The rating was upped in this chapter because of the flashback that occurs. It's nothing too graphic, but it does involve some animal cruelty. Also, that flashback takes up most of this chapter, but the animal cruelty part doesn't take place until the very end of it.
I've started a blog, and on it I've posted a map of the Kaiba estate as I've envisioned it for this fic. If you're interested in referring to that as you read, it's at zquill(dot)blogspot(dot)com. The link's also in my profile if you'd rather use that, and it's listed as my homepage.
"What're they doing?" Bandit Keith asked.
"Can't you look for yourself?" Duke scoffed. Seto Kaiba and Prof. Oak were waiting on the curb as the Town Car pulled away and Roland with two members of the building's security came over to escort the two. Duke absentmindedly pulled out his cell phone as he watched. "I have to contact Gozaburo—"
Bandit Keith's hand snapped out and ripped the phone from Duke's hand. Duke looked over with startled eyes, but Keith hadn't even seemed to look over before he'd grabbed the phone, still in the exact, relaxed position as he'd been in before, with his feet up on the dash and an arm behind his head.
"We don't use cell phones around Kaiba Corp. headquarters, newbie. Seto's a whiz at the techie crap, and you know just know that, being the paranoid punk that he is, that he's got something going on that tracks cell phone activity. No, we go old school when we're this close to KC."
That being said, Bandit Keith put his feet down and leaned forward, dragging something out from under the seat. It was a lidless box, and inside was one of the oldest walkie talkies that Duke had ever seen. He was surprised it wasn't being carried around on the back of some soldier, it was so outdated.
"We're talking Gozaburo's version of old school, then?" Duke commented sarcastically. That was the only reason he could think of to have such archaic equipment: Gozaburo's nostalgia for the good ol' days.
Bandit Keith paused and, even through the sunglasses, Duke just knew that the man was glaring at him with the intent to kill. Duke gulped and fiddled with his single die earring. Suddenly, Bandit Keith smiled, though it almost seemed more of a snarl. "Now you're getting it, Devlin. Everything we do, we do his way. No matter how old-fashioned it seems to us, we always do it his way. Got it?"
Duke cleared his throat and gave a hoarse, "Yeah." He went back to looking out the window at Kaiba Corporation. Seto Kaiba and Prof. Oak had already gone inside by then.
Duke may only have been Bandit Keith's partner for a few months, but that was plenty of time to get to know that he, as well as the other few Blasters left, had a near-religious reverence directed toward Gozaburo Kaiba. The very name 'Kaiba' was practically sacred, and it was made clear that under no circumstances were those who worked for Gozaburo allowed to call his son anything but 'Seto'. All in all, Duke should have known better than to even try to attempt a joke at the old man's expense.
He sighed quickly and quietly through his nose as Bandit Keith began relaying the intel they'd gotten on Seto and Prof. Oak himself through the ancient walkie talkie.
This had better be worth my time.
Five years ago:
As Seto put his foot on the first step down from the attic, one of the Blasters, the youngest and the one who brought up the rear on the group's way up the stairs and into the Ghost Pokémon-filled room.
Seto didn't react other than stopping and rubbing his thumb against one of Spearow's toes to reassure it and keep it from attacking the Blaster.
"Nice job, kid. I think even the old man was impressed when that bird of yours started screaming its lungs out." The speaker flipped his head back, causing his blonde hair to resettle itself in a 'sexy' manner.
"Whatever, Keith," Seto replied. He didn't want anything to do with the sleazy Blaster. It's so fitting that 'Blaster' be so close to 'bastard,' Seto thought, still looking straight ahead, ignoring Keith Howard beside him and the screaming Pokémon behind him.
"Seriously," Bandit Keith tried again. "You're finally shaping up to something respectable. You might even be a Blaster one day, if you keep at it." Bandit Keith chuckled to himself, as if there were some kind of inside joke hidden within the statement.
Seto felt his face screw up. "God, I hope not," he said, tearing his arm from Bandit Keith's grasp. His Spearow squawked as it rebalanced itself, before disdainfully turning its back to the Blaster.
As Seto started pacing quickly down the narrow staircase, he heard Bandit Keith call down to him, "Oh, that's right. You don't want to be part of us. You just want to rule over us like your daddy! Good luck with that; we'll never follow anyone but him."
Seto "puhhed" at the incredulity of the statement. As if it wasn't clear by now that what he wanted was the opposite of what Gozaburo had.
"…I should go see Mokuba," Seto mentioned unenthusiastically to his Spearow once he was sure Bandit Keith had left to go join the fun. The kid would probably want to know his brother was okay. But…
Seto reached the bottom of the stairs and came out into the open, bright hallway that circled the entire perimeter of the third floor of the Kaiba mansion. This particular stretch faced the expansive backyard to the east of the house. From here you could see all the way across to the practice gym Gozaburo had had built that would eventually become the check-point for Seto's breeding grounds. You could also see the lake from here.
