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Transversal, crossing over the backs of legends

Summary:

The last thing he remembers is the vents and running, and Green wanting to go home. The Mask left them alone long enough, it seemed safe, so they split and Sneasel'd been on watch so he'd gone to sleep, his warmth keeping her up and uncomfortable enough to be vicious.

Then he'd opened his eyes in a van, and there'd been moving, and this woman wasn't his Mother (he doesn't have one) and then he'd found the phone.

And it'd been ringing, so he picked it up to a Moon who wasn't a Moon, who was older then him, and talked funny, and wasn't the Mask, and knew a little but not too much. He was a few days ahead, Silver a few days behind, and a world divided them because the people on Silver's side had never heard of Alola. Still they both knew of each other's regions, Silver less so than Moon but Moon was old so that made sense.

So both started pokemon journeys and the rules made little sense, not-Moon insisted on talking though Silver couldn't grasp why he cared. No one cared. Mask had made him do evil so often to make 'specially sure that no one would care ever again.

Chapter 1: NEW Giovanni Introduction:  A bit like Genesis EDITED 4/4/21

Notes:

AN: This story is ranked Teen, the Giovanni chapters pushing mature per gore at the moment.

Most examples of gore are allusions to how sick Giovanni is at this moment. Vomiting, blood, bleeding from the mouth, ect. Nothing too horribly detailed but that will change to scenes of cruelty and hunting as this fic progresses. While they wont be the crux of the story such will be part of it and Chapters dealing with these themes/scenes will be marked at the start.

Editing Status Report:
Chapter 1 and 2 complete
3-7 IP

Chapter Text

 

Editing FINISHED as of 4/4/2021

Chapter 1,

Giovanni Intro: Something like Genisis

 

 

Perhaps it was his position, up high, nestled in the steel belly of a state-of-the-art helicopter, that lead to Giovanni Sakaki’s state of detachment as he looked down on the world from a window by his seat. His vehicle of the hour was military-grade, illegally garnered, and altered to the point the military might balk on taking it down. Regardless of what Kanto’s armed forces might or might not do it was sturdy enough, and well-armed enough, that the various avian Legends of Kanto and Johto were unlikely to wrangle with the artificial flyer.

 

And considering his life, and how Legends were hell-bent on ending it, the varied beasts out for his blood must be taken into consideration in all things… Thus, what his critics might consider a bit of a dying man’s vainglory in the form of grandiose transport was a necessity to keep on breathing.

 

He’d no intention of being shot out of the sky by a prickly Moltres or rampaging Ho-oh, again.

 

There was a slew of personal touches to the helicopter that left no illusions as to who owned it. The colors of the stolen chopper had been replaced by the soothing, black and reds. He’d built his life about such hues, marking all his organizations with those colors, so the flyer was no different. Beyond the ocular there were more pragmatic luxuries, the Barrier and Lightscreen augmented steel walls to keep the vibrations of the rotating blades to a muted hum to prevent a sensitive passenger from acquiring headaches. The windows were bulletproof and updated to acknowledge the more recently acquired irritants in his life’s perchance for the ‘chu evolutionary line, thus everything was lightning-proofed as well.

 

And among the small indulgences, there were the large. An on-hand weapon system that did not require a piolets interference to set and fire.

 

From his perch, courtesy of technology and luxuries finest, the wilds below seemed obscenely rustic and hellishly familiar.

 

Ilex forest was like many places in the Johto and Kanto, so much so the uneducated would cobble it together with the varied, verdant, forests that made a patchwork of wilds through both regions and decide it inconsequential.

 

It seemed a special kind of insanity that a clearing in this woodland was the holiest spot in Johto. When there were hundreds just like it.

 

Today’s weather in Ilex, courtesy of sensors planted by the Slowpoke Well, noted the forest to be “damp” and “temperate”, and that was a grotesque understatement per the profanity-laden report his Sottocappo, Executive Proton, had penned. The highlights of the report, courtesy of the tablet on his lap, consisted of “Wet and humid enough down here to drown a pack of hounddour, damn the morning rains”, and the persons of interest noted in the area were inconsequential. “Local gym leader is an oblivious idiot, set a rookie Team to “challenge” his gym as a distraction. The only person of possible conflict is an old man named Kurt, the Team arranged an accident for the man’s granddaughter, he's tied up at Golden Rod’s hospital for the time being.” Executive Proton’s griping and information had been taken along with a bland morning repast, adding a bit of bitterness to the food.

 

A flick of his fingers and a finger scan and the device was doing a purge of all tracking software, purging traces, information, then switching modes so that public avenues and their various legal bits and bobs would find nothing untoward. With a click and hum to signify his efforts were complete, he opened up the various periodicals of Johto. The newspaper that covered Azalea at least confirmed Kurt temporarily closing services due to an accident, some faulty ladder at the ‘Well, a nasty fall for the man's granddaughter, the safety measure's failure dovetailed into an investigation that'd tie the local police up for a while at least.

 

Satisfied Giovanni killed all outbound programs, another purge of what commercial trackers he might have acquired, and then he typed in a thirty digit code, the screen darkened, and then awoke after a seeming sleep mode to a familiar, dull, grey. The touchscreen was crawling with video and picture icons, various bits of footage about the destination below. He’d seen them all before, but a refresher wouldn’t hurt.

 

As he leaned into the leather comfort of the passenger’s chair he perused the screenshots taken by his advance team. Photos blended into videos, tests, migratory patterns of local mon, the lot blurred under his blurring vision as boredom and exhaustion both pulled at him.

 

For being The Most Holy Place of Johto the place was decidedly …. uninspired. It was as if some force was holding a list and had ticked off a series of boxes, pinging off the requisite things of grass, moss, trees, applied a multiplier, and decided “well enough” before moving on to other pastures. Two oddities caught his attention. A grave, and a shrine, both man-made set beside a perfectly rounded pool.

 

Pulling his gaze from that grave –

 

Ignoring the tightness in his lungs at the sight, his chest that burned, those sensations were omnipresent and thus it only took a bit of delusion to dismiss them when he needed to concentrate, his dismissal of choice was “it wasn’t important,” and his delusion of “he’d deal with it later” were old standbys.

 

-he considered the shrine. Wooden, weather-worn, yet untouched by the moss that grew rampant around it, it was a contradiction and curiosity.

 

As was the clearing itself. The place was perfectly symmetrical despite being in the center of a forest whose border was the definition of convoluted. His teams had noticed it as a whim and some rather asinine subcommand had wanted to pursue curiosity and done so. And they had found another oddity. Electronic trackers and measurers had failed. a roll of marked rope from a hardware store had confirmed one assumption correct, and born a slew of other experiments with bizarre results. Smartphones, and most techs, failed within the clearing’s bounds. Walkie-talkies worked for some odd reason until one crossed the final tree line. Then everything failed. From watches to lighters, nothing man-made functioned save poketech.

 

A low whistle from his piolet caught the headset just right and caused the Boss of Team Rocket’s earpiece to ping to life and carry the sound breaking the near-perfect silence of his cabin. Noticing his attention the piolet tipped his head, indicating the window nearest to his Boss. Giovanni straightened and looking out and down. Celebi's clearing seemed a target, a pale blue and green Tauros eye, and a gesture for them to go down for a better look was met with a headshake.

 

Static, a crackle from the earpiece and the piolet’s voice carried.

 

“Can’t do Sir, any lower and our tech will fry.”

 

Nodding, the Rocket Boss eased into his chair once more.

 

Under his hands, Giovanni twiddled, then reactivated, the sleeping tech. The latest tests, of ‘mon reaction to the area about the clearing were of some interest. Wild ‘mon being driven to the clearing’s edges only to be wrenched away or pinned by an invisible untraceable force. One test subject’s death played under his hands as he adjusted settings and scope to better see. Tamed zubat herded a wild furret about. It raced from the flying jaws until it hit head-on with… something. Twisting about in a frenzied panic, fighting against what seemed an invisible wall, the beast gave up breaking forward, near fluid as it flipped itself about and bolted from the shadows of approaching wings.

 

The furret ran alongside the barrier so close its fur was pressed down on one side, though above it, tamed zubat swung over and about the “wall” in erratic patterns.

 

One dive, a ‘bat swinging through the barrier to bite into the racing ‘mon’s jugular, the spray of blood was spectacular. The mynx fell with a gurgle and was promptly swarmed from all sides, skin and fur flying.

 

A click and the video paused, dead beast propped up on nothing, being chewed to bits from all sides. He watched what the emotional would consider an unsettling sight with perfect apathy, letting his dark eyes half close, he weighed information against exhaustion and fought the urge to doze.

 

He dared not dream.

 

Death felt so close, only one nap away. Without the varied devices and medication, he’d had to leave at his Viridian hideout when a rival faction had stormed the place… Giovanni might very well die in his sleep. Advanced, complex, sleep apnea was the newest symptom amongst the many varied ones he wrestled with daily.

 

Courtesy of an irate Legend.

 

With the threat of such an immediate death present and the faction of Rocket lead by an ex-Sottocapo that was hell-bent on killing him, he had sped up certain plans. The “later” of his health, was pushed to the state of “now”, hence this flight. The tests on the site which had started out as curiosities when he’d had leisure and nothing else had sharpened in scope and brutality per necessity. Hence the killing, hunting, and the last step that the populous of Azalea were blissfully unaware of per Sottocapo Proton’s last reports.

 

The encirclement of Azalea town, the commandeering of its various technologies, the steady feed of false information to lull the civilians into a state of torpor. The damning falsities of “all is well” even as his syndicate ran wild through Johto. Inspiring terror and using terrorism and violence to rip down the primitive shrines and lesser holy sites all the better to have the proper coin to pay for this… transaction in the making.

 

The strict perimeter about Azalea and its forest would dissipate, without any soul from the town knowing of it. The dead who’d wandered in would be buried, their bodies broke down and scattered under the trees for compost, the gentle clamps of obliviousness eased about the town, and the people who lived beside the holiest site of a region would wake one day, perhaps tomorrow, mildly bewildered to find the world was not as untroubled as they’d been lead to believe.

 

A click against his ear and Giovanni stiffened, waited, and not one to make a man linger, much less this Boss, the piolet spoke. Destination to be met in ten minutes, prepare for descent in eight.

 

Nodding his understanding Giovanni let his fingers rest on the tablet in his lap just so, and the fingerprint reading software hummed to life and locked the whole under his hands until it was a black square of cooling plastic. Sliding the device in its carrying case he pulled a briefcase from under his seat beside him and clicked it open. It was a simplicity to set the device in place, exchange modern wonder for the longish rectangular box that’d held relics that’d been a wonder in their time.

 

Something rattled as he set the box in place, perhaps the finger bones, regardless the goods felt part and parcel to an inferior exchange, but as he slid the box into his trench coat pocket Giovanni Sakaki conceded it was the coin of the moment.

 

And if this “offering” wasn’t good enough. .. Well the experiments had shown poketech worked in the clearing, and he had no shortage of ultra-balls on his holster, and there were no weaknesses in his team.

 

If he could not coax he’d coerce. And if he failed, so be it.

 

He’d take this charlatan of a holy healer to the grave with him and call it his last service to humanity.

 

XXX

 

It’d taken two hours to finish the hike. The route was taken in easy stages, and stubbornness got him where he needed to go.

 

He’d started the walk on his own power, but once he broke the tree line he conceded weakness, summoning and continuing the trek leaning on the forearm of his Nidoking. Enhanced by moonstone transplant surgeries, specific training, and an optimal diet, the beast had more than surpassed the expected four feet height, sporting six and a fraction not counting his horn. The beast glared about, no longer dismissing any with a red R on their chest, clearly recalling Sird’s betrayal and attack at their Viridian hideout. Tail tucked close, bulk an obvious deterrent to any who’d shoot Giovanni in the back, the beast rumbled a wordless death threat. The human branch of the Rocket Boss’ guard was professional enough not to flinch back at the overt hostility. And for that, he rewarded them, a snap of his calloused fingers caused 'King to make his rumbles quieter.

 

The last descent was made in near-perfect silence and a waved hand as he neared the final tree line caused the clutch of men and women at his back to go still.

 

He’d turned to watch them, scrolling weary eyes over the faces of those who’d sworn blood oaths, their children to his service, their lives, and their ‘mon as his to use until they broke if he willed it.

 

They pulled back, miming respect or sincerely respectful, he wasn’t sure, but for now, they followed orders.

 

“Secure the perimeter.”

 

And if his voice was a bloody ruin, none commented on it, they simply left to do as they were told. They’d take watch, and their places while the Boss did what needed doing.

 

And if he failed they’d turn weapon and ‘mon among each other, turn sacred woods to killing ground all to establish a new order when the artificial grave in the clearing’s heart became one in truth.

 

Their apathy was a mercy. He had one minute, perhaps two, before the burning in his lungs scaled to intolerable levels and they tried to shut down, his breathing picked up, alternated between a rasp and rattle. He fought to remain straight, and the effort failed him. Legs buckling, he was sandwiched between a moss-covered tree and tamed ‘mon, Nidoking’s tail sweeping about to obscure and shield him while he struggled to breathe.

 

The fit came and went. With a ragged gasp, Giovanni crawled to standing, fishing out the handkerchief from his breast pocket he dabbed at the moisture about his lips and jaw with practiced motions. If the wetness was blood its hue differed so little from the fabric it was impossible to tell one way or the other.

 

Wordlessly the Boss of Team Rocket tucked the wet fabric into its place. The black of his suit would obscure what needed to be hidden for vanities sake. A few moments came and went, and when breathing no longer burned and the world’s edges seemed less grey he dared one step, another, into sun-dappled clearing too perfect to be anything but artifice, crafted by a beast of nature’s immaculate hand.

 

Shaking off the stone hand at his elbow, mindful of its spines violet and seeping venom, he reached back without needing to see. One scratch on the poison type’s chin and a nudge got the beast to back off, and one toss later and he and the ‘mon were no longer alone. Blinking back the light of ended suspended animation, the oldest, and most loyal member of his personal menagerie set her paws upon wet earth, looking about without a mew, a testament of her training and grace because she was, normally, a vocal feline.

 

For Persian hiding was a simple matter of her nosing about and padding into a thick patch of grass behind the shrine, a quick lay down and squirm got the tall stalks of the long grass to hide her from anything above.

 

Nidoking did not have it so easy.

 

First, the violet beast sunk into the grass beside the cat, earning an irritated “merow” and a paw smack to his snout by the sound of things. An impatient snap of his trainer’s fingers made the beast stand, with a snort, and look for a less abysmal hiding spot. The beast’s spines had poked out like sharkpedo fins in the surf, and another patch and hunker down in even shorter grass got another finger snap and a barked “hurry up”. To the impatience of its master and simplicity denied, Nidoking got creative.

 

Sliding a claw along a thick patch of moss by a tree, the beast rolled back the wet mass and dug a long furrow, twisting so only one eye and his nostrils poked out. He reached back and up pulling the plant growth over itself as it hunkered into the hole like it were a blanket. The edges of its spikes that poked out of the loam were lost among the shadows of branches to a trained human eye, and that would have to do.

 

Contingency set in place, the Rocket limped past the tree line and into the clearing proper.

 

He avoided a dousing courtesy of his vanity. Despite the heat of the day he’d forgone sense for tradition and symbol to better cow his underlings. Though a stereotype all its own his black fedora had kept the water of falling dew off his back, and his trench coat had deflected the rest. Each step of his steel-tipped boots left little scars in the mix match of moss and grass about him as he picked a careful path towards the water, towards that shrine that was devoid of dew through near everything around it was all but drowning.

 

And to that amusing contradiction and to spite himself the Boss of Team Rocket, Giovanni Sakaki, walked to his probable death with a huff of amusement. The noise summoned a white tail to rise out of the foliage. Noticing, he snapped his fingers with a scowl, and the feline’s limb slipped below the grass line, making the clearing seem empty once more.

 

Alone, for all intents and purposes, the Rocket staggered the last few steps to the pool's rock-ringed base and wondered in that near-perfect quiet how the impious were meant to summon a god.

 

He’d a small collection of relics and markers, holy symbols and charms that were pillaged from the various towns and shrines around and about Illex Forrest rattled in a box in his pocket. As worthless as loose change, they were, in theory, steeped with mythology and the stuff of tales. In fact, the lot was the sickening relics of outdated spiritual practices. Preserved finger bones wrapped in half-rotted shrouds were keeping company with wooden scraps that were twined in wish papers and prayer beads. There were stinking things seeped in tree gunk and speckled with feathers that were touted to be from the wings of Legends. DNA testing and basic observation had proven that “Legend” false and common sense screamed that the rest was mummery as well.

 

Still, these things were the backbone of many local superstitions that’d been repeated until it’d ascended to something higher. And at their heart, considering tales and the like, there was one communal theme that bound them besides insanity.

 

Sacrifice.

 

The box and its assorted assortment were large enough to near fill his deepest coat pocket, and that’d been something of an irritant and boon. The plastic casting had necessitated he wears a holster for his gun and tolerate the thing being wound about his waist like a copper. Though Giovanni personally detested being so overt armed he’d be a fool not to be. The arrangement was such that there was just enough room for him to slide a digit over the boxes’ edge and seam without compromising the pocket, and he did so, weighing his options.

 

This was it, make or break. It was in mild shock and amusement he weighed options that’d seemed more fantasy than anything else before. And he circled around practicalities. Rituals were just bargains in archaic trappings.

 

So what could the dying offer something that was effectively immortal?

 

Allegiance was a limited thing if things stayed unchanged, but were his health issues to reverse the effort of upholding a deal with a Legend would likely stretch into intolerability. Wealth was a human-made construct. As for preservation of the Legend’s grounds and non-interference when the gears of industry ground up the remaining reserves of Kanto and Johto … Well, the offer was centered around a human construct and likely to be misunderstood as a threat in all likelihood.

 

Which left him… what to offer then?

 

He couldn’t make a deal unless he either had leverage or collateral.

 

Finger near pricking on a seam, Giovanni withdrew his hand and pulled out the box along with his digit. Flipping it open he stared at the individually wrapped, fussily tab, segregated by lines of raised plastic, labeled, offerings of ages past. They’d been made with no little sacrifice from their originators; if nothing else sanity had been tossed to the winds as their original owners had bound ritual to tawdry to make… these trinkets.

 

And who said the “sacrifice” had to be something of his own?

 

Cracking a Persian’s smile, all edges, and cruelty, Giovanni considered offering and clearing and the subtle tells he could scrounge from its frame and form. There was no place to set the offering before the shrine. The pool got in the way one way and the grave the other. The structure was too shallow to place anything within, and the effort of keeping wood from being affected by reality warned that such may not be wanted.

 

Which left one option, really, and he looked at the pool, dark eyes glinting with a morbid amusement.

 

A fit took him then. Steeling smugness as pain made him bend double, and stubbornness made him lock his legs least he toppling headfirst into the water. He clicked the box shut as fast as he could. But not before his bloody breathing had tainted the lot, receptacle, and relics both. Stubborn had kept him alive thus far, made him get up when others would have given up, but it only went so far this time. Crashing to his knees, mirroring the poise of prayerful repose all unintentional, he fought against his Legend damned death for another breath, another minute, another hour…. He wept as the pain hit reflex, making him curl to ward off blows that weren’t coming, and the poise of curling summoned vile memories, those memories set his heart to hammering in recalled fear. But he couldn’t run, or fight, or do anything save suffer. The whole came together to make him look a pathetic image of suffering. On the whole, he’d mimed a show of repentance by accident.

 

The scene was made doubly ironic for it was done at the foot of the shrine of a Legend, one he hadn’t wronged or earned a lethal curse from.

 

Yet.

 

Striving not to vomit, the Rocket shuddered and panted, eyes slammed shut least the light catch just so to trigger a migraine and vomiting spell all at once. His thoughts devolved from plots and angles to a panicked mantra, a chant that hammered in time with his pulse…

 

Not yet, not yet.

 

The fit passed, and when he dared crack open his eyes he found the world ominously dim and swimming. A bloody mass clasped to his chest, under his chin, he stared at it. Not quite understanding. When the mess sloshed, and his arms hurt, because something under the mess was biting and hard and…. And he could feel the box’s edges digging into his arms; he’d all but folded around it and…. And scraping an arm over the congealed mess atop revealed the box under the organic sludge… The stuff surly stained the front of his uniform, it wet his knees in its falling, and a familiar warmth trickling down his face warned he had vomited, efforts non-withstanding, and his vomit looked like something from the trash can of an abattoir.

 

To that grim reality, of death being so close, the Boss of Team Rocket decided to hang ritual motions, seeming prayers, and just give the offering before things got worse.

 

Because the only worse here was dead, and death wasn’t an option, he’d not allow it.

 

With a shove, he managed to sit up somewhat straight, and with the last of his strength he nudged the box, blood and all, over the thin line of stones that served as this temple’s bank and the lot slid into the deep pool. The offering was accepted without a ripple.

 

And it ended as it had started, by following the patterns of cliché.

 

To his offering of age-old trinkets and present agony he’d, all accidental, set a sun to rise from within the pool. The light started dim and brightened as it rose from under the water. It was a slow, fireless, illumination, that as it crested the water that’d housed it stained stone edges sepia. The view was like a sunrise in miniature saves the colors were all wrong. Molten silver and golds replaced the colors of the rocks due to this false sun, sepia had taken the place of edges and lines. He did not look about himself or at himself to see how he was changed, only relieved that this fake sun produced no heat and so he wouldn’t burn. Curiously his blood on the stone boiled away even as he stared at it, and a tingling rush about his face and hands was perhaps the sight of his death being scrubbed away as well. He didn’t have a mirror or a reflective surface to check. So he didn’t.

 

With a hiss, Giovanni struggled, from kneeling to standing, though his legs trembled at the effort.

 

And so it was when the sylvan god of Illex forest rose from illumination and water both, it found the soul who’d summoned it standing, and not groveling, as was a summoner’s norm.

 

Lips trembling, on hysterical laughter no less, Giovanni considered the sylvan creature before him. It had the look to being the kin to an onion of all the damned things. And that, and this clearing in its unnatural symmetry and additives to its clearing despite the being being a god of nature…. Well, the hypocrisy of it all nearly undid him.

 

Taking one deep breath, least he say what was upmost in his heart, that the little bastard in its perfect natural environs was such an utter hypocrite, Giovanni Sakaki let his gaze scroll over the wonder of a world long lost. Slender wings, leafy frame, twin antenna that was perked and curious –an assumption based off of the tip and angle his Beedril’s own antenna would go when the bug was feeling such things- it was a curious creature whose lower limbs looked almost like they were shoed due to their roundness. The leafy crest of its chest almost looked like the fold of a sprite costume they were angled just so to resemble a neckline...

 

And this… thing… was supposed to be the greatest healer of them all?

 

The Legend looked like a joke. Like a child playing dress-up, one with a perchance for leaves and glue. Fury quickened the Rocket’s heartbeat, gave him the strength to seem strong at least.

 

“Genesis 1:3.” A huff, he meant it to be a laugh and if death weren’t so close it might very well be such. “How fitting.”

 

To the Rocket Boss' words, the beast tipped its head, utterly baffled, no little bit lost, and Giovanni felt uninclined to shed any light on the matter.

Chapter 2: GIovanni chapter 2 RD

Notes:

Chapter ranking. Teen per trigger warning section.

Triggers. Mild gore as Gio's still really sick but described distantly by someone who has no clue what sick means. Profanity near the end.

 

Who'd of thought a olympous mon would have a god complex? I really can't write a nice legend for anything. This is probably only one of the two chapters in this fic that Cel' s going to be narrating for a very good reason.. The legend views all non-legends as it, thing, or creature. Special nods towards Gio who is petitioning it and gets a smear of respect. And a title to match.

For the sake of clarity

summoner aka petitioner = Gio
summoner's spawn = silver
Bound beast/creature= any trainers pokemon

Chapter Text



Celebi was in a curious position, where seeming omnipresence wasn’t quite enough. He had an elevated view of the world that had nothing to do with his wings and the flight they gifted him and everything to do with a remedial grasp on the metaphysical.

Thus, when the motions were made, a petitioner seeking him for healing all expected and normal, the Legend appeared to bless the petitioner with a viewing of Himself, and froze.

There were two lethal wounds upon the creature before Him.

And that situation had left the Legend in a quandary.

The most straightforward path would be to deal with the physical illness that was making the black clad creature exhale blood with its every breath. But in doing so Celebi would be reversing the damage of a Legend-kin. And there was that fun snag of “Why” why did someone with Power hate this insignificant black clad thing enough to wish it this death.

Also, per the terms of the sacrifice Celebi could only offer one miracle. Thus the sylvan creature could only attend to one injury. And the other damage, the one not spite born, was a curiosity from first to last. The damage was from an absence and yet it was a self-inflicted one. As if the creature had wrenched some utterly vital span out of itself and never knew how it’d done so. For comparison, the situation was like running down a hill to find a briar patch at the bottom and in efforts to avoid the greater hurt you twist aside. Only this fall before the spiked vines hadn’t ended in acquiring cuts and scrapes, rather the creature’s heart had come out, and despite that vital loss the body had kept going.

For years, nearly a decade.

And wasn’t that a breath of icy wind to the back? That wonderful, charming, image, helped along by the trickle of red that was seeping down the creature’s mouth as it’s face spasomed in holding back a cough?

Leaving the physical wound tended only for the soul wound to worsen to lethality seemed foolishness and a shade dishonest. For a dead soul would surely kill the thing that housed it, the Healer had seen it happen before.

Thus, Celebi, the Greatest Healer, was the quandary.

Let none leave your presence unhealed, let all harm cease at your gates. So’d instructed Arceus, other rules, some whim some stipulations per disasters triggered in healing things wrong, had been tabbed on as the millennia wore on….

But this mess was something else altogether.

Tipping His head to better consider petitioner and damage, Celebi floated a slow circuit about the black clad being that sacrificed a century or more of tributes for this one moment. The beast watched him wearily until watching would have required turning. Then, it charmingly, showed a bit of trust. Stilling it’s tracking and head turning, the beast slid it’s dark pit-kin eyes shut. Such trust was amusing, to put it mildly, and the twitch of its gloved fingers about the thing’s mid-section binding went to a rhythm, as if it were counting notes to a song.

Circuit complete, the leafy Legend lifted a paw, just as the beast before it opened its bloody mouth to say…. Something… The pale creature’s mouth snapped shut as it recognized the gesture, the mute plea for one minute, and the two legged thing shifted back, black garments rusting.

“I’ve only so much time left, you understand.”

The complaint felt more like a warning than grousing, and to that Celebi frowned. But He obliged, after all, this was a summoner, and they were universally panicky things, what with being in a state of perpetual misery and dying. And the Legend could smell the creature’s death, the stench rose from every inch of this thing’s skin and seeped out the pores like the fumes of a Houndoom’s hell fires.

