"WHAT?!" I exclaimed loudly expressing all the shock I felt this moment.
"I`m the leader of Viridian City gym." Giovanni explained and looked at me sullenly. "And I`m the strongest of all gym leaders!"
That revelation hit he like a hammer. The gym leader IS also the leader of damn Team Rocket. I just can`t believe this! The news paralyzed me for some time. But I MUST pull myself together and make a move. I MUST defeat him completely this time.
This is the moment of truth. There is nowhere for me to go now. There is nowhere for Giovanni to run. No backup for each side – nothing! The last confrontation between the evil and… lesser evil.
"You`re right, Giovanni. This IS between you and me." I slowly said to him. "For everything you`ve done… For everything you made me go through… I will make your fall! And after that, I will finally make you tell me where your damn Squad 2B is!"
My arrogant statement made Giovanni even raise one eyebrow in surprise.
"Is that it?" He asked me calmly. "THAT is why you keep chasing me all over the Kanto? The information about some Squad 2B?"
"That was just the first reason, but yeah! They took my car, and I want it back!"
In reply to this Giovanni just lowered his head down and laughed, grimly and quietly.
"Ehehe… I`m sorry to disappoint you again, Vengeance." He told almost mockingly. "But there is NO Squad 2B in my Team! And there never was! I name all my squads other way, I name them all with Greek letters!"
This… shocked me even stronger than previous revelation. But this can`t be! I definitely know those guys were from Team Rocket. I definitely know they were from Squad 2B! I still have their ID cards!
Breaking through my shock, I grabbed the cards from my pocket and gave them one last look. Yes, they are definitely what they were!
"One day you said I killed your men… Now you tell me they never existed. Then how can you explain THIS?" With anger I yelled and tossed those cards to the ground. The Rocket Boss carefully looked at them from the distance, but didn`t make a step to take a closer look.
"These are obviously fake." He seriously said and returned his eyesight at me. "I don`t know where you took these, but you have been fooled since the very beginning. All this time you were chasing the mirage, Vengeance…"
No… No… NO! I can`t believe this! How could I make a mistake? Where could I make a mistake? I followed them, I have found them… Mark Steam obviously recognized me, Josh Barkster obviously recognized me… I COULD NOT BE WRONG!
"Ugh… I`m tired of this." Giovanni distracted me from my self-reproaching thoughts. "I just wanted to walk away peacefully… To return here and restore Team Rocket to its former glory after all fails you caused. But, you have found me again. So be it. This time, I'm not holding back! Once more, you shall face Giovanni, the greatest trainer in the world!"
With this intro he quickly grabbed the pokeball from his pocket and threw on ground, releasing outside a menacing and powerful Rhyhorn.
"You`re here again…" I addressed the spike pokemon, tuning myself for the correct mood. Violent mood. "We`ll show you what happens to those who oppose us. Reaper, let`s reap their souls!"
We began with a very strong entrance – with extreme weakness against the opponent. But that has to be our hour! I prepared my Reaper and myself for this… Let`s see how the sight of Beedrill defeating a Rhyhorn breaks Giovanni.
"You never learn…" The opponent said with disappoint. "Rhyhorn, use Rock Blast!"
"Oh, we do. We do… Reaper, sting his ass with Twineedle!" I gave my first order too.
Beedrill quickly headed to his opponent and stood behind the monster – in the area where he can`t reach us anyhow. But we sure can reach him! And reach we did… With a powerful hit of both stings Reaper sent enemy pokemon berserk from critical pain. Rhyhorn lost his focus and targeted the rock somewhere high and obviously missed us. There went the second one too.
Giovanni grinned and made a step back.
"Rhyhorn, shake it with Earthquake!" He yelled uncontrollably.
"Yeah, shake it, baby! And meanwhile we use Twineedle again!" I made a spin around and pointed at Rhyhorn.
For now, everything goes according to our plan. We launch our neutrally effective moves and survive attacks until Giovanni breaks. He did it already.
