Hoshi Mutsu woke up on the unseasonably chilly morning of Thursday, October 21st, 2010, and stared at the unfamiliar ceiling for a moment before the recollections of the past day began flooding in. Fighting the Jenny, fighting the Inspector, linking up with Tanya Remond and the short ‘test’ of a battle he’d managed to win…

  Then that whole… psychic… thing.

  Ugh… Well, at least the headache’s gone?

  Small mercies. He rose, slightly groggy despite his sleep actually having been pretty alright, and checked his bandages. No blood leaking through – makes sense, they weren’t exactly deep wounds or anything. Still, Hoshi really needed to stop getting himself hurt, or pretty soon he’d be out of commission. Okay, game face. What all needs to happen today? Checking the hollow pile in the junkyard for the ‘present’ Danny left, then meeting with Dirk for whatever the fuck that whole mess is, and then… Getting out and onto the road. Or the lack of road, as the case was. That’s gonna be a slog and a half. Wonder how the others are doing…

  Probably haven’t gotten in nearly as much trouble as we have, hah.

  “Mister Moon, I think we might be lost. This isn't the address we were given either…”

  Cliff sighed as he watched the nervous Puce Gracile draw an anxious eye over the pub’s raucous clientele. “No, we’re right where we need to be.”

  The city’s wharfs were massive, the largest in the country, and not particularly well-laid-out. Additionally, neither Clifford Moon nor the woman accompanying him were very familiar with the area; he’d moved cargo through the various docks a couple of times, but he didn't have much of a sense of the area. And Puce, as far as he could tell, had never even stepped foot in the Wharf District’s namesakes before yesterday.

  But despite that, the Rocket Enforcer knew they were in the right place – because Dwayne Tatsuhiko was going to come to them. Cliff had worked with the man before, and each time he'd taken a mid-day break at this exact place, The Griseous Clam – and one memorable day, they’d even visited a second time. The man was basically obsessed with the establishment.

  “It's just that, we spent all of yesterday wandering around, and then most of the night trying to find this place instead of the address, and- and I'm afraid we might be falling behind…”

  “What Jessie gave us were docking numbers, and those things don't last; chances are there's a different ship there than the one we want – or no ship at all.” And I was too occupied memorising it to realise it wasn’t a house address, so finding the place would take another whole day anyway.

  And my leg ain’t gonna let me do that, so…

  “Come on,” he continued, heading further in. Puce followed despite her hesitation, and soon they were seated at a booth, one that allowed Cliff a full view of the entrance while still being a touch private. “Feel free to order something, we might be here a while.”

  “Fine birds!” exclaimed the venerable Junior Executive, and Ryan nodded along.

  “Thank you, sir. Shall we?”

  The Sampo heir had been rather put-off after his loss back in the Rocket Little Cup – of course he’d been, it was simply natural. But that had been months ago, and the intervening time had given him more than ample opportunity to cool down. So as he helped the nearly hundred-year-old Quirius Sambac onto the back of a large, saddled fearow, he wasn’t at all tempted to drop the man and give him a few broken bones in the name of vengeance.

  No, not even a little.

  And that wasn’t just because they needed the man for their disguises to work. “Are you all set, sir?”

  The executive waved him off, obviously already familiar with all the straps necessary to hold one down when one was travelling via giant bird. “No need to fret, young man. Why don’t you go help the others, they seem like they need it more.”

  “As you wish.” Canny old bastard… ugh. Ryan turned, schooling his face back into a smile, and was forced to admit to himself that he was in a right mood. Mother… Bah, she’ll just have to get over it. My future isn’t as anything so mundane as a businessman; the Sampo name is destined to be written across the very stars. Thinking it made the curve of his lips more real, and then seeing the situation Tor Yuriyama had managed to get himself into tipped the expression over the edge into a true grin.

  “Tor, how did you even manage that?”

  It was Mojo Concolor who answered, turning a strap over in his hands with a bewildered expression. “Don’t ask us, man. If we knew how it happened we’d be able to make it unhappen, you know?” He shrugged, and the fearow that Tor was strapped extremely incorrectly to mimicked the motion. The bird Pokémon was larger than either of the two Ryan had seen recently as part of Lilian and that young punk Bart’s teams, obviously bred for carrying passengers. Is this one of the ones I’ve ridden before? Hmm, I’m not sure; they all have similar plumage…

  Speaking of Lilian, she was standing a few steps back, hands on her hips and a frown on her face. “It really is silly, isn’t it?” she asked, the question not directed at any one person. “We dodge the police without issue, manage to get cover identities all set up and items bought, and get an express ride right to Saffron… but this is the stumbling block.”

