A Girl’s Best Friend
(part 2)

Chapter 4: Scape Goat

"James?"

"Hey boss, you know this wimp?" asked Josh

Josh slowly moved his head towards James in a menacing way.

"Yeah. And get your hands off him."

Josh and Dean immediately backed off and stood over the other side of the room. Stuart walked over to them as they stood there side by side, looking absolutely terrified of him.

"You mess with James," Stuart said, "You mess with me. Got it?" he said sternly.

"Yeah sure."

"Sure Boss."

"No problem."

"That’s cool."

"Absolute Boss."

"That’s great."

"SHUT UP!"

Josh and Dean immediately did as he commanded and shut up.

Stuart turned towards James.

"You alright kid?"

James checked with himself then nodded. Suddenly, a loud voice over a loud speaker echoed through the corridors.

"Alright you wimps, lights out, 10 minutes."

Stuart turned towards Josh and Dean and stared at them menacingly.

"Well, you heard the guy."

Josh and Dean immediately made their way over to the sink.

@~>~>~~

30 minutes later, Josh and Dean were fast asleep, Josh in the bottom bunk with Dean on the top. Stuart was on top of the second bed with James below. James was staring at a photo on the wall. A picture of him and Jessie, the only thing he was allowed to take in with him. He could just make out her features as the pale moonlight filtered through the barred window. Thinking every one was asleep, James quietly whispered.

"I miss you Jessie."

"You love her don’t you?"

James nearly jumped out his skin. He heard Stuart move about above him as the bed creaked.

"You do. Don’t you?"

James sighed softly. He stared lovingly at the picture. It was taken when they had finally captured Pikachu; at least that’s what they thought. It was back when the twerp Ash was doing his part in the Pokemon League. Then him and his pal Ritchie decided to ruin their plans. It was a picture of him and Jessie standing side by side with their arms around each other shoulder doing a peace sign towards the camera. Meowth was kind enough to take it for them.

"Hey, you still alive down there?" Stuart joked

James smiled slightly. "Yeah, I’m still here."

"You still haven’t answered my other question."

"That’s because I don’t know the answer." Replied James, still staring at the picture.

"I bet ya do. It’s obvious."

With that said, Stuart turned back over and went to sleep. James stayed awake for a while looking at Jessie, mulling over what Stuart had said. Not getting much of an answer, James slowly drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

@~>~>~~

The next day, James awoke to a very loud voice over the loud speaker again.

"Alright, everyone up! Got no time for lazy guys! Come on! Time to get to work!"

James yawned and rubbed his eyes. For a moment he didn’t realise where he was, but then soon was reminded as Dean jumped down from the top bunk straight onto Josh, causing him to lash out at him.

"What the hell do you think you’re doing’?" screamed Josh.

"Getting down from my bunk that’s what!" Dean screamed back.

"You little piece of…" Josh lashed out at Dean who dodged his attack. Soon they where into a massive fight. During this time, Stuart and James stayed on their beds. James peered up at Stuart.

"Aren’t you going to try and stop them?"

"Nah." Said Stuart calmly, "There’s no point trying to when they get like this. Besides, the gaurds’ll be along in a minute to stop ‘em."

James sat there on his bed watching. He hated people when they fight. Probably because he knew what it felt like. He got up bravely from his bed and walked over to them, narrowly missing a punch.

"Hey guys, stop it!"

Of course no body took any notice of him.

"Hey come on!" James grabbed Josh’s arm to try and stop him.

"Umm, James I wouldn’t do that." Warned Stuart.

Josh shrugged it off and continued aiming at Dean. James stood up straight and took in a `deep breath. He was going to regret this.

"I said could you please…" he raised his arm into the air.

Just then, the cell door un-clicked and a guard walked through.

"…stop this!" James screwed up his eyes and punched forward as hard as he could, smacking straight into Josh’s face.

Josh screamed in pain and clutched his face.

"What the hell is going on in here?" shouted the guard.

James stepped back and looked nervously at the guard. He gulped.

"Jesus! Oh Jesus!" screamed Josh. Blood was pouring out of his nose. "You’ve broken my bloody (no pun intended) nose!"

James stepped forward panic written all over his face.

"Oh I’m so sorry, I didn’t, I didn’t mean…"

"YOU!" the guard grabbed James by the back of his shirt and through him against the wall.

"So, even after your thrown in prison, you still wanna cause trouble huh?"

James sweat dropped.

