Chapter 3
PokŽmon League village

	Ash was sitting down on the bed at his house, sighing.  He began to regret his lax way 
of training pokŽmon.  Misty was probably not as good a trainer as Gary or Melissa, and he had 
to put up against one of them.  Ash figured that he had to know his enemy.  Ash decided to 
record the battle on digital television with a digital tape.  The phone rang.  "Ring ring ring,
ring ring ring, phone call, ph-" Ash picked up the phone.  It was Officer Jenny.  "We have an 
attempted suicide at the league area.  We are looking for the cause of the attempted suicide.  
The person who shot herself was 23 year old Jessica, finalist on the pokŽmon league.  She wonÕt 
say anything, she dosenÕt even know that she shot herself, so we are going to question 
everyone."  Ash looked surprised.  "Sure, interview me.  I want to do anything I can to help, 
but I donÕt know what to say about it."  Officer Jenny nooded her head.  The picture-phone hung 
up.

	Ash opened the door to Officer Jenny a few minutes later.  She looked wrecked and tired
from work.  "Sit down," Ash requested, running to a table and pulling out a chair for her.  
Jenny sat down and sighed.  She took out a tape recorder, slammed it on the desk with the palm 
on her hand, and pressed a ÔrecordÕ button.  She took out  a picture.  It showed a woman with 
thick, framed glasses and long, very red hair.  "ThatÕs odd.  Her glasses are meant to be thick
yet donÕt seem to have visibly convex or concave glass," Ash pointed out at the picture.  Jenny
squinted at the picture, and asked, "do you, by any chance, know anyone that looks a lot like 
her?"  Ash took the picture.  "Yes, I do, but I donÕt know if it is relevant," Ash answered 
calmly.  "Who, then?  She could very well be in disguise.  When we interviewed her she said 
nothing and looked suspicious.  This could very well be more than a depressed league applicant,"
Officer Jenny pointed out.  "Well, she may be Jessie of team rocket.  She has tried before, 
years ago, to steal my pokŽmon, but ever since I evolved my Pikachu to a Raichu I never heard 
from her."  Officer Jenny tapped the back of her pen to her chin and started taking notes.  She 
then drew a sketch.  It was Jessica with a black rocket shirt and no glasses.  Ash looked at 
the sketch, then noted, "she had a white rocket shirt, and her hair was less spread out and 
more 'directional', but otherwise you have just drawn a splitting image of Jessie."  Officer 
Jenny looked a tad surprised, saying, "a senior rocket!  Hmn."  She turned off the recorder, 
put away her equipment and took up her handcuffs.  "ThatÕs all I need, Ash.  Goodbye."  Ash had 
an impression that he had just discovered something important.

	A confused Jessie lay down in the hospital bed, the bullet now out of her stomach.  A 
tall, male nurse came in.  He checked her medical status.  "Looks alright.  You got a visitor.  
His name is Hideyoshi."  JessieÕs eyes widened.  The male nurse left the room, and Giovanni came
in, his face crinkled profusely and scarred all over after 3rd degree burns from the pokŽmon 
island disaster took tool long ago.  He closed the door behind him.  "Looks like you shot 
yourself.  Look, a senior rocket, facing an Ôhonourable taskÕ, taking the easy way out?!  
YouÕre lucky.  IÕm taking the hard way out."  GiovanniÕs face never changed.  It probably 
couldnÕt, in his state.  "YouÕre leaving...  team rocket?"  Giovanni smiled.  "Yes.  IÕve got a 
gym to run and IÕm too old for this immature gunrunning monkey business which had almost got me 
killed.  I was going to use James, or shall I say Jameson, as a tool to get out of team rocket.
I hired you in this, so when you shot yourself it seemed to be a distraction.  And I was just 
about to leave, too."  Giovanni raised what Jessie recognized as his infamous silenced dum-dum 
(explosive bullet) firing pistol.  Jessie swallowed hard.  "It wasnÕt a suicide, Giovanni.  I 
was shot by James, stunned by a yellow powder, and carried by 2 people over here.  DonÕt tell 
that to any nurse or doctor."  Giovanni brought down the pistol and put it on the floor beside 
Jessie as an act of resignation.  Giovanni then sighed and turned toward the door.  "James is a
lot smarter than I thought.  IÕm going to look for him.  And I meant what I said about leaving 
team rocket."  Giovanni left running and slammed the door behind him, leaving Jessie sweating 
on the bed.  

