I was a cold person, or internally at least. I was also very contemplative - very aware that something wasn't quite right in my heart or brain, and it wasn't a new feeling either. Once upon a time I was empathetic, kind, and outgoing; I didn't have to mask my thoughts or heart. Ironically enough though, it was my first life that made me this way - unstoppable events rolling down the metaphorical hill of life, leaving hairline fractures in my soul that my second widened, twisted, and broke open.
First life? Oh, that's right - I had another run at life before this one. Yet, even if here I'm far more successful… well - you'll see.
I was once an average college student, uncertain in my future but determined to get there all the same. I put on a smile, tried my best to be enthusiastic and make friends, and prided myself on academic excellence. On the inside though, I just wanted to curl up in my bed and never have to leave. None of these tactics served me very well my second time around.
Now, I'm the boss of a multi-regional crime syndicate. Cold, cunning, ruthless, and selfish - or at least, that's what I've been told. I still see myself as the same broken little girl though, so I suppose I really can't be trusted to give an accurate appraisal of the situation, can I?
Ah, and I was reborn into the world of Pokemon. Surprised? I was too. In my previous life, it started as a mere video game - a figment of some artist's imagination that spanned into an anime, some manga, and a global phenomena.
One thing I've learned throughout my lifetimes is that many things aren't as they first appear - whether it be people, Pokemon, or situations. Those who you think you can trust - who you want to trust - won't trust you back or even give you the chance to explain yourself. Something you think is an inevitable disaster may very well be avoidable entirely.
I… I regret a lot of things. And I doubt I'll be able to make amends before this life vanishes too. At the very least though, I'll tell my story - and maybe then you can come to your own conclusions about me. I could start anywhere, really - but… let's start with the end of my first life and speed through the beginning of my second until we get to the good stuff. I wouldn't want to bore anyone to death - I'm not that cruel.
My death was rather anticlimactic - no fire and brimstone, no Earth-shattering apocalypse - nor was it quite as quick and simple as a car accident. No, I died due to an earthquake, which is rather ironic considering I would later become a ground type expert. I was working in a research lab during my college career, and I was unlucky enough to be in there alone when one struck out of nowhere.
I was startled - I hadn't felt an earthquake in years, after all - and I dropped and shattered my sample on the cool tile. Irritated, I let out a curse and bent down to pick it up, not noticing that one of the gas cylinders had fallen over after not being secured properly by whoever was there before me. It hit the ground, cracking against the floor. The compressed gas rocketed the large, human-sized metal canister across the room until it hit me in the neck, presumably snapping my spine and killing me instantly. All I remember is an immense, acute pain before blacking out into a welcoming realm of silence.
...I don't know how much time passed before I woke up again. It felt like a dream - a long, restless dream - one where I was constantly tossing and turning. Occasionally, I would break away from it to see rapid flashes of images - blood, the smile of a woman with long, black hair and dark eyes, a crib in an enormous and lavishly furnished room, a cheerful woman in that room with vivid purple hair - only to fall back into that slumber not much later. I didn't really question any of it - after all, I'd had strange dreams before (free-flying through the air and a zombie apocalypse come to mind as specific examples) and I hadn't really questioned them in context. I just went with it, so why would this be any different?
Eventually though, I did wake up and stay conscious. Blinking away the last bits of my sleepy state, my tired eyes turned towards the room around me. The wallpaper was striped red and pink, trimmed with black lace. The carpeting looked lush, and it too was a black. From the ceiling hung a golden chandelier, the limbs of it spiraling out like vines. There were large, french windows on the left side of the room, and a huge set of gold-painted double doors on the wall across front of me. It was the same room as my dream - and the fancy couches and glass table in the center of it were occupied by the same two women that I saw there as well. The black-haired women was wearing a red suit today, and she turned towards me as I sat up (though it was rather difficult - and why was I still in the crib again?).
"Oh, Giovanna is up. She's normally rather lazy during the day, unfortunately," she said, taking a sip from a fancily patterned teacup. I was confused - she was looking at me but my name wasn't Giovanna. That sounded so old-fashioned; my name was boring, sure, but it wasn't that bad. The purple-haired woman beside her put her hand on her chest and feigned a look of hurt.
