Disclaimer: I don't own pokemon. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- It was already approaching midnight by the time that Officer Jenny dropped them off at the pokemon centre. Joy opened up especially for them. Brock just gazed at Joy as she opened the door. "..." he said, before looking back at Jenny. "...". "Watch out for him, he's a bit...weird" Jenny warned Joy, and then walked out, saying, "Goodbye!" "Bye, and thanks Officer Jenny!"called out Ash "Yeah, thanks!" added Misty "..." Brock managed to say. "Can we get..."Ash paused, calculating how many rooms they would need."Two rooms?" He turned to Gary "If you don't mind sharing with me and Brock" "I think I could survive one night in a room with you Ketchum." said Gary, scowling. Despite having made up with Ash recently, he still liked to act superior and mock his one time rival. Joy went behind the counter, and got out two room keys, "224 and 225; both are three bed en suites" "Nurse Joy!" cried Brock finally finding his voice. "I'm so in love-aaah, ow, not the ear!" Misty dragged him away, flashing Joy an apologetic look. * * * * Ash still couldn't sleep. He glanced at the clock. 01:00. Not much moonlight to wake him; it was a dark night. 'Why can't I sleep?' he thought to himself. 'I'm so tired...' "Keep it down, Ketchum!" hissed Gary, through Brock's snores. "You're awake too, huh?" "Give the man a prize! Of course I'm awake, you loser! Not much chance of sleep with this moron snoring like an earthquake...no wonder ground type pokemon love him!" "Oh...Joy, what a wonderful thing to say...I love you!" mumbled Brock. "At least he's happy!" said Ash, grinning. He looked out of the window. What's that huge building over there, by the beach?" he asked. "You don't know? Jeez, you must be some kind of retard! You come to Dewford Island, and you don't even know about the Dewford Research Centre? After Gramps' Lab, that place is the best known research facility in the world. And just between you and me, its more up to date, and makes more discoveries too! There's talk of an amazing ancient artefact that they've dicovered!" "Wow, quite a place, huh?" "Yeah, I was planning on visiting it tomorrow, after we go our seperate paths. I want to see if this artefact is just a rumour." "You're leaving?" Somehow, Ash wasn't surprised by the news. What did surprise him was that he felt...sad. 'Oh well', he thought, 'That's Gary's decision' "Aren't you going to get the badge on this Island?" Ash asked. "No, I'll let you have the honours here! I only managed to get 6 badges on the way here with Red, and I need 4 more! This will be your tenth, right?" "Yeah, but..but" stammered Ash, shocked. 6 Badges! In less than a week! "How'd you get the badges so quick?" "Trade secret Ketchum, trade secret" Gary grinned that annoying grin, which was all Ash could see in the darkness. 'Maybe it's not so bad that he's going...' thought Ash. Brock finally stopped snoring, and rolled over into a new position. "I'm gonna catch come sleep, Ketchum, see ya in the morning!" * * * * That morning, at breakfast in the centre's cafe, Gary told the others his decision to leave. Misty didn't feel too sad, and neither did Brock. They still remembered the many times that Gary had taunted them, even though now he was their newest ally. After Gary had said his goodbyes, including a promise to meet Ash in the Advanced League, and walked out, the group settled down to finish breakfast. Ash grinned happily; soon another badge would be his! * * * * Ash faced off Jo, the Gym leader. The gym had been empty, and so they had been able to secure the first battle of the day with the leader. It was to be a three on three battle to the finish "Okay, lets go!" called out Jo. He was a tall man, clean shaven, with light brown hair. He wore all red, and apparently loved fire types. 