Chapter Six: Problems

It wasn't that Rocky wanted revenge on Jazzy. He had no ill will towards the flirtatious femme fatal. However Rocky still wanted to confront Jazzy so he could show her that she didn't fool him or anyone else. Normally he'd want to cover her in steak sauce then kick her into a pit of wild and hungry Houndours. But Rocky's Sentret made an amazing recovery. Three days after the incident at the Pokemon Center, Sentret was crawling around Rocky and Ted's bedroom, playfully examining everything. And his appetite was incredible. Fortunately, Jazzy had placed super high calorie Poke-snacks in the bag of meds for Sentret.

"Aw you going ta name yo Sentwet?" Ted asked.

"Erm… I haven't really thought of a name for Sentret yet." Rocky replied, knowing that Ted had given him something to think about.

Rocky glanced at his cheap wrist watch. 6:30 PM, it read. Rocky's parents were both out; his mother working the night-shift as a waitress and his step-father always came home at ten on Tuesday nights.

"I'd better leave but I'll be back before they get home." Rocky told his little bother. Rocky knew that his mother would kill him if she discovered that he left Ted alone since she favors Ted over him, while his stepfather hates both of them but cuts Ted some slack because his wife likes the kid.

Rocky was going to meet Classico so they could do some more vigilante work on the case that Rocky was framed for. Although they were working together, they weren't friends again. They only talked about the case and anything related to it.

Meanwhile, Rocky had other problems at school. He knew that he needed to confront Arby Jones and he wanted to kick the crap out of the arrogant rich kid but both of those goals were not realistic.

Another problem was Rocky's stepfather. The previous night the selfish man told Rocky, "You ain't going nowhere 'till you pay off the debt of the all the meals we've fed you and all of the cloths we've given you. And how do we expect you to pay that debt? You have two choices get your own job and give me all of the paychecks or you can work at my car-repair shop. But your days of leeching off of your mother and I are over, understand, young man?"

What his stepfather meant when he said, "You ain't going nowhere-" is, 'you ain't becoming a Pokemon trainer, you ain't going to no fancy schools, and you ain't leaving this household and supporting yourself'. Not going to happen fatboy. Rocky thought viciously, as he picked up Sentet.

"Aw you going ta take Sentwet wit you?" Ted asked, worried.

"Don't worry. Sentret is a lot stronger and he will be in my backpack anyway." Rocky replied.

It's too bad Sentret isn't strong enough to protect me yet. Rocky thought gloomily as he ran out the front door to go meet Classico. As he jogged through the cruddy streets of the Goldenrod Ghetto, Rocky went over the various scenarios of a confrontation with his stepfather.

He could confront him outright and tell the man to go screw himself, but then the greedy stepfather would attempt to cause Rocky some serious harm. Rocky considered using a weapon such as a knife or a club of some sort but he immediately pushed the idea aside as he wasn't prepared to become a murder. Then Rocky considered running away with no confrontation. He wouldn't be able to stay in the city because the police would be on the look out. I suppose I could go south and into the Azalea Forest then to Azalea Town. Rocky thought. But then Rocky wondered how he would make money. Money.

Rocky's thoughts then wondered to money. Corporations controlled ninety eight percent off the wealth in the entire world. They seemed to rule everything. And yet they always wanted more money and power. They sucked it away from ordinary people leaving sixty seven percent of the world's population underclass. Rocky wished he could change it.

Rocky walked into a small park. It was overrun with weeds and garbage and it hardly deserved the name park. But it was spacious and out in the open which made it a good meeting spot. An idea occurred to Rocky as he sat in the bench. What if he made money as a thief?

Rocky recalled how easily he came up with the break in plan at the Pokemon Center. If it weren't for Jazzy then it would have been a perfect crime. Also, Rocky knew that he wouldn't lose any sleep over robbing from one of the filthy rich corporations.

Yo, yo, yo, get yourself together man! What are you thinking. If anyone so much as stole a crumb of food off the plate of one of the corporations then they would hunt you down and put your ass in a criminal correction labor camp for the rest of your sorry life! Rocky silently yelled at himself.

"You're early." Classico greeted as he walked up to Rocky. Before Rocky could come up with a genius smart -ass retort, Classico pulled out a picture.

"Is this your friend?" It was a picture of Jazzy. For a second Rocky was mesmerized by what was apparently a school picture. "Stop gawking, you hopeless romantic!" Classico scolded.

Rocky blushed. "Moving on-!" Classico announced. "This redhead, Jazzy, is the daughter and only child of Don Juliani of Team Rocket."

"Her father is in Team Rocket?" Rocky gasped. Team Rocket is known for Pokemon cruelty and the firm belief that they were nothing but tools which is the opposite of the philosophy of a Pokemon Center's nurse like Jazzy.

"Not anymore. After his wife was killed by one of his rival gangsters he quit for the safely of his daughter, Jazzy." Classico explained. "But apparently Jazzy "Rosso" Juliani has a lot of her father's genes."

"So what are we going to do about her?" Rocky asked, worried.

"We want to keep our distance from her. Just because Don Juliani isn't in Team Rocket anymore doesn't mean he isn't involved in organized crime. He has mostly been severing ties with his old life for the protection of his daughter which makes me positive that Miss Juliani is acting alone and not working for her father. However, if Don Juliani hears that two vigilante thugs like us are trying to pin a crime on his little girl then he is going to dial the number of his old hitman or a brand new contract killer and our asses will be dead and floating in a water filled ditch." Classico lectured with a certain seriousness.

"Where do we start?" Rocky asked after an eerie silence.

"What do you know about the Goldenrod Wildflowers?" Classico asked in a reply.

"That street gang?" Rocky wondered what they had to do with it. "I know to stay the f*ck out of their way!" Rocky exclaimed. But the fact was that Rocky had always admired the Goldenrod Wildflowers despite a chilling encounter with them in his childhood.

"Well I do know that the Goldenrod Wildflowers had something to do with the crime. A witness interviewed by the police said that he saw a car with a golden flower with a knife as a stem painted on the hood driving in the same area as the rare Pokemon exhibit around the same time. It could have been coincidental or the car could have been stolen but that was the gang's symbol on the car."

"What evidence connects the Pokemon Center robbery to the rare Pokemon exhibit robbery?" Rocky asked attentively since it concerned him.

"A guard was bribed for the security codes. When he was arrested, the money was scanned for past locations and the Pokemon Center came up positive on the list of locations." Classico explained.

"What?" Rocky asked, confused.

"I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but money is often traced by spraying it with non-reactant and harmless chemical that can be detected easily. Each business has their own signature chemical that they treat their money with." Classico continued lecturing Rocky.

"Okay, so if the police already know this then what do we do?" Rocky asked continued asking questions.

"We need to go into Goldenrod Wildflower territory and do some snooping around." Classico told Rocky. "Specifically, snooping around the condemned warehouse on 468th street, which is rumored to be the Goldenrod Wildflowers' headquarters. Their headquarters is most likely where they're holding the Charmeleon and her babies."

"But I think that Jazzy is more likely to be behind the crime." Rocky contradicted.

"And I think that Jazzy is the new leader of the Goldenrod Wildflowers." Classico replied.