Ghastly Adventures: Cascade 2.7 (ch. 12) (Patreon)

I felt calm as we descended into the belly of the beast. There was fear there, pooling in my gut, but it was firmly in check. I controlled it rather than the fear controlling me. If I had to describe what I felt in a single word, then the word righteous came to mind. And if I was being honest, I don't think it was a natural feeling.

Karen had alluded to it, but people didn't come back like I did. Even ghost trainers. I had suspected as much for some time now, but the body was influencing the spirit. I don't know if it's a residual left over from the original Blair, but I could feel the lingering feelings guiding my hand more than I wanted to admit. I was attacking a Team Rocket base, none of my pokemon had seen their first evolution, I trained some of them for less than a week…

Depending on the timeline, Giovanni had Mewtwo under his thumb. This was an organization that stole rare and powerful pokemon. I was punching way out of my weight class here and I knew that.

It just wasn't stopping me.

The elevator doors opened to a long hallway -- metal floor and walls, everything a whitish gray. The hallway led to a fork in the road, one hallway going left and the other went right from the looks of things. I stepped forward, placing a reassuring hand on Mankey's pokeball because I could feel his agitation coming from it.

“There is an entire compound down here,” Brawly breathed, following me a half step behind. “How far down are we?”

“It has to be half a mile, at least,” Marnie muttered and I could feel her gaze on my back. “Even if it's not Team Rocket… there's no way that this is legal.”

“It's Team Rocket,” I stated, marching forward to the fork in the road. And, almost as if to agree with me, as we reached where the hallways split, I saw someone stepping out of one of the rooms. A guy, tall, and wearing a black jumpsuit with a R on it. I felt anger flow through my veins like fire as his eyes widened, a hand going to his belt in a scramble for a pokeball.

“Mimikyu, Shadow Ball,” I snarled in his direction, and Mimikyu leapt forward, his shadow condensing into a ball before him. He was angry. The same kind of angry that he was when he manhandled onix. Utterly enraged simply because he knew I was angry.

“A-arbok-” the Grunt began, summoning an arbok that appeared in a flash of red light, only to be struck by the shadow ball. The cobra like pokemon slammed into the wall, hurt, but still standing. At least until Mimikyu Focus Palm'd him into the wall with enough force to form a crater. The Grunt’s eyes widened, more so when I sprinted forward, a hand dipping into my backpack to pull out a baseball bat. His hands went to his belt for another pokemon, leaving him wide open.

If he was a human of my earth, a baseball bat to the temple probably would have killed him. He still went down, his bell being rung, and I raised a foot to kick him in the face while he was down. Only for one of his pokemon to erupt from a pokeball at his waist -- a cloyster. In response, Mankey jumped out of his pokeball, howling in rage.

The two pokemon clashed, cloyster going for me while Mankey went for cloyster. I grit my teeth, “We have to find the command center! Before they delete whatever info they have!” I called out to the others as Mimikyu KO’d the arbok.

Brawly and Marnie were hesitating. It was normal. Completely understandable. I very much understood that I was the abnormal one here. It wasn't normal to throw yourself at Team Rocket, jumping into a life and death struggle. Their hesitation was what I should be doing. I wasn't an action hero from a movie. I was just some guy at the end of the day.

It was just all those parts of my brain that were meant to be screaming caution or hesitation were instead screaming for action. Payback. Vengeance. I wasn't hesitating because I was the type to take action. I wasn't hesitating because I was physically incapable of it.

“Shadow Sneak, Wood Hammer,” I ordered Mimikyu as Mimikyu appeared behind the cloyster, hammering it while Mankey howled in fury. He had been making great strides in controlling his anger, but I couldn't judge him for losing it here. Not when I wasn't much better. Raising the baseball bat high, I brought it down on the Grunt's head, knocking him unconscious as Mimikyu gave me the room. “I'll handle this way. You two get that way,” I told them, Mankey furiously scratching at the cloyster as Mimikyu drove it into the wall.

Grabbing the Cloyster's pokeball, I forced a return and locked the ball. Crouching down, I grabbed the other pokeballs and doing the same, depositing them all into my backpack. As I did so, I saw that Marnie and Brawly were both looking at me with uncertainty. They looked their age in that moment. Fourteen and fifteen.

“Brawly. Marnie. Get going,” I didn't have any words of comfort for them. That seemed to snap them both out of it, earning a pair of jerked nods before they turned around to head down the other hallway.

