Author's note- Forgive the first couple of chapters if they're a little off; I wrote them about four years ago. The quality should improve after that.

Jessie and Meowth,

I'm sorry not to have made contact sooner. I didn't know where you were, or if I'd put you in danger by looking.

I was thinking about everything last night- about what happened all those years ago when we were still tailing that kid, and everything since. It seems strange, knowing that those people used to be us, that we were so set on such a goal.

The main reason I'm sitting at this desk at four in the morning writing this drivel is that I owe you an explanation for everything that happened. No doubt you've worked most of it out yourselves, but I don't want to leave you wondering.

I'm going to end this letter now, but I won't make you wait for me to write the next one. In fact, by the time you've read this, I'll have finished writing everything. I'll send these all at the same time. Hopefully, I'll be able to explain it properly.

See you next letter,

James

5 years earlier

Giovanni stifled a yawn as the car he was sitting in pulled over to the pavement, gently coming to a halt. The door to his left was opened by the driver; Giovanni stepped out into the open air, the cold sting of winter morning immediately against his skin as his surroundings came into focus.

He'd barely gotten any sleep the night before, and was feeling the lack of rest take its toll: his eyes constantly stung, however much he blinked, and his limbs felt heavy. Despite this, he strode purposefully towards the double doors of the towering building ahead of him, determined not to let his subordinates see him acting weaker than he deemed acceptable. The subordinates in question were two grunts, who he'd brought with him to serve as bodyguards during the meeting in case anything got out of hand. However, they were unrecognisable as part of his syndicate, dressed in black suits and dress shoes so as not to arouse suspicion, or give off the impression of a lack of trust on Giovanni's part. One of them held a briefcase containing stacks of money- pocket change for the Team Rocket boss, but enough to buy him the information he needed.

The grunt without the briefcase quickened his pace so as to reach the glass door before Giovanni, and hastily held it open for his boss. As the three had entered the room, the receptionist stood up, smiling, and walked over to meet them.

"I take it you're here to see Mr Smith?" the receptionist asked, extending a hand to Giovanni who shook it firmly.

"Yes," Giovanni confirmed, resisting the urge to roll his eyes at the obviously fake name. He'd heard a lot of bad aliases in his profession, but 'Mr Smith' was particularly uncreative. If people were going to give false names, he thought, they might as well be a bit more imaginative about it.

Smiling again, the receptionist extended an arm to a flight of stairs on the right. "He's just up there- it's the first door you'll reach," he said.

Giovanni nodded. "Thank you."

The two grunts walked on either side of him as they climbed the stairs, looking nervous in the presence of their boss. Giovanni didn't notice their unease, however- he was too busy thinking about what this meeting could mean if the offer was accepted, how much he would gain. His lip curled upwards involuntarily at the idea of the power he'd have.

He quickly made his expression neutral as a door came into view, and, after glancing down to make sure his tie was still in place, pushed it open.

A man was sitting behind a desk at the end of the room, shuffling papers around and murmuring something to himself. Behind him were a three other people in suits- two men and a woman- with sunglasses covering their eyes. "Looks like he doesn't trust me, either," Giovanni mused with a smirk.

"Ah- Giovanni!" the man greeted, standing up. "I'm very glad you were able to come on such short notice."

Giovanni said nothing, and shook the man's hand with a nod. "Mr Smith, I presume?" he asked, holding back sarcasm.

"Correct," the man said, smiling broadly to show unnaturally whitened teeth. "Well then, let's get to business, I suppose."

"Mm," Giovanni said, keen to see the offer through as quickly as possible. He looked over his shoulder to the grunt, who practically jumped and rushed over to the desk, placing the briefcase on the wooden surface. He undid the metal latches and carefully opened the lid to reveal the numerous wads of cash.

"That's the amount you proposed to my employee over the phone," Giovanni stated, saving 'Mr Smith' asking the awkward question. Smith beckoned the woman behind him over, who proceeded to thumb through the cash, checking that it was genuine. She nodded slightly, and moved back to her original position.

"Well," Smith began, letting his arms drop to his sides, "I expect you're eager to see my part of the bargain fulfilled."

"Very," Giovanni thought, but settled on a forced smile instead.