"No, no I didn’t mean to do that. I was just trying to stop…"

"Save your excuses." He grabbed James by the collar and looked across at Josh.

"You get down to the infirmary. The rest of you, get to your work stations."

He looked down at the terrified James in his hands.

"As for you…your on floor duty." He snickered.

James gulped as he was dragged off down the corridor, leaving a very stunned Dean and Stuart to deal with Josh.

@~>~>~~

The guard had taken James down to the deepest and dingiest part of the prison. This was where the ‘violent’ troublemakers where taken when they had caused trouble. As James walked down the dark corridors, he could see various prisoners scrubbing away at walls, floors, and if they weren’t doing that, they were fighting with each other.

‘This gives a whole new meaning for ‘prepare for trouble’’ thought James, as he was walked past the prisoners, who looked up at him and snickered.

The guard dropped James to floor. He grabbed a bucket of water and a scrubbing brush and dumped it in front of James.

He turned back towards the other prisoners who were watching.

"Here ya go boys, another ‘pal’ for you to get acquainted to."

The guard left them to deal with James. James knelt there on the floor, praying that the other prisoners would leave him alone. They were tough, heavy men, with scars and bruises, who had obviously had a lot of experience with fights. They slowly crowed around James, who sweat dropped.

"Umm…hi?" James tried.

The prisoners snickered and crowded around him. James laughed nervously and gulped. This, was going, to hurt.

Chapter 5: The Photo

"YOU IDIOTS!" screamed Giovanni at his scientists! "YOU INCOMPETENT FOOLS!"

He walked over the Dalel and Josie, as they stood there literally shaking in their boots.

"THIS POKEMON WAS SUPPOSED TO BE YOUR RESPONSIBILITY!"

"We, we’re sorry sir."

"We are sir, it, it’ll never happen again."

"Your damn right it will never happen again. YOU’RE FIRED! BOTH OF YOU!"

Dalel and Josie looked at him in shock.

"But sir!" said Josie as Giovanni turned around to leave.

"But nothing!" he screamed back, "Now, do I have to call security?"

Josie hung her head, as did Dalel.

"Now get out."

Josie and Dalel walked side by side as they made their way through the door, down the corridor, and eventually outside of the Team Rocket headquarters. As they walked outside, they found a bench in a nearby park and sat down.

"I’m so sorry Dalel, this is all my fault."

"No it’s not." He said, putting his arm her.

"Yes it is. If you had never employed me you would still be in there."

"Yeah, and if I hadn’t we would never have created that pokèmon."

"What does it matter? It’s gone now anyway."

They sat there for a while watching a couple of young kids training their pokèmon. One had a Pidgy, the other a Chikorita. Josie watched them and sighed.

"I wish I’d become a pokèmon trainer like my brother."

"You have a brother?"

"Yes, but he doesn’t know he has a sister."

Dalel frowned. "How come?"

"When I was born, my parents gave me away to the orphanage because they said they wanted a boy."

"That’s terrible."

"A year later, the news came to the orphanage that my parents had had a son. When I was adopted at the age of 8, the orphanage told me about my brother and gave me a picture that they had found stuck to a tree outside."

"Have you got it with you?"

"Yes." Josie put her hand in her pocket and brought out a scrunched up piece of paper and handed it to Dalel. He opened it and looked at the picture of a young boy, about 7 or 8, dressed in expensive looking clothes.

"Hey, he looks a lot like you. I don’t know whether that’s an insult or a compliment but…" he smiled.

Josie smiled back.

"Is this a wanted poster?"

"Sort of. Apparently he ran away when he was 8."

Dalel looked down at the reward.

"WOW! ½ million!? Your parents must have been super rich!"

"Yeah, they were. That’s the only picture I have of him. All I know is his name and that he joined Team Rocket. That’s why joined, to see if I could find him. I guess I never will."

"Don’t give up yet Josie. You’ll find him."

"I hope so."

After a pause, Josie asked.

"So, what should we do now?"

"We better go to a Team Rocket hideout and sort our selves out. Then we better go our separate ways and find another job I suppose." He suggested.

"Yeah."

"I think we left out stuff at the hideout near Charachi City."

"Better make our way over there then."

As they got up, Dalel handed Josie back the picture.

"By the way, what’s his name?"

Josie looked at the picture in her hand. The small boy, hair colour the same as hers, but instead of purple eyes, had bright deep green ones.

"His name is James."

To be continued…