160: Fossil Fools
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As such, the kids treat the dig with the solemn dignity it deserves and traipse their great clumsy feet all through numerous important artefacts.
The many archaeologists working on the site don't seem to notice the three little kids who have stumbled across their work, and the kids seem to have carte blanch to go wherever they want. Noticing a skeleton in wall of earth beside them, the kids take a closer look. It looks like an Aerodactyl, Ash opines, to which Professor Oak agrees.
"Hi Professor Oak," say the kids nonchalantly as Oak points out signs you can spot to showcase it's an Aerodactyl, such as the arrow-like protusion on the end of it's tail. The kids listen intently to all this and............
..........
Hang on a freaking second! DADDY'S BACK!
Yes Professor Oak is back and no one seems to give two tugs of a dead dog's cock (special thanks to Warren Ellis for that line). What the hell is going on here?
Well we get an explanation of a type, it seems that Professor Oak called Ash and asked him to divert to the Ruins Of Alph.... but still, you'd think Ash would show a bit more excitement to see Daddy, wouldn't you?
Oak takes them to the main Research Lab where they meet Foster, the head of the project. A young, vertical-haired man, Foster was one of Professor Oak's top students back when he taught at Celadon University. Foster is pleased to see Professor Oak, but a bit concerned at the arrival of three small children with him.
Oak tries to placate Foster by explaining that the kids are all very serious Pokemon Trainers and that they won't break anything or tell the newspapers nor nothing neither.
Foster is still concerned, but Ash and Misty's wobbly eyes (Brock is too squinty to get wobbly-eyed) plus Professor Oak's assurances get the better of him.
Ash is understandably excited, but quickly distracted by a hissing noise. Turns out to be another archaeologist using a tiny high pressure water gun to remove bits of dirt from fossils that can't be removed by brush without damaging the artefact. Once the fossil is cleaned, it's scanned by computer and then tested against a database to find out what Pokemon (if any) it came from.
Sounds great, until the water gun's flow suddenly peters out and dies, leaving the archaeologist irritated and Foster despairing. It seems that the local water supply is essential to the success of the dig, and the nearby supply is reknowned for it's high quality... but they keep having trouble getting the water!
Hmmmm, trouble eh? Then make it double, because it has to be Team Rocket!
"Pump! Pump! Pump!" cried Meowth as we move to the water supply deeper in the forest. Team Rocket are indeed behind the disjointed flow of water to the archaeological dig. A pump is sucking up the water into a giant tank. Next to the tank Jesse fills bottle after bottle with the clear water before passing it to James who slaps on a Happy Buddha Face Meowth label proclaiming WATER.
The work is, as James says, unbelievably boring but, as Jesse notes, it's going to make them money. Wobbuffet obviously agrees since he pops out to make his feelings known.... and promptly gets put to work by Jesse.
It seems the water in this area of Alph is known for it's quality, and Team Rocket appear to have struck onto a get rich quick scheme that may actually work. After all, the water doesn't belong to anyone, so who is to stop them bottling it and selling it to those poor people who don't have the luxury of living in Alph or having a herd of Quagsire peeing into their water supply.
Jesse is especially excited at the thought of all they money they're going to make (or rather, that SHE is going to make) and imagines how she'll spend it. What follows is a rather delightful shot of Jesse in a skin-tight, revealing black dress, dripping in jewellery.
"I'll buy the best of everything!" she gushes, "Gowns, gold, diamonds, as long as they're expensive..... and tasteful!"
"I'm spending my dough on someting tasteful too," beams Meowth, "A never ending supply of da most tasteful grub I can get my paws on!"
"YES!" grins James, "I'll dine in style, no more of those day old sushi bars for me!"
"Ahhhh," they sigh, and then get ready to get back to work.... until the pump stops pumping!
Meowth jiggles the pump control but nothing works, something is jamming up the pump!
"Maybe we better help out," mutters Jesse, then holds up a spanner, "Here James, lend a hand."
"You said weeeee!" whines James.
"Wobbuh... fet!" chuckles Wobbuffet.
Meanwhile Foster is leading Professor Oak and the twerps towards his big discovery. On the way they pass a number of fossils and artefacts that alone are enough to excite the Professor's curiosity. Small Pokemon idols, the skeleton of a Kabutops which Foster is especially proud of.
It seems that Pokemon first appeared roughly 2 millions years ago, but this skeleton appears to be at least 20 to 30 thousand years older than that. This raises interesting points, Professor Oak remembers that Foster had an interesting theory about the origins of Pokemon. He thought (and still believes) that all Pokemon life developed in the ocean, and the location of earliest recognised Pokemon fossils appears to back this up.
This theory, quite obviously, greatly excites Misty, who bursts out gushing about the wonder that is Water Pokemon.
