The Dark Side of Innocence
-PART ELEVEN-
by Anna Sartin
.
Mondo stood perfectly still as he pressed his ear against the door of the utility closet. Giovanni would be back in a matter of minutes. By the end of the hour he would either be on his way back home to Jessie and James with Meowth, or he wouldn't be alive to ever go anywhere again. At this point, he wasn't sure if he cared which. He didn't feel alive now and he wasn't sure that he ever would again. He closed his eyes.
We should never have come here... he thought, wishing that he had listened to Jessie at the cabin when she had begged him not to leave. Hell, he should have been standing by her side trying to help her convince the others instead of trying to be a hero. At the very least he wished he could reverse his choice to accompany Lana and Meowth on their mission. They didn't need me. Jessie needed me, and I ran off and left her alone. If I had stayed behind none of this would have happened. Lana would still be alive.
He could never make up for Lana's death, but Meowth was right when he said they couldn't let her die in vain. They had to complete their mission or her sacrifice would be for nothing. Mondo already bore the shame of knowing that his cowardice was responsible for the death of a friend, he didn't want to be a failure as well. He couldn't go back and face Jessie and James knowing that in addition to depriving them of ever seeing Lana again he'd also failed to protect them from the monster who'd tried to destroy their lives. Giovanni had to die.
Who am I? he wondered. I killed a person last week, and in five minutes I'm going to kill another. What am I becoming? What if it never STOPS?
. . . . . .
Jessie sat outside, absent-mindedly clutching the grass around her with her hands as she stared at the sky. She'd come outside to clear her head, but it didn't seem to be working.
I wonder if we'll ever see them again?
Every room in the cabin was filled with memories of her missing comrades. The clothes Mondo had worn here were still folded neatly on the bottom bunk in the room where he'd slept a week ago. Lana's watch was sitting on the counter by the kitchen sink where she'd removed it to wash her hands and forgotten to put it back on and her earrings were laying by the bathroom sink waiting for her to return and claim them. Meowth's belongings were scattered everywhere. Even sitting out here she could not escape the memories. The image of her three friends floating away in the Meowth balloon haunted her. She wondered where they were and what they were doing. She wondered if they were even still alive.
Mondo, where are you? You promised me you wouldn't be gone long. You promised!
"Hey Jessie, what's with all the empty ketchup bottles?" James asked, carrying a clanging box outside.
"Pikachu," she answered simply. The electric rodent loved ketchup.
"ALL of them?"
"Well, there was also a food fight or two..."
James just shook his head and set the box down. "Well, I got that window open in the other bedroom. The crowbar didn't work, so I used a rose, some bottle caps and my Team Rocket membership card."
Jessie's mouth dropped open. She stuttered several confused, disbelieving sounds before finally yelling, "I spent a WEEK trying to open that window! How the hell did you manage to get it open with just a bunch of junk?"
"Hey, my stuff isn't junk!" he replied indignantly.
"All you and Meowth ever collect is junk!" Jessie retorted, as he sat down beside her.
"That's what you're doing out here, isn't it?" he asked softly. "Thinking about Meowth and the others."
"Yeah," she admitted.
"Their chances aren't good, no matter how you look at it," he said. "And without the balloon it would take us weeks to get back there. By then it would be too late..."
If it isn't already... Jessie thought.
"I keep hoping for a miracle... but we aren't innocent, Jessie. After all the terrible things we've done, do we even have the right to hope for one?"
"Hey, we're just dishonest folks trying to earn a dishonest living!" Jessie replied, crossing her arms stubbornly. "Just like you always say!"
James smiled wistfully. "Yeah... but do people like us deserve miracles?"
"I don't care if we do or not," Jessie whispered. "I want one anyway."
James put his arm around her. "Me too."
They sat in silence for several minutes, before he released her and spoke again. "You said the beach is only half a mile away, right? Why don't we go see if we can find some clams or something for dinner?"
"Let's wait," she replied. "You know how much Meowth loves clams. I'd hate for him to miss out."
"Yeah," James agreed, hugging his knees. He remembered a time long ago when the cat-type discovered a stash of them and had joyfully declared to the universe that he was "the happiest Meowth in the whole world!" because he was going to have free clams for dinner. James sighed sadly, remembering that they'd all been blasted off before he'd gotten the chance to eat them.
"There is someplace I'd like to show you, though, now that you're well enough to move around," Jessie told him.
"What is it, Jess?"
"It's just beyond those trees." She stood up and held out her hand to him. "Come with me and see."
He took her hand and she helped him to his feet. He followed her curiously as she led him through the trees, where a pleasant scent was steadily growing stronger. It smelled familiar somehow...
"Here we are!" Jessie said.
James blinked, taking in the scenery around him. "This is amazing!" he declared, spellbound by the breathtaking beauty of the meadow they were currently standing in. "What's that smell?"
