Chapter 15: Buying Time
Dusk came as the battle raged on. The bodies of Team Rocket Members littered the landscape, together with the bodies of ladies surnamed Jenny. As the fight became more intense, no one had the time or ability to pull away those bodies from the battlefield.
As the light became more scarce, an intense pressure befell everyone present.
"So, this is where you were all playing. To think it took so long for me to wipe out all the Ranches in this area and catch up with you all. In fact, I'm surprised this hasn't been wrapped up yet, Attila and Hun must've been negligent in their duties, but then, I would never have expected that all these officers would show up here against their orders." He said with a smile.
As everyone had long anticipated, the Boss of Team Rocket had finally arrived. With the rumored power of a Pokemon Master, not a single person would even be able to escape if he wanted them dead. His arrival had more or less signified the end of this battle.
"Well, you are all nothing but ants to me. Team Rocket has transcended the old limits of this world, Pokemon Master was once but an empty title, but now it holds true meaning.
All beneath the Realm of Masters are nothing. To a master, there is no limit. Since I have now achieved the Mastery Realm, nothing can stand in Team Rocket's way. We will rule this world, just as we rule many others."
'Quite the monolog'
Auntie Connie still snorted arrogantly.
"And just how are you going to do that, with the Pokemon Association against you? You intend to fight against him with just you? The Alliance Leader is not someone that you could simply contend against.
This so called army of yours will be of no help, the only thing you can use it for is bullying us here in this small place. There are plenty in this world at the Master level now, how do you think you are so special?"
"Tell Him Auntie Connie!"
"Yeah, go to hell Giovanni!"
"Hahahah, such a rowdy lot. It seems I'm unpopular, not surprising given the circumstances. You have to understand, someone must take responsibility for the death of my subordinates.
Well, I understand you all are here because of your jobs. Understand that I am here for a similar responsibility. I simply must kill all the people of these ranches, other people must understand not to stand in my way. Their people took the lives of four of my own, thus I must take the lives of ALL of their people."
The Jennies just mocked him.
"Well, fuck, I killed a lot more than four of your Team Rocket bitches today. Guess your gonna have to kill me too."
"Right, I'm not even a cop anymore. From today on, if I see any Team Rocket members, they are dead. Better come and try to kill me too if you don't like it."
"Tcht, this bitch Giovanni, who does he think he is? We risk our lives every day, does he think we fear death?"
"ENOUGH!"
A suffocating pressure burst out, and the crowd fell silent.
"Move out of the way, or hand over those responsible for the deaths. You have twenty minutes to do so, or I shall simply kill my way through you. Take your time to discuss and decide."
Discussions burst out amongst the crowd after the pressure lifted. The noise from afar was distorted, it was indeterminable what was being said. The conversations seemed varied, chaotic, almost panicked.
The refugees in the hospital grew anxious seeing the Jennies actually discussing with one another, would they really be handed over? Would they be put to death in the end? Although they had long despaired over this situation, they still felt unwilling, and some forgot their warm feelings about these selfless women who came to rescue them.
'Are we being abandoned? But they already fought for so long, are they just going to give up now? How could they just give us up like this?'
However, Grey was among the crowd of Jennies, and could overhear these discussions easily.
Not a single Jenny had a thought of turning over a single person, every one of them talked of how they would fight to the death. Of battle strategies, readiness, status, they gathered reports and re-organized themselves to prepare for another round of battle, however futile it might be. They spoke frantically in some of the discussions, it was a dire situation after all, but none wavered in their convictions.
However, one thought pervaded the discussions, 'Why is Giovanni giving us more time?' It was as though Giovanni himself was delaying the time of our deaths.
The man had took a ridiculous amount of time to wipe out every single Ranch before coming here, despite likely knowing a large battle was going on here.
More than likely, he knew what was happening from the onset, and could have come over to end it at any moment, but he didn't. He let his underlings take unnecessary risks and even die in large numbers.
'Why?'
It would only benefit themselves if he were to give them so much time. It would just give the Association time to send one the Masters to oppose him.
"Nahhahahh, 15 minutes!! You bitch cops get 5 minutes of life left~ then the Boss is gonna kill you~"
"These cop bitches actually killed my partner, the Boss is gonna make sure you pay for this."
"God I hate cops, I hate the police, fuck the police!! FUCK THE GODDAMNED POLICE!!!"
"Yeah, these female cops are pretty. Maybe we should really do just that."
"Slap" a female agent hit that fool, her eyes cold like ice.
"You idiot, do you really think there are no women in our Team Rocket! How dare you even think of doing such thing. You fucking disgust me, get out of here before I kill you."
