PMJ
Silhouette Gloom of the Sundown Lands
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This is a story that I began writing sometime in 2004. I haven't touched it in over two years, and recent events have given me the urge to pick up the pen, so to speak, and try again.
I suggest starting from the beginning, even if you think you've read this before. It always helps to get the story back in memory.
The gist of the story is, Giovanni is tired of getting his butt kicked by Ash, so he decides to man up and take him out for good. Will he succeed? Find out...
Some things you should know:
The timeline in this story is a little weird. It takes place in the near future. And that's really all I can tell you. Ash is fifteen. You can project everyone else's ages accordingly. There are 4th-gen Pokemon in the story, but not a whole lot, as in the story, Ash has never been to Sinnoh. You'll first see them in chapter seven, and again sporadically throughout the rest of the story.
I don't take character requests. The only characters in this story are ones you've heard of, and only a handful of main characters at that.
This story involves character death. I won't say who, but people are going to die. I don't know exactly how graphic it will be, but I will do my best to tone it to a reasonable level. If this sort of thing upsets you, I advise you to go elsewhere. I will have warnings of character death at the beginning of each chapter as fair warning.
I also don't take requests on who you'd like to die next, or not die at all. I already know who, if anyone, will survive at the end of the story.
Some scenes may not be suitable for young children. Read at your own peril!!! :O
Chapters one through three immediately follow this post. Each new chapter I post will be linked to at the end of this post. Please use that to get to a chapter you haven't read yet.
Other than that, feel free to comment on anything you like. :> Or hate. :<
On with the show.
It was a rainy morning. The clouds over Saffron City were dark and gray, and hid the sun completely. A rather stern-looking man, stood with a large cat near a window in his office, high above the streets, contemplating. This man, Giovanni, leader of a criminal organization known as Team Rocket, had once again had his plans foiled at the hands of a young man. Giovanni had come so close to domination of the pokémon world… but he got in his way. Him and his motley crew. Were world domination a tangible thing, it would be comparable to a person chasing a floating feather. You creep up on it, getting closer and closer, when you’re so close you can smell it – and a simple gust of wind blows it away, out of your reach. This time, things had to change. No one would stand in his way. But how? Every plan he’d come up with would fail, regardless of how complex or foolproof it seemed.
And it was all because of him. That… do-gooder. Giovanni began to pace the office, the cat mimicking his movements. He turned to his pet. “Persian, stop it. I’m not in the mood to play right now.” When he passed the window again, he stopped, taking a minute to look at the city below him. He wondered to himself.
'Why can’t he see what I’m trying to achieve? What goes on in that boy’s mind that makes him completely oblivious to the truth?’ He chuckled to himself. ‘I’ve tried everything short of just killing him.’ He laughed a bit at this ridiculous notion, but his smile quickly began to fade as his brain processed what he just said. ‘Now there’s an idea… if I dispose of him like that, there will be no one to stand in my way.’
Giovanni, now feeling better with this new idea, continued to walk around the room, rather aimlessly, Persian still following him. ‘That’s it! I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before! It’s so perfect! But… I can’t just kill him in the street. No. I have to get him alone somehow… no, that won’t work, either. He’d be too much on his guard, and he’d have that Pikachu with him, no doubt.’
He stopped for a minute to think about this particular pokémon. He had seen the pokémon in a battle firsthand, and could not for the life of him figure out why Jessie and James had lost to it on countless occasions, not to mention blown up or otherwise ruined several of Team Rocket’s Secret Machines. Those things don’t come cheap! Giovanni resumed pacing, and Persian, tiring of his own game, rested at the side of Giovanni’s desk.
‘Where was I…? Oh, yes. Pikachu. I’ve already lost millions of dollars at the cheeks of that rat… I have to keep them apart as much as I can. …But I can’t take any chances. All his pokémon love him, no doubt about that.’ His thoughts trailed back to his earlier conversation with himself. ‘When I’m done with him, he’ll wish he had joined my cause. Well, I guess he won’t, but that’s his problem.’ He shook his head a few times, and tried to stay focused. This idea was too good to let slip away like so many dreams before it.
