Author's note- forgive the first couple of chapters or so- I wrote them a while ago. It should improve after that.
Jessie, James and Meowth trudged along the dirt road that cut through the forest, exhausted after hours of walking. Sunlight filtered through the trees, dappled on the ground, and the bushes rustled with various wild Pokémon.
"Ugh! If we don't find some grub soon, I think I'm gonna faint!" Meowth exclaimed, looking down at his growling stomach.
"That makes two," James said miserably, leaning against a tree. "It's been days since we've had a proper meal!"
"Will you two quit whining?" Jessie snapped, putting her hands on her hips. "Complaining won't make you any less hungry. Look, there's bound to be a town nearby. Let's just keep going."
Meowth and James groaned as Jessie marched on in front of them, following her reluctantly.
"Imagine a big, juicy steak right now," Meowth said dreamily as he forced one leg in front of the other.
"Yeah," James agreed. "Or a massive bowl of ice cream."
The two sighed contentidly at the concoctions of their own minds as Jessie dragged her fingers down her face, exhaling through her nostrils angrily.
"Or a platter of smoked fish with chips and-"
"You're not helping!" Jessie screamed, swivelling around to face the two. "Just shut your mouths 'till we get to the next town, capiche?"
"Capiche," James and Meowth whimpered, cowering.
"Good."
As the trio of Rockets made their way up a gently sloping hill, the trees began to clear, and a stretch of grey buildings were visible in the near distance.
"Is that...?" James began.
"Civilisation!" Meowth cheered happily, racing down the path, the two humans close behind.
"Thank goodness!" Jessie said, relieved as they reached a noodle bar on the outskirts of the town.
"Uh, just one problem," James pointed out, prodding her on the shoulder and turning his pockets inside out. "We're broke."
"A boating contest!" Ash exclaimed happily, holding up a flyer for Brock and Dawn to see. "We should enter!"
"I don't know, Ash..." Dawn said nervously, studying the pictures on the flyer of enthusiastic people on small, wooden boats. "I get pretty seasick..."
"Aw, come on, Dawn! It'll be fun!"
"It does look interesting," Brock admitted, taking the flyer from Ash. "It says here that it's a race to collect all five flags of your team's colour, which are scattered around the sea. And, you can enter in teams of up to three people."
"Perfect! You, Dawn and I can team up, then!"
"Hold on," Dawn protested. "I don't know if I'm even up for this!"
"It's not far out at sea," Brock said reassuringly, "so the waves shouldn't be too big. But if you don't want to, me and Ash can always enter by ourselves."
Dawn pursed her lips in thought, and then smiled. "I'll give it a try. Who knows? Maybe I'll find my sea legs!"
Ash grinned. "Great! Where do we go to enter, Brock?"
"The pier," Brock said, and then frowned. "Oh, hold on..."
"What is it?" Dawn asked.
"The rules say that you can't bring any Pokémon with you."
"And why's that?" Ash demanded.
"Maybe it's so people with water types don't have an unfair advantage, or to keep the boat from sinking. That wouldn't be a problem, but what about Pikachu?"
"Hmm... Well, he's not going in his Poke Ball, that's for sure," Ash said, biting his lip. "Oh, I know! Pikachu can stay at the Pokecentre- the last time we saw the nurse Joy here, she said only to ask if we needed a favour, remember?" he asked, then looked down at Pikachu. "Would that be okay, buddy?"
"Pika- Pi!" Pikachu said, nodding.
Brock smiled, and looked at the street in front of them. "Alright, then. The Pokecentre is just around the corner- and that means nurse Joy is too!" he cried dramatically, sprinting down the pavement with hearts for eyes.
"Hey!" Dawn yelled after him, as she and Ash broke into a run. "Wait for us!"
"We can't buy food with no cash," Meowth grumbled miserably. "Unless that noodle bar's handing out grub for free."
"When has a lack of money ever been a problem for us before?" Jessie questioned impatiently as she eyed a customer tucking into a steaming pot of noodles. "We're Team Rocket, right? So, we steal."
"Not here we don't," James hissed, pointing to a cop standing nearby.
"Oh. Right."
The trio jumped as the cop spotted them, and raised an eyebrow. "Haven't I seen you three somewhere before?" he asked, his eyes scanning their uniforms. "You look... familiar."
"Um, well..." Jessie mumbled, racking her brains for an answer that wouldn't end in their arrest.
"We were on Wheel of Fortune," James blurted, grinning nervously and rubbing the back of his head.
The cop snapped his fingers. "That's right! You know, I've always wanted to go on that show," he said, smiling. "What's it like backstage?"
"Oh, er... pretty nice," Jessie replied.
"Yeah, they have awesome snacks," added James, shifting uncomfortably.
"I bet," the cop said, and then jumped as he realised something, checking his watch. "Crap! My break ended ten minutes ago!" he yelped. "Gotta go!"
The three Rockets sighed with relief as the brown haired cop dashed out of sight.
"I can't believe he actually bought that nonsense," James muttered, running his hand through his blue hair.
"Well, let's just be thankful that he did," Meowth said. "But there's still the matter of food..."
"The cop's gone, so I say we eat and make a run for it," Jessie suggested.
"After that close shave, I'm not really in a hurry to break the law," James said quietly.
"Well, what do you suggest?" Meowth countered, stretching.
As James was about to reply, something hit him in the face.
"ARGH! GET IT OFF!" he squealed, blinded by the object.
"Calm down, Jimmy. It's just a piece of paper," Meowth said, rolling his eyes.
James snatched the piece of paper off his face, and was about to throw it away when he noticed something advertised on it.
