Stealth

Not the addition chap - that will come out in an hour or two

--

Erika was a girl who could only be described in one word, a prodigy. She took over her Gym from her mother at the age of only 11, even her name means genus, ("Erica", a genus of flowers). And as her name suggests she is a botanist.

According to everyone she was considered a traditional Japanese beauty, or a jade beauty depending on who you ask, she usually keeps to herself and spends most of her time sleeping.

But under all that she didn't enjoy having to act a specific way every day to keep appearances, so she learned archery to try and get away from it but to no one's surprise she was good at it too, so much so that the archery dojo merged with her gym and she became a teacher.

It just made her more upset, on the outside it looked like she had everything, respect, and beauty, and her family was wealthy, but even with all of that she still felt like a doll stuck in her box.

So that is why she spent most of her time alone at night, she was the most active and the most energized during the night, and that's part of the reason why she is always sleepy during the day, everyone just thinks it is because she is around grass types all the time.

She spends so much time at night that people joked that maybe she should have become a ghost-type Gym leader. She didn't say anything since it gave her an excuse to leave town more often and visit Lavender Town.

When she got to the city she would pay her respects, then collect any herbs and plants that she didn't have or was running low in her town.

Oftentimes she would also pay a visit to Mr. Fuji, over time they bonded over taking care of Pokemon. 

Today when she came she found only his granddaughter Reina holding down the fort. She went to the tower to see if she could find him but when she arrived it looked like people were trying to evaluate the lower levels and the police were carrying out an unconscious man in a Team Rocket uniform.

When she saw that she finally realized that something was going on and that something happened to Fuji.

Although she wanted to help, she couldn't, there was nothing she could do, there was no evidence, no witness, no signs of struggle, no motive, and no leads. And that wasn't even mentioning her responsibilities as a Gym leader.

So even though she didn't want to, she walked away to start making her way back to her town. Until she heard something, the sounds of a fight, almost as if on instinct she ran over to the direction of the scuffle.

She arrived at the bridge and saw nothing until she looked down and saw two men in black clothes and a small red R, and one boy wearing a red and white hoodie, along with a Poliwrath punching two Koffing.

Erika got worried thinking that the grunts were about to beat up an innocent boy until she saw him throw one over his shoulder and then use him to beat his partner.

Needless to say, both her and the grunts below were shocked seeing him do that, although unlike Erika the grunts got back up and tried again only for the boy to continue to beat them.

By that point, she snapped out of it and released her Tangela to grab one of the grunts finally bringing attention to herself.

She put on a smile, "Well I think I deserve an explanation as to what all this commotion is about, don't you agree gentlemen."

—

About 3 minutes later the grunts were asleep and tied up with vines thanks to Tangela. And Poliwrath was done with the Koffing and went back into his ball.

Ash and Erika were standing face to face now, "So basically Mr. Fuji was kidnapped and I got information that an entrance to their base was here under the bridge, and lo and behold two grunts guarding the door." Ash explained.

"I see," Erika said, nodding along before doing a small bow, "I apologize for stepping in then."

"It's fine, nothing gained, nothing lost, so what about you, It's a pretty long way from home, Erika," Ash said.

"Yes I suppose that you found out rather quickly, well I wasn't attempting to hide it, well then allow me to give a proper greeting, I am Erika of Celadon City." Erika said keeping up her 'elegant' appearance.

"Well, then you can call me Ash."

Erika looked at Ash, "Would it be alright if I joined you? I believe we would be stronger together and it would be faster to find Mr. Fuji"

"Sure, we can tag together, you want to check the door, and I'll check the grunts," Ash said and Erika agreed happily.

Erika went to the door, it was a large wooden door with a metal handle to the right side, although it looked like it was previously covered with metal bars. She tried opening it but she couldn't even get it to move, so she got Tangela to pull with vines but still nothing.

Ash meanwhile was checking the grunts for anything, he 'pocketed' something but turned back to Erika, "Nothing useful on these guys, and thankfully no pagers or coms, can you open the door?"

Erika shook her head so Ash sighed and walked to the door and put his hand on it, "Might want to take a step back, I'm not too good at this."

Erika took a step back as Ash let his aura get through the metal and to the lock, then forced it to break letting a muffled sound of metal out, then he pulled it open.

"After you," Ash said bowing.

Erika walked in and Ash followed, immediately when they got in the stench of the sewer hit them, though they both seemed like they were fine-ish.

"Doesn't smell pleasant but still better than Gloom did," Ash mumbled.

"Oh, so you also have the opportunity to smell the unique scent of their flowers," Erika said looking excited.

"Yeah I had one, but he is a Vileplume now," Ash said

Erika clapped her hands and looked up at Ash, "Really I'd love to see him if you don't mind," she said, letting some of her real personality out.

"Maybe once we are done with all of this, but first what are you working with, and do you want to be stealthy about this?"

