Back to Zero
L.R.T.
He couldn't help the almost hysterical laugh that came from the back of his throat, moving up and up until it was shooting out his mouth so loudly that it made Miyamoto jump in surprise. He let the humor of the moment wash over him for a few seconds more before catching his breath and resting back against his chair, one finger lifted to his eye to wipe away a laughter-induced tear. Eyebrow raised, Miyamoto crossed her arms and looked at him expectantly - a look he only caught after letting out a heavy sigh and realizing she was still in the room with him.
"What is it, Miyamoto? You don't find this even the tiniest bit amusing on any level?"
Sighing as well, she began, "Well, considering the Iron-Masked Marauder -"
"Dear God," Giovanni said, shaking his head, "can we not call him that?"
"What else do you want me to call him? No one knows his real name!" she retorted.
"Call him 'the defendant'," he replied with a snort, still unable to keep his amusement under wraps.
Narrowing her eyes, Miyamoto replied, "Fine. He's been arrested on several counts -"
"Let me stop you there, Miyamoto," he said, leaning forward and placing his arms on his desk, hands folded, "because really and truly, I couldn't give less of a shit what happened to that imbecile."
"'That imbecile' has become one our most infamous agents! Regardless of your personal feelings toward him -"
"He stole experimental Poke Balls from the lab and went off gallivanting around on his own, not taking my calls, therefore not taking my orders, making him nothing less than a traitor," Giovanni replied in an eerily cool tone.
Putting her hands up in surrender, she sighed again and nodded slightly. "All right, all right. I get it." Miyamoto paused for a moment, crossing her arms once again in the silence, taking a deep breath and letting it out as she spoke, "I suppose you aren't interested in what he did to get in such deep shit, either, then?"
Giovanni shrugged, sitting back in his chair, still-folded hands resting in his lap. "Amuse me further, if you must."
"Celebi. He captured a fucking Celebi."
Eyes widening slightly, he lifted his hands to clutch the arms of his desk chair, fingertips digging into the leather. "He what," he stated more than asked.
"Those experimental Poke Balls - the Dark Balls - apparently worked like a charm."
"Then how did he get caught? If a Pokemon with power like Celebi was caught and under his control -" He stopped himself mid-thought, taking note of the look on Miyamoto's face, the familiarity of it striking him immediately. "Ash," he said, rubbing his hands over his face.
"And Jessie," Miyamoto added, turning her back to him and leaning against the desk. "According to the police report, the Iron-Masked -" Taking a glance back over her shoulder, she quickly corrected herself, "the defendant was holding Jessie hostage. When he attacked - oh, by the way, Suicune was also there."
"Son of a bitch," Giovanni muttered, resting his head back against his plush seat and closing his eyes. "Continue."
"Celebi was told to attack Suicune and Ash and a friend of his. Ash and his friend fell...Jessie caught them and told them where to find Celebi."
Eyes opening, Giovanni looked at the back of her head. "She saved him?"
Miyamoto nodded, a small smile on her lips. "Apparently they were several feet in the air. A fall like that would've done anyone in. She saved his life and helped them rescue Celebi."
"Well," he said with a snort, shifting awkwardly in his seat, "I can't say that I'm very pleased about the latter."
She shrugged, standing from the desk. "I'm sure she had her reasons. Regardless," Miyamoto turned to face him, the smile still on her face, "your two kids just did something pretty amazing, if you ask me. Isn't that the most important part?"
Unable to keep from smiling slightly himself, he nodded a bit and looked away from her, refusing to let her see him that way for too long. He turned back to her just as she was making her way to the door, asking after her, "Miyamoto? Would you please see to it that our dear friend the defendant gets some very, very special treatment in jail?"
Rolling her eyes, she smirked slightly as she opened the door. "Jessie's okay, I'm sure."
"As am I. I'd simply like to get the point across that we don't use our own that way." Making himself comfortable once again, he shut his eyes and added as Miyamoto left, "And certainly not the boss's daughter."
