Chapter 5

The party was the spectacle Ash had imagined. The crowd took up both floors of Brock's villa. There were large, open rooms on both floors which made this possible without guests having to cramp into bedrooms. The girls were all dressed very nicely, Serena in particular (or so Ash thought), while him and the other guys were dressed decently, but not too formal. A popular hangout was the second floor balcony which looked out onto the backyard where Ash and Brock had battled earlier that day. Sure Ash liked having lots of cool friends, but he didn't feel comfortable in the company of this many people, and he was beginning to discover he was not a party type of person, unlike Brock who seemed completely at home. He moved from room to room, not truly feeling comfortable anywhere. He knew he wasn't destined to be a party planner. But soon something did arouse Ash's excitement, the GS ball was glowing again, this time even more brightly than Oak and Kurt had described. Rather than a blueish colour, it was now a mixture of blue and white. The colour was so intense it stung Ash's eyes each time he tried to stare at the ball.

May was hanging out on the balcony where quite a few of the guests had congregated, however she was in no mood for socialising. After a short time admiring the view and wallowing in self-pity, she turned around to go back inside. At the door was a boy around her age staring right at her with a smile on his face; she did not instinctively realise who he was, partially due to it being night time, but after a second or so, it clicked: it was Drew. "Drew" she spoke with a surprised but soft tone, "how about finding you here, I wasn't expecting you to come."

"Well Brock gave me the invite, and I thought it would be impolite to knock back a trainer of his calibre, so here I am."

"So nothing to do with me naturally."

"Of course not, I didn't even know you'd be here" he replied with a smirk. "I've got too much going on in my life to be worrying about girls I haven't seen forever."

"So how are you going with contests and all of that?" she enquired.

"Well as you would remember, I won the Kanto grand festival about six months back, and I just made the final over in Kalos. I here you won in Unova a few months back, I guess congratulations are in order."

"Well then where are they?" He looked perplexed. "I'm only kidding Drew." They both began to laugh. "And also congratulations on winning in Kanto and on making the final in Kalos, you're really excellent you know."

"You're not half-bad yourself." After a few moments of silence he spoke again: "hey May?"

"Yes?" she asked pleasantly.

"Would you like to have a dance?" She smiled at him before responding "Yes, I would. Besides, I haven't had the best day, so I could do with a cheer up."

They both went inside to a room on the same floor, where several others were already dancing. The DJ Brock had hired was playing a smooth, slow song which suited the occasion perfectly, at least as far as May was concerned. She was not very good at dancing but she felt comfortable in Drew's arms, and she loved the sensation of his arms pressing against her back, and hers against his. She also thought he looked handsome on the night. By the end of the song she nestled her head against his throat; he didn't seem to mind, as he gave a momentary smile. On the next song they had more fun: the song was called "on the road to Veridian City" and May and Drew both enjoyed it as they jumped up and down together. They were both fans of the next one: "you'll always be my best friend, but the one after that was one of May's personal favourites, she thought it was called: "together we make a promise", but she wasn't certain: she was not good with remembering songs even though she liked quite a lot of them.

Team rocket were full of excitement and optimism as they entered the party of "the big twerp." They knew the kids were now older and that their disguises needed to be up to scratch. They were confident they had pulled this off, with James dressed in a dashing James bond outfit, sunglasses included, while Jesse came in a striking princess Leia costume, braided hair included. As for Meowth, he just wore his same old disguise, which consisted of a coat and sunglasses, but they decided it would do, as long as he spoke in a different accent. They also planned to not always be together, as to arouse any suspicion about their true identities. There was no need to pretend they knew Brock, as the party was open to the public and the crowd was large. The plan was as it had always been: catch Pikachu, and anything else is a bonus.

When they got to the entrance they saw the door was open. They walked through it in search of their prize. They walked right past the twerp and his Pikachu on the staircase, but for the time being they played it cool and continued to walk past him. James turned back to him and introduced himself: "Bond, James Bond" Ash looked amused, "um…hey" he smirked and turned away.

