James couldn't sleep.

Each second that passed on the clock seemed to drill into his ear with a deafening "tick", each one pulling him a little closer to morning. A morning he'd been dreading for the last two weeks. Sighing, he shifted onto his back, and gave up trying to rest, staring through the darkness until his eyes adjusted to the absence of light. Usually when he looked up at night, millions of stars would blink back at him. Now, all he saw was the peeling white paint on the ceiling of his dormitory. He wasn't sure if being indoors was an improvement after all.

In a few short hours, he, Jessie and Meowth would be on one of their biggest missions yet. James might have acted optimistic in front of his peers, putting on his usual mindless facade, but he wasn't stupid. He knew that failing this time could mean never seeing his team mates again.

Unable to stay in his bed with only his worries and that godforsaken clock for company, he carefully climbed down the ladder of the bunk bed, making sure to be silent so as not to wake Jessie or Meowth. No doubt they'd had the same difficulty getting to sleep.

He didn't bother changing; he was still wearing his Team Rocket uniform from the day before, as he knew he'd have to put on a disguise in the morning anyway. He pulled on his boots, and, taking slow steps, walked over to the open window. A few moments passed where James just stood there taking deep breaths before he pushed himself up onto the window ledge, and climbed outside.

The air was refreshingly clear, unlike the city air swimming with fumes from factories and cars that James was used to. One advantage of Team Rocket Headquarters having to be positioned in abstract patches of land ignored by the general public was that, on the rare occaisions they stayed at HQ, James could have a moment of something he longed for, but very rarely got: solitude. Even if the conditions were far from perfect, this was one of these moments, and the young man took a few seconds to forget about the mission, and just lose himself in his tranquil surroundings.

He began to move away from the block of dormitories, and through the unkept grass towards a forrest that surrounded the HQ, and kept it invisible from travellers. It was a path he'd taken many times- unbeknownst to anyone else-, and he smiled at the subtle landmarks that had become familiar to him over time; the rocky patch where he'd sat with Jessie and Meowth the night before their final challenge in training, the fallen pole that had once been part of a makeshift zip wire- even the tree some agent had crudely carved "Fuck the police" into had fond memories attatched to it.

It took about ten minutes to reach the spot James had set out for; in front of him was a cliff edge that overlooked miles of forrest, no obstacles to block the view. A river below snaked through the trees, and if James listened carefully, he could just make out the sound of trickling water.

He sat down about a metre from the very edge, not looking up at the stars as he might have done normally but instead fixing his gaze straight ahead at the horizon. Nothing was going to distract him tonight. If all went wrong tomorrow, and he never saw his partners again, he wanted to relive everything first. To look back on all the people he'd met- not just Jessie and Meowth, but everyone who'd forged his story.

Tonight, he wanted to remember.

Five years earlier

It had been exactly three years since James had left his parents' estate- July the twenty-third. He didn't keep track of much, not even his birthday, but that seemed to be one date he couldn't push out of his mind.

The thirteen-year-old discarded the newspaper he'd found on the ground, and sighed, leaning back on the uncomfortable surface of the bench he sat on. To his right, tourists queued up to use a telescope that let you look over the city if you fed it a quarter, and on his other side was a hot dog stand with a smiling man behind the counter. If James could afford to spend any more of his money, he would have bought the junkiest thing on the menu; it was just the kind of thing that would horrify his parents, and even though he knew they couldn't possibly find out, he took every opportunity to do something they'd disapprove of.

James lifted his backpack onto his lap, and started checking that everything was still there; wallet, blanket, spare hoodie and a half-eaten bar of chocolate. Living in a city where, behind the fancy hotels and family parks, pickpockets, muggers and gangs thrived had made the young teenager paranoid, and streetwise beyond his years. He could tell the difference between a salesman and a conman, knew which people might pose a threat, which ones to cross the street just to avoid. Days were easy- he could blend into the crowd of tourists and avoid danger- but nights were a different matter. When the sun sank, James prepared for the worst.