‘He’ll have human companions. I can’t risk them going to the authorities, so I have no choice but to kill them, too. Yes… this plan will not fail. But there’s still one problem. Who to carry out my wishes? I can’t do it myself… no, I must stay here and continue running business as normal. Butch is in prison… I remember sending Cassidy out to find new recruits, but she hasn’t reported back to me in quite some time. When she gets back, she’s in for it. Both of my best agents are unavailable. Wonderful. Next in rank…no. I can’t trust Jessie and James. They’re too much of a liability.’ His eyes widened at a sudden realization. ‘Wait a second. I can get rid of them, too… they’ll only cause me more and more losses later on, I’m sure of it. I can send them to do the dirty work, then send someone else to do them in! Yes! Perfect!’
He slammed his fist on the desk for emphasis, satisfied with this ultimate plan. ‘Where to do the deed? Hm… it has to be far from Kanto, where Team Rocket would be least suspected. I could probably use that private island retreat in Orre… yes! No wild pokémon to save the day, and no humans for hundreds of miles! Everything is set. Now to set the wheels in motion,’ Giovanni thought. He picked up a telephone receiver and held it to his ear. This was Giovanni’s personal telephone; when he picked it up, a similar phone would ring at the secretary’s desk on the ground floor. When she picked it up, Giovanni would bark an order, hang up, and wait while the secretary executed it immediately and with accuracy – or be fired. Today, no matter how good a mood Giovanni was in, would be no different. A woman’s voice answered the telephone.
“Yes, Giovanni, sir?”
“Merla, get me Jessie and James. Tell them to report to my office immediately.”
“Yes, sir, right away. Will that be all?”
“Yes, thank you.”
As Giovanni hung up the phone, he sat and waited. Waiting was something Giovanni did not normally like to do, but when it came to a plan this good, he could easily wait a few minutes more for whatever it is he needed. But not too long. Give those Grunts an inch and they’ll take a mile, let me tell you. The telephone rang, this time on Giovanni’s end. A bit irritated, not expecting another call, he answered. “What is it?”
“Sir, neither Jessie nor James are in.”
“…what?”
“Their quarters, sir. They’re both empty.”
Giovanni didn’t expect this. “I see. Thank you. When they get back, tell them to report to my office immediately. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir, understood.”
He hung up the phone, fury building. ‘Who do they think they are, just leaving without informing me?! They’re probably off fiddling with that boy and his rat again. Honestly, you’d think after failing hundreds of times, they’d get the picture. Maybe if I told them not to get it, they’d stop.’ He chuckled again. ‘No, of course not, what am I thinking? I can’t tell them to stop. Even if it does cost me millions of dollars, it’s worth it to see a couple of idiots like them suffer.’
Another ring from the telephone. “What is it?”
“Jessie and James have reported in and are on their way to your office as we speak.”
“Excellent work. Thank you.” No sooner had he hung up the phone did he hear a somewhat feeble knock at the door. “Who’s there?!” Giovanni bellowed.
“James, sir.”
‘I must control my temper,’Giovanni thought. “Yes, James, come in, quickly!”
The door opened, and a very dirty-looking James walked inside. Well, not “walked.” “Hobbled” might be a bit more accurate. His short purple hair had bits of dirt and stick scattered through it, and his face was dirty with traces of mud. Both of his black gloves were missing, and a white jacket was tied around his waist. There was a small but noticeable gash in his black shirt near his shoulder. His white pants seemed relatively intact, except for the fact that there was a long rip down the back of one leg. His boots were covered in dirt, and James’ toes could be visible through one of them. He was a mess, to say the least. He stood there, looking at Giovanni, a weak smile filled with nervousness creeping across his face, knowing full well what was about to happen.
Giovanni was not pleased with this display. “What is the meaning of this?! Where is Jessie?!”
