Pokémon Rocket

[Kandykorn]

Chapter 20:

“Why would you take the leaf stone!” Shank yelled, frustrated. “There were literally so many better options!”

“We’re a little stressed for time!” I responded, pulling back on one of Salt’s fins like I was cocking a gun. Salt (rather appropriately) made a gun-cocking noise with his mouth. We unloaded another few hydro pumps at the Iron moth, who was pursuing us unrepentantly. Right behind it, Mewtwo and Valentine fighting in an all out, teleport war, and behind them, Giovanni in a helicopter, screaming profanities and firing his gun.

“Shank! Where are we going!” I yelled. “Molly and I can't keep this up forever!”

“No Clue!” Shank responded. “I assume arceus has a plan though!”

“Wait, what?” I stopped for a second.

“Oh yeah! We talked to arceus!” Shank said. He then threw a book my way, and I dropped Salt to catch it.

“Yeah, I love you too.” Salt grumbled, Harmony picked him up and sighed. I turned to the book and looked inside. The runes were gibberish, but somehow, I understood them:

Say my name.

“Arceus?” I said. Suddenly, a beam of light came down, striking Iron moth and down descended Arceus. Mewtwo and Valentine stopped fighting. Ho-oprah paused its flight path.

“For fucks sake finally.” Arceus said. “Okay, wow. No one has gotten this far, and sure, you skipped meeting Palkia, Dialga, and Giratina, but they can get over it.”

“I- hello sir.”

“Darkari didn’t teach you anything?” Arceus said. “You’re too serious. Now don’t get me wrong, at least you’re not Shank.”

“Hey!” Shank growled. Arceus ignored them.

“Anyway, I’ve come to ask you a favor. You’ve proven yourself worthy enough to find me, so I want to ask if you’d replace me.”

“If I’d-” I frowned “What?”

“You will catch me, I will grant you three wishes, you will get a week to experience them, and then you will die and become an arceus, and I can retire and become some other force. Many have tried, Erick. But few have succeeded. I don’t think I’ve had a replacement since that kid from Hisui who beat Volo to it!”

“Well, I-” I started, but was quickly interrupted by A scream, and arceus was gone. Behind him, Giovanni with a master ball.

“I’m finally going home.” he smiled.

 

[Kandykorn]

Chapter 21:

“Giovanni!” I yelled “Please! Don’t do this!”

“Yeah!” Shank yelled “What the hell dickweed!”

“You shouldn’t talk to me that way.” Giovanni warned.

“Or what, snotface?” Shank shot back. “Ho-Oprah, prepare to fire on that sad man over there.”

“Cute.” Gio smiled. He opened the masterball and out flew Arceus. “Deer, please bring these three to somewhere more… presentable.”

“What the hell is a dee-” Molly started.

“SHUT UP.” Gio yelled, miffed. Arceus rolled its eyes. “Deer, just- put them in the stupid pocket dimension.”

“As you wish.” Arceus sighed. “Erick, you could be a literal god right now.”

And then everything disappeared. Shank, Molly, Rocket, Valentine, Gale, Homer and I were floating in a void.

“This fucking sucks.” Shank sighed.

“Yeah.” I sighed. “It does.”

“Agreed.” Rocket said.

“Erick?” Molly asked. “Can you speak to your pokemon?”

“I-” I started. “Yeah.”

“That makes about as much sense as any of this I suppose.” Molly sighed.

“So Erick…” Shank said. “Did you, like, uh, me?”

“I mean, yeah-”
“Guys.” Molly sighed. “Not. The. Time.”

“Fair.” We both blushed slightly.

“Soooo, do you think he’s going to show up… or… just leave us here?” Rocket asked.

“Could be anything.” I sighed.

“What’d they say?” Shank asked.

“They broached the possibility that we could be stuck here… Forever.”

~
Hours of nothing but a white void, Three teenagers, and four pokemon.

Unremitting silence. Ocasional fights. Shank and I made out. Molly found a notepad in her backpack and played Joltic-tac-toe with Shank while I played on my DS. More silence. My DS ran out of batteries. Molly ran out of paper. More fighting. More silence.

I was starting to go a little crazy.

