I sit on meowths couch/bed watching TV with my legs up on the coffee table with meowth laying by the side on the ground, normally he would be laying his big head on top of my lap or laying across me wanting some back scritches but with my still broken arm and leg, possibly even a few ribs he's been giving me some space so he doesn't catch a sore spot accidentally.
Miltank is lounging on the other side of the floor on a blanket and some pillows watching TV with me and skiddo next to her just minding his own business… Ferroseed is actually in my "room" on her own watching one of her dramas on a smaller a TV I got to watch in bed
"In other Viridian news, there has been a gas explosion in a local chain of the popular restaurant Kanto Fried Farfetch'd and fire crews first on scene claim it was sparked by poor maintenance and lack of regulation and mandatory service on the exterior gas lines, rescue crews were on site 10 minutes after the reported explosion with local hero and celebrity Gym Leader Giovanni to help with recovery efforts, there are reported 23 fatalities with 43 injuries ranging from minor to critical….a sad day for locals indeed…."
The lady reporter kept spewing bullshit for another few minutes and there was even a "live" interview of someone dressed in what "looked like" a firefighters getup…I say "looked like" because even though he was "on scene" he didn't had a single spec of dirt on him which was sus especially after how he went on about how he was a first responder….first responders are usually caked in sweat, dirt, sometimes even blood from pulling people out of buildings….which might have been unfair with the existence of Pokémon and all but it seemed like he was full of shit after claiming it was just a gas leak gone bad.
The mention of Giovanni didn't help my sus metre none either…he's a shady mother fucker that's for sure, but I only know that from my hindsight knowledge from before I got here…if I didn't know he was who he was I probably wouldn't suspect him either…
I lean over to look at meowth who's watching the TV as well and notice a small feline frown on his face as well after hearing of the "gas leak". Being there when it happened would do that to ya when they keep talking shit on TV…
*Reeeeee*
Suddenly I hear car breaks pulling up close to the abandoned building we call home and I hoist myself off the lounge with great care to not mess up the homemade splints gracing my arm and leg….I really wanted to get to the hospital and get checked out properly but my situation doesn't really allow that.
They would ask all the usual questions like where my parents were followed up by what orphanage I live at which would just spiral out of control until it fucked me…. And especially so after learning Giovanni is a hero in this city and not just some gym leader and seeing how I murdered one of his underlings and burned down one of his recruitment schemes I doubt it ends well for me… or maybe it does and he recruits me? But I'm not willing to risk it…
I hobble over with a crutch meowth found for me while he was out hunting Ratatta amongst the rubble yesterday to look over the side of the building to see Becky and machop hop out of my stolen little tonka truck that's loaded with 4 large cardboard boxes strapped into the tray with a dopey looking Slowpoke lazing on top of one of them.
It's been 3 days since the "gas leak" and after resting for a night and realising I was pretty much helpless until I was back on my feet I had to put my….trust….in Becky and have her run some errands as we were literally at risk of starving otherwise…I so managed to teach her the basics of driving with a few painful lessons of driving around the block and her hitting the breaks a little hard…
But she got in down pretty pat in a few hours and afterwards I taught her how to use a ratchet strap to tie down the big shopping trips she was going to make.
Some might be thinking, why didn't you teach machop to drive? Well I've been in this world a little while now and never ONCE see a Pokémon drive, I didn't know if I was because it was a luxury few could afford or some other reason but seeing as we only had a few days of food left I didn't have the time to find out….hence Becky's driving lessons…
As I'm watching machop and Becky undo the straps holding the big cardboard boxes I see slowpoke float gently to the ground and wait… I also notice Becky's butterfree hovering around looking a little worse for west with a bit of blood leaking from cuts and bruises covering its body….wild Pokémon really don't like cars and with machop being in the front and only Slowpoke and butterfree as deterrents I guess a few took a shot….slowpoke looks untouched though
Machop lifted up one of the over 6 foot tall boxes like there was nothing in it, holding it from the sides and jumps off the truck and walks over to Slowpoke who promptly starts shimmering pink and in the blink of an eye and a small humming they are all suddenly in the "living room" with Becky and butterfree in tow.