James took a breath and began his explanation. “Well, sir, we tried to catch that Pikachu for you again… and we got sent flying… again. We landed in Viridian Forest, and all the trees broke our fall, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they broke a couple bones as well. I can’t exactly feel my left leg completely. It feels pretty weird, actually. You know when your foot’s asleep, and—”
Giovanni sighed and rubbed his temple. “Today, James,” he interrupted. ‘Moron…’
“Y-yes, sir! Sorry, sir! We landed right in the middle of a Beedrill colony. They chased us for a while, and one of them got Jessie with a Twineedle attack. It poisoned her, and she soon fainted. Meowth suggested I fight the Beedrill off with Weezing, so I did. Teaching it Flamethrower attack was a pretty good idea… it took care of business quick,” he said with a chuckle, remembering how the Beedrill panicked after seeing Weezing spew forth flames. “After they fled, I had to tend to Jessie’s poison. It was lucky that Meowth managed to save our supply pack, or she’d probably be in a hospital. I administered some Antidote and waited for the poison to wear off. It didn’t take long. After that, we came back to get cleaned up and report to you, but Merla said you wanted to see us immediately. I weighed being presentable against keeping you waiting, and I figured I’d try my chances with looking like this. I know you don’t like to be kept waiting.”
Giovanni waited a second. “Are you finished?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
“I see. You chose wisely. It looks like you’ve had quite the adventure, hm? Good, good… but James, tell me something.”
“Yes, sir?”
“WHERE IS JESSIE?!”
Persian awoke from this sudden noise, and began to meow noisily in complaint. James jumped back a foot, completely taken off guard. “S-sh-she’s—”
A knock.
‘Saved,’ a very frightened James thought.
Giovanni, however, was in no mood to play. He removed a Poké Ball from his belt and held it towards the howling kitty. “Persian, return!” A beam of red light shot from the ball, enveloped the cat, and sucked it in. Giovanni replaced the Poké Ball and pointed a finger at the door. “James, if that isn’t Jessie knocking on that door, so help me…” He paused. ‘Oh yes. James definitely gets to die.’ “Open the door.”
‘Please be her, please be her,’ James pleaded to himself. He closed his eyes and opened the double doors that led into Giovanni’s office. He opened his eyes to find a rather tall girl with long magenta hair held in a single gravity-defying curl by the sheer magnitude of her beauty. At least, that’s what she told people. She was wearing small green earrings. Being a woman, it was more important for her to wear her standard issue uniform, because of her adequate bust, but she was more “fashionably inclined” than everyone else. She cut her shirt and jacket almost entirely off, so a very good portion of her torso was visible. This was her standard uniform.
Were she wearing said jacket, she would not look as bad as she did. Her shirt, black, like James’, was torn on one side. Because of this, she had to hold it up with one hand or risk exposing herself to the men; she did not wear a bra (she complained that she felt restricted by wearing them, and under normal circumstances, her tight-fitting shirt and jacket helped keep her breasts under control). One arm was crossed below her breasts, giving support to the elbow of her other hand, and also helped to hide them.
She wasn’t wearing any pants. No, pants were too unfashionable for this young lady. Instead, she wore a skirt, which was surprisingly intact. However, she still felt the need to feel sexy, even on the job, so she also cut her skirt shorter than normal length. Much shorter. There was about two inches of flesh between the top of her boots that went an inch above the knee and the bottom of her skirt. She had made sure that when she bent over, no one could see her panties, while still making it as short as possible so she could throttle anyone who went out of their way to sneak a peek.
She walked into Giovanni’s office with a somewhat embarrassed look on her face. She shut the door and stepped forward, and took a spot next to James.
“JESSIE!” Giovanni hollered. “Where the devil have you been?!”
“Looking for clothes, sir,” Jessie replied. “I take it James told you what happened…”
“Yes, yes, he did. That still doesn’t explain where you’ve been this whole time! I said to report to my office immediately! No side trips! At least this moron knows that an order is an order!”
James beamed for a second. ‘Hey, wait a minute…’ He sank back down as Jessie talked.
“I know, sir, and I didn’t mean to keep you waiting, honest, but you see, my skirt was nearly completely torn off; you can ask James about that. My shirt is ripped, too, so I have to hold up my shirt with one hand and my skirt with the other. It’s very hard to walk like that, especially in these boots. They’re killer on my feet… I spent five minutes looking for a skirt to wear, and then another minute or two trying to find a suitable pair of boots to wear. But I remembered that James said you wanted to see us, so I rushed back up here.”
