Pokemon Fan Fiction / Pokemon Fan Fiction ❯ Ripples ❯ Departure ( Chapter 11 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

There was silence. We pokémon woke up first. We went over to see if our trainers were okay. Ash, Misty, Brock, James, and Nigel regained consciousness pretty quickly. James and Nigel exchanged glances.
“Did it work?” said James.
“I don’t know,” said Nigel. “We’ll have to wait for them to wake up.”
We waited tensely. After a seemingly interminable wait, they stirred and groaned.
“Did anybody get the number of that bus that hit us?” said Kerri’s voice. Shortly after that, Jessie stirred.
Kerri and Jessie looked down at themselves, then at each other.
“It worked!” they cried in unison. Kerri told us that telepathically, too.
Kerri embraced Nigel, and James embraced Jessie.
A cheer arose from the rest of us, human and pokémon alike. Everyone was dancing around, or embracing, except for Growlie and Wanderlust, who looked sad.
“What’s wrong?” I said to them.
“Well, now that this is over, my master will make me go home, and we’ll probably never see each other again,” said Growlie. “I wish we could be together. But he insists that I take care of his parents, and I must obey him. Wanderlust, Jade, count your blessings. You get to be with your trainer always. That’s something that I doubt I will ever have. But I can always hope.”
I guess Growlie isn’t as lucky as I thought. Money can’t buy everything, I thought.
Sure enough, Jessie said to James, “Let’s blow this joint.”
“But I want to say goodbye to Kerri and Nigel,” he said. “And Growlie has to go home.”
Jessie growled and hit James. “Don’t you dare go goody two shoes on me! I don’t care if they were your friends from a long time ago!”
James cringed, but before he could say anything, Kerri pressed a button on her pokédex, and a poké ball appeared in her hand. “Here, Jessie. Before you go, here’s the Scyther you caught.” She tossed it to her.
Jessie caught the poké ball and stared at it in surprise.
“How can you give that to her!” said Ash. “She doesn’t deserve any pokémon!”
“She deserves that one,” Kerri replied. “She caught it just after we switched bodies.”
James took that opportunity to walk over to pet Growlie. He hugged it and whispered, "Thank you for helping to restore my friends." Growlie licked his face. "I'll miss you--please, please don't cry Growlie..." He sniffled and then went over to Nigel and Kerri. He looked at them sadly. “I--I’m going to miss you guys.”
Nigel and James shook hands.
“Hey, you don’t have to go back to your old life,” said Kerri.
“But I do,” he said. “I hate to do this, but I need to ask one more favor of you. Kerri, could you or your Kadabra teleport Growlie back home?”
Kerri nodded.
"It was so nice to see you again after all these years," said James. "You guys are great people, you know. . ."
Jessie stopped staring at the poké ball, shrank it and clipped it to her belt. Then she recalled her Arbok, and she and Meowth left the cavern. Meanwhile, James was still talking to Nigel and Kerri. About three minutes later, Jessie stomped into the cavern and grabbed James by the collar.
"I'm sorry that you and Jessie couldn't get along better. . ." said James as Jessie dragged him away.
Growlie looked after James sadly and began to howl.
“Master, don’t go!” it cried. Wanderlust licked its face to comfort it.
“After all the trouble we went to restore them, you’d think that they’d at least be grateful,” said Ash.
“They’re Team Rocket! What do you expect?” said Misty in exasperation.
“Well, I am grateful to you,” said Kerri. “I am so glad to be back to normal! I don’t know how I can ever thank you for this.”
“We couldn’t leave you like that. I mean, who wants to live the rest of their lives in Jessie’s body? Ugh!” said Misty. “Think of it this way, Ash: we did it for Kerri, not Team Rocket.”
“So what will you do now?” said Nigel.
“We’ll resume our pokémon journey,” said Ash.
“Well, before you do that, we’d like to have you come back to our house for dinner one last time,” said Kerri.
Nigel nodded in agreement.
“Sounds good to me!” said Ash. Misty and Brock agreed with him.
We went back to the house, where Nigel and Kerri cooked an elaborate dinner. While they were eating, Nigel said, “Kerr and I have thought of a way to thank you guys.”
“We’re going to give each of you a pokémon,” said Kerri.
“All right!” said Ash.
“That’s very generous of you,” said Brock.
“Wow!” said Misty.
Ash ended up with a Bellsprout, Misty ended up with an Oddish, and Brock ended up with a Tangela. Shortly after that, they left.
The next day, Kerri said to Growlie, "Okay, it's time to take you home."
Growlie looked sadly at Kerri and Wanderlust. "I will miss you, littermate. I wish that there were some way I could keep in touch with you."
"I wish there were, too," replied Wanderlust. "Wait--maybe there is. Kerri, would it be possible for you to telepathically contact Growlie from time to time?"
"Yes, I think I can do that..." Kerri said.
"And if you hear from my master, could you let me know?" Growlie asked.
Kerri nodded, and we returned Growlie home. With Growlie's departure, our lives would be as they once were.
Well, almost. Nigel's former Geodude was now a Graveler, and I was now a Raichu. But Kerri was back to normal, and that's what mattered. Everything would be as it was.

Converting /tmp/phpD1EyS3 to /dev/stdout