Hobbling my way back into the room I see machop placing down the box as Slowpoke floats over to me and starts hitting me with another round of heal pulse treatment….it work's different on humans than Pokémon and takes a different set of skills apparently so it's a slow but effective process even when he's not that good at it yet…but he's getting better which is a plus..
"How'd the trip go?"
Becky turns to me after fussing a little over her bleeding butterfly
"The shopping went pretty good….I managed to get the two big fridges and chest freezers you asked for…heh heh… even managed to talk them down from $1500 to $1200 each….but things kinda went sideways on the way home when a small flock of spearow decided to dive bomb the truck….slowpoke managed to scare em off quickly enough but not before butterfree took a bit of a beating….and Slowpoke won't heal him for some reason.."
Eh that's probably on me….when I mentioned about butterfree being able to learn teleport after Becky learning about Slowpoke having teleport I made it pretty clear she was on her own with that and to see if one of the bosses of the northern forest would be willing to help it learn….I don't know what's going on with that but I'm pretty sure they're teaching them something….
Anyway it's kinda the same thing….slowpoke won't help Becky with anything unless i specifically ask him to….the same with all my Pokémon really, except miltank who is happy to help with whatever.
But they used to say that dogs took after their owners and it seems the same with Pokémon, machop, meowth, Slowpoke and Ferroseed won't help anyone but me and only grudgingly help someone else….AKA Becky… when I asked them to… and considering I won't help people unless it suits me it seems they take after me….skiddo is still on the fence I think with being raised on a people friendly farm and all but he's slowly becoming like the rest…
"Eh…slowpoke hit butterfree with a couple pulses and run back downstairs with machop to grab the rest after he's done setting up the new fridge.."
Machop was already out of the living room and out in an unwalled area a few "rooms" across where we set up some extension cords for some new fridges and freezers, while it has a roof over it, it's still technically out in the open, so if a west bound wind is blowing on a rainy day it'll get em….I'll build em some shelter when I'm back in action but for now it's fine….
It took about 30 minutes to get everything unloaded, teleported, unboxed and plugged in before they were done…but Becky has a few more trips to make into town before she was done for the day..
"Alright now that's done….you got the list?"
She has a "list" which is closer to a mid sized booklet with the literal 3-4 months of supplies she's supposed to pick up on this next trip…which to be honest won't fit in the back of the truck with just one trip so…big day for her…
"Yep, got it right here…"
She waves the book at me..
"Just follow the book and you should be fine…you know how to get this done right?"
"Yeah yeah, you already explained it 20 times….grab a big load move it to where Slowpoke points and teleport it back to the truck…rinse repeat…explain I'm shopping for my sick grandparents if asked and if they get too chatty with the questions shout "stranger danger" and bail..."
"Close enough, and remember to keep your head on a swivel but don't be to obvious about it, don't pull out too much money when you go to pay and try to blend in…."
"Ugggh I got it!… I still think you're being too paranoid…"
"Think whatever you want just get it done and keep your mouth shut…."
"Yeah whatever…but…..Gideon?"
"What?"
"Where did you get all this money?"
I turned my tone very serious anawering this question….well as serious as a 10 year old could be..
"Don't worry about it, all you gotta know is no one knows I have it but you. so if someone comes looking for it I'll know who's snitched and let we warn you that you'll find what I do highly unpleasant….."
She gulped a little at that but nodded with a serious look on her face…
Even with the trust I'm putting in her I have hedged my bets a little…machop and Slowpoke are keeping an eye on her and listening to what she's saying….I told em if she started mentioning anything about having a lot of money or mentioning me, where we live or anything like that, they were to shut her up…not kill her or anything…but I told them if she was insistent on trying to blab they were alright to hurt her and bring her back…without being followed of course..