Another strong sting from us made Rhyhorn even jump on place from pain and suddenness. Angered even more, the spike pokemon growled and stomped the ground, causing the soft ground around him to shake for good. That was some real local earthquake, and it threw Reaper in the air by very strong power coming from under the ground. Earthquake is the strongest ground-type move I`ve ever seen, but even this was not enough to finish my Reaper.
I have trained him to take as much damage as we need…
...to activate his ability!
The bright green aura surrounded my pokemon, and the actual swarm of small dark particles enveloped him, empowering quite a lot.
"Finish him with Pin Missile!" I shouted out loud.
"No, stop it! Intercept with Take Down!" Giovanni commanded fearfully.
Reaper pointed his shining sting at the Rhyhorn already running at him, creating some small pins and shooting them at the target. Opponent calmly took the first one on the face, then another, and then – another one in the leg. Then – one more in the face… and again one more in the back. Exhausted by this literal shower of hurtful pins hitting each part of his body, Rhyhorn screamed from pain and fell down, stretching over the ground. One last attempt to get up devoured his last energy before he finally blacked out.
Giovanni did his best at hiding the shocked emotions from this defeat. A mighty Rhyhorn was defeated by a miserable bug! I could easily read his face at the sight of it.
But he said nothing - just silently returned the fallen pokemon and… threw away the pokeball like garbage.
"I have more slaves to take you on!" He grumbled through teeth. "Don`t fail me, Dugtrio!"
The energy silhouette from his next pokeball turned into a creepy three-headed monster sticking out of the ground and staring at me angrily. Heh… I have just defeated a whole bunch of these with Harry. But I know how to make this even funnier!
"Reaper, you did a good job. Return." I praised my Beedrill and returned him back. I just love so much when my pokemon accomplish doing something other people consider impossible… "Loser, you`re on!"
We continued our battle with my ghost pokemon entering the field. Judging by Giovanni`s eyes widening to extreme, he didn`t expect that. Oh, this is going to be SO fun.
The Boss squeezed his fists and stared at me angrily, like trying to break through me with his pressing stare. The mole pokemon he released on the field started to worry a bit, when his trainer did absolutely nothing to start the battle.
"Well, we will not be waiting for your turn!" I spread my hands and smiled to anger Giovanni even more. "Loser, use Curse!"
My opponent wasn`t going to do anything at all. He closed his eyes and grinned really pissed off. He DOES have no moves that can damage us! And that makes his poor Dugtrio worry much more.
Loser still didn`t hesitate to attack a defenseless opponent, and began to cast his cursed spell. After a small ritual of moving his hands he launched a shadow that struck Dugtrio`s middle head like a nail and created an evil purple aura around that began to hurt him slowly.
"What happened, Giovanni?" I kept on teasing the mighty Boss of Team Rocket. "Have nothing more in your sleeve? Have no moves to kill a pitiful ghost-poison pokemon…"
The anger carried him over the edge. The shaking hand of Giovanni grabbed the gun somewhere from behind and immediately shot at me, and only thanks to Loser`s perfect reaction the bullet didn`t reach me but was took down in the midair by a ball of dark energy. Then Gengar vanished again and appeared near Giovanni just to punch his hand and make him drop the gun.
"Uh-uh-uh… No cheating!" I swing my forefinger before me. "Play nice, gym leader!"
This angered Giovanni even more, and he… suddenly returned his Dugtrio back into a pokeball. Under normal circumstances this would be considered as a violation of Pokemon League rules, but current circumstances were definitely not normal.
This was a battle of trainers in its straight way – not the pokemon battle at all. Not a battle trainers usually see every day… This is a brutal survival game. Hardcore and very, very real. And Giovanni loses it.
With all his might and strength the anger gives him he squeezed the pokeball so hard in his hand it… simply broke, like a glass sphere. The bright energy erupted from its insides and faded away very quickly in the surrounding air, leaving just the pieces of device lying on the floor.
