Back to Zero

L.R.T.

She sat at Giovanni's new chestnut desk and marveled for a moment over how it was bigger than the one before it, defying logic and mathematics. She reached across and ran her hands along the cherry-stained grain, sitting on the edge of his equally new chair. Still spread across the desk, she looked up at him and slowly, a mischievous grin came across her lips. "We should christen this."

Giovanni smirked, sitting on another new piece of furniture - a large new velvet couch - and shook his head, beckoning her over with the manilla folder he held in his hand.

Miyamoto frowned and forced herself to move from the comfy chair, going to the couch and making herself comfortable. It wasn't an easy task as her brain still equated velvet with things that weren't very high on her list of things to recall in life. "What's that?" she asked, pointing to the folder.

He set the folder in his lap and looked down at it, his smirk trying to twist into a smile and barely succeeding. "I've found our daughter."

Her eyes widened and she reached for the folder, snatching it from him before he could react. Madame Boss always said she had exceptional reflexes. Opening the folder, she blinked and stared for a few moments before rolling her eyes and offering the thing back to him. "Very funny. What a dick move."

He shook his head again then gestured with it to the folder. "Read it."

Miyamoto sighed and returned to looking over the file. She raised her eyebrows at the results of the training and tests, looking at Giovanni who simply nodded in response to her silent inquiry. If she didn't know any better, she could have sworn that he was beaming just a little bit. "Okay, so this girl is pretty awesome. Who is she?"

Giovanni leaned toward her and pointed at the photo of the young recruit that was attached to her file. "It's not a joke. That's her."

She turned her head back to the file, bringing it closer to her face to examine every bit of the photo. Satisfied (if that's what you could call it), she set it down. It was her turn to stare at it as it sat in her lap - a ticking time bomb that could explode at any second and change the lives of so many. Miyamoto looked up at Giovanni. "We aren't going to tell her, are we?"

"I think it's better that way, don't you?"

Miyamoto shook her head, looking back to the photo. "I don't know anymore."

"This is better than having some second-rate school keep an eye on her for us and send reports and photos," he said, moving closer to her and resting his arm behind her on the back of the couch. "She's here. In fact, it's very likely we might be seeing her quite often, if she keeps going at this rate."

"I hope she doesn't," Miyamoto said quietly, closing the folder and thrusting it back into his hands. "I know that position too well. I don't want that for her. I don't want any of this for her!"

He narrowed his eyes and removed his arm from the couch, his hand snatching the folder from her. "Would you rather she be lost in the wilderness? At least here she has a roof over her head."

"Oh, yeah," she said flatly, "that Team Rocket roof, all right. Under it everyone's picking daisies and painting rainbows and shitting out glitter."

"If you don't want her to be successful -"

"I do," she replied sternly. "I just don't want her to be successful at this."

Giovanni stood, walking over to the new mini-bar that seemed more normal-sized than mini to Miyamoto. "We shouldn't be so shocked. She's our daughter, of course she would excel at becoming a member of Team Rocket."

Resting back against the couch, she crossed her arms and glared at him from across the room as he poured himself a drink. "That's not something people tend to brag about."

Taking a sip of his drink, he leaned against the bar and returned her dark gaze. "I seem to remember you bragging about it quite a lot."

"And then I was nearly killed. Great organization, you've got there, Giovanni. Stellar human resources department."

He rolled his eyes and turned back to the bar to pour himself another drink - about three times stronger than the first. "I'm not going to let you ruin this for me, Miyamoto."

"I don't give a damn about ruining anything for you! I care about ruining things for Jessie."

"She's doing extremely well with her first official assignment, if that makes you feel any better."

Miyamoto's jaw dropped and she stood up, pointing at him while she made the trek across the office to the bar. "You son of a bitch! How long have you known?"

He shrugged, swirling some of the leftover ice around in his glass. "A few weeks. Months?" He paused and thought to himself before returning to his glass, downing the rest of it. "Two and a half months."

Clenching her teeth, she grabbed the glass from him and threw it across the room, the sound of it breaking against the wall so satisfying. It would only have been better if it were his skull. "How could you keep this from me?!"

