Chapter 1: Renegades
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Year 2024
World: Pokémon Indigo Island/Kanto
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Two lanky figures walked through the lonely streets of an abandoned city. Both were draped in mucky and dirty old black cloaks. Their faces showed signs of hunger and fatigue. They hadn't eaten or slept in days.
One of the figures appeared to be looking into the distance where the remains of a tattered and abandoned stadium stood. It reminded him of better days, days of long pass. Like everything else from those days, it all seemed like a dream.
They were the only people in this once lively town. It was a ghost town now like all the other cities on Indigo Island. Humanity seemed to have disappeared from the face of the Earth. The shorter figure pulled back her hood revealing a young woman in her late twenties. Her hair was a shade of deep blood red. Her face was sunken. Deep black lines ran under her eyes showing signs of fatigue.
The young woman collapsed on a broken bench. The intricate design that was craved into the stone had worn away with time. She grasped her partner's cloak and lightly tugged at it. The other turned around, startled by the movement. He too pulled down his hood revealing a young man with short blue hair. He too looked tired and hungry. His features had sharpened over the years.
"This place sure has changed, huh?" muttered the woman.
"Yeah." The man sat down next to his partner. He glazed around their surroundings. Long time, it had been a square. The fountain that was located in the center of the square had long gone dry. Sand and time had worn away the Pokémon that adorned it.
"It feels like just yesterday this place was filled with people. Remember, we sold so much merchandise to the fans over there." She pointed to a spot now overgrown with weeds. "We were good at selling stuff."
"There's nobody to sell to now."
"Jessie," the man started.
"James, no," she immediately cut her off. "We agreed. We'd be joining… them. They're the enemy."
James immediately hardened. "It's been too long. We tried. We tried for more than half a decade. If they were still around, don't you think they would have contacted us by now?"
"What if they are just biding their time? They said we showed potential in Unova. It was a good plan." It was the same argument she always used. It always worked. She wondered for how much longer. She knew it was a harsh life, but her life had always been hard. She knew if wasn't for her stubbornness he would have joined long ago. Everyone else did, except small bands of the crazy or fanatics who claimed they couldn't abandon the Earth to them. Although even those numbers seemed to be diminishing as the years went by.
"Jessie." James sighed before taking a deep breath. He wasn't as strong as Jessie. Jessie always swayed him. "They're gone. Look around you. What do you see?" Jessie looked away unable to face James. "What do you see?" James asked again, his voice firmer.
"Nothing, I see nothing!" Jessie shouted.
James cringed, but he stayed hardened. He had to do it. He didn't know how long they would last otherwise. "Jessie, that's caused there's nothing left! Civilization has been broken. Can't you see that Jess? Life won't ever be as it used to be. We have to join the cause!"
"No!" She raised her hand. As she reached to strike James across the cheeks, the other grabbed her hand. Stunned, she tried to pull back; only James's grasp tightened. "We can't, we can't James." Her voice cracked.
"Jessie, listen to me. In this world, our enemies aren't each other. It wasn't humans that destroyed this city. Can't you see? Our old lives are gone. Everywhere we go we struggle to live. Team Rocket is gone. It's just us, you and me running, running to survive. I can't live like this anymore Jessie. We have to join Thunderbolt."
"No," Jessie shook her head. "We can't! I refuse." She tugged harder until finally pulling free from James. "I'm refuse! You can join Thunderbolt. You can leave. I'm not stopping you. You can leave. Leave me like everyone else." Jessie looked away. James looked away. The dark secrets of Jessie's past had haunted her for years, and they were the reason James couldn't and wouldn't leave her.
They sat there for a long time. Each lost in their own thoughts. All they had left were memories of the past. Despite never being ahead in their youth, they were still better days than what they had now. It would be hours later when the sun had almost set that Jessie and James drew up their hoods and walked through the abandoned streets of the Indigo Plateau.
They eventually entered the cave that would lead them to Viridian City. It had been years since they went back to Viridian City. They still remembered that day when they saw the remains of the Team Rocket base and gym. They are arrived hours after the burning of Viridian City. Viridian was one of the last major cities of Kanto that burned. Celadon and Saffron were the first to go.
James pulled out a lantern from his pack and immediately lit it with a match. The warm glow reassured Jessie. Even after all these years, the darkness still made her uneasy. It was a path they traversed many times. It was a suffocating darkness.
A loud squeak resonated through the cave walls. They immediately froze. "What was that?" Jessie muttered. She felt her skin turn cold. James also froze.
