It's ranting time.
How many times have I said something to the effect of "Eternal Winter is about so much more than Noelle's pseudo-journey! There are many more characters to meet, and a much larger plot at stake!"? Have I proven it? No. There are eight chapters out now, and it's all pretty linear.
Midori's side-scenes got a pretty good reaction, I think. And I was overly pleased when his path finally crossed with Noelle's and they met at last. So it's time to do more of the same.
In the first draft, three major characters had their introductions in EW2. With the rewrite, I want to introduce all the main characters in part 1, so we know who they are and have a good idea of their roles before their paths cross with our heroine's. So, it's my pleasure to unveil the first ever Eternal Winter Special, not unlike a HoSo Special Episode. Hopefully this side-fic will give an idea of the broader world of EW, and, if you enjoy it, you'll brace yourself for the larger story. ^_~
Though it's posted as its own thread (c'mon, no one would find it if I posted it in the EW thread), it takes place right after chapter 4. That's where it will appear on the site. If I sound a little excited, it's because, after a three-month dry spell, I've created a major stepping stone for my story. I hope you like it, and give me your honest opinion. *bows*
Mondo thrust his hands in the air, dropping the canned food he'd been holding, which clattered at his feet.
"Get out of here right now!" The executive rested her hands on her hips. "How did you get in the emergency storehouse?"
"It's my job!" Mondo defended himself. "I need this stuff to deliver to field agents! I swear!" He glanced at her over his shoulder. The executive was in her early thirties, with straight black hair and steely eyes.
"What's your name, boy?" she demanded.
"William Mondo," he answered. "I'm a special agent myself, you can ask anyone."
He did have the white uniform. But his youth and his startled reaction made him seem very suspicious. Maybe he was new. "All right," she acceded. "
Carry on." She narrowed her eyes at him.
Keeping his name and face in mind, she returned to her office. She began scrolling through the member database, and, sure enough, he was listed. Mondo, William, age sixteen. Membership date June 1st, 1999 -- a little over a year ago today. Special task force Project J3 -- what was that? In any case, the boy wasn't an infiltrator. Tabitha exited the database, trying now to remember if she'd ever heard of Project J3.
Probably another scientists' experiment, she decided. The most well-known of them was M2, the best success yet. But M2, supposedly the first genetically-engineered pokémon, had escaped Giovanni's clutches, they said.
The door to Tabitha's office slammed open. "You're here!" declared the entrant in a breathless and relieved voice. Cassidy, daughter of one of the scientists. She was only a grunt, but she and her partner were quickly moving up in the ranks.
"Something I can do for you?" Tabitha asked. She might have been a bright schemer, but everyone knew that Cassidy's success was really due to her father's influence.
"You'll never believe who I saw!" Cassidy exclaimed.
"I'm sure I won't," said Tabitha.
"Remember when the Viridian office burned down three years ago?"
That had her attention. "Wait..." Tabitha said. "Weren't you and Butch always trying to convince us that it was an inside arsonist job?"
"It was, I tell you!" Cassidy said. "And I know who it was because I just saw her! Just the other day, when I was in Celadon City!"
"Our spies would have found this supposed arsonist three years ago if it was the case," Tabitha assured her. "Nothing escapes Team Rocket."
"And if you look up the file on Akiko Yoru, you'd see that she was presumed dead in the fire." Cassidy pointed at the computer. "Only I'm sure she's not. I'm sure I saw her today!"
Tabitha gave the blonde girl a steady look.
"You don't realize what it would mean, her being alive, do you?" Cassidy pressed the issue. "She spent a lot of time in the labs, around some experimental pokémon. I remember her, she caved at the end and sprang most of them loose!"
"And set the whole place on fire, right?" Tabitha finished, bringing up the report on her screen. "Little Akiko was never found, so it was assumed she and several pokémon perished. You can't prove she did it, Cassidy. And you can't drag some possibly innocent girl from Celadon in here for questioning."