"So what was it like?" Meowth asked as the team floated lazily in the middle of the Lake of Life, all of their various maladies caused by years of Pikachu attacks and unceremonious crashes to the ground melting away with a warm, tingling sensation.
"What kind of a thing is that to ask?" James scolded with a frown.
Shrugging, Meowth defended, "Well dat that ting was so big and scary to everyone on da outside...maybe it was nice and cozy inside of it! Like a log cabin."
"It wasn't," Jessie said flatly.
"But...you're okay, right?" James asked, tilting his head back slightly to look at her.
"Sure she's okay! Dis lake does wondas, don'tcha feel it? Didn't ya see what it did to Celebi?"
"I was asking Jessie..."
Blinking slowly, taking a moment to think back on the last day and her ordeal with Celebi and the Iron-Masked Marauder, she finally responded quietly, "I am. I'm fine." Suddenly she removed herself from their tri-star, treading water briefly while she repeated herself, "I am fine."
Both James and Meowth sat up as well, Meowth hopping on James's shoulders so he could stay afloat for the both of them. James eyed her worriedly, reaching for her only to be denied as she began to swim to shore.
"I didn't mean to upset her or nothin'..." Meowth said, a hint of guilt in his voice.
"I don't think it was anything you said," James replied, starting for the shore himself.
The two joined Jessie on dry land, Meowth jumping down from James's shoulder, both watching her as she wrung out her long mane. Darting her eyes to look at them and then away again, she put her back to them. "Will you two cut it out?"
"We're - we're just worried, Jess..." James said, taking a step toward her. "You can tell us anything, you know."
"Yeah, we're da last two people who should be judgin' anybody!"
"You aren't people," Jessie spat at Meowth, getting a flash of a look of hurt on his face before his eyes narrowed.
"Ya ain't so close to bein' one either, ya know!"
"Stop it, stop it!" James said, stepping between them. Sauntering off to sit on a nearby log, Meowth continued to glare at Jessie from afar while James put his attention back on her strange behavior. Placing his hands on her upper arms, he tried to catch her eye but she was making it exceedingly difficult - even for someone so adept at avoiding eye contact as himself. "You don't have to say anything. You don't have to talk about anything." He took a deep breath, squeezing her arms lightly. "But you don't have to be mean to us. We're worried. You could've been seriously injured or - or worse and I don't -"
"I was," she said through clenched teeth, hands balling up into fists.
"What? No...no, you're fine. Look at you!"
Pulling away from his grasp, she pointed to the water next to them. "Because I landed in the fucking lake!" She turned her head away from him and crossed her arms, shivering at the sensation of her wet gloves against her bare stomach. "I fell into the water. Then a big piece of that monstrosity came falling at me and I don't remember anything else."
"I don't understand..." he said, brow furrowed. "It sounds like you were just knocked out. We've been knocked out before...it certainly isn't fun but -"
"I think I was dead," she interrupted, swallowing hard, her fingers digging into her arms. "I think it either killed me or...or I was knocked out and drowned. I can't explain it. I just know."
James shook his head. "No...no, that can't be true. If you had died...you were fine when we found you! You were happy and healthy and floating along -"
"Suicune." Jessie and James both turned their attention to Meowth, still sitting on the log, head now lowered and eyes closed. "It cleaned up da lake, 'memba? Not only do ya got a fancy lake dat heals people and Pokemon but now ya got one dat just got da cleansin' of a lifetime by a legendary Pokemon! It ain't outta da realm of possibilities, here, dat Jess was a goner 'til Suicune fixed da lake."
Shaking his head again, slowly this time, James swallowed a growing lump in his throat. "No...no, she was fine. I'm - I'm sure the lake helped any injuries she had but...she wasn't dead..." Turning to Jessie, he pulled her in for a tight hug, burying his face in her neck and against her wet hair. "You weren't dead!"