He jumped as he felt something tug at the bottom of his jeans, and looked down. A little boy who couldn't have been older than six grinned back up at him. He had wavy blonde hair, and was wearing shorts, sandals and a t-shirt with a Charmander printed on the front. "Hello," the boy said, rocking back and forth on his heels a little.

"Uh, hi?" James replied unsurely, glancing around for the child's parents.

"I'm five and three-quarters," the boy told him proudly. James nodded, feigning an impressed expression. The kid stuck around for a little longer, and, deeming James no longer interesting, walked around behind the bench. Almost immediately after, a young couple approached James, looking concerned.

"Thomas? Tommy?" the man shouted, and turned to James with a frown. "Have you seen a little boy? Blonde, about this high?" he asked, pointing just above his knee.

"Yeah, just a second ago," James nodded. "He went over there." He stood up and looked to the area the boy had wandered to, and then gasped. The boy had climbed onto the bricks that bordered the edge of a steep drop to the road below, and smiled at James as he stood up.

"Thomas!" the woman shrieked, going pale. The man looked equally terrified, but neither made a move towards their son.

"Tommy," the father said shakily, struggling to keep his voice calm, "Tommy, I need you to come back this way, okay champ?"

The boy nodded slowly, perplexed at his parents' strange attitude, and then looked down to his right at the concrete below. He screamed as he realised how high up he was, and froze, his legs trembling precariously. "Mummy!" he shrieked, and started crying.

James started to walk slowly over to the child, not wanting to scare him any further. "Hey, it's alright," he said, praying that the kid would stay still; one wrong step would send him plummeting thirty feet to the ground. He was about a metre away when the boy lost his balance, and fell backwards with a yell. James leapt forwards, stretching an arm out to the kid, and managed to grab the boy's t-shirt. As he leant down to catch the kid, however, his head bumped into someone else's as they did the same thing.

A girl about James' age was also clinging onto the child, and winced briefly as her head hit James'. Together, they pulled the boy back up onto the ground, trying not to hurt him, and sighed simultaneously with relief as the sobbing child was lifted to safety. The boy's parents immediately rushed over to him, and his mother scooped him up into her arms.

"Oh, Thomas, don't ever scare me like that again," she whispered, hugging her child and stroking his hair. The boy's dad wrapped his arms around her briefly, talking soothingly to his son, and turned to James and the girl.

"Thank you both so much," he said, breathing out heavily. "I don't know what we would have done if you hadn't... oh god..."

He trailed off, and buried his head in his hands. "I can never repay you for that, but if you ever need a favour, don't hesitate to ask us, okay?" The man rummaged around in his pockets, and produced two business cards. "My phone number's on there. If there's ever anything you need, give me a call. Jesus Christ... I'm not letting my son out of my sight ever again."

James took the card awkwardly, and slipped it into his pocket. The girl did the same, and she and James watched as the parents, along with the boy, walked away.

"Idiot," the girl snapped, turning to James and punching his shoulder. "You hit my head!"

"Ow!" James yelped, rubbing his arm. He glared at the girl, wondering what her problem was, and then... "Jessiebelle!" he gasped, taking a step backwards and sheilding his face. The girl raised an eyebrow.

"Who?"

James moved his arms back down slowly, looking carefully at the girl. Her features were remarkably similar to Jessiebelle's, to the point where she looked almost like a clone. But as James looked harder, he could make out defining differences: her hair was a slightly different colour, and her eyes, although blue like Jessiebelle's were a softer shade. Her accent was completely different too, not coming close to Jessiebelle's Southern drawl.

"You... Never mind," James told her warily, feeling his shoulders relax. The girl was still rubbing the spot on her head where she'd collided with James, looking at him accusingly, but her face sudddenly softened, and she started laughing. James laughed too, despite the pain in his head, just relieved that he hadn't bumped into his crazy fiance. "Hit my head again and I'll kill you," the girl said, her expression hardening again. James wasn't sure if she was joking. They looked at each other for a few seconds longer, and then the girl walked away, leaving James standing alone on the edge of the grass as the sun dipped ever lower in the sky.

