The river churned as if stirred by an invisible hand.
A moment later, three drenched bodies, faces tinged an unhealthy color and completely unconscious, were gently lifted from the water by psychic power and floated back to shore.
They flopped onto the muddy bank like three stranded salted fish.
Jessie's red hair was plastered flat to her face. James had lost every trace of his usual "refined" air. Meowth's paws twitched weakly.
On top of being soaked, they still carried traces of Weezing's poison and the faint smell of singed cloth.
"There. Your forty thousand." Misty crossed her arms and jerked her chin at them. "Though this is the 'poisoned and unconscious' version. You might want to save them before you try to cash them in."
Poisoning, in this world, was dangerous.
It didn't always kill instantly—
But it absolutely could kill you if you didn't neutralize it in time.
Ash stared at the three KO'd figures and scratched his head.
"Uh… yeah, we probably should deal with the 'poisoned' part first, huh?"
"Do we have any way to detox them? Do we need to rush them to Cerulean?"
He was pretty sure none of them had a healing-type Pokémon.
"…Leave it to me." Brock, who had been quiet all this time, finally sighed.
His face held a mix of exasperation and that unavoidable sense of responsibility.
He carefully set the lunch pot down, squatted, and opened the medical kit he always carried, pulling out antidote injectors and bandages.
"I am Pewter's Gym Trainer, after all," he said, checking each person's pupils and pulse with practiced hands. "I can't just stand here and watch them die in front of me—Team Rocket or not."
He administered a general antidote injection to each of them, then carefully cleaned and dressed the cuts and burns from flying debris and stray electricity.
This was only first aid.
They'd still need proper treatment to fully recover.
"Pika…" Pikachu hopped down from Ash's shoulder and watched Brock work, eyes wide, then glanced at the Rockets' faces as their coloring slowly shifted from purple-blue back toward something more human.
It scratched its cheek with a paw.
Ash squatted beside Brock, watching his hands move.
"Brock, you really do know a lot," he said, blinking.
"This is just basic training for a Gym Trainer and Breeder," Brock replied, not looking up.
"In battles, accidents are inevitable. Treating injuries is a must-have skill. Besides…" He hesitated. "They're idiots. But not evil enough to deserve dying here."
He'd heard Ash mention their bounty.
Twenty thousand each meant they'd done some bad things—but nothing truly monstrous.
If there'd been another zero on that number…
That would've been a different story entirely.
Under Brock's care, the trio's breathing gradually steadied.
They were still unconscious, but at least they weren't in immediate danger.
"Okay. They're stable for now." Brock stood and wiped a bit of sweat from his brow.
"Honestly, I get the feeling their bodies are tougher than average. They probably wouldn't die easily from this kind of poison. But it'd still be best to send them to a Pokémon Center."
Even as he spoke, Brock was thinking about Team Rocket's "elite" training.
This world had plenty of people who were beyond normal human limits.
There were martial artists who could overpower Fighting-types with pure hand-to-hand skill—
And psychics who could restrain Psychic-type Pokémon with their own minds.
It was only natural that Team Rocket, Kanto's biggest underworld organization, had researched this kind of "enhancement."
Not cyborgs or clones or anything that insane.
More like a complete stack of experimental body enhancers.
The kind of cocktail that, if you had to describe it in simple terms, would be:
A side-effect-free, nine-drug steroid stack, dialed up to max.
Ash looked at the three Rockets lined up on the ground, rubbing his chin.
His eyes sparked mischievously.
"Send them to a Pokémon Center? Sure. But… do you think the League would reimburse the 'shipping' and 'medical' costs?"
What was wrong with being a little greedy?
Ash was broke. That was just facts.
What?
Mom Delia had said he could ask if he ever needed money?
He'd already left home. How could he just go running back to his mom for cash?!
Misty stared at him, speechless.
"…Brock, do you have any antidote left? This guy's 'greed poisoning' looks worse than theirs. You should probably give him a shot too."
Pikachu nodded vigorously. "Pika chu!" (Exactly!)
"Speaking of…" Ash tossed a Poké Ball up and down in his hand. "This Meowth can speak human language. That's pretty rare, right? It's gotta be valuable."
"Don't even think about it~~" Misty's mood flipped and she puffed up proudly, ready for a bit of payback.
"When a Poké Ball catches a Pokémon, it 'tags' it with a special mark. That mark binds that Pokémon to that specific ball."
"If you try to capture a Pokémon that already has an owner, the ball recognizes the tag and won't react. You can't catch it at all."
"Only if a Trainer abandons or releases their Pokémon and that bond is broken—only when it returns to being wild—can someone else catch it."
She folded her arms, very pleased with herself.
"If you don't believe me, you can try and prove me wrong~"
After having Ash "lecture" her several times before, Misty was delighted to flip the script.
So you like teaching other people, huh?
Now you can enjoy being taught.
"…" Ash toyed with the Poké Ball.
If he remembered right, Team Rocket's Meowth had never been caught in a ball.
But since Misty was this confident…
Well, how could he not poke at her a little?
"You said it yourself, so I'll do a field test for you." Ash tossed the Poké Ball at Meowth.
The ball struck Meowth, popped open, and drew it in with a flash of red light.
"No way!" Misty's eyes went wide. "There's no way a Team Rocket Pokémon wouldn't have been captured already!"
As for the idea that the Poké Ball was defective…
That was impossible.
Tampering with League-standard Poké Balls was one of the fastest ways to get a bounty placed on your head.
It was considered extremely serious.
The minimum starting bounty for that kind of crime was six figures—and it only went up from there.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Thunk.
The Poké Ball's button flashed three times, then went still.
Capture: successful.
Of course, catching a Pokémon and getting it to actually obey were two very different things.
Plenty of captured Pokémon refused to submit to their new Trainers.
"Nice!" Ash grinned and tugged his cap. "I caught a talking Meowth!"
He flicked his gaze to the system interface.
Yeah… its numbers were not exactly inspiring.
Emm.
Meowth
Alias: The Meowth That Can Talk
Level: 10
Nature: Hard-working
Ability: Technician
IVs: Average
Moves: Growl Lv.4, Hone Claws Lv.5, Scratch Lv.3
"…The Meowth that can talk. There might only be one like this in the world," Brock said, stroking his chin.
From his experienced eye, this Meowth was already fairly old, and its potential had been limited by how it had been living.
There wasn't much hope for big jumps in its battle strength.
But the ability to speak human language alone gave it value.
Not "overpowered," but still—
Among truly powerful Pokémon, ones able to communicate in all sorts of ways with humans weren't exactly rare.
Especially among Ghost and Psychic types.
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