Chapter Ten: Double Trouble

Lavaridge, ca. 2509

The sun shone through the barred window in the Lavaridge Jail, the golden rays awakening Jesse from her sound slumber. As she opened her eyes, she felt as though her Seviper had poisoned her. Her limbs creaked and barely responded to her will. As she struggled to get up, brushing away her long ruby-colored hair, wiping the drool off of her heavily made-up face, she spotted a small pinkish object in front of her. Her eyes were still too blurry, but it appeared to be round and holding something -

Gasp!

Jesse finally found enough energy to snap up, crazily crawling to the back end of the sparse cell, her eyes widening as her vision sharpened, allowing her to see an extremely angry Jigglypuff, marker at the ready. Jigglypuff was about to slap her silly for staying asleep so long, but a light pink glow surrounded it and the singing terror of the pokemon world found itself unable to sing or do anything. Jesse looked up to see a Mew floating beyond the bars to the cell. The lock unlatched and Jesse could feel in her mind that she had to escape. She followed the Mew and the sulking Jigglypuff out of the police station.

James, rapidly wiping off the marks on his face, was sitting on the steps of the police station. He saw Jesse and smiled weakly, having only recently awoken himself. Meowth lay sprawled out on his back in front of him, his eyes closed as he soaked up the sun.

"What's going on?" Jesse grumbled.

"Jess, we have to talk," James mumbled, staring back at the ground.

Jesse sat beside James, careful not to step on Meowth, and nuzzled up to her partner in crime. They were friends, nothing more, despite what Meowth liked to think. She graced her partner with a caring, compassionate glance that surprised James - she was never this nice unless she felt in her heart something was VERY wrong.

James sighed. "Mew showed me around before it found you. There's nothing, Jess - nothing. I even saw the twerps. They're just like the rest of this town."

Jesse smiled. "Well, fantastic! We can wake up Meowth and finally capture Pikachu!"

James glanced at her solemnly. "Jesse, you're not listening. Pikachu, the twerps, the town - Jess, even the Boss is here and HE won't wake up. The whole town's been obliterated." He shivered. "Meowth's not napping - he's been struck down like the rest of us."

"But we're alive," Jesse noted. "Shouldn't we be dead?"

James motioned to the Jigglypuff, sulking in the street, it's eyes welling up with tears just looking at all the people in the streets barely breathing.

"Do you remember when we held that concert in Neon City? Don't you remember that a Jigglypuff's song not only puts you to sleep but also restores you sometimes?"

Jesse watched the little pink bowling ball of a pokemon stare at the depressing sight. "Well, now that you mention, it IS ringing a few bells."

"Well," James said as he stood up, "that's what happened to us. Jigglypuff was in the jail at the time of the attack and put us to sleep first. Now that the song wore off, we're feeling better."

"James, what's going to happen to us?"

Mew flew in gentle circles around James, his shoulder-length blue hair swinging in the slight breeze. "Mew says we have to capture Celebii and fight something called a dark Mew."

Jesse groaned. Finally, she stood up and was about to pull out her paper fan to smack James, but she lost energy and fell, pulling on his white Team Rocket jacket to keep steady. She stood back up, brushed her hair back, and growled. "I'm not doing it! That little monster tried to bury me alive in vines near that stupid lake and I'm not going anywhere near it!"

"Jesse..."

"No!" Jesse yelled, waking up Meowth. "You can go capture that freak of nature if you want to, but I'm not doing it!"

"Wha ? What's goin' on, huh?" Meowth asked, glancing around the town. "What happened ta everybody?" Meowth was used to waking up in weird situations, but this scene was a first.

Jesse, James, and Meowth watched as Mew floated away, toward a leveled stage in the center of town. They followed, each wondering silently if they were the last people and pokemon on the planet. They saw the twerps and their pokemon, lying still on the ash-covered ground, barely breathing, comatose. Jesse and James had spent years trying to capture Pikachu and defeat Ash's party, but he always defeated them. Now, here they were, helpless, in the perfect position for total victory - and these crooks with no promotions in sight but plenty of fanfics and websites devoted to them just couldn't find it in their hearts to do this to their chronic opponents. It just wasn't right.

Besides, they knew that, when it comes down to it, Ash would have been willing to stop a fight to save them.