So Celebi offered a mercy despite the creature’s transgression of speaking when it shouldn’t have. Color dimmed, as summon pool and clearing folded to one hue, sepia, with only black to mark corners and crannies and give the whole contrast. Such was the light show when Celebi applied the pressure of his regard to time itself.

And time slowed, shuddering to a stop.

In that apex of stolen time, Celebi tipped his leafy head to better glare at the petitioner all the to better indulge one unspoken warning. The summoner, oddity from first to last, bared teeth in a smile-kin gesture that set the sensation of hoarfrost to the winding vines of His veins. Still, the beast remained quiet, even while Celebi waited, and once done with waiting and stillness, (and shivers), Celebi tipped His head back. Wings humming, tipping his body towards the sun, Celebi lounged upon the back of broken moments, lost time, the whole seeming nothing more than sepia illumination to a beast that could not see beyond the physical, and perched upon the fulcrum of His existence the Legend cast His thoughts far and wide.

And the Legends of a region away responded, their hate was like pouring something molten in His own head.

It was the birds that screamed the loudest, like birds were wont to do. They squawked and warbled, the three avains voice’s blending into infernos, and storms, and wintery gales that surly kicked up odd weather about their nests. Only the iron hard lock of Arceus’ commands kept them in their place. The terms of their legends were unmet, their seasons were not in effect, without nature on their side or a grand destiny in the works to supplant the cycles they could not move freely, and so the distance between them and their tormentor went uncrossed.

It was only happy chance that kept them from darkening the skies of Johto with their rage.

When the creature moved, just a few steps to better brace against a budding dizzy spell perhaps, that Celebi felt something… impossible.

The thrum of the universe bracing.

Sky kin eyes widening in realization, Celebi stopped before the creature as it tipped it’s head at him, curious and unseeing as the Legend’s foresight flared… and per his nature twisted to a sort of sideways hindsight.

There were lives inelegantly handled by this creature, used, and cast aside once they broke. The pattern of use and abandoned had been done so often the motions had left callouses under the beast’s gloves and was repeated ad nauseam until Celebi could see the residue of the suffering the petitioner had caused. The psychic residue of used psyche was like blood, it ran from the petitioner’s finger tips to elbows….

Blue eyes locking onto that bit of supernatural gore, Celebi floated back, out of easy grabbing range, and flicked his awareness further, farthest, until all the Legends resided in his mind.

Because this problem petitioner was more than living up to the ideal of headache inspiring and tossing a stomach ache on the lot to boot. This was complicated, and hate from the birds would only get Celebi so far.

Apathy was the answer from many of his kin. Immediate indifference. Which was a norm, even when the apathetic Legends could hear and feel the grievances and rumbling roars of utter hate offered by the canines of Johto and birds of Kanto.

More worrying was the curiosity from Celebi’s more destructive of his kin. And… from a different dimension that barely abutted this one, came the sensation of giggles.

Phionie was getting a belly rub from its trainer right now.

Well that was useful, and gave Him an avenue to cause one agony to dissipate. Rolling His eyes, Celebi eased the infantile pokemon out of this gathering of the minds.

Mid-section hurting from a sudden rush of anxiety-

Because the universe wasn’t supposed to move when anything but a legend acted, this wasn’t right!

The few steps the beast made made the clearing jolt and wobble to any psychically sensitive, and the things motions of steadying itself were making the clearing ripple, near breaking the moment of stilled time, and in desperation Celebi tried another slant. The tried and true “who wants this problem, because it’s a likely world ender if done wrong!” and normally the more elder Legendries would cue up to such a call.

Arceus was particularly famous, passing judgments left, right, and center

There were whole theological discourses on Arceus and his interference, the perk of being judgment incarnate was you could act, justice be hung.

And while normally no one ever willingly evoked Arceus’ attention by all but inviting him into a Summoning…. This one felt bad. Never mind the bitter hatred between the Mystical Legend and many of the weaker Legends because of previous high handed treatment.

And to Celebi’s call, the God ‘Mon was silent, a new norm since the shenanigans with those humans in Sinnoh, which was a whole different plate of worry.

Worse was Xerneas’ enthusiastic approval to help with the impossibility before Celebi. A mute rush of enthusiasm and curiosity that was all but a petition to get involved. The Horned Healer was likely prancing in place despite being continents away; setting wild blooms to grow in abundance at his alter and place of binding...

And that thought was more alarming than the “gore” on the black clad petitioner’s hands.

A restless healer was an ominous one, considering he was set to balance out Yveltal. Xerneas’ rebirth may grant one mortal eternal life, but for the rest about the deer’s chosen the forces of immortality would pass them by. Xerneas’ region would be lost in a wash of purging and reshaping… and culling as Yvetal would be unleashed to still the overabundance of life and would be ordered to test and try the newly made immortal.

The cycle of the beasts of Kalos was the thing of nightmares and genocides, and Celebi eased the pair out to avoid making thing’s worse. Sensing the withdraw Yvetal’s relief was a warm citrus syrup on the back of his tongue, the bird’s last thought was enthusiasm for being able to sleep another millennia…

And Xerneas’ brays of denial sounded… then nothing.

Gripping time itself Celebi pushed through the material with His inner eye. Hoping the past would avail Him, and the creature’s past… was confusing. Longing and lust, near primal, yet controlled. Little ambitions set upon little plots, all piled and twisted about so that lesser creatures were broke under them so that this creature could acquire the tools to petition Celebi in this moment. To that utter failure Celebi tried to spy the future, but it was such a jerky mess the Healer could not pull possibility from probability, and in the back of his head the wrathful howls of Legends scaled up a notch.

And now, at their loudest, the sylvan god was noticing one particularly glaring absence. The Legend was in the net that Celebi had tossed out, and following that thread of awareness… though physically not there Celebi could see Entei. Blunt snout set on folded fore paws, sod smoldering under black nails, Entei amused himself in this meeting of the minds by glaring at some sight before it. Since Entei was inherently boring, and bitter, what he saw beyond Celebi’s interest and thus did manifesting for the sylvan being to look at too.

Perhaps it was a budding volcano, Entei liked those.

As if sensing the regard of its peer the fire hound lifted its head, a corona of smoke billowing from crown, literally making the beast a hot head. Defying nature the smoke streamed down over the Legend’s broad shoulders, a mane all smog with a few embers to give a twist on the idea of highlights. Curiosity caused the fiery Legend to open its jaws, rumbling a note of confusion at the attention.

And to that show of simplicity Celebi huffed, not fooled in the slightest.

“You can talk you know.”

“Ah, but have you learned how to listen yet?”

That new spawned, five hundred year old, upstart! Near vibrating out of the psychic bond in anger, and near losing his grip on the stilled moment of time, Celebi plastered a sickly smile on His features, surely setting the creature in the clearing to worry as He smiled at nothing the petitioner could see.

“I am listening. I’ve got one of your creatures making a muk in my clearing with all its cause and effect and I’ve been LISTENING to the Three Little Avians and your Brothers howling up an elemental storm in my head.”

“That’s nice.” Flicking his fangs in a grin akin to the black clad thing’s smile, Entei rolled his shoulders, straightened as if he were going to take the whole conversations seriously or at least standing, then the hound flopped back down. Slumping to one side, shoulder digging into a bit of scree as if he were getting an itch scratched. “How’s that working for you?”

“Badly.”

“Too bad.” Rocks rattled, melting a bit, and Entei dug into the budding magma with a satisfied rumble.

There was a budding quagmire under the other Legend’s ire. The maybes associated with this healing scaled his headache up to migraine levels, which considering he was the Great Healer, was a whole bundle of theological perplexity if mentioned in the right circles.

Entei, squinting up at Him, ember eyes flickering with obvious mirth, was not helping at all. And it took all of His will not to cut the firebrand out of the link. Still, the fire type’s quiet among the cacophony was intriguing and utterly out of character. Under Celebi’s irritated glare the other Legend continued his back rub with melting rocks and squirming rolls.

“What I want is answers.”

“Let me know when you find them.”

“Oh I think I have.” Celebi hummed, wings vibrating, and it was child’s play to sharpen a thought and cast it into the other Legend’s head.

The morass, seen under the yelp of shock, was confused and confusing.

Predominantly featured was a red haired kin to the petitioner. The little creature was riding on Entei’s shoulders, and further poking found small memories as both creature and Legend were of rather small minds. Grooming, talking, wandering, warmth, playing fetch, such were the thoughts Entei held when thinking of the red topped creature that was… a smaller spawn of the summoner.

So, when not attending his duties Entei favored being a pet as he’d been before his rebirth. Pushing past that rather boring revelation he found another, neither His, or Entei’s, but rather the small creature’s.

The summoner’s spawn was wrapped in a rather tawdry mystery of not knowing it’s kinship to the one who summoned. A nudge beyond that smelled of suffering, and Celebi could see red R’s, creatures working out their own trials without Legends, and since they did not aspire to claim a Legend’s aid, they obviously failed.

But they rose up from their ruin, and tried again, and the world withered a bit under their efforts.

There was a peculiar snag of panic, about a creature, a tamer of dragons seeking to ascend on the backs of his bound beasts with the intent to tear everything down. But that ended before it started, and the images cycled back to red R’s, and the mystery now no longer a mystery, that left guilt and crying.

The red toped summoner kin had cried into Entei’s mane, braving embers and poisoning so he could hold on and sob at the hurt. Face rustling as the leaves about it twisted under His moue of disgust, because Entei’d let the thing snuffle into him nearly for an hour, Celebi looked back, riding the affection Entei bore to the thoughts of the little summoner spawn. Nearly to the beginning. And the Legend was gifted with the vision of clutch of small creatures that were vaguely shaped like the summoner. All were locked in icy cages and there were things that moved that shouldn’t and the panic about that thought, even though it was second hand, was enough to make Celebi pull His thoughts away least they freeze in His head.

Celebi came back to awareness just in time to feel embers, see fangs, and since He wasn’t really there… Well the spite and teeth crunched on the air He had projected him image for Entie’s benifit. The threat to the image left a message loud and clear and with a smirk Celebi cut Entei out of the link, with Entei’s roars of how when this “world ending mess” caught Celebi in the ass he’d be there to laugh, and rub embers in the wounds…

And there was nothing but silence after Celebi twisted His neck and dumped the Legendary dog out of His head.

Sifting through the baffling input Celebi winced back to reality. The creatures who summoned and petitioned were miniscule, only earning their acclaim when they ascended to a Legend’s sight and spoke the right words, made the right sacrifices, and gathered their hard earned boons. Celebi knew this, and when He sought the important things in the stolen memories and possible futures He found nothing save the small. Lots of small things. Actions and plots and cruelties all grinding together, making their own wheel to counter fate in bits and bobs…

Which lead to here and now, and the impossible, improbable, and a decision the Legend did not want to make.

But he’d been bid, let none leave your gates unhealed.

Considering the weary, exhausted, thing before Him with something like respect, Celebi considered hate and options, and decided one thing.

He wanted the ruckus in his head gone, now.

So he eased the avians out of the link, promising vague things, of simulating judgments to counterbalance sins. That seemed to smooth ruffled hackles and feathers though their feelings were… for him at least… quite alien.

But it was a stance of those never wronged and assured of their immunity to ever being wronged to find such basic things as outrage baffling.

Sylvian faces twitching, because with the other Legend’s gone from his head the silence was blessed. No Arceus needed to sanction it, Celebi would do so right here and now, Celebi offered the black clad thing a smile. A warm smile one cast at a problem to be resolved. The creature was seeping its misery all about the grove, and for that transgression Celebi forgave it.

Because this was nearly done.

He’d made a promise and be held before Arceus if He didn’t deliver, and while judgment might take a century, perhaps two, Celebi wanted nothing to do with the God ‘Mon, none of them did.

The red head summoner’s spawn had been part and parcel to this headache, so the creature could be part of undoing this. There were options, ways to advert whatever had caused this to be. Celebi hadn’t understood the thoughts of the red topped spawn, or the summoner, or Entei, but given time, and contact, that could be changed. And with that knowledge He could make sure the whole mess never happened. Doing so would set this whole mess out of His domain, and thus make everything to do with this not His responsibility.

Near sparkling in sudden cheer Celebi spun, hummed, and the black topped summoner considered Him with thinned eyes. It’s… unfounded suspcoions were irrelevant, as a Legend had a plan. A great one. A grand one. That’d make this all disappear. So the Legend tossed out a thought, to the most amiable of his Legend kin.

Zekrom, Reshiam, Jirachi… if you have a moment please?

He met the creature’s gaze, wanting to impart how good this was, it would be healed after all. And perhaps Celebi’s attention had wandered and time had started up again, because the thing indulged it’s baser needs, that of trying to die. Slumping over, clutching its side, the creature hacked, and wheezed, and bled from its mouth. Celebi wrinkled his small face in mild nausea at the red that spread before the thing, from exhale that had drawn too deep and triggered a rush from the thing’s stomach. The ruination of its rotting had caused a lumpy mass to come up, splatter down, and a patch of the Legend’s clearing was liberally colored with the dying thing’s fluids.

Well, it nothing else the sense of the thing dying brought the called three over in a hurry, though the Legends remained unseen they were seeing, and bemused.

Jirachi, agonizingly young, though not as young as the pampered water type a few dimensions over, gasped in shock, nearly appearing no less.

Aren’t you going to heal them?”

The star shaped creature used the wrong word, the creature was an it, not a them, and someone was going to have to point out the error. But the thing was dying so now might not be the best times. But soon would be better than later, certainly before the next century before the bad habit sunk in too deep.

They did not, Arceus knew, need another Entei on their hands. Much less a would-be Entei with a shrill voice all the better to rail about injustice and compassion and other nonsense about how important the creatures that petitioned, and the ones that didn’t, were.

“Yes,” Celebi promised. “But it’s a bit more… bigger than that.”

More smoke than substance, frames lost in a swirl of their fireless burning, the Tao Duo perched upon nothing at all, sinking talons along the hard contours of nothingness and looked down upon Celebi’s petitioner, thinking as one, speaking as one. They were a discordant, disgusted echo.

There is no path for this one…”/“It’s rejected all paths, sheering through nature and order, leaving nothing save ruination…”

Really, why He’d involved the Duo was a bit beyond Him, save for one facet. Besides Entei, these birds had the most involvement with humans. Their experience would make this judgment, and trial, easier.

And if the trial was unfair, and hard, well the birds and hounds of Johto and Kanto would be appeased because they’d wanted the black topped petitioner to suffer after all. So it would and that would be good. The petitioner would of course need to stop dying to be tried, thus the healing requisite would be met, and as an added bonus, Jirachi would gain enough exposure to lesser beings to understand why Legends were better, and lesser were… well lesser.

All in all it seemed a benefit for them all.

Unwilling to take the time to actually articulate cause and clause Celebi pressed the idea of how they were going to do things and at the idea of making a facsimile of reality to the other Legends. They could sculpt it on familiar paths, something that the dying knew well, and they could wheel in the red haired summoner’s spawn as well. After all what was divine judgment without a slant of unfairness and the innocent being swept up in it?

That last thought Celebi shielded from Jirachi, layering His sending to the star child with curiosity of how the two who were bound by blood react to a reunion. But not just any reunion. A special one. Where the creatures were both made young again, where there were no wounds, Legend wrought or otherwise. It’d be a curiosity to set the creatures back to a simpler time, thus easing the complexities of their interactions and learning a thing or two about them both.

And wasn’t a second youth something all creatures wanted and wailed after? Spending their lives seeking fountains and the like to guarantee it?

Which was something Celebi could do quite easily and it would lead to a fuller healing for one and all.

His fellow Legend’s response was expected, the Duo were intrigued. They’d be the makers of the material, using their paths and patterns to sustain both beings and a world about them; for the Duo there was appeal in the complexity. As for the youngest Legend, there was a familiar rush of enthusiasm, for being able to grant so many wonderful wishes that were as good as healing, and wasn’t Celebi so nice for letting him dabble outside his domain, and…

And if he were doing anything wrong Celebi might have felt guilt for his lie. Instead he smiled wider, and then floated down, not touching the bloody ground before the creature, but nearly. Celebi thought the suggestion of tipping the creature’s head up gently and as a psychic thoughts were the same as doing. Immaterial limbs sprung into being and moved the summoners head, making the creature look up and causing it’s silly, broad rimmed topping to fall off. The petitioner’s crest was near as dark as its clothes, a few lines of silver running through the small patch of fur on its head, about its temples.

The petitioners scrunched it’s face, first a grimace at the non-touch, then clarity swirled in those glassy eyes and the thing’s face twisted to something like neutral.

You’ll have your healings, and wonders,” Celebi spoke, mind to mind, miming a tone and pitch he’d heard Arceus use. Even if the creature didn’t remember this when it got wherever it was going, the creature would remember eventually. When wasn’t that important. “And the thing you lost, the thing that you ripped lives apart for and torn apart the world for, you’ll have that too, eventually, but there will be trials. Fail those and you and your…” What did humans call their offspring? Celebi floundered a moment, then decided on a reasonable sounding term. “You and your spawn will never be reunited. But mind the roads -“ and all unseen the Duo preened, “-and if their challenges are met, for both of you, you may be together, at journeys end.”

Because there must be a slant of unfairness, and curiously, the creature jarred to life as allusions were realized. It stiffened, angered, lips pealing back in a snarl that‘d make lesser things flinch. Even its dying tremors -because it was dying, and the efforts of emoting were carrying it off too fast for Celebi to wheel out further speeches and dictates, oh well- seemed ominous, and not in the way one thought of dying tremors as ominous.

The petitioner’s show of hostility and deep growl made Celebi think of the earth, of bedrock crunching together, mere moments before splitting to rain fire and spite. He’d been therer that one time, when that one volcano had made a similar sound right before it’d sprung into being and smothered an island… Pomin Pom-something several millennia back.

There’d been no survivors then, and the hostile tip to the creature’s frame while it was dying seemed to promise something similar towards Himself.

Celebi shifted his toes up a hair, eased back a bit, not wanting to test his luck.

“You leave my Son, out of this you son of a bitch.”

Clearly the creature had no idea of scope or even build of the Legends if it were talking about things as base as mating and trying to be cruel about it. The creature staggered to standing and Celebi, shocked, because those last words had sounded like a death rattle. But here it was, not dead, and instead of dying it was trying defiance.

The nerve.

The beast snapped it’s fingers and the earth about a tree was torn aside as a purple beast of poison and earth surged over the clearing. The venom beast took in the sight of Him, and its trainer (as all bound things thought of their bindings) and drew all the wrong conclusions.

The punch was easily stopped; a twist of a thought and the air thickened to nullify velocity, the trick was a hatchlings ploy, really.

Clenched forepaws stilled in solid air an inch from the Legend’s face, the spines, Celebi noted, mental musing tinny and strained even in His own head, were angled to take out both of His eyes had the blow connected.

Above, not beyond, just lingering, the Tao watched and Jirachi hummed anxiety.

He doesn’t sound very happy.” The star child noted, worried. “And his friends sound scared.”

Before the Sylvian god could reply, or think to ask about the curious plural, one answer came in fast and hard. Something white smashed into his back, tangling in his wings and scraping against the stalks over his spine. Again, the attack took minimal effort to stop, but the newest challenger had drawn blood with its fangs and there were leaves tangled in the white creature’s claws. The Bite stung something fierce. Even as Celebi wrapped his newest assailant in azure binds, gently showing his superiority, the feline swung at him, hissing a name like a battle cry.

“Jirachi.” Teeth clenched, headache back and back worse, Celebi glowered at the petitioner, and though both of its beasts were bound the biped creature wrapped in it’s dark clothes fearlessly met the Legend’s spite for spite, labored breathing and agony obvious and adding an edge to its animosity that set Celebi’s back stalks to twine. “Why don’t you get the things… ah… spawn. Wish it here?”

Alright…

Then,” unseen behind him, the Tao loomed, eyes bright with internal vistas and paths and patterns they were going to set, and by setting this thing on them it would right a wrong, that the twin Legends were sure of. “We’ll get started, and this thing… and it’s pets-”

“Persian!”

“Kiing!”

The profanities were untranslatable to any tongue save intent, which promised maiming as a start and scaled up quickly. The purple beast, all throns and bristling, was promising to snap his wings and toss it into a puddle of acid. Then, to prove its point, the creature let it’s jaw sag wide, dripping acid on the earth and making the ground sizzle and rot from its spittle.

“-can come along with it.”

When the star child had shimmered out of the present moment with a flash of golden light Celebi made ropes of nothingness and waved them into place. Creature’s bound, He’d get to healing, because the sacrifices had been made and the location and time were right, and He was obligated to do so.

So He would.

And in the back of His head, as Celebi pulled back from flashing teeth as the cat tried to bite him again, He could hear Entei. Which was insane as Entei was not present. Entei had been out of the mental link for ages now.

Phantom Entei born of Celebi’s recollection chimed in the psychic’s head despite not being invited. The fire hound had been amused when Arceus had nearly been bound to a lesser creature and its mechanisms, and a pokeball. Entei, who instead of being outraged, had wryly noted that if the “lesser things were fighting back this hard maybe we should leave them alone,” it was the way he’d said lesser that’d set Celebi’s antenna to stiffen. As if lesser were the crassest untruth .

Shaking off recalled Entei’s words Celebi floated towards the hateful creature that bound others to it, and met it’s black pit eyes with eternal patience and exasperation.

You are making this a very healing difficult.”

“Then leave me for dead.”

Repudiating a blessing asked? That baffled Celebi, and the Duo above stilled in a stupefied wonder. There was a reason, a path, a route, and the efforts for healing had been made. What madness would lead to it refusing now, so close to death even?

Then it recalled, when the attack started, the words that had triggered this insanity.

Spawn…

Clearly it was the wrong word. And perhaps the Legend should apologize as the creature was an infuriatingly protective sort towards it’s… pup? Celebi finally figured the creature’s insanity was catchy, because Celebi would have sworn on Arceus’ name he could still hear Entei even though the sylvan Legend was pointedly not thinking of the fire mutt, and the canine’s bitterness.

But there the dog was, despite Celebi’s best efforts, still in the back of his fellow Legend’s head. Memory and fancy, and it all felt horridly real in that moment, like Entei were actually there even though the dog really wasn’t.

And Entei was laughing.

The unhealed thing’s fury, repudiating Him and His “damned healing” was all in a wild desperation to extricate it’s spawn. The creature had made the cognitive jump before waking in its trial, which was impressive, and upon realizing its spawn was going to be judged unjustly was all but flailing and wasting it’s death throes in a mad effort to get the smaller red-topped creature out before anything had started.

Before the creature’s spawn had even gotten here.

The other lesser creatures’ were yowling for the Legend’s blood, for Him imprisoning them. Never mind the balls at their “trainers” belt were more binding than their present shackles. Part spite, His back and shoulder burned from bite and scratches both, Celebi snapped His digits, miming the motions the creature had used in summoning. And that’s how the artificial binds between lesser ‘mon and lesser creature were erased.

The pokeballs at the creature’s belt made a curious clunk. The only response from these three was the cat started clawing at air, trying to sheer its way towards the Legend that’d freed it, the earth beast tried to spit poison but the effort was stilled as the punch had been and the “King” was left having to taste it’s own vileness as the venom caught behind his fangs and stuck around. As for the black clad thing, it’s lips were peeled back in a wordless snarl, the thinning of it’s eyes and rage pouring from it seemed death threat, though it’d stopped talking, settled for breathing erratically.

What the previously bound beast’s did in this moment was irrelevant. They were acting on habit. And this trial would make the lesser ‘mon realize they were free, and freed they’d go their own paths away from foolishness like “trainers” and threatening Legends. Celebi’d set the summoner’s spawns creatures free as well, another dash of injustice to the lot that’d be to the betterment of all.

They’d all be grateful to Him in the end.

Celebi’s self-satisfaction held exactly one moment after Jirachi appeared. His return was less a flash of light and more a tunnel of golden light carved out of the sky. Not set too horridly high up, just enough to avoid the thick branches, the pair sauntered down, clearly amusing each other. The creature Jirachi’d fetched was walking down on the edge of gold light like it was a forest path with a slope. The small Legend was swirling about the red-topped summoner’s spawn was keeping the “steps” in existence with proximity, only breaking off to look back, lift a hand, and dim the oval of golden light behind them.

“I always forget to do that…” The starry Legend whined, aloud, “I shouldn’t but…:

“It’s alright, everyone leaves the door open sometimes. You should have seen the last time Green left the door open. We were at a hotel near Mt. Moon and this swarm of zubat just swept in and we had to hide under the bed until they flew out… You should have seen the carpets after….”

And the summoner had gone dead still, so much so Celebi canted a glance on it, and though it wasn’t breathing just then its heart was beating, so the thing was not dead.

Which would do. To make sure it kept quiet Celebi willed a gag for the summoner, tying it painfully tight as an afterthought.

“Really?” Jirachi gasped.

“They crunched.” The spawn clarified, near whispered, a sort of pseudo horror to its tone, it’s lips quirking as it fought not to laugh at the door opening of the past. “and carpets aren’t’ supposed to crunch, they’re supposed to be soft.”

“Eeew…”

And Jirachi was going to get a long talking too after this was done.

“Yeah, ew.” The creature agreed.

Blinking back the light of it’s coming, lips quirked, the summoner’s spawn followed Jirachi’s flight even as it stepped forward. The silly motion lead to the creature twirling a bit in place when the small Legend zipped about in a series of tight circles. Huffing a small laugh, a soft spoken rebuke of “slow down a bit would you?”, that Jirachi giggled at and obeyed as the pair cleared the last few “steps” down.

Then the spawn froze, looking past its guild and in response its mouth near unhinging in shock.

And it might have been the sight of the rope and psychic bound ‘mon floating about that made the red topped creature freeze. The ropes and bonds lead to Celebi because He liked the tactile feeling of those binds in His paws, and the red topped creature’s quicksilver eyes slid the path of rope, to ‘mon, to Legend, and widened even as it took a step back, paling.

The spawn’s… originator… bloody faced and stooped at Celebi’s feet might have led to a number of questions as well, and Jirachi, nearest and friendliest, should have swept in to answer them.

As it was the star shaped Legend blinked bright eyes at the scene and hummed.

“What’d I miss, are we playing a jump rope game?”

Reaching up, nudging the young Legend behind it, the summoner’s spawn pulled a pokeball from its belt, not calling any of its bound creatures to its side. It didn’t need too. A rustling about the spawn’s shoulders showed that it’d had something small, and black, on its back that’d blended in well with the black garb the creature’d sported. Celebi’d thought the spawn was hunch backed, the lesser mon had blended in so well. But with a twist and rise the small ‘mon at the spawns back. Setting icy fore and hind paws to roost on the red topped creature’s shoulder, the lesser ‘mon glared from over the spawns head, the spawns red topping mixing with it’s ‘mon’s red crest to make the pair look peculiar and two headed just then.