  “Lil, this isn’t funny!” the man they were all staring at sent back. Tor was all but upside-down, squirming like a worm as blood rushed to his head and deepened an already-deep blush of embarrassment. “I can’t take off like this, I’d fall off in a second! No, Mojo, don’t pull on that-!”

  “Aha!” the bearded man exclaimed, completely ignoring his friend, and a moment later Tor was released from his imprisonment. The fearow took its passenger tumbling to the ground with an extremely professional flavour of detachment, barely acknowledging the humans as it preened the feathers along one wing. “There we go, just had to find the right one.”

  “You’re a dick,” Tor muttered as he stood, and Ryan chuckled. But then he forced a more serious tone.

  “Alright, let’s get you three strapped in properly; the travel company charges by the minute, and while my work accounts haven’t yet been found I’m still operating on a budget. Tor, get back on and I’ll show you how to avoid flipping back in the seat…”

  Mimi spat, but it was futile; the pepper spray was thick as glue and twice as sticky, adhering to the back of her throat like molten magma. “Blah. This sucks. Bart, give that guy another kick for me.”

  The leather-clad Rocket raised an eyebrow. “As the lady wishes.”

  An impact, a pained grunt, and satisfaction took just the tiniest bit of sting out of the caustic chemicals slathering her vocal cords. “You-” the beaten, kevlar-encased man started before before being forced to take a spit-break of his own. “You won’t get away with this.”

  Mimi gasped, hands going to her cheeks. “Oh no! Bart, did you hear that? Fatty here thinks we aren’t gonna get away with it! What’re we gonna do? Might as well turn ourselves in!”

  Bart rolled his eyes, while the soldier – he was way too geared up to be considered a mere police officer, no matter what the official title on his badge said – grit his teeth at the obvious mockery. “Joke around all you want, but it’s true! The mayor’s finally let some real men clean up the streets, so your ancient gang’s days are numbered!”

  “As though we could be afraid of such a thing,” Bart dismissed. “Tell me, Mister…” The pretty-boy gangster spared a glance for the beat-to-shit man’s looted wallet, held in two fingers like the object was too gross to properly touch. “Kiirosatsu? What a boring name. Tell me, Mister Kiirosatsu, when was the last time you saw combat?”

  A snarl. “The Loyal Indigo Military Police had a live-fire exercise not a week ago! We’ve been preparing for this conflict for-”

  “And yet you were still caught unawares by my partner’s arcanine. Why should we expect any future encounters to go differently?”

  The man’s reply was cut off before it could start as Mimi jammed a ball of rags into his conveniently wide-open mouth. “That’s a rhetorical question, fatass!” she said with a cackle – before the laugh devolved into hacking, courtesy of the still-burning spray. Gah, how is it more painful than getting shot?! “Arc, I thought soldiers were meant to be fit. Hey Bart, you wanna mess with this guy some more, or should we just split?”

  Her lover – or maybe ‘the guy she was having sex with’ was a better label, ‘cause she was pretty sure neither of them were in it for love – eyed Kiirosatsu with put-on consideration. “Hmm… no, I think I've had my fill. Let us roll this creature into the nearest manhole and then be on our way; we should try one more time to find that old codger Black.”

  Puce Gracile’s day was going… well, she supposed it could've been going a lot worse.

  She hated to admit it, but getting away from the others for a bit had been the right decision. Not that there's anything wrong with them or anything, just… It was just that the remaining four members of their team were each a constant reminder of the one that wasn't there. Nerine…

  Ugh, I need to get over this. For my own sake, too. Luckily, Mister Moon had all the confidence and competence of Mister Mutsu, without the latter’s, uh, loudness.

  “He should be here any minute now,” the enforcer preempted, sensing that she'd been about to comment on the time.

  “Right…” We've been sitting for over an hour, though. If this Mister Tatsuhiko is also a Rocket, wouldn't he be in hiding, and not visiting a bar? It wasn't that she was doubting Cliff’s plan really, just thinking that it seemed… well, a little bit silly.

  Am I being selfish? Asking Mister Moon to walk all over the docks, just so he needs to lean on me so I can feel a little bit better about myself…

  Puce sighed, and ordered another plate of seafood. “So, um, Mister Moon…”

  “As I’ve said, just Cliff is fine.”

