Red doesn't expect someone on Nugget Bridge to try to rope him into joining Team Rocket. Has he not heard about Mt. Moon, yet, or not realized that that was Red, or does he just… not care?
He ends up staring for long enough that the guy starts to look visibly unsettled. Long enough that he's going for one of the Pokeballs on his belt when Red says, finally, "…okay."
(He's curious, more than anything. And, beyond that… maybe there are some people who don't deserve to have Pokemon. Maybe, a month into his journey, there's already something burning in him that he wonders, a little, whether Team Rocket would tend the flames of.)
The nearest Rocket base turns out to be in Celadon, and so Celadon is where the grunt takes him. And then he's promptly abandoned into the hands of someone a little higher in the rankings, who presents him with a uniform and sends him to a side room to get changed.
Which is… a dubious level of actual oversight in who joins the organization, really. Probably explains some things about how Team Rocket functions, admittedly. Probably also for the best, in his case, because if they're not asking questions - beyond the higher-up asking whether he wants to join Team Rocket, what his shoe size is, and then literally nothing more - then they're not focusing on his having undermined their Mt. Moon operation mostly by chance.
When he emerges from the room, newly dressed and with Pikachu sniffing at the fabric of the uniform hat, the higher-up frowns a little.
"Can you put your Pokemon away, grunt?"
Red stills, one hand going up to rest on Pikachu's back. "She… won't tolerate a Pokeball."
The higher-up's frown deepens, but she looks him over. He's not sure what does it - maybe something in his expression, maybe noticing how small his Pikachu is and putting two and two together the same as Red had, that she'd been more of an abandoned stray than she'd ever actually been wild - but eventually her expression softens and she nods, looking as though she suddenly understands something that had been eluding her before.
"You're one of those types, then," she says. When Red blinks at her, tilting his head in confusion, she only laughs and turns away, gesturing for him to follow her.
"Come on, grunt. I'm sure we can turn a blind eye to one tiny Pikachu so long as she behaves."
There's a… slightly concerning lack of oversight to Team Rocket, mostly. From what Red can tell, the higher-ups have specific duties and the grunts are mostly left to their own devices, unless there's something important happening that they'll be called in for.
Still. As confused as it makes Red about the Team's organization, it works out well enough for him. It means he can still absently collect badges, so long as he keeps his uniform buried at the very bottom of his bag, and nobody seems to pay any attention to whether he's actually stealing any Pokemon from trainers.
(He does, once. A Vulpix with a front paw that won't take her weight, even after an entire day spent at the Center with him sitting hunched in a corner with a jacket barely covering the R on his shirt and the Nurse Joy very carefully not mentioning it. He feels sick with guilt afterwards, no matter that he'd do it again in a heartbeat.)
He assumes that it means the higher-ups also aren't paying attention to him stealing from other grunts. Which he does… significantly more, because them constantly stealing pet-bred Rattata and Pidgey from actual children is idiotic, and Red is optimistically hopeful that maybe if he takes those Pokemon back to their owners enough times, the other grunts will get a clue and at least try to take something more powerful. Or catch and train even a single Pokemon of their own. Maybe - although this might be hoping for a little too much - even one that isn't a Zubat or an Ekans.
Apparently, what the other grunts actually do is complain, because Red ends up called into a meeting. With the… actual boss of Team Rocket, he realizes once he gets into the room, who's sitting across a desk and looking at Red like he thinks a headache is imminent.
(Red has had that kind of expression aimed at him an awful lot. It's almost nostalgic.)
"So," Giovanni starts once Red is in front of the desk, without offering him a seat. "I hear you've been causing trouble for the other grunts."
Red pauses, not sure how to approach it, and then only shrugs.
"Only the ones who were stealing pets from children."
If Giovanni looked like he had an oncoming headache before, Red's response only makes it worse. "Explain, boy."
Red shrugs again. "A bunch of the others keep stealing Pokemon from kids, and half of them are really clearly pet-bred. Rattata with obviously tiny fangs, Pidgey that are more fluff than anything, that kind of thing. They just say it's because they're easy to steal."
Giovanni pinches the bridge of his nose between two fingers, then. "Of course they're easy to steal, they belong to children and they're completely incapable of fighting."
Red just hums his agreement, reaching up to pet Pikachu's ears while he waits for Giovanni to compose himself.
Eventually, Giovanni gets himself back in order, and looks back up at Red. "And when you stole those Pokemon from the other grunts…?"
"I gave them back to the kids." He pauses, and then adds, "I was kind of hoping that if I did it enough, they'd stop thinking it was worth it to steal those in the first place."
Giovanni pins him with a particularly intense gaze, then, staring at Red so hard that he's not quite sure what to make of it.
And then, abruptly, he asks, "How would you like to be an Admin, boy?"
Which. Well. A massive promotion isn't what he'd expected from this, but… "…sure?"
Being an Admin means more oversight, apparently, in that he's expected to actually interact with the other Admins and with Giovanni. On the other hand, there definitely doesn't seem to be any expectation for him to personally steal Pokemon from random trainers unless he wants to. That's what the grunts are for.
It also means he can just tell them to stop stealing pet-bred Pokemon, or to give them back when they do it anyway.
(He probably shouldn't be disappointed by it. Only, it was at least a little entertaining, and he doesn't have so many duties now that it wouldn't still be a fun way to pass the time. Even if it probably shouldn't have been in the first place.)
He brings up his Gym challenge in a meeting with just Giovanni, at one point. He's not sure where that stands, now that he's higher up in the rankings.
Giovanni promptly develops the imminent-headache expression again.
"Are you telling me that you've still been collecting badges the entire time you've been a member of Team Rocket?"
Red blinks at him. "…yes? Nobody seemed to care much what I was doing most of the time, so I figured I'd just… carry on with it? Since I'd already started."
That nets him the overly intense staring again. Red's pretty sure that anyone else would squirm under it, but it's never intimidating for him so much as it is mildly confusing. He's learned some level of trepidation about it, but mostly because it always seems to come before Giovanni comes out with something completely out of left field.
