Chapter 4: Seat Belts, Everyone! – Ash, Brock, and Misty

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Halfway down the elevator, Ash stuck his hands into his pockets and felt something cold and jagged in his fingers. He pulled it out of his pocket and found a set of keys on a key ring. One of them was the key to a Honda of some kind.

"Hey, cool!" Ash exclaimed, holding up the keys to show Brock… and then remembering that Brock was now shorter than him and lowered them to his friend's view.

"Keys to… stuff," Brock agreed, taking the keys. "What do intend to do with them?"

"This Jerry guy has a Honda. We can drive to Misty instead of walking all over the place!"

"You can't drive."

"Aw. Darn it."

"But I've backed the car out the driveway at home a couple of times… once. I could try to drive," Brock suggested.

"So, let's recap," Ash suggested. "I'm Jerry, you're George, and Misty is Elaine. She is… where, again?"

"The corner of 17th Street and Marshal Avenue, in room 317, on the fourth floor," Brock recited.

"Thank you. And that crazy man upstairs thinks the three of us have all gone crazy and he's calling the psychiatric ward to come and lock us up. So we have to hurry up and find Misty before they do, otherwise they'll put her away and then we'll never be able to save her."

"No pressure," Brock commented.

The elevator stopped and the door opened. The two walked out into a small lobby and headed for the door. There were maps at the front desk and Brock discretely plucked one from the stand.

"I hope there aren't a lot of Hondas parked outside…" he muttered.

"Hey! You, at the desk! Stop those two!"

Ash and Brock turned to see the crazy man at the bottom of the stairs pointing in their direction. The guy at the counter sprang into action.

"Oh, gees! Run!" Ash didn't have to yell it to get Brock running for the door.

There was a small blue Honda vehicle right on the curb outside. Ash jammed the key into the door, praying that the doors would unlock.

The door unlocked with a click.

Ash jumped in and unlocked the driver's door for Brock, who flew into the car and grabbed the keys from him.

"You'll want to fasten your seat belt as tight as you can," Brock warned and put the key into the ignition. Ash was still fumbling with his seat belt when Brock stepped on the gas and sped off awkwardly onto the road.

"Are they following us? Ash, look and see if they're following us; I'm so tense I can't move my head."

Ash looked back and saw the crazy guy and the front desk manager arguing on the side walk in front of the apartment.

"I think we're good, for now," Ash informed. "Where's that map?"

"I'm sitting on it. I can't look away from the road right now or we'll crash. I'll give it to you when we hit a red light."

Half a minute later they came a red light and Brock resurrected the map and handed it to Ash. He unfolded it and tried to find their rough location.

After puzzling through all the unfamiliar street names, Ash finally found the intersection they were at and tried to find 17th and Marshal. It was like working through a maze on the back of a children's menu at a restaurant, only he had no idea where the ending point was supposed to be.

Just as the light turned green, Ash spotted 17th on the map.

"Brock, I've found it!" he cried, opening the glove box and pulling out a black pen.

"That's fabulous, Ash," Brock said rigidly. "Now tell me which way to go.

Ash circled the end point and the intersection they had just come from. He began using the pen to work slowly through the maze. It seemed like a lot of the city was like a grid, so any way they went could technically get them to Misty. It was just a question of which way would get them there the fastest. The apartment didn't seem too painfully far away, only a little bit to their immediate north west, so the trip might not take as long as they had anticipated. Ash gave the directions in one-worded increments that wouldn't take up too much of Brock's mind.

"Left… left… right… right… right… left… right—"

"There it is! 17th and Marshal!" Brock exclaimed, sounding relieved to get a break.

A woman was standing out on the curb, looking up and down the street. She had rough, curly brown hair tied back in a braid and was wearing a denim jacket over a pair of drawstring PJ pants with sneakers.

"There's something about her…" Brock murmured

"Brock! Break!"

"Oh, crap!"

Brock slammed his foot down on the break and the car lurched to a halt before plowing into the sidewalk. The woman ran over to the car. Ash rolled the window down so he could hear her.

"Did I hear you scream the name Brock a second ago?" was her question.

"Yeah, I did."

"As in Ash and Brock?"

"Misty! It's you!"

Misty gasped and clapped both hands over her mouth. "Oh my god, you look so goofy…"

Ash rolled his eyes, the joy of the moment utterly ruined.

"Just get in the car." He reached back and unlocked the passenger door for her and she got in quickly.

"So, now that we're together again, what are we going to do?" She asked.

"Run," the boys answered in unison.

"…Which one is Ash and which one is Brock?"

"I'm Brock, that's Ash. And you dare say a word about my weight, height, voice, or lack hair. Get it?"

Misty nodded, though she was laughing behind her hands.

A siren began blaring behind them. For one golden, hopeful moment they all thought it might be Officer Jenny, come to rescue them in their time of dire need. (As was a habit of hers.) However, one quick glance at the big white ambulance parked behind them said that it was time to either run like hell or go to hell.

Naturally, they decided to run.

"I hope I can do this…" Brock switched the drive to reverse and backed out of the odd angle he was parked in.

"Are you both nuts?!"

"We drove all the way here in one piece, didn't we?" Ash pointed out.

"Oh my god, I'm going to die…" Misty sank down into her seat and strapped the seat belt as tightly as she could.

"Just don't distract Brock and we should be fine. It worked on our way here."

A person in a white uniform appeared at the window with a clipboard and a pen. "Excuse me, sir? I'm going to need you to exit the vehicle and come with me."

"Brock, step on it! Go!"

Brock hit the gas so hard he thought he might have put a hole in the floor of the car. The car sped off into the traffic while the medics scrambled back into the ambulance to continue the chase.

Misty was screaming, terrified. "Brock, you're gonna kill us all!"

"If you'd let me concentrate on the road, we'd be fine! Why can't you just be quiet and let me drive, like Ash did?!"

"Stop arguing, stop arguing, stop arguing! Just go, go, go!"

"I'm trying! Misty won't shut up!"

"Well I am now! Just drive!"

Brock groaned, restrained himself from banging his head against the steering wheel, and kept the car going.

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Sweet merciful mother of crap! I've been gone for ages! I feel so ashamed… T.T

Actually, I haven't written for so long cuz I've had serious writer's block. I had absolutely no idea how the boys were going to find Misty in time unless they drove there… so I gave them a car. I'm not sure what kind of car Jerry drives, so I'm imagining he's driving a compact Honda of some kind; use your imaginations.

There's this writer's college I learned about online where they teach you that "writer's block" is but a fabrication of the mind because you're lazy. They teach you how to pummel through it so you can stop being lazy and get back to work faster and stop living in denial. I think it's something like that… I wanna go there, but it's way out of state.

Well, Jerry and company are on their way to a city somewhere in the Kanto region. I can't watch the show much, but I play the games, so the cities will be modeled mostly by the games.

Yes, indeed, I have NO clue what I am doing.

JOYRIDE!!