Vanish

Chapter 15

The next afternoon, Ash rushed to the Mossdeep gym once again. Spotting Tate just inside, he quickly went through and came up to him.

"Ah, it's you again..." Tate paused. "You never did tell me your name."

"Ash. Ash Ketchum. And is it safe to assume that your sister got back yesterday?"

"Yes, I did." And a young woman that looked almost exactly like Tate came toward them. "I'm Liza."

"I told Liza about you situation, and-"

"-we'll be glad to help you," Liza finished. "Now, where-"

"-do you want to go?"

"Petalburg City, please. I don't care where you drop me. It can be in a dumpster for all I care. I just need to get there," Ash replied.

Tate and Liza shared a long look before saying, "Okay, then," in unison. Liza took out a pokéball and let out Alakazam.

"Just take Alakazam's hand, and then stay very still," Tate ordered. He looked to Alakazam. "We'd like you to Teleport Ash to Petalburg City, please." He looked to Ash. "If you want to come back here, just give us a call, okay?"

"Ala." Alakazam held out his hand.

Ash hesitantly held it and tried his best to stay still.

"Goodbye, Ash. Come back and visit sometime, okay?" The twins said together.

And after that, Ash saw a flash of white, and suddenly he dropped-quite literally-in front of the Petalburg Gym. Groaning but getting up, Ash then heard a loud boom in the distance.

Raising his eyebrows, Ash began to run to the sound.

He must have run for a mile before he saw a lot of smoke, and heard a scream of, "Give me back my pokémon!"

And there was another boom and a scream in pain.

Ash poured on the speed and finally made it up to where there was an all-too-familiar hot air balloon floating a few feet up in the air. Both Jessie and James had a grenade in one of their hands, and Ash could spot a half a dozen small craters from where the grenades hit.

He ran over to the person who was screaming. She was covered in blood and unconscious. He could spot just a few other people who were also injured.

"Pikachu, use Thunderbolt on that Sealeo!" Jessie called out, and Ash heard Pikachu discharge energy. "Thank you for kindly donating your pokémon to Team Rocket," Jessie said in a singsong voice.

The hot air balloon was getting quite ahead of Ash, and his lungs were burning so hard he thought they were going to burst. But he just kept on running...

"I thought I told you crooks never to come back!" boomed a voice.

Ash knew that voice.

"Slaking, I choose you!" said the voice, apparently letting out a pokémon.

Ash finally skidded to a stop about twenty feet away from where Team Rocket was floating, which was about ten feet away from Norman, the Petalburg Gym Leader, the father of May and Max.

"Seviper, Dustox, help me out!"

"Cacnea, come on out!" Team Rocket threw the pokéballs on the ground, right in front of Slaking.

"Slaking, use Focus Punch on Seviper!" yelled Norman.

"Seviper, dodge. Dustox, Pysbeam!"

"Pin Missile, Cacnea!"

Seviper narrowly dodged Slaking's attack, making the lazy pokémon pummel the ground with his Focus Punch attack. That opened him up for a direct hit from both Dustox and Cacnea. Slaking was a little hurt from the attacks, but being such a powerful pokémon, he had a great advantage over the weak pokémon of Team Rocket. Unless...