "You've done enough to Marowak!"

"Get out of the way you damn fool!" Allison screamed. 

Jessica was violently shoved to the side! 

There was a sound of something cracking, and a loud cry of pain. Jessica looked up...

...and saw Rhydon's horn running through Uiru's lower torso.



Rhydon knew what had just happened. It flung it's head up, sending Uiru flying through the air like a rag doll. He crashed to the floor.

"Uiru!" Jessica screamed. She and Allison scrambled over to him.

Matt's hands were on his Poké Balls in an instant. Summoning all six of his Pokémon, he gave them a simple order: "KILL THAT SON OF A BITCH!!!" Rhydon was taken down almost instantly, and Sunder was beaten and sliced up seconds later.

"Wait!" Matt shouted. He grabbed Sunder by the collar. "You're gonna die slowly, you bastard!"

"Uiru!" Allison shouted. "Uiru! Come on dammit, answer me!"

"Unn... Jessica..." Uiru asked.

"What'd you do that for? You didn't have to protect me..."

"Yes... I did..."

Jessica turned to Allison. "Go out and tell Arctic Point what happened. See if those Chanseys are here yet." Allison nodded and took off. "Oh, Uiru... Don't you dare die on me, do you hear me?"

With a huge kick to the chest, Sunder was sent through the window and, well, it was a long way to the ground. Luckily for him, Booster couldn't tell if it was Uiru or Matt, so he sent Gyarados up to catch him. When he reached the ground, though, he was promptly arrested.

Matt ran to Uiru. "Damn, man," was all he could say. 

"Uiru... Please don't die..." A sob shot through her. 

"Hey... Don't cry..." Uiru asked. 

"Shh... Save your strength!" 

Allison came into the room, four Chanseys following her. "How can these Chanseys help Uiru?" she asked.

Matt snapped his fingers. "I know!" He pulled out a bunch of blue pellets. "Come here Chanseys, you're about to learn Softboiled!"

"But that's a Pokémon cure! Will it even work on Uiru?" Allison asked.

"It's worth a try!" Matt declared. Matt used the blue stones on the Chanseys. They surrounded Uiru and began passing their energy into him!

After a moment, they began to get results. "Look!" Matt pointed. "The wound is closing!"

A helicopter suddenly hovered into view outside the window. "Where's Uiru?" Booster shouted. 

"Over here!" Allison shouted.

"The Chanseys helped him a bit, but he still needs a doctor." Thunders and Showers put Uiru on a stretcher and brought him to the helicopter. Jessica, Matt and Allison jumped in after them. The Chanseys waved. 

"How'd you know?" Matt asked Booster. 

"Sunder told me Uiru was dead," Booster replied. "Apparently, he was wrong, thank God." 

"Damn," Thunders said, pointing at the partially closed wound. "What happened?"

"Sunder's Rhydon was gonna use Horn Drill on Marowak," Matt began. "Jessica had dropped Marowak's Poké Ball earlier, so she couldn't recall it." 

"She jumped in front of Marowak, protecting it," Allison continued. "But Uiru pushed her out of the way."

Showers gasped. "Uiru got hit by a Rhydon's Horn Drill?" she asked. 

"If the wound was any higher, I'd say he'd be gone by now," Booster said. "We're on our way to the PLM hospital. They'll be able to fix Uiru up and get him back to Sapphire- it's closer." 

"Oh, in case you're wondering, we won," Thunders told the others. "The PLM is defeating the last of the Flame Force. We've defrosted and arrested the Leader, thanks to Nick and Alex." 

"Great," Matt said. 



Over the next few days, hundreds of Pokémon were released and told to go as far away as they could go. The Flame Force was destroyed, and most of their members were in jail. The last time anyone had seen the two Dragonites and Aerodactyl that the Boss had owned, they were flying over the ocean to uncharterd territory.

At the Sapphire City hospital, the procedure had gone well. Uiru would be fine in a couple of days. When Fire Strike finally got in to see him, he was just waking up.

"Hey..." he greeted quietly. "How'd we do after?"

"We creamed them," Booster replied. "How are you feeling, Uiru?"

"Slightly better," he answered. "My shoulder kinda hurts. I think I hit the floor at the wrong angle."

The trainers couldn't help but grin. Even in his current beat-up state, Uiru still made liberal use of understatement and sarcasm. 

"That was really brave," Allison spoke up. "I don't know if I could face a Rhydon like that."

"Well, there's a fine line between courage and stupidity," Uiru answered. "But Jessica's fine and I'll eventually be better. So it wasn't that dumb."

"Your Pokémon are worried about you," Matt told him. They had been removed before Uiru had been admitted into the hospital. Matt was holding on to them. "But I think they know you'll be fine soon."

"They flipped out when we told them what happened," Geoff added. "If Matt hadn't practically destroyed Rhydon already, I'm pretty sure they would have."

"That was a pretty good kick you gave Sunder," Allison said to Matt. 

"Yeah. Why'd you go and save him?" Matt asked Booster. "He's been nothing but trouble."

"I couldn't tell if it was one of you guys," Booster admitted. "If I did, though, I probably would have caught him anyway. He's not happy where he is now, believe me."

Erin went over to Jessica. "Don't you have anything to say to Uiru?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah..." she answered. "Just... give me a minute."

Erin nodded. She then whispered to Booster, "I think we should leave them alone for a while."

Booster nodded. In a few seconds, he had silently emptied the room. Jessica only noticed the room was empty when the door clicked shut. "Oh..."

"Hey," Uiru said when she turned to him. "Marowak's fine, isn't it?"

"Yeah," she replied. "Uiru..."

"Yes...?"

"I just wanted- I just wanted to say... thank you," she quietly told him. "And, I'm sorry I caused you to be in the hospital."

"That's all right," Uiru replied. "You love your Pokémon so you wanted to protect it, right?" She nodded. "And... I wanted to protect you. Because..."

He didn't have to finish. Mindful of his wounded side, she leaned over and hugged him. "Uiru... You are the most hopeless romantic I've ever met," she grinned. 

Uiru felt a warm wetness on his face. "Hey... I thought I asked you not to cry."

"Sorry... I'm just happy you're going to be all right."

She looked at Uiru for a moment, then closed her eyes and kissed him.