A Girl’s Best Friend
Part seven

Chapter 15: SURPRISE! The Truth Revealed.

James burst open the door and through the Pokèball. Weezing materialised and instantly chucked out its smog attack.

"What! What going on?" coughed Giovanni, leaping up from his chair. Although it was to dark to see anything, Giovanni recognised two very familiar voices.

"Prepare for trouble we’re on a rescue mission!"

"And make it double, we can fight it’s your decision!"

As Jessie and James carried on with their motto, Team Twerp snuck behind them listening out for Pikapuff.

"Pika!" It shouted

"Look, here it is." Whispered Brock back at Ash and Misty. He grabbed the cage, then froze.

Someone had hit the lights.

They stared at the, what seemed like hundreds, of guards surrounding the walls of the gym, rifles pointing at the trio.

Weezing’s smog was so thick, that Jessie and James hadn’t noticed that the lights were on. Giovanni sat back down in his chair and watched in amusement as Jessie and James came to the end of their motto, un-aware of the guards around them.

"Surrender now or prepare to fight!"

"Meowth, the lights." Meowth sighed, as he watched the smog drift away, leaving Jessie and James doing on of their many poses.

Only then, did they both realise, that they were standing in front of 30 guards aiming their rifles, with their Boss laughing in front of them. Jessie and James gulped simultaneously as they saw the guards around the walls.

"Who needs a Court Jester when there’s you two about?!" Giovanni laughed.

Jessie looked around at all the guards and lent over to James.

"Four guards and the Boss huh?" she said angrily.

James laughed nervously, but then stopped as Giovanni got back out of his chair.

"Welcome back." he said menacingly, "After this I presume?" He pointed behind them, slightly to his left. Jessie and James followed his gaze and saw Pikapuff in a small cage on the floor.

"Pikapuff!" cried James.

He went to run towards it, but soon stopped when he heard the clicking of loaded rifles. He gulped and walked a few steps back to Jessie. Ash, Misty, Brock, Pikachu and Meowth were sitting on the floor not to far from Pikapuff, with four guards surrounding them.

James also noticed two other people he had never seen before, tied back to back sitting on the floor next to Pikapuff’s cage. Giovanni noticed that James had seen them, and walked over to the two prisoners.

"I want to introduce you to someone James."

At the mention of James, the female prisoner looked up through her lavender hair, that had now fallen out of it bun and was hanging loosely around her face.

"James, meet Josephine…Diamond."

Josie couldn’t believe who she was looking at. There, not to far in front of her, was her long lost brother. The green eyes, the lavender hair, the name, it had to be him. She smiled so widely she felt like screaming for joy.

"James!"

James looked at her confused.

"I can’t believe I’ve found you!"

"Huh?" asked James, having no clue of what she was talking about.

"Wow! She looks a lot like James!" said Ash, doing his famous act of pointing out the obvious.

"Ahhh, so he doesn’t know who you are." Smirked Giovanni, "Well Josie here’s yours chance to tell him, to have a, final family reunion."

She didn’t quite know what he meant by ‘final’ family reunion, but right now all that she cared about was that she had found her brother.

"James, I know you don’t know who I am, but I know who you are."

James stared at her and listened intently.

"When I was a young girl, I was sent to an orphanage because my rich parents wanted a boy, not a girl. They wanted someone to carry on the family line, and they wanted a boy to do that, as they had already picked out a fiancé to marry him."

At this point, James frowned. This story seemed familiar.

"A year later, my parents had finally had a baby boy…a boy that had named James."

"Huh?" now James was getting even more confused.

"Don’t you see? That rich family that you came from, they were also my family. I’ve been looking for you since I was adopted at the age of 8, when I found a wanted poster for the return of you when you ran away…to get away from Jessiebelle."

James was perplexed. This woman knew everything about him.

"But, who do you, what does, does this mean that…?"

"Yes James…I’m your sister."

James couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

"My…my sister?" he breathed, almost falling over from shock.

Josie smiled back at him.

"Hey, hey let me see." Josie had completely forgot about Dalel tied to her back.

She moved over a little so Dalel could see over his shoulder.

"Ahh, so that’s James."

