Take This House and Shuppet

            Team Rocket went blasting off (with very curly hair), and landed in front of a mansion.  They immediately start arguing over who’s fault their latest failure to capture Pikachu was…  But they are stopped when a strange pokemon uses some sort of psychic attack on them.

            Our heroes are wondering through the woods –completely lost, and completely upset because their hair is curly too.  Evidently Team Rocket used some strange beam on them… that’s why all their hair is funny.  Since they’re lost anyway Ash and May randomly chose a direction and Brock and Max follow.

            Meanwhile, Team Rocket is suddenly in a great mood, complimenting each other and such.  They decide to enter the mansion.  Meowth gets them in, but they can’t get back out!  They start fighting again until that pokemon does something to them again.  Suddenly they’re in a great mood again and ready to explore the mansion.

            Our heroes are caught in a rainstorm.  At least it fixed their hair… but they’re still lost.  They see the mansion and run to it.  No one seems to be there so they decide it must be abandoned.  Just after Max says it might be haunted the door creaks open.  Now they’re too afraid to go in.  But a bolt of lightening causes May to run inside.  The door shuts and traps them.  Max and May start arguing, but Brock and Ash stop them.  May makes a parting shot and Max runs off through another door that immediately locks behind them.  May is worried, but is too proud to say it out loud.  She and Max both decide they don’t need one another.

            Max wonders off, fuming about May.  The pokemon does something to him too and he stops being mad.  He sees its reflection and realizes the pokemon is a shuppet.  It starts to play with him.  It leads him to a bookshelf.  The bookshelf is hiding a door to a secret playroom.  It has a merry-go-round and everything.  Ash and co still can’t find him…

            A woman appears at the mansion.  She actually has a key, but the door opens for her.  She seems a little confused.

            Max hears Ash and co looking for him and goes to see them.  But he doesn’t reveal himself.  May makes a smart comment about not being worried because Max will come back when he’s hungry.  That makes Max mad. 

            Ash and co end up in the dinning room where strange things start happening.  They tell themselves it’s the wind, but moving dishes are definitely not wind…  It’s actually May and shuppet hiding under the table.  While running May runs into the woman from earlier.  She says the house is hers and wants to know why they are there.  Brock hits on the woman and May pulls him away.

            The woman says she’s been trying to remodel the house into a hotel, but every time she hires someone to work on it they get scared away. Now that they are sure that “creepy stuff is going on” May determines she has to find Max.  They all let out pokemon to help look.

            Team Rocket wanders into the dining room looking for food… and they’re arguing again – until Torchic wanders in looking for Max.  Team Rocket goes after the pokemon.  Max is determined not to help his sister because he’s still mad, but he remembers the times she has been nice to him and he can’t do it.  He and shuppet come out to stop them…  Turns out shuppet has been stopping them from being angry because it takes that emotion and uses it to grow… that’s weird, but useful as it doesn’t make shuppet angry… Team Rocket decides to steal shuppet as well.  As Max yells at them, May walks by and overhears him defending her Torchic.  She’s touched.  May comes in and tells Team Rocket to back off.  She’s a little insulting to him, but she does say she loves him.  And he loves her too.  A pokemon battle begins, and Max actually listens when May tells him to move back.  A shelf starts to fall on him, and May runs to protect him, but Shuppet uses psychic to save them.

            Just then everyone else shows up.  They realize all the strange events have been shuppet.  The woman says she remembers shuppet from when she lived there as a little girl.  She finally tells us her name is Emily and she and shuppet are really happy to see one another.  Team Rocket interrupts the touching moment by grabbing shuppet and hopping out a window into their balloon.  Ash sends Swellow to bring shuppet back and it quickly does.  Then pikachu uses thunder to send Team Rocket flying – and it makes their hair curly again  - even Cacnea, Saviper and Wobuffet (who have no hair…)

            Max and May apologize to one another and swallow comes back with Pikachu.  Emily and shuppet are going to change the mansion into a hotel and they invite the gang to return when it’s done.  Our heroes set off for… wherever they’re headed… Fortree city?  And Ash’s next gym battle ^_^  

            Location: A mansion in the middle of nowhere…

            Notes: We opened with Team Rocket blasting off.  That’s unusual… and what’s up with their hair?      

                   Wow, Max and May are really inconsistent with their fighting…  sometimes they’re best friends, but they bicker constantly when it’s convenient.  That line about May not being able to even turn on a pokenav was funny though ^_^

                   That play room looks a lot like the one in season one where Ash found Haunter…

                   James uses index cards to find information on pokemon?  That’s funny.