"A P…Pokémon." He gulped. Jessie grabbed James's arms. It felt as if the cave walls themselves were shaking. Rocks fell around them alerting all that trespassers were about. The two knew it was just the beginning of a Pokémon attack. Over the years, the Pokémon seemed to have built a strong fortress to protect, alert and defend their territory from humans.
The two ran through the caves. They blindly stumbled through the cave. The light from the lantern gave off barely enough light from them to see each other. They could feel the rustling of the warm air. They felt the hundreds of pairs of eyes that glared and pierced at them. It felt as if they were running for hours.
Jessie felt the air tighten around her. She felt the rock that caused her to lose her balance even James's strong hold wasn't enough to keep her from falling. Instead she pulled James down with her. She cursed under her breath. The lantern lay feebly before them. James moaned at his headache and what would soon develop into a nasty bump. He cursed at the sting on his knee.
"Sorry," Jessie said sheepishly as she tried to disentangle herself from James. She cursed as she brushed her arm across James's leg. She had cut her arm. Blood was already slipping through the cut. They would have to treat their wounds soon although the loud rumble that sliced though the cave alerted them to in coming and impending assault.
She hardened her face as they picked themselves up from the ground.
"Ready?"
"Yeah."
James grabbed the lantern, and they took off. Although they were both cut and badly bruised and their pace had slowed considerably, they were still faster than the Pokémon that chased them. The closer they got to the cave entrance; the stranger the concept was. They shouldn't be this far ahead. It was almost impossible to outrun flying Pokémon, yet no Pokémon had managed to catch up to them.
"Jessie…"
"Don't talk," Jessie snapped back. Although from the look that she gave him, James knew that Jessie was also thinking what he was thinking.
As they neared the cave entrance instead of seeing the normally accustomed bright white glow that announced the outside world, they were instead met by darkness. A pile of freshly fallen rocked blocked the cave entrance. James cursed. He felt the sudden lurch in Jessie's body. As he turned, he felt his blood run cold. Before him, a large menacing Crobat with bright blood red eyes glared back at him. His fangs were dripping with fresh red blood. His eyes widened as the Crobat rose towards the ceiling before plummeting towards him. James covered his face with one arm. As the body of the large Pokémon reached him, he instinctively took a hard swing. He felt the batty leather of the Pokémon wings. He heard its squeak. As he peered out from behind his hand, he watched the Pokémon fly away. He could hear his heart madly pumping. His fist was covered in blood. Only then did he remember the unconscious Jessie that lay beside him. He felt the impending doom that the Crobat would bring back helpers and tried to hold back the nauseating feeling that a Crobat's bite is poisonous.
He pulled Jessie's head into his lap. She was barely conscious. "J…James," she muttered.
"Shh, don't talk. Just stay awake. You'll…we'll be fine." James muttered. He stroked her cheeks.
"I will?" She tried to smile. It made it harder for James. He pulled back her hair. He cursed at the two prominent and deep teeth marks on her neck. Blood was dripping from both holes. The skin around the area was already turning a dark purplish hue.
"It's bad huh?"
"No," James struggled with the words. "Just got to give you some treatment."
"Treatment," Jessie's eyes were dazing over. "S… sorry James. I guess… this is good-bye."
"No, no. We'll get through this. We'll go to Thunderbolt. They have treatment. You just got to stay conscious."
Jessie nodded. She shrugged to keep awake. James tore a piece of cloth from his cloak and lightly wrapped it around Jessie's neck. The cloth immediately turned dark red. He managed to steady his head before standing up.
A high pitch squeak resonated through the cave halls. James cringed. The air suddenly became much colder. The dark cave suddenly became brighter as thousands of pairs of deep blood red orbs covered the cave halls. He braced himself. He kept Jessie behind him and raised his fists.
His only consolation was that now he didn't have to live alone without Jessie. They would leave this world together. He bit his lips, yet as death descended upon him he only felt regret. Regret that he couldn't live to fight. He had been a failure with Team Rocket for years. It was only in the latter years when the Boss realized that they were better at high tech missions that at capturing and stealing Pokémon from unsuspecting trainers were they able to really shine.
As death enclosed him, a soothing yet familiar song filled his ears. A blinding flash of white light forced him to close his eyes. He felt soft warm bodies brush against his sides. He braced himself for the pain which never came. Warmth encased his body. Thinking he was already in heaven, James slowly opened his eyes. Everything was bright and fuzzy. He wondered if this was what it felt like to not have depth perception. Far in the distance or maybe it was actually really close, he saw an outline of a person. He squirted his eyes and made out the figure of a person dressed in white. There was a smile on the person's face.
"Where… no… who are you?"
The person simply smiled. It was a sad smile. That was the last James saw.
TBC
A/N: Read and Review!