Smith walked back behind his desk, and made his way into the small office behind it. Drumming his fingers against his thigh impatiently, Giovanni watched Smith's employees, and saw that one of them was focused on the large window to the side of the room. Frowning, Giovanni moved his gaze to the spot they were watching, and then narrowed his eyes as he saw a flash of red for a split second. His eyes widened as he realised what it was.

"Sniper!" he yelled to the grunts, ducking quickly and barely avoiding the bullet that smashed through the window over his head, sprinkling glass onto the carpet. The two grunts quickly reacted, removing the guns on their belts from their holsters and running over to their boss. As Giovanni quickly got to his feet again, the two men and the woman in sunglasses started to fire at him; he fell backwards again as he felt a bullet hit him in the chest, stopped by the bulletproof fabric beneath his shirt but still hitting him with enough force to break his ribs.

He fumbled for his own gun, gritting his teeth in pain and scrambling to his feet; one of the grunts was groaning on the floor, clutching his leg and looking pale at the amount of blood seeping from the wound beneath his fingers. Giovanni was about to grab his subordinate off the ground when he spotted the red dot jiggling on the grunt's forehead; he cried out in warning just as a bullet pierced the man between the eyes, instantly rendering him lifeless.

"Move!" Giovanni told the other grunt, doing his best to ignore the pain in his chest and firing a couple of shots back at his attackers. He heard one of them scream and the thud of a body hitting the ground, but didn't look back to see who his victim was.

His remaining bodyguard looked terrified, desperately trying to reload his gun as they sprinted back through the door they'd come through and began to run back down the stairs. Giovanni's hand moved to his belt, and he pressed the button on the side of it twice- an action which would call backup from HQ to his location. He only hoped that the call would connect in time.

"Sir- they're following us," the grunt panted as they kept going two steps at a time, pushed onwards by adrenaline and the knowledge that stopping would mean certain death. Giovanni risked a glance behind him; they weren't within view, but he could hear their footsteps not far behind and had no doubt that they wouldn't be the only people armed in the building.

"Keep going," Giovanni ordered between breaths. "Don't stop, even once we're outside- that sniper could follow us for a long time."

The two charged through the doors back into the reception, Giovanni swiftly shooting the receptionist before he had a chance to fire at either of them, and the grunt doing the same to their other two assailants, who slumped to the ground. They ran outside towards the car only to see the driver slumped forwards on the steering wheel, cracks bordering the bullethole in the windscreen.

"Shit," Giovanni cursed, realising that the front wheels were flat. "They've shot the tyres." He kept sprinting, the grunt following close behind, and stopped at the first vehicle he came to; a red, expensive-looking car that probably belonged to one of the employees at the neighbouring bank. Wincing at the growing pain from where the bullet had hit his ribs, Giovanni smashed the window of the front door of the car with the butt of his gun, ignoring the alarm that promptly began to shriek and reaching inside. He unlocked the door expertly, and dived in, hurriedly shifting over to the passenger's seat. "Drive," he said to the grunt, who nodded quickly and climbed in after him.

The engine rumbled to life after the grunt managed to turn it on, using an advanced lockpick each agent carried for emergencies; he slammed his foot on the accelerator, letting out a terrified yelp as the side window shattered from another gunshot. Shreds of glass skimmed across his lap and onto the floor. He was certain he could feel the blood pulsing from his heart as he waited for the shock of pain, for his mind to shut down altogether. Relief took hold as he realised that he hadn't been hit, still driving the car as fast as he could down the road.

After turning a corner sharply and moving away from the block of buildings, the grunt relaxed a little, though didn't stop driving.

"Should I return to HQ, sir?" he asked, unable to hide the tremor in his voice. He'd just watched his colleague get shot through the head, and had by no means recovered from the experience. Looking over at his boss, the grunt cried out in shock and abruptly stopped the car.

Blood was trickling steadily from a hole in Giovanni's neck, the skin around the wound torn and ruptured to show the sickening sight of pale pink flesh. His eyes were staring ahead of him, his face neutral of any kind of emotion.

Moving away instinctively from the corpse, the grunt got out of the car, running a hand through his brown hair and then clutching his head with his hands. Luckily, the road was clear of any other vehicles so early in the morning, but that did little to make the Rocket feel better.