This time, though, he only asks, "How many badges do you have, boy?"
(He still insists on calling Red 'boy' in private, even though he's demonstrated repeatedly that he absolutely knows Red's name. It… probably shouldn't be somehow kind of pleasant. And yet.)
"Five," Red answers a moment later, once he remembers that there had been a question. "I have Koga, Blaine and you left."
"…you were never briefed on my position as the Viridian Gym Leader, were you."
It's flat, not a question. Giovanni doesn't sound angry so much as exasperated, which Red has already gotten accustomed to hearing - not always directed at him, but Red tends to be incredibly blunt, whether about his own knowledge or about organizational things like the total lack of vetting for grunts - and so he only shrugs lightly.
"Sorry? It was pretty obvious."
Giovanni exhales, very slowly, through his nose. "I'm going to assume," he says eventually, "That you're the exception to the rule where that's concerned. It's an assumption that's so far been serving me rather well in terms of more-or-less every notion you seem to have about the world, and I have faith in it continuing to do so."
Red only shrugs. "That seems reasonable."
Giovanni eyes him, probably trying to decide whether Red is being sincere or not. In the end, he just shakes his head sharply.
"That aside, come and find me tomorrow with your team at their best. I might have a proposition for you, depending on how you fare."
Giovanni's last proposition for him had involved overseeing a team of twenty grunts on an information-gathering assignment in Saffron that had ended up with Red having to tell twelve of them to stop harassing random civilian workers in the building. Red is incredibly dubious of all further propositions, and lets it show on his face enough that Giovanni only laughs, leaning comfortably back in his chair.
"I'm sure you'll appreciate this one more, boy. Now, run along, I have paperwork to do and I'm sure you have grunts to terrorize."
(Which, well. He doesn't, actually, but he's sure he could find a few who'd benefit from it. It would practically be following orders.)
Their battle the next day is the most fun Red has had in a long time. They match up well, enough that - for once, for once - Red doesn't have the slightest clue how it's going to end. It's that sort of thrilling, fast-paced battle that Red lives for but so rarely gets to have, where there's barely even a chance to call out moves and so half the test is of how much the trainer and Pokemon are in sync. Where the attacks don't stop for a second, and the entire space is in use rather than just the arena floor.
They gain an audience, made up of those Rockets brave enough to deal with things like Red's Ninetales diving into the stands to avoid an attack and Giovanni's Nidoking nearly flooding the arena with an unexpected - really, really unexpected - Surf. Red doesn't much care, for all that he's usually vaguely irritated by an audience to his battles. It's just not important right now, whether anyone is watching.
What's important is that he's absolutely drenched, his hand is bleeding a slightly alarming amount - from a cut he'd gained scrambling up onto a rock to avoid Giovanni's Rhydon bearing down on him, because Venusaur had apparently decided the best way to buy time for a Solar Beam was to put Red between them - and he wants to battle like this every day. He's grinning so hard his face hurts, and a look across the field in the brief seconds while he withdraws Scyther nets him that Giovanni looks like he's enjoying himself just as much. Giovanni's practically baring his teeth, his smirk is so satisfied-looking.
(It's… disconcertingly nice to look at, actually, but that's something to dwell on later.)
It comes down to Pikachu against Giovanni's Persian, which seems fitting. It looks like a ridiculous match-up, when his Pikachu is so tiny and Giovanni's Persian is on the massive side of above average, but it's fitting.
And it's no less evenly matched than the rest of the fight, despite appearances. Persian is more agile than her size suggests, but Pikachu can slip into little crevices that there's not a chance of her getting into. Of which there are a good number of, now that they've managed to completely wreck the arena floor, and that's not even accounting for the fact that Pikachu is just as willing to dart through the stands as Ninetales. She's also - being in possession of four fully-functional paws - much more equipped than Ninetales to spend half the battle bouncing off of the walls and even, at one point, somehow managing to race halfway across the metal ceiling before she finally drops down to hit Persian square in the face with an Iron Tail.
Red wins, eventually, but it's so close that by the time Persian goes down, Pikachu looks like she's about thirty seconds from following. For that matter, Red's not sure he's far behind. It's possible he should have paid more attention to the bleeding hand after all.
Giovanni picks his way across the ruined arena to Red's side, reaching him just as Red - just a little torturously - gets himself vertical again after scooping Pikachu into his arms. There are scorch marks on his suit and a graze on his cheek, and somehow he doesn't even look like he minds.
"Well, I think it's safe to say you've earned an Earth Badge," Giovanni starts, and then pauses. His gaze flicks up and down over Red, lingering on where his hand is bleeding all over Pikachu's fur and on his increasingly pale face.
"…but how long have you been bleeding all over the place, idiot boy?"
"Don't ask me," Red complains, tilting his head up for a slightly desperate look at the crowd in the stands. "It's not like you gave me a chance to stop and check the time."
Giovanni sighs, but follows Red's gaze to the stands. "Well?"
"That'd be about twenty minutes, Boss!" comes Petrel's voice from above them.
Giovanni is developing the imminent-headache expression again, and Red can only really grin at him in response. Which just increases the pinched look on Giovanni's face. After a moment he sighs, though, and only reaches out to pull Red in against his side before he can fall over.
"Right. The first of you to get down here and escort the boy to the infirmary and make him stay there - sitting on him if required - gets to have him catch you any Pokemon of your choosing, so long as he deems it a reasonable pick."
And, well, pretty much everyone knows that Red caught the majority of his main team and the entirety of his backup team, as well as the fact that he's Giovanni's number one pick for any capture missions. So Red's not particularly surprised that that gets everyone in the stands moving. Probably for the best, though, because now that Giovanni has a firm grip on him - and his arm curled tightly enough around Red that it's half-supporting Pikachu, too - it's really way, way too much of an effort to actually stay conscious.
(He does, before he passes out, manage to hear Giovanni calling out, "No, Petrel, the offer doesn't extend to Admins who are perfectly capable of catching their own damn Pokemon!")
