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After unlocking the locked door the group stepped into another corridor which lead to a spiral staircase leading down to the basement. They walked down the stairs and opened the door that was at the bottom. It lead into a large room, and as they walked in James was hit by the smell of antiseptic, he hated that smell it always reminded him of hospitals.
They looked round the room and quickly saw that it was divided into two halves, on the side they were on was filled with normal laboratory equipment, test tubes and the like and the other side of the room was filled with filing cabinets. Twenty of them in fact and no sign of any computer. Cassidy groaned, she knew what that meant. Butch glanced at her and said, “This doesn’t mean what I think it means does it?”
“I’m afraid so.” Cassidy said.
“What’s up?” James asked.
“She hasn’t got a computer, meaning we’re gonna have to search for the information we need by hand.” Cassidy answered.
“You can’t be serious.” Jessie said, regarding the filing cabinets.
“Yeah,” added Meowth, “It will take forever to search that lot.”
“Not so. If we each take 5 each and you Meowth help whoever we might find what we’re looking for before tonight.” Butch said.
“OK then what are we waiting for.” With that James marched forward pulled open the top drawer of the nearest filing cabinet, pulled out a handful of neatly typed papers and began to scan the page headings looking for something relevant to the topic they were searching for.
The others soon followed his lead. Hours went by, until the silence was broken by a triumphant cry from Jessie. The other quickly rushed over to where Jessie was standing, she showed them what she had found. It was a huge list of all the pokemon that had been stolen by Team Rocket and given to her by The Boss. The list also included what state the pokemon was in when she received it and what she had done with it. By the side of each pokemon name was a number. It was obviously what they had been looking for.
“So,” James said, looking the list up and down, “what does this all mean?”
“I’m not sure but I think it might mean we all have the wrong idea about what Team Rocket stands for.” Butch said.
“How so?” Meowth asked, looking up at the humans.
“Well, not one of these pokemon were healthy when they were brought here. So I’m thinking that maybe The Boss has been rescuing mistreated pokemon and sending them here to be fixed and released back in the wild.” Butch said, slipping an arm round Cassidy and pulling her close to him.
“But that makes no sense not all the pokemon stolen can be mistreated. I mean we’ve stolen pokemon that were OK.” Jessie said.
“But Jess it does.” James said excitedly.
“It does?” Jessie and Meowth said together.
“Remember when we stole that togapi.”
They nodded, and James continued, “The Boss said he wanted rare pokemon yet he wasn't interested in it and we couldn’t work out why. Maybe it was because he knew it wasn’t mistreated.”
Jessie nodded, “That kinda makes sense, I guess.”
James grinned and said, “Best of all it means we’re not the bad guys we’ve always thought we were.”
“You’re right.” Jessie said happily, pulling James to her and giving him a huge hug.
He hugged back blushing slightly. Jessie released him and said, “Lets get out of here.”
Butch nodded and said “Not a moment too soon either, I’m starved.”
James laughed and said, “You can say that again.”
He placed the papers he was holding back into the filing case they came from and slammed the door shut. They then headed out of the room and back up to the dinning hall to get some food.
As they walked James felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders he had always felt that it had been a great mistake to join Team Rocket but now he knew it hadn’t been a mistake at all. Of course The Boss wouldn’t be too happy if he found out that they knew about the real reason behind Team Rocket but for now James was happy. He finally felt like he could follow his heart, he just had to find the right time to tell Jess just what that was.