"Oh god..." he muttered, the weight of the situation becoming clearer the more he thought about it. The leader of Team Rocket- the man respected by every member of the organisation and known throughout the regions- was dead. And- even worse than that- the grunt was the one who had to explain it to everyone. It had happened so suddenly and without any kind of prolonged drama that it almost didn't seem real. Somehow, it was hard to believe that Giovanni wasn't immortal.

Five minutes passed, during which the man sat on the edge of the pavement and tried to control his breathing. The thought that he could have easily been dead by now with no chance to prevent it filled him with a different kind of terror, one that closed his throat with thick sobs every few seconds. He exhaled deeply, staring at the unfamiliar polished black shoes he was wearing, and got up again, knowing that the longer he stayed, the more likely it was that he'd be followed. Grimacing at the sight of the body, he looked around to check that he was still alone, and then lifted the corpse out of the vehicle, straining at the effort of the task and forcing his hand not to recoil when he felt the warmth of blood. He then opened the back door of the car, and pulled Giovanni's body across the rear seats so that it wasn't so obvious that his passenger was a dead man (he'd considered putting him in the trunk, but that somehow seemed insulting to a man he had always held in such high esteem, even if he was dead). After a moment's though, he then took off his jacket, and spread it over Giovanni's chest, pulling it up to his chin so that the wound on his neck was hidden. To anyone looking in, it'd look like he was sleeping.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," the grunt cursed repeatedly, wishing that he could turn back time and prevent it all from happening, furious at himself for failing to save his boss. He was supposed to be willing to take a bullet for the man, but, unintentionally, the opposite had happened, even if Giovanni hadn't exactly been trying to save the grunt's life when the bullet had torn through his windpipe.

He wondered how the hell he was going to tell the people back at headquarters; he couldn't even begin to imagine their reaction when he pulled up to the building in a different car than the one he'd arrived in, riddled with bullet holes and containing the dead leader of their syndicate in the back. "It wasn't my fault," he told himself, getting back into the driver's seat and pushing back the impulse to yell out. "I did everything I could. It's not like I went against any orders." A little calmer, he turned back onto the freeway, ignoring the speed limit completely as he watched the red needle on the speedometer move clockwise.

Somewhere in the near distance, police sirens began to sound, wailing in altering tones in unconscious acknowledgement of the damage caused. The sun began to stain the clouds orange in the brightening sky as the car moved onwards, crimson against the stretch of endless grey.

The canteen was nearly empty. A couple of cleaners walked between tables, and an agent stood in one corner stabbing at the keys on her phone, but otherwise the room was vacant, almost eerily so.

"What time is it?" Jessie asked, frowning at the slim pickings leftover for them to choose from.

"Um..." James replied, glancing around. "Three," he finished as he located the clock hanging on the wall.

"Ugh," Jessie groaned, letting out a sigh. "The one day we actually get to stay at headquarters, we miss lunch. Of course."

"Eh, it ain't dat bad," Meowth said, struggling to get a look at the food left on offer. "I mean, dere's... Carrot sticks. Or water- dat's always good..."

The three had spent the whole morning- and the first part of the afternoon- trying (unsuccessfully) to spy on Team Flare. They'd had to abort the mission, however, when a grunt overheard one of them whispering into an earpiece whilst still in disguise, and sounded the alarm. It had been an uncomfortable exit, to say the least: James still felt the odd jolt of static from the fence he hadn't realised was electric until he was halfway done escaping over it.

"Well, I suppose we could stay for a little longer," Jessie pondered aloud. "I mean, as long as we don't stop working... The boss probably won't notice, anyway."

"We'd probably be doin' Team Rocket a favour if we DID stop workin' for a while," Meowth smirked. "It'd be less expensive, anyway."

"Don't say that," James mumbled, furrowing his brow. "We came really close this morning!"

"What, like every other mission we've ever been on?" Meowth retorted, but shook his head a little. "Nah- we're not failures. Not completely, anyway. We got rid of Team Plasma back in Unova- dat's gotta count for somethin'."

Concluding that there was no point in choosing from the meagre amount of food in front of them, the three Rockets instead made their way to the vending machine in the coridoor. When James pointed out that they didn't have any money, Jessie kicked the machine until a couple of sandwiches and a bag of crisps came loose from their stands, and fell to the hatch at the base.

