Authors Notes: Hey, here is chapter 4 of Defeat is Not the End. Please read and review! Constructive criticism is alway welcome! Thanks for reading.
Giovanni relaxed in his cabin aboard the luxury cruise ship, the SS Tidal. The ships was en-route to the Hoenn Region. The cabin was small and plain, coloured mostly in a dull grey. There was a bed in the upper right corner of the room on which Giovanni lay. At the foot of the bed was a chest-of-draws. A desk and chair were in the opposite corner of the room. On the desk there was a telephone that connected the room to the customer service on the ship. On the wall in between the bed and the desk was a port hole which supplied the room with spectacular views of the ocean. Immediately next to the door that lead to the hall was a door that lead to the cabins bathroom facilities.
Giovanni had been relaxing in the room for four days. During this time he had remembered, on a number of occasions, the police officer who had unwittingly passed up the chance to capture him. He did not leave his room during those four days on the ship, instead preferring to contact room service to bring him anything that he would need, such as his meals.
There was a loud, clear knock on the door of the cabin. The noise echoed slightly as the sound bounced off of the walls. Giovanni looked at the door for a moment wondering who it was knocking on the door. After a few moments he recalled that he had placed an order from room service not so long ago. With this realisation he stood up from the bed and walked to the door. Giovanni was wearing clothing that did not suit him, clothing that had been left in the chest-of-draws at the foot of the bed, which oddly enough fitted him perfectly. He was wearing a blue and yellow Hawaiian shirt with cream shorts.
There was another knock on the door as Giovanni reached out for the door knob. As he opened the door he said, 'Ah, yes, yes. My apologies, I was somewhat lost in thought for a while there.'
The now open door revealed a young man in his late teens or early twenties. He had platinum-blond hair and blue eyes. He wore a uniform that was befitting a waiter of the finest of five star restaurants. With him he had a trolley filled with foodstuffs. Giovanni had become quite accustomed to this young man as he was always the one who delivered the food ordered from room service.
'It is quite alright, Sir,' said the young waiter. He wheeled the trolley into the cabin. 'Please sign here,' he requested while holding out a clipboard with the order form for the food brought to the room.
Giovanni signed the document using the name of the old man in Vermillion who gave him the ticket to get on board the ship, Lucius. He did this as to not arouse suspicion by using his real name. 'Thank you, Vincent. You may leave.'
The young waiter gave a small bow to Giovanni, 'Yes Sir,' he said and left the room to continue with his many other duties aboard the SS Tidal.
Giovanni inspected the trolley that the waiter Vincent had brought in for him. There was a lot of food and drinks stored on the torlley, much more than Giovanni could have alone. This large amount of food was, mostly, for the many pokemon that Giovanni was travelling with. He had to feed not only the six pokemon of his main party, but the ones that he took from the Rocket Base in the Viridian Forest. Because of the amount of pokemon to feed, only a handful could be released at a time.
Giovanni released Nidoking and Nidoqueen first, then Electrode and Dugtrio, and continued going in twos until all of the pokemon with him were fed. When his pokemon, and he himself was fed he sat at the desk in the corner.
'Now I must plan what I will do in Hoenn,' said Giovanni, speaking to himself. 'Firstly, I will need to establish a base of operations there, temporary or permanent, but one will be needed. Secondly I will need to find new pokemon for the use of Team Rocket, of varying types. Similarly, I will need to recruit new members for the Team.' He sat back in his chair thinking of the objectives he wanted to achieve in Hoenn. He noted down what he wanted to accomplish and placed them into a compartment in the briefcase that contained multiple pokeballs.
Giovanni was rudely interrupted during his breakfast on the morning of the sixth day of the journey to Hoenn. The door to the cabin was forced open by pokemon that Giovanni did not recognise, a dog-like pokemon with grey and black fur. Following the pokemon was two people, one male and one female, which wore black and white striped shirts, blue trousers and blue bandanas with the letter "A" displayed on them.