  “Right, of course. I was just wondering… When you were in the mountains, and you couldn’t find what you were looking for, how did you… how did you keep going? Because I’m… having some trouble…”

  The enforcer looked at her for a long moment, his brown eyes nearly hidden behind thin eyelashes – then he grunted. “Hmph, it was hard. There were days when all I wanted to do was give up… And I did end up going home, eventually.” Puce began opening her mouth, but something in the lay of his shoulders told her he’d merely paused, thinking. Time passed in silence, enough for her plate to arrive, and she sheepishly started eating as the air between them got increasingly awkward.

  “…I think it was my Pokémon,” Cliff eventually continued. “Crumb especially. Coffer, my graveler, he’ll always be my starter – but Crumb is special. There was a connection there, right from the beginning, I can’t quite explain it…” His nostrils flared as he crossed his arms. “Have you ever held a baby, Gracile?”

  Have I ever..? Just imagining it was enough to make her feel faint. “Um, no, I haven’t.” I’d drop it. Or do something else bad, like knock over its stroller – I’m too clumsy to be trusted with that sort of thing.

  “It’s- it’s not the same thing, but it’s the same kind of thing, if that makes sense? Crumb was already grown when I found him, a big stomping tyranitar, but somehow… I caught him, and I held the ball, and it was like, ‘This is my son.’ Ugh, that’s so cheesy…”

  Puce put down the clam she’d been nibbling on. “Oh no, no no, not at all! It was very poetic, Mister Cliff!” Do I… Have anything like that? She wanted to say yes, that Potato was like a member of her family, but…

  But what? Is there actually anything, or am I just afraid? Afraid that even with that kind of connection, it just wasn’t enough. Because… Because Nerine wasn’t like my sister, but she was kind of like a sister… An older sister, despite the girl being younger by a whole five years. She’d been the first person to believe in Puce, and that…

  That hadn’t been enough for her, so how could it be enough for Puce?

  “Hey,” Cliff interrupted, pulling her from her thoughts. “Look, I – I know what it feels like, okay? For the whole world to tell you you’re wrong, that your dreams are wrong, that what you want is evil, or misguided, or stuff like that. You just…” A light burned in his narrow eyes, one that was… scary. It was made of conviction, hot and caustic and inexhaustible, and looking at it made something in Puce’s chest hurt. It was the same light she saw sometimes when Mister Mutsu trained. That Ryan had when he talked about his family, or when Nerine had- when she and Puce had been in the Gym. “You just keep going. I know it’s not an answer, but it’s the only thing I’ve got. You keep going, and going, and eventually you’ll prove the world wrong.”

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  He reached over, and stole one of her steamed shellder. He cracked it open, took a bite, and when Cliff next spoke his voice was soft and far-away. “Team Rocket saved my life. So my life belongs to Team Rocket, which means I don’t get to throw it away. You have to have something bigger than yourself, something… Something to chain yourself to, so you can’t be moved.”

  Puce swallowed. The two ate in silence for several minutes… and eventually a large-boned man entered the tavern dressed in sailor’s whites. He didn’t look like a Rocket at all, but Cliff immediately stood up.

  “There we go, finally. I was starting to worry he wouldn’t show.”

  Quirius Sambac – or rather Lucas Cirsi, the old and semi-retired alias fitting like a well-cared-for pair of shoes – clung to the fearow’s back with all the strength his arthritic joints could muster. Which was, admittedly, not all that much; it was good that the air travel service the young Sampo had arranged had come with such an elaborate restraint. Back in his prime he’d have flown bareback without a worry, but it seemed those days were behind him…

  Ha ha ha, it feels like almost yesterday, but it’s been twenty years since I used this name! The excitement of getting back in the great game was almost enough to rival the high of flying hundreds of metres above the ground. Lucas Cirsi, scourge of the Pallet League! Ha ha ha!

  The laugh went from internal to external, and its merry sound drew the attention of the much younger men – and woman – flying in formation around him. “So, Mister Quirius!” the blond Sampo cried as he banked his mount to draw close to Quirius’s own. “I’m curious, do you have any idea what we’ll find is Saffron?!”

  “I’ve no clue!” the executive sent back. “And call me Lucas! We’re undercover don’t you know?” Not that it felt like it; he’d been Lucas Cirsi for nearly as long as not, disregarding his life previous to the alias’s existence. “We’re like to be stopped going into the city, so best to keep in character!”

  Ryan Sampo – or rather Ryan Heinz, the shared first name less conspicuous than one might assume, and quite nice for a beginner to the realm of subterfuge – nodded, his straightened hair flapping against the back of his neck. “Of course..! But really, no idea at all?!”

