Dad and mum were out on a business trip and Vance was getting steadily busier with each passing day ever since he started taking on more and more responsibilities as the heir. That left me alone at home and I'm very bored.
I had sent Kratos over to Roxanne for her to further her research on Sandstorm related moves and abilities after he recovered from the battle with Anna's pokemon. Previously Kratos would follow me for our lessons with Zades, after which he would take a rest and have his meal before I sent him over to Roxanne via the PC Transfer System, and then he would be returned back to me at night. Now that our lessons with Zades had taken a temporary pause Kratos could stay over at her place full time, which he's agreeable with as long as he gets to fight the pokemon on her main team.
Coincidentally, Rustboro was also where Vance was currently at. While the root of our family originates from Petalburg and the farm that I'm living at is where most of the pokemon we raise and breed lives at, most of our businesses are conducted from the offices located in various cities of Hoenn. Our headquarters is located in the central business district of Petalburg city, we also have branch offices in other major cities like Rustboro, Mauville, Mossdeep, and so on.
Vance had been handling various work at the Rustboro branch office as of late and since I hadn't visited any of the offices my family owns before, I decided that now might as well be a good time as any to take a look, on the condition that Vance is fine with me dropping by.
Alright, I will admit, my social circle is non-existent outside of work. I have close to zero friends and with none of my family around I'm really just bored out of my mind. However, it would still be appropriate to first give Vance a heads up and ask if it's convenient for me to drop by.
"Of course you can drop by anytime you like. This is our family's business, Vel, and didn't dad give you some of the company's shares on your last birthday? You are one of the bosses of the Vera Group, you know?"
"Maybe it's cos the realisation didn't really set in."
"Maybe it will when you drop by. I will give the reception admin and the security a heads up so that they will know to let you in. You will have to get Mika to arrange the necessary too. Will you be staying over for lunch? Steven happened to be in Rustboro today too and we arranged to have lunch together later, you might as well join in if you are coming over."
"Will you guys be discussing important matters? I don't want to intrude."
"Nah, it's nothing important, just a short catch up between bros. Alright, that settles it, come over when you feel like it, I'll be waiting."
Vance hung up the call and I could tell that he's probably swamped with work from the tone of his voice. I walked into the living room, spotting Mika who's vacuuming the floor while humming a cheery tune to herself.
"Mika? We will be heading to the Rustboro office later, is there anything that we have to prepare?"
"The Rustboro office?" Mika took a slight pause to recall before answering. "The Rustboro office deals with relatively confidential stuff for the group so the security there is stricter. I will have to drop a call to the security there so that they wouldn't mistakenly deny your access since this will be your first visit. When do you want to set off?"
I took a look at the clock hanging on the wall.
"Around half an hour later? Will that be okay?"
"Got it, I will handle the necessary from here," Mika promised and I returned back to my room to get changed. Anna was also informed about my plans and will be tagging along. Blades joined us as well after I told him we will be visiting an office of the business empire that our ancestors had set up, of which my grandpa– also his trainer– had a hand in building up.
Mika has an alakazam on her team and her alakazam dropped us off at the south entrance of the city with a teleport. I took a short while to observe our surroundings. It's been a long while since I have been here. The last time I visited Rustboro City was when I first started my journey and came here to earn my first badge. I only had Flamel and Bigblue back then. Now, I'm back again. I came back much stronger, a little taller, hopefully a little wiser, and with a bigger pokemon team.
"The office is this way," Mika led the way forward and there was never a dull moment with her around as she filled in the silence with her own pleasant chatter throughout the walk. The office building wasn't too far away from where we initially landed. According to Mika, the entire office building that she led us to was owned and used solely by us. Just two streets away is the office building of the headquarters of the famous Devon Corps that's owned and managed by the Stone family.