But oddness aside there were bared fangs of ice, and a warning of words, not as humans understood them, but words all the same.

Keep away keep away, mine mine mine…

Wild eyes skating from the bound to Legend, to it’s blood faced and fronted originator, the spawn took one step back, then stopped. And in that moment Celebi studied it. The summoner’s spawn was small, not as broad shouldered as it’s forbearer or without a deep rumble to the voice. Nearly new hatched then and obviously not evolved. Dressed in a black thing that was tentatively akin to the long black thing the summoner wore, the long cloth flapped about it’s knees as it walked, the front was partially open so Celebi could see there were other layers under the flapping long cloth. One red and covering the creature’s top half, the other grit grey and covering the lower, both worn with patches of skin showing, mainly the lower about the thing’s knees but there were pin pricks about the shoulders as well.

New ones were forming as the lesser ‘mon on the creature’s shoulders kneaded icy claws and spit curses at Celebi.

“What the hell’s going on here?” The spawn’s voice cracked, definitely not evolved. When no Legend spoke the spawn looked past them, to the summoner. “Fath- Sakaki, what the Hell?”

And the summoner, Sakaki, twisted it’s wrist, freeing something shiny and sharp, the creature cut the Legend made gag to better draw breathe, then roar.

“Silver, get out of here! Now!”

Another motion and the summoner had called all it’s bound beasts. And the clearing was crawling with lesser ‘mon, buzzing wings with stabbing spines, creatures of stone and earth rampaged, ripping the shrine and tossing it at the Legend it was made for. When that attack failed the beast’s pulled back stones from the pool, sod from the earth, they tantrum and attacked throwing as much of the clearing as they could about in a mad attempt to kill the Healer and defend their “trainer” from his healing.

Flicking in and out of existence, Celebi was not… mindful… of blocking the debris. And some of the attacks hit the other, observing, Legends, by utter accident causing Them to tantrum.

Which made the summoner’s spawn bark at its own bound beast, and there was ice on top of everything else….

The insanity, when it died down, was ruinous, to clearing and Legend pride both, but it did die down, as the lesser beasts eventually lost and were siphoned away to the most begrudging healing in history.

Chapter 3: Giovanni, reflections and opening moves RD

Chapter Text

He’d expected these divinely dictated "trials" of his "healing" to be pulled from the anals of old mythologies. A mix-match of torments cobbled together to impossible tasks. And there was a punishment slant to this moment. His mind, half-awake, felt poked and prodded, and while a pain it wasn't agony. The sensation was comparable to something was burrowing in his head, and since fighting back, or trying to, made the pain worse...

 

He didn't.

 

And after a frisson of shock not his own set his spine to tingle, the presence in his head shifted attention from battle to sifting through memories. Egotist that it was the psychic intrusion meandered along the thoughts related to recall and Legends. The results were a melding of Mythology 101 and the tales of his life, sloppily stitched together to form a borderline incoherent whole.

 

Once upon a time... gentler tales started such, this one being the uncensored grimoire of ancient times, there was no such gentling.  

 

So it began; 

 

In ancient times there'd been a madman who declared himself the emperor of Kalos. To prove might and madness both he'd wrangled with a pyroar while aflame in some tribute or other to gain the boon of a pelt that'd gift him immortality in battle.

 

The Legend's held their word, the man had earned the hide, and it was blessed, and bloodstained, as all old-time giftings of the Legends were back in those days.

 

 

In modern times, a near-decade ago Giovanni'd revisited the story and added his own embellishments.

 

The Hide Armor of the Unnamed Tyrant had been Team Rocket's first breakthrough. 

 

True, indisputable, confirmation of the Legend's existence that wasn't hearsay or his own sighting. 

 

Giovanni's personal bit of hearsay, his viewing of a Legend, had been a thing of utter desperation. His "encounter" had started when he'd been woken by the sound of shattering glass. Shaking off sleep he'd raced down the hall, throwing open his son's bedroom door to see golden talons of a gigantic bird had plowed through the forced opening of a broken window. The avian was rooting through the room, and it'd been madness as the lights were trying to die and the bird's wing strokes were part thunder, part smoldering. The very air sizzled and steamed as rain met a "god" of fire and the resulting steam had been like stepping into a nightmarish sauna.  

 

The walls burned on the outside. Never truly catching as it was a hellish downpour of hail and rain outside. The beast hung half on half off the outer wall of the building for support, embers rained from the things every wingstroke as it fought for balance and reaching all at once.

 

Giovanni had frozen before the sight of that monstrosity. Not believing. But belief fell to facts. Heart hammering, he realized the angle of the reaching limb, the slant of the gouges in the floor, all pointed towards his son's bed and it'd only been chance the talons hadn't connected, sharp or grip. Swearing, Giovanni lunged, intent on snapping up his boy and bolting.

 

The basement's panic room... He could make it in less than five at a dead run, he just needed this one thing to go right...

 

Of course, it hadn't.

 

The bird, all sunlight and malice, had seen, heard, and it twisted about to better see him in turn.

 

And the Legend's regard was a pressure akin to boulders slammed against his back. No mere man could stand against it. And he hadn't. Struck down to his knees by a glare, near senseless from the bird's attention, Giovanni couldn't see. Wasn't permitted to even stand, and so at his Legends feet, in the ruins of his son's room, he'd been forced to assume a pose that the ignorant would take as prayerful.

 

If he couldn't stand, so he wouldn't, he crawled. Calling assurances to the sobbing, fear paralyzed child, he was here, he was coming... The smoldering carpets, the blindness that made him travel by touch and memory were of no moment...

 

He just needed one more moment, and the "gods" did not grant him even that.

 

A warble of victory from above, as claws found their target and gripped.

 

His boy's scream would haunt him as he was dragged up and away. Waking and sleeping, for years and years. p

 

Picking up the pelt for the first time, that ultimate proof of a Legend's death, he heard those screams again, echoing in his memory, and if he wasted a day or so imagining it with sun-hued feathers in steed of golden fur, snapped talons and beak shavings serving as bindings instead of whatever claws had been threaded through the thing...

 

That was his business.

 

As for the Hide, acquiring it was wholly business.  

 

Passed from original owners next of kin to be owned by a collector of the bizarre. It'd been child's play to divest the man of his find and his life, and for a while, Giovanni Sakaki had owned the armor of Kalos's sole emperor. It was near indestructible as many tests with modern weapons had proved. Resisting fire and bludgeoning and electricity by twisting the heat and force of any attack away from the cloth. The immaterial forces of psychic-type attacks had passed through it like mist, and the keenest minds sharpened by sadism had been unable to even wrinkle the material...

 

As for what it was... it was utterly worthless, despite being an assurance that Legends could die. It'd been crafted for one man and resisted the touch of any other. He'd seen video footage of it unclasping and sliding off of any who tried to put on. And while it arrested the force of any attack directed at it... the deflection was inherently flawed. The fabric would be undamaged, its hairs unruffled... but estimates, backed by tests where it had been pinned to mannequins with a passing nod to human build, guaranteed that come the first projectile, the first elemental attack from any 'mon... 

 

Well, the feet of the wearer would be the first thing to go.

 

Further tests, and the inability to get a sample by any means to find out what beast had sacrificed its skin to make the flawed archaic armor, had affirmed the relics' worth. Needles, tweezers, scissors, even cotton swabs, could garner nothing. No DNA, or hairs, or dust for dating. Even water immersion had failed, the thing mirroring old religious legends by parting the water in the tub it'd been cast into and making a mess of one test room floor.

 

So the relic had ended as it'd started. A mystery. But not a worthless one. Team Rocket had made a fortune selling the damned thing on a black market. Another collector of the bizarre without any quibbles about the law had taken the golden hide...

 

And if that man had been later killed, his bank accounts emptied, his property looted for bits and bobs of other Legends... Well, Team Rocket was at its heart a criminal enterprise.

 

And so, all accidental, this hodgepodge of history and legend got its very own moral.

 

Caveat Emptor.

 

As for the incidentals... The Emperor of the tale had been a would-be dictator whose reign was so short he'd not gotten his name into the history books. He'd lasted mere minutes after gaining his divine gift, not even living long enough to crawl to the battlefield to learn the limitations of the pelt. The burns of his trial had carried him off to an inglorious death via medical complications well beyond his time, and thus a legend had been born from the stripped and blessed hide of a Legend, the tale's conclusion an inglorious one for Beast and Emperor both.

 

It was a fitting story, a fitting moral, both dovetailed beautifully into the madness the Boss of Team Rocket found himself embroiled in now.

 

The scorn of that thought allowed him to connect mind to body in the form of a reaction. He huffed his amusement. 

 

And that was the end of his detachment. 

 

One blink and his sight cleared in stages. The bland view of dark and square resolved into a ceiling of some sorts, save it was too dark to discern color because it was literally too dark to see much of anything... Giovanni tried to get a better view. To sit up. But the motion went all wrong and got him nothing save a weak jolt through his frame. 

 

He tried smaller motions, then. 

 

Wiggling toes and fingers, taking heart from those small motions he worked his way up to rolling over and exchanged one view of square and blankness for another. The only difference between the room's far wall and its ceiling was the shut and shuttered window on the far wall. There was no furniture save the bed he lay on so therefore there was nothing to tell him where he was.

 

And while a lesser man might be furious, if not stymied, Giovanni was familiar with this forum of helplessness. The joys of limited mobility in the morning were not new. And it was a mercy that he was not bound by wires, or that he had to make his shaking hands work off a breathing mask and tubing before he could do anything else.

 

Comparing the last few weeks of his life to now... This moment was near heaven.  

 

Straining his ears Giovanni listened while he regrouped his energy. It was curious that now, that he was turned on his side, he could hear the sounds of wind, the muffled crash of sand and surf. And that was a curiosity as much as this baren room. Sound, while not omnipresent, wasn't so selective as to work like this. Letting his eyes roam away from the window killed the sound as if it were a tv and his attention was the mute button. Looking at the window dead on made the noise return, continued regard made it intensify to near headache inspiring levels.

 

Closing his eyes made the sound dim, and he did so to better trace a mental path over maps and routes of Johto and Kanto both. If his memory wasn't failing him... or compromised.... there'd been no beach for nearly a hundred miles in any direction from Illex. 

 

So, he wasn't where he'd started, and considering what had happened before waking up this likely was his "trial" then.

 

He'd expected to be in agony, ringed round with brimstone, irritate Legends poking and prodding him with talons and fangs, at the very least.

 

This room, he mused, rolling back onto his back to better stare at a blank vista that wouldn't give him a headache, was a bit of a letdown in comparison.

 

Time passed, he wasn't sure how long, but in that span of stillness and silence Giovanni tallied facts to facets.

 

He wasn't burning, or burned, or rotting, or puking blood, or drowning in air. He also wasn't totally alone. The soft sheets that'd been tossed over him told that tale, and as he gripped at the fabric to better push it out of the way he strained his ears. When there were no tells, the quiet breathing of another, footfalls, Giovanni was satisfied his solitude would hold. Once he'd managed to sit up without falling out of the bed or flat on his face, he considered his next steps.

 

This fey exhaustion was familiar, akin to the Pressure of a hateful Legend. Having infuriated many of those the Rocket Boss was confident he'd find a workaround. Until then there was little to do besides gather what strength he could and struggle to stay awake.

 

The latter wasn't as hard as it'd seem. A creeping sense of  something wrong  gnawed at him. He only pushed aside the impulse to poke and pry at his memories by the minuscule tug on the sheets, as something small gripped and caused the sheets to go taunt on the bed's far edge in an effort to climb up.

 

In his childhood long gone it'd be Persian, awake now that he was awake and wanting scritches for the reward of being observant. She'd loom over him in his youngest days, mewling and yowling for attention even as he gave it to her. At the beginning of their... partnership... her head had been big enough to fit in both his hands. His fingertips lost in her silky fur, he swore and ran them over her favored stroking spots. This was the "last time" he'd vowed he'd "just been going to the bathroom, he should not have to snuggle his cat into submission after doing something so pedestrian as having to go". She'd purr then, scrunching her eyes into near-invisibility as he got the span over her shoulders just right...

 

And like with awakening and the tale that'd bound him until he'd completed it, the nostalgia felt like a weight, the reminiscence required to be finished before he could speak.  

 

"Persian?"

 

 A chitter, definitely not his cat, answered, as was a thud as whatever it was fell from its perch of "nearly up" to the floor below.  

 

 

Giovanni blanched for when he spoke what had come out of his mouth wasn't his voice, or rather wasn't as it had been just this afternoon. Higher pitched, not quite pre-adolescent, and definitely not his familiar, commanding baritone he'd wielded almost all his life.  

 

He sounded like a child... and that realization was like a curtain pulled back in his head, and all the memories of before, not just his near dying, came roaring back.

 

 

He swore, and damn the Legends and their inflicted weakness he clawed at the wall and bed frame until he was standing, stooped, but up. A frantic look about the room affirmed Silver wasn't there. The only things that'd he'd missed for not being up were a pile of boxes beside a door and the door which was the only way in or out.

 

Paternal impulse wrestled with exhaustion, the twinges of aching muscles and Legend inflicted fatigue warned him he should rest. The bed was temptation incarnate, he could sit on the edge, rest his eyes...

 

But the Boss of Team Rocket was a master of temptation, in inflicting and driving others to fall to their pet vices while mastering his own. Giovanni pushing the thought of rest out of his head. He'd rest once assured Silver was well, and not a moment before.

 

Hobbling like a man many years his senior Giovanni staggered to the door, straightening in stages. The doorknob turned under his hand with no resistance and he nudged his way into the hall. A chittered squeal from behind stopped him from closing the door behind him. The Rocket turned, watched, braced on the door frame, as a weedle bunched its way across the bed towards him. The creature's myopic eyes were wide in wild shock.

 

Giovanni Sakaki stared at the beast, even as, with a whine, it reared and waved its suckers at him so madly it knocked itself over with a soft cry.

 

"Beedril?"

 

The weedle screamed at him, near Screeching, small limbs twisting it from prone to standing once more in a blink. Trainer and 'mon stared at each other, and after a long moment, and a swallow, Giovanni limped back into the room. Not daring to kneel, he'd not be able to get back up if he did, Giovanni stretched his arm out in an old invitation. Understanding the bug scrunched, poison-tipped tail wagging in an old tell, before uncoiling and pulling a small hop from bed to the trainer's wrist.

 

When the suckers sunk in, and the bug tightened his small limbs on his trainer's arm, scaling higher... Well, this odd local and missing son were not all the surprises that were in store for the Rocket Boss it seemed. Sensations flooded the Rocket's mind as the long-neglected Gift of the Forest flared to life in the back of his head. He felt the insect's anger and pain, the utter humiliation of having lost what he'd fought to earn, and an old instinctual fear of a world gone too big too fast.

 

And under that, soul-deep was the brittle sharp and venom seeped rage all poison types could harbor in the right circumstances. A deep need as true as a heartbeat to tear and rend and sully the bastard that'd done this to them.

 

To feel his poison warp and rend the leafy bastard's photosynthesizing hide...

 

Having scaled wrist, up arm, to shoulder, each step leaving a snippet of a 'monicidal fantasy in his trainer's mind, Weedle glared about him from his new perch, quivering. The urge to kill and maim roiling off the bug like a Sweet Scent, and to that, Giovanni tipped his lips up in a tight smile.

 

"Sooner rather than later," Giovanni rasped, curious how his voice could sound young even as emotion not wholly his own, warped it so hard it near crackled. "But not now," Promise complete he ran a digit over the bug's hairy back. "More importantly. Have you seen Silver?"

 

With a chur the bug reared, running its frame about Giovanni's cheek, and though seeming affection the proximity kicked a slew of memories, some his, some the bug's, and melded them together in his head.

 

The frantic battle, last moments. 

 

Nidoking being thrown aside by a psychic blast, Persian forced to slumber mid-swing, the black essence of a night slash dimming until natural light alighted her claws, as slumber dragged her down. At that moment they’d lost their main front fighters, and Giovanni's efforts, to recall his beasts were met with failure as they'd been "freed" before the conflicts start and the old tech meant to pull them out of danger failed per the Legend's meddling. 

 

Silver’s Ursaring had been pulled away, wrangling with beasts more smoke than substance, swinging wild paw strokes to keep the twin avians from were approaching. The bear, seeing slashes weren't working, swapped to spitting hyper beams. Taking its last stand between its two masters, the Rocket and the boy who'd been its original trainer. Roaring, the brown hairy beast was charring the earth about it with the excess heat of each attack but the light show had made the birds pull back.

 

Rescue failed, Giovanni accepted Persian and 'King as losses as he gathered the last of his flagging strength to snag at Silver's shirt and drag the boy back.  

 

Celebi's next psychic blast missed the target and the ground Silver likely would have been occupied crunched and crumpled as if it were paper being set upon by a giant, invisible fist.

 

The shock of nearly dying set the boy to go... well not limp, but platable. And he followed Giovanni's shove towards the tree line, it seemed miles away but once they hit it the Legends would have a harder time hitting their targets, and once five steps out of the clearing all tech would function.

 

The Rocket'd call for extraction, and he'd see how the stolen Kantoian military tech did when pitted against a Legend. Any of the Legends dare they try to pursue.

 

Above, his boy’s Murkrow was wheeling, trailing spite, and spitting dark bolts. Such was the essence of Nightshade that flew from the avian that was trying to offer what protective cover it could. Beedrill darted about the black bird, tossing poisoned needles and swiped at anything that dared float too close. 

 

A shame Celebi wasn't a complete fool. The creature's double team melded with a substitute made a small swarm of look-alikes that could take some damage. and the grassy Legend had set a swarm of them to fly to keep the tamed 'mon up high from pulling an aerial rescue

 

Both flyers were slowing, a clear sign of exhaustion. They weren't falling from the sky but Giovanni had Beedril’s pokeball in hand just in case. He spared what attention he could from verbally herding Rhydon about the field to keep tabs on the flyers. The earth type’s contribution to the combat was to rip up trees and boulders and hurl them at whatever Legendary he could. He also kept a chain of earthquakes going, all to keep the Legends off the ground. Thus not closing in on the humans below and ending things prematurely.  

 

The effect of the continual earthquake made for a stagger-laden run for the tree line, still it wasn't utterly unfamiliar and Giovanni was able to keep his feet more often than not. Silver though fell and scrambled like a drunkard, and Giovanni's slow pace was hampered further in having to help the boy up more than once.

 

 Celebi, with a twitch of a hand, warped a projectile's trajectory to avoid getting pelted in the face by some fixture of its clearing. The first time the Legend had done so Silver had to grab Giovanni and throw them both aside to avoid being crushed by a stone bigger than the both of them put together. The second, a tree, had sailed beyond sight, throwing its shade over the humans trying to get to standing and running again as it sailed well beyond the clearing's bounds. Another... and Legend or not the thing had damned bad aim... had Sneasel hopping over a boulder screeching insults. Not understanding ricochet, the dark type had hissed, flicked her head feathers back, and tossed a snowball at Rhydon who was digging out another boulder for throwing. Celebi's holy pool was a muddy morass at the ground types clawed feet.

  

"Behind you!" Silver screamed. And that'd been enough to stop a feud in the making. The dark type had twisted about to ice beam another damned Celebi look alike. Another toss, another miss, and a boulder was deflected into some small floating... thing... that managed a squeaky toy sounding scream at impact.

 

 

Silver, hellishly young, took moment in the madness to huff out a laugh, then the boy scrambled back. Near knocking Giovanni over. Their route to out was cut off by the searing heat of sunlight channeled into a killing force. Foliage rose from where the beam had cut, alongside smoke, and rising from the charr was a living wall of plants that grew out of the earth so violently the soil crackled, pebbles snapping like dry twigs, and anything under that light would have burned and smothered under flora all at once.

 

Shooting his last bullet, making Celebi shimmer away into whatever void teleporters traveled to avoid taking a hit, Giovanni barked for another earthquake and Rhydon obeyed. Arms slung over his son's shoulders, half being supported, half leading, the Rocket shoved them away from the now slumped wall of floral matter.

 

Celebi was a grass type getting too close to that much plant matter was asking to be killed.

 

The burning in the Rocket's lungs was starting to peak, and after a few meandering steps, Giovanni's legs buckled. Kneeling, panting, he managed to shove Silver enough that the boy wasn't taken down when he fell, and the boy looked back at him, namesake eyes wide and shimmering. Ripping his phone from his belt Giovanni tossed it to the boy, who was skilled enough to catch it, no fumbling. And despite himself, Giovanni cracked a small bloody smile.

 

"Get to the edge, hit the red butting once it lights up," He rasped, throat tightening, he managed to force out the last few words. It wasn't perfect, but would be enough, "Code: E.L. Lock, priority one."

 

A nod, and the boy, his boy, turned about, ready to run. But things weren't going to go to plan.

 

Despite its docile appearance Celebi was a hellish advisory, and his Son was too much like his father in one way. When the Legend shimmered into existence, blocking the path with green flames, Silver refused to simply run about the new obstacle. Taking up a knife he'd slashed at the Legend, and took two fingers in one strike.

 

Considering one of the Tao Duo had had to withdraw to heal shot-out fangs, Giovanni technically shouldn’t be complaining. But having to bark at Silver to pull back, to run around, because the boy got too hyper-focused on getting a hit in… 

 

Well if he lived through this Giovanni was going to make the Mask of Ice pay for all his "training" he'd inflicted on Silver.

  

Leafy face twisting in spite, the creature floated back, dispelling pseudo twins to focus better on regenerating its fingers. Silver’s replying smile to the Legend's glare was tight and bitter, he set his knife, perhaps to throw, but the intercepting sweep of a feathered forelimb of one of the Tao Duo stilled the attempt.

 

Swearing, Silver scrabbled back from the bird of an alien region, face going pale as old phobias reared to life in his head.

 

More to spite the bastard than anything else, Giovanni threw a pokeball. And while the catch was obviously not going to hold, it interrupted the floating Sylvain creature. The Legend reappeared in a flash of red light, at the tech's failure, but the unspoken threat of capture stilled all the other Legendaries from approaching. Silver, scrambling along the battlefield, took the reprieve with both hands. 

 

The boy snapped up Sneasal, who was tossing up ice walls between his trainer the other bird of the Tao Duo in a desperate attempt to make it go away. 

 

A squawk at the meager defense, a flash of light, and the first wall buckled, absorbing the hit. A second scream, that made the air about the legend go violet, and the wall came down, all the walls, and like many a grandiose psychic there was that moment, where everything held perfectly still when it shouldn't have. The shattered ice, the crackling power that'd broken it wrapped about the shrapnel in the making, and the air hummed as supernatural energies built.

 

Not wanting to die like that, much less risk his son being mutilated in the downpour, Giovanni snapped his fingers, called on Rhydon. The earthen beast slammed his paws into the earth and a rock tomb snapped into being before both trainers. A cry from above, an aborted squawk warned of one of the fliers going down. Silver poked about the impromptu shield to recall his bird, then Sneasel, ever the wiser of the pair, hooked icy claws into her trainer's coat and dragged them both behind the earthen barrier.

 

And for a time there was nothing but a whiteout, as psychic mixed with ice and made an ice storm of a failed attack.

 

Alone, and one of the last pokemon standing, Beedrill swirled about the ruination of Illex's holiest clearing. It'd been warped near unrecognizable by the violence enacted on it. Trapped in an artificial winter, ripped up by malice, and slathered with poison, and amongst the destruction was a legion of enemies. Unable to see any friendly trainer, Beedril panicked. Triggering its own mega-evolution, its altered limbs became a swirling blur, splaying the clearing and enemies in sheets of poison and acid.

 

But none of them were real, they only faded into sunlight after taking the lightest of taps.

 

Still, Beedril tried, might and main, to grab Celebi with its stingers and malice and kill the abomination that'd lied to its trainer.

 

Staggering from the sanctuary of ice sheathed stone, eyes going to the sky, he listened. To the sound of running feet. Silver was running, and that would have to do. All Giovanni could do was offer distraction, buy time, so he did. Squinting up and seeing the familiar flicker of displaced space and time, ever a precursor of teleportation, the Rocket snarled.

 

“Beedrill, at your six o clock, poison jab!”

 

It was enough, and ironically the master of time did not counter an order steeped in the terms of Its own domain. The creature shuddered as the stabbing limbs struck home, leaves about the point of impact curling and browning as the poison took hold. The following order to use Venoshock, to stab another venom, one that would escalate the poisoning from agony to agonizing death, did not need to be said. Sliding his stinger out, Beedrill buzzed in hate, more than content to make a kill and kill everything and every one its trainer asked it to.

 

It was of course then that the birds of another region shook off their fear of being caught. Perhaps it was seeing the tech fail in containing their peer, regardless of reason's they descended. Twin personifications of forces that Giovanni had found impractical and thus had dismissed, the Rocket knew little more than their names and that they weren't native to either Johto or Kanto. Their misplaced physical presence was enough to still any retreat, or rescue, however.

 

Silver’s horror of them was a mix of old fears and new, the realization of just how deep these water were in was settling in to roost as the smokey talons and wings herded him from clearing's edge to the center.

 

Giovanni, knowing how this was going to go, called out, and Rhydon, ever loyal, shook off a coat of hoarfrost and responded. Sweeping in low and fast, clawed foot leading, Rhydon's attack was like a miniature avalanche hitting home. One of the avian behemoths staggered under the sweeping kick to its ankle, having to twist about to better balance. A jumped high kick, a feat done more from the strength of Rhydon's tail than his stubby, stony, limbs, slammed onto where the avian's privates would be if the beast were possessed of such. The Legend responded as any base creature might, folding near double with a warbled squawk, and one mega punch up caused the bird's smokey beak to click together and its eyes to roll back. 

 

The surprise attack was enough to jar Silver out of his stupor, and he got back to running. But he was not fast enough. Granted, there wasn’t a “fast enough” when a creature that harnessed time was their antagonist. The world turned sepia, color bleaching towards near tan but never quite touching the hue, then everything stopped.

 

Flexing regrown hand, shaking off a few droplets of green blood in irritation Celebi shimmered into existence before the Rocket, and Silver, and all the rebellious lesser 'mon that'd stood against it.  

 

And it seethed.  

 

Its aura was a gold akin to the sun’s light, but there was a stain of artifice to the lot because the sun was Ho-Oh's and that bird was not one to share. The leafy creature hung suspended upon the air of a misplaced moment and its frustration made this corner of suspended animation shake from its wraith.

 

Dying he might be, but Giovanni Sakaki was not a man to be cowed. Even by apocalyptic shows of power. And this one, that was leveled against a captive audience, more wounded and comatose than awake and aware, was pathetic.

 

He’d spat such at the things feet when the Legend had demanded his gratitude, his adoration, and pleas for clemency. He’d not bow to a  thing  that with a few more moments and a bit more luck he would have had under his control.

