"Plainly Tested," written by Freedom Fighter

Disclaimer:   I do not own Pokémon or any of the characters associated with
the show.  All names and likenesses are copyrighted by Nintendo, 4Kids
Entertainment, and anyone else who had a hand in creating the show.

======

Chapter 9 (09.13.02)


After a quick taxi ride through the streets, Whitney arrives at the gym.
Upon stepping out of the taxi, she notices a small crowd nearby, with Officer
Jenny and a few other cops starting to rope off the area around the gym.  The
officers were also trying to keep innocent bystanders away from the area
surrounding the gym.  Off to the side, Whitney spots Bridget and the others
sitting on the ground, tired, crying, and dejected.  But the mystery trainer
is nowhere to be found.

Whitney starts walking towards the gym when Jenny grabs her by the arm.

"I'm sorry Whitney, but I can't let you go any further."

"Officer Jenny!  As the leader of this gym, it is my sworn duty to defend it
against those who would oppose it."

"I won't let you!  Your girls didn't put up much of a fight against the guy.
Neither did my Arcanine or any of the other officer's Pokémon.  I want you to
wait until more help arrives."

"If I stand here a second more, the gym will disappear right in front of my
eyes!"

"Regardless, I ask that you kindly wait for help.  If you fail to do so, I'll
be forced to carry out my job by arresting you for interfering in a police
investigation."

"If I were you," came a mysterious voice, "I'd let her go in."

Whitney, Jenny, and the crowd turns, spotting yet another mysterious figure,
dressed the same as the first one.

"Another one?  Well, if you think you're joining your friend inside, you're
wrong!"

Seeing the appearance of the second trainer not only confuses Whitney as to
why he's not with the others, but it also gives her the distraction she needs
to get inside.  She brakes free of Jenny's grip and sprints for the front door.

"Hey!"

"I'm sorry Jenny," Whitney yells back, "but I have to do this!"

Whitney bursts through the front door and heads straight for the battle arena.
Off to the side, Bridget and the others look on.

"Good luck girl," Bridget thought.  "You're gonna need it."


======


Whitney runs up to the door leading into the battle arena and comes to a stop.
Reaching in-between the buttons of her shirt and into an inner breast pocket,
she pulls out her two Pokéballs and holds them in her hand.

"I know you two won't be able to beat these guys," she told the Pokéballs,
"but I need you to fight harder than you've ever fought before.  We've got to
hold them off until help arrives."

She then glances back out the still-open front door, where she can see some
of the crowd beginning to cheer her on.

"And knowing Bruno, that probably won't be too long."


======


Speaking of Bruno, he's nearly halfway across the city, running back to the
gym from the Pokémon Center.

"I had a feeling she'd pull something like this," he told himself.  "I just
didn't think that those trainers would already be at the gym.  Why does she
insist on battling them alone?"


======


Whitney pushes the door leading into the battle arena forward.  Upon entering,
she sees that the lights are already on.  The first trainer, the one who had
challenged her assistants, was standing at the far end of the room, waiting
for her arrival.

"And then there were none," the figure shouted, already predicting victory for
himself.

"Your reign of terror ends today," Whitney exclaimed, walking towards him.
"You and your buddies have stolen your last Pokémon!"

"You think that you can beat me?  You'll fall, just like those before you.
What do you have that can topple my all-star line-up of Pokémon?"

Whitney smirks.  "Why don't you battle me and see?  Or are you afraid of
getting beat by a woman?"

"That's hardly true.  I beat both the lady of the dragons and the steel
mistress easily.  And they're much better trainers than you'll ever be."

If the trainer had said that to any other woman, she would have gotten angry
at the guy.  But not Whitney.  She seemed to be pretty calm despite the
impending defeat that awaited her.  And she was thinking quite clearly, hoping
that would allow her to keep the match going as long as she could until help
could arrive.

"So, how many Pokémon are you willing to lose?"

"Two!  And I'm not losing either of them!"

"We shall see.  I'll start with a Swinub!"

The trainer throws out a Pokéball, releasing the fur-covered pig, Swinub.

"Nidorina, go!"

Whitney throws out her Pokéball, releasing her Nidorina from it.

"Swinub, powder snow!"

"Dodge and then use your tackle attack!"

Swinub blows the powdered snow at Nidorina, but she dodges and tackles the
small pig head on, causing it to fly back a few feet.

"Nidorina, take down that Swinub!"

Nidorina leaps at the Swinub and sends it flying even further, this time
nearly knocking it out upon landing on the ground.

