Chapter 2: Dusting Off Dawn

The police station. Ash, Dawn, Zoey and the two creatures had gone there to chat with Team Rocket about the events of last night when the Jynx Jewel was stolen. The two sides met in a small room with one table and a handful of chairs. Jessie, James and Meowth were wearing stripes. Needless to say how disgusted they were to be dressed in such plain jumpsuits. "Why couldn't we wear single color and not black and white?" Jessie argued. The kids got annoyed by the complaining between the three.

"It's jailhouse policy," Ash, standing between seating Dawn and Zoey, stated. "We could argue in your case that you may look better in just blue." Jessie acted more steamed from that notion. It did sound like Ash was joking, so insert punchline here if you know.

"Anyway, we thought about talking to you about the night you broke into the museum in your pursuit of the Jynx Jewel," Dawn began to reveal. James had gone into hysterics. He knew that he and his cohorts were going after the jewel.

"WE went after the jewel for its value!" he whined loudly. The others sighed, flustered with that brazen admission.

"Thank you for opening the floodgates for us, James," Meowth grumbled. No kidding. "Because of that, even Pikachu shares no shame."

("I had no shame to begin with involving you, Meowth,") the mouse moaned. Meowth got a bit ticked at the mouse's shameless words. So the mouse was Pikachu.

"So you guys came after the Jynx Jewel despite the possibility that it was cursed, right?" Zoey pointed out. The three were scared straight. The thought that the targeted jewel was cursed stoked fear into Team Rocket, though they should be praising their lucky stars that they weren't cursed...with whatever it contained.

"This is the first time that we heard about a curse," Jessie huffed. "Do you know what the curse is?" That question was not one the kids could answer, thus the unified shaking of heads.

"If there is a curse, we definitely dodged a bullet," James relieved. A fact that could have been fatal. Zoey was interested with what happened last night that led to their arrest.

"By the way, how did you break into the museum?" she addressed. "Since you've already admitted to the crime of breaking in, you might as well surrender your approach to the jewel." They had no choice. They were already in the doghouse for illegally entering the museum.

"We broke in through the opposite wing since we had those sleep bombs on hand. The place seemed darker than usual and that the tripwires, security cameras and scan lights were disabled somehow. I thought they were doing a maintenance evaluation." Not quite but not a bad guess.

"The power to the museum was cut around quarter after one," Ash reviewed. "This could mean that Team Rocket entered while someone cut the power to steal the Jynx Jewel." Ash, you're overlooking something. Zoey had a quick ponder that maybe Ash was on the right track but more thorough in a speculation.

"Or maybe it was an inside job," she pondered. The whole room gawked at Zoey, thinking that she was onto something. Was this done by an employee of the museum?

"Are you saying that someone from the museum took the Jynx Jewel for us to be framed for?" Meowth gasped. It was possible.

"It may be. Ash, I heard that the department hired a professional to monitor the case." Ash not only would know who Zoey was referring to. He and Dawn did meet him at the scene of the crime.

"Yeah, Inspector Zenigata has already named a suspect of his own," he backtracked. "Some guy named Lupin. Doesn't help too much when we don't even know what he looks like." That was one letdown. That would also be enough for Team Rocket to walk away Scot-free.

"Well, since you've already filled out the false claims, I guess we can escape from this jail," Jessie smiled. That would be wiped when...

"That's not gonna be possible." Ash whipped out a huge stack of papers and presented them to the crew. "These are all the other charges filed against you by numerous locations from Pallet to Mount Coronet including Pokémon kidnapping, illegal Pokémon poaching, alleged child endangerment, alleged child kidnapping, vandalism, destruction of public and private property, felony assault... here's an interesting one, embezzlement." Embezzlement? "How much were you raking from your boss? It's gotta be in the millions if not billions with all those machines and contraptions." There had to be a history for Ash to bring up other moments between him and Team Rocket.

"We could've had more money in our pockets if not for the fact that you keep destroying them!" Ash scoffed at that retort, poking allegations of defense.

"Didn't I mention the alleged child endangerment charges?" Jessie began to fidget. Good comeback, Ash.

"He's got you there, Jessie," Zoey smirked. The Rockets sighed, flustered with the other criminal acts. The three exited the interrogation room and guards escorted Team Rocket back to their cells. The others gathered in the lobby to discuss the information from the meeting. Team Rocket probably won't see another day from their long rap sheet. For some odd reason, Zoey had distrust about who was hired to aid in the investigation. "This Zenigata guy sounds like a joke who has a vendetta on this Lupin character." When Ash had requested to help Zenigata with the caper, Zenigata's reaction was blow off the trainer with Dawn practically backing him up.

"If you ask me, I believe he's pretty self-centered and probably more headstrong than me and that's hard enough to do." The headstrong or self-centered part? "Though, I do somewhat admire his tenacity." Was now the time to brag about that? That's when Jenny came back to the station from the scene, Dawn the first to eye her.

"So what's new from the scene, Officer Jenny?" she asked. Jenny glared blankly at the threesome like she had no clue on what she was talking about.

"I was just on my way over there," she replied, a bit stunned about the question. Wait...on her way over? She wasn't over there to begin with? The others were stunned and confused. If that's Jenny, then who's at the museum with Zenigata and Brock?