Did he just kill his Dugtrio?!
That was really unexpected for me. Possibly, this was the exact shock he experienced when I gave up myself to torture by Kongu. Now this… frostbite, freak, bastard have just killed a pokemon by his own hands! Who is the monster now?
"Do you think it was the righteousness that led you to me?" Giovanni said confidently, clearly seeing a disgust towards him on my face. "Do you think that you`re a hero that saves people from tyrants? Even if I lose the battle today, I still prove you horribly WRONG!"
I have no idea what this creep is trying to say me, but he is taking out the next pokeball… I can only hope this is not Kongu. I don`t want to see this pokemon today at all! I don`t want to make her suffer even more!
That was not Kongu, but another of my acquaintances. The one that almost killed me in the last encounter. The one that I have my own vendetta to avenge. Her majesty Princess the Nidoqueen, entering the field with a wall-shaking roar.
"You have always been on a dark side of power, Vengeance…" Giovanni mysteriously said. "Today you have your goal. I have mine. They confront each other, and only one of us comes out alive. No pushbacks from now on!"
"No pushbacks, yeah…" I grinned angrily at him while returning my Gengar back into his greatball and taking out the big gun. "Dumpling will defeat you!"
The grin appeared on Giovanni`s mug again. He sure has some unspoken vendetta against my ace pokemon. It`s obvious that he is at a disadvantage, but I`m sure that his Nidoqueen knows something besides ground-type moves.
"Okay, let`s try out Flamethrower!" I offered my pokemon to begin.
"Princess, use Poison String!" He confidently counterattacked.
Aww crap. He better should have just ground-type moves than this!
Dumpling took a battle stance and opened his mouth to charge a powerful flamethrower. The burning stream of fire enveloped quickly approaching Nidoqueen, slowing her down but not stopping. Surrounded by fire, she roared loudly and jumped out of the wall, landing on Charizard and piercing his shoulders with her sharp claws with stings inside them. This move have never been that painful, and Dumpling just had to cry loudly from this.
Feeling that he had enough, Princess grinned and kicked him in stomach, throwing back and freeing her stings from my partner`s body. The wound began to glow evil violet as the poison spreads more and more.
Giovanni had his strategy worked out well, but he stayed emotionless, as always. What is he up to next? I remember them using Body Slam the last time, what can he surprise me now with?
"Go with Body Slam!" My opponent shouted loudly.
Not very surprising.
"Losing your grip, yeah, Giovanni?" I teased him a bit. "Steel Wing, Dumpling!" As we already poisoned, there`s no need to fear her Poison Point ability and act carefully.
The two pokemon headed to each other trying to land a hit first, but my partner definitely was faster and struck Princess hard with his wing. Too bad the opposing monster was so tough and heavy that Charizard after the impact ricocheted himself and remained opened for the opponent to launch her attack. The exchange was strong, but all sides stand.
"Princess, proceed with Earthquake!" Giovanni ordered with a stone face.
"Head into the air, Dumpling, use Fly!" I gave my command and carefully observed the situation. Giovanni perfectly knows that he can`t damage Charizard with ground-type moves, but used this anyway. He`s no fool to make such mistakes, so he definitely has something in his mind. Whatever he is planning, that is no good.
Hearing my command Dumpling jumped high into the air and headed straight up to gather some height for performing a heavy air slam on our opponent… that wasn`t looking at him at all.
She was looking at me.
And she stomped the ground with powerful roar, causing everything to shake. A crack in ground appeared before her and headed straight to me, deadly cultivating the whole battlefield. I would definitely have been buried alive if my Dumpling did not strike Princess from above and stopped the mighty power that keeps shaking the ground under our feet. I just barely stood on my legs after this.
But Giovanni still stands motionless, like giving no shit to the apocalypse happening around us. His plan to shake me to death failed, and yet he keeps doing the same thing again and again… What`s wrong with him, really?
