Chapter VI: Point of No Return
The return to Viridian had been a great success. Giovanni had been pleased, as well as mildly surprised, to receive the Pokéball containing Gatomon. Together with his best trainers he had released her in a secured pit to have a closer look at her. She had not reacted when he commented how unique she was. Meowth could see that her spirit was now completely gone, and he immediately left the room. He could not bare to see her like that. Giovanni had added Gatomon to his large collection of rare Pokémon and mentioned a possible raise for the team, something the trio had only dreamt about earlier. Jessie and James had immediately started the celebration, but Meowth had retired to his bed, claiming to be tired even though the evening was still young.
He twisted and turned in the bed, haunted be his guilty conscience. He kept seeing Gatomon in front of him, beaten in body as well as soul. After crying into his pillow he sat up, trying to clear his mind with no success.
Suddenly his sadness transformed into rage, directed towards himself for allowing this to happen. In a cry of rage he struck out with a clawed paw, tearing straight through the pillow. Feathers were everywhere and Meowth stared at his front leg piercing through the pillow while breathing though his teeth.
"Meowth, what in Gods name…" Jessie began. She and James had heard him scream, but stopped when they saw him.
"You've killed your pillow," James said with a confused expression.
Meowth started crying again. Jessie and James looked at each other as if to ask if the other one knew what was going on.
"Meowth," Jessie said gently. "Meowth, what's the matter?"
"I tought I could take it, but I can't," Meowth answered and clenched his paws. "I can't take it!"
"What?" James asked. "Meowth, you have been acting strange the whole day, why don't you tell us what happened to you?"
Meowth realised that he might as well confess. If he carried on like this he'd turn into an emotional wreck, or maybe he already had. Trying to calm down, he told them the whole story about his meeting with Gatomon, how they had become friends in such a short time and his terrible feelings of guilt from betraying her.
"Oh, gosh," James said when he was finished. "What have we done?"
"Meowth, you should have told us from the beginning!" Jessie said. "We would have understood, don't you understand that?"
"I know, Jessie," Meowth said. "But yous were so happy over finally doin' someting right, and Mewoth just couldn't take dat away from ya."
"What are we going to do?" James asked.
"What can we do?" Jessie replied. "It's not like we can just walk up to the boss and ask him to give us Gatomon back. We can kiss our jobs goodbye."
"We can't take her from him either," James said. "Not without risking getting a new pair of cement shoes and a new address on the bottom of the ocean."
Jessie sighed. "Let's sleep on it, we'll talk more about it tomorrow. Okay, Meowth?"
"Sure, Jessie," Meowth mumbled.
Jessie stroked his head affectionately. "It will be all right, trust me. James, get a new pillow for him, would you."
"Coming right up," James said.
Somehow Meowth was relived that his partners understood, but the guilt was still there, and he knew that there was no way that Jessie and James could persuade the boss to return Gatomon to freedom. He sat up once again with a determined look on his face. More drastic methods were needed. Something had to be done tonight.
It was late, and everything was quiet. A small figure, dressed in black, carefully worked to open the electronic lock leading to Giovanni's private collection of rare Pokémon. The would-be burglar knew that a single mistake could trigger the alarm and then everything would be lost. Avoiding or disabling the security guards had been easy. Staying clear of the security cameras had been much harder. This door, the last barrier, had proven to be the most difficult. But Meowth had some qualities not even Giovanni knew about.
Meowth concentrated harder, gently re-directing the electronics in the lock that he had managed to open. It could have been much harder, he reasoned. If Giovanni had wanted to, the collection could have been so well protected that God himself would have problems getting in, but it had never been considered necessary. No one stole from the boss. It was an impossibility. Even if you succeeded, there was nowhere to run. Kanto, Jotho, the Orange Islands, Team Rocked had a hand everywhere. It was the equivalent of suicide, Giovanni was known to have done completely inhuman things to people for being less then half as daring.
Yet here he was. A lonely Pokémon attempting to do the unthinkable. Of course, the collection was still well protected. Only an idiot stored a priceless collection of the planet's rarest Pokémon in the same building as professional Pokémon thieves without taking any protective actions. And Giovanni was far from an idiot.
