Giovanni pinched his nose and sighed.
Yet again he found himself in the conference room and once more it was due to troubling events. Archer and Ariana sat on either side of him. Other executives and one scarred woman filled the rest of the seats.
"Elite Officer Aki," Giovanni addressed the scarred woman. "I am afraid that we have received confirmation that the target is in League custody. What's more, Dave's team has been confirmed as deceased."
Aki's face went pale at the announcement. She closed her eyes and swallowed. When her eyes opened again, they seemed to be wetter than before.
"All of them, sir?" She asked in a barely controlled voice.
"Yes," Giovanni said. "I've gone over the reports from your subordinates. You performed admirably given the circumstances."
"If you say so sir," Aki voice was thick, like she was holding back tears, "but it sure doesn't feel like it."
"True," Giovanni nodded at her. "But you were intercepted by a gym leader, who, by all accounts, should not have been anywhere near the area of operations. And I went over Officer Dave's original plan to eliminate the target. It seems like it was simple misfortune that you were in the situation to begin with."
"Yes sir," Aki replied, expression flat and voice still thick.
"Ariana, if you would?" Giovanni said, shooting a glance at his subordinate. Arianne nodded and stood up.
"Elite Officer Aki, you are hereby placed on medical leave for the next two weeks, and I would advise you to take some personal leave after that," Ariana told the other woman. "Get yourself back together before you try to do anything else."
"Yes ma'am," Aki saluted.
"Dismissed," Arianne said. Aki nodded and walked out of the room while Arianne sat back down.
As soon as the scarred woman left the room, the head of Tracking stood up and began talking. "Sir, I would like to take full responsibility-"
Giovanni raised his hand to quiet the man.
"There's no reason for you to take responsibility for this," the leader of Team Rocket said. "You just did what I had ordered you to do." The head of Tracking sat down and the room was silent for a moment, before Giovanni sighed again.
"This has left us in a precarious situation," he told the room.
"All the other targets were eliminated," Archer said, looking at some papers in front of him. "Only Officer Dave's target escaped. It's possible that the League won't be able to get any actionable intelligence about our plans from that one source."
"We can hope, but we can't assume that will be the case," Giovanni stood up and walked over to the hallway window, hands clasped behind his back. "We're going to need a new plan."
Everyone in the room was silent. People shuffled papers, opened laptops, or went to the room's whiteboard and began to jot things down. Giovanni continued to stare out the window, lost in thought.
"The target only had intelligence related to Operation Stolen Fire, right?" Ariana said after some time had passed.
"Correct," Giovanni said without turning around.
"Operation Totality and Operation Thought-Leech are still uncompromised then," Ariana went on, chewing on her lip.
"As far as we know," Giovanni still hadn't turned around.
"I think I know a way to protect Stolen Fire using our other operations," Ariana said. "Let's give them some bread crumbs relating to Totality. Let's make them think that Operation Totality is our main objective."
"And take extra steps to hide Thought-Leech," Archer added, nodding, seeing where Ariana was going. "We can let the League know that we're planning in Saffron, but we can let them focus on the wrong thing."
Giovanni looked at the ceiling in thought for a moment.
"Totality was meant to succeed whether or not Thought-Leech succeeded," Giovanni said, finally turning around to address his subordinates. "If we tip the League off about Totality, then the only way it will succeed is if Mind-Leech succeeds. And Stolen Fire absolutely requires Totality."
"Mind-Leech is too delicate to expose to the League," Ariana replied meeting Giovanni's eyes. "I disagree with you about Totality. Even with the League snooping around it will still stand a chance of success without Mind-Leech."
"You're willing to risk that?" Giovanni held her gaze as he asked the question.
"Yes sir, I am." Ariana replied.
"Then I'll take your word for it," Giovanni said, sitting back down. "Archer, Ariana, I want a new timetable for Totality and Mind-Leech on my desk first thing in the morning. We'll hammer out the details and budgets later. Tracking, Operations, I want you to make a list of all the resources you can spare. R&D I'll want a status update on all our major projects in two days."
There were various responses of affirmation.
"Good, dismissed."
Giovanni found himself in his sitting room once again, nursing another glass of his expensive liquor. He stared into the fire, lost in thought.
Just what had Brock been doing in the wilds between Saffron and Vermillion? Last that he had heard, the former gym leader was supposed to be doing a favor for Professor Oak. Something about a trainer that the former champion had given a starter to…
Except it was highly improbably that such a thing was the case, Giovanni concluded. It was more likely that Brock going inactive as a gym leader was just a cover story to mask his movements. Someone in the League must have known that Team Rocket had active operations in the area and sent Brock there to disrupt them.
