Chapter Forty - Into the Well

Jazz watched Broccoli disappear over the lip of the Well. The last thing she saw of the girl was Choco's wide eyes and the flurry tips of her ears before she dropped out of sight. "Uh, let's go after her?" she said as she glanced to the side.

Tabitha was staring at the Well's mouth as well, mouth opened in a little 'Oh.' Jazz waited for the girl to react. It took a second or two for Tabitha to blink and come to terms with Broccoli's actions, then she straightened and nodded. "Yes, we should go down as well."

The Team Rocket grunt was tied up to the side of the well, half of their rope supply now gone into keeping him properly bundled up and in one place. He wasn't leaving without any help. She just hoped that the rope would hold until the police arrived.

"Right, into the hole," Jazz said. She walked to the edge of the Well and stared down into its depths. It was dark for some ways, but then she caught sight of Broccoli puttering about at the bottom. Choco was holding a magical light above his head, illuminating the bottom and making it far less scary. Jazz swallowed, then decided that she wasn't going to be a coward in front of Tabitha.

The annoying mind-reading weirdo was really getting on Jazz's nerves.

Yes, she knew she had issues. She was the one who had them. She was also working to get over those same issues and didn't need some random weirdo to come around and point them all out as if that was the most natural thing in the world to do.

It didn't help that Tabitha struck Jazz as... a certain kind of trainer. Tabitha was a little short, but she was still clearly around Jazz's own age, with pretty blue hair and a nice dress and very pale-blue eyes that someone could get lost in. Her clothes—that all-white dress—didn't look like the kind of thing a poorer trainer would wear, mostly because who in their right mind would wear all-white while having to travel from city to city on foot?

Tabitha smelled like old money, especially with her little Kantonese accent and her delicate little mannerisms.

Jazz swung a leg over the side of the well and then looked at the injured zubat still in her arms. "Sorry bud, I'm going to recall you into your ball for the rest of this one, alright?"

Zubat didn't look happy about it and flapped his wings a little. He might have been able to fly, but fighting was entirely against the nurse's orders.

"If things turn into a fight, I promise I'll call you in," Jazz said.

Once he was back in his pokeball, she climbed down angrily. At the bottom—which really wasn't all that deep, actually—she hopped off the last rung then summoned Bellsprout. It was best to have her pokemon out now. If it came to a fight she wanted to be ready.

"Are you okay?" Broccoli asked.

"I'm fine," Jazz said.

"Need a hug?" Broccoli raised an arm for a hug. Azurill smiled at Jazz and moved her tail in the other direction, as if making up for the missing hugging arm.

Jazz waved the offer off. "I'm fine, Broccoli. Just... irate? Let's kick Team Rocket's butt. I promise that'll make me feel a whole lot better about all of this."

"Alright then!" Broccoli said with a grin. She glanced up, and so did Jazz before she discovered Tabitha coming down the ladder and diverted her eyes. She might have disliked the girl, but that wasn't a reason to be immodest. "So, what's the plan?" Broccoli asked once Tabitha was on ground-level.

The Well was a cool, damp place, which was only logical, really. A large, deep-looking puddle sat nearby, the water in it shifting and gurgling a little. It looked extremely clear and clean, and Jazz could see why someone might have wanted a well here.

An opening was cut into the far wall, a natural crack of fallen stone opening up into an unlit cavern. "Tabitha, you know what's up better than we do," Jazz said.

Tabitha nodded. "When mentally scouting this location I determined that there was a noticeable amount of psychic pain emanating from within the cavern. As mentioned previously, I think the Team Rocket team here is composed of five members at most. I... cannot sense any more than that at the moment. Which means that there are four more members to defeat, including at least one who is noticeably stronger than the rest."

"Right," Jazz said. "Three on four, then. We all have at least one good fighter on our teams. I have two with Bellsprout and Sage. Broccoli... is Azurill ready to fight?"

"Azu?" the little blue pokemon asked as she perked up.

Broccoli looked down at her, then shook her head. "We haven't had that talk yet," she said. "And I don't want Azurill to get hurt if we can avoid it."

"That's fair," Jazz said even as Azurill pouted. "Best case scenario we fight the Rockets one at a time. Do you think we can lure them closer?"

"Your ghost might be able to," Tabitha said. "This entrance isn't a good location for a fight, however."

That was a fair point, and Jazz hated her a little for making it. "Right. Sage, scout ahead a little more. Let us know what you find," Jazz ordered.

Sage chuckled darkly, then slipped out of the room and into the main cavern. Her ghost could be very stealthy when he wanted to. Most of his body was gaseous and his main core was pitch black. In the poorly lit interior of the cave, he looked like little more than a shadow flitting about.

