ASH AU

By: FunahoMisaki

(A/N: I own nothing and read last chapter)

"Nice hit kid! Think you broke her jaw this time." The blue haired guy in the large Meowth balloon said grinning while the red haired girl smirked and the Meowth chuckled.

"Punch her for me will you?" The red haired woman asked causing Meowth to laugh.

"If we ask him to punch her we might as well punch her ourselves." Meowth said causing a few trainers to jerk. A talking Meowth?!

"Sorry about this folks. But we don't have choice. We'll have to take your Pokemon now." The woman said rolling her eyes and giving a sad smile to the other trainers.

"True. This job sucks and I don't want to do it but hey at least I can semi be myself." The guy said sighing and giving the other trainers a sad look.

"This is the only thing a 'weird and freaky' Meowth like me is good for according to most humans so I have slightly less problems than those two doing this." Meowth said rolling his eyes while the two adults, apparently the boy was James and the girl was Jessie, got into an argument about stealing the trainers Pokemon.

'A guy from a wealthy family that never let him be himself, a woman who wanted to be anything else but who's dreams were crushed when she was forced to be a criminal, and one Pokemon who is seen as weird and freaky by others for being different.'Arceus's words rang in Gary's heads as he watched the three argue in the balloon while the other trainers were sweat dropping at the scene. A quick glance at Ash showed that he heard Gary's thoughts and looked at the three curiously.

"Yes young Protector. These three are the ones who share a single soul split amongst three bodies. They hate being thieves but they have no other option available to them. Let's see if you can fix that shall we?" Arceus spoke in Gary's mind causing him to look around for a second wide eyed before calming down when he noticed that only Ash had heard the telepathic message.

"Hey you three don't want to do this right?" Gary called up to the three causing them to stop arguing and look at him along with everyone else.

"Nope but orders are orders. Hate working for Team Rocket but I don't have much of a choice." Jesse said shrugging her shoulders although she gave a small sigh at this.

"Well how bout I give you three a choice?" Gary asked as everyone stared between the three Rockets and one Trainer whose small brother was looking at him knowingly from where several other trainers were standing around and in front of him protectively.

"What do you mean?" James asked looking at Gary confused and causing Gary to smirk.

"Well option one is you can keep working for Team Rocket and doing stuff you don't want to do for what's probably minimum wage." Gary started off causing the Rockets to nod in understand.

"And option two?" Meowth asked raising an eyebrow at the boy who smirked wider at this.

"Option two is you quit Team Rocket and work for me as bodyguards and protectors for my little brother over there. It includes adequate pay, guaranteed adventure and traveling, and you can meet a lot more Pokemon and people in a much friendlier environment that way." Gary said adding the last bit flippantly while many jaws dropped at this and the Rockets looked shocked before thinking about it.

"And what kind of conditions would there be?" Jesse asked hesitantly as she exchanged looks with her two teammates.

"Well you have to protect my brother that's the main one. I find out you hurt him in any way though…well there won't be anything left to collect your pay. If there's some big disaster like a rampaging Pokemon or a natural disaster like an earthquake that you save him from I'll give you a bonus in pay. I find out you cause accidents like those to get more money and I'll cut your pay. You get free food. You get to travel around Kanto and probably a few other regions knowing Ashy which means you get to see more places, people, and Pokemon that you normally wouldn't. You also get help training your Pokemon and we'd support you if you want to enter something like a Contest or be a Pokemon Breeder instead." Gary said ticking them off of his fingers and causing the Rockets eyes to widen at the conditions. All of that…just for protecting one kid they weren't planning on hurting to begin with?!

"Well I don't know about you two but he had me at Free Food!" Meowth said loudly, causing his two friends and human partners to chuckle in fondness.

"Well there's a lot of benefits for just protecting some kid we probably weren't going to actively attack to begin with…let us get something other than this tacky uniform on kid and you have a deal." James said smiling although he and Jesse both scowled at their Rocket Uniforms.

"Get some other cloths and you can start protecting Ashy tomorrow. For now get rid of the balloon and help rebuild the Center roof." Gary said promptly causing the three to grin and nod as they grabbed some backpacks out of the bottom of the balloon and jumped off of it.

"You wanna pop that thing Jes?" James asked looking at his female counterpart who smirked and pulled a throwing needle out of a small pouch hidden at her waist line.

"Gladly." Jesse said smirking as she threw the needle at the Balloon with startling accuracy, causing it to pop and blow away out of the Center.

"Now let's get to work on the roof." Jesse said cracking her neck as she and James and Meowth scaled the wall and started patching up the roof with boards or pieces of plaster that were littered around the Center and outside of it. The trainers, officer, and nurse watched wide eyed as the three cracked small inside jokes at each other as they patched up the roof in record time.

"There that's the best we can do with the supplies on hand. Should hold up for a while, until a professional can do it at least." James said jumping through the small hole left in the roof like a sunlight and standing just in time to catch Jesse easily while she caught Meowth. Gary was the one who broke the stunned silence as James set Jesse on her feet and Jesse set Meowth on his feet.

"Hmm you three seem to have a lot of talents no one would guess after just meeting you. Tell you three what. Change into something other than the rocket uniforms and then come meet me and Ashy in our room at the hotel down the street in about an hour. Then you can give me a briefing on your skills and all and we'll work out your exact terms of contract."