Darkness Falls
L.R.T.
The Rocket trio trudged through the sand, their weakened states making it feel as if they were trying to walk through molasses. Meowth was the first one to give up and let himself fall on his rear on the sandy dune they were trying to navigate. Jessie looked back and scowled at him. The wind was picking up, blowing sand all around in brown waves. Night had since fully set in, the only illumination coming from the moon and stars above.
In their haste to get to the twerps and stop them from stealing the Meteonite, the team had gotten itself good and lost. They didn't even have a victory that they could hang their hats on as the twerps' Pokemon made them blast off for the first time in months. None of them could say that they missed it.
Squinting through the sand, Jessie crossed her arms and yelled, "Get up! We have to get the hell out of this desert!"
James rubbed his arms for warmth, the unrelenting heat of the day giving way to conditions more suited for a Snover. "Yeah, come on, Meowth! If you don't freeze to death out here, you'll be buried alive in the sand."
"Most likely by me," Jessie muttered, James snickering in response.
Winded, Meowth stood in front of his human companions. He looked up at them with what he hoped was his best wide-eyed kitten face. "Can't one of yas put me on yer shoulders or sometin'?"
Jessie and James exchanged a quick look before turning their attention back to their beleaguered pal. "Why should we have to suffer carrying your fat ass when we can barely walk ourselves!" she said.
"Hey!" Meowth pointed a paw at her and narrowed his eyes. "I ain't fat. It's water weight!"
"I thought you hated water," James began, Jessie joining him for the continuation, "especially wet water."
His response was abruptly halted at the sound of an engine revving in the distance. "Who would be out here at dis time of night?" Sighing, he added, "'Cept for us dummies."
James frowned and grabbed Jessie's wrist, tugging at her. "Nobody you'd want to meet, I'm sure. Come on, we can hide behind this -"
Jessie pulled her arm away from him and shot him a dark look. "Whoever it is has a mode of transportation. That's more than I can say for us."
"What if it's Team Plasma?" James countered.
"Then they can stab us in the gut with their swords and we won't have to worry about finding our way anymore, will we?"
Headlights appeared over the dune, casting light on the front of what looked like a military-issued Jeep. James grabbed for Jessie again but missed, nearly falling face first into the sand. She ran up toward the car and waved her hands frantically, jumping up and down.
James frowned again. What if it was the fuzz? What if it really was Team Plasma? What if it was Pierce, wanting to know why they abandoned their fellow Rockets? There wasn't a single outcome that he could think of that turned out well for them.
Joining Jessie and Meowth, his eyes narrowed when the Jeep pulled up next to them, its driver leaning over the passenger's side seat. A glimmer of recollection buzzed through James's brain. Where had he seen this guy before?
"It looks like you three could use some help," the driver said, eyes locked on Jessie and barely acknowledging the other two's existence.
Jessie bounced up and down happily, leaning her head in the window. "You have no. idea." She went to open the door when James successfully grabbed her wrist, holding it tightly. She tried to pull it away from him and growled when he refused to let go. "Let go of me or I swear, I will take your entire arm with me."
The driver ducked his head, pulling a baseball cap down to cover his eyes. She was even more beautiful up close. His entire body tingled with the same electricity it had the first day he saw her - magnified because of the close proximity. If she touched him, he was certain that the energy was so strong that she would feel the same prickle on her skin that he did.
Looking at his hands as they gripped the wheel, he wondered if this was a very good idea. He wouldn't be able to simply let her go with her friends - not after so many weeks of tracking her every move and now, here she was, sliding into his passenger seat with her partner still gripping her wrist.
The driver leaned over and grabbed James's wrist, startling him. Most of his face still shrouded in shadow from his hat, he said in a cool tone, "I believe she asked that you let her go."
James narrowed his eyes at the stranger - familiar though he seemed - and dropped Jessie's wrist. She glared at him and rubbed it with her other hand, making herself comfortable in the front seat of the Jeep. "You two can stay here and die for all I care but I'm leaving."
He opened his mouth to object but was cut off by his Pokemon partner who bounded into the back seat. Eyes narrowed at him now as well, Meowth shrugged. "I ain't about to look a gift Ponyta in da mouth!"
Sighing heavily, James crawled into the back seat as well, slumping down and crossing his arms against his chest. His eyes remained narrowed at their suspicious driver, lips sticking out in what he thought was a menacing scowl but, in actuality, looked like a spoiled child pouting about something they wanted and couldn't have.