After that, the coincidences seemed to keep on happening. Just a week later, James bumped into the girl in a bookshop when they were both looking for the same book. He smiled at her, but she just scowled, ripped the book from his hands and left. He saw her again one rainy night when he was sheltering under a bus stop, but neither of them acknowledged the other's presence. James started to think the girl was stalking him when they met again at the Pokemon Tech entrance test.

"Look," the girl growled when the test was over, and James had been moving over to the results board. She pinned him to the wall with one arm, her eyes flashing with anger. "I don't know why you're following me, but you'd better piss off or you'll regret it."

"I'm not following you!" James protested, trying unsuccessfully to get out of her grip. "I thought you were following me!"

"Oh yeah, sure," the girl scoffed. "Why would you be taking the entrance test to this place?"

"I need a scholarship somewhere," James told her, still struggling. "I'm going to need a job eventually."

The girl finally loosened her grip on James' shirt, pushing him against the wall as she took a step backwards. "You'd better be telling the truth. What's your name?"

"James," he said, straightening his shirt and still glowering at her. "What's yours?"

"Jessie," the girl said reluctantly, and crossed her arms. She frowned at James as if to deduce whether he was telling the truth or not, and then nodded slightly. "They'd better let me in after all that. I was studying all night."

James was taken aback by her sudden change in attitude; just a minute ago, she'd been holding him against a wall and threatening him. "Let's look at the results, then," he suggested, realising that all the other applicants had moved over to the screen on the other side of the room to see what score they'd gotten.

The two teenagers walked over to join the crowd, nervously looking at the names and scores scrolling across the huge screen and waiting for theirs. James felt his heart leap as his name appeared briefly; his eyes quickly moved over to the score he'd gotten.

"A hundred and eighty two," he mumbled to himself as another potential student's name replaced his. He hurriedly pulled out the leaflet that had been given to him at the entrance of the hall, and skimmed over the words, trying to find the required scores.

"I did it," he whispered, realising that he was two marks into the band for a full two year scholarship. James broke into a huge grin, and punched the air.

"I take it you got in, then?" Jessie asked, next to him again.

"Uh, yeah," James said, wondering if she had too. "Did you?"

"Phh. Easily. A hundred and ninenty five," Jessie replied casually. They stood in silence for a moment, before Jessie spoke again. "Well, I suppose I'll see you for the first term, then."

"Yeah," James said, pocketing the leaflet again. "See you."

Within the first couple of weeks of Pokemon Tech, Jessie and James became fast friends. They both seemed to be the misfits in the school, the only two without wealthy parents feeding a huge sum of money into their accounts every month. It was an ideal friendship; James was the voice of reason, whilst Jessie was the defense James seriously lacked and, in a school full of upper-class bullies, needed.

The terms passed faster than James thought possible, and nearly all of his spare time was devoted to studying. Considering that they both had extremely impressive entrance exam scores, no one really expected the results of the summer test.

"A two?!" Jessie exclaimed, gesturing furiously to the piece of paper she'd been given. "How the hell did I get a two?"

"You seem to have completely misinterpreted the style of answer required by the exam board," an examinator said. "Many of your answers drifted off topic, and were irrelevant."

James' score was equally bad, and he gawped in horror down at the result.

"I'm afraid there is no way we can continue to offer you a place at the school," someone else told them, not sounding sorry at all.

"What? But we got two year scholarships!" Jessie argued.

"Nevertheless, we have people waiting to get in with test scores of a hundred and fifty or higher," the man replied. "It's a highly competitive school, and we can't waste our time with such low scoring students. I'm sorry."

"Up yours," Jessie spat, threw the paper on the floor and left the hall, James following quickly.

They left the school as soon as they'd packed, still shocked and confused at what had happened. Neither was really sure of where they were going, only that they wanted to get as far away from Pokemon Tech as possible.

When they'd walked for about twenty minutes, James sat down on the edge of the pavement, and rested his forehead on his knees.

"Why can't anything ever go right?" he asked himself quietly, fighting back tears.

"Shut up, James. Whining isn't going to help," Jessie said, but lacking her usual spirit. "Come on. Let's just keep going."