"Jessie!" James hissed nervously, glancing around and expecting to see some high-ranking executive glaring in their direction. To his relief, there were only a few grunts gathered around someone's phone and laughing simultaneously every ten seconds or so at some picture on the screen, clearly oblivious to the thuds of Jessie's boot hitting the machine.

"Relax," Jessie said, rolling her eyes and handing James and Meowth a sandwich each. "No one's looking at us- besides, we should get bonus points for stealing in an organisation like this."

"I'm not sure Giovanni would see it that way," James said weakly, but smiled and took a hungry bite out of the sandwich. "Thanks."

"Uh, ya got any strength left you'd like to take out on da machine?" Meowth questioned Jessie hopefully, having already eaten his sandwich. James bit his tongue to stop himself yelping as Jessie charged into the vending machine side on, triggering an almighty 'bang' that echoed around the hallway.

"Careful!" he whispered, his voice escalating far above its normal pitch as a couple of the grunts glanced over at them.

"Oops," Jessie remarked as half the machine's contents fell to the bottom. "Oh well. Take your pick."

Meowth quickly grabbed at least five sandwiches and a few chocolate bars, instinctively trying to gather the food whilst it was available as he was so used to doing without it. Jessie and James more modestly took a bag of chips each and some sweets, not wanting to draw attention to themselves by ambling around with armfuls of food.

They walked back to their dormitory slowly, enjoying the novelty of not having to rush for a change; Meowth had eaten half of the food he'd taken by the time they reached their door.

"I seriously don't know how you're not overweight," Jessie told the cat as she nudged the door open with her hip.

"Hey! I need my food! Besides, when we're on da field, we don't get to eat for days at a time. Dis is compensation for all dat," Meowth said defensively.

The three ate their rather unhealthy lunches in silence, not due to a lack of conversation to be had but rather caused by their realisation at how hungry they were; none of them had eaten breakfast due to the mission.

"What should we do now?" James asked when they had finished eating and discarded all the wrappers.

"Dunno," Meowth shrugged. "We could take it easy for once, or-"

"Or what about getting some supplies for a new mech?" Jessie butted in excitedly. "We could make a blueprint and build it for tomorrow's plan!"

"Or that," the cat Pokemon grumbled, his hopes of a relaxing afternoon dashed.

"Great," James agreed, standing up. "It'll be nice to work with more than scrap metal."

On their way back through headquarters towards the supply rooms, Meowth stopped in his tracks, his ear twitching.

"What?" Jessie prompted, looking back at him.

"Sounds like there's a lot of people just outside," Meowth told her. They peered outside of the window: sure enough, a crowd of Rockets stood just outside of the building, constantly growing in numbers as more people joined.

"It looks important," James noted. "Maybe we should see what's going on."

Jessie and Meowth nodded their agreement, and the trio made their way through the doors into the cold open air, the murmuring clearer.

A car was parked in the middle of the concrete patch before them, away from the carpark in an unusual manner. It appeared to have just come to a halt; a man in a suit stepped out of the front, and was immediately greeted with several guns pointed at his head.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" one agent demanded as the man was roughly grabbed by two other Rockets, assumed to be a spy.

"No- I work here!" the man protested, struggling to free his arms from the two agents holding him. "My ID's in my trouser pocket. Get off me!"

The agent who'd questioned him verified the claim as he pulled the ID out of the grunt's pocket, but didn't soften his expression. "Why are you dressed like that?"

Before the grunt could answer, a scream sounded to his left as a Rocket opened the back door of the car, and then stumbled backwards, his face drained of colour.

"What is it?" Jessie asked, craning her neck to try and get a better look at the scene.

"I don't know," James muttered back.

"Oh my god," someone else gasped as they reached the car. The agent interrogating the grunt moved around to get a better view, and knelt down, pulling a jacket out of the vehicle. His eyes were wide as he turned back to the grunt in the suit.

"What did you do?" he screeched, trembling slightly.

"I didn't kill him!" the grunt insisted, casting petrified glances at the people around him. "You can check my log- I was assigned to go with him this morning! Please, let me go!"

"Kill who?" someone else asked aloud, causing the crowd to ring with chatter again, people pushing forwards to try and see what was happening.