  Hmph, Quirius huffed with some amount of amusement. Young man’s got a curious streak to go with the ambition one. “Oh, I’ve got a few ideas! Could be we’ve bought the loyalty of some of the karate gangs that roam the place, or the Rocket Professors have some new weapon cooked up! Heck, Elizabeth might get to see a few members of her family!”

  “Who's Elizabeth?!” called a different member of their party, one whose actual name was escaping Quirius’s memory at the moment. I think he might've had one of those traditional colour names? Something Contrail? Well, it didn't matter; as far as the driver's licence in his pocket was concerned, the man's name was Blitz Chan.

  Blitz’s appearance had changed the most between entering and exiting Quirius’s salon; his hair was now buzz-cut, and what had once been nothing more than a shaggy mat coating his jaw and neck had transformed into a styled goatee.

  “My machamp!” Quirius – Lucas; my name is Lucas. Blast, I'm rusty at this… not quite the same thing as riding a bike, ha ha! – answered.

  “Machamp?” Blitz asked, curious.

  “Machamp?!” the third and final young man of their group exclaimed, incredulous.

  The two fearow drew close as their pilots tugged on the reins. Usually, Quir- Lucas would have been worried of some level of collision, given that three of the five of them had no flight experience at all, but the taxi birds were immaculately trained – which in this instance, meant that they knew to ignore most orders and only follow the gist of their riders’ desires as they flew from city to city.

  “Mojo, that's Bruno's signature Pokémon! Not even the Karate Master has one!” continued the man whose new name was Martin Pines.

  “Ah, yes,” Ryan interjected. “I suppose you wouldn't know about any of that…”

  “What?!”

  “I said- I said Rocket’s discovered the secret method! Mister Cirsi’s hypothesis is startlingly plausible!”

  “So we’ll have even more strong Pokémon?!” the lone woman, who had gone from a dark redhead to bleached-blonde, cut in. “Is that wise?! We’re already not great at controlling these ones!”

  Ryan swooped. “We’ll find out when we get there – for now, let’s focus on landing without crashing! Now, you’re absolutely certain your men will be able to follow?!”

  Lucas would’ve waved the question off, if doing so wouldn’t have required letting go of the reins. “No worries, young man!” he replied verbally instead. “I’m a legitimate businessman, ha ha! My employees will be bringing the weekly cargo for LC Steel and Sundry across quite openly, without even a hint of scrutiny!”

  “Cliff,” Dwayne opened as he settled into the seat. “Been a right while since I’ve seen you, lad. What’s the news, you need a hand escaping the constabulary?” He kept the seed of surprise he’d felt at seeing the man out of his voice; he’d been sure all the unaccounted-for academy Rockets had been captured.

  The enforcer shook his head, smiling at Dwayne’s exaggerated accent. “You’re still passing yourself off as an islander? You know nobody buys it, right?”

  “Heh,” he laughed, sending back a smile of his own. “Doesn’t matter; it covers up the Seafoam, and that’s enough. And hello, who’s this tall drink of water?” The woman blushed as the executive passed an eye down her frame, and Dwayne found himself impressed by the distance it needed to travel. “Another enforcer?”

  “A grunt,” Cliff responded, shifting his plate over so that his superior could peruse it. “Not that exact ranks matter at the moment. Sorry, but I’m afraid you’ve got it backwards; it’s you who's going to be coming out of hiding.”

  Hmph, it’s all been picked over already. Dwayne waved the offer off, instead signalling one of the patrolling waitresses. “Oi, get me a full house! On the tab, Captain Tatsu’s name! Now, what’s all this about me doing such-and-such?”

  “Um,” the large woman hesitated. She was really quite a specimen, with muscles larger than Cliff’s packed onto a figure that didn’t lack for more feminine curves. Are those bandages under her clothes? I suppose they must’ve run into trouble. “We need to go to Saffron. Jessie and James told us to get you?”

  “What she said,” Cliff corroborated in a more authoritative tone. “This is the last push. We’re taking over the League.”

  Dwayne crossed his arms. “Hm. You and what army?”

  “Don’t need an army for a Guillotine to hit. Everything’s lined up; the Nationals will get them all in one place, and the Professors have some real shit cooked up. Archer’s got a claim on Viridian, and from there we’ve got our foothold into legitimate change. And a’ course, in the aftermath you’ll be appropriately compensated for your part in it.”