'Well, bring it on!' thought Ash Jo's first pokemon was a Magby, an unevolved magmar. "Go, Totodile!" Yelled Ash. The small crocodile-like pokemon appeared opposite the magby. "Magby, use an ember attack!" "Hah! Is that all!? Totodile, we don't even need to dodge this one!" The ember attack hit Totodile, and was immediately put out, in a great cloud of steam. Totodile seemed quite bored. "Ok, lets finish this with a water gun!" Jo grinned, even as Magby fell to the floor, soaked by the watery attack. He returned Magby to its pokeball. "Go! Typhlosion!" The huge fire beast appeared, and reared up onto its hind legs, emitting a fearsome roar, and a huge flamethrower attack. Totodile was now quaking in fear. Ash was shocked. "Call Totodile back now! Its just going to get hurt!" called out Brock, "There's no way it can take on that thing!" Stubborn as ever, Ash refused to back down. "We can take him down, right Totodile?" "Toto!" Totodile shook its head in fear, and began dodging the fearsome flamethrower attacks of its huge adversary. Jo grinned again. "Typhlosion! Fire blast!" A huge star shaped fire ball raced towards the hapless totodile, who was knocked flying into the arena wall. Totodile fell to the floor, totally unconsious. "Totodile!" cried Ash. "Haven't we seent this before?" said Brock to May. "Same old Ash. He hasn't changed much" said Misty. "OK! Go Squirtle!" The tiny turtle pokemon appeared in front of the gigantic typhlosion, which laughed with its trainer. "Squirtle, water gun that thing!" Squirtle, cool and confident, let loose with a powerful watergun. The beam of water flew at typhlosion, but was countered by a powerful jet of flame. The steam hissed from where the tow attacks met. Slowly, but surely, Squirtle's water gun was forcing back the flamethrower. "Come on Squirtle, you can do it!" Ash called out encouragement. "Typhlosion, use a fire blast!" The immense power of the attack was too much for squirtle's water gun, which was overpowered. Ash panicked, barely remembering to call out, "Squirtle, withdraw!" Squirtle withdrew into it's shell, as the most powerful fire blast Ash had ever seen slammed it into the arena wall, next to the cracks left by Totodile when it had met a similar fate. Squirtle appeared from within it's charred shell, badly burnt, and dazed, but still up! "Sqiurtle, hold on buddy!" Ash tried to call him back, but squirtle refused. "HA HA hA! You can't even control that puny little thing!" Jo was splitting his sides with laughter. "You want to keep on fighting? For me!?" Ash's eyes brimmed with tears. "Thank you!" he whispered. "OK Squirtle, I have faith in you, you can do it!" Squirtle whipped out his shades, and looked up at the giant facing him. "Squirtle, show him your hydro pump!" This time it was Jo's turn to look amazed, as the grin left his face. The awesome attack from the tiny pokemon crashed into Typhlosion. smashing the pokemon to the ground. Typhlosion was down and out! Meanwhile, squirtle was writhing around, as if in agony. But no, he was evolving! Ash watched, amazed as a large wartortle stood where squirtle had been but moments ago. This wartortle looked powerful! Jo growled angrily at Ash's celebration. This isn't over yet, kid! Go, Charizard!" "Wartortle! Rainy Day!" Clouds appeared inside the arena, and a heavy rain began. While Jo's Charizard howled in misery, Wartortle felt charged up. "Hydro pump!" yelled Ash. This time the attack was even more impressive, smashing into charizard, and lifting it into the air, only to bring it crashing back down to earth with a huge explosion of dust, earth and water. There was a large crater where Charizard had been. "Are you OK!?" yelled out Jo, concerned for his pokemon. His Charizard feebly stood up, before collapsing again. "You win, young man!" said Jo, recalling his charizard. I give you this badge-" He was cut off by a huge explosion. They all ran outside, and looked at the neighbouring research centre. Someone had blasted a hole into the nearest wall! Through the smoking, rubble filled hole came chargin out all the employees and scientists. Ash managed to hear someone yelling, "Team Rocket!" Without giving it any further thought, he ran through the hole in the wall, followed closely by Misty, Brock and May. Pikachu was perched on his shoulder, but jumped off now, in anticipation of... "Prepare for-" "Oh no!" wailed Ash, "Not you three! Look, can we just skip straight to the bit where you blast off?" Jesse, James and Meowth looked at eachother. "Well, we're not exactly pleased to see you either" said James, "But you keep on appearing wherever we go!" "Dats cos we're followin' him, you idiot!" yelled Meowth. "Oh...right...good point." "Lets just send them blasting off again, shall we Pikachu?" "Pika!" "Not so fast! Arbok! Go! Poison sting that twerp's rat!" Pikachu sent out a