Meanwhile our pokemon punched each other in the dirt a couple of times and disconnected, returning back to their initial positions and getting ready for the next round. Dumpling threw a quick glance full of determination at me. With Princess already receiving some pretty good hits, we are definitely winning this one, despite the poison that keeps hurting my Charizard.
"Yeah… Give `er the best Steel Wing you can, Dumpling!" I said to my partner and nodded. He gladly roared in reply and immediately rushed from the place to launch an attack.
"Body Slam!" The Boss brutally commanded.
Charizard quickly approached Nidoqueen and smacked her nicely with his hard-as-steel wing in the face, moving a bit back in the dirt, but our opponent quickly recovered after this and used their closeness to jump and strike him with her body. The hit was so strong Dumpling lost control over his wings and clumsily landed on ground, very angered and pained. But the opponent suffered very much already too, and only the last hit can decide the result…
"Finish him with Body Slam!" Giovanni roared furiously and squeezed his fist. Finally he is showing some emotions. But the situation can become worse if we don`t anything quick.
"Flamethrower!" I improvised badly, commanding my pokemon to stop the enemy with a stream of fire. He remained on ground and just released the powerful flamethrower targeting the approaching Nidoqueen.
She was caught inside the stream enveloping her but proceeded to move. Yet each her step was harder and harder as the strength leaves her body. In the end, Dumpling released all the fire he had and looked into the high fire wall with interest…
A burnt and tired Nidoqueen stepped out of it, raised her hand… and fell down unconscious. Defeated for good.
"Useless trash!" Giovanni mumbled through teeth and returned Princess into her pokeball. "So much effort and for what?"
He threw the pokeball away again, rejecting his own pokemon. At least, she wasn`t crushed inside her pokeball like Dugtrio… I`m really sorry to look at it. I remembered how I tried to defeat her by my own in the office of Silph Co… Remembered how she grabbed me and threw in the window from the eleventh floor.
Even after all this I feel sorry for her.
"What did you do to Kongu?" I seriously asked him.
"I don`t need pokemon that disobey me." He answered, showing disgust. "So I got rid of her and her larva on Black Market. I don`t care what happens to them now."
Crap… Now I may never be able to save her. At least, now she is together with her child… if her new master isn`t even worse than Giovanni. Who could possibly be worse than Giovanni, anyway? I guess, now I understand why Team Rocket needed that Cubone from Lavender town. As a ground-type pokemon, he was interesting for Giovanni. Maybe, he could become the part of team and… meet his fate here, just like the others.
"Does your conscience never bother you?" I sincerely asked him. "You treat pokemon like garbage! How could you even invent an idea of melting living pokemon into clay to form an abomination?!"
"Mewtwo should have become my greatest project!" The Boss proudly exclaimed, not really bothered by the idea that I know so much of his secrets. "No one ever tried to do this, and my success would not only let me become actually the strongest trainer of them all, but also the greatest of them all!"
I uncontrollably squeezed my fists from rage that boiled inside.
"Why grass?" I questioned him, trying to keep myself in hands. "Why specifically grass type?!"
"Ugh…" Giovanni grumbled like I touched the painful topic. "Because I HATE THEM! I hate them all!"
His hands were shaking like crazy, all the rage and fury collected inside pissed him off to the limit. But he squeezed his fists and pulled himself together, just like I did.
"I always wanted to be the strongest trainer…" He told me with his eyes closed. "And I actually raised the strongest pokemon. Rhyhorn, Golem, Onix… I specialized on ground types because they are really powerful and tough! A perfect combination of strength and endurance!"
He sounded very inspired telling me these things… The sudden revelation of his history could give me some answers to understanding his soul, but… I don`t care anymore. Looks like so does he…
"But all of them can be easily crushed by a noob with grass-type pokemon…" The manner of telling changed to really dark and grim… I expect he had a lot of devastating experience connected to this. People can be different, and all of them treat their losses differently. Some count them as a valuable experience, some give no shit, and some began to go crazy… Like a kid tossing the chess board after a checkmate. The only difference that pawns are alive and have soul.
