"We need money. And lots of it. The way I see it, there's two ways we could go about getting some. Both of them have drawbacks of some sort, though."
Chitin buzzes softly, chewing on a berry. "What are your ideas?"
I turn to Guise. "You said that trainers earn money by wagering on battles?" He nods. "Do you foresee any problems with just battling our way to get the money we need?"
He lounges backwards, gazing pensively at his meal for a moment. "Well, even assuming that we win every battle, almost every trainer I've seen uses electronic transfers to handle prize money. You might not be able to find people that carry enough cash on them to be worth your while. You might be able to get some pocket change, but nothing serious."
Damn - that's the easiest option gone, then. I doubt that someone without papers would be able to set up a bank account - and that's even discounting the fact that I'd need a presumably expensive phone to even make use of it.
I sigh. "The other option is vigilantism. I don't know how the criminal underworld works in this world, but appropriating funds from gangs was a fairly lucrative - if dangerous - way to make money for an independent back in my world."
Guise cocks his head, a puzzled expression on his face. "...Gangs? You mean, like, Team Plasma? Why would they have money for us to steal?"
"'Team Plasma'? What do they do? If they're drug dealers, they'd have cash laying around from their sales - leaves less of a paper trail to be tracked by the authorities."
He shakes his head. Chitin is looking back and forth between us, an interested expression on her face. "No- Team Plasma steal Pokemon from trainers. I dunno what they do with them, though. I heard they broke up once, but they're back again apparently."
Stealing Pokemon - maybe something equivalent to a Carjacking ring, then? Except with Pokemon, so maybe more like human trafficking. Yeah - human traffickers is probably a reasonable equivalence.
...I need to do research. Get an idea of the lay of the land before I jump into the underworld.
Chitin speaks up. "What are the drawbacks you are thinking about for each?"
"Well, I don't know how lucrative Pokemon Battling is, but I doubt it'll earn me enough to buy everything I need anytime soon. Even that aside, I don't know what most of being a trainer entails - it seems to me a quick way to out myself by bumbling about like a fool. As for vigilantism, well, depending on what laws this world has, it has the potential to put us on the wrong side of the law. Beside that, we'd be risking death-by-gangster every time we raid a storehouse."
Guise leans forward, an uncertain expression crossing his face. "Neither option is particularly appealing to you, then. Are you sure there aren't any others?"
I shake my head. "My lack of an identity is really limiting my choices. I'm planning on doing research before I make any moves - maybe we'll think of something while we're doing that?" I stand up. "Before we do that, though, I need a wash. I can't exactly go to a library smelling as I am now."
A dip in a nearby river later, and I'm far more presentable. I had Chitin scare off the fish Pokemon living in the river before I even dipped a toe inside. Guise says he can still smell something on me, but this is the best I can do for now. I also give my costume a quick hand washing in the shallows. Wearing the wet costume isn't pleasant, but ten minutes of sunbaking on a nearby rock has me merely damp rather than soaked.
It's mid-morning by the time we make it back to the gate. Chitin is inside her ball, and Guise gives the both of us fresh disguises. We look fairly similar to the previous disguises - Guise is still a dark-skinned man with a prominent nose, and I'm still a tall woman, but the differences are enough that nobody would mistake us for the same people.
We enter the gatehouse once more. The guard ignores us, and so do the other people who are passing through. Around halfway to the other side, Guise calls out to me. "Kelly - look at this!"
He's facing the TV mounted on the wall. Showing on the screen is a news broadcast. There are big, bold letters across the bottom with the headline 'Reports of TEAM ROCKET Presence in Castelia City?'.
Team Rocket? Another gang - like Team Plasma? The TV's sound is fairly quiet, but I don't have too much trouble making out what the presenters are saying.
"-with us today is an expert on the topic, Doctor Benz." The screen splits, the expert and the reporter each taking up half of the screen. "Now Doctor, assuming that these reports are true, why would Team Rocket resurface now? And why here in Unova of all places? Last they were seen was almost five years ago when they were operating in the Kanto and Johto regions."