 

Giovanni's only regret was in doing this was that he’d dragged Silver into this mess. And as artificial sun spiked in brightness, stealing sight via a deluge of light and the world faded away, Giovanni Sakaki resolved in the silences of his own mind that he’d live long enough to get his son out of this. 

 

Clearly, this mental... scatteredness and forgetfulness was meant to counter such resolve. He'd have to find a way to reward Celebi for its audacity at a later time... But for now, he tipped his head, allowing Weedle to twine his suckers around his neck. A wiggle and Weedle lay against the curl of a collar bone snuggled a pulse point with a soft chirrup. The contact helped ground Giovanni in the moment, pushing back all the worthless reminisce and tales in his head so he could function.  

 

Once sure the creature was secure the Rocket straightened and staggered out of the room and into the hall. Cursing the Legends with each step because each step hurt like hell. 

 

To spite the pain he did a sweep of each room he found. 

 

A small meowth joined him in his nocturnal wanderings, following him about a kitchen by the front of this... house... he supposed it was. A glance outside showed palm trees and sand and the sky, pitch black and cloudless and moonless, affirmed it was either very late or stupid early and little else beyond that.  

 

Unlike the window near where he'd woke he could not hear the surf no matter how hard he stared out, and he leaned against the door, looking at the path leading out into the dark. There was a beach, just barely visible in the distance, but seeing was not hearing, and Giovanni turned away from the distant shore after a cursory sweep of the front affirmed there were no footprints. 

 

Deciding he wasn't quite done with searching the house yet, at least not until he had supplies, preferably a working wardrobe, he closed the door behind him and went back in.

 

A pushy nudge and soft murr broke into Giovanni's attention as he combed through cabinets and drawers. Weedle arched against his cheek, oozing irritation at their tag along and bemused the Rocket studied the feline as it capered about his ankles. The thing was too small and too quiet to be his Persian unevolved. And per the slant of whiskers and angle of its hips, it was obviously male. It was unbelievably stupid as well. One gesture, as if going to open the kitchen's fridge, had gotten the thing distracted, and it'd been child's play to pull an empty pokeball, labeled "K. MewMew", off its hook on the wall and encapsulate the quiet cat with a flick of his wrist.

 

Distraction done, and discarded, he set the 'mon's pokeball besides its beloved fridge to be found by whoever else was here, Giovanni got back to work. Having tackled all the rooms, he expanded his search from "Silver" to "anyway to get information". There were no computers, no televisions, no periodicals. Only marked boxes and shrouded furniture that once unveiled was reviled to be rattan and aged but not so far gone as to be grungy. The layout of boxes and the like told a tale of someone having just moved here.

 

Him... and whoever else was meant to be here? The owner of the cat that wasn't his cat? There were precious few hints so he could only assume and the assumptions left a bitter taste in his mouth.

 

Expanding his search from "information" to "carriable valuables" Giovanni searched the whole place from top to bottom. Working his way from front to back, and only skipping the room closest to his own. The sounds beyond it, of soft breathing, and murmurs of a woman's voice clearly speaking while she dreamed, assured him it wasn't Silver behind that door. 

 

And that would do for now. He was not willing to risk a confrontation with the house's owner with only Weedle to back him up.

 

Not having the means to carry much he made a pile in the room he started in. And though tacky and a rookie's move he decided to hang professional pride and dig through a woman's purse. Within, the IDs were curiously smeared under the lamination, pictures, and text illegally illegible. The cash though was familiar, so the money joined the pile that'd consisted of over-the-counter pain medicine, a knife, water bottles flitched from a box of dishes, and a few clean soft towels. Setting the purse, superficially, to rights, Giovanni poked and prodded through the few other rooms. A backpack, too large and sturdy to be anything save meant for hard travel, had been a windfall and found by accident. Curiously, despite being made for serious use the backpack had been stuffed to near bursting with childish things. He hauled it into the bedroom he'd started in, dumping everything and shoveling the deluge of stuffies to the floor he began to pack what he'd stollen thus far.

 

There'd been one room, another oddity as off as the window of the bedroom, that troubled him.  

 

It should have been a closet. The shape and size seemed right for that assumption, but pushing the sliding door open and stepping in had found that his eyes had deceived him.  

 

While small it had the prerequisite things to be a bathroom. The decorations were in a similar style as the living room and kitchen, rattan to the point of being ratty. The base staples of the room were ripped straight out recall. They were from the last hotel he'd been in while setting up the final steps for overtaking Azalea Town on the sly.  

 

 A flick of a switch and the fluorescent lights kicked in and he'd looked over the familiar furnishings with a quirk to his lips. Weedle hissed at something and expecting... enemies, and attack perhaps, Giovanni followed the bug's head stinger to see... A mirror, his reflection.

 

And for the longest moment, Giovanni did nothing. While Weedle chirred bloody murder at himself Giovanni took in the features of a face he only recalled vaguely and had seen in pictures less than a handful of times.  

 

The image before him was taken from well before the time he’d been the focus of the media for his philanthropic front. Before the forced studio shoots that were part and parcel of owning a gym.

 

Reaching out, Giovanni brushed his fingers over the mirror, it was cold, near icy, and an exploratory tap set the echoes of impact up his fingers and made the glass ripple like water.

 

Like the room, like the window... everything was wrong, subtly, awfully, wrong.

 

 

Nestled against his pulse, Weedle shivered, understanding soul-deep the wrongness of everything about him. Reaching down, Giovani twisted the tap, and after a moment, as if the plumbing were trying to contemplate its own purpose only to recall that it was to run… it ran. But reaching down, pulling the door of the cabinet under the sink back, a glance down confirmed another oddity and reaffirmed his fears.

 

There were no pipes.

 

This place, despite seeming realness, was somehow divorced from reality, an utter facsimile then. Giovanni closed the doors after pulling out a first aid kit from a place where pipes should have been, setting the find on the sink's edge he considered water, and reflection, and indulged a bit of vanity.

 

 Smoothing back his hair, wrangling a cowlick over his left ear since his hair was too long and it just grew out like that... The habits of late adolescence came to him without a thought and he indulged them while mulled. A lifetime ago, decades ago, he’d wanted to mimic the rebels of his time. It'd been a hellish year of wrangling with tangles and having to do so much to keep it styled as he’d been cursed with genes that kept his hair straight and would permit nothing else unless he’d slathered his head in hair products.

 

Except for that damned cowlick.

 

The sheer inconvenience now would have been enough to get him to the barber post haste. He'd kept his hair religiously short, learning how to tend it on his own mainly because most barbers couldn't get it right. Back then he'd been made of stupider stuff. Holding out a year and a half before deciding enough was enough. 

 

The looming horror of having that cowlick on his identification, mainly his drives license, had been enough to drive him to the barbers.

 

As for now... Well, there wasn't one, or a razor, and he wasn't going to use the purloined knife for something that'd leave scalds of evidence behind. So water and fingers made for a crude styling. And it stayed, somewhat, with Weedle only a bit damp at efforts end.

 

At the shrilled complaint against his ear, Giovanni grimaced, and it wasn’t perfect, but he could glare at the reflection hard enough that Weedle would feel it.

 

In theory.

 

“You could easily have climbed down.” The Rocket drawled. Then killing water hunted about. He sullied one towel in drying, wiping the excess of water off of the bug type, and then tossing the towel into a basket by the door. Hopefully, it was there for clothes pick up, but if it wasn’t… Well, it wasn’t his problem.

 

God above, he was  eighteen  again. On second thought, the Rocket conceded with a grimace, considering his hairstyle, he was likely  seventeen  since he’d gotten himself to a saner hair length mere days before he’d gotten his driver's license  at  eighteen. Giovanni had decided simple and tenable was preferred to the rebel look and had lopped almost all of his hair off in a fit of last-minute introspection. 

 

He looked... like a kid. Worse, with Weedle about his neck, the bug type like a bit of misplaced jewelry, the poison point adding a more modern punk slant to the look, the Rocket recognized the style. Borderline grunge groupie, a stereotypical rebellious rocker. All he had to do would be saddled with oversized pants the youth of Kanto adored and he'd be set. A shirt wasn't even necessary nowadays. 

 

Disgust, and memories of so many bad choices, minor annoyances in the greater scope but still… The things he’d done and worn flashed behind his eyes and he recoiled in mental horror at the mere recollection of... everything.

 

Face burning, Giovanni shook his head. Mentally shoving the misplaced mortification back in his head. It was insane that even though the psychic type had got so many basic things wrong, Celebi could still capture, and inflict, adolescent mortification on a man well beyond such foolishness.

 

But, here and now, he wasn't an adult… 

 

There was a horror to that. A muffled fear. He wasn’t an adult, and there were assumptions found in that.

 

That his family, his famiglia... might be alive and well... That... was a thing of his childhood nightmares come to life. Wrestling the instinctual fear down Giovanni dimmed the terror to something manageable. It was a concern if the Madam were alive and well.

 

But not an irreversible one.

 

While the hellish matriarch who’d ruled his childhood was very much dead in his time, if she were alive here would she be the same woman? Or was she a shell, a husk based off of a Legend's assumptions? Was the woman, sleeping peacefully a mere room away, Team Rocket's Madam? Her proximity to him said it was unlikely. Madam Rosaline had never slept in the same premises as him since he'd been a young child. But if he was wrong there was an opportunity.

 

She wouldn't have to wake, a knife to the throat, and the crisis could be averted. He didn't have Nidoking to spray the shallow grave in acid to make sure she wouldn't come back... But he wasn't unarmed.

 

Weedle, sensing the spike of his pulse if nothing else, reared and rubbed. Churring softly, the bug's concern obvious. Woodenly Giovanni reached up, traced a finger down the bug's back while considering places to dump bodies and focus on his breathing.

 

Calm or at least breathing slowed and heart steady, Giovanni straightened, snapping up the first aid kit he killed the light and left the impossible room behind. It was mere steps between it and the room he'd woken in, and passing hers... he didn't stop.

 

For now, he wouldn't act until he was sure.

 

Because if it was her she couldn't live. She'd kill him kill Silver slow just for spite, then him as an afterthought. But for now the headache of having to cover up a murder with only a Weedle as a partner... 

 

He'd handle it when he must and not a second before.

 

The old anxiety of not being master of his own fate flickered about his mind and made a familiar acidic taste flood his mouth… Even as he settled on the bed's edge and flipped open the kit. The contents were relatively good quality, nothing expired, so he slid that into the packs. Then he dragged the nearest box over, ripping it open, and began to paw through it for what goods it held. Frivolities, report cards, an attendance award declaring a "perfect score" for someone named Moon.

 

So clearly this was "Moon's" room. Not quite as bad as "Red" or "Blue" would have been, but a bit unsettling all the same. And disheartening. Didn't parents know how to name their children?

Giovanni slid the papers away and dug deeper. Something had rattled metallically at the box's bottom and hopefully, that'd be of some use. Or value. He'd settle for a black market deal to get cash for some of this junk in a heartbeat.

 

Swallowing the thick taste of terror, Giovanni pulled out a pile of foulders. Identification, birth certificates, he wasn't fussy at this point and found more academic records for his trouble. The type a child might hoard to brag about.  

 

Terror had become a near companion in the following years. He’d ripped Kanto to the bedrock looking for Silver, and then he'd buried the fear. Rage that had taken hold in grief’s place. He'd shifted, from living in terror to becoming a terror. Setting first Kanto, then Johto’s, criminal worlds under his boot. He'd made an organization to raze the regions to the ground at his command, and while he hadn't he'd applied pressure were needful. The economy and powers that be were pinned and penned playing an over-glorified game of cops and robbers while he used the bedlam to sift through data and legends.

 

He'd twist impossibility to his own needs. Warnings, and morals be hung. He’d been damned losing his son, and his agony was such all would share in it.

 

 

And they had, whole countries. For years and years. And only by chance he’d stumbled upon his child. He’d got Silver back, only to be repudiated for being "evil".

 

Really, between Celebi and Oak it would be a trial to figure who he needed to get rid of first. Both had done near irreparable harm with their mind games.

 

Hands shaking, having not read a lick, Giovanni shook his head, lips peeling back in a snarl.

 

"If I stop blinking for thirty seconds. Pull my hair. Repeat until I tell you to stop."

 

A chirp and wiggle affirmed he'd be obeyed.  

 

Hoeen, this boy had come from Hoeen. The dogged academic records were part of an exchange program of some sort. He'd torn through "Moon's" portfolio to find a cover letter explaining the process. The documentation was needed to apply for a gym leader sponsorship program...

 

Save there was something about Kakunas instead of Leaders. Probably some mistake from the Legends misunderstanding, though the mental tangent of oversized cacoons running gyms set his lips to quirk. Shaking his head, amused, amusement fell to swearing as Weedle decided it'd been thirty seconds give or take, and pulled hard, The Rocket glared at his bug attachment.

 

"Pull my hair out again and you're getting a bath."

 

The find was intriguing but not what he needed. Pulling the rest of the papers out he laid them on the floor and under... there was a catch of batteries, wires, and a phone. He dug the latter out and its charging wire, and found the thing at fifteen percent.

 

Leaving it to charge Giovanni went back through the papers, hunting for Moon's trainer's license, regional ID, or medical records. Any of the three would grant him access to this region's pokemon centers, something he would need considering his present partner's unevolved state.

 

It felt... beyond odd... not to feel stubble as he ran a finger under his chin as he read. Tracing the lines of his face confirmed what the mirror had shown, the frown lines and scars that'd marked his face had been smoothed by Celebi's.. healing. And while he hadn't lingered too long in the bathroom... he was positive that the white about his temples that'd been steadily growing in had been erased as well.

 

Sorting the wires into piles, immediately useful and not, he found a few other technological odds and ends. An old MP3 player, some educational geared games for a tablet... A broken tablet. The latter he tossed back into the box with its "games", the former he put into the backpack. It wasn't so old as to be worthless, at least worth fifty bucks, so it'd come along.

 

He wondered as he pulled another box, ripping it open if Silver had been enamored with such frivolous tech. He'd watched and rewatched his child from what surveillance cameras he could. Rewinding the footage from the Rocket bases. The tournaments from the Kanto and Johto League were a wellspring of data as Silver had to frequent those institutions to keep his team, legally.

 

Even while his health had failed Giovanni had never been without information on his son's whereabouts. It'd been an evening ritual to watch whatever gym leader event or badge battle his son had gotten involved in before seeking slumber.

 

He found himself missing the updates even as he worked, a world away.

 

The last box gave with a little struggle, and within, he found clothes. Gaudy, SeaFoam island style, with floral patterns, printed on leis, and neon-bright colors. Such was the first impression of Moon's style. Digging deeper found that first impression going downhill, fast.  

 

Deciding Moon was either color blind, or possessed of cruel relations who were draconic in picking the child's clothing, he worked on a shirt that wouldn't cause instant blindness if he spied it via a reflective surface. Sifting through the clothes, wincing at everything that might fit, he tried a few shirts, fought with a few pants, and found all the socks and underwear wouldn't fit in the slightest. Packing some of the less eye-searing pieces in his catch. Most were either too big or too small, but there was enough give they could work. 

 

So they'd do.

 

Small teeth tugged on his hair, despite him being aware and Giovanni stiffened at the tug. Tipping his stinger, towards the door Weedle quivered in a silent warning, then crawling a path behind his trainer's neck scaled up to his head and burrowed among his hair. A tap on the door frame, a woman's voice, awake and clearly not asleep any longer, sounded.

 

"Moon, sweetheart, is everything alright? Your lights on."

 

To his silence, the doorknob rattled as it was twiddled under nervous fingers. After a moment the woman spoke again, dropping the questioning note in her voice.

 

"I'm coming in."

 

Near buzzed on the rush of relief-

 

This woman wasn't the Madam. He was safe from that horror.

 

Sheer relief made Giovanni's mind blank, and the moment to say something came and went. The door was pushed open, pushing some brick-a-brack aside, and the woman who'd spoken entered.

 

She was a pretty thing. A bit younger than his actual age, dark skin near warm coca in hue, with beautiful black eyes. A hastily tossed on sundress rustled about her as she came in. Her hair was coiled about her head like a crown, styling slack, but considering the hour that was more than understandable.

 

And when she looked at him, sitting ringed round by the scattered remnants of boxes and packing... She didn't quite meet his eyes. Looking a bit too low and to the left. Still, she smiled despite the mess, tone patiently unbelieving.

 

"Moon it is three in the morning. Arceus, I know you're eager to get started on your journey but it's too early. Go. To .Bed."

 

Her regard was familiar like he was the centerpiece of her world. And it was a curious thing to be the focus of such regard. 

 

Weedle's stinger tail tapped against Giovanni's skull in anticipation. A head tip would end in the bug attempting a flying tackle and poisoning. He stared at this woman and her misplaced affection, not quite believing it was real.

 

Still, he'd act as it were, see where playing along got him.

 

His apology was accepted, hook, line, and sinker. And just speaking to her drew attention to how he obviously wasn't hers. From their differing looks to his thick accent. Strained and exhausted, Giovanni didn't bother with the usual effort of muffling how he spoke to better blend in and she didn't bat an eyelash for it. She wasn't Kalosian, or from Johto, or Kanto, she didn't talk right. And she was by no means Italiano, and yet in her mind, he was hers.

 

"I'll turn in, and pick this up in the morning." He promised, and she, a simple thing, smiled and nodded. Leaving him to his devices.

 

He waited until she was gone until he was sure her door was closed. Then gave her five minutes more. A chirp, a nudge, from the top of his head as Weedle worried, but he wasn't lost in his head, just deciding.

 

And the decision made he tipped his head back and Weedle rose with a squirm.

 

"Lock that." He ordered, gesturing to the door, sweeping the last of his goods up he slung the backpack over his shoulder, and though standing hurt he'd done so. And if he could stand, he could walk. And would as far as need be. "We're done here."

 

Once gone he’d figure out what he could, get Silver, then get them the hell out of this… pretend never Neverland.

 

Chapter 4: Giovanni: A thought FINAL DRAFT

Chapter Text

To the most unobservant, he was a stupid fool. A boy traveling tail end of the evening, cutting through the tall grass. Had he been seen he'd of drawn and quartered, his trainer's license revoked, and sanity challenged dare he pull something like this in Kanto.  

 

As it was Giovanni wasn't in Kanto. Only a few moments on the road assured that. The late hour dissuaded fellow pedestrians. Potential eyes were tucked asleep in their beds. So no one was about to be passing judgment and enact what laws and lectures took their fancy, he traveled for all intents and purposes, alone. 

All the better. 

While he hiked he tried to figure out where he was.  And while the constellations were... off.. the North star still shone in the appropriate place.  So he wasn't horridly lost.  Or inclined to break off the beaten path to make himself get more lost.

As he traveled, the moonlight caught the edge of Weedle's horn about his head every now and then. With his "horn" and the hollow darkness of his eyes, in the pitch dark, he must have looked like a malignant spirit out of some Legend or other. And considering his track records with Legends...

It was all the better he encountered no one.

As it was... considering his leanings toward living in cities and carving empires out of the back door of civilization the fact that this part of the world was painfully rustic, with a tropic slant, seemed part of his punishment. Or perhaps foresight.  He had minimal resources beyond at he could get by playing along.  The fact he hadn't and bolted as soon as he'd gotten his head...

 

Well, the depowering could have been a motion to leave him humbled.  More palpable for whatever Legend was running this. As it was the walk was spent seething at the sheer stupidity of this world and working out loopholes. 

 

That and watching his feet.

 

Lighting was a near null and void occurrence.  Artificial illumination hadn’t caught on beyond what was used in private homes and porches. So he alternated between relying only on the sketchy illumination of starlight and moonlight and a purloined flashlight when the road felt dangerous.

 

It hadn't been his intent to continue on foot. But the homes and houses he'd perused on his way out... none of them had a car. And while he'd of appreciated the quaintness of no security systems and lax guards was he moving up in the famiglia, he wasn't in the Business at the moment.

Thus the more naturalistic slant of wherever the hell this was was more irritant than an asset.

 

To avoid injury he kept to the flattest spans of the path he could feel, pulling out his stolen flashlight when the ground felt different or when something hissed a battle cry at him.  In response to a wild 'mon's promise of violence, Weedle would rise from his hair with a chittered cry of his own. Follow the slant of light with his myopic eyes, the bug would spit strings of webbing at whatever challenged them. Then, once whatever was attacking stumbled, Giovanni would run.  

 

Even running away was inherently flawed.  He could count the steps to safety, and a run at a diagonal made those steps lesser. He'd found the last by accident.  Having quit the path to hare into pseudo grasslands because sticking to the route would have lead to a bend that'd barely grant him progress.  Fifteen steps in the grass and the sounds of scrabbling paws, the whines of hostility, had cut off.  And he'd turned, likely barely over the invisible marker that existed in the hostile 'mon's head, and watched the insanity unfold.  The 'mon, a warped facsimile of a rattata, had gone from charging and furious to befuddled.  From killing mad to... to tip its head, and stare straight through him as if he weren't there and it couldn't figure out why it was there. The creature waddled off back the way it came. Malice and violence were utterly forgotten between one blink and the other.

 

It was as if Giovanni'd never been. And it was part bravery, part incredulous shock, that'd made the Rocket pace after it.  Fifteen steps away became fourteen, thirteen... And on the thirteenth the 'mon had froze, ears slicked back, fury stiffening its once placid frame and setting the short scruff about its neck to fluff.

 

Two steps back and away and the creature went still, tipped its head...

 

 

And indulging insanity Giovanni tipped his head, and Weedle rose with a hiss and spit a string shot.  It missed, understandable considering weedle had notoriously bad eyes, but even the miss should have summoned a start of surprise, a retaliatory show of hostility.

 

And there'd been nothing...

 

The beast had skirted about the attack in its walk back to where the chase began... and nothing more.

 

Waffling between bemused and horrified Giovanni continued. Away from the clutch of houses, with its expectant family all artificial. 

 

Once back on the route proper and sure of his footing the Rocket killed the light. The stolen spare batteries from a house on his way out pulled on his pants as he walked.  A minor irritant when compared to what the flashlight had been like in his pocket.  He'd had to walk with his hands fisted over the pant's waist.  An unacceptable state of affairs.  So he held onto the light as he walked, only having to... adjust... every few steps rather than with every movement.  The batteries for the flashlight rattled with each step, as did the packs slung over his back, making his trip hardly stealthy.  Though he'd packed the clothes to better muffle the noise his work had been rushed.  He'd touch up the packing once he settled in for a break

Until then he endured, watching the shadows wearily, because here and now... well it wasn't dangerous. It was that this region, whatever it was, was crawling with rodents and birds…  Common 'mon were commonly gifted with the common trait of having sticky talons and paws.

 

And he was uninclined to share his supplies, meager though they were, with anything.

 

Even if they were pathetic similies of the 'mon that'd run rampant about his gym.

 

The rattata alone were a horror, swollen and discolored. He’d never allow Persian to hunt them least she sicken and die on the poisoned mice.  As for the avians he’d spied... He'd woken a sizable amount of birds with his light as he walked.  Disturbed eggless nests lodged in the grass. Never mind most nests in Kanto were only safe in the boughs of a tree and the rats running about made it no wonder as to why there were no eggs...

It would be a mercy if these birds were the last of their kind.  Breed out due to their inability to protect their progeny.  And if they were going the path of extinction, well god for them.  They were a mockery of Spearow.  Blackened and squared off, and they made his skin crawl when they screeched at him with their needle beaks, bobbing brainlessly at him before fluttering off into the night. 

 

Despite his disgust, each encounter with a hostile ‘mon was an opportunity for Weedle to practice its string shot. The yellow worm’s aim had suffered from loss of sight and regression of prowess at a Legend's hand. 

 

Still, what was lost could be reclaimed. And he’d spun their deal that way. Assuring that if the worm stayed with him he’d see it speedily evolved, back to its old strength as fast as possible. 

 

But not painlessly.

 

Let it not be said that Giovanni Sakaki was a liar.

 

There would be pain, agony, defeat, and wins. They would have to revisit old habits and training. And as a gym leader, (fallen or not, despised or not, the tricks of that trade were soul-deep for him) he had many tricks to expedite things. But there would be blood and pain on this road.

 

At offer's end, with a chitter and rise, the bug's forelimbs brushed together soundlessly. Such had been the worm’s physical response. That and a head tip that would have been a slash of a forelimb had Weedle possessed such. In the back of his head, not his thoughts but distinctly other, there was a heady rush of smoldering malice.  

 

Giovanni did not need to extend his Gifts far to feel the utter hate, the primal itch, to poison and sow disease, on the one who’d wrong them.  Status of a Legend be damned.  Celebi's hardiness only assured it could be stabbed more often, but to get to that stabbing Weedle would need its stingers back. 

Bug and man were remarkably similar in that aspect.

 

Still, even as he accepted Weedle's murderous palsn, folding them into his own, Giovanni missed the usual motions the but gould indulge. The low buzzing thrumb of wings, and hiss of poison-laden forelimb against bladed forelimb. This replacement noise, a high-pitched churr, muffled suckers rubbing aginast suckers, grated on the Rocket's expectations. But he'd not criticize the bug out loud.  

 

So much was beyond their control. So many basic things.  Even Giovanni wasn't immune.  He'd learned, to his mortification, though the worm didn't seem humiliated.  Just furious.

 

As for the Rocket's mortification.  It started with a trip. A grunt, the impact that’d lead to his muffled crying out.  His voice had cracked.  Hitting lowest and highest pitches near simultaneously.   He had froze, realization locking him while he was halfway up, as the noise registered. And he'd flushed, face burning because he'd... Not for decades...  The surprise left him kneeling in sod for a long long moment. Staring blankly at the flashlight as his mind raced. To not have his voice settled was one thing, but to have to deal with all the adolescent frustrations of having it warble, squeak...

 

Hell, to be an adolescent again...

 

Weedle'd pawed at his wrist.  Wanting up. Having been thrown the bug had loyally crawled back, and its unjudging regard and scamper up his arm up had grounded the Rocket enough that he could get to his feet.  Set pack straps right, and pointedly ignore the extra weight on his shoulder.

 

A cursory sweep of illumination behind him assured it was only a branch that’d undone him. Nothing malicious.

 

Satisfied, Giovanni killed the light, and though he hurt and was likely bleeding, he kept walking.

 

What he would demand of his team he would demand of himself. As it’d always been. He’d ordered his Weedle to be prepared to bleed, he’d not belittle it by carrying on from a stumble while he hiked.

 

At his back, his pack of purloined materials swayed and rattled. It wasn’t much, and he'd added to it before leaving... the commune... he'd started at. There'd been more medical supplies than just one kit, and he'd taken all he could reasonably expect to use. Some rope snapped up from some yard could be useful, and the sheets, some dark, some green, some tan, would serve as bedding, tent material, and camouflage, push come to shove. In the last house he'd filed the stolen water bottles, and found a nice canteen as well. That last bit of thievery was tied to his packs with some of the rope. 