Just as they did so, the same door the Grunt came out of opened again, revealing a disheveled other Grunt with a backwards shirt. His eyes widened dramatically when he saw me, “A-alarm! Someone sound the alarm!” He called out, only to be cut off with a cry when Mankey rushed forward, attacking him in blind anger. Evidently, someone heard him because a few seconds later, an alarm began to blare out.

I left Mankey to it as I stepped into the room to find that it was a dormitory. A half dozen members of Team Rocket were rolling onto their feet. I could feel the snarl pulling at my lips before they did something surprising. They all released a single pokemon. More than that, they all went for my pokemon rather than mobbing me with their numbers. It was the second time that I saw it, but it still didn't make any sense to me.

In any case, I wasn't complaining. “Phantump, Seed Bomb.” I ordered, releasing Phantump from his pokeball. As Phantump fired off a Seed Bomb into the cluster of pokemon that were rushing Mimikyu, who positioned himself between me and Team Rocket. It went off and I brought out Litwick. “Poltergeist on their pokeballs. Lock them and bring them to me,” I ordered and I felt it. The pressure. The fear that churned in my gut that told me that if I wasn't careful, then I could die.

The seed exploded, injuring a few pokemon while Mimikyu met them halfway. He Shadow Sneaked into the thick of them, vanishing and appearing rapidly as he bombarded them with blows from his wooden tail. “Leech Seed,” I instructed Phantump, hitting the pokemon that took a hard knock from Mimikyu. The Leech Seed weakened them further, the excess energy funneling into Growth to make him stronger. As the flowers blossomed, the pokemon winced, and when Mimikyu attacked them again, they were down for the count.

All the while Litwick took hold of their pokeballs, locking them just like I taught him, and lifting them up while the Grunts were distracted. They only noticed when their hands dipped down to their waists to grab another pokemon, crying out in panic. “You can't do that!” One of them shouted at me and I was almost caught off guard by the sheer audacity of the statement.

I’m certain that I was trampling over some local customs but I just didn't have it in me to care.

“Phantump, Leech Seed on them,” I ordered and Phantump was eager to obey the order, firing off a couple of Leech Seeds that struck the members of Team Rocket. How wager he was made me doubt my assumptions that he didn't remember anything about how he died. The only one more eager was Mankey, who crossed the threshold to attack the remaining pokemon that they had released.

The members of Team Rocket went down, clutching where they were hit as Phantump drained the energy from them. It wouldn't kill them, but it took them out of the fight. “You all did great. Mankey,” I said, when Mankey went to attack one of the fallen Grunts. He paused, looking to me. “Focus Energy. There's a lot more fighting left to do and I need your head in the game. We’re going to destroy this base. It's not enough to just defeat some Grunts.”

Mankey stomped his foot, which was his way of telling me that I was pissing him off, but he calmed down a few seconds later. He offered a small nod while Litwick began returning and sealing the downed pokemon away.

“You won't get away with this…! We’all come for you!” One Grunt threatened as we stepped out of the dormitory.

“Good. That'll save me the trouble of hunting you down,” I snarled back, seeing more of Team Rocket coming down the hallway. Three members who all released a single pokemon.

I hadn't realized it until just this second, but I had been training for this as the battle began. When I wandered around the city, taking every challenge that was thrown our way, It had been training guide for this. The gauntlet of beating my way through a base filled with trainers, all of which had a variety of pokemon. I knew how to pace my pokemon, only now I wasn't bound by rules to not feed them a berry to help regather their spent strength. Or use a potion.

When they sent a grass type at me, I used Litwick. When they used a Water Type, I sent Dreepy, who was all too eager to show off her agility, speed and her new electric move. Normal Types were met with Mankey. I didn't have a perfect answer to every situation, but that's where Mimikyu and Phantump stepped up to the plate. They were my heavy hitters, the ones that swept any obstacles that obstructed our path that led deeper into the base.

And the battles certainly kept coming. One after another, sometimes coming in batches, but only on the first floor which seemed to be the dorms for Team Rocket. The second floor, however, I realized what this place was.

A holding facility.

“Kadabra, Psychic Cut!” One Grunt called out, and they were putting up stiffer resistance on the second floor.

“Dodge, and Shadow Ball!” I countered, Mimikyu dodging out of the way. “Phantump, he's yours. Toxic then Bullet Seed,” I instructed while I turned my attention to the other threat. A weezing. “Mimikyu, Play Rough.” I instructed, gritting my teeth.