thunderbolt, which sent Arbok flying back at Jesse. James was about to release one of his pokemon, when suddenly: "DROP YOUR POKEBALLS!"They heard Officer Jenny's Voice over a megaphone. "WE HAVE THE BUILDING SURROUNDED! COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!" Team Rocket shrugged at eachother in submission. "Wont be the first time we've ended up in jail" said James. They went out, hands on their heads. Ash walked out with them. "That's right Officer, you tell-" "PUT YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEADS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM! RETURN THAT PIKACHU TO ITS POKEBALL NOW!" "What!" cried Ash, looking at a squadron of police cars which had pulled up outside the building. Several police officers had their guns trained on them instead of team rocket! "But we're th-" "THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING! I DON'T WANT ANYONE TO GET HURT, BUT I WILL USE FORCE IF NECESSARY!" The growlithe next to her barked angrily, as if to affirm her words. Ash looked at his friends, who shrugged in defeat. * * * * "For the last time, we did NOT take any 'Artefact' from the research centre! We just went in to try and stop Team Rocket!" Ash was seething with indignation. He gripped the bars of his cell, which he shared with his companions. They had been in the cell for nearly 2 hours now, having supposedly aided in the theft of a rare artefact, which they had absolutely no idea about. Team Rocket didn't have the artefact either; Ash wondered why they had broken in, if not for such a valuable prize, and who had actually. From the neighbouring cell, which contained Team Rocket, James called out to Ash, "It's no use yelling; the police can be like that" He smirked, enjoying Ash's clear discomfort at being in jail. Pikachu was in the jail with them; it took some time, but they had finally convinced Officer Jenny to let pikachu stay out of a pokeball, since it hated them. Brock was standing up, silent either with rage, of the fact that Officer Jenny had just walked past. Misty was sitting down despondently with May; they had long since given up trying to reason with the police. Just then, an officer walked in, carrying keys. He opened the cell containing Team Rocket. "You've been bailed out! Get outta here!" he growled. They turned, stuck their tongues out at Ash, and then ran off down the corridor, followed by the grumpy jailer. "This sucks! How come they get let out, when they're the guilty ones!" "Cos you're a loser, Ketchum!" Ash looked up sharply to see Gary walk in with the jailer, grinning. "You've got a visitor" he practically spat out the words. "Could I have a private word with these guys?" asked Gary. "Not a chance!" said the Jailer, going over to his seat. He sat down heavily, and glared at Gary. "10 minutes" "What are you doing here? I thought you'd left!" Ash said. "I was about to get a boat off the island, when I heard the explosion. I arrived in time to see you getting taken to prison" "But why are you here now?" "Why do you think I'm here, you moron! To get you outta here!" Misty looked up, still uncomfortable about the fact that she had been arrested. "But how? You can't afford to bail us out. The only way we can get out is if you prove that Team Rocket are guilty, but who knows where they've gone!" Gary's response was to take out a pokeball. "Go, Hypno!" "Hey!" yelled out the Jailer, getting up so fast that his chair flew back. "You can't-" "-Hypnosis!" "-do...tha..." The Jailer keeled over, fast asleep. Misty and May were too stunned for words. "Gary! What are you doing!" Yelled Ash "What have you done!" cried out Brock, shocked by Gary's actions. "I'm breaking you guys out of this jail right now! Trust me, we can't wait around for you to be proven innocent. There's no time; that artefact isn't just any old relic! Those three were just a distraction; Giovanni has the artefact. I overheard him talking to those three goons, he said something about some old ruin in the jungle on the southern side of the Island. We need to get there, and fast!" ----------------------------------------------------------------------- There ya go! something is happening. I know it's confusing, but it's meant to be! Find out what happens next in chapter 4; reviews to timthesuprememaster@hotmail.com, please, so i know how to improve!