231: Xatu the Future
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They've prepared a hole for the twerps as per usual, and are particularly pleased with their work today.
"It's absolutely indivisible!" grins Meowth.
"And you can't see it either!" agrees Jesse.
The twerps come walking up the path and Team Rocket quickly hide, before we are treated to a rare and incredible insight into the suspicious, bizarre world of Ash's inner logic.
As the twerps walk along commenting on how nice a day it is, and how quiet.... Ash suddenly declares that it is too quiet.... Team Rocket must be up to something!
Yes, he's right Gentle Dodgers, but.... well....... where the hell did that come from!?!
Anyway he declares that he wants to check the ground they're standing on (which happens to be the disguised hole) and begins jumping up and down.... but nothing happens! Team Rocket are livid and rush out, snapping at the twerps who they believe have "broken" their hole. They begin jumping up and down as well, and the whole lot collapses beneath them, everyone falling into the hole. It was obvious to anyone to see, anyone could....
Xatu the Future
As the twerps fall.... and fall..... and fall..... they realise they should land on their feet and twist about accordingly. Team Rocket sail by, laughing that they already thought of that, and they hit the ground. But then the twerps crash into them, thanking Team Rocket for the safe landing. Wobbuffet pops out to happily declare its own name and the ground beneath them tears apart and they fall even deeper into darkness.
They crash through a subterranean tunnel roof and onto a hard, artificial floor inside an artificially constructed tunnel. Jesse snaps at "Blobbuffet" and returns it to its Pokeball, and then they look at their surroundings, Team Rocket wondering if they really managed to dig a hole this deep? The twerps aren't impressed though, yelling at Team Rocket until they are all distracted as a girl in an ankle-length dress and green pigtails runs by looking at her clock and moaning she is going to be late.
They're through the looking glass here, people!
The girl skids to a stop after passing the twerps and Team Rocket, then twists around and demands to know who they are. Well that is Jesse's cue, and up she jumps.
"Prepare for trouble, and make it quick!" she cries.
"I don't have time for this silly shtick," grunts the girl, letting the air of out Jesse's sails instantly.
Brock though, is in love, declaring that he finally found what he is looking for after Misty explains they're lost. The girl tells them to follow her and leads them into a giant chamber with stairs winding around, with rails running throughout the chamber, upon each standing a Xatu.
According to Dexter, the bizarre looking, parrot-like Pokemon are capable of seeing into the past and the future, though no one knows if their predictions are correct. Jesse and Misty instantly try to get their fortunes told by the Xatu (James learnt long ago not to hunt fortunes!) but the Xatu sit staring at nothing, and the girl - Calista - explains that they are constantly in a trance because they're constantly looking into the past and future. She then heads up the stairs again, calling for Xatu 1 and Xatu 3 to come with her, and apparently they're not THAT deeply in a trance, as they fly up off of their perches while the twerps also set off after Calista.
Back at the entrance, Team Rocket continue to stare at the remaining Xatu, pointing out that even if the Xatu DO accurately see the future, how could anyone get a prediction from them, since no one speaks Xatu? Well, Meowth points out sulkily, he does just happen to be able to speak Pokemon AND human, so maybe he could act as translator!
Jesse wants to hear every detail of her future happiness, but when Meowth chuckles at the idea she could be happy, she slams him face first into the ground and roars at him to keep his paws off of her happiness.
They then head up after Calista as she bursts out into a giant amphitheatre with a scattering of people about, and Xatu 1 and 3 settle down on two platforms. Calista calls out to the crowd who raise flags up at her command, performing a kind of semaphore display. The Xatu then follow suit with a weather prediction, speaking in semaphore themselves which unfortunately Meowth doesn't understand, though he snaps at a disappointed Jesse and James that at least he speaks one more language than either of them.
Calista translates the semaphore, declaring that there will be clear skies as long as there are no clouds, with fine weather as long as it doesn't rain!