  Mountain man knows what buttons to push, at least. But Dwayne could only reply with a frown. “Plenty of so-called superweapons were flying about all over the war; never did much of what the eggheads promised they’d do. Sorry lad, but- ah, scrap that fer now, the grub’s arrived.”

  “Dwayne-”

  “I said scrap it. Haven’t gotten in fer near-on three days, and I’m gonna enjoy myself no matter what crap you’ve spilled on my lap – so tuck in. You too, lass.”

  The full-time sailor and part-time smuggler resisted every effort the mountain man made to restart their conversation, and eventually Cliff was forced to just clench his jaw and bear it. Damn, that hits the spot… There was something about shellfish cooked on dry land that was just different from what you could do in a ship’s kitchen, it was like somehow the meat just knew it was somewhere else. Dwayne had no earthly explanation for it; it was one of life’s little miracles.

  Speaking of miracles…

  He downed the last of his beer, clapped the mug down with a sound of finality, and put on his serious face. “So. Jessie ‘n James.”

  Cliff pulled his annoyed expression back to neutral through muscle power alone. “Yeah, Jessie and James. You’re aware the Pokémon Storage System’s in our control?”

  Dwayne nodded. “‘S all over the news, lad. Bet even the kiddies in your podunk little hometown’ve heard it by now.”

  Slam, Cliff’s fist came down, impacting the table. The woman startled, looking frantically around at the other patrons – and Dwayne sent her a wink.

  “No worries, lass. This’s a sailing man’s establishment, we’d have to knock the place right down ta get tossed out.”

  “Dwayne. This is a serious matter. We need to get to Saffron as quickly as possible. Now, assuming your ship is fit to sail-”

  “Hmph, now those’re fighting words, Cliff. My Statue of Venus is shipshape as always, fit right to cast off from the nearest dock to here.”

  “-Then I think it’s best we leave via water. Go east, make our way as far up Route Twelve as we can, or maybe even go all the way to where the power plant used to be and then pass through Lavender. Nobody’s gonna suspect such a roundabout route, but it should be fast enough that we won’t be more than a day or two behind the other groups. What do you think?”

  Dwayne shook his head. “Lad, your plan’s nonsense. My crew ain’t ta stick their necks out fer such a-” Slam. This time the shock of it actually threatened to split the sturdy wood of the table, and the sailor bared his teeth. “Cliff,” he warned, “Yer playing with fire, lad. You obviously need me a lot more than I need you, so…” He gestured behind, signalling the waitress again while keeping his eyes locked on the northerner. “More beer over here!”

  “Do you think this is a game?” Cliff asked, his voice low and dangerous. “This is what we’ve been working towards for four years – no, since nineteen-eighty-eight. You can’t be bowing out at the last moment before glory, you aren’t stupid.”

  “Stupid?” Dwayne repeated. “Hardly. You’ve got a skewed sense of reality; Team Rocket’s been done since the moment Giovanni up and quit. Just hadn’t stopped twitching yet. You’re-”

  He didn’t see the punch coming, but he sure felt it; despite having to lunge over the length of the table between them, Cliff still managed to put some real oomph into the hit. Dwayne felt his teeth rattle in his skull as he tipped backwards, nearly falling – but the sailor managed to catch the edge of the table with his foot, and rose back up with a grin that felt bloody. He spat to the side. “You sure you want this fight?”

  Cliff was angry – proper angry, the kind to wash away a man’s higher thought, which was good. Or at least, it wasn’t bad; Dwayne would’ve preferred for him to see sense and accept the gang was done, but blind rage was a lot better than the cold kind. “You,” the enforcer figuratively spat back. “You jumped up-!”

  The table was shoved aside as Cliff rose, and Dwayne’s hands went down; one to a Pokéball, the other to a knife sheathed under his thick white jacket – but a moment before further violence could erupt the woman shoved herself between the two men.

  “Let’s- let’s think about it for a bit! M-Mister Cliff, let’s step outside!”

  “I- hey, wait, don’t just grab me-!”

  The woman – who had never introduced herself, despite them having eaten together for over a half-hour – then picked Cliff up by the shoulders. Dwayne has seen a lot of strange things in his day, but somehow he knew that the image of the six-foot-five mountain of a mountain man being slung over another person’s shoulder would stick with him for the rest of them.

  The ex-Rocket stood as the doors closed, the spectacle actually enough to have drawn the notice of the tavern’s other patrons. Silence, just long enough to linger, and then one of the establishment’s other regulars wolf-whistled. “Kinky!”

