As a reminder, you can find MORE of this on my SubStar (dot adult slash KajaWilder), it's posted up past chapter 80 there... And if you guys haven't seen an update in at least a week, please let me know! I have a busy life, and I get distracted and forget things. This story (and PTaL) are supposed to be updated WEEKLY from now until they're both caught up with each other (like I was doing with FwB until this weekend).
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EDIT: Forgot TRIGGER WARNINGS:VIOLENCE. This is not a pretty chapter. Jessie and James, in PTaL, are not the cartoon jokes. They can, and will, fuck your shit up, and your whole day, and your whole life. Just watch. There is much violence, and much getting hurt. They'll be back, too. You've been warned.
Chap. 50: Jessie and James (and Meowth, that's right!)
"What do they mean, 'invaders'," Elle hissed.
Alex shrugged next to her, his fingers, dirty from the long cave system and mines they had been walking through for what felt like at least twenty-four hours so far twisted around one of his Pokéballs. "Don't know," he murmured quietly, only a bit louder than her own voice. Not enough, masked by the sound of all the trucks and machinery in the massive loading area beyond the two Team Rocket members to be heard. "Maybe they're just crazy. That woman certainly looks it."
"She looks nuts," Elle agreed.
And she did. The woman was unabashedly rubbing one of her large, firm breasts while some of the nearer mine workers tried to ignore her, as she stopped her predatory pacing to look over the shoulder of the third person. "You're taking too long," she suddenly shouted, and smashed the lab coat-wearing person's head into their keyboard.
"Now, now," the lavender-haired man retorted, waving a rose he'd gotten from somewhere idly in the air, "He's not going to find them any faster if you give him a concussion, Jessie."
"I don't care," the woman huffed, and spun on one heel to resume her back-and-forth stalking.
"Still," the other man continued loudly, feigning nonchalance Elle didn't believe for a moment was sincere, "Jessie will kill you if you don't hurry up, Miguel. They have to be here somewhere."
"I don't understand," the man groused, rubbing his forehead with one hand, while the other continued to maneuver a mouse, "They were just on-screen. When the dust cleared enough to see, The Wall was down, probably dead, and Scourge was nowhere to be seen. The miners ran, and it's a good thing. I got your two targets, I had them, but they walked off-screen and never came back. They didn't enter the next camera's line of sight. That one's offline, it might've been hit in the cave-in. Okay, but they aren't in the next one, either, and the miner- Brantley or whatever his name was-"
"I don't care about that fuck's name," Jessie shouted, "I want our targets!"
"R- Right. He got through just fine. They should've come after, there aren't any branches between here and there. Unless..."
"Unless what?" Jessie growled.
Elle's ears had to strain to hear what the lavender-haired man added, "Yes, do tell, Miguel. Unless what?"
The man, Miguel, glanced over his shoulder at the magenta-haired woman, who had stopped behind him once more, practically breathing down his neck. Yet for some reason, he seemed more concerned about the quiet restraint of the other, as he idly ran the rose' red petals across his bare, muscled abdomen. "W- Well, Mr. James, it's possible- not likely, but possible- that the cave-in or explosion opened up a passage we haven't mapped. One dug by the Pokémon, maybe, or even something n-n-natural. W- Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Because I want to break your neck," Jessie replied with an almost sweet-sounding voice as she patted the man's shoulder, "Can I, James? Please?"
"No, unfortunately," the lavender-haired man, apparently James, replied with a frustrated tone. "We still need him. You're still useful to us, right, Miguel?"
"Y- Yes," the man shuddered, which only made Jessie's hand tighten visibly on his coat, so even Elle, a dozen feet away, could see her fingers digging in. "I- I can find out where they are, still! S- Sonar mapping! I can find them that way! Or- Or infra-red? Yes, that'd work! Even if they're dead, they'd still be warm for several hours, so- so that should work!"
