Chapter 3:

Team Rocket

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The Team Rocket guy paced back and forth in front of the tent, eating what seemed to be a sandwich while his mind seemed to be somewhere else entirely.

Just looking at him made me feel jealous. He had food, a comfortable place to sleep, tools to communicate with the others and probably not a single care in the world.

For this reason, I didn’t feel that bad about what was about to unfold.

"So you understand the plan?" I asked Ralts, I mean most plans start with a sentence like this so I felt I had to follow the cliché for good luck. I thought it was kind of funny but the joke was clearly lost on Ralts.

"Ralts," She confirmed, or I hoped it was a confirmation. This might become an issue later.

"Remember to keep him distracted." I said, repeating what I had said before countless times.

Ralts nodded like before. I took that as a sign she understood and I walked away from her, making sure to stay out of Team Rocket's grunt sight. Slowly but surely I circled around his camp, moving through bushes and between trees. All the while I counted the seconds inside my head, and after 30 seconds just like we had planned Ralts stepped out of the bushes and loudly declared, "Ralts!"

It drew the guy’s attention. The team Rocket grunt stared at Ralts, a look of confusion was on his face while his right hand went down to his belt where he had a Pokéball.

Before he could reach it Ralts sent out a ray of purple energy.

Confusion, one of Ralts moves.

I had seen her use it against one of the Zigzagoon and although it wasn't very effective...pun not intended, it still had some uses. And it was also her only move. So I asked her to do it again.

After a little bit of experimenting, we figured out that she could do the move but it was painfully slow and the beam was really small. Still, it was good enough for our scrappy plan.

The beam Ralts shot was not good, in fact even the Team Rocket grunt could dodge it.

Ralts did it again, releasing a purple ray of energy that sped forward.

Like before, the man was forced to move before he could reach for his Pokéball. Ralts spammed the move for a third time and the man was ready to move away again but another ray was already headed towards the grunt.

Good Ralts, I thought fondly, never let someone tell you spamming is bad.

Before Ralts could send her fifth Confusion ray I hit the man in the back of his head with a blunt stone I found on the ground. The stone hit him right below his ear and the lights went out immediately. The muscles in his body relaxed. He fell over and his face hit the dirt.

Luckily he had been distracted by my little spamming Ralts and he didn't notice me going full ninja mode and sneaking around him.

I gave myself a compliment for the wonderful execution.

Sure, the plan was not that difficult. It was a simple distract-and-strike plan but the Team Rocket grunt now lying on the ground was definitely proof that simple plans could work. Guess some things never change.

"Ralts!" Ralts strode towards the man and kicked him in the face.

I knelt down and checked the vital signs to see if he was still alive. Although I was not a doctor, I definitely detected a heartbeat. I let out a sigh of relief. He was still alive. At least I didn’t murder him.

"Ralts?" Ralts asked, probably sensing my insecurity.

"Just checked if he's alive, luckily for him, he is." I answered.

I took his Pokéball and checked his pockets. I found a stylish pocket knife that was still sharp. I decided to take it for myself. I was a hero after all, if Link was allowed to walk into a random house and smash all the pots to get some Rupees, I was allowed to steal from a thug.

"Johnathan!" A female voice came from behind us.

That moment I cursed Arceus and Dialga for the horrible timing and I cursed Fate for fucking me over.

I slowly got up.

Ralts and I had been watching the tent with the grunt for over an hour. He didn't do much more than walk around and generally be lazy. Ralts didn't sense anyone else beside him so I had assumed he was alone, probably a solo mission, or so I thought.

However ‘Johnathan’ was not as alone as I thought.

Behind us stood a woman in a Team Rocket outfit. I would spend time describing her but honestly she seemed to be a boring background character to me. Uninteresting features combined with a bad attitude.

Also, she had thrown a Pokéball in front of her and that was a bit more concerning than her appearance.

Shit.

Ralts being the powerful Psychic she stepped forward and prepared to defend her trainer...nah, she did not. Instead she timidly hid behind me and stared fearfully at the woman in front of me. "Ralts!" She exclaimed fearfully and grabbed my left leg, although I appreciated the affection, it did limit my movement.

