Act One Interlude - A Fancy Party? Secrets of the S.S. Anne!

> *"So why did you jump through the window?" "Because I thought it would look cool."*
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## Episode Summary

After the harrowing events of the Act One finale, Rose, Cobalt, and Victor could use a little fun. And Professor Sky got them tickets to the SS Anne's yearly gala. Everyone's dressed up and ready to let off some steam. Hopefully nothing goes wrong.

## Episode Synopsis

The day after rescuing the Legendary Birds from Team Rocket, Rose, Cobalt, and Victor are awarded invitations for a black-tie formal dinner cruise aboard the S.S. Anne from Professor Skye. Victor is very excited for the cruise, Rose is suspicious of it, and Cobalt just wants to have A Good Time. That evening, they and their Pokémon (Bango, Scramble, Sakura, Treble, Bass, Baritone, Minuet, and Biscuit) are all in formal attire and accessories.

At the gangway, the staff member checking in guests refuses to allow them onto the boat until they reveal their full names: A. Rose Jenny, Cobalt Elm, and Victor Sycamore. He gives the three of them each wristbands that allow them to eat and drink all they want while on the boat.

Once onboard, Rose, Cobalt, and Victor enter a splendid ballroom, filled with people and Pokémon. There is a pretty crowded dance floor, roulette, card games, a full buffet, and a full bar. Among the guests is Amy Jenny and Joy, her fiancee. Despite Rose's warnings to Bango and Scramble, the group's Pokémon immediately storm the buffet, while Rose makes a beeline for the bar, and Cobalt follows her. Once there, she skinnies up next to another guest with, "Hey handsome, buy me a drink?" Cira turns to Rose and quips, "Sorry, you're not my type. You're too young."

Despite being more or less happy to see Cira, Rose turns her attention to the bartender, and tries to order a drink. Cobalt and Cira notice that he's wearing a fake moustache, wig, and fake glasses. Rose asks for a Manahttan, and Cira and Cobalt get on the bartender's case for his terrible disguise, and for his serving a minor. Cira's comments shock the bartender, who tries to pretend he isn't pretending to be a bartender. Cobalt turns around and sees Bonnie, in a stunning dress and makeup, enter the room. As he tries to act suave, Rose and Cira also notice, and make their way over towards Bonnie. Cobalt follows at a distance.

At the entrance to the ballroom, Rose offers to dance with Bonnie, and Cobalt offers her Rose's virgin Manhattan (several maraschino cherries in a rocks glass). Rose then tries to blackmail Bonnie for a dance, since Rose didn't arrest her after Mount Moon, but Bonnie's eyes turn to Cira. Cobalt stumblingly introduces himself to Bonnie, since they never were formally acquainted. Cira embarasses Cobalt into leaving by asking him about the girl he was texting, and he storms off towards the bar.

In the confusion, Rose slips back to the bar, and is given a virgin Shirley Temple by the bartender. After offering not to arrest the bartender if he makes her an alcoholic drink (and getting a generous amount of vodka added to her drink in response), Cobalt stomps over and orders a Lemonade. The bartender instead makes him a Tall Boy of Lemonade, and Cobalt is knocked off his stool by the alcohol in it.

While Rose and Cobalt drink away their troubles, Cira and Bonnie dance and talk. When Bonnie asks how Cira met Rose and Cobalt, Cira shrugs it away with "Eh, it was a ghost forest. It's a long story." Bonnie tells Cira that Billy is in jail, and that she thinks the brainwashing no longer has any effect- that, for the first time in a log time, she is *free*. Cira then dips Bonnie, who blushes.............and Cobalt stumbles over, already tipsy from his one drink. Cobalt hits on Bonnie, and Cira dismisses him with "Hey, Chasing Amy? Beat it." Cobalt tries to trust-fall onto Cira, who reluctantly catches him, and then drops him onto the floor.

At this point, Rose finds her friends on the dance floor. Cira tries to pawn Cobalt off into Rose's care, and resume her conversation with Bonnie. Instead, Bonnie fixates on the bartender, who she recognizes, but who is only familiar to Cira. Cobalt decides that he wants to go fishing, so Rose and Cira have to drag him over to the side of the room, where Rose gives him water laced with an Antidote to cure his intoxication. In the confusion, Bonnie vanishes.

Rose and Cira end up at the bar again, with Cira making sure Rose doesn't drink any more. Rose updates Cira on what they've been up to: respectively, arresting Billy, rescuing the Legendary Birds, dressing up like Internal Affairs Rockets to infiltrate the Rocket Bases, and getting yelled at. Cira takes particular notice of how Rose unintentionally styled her hair to mimic the Rocket Boss's. They debate over how to best describe the other Rocket Boss's hair.

While Rose and Cira talk, Cobalt goes fishing off the side of the boat, with Minuet holding his Old Rod over the ocean. After a few minutes, Minuet fishes up a Wimpod, who is terrified. Cobalt takes a picture of it, and tries to catch it. The first Pokéball doesn't work, so Minuet sets it down on the deck. Cobalt then talks to the terrified Wimpod, and after a gentle conversation, catches it. As he shows off his capture to Rose and Cira through a porthole, they sees some things similar to jetskis approaching the S.S. Anne at high speed. When Rose and Cira go to leave, the doors around the ballroom slam shut, locking them in, and Cobalt out.

Rose and Cira go to sneak behind the bar, and the bartender leaps onto the bar and cackles. The woman running the roulette tables also jumps onto her table, and they both tear off their outfits to reveal *white* Rocket uniforms. Cira recognizes them, and tells Rose that she knows them, but that she thought they were somebody else.