Seconds later, Officer Jenny burst in.  "Jessie, I am going to question you.  Do not try to 
speak against this."  Jessie bit her lip.  Officer Jenny took out a notebook.  At that moment, 
in a hospital gown, Jessie hopped out of bed and picked up GiovanniÕs gun.  She aimed it at 
Officer JennyÕs head.  "DonÕt even think about it, Officer," Jessie mused, and Jessie opened the
door still in a hospital gown and ran out, leaving Officer Jenny surprised and confused.

First, Jessie needed her pokŽmon.  Jessie ran through the hospital as people started to panic.  
They already knew that someone had a gun and knew very well how to use it.  Pretty soon the 
hospital would be surrounded with police officers,  so she had to think fast.  She found a sign 
in front of her reading: POKƒMON FACILITY --->
Jessie headed that direction and found herself in a small pokŽmon center.  There was a seat with
Nurse Joy sitting on it.  Nurse Joy seen Jessies gun, and she held her hands up in the air.  
"I am looking for an Arbok, a Lickitung and a talking Persian.  They came in just today.  Make 
it snappy!"  Nurse Joy quickly typed on her computer.  Behind Jessie a picture-phone ringed, 
"ring ring ring, ring ring ring, phone call, phone call-" Jessie shot it, and the explosive
bullet blasted it to smithereens.  Within seconds, Jessie recieved 3 pokŽballs.  She put them 
on outer pockets in her gown.

	Jessie had very little time.  The place had a red alert light on now.  She looked out a 
window.  Too high to jump off.  She found a door leading to a set of stairs.  She opened the 
door, and ran down the flights of stairs very quickly.  When she arrived at floor 1, she opened 
the door.  In front of her was a closed glass window with no shutters.  To the left and right 
of her were armies of policemen.  "Hold it right there, youÕre under arrest!"  Almost all of 
them yelled.  Jessie, however, knew better than that.  She dived out the window and somersaulted
on the concrete to keep away from most of the shattered glass, and none of it entered her skin 
or cut her, quite surprisingly.  Police cars werenÕt there yet, anyone who was in the hospital
was security.  Jessie ran through the deserted nighttime streets of pokŽmon league village, and 
escaped to the outskirts of the indigo plateau.  After some running in the forest Jessie found 
a cliff edge on the plateau.  The jump seemed to be only about 25m into the water below.  If 
she jumped into the water, it would make well her escape.

	James relaxed on a tree in the open right beside the river where he jumped from the 
plateau edge.  James was unarmed now, tossing WeezingÕs pokŽball up and down, wearing an 
undershirt and jeans.  He closely watched the cliff side for someone who may have witnessed the
event.  James got up when he seen someone.  It looked like the person was female, and whoever 
she was, she had just suddenly jumped off the cliff side.  James felt nervous.  Witnesses are 
normally innocent people, and typical people who wouldnÕt harm people like James (if they 
werenÕt the police, of course), and those people were not the ones to jump off a cliff like that 
on their own free will.  These are the times, James thought, that I wish I still had a gun.  
Whoever it was had dived safely.  James decided to bring out a pokŽmon to protect himself. 
"Weezing, come out and patrol the area in front of you," James ordered, and Weezing came out 
and did exactly what he said.  Weezing looked down at the river, and almost simultaeneously 
quickly floated back to James, surprised.  "What is it, Weezing?"  Weezing turned around for a
moment, facing the river, turned back to James, and observed, "weezing."  James crept up slowly 
to the river with Weezing and found the one person they did not want to find.  "You!"  Jessie 
exclaimed, waving her gun as she tread water.  

James and Weezing ran and floated at a very fast pace and hid behind the tree that James was 
leaning on a moment earlier.  Jessie shot the tree and the explosive bullet (remember that 
James, at that moment, didnÕt know that that bullet was explosive) blew up the lower part of 
the tree.  It nearly fell on top of James and Weezing, who were completely still at that moment.
Now James and Weezing could no longer hide.  "Weezing, smog!"  Jessie breathed the fresh air 
deeply while she could, and was soon met by a large stream of smoky fog.

	Jessie dived into the river once again and swam to keep away from the smog.  James did 
not see her go in because she was already covered with smoky fog.  "Weezing, fire blast!"  
James kept away from Weezing as Weezing used a special learned attack to light up the smog.  
The occuring fireball barely missed Jessie, but James thought otherwise.  The smog cleared and
made way for a short appearance of fire-induced smoke.  James brought Weezing back, and 
presuming Jessie dead, moved off to a new reality for James-or, shall I say, Jameson, where he
would forget about his past.

	But Jessie was not dead.  Jessie was still alive, and when she emerged from the water 
she gasped in air when the smoke cleared up.  When she climbed up, still with her new gun, 
hospital gown and 3 pokŽballs, she envisioned herself being the new leader of team rocket when 
she came back.  And that was a very probable prediction indeed.