"See? That's why we need him, for now," James replied, pushing off of the desk he was leaning against and moving over to the scientist. Somehow, despite the man being larger than the Rocket member by at least fifty pounds, probably more like eighty if Elle guessed properly, he was hauled to his feet with apparent effort, James' fists curled into the front of the coat as he held Miguel with his toes two inches above the ground. He was just looking a tiny bit down into James' eyes, she thought, and he looked terrified.
About like she felt, actually. "Alex," she hissed.
Beside her, her lover nodded, "I know."
He stood up. She was right behind him.
The cat-like Pokémon reacted first, its feline eyes bored suddenly into Elle's as its lips curled back into a sneering snarl. "Found you," it hissed, almost serpentine in the way it spoke.
But it spoke.
A Pokémon. Spoke. Elle's eyes widened. So did Alex's.
Both Rockets seemed, if anything, disappointed, though the scientist looked quite relieved even as a wet spot appeared in his pants and ran downward. Disgusting, but Elle understood how a coward would piss themselves in the face of the strange, terrifying duo.
Team Rocket had been a laughingstock, once.
The worst, most pathetic "Team" in the franchise.
Elle and Alex had thought it would be fun to fight them, go up against them.
This was a Free Battle scenario, after all. A raid, or whatever, where they could do whatever they wanted to the Rockets with little to no repercussions in a legal sense. They were the bad guys, after all, and this was, ultimately, a game.
The almost insane glee Jessie suddenly sported as she looked Alex up and down replaced the brief disappointment, "Vaan didn't tell me you were a dish, baby... I'm gonna enjoy roughing you up, before I take you for a few rides. Too bad I can't just stuff you in a Pokéball and be done with it... not yet, anyway. I might still have a cage for you, though."
"Sorry," Alex grunted, "You're barking up the wrong tree, lady. I don't stick my dick in crazy."
Miguel, the scientist, suddenly looked even more terrified, and he shook his head back and forth, wide-eyed. "D-Don't call them-"
He was hurled into the computer screens he had just been using with such violence and force that the entire table and bank of them, three hundred or more pounds, went scattering across a good ten feet of the cavern floor, and he bounced and rolled for at least half of that. James recovered from the throw astoundingly fast, using the same momentum he had generated to do it to spin full circle and stand next to Jessie, looking prim and proper as he had before, aside from the rose petals that drifted slowly to the ground from his waist, the stem now empty. "Do not call us crazy, Mr. Ward," he said, voice flat. "You will find that while Jessie and I both share a certain flair for the dramatic, we are not, in fact, certifiable. We have been tested, repeatedly. What we are is sociopathic with a flair for the dramatic. But we both find the term crazy rather... What's the word, Jessie, dear?"
"Problematic," she answered, or more properly growled. Elle watched one of her magenta eyebrows twitch. If strange hair colors hadn't been the norm in Pokémon games from the start, she might have thought it a bad dye-job, but no, her hair did actually seem to naturally be that color. That, or she spent a lot on professional dye-jobs on a regular basis.
"It's too bad you're nuts, then," Elle shot back, "because you'd almost be fuckable aside from that. You're both crazy."
"They warned you," the cat-like Pokémon said, giving a distinctive, human-like shrug with his front shoulders, which made his sleek slightly wide head duck strangely. "Now you're just pissing them off. But that's alright... I wanted to play."
"How are you talking, anyway," Alex asked for her, ignoring how Jessie's body straightened up, and she preened at being called 'almost fuckable'. "Pokémon can't talk."
"Clearly, you are mistaken," James drawled, gesturing down at the feline, "Because Meowth can very much talk."
"Getting him to shut up is much harder," Jessie giggled, then blew Alex a kiss. "Come on, stud, show me a good time... either with a Battle, or with your cock."
James rolled his eyes before even Alex could. "Seriously, Jessie? You can't keep it in your panties for five minutes? We're supposed to be capturing these two, remember? Not fucking them."