The two Rockets start on their rhyme, which Rose and Cira interrupt with snarky comments. The Rocket duo, Butch and Cassidy, mention how they went through a lot to get Cira on the boat, which worries Rose. She then continues to critique the Rockets' lines, and steals liquor from the bar. Butch demands that the party guests leave their (closed) Pokéballs on the table, and more of the employees reveal their *white* Rocket uniforms. Cira declares that Rose, Cobalt, and Victor, and their Pokémon, are to be left alone.

Rose is very confused by this, and Cira reassures Rose that she was not directly involved in this operation. Butch and Cassidy reverently offer to let Cira join their mission, and become the face of the Rocket Revolution, although they'd have to get her a white uniform. Rose asks Cira if she's a "Rocket-star," to which Cira admits that this kind of thing is too loud for her, and that she initially thought Butch was her Uncle Jimmy in disguise. While the Rockets bicker, Rose offhandedly mentions that she's going to call the police, but Butch releases a Magneton, who blocks cell phone reception inside the ballroom.

Outside, Cobalt manages to climb up the netting outside of the ballroom, and gets onto the roof. Looking through a skylight, he sees Rose try to call the police, but when she is unsuccessful, he calls Amanda Jenny, who promises that she'll get in contact with the Vermilion Police Department, and help out as soon as they can. Cobalt then prepares to create a distraction, and gives Rose a thumbs-up through the skylight.

Rose threatens the Rockets with jail time, because "You're not stealing anybody's Pokémon, because that's illegal." The Rockets laugh at her, and Butch and Cassidy ask Cira where she picked up Rose and Cobalt. "It was a ghost forest, it's a long story," she says, but then refers to Rose, Cobalt, and Victor as her "traveling companions," which Cobalt knows to mean "friends."

On the roof, Cobalt uses Minuet to gain extra height, and then crashes into the ballroom via the skylight. Once inside, he has Treble create a smokescreen to give everyone cover. In the confusion, Rose steals Butch's Snag Ball, and the door swing open. Many guests flee through the open doors, and as the smoke clears, the team sees Bonnie ushering people through the open doors. Rose shoves Butch off the bar, and as he stands up, he rants about how he and Cassidy planned this operation to impress Cira. The boat shakes with an impact, but nobody loses their balance. He threatens to steal their teammates, but Cira intimidates him and says, "You're not gonna talk to me like that again." He gulps in fear.

As they square up to fight, Butch mentions that they will be escaping on submersibles, but the room's portholes burst inward, and a group of Rocket Grunts in *black* uniforms pour into the room. As the two factions of Rockets face off, Rose has Scramble use Metronome in the middle of the room, which manifests as Eternal Floette's Light of Ruin. Rose, Cobalt, and Cira cover their eyes, but everyone else in the room is blinded by the shockwave of light and force. As the cloud of debris settles, the Metronome energy reabsorbs into Scramble, and she faints from the recoil damage. Rose immediately returns Scramble and searches for Revives. Cira convinces Butch and Cassidy to leave, and they slip out.

Bonnie, battle-mussed, emerges from among the crowd of collapsed Rockets and walks towards the group. Rose offers Bonnie a deal: she can use a submersibles to escape, and Rose and Cobalt won't follow them as long as Bonnie destroys the other Rocket submersibles. Bonnie takes the deal, admitting that she now owes Rose two favors. She looks at Rose, and then at Cira. Cira offers to be Bonnie's Clyde, but Bonnie responds with "I'd rather you just be Cira."

Before leaving, Cira asks that Rose and Cobalt focus their fight on the black-uniformed Rockets, and says that the white-uniformed Rockets are more like her. Rose slams somebody's Mai Tai, and Cira also asks them to investigate the mind-control technology that they've heard of. Rose and Cobalt encourage her to leave, and they do, after initially forgetting Wood and Cronenberg.

As they stand among the ruined ballroom, and the crowd of collapsed Rockets, Cobalt realizes that they haven't seen Victor all night, and goes to find him with Treble. After searching most of the boat, Cobalt finds Victor in the engine room with the Captain, going over the ship's inner workings. Victor and the Captain mention that they haven't heard any kind of ruckus, aside from the "turbulence" of the submersibles hitting the ship.

Inside the ballroom, Rose offers the Rocket Grunts an ultimatum: leave the stolen Pokémon behind and you can swim for your lives. The white-uniformed Rockets take her offer, and quickly flee; the black-uniformed Rockets look at her in pain and conflict, so Rose puts them to sleep with Minuet's Sleep Powder and handcuffs them, with Baritone's help.

The S.S. Anne docks again in Vermilion Harbor, and is greeted with almost every member of the Vermilion Police Department. Among them is Rose's older sister Acantha, who reveals Rose's given name and takes reports of the events from Rose and Cobalt. Neither of their reports mention Cira, Rose, or the bargain offered to the white-uniformed Rockets. As they walk away from the pier, Cobalt hears Treble whimper in pain, and music begins to play...

## Cast

Alan Sells as GM/Victor Sycamore/Everyone Else/Everything Else

Jake Mason as Rose Jenny

Josh Nichols as Cobalt Elm

Shannon Manor as Cira

## Trivia

* In the intermission, Jake gives a teaser for the second act of the podcast:

> *#BiteSquad. You're gonna love Bite Squad. More Pokés. More outfits. Drama. Tears? Hugs. Beach episode? We'll see you in September.*
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* Rose, Cobalt, and Cira's formal wear was designed over a year before the episode was created; it was among the first episodes planned.
* In this episode, they establish the legal drinking age in Kanto as being 18.
* Jake, Josh, Alan, and Shannon had such a good time recording this episode that Jake had a hard time cutting it down.
* This episode introduces another possible identity for the "B" who helped Rose and Cobalt out with their infiltrations of the Rocket Bases.
* The temporary synopsis for this episode was "fancy party and fancy dancin'."