Ash continued walking through the Power plant, taking down and catching any of the Grimer down, it was fine for Meowth's training but not preferable but he only had her, and Gastly was needed with other things.
It seemed like there was no end to them, which made sense since the more pollution there was the more of them would be, and the water by this town is black with sludge.
Ash continued moving through the Grimer until he eventually stopped seeing them, he used Aura to scan the power plant and other than the Magnemite with the occasional Magneton. Which he didn't need at the moment.
He continued walking until he arrived in the central chamber, the room where the main generator was, and there he saw a few more Grimer and one Grimer that was much bigger than the rest.
Just like always when they saw Ash they started charging at him, but the biggest remained on top of the generator, seemingly absorbing the electricity.
Meowth like always took them out but Ash was more interested in the big one, when he walked in he thought it might have been Ash's Muk that had not evolved yet, but now he wasn't completely sure if that was it.
As Meowth took care of the stragglers and Gastly took some Pokeballs to go catch them, Ash pulled out his dex from his storage and scanned the big one.
—
[Grimer(M)]
[Nature: Careful (+SpD, -SpA))]
[Ability: Poison Touch, Hidden ability: Power of Alchemy]
[Current moves: Pound, Poison Gas, Rock Tomb, Acid Armor, Harden, Poison Jab, Minimize]
[Homunculus Body]
–
So he was right, this Grimer was something different, and it seemed like it wanted to take all the power from this power plant, but he didn't know for what. But he wasn't willing to let it finish.
"Meowth destroy the generator with Power Gem!" Ash commanded, the town would have enough energy to survive on the backup generators and the damage would be minimal as long as he could finish this quickly.
Meowth looked at Ash for a second before charging up energy causing the coin on her head to glow, then a pale pink beam of energy with a bright white energy around it shot out and hit the generator where Grimer's hands were.
The generator exploded in that area and when the smoke cleared Grimer was standing there with his arms blown off, and he looked at Ash furiously.
Grimer's arms started regrowing as it started charging at them with his arms raised into the air for the windup.
Ash jumped back dodging the punch, immediately before anything he scanned the room, he found a few cameras but it was offline due to the power outage.
But he didn't want to take any chances, "Gastly take care of the cameras, Meowth start stacking Work up, and I'll cover you."
Gastly left her hiding spot and started floating away meanwhile Meowth jumped off to a corner and started glowing red.
Grimer raised his other arm which was glowing purple as he slammed it into the ground, kicking up a small wave of poison to spread on the ground, which then formed into more Grimer.
"Grime"
"Grimer"
"mer"
"Grime"
Each of them raised and started charging at Ash, Meowth wasn't ready so he covered his body with Aura and prepared for the sludge monsters to approach him.
The first Grimer rushed at Ash and attempted to hug him to absorb him into its body, Ash jumped back to dodge it as the next Grimer got behind him to try the same, Ash ducked and covered his foot to deliver a kick square in the face of the sludge.
As the Grimer was pushed back the next two took its place, one missed but one grabbed his arm, and then the rest of the Grimer started approaching, Ash started sweating until he saw Gastly give him a thumbs up as she held a few broken cameras.
'Not what I was going for but that will work,' Ash thought as the Grimer surrounded him and buried him in their sludge.
But when they all came together, suddenly electricity started surging through them all before everything was covered in bright yellow electricity, after it was over the Grimer fell and almost melted.
Meanwhile, Ash was standing there with electricity going through his body before he turned it off and took a breath, "That wasn't pleasant,"
He then looked up at the big Grimer towering over him and seemed to prepare another punch, "If this isn't a boss battle then I don't know what is." He thought before he whistled.
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From the corner of the room, a Power Gem shot out and went through Grimer's torso leaving a small hole in its place.
Meowth stood in the corner and liked her paw as her coin was still glowing from the attack, then 3 more beams shot out and hit Grimer leaving more holes in his body.
Grimer took the hits as his body started closing the holes, he then got mad and dug his hands into the concrete flooring and threw it up into the air aiming to smash Meowth.
Ash from the side yelled out, "Meowth climb the rocks."
Meowth jumped from one rock to another getting higher up until she was close enough to Grimer, so she jumped off and her claws extended and she delivered a slash at Grimer.
Grimer's head split apart, but not from Meowth, Meowth's claws went straight through him like a knife going through water. When she fell out from the other side he raised his fist as he used harden on just his knuckle, and then it started coursing with electricity and slammed Meowth in the back sending her stumbling into the floor.
He didn't use thunder punch, he used the electricity he took from the power plant that was still coursing through him.
Grimer raided his fist again aiming to hit Meowth while she was down, but suddenly a Black ball shot him in the head making him fall off balance, when he looked over to where the ball came from he saw Gastly, and under her was Ash holding a familiar electric bow.
"So you want electricity, fine then take as much as you want," Ash said as he released the string, and an arrow made of Electricity shot out and went inside of Grimer's body.
