"Jessie?" A voice came out of the darkness. "Jessie."
"Oh. I'm sorry I must have dozed off." Jessie awoke atop a large boulder next to a beautiful river. The sun was just going down and red light was coming in through the trees.
Jessie let out a sigh. She got up and walked towards the water. The water felt freezing as it pooled around her ankles. Usually she would retreat back. She hated the cold. But for some reason she just felt like she had to keep going.
"Jessie?" the disembodied voice returned.
She was waist deep in the water. For some reason she was wearing a white cotton dress. She owned nothing like it and didn't remember putting it on. She watched as the skirt fluttered in the water and floated up past her thigh.
"Jessie."
She turned and faced against the current. Then she slowly leaned back and let the water pull her down stream.
She felt warm again as familiar hands picked her up out of the water.
Suddenly she was back in her dorm room. Still soaking wet in her dress she sat on her bed, struck by the absence of the man in the river.
James walked in and closed the door. Before she knew it he was on top of her was water was rushing in from the windows and from underneath the door. The more passionately she kissed him the faster the water rushed in and soon she was underwater.
"Jessie!" Jessie felt a familiar hand on her shoulder. "Come on it's morning, we have to get going."
Jessie woke up in her usual sleeping bag where she James and Meowth had settled down for the night, next to a small stream. What a weird dream. Jessie rubbed her eyes. By the time she got up to pack her things, she had forgotten most of the dream.
Before putting on her gloves, Jessie knelt down by the stream and splashed water on her face. The cold water brought back vague memories of the strange dream. That's right, I dreamt I
was swimming. Swimming? Or drowning? I wonder what that is supposed to represent? She pondered this as she packed up for the day ahead.
As she bent down to place some of her belongings in the basket she felt a sharp pain in her back. "I sure hope the boss will send us some money soon so we can have some proper sleeping arrangements for a change. My back kills!" Jessie was sick of sleeping outdoors.
"Well if we bring him that pikachu maybe he will." James sounded hopeful.
Jessie was still thinking about that dream. "Hey didn't you say they were looking for some water pokemon? Maybe we should try to capture some too." Jessie didn't particularly care for water pokemon, but as any good trainer knows, you have to be ready for any type of attack.
"Well why don't we just follow the river? It's bound to lead to the ocean." Meowth pointed out.
After a little hike down river, Team Rocket found a small strand littered with driftwood and what looked like the remains of a ship. As they got closer, they could see that a small wooden ship was wrecked on the shore.
"Ooh, maybe we'll find some buried treasure!" James ran off to look through the wreck for some rich stuff.
While James was off in his own little world pretending to be a pirate, a sleepy little face appeared from inside the ship's cracked open hull.
"Waaah! What is that thing?" Jessie was caught off guard by the little guy.
"Huh?" James turned his attention to the adolescent pokemon "Ooh! It's a Bidoof!" After a short moment of admiring the adorable little guy James shot Jessie a mischievous look and said "Let's capture it!"
The thing was tiny so Jessie figured she could just throw a pokeball at it and see what happened.
After a few nerve-wracking moments, the pokeball opened up and out came bidoof.
"Huh? Oh well. Arbok! Use Acid!" Arbok came out of his pokeball and attacked the bidoof. The bidoof dodged it and hid behind James.
"Huh?" James laughed. "What are you doing?"
"James quick, use koffing!"
"Aww... Jessie look. He likes me!" The bidoof clearly felt safe behind James. He picked it up and looked it in the eye. "So what's your story kid? Do you live here? Where's the rest of the bidoof clan huh?" James recalled seeing Bidoof living in large communities.
"Bi... Bidooof..." The pokemon was clearly distressed. It began to cry.
"Aww..." James held the bidoof close to comfot it.
Just as Jessie was about to comment on how cute the two of them were together, Meowth chimed in. "All right that's enough, just capture the thing already! The thing's pathetic, it doesn't even have a family."
James shot Meowth a dirty look. "Bob is not pathetic, he's my little buddy!"
Jessie and Meowth both cocked their heads at him. "Bob? You named it?"
James remembered when he was little he used the alias Bob for a while after running away from home. He knew what it was like to have no family.
"Yes. This is Bob and he says he was once captain of this here ship so treat him with respect! Isn't that right Bob? You don't need other Bidoof cramping your style! You're your own man! Why don't you come with us and when we get rich some day, we'll build you a bigger better ship! What do you say?"
Jessie and Meowth continued to stare. "He's finally lost it" Meowth cautiously whispered to Jessie.
"No kidding." Replied Jessie. Who knows, maybe we could get some use out of this little runt.
"BI, bi bi bidoof!" Captain Bob clapped his little paws together and smiled. Maybe the bidoof wasn't really ever captain of a ship, but James's whimsical stories were just what the little guy needed to cheer up. In all likelihood, the pokemon was just abandoned. Either by a trainer or by the other Bidoof.
The other strange thing about him was that he had dog tags around his neck. Captain Robert Hallow. They had belonged to a human at one point. James's seemingly random name for him made sense now. Well at least this pokemon has some kind of fashion sense. Jessie smiled.
As the three of them talked over what to do next, Captain Bob stood on his back legs watching them talk. He turned his attention back and forth, taking in what they were saying. He was almost human.
Okay, so enter Captain Bob. Again. (If you read my previous fic.) So this is actually how they find him, but the story line is a little different in this one. The events in the previous fic (A Curious New Beginning) don't take place until much later. FYI
And yes I know it is very unlikely that Arbok Koffing and Bidoof would be in the same episode but Arbok and Koffing are the two I remember most of theirs and I just kinda like them... They never should have gotten rid of them.