Chapter 11

It is late at night, and Jessie and James are starting to lose hope that they will find Scott. For the last several days, the two of them and Meowth have been flying in their Meowth balloon in search of the associate of Brandon with no results. Day by day, they search only to slowly admit to themselves that they have no concrete plan to find Scott. Meowth is the only one devotedly searching through the forest only to turn around and see that Jessie and James are lying down uncaringly.

"Hey, you bozos, wake up!" He shouts. "We gotta keep searchin'!"

"What's the point, Meowth?" Jessie asks with a groan. "We've been searching for days, and we've had no luck."

"We can't give up now! Da boss is counting on us!" Meowth shouts.

"Normally, that would inspire me, but at this point, I'm siding with Jess," James says with droopy eyes. "How will we find this Scott fellow above a forest anyhow? Even if he is around here somewhere, we'll probably miss him with all of these trees."

"We had to find the twerp and his Pikachu in the middle of a forest hundreds of times, and we succeeded whether we meant to or not," Meowth points out. "If we were lucky to constantly find him and his friends even after blasting off nearly a thousand times, then we can find this guy who will lead us to our target."

"That's true. We were pretty lucky to find the twerp and his Pikachu as constantly as we did," Jessie says.

"But at least with them we had years of following them under our belt and who knows where Scott is now," James whines. "For all we know, he could be in any other region but Kanto or got into a fight with Brandon and so angrily got rid of any means to communicate with him in his flying pyramid."

"Will you relax, James?!" Meowth rebukes. "We're going to find him. He can't keep away from us any more than a Spoink can keep away from the ball in its head. You'll see."

"At this point, I think I have a better chance of seeing a Spoink fly," James mumbles.

The trio continues to fly in their balloon in silence with Meowth looking through his binoculars. Jessie eventually looks through her side of the basket to show a hint of effort while James continues to nap. Suddenly, they hear a faint noise. Jessie and Meowth turn to James' side of the basket in confusion to find electric sparks and water attacks flying in the air.

"Looks like a Pokemon battle nearby," Jessie says.

"Sure does," James says. "Meowth, is it wild Pokemon or are two trainers battling?"

"I can't tell. The trees are covering the commotion," Meowth says, looking through his binoculars.

But as Meowth looks, a cloaked figure is flying through the air. Jessie notices the figure and looks in confusion.

"What's that thing?" She asks.

James gets up from his nap, and looks at the figure equally confused.

"How strange," he says.

"Do ya think it's a Pokemon?" Meowth asks.

Suddenly, the cloaked figure notices the trio and flies straight toward them. Jessie, James, and Meowth only have a moment to react before the figure flies right through their balloon. The trio scream as they plummet to the ground with a painful crash. They groan in pain before Jessie spontaneously stands up, cross.

"Alright, what's the big idea?" She snarls. "I thought we'd be less likely to have our balloon destroyed without the twerp!"

"Yeah, I've had enough with something destroying my face," Meowth growls. "Let's teach that thing some manners!"

"Oh, this won't end well," James mutters worriedly.

Just as they are about to move, however, a beam of bubbles flies right by them. The three of them look at each other curious before they race toward the direction where the Bubble Beam came from.

After a while, they find themselves a few yards away from a hill where a Raichu and a Poliwrath are fighting. Both of them look tired but determined to beat the other.

"Looks like we have a chance to snag two fully-evolved Pokemon while they're fighin' each other," Meowth says with a grin.

"Yes, it does," Jessie says, grinning as she takes out two cube traps out of her pocket.

But as she prepares to trap the two unsuspecting Pokemon, the trio hears a low growl coming from behind them. They freeze in place with their eyes wide and their pupils like grains of sand. They slowly turn around to see two big, red, glaring eyes and a large, evil grin floating behind them. They shake uncontrollably until the floating mouth shouts, "GGEEEEEEEENNNNNN," causing them to scream and run away as fast as their legs can carry them.

"Gengar, where are you?!" A male voice shouts. "It's dinner time!"

Jessie, James, and Meowth stop running and turn around to see the floating eyes and mouth turn into a Gengar who grins excitedly as it floats over to where they spotted the Raichu and Poliwrath. They look at each other before they quietly walk back in that direction, careful not to get noticed again. When they make it back to the hill, they see the Pokemon no longer there and so walk up to the top to find two men, and several Pokemon gathered around to eat. The first man has long, black hair and looks to be in his thirties while the other one has short, brown hair and is in his late twenties and is wearing a "H.A.K." shirt. Next to the trainer with black hair is a large container with a Pokemon egg inside. They eat their sandwiches and drinks quietly while the Raichu, Poliwhirl, Gengar, happily eat bowls of Pokemon food with a Lucario, Snorlax, Gardevoir, Samurott, Zororak, Braviary, Krookodile, Chandelure, and Klinklang.