Wrapping her arms around him, she frowned, worried for him now, one hand clutching at the back of his jacket and the other running through his hair. "Okay, okay...you're right. It's fine now. Everything's fine."
"I couldn't save you!" James cried into her skin, hair still sticking to it from their swim, his sudden onslaught of tears mixing with the clear, magical waters of the lake.
"Oh, James..."
"You weren't dead because if you were dead, it would be all my fault and I wouldn't be able to save you!" He clung to her, gripping the back of her jacket like his life depended on it, breathing becoming ragged as he spoke, "Just the thought of it...the thought of you being dead down there -" His own cries interrupted his thoughts as he slumped to his knees, still holding his partner, face pressed against her stomach until she joined him on the ground.
"Jeez, Jimmy...she's da one dat died, not you."
Jessie shot a murderous glare in Meowth's direction that immediately shut him up. Gently setting James's head against her chest, she tried to calm him down by stroking his hair and rubbing his back, reassuring him that she was all right and trying to convince him that it was likely both she and Meowth were mistaken and she had been alive all along - but it was too late. The idea had planted itself in James's head and wasn't about to die any time soon.
"I'm sorry...I'm so sorry that I couldn't save you," he sniffled, his breathing slowly becoming normal once again. "It was so big..." Shaking his head and squeezing out a few more tears, he countered himself, "No, no. I should've jumped when we were dangling from that blimp. I should've jumped and landed on that horrible nest and saved you. And - and unmasked that Marauder fellow, too!"
She couldn't help but chuckle, leaning down and kissing his forehead. "Well then you would've been the one to die and how do you think I'd feel then? You being a silly hero and getting yourself killed just to save me."
"Why aren't you mad at me?" he asked softly, looking up at her with watery emerald eyes, tear-stained cheeks, and wet hair sticking out in every direction.
Smiling down at him, she raised an eyebrow. "For not taking stupid, dangerous, impossible risks?"
"Not takin' stupid, dangerous, and impossible risks is kinda our M.O., Jimmy," Meowth chimed in, this time getting a smile of approval from Jessie.
"I don't want you to die," James said, lower lip quivering with the threat of new tears.
"I'd certainly hope not," she replied. "What kind of best friend would that make you?" Leaning in, she lightly brushed her lips against his in an effort to stop the quivering, smiling to herself when she felt it work.
"But what kind of knight of shining armor does it make me -"
"Mine," she interrupted sternly. "You're still my knight in shining armor. Nothing and no one will ever change that."
Swallowing hard once again, he locked eyes with her, voice becoming soft and wavering, "Are you really okay?"
"Give me a little time and I will be." Placing her hand on his cheek, she tried to offer a smile and push away the thoughts and feelings that began to bubble up inside her again at his question. "I promise."
She wasn't sure how she'd managed to wriggle out of James's sleeping embrace without waking him. He had begged that they zip their sleeping bags together to form one big bag for the two of them to share and as soon as she agreed, his arms wrapped around her and hadn't let go since. This was probably going to be how they slept for some time to come.
It wasn't that she minded his clinginess - well, for the time being, at least; she just wanted a little time and space of her own to work through her near-death experience. She had come to the conclusion that, even if she hadn't been killed on impact or drowned, she was certainly knocked unconscious...and being unconscious under water with no one nearby able to save you wasn't going to work out in her favor, either. She had also come to the conclusion that Meowth was right: Suicune fixing the lake, in turn, fixed her. So if she had simply been unconscious because of a blow to the head, the lake would've healed it and woken her up, keeping her from drowning. That was the first thing she remembered after blacking out, after all: waking up on her back, floating in the water, the sun catching her eyes but somehow not making them hurt or feel the need to squint.
The more she thought about what had happened, the more unnerved she became. It reminded her of their meet-up gone wrong all those years ago. That had made her realize how dangerous and unpredictable their job could be and was, at the end of the day, the reason why she sat here now. Had she not taken it so hard, she never would've changed; James never would've gone to the boss; they never would've gotten the now seemingly endless gig of chasing Pikachu. That one moment had changed everything - what was this experience going to change?