Unfazed by her violent turn, he took another glass and began to pour again. "Quite easily, actually."

She growled and grabbed the full glass from him and threw that as well, forgetting for a minute that some poor, lowly Rocket grunt was going to have to scrub that booze out of the rug. "What's her assignment?"

Giving up on the bar for the time being, he walked over to his chair and sat down, resting back against it. "Double-Cross," he replied.

Her eyes widened, too shocked to even yell at him. What the hell was he thinking? Hadn't the whole point of giving her up been to give her a better, safer life? Now he was throwing her out there like food to a Snorlax. "Have you lost your fucking mind?"

"I told you, she's very good. It seems she's developed a bit of a system with her teammates and it appears to be working out in their favor."

Still in shock, she put her hand to her forehead, staring at him. "Are you high?"

He laughed, looking down underneath the desk where his Persian had just mewed, awakening from a nap. "You know I don't partake in those kinds of things anymore, Miyamoto."

"Well, did you hit your head? Get a lobotomy? I can't think of any other reason besides a mental disorder why you would put our daughter in danger like this."

He looked up at her with the same look he often gave members to strike fear into their hearts. He knew it wouldn't work on her - she knew him far too well and had been with him for far too long - but he felt it necessary nonetheless. "I believe in her. One day, she will find out the truth and when she does, I want to feel secure having her take over the company."

She blinked at him briefly and then burst out laughing, continuing as she went back to the couch and sat down. "That's what this is all about, isn't it? It's what it's always about. All you care about is this company!"

"This company is what's keeping our daughter off the streets!"

"I seem to remember a time when you wanted nothing to do with any of the responsibility of this place."

"Yes," he said, reaching a hand down for Persian to lick, "but then I knocked up a drunken slut and had to reconsider things."

She rolled her eyes at him, clapping her hands slowly in sarcastic applause. "Oh, nice. Very nice, Giovanni."

Ignoring her attitude - something he had grown quite accustomed to doing after so many years - he began, "I do have a job for you, though." He stood and leaned against the side of the desk, crossing his arms. "I need you to be my executive assistant." Persian came strolling out from under the desk, slowly stretching out and yawning. "That's just a polite way of saying 'secretary'."

"I know what the fuck it is," she retorted, glaring at the Persian. He cared more about that Pokemon than he did her or Jessie. How she hated that thing.

"Good, at least we have that down. There's a bit of a catch, though..."

She threw her hands up in the air and sunk back into the couch, grumpily asking, "What?"

"You get to play pretend."

"Quit it with the cryptic bullshit. I know all your tactics and you aren't about to get the drop on me."

He smirked slightly, raising an eyebrow at her. Even after so many years she was still the same venomous little Arbok she'd always been. He took a moment to let his eyes travel up her body, deciding that his very important executive assistant was going to wear the same black uniform she had when she was still an agent - if only for his pleasure and amusement.

"When you're acting as my assistant, you're to be known as 'Matori.'" He sighed and turned, sitting down in his chair again. "You may disguise yourself if you'd like; though, in all honesty, people in this region are so fucking obtuse I'm sure it wouldn't make a difference one way or the other."

"I'm sorry...were you just ordering me to do something?"

"I'm sorry. Did you suddenly go deaf?" he retorted sharply.

"What if I don't want the job?"

"Then you can go lie in the gutter with the rest of the trash, as far as I'm concerned." He shrugged, putting his hands behind his head and leaning back in the chair.

Miyamoto stood, shaking her head in disbelief before turning on her heel. "You're such a piece of shit." She punctuated her statement with the loud slam of the door behind her.

Jessie knelt down behind a dumpster, her black trench coat blowing in the increasing winds. The sky was darker than usual for the time of night and thunder rolled in the distance. She hoped their client would be on time - if she had to screw around with a body in the pouring rain again, she would use the gun on herself.

James stood in front of the dumpster in a back alleyway, one of the numerous sketchy places that Viridian City had to offer for under-the-table business dealings. His trench coat flapped loudly in the wind and he had to put his hand on top of his hat to keep it from blowing away. He gazed out over his sunglasses to the small street view he had from the alley. People were bustling about, trying to make it home before the storm hit. Toward the west, lightning lit up the sky.

