A Shipfull of Strange

“A boat? Jesse, we’re always doing boats.” I crossed my arms over my chest. No way was I getting on another boat.

“It’s a ship, not a boat. You’d prefer trying to attract the twerps into the submarine?” Jesse rolled her eyes at me.

“Hey, yeah… they could pedal for us and we could…”

“Get blasted off again. Forget it. Put on the sailor suit and shut up.”

I took a look at the suit. “Jesse, no offense, but this thing is just plain ugly.” And I was glad I had the guy’s suit; the girl version was positively hideous.

“I think I’m going to look cute,” said Jesse.

“I think every guy on the ship’s going to be watching to see if you climb the rigging. That skirt’s about two inches long.”

Jesse giggled.

“Please, Jesse, tell me you’re not putting Meowth in one of these…”

She sighed. “I tried, but he fury swiped me and I hit him in the head with a fan. We’re not speaking.”

I only wished Meowth would continue being silent, but I knew it wouldn’t last for long.

“If it’s a ship, who’s sailing it? Don’t tell me it’s us.”

“No, it has a regular crew. The twerps will think we’re crew members because of our cute sailor suits!”

“Fine, Jesse. If the plan depends on the stupidity of those kids I guess it can’t fail.”

Meowth forgot he was angry with Jesse when he saw how dumb I looked. He couldn’t stop laughing. “Yo, Popeye, you look hysterical!”

“Shut up! Jesse, hand me a mallet or something would you?” I was tired of this plan already and it hadn’t even started.

Jesse was giggling all the way to the docks.

“What do you say we stop and get a few beers?”

“Jesse, you hate beer. What’s with you?” I knew what was with her though. Every time she comes up with a good plan she decides to celebrate in advance. That’s probably a good idea; at the end of our plans we’re usually covered with bruises and have nothing to celebrate.

But she dragged us into a bar and ordered us all beer. Meowth was staring at his trying to decide how to cope with the foam. I drank mine slowly. Jesse had evidently developed a taste for beer; she swigged hers right down and ordered another.

“Jesse, I can’t believe you dragged me into this bar in this incredibly dorky suit!”

Then I heard a deep voice. “You got a problem with your clothes, kid?”

I turned around. Standing behind me was a burly six-foot-tall man in the exact same outfit.

“You ought to shut your boyfriend up, sweetie,” he said to Jessie.

“Hey, my boyfriend’s a lot cuter than you!” yelled Jesse in a slurred voice.

The guy grabbed a beer bottle and smashed it. Beer splattered all over the floor.

Jesse and I stood there stunned as he pointed the jagged end at us.

“Aren’t you supposed to do ‘dat with an empty beer bottle?” asked Meowth.

He ran for Meowth with the bottle and the three of us took off, knocking over tables and screaming “Yana Kanji!!!”

Finally we stopped to catch our breath.

“You shoulda let me at him!” yelled Meowth.

“I should have let James beat him up!” yelled Jesse.

“I’m never going to go out drinking with you two again!” I yelled.

Finally we got to the ship. It was mostly crew, some of whom must have been bribed as they let us on without blinking. But there were a few passengers and I soon spotted the twerps.

“Jesse, what is this? There are four of them!”

“Huh, the artist kid came back for the trip or something I guess,” she said.

“So when do we pull our big scene?”

“Well, we have almost half the day before the ship actually leaves. We want to wait until after that.”

Then I turned around and saw the captain. She was absolutely stunning, even to someone like me who is used to looking at Jesse all day. She was tall with an incredible build, black hair and blue eyes. Pretty soon I turned away from her to avoid getting a mallet in the head.

The next person I saw was Brock, which somehow didn’t surprise me. He was blushing furiously and began hanging all over the captain.

“Hehehehiiiiii…. I’m so thrilled to be on board…. Hehehehe…”

He looked like he was about to pass out. Then Ash and Misty finally showed up. Misty pulled Brock off by the ear while Ash snuck peeks at the captain. They pulled him over to Tracey who was standing there drawing. Brock looked over at the sketchpad.

“Hey, that looks just like the captain! Hehehehehe…”

Misty rolled her eyes.

As Jesse had predicted, none of them seemed to notice us. I hoped I could get into better clothes by the time they did.

Evidently whatever bribes had been given weren’t very big, because Jesse, Meowth, and I were crammed into a tiny cabin. We sat in there for a while, going over plans.

“OK,” said Jesse, “Once the ship is out at sea Meowth gets into a boat. Then we grab the Pikachu and jump into the boat.”

“What if they send water pokemon after us?” I asked.

“It’s a motor boat, we can outrace anything they’ve got.”

I shook my head.

“What’s da problem James?” asked Meowth. “It sounds like a great plan ta me.”