"Nothing," she said to herself as she sat at the edge of the lake, looking out over the water that seemed to sparkle more than any other she'd ever seen. By and large, their job wasn't nearly as dangerous as it once was. In fact, she had been all but convinced that their bodies had gotten so used to the abuse they endured day in and day out that they'd actuality built up a resistance to electricity. Unfortunately, there wasn't much in the way of resistance for hitting the ground right smack on your ass.
"Hey," came a quiet voice from her left, lifting her out of her thoughts and making her look toward the sound.
"Hey," she replied just as quietly, looking back out over the lake as Meowth sat down on the ground next to her. "What are you doing up?"
He shrugged, looking up at the crescent moon hanging perilously above them. "Ya eva been so tired and drained dat ya can't sleep?" Glancing over at her, he quickly added, "Heh, look who I'm askin'."
Jessie looked over at him and smiled slightly, shrugging herself. "Actually, my mind is going a thousand miles an hour...way too fast to even consider sleeping."
"Can't imagine why."
Silence enveloped them as she watched him, his tail flicking back and forth in acknowledgement of her eyes on him. Biting her lip, she looked away and followed his gaze up to the moon. "I'm sorry that I said you weren't a person. Honestly, you have more humanity in you than a lot of people I've met over the years."
"I'm sorry, too," he replied with a sigh. "I'm also sorry 'bout James flippin' out on ya like dat..."
She shook her head, tilting it to the side a bit. "It's all right. I can't really be upset with him about it...I know if the shoe were on the other foot, I'd be just as much of a mess about him."
"Yeah, but...ya went through somethin' real traumatizin', Jess. Now because Jimmy's cracked in da head, yer gonna...well, do dis kinda ting."
Looking down at him, she raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"Dis," he said, gesturing to the area around them with his paw. "Ya close yerself up and try to handle tings on yer own."
She looked down at her lap, pulling her legs up underneath herself and resting against them. "I think it's because...I think that I'm stronger than I actually am. Nothing proved that more than today." Turning her head from her Pokemon companion, she swallowed hard, voice cracking slightly as she spoke, "We've been so lucky. I may have been starting to think that we were bulletproof...that we had some kind of crazy, unexplainable luck that kept us going." She let her eyes fall shut, two single tears falling down either cheek from them. "As much as James doesn't want me to die...as guilty and horrible as he feels...that - that's how much I don't want to die alone." Spinning around to look at him again and making the Pokemon jump at the suddenness of her movement, she continued, "I was afraid when were letting go of Lugia but...it was okay, too, because we were doing it together. I - I don't want to leave James. I don't want to leave you! I don't even want to leave Wobbuffet." As more tears ran down her cheeks, she lowered her voice even more, inaudible to human ears - but not to Meowth's, "I'm weak. I promised myself that I would never let anyone in again and now...now I have you and James and not only am I afraid of being hurt, I'm afraid of hurting you two as well."
Meowth simply shook his head and crawled into her lap, curling up there and nuzzling against her body. "Den I guess we'll have to make sure we don't get split up no more."
Placing a hand gently on top of his head, she began to pet him. "I don't want to have to need anyone."
Stretching out, he looked up at her, golden eyes shining in the moonlight. "Ya can't help it, kid - yer only human."
"I can't believe I'm saying this," Annie said, leaning back against the elevator wall while her sister hit one of the buttons next to the doors, "but I'm actually a little nervous."
Joining her sister, Oakley crossed her arms and tilted her head to look over at her, eyebrow raised. "Nervous? About seeing Giovanni?"
"Well, yeah. I mean, how long has it been since he gave us an assignment?" She paused, frowning, turning and looking over at Oakley. "You don't think he's going to end our arrangement, do you?"
