"Saw you the other day
Looking so undermined
Acting like it wouldn't happen
Making sense of anything that you could find
Because it's just about to happen
And you'll be there
You must have known the storm was coming
When clouds appeared..."
~ Pendulum - The Tempest
Part 8: As Your Thoughts Want You To
Katherine woke up the next morning. She was still sleepy since her dream woke her up earlier, and she couldn't go back to sleep. The sun was barely passing the horizon, giving a dim, dark orange hue to the city. Inside the apartment's living room was Cloe and Vale, still asleep. Katherine tread carefully, as to not make any noise. The apartment window was still open, and Katherine went onto the fire escape to watch the sunrise. The sunrise gave warmth that increased as it rose. Katherine stood there for at least an hour. She was beginning to understand what she was meant to do.
Cloe woke up as the sun began shining into her eyes, noticing Katherine sitting on the fire escape. Cloe began walking to Katherine, accidentally knocking a remote control on the ground. (Presumably the television remote.) The startled Katherine, as she whipped around to see the Eevee cringing at her mistake. "Sorry about that..." Cloe whispered. "You shouldn't be apologizing to me. You should apologize to who you just woke up." Katherine responded. With that, Cloe turned around to see Vale standing up, her eyes wide open from the sudden surprise.
"Sorry about waking you up, Vale. Did I scare you at all?" Cloe asked, slightly concerned. "No..." Vale said, still groggy. "I would've woken up sooner or later." Cloe smiled and walked onto the fire escape, as did Vale. They both sat down near Katherine "The sunrise is beautiful today." Katherine sighed calmly. "Yeah. The sunrise is much more awe-inspiring than a sunset, to be honest." Vale said as the other two nodded. "Well, we should get ready for what might happen today." Cloe said, giving a small yawn at the end, which Katherine oddly giggled at. "We should probably eat something. We haven't eaten since last afternoon." Katherine said as she re-entered the apartment.
Katherine jumped on the counter, and carefully pushed over a large plastic bowl of fruit. The bowl landed on a cardboard box Katherine had on the floor near the counter that was full of smaller plastic bowls. The box, along with the bowls, made a fairly loud sound as they scattered in various places around the apartment. The bowl of fruit was mostly unharmed, except for an orange, which rolled over to Vale's foot. The bowl had a decent assortment of fruit, including a few different kinds of apples, Oran berries, and Sitrus berries.
Cloe and Vale took a few of the fruits and placed them into the bag. Afterwards, all three took an apple from the bowl. Cloe got a fairly sweet yellow apple, Vale got a soft, orange-red apple, and Katherine got a sour green apple. As they ate, they talked about random topics. Finally, one topic reached their minds. "So, have you heard?" Cloe started. "Heard about what?" Katherine asked, taking another bite out of her apple. "About these kidnappers, they're human, and steal Pokemon from trainers almost everyday." Vale blinked, and then suddenly remembered. "Oh, yeah. That group... What was their name? Team 'Missile'?" Katherine chuckled as she finished her apple. "No, I heard about them. Their name is Team Rocket. They recently teamed up with Team Galactic, I heard."
"We should probably be careful during our patrols and rescues." Katherine said, concerned about the group's safety. "I did check out the boards yesterday. I saw that the amount of jobs increased recently." Vale added, finishing her apple. "I wonder if the amount of jobs has changed recently." Cloe wondered, also finishing her apple. "Actually, I did notice that more of the jobs were from other rescue teams. So that worries me more than the amount of jobs." Vale said, showing her concern as she kicked the orange out of the way.
"Yeah? We should pick a couple of those, we might be able to find the source from there." Katherine said, throwing away the remains of her apple. "That's true. However, do you really think we can handle missions like that?" Vale continued. "We can try a branch mission, that's a good start." Cloe began getting curious. "A branch mission? Where we go rescue other teams and members from other bases?"
Vale giggled. "No. You're close, but that's something else. A branch mission is where we rescue the team, then we can climb the "ladder" until we finish the original mission." Vale said. "So, we just finish the jobs that other teams weren't able to do?" Katherine asked, understanding what was needed. "Correct. We eventually end with the mission that started the branch. I've seen a branch that was about eight jobs long."
"Really? Eight jobs? That would take a while, wouldn't it?" Katherine asked. "Yeah, do you think that Team Rocket might have anything to do with it?" Cloe asked further. "Possibly, I can guarantee that the jobs about kidnapping have something to do with them." Vale concluded.
The trio packed up, and began their walk to the base. On the way, Katherine saw that many of the telephone poles had paper stapled to the base. Most of the papers had pictures of Pokemon on them. It was a concerning and very serious problem.
With Pokemon being kidnapped at such a high rate, how can you know who will be next?