"One more take down attack should finish it!"

Whitney's Nidorina slams into Swinub one more time, sending the Pokémon
flying past the trainer himself and fainting upon impact with the far wall.

"Yes!" Whitney exclaimed, clenching her right fist.  "One down and one to go!"

"Not so fast," remarks the mystery trainer.  "I still have my trump card."

He recalls Swinub and throws out a new Pokéball.  Out of this one comes a
Snorlax.  And surprisingly, it's awake and ready to battle.

"A Snorlax?"

"A very well-trained Snorlax, I might add.  Now... body slam!"

Snorlax runs right at Nidorina and jumps into the air.  Nidorina can't get
out of the way in time, as Snorlax hits the ground with a loud thud.  Whitney
can't bear to look as Snorlax slowly gets to his feet... and finds a squashed
Nidorina lying unconscious on his stomach.

"Nidorina!"

Snorlax peels Nidorina off of him and tosses her halfway across the
battlefield.  Whitney runs over to check on her Nidorina.

"Nidorina, are you okay?"

She takes Nidorina in her arms and gives her a hug.  She then pulls out her
Pokéball and recalls Nidorina to it.  But then Whitney sees the trainer pull
out a black Pokéball and open it.  The ball starts to suck Nidorina towards it.
Whitney tries to hold on to it, but it slips out of her hands and flies into
the waiting hands of the trainer himself.

"How can you do that?  It's not possible!"

"Not possible?  Nothing is impossible.  Well, except for you winning this
match, but we both knew that before we began, didn't we?"

Whitney, as determined as ever, pulls out the Pokéball that holds her Clefairy.

"It's all up to you."

She throws the ball out, making Clefairy pop out.

"A Clefairy?  Really... I thought that a gym leader kept better Pokémon than
this!"

Suddenly, the second mystery trainer enters the room.

"You know, Clefairy are quite rare.  Regardless of whether it's good or not,
it'll be worth a lot when we try to sell it."

The second trainer then proceeds to block the exit.  Whitney turns her
attention back towards her opponent.

"If you insist on having that Clefairy as your last resort, then so be it.
But I will not be humiliated by losing."

"Neither will I!  Neither will I."


======


Outside the gym, Bridget is wandering around, trying to figure out how she
and the others could have been overpowered so easily.

But just then, she sees that a lamp sitting on a windowsill had been turned on,
despite the fact that the window was facing the sun, and more than enough
light was getting into the room.

"I wonder..."


======


The building was actually an apartment complex that was about a block south
of the gym itself.  And the room that Bridget had spotted the light from
was on the fourth floor.

Sure enough, one of the doors on the floor had been left open a crack,
and the light coming from inside was immense enough to light up the entire
hallway.

"What kind of nut would use up so much electricity during the day?"

Bridget walks until she is right in front of the door, numbered 409.  She
slowly pushes the door open and peers in.  All the way at the other side of
the room, two guys are in front of a computer... one sitting, the other
standing.  They are both dressed in white lab coats.  They both also were
wearing glasses... a good sign that these guys were geniuses... or a bunch
of nerds.

Bridget sneaks inside and ducks into the apartment's kitchen, hiding behind
the counter.  She sits on the floor quietly, trying to hear what's going on.

"Everything's working according to plan," one of them said.

"Yes," affirmed the other.  "All you have to do is defeat Whitney's Clefairy
and her gym is ours!"

"Who would have ever thought that our experiment would be this successful?"

"After all of the setbacks, I'm surprised that we haven't got caught at all."

"To think that we have the Silph Company to thank for inspiring all of our
inventions."

"Heh heh... sometimes discovering a corrupt business is a good thing."

"So they're the ones responsible," Bridget thought, as the sound of typing
fills the air.  "They must be using a bunch of stolen inventions and that
computer to do their dirty deeds!  But how?"

"Say," the second one spoke up, "where the hell is Reggie?"

"He's coming from Mahogany Town, remember?  They don't have a major airport
there, so he had to find a ride to Ecruteak and fly here from there!"

"Maybe we should wait for him.  After all, he is the one who has the crush
on the gym leader."

"Well, tough luck.  I'm not waiting for him.  Not when we'll have the gym in
just a few minutes."

"I've got to stop them," Bridget thought.  "I'm not sure what Pokémon they're
using, but Whitney is in trouble without Milty to rely on.  I'm going to have
to take matters into my own hands."