"Man, Electchu and Poliwrath like to battle each other when given a chance, don't they, Timothy?" The black-haired man says.

"You can say that again, Coovers," the brown-haired man named Timothy says. "They're the first two Pokemon I've ever had, and they've been the best ones to use ever since they were a Pikachu and a Poliwag. They've practically become friendly rivals over who is my best Pokemon. Right, guys?"

"Raichu!" The Raichu nicknamed Electchu replies with its mouth full of Pokemon food.

"Wraaaaath!" The Poliwrath answers while flexing its muscles.

"Sounds like you give them too many opportunities to fight each other judging by that battle they just had," the black-haired man called Coovers comments.

"Meh, it's a good way to train them and give them motivation to become even stronger," Timothy replies before turning to the two Pokemon with a glare and growls, "Besides, they know not to knock each other out and risk giving me trouble before an important match again."

Electchu and Poliwrath wince and chuckle nervously.

"Has that happened?" Coovers asks.

"Let's just say there's more than one reason why I took it hard when I lost the Kanto League the third time," Timothy answers.

Coovers nods in understanding, and the group continues to eat quietly until the black-haired speaks again.

"So, how much farther until we reach Pewter City?" He asks.

"If I remember the last time I traveled through Kanto, we should be there in two days," Timothy answers. "After that, we'll have to travel through Mt. Moon before going to Cerulean City. It should be smooth sailing to the Battle Factory from there."

Jessie, James, and Meowth look at each other at the sound of the Battle Factory.

"Good. I hope it doesn't take too long for us to get there," Coovers says.

"Agreed. And I hope my battle with whoever the Frontier Brain is there will be quick," Timothy says eagerly. "The sooner we can get it out of the way, the sooner we can get to Brandon and possibly the Gieldanstone."

Jessie, James, and Meowth silently gasp, surprised.

"Come on, Timothy, don't be so hasty," Coovers says disapprovingly. "We don't even know if you-know-who wants the Gieldanstone or if Brandon has found it. Besides, you said yourself that you want to find out if this Battle Frontier thing makes you another trainer."

"I know," Timothy admits. "But, if the world is at stake, it would be good to stop them the sooner, the better. Besides, I'm not convinced yet that this Battle Frontier is all that it's built up to be. It will take a lot more than the way Scott and Ash advertised it to convince me."

Coovers frowns but silently decides to drop it, and the two trainers go back to eating. Meanwhile, Team Rocket walks away from their hiding spot and giggles mischievously.

"What a discovery," James says. "It looks like we have found two trainers who are going through the Battle Frontier just like the twerps were."

"See? What did I tell ya?" Meowth says with an evil grin. "Our luck has pulled through once again. Instead of tracking down the Scott chump, we have these two dopes who can lead us right to Brandon."

"Yes, but I think we should be concerned about what they're up to," Jessie says seriously. "It sounds like they want to get to the Gieldanstone as much as we do. Maybe Team Rocket is who they're trying to keep it from."

"You're right," James says in thought. "Perhaps they are somehow aware that the boss is after Brandon as well as the jewel to get to Arceus. Or maybe another organization also want the Gieldanstone for their own diabolical plans."

"No problem," Meowth says confidently. "If they are after Brandon for his discovery, then we have the advantage."

"How do you figure, Meowth?" Jessie asks.

"It's simple," Meowth says. "Even if there's another organization looking for Brandon, we have the best chance of finding him first by following these two. That Timothy dweeb appears to own that Raichu, Poliwrath, and Gengar, and no matter what his other three Pokemon are among that group, it's clear that they are fully-evolved and very powerful, so he'll blitz through those other Frontier Brains in no time. More importantly, it sounds like they don't know for a fact that we know about the Gieldanstone and that da boss wants it to control Arceus. So, if we can follow them until they have the location to Brandon…"

"We can call the boss and have him track down Brandon and nab him and the jewel before those two even know what's happening," Jessie says in realization.

"Exactly," Meowth says. "Then Team Rocket will completely have the upper hand, and da boss will be so happy with us that he will promote us right on the spot."

"So, what are we waiting for?" James says, excitedly. "Let's fix up our balloon and start following them all the way to our target without a hitch."

"Right," Jessie and Meowth shouts simultaneously.

"Wobbuffet!" Wobbuffet shouts behind Jessie from out of its Pokeball.

And so, with their opportunity discovered, Jessie, James, Meowth, Wobbuffet race back to where their balloon crashed, ecstatic to follow Timothy and Coovers to their target without the two men suspecting a thing.

But neither Team Rocket, or Timothy and Coovers notice the shadowy, cloaked figure also spying on the two unsuspecting trainers from the other side of the field.