Story Five: Truth
"So it is true;" Myamoto whispered in awe, staring at an enormous computer screen, her eyes switching from it to a file of papers that she held in her hands. James stood beside her, longing to put a hand uponn her shoulder for comfort, but daring not too, knowing the electrocution that it would bring.
Myamoto and James had broken into the Records Warehouse as the Isle Noir Team Rocket Base. It felt to James as if he and Myamoto were playing Fox Mulder and Dana Scully in an episode of "The X-Files", peering around in a darkened building of secrets with tiny flashlights. The 'Files had been one of Jessie's favorite shows, he recalled, though it had often scared him.
They found the records that they had been seeking, which merely confirmed what Myamoto had already known. The dreams that she had been having of late had been becoming more vivid and, through them, "memories" began to surface.
Now, Myamoto stood staring at solid, written confirmation. Her original, the woman that she had been cloned from, and therefore she, in a way...was Myamoto Lillis, the mother of Jessica Mushashi Lillis.
"James;" she whispered; "I f;I feel...like I AM her, that she was me. I-I have to meet my daughter, your partner. And...I have to leave here...I wish no longer to be Father Giovanni's slave."
"I promise;" James said; "That we will escape this place. If Jessie's alive, we will find her. I...have a plan...We will escape Isle Noir, or die trying..."
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"Please! You've got to believe me!" said a young man in a very tattered black shirt and white pants.
Ash, Misty, Brock, and Tracey looked at him with much suspicion. Pikachu started charging his cheek pouches.
Both Tracey and Brock were traveling with Ash on his Journey for the time being. Brock had resumed traveling with the would-be Pokemon Master after working for a while with Professor Ivy and Tracey had taken a short leave of his work with Professor Oak. Misty, as always, was still hounding Ash to repay her for her bike he h he had destroyed so very long ago.
The brown-haired youth standing before them told the group that he was a Team Rocket member looking for Jessie of Team Rocket. Ash and his friends had not seen Jessie, James, and Meowth (who used to constantly plague them) in several months.
The young man, who called himself Mondo, acted gruff and criminal when he first encountered the group, demanding the four travelers to tell him where Jessie was, assuming that they knew, because Jessie and James used to follow them. That was the reason for the great mistrust now.
Acting tough had not gotten Mondo the information that he sought, so now he was pleading. He poured out a cockamamie (in the opinion of Ash and his friends) tale about escaping Team Rocket kidnappers, who had taken their old enemy James to some island to perform weird experiments upon him and he, himself being on the run from assassins.
"A likely story;" muttered Brock.
"Why shoy should we believe you?" said Ash.
"You admitted to being with Team Rocket;" yelled Misty; "If you wanted us to trust you, you shouldn't have threatened us!"
A loud "Whizz!" came out of nowhere! A shiny bit of metal embedded itself in the trunk of a tree. Another bullet soared over everybody's heads.
"Duck!" Tracey shouted.
"Run!" Mondo cried.
Ash, Misty, Brock, Pikachu, Tracey and Mondo ran through the forest. Their attackers made themselves evident, bursting through bushes.
"Ha! There's the little traitor!" one of the two black-clad men exclaimed.
"What about those kids?" replied the other.
"Witness elimination!"
"Hold it right there!" a voice out of the woods shouted, followed by a second, older sounding voice.
"Freeze, scumbags!"
Two Officer Jennys, one whose indigo hair was streaked with gray, stood with guns drawn upon the blupon the black-uniformed men. Two figures stood behind them, one very short and the other very tall with long red hair.
"Jessie! Meowth!" Mondo gasped as he turned around to look at the Officers.
The assassins opened fire upon Jenny and Jennifer Justicia! The policewomen returned fire and Jessie produced a gun. Misty shrieked. Brock, Tracey, and Mondo ducked. Pikachu, the fear in his rapidly beating little rodent heart overcoming his logic, ran right into the center of the gun battle!
"Pikachu!" Ash screamed, rushing to grab and shield his beloved pokemon as the bullets flew.
"Pika!"
"Arrrrgggghhh!"
"Ash!" Misty cried.