Once Red manages to escape the tender mercies of the infirmary the next day - which involves insisting to the overenthusiastic grunt that no, she really doesn't need to sit on him and keep him there, no matter what Giovanni said, and that if she tries it he'll veto any capture more impressive than a Magikarp - he makes his way to Giovanni's office.
It's a foolproof method for finding him, really. The one time Red had gotten there and found the place empty, Giovanni had turned up five minutes later and cited a sudden sense of trepidation about the safety of his office. Which is unfair, really, because Red has never broken anything of Giovanni's.
(Well. There's the arena, now, but that was really a joint effort.)
It's occupied when Red gets there, this time, and Giovanni glances up from a report as Red flops down comfortably onto the couch.
"Oh, good, you escaped."
Red shoots him a look for that. "No thanks to you telling the grunts to sit on me."
That actually earns him a laugh, and despite himself, Red can't help but grin back. Giovanni laughs so rarely that there's something infectious about being the cause of it.
"Anyway," Red goes on. "You said you had a proposition for me. And that I'd like it more than Silph Co."
"So I did." Giovanni puts down his report and leans forward a little, steepling his fingers over his desk. "What did you intend to do when you completed the Gym challenge, boy?"
Red blinks. Giovanni's pinning him with that intense look he knows so well, which means he probably ought to think his answer through, and he meets Pikachu's eyes as if she might be able to help him out. She just tilts one ear and then curls up on his chest to go to sleep without helping at all, the little traitor.
"I… don't know," he ends up settling on, for all that it frustrates him a little to not have a better answer. "I started the Gym challenge because it's what trainers are supposed to do, mostly? And it would have been frustrating to leave it unfinished, so…"
He trails off, frowning absently at Pikachu's back. When there's no answer - and a glance upwards shows him that Giovanni is just watching him intensely - he eventually goes on, "I guess I intended to just… focus on the Team? That's what's expected of the Admins, right?"
When he looks up again, Giovanni has an odd look on his face, one that Red wouldn't know where to start with deciphering. It smooths out a moment later, though, and when Giovanni speaks his voice is even.
"I'd think the Indigo Plateau would be what's expected of anyone who battles like you, boy."
"I… guess," Red says. "But… not what's expected of a Rocket, right?"
Giovanni's expression shifts, then, into that bared-teeth self-satisfied smirk that had been so nearly distracting during their battle yesterday.
"You're right," he agrees, sounding entirely too pleased with himself. "Just the same as being a Gym Leader isn't what's expected of a Rocket. And yet here I am, and the Gym Leaders have an awful lot of influence in Kanto - to a frankly ridiculous degree, if we're being entirely honest, and any self-respecting region ought to put significantly less stock in the opinions of a group of unelected trainers who don't even have to be legal adults to hold the position, but…" He tails off, taking in Red's raised eyebrow, and then sighs heavily.
"Yes, I'm well aware that your Pokemon probably have a better grasp of politics than you," he comments, which is just plain rude even if it's probably true. Before Red can protest, though, he goes on, "My point is that - as ridiculous as this system is - it benefits Team Rocket immensely to have access to the influence afforded by my position as Viridian's leader."
Red's grasp of politics isn't so poor that he can't follow that thought through to the logical conclusion of, "…you want me to become the Champion."
Giovanni nods and leans back in his chair, looking satisfied again. "Quite. The Champion has even more influence than the Gym Leaders - not to mention the fact that, for all that Johto is slightly more reasonable in their attitude toward their Gym Leaders, they still share their League with Kanto and look to the Champion in particular as an inspiration. It would be an even longer game than we've played in Kanto, but it would give us an in with the region that I've so far struggled to find."
Red contemplates it. He's not hugely enthused about the kind of celebrity status that it sounds like being Champion would come with, but…
"…I don't mind," he says eventually. "I… want the Team to succeed."
And he means it, he finds, for all that he'd joined mostly out of curiosity in the first place. He's gotten fond of this thing that Giovanni has built, and maybe more fond of Giovanni himself than he quite knows what to do with. The grunts are still a mess half of the time, even with better recruiting, and he doesn't always quite approve of everything they're doing. But he gets along with the more reasonable grunts, and he likes the other Admins, and he's… comfortable with Giovanni, in a way he never would have expected.
Comfortable enough that he only grins and pokes his tongue out when Giovanni comments, "I should hope that my most headache-inducing Admin wants the Team to succeed, yes."
Red leaves for Fuschia in the morning, sent with Giovanni's Crobat as accompaniment when Giovanni realizes that none of Red's fliers are particularly fast.
("Do you want me back so soon?" Red asks him, when Giovanni presses Crobat's ball into his hands. It makes him pause, their hands still touching where Giovanni's fingers overlap the Ultra Ball.
"If I were sensible, I wouldn't let you out of Viridian," he says eventually, the words coming out slower and more careful-sounding than Red is used to from him. "But you did have to go and be the strongest trainer in the Team, didn't you?"
Red spends the whole flight thinking about it, and feels at the end like he's no closer to actually understanding what happened there than when he started.)
Battling Koga is… not not fun, though it doesn't compare to the battle with Giovanni. It takes him a full fifteen minutes to be certain he's going to win, which is something.
Still. He's out of the Gym within the hour, palming his new Soul Badge, and he ends up wandering down to the coastline. He'd managed to get his appointment with Koga early in the morning, and so it's still fairly quiet down here.
It's been four days since he left Viridian. He's pretty sure Giovanni won't be expecting him back before two weeks are up, even with Crobat's speed, but…
"What do you think?" he asks Crobat. "Make for Cinnabar now? We can camp out on one of the Seafoam Islands tonight, if you can't make the journey all at once."
Crobat draws himself up, looking unimpressed, and clips Red's head with one wing.
"Ow," Red complains. "Is that a 'no, we're not leaving until tomorrow', or did I insult your pride?"
That earns him another clip with the wing, and another unimpressed look. The pride, then, Red's pretty sure. It'd be kind of cute how much he resembles his trainer, if he didn't also keep smacking Red. Giovanni doesn't do that, at least, even if he sometimes looks like he's contemplating it.
