AN-

Finally, an update! I wasn't actually planning on posting this as a chapter- this was initially going to be one very long chapter as a finale, but I decided against that in favor of keeping it in readable chunks and updating sooner.

And yes, we are near the end! The next chapter will be the finale. I know I say it a lot, but thank you so much for all the amazing reviews! I treasure every one of them and can't tell you how much they motivate me to keep going. You're all awesome and I hope you enjoy!


How deep they were into the forest, Meowth couldn't tell. Ideally, they'd be at least a half mile away from the roads, but he wasn't banking on that. Every few minutes or so, they had to stop for Jessie to catch her breath, and he wasn't exactly moving fast either.

Crossing the car park had gone smoothly- with all the distraction of chaos and other Rockets fleeing the building, Meowth was fairly confident that they hadn't raised an eyebrow, let alone been followed. The terrain they now walked on was more difficult than smooth concrete, riddled with tree roots and rocks just waiting to snag any mis-timed footstep.

However far they'd made it, it would have to suffice. The fresh blood that kept the snaking rivers down Jessie's arm flowing was worrying, to say the least. It didn't seem life-threatening, but he still didn't want her to lose too much blood when professional help was so far out of reach.

So he slowed to a halt, the dappled sunlight painting polka-dots on his fur. Jessie, who'd made a stubborn point of keeping a few steps ahead of him, turned around at the sudden lack of footsteps behind her. She frowned.

"Is it... Is this far enough?" she questioned, not looking convinced by a long shot. Meowth wasn't either.

"Yeah," he said, and gestured for her to sit. "Let's fix ya up."

It was actually Jessie who did most of the work, simply because she had the most medical knowledge. Meowth was able to help, however, by slicing her discarded jacket into thick strips with which she then fashioned a tourniquet. Watching his bloodstained and half-dazed friend doctor herself was far from an easy feeling, but he was glad to have at least been of some use.

Jessie swung her arm at the elbow experimentally, eyes fixed on the makeshift bandage over her shoulder, almost daring blood to surface.

"How's it feel?" Meowth asked.

"Fine, I think," Jessie said as she braved rolling her shoulder back in its socket. "Yeah- I think that's as good as we're gonna get it."

Her eyes tore away from her arm and back to him, full of a different worry now. "Go find James," she told him. Meowth hesitated.

"Are- are ya sure dat-"

"I'm fine," she snapped, "just go! For all you know he's in far worse shape than me."

That was enough to set the urgency back into Meowth, and all his arguments slipped away.

"Stay hidden in da bushes or somethin'- I'll be back as soon as I find 'im," he blurted, and took off running the way they'd come.

Without any pit stops, it didn't take very long at all to get back to headquarters. As he made his way to the entrance, he was both relieved and unsettled by the absence of any of the earlier commotion. The noise that had been so crushing, shouts and scuffles broken up by the staccato notes of gunshots, now gave way to near silence. There were still distant thuds of boots against the floor, panicked shouts, but it was nothing like before. This was the aftermath, the dying ripples long after the rock had been dropped into the water.

He kept close to the floor on all-fours, just in case someone happened to recognise him, heading straight for their dormitory. The journey there was a blur of worry and thundering heartbeats bouncing around his heaving chest.

The door was already open, and he raced in, head turning this way and that, both hoping to see something, and hoping desperately not to. If anything had happened to him…

"James?" he called. There was no response, and he went to check in the bathroom. "Jimmy?"

Meowth looked under every piece of furniture, turned the room upside-down in his search- but it was all empty, all dreadfully and wonderfully empty. Not knowing was torture, but it was a lesser torture than having found a corpse.

A whoosh of noise sounded behind him, and he nearly jumped out of his skin, spinning around while his mind wrestled between flight and fight. Rather than some attacker, however, all that faced him was a small, floating silhouette, emerging from a fading white light. A couple more seconds, and its identity became evident.

"Inkay!"

The psychic pokemon chirped back at the sight of Meowth, who was still recovering from the surprise of seeing it here. In hindsight, he should have been expecting it- both Jessie and James had begun the habit of leaving their pokemon in HQ rather than carry them around on their persons. Once death was on the cards, putting them at risk just wasn't an option either were willing to consider.

"Inkay," Meowth continued, more hurried now, "did ya see where James went?"

His skills of translation weren't needed in this instant; the dissenting frown on Inkay's face bore a very clear 'no'. A familiar, sort of paternal instinct filled Meowth, one he was accustomed to feeling around young or baby pokemon.

"Okay," he replied in the calmest voice he could summon. "Why don'tcha jump back in your pokeball for the meantime, an' I'll go find James?"

"Inkay." Another 'no' that didn't need translation, though this one was more argumentative.

Meowth blew out a sigh, racking his brain for a compromise that wouldn't put the squid pokemon in jeopardy.

