Disclaimer: Do not get high off of koffing fumes. Things will go terribly, terribly wrong.
It had been a boring, boring week, thus far. After Silver disappeared to go do his thing, Petrel had returned to the base and lazed around in the office, waiting for Ariana to return. When she did, it was with her murkrow, Nyx, completely banged up. Petrel had taken the time to patch the little bird up, putting her wing in a splint, and informed Ariana that he'd need to keep an eye on her while she recovered. Ariana had thanked him profusely and simply left the stupid bird with him- of course, it wasn't like he had anything better to do than look after it, no one else seemed to need him for anything. Dammit.
With a forlorn sigh, Petrel flopped forward onto his desk. He was so. Fucking. Bored. Silver had refused to stay in the base, not like that had been surprising. Ariana was always busy working, and he knew better than to bother her. He had to keep his koffing in pokeballs so they wouldn't choke him out, so playing with them was out of the picture entirely. Helix was sleeping, more often than not, and his ditto was very, very cranky when it was woken in the middle of its naps. To top it all off, there was some speculation that the Elite Four had some idea that they had a base in the town, and so they were pretty much on lock-down until everything blew over, which meant Petrel couldn't sneak out to go to that stupid Guardianist thing in the evenings even if he felt up for trying. Overall, it was just a terrible time in his life, with nothing to keep him busy and no purpose. He was bored as hell, without Proton around.
"We should have just left, Helix," the purple executive sighed, glancing at his sleeping ditto. The pink blob of goo didn't reply, but merely snoozed on, and with a shake of his head, Petrel turned his gaze to Nyx. The murkrow was hanging around on a perch-stand off in the corner, staring intently at him. It was kinda creepy, to be honest. "Oi. Nyx, girl, you're creeping me out. You're not trying to predict my death, are you?" Nyx blinked at him, one, twice, then cocked her head.
"Nevermore," she squawked in reply. Petrel snickered.
"A well-read murkrow, to boot. Ariana knows her shit, I'll give her that."
"Nevermore," Nyx repeated. Petrel rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, yeah, quoth the raven, whatever. Hey, you hungry? I'm gonna have a snack." Nyx continued to merely blink at him, obviously in no way fooled by his shenanigans. The purple executive took her silence as a 'no' and shrugged, beginning to dig in his desk drawers for his super special snack tin that he always kept hidden.
To be honest, all three of the others frowned upon his pass-time, even Proton, which was odd enough. The youngest executive had never seemed to have a problem with Petrel's recreational activities when he was in on it, and when he was in on it, it usually involved potions of some sort. But then there had been that fight they'd had, back when so many members had been leaving, Proton's own lieutenant among them, and Petrel had been starting to get into one of his many downward spirals of despair- really, it was one of the only things that helped. He always felt better after a couple pot brownies. But Proton, upon finding him higher than a drifloon, had cursed and yelled at him, and the entire thing had just devolved until he'd gotten on the wrong side of his sweeheart's rather powerful backhand (in his own defense, he'd been so fucking high his filter was just gone and all of the wrong words were tumbling out of his mouth), prompting him to make one of his many empty promises that he would stop. Really, all it had accomplished was making him more secretive of his hobby.
Either way, he was running low on brownies, and he needed to make more, soon. Possibly poffins. He'd always wondered what poffins tasted like. But for now, brownies- he had about four or five left, which would definitely be enough for the day. Ignoring Nyx's now-disapproving stare, he plucked one out of his brownie tin and popped it into his mouth. It occurred to him, as he attempted to chew the brownie into swallowable-sized chunks, that it would have been a good idea to throw the brownies into a microwave for a few seconds before he began eating them, so they were gooey and warm, but alas, he'd already started eating them- he was now feeling way too lazy to actually get up. His chair was so comfy.
Petrel wasn't exactly sure when Bernard barged into the office like he owned the place- all he knew was that, by the time his lieutenant had, he'd managed to finish off the last of his brownies and was so, so fucking hungry. Seriously, he was starting to consider trying to eat Helix. Bernard, on the other hand, did not look hungry in the least, and the man frowned and slowly glanced around the room before his eyes settled on the snack tin.