"Arrrrgggghhh!" groaned one of the assassins as he fell to the ground. The other swore, dropping his gun as his hand became a bloody mass!
The two Officer Jennys ran to the two black-clad men. Young Jenny assessed the condition of the one on the ground, pronouncipronouncing to him that he was under arrest as soon as she found that he was alive and the wound that she had given him not serious. Jennifer confiscated the gun of the other man and handcuffed him (by his good hand) to a tree. Then she turned to the civilians.
Misty knelt beside two forms that lay on the ground, Ash and Pikachu.
"Ash! Oh, no....no...."
"Groooooannnnn....Misty? PIKACHU!"
"Chu...."
Older Officer Jenny knelt beside Ash; "I just called for an ambulance from Alizarin City, and they are on their way. Hold on, son, just hold on."
"Jessie!" Mondo cried, nearly crushing his old friend in a tight embrace.
"Mondo?"
"Oh, Jessie! I've been looking for you and Meowth for months! I escaped the kidnappers at the Vermilion Hospital, and-and..."
"Kidnappers?"
"Let me explain..."
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"James is alive?" Jessie asked Mondo while sitting in the Alizarin City Hospital Waiting Room. Brock and Tracey were there, as well as the two Officer Jennys (who were busy filing reports with one of the hospital secretaries), while Misty had gone in to see Ash and Pikachu. The hospital staff were only letting one person in to see them at the moment, and his surgeon would announce when he felt that he was ready to have more visitors.
As for the care of Pikachu, Alizarin City Hospital always kept a Nurse Joy on hand for any pokemon emergency that should arise nearby, for the nearest Pokemon Center was far from this particular human hospital and sometimes, local people brought their pokemon there in a crisis.
"I'm actually not too sure of that now;" Mondo replied. I know that they took him to Isle Noir, it's an island in the Orange Archipelago, yet so far from the other islands that it is not considered a part of it. I know w the coordinates. It is thought to be deserted, but Giovanni's set up a secret Base there."
Meowth stirred where he lay on Mondo's lap.
"So's ya mean dat James got kidnapped an' taken to dis Isle Noir place? Dat he ain't dead like me an' Jessie tawght?"
"Whether he's alive or dead, I do not know now. He very well could be dead. I have no idea what they were planning to do with him, all I know is that it was some sort of genetic research involving humans and pokemon and that they had some other project going on there, something to do with cloning."
"Cloning?" replied Jessie; "Mondo, have you heard anything about a 'Myamoto Project'?
"Yes, I think that's what it was called."
"Jessie an' I've found records;" said Meowth.
Jessie and Meowth then began their long story of what they had learned in the last several months. They told of what they knew about the Joys and Jennys and about about what they had uncovered about the "Myamoto Project". Jessie also told Mondo with much pain that the original Myamoto was her mother. The Jennys came from the secretary's desk and sat down to join the conversation.
The older Jenny, Jennifer Justicia, bore many surprising secrets about her family. Brock and Tracey listened transfixed and amazed.
"So you mean;" whispered Tracey; "You're all clones?"
"Yes."
"But you are all individuals at the same time, right?" asked Brock; "not to sound rude, but how do you sort out your identity if you are...clones?"
"And why do you let the cloning continue?" asked Mondo; "I know this sounds weird coming from a...'Rocket', but isn't that...a little unethical?"
"It is the only way to keep our family line alive, I'm afraid;" Jennifer answered; "You see, none of us are...able to have children. The cloning process ocess renders us sterile. The only way we can keep the Justicia family alive and preserve the memory of our mother, JennyOne, the original Jennifer Justicia, is by the cloning. Besides that, our race are the perfect civil servants. We all love police work and do it well, as do the Joys in their occupation. The cities as we know them today are partially built upon our skilled and dedicated service and would be in dire straits if we did not continue our families. You understand?"
After receiving nods from Tracey, Brock, Mondo, Jessie, Meowth, and Young Jenny, Jennifer continued; "Though I know that I am a clone, 'JennyNine', I don't feel like I am less than human. When I first learned of my status as a child with the Old Team Rocket, it created a great amount of confusion within me. I grew quickly and never really had a childhood, but my adult life has been long and I still grew and learned."
