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Jessie pursed her lips and picked pieces of twig form out of her long dark magenta hair. Across from her and sitting in a dishevelled heap, James was sorting through what was left of their supplies although there was not a lot left in the tattered and scorched rucksack. It was just luck that James had been wearing it, rather than dragging it by the loops the way he usually did.
Meowth was currently pushing through the long grass and bushes, seeking Mimikyu’s lost luxury pokéball, the fairy-ghost also looking, but hunting for berries at the same time.
Jessie sighed, everything had been going really well for a change, and that should have been warning enough, but the boss, whoever the boss happened to be at the moment, had ordered them to go to Kalos to try and retrieve anything that was left from Lysander’s ill-thought-out attempt at world ending.
Some of the detritus was at an old Rocket base and the rest was still in situ, which made it both easier and more difficult to get to. It didn’t matter, they always had been the most ingenious team in Rocket’s ‘illustrious’ history and sneaking was, like, part of their raison d’etre. That didn’t mean it was easy, they just made it look that way.
There had been a surprisingly large amount of equipment left and the group had collected all of the data storage and papers. They’d bundled it all up and James had gone to send it to headquarters by Pelliper Post, before looking for looking for anything else that might be of use.
James touched Jessie’s shoulder, gently getting her attention and breaking her out of her memories. A fire had been started and a largish pot of something hot and tasty bubbled, ready to serve.
“Sorry James, I was miles away.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Jess. None of us knew that some of the machines were still running. It should have been perfectly safe.”
“But it wasn’t!” Jessie snapped and then bowed her head in apology, she was supposed to be the cell leader and the strong one, but she had realised that she had been bullying the other members of her team, and that was wrong, even though they were supposed to be the bad guys. Still, she knew it wasn’t right, she had grown up a lot in the last year or so and was doing her best to improve her behaviour.
“Thanks for sorting this out James. Do we have much left?”
James blinked. Jessie had been downright pleasant again and he wasn’t sure what to make of it, but he wasn’t going to point out the change in her demeanour in case she got mad and stopped.
“We have enough to be going on with.” He murmured. “One of the pots got a little dented, but it’s still useable, food, cash, potions, spare uniforms, a disguise kit, and personal kit too. It’s just the bag is a bit tattered.” He poked a finger through one of the smaller holes and wiggled it to illustrate just how ragged the rucksack was.
He fished around in the bag for a moment, pulled out a small violet zip-up bag and offered it to her tentatively.
“Maybe you’ll feel better if you can get clean, and dinner will be ready by the time you’re done.”
She winced internally at his flinch as she reached for the bag.
“Thanks.”
James watched covertly as Jessie limped away and bit his bottom lip as he wondered why they were still doing this. The Boss had walked away from the Team with barely a backward glance and the Admins who had though to take over had been beaten back by an eleven year old. Again. Then there had been the Rainbow Rocket stupidity, it had all been totally embarrassing.
He hadn’t told Jessie, but they were currently working for Devon, although that was hidden behind a couple of shell companies to give a certain amount of plausible deniability; It was as if they were slowly becoming legal, freelancers or something. Giratina dammit, they were getting too old for all this shit.
For him though, it was either this, or being stuck with Jessiebelle, and he wasn’t that stupid, no matter what anybody thought. Jessie’s motivation used to be so clear to him, but these days? It was most likely to be inertia on her part.
Jessie’s mood was a bit lighter now that she was cleaner and the icy cold of the river, although shocking, had been a balm to her purpling bruises. Twisting a towel around her damp hair and feeling better for a fresh uniform, she sashayed back to the fire. Meowth was already chowing down on his bowlful of stew and Mimikyu was carefully squishing a roseli berry and an odd berry that looked like it had a question mark printed on it in her bowl. Mareanie had wandered off to the river, having found freshwater mussels and Wobbuffet eyed Mimikyu’s bowl with a desperate air, yet every time he tried to edge a little closer, Mimikyu would brandish her shadow claws in the direction of his tail, making him jump away in fright.
Jessie accepted the bowl of steaming ramen and took a deep sniff of the mouth-wateringly scented food before stirring it with her fork. Twisting a few noodles onto the tines, she peered over the edge of her bowl and regarded her battered and weary comrades.
“So, we blasted off again.” She leaned back a little and took a bite of her food, thoughtfully chewing for a moment before swallowing and continuing. “Why? The twerp was nowhere to be seen, the machines were all supposed to be safe, so what happened? Someone set us up the bomb? James?”
James’ shoulders dropped, and he slumped, a most unusual position for the normally elegant man.
“I… I don’t know. Everything was fine. I took all of the first batch of findings to post them as had been arranged with the client, so maybe something happened during that time? I got back from town, started to check one of the machines and then *bang!* And here we are.”
“Hmm. Meowth?”
I was checkin’ some of da smaller places, like behind the da console in case summat had fallen behind it. I heard James go, an come back so I came out to ask about da junk I’d found, an then, there was da bang. I think I heard a click anna bit of a crackle just before, but I ain’t sure about dat.”
“Okay, thank you.” Her tone was distracted as she tried to puzzle out the chain of events and didn’t see the startled expression that crossed Meowth’s face or the quietly frantic ‘don’t say or do anything’ gestures James threw in Meowth’s direction. As Jessie looked up, he suddenly stilled before settling into a more ‘James’ sort of posture. Jessie frowned at them for a moment.
“Mimikyu? Wobbuffet?”
Mimikyu’s Shadow Claw whipped out and around, cuffing Wobbuffet in the back. Wobbuffet looked sad for a moment, but little could keep the ‘mon down for long.
“Wobbuff fuwobet betfobetfo wo’off buff!”
Meowth facepawed.
“He says, an I quote, ‘redcircle muchfun, tick, tick, clickfizz, boom.’”
“Sooo, he found a red button and pushed it until it worked? Why that button?”
“Buffbuff wofettfobet wo-bba-ffett!” He grinned and saluted.
“Blackyellow, payattention, er… writing place?”
Wo-BBA-ffett.”
“Oh! A sign! But the only sign I saw was one for the emergency… backup… generators. Well, dere we have it.” Meowth sighed and Jessie nodded, she really wanted to yell, but she had known for a long time that Wobbuffet was challenged, it was just the way he was, nothing could change it and yelling wouldn’t make her feel any better.
“The generators kicked in, one of the machines shorted catastrophically and that was that. Augh! We were so close!”
James quirked a smile “We still get paid. Our employers only wanted the papers and hard-drives, which had already been sent to them, so we completed our job!”
Jessie’s return smile was brilliant.
“Okay. So, we finish eating and setting up camp, get a good night’s sleep and work out where we’ve been blasted to in the morning. We get back to civilisation, cash in our checks and decide where to go after that. Anyone fancy going back to Alola? I want to mess with the twerp.”
There were grins all around.