It was more evidence that there was a leak in his organization. Just like what had happened to his operative in Pewter City.
Giovanni frowned. He needed to know just how far the leak went. Most likely it was only a partial leak; if the entire organization was compromised then he doubted that he would be sitting comfortably in this room.
Stolen Fire itself was probably safe. Only one target had escaped, though it was the target that they could least afford to let escape. That scientist had known too much about Me-
Giovanni stopped himself from completing the thought. He had no desire to alert the abomination.
Using Operation Totality as a distraction was probably a good idea. Ariana was probably already planning how to plant false leads that tied the Cinnabar lab with Masterball technology. Maybe she was even planning on framing Team Rocket for the recent (natural) demise of a Silph Co. executive.
While she was working, Giovanni resolved that he would have to monitor the other gym leaders extra closely in the upcoming days to make sure that they had really taken the bait. He would also have to figure out who Brock was working with.
And he would also need a way to permanently plug the leak.
"Ugh. It's going to rain, isn't it," a young man wearing a blue uniform with a yellow belt, the uniform of the Saffron City gym, complained. He was looking up at the overcast sky.
"Well, maybe you shouldn't have taken so long to find their campsite," said, another man with brown hair and black eyes, wearing a grey longcoat.
"Well Torch, the witnesses were only able to give us the location of the Rocket's bodies," the first man complained. "They didn't have any idea where the camp was."
The two men stood in a clearing with a used firepit and several utilitarian tents, the campsite that Team Rocket had been using while they attempted to murder the witnesses currently at the Yin-Li Pokémon Center. Several other people milled about, most of them wearing either police uniforms or the Saffron Gym uniforms.
"That's what you and the trackers were for numbnuts," Torch replied. "If you didn't want to get rained on then you should have done a better job finding this place."
"Oh, there is just no talking to you!" the first man threw up his hands and stomped away.
Torch shot a grin at the retreating man's back and then turned around. He looked at everyone else milling about and then sighed.
"Why couldn't they have just left a notebook labelled 'Our Nefarious Plans' for us to find?" He groaned. "It would make everything so much easier."
He wandered through camp until he came across a woman sitting in the lotus position. She had long dark-green hair and was wearing a purple and black uniform. Her eyes were closed.
"Do you have to bother me right now?" The woman said without opening her eyes.
"I've got nothing better to do. Any luck?" Torch asked.
"No," the woman said in a tight voice. "There's no residue for me to pick up on. They must have had their ralts wipe the place down before they left."
"I hate it when the bad guys think ahead," Torch sighed, glancing up at the sky.
"And I hate it when you talk to me," the woman replied.
"Oh, Sabrina, you know you can't get enough of me," Torch grinned at her.
"Oh yes, everyone loves being bothered by a man stuck in permanent puberty," Sabrina said. She hadn't opened her eyes, but tone made it clear that she would be rolling them if she had.
"It's part of my boyish charm!"
"You are certainly childish. And how does that saying go again? 'Children should be seen and not heard'."
"I agree, everyone loves looking at my body! And I love it when they look at it too!"
"Cameron was right, there is just no talking to you," Sabrina sighed and opened her violet eyes.
"Well, I'm always open for you and your boyfriend to do other things with me," Torch said, waggling his eyebrows.
"No thanks," Sabrina said, her voice dry as she stood up. "I'm afraid both of our standards are far too high for take-out from the gutter."
"Take-out? Take-out!?" Torch gasped. "I am so much more long term than take-out!"
"I doubt that," Sabrina said, rolling her eyes as she walked away. She went to the center of the camp.
"Has anyone found anything useful yet?" Sabrina called out to the police and gym trainers gathered around.
Various calls of denial greeted her and she sighed. Sabrina looked up at the overcast sky above, at the worrying dark grey coloration, and then winced at the rapidly dropping air pressure.
"Hurry it up people!" She called out. "Bag everything you can! We can have techs go over it later! Just get anything that might be evidence out of here."
"Looks like it's gonna rain," Torch said, coming up behind her. "Good thing I thought ahead and brought something suitable for the weather."
"It was a clear sky earlier today," Sabrina said through gritted teeth.
"Hey, aren't you supposed to be clairvoyant? Shouldn't you have seen the rain coming?" Torch said, giving her a shit-eating grin.
"I didn't look, because we weren't supposed to be out this long," Sabrina said, glaring at the man. He just continued to grin back at her.