The Team Rocket Members became agitated as Giovanni's time limit encroached.
The discussions and the declaration of Giovanni made Grey think the matter over again. If he confessed to the killing of those four grunts, perhaps he could divert some of this anger towards himself.
If they killed him, he could simply come back to life anyways. He knew that Team Rocket would insist on killing everyone regardless, but he could at least buy some more time for someone strong enough to show up. If both sides were trying to buy time, it might actually be a rather simple matter to divert attention to himself, since the opposition might even willingly let him put on a show to buy time.
If he could buy a bit more time for the Association's Master to arrive, there would at least be a chance for these people to survive. If Giovanni became impatient and thought they wouldn't show, everyone here would likely be massacred and he would just dust off his ass and swagger off.
I walked through the crowd of Jennies to where Auntie Connie stood at the front with her Arcanines, facing off towards Giovanni.
"Hey, Giovanni! I was the one who killed those four Grunts on the bus, the last one was so desperate he even used a suicide bomb on me. But he still couldn't even do it right! Your company is full of incompetents."
Giovanni actually stopped and looked over at me after I said this. His eyebrow arched in amusement.
"Oh? So you are the fellow who grabbed my subordinate and forced him out of the Bus? But, from what I understand, the one who did so was still in contact with my man when the bomb exploded.
Hahah, even a Pokemon Master would be hard pressed to withstand such a blast point-blank. Yet, here you are, claiming you did just that! What a joke."
I smiled and shrugged it off, I was telling the truth after all, I just had to convince him it was true.
"I have some special methods that would let me do so. Your Team Rocket is always looking for new cutting edge technology and techniques, right? What do you say you let this go and maybe I can tell you how I did it."
Giovanni stopped and pondered over it for a moment. Grey had shrunk significantly due to blows and energy exhaustion during the battle, he looked no older than a 10 year old child.
"Hmph, another child looking to get in the way, did you know our world always makes ones such as yourself appear on purpose? No matter, if you truly have such a method, Team Rocket could let go of this grudge in exchange for it. We work for the sake of business and stand for the progress of all humanity after all.
Well, first of all, we would need to see if you truly have such a strength. From what I can see, you have not even reached the standard of a Pokemon Trainer. Perhaps you are a psychic or Martial Artist who recently stepped onto the path of Pokemon Training?"
"You could say I am both, but I am more powerful with psychic attacks right now."
Giovanni shrugged, "Well, all this talking will get us nowhere. You are not even an actual Trainer yet, but considering this ability you claim to hold, it would still be fair to have one of my Team Rocket Agents to fight you.
I nodded, "Yeah, that is fine. Would it be acceptable for me to fight together with my Pokemon then?"
He laughed, "More confident in yourself than your Pokemon? Sure, sure. It will be a one on one though. Once your pokemon run out, you are free to fight against the pokemon yourself. Just understand that it will be a fight for your survival."
He turned about and yelled to his subordinate,
"Agent Ubung, step forward and teach this boy a lesson!"
A large and heavily muscled man stepped forward. "Hahah, with pleasure." The man said, his deep German accent held a cocky and domineering tone.
'Well, I oughta smack that cocky tone out of him. Eh, gotta let Machop take a shot at it first.'
"Go, Machop!"
Machop, who stood by my side, ran forward into the clearing between the two armies.
The large 'German' man chortled and threw a pokeball while saying nothing.
[Team Rocket Grunt Ubung sent out Magicarp!]
I almost fell on my ass in surprise, are you fucking kidding me!
What followed was Machop beating down three Magicarps easily.
"Hu~ a formidable opponent." The man said in a serious tone.
'This... is this guy fucking serious?'
Looking over at Giovanni I could see the embarrassment written all over his face.
It is worth noting that these Magicarps were not nearly as weak as normal Magicarps. Each of them could even miraculously flop about in a way where they could fight somewhat, it was somewhat astounding! In fact, they were relatively strong, with each successive Magicarp stronger than the last.
But still... they were Magicarps. Machop could easily smack them around a bit and they would pass out eventually. It was still a very time consuming process though, as the Magicarps flipped about frantically, dodging some of the attacks in a very annoying way and absorbing the shock from the fighting attacks relatively well.
It was obvious Giovanni chose this guy because he wanted to waste as much time as possible, but still... even letting this guy into team rocket. Is Giovanni really this shameless?
The man seemed upset. "Graahh! You defeated all my Magicarp! How could you!! This... I thought they would be enough to deal with your weak little Machop, it is more tenacious than I thought! Fine, I will take this more seriously. Go, Gyarados!"
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