Author's note: once again guys, I'm accepting OCs for this story! Enter one if you want to see your character be in this story! Otherwise it'll just be more work for me later... ANYWAY, bi-weekly is going well for your schedules I hope because its working fine for mine. I'm a little behind where I wanted to write up to at this point, but that's why I changed the posting schedule! Enjoy chapter 38, blahblahblah, give me an original character so I can use him, blahblahblah, keep reading, tell your friends about it, spam the link to this story on every forum you go to, etc. etc. lol
Chapter 38 Suspicious Activities
They wandered about the abandoned base endlessly searching for some form of information they could use against Rocket. Every room they searched was completely void of anything useful, papers from the Mewtwo incident, broken pokeballs lying around, old computers whose memories were wiped completely clean, everything was useless. Bill decided to go down a few more floors ahead of Roy, who was still inspecting every nook and cranny of one of the main offices that had a few filing cabinets in it.
"Huh, it's mostly just resumes and reports about a lot of the Rocket Members that worked here and their job descriptions. You think there's anything in here we might find interesting?"
"Hmm, possibly. You should check just to make sure. We could see if we can interrogate them later or something… Don't choose the janitor to keep! How about this guy?"
Torchie points down at a random paper with a Rocket Grunt wearing glasses with short black hair on it. Under the job description was a mass of scribbles that one couldn't possibly pass off as words. A rough translation comes out to be something to the extent of "squad leader, in - ture devices. Wor - Silp - 3 years. Manuf-d 'Sn - lls', to use - erations."
"If I could guess he was in charge of making the Snag balls that the Rockets use now. But they didn't need to use them for the Mewtwo project, they only cloned Mew from it."
"It's possible this was abandoned after the new plans were made."
"Yeah but from what's going on now, it must've been in the very early stages at that point… Hey, it says here he lives in Saffron, we could go see him if he's still around."
"Let's go find Bill and see what he thinks of it."
"Let's look through a few more of these first instead."
Bill and his Ninetales explored the bowels of the base, hoping to find the leader's office or something resembling it, where all the top secret information would be hidden. Each room after another looked the same, empty save a table with a broken item of some sort on it. Floor five, six, seven, all looking exactly the same, there was only one more floor left he hadn't checked, and he expected the same result.
He walked down the flight of stairs leading to the eighth floor and was surprised at what he saw, the lights were on and in perfect working condition. It was strange how the rest of the compound would be entirely empty while this one floor was in perfect working condition. He entered the first room to his right using Koga's Card Key to see another lit room, the table in the middle recently dusted off, with berry planters scattered about the room, each with different plants growing in the pots. He entered another room separate from that one and found a security control room with several working screens each playing city news stations. Celadon, Fuchsia, Cerulean, Pewter, and even some from Johto such as Goldenrod and Cherrygrove were on the screens.
"What do you think of this Darling?"
"I would have to say someone's living here. Isn't that obvious?"
"No, well, yeah, but I meant who could be here for three years and not be detected at all?"
"Probably someone with the right pokemon to keep themselves alive for all this time. Electric pokemon to work the lights, Water pokemon for obvious reasons, the berry pots for sustenance, Fire pokemon for heat, maybe even a Psychic-type so he can come and go using teleport as he pleases."
"Well, either way it's extremely odd. If they're here now there's no telling what they'll do to me."
"Come now Billy, I'll fend off the big bad guys for you." The two entered a third room where there were living spaces for several people and their pokemon, or just one person and their pokemon, or a lot of pokemon. Either way there were several beds, all rustled and untidy as if someone had just awoken from their nap moments ago. Under one of the beds was a small dresser, fit with a few shirts, many changes of socks and male underwear, and a few pairs of jeans and sweatpants. Nothing else of real importance inhabited the room.
