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M.R. #3842143
I find it difficult to write that the mission was successful or not. While the initial purpose of the mission was completed, the outcome was unexpected. At 0200 hours, the team infiltrated the HTM786 Facility and made it to the desired area, only to discover the item we were to retrieve has already been moved. X3061 was able to break into the computer systems and discover the new location of the item. However, X3061 also discovered the specifics of the item. X3061 has been sworn to silence regarding the item, so the plan remains secure. I was able to prevent the other Team Members from gleaning the confidential information. The item has been moved to area M36 by 248. I strongly suggest the removal of member OJ642 from the Team, effective immediately. Too much risk. Awaiting orders.
378P68
TM: X3061, 375PVN, Q36PZ2, SC321, MXY892, OJ642, 378P68
Meowth read over his report and rubbed his eyes. It would do. This report was a little more novella than he usually preferred, but it would have to be good enough. No causalities. That was good. Picking up the sheet of paper, Meowth walked over to his bag and pulled out the Sender. The Sender was a nice piece of very sophisticated equipment developed by the Team Rocket Organization. It was a small, flat, electronic pad with approximately forty buttons. None of the buttons were labeled and all looked exactly alike. By pushing specific combinations – different orders, pushing certain buttons at the same time – a complex coded message could be sent by satellite to headquarters. It was a very complicated process. Out of the entire Organization, probably only ten people knew how to use it and Meowth was one of them. It was only supposed to be used in highly classified cases. Most of the Team Rocket members didn’t even know it existed. This case was currently one the most important ones in operation. Originally designed for humans, Meowth had to use both hands to use the Sender. It took only ten seconds to send his whole message. Turning on the printer on the side of the Sender, he waited patiently, counting down. Three seconds to bounce off the satellite and reach Headquarters. Three seconds to print on the Boss’s machine. Ten seconds for him to read it. Two seconds to reply. Three seconds to bounce back to him. Two seconds to print.
At exactly twenty-three seconds after he sent the message, thirty-three seconds total, the Sender finished silently spitting out a very short and abrupt reply. Meowth held it up to the dim light from the small lamp he had lighted. The entire reply was only two lines long.
M36 X 248.036 2 m/c
OJ642 Remov. Denied. BREAK.
With a growl in his throat, Meowth crumpled up the reply and started to throw it away. His hand paused in mid-toss and he slowly relaxed, setting the somewhat squished reply on the metal table next to the draft of the message he’d sent. Taking out a small match, he lit the messages on fire, watching them burn away.
James heard the voice and decided to pointedly ignore it. The best way to do this, his groggy brain reasoned, was to curl up in a fetal position and hide under the covers. That way, no one would ever find him and he could go on sleeping.
"JAMES!!"
See? he thought to himself. It was working already. They were searching for him. Suddenly, the covers flew off. James whimpered as the bright light of day assaulted his eyes, reflexively contracting his body into a tighter curl.
"Oh, let him sleep, Meowth," murmured Jessie, sitting up groggily. She rubbed her eyes and yawned. "It’s the most rested I’ve seen him in weeks."
"Yeah, let me sleep!" intoned James from under his curled body.
"Fine," said Meowth shortly. "Jess, you can cook breakfast instead of James." The cat walked off to the kitchen, not waiting for a reply. Gengiess, Kytty, Umiko, and Reece shot up out of their beds and rushed over to James. Gengiess looked apologetically at Jess.
"No offence, but I’m really hungry," he winked. All four of them grabbed James and started shaking him.
"I’m up! I’m up!" he cried pushing them away. Yawning, he scratched behind his head and slowly made his way to the bathroom. The room erupted in a collective sigh.
"My cooking isn’t that bad," growled Jessie, her arms folded over her chest as she glared at them all. Gengiess looked only slightly embarrassed.
"Well, I’m going our for a smoke," he said quickly and rushed out the door. Umiko shook her head.
"We need to break him of that habit," she remarked silkily.
"I ain’t got no interest in fighting a battle that cain’t be won," drawled Kytty, digging through her backpack. She sighed and made a face. "Hey, is anyone else having problems with dust gettin’ in their stuff?"
"It’s this building," replied Jessie, shaking out her back tank top. "As if the last place we camped out in wasn’t bad enough."
"Un. This makes the Cerise City hideout look like the Hilton," lamented Umiko. They were crashing in a hollowed out building in the warehouse district of Puce Village City. Jessie was amazed by the fact that the building was still standing. When the when the wind blew too hard, the walls swayed because many of the beams of the room and in the walls had been removed or had rotted over time. The big red "condemned" sign on the outside of the building wasn’t very encouraging either. Yet, the building had been designed by Team Rocket. In reality, there was electricity and hot and cold running water. The walls were strong enough to stand up to an earthquake and the basement was loaded with enough weapons and ammunition to arm a small country. One of the first thing you learned in this business was that looks could be deceiving.