Jessie snorted, then finally spared a moment to look Elle up and down, too. "Eh, she's alright, if you're into the waifish look. I prefer a little more meat on my women. Vaan's girl-toy has a good build for me, but I really do want a good dick, and the reports say Mr. Ward here has a nice one. I didn't think he'd be so handsome to go with it, though."
"I told you," Alex growled, "I am not gonna fuck you. Sure, though, we can fight. But you want a cock? Fine. Cock- Get 'em!"
The Nidorino appeared in his usual purple flash, and started running the moment his feet materialized. The cat lunged, clearing eight feet or more in a single leap to meet Alex's starter mid-air. Claws and teeth raked and whirled, slashing at each other wildly as the vole-like, spined creature did its best to add a thousand more scars to the lean, muscular tomcat.
Speaking, it seemed, was done with, for the Meowth, or whatever the Rockets had called him, was now spitting and hissing very much more like a cat rather than conversing in any intelligible fashion.
James threw out two Pokéballs at once. One appeared in a burst of purple, the other a lighter, lavender color.
One of them, the more lavender, she recognized. After all, the man Elle had just gone up against, who called himself the Wall, had used one himself. A Koffing, though James' was larger, and seemed somehow healthier despite being a Poison-type. It growled, and as it did, thick, noxious smoke poured from its wide-open mouth. The other was long, and landed on the ground in a snaking, serpentine shape. Appropriate, she thought, since it was, in fact, a snake. "Ekans!" it hissed.
Elle snorted. She couldn't help it. "A- A snake, named Ekans? Wow. They've gotten a little more inventive with names, at least."
"What're you talking about?" Jessie asked, looking back at her, really looking, for the first time.
Elle felt herself shudder at the intense, half-mad look in the woman's eyes despite asking a relatively innocuous question. "I- n- nothing."
Her mind started racing. These two... there was definitely something going on. Alex was right. They had called them invaders. Why? Yggdrassil was supposed to make sure all the NPCs heard other things when they talked about the game? Or make them respond like they weren't aware they were in a game?
"Right, kid. You invaders are all the crazy ones. Thinking you can come here and just erase our whole world? Rocket's gonna fuck you all up. We're gonna fuck you guys up. Personally. So... here we go!"
Elle expected her to toss a couple of 'balls too.
Alex must have, as well, because he reached for his belt.
She didn't.
Instead, both of them got a rather nice, if brief, upskirt shot as Jessie's toned, athletic left leg rose high in the air, curving around fast enough to send a whoosh through the air that rustled Elle's hair.
Her boot crashed into Alex's head hard enough to send him sprawling.
And the whole time, her hands had stayed up in a guarded position.
The realization of what that meant, the countless hours it must have taken her to get that good at a difficult kick to master and keep her guard up too, blew Elle's mind. She gasped in shock, while James tutted. "Really, Jessie. If you kill him or break his neck, you'll hardly be able to fuck him. Play nicely with your toys. On that note... sorry about this, little lady. Vaan really does want you alive, but he didn't say you had to be healthy. Koffing? Why don't you bury that girl's little Horsea in Sludge."
"Fight back with a Water Gun, Squirt, you can do it!"
Her Horsea did its best, it really did. But Squirt was tired, worn out, and her Water Gun didn't quite come out with the highest pressure she had seen. It helped, truly, by countering the Koffing's toxic sputem with direct force.
It did not stop it.
Squirt's Water Gun was able to cut a hole, drilling down into the mass of goo that flooded out of the Koffing's mouth and gushed toward Elle. She threw herself to the side, bouncing and rolling with Squirt held tightly in her arms at the last moment. Too much hit her, hit Squirt, and she squealed alongside Elle's cry of pain as the acidic stuff burned into the flesh of her arms.
She could only think one thought: At least I'm not Poisoned this time.
Squirt was not so lucky. Mere moments after Elle rolled to her feet, the Horsea shuddered, and went still. Her fingers scrabbled painfully for the Pokéball at the front of her belt, there because Water was so useful against the Ground- and Rock-types common in all mines and caves across Kanto. Blue flashed in the cave, accompanied by the shouts of distant workers as they realized the people they had been keeping a careful eye on but did not dare try to stop were suddenly engaged in a pitched battle.