"Why did you transport pokemon in cages and not pokeballs?" I kept on asking him questions and demanding answers. To my surprise, Giovanni kept on replying to them.
"Isn`t this obvious?" He spread his hands with a smile. "Pokeballs suppress the natural power of pokemon! I do not need an ultimate pokemon that has the power lock! We have developed special balls that have slow suppression process, but, as the idea, we didn't need to store pokemon in them for a long time… We needed them to be pure, untouched by constraint technology… Yet."
Those damn trapballs, yes. They capture pokemon without creating the actual link, so the effect of power lock does not appear… That means the Masterball could also be a ball without the power lock! And the ultimate pokemon captured with it would be able to literally devastate cities and even more…
That means all those Dittos on Cinnabar Island had no power lock when we hunted them… They had the actual ability of killing someone. Damn, maybe they even did and I just don`t know! What a horror would it be if we did not succeed. If Articuno flew to us at that time we would have a hundreds confused Articunos destroying everything on their path!
This would be the end of the world.
All by the fault of this pitiful human over there… His hunger for power, extreme overconfidence and absolute stupidity!
"Just tell me… Who was the first?" I asked him one last time. "The gym leader or the Team Rocket Boss?"
Giovanni was distracted for a bit and looked down, like trying to remember something… I expected the answer to be pretty obvious, but is this so hard to remember the life before all this began? He got the legacy of a crime family, but how did HE come to this?
The Boss shook his head, throwing away all emotions and memories. He did remember something, but had no wish to continue this senseless talk.
"This doesn`t matter. The battle isn`t ended yet!" Our opponent refused to answer and grabbed his next capsule – this time being an ultraball. And the creature from inside of it appeared to be a tall and powerful Nidoking – perhaps, the evolved Nidorino we battled last time.
Once again, the pokemon was too huge comparing to usual ones. Maybe, now I can suppose why it is… Drugs. Steroids. Just this crap can affect pokemon so much. Just this can make them so strong. I suspected this earlier, but now I`m sure of it.
"The stakes are higher and higher…" I quietly said observing the mighty monster before me. "And pokemon become bigger and bigger! I know who you need to battle."
I quickly returned Dumpling back into his pokeball and switched into another of my champions. And the champion of mine appeared on the field immediately covering the hole in ceiling and roaring loudly.
Lei Sheng is back!
Giovanni looked over my Gyarados and clenched his teeth, perfectly knowing what awaits him, but still not giving up.
"Let`s go, Prince! Crush this pest! Poison Sting!" The Boss yelled enraged.
How cute, Prince and Princess… Maybe there is a bit of heart in this miserable grounded man. I still can`t understand how to treat him now. He`s more confusing person than me!
"Lei Sheng… Hydro Pump him!" I gave the command with brutal look on my face. I already like where this battle goes… To my utter and complete triumph!
The Nidoking prepared to rush by concentrating all its power and then sprinted all the way to Lei Sheng. But my loyal pokemon wasn`t waiting for nothing – just as the opponent approached him, he launched a powerful stream of water that threw Prince back and even further. Opponent got up and roared once more, showing us that he is far from finished. As usually, Giovanni`s pokemon show extreme toughness and stamina.
"Keep throwing him back with Hydro Pump!" I gave the next command.
"Trash it with all you`ve got!" Giovanni tensed just as his pokemon.
Nidoking rushed right through the water stream hitting him with extreme power, but withstood it and even went forward! Slowly, surely, step by step he was approaching my Gyarados that was continuously shooting all the water supply his body could produce.
Even that wasn`t enough.
In the end, Prince reached Lei Sheng and broke through the water, dealing the first punch. Gyarados was thrown down and shortly immobilized by this, and thus Nidoking got the advantage. He began thrashing my pokemon all the way, dealing more and more punches in the face. Thrash has always been one of the strongest normal-type moves, and together with Nidoking`s strength this can become a real problem.