"Okay, okay," he mutters. "Come on, then."
They arrive in Cinnabar late, and Red manages to stay awake just about long enough to pass Crobat and his team off to the Nurse Joy before he goes and immediately passes out in the first free room she points him to.
In the morning, Joy tells him not to push his Pokemon so hard. Which… well, fair, in any other circumstances, but.
"He's borrowed," he says in this circumstance, "And I did try to insist on stopping and camping out, but he refused to listen. He's… stubborn."
Joy gives him an appraising look. And then smiles at him, which he figures means he's off the hook for Giovanni's ridiculous Pokemon.
"I'll let you off this time, then," she tells him. "But if you're for the Gym, then leave him here, and you're not to head on to Pallet until at least tomorrow morning if you're flying. And no further than that, either."
Red nods. "I'm… heading to Viridian, after this, but I can ride from Pallet."
Joy is apparently satisfied with that, and hands Red the rest of his team back. He leaves Crobat there, like he'd agreed, and heads for the Gym.
Blaine doesn't set appointments, apparently, so much as he just stalls trainers with trivia for some reason. It's… a novel approach? Definitely not one Red has seen in any of the other Gyms. Not one he particularly wants to see again.
He gets to the arena quickly enough, though, and they battle. There's no audience in here, which is nice. It's swelteringly hot, which is less so.
The battle is also straightforward enough to be a little boring - Blaine isn't quite as strong or as quick-thinking as Giovanni in a fight, and doesn't spend half the battle poisoning or paralyzing Red's team like Koga - but overall it's fun enough.
It's a standard three-on-three; Kingler takes out Blaine's Magmar easily enough, but he's not fast enough to hold up against Blaine's Rapidash. But Pikachu is in her element in a battle that relies on speed, and she's still more than fit to fight when Blaine sends out a Ninetales. Red calls her back anyway, though. Sending out his own Ninetales might not be the best match-up in terms of types, but she puffs up proudly when she sees her opponent, and he's glad of the pick.
True to form, she manages to roundly beat Blaine's Ninetales even on three legs, and when she bounds back over to Red he slings an arm around her neck affectionately. And gets Ninetales slobber in his ear for his troubles, because of course he does.
"Hah! Good match, kiddo," Blaine declares as he hands over the Volcano Badge. Red nods his thanks, and lets Pikachu and Ninetales both sniff the badge before he slips it into his pocket.
"You know, not many people would keep using a Pokemon with an injury like that in battle," Blaine comments, watching Ninetales.
"It was… with her previous owner that it happened," Red says carefully. "When she was a Vulpix. I don't know all the details. But it doesn't hold her back, and she likes battling."
Ninetales yips her agreement, and Blaine grins at them both.
"I'm not criticizing you, believe me! I've seen too many good Pokemon put to one side for things like that, and it's a damn shame."
Red spends a while more there in the Gym after that, with Blaine fussing over Ninetales, and telling Red about his first Pokemon - "Retired from Gym battles now, but Arcanine was a beast for challengers to beat back in the day!" - who'd lost an eye as a Growlithe and still been consistently the strongest Pokemon on Blaine's team. It's nice, and Ninetales certainly enjoys both the attention and Blaine's stories, but Red is still glad when he can finally escape the oppressive heat of the Gym. Cinnabar Island proper is pretty uncomfortably warm, but it's not as disgustingly hot as the Gym arena.
Heading back to the Pokemon Center and its air conditioning, by comparison, feels like walking into a fridge. Red immediately vows to spend the entire rest of the day in there before he leaves for Pallet in the morning. From Pikachu's little sigh of relief on his shoulder, he's pretty sure the feeling is shared.
"…nap?" he suggests once they're back in the overnight room, and can't help but grin when Pikachu's response is just to hop onto the bed, curl up on the pillow, and then crack one eye open to stare at him when he doesn't immediately follow her.
"At least let me get my shoes off first?"
Pikachu only twitches one ear with a firm air of, I'll allow it, and then shuts her eye again and curls her tail over her face. Cute.
Red leaves for Pallet as soon as the sun's up the next morning, and makes land with Crobat early in the afternoon. He withdraws him, and then only pauses, standing there with Pikachu in his arms.
"…I don't know if we should go around," he admits to her. "I know I don't have to tell them anything about Team Rocket, but…"
He trails off. He hasn't been home in nearly two years, now. He's been an Admin for over eighteen months. He hadn't realized, until now, quite how long it had been.
Pikachu puts one tiny paw on Red's cheek, and he looks down at her, inhaling shakily. "…what do you think?"
She seems to contemplate it for a moment, and then hops out of Red's arms. She leads him along, in little bursts of speed punctuated by her stopping and looking back at him, until she's at the edge of town. And then she runs back over to him, scales his side, and sits herself back on his shoulder with a decisive pikapi! in his ear and her little cold nose shoved up against his cheek.
He can't help but smile at that, and he reaches up to pet her back. "Okay. You know best."
Pikachu gives him a look, as if to say, of course, did you ever doubt it? and then settles as Red heads towards his childhood home.
His mom is ecstatic to see him, of course. And it's… odd, being back, but not unbearably so. Everyone in Pallet remembers him as absent and quiet, including his mom, and so he's not expected to say much over lunch with his mom and Blue's family. Blue's been back in Pallet recently, apparently, but he'd left again a week ago. It's a shame Red missed him, they all insist. Red's not sure he entirely agrees, but he lets it pass without comment.
After lunch, he lets himself be herded off to the Lab with Oak, who'd spent half of the meal paying more attention to Pikachu than the food. He insists he's dying to see Red's team, and it's not like it's a hassle to let them out. He keeps Crobat in his Ultra Ball, though, and pretends not to notice Oak's curious glance.
Predictably, Oak is particularly interested in Ninetales. Like Blaine had said, it's not common for trainers to keep disabled Pokemon as battlers, and Oak looks almost concerned until she's demonstrated just how easily and painlessly she gets around on three legs.
