One year ago…
It was a bustling day at the Deltacorp Electronic Offices, and perhaps the most active employee that day was the CEO of the Vermont branch: Athena Stone.
She and her Meowstic were both the brightest leaders of the branch, and with the company under their wing, the Vermont branch was as successful as ever.
As they entered the office that day, they saw that their bosses, and the owners of the entire company, Paul and Nicole, and their Pokémon, a Shinx and a Fennekin, were in the room, with something they needed to discuss with them.
"Hello you two," Athena greeted, "What are you doing in my office?"
"Take a seat," Paul said, motioning to the chair facing him, Shinx, Nicole, and Fennekin, "There's something we need to discuss,"
As Athena and Meowstic sat down at the couch, Paul and Nicole looked on, clearly hoping she'd understand what they were about to tell her.
"So… what is it that you wanted to discuss with us?" Athena's Mewostic asked, using her telekinetic powers to project her thoughts, and the thoughts of Shinx and Fennekin into the minds of all their trainers.
"Well, for starters, you're both aware that Martin's account got hacked last week, right?" Nicole asked.
"We're the CEOs, we hear everything," Athena said, "And Martin is one of my closest friends,"
"So you know how embarrassing it was for him," Shinx suggested, "All the extramarital communiqués,"
"I call it sending his wife's oncologist pictures of his cock," Athena jokingly said.
"Well, there were more than that," Fennekin revealed, "There were texts and emails, and he said some extraordinarily critical things about the president,"
"Well, last we heard, free speech still exists," Meowstic said.
"Don't do that, don't First Amendment us please," Paul said, "It's not a country, it's a business, and with that, there are optics,"
"So you fired Martin?" Athena asked.
"No, he realized he had to take one for the team, our team," Nicole said, before pulling out a black file.
"What's in the file?" Meowstic wondered.
"Well, to answer that, do you recall a text thread you had with Martin, Peter, Richard, and Liberty, among others, on December 17, at 10:00 in the morning?" Fennekin asked Athena.
"I don't recall a text thread I had last Tuesday," Athena said.
In response, Athena pulled out a piece of paper from the file, and read some of the contents, and what Athena and Meowstic would hear come out of her mouth, would send them into shock.
Richard: Speaking of… did anyone see what our ratfucker-in-chief just did?
Liberty: Yes. Day = ruined.
Peter: Infuriating.
Athena: At least the hunt is coming up. Nothing better than going out to The Manor and slaughtering a dozen deplorables and their Pokémon.
Miranda: We promised not to talk about 'The Manor' on text!
Ted: Viva El Manor!
Liberty: DELETING THIS THREAD!
Athena and Meowstic both stared in shock when they heard those words.
They both knew very well about the former's text conversation, as did the Pokémon belonging to every single one of the other people involved.
They agreed to never reveal any of it to anyone, but thanks to some hacking, their bosses now knew everything, or at least, Paul, Shinx, Nicole, and Fennekin did.
"Are you aware that there's an active group of people out there who believe this is a real thing?" Paul asked, surprising the two CEOs.
"Wait, people think we're actually planning on hunting people and Pokémon for sport?" Meowstic asked.
"Yeah, conspiracy websites are all over it," Fennekin told her, "They're all going berserk. We don't know all their names, but, anyway, somebody pulled a property-tax record for the manor you bought in Vermont,"
"What?!" Athena exclaimed, "I don't own a fucking manor in Vermont, it's a three bedroom house,"
"Jesus, I can't believe you used that word," Shinx frustratedly said.
"What? 'Manor'?" Meowstic asked.
"No, 'Deplorables'," Nicole corrected.
"Well, I originally typed 'fucking rednecks', but then I decided that wasn't specific enough," Athena tried to defend, "I mean, what would you prefer I call them? Gun-clutching homophobes? Academically challenged racists? Tooth-deprived bigots?"
"Hey, we have our best team at reputation management flooding the search engines in the hopes that this thing doesn't go mainstream," Paul told them, "But even if by some miracle it doesn't, and I really don't see that happening, Martin did what he had to. Richard did what he had to, he's out at BlueWest. Julius and Miranda had to step down from their foundation, and Liberty exited her fund. I'm really sorry I have to say this but… you got to go,"
Hearing those words horrified Athena and Meowstic. It was just a joke, and they never actually wanted to kill anyone, but thanks to Martin getting hacked, everyone thought they were gonna do it, and now they were about to lose their jobs over it!