"First prize: a month's supply of fruit?" he read out loud, his green eyes widening as he skimmed over the page. Meowth and Jessie looked at him, confused as he broke into a wide smile.
"This might just fix our little food problem," James explained, holding up the flyer for them to see. "In the mood for a little boat trip?"
Nurse Joy greeted Ash and the others with a warm smile as they stepped into the Pokecentre, looking around.
"Welcome back!" she chirped in her usual cheery voice. "It's great to see you three again!"
"It's even greater to see you!" Brock declared, rushing over to the counter and taking her hands in his. "Your name describes what I feel whenever we meet; Joy! Your beauty is uncomparable to any other, your voice soft and sweeter than honey! But my words barely scratch the surface of my true feelings for y-"
Brock suddenly collapsed to the floor as Crogunk burst out of its pokeball, and jabbed him in the ribs.
"That, however, scratched pretty deep!" Brock managed to groan as Crogunk dragged him away by his leg.
"Okay..." nurse Joy said, sweatdropping. "What can I do for you?"
"We were about to go and sign up for the boating contest at the pier," Ash started, "but you can't bring any pokemon with you, so we were wondering if we could leave our pokeballs and Pikachu here."
"Of course!" nurse Joy beamed, producing a tray with moulds for the pokeballs to go into. "Just put your pokeballs in here, and I'll look after Pikachu."
"Here's the pier!" announced Meowth as they turned a corner. The three were in disguise as "The Treasure Chest Gang"; James and Meowth wore bandanas, shirts, buckled shoes and trousers that ended halfway down the calf, while Jessie sported an pirate hat (minus the skull and crossbones) as well as a long, blue coat and boots.
"Hello!" greeted a friendly looking man behind the stall for the boat contest. "Are you here for the competition?"
"Why of course!" Jessie said in a bad cockney accent. "We'd neva miss somethin' like this!"
"Boa'in''s our middle name!" James added enthusiastically.
The man smiled, and handed them a sign-up form. "It should be good fun. If you'd put your names right there," he said, producing a ball-point pen.
Jessie wrote "Jessibella", James printed "Jameson", and Meowth scrawled "Tony".
"Where the hell did you get Tony from?" James whispered in his normal voice to Meowth once they were out of earshot of the man.
"I don't know!" Meowth said, shrugging. "I've always fancied myself a Tony."
James shook his head, exasperated, and joined Jessie in the queue to leave pokeballs behind.
"We'd like to enter the boat contest, please!" a cheerful, familiar voice declared behind them, grabbing their attention. The disguised rockets looked behind them slowly to clarify who it was, and then snapped their heads back to the queue in front of them when they spotted Ash, Brock and Dawn.
"The twerps!" they hissed simultaneously, cursing their luck,
"Why do they follow us everywhere?" James moaned, taking a few steps as the line crept slowly forwards.
"Good thing we wore disguises, or they'd blow our cover for sure!" Meowth whispered.
"Won't they remember these costumes from the time we tried to get that treasure chest of mine off them?" James pointed out.
"Phh," Jessie said dismissively. "We only used the disguises for about ten seconds. They won't remember."
"Hi there! Are you entering the competition too?" Dawn asked, suddenly behind them. The three jumped, and then swivelled around, grinning anxiously.
"Certainly are, sure as water's water!" James replied in his false cockney accent, amazed that the twerps couldn't tell who they were.
"Us too!" Ash interjected, smiling as he offered them his hand. "My name's Ash!"
"It's a pleasure, I'm sure," James said weakly, reluctantly taking Ash's hand and shaking it. "Jameson's the name."
"Mine's Jessibella," Jessie said through gritted teeth as she shook Ash's hand, though she couldn't resist crushing it a little.
"Tony," Meowth said simply.
"That's quite a grip," Ash whimpered, cradling his hand when Jessie finally let go.
"I'm Dawn!"
"And my name's Brock!"
"We kno- I mean, wha' lovely names!" Jessie lied, nearly forgetting her false identity.
Realising they were at the front of the queue, Jessie and James emptied their pockets of pokeballs, placing them into the tray with their names on and turning back to the twerps.
"I guess we'll see you in the race, then," Brock said.
The six looked up as a young woman with green hair shouted for attention through a megaphone.
"The Boating Competition will commence in five minutes!" she announced, switching to the bored tone of someone repeating a speech for the upteenth time as heads turned towards her. "I'll go through the rules once- so listen up!
"Each team will be assigned a colour before the race begins. In your teams, you must then find five flags of that same colour, and bring them back here first to win! No pokemon are allowed on any of the teams, which cannot consist of more than three people. Any violence towards other boats or stealing of flags will result in disqualification. Flags will not be found further than a hundred metres out to sea, and this point is marked by a line of buoys. Do not cross this line to avoid getting lost.
"However, in the rare event that anyone does get lost, a flare gun can be found underneath the seats of the boats, along with lifejackets. Only fire the gun in cases of extreme emergency. There is a first place prize, as well as two runner up prizes. Good luck, and have fun!"
The woman breathed out heavily as she finished, dropping the megaphone to the floor.
"Well, good luck!" James said to the twerps, and bolted over to the boats with his two comrades, disappearing into the swarm of people.
A man on a podium began assigning each of the teams a colour, calling out names from a list in his hand.
"Jessibella, Jameson and Tony?" he yelled eventually. Jessie put up her hand, and the man handed her a green ribbon.
"Alright, green it is!" she said, determination in her eyes. "We've got to win this- just think of all that fruit!"
"And if we lose?" Meowth asked.
"We won't," Jessie replied, glaring at him.
"Of course not. Silly me," Meowth muttered sarcastically as they climbed into a boat.
"Alright!" came the voice of the woman again. "Everyone ready? The race starts... Now!"