Pokemon: A Rocket Adventure
Prologue
Pokemon are amazing creatures. Creatures that come in countless shapes and sizes, all with spectacular powers and abilities. From the littlest Caterpee up to the fearsome Hydreigon.
Humanity has lived with pokemon for countless generations. In the past they were something to be feared but in recent history they have become partners to humanity. They live and work together, helping to build, for the most part, a peaceful and bright future. However that has not always been the case.
In ancient times powerful humans have tried to control pokemon, even going so far as to try and control the god of all pokemon itself, Arceus. Some had even created weapons powered by pokemon, such as the Ancient Weapon in the Kalos Region.
In modern society there are numerous groups that, although not necessarily evil, use pokemon in nefarious ways. Often causing pain and suffering as their operations negatively impact society. These organisations are often a Team of some kind, for example, Team Galactic or Team Flare. The biggest Team though is Team Rocket, which was a giant criminal empire run by a man known as Giovanni and had agents operating all over the world.
Things changed over time and the criminal empire of Team Rocket eventually evolved into a peacekeeping organisation. Giovanni was no fool, he may have had desired world domination, but he didn't seek to destroy it. What would have been the point? If there is nothing to control, there is no profit and thanks to a group of TR agents he had been made aware of these operations that other Teams were doing in the various regions around the world. In Hoenn he became aware of two warring factions hell bent on controlling the Legendary Kyogre and Groudon to expand the world's seas or landmass. In Sinnoh, Team Galactic wanted to control the deity pokemon Palkia and Dialga to reshape the world into their own image and in Kalos, Team Flare seemed to simply want to destroy everyone in the world but themselves.
Seeing that these other organisations had wanted to control legendaries that would have, if they succeeded, resulted in countless deaths of both people and pokemon, and knowing that there would always be someone out there wanting to exploit the powers of the legendary pokemon, Giovanni had a change of heart. What good was a criminal organisation if the world was destroyed? There was no profit to be made in a dead world.
The agents that discovered these threats had inadvertently been involved alongside a pokemon trainer in stopping these world ending events. Their motto soon became the newly reorganised Team Rocket's philosophy. "To protect the world from devastation, and to unite all peoples in our nation."
Team Rocket now operates to ensure other organisations don't abuse pokemon and their powers. Giovanni uses his old criminal empire connections to aid police and special TR mercenary groups aid those who hire their protective services and normal agents scattered around the world help to monitor and protect people and pokemon, often seen as vigilanties. This change in TR has still proved to be profitable, especially when combined with his legitimate business, to Giovanni and helped to make the world a better place.
Recently however, Giovanni has been made aware of renewed activity in Team Galactic. The exact purpose of TG's renewed activity in Sinnoh is not yet known but it is believed they want to retrieve their lost boss after his disappearance when he attempted to forcefully use the reality bending powers of Palkia and Dialga that in turn angered a legendary pokemon known as Giratina and he had not been seen since. Not wanting TG to repeat their past endeavours and threaten the world again, Giovanni sent some of his special ops teams to Sinnoh to further monitor and disrupt TG operations. Some of their findings have been disturbing however as some of the ops teams have reported that TG has also begun experimenting on pokemon for some reason that is yet to be identified.
One such Ops Team is gathering outside of the Eterna City Power Plant just outside the city limits inside Eterna Forest.
XXXXX
Sinnoh Region - Eterna Forest
In the middle of the night a group of six black uniformed men and women gathered in the forest near the perimeter fence of the Eterna City Power Plant.
"Alright, everyone's here," Announced a light green haired man that sounded like he had a sore throat.
A woman with light orange hair that ended in two long tails at the back who was stood next to the green haired man nodded in confirmation.
"Just to clarify, we have verified intel that Team Galactic are using this power plant as a front for a secret research station. We are to liberate any and all pokemon and secure any data on what Team Galactic is doing here and for what,"
The rest of the group nodded in understanding.
"Good. Alright team, let's move."
The group quietly approached the fence but stopped just before leaving the cover of the forest. The green haired man nodded to one of his colleagues. The TR agent in question nodded back as he plucked a pokeball from his belt.