"Petrel," he said after a moment, "you're not doing what I think you're doing, are you?"
"Dude," Petrel replied, grinning, "people are doing shit you don't even know about. Me included. So there. Hey, can you do me a favor?"
"Sure." Bernard strode over and grabbed Petrel by the wrist- why did he have to do that? Heh, he was such a weirdo.
"Can you go out and get me food?"
"Yeah, you're high." Bernard let out a hiss of air not unlike that of a deflating balloon's, which Petrel found exceedingly humorous, and let the purple executive's wrist drop. "You know you can't keep doing this, Petrel, your rate is low enough normally. This is bad for you."
"Dude, you gotta chill." Petrel pouted. "If you keep stressin' out, man, you'll have a rough time."
"I'm not doing anything for you while you're high." The purple executive whined and gave his lieutenant the most pathetic look he could muster.
"But Bernaarrrrddd," he replied, "I'm hungry..."
"I said no. You want food, get it yourself. Of course, if last time was any indication, you'd just get yourself in trouble with MPD, again."
"Dude, you don't gotta worry about undercover cops. If you ask a cop if he's a cop, he's gotta tell you."
"'Why yes, I am an undercover cop, good guess', said no undercover cop ever."
"Heyyyy, fuck you, man. Hey, you want a brownie? I think I have some left." Bernard watched on as Petrel dug in his desk for his brownie tin, a look as intense and concentrated as someone completely high could manage plastered onto his face. After a few minutes of searching with no success, Petrel let out a sound of disappointment and sat back up, scratching the back of his head sheepishly. "I could have sworn it was here..."
"You ate them all," Bernard pointed out dryly. "The tin's on your desk. Empty, I would wager." Petrel frowned and glanced between Bernard and the tin on his desk before silently opening said tin and peering inside. Upon finding no pot brownies, his frown deepened, and he turned it over and shook it as if that would magically make more brownies fall out.
"They're all gone!" he whined. "Dammit, I'm hungry..." With a forlorn sigh, he placed the tin back on his desk and replaced the lid. "Now what am I gonna do...?"
"Well, while you're pondering your pot brownie conundrum, there, could you go ahead and tell me what the new password to the generator room? I have to give the electrode their checkups and it seems I never got the memo about the password change."
"Huh?" Petrel glanced up briefly from his tin and gave Bernard a lazy grin. "Oh, hey, Bernard! Yeah, yeah, generator room, yeah. Nah, dude, I did that, like, two hours ago. It's 'Hail Giovanni'."
"You're starting to sound like Archer," Bernard snorted. "Thanks. I'll be back when I get them all looked after."
"Aww, nah, man, you're not gonna try and go in, are you?"
"...What did you do?"
"It's voice locked, man! It'll only open for me!" Petrel's grin broadened as Bernard stared at him incredulously.
"You what?" his lieutenant asked. "That's a terrible idea!"
"Nah!" Petrel disagreed. "The E knows we're here, right? Well now they won't be able to get in! It's a great idea!"
"Okay, yes, but now I'm not able to get in," came the exasperated reply. Petrel narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
"Are you with the E?" he asked. Bernard face-palmed.
"If I get you food will you get me into the generator room?" he asked after a moment in which they were both completely silent.
"Now that you mention it, I am kinda hungry... I wonder if I have any brownies left..." Bernard watched on once more as Petrel began to dig in his desk again.
"I'll be back in thirty minutes, Petrel," his lieutenant sighed, "try not to get yourself in any trouble, alright?"
"Huh? What'd you-?" By the time Petrel glanced back up, Bernard was already long gone, and he stroked his goatee idly for a second before turning to Helix, who was still snoozing. "...I wonder if ditto are poisonous... Hey... hey, Helix..." Without any regard for his poor pink blob of goo's sleep schedule, he began poking at his gelatinous body, giggling slightly to himself as it jiggled. "Hey. Hey. Hey, Helix. Hey, wake up. You jiggle, man." When his ditto merely woke up, gave him the evil eye, and went to go try and sleep somewhere else, Petrel shrugged, and slowly glanced around the room. He was starting to get bored. Maybe there was something he could do to keep himself busy.
