Common Ground
by Shigeru1313

&-&-&-&


The food court in the Celadon City mall was crowded. 

It always was, three-hundred and sixty-four days a year (every day but Christmas, to be exact). The Celadon City mall was the home of the world's largest poke mart. 

And the food court was just as impressive. Nearly every variety of food imaginable could be had, and trainers of all ranks and levels, breeders, gym leaders and shoppers came to satisfy their appetites. People wandered about happily, eating and talking, then returning to the poke mart itself to shop for everything from the most common types of pokemon to the rarest evolution stones.

However, there were three food court patrons who weren't happy. 

Jessie, James and Meowth, of the infamous Team Rocket, sat at a table, mulling over their latest failed attempts at their ultimate goal: capturing the Pikachu belonging to Ash Ketchum. Jessie and
James had barely touched their plates of Chinese food. Meowth had finished his. Even though he, too, was depressed about recent events, it didn't keep him from eyeing the ignored entrees. 

Meowth hated to see food go to waste. 

"I twisted my ankle in the last blast-off," James complained. 

Meowth held up a paw. "And I think I cracked a couple of claws!" 

Jessie inspected her long mane of crimson hair. The ends looked a little fried. "And I need to get a haircut. That brat's stupid Charizard nearly cooked me!" 

"Where is dat brat lately?" Meowth wondered. "We haven't seen him for days!" The cat pokemon hooked Jessie's plate of food with one intact claw and pulled it in front of himself. He quickly gobbled what was left. 

"I'm not sure I want to see him," James muttered, rubbing his sore ankle. 

"Yeah, but if we don't keep tryin' to catch dat Pikachu," Meowth said, "da boss is gonna get pissed." 
Jessie and James both shivered. Neither relished the idea of pissing off Giovanni. 

James scanned the crowd. It was extremely unlikely he'd spot Team Twerp here at the food court. Then again, one never knew... Stranger things had happened. 

A boy with spikey red-brown hair sitting at a nearby table caught James's attention. He was dressed in a dark blue shirt and was surrounded by a group of perky teenage girls in mini-skirts. 

"James?" Jessie said. 

James turned to his partner. 

"Are you staring at those girls?" 

James grinned slyly. "Of course not, Jess," he said. He took one of her hands in his own, raised it to his lips, and kissed it. His emerald eyes sparkled. "You're far more beautiful than they are. You don't need to be jealous." 

Jessie smiled, enjoying every second of his flirting. "I know. I just like to hear you say it." 

While James's attention was on Jessie, the scratch cat's next heist was James's plate of Kung Po Chicken. 

James pointed to the boy at the other table. "I keep thinking I know that kid." 

"I know him," Meowth said distastefully. "It's dat jerk, Gary Oak. He's a friend of da Ketchum kid. 
He helped screw up our plan at da boss's gym a while back." Meowth finished James's food and licked the plate. 

James clenched a fist at the memory. "I thought I recognized him." 

Meowth scanned the table. Almost out of food. Damn. 

"Wait a minute," Jessie said. "If he's a friend of Ash..." 

James's eyes lit up. "Then maybe he knows where the twerp is!" he finished. 

Jessie and James got up and headed for Gary's table. Meowth popped the last eggroll into his mouth and followed them. 


&-&-&-&

The three Team Rocket members approached Gary's table. The boy was muttering to himself and didn't seem to notice them. 

Jessie decided to try subtlety first. She tapped Gary on the shoulder. "Excuse me," she said, "but aren't you a friend of Ash Ketchum?" 

A look of agony crossed Gary's face. He moaned as if in pain and began repeatedly banging his head against the table top. 

"Gary! What's wrong?" the cheerleaders cried in unison. 

"Ash tends ta have dis effect on people," Meowth observed. 

James leaned toward Jessie to whisper to her. "Maybe we'd better go before he injures himself." 

"Oh, nonsense, James," Jessie said. "This situation simply requires a...woman's touch." 

She leaned forward and grabbed Gary by the front of his shirt, pulling his face up to hers. "Listen up, you twerp," she hissed. "You tell us where Ash Ketchum is, or we'll steal all your pokemon!"