"But if she's--"
Tabitha held up her hand. "If it will make you feel better, I'll bring up your sighting at our next meeting. Then we'll see what will happen."
Cassidy looked a little pouty, but nodded and left the room. Spoiled brat, Tabitha thought, rereading the Akiko report. The young girl had been paired with Butch at the time; Cassidy must be harboring an old grudge. Tabitha sighed and closed the file, her mind wandering again to Project J3.
What was it? She ran a search, which yielded no result. That had to be a mistake. She reopened William Mondo's file, printed it, and took it with her as she strolled down the hall. Someone was bound to know.
Another executive, Martina, was in her own office, typing at her computer. She handled a lot of case history files, so perhaps she'd have the answer. "Hello there," Tabitha said, approaching her desk. "I was wondering if you could answer something for me."
"Like what?" Martina prompted.
"What's Project J3? I have no record of it, yet it appears to be this boy's assignment." She handed over Mondo's printout.
Martina frowned in concentration, staring at the sheet.
"I found him rading the storehouse," Tabitha explained. "He said he was gathering things to take to some field agents."
Martina blinked. "Oh! I remember now." She shifted her eyes to the ceiling, thinking. "That's right. Mr. Mondo here keeps our three probationary agents from
bothering headquarters."
"Probationary agents?" Tabitha raised a black eyebrow.
"J3 isn't really a project. It's just a codename for the situation. See, some time ago, these two special agents -- teenage kids -- and their, ah, unique pokémon blew a horribly expensive mission."
"Unique pokémon?" Tabitha was growing tired of echoing.
"The Boss's Meowth that supposedly could talk."
"Oh yeah." Tabitha chuckled.
"Anyway, they now personally owe a large sum of money to the Boss," Martina said, twirling a pen in her fingers. "They've been granted permission to find rare pokémon for him. But it's been two years now, and they still haven't done that. They're complete wastes to the team. To keep them from coming back here and causing more trouble, this Mondo boy delivers supplies to them."
"Why him?"
Martina studied his grainy headshot. "If I remember correctly, he was kind of an accidental member. I think he stumbled upon some outdoor testing and saw too much, so he was given a choice: join and keep silent, or be killed."
"Wouldn't it have been kinder to kill him right away?" Tabitha asked directly. "He seems so... innocent for the likes of Team Rocket."
Martina shrugged. "I didn't decide it. Besides, he's useful, and I don't think he really knows what goes on around here. About the only thing he's good for is making these deliveries to those suspended agents... it's almost a shame."
"What is?"
Martina, gazing at the printout, snapped her head back up. "Oh, nothing. Just that we're going to start seriously cleaning up the team... if you catch my drift."
"Ah." Tabitha nodded.
"And I'd hate to dispose of a kid like Mondo. He seems... impressionable. Like there's still hope for him. Maybe if he was doing something else..."
Tabitha felt a click in her mind. "Say..." she said. "Do you remember a trainee named Akiko Yoru?"
"Positive. That girl is infinitely more important than your three little friends."
"But how--"
"We'll take care of them," Martina answered the question she already knew. "Think of this as a promotion. Now you're an official undercover spy. You get to wear plain clothes and hang around Celadon City."
"But you just want me to observe her?"
"Find out if she's alive first. Confirm that, and we'll take care of the rest."
Mondo was brimming with questions, but he knew by now not to ask. He just nodded and left Martina's office, then the building, opening the door to his red Jeep and climbing in.
It may have been a Rocket-issued vehicle, but it felt like Mondo's home. In it he kept a bag with a few changes of clothes, several cassettes of music he'd recorded from the radio, snacks, and drinks. He was always in need of a caffeine fix. The floor of the backseat was littered with empty cans of Jolteon Cola and Moutain Dewgong.
Mondo stared at Akiko's picture again. A girl he'd been told was fourteen looked blankly back at him. She had delicate features and long, straight, brown hair. She'd be three years older now, and the agent who claimed to have seen her said her hair was now short and red.