Ash is confused - no surprise there! - but Brock explains this is what is known as "double talk" (a speciality of politicians the world over) which is quickly shown up when it clouds over and begins to rain!
Calista is astonished, and then cries out to the crowd that she has to go and calls on Xatu 1 and Xatu 3 to follow her. The twerps ask what is going on and she replies she has to find out if today is THE day, and they follow after her, leaving Team Rocket behind.
The angry crowd demand to hear the rest of the fortune, and a startled Team Rocket insist that they are not soothsayers.... but then Jesse's inescapable desire to perform in front of a crowd takes over. She leaps to the front and declares that while she may not know much about fortune telling, she knows about Rock, paper, Scissors! So they're going to play a game.... oh, but everyone has to choose paper!
She works her fist up and down (HEY HEY!) and then plays scissors, and everyone in the crowd plays paper, so they lose! She throws a hand towards the exit and tells them they're all out, and then turns a beaming smile back on James and Meowth, telling them she is used to stunned silence following a performance. She then orders them to come with her so they can tail the twerps, and they rush inside.
At the bottom of the interior mountain chamber, Calista leads the twerps along with Xatu 1, 3 and also 2 into a control room with a giant weather map on the screen. She hits a button and an antenna designed to look like a Xatu rises up through the chamber and up outside, where it can only dimly be seen by the still waiting crowd who mistake it for a Xatu. Team Rocket rushes down the interior, having seen the "Xatu" themselves, which Jesse instantly recognised as an antenna, a fact Wobbuffet happily agrees with. The trouble is, Wobbuffet agreed by popping out while they were running down the stairs, which causes them all to trip up and roll down into the control room, collapsing into the twerps.
Jesse growls at Wobbuffet again and returns it to its Pokeball, and then they all stand as one of the Xatu flaps its wings in semaphore and tells Calista that someone there is capable of predicting the weather. Ash is confused, he doesn't have any Pokemon that can tell the future and neither does Misty or Brock... but Calista insists that it isn't a Pokemon, but a person! Brock sighs that he knows a lot about breeding (snicker) but not weather and James says it isn't him, and they all guess that maybe Xatu isn't predicting so accurately anymore. Calista reluctantly agrees, saying that Xatu is getting old and maybe...
Maybe nothing! Jesse steps up and proudly declares that SHE used to be a TV weathergirl, and in another continuity-defying flashback we see a slightly younger looking Jesse desperately trying to read a weather chart and then dancing about the studio before declaring the weather is going to be crazy!
Calista wonders why Jesse would give up such an exciting career like being a weathergirl (oh my, Daddy didn't exactly fill her with high hopes for her life!) and Jesse replies nervously that her weather predicting was a little.... unpredictable, so they let her go..... but she's tightened up her game since then. Calista figures Xatu was looking into Jesse's past then, and indeed it seems to be so as we see Xatu sweating tremendously, causing a startled Jesse to cry out for it to not to look TOO deep into her past. Xatu's sweating increases, and then it tumbles over, either from a shocking expose of a young girl's sordid past (HEY HEY) or, more likely, from trying to make sense of Jesse's continuity defying/muddled timeline of a history.
Jesse looks over the weather chart and suggests that there is no sign of rain according to the chart, but it IS raining outside. Calista explains that she is the thirteenth generation of caretakers for the Xatu, and is worried that Xatu's predictions are basically becoming less and less reliable, which is why recently she moved to the fake-Xatu antenna, since the people who live in the valley are reliant on weather reports for their day to day life. More worryingly than that, though, is the fact that a looooooooooooooooong time ago, Xatu predicted there would one day be a serious flood that would wipe out the valley. Now, with Xatu insisting that hard rain is coming despite what the chart is saying, Calista knows one of two things is true - either a hard rain and flood is coming - or Xatu has gone senile. The other two Xatu agree with the older one though, all of them flapping their wings together while Jesse tells Calista that the last five days worth of weather charts indicate at best a 1% chance of rain. So Calista has to make a choice, does she believe the Xatu or science? On the one hand, she doesn't really believe the future can be accurately predicted or else life itself would be no fun (Jesse agrees, and we see a tiny little Jesse in a Team Rocket outfit dancing about around dice, cards, horoscopes and womenıs' magazines! as she tells them she gave up long ago on trying to find a window into her future), but on the other, the prediction was made back when Xatu was younger and more accurate. So she makes her decision, and she goes with..... the Xatu! She rushes back outside and cries out to the waiting crowd, telling them that hard rains and a flood is coming, and they have to get out of there!
