A point of data can mean a lot of things.
It all depends on context.
A hundred years in the future this particular data point which Giovanni stared at could've been a grave marker.
A few years in the past it was an inevitability, a threshold; a point of no return.
Right now however, what it meant was literal, and what it meant was that the civilized world would have one less Pokémon among its society in the future. Unfortunately, not many would notice until it would be too late.
"Our Pokécenters have done their best with the protocols we introduced to them nine years ago, however today another species has gone dark in the known wild. As usual. All remaining examples of this species are under domestication and displaced in the urban environments. Expected life expectancy from here on in: five, maybe ten years at best with their deteriorating cells."
Noivern. A flying bat that had mutated traits that turned into a hybrid dragon. Gone extinct. The gravestone Giovanni had made in his mind read this in terms of how long the species lived:
October 27th, 1962 – March 10th, 2325
Many more would follow, even if Dreamstone got back. Science and research was a path to the future, a path they had to tread no matter how long it would take.
The situation room had gone silent however, Archer presumably handling the operation well enough Giovanni's inside woman not saying anything. Of course her directive was not actually keeping tabs on the operation, but rather keeping tabs on Archer's development on a leader.
Giovanni forgot this detail amid the reports he got in about the next dead species and the UNG and its Army breathing down his neck with claims of Nazis in the Amazon.
Blaine had been explaining the event like an obituary in his office. If it seemed dull, it was only because he had done this a few hundred times in his long life. The radiation he had worked in on a day to day basis because of Pokémon and R Industries had made him a frail man as well.
He knew he wouldn't live much longer than Project Rebirth, but that was for the best. He wasn't fond of his mind wandering in idleness. He was an old man of course so he was losing his mind anyway, however he felt that he could help the world at least one more time before burning up like the embers he was defined by.
"Noivern have been out of the loop regarding the ecosystem in Kalos and Ireland for quite a while now, so their impact on the system is slim, however species native to Kalos have been slimmed down to only 22%. This makes them on track to be the first dead region, if not counting Orre." Blaine read the report to Giovanni, both with glasses of bourbon in their hands, the golden liquid the only color in the room, fitting the atmosphere of business and decay.
"They along with the Zubat line had made the installation of the wind farms out in Sinnoh rather difficult a few hundred years ago, didn't they? Something about how the sound frequency the turbines made driving them nuts?" Giovanni recalled, his upper lip flared momentarily, disgusted.
"Just one of the few Pokémon cullings our race has done by accident." Blaine verified.
The rest of it had been on purpose, intentional. The Crisis was gauged in kill quotas, attacking specific species every week kept the roulette rolling and the Pokémon guessing, as per their progressing intelligence.
The surviving military minds that had lived through the Third World War and the subsequent skirmishes between survivors had all been bound into the UNG as the Pokémon threat rose. They had the mistake of fighting Pokémon as if they were human, the weapons that had been meant for human kind falling short for the more interesting Pokémon mono e mono.
One of the hows that the commanders of the UNGA did get right in due time, about twelve years into the Pokémon Crisis, was the constant shift of high value targets against the Pokémon masses in and around the surviving borders that the UNG inherited.
It kept the clans and bands of species guessing, more concerned about themselves than Pokémon kind as a whole, victim to strategies of divide and conquer.
Pokémon did go to war, they were smart enough to put up offensives and bind together despite their differences. However humanity had learned the same the hard way. The unity of mankind came as an afterthought, after only blasting themselves away.
If the Crisis had gone on this long, it would've ended within the next few decades though.
Pokémon were cancer. Literal cancer on top of the animals they once were. Everything they were, they were impure cells on top of the original structure, subject to the fate of all cells, if not in the way that nature designed to fight cancer: death.
It had been a long time enough since the Third World War, long enough that the radiation has long since been ruled out as a factor in many places of the world where Pokémon persist. The well had gone dry, and those that had drank from it were dying out, one by one.
It didn't help that the UNGA and the Reformer Military hadn't been big on preservation. The entire ideal behind the Reformer movement was that of anti-Pokémon sentiment made when Pokémon started to calm down under the relative peace brought by the first trainers.
The UNGA hadn't been any better, if not a little more reserved and conservative in their reasoning. All of the Pokémon killing now a days had been circumstantial, done in self-defense or in the name of ecological preservation. That being said, Mikita's own squad had been noted as to gunning down Geodude when they never moved in a convoy among other things.
Giovanni hadn't approved of what Mikita did in that sewer as well, but he approved how steadfast he was in his reasoning and how he actually survived. The business man had liked to take aspects of people he saw as beneficial to him and take on those aspects himself. However if Mikita had known how Giovanni would do that in regards to him it would be just disrespectful.
All the man did was buy a UNGA issue handgun and sight it up once and a while, ever since Mikita had left for Guyana on that long range seaplane piloted by one his men.
It wasn't the gun that made the soldier; that Giovanni had failed to realize, long since having become used to having a thousand people work under him toward his goals.
Naturally, the businessman solution toward his ultimate goal, as Giovanni had thought, was to either get new patrons or make a new well under his control.
He dabbled a little in both, but he had been chiefly pursuing the first option. To refill the well that was radiation he would have to pull the impossible feat of getting any radioactive material that hadn't been reserved for the UNG power plants or the nuclear weapon stockpiles. It was easier to play God then it was to attain the fires of Apollo.
