Finally Jesse and James were ready to break into the lab. They waited until Professor Oak and the last of his assistants seemed to be gone, and woke Pikachu. They were happy to see that he really wasn't surprised to see them, and he seemed as eager to break into the lab as they were. But without Meowth they still couldn't get any real information from him.
James and Jesse couldn't help laughing and joking at the idea of doing a mission with Pikachu. Even Pikachu seemed to think it was pretty funny.
The approached the back door of the lab. There was no human guard but there was an impressive-looking alarm system. Pikachu shorted it out completely in a few seconds.
"That'll probably set an alarm off at the police station, won't it?" asked Jesse.
Pikachu bit through a few wires and shook its head.
They went at first into the main room, and saw Pokeballs under a glass cover as well as other lab equipment. Everything looked normal.
Then Pikachu went off into a side room and they heard him yell "Pika!"
When they followed him in there they saw a row of Pikachu in cages. The cages were tiny and the Pikachu had to sleep curled up. "This is worse than Butch and Cassidy's fake breeding center!" said Jesse. "Now we need to look for Meowth."
James began looking through a notebook on the table. "Does this mean what I think it means, Jesse?"
Jesse looked. "Oak's been running genetic engineering experiments on Pikachu."
"Pika!" Pikachu pointed to itself.
James said, "You mean that's why you're so much more powerful than other Pikachu?"
Pikachu nodded.
"But why would Oak give you away to Ash then?" asked Jesse.
Pikachu made an angry face and shot out a little thunderbolt.
"Because you were too tough to handle?" Jesse shook her head. "I don't believe this."
Pikachu pointed to the caged Pikachu.
"I imagine you want us to let them go," said James. "Can we look for Meowth first please?"
Jesse looked thoughtful. "Our boss would be really interested in this..." she said.
James glared at her. "You really are evil, aren't you?"
Jesse grew furious. "How dare you talk to me that way? What's wrong with you! We're Team Rocket aren't we?"
"Pika!" Pikachu shouted. Jesse and James grew silent.
Pikachu ran into another side room and shouted for them again. When they went in, they saw Meowth. He was shackled to a small bed and wires were coming out of his head and leading to a machine. He looked at them but he was too weak to speak.
Jesse and James were too shocked to speak. Jesse, remembering her previous experience as a nurse, began to detach the wires from Meowth. James helped him sit up, and Pikachu got him a drink from a pitcher by his bed.
Finally Meowth opened his mouth and whispered, "You actually came to get me..."
"Sure we did!" said Jesse. "Now we have to get out of here quickly."
"That other Meowth, he's still got her here somewhere too. He wanted to find out why I can speak and other Pokemon can't. He didn't believe me when I told him I taught myself. He said Pokemon aren't smart enough for that. He wanted to take pieces of my brain and put them in the other Meowth to see what would happen."
Meowth looked at Pikachu. "Was Professor Oak always like this?"
Pikachu shook his head and began speak to Meowth in Pokemon language.
"He says he didn't used to be this bad. But once he started his genetic experiments on Pikachu he just started to forget that Pokemon are intelligent. By the time Pikachu was out of here Oak was experimenting on ownerless Pokemon against their will. He must have gotten worse since. But no one knew but his assistants, and even they didn't know everything. Not even all the Pokemon he had here knew. Look, can we go get the other Meowth, please?"
"Maybe we should let all the Pokemon go," said James.
Meowth shook his head. "Most of them are just regular Pokemon headed for new trainers. They should be O.K. But his experiments, it's gotta stop. He didn't even talk directly to me much, he's really lost it."
"He's worse than our boss," muttered Jesse.
"You still want to pass all this along to him, so he can get even worse?" asked James sarcastically.
"Aw, please no," said Meowth. "I wanna be top cat again but not if it means Giovanni messing with Meowth's brains, please?"
Jesse shook her head. "Even I don't want to be responsible for letting this information get out."
"Please can we look for Meo?"
"That's your friend's name?" asked James. "O.K., but let's hurry already."
They began peeking into side rooms but they didn't see any other experiments, just regular Pokemon for beginning trainers and lots of pokeballs. Finally, in the last room, they saw Meo in a cage.
They let Meo out and she began talking to Meowth. James told Pikachu he should let the caged Pikachu out and take them to the woods. "Aren't we going to capture any?" asked Jesse.
"We might," said James. "But I think that had better wait until later. If they're all like this Pikachu they won't not listen to us and we'll just end up being thundershocked again."
He turned to Pikachu. "You're going to go back to Ash, aren't you?" he asked.
"And we're going to let him..." murmured Jesse. "I guess we have to." She sighed.
Suddenly they heard a voice. "Police! Come out with your hands up!"