“Sludge Bomb!” The Grunt countered. Though, maybe he wasn't a grunt. It was the first time I saw late or final evolutions so far, which led me to believe that it was company policy that Grunts only had access to first evolution pokemon. It was an idle thought as Litwick was forced to protect me, using Poltergeist on the poisonous sludge Weezing spat at us and went off like a grenade.

Mimikyu Shadow Sneaked, arriving behind the weezing, his costume unfurling to wrap around weezing's face. The pokemon stumbled back, her hands going up to rip Mimikyu off, but she must have caught a glimpse at Mimikyu, because I saw the strength leave her. So far, it was an instant win move.

Meanwhile, the battle between Phantump and Kadabra raged on. An infuriating Protect stopped any damage from striking the Kadabra, but his attacks were similarly avoided with Phantump's phasing. Phantump fired off a Razor Leaf, and between his growing strength and his practice, the attack became dangerous. Kadabra used Protect again, for both himself and his trainer.

My training let my pokemon work together seamlessly and it was only aided by the connection we shared where they felt my intentions. Mimikyu immediately used the Razor Leaf to Shadow Sneak, arriving at Kadabra. The psychic pokemon looked over, his eyes widening before Mimikyu Focus Palmed his face into the opposing wall. It was the opening that Phantump needed to unleash a Seed Bomb right at Kadabra, who caught it in the air. It still exploded in his face and I saw the pokemon go down.

In the brief period that I was dealing with them, another member of Team Rocket had arrived, releasing a poliwhirl. The blue pokemon with a spiral across his chest settled into a stance and I barely kept a snarl off my face, frustrated with the growing roadblocks.

“Mankey, you're up,” I said, giving Mimikyu a breather. Phantump was feasting upon the energy of the fallen people and pokemon, all of it channeling towards Growth and I was starting to see changes. There were more leaf buds on his horns, which grew. The stump of his head also grew by a few inches, the wood darkening from a chestnut brown to a blackish brown.

Mankey surged forward, eager to give battle while Phantump gave him long range support. While Mankey might not know many moves yet, our training had upped his speed and strength as Poliwhirl soon learned. “Fury Swipes! Phantump, Bullet Seed!” I called out and I saw the Grunt's expression twist into one of panic as Poliwhirl was nailed by the combo.

Fury Swipes tore into him, distracting Poliwhirl enough to let the Bullet Seed strike home with enough force to send him flying back. “Seed Bomb!” I ordered while Mankey was quick to press the attack. A split second before he would have been struck, Phantump sent a Seed Bomb, impacting the pokemon before Mankey finished it up with a Fury Swipe.

“You won’t get through me-!” The Grunt tried for a valiant last stand, but my pokmeon weren’t the only ones that were already seeing some gains. Free from my weights, I sprinted forward, drop kicking him in the face before rolling to my feet to keep going.

The hallway stretched on, but I saw a door- “How many of you bastards are there?!” I called out, seeing more Grunts forming a wall to keep me out. I wasn’t even sure how many battled I had been in. It was over twenty at this point. And that was just on this side. I really hoped that Brawly and Marnie were managing the numbers as well as I was.

“Evee!” I heard from behind me, giving me a brief warning that the pokemon was about to race right by me. With shocking speed, Evee broke into Double Team, creating six after images that the Team Rocket Pokemon fired at, only for them all to miss. By that time, it was too late for them. Evee closed the distance with a burst of speed and slammed into the wall of Grunts and the effect looked like a eighteen wheeler had come barreling through them rather than a cute pokemon that barely came up to my knee. “Evee!”

I let out a breath of relief. “I’ll leave them to you then! Counting on you,” I said, running past the Grunts that were trying to figure out what just hit them. Karen had finally shown up, and I guess she was with Brawly and Marnie, sending Evee to help me out. It came at a perfect time because I saw what the last line of defense was guarding -- a large bulkhead door.

“Mimikyu,” I said, and two arms sprouted from Mimikyu as he slipped the shadow hands into the crack of the bulkhead door and began to pull them apart. My anger fed into him, making him stronger and with a screeching of metal, Mimikyu ripped the doors open. And with that, I saw what they were guarding and my stomach twisted into knots.

