The Misdreavus Menace

Chapter Four — Clefairy Capers

Back in Pallet Town, with the onset of the evening chill, Ash and Misty decided to return to the house. As they slowly walked the pathway, they caught each other's glance and stopped to consider the mutual adoration in their respective countenances. The warmth in their hearts dispelled their concern for the cold air without while their faces drew nearer. Ash had never kissed a girl before and had sometimes wondered what the big deal was. Tonight it looked like he was going to find out.

Or so he thought. Their budding romantic moment was unexpectedly interrupted by the sound of an unusual hum. As they looked around to try and identify the source, they noticed a pink glow emanating from the other side of a low hill to their left. Curious as ever, Ash quickly climbed up the slope in order to investigate. Misty followed.

When he reached the top of the crest Ash could not believe his eyes. A large cylindrical object as big as a house was slowly approaching. It was illuminated by a series of white lights along its perimeter, while the pink glow they had noticed appeared to have its origin somewhere on its lower surface. It slowed down and began to descend just as Misty caught up.

"Ash!" was all she could say.

The two of them remained motionless as the craft finally stopped, apparently resting on the grassy plain less than a hundred metres beyond the hill where they stood. Suddenly, a hatch opened on one side of the object, and two short creatures stepped out. Ash and Misty could only see them side on, with the figures' backs illuminated by light from the object's interior.

"Quick, get down," Ash whispered, although at that distance his voice would not have been heard above the pervading noise. Misty complied, and they both fell on their stomachs, only their heads peering over the top of the crest.

After a short period of silent awe, Ash managed to say aloud, "They look kind of familiar." He frowned, trying to picture them in his mind.

Then the hum stopped suddenly, leaving them momentarily with a vacant memory of the sound.

"I wonder if..." Misty began.

"Ssh, I think I can hear them say something."

One of the two creatures indeed appeared to begin to utter some kind of sound, but from where they lay, they could not make out very clearly what it said. Soon however, the short creatures stepped forward onto a landing, turned around periodically in various directions, and the one speaking raised its voice.

"They look like...," began Misty again, but couldn't bring herself to believe what she was thinking.

When the talking creature turned to face them, they distinctly saw what it was and heard what it said:

"Clefairy! ... Clefairy, fairy!"

"...like Pokémon," Ash finished Misty's sentence. Thoughts swam through his mind. The stories he heard as a child... what Tim had heard from his friends... could it be true after all?

"It must be some kind of prank," Misty thought aloud. But their thoughts were broken as the ground before their faces ruptured and a small brown head appeared.

"Diglett!" it announced, following which several more heads appeared, and they all started to furrow their way down the hill towards the Clefairy. Soon the Diglett were joined by Rattata, Hoot-hoot, Nidoran and others, along with some of their evolved forms. Before long, the Clefairy had an audience, namely, Professor Oak's Pokémon, mostly nocturnal ones, but a few sleepy diurnal latecomers supplemented the group.

"I'm going to get Professor Oak," said Misty.

She didn't get time to move before the pair of onlookers got a shock at what they next saw. One of Professor Oak's Oddish hopped up to the Clefairy. After a brief exchange, the Oddish continued on and entered the strange craft. Then a Rattata did the same, then a Noctowl.

"They're taking Professor Oak's Pokémon!" said Misty.

"You go tell the others, I'll put a stop to this," responded Ash.

"Be careful. Don't do anything rash," she urged as she slid down the incline towards the house.

Meanwhile, Ash had other ideas. Professor Oak needed those Pokémon for his life's work. He had no idea what the Clefairy were doing or how they were getting them into that unusual floating object, but he had to put a stop to it. Being a Pokémon trainer, Ash's immediate approach to the problem was to take out a Poké ball.

"Charizard, go!" he cried as his six-foot, fire-breathing, prize fighter materialized in a flash of crimson light. "Fly over there and tackle those Clefairy," he commanded, pointing towards the ship. "Hurry!"