The female intruder began to speak, 'Citizen, we members of Team Aqua have taken over the ship. Our orders are to take you to the deck of the ship.'
The male intruder let out a grunt. 'C'mon ya fool! We don' 'ave all day!'
Giovanni was dumbfounded by the intruders. He was not expecting this. He had arranged for his own team to do similar things as these two were being ordered to do. He guessed this was how the victims first felt about those actions. Giovanni stood up from the desk he was eating his breakfast. He was wearing his customary black suit and white shirt. He decided to play along with the two so called members of Team Aqua. 'Alright, alright. I'll go with you. Let me pick up my coat and we can go.'
Both the male and female looked disgusted by Giovanni's words. 'Fine! Quickly, quickly!' said the female.
He put his black trench coat on, and walked over to the unrecognised pokemon and the two intruders. He covertly checked his coat pocket to ensure that he had some of his pokemon with him. Luckily the two did not notice his slight grin when he found two pokeballs in his pocket.
Giovanni followed the two up to the deck of the ship. There was about one hundred passengers who had been gathered onto the deck. The passengers were sitting in a large circle formation. Several more passengers could be seen being escorted by other Aqua members to the large group of people. Guarding the passengers were multiple pokemon that Giovanni did not recognise. There were multiple dog-like pokemon that had broken into his cabin and some large crab-lobster like pokemon.
'Inter tha' crowd!' said the male aqua member who had escorted him to the deck. The aqua member gave him a shove into the crowd. 'Now sit der and listen ter our Admin.'
There was near silence for a several minutes, the only noises coming from the oceans waves and the footsteps of more people being brought to the crowd of passengers. When there was about one hundred and fifty people on the deck a woman with long red hair walked in front of the crowd. She wore a bandana with the letter "A" like the other members of Team Aqua. She had blue trousers and a blue jacket. She wore a small, black shirt that kept her stomach revealed. She wore red high heal shoes.
'Passengers of the SS Tidal,' she began, 'We of Team Aqua have taken over the ship. We have no plans to harm anyone aboard as long as you all obey our orders,' she explained. She turned around to look at the ocean. 'We will be taking all the valuables on board and will then leave. So sit tight and everything will be just fine.'
There were many murmurs and grumbles from the crowd. There were some bold enough to say things like 'You can't do that!' and 'How could do such a thing?' and many similar comments. Some of the dog pokemon made threatening growls to make people quiet down.
The red haired woman turned to look back at the crowd. 'We will be doing this, so deal with it. Your cooperation is not necessary, so if you keep acting like that we will punish you.'
With those words many people kept quiet. Giovanni found the situation quite amusing, but he thought that he had played along for long enough. He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew the two pokeballs that were hidden within. He clicked on the buttons and released the pokemon inside them. A Cloyster and a Rhydon were unleashed. The two pokemon caught the attention of the members of Team Aqua and the pokemon guarding the hostages. Giovanni stood up above the other members of the crowd.
The red haired woman's eyes widened. She had not expected anyone to stand up to them, let alone one man with only two pokemon, in this situation. 'Well, well. It seems we have a lone hero amongst us. You think you can defeat all of us?' she asked Giovanni.
Giovanni gave the woman a smirk, 'You believe me to be alone? I think not, my dear.'
The woman raised an eyebrow, 'Not alone? Care to explain yourself?'
Giovanni gave a smug look to the woman, 'You have captured the passengers of the ship, yes. You have captured the Captain and crew. But, there is a group you have yet to capture, I'm afraid. The good people who work for room service.'
As Giovanni had finished speaking there was a sound of a splash and one of the Team Aqua members running up the deck shouting 'Man overboard! Man overboard!' The woman moved to see what this commotion was about, but was blocked off by a Machamp.