"Fourteen, huh?" Mondo said to the picture. "Almost as old as I was when I joined. How'd you wind up in this mess?"
What would Jessie, James, and Meowth do without him? That was something he wanted to ask Martina. "We'll take care of them," she'd said. Was another grunt going to handle the task? He'd miss them -- his friends had an important job, hunting rare pokémon for the Boss like that.
"No one said I couldn't still help them out," Mondo said to Akiko's picture. "I just have to report in every once and awhile if I see you, right? Celadon's huge, and it could take months before I find you."
He grinned. "This'll be great! I can't wait to tell Jessie I'm a spy now! Maybe she'll be really impressed." He started up the Jeep and drove out of the parking lot, giggling as he pictured Jessie's reaction.
Martina and Tabitha exchanged looks as the question was fired. Other executives stared at the two women, eager for their explanation.
"Even the slightest possibility that she's alive is still a possibility," Tabitha said. She still doubted Cassidy's sighting, but would be in trouble if she ignored it. "We can't let a former member just walk around in public."
"It's getting to be a real problem," Martina added. "We're going to make an effort to do away with some of these rogue Rockets. We just can't have it."
"That's why we sent this one particular agent, Mondo, to look for Akiko," Tabitha continued. "The agents to whom he was assigned... they're some of our firsts for the cleanup."
This caught the attention of Cassidy and Butch, who stood against the back wall of the board room.
"Anyway, that's not the issue right now," Tabitha said. "Akiko, should she really be alive, won't be harmed, which is another reason we sent Mondo. We need her alive -- there's an interesting, ah, theory behind her and that fire in Viridian." She didn't believe it for a second. Cassidy's partner was just as crazy as she, making up accusations. Still, if his request was denied, he'd tell Cassidy's father, and word would reach the Boss... Tabitha wished the next cleanup could be team nepotism.
Butch stepped forward. "I don't know how to explain it, but I think Akiko had some control over that fire," he said. "Fire in general. One time she lit a candle in front of me with her fingers, I remember."
The other executives looked as dubious as Tabitha felt.
"So I'm sure she not only set that fire, she created it!" he persisted in his gravelly voice.
"My father can back him up," Cassidy added. "She was always lurking around in the lab, moreso near some of the fire pokémon. And a Growlithe from her home actually followed her to the base!"
"That's not so unusual, actually," spoke up an executive.
Tabitha whipped around to face him, astonished.
"We've heard... rumors," he said, leaning back in his chair. "The squad hunting the legendary forest guardian of Johto claimed they were chased off by a girl controlling lightning. A couple of agents swear a boy once confronted them and made them have nightmares with a wave of his hand."
"Human beings with pokémon-like powers?" asked another executive. "Now that is worth looking into. If Team Rocket could harness those abilities..."
A collective silence settled across the board room.
"Make sure your boy Mondo knows the importance of his new mission," the first executive told Martina. "For the time being, we'll codename it Project Flamethrower."
Mondo had found them trudging back to Saffron just as he was leaving. They'd lost another opportunity to catch a rare pokémon, they said, this one they couldn't even identify. Some small, purple thing belonging to a teenage girl. Mondo had pulled off the road, and they shared some sandwiches, sitting in the Jeep's shadow.
"She was supposed to have passed away in the Viridian headquarters fire," Mondo said. "Someone said they saw her just a few days ago in Celadon." He shrugged.
"Celadon's in the other direction, you know," James said, nodding towards the direction from which Mondo had driven.
"Yeah, but I can't abandon you guys." Mondo grinned.
Jessie took a long drink from a water bottle and sighed. "Oh, Mondo, what would we do without you?"
The younger Rocket beamed. To hear words of need from Jessie was all he ever wanted.
James shielded his eyes from the sun as he gazed ahead, thinking. "Do you suppose this means we're going back to headquarters, then? We'll get a new assignment?"