"Weezing, Smoke Screen!" He called out quietly. The red and white ball snapped open and in a burst of light a purple creature that looked like a trio of meteors with craters on them that were stuck together and had a face on the two biggest meteors appeared.
"Weezing!" The poison type pokemon announced, sounding like someone short of breath before it began to pump out a thick cloud of smoke from the many craters on its bulbous body and began to blanket the area.
The team now covered by the smoke screen hurried to the perimeter fence and another member released their pokemon from its ball. A small dark brown and yellow bipedal pokemon with a short trunk on its face.
"Drowzee, use Psychic to open the gate!" She commanded.
The pokemon nodded to its trainer's order and focused on the gate. Its eyes glowed blue with psychic energy as it used its power. Within a few moments the gate lock clicked open and the team rushed to the power plant. The Weezing continued to release its smoke screen, hiding the team as they followed the wall to the fire exit for the plant's turbine room.
"Rotom, you're up, get in there and disable the security and open this door." Ordered another agent as he released his partner. The small red electric ghost pokemon buzzed before it zipped into the CCTV camera and into the plant's power grid.
A few moments later the camera and the fire door lost power, resulting in the door swinging open. The team quietly entered the loud rumbling turbine room and followed the back wall while staying out of sight of anyone working there. They followed the wall until they came across a door to a janitor's office set into an alcove between the large turbines that their intelligence suggested was the secret access point to the underground lab.
They entered the back office unseen and they found themselves in a typical janitorial office just large enough for the six Rocket members. There was a desk and filing cabinet to their left, a metal cabinet in front of them and shelves to their right filled with numerous cleaning equipment and chemicals.
"It looks like a deadend," Someone muttered.
"Rotom, where's the lab entrance?" Rotom's partner asked.
Suddenly the old crt desktop monitor on the desk began to shake before a red glow surrounded it and it hopped up and down as it turned to face the Rocket agents. Rotom was on its screen before it flashed to show the wall the cabinet was on and a diagram of pulling a lever made out of a broomstick handle.
"Good work Rotom." The green haired man complimented the pokemon as he spotted the indicated broomstick. To anyone not looking closely enough, it would have looked like a regular broom lent against the wall but the broomhead and its bristles hid the rest of the shaft as it disappeared into the floor. He grabbed the handle and pulled like how Rotom had depicted on the monitor it possessed. There was a dull clunk and then the lock on the door engaged while at the same time the cabinet doors opened inward to reveal an elevator.
"Jack, stay here with Rotom and monitor security. Inform us immediately if Team Galactic or anyone else unexpected show up and stall them if necessary," the orange haired woman ordered.
"Yes ma'am!"
The rest of the group boarded the lift and the moment its doors closed it descended down to the research lab.
After a short elevator ride it dinged and its doors opened and the Team Rocket agents all rushed out with a pokeball at the ready. However the agents found themselves in a dark, dimly lit, empty and quiet hallway.
"Well this was unexpected…" Muttered an agent.
"Spooksville…" Another whispered.
"Alright team. This may have been unexpected but our mission hasn't changed. Split up and recover any and all pokemon and any data on their computers. Subdue any resistance and contact myself or Cassidy if anything demands our attention and be back here in fifteen."
"Yes sir!" The other three agents quietly called out and split up to do their job.
"You know Butch, since we stopped being criminals after TR's reformation. Things have been going well for us," the orange haired woman, Cassidy, commented as they followed the hallway in the opposite direction to the rest of their team.
The green haired man, Butch, nodded his agreement. "Heh, yeah. At least now we get to feel good about what we do and no longer get some kid blasting us off every week."
Cassidy chuckled while she nodded in agreement.
While the pair slowly made their way down the corridor, they found the place to be empty. There were no Team Galactic personnel or scientists and pokemon anywhere. It looked like the place had been abandoned.
"Think they knew we were coming?" Butch asked his companion after he stuck his head into an empty office.
"Not sure, but I wouldn't be opposed to thinking they suspected some kind of raid would happen."
Butch nodded, it made sense.
Eventually the duo found a room meant to hold pokemon.
"Containment - E" Cassidy read from the small wall plaque.