"Sweet Scent," Jessie told him, pointing over to where the grass and wildflowers were tallest. "Look there."
James' eyes widened. "Bellsprout... and Weepinbell!" he exclaimed. "There must be at least a dozen! I LOVE Weepinbell!"
"I know..." Jessie whispered to herself, watching him run barefoot to the other side of the meadow like a carefree child. She sat down on a rock and watched him. At first she feared the wild Pokémon would be alarmed by his sudden presence and he'd wind up with a face full of toxic pollen, but her concern was unnecessary. The creatures seemed to sense a kindred spirit among them. Soon the blue-haired man was surrounded by new plant-type friends, one of whom had made its way into his lap. She had no doubt that in time he would most likely end up with yet another head-chomping Victreebel. She smiled. As hard as James tried to be a good villain- and he tried hard- his kind nature and genuine love for Pokémon wasn't something that he could hide for any length of time.
This is what Giovanni tried to destroy... Jessie thought angrily. The soul of this gentle man...
"I can't wait to bring my Pokémon here!" he told her, laughing. The pure joy in his voice made her heart swell.
This is why Mondo and the others went back. To make sure that monster will never hurt us again.
Suddenly all the doubts and fear she'd been feeling over the past week dissipated, feeling in her heart that her friends would surely be victorious and return. They had to, because what they were doing was right. If all their years of failure was karmic justice for always trying to do what they knew was wrong, then surely that cosmic law would apply to everyone else as well. Giovanni was surely due for a heavy dose of karmic retribution for all the pain he'd caused, and if anybody had ever deserved to succeed it was Mondo, Meowth and Lana.
"Everyone," Jessie whispered, closing her eyes and clutching her fists tightly. "Wherever you are, we're with you. I know you can do this! We believe in you!"
. . . . . .
It didn't take long for Giovanni to return. Mondo could hear him angrily grumbling as he reached his office.
"Incompetent fools, wasting my time! What the hell do I pay them for?" the man asked himself as the door opened. "And where the hell did my secretary go?"
As soon as Mondo heard the door close, he dashed out of the closet and pulled open the square panel under the control pad next to Giovani's door. He waited until he heard Giovanni's voice command Persian to emerge from the pokéball, then moved to cut the power to the door. His hand hesitated.
I'm killing someone... and this time I'm doing it on purpose.
From around the corner Agatha watched him, aiming her gun at Mondo's head as she watched him wrestle with his conscience. Do it, Mondo! she silently pleaded. I don't want to kill you!
Suddenly Giovanni's agonizing yell could be heard from the other side of the door, causing memories of the fatal incident that had changed Mondo's life forever and ended Lana's completely to wash over him like a tidal wave. He could hear her screams in his mind.
Am I avenging her death, or just committing murder all over again?
The memory of the woman's partially devoured body caused bile to rise up in his throat. He began to shake as he finally forced his hand to move. He cut the power.
I don't know who I am anymore...
"NOW!" Agatha shouted into her two-way radio, running in Mondo's direction.
He felt her hand on his shoulder and spun around so fast that his cap fell off his head. He made no move to retrieve it. "M- Miss Agatha?"
"Let's go, we have to get out of here!" she told him.
When he didn't respond Agatha grabbed his hand and pulled him away, and before Mondo knew what was happening they were both running down the hall. Agatha clutched his hand tightly, refusing to let go until they rounded the corner and reached the empty room she had been using to hide in. Mondo's eyes widened in shock at the sight of Giovanni's unconscious secretary lying on the floor.
"What have you done?" he asked. "Is she...?" He knelt down to see if the woman was still breathing. She was.
"She's fine," Agatha told him. "I just knocked her out."
"What are you doing here?" Mondo demanded.
"I was sent to make sure you didn't back out," Agatha told him, pointing to the gun now tucked in her belt. "I was going to finish the job if you failed."
"You KNEW?" Mondo asked, dumbfounded.
"Of course," Agatha responded. "Who would want that son of a bitch dead more than me?" Her eyes began to water as she remembered the pale, lifeless face of her dead partner. Since his death she felt as though it was all she ever saw in her mind, whether she was asleep or awake. "I knew everything."
"But how?" Mondo wanted to know.
"The Black Tulip."
"Domino? But... why?"
"Your plan had a fatal flaw. You forgot about the secret passage in Giovanni's office."
The blood drained from Mondo's face. He HAD forgotten. In every building Team Rocket owned Giovanni had an office, and every office had an emergency exit for him to use in the event of a police raid or when he was simply in a hurry. The secret passage here gave him quick access to his private helicopter on the roof. He could easily have escaped through it.
