Author's note: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLRIGHTY GUYS! I hope you've enjoyed the ride thus far because now you're going to have to wait 3-4 days between each chapter in order to fulfill that cliffhanger you've been dying to read more about! I know, I know, it's going to kill you all oh my loyal 7 fans of my work, but bear with me. I just started classes today and although I only have four different classes, I'm going to quickly have a lot of work to do, which means less time to write. So instead of catching up to where I have written already, I'm spreading it out further here so I have more time to buffer myself with new chapters. Its so you always have a guaranteed chapter or two this week. Well enough of my rambling, read on!
Chapter 36 The Plans
It was still late in the Safari Zone, well after midnight and into Monday morning. After wandering for another hour or so and only seeing stray Zubat here or there Roy was ready to give up.
"You look pretty exhausted, don't you want to rest?"
"You're probably right Torchie. I obviously won't come across what I want here." The two began for the entrance. "At least by not sleeping I won't have to relive that hellish nightmare."
"You're still having those?"
"Yeah, ever since the Pokemon Tower incident I haven't been able to sleep well."
"It was one mistake, I should have been stronger."
"Don't blame yourself Torchie, it was my misjudgment that almost allowed Gabite to be caught."
"You shouldn't blame yourself either. If I could land a hit we wouldn't have needed to panic."
"Let's both shut up about it." They walked back through the entrance of the Safari Zone past a sleeping guard and headed toward the hotel.
"You know, …" Torchie couldn't find the right words to use. He didn't know what to say to his best friend, or how to console him now that his depression is setting in again. He couldn't tell him yet, not yet, the time wasn't right.
"Yeah, about the alarm earlier, it was nothing really, a dude tried to break in and the other two upstairs are chasing him off."
"That's shouldn't be too much of a problem Jake! Now come here, we're getting a transmission for our next orders!" Robbie led Heidi and Jacob down the stairs to the fourth floor into a room where there was nothing but a giant television screen. Men and women sat down on the ground near the front while the ones in the back stood so everyone could see. The screen went from black to white, and slowly faded to a woman with long red hair shooting out from the back of her head. It looked unnatural how straight back it was.
"Is everyone here?" She asked in a shrill voice. There were about 20 people inside the room, and Robbie answered the television with a:
"Tobi and Jen are chasing away a burglar, I'll pass on the message Jessie!"
"Ok, good Robert. Now the plan for this Friday, we already attacked three different Cities with no success, not including destroying Cinnabar, and even Butch and Cassidy were shown up by some runts; so this time the other bases are also going to collaborate with us. I hope you all are familiar with SilphCo, as we've taken it before. This time we are going to take it over, and not just use it for a television show, but we are going to take it over and kidnap the engineers inside, as well as other valuable assets. Then members of the Viridian teams will transport most of them to their base while we kidnap this man specifically."
A picture depicting a mustachioed man with no hair to speak of but that on his upper lip, thick glasses, and a large round nose shows up. "His name is Antonio Fabiano." Find him and transport him here. He will work with our captured professor to complete the Gene Splicer. He works somewhere between floors 4 and 7. While we search these floors, members of the Cerulean team will enter the roof via helicopter and capture any engineers up there."
A random grunt speaks out, "What about the Fuchsia HQ? Will they send people?"
"Yes, after 10 minutes of successful infiltration, they will enter the city from their hiding spots outside of the city entrances and exits, and prevent anyone and everyone from escaping Saffron. After successfully transporting as many engineers as we can, we will search the building for any useful items or information that we can mass produce for ourselves. From there our members will cripple the police force as we take over all of Saffron City. Any more questions?"
Another random voice. "Will you be accompanying us on this mission?"
"Why yes, James, Meowth and I will be overseeing the operation personally. Butch and Cassidy may make an appearance should Giovanni allow it. More details on mission plans and specific teams will be made up soon and sent to you within the next few days."
The screen goes to black and people start getting up and leaving. Heidi, Jacob, and Robbie are the only ones standing in the room after a few seconds
"Exciting huh? Less than a week in and you're already in on a huge operation!" Robbie is very excited for the news.
"Y-yeah, uh, she mentioned three failed attacks, I know about the ones in Fuchsia and Celadon, but what was the third one?"
"Oh that one was a wreck too, Jacob. It was supposed to be a suppression mission, go in, force everyone into the Pokemon Tower with their pokemon, take the pokemon and leave. But what happened was, these two kids came out of nowhere with a Blaziken and a Ninetales and completely compromised the mission by themselves!"
Jacob recognized a strong trainer with a Ninetales, his friend Bill, but doesn't know anybody with a Blaziken. He dismisses the thought but says to himself that he'll ask his mom if Bill visited recently anyway.