"Water Pokemon are so mystical and mysterious!" she gasps, "Oh but their little gills and fins and flippers are so cute and cuddly! Water Pokemon Rule! Maybe you need an assistant to help you...."
"Time to dry up, water girl," sighs Brock, grabbing Misty by the ear and dragging her away.
Hooray!
They come to a big room marked with an X. What is on the other side?
Has Foster come to show Professor Oak his X-Men back issue collection? Or maybe this is room 10? Or maybe they're one third of the way through a porn movie?
"Behind these doors is a room 2 million years in the Pokemon past," Foster tells them, before typing in a security code and leading them into a large exhibit. Grass, trees, bushes surround the path that Foster leads them down, and they stare about in wonder before an Aerodactyl swoops down over them!
But hang on, tis no Aerodactyl at all, but an archaeologically correct robot on strings built specifically for the exhibit.
It seems that Foster is designing an exhibit to get the young kids excited about prehistory. Extinct Pokemon that no one has ever seen outside of books will be represented by similar robots and give people a chance to see how they lived and what the environment was like.
Apparently it was pretty rough, what with the exploding volcanoes and glowing lichen on the rocks. More importantly than that though, Foster shows a possible answer to a question about where the animals are in the Pokemon world.
A statue of a giant Kabutops (known as Kabutops Maximus) sinking it's fangs and claws into a giant fish gives a possible answer. If Pokemon 'came' to the world 2 million years ago - whether from Space like Seymour The Scientist thinks or evolved out of the sea like Foster believes - it's possible that they fed on or out-competed the 'natural' animals of the worlds and squeezed them either into extinction of endangered status.
In any case, no matter what happened in the past, in the present Ash has the attention span of a gnat, and now he wants to know what special surprise Foster has for Professor Oak.
"Let's finish this first, then we'll see," Foster replies, fobbing off Ash.
"That's what I used to say to get you off my back," Professor Oak beams.
Off your back? What kind of school were you running, Professor Oak!
In any case, Foster asks them to stand still and quiet, and hopefully the surprise will show itself.... and indeed it does. Robots of Omastar and Omanyte emerge from the fake ocean and approach them, delighting everyone. Like blue snails, the robots are of extinct Pokemon that died out eons ago but are remarkably life-like. So life-like that when Pikachu goes to say hello to one, it begins to.... rather disturbingly.... stroke and fondle Pikachu with it's tendrils.
What the hell kind of surprise does Foster have in store for Professor Oak?
Whatever it might be, Oak appears more aggravated than happy, and begins questioning and prodding Foster until it's revealed... those ain't robots! They're real!
"Omanyte," explains Dexter, "The Spiral, Pokemon. Believed to have, lived, over, 2 million, years ago. Recent research indicates, that it was able to, control it's buoyancy, by storing, and releasing, air in it's, shell."
"Omastar," Dexter continues, "The evolved form, of Omanyte. This extinct, Pokemon, is believed to have used, it's sharp fangs, to break through the shells of it's prey in order to feed." "They're.... they're..... they're really real!" cry Ash, Misty and Brock together. Their loud voices startle the supposedly extinct Pokemon, which dig into the sand to hide.
Foster explains that they've never seen people before, and aren't exactly sure how to react. The kids are, nevertheless, very excited.... except for Misty who has a oddly evil look on her face while Togepi's own face is apparently contorted into a bizarre rictus of frozen contemptuous laughter.
Ignoring Misty's behaviour though, Professor Oak kneels down and tells them a story about when he was 6 (roughly two years before he lost his virginity, probably) and he visited a museum and saw Omanyte and Omastar fossils. It was this that first sparked his interest in Pokemon, and as he reaches out his hand and allows the nervous Pokemon to fondle and stroke his hand with their tentacles, he tells them that it's like meeting an old friend for the first time.
This does raise a number of problems for Foster though. The Omanyte and Omastar just appeared in this lagoon one day. He doesn't know where they came from or if there are any more, so does he run the risk of opening the exhibit and scaring away the extremely rare Pokemon? Or does he shut down the exhibit and take away a valuable learning experience for thousands of people. Another concern - one that surprisingly Ash acknowledges - is that if people learn there are such rare Pokemon in the area, hundreds of trainers will arrive and try to capture them.
Speaking of which..... what's Team Rocket up to?
Well, James is hunched over in front of a hole, straining and moaning out, "Oooh, oh!" while Jesse is on her knees sucking..... and even Meowth is getting in on the action!
"Time is money, James," grunts Jesse as she finishes drinking from the water bottle, "So's water."
"Can't ya hurry?" asks Meowth, who has been drinking from a water bottle of his own.