And of course I'd never let her have their pokeballs….that would just be crazy…
She took what I said for what it was….a warning and teleported back down to the truck with machop and Slowpoke to make another run into town….this time with meowth in tow, food is a bigger target than fridges and a car for wild mons and it needed defending, meowth was the guy….although I was HIGHLY uncomfortable not having Slowpoke, machop AND meowth so far away, I'd have to make so.
And just before she was about to take off I shouted out "DONT FORGET THE PAINKILLERS!!! GET THE GOOD SHIT"…
I was still sore even after all the heal pulses and I needed something to take the edge off…
My paranoia had been dialled up to 11 after the "gas leak" and besides stocking way more food for less trips into town I've even started thinking about getting a couple more Pokémon as well for protection…
6 is a full team but I doubt it's going to be enough for this death world….and make no mistake this is a death world, I always knew it was way more dangerous than my old world but I had rose tinted lenses on filled with nostalgia from my childhood giving my brain plausible deniability..
But even after waking up in a rocket recruitment base, almost dying to an asshole and his poochyena to murdering a bunch of people….I was still kinda delusional about everything working out ok…but for some reason that explosion that nearly took me out with the city block, things just kinda clicked into place.
I gotta be ahead of the game if I want a chance of survival, I have no delusions of ever getting home, this world was home now and that's how it was…but I wasn't planning to just roll over and let just any random thug take their point of flesh without fighting back so…more Pokémon…which means I need more money, so I need to get to the black market and see where I can make money as fast as I can….but before that I promised myself I'd have a machoke and Persian so…more training…I just needed to do….more
-Giovanni POV-
Years...one little miss-hap has set my plans back years….everything was in place for a peaceful takeover of Viridian within the next 3 years before that damned "candyman" set off an unwanted gang war that's rapidly spiralling into full blown urban civil war…
Most of my people who have infiltrated the higher rankings of the bigger known gangs of Viridian have been killed off or being borderline exiled from their positions for suspicion of being an enemy "spy" which has severely limited the amount of information I've been able to acquire to try and contain this clown show of a "gang war".
And to add insult to injury that absolute moron kusunawa not only got himself killed, Which wouldn't have been to much of a set back, especially seeing how his death was ruled accidental, which I found highly unlikely given the circumstances but the fact that clear evidence of his misdeeds were laid out on the kitchen table and subsequently found by a arceus damned Jenny of all people, really set the pace of how quickly things were spiralling and with me not able to stick my nose to far into it without looking suspicious has really bound me to background interference at best in this matter.
After Jenny found more evidence and ran it up the chain things escalated with the league to a point where even background interference was risky and with as much safety as the situation allowed I saved who I could….well those still useful to me anyway, but given how things went…it wasn't many… although I did earn quiet a few favours with some important people out of that…but compared to all of the higher ranked people in the city I had in my pocket now dead, on the run, under investigation or simple already in jail…..it's peanuts
But the gang war only ramped up into even more intense warfare after the league started bringing local down political power that was a direct lifeline of the two instigators of all this trouble after their deep pockets and get out of jail free cards started started disappearing, which in turn brought more league attention which again in turn bound my hands away from being able to benefit from this disaster even further, watching pawn after useful pawn leave the board…it frustrating to say the least
But what really got the league in a frenzy was finding the experimental performance enhancing drug that I had the gangs "field testing" for team Rocket…..there was a long and complex name Rocket scientists named the thing, but the general use name was "Attack X"
Rocket was….is….too weak, we needed a quick and efficient way of leveling the playing field against the menagerie of powerful trainers on the leagues payroll. While Rocket does have some decently powerful trainers whom I've helped raise, we just don't have the gumption to stand toe to toe with what the league can field at the moment, hence the need of the drug…
It was in its initial stages and for its intended purpose it worked but it had one major side effect… it essentially crippled the Pokémon it was injected into, if not outright killed them by overtaxing their life force, which in itself isn't much of an issue if we just use disposable Pokémon but the problem was that the Pokémon in question would only listen to commands for a few minutes at most before they lost control of themselves and attacked everyone and everything in a murderous rage, which complicated things…
But one of the grunts of the "Toxic Arboks" found if you doped a Pokémon capable of using "Self Destruct" or "Explosion" the effected Pokémon used every last ounce of its remaining life force to power the attack, essentially turning something that would struggle to shatter a building to effectively almost levelling a city block, which in itself isn't a major accomplishment for a semi strong trained pokemon but considering the pokemon being used were barely being trained at all made it a very potentially potent weapon in Rockets arsenal….