"Little smartarse twerp, he wishes he looked like me" Meowth caught him over the mouth with his claw, "hey genius" he grouched, "just keep on walking and don't blow our cover."

"Why did you have to damage my beautiful face" he moaned.

Once upstairs they noticed a number of the other "twerps." There was that girl May who Jesse had had somewhat of an ongoing rivalry with back in the Hoenn days, with the green-haired twerp who had won a few of those contests she had been so passionate about.

"Oh well" she said to herself, I'm more of a showcase girl anyway." Soon James spotted the inventor kid and his little sister. And finally, Ms showcase herself, Serena. Jesse felt like going right at her, she had not recovered from losing that semi-final to her back in Kalos, but she was held back by James who had to exert great force to hold her back. They decided James would go out onto the balcony while Jesse stayed inside and Meowth went downstairs.

Soon ten minutes turned into twenty and they were still not making any progress. Once again, it was not as they had envisaged. James was chatting with a group of partygoers on the balcony when he noticed the big twerp come out, with a girl beside him. "Hey you guys" he spoke to the ones form Kalos, "how's the party?"

"I'm not sure it's really my thing" the inventor kid replied. "I think we're just happier in each other's company."

"Well you guys should come down, me and Sara are going to be doing a little bit of a duet" James shuddered inwardly, "Sara is pretty handy with a guitar you know and I'm not bad on vocals."

"Oh, I'd love to hear you sing" the little blond girl responded giddishly.

"Me too, the taller one who Jesse hated, added cheerfully. James wondered about what Pop-Pop had said. Maybe he could be better at choosing friends. As much as he liked Jesse and Meowth, secretly he envied friends like these, as goofy as they could be. He just didn't get it, if he was a pretty good guy at heart, how come he was so bad at making friends with good guys like these twerps; ever since he was a child he had had the same problem, a problem that had followed him into adulthood. But he conceded much of the blame lay with him: he just didn't make enough of an effort with people, except for those closest to him. He had a tear in his eye now, concealed by his sunglasses.

All of a sudden, the girl with the big twerp eyed him suspiciously, but he figured he didn't have anything to worry about: he had his glasses on and she couldn't possibly know him, so he kept a straight face and chatted a little more with one of the people next to him. But minutes later this girl still wouldn't take her eyes off him: "maybe she's a Bond girl" James theorised internally. But it was soon no laughing matter: "Excuse me" she began, "May I ask you a few questions?" James was now getting very nervous: "Well, yes but may I ask why?"

"It's just that you look familiar, I know I probably seem very rude, but you remind me a little of someone, I just need to check."

"Sara" the big twerp interjected, "don't do this. I know you take your police work seriously, but this is too much of an intrusion of other people's privacy."

"I'm sorry, there's just something about this guy."

"Very well" James conceded, "I'll take off my glasses." He removed them and no one reacted except her: "I think I know who you are." She said, now in a much less pleasant tone.

"Who is he Sara" the big twerp responded, "I don't recognise him." The other twerps nodded in agreement with him, "is he someone you have on record?"

"Just be thankful Brock that you have a girlfriend who can actually read faces, unlike you and your friends, for this is none other than James Steele, the master criminal from team rocket." They reacted with shock, "but it doesn't really look like him, are you sure?" James thought he should confess: "Ok Yes it's me" he admitted in his whiny voice.

"And let me guess" the ruthless girl continued, you're partner in crime Jesse Commins is here as well isn't she?"

"Hey!" a loud, high pitched voice shouted from the entrance to the balcony, "who gave you the right to reveal my last name, I have an image to uphold you know?"

"You can work on your image when you're in prison." Jesse snarled at her fiercely.

"What" the big twerp responded with shock, "that's Jesse, but it looks nothing like her!"

"Oh get a clue Brock. You wouldn't recognise me if I was walking down the street. I get not everyone is good at the same things, but why is it you guys are so bad at reading faces, it just doesn't make any sense!" she cried.