James took a deep breath, nodded, swung his backpack back over his shoulder and resumed trudging behind Jessie.

As they turned into an alleyway, a boy slightly younger than them ran towards the pair. He looked terrified, and his face was streaked with tears.

"Please, you've got to help me!" he pleaded, choking back a sob. "It's my sister, she's hurt!"

Jessie and James looked at each other, and then nodded. "She's in our house- this way," the boy sniffed, and led them further down the alleyway. The boy stopped at a corner, and pointed down the street. "It's just up here- the door's open," he said. They walked in the direction he was pointing, and then Jessie frowned.

"Where's your house?" she asked, not seeing anything other than brick wall. Suddenly, four older teenagers, two girls and two boys, jumped out from behind a wall, blocking the path forwards. One of them was holding a gun. James turned around to try and run back the way he'd come, but the boy who'd taken them there was in his way, a flick knife in his undersized hands.

"Money, phones, jewellery," the boy with the gun barked. His head was shaven apart from a short, brown mohawk, and he looked about seventeen. When neither Jessie nor James reacted, the boy held the gun up, switching his aim between the two. "Now!"

James hurriedly rummaged through his bag for his wallet; Jessie did the same, and then approached the boy, looking terrified. "Please don't hurt me," she whispered, handing him a red purse. He frowned, and lowered the gun slightly as he took the item from her. Jessie sniffed, and then grabbed his wrist, her expression quickly changing to one of determination.

"Agh!" the boy yelled, trying to prise his wrist from the much younger girl. Jessie ignored him, and pulled his arm behind his back. She twisted his wrist until he loosened his grip on the gun, took it with her other hand and pressed it against the back of his head.

"Anyone come closer, and mohawk here will be painting the walls with the insides of his head," Jessie warned. The other teenagers looked shocked at the sudden turn of events, as did James. The youngest boy with the knife didn't move, but kept the weapon firmly in his grip.

"Nice try," the boy Jessie had attacked smiled weakly, wincing as he felt the girl twist his hand a little harder, "but that thing isn't even loaded."

As soon as he'd said this, his peers leapt into action; one of the girls grabbed James, taking out another knife and holding it against his throat, whilst the other boy pulled Jessie off his comrade. Jessie was about to hit him on the head with the gun, when she saw the knife pressed against James' neck, and froze. The guy with the mohawk clapped slowly.

"Impressive," he said, grinning at Jessie. "You would've gotten me if that thing had any ammo."

James shifted slightly to keep his balance, and the girl pulled him roughly backwards. Mohawk guy waved a hand. "Let him go," he said. The girl frowned, but obliged; James stumbled forwards, gasping and raising a hand to his throat.

"I should have broken your arm," Jessie snarled. The boy held up his hands.

"Whoa, whoa- I let your friend go, didn't I?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. Jessie considered this. "Look- it seems stupid to let such talent go wasted," he continued, signalling for his friends to put their weapons away. "We could do with a fighter like you. What do you say? Want to join?"

"Join what?" Jessie shot back, still untrusting.

"Our bike gang," the boy replied, as if the answer was obvious. "I know we didn't just give you the best first impression, but we don't usually mug people. We're not bad guys."

"I find that very hard to believe," Jessie said flatly.

"We're just trying to survive," the older girl chimed in. "It's not so bad- we travel from town to town, split whatever we earn and keep each other alive."

"Why the hell should we join after all that?" Jessie questioned angrily.

"You saw you were outnumbered just now," the other boy said. "If we'd really been trying to hurt you, your friend's throat would be slit by now. There's five of us- you join and that's seven. You'll have a way better chance, apart from anything else."

"We should do it, Jess," James said, surprising her. "They're right. We'd be much more likely to survive in a group."

"They just tried to kill you!"

"They could have, but they didn't," James reasoned. Jessie sighed, and turned back to the teenagers.

"Alright. Fine. But pull anything funny and we're out of here."

"Got it," Mohawk boy nodded. "I'm Robbie, seventeen, the girl with the bandana's called Erin- she's fifteen-, the other girl with dark hair's Ruby, sixteen, the guy over there- not the little one-, that's Archie, fifteen, and this one," he smiled, walking over to the youngest boy who'd pretended to cry and patting him on the back, "is my baby brother, Luke. He's twelve."