“It sounds like every other plan we’ve ever had,” I said. “But don’t let that stop you.”

“Don’t be such a pessimist,” snapped Jesse.

Finally we all went on deck again. We were keeping an eye on Ash, Misty and Tracey. Brock had disappeared someplace.

After a few minutes we saw Brock being dragged off the ship by an Officer Jenny. The captain was following them and attempting to kick Brock in the posterior.

“Get off my ship you pervert!”

Ash, Misty and Tracey ran over and attempted to calm the captain down. After a few minutes we heard her say “All right, but keep him away from me. And if I catch him going through my underwear drawer again I’m throwing him overboard without a life jacket!”

This was shaping up to be an interesting trip after all.

Eventually the ship started off. I asked Jesse if she wanted to go through with the plan now but she said we should wait until we were further out at sea. We tried to entertain ourselves by spying on the twerps, but they weren’t doing anything interesting. Mostly they picked on Brock, though Ash and Tracey were almost as guilty of leering at the captain as he was.

Finally Jesse and I went to look over the railing. That’s supposed to be terribly romantic, though I didn’t have very high hopes when Jesse started picking on me.

“I suppose you think the captain is cute too,” were her first words.

“Forget it, Jesse, I’m not going to stand here and tell you how much cuter you are than she is,” I said.

“I hate you sometimes, James.”

“I knew that when I saw this suit!”

Jesse blushed a little. “I really do think you look cute in that suit.”

“Well, I really do think you’re much prettier than the captain.”

I was reaching over to at least hold her hand when the moment was ruined by Misty, who ran in between us to be sick over the railing.

“Are you all right?” I couldn’t help asking.

“I’m fine,” she replied. “Hey, don’t I know you from somewhere?”

“Yes dear, but you made me promise never to mention it in public.” I dragged Jesse off while Misty stood there looking like Psyduck on a bad day.

I was looking for a less popular spot on the railing when I saw Meowth running past us. Following him was a guy with an apron and a cleaver.

“Get out of my kitchen you stupid pokemon,”

I really didn’t think he was going to cleave Meowth. But evidently Meowth did, because he jumped over the side to get away from him. Then he immediately began shrieking that he couldn’t swim.

I ignored him, because I happen to know that he can swim. But Tracey decided to play hero. He threw a pokeball and Marill hopped over the side to rescue Meowth.

Someone on the real crew lowered a ladder and Marill dragged Meowth up. It was happily babbling “Marill rill, rill,” while Meowth moaned.

“Rescued by a mouse. Please, let me go home. This is the worst trip I’ve ever been on.”

He slunk away. Suddenly Brock turned to look at us.

“A talking Meowth! Hey, you’re Team Rocket!”

I turned to Jesse, “That took them what, six hours? Some kind of a speed record for them I think.”

I really didn’t think Jesse would try her plan now, but she yelled, “Prepare for trouble!”

“And make it double!” I yelled. Then I added through clenched teeth, “because there isn’t any boat!”

“To protect the world from devastation”

“To unite all peoples within our nation… there’s supposed to be a boat, Jesse…”

“To denounce the evils of truth and love,” she continued.

“To extend our reach to the stars above…”

“Jesse!”

“James!… who isn’t jumping overboard without a frickin’ boat, understand?”

“Team Rocket, blast off at the speed of light!”

“Surrender now, or prepare to watch me weasel out of this!”

The twerps were pretty surprised by that version of the motto, and Pikachu was saying “Pika?” when Jesse grabbed it, stuffed it into a bag, and ran to the side.

“There’s no boat, James.”

“I know, Jesse.”

That was when the Pikachu bit Jesse through the bag. “Stop it, you mangy rodent!” she screamed, and threw the bag across the deck. Pikachu crawled out and started running toward us with its cheeks sparking. We took a deep breath and jumped overboard.

We splashed into the water and surfaced, coughing up salt water.

Then we saw Meowth coming toward us in a boat.

“Thank you Meowth,” I said as he pulled us up in the boat.

“Another wasted mission,” I muttered.

“We’ll get that Pikachu someday,” said Jesse soothingly.

“Well, right now all I want to do is get out of this stupid, disgusting, wet sailor suit!”

I threw the jacket and shirt overboard, followed by the pants.

“Um, James, you don’t have any other clothes,” said Jesse. “But you do look kind of cute in your underwear…”

Meowth started snickering and I kicked him overboard and reached for Jesse. By the time he climbed back up I might at least get a kiss, and it wouldn’t be a wasted mission after all.

Author’s note: Yes, I know Musashi and Kojirou say Yana Kanji, not Jesse and James.

And yes I know James was a little mean to Meowth, but keep in mind that a) he’s had a very bad day and b) he knows Meowth can swim (which he can in my fanfic, OK?)