She continued; "As far as I'm concerned, , even though I was created by humankind, I am still a creation of God, just, perhaps, a little indirectly. I've found my identity in my faith in God. I've come to believe in Jesus and, in Him, I have found ultimate worth."
"You'll have to excuse my Aunt;" said the Young Officer Jenny; "She does this to almost everyone..."
"Oh, don't excuse me, dear;" interrupted Jennifer; "I am never ashamed of the Truth."
Jessie couldn't believe all that was going on. Just this morning, she was involved in a raging gun battle, got re-aquatinted with an old friend, learned that her dead partner might still be alive, and now was getting preached to by a Christian clone.
"Whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. If nothing else, a clone like me qualifies as a whosoever..."
A doctor came in, Doctor Lockter, Ash's surgeon.
"You may go see your friends now. Mr. Ketchum is resting cting comfortably and both he and the Pikachu will be just fine."
Ash had sustained a minor gunshot wound to his upper left arm. He was to be held for observation for two or three days, but Doctor Lockter said that there was no cause for worry. Pikachu was slightly worse off, one of the assassin's bullets had nearly destroyed his tail.
Young Jenny, after briefly visiting Ash, had gone to check with some other doctors on the condition of the Team Rocket assassins, also brought into the Alizarin Hospital. She was to make arrangements for them to be held there under heavy guard until they were well enough to be released into Police custody.
"So;" Brock said after a long exchange of information between all parties; "the two Jennys have agreed to help Jessie and Mondo stop Team Rocket's plans. Tracey and I have decided to join them."
"Join them?!" Misty cried; "Are you serious?!"
"Yes;" Tracey ansy answered; "We think that you should stay here with Ash. With my skills as a Watcher and Brock's skills with pokemon, we will be able to help Mondo and Jessie to infiltrate Isle Noir and gather the evidence that the Police need."
Ash looked up at his friends from his bed as he stroked Pikachu, who was laying with bandaged tail upon his chest; "Promise you'll be careful."
"Chu."
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Somewhere in the forest of Isle Noir, several miles from the Team Rocket Base, two figures wandered. They had to get to the coast by dawn, before the search Growlithes found them. If they were found, Myamoto would be spared but it would be the end of James.
The escape from the Base yesterday had worked and they had been hiding and on the run all of yesterday afternoon and today and it was well into the night. James had disabled a few unwary guards with his electricity, making posspossible his and Myamoto's escape.
Now the plan was to make it to one of the smaller docks on the East coast of Noir and to hijack one of the speedboats harbored there. They were both fatigued but Myamoto looked especially unwell.
"James, I-I have to rest. I don't know why I feel...so tired, but I have to-"
"No, Mya. They'll surely catch up to us if we stop now. We have to go on."
James parted some bushes only to see a motley group of people walking through the woods in his direction. He froze, stunned.
"Jessie? Meowth? Mondo?"
Myamoto stared as well. Jennifer, Jenny, Brock, and Tracey stared at Myamoto and James, an old enemy with a purple-haired stranger.
"James!" Jessie cried, running to embrace her partner and friend, ecstatic that he was alive.
"Jessie! No!" James yelled, but it was too late. There was a loud "BZZZZT!" akin to the sound of an insect-zapper going off and Jessie lay on the ground, breathless.
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The world was a blur of blue and white as Jessie's eyes fluttered open. There was a loud ringing in her ears that was slowly subsiding as she grew steadily more awake. Her body was racked with a screaming ache, the muscles of her arms, legs, and chest felt as though they had been pulled and stretched like taffy.
"She's coming to;" stated a voice above her, a familiar and comforting voice.
As her vision became clearer, Jessie found herself staring into the forest green eyes of James.
"So, I wasn't dreaming;" she whispered; "You are alive." She reached out her right hand to touch his face but he quickly drew away.
"Wha-?"
"You can't touch me, Jessie, no on can. It's a long story, but I will explain."