"I told you she looked like James!" exclaimed Ash, looking over at Misty, then at James

James felt a little un-easy with all these pairs of eyes staring at him.

"Well, isn’t this a touching reunion" said Giovanni, walking back over to his chair and sitting down, "Now, let’s get down to business shall we?"

Suddenly, the huge doors at the entrance burst open and in walked three people James and Jessie never would have known to see again.

"STUART? DEAN?" James gulped the last name nervously, "Josh?"

"What are you three doing here?" asked Jessie.

"Exactly what I would like to know," said Giovanni, "Hw did you get out of prison."

Jessie and James stared wide eyed.

"You know these three Sir?" asked James

"Yes, they’re in Team Rocket."

"WHAT?!" Jessie and James chorused.

Stuart walked up to James.

"Why did you think I said that Team Rocket were tough when we first met? When you used that Pikapuff to make all the guards fall asleep, us three were the only ones still on work duty, we just opened the doors and went free, figured we should come back to headquarters, but the secretary told us to come to the gym, so here we are."

"Yeah, at least most Team Rocket members are tough." Said Josh through clenched teeth, eyeing daggers at James who smiled nervously as he looked at Josh’s bandaged nose.

Stuart walked past James and up to Giovanni.

"So Boss, what’s going on in here having a little party?"

"Something like that." He replied, "Now where were we…"

"DEAN!?"

Deans shouted name come from Josie mouth. Dean turned to face her.

"JOSIE!?" He shouted back surprised.

"Huh?" said James, "You know her?" he asked.

"Yeah." He said softly, blushing as he looked at her.

James looked across at Josie and saw that she was blushing too.

"Oh don’t tell me you two…"

Suddenly, yet again, the huge doors flung open and in walked Cassidy and Butch.

"What going on in here?" asked Cassidy.

"CASSIDY?!" shouted Dalel

Cassidy turned to where she had heard her name.

"DALEL!?" she shouted back.

"Huh? You know him?" asked Butch.

"Yeah." She said softly blushing.

"Whoa, whoa hold it please! I’m getting confused." Cried James holding his head, "Cassidy, Butch, Stuart, Dean, Josh, Jessie and I are all in Team Rocket."

"And us!" said Josie.

"We’re the scientists." Added Dalel.

James sighed, "Okay, so everyone here, except the twerps, is in Team Rocket. Josie’s my sister, Cassidy knows Dalel, who knows Josie, and she knows Dean, who Jess and I have just met, who’s all in Team Rocket…"

"Oh, and I helped create Pikapuff."

"Okay, and you helped to create Pikapuff, who found me, and I’m your brother so, maybe it…"

James frowned and gave up on trying to piece everyone together and decided to just stand there confused. Despite their predicament, Jessie couldn’t help but laugh at James. He looked so innocent and confused, just typical James.

‘One day’, she thought, ‘One day I’ll tell him.’

Chapter 16: The Great Escape

By now, the gym was getting quite crowded. Everyone stood their arguing. Cassidy was trying to explain to an angry Butch why she was blushing, Dean and Josh were in an argument over Josie, Jessie was arguing with Stuart on how he never told them he was in Team Rocket, Giovanni was shouting at the guards for not locking the doors, and just for the sake of it, Ash made a stupid comment so now Misty was yelling at him. Amongst all this, James stood there quietly, watching. He looked over at Josie and Dalel, and realised for the first time that they were actually tied together. Also for the first time, he realised he was looking at his sister. He smiled happily at the thought that he had someone in his family that cared for him. For a split second, he felt braver then he ever had. With a deep breath, while everyone was distracted, he ran over to his sister.

Josie saw her brother coming towards her and smiled. James knelt beside her and untied the knots binding her and Dalel together. When her arms were free she flung her arms around James and hugged him tight. James felt like crying. Someone really did care about him. He hugged her back then let go.

"Let’s get out of here."

He ran over to the cage and Pikapuff squealed happily at him. James picked the small lock and Pikapuff jumped into his arms, ‘puffing’ happily. When he turned around, he found Josie and Dalel were hugging each other tightly, smiles across their faces.

"Where do you think you three are going?" asked Giovanni, seeing James, Josie, Dalel and Pikapuff.

