*The inside of the Team Rocket Zeppelin, as seen by Neo*

I woke up in a dark room. I remembered something about a long metal prod, but apart from that, nothing. I decided that I might as well get up and take a look around, and maybe find Master Chris, since he didn't bother to wake me. That's when it hit me. Master Chris wasn't here. It came back in a flash. The ship, the metal claws, and then those terrible thugs in black suits. I remembered then what the long metal prod was. With that in mind I took a look around, and I saw Rena on the ground nearby, but didn't bother with her right then since she looked alright for the moment.

I noticed one thing right off the bat. We were in a cage. Instead of panicking, I decided to try to get out. I knew that the bars would be reinforced, as in all Pokémon cages (I have had a bad experience in that category), but I thought that the lock might not be. I walked over to the cage door and reached around the bars to inspect the lock. It looked relatively strong, but I thought I might be able to break it. I charged up a crush claw with my left claw, holding a bar with my other claw for support. I swung my claw down upon the lock with all my might and looked down in disbelief. It was unharmed.

With that, the door burst open, presumably because someone had heard my attack. The Rocket member looked down with a sneer.

"Oh, I see you're awake. There's no way you or your friend there will ever be able to break those bars, but just to be on the safe side..." he scowled menacingly and pulled out the metal prod. I saw him push the slider on the side of it and it sizzled with electricity. I tried to back away, but too late. He had already brought the prod down on me and I felt an intense jolt as my muscles tensed at the touch. I remember giving out one last cry then went limp.

*Flashback*

"No Neo! Do it again, and this time get it right!" My master was an abusive man. He didn't really care how well I did do; he only cared about what I couldn't do. At one point in time I had even learned human speak, hoping to impress him, but all he did was call me a freak for it so I guess I must have learned it wrong or something. Maybe I wasn't saying it right. That must have been it.

A small jolt from the master's favorite brought me back to reality, back to the task at hand. "Alright, now Neo, Thunderbolt!" I tried, I really did. I just couldn't get it to work. My master was an eccentric millionaire who raised only electric Pokémon. He had attained me as a Christmas gift one year from a nephew, or he probably wouldn't even have considered keeping someone like me.

The master usually just ignored me and left me alone in my room, the smallest in the manor, yet still quite spacious. Recently, however, he had gotten what he thought was a bright idea. Maybe, if he passed enough electricity through me, I would be able to use the electric moves myself. I had agreed to do it, hoping this would mean the master would finally love me, or at least look at me. That pretty much led up to the moment I was facing right now.

"No! Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong! Jolty, zap him again!" The Jolteon by my master's side looked apologetically at me and gave me the smallest zap he could possibly give me without upsetting the master. Unfortunately I had taken in a lot of electrical damage so far, so with that last jolt I passed into unconsciousness. "Pathetic," was the last thing I heard before I hit the ground as my master walked away.

I woke up sometime later to a gentle prodding on my shoulder. I rolled over and looked up to see who woke me. I was met by the concerned face of Jolty, my only friend in this terrible place.

"Are you alright Neo?" He asked softly.

"Yeah I'm fine, I've taken worse than that," I replied, not wanting him to think I was mad at him. In all truth I had a splitting headache and my skin tingled, not to mention the burn mark that throbbed by my left ear, but I knew he had softened these hits as much as he could have so I let it go.

At that point in time there was a knock on the door and the master walked in. He refused to acknowledge my presence at first and looked only at Jolty saying, "It's time for your morning exercise my friend, shall we take a walk?"

With that, Jolty looked at me with an apologetic shrug and walked over to the master. What happened next surprised me.

The master looked right at me and said almost cheerfully, "Would you like to join us Neo?"

I felt like I could have run a marathon with all the joy that welled up inside me at that moment. Completely forgetting my human speak for the moment, I responded with a cheerful 'Zan-zangoose-zan' before running over to join them. The master actually wanted to be with me! Nothing could have upset me at that moment. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me, there was a reason the master was doing this for me. Jolty knew, but he didn't want to upset me.

As we walked in silence, I noticed the master kept stealing glances down at me. When he noticed I saw him do it, he turned to me while walking and asked, "How do you feel about meeting an old friend of mine? His name is professor Birch, and I'm sure he would love to meet you."

"Sure, I would love to master. Is that where we're going right now?" I asked innocently.

"Indeed it is," he replied," and you don't have to call me Master, just call me Tom."

I thought he was doing this to be friendly, not catching the fact implication from him that he wasn't my master, so I cheerfully agreed. I didn't know why he was being so cheerful and kind, but I wasn't complaining.