Gary grabbed the sides of his head with his hands. "Aagh! Ash Ketchum, Ash Ketchum, Ash Ketchum! If I hear that name one more time I'm gonna feed myself to my Gyarados!" 

"Ya know, maybe we should leave," Meowth said. "I think da kid's crackin' up." 

"And I think Gary needs a cheer!" one of the cheerleaders squealed. "Gary! Gary! He's the best --" 

"Shut up, you bimbos!" Jessie snapped. The girls scattered in a flurry of pom-poms and cowered at the other end of the table. 

Gary looked at the terrified girls. "Why don't you all let me talk to these people alone?" he told them. 
He pulled out his wallet and handed some money to the cheerleaders. "Go buy yourselves something nice," he said. The girls walked away, giggling with relief. 

"Wow!" Meowth said. "Where da ya get all dat money?" 

Gary shrugged. "My grandfather." He seemed to have forgotten about Ash for the moment. He turned to Jessie. "You know, one of my cheerleaders quit last week. If you ever wanna leave Team 
Rocket, I'm sure I could find a....position for you." He winked at her. 

James folded his arms in front of his chest and fixed Gary with a cool green stare. "Aren't you a little young to be hitting on my girlfriend?" 

Gary held his hands in front of himself, palms outward in a gesture of surrender. "Oops. Sorry. I had know idea." 

"You couldn't handle her anyway, kid," Meowth said. "She's awfully handy with a mallet." 

Jessie produced the weapon in question out of thin air. She waved it threateningly, mere inches from Gary's face. 

Gary sweatdropped. 

"I see," he said, smiling weakly and hoping he wasn't going to be knocked the length of the Celadon City mall. 

Jessie put away her mallet. Gary let out the breath he'd been holding. "So you don't know where the 
Ketchum brat is?" Jessie asked. 

Gary flinched at the mention of Ash. "No way! If I never see him again it'll be too soon!" 

James sat down at Gary's table. His ankle was starting to throb again. "I know how you feel." 

"I'm not kidding," Gary said. 

"We didn't say you were," Jessie said. She took a seat beside James. "You're talking to people who've 
been Thundershocked, charred, trampled, Water-blasted and Vine-whipped -- all courtesy of Ash." 

Gary's eyes darkened. "That little loser is ruining my reputation," he snarled. "See, I used to be the number one trainer from Pallet Town.. When people thought of Pallet, they thought of me. Nowdays, when I tell people I'm from Pallet Town they all say, 'Oh! Do you know Ash Ketchum? Isn't he the greatest?' It's sickening!" 

Meowth had noticed that the cheerleaders had abandoned a large amount of food when they'd left. 
He hopped up on the table to check it out. "Big deal," he said to Gary. 

Gary was adamant. "You don't understand! I'm a good trainer! Ash is getting all the attention and he sucks! He wins mostly by dumb luck. He won't evolve his pokemon, and if he does, they won't obey him." 

Jessie had lifted James's sore foot into her lap. She pulled off his boot and began massaging his ankle. 
"We sort of noticed that," she remarked. James seemed to visibly melt at her touch. 

"Yeah. Tell us something we don't know," Meowth added, working his way through a large plate of onion rings. 

Gary didn't seem to hear them. He was focused on his rant against his rival. "And do you know what's worse? Even Grandpa is starting to pay more attention to Ash than me!" 

"Dat's real sad, kid," Meowth said. He had onion rings in one paw and half a fish sandwich in the other. Thank God those cheerleader types were always on diets and never cleaned their plates. "But you've got no idea of the stuff Team Twerp has put us through." 

James was in Heaven with Jessie rubbing his ankle. Still, it didn't keep him from adding to the complaints about Ash. "He left us to drown when the St. Anne sank. He and his bratty friends knew we didn't have any water pokemon to swim us to safety." 

Jessie moved her hand a little higher up James's leg. "They once stole our balloon and left us to freeze on a snow-covered mountain." 

Meowth moved to the next plate of foot. Pizza! He'd hit the jackpot! "And once he left us in a sealed-off cave with an Aerodactyl. Dat thing almost had us for lunch!" 

Gary slammed his fist on the table. "Damn! I knew there was an Aerodactyl in that canyon. I knew all that stuff about it being part of a dream brought on by Jigglypuff's song was a load of crap!"