Giovanni began to pace slowly around the two. He was silent at first. ‘I can’t believe I even considered trusting these two imbeciles with my greatest plan ever. I’m going to enjoy it when they’re sleeping the eternal sleep…’ “I see… so you think that your clothes take precedence over my orders, do you…?” He walked calmly over to his desk. ‘Yes, I am.’
“N-no, sir, of course not,” Jessie stammered. “It’s just that—”
Giovanni spun around and slammed his hands down hard on his desk three times. “I! Don’t! Care!”
A very scared Jessie jumped, wrapping her arms around James.
“Enough excuses! That goes for you too, James! I am sick and tired of you two doing nothing except failing at everything! Do you realize how much money you’ve cost me?! You could work for free for the next 10 years and not even come close to having enough to pay me back! You’re lucky I don’t fire you this instant!” A little calmer, Giovanni sat down in his chair, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. ‘Just a little longer… then they’ll be out of your hair for good.’
More relaxed, Jessie began to loosen her grip on James, but James suddenly hugged Jessie and held her tight. She looked to him, as if to ask, ‘What are you doing?’, but James simply shushed her while Giovanni talked again. “Listen up. Butch and Cassidy are both indisposed at the moment, so I need the two of you to carry out this mission. I’m growing weary of always suffering defeat at the hands of that boy”
“You mean Ash Ketchum?” James piped up. Giovanni simply stared. Was James really that stupid?
“Sir?” he asked again. Guess so.
“Yes, I mean Ash Ketchum! Who else?! No longer will he be a nuisance to Team Rocket. No longer will he continue to bar my path to world domination!”
“What do you plan on doing?” Jessie inquired.
“Ah, the best part,” Giovanni began, flashing a smile. “I’m going to get him to come to my island retreat in Orre. There, you two will be waiting. All you need to do is kill him.”
Jessie and James stared, wide-eyed. “Kill him!” James said. “Surely you don’t need to resort to murder!”
“Yes, what about Team Rocket’s pride?” Jessie chimed in.
“Forget pride! This is personal… I want that boy dead, and you two will be his executioners. Do it any way you can. But remember; you have to be quiet about it! I know it’s going to be difficult, but do try to not do something stupid like walk up to him and say, “Hello, Ash, we’re here to take your life.” Understand?”
James gulped. He didn’t like the idea, but he knew what happened when you made Giovanni cross. “Yes, sir. We’d like to get going now, so we can prepare. When do you want us to leave for Orre?”
“I will have my personal jet fly the two of you out there first thing tomorrow morning. I will send a courier to the Ketchum residence tomorrow, and I will make sure Ash accepts my offer. Meanwhile, you two make sure you know that building’s layout from top to bottom, inside and out! I’m going to wait one week for Ash to reply. Once he does, I will send Pidgeot with a note saying that he is on his way. This gives you seven days plus however long it takes for Ketchum to get there to prepare yourselves, so no screw-ups! Two more things. One: Leave all your pokémon at headquarters. Ash is going to do the same. Two: Because he’s being forced to leave his pokémon behind, he’s going to want human company. I’ll limit the number of people he can bring with him, but if he brings anyone along, you have to kill them, too. You two are to be the only ones who leave that island alive! There is more than enough food and drink there for the lot of you. When he gets there, you two are to pretend that I sent you there as punishment for failure, but you escaped from the basement and are now living the good life until your sentence is over. Be friendly toward him, but when you deliver the killing blow, I want you to strike him down with more fury than a thousand raging Primeape! Now get going! I’ll send someone to help gather your things.”
“Right. Well, Jessie, shall we go?” James said, with an ever-so-slight wink.
“Yes, let’s,” Jessie replied. The two partners sidestepped out of the office, still tightly embraced.
‘Weirdos to the very end,’ Giovanni thought. He turned in his chair and looked out the window. It was still raining. “Your days are numbered, Ash Ketchum…”
Chapter Four: Suspicion Rising
Chapter Five: Team Building, Part One
Chapter Six: Team Building, Part Two
Chapter Seven: One Last Night
Chapter Eight: Arrival
Chapter Nine: First to Fall
Chapter Ten: Staring Death Down
Chapter Eleven: Retribution
Chapter Twelve: Rescue
Chapter Thirteen: Revenge
Epilogue
I suggest starting from the beginning, even if you think you've read this before. It always helps to get the story back in memory.
