“Turn up the power half way.” Said Giovanni.
The scientist nodded his head and pushed the switch half way. The buzz of electricity increased as the current flew through the wires into the small glass container holding a small, strange shaped pokčmon, crying out in pain, trying to use it’s psychic powers against the glass, but failing.
“It’s weak enough, send him in.”
Another scientist turned and walked out of the laboratory down the corridor to the reception.
In the reception, James sat alone chewing his bottom lip in nervousness. He had no idea why the Boss wanted to see him, but he had specifically ordered him to come to Viridian as soon as possible, in other words, now.
His head snapped up as the scientist walked through the door.
“Giovanni wants to see you now.”
James got up of his chair and followed the scientist down the darkened corridor. He had never actually been down this part of the headquarters before. Usual he and Jessie went down a different corridor to see the Boss in his Office, so where he was going now he had no idea.
“Do you know what he wants to see me for?” James asked nervously.
The scientist stopped and turned towards him. James stared at him as the scientist stared back. James waited for him to say something, but instead the scientist turned back around and started walking.
“A simple ‘no’ would have done.” James mumbled to himself.
The scientist suddenly made a sharp left and stopped in front of a large metal door. Turning to look at James again, the scientist opened the doors and led him through.
James stood in awe at the size of the laboratory. Dozens of white lab coated scientists with clipboards, others shouting across the lab, others reading out technical phrases from various machines. Sparks of electricity spout out from every direction, but most of them seemed to be congregated around a glass container in the middle of the lab.
James walked up to the container and looked into it. The tiny pokčmon, screaming in pain, seemed to be familiar, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
“I wouldn’t get to close it just yet James.” A dark voice said behind him.
James spun around to come face to face with his Boss. Giovanni smirked and walked over to a second glass tube a few feet behind the other. James followed him and saw that the tube was an awful lot bigger than the other, plus it was empty.
“I want you to help me with an experiment James.”
“Me Sir?” James asked quizzically.
James watched as Giovanni pressed a large red button on a panel and half of the empty glass tube slid back.
“I want you to stand in there.”
James looked at the glass tube and only just clicked that it was large enough for a human to stand in it.
“In there?” he asks nervously.
“Yes. You’ve got a problem with that?” Giovanni asks sternly.
James saw the look he was giving him and gulped. Thinking it best not to argue, James stepped inside the tube and turned around. Giovanni pressed the red button again, and half the glass tube slid back again locking James in the tube.
“You know that I have just a slight fear of small spaces?” James gulped asked hopefully as he looked around his glass prison.
Ignoring him, Giovanni nodded to a scientist who pulled down a large switch. The buzz of electricity grew louder as the machines around started to shake. James tried to hold onto the glass as it too shook. James watched suddenly as a purple line of pure energy leapt out of the small pokčmon and up through a small tube. He watched as the purple ‘stuff’, as he could only think, flew through various other tubes giving off signals to the scientists.
One scientist scribbled something down on a clipboard and passed it to Giovanni. Looking at the clipboard, Giovanni smirked once again.
“It’s ready, start the transference.”
The scientist pressed a blue button and pulled a few more switches before the purple energy fled through a different wire to the top of James’s tube. James jumped in surprise as the energy flew around him. James watched, surprisingly calmly, as Giovanni waited for the moment.
It came.
The energy formed a straight line and aimed straight for James’s chest. James screamed out in pain as the energy was absorbed into his body. Desperately trying to get out, James hit the side of the tube as hard as he could before he doubled over in pain and fell to the floor, screaming, begging for them to stop whatever they were doing to him.
Giovanni stood there smiling as the sparks of electricity flickered over his cold features.
“Sir, we’re getting so much data it’s un-believable!” shouted an excited scientist from one of the machines.
“Let’s hope this works time, or like those other 3 agents, James will be having a permanent vacation.”
Suddenly, the machines stopped shaking and the electricity died down. The Lab fell into silence as Giovanni pressed the red button that opened up the glass tube, where James was now crouched on the floor breathing heavily.
“Well at least he’s still alive.” Commented one of the scientist, “That’s an improvement.”
Giovanni waited patiently as James pushed himself up off the floor as stood leaning against the Glass tube. His eyes, still closed in pain, slowly opened.
Giovanni smirked and chuckled slightly to himself.
“Well done, let’s see if he’ll obey now.” He said to the scientist standing next to him.
“James," he started, leaning forward slightly, “Who do you work for?”
“Team Rocket.” James replied, with no emotion in his voice, almost as if he was being controlled.
“Are you loyal to Team Rocket?”
“Yes.”
“Would you do anything I tell you to do?”
“Yes.”
“Would you kill if I ordered you to?”