He, too, hoped they were done by the time the storm hit. The last time they were stuck in the rain had been quite possibly the most confusing and disturbing experience of his life. Sticking a hand into his pocket and pulling out a bottle cap, he began to flip it in his hand with his thumb. Here they were, waiting and bored - the calm before the storm; then, their client would arrive and all hell would break loose for about sixty seconds before turning back to normal again. It was like being caught in a reverse hurricane: the bulk of the storm was calm but when you reached the center, you were in for it.

Elbowing the dumpster a few times while keeping his eyes out for the mark, he tilted his head back and asked, "Meowth, you good?"

He popped up with a banana peel on his head. "Ain't I always?"

James grinned and Meowth dove back down into the garbage - something both he and Jessie suspected he enjoyed more than he let on, especially when he found old fish. He glanced to his right and saw the brim of Jessie's hat barely peeking out from the dumpster. He couldn't help but wonder if she was thinking about the same thing he was. He'd played it back in his mind so many times and still it didn't seem real - and he had absolutely no idea what to make of any of it.

It had only been about a month since they had started Operation: Double-Cross. They had just received praise that morning from the boss...via a grunt but it was praise and that's what mattered. Apparently the smooth way they took care of business had impressed him tremendously.

That night during their drop a storm much like the one about to hit was already roaring, wind whipping the rain around in tiny twisters throughout the sky. Their usually clean hit and subsequent getaway was hampered by having to toss an already large man into the dumpster - now with the added bonus of sopping wet clothes to make the guy truly impossible to lift. They were spending too much time devising ways to get him in the thing and failing miserably once they put the plans into action.

Jessie was becoming upset, kicking the corpse in the side as it laid in a growing puddle on the ground, rain and blood mixing together against the asphalt. James was perfectly content to leave the guy there, never having quite understood why leaving a body in plain sight was sloppy work but taking the usually small bit of extra time to toss it in the trash was considered a job well done. Meowth was taking shelter from the rain in the dumpster, pulling the top over his head enough to keep from getting wet. They were all out of ideas.

Kicking the body once again, Jessie growled, "Fuck it. Let's leave the guy here."

"Maybe we can roll him into da corner behind some garbage and den come back when it ain't rainin' and dump him!" Meowth suggested.

Jessie and James exchanged looks and then shrugged, no other option looking as good at the moment.

Meowth begrudgingly came out from the dumpster and positioned himself by the man's legs - not much help in the grand scheme of things but he was trying. James took the middle and Jessie the head. Together the three rolled the man as far behind the dumpster as they could manage, out of breath after pushing only a few feet.

Jessie and James stood with their backs against the wall, breathing heavily while Meowth found an old newspaper and put it over his head with very bad results, the thing already soaked to begin with. When he started off he looked back at them and they waved him on, still recovering from their unexpected work out. Meowth rolled his eyes and muttered something about humans, then ran as fast as he could back to headquarters and out of the offending rain.

Jessie took off her sunglasses and stuck them in her coat pocket. She idly wondered if she should be at all concerned with the fact that she could take a human life and roll it around on the ground like a log, excited the whole time and hoping that the boss would reward them handsomely.

Probably.

At the moment, however, she was distracted by James, who had taken off his hat and was shaking out his hair like a wet, furry Pokemon only to have it become soaked within seconds. Her heart was still pounding from the rush of the kill and she could almost feel the blood flowing faster in her veins as a result.

He caught her looking at him and tilted his head, waving his hand in front of her face. "Are you okay?"

A twisted urge shot through her like a lightning bolt in the dark sky. The fear that she was truly a fucked up person started to crawl from the back of her mind to the forefront; but when he ran a hand through his hair, any second-guessing or worry washed away with the rain.

There was something about James when he was in agent mode that made him more attractive to her than usual. He would lower his voice from its usual unmanly tone and smirk and laugh in a way that made him sound like the villain from a superhero movie. He was brave and strong - confident, even. It wasn't odd to her that she was attracted to him for these traits - it was odd that she was attracted to him for these traits despite having just murdered someone.