I could tell that we immediately attracted the attention of the security guards at the entrance the moment we walked into the building. Mika simply walked past them without sparing a glance and approached the receptionist on duty. I didn't listen to their conversation because I was a little occupied with observing the place. This place looked just what I would expect of the lobby of an office building located in the CBD. I actually felt a little underdressed since everyone I had walked past were all wearing formal office wear while I came over wearing a simple sleeveless blouse and skirt.
But it should be fine since I'm one of the bosses of this place, right?
"We can go in now!" Mika's voice brought my wandering thoughts back to reality and I saw her waving us over. We walked over to the gantry and the receptionist let us through by scanning her own staff pass. The gantry had a small screen display that showed the exact lift that we should take– Lift F in this case– and so we headed for Lift F and waited for it to arrive to ferry us up to wherever I'm supposed to go to meet Vance.
"Usually you will need a staff pass to get into the lift lobby, and depending on the access clearance of each staff member, they are only allowed to access their own assigned floors where their department is located. Once they reach their own designated floors they will also need to use a fingerprint sensor to be let into the office area. HR will get you your own staff pass soon but for now, you will have to use the temporary staff pass," Mika happily filled in everything she knew and handed over a temporary staff pass to me with my name written on it. I would need it to freely enter and exit the office while I'm here.
A clear glass door greeted us when we exited the lift and reached the highest floor of this building, the 24th floor. To get through the door you would have to scan your fingerprint on the fingerprint sensor and I already spotted at least three different surveillance cameras nearby monitoring the place round the clock.
Mika placed her own finger on the fingerprint sensor and we heard the magnetic lock of the glass door unlocking itself. Mika opened the door for me and we entered. We took a left turn and we ended up at another reception area. An admin personnel was working there behind the desk and she looked up when she heard that someone had entered. I didn't notice her presence initially because she was hidden behind the huge computer screen. She looked mildly surprised at seeing us.
"You are… Mika, right? What brings you here? And they are…?"
"Didn't the VP tell you that there would be special guests today?" Mika returned the question with another question. Dad is the overall president of the entire Vera group, Vance had recently been officially appointed as the vice president, and below that are the various CEOs or leaders of the many different entities under the big umbrella of the Vera Group that our family owns.
"Oh, right," the admin replied and I heard furious tappings against the keyboard. "Yes, I received a pm from the VP almost an hour ago. Let's see… Mika Verinda, Anna Tide, Velda Ve… Vera?"
The admin staff snapped her head up almost instantly and I gave her a polite smile while trying not to make it seem too awkward. Mika simply waved the receptionist a farewell and we proceeded inwards, only to be greeted with another door that would only let us in after Mika scanned her finger on the nearby fingerprint scanner.
We finally entered the main working area of the 24th floor. The office was very nicely designed and it looked very spacious. I could see that most personnel here have their own personal desks but there were some working at the common area with their laptops. There were also several pokemon in the common area, either accompanying their trainers, silently playing with each other or simply snoring away at a corner.
I could sense that our presence attracted a fair deal of attention from the staff here as we walked past the office and headed straight to what I assumed to be Vance's personal office, the biggest and most conspicuous room here with its door left open. I saw Vance sitting behind his desk and from the looks of it, he was in a virtual meeting since he was wearing headphones while looking at the screen and he actually had a serious look on his face. Surprisingly, he's dressed much more casually than I am, wearing only a simple shirt, bermuda shorts and slippers.
Perks of being a boss, I guess.
Mika knocked on the door twice, grabbing Vance's attention. He looked up and immediately gestured for us to enter. Anna closed the door behind us and Vance's attention returned back to his screen.
"We will end this meeting here. Harris, please follow up. I want a solution by the end of the week, got it?" Vance spoke into the mic of his headphone with a stern voice that I very rarely heard from him before he swiftly ended the meeting. He released a soft tired sigh and briefly melted into his chair, but quickly brightened up upon seeing me.
"You don't need to bother yourself with me if you are busy. I will just be looking around," I quickly told my brother because he really looked like he's very very busy today.