Meowth, who had been stuffing himself, snorted suddenly. It was the first sound he'd made since they all sat down to eat. "Do ya really believe dat, Jimmy boy?"
Mondo patted Meowth's head between his ears, smiling at his favorite pokémon, still marveling at the fact that he could talk. "Could be," he said. "Martina said she'd handle you three."
"It's obvious," Jessie said, a grin spreading over her flawless face. "They've noticed how dedicated we've been over the past two years, constantly trying to catch that twerp's Pikachu and other powerful pokémon. We're bound to get a promotion."
"But we've been on probation all this time," James reminded her. "Why would they promote us when we haven't heard from them?"
"To test our faith," Jessie answered, as though it was obvious. "And because we've been silently following our orders for so long, we're going to be rewarded. We just have to keep this up a little longer... try a little harder, and then..." She closed her eyes, no doubt imagining how her life would be in the near future.
James opened his mouth to argue a point, but decided against it. Meowth looked from him to Jessie to Mondo, shrugged, and continued devouring his sandwich.
"Since you're an official spy now," James said to Mondo, "maybe you could do a little spying for us?"
"Eh?" Mondo blinked, his eyes widening.
"See if you can find out what they're going to do with us? I'd like to be prepared... in case there's trouble." He smirked wryly.
"And I think you're being paranoid on the double," Jessie scoffed. "What else could they possibly be planning?"
"Never fear!" Mondo exclaimed, pounding a fist to his chest lightly. "With Secret Agent Mondo on your side, you'll be the first to know anything!"
"Dat's a switch," Meowth said with a laugh, ducking as Jessie swung her fist at him. Mondo chuckled, glancing at James to see if he was as amused. James continued to stare ahead pensively, and Mondo's smile faded as he wondered whatever could be bothering his hero this much.
How many times have I said something to the effect of "Eternal Winter is about so much more than Noelle's pseudo-journey! There are many more characters to meet, and a much larger plot at stake!"? Have I proven it? No. There are eight chapters out now, and it's all pretty linear.
Midori's side-scenes got a pretty good reaction, I think. And I was overly pleased when his path finally crossed with Noelle's and they met at last. So it's time to do more of the same.
In the first draft, three major characters had their introductions in EW2. With the rewrite, I want to introduce all the main characters in part 1, so we know who they are and have a good idea of their roles before their paths cross with our heroine's. So, it's my pleasure to unveil the first ever Eternal Winter Special, not unlike a HoSo Special Episode. Hopefully this side-fic will give an idea of the broader world of EW, and, if you enjoy it, you'll brace yourself for the larger story. ^_~
Though it's posted as its own thread (c'mon, no one would find it if I posted it in the EW thread), it takes place right after chapter 4. That's where it will appear on the site. If I sound a little excited, it's because, after a three-month dry spell, I've created a major stepping stone for my story. I hope you like it, and give me your honest opinion. *bows*
Codename: Flamethrower
Eternal Winter Special 1
"What are you doing?"Eternal Winter Special 1
Mondo thrust his hands in the air, dropping the canned food he'd been holding, which clattered at his feet.
"Get out of here right now!" The executive rested her hands on her hips. "How did you get in the emergency storehouse?"
"It's my job!" Mondo defended himself. "I need this stuff to deliver to field agents! I swear!" He glanced at her over his shoulder. The executive was in her early thirties, with straight black hair and steely eyes.
"What's your name, boy?" she demanded.
"William Mondo," he answered. "I'm a special agent myself, you can ask anyone."
He did have the white uniform. But his youth and his startled reaction made him seem very suspicious. Maybe he was new. "All right," she acceded. "
Carry on." She narrowed her eyes at him.
Keeping his name and face in mind, she returned to her office. She began scrolling through the member database, and, sure enough, he was listed. Mondo, William, age sixteen. Membership date June 1st, 1999 -- a little over a year ago today. Special task force Project J3 -- what was that? In any case, the boy wasn't an infiltrator. Tabitha exited the database, trying now to remember if she'd ever heard of Project J3.
