Could it be more obvious that it is Castform? =P

Good job, 10/10

Great! I just love it! Keep it up, Gryphlame, I'm really liking this fic.

Anyway, good guess Siphai, but it could also be a (major) leak on the floor on top. Maybe there's a tank in the floor above, that keeps rare Pokemon that Kid Rocket are trying to steal, but accidentaly broke it and it's leaking to the floor on the bottom.

Or it could be just Castform and I'm over-imagining things. :roll: Better wait till part 2 of this episode to find out what REALLY happened.

woohoo!finally started again!!i love it!

10/10

Remind me to go through all the chapters soon to proofread- I'm just positive this contains like a bazillion weird errors. I'll probably edit it with fixes tomorrow.

I could tell immediately that we'd entered a lab, even though the lights were off. The room was lined with a white counter, which had all sorts of weird machines and microscopes on it. /Why do they even need microscopes to study weather?/ I asked myself, walking cautiously into the darkness…

"AAAH!" I screamed, bumping into something I couldn't see in the darkness. To my surprise, the something screamed too, and it took us both a moment to realize that neither of us was an evil scary ghost pokemon haunting the lab. The something flicked on a light switch, and I recognized him as the scientist I had bumped into earlier.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, straightening his glasses and trying to act as if he hadn't just screamed out loud. Terence shied away, but I was pretty determined to figure out what was going on.

"We were on the tour, and we'd just gotten into the weather exhibit, but then I saw this weird grey thing and then it started to rain and I-" I could see the scientist's eyes widening as I spoke, and he interrupted me before I could finish.

"WHICH WAY'D HE GO?" he asked, taking me by the shoulders and asking me as if it were the most important question I'd ever have to answer in my life.

"Uh, it came in here, so we followed it." I said meekly, "If, er, if it's a pokemon, maybe Terence's Paras could track him? Paras seemed like he was really good at finding smells in the forest and all."

"Paras para!" said Paras, clapping one claw in agreement. Paras weren't exactly the most typical trackers, but apparently they really did have an excellent sense of smell.

"You two really think you can help me find him?" asked the scientist. He sounded so desperate that I really couldn't say no.

"Of course we can!" I replied, putting on a big grin. "We found a whole pack of pikachus, one little grey pokemon can't be much of a problem! I'm Jessica, this is my Charmander, and this is Terence and his Paras."

"I'm Walter," he said, "and the pokemon I'm looking for is named Alto, er, Altocumulus. We've been using him to study the weather for our exhibits here, but he's always running off and causing trouble."

"Paras, can you pick up his scent from here?" asked Terence of his pokemon. The little mushroom bug grinned, jumping to the ground and opening and closing his mouth a few times to take in the scent. Suddenly he snapped his claws and scurried off down a hallway that lead away from the lab, forcing us to run after him.

"Wait up!" Terence called after his pokemon as we followed- for a little bug, Paras sure was fast! I squinted my eyes to see in the darkness, and pressed forwards. To my surprise, it seemed to be getting harder to move forwards. And it was getting colder, too.

"It feels like I'm in a blizzard!" I shouted over the wind, holding out my arm to shield my face. Charmander hid behind me, and I did my best to walk slowly so he could keep his tail flame protected behind my leg. It felt like small rocks were being pelted at me, but I soon realized that they were really hailstones. Up ahead, I thought I saw something through the hailstorm. It wasn't quite the same as the grey thing I'd seen earlier- it looked like a little miniature wind tornado with a little blue head inside it.

"There he is!" called Walter, noticing the wind pokemon creature at the same time as I did. Unfortunately, Alto spotted us at the same time. He giggled, and several small snowballs appeared in the air around us, and then shot at us. They didn't hurt, but it was a little annoying. "Come back here, Alto! Drat, if I had his pokeball I could call him back with it!"

Suddenly, I remembered the pokeball he had dropped earlier, when we bumped into each other before the tour. "Is this it?" I asked, pulling it out and handing it to him as I shielded myself from a second volley of snowballs. "You dropped it before."

Walter looked relieved to find it, and quickly used it to call back his rogue pokemon. "That was a castform, wasn't it?" asked Terence, brushing off some snow and hail. "They're pretty rare, I didn't know you could find them here"

"You can't" admitted Walter, "Alto is from Hoenn- we brought him to help study weather patterns. He's an invaluable scientific aid. But we'd better be getting back, I'll be so relieved to tell my boss that Alto's back in his pokeball, safe and sound."

All three of us, plus Paras and Charmander who were still out of their pokeballs, headed back towards the lab we'd came from. "Hey," I said when we arrived, "didn't we turn on the lights when we came in?"

Three voices started to laugh from the back of the lab, in a way that would have sounded deeply malevolent if I couldn't tell that all three voices were children.

"Prepare to face annihilation
From our team of devastation
To reclaim the old regime
And unite all trainers in our new team"

"Calvin!" The first of the three speakers strode into the dim light, striking a pose.

"Clara!" the second of the three did the same

"Clyde!" and the last of trio, of course, struck his own pose

"Kid rocket's here, now see our might
Surrender now or lose the fight!" the three finished in unison. There was an awkward silence, then Clara nudged her oddish, who was standing in front of her wearing a ridiculous pink bow with a little white flag with an "R" on it stuck into the ribbon.

"Odd oddish?" said the oddish, breaking the silence.

I guess the best question to ask would have been "what are you doing here?", but at the time the only thing I could think to say was "how long, exactly, did you three waste writing and practicing that?"

"Jeez, don't you know anything?!" said Clara, "every good villain team needs a motto!"