"So what if he does? I'm tired of our boring old penthouse, anyway. If we were back out on our own again -"
"What about Mondo?"
Oakley rolled her eyes, stepping away from the wall and standing in front of the door as the numbers above it lit up, moving closer and closer to their destination. "He'll want to stay here with his sad little team and girlfriend, I'm sure."
"So we would just...leave him?"
"Why not? He's not a little kid anymore, Annie, and that means we don't have to sacrifice our careers and waste our talents to make sure he's safe and well-cared for."
With a cheery ding! the elevator doors opened into the grand lobby outside of Giovanni's office. Following Oakley out of the elevator, Annie continued to protest, "But he's our brother."
"From another mother. Quite literally, in fact," Oakley retorted, putting her hand up to silence her older sister as they reached Miyamoto's desk.
Barely looking up from her game of solitaire, Miyamoto interrupted before either could say anything by pointing to the door with the hand that wasn't clicking away at the mouse, saying in a dull tone, "Go right in. Giovanni will see you now."
Exchanging looks with each other, Annie shrugged and the duo went to the hulking wooden door. Oakley knocked twice before slowly opening it enough to pop her head in. "Giovanni?"
He sat at his desk (which looked like it could've easily consisted of four or more of the doors they now walked through and shut behind them.) Both girls decided long ago that, while they generally despised the man, neither could deny that he had taste. The sisters went up to his desk, standing up straight with their hands folded behind their backs.
"You wanted to see us?" Oakley asked.
His back was to them, as was his Persian's as it nuzzled at his hand and purred at the pat on the head it received in response. Swirling around the reminants of ice and liquor in one of his glasses, he asked in a tone as bored as Miyamoto's had been, "Did you ever get a chance to read that book I gave you a few months ago?"
Once again the team exchanged looks, Annie's eyes wide with horror at the realization that she couldn't even remember the name of the book, let alone read it. Oakley's eyes were cool and calm in return, darting back to bore a hole in the back of Giovanni's chair. "Yes. It was quite interesting, actually...though for the life of me, I can't imagine -"
"Oh, don't be so obtuse," he replied, rolling his eyes to himself. "If you aren't lying to me and you really did read the book, then you must know what I'm going to ask of you."
Oakley blinked slowly before raising both eyebrows this time, her own eyes growing wide. "I don't understand. Unless you expect us to know how to tear the thing apart and put it back together once it's brought back here, I have to tell you that the book wasn't exactly -"
"What I want you to do," Giovanni began, speaking slowly and distinctly, "is find out if what the book says is true."
"Ourselves?" Oakley asked for clarification.
"Is there anyone else in this room that you see? Yes, you two! You agreed to lend your services to me whenever I desired in exchange for giving you and your little brother a nice, cozy place to stay and keep food on the table." Turning around in his chair, he set his glass down on his desk, eyes narrowing at the girls in front of him. "I believe I've done more than that. He's gainfully employed, isn't he? Something I don't normally like to do with people his age but, what can I say?" Resting back in his seat, his glare continued while his mouth twisted into a smile, his face a contradiction of itself. "Your story moved me."
Nodding as she began to understand what he was asking, Oakley stated, "So you want us to give the machine a test-run."
"Precisely. If it does what the book and legend says, then its power can be harnessed and used for more important things than drowning a useless old town."
A smirk spread across her lips and she nodded once again, placing her arms at her sides now. "We will use every tool at our disposal to achieve success, Giovanni."
His smile grew, dark glare lightening up. "I expect nothing less."
"Would you like us to capture both Latios and Latias? We need one to run the machine, we might as well grab the other, as well." Oakley shrugged nonchalantly. "For funsies."
"That would be most impressive, Oakley," Giovanni said with a grin. "Use one for the machine and make sure to send the other back here to headquarters unharmed."
Both girls nodded and replied in unison, "Yes, Giovanni, sir."
"I'm glad we understand each other. Now get out of here. That one's," he said, pointing to Annie, "perfume is giving me a migraine."