It took three agonising minutes for Sage to return, and she was starting to worry, but return he did with a report of sorts. "Gastly gastly gas gas," he began before launching into a long explanation.

"Ah, um, Sage said that there are four Team Rocket people down here, a lot of cages at the back, and a small camp of sorts? One of them is pretty close to the entrance, one's at the cages, and the last two are together at their camp," Broccoli translated. "Looks like there's some decent space between each group. We might be able to fight one without alerting the others. Sage says that sound also doesn't travel too far in the cave."

"Really?" Jazz asked.

Broccoli's ears twitched. "I hear lots of water on the other side, so it makes sense."

"Who will take out the first and nearest Team Rocket member?" Tabitha asked. "I'd love to fight alongside you, but I'm worried that we won't be as coordinated as we would need to be in such a situation."

"I'll do it," Jazz said with a firm nod. Screwing on her courage—and moving before she could second-guess herself—she slipped into the next part of the cavern.

There was, in fact, plenty of water. A pretty large basin of it sat to her left while the walls to the right were covered in soft mosses. It wasn't as rocky as the Union Cave had been, and it was surprisingly bright. A few lights had been placed on the ground, bright electronic lights whose brilliance shone off the surface of the water and helped keep the cavern lit up.

It also helped that the man not too far away from them was distractedly pointing a flashlight at a box of crates.

He was Team Rocket, there was no mistaking the all-black uniform with the red R on his chest. Jazz tightened her fists and glanced back quickly to make sure she wasn't alone out here. Broccoli and Tabitha, as well as their pokemon, were right behind her.

"Hey, you!" she snapped. Sage had been right, her voice was rather muffled, and the gurgling and splash of the water masked what wasn't really well. The Team Rocket grunt spun around, then gasped at the sight of her. "Get ready to fight, criminal!"

Jazz considered dunking her head into the water and leaving it there until the incredible urge to cringe passed.

"Oh, crap!" the grunt said. He stumbled at his belt, pulled out a pokeball, then released a pokemon between the two of them.

"Rat-tatata!" a rattata shouted as he appeared in a flash of red.

Jazz grinned. Sage? No, he'd had a turn already, and she wouldn't always have the type-advantage. "Go, Bellsprout!" she said.

"Bell!"

Bellsprout sprang off her arm and landed before her. "Quick, Vine-Whip, then wrap."

"Uh, rattata, uh, tackle!"

The rattata didn't look pleased to be following that order, but he ran forwards anyways, right into Bellsprout's whipping vines. The little rat-like pokemon squeaked as his head was rocked and his sides smacked. Then Bellsprout was on him, roots tangling the pokemon up tight.

"Sleep Powder, in his face," Jazz said.

She really wanted to go all-out with the poisons, but in an enclosed space, with friends and allies around? That was just asking for trouble. Sleep Powder was a good second option.

"Damn it!" the grunt shouted. He recalled his rattata who had fainted into sleep in Bellsprout's grasp. Fumbling at his belt, he tossed out a second pokemon, a zubat.

Jazz stared at it. The zubat was... weak? It was small, didn't look all that strong, and even if she wasn't used to zubat body language yet, she could tell that this one was uncertain. "Bellsprout, return," she said before touching her own belt. "Go, Zubat!"

"Zu!" her zubat said as he took to the air. He was still a little injured but... well, she had to start relying on him sooner or later, and while this wasn't a friendly spar, it was still a great way to get some training in!

"Your foe's weak," Jazz said. "Let's start with an Astonish!"

The move was on zubat's list of known moves, and it seemed like hers knew what she was talking about.

"Zubat, supersonic!" the Rocket grunt shouted.

Her zubat flew right into the wave of warbling air and then exploded with a dark aura of ghostly energy. The smaller zubat squeaked and was flung back a ways.

"Now, Absorb! Steal his energy!" Jazz said.

"Zu!" Zubat shouted before he flapped over and started to glow a faint green. Energy was ripped out of the smaller zubat's body and floated up and into hers. By the time it was over, the smaller zubat was dazed and on the verge of collapse.

"No! Zubat, Supersonic again! Don't miss this time!"

"Zubat!" Jazz snapped. "Poison Fang!"

"Zuuuubat!" her zubat shouted as he dove and chomped on the smaller bat's neck. They both collapsed into the ground, but it was easy to tell who came out on top.

The Rocket grunt collapses onto his knees. "No! No, you can't do this!" he said. "I just got those pokemon!"

Jazz grinned as she walked over and raised zubat up. Broccoli and Tabitha were already moving in with some rope to hogtie the idiot. "Well done," she said to her new companion. "I think we're going to make for a great team, you and I!"

***