“Well,” Phoenix muttered, staring at the hostage situation that was unfolding in front of her. “That escalated quickly.”

To think that it had been only a couple of days since she had been minding her own business on Route 3, blissfully unaware of the trouble that was about to come her way- the trouble that seemed to follow Red around like a magnet, much to the younger trainer's chagrin. Frankly, she enjoyed all the excitement, but not the baggage that came with it. Red and Ritchie were both very annoying in their own ways.

“What do we do now?!” Red hissed to her, the panic written across his face. Phoenix shrugged- as much as she wanted to blow that guy up, Ritchie would get caught in the crossfire… and she wasn’t that cruel. The bomb she had planted in Red’s backpack was only a flash-bang; (mostly) non-lethal.

She looked over at Proton, who was shaking like a rabid Herdier, eyes bloodshot. His mouth had twisted into a feral grin, and the sight put her on edge. It was like some sort of primal rage had awoken inside of the man.

The four of them stood in silence for what felt like hours- but was, in reality, no longer than a minute of two. Then, Ritchie slipped down a little, and the room exploded into action once more.

“Just let go of him already!” Phoenix shouted. Ritchie struggled a little more, but went pale again as he was reminded of the knife against his neck.

“Stay right where you are, brat!” Proton said, giving her a seething glare. “Move even an inch, and-”

Before he could continue with his threat, however, a new figure emerged from the shadows, stepping into the passageway with a pistol pointed at Proton’s head. All was silent for a short few seconds, as everyone tried to process this new development- then the person spoke.

“Proton of Team Rocket, you are under arrest for numerous criminal activities. Please do not resist.”

“Looker?” Phoenix murmured, surprised and somewhat relieved that the police officer had turned up.

“And who might you be,” Proton spat.

“I am an agent working in Interpol. Up until now I had been fine waiting on the sidelines and gathering intelligence on your organization, but this situation calls for drastic interventions.”

“Just try it,” the admin responded, raising his knife closer to Ritchie’s neck. “One step closer and the boy goes down with me.”

“Why, may I ask, do you deem this necessary?”

“Tying up loose ends,” Proton said, giving Looker a heated glare. “I can't just let them go if there's even a chance of them knowing our secrets, can I? It would tarnish my reputation.”

Looker sighed, and turned towards the two (relatively) young pokémon trainers off to the side, who were watching in stunned silence. “Children, you need to leave,” he said, glancing back towards Proton every few seconds. “To stay would place your lives in danger.”

Red began to turn away, all too happy to oblige with Looker’s request, but Phoenix quickly grabbed his arm, and hissed “No.”

“Come on! Looker can handle this,” he whined, trying to break free. That year spent training on Mt. Silver wasn’t for nothing, though- she was a lot stronger than she looked, and her grip remained firm.

“Oh, fine,” Red grunted, glaring at her. “But let’s not take too long, because I would really rather not die.”

“Obviously,” Phoenix muttered, looking for some way to get Ritchie away safely. Looker and Proton were still deep in discussion, and Ritchie looked distressed but mostly resigned to his fate- though the fact that the admin’s ire wasn’t directed at him did seem to keep him fairly calm.

Then, in a flash of inspiration, she had an idea. It was stupid and risky, but that also meant it would be unexpected, and sometimes that’s just what you need. Though, of course, not always, if their disguises from earlier were anything to go by.

Eh, why not? Something had to be done, either way.

“Hey, Ritchie,” she whispered, taking care not to be heard by the bickering adults. “Crouch down and walk over here, while he’s distracted.”

“What?” Red hissed, alarmed. “That’s suicidal? Why would you-”

“And do you have any better ideas?”

“Well, no, but…”

“Just shut up and-”

“Come on, let’s go before Proton notices!” Ritchie hissed, shivering. “I don’t wanna be near that guy any longer than I have to.”

“Yeah, what Ritchie said,” Red whispered, pointing to the trainer… then looking back towards Proton’s empty arms. Then back at him. And back and forth a few more times, for good measure.

Phoenix watched this with a neutral expression on her face, but inside she was rolling over in laughter. She hadn’t expected her plan to work that well, and now she had the added satisfaction of watching Red try to process what had just happened. While she was waiting, however, Proton had finally looked back towards them, and his eyes lit up in a cold fury as he saw that his hostage had escaped.

“ℒ⤺⎁⎭⻀⛲⃬⥠ⷫ❺⫑⺹⭶⢪⊕⸴❃⦺⟤⚰⟬⦅⫔⾁⁋!”

Phoenix didn’t understand any of that, and quite frankly? She wasn’t sure she wanted to. Feeling what could only be described as a mental equivalent of Ice Beam being burned into her forehead, she quickly turned around, grabbed Ritchie’s wrist, and hightailed it out of the room, hearing the Rocket admin’s guttural screams echo through the caverns behind her.

She didn’t stop until she was far, far away, and if she heard any gunshots along the way? She, quite frankly, couldn’t care less. That man had completely and utterly snapped- there was nothing left that could be done except make sure he couldn't harm anyone else.

“It’s been a quiet couple of days, huh?”

“Yeah, well… Let’s keep it that way. I prefer not being placed in life-threatening situations, thank you very much.”

“I mean, it was kinda fun! Even though I did get kidnapped and nearly lobotomized…”

“Where did you even learn that word?” Phoenix asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I saw it in a book I read.”

“I hate to imagine what kind of book would need to include a word like that.”

