A puff of dirt up the side of a nearby peak caught Giovanni's attention. He'd been staring out the window of his office most of the day, and this was the first activity he observed aside from the migrating birds.
Avalanches were common earlier in the spring when the rock-types were on the move and would persist throughout the warmer weather. He didn't muse on the event long.
Instead, he focused on the challenge ahead. He'd been fielding calls, trying to move assets around to cover the gaping hole his project had burned into the base's operating budget. Unfortunately, he'd barely negotiated a hat for the debt.
Miyamoto's proposed alternative was starting to feel like his only option.
If he couldn't re-sell the materials, he thought, he might as well use them.
Giovanni took a moment to imagine Madame Boss arriving later that night, stepping up to his presentation of a melted grunt corpse with the ears of a Jigglypuff.
Miyamoto was right about his mother in one way…a confusing distraction would save him more surely than a mercy plea. But was it worth the pilot's life? The man had sworn an oath to Rocket Corp.
If he'd broken it, that would be worth punishing. Giovanni needed to know if such was the case here.
He glanced at Persian, sprawled out on the marble floor in the center of a sunbeam.
"What do you think?" he asked aloud.
Persian curled its front paws in and stretched its rear legs out straight, groaning indulgently. Truly, the Pokémon led a blessed life. Especially in the interim between competitions.
Giovanni rose from his office chair. He picked up his blazer off the seatback and slipped it on. As he did up the buttons, he nudged Persian lightly with his foot.
"Come protect me, Persian. We're going to talk to the mean purple one."
Reluctantly, the Pokémon left its sunbeam and trotted after him.
They headed for the lab. Giovanni had sent a courier to find Miyamoto and direct her there as well. If there were one victory he could still pull today, it would be from Ariana's gene-matching gamble.
When he arrived, he found Miyamoto and Ariana crammed into the machine room, already deep in conversation. They didn't notice his approach, so he knocked on the glass beside the open doorway.
Both of the women whipped around to face him.
"Vice Boss Giovanni, look at this."
Miyamoto was in professional mode, apparently. She picked up some of the sheets of paper scattered in front of Ariana and handed them to him.
He re-oriented the pages.
They were printed screen captures from the security system. Glancing at the camera's timestamp in the corner, he saw they were from today, less than an hour ago.
Details in the first image were difficult to make out, but he could see the dust from fallen rocks and the debris cluttering an area recently cleared for expansion.
The back of Miyamoto's open hand appeared over the page.
"Here, this one!"
She snatched away the top image, then another.
On the third, he recognized shapes among the rubble - a sneakered foot and a pair of legs in dusty boots.
"There are grunts on the scene right now," Miyamoto said eagerly.
"A rescue? Who are they?"
"Who knows. Some lost hikers. But it's an unbelievable opportunity for the project!"
Behind Miyamoto, Ariana clacked away at her interface to the sequencer. She snuck a glance back at him, but when their eyes met, she quickly averted hers.
"How...so?" Giovannni looked between the two women, then back at the print outs.
A radio crackled at Miyamoto's hip and she snatched it off her belt.
"Go ahead," she said into it.
The voice on the other end sounded alarmed, but that might have been the grunt's shouting.
"-three total. Two young men, uh, one gal. Alive but unconscious, over."
"Standby. Over," she replied.
Miyamoto arched her eyebrows at Ariana, then Giovanni. "This is perfect, Giovanni." Back to Ariana. "Ariana, which one do you want?"
"What is perfect ? What exactly-"
And then it hit him. They knew of his concerns about the pilot, whether they thought of the man in terms of a Rocket Corp resource or a loyal employee. But here were three readily-available options that would never have to touch the books.
"If she has two X chromosomes, the female would be the ideal candidate of the three," Athena spoke up.
Miyamoto raised the radio to her lips again, but Giovanni put a hand over it.
"Tell me what you are planning before you take another step."
The purple-haired woman lowered her hand under his. She was about to answer him when Ariana cut in.
"I want to run the experiment. If this is the last chance I'll have with this machine, then I need to do it. Miyamoto told me about Madame Boss."
Giovanni glared at Miyamoto. What had she shared?
"If she needs to know why you risked the losses, you can show her. I will get you a useful result. I promise."
He felt cornered. Dimly, he was aware of Persian lurking near his feet, but this wasn't the type of battle it could help with. Instead, he fought inside himself.
Instinct told him to beware Miyamoto, to stay in control of the situation. But other impulses called him to greatness, pushed him to go big, and thrilled at the venture. One small voice sounded like Ariana's, passionate and pleading for a chance to fulfill a vision.
He turned away as he sorted his thoughts, hiding his face from their imploring eyes.
Miyamoto's radio spoke again. "Update? Over."
Looking over the printed frames of security footage, Giovanni shook his head. Three bodies dropped into their laps. People who would likely die anyway and be declared missing. Idiots lost in the mountains.
Giovanni took the radio from Miyamoto and raised it to his own mouth.
"Bring the girl to the base laboratory. Move the other two to another plausible rockfall, out of sight of the compound, and leave them. Implement base visibility protocol in case of aerial search parties." He released the button, then pressed it again and quickly added, "Over."
Ariana stared up at him with an expression of awe. In his periphery, Miyamoto bounced with excitement..
"It's happening?" Ariana asked.
He smirked. The scientist held nothing back when it came to her emotions. His words had brought tears to her eyes again and again the last few days. To see the joy rise in them now gave him a sense of accomplishment on a metric he hadn't consciously calculated.
It was the feeling, he would much later recognize, of handing someone access to their own true power.
It was not unpleasant.
"You'll need your tube filled then," he said smoothly, deflecting to a discussion of next steps.
"E-excuse me?" Ariana went pink. Miyamoto looked horrified.
He gave them both a hard look, unused to explaining himself.
"The suspension fluid you ordered. I assume you'll need it in the tube-" he gestured to the upright glass chamber, "-before you insert the...subject?"
"Oh! Yes. I will." Ariana put a hand to her chest and Miyamoto made a noise like she was stifling a sneeze.
The two women were a strange pair. When they were together, there was always some element of their interaction happening beyond his perception.
Giovanni continued on, ignoring their exchanging of looks.
"I'll see about authorizations for the power grid tonight. Keep me informed at each step. I would like to be present for the experiment itself."
"Yes, sir," Ariana replied eagerly.
There was something else, some other element of the project that had not yet fallen into place… He had to assume the machine still hadn't matched a mystery strand of DNA, or Ariana would be more forthcoming with the news.
Instead of sowing insecurity over a fact that would not change, he chose his next words to bolster her confidence.
"I trust by the time it comes due, you will have made an informed decision regarding the genetic information you intend to use."
"Yes, sir."
Giovanni felt her radiating gratitude. It would be pathetic of him to stand around basking in it, so he turned away from Ariana and spoke his next words into the door frame.
"Let's hope your calculations are correct."
He left them to their tasks, off to serve his own role in the coming experiment, Persian in tow.