Probably another scientists' experiment, she decided. The most well-known of them was M2, the best success yet. But M2, supposedly the first genetically-engineered pokémon, had escaped Giovanni's clutches, they said.
The door to Tabitha's office slammed open. "You're here!" declared the entrant in a breathless and relieved voice. Cassidy, daughter of one of the scientists. She was only a grunt, but she and her partner were quickly moving up in the ranks.
"Something I can do for you?" Tabitha asked. She might have been a bright schemer, but everyone knew that Cassidy's success was really due to her father's influence.
"You'll never believe who I saw!" Cassidy exclaimed.
"I'm sure I won't," said Tabitha.
"Remember when the Viridian office burned down three years ago?"
That had her attention. "Wait..." Tabitha said. "Weren't you and Butch always trying to convince us that it was an inside arsonist job?"
"It was, I tell you!" Cassidy said. "And I know who it was because I just saw her! Just the other day, when I was in Celadon City!"
"Our spies would have found this supposed arsonist three years ago if it was the case," Tabitha assured her. "Nothing escapes Team Rocket."
"And if you look up the file on Akiko Yoru, you'd see that she was presumed dead in the fire." Cassidy pointed at the computer. "Only I'm sure she's not. I'm sure I saw her today!"
Tabitha gave the blonde girl a steady look.
"You don't realize what it would mean, her being alive, do you?" Cassidy pressed the issue. "She spent a lot of time in the labs, around some experimental pokémon. I remember her, she caved at the end and sprang most of them loose!"
"And set the whole place on fire, right?" Tabitha finished, bringing up the report on her screen. "Little Akiko was never found, so it was assumed she and several pokémon perished. You can't prove she did it, Cassidy. And you can't drag some possibly innocent girl from Celadon in here for questioning."
"But if she's--"
Tabitha held up her hand. "If it will make you feel better, I'll bring up your sighting at our next meeting. Then we'll see what will happen."
Cassidy looked a little pouty, but nodded and left the room. Spoiled brat, Tabitha thought, rereading the Akiko report. The young girl had been paired with Butch at the time; Cassidy must be harboring an old grudge. Tabitha sighed and closed the file, her mind wandering again to Project J3.
What was it? She ran a search, which yielded no result. That had to be a mistake. She reopened William Mondo's file, printed it, and took it with her as she strolled down the hall. Someone was bound to know.
Another executive, Martina, was in her own office, typing at her computer. She handled a lot of case history files, so perhaps she'd have the answer. "Hello there," Tabitha said, approaching her desk. "I was wondering if you could answer something for me."
"Like what?" Martina prompted.
"What's Project J3? I have no record of it, yet it appears to be this boy's assignment." She handed over Mondo's printout.
Martina frowned in concentration, staring at the sheet.
"I found him rading the storehouse," Tabitha explained. "He said he was gathering things to take to some field agents."
Martina blinked. "Oh! I remember now." She shifted her eyes to the ceiling, thinking. "That's right. Mr. Mondo here keeps our three probationary agents from
bothering headquarters."
"Probationary agents?" Tabitha raised a black eyebrow.
"J3 isn't really a project. It's just a codename for the situation. See, some time ago, these two special agents -- teenage kids -- and their, ah, unique pokémon blew a horribly expensive mission."
"Unique pokémon?" Tabitha was growing tired of echoing.
"The Boss's Meowth that supposedly could talk."
"Oh yeah." Tabitha chuckled.
"Anyway, they now personally owe a large sum of money to the Boss," Martina said, twirling a pen in her fingers. "They've been granted permission to find rare pokémon for him. But it's been two years now, and they still haven't done that. They're complete wastes to the team. To keep them from coming back here and causing more trouble, this Mondo boy delivers supplies to them."
"Why him?"
