Beyond the Adventure - A Pokémon Story

Chapter 10: Dangerous Territory pt3

                Jess stares at the screen, what little color she has drained from her face.  Darius just shakes his head.  He looks worried and confused.  “’Ground Zero’?” he mutters.  “Are they planning on bombing Johto?”

                 “I need to get this to Archie immediately,” Jess says.  She taps furiously on the screen.

                Darius watches her intently.  “The hotel’s wifi isn’t secure,” he says.  “You don’t want anyone intercepting your message.”

                “Nah, don’t worry,” she says.  “We have already worked that out.  I can use the hotel’s wifi to connect to our VPN tunnel.”

                “Ooh, nice!” Darius says, impressed.

                I do not say anything.  I am more concerned with the safety of my mother, Liz, Craig, Professor Oak, Whitney, Morty, and the thousands of other people and Pokémon that live in Johto.  What kind of devastation is this Team Galactic planning?  Why Johto?  What did we do to these people?  I feel a strong urge to call Mother and Liz and warn them, but we do not know much yet; no time, no method, no specific location.  We do not even know what these packages are.  I feel frustrated at the lack of information.

                “All right, here we go,” Jess says.  “According to our scouts, Team Galactic is a group of terrorists located in Sinnoh.  They are led by this Cyrus guy and claim to want to make a better world, but have yet to discover how they plan to do that.  What we DO know is they have been searching for three specific Pokémon.  These three.”

Jess turns the laptop to face me.  On the screen, I see three small Pokémon labeled “Lake Trio”. One is pink and blue, with two tails, and a red gem on its forehead.  The second is yellow and blue, also with two tails and a red gem on its forehead.  The third is similar as well, only cyan and blue.  All three have smaller red gems embedded in their tails.  They are kind of cute.

“We aren’t entirely certain what they plan to do with these three Pokémon, as we have yet to get another message from our mole,” she explains.  “From the sound of this email, though, they may already have them.”

I stare at the wall, unable to think of anything to say.  Jaws jumps into my lap and pats me on the shoulder.  I pet him on the head, but keep staring at the wall.  Poor guy is clearly trying to cheer me up, but I am too worried about my mother and Liz to feel cheerful.  Finally, Jaws buries his face in my chest with a big hug.  I take a deep breath and hug him back.  He looks up at me and I force a smile, for him.  “Thanks, buddy,” I say.  “I needed that.”

“So what do we do now?” Darius asks.

                Jess shrugs.  “There’s nothing we can do at the moment,” she says.  “I’ve sent the message to Archie.  I’ve pulled up all the information we have on Team Galactic.  Sinnoh is quite far from here and would take us a few days to get there.  We COULD fly there, but it would still take a couple days.  Articuno is strong, but even she has her limits.”

                “So sleep it is!” Darius says, getting up and stretching.  “I’m off to bed.  Good night!”

                Jess shuts her laptop off.  “Yeah, you should get some sleep too, Crono,” she says.  “We’ll figure things out in the morning.”

                I bid them both good night and look at Jaws.  He is curled up on my lap, sleeping.  I gently pick him up and carry him to our room.  I lay him on the couch, grab a blanket, and cover him.  I prepare for bed, slipping into some pajamas and brush my teeth, then finally climb into bed.  I check the time on my Pokégear.  It is almost 1am.  I doubt anyone would be up right now, but I try anyway.  I dial Mother’s number.  It rings a few times, but she does not answer.  I frown, but figured she would be asleep by now.  She does get up pretty early.  I dial Liz’s number.  After a couple rings, she answers.