The Dark Side of Innocence
-PART EIGHT-
by Anna Sartin
.
"She'll be all right, Mondo," Lana tried to assure her young companion, who was gazing unhappily in the direction of the cabin they had just left. "We're all going to be fine."
Mondo turned and looked at her. Why didn't he believe that? Now that they were on their way back every shred of confidence he possessed felt as though it was being stripped away. A feeling of dread hung over him.
Meowth curled up and went to sleep, seemingly unconcerned.
"Miss Lana, why did you join Team Rocket?" Mondo asked, deciding to engage her in conversation to take his mind off his fears. Lana was sitting down in the basket to take her weight off of her twisted ankle, leaving Mondo to keep watch.
"My father was a Rocket," Lana answered. "He joined Team Rocket when I was a child. When he died on a mission six years ago, I dropped out of medical school and decided to follow in his footsteps. My brother David idolized our father and he idolized me when I joined Team Rocket. My mother hated me for it." The bitterness in her voice was plain.
"Why?" asked Mondo.
"She blamed Team Rocket for his death. When I left school and went to train at Team Rocket's academy she never forgave me. I came home every weekend to visit, but that was mostly for David's sake. Mother rarely spoke to me. By the time I began my medical training at Team Rocket HQ she wasn't speaking to me at all." She closed her eyes for moment, remembering the last conversation she'd ever had with her mother. Her words still echoed in her mind...
You aren't my daughter anymore. You belong to them.
"Then one day I came home and found everything was gone," Lana continued. "Clothes, food, furniture... the house was empty. The neighbors told me she moved everything out in the middle of the night and vanished, taking David with her. I haven't seen them since."
"Do you miss them?" Mondo whispered.
A look of pain swept across Lana's face. "My brother and I were always close," she responded after a moment. "I often wonder where he is and what he's doing."
"Maybe you'll find him someday," Mondo offered, trying to sound cheerful.
"Maybe... but I doubt it. I'll probably never see my family again." She looked up at Mondo sadly. "That's the price I paid... for selling my soul to Team Rocket."
Mondo looked away from her without saying anything. There was nothing he could say.
. . .
Night had fallen over Team Rocket Headquarters by the time the Meowth balloon landed there. Lana noted that Giovanni was there; his helicopter was parked on top of the roof. The trio hoped they would be able to make it to Jessie and James' quarters before anyone spotted them. Hope failed them.
"Hey, Mondo, the boss wants to see you!" a familiar voice informed him as he entered the building.
"Miss Domino!"
"He sent word for you to report to him this morning. Where have you BEEN?" Domino asked, pushing him in the direction of the elevators.
Mondo felt like a Mareep being led to the slaughter. He stared after Lana with a sick expression as she walked in with Meowth in her arms.
"Later, Mondo!" she smiled casually. "Thanks again for helping me with this Pokémon that escaped from the lab!"
Mondo stared helplessly as she walked away without giving him a second glance. She was just going to walk away and LEAVE him? Domino continued to push him down the hall and he felt another lump in his throat as they rode the elevator to the top floor. She shoved him into Giovanni's office, just as his secretary was leaving.
"Sir! I've brought the rookie that you sent for!"
Giovanni looked up from the report he was reviewing. "Ah, excellent 009!" he praised Domino. He then glared at Mondo. "About time! You were supposed to report to me this morning!"
"I-I-I'm sorry, Sir," Mondo stuttered, standing at attention. "I was helping one of the scientists."
"All DAY?"
Mondo cringed, but forced himself to calm down. He couldn't afford for Giovanni to think that he was acting suspicious. "Y-yes, sir. She needed help with some field research."
Domino raised an eyebrow. Field research? Lana hadn't said anything about field research.
"You may leave now, 009," Giovanni told Domino, without taking his eyes off Mondo. The tone in his voice told her that this was an order, not a suggestion, and Domino promptly left the room. When the electric door closed behind her she immediately began eavesdropping. The boss had never sent her out of the room to yell at another Rocket before, even other members of the Elite. Giovanni dismissing his best agent so that he could hold a private meeting with someone as low on the Team Rocket totem pole as Mondo was an occurrence so incredible that it was almost unbelievable. Had it not peaked her curiosity Domino would have found the notion rather insulting. But her Elite Rocket instincts were telling her that if she stuck around she might learn something worth knowing.
On the other side of the door, Giovanni gazed steadily at Mondo. "I assumed you'd gone off with those three useless incompetents again. Have you seen them?"