A bright flash came out of the Pokéball and the cry of a Pokémon followed. Two seconds later a Raticate stood in front of us, it must have been brimming with bad emotions because Ralts even pulled even tighter on my leg.

The Team Rocket woman grinned evilly at me because why not. Sure.

"I'm gonna make you pay for what you did to Johnathan!" She screamed even though I wasn't standing that far from her. Was she related to Johnatan, were they in a relationship? Did I care?

Not really, considering she was a villain and she was bound to have some kind of monologue. I could maybe ask what Team Rocket was doing here but honestly I wanted to leave this forest as fast as I could.

I was more worried about the Raticate in front of her. Even though Raticate was not really a powerful Pokémon in the games, here he was powerful enough.

Rattata evolves into Raticate at level 20 and even though I doubted that this world had levels like the games did, it still showed that this Raticate was a threat to consider.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Even if Ralts was willing to battle, I estimated her to be level 5 or something. And with her having only one move she was no match for this Raticate.

Also a fun random fact from the Pokédex came to mind. Raticate’s fangs are strong enough to topple concrete buildings! Haha, now that's something I want to avoid.

Although those thoughts popped up in my mind. My situation didn’t improve. Ralts was too scared and too underleveled to battle and this woman was about to sic her overgrown rodent on me.

How to salvage this situation? I made a mental inventory of everything I could use, a Pocket knife in my back pocket, wouldn't do much good against a Pokémon. A Ralts who is too scared and a stone which would not even leave a scratch on the Raticate.

How to solve this?

I stared at the rock in my hand, if I could...no, that wouldn't work right?

Deciding it was worth the try I smirked at the woman. I opened my mouth and began to speak. "You know that your boss is lying right? He never showed up at the meeting."

The woman was startled, I was bullshitting but it worked. I had her attention.

Before she could interrupt me I went on with bullshitting. "Don't worry. We are right now-" mid sentence I raised my hand and threw the stone at the woman full force.

If it were an anime I would scream something heroic but I didn't. Instead I had launched the stone with all of my stone throwing abilities. Which wasn’t much. However, as the rock flew towards her the woman didn’t dodge.

The thing with people is that when you start a sentence they expect you to finish it. It's a conditioned habit to let people finish what they're saying. If you stop in the middle of a sentence the other person will most likely be distracted by his own expectations.

That’s the theory at least.

The woman didn't even blink when the stone hit her face. The stone impacted the left side of her face with a thud and I heard a worrying sound before the eyes rolled back in her head and she fell to the ground.

Huh, that worked.

Talking about hitting two grunts with one stone…

"RALTS!" Ralts screamed while shaking my leg violently, shaking me up from my thoughts.

Just in time, a silver flash appeared in front of my face and I raised my arm to protect my eyes on instinct. A silver fang tore through my skin and a second later a blinding pain flooded through my nerves. I screamed.

However, I was still alive. The Raticate had jumped towards me and had tried to tear my face open with its oversized fang. The fact that I still had eyes was due to the fact that I raised my arm just in time. I got really lucky there.

Still hurts like a motherfucker. I lowered my arm and looked at it. My entire lower left arm was ripped open and looked like someone had slashed a knife through it. Blood flowed through the ripped flesh and I felt a sick combination of numbness and blinding pain that shouldn't be possible. I cursed out loud while clutching my arm, trying to stop the blood from flowing out of the massive wound.

"RALTS RALTS!" Ralts yelled and panicked. My eyes drew back towards the attacker.

Raticate prepared to make another jump, wild fury on its face. I don't know what I had thought, maybe that Raticate wouldn't attack me if its trainer was knocked out. Guess that did not happen.

I spat out more curse words. Now I had to deal with it and it was looking grim. I couldn't move my left arm and even looking at it made me want to throw up. I averted my eyes.

I could barely even stand, let alone defend myself or my Ralts but I had to. I still had a small Ralts to protect and I was a damn dimensional traveler! I refuse to die to an overgrown Mickey Mouse.

With my functioning arm I reached for my pocket knife but I was too slow. Raticate lunged for me a second time. I gritted my teeth and prepared to strike with my good arm, hoping I could maybe sucker punch him, but before I had to a purple ray slammed into Raticate midair and smashed it into the ground.

"Ralts!" an angry shout followed.