The pundit gives the camera a genial smile. "Well, Mary - we can only speculate. But, I've got a reasonably strong working theory as of a few nights ago when these reports originally surfaced. As you all should know, not twelve months ago we saw a regional crisis averted by former-champion Nate. The disappearance of Ghetsis in the wake of this crisis was the final blow to Team Neo-Plasma, leading to the Team's dissolution on the weeks that followed."
The reporter nods. "I'm sure that by this point almost everyone is well-informed on the subject. How does this relate to Team Rocket?"
Regional crisis? That sounds serious - if everyone should be informed on the topic, I'll need to discreetly keep an ear out for what I can learn. What about 'Team Neo-Plasma'? I'm assuming they're somehow related to Team Plasma - an offshoot group? A revival and name-change after the break-up that Guise mentioned? I don't know.
Doctor Benz smiles. "Of course - now, the part that most don't know is the extent of Team Neo-Plasma's criminal enterprises. Investigators are only now getting to the bottom of things - it was an alarmingly well-kept secret. To put it simply, Team Neo-Plasma did not simply steal and release Pokemon back into the wild - no, their ideological talking points were all merely a facade: instead, they ran an extensive Pokemon Trafficking ring."
The reporter frowns. "We've heard reports of something along those lines, but none of our investigators could turn up any evidence. The Police have also refused to comment on the situation. Do you have any proof you can share?"
He shakes his head. "No - not anything that you can air. What I can say, however, is that I have personally seen strong evidence that suggests this to be the case. Now - with the collapse of Team Neo-Plasma, the criminal underworld was left in a state of serious instability: over a few short years, the team had made themselves indispensable to the operations of other minor criminal organizations. This is where we are today: Team Rocket is now stepping in with a Trafficking operation of their own. They've got a lot of experience with the business - whatever remnants that were left of the organization after the investigations a few years ago must have decided that this was an opportunity too good to pass up."
A conflicted look crosses the reporter's face. "Are you suggesting that there have been members of Team Rocket that were laying dormant for the past five years, waiting for an opportunity?"
He nods. "Absolutely. Say what you will about Giovanni, but all reports point to him being an extremely charismatic leader. I don't doubt that are cells left undiscovered, just waiting for something like this to happen."
The reporter begins wrapping up the segment. I don't stick around - there'll be other opportunities to watch TV later. Leaving the gatehouse, I turn to Guise. "Let's head for a park. I want to pick your brain."
He nods, a small smile crossing his face. "Sure thing."
That news report had been frustratingly thin on the details. Who are Team Rocket? I gathered that they're Pokemon traffickers, and presumably have a leader named Giovanni, but not much else. Whoever they are, they seem to be acting like a gang from my home dimension - jumping into the power vacuum left behind after the dissolution of a previously powerful organization.
The reporter mentioned cells. Is their organization structured like Earth Aleph terrorists? That doesn't seem right to me - decentralization to such an extreme degree just wouldn't work for organized crime.
What about Team Neo-Plasma? It seems that Guise didn't have the full story - or at least only had outdated information. They're traffickers too, but this time their activities had been well hidden behind some sort of ideology. Are they Nazis? I know that 'Neo' just means new, but I can't shake the prefix's association with Nazism. Is it the same in this dimension?
Does this dimension even have Nazis? I don't know.
What about this 'Ghetsis' character? He apparently disappeared, leaving his gang to fall apart. Was he disappeared by someone, or did he just make a break with the organization? A rival gang muscling in on their turf, maybe?
No - that's not right: the report had said that he disappeared in the wake of a 'regional crisis'. Something about the 'former-champion Nate'? Former-champion of what? And what was the crisis? An industrial failure - something like a chemical leak? A nuclear meltdown?
Something less direct, maybe? Corrupt officials being outed?
I don't know anything else about it. Speculating will do me nothing - it could be almost anything.
I need to find out more.
Hopefully Guise knows.