The gist of the story is, Giovanni is tired of getting his butt kicked by Ash, so he decides to man up and take him out for good. Will he succeed? Find out...
Some things you should know:
The timeline in this story is a little weird. It takes place in the near future. And that's really all I can tell you. Ash is fifteen. You can project everyone else's ages accordingly. There are 4th-gen Pokemon in the story, but not a whole lot, as in the story, Ash has never been to Sinnoh. You'll first see them in chapter seven, and again sporadically throughout the rest of the story.
I don't take character requests. The only characters in this story are ones you've heard of, and only a handful of main characters at that.
This story involves character death. I won't say who, but people are going to die. I don't know exactly how graphic it will be, but I will do my best to tone it to a reasonable level. If this sort of thing upsets you, I advise you to go elsewhere. I will have warnings of character death at the beginning of each chapter as fair warning.
I also don't take requests on who you'd like to die next, or not die at all. I already know who, if anyone, will survive at the end of the story.
Some scenes may not be suitable for young children. Read at your own peril!!! :O
Chapters one through three immediately follow this post. Each new chapter I post will be linked to at the end of this post. Please use that to get to a chapter you haven't read yet.
Other than that, feel free to comment on anything you like. :> Or hate. :<
On with the show.
Prologue
It was a rainy morning. The clouds over Saffron City were dark and gray, and hid the sun completely. A rather stern-looking man, stood with a large cat near a window in his office, high above the streets, contemplating. This man, Giovanni, leader of a criminal organization known as Team Rocket, had once again had his plans foiled at the hands of a young man. Giovanni had come so close to domination of the pokémon world… but he got in his way. Him and his motley crew. Were world domination a tangible thing, it would be comparable to a person chasing a floating feather. You creep up on it, getting closer and closer, when you’re so close you can smell it – and a simple gust of wind blows it away, out of your reach. This time, things had to change. No one would stand in his way. But how? Every plan he’d come up with would fail, regardless of how complex or foolproof it seemed.
And it was all because of him. That… do-gooder. Giovanni began to pace the office, the cat mimicking his movements. He turned to his pet. “Persian, stop it. I’m not in the mood to play right now.” When he passed the window again, he stopped, taking a minute to look at the city below him. He wondered to himself.
'Why can’t he see what I’m trying to achieve? What goes on in that boy’s mind that makes him completely oblivious to the truth?’ He chuckled to himself. ‘I’ve tried everything short of just killing him.’ He laughed a bit at this ridiculous notion, but his smile quickly began to fade as his brain processed what he just said. ‘Now there’s an idea… if I dispose of him like that, there will be no one to stand in my way.’
Giovanni, now feeling better with this new idea, continued to walk around the room, rather aimlessly, Persian still following him. ‘That’s it! I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before! It’s so perfect! But… I can’t just kill him in the street. No. I have to get him alone somehow… no, that won’t work, either. He’d be too much on his guard, and he’d have that Pikachu with him, no doubt.’
He stopped for a minute to think about this particular pokémon. He had seen the pokémon in a battle firsthand, and could not for the life of him figure out why Jessie and James had lost to it on countless occasions, not to mention blown up or otherwise ruined several of Team Rocket’s Secret Machines. Those things don’t come cheap! Giovanni resumed pacing, and Persian, tiring of his own game, rested at the side of Giovanni’s desk.
‘Where was I…? Oh, yes. Pikachu. I’ve already lost millions of dollars at the cheeks of that rat… I have to keep them apart as much as I can. …But I can’t take any chances. All his pokémon love him, no doubt about that.’ His thoughts trailed back to his earlier conversation with himself. ‘When I’m done with him, he’ll wish he had joined my cause. Well, I guess he won’t, but that’s his problem.’ He shook his head a few times, and tried to stay focused. This idea was too good to let slip away like so many dreams before it.
