A/N: 10/3/15 - fixed a plot hole

"That's ridiculous." Jessie huffed.

James concentrated on the ground.

"So den where does your electricity come from? You gotta know that."

Jessie threw up her hands. "Water dams. Coal. Oil. Windmills."

James, not looking away from the ground, muttered. "There hasn't been coal or oil for decades now, Jessie."

"Okay, so—water dams, windmills." Jessie rolled her eyes. "Solar panels. Nuclear fission."

"But what powers those? They all need energy to run, and it has to come from somewhere."

"Coal…" Jessie trailed off. "That's what…that's what we were taught in school."

Meowth kicked a pebble. "So ya had an outdated book."

"But the initial energy…I actually don't know." James sighed. "I'm sure it's nothing, Meowth. But if it will make you feel better, I'll look up the records to where all the stolen Pokemon are sent."

"I don't mean to be unreasonable. But eavesdropping on dat…it kicks you in da gut."

Jessie bumped the cat on the shoulder. "I get it. Reminds me of a bad movie I saw where everybody's favorite snack ended up to be people. Had nightmares for a long time about that. Thinking about that stuff just makes you queasy."

"Let's head back to base. We'll look up the delivery records for the stolen Pokemon so we can all get a good night's sleep."

/

Ash didn't protest when Pikachu said her goodbyes. He figured she was leaving for an important reason, or else Pikachu wouldn't have given such an impassioned, though unintelligible, speech. When he offered to go with her, she refused.

"Pikapi-" She made an "X" with her arms. He had to stay behind. He wouldn't understand, and having a human travel with her and Wartortle would make them more conspicuous. They'd be challenged to Pokemon battles, or they'd be asked to help with random stranger's quests. He would just slow them down.

She gave him a hug, and Wartortle flashed a peace sign.

"You'll be back, right?"

"Pika!"

"C'mon. We have to find Charizard." Wartortle pushed his sunglasses up his face. "I already sent a message to Venusaur. He and a few others will be joining up with us in Cerulean. We'll plan there. For now, let's just take it by ear."

"Sure." Pikachu didn't feel like much of a leader.

/

Team Rocket's field base wasn't much to look at. Cinder blocks with white paint peeling, a cement floor. James started up his old, boxy laptop while Jessie drummed her fingers on the desk. Meowth, hands wringing behind his back, paced.

"Here they are." A few windows popped up on James's screen. "Let's just look at the last one."

A high-leveled Houndoom was sent to the Viridian Gym. Dozens of Pokemon were sent to casinos around the world. Hundreds for field agents. Jessie pointed to a data set.

"Look! Butch and Cassidy got a Sharpedo."

"Dat's not important, Jessie."

James scrolled down. A few dozen, mostly Rattata, were sent to Silph Co. And then a few more hundred Pokemon, mostly low-level normal and bug-types, were also sent to Silph Co., but the address listed was in Lavender Town.

Jessie leaned towards the screen. "I thought Team Rocket was out of Silph Co."

"Apparently not." James steepled his fingers, his eyes staring at the screen.

"And since when has Silph Co. had a branch in Lavender? You would think everybody would know about that."

Meowth didn't like where this was going. He didn't like the punch to his gut when Wartortle proposed the source of infinity energy, he didn't like that it made sense, and he didn't like that he wasn't waking up from this strange dream that, in his mind, must have been fueled by riceballs and eclairs.

James continued scrolling down the entries. "Some of the weaker Pokemon were always sent to Silph Co. to test Pokeballs, potions, TMs, who knows what else…but this…this is a lot."

Meowth wanted to say something, but he lost the words around the lump in his throat.

"But when did it start becoming this ridiculous? I know we're out of the loop, but something had to have changed." Jessie grabbed the laptop from James. "The numbers were nothing like that a few years ago, as far as I know." She kept going back. Some Pokemon were always sent to Silph Co.'s Lavender Branch but not in the hundreds like in the recent records. The jump happened that last January.

"So what happened in January?" James sat back. "Pull up the news from then…"

Jessie furrowed her brow as she scanned the Kanto Today summary for January. "Here. At the very end." She turned the screen around to face James and Meowth. " 'After years of transition, the last functioning nuclear power plants around the world have been decommissioned. Professor Catalpa, of Silph Co., notes that a renewable energy source called infinity energy is much more powerful and much safer for the public than nuclear energy.' "

Meowth squinted at the tiny print. "Dey really tried to hide dat, huh." He turned his back to Jessie and James. "And Team Rocket's a part of it."

James grimaced. "As far as I knew, we were just in the business of stealing patents, operating casinos, and running a sham gym. Not murder."

Jessie examined James's uniform, then her own. She stood up, striking a pose. "Prepare for trouble."

James stood. "Make it double."

"To protect the world from devastation."

"To unite all peoples within our nation."

"To denounce the evils of…lies…and hate…"

"To keep our—no, their—reach from the stars above."

"Jessie!"

"James!"

"Team Rocket must be stopped at the speed of light—"

"We quit now and prepare to fight."

There was a silence in the small room. Meowth was lost in his memory of being Top Cat—was he even Top Cat at all before Persian came along? Or was he just grateful to have food and a place to stay? His heart still twinged when he thought of Giovanni. He remembered the scratches under his chin, the glow of being shown off to the grunts…and then he remembered being assigned to field work when Persian came along. For years, he had convinced himself that Giovanni loved him, but he had come to realize that to the Mafioso, he was just a walking, talking novelty. Why didn't Giovanni cart him off with the Rattata and Pidgey to die? Did he care? He didn't. So what had gotten him to field work?

Jessie and James had shown him kindness, even though he was rude to his "underlings" at first. For all the grief Meowth put them through at the beginning, they never "forgot" to feed him, and they always listened to what he was saying.

"Meowth?"

He wiped away a tear. "Jessie? James? How in da world did I end up wit you guys? How did I get so lucky?"

Jessie and James looked to each other, eyebrows raised.

"You don't know? I thought somebody told you, which is why you thought you were our boss for so long."

Jessie scruffed the fur around Meowth's coin. "We asked for you, duh. We thought it'd be cool to be partnered with a talking Pokemon."

"I hope it was…"

"It is."

"I need to know…What woulda happened to me if ya didn't speak up?"

Their mouths dropped, and their eyes lowered.

"I'm a low-level normal type…"

"You were…oh, no…you were going to be sent out with the Pidgey and Rattata…" James covered his mouth.

For years Meowth thought he had gotten himself out of that jam, though he figured his fate was to be a Pokeball tester or casino prize, not to have the life sucked out of him in a power plant. He had sent applications to every department in Team Rocket and had assumed that his skills led him to field work. He was the only Pokemon who could talk, after all! But now, the memories of him job hunting were accompanied by the low buzz of a paper shredder as he walked out of each office he had applied to. He had thought it was a coincidence, that paper shredders buzzed a lot in HR. Now, after so much time, he realized Team Rocket had never taken him seriously. That is, except for Jessie and James. He kicked himself for his ego when he was first assigned to the two grunts.

"Jessie…James…" Meowth sat down. "I owe you one."