"But what if we'd attacked you while you were reciting it? You three had the benefit of surprise, you could have snuck up on us and attacked" I reasoned.

"…Get her!" yelled Calvin, unwilling to reason. "And grab that science-type- he's sure to know where they keep their rare fossils!"

Terence's paras, not a fighter by nature, drew back, while Charmander stepped forwards to face Oddish, along with Cubone and Zubat who the other two Kid Rockets quickly released. Walter released his own pokemon, and I pulled out my pokedex, which told me that it was a Ralts- another rare pokemon from the Hoenn region.

I was about to pull out Pikachu to even the odds, when a thought occurred to me. "Walter, use Alto too" I said, "to make it three on three."

"But Alto's not a fighter- he's never been in a real pokemon battle before!" replied the lab assistant. "And if he gets out, he could cause more trouble!"

"Maybe he's causing trouble /because/ he doesn't fight!" I said, "if all he does is do research all day, he's probably restless." Walter seemed hesitant, but he took out the castform's pokeball.

"Alto, use sunny day to strengthen Charmander's attacks!" he said as he released him. To my surprise, he looked grey again, and to my even greater surprise he started to change when the sunny day attack brightened the room! Soon he looked like a little sun, and the retractable roof of the lab we were in was open, revealing the bright sunlight outside.

"Charmander, Ember attack!" I called

"Alto, back him up!" added Walter. The two pokemon, now both fire types, attacked all three of Kid Rocket's pokemon together. Even the ground-type Cubone didn't stand a chance when faced with two ember attacks, both boosted by the castform's weather. Each pokemon knocked into their respective trainer, sending all of them blasting off through the roof and into the distance.

"Wow, that was amazing!" I said, "Your castform's a pretty powerful fighter, you know."

"You think?" said Walter as his pokemon floated back to him, reverting to its grey form. "I guess it would help keep him out of trouble if I used him in battles sometimes, and he really seems to enjoy it." Indeed, Alto was grinning widely. "Waddaya say then," the scientist asked his pokemon, "are you up for it?"

"Casto casto!" replied Altocumulus, grinning from ear to ear (figuratively speaking, since he didn't actually have ears.)

I smiled at the two, and then looked beyond them, where Walter's ralts was still on the field. "Is she okay?" I asked, wondering why she looked so awestruck all of a sudden. I followed the little pokemon's gaze to… Charmander? The poor lizard pokemon was looking quite nervous about this strange psychic, and with good cause- without warning, she pounced, gushing something in high-pitched pokemon-speak as she enveloped Charmander in a hug. I couldn't say for sure, but I think the gist of it was "you were so brave in battle, thank you thank you for saving us!"

"Wow, eh, she really seems to like Charmander" I said sheepishly, returning my pokemon to his pokeball.

With Kid Rocket gone, we were finally able get out of the lab. Walter ran off to tell his boss the good news; that Alto was back in his pokeball safe and sound. Terence and I spent the rest of the afternoon looking at the rest of the exhibits on our own, although we didn't get a chance to see the rest of the climate exhibit- I think we'd both had plenty of bad weather for one day. Like other traveling trainers, we were given a room at the pokemon center for the night.

The next day, we got ready to leave for our next destination. As we were heading out of town, though, we ran into a familiar face- not literally this time, thank goodness. Walter came running up to us from the museum, holding a pokeball and some papers.

"I was afraid you two had already left!" he said, catching his breath. "My ralts has been up all night drawing these." He handed me the papers, which all seemed to be rather crude drawings of a really strong looking charmander. "She really seems to like your charmander, Jessica, and she's been moping in her pokeball ever since I explained that you were leaving Pewter today. If it's not too much trouble, do you think you could take ralts with you?"

"I- I'd love to," I said, "but won't you need a pokemon companion for protection? It's a traveling exhibit, after all."

"That's not a problem now, now that Alto's allowed to fight. My boss was a bit worried about letting him into pokemon battles, until Alto beat his Linoon, Donphan /and/ Raichu all in a row" replied Walter, grinning. "I won't have time to raise two pokemon, though, and I think you'll do an excellent job at raising Ralts."

"Thank you, then, I'll do my best to train her well" I said, accepting the pokeball he offered me and letting ralts out. She really did look thrilled when Walter explained that she was going to travel with Charmander's trainer, although she seemed sad to leave the scientist. The two said their farewells, and then Walter returned to the museum, while I and my traveling friends headed off to our next destination on our pokemon adventure.

[british accent]WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT etc[/british accent]

Jolly good.

<center>10.1/10</center>

awww,how cute!!

9.8/10

No update this post, just a few sprite edits to go with the story:

<img src="http://tinypic.com/5zqomq" alt="Image hosted by TinyPic.com">

The first row of sprites are the eight gymleaders, although some (especially the last four) are still in the preliminary planning stages, so don't be too surprised if they flip genders or something I bet you'll never guess the dark secret behind the last gymleader

And the bottom row has, of course, our beloved heroes. Kid Rocket coming someday, and I'll fix poor Terence's extra-long arm, but for now I'm all sprited out.

Its.........Its...............Its outof here and the crowd go wild
a 10/10 performance!

*Holds up sign for applause*... *no applause comes*
Sorry that I read this but I have to go with the crowd with this one.

-10/10

BTW, are you sure you filled out your application correctly.

Whats your problem Rocket Admin! :x That was awsome and all you have to say is -10/10. That is just so low. So, so low.


Gryphflame Way to go!!!!!! 8)

To each his own opinion, however that was a bit on the harsher side.

w00t! Gryphflame! Keep it up!

I didn