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Jessie learned that she an she and her party were no longer on Isle Noir. After she had been electrocuted, Mondo had saved her life with the quick application of CPR and he, along with the Officer Jennys, Tracey, Brock, and James, had brought her back to the Mainland via Jennifer Justicia's helicopter. They were in a small hospital in a coastal town called Anaranjado.
James wove a long tale about how he had been genetically spliced with a Jolteon and how it had given him the ability to duplicate the pokemon's electric attacks. He also told of how no living thing could touch him without him involuntarily shocking it.
James agreed to testify against Team Rocket in court, in exchange that no charges be pressed against Jessie, himself, Mondo, and Meowth.
And Jessie met "Myamototwo".
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It was strange at first, to Jessie, seeing her "mother" again. Not only was it like receiving someone back from tom the dead, but her "mother" was almost as young as she was.
When Myamoto was cloned, her body had been aged to approximately equal the age at which her original had died, a woman in her early twenties.
"Oh, Musa, don't cry, don't cry..." Myamoto comforted while hugging Jessie, who was overcome with emotion at reliving memories. Myamoto called her "Musa", a shortening of Jessie's middle name, Mushashi. It was a name that Jessie's mother used to call her when she was very young.
Myamoto had regained nearly all of the memories of her original now, they came to her in full-force upon meeting her "daughter".
It had been only four days since they had been introduced to each other, but Jessie and Myamoto had bonded as if they had known each other forever. It was as if they actually were a mother and daughter who had been separated for several years, making up in their reunion for all the time between.
Myamoto waso was set to testify before the Police with James, but was staying in Anaranjado with Jessie while the hospital physicians and the two Officer Jennys from Pewter City ran a few minor tests on her.
Myamoto, ever since she had left Isle Noir, had grown ill. She had an overall weakness that was growing by the day and the doctors did not quite know why.'
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"Weird that they're all clones;" Brock muttered; "I've always thought that the Viridian City Officer Jenny was the most beautiful, very...elegant."
"I've always liked the Nurse Joys a little better, myself;" Tracey sighed, turning pages in his sketchbook. He and Brock were sitting in one of the hallways of Anaranjado Hospital waiting to meet Young Officer Jenny of Pewter City there.
They had both been put up in a local hotel, for they were key witnesses in the newest investigation against Team Rocket alo along with James, Mondo, and Myamoto.
"Ash, Misty, and I met this one island-hopping. She'd kayak to outlying islands to treat the pokemon there, sometimes miles at a stretch. That's why she's so buff."
Tracey presented Brock a drawing of a slightly muscular Nurse Joy standing next to a Gyrados.
"Hey, that's good!" said Brock; "Still pretty strange that the women we love are all clones."
Tracey nodded.
"Someone! Help! Quickly!" someone shouted from down the hall, it was Jessie!
"My mom-er-Myamoto...something's wrong! We were talking and she just...fainted! Get the doctors in here!"
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"She's missing a specific mixture of vital chemicals in her body;" said Doctor Raymond, one of Anranjado's Chiefs of Medicine, to Jessie, James, Meowth, Mondo, Brock, Tracey, the two Pewter City Jennys, and Myamoto, who was standingtanding in the room behind everybody else clad in a hospital gown.
"We were able to synthesize it, but not completely. Myamoto, what we injected you with will sustain you for a short period, but there is a missing component-something that seems specific to your system. We believe that your creators may have engineered you with a deficiency, something whereby Team Rocket could control you, a chemical that they were somehow giving you that you cannot survive without."
"Ketrecel White;" Young Jenny spoke up.
"What?" Older Jenny asked.
"The science fiction that I like to watch. On Star Trek: DS9 there are these genetically engineered soldiers, the Jem H'dar. They fight for the evil 'Dominion' and they are addicted to a chemical substance that they need in order to survive. That way, the Dominion keeps them loyal."
"Bingo;" said Doctor Raymond; "Team Rocket probably engineered it as part of your your system that you need to survive, to keep you loyal to them."
"I was..;" Myamoto began; "given something to drink by the guard outside my bedchamber every night. I was never told what it was, only that I 'needed' it."
"That means one thing;" said James, trembling; "To save your life, we must go back to Isle Noir."