welcome back!
As it turns out, Jessie's life-calling is not to capturing someone else's best friend for profit. Who would have thought? Her hunger for jewels and wealth hasn't dimmed in the slightest, but her profit-seeking methods have taken a sharp change in the last few years. Now, she's the general manager of the Indigo League Stadium. The best part is that she's utterly in charge, and she can yell at whoever she wants, and they actually have to listen to her.
(The previous general manger took to an untimely retirement some five years ago after a never-quite-proven case of haunting in his personal home. Scratches on the walls, bottle caps breaking windows. Nightmare fuel, really.)
But she's always been particularly gifted with powers of persuasion, costuming, and craftsmanship. It would have suited her well, if she'd wanted to go the path of actress or even coordinator again. And maybe she will. She's always been a big dreamer. But for now, she's pretty happy striding up and down the stands of cheering fans with her snacks and treats to sell.
It's a pleasant life. When she gets moments of boredom, they actually take place during battles, which is the opposite of how most people think. But after making wildly successful rings in the coordinating world through not one but two regions, ordinary battles no longer gleam so brightly.
(That's another reason she likes working the stands instead of parking herself in a little air-conditioned office for the rest of her life: everything always looks better from up high.)
So she usually tunes out the announcers — and boy, those guys are idiots, she knows now; the audience is just too far away to notice or too invested to care. But there are some things she can't ignore.
"Alright, Pikachu. Let's get this done!"
On instinct, Jessie lifts her head, nearly dropping a bucket of popcorn on some kid. She always does, when there happens to be a Pikachu around, because habits like those don't just disappear. But there's really no shortage of Pikachus in the world, and she hasn't even heard of the Twerp in years, so she puts her head back down and gleefully accepts the kid's money.
Ah, the Original Twerp. What a kid. She misses him, sometimes, or maybe she misses what he represents. And she's not the only one. The Pokémon world has changed in the last decade, and she remembers hearing a couple television interviews that talked about many trainers stepping out of the floodlights. There's less glory in battling now, and more in families, and the collapse of such markets is what let her escape Team Rocket.
But back to the Twerp. According to the news, this is coming up on the kid's third year missing. And that's not just from the public. The story started with his friends, his mother, before spreading to his thousands of fans. They say he just disappeared, one day, and never came back. Not one to shame anyone for wanting to start over, Jessie doesn't think on it too much. At least, she tries.
They haven't declared him dead yet, because that's just impractical around here. Most Champions are known for their hermit-like living, either right before or right after they win or lose it all. And future gym leaders and previous coordinators disappear to train in the mountains, in the oceans, in a cave, to a new region, all the time. So maybe it's about practicality. Maybe it's about denial.
Not her business. Her business is selling fresh waters, soda pops, lemonades, and popcorn. And the occasional PokéBlock jam.