In a time and reality that a person would shudder just thinking about, Giovanni, the boss of the criminal gang known as Team Rocket, had been crowned king of the Kanto Region. It was a hostile takeover, in which he had battled and beat just about all of the possible Pokemon trainers that held the potential to usurp him from his ill gotten position. Well, all except for a pair of certain trainers who had been attending to business in a different Region at the time of the takeover.
One of the first decrees as king, Giovanni did away with the Pokemon League and with major construction, converted the former League's location at the Indigo Plateau into his own fortress. However, a few years had passed and the bulk of the Kanto Region was a shadow of its former glory. There were virtually no wild Pokemon to be found anywhere within the Region, and unless someone was a Team Rocket grunt, anybody caught with so much as a Pokemon, much less an empty pokeball was dealt with swiftly. The details of how they were dealt with are best not mentioned, though if one were to imagine, if the outcome makes the thinker shudder, then Team Rocket probably had done it to the unfortunate sap.
Most grunts within the relatively new Team Rocket monarchy had a Grimer or Muk in their lineup, and they used those Pokemon frequently in order to keep the residents within the Kanto Region in line. Unfortunately, with extended use over the years, coupled with the fact that there were no Pokemon to counter balance their free range, the ground and many water sources became tainted. Without a completely reliable source of water and nearly infertile ground, the food supply for the Kanto Region was dwindling.
With a combination of time and stress going against him, Giovanni paced within his throne room while conversing with his major-domo; best known the world over as Professor Samuel Oak, he was now called by his old childhood nickname of Sammy by none other than the king. While Giovanni talked with Sammy, three very recognizable Team Rocket grunts (technically two since the third was a certain Pokemon that had the ability to speak in the human language) came in unannounced.
"Sammy, why am I not loved? I am that rare and awesome thing. I'm every inch a king. Yet I feel a twinge of doubt as I go walk about."
"Hey, Boss!" the blue haired James nervously called out, trying and failing to get Giovanni's attention.
"When my name is whispered through the region, is it talk of love or regicide?" Giovanni idly wondered to himself out loud, having not heard James and not even noticing the trio's entrance.
"Reggie who?" Jessie asked her cohorts in a whisper as she scratched with a finger at the border of her forehead where her scalp met her red hair.
"Tell me I'm adored, please tell me I'm adored." the King said, almost pleadingly.
'Oh brother,' Sammy mentally replied as he rolled his eyes.
"Hey, Boss!" Meowth, Jessie and James called out at the same time.
"Oh, what is it?" Giovanni snarled as he finally turned his attentions to his least favorite minions.
"We got a bone to pick with you." Meowth replied as he took a step forward.
"There's no food, no water-" James started ticking off problems one by one.
"Yeah. It's dinnertime, and there ain't no stinkin' entrees!" Jessie interrupted in a near tantrum-infused high pitched voice.
"Oh, you and your petty complaints!" Giovanni ranted at the three of them. Jessie, James and Meowth closed their eyes and threw their arms up to protect their heads incase their king decided to throw the book at them. As he turned, Giovanni closed his eyes and mentally counted backwards from ten to one before talking again. "You don't know what real hunger is. Day after day it gnaws at the very core of my being."
"I had that once. It was worms." Meowth said after cautiously opening up an eye and seeing that they weren't in any immediate danger.
"No, no, no... it's like an itch... deep, persistent, profound..." Giovanni replied as he opened his eyes.
"That's it- worms! When they get really bad all you gotta do is... hunker down and scoot!" Meowth said with a huge grin.
"Thanks for the tip. Ingrates! If it weren't for me you'd be beating off Murkrow for your next bite!" Giovanni snapped as he turned to glare at the misguided trio.
"Yeah, you're our savior, thanks a bunch. But how about some lunch? It doesn't matter if it's fresh, we need a fix of flesh. Our bones have moved to where they've never been; They are on the outside looking in." Jessie, James and Meowth said in a sing-song groveling matter.
"Are you blaming me?" Giovanni's voice was getting a few octaves closer to being volatile.
"Oh no, it's the Twerps!" They replied with a hint of nervousness in their voices, before bowing deeply and groveling at his feet. "You are so adored. Oh, you are so adored!"
"That's more like it." Giovanni calmed down just a bit.
"Oh, what I'd give for one more hit of Tauros kielbasa, or maybe Magikarp on the spit..." Meowth started to drool over the food he'd imagined.