Bridget stands up and starts shouting at the two geniuses before her.

"Hey!  I know you're involved in the whole gym disappearing fiasco, and I'm
here to put a stop to it."

The two geniuses look at each other, a bit confused.

"Who's she?  Do you have a girlfriend that you haven't been telling me about?"

"Me?  With a girlfriend?  I wish!  She's probably just one of the neighbors or
something."

"I'm sorry young lady, but this is all top secret stuff in here and you're not
allowed to stay."

"I'm not leaving until you stop this experiment of yours and leave Whitney
and the gym alone!"

"You work for Whitney?  Then I guess I'll have to get you out of the way until
our test is complete."

One of them pulls out a Pokéball and throws it out.  It lands in front of
Bridget and a Heracross pops out of it.

"Hera!"

Bridget reaches for her waist pocket to get a Pokéball... until she remembers
that hers were taken from her.

"Oh great," she remarked sarcastically.  "Just my luck to be Pokémon-less."

"Keep an eye on her," Heracross is told by his trainer.  "If she tries to
leave or do anything funny, then hit her with a fury attack."

Bridget takes a step back in fear as Heracross watches her, glaring angrily
but ready to attack on a moment's notice.

The guy still sitting in front of the computer begins typing away, as if he
was entering a command of some sort.

"I bet this move will prove sufficient."

The trainer of the Heracross walks over and reads the command his partner had
typed on the screen.  He then smiles evilly.

"You and your sense of irony.  It's a killer."

"Indeed.  As this will bring about the end of the Johto League!"


======


Back at the gym, the battle between Clefairy and Snorlax was still going on.
Clefairy had just finished off another metronome attempt, which on this
particular turn had resulted in a swift attack that barely affected the giant
Pokémon.

"Hang in there!" Whitney shouted at Clefairy.  "You just have to!"

"The time has come to end our little game," the mystery trainer told her.
"And it will be one move that you've relied on so much that will bring about
your undoing."

The trainer laughs before pointing at Clefairy and yelling out Snorlax's next
attack.

"Rollout!"

Whitney gasped.  She never expected a Snorlax to be able to use a rollout
attack, one move she almost always used when she battled with Milty.

"I know how powerful Miltank's rollout can be," Whitney told herself, "but a
Snorlax that's got to be close to three times Miltank's own weight... one hit
could be deadly!"

Whitney did the only thing she could... tell her Pokémon to get out of the way.

"Clefairy!  Whatever you do, don't get hit by Snorlax's rollout!"

Snorlax lies on its side and then starts rolling forward, heading straight for
Clefairy.  The pink Pokémon manages to leap over Snorlax as he rolls by,
dodging the bullet for now.

"Quick, try metronome again!"

Clefairy lands and starts dancing around, with one finger raised, waving back
and forth.  Meanwhile, Snorlax makes the turn just a few feet in front of
Whitney, heading back for another attempt at Clefairy.

"It's all riding on this one metronome," Whitney thought.  "Whatever she
conjures up either has to be strong enough to stop Snorlax in its tracks, or
strong enough to protect her from harm."

Snorlax rolls ever closer as Clefairy stops waving her fingers and starts to
glow blue.  Whitney and both of the mystery trainers wait to see what will
happen.

But the blue glow suddenly stops, uneventful, just as Snorlax hits Clefairy
and sends her flying towards the far wall of the room.

"Clefairy!"

Clefairy hits the wall hard and face first.  She then slides down the wall
until she is on the floor.  And she's not moving at all.

"Clefairy!  Oh no, it can't be!"

All of a sudden, Clefairy slowly pulls herself up from the ground.  It takes
about a minute but she's standing on her two feet.  Though she doesn't look
like she's in good shape.

"Clefairy?  You're still up!"

"How could that be?"


======


Back at the apartment...

"How could that be?" the one in front of the computer shouted aloud.  "That
rollout should have knocked that Clefairy out!"

The second glances at the screen and examines the battle data.  He then
comes up with an explanation.

"I believe that the most recent metronome from the Clefairy brought about a
move known as endure."

"Endure... it allows a Pokémon to survive an attack with 1 HP, regardless of
what the attack was."

"Yes!" Bridget exclaimed happily.  "That means Whitney's still in the match!"

"Silly girl.  She's only delayed the inevitable!  Snorlax is still in the
middle of its rollout, and he'll knockout that Clefairy out on the next pass!"

The two of them were right.  Bridget knew that Whitney's Clefairy was still
doomed to fail.  And with the Heracross guarding her, there's no way that
she could stop them from executing that final command.