"Don't worry, that meeting was about to end anyway. The air conditioning in this office can be a little cold. Use my jacket if the temperature gets too cold for you," Vance gestured to the jacket hanging on the backrest of his chair before going back to work. Anna and Mika had already silently excused themselves from the room after knowing that they wouldn't be needed here and I had a glimpse of what Vance had to handle as I quietly sat beside him and watched him work.
Vance probably noticed my curiosity and started explaining the documents that he was going through.
"Our family primarily deals with pokemon breeding, selling, and trading. You already know that our biggest client is the Hoenn League itself and we have a duty to provide a steady supply of pokemon to them. Above that, we have to ensure that there's sufficient variety in the types of pokemon we sell them, mainly species with potential or have quick turnaround time to train them to be battle ready as soon as possible. As of late we are trying to import species not native to Hoenn to bring in some diversity. See here?" Vance's mouse cursor hovered over a paragraph of the report that we were currently reading. "This is a report of the business agreement we have with our partners in Unova, the one that you helped out with. There was a halt in business activities due to the Plasma Crusade but things are starting to get back on track. We can expect to have a steady supply of selected Unova species soon, with us having the sole distributor and selling rights in Hoenn. How's it feeling knowing that you had a hand in the successful completion of one of the largest deals we had clinched in the last year, sister dear?"
"Yay?" I responded half-heartedly. I haven't been going out much lately but I could tell that the rate of globalisation seemed to be growing at an exponential rate far beyond anybody's wildest expectations. More and more foreign products had started to appear in Hoenn. It's simply a matter of time before more extensive trades were conducted between the different regions. My family simply saw the opportunity when it presented itself and we were rewarded with the first mover advantage. Personally, I do not think that I contributed as much as Vance had claimed.
Vance briefly went through some of the important things he felt that I should know before I left him alone so that he could focus on his work. The Rustboro office primarily dealt with the selling and exchange of pokemon we have with the Hoenn League and due to the nature of our largest and most important client, most of our business dealings with them have to be conducted with a higher level of confidentiality and secrecy. We set up a separate office in Rustboro just to handle any and all transactions or business dealings with the league and this is also why there are stricter security measures in this office building.
There is a door that leads to a small room attached to Vance's office. Vance told me that it is a small bedroom where he would sometimes use when he's staying the night here if he had to pull an all-nighter. Blades had already entered the room when Vance was guiding me on the basics of what the Rustboro office does and I hadn't seen him come out of there.
Feeling curious, I decided to enter the room as well. To my surprise Vance's electivire was sitting on the floor with its attention glued to the TV screen while holding a video game controller that looked comically tiny in its large hands. Blades was its player two and it seemed that they were playing a racing game that bore some similarity to Mario Kart.
Electivire noticed my presence and gave me a grunt in greeting before its attention was directed back to the game. Vance's weavile was excitedly cheering them on while Vance's gallade could be seen hovering in midair in a cross legged sitting position with its eyes closed. I'm not too sure how it could meditate in such a chaotic and noisy environment but I understood why this door was closed. Vance couldn't possibly concentrate and work if his pokemon were creating such a din.
Blades seemed to be having fun, even if it was obvious that he was fumbling with trying to understand how to use the video game controller and his claws weren't exactly designed to manipulate the controls like electivire's fingers could. I released some of my smaller pokemon from their pokeballs as well so that they could mingle and play, and electivire generously allowed each of them to have their turn playing video games, for those who have suitable limbs to use a video game controller in any case.
I realised who seemed to be missing after observing our pokemon having fun for a while. Where's Macky? It's not like him to wander too far away from Vance and he's always there to greet me whenever I'm around.
My thoughts were cut short when I yawned. I'm getting a little sleepy again and while the doctor had recently completed the final prototype of the ability suppressor and I could take advantage of it to temporarily rid myself of the annoying insomnia ability and finally have a good and uninterrupted rest for a change, I decided against it because there's always the chance that frequent reliance on this medicine might cause my body to build resistance against it, which is the last thing I would want if I really needed to rely on the suppressor in an emergency.
