„To denounce the evils of truth and love! "
"To extend our reach to the stars above!"
"Jessie"
"James"
"We blast off at the speed of light"
"Surrender now or prepare to fight!"
"Meowth that´s right!"
James inwardly rolled his eyes. At the beginning, it had been fun to say that every time they attacked that kid and his Pikachu, but it had gotten old pretty fast. And that brat was almost as stupid as he himself pretended to be! He always made sure to make his disguises as obvious as possible and not once had Ash or any of his friends recognized him. And why in the world did they let them finish their motto every damn time? If he was them he´d have blasted them off the second they opened their mouths.
"Oh no! Not Team Rocket again! Just give it up already, I´ll never let you have Pikachu!" Ash shouted.
Why the fuck was he so surprised anyway? They did this once every day for the past year!
"Hahaha this time you won´t be able to get rid of us, kid! This mechanical Meowth is invincible!" Jessie cackled. James was thanked Arceus for her simplemindedness. She believed every little lie he fed her and still somehow thought that she was in charge.
True to the word, they were once again standing on a gigantic machine that was fashioned like a Meowth. And once more it has cost thousands of Pokedollars. The bill had been sent to Giovanni himself, who would probably give them another furious call later on. But for some reason he hadn´t kicked them out yet and he had paid for their ridiculously expensive plans that never worked out anyway. Sabotaging Team Rocket was way easier than he thought it would be.
"James! Pay attentioOOOOOOHN!"
And once again they were blasted off. James didn´t even feel anything, over past year he had built up an astounding resistance to electricity.
As expected, Giovanni gave them a call the next day. But not to shout at them strangely enough. He simply told them to return to headquarters asap. That was it. No screaming, no ranting, no threats to kick them off the Team. Maybe he was really going to do it this time.
A little worried, James followed his partners. Even if it had been a success so far, his uncle was going to be furious if he somehow butchered that mission! Although he did keep it up for a whole year…
Back at HQ everything was in chaos. When they finally had managed to ask what was going on, James was relieved. The military was going to attack them. Finally, he had gathered enough info! He almost grinned at the thought of the vacation he would finally get, but he stopped himself. Even for someone as unimportant as him such an action would seem very suspicious right now. So instead, he faked panic. Loudly crying and running around like a chicken that lost its head, he made sure to be in the way wherever he could.
Jessie had already disappeared, probably she had packed her things and fled through a window or something. She was never a heart and soul member of Team Rocket after all. All she wanted was to be able to do whatever she wanted and for people to respect her. And if the only thing about her that people feared was the big red R on her uniform, that was good enough for her. But she always knew that she would leave the ship before it sunk.
Meowth on the other hand had found himself an empty pokeball and disappeared inside. He would pretend to be a completely normal, innocent pokemon when he was found. James would make sure to release him, just in case the military decided to keep the pokemon.
Suddenly the door burst open with a loud crash. James backed up against a wall and waited for the dust to settle. This would be fun to watch! Armed soldiers streamed into the building. The grunts that were stationed around the door immediately gave up and put their arms behind their heads. Quickly they were all rid of their pokemon and weapons.
"Hey you! Hands behind your head! And go to the others, move it!"
Lazily James lifted his hands.
"Look in my back pocket, would ya?" He drawled. The soldier, after receiving a nod from his superior, complied and pulled an ID-Card from James´ pocket. One look at it was enough for the guy to immediately stand at attention.
"Forgive me Captain D´Arcy, sir! The general informed us of your mission, sir. You are to command the squad that will get Giovanni, they are waiting for you outside."
Followed by the disbelieving looks the members of Team Rocket gave him, James walked outside. There, after flashing his ID again, he was greeted by a fully armed special unit. He was given his things and quickly changed out of his uniform into military pants, boots and a tight fitting white shirt. Glad to finally be able to change his stupid looking hair, he tied it back at the nape of his neck.
When he strolled in again, this time followed by his squad, the grunts eyes bugged out. They had never seen stupid, pathetic James look so strong and reliable. He lead them up several flights of stairs, all the while carefully avoiding grunts and admins, and stopped in front of a huge set of double-doors.
"Boss! What is happening, let me in, I don´t wanna diiiieee!" He wailed in the breaking tone of voice he had used on his mission.
"That idiot! Get away from there right nor or I´ll sick Persian on you!" Giovanni growled behind the closed doors.
"But Boooooooooooooss…"
"Argh god damn it! Persian! Get him away from there!"
A key clicked in the lock and the doors flew open. James outstepped the leaping Persian and entered the office.
"Game´s over, Giovanni. You are hereby under arrest." He calmly stated, while the older man just stared at him as if he had grown a second head.
"Can´t be! That´s impossible, not YOU!" He screamed as he was surrounded by heavily armored soldiers.
"Take him outside, the grunts will easily give up now. Team Rocket is nothing without its boss."
"Yes, sir!"
After James had released a completely disbelieving Meowth, he returned to the headquarters of the army together with the rest of the soldiers, grunts and Giovanni. Outside they were greeted by the commander general D´Arcy himself.