Seto's eyes fastened on the water and he felt his Spearow give his shoulder an persuading nudge with its beak, as if it were encouraging him to go. That settled it. Mokuba could wait; he'd just think that Seto was still going through the exercise Gozaburo had planned for him.
Seto made his way down another two flights of stairs and headed for the tunnel entrance located near Mokuba's future solarium-turned-Playroom. Relatively near, at least. Close for the Kaiba mansion, far for almost anywhere else.
Seto was obsessed with the lake, which he hoped was a fact that, despite the strength of the fixation, he'd been able to keep secret from the other members of the household, his little brother included. Mokuba was a sweetie who'd never intentionally hurt his older brother, but he was a sweetie with a big mouth.
Seto reached the tunnel entrance (that he wasn't supposed to know anything about). He knew his Spearow wouldn't like being once more in a cramped space, but only Gozaburo and a few of the more senior Blasters knew of the tunnels, and Seto didn't want to be followed by anyone who might be tailing him on his father's orders. Seto slipped into a faux-closet, closing the door behind him, and lifted a barely discernable hatch before dropping down and shutting the trapdoor behind him. Spearow remained placed on his left forearm the entire time, its stiffness the only indication of its dislike of the space. Seto again rubbed its toes in comfort.
None of the tunnels were straight from Point A to Point B on the Kaiba estate. First, Seto travelled a quick, right angled clockwise spiral, then merely followed the tunnel. He ignored the first fork in the passageway that went off to the left and travelled for a while longer, but took the second branching that presented itself to the left. Just a bit later, Seto emerged from the tunnel near a large bolder by the lake's edge. When the weather became rainy, this part of the tunnel had a tendency to have layers of moisture on the cement walls and puddles pooled on the floor.
As Seto bent down to close this other secreted trapdoor, his Spearow took off and began to scout the area for him. It was a pattern they'd formed ever since Seto first became enraptured by a certain ripple in the water that would occasionally take place whenever he was around this area.
A couple minutes later, Spearow let out a shriek, confirming that the area was clear of any of Gozaburo's informants, though it continued to fly about and keep watch. Seto stood up from where he'd swayed crouched by the boulder and rolled his shoulders in an attempt to unwind before turning his attention to the water and—
There was that ripple again!
It was a known fact that a fair variety of Pokémon lived in the lake. At the moment, a few each of Staryu, Goldeen, and Horsea, their evolutions, a handful of Poliwag, a smattering of Magikarp, and possibly some Shellder and Krabby made the area their home. Pretty soon, Gozaburo would order the Blasters to come out here and do another purging since the population had built up again. But, nothing in there was so large as to be capable of the movement Seto consistently saw whenever he came out here. No Gyarados, Dragonair, or Lapras would be allowed to wander free for any length of time in this area, and Seto swore he always saw blue scales or skin accompanying the swells.
Whatever it was, it was large and had been cunning enough to avoid all of Gozaburo's minions' attempts to catch anything and everything worth catching within the lake time and time again.
Before Seto realized exactly what he was doing, he had his glove, shoes, and socks off and was taking his first steps across the rocky shoreline and into the lake. The rocks became thick with algae just a few inches in, and Seto felt his feet sliding and skidding the further he waded in. But, he gritted his teeth and kept on walking. He was sick of wondering what the hell it was that disturbed the water whenever he got near the lake. He wasgoing to find out!
The water was lapping at his waist when the slippery rocks finally got the better of him. His right foot shot out from under him and he went crashing down into the clear, if dark, blue water. He heard himself give an involuntary yelp as it happened and mentally kicked himself for it as he momentarily settled on the bottom. As mentioned before, he had no doubt that Gozaburo had someone, either Pokémon or human, keeping an eye on him at all times, or trying to anyway, and that brief cry may have given away his position. He probably wouldn't be allowed out to the lake again if he were caught.
Seto pushed himself up from the lakebed and allowed his head to break the surface. His heart was hammering from the unexpected fall and the anxiety that he may be found out. He remained half-crouched in the water, waiting for Spearow to pass overhead and signal again that the coast was clear.
As he waited though, a calmness he'd never felt since coming to live with Gozaburo and the Blasters drifted over him. It relaxed him and made him become buoyant both literally and figuratively. For several minutes, Seto just lay on his back, his nose, mouth, and eyes just barely clearing the surface of the lake. Everything was suddenly so peaceful…
Just as Spearow came into view dozens of feet above him, its cry to tell him that all was well muffled by the water in his ears, Seto felt something smooth and ever so slightly slimy slide along beneath his fingers tips on either side and across his lower back. It took a long time, indicating the size of the creature, whatever it was, to move through the water beneath Seto, and Spearow kept on moving closer and closer, worried and curious as to why his trainer was not responding.