"Sorry, baby," Elle gasped, coughing as the acrid fumes from the Sludge hit her nose and throat, "I'll get you back up as soon as I can. Kole- no, Gobbler!"
She didn't know what other Pokémon these two possessed. Perhaps none, in Jessie's case, though one ball rested on her belt. Was the Meowth hers? James only had the two, but judging by the strength of the Koffing's Sludge alone, it was far stronger than the supposed Wall's. She didn't have time to pull up her Pokégear and check its Battle Rank, or James', but she suspected they were considerably higher than her own, or Alex's.
Five, ten, or maybe more. He seemed like an almost insurmountable obstacle with just two Pokémon against her whole team. Especially wounded as they were. But she wasn't going to give up and let them win, not given the consequences they had already been given.
Slavery was not in the cards for her. She'd rather be dead. A slut, she could be. A whore? Not so much. That's not living my dream, is it, Mom?
"Gobbler, try to knock it out with Sleep Powder!"
"That won't work," James taunted in a sing-song voice, "My little Koffing is too well-trained for that!"
It seemed he was right. Of course, the Rocket man wasn't done there. "Counter with another Smokescreen, let's see if she can pull off that tactic again."
Elle paled. Squirt was out. She had another Pokémon that could learn it, but none that actually knew the move. Her Pidgeotto, however... would it work? Was this one of the Koffing that could Levitate? There was only one way to find out. "Nike, open it up with a Sand Attack!"
"Not so fast," James called, "You forgot Ekans! Get her silly bird with an Acid Spray!"
Fortunately, Nike was able to spin out of the way, spiraling around the quick burst of caustic slime, so neither made much headway fast. Gobbler seemed to be doing alright, Growth largely but not fully compensating (she hoped) for repeated Smokescreens.
She would have hated the tactic, if it hadn't done so well for her. But how well did he know her? How much had they studied? Did he or they or anyone in Rocket, really, watch her match against The Sparrowhawk? If so... would he have a counter to his own Smokescreen?
She just had to keep hoping he didn't. Self Destruct had been amazing, since the supposed "Wall"'s tactic had worked against himself, along with her own. That didn't mean the same would work here, and they had mentioned the fight.
They'd seen it, probably watched it live.
Fuck.
New tactic, then. My team's too beat up to try Alex's. He's stronger, so I can't Sweeper. I don't have any support at all. But I can debuff with the best of them. "Nike, keep up the Sand Attack as best you can on that Koffing! Forget the Ekans! Gobbler, you keep Growth going. When you're my size, try and hit him as best you can- don't use Poison or Grass! Fuck, that's all you've got... just do your best, girl!"
She wasn't done issuing commands there, her voice panicked and rushed, almost frantic.
By contrast, James was laughing, annoyingly cool and collected. "Don't worry, Koffing, just keep it up until they're exhausted. We can't lose. If you start missing, we can change tactics. That's my boy. Ekans, sweetie pie! Why don't you start using Stockpile. It's alright if that nasty old bird gives you a few pecks. You'll be alright, by tough little snake."
He was really pissing her off. Here she was, fighting for her very life. At least, her life, if not her survival, and he was laughing, playing.
He really was crazy, she decided, but she would make him pay for it. With every moment, the battle moved slightly more to her favor. Every stat boost or lower, aside from accuracy, would help her more than him. If nothing else, she had numbers, even if his two Pokémon were tougher.
Alex, though... he seemed more than caught up, too caught up to help.
Even Cock was struggling against the Meowth, and he was probably the single strongest Pokémon on either of their teams. The pair were still a whirling, spitting ball of fury between her fight with James, and where...
She had to be honest. Jessie was kicking Alex's ass six ways from Sunday.
Alex liked to think he could hold his own in a fight. He'd been in several, after all. Bullied for his father's wealth more than anything else, it was probably good he'd grown into a fairly large young man, and better that he had taken so many self-defense courses.