"…she got injured with her previous trainer, when she was a Vulpix," Red offers up, when Oak looks his way. "I don't know the details."
It's the same as he offers to everyone outside of Team Rocket that asks. He doesn't expect anything more from it, especially not from someone as absent-minded as Oak tends to be about anything outside of his research.
Oak's only silent for a moment, though, and then asks, "Did he abandon her, then?"
It's a fair question, under the circumstances and when Red's Pikachu was abandoned too, and so he doesn't really think anything of it. He doesn't want to outright lie, though, and so he only says, "Mm. Something like that."
There's silence, again.
"You know," Oak says eventually, "I had a trainer in here… mm, about a year and a half ago, now. Maybe closer to two years? Very demanding sort, you know. He wanted a new Pokemon, as rare as I would give him, to replace his Vulpix. Said - and do pardon the language - it'd been stolen by 'some little Rocket bastard with a runty-looking Pikachu'."
Red freezes, and doesn't look at Oak's face.
"I'm sure you'll be glad to know," Oak goes on a moment later, "That I sent him away empty-handed. It came out when I pressed for details, of course, that he hadn't bothered to seek proper treatment after his Vulpix had its paw broken in Rock Tunnel, and that he didn't see any issue with that."
Ninetales growls, abruptly, and ducks her head down to bury it against Red's side. He wraps his arms around her neck, still not looking at Oak or saying anything.
Oak pauses, and then says into the silence, "He's also no longer in possession of a trainer license. Something about admitting to flagrant neglect of a Pokemon in front of a member of the licensing board?"
"…good."
Red does finally look at Oak's face, then. He looks… concerned, more than anything. Which is more than Red really knows what to do with. He keeps on hugging Ninetales' neck, aware of Pikachu's weight on his opposite shoulder.
"It's not… so bad," he says eventually, the words coming out slow and halting. "I don't agree with everything they do, but… it's not all bad. And… it's… improved since I've been there."
He doesn't give details, or explain his hand in those improvements. Just admitting that he's a Rocket is more than he really ought to do. If Oak wanted to take that confession to the authorities, no amount of Red denying it would make any difference, and even if he trusts the man, he's not going to strain that further by admitting to being an Admin.
Oak studies his face for a long moment, and then sighs.
"I trust your judgement, Red. Even if perhaps in this instance I ought not to."
"…thank you," Red manages. He means it. He's really not sure it's enough, but he's not sure what else to say.
Oak just waves a hand, accepting and dismissive all at once.
"Well, not that it matters," he says. "This conversation never happened, obviously."
That manages to pull a small smile from Red. "A conversation where the great Professor Oak knowingly let a Rocket carry on with his business? Nobody'd believe it anyway."
"I see they haven't been teaching you to respect your elders," Oak sniffs, but he seems cheerful enough about Red sassing him. Maybe he's just amazed to see it from someone like Red.
Still, though, he thinks about Oak's words, and thinks about Giovanni. Who he certainly has respect for, but… "They really, really haven't," he agrees, and tries to keep the grin off of his face.
He's not sure he succeeds, from the surprised expression Oak sends his way. But it passes unremarked before Oak is smiling again himself, and then they move back onto talking about Pokemon, even more comfortably than before.
(It's… nice, he thinks, having someone outside of the Team know and not hate him for it. He's sure Giovanni will chastise him for letting it slip, but in the meantime… it's nice.)
Red leaves for Viridian the next morning, riding on Tauros. It's a slower journey than if he'd used Crobat, but that's not so bad; he's still nearly a full week ahead of what Giovanni probably expects, anyway, and taking Tauros means he can strap himself on and proceed to fall asleep for most of the way.
He needs it, because he'd barely slept the night before. Some of it had been staying up late with his mom after he'd left Oak's Lab. The rest of it had been thinking about today, and about getting back… home. The Rocket base feels like home. A lot more like it than being back in Pallet, after all this time, and that's the kind of thing that Red spends hours stewing over with Pikachu dozing on his chest.
When had it become true? What does it mean about him, that it's the case? Somewhere else feeling more like home after two years away from Pallet isn't exactly surprising, really, but the fact it's Team Rocket, of all things?
(That probably isn't all that surprising either, he eventually concludes. But he thinks even something like Oak's quiet acceptance might falter, to know that Red is in so deep that being at Giovanni's right hand feels more like home than the only place he's ever actually called home in his life.)
It's nearly nightfall when they reach Viridian, and Pikachu rouses Red with what she probably considers a gentle shock - just a tap of her tail to his hip while she's loaded up on static.
"Thanks," he tells her. "That's really uncomfortable, thanks. I appreciate it."
The little monster just affects a look of absolute innocence that would be more believable if her ears weren't twitching with repressed laughter. Red stares at her, held out in front of him at arms' length, and then just shakes his head and brings her back in close enough that she can hop onto his head.
"I should give you to that grunt," he mutters to her as he's withdrawing Tauros and starting for the base on foot, though he doesn't bother to mask the affection in his voice.
"Piiiika." He can't quite tell if she's communicating more you'd never do that to me or you'd never inflict me on a poor, defenceless grunt.
(Both are true. He loves her, the little rat.)
Giovanni is in his office when Red arrives, and he glances up at him and blinks.
"I didn't expect you back so soon."
Red shrugs. "The battles were pretty easy. Nothing like battling you." He drops down onto the sofa as he speaks, pulling Crobat's ball off of his belt and handing it to Pikachu so that she can grip it in her front paws and toddle across the office floor on her back legs.
Giovanni looks a little bemused at the sight, but he leans down to accept the Ultra Ball from her grasp easily enough once she gets there, patting her on the head absently. He clearly assumes she's going to dart back to Red, like she usually does, and ends up looking even more bemused when she instead jumps into his lap, which she's never done before.
Fair play to him, though, he rallies pretty quickly and only turns back to Red as though nothing's happened.
"Anything to report?"
Which… yes. Not that he wants to. Red drops his head back against the back of the couch, closing his eyes and considering, and then just decides to stick with his usual bluntness.
"Professor Oak figured out that I'm a Rocket."