"Don't shoot me," the grunt begged, tears forming in his eyes. "I tried to stop it, I swear!"

"Take him inside for questioning later," an executive ordered. "Don't hurt him- we have no evidence that he's done anything wrong."

Shouts were erupting from the crowd by this point, people frustrated at the lack of information.

"Who is it? Who's dead?"

"Come on, let us see!"

"Oh shit, there's blood on that guy's suit..."

"It's Giovanni."

The crowd was plunged into an unsettling silence at the executive's two words.

"W-what?" someone stuttered after a few seconds, unable to believe such a statement.

"What happened?" the executive asked the grunt softly, gesturing for the two agents to release him. The grunt caught his balance, and cleared his throat slightly.

"I was with Giovanni and Charlie- uh, another agent- this morning- we were going to a meeting," the grunt began nervously. "We brought the money- it all seemed to be normal- but then, a sniper started to shoot at us, and..."

He trailed off momentarily, exhaling. "Charl- the other grunt got shot, so we ran back down out of the building and killed the people following us. The driver who'd taken us there was dead when we got outside, and the tyres were flat, so we had to find another car; we managed to get in, but after I'd driven away, I realised that the boss had been hit in the neck." The man looked down, lowering his voice. "It's true. Giovanni's dead."

The three Rockets sat in shocked silence in the lobby, none of them sure of what to say. After the news had been announced to the crowd, they'd all been told to return inside as the body was carefully removed from the car. Even so, people still gathered at windows to watch it happen; the body's face had been covered with a cloth so as not to cause any unnecessary distress, but it was clear who it was laid out on the ground nonetheless. Despite the evidence, the fact hadn't really sunk in with anyone yet.

"It can't really be true," Jessie said after a long while. "Giovanni wouldn't let himself get killed."

"But you heard them say it," James mumbled back, not looking up. "I suppose he was so in control all the time that we all sort of forgot that he was human."

"Apparently he called for back up," an agent sitting in the corner chimed in. "They only got the message like, an hour ago- something about the signal being disrupted in the building."

"Do we know anything about who ordered the attack yet?" a grunt asked, fiddling distractedly with her hair.

"Don't think so," the agent replied. "It might have been another organisation, or someone after the money he took, or even the cops."

"I feel sick," Meowth said quietly. He seemed to be handling it the worst of the three, which was natural, considering the way he'd always idolised Giovanni, desperate to win his respect. Although the leader of the syndicate had done his fair bit of shouting at the trio, he'd always given them a second chance, and had trusted them to accompany him on more than one occasion. All that considered, none of them were taking the news lightly.

Jessie reached over and put a hand on Meowth's paw, trying her best to comfort the Pokemon but unsure of what to offer verbally.

"What's going to happen now?" James whispered. "How are they meant to know what to do when there's no one here to take orders from?"

"An executive or someone will fill in for the moment," Jessie responded softly. "I don't think that's what we should be worrying about at the moment. They could be planning another attack."

James shuddered. He didn't want to think about the possibility that the ordeal wasn't yet over- it sounded like enough people had died already.

Everyone in the room looked up as the grunt- still wearing the black suit- entered the lobby, looking utterly miserable. Avoiding eye contact, he trudged over to the corner of the room and sat down on one of the chairs, resting his head in his hands.

"What did they ask you?" one agent inquired interestedly, ignoring the grunt's obvious exhaustion.

Wearily, the grunt looked up at the speaker, his eyes heavy. "They wanted to know if I shot him. Half of them are still convinced I did it."

"Well, did you?" the agent said.

"No! Of course not! Why would I drive back here with his body in the car if I had killed him?" the grunt snapped. "I watched my partner die, and risked my life helping the boss- and when I get back, everyone accuses me of murder. They won't even let me leave this floor until they're certain I didn't do it."

The grunt slumped back in his seat dejectedly, deciding not to say any more on the subject. He was too tired to argue.

"Can we go upstairs?" Meowth asked quietly. James realised that the cat was still staring at the car through the window, his expression unreadable. Nodding, Jessie pushed herself up, waiting for her two team mates to do the same before leading the way to their room.

None of them had ever disliked Giovanni, but they hadn't realised that they cared quite so much about him either.