"Or what about the time on the bridge to Sunny Town, when he and his friends rode their bicycles on top of our heads ?" James asked. "They knocked us in the water and nearly killed us!" 

"And remember da time when we were after da Butterfree and Pikachu blew up our helicopter and dropped us in dat chasm?" The cat pokemon set down his food for a moment. He looked like he was going to cry. 

His friends were getting choked up, too. "Or what about the time Ash dumped red paint on us in Dark City?" Jessie asked, her voice cracking. "I thought we'd never get away from Scyther and Electabuzz and get that gunk washed off!" 

At this, all three Team Rocket members burst into full-blown rivers of anime tears. Jessie and James clung to each other. Even Meowth forgot about the food while he hugged his friends in desperate misery. 

"Not to mention that our boss is always on our case when the twerps get the best of us," James said, finally wiping his eyes. 

Jessie's tears died to a few sniffles. She stroked James's violet-blue hair to soothe him and gave Gary a hard look. "If you had a tough job like Team Rocket, your little rivalry with Ash would seem like small potatoes." 

Gary looked genuinely sympathetic. "I had no idea. And I thought I had it rough 'cause I had to grow up with him." 

All three Team Rocket members shuddered at the prospect. 

"Dat sounds nasty," Meowth said as he resumed eating. 

"It was," Gary confirmed. "He was always following me around, picking up rocks and sticks and bringing them to me, saying, 'Is this a pokemon, Gary? Is it? Huh? Huh?' " 

"Dat kid ain't da sharpest knife in da drawer, dat's for sure," Meowth said. He took sudden notice of his fellow Team Rocket members. Jessie was no longer just stroking James's hair. She was sitting in his lap. Their lips were locked in a very enthusiastic kiss. 

Gary noticed it, too. "Wow," he said, sounding more than a touch jealous.. 

"Hey, youse two!" Meowth snapped. "Do youse guys wanna continue dis conversation or do ya wanna get a room?" 

Jessie and James flashed Meowth identical wicked grins. 

"On second thought, don't answer dat," the cat pokemon said. 

"I guess we can have our fun later," Jessie said, sliding off James's lap and returning to her own chair. 
James looked awfully disappointed, and Meowth resolved to give his teammates some extra privacy later that night. 

"Are they always like that?" Gary asked. 

"Nah," Meowth said. "Usually dere worse. Now...where were we?" 

"I was about to complain about Ash being predictable," Gary said. 

"If he turns that baseball cap around one more time, I don't want to be held responsible for what I'll 
do," James said. "I don't like violence...but I might start to!" 

"Or that pose he does when he wins a badge!" Jessie snorted. 

James was starting to really get into this. "Or the way he uses his pokedex on every pokemon -- even 
if it's one he's already seen a thousand times!" 

Gary nodded. "I'm gonna let you guys in on a secret. Ash is currently on his fourth pokedex. He uses 'em so much they burn out and crash. Why Grandpa keep sendin' 'em to him I'll never know." 

Meowth finished the last slice of pizza. He moved on to the breadsticks. "How about the way da 
brat always gets lost?" he said. 

"He used to get lost all the time going from my house to his," Gary said. "And I lived next door!" 

"We once followed Team Twerp for three weeks while they looked for a gym," Jessie recalled. 

"A gym that happened to be only a mile away," James added. 

Gary wasn't about to be outdone. "I can top that one. He once got lost in my backyard for six hours. 
I watched him out the window until his mom finally came and got him. What a dimwit!" 

Jessie raised an eyebrow. "Wow. That is pathetic." 

Gary scowled in frustration. "If Ash didn't have that super-powerful Pikachu of his, he'd be out of the league within a week." 

"Trust me, we've been trying our best to get the electric rat," Jessie said. 

James sighed. "But we always seem to fail." 

Gary looked at the three Rockets. "I wish you guys could catch Pikachu. It'd be a big break for me." 

Meowth's eyes gleamed. "Ya know, I've been thinkin'. It seems we've got some common ground here." 

"And a common enemy," Jessie said. 

James's emerald eyes shone. "That's right. There's a saying: the enemy of my enemy ... is my friend." 
Meowth picked at a plate of Thai food. "Well, I don't know if I'd go dat far." 

"Hey!" Gary cried. 