‘He’ll have human companions. I can’t risk them going to the authorities, so I have no choice but to kill them, too. Yes… this plan will not fail. But there’s still one problem. Who to carry out my wishes? I can’t do it myself… no, I must stay here and continue running business as normal. Butch is in prison… I remember sending Cassidy out to find new recruits, but she hasn’t reported back to me in quite some time. When she gets back, she’s in for it. Both of my best agents are unavailable. Wonderful. Next in rank…no. I can’t trust Jessie and James. They’re too much of a liability.’ His eyes widened at a sudden realization. ‘Wait a second. I can get rid of them, too… they’ll only cause me more and more losses later on, I’m sure of it. I can send them to do the dirty work, then send someone else to do them in! Yes! Perfect!’
He slammed his fist on the desk for emphasis, satisfied with this ultimate plan. ‘Where to do the deed? Hm… it has to be far from Kanto, where Team Rocket would be least suspected. I could probably use that private island retreat in Orre… yes! No wild pokémon to save the day, and no humans for hundreds of miles! Everything is set. Now to set the wheels in motion,’ Giovanni thought. He picked up a telephone receiver and held it to his ear. This was Giovanni’s personal telephone; when he picked it up, a similar phone would ring at the secretary’s desk on the ground floor. When she picked it up, Giovanni would bark an order, hang up, and wait while the secretary executed it immediately and with accuracy – or be fired. Today, no matter how good a mood Giovanni was in, would be no different. A woman’s voice answered the telephone.
“Yes, Giovanni, sir?”
“Merla, get me Jessie and James. Tell them to report to my office immediately.”
“Yes, sir, right away. Will that be all?”
“Yes, thank you.”
As Giovanni hung up the phone, he sat and waited. Waiting was something Giovanni did not normally like to do, but when it came to a plan this good, he could easily wait a few minutes more for whatever it is he needed. But not too long. Give those Grunts an inch and they’ll take a mile, let me tell you. The telephone rang, this time on Giovanni’s end. A bit irritated, not expecting another call, he answered. “What is it?”
“Sir, neither Jessie nor James are in.”
“…what?”
“Their quarters, sir. They’re both empty.”
Giovanni didn’t expect this. “I see. Thank you. When they get back, tell them to report to my office immediately. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir, understood.”
He hung up the phone, fury building. ‘Who do they think they are, just leaving without informing me?! They’re probably off fiddling with that boy and his rat again. Honestly, you’d think after failing hundreds of times, they’d get the picture. Maybe if I told them not to get it, they’d stop.’ He chuckled again. ‘No, of course not, what am I thinking? I can’t tell them to stop. Even if it does cost me millions of dollars, it’s worth it to see a couple of idiots like them suffer.’
Another ring from the telephone. “What is it?”
“Jessie and James have reported in and are on their way to your office as we speak.”
“Excellent work. Thank you.” No sooner had he hung up the phone did he hear a somewhat feeble knock at the door. “Who’s there?!” Giovanni bellowed.
“James, sir.”
‘I must control my temper,’Giovanni thought. “Yes, James, come in, quickly!”
The door opened, and a very dirty-looking James walked inside. Well, not “walked.” “Hobbled” might be a bit more accurate. His short purple hair had bits of dirt and stick scattered through it, and his face was dirty with traces of mud. Both of his black gloves were missing, and a white jacket was tied around his waist. There was a small but noticeable gash in his black shirt near his shoulder. His white pants seemed relatively intact, except for the fact that there was a long rip down the back of one leg. His boots were covered in dirt, and James’ toes could be visible through one of them. He was a mess, to say the least. He stood there, looking at Giovanni, a weak smile filled with nervousness creeping across his face, knowing full well what was about to happen.
Giovanni was not pleased with this display. “What is the meaning of this?! Where is Jessie?!”