With a grunt, he pushed himself up from his chair and began searching the room for anything he could find to keep himself occupied- his father had always said that an idle mind was a hpyno's playground, and Petrel was in no way keen on allowing a hypno into his mind. He'd heard stories about hypno, after all, and they were downright creepy, if not prone to inducing bed-wetting nightmares in young, sensitive, purple-haired teens whose ditto was not available for snuggles because it caught a cold and was in the base's pokemon center. Not that he would ever admit the fact, of course. His father had also said being scared of pokemon was for pansies, and so Petrel made a point of not being scared of any pokemon he came across. Except, of course, joltik and galvantula, but those would kill you as soon as look as look you, and so he figured he had a pretty good excuse for being scared of them.
After a good ten minutes scrounging the office, Petrel eventually managed to come across a worn trench coat, one of their boss's old fedoras that Archer kept lying around for Mew knew what reason (Ho-Oh knew what reason, he had to correct himself- this whole conversion thing was really starting to mess with his head), and Ariana's spare make-up. It wasn't much, at all, but it would definitely do, and so toting all of it along with him, the purple executive went to go sit in his chair and begin work on his disguise. Maybe if he did a good enough job, he could convinced Archer that Giovanni was back, and then they could just go back to doing what they used to do. Then everything would be okay, and Archer and Ariana would be proud of him. His father, too, if he ever actually found out what happened to the man (he tried not to think about it too much, it tended to just depress him)- and possibly his brother, though he was less interested in Viper's wellbeing. Viper could drown in a whirlpool for all he cared.
When the alarms had started going off, he hadn't even given them a second thought. Proton liked to have them tested once or twice a month, just to be safe, and so Petrel had been convinced that Seliber had been the once in charge of handling that while the green-haired executive was away. He just continued working on his disguise, trying to get his pitch and speech patterns just right, and ignored the flashing red light by the door and loud sound piercing through the haze swirling around inside of his head. Not much later, they stopped, and Petrel didn't pay that much mind, either- he supposed it was a shorter test than usual. Seliber was really good at that. Of course, the loud noises had woken Helix, who was grumpy as a ditto could be.
"Hey, hey, Helix," Petrel said soothingly, "why don't you transform into something to get your mind off it?"
"Dit," Helix squeaked in frustration.
"Aw, c'mon, you need practice, man," Petrel replied. "Transform into Twitch. Go on." Helix huffed a ditto-y huff and transformed into a small zubat, flittering up to perch on Petrel's desk.
"Good job!" the purple executive praised. "That was quick, man. Hey, whatcha think of my disguise, huh?" Helix was never able to reply. At that very moment, the door opened, and a determined looking kid with a red jacket and a black-and-gold hat ran in, a girafarig with a sparkling coat following along behind him.
"Hey!" the kid called, "you're the one in charge here, right?"
"Dude!" Petrel laughed, "how the fuck did you get in? Uh- wait- I- I mean- Muhahaha, we've been waiting for you. So, you are- uh…. Wait. What's your name, again?" The boy blinked at him, appearing to be taken by surprise.
"Uhh... Gold?" he replied hesitantly. "I'm here to, y'know, stop you and stuff?" Petrel laughed.
"That's great!" he replied. "Good on you, kid. Look at you, tryin' to be all grown up and fighting bad guys."
"...You are with Team Rocket, aren't you?" Gold fidgeted awkwardly, though Petrel didn't pay that much attention.
"Me? You don't know who I am? It is me, Giovanni. The majestic Giovanni himself!" he replied before launching into a stream of giggles.
"Yeeeaaaahhh," Gold said, "no. Sorry, no. No, you're not. You're nothing like him. I've seen videos."
"…Huh?" Petrel's face fell. "I don't sound anything like Giovanni? I don't even look like Giovanni? How come? I've worked so hard to mimic him!"
"Maybe this just isn't your thing," Gold suggested. "So... we gonna battle, or what? Because if I can skip you, I think I should be in good enough shape to clean out the rest of the building. Just saying."
"No! No, you can't skip me!" Petrel scowled as he stood and removed his disguise. "I am a Team Rocket Executive! I shall not be skipped- I'm more important than that! I have pride, you know! My dad- my dad was always saying, y'know, 'Lambda, you gotta give everything to the team', so I did, I gave the team fucking everything, and I didn't do it just to have some snot-nosed brat skip me!" Gold threw his hands up placatingly.