The crowd roars in horror and lift plates and jewels above their heads (apparently they had them on them all along?), rush up the stairs, pile up the items and run off. Calista explains that the people always bring along things like this as a way of showing their thanks to the Xatu, but the items prove to be more of a nuisance than anything else. Well that would be a nuisance that Team Rocket wouldn't mind having to deal with, but unfortunately for them it isn't their problem, no the nuisance they don't have to deal with is.... Delibird!
Yes the fat flying bird with a sheet for a tail flies in on the storm winds, tossing Jesse a bill for this month's loan payment. She stares at it angrily, then the trio came to a realisation.... if they get the loot that Calista doesn't want anyway, they can pay off the loan payments easily!
They sneak towards the tribute, but the twerps spot them and demand to know what they're doing.
"I predict you prepare for trouble!"
"The crystal ball says make it double!"
"To protect the future from devastation!"
"To unite all psychics within our nation!"
"To denounce the evils of non-belief!"
"To read our fortunes from a green tea leaf!"
"Jesse!"
"James!"
"Team Rocket searches for mystical truth!"
"Surrender now and tell me your sign or prepare to fight, fight, fight!"
"Meowth, Dat's Right!"
"DELIIIIII!" adds Delibird.
Jesse and James tell the twerps they have Delibird to back them up, telling the surprised Delibird that if it wants the money, honey, it'll have to help them. Delibird seems to see the logic in this, and throws "presents" at the twerps, and when the Xatu step up to fight back, Weezing uses Smokescreen. Delibird keeps throwing down presents and the twerps run away, but when the smog clears the Xatu are still standing strong. Calista explains to a surprised Team Rocket that they were able to predict where the presents would land, and dodge accordingly. Delibird throws more presents, but the Xatu simply stand and catch them, and when they blow, they glow white and appear to be fine. Delibird lands confused, as James wonders if the presents just restored them, and a present falls from Delibird's sack (GETCHA MINDS OUTTA DA GUTTA) and blows Team Rocket sky high, sending Team Rocket, you guessed it, blasting off again.
The revitalised Xatu use Semaphore to warn that the floods are still coming, but today rather than tomorrow. Well what does that high science control panel think of that? Well inside the control room, the weather chart reads the new information coming in and replies as science always does when it encounters something that makes no sense.... it gets a big old question mark above it and sits around being useless.
The Xatu tell the twerps to leave now, they'll be okay, then tell Calista that they are here to provide guidance to people, NOT for people to live every moment of their lives by, then say goodbye to Calista and use Teleport to get them all to safety as the valley is fully flooded by the sudden blast of rain.
After the storms pass, Calista tells the twerps she is happy enough to leave behind the place that has been home to her family for 13 generations, in fact she is going to go and become a television weather reporter! They all look at the beaming sun, suffering severe retina burns as back in the valley, Team Rocket dig at the now mud-filled cavern where the Xatu once lived, trying to get to the buried loot. They demand help from Delibird but it tells them (through Meowth) that it is here to collect money, not help them find it. It head off and they realise that they only have a month to make their next payment, and don't think that is enough time to dig down. James suggests perhaps they could get a Xatu to help them, but Jesse replies that he knows her thoughts on fortune telling, and he seems to read her mind as they all get the same idea, which leads to them bolting off into the distance. That idea?
CHEESE IT!
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