James took a breath and began his explanation. “Well, sir, we tried to catch that Pikachu for you again… and we got sent flying… again. We landed in Viridian Forest, and all the trees broke our fall, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they broke a couple bones as well. I can’t exactly feel my left leg completely. It feels pretty weird, actually. You know when your foot’s asleep, and—”
Giovanni sighed and rubbed his temple. “Today, James,” he interrupted. ‘Moron…’
“Y-yes, sir! Sorry, sir! We landed right in the middle of a Beedrill colony. They chased us for a while, and one of them got Jessie with a Twineedle attack. It poisoned her, and she soon fainted. Meowth suggested I fight the Beedrill off with Weezing, so I did. Teaching it Flamethrower attack was a pretty good idea… it took care of business quick,” he said with a chuckle, remembering how the Beedrill panicked after seeing Weezing spew forth flames. “After they fled, I had to tend to Jessie’s poison. It was lucky that Meowth managed to save our supply pack, or she’d probably be in a hospital. I administered some Antidote and waited for the poison to wear off. It didn’t take long. After that, we came back to get cleaned up and report to you, but Merla said you wanted to see us immediately. I weighed being presentable against keeping you waiting, and I figured I’d try my chances with looking like this. I know you don’t like to be kept waiting.”
Giovanni waited a second. “Are you finished?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
“I see. You chose wisely. It looks like you’ve had quite the adventure, hm? Good, good… but James, tell me something.”
“Yes, sir?”
“WHERE IS JESSIE?!”
Persian awoke from this sudden noise, and began to meow noisily in complaint. James jumped back a foot, completely taken off guard. “S-sh-she’s—”
A knock.
‘Saved,’ a very frightened James thought.
Giovanni, however, was in no mood to play. He removed a Poké Ball from his belt and held it towards the howling kitty. “Persian, return!” A beam of red light shot from the ball, enveloped the cat, and sucked it in. Giovanni replaced the Poké Ball and pointed a finger at the door. “James, if that isn’t Jessie knocking on that door, so help me…” He paused. ‘Oh yes. James definitely gets to die.’ “Open the door.”
‘Please be her, please be her,’ James pleaded to himself. He closed his eyes and opened the double doors that led into Giovanni’s office. He opened his eyes to find a rather tall girl with long magenta hair held in a single gravity-defying curl by the sheer magnitude of her beauty. At least, that’s what she told people. She was wearing small green earrings. Being a woman, it was more important for her to wear her standard issue uniform, because of her adequate bust, but she was more “fashionably inclined” than everyone else. She cut her shirt and jacket almost entirely off, so a very good portion of her torso was visible. This was her standard uniform.
Were she wearing said jacket, she would not look as bad as she did. Her shirt, black, like James’, was torn on one side. Because of this, she had to hold it up with one hand or risk exposing herself to the men; she did not wear a bra (she complained that she felt restricted by wearing them, and under normal circumstances, her tight-fitting shirt and jacket helped keep her breasts under control). One arm was crossed below her breasts, giving support to the elbow of her other hand, and also helped to hide them.
She wasn’t wearing any pants. No, pants were too unfashionable for this young lady. Instead, she wore a skirt, which was surprisingly intact. However, she still felt the need to feel sexy, even on the job, so she also cut her skirt shorter than normal length. Much shorter. There was about two inches of flesh between the top of her boots that went an inch above the knee and the bottom of her skirt. She had made sure that when she bent over, no one could see her panties, while still making it as short as possible so she could throttle anyone who went out of their way to sneak a peek.
She walked into Giovanni’s office with a somewhat embarrassed look on her face. She shut the door and stepped forward, and took a spot next to James.
“JESSIE!” Giovanni hollered. “Where the devil have you been?!”
“Looking for clothes, sir,” Jessie replied. “I take it James told you what happened…”
“Yes, yes, he did. That still doesn’t explain where you’ve been this whole time! I said to report to my office immediately! No side trips! At least this moron knows that an order is an order!”
James beamed for a second. ‘Hey, wait a minute…’ He sank back down as Jessie talked.
“I know, sir, and I didn’t mean to keep you waiting, honest, but you see, my skirt was nearly completely torn off; you can ask James about that. My shirt is ripped, too, so I have to hold up my shirt with one hand and my skirt with the other. It’s very hard to walk like that, especially in these boots. They’re killer on my feet… I spent five minutes looking for a skirt to wear, and then another minute or two trying to find a suitable pair of boots to wear. But I remembered that James said you wanted to see us, so I rushed back up here.”