 

Easy to grab if he freed up one arm, which he did, indulging a sip before looping it back into place.

 

As for the small monies, those he'd scattered on his person and his backpack. What small electronics that could be easily sold had been wrapped in plastic bags, their batteries yanked, their power cords nipped as well.

 

Those he’d liquidate when he encountered some criminal element in the nearest town. He'd see if his Team were around and about.  If his luck was truly out Giovanni could go to a pawn shop owner, he supposed. Once he'd stripped the tech to factory setting and purged them of all identification. 

 

 Two houses in his impromptu crime spree and he'd recognized the tourist trap slant of the buildings in the middle of seeming nowhere. The lack of traffic lights, no cars, no roads for cars, as far as he could see, had made him mentally label the place as a half-assed “get in touch with nature” townhouse. Still, once he'd crossed enough ground he'd found a road and he followed it. More in the hopes of finding something…  anything … familiar.  

 

A convenience store, a payphone, was all he'd need to figure out where he was. Giovanni could call whatever Rocket Cell was established here and... Well, were he himself, he'd arrange for pick up.

 

As he was now, he could wiggle in as a recruit if he got desperate enough. It’d be curious to see the bastardization of what Rocket was under the regard of a Legend that hadn’t gotten basic plumbing right.

 

Or ‘mon behaviors. Because angry ‘mon did not stop chasing you down the road, freeze, and then waddle back to their starting point of the chase like nothing was wrong as soon as you ran x amount of feet.

 

Or, while he was cuing up complaints about realism, basic biosystems. The surplus of rodents would have made this place a hotbed of disease in the real world.

 

He wasn't desperate though, and if he played his cards right, he wouldn't be for a month, perhaps two. He'd left false trails. Breaking open, then deposited, the boy’s emboar bank on his way out. Making a trail to the grass with shards and some small change before pocketing the bulk.

 

He'd backtracked, using one of Weedle’s thorny poison needles as a fragile lock pick. He'd started his spree with a spot of breaking and entering, or rather would have had these fools kept their doors locked. Everything was unlocked, the Rocket had learned, after tinkering with a front door and wondering why there was no resistance. It’d creaked open at his touch, and after an awkward moment where bug-type and man stared at each other Giovanni pulled th entrance closed and taken a side window. 

 

Just to be sure.

 

A quick hunt through the house next to his false getaway point had netted him a wallet. He’d had Weedle stick the empty wallet to a tree’s upper branches on besides the wreckage of his false trial to give it verisimilitude.  Then cut through the town a final time. Taking to roofs, before those had run out. He’d shimmied down a palm tree, picking his path along what rocky ground he could find to better hide his tracks.

 

The sheer insane amount of effort would give a police growlithe a migraine to track.  

 

He’d built his cover stories as he worked, shining them as he walked. He was little more than an exuberant trainer with his starting ‘mon up too early for his own good and wanting to just go. It’d explain his haste, dishevelment, and the hour.  

 

His first rest stop, a few miles out, and he'd sat sandwitched between a stump and his packs.  Digging through and pulling a phone out.  While he drank and caught his breath he worked to divest the purloined technology of its tracking software. By sheer chance the phone had been Moon's. And it was an interesting study. He’d indulged a quick flip through the personal files, photos of beaches were predominant, and answered an old idle question of his. What people in idyll scenery-laden places take pictures of to inspire them? The answer: their own backyards.  

 

Clearly, Moon had been a simple soul. The boy had been entranced with a Krabby, following a poor water type for… by the time stamp- two hours - Giovanni snorted and flipped through over fifty pictures of the beleaguered crab. The pictures showed that the beast was clearly intent on running.  Overuse of the flash left it unable to figure out where the water line was and thus couldn’t get away.

 

Hence the deluge of photos of befuddled crab.

 

Ironically a dip into the contacts had shown that some seaside eatery- the note for it read: DELIVERED FOOD CHEAP!!1!-  had been in the top three contacts list. 

"MOM", had been the boy’s first contact of choice, and a "Prof/Uncle K." had been a second.

 

 

At finding he was… in possession of… possessing, replacing... Giovanni wasn’t sure of the mechanics of his existence. But experience had taught that those close to a professor were likely to be dex holders. And to likely be such, himself, even in this fantasy of a world... 

 

He’d laughed long and hard. His mirth made Weedle roll off his head and onto his shoulder to have a better look at what was funny. The bug hissed irritation at the contact screen.   Arched and chittering its irritation, not amused in the slightest.

 

As for Giovanni, it took a few moments, but he dimmed his mirth. If the fates... or paths perhaps considering one of his captors was the Tao Duo… held…. Well, Moon likely had as close a bond with the regions' Professor. As much a one as the trio of irritants from Kanto had had with that charlatan, Oak.

 

It’d make the man someone to be avoided then. A quick look at the contact's details gave him a picture, and Giovanni memorized the man’s features, instructing his now curious Weedle to do the same. 

 

Once the bug’s small face showed disinterest Giovanni flipped through the settings to begin a complete system wipe. Done, he dismembered the tech and set it in the proper place in his packs. The Rocket'd deal with the rest later, standing, rolling his shoulders in warning, he waited a moment. Weedle was observant enough to realize they were leaving and slithered up the side of its trainer's head to find his preferred perch.  

 

Leg suckers pulled Giovanni's ear on the way up, making it redden from the pinch and tugging as the bug climbed up.  Once sure the bug was safely not in danger of falling in his mouth of up his nose the Rocket rolled his eyes.

 

“Really,  must  you?”

 

Hair chewing and a chirrup was the worm’s response. That and a twitch in his head, part amusement, part contentment for being warm, sheltered, and entertained.

 

“My hair is  not  that thick.” Giovanni hissed up at the yellow bug.

 

A bite turned into a tug, and little suckers wheeled up enough strands for the lot to be curled around the bug type in a pseudo blanket. 

 

In seeking its comfort, Weedle pushed some hair into Giovanni’s eyes. An itch assured the cowlick had dried enough and prodded enough that it was back.  And with no sink or water to waste about his hair was going to stay like that. 

 

“Let go, now.”

 

A snore was Weelde’s reply, and...  And the Rocket shouldn't permit such a crass lowering of guard on the bug's part.  In the old days, in his youth, he'd have spooked the bug awake.  As a man, he'd have punished, perhaps put it down the creature.  For any beast so complacent as to just fall asleep when it had a duty to fulfill was worthless... And worthless things should be discarded...

 

But having Silver back in his life, even in so minutely a forum-

 

Frantic moments, battles where he’d failed the shield him, to keep him close. But each one of those moments was precious. They’d been the springboard for him to memorize the boy’s growth. To immortalize his child’s journey from a boy to a young man if only in his head

 

-had softened him. He did not shake the creature awake as he would have. Demanding the ‘mon stay awake as he was. Giovanni checked the seal on the water bottle once more before clipping it in place. 

 

Small motions were made to assure none of the diseased rats of the region had gotten into his things. Then it was walking, taking paths, alone for all intents and purposes. He took a slower tred than before, head tipped just so, so Weedle would not tumble off.

 

An hour passed, perhaps two, his legs burned as he’d quit flat plains with waist-high grass. The grass got scragglier, the incline of the road made his legs burn, and the rats were less plentiful.  

 

What birds were about eyed his head for a free meal. All it took was a brandished knife and a nudge from his mind to dissuade them. His personal store of vitriol had sharpened the Gift Viridian forest had planted in his head.  His nature twisting the normally benign talent of projecting soothing thoughts at 'mon to calm them to make him a cesspool of malice in their eyes.  Even the dullest of these beasts could smell his Aura or some such spiritual rot.  They fled from him and his hate as he imagined them skinned, and poisoned, their pelts and feathers gathered to be sold, the more comely of them captured to be defanged, declawed, and neutered, then doled out as small children's pets or for labs to experiment upon. 

  

Above, the sky was steeling into a false dawn. In response, he’d turned off the flashlight, took a break just to pack the thing away.  Resolving to find find a smaller, lighter, model in a nearby town, something that could be pocketed, with pants that would hold up... 

 

Giovanni'd built up a list of things to either buy or steal as he'd walked.  It'd passed the time between exuding irritation at the world and scaring the 'mon about him.

 

And his plans were based on hope... perhaps delusion.  There had to be a town, sooner rather than later. His dignity wasn’t going to tolerate much more of this if his legs didn't fall off first.

  

Having to adjust his pants again, Giovanni wondered how the bulk of Kantoian youth managed to walk around like this.  They were all fools. And it was a shame Red had not been so encumbered by such foolishness. It’d made Silph a victory for Rocket, surely.

 

There were rocks, now. Mostly blocking the edges of the route that was becoming steeper by the moment. There'd be no running off to a side to avoid battles now, but in exchange for being more penned in, he'd scrambled up one to get a better view of lightening vistas.  Looking ahead, there were trees of a familiar slant.  Positivly outre when compared to the nearly branchless and leafless ones he'd seen while hiking.  White birch and palm trees had risen out of the tall grass at random, peppered the path back, but the new flora ahead with its near-black bark, the thick trunks, and wide branches.  He smiled, spying the familiar spread. And to the promise of shade and shadows, of something so simple and right.

Giovanni Sakaki smiled. 

While it wasn't Viridian, it was close enough to feel like home.  Close enough to be accessible, and would make a good goal to aim for.  Heartened he took the trail, as quick as he could without running. The pace and its lack of smoothness woke the attachment on his head.  The Rocket's scalp itched as the bug atop squirmed to wakefulness, to that Giovanni huffed, offered a wry good morning around pants.

 Passing nonsensical fences in that last leg, they were the first signs of civilization. Fences that traced paths perpendicular to the road. They rambled nowhere, to edges and aborted lines and never enclosed anything. The careless, or blind, could follow them and fall from the budding cliffs and sunk in beaches below. It was such utter foolishness.  They shouldn't be here. There were no houses, they did not mark property lines, or battle zones, or campsites, or anything. They were just there, soon to behind him, and the Rocket decided he'd be happier once that bit of idiocy was a distance smeared blur.

 

“The Legendries are freaking morons, they can’t get a damned road right or property line right.” 

 

Giovanni Sakaki declared to no one in particular. Taking a swig of lukewarm water, his reward for two hills climbed in near pitch-black darkness.

 

He still wasn’t quite sure where “here” was. The boy’s phone had been bereft of actual useful data and was without an attendant data plan to look anything up with. The neighbor’s ID in the wallet had been as damaged as the ones in the Moon residence, and the signs about the… living complex… he'd started in had been non-existent.

 

He froze, water at his lips, as he rewound what he said to what he had been thinking. Then he truly swore, or tried, the words didn’t quite match up. He'd been, was being, censored.

 

“When I get out of here, I’m catching and killing them all,” Giovanni swore, and that, at least, wasn’t altered.  Drink done he got back to the road.  There wasn't much of one left.  There were steps now.  Built and fussily swept.  A promise of civilization at their end.  And looking up he could see a sputtering light of a torch of some type or other at the peak of the next hill. But… for now, civilization wasn’t his goal. Rather a patch of forest, with true green trees. If he hurried he’d reach the tree line before the sun rose in full and the promise of being able to settle among something familiar…  

It left him feeling something like hope.

 

Realism chimed in.  He'd have to set camp. He hadn’t had to in years. Cars and hotels being a thing. But the memory of how to do so felt touching close, and considering his supplies he’d be more than able to temporize a tent and...

 

Well, he’d see many things. 

 

This region’s police in action considering his crimes. Their competence considering his efforts to mislead… Perhaps even that little town on the hill’s gym leader would be roped into helping find the “troubled youth” that had “runaway”. All would be educational, all could be used. He could twist any concerned "rescuer" under his thumb with just the right lies. 

 

A night terror, (something with wings, his heart would stutter in recalled second-hand terror just at the thought of a winged horror, he’d have to fake so little then) had made him hare out in the middle of the night. 

 

Some burglar followed on his heels. He'd been jumped from behind.  No, he hadn’t seen anyone, officer…. He’d met Weedle on the road, they’d hit it off-

 

Well, Weedle had hit many things. The slew of bound and tripped ‘mon marking his path told tales.

 

-it would be too easy. 

 

Perhaps even the region’s professor would be involved in such a hunt. Giovanni might even be able to… pardon the pun…. wheedle a ‘dex out of the man. Or, perhaps not. Considering the man’s “familial” slant it might be a risk.  But one he could work around if need be.

 

The easiest, most familiar route, would be that “Moon” could have partial amnesia. Some wound garnered when running, some trauma from an assault… Nothing needed to be iron-clad with memory loss as an excuse.

 

It’d not be the first time Giovanni was on the run, and the more time he spent away from the authorities would make his story unassailable. Especially with “Moon’s” phone appearing on some black market or other.

 

In the interim, he’d train Weedle up. Get his starting ‘mon to a reasonable power and proper form, and then, build up things from there. 

He was a Gym Leader after all, and such came with perks of knowing certain ins and outs of training that were normally not disclosed to the public.

 

For example, despite his youngest days as a bug catcher being far behind him and the propaganda that taht branch of trainers had tried to drill into him… Weedle were omnivores,  not herbivores, and while that fact might seem… minor in the grand scheme of things feeding a weedle a protein-heavy diet set their various venom sacks to hyperproduction. Part to quicken digestion as there was some overlap in stomach acid and venom production, and part to fuel hostility. Poison, like Dark, was not a Type that stayed in one region of a ‘mon. Which, in short, equaled more kills. ANd for a 'mon killing was experience.  If one had a stomach for gore driving a 'mon to its fullest agressive apex was as simple as slaughter.

 

And Giovanni had no qualms of gore, or “precious ‘mon lives lost”, he’d do what he needed to get his team back and break out of this prison of Legendary make.

 

While Weedle, went through the various changes needed to regain its proper form, Giovanni would be kept busy in other ways. His Gift would allow him to peruse whatever lay beyond the torch through borrowed eyes. The ‘mon closest to civilization would be attuned to what was right and wasn’t and it’d be less effort to garner information from sensational dross. He could swindle memories, and spy for short bursts. Enough to see if the road ahead would be as… limited… as the path behind.

 

Around a fourth of the way up the hill, where he could see there was no human or 'mon below the torch, he stopped.  With some squinting see an arched entryway with nothing keeping watch there either...   There were squarish forms beyond it.  Perhaps homes, with open doors, like the community he'd left. To such temptation, of easy goods and curiosity, Giovanni turned on his heel and broke off of the road. Above, the sky was lightening toward true dawn, and it'd be best that he wasn't seen. 

 

So he wasn’t. Cutting across grass Giovanni broke into a staggering run, cutting off chittering rat ‘mon with a growled order of string shot to muzzle the irate loudmouths his steps disturbed. He ran until the path was beyond his sight and the twinned branches of the familiar, Kantonian trees, were tight enough to block the coming sun’s light. In that comforting gloom, Weedle perked up.  Rounded nose twitching the bug stirred his trainer’s hair his exhales were so hard. The creature panted, recalling kills its body had made, and would likely make again, quivering in sudden hunger.

And to that, though winded and weary, Giovanni smiled, tipping his head. And that was enough to make Weedle slide down. Find perch on the Kantoian man’s shoulder and the bug reared, eyes flicking over the branches, horned head gleaming with a rush of venom.

 

“Smelling a metapod?”

 

Little stub suckers rubbed together in anticipation. The green, calcified, worms were near delicacies back home. Almost hunted to extinction around Viridian, particularly its gym, and it was no mystery as to why.

 

Letting out a tired chuckle, Giovanni dropped the packs.  Something fast and small spooked at his feet, but that was irrelevant.   Canting his gaze up, and Weedle hummed with anticipation on his shoulder.  And in his head, drawn from his fonder memories, Giovanni imagined the worm was as it'd been.  Rubbing its wings in anticipations of poisonings to come.

 

He’d not have to coax or manipulate, because, at his core, Beedril was a very easy to please and eager to please creature.  Give hunger a free rein, do not criticize any "mistaken" poisonings, encourage brutality and give the bug the ability to act out such, and loyalty to him and any Giovanni marked as important would be all but guaranteed.

 

“Let’s go make a killing, then.” Giovanni purred, carrying them deeper in this fringe forest.  It wasn't the sprawling wonder that enshrouded Viridian, but it wound about a civilization of sorts. A... whatever lay beyond the arch and torches.  The civilization would be utter falsity, Legend born, that should have been burned to the ground just for crimes of their originators and falsity.

 

It was a thought, and the how’s and when’s would be something to be mulled over as he led Weedle to its first of many kills.

Chapter 5: Giovanni: Making a Killing RD

Notes:

AN: There's a discussion of and acting upon wanton hunting practices and killing for food and sport. It's gory, borderline mature, and I don't shy away from the creepiness of the scene. If that's not your cup of tea and you want to continue this tale anyway just drop me a line and I will forward you a chapter summery with the relevant information. I was going to tab in the flight of the Tikitek scene but considering chapter length I'm going to use it, and the planned stinger, in the next chapter.

Chapter Text

a/n:  Ran through Grammarly in 4.28.21

 

He fell into old routes and routines as easy as breathing. Thrashing through screening greenery and thick trees, he’d made a territory in the familiar and been camped a little less than a week. The town’s thick, wooden, walls were one edge, the roads beyond it a taboo and only to be watched from the security of height and sparingly. At night the walls were manned by men and ‘mon who clearly hated their obligation, and to spare them he avoided the walls when he could, especially at night, when perversely, the guards were more awake. As it was early morning, with no one about to peer wearily at the gathered dark and bug types and keep them out… Well this span, touching close to civilization, was his until noon. And he’d take advantage of every minute.

 

Forked stick in hand, he prowled the edges, face still wet from ablutions, hair damp more from the water of a pond he’d set camp at than sweat, he stormed among the bushes and trees. Raising hell among the weaker because he had to to get results and irritated because he knew that if he kept up that he’d need another bath.

 

The following thwacks were harder for that realization. More dark forms raced before him, chittering and hissing outrage that he irritated them. His goal for this herded hoard was a tree deeper in the forest. Doing the task somewhat inexpertly as he was hardly an Arcanine, he used force and stomps. Not indulging in shouts and handclaps like a true hunter least the human sounds carry to the wrong ear.  

 

His goal, was a false sun of fool’s gold. His Kakuna was tucked back and away, and would be a lure for the harried preditors. Because they were simple creatures, focusing on prey and escape, a lone Kakuna without a hive would be a snack. To that temptation, the harrassed would be careless from hurt and hunger. It would be simple to go after an easy, stationary, worm, on the way out.

 

Save the "snack" was placed so claws and beaks would struggle to get a hold. Branches were woven around to make a shield, thorns woven in to cut and scrape at any who dared go for a kill. And Kakuna was strong enough to spit a string shot hard enough to shove something back. Thus the scaling intruder would be punched in the face with the bug's binding fluid. Gravity, if their luck was in, would do the rest. 

 

By the time Giovanni made his way back to the clearing there'd better be more than one pinned creature. After all half of those kills were his. And Kakuna wasn't the only one hungry.

 

Deciding this was going to be the last of this hunting run Giovanni settled his attention on a rather large, rusting, bush. First circling, to make sure it wasn't rooted in some oversize oddish or 'saur, once sure it wasn't a mon in and of itself he smacked at the edges with his branch. The rustling thing went deeper in, and a few stabs got it to surge out. The revelation, preceded by warbled and soft snapping sounds, wasn't an unexpected one. An irate bird, black and squarish like all the birds here, burst out of the flora with a squawk  

 

It was a lively one that he had to dodge and smack at when it wheeled close to try to take his eyes. A hardy beast too, as it didn't fall from the direct blow, snapping it's beak as it spun away. His refusal to back down and the fact he chased after it, cutting the flyer off from the sky by blows when it dared ascend too close to him and a thrown rock when it tried to do so at a "safe" distance... Well, the bird waffled, between flight and the urge to peck out his attacker's eyes. Swinging a low circuit about the clearing, wingtips near brushing the surrounding trees, the avian swung around once, twice, then seeing safety in a bush a bit further off, one with berries, the bird swept off and away.

 

It flew towards the west and anticipating where it'd go Giovanni picked a path to follow it. Not in any particular rush now that he was sure how this was going to go, it wans't quite a saunter, but it wasn't a jog either.

 

 The Rocket had spent his first days when not observing the walls by denuding all the berry bushes he encountered and preparing a killing ground. Fire and a stolen pan had allowed him to crudely roast and dry the ones he recognized so they'd last longer than freshly plucked, and merging two baggies of electronics, batteries keeping wires company for a while, had left him a spare to pack his crude travel rations up. In his labors of denuding this patch of the forest of edibles, he had left exactly one berry bush untouched. The bait was a decent distance from his camp, least it draw attention where he didn't want it, and the clearing the bush had been in had been altered to suit its new purpose as a kill box.

 

While crude the Rocket had made adjustments. The edges were jammed with piled rocks and brambles atop those. Only one path left for ingress and egress for something walking afoot. Not without a bit of effort and bleeding. The trees on the clearing's edges were scaled. First with Weedle atop his head, then when the bug evolved, Kakuna riding in an emptied backpack. They'd sprayed a crude net that ran from topmost branch to topmost branch. It was holey, but a passable net that could trap anything that would fly out carelessly...

 

Their first breakfast in this Nevernever Land had been one of the abomination birds. The stupid thing had flown into the net before it'd fully dried, bringing down a chunk of it and snapping its neck and wings as well. Giovanni'd cooked the kill to near char before offering the gooey bits to Weedle, who'd near oozed venom from every orifice after eating such a fresh kill. Giovanni had to pointedly tell the bug to rub itself against a rock to work some of its venoms out before it would be allowed to climb back atop his head.

 

On a whole, the clearing looked alternatively tidy and trashed. The corners and edges and spans between the trees save a particular path to it jammed with rocks and gummed with string shots and topped with anything like an edge. The trees looked like the victim of a bug-type party. With off-white banners swaying in the wind. Another trip that'd ended with him landing on his rump had left Giovanni wasting half a day picking the clearing's floor free of anything vaguely branch shaped that he could trip over. The end result wasn't perfect or horridly safe, and the moss that ran down the tree's trunks to grow across the northern part of the clearing like fake grass made his efforts to tidy a joke...

 

But he'd done the work, and was satisfied, and had made Kakuna a nest from his efforts and gone out to lure prey to the bug.

 

This was his third killing run. He'd been working from dawn to now and it had netted them a small pile of prey. This was going to be his last hunt for the day before returning to camp, and he wasn't looking forward to dragging a kill-gorged, venom-seeping, Kakuna with him to camp. But he wasn't ruining his backpack by having the bug weep poison into it either.

 

Wanting to just be done he scaled his walk up to a flat-out run, and small things, all dark and rat-shaped, scattered before him. He drew his adlibbed weapon on them, herding them because a few more kills wouldn't hurt. He didn't chase after the ones that broke off in other directions. Enough went the right way that he felt comfortable letting them go, and as they passed that final stretch, a hill leading down, the paths clogged as much as he could make them so there was only one route... Well he let them go ahead, they were spooked enough not to notice that he was keeping pace, so he slowed. Stopped, and allowed himself a moment to bask in how much everything hurt.

 

Breathing deep, settling against a tree, shade side favored, he ached and burned in ways that spoke of a pampered state. And in this Legends got it wrong again. But he was hardly surprised, they’d made more errors than anything else thus far, and this wasn't any different. This error was correctable. It'd just hurt like hell to get in shape, and he wasn't going to complain except note it as another error among the multitude.

 

He’d been more muscle and sinew in his youth. Training and hardening his body so it’d not betray him because everything else would at the crook of the Madam’s manicured finger. 

 

A foot and a half before his full growth, his hair near down to his hips…. it was little wonder the grunts he had worked under had called him bean pole… flag pole… something like that. It'd been years and the insults had been uncreative and dull. Reaching up, he raked out tangles with dirty nails, plucking out branches, and then got to braid the lot with one hand. The other, his off hand, he flipped the water canteen open. He drank and worked, and once done drinking clicked the bottle closed and set both hands to tighten the final loop. the braid would be loose, and sloppy, but he’d no need to run so that didn't matter too much. With care, he’d not have to deal with too many tangles before his second bath.

 

 Weapon of harassment propped beside him, he focusing on getting his hammering heart to slow down. Tipping his head and Gift back a bit he listened. No sounds from the walls, none from behind. His sport had drawn no attention. As for the previously unwanted attention, his lips quirked, bemused by a resolution decades-old…  

 

He’d not have to endure the insults for long as though he'd been young (too young, he'd never allow Silver to deal with Mob affairs at the age of fifteen) he'd had a Nidoking. A Nidoking, and a shorter temper, and a perchance for blood. Something his personal ‘mon had reclaimed, considering the bulk of them were raised to hunt and hunt besides him no less. The first taunt, the first disrespect to what had been dubbed the “pack leader”, had lead to the first snapped neck under the ‘King’s hands. 

 

None had dared breathe a word of disrespect to his face after that.

 

Though aching he wasn't bone-weary, it would do. So he snapped up the branch in aching hands and picked his way back and up. Waving up at a specific tree and it's false gold up high. A greeting and warning both. Ascent done he went down, towards a deepening thicket, making the wall and its attendant town more a memory and less a concern. A marked clutch of trees led the way, and in the gloom he reached out, feeling about the violet spines in their side to better guild him through the gloomier paths. Pushing past the tree line he broke into the clearing, and froze at the sizzled hiss and thud as a string shot connected and something and that something was caught and took a bad fall. Lifting his stick he waited, and when nothing struggled at him he lowered the weapon. His eyes adjusted to the near night dark of the false canopy after a moment and he could see and see properly.

  

It wasn’t home, or much. But there was comfort in coming here to something he'd made after a hunting run to properly rest. The small pile of bodies at the base of Kakuna’s perch was a bonus. There were many small forms shrouded in white gunk that looked, to the unexperienced, like melted mozzarella. The lumps under their deluge of coating squirmed and cried out. Some crying at him. He could reach with his Gift, strain his thoughts to understand if he wished.

 

But he didn't. Just listened with mundane ears at the many voices, of the many ‘mon. The prey sampling was wider than the few 'mon he'd seen on the roads. They at first stilled at his footfalls, and then, perhaps so close to civilization, the gathering was partially tamed. For they assumed human meant savoir or at least capture which would be around about saving from the slow smothering of death by stringshot. They kicked up a partially choked cacophony at his approach, and to that, he smiled.

 

Counting the gathered, soon to be to kills, he threaded among them, ignoring the few little limbs that twitched after him to beseech saving. 