As the Jeep pulled off, James watched their driver through the rearview mirror up front. Light green hair was flattened against his eyes from the hat he wore, making it almost impossible to read him. Who went to such great lengths to hide themselves if they truly were a good Samaritan, driving around the desert in the middle of the night? The only time he could ever actually tell where he was looking - and likely what he was thinking - was when he would turn his head ever-so-slightly to the side and sneak a glance at Jessie. This made James even more uncomfortable and put-off by the man.
"So, what exactly were you doing out here at such an hour?" James asked, trying to hide the suspicion in his voice.
"You are so annoying," Jessie said, turning to their driver and adding, "You don't have to tell us anything. It's not like we're going to tell you why we were out here." Quickly turning her head, she shot James a look that only made him slump further down in his seat. "Isn't that right?"
He did nothing in return but lower his eyes and let his hair fall in his face. He hadn't put much stock in Jessie's assertion that something was very off in the Unova region but after the day they'd had and now this strange person showing up out of nowhere, James was reconsidering his stance on the subject.
After driving in silence for a while, the Jeep slowed as a familiar sight came into view. Meowth peered out the window and saw the situation before anyone else, his eyes widening. "Dat...dat's where Team Rocket was battlin' Team Plasma..."
Jessie and James turned to look, only seeing black figures in the darkness through the whipping sand. "How can you even tell?" Jessie asked as the driver glanced quickly at the scene out of the corner of his eye.
Meowth gulped and slowly sat back down in his seat, tail flicking in uneasiness. "I'm a cat, 'member? I got real good eyesight in da dark..." he trailed off, hanging his head low. "Wish I didn't right now."
She frowned at him and turned her attention back to the window as they came closer and closer, the sand disappearing from their view to reveal the battleground like a stage curtain starting a show.
Both humans now seeing what their Pokemon friend had been talking about, Jessie reached over, nearly placing her hand against the driver's chest and said, "Stop! Stop the car!"
His breath caught in his throat and he looked down at the gloved hand that was so close to brushing against his shirt. He wanted to know - he had to know - if the sparks that flew were mutual and what that meant if they were. As he began to lean into her hand, she pulled it away and put it to her mouth, gasping. Disappointed, he sighed and followed her gaze to the mess in front of them.
Bodies in black uniforms with red Rs and shining silver chainmail were scattered across what they could see in the dark. Pokemon laid around them, some with swords and spears sticking out of them and others with arrows. The Rockets met a similar fate, it seemed, while the Plasmas showed more signs of death by electrical, fire, psychic, and dark attacks along with brutal normal ones like slash.
The driver ducked his head, anger building inside. The humans that were killed meant nothing to him; they had the free will to choose to listen to their bosses or not. It was the Pokemon that were sacrificed for nothing and deserved a fate much happier than what they received. He felt a tug in his chest and immediately looked at the girl by his side that was holding her stomach and trembling, a tear sliding down her cheek.
"What...what happened..." James murmured, taking one final look at the death before him and turning his head away. "How could this have happened?"
"Stupidity."
The three Rockets all looked at once at their driver, his head tilted downward, hair and hat obscuring the view of his face. His voice quiet but stern, he continued, "There are many good causes to give your life up for - this wasn't one of them. And the Pokemon should have never been involved in the first place."
"How do you know what their cause was?" James asked accusingly.
Putting the Jeep back in drive, he replied, "It's a nagging suspicion that I have."
Jessie shook her head, trying to wipe her cheeks without anyone noticing how upset she had gotten. "Well, I can certainly say that our cause wasn't worth all of this."
James turned his attention to Jessie and leaned forward, placing his hand on her shoulder gently. "I can't remember the last time this happened...has there - have we ever lost so many people at once before...?"
The driver darted his eyes to the side and gripped the wheel tighter at the sight of the man in the backseat so easily capable of touching the girl that paralyzed him with emotion. "I see that you have the same symbol on your clothes that those poor, deluded souls out there had on theirs."
Meowth opened his mouth to attempt to explain the "coincidence" away but Jessie spoke before he had a chance. "We aren't like them." James and Meowth both blinked at her and then looked at each other. Jessie jerked her shoulder away from her partner's grip.