Beside one of the speakers lay a red-haired woman that Jesse recognized as having been in the cell next to hers for a while. Jesse snorted.

"Hmph. Looks like her little get-out-of-jail free card didn't work out quite so well after all."

Jesse saw James and Mew staring at her. She laughed nervously. "Ha, ha. Just kidding! Really, you guys have to learn to lighten up!"

Mew stared at the young woman as she lay on the ground. Mew began to shine with a pink glow, and the woman gasped as she lifted slightly into the air. Her eyes flew open, she screamed and made Mew lose her concentration, dropping the woman down on the ground with a thud. Mew looked down on her sympathetically.

Jennifer gazed up at the young man and woman and the cat with the Egyptian motif thing on its head. She found it odd that it stood like Garfield instead of a normal cat. Then again, this whole world was too weird for her.

Mew floated just in front of her. Jennifer found herself too nervous to scream. Mew mewed, doing cheerful loop-de-loops in the air.

"Mew here says ya don't gotta worry," the cat said. "She's not the one who attacked da city."

"You talk?" Jennifer mumbled in shock. It's official, she thought to herself, this was one screwed up world.

"Look," the woman that Jennifer remembered was named Jesse sneered, "this is our Meowth. He can talk human talk and that's why he's a valuable member of Team Rocket!"

Jennifer stared at the trio. "Ooookayyy..." She couldn't understand how they could brag about being thieves so easily.

Mew mewed several times before flying high up into the air. Meowth translated as a bright white light surrounded them slowly, "Mew says we gotta go! We gotta find Celebii so's we can save da world or somet'ing."

Just as Jennifer felt herself slip away, she saw and grabbed the GS ball from the edge of the stage.

They soon found themselves standing next to a large lake in the middle of a forest. Jesse frowned and closed her eyes, refusing to look at the place where she nearly died. She's been on a sinking ship, she's been on a ghost ship, she's crashed multiple submarines in the ocean, she jumped hundreds of feet from the air into the ocean to let Lugia go save the world, and she fell among a couple of tons of plant life into this lake - if she had to suffer anymore water-type disasters, she'd seriously think about joining Team Magma's mission to vaporize all the water.

"What are we here for?" James asked. There was nothing around. No pokemon, no nothing - just Team Rocket, Jennifer, and Mew. "I mean, it's not like we should just EXPECT Celebii to be flying around out here."

Mew flew across the lake toward a large blue wavy four-legged object in the distance, the only other sign of life besides the trees. Jennifer strained to see. "What is that?" she asked.

Meowth squinted to see what she was talking about. "Dat's a Suicune. He's a Legendary Water Pokemon. He takes care of all fresh water and da people around here called him da North Wind."

"Why is Mew going over to him?"

"Probably to find out where Celebii is," James answered, quickly flipping through a guide book. It wasn't that he couldn't remember these pokemon, but the actual legend was something he never cared to think about, what with his … partner … nearly losing her life and all. "Celebii guards all plant life and Suicune gives the forest fresh water. If any pokemon might have heard of its whereabouts, it'd be Suicune."

Mew finally came back, mewing excitedly, then somberly. Everyone stared at Meowth.

Irritated, Meowth grumbled. He had an almost unique talent (ever since they met the Orange Islands Slowking, Meowth's pride has been taken down a notch), and it irked him when everyone got so dependent on his ability to communicate with everyone. "Mew says Celebii flew da coop. Suicune said Celebii didn't want to be around as an evil Mew went around rippin' da place up, so it went far into da future."

So they walked through the forest, disappointed. Soon they noticed a stone shrine half-covered in vines.

"Hey!" Jesse announced gleefully, "This is that shrine that Celebii uses to teleport through time!"

Jennifer walked up to it as Mew flew around her in circles, watching for any signs of danger. She could see a small rounded indentation on the surface of the shrine. Something that could hold a ball, she mused to herself. Before she reached for the GS ball, though, Mew stopped her.

"Mew says we gotta tink about how we're gonna catch Celebii," Meowth explained. "She says Celebii left in kind of a huff because one of da twoips captured it."

Jesse and Jennifer stared at each other for what seemed like an hour. Finally, Jennifer smiled. "You got any extra clothes?"