"No, sir."
"I'm glad to see their constant failure hasn't rubbed off on you, at least. But it's time you were reassigned. They've both been demoted and are no longer worthy of your assistance."
"You mean Miss Jessie and James are no longer my seniors?" Mondo asked, genuinely shocked.
"That's right," he affirmed. "Every assignment I've ever given them has been a complete disaster and the cost of their many failures has come straight out of my pocket. At one point they were deleted from the Team Rocket database altogether but one of our recruiters reenlisted them while they were in the Johto region. They've contributed nothing to Team Rocket since then, despite the many chances and even promotions I've given them. I order them to steal Pokémon and they come back empty-handed. I give them assignments to gather information and they disappear for months at a time before calling me with excuses and lies. I send them to build bases and establish a Team Rocket presence in other regions and they have the audacity to call me claiming the bases were destroyed. Destroyed!"
Giovanni banged his fist on his desk causing Mondo to flinch. Everyone at HQ knew that Jessie, James and Meowth were not the boss's favorite topic of conversation, but Mondo had never expected to be called into his office to listen to him go on a tirade.
"Destroyed by their own incompetence, no doubt!" Giovanni continued. "I've tried promoting them, demoting them, firing them, rehiring them and then beginning the whole process all over again. I've given those blundering fools the opportunity to try and make themselves useful in every region of the known world! They are totally incompetent. You'd do better to assist a team like Butch and Cassidy."
"If they can stay out of jail long enough," Mondo muttered, forgetting his place for a moment.
"Yes, you have a point," Giovanni replied darkly, reconsidering his last statement. "Lately they seem to have become as inept as those bumbling idiots you were training under. Perhaps they should have joined Professor Namba..."
Mondo shuddered. Professor Namba had been working for free since the destruction of the Team Rocket command center he'd been in charge of. Giovanni was taking the cost of the destroyed base out of Namba's salary (which by Mondo's estimation would be for the rest of the poor man's life) and the scientist had barely managed to escape "elimination" when he tried to leave the organization. His usefulness as a scientific genius kept him alive, but Giovanni was getting tired of having his bases blown up. How Jessie and James had gotten away with wrecking the Viridian City gym was a mystery.
"But nevermind..." Giovanni reached down to pet his Persian. "I called you here to report how those pills I gave you are working."
The blood drained from Mondo's face. "I... I haven't been taking them."
"Why?"
"Miss Lana told me not to," he answered, trying not to sound as nervous as he felt. "She said there had been some... problems with them." He could only hope that he wasn't creating a huge problem for Lana by pointing the finger at her, but he had no idea what else to do and no time to think about it.
Giovanni's face darkened. "What kind of PROBLEMS did she say?" he asked, opening the drawer in his desk where Mondo knew his gun was kept.
"Sh-she didn't," Mondo gulped, trying not to pass out in his panic. Forget worrying about Lana, he needed to start worrying about himself! "She just made me give them back!"
Giovanni closed the drawer, and Mondo breathed an inner sigh of relief.
"Very well. That experiment has been put on hold due to some... complications. In the meantime, I'm giving you a new assignment. I want you to track down James and his team and tell them to report to me at once!"
"Yes, sir!"
"If for some reason they refuse to follow my orders I want you to bring them here yourself... by whatever means necessary."
Mondo stared at the man in horror. He was being ordered to deliver his comrades to the very man he had just helped them escape from. Now he could not return to the cabin for fear of being followed, not unless Meowth and Lana succeeded in their plan... Suddenly his attempt to stand at perfect attention was disrupted as he sneezed. He quickly apologized. He didn't feel well in the least, but he was determined not to show any weakness here.
"And Mondo?" Giovanni continued.
"Sir?"
"You've spent several years at the bottom ranks of this organization. If you were to succeed in carrying out my orders, you could easily be promoted to a full Dan'in."
Now Mondo understood completely. Never had anything been more horribly clear to him. Giovanni figured Jessie and James would contact their "pet" assistant-trainee eventually, and if they refused to return to HQ then Mondo could use their trust in him to easily deceive them. After all, any rookie could be bribed with the promise of a promotion from the boss, right?
He thinks I can be bought! Mondo thought angrily after Giovanni had dismissed him. He thinks I'll deliver James into his hands, just so that I can wear one of those ugly black uniforms!
Domino had removed herself from the office door before it opened and hidden in the utility closet across the hall. Mondo didn't notice when the closet door opened, and Domino silently began shadowing his footsteps.