  That was the signal for everyone to get back to themselves. Dwayne righted the table, sat, and waited for his drink to arrive as he wondered if the two would reappear.

  They did not, and after a hearty drink the captain returned to his ship – only to find it missing, his crew tied up to the last man and left in a pile on the dock.

  Hoshi looked in the mirror, and was mildly perturbed by what he saw. “Wow. That’s… uncanny.”

  His reflection staring out from what was left of the mirror was an entirely different person. Somehow, using the contents of a single hastily-packed suitcase, Casca had turned his frizzy purple hair straight and brown. His dark eyes were distorted behind a pair of glasses that somehow hid their shape while only mildly impacting his own vision, and an honest-to-Arcus fake moustache added five years to his apparent age. His skin was a shade darker, and the weight of the spectacles even subtly altered his ears and nose.

  I wouldn’t even think this person is related to me. This is ten times more advanced than anything Sierra showed us.

  “Isn’t it?” Casca replied, putting the finishing touches on her own disguise. “I don’t usually feel the need to go this hard, but with yesterday…” She licked her lips. “Well, it seemed like the thing to do. How’s the soup catcher? Itchy?”

  “No, actually. But seriously, this is impressive.”

  “Thanks, hon. Shame we don’t have the identification to go with it, that would really seal the deal.” She leaned back and squinted at her reflection. “What do you think? Too much?”

  Hoshi shook his head. “If anything, it’s less of a transformation than mine.” Casca’s hair had been lengthened with extensions, the colour smoothly transitioning from white to black as it went down, and she sported a much deeper fake tan than him. Her blue eyes were hidden under vivid, obviously-artificial pink contacts complete with sparkles, and she’d done some sort of magic to give herself what looked like an extra quadruple-handful of belly fat. And she wasn’t wearing anything for it either; he’d watched her dress, and there was no padding involved.

  But despite all that, there was still something Casca under the facade.

  “You just think that ‘cause I’m always dolled up – if you saw yourself with makeup every day, you’d be used to it. But I’ll take the compliment.” A final touch of lipstick – pink with sparkles, exactly matching the fake irises – and she was done. “Alright. Kenny, how’s the wig?”

  “Feels weird,” the grunt growled from outside the bathroom. “I’ll get used to it. We ready to go?”

  “Yeah.” With one last look at the stranger in the mirror, Hoshi put action to the word and started moving. He came out to the main room, where Tanya was still in the process of eating an extended breakfast while the rest of the Rockets lounged.

  The white-haired executive sent the trio a raised brow. “Hm. I admit, you look nothing like you did before – but still, I think leaving again before we make our escape is less than wise.” She somehow managed to make the reasonably polite words sound like a deadly insult, and Casca rolled her eyes.

  “If the blues are on-the-ball enough to catch us with all this,” she said, “Then we’re doomed. You’ll have your own disguises ready by the time we get back?”

  Mondo, Tanya’s bodyguard, snapped off a crisp salute. “Absolutely, Kohai! Me and Senpai Zingiber have been practicing!”

  Casca blinked, caught off-guard by the archaic title, but quickly recovered. “Well, I’ll take your word for it.” Then she extended her arm Hoshi’s way. “Shall we?”

  The three Rockets left Tanya Remond’s hideout – and as they did, other groups were moving as well. A duo was slowing combing the city, increasingly frustrated by the building military presence as they debated giving up on finding their quarry; a group of five was much more swiftly exiting said city via the air, in high spirits to match their altitude; and the fourth and final group was making their way east across the bay, moving at a slow but even clip – a feat that was extremely impressive given that neither of them knew the first thing about piloting a boat.

  But as they all moved, another pair of Rockets was staying still. Jessie and Meowth lay in the underbrush adjacent Route 11, and caught their breath.

  “Meow,” the persian softly said. Maybe dat last explosion was too much.

  “You think?” Jessie replied. “I thought it was quite necessary to cover the getaway, but I suppose it might’ve been wise to save some oomph for an emergency…”

  A helicopter passed over their heads, only barely visible through the trees, and the duo fell silent even as the loud chops of its propellers quieted to a more distant drone. Only when the Route Ranger followed after it on their charizard did they sigh in relief.

  “You know, that’s a pretty rare Pokémon… Maybe we could..?”

  “Meow,” Meowth refuted, and the woman nodded.

  “Right, right, eyes and stomachs and all that.” She sighed again, more deeply, and drew Yanmega’s Pokéball. “I wonder what James is up to right now…”