"Whoa, there, easy," he said. "If you're gonna fight me, I'll fight, I was just saying-"
"You must be trying to sneak into the radio-transmitter room," Petrelo cut him off. "Well, that's not going to happen. That room is protected with a special password. The password is 'Hail Giovanni'."
"Okay, you have got to be the worst bad guy ever. You just told me you weren't gonna let me get inside. And, anyways, I'm just looking for the generator room... With all the electrode? Yeah. That place." Petrel continued on as if he couldn't hear him.
"Surprised to hear it from me? Knowing the password won't help you though. The door won't open unless I say the password. It only reacts to my voice! Helix, go! Use- uh- use whatever you feel like, man!" Helix stared at Petrel for a moment, tilting his currently-bat-head in confusion. "Uh... Confuse Ray? Maybe?" The ditto wing-shrugged and took to the air.
"A zubat, huh? Poor li'l guy," Gold sighed. "Alright, Houdini! Get in there and give it a Psybeam!" The girafarig reared up on its hind legs for a momentand then came crashing down, charging forward as it unleashed a psybeam of epic proportions that Helix barely managed to avoid. The ditto-turned-zubat retaliated with Astonish, trying to fly around fast enough to take the girafarig by surprise, but said girafarig simply countered with Agility, matching Helix's speed.
"Shit!" Petrel laughed. "You're good! This- wow, this won't go well! Hey! Hey, Helix! Transform into Monoxide! Nothing bad could possibly happen!" Helix turned to give him an incredulous look (or what he assumed passed for incredulous on a zubat), but when he didn't change his order, the poor ditto sighed and transformed, trusting that his Master, as high as he was, would be able to realized the mistake he was making.
"From one poison-type to another, huh?" Gold laughed. "Yeah, definitely the worst bad guy ever. Houdini, Psybeam again!"
"Kirin!" Houdini hoofed at the ground before lowering its head and unleashing another Psybeam.
"Assurance, now!" Petrel called. Helix moved as quickly as a koffing body would allow him, getting partially hit by the psychic attack in the process, but holding on just long enough to deliver the dark-type attack to the poor girafarig, who apparently had already been relatively low on health; the strength of the attack made the poor thing faint, which was a shame, because Petrel had loved looking at it sparkle. Sparkly things were fun.
"Damn," Gold muttered. "Oh, well... good job, Houdini, you need some rest. Alright- Pyros, let's do this!" He recalled his girafarig and instead sent out a quilava, who lowered its head and let out a puff of smoke. "Start things off with a Flame Wheel!" The quilava leaped into the air, front-flipping as it engulfed itself in flames. Petrel frowned.
"Helix, man, time to be in the top ten percentage, 'kay?" he said. Just before the Flame Wheel landed, Helix dropped to the floor, now covered in tan fur with a long tail, baring his fangs and hissing. The now-raticate lunged as the quilava dropped back to the floor,lashing out with Crunch, and the poor fire-type writhed as teeth broke the skin.
"Ah, no! Pyros, quick, use Swift! Get it off of you!" The quilava obeyed, scraping its teeth through its own fur to generate some static before spitting the star-shaped energy at Helix. Seeing as their proximities were rather close, the ditto-turned-raticate couldn't avoid it, and took the full brunt of the attack.
"Wow. Strong. I'll give you that, kid," Petrel mused. Gold grinned.
"Thanks," he replied. "Sorry, but I think I gotta end this, now- Pyros, come back!" The quilava leaped around Helix, returning to Gold's side, before the boy let loose a hitmontop. "Bruce, use Rolling Kick before it can get you!"
"Helix!" Petrel called, "Scary Face, then use Hyper Fang!" The hitmontop slowed at Helix glared at it, but beyond that wasn't swayed- it launched itself straight towards Helix, and the poor ditto attempted to retreat, but to no avail. The attack, being super-effective, fainted Helix with one hit- the chunk of health the poor ditto had lost against the previous two pokemon probably helped with that, as well. Petrel just stared as his ditto slumped down into a puddle on the floor.