Seto was paralyzed by the unexplainable and forced tranquility he felt. All he could do was watch as his Spearow circled, getting nearer, until the bird suddenly crashed into Seto's chest several moments after the feeling of the creature skimming along under Seto's touch had disappeared. Again, Seto was plunged beneath the surface of the water, this time by the Spearow's tackle. Opening his eyes underwater, Seto swore he saw the tail of something serpentine gliding away through the haze of bubbles his most recent submergence had created.
Seto quickly kicked to the surface, his arms wrapped tightly about his Spearow. He gulped in several breaths, having lost all of his air when Spearow knocked it out of him. His Spearow was making coughing-like sounds as it rid its lungs of the water it had inhaled after plowing into its trainer. It had to have been close to panicking to plow into Seto like that to free him from his trance.
"Thank you, Spearow," Seto rasped. Now that the calming force had been removed, the terror he'd felt at being unable to take control of his own body was making itself known. Seto decided then that he would rather have a life of stress and resentment motivating him than one where he was too contented to do anything at all.
His Spearow was trying to glare up at him from where it was still half in the water, but was beginning to shiver as the water soaked his feathers and was feeling disoriented and completely out of place in the aquatic setting. Seto quickly began making his way onto the shore where they could both dry off before heading back to the mansion.
As Seto sat his Spearow down on a waist-high rock and it began to shake its feather free of the damp, Seto heard a far-off jangling sound. He and the Spearow both froze and the clanging came again from the same distance. Spearow was incapable of flying over to see what it was from above now, but Seto was reasonably sure that someone employed by Gozaburo would have more stealth that to create such a noise once, much less twice.
When the sound came across a third time, Seto went to look for what was making the rattling, walking around the bank, leaving Spearow behind, checking beneath shrubs and behind rocks. But, when he eventually found it a good ways away from where he had been, he wished he hadn't and had to stop himself from throwing up.
The noise was now coming from just a few feet away, out from under a blooming yellow forsythia bush.
A Meowth, the one that would eventually become Seto's Meowth, was trapped there by means of a fox trap that had the Kaiba Corp. logo soldered onto it. The metal teeth of the contraption had bitten down on the Pokémon's left front leg, and the whole thing was chained to a peg inserted deep into the ground. The Meowth's attempts to tear itself free had worsened the damage initially done by the trap, and Seto was pretty sure he could see its bones and tendons through the blood.
The Meowth caught wind of Seto and whirled to snarl at him, the sound breaking off into a whimper as the trap dug into its twisted leg, causing more blood to leak out and stain its mangled paw even more so. If it wasn't freed in the next few hours, it just might knaw itself free in its determination to get away from the cruel, inhumane trap.
That was it. Absolutely any vestiges of the calmness Seto had experienced were utterly gone. Gozaburo had gone too far this time, and Seto knew he couldn't abide by his father's pitiless, brutal rule any longer.
"So, about Gozaburo—"
Seto made a brisk, sharp motion with his hand, cutting Prof. Oak off before he could say anymore.
They were walking into Seto's office at the top of the Kaiba Corp. building, but were being followed by Roland, Kaiba's secretary, two members of the security team, and the payroll administrator from the copyright division, who also doubled as the payroll administrator for the secret breeding ground.
Professor Oak may have invented the Pokédex, but Kaiba Corporation continued to improve it exponentially every time a new version came onto the market. Nevertheless, they had to pay the professor for that privilege, which was one of the reasons why the administrator was there.
But, rather than accepting money, Professor Oak took it in trade. Other breeding grounds (inferior breeding grounds), demanded high prices for their baby Pokémon, and the Kaiba Estate Breeding Grounds was no different. However, KEBG didn't charge a complete fortune either. And, Prof. Oak was given a discount of sorts. Everything depended on the number of baby Pokémon born in each regional floor and how many of each individual type, and also the demand for the types. Still, Professor Oak never paid full price for Pokémon, even the Pokémon he acquired for other posts besides his own.
As Seto took a seat behind his desk, he took one of his pokéballs from inside his jacket and released his Kabuto onto his desk where it took up a watchful presence on the corner. He knew the way it would occasionally scuttle across the desktop unnerved guests and members of the company, especially because the Kabuto had a mischievous streak, too, and would occasionally use its scuttling to scatter Seto's papers around, which endeared the Pokémon to Mokuba, but made a mess for everyone else. But, the BPA had presented Kaiba with it, and he felt he deserved to show it off.