Jessie nodded, and muttered under her breath. "Okay, so Erin, Ruby, Robbie, Luke and..."

"Archie," Archie said helpfully. "What about you two?"

"I'm Jessie, and this is James," Jessie told them. "We're both fourteen."

"Jessie and James," Robbie repeated. "Easy enough to remember. Welcome to the gang."

Robbie went off almost straight after to go and get bikes for Jessie and James. Jessie handed the gun back to Erin, who smiled awkwardly. "Thanks," she said, sliding it inside her jacket pocket. "Look, sorry I held a knife to your throat," she said sheepishly to James, looking worlds away from the aggressive knife-weilding maniac she'd been just minutes ago.

"It's okay, I guess," James said, smiling a little. Erin's blonde hair was in a ponytail, and she wore a blue bandana with little Marills on it. Without the knife, she looked like a regular fifteen-year-old girl.

"You were really convincing with the whole 'scared little girl' act, Jessie," Erin praised, sounding genuinely impressed. Jessie smiled.

"Well, Luke isn't the only one who can act," she said, looking at the small twelve-year-old. Luke grinned, a mixture of pride and embarassment on his face. Ruby- the second oldest with olive skin and frizzy brown hair, produced the purse Jessie had given them.

"Here," Ruby said, holding it out to Jessie, who shook her head.

"Keep it. It doesn't have anything in it- it's just a cheap one I bought for situations like this."

Ruby raised an eyebrow. "Clever. You might just be better at this stuff than me," she admitted.

"And here's Robbie with the bikes!" Archie said, putting on the tone of a commentator. Robbie was pushing a bike with each hand, a red one and a silver one. James silently questioned where Robbie had magically gotten two bikes from, but didn't say anything.

"Here you go," Robbie said, leaning the bikes against the wall. "Take your pick-" he stopped to laugh- "but the red one still has training wheels on! Might want to take those off first," he suggested, chuckling. Jessie went to get the silver one when James leaned over her shoulder.

"I don't know how to ride a bike," he hissed, glancing nervously over his shoulder to check that none of the others had heard him.

"What?" Jessie whispered back incredulously. "You might've mentioned that before we joined a bike gang! Didn't your parents teach you?"

James shifted uncomfortably. "My parents didn't really spend that much time with me. I can ride a horse, no problem, but I've never even been on a bike."

Jessie sighed. "Look, just leave the training wheels on for the moment, and I'll teach you properly later. Okay?"

James nodded, and took the red bike, looking at it as if it was about to explode. Robbie and the others briefly left to retrieve their bikes from the neighbouring alley; James saw Robbie raise an eyebrow at the training wheels, but mercifully he didn't say anything.

"Alright. Let's get going," Archie said, mounting his bike.

"Where are we headed?" Jessie asked.

"Our humble abode," Ruby grinned. "It's an abandoned council flat- the windows are smashed up, and there's graffiti everywhere, but it's a shelter at least."

Archie and Luke pedalled ahead, leading the group; James wobbled horribly down the alley, having to stop every few seconds to stop himself from falling off. He was thankful that he was at the very back, so no one else could see the humiliating display. Within a few minutes, he sort of got the hang of it- at least he could ride in a straight line for a good ten seconds without having to stop. The training wheels certainly helped.

"Here it is," Erin said as they reached a block of flats. It was the kind of area mothers would hurry their children past; a homeless man with a Arcanine sat against the wall of a building, smoking something that may or may not have been tabacco, and a car alarm shrieked in the near distance.

"The brochure made it look much nicer," Archie joked, earning a few chuckles from his fellow gang members.

"Well, it's not a white picket fence house," Jessie shrugged, "but it's a big improvement on nowhere."

Erin wasn't kidding about the graffiti. James couldn't find a patch of wall that hadn't been spray painted; crude tags, love hearts with names in and some actually half-decent pictures of Pokemon coated the walls, inside and out, making a weird sort of wallpaper.