But from that first, whirling crescent kick he had been on the ropes.
His head spun and ached, his vision was double- or triple- what it should be. She was just so fast, and she hit like a dozen hammers. He had gotten in a few licks too, he thought. Made contact with something, more than once, alternatively quite firm or delightfully soft. The latter had earned him a coo of pleasure mixed with the hiss of pain, making him once more doubt any sanity Jessie of Team Rocket might possess.
But the hits against solid muscle? She didn't even flinch, not that his blurry, bloody vision could tell.
He was pretty sure one of his eyes was ruptured. At the very least, she'd split open the orbital above his left socket, for it was bleeding profusely, pouring coppery blood and salt into his eye.
So why was he seeing double? That was super strange.
But his eyes wouldn't focus, or focused on too many places at once.
She wasn't even using Pokémon.
Why?
He couldn't think straight. Her fist connected with his solar plexus, driving the wind from his lungs for the second time.
But Alex had been in a lot of fights.
He'd lost a lot of them, too, before he got good enough to give it back.
He was not immune to pain, but he was used to it.
Despite the wind being knocked out of him, and the panic his body wanted to feel because he couldn't breathe, Alex knew he could still do so. His diaphragm might be stunned, think it was mortally wounded, but it wasn't.
He forced an inhale through will alone, even as her left shin connected with his right thigh painfully, sending him to a knee with one hand on the stone floor of the cavern. He heard her laugh. Heard Elle's cries as she ordered her Pokémon. Heard James' mocking counter-orders.
He didn't hear Jessie, at least, aside from her laughter.
She wasn't ordering Pokémon. Her Meowth was busy with his Nidorino.
His fingers were numb, but they moved when they got told to. The nerve-punch she'd done just under his trapezius, somehow from behind him, had hurt, but he could still move. Five 'balls rolled out onto the ground. Three split open. Which ones? He couldn't see, couldn't focus.
It didn't matter.
"Get her," he croaked, throat hoarse because of a quick jab straight to his larynx.
This wasn't a formal Battle.
This was a Free Battle, against what felt like a Boss.
He would have to go all-out, even if that meant no commands.
Why was she fighting him, anyway? Wasn't it Pokémon against Pokémon?
Where was hers? Was it the Meowth?
Did it matter?
Surtr whinnied, and dashed forward, flames spreading. Flame Charge, he registered. Useful, probably, a human didn't want to be burned.
Probably, anyway. Instinct only went so far, just like him forcing his diaphragm to move despite its state. Shooter flopped around, but somehow ended up aiming not at Jessie, but at the distant Ekans. It blasted out with an Aurora Beam, which smashed into the purple serpent with a fair amount of force despite Shooter's own tired state.
And his Gloom.
Shit.
Sappy started crying immediately, though this time he couldn't see her hiding her face. Instead, the little plant- or much larger but still smaller than he plant, anyway- tried to cover his wounds with her leaf-hands as she sobbed. But she didn't fight.
Maybe that was a good thing?
Jessie jumped up, her legs split wide to provide him with what might have been an amazing view if he could still see straight, as Surtr charged beneath her, rearing a moment too late. She landed just as he kicked back, but spun out of the way just in the nick of time, chuckling, and pointing an accusing finger. "Hah! What's that ugly thing? Stupid Pokémon can't even fight? She just cries! And stinks, too!"
Sappy's sobbing only grew worse, as she tried to do something for him, but Alex couldn't tell what. "She's not," he croaked, and reached for the other balls on the ground.
Spike and Lingus appeared, battered, but standing.
"What's that? Oh, you think even your whole team can fight me? Your Starter's being held off by my only Pokémon, Alex Ward. And I can fight your whole team myself with no problem. Want to watch? Fine, I'll stop kicking your ass for now, you're bloody enough to get me excited already anyway. Come on, give me your best shot."
"S- Spike," he groaned, rolling onto his side and getting another leg beneath himself. "S- Screech."
