He was up two against six, fighting a team vastly superior to his own- and if he lost, he would be killed, most likely.

Yay. This was just the kind of situation Red had been trying desperately to avoid.

Proton looked down at him with a condescending gaze. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did you really expect to play fair? I’m with Team Rocket, brat.”

“Says the person who was talking about fighting with honor!”

“Ah, well, see- the thing about that is… honor is relative.”

Red grimaced. He never should have accepted this- he wouldn’t have, if there was really a choice in the matter. He was backed into a corner, and he knew it.

‘Ah well,’ he supposed. ‘There’s nothing I can do about it now.’

“Are you going to send out your pokémon, then?” Proton said, tapping his foot. “I don’t have all day, you know.”

Red took a deep breath, and grabbed Bulbasaur’s pokéball from his pocket- he had opted to keep both close at hand while he was in disguise. He pressed the release button, and in a flash of light, Bulbasaur appeared on the cave floor, yawning. It quickly blinked away the drowsiness, however, and stood up, ready to battle. Proton, however, had a glazed look in his eyes, entirely unimpressed with the display.

“Hm,” he said. “Even more pathetic than I expected. I was hoping for at least a small challenge- is that too much to ask for? Come, send out your other one. Maybe it’s marginally more threatening than this walking babiri berry.”

Bulbasaur croaked angrily, and Red didn’t need a translator to see that it was offended by the statement. The trainer did, however, oblige with Proton’s request, sending out Mankey, too.

Proton took one look at the new addition, and sighed. “Well then. At least this will be quick.”

And with that, he tossed a great ball- a great ball! Into the air, and a Houndoom coalesced in front of him. If Red had any doubts about losing this battle before, they were gone now, as the canine radiated an aura of malice- as if it wanted to rip apart not just his pokémon, but him too.

He gulped nervously. This was such a stupid idea, but he didn’t see any way out of it- he’d have to go down fighting.

“I got this Houndoom from a very reliable source,” Proton said, a glint in his eyes. “A benefactor from Johto sent it through our very own smuggling ring, which was recently dissolved- quite a shame, really. This man’s pokémon are known to be particularly… aggressive, however. Quite useful for heavy-handed, swift victories.”

He smirked, and pointed at Red. “That’s enough wasted time, though. Houndoom- use Fire Fang!”

Houndoom lunged forward, flames coalescing around its mouth, and Red froze out of panic, unsure of what to do. “Uh… dodge!” he shouted, his mind racing at a million miles an hour. Bulbasaur and Mankey both jumped out of the way at the last minute, just barely avoiding the fiery attack that was fast approaching. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure how to counterattack.

“Wait,” he said. “Shouldn’t I return one of my pokémon? It’s two against one right now.”

The admin chuckled. “That depends on whether you want his battle to drag on for an extra minute or not. Personally, I’d just give up right now. Save yourself the effort.”

“As if,” Red muttered.

“Suit yourself. Houndoom, use Bite.”

The dark-type pokémon whirled around, changing its trajectory in an instant. It glared menacingly at Bulbasaur, and began dashing forwards, intent on crushing its opponent in its jaws. Red had the rather morbid thought of it possibly severing Bulbasaur’s bulb clean off its body, and began to panic even more.

“Um, uh, ah…” he stammered, desperately trying to come up with some sort of strategy. A ranged move was the only option that would allow him to hit without immediately getting toasted, but the only one he had was Razor Leaf and technically Vine Whip, neither of which would be particularly effective. No more than a few seconds in and he had already been cornered.

“Dodge, and use Sleep Powder!” he yelled frantically, Houndoom growing ever closer to Bulbasaur. This time, however, the canine was expecting evasion tactics, and quickly darted to the side to block its opponent off. With nowhere to run, the seed pokémon blasted a spray of silvery powder out of its bulb, in a last-ditch effort to protect itself.

The Houndoom faltered for a moment as it was engulfed in the cloud, and Red waited with bated breath, hoping that the anesthetic would take effect. After a brief moment in which the canine appeared to grow drowsy, however, it snapped back awake, flames flaring out of its body and burning away the powder.

Luckily, Mankey came in at the last minute to distract Houndoom from its prior target, but the vast difference in speed between the two meant that now Mankey was the one in trouble.

What followed was a frenzied dance of both blows and dodges- the sources of each being rather obvious. While Houndoom was both fast and strong, it was surprisingly inaccurate, and, though there were several close calls, both Mankey and Bulbasaur were able to escape with little more than light burns.

‘Mankey is the one with type advantage here- Since Houndoom is a dark type, fighting type moves should be highly effective against. But the problem is that it doesn’t even matter- it could probably take out both of my pokémon in one or two hits each.’

Red looked back up to the battle, nervously eyeing the situation. It was much the same as it had been for the past few minutes, and Proton had grown visibly bored- which didn’t bode well for him. He wasn’t certain how much long the admin would wait around. Even if he had been doomed to failure from the start- the man had five other pokémon, after all- every second this battle dragged on gave him, or Phoenix, or even Ritchie, more time to find a way out.