Annie blushed slightly, laughing nervously as she started to apologize but was quickly cut off by Oakley grabbing her by the wrist and dragging her out of the office, grumbling, "I told you to lay off that junk," as she did.
Mondo frowned, leaning forward, so close to the video phone that his nose almost touched the screen. "But I don't understand. You two are notorious. You're the best at what you do!"
"Apparently not the best..." Domino said from Mondo's side, scowling at the frown he gave her before turning his attention back to the video phone.
"How could you get arrested?"
"Ask your sister," they said in unison before looking at each other and narrowing their eyes.
"You were the one that got all power-hungry!" Annie argued.
"But who was the one that touched the Soul Dew and made everything go haywire, Annie?" Oakley countered. "I always knew your attraction to shiny, pretty things would be our downfall."
Gasping, Annie stood from her seat, only her torso visible to Mondo in the view screen. "How dare you! If anything, it's your control issues that have always been the problem!"
Standing as well, Oakley growled, the sight of her clenched fists making Mondo's eyes widen and desperately try to regain their attention - to no avail. "The only issue I've ever had is having a big sister with the mental capacity of a brain-dead Slowpoke!"
As his sisters' verbal fight escalated into a physical one, Mondo watched and groaned as they shrieked at each other and pulled each other's hair. Unable to take any more of it, he simply turned off the phone and rested his head against the machine.
Domino stepped closer to him, sliding her arm around his shoulders and resting her head atop his. "I'm sorry."
"Do you have any idea how long they'll be away for?" he asked, not moving.
She shook her head. "No, but...considering everything that happened, I can't imagine they'll be out any time soon."
Turning his head to the side, he looked back up at her. "Can't the boss do anything? He has connections, right?"
Biting her lip, she pulled back from him and glanced away, putting her hands behind her back. "The boss...the boss isn't very happy with them right now."
"I figured that much," he said with a sigh, sitting up, "but once he cools down -"
"Mondo," Domino said softly - a tone of voice seemingly reserved for Mondo and no one else, "he doesn't take too kindly to people thinking they can outsmart him or double-cross him by using the power he wanted for themselves."
"It's only because they wouldn't officially join Team Rocket," he said, getting up, going over to Domino's couch and sitting back down, crossing his arms. "It's only because they were better than any agent he has on payroll and he couldn't lock them down. Now this is his payback."
"Okay, first of all?" Domino said, walking over to the couch and standing in front of him, mimicking him and crossing her arms as well. "Don't insult your girlfriend's abilities as an agent when she just-so-happened to use her own connections to make sure you had a place to stay in the wake of your sisters' most epic of failures." Dropping her arms to her sides when he did the same and slumped down into the couch, she continued, "Second of all, your sisters aren't the only ones he's getting this kind of 'payback' on, you know. That Iron Mask guy is looking at spending the rest of his life behind bars and Giovanni isn't lifting a finger to help him. Why? Because he thought he could use Team Rocket's technology and take over the world and pull one over on Giovanni."
"And I thought Oakley had control issues..."
Letting out a sigh, unable to keep herself from smiling at the grouchiness in his voice, she joined him on the couch and wrapped her arms around his waist. "Be nice. He likes you! He never would've agreed to my idea and let us move in together if he didn't." Resting her head against his shoulder, she sighed again and shut her eyes. "You'd be out on your cute little butt and Jessie and James and that Meowth would be even more lost."
Slowly sliding his arm around her waist, he looked down at her and bit his lip slightly. "What about you?"
"What about me?"
"Would you be lost?"
Eyes shooting open, she lifted her head and looked up at him, a strand of blonde hair falling from her pigtails and into her face as she spoke, "Probably even more than that dopey team of yours."
"I still can't believe you actually agreed to let that kid Mondo move in with 009," Miyamoto said from the bathroom, barely understandable from the toothbrush and growing foam of toothpaste in her mouth.