Erika snapped herself out of her excitement, "Yes, I have 3 Pokemon on me at the moment, I wasn't expecting to battle so I carry my Tangela and my Gloom, and my third Pokemon is my Leafeon, in terms of strength the Gloom and Tangela I have aren't that strong but will still hold their own, but my Leafeon could contend as one of my strongest."

"Right, so I guess you want to try to go stealthy then, fine by me we don't know how many are down here."

"Yes, that would be wise. But I told you my team, isn't it polite to tell me yours?"

"Oh right, well most of my Pokemon are sleeping, the ones that are awake and can fight are Vileplume, Poliwrath, Beedrill, and a Charizard," Ash said as they walked and talked.

As the duo started walking through the abandoned sewer, Ash closed his eyes and let his Aura cover everything in 60 meters since that was his current limit. He found several signals but he didn't know Fuji's Aura so he couldn't find him.

"I think I hear some people upfront," Ash said, stopping Erika as they both looked over the corner, seeing 2 grunts standing guard.

"Very well leave them to me, Tangela if you could," Erika commanded.

Tangela releases a pinkish fog through the air that makes its way to the two grunts, which they both breathe in.

The first guy yawns causing the second one to look at him, "Come on man I know it's late but we need to stay here until we can, *Yawn*, look now you have me doing it"

"Sorry I guess I didn't get enough sleep, but you know just an eye rest won't kill us."

"You know maybe you have a point, I won't tell if you won't…" the grunt said as they both fell asleep.

Tangela wrapped them up in vines as Ash looked towards Erika, "Not bad at all, but the fact that you are so good at using that makes me somewhat concerned when I have to face you."

"Oh, are you participating in this year's league?"

"Yeah, but that's unimportant right now, how many times do you think you can do that?"

"Well, Tangela could probably use it about 3 more times if she is conservative."

"Then we won't have enough for everyone, if we consider 2 per use which is very generous and unlikely, we would still have 3 more grunts, 6 in the worst case."

"Yes, it seems we will be forced to search for a new plan if we wish to remain unnoticed."

"Yeah, I mean we could just Steam roll through them, but they still have Fuji so probably not the best Idea, well let's do what we can and then talk about it"

And that was the same format for about 5 grunts until they started getting suspicious seeing that more grunts were taking unexplained absences. In total there were about 4 more grunts in the area they were in, all of them were more alert so the duo didn't get a good chance to separate any of them.

So the two decided to change their plan.

—

The Grunts were a bit on edge, they got put on this mission because they needed to make sure nothing got out of hand, none of them really wanted to be there but they also knew that just leaving would be far worse for them.

So needless to say when they saw their teammates just disappear with no announcement, even an angry grunt, they got suspicious, after all, they weren't completely stupid so they all started separating but still watched each other.

But suddenly they heard the sounds of a cough making all of them look at each other.

"Hey, you guys hear that?" Grunt 1 asked.

"Yeah, how could we not, what do you think it was," Grunt 2 asked, putting his hand on his belt ready for action.

"Well it's probably our 'partners' trying to hide and get out of their job," Grunt 3 concluded, acting like they were beneath him.

"Or it could be the thing that took them," the fourth cowardly grunt said, making the other three look at each other.

Grunt 3 pointed at 4 & 1, "You two go check it."

"Wa-why do we need to go!" Grunt 4 asked frighteningly.

"Well obviously, I came up with the idea so I should choose the teams, don't worry we will look at you two from behind," Grunt 3 said, nodding to himself.

"*Sigh* whatever, let's just go we both know he isn't going to budge (￣へ￣)" grunt 1 said, making grunt 2 follow begrudgingly.

They moved in the direction of the cough, which was in the darker corner near an opening. The two grunts looked at them from behind in case something tried sneaking up on them, but what they did not expect were two vines wrapping around them and pulling them out into the darkness.

The town grunts looked into the opening, one looked down while the other rummaged in his pockets.

Grunt 1 looked down and saw nothing until Grunt 4 flashed a flashlight down, letting them both see….nothing.

"The heck, hey there's nothing over here!" Grunt 1 shouted back to his team only to receive no response.

Grunt 1 got up and looked back, "Hey what's the matter with you, do you really want to play games right now." but he saw nothing.

Grunt 1 started waking and 4 hurriedly followed behind him, "Hey guys don't tell me you decided to abandon your post too, great just peachy."

"Hey I think we need to-," Grunt 4 said before noticing a shadow that didn't belong to them, looking up they saw the grunts being wrapped with vines and still awake and squirming.

"Wh- we need to-" Grunt 1 started saying before more vines grabbed him and dragged him into the darkness.

Grunt 4 started backing up and looking around just as he was about to make a break for it he was grabbed from behind and put in a lock.

It was Ash who was hiding in the darkness just out of sight from them, "We need answers, so how cooperative are you feeling."

"I'll talk, I'm the biggest coward you've ever met!"

"We'll see"

"I've already wet myself!"

"Oh, then you're in the top 5."