Thank goodness then that Bruno happened to burst through the door at that
exact moment.

"Bruno!" she exclaimed.  "I thought you were halfway across town, waiting
at the Pokémon Center!"

"Shame on you for actually believing that I'd believe you," Bruno said back.

Not wasting any time, Bruno pushes Bridget out of the way and tackles
Heracross to the ground.  Bruno and Heracross begin to wrestle each other,
tumbling and rolling all across the room.

"Where did this guy come from?" the guy in front of the computer asked.

"And why is he wrestling with my Heracross?" the other asked.

"Excuse me, but I think that's my boss's Pokémon you're trying to beat with
that computer program of yours."

The two of them turn and see Bridget standing right in front of them.  She
pushes them out of the way and makes her way to the computer, glancing at
the screen but unable to make heads or tails out of the code.

"How do I stop that Snorlax?"

In a little pop-up window to the upper right in the screen, Bridget could see
Clefairy already doing metronome again... which meant that the Snorlax was
heading for her as she watched.


======


"This is it!" Whitney shouted at her Clefairy.  "It's all or nothing!"

Clefairy was already waving her fingers back and forth as Snorlax makes a
180-degree turn in front of his trainer and heads back towards Clefairy.

"Rollout!  Send that Clefairy flying!"

Clefairy was exhausted after barely surviving the last rollout attack, but
she had to try to stop that Snorlax.


======


"Tell me how to stop that Snorlax!" Bridget demanded.

"Sorry," one of them mock-apologized.  "Once I told that Snorlax to use
rollout, it will continue to do so until either it tires out or it is
stopped.  And I doubt either of those will happen anytime soon."

"Think girl," Bridget told herself.  "How can you pull the plug on this
experiment of theirs?"

And then, Bridget smiles with glee.

"Why not?  It is a computer, after all."

Bridget bends down and reaches under the table.  Seeing a surge protector with
a bunch of wires plugged into it, she reaches for the power switch and flips
it off.


======


Having drawn a headbutt attack, Clefairy leaps headfirst at the charging
Snorlax.  Whitney covers her eyes, unable to look.  She waits to hear the
impact of her Clefairy hitting something in the room after being sent flying
by Snorlax... but she hears no such noise.

Removing her hands from her eyes, Clefairy is standing in the middle of the
ring, looking all around.  Whitney follows her Pokémon's lead and sees the
same thing as Clefairy.

Absolutely nothing but the bleachers around the room.


======


Inside the apartment, all of the lights in the room and the computer itself
had been turned off.  Bridget comes out from under the table and breathes a
sigh of relief.

"I hope that did it," she said aloud.

She turns around and sees that one of the trainers was completely irate at
her.

"You ruined our experiment!  Why did you do such a thing?"

"I couldn't let you ruin the Johto League!  I work for them, and you can't
get a better health and dental package with any other normal job."

She then turns to the other guy, who seems to be blushing for some strange
reason.

"What's up with you?  You look like as if you're in love with me or something."

The guy nods his head very fast, confirming it.

"Or, of course, with you being a geek... no offense... I bet it's something
else."

Bridget walks over and slaps him across the face hard.

"That'll teach you to look at a girl from behind!"

Bridget then heads for the phone to call Officer Jenny, but she stops when
she sees Heracross bowing in front of Bruno as he pats him on the head.

"Hera, heracross!" it shouted as it continued to bow.

"That's okay.  You were just doing your job.  It's a good thing I train a lot
with my Pokémon, or you would have beaten me hands down."


======


A few hours later, Whitney and the girls are celebrating their victory at her
house with a yellow sponge cake and bottles of fresh Miltank milk.

"To Whitney," Bridget began, raising a glass into the air, "for although her
plan did not work, she managed to hold off the trainers long enough for me
to stop the guys at their base of operations."

"And to Bridget," Whitney added, "for going above and beyond her job and
following her instincts, leading her to the criminals of this dastardly plot
and bringing their antics to an end!"

The five women cheer as the raise their glasses in the air with joy.  They
then begin to drink the delicious milk down.

"So Whitney," Victoria said, bringing her glass away from her mouth, "how
did Officer Jenny explain their plot?"

All of the other girls lower their glasses as well, as Whitney tells them what
Jenny had told her about thirty minutes ago.

"It seems that there were three of them altogether.  They had stolen a few
inventions from the Silph Company's main factory in Saffron City.  They were
all prototypes that are obviously too dangerous to be distributed to the
public."