"Because they thought it would be funnier that way."

"Oh, ok, I guess I'll go with that." James' eyes were beginning to fill with tears now, he should've listened to his Pop-Pop; his crimes had finally caught up with him. But at least now he could go to the police and reveal some of the terrible things team rocket were planning, although he didn't know all the details yet. He had not even told Jesse or Meowth the things he knew, it was such a burden to carry.

Ash could hear a commotion upstairs, "let's check it out Pikachu"

"Picka."

Once they reached the balcony they saw a man a woman being led away by Sara. "What's going on?" he asked, "who are these guys?" Sara shook her head and led them inside.

"It's Jesse and James from team rocket" Brock answered him, "I know good disguises right?"

"I knew there was something strange about that James Bond guy. Now I know what it was: he was James." All of a sudden Ash's GS ball lit even brighter, given off a light that illuminated part of the room.

"Was that the GS ball?" Brock asked.

"Yeah, it's acting like crazy tonight." All of a sudden they heard a noise and saw another, fainter light. It was a pokeball, and out of it came Jesse's Wobberfett. It started going crazy: first it knocked Sara over and got in front of Jesse and James, its body set in a very defensive posture, "Wobber-Wobber-Wobberfett, Wobber-Wobber-Wobberfett!" it shouted angrily. This kept on going for some period, and it was not letting anyone near its friends. All of a sudden Ash was bowled over. When he got to his feet he made sure Pikachu was okay. He then looked back in the direction of team rocket and noticed their Meowth using its fury swipe to un-cuff them.

"Ok, this has gone far enough" Ash shouted. "You're going with Sara, and that's end of story. I'm sorry you're so upset but you can't keep going around stealing people's pokemon."

"We weren't going to do any such thing" Jesse appealed, "we haven't stolen any pokemon for like two years; we were just here to catch up with our old twerp friends, honest."

"Oh, don't bother Jesse" Meowth countered, "we can fight our way out of this, and if we're lucky, we might just get the Pikachu we came for as well. Come on let's do it!"

"Ok Inkay" James responded, "psybeam" it went for Pikachu but missed its target. Instead it hit Misty's Psyduck just as they were coming up stairs. "Psy" it moaned in agony.

"Psyduck no!" Misty cried, "are you ok?" It seemed bad for a short time, but then Misty began to smile, with a wicked grin on her face, "Oh you fools, you shouldn't have done that" she exclaimed, "Psyduck, use your confusion: "Psy-Duck" a beam of light came from Psyduck which took out Inkay and deflected into the others at the same time. Wobberfett could not react in time to do a counterattack. But they were not giving up, "Gourgeist, shadowball" a shadowy blob was launched in Pikachu's direction. This time it was a hit. Ash was infuriated: "Leave my Pikachu alone you gormless fools! Pikachu Electroball." It looked on target, but then: "Wobberfeet, counterattack" Jesse cried. It worked, it was coming back at them, but Ash was on song tonight: "Pikachu, dodge it." He got out of the way just in time. The battle was getting louder and May, Drew, Clement, Serena, Bonnie and Brock were all getting their pokemon out and beginning to join in. Ash was secretly beginning to enjoy himself, then all of a sudden the noise got considerably louder. With the tension of the battle and the noise being produced by the crowds watching on, it took them a few seconds to realise there was a sound coming from somewhere else. Crowds flooded out onto the balcony, Ash with them. He first looked straight out onto the backyard, beyond the back fence: there was nothing, but then he turned right, towards the town, and it was there he saw horror. There was a huge machine: perhaps fifty or sixty feet tall crashing to the Earth. For a minute everyone stood around, staring in the direction of the town, many with fear written on their faces, some were even crying, all waiting to see what happened next. Only moments later it stood upright and began to walk through the buildings, and it was heading right for the pokemon centre. The crowds began screaming and fled from the party. Several people were getting knocked over in the commotion. But Ash continued to watch. He noticed one thing in particular, it had three limbs.