Meowth crossed tw owires, and the door opened. He felt a rush of relief, but the job was only half done so far. He took a step forward, but jumped back as his instincts cried a sudden warning. It was just too simple, and not at all like Giovanni's style. He grabbed a pawfull of flour-like powder from a package within his backpack and threw it into the room. As a cloud of powder spread inside the room, thin, invisible laser rays appeared inside it. Meowth was not surprised. He had prepared for such a situation, just in case. He hurried to dig a pair of goggles out of his backpack and fastening them in front of his eyes. He could now see the lasers clearly. There was a whole bunch of them, but they had been positioned to hinder humans from getting in, not Pokémon. Meowth could easily avoid them with help of his great reflexes and dexterity. Soon he had reached the shelves with the hundreds Pokéballs, Ultraballs and Great Balls containing the most valuable Pokémon that could be found. It took him a while, but he soon found the one containing Gatomon. He reached out and removed it. Looking down on it in its miniaturised form, he found it hard to believe that such a small thing really could contain such a mighty creature such as Gatomon. His own experiences with Pokéballs were few, since he had tried his best to stay on the outside from them. The few memories he had were of a dark and depressing place. Not lonely, you were still aware of your surroundings, but the feeling of not having a body and only consists as an energy pattern inside the ball had creeped him out. He hoped that Gatomon was okay.
She'll probably kill Meowth when I let her out, he thought. Maybe just as good. Better den if da boss gets a hold of me. How she would react was the least of his problem. He had passed the point of no return long ago. The only thing remaining now was running. He navigated through the net of lasers, closed door to the room and placed the plastic cover over the code-bar the best he could. Then he hurried out of there.
Gatomon had no idea where she was. She sensed how someone unknown removed her prison from its place. Perhaps they were going to let her fight some Pokémon now. She didn't care. Deep within she knew that something was wrong with her. This wasn't her, she didn't become sad and consumed with apathy, she became angry and things were wrecked. But she was too tired. All she wanted to do was sleep in the lonely serenity of the Pokéball. Her last thoughts before slipping away again went to her friends, somewhere in another world.
Kari…
More then two hours later Meowth had made it out of the town and deep into the forest. He had already dumped the clothings as well as his backpack, keeping only the stolen Pokéball. He knew that the time had come to confront his sin.
He took a nervous look around, half expecting to see Rockets jumping out of the bushes to take him back to Giovanni, who would have a good time torturing him before throwing his still living carcass to a pack of starved Raticates. When nothing of the sort happened he raised the Pokéball in his right paw, drew a deep breath and opened it.
Gatomon materialised herself in front of him. She was crouching with her head down and one knee to the ground. She didn't seem to care much of her surroundings, and Meowth tried to think of a good way to approach her.
"Eh, Gatomon," he tried.
Gatomon's head snapped up and she turned to look at him. Suddenly the sorrow and apathy was gone, replaced by a burning fury at the sight of the one who had caused all of her pain.
"You," she hissed. "How dare you…"
"Now, take it easy…" Meowth began but didn't make it longer. Gatomon flew into him, knocking the air out of his lungs and pinning him to the ground. Her right paw locked around his throat and she raised the left above his face with the claws pointing threateningly towards him.
"Give me one good reason not to tear you in pieces here and now!" she demanded.
"Please!" he whimpered. "Listen to Meowth!"
"All right," she said and removed her paw from his neck. "But you better make it good."
"Look, Meowth sorry for what happened!" Meowth said.
"Sorry doesn't quite cover it," she spat. "You betrayed me! I trusted you with my life, I thought of you as my friend, and you sold me out!"
"I didn't mean ta do it," Meowth said. "Well, I did in da beginning, but den I changed my mind. I was goin' to tell yous but Jessie and James came before I had da chance."
Gatomon looked at him with cold eyes, but said nothing. Her tail still whisked like a long, mad snake.
"Look," Meowth said. "I got yous out of dere, didn't I?"
"Yes," Gatomon said and turned around. "And I guess that makes us even. Goodbye!"
She moved away from him, disappearing into the shadows. Meowth suppressed a curse and got up, following her the best he could.