"You mean...you've been here this whole time?" Ash hiccuped.

"Yeah, I was the one who gathered all the warrants and filed charges on Team Rocket." Could Ash and Dawn have been played for fools?

"You don't suppose any of your sisters or stepsisters got wind and took control of the case, could they?" Zoey questioned.

"Not that I'm aware of, no." Nothing made sense. Jenny was here. Was there an impersonator with the inspector and breeder? It could explain why Croagunk chose not to punish Brock. Something wasn't exactly right and no one suspected a thing. Talk about a smooth criminal and not relating it to Michael Jackson or the Alien Ant Farm for that matter.

"Zoey, you might be the case-breaker in this," Ash awed. "It may be an inside job as you pointed to and the Jenny inside might be covering up clues to help whoever is behind it all." That's when Hamby raced into the door, passing everyone on sight. "Officer Hamby?" Jenny and Ash raced into what appeared to be a computer lab.

"Peter, what's going on?" Hamby, or Peter by Jenny's standard, used a scanner to...well, scan a paper. That paper was an outline of what may have been tire treads. "Tire tracks?"

"That's right, Chief," Peter replied. "I found them outside the wing adjacent to the museum. Considering that there always foot traffic, this finding got me thinking that the new inspector may be correct about the elusive Lupin the Third." The plot thickens. The screen revealed a scrawny raven-haired man with slick sideburns. He wore a red tuxedo shirt with a white necktie and white bell-bottom pants. So that's Lupin the Third? "Arsène Lupin the Third, a textile professional of a thief. He has been all over the world stealing from numerous companies, landmarks, corporations...you name it, he's been there. There are over 1,500 warrants for all sorts of theft and theft-related crimes." That's a record. Lupin was a dangerous threat. That's when three more figures entered the scene. One was a bearded man in blue, almost in the same fashion as Lupin, only hiding most of his face with a blue fedora hat as well. There was another raven-haired man who looked like a samurai from the feudal era with straw sandals and the feudal garb. The last was a busty brunette female in a racing jumpsuit fitted with high-heeled boots. Okay, Peter, who are they? "Lupin is the head of his thieving team. By him is his sharpshooter, Daisuke Jigen, his swordsman, Goemon Ishikawa the 13th, and his seductress, Fujiko Mine. We're talking about a band of thieves." No wonder the economy's struggling. Thieves and robbers are taking the money and making taxpayers replace it. Not fair. That's when Ash's mind thought back to when they met the phony Jenny.

"That's gotta be who we were talking to at the scene and that means Lupin disguised himself to be a renown detective and Fujiko as the Officer Jenny," Ash hypothesized. "Do you know where the vehicle leads off to?"

"I do, as a matter of fact. There's a forest a few miles from here where the tire treads go towards. No doubt that's where they've got their cache of loot." Ash and Jenny bobbed heads, acknowledging a plan.

"Jenny, you and Dawn head back to the museum. Zoey and I can go to the forest and find the hideout. Brock may be in trouble."

"You got it," Jenny agreed. Both ran back to the lobby and displayed plans. Once plotted, Ash, Zoey and Pikachu raced toward the forest in the distance while Jenny, Dawn and the other creatures returned to the museum where Brock, the suspicious Jenny and Zenigata were reviewing notes with the security guards.

"Brock, get back here!" Dawn yelled for the breeder. The group turned to see Dawn and Jenny, both Jennies getting a chance to eye each other. The one Jenny had a dead look at the other Jenny, believing that she was Fujiko.

"Hands up, you imposter!" Jenny accused the other. The other Jenny smiled. So she was the fake. "Fujiko Mine, you're under arrest for impersonation of a law-enforcement officer and aiding and embedding a criminal." You had to admit, she played everyone for fools. The other Jenny smiled, amazed at how quickly she had been found out. Zenigata was dumbstruck with working alongside an enemy.

"Certainly took you awhile to figure out what's going on," Jenny, or Fujiko sneered with a new sensual voice. She tore off her mask, exposing the brunette vixen. Zenigata had to be feeling pretty stupid for allowing an enemy to get this close to him without tripping his radar. Then, Fujiko unveil a trigger. She wasn't going to... "Now if you'll excuse me..." She hit the button which plumed smoke from numerous directions. Everyone covered their faces when...

"AH!" Dawn yelped. What was going on? When a portion of the smoke cleared, Brock, Dawn and Fujiko vanished. Zenigata bolted out to see a classic 1930's Mercedes-Benz automotive drive away at unusually high speeds with what appeared to be Brock and Fujiko...but no Dawn!

"We should be fine, Brock." Brock's okay but what about Dawn? The officers have cleared up the smoke, yet there was no sign of anyone. Jenny spotted Croagunk and Dawn's Pokémon. Help was needed.

"Piplup, go find Ash and Zoey!" she ordered. "Tell them of the events!" Piplup bobbed a nod before getting a froggy-back ride on Croagunk. What happened to Dawn? What did Fujiko want with Brock and can Zenigata keep his head straight? We're not sure about the last part as possible but let's hope Ash and Zoey can somehow rescue the blue-haired damsel in distress.

TO BE CONTINUED...