"I get it," he said. "Ya want ta help. 'Course ya do, he's ya trainer." He stifled a grimace. "All right, den- how's about you fly around headquarters, get an aerial view? I can cover da buildin', an' you can see if he's already left. Okay?"

This proved to be a better offer- Inkay trilled its agreement, and made a beeline for the open window.

"Whoa- hold on a sec!" Meowth called, and was relieved to see it oblige. "Where's ya pokeball? I gotta keep it safe till I give it back to James."

Inkay looked over to a half-open drawer, and with a burst of psychic energy, the pokeball was hovering through the air towards Meowth. He plucked it out of the air, managing a small grin at the unnecessary show of skill.

"T'anks. Uh, and Jessie's out in da forest- if ya go straight left from the entrance, she's not too far in. Anythin' happens an' ya go straight ta her, got it?"

The confusion on Inkay's face was agonising, and Meowth could sense the question coming far before the words made it to his ears:

"Meowth, what's happening?"

He'd seen it coming a mile off, and his heart sank anyway.

"It… It'd take me a long time to answer dat," he answered, vowing to be truthful. Inkay deserved that much at least, after so many months of silence. "An' I'll tell you, when dere's time. But we gotta hurry right now. It ain't safe 'round here."

He wondered if he would have accepted that response if he'd been the one posing the question, but regardless, Inkay didn't protest. It merely gave a sort of nod, determination and concern in its eyes as it resumed its path towards the window. Before it left, it turned to him again.

"Be careful, Meowth! We will find him."

Inkay was gone before he could even think up the beginnings of a reply.

Tearing himself away from the nagging sadness at his fellow Pokemon's reaction, he refocused on the task at hand. There was a lot more building to search before he was done here.

Meowth retreated back out into the hallway as he thought about where James was most likely to have gone, if he was still in the building at all. The sound of gunfire would have woken him up, for sure- perhaps they'd underestimated his capacity to take risk, and he'd gone to investigate.

The floor he was on was almost completely void of people, save for a locked storeroom he picked open to find several grunts barricaded inside. They cowered at his entrance, clearly expecting a gunman and not a cat.

Less tranquility could be credited to the floor where the assassination attempt had occurred. Bullet holes dotted the walls in short sprays, smears of blood on the waxed floor beneath. The meeting room was an eerie museum of death, bodies crumpled and stained scarlet, marionettes with cut strings.

People he'd recruited into the plan only days earlier, along with those who'd opposed them, committed to nothingness. Because of him.

The 'greater good' argument did nothing to soften that reality. Maybe all this destruction had opened up a better path- maybe not. Either way, none of them would get to see it.

Meowth shook himself out of that horror with the one thought currently keeping him going: he had a teammate to find. Grief could come later.

He searched room after room, and found them utterly abandoned. Even after checking all the cupboards and anything else a person could hide in, he found no one.

There were, however, a couple of stray corpses a good distance from the meeting room- he recognised one of them as a grunt who'd been in on the plan. He winced at the red slicked through the young man's curly blonde hair, the sunken and staring eyes of the woman on her back beside him.

At first, he thought that the droplets of blood trailing towards the elevator had come from the same wounds that had killed them, but soon realised that was unlikely. This wasn't a splatter, nor the same heavy bleeding that had accompanied their deaths. Meowth tightened his grip on Inkay's pokeball before pacing forward and pressing the button that would call the elevator up.

He flattened his back to the wall next to its entrance as the mechanism whirred quietly, bracing himself for someone with less than good intentions to come stumbling out. When the doors opened, however, there was nothing other than the accompanying 'ding'. He risked peering in, and was so taken aback by what he saw that no clear emotion stirred within him at first.

They'd done it.

The hole at the back of Carter's skull peered upwards at him like a single, black eye between bone and brain. What was left of the blood in his body had already succumbed to gravity, mottling his face and hands with what looked like bruises.

It brought him no pleasure to look, but Meowth lingered there for longer than he needed to. Whether it was a weird obligation to take in the blackened fruits of his efforts, or simply morbid curiosity, he couldn't say.

When he finally brought himself to leave the scene, he took with him a grim satisfaction.

At least it hadn't all been for nothing.


At this point in her life, pain was something with which Jessie was intimately familiar. In a job where being the target of electricity-induced explosions was a daily routine, broken bones and fractures too became commonplace. Of course, that was only the start of it- if you counted every fight, every overzealous police growlithe with teeth to match, every scrape and cut and bruise, she had enough experience with the feeling to become a professor on the subject.

The bullet wound fucking hurt.

In sheer amount, it wasn't nearly as bad as the beating Carter had put them through weeks earlier, but the sensation of it was so foreign to her. It was an ache and a sting and a wrench all at once.

Not that she couldn't take it.

There was a little blood on the bandage now, but not enough to worry her. The knot under her armpit was doing its job, something she'd attest to by the slight numbness in her fingertips.

