Chapter 8 Pewter city- 6:00 Jameson was standing at the small pewter city pokŽmon center as the sun rose, shining through the window. Nurse Joy appeared a few seconds after Jameson rung the bell. "Joy, it's Jameson. How's my Gyarados?" "You're just in time, Jameson. I finally got all 30 bullets out of Gyarados. It's all okay because Gyarados is powerful and you seemed to have trained it well-I'm wondering how someone would let their pokŽmon recieve 30 bullets to the front body, though." Nurse Joy looked down at the counter's shelf and got Jameson his Gyarados. "I reccomend that you don't use it in battle for another few days. It's exausted." James nodded, slowly talking the pokŽball and attaching it to his waist as he left. ?- 9:00 Jessie was yawning in her chair at the beginning of the first hour of work, which was exactly the time 1 hour after she woke up. She was restless, and James just couldn't be eliminated even after several days-a week, now-after quitting Team Rocket. And whatever happened to Giovanni? Intelligence heard and killed him before I came and got voted, I assume, Jessie thought, pondering the problems team rocket had and ways to solve them. Persian, let loose after the encounter with James, was watching Jessie, who was rubbing her chin, and otherwise apparently wracking her brain. Persian would've smiled if it wasn't for his face being more frozen now that he was a Persian, and no longer his devolved form, Meowth, which was able to smile after months of practice. "You know, Jessie, you're way too serious about this whole boss thing. You should take a vacation." "Ha! Not on your life, Persian! Jameson-I mean James, has already killed one of our most powerful team members, and it wasn't a very pretty death. I can't-I MEAN can't-let James get away with escape so easily." Persian nodded his head. "Yes, boss. I do, for once, agree with you. You really need a vacation." Persian licked his paw a little, ignoring Jessie. Jessie sighed and continued thinking. She stood up. "Get Cassidy to come here. I got a mission for her." Persian now was paying close attention. "Why? You hate 'er." Jessie sighed. "I know what to do here. She's expendable, so I can get her on a tough mission. Get Cassidy." Persian shrugged and walked out, to get Cassidy. "Hello, boss? What w-was it you wanted me to do? Uh..." It was "white shirt" senior rocket Cassidy, nearly spechless in front of the new boss: Jessie, who was her enemy. Or her former enemy. Now she was going to find out which one she really was. "Y-yes?" Jessie walked out of her chair. "Cassidy, I am ordering you with the task to hunt down Jameson." Cassidy's lip stiffened and she looked more angry, looking down at the floor and clenching her fist. Cassidy didn't speak, or seem to need to speak. "This will be a hard mission. As you know, your teammate, Butch, was eliminated trying to kill Jameson. He was last seen by intelligence at Route 3 coming towards Mt. Moon and we suspect that he is going to Cerulean city..." Route 3- 12:00 Jameson was walking around at the grassland plains at Route 3 beside the road with his heavy backpack, following the road. He could already see Mt. Moon and its neighbouring peaks. He simply stared in front of him, his Victreebell pokŽball at the ready, with a slight grin on his face despite his completely apparent doom. Cassidy was still alive, and James would have to think up even more unorthodox tricks to keep away from Team Rocket intelligence, Cassidy and other assasins and most of all, Jessie, who was a threat to his safety. However, Jameson did not feel like he was being watched, which was ironic for him because Cassidy was looking at him through a bush, sniper rifle with dum-dum bullets behind her. Silently and carefully, Cassidy fitted a silencer on her rifle, twisting and twisting and twisting. Cassidy aimed. But, at that moment, Jameson was walking too fast for her to keep a straight aim. Cassidy kept her cool, knowing that Jameson was going to slow down or stop sometime. And he did, not to look around at the pokŽmon and plants, but when he found a circular object sticking out of a bush with a black hole in the middle, which Jameson identified as the silencer of a rifle. Dodge! Jameson jumped to the side as a spiked bullet came-and missed. "Victreebell, go!" Jameson pointed a finger at the rifle