The room was small but each wall was lined with a couple of windows and doors. Each window and door lead to a small cell designed to house a small pokemon. Out of the eight containment cells, only one still had a pokemon inside.
Butch reached to his earpiece and pressed it. "Sitrep,"
"Nobody home sir,"
"Not finding many pokemon either, just pre-evolution or baseline pokemon,"
"Computers look to have been wiped and all paper files are gone,"
"Looks like they knew this place was compromised and jumped ship," Cassidy quietly commented.
Butch nodded in disappointment while he spoke to the rest of the team. "Gather what you can, and we're not leaving any of those pokemon behind."
He received a round of affirmatives before he let go of his comlink, ending the call. He and Cassidy both turned their attention to the pokemon that had been left behind here.
"What've we got here?"
Cassidy plucked a medical clipboard off the cell door and began to read the details.
"Experiment 4472, Power Enhancement. Species: Pikachu. Gender: Male…"
"A Pikachu!" Butch exclaimed as he cringed. Even his companion shuddered as they both had flashbacks to their criminal days, particularly when facing a boy that had a Pikachu.
"The universe must hate us," Cassidy moaned.
"Well, we can't leave it here either."
Inside, the Pikachu had been curled up asleep on his bed until he began to hear voices. His ears twitched as the unfamiliar voices got louder and he groggily lifted his head and looked to the observation window. He saw a pair of humans he had never seen before talking to each other.
"It's awake," Butch said as he noticed the Pikachu lift its head. "I've never seen a Pikachu like that one before,"
The Pikachu looked in terms of shape just like any other Pikachu complete with its long ears, yellow fur and iconic lightning bolt shaped tail. It was its markings that were completely different. This Pikachu had unusually shaped red and black markings on the tips of its ears, its forepaws, end and base of its tail and back. Its electric pouches were still red but instead of the fur in those areas being a generic circle, his cheeks were like a triangular hexagon with hook-like shapes on the three smaller sides. Its eyes were a light blue and it had some longer than usual hair on its head with bangs, one bang in particular drooped down in front of its face.
The woman nodded in agreement as she looked back down at the clipboard in her hands.
"Says here he's from the Galar Region but this change didn't happen until after they begun their experiments,"
"Hmm, the boss might be interested in this one, we should take it back to him."
Again Cassidy nodded her agreement and put the clipboard back. As she did so she also pulled a white pokeball with a red central band out of a box mounted to the door under the clipboard. This type of pokeball is known as a Premiere Ball, essentially just a regular pokeball with a different look. She then took a deep breath and opened the door.
The unusually marked Pikachu quickly got up when he realised the unknown humans were coming in. He stood on all four paws in a defensive stance and growled. Anytime anyone came into his cell he ended up getting hurt in some way.
"Easy Cass, it looks irritated," came thr unfamiliar male voice.
A tall woman dressed in an unfamiliar black uniform with a large red R across her chest, black skirt that went halfway down her thighs and white thigh boots entered the room slowly. Her face was uncovered and he could see her face clearly and she clearly was not one of thr scientists. She looked nervous but he couldn't see any negative intentions in her purple eyes.
"Easy Pikachu, I'm not going to hurt you," The woman said softly as she slowly knelt down to make herself look smaller and less threatening. "We want to get you out of here,"
The Pikachu blinked and tilted his head in confusion. None of the TG staff had spoken to him as softly as this woman has and ever since he was brought down here, he's been roughly handled and yelled at so he didn't know how to respond to this woman.
Cassidy slowly held out the white pokeball so he could see it. She held the ball so the button faced him and he could see the small lightning bolt above the button and the number that had been his name down here scratched into the ball's surface.
"It's ok, we're gonna get you far away from here. Team Galactic will not be able to hurt you again."
His ears stood straight up at the mention of his abusers and blue electric sparks jumped from his red electric pouches on his cheeks. He then realised just what she said and the promise of being taken away from those that hurt him made him relax as he wanted out of this place.
Seeing sparks jump from the Pikachu made Cassidy gulp in nervousness as memories of being shocked by another flooded her brain. She shuddered as she expected to feel being roasted by strong electrical energy but thankfully it never came and when she opened her eyes she saw that the Pikachu had completely relaxed his stance.