The fire-tailed monster grunted assent, spread out its dragon-like wings and took off. It flew high to pick up speed, then aimed at one of its targets. By the time the Clefairy noticed the red-scaled guided missile coming straight at it, it was too late. Before it could react, Charizard's speeding mass knocked it flat to the ground. It squealed as it rolled over head first, then landed, unconscious, on its back.

Charizard continued its swoop upwards, turned around, and aimed for the second Clefairy. This time, however, it was ready. As Ash watched from his vantage point, he saw the other Clefairy look up, face Charizard, open its mouth and emit an unusual sound. From that distance, he could not hear it very clearly. Nevertheless, the drowsiness he began to experience told him what the Clefairy was doing.

"Ash, what's going on," called a young voice from behind.

Ash turned and saw a puffing Tim halfway up the slope, preceded by his Persian. The others weren't far behind.

"Professor Oak's Pokémon are going into a space ship!" replied Ash. "At least that's what I think it is."

Without waiting for Tim's response, Ash anxiously turned back to see what Charizard was up to. To his dismay, he saw the giant lizard on the ground, asleep. A few more Clefairy appeared from out of the ship. Two of them picked up their fallen companion and started dragging it up a ramp towards the hatch.

"Great Gengar!" exclaimed Tim, now standing next to Ash. "So it's all true!" he managed to say between breaths.

Having rescued their fallen comrade, the Clefairy gathered around the dozing dragon. Meanwhile, with the situation under control, a few more Pokémon began approaching one of the Clefairy and then entering the craft.

"What on earth..." came a voice behind Ash and Tim. Ash turned to see Gary, his eyes open, his mouth wide enough to swallow a Caterpie. "Hey, that's grandpa's Pokémon... Huh!? I didn't know he had a Charizard?"

"Urr, that's mine," said Ash sheepishly. "The Clefairy sang it to sleep when I sent it to attack."

Before Gary could retort, Ash yelled. The Clefairy, he noticed on turning back to the scene, were trying to lug Charizard's awesome mass towards their ship.

Finally, the rest of the group arrived, all equally stunned at the veracity of Misty's report.

Professor Oak spoke. "It would be fascinating to know who those Clefairy are and what they want with my Pokémon."

"We've got to try and attack again," said Ash. "We've got to stop them."

"I'm reluctant to agree," remarked the professor. "Ordinarily I'd like to find out why this is happenning, but we don't have the time. If that's a ship, it could take off any minute."

"And it looks like they're trying to shanghai my Charizard," continue Ash.

"If we try and knock them out with a physical attack," said Gary, "we'll be too close and they'll fight back with another sing. We've got to fight from a distance."

"Maybe Pikachu can get close enough for a thundershock," suggested Misty.

"What do you think, Pikachu," asked Ash.

"Pika!" it answered affirmatively.

"Pikachu!" called out Sparkle, anxious and concerned.

"Pikachu, chuu!" replied Pikachu confindently, grinning as if there was nothing to be worried about as it proceeded to waddle its way down the incline.

Worried that it might not make it in time, it went down on all fours and started to sprint. It quickly overbalanced and rolled over headfirst like a Jigglypuff all the way to the bottom of the hill.

"Piii!!!" it cried, until its backside hit a rock, sending its body a foot into the air, and it landed flat on its stomach with the wind knocked out of it.

"Chu!" gasped Sparkle, her black beady eyes staring in dismay.

Pikachu knew it was out of shape. As it tenderly rubbed its sore bottom, it resolved to convince Sparkle to let it train and battle with Ash again.

Naturally, the Clefairy noticed the commotion by now. A few of them were busy chattering among themselves, trying to figure out what this Pikachu and the people at the top of the hill were up to, while the rest were still struggling with the unconscious Charizard.

Pikachu got back onto its feet. Embarrassed at its act of clumsiness in front of both its mate and its former trainer, it decided to show off by knocking out all the Clefairy with one awesome thunder attack. It hunched its shoulders, tensed its face, aimed very, very carefully (thunder attacks were known for their inaccuracy), and concentrated very hard to build up a good solid charge. Its cheeks sparked as the solutions in its electric sacs churned.