  

The bird from before had gotten this far. Caught mid flap its limbs were spread and pinned in its fall, its stick-like legs were scratching at the sod while it literally dug its own grave. A black swollen rodent squirmed mere steps away, a limp form, more smothered than the most, caught his attention. A familiar stylized tail stuck out, vaguely resembling ruffled lightning, and besides that, a small form so enshrouded in semi-liquid goop… Well, he couldn't tell what it was. But the creature's writhing was slowing as he watched. There were other forms, but these were the ones nearest to him, and nearest the tree, and thus the only ones that mattered. The fringe could be left to wear themselves out and the carrion gathered up later.

 

Tipping his head up Giovanni waved again, lips twitching, and the Kakuna in the trees could see that. 

 

Evolution had granted his bug wider, sharper eyes, as evidenced from the many pinned and bound ‘mon about. There was no trill of acknowledgment. The noise, any noise, was impossible in its present confinement. But the bug type was expressive enough to rustle some leaves about him as he rocked on its hard shell. Tossing thrashing stick from one hand to the other, Giovanni bared the pain from each impact because his callouses were gone and pain was one way to get them back.

 

A cursory examination showed the bird’s wings were unbroken. Its beady eyes scrolled up to him as he circled, weapon in hand, and it quivered. It'd been one of the few bound 'mon that'd not perked up at his coming. Perhaps seeing its death at hand.

 

Exam done he decided the creature was coherent with minimal damages. It would do for his later plans.

 

“Pick your breakfast, anything but the bird.” He called up to the bug.

 

The answer, when it rained down, was pointed, and poisoned. A poison Needle as a pointer, sinking into the earth about a lump, baring that familiar tail. The attachment to that tail squeaked. Sparks smothering as they met something uninclined to conduct, or burn, or twist aside. Squeals turned to coughs as grass and sod caught and the air quality went down.

 

Well, he’d come prepared, taking and sharpening a rock over breakfast that first day. That was at the roots of Kakuna’s snipping tree and he gathered it up. Double the size of a fist, grey and squared, perhaps the leaving of some cement  something  that’d broken. Regardless of its origin, he’d shaped the stone and it would serve. 

 

Giovanni turned the rock about so it's edge was facing out, and hefted it in one hand. Then, in his off hand, he swung, setting a stinging blow to that familiar, hated, rodent. Its riposte was a light show. He stepped back, two quick steps, though one would have been safe. He waited, as the form writhed and wheezed, choking on the mix of binds and failed electrical attacks. 

 

Another stinging strike and the sparks came again, another and they were significantly less. A glow that was akin to a child’s nightlight rather than nature reformed to malice-born whim.

 

When the fourth strike garnered him nothing save screams, chittered pleas that set the beast’s around it to a squirming panic, he knew he was done. While Giovanni could have switched the thing to death there was no point. And if there was no point, then there was no profit.

 

Setting stick aside, he slid the rock into his pocket and winced as the belt bit back. He’d not do this killing, it was more to another’s benefit the thing be alive, or at least  dying  when the last blow came. And that blow would be best to be the snap of fangs sinking home. A hiss from above, the creak of descent as a string shot was loosed and wound by mobile mandibles. A rocking jerk served in leaps steed, and Kakuna descended on a string of sticky spittle.

 

“And of course you expect me to carry you?”

 

The bug swayed, a venomous pendulum near toddler-sized, and the impatient swish flick of its squirming as it dangled served answer enough. Threading about the prone, missing the familiar click of his boots… these sneakers near squeaked… Giovanni slid a hand about and under. Tilting the creature into the crook of his arm, old habbit meeting the new situation in the oddest of ways.

 

Fangs worked, unweaving and severing so only the thinnest of threads lingered about the creature’s mouth. 

 

Tipping the beast encouraged the yellow bug to spit the last glob to the side. Grip sure, miming old holding patterns first introduced in training classes ages gone, and mastered with practice after, Giovanni took himself and his ‘mon among the smothered masses.

Beyond, behind walls, a false thunder of drums went up. Whoops and cheers, the fourth since dawn, and the reason as to why his curiosity had been stirred. Enough so that he had specifically hunted down a bird for later…. 

 

But for now he lowered his Kakuna before his kill of choice. Pulling his rock from his pocket. He’d do one more blow to soften the meat than the rest would be on the bug.

 

Sifting through loom he picked up his hunting stick, he set that atop the still Kakuna and felt those black eyes roll up at him in irritation.

 

“Unless you want to try to crush the thing under your weight, or we could wait a half hour for you to spit needles and hope one of them poisons the creature  than  wait another ten minutes for the venom to carry it off….”

 

All petulant rocking ceased, and black eyes locked on his hand, the creature near humming in impatience and hunger.

 

Well, Giovani could understand hunger. He’d only had a few bites of various berries himself as he’d stalked through the woods and Kakuna had had less than that. Though this hunt and its resulting mass of pinned ‘mon would serve a day, perhaps two, for food, seeing food was not eating.

 

Pulling off his shirt, keeping the rock in his hands at all times least something try to attack him in a moment of vulnerability, Giovanni mused on the nightmare of cleaning bloodstains. Better to be avoided when he had no access to replacement clothes yet. Folding the fabric absently he tossed it beside him, minding the bodies. Any bloodstains on his pants could likely be passed off as residue from a fall, or hidden be a longer garment, his shoes jointed his shirt after a moment of fussing with the thin strings.

 

One strike, two-handed, overhead, at full strength was all it took. The mid-section of the rodent crackled a mix of breaking bone and discharge, and in that one moment, he could feel the frantic, weakening, thrum of the creature’s dying at his hands. A flick of the stick got him to pry the edge of coagulated string shot and charred earth up. He could see the creature’s form then. A curled crescent of yellow and widening red. There was a hiss and sizzle as white 'shot snapped over the things near liquid midsection, binding to the epidermis, and turning to follow the line of string shot found that Kakuna was beyond waiting. A pull and the near liquid 'string was tugged, dragging the soon-to-be carrion forward and apart turn by turn. The rodent screamed even as it was wheeled up, the rodent's belly shredding even as it was made to be level with eager mandibles. 

 

“Easy, you don’t want to fall.”

 

A hand, set to rest to the creature’s back, slowed its frantic motions. Stipped the faceplant in a widening cavity hole that'd of been a nightmare to clean. Giovanni could feel the writhing brittleness as protean met anticipation... and didn't lead to evolution. Sliding his hands down Giovanni considered swells where legs would be, where the flesh stiffened and strained and better braced but the developing form underneath could not burst through just yet.

 

Perhaps tomorrow then. With a pat, minding the oblong swells where wings would be and thus be horridly sensitive on the bug’s back, he ignored the gargled croaks as the pikachu was consumed. The suckling crunches were not a true ‘Bite, but were getting closer… 

 

And that'd do, for now.

 

Recalling elementary lessons, that poison was immune to poison, Giovanni hunted among the masses for a lump of rounded black. A tail tip tipped him off and he didn’t even have to do much. An application of the rock to the beast's head and a bit of leverage and the Rocket returned, another morsel in hand in a crude russack of sorts. 

 

Dazed by a blow to its misshapen head and perhaps sporting a concussion, the black rat within near fell out of its binds as it was tipped forward in a mute offering.

 

Black eyes, ringed round by another rat's gore lit up, for seeing the "package" and the bug rocked even as the Rocket drawled, “Seconds?”

 

It was easier to make out the developing, thickening, lines of legs to-be as the bug reached and wobbled at him. Still, Giovanni spared his beast too much effort. Kneeling before Kahkuna and passing up the black rat so they rested in the straining, growing forelimbs. They didn’t burst past chitin and into being, and they still reached for him and his offered treat. Giovanni watched as the food was mainly consumed, partially dissolved, the rat never waking to feel its death.

 

A pat, to tell he was going to rise, was met with... well not a violent twitch, but a wobble. The motion didn’t seem right for evolution, and while the 'bites were more sure they hadn’t been quite right yet. So the Rocket waited, as black eyes scrolled up to him, then his bloodied hands, and again the semifluid line between existing and not was strained in a mute reaching motion.

 

It was a mute “I want” more than anything. Recalling him to another’s mute motions, small hands, reaching, pointing….

 

Part on whim, part in melancholy, Giovanni offered his hands. The same mandibles that had torn flesh from bone, ground bone into powder via pressure and acid, and sucked the semiliquid melding of the two, slid over his skin. The lower jaw first braced, then sucked in as the upper combed over his knuckles.

 

Nipping a path down his skin, Kahkuna only applied force once. When its trainer’s attention wandered. The nibble left a reddening span, about a pin prick’s width as a prompt… And to such Giovanni turned the limbs over, letting the creature ghost fangs over his palms and worry about his left thumb that had a crusting of red near the nail.

 

“Done?”

 

A wobble as a nod and the shell smoothed, attempted rebirth done for now it seemed.

 

“Good,” Sliding his fingers over the creature’s domed head, Giovanni left his slightly damp let hand scroll a few circles, thinking and soothing all at once. “Up to the first watch?”

 

His ears ached for not hearing a confirming buzz. The vibration of brushing wings had been the only sound over various campouts, stakeouts, and the like. The ascent and scrape of stingers as the beast would look about for perch and settle. To such a lack of... normalicy... sanity even... Giovanni ached. But, as he turned on his heel, first to reacquire the garb he’d quit, then to hunt among the bound for the bird, he consoled himself. It’d only be thus for a little while longer. Spearing the edge of the hardening attack, he slid the branch under and around the bird.

 

It made a crude rucksack, and after a shake to make sure the lot was secure he carried the bound bird back.

 

The avian shrieked bloody murder when it saw the killing ground before what normally would be its prey. Clearly, the bird was not liking the idea of being on the other side of the food chain. 

 

Kakuna, ever a black hole in this stage, perked up and wiggled in anticipation. A snort and glare stilled the mute begging for  thirds , and Giovanni set the feathered bundle before the bug with a glare that prevented all bites from occurring. While there might have been some merit in intimidating and breaking the avian if it were going to be a long-term acquisition spite had made Giovanni decide to make the thing a one-time tool. He set bird before his bug and snapped his fingers.

 

One of the two looked up. Anticipation of a different slant flickering in the black of those partially evolved eyes.

 

“Once it stills, you’re breaking it out and letting it go.” Daring, he drew the bird close, set it between him and Kakuna even as he set his back against the bug. Facing away from the gore and suffering of the uneaten Giovanni slid one hand against the edge of the bird’s face. While physical contact wasn’t… necessary… it helped him focus. The avian was hyperventilating at his touch, wanting to turn its head and goggle at its impending death. He braced the bird, stilled all motion, making the bird meet his own black eyes. 

His heart quickened in sympathy of the bird's panic, he breathed slow and deep, to differentiate it and him. The bird's beady eyes glazed, mirroring his own detachment as the Gift woke in him and dragged the avian's thoughts against his own. 

 

Talking was an effort, still, Giovanni was not one to give up. “Once it leaves… You’re in charge of waking me if… if...”

  

Another rub, wrong ways, deliberately rough, from the exposed crown to beak, and the bird’s eyes slid shut on instinct.

 

In empathy all unwanted the Rocket’s world went black, the darkness was the last sensation he experienced from his body before his awareness was washed away in a flood of smallness and terror. 

 

Taking over a 'mon ws a bit like dreaming, a nightmare self infliced and hard to wake up from. His nerves sang and set his skin, borrowed and other, to crawling as the bird's confinement was his. And the wounds the avian bared made his own chest and arms ache.

  

Then his eyes opened, against his will, and they weren’t his. They were sharp and skewed, meant for distance and height. It made the immediate a nightmare of details that were hard to pick out sense and reason from. The world was a wash of color, there were screams and a sick slick  thing  wrapped about his frame that needed to be gone. Now.  

 

There was nothing but terror until  a  terror descended in food’s form. Hauling him up and turning him over and over due to string and angles and bloody mandibles. He was nestled against impossible ridges as the monster (which was supposed to be prey!) worked him around, a jaw full of binding, blinding white slowly being chewed through.

 

Fangs clicked, then it was moving, spinning, another mouthful of binds, another snip-snip of mandibles scissoring through the strings one slow minute at a time.

 

Save there no minutes, merely echoes of old flight, and the impulse to fly.

 

In this world of sensation all unwanted, in thoughts that were never his yet running rampant in his own head, it was all Giovanni Sakaki could do not to drown( and scream, to never stop screaming) in fear. It took iron-hard will to remain still, waiting in silence, as his Kakuna cut him free to fly in a body that wasn't his own.

 

Chapter 6: Giovanni: Free of charge RD

Chapter Text

AN:  Same warnings as last chapter

Seeing through a 'mon's eyes was like viewing the world through a kaleidoscope. The view from a bird on the wing was a dizzying thing, and at first, it was all Giovanni could do to hold into the link. Still, he preserved, and thus the borrowed body flew on.

 

While others might wax poetic about flying it was an utter horror to the Rocket. The steady pull of the earth eager to reclaim a body dare he miss one wing beat or the winds shift just so... The ache of muscle, and minuscule things that were set to defy that omniscient pull were an agony. Per a bird's perspective, the whole world was millimeters away, near microscopically detailed. And it made the familiar and seemly twisted for such intimacy.

  

Suffice to say, when Giovanni flew, he flew as high as he could. The lung-burning heights were held in part to mitigate the marred perspective to something understandable and in part so he could break the link between him and the beast if it started an uncontrolled fall.  

 

His curiosity was a spur that guided the beast, he drove it to glide over the towering wooden span that’d hid him in a faux forest’s shadows. The walls of the town were little more than a line when viewed from an avian’s perspective. The bird mused on bark textures and durability of the wall’s barked side before something small and squirming made it cant gaze down and closer to where it should be.

 

Echoes of past injuries delivered, of writhing and stinging, kept the bird's wings wide, rather than folding for a dive ending in a meal.

 

While the bird nattered on about prey -and its new budding phobia, the avian was starting to associate worms with the whipping Giovanni had given it before it'd been string shotted into submission- Giovanni demanded it look below at things that were not-prey, and not-preditor, and the bird did so with an irritated twitter. Staring at the rectangular, steep tipped things strewn about beyond the faux tree barrier. The structures thrust out of the grassless stretch like rocks out of a tan river. There were other non-prey things below. Barking things, braying things, mercifully distant per height. Among the four-legged beasts waddled two-legged beasts, slow, without wings, or claws.  

 

And when the bird tried to ignore those lesser, un-flying things, the response was swift. The link, that pushed unwanted suggestions into the bird's head changed. From a nudge to pins and needles that crawled from the bird's crown to its neck. Memory woke in the avian's brain under the tingles. Like an echo, the sensation of recalling being hit thrummed over nerves and made the black bird's wings tremble. One flap was missed because of the pain, and for a moment, after a burst of frantic flaps to make up the dip in altitude, the bird hung between two choices.  

 

It could look anywhere save the boring beasts. The pins and needles grew back frightfully fast when it did that. Or it could look down at the bi-ped creatures, and there was no prickle, no promise of pain.

 

For now, the bird circled the unnatural span that the boring things were nested in. Most were bright chested, dark crested, without wings, without feathers. A short one hopped out of one of the not-tree shelters and the creature’s head looked akin to a mass of fluff and frizz. The substance was  ideal  for nesting... 

 

Thoughts on nesting, thoughts of rest, exhaustion flowed from the avian's mind to the human tag along, and it took everything for Giovanni not to let the bond dissolve. To not just say "I'm tired too" and loose his mental grip and let the damnded avian swoop down on the child below's head and just  nest ….

 

Never be weak, never show weakness .. Such mantras had kept him standing through worse than secondhand exhaustion. Shaking his head, so much so Giovanni felt the stinging smack of his too-long locks slap him for the motion, the Rocket tightened his awareness on the link even as he mentally dimmed the bird's sensations from his mind. Holding on, he could see the populace beyond the bird's complaints. These people were darker-skinned than the citizens of Kanto. Many were sporting natural dark brown or black hair. The tye-dye madness of cheap hair color and gels were barely present in this population.

 

 

Like the homes before, where he'd done a small crime spree of break and enter, there were no electrical lights. Dampened tiki torches were a norm. There were four interspaced at the town's sole, four-way, intersection. All in all, it was a pathetic simulation of street lights. 

 

The paths that cut through the town went in cardinal directions. They were utterly straightforward and uninspired towards defense. Going down, meant going out. Down led to the gates, to him if the road were followed and quit at the right place. East and west meandered until it hit the edges of the town and dead-ended against the walls. As for up, up was mildly interesting if utterly nonsensual. A wooden stage had been slapped down before... well compared to the cozy-looking two-room houses that were this town's norm, the larger building before the stage seemed palatial. Capable of holding a human and perhaps some medium-sized mon, it might have been a gym leader's gym, save the door was closed and there were no personnel outside keeping watch for approaching challengers. 

 

Rumiditary fences looped around the smaller buildings, making yards that did not have gates. With no exits or entrances they resembled open-topped cages... and the creatures within them, 'mon and human both, wandered in those closed-off "yards" with wooden jerky motions.

 

To put it mildly, the Legends were slow studies...  

 

There’d be precious few supplies here. There was one other building that was an outlier. Sporting a cement sidewalk, and the first electric light he'd seen outside a home. The universal symbol of a pokecenter hung over its door like a promise. But beyond that assurance of emergency medical assistance if he got desperate enough... there were precious few consolations.

 

Beyond the wooden stage and the maybe gym, there was a path. It rose up and out. leading to hills beyond the town. If he strained the bird's eyes he could trace a trail that led to a pinprick of a bridge, and beyond that… Well, he’d not fly there. The hills rose sharper, becoming near mountainous. There was thickening grass that could mask larger ‘mon. And since there was no smog, no lights, or even a grey glint of paved paths, Giovanni let the mystery remain such.

 

More wilds were not what he wanted.

 

He spun about, a slow circle, heart sinking as he spied green and more green, and it was only in looking back that he saw... at first it was just the houses he started from. The shore was visible at this angle, a line of blue in the distance. As he stared at it with his borrowed eyes something white and artificial cut across the water.

 

Profanities came out as raspy clicked chirps considering his circumstances.

 

He near smashed his head into Kakuna’s shell. The result of anger and impulse bleeding over from one mind to the other and near lead to Giovanni "peck"ing the bug types hardened hide and giving himself a concussion as a result.

 

Thoughts swirled through his head.   He could have gone the other way, just followed the coast....  And for his inattention, the bird descended.   He was in a Region, and not some outlier never land that didn’t have trainers or centers.  He plotted, pedestrian things as the bird, descent complete, wrapped its talons around something plastic . While this place didn’t have shops he could make use of the center and perhaps the clotheslines of a careless stranger if they left their things out that looked like they might fit...   The taste of dust and grit made Giovanni snap his head up, and the bleed-over of impulse was utterly one-sided. The bird gorged itself on seed a mile and more away, eating in oblivious joy, utterly unaware of the waning connection between it and the Rocket.

 

Gritting his teeth, the Rocket clenched his eyes tight. Refusing to see with his own eyes. And he started, seeing with the bird's eyes... there was a bird. A different bird, more  wrong  than this one. Glossy and a bit deformed but  right  there…. And impulse, his or the birds he wasn't sure, translated the sight as an intruder, hostile. The resulting peck, all unintended, proved the "bird" to be a reflection. The plastic that'd served as a shoddy mirror cracked and released a deluge of black seeds. Iridescent joy flared across the avian’s mind, even as the Rocket's stomach churned in complaint as the bird wolfed down a pile of chalky, dehydrated, seed byproduct.

 

The inexperienced would have let it go at that… The sensations were unpleasant, the bird barely listening, grounded. There was little point in holding on to such an avian.  

 

A false thunder, the sixth since waking a bit after dawn, made muscles that weren’t his quiver. The bird took to flight, not out of fear, but at the spur of Giovanni's curiosity and the recollection of pins and needles when that nudge wasn't indulged. Ascending by way of short bobbing flaps, it wasn't the lung numbing heights of before, but it was enough of a view to work with.

 

Swinging up the stage with a lazy grace that bellied his youth, a shirtless adolescent picked a path along the stage's edge. A pair of short, thick sticks rattled in his hand, then, stopping near the door of the maybe gym the boy sat cross-legged before the entranceway. Settled before a sunk-in span of the stage that the Rocket had thought as decorative step, the boy hollered some wordless cry and rose the sticks, the  drumsticks , over his head. Clicking them together, three quick taps, the young man near bend double, beating an insanely fast  fortissimo  against a long, wide, drum that the Rocket had thought was a step up.

 

The effect of the ruckus was immediate. The sound catching something underneath the rise, that echoed, distorted, twisting rhythm into a pseudo thunder. The effect in town was immediate. The youngest were wheeled up by the elders, upon raised porches. Those walking about scrambled to the tame ascent of their front doors and ‘mon were recalled with flashes of light. The streets were empty in moments.  

 

And the wisdom, the  why , took only a second to see. From  every  bush,  every  patch of grass, boiling from under the base of the houses closest to the walls, rats swirled out of shade and shadows to run screaming down the streets. Rhythm slowed, the strikes interspaced with the click of wood striking wood as drumsticks were struck in drums steed. Once, twice, and on the third all sound ceased. By then the mice were but a memory, save a few bewildered squeaks as the slowest as of them crawled down the paths towards out.

 

And had he been on the road, or approaching the town and not set camp in this sideways, wrong route nook... He'd of been swarmed, drowned under a wash of disease riden vermin.

 

Mixing that revelation with the knowledge that  this  pestilence hot spot in the making was going to be where he had to go to get food, to go there to get his Kakuna healed up, to get  directions …. Lips twisting into a sneer, Giovanni sunk into the familiar weight at his back and seethed. The bird and its sensations were like the ghost of flames heat, the link was akin to raking fingers over the smoke of a dying fire and expecting warmth.

 

Snatching at the intangible, worn, thing in the back of his head, Giovanni made his last action with the link to plant a compulsion in the bird's mind. Do this one thing for me, he assured the sullen presence in his head, and they'd be quits.

 

And, if he was a petty man, he'd of taken insult at the sheer  enthusiasm  that toss-away offer summoned. Exhaustion made the bird's flight seem drunken, but it was coming, and that's all that mattered. Opening his eyes, his own and only his own, Giovanni let himself fall against his Kakuna. The Rocket indulged laziness, near drowsing, and only tenacity made him keep from falling asleep altogether. Pushing off of the wet earth with a groan, he got to standing.

 

And ached. Ached in ways that weren’t wholly human, as between the effort of using the link and using it to drive a pain-riddled body... was unpleasant, to say the least.

 

Luckily the pain hadn’t scaled to migraine territory, a mercy that in turn inspired him to be merciful.

 

“Get three branches and break it so the tips of two are forked and the last one sharp. I’m going to get tinder and a rock."

 

Standing, staggering really, the Rocket raked hands over his frame and its edges. Leaves and loom scraped off of him at the motion, his hair near shed its weight in plant kin fuzz. He was going to be a walking grass stain if he stayed here much longer.

 

Well post breakfast, they’d move on, after a bath.

 

“Don’t poison the tips.”

 

Wood clattered, another string was shot into the trees and dragging began again.

 

Reclaiming a large stone, Giovanni began to dig. 

 

First to rip up what loom and grass he could, from the fire to be. He continued his labor, hands caking in sod so soft it seemed kin to the loom yet was stickier than clay. Working like an irate, digging, houdour, save profanities, not smoke, marred the earth he labored over. Still, he managed to get a fire pit dug and prepped. Sitting back, satisfied, he dug out bits and bobs from his pockets. 

 

Calling the mess shredded rags was an unearned compliment. They’d started as such, he’d wrapped them around his hands and climbed a particularly steep span that led to the lake he was camped. a few days hard use had worn them down to little value beyond fire-starting fuel. Keeping the shreds company were a clutch of twigs from his back pocket, those he had gathered in his hike before he’d hunted. He stacked everything, studier tree bits on the edges, near flyaway at the heart. It made a curious sort of nest if one looked at it just right. 

 

A dig through his other pocket ended with him holding a purloined lighter. Stolen from a neighbor of Moon's who'd smoked, and left his doors unlocked, among other bad habits. In moments Giovanni had the sparks lit and the small fire fed and glimmering. The off orange glow could add a hellish illumination if one risked smoke inhalation to indulge the melodramatic and posing such a look would require.

 

Wingbeats made him look up. Near zigzagging, each wingbeat more droop than an ascent, the avian approached. To that Giovanni stood, lifted one arm, hand fisted, elbow braced.

 

Tamed enough to recognize the offer of a perch, the bird swept close, small claws scratching off some of the muck on the Rocket's forearm as it settled to roost. He let it linger, one moment, two. The clatter of a tree branch pointed and unpoisoned, made the Rocket move. Sliding a finger under the creature’s head, a bit of a scratch to broadcast his intent, the bird near melted. To affection anticipated the bird tipped its head up further, offering a better petting of the crest and jaw.

 

Beak pointed skyward, eyes scrunched, the bird waited for well-earned pets and praises.

 

Baring its throat perfectly to do so.

 

Sliding his knife from where he’d slipped it on his belt before hunt’s start, Giovanni swung. More to luck than premeditation the bird and blow were angled away so the resulting blood splatter didn’t make a mess of the Rocket's clothes. He shook the little body off, glad he’d rolled the sleeves back and the bird had perched as far away from his torso as it had.

 

Explaining grass stains away was one thing, blood trails were another. Tossing the blade after the bird, to avoid being dripped on, Giovanni gathered a handful of wood larger than the starting fluff and fed the flames. Leaving the body bleed out a bit before he pulled off his shirt and got to cleaning his kill. The juicer organs he dropped off with Kakuna, after combing them for poison sacks. Finding none the Rocket made his offering and passed the gore to Kakuna who tipped and warped the edges of his shell to better cradle the snack. Leaving the bug to it, sticks in hand, Giovanni went back to his breakfast. He was a bit critical of the carrion even as he worked the stick through it. He’d had smaller torchik at froufrou restaurants, but right now this… whatever it was… would serve. Setting the meager meat to roast over the fire and adlibbed spit, Giovanni sat before it letting it simmer as he rolled it over the fires.

 

Of course, it was when he was busy feeding the fire that he heard an insistent mechanical whine. He let the phone drone, exhaused enough not to really get the implications, he was just weary and wanting to eat. When it rang again, six rings before giving up… then immediately picked up with ringing mere seconds later… 

 

Something was wrong. And then the wrongness of a  dismembered phone ringing  struck through his miasma of exhaustion and got him staggering towards the packs.

 

“You’re hearing that?” Giovanni rasped, leaving kill to dig through pockets and packs.

 

Kakuna rocked back and forth, in ascent.

 

“Shit…” Mind flicking with dire scenarios, some elite hacker of the Kanto government tracing him, some bizarre charging mechanism alien as this world thus making his obscuring efforts moot (never mind he’d tested the phone after dismembering it for that very scenario) Giovanni dug through the side packs. The phone, still dismembered, battery sitting benignly beside it no less, was glowing and humming. The name across its ID window was a mix of kanji, numbers, and pound signs that was utter nonsense.