Giovanni jolts in his seat. "Idiot boy, what—?"
"—it's fine," Red interrupts. "I didn't actually tell him anything, and he said he trusts my judgement."
He can feel Giovanni's gaze on him, even with his eyes shut. He still doesn't fidget under it like the grunts or even some of the higher-ups, but it does get to him a little more than usual under these circumstances.
"…Ninetales' trainer went to him to try to get a new Pokemon, back after I first took her," he offers eventually. "Oak got enough of a description out of him to suspect me, and when he actually saw Ninetales it confirmed things for him."
He cracks one eye open to see Giovanni watching him intensely, not quite frowning but closer to it than anything else.
"…got enough of the story out of him to get that guy's license revoked, too," he adds after a moment.
Something in Giovanni's expression softens, then, and then twists into some kind of satisfaction.
"As it should be." He keeps watch on Red for a few long moments, and then sighs.
"Well. Samuel is many things, but a liar isn't one of them. If he says he trusts you, I doubt you truly have anything to fear from his knowing." Giovanni taps his fingers against the desk thoughtfully. "Not that I approve of it, but what's done is done."
Red just nods. It's about the best reaction he could have hoped for, because Giovanni is ridiculously paranoid and for good reason. He does blink a little, though, at the first name. Do they know each other? As Gym Leader and prominent Professor, most likely, but…
"It's also not… entirely unwelcome news," Giovanni is going on, now, and Red pulls his attention back to the words with some effort. "With regards to the trainer license, that is."
He pauses, contemplating, and then goes on, "It's not as though your feelings on Pokemon care have ever been particularly secretive, especially since you became an Admin. And I might not view… Pokemon in their entirety with so much care as you do, but I can't deny that your methods get results, and it's been no harm to let you make the changes you've made to expected behavior from the grunts."
It's done Team Rocket a distinct amount of good, actually, that Red expects any grunts who work under him to actually take care of their Pokemon properly.
Apparently that shows on his face, because Giovanni waves a hand. "Yes, yes. My point is that it may well be beneficial for you, in particular, to have a potential ally on the legitimate side of things."
That makes Red pause to consider.
"…yeah," he says eventually. "I hadn't considered that, but…"
"But if you can occasionally feed him information in that respect, you gain another avenue to deal with abusive trainers. And one seen as legitimate by the Kanto authorities, for that matter."
Red nods.
"I'm… fully aware that you originally joined the Team largely out of curiosity, boy," Giovanni comments after a long silence. "But I do hope that the prospect of making an overall change toward how Kanto operates in these respects brings you some joy. As frustrating as you so often are, you've been… very much an asset to Team Rocket."
It takes Red a while to actually fully process, because Giovanni is… awkward? Red's pretty sure he's never heard that before. He doesn't actually understand, at first, and he feels like he has to rewind the entire conversation in his mind before he finally grasps that Giovanni is… worried, he thinks. That Red will decide he wants to change the world in a legitimate way, rather than inside Team Rocket? That Red will decide Team Rocket hasn't changed enough for his tastes?
(It hasn't, yet, but when he considers that fact he's never doubted that it will. He just has more work to do, is all.)
When he finally does process it, he offers Giovanni a grin, and watches some minute line of tension fade from his shoulders.
"I already agreed to your long game, didn't I?" he asks, and enjoys Giovanni's lips twitching up into a faint smirk.
"So you did."
"Mm." He rests his elbow on the arm of the couch and then props his chin up on his fist. "So when you're telling me what to say in all my Champion interviews, just make sure to include something really eloquent about treatment of Pokemon, okay?"
That startles an actual laugh out of Giovanni, and Red can't help but grin back at him.
"Well. That's easily done," Giovanni says. "Consider it a deal."
Giovanni gets him booked in to visit the Indigo Plateau within the week. Red pays attention to it, even as he's glad that Giovanni is the one actually handling it.
He'd known about the Indigo League every four years, because everyone knows about that. Even if you don't follow competitive battling, the League is too big and too promoted an event to entirely miss out on. Official Champion challenges, though, are apparently smaller; the Elite Four are called in from whatever else they're doing within two weeks of the challenge being issued, and then the challenger battles through them in order. Unsuccessful challenges have highlights televised around League season, especially if the challengers are taking part.
Successful challenges are televised immediately, although there hasn't been one since Lance. Who's been the Champion for ten years now.
("That's fine," Red insists. "It's no fun otherwise, right?"
Giovanni just eyes him, lightly, and then comments, "I think we have different ideas of fun, boy."
Which he's pretty sure is a lie, at least where this is concerned, because Giovanni definitely had as much fun with their battle as he did. Still. He'll let it go, this time.)
The hardest part, besides the waiting, is picking his team for the challenge. Pikachu and Ninetales without question, of course. Venusaur's a solid pick too, and so are Kingler and Scyther. He stalls on the last slot, though, dithering between Hypno and Tauros and Clefable until it's the final day before the challenge and Giovanni, sighing, presses a ball into his hand.
A completed Master Ball, to be precise, which is something Red has never even seen before. He'd been the one to deliver Giovanni the prototype from Silph Co., yes, but it hadn't actually been functional. This one definitely is.
He lifts his gaze from the ball to stare up at Giovanni, who's watching him with a slightly pinched expression.
"Don't use it until the Champion battle, boy, and even then… keep it as a reserve."
Red blinks. "What is it?"
"Mewtwo."
Red blinks again. He'd known Giovanni was looking into creating an artificial Pokemon - all the Admins had been briefed on that much, at least - but not that the project was apparently complete enough for the result to be used in battle.
Giovanni opens his mouth again, before Red can say anything. "We've had… issues with controlling it, which is why nobody outside of the project has been briefed further. I can't guarantee that it'll actually be of any use to you." He pauses, and pinches the bridge of his nose.
"However," he goes on, "I've watched you at work long enough to suspect that if anyone can do the impossible and tame that beast, it'll be you. And if you can, then it's yours."