As of current, I was sitting(?) on seemingly nothing. Shank was resting their head on my lap. Molly was sleeping with Gale. Rocket, Valentine, and homer were trying to do rolls in the vast space.

“Is this it?” I asked Shank.

“Maybe.”

“I’m sorry”

“I-” I looked at Shank, dumbfounded. “This is not your fault.”

“But Molly and I got to achieve our dreams.” Shank shed a single tear. “And you can’t achieve yours.”

I let that thought simmer on my brain for a minute. I’d never be a cook. Never.

I looked over at my friends. I looked down at my hands.

I’d never be a cook.

“Chex…” I started to cry. Maybe Chex was a cook? If Gio didn't destroy the world? I sure hope so.

“Oh Erick.” Shank said. “It’s… I’m so sorry.”

“Wait!” Rocket yelled. It looked over to me. “Stop crying.”

“Why?” I sniffed.

Rocket said nothing. She just closed her eyes, and started to glow. In front of her, all kinds of nuts, berries, wheat, and plants sprouted from the nothingness. Next to her, valentine started a fire.

“I- What’s happening?” I asked. Rocket grabbed a pan from my bag.

“Make us one last meal?” Rocket asked. Shank started to sob loudly behind me, but knowing them, this time it was because this moment was so sweet.

“Okay.”

And I did, and for the first time in that void, we were at peace.

 

[Kandykorn]

Chapter 100:

Hi there.

It’s me, Erick.

Still, uh, in the void.

Time is very weird here. I don’t think I’ve aged?

Shank, Molly, the Pokemon and I have been…

Well, We’ve been.

My ribs are finally healed again!

Shank had gotten into mechanics, and built a TV screen into Homer's chest at about the fourth week. They said it had something to do with their plumbing background.

Somehow, the wifi of the TV showed us the outside world through “Ninetails News.”

We saw Gio destroy our world, and then leave, being replaced with a very disgruntled version of him, who was beat up, and holding a small orange persian-like creature in his arms, who stood up, looked around, and then grinned slightly.

We saw him release Deer the Arceus.

We watched Arceus rebuild our world.

We watched Arceus forget we were trapped.

And there was nothing we could do about it.

We watched Arceus for the next year, hoping he’d come to save us.

But he never did.

Valentine, Gale, and Homer never spoke, but they supported us and each other in any way they could.

Molly kept us from going crazy. She made every day a little better even though we were trapped.
I cooked for us, and helped as well.

Shank kept us laughing.

Rocket kept us alive.

But we never left.

After a while, I started writing this. And in a last ditch effort to do something, I threw the whole thing into a black hole Valentine created in frustration four months later. Miraculously, Homer’s TV screen changed, and we were shown a slightly… different world.

One Where Gio was a king.

The man was rich, and living in the human world by himself. He was surrounded by Mafia men. My book fell next to him. He picked it up, and laughed. He wrote something into it, and then put it on his shelf.

“What if… We go into a black hole?” Shank asked. “Will we go… there?

“No way of knowing.” Molly sighed.

“Better than here.” Rocket sighed.

“But if we leave,” I looked at Valentine. “We’d have to leave Val behind. They need to keep the portal open.”

“I’ll stay with them.” Rocket suggested. Gale and Homer nodded. “We all will.”

“Rocket, we can’t just…”

“You can.” She nodded.

“What’s she saying?” Shank asked.

“She’s suggesting that the pokemon stay.”

“But I- We-” Molly started to cry.

“I know.” Rocket said, even though she knew Molly couldn’t understand. She placed her forehead to Molly's shin. Molly sobbed.

~

“You know,” Shank said. “We could enter this hole and just die.”

“Yeah I know.” Molly said, “Would you losers just shut up and go.”

“Always the charmer, Malls.” I smiled.

“On three?” I asked. Molly started to count down.

“One.”

“Two”

“Thr-”

“Wait!” Shank Interrupted. They smiled weakly, knowing that in a second, we’d jump into a pulsating black vortex that could spell our doom, or our salvation. “On three, or after three?”

Molly laughed a hoarse, dry laugh.

“Like ‘one two three’, or ‘one two three bam’” Shank giggled back.

“One two three bam” I laughed too, at the absurdity of it all. “Molly, start over the countdown.”

“One.”

“Two.”

“Three.”

And then we jumped.