We then walked for a long while, all the way talking about this Professor Birch character. I remember Master saying that it might be best if I didn't speak human while around him, and that when I met him there would be a little surprise for me, but the master wouldn't spill on what it was.

When we reached the good Professor's laboratory my master looked down at me one more time with a strange look. Was it regret? I quickly swept that thought out of my head as my master was greeted at the door by a brown haired man at the door, thinking 'why would the master have something to regret?'

We walked inside what I had to admit was a pretty impressive lab. There were machines lined up all along the walls that I couldn't even begin to name.

"Is this the Pokémon you told me about earlier?" Professor Birch asked my master.

"Yes it is. Could you break the news to him? I need to get going." At this I was confused. What was my master talking about? But right then I watched him recall Jolty and quickly walk out the door leaving me behind with nothing more than a furtive glance. I couldn't believe it. He was leaving me behind! How could he do this to me?

He must have handed over my pokeball to the Professor without me realizing because the next second I felt myself being sucked inside its confines.
*back to the present*
I woke up to a quiet click. I looked up in total shock seeing Master Chris holding his finger to his lips, the opened lock in his hand.

*Chris' point of view, right as he just grabbed hold of the Blimp's service ladder.*


I held tight to the bars, hoping they would hold as the zeppelin slowly rose from the ground, towing an unknown passenger. I slowly pulled myself up the ladder to the zeppelin. Luckily for me I had managed to grab hold of the ladder quite near a service hatch. I was able to pull myself in just as the zeppelin really picked up speed.

I took a look around me, hoping to get my bearings and find where my Pokémon were being held. I looked down the hallway I was in and noticed it branched off three times before leading to a staircase. These branches were all labeled which could come in handy. I decided to go down hallway labeled 'Storage' hoping that's where stolen Pokémon would be kept and started to walk down it, then froze. There was a severely pissed off Rocket member looking at me and holding a cattle prod.

"Hey you! What are you doing here?!" He shouted at me then began to run towards me. I quickly ran back around the corner I had come from and waited just by it, hoping to ambush him. I waited till I knew he was just about to me then stuck my foot out across the divide of the hallway he was in. Jackpot! He tripped over my leg and went careening into the far wall, dropping the prod in the process. I quickly picked it up and set it to full power, tapping his spine with it. With a sizzle and the smell of charred flesh, he collapsed. I saw a ring of keys around his waist and took them, getting a small zap from the initial touch of the metal for my efforts. Luckily it was miniscule and I was able to take them without actual harm to myself.

I decided the next place I should go was the door he had just left from seeing as he had just left it and the keys probably were for something in that room, so I pocketed the cattle prod and made my way down to the room, using one of the three keys to open the door after failing with the other two.

I crept cautiously into the room, releasing an audible sigh of relief when I saw no Rockets were there. What I did see concerned me though. There was a big cage in the back of the room, holding a dazed Rena and an unconscious Neo. Rena saw that I was being quiet and didn't make a sound.

I then went up to the door of their cage and tried one of the keys I had obtained from the fallen Rocket member, and to my surprise and delight it fit and the lock clicked open. At the sound of the lock being opened, Neo's ears perked up and he began to slowly stand. I held my finger to my lips so he wouldn't attract undue attention, waiting for him to acknowledge my signal before lowering my hand and pulling off the lock. Once I had opened the cage Neo couldn't help it anymore and jumped into my arms, nearly knocking me off balance.

"I thought we would never see you again!" he whispered excitedly. "How did you get here? In fact how did you even get on the ship?"

"You didn't see I guess, but I managed to grab a hold of the claw that got Rena; and when it reached the small hole on the side of the blimp, I grabbed hold of the service ladder." I replied.

"I'm just glad you're ok," Neo said quietly to me, "I really did think we wouldn't see each other after this whole terrible incident started."

"Well anyway, we need to find a way off this ship. Neo, Rena, we may be in for a fight. I suggest you two get ready." I said with a hint of urgency in my voice.

"Right," they both replied simultaneously. They then proceeded with me to the door. Just at that moment we heard an alarm go off and a random red flashing light started up from the ceiling. A feminine voice clicked on over the intercom.

~Bzzt~ Intruders on the lower level! Intruders on the lower level! ~Bzzt~

I quickly pulled out my cattle prod and looked at my two partners. "Looks like they wanna do this the hard way." With that we cautiously crept out of the room.

