James awoke to an odd cold sensation underneath him. Sitting up hurriedly and almost knocking himself out on the underside of the bunk bed above him the figure bit his lip, sincerely hoping that his return to childhood hadn't meant he'd ended up having an accident on the mattress. His fears were soon quashed once James realised this cold sensation covered his whole body. Reaching a hand across to brush the opposite arm, the figure uttered a slight gasp. He was soaking wet!

 “Get up” Jessie hissed from beside the bed as she placed the empty bucket on the floor beside her. She had previously snuck downstairs to retrieve the uniforms from where she had hidden them before returning herself to her proper age and unceremoniously doing the same to her partner.

“It's time to get those fossils”

“I’m not going,” James grunted, trying to dry himself with his blanket but failing miserably since this was also dripping with water.

“What?” Jessie exclaimed, stepping backwards in surprise.

“You heard me,” James mumbled without looking up.

“Not. Going. As far as I’m concerned stealing from Kim's father's house after she's been so hospitable to us would be the worst case of ingratitude I can think of.

So if you want to do it, fine. But I’m staying here…”

Jessie paused for a moment, watching James sulking in his bunk. Then a dark smirk descended on her face. She had means and ways of getting under people's skin.

"Oh now I get it," she cooed

"This isn't about the kid at all. It's about her sister. You've developed feelings for Ruby, haven't you?"

"You must be out of your mind!" James spluttered, going red in the face.

"Why on earth would I possibly enjoy the company of some smothering fashion disaster?"

"I don't know, James," Jessie remarked kindly.

"Why would you possibly be concerned over hurting some little girl's feelings?"

Tossing her partner's uniform upon his knee, Jessie picked up on the expression of pure speechlessness upon James' face. It didn’t stay that way for long.

“How could you?” he began bitterly.

“I can’t believe you'd say something like that. I'm not heartless, you know.”

“And hopefully not completely dim-witted either,” Jessie remarked prudishly.

"Now hurry up and put on your clothes. We haven’t got all night.”

“This will only end in tears, Jess” James sighed, as he pulled on his trousers. The woman's persistence had managed to break down whatever defiance the man had, but he was still no happier over being part of such a heist.

“I just know it.”

***~~***~~***~~***~~***

             It didn’t take long for James to hack into the card reader system beside the fossil vault doorway. Soon the duo were inside. Meowth gazed at one of the containment units with great interest as Jessie stood and peered over James' shoulder while the reluctant figure attempted to unlock them.

             “Wow, dis professor's collected all sorts o' trinkets,” Meowth remarked, clambering up and peering through the glass.

            "Dome fossils, Helix fossils, Root fossils... . . I wonda what dose contain?"

             “Whatever they are, they're bound to be incredibly rare,” Jessie smirked.

            "Not to mention powerful. I mean, why else would an ancient civilisation with advanced technology store their genetic data?

            James? Get a move on!”

             “It would be a lot easier if you two weren’t jabbering behind my back!” James snapped as he continued to fiddle with the computer interface. The figure was still in a rotten frame of mind from the unorthodox awakening he had received, not to mention the fact he felt most uncomfortable at betraying Kim.

             “Sounds like someone got out da wrong side of da bed tonight” Meowth sniggered jokily.

             “I wouldn’t have got out of the bed at all if a certain person hadn’t doused me in water," came the muttered response.

"Just wanted to enjoy my last few hours of luxury, but it seemed that was too much to ask.”

“Ya bet it was,” Meowth nodded.

“Youse wanted ta stay in bed and miss out on all dis?”

“Actually, I did,” James grunted, receiving a error noise from the console for his trouble.

“Have youse lost ya marble?” the pokémon exclaimed in surprise.

“Tink of da praise we’d get from da Boss!”

There was silence, broken only by an uninterested grunt and the hesitant tapping of James' fingers on the keyboard. It almost looked as if he was trying to stall for time in the hopes that someone might catch him and his associates in the act. Getting blasted off felt like a far better deal than ransacking the place whose inhabitants had given them so much.

“If we didn’t take da goods we’d nevah get a promotion or a raise!” Meowth persisted.

“Oh well, you win some, you lose some,” the man shrugged. The pokémon tried a last resort.

“There'd be no 'all-you-can-eat' buffets.”

“I could live without it” James murmured.

“After all I’ve been living low for so long it wouldn’t matter if I didn’t get all that stuff any more”

“Okay, he’s cracked,” Meowth groaned, looking to Jessie for an explanation. She had already tagged on to what James was up to and had grabbed the back of his collar to lend the man some forceful verbal motivation. Before she could do so, however, there was a high-pitched whine from up above. Pausing, Jessie and James looked up at the ceiling where a strange dark line had appeared. Before they could make out what was going on the line had moved in a complete rectangular formation and a chunk of the ceiling fell into the vault, directly upon them.

Meowth cried out in alarm and darted behind a nearby containment unit as a pair of familiar figures dropped graciously through the hole, upon the unconscious bodies of his team-mates.

“How nice of those two to provide a soft landing for us,” Cassidy smirked, as she gazed about the room.

“Yeh, s’about time they did something useful,” Butch agreed, removing a complicated device from his belt and placing it upon the computer console. With a bleep the device whirred into action as it began to calculate the security code.

“Seems they were trying to beat us to the prizes” Cassidy sighed overdramatically.

“I'm amused that they thought they even had a chance of gettin' them without the proper equipment,” Butch chuckled, shaking his head.

“What shall I do with ‘em Cass?”

“Oh, I don’t know," the yellow-haired woman pondered.

"How about locking them in a small, dark room where no one will find them? And while you're at it, find the sleeping quarters and set up the Adenoid Stimulatory Fabrication Unit nearby. We can't have any further distraction.”

“Gotcha," Butch nodded, before scanning the room again with a puzzled look upon his face.

"Where do you think that irritatin' cat Pokémon of theirs got to?”

“It probably ran away like the coward that it is,” Cassidy remarked as her partner carelessly pulled the limp bodies of the white-suited duo from under the debris by their legs.

“Not that it matters anyway. We have everything under control and no one shall be able to stop us, not with the latest technology Professor Nanba's department came up with. Now go and get rid of that garbage, Butch.

We have work to do.”