The two retreated back into the hallway and proceeded down until a door met them at the dead end. Bill pulled out the Card Key once more and touched it to the sensor. Access Denied. He touched it again. Access Denied. He tried a third time. Access Denied. "What the hell? Koga said this would get in most doors!"
"Maybe it's a level seven clearance? Only Giovanni's card could probably get in there."
Bill knocked on the door lightly, and as femininely as possible in his high pitched tone said, "Helloooo~! Is anybody hooome~!"
"Hold on just a minute." The voice from the other side startled both Bill and Ninetales, he obviously didn't expect an answer. The door slowly slid open, a boy of about 17 with red hair down to his shoulders behind it.
"I don't normally get visitors down here."
The planning stages continued within the home of Jacob and his family for their Saffron defensive, as well as training of their chosen pokemon. It wouldn't be long before Len's Houndour would evolve, and it would take much more time for Exploud to take a command from Jacob.
"Maybe you should choose someone else to bring bro."
"I don't want to risk losing Alexandra, and Lairon isn't used to being trained yet either." He looks over to his other pokemon about the yard, where his Lairon, acquired from Team Rocket's base, was slowly molding into a member of the team. Alexandra happily flew around it as it shied away from all other contact. Snorlax, who offered some berries, couldn't bring the Steel-type out of its shell. Ivysaur couldn't do much either as the only company it preferred was that of the naïve little Togetic.
"That's as much as it'll interact. Then again it wouldn't have a choice with Togetic's outgoing nature." Jacob and Heidi stood in the backyard watching over their pokemon prepare themselves as well.
"You scared bro?"
"Kinda. We gotta be strong, remember?" He smiles down at his partner, patting her head lightly. "We'll be fine, they're no match for us, right!?"
"Right! But, what about Jessie and James? They're supposed to be the strongest…"
"So were Butch and Cassidy but two trainers got them!"
"Yeah, you're right. We got em!" The Lairon was playing around with the Togetic now, a smile coming to its face as it jumps up and down with its new friend.
"Yo John, how is the smart-guy stuff coming along?" He walks over to the computer where John is sitting at, printing out floor plans of the SilphCo. building, his Shedinja floating next to him.
"It's coming along. Trying to find information on this Antonio Fabiano guy is pretty tough too. Apparently he's the head of miscellaneous machine development. What are the machines though? It's all kinda fishy to me."
"You think SilphCo. is making weird stuff too?"
"Well it could be stuff like Pokedexes or improving on Devon Corp.'s Pokenavs."
"Meh, whatever it is it's piqued the Rockets' interest, maybe we should do a bit of investigating too?"
"Well what could SilphCo. possibly be doing that's potentially illegal on a scale equal to the Rockets? If they were doing that then Team Rocket could just ask, not have to go through an entire operation."
"Or maybe…" John goes to work on another monitor, opening a new internet window searching 'SilphCo. Sales Report.' He opens the most recent result and scrolls down to the 'Totals'. "They spent 1.3 Billion pokeyen in the whole year." He scrolls to the 'Misc. Machine Dev.' "This part of the company spent 400million pokeyen alone, which is more than the pokeball manufacturing and item production combined. What could they possibly be doing that they would need to spend so much money?"
"I don't know, but maybe the Rockets want to capture him for reasons other than heading the 'Gene Splicer' machine project."
"To interrogate him maybe?"
"These are ridiculous conclusions to jump to though, but when you see the facts it does make sense."
"You think SilphCo. is doing some extra work on the side?"
"Like what? Putting up a front for another criminal organization? Who? Team Magma?" Len laughs aloud at his joke but he knows that's it's entirely possible.
"Or maybe SilphCo. is making something to combat the Rockets?"
"You mean their own ultimate pokemon?"
"Well the president is paranoid enough. Last time Rocket showed up he was held hostage."
"We will get to the bottom of this, but for now, let's just make our mission to find this man and make him answer questions, before Team Rocket does."
The two remove themselves from the room to let Jacob and Heidi know about their findings.