#40: The One Night At Giovanni's Incident (Part 1)

*Riing Riing*

Jessie, James, and Meowth all sat behind a dusty wooden desk within a dimly lit office. Scattered about the walls were old posters of various Pokemon, only in animatronic form. Straight ahead of them was a doorway with a remote-controlled reinforced metal gate, and to their left and right sides were remote controlled vents with metal hatches.

*Riing Riing*

As the phone continued to ring on their desk, the three look at one another, and then back at the phone.

"Think we should answer it? I wonder who would be calling us at this hour?" James asks the others.

"Might as well. Hopefully it's not some sort of prank call," Meowth responds, reaching over and pressing the 'answer' button while turning on the 'speaker' function.

[You have one new message]

[First message]

"Uh, hello? Hello? Is this damn thing on? All right. Um, yeah, this is Giovanni, your boss. This recording is to…uh…help inform you with some handy tips now that I decided to hire you three back after firing you from that Rickrolling incident back in Chapter 31. I am rather shocked that you three are still alive after my little outburst, as well as the many times I heard you guys were getting wrecked while trying to find employment. It's almost as if your fates are being controlled and retconned by some otherworldly influence or something.

Anyways, back to the matter at hand. As you may know, you three are currently working the night-shift as security guards at my Pokemon Museum. The former guards who worked during your graveyard shift were grunts from Team Plasma. Now I know what you are thinking, why the hell would I hire people under Natural Harmonia Gropius? Well, that's not important. Times are tough, and with all the weird shit happening all over the world, we need all the help we can get.

Now, your job is simple. Your shift starts at midnight, and ends at 6am. All you have to do is make sure nothing strange happens around my museum. To make things easy, I have given you each a portable device that'll let you view the live camera feeds from all over the building. Sounds easy, right?

To be honest, the real reason I put you guys in charge of this work shift is because those Team Plasma members were horrifically injured on the job. They claim that they were attacked by the large animatronic Pokemon on display throughout my museum. I wouldn't worry about such nonsense, those guys are weird anyways. But in case of an actual emergency you can use the buttons underneath your desk to lock down all entryways to your office. Be careful not to use it too much, the mechanism runs on cheap Dollar Store batteries. Again, we're going through tough times so cuts had to be made to supplies. If the office becomes breached with invaders, throw a Pokeball at them or something to distract them or throw them off guard while you find a means to either escape of hide yourselves from view. I couldn't afford to give you three guns because, well I've already told you why twice now.

So yeah, that's pretty much all I have to say on that. So good luck you three. If you can successfully get through this menial job without screwing up, I'll hire you back as full-time Team Rocket agents.

Alright, good night."

*Click*

A moment of uneasy silence filled the air as each member looks about the room and the materials given to them to monitor the building.

"Something tells me this otherwise harmless security job is going to turn into something horrible at some point…" Jessie says, breaking the silence among her team.

"What makes you say that?" James questions.

"Oh I don't know, thirty-nine straight incidents of us becoming victimized by every single thing in existence. Do you honestly think we'd be safe here all tucked within this small security office?" Jessie responds.

"I'm always hopeful for positive change once in a while…" James responds with a cheesy, yet unconvincing smile.

"Yeah, we'll see about that…" Meowth comments, rolling his eyes.

With that out of the way, the three Team Rocket members begin their temporary jobs, their first solid foothold on employment.

It was now 12:05 am.

What lies waiting for them outside of their office?


Are things are finally starting to look up for our heroes, or is it all part of a nightmarish ruse?
Please review and stay tuned to the next!