Back to Zero
by LRT is a Pokémon: The Series anime fanfic delving into the backstory of Jessie and Team Rocket as a whole.
Miyamoto has worked long and hard to become the absolute top agent at Team Rocket. It's a position that she and her boss, Madame Boss, both take pride in. Unfortunately for Madame Boss, her sole son and heir to her criminal organization, Giovanni, wants nothing to do with Team Rocket. He's a carefree partier who prefers girls and drinks over Team Rocket meetings. Madame Boss is ready to sign over the rights to Team Rocket over to her best agent Miyamoto when something unexpected happens: Miyamoto becomes pregnant with Giovanni's child.
Back To Zero provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Giovanni's mother Madame Boss is too controling of her son. She states it's for his own good but Giovanni resents her. It gets to the point where he kills her when she tries to take his daughter away and kill his lover.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In The Birth of Mewtwo, it's mentioned that Madame Boss is close to Miyamoto and views her as her favorite agent. This is true in Back to Zero, or at least it was before Miyamoto became pregnant. Afterwards their relationship became tense, Miyamoto stopped being a top Team Rocket member, and Madame Boss sent Miyamoto on a suicide mission to the mountains.
- Age Lift:
- Mondo and Domino are younger than in canon. They're both teenagers.
- There's only a five/six year age difference between Ash and Jessie. Canon implies it's closer to fifteen.
- Child Soldiers: Domino is Giovanni's exception to the rule when it comes to his "no underage agents" rule. She's in her teens and already is an accomplished Team Rocket agent.
- Composite Character: Matori is actually Miyamoto in disguise.
- Dark Fic: The story has a "Mature" rating on Archive of Our Own for a reason. It's much darker and more mature than the source anime. There's also a few sexual scenes, but not enough to count as a straight-up lemon.
- Dead Fic: Back To Zero hasn't been updated since the 29th chapter in March 2015.
- Gender-Blender Name: Jessica goes by the unisex nickname "Jessie". When she dormed at school, she was accidentally roomed with James on the boy's floor when the school saw her nickname.
- Hold Your Hippogriffs:
- Giovanni has the line "You had two years to stop being such a Persian ".
- To annoy him, Cassidy tells James that Jessie and Butch are "boinking all the time like little Buneary ".
- The 16th chapter has the line: "Miyamoto knew that her life with Giovanni wasn't quite that of the white picket fence, 2.5 kids and an Arcanine ".
- The line "It kills two Pidgey with one rock throw " is used.
- Miyamoto has the line "And a little Pidgey told me (...)".
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Madame Boss wanted Miyamoto out of the picture so she sent her on a dangerous mission in the mountains to bring back Mew DNA (despite the fact Team Rocket already had Mew DNA in its custody). When Miyamoto disappeared, it was deemed an unfortunate accident and her motherless daughter Jessie was sent to an orphanage.
- Related in the Adaptation:
- Giovanni is secretly Jessie's father from a drunk one-night stand he had with Miyamoto.
- Giovanni is Ash's biological father through a short relationship he had with Delia. This also means that Ash and Jessie are half-siblings.
- Oakley and Annie are Mondo's older sisters.
- Sleeping with the Boss:
- After Giovanni takes over as Team Rocket's leader, Miyamoto continues her relationship with him.
- Done non-consensually between Giovanni and Cassidy. Giovanni rapes her at a party and then forces her to have sex with him whenever he wants in exchange for her partner Butch not being fired.
- Tomboyish Name: Miyamoto chose the name "Jessica" for Jessie because it can sound girly if said in full, while also being tough-sounding if you shorten it down to "Jessie". Jessie's nickname is a Gender-Blender Name
- Unnamed Parent: Giovanni's mother is only referred to as "Madame Boss".
- Witch with a Capital "B": Jessie calls Domino a "spiteful little witch".
- Wrong-Name Outburst: One of the things that led to Jessie and Butch breaking up was Jessie calling out James' name during sex.