"I could have told you that," Samantha spoke up.

"Anyway, the trio used a hologram generator to create the mysterious figures
that actually visited the gyms, as well as the very rare Pokémon that they
sometimes used in battle.

"These holographic Pokémon were so real that they could not only dish out
attacks, but they could feel them too.  Of course, the scientists could have
modified the program so that none of the attacks against their Pokémon
would work.  But it happened to be a complex procedure that they couldn't do
on a moment's notice, which is why the Pokémon sometimes were defeated in
battle.  They really would have been unbeatable if they had gotten that
aspect of their plan downpat.

"The black Pokéballs, as we saw, did have the ability to capture Pokémon by
not only being hit by them, but also by being drawn out of their own
Pokéballs.  If those were available to the public, anyone could just walk
up and use one to steal your Pokémon.

"And last but not least was a particle decelerator.  It was actually a side
project that's not made to be used on Pokémon.  But it had the ability to
take an object of matter, break it into down into billions of tiny particles,
and then gather them in the machine's storage tank.  Interesting, huh?"

"So how do we get the gyms back in their proper places?" Carrie asked.

"Bill, the guy who created the Pokémon storage system, is coming here to
see if he can reverse the machine and put the gyms back where they belong."

"And how did these guys go undetected while working that machine?"

"Well Carrie, as Bridget found out, once they were finished with the battles,
they would, from another building no more than half a mile away, aim the
device at the gym and activate it, making it seem as if the gym disappeared
into thin air.  And no one would be the wiser."

"And what about the guys behind all of this?"

"Oh, they're going to spend a good amount of time in jail for sure.  They
all seem to be research assistants from Saffron City University who were
looking for a way to impress their professor.  In that aspect, I think
they succeeded.  But it's safe to say they won't be attempting any more
wild experiments for awhile."

"And the third guy," Bridget interrupted.  "The one named Reggie that never
made it here to Goldenrod?"

"Well, it seems that there was a Pokémon League official helping out with
airport security in Ecruteak.  They found the stuff in a bag of his and
took him into custody, just to be safe.  Of course, after they heard of our
heroic effors here, they started reading him his rights.  He'll be joining
his buddies as well.

"As an added bonus, he thought up of the idea of attacking the gym leaders
in alphabetical order by first name.  He saved me for last because he wanted
to have the privilege of meeting me in person before beating me in battle.
The guy had a silly crush on me!"

"And another would-be stalker-like bachelor bites the dust," Samantha said,
making a mental note of it in her head.

"One more question," Victoria said.  "If all of this stuff was at Silph
Company, how come no one's been out trying to get it all back?"

"Well, look at what it can do.  They would be in a lot of trouble if it was
discovered that they created those things.  But I guess now the League will
be paying them a visit anyway."

The five women laugh with glee.

"I guess I'm the big hero," Bridget stated with a smile.  "Or should I say,
heroine."

"You wouldn't have stopped them if Bruno hadn't seen the bright lights,"
Whitney told her.  "You got a lucky break, girl."

"If anything Whitney, I think you owe me for saving the gym."

"I owe you?  Seriously?  Like what?"

"Oh, I don't know.  Maybe you can let me run the gym for a day!"

"Are you serious?"

"Yes!  With Miltank out for another day or two, we might as well switch places.
After all, my Pokémon are better than your Nidorina or Clefairy."

Whitney laughs out loud.  "Bridget, you own three Jigglypuff!  I don't think
a trainer would take you seriously, especially with three Jigglypuff!"

"There's nothing wrong with three Jigglypuff, Whitney!"

"Try telling that to every single trainer that'll pass through the gym!"

"I can do it!  I can help keep the gym's proud tradition!"

"I'm sorry, but no self-respecting trainer is going to take three Jigglypuff
seriously."

"Then why did you hire me?  To watch me make a fool of myself?"

"You know why I hired you, Bridget.  To be the one that always perks me up
in times of need.  You know, the shoulder I can lean on."

"If I'm so important to you, then letting me run the gym for one day is not
going to hurt!"

"Okay, I'll think about it."

"Really?" Bridget smiled, brightening up.

"If you can find another cute Pokémon other than Jigglypuff."

"You're never going to let the Jigglypuff thing slide, are you?"

"'Fraid not."

The celebration continues into the night, as Whitney and her assistants are
happy that the ordeal is finally over.  That the gym and the League were
saved, and all is normal again.