"They're almost of age," he replied, making himself comfortable in bed. "And now I have a penthouse to give away to reward agents that are actually doing their jobs."
Spitting in the sink, Miyamoto moved into the doorway and leaned against it. "You're certainly calm, cool, and collected about all this. I thought you'd be pitching a fit that those two girls failed in their mission - not to mention the girl you've watched grow up shacking up with a boy, horror of all horrors."
"Domino is more than capable of handling herself." Resting back against several pillows, he glanced back at her. "You seem to forget that before Viper took her in, she was on her own on the streets."
"How could I forget that?" Moving back into the bathroom, she swished some mouthwash in her mouth and spit once again before heading back to the doorway. "She looked like the poster child for 'street urchin' when she first showed up."
Giovanni snorted, watching as she turned off the bathroom light and made her way to the bed. "And Viper raised her well since. I'm not concerned."
"That's a surprise to me, though," she said, crawling into bed next to him, the similarities between the one she currently shared with him and the one she had shared with him so many years ago never lost on her, even after all this time. "I guess I always thought you considered her..." She paused, trying to find the right words for once and not simply blurt out what she was thinking.
"You thought she was a replacement for Jessie," he finished for her, staring up at the ceiling.
Miyamoto nodded slightly. "Despite everything - the fights we've had about it, the insults and punches thrown back and forth, the stress and the tears we've cried - I know that giving up Jessie and continuing to keep her at arm's length has been hard for you." Laying on her back and looking at the ceiling as well, she continued, "I know you think you're doing right by her. I also know that you have this fantasy of Jessie and Ash coming here and taking over the company and everyone being a big, happy family." She rolled over on her side, head propped up on her hand. "You want everything you didn't have growing up. You didn't want Jessie growing up in Team Rocket the way you did but you also want the whole perfect family unit thing that you were deprived of, too." A small smile came across her face, her free hand resting on his chest. "You're a very complicated man, Giovanni. You know that?"
"And yet somehow you manage to understand me and lay it all out on the table in the simplest of terms," he replied, balking for a moment before resting his hand on top of hers.
Shrugging, she tossed her long purple hair over her shoulder. "What can I say? It's what I do." Using her pointer finger to poke him twice in the chest, she changed the subject. "Really, though. Aren't you pissed off at those girls?"
Giovanni shook his head, his other arm lifting to rest behind his head, eyes still locked on the ceiling. "The truth is that the failure or success of the mission hinders nothing. I had simply grown weary of sitting, playing the waiting game while the supposed genius scientists I've employed work on my real plan." Sighing, he adjusted his body against the mattress, still looking for the comfort that eluded him. "I must admit, though...it would've been quite a feather in our cap if I'd managed to get control of that machine and a Latias and Latios."
Poking him again, Miyamoto asked, "So why send Annie and Oakley if it was just a throw-away mission to begin with?"
"It had been a while since I'd given them any kind of work." Glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, he added, "And a little Pidgey told me that they were taking on more and more jobs outside of Team Rocket."
"I thought that was part of the deal, though. Technically they weren't members, they could do whatever they wanted. It's not like you were paying them."
"Because their payment was a place to live and food, Miyamoto," he retorted. "Throw-away mission though it was, it was also extremely dangerous and difficult. After so long without earning their keep with a mission, I thought the next one I sent them on should be...special, let's say."
"So that if they succeeded, their part of the deal was secure for however long you saw you fit and that if they failed, you'd be one penthouse up."
"You make it sound so devious, Miyamoto." He smirked slightly, rolling over onto his side now as well to face her. "I like it."
Rolling her eyes, she returned his smirk and smacked him lightly on the chest this time. "Guess I'm not so useless after all."
"You have your moments." Rolling back over, he reached to the nightstand, getting ready to turn off the light but stopping himself. Voice quiet, he looked down at the floor next to him and said, "No one could ever replace Jessie."
And with that, the room went dark.
