29 Jamie

A/N: Jamie and Jessie are back! They've been keeping their heads down over at the Celadon Hideout, and this IS an all hands on deck mission, so the Boss has personally assigned them a very important mission. One that just so happens to keep them out of the way of the rest of the operation.

-x-X-x-

"Ugh! This stupid Warp Tile!"

Jamie winces as Jessie throws down her tools, thankfully on the ground rather than the Warp Tile they've been working on for the past few hours.

"H-hey… maybe let me give it a try for a little bit. You just take a rest, cool off a little."

For a moment, Jessie looks like she wants to snap at her. Jamie half-cringes in expectation of it, but in the end the magenta-haired woman doesn't let loose. Instead, blowing a lock of her hair out of her face, Jessie stands up with a huff and nods.

"Sure. I'll just… be over here, by the wall."

Moving over, Jessie rests back against the wall, arms crossed over her chest, looking downright murderous. Jamie, meanwhile, picks up the tools and returns to the Warp Tile in front of her, continuing setting it up.

Warp Tiles… they were some new fangled technology, and they were really quite fascinating. Being able to teleport from place to place, so long as there was a Warp Tile at either end? That was crazy. While yes, it did mean that you had to infiltrate the place first and install a Warp Tile at your ultimate destination before you could use it, that was still crazy helpful!

The Warp Tiles set up all throughout the Silph Co. Building were a huge help to the Team Rockets who had invaded the place on every floor and set about taking down Silph Co. Guards left and right. If a Rocket Grunt could appear behind you with little to no warning, how were you possibly supposed to secure any floors from them?

Or at least, that was how Jamie imagined it was going. She and Jessie… weren't assigned to any of the squads of Grunts directly assaulting the tower. Nor had they been tasked with securing any of the floors, or even going around to swiftly assemble Warp Tiles everywhere to further confuse and disrupt the Guards trying to keep them away from Silph Co.'s more sensitive equipment.

No, Jamie and Jessie had been assigned one job and one job alone. Their mission had come directly from Giovanni himself, something Jamie knew Jessie had taken solace in, at least at first. And to be fair, it was a relatively important mission.

The Warp Tile that Jamie was currently setting up, it was connected to a Warp Tile already in place elsewhere in the building. Apparently, it would give the Boss a direct path to the Silph Co. President's room, once it was up and running.

So yeah, that was pretty important work, wasn't it? The only thing was… setting up a Warp Tile was a five person job. And they had had five Rocket Grunts, at the start of this! Unfortunately, Jessie and Jamie's current position within Team Rocket, that is… their status as fuck-ups, for there was no other way to describe it, had become well-known among the other Grunts.

When you got told to stay at home base no matter what and do nothing until you were told otherwise, that had a way of getting around. Frankly, Jamie privately suspected that Jessie herself was the one to leak their situation to their peers. She knew how Jessie could be, and she wouldn't put it past the other woman to have complained about their status to one of the many guys that Jessie was always talking up and flirting with nonstop.

She said it was because she could use them to get information that no one else had, and to be fair, it'd come in handy a couple times… but Jamie privately thought that the real reason Jessie did it was because she liked attention, and it didn't really matter in the heat of the moment whether it was good or bad attention, to tell you the truth.

… Not that Jamie would ever say that out loud to her best friend. That was a can of worms she had no intention of opening any time soon. Jessie was… well, she was hard-up enough as it was after the reaming Giovanni gave them. To say the magenta-haired Rocket was upset afterwards would be an understatement. She'd complained to Jamie most of all, and Jamie had just nodded along silently, doing her level best to convey her agreement.

But… the truth was, Jamie actually didn't agree with Jessie. She was a little relieved when they were benched, so to speak. Being confined to the Rocket Hideout in Celadon City for the past couple of weeks might not have been Jamie's idea of a good time, nor what she'd expected to be doing when she joined Team Rocket… but still, maybe it was for the best all the same.

She hated to admit it, but they really had screwed the pooch, back in Pallet Town. And before that, she had fucked up royally back in Cerulean City. And before THAT… well, Mt. Moon was everyone's collective fault, maybe, but at the same time, there was no reason both she AND Jessie had to go and find Petrel. Shouldn't one of them have stayed behind with Cam and the Super Nerd, to help guard the Fossils?