Pokeballs. Hundreds of them. More than a thousand, even. They lined the walls in storage, inert, but not all of them. Some were being put on a conveyer belt by robotic arms, feeding them into some kind of teleporter because after they arrived in place, they vanished. However, that wasn’t an immediate concern because there was someone standing in the center of the room, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Damn. You aren’t who I was looking for,” I greeted the masked man, recognizing him instantly. The top half of his face was covered by a golden mask with dark lenses over his eyes. He stood at about six five, heavily built, and there was a nasty smile on his face that grew as I strode forward without fear.

“Wow. That hurts my feelings. But, I can understand. Who was it that pissed you off so much that you’d kick in our front door just to get at them? You do realize who we are?” Vicious, or the Iron-Masked Marauder questioned me, cocking his head to the side.

“Slapping the massive R’s on everything is a good give away,” I said, squaring up as the chaos of the hallway echoed out in the room. I could only guess how many pokemon had been teleported out. “And you don’t need to know. Why waste words on a corpse?” I asked him, Mimikyu stepping forward as Litwick stirred. I couldn’t get tunnel vision. I couldn’t be so focused on him that I let more pokemon remain in Team Rocket’s clutches.

Vicious’ smile grew, “A man after my own heart.” With that, he threw out a pokeball and I wasn’t surprised to see a Scizor appear. I did find it annoying though. Scyther was a powerful pokemon, and Scizor emphasized its strength at the cost of worsening its weaknesses -- stronger attacks and defenses, but it lost the ability to fly and the metal coating slowed it down.

“Mimikyu, Phantump -- you’re up,” I said, and I looked down at my feet to see that Mankey was frozen. Completely still. I don’t even think he was breathing.

Ah.

I see.

“Litwick, Dreepy, turn off those teleporters,” I said, focusing on Scizor. My pokemon stepped forward, getting ready for the battle and Vicious simply chuckled.

“Are you sure you want to play by those rules, kid? If you’re going to play war, then so will I,” he warned with a dark chuckle. Ah, so that’s what I had been doing?

“You strike me as the kind of asshole that would anyway,” I remarked, knowing what he was capable of. Vicious earned his name. Out of every member of Team Rocket on screen, he was one of the most sadistic and cruel members to the point that Jesse and James worked against him. He set the standard for the kind of bastard you could find in the world of Pokemon. To my remark, he let out a bark of laughter.

“Not wrong there, kid,” he laughed. “Kill them.”

Scizor darted forward, slower than I expected but still a lot faster than I was comfortable with. Mimikyu met him halfway while Phantump began firing bullet seeds. At that same moment, two other pokemon entered the field on his side -- Nidoking and Electrode. All three pokemon were stronger than anything we had faced before and while I did what I could, my pokemon had run a gauntlet getting to this point.

Mimikyu and Scizor clashed, Mimikyu darting around the blood red pokmeon, delivering powerful blows, but the thick metal coat protected Scizor from the worst of the damage. Phantump fired seeds, shifting targets to Nidoking, who began to lumber forward with a roar. Dreepy and Litwick continued on their mission, only it shifted ever so slightly. We were surrounded by potential allies. Getting them out of their pokeballs could save us.

Electrode, however, began to cackle with lightning. A massive thunderbolt flashed forward, and all I saw was light. My body responded on instinct, grabbing Mankey and diving to the side just in time for an arc of lightning to tear through the ground where I stood. I could feel Mankey trembling under my arm as my lips thinned. The large pokeball shaped pokemon eyed me, still sparking as the other pokemon battled.

“That’s not ethical,” I remarked, mostly to buy me a moment because Vicious struck me as someone that liked his banter.

“Didn’t you say you were going to kill me?” Vicious questioned, and I could practically feel him cocking an eyebrow.

“Using a pokmeon to kill someone is unconscionable. I was going to kill you,” I corrected, earning another laugh. It was only a few seconds, but Dreepy managed to close in to one of the computers and zapped it with a Thunder. The teleporter short-circuited while Litwick began unsealing pokeballs.

It didn’t come a moment too soon as Scizor lashed out, catching Mimikyu with a large metal claw and started to crush him underneath. I hissed, forced to dodge lightning once more. “Phantump! Tackle!” I ordered, Mimikyu was holding out but his strength wasn’t a match for the Scizor’s.

Phantump blurred forward with surprising speed, striking the Scizor in the chest.

“Swipe,” Vicious ordered as the first of the pokemon emerged. A pidgey. An oddish. Nothing that would immediately help. Scizor lashed out at Phantump, only for his claw to blur back in a false swipe before delivering the blow that struck Phantump on his side, driving him to the ground.