She wasn't immune to pain, then. Jessie's hands clapped over her ears as she sought to block out as much of the high-pitched squeal of stone on stone his Larvitar generated.
He couldn't let up, not now. He had to fight, give it his all, or he was done for. They both were. Elle was on the ropes. She just didn't know it. That Koffing's level was too high, the Ekans only one lower. He'd only had time to see one move, but he knew what it did. She was playing right into that smug bastard's hands. "Flame Charge again, Surtr. Lingus, see if you can Rollout that Meowth. Even if you hit Cock, take it out if you can. No- wait, Rollout the Ekans! Shooter, use Psybeam on the Ekans, too, take it out as fast as you can, together. Then everyone focus on that damned Koffing, help Elle out before it's too late!"
"I got this, Alex," he heard her cry, "Sic your team on that bitch!"
He ignored her. "Spike, Screech again, then Rock Slide, bury that crazy bitch, just don't hit Surtr!"
They got their licks in.
Surtr kicked Jessie at least twice, leaving horseshoe-shaped burns on her thigh and abdomen. Spike had one of her ears bleeding, before he started bringing down parts of the cavern's massive roof down on their heads, much to the alarm of the miners, who were still either trying to clear the area, or send reinforcements to one side or the other. He wasn't sure which.
But it didn't seem to matter. Even bruised, Jessie kept fighting, like he was trying (and mostly failing) to do. If anything, the pain inflicted seemed to give her energy, make her worse, faster, stronger, fight harder.
Somehow, she, a human (as far as he could tell), with NPC eyes anyway, did a spinning reverse hand-spring that included a kick straight up into the bottom of his Ponyta's jaw. Surtr, all seventy pounds of him, flew backwards, spinning into the air in a cartwheeling turn that was almost the mirror of Jessie's own. Only his Pokémon didn't get up, but whinnied and neighed as it landed on two legs, its entire weight crushing one beneath it, while the other landed at an odd angle.
If it was a horse, it would be doomed to be glue.
He knew Pokémon were resilient, but that had to be agony.
He withdrew Surtr as soon as he could, but by then, Jessie was back on her feet. Running like some stupid anime ninja, arms behind her, bent half-forward, sprinting not for him, but for Spike.
Her fist hit his blunt nose, and he recoiled, shrieking, a crack spread across his face. Her other hand came up next, grabbed him by the horn, and flipped him bodily over her hip and shoulder. Even her somehow immense strength wasn't enough to throw him on that alone, but the leverage was enough to toss him about as well as she could Alex. In other words, straight down onto his back.
Then Jessie stood tall, triumphant. "Told you, Alex Ward... you're mine. You're gonna pump me full of cum, then you'll go work in the salt mines or something stupid until you die. That's all you're good for. At least some people like your little cock-sleeve's type, so she'll be useful a little longer."
Fuck. They were done for.
Bare-handed, she had just slaughtered half his team.
Across the way, the other one, James, smirked despite Elle's own increasing confidence. "Oh, stat changes, schmat changes. Don't you know, little girl? My Koffing's tough, isn't he, my darling? Why don't you show her why she's wasting her time, hmm? Let's clear the air with some Clear Smog."
He hadn't known what shape the man's counter-attack would take, but he had known that was part of it.
He was still outnumbered four to two, but somehow, James seemed more than up to the task.
Fuck.
They were actually, truly done for.
Until they could log on, make a complaint, or... or something...
What happened to their Avatars if they logged out?
Alex reached for his 'gear. Brought up the player menu with shaking fingers.
He tried to focus, find the button to check, to see...
He couldn't find one.
Then a booted hand landed on his wrist. "Trying to make a phone call, lover boy? Ah, ah... not until I've had my ride, at least. Don't worry... I'll make it good for you, too. Whether you like it or not. Maybe not here, though... I don't mind an audience, but all these miners are so noisy. I want to hear your screams, after all..."
Then her boot moved, and his world went black.