"Oh well," said Kytty with a wry smile, pulling on a mostly clean shirt. "These be the sacrifices we make for the organization." She turned her head and looked over her shoulder. "Reece, honey? You okay? I ain’t heard hardly a word from you since we botched the last job."
Reece looked up, startled out of her own private revelry. "I’m f-fine. Really. Why do you ask?" she stuttered, forcing a smile. For such a bubbly girl, she seemed completely out of character.
"I was just wondering, on account you ain’t been talkin’ so much," replied Kytty. "Ah mean, yeah, it was your first mission, and yeah, we didn’t really get the job done, and we didn’t really see any combat, and..."
"I thought you were trying to cheer her up, Kytty-chan," interrupted Umiko, rolling her eyes. Kytty glared at her partner.
"I was gettin’ to the encouraging part," she said hotly. Umiko shrugged. Turning back to Reece, Kytty smiled. "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, is that first missions really never go all that well. And you did save the day by finding the new location of the item." Reece flinched at that, but Kytty was too wrapped up to notice. Umiko’s eyes, on the other hand, narrowed considerably. "So, what I’m trying to say is," continued Kytty, "don’t get depressed! Buck up! Next time, we’ll retrieve the item for Boss Rocket and everything will be set right. You can’t go anywhere but up from this point on."
Reece remained quiet after Kytty’s moving speech. She looked down at her hands folded in her lap and pursed her lips. Suddenly, her hands clenched into fists.
"Yoshi!" she exclaimed, standing up and thrusting her fist in the air, striking a very dramatic and defiant pose. A great grin broke across her face. "You’re right, Kytty. I can’t sit here mopping. I have to focus my energy on the mission." She pulled her fists to her chest and got very serious. "I won’t let the Team down."
"That’s the spirit, honey!" said Kytty with a smile, clapping her on the shoulder, pleased that their resident rookie was perky again.
"Oy, hasn’t James-kun been in the bathroom a long time, Jess?" asked Umiko. "I’m starving."
"Now that you mention it..." Jessie spun around and walked to the bathroom. She didn’t even knock, but simply went in and closed the door. Umiko and Kytty exchanged glances. At that moment, Gengiess walked in and sniffed the air.
"Hasn’t breakfast been started yet?" he asked. Suddenly, there was a loud clanging noise from the bathroom, accompanied by a cry from Jessie.
"JAMES! You can’t sleep in the bathtub! Now get UP!!"
"What?" he asked.
"You shouldn’t eat so much," she scolded. "Especially all at one sitting." Gengiess had been the first to start and the last to finish. All the other members of the Team had already washed their dishes and were resting the main part of the old building. The kitchen was really no more than two aluminum tables, seven light weight, fully collapsible chairs, a small portable cooking stove/grill, and a cooler full of water. The whole area was separated from the rest of the building by a makeshift screen of sheets and string.
"I’m big," countered Gengiess. "Big people need to eat more."
"And you’re getting bigger everyday." Umiko patted his stomach playfully. It was a joke, of course. The big mercenary was all muscle, his fine skin only interrupted by the occasional scar - tokens from his many battles. The experienced Team Rocket member merely smiled, his one brown eye and one green eye twinkling. Suddenly, his expression became more serious.
"You girls are a lot closer to each other than you are to me. I was wondering what was wrong with Reece." Gengiess shook his head. "First James weirds out on us, now her. What do you think?"
Umiko sat down next to him and sighed again. "I don’t know. Kytty-chan, Jessie, and I noticed it too. She was pretty tight lipped. To be honest, I really think it has something to do with the nature of this mission. I just wish I knew what it was."
"No kidding," replied Gengiess. "Whatever’s bothering her, it didn’t start until after she located where the item had been moved to. And in order to do that..."
"She must have discovered exactly what it is we’re going after," finished Umiko. She chewed her bottom lip. "But I don’t think James knows, right?"
Gengiess shook his head. "He doesn’t. Meowth said that Jessie said he was having nightmares of some kind."
"Nightmares?"
"Yeah," nodded Gengiess. "I don’t know anymore than that. Jessie doesn’t know a whole lot herself and James isn’t talking." Gengiess stood up and began to wash his dishes in a rusty basin allotted for that purpose. "Oh well," he said, putting his plate in his mess kit to dry. "We better go and join our comrades." Umiko nodded and together they walked into the main room.