Did Ralts just save me?

The beam had been bigger than when she had attacked the grunt. The beam had also struck way faster. Raticate was now lying on the ground, it was mostly undamaged but it seemed to have trouble moving.

Was it confused?

Confusion had a 10% chance of causing the Confusion effect. Raticate was trying to move but every move seemed to take a huge effort, like it had a massive headache. Raticate was out of it but for how long?

"Ralts!" Ralts urged, sounding desperate.

She pointed at the Raticate.

I know I have to do something but what?

I considered grabbing the pocket knife but that wouldn't neutralize it. I could try to kill it as a last resort but I didn't dare putting myself in its attacking range. I spotted the Pokéball the woman had thrown.

I made a dash for it, grabbed it with my good arm and pointed the surprisingly large Pokéball at the Raticate and pressed the button in the middle as I had seen being done in games and on tv a thousand times.

A red beam came out of the Pokéball, much like in the anime, and shot towards the Raticate. It enveloped it and a second later the Raticate disappeared leaving nothing but a path of trampled grass, blood on the soil and a ripped open arm.

However it was gone at last.

That moment I could drop to the floor and fall asleep, the pain in my arm had subsided and I was feeling numb all over my body.

"Ralts Ralts Rarara Ralts!" Ralts said as she ran towards me, dragging her weird dress thing over the floor. Were those tears in her eyes?

No time for that, I'm bleeding out and I need medical attention.

"Ralts," I said matter-of-factly. "Keep an eye on those two will ya? If they wake up, knock them out with Confusion!"

"Ralts Ralts RaRalts!" She yelled and panicked.

"Just do it please," I pleaded. "I'm going to make a call."

With those brave words I walked towards the tent.

I stepped over trash that the Team Rocket grunt had left behind and made my way towards the radio I had seen. Now how to operate this thing?

It was hard to keep myself focused, I really had some thoughts I wanted to evaluate. Ralts’ sudden boost in power, the question if I would unlock a secret power now I needed it and if I was anywhere close to a hospital. The numbness from my arm began to spread throughout my body and I knew it was a bad sign.

The radio looked exactly like one of my earth did, nothing too fancy. I turned it on by switching some dials and grabbed the mic, only to be reminded I couldn't use my left arm. I put it down again and went through the channels, trying to find an occupied broadcast.

After skimming through a few empty channels I finally came across a conversation.

It seemed to be a woman and a guy talking about wild Pidgey behavior in the Sinnoh region.

I interrupted the conversation like a civilized person.

"Guys," I said and the two voices went quiet. "I'm kinda in a tough situation…"

Oh so sleepy. I wanted to lie down and...no, I had to stay awake.

Outside Ralts gave me a wary look but she kept guarding the two unconscious grunt on the ground like she had promised.

Good girl.

"Who is this?" A static voice came from the radio.

"Look," I groaned, losing patience and consciousness with each second. "I'm bleeding out and I need medical attention. I came across a Team Rocket outpost and I'm wounded."

The woman became serious immediately. "Where are you? We'll send help."

Well at least someone was being useful today.

No, that was not fair towards Ralts, I had to focus.

"I-I don't know…" I answered.

"How can we help you if we don't know where you are?" A deep man's voice asked. It sounded like he was annoyed with my presence and wanted to keep talking about Pidgey.

"Fucking triangulate the signal!" I yelled, why did I yell?

I felt myself getting more dizzy and dizzier.

"We'll call the police for you, they'll be able to trace you." The woman responded professionally. "Please stay on the line so we can trace the signal."

"Okay," I answered and turned to Ralts, leaving the radio on. I was feeling like I had only a few seconds left before I would fall into the sweet grasp of sleep...or death.

"Ralts," I said, "People will show up to help me...I hope. Don't attack them okay?"

"Ralts?" She tilted her head, worried and confused at the same time.

"Don't worry," I said, "I'm only going to black out."

I flashed her my best I'm-definitely-not-about-to-die smile.

And just like that unconsciousness took me over.

If I die, would I appear in another world?

That thought ran through my mind as I was blacking out.

Or maybe I would respawn and do a Re:Zero. Replay the entire day.

I managed to groan while blacking out. Please, let me not go through all that bullshit again.

And my lights went out.