For the next fifteen minutes, Prof. Oak, working with Roland and the payroll administrator, tallied up the number of babies Prof. Oak had picked out, figured the cost of each one depending on that day's calculations for the separate types, and wrote down the current intentions for each one: where they were going, if there were already promised to a certain trainer, who that trainer was, etc. Kaiba's secretary made notes of the entire transaction.
Finally, they finished up and Roland and the secretary left to file the various forms, and the two members of the security took the filled pokéballs back down to the car where they would continue to guard them until Prof. Oak left. Seto and the professor were left alone.
Seto leaned back and lifted an eyebrow. "About Gozaburo…" He waved his hand in a circular motion. 'Get on with it.'
"Oh, yes! Now, I have to admit that the Bureau cannot be one hundred percent sure that Gozaburo is behind this… But, the similarities are so close that I would personally stake my reputation on it being him." Seto had never seen Prof. Oak look so serious.
"What would those similarities be?" Seto asked, leaning forward.
"Several areas around the nearby regions that were once highly populated with Pokémon now barely have a Caterpie or Pidgey between them. A lot of criminals have suddenly stopped their normal activities and have been seen in those same regions. And," Prof. Oak took a deep breath, "several trainers who had just come into possession of their starter Pokémon have reported them being stolen, and some of those starters have shown up again with sudden unfounded aggressiveness and debilitating nervousness showing up in their behavior that wasn't there before."
Seto took a deep breath of his own. It was all so familiar, being Gozaburo's previous modus operandi. If they weren't dealing with Gozaburo, then it was certainly a very skilled copycat.
"He, if it really is him," Prof. Oak continued, "is calling himself and the people working for him 'Team Rocket.'
Seto narrowed his eyes. "The Blasters."
"Yes, we think that the members of the Blasters were the foundation of this new organization. Thanks to you, we have most of their names and have them on our watch list. Actually, thanks to you, most of them are in custody!" Prof. Oak smiled hugely, but Seto didn't join him. "Of the original fourteen Blasters, currently only six of them are still at large, and we know where three of them are; we're just waiting to see if they can lead us to any others who might be violating BPA law. Keith Howard, Carl Dennis, and Frederick Ambley are the only people off of our radar, but that's only a matter of time." Prof. Oak ended with a chuckle.
"…All it takes is Gozaburo to start something horrible. The Blasters themselves were just one of his creations; they themselves don't actually matter," Seto muttered grimly, tapping his fingers against his chin. He seemed to have not have heard anything that the Professor had just said. "If we want to stop more of this sort of thing from happening, we have to get rid of my father above all else."
"Maybe you shouldn't continue referring to him as your father?" Prof. Oak cautiously suggested.
Seto's eyes flashed icily as he focused on the other man. "I do not need someone lecturing me on my view of Gozaburo Kaiba, Professor Oak."
"Er, yes. My apologies." Prof. Oak cleared his throat and looked away from the cold glare Seto was still giving him.
"Uhm, in any case—"
"In any case, what is the BPA doing to find my father?" Seto asked with his teeth bared.
"W-we're doing our best—"
"Which tells me absolutely nothing," Seto interrupted impatiently.
"Mngh… Well, um, we do have something we're working on. But, we need secrecy; it's highly important to the integrity of the mission—"
"'Mission.' You've sent someone on a "secret mission" to investigate my father, and I'm not allowed to know about it?"
"W-well, you see, we thought that having someone who knew everything about the way Gozaburo operated would make them stand out and put them under suspicion," Oak tried to explain to the incredulous and furious Seto Kaiba.
"Everyone, his sons, his Blasters, his Pokémon, his own goddamn shadow, is a person of suspicion in Gozaburo's eyes. You hope to send some inexperienced goofball in to infiltrate a now global organization that corrupts and twists the minds and personalities of baby Pokémon into rabid, subservient beasts. What the hell are you people in the BPA thinking?" Seto was on his feet now, leaning over his desk much like a rabid beast himself. Prof. Oak was trapped in his seat, his hands gripping the arms of the chair with bleached knuckles.
Prof. Oak opened his mouth to say something, or maybe just gape, but Seto was way too close to snapping, if he hadn't already.
"Get out, Prof. Oak, before I take those baby Pokémon back and set them on you."
Thanks for reading! The next chapter is possibly going to be a bit shorter than the ones so far, though, since it's not written yet, I can' be definite about it. But, hey, maybe that means it will be out quicker.
'BPA' stands for a lot of stuff when you go onto Wikipedia (luckily nothing bad), and it kind of makes me slightly ashamed of not looking up the abbreviation before I chose 'Bureau of Pokémon Affairs' as the title for the organization. However, it is done, and, even though I'm a little embarrassed, I kind of like the official sound of it, too.