"Great job on your mission, Captain."
"Thank you, sir!"
"You may take a vacation now, you will be contacted when I find another mission for you."
"Yes, sir!"
"Enough of this now. How have you been, nephew? You did not have any difficulties, I hope?"
"No uncle, although playing the idiot did get kinda annoying after a while."
"Hahaha I taught you well, I see! I definitely made the right decision when I took you in back then! Well we `black sheeps´, as my sister loves to call us, must stick together, eh? What are you going to do now anyway?"
"I thought I´d return home and sneak Growlie out. All the pokemon I had while on my mission belonged to Team Rocket and were released after all. I think I´ll evolve him too. Then I´ll just travel, I guess."
"Well, good luck with that. Don´t get caught though or you´ll be married to that nightmare of a woman before you can blink."
"I´ll be careful uncle. But don´t worry, I was taught by the best!"
Even though he said that, James was still slightly worried when he approached his family's mansion. It was the dead of night and no guards were to be seen. That did not mean much though. His parents were security freaks and Jessiebell was completely insane. Carefully he peeked over the hedge into the garden. Still no none. When he had found a particularly shadowy part he silently climbed over it. Dropping into a low crouch he scanned the area.
There! Close by he spotted the red blinking light of a camera. Figures that his parents preferred the newest technological equipment. The guards were probably playing cards or something in the monitor room. Carefully he crept past, hidden from the device. He was almost there. Growlie had apparently smelled him, because the growlithe had begun to make quite the ruckus in his abnormally huge doghouse.
"Shhh, Growlie! I´m getting you out of here!" James whispered by the door. Thankfully, the pokemon quieted down a little.
James tried the door. Locked, of course! Jessiebell had never liked Growlie and his parents did everything she asked. Once more checking if he was alone, he began to pick the lock. And just as he had managed to get it open, a high-pitched laugh sounded behind him.
"Jamesy! You finally came to your senses! Now we can get married and be rich together!"
James flung open the door, then ran in the opposite direction, Growlie right on his heels. No way in hell was he going to let that crazy bitch catch him. Jessiebell had already taken out her whip and begun pursuing him.
"Stay away from me, you psycho! Ah damn it, I´ve had enough!"
He whirled around and caught the whip with his bare hand. Wincing in pain he pulled and made the unsuspecting Jessiebell fall face first on the ground. He flung the weapon away and jumped over the gate, only pausing to make sure Growlie was still with him.
As it dawned James decided that he had run far enough. He sat down with his back against a tree and petted the panting growlithe.
"That´s right, I almost forgot. I have something for you Growlie, but only if you want to."
He pulled a fiery orange stone from his backpack and laid it on the ground. Growlie barked and sniffed the stone, then he looked James in the eye and put his paw on top of it. A blinding flash of white light filled the clearing and Growlie began to morph.
"I am so proud of you Growlie!"
The arcanine happily shook his mane and curled up against his owner.
Now that he finally had his best friend back, James began to think about what he would do with his vacation. He could travel around, take a look at Kanto´s sights. After all he had been way too busy to properly look at everything the last time. But before he could to that, there was something he needed to take care of first. Something very important.
"I want to apologize."
Ash Ketchum stared disbelievingly at the blue haired man before him. James, as a member of Team Rocket, had attacked him and tried to steal his Pikachu almost daily. And now he wanted to apologize? This didn´t make any sense! Apart from that, why was he wearing parts of the military uniform? Another costume to trick him? But Team Rocket disbanded!
"I realize, that dis is quite … unexpected, but please. Let me explain. When I ran away from home as a kid, I went to my uncle, the 'black sheep of the family', as my parents call him. He is the commander general of the kantonese army. He took me in and trained me. Apparently, I showed some talent for acting, so it was decided that I would be a secret agent. My first mission, it was more like a test but it proved to be very important for the future, was to infiltrate a bike gang, where I met Jessie. I left soon after her and for the first time, I received a mission of importance. I was to be a member of Team Rocket. Unimportant, laughed at and underestimated, so I would be able to get information and to sabotage them without blowing my cover. No one would have thought me to be a spy, especially since my partner, Jessie, knew me from a rebellious bike gang. I was searching for a way to undermine Team Rocket, when we ran into you and Pikachu. You did a very impressive job defending that pokécenter, so it was easy for me to talk Jessie into believing the boss would be interested in Pikachu. She is very stubborn and persistent, so the hunt went on forever. I knew you could handle yourself, and apart from that I made lethal flaws into every machine I built, just in case. I am incredibly sorry for involving you against your will."
"Do you … expect me to believe that?"
"I have proof."
James showed his army ID, his weapons license and a picture of him and his uncle at the military headquarters. After a bit more staring, Ash came to the conclusion, that he believed him. Even though James had acted a lot when trying to deceive him he had still been obvious how utterly stupid he was. But now he seemed downright intelligent! He was definitely a different person than the idiot he knew.