But one of those fools was found dead in an alley with his neck broken after a suicidal attack that I thankfully managed to cover up publicly as a gas leak, and that absolute waste of breathe managed to still have an intact vial of Rockets potential new weapon on him when he was found…..by another Jenny no less….and that turned everything on its head again, especially after the league found out what it was capable of and it was a genuine threat to their power….
The league went into a frenzy and decided I alone wasn't enough to handle this situation and sent one of the elite 4, luckily for Rocket and myself he doesn't seem very smart…Bruno may be a monster of a Pokémon trainer but he's rather simple when it comes it almost anything else….thank arceus for small miracles I suppose, I almost suspected the league made the connection to me and what's happening and was trying to lure me into a false sense of security with sending someone so ill equipped for the job but according to my sources in the upper management of the league, he was the only one available at the time…. But I'm still having Rocket keep an extremely low profile regardless…
*sigh*
Even with all these set backs I can't give up now….not after I've lost so much….Johto has taken far to much from Kanto for me to stop now, especially with a new champion yet to be chosen and from the way the political currents are flowing it's going to be that Wataru punk who claims the title….taking even more away from my homeland…..even without oak or Fuji, I'll finish what we started….
The project is getting closer….we just need a few more things for it to move to the next phase….we just ne-
*knock knock*
*ahem* "you may enter"
Archer, one of my top executives enters my office with vanilla folder, dressed smartly in his business attire and looking to have the information I've been waiting on…
"Good afternoon Mr Giovanni, I've got the information you've been waiting for"
"Well….don't leave me in suspense?, have you found it?"
Archer hands me the vanilla folder, I open it to see what looks pictures of a rather untamed island covered in snow and ice, looking untouched by human hands.
From the photos it looks like the entire islands is surrounded by sharp, rocky and icy cliff faces that make the island in question frankly impossible to stage a landing operation without the aid of larger flying Pokémon…
"Yes sir, we've found it….we have teams already on the island, searching the area as covertly as possible"
"…..excellent…. Are assault squads and hunters we've hired ready to begin the operation as soon as possible?"
"Yes Mr Giovanni, after we confirmed it's position the assault crews were prepared and readied…"
"….and you've made sure they understand the goal? They only need to collect its DNA….some blood, some feathers….that's all, once they have it they are to retreat immediately is that understood?"
"Yes sir"
"…..good…..Archer…..you know how important this operation is, make sure there are no mistakes, I would go myself but I can't be anywhere near something like this at the moment with everything going on….failure is not an option…."
"I have it well in hand Sir, I'll see this done personally…."
"…..good…. We won't get another shot at this so make it count, it's essential to the project…..dismissed…"
I get a hot blooded salute as my top executive sees himself out and I'm left on my lonesome once again to ponder about the weapon I'm trying to create….
*PPPPRRRRRRR*
I feel a bump to my side as I hear a throaty rumble and see my old friend Persian rubbing himself against my elbow trying to comfort my growing anxieties….well not on my lonesome it seemed…
"We walking on a tight rope old friend, and the winds are picking up….let's just hope the wind blows our way…"
-Gideon POV-
Becky managed to get the shopping all done in a day with only 3 trips without any real issues bar a few weird stares at just how much she was buying.
My arm and leg seemed to have been healed for the most part after Slowpoke hitting me with as many heal pulses as his energy would allow him….it's still kind of sore though so I'm staying away from using my effected limbs for the time being by not moving when I don't have to and using the crutch meowth found for me.