Both pokemon exhausted each other pretty quickly and retreated to their starting positions, waiting for us to continue.
I could see that Hydro Pump sucks the energy out of Gyarados pretty quickly, and decided to change the strategy for some time.
"Bite his leg, Lei Sheng!" I gave an order, totally into the battle.
"Heh… Keep going…" Giovanni chuckled and nodded. I didn`t actually understand who he was addressing – me or Prince…
But Prince remained motionless as my Gyarados charges at him with mouth opened for a bite. Just in a moment the impact would have been made, Giovanni suddenly shouted:
"Double Kick!"
Oh, you cunning son of a bitch! He deliberately waited for the exact moment to make the strongest kick. Nidoking used the leg my Lei Sheng aimed to kick him in the face and throw on ground, also brutally stomping him into the dirt after that. That looked so hurtful, despite fighting moves are not really good against flying types.
"Lei Sheng, proceed with Dragon Rage!" I made a posing step forward and threw hand before me. Gyarados listened to my command and prepared to launch the attack.
"Prince, use Trash again!" Giovanni pointed forward too and struck a pose.
Nidoking once more headed to my pokemon, slowly and heavily gaining speed until the two impacted again. This time a burst of pure dragon energy struck Prince before he managed to reach my Lei Sheng and began to trash him again.
"Pull back, pull back!" I shouted, wishing my pokemon to retreat and leave the impact zone, but Nidoking didn`t let him to.
"Yeah, keep it going until its mug is completely turns into a bloody water!" Giovanni exclaimed with a tone full of blood-lusting evil.
Ugh, this is not good… Looks like we actually need to take the last weapon while we can. I can only hope this works.
"The final Hydro Pump! Do it!" I shouted with all the might.
This time the proximity was on our side and Lei Sheng showered Nidoking with powerful stream of water right in the face. On such distance this appeared to be much stronger than usually, taking Prince into the flow and crushing into the column. Even the structure could not survive such hit and crashed into pieces letting the unstoppable Hydro Pump push Nidoking even further until the collision with the next wall. When the last drop was shot from Lei Sheng and everything was over, Prince fell down the floor obviously unable to continue. I guess he fainted for a long before that.
I looked at Giovanni once more. He keeps his posture calm and cold, like he does not give a shit. He didn't even bother returning back his fallen pokemon – just tossed the pokeball away and pulled his hand to the next one. This man has absolutely no respect to those who fight for him. Thus I have no respect for him.
"You know what?" Giovanni suddenly said while looking at his last pokeball. "I regret nothing. The world is still full of those who can bring order to it."
"Then I will have more job to do after this…" I confidently said and returned Lei Sheng back. This guy is completely exhausted after using strong moves like Hydro Pump, so I definitely need him to have rest.
While I was switching pokeballs, Giovanni stared at me for some reason. He suddenly noticed something interesting in my appearance and focused his narrowed eyesight at me, but I didn`t understand what exactly he saw in me. And soon he made a step back with his eyes widened in shock.
"So are you one of them?!" He exclaimed surprised.
"Of them… who?" I asked again, not getting his point.
"This is a punishment for me, yes? They sent you for me intendedly?" He kept yelling at me enraged. I still couldn`t understand what he means and who he is talking about. "But Giovanni never surrenders! He fights until the very end, no matter what!"
That really began to confuse me. I felt he is talking not to me, but someone else… someone he fears. This is something new for me about him.
Completely gone insane, the Team Rocket boss threw his last pokeball on the field, sending his last minion into the fight.
A huge and powerful Rhydon…
"I waited for this moment…" I brutally said to him. "There is only one that must deal you the final blow. Go, Harry!"
And thus I sent my Victreebel into the fight, knowing how this will turn in the end.
The finale… begins just now!