‘Though, speaking of which… where are those two? As much as I hate to admit it, I’m probably going to have to rely on them if I want to get away from this battle.’

Proton sighed. “All right, that’s enough. Let’s get this over with, already. You know what to do, Houndoom.”

The canine turned towards Proton and nodded, then took on a wide stance, glowing with a malevolent grey energy. Then, in an instant, it vanished. Bulbasaur and Mankey looked around in confusion, and Red could even hear the crowd of grunts murmuring between themselves. A sharp look from Proton, however, silenced them.

Then, just as quickly as it had disappeared, Houndoom reappeared again, its paw already on a path to strike Bulbasaur through its chest. Red shouted in panic, but it was too late- there wasn’t any time to dodge, or counterattack.

Bulbasaur was sent flying from the impact, landing several feet into the ring of grunts. Red pushed through the sea of black sweaters, his brow furrowed in worry, and gasped when he finally saw the damage- the pokémon now sported three deep slash marks on its torso, and had already fainted from the attack.

As he quietly looked down at Bulbasaur, he realized that this was the first time one of his pokémon had fainted. It was a rather sobering experience. He didn’t have any time to mourn his partner, however, as a growl from Houndoom brought his attention back to the battlefield, where Mankey stood. The canine pokémon was still flaring with energy, and its intentions were made clear by its demeanor- Red could practically hear its voice in his head, saying, “You’re next.”

“How does it feel now, brat?” Proton asked. “To know how pointless this battle was? To be frank, I found it rather funny to see you think you could find a way out- I goaded you on, gave you a chance…” Red felt a chill run down his spine then, as he began to chuckle.

“And now I can snatch it away.”

BOOM!

For the next few seconds, everything was a blur of color- the ringing in Red’s ears prevented him from focusing on anything, and each event faded into the next. He lay on the cave floor for a moment, dazed- then everything went black.

Mankey was sitting on his backpack, frantically tugging on his ear. When had that happened?

He blinked, and it was as if he had moved twenty feet. A weight in his hand indicated that Bulbasaur was safe and sound in its pokéball, and he saw grunts pouring out of the room like water from a faucet. There was the exit. He had to make it there.

Wait a second. He was standing right next to it.

‘What on earth is going on?’

He had heard of things like this happening to people who got really drunk, but he was stone-cold sober. So why had-

“Get a move on, dammit!”

Red looked up with a start, and noticed Phoenix pulling him along. Shaking himself out of his stupor, he dug his foot into the ground, and stared at her.

“What’s going on, Phoenix?”

To his surprise, she looked away sheepishly, and rubbed the back of her head. “Well, I might of… uh… hid a bomb in your backpack?”

Red stood in silence for a few seconds, unable to say anything over the sheer ridiculousness of what he had just heard.

“You hid a bomb in my bag?!”

“Listen, I know it sounds bad- but it was only meant as a distraction- I mean, a last-resort- and, uh…” She stood there for a moment, then grunted, turning back around and continuing to move forward. “There’s no time for this. Shut up and let’s blow this malasada stand.”

“Hey!” Red yelled. “You can’t just blow me off like that! What you did was wrong on so many-”

“Hurry up already!”

The young trainer was still seething with anger, but the sound of Team Rocket grunts shouting from behind spurred him into action- in an instant, he was following Phoenix down the hall, running as fast as possible.

He would deal with that… heavily flawed decision once they were all safe and sound.

The two of them ran around the caves for the next few minutes, trying only to get as far away from the grunts as possible- eventually, however, Red realized something.

“Uhh…” he said, having mostly recovered from the explosion, which he was pretty sure was only a flash grenade- he hoped so, at least. “Where’s Ritchie?”

Phoenix paused for a moment, seemingly deep in thought, then looked back up at him, an expression of pure annoyance on her face.

“If I had to guess?” she said. “Probably challenging Proton to a battle.”

“Yeah, that does seem like something he would do- Wait a moment there’s no way he’d stand a chance against him we need to… uh…”

Red rubbed his temples, ever more annoyed at the world for continuously making things more difficult for him. “Yeah, we’re gonna have to go back and get him, aren’t we?”

Phoenix sighed, doubling back around. “C’mon then. We don’t have all day, do we.”

“Great…” he muttered, regretting ever bringing the subject up.

“Oh, I wouldn’t be going anywhere if I were you.”

Hearing the all-too familiar voice, Red whirled around to face a figure standing in the shadows of the passage. The shadowy form slowly stepped forward into the light, revealing himself to be exactly the person who he didn’t want to run into again- Proton.

Because, really, who else could it have been?

Once again, Red regretted the many decisions that had gotten him to this point. It seemed like every time things had gotten as bad as they could possibly get, they just kept getting worse. Case in point; Proton wasn’t alone- he was accompanied by Ritchie, who was standing stock still out of pure horror- emotions that didn’t particularly surprise Red, given how a knife was pressed against the boy’s neck, a single movement away from piercing his delicate skin.

“Like I said- we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. And unfortunately for you, brat, my patience is wearing thin, and I’m no longer willing to even entertain the idea of letting you go free. Buckle up… because once I’m done with all of you, your corpses will be left to rot in this accursed cave.”