"My, how cruel you are to the poor girl! She's only three weeks old, of course she's lazy - all children are. But she's rather cute, isn't she? She probably got it from your husband," she declared loudly, standing up and skipping over to me. The other woman snorted.
"Miya, I sure hope not. He's troublesome enough as it is," she responded cooly. The purple one - Miya? - poked my cheek. I pouted. Why was her hand so big? Hell, why was she so big? It didn't make sense unless I was still dreaming - maybe Attack on Titan but with friendly titans?
"Aw, she doesn't like it - c'mon, come to Auntie Miya!" she said, pouting a little herself. I tried to stand up but I couldn't, and I looked down at myself to find out why and… I was met with baby legs. And a diaper. I slowly raised my trembling hands in disbelief and it only confirmed my fears - I was a baby. My lower lip quivered and my eyes began to water. The woman looked panicked now.
"Oy, Boss Lady! Your girl's about to cry!" she yelped. The woman sighed, placing her tea down on the table before elegantly gliding towards Miya.
"Then leave her be," she said, grabbing the other woman's hand. "She'll calm down in a bit - she hasn't really cried before, surprisingly. Let's just go somewhere else for now and come back later." She started tugging on Miya's arm, pulling her out of the room.
"Hey, that's not any way to treat a kid! You gotta comfort them, nurture them, mother them -" the doors slammed behind them, cutting her off. If I was actually a child, I would've burst into tears, distraught at being denied the comfort Miya pointed out that I obviously needed. As it was though… I was an adult - barely, but still. An adult in a child's body, stuck in limbo as my tiny brain pieced together what I knew.
This… this wasn't normal. If I wasn't me in a dream, I was always in some sort of third person omniscient point of view. And I had never dreamed of myself as a baby before. And these recurring flashes - I don't often have repeated dreams, but when I did it was only repeated one time before sinking back into the abyss of my subconscious. No, there was only one solution, especially since I still remember the smack of cold metal against my neck -
I had died, and had gotten a second chance. A second chance in the life of a young girl with a cold mother and an eccentric aunt. But it was a second chance nonetheless - and, well, it would just have to do.
Unfortunately, making do with what I have is easier said than done. Not that I'm complaining or anything - or, well, not too much anyways. It quickly became apparent that I, being "the Boss' daughter" had a very financially secure future. In other words, that black-haired woman from earlier was my mother, and she was loaded. Miya carted me around and showed off the mansion once (her enthusiasm was growing on me, okay?) and told me that it would all be mine one day. She also made it very clear she wanted a pay raise.
"Oh, who does your mother think she is, working me to the bone? We agents deserve a little more money for what we put up with - stealing isn't easy, quick work! ...Or at least it shouldn't be one done properly."
Oh yeah, and my new mother owned a crime syndicate. I didn't know the name of it quite yet, my eyes still not quite developed enough to focus on the red writing on the member's black uniforms (hell, the only reason I was able to describe my room so accurately was because of the relatively simple pattern and color variation - that, and I was relatively used to poor eyesight from my previous life).
So… I was the heir of a crime syndicate. Which, depending on how tight security there was and how big it was, meant that there could be assassination attempts made on me. Or at least I think that's how crime works? This was all new to me, after all. Either way, it worried me. After all, I didn't want to die again so quickly.
This leads us to one boring day, just like any other, where I was sitting in my crib once again, waiting for someone to take me somewhere to do something. I was rather bored, left only to think and poke at my pudgy skin. I… really wanted a distraction.
I was feeling down, to be honest. I'd accepted that I'd died and be facing a new life, but the implications had only just begun to sink in. My mom, dad, and brother - I wouldn't be able to see them again, would I? I got to say goodbye to them properly when I left for college, but… the thought was sobering. At least I didn't really have many friends left, so I didn't disappoint too many people on that front. But… everything I did was for nought - all those nights studying when I could've been talking to people or doing something that I enjoyed were wasted.
...I would say I'd try not to do it again, but honestly it served me well enough the first time around. Not many people to miss me and enough praise to make me at least feel somewhat less empty inside. So… there's that, I guess.
I supposed I wouldn't try to distance myself from people this time around, nor compare those here to those there, as it wouldn't be good for my mental health. It was what it was, and though it sucked… I had to keep moving forward, right? Moping wouldn't really help in the long run.