Speaking of Cam… Jamie felt guilty that she and Jessie had almost screwed up his mission most of all. Truth be told, she had a bit of a crush on the Rocket Admin, and she really hoped he didn't hate her for the way they'd barged in and interrupted that interrogation of Daisy Oak. Even if things had gone the way they had afterwards between him and Oak's granddaughter… well, Jamie still thought Cam was cool. She still… she still wanted him to notice her, specifically as a woman, not just a subordinate.

The youngest Rocket Admin in history had actually already stopped through a few hours ago. He'd paused to watch them working on the Warp Tile through the doorway, back when Jessie and Jamie had still had three other Rocket Grunts helping them set the damn thing up. Then, he'd continued on his way without a word.

Apparently, scuttlebutt around the building was that Cam was given a super important mission, when he'd finally arrived on-site! See, Silph Co. weren't exactly the pushovers everyone had thought they would be. Or at least, they weren't the pushovers everyone in the lower ranks had thought they would be. No, while the Silph Guards were mostly overwhelmed by Squads of Grunts working together with a dozen or so Rattata all attacking at once… the Silph Co. Scientists were where they problems came in.

From what Jamie had heard, every single Silph Co. Scientist was the equivalent of a Kanto Gym Leader! Seriously! Rocket Grunts stood no chance against that sort of firepower, and the leadership, meaning the Admins Petrel and Proton and the Executive Archer, were all on the bottom floor, coordinating the overall occupation of not just the Tower, but the entirety of Saffron City.

So, basically, they needed a heavy hitter who could handle the Silph Co. Scientists and lock them all away where they couldn't cause any trouble! That, of course, was where Cam came in.

After what she'd seen of his Alakazam in Daisy Oak's house, Jamie fully agreed with giving the young Admin that sort of mission. Cam was a total powerhouse of a trainer, the kind who didn't quit for nothing. In comparison… well, Jamie had done her best training her Koffing, and Jessie was always saying that her Ekans was due to evolve into an Arbok any day now. But neither of them had anything comparable to a fully-evolved Alakazam.

So yeah, maybe it was for the best that they were assigned to Warp Tile duty. Jamie just wished that it wasn't her and Jessie alone against the world. Knowing that they were in the dog-house with the Big Boss himself, the other three Grunts who were SUPPOSED to be helping with the Warp Tile had abandoned them hours ago.

The work itself wasn't hard, but it was certainly made harder and much SLOWER by trying to do a job meant for five all by herself. Still, Jamie was nearly done, and then the Warp Tile would be prepared. And not a moment too soon either, a quick glance at her watch showed that the Boss was less than an hour away! She-

Blinking, Jamie finds herself pulled from her thoughts by the familiar man stepping into the room. No, not Giovanni… rather, it's Cam.

"C-Cam! Hey!"

He sweeps his gaze back and forth, taking in both her and Jessie. To her credit, Jessie pushes off the wall immediately, even taking up a more attentive position as she unfolds her arms. If Jamie didn't know any better, she'd say Jessie was even a little afraid of Cam, or something.

"S-Sir!"

After a moment, Cam nods to both of them… and then zeroes in on open doorway past their room, which leads into another room just down the hall. Jamie follows his gaze, and then smiles brightly.

"Oh, yeah. There's some guy hiding down there in a lab coat and glasses, but he hasn't done anything for hours, so I figure he's harmless. He's probably-!"

Cam gives her another sharp nod, this one cutting her off mid-sentence, and makes his way down the hall, into the other room. Jamie blinks, following his passage. As soon as he's past, Jessie walks over and smacks Jamie in the shoulder.

"You idiot! How long did you know that guy was there? He's probably one of the Silph Co. Scientists that the Admin was assigned to hunt down!"

Jamie's eyes go wide at that possibility. In truth, she'd seen the guy with his glasses peeking out around a corner half a dozen times, even as far back as the very beginning. But, uh, he'd seemed chill enough. He hadn't even attacked them after the other three Grunts left them all alone with the Warp Tile! So surely, he wasn't-!

"S-Stay back, Rocket! I'll have you know I'm Silph Co.'s Chief Scientist, and I'm FULLY prepared to- WHY THE FUCK DO YOU HAVE A DRAGONITE?!"