At first, it didn't look like anything happened until Grimer's sludge started boiling from the inside so he dug his hand into his body to look for it.
"You know gold isn't that good as a weapon, but it makes one hell of a conductor, Meowth payday," Ash said as he snapped his fingers.
Meowth who was still on the floor threw a large coin at the opening left behind by the arrow, and it went inside also touching the electricity, making it ignite and explode.
Grimer's sludge went everywhere in the room leaving only Grimer from the waist down, but even with all that Grimer started reforming, albeit he was much smaller, meanwhile all the other sludge started forming onto more Grimer.
Meowth retreated back to Ash as he sighed, "Guess I should have known, welp time to call someone in," Ash said as he went into his storage and pulled out a Pokeball.
All the Grimer finished reforming as they started getting ready to charge, but Ash threw out the Ball and released a bright light.
Standing there was a familiar red and long sea serpent who towered over the sludge monsters, It was Gyarados.
Gyarados immediately stared down at the Grimer as a red energy released through the room, at first everything was still, but then all of the smaller Grimer fell over, leaving only the bigger one looking at.
Grimer stood tall as he brought an electrified fist aiming to slam into Gyarados, it hit him in the jaw but Gyarados looked unbothered.
Gyarados brought his tail and slammed it into Grimer, it tried separating his body again but it was too slow as Gyarados' tail reached the ground and a wave of water emerged as he used Waterfall.
Grimer was shot with that water washing away some more of its sludge, and before he could get back up, Gyarados came with his jaw open and glowing light blue.
Grimer took the hit and remained standing as Gyarados didn't let go, even with some electricity coursing through it.
Ash took this opportunity, he took out a ball and threw it at Grimer, Grimer did see it coming so he opened a hole in his sludge so that the ball would go through it.
But then a fragment from the coin from earlier fell from the ceiling and hit the top of the ball changing its direction ever so slightly, and it hit the sludge and went in, 1 roll, 2 roll, 3 roll, Ding.
Grimer was caught making everyone finally take a breath of relief, then almost choked due to the horrible smell of the room.
Ash handed a few balls over to Gastly to get the rest of the Grimer, meanwhile, Ash went to grab the ball for Grimer. He tossed it in his hand and put it on his belt for later use.
Then he returned Gyarados and transferred him back into his storage.
Meowth was grumpy and jumped back in Ash's scarf, she looked at Ash with an angry expression and lied down, not wanting to be disturbed this time.
Ash could only sigh seeing his lazy cat, but she did earn it, so he let her take her nap, meanwhile Gastly brought over the last of the Grimer for Ash to put away. And she went back into his shadow.
With that he finished his business here and prepared to leave, he took one last look at the generator, it really wasn't that badly damaged, they only needed to replace the outer shell and replace the copper, the town would be fine, even if they don't the backup generators should be enough for them to just replace the whole thing.
So with that, though he left before anyone arrived to check the situation, which was good because on his way out he almost got caught by the employees of the power plant.
Seeing them run by it made him think, 'Wait if this has been happening for a while, why haven't they done anything about it, oh boy lazy employees, this town is doomed.'
Ash dug his face in his hands as he escaped without anyone noticing him. As he got back into the woods he got back on his bike and prepared to start riding off, when suddenly he got a call on the team Rocket-issued communicator that was styled as a watch.
He answered it and on the screen was Team Rocket admin Sayoko on the other side, "Agent D. are you with anyone?"
"I'm alone, my current location is Gringy City,"
"I know that, well I'm calling to make a request, we have gotten some reports of overly wild Pokemon and Grunts going missing in an area close to your location, even a commander went missing, so are you willing to investigate."
Ash frowned after all the ranks in Team Rocket go from;
Supplier
Grunt
Grunt commander
Spy
Admin
Executive
Boss
Even though he is the rank of spy he is treated as if he was at the rank of commander along with the other spies, since this rank is meant to be kept secret.
And a commander went missing, they may not be the strongest but they are no pushovers either, if Ash fought one with his current team he would probably lose depending on which one he fights.
But then again if this is the case then the rewards would be good, and he does have time to kill, especially with this 'persona' he is acting with, she probably chose him because of that.
"Alright I'm willing to take it but the reward better be worth it," Ash said as he rubbed his fingers making a money motion.
Sayoko chuckled, "As expected, very well then I shall personally take care of your reward, I will send the coordinates along with the details of your mission to your communicator, oh and don't die, it would be a shame to lose someone so promising so soon." then she hung up
Ash sighed as Meowth scratched him on the cheek, "Meowth! (╬▔皿▔)╯"
"Relax, you can rest, I'll give you a special reward later OK," Ash said, putting his hands together.
Meowth pouted and looked away from Ash upset that she wasn't getting her regularly scheduled naps.
Ash could only look helplessly as he looked at the information he was sent, but as soon as he saw it his eyes almost jumped out of their sockets.
"She said this was Close!"