Meowth was taking his time, which she hated- not only because it meant that he hadn't found James easily, but because it left so cruelly in the dark. Anything could be happening in there, and she'd be out here wondering, static amongst the thicket of leaves like an injured chess piece out of play.

"Ink?"

The pokemon's utterance made her jump so much that she felt shockwaves down her limbs, a reaction that was soon replaced with happy surprise upon the tilt of her head.

"Now where did you come from?" she asked with a disbelieving grin as Inkay floated around to face her. "And how on earth did you find me?"

The chatter of noises she got in response did little to clear the proverbial fog, but she nodded along to it anyway.

"Well, it's good to see you."

She pondered if she should ask it about James, but the worry in its eyes told her everything she needed to know. Inkay had no more information than she did.

They didn't have long to enjoy their reunion before the crunching of leaves signaled Meowth's return; the last flickers of hope she'd been battling withered and died upon seeing him alone. She had to remind herself that it could have been worse, that he might not have come back at all.

He held a cloth bag with both paws, which he dropped onto the ground before her.

"Jess, I…"

His voice was tired, diluted with heavy breaths.

"I couldn't find him," he continued, a confirmation she didn't require. "I checked everywhere- everywhere, I mean it. An' Inkay looked around outside-"

"Then where is he?!" Jessie interrupted, eyes creased and frantic. "What if he's-"

"He's not dead," Meowth cut in. He set a paw on her good shoulder, and tried to smile. "Jessie, I t'ink dis is a good thing. If he's gone, dat means he's in good shape! If he was badly hurt, or worse, we'd have found him by now."

"So what, he took off?" Jessie scoffed. "Why? Why would he do that if something bad hadn't happened?"

"In case ya hadn't noticed, somethin' bad did happen," Meowth countered. "He was in a buildin' dat turned into a mini war zone- dat's enough to spook anyone enough to get da hell outta dodge. Who knows- he could be lookin' for us."

As Jessie contemplated what he'd said, Meowth rummaged through the bag he'd brought with him.

"I took some medical supplies from storage- oh, an' I got ya pokeball, Inkay! Feel free if ya wanna take a rest."

It was beyond difficult not to let worry take the throne when her partner of so many years was missing, but Meowth had a point. The evidence pointed towards him being okay.

She hoped with everything she had that that was true, that his self-preservation was in full swing. If there was a good time for him to be a coward, it was now.


There were a few close-calls on the ferry that left James unsettled and Cassidy annoyed. Members of crew came down to the hold every now and then to retrieve supplies, and their visits spurred a scramble to hide in the broken maze of crates. James would dart between spots of cover, too tired for full fear to take effect as the oblivious staff went about their business.

The remainder of their days aboard the ship were spent doing little more than residing in their own thoughts. More of his time than he'd bargained for was spent crying- bitter, fearful tears as visual nightmares assaulted his brain. Some were flashbacks, not only to Carter's death, but to every other he'd witnessed before that, whilst others settled on conjured images of what ifs. Try as he might, he couldn't find a way to filter his presuming and pessimistic grief, nor pixelate the imagined crime scenes in which his partners were the main feature.

Cassidy avoided him for the most part when he got like this. She wasn't equipped to deal with it- besides, she had her own problems. But it wasn't for a lack of caring, and when he got particularly bad, she released her houndoom to go give him some pet therapy. Houndoom's idea of comfort, however, was to gnaw at his shoes with intermittent yaps, something that proved oddly effective; James was so confused by the behaviour that he forgot to cry for a moment.

It was undeniably soothing to have a pokemon curled against his legs, even if said pokemon had been sicced on him more than once in the past. He felt, alongside that strange affection, a blend of guilt and concern for his own pokemon, as he had so many times in the last twenty-four hours.

The ones stored at headquarters in Kanto, he wasn't so worried about. They were far away from the conflict, and safe behind layers of security that would make it very difficult for someone to just walk in and take them. It was Inkay's wellbeing that was playing on his mind.

James reminded himself that Inkay wasn't exactly a high-value pokemon in the eyes of the majority- it was young, and not even evolved. That made it unlikely that it would be a target for theft. Then again, it wasn't out of the question that something had happened to it. He'd left it in his clothes drawer, a safety measure that had seemed perfectly adequate a few days ago, and now seemed utterly careless.

Despite all this, he knew one other thing that made it a little easier on his conscience: Inkay was much safer back there than it was with him. At least there it was anonymous, had the chance to fly off and make a life for itself.

A wince crossed his face at the thought, and the sob that made it through his teeth was so routine that neither Cassidy nor Houndoom stirred. He'd sworn he wouldn't abandon it with the cop-out that it was better off without him- the last thing he wanted was for all this tumult to break that promise. In mouthed words through barely parted lips, James vowed to Inkay that he'd come back when he could.