 

More on a whim than anything else he flipped it open. the first thing he heard was a child sobbing. The voice was familiar, yet not so much so he could place it at the first tone… Giovanni’s black eyes went distant as he mentally went through years and memories, of hearing children complain mainly, but a few had cried in their loss and none of them sounded quite like this one… There was something about this one’s voice that screamed urgency, that set a frission of anxiety down his back.

 

 “Moon?” A croak, the voice was pained, near raspy for it. “It’s... it’s me… Silver…”

 

And to that revelation, the Rocket reached out to a tree to brace himself, heart feeling like it had stopped.

 

When he didn’t drop over and die, Giovanni learned, that this... Legend-born scenario... held a very special type of damnation for him. To not recognize your own son’s voice. To not know it was your child until he spoke to you, begging you to recall him.

 

“Can you… are you…”

 

Giovanni’s legs shook, he eased down to the forest floor before him in slow, careful, stages. 

 

Something burned but he hardly cared.

 

“Moon?”

 

“I’m…”   Not him, I'm your father … His thoughts ran the gauntlet of cliché to truth, and he cradled the device, offering it a tenderness that he could not offer the speaker on the other line. For intangible talons closed over his windpipe when he dared to think the truth. To speak around the tension in his throat, in ways they didn't want, would likely end in his death.

 

Taking a breath, the Rocket let it out, forced out a strangled. “Here. 

I’m here.”

 

Not there, but that would be remedied, as soon as could be. He looked among the small bodies, weighing their frames and forms with a calculating eye. Perhaps sensing the slant of his thoughts Kakuna quivered under his trainer’s steady regard.

 

“I’m here,” Giovanni murmured. “Now, what’s wrong? Tell me and I’ll get to fixing it.”

 

A huff… near snort… then that too young voice (barely taken, the voice hauntingly close to his last recollection, the boy was only a hair older than that last day) softened, mirth taking the edge of the pain out of the words, if only a little. “You can’t fix it… this… you don’t even remember  me , do you?”

 

To such a bald accusation Giovanni huffed an irritated laugh. It figured at… what? Five.. six? Whatever his age Silver was seeing right through him. His meal burning, the Rocket waved at Kakuna who dampened the fire with a string shot.  

 

He’d get sustenance from his rations, the bug could eat the cooked meat and the gathered bodies, then they'd move on.

 

Progress had become more important than basic nutrition; if push came to shove he could just assault some camp or other and take their food.

 

Still… as for what Silver said, Giovani let his lips quirk into a small smile, and offered his first truth in what felt like decades.

 

“Silver, I’d never forget you. No matter what. Now,” standing, heading to damped flames, Giovanni picked at the carrion, bracing phone against his cheek by way of a raised shoulder the Rocket picked up his knife and checked the kill. Mostly raw, but Kakuna'd not mind. Keeping his voice level, least he cause Silver to spook, and hang up, he implored the boy. “Tell me.”

 

“Only after  you  tell me what you remember, and what you’re doing, like you said  like you   promised .”

 

To that, the Rocket barked out a laugh, “Silver,”   Son  he’d meant to say but hadn’t been able to. He’d make the Legend responsible die, make the dying last months for that… for  this … They’d of been better off leaving him for dead. And in that Legends, and Madams, and Governments had made a universal mistake.  

 

You’d think Celebi, the personification of time itself, would have the Rocket's history down better and be more cautious for it. 

 

“You’ve got a soul of a born businessman, with a lead-in like that.”

 

“You said that earlier too.” And there was pride amongst the exhaustion. Remembrance of an event that Giovanni had not lived out yet.

 

Which alluded to time perhaps not being as straightforward as it seemed… Still, while that was a peculiar curiosity, it wasn’t important, not yet.

 

“Are you safe, is it safe to talk?” 

 

“You said never to call if it wasn’t private, unless it was an emergency… And no… I’m not hurt it… I just… I’m in Roboburst… Their pokecenter. Staying the night in a room by myself. You were right… I got Sneasal…” Tone wavered, there was something to tears in that tidbit. Sucking in a breath, the boy rallied. “Where are you?”

 

Pestilence city, death by black plague central … He’d of uttered such if the boy had sounded less fragile and perhaps a bit older.  

 

As it was he recalled a sight stolen from borrowed eyes. He’d spied a sign, and while not reading the whole of it he’d been amused by what he garnered before the featherhead started gorging itself on seeds.  

 

“Some spot of questionable civilization called Iki Town.” He deliberately mispronounced it. Making the name sound horridly childish, and that garnered a giggle from the boy. "Now, you haven't said a word about it, but what’s Hoenn like?”

 

Curious how his simple question wrenched open the flood gates.

 

“How'd you even know this place was in Hoenn?" The near awe made Giovanni smirk. "There. Is. Water.  Everywhere . Here. I’m trying to catch a water type so we can swim around if we need to… But I can’t catch  anything . My pokeballs just… disappear, or miss, or don’t work. It doesn’t make any sense. And I’m… I  think  I’m supposed to catch a lot? I’m getting funny looks just for having one ‘mon even though Sneasal’s great... And thank you for helping me get her back and…” And piece done, exhaustion won out, the boy huffed, something creaked. Perhaps a bed as the child settled on it. Pokecenter commodities were at best primitive and cheap. “Everyone thinks my name’s Brandon… or Bran-bran… or that stupid trainer from where I started that keeps calling me Big B."

 

He hummed, watching Kakuna eat, and with a sniffle, the boy,  his  boy, continued.

 

She’s  really  stupid and poses and makes her team do their moves “ Beautifully ”...” The boy sneered the last, and likely rolled from the ruckus that kicked up. “She’s so stupid… this whole thing’s so stupid…” 

 

Rant complete, the boy whispered, whimpered at him. “Moon?”

 

Giovanni could have called the child out, on the deflection via deluge, but did not. Kakuna chewed through its newest offering, done, nearly at the same time as his child was. He’d bury the leftover gore and bones once all the killings were complete. After the yellow shell had murdered and gorged on the pinned until it could eat no more. 

 

The local authorities would make what judgments they would when they found the killing grounds.

 

"I'm here, I haven't left."

 

"You don't talk a lot, do you?"

 

"I think... I believe, for me, this is the first time I've ever talked to you. And, truth be told, this is the first time I've talked to anyone for any length of time for a  very  long time. You'll have to forgive me if I'm a bit rusty at it."

 

The responding "but I don't hear any squeaking" nearly made Giovanni bark out a laugh. Only the child's timid tones kept him from indulging a full-on laugh. Lips quirking, the Rocket hummed a near benign.

 

"Not  that  type of rust, Silver."

 

"Oh... ummm..." Near undertone, and grumbled. "How does Green  do  this? Uhm..." Louder than, cheer forced, the boy tagged on. "So, how was  your  day?"

 

"Barely begun." The Rocket admitted, indulging another oddity for himself, the unvarnished truth. "You know you're a lucky one, with a powerful starter and all that. Most trainers get easy starters, like weedles and caterpie back in my hometown, Viridian."

 

Kakuna rattled up at him in semimute protest. And to that Giovanni canted a smirk down. If the bug wanted to complain it'd have to have the means to do so. And its vocal cords were as bound as its limbs in this stage of the evolution chain.  

 

"They do have their perks. Bug types. Quick evolution, malleable natures, and basic needs..." 

 

A bloody hand over the bug's head soothed temper and if the dome near bubbled as the being under it strived to shake off its shell to show him who was "easy" well all the better.

 

"Have you ever seen a black Ratata before?" To the responding negative the Rocket drawled. "Because I believe Iki has more than earned its name from the deluge of the things."

 

"Like a muk rattata thingie... umm a crossbreed, like a black  slimy  rat?"

 

It was amazing the nonsensical turns a child's mind could take. And while Giovanni indulged the silly angle to the boy's chatter, assuring that there were no rats like that here, maybe there was something else akin to the idea. This place was... to put it mildly, weird. Encouraging speculation on muk-birds and muk-snakes, he planned, distracting and soothing his boy while he did so was a plus.

 

Iki could be reached at any time. Less than two hours hike away. A fully evolved Beedrill could get past the pathetic excuse of guards with little effort, so a nighttime visit was more than viable. He’d take what he could from the fringe houses, expand what he's started back at the... clutch of homes by the beach. Someone  had  to have a map… and if somehow, someway, they didn’t, he’d raid the gym leader's home as a last resort. 

 

There had to have a computer there. Some means to contact to this regions league if nothing else. He’d learn what he could, then he’d go. Where he wasn’t sure… pick a path along the shore until he found something fitting the descriptor of city. And he'd keep his ear to the ground to hear about what Legendarys he could. The powerful 'mon likely have the keys to get him and Silver out of this... insanity. He’d take his exit...  their  exit... from the Legend's poison-saturated bodies, and kill anyone or anything who got in his way besides.

 

"Moon," Tone curiously flat, distracted, the boy was twiddling with something if the quiet disturbances the phone picked up meant anything. "Have you met... Do you have a  rival  there?"

 

“I haven't talked enough to anyone here to establish that level of animosity with them.” Save whatever investigator picked up the "missing Moon" case. He'd done small petty things to throw any hunting him. Still, he wondered if any would. It'd be intriguing to see how the Legends interpreted "running away" and his varied small crimes thus far.

 

He was almost looking forward to the inevitable meowth and rat' that was all but guaranteed at this point.

 

“I... I think she's mine, the girl from where I started, the one who talks about  beautifying battles  and stuff...”  

 

"I know they... the Leagues... encourage some competitiveness between groups of children staring out from the same town to keep things interesting. Regardless of what the League wants you're under no obligations here. To journey or battle, or deal with  anyone  who's bothering you." 

 

Something chittered, inhuman and shrill, static marred the new voice and with a nudge and grumbled, "Stop it Sne'" at least told Giovanni what was causing that disturbance. As for the other, the tightening of Silver's voice, the shake to histone... All the Rocket could do was wait, and it mercifully his motions of familiarity and small talk from before had comforted the boy enough that it wasn't a long one.

 

“Why’d the stupid Legends have to make whats-her-name look  just like Green ?”

 

No child, so young, should know heartbreak so intimately. Yet his did. And there was agony for that. Though the listening was an agony, throwing all his helplessness in his face, Giovanni stayed on the line. Offering what poor comfort he could until Silver decided he “probably should go, because it was late,” and “Mask said he shouldn’t use up real people's time to whine and carry on.” 

 

Had the Rocket responded to  that  last line  t he phones would have immolated from dealing with the sheer muffled fury that’d be channeled through the lines. As it was, Silver had wanted to go. All but begged a reprieve. And to that need, Giovanni folded.

 

But only after he coaxed a promise, one he’d  supposedly  done once before. Silver was to call him back. Once a day, minimum. 

 

And more than that if anything went wrong. And Silver swore he would call. First thing he woke up, right after breakfast, that was sworn up and down in Sneasal’s pokeball like how others swore on their mother’s graves.

 

Refusing to hyper-fixate on that unpleasant analogy, Giovanni listened as his boy hummed and hawed… then the whispered. “I… I don’t know how to hang up. I never had a phone before."  

 

Well, the last bit of the call was a bit of back and forth that ended with a beep that meant Silver might have finally got the old flip phone to turn off.

 

Giovanni had circled the clearing uncountable amounts of times as the talk wore on. Finally, body as weary as his soul he settled. Back to a tree, besides Kakuna who'd watched his pacing and the skies with black eyes that glittered with a hint of compound to their depths.

 

Listening to the dial tone, almost wishing he hadn't taught Silver how to release a call, but he'd had little choice. The child's phone was on low charge, so they had to cut off the call... regardless of his wishes. 

 

The Rocket was so damned tired. The knife’s hilt scraped at his back as he shifted. He’d speared his belt near his spine when he'd realized he was twiddling with the blade, an old nervous habit he'd picked up in his grunt days. Not wanting to lose flesh or blood for a moment's inattention or shock while on the phone with his son he'd ad-libbed a sheath. Now that the talk was done he pulled the blade free, adjusted his grip, and considered the bound 'mon about him. 

 

They’d hold. He had a camp to break down, and after he and Kakuna had a killing to make. He snapped his fingers, and while it wasn’t a hum of ascent, the bug managed a sizable hop in response. 

 

Good, enhanced mobility for a cocooned bug-type was one of the tells of evolution. They’d run what errands they could destroy what evidence he could find... Then the bug would feast and kill until his shell burst to let his true self free… or Iki forest ran out of prey. And if that happened, well what were a few missing pets from the town's fringes?

 

They'd be the causalities of statistics. The wilds were a dangerous place, it was why all children got 'mon and were all trained to deal with the beasts and endure survival classes after all. And if the simpletons behind their walls didn’t know that basic truth of the world, well Giovanni Sakaki would remind them, free of charge.

 

Chapter 7: Of Beedril and Rivals

Chapter Text

AN: Ran through Grammarly on 5.8.21
Sentence rehaul 5.9.2021

TW: HUNTING GORE POACHING


They’d hiked a path, from the killing box to the campsite. Binding what ‘mon they encountered on the way. Even without the shrine, and legends, the pool was an obvious echo of Celebi’s clearing, and Giovanni was glad to quit it and never return. Refilling his water, burying what traces of his having been camped, he'd squeaked in a quick bath, and then they were gone. Repacked gear on hand, Kakuna slung to his hip opposite side of the bound water bottles via rope to avoid contamination. The ropes and his pants were becoming purple from the continual contact to the seeping bug type, something he noticed in the walk back and had inspired a tired eye roll but no complaint.

He'd just have to wing another bath or shower later.


On their trip back to the clearing that'd been his killing grounds they'd stopped often. What hadn’t struggled free of Kakuna’s attacks was put to death. The bug’s bites were sure now, it was able to kill without assistance, still, some more practice couldn't hurt. The bug had remastered turning its hide iron-hard, winding string shots about the bound it bludgeoned them to stillness against its glinting hide. Fangs tore into the prone foes, alternating between feasting and killing so haphazardly Giovanni couldn't deduce what the bug liked to eat or not from the new meat they'd taken down. Regardless of appetite, such tricks the bug was using were acceptable tactics for this evolutionary stage. They had required little prompting for the bug to reclaim, and for that Giovanni offered a few words of praise. The clicking of bug types mandibles and roiling nudge when he'd bent to reattach the creature to its holder had been a relief.

It was more motion than the bug had been able to do before.

Planning to spend most of the sunlight hours destroying the kill box, Giovanni lay his supplies in the clearing’s center out of the way of labor and thieving rat 'mon. Setting Kakuna some distance away from packs and himself he got to work. Prying rocks out, using his digging stone to jar the more embedded blockades loose. While he worked on the base of one blocked-off part of the clearing he ordering Kakuna, who'd been rocking and clicking at itself, to help. A whined chitter-click had him clarify. So the bug got to tugging off thorns and brambles from the blockades its trainer wasn't working on. For a while all was quiet, save stone striking stone, and this hiss sizzle of string shots flying to catch, tangle, then tear down foliage turned impromptu barbed wire down.

Hammering at another barrier, tossing rocks about him in a scattered pattern that hopefully would look like a rock type rummaging for a nest of sorts, Giovanni looked up from his work when the tearing sounds utterly stopped. Bored, once all the brambles it could reach were done, the bug had dragged all the spiky plants to itself and started to bundle them up with expert twists and jerks.

The end result vaguely looked like a metapod, if one ignored things like color, and the multitude of spines sticking out.

Deciding now was a good time for a break the Rocket staggered across the clearing to take a seat between Kakuna and packs. The bug’s “art” lay between them, a poison needle shot to prod the lump made it jerk. A clear, pay attention to this. And to that Giovanni lifted his drink, a mock toast of appreciation, even as he honestly considered the bug's efforts through thinned eyes.

“It’s hardly Smithsonian material, they like donphan paintings these days.” How clicking jaws could be insulted he’d never be able to articulate. He wasn’t even relying on his Gift to pick up the tenor of Kakuna’s thoughts; they were just that obvious. “After our break and your physical, you’ll need to ‘needle down the net." Dabbing sweat off his face the Rocket canted a tired grin at his 'mon. "It might give you enough material to make it a butterfree.”


How a bug huffed he’d never be able to explain. It just did. While he drank Giovanni considered timing, and a glance up at the sky affirmed there were a few more hours of work ahead before it'd be dark enough to think about setting out. Giving himself about a half-hour to rest the Rocket said nothing else, Kakuna twitched few times, then nothing. Both remained silent, basking in silence and stillness for a while. When their beak was over the Rocket sealed his canteen and stood with a hum and stretch.

A root through the packs found the flashlight, and he approached Kakuna, kneeling before the bug to start with an ocular exam.

The bug’s jerk away from his touch was warning, as was the flicker in the bug's black eyes as the bug stared at something back aways. It was all the warning the Rocket needed. Twisting to the side, not even bothering to stand, Giovanni gave the ‘mon a clean string shot, which it took.

Across the clearing, something brown and long went down with a croaked “’Goose”. Further listening as it thrashed in its thickening bonds affirmed it was rasping “Yang goose”.

Honestly, the thing looked like a furret married a nightmare and had had a child, this beast the result of that unholy union between the familiar and the outre.

“The sooner we get out of this Region, the better.” The Rocket grumbled. String shot done, Kakuna spat a wad of white to the side. Rocking on its shell, making its head tip up from the motion, the bug was clearly clamoring for attention. “Yes, I see it’s still sitting there.” The intruder was flopping like a Magikarp, mixing greenery with its binds in its wild writhing. “Let’s give the ‘shot a chance to dry. It'll smother when the web constricts and that’ll take some of the fight out of it for later.”


Fangs clicked up at him in disappointment. In response, the Rocket set a hand over Kakuna's head. The touch stilled all motion, and assured his 'mon would stay still he clicked the flashlight on and got to work.

Lines were running through the black of Kakuna’s eyes. Thin, red jags, glinted like rubies under the illumination of a flashlight. There were spiderweb cracks, black and dripping violet, running from the bug’s midsection to the bug’s toughened base.

The changes of a days’ worth of killing weren’t just ocular or even the obvious degradation of the shell that bound the beast. Running a hand over the insect's shell caused it to twitch. Near fluid in its straining, the strain of metamorphasis cut a path mere centimeters behind his fingertips as he stroked the bug. Sussing out weakness by touch, gauging the strength of limbs he could feel now, by how hard the twitched against the shell.

To be approached with anything like tenderness when so trapped must surely be an agony to the bound beast.

Flicking the beast a tired smile, the Rocket shifted to better work on the 'mon's back. Clicking the light off he set it on his packs. If it was agony, to not be able to touch the world, all the better. It was more motivation for Kakuna to shed its shell.

Running a digit between the oval swells, the shell warped, punched out, and rippled without rupturing. The texture of the beast was tough and smooth, like stroking the edge of a glass plate with a heartbeat. Perfectly safe until one found an imperfection. His fingertip caught on an edge, and Giovanni sliced a line on his thumb near the end of the bug’s exam. He pulled back with a smirk, pleased. The cut wasn’t too deep, or painful, and wasn’t envenomed, so he’d be fine. But brittleness of that caliber was another assurance. He estimated they’d six more hours before it’d all be over.

With a pat to indicate they were done Giovanni stood, made his way to the bound ‘mon. The ‘shot had set, and the beast within was barely moving. Knife in bloody hand, leading hand, he turned to the bug, his starter, and flashed the creature a Persian’s grin. A smile that was all edges and bitterness and cruel anticipation.



“Ready?”



Not waiting for a response he sheered through the webbing to reveal a winded, tan, animal. Fangs locked in an eternal grimace, furred form long and sinuous, the freed beast twitched to standing. And, perhaps smelling that this place had been an abattoir the beast did not run. Rather it lunged. Living out the cliché about biting the hand that freed it to a tee.

White hissed, a string shot catching and binding one limb before the bug rocked back and made the deformed furret kin fly backward. By the audible crackle of impact... winded would be the best state the attacking beast could be in. Sparing a moment to confirm Kakuna’s shell wasn’t flaking off too soon or sporting a hole due to mischance and the beast’s claws, the Rocket flipped his knife from hand to hand. The bug was fine, they were in the clear, it was all down to killing now.

Staggering to three paws, the quad pad twisted to standing. Hind limb held tight, to its side. The beast’s flowing tail snapped at an angle that screamed broke, still, it was quiet.

Forgoing any screaming, the “goose” proved itself a stoic type. Lips pealing up and back, impossibly so considering its grimace was the bulk of its face, the beast twisted physics itself to snarl at the Rocket. Throwing itself forward, hell-bent on taking him down in its last moments, the tan beast tore skin and flesh to escape its bonds for one last lunge.

Giovanni stepped back, knife hand raised, tensed. Kakuna could live without this one kill. In the last moment, right before the Rocket was going to swing, a thread of white landed on the back of the creature’s head. Ripping the beast back before the tackle was completed. Near scalping the beast, Kakuna pulled hard. Prey recaptured the animal’s claws scrabbled, first at the air before the Rocket, leaving thin cuts in the man's shirt, then against sod. The furred beast was screaming now. Kept screaming until the end.

Fingering a nick in his shirt front, Giovanni let his gaze linger, over the wild ‘mon and its weeping, shrieking face. The rocket weighed the pros and cons of petty revenge, them with a shrug, decided to indulge.

Meeting the red marred black of his Kakuna’s eyes, Giovanni cleared his throat, all dragging ceased, the bug waited.

“No rush.”

Kakuna lunged, missing the beast's jugular to tear a strip off the creature’s forelimb.

He went back to work to the sounds of screams. Breaking down the barriers and scattering the mess to make it looks somewhat natural. Two “walls” to go and on his next break, he sat beside Kakuna. Passing his breather by watching the bug spit spines at the treetops, meticulously snipping the net down so that they’d land near enough that the bug could wheel them forward with a fresh string shot and…

On a whole, the end result looked like oversized yarn balls.

“I’m glad Persian isn’t here for this.”

She’d be a nightmare to keep away from Kakuna’s “art”. It’d been one of Weedle’s favorite games to play on the feline. a "game" that had persisted through two evolutions, but the "rounds" done as a Weedle had been spectacular. The feline and bug's play had made it necessary for Giovanni to carry sheers and shaving kits on his person long before he’d needed them for his own use. He’d had to shave his damned fool of a cat when the “play” had gotten her stuck in impossible ways. And he had to have a quick cover story as to why his cat was always sporting odd short furred spans.



His worst of the lies when pressured by some pokecenter nurse or other, junior feline fur stylist. He huffed a laugh at stupider times and reclined against his packs, Kakuna an off gold smear on the edge of his sight. Counting leaves and branches passed the time a little. When that grew dull the Rocket lowered his gaze to count the shallow pits that marked various bones and bits that Kakuna hadn’t eaten and thus had to have been buried. There were four, soon to be five, if the bug’s difficulty with the “gooses” skull held out. All in all, it was a pittance of graves for the kills. But then Kakuna had been his most effective in his eating habits, even as a Weedle, the first time around.

With a click and rattle, the “bag” of leftovers was dropped, signifying the bug was done eating.

Standing, picking up his digging rock, Giovanni went to the bound remains. Testing the string shot sacks heft and weight. It sloshed, rather heavy all things considered. Opening the “bag” revealed a skull, near perfectly cleaned of flesh, bloody red and glinting. The dead beast's teeth smiled up at him as if it were getting the last laugh.

More than familiar with rigor mortise in its many forms the Rocket was hardly disturbed, just irritated. Because it was heavy.

“Full at last?”

Kakuna clicked fangs at him, rocking a bit, and as it moved Giovanni grimaced. Noise scrunching as he recognized the sickly sweet scent of a poison type's sweet scent in action.


“Really, right now? You can’t wait to evolve until after I get you in a tree?”

The clatter of fang against fang was apologetic.

Of course, that’s when the wind had to pick up; the timing couldn’t be any worse. Something huffed in the distance, a bird called, and there was a predatory crow to the warble. Skimming his eyes from tree to tree, the Rocket snarled, hyperaware of the sense of “hunger” that pulsed in this forest like a heartbeat.

Well, that was nature for you. Sensing vulnerabilities it sent its hunters, apex to scavenger, to prey on the weak.

And those nature-loving fools at Kanto called him an irredeemable bastard.

Tossing the body bag so it landed against a distant tree Giovanni shucked off his shirt. Hands protected he swept Kakuna into the nearest nook of a defensible tree and shook off the poison-logged fabric. He’d bury it with the last body when this was done.

Drawing his knife, back to the poison type, he stood guard, alternating between seething and worry.

Giovanni’d meant to get fresh water, to wash off the deluge of venom the bug would shed as it changed. He’d meant to build something of a nest for the bug type and set the bug in place so they’d only have to contend with birds. Now that plan was out because someone decided to evolve too early.

While he waited the Rocket let his mind wander a bit. He'd never understood why the media always portrayed evolution as a flash of light and done event. ‘Mon were living things, biology, like nature, was inherently messy. Thus evolution was too.

Shell rocking, swollen and seeing violet venom in torrents from every line, that’s how a Kakuna’s evolution began. The shell warped as the creature within pushed and fought. Struggling under the deluge for air. A bug type could literally drown in its own venom if it didn’t get out in time. Nothing had breached the clearing, so the Rocket kneeled before the bug type. Left-hand side, between two ridges where two of a Beedrill’s legs could wiggle free.

The touch must feel like fire, for though light Kakuna recoiled.

“Here, strike here.”

The resulting stab where he tapped was by a white-tipped forelimb. Blade ghosting between his ring finger and his second, it was a near hit. Had he been wearing his wedding ring the Rocket would have lost it. Cracking a tight smile Giovanni ran his hands over the shell, a lifetime of being trained to spy and exploit weakness serving him well.

“Here.”

A stinger surged at the barest tap and whispered command. Breaching shell about where the Kakuna’s neck would be. The internal gymnastics occurring under that shell must be spectacular.

Stab turned into mad sawing. The bug widened the hole and the blade withdrew. Mandibles poked out, sucking down the fresh air in greedy gasping gulps. The bug twisted, and wholly red eyes peer up at him, then the jaws were back and the bug was rocking, getting mouth holds on the edge of the newest hole, chewing it wider.

The flap of approaching wings tipped Giovanni off that their safety was at its end. Twisting to up, knife leading, he barely caught the bird before it’d swept down. Dun hued, surprisingly familiar, the spearow was heat and hunger and pain to his senses.

His Gift, hyper-aware and pushing unwanted stimuli into his head, flared. Punishing him for his violence, for stepping in where nature should have plated out. Having endured more than his share of phantom pains Giovanni shook off the tingling agony in his arm, taking heart that the bird’s wings were clipped if the pain meant anything. Making a red scar over the earth as it skidded across the clearing after impact, the bird's crash ended when it plowed into a tree and its death crackled in Giovanni's head like a gun shot.

