Pokemon-The Lost Master

Chapter 19

Jessie, James and Meowth stood in the foyer of the building, looking around. Being back at the Johto League made them remember the last time that they were there, where they had made a lot of money from selling goods during the tournament. Meowth had pointed out that they had failed to exploit the demand by trying to expand into a new building, where this time they could simply just buy an old store. This meant that they had been able to set up quickly, and Jessie attaching her now famous name to the company meant that they had endured one of the busiest opening days in memory. The staff had been worked off their feet, and had left at the end of the day, leaving the ex-Rockets to look at the accounts to realize how much money they had just made. This store had apparently become a gold-mine for them.

"I still can't believe it." James said. "I mean, I know that people like to buy things, but that was beyond ridiculous."

"You just have to have the right knack for it." Meowth said knowledgeably. "Good market research and…"

"Meowth, you know we just sold what we sold last time." James said.

"Yeah but, we still had to know that…"

"Jess, are you alright?" James asked, cutting over Meowth.

The red-headed woman stood quietly, looking out across the store, ignoring the bickering that was going on next to her. She turned and smiled sadly at James.

"Doing this again, reminds me of the last time we in Silver Town, when the Twerp competed here. We watched so many of his battles, despite spending years chasing Pikachu, I still respected him. It was one of the things I enjoyed the most about those years, watching him battle somebody other than us"

James and Meowth stared at her. "But Jess, we kept trying to steal from him." Meowth protested. "Are you saying that you didn't really mean it in all that time?"

"No I meant it Meowth. Just… I don't think I knew what effect he had on us until after he was gone…"

"I know what you mean Jess." James said quietly. "Being back here, I just keep expecting to be going to the stadium to sell things and watch him. It's weird."

Meowth looked from James to Jessie and back again. "Guys, I know he meant a lot, but he vanished years ago. He is dead. What's the point of going through all of this?"

"Because of what he did, even in death." James said. "Think about it, if Ash was still around where would we be?"

"What do you mean?" Meowth asked.

"We'd still be in Team Rocket, probably chasing after him and Pikachu. Instead, because of his death and the fact that you insisted we help Pikachu all those years ago, we are now respected. I'm a trainer, Jessie is famous. All because he died, we changed completely. We now have good friends in Ash's friends."

Meowths expression turned thoughtful. "True. I never thought of it like that…"

"Jess." James asked, causing the red-headed woman to look at him again. "Now this place is running, does it need any supervision from us?"

"Not really" she said, shrugging. "It's just like one of my stores now; they don't really need my supervision, just a good manager who we have."

James nodded. "Alright then, why don't we go and watch Misty's battles? We have little else to do here, and we are meant to be supporting her. Her third preliminary was today, but assuming she's through to the semi-finals, we can support her there."