I know nothing probably happened and Becky is a smart cookie so she most likely got everything on the list without trouble and no one would question a teenage girl who was "shopping for her sick grandparents"….but even still I question becky about her shopping trips just to try and give some sort of peace offering to my rising paranoia
"Besides the strange looks, anything else stand out? Shady looking people following you around? Anyone glancing your way a little to much on a phone call? Anything like that?"
She was just putting the last of the cold supplies away in one of the "outside" fridges before she turns to me.
"No Gideon, there wasn't a shady guy following me around or people sneaking glances while talking on a phone, people were just surprised by how much I was spending was all…."
"You're sure?"
"Yes I'm sure"
"Did you get the extra Nutella like I asked and leave it out for Slowpoke on the trip home?"
"….yeah….why did you have me do that by the way?"
"It's to distract him from the main supply, if you didn't he would have eaten himself sick on months worth of the stuff before you were halfway home…..what about the lemon scent pokemon shampoo that was on the list?"
"I uuuhhhhh….couldn't buy that…"
"…..why?"
"Slowpoke kept ripping it out of my hands and throwing it under the isles of the store every time i tried to grab it, I lost about 8 bottles before I gave up and bought blueberry at his insistence, none of that would have happened if you just let me take his ball"
"…..it's fine…. You get everything else on the list? The non metallic polish and 10 microfibre hand towels? The water proofed drill brushes with all the fittings? How about the 20L grass type fertiliser spray tanks? Or the-"
"Gideon….if it was on the list and wasn't lemon scent shampoo I got it…what's up with you lately? You've been really on edge.."
I felt my heckles rise a little when she mentioned me being on edge
"On edge?!, I was caught in the middle of a terrorist attack just going to buy lunch and almost killed by some sort of suicidal explosion that broke half of my limbs and the news is claiming it a random gas leak!….*breaths in*...*breaths out*…..look, I know I've been a bit touchy, I get that, but it's probably going to be how I am for awhile while I settle down, I may have some form of PTSD or something I don't know..but I do know I'm not sleeping great and I'm jumping at shadows….I'm sure it'll die down sooner or later but just bare with it for now yeah?"
As I finish the lamps in the corners of the room all start flickering on and off which sets off alarm bells in my head for with all sorts of shit from the power company finally caught on to we're under attack….
All my Pokémon from the room over rushed in as they notice the lights flickering as well looking both confused and ready to rumble if shit goes sideways, even Becky's butterfree zoomed in to hover over her protectively…
We stand there and watch the lights flickering for a good few minutes with our hearts in our throats as no one said anything, but I did notice Slowpoke had a teleport primed and ready, but eventually the lights returned to normal and we all let out a breath…
It wasn't that we couldn't survive without electricity but it would make life a lot harder then it needed to be, but I was more worried about people being sent to investigate a dead building that was sucking juice and what that could lead to…I was hoping they were just assuming it was stray magnemite that had found power and were trying to eat….
This was my home now for better or worse, and as much as if like too, bailing on viridian wasn't really an option right now. It would take a month of walking to make it to Pewter city and I would have to start all over again, even if I still had a good amount of saving stock piled…but how long would that last if I had to move?
Moving wasn't an option until we were stronger and even then I don't really want to, I like this place…I'm hoping that electricity flickering was unrelated but I'm a firm believer of preparing for the worst and expecting the worst, especially now with all these crazy paranoid thoughts running though my head…so I had to do something….
"Becky, when do stores normally close?"
"Uhhh, regular stores normally close about 5 or 6 why?"
"Guess it's to late today….tomorrow I'm coming for a trip in town and we're going to pick up some more stuff…."
"….ok?…."
I've read in a few magazines randomly here and there that they have camping generators that can be fuelled easily enough by a Pokémon's electricity, and seeing how meowth knows thunderbolt it should work….but seeing how it had to run like 4 fridges and freezes I doubt one would be enough…maybe a gas bottle or two as well? Man this is going to cut into my stash but I gotta do what I gotta do….I need to be back at 100% again so I can pull a few more jobs and hopefully meowth and machop evolve soon….
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