He both hoped and doubted that he'd see it again.


On their fourth day aboard, the ship nestled at the northern docks of Johto, a fact they were alerted to by the captain's faded announcement through the speaker system out in the hall.

Camouflaging themselves amongst the other passengers wasn't difficult- the after-effects of James' head trauma had lessened considerably, allowing him to walk without turning into a staggering mess. What remained a problem was actually leaving the ship without being ID'd.

Whilst they made their way up to the main deck, the two of them kept a lookout for any convenient side doors they might be able to slip out through, but had no such luck. As they reached open air, their gazes drifted to the railings, and they settled on the same reluctant plan. It wasn't neat, but it would serve their needs.

Cassidy was the first to climb up, casting a glance around before she did so to check that there weren't any staff members looking their way. James followed suit, still not entirely coordinated as he hoisted himself up the thin strips of metal.

"Hurry," Cassidy hissed, glaring at his step-by-step approach; he looked like a toddler climbing up a bunk bed. He finally reached the top, and swung his legs over to sit atop the railing beside her.

The nearest structure in front of them was an anchored fishing boat, floating a few metres from the port. She figured they could use the boat as a stepping stone, then make a break for it before anyone had the chance to question them.

"Can you jump that far?" Cassidy asked, and then continued before he could answer, "Screw it, you'll have to."

She led by example, pushing her weight back on her hands and then springing off the side with impressive dexterity. Her landing wasn't as graceful- she grunted as she hit the side of the boat, side-first with one leg hanging off the edge. She swiftly pulled herself on board, wiped her palms on her uniform, and then looked to James expectantly.

He didn't like it up here, swaying on that arrhythmic tide that made his very core feel unbalanced. With the ache in his temple to boot, he felt almost drugged.

There was urgency to the situation, that he knew, and with the theoretical fact in mind, he mimicked Cassidy, pushing off the ferry with all the strength in his legs.

He fell, sprawling, through the air, and though it couldn't hold a candle to the heights he'd dropped from so many times before, James still felt his stomach flutter. He reached his arms out, bracing to grab the side of the fishing boat- he hit it, and suddenly all that build-up evaporated. Sure, it knocked the air out of him a little, but it hadn't really hurt.

Cassidy was already positioning herself to jump up to the wooden walkway, swinging her arms back for momentum. She made the leap neatly.

James planted his steps carefully on the boat, navigating the dip to wooden benches, then back up to the other side. He teetered precariously on the edge as he prepared to follow Cassidy's path across. It wasn't that the surface that he stood on was particularly narrow, but the choppiness of the waves rolling to shore made it tricky to stay upright.

Two waves hit the boat in quick succession, an unfair bending of the ocean's rules, and James stumbled sideways, a drunken acrobat. Convinced he was a step away from falling, he launched off of the side in a clumsy motion, and cleared all of half a metre of air before crashing into the water.

Icy coldness enveloped him in a single rush like electricity. He kicked his legs, resurfacing with a small gasp as salt stained his tongue and stung his eyes. James shook the drenched hair from his eyes as he treaded water, and looked ahead.

Cassidy was perched on the end of the walkway not far above him, something creeping onto her expression that he couldn't quite read. Then she burst out cackling, and that mystery was put to rest.

"You idiot!"

She was doubled over in the rather unique comedy of having witnessed James' blunder, giggling through a grin she hadn't shown him before. No malice, no cruelty. This was just funny.

Despite his predicament, and the fact that his clothes would take hours to dry, James found himself laughing too.


Both on land once again, they managed to sneak away before any witnesses called attention to their illegal departure. There was, although, the small detail of James dripping seawater everywhere he went, something that didn't exactly help the effort to blend in. Cassidy told him to wait, and strode off.

From one of the shops in the harborside village, she produced a new outfit for him: a striped t-shirt and navy jeans.

"What about shoes?" he asked upon her return, still shaking the water from his boots.

"You can give it a go if you want, but shoes are a hell of a lot harder to steal," Cassidy replied. "Just dry those as best you can and let's go."

James nodded. Considering the meagre amount of money they possessed, he hadn't been expecting a legitimate purchase. He wasn't about to protest her decision, either- his morals were no better.

He changed in a public restroom, then wrapped the sopping clothes in a plastic bag before putting them with the rest of their things. Discarding them seemed unwise, as he didn't know how easily they'd be able to come across new attire for a while, but besides that, there was an undeniable sentimental value. Despite all the horror he'd witnessed in Team Rocket, the name still felt like home.

"My friend's not too far from here," Cassidy said as he came back into the open. "I say we head for the railway and ride the tracks."

Sun still firmly overhead, there was daylight enough to walk. James was glad of the distraction of movement- after days cooped up in the ferry, his brain was running tired laps.

With sunlight and wind brushing his skin, it was a little easier to think of what he'd left behind.