She let out a breath of relief upon seeing the Pikachu relax and took that as a sign to continue.
"I'm going to recall you into your pokeball now ok?" She said as she held his ball ready to recall him.
His ears twitched at what she said and he noticed how his pokeball was pointing at him. "Pika!" He protested but it was too late. The woman called out "Return" and a red beam of light shot out from the button on the ball. He didn't have time to dodge it and the recall beam hit him and within a few seconds his entire form dissolved into red light and shot back into the ball.
Cassidy sighed in relief and stowed away his pokeball on her belt and rejoined her partner. Butch had a finger to his ear piece again as she left the cell. He removed his finger from his ear when he noticed her.
"Got him?"
She nodded and patted the minimized premiere ball attached to her belt.
"Ok good, we're leaving. The others have reported that they've secured everything they can and are headed back to the lift."
Cassidy nodded and followed Butch as they made their way back to the lift. Upon returning, the other three were already there.
"C'mon guys, let's get the hell out of here."
Everyone voiced their agreement and piled back into the elevator and returned to the janitor's office, met up with their sixth member and then left the plant as quietly as they came.
XXXXX
Kanto Region - Team Rocket Headquarters
Several hours after leaving the Sinnoh Region, Butch and Cassidy stood before the leader of Team Rocket, Giovanni himself. Even after the reformation, their boss was still quite an imposing and intimidating man.
Giovanni, an imposing man in his prime, sat in his large office chair with his loyal Persian beside him. He was dressed in a black and dark grey suit that had the Team Rocket red R emblazoned on his left breast pocket. His hair was cut short and his hard, experienced eyes bore into the eyes of his subordinates.
"I take it the Eterna City Power Plant Op was a success,"
Butch and Cassidy immediately stood to attention when their boss spoke.
"Y-yes sir, everything went off without a hitch…" Butch began nervously.
Giovanni frowned as he could sense a 'but' coming.
"B-but it would seem Team Galactic had expected a raid," Cassidy continued.
Butch nodded. "The place had been cleared. They had left practically nothing behind,"
"We recovered what we could. A handful of pre-evolution and base form pokemon and the facility's server hard drives,"
"The techs will sift through those drives to see if they can recover anything at all," finished Butch.
The boss of TR nodded but still sighed in disappointment. He wasn't disappointed in his agents but rather the fact that the raid had been too late to catch Team Galactic in the act.
"Your team did well. Make sure the pokemon we recovered get a thorough check by our pokemon doctors before either releasing them or adding them to your pokemon teams,"
"Yes sir," both agents said in unison before Cassidy plucked the white pokeball from her belt and placed it on the desk before her boss.
"We ourselves rescued this pokemon sir and we felt it was worth bringing to you,"
"That's right boss, it was one of the pokemon being experimented on but they left it behind." Added Butch as he put the research notes he recovered from the clipboard down on the desk as Giovanni picked up the ball.
He dismissed his subordinates so he could focus on what they had brought to him. He skimmed the notes and quickly understood why they felt the Pikachu was worth presenting to him.
"Estimated to be fifty percent more powerful than an average Pikachu," he said quietly to himself as he eyed the notes. "No combat experience and the power boost has made it harder for it to generate its power, estimated a twenty-five percent increase in time taken to gather its energy," He frowned at that. "The power boost would make this pokemon a valuable member to my team. Unfortunately I don't have the time to train a new pokemon from the ground up, especially to cover that weakness."
He put a hand to his chin as he fell into deep thought as he contemplated on what to do with this Pikachu. While he thought on what to do, his eyes roamed over his ornate and expansive desk. His gaze went from his computer, his stationary equipment, the intercom system, an antique rotary telephone and finally to a small stack of files off to the side. The files immediately drew his attention because the top one was open since he was reviewing it before Butch and Cassidy's arrival and it was by an agent he knew, particularly because the person didn't have a pokemon, but also had expressed a desire to become a field agent at some point. A smile came to his lips as a plan formulated in his head that would both get the Pikachu and the agent trained up.
He reached out and pressed the transmit button on his intercom to his secretary outside in the next room. "Domino, get me Sarah Townsend."