She took off her own hat and tossed it aside, the wind blowing it up against the wall next to their victim. Stepping in front of James, she grabbed on to the edges of his coat, pulling him to her and crushing her lips against his in a fevered desperation brought on by behaving badly. Why stop with murder, right?

James's eyes widened and then slowly fell back shut, letting her push him against the rough brick of the building behind him. Her hand slid up, running her gloved fingers through his wet hair while her other hand clutched his hip.

James moaned unapologetically as she bit his lip lightly, pressing her body against his. He lifted one hand to the back of her neck and let the other slip past her trench coat to grab her butt with enthusiasm. She jumped and then grinned against his lips, sliding her own hand from his hip to his butt as well.

Jessie let out a small whimper, using her grip on his backside to push him closer against her. Neither had noticed that they were grinding their hips against each other or that her leg had curled its way around his waist, his hand sliding down from her butt to her thigh, helping to keep her balance. He leaned in, kissing along her neck, his fingers tangling helplessly in her drenched hair.

The rain seemed to only fall harder the more they wanted each other, James finding a spot on the nape of her neck to gently suck the rain off of, causing her to gasp and lift herself up on the tip of her toes on her one available leg, needing to feel more of him against her. She moved her hand from his ass to the front, roughly cupping him through his pants and receiving another unabashed moan in return as his body reacted to her touch.

There was another moan that neither of them recognized, making them break apart and slowly turn their heads to the man on the ground next to them. Any other feelings they may have had were now replaced with pure dread. They both watched in frozen horror as he moved his fingers, weakly murmuring for help.

Exchanging wide-eyed looks with each other, Jessie thought quickly and pulled back James's trench coat to reveal the gun he had clipped to his belt. Standing above the man and turning off the safety (which by some miracle James had actually remembered this time), she aimed and fired, hitting her intended target: the back of his head. They stood in silence after the fact, both trying to wrap their heads around what had just happened.

James managed to shake himself out of it first and grabbed her by the wrist, starting to tug her out of the alley. She stopped him and ran back, grabbing her now blood-stained hat before returning to his side to run back to headquarters.

Neither one had spoken to the other about what had happened. It seemed as though they were both fine with having the other think it was a spur-of-the-moment thing brought on by the already high adrenaline rush of killing someone.

"James!" Jessie hissed from her hiding spot, snapping him out of one of his many visits to the memory in his mind.

He looked and saw their mark coming, dressed much the same as they were. He went up to James, darting his eyes around - very inconspicuous, James thought, inwardly rolling his eyes. The man lifted the briefcase he held and opened it, revealing thousands of dollars. Jessie and Meowth nearly keeled over the first time they saw how much cash they were stealing; it was the equivalent of pennies to James - not that he ever shared that with either of them.

James nodded to him and he shut the briefcase as James took a Great Ball out of his pocket and enlarged it. As the man made a move to grab it, Jessie appeared from behind the dumpster. James quickly ducked out of the way seconds before she fired, hitting her target in the left temple. She lowered her weapon and caught her breath as the same adrenaline she'd blamed for their last encounter coursed through her once again.

Meowth hopped out of the dumpster while James minimized the Great Ball again and put it in his pocket. Jessie stepped forward, putting her gun away and linked her arms underneath the man's, gesturing with her head for James to take the legs. A couple of swings to build up momentum and a few seconds later, their victim was in the dumpster, its lid being slammed shut by Meowth.

"Dat was easy!"

Jessie rolled her eyes and grabbed the briefcase of money. "I'd rather have easy than a Wailord."

Meowth blinked up at her and thought for a second before realization struck him. "Oh yeah! Dat big guy we had to leave!" He paused, leading them as they innocently made their way out of the alley just as the rain began to fall in heavy droplets. "Dat was a month ago or somethin'...how'd ya remember dat with all da jobs we get?"

Jessie and James glanced at each other out of the corner of their eyes, both ducking their heads and trying to hide their faces in the shadow of their hats. Jessie swung the briefcase forward, smacking Meowth and sending him flying down the sidewalk.

"That's how!"