'Excellent work, Machamp!' came a voice behind the large superpower pokemon. In a flash of red light the pokemon disappeared revealing four waiters. The platinum blond waiter, Vincent, was amongst the four waiters. The other three wore the same uniform as Vincent. The three stood behind Vincent. The waiter on the left had blue hair and eyes, the waiter on the right had green hair and eyes while the waiter in the centre had red eyes and hair.
'I was wondering when you would appear, Vincent,' said Giovanni.
Vincent looked over at Giovanni who was surrounded by the other hostages, the pokemon of Team Aqua and some members of Team Aqua. 'Well yes, Sir. We couldn't leave our guests too long with these kinds of people.'
Giovanni chuckled at Vincent's comments. 'Cloyster, use ice beam on the pokemon surrounding this crowd.'
The pokemon did as Giovanni had comanded and used ice beam on the pokemon surrounding the crowd, freezing most. There was the odd few who managed to dodge the attack. 'Rhydon, deal with the stragglers with stone edge.' The drill pokemon obeyed the commands of its trainer, knocking those remaining pokemon unconscious.
The woman looked back at the now frozen and unconscious pokemon. 'Damn… all of them taken down so quickly… against only two pokemon?'
Vincent gave a mocking laugh, 'What do you expect from pokemon trained by the great Giovanni, Viridian City gym leader.'
The woman, her underlings and even Giovanni himself was shocked by Vincent's words. The Aqua members were obviously shocked that a gym leader was on board the ship, while Giovanni was shocked that the young waiter knew who he was, despite never revealing his real identity to him.
'All members retreat!' the woman shouted so all members could hear her.
With her words a loud noise of running footsteps to the sides of the ship. Surrounding the ship were multiple smaller boats that could not be seen from the deck. This explained how these people could get onto the ship. Although Giovanni didn't particularly care why these people were here, he did want to know more about this Team Aqua. This meant that he had to keep at least one of their members from escaping.
'Cloyster, Rhydon, stop their escape!' commanded Giovanni. The two pokemon roared and moved to block the Aqua's exits.
Vincent and the other three waiters released pokemon and did the same, blocking the exits. Looking at the four, Giovanni could only recognise one of the pokemon, Vincent's Machamp, the other pokemon were unfamiliar to him.
With their escape routes blocked, their pokemon either frozen or unconscious, the Aqua members surrendered. A tall man in a sailor uniform stood up from the crowd of people. 'Take these criminals to the lower levels, we will hand them over to the authorities when we reach Slateport City.'
Multiple sailors stood up from behind him, 'Yes Captain!' they all said in unison. The sailors walked through the crowd and escorted the Aqua members to the lower levels. After a short time they returned and began moving the Aqua members pokemon to the lower levels.
With the threat of team Aqua dealt with for the moment the passengers began moving back to their rooms. As Giovanni began to walk back to his room the Captain gave him a gesture to stop. 'Hello, I thank you for your assistance in this… unplanned event.'
'Yes, not a problem. They had to be dealt with I suppose…' replied Giovanni.
The Captain gave Giovanni a smile. He then looked over to the four waiters and signalled them to come over. The four complied with the Captain's order. 'You four, I thank you for your help in this,' he said to the waiters. 'If it were not for you five who knows what would have happened to us?' he said to the waiters and Giovanni.
'Yes, well, if you will excuse me, I must be going back to my room,' said Giovanni.
'And we must get back to our work, Captain,' said the blue haired waiter.
The Captain looked a little disappointed that a conversation did not develop. 'Ah, I see. Well, you have my, and the crews, gratitiude for what you did here today. You went above and beyond the call of duty.'
The five gave a nod and went on their way. Giovanni went back to his cabin room, the door of which had been broken by one of the Aqua members black and grey dog-pokemon. The waiters, excluding Vincent, went back to their regular duties. Vincent had followed Giovanni back to his cabin.
Giovanni stared at the young waiter with platinum blond hair for a moment before speaking. 'Well, Vincent. I have some questions for you,' he began, the seriousness could be heard in the tone of his voice. 'How did you know my real identity?'