C089 - Meeting Giovanni
AN: Woops, forgot to cue up the next chapter. Sorry for being late. And I'll likely be tomorrow, too, unless I finish tomorrow's chapter a little early. Meeting up with some friends for the Froakie Community Day in Pokemon Go. Wow, what a shit game. At least I somehow hatched a shiny Tyrunt earlier today after starting the game for the first time in 4 years and walking around for a few hours.
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Weddings were very different in the pokemon world as he wrote it. So Pete was aware that he won't be having a reception inside a church or anything like that, but instead becoming husband and wife could be as casual as filing a form and having family over for dinner to celebrate the pairing.
There were of course some regional differences like the monks in Johto coming over to bless the engaged couple during their engagement or posh nobles in Unova having grand festivities where everyone dresses up, but all in all it was much more casual.
After the engagement, it was polite to wait somewhere between one to ten weeks to 'give the bride and groom time to think about it' and after that they would invite friends and family to a dinner to celebrate their 'wedding'.
Pete and Jasmine agreed to cut it as short as possible and wait exactly seven days, to which Isabelle and Vivian agreed and started planning a beautiful evening to remember on the breathtaking landscape of Pete's farm.
Yet before that, four days after the engagement, Pete had a prior commitment. So, together with bags filled with everything he could possibly need and accompanied by Jasmine and Courtney, Pete had Reuniclus teleport them to the north of Violet City in the very early morning.
Originally, Pete wanted to go alone, but after telling Jasmine all about the volcanic eruption and Suicune's mission, she ordered him to at least take the two of them. Technically, she wanted Pete to also take Valerie, Valentino and even call over Elm once more and have him contact Lance, but Pete argued that if Suicune had needed so much more help, it would have said something.
So bringing 'his two girls' was the middle ground the two agreed on. Together, they brought almost sixty 'trained' pokemon led by Mega Milotic and Mega Torterra and most of them were either psychic and fairy pokemon that could heal, water and ground pokemon that could deal with fire and lava and fast pokemon with quick reactions.
As Pete asked Arcanine to run around to get a grip of the land and Flygon to scan the giant gully from the skies, Jasmine called out to Pete.
"Look at this! A Fire Stone! You said Suicune mentioned 'unsavory people'? We've been in this gully half a minute, and I stumbled over a Fire Stone just lying around. I guess we know what they were after," she explained as she picked up the stone.
The edges of the gully atop their cliffs were lined with lush vegetation and giant trees, yet this gully had barely some thorny bushes, among some of which were berry bushes. Most of it was just rocky ground, though. With very tall boulders that made it hard to see further than a few meters if you weren't standing on top of one of these boulders.
"Yeah, you're probably right. Makes sense, too. If Ilex Forest has an abundance of Leaf Stones thanks to Celebi, this gully that's small in relation should be filled with ores and evolution stones. Could you ask Steelix to do a deep dig and scan the surroundings? Golurk, please do the same."
The two pokemon listened to the orders, and even Excadrill followed along.
"It's way too quiet for my liking. This feels like the build-up to a horror movie jumpscare," Pete mumbled, and the two girls nodded along. So far, they haven't seen or heard a single wild pokemon in this valley.
Courtney looked to her Mamoswine, who started sweating steam and looked clearly uncomfortable and asked, "It's even hotter than on the farm, want me to ball you? I can get you out when the going gets tough, and I need your strength."
With a grateful nod, Mamoswine agreed and was balled by Courtney. She looked to her Camerupt and asked, "You're like the closest pokemon to the element of lava we have, and you're smart. Do you have any insight you can share?"
Camerupt stomped one foot and closed her eyes in concentration. Both Pete and Jasmine clearly felt her using a vast amount of ground energy and knew what her plan was. A few moments later, Camerupt opened her eyes and started leading them along the cliff's wall in a certain direction.
Along the way, Pete lost a layer of clothing and both girls changed to shorts and a simple sports bra instead of the skirts and shirts they had on before, the temperature in the surroundings was getting overwhelming.
"I get the feeling I misunderstood Suicune somewhere," Pete said after drinking a full bottle of water just thirty minutes after they arrived here. "There has to be something I'm missing."
As Jasmine and Courtney drank something from Pete's bag, too, they arrived at the mouth of a humongous cave entrance that led almost straight down and only had a slim, winding path to offer for people trying to go down. Yet, at the same time, the three trainers also found evidence for the presence of humans.
A small abandoned camp, good for a good twenty people, was here with caches filled with precious stones and metals. The most glaring thing, pointing out the identity of the camp's owners, was the giant red R on the side of the biggest tent in the camp, however.
"I really didn't want to see that," Pete said, wiping away some of the sweat that gathered on his brows. "That means I should have probably listened to you and roped in Elm or Lance."