"They even defeated Butch and Cassidy by themselves too!" Robbie had continued his story to Heidi while Jacob zoned off. He had just finished his epic story when Jacob noticed the time. It was 4AM and they needed to be home before his mother got up.
"Oh! Me and Heidi here have some stuff to do outside-"
Robbie cuts in, "Well the meeting for today is over anyway, and people do lead normal lives outside of Team Rocket to stay incognito. Only a few of us live at the Barracks 24/7 on the fifth floor. Oh! You see her over there?" He points to a Rocket woman who looked familiar to Jacob, "She works at the mall, and him over there," He points to another Rocket that Jacob could somewhat recognize, "He works with his father outside of Celadon on a farm, and I work behind the counter at the Game Corner! We all got stuff goin on to make more money, so if you got one of those too you're welcome to leave! Your shift is over anyway!"
"Well actually its nothing like that, we just gotta get home before-"
Robbie cuts him off again, "Oh, before your parents get up, right? Hahaha, we got a couple of rebels here! Sneaking off in the night to join Team Rocket behind your mommy's back! How did you ever get the training done?"
"Oh I just told her I was visiting a friend for a while, nothing big…"
"Well I understand, most people here need their undercover lives too to make ends meet. I'll see ya tomorrow night then, same time, right?"
"Right…" Jacob and Heidi are led to the first floor by stairs, where they are shown a secret entrance straight into the first floor. It comes up right behind the Game Corner disguised as a sewer grate. They say their goodbyes and start heading for home. "You okay Heidi? You haven't said a thing all night."
"Yeah, I'm just trying to remember everything that we saw, and what's gonna happen."
"Oh, smart, good job. When we get home write it down so we have some notes for when we tell the cops tomorrow."
"Jacob, we can't do that! They would immediately suspect us!"
"Damn, you're right. Well here's an idea. We tell the Saffron police what's going to happen, and we don't tell the Celadon police where the base is until Thursday night. How's that?"
"That might work… I dunno if the cops will take us seriously though."
"I'm Erika's brother, they have a Gym Leader's word that everything I say will be true."
"I guess that'll work, but we can't be sure. We still have to see what Johnny and Lenny find out too!"
The two walk back to Jacob's house trying to figure out what to do.
"Professor Birch!? What are you doing here?"
"W-who are you two!? You're not supposed to be here!" The pokemon professor from Hoenn was panicking at the sight of the two rogue trainers.
"Don't worry! We're here to help you," John's reasoning didn't calm him down at all.
"Get out! Before they find you here! Hurry!"
"Professor, please! We're going to get you out of here-"
"But if you do that then they'll take May! I can't let them do that! Please leave before someone comes down here!"
"Professor, slow down, explain what's going on here." Len's voice was able to slightly soothe the panicking man. He was able to calm down enough to explain the blueprints and what Rocket wanted with him.
"I was captured because I study pokemon genetics; what gives them their speed, defenses, attacks, what moves they learn, etc, and how its written into their DNA. The blueprints are for a machine that will be able to take whatever genes from a pokemon I write out, separate them, and combine the other portions to create genetically better pokemon. If done within the species you can have a pokemon with unbelievable strengths and little weaknesses. But what they want from me is to combine genes from different pokemon species… All of them to be exact, and unlock in their DNA their strongest capabilities, to be combined into one super pokemon."
"That's insanity. They can't possibly be thinking that!"
"They are, and soon enough they're going to make me create the DNA for the perfect pokemon… I don't think I'll be able to do it… Literally, and if I can't they'll take my May from me…"
The elevator door opens behind the closed door and voices are heard. Birch starts scrambling around for the two to hide in the small closet. After jamming them in there along with more boxes of papers a voice is heard. "Oh, damn, we took the elevator too low. These buttons suck." The door is heard closing again as John and Len are forced out of the closet and onto the floor.
"We had better leave… Don't worry Professor, we'll do something about this. We're going to help you."
"No, if anything happens then May-!"
"Then what are we supposed to do!?" John asks ferociously.
"Just don't do anything for now. Just leave and do nothing."
The two exit through the door and take the empty elevator back up to the second floor where there's nobody snooping about but them. Assuming Jacob and Heidi left already, they make their way up and out through the Game Corner, back to Jacob's house.
"What should we do John? We need to rescue Birch and tell the police about their plans, but if we do that his daughter will be kidnapped. And who knows what they'd do to her."
"We'll talk it over with Jacob and Heidi. We'll put together everything we know, and determine if stopping whatever they are doing now is worth the kidnapping of one girl."
"But they could do horrible things and it'd be our fault."
"We'll figure something out."
The two continued down the road towards their current home, debating over the predicament at hand, asking themselves if it was right to risk one girl for the stalling of an organization's plans. The two decided it would be best to do nothing for now.