Martina studied his grainy headshot. "If I remember correctly, he was kind of an accidental member. I think he stumbled upon some outdoor testing and saw too much, so he was given a choice: join and keep silent, or be killed."
"Wouldn't it have been kinder to kill him right away?" Tabitha asked directly. "He seems so... innocent for the likes of Team Rocket."
Martina shrugged. "I didn't decide it. Besides, he's useful, and I don't think he really knows what goes on around here. About the only thing he's good for is making these deliveries to those suspended agents... it's almost a shame."
"What is?"
Martina, gazing at the printout, snapped her head back up. "Oh, nothing. Just that we're going to start seriously cleaning up the team... if you catch my drift."
"Ah." Tabitha nodded.
"And I'd hate to dispose of a kid like Mondo. He seems... impressionable. Like there's still hope for him. Maybe if he was doing something else..."
Tabitha felt a click in her mind. "Say..." she said. "Do you remember a trainee named Akiko Yoru?"
~ * ~
Mondo looked up at Martina from the printed headshot of Akiko. "Are you sure about this?" he asked."Positive. That girl is infinitely more important than your three little friends."
"But how--"
"We'll take care of them," Martina answered the question she already knew. "Think of this as a promotion. Now you're an official undercover spy. You get to wear plain clothes and hang around Celadon City."
"But you just want me to observe her?"
"Find out if she's alive first. Confirm that, and we'll take care of the rest."
Mondo was brimming with questions, but he knew by now not to ask. He just nodded and left Martina's office, then the building, opening the door to his red Jeep and climbing in.
It may have been a Rocket-issued vehicle, but it felt like Mondo's home. In it he kept a bag with a few changes of clothes, several cassettes of music he'd recorded from the radio, snacks, and drinks. He was always in need of a caffeine fix. The floor of the backseat was littered with empty cans of Jolteon Cola and Moutain Dewgong.
Mondo stared at Akiko's picture again. A girl he'd been told was fourteen looked blankly back at him. She had delicate features and long, straight, brown hair. She'd be three years older now, and the agent who claimed to have seen her said her hair was now short and red.
"Fourteen, huh?" Mondo said to the picture. "Almost as old as I was when I joined. How'd you wind up in this mess?"
What would Jessie, James, and Meowth do without him? That was something he wanted to ask Martina. "We'll take care of them," she'd said. Was another grunt going to handle the task? He'd miss them -- his friends had an important job, hunting rare pokémon for the Boss like that.
"No one said I couldn't still help them out," Mondo said to Akiko's picture. "I just have to report in every once and awhile if I see you, right? Celadon's huge, and it could take months before I find you."
He grinned. "This'll be great! I can't wait to tell Jessie I'm a spy now! Maybe she'll be really impressed." He started up the Jeep and drove out of the parking lot, giggling as he pictured Jessie's reaction.
~ * ~
"You authorized a search for Akiko Yoru?"Martina and Tabitha exchanged looks as the question was fired. Other executives stared at the two women, eager for their explanation.
"Even the slightest possibility that she's alive is still a possibility," Tabitha said. She still doubted Cassidy's sighting, but would be in trouble if she ignored it. "We can't let a former member just walk around in public."
"It's getting to be a real problem," Martina added. "We're going to make an effort to do away with some of these rogue Rockets. We just can't have it."
"That's why we sent this one particular agent, Mondo, to look for Akiko," Tabitha continued. "The agents to whom he was assigned... they're some of our firsts for the cleanup."
This caught the attention of Cassidy and Butch, who stood against the back wall of the board room.
"Anyway, that's not the issue right now," Tabitha said. "Akiko, should she really be alive, won't be harmed, which is another reason we sent Mondo. We need her alive -- there's an interesting, ah, theory behind her and that fire in Viridian." She didn't believe it for a second. Cassidy's partner was just as crazy as she, making up accusations. Still, if his request was denied, he'd tell Cassidy's father, and word would reach the Boss... Tabitha wished the next cleanup could be team nepotism.