"Next in line is the Espeon species and the Ludicolo. If the schedule remains at the current rate these two will be the last to go dark before Subject Zero can be brought into containment and stability. If our preliminary data can be supplemented with actually getting Dreamstone back intact we'll be able to put out special drugs and treatments that should hasten the cell degradation throughout for at least one or two years." Blaine dragged on, tired, the nights they always met under not doing well for his sleeping schedule.
All that blue from the city had shone through Giovanni's windows to bounce off the black of his office as usual.
Giovanni, after a moment of contemplation and a hearty shot back of alcohol, had spoken. It was never easy taking on and holding the information of a dead species alone.
"Well, if the preliminary reports we got from James was correct, we can remarket these as the Megastones that fell out of fashion when the Megafication stopped happening. Actually make them widespread instead of selective trinkets that only the Professors and the Gym Leaders were allowed usage of, now that they have a new purpose. That should definitely hasten the degradation."
"We have to be careful with that of course, the Hoenn Orbs were actually Megastone material, and we both know how that ended up. God knows that those three orbs are actually under UNGA control now, seeing as Groudon and Rayquaza have not been in the question ever since." Blaine said sourly.
Silence had persisted between the two, all the prep down around Dreamstone and its cargo done. All they could do was wait and quietly mourn the dead, sit in their leather chairs in their offices and sip away their worries, remembering history, remembering that it always repeated.
"If a Megastone was able to do that to the Hoeannic gods, just think what the prolonged exposure has done to the petrified remains in Dreamstone. It's probably the purest Pokémon to be in there."
Giovanni chuckled, nervously, but knowingly. What was pure in relation to mutations? Was he really saving a species or just creating a new one in the dead one's place?
Saving a species is not the same as creating the perfect example of one. For all that Giovanni preached about the future he was to give Pokémon, he might've paired up with Major General Karabin. Enough of the objectives were the same, enough of the paths would be crossed, the same people would be pissed off if they were ever discovered.
The only real thing separating them was what they were: civilian and military man.
Giovanni would never associate himself with a Nazi however.
"You know, your silence on the matter isn't exactly making Mr. Silph all that pleased regarding the fact you still answer to him. The economy isn't exactly appreciating the events in Guyana as well. You can't kick up military and civilian relations and not have the resulting wave of distrust spread out. On top of that you have implication of Nazis meddling in the course of the UNG and the markets are the last thing you want to worry about."
"I don't want to deal with it Blaine. All that matters is what happens when Mikita gets back. And as far as I know the situation is well within Archer's hands."
Blaine grunted in disagreement, eyes hidden behind his round spectacles.
The world never revolves around one person. A world might change because of the actions of one man, whether it be intentional or not, however the world doesn't, and has never, bent to the will of a single soul. No matter how big their plans, and how successful those plans turn out, the rules of nature are not above man or Pokémon.
Giovanni had a hard time believing that of course, with his plans. Every god has his puppets, and servitude does not come from dead servants.
"I have to insist on at least stepping back on some of these accusals. Even if you lie you can at least make the public feel safe with the UNGA again. The UNGA isn't our enemy as so much natural evolution is."
"I have no enemies Blaine, just allies that need to see my way of thinking. Problem is I can't show them just yet. I'm not as much a business theory man as I am a business doing one, and being that kind of person I don't lie to people."
"Be sure you're thinking about that as the UNG continues to lose millions per day as businesses start to roll back overseas and people start throwing rocks at the Army Barracks in Vermillion. The last time we had civil unrest on the scale that we're building up, Tokyo was blown to Hell." Blaine responded snidely. He and he alone had that right to talk to Giovanni as he did, asides from his son, who he still hadn't hammered his expected behavior across to.
The old scientist did have a point however. A United Nations Government was nothing without the civility of its people in that damned world they lived in now, and the people knew that. They knew they were all survivors from a war their fore fathers waged and made them pay for, that self-consciousness was a distinct undertone. That is when it wasn't undermined by any larger moral responsibilities like religion or the worth of life.
When people get uncivilized over such moral ambiguities, in the case of two hundred years ago, Tokyo gets blown up in a Holy street war.
This would be unfortunate to Giovanni, mostly because Silph had an investment in the still continuing rebuilding and renovating of the old capital, but also because he would be to blame for it at the end of it all.
"The burden of truth is on the military Blaine. I'll stand firm."
Blaine sighed heavily, hand budging his glasses as he touched his face in contemplation. "As you always have been."
A/N: Short chapter, felt kinda funky writing seeing as I've been writing Giovanni and Blaine sitting down in the story ever since it began, but I promise, Giovanni will stand up one of these days and threw Archer out of a window.
Also in that long lull of updates, or lack thereof, I'm writing a few chapters ahead to get some sort of regular update schedule again like I did when I first started out.
I'm also working on a few other projects, some stories, some not, but I'm busy and enjoying my vacation as well. You want more chapters, really kick my butt with a review to get me rolling.
Also, retcon here for convenience: Mikita was born on December 20th. That's for another story that I'll include Mikita in; an Amourshipping story actually.
Anyway, next two chapters will be Mikita and Apollo based mostly, then I'll talk about Nazis and that suspiciously familiar Sergeant Trainer. After that, or around after that, end of this act and back to jungle trudging and me being a bit more creative in the nature-Pokemon-Man interactions.
Apologies about the long wait anyway for such a short chapter, I've got another one that's ready for posting, but I'll keep it in for now.