"Yeah!" Gold cheered. "I did it! I beat an executive! Just wait 'till Kris hears about this! Now, you're coming with me- you're gonna let me into the generator room, got it?"
"How... could I lose...?" Petrel murmured. "You're a kid. I've been training my whole life to keep this position, and... I... I couldn't do anything... Giovanni, forgive me... After all the faith you put in me, I... I failed you..."
"...You're not gonna cry, are you?" Gold asked after a moment, grimacing.
"...Since disbanding Team Rocket three years ago, our Giovanni has been missing. But we're certain he's been waiting for the right time for our revival...," Petrel murmured. He recalled Helix quietly. This was a problem. Even in his state, he knew losing to some kid off the streets was a bad thing. The police would know where they were within the next couple hours. He had to get the team out and on their way to Goldenrod, or all of their hard work would end there. "...Losing to you won't change the fact that you are unable to get in the radio-transmitter room! You need my voice to unlock it!"
"Can't you just come unlock it?" Gold asked, exasperated. "Look, I beat you and everything. Just give in and let me into the transmitter room."
"Fuck that!" Petrel snapped. "Have fun trying to break in, you little bastard!" Without another word to the boy, he pulled the walkie-talkie off his belt and pressed the transmit button. "Bernard- Bernard are you there? Seliber? Anyone?" Static crackled as his only reply until, a few seconds later, someone picked up.
"I'm sorry, sir," came Bernard's voice, "I couldn't beat him."
"It's alright," Petrel replied, "me, either. Get everyone evacuated, I'm going on ahead. I'll rondevous with Proton and see where we're heading."
"Yes, sir. I'll have your food for you when we meet up."
"Food?" Petrel blinked. "What food? Did I send you to go get food?" Bernard didn't say anything after that, and Petrel sighed. He didn't remember sending Bernard to get him food, much like he didn't remember eating his pot brownies- but he must have, because he was positive the room wasn't supposed to be that slanted. He was surprised he actually noticed, of course- maybe he was finally sobering up. The Gold kid tried to say something else, but Petrel ignored him and ran for the door. He was almost there when he ran into something distinctly solid and fell to the floor. Rubbing his face, he scowled up, first at the wall, then at Gold, before pushing himself to his feet, double-checking he had all of his pokemon, and bolting. Gold watched him go, a frown taking residence on his face.
"Just my luck," the boy sighed, "now we'll never get in. C'mon, Pyros, let's see if there's another way in. Bruce, return!" He was almost out the door, hitmontop securely in its pokeball and quilava at this side when he heard it.
"Hail Giovanni!" came Petrel's unmistakable voice. Gold whipped around, eyes narrowing in suspicion. "Hail Giovanni!" The voice was coming from far off to the side, and he turned slowly to make sure he didn't miss anything- he was glad he did, too, because the murkrow perched near the bookshelves was definitely his ticket into that generator room. Lance was going to be so proud of him. That would show Silver he wasn't weak!
"Hey, there," he cooed at the bird, "you mind coming with us for just a second?"
"Hail Giovanni!" the murkrow replied. Gold held his arm in front of the little bird, and it hopped onto him to hitch a ride.
"Alright, pretty girl," he said, "let's do this."
Things weren't looking relatively good for Team Rocket, though they were for Gold. Maybe he would achieve the same sort of status his idol, Red, had. That, certainly, would be a dream come true.
Heyyyy, guyyyysssss! I'm sorry for the wait and for the lack of real content in this chapter, but Mahogany had to be done before I could move everything back to Goldenrod. Ah, well. Hooray for continuity.
So, I know we're still a couple chapters away from finishing, but I'm already starting to think about what I want to work on next, and I'm interested in what you guys would be interested in. I've set up a poll on my profile if you wanna check that out. There's no guarantee that what has the highest score would be the next thing I write, but like I said, I kinda wanna know what you guys would like. Maybe I'll be able to find some inspiration from it or something, I dunno. O3o
Also I hope Petrel came across alright in this chapter. I have zero percent experience with people that are high/being high, so I really had no idea what I was doing. .-. Meh. Happy May, errybody. Special thanks to PurpleArmadillo for naming Nyx!