Everyone was sitting in a semi-circle on the dusty floor. Meowth sat in front of them all. He barely glanced at Umiko and Gengiess when they walked into the room - only enough to give them a slight glare.
"Welcome to the Mission Briefing, you two," he said, somewhat icily. "So glad you could join us."
"Sorry," they replied simultaneously, taking their places on the floor.
Meowth just shook his head. "Now listen all of you, and listen good. Our next mission is going to be a little different. The boss and I agree that we need to do a little Team Work training in order to cement this nice little group we've formed here."
"Team Work training?" asked Jessie with a grimace. She already didn't like the sound of this.
"What next, Meowth?" smirked James. "Lectures on 'empowerment' and 'goal self-actualization?'"
"Something like that," respond Meowth in kind. "Although we have the new location of our goal, I think we can see from our last mission that we need some practice working together."
"But what about--" started Reece. She broke off in mid-sentence and swallowed. "What about the... item?" she continued, her voice filled with worry.
Meowth looked over at her, his expression hardly changing. "We have reason to believe the item is secure and safe. The Defiers won't risk damaging it in any way. Besides," explained Meowth, addressing the whole group, "they're expecting an attack now. If we wait a few weeks, our chances of completing the mission get better."
"What guarantee do we have that they won't move the item again while we're off in the woods bonding somewhere?" asked Gengiess.
"The weather's started to get cold," replied Meowth simply.
"So?" asked Kytty. "How does a little chilly weather affect the mission?"
Meowth sighed. "The item is very sensitive to changing weather patterns. It is imperative to the Defiers that they keep the item safe and sound. The move to the new location could have damaged it already." Meowth closed his eyes and took a deep breath. After a moment, he opened them again and smiled. "You humans don't have as good sensory as we pokémon do. I can smell the first frost of the season on the way. I believe it will be hitting us tonight."
"You're kidding, right?" exclaimed Kytty. "It was as warm as spring in Cerise!"
"We're a lot farther north now," explained Meowth. "Winter falls pretty fast up here. They don't even have a fall - not really."
"So what is this mission?" asked James. He was busy braiding Jessie's hair in a very beautiful and complicated pattern. Meowth smiled a toothy grin.
"One I think you have passing familiarity with..."
The Team had spent the better part of the day planning The Exercise that was supposed to build the Team Spirit, or some such nonsense. Jessie and James seemed to be having a particularly good time. Night had fallen before they realized it and now everyone else was fast asleep. Reece pulled her knees up to her chin and looked over the city, a light breeze blowing through her green hair.
"You should be asleep."
Reece jumped to her feet and spun around. Meowth had walked up silently behind her and was starring contemplatively at the nearly full moon. She scowled at the cat pokémon and looked away.
"How can you be so cold?" she hissed at him through clenched teeth. "'The item is secure.' 'The Defiers won't damage it,'" she mimicked cruelly.
Meowth sighed. "They won't. And now that you know what it is, you know that to be true."
"And can we please stop calling it an 'it?'" she cried, spinning to face Meowth.
"No. Not even among ourselves," he replied quietly. "The rest of the Team can not know the nature of the item."
"He deserves to know," snapped Reece, starting to pace.
"And he is the one whom it is most important we keep this from." Meowth sighed again. "Listen. I know it's hard..."
"I never knew you were so cruel, Meowth. You're..." Reece stuttered with anger, unable to find the words to express how she felt. "You're, you're... INHUMAN!" she yelled. Turning on her heel, she started to run for the ladder back down. Meowth grabbed her ankle, forcing her to stop.
"Don’t you think this is hard for me?" he yelled back, seething. "I've known them for a hell of a lot longer than you have, little girl," he growled, getting right up in her face. "I'm more human than I'd like to be. There are times when I wish I was just like every other pokémon - oblivious to everything except for my next meal and my next battle. But I'm not. I'm something more." He paused and backed down away from her. Walking over to the edge of the roof, he placed his paws on the side and looked up at the moon. "Just like you, Reece. You, Gengiess, Kytty, Umiko, Jessie, James - all of us. For whatever reason, every one in this Team is blessed with a gift whether we wanted it or not. We were the ones who decided to join Team Rocket. No matter what went on in our lives before we got involved in the Organization, individually, we made the final decision about entering. With this decision comes sacrifice." Meowth let his head hang. He took a deep shuddering breath. "Go to sleep, Reece," he said quietly. The young rookie just stood there, watching Meowth. After a minute, she walked quietly back to the ladder.