Hence, the only healthy option left would be to adjust my lifestyle accordingly and continue to have segmented sleep. I didn't really like this change to my life initially but it didn't feel as disruptive after I had gotten used to it.
I decided to take a short nap on Vance's bed. I'm sure he would wake me up later since we will be having lunch with Steven, who I hadn't seen in quite a long while since the Indigo One Day War. Before the Battle of Castelia took place Nova and I had suspicions that there might be something fishy going on between Steven and Shannon, maybe I could verify the truth for myself later?
The prodigy champion who is also the heir of an ancient family and the scatterbrained klutzy genius scientist… Huh, I kind of ship them already.
Vance had buried himself with work after his sister had gone to take a rest in his own private room. He had lost track of time until his starter announced his return with a soft pop while reemerging from the shadows, having returned from the errand that he had sent him on.
"Thanks, Macky," Vance took the folder from Macky's paws and quickly read through the documents within. These documents are highly confidential information that he had sent his aide Lawrence to gather and to reduce the chances of these information being leaked, he had decided to retrieve these information from Lawrence the old-fashioned way instead of relying on modern electronic telecommunications.
The folder was eventually closed shut after he was done reading them and Vance kept it locked within a secured safe in his office. He silently went through his available options in the confines of his mind.
Steven… is he really considering the option of pulling Hoenn out of the PWL? Is this going to be an inevitable outcome?
Similar to the Stones, the Veras belong to one of the six great founding families of Hoenn. Their interests are tied to each other in a way that can never be clearly separated thanks to their long history with each other. With Steven now as Champion of the region, things have gotten much more complicated. Yes, it's beneficial for his family with someone like Steven at the helm, a member who belongs to the same political faction as the Vera family, but such a controversial decision of pulling the region out of the PWL…
Vance decided to temporarily stop thinking about the what-ifs. If it comes, it comes.
He walked over and entered his private room. Their pokemon were still playing the console games on the TV but had miraculously kept their volume down. He understood the reason why a second later when he spotted his little sister asleep on his bed. A small smile adorned his face as he kept his steps silent and gently pulled the blanket over her a little higher to prevent her from catching a cold. The determination within him reignited as he reminded himself of the reason why he's working so hard for.
His sister had been through too many hardships in the fourteen years of her life. He wasn't able to relieve the suffering of her sickness, he wasn't there to protect her from the evils of the world when she was out on her travels but now that she had returned home, now that she's back by his side, this time, he will protect her smile.
If he had his way, she would no longer need to experience any hardships in the future. For that to happen, he would need to do his part to build a better and stronger Hoenn as the future patriarch and leader of the Vera family. He would need to make the family more powerful and influential such that nobody would ever dare to take advantage of them ever again like how President Foster attempted which eventually led Velda to come up with the idea of the creation of the interpol and sent her on a journey which she returned from with so many mental scars.
If the Vera family was stronger, better, more powerful, nobody would even dare to harbour any such intentions that would have harmed his precious little sister. It's something that he promised himself to address ever since Velda left home and headed to Indigo more than a year ago.
"She has a tendency to kick her blankets. Don't let her catch a cold," he reminded Macky and his starter acknowledged his request with a playful grin. Macky had always been fond of his little sister, he could trust Macky to take care of her while he headed back to his desk to continue with his work.
Things are getting better for his family, and he hoped that it would forever stay that way.
Outwardly, today was like another ordinary working day. However, if you had been working on the 24th floor of the Rustboro office for long enough you could tell that there's something slightly different in the atmosphere today.
Privately, the entire 24th floor was abuzz. Group chats were silently popping with text messages. The 24th floor is the office to many corporate elites who work for the Vera Group, the elites who are various leaders in the pokemon breeding and trading industry who lead their own dedicated team which are in charge of various aspects of the group's business empire.
Currently, most of them no longer had their attention on their work but rather, glued to the group chats they had with their colleagues on their respective devices.