Giovanni began to pace slowly around the two. He was silent at first. ‘I can’t believe I even considered trusting these two imbeciles with my greatest plan ever. I’m going to enjoy it when they’re sleeping the eternal sleep…’ “I see… so you think that your clothes take precedence over my orders, do you…?” He walked calmly over to his desk. ‘Yes, I am.’
“N-no, sir, of course not,” Jessie stammered. “It’s just that—”
Giovanni spun around and slammed his hands down hard on his desk three times. “I! Don’t! Care!”
A very scared Jessie jumped, wrapping her arms around James.
“Enough excuses! That goes for you too, James! I am sick and tired of you two doing nothing except failing at everything! Do you realize how much money you’ve cost me?! You could work for free for the next 10 years and not even come close to having enough to pay me back! You’re lucky I don’t fire you this instant!” A little calmer, Giovanni sat down in his chair, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. ‘Just a little longer… then they’ll be out of your hair for good.’
More relaxed, Jessie began to loosen her grip on James, but James suddenly hugged Jessie and held her tight. She looked to him, as if to ask, ‘What are you doing?’, but James simply shushed her while Giovanni talked again. “Listen up. Butch and Cassidy are both indisposed at the moment, so I need the two of you to carry out this mission. I’m growing weary of always suffering defeat at the hands of that boy”
“You mean Ash Ketchum?” James piped up. Giovanni simply stared. Was James really that stupid?
“Sir?” he asked again. Guess so.
“Yes, I mean Ash Ketchum! Who else?! No longer will he be a nuisance to Team Rocket. No longer will he continue to bar my path to world domination!”
“What do you plan on doing?” Jessie inquired.
“Ah, the best part,” Giovanni began, flashing a smile. “I’m going to get him to come to my island retreat in Orre. There, you two will be waiting. All you need to do is kill him.”
Jessie and James stared, wide-eyed. “Kill him!” James said. “Surely you don’t need to resort to murder!”
“Yes, what about Team Rocket’s pride?” Jessie chimed in.
“Forget pride! This is personal… I want that boy dead, and you two will be his executioners. Do it any way you can. But remember; you have to be quiet about it! I know it’s going to be difficult, but do try to not do something stupid like walk up to him and say, “Hello, Ash, we’re here to take your life.” Understand?”
James gulped. He didn’t like the idea, but he knew what happened when you made Giovanni cross. “Yes, sir. We’d like to get going now, so we can prepare. When do you want us to leave for Orre?”
“I will have my personal jet fly the two of you out there first thing tomorrow morning. I will send a courier to the Ketchum residence tomorrow, and I will make sure Ash accepts my offer. Meanwhile, you two make sure you know that building’s layout from top to bottom, inside and out! I’m going to wait one week for Ash to reply. Once he does, I will send Pidgeot with a note saying that he is on his way. This gives you seven days plus however long it takes for Ketchum to get there to prepare yourselves, so no screw-ups! Two more things. One: Leave all your pokémon at headquarters. Ash is going to do the same. Two: Because he’s being forced to leave his pokémon behind, he’s going to want human company. I’ll limit the number of people he can bring with him, but if he brings anyone along, you have to kill them, too. You two are to be the only ones who leave that island alive! There is more than enough food and drink there for the lot of you. When he gets there, you two are to pretend that I sent you there as punishment for failure, but you escaped from the basement and are now living the good life until your sentence is over. Be friendly toward him, but when you deliver the killing blow, I want you to strike him down with more fury than a thousand raging Primeape! Now get going! I’ll send someone to help gather your things.”
“Right. Well, Jessie, shall we go?” James said, with an ever-so-slight wink.
“Yes, let’s,” Jessie replied. The two partners sidestepped out of the office, still tightly embraced.
‘Weirdos to the very end,’ Giovanni thought. He turned in his chair and looked out the window. It was still raining. “Your days are numbered, Ash Ketchum…”
Chapter Four: Suspicion Rising
Chapter Five: Team Building, Part One
Chapter Six: Team Building, Part Two
Chapter Seven: One Last Night
Chapter Eight: Arrival
Chapter Nine: First to Fall
Chapter Ten: Staring Death Down
Chapter Eleven: Retribution
Chapter Twelve: Rescue
Chapter Thirteen: Revenge
Epilogue