as his pokŽmon was released. "Victreebell, wrap!" Victreebell, quite surprisingly for a grass pokŽmon, jumped to an area behind the bush and stuck his mouth into the unsuspecting Cassidy's head. Cassidy yelled muffled curses and held her rifle, striking Victreebell on its big body with the hard rifle butt. Cassidy lunged out, covered with pokŽmon saliva and white blood. Victreebell was drooling the blood that was on Cassidy. Cassidy's rifle must have hit a delicate organ. "Victreebell, return!" It looked like to Jameson that it was another one for the pokŽmon center. "Weezing and Raticate, smokescreen and quick attack!" All Jameson needed to do was point at Cassidy, as his pokŽmon came straight out of his waist belt. As Cassidy was about to quickly aim at Jameson, she was hit by a Raticate's head, ramming her in the stomach. Cassidy simply threw the Raticate away from her over her head, and it landed in a prickly bush. Just as Weezing was about to use smokescreen, Jameson returned Raticate, and smoke surrounded the area. Cassidy dived down on the grass, avoiding the smokescreen, and started crawling, with the rifle mounted on her shoulder and being held by her arm. "That's enough now," Jameson told Weezing, opening the pokŽball and bringing Weezing back in safe, followed with a run. Eventually Cassidy found her way through the smoke, but she couldn't run because of the weight of the weapon she was carrying. But Cassidy wasn't going to give up. She briskly walked toward Mt.Moon, hoping that Jameson was going to use it as a shortcut. Mt. Moon- 13:30 Jameson finally arrived at Mt. Moon to find a cave entrance that was blocked with wood, and beside it there was a ladder leading to a platform supporting a cable, and a sign besde the ladder. "Tourists-14 years to life if found tresspassing in Mt. Moon. Use cable car." It showed a schedule below it. Jameson read it to find that it would come in 13:35. Jameson climbed up the ladder and leaned on the platform's rails, and he found someone running the direction away from either Veridian City or Pallet Town. The person was male, and in his teens, with short black hair. He arrived in an obvious hurry, climbing up the ladder. "Hello, my name's Ash," the person said, now face-to-face with Jameson. Jameson backed up to the rail. "Geez, you don't have to go that close!" Jameson recognised Ash immeadiately as someone from his earlier days that he tried so hard to forget-and the person who beat Jameson in the quarter finals and went on to win the indigo league. "What time is it?" Ash was sitting down now, panting. "13:32," Jameson announced, "we have about 3 minutes before the cable car comes." "Ah. Hi, Jameson. I remember you from the league." Ash raised his hand, and Jameson very hesitantly shook it. Jameson didn't want to become friends with Ash Ketchum. Although Ash was friendly and all that especially when he was over 12 or 13, Ash's Raichu would recognise Jameson's smell instantly, just like Jessie's pokŽmon, who all knew him from earlier days. And then there would be trouble. The cable car came running. It was vacant, so when Ash entered he was the only person in. With deep and lasting reluctance, Jameson entered the cable car after Ash. Cerulean City- 14:00 Manuel looked at his shoes as he tapped them together again and again, waiting for Richard to come and tell him what he found, while sitting at a bench beside the shops. Manuel finally stared in front of him, to find that Richard was coming, now just at the shops. Richard arrived with a sandwhich and a pokŽball. "I got a Scyther today. I'm going to call it 'Slicer'. What do you think?" Manuel took out an advanced chemistry book and looked at the electron 'differences' between certain acids and basids. Manuel stared blankly at the pokŽball, and then looked somewhat more intrested at his electronegativity chart. "Is this what you called me here for? I got some summer study for my chemistry that I need to do." Richard cocked an eyebrow. "Manuel, you're an ace at chemies! You don't need to study any more! And it's not about Slicer." Manuel closed the book, muttering, "so the electronegativity for the formula of the MSG drug is-" Richard cocked his other eyebrow. Manuel stopped muttering. "Okay, tell me, then." Richard smiled. This obviously wasn't one of Manuel's better days, but Manuel was