Every employee working for the Vera Group knows that this empire is owned by the mysterious and ancient Vera family. However, while every Hoennian knew that they existed, the Veras are a very low profile group of people and you could very rarely see anything being reported about them on the news. Similarly, the former president and current president of the Vera Group tend to also keep a very low profile. Oftentimes, they would send in a proxy who would represent them to manage important matters so that they wouldn't need to personally come down to the offices.
Even for the elites in the group's top management, not many had the chance to meet the former or current president in person before. Things started to change recently starting from a few years back when the president's son, the person who would lead the group in the future and is now their vice president, started to take the reins.
Their business plans started to grow in a bolder direction and unlike the president, the vice president does make an effort to drop by the various offices from time to time to oversee the business on the ground. It was because of this that many employees soon compiled a list of traits or facts that they noticed or knew about their vice president.
He is a very skilled pokemon trainer, had previously served in ACE, is currently a Frontier Brain although there were rumours that he might pass on that position to someone else soon. Nobody knows if the VP is attached or if he is already married but he never publicly showed romantic interest to anyone. However, the general consensus is that many people believe that he's still unmarried and single.
Lastly, he had never brought a woman into his office before. If there were female staff that had to report things to him it would either be done in one of the many meeting rooms with transparent glass walls or he would leave the door of his office open if the verbal report or discussions took place in his office.
But today, not only a breathtakingly beautiful girl that nobody recognised was brought to the 24th floor where only the most important and confidential work was handled, she was brought directly to his office. Furthermore, the two other women who accompanied her exited the office within minutes and the door to their VP's office had remained shut since. Five minutes turned to ten minutes, then twenty minutes, and soon almost two hours had passed. Gossips had been silently spreading across the 24th floor like wildfire in the messaging telecommunication platform that all employees use for work and eventually someone created a dedicated group chat for all employees of the 24th floor (excluding the VP) when discussion about this hot topic became too exciting to be kept to their own individual group chats among their own departments.
Who is she? What is her relationship to the VP? More importantly, what is going on in there?!
[She's so prettyyyyy], a female employee gushed and was joined by several others. [She has to be the VP's gf], one employee insisted and was swiftly rebutted by several other colleagues who sent in their reply into their group chat almost instantly. [She didn't even look to be of legal age], the assistant director of the sales team responsible for handling the sales with the Hoenn League replied. [Maybe the VP prefers younger girls and is just waiting for her to turn legal?], the senior sales officer suggested.
[Or maybe they are family], the compliance officer brought up another valid point. [But they don't look even remotely alike], someone from the finance team argued and immediately received a reply from his colleague sitting next to him. [Maybe she's from an extended family?]
[Why don't we just ask HR?] Someone finally reminded everyone that the HR department does in fact exist, and all heads in the office silently swivelled to where the Head of HR of the Rustboro office was seated.
In response, the Head of HR simply replied with the standard four word answer the department always gives for things that HR cannot say, are not allowed to say, or simply don't have the answers to.
[This information is confidential.]
A great many employees on the 24th floor rolled their eyes at the answer that's not an answer, and the gossip resumed within the group chat. Someone from the legal team logically deduced that whoever that mysterious girl may be, she must be somebody important since she was accompanied by two other people who looked more like bodyguards than anything else. Someone from the operations team managed to identify one of the two bodyguards as a member of the main branch of the Verinda family, a family who was rumoured to be distantly related to the Vera family.
When this news was released everybody suddenly realised that they might have underestimated who the girl really is. For a member of the Verinda family to personally lead her in… Who is she really?
Maybe she really would be the person who would one day be their boss lady? Maybe their VP really has a preference for younger women?
Everything abruptly ceased when the office door of their VP's office suddenly swung open when it was close to lunchtime. All screens quickly switched back to their respective interfaces to make it appear as if they had been working hard instead of gossiping like a bunch of tailows for the past two hours.