"Can't you shut your trap!" growls James as he goes back to working on the pump engine, "There must be... jammed in the line here."
"Ooooh, you'll never believe what I just found!" gasps James with big wobbly eyes as he grabs hold of something slimy.
"What? your brain?" grunts Jesse.
"Let's see, Jimmy?" asks Meowth.
And James hold out a little wriggling Omanyte.
"HEY!" snaps Meowth, "Go and find your own water!"
"Throw that thing away," sighs Jesse.
"Throw it away!" roars James, "Don't you realise that I hold in my hands an extinct Pokemon!?!"
"WOBBUFFET!"proclaims Wobbuffet.
"Extinct huh?" mutters a very unimpressed Jesse, "With a face like that it's no wonder."
"You don't seem to understand, this is an Omanyte," growls James, placing the wriggly, tentacle-flailing little snail right up against Jesse's face, "This Pokemon is rare, it's valuable, it's... it's....."
"IT'S SLIMY!" gasps Jesse as she feels the tentacles rubbing up against her face.
"It may be slimy but it's also worth a lot of dough!" growls Meowth, catching onto the financial benefits James is warning them of, "And if we keep pumping da water outta dis reservoir we'll probably find a whole lot more!"
"Well then, in that case, what are we waiting for," grins Jesse, finally catching on, "Let's get pumping and catch them all!"
"We'll bring back a few choice ones tah keep da Boss happy," grins Meowth, "Den we'll sell the rest on da side to keep us happy!"
"This little Omanyte is going to transform our lives!" laughs James.
"And to think I wanted to trash you," smiles Jesse, staring with big wobbly eyes at the Omanyte.
"Team Rocket will finally make out all right," cries Meowth, "When we suck up all o dem Omanyte!"
"WOBBUFFET!!!!!!!!!!!"
Back at The Ruins Of Alph, Foster is showing Oak and the twerps the security system.... or at least what used to be the security system. Nowadays it's used primarily to monitor and record the activities of the Omastar and Omanyte's without disturbing them. Misty is very excited, telling everyone that just watching them makes her happy. This confuses Ash, since usually Misty wants to capture Water Pokemon.... it seems with this lot though that catching them would be wrong, because they've been free for so long.
Or in other words, a plot device to show why Team Rocket legitimately catching Pokemon in the wild is a bad thing today.
As they watch, they're surprised to see another Omanyte appear with the first two! And another Omastar!
What's going on? Oak suspects that it might be connected to the initial appearance of the extinct Pokemon, which first happened when Foster's team began having trouble with the water supply.
One of Foster's team enters the security room with bad news that seems to prove Oak's theory. The water supply now has shut down entirely, there's no water coming through at all. There's only one thing for it, they have to get to that reservoir and find out what's going on. Foster rushes to grab a jeep to drive them up there while Ash sends out Noctowl to fly ahead and scout out what's happening.
Out as the reservoir, an excited Team Rocket are delighted at the ease with which they're capturing the so-called extinct Pokemon. Given the out of the way location of the Alph Reservoir, they'll be able to catch hundreds of these valuable Pokemon!
"I'll be respected!" squeals James, "As the premier purveyor of prehistoric Pokemon!"
"Ahh-heh!" giggles Jesse, "I'll be famous and exceptionally well-dressed!"
As they all share an evil laugh of happiness, a couple of the Omanyte pop over the side of the tank... it's so full now that it's overflowing!
Jesse comes up with the clever idea of taking what they've got away with them and coming back the next day with a bigger tank.... while Meowth tries to pull an affectionate Omanyte off of him, commenting that they sure do get attached to you.
Happily, Team Rocket haul the basket of their Happy Buddha Face Meowth Balloon towards the Omanyte and Omastar they've already captured, while Noctowl drops down to a tree-limb and cocks it head at a weird angle, taking this all in.
Heading towards the reservoir, Ash, Misty, Brock and Professor Oak are finding out first-hand why no one ever heads up to this way. The jeep bounces and jumps over the uneven ground, shaking and tossing them about.
"Oh my lumbago's killing me!" moans Professor Oak as Foster explains the rough road is what keeps the Pokemon safe.
Noctowl returns, swooping close to warn that something is going on up at the reservoir. Ash calls it back to it's Pokeball as Foster floors it and they continue their crashing way towards the reservoir.
Back there, Team Rocket are tossing the Omanyte and Omastar from James on the tank to Jesse on the ground to Meowth in the basket. The Pokemon have withdrawn into their shells for safety, which just makes it easier for Team Rocket to handle them.
"They're prehistoric, but they're very considerate!" giggles Jesse, before the sound of an approaching engine gets their attention.
"I hope it ain't who I fink it is," sighs Meowth.... but of course it is, the twerps have arrived.