listening now. "Okay, Manuel. Keep this a bit of a secret." Richard's face was at it's usual state-completely stiff. "Alright, Richard. Yes, Richard?" Richard took his cap off, and removed a sheet of paper from it. It was a white, small sheet of a picture of someone. "Why, it's Jameson of the league top 8." Richard flinched a little. Richard was a top 8 too, and his loss against Gary was seriously discouraging. "Jameson has black hair, you see. What if... He has this hair?" He gave him another picture, made by Officer Jenny, this time in colour. Jameson's hair was a sheen of white on that picture. Richard seemed optomistic as he continued, "okay... Seen this guy with either colours of hair? He looks familiar to me, especially with white hair." Manuel shook his head. "Don't remember him. Dosen't ring a bell." Richard looked back at the picture. "Well, he looks familiar to me, Manuel. Hmn. H-m. Hmm." Richard took out his bread and ate it. Deciding to pass the time, Manuel took out his chemistry book and reviewed what he learned while Richard wondered and ate. Richard was now staring back at his Scyther pokŽball when he had finished early. Richard would've cheered, but to him it would be attracting positive attention only to himself-and not to the people around him. Richard had already known all the moves for Scyther. "It's nice that I have a Scyther now, isn't it?" Manuel shrugged. "I know nothing about animals." Someone small, broad and with a shaved head came up to Richard. "I'll take that!" The person stated, picking up Richard's head by the hair (Richard still didn't have a cap on) and lashed it against a nail on the bench. He then took Scyther's pokŽball and ran quickly away. Manuel closed the chemistry book and ran towards where the thief was going. Manuel sidestrafed to the side of the road, picked up a metal pipe, and continued running. "Don't get yourself into trouble, Manuel-ah, my head's stuck!" Richard pulled his head out of the nail and noticed that his head was bleeding in the spot when he literally ripped himself off the loose nail he was shoved into. Richard recieved a sudden burst of pain when he seen the inner side of a tiny patch of his forehead's skin on a nail still stuck to the bench, bubbling with Richard's blood. Richard bit his lip and covered the blood with a handkerchief, sighed, and put his cap on, blood slowly triclking down his face and people looking around at Richard, distracted by his blood. Manuel was in hot persuit of the quick and tough-looking thief. The thief kept running, but so did Manuel Zimmerman, now baring teeth and with one eye closed, about to swipe the metal pipe he had onto the back of the thief's head. The sidewalk didn't seen to end, as although there were many road intersections, there were no cars so they dodn't notice. The thief began to get exausted, but Manuel was far from weak. The thief turned around and drew a long knife. "For the safety of team rocke-" but he got hit with a pipe on the face from Manuel, and he fell down, uncouncious and dazed. A pokŽ ball with Richie's star slipped out of his hand. Manuel picked it up and walked back toward Richard. Route 4- 14:15 Ash walked out of the door of the cable car as it stopped, to another platform above the ground. Jameson very reluctantly followed suit, looking in every direction. Ahead of Jameson and Ash was Cerulean city. There, the buildings were blue, the grass was green, and the streets were a light gray. Ash breathed in a great gulp of air. "We've made it, Jameson. Cerulean city. Like it yet?" Jameson slid down the ladder from the platform, saying nothing. Ash followed him quickly. This kid won't stop, Jameson mused, nervous. "Have any friends there?" Jameson asked. "Although I must admit that I miss May, I am excited to come here. I have many friends there, most of them are from a long time ago, though." Jameson froze in his place, and he asked, standing still, "who's May?" Ash stopped with Jameson and rubbed the back of his neck, blushing. "Never mind." Ash then moved on, leaving Jameson alone. Jameson grinned. Good thing I didn't get too involved with Ash, Jameson thought, slowly walking to Cerulean city. Jameson looked and felt nervous now, thinking, I hope nobody from team rocket notices my wandering, Jameson thought briskly, smiling but, deep down, very, very nervous.