“I will do anything my master tells me to do.”
“And who is your Master James?”
“You, Giovanni.”
Giovanni grinned to himself and turned to the scientist. The scientist was ecstatic and ran to the other side of the lab where reels upon reels of paper were being chucked out of one of the machines.
Picking the bundle of paper up, he ran over to Giovanni, reading it along the way.
“According to the heart monitor and system breakdown package James survived the transference 100% and will do anything you tell him to do.”
“What about the psychic abilities, can he do that?”
“Well there’s only one way to find out Sir.”
Giovanni un-hooked his gun from his belt and put it down on a table 10 feet away from James.
Turning back to James, he points to the gun.
“Use your telekinesis and pick it up.”
James’ eyes began to glow white as he stretched out his hand towards the gun. Giovanni and the scientists watched in amazement and the gun seemed to lift itself off the table and float towards James’s outstretched hand. James put his hand down and let the gun float in front of him.
“Excellent work, lets just test he does do everything I say.”
Giovanni turned to James, then to the scientist, then back to James.
“James,” Giovanni begun, “Kill him.”
“Sir, what are you doing?” asked the scientist.
The scientist dropped the papers in shock and watched as James, without hesitation or question, took the gun from the air and raised it to the scientist’s head. The scientist was frozen in fear, as the last thing he heard was the click of a loaded gun.
“I guess it is true.” Said Giovanni, stepping over the dead scientist.
Walking over to the small container, he looked through its glass walls at the small pokčmon inside.
“Thank you my little friend. My use for you is over.”
Giovanni looked back up at James and smiled slightly as James’ now bright, blue, emotionless eyes stood staring in front of him, waiting for his next instructions.
“Come James.”
Giovanni walked out of the lab with James following behind him like a loyal dog.
The other scientists let out a breath of air they didn’t know they were holding and picked up the dead scientist, taking him out of the lab.
One scientist remained behind, walking up to the small pokčmon. Picking up the glass container, he walked out of the lab and down the opposite side.
The small pokčmon could see James and Giovanni waiting for an elevator at the end of the hall and sighed.
“Mew.” It said quietly.
“Jess! Hey Jess!”
Meowth had been looking for Jessie for the last 15 minutes. He couldn’t find her anywhere.
“Jessie whatever da Boss said in dat phone call couldn’t ‘ave been dat bad!” he yelled into the forest.
Suddenly, he heard someone sniffle behind him. He turned around to see Jessie sitting by a tree in the dark with one of James’s rose’s slightly crying to herself.
“Hey Jess. What’s wrong, we never see ya crying like dis?” Meowth asked.
Jessie didn’t answer, she just seemed to cry more.
“What did da Boss say? He hasn’t fired us has he?”
Jessie choked back her tears and shook her head.
“Well what did he tell ya then?”
Jessie took in a shuddered breath and raised her head.
“You know that the Boss phoned yesterday and told James to come to his Office?”
“Yeah.”
“Well,” Jessie wiped a tear from her cheek, “He never arrived there.”
Meowth frowned, “Wadda ya mean he never got there?”
“The Boss sent a team out to try and find him, and when they did, he, he was…” She burst out into tears and hid her face in her hands.
Meowth’s face fell.
“You mean he’s…?” Meowth couldn’t say it, but watched as Jessie slowly nodded her head, knowing precisely what Meowth was asking.
James was dead.
Meowth sat down on the ground next to her in shock.
“He can’t be, I was only insulting ‘im yesterday afternoon.”
That just made Jessie cry even more. Meowth stared at the rose in Jessie’s hand and suddenly felt tears welling up in his own eyes. He put a paw on Jessie’s shoulder in comfort, but knew nothing would help her. Four months ago, Jessie and James had separately told Meowth that they love each other, but were too ashamed to tell each other. Now Jessie will never be able to tell him, and neither will James.
“What am I going to do Meowth?” she asked crying into her hands.
Meowth looked at the ground and let a small tear roll down his cheek.
“I don’t know Jess.”
Another silence before Jessie spoke for the last time that night.
“The Boss wants to see us tomorrow afternoon, he’s re-assigning us with different partners.”
The two sat there, mostly in silence, for the rest of the night
“Excellent, those fools now think your dead, I’ll reassign them and they should stay out of my way.” Giovanni said to James, standing by his side.
Giovanni turns to look at James and laughs.
“You’re a much better agent when you do as your told.”
James didn’t say anything; he just looked straight ahead with icy blue eyes.
“Hm, I guess it’s time to see just how strong your psychic abilities are.”
Giovanni led James out of his office and out the back of the headquarters to a training ground, where 10 young Rocket agents were waiting with their strongest pokčmon standing beside them.
