From: Susan (dragon0313@aol.commies) Subject: [PW!][S.S.Anne]Dangerous games Newsgroups: alt.games.nintendo.pokemon Date: 2000/03/29 Why was there a sienna-colored stain on the deck? Ron Avery wondered as he walked away from it. The deck had been flawlessly polished a day ago. It looked familiar, he'd seen that shade of sienna before, somewhere. He looked down at the squirming Eevee in his arms and decided to find another part of the deck to let her play on. "You don't want to go near that, Ivy." He found an unoccupied chair and a clean bit of deck. He sat down and set Ivy down and handed her a rubber ball. "Roll me the ball," he grinned at the thought of what he looked like. Who would have thought he'd be playing nanny to young pokemon? Not that he minded. He'd liked Ivy from the moment he saw her, even though she was too little to battle and needed to be taught the basics. "Very good!" he encouraged as she pushed the ball at him with her nose. He let her run a little bit away and rolled the ball again. "Ahem." An alto voice startled Ron. He looked up to see a girl with short cropped blue hair, green eyes and a gray jumpsuit. Ron turned white as she grabbed his arm. "Gene and I need to talk to you." She pulled him out of the chair. "B...But.." The girl sighed. "Bring the Eevee if you're that worried about it." She kept hold on his arm with one hand and scooped up Ivy with the other. "$!^%!" she yelled as she got a bite attack on the webbing of her palm. Ivy jumped from her hand to scamper around Ron's feet. "That's it!" With her bleeding hand she reached into a pocket and pulled out a small pistol. She pointed it at Ivy, but Ron grabbed her wrist and twisted with his free arm. The girl gasped in pain and aimed a kick at the most affective area. "I didn't want to have to hurt you," she said quietly as the pain forced him to release her wrist. "We are not here to kill you, but someone else is! That's why we need to speak with you!" "Then let me go!" "All right, but if you try to run, I'll have to shoot the eevee." She let go of his arm. and maneuvered so she was behind him and Ivy. "Walk forward." "You had to use force? I find that hard to believe, Kelly." "Oh, please. You should have seen his face when he saw me, he was about to bolt." Ron was sitting in the one chair in the room with Ivy on his lap. Standing before him was the stringy figure of his old friend/arch nemesis (he'd always managed to be both) Gene. Perched on the dresser was Kelly. Gene sighed. "Sorry about her, Ron. She was justified, though, running away was likely to get you killed." He pulled a suitcase over to him and sat on it, bringing him to eye level. "Likely to get me killed?" "We've been ordered to kill you, and so have at least two other TR members." "By..." He left that hanging, though he thought he had a good idea of who it might be. "By *her*. See, when you and your friend paralyzed her, she was put in the hospital. When she'd recovered she was sent to jail. No jail could hold a TR member with any experience, so when she escaped she kept watch on you two, just waiting for a chance. Since so many Rockets are on the ship already..." "This ship may as well be a prison." Ron said. "No way out. Even with water pokemon. We'd be seen." "Exactly." Kelly said from her perch. "We didn't want to have to kill you, being your friends and all, so we decided to make it look like we herded you down to a witness-free spot and killed you there." "I guess I owe you an apology then. I should never have suspected you, Kell." "Don't worry about it." Gene said, rising. Kelly looked about to make a wisecrack, but she seemed to think better of it. "We need to get your friend down here so we can give you both disguises." He called out an Abra. "Visualize her." Ron did, and in an instant Mandy had joined them. "What was that? Who are you? Ron! You'd better have a damn good explanation for this!" Ron explained and Mandy blanched. "Come on." Kelly hopped off the dresser and showed them to the bathroom. "Hair dye, contacts, we've got it all." An hour or so later a completely different pair stepped out of the cabin, followed by a blue-furred eevee. Ron remembered what the stain reminded him of. Dried blood. -Susan, Jedi Hamster *thinks it would be funny if someone tried to wake up a Snorlax with Mimi's wake up Shogungekomon song* Official WDTSF Spontaneous Vocalization Specialist; Director of Unexpected Screaming.