Butch stepped forward. "I don't know how to explain it, but I think Akiko had some control over that fire," he said. "Fire in general. One time she lit a candle in front of me with her fingers, I remember."
The other executives looked as dubious as Tabitha felt.
"So I'm sure she not only set that fire, she created it!" he persisted in his gravelly voice.
"My father can back him up," Cassidy added. "She was always lurking around in the lab, moreso near some of the fire pokémon. And a Growlithe from her home actually followed her to the base!"
"That's not so unusual, actually," spoke up an executive.
Tabitha whipped around to face him, astonished.
"We've heard... rumors," he said, leaning back in his chair. "The squad hunting the legendary forest guardian of Johto claimed they were chased off by a girl controlling lightning. A couple of agents swear a boy once confronted them and made them have nightmares with a wave of his hand."
"Human beings with pokémon-like powers?" asked another executive. "Now that is worth looking into. If Team Rocket could harness those abilities..."
A collective silence settled across the board room.
"Make sure your boy Mondo knows the importance of his new mission," the first executive told Martina. "For the time being, we'll codename it Project Flamethrower."
~ * ~
James squinted at the headshot. "Nope, can't say I remember her," he said.Mondo had found them trudging back to Saffron just as he was leaving. They'd lost another opportunity to catch a rare pokémon, they said, this one they couldn't even identify. Some small, purple thing belonging to a teenage girl. Mondo had pulled off the road, and they shared some sandwiches, sitting in the Jeep's shadow.
"She was supposed to have passed away in the Viridian headquarters fire," Mondo said. "Someone said they saw her just a few days ago in Celadon." He shrugged.
"Celadon's in the other direction, you know," James said, nodding towards the direction from which Mondo had driven.
"Yeah, but I can't abandon you guys." Mondo grinned.
Jessie took a long drink from a water bottle and sighed. "Oh, Mondo, what would we do without you?"
The younger Rocket beamed. To hear words of need from Jessie was all he ever wanted.
James shielded his eyes from the sun as he gazed ahead, thinking. "Do you suppose this means we're going back to headquarters, then? We'll get a new assignment?"
Meowth, who had been stuffing himself, snorted suddenly. It was the first sound he'd made since they all sat down to eat. "Do ya really believe dat, Jimmy boy?"
Mondo patted Meowth's head between his ears, smiling at his favorite pokémon, still marveling at the fact that he could talk. "Could be," he said. "Martina said she'd handle you three."
"It's obvious," Jessie said, a grin spreading over her flawless face. "They've noticed how dedicated we've been over the past two years, constantly trying to catch that twerp's Pikachu and other powerful pokémon. We're bound to get a promotion."
"But we've been on probation all this time," James reminded her. "Why would they promote us when we haven't heard from them?"
"To test our faith," Jessie answered, as though it was obvious. "And because we've been silently following our orders for so long, we're going to be rewarded. We just have to keep this up a little longer... try a little harder, and then..." She closed her eyes, no doubt imagining how her life would be in the near future.
James opened his mouth to argue a point, but decided against it. Meowth looked from him to Jessie to Mondo, shrugged, and continued devouring his sandwich.
"Since you're an official spy now," James said to Mondo, "maybe you could do a little spying for us?"
"Eh?" Mondo blinked, his eyes widening.
"See if you can find out what they're going to do with us? I'd like to be prepared... in case there's trouble." He smirked wryly.
"And I think you're being paranoid on the double," Jessie scoffed. "What else could they possibly be planning?"
"Never fear!" Mondo exclaimed, pounding a fist to his chest lightly. "With Secret Agent Mondo on your side, you'll be the first to know anything!"
"Dat's a switch," Meowth said with a laugh, ducking as Jessie swung her fist at him. Mondo chuckled, glancing at James to see if he was as amused. James continued to stare ahead pensively, and Mondo's smile faded as he wondered whatever could be bothering his hero this much.
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