And with that, I dubbed the black-haired woman "mother" to separate her from my previous "mom" and locked the crippling feeling of heavy dread and loss deep in my heart. I at least had to play the part of a baby convincingly for now, and I'd figure out the rest as it came.
Suddenly, the windows to the left of my crib broke open, glass breaking and spilling out all over the floor. Two men clad in gray crashed through them, rolling onto the floor and rushing towards me. I let out a cry in alarm and moved back, and two of mother's black uniformed officers burst in and ran towards me. One drew a gun and shot one of the grey men down, and the other intruder grabbed a knife from his belt and threw it at the one who slay his accomplice. The other man in black kicked it away before grabbing me from the crib and leaping back towards the doors, most certainly breaking the laws of physics. The first one of mother's officers then shot the remaining grey man dead too, and their corpses were left to spill blood out onto the glass covering my bedroom floor.
I gagged and looked away, burying my face in the man's chest. He looked down at me, briefly startled at my change in position.
"Hey Mini-Boss, it'll be alright. They're dead now, see? The bad men can't get to you," he said softly. The other one scoffed.
"She's a kid, Tommy. Of course she doesn't want to look at the bodies - hell, I think they're a little gross too, man." I shuttered. He was right - the only reason I didn't throw up was that it looked more like something out of an anime than a real dead body (not that I'd seen one before, but I could imagine). Everything in this world had a cartoon-like quality to it, and it was rather peculiar, actually.
"I told you not to call me that - though I 'spose you're right. We should bring her to Madame Boss just to be safe." And with that, the two men ran down the hallway, taking winding twists and turns until they eventually burst through another set of doors into an office. It took a while, but the time passed quickly - I was too busy denying everything that happened. Two people didn't die in front of me - no, I'm definitely not hugging a murderer and about to burst into tears, right? The bodies on the floor - no, no, no, don't think about that!
"Thomas, Edward, what are you doing here? And why does my daughter look mildly traumatized?" mother demanded, and I finally pried myself away from Thomas' shirt and looked towards her. She was irritated, tapping the feathery end of her fountain pen on her desk. Edward gulped.
"Madame Boss, two intruders entered the mansion and tried to take Giovanna away. Tom and I heard the commotion, entered her room, and disposed of them," he replied. She growled.
"Tch, wonderful - another mess to clean up. Have Unit 042 take care of the bodies, and take her to stay with Miyamoto until her room is ready," she said, standing up.
"Yes ma'am!" the two chirped in sync. I turned my gaze back to Thomas' shirt. Even after almost being killed, the woman didn't even care enough to hold her child, much less fuss over it. I felt a little disappointed in her, to be honest. Though… wait - his shirt had a red "R" on it, and they called her "Madame Boss" earlier, so did that mean -
"She didn't even cry though, Giovanna's a tough one - she'll be a great asset to Team Rocket, that's for sure," Thomas said, shifting me around in his arms and giving me a toothy smile.
It did. I was reborn as Team Rocket's next leader and Kanto's eighth gym - Giovanni. In hindsight, it was obvious - Giovanna? What kind of name is that? Well, at least I was still a girl. Yet… that'd mean my new life would be difficult, and there was no guaranteeing I would even make it to "present day" in the anime (and it had to be the anime - Madame Boss was an anime original character only appearing in the Japanese-only radio dramas that… oops, I was geeking out again; at least that explained why the world looked cartoon-like, right?). And… and - I'd have to run a crime syndicate. There was that. I was doomed, wasn't I?
AN: Ooh boy, this one's a doozy. I really, really want to write an SI-OC story, as there's only one self-proclaimed one I could find earlier in the Pokemon section. I went on a binge of those fics earlier, Naruto and Harry Potter housing the most of them, but I was sorrowfully disappointed when I couldn't find more here. So… I thought I'd try writing my own. Just a disclaimer, even though the OC starts as a very similar person as I am when I write this, I know I have faults, and I'll try very hard to keep the character from ending up too "perfect," as it were. The tone of the story itself (from what I have planned, anyways) should always have an underlying feeling of dread, and many of my bad habits will come back to bite Giovanna in the ass later down the line. I'll try to update this story once a week, but we'll see how that goes. Hoped you enjoyed reading, and have a great day!