As the voice of the now-identified Chief Scientist drifts down the hall, very high-pitched at the end there, the sounds of Pokemon Battle quickly follow as he tries and fails to put up even a decent fight against the young Rocket Admin.

Jessie doesn't reach down to smack her again, but she does give Jamie a very pointed look at the purple-haired woman very deliberately does not meet, returning to the task at hand and focusing her efforts on getting the Warp Tile online and operational in time for Giovanni's arrival.

-x-X-x-

Luckily, for once things go their way. By the time Cam finishes with the Chief Scientist, coming out of the other room about two minutes after entering, Jamie has completely the final step in activating the Warp Tile. Just as Cam uses a keycard to lock the Silph Co. Chief Scientist in the room where he's been utterly defeated, the Warp Tile she and Jessie have been working on for hours whirs to life, humming and thrumming with energy.

"We did it!"

Jessie cheers, as Jamie leans back on her knees and wipes the sweat from her brow, a tired grin on her face. Yep, they'd done it! And now… well, she didn't know what now, but one thing was for sure… they hadn't fucked anything up for once! They'd completed their mission without any mistakes or screw-ups along the way!

"Admin Cam, sir! Happy to report that this Warp Tile takes you directly to the Silph Co. President's Office, sir~ If you wanted to go on ahead and lock down that old man for the Boss, I'm sure he'd be VERY appreciative of your efforts."

Jamie blinks as Jessie goes from cheery and excited to seductive and flirtatious in five seconds flat. Pushing herself off her knees and onto her feet, the Rocket Grunt looks over to see that Jessie has approached Cam and is running a hand down his chest, across the large red R there. Meanwhile, Cam's eyes are on the Warp Tile that she's pointed her to.

It seems like a good idea on the surface, so Jamie nods along, beaming.

"You handled that Chief Scientist like he was nothing, Cam! I bet you can totally take care of the President too. I hear he's an old guy who doesn't even train Pokemon for battle!"

"Yes. You're really something, sir. Impressively strong. Ah… if only Jamie and I could help out more. If only we had a way to show our worth as well."

Jamie blinks, not quite sure where Jessie is going with this. She sounds like she's trying to butter Cam up for something, her respectful tone not quite false necessarily, but there's some sort of ulterior motive there. A moment later, Jamie finds out what it is.

"Oh! I know! That keycard you used to lock the Chief Scientist away… you used that on all of the other scientists too, didn't you?"

Cam stares at Jessie for a moment, before nodding.

"Yes."

Beaming, undeterred by the Admin's characteristic stoicism, Jessie holds out her hand.

"Well then, hand it over! You go on ahead to the President's Office, and Jamie and I will make sure that keycard gets to Admin Proton and Executive Archer downstairs. That way there's no chance of any of those scientists getting out, and we can inform them of our completed mission at the same time!"

Wait… but the Boss had told them this was their mission! Jamie feels a spike of unease, as Jessie lays out what SEEMS like a perfectly reasonable course of action. They'd been specifically told that they were outside of the chain of command, that they were only to take orders from Giovanni himself. And those orders had been to complete this Warp Tile, to prepare it for his arrival.

Now technically they'd done that already, but even still… was it really their place to leave without waiting for new orders from the Boss? Jamie just had a bad feeling, and she opens her mouth to say something, but…

"J-!"

"Okay."

Cut off before she can even get the first full syllable out, Jamie watches as Cam hands Jessie the keycard and strides forward into the Warp Tile. Like that, the young Rocket Admin is gone, and Jamie is left alone with a grinning Jessie.

"This is it! Our chance to prove we're competent, Jamie! Come on!"

R-Right… right!

"Right!"

Pushing away her worries and unease, Jamie plasters a smile across her face and follows Jessie out of the room. Jessie was right, after all. It was a win-win situation for them, what could possibly go wrong! Things were finally looking up…

-x-X-x-

A/N: I'm sure this is fine.

As always, feedback is greatly appreciated! Comments and Likes sustain me!

Also, the next TEN chapters can be found on my P atreon for early access!

(Today's P atreon chapter is The Big Reveal, and I won't lie, I've never been more nervous about reactions to my writing before lol. Guess in ten days I'll get to go through it all over again when I release Chapter 39 publicly xD)