"Paul, it was just a joke," Athena said, hoping he'd understand, "We never actually planned on killing anyone,"
"I mean, I wish this didn't happen," Paul said, "I really do, but this… idea is out there, and these people believe it, and they're not going away,"
"What people?" Meowstic asked, "What people believe we are hunting human beings and their Pokémon at a manor we supposedly own?! WHAT FUCKING PEOPLE?!"
4 months later…
Everyone who lost their jobs because of their little joke were now at Athena's so-called 'manor', browsing the files of everyone who spread rumors about the joke being real.
In all their minds, these sickos made them lose their jobs, and now they wanted revenge.
Oliver was showing the others some information about all the people who talked about them, so they could narrow everyone down to the perfect 12 victims, no matter how many Pokémon they had.
"So this is gary4USA," he said, discussing a podcaster named Gary, "He's got a podcast called The Confederate FIles, and he's a P score 8.5. Also, he has a Flareon,"
"What does that 'P' stand for again?" Miranda asked.
"'Piece of shit', I vote in," Crisis Mike said, which made everyone else agree to haul the man and Flareon into their hunt.
The next person Oliver presented was a trucker known online as BigGameShane, and his Lucario, both of whom the gang learned were big game hunters, hunting down tons of rare, almost extinct Pokémon.
His 8.8 score made everyone decide to bring the hunters in to punish them for their actions against the Pokémon.
"Guys, we can't include everybody," Peter's Greninja reminded them, speaking thanks to Meowstic, who was sitting on the counter near an exercising Athena, watching the others pick victims, "Thousands of people posted about Manorgate, so we need to know as many people as possible,"
"Christ, it's a gate now?" Richard asked in frustration, "They ruined water and pizza, and now manors?"
"Listen, I want to slaughter all of them just like everybody else here, but our military consultant says we gotta cap it out at 12," Oliver reminded everyone, "Safety reasons, okay?"
"Heavens, God forbid somebody get hurt," Richard's Rockruff, Tony, sarcastically said, alerting everyone to the kimono Richard was wearing.
"Is that a kimono?!" Peter asked in shock, "That's appropriation, Richard,"
"Hey, where are Liberty and Ted, as well as Roserade and Scrafty?" Martin's Cinderace asked.
"They're in therapy," Julius answered, "They lost their jobs and reputations, so they clearly need it,"
"Richard and I lost ours too, but we're dealing with it with, you know, drugs and alcohol, like a normal person," Tony said.
"Excuse me, did anyone else here get reassigned to Croatia?" Oliver asked, "Because I did,"
"It was a blessing in disguise," Miranda insisted, "We're gonna build that gas station for pennies, there's no extradition-"
"Next slide!" Meowstic demanded, prompting Oliver to switch to the next slide.
The next slide showed an African American man known online as ManchurianCowboy, and his Blaziken, which everyone seemed to be pretty uncomfortable being shown.
Everyone was reluctant to trap them in their game, because the very thought of them, a gang of mostly white people and their Pokémon, hunting down and killing a black man and his Blaziken made them afraid of being labeled as racists by the public.
Meowstic actually wanted to puke at that very thought.
"Listen, I know you're all uncomfortable about this, but if we don't have at least one person of color in this, it's going to be problematic," Oliver's Ninetales said.
"Uh, Zoroark and I are pretending to be Arab refugees, and we're from Connecticut, isn't that a little problematic itself?" Crisis Mike asked.
"It was your idea, Mike," Martin reminded him.
"Yeah, it's because we need to lean into the stereotype to let them just expose their biases," Miranda pointed out.
"Yeah, or we could just shoot 'em once they grab their guns," Tony suggested.
"Yeah, but then they're not gonna know why we're killing them, okay?" Peter reminded him.
At Athena's demand, Oliver turned to the next slide, and what Athena and Meowstic saw amazed them.
This was the very person they were thinking about being shown on screen; the one person they were hoping to get to… the perfect target.
"Fuck this bitch," Oliver read from this person's tweet: "Athena Stone murders innocent men and women-"
"I don't need to hear more," Athena said as she and Meowstic walked up to the screen, staring at the potential victim.
"Looks like we found our Snowball," Meowstic said, looking at the woman, and the name below her.
Justice4Yall.