My Pokémon Anime Journey | BOOK ONE: KANTO

Holy Matrimony!

"Hey, a poster," Ari exclaimed, leaning in to examine the paper tacked to the post. Anything that added a spot of colour to the winding path to Saffron City was worth her interest. There was something familiar about the rich boy depicted. "It looks like..."
"It can't be," Brock said.
In unison, Ari, Misty, and Brock reacted, "James?"
A limousine pulled up. Ari pinched herself. This was her lucky day!
Or an abduction. Those windows were awfully dark.
A man clutching a megaphone jumped out of the limo. "Have you seen that boy in the photo?"
Had he been waiting for someone to read it? Serious kidnapper energy. Or perhaps the rich could simply materialise wherever they wanted, courtesy of money with which to ignore the rules.
"We have if he's James from Team Rocket," Ari admitted.
The man paled, then his eyes came alive. "Jolly good eureka! Quick, to the estate!" The walking catchphrase dispenser inserted Ari, Misty, and Brock into the limousine and drove away with them, confirming all of Ari's suspicions at once.

Team Rocket, eternally steps behind, even when they were steps ahead, happened upon the scene shortly afterwards.
Jessie remarked, "This kid looks a lot like you."
"You think so? He looks pathetic," said James.
"I think that's what she means, James," sniggered Meowth.
"We better go investigate!" Jessie decided.
Jessie and Meowth ran ahead, but James did not follow. Jessie and Meowth backed up.
"James, why the hold up?" Asked Meowth.
"Oh, I'll stay here," James moped.
"No, you won't," Jessie insisted. She and Meowth each grabbed James by an arm and hauled him away, following the limo.

"That mansion must have a hundred rooms," Misty gasped, once the limo rolled to a stop.
"That is not the mansion," their abductor explained patiently. "This little doghouse is for Growlie, the favourite Pokémon of master James."
Misty turned around, and fell over in disbelief at the size of the real mansion. It towered over her, tremendous in scale, to an extent that she could not describe its size or recall it exactly.
As the man ushered them inside, he recounted, "My master and mistress had only one child, a boy named James. Thus morning, his parents passed away - and so the estate falls to him."
"You mean this whole estate is going to be James'," gasped Ari.

Hiding in the ventilation shaft above, Jessie and Meowth were stupefied.
"Is this place really yours?" Said Meowth.
"I guess so," James said, his tone hollow. They watched the twerps pay their respects.
The butler continued tearfully, "It's so frightfully tragic. After master James ran away, his parents no longer had the strength to go on. Their hearts were broken. That wore them down overtime."
"That's so sad," Misty said.
"I hope you find James real soon," Ari added.
"Real soon won't do!" The servant screamed into his megaphone. "His parents' will clearly states that to recieve the estate, James must marry his fiancé within twenty-four hours of their passing, or else it is all donated to charity! I must find him immediately!"
"No! Never!" Cried James' voice.
"James!" Jessie scolded.
Misty, quivering, said, "Maybe they died too, and now they're ghosts?"
"Haunted by Team Rocket. I knew they didn't have a life... apparently, they don't have an afterlife either," Ari said.
Team Rocket fell, not from Heaven, but the shafts they'd been crawling through, right before our heroes.

Jessie and Meowth pulled James around, bickering with him.
"Leave him alone! His parents just died," Ari said. She remembered being a child left with neighbours, lying awake at night, assuring herself that her mother would return from her current mission alive. She saw a darkness weighing down Brock's eyes - death hadn't needed to step in to leave him to fend for himself - and Misty... well, Ari had hardly heard a word about her parents. James was living that reality, the worst imaginable reality, and Ari was incensed by the sight of Jessie and Meowth quarrelling with the poor man.
"Don't you wanna be the richest man in the world?" Meowth said.
"But James can't get his inheritance unless he marries some girl in the next twenty-four hours," Ari said.
"We'll fake a wedding and scram with the money!" Jessie exclaimed.
James said, "That's ridiculous."
"You can't make him get married," Brock said.
"Of course we can. It's called abduction," Jessie said.
"Which you're so talented at," Ari said as Eevee rolled her eyes.