We felt the zeppelin come to a grinding halt and a rapid descent right as we turned the corner. I almost lost my balance, but managed to stay standing. I wanted to know what was going on, but thought that that wasn't quite as important as what I just saw. Down the hallway from me, eyes blazing, was Cassidy.
"It's you! How did you get on my ship?!" inquired Cassidy, a crazy look in her eyes. She was surrounded by a group of her burly Team Rocket cronies.

I never got the chance to answer that though, because right then the ship landed on the ground. The windows between Cassidy and I burst open, and in rushed a group of police officers led by Officer Jenny, followed by a Growlithe and two Kadabra.

"So that's why the ship was landing despite our pilot's best effort," said Cassidy, still sane enough to recognize the psychic Pokémon and the group of police officers. I was standing behind the group of law enforcers, completely unnoticed at the time.

"Exactly! You are under arrest for being affiliated with the Pokémon poaching group of Team Rocket. Come quietly or we will contain you by force!" said Officer Jenny in her shouting voice characteristic of all Officer Jennies' when dealing with a criminal.

"In your dreams! There's no way you can take us all!" Cassidy mocked, while her cronies began pulling out pokeballs.

"Kadabra, do your stuff!" Jenny quickly commanded of the psychic pair. With that order one of the Kadabra's eyes began to glow and all the pokeballs of the Rocket members were removed from their possession and lowered into the burlap sack of a waiting policeman. The other Kadabra's eyes began to glow just like the first ones but this time all the team Rocket member's bodies did too and I realized they were being immobilized by a psychic attack. While this was going on the officers calmly handcuffed and chained together the gang and then Officer Jenny told Kadabra to bring them to the station, indicating to the window they had entered through as their exit as well.

It was around right then that she spotted me, since pointing to the window Kadabra was to take was the first thing she did to turn around.

"Who are you?" she demanded, hands on her hips.

"My name is C-Chris." I stuttered in response. "I snuck on board this ship when team Rocket stole my two Pokémon here."

"If that's true, then how did you get them free? It seems unlikely they would just leave your Pokémon just lying around." She accused instantly, just as the last Rocket was led out of the blimp and Cassidy got in one more manic scream about revenge or something.

"I'm telling the truth," I said, gaining confidence. "After I snuck aboard, I ambushed a Team Rocket guard. I then took his keys and freed my Pokémon. You came in right before I would have had to fight that group of thugs you just took out."

"If this is true, then you have nothing to fear from us. Still, I would like to bring you into the station for questioning if you don't mind." She replied firmly but kindly.

I looked down at my partners before responding. They were being obediently quiet through this entire dilemma. "Alright, I don't mind, but could my companions get some food while you question me? They haven't eaten yet today." At this they looked up at me gratefully.

"Sure, we have some spare bags of Poke food back at HQ." she said this understandingly, but still making quite sure I knew there was no way around this.
"Okay, thanks," I replied gratefully, "but I have one more quick question. What town are we going to? I honestly have no idea where I've been since I got on this Blimp."

"We're right by Rustboro City. Now let's get going. We've wasted enough time." With that, she led me to the window and we stepped out of the zeppelin.

My companions were pretty quiet through the whole ride to Rustboro. Neo didn't really say much and just clung to my arm to make sure I was there. Rena mentally asked me if I was ok and then when she got a 'yes' she curled up in my lap and fell asleep.

We arrived in a short amount of time. When we got there I woke up Rena and we left the car with Officer Jenny into the station. My Pokémon received the promised food while I got a pretty routine questioning. Afterwards, we were free to go.

I really didn't feel like doing any more travelling today, and there was no way I would get away with camping in a city, so I thought it might be a good idea to go to a trainer hotel for the night.

"Hey guys," I said as I looked down at my two companions, "how do you feel about staying at a hotel tonight?"

They both happily crowed their agreements so I decided to book us in to a small room at a reasonably cheap hotel called the 'Rustboro Resort'. With that taken care of, I promptly fell into one of the beds while Rena took the other and Neo lay down on the couch. I distinctly remember thinking 'what a day' to myself right before passing out on the bed.Chapter End Notes:Well, I hope that this really cleared up certain questions about the storyline and why Neo can talk so well, as well as why he likes Chris. I also couldn't resist depriving Cassidy of her chance at revenge. I can't help it. I have always hated Cassidy. One last thing, Chris's next pokemon will be a flying pokemon, and I want to know what everyone thinks it should be.

Post Script: I just edited out the character author conversations, so if it seems a bit choppy at parts, I apologize. I did the best I cold to patch it up