"I wasn't suggesting that you were," the driver responded calmly. "I was making an observation." He paused. "You have my sympathies if anyone close to you was taken."
"The only people that might be considered 'close' to us are people that I wouldn't shed a tear for if they croaked."
James furrowed his brow, saying softly, "Jessie, c'mon...don't say things like that...you know you don't mean it."
"Don't tell me what I mean," she retorted. "If I find out that Cassidy was in that group of doomed Rockets, I'll throw a fucking party."
Sitting back once again, James looked down at his lap. Jessie could often be coarse but she never actively wished anything truly bad on people - especially when it looked likely to come to pass. Was this place having such an adverse affect on her? Was she getting so tired of always fighting the pressure she felt on her chest that she was letting it suffocate her, giving in to whatever unseen forces may be at work? He could count on one hand the number of times Jessie had ever given in to anything that was trying to mess with her; in fact, it seemed to make her even more angry and determined not to let it get the best of her. What was she experiencing that made it so different this time?
They continued their drive to the main road in silence, the wind hurtling sand against the vehicle the only known noise. The driver only ended the quiet briefly to address Meowth suddenly, "Don't be worried. You may have special abilities but you're still a Pokemon - still more than worthy of being saved from the harsh, unforgiving world around you."
Meowth simply blinked in response, trying to hide the wariness he suddenly felt toward their driver at his ability to seemingly read his mind. "...Tanks?" he finally said.
"Yeah, great," Jessie said flatly, resting her head against the window, "but what about the rest of us? The world isn't exactly a picnic for us, either."
"You'll be protected," he said, too quickly for James's liking. "You'll weather this storm and be able to live in a world that should have existed for both Pokemon and humans alike a long time ago." A small smile came across his lips as he finished quietly, "I like to believe that, at some point in our existence, it did."
She looked at him, now unsure herself who it was that was slowing their ride to a stop near the gate to Nimbasa City. The wind and sand had stopped so abruptly that no one seemed able to pinpoint when it happened. The things he said sounded so strange - crazy, even; but the way he said them made Jessie feel oddly at ease. She couldn't recall a recent time when she had felt anything close to at ease - a fact that made her wonder about their rescuer all the more.
James and Meowth quickly got out of the backseat, having become effectively weirded out by their strange new "friend" long before Jessie even thought twice about it. She stayed in the Jeep for a few moments longer than her friends, trying to think of something to say. Why she felt the intense need to say anything to the guy in the first place was beyond her. Opting finally to simply tell him "thank you", she opened the door and swung her legs out the side only to feel a hand gently touch her arm.
The skin underneath her glove and jacket seemed to burn, an unseen fire that traveled up her arm and stopped in her chest, causing her to gasp softly and put her hand to her heart. She followed the man's hand as it withdrew itself from hers and found herself actually looking into the eyes that had been hidden from view the whole time.
He had the same shocked, confused look that she was sure had to be plastered all over her face as well, making her wonder if it wasn't just some kind of static electricity...not that she'd ever experienced a static shock like that before.
His heart pounded both in joy and fear at the reaction his touch had provoked. It wasn't his imagination; he wasn't just a silly young man in love for the first time. There was something real and genuine there between them...but why? That's where the fear came into play. Finding himself after becoming lost in the unsure but curious blue eyes of the girl that would likely rule his dreams, he said quietly to her, "N."
She nodded slightly in understanding, replying in the same soft tone - one that was very unlike any she had ever heard herself use before, "Jessie."
He nodded as well, a deep ache inside of him growing as the urge to connect with her again shot through his mind. He lifted his hand, about to caress her cheek when she was pulled away from him by her partner.
The blue-haired man sneered a "thank you" at him, pulling her to his side. Looking to her, he could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand up at the longing in her eyes - a look that he had to be reciprocating whether intentional or not.
Giving her another tug, James pulled Jessie toward the gate to Nimbasa City while she kept her eyes on the strange man named N that watched her be taken away until she disappeared into the gate itself. Face suddenly becoming dark, he put the Jeep into drive once again and turned it around, starting back for the massacre in the desert. He would give the Pokemon a proper burial and memorial, at least; and while he did, he would think of a way to get Jessie alone and talk to her without the infuriating interruptions of her friend.
Squinting through the sandy twists of air that appeared once again, he tightened his grip on the steering wheel and murmured to himself, "Yes. He's going to be a problem."
