Love in the Time of Tropics

Chapter 26: An Omen

This is the final chapter of Tropics! Funnily enough, oneshots included, it's the 100th chapter of the Ancienverse! Let's celebrate it in grand style! Chapter 26 time!

Chapter 26

An Omen

"Well...that wasn't fun..." Jessie's sigh of exhaustion echoed across to James as he laid there, staring up at the sky, tinged with red and orange. It had been quite the day for all of them. Next to him, Meowth was rolled up into a ball, already taking a nap despite having done next to nothing in the actual battle. James wasn't one to blame him in that moment. He did sit up, though.

"It looks like the city took a real beating..." he observed, casting his gaze over the brightly lit Heahea City. It had certainly taken damage in the assault that had been made by the rampaging Pokémon. Houses were kicked in, roads were ripped up and trees were toppled over. All in all, the place had taken a rather nasty beating. Perhaps not as bad as Ancien City in Kalos (especially when considering that the people here still had their electricity), but still something that would take at least a couple days to patch up.

"And to think I thought we'd be celebrating and eating!" Jessie snapped, folding her arms across her chest. James nodded.

"Wobba..." Wobbuffet quietly concurred, himself still splayed out on the grassy hill that overlooked the city, next to Meowth. James sighed.

"The real question is...what now?" he asked of his magenta-haired companion.

"Portals in the sky, rampaging Pokémon, and whatever the heck that freaky thing the twerp fought was..." Jessie muttered out. James' head turned to look at her, wondering just what she was really thinking about from this entire mess. "Ugh! This is way too complicated!"

"Yer tellin' me..." Meowth spoke up, clearly waking up from his cat nap to join in on the conversation. James hadn't even heard him get up, but here he was, already padding forward to the edge of the hill to look out at the city. He, too, had folded his arms in a surly expression. "Dat was one real doozy of an event. Makes ya wonder what caused it."

"It was that weird, freaky portal, wasn't it?" Jessie snapped. Meowth refused to answer, while James placed a finger on his chin, tapping it. He wanted to say that Jessie was right, but there had been something even more odd about what had emerged from within the portal. For a moment, he had felt his mind fog up, like it was telling him to turn away from Team Rocket and move to help the citizens further. Judging from the glazed expressions on his companions' faces at the time, they appeared to have experienced much the same thing.

"I wonder if it was that creature, instead..." James noted. That drew both Meowth and Jessie's attentions. "You felt it, too, right? That weird fog."

"I thought I was just hungry," Jessie countered.

"Yeah, we didn't get the chance to have a celebratory dinner," Meowth noted. James frowned at the notion, wondering, in some way, how they could be thinking about dinner after what they had just seen and experienced. Then his own stomach rumbled. "Is there any mention of dat weird ting in our databases?"

"None at all," the blue-haired man sighed. He had spent time looking for any mention of the strange creature, but had found next to nothing. "I have no idea what it could be."

"So we have nothing to report to the boss, then," Jessie sighed out. She now flopped upon the grass, looking up at the stars emerging in the sky. The entire area was starting to darken, with the hill becoming awash in night, and James flopped back as well. "We're really stuck."