. . . . . .
Meowth lay sprawled out on Jessie's bed, wondering how his friends were doing back at the cabin. He already missed them far more than he cared to admit.
"Jess 'n Jimmy'll be okay," he told himself, before a knock at the door interrupted his thoughts.
"Everything okay?" he asked, as he let Lana in. The two of them had split up after the incident with Domino, so that Lana could go to the labs and make a few excuses as to where she had disappeared to for the past few days. He hadn't expected her back so soon.
"I hope so," Lana responded, opening the door to Jessie and James' hall closet and retrieving the lab coat she had left there. "I tried to be as quick as possible but I hope I didn't arouse anyone's suspicion in the process. Is Mondo back yet?"
"Not yet," Meowth answered. "Hope he's not in trouble with-"
Ring ring ring! Ring ring ring! Phone call! Phone call!
Ring ring ring! Ring ring ring! Phone call! Phone call!
Pulling on her lab coat, Lana rushed to answer the phone. A knock at the door (followed by a familiar sneeze from the other side) stopped her in her tracks, and both she and Meowth smiled, relieved. Meowth answered the door while she resumed her rush to the phone.
"What's da matter with you?" Meowth asked, noticing at once the storm-cloud expression on Mondo's face as he let him in.
"I hate that man!" Mondo yelled, storming in. "He wants me to sell out Jessie and James! He said he would promote me if I find them and bring them to him... by whatever means necessary!" Feeling rather dizzy, he leaned against the wall and slid to the floor. "I hate this..." he whispered.
"Ya don't look too good," Meowth commented.
"I don't feel well at all..." Mondo responded. His head felt stuffed and heavy, and his stomach was in knots from the stress. "Do you know what he told me?" he asked softly. "He told me that Jessie and James were being demoted... for constant failure. They always tried so hard to please him, and he never cared... not at all."
Meowth sighed. Over the years Jessie and James had told Mondo all kinds of success stories about their "glittering careers" in Team Rocket. Naturally these stories had little or nothing to do with the actual truth (as Meowth loved to point out) but it was obvious Mondo still loved hearing them. At first they had done this so that Mondo couldn't take word of their failure back to the boss, but even after their day-to-day failure became common knowledge they still continued to lie, simply because they couldn't bear to admit the truth. The look of adoration in Mondo's eyes filled them all with hope, and gave them a much-needed ego boost when they were feeling down.
Of course, Mondo had been aware of their hardships. It was no secret that his beloved seniors had lost Giovanni's favor, and that they had spent years trying to catch the same Pikachu (which they told him was a "secret mission" from the boss). But no matter how many times they failed, no one could destroy Mondo's belief that Jessie, James, and Meowth were the perfect team. And all three of them had taken great comfort in that.
"Yeah..." Meowth sighed sadly. "We never was very good at keepin' him happy. At one point we wasn't just demoted, we was all kicked OUT! And if only we'd known better, we wouldn't have joined up again!"
Mondo thought about that. He had never dreamed they could be demoted back to rookie level, anymore than he could have imagined that Giovanni would find them all so worthless that he would try to use them for lab rats. But as much as he wished his friends could have been spared the horror they had been put through, he hated the thought of them leaving Team Rocket without him even more. What if they had chosen to just walk away after learning that they had been fired? He might have never seen them again. Rather they were his seniors or just his fellow rookies, they were still the same three friends he loved and adored and he didn't want to lose them. And now that they were safely away from the clutches of Team Rocket, he had to make sure that THEY didn't lose HIM. He wiped his forehead, trying to ignore the fever he knew was creeping up on him.
"I can't get sick now..." he told himself. "I can't..."
"Who was on da phone?" Meowth asked Lana when she came out of the bedroom a few minutes later.
"Jessie," Lana replied. "I told her she could reach us here if she needed to."
"Is she okay?" Mondo asked, looking up.
"James had another seizure and she was a bit panicked, that's all. She just needed some reassurance. But those kids showed up after we left and are staying with her at the cabin tonight, so at least she won't be alone..."
"Brock, Ash and Misty?" Mondo asked. "Why are they there?"
"They needed a place to stay for the night and it's on their way out of town," Lana responded. "Brock made them all dinner and Misty made something called "Mystery Stew" for Jessie..."