The Clefairy watching it sounded a hasty alert, and all of them promptly began to move back.

"Chuuu!" cried the Pikachu as a bright, thundering, yellow blast of pure electric power arced from its glowing body through the air, and landed just short of its mark, just a few feet short of its now retreating targets, right were they used to be only seconds before.

"Chaaarrr!!!" roared the winged monster, woken up with a start as if it was electrified by an alarm, shocked by a bucket of water and jolted by a thump on the head all simultaneously. Needless to say, it was furious, and it looked it.

Charizard got onto its feet, stretched and raised its wings, and looked around to identify its attacker. The flame on its tail flared fearsomely and it snarled and hissed in anger. All of Professor Oak's Pokémon that were still in the vicinity made a hasty retreat towards the nearby trees surrounding the meadow, and the Clefairy rushed to the safety of their ship.

"Pikachu!" pleaded Pikachu desperately for clemency. The ensusing melee was not a pleasant one, as fire and electricity were exchanged back and forth. The Pikachu's agility on land barely compensated for Charizard's power of flight, while the overgrown mouse's lack of fitness was barely compensated by the flying monster's elemental weakness to electricity.

Finally, Ash had enough, and ran down the hill, yelling at his closest Pokémon friends to stop their squabble. Meanwhile, Pikachu ran towards the Clefairy's ship to try and hide under the protruding landing and ramp on which the Clefairy stood earlier. Charizard swooped low and tried to head Pikachu off with an ember burst.

The Clefairy, who did not want their machine damaged by a stray blast of fire from the approaching lizard, took matters into their own hands. The two bravest among them poked their heads out of their hatch, took advantage of the squabbling Pokémon's distraction with each other, and aimed a sing attack at their respective targets.

Charizard tried to fly away, but its wings that normally bore it up began to feel like weights pulling it down. It lost what little altitude it had, slid along the grass until it ran out of momentum, then remained there, looking so peaceful that a passer-by would have wondered what all the preceding fuss was about.

Pikachu, resting metres away from the craft, was out like a light. While Ash ran towards it, so did a few of the Clefairy. As he saw them dragging its limp form up their ramp, Ash felt a surge of adrenaline, and ran like he had never run before.

Sparkle, too, helplessly worried, ran down the hill towards her companion. Misty and the others looked on in concern, unsure of what to do.

Ash heard the machine start to hum. His anxiety rose to fear, his lungs craved for more air to fuel his pounding legs, his heart started to ache as he drew closer, but not close enough.

The Clefairy had only just finished dragging the Pikachu into the hatch when the pink glow from underneath the craft burst into brilliance. Ash did not know where his strength came from as he raced up the ramp. Only the sickening feeling that he might never again see the creature that had meant more to him than anything in his life before drove him forward beyond endurance. Looking ahead he could see a little inside the ship. There was a small brightly lit hallway, perhaps a metre and a half high and equally wide. A panel near the inside of the outer doorway was lowering. It was already half closed when the outer hatch too began to close.

"Nooo!" Ash shouted as he took a dive, closing the remaining distance in a single bound. He landed at the foot of the hatch, curled himself into a ball, and rolled in under the lowering panel as it closed him off from the world behind him.

Outside, a desperate Sparkle shot out futile electric blasts at the humming machine. On the hill, Misty and Delia gasped in horror as the most important person in their lives disappeared inside the unearthly vehicle. The craft gently rose from the ground, the pink glow escaping yet strangely failing to brighten the green grass beneath. Sparkle cringed in fear at the sight, helpless and destroyed.

The ship then rose into the air, flashed an even brighter pink and disappeared as if it had never been. The sound of Misty's scream tore through the air, replacing the hum that had vanished with the craft. Delia's world went as black as the night as she dropped quietly to the ground.