"Look it's Team Rocket!" cries Ash.
"Ahhh, what are they doing!?!" exclaims Foster.
"We've caught Pokemon and it wasn't much trouble," replies Jesse.
"With a bigger tank-car we would have caught double," adds James, jumping down from the tank with rose in hand.
"To protect the world from devastation."
"To unite all peoples within our nation."
"To denounce the evils of truth and love."
"To extend our reach to the stars above."
"Jesse," cries Jesse, thrusting her face towards the camera.
"James," cries James, backing butt first into the camera!
"Team Rocket has finally done something right."
"We've got plenty of Omastar, and loads of Omanyte!"
"WOBBUH......." starts Wobbuffet, before Meowth kicks him out of the way.
"Pipe down! Meowth dat's right!"
The inevitable confrontation follows. Team Rocket refuses to give up their ill-gotten gains (even if they have captured this particular group of Pokemon entirely legitimately) and Ash refuses to let them leave without gross physical violence. Arbok and Weezing are sent out to attack Pikachu, each of them using their usual moves (Poison Sting and Sludge Attack) which fail completely, allowing Pikachu to Thundershock them back into Jesse, James, Meowth and Wobbuffet. Team Rocket are smashed back into the water tank where the water - water being well known for it's highly volatile explosive properties - explodes. The tank bursts open and all the water pours back out into the reservoir, but Team Rocket could care less, they still have the Omanyte and Omastar.
"Let's fly away with these marvellous little Molluscs into our fabulous future!" cries Jesse after she and James call back Arbok and Weezing.
"This stinks!" cries Brock, making absolutely no move to do anything, "Now they're going to get away!"
Ash doesn't think so, though, as he calls on Pikachu to use it's Thunderbolt and..... and Misty reminds him that attacking Team Rocket will hurt the captured Pokemon too.
Grinning in delight, Team Rocket rise off of the ground as the twerps grit their teeth and watch helplessly. The Happy Buddha Face Meowth Balloon raises up and then.... stops?
Yes, the Omastar and Omanyte are too heavy for the HBFM Balloon to get any height.... according to Meowth, James got too greedy!
"I suppose I was a tad ambitious!" grins James sheepishly.
Meowth grabs a shell to throw it overboard, but Jesse stops him before he can, telling him,"All these Pokemon are worth something, maybe we should throw you overboard instead!
"I think we're in for a shell of a fight!" grins James nervously.
As Jesse and Meowth fight over what to throw out or not, James and Wobbuffet watch on and Ash calls Noctowl back out. Sending it up to peck a hole in the Happy Buddha Face Meowth Balloon, Noctowl sends Team Rocket crashing back to the ground. Jesse, James and Meowth fall out of the basket to the ground before Wobbuffet slams on top of them, knocking the air out of them. Ash, free to inflict massive physical violence once again, gets Pikachu to hit Team Rocket with a Thunderbolt. Following that, a group of the Omastar and Omanyte (that only ten minutes ago were hugging and stroking and fondling Team Rocket) form up into a group and hit Team Rocket with a combined Water Gun Attack, sending Team Rocket blasting off again!
With Team Rocket and their attempts at legitimate enterprise dispelled, the Omastar and Omanyte return to the reservoir. Digging deep into the sand, they make their way back into the same underground cavern they've been living in all these millennia. Foster, Oak and the twerps watch them go, and Foster suggests that his problem has been solved, because he doesn't expect to see them back at his Exhibit again.
Ash is confused (what's new) so Foster explains, the Omastar and Omanyte only came to his Exhibit because their natural environment was being messed with. Now that this was over with, they would return and live in the same conditions they have for so long now.
Professor Oak admits that he would love to take the opportunity to study the supposedly extinct Pokemon.... but he won't. Why not? Why because these Pokemon have lived free for millennia, and no one or no thing deserves to live as a specimen.
No, Oak will let them live in peace, and he sends Ash, Brock and Misty off with a wave and the message to look towards the future with this new knowledge of the past.
Well yes, all that sounds great.... but it's hardly the real reason, is it Professor Oak? Still, it's a bit hard to explain to your old student, your son and his friends the REAL reason why you can't stay here in this out of the way environment for a once and a lifetime opportunity to study supposedly extinct Pokemon.
Because just the hell do you politely say, "Sorry Ash, I'd stay, but someone has to stay home and schtup your Mum."
Oh that Oak!
| BEST QUOTES |
 "Oh, my lumbago is killing me!"
 "I'll be rich at last! I can picture it now. I'll buy the the best of everything. Gowns, gold, diamonds.......as long as they are expensive....and tasteful!"
 "Fossils sure teach ya alot!"
 "Nya nya nya nya nya, we win, you lose!"
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