"No offense, kid," Meowth said, in between stuffing noodles into his mouth. "Ya are kinda cocky." 

"I know I am! I never said I wasn't. That's another thing that drives me nuts about Ash -- everybody thinks he's so nice, but he's as arrogant as me!" 

"Maybe even worse," Jessie had to admit. 

Meowth devoured the last few crumbs of food. He hopped off the table. "Excuse us for a moment. 

We gotta discuss a few things." He walked away, motioning for Jessie and James to follow him. 
Gary gave James a questioning look, but James simply shrugged, put on his boot once more and followed Jessie and the cat. He couldn't have answered the kid's query anyway -- even he had no idea exactly what Meowth was up to! 

Gary watched the three Rockets huddle together. He could hear their voices, but he couldn't tell what they were saying. What were they up to? 

Damn, those guys are sneaky, he thought. A smirk slowly spread across his face as he decided he liked that. 


&-&-&-&

Team Rocket returned and took their former seats at the table. 

"We've decided we should work tagedda," Meowth announced. 

"What?" Gary sounded shocked. 

"Oh, I don't mean literally," Meowth explained. "But you could help us....behind da scenes." 

"I don't know..." 

"You want Ash off your back, right?" James reminded the boy. 

Gary's eyes blazed with angry fire. "Hell, yes! I want him to go back to Pallet Town in disgrace!" 

"And you said yourself that if Ash didn't have Pikachu, he'd have to drop out of the league..." James began 

"And out of your life," Jessie finished with a sparkle in her sapphire eyes. 

In spite of himself, Gary was intrigued. "Well, what do you want me to do?" 

Meowth gave a toothy smile. "Ya see, one of da reasons we fail is a...lack of funds." 

"Following Team Twerp, setting traps and inventing devious Pikachu-snatching devices all require a lot of overhead," Jessie added. 

"Not to mention the medical bills, the cost of new uniforms..." James started. 

"And food. Ya can't steal pokemon on an empty stomach," Meowth finished. 

Gary folded his arms in front of his chest. "So this is about money?" 

Jessie smiled at Ash's rival. "You have something we need and we can provide a service you need." 

Gary rolled his eyes. "I have expenses." 

"Like what?" James asked. 

"My fan club, my car --" 

"Ditch 'em!" Meowth said. 

"Hey! I've got a reputation to maintain." 

"A reputation Ash Ketchum is slowly destoying," Jessie reminded. 

"Good point," Gary said. He opened his wallet once more and handed the rest of his money to Jessie. 
"Will this do for a start?" 

Meowth looked at the bills in Jessie's hand. "Yep," the scratch cat said.. 

Gary looked dejected. "Try to make it last till the weekend. That's when Grandpa sends me more money." 

Jessie stood. Her sapphire eyes sparkled. "I can finally get that haircut!" 

Jessie's happiness was contageous. James's face lit up in a wide grin as he joined his partner. "Come 
on, Jess! We've got some shopping to do!" The two Rockets linked arms and strolled off, feeling 
optimistic for the first time in weeks! 

"Hey!" Gary called after them. "You'd better be planning to use most of that money to catch Ash's Pikachu!" 

"Don't worry, kid," Meowth said. "We're as good as our word. Before ya know it, Ash will be outta your hair." 

Gary's face held a look of grim determination . "It can't happen too soon for me." He looked down at the cat. "Sorry I tackled you in the Viridian City gym. I don't know what I was thinking -- I should have let you guys kick Ash's butt!" 

"Aw, don't sweat it," Meowth said, deciding maybe the kid wasn't so bad after all. At least he didn't brag about becoming "The World's Greatest Pokemon Master" every five seconds. He extended a paw. Gary shook it. 

"Ya know?" Meowth said. "Dis could be da beginning of a beautiful friendship!" 


The End

Yes, folks, that is a parody of the final line of Casablanca in the final line of the fic. Meowth reminds me of Bogart sometimes (especially in dat trenchcoat in "Go West, Young Meowth"), so I couldn't resist. 

Special thanks go to my friends, Cori and Heidi, for their continuing support and ability to always make me laugh. This crazy thing wouldn't have been possible without you! And remember: this is a humorous fic, people. Don't take it (or yourselves) too seriously, okay?