"Oh, how I miss Madame Boss!" Sammy cried out, not being able to bear thinking of how those standing before him were talking about using Pokemon as food.
"Madame Boss? Madame Boss? How dare you! I told you never to mention that name! You know how I loathe my mother!" Giovanni stormed over to the former Pokemon professor and practically gave him the glare of doom.
"Note taken. I shall never mention 'M-m-m' again." Sammy cringed.
"Even in death, her shadow looms over me." Giovanni said wearily. For a brief moment, his sanity broke down even further and he believed he was seeing things that quite simply weren't there. "There she is! No! There she is! And there!"
"Calm yourself, Sire, or you'll get another one of your splitting headaches!"
"I am perfectly fine!" Giovanni snarled at his major-domo, nearly having a hissy-fit before doing a bit of comparison. "I'm better than my mother was. I'm revered, I am reviled. I'm idolized, I am despised. I'm keeping calm, I'm going wild!"
At this point, Jessie, James and Meowth were unsure what to think of their boss's state of mind, so they backed away as far as possible with their backs to the wall, as if they could simply will themselves to slide through as easily as any ghost-type Pokemon.
"I tell myself I'm fine. Yes I am, no you're not. Yes I am. No you're not. Yes, no, yes, no... Who am I talking to?" Giovanni grabbed at tufts of hair at the sides of his head.
"Oh, pull yourself together, Sire!"
"Oh, very well." Giovanni closed his eyes, took a deep breath and smoothed back his hair before glancing over at his major-domo. "Sammy?"
"Yes, Sire?" Sammy asked in concern.
"Nobody loved me, there's the rub, not even as a kid. What did Tony have that I don't have?"
'Tony? What brings him up into the conversation?' Sammy wondered briefly before replying. "Do you want the short list or the long?"
"Whatever!" Giovanni replied with a huff as he sat himself rather haphazardly on the throne.
"Well, he had adoring fans... a loving family... a devoted wife..."
"That's it! I need a queen!" Jumping up from the throne, the idea appealed to Giovanni, as if it was the best one since the invention of sliced bread.
"A what?" the major-domo could hardly believe what he was hearing.
"A queen, man! A queen! Without a queen, what am I? A dead end, no line, no descendants, no future. With a queen, I'll have kids... Immortality will be mine! Immortality will be mine!" Giovanni replied with a chortle that had the hint of insanity to it.
"Giovanni."
"Ah, Delia..." Giovanni turned to see Delia entering the throne room followed by Mimie, her Mister Mime. "Your timing couldn't have been more perfect. My, how beautiful you are."
"Giovanni, you have got to do something. We're being forced to over hunt for Pokemon that are no longer there."
'She's got those assets feminine...'
"You're the king. Control the grunts."
'I have to make her mine...' Giovanni was too busy trying to ogle Delia without making it obvious to even realize that Delia was saying a thing.
"You're destroying the Kanto Region."
'Nobility in every gene. She has to be my queen.' Giovanni mentally thought. Suffice it to say, that Giovanni's mental state did not allow him to remember that Delia was already married to Tony Ketchum - one of the very trainers that had eluded him those years ago - nor the fact that it was Giovanni himself that crashed their wedding, not that it would have mattered much to him at the moment. He didn't even remember what triggered the idea of wanting a queen in the first place.
"If we don't stop now.. Don't you see? There's still a chance for things to be all right again..."
"Come, sweet Delia. It's written in the stars." Giovanni extended his hand and pulled Delia into a dance in which only he heard the tango-like melody.
"What are you doing? Are you listening to me?" Delia asked while attempting to squirm from his firm grasp.
"We'll create a host of little grunts." Giovanni's gaze was glazed over as his imagination ran wild with the idea of descendants by the roomful, who of course, looked a lot like him.
"What are you talking about?" Delia stared at Giovanni in confusion.
"Tell me I'm adored..."
"Get away from me!" Delia exclaimed as she shoved Giovanni away from herself with as much force as she could muster.
"Tell me I'm adored." A sudden slap across his face caused Giovanni to stare at Delia in disbelief for several seconds before speaking again. "Oh, Delia... you know how I loathe violence... One way or another, you will be mine!"
"Never, Giovanni. Never!" Delia exclaimed defiantly.
"You belong to me. You all belong to me!" Giovanni grabbed hold of Delia's wrist and despite her struggling, he would not let go.
"Mimie, now!"