"Oh god..." Mondo slumped to the floor. How could he have been so shortsighted? He felt so inept, so STUPID! He'd never get another chance like this again, and now Giovanni would escape and find out exactly who was responsible for this. He was as good as dead, and before long Meowth, James and even his beloved Jessie would be next. He had failed them all. "Oh GOD!"
"It's all right, Mondo. Don't worry."
He looked up at her questioningly.
Agatha laughed sinisterly. "If he manages to get out of his office alive, he's got a surprise waiting for him at the other end..."
. . . . . .
Step by painful step Giovanni climbed the ladder leading to the roof. He had barely managed to escape the crazed Persian in his office below. His suit was in tatters and he was dripping blood from several places, including a particularly nasty-looking wound in his back.
He couldn't understand it. Why on earth would Persian turn on him? The bond between the two of them had been genuine; of that he was certain. For all the years they'd been together he'd shared with it every comfort and luxury he'd enjoyed himself. Truth be told, he'd taken better care of it than he had his own son. It didn't make any sense.
When he reached the exit he could hear the helicopter already running.
"What the hell is going on?" he asked himself as he climbed out. In the space of twenty minutes he'd gone to a meeting that no one had bothered to show up for, returned to demand an explanation only to find his secretary had vanished, been attacked by his favorite Pokémon for no apparent reason and had the power to his office door fail at precisely the wrong moment. Now he found Attila sitting in the pilot seat of his personal helicopter preparing to lift off with no order from him whatsoever. Domino was standing on top of a cage, clutching a rope that connected it to something inside the helicopter. Had the entire world suddenly gone insane?
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he demanded.
"We have a gift for you!" Domino told him as the helicopter began to take off. "I know you have a fondness for Persians!"
Whether Giovanni could even hear her words over the roar of the helicopter Domino would never know, but the expression on her employer's face as the cage rose in the air was priceless. She had never seen the man look so enraged and confused at the same time. Using the black tulip-shaped weapon in her hand she blasted the bottom of the cage open. The drugged Persian it contained fell out and landed in front of the very man who had originally ordered it to be drugged in the first place.
"What's the meaning of this?" Giovanni shouted. "Bring back my helicopter!"
It was the last demand he would ever make. As the crazed Persian charged at Giovanni, Domino was pleased to observe that the creature's bloodlust hadn't abated in the least since killing Lana a week ago. Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that she had ordered Hun to continue drugging it. She smirked. She heard Giovanni scream as she climbed up the rope and into the helicopter.
"I suppose one has to wonder about the fairness of life," she mused to her cohorts as they flew away from their dying leader. "One minute you're the head of the world's largest criminal organization, the next minute you're cat chow!"
Attila and Hun both laughed.
"Well, as I always say," Hun replied, grinning triumphantly, "You don't get to rule the world by being fair. You get to rule the world by being nasty!"
The trio laughed as they flew away, while a bloody hand once belonging to Giovanni was flung over the roof, still wearing the two rings belonging to its former owner.
. . . . . .
"The Persian!" Mondo exclaimed, as it all dawned on him at once. "The one that killed Lana... THAT'S what she did with it!"
Agatha nodded.
Mondo shook his head. "I was so blind... I never saw it coming."
"Did you honestly think a man like that didn't have any enemies?" Agatha asked.
"But Domino was loyal to Giovanni! Why would she...?"
"Don't be so naive," Agatha said darkly. "Who do you think will lead Team Rocket when all of this is over? She's been wanting to take him down for some time now. She was just looking for an opportunity."
"And we gave it to her," Mondo whispered. He felt sick. The entire organization was like a tribe of cannibals looking to feed off each other, and now he was no better than the rest. He had fed off Lana to save himself from Persian, and now he was feeding off Giovanni for... what? Revenge? Jessie's approval? Or simply to convince himself that Lana's death hadn't been in vain? It didn't matter anymore. All three were very poor excuses for taking a man's life. But leaving Giovanni alive would have resulted in more death and destruction, quite possibly beginning with the friends he loved. Try as he might, Mondo could find no "right" answer to the problem and he resented his former employer for putting him in this position in the first place. "I just don't understand..." he said, leaning against the door and staring at the ceiling. "Why did Giovanni DO this to us?"
"Haven't you figured it out by now?" Agatha asked him. "If the result of his experiment is a success, he succeeds in creating a more powerful agent. If it fails he succeeds in getting rid of the weakest, least useful members of the team." She chuckled, even as tears of agony and grief rolled down her cheeks. "I think he expected it to fail; wanted it to, even. He wanted to eliminate my partner along with you and your friends after you had served your purposes as lab rats. What easier way than to test something on you that would kill you afterwards?"
"Why would he want to kill ME?" Mondo asked her, wondering if Giovanni was still alive as they stood there discussing his motives for murder. "I don't understand... I've always done whatever anyone told me to."