Wrong, the Forest screamed in his head, it was not a Gift then, an old edict, but a present curse. Preditor was meant to kill prey, to intervene was wrong wrong wrong....

Everything about this was wrong.

Wild Kakuna on the cusp of evolution would be secreted within the Queen's chamber of their hive. The other ‘drill would swarm to protect the hive while their young, in the clutches of their matriarch, would be poked and prodded out of their shells.

Saved, or smothered. Such was the fate of an evolving Kakuna. If they didn’t wrench their way out quick enough, or if the Queen was feeling peckish, the bugs became her Majesty’s dinner. Usually, half a clutch of Kakuna never made it out of those rooms.

This wasn't what was happening, it was wrong...

Slamming the hilt of his knife into his thigh, the pain managed to give the Rocket some control over his own thoughts.

The scientific community pushed a Common ‘mon theory. He'd been skimming over the papers between plans and plots and keeping an eye on Silver. The short of it went that in the last stage of evolution a bug type “imprinted’ on the first thing it saw. A means to explain a bug's undying loyalty to hive, monarch, and species despite the cruel brutality of what could occur in the Queen's chambers.

Never mind imprinting was done at birth. And a lifetime experience as a Weedle and Kakuna weren’t magically wiped away once the bug burst out of their shell as well-trained ones recognized their trainers and remained loyal.

But the scientific branches, particularly Oaks' reserve, were scrambling to find an excuse for why so many 'Free and 'Drill abandoned their trainers in droves to rejoin hives and the like. It'd been the most absurd drivel that'd passed his desk, and he'd laughed over the dry readings because they were utter foolery from first to last.

Suffice to say, Giovanni wasn’t worried when a warning flap of wings made him pivot out of Beedrill's limited range of sight. Just irritated.

“If you’d stop exuding sweat scent and drawing in everything over to kill you, that’d help.”

Another bird swept in. The Rocket swung, getting feathers and an irritated squawk for his trouble. Still, the avian didn’t wheel back in for a second run. Before he could take any satisfaction in that a dark shape surged out of the loom, squat, claws scraping up leaves and rocks. It was too fast for him to catch.

“Beedrill, your Seven, coming low.”

Shell crackled as a stinger pushed through, stabbing the deformed rat in the head. Or rather through the head considering the wet “horn” poking out of the creature’s crown. The bug's wobble became a flail as Beedrill tried to extract its stinger and just drug the carrion snuggling close. Spindly legs squirmed out of a hole, tap-tapping at the limp irritant in a failed attempt to kick it off.

“Give me a second.” The Rocket snapped, coming over at a trot. It took a little effort, but he wiggled the dead rat off. A glance confirmed Beedrill’s stinger was still in, and not loose, so the bug hadn’t disemboweled itself defending itself against the rat. “You’re good.” Letting his hands scroll over breaking chiton he stroked where wings would be. The shell there was near cement hard, though the fangs were getting some work in, nibble by nibble.

“Around your thorax feels particularly weak, work there.”

It was more curious than anything else to see the bug waddle around a few moments later. Beedrill’s lower body was freed and was capped with a near-perfect Kakuna topper. Legs twitching, too fresh to be working right, a fore stinger was freed and serving as a walking stick and feeler for the bug as it staggered about. At first, the bug's path made sense. It waddled towards a thick tree, headbutting on its mind. But a detour around a rock made the bug pivot and bump into the Rocket’s side. Giovanni could hear muffled buzzing as the bug rubbed against him, wrong-way facing fangs pricked his knee as the bug nibbled at his pants.

“Do I look-“ scratch that the bug could barely see. “Do I feel like a tree Beedrill?”

The bug’s limbs pulled at his pants and the mandibles nipped at him harder. With a sigh, Giovanni stooped down and hauled the wiggly bug up. He walked them both to the nearest tree. Miniscule pinches from the bug's non-combative limbs dug into his sleeves when he tried to let the bug go. A rather awkward dance of trying to loose the Beedrill and the bug clinging harder ended with Giovanni, with a huff, holding the bug by a tree while it scraped off the last of its Kakuna shell.

“You are only being spoiled right now,” the Rocket groused, scraping off mildly venomous discharge off the bug's head so it could better see. “Because I need aerial support for a break and enter. That’s all this is, pragmatism.”

With a buzz, the bug flapped its wings. More than eager to lift off right then and there. The bug’s wings, undried, set a spray of poison birthing fluid far and wide. Luckily none of it got into Giovanni’s eyes. Spitting and swiping at his face, pushing anything vaguely wet away, the Rocket scrambled to packs and water, wasting nearly half a canteen to make sure he washed the worst of it away.

“Damn it Beedrill, I’m not immune. I didn’t get my anti-venom treatments until I was in my twenties,” And damn the Madam for refusing him that, and nearly all medical procedures. He’d had to endure all his vaccines near at once due to the crones outdated “survival of the fittest” ideology. “And I’m not anywhere near that. You can’t just throw poison around like I have my old immunities, because I don’t.”

Before the Rocket could really get into tearing into his idiot ‘mon a low-hummed “poke” cut in. Both trainer and trained turned, to see a pink slowpoke padding towards the clearing, vacant eyes goggling at them in benign interest.

It took a moment, a few steps, and a sniff to at least tell why it’d wandered so far from the beach.

“There aren’t any Kakunas here, you were too late to catch one.” the Rocket drawled. The hum of wings sheering through the air, the off-tune buzz signifying flight had been achieved, made the Rocket quirk his lips. Temper felled at the promise of easy prey. Giovanni shifted a bit, gave the bug clear sight of the pink pokemon that was slowly, so slowly, following the Rocket’s path with its head. “However, I have a Beedrill here, who needs some practice in killing.” A snap of his fingers and Beedrill closed, stingers and fangs sinking into the psychic type's neck. “Thanks so much for volunteering.” He murmured to the slumping body.

“When you’re done.” The Rocket drawled to the feasting Beedrill, “Bury the leftovers and that bag of yours. I’m going to scout.”

Chewing on the slowpoke’s tail, Beedrill looked up and rubbed his wings in an affirmative reply.

XXX

It’d been embarrassing how fast he’d been caught.

Scaling the walls via string shot as a rope, Beedrill standing watch as he scampered up, had been the easy part. Leaving the bug to dispose of the evidence, venom immersion would make the ‘shots dissolve the Rocket had crept further into the town. Iki was too widely spaced to offer rooftop travel. There were no alleyways, only wide streets that were too wide. Shadows from houses and trees, broke the monotony of the road, with the occasional thrown open window to offer the contrast of light. But beyond that, now that the townspeople were inside, there was nothing but an empty lot between the homes.

That and the occasionally lopsided yard, or slanted tree. Those he skirted around, and after a few yards in dropped his skulking and just walked. Excuses spun through his mind, most of them palatable. He was an insomniac taking a stroll, visiting from the commune down at the beach, he lost track of time, was looking for the Center…

The streets were so bare he wasn’t even seeing any rats as he walked. Pausing before a house, making a show of looking about as if lost, he lingered a moment before walking on by. Lit from within like the other three. While not impossible to get in when the residents were up it would make things unnecessarily complicated, so he continued his walk, canvasing as he went.

Deciding to skirt around the center, too well-lit and not on his list of things to rob, he began to poke a path up the oversized stage that served as a rat warding device. It was halfway between the Center and the stage that he was spotted. Not by a guard on the wall (there were none about, they only followed fixed patterns by the entryway and when nowhere else it seemed) or someone from their porch. Rather, to his misfortune, he was spotted and chased after, by an ambling siren in a child’s form that'd decided to take a walk just then. The hiss of the Center's door was all the warning he'd gotten before the friendly screaming started.

His first impression was the child was older than Red, more gangly and a bit taller, the boy had exotically dark skin and warm brown eyes. And he had powerful lungs, exploud level powerful lungs.

“Hey… HEEEEEY! NEW KID!”

The last shock, as the boy approached, was the child’s hair. Black and kinky, and shockingly familiar. It had screamed nest in me, to this place’s avian population, and recalling the impulse of that long-dead bird Giovanni grimaced as the boy trotted up, sandaled shoes flopping against the dirt roads, kicking up puffs with every step.

“Heey! Oh you aren’t running away? That’s nice! Hiya! Are you here for the Island Challenge too?”

Even the boy’s normal speaking tones were… obscenely loud. Resisting the urge to rub at an ear and check for damages or a trickle of blood Giovanni said nothing. He glared stonily at the brat, hoping, praying, the child would go elsewhere.

It’d worked in Kanto, but they weren’t Legend-born stupid in Kanto, but maybe, hopefully…

“Oh um… new person um…” Making a peculiar whole body wave the child smiled at him at motions end. “So… ummm… that’s how you say hello in Alola, and I should have started with that! Right! Soooo... I’m Hua, what’s your name?”

“Sakaki.” Sticking with his last name, tone frigid as Hell. He gave up on hope, as the child brightened up at the obvious dismissal in the Rocket’s tone.

“Like the tree, neat.”

The child hopped when he spoke.

The last time Giovanni’d seen one do that they’d come in with a team of Oddish, bound and determined they’d win the earth badge from him. He’d lead with Persian and the cat had made a salad of the opposing team. Petty, yes, but a warning that though his gym said “earth” it was an inherited title and not a binding one.

He was not obligated to stick to one type, which the child could have asked him about instead of knocking on the gym door at six in the morning, insisting that it would be six on six and whipped up plant after displaced plant to fight him.



Clearly delusional and thinking they were friends the brat inched closer. “What’re you doing out here anyway, the Challenge doesn’t start up until tomorrow morning?”

Scanning the skies, he snapped his fingers. Beedrill would hear and come when it could. Until then he could make small talk he supposed.

“Taking a walk, you?”


“Oh.. umm.. yeah, I was going to ahhh… take a walk too?” And wow the child lied so badly it near hurt to hear it. “I’m going to the Kahuna’s house and… you know… pet the starters…”

“The Kakuna’s house?” Giovanni drawled.

“Ka huna ,” the boy enunciated carefully. “The tribe elder? Ah… a gym leader?”

Gym leaders passed out starters, how refreshingly commonplace. Or rather commonplace until the science and field investigative league had started worming its way in to Gym Challenge and sticking its grubby hands in things that weren’t their business. Honest Mob families weren’t able to get their children starters when their parents failed background checks when anything even faintly illegal popped up on their files.

While it hadn’t been a concern for Giovanni, who’d kept his hands clean enough so law enforcement had no clue as to what he was, much less who, he’d heard that complaint among the Mob-enforces often enough that he felt some sympathy for his lessers.

Well, while not ideal, the brat would give him a patsy for his break-in. He’d leave the boy to do whatever with what starters he found and Giovanni would have free run of the gym leader’s house.

“So.. umm.. wanna come? Meet the starters early, I mean? The Kahuna’s kept them in his house all week and I bet they’re bored.”

“Why not?” The Rocket drawled, snapping his fingers because for a break-in he wanted Beedrill by his side.

The boy, with a whoop, swung an arm over the Rocket and drew him close, never mind his squawked protest and instinctual squirm to get away. Clearly hug walking towards the scene of a felony was an Alola thing. They staggered a few steps towards their goal until the high-pitched buzz of wings and familiar weight on his backpack stilled all motion. Or rather, the tugging of the young boy, who was rather preoccupied with the arm stinger pointed at his throat.

“You don’t ever touch me.” Giovanni breathed, voice shaking and soft in his fury. “Capiche?”

“Umm..” Head tipped back, he’d cut himself if he nodded, the boy paled instead, squeaking out a soft. “Right… umm no.. Umm I won’t .”

A head tip and Beedril dropped the blade, allowing the boy to slump and not look at the sky. Folding its limbs over Giovanni’s backpack and shoulders, the bug settled in, clearly intent to nest on him for a while.

“So uh… that’s a really… um.. nice Beedrill you got there, Sakaki?” The boy whispered, trying to make small talk as they approached the Kahuna’s house.

“It’s not nice.” And to that warning, Hua did not bother to say anything else. He just led the way to the Kahuna’s gym in much-appreciated silence.

Chapter 8: Giovanni: Research and Plots unhinged

Chapter Text

ran through Grammarly  5.10.2021

ran sentence smooth over 5.14.2021

 

Giovanni was of the mentality that it was better to leave idiots to be idiots. Hau babbling on about looking for a yard had proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the boy had no sense in his head. Having scouted out the place via a flyby with a stolen bird Giovanni  knew  there  was  no yard. The boy, a self-confessed  resident of Iki town , hadn’t known that. So the brat had taken to a rather bush-laden section on the right side of the Kahuna’s abode after a short chat, and the Rocket had watched him go. 

 

Ignoring the encouraging hand waves, and a thumbs up from the boy right before the child left Giovanni considered the house and its complexities.

 

There weren’t many but weighing them felt more fruitful than trying to figure out the whole thumbs up thing anyway.

 

Once the brat was out of sight Giovanni picked a path that had him swing around to the side of the house that faced away from the road. Finding a safe place to start climbing he rolled his shoulders and Beedrill hopped off his backpack and took to the skies.

 

One short flight later and the bug was perched atop the apex of the home. Near but not blocking or casting a shadow on the second-story window, Beedrill spat down a line. It took a moment, to wait for the sting to dry least he get stuck, but once the attack was longer glistening Giovanni got to climbing. Atop the first floor’s roof, he’d gestured from bug to “rope”. Understanding the unspoken command the bug took a spot beside his trainer, wheeling up the string shot with its bladed limbs. 

 

Once all the rope was gathered the bug would saturate the string shot in acidic venom to encourage the binds to break down. 

 

Descent would be a controlled fall, but until then Giovanni settled in. Tugging his packs off and pressing them against a flat span of the roof. Digging out what he’d need, rags to wrap his hands, a flashlight, and a knife to deal with whatever came. Besides him Kakuna bathed silvery threads in violet venom. 

 

The hiss of them dissolving was mercifully quiet.

 

Below, definitely  not  quiet, came the sound of rustling. Either rat or brat the Rocket didn’t care. Perhaps the child was still looking for that nonexistent yard. Perhaps he was channeling his inner dustox, drifting about in subconscious need to bathe in the brightest light.

 

 Well, Giovanni wished the boy luck in finding some occupied room from which he would be caught by the home's resident. If not, well the bushes below  might  have been poison ivy. The child had lots of opportunity to test that out with all his thrashing about.

  

Regardless of whatever misadventure the brat found, it was on the brat. Venom's work done, rope little more than a smear of greasy off yellow thatm ight be mistaken for bird droppings, the Rocket peered through a second-story window. While not thrown open to let fresh air in the shutters were pushed back allowing a reasonable view of inside. Though dark Giovanni could pick out boxes and stacked sideways furniture. This attic was clearly used as storage and was safely unoccupied...

 

It’d do.

 

Pulling up found the window locked, or at least jammed. Luckily he didn’t even need his knife anymore for these little things.

 

“When you’re done, I’ll need a ‘needle.”

 

Beedrill, ever the overachiever, offered him a mouthful of poison-tipped needles in response. 

 

The offerings were significantly longer and tougher than those the bug had spat as a Weedle. Giovanni ran his wrapped hands over the offering before settling on a sturdy feeling one. Tracing a path, where the glass met wood, there was more than enough give to feel up the latch. The security measure was pathetic, it popped open with the barest of pokes. Seing his work was done Beedrill gently nudged the window open with a tap of its head then turned to it's trainer, wings spread, head tipped in a mute question...

 

Reaching out, twining his fingers through the bug’s antenna, the motion of affection was enough to coax the bug out of the window and clambering towards its trainer. The bug watched as Giovanni made something of a nest for himself. Wall of a second story to his back, packs covering one side, knife set in his lap so he could defend himself with a moment's warning. The Rocket patted the slope beside him and Beedrill, ever loyal, clambered over, clawed feet ticking against shingles.

 

It’d taken one moment, one motion, and the Rocket was reclined in a state akin to sleep, save his eyes were open. 

 

Well, half-lidded, Giovanni corrected himself. Seeing himself as Beedrill stared at him through compound eyes. The Rocket with his youth and numb expression of a trance looked like some kid riding out a high perched upon a roof. Normally he’d have his fedora tipped just so to hide the glaze of his eyes, his gloves pulled tight to dull any flicker of aura about his fingers while he dove deep into the mind of a ‘’mon, but the accessories he’d worn to hide his Gift weren’t present. Thus, unguarded, he looked a parody of a possessed youngling from a horror flick.  

 

Or perhaps the doomed stoner that always died first.

 

Not that his image mattered right now. There were no cameras on the building. The Legends hadn’t smartened up that much.

 

Still, it bothered him a bit, even as he nudged his intent into Beedrill’s mind.  

 

Biology was merciful in one way, built to reside in a hive mind no longer being a singularity in his own head was something of a relief to the bug and it was eager to obey the voice in his head. So, the Rocket dreamed without sleeping, an attachment and accomplice to the bug's eager crimes. 

 

Moments later Beedrill crept along the ceiling of the Kahuna’s home. Wings tucked tight, bladed forelimbs crunched under its body. Using the elbows of its bladed limbs and the whole of its legs the bug scuttled forward. 

 

Familiarity with the bug’s flight made this mode of travel plodding. Clinging to the ceiling was mildly disorienting, but the bug was perfectly content and its confidence pushed against the Rocket’s impatience, a near rebuke. Creeping down halls, pausing to gently nudging what ajar doors it found open with its head Beedrill ound thier goal a few rooms in. They didn’t even have to go down the stairs.

 

There’d been a study on the second story beyond the attic. And while he could have loomed over the cluttered desk and read through Beedrill’s eyes staying in trance too long had its risks. So he asked the bug to carry bits and pieces back and eased out of the link so his irritation wouldn't inspire the bug to take unnecessary risks. 

 

He came back to his own body with a jerk. There was a panicked moment when his mind shrieked his seeing wasn't right, there weren't lines where they were supposed to be, the world was tunneled, and dim, and... And it took a moment for him to realize that his view was normal, and human, and utterly right.

 

Once that panic died Giovanni closed his eyes, focusing on his breathing until the echoes of limbs and blades dimmed enough that running a hand over his own head and not finding antenna didn't set off a panic.

 

Easing down so he lay on his belly, packs and natural curl to his posture enough to dim the light so it wouldn’t be a blaring beacon to any on the road, Giovanni waited. The eager to please bug reappeared with a buzz and scrape. Looking up showed that Beedrill had stolen a small trash can and dumped a multitude of papers into it.

 

Recalling a line for the report, more of Oak's mummery, the Rocket grinned.    Basic tool using beyond even trained bug types  indeed. Leaning into his reward, a firm stroke from crown to wings, Beedrill buzzed. Then when nothing else was forthcoming, orders or otherwise, the bug lifted off. Hunger flaring along it's mind so hard that Giovanni felt his stomach clench in an echo. Nevermind he wasn't in tune with the Gift and sharing Beedrills thoughts just then.

 

“Nothing with a collar or being walked on a leash. No bipeds,” Because like the bird 'mon from before, Beedrill had trouble distinguishing humans from ‘mon. So the sanding rule kept the bug from being labeled as homicidal and put down. “Hunt for an hour, clean, then come back. Don't be seen. And don’t bring me anything back that’s bloody or alive.” Stomach clenching on nothing, the Rocket amended. “I wouldn’t be averse to some fruit   after   you clean up if you find any.”

 

Bobbing in the air, digesting its orders perhaps, the bug, for lack of better terms, buzzed off.

 

Digging through the reappropriated trash can found the bug had looted a study geared towards rather mundane paperwork. There'd be no League secrets here. 

 

Bills, IOUs, and a few medical statements were at the top. Newspapers with bits clipped out were set in a small pile to the side. And a novel that clearly needed to remain in the trash was the last thing Giovanni dug up.

 

And it took effort not to laugh at the last find.  

 

The Kantoian Menace ” by Harren Windfell, title written in red loopy letters, cover sugary pink. The man on the cover was black-haired, features something a mystery as his head was tipped back just enough to be hard to make out. Was he in the throes of passion or indigestion? What little Giovanni could make out of the man’s expression made an argument for both ideas all at once. Stereotypically bare-chested, with a black ripped shirt holding on by a prayer and belt whose buckle probably was a\ stylized R, Giovanni stared at the cover and hoped the poor man had been paid double his normal dues.

 

The second-hand embarrassment was that bad.

 

As for the model's “gangster tattoos” they were colorful geometric swirls that looked painted on. They told nothing of the man’s rank and standing or   Familiga  … Shaking his head at the sheer fallacy the Rocket considered throwing the book into the dark, or back in the trash. There was a peel of some sort inside, it’d be in good company. Using the book for anything, even as a paperweight, seemed like he was giving it too much attention for existing.  

 

Not wanting to lose his work to a gust decided him and he set the can on the newspapers, book within the can, as he started skimming over the bills.

 

“Seaside Hosp., date of service 13.15.12121, Melemele, H. City.”

 

Likely nearby, a glance over at the tests, blood draws and an x-ray made the Rocket’s lips quirk up. 

 

H. City’s “Seaside” was not some back alley “clinic” then; it was the first bit of good news all day.

 

It took effort, but he was able to get a tentative grasp on the geography of the region even without a map. 

 

Zoning disputes in one of the papers had granted him an idea of H. City, aka Hau’oli City’s scope and a rough idea of its midtown layout at least. There were malls, shopping centers, and the promise of a means to get rid of his stolen goods and get proper supplies warmed him deeply.  

 

Further reading had him running into the Aether Foundation a lot. Unfamiliar to him and his sources back home it was a common supplier, supporter, donor, even for a corporation. Some digging found it to be part tech corporation part charity front, which might have explained its many facets. But having run into it nearly every page rang an alarm bell in the Rocket’s head. 

 

He’d had a similar gimmick with Viridian Co. so Giovanni knew to ignore the opinion and set pieces that painted the organization benignly and did what he could to dig into the guts of the matter. Numbers, particularly money, talked and skimming what financial sections he could lead to some very odd results.

 

Record unemployment, the wage discrepancies being declared by the varied watchdog organizations were large enough to make the corporate businessmen wince, especially when cross-referenced to a population report.

 

What he was looking at was a recipe to guarantee economic stagnation if not all-out collapse if it was kept up. And it’d been a norm for near ten years. Had he pulled this in Kanto he’d of had unions at his throat, no amount of mob enforcers would have shut them up. The crime sections were awash in obscenely high youth crimes and contrasted against the sweeping “enlightenment” brought on by Aether… 

 

Flipping the papers closed and setting them back in order the mobster frowned, staring at nothing for a bit as he put what peices he could together. 

 

This smelled like a dead rattata. And confirmation could help afirm one way or the other… But if he was right, what of it? 

 

Twisting an entrenched power to do what he needed would not be an easy thing.

 

Still, he might be reading far too much into this. This was  one man’s  newspaper pile. Several months’ worth mind, with graphs giving insights years back if one bothered to review them, but the source was all coming from the same place. He’d need some confirmation, from multiple sources, preferably.

 

Lucky him Hao’oli seemed a promising place to start, and if that article he skimmed about road repairs was right it was a day’s hike at a leisurely pace away.

 

The hum of wings interrupted Giovanni as he was carefully stacking everything back in the bucket, stingers damp and tucked close, the bug dropped out of the sky to flutter down beside him.

 

“You weren’t seen?” A buzz, wings rubbed against wings, forelimbs followed suit with a near metallic scrape. To that sound, so utterly right, the Rocket hummed. “Good.”

 

Below there was a bellow, a high-pitched voice yammering a protest for being caught... Hau’d just wanted to   see-play-pet-pet-see?  the starters, and how was that so wrong?

 

And wasn’t that a hell of an opportunity? Killing his light Giovanni twisted to his feet, and Beedrill kicked up into flight at his heels.

 

“It’s   ten at night  , go to bed at the Center, right now!”

 

The resulting whining and tears would serve as a cover of sorts. While Beedrill could put the bucket back arranging the contents so they were in their proper places on the desk would be a bit beyond a creature that couldn’t read. So, while the two yelled outside, or rather the old man yelled and the boy kicked up a crying fit in response, Giovanni slipped into the Kahuna’s house.

 

He’d give himself five minutes after the yelling stopped to get out, and for after… He’d decide once they were done.

 

XXX

 

He’d settled on making his impromptu tent on a bend by the road beyond Iki. Away from the decline and its familiar forest that’d felt like home. 

 

It was also away from where rats were herded and far enough from his previous hunting grounds that any investigative body wouldn’t likely link him to his last clearing and its many graves. 

 

Settled between a rock wall and tree, he’d wound ropes around the tree at an angle, and nailed things down with a mix match of poison needles and sharpened branches. It wasn’t sturdy, and mercifully there’d been no winds or rain, so the “tent” had held.  

 

Still, after his horror of waking, by pseudo thunder and screaming rats in the distance that wasn’t distant enough for his sanity, he realized two things.

 

He needed to splurge on an actual tent the second he got to town. One with stakes, and poles, and insulation. The other, was that though his body was younger than it had been in decades, the obscene level of softness it’d been reshaped into was nearly as bad as mid-age and crippled by a chronic Legend-born illness.

 

Suffice to say he felt like utter hell. The heart attack his wake-up call near inflicted on him wasn’t helping.

 

The first drum strike on the stage top had him jolt from sleep. From laying prone to sitting up in a second, adlibbed pillows flying, he was awake, knife held in a shaking hand, panting. He waited for the flash of yellow, the static charged rat to lunge, a policeman's arcanine... 

 

When the thumbing ruckus resolved into a recognizable beat of some pop song he faintly remembered, Giovanni spat a curse and slammed the knife in its spot on his belt in utter disgust.  

 

Focusing on his breathing was hard when his pulse was in his temples. Between his blood pressure and the taste of his last meal of berries mixed mixing with halitosis, it was almost enough to make him gag. Once sure he wasn't going to puke Giovanni staggered to his feet, hurting and miserable, and he knew the oldest cure for misery.

 

Company, that he could make miserable in turn.

 

“Wake up!”

 

A whinny buzz from inside the tent was Beedrill’s response, that and pointedly  not  getting up.

 

For a moment, Giovanni considered storming in, ripping open the flap and forcing things. Considering how shoddily the tent was put together it’d likely come down around his ears. Huffing, in defeat, the Rocket picked a path alongside the path. His path took him away from the town, and after his walk through tamed scenery by the early morning's light, he found a largish-sized rock to rest. A kick confirmed the stone wasn’t part of the geo' family, so he sat. 

 

He was close enough that he could see over the edge of the cliff, to look down, without getting close enough to risk tumbling down. The depths were greenery mainly, an ariel view of lands akin to those he’d patrolled and poached. Ahead, well the bridge took the bulk of that unless one had a burning interest in depths, drops, or heights, all unattainable without a flying type. The structure was rope and boards, it swayed though there were no winds. As for the land in the distance