The girl who had been the topic of discussion of everyone present walked out sleepily with a barely concealed yawn, looking as if she had just gotten out of bed with her clothes in a slightly dishevelled state and obvious creases that had not yet been fully straightened. It's no secret that the VP has a small bedroom attached to his office and the girl obviously just woken up. Put two and two together and everyone would immediately deduce that she had just slept on their VP's bed.
[OMGGGGG]
The messaging activity in the group chat erupted once more. Nothing specific was said but everything also seemed to have already been said.
A woman just slept in their VP's bed. Nobody knows what had gone on for the past one or two hours since she entered. That tired look on her face and the slightly dishevelled state of her clothes, the fact that their VP gave her obvious preferential treatment…
[Guess she's really our future boss lady]
[So what went on in there?]
[What else could possibly go on in there?]
[Finance sits just right outside the boss' office. Ask them]
[We didn't hear anything. Soundproofing is too good.]
[iykyk]
[iykyk]
[iykyk]
A bunch of [iykyk] started to fill the chat. Two female employees who felt a little bold started to head to the pantry as well on the pretence that they were there to get some drinks, curious to see their future boss lady up close and hopefully leave a good impression on her. They were confused when they didn't see her there.
Where did she go? They were certain that she did not exit the pantry and there's only one way in or out.
The two employees slowly turned their heads towards each other. They knew that they both understood the same thing when their gazes met. This had suddenly taken a very creepy turn.
They both jumped in their skins when they heard a soft yawn not too far away. The sleepy looking girl was suddenly there by the coffee machine waiting for it to finish dispensing coffee into a mug. How did they not notice her earlier?
She sensed their gaze and greeted them with a polite nod and smile, which they quickly reciprocated with a respectful half bow. Coincidentally, the coffee machine was finally done with its job and they watched as the girl took her mug and exited the pantry. It was only then that they noticed that even her steps were silent and it felt as if they couldn't feel her presence until she made some noise, almost like she's a floating phantom.
They were about to leave when they saw that an item had been left forgotten on the table. That item was obviously a staff pass and the company is very strict about misplacing or losing your staff pass due to security concerns and the nature of work that the Rustboro office deals with. They quickly picked it up and took a closer look to identify just which colleague had misplaced their staff pass so that they could hand it back to them before HR caught wind of the offence.
"Velda… Vera?" One of the pair quickly blinked and rubbed her eyes before rereading the name written on what was obviously a temporary staff pass, usually only provided to league representatives that had been given clearance to visit the Rustboro office on specific days in which the meetings had to be arranged in advance. She looked back at her colleague, who also looked to be just as dumbfounded. They both looked at each other in surprise, their mouths opening and closing repeatedly in shock like magikarps out of water as they tried to digest the information they just unknowingly learned.
"Oh there it is. Excuse me, can I have that back?"
Thankfully none of them screamed at the sudden reappearance of the girl that everyone working on the 24th floor had been gossiping about. It felt almost as if she had suddenly appeared from out of nowhere. The girl gave them a polite smile when her staff pass was returned before walking away. Under the not-so-discreet gaze of everyone present who were waiting for them to report their findings, the two employees numbly walked back to their seats and logged back into their computers.
The chat was flooded with questions of [So who is she?] the moment they unlocked their computer screen. The two employees shared a knowing look with each other before one of the two calmly typed in her answer.
The group chat exploded with activity once more just two seconds later.
Character and pokemon list:
Velda Vera, Age: 14, Female, Pokemon Trainer
Pokemon on hand:
1) Rapidash (Flamel), male
2) Swampert (Bigblue), male
3) Banette (Dolly), female
4) Flygon (Snap), male
5) Absol (Kelsa), female
6) Charizard (Toothless), male
7) Cradily (Lily), female
8) Espeon (Rena), female
9) Pachirisu (Fuzzy), male
10) Tyranitar (Kratos), male
11) Clefairy (Joy), female
12) Nidoqueen (Ness), female
13) Pangoro (Hulk), male
14) Porygon-Z (Jarvis), genderless
15) Scizor (Archer), male
16) Lapras (Chill), female
17) Gengar (Wacky), male