Jasmine was in no mood to argue, bicker or gloat. The gym leader simply turned solemn and notified her pokemon to be vigilant. Courtney, who got the clue on their possible adversaries, did the same.
As Pete browsed through the items Team Rocket left out in the open to find some more clues on the operation, documenting everything with a small handheld camera, Steelix and Excadrill came back. They delivered a few more Fire Stones but could otherwise not point out any wild pokemon in the vicinity.
The two did highlight that there were pokemon on the complete opposite side of the valley, but they were led by something very strong, so they might not need help. Pete, however, decided he wanted to at least talk with the leader to warn them of the impending eruption.
Shamelessly pocketing most of the precious items lying around in the open under the astonished gazes of the two women, Pete asked Reuniclus to get them closer to this wild pokemon tribe.
"Holy shit!" Pete exclaimed at the increased heat in the air that was very much reaching the levels of a sauna. "There's so many of them!"
In the direction Steelix had pointed them, hundreds of Magmar and Growlithe's and Arcanine were going about their business. From between some of the boulders, a few Slugma and Magcargo were skulking about, leaving behind the odd trail of lava here and there. Even the occasional Houndour and Houndoom were present, though they were among the least represented in this giant trove of fire pokemon.
Courtney was the only trainer present with a fire affinity, so she was doing relatively well despite the heat. The same could not be said for Jasmine until Pete pointed out a neat trick she already knew. She could 'connect' to the ground with her ground affinity and forward some of the heat in her body through that channel.
Jasmine wasn't as dedicated to getting to know all the mysteries of the typing affinities as Pete, so her slightly less refined usage of the typing energy turned a few more heads of the pokemon that weren't already looking at their big group.
Pete ordered Mega Milotic and Reuniclus to tell these pokemon they weren't here for a fight but rather to warn them of the impending volcanic eruption.
A few pokemon immediately heeded their warning like the Houndoom, yet the Slugma and its evolution especially and the Magmar as well did not react at all. It made a little sense since their species should be mostly immune or highly resistant to lava and magma, but the Growlithe and Arcanine not moving came as a surprise to Pete and the girls.
Before they could ask what was wrong, the Magmar all turned into a single direction, and Pete started sweating even harder than he already was.
Not because of the gigantic Magmortar coming his way or the fact that he recognized the man leading it, but because Giovanni was wearing a suit! A stuffy looking, woolen, admittedly luxurious suit! In this heat! In this weather!
Reluctant as Pete was to let the man go, he had no plans to fight the missing leader of Team Rocket with an unknown depths of powerful pokemon despite the advantage of being three versus one. The keystone on Giovanni's lapel was all the more reason Pete didn't want to fight the man, because with Team Rocket's resources, Pete wouldn't put it past him to have more than one mega evolved pokemon. And even if it was just one, Giovanni had no more reason to hide his full strength and was, at the very least, on the level of Lance - as admitted by the champion himself.
From what he wrote into his own novel that this world is based on, Pete knew that the man had a Beedrill that would eventually be mega evolved, a Nidoking almost on the level of Lance's Dragonite, a Nidoqueen that wasn't far behind, an extremely old and powerful Golem, a shiny Marowak and his trusted Persian. But clearly, his novel already provided him with spotty knowledge because not once has Giovanni trained a Magmortar, and the giant pokemon was clearly 'his'.
If it was a little later into the story, Pete would also need to be vary of Giovanni also having a shiny Krookodile and a giant Hippowdon, son of a wild mega evolved Hippowdon and therefore becoming one of the first documented pokemon with the 'giant gene' - as well as a freaking Mewtwo. Arceus above, Pete hoped he had put an end to the Mewtwo research.
The enslavement they put on the mythical pokemon would eventually break not long after Mewtwo's creation, but before that Giovanni slapped Lance's mega evolved Salamance out of the air with two well-placed Psystrikes followed by an Ice Beam making it lose its mega evolution. That was what happened in the novel he wrote anyway.
"Ah, the two prodigies of Johto. In another lifetime, I would have loved to share pointers with a fellow ground type gym leader and picked Mr Lang's brains on some theories in my mind. Though now, I must ask why you have come here and what your intentions are now that you... know," Giovanni said with a polite smile, though his voice had an ominous feeling to it.
Unconsciously, Pete stepped a little forward to shield Jasmine and Courtney behind him. Something neither of the two fully appreciated because they weren't weak. But regardless of that, Pete spoke up after deciding to come clean as lying would be impossible to a man as cunning as Giovanni, "We were guided here by someone to help out the wild pokemon. An ancient Heatran is about to awaken and bring with it a volcanic eruption."
"...'someone' guided you here?" Giovanni asked with a lifted eyebrow. "Let's pretend I'll believe you and chalk up your timing to this 'someone'. Are you sure these pokemon need to be led away from a little lava?"
Giovanni's presence was truly menacing, so Pete took a big gulp and gingerly answered, "Well... no?"
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