He doesn't specify what it means for Mewtwo if Red can't tame it. But if Giovanni knows Red, then Red knows Giovanni. The man is pragmatic to a fault, and an untameable Pokemon is no use to him.
"…then I look forward to welcoming it to my team," Red tells him, voice firm.
Giovanni's answering smile is less grim than it perhaps could be.
"Yes," he agrees. "I thought as much."
The battles against the Elite Four are definitely fun. Not the same as the battle against Giovanni, because they don't involve wrecking the place, but there's definitely the sense that any of them could. And the intentional holding back on both sides is, in its own way, kind of fun in itself.
He absolutely wants to battle them unofficially and really let loose sometime, though. Especially Lance. Red isn't at all sure how that one would pan out, if both of them could really give it their all.
As it is, though, Red comes out of it on top. And is promptly informed that… Lance isn't actually technically the Champion right now, anyway, having already lost once today.
It's Blue.
Red can't quite help a grin, at that. "That's… fitting," he decides.
He means it, too. Treating Blue as his rival might have fallen by the wayside, with his attention focused on Team Rocket, but they did grow up together and start their journey together. It seems fitting that they come together to end that journey together, too, however much their paths might have diverged in the meantime.
By the look on Blue's face when Red steps into the final arena, they're united in those feelings.
"What took you so long, Red?" he calls out. "I was getting bored waiting for you to catch up!"
From the brief moment of surprise on Blue's face before he rallies again, Red suspects his answering grin might have had a little too much of Giovanni's in it.
"Had to let you get in a nap first," he calls back. "Wouldn't want you on the cameras without getting your beauty sleep."
Blue blinks, sharply, and then laughs. "You grew a sense of humor! Well, I can assure you I'll be looking my absolute best when I kick your ass!"
"You keep telling yourself that," Red calls, and then they're off.
In terms of brute strength, Blue is fantastic. His Pokemon barely seem to care about type match-ups at all - his Alakazam takes out Scyther before Ninetales manages to take it out. His Pidgeot comes so close to knocking out Pikachu that Red has to switch her for Kingler and rely on brute forcing the match with repeated Ice Beams to the wings.
It's thrilling, really, this battle where all of Red's strategizing and speed still struggles against the fact that Blue's team are just ridiculously strong. He's never had a fight quite like it, and he wants more of it.
Soon, though, it comes down toward the end. Blue has out Arcanine, and whatever his Eevee evolved into in reserve. Vaporeon, he suspects, if only because of the Arcanine in front of him and the fact that he's already had to take out a Magneton. Kingler's down for the count, and the only other member of his main team left is Pikachu, who's doing better than she was but certainly isn't going to manage to take down two of Blue's team on her own.
Which leaves him with Mewtwo.
Grinning even as he braces himself, Red tosses down the Master Ball. Mewtwo is out in a flash, and it's a gorgeous Pokemon - somewhere between feline and humanoid, floating a few inches off of the ground as it spins in midair to stare suspiciously at Red.
Who are you? comes a voice in his head, confirming if he hadn't already known that this creature is a Psychic Pokemon, and a powerful one at that.
Your trainer, if you'll have me, Red does his best to think back at it. He's not sure how well he succeeds. But there's an odd sensation in his head, the way he thinks a book must feel as it's flicked through. He doesn't resist it. If anything, he tries to open his mind to the Pokemon, in the hopes that even if that doesn't actually change whatever it can read from him, it'll at least understand his desire to do so.
It withdraws, as best he can tell, and then there's only Mewtwo staring into his eyes. The silence between them is broken only by Blue in the background, demanding to know what Mewtwo is and why his Pokedex provides no information on it, but Red ignores that. He just waits, and meets Mewtwo's gaze steadily, and hopes that that will be enough.
And then, with a swish of its tail, Mewtwo spins back around to face Blue's Arcanine. In the same moment, Red is suddenly and abruptly aware of exactly which moves it has in its repertoire.
He grins, wild and joyful, and calls out, "Mewtwo! Psychic!"
There's some debate over how exactly to handle the two of them, once Red's Pokemon have been registered into the Hall of Fame. It's true that Blue has officially already lost his spot as Champion, but it doesn't change the fact that he did beat the Champion of ten years. Blue himself isn't the only one who thinks it's unfair for that to mean nothing in the face of Red defeating him.
Red sits and watches Oak and the Elite Four debate it with Blue - assuring him that he'd be offered first pick if and when any Gym Leaders next retire, for example, and frowns. The most likely to retire is probably Blaine, based on ages alone, but Red's pretty sure the Cinnabar Leader definitely has a few more years in him, unless the League tries to force him into retirement. He drums his fingers against the table, thinking on it, and then pauses as he remembers a detail Giovanni had commented on once during one of his rambles about the state of the League.
"…oi."
He speaks quietly, but it cuts through the conversation and has everyone turning to look at him. He'd probably be thrown off, if their combined gazes weren't still significantly less intense than the way Giovanni sometimes looks at him.
"Why don't we just follow what the other Leagues do?" he asks.
It earns him blank stares, so he goes on before anyone can say anything, "The other regions with big Leagues have an Elite Four and a Champion. And I can say for myself, at least, that battling like that today was fun. So why not copy them? I stay as the Champion, and Blue becomes part of the Elite Four."
Agatha, who's already volunteered herself out to make room for Red, smacks her stick against the floor decisively. "Good! Finally someone with some sense in this place! I vote we go with that, and get out of this damn room."
The motion passes almost immediately - equal parts because it's a good idea and because everyone's afraid of Agatha's temper, Red's pretty sure - and finally they're able to get out.
Red follows Blue and Oak out of the Indigo Plateau, walking easily with them until the three reach the outskirts of Viridian. There, Red and Oak pause. Blue takes a few moments to notice but then turns to frown at them, having clearly assumed they were all heading for either Pallet or - more likely, given the time - the Pokemon Center.
Oak brushes off his grandson's confusion, though, only turning to Red to ask, "Will you be coming with us, Red?"
"…soon," he answers, after a few seconds' thought. "I'll come visit mom before the week's out, but I have a stop here in Viridian first."
