[Part 1]
Eelektroniks was a popular chain store selling, well, electronics. Aside from its bad pun name and its silly Eelektrik mascot, it had a few peculiarities that were more important to Joben at the moment.
First, it carried power banks. Literal shelves of them, and the store had a policy of keeping their goods fully charged, just in case.
Second, every Eelektroniks store on the islands had the same freaking layout. Like, literally the same, so that the staff trained at HQ could be stationed anywhere from Sapporo to Kagoshima, with more specialised staff members moving between stores as needed.
Third, some years ago, Joben worked at Eelektroniks for a bit, so he knew the layout better than most.
Which is exactly why he led his two captors to this three stories high building towering over its one story neighbours, and not one of several tiny mom-and-pop shops in the area he could name. Sure, those had more lax security. They also had those triple damned power banks located in arm's reach away from the door, and Joben was not sure if his captors planned on keeping him alive once they get their claws on the bloody things.
No, he needed hometurf advantage.
See, everyone knew that Pokemon abilities required either a line of sight, or an aim to work. Sure, Hyper Beam could be used to screw everything in a line, but its target had to BE wherever this ability was aimed. And yeah, some abilities like Swift had no chance of missing - but a Pokemon had to see its opponent first to target them. And true, there were abilities like Surf that just demolished everything in the area - but their target had to BE in the area to be affected.
Basically, Joben was banking on using the layout and whatever advantage he could find at the store to escape with his life.
"Well, here we are," he smiled, as they approached the entrance, "Just hold on a minute, I'll disable this part of security"
The red one nodded in understanding, and then proceeded to voice SOMETHING at the Goodra, who replied in a few seconds. Yeah, Joben was willing to bet that it was also a Pokemon, just a rare one. Maybe a runaway artificial one, since those spikes definitely did not look all that natural.
"Okay, we're done here. Now we just need to make a trip to the internal security room so I can disable the cameras and all internal alarms," well, not ALL the alarms. Just the ones that wouldn't help him much, "It's right over there on the first floor. Come on!"
[Part 2]
Hiei couldn't help but notice that the electronics shop was the largest building in the area. Just searching through it without a guide would've taken them far too long - and apparently, this one was also impressively good at dealing with human security systems, as he managed to open the front doors in a surprisingly short time.
Inside, Hiei could see rows upon rows of weird human contraptions, SOME of which she recognised as being related to Pokemon. Especially the numerous, differently coloured capture balls. She couldn't help but feel disturbed by the abundance of these devices just lying around in piles, as if hoarded.
'Are these empty?' she asked through the plastic letters. The human used a flashlight to read them.
"What, Pokeballs? Yeah, this shop doesn't sell Pokemon, just accessories. If you want ones with Pokemon inside, I know a few places in this town"
So, this shop was just responsible for distributing these capture devices among humans. Sure, she could trash the place once they were done with it, but it was nothing but a symptom of a much bigger problem. Dealing with the manufacturer would've been smarter, though there were several. Dealing with the reason why these devices worked in the first place, thus rendering them obsolete, was even better, and as such had been the goal of this journey. And they didn't want to draw TOO much human attention, after all.
"Uh, what was that about Pokeballs?" Inabayama inquired, clearly feeling left out.
"These are empty, though he claims to know places that sell ones with Pokemon inside"
"Ah, I see," the Goodra nodded. Then, after a few seconds, the dragon smirked, "Think we could grab a few empty ones and chuck them at humans?"
"This would not work. First, these are hard-coded to not work on humans in the first place. Second, the fact that these are enough to tame wild Pokemon is due to the mental limiters, which humans are not affected by"
"Yeah, but think about it! Imagine we come across a human that tries to capture us. Yeah, sure, we could just kill them. BUT! What if we pelted them in the head with these instead?!"
"Hm… That could prove to be somewhat amusing, yes," without stopping, Hiei picked a few different capture devices off the shelves and weighted them in her hand, "This one is heavy and sturdy enough to at least cause a minor concussion. Likely made to briefly stun a Pokemon it was thrown at."
"Yeowch," Inabayama winced, then checking the ball Gardevoir pointed out, "Yeah, pretty sure it could cave a human skull in. Well, turnabout is fair play. I'll go grab a few real quick!"
With that, the dragon ran back to the piles of capture devices. Meanwhile she and the human entered what seemed to be a staff area and, after a few turns, a security room.
"I'll need a few minutes to disable the alarms, turn off the cameras, and get rid of the footage they already have," the human informed, "Better do it quick, they upload the existing footage to the cloud every ten minutes"
Nodding, Hiei decided to keep a close eye on what the human was doing. Sure, she lacked some of the specialised knowledge of how these systems worked, but she was fairly certain that she would've been able to spot him doing anything suspicious.
[Part 3]
Ooookay, so the red one was keeping an eye on him. And since Joben did not know the extent of its familiarity with tech like this, he had to be careful and not act suspicious in any way.
Shame, a few plans just went out the window.
He took a quick note of the camera feed across all three floors and the underground parking lot. First, he had to get rid of the first floor cameras. Sure, the first floor was all about Pokemon-related accessories and had no significance to their trip here, but he's been on those cameras, even if poorly lit. Then, he disabled the underground parking. Then the second floor - general appliances, where they headed. Finally, just to be safe, he turned off the cameras on the third floor, where all the fridges, ovens and dishwashers were.
Once done with that, Joben made sure to turn off most of the internal alarms. Not all of them, of course - only the anti-theft ones, so the army did not to rush here just because that Goodra broke a glass or something. Fire alarm was still on, giving him an emergency option. And even if he wanted to, he couldn't disable the… 'Watchbirds', so to speak.
Not that he wanted to. They were probably his best chance at a distraction.
"Okay, I'm done here. The power banks are at the second floor. Let's go?"
They had to leave the staff area, and as soon as possible. Otherwise, the red one could get the idea of just checking the warehouse for these very power banks. That area was MUCH worse for him than the store.
Leaving the staff area, they found the Goodra again, now carrying an additional bag of something. What could a Goodra possibly need at Eelektroniks? Ah, probably one of them high power Pokemon massage machines - those were similar to ones made for humans, but produced enough force to separate human meat from bone. Dragon Pokemon liked these a lot. It probably recognised the thing, and grabbed a few. Whatever.
Making sure to lead his captors to the escalator in the far corner of the store, he turned the thing on, allowing them to easily reach the second floor.
"The power is on through the entire store, though turning on the lights is a bad idea if you don't want military to come knocking," Joben explained, "Now, the power banks have probably been left unattended for a few days, so I recommend that you make sure they're fully charged. The charging cables should be right next to them, and you can find compatible charging sockets in the smartphone area - or, well, practically anywhere in this place"
He made sure to talk confidently, but not TOO loudly, not to make his intent obvious. Judging by the unchanging expression in the red, he succeeded in that regard. What he didn't know is why the Watchbirds were taking so lo-
That's when it happened. Just as they walked into the smartphone area, with a cacophonous crackling of electricity, the world around them suddenly plunged into chaos.