Agatha wiped her eyes and asked, "Just how many years have you spent here as an assistant trainee, Mondo? What USE have you ever been? You follow orders to transport food and supplies and you do the dirty work that all the other Rockets shun. You're a good little puppet, but that's not how you get ahead in a criminal organization. You had no ambition. You never did anything to stand out or make yourself indispensable in the boss's eyes. Hell, I don't think you've ever STOLEN anything to contribute to Team Rocket! What better type of person to use as a guinnea pig and then dispose of? He could easily recruit ten more in your place. Rookies are a dime a dozen!"
Mondo stared bitterly into space, realizing it was true. He wondered if murderers were also a dime a dozen. There were certainly plenty around HERE.
"But I want to thank you," Agatha said, sincerely. "When you and the others escaped you didn't have to come back. I never would have been able to avenge my partner if you hadn't returned here bringing murder and birth."
"Birth?"
She nodded. "Tonight a new Team Rocket will be born. It was your hand that set the wheel in motion."
It wasn't supposed to be... Mondo thought. This was Lana and Meowth's idea. I just wanted to help my friends and I wound up screwing everything up instead. Now look at the mess I've gotten myself into. This was supposed to make everything right again, but everything feels even more wrong then it did before... "I wish it hadn't come to this," he said softly. "I wish I could go back. I never thought I could feel so... dead."
"You and I are dead," Agatha told him bluntly. "We were dead the moment this nightmare began."
"No... I died the moment my nightmare began," Mondo said. "The day I murdered Lana... and I can't blame anyone for it except myself."
"Lana sealed her fate when she obeyed Giovanni's orders to test that drug on the Pokémon under her care," Agatha told him. "How many died Mondo? How many suffered because of her?"
Mondo stared at her, unable to speak. He had never thought of it before.
"Only that Persian was left the day she brought me down to her lab and told me the truth about what killed my partner," Agatha said. "The whole time it paced back and forth, glaring at her with hatred and contempt. It was her own death sitting in that cage and she didn't even know it!" Agatha laughed at the irony, while Mondo's face contorted with sadness. "She was a ROCKET, Mondo, not a martyr. You don't get to be a fallen hero when you're a member of a criminal syndicate; particularly when you're snuffing out the lives of innocents one by one."
"You're wrong," he whispered, remembering the kind eyes and gentle voice of the woman who had saved the lives of his friends. She had redeemed herself when she stopped being a true Rocket... when she gave her life to try and undo the damage Giovanni had done. "Her family will never see her again and that's my fault. Now I've helped destroy another life and Giovanni's family will grieve as well."
"Don't waste your pity on that monster," Agatha replied, waving her hand in a dismissive motion. "He signed his own death warrant the day he began murdering his subordinates. The only one who will grieve for that rotten bastard is his son."
Suddenly the world around them seemed to freeze as her words hit Mondo full-force. He suddenly had a strong urge to vomit. "SON?" he shouted. "Giovanni has a SON? Nobody ever told me he had a son!"
"Nobody knows where his brat is. He probably didn't want him to become a target for his enemies."
Oh god... I killed somebody's father... At that moment something inside Mondo shattered, forever destroying the boyish innocence of the young Rocket he had once been. He wasn't just a murderer. He had orphaned a child! He didn't know if he could ever be redeemed for this. He wasn't even sure if he wanted to. He wrapped his arms around himself. What have I done?
"Cassidy and her partner should be here soon," Agatha said, looking at her watch. "Domino sent word for them to meet with Giovanni at 5:30. They can deal with the problem in his office."
"They'll be killed and you know it!" Mondo snapped.
"That's not my business," she informed him coldly.
"That's what Domino wants, isn't it?" Mondo asked. "To eliminate any competition."
"I'd hardly call those two competition," Agatha replied. "But any high-ranking agents here at the time of Giovanni's death may think to link her to the crime and those with enough clout could bring their suspicions to the executive members."
"Ruining Domino's chances of taking his place," Mondo finished sourly.
"Precisely," Agatha confirmed. "Although she may find taking control of Team Rocket a lot more difficult than merely taking out Giovanni and knocking off a few potential whistle-blowers. The higher-ups might choose to appoint one of their own to replace Giovanni or they may be in favor of locating his son to succeed him as he did his mother. But that's not my business, either."
"Wouldn't THAT be a kick in the gut after all her plotting and scheming..."
"Indeed."
"I'm guessing in the next few days a number of people Domino find "threatening" will disappear," Mondo said, turning to leave. "I suggest you get out of here as well. When Domino's finished eliminating potential threats she may start eliminating witnesses next. Besides, Giovanni's secretary will regain consciousness eventually and we should both be long gone by then."
"You've changed," Agatha said, as he opened the door to leave. "You've become an adult."
Mondo stopped, but did not turn around. "No... I've become a murderer."
-CONTINUED IN PART TWELVE-