Meowth shivered in disgust, as memories of Misty's stew haunted him. She had made it once when Brock was sick and he, James and Jessie had stolen a taste of it. Both he and James agreed that the female member of the original twerp-trio was probably the only person on the planet whose cooking was worse than Jessie's. Why Jessie loved that stew was beyond them, and how she could eat it without becoming violently ill was one of the great mysteries of the world. All he could figure was that she must have taste buds of steel and an iron stomach.
"Mystery Stew?" Mondo asked, noticing Meowth's reaction. It was his experience that food with "mystery" in the title usually tasted like the world would have been better off if the mystery had never been discovered. The "Mystery Meat" in the HQ cafeteria was a prime example of this.
"At any rate I'm glad she's not going to be alone," Lana said, fishing the key out of the pocket of her lab coat. "At least for tonight, anyway. We've got to get started if we're going to carry out our plan..."
"Can we really DO this?" Mondo asked.
"We wouldn't have come back if we couldn't," Lana replied logically. "I stopped off at the labs while you were in Giovanni's office. Fortunately my lab assistants have been seeing to my duties. I told them I'd been away conducting some field research."
At least that matches the story I told Giovanni. Mondo thought.
"I dismissed them for the night but I don't know how I'm going to get everyone else out of the labs," Lana continued.
"Maybe ya won't need to," Meowth suggested. "If we was real quiet maybe nobody'll notice what we're doing."
"They may not notice us stealing one of the lab specimens, but they'll notice it's gone tomorrow morning when someone comes in to feed it!" Lana argued. "Then what?"
Feeling tired, miserable and feverish, Mondo tuned out their conversation. Let them figure out the details of their plan, he doubted he could offer any valuable input anyway. He just wanted to do his part in bringing Giovanni down so that everyone would be safe and he could go home to Jessie.
Unbeknownst to the three conspirators in Jessie and James' old quarters, an eavesdropper was listening thoughtfully to their conversation from out in the hall. When an agreement was finally reached between Lana and Meowth, Agent 009 removed herself from her listening post and headed in the direction of the labs.
. . . . . .
A short time later, Lana slowly led Meowth and Mondo though the huge network of labs under Team Rocket Headquarters. To their surprise, the place was dark and totally empty.
"Why ain't 'dere anybody here?" asked Meowth.
"I... don't know..." Lana whispered, looking around curiously. "This place was full of people when I came down here earlier."
They walked slowly through the network of laboratories, computer rooms, weapons lockers, and rows and rows of caged Pokémon.
"At least we don't have ta bother gettin' everyone outta here," Meowth remarked.
"Yeah, but I wonder why everyone left so suddenly?" Lana asked softly, more to herself than her companions.
Lagging behind an exhausted Mondo was fighting both his sickness and his overwhelming fear. Taking down Giovanni was the most dangerous thing any of them had ever attempted, and if something went wrong, it could cost all of them their lives. The reality of the situation had finally hit home. He struggled to be brave, to remember that he was doing this so that Jessie and James would be safe, but he was fighting a losing battle. He had never been more terrified in his life.
"Mondo, what's that matter?" Lana asked.
"I'm scared," he whispered, his voice shaking as he unsuccessfully attempted to keep from sobbing.
"Don't be afraid," she whispered, turning around and putting her hands on his shoulders firmly. "Whatever happens, we're all in this together."
Mondo nodded and wiped his eyes.
They reached the door to the lab where Lana and her assistants worked. Like all of the private laboratories, it was locked by a state-of-the-art security system. Lana punched in the six-digit entry code on the key pad and the door opened.
"The security code is 7-6-2-5-3-8," she told them. "It spells 'rocket' on a telephone keypad."
Mondo laughed weakly. "That's clever."
Lana shrugged and limped inside, motioning for them to follow her. "I didn't choose it. I trained under Professor Sebastian before he was reassigned to the Johto region. This used to be his lab."
"Do you have to reenter the code to lock the door back?" Mondo asked.
"No, it locks on its own when you shut it."
They stopped in front of two rows of cages. All were empty except for one, where a Persian was twitching in its sleep. Lana pulled the key out of her pocket and fit it into the Persian's cage, but hesitated to turn it.
"This should be easy pickin's," Meowth remarked. "All we gotta do is switch this drugged Persian with da boss's Persian, and..."
"He'll get exactly what he deserves!" Mondo finished.
Lana left the key in the keyhole and limped over to her desk. Her injured ankle was hurting her considerably, but she tried to consol herself with the knowledge that if their plan worked she could go back to the cabin and lay around for as long as it suited her. After all, she would be out of a job, wouldn't she? She grabbed one of the black and white Team Rocket pokéballs from out of her desk and handed it to Mondo. "Use this to capture the Persian when I get it out of the cage."