“Mimikyu, Astonish-” I began, my attention shifting to Mimikyu as the claw began to inch down and my guts tied themselves into knots. I was cut off as the Nidoking made himself known. I only caught a flash of movement before the large purple pokemon charged right at me. I had just enough time to brace for impact, curling my body around Mankey, before it felt like I got hit by a truck. And I knew exactly how accurate that comparison was.

My back hit the wall, knocking the breath from my lungs as the nidoking pressed on. “Phantump, Leech Seed-” I ordered and for the very first time, Phantump ignored me entirely. He picked himself up from where he had been knocked down, floating up he went right for Nidoking. Off to the side, I saw Litwick opening more pokeballs while Dreepy was dodging blasts of lightning, running interference.

Then Phantump began to glow. It was a glow that anyone would recognize, and for the briefest of seconds, the fighting paused to look upon it. Through the bright light, I saw Phantump’s form changing -- growing larger, extending… Then the light began to fade.

“Trevenant!” Trevenant roared, towering over Nidoking by a solid foot. The thin sparse leaves on his horns became a thick canopy from his head and wrists, his legs twisted roots while his body was a segmented trunk. A lone red eye in a pool of wispy black smoke was over his maw, three horns jutting out of his head.

Too fast, I thought. Phantump evolved too fast. Still, I welcomed the evolution as Trevenant grabbed hold of Nidoking, stopping him from closing in any further. I wish I had a pokedex to see if he learned any additional moves, but there was little point. “Razor Leaf and Leech Seed,” I ordered, and the magnitude of the Razor Leaf couldn’t be compared to what he managed as a Phantump. The sheer volume of leaves that shot forward, scraping over and cutting into Nidoking was the difference between night and day.

“Hyperbeam!” Vicious yelled out and I saw light gathering at Nidoking’s mouth. My stomach did flips in me as I forced myself into a sitting position.

“Dodge!” I yelled out, and the hyperbeam leapt from Nidoking’s mouth, only to go straight through Trevenant as he phased. Yet, he kept his grip on Nidoking’s shoulders. Taking a step forward, Trevenant roared as he hefted Nidoking up, even as he fired his hyper beam, carving a line into the wall and then the ceiling as he threw Nidoking into the ground.

Explosions filled the air as the pokemon released from the pokeballs cowered. None of them were what I was looking for to stand up to the pokemon. As dust filled the room, I forced myself onto my feet, adrenaline in my veins as I pressed onward to Scizor. “Litwick!” I called out, knowing that we had to cheat a little.

Litwick responded to my unspoken desire, using Poltergeist on Vicious’ pokeballs. Siczor vanished in a flash of red light, letting Mimikyu fall into my grasp. He was unconscious, I realized with a twisting in my gut. Returning him and Mankey to their pokeballs, I pressed on, seeing Vicious through the smoke.

Only to find that he was dealing with an issue of his own. One of the pokemon that I released was attacking him -- blue, bipedal… small. A riolu. A young one too based on how clumsy his movements were. Vicious raised up a foot to kick the pokemon away, only to be caught off guard when I tackled him to the ground.

A fist caught me in the side of the head, making me wince at the taste of copper in my mouth. In response, I drove a knee into his balls and I heard the wind get driven from his lungs as I tried to capitalize on it by punching him, only for my knuckles to catch his helmet. I was filled with adrenaline so I just punched him again. Vicious snarled at me, punching me back and this time I was knocked off of him.

“Alright. The joke isn't funny anymore,” He spat at me, scrambling to his feet as I tried to gather my bearings and remember how my feet worked. Dark spots flickered across my vision before I realized that Vicious was towering over me.

“Blair!” I heard Brawly shout out making both of our attention snap to the entrance. Vicious tsked under his breath, lowering the foot that he had been preparing to stomp my head in with. Marnie and Karen were with him, their pokemon out.

I could see Vicious calculating the odds in his head for the briefest of seconds before deciding that they weren’t in his favor. He looked down at me, “Be seeing you later,” he warned with a growl before returning his pokemon. Nidoking, and Electrode vanished in a flash of red, only for him to release an alakazam. I opened my mouth to reply before the two of them vanished in a flash of light.

Teleport.

A breath of relief escaped me, all the tension leaving my body… I only realized that I was passing out when everything went dark.