"Where should we put the bikes?" James inquired, doubting Robbie had proper locks for them.

"Just wheel 'em inside," Robbie answered. "Don't lose yours- your bike's your new best friend."

The group made their way inside the building, entering one at a time so they could get the bikes through the doorway. Most of the other bikes were personalised, with doodles scratched into the frames. James made a mental note to draw a Growlithe on his later.

Robbie led them up a flight of stairs to another room with a burnt-out campfire in the middle, and beer cans strewn all over the floor. "Sorry 'bout the mess. This is where we get pissed and do sweet FA," he explained. "Hey Ruby, still got that lighter?"

Ruby threw him the small plastic object, which he caught and flipped open. After a few attempts, he'd produced a flame, and threw a few balls of scrunched up newspaper onto the extinguished fire, which he set alight. Robbie grabbed a couple of pieces of scrap wood that were sitting in a pile in the corner of the room, and carefully placed them on top so they would catch.

When everyone was sitting around the fire, Archie snapped his fingers. "That's it!" he exclaimed, pointing at James. "He's the poster guy! I knew I recognised you from somewhere."

"Poster guy?" Jessie repeated, confused.

"Yeah. We saw a bunch of missing posters with his face on back in Kanto. Who's lookin' for you?" Archie asked James.

"Uh... My parents," James replied honestly, scratching his head. "There aren't too many of those, are there?"

"Nah," Erin said. "But we may have defaced a few. Sorry."

"You're a proper rich kid, ain't ya?" Luke asked. "I mean, your accent's all posh."

James blushed. "Well..."

"Luke!" Robbie scolded, saving James from explaining. "Leave the guy alone. Who cares where he's from? He's with us now." James found it strange that Robbie let his twelve-year-old brother carry a flick knife around and mug people, but acted almost like a parent at the same time, looking out for and correcting him. He supposed they were just regular people, really.

"Is there anything we need to know about the gang?" Jessie asked.

"Not really," Ruby said. "Just that we never stay in one place for long, and that we have two rival gangs and one ally gang. The gang you want to watch out for are called 'Sinnoh's Most Wanted', which is a bit of a stretch. They're pathetic really, but if there's one thing they do have, it's guns. Nasty bunch of guys. Heard they killed some kid.

"There's 'The Untouchables', too- I know, ridiculous names, that's why we don't have one- they're not dangerous, really, just annoying. 'The Blue Charmanders' are cool. We rode with them for a while. That's about it."

"Got any booze, Robbo?" Erin interrupted, looking at Robbie hopefully.

"It's the last eight-pack," Robbie warned them. "Wanna crack it open anyway?"

"Screw it," Ruby said. "We've got new members- that's cause to celebrate."

Robbie tore open the plastic wrapping, and started passing beers round. James took his nervously, staring at the logo on the can. He'd never had alcohol before, except a little wine at his parents' party one time- and was worried he'd do something wrong. Were you meant to do anything differently with beer?

"To new friends," Robbie toasted, holding his can in the air. James took a tentative sip from his can, and screwed up his face at the taste.

"Eugh," he shuddered, putting the can back down. Archie laughed.

"Don't worry, I can't stand the stuff either," he said, passing James' can to Robbie.

"All the more for me," Robbie grinned, taking the drink gladly. Jessie was frowning, as if trying to decide whether she liked it or not.

"No," she decided out loud, setting the can down. Robbie tutted.

"Are you lot trying to get me drunk?" he joked, leaning over to take the can.

"Give it to me, Rob," Luke said.

"No way, Lukey boy," Robbie refused. "Last time you were completely smashed after half a can."

"Was not!" Luke protested, but didn't press any further.

The rest of the evening was spent drinking, sharing anecdotes and just joking around. James already felt considerably more relaxed in the company of these people who, only that day, had tried to mug him. He didn't care, for some reason. They seemed nice enough- nicer than a lot of other people he'd met in his parents' company. He smirked as he pictured their reaction if they knew where he was now; in a bike gang, squatting in an abandoned flat and drinking beer. They'd probably have a heart attack.