Sabrina growled and then stomped off to deal with other matters.
Ten minutes a sprinkle started.
"I could be at home, warm, and being cuddled," Sabrina muttered angrily as she helped pack some personal items. "But noooo… I just had to decide to accompany the investigative team in person in case there was some residue that only I could pick up…"
"Hmmm… is Atushi offering the warm cuddles?" Torch said appearing beside her. He had donned a grey rain hat to go with his coat as soon as water started falling. "Can I get some warm Atushi cuddles?"
Thunder rumbled somewhere far off and the sprinkle turned into a deluge. Sabrina's eye began to twitch.
"Everyone! We're done here!" She shouted. "Get back to the pokémon center!"
"Cutting and running so soon?" Torch said. "Well I guess it's at least warm at the pokémon center, even if there are no cuddles…."
"I'm not going back to the pokémon center," Sabrina shot back, wearing a wicked grin of her own. An invisible force pushed Torch's hat from his head and sent it flying off into the woods. Sabrina then gave him a gesture that consisted of a single finger, before vanishing with a loud popping sound.
Torch laughed and went off to find his hat.
Sabrina sat down on her couch, idly wondered about the pros and cons of installing a fireplace in her living room. On one hand a lot of work would have to be done to add one; the room would need to be remodeled and the building would need to have a chimney added. One the other hand she could have a merry fire going while she went over reports.
She took off the damp towel that she had been using to dry off her hair and leaned forward to grab the reports she had gathered on the coffee table. She leaned back, grabbed the arm of the other occupant of the couch and draped it around her shoulders.
"Bad day?" The owner of the arm, her boyfriend Atushi, asked. He was a thin man, a little on the short side, with black hair, black eyes, and a gentle face. He had been looking over some paperwork of his own before his arm had been commandeered.
"It took us hours to find the campsite and they had psychically wiped the place down before they left and I don't think we found any useful physical evidence," Sabrina complained, leaning back into the couch and Atushi's shoulder. "It was an absolute waste of time."
"At least you don't have to worry about it anymore," Atushi replied, setting down his own paperwork.
"How was your day?" Sabrina asked while she began skimming over her own stack of reports.
"As boring as ever," the man replied. "Accounting's not a profession you go into if you're looking for excitement."
"Wasn't your calligraphy club supposed to meet today?"
"It was cancelled."
"Well, at least you got to look forward to coming here and basking in my presence," Sabrina said stretching and leaning her head into his neck. Atsushi went slightly red and coughed.
"Well, maybe," he admitted before reaching over to the end table and grabbing a book.
They didn't talk much after that, both focusing on their readings.
Sabrina reached the part of her reports that dealt with the testimony the group that Team Rocket had been trying to kill.
According to the testimony of the trainer who had taken it upon himself to guard the target (Sabrina quickly looked up the names; the target's name was Aoba and the trainer's name was Aaron), the Rockets had claimed that they didn't know why Aoba had been targeted. Aoba thought that it might be related to some genetic experiments that he had worked on in Cinnabar.
The person who had compiled the report had tried to get more data on said experiments, but the data was sparse. The Cinnabar taxation and zoning records were able to confirm that some sort of experiments had taken place, but there was nothing as to the specifics.
Sabrina made a mental to investigate the experiments further. Whatever happened there would probably be a clue as to Team Rocket's motivation. And maybe even why they had been so active as of late.
Sabrina also made a mental note to interview this Aoba in person. She could probably teleport down to the pokémon center tomorrow to get it done.
She also toyed with the idea of talking with the trainer, Aaron, in person. And maybe trying to convince him to accept protective custody, at least temporarily
(She then glanced at the next line of the report, the one about his traveling companions, and decided that the entire thing was a moot point anyway.)
Operations around Viridian. An attack on Pewter with multiple break-ins. And now an assassination attempt in her own backyard. Sabrina chewed on the inside of her cheek while she thought.
Team Rocket had been lying low for years. Most of the operations that the police and League had uncovered had been centered around theft, smuggling, and pokémon trafficking. Everyone had thought that Team Rocket had finally finished the transition from a political entity seeking domination to a criminal entity seeking profit.
But recent events didn't fit that profile.
Sabrina wondered what it all meant. What was Team Rocket up to? And what did it mean for Kanto?
AN: I'd like to thank BlackCatSpecialist for beta reading.
Short chapter today. Just the usual in-between-arcs look at what Giovanni's up to and.
Next week we'll get to the Vermilion Gym, which some of you seem to have been waiting for.
Don't forget to review!