"Mi-Mime!" Before anyone could blink, Mimie teleported out of the throne room. Moments later, Mimie reappeared with two humans in tow.
"It's the Twerp!" Jessie, James and Meowth exclaimed in unison at the sight of the younger of the two newcomers.
"Do my eyes deceive me?" Sammy said in surprise, not sure if the father and son duo was truly standing before him.
"I sure hope not, Professor." the now teenaged Ash Ketchum replied.
"You didn't think that we were lost and gone forever, did you?" Tony spoke up.
'Considering how long the two of you were gone, that is exactly what I thought,' he silently replied. "That doesn't matter right now."
Overcoming his own shock, Giovanni released his grasp on Delia and glared at the two trainers that he hadn't hoped to see.
"I thought my conquest over Kanto was too easy all those years ago. No matter. You're too late to be pulling any stunts. My will is law."
"That's where you're wrong, Giovanni." Tony replied with a scowl on his face.
"Oh, really?" Giovanni seemed to be non-plus as he pointed at Jessie, James and Meowth who was stepping forward. "You see... they believe that I am the king."
"Them?" Ash asked incredulously. "The same Team Rocket members that have tried and failed repetitively to steal my Pikachu all those years ago? I couldn't give a flying Ratata's a-"
"ASH!" Tony and Delia exclaimed at the same time.
"Sorry. I still don't care what they think, especially since they've got to be the most bumbling members of the whole slew of Team Rocket."
'On that, we both agree.' Giovanni thought. Pulling out a pokeball and releasing his Persian, Giovanni then smirked. "Get them."
"Right!" Jessie and James replied as they released Seviper and Carnivine from their respective pokeballs.
"A three on three battle? Hm. It was bound to happen one of these years." Sammy muttered more to himself than anything.
"Ready when you are, Dad." Ash glanced over at Tony.
"This is going to be the quickest battle known to just about anyone." Tony replied as he and Ash held up the corresponding pokeballs, both of which contained their own Charizards.
"Let's go. Charizard, use Blast Burn!" they said in unison upon releasing the pair of fire lizard Pokemon.
"Blast Burn?" Jessie asked.
"We're toast." James meeped. "Blast Burn's a very powerful fire based attack."
In the time it took for that conversation to take place, the two Charizards had let loose their attacks and sent Meowth, Jessie, James and their two Pokemon flying with a trail of smoke following them. Somewhere along the line, someone claimed that they could hear voices wailing something to the effect of, "We've blasted off agaAAAAaain!"
"All right! Two down, one to go!" Ash pumped a fist into the air as he turned to look at the scene before him.
"Let's watch what happens." Tony replied. "We weren't the only ones with a score to settle."
"I had hoped this would never have to happen, but since it has... Mimie, use Psychic now!" Delia commanded of her Mister Mime.
"Mime, Mime!" Mimie exclaimed.
"Feh. Dodge and use Fury Swipes." Giovanni ordered the classy cat Pokemon.
"Quick, Mimie! Barrier!" Delia gasped.
Mimie just barely managed to erect a barrier in time, however Delia just didn't seem to have the battle savvy to think of what to do next as Persion kept swiping at the barrier.
"I know it's her fight, but I have to help her!" Ash exclaimed in frustration.
"I agree." Tony growled. "One more time!"
"Charizard, Blast Burn now!" they called out in usion.
Mimie just barely had time to drop the barrier and teleport out of the way before the double attack blazed across the room and hit Persian head on, which then caused the scorched and winded Pokemon to collide into Giovanni. Unfortunately, several items nearby caught on fire, blocking their view of what happened next to the so-called king and his Pokemon. Quick action on Mimie's part had the re-united family plus the one time major-domo teleported outside of the fortress before it went down in flames entirely.
"Hey... wake up." a female voice whispered to a nodding off Tony.
"Mrph.. Mmm... Don't wanna." Tony muttered groggily at first, but then segments of the dream replayed in his mind's eye, jolting him wide awake. "Where am I?"
"You're home... You fell asleep listening to that again." Delia said with a smile.
Looking down, he picked up the CD booklet insert for a Broadway musical and skimmed through it.
"Freaky. I was just dreaming about some of this. Only, instead of these characters, you and I were in it. And so was..." Tony paused to shudder. "...Giovanni, and he was the supposed king."
"Now that's what I'd call a nightmare."
"Well, it had a better ending, I think." Tony replied as he dropped the insert onto the couch where he had just been laying upon moments earlier.