Before Giovanni had time to order his guards to fire, James grabbed Jessie by the wrist, pulling her towards him. He through Pikapuff into the air and shouted.

"SING!"

James had pulled Jessie so hard to get her away from the sing waves that he toppled over, pulling Jessie down on top of him.

Pikapuff did as its master commanded and started singing the whole gym to sleep.

"You…can’t…escape here…your both…" Giovanni slumped to the ground, asleep.

One by one, the guards to fell asleep, their rifles slipping from their hands. Cassidy and Butch, Stuart, Josh and Dean, all of them now snoring happily on the floor. The guards around the Twerps were now asleep too, so Ash, Misty, Brock, Pikachu and Meowth walked up behind them. Smiling, James looked up at Jessie on top on him, and Jessie looked down to James. At the same time, both of them blushed bright red and Jessie quickly clambered off him, mumbling embarrassingly.

Before James could get up off the floor, Pikapuff came waddling up to him and jumped into his arms. James hugged the small pokèmon.

"You're great Pikapuff."

"Puff puff." It sighed, contently in James’s arms.

"Sometimes I envy that Pikapuff." mumbled Jessie

"What was that?" asked James suspiciously

"Errr, nothing." Jessie panicked.

James got up with Pikapuff in his arms. He stood by Jessie and smiled sweetly at her, who smiled back.

"Well, let’s get out of here before they all wake up." Said Ash.

"Good idea." Said Josie.

Pikapuff climbed up and sat on James’s right shoulder. James noticed that Josie was holding Dalel’s hand and smiled sadly. He wished he had someone like that. Jessie noticed the way James looked at them and blushed.

‘Should I?’ she thought, ‘Oh what the heck’.

Jessie didn’t look at James, but she slowly moved her right hand to hold his left. James felt her hand and smiled, also not looking her way. Somehow, after all this, something had sparked between them. Both were un-sure about what the other was feeling, but as neither of them took their hand away, both were hopeful that something good would come out of all of this.

"Oh wait!" James exclaimed, "I’ve just realised, where’s Weezing?"

Suddenly, the huge door flew open, and in walked six Officer Jenny’s with their Growlithes. Following behind them was James’s trusted pokèmon, Weezing. It floated over to James and wheezed.

"Ha, would ya look at dat. It went ta find help for us." Said Meowth. James patted Weezing on its larger head.

"Good job, return." James held out his Pokèball and Weezing disappeared into it.

The group watched as the Officer Jenny’s told the other Officers to arrest everyone asleep. Josie looked to her left to see Brock being held back by his ear by Misty. She leaned over the Ash.

"Is he alright?"

"Haha, oh don’t worry about Brock." He laughed.

"YOU TWO!" Everyone turned to face an Officer Jenny looking at Jessie and James, "I think I know precisely where you two are going back to…prison."

Jessie and James sighed.

"No don’t do that."

James and Jessie turned around to see Misty.

"Why not?" asked Officer Jenny

"There must be surveillance cameras in here, check them. Jessie and James weren’t with these people, they were trying to help rescue a pokèmon."

Jessie and James stood mouths open. Misty, one of their mortal enemies was helping them. Misty looked over to them and spoke more to them then Officer Jenny

"They don’t deserve to go back to prison."

James’s look of shock turned into a small smile. He mouthed the words ‘Thank you’ towards her.

"Hmm, well, we’ll just see about that."

She headed off to try and find the camera room and left the others where they were. Josie gulped and blushed slightly. She turned to Dalel.

"Dalel?"

"Yes Josie."

"Umm, I wanted to thank you, for being here. I mean, none of this had anything to do with you, and well, you still stayed with me, I guess I just wanted to…well…thank you."

Dalel smiled back at her and blushed himself.

"To be perfectly honest…although this seemed a, dangerous situation, I’m kinda glad I spent it with you."

Josie tried to stifle a gasp and blushed even redder.

"Dalel I…ummm."

She couldn’t think of the words to say, so instead, she leaned closer to him. Sensing what she was to do, Dalel closed the distance between them and kissed her. Jessie and James, who were watching the whole time, looked away, burning red with embarrassment as they realised that they were holding hands the same way Josie and Dalel were before they kissed. Misty rolled her eyes.

"Come on everyone, lets go and wait outside."

To be continued…