Oak eyes him, and then only nods. "I'll hold you to that visit."
Red only grins back at him. "Don't worry. I'm sure he'll be sick of dealing with me by then, so you won't be the only one."
Oak gives him a particularly appraising look. Even if he doesn't know who the leader of Team Rocket actually is, Red doesn't think he missed that that's who he is, or the implications of Red actually taking up his time. It's a gamble on Red's part, maybe, for all that he's not said anything more outright and could deny the implications easily enough.
(But Giovanni was right, about Oak being a good potential ally. And right, he hopes, about Oak being willing to be that.)
Eventually, Oak nods again, and then turns back to Blue, who's still frowning between the two of them.
"Come on, Blue," he declares, wrapping an arm around his grandson's shoulders. "Let's get to the Center. It's long past your bedtime, I'm sure."
"Gramps!" Blue complains, sounding mortified. "I'm eighteen and a member of the Elite Four! I don't have a bedtime! And why aren't you lecturing Red about it, then?"
By the time he gets back to the base, only the night guard are around. Giovanni is probably still in his office, knowing him, but Red is too exhausted to do more than drag himself to his room, collapse into bed, and promptly pass out with Pikachu clutched close to his chest.
He's awoken promptly at 7AM by a static-charged tail smacking him in the face.
"Glad you're dedicated to being an alarm clock," he comments, waiting for the muscles in his cheek to stop twitching. "Could you try letting Ninetales set the bedsheets on fire next time? It might hurt less."
Pikachu just chitters at him in obvious laughter, and hops onto the floor to dodge his half-hearted swat at her.
It all does the trick of getting him up, at least, and Red's mostly forgiven her by the time he's pulled on his uniform. Not that Giovanni particularly cares whether Red bothers to wear it, but it's been a while since he's actually had the opportunity to.
(Besides. He's a Rocket just as much as he's the Champion. It feels fitting, somehow, to wear his uniform to give Giovanni the news.)
Once he's dressed, he lets Pikachu run up his arm to settle on his shoulder, and then heads to Giovanni's office.
Giovanni is, of course, sitting behind his desk, and he looks up absently from his paperwork when Red lets himself in. His focus sharpens when he sees who it is, though.
"Well?"
Red just hums, leaning up against the doorframe. He drags out the silence until Giovanni opens his mouth to ask again, and then cuts in, "Television night with the other Admins on Saturday?"
Giovanni looks confused for half a moment before he takes Red's point and smirks. "As expected of you, boy."
Red cocks his head, all feigned confusion.
"Oh, no," he says. "That's for Blue Oak's successful challenge. Television night on Sunday is for mine."
Giovanni outright stares at him for a moment, then, and then barks out a startled laugh.
"You have to make everything complicated, don't you?" He gestures impatiently for Red to actually enter the office fully. "Come on, then, tell me the details."
Red spends at least two hours going through everything. The battles, both what he'd heard of Blue's after the fact and the details of his own. The passed League changes - "I assume you'll find out officially about that today, or something?" - including Agatha's retirement and Blue's new position. The fact that Mewtwo had won the Champion battle for him, and then returned quietly to its Master Ball with only one last, searching look at Red.
Giovanni, who's actually emerged from behind his desk for once to sit at the other end of the couch from Red, looks grimly satisfied with that last part in particular.
"I did wonder whether even you'd have any luck with it," he comments.
Red shrugs. "I just… tried to let it see me, I guess. I didn't know if that would be enough either, but I guess it liked what it saw."
Giovanni's expression turns odd, then, intense and thoughtful in a way that Red can't place. The silence hangs between them, unexpectedly weighty all of a sudden.
"…yes," Giovanni says eventually. "I suppose it did."
Red isn't quite sure what to say to that. Giovanni's tone is heavier than the words suggest, and he can't place why. Wetting his lips with his tongue - and noting, in a slightly detached way, how Giovanni's eyes follow the motion - he shifts a little on the couch, a hair's breadth away from a nervousness that he doesn't think he's ever felt in Giovanni's presence before.
His mood is caught, apparently, because Giovanni lets out a sigh that sounds slightly forced and averts his eyes from Red's face.
"I truly can't blame it," he says into the silence. "You are… altogether something else, Red."
He's not sure Giovanni has ever called him by name while they're alone - hell, he calls him boy in front of the rest of the Team, half the time - and it makes Red stare at him. Assessing, cataloguing.
(Giovanni's hands are fidgeting in his lap, little aborted twitches of his fingers that are barely there but are still more than he'd ever show usually. His words are slow, considered, and Giovanni isn't a man who speaks fast or thoughtlessly but he also isn't a man who usually enunciates every individual word as though it's being pulled slowly from his throat.
There's a faint spot of pink, high on Giovanni's cheeks.)
"—oh. Oh!"
Giovanni's eyes shoot back to Red's, a frown forming on his face and his mouth opening to speak.
Before he can say anything, though, Red scrambles across the couch - dislodging Pikachu from his lap, and ignoring her little squeak of protest - to grab Giovanni's face and pull him down into a kiss.
(If he's misinterpreted, he might have to leave Kanto entirely to get away from the embarrassment. If he hasn't…)
There's a long moment of frozen silence on Giovanni's part. Long enough that Red tenses his muscles, halfway to pulling back.
And then Giovanni's hand comes up to knot forcefully in his hair, and he's held in place as Giovanni kisses him back so thoroughly that he's not entirely sure he can see straight when he's finally released.
"…okay," he manages eventually, more than a little dazed-sounding. "Definitely didn't misinterpret."
Giovanni, who still looks annoyingly put-together as he leans back against the couch and pulls an unprotesting Red onto his lap, only flashes him a long, self-satisfied smirk that makes Red's stomach twist pleasantly.
"Rude," Red complains. "Unfair."
"You're hardly one to talk," Giovanni comments. "I'm not sure you've ever once approached anything fairly and reasonably in your life."
Red considers.
"Probably not," he allows eventually. "But Rockets don't play fair, right?"
(He'll take the answering kiss as confirmation.)