“Stand over there.” Giovanni ordered James.
James walked over to a wall and faced the 10 trainers.
“Okay James, make all of these pokčmon faint.”
Giovanni nodded to the first trainer who ordered his Gravellar to attack. James raised his hand towards the rock pokčmon and his eyes started glowing white. The pokčmon stopped in its tracks and started to float in the air. The other trainers gasped as their pokčmon too started to float in the air.
Giovanni watched in amusement as James clenched his fist and all the pokčmon started crying out, writhing in the air in pain.
“Hey, stop it!” shouted one of the trainers, running towards James to try and make him stop hurting the pokčmon.
James raised his other hand towards the trainer and the trainer too suddenly floated into the air. James kept the trainer in mid air as he moved his other hand slightly and all the pokčmon slammed into the side of a cliff, creating a gigantic rockslide, covering the injured pokčmon.
“This is just like training that Mewtwo, only this one obeys.” Giovanni laughed, looking at James terrifying the trainer in the air, “Don’t worry,” he said to his agent, “James won’t harm you unless I tell him to.”
James put both arms by his side and the agent fell down to the ground.
“Recall your pokčmon and get back to your missions.” Giovanni ordered. The agents scurried off collecting their pokčmon and went back inside the headquarters. When they had gone back inside, a young woman with blond hair came out of the building and stood to attention.
“Sir. Jessie and Meowth are waiting in reception.”
“Thank you.” Giovanni said to his secretary. Turning back to James, Giovanni tells him to stay where he is until he returns.
Going back into his Office, he waits as Jessie and Meowth enter the darkened room.
Jessie looked awful. Her hair hang loosely by her sides and her eyes were red and puffy, as if she had been crying all night, which she had.
Meowth didn’t look much better; the fur around his eyes was matted from the tears.
They attempted to stand to attention in front of their Boss, but their hearts weren’t in it.
“Jessie, Meowth, I’m glad you could make it. I’m sorry I had to tell you James was dead but that must not interfere with your work here, understand?”
Jessie nodded mutely, looking at the floor.
“Meowth, you will be trained here under my supervision until you evolve into a Persian and are strong enough to be worthy of saying you are in Team Rocket.”
Meowth too nodded mutely, defiantly not wanting to evolve.
“Jessica, you will be having a new partner, but you will still stay on the mission your on at the moment. With any luck, with James out the way, you might actually catch that Pikachu.”
Jessie scowled at the floor, wanting to say something she knew she shouldn’t.
Giovanni looked at his Office doors, “Craig, come in.”
Jessie and Meowth turned to the door where a male agent stepped through.
“Jessie, this is Craig, your new partner.”
Craig was an average built man with short, dark blue, almost black hair. He was slightly taller than Jessie and had large brown eyes. He wore the same uniform James wore; only Jessie thought James looked much better in it than this guy did. Jessie instantly disliked him. He was replacing her James, and she didn’t want him around. Unfortunately she didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.
“Now you know who each other are, you can leave. Dismissed.”
Meowth slowly waved goodbye to his friend as she walked out the office with her new partner. Jessie practically stormed down the corridor and out of the headquarters. Getting into the Meowth balloon outside, she waited for her partner to get in. When he was in the balloon, he looked at Jessie and sighed with annoyance.
“Listen Jessica, if your as have as bad as the Boss says you are in trying to capture pokčmon, your gonna need all the help and brainpower you can possibly get. So seen as I am a lot more experienced in catching pokčmon than you are, I suggest you listen and do everything I tell you to do, got that?”
Jessie stared at him in disbelieve.
“How DARE you talk to me like that!!” She raised her mallet in her hand, but Craig knocked it over the side of the balloon and held her wrist tightly.
“Stop it! Let me go!!” Jessie screamed at her partner.
“You see that’s you problem right there, your attitude!” Craig hissed.
He let her arm go then smirked, “No wonder your partners dead, he probably killed himself to get away from you.”
Jessie could have killed him! How could he say that? She could feel the tears in her eyes again and turned around to look over the basket.
The stupid thing was, in the back of her mind, she was terrified that that was the reason James was dead, that he did kill himself to get away from her. Maybe she had driven him to far, but he didn’t want to say anything because he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Jessie didn’t care about this Craig guy, and she let the tears fall freely as the thought about how much she loved James, and how much she hated herself for letting this happen. Meowth was gone, and the only man she had ever truly loved was gone. Now she was stuck with Craig for the rest of her Team Rocket life, which was going to be a very long time. She looked up to the clouds above her and sighed.
“I love you James.” She whispered quietly, as the balloon floated onwards towards the previous campsite, where she was expected to carry on with her life, as if nothing had ever happened.