“It was about-”

Thankfully, a loud beeping sound chose just that moment to interrupt Ritchie’s more-likely-that-not uncomfortable response. After a bit of confusion, Red managed to pinpoint the noise to his pokédex, and pulled the device out of his backpack. A large blue light on it was flashing, and a message on the screen read:

Signal detected. Scanned pokémon is nearby.

“Should we go look for it?” Ritchie asked. The trainer had been looking over Red’s shoulder as he handled the ‘dex.

“Uh, I dunno… what time is it?”

“About midnight, I think,” Phoenix responded. “Actually, now that I think about it… Yeah, I think we should go after it.”

“Wait, midnight? Why didn’t you tell us it was that late earlier?!”

“You never asked?”

Red was frustrated, but he let it slide in favor of an even more pressing objection. “Okay, fine, but why go look for the Clefairy? If anything,” he said, yawning, “we should be going to bed right now.”

“Oh, call it a bit of hunch,” Phoenix responded, a smirk creeping across her face.

“That’s… not a great argument.”

Ritchie tapped his chin in thought, then looked back at his two companions eagerly. “I say we do it!” he said, to Red’s dismay. “I trust Phoenix.”

And so, ignoring the numerous complaints from their companion, Ritchie and Phoenix headed off towards the source of the signal, using Red’s scanner (which Phoenix managed to take from him with a little bit of applied force) to guide them.

Eventually, after what felt like hours, they somehow made it. There were more than a few hiccups along the way, many wrong turns, and ever increasing tensions between the three of them, but finally, they reached the cave that the scanner had pointed them to.

“Woah…”

“Okay, I’ve got to admit, this was worth staying up for. Though I’m probably going to be sleeping through all of tomorrow, at this rate.”

“Told you it would be worth it. I figured-” Phoenix said, pausing to stretch a little, “That this would be as good a time as any to go. Clefairies are connected to the moon, right? So what better time to do their ritual than midnight on a full moon?”

“I'm not even going to ask how you knew it was a full moon.”

“I keep track,” was her annoyingly vague response.

The three then lapsed into a comfortable silence as they observed the spectacle before them- a large cavern filled with glittering black ores stretched out ahead, in which a large amount of Clefairy were mingling. It was like a neighborhood barbeque, only for rotund pink pokémon. Some of them were dancing in circles, performing unknown rituals, others were mingling and playing together, and still others congregated around a large rock that served as a centerpiece to the room. It was imbued with an almost otherworldly, magical light- impossible to explain, but amazing to behold. For some reason, it reminded Red of the moon.

But then his attention was drawn to another aspect of the gathering; left and right, Clefairy were evolving into their evolved forms, Clefable. To see so many of them in one place was astounding, given how they were pretty well known for being rather secluded.

The process went something like this- a group of Clefairy would dance in a circle, typically rather close to the moon rock, and then a smaller pokémon, one that Red didn’t recognize, would run up holding one of the ores that were embedded in the cave walls. The Clefairy would take turns holding the rock, passing it around between themselves, and one by one they basked in the telltale light of evolution.

“Ahem.”

A sharp cough from Phoenix brought him back to reality, and he realized that, since he was here, he should probably gather data for Professor Oak; after all, this was a veritable gold mine of information on the Clefairy line.

So, for the next few minutes, he and Ritchie strolled around the cavern, using their pokédexes to collect as much data as possible- by the time they were done, the ‘dex entries for both Clefairy and Clefable had increased by at least thirty percent. And, thankfully, it seemed that the little puffs didn’t mind their presence too much; as long as they didn’t interrupt their rituals or take any of the stones (the latter of which Red learned the hard way), they were ignored, for the most part.

It didn’t take long, however, for the Clefairy to become interested in them. A rough tugging on Red’s trousers brought his attention to this particular fact; looking down in surprise, he saw that one of the smaller pokémon (the ones he didn’t recognize) had run up to him, and was inspecting at him with a sort of fire in its eyes. He stared at in confusion for a couple of seconds, but once it began pointing to the pokéball in his hand and jumping up and down, its intentions were clear.

“You want to come with me?”

Red wasn’t sure how much the ‘mon actually understood, but if the vigorous nod he received was anything to go by, it probably got the gist of what he was saying.

He considered the small pink pokémon for a few moments- as long as he could without making the situation awkward. Ultimately, however, he was much too tired to wrack his brain over a decision like this- therefore, he opted to take the path of least resistance. Pulling out an empty pokeball from his pocket, he took a deep breath, and crouched down in front of the Clefairy, holding out the device with the capture button facing away from him. The pokemon slapped the button excitedly, and was immediately sucked inside of it.

It shook once…

Then twice…

And with a ‘click!’, the pokémon was his. Honestly, though, why had he held his breath? It was the one who had come to him, after all.

“I don’t think they’ll mind-” Ritchie said, pausing to yawn, “if we sleep here, right?”

“Frankly, I don’t even care,” Phoenix grunted, pulling a sleeping bag out of her backpack and laying it on the ground.

“Why’d I let you keep me up until two in the morning?” Red muttered.

“Uh… ‘cause cool Clefairy stuff? I dunno man, just lemme sleep.”

“Right,” he said, slipping into his PJs. Ritchie followed suit, and Phoenix too, behind a rock and away from prying eyes- not that the two younger trainers were particularly inclined to look ‘there’, but Red could understand why she wasn’t taking any chances.

It took a frustrating couple of minutes for him to open his sleeping bag, as the zipper was stuck; he received no help from his companions, either, as they were already practically comatose. Which a bit of difficulty, however, he managed to open it, and it wasn’t long before he was warm and snug inside.

‘Lights out,’ he thought to himself, as he drifted off into a well-deserved rest.