"Right..." Mondo took the pokéball and stared at the red R on the black side. Team Rocket's pokéballs could capture almost any Pokémon, rather it belonged to someone or not. They could use one later to capture Giovanni's Persian when they made the switch. "But what if it's too strong and the pokéball won't hold it?"
Lana stared at the key to the Persian's cage and slowly moved her hand to turn it. "Hopefully we won't have to find that out..."
As she opened the door, the seemingly asleep Persian watched Lana through slitted eyes. When she unwisely moved to touch the animal her error would prove to be a fatal one. Its eyes opened completely and it lunged from the cage, knocking Lana off-balance and throwing her backwards. Its teeth tore into her shoulder.
Meowth sprang into action and fury-swiped the enraged creature, giving Lana the opportunity to push it off. "Mondo! Throw da pokéball!" he yelled.
Mondo stood frozen to the spot, too terrified to move.
As the Persian charged at Meowth, Lana painfully managed to get to her feet. The heel on her right shoe had broke off, and the other shoe had been lost entirely. "Mondo hurry!" she yelled.
The pokéball dropped from Mondo's hand and hit the floor, useless. After that the world around him became one nightmarish blur, as his fever and his instinct for survival dueled with each other for control of his body. Finally he turned and fled, his survival instincts overpowering both his fever and his own judgment.
Meowth had gotten ahead of him and fled the lab, but Mondo did not see him. He saw nothing except the door, and his mind and body knew nothing other than his objective of reaching it. I don't want to die!
He heard Lana scream behind him and as he drew nearer to the door he felt something latch onto his back. With all the force he could muster, he pushed the weight away from him and flung it to the ground. To his horror he found that the "weight" had actually been Lana, trying to use his body for support as she ran/limped towards the exit, but Mondo had no time to remorse over his error. After jumping onto a table and wrecking everything on it the enraged Persian leaped from it and lunged at Mondo, who fled in terror. He scrambled out of the lab and slammed his hand into the button that closed the door. It slid shut, trapping the Persian on the other side of it. Mondo slumped to the ground, bursting into tears of exhaustion and relief.
"Sitting down on the job?" a woman's voice asked him.
He felt a cold chill as he realized that the voice was not Lana's. He looked up. In front of him stood Domino, holding her trademark black tulip-shaped weapon in her hands. Before he could say anything he heard a female scream, and it was not coming from Domino. As his feverish mind fought to retain consciousness, he noticed Meowth vainly trying to jump up and reach the security keypad that opened the door.
"What are you doing?" Mondo cried. "Don't open the door!"
"You idiot!" Meowth yelled at him, as another agonizing scream could be heard from the other side of the door. "Lana's still in there!"
The screams had stopped by the time Domino had kicked Meowth out of the way, entered the security code on the control panel and opened the door. She calmly fired her weapon at the Persian and it collapsed to the ground, motionless. Rather Domino had killed the creature or merely rendered it unconscious neither Mondo nor Meowth could tell. What Mondo saw next would burn itself into the very core of his memory and haunt him until the day he drew his last breath.
Lana was dead. Of that there could be no doubt; the Persian had ripped out her throat and gorged itself on her body. Meowth tried to fury-swipe the emotionally distraught Mondo out of his state of shock and get him to flee with him before Domino could make her next move, but the boy remained motionless. As Domino turned to face them Meowth fled the room, hoping beyond hope that Mondo would follow. But the traumatized young man's mind and body had reached their limit, and could endure no more. He passed out.
. . .
Meowth ran through the corridors of Team Rocket Headquarters as though he was being physically chased by the horror and sheer terror he felt. Everything had been destroyed, everything! At last he reached Jessie and James' quarters and locked himself inside, listening against the door for the sound of Mondo's footsteps. The exit was still a long way off, but if worse came to worst they could escape out one of the windows. Meowth clung to the dying fragments of hope that Mondo would catch up and meet him here. He never did.
When it became apparent that Mondo was not coming, Meowth could only assume that he had been caught, or worse. He asked himself rather or not he should escape while he still could, or wait until the commotion had died down and then see if he could find Mondo and try to rescue him. Meowth wasn't in the habit of being unselfish, especially when his own neck was on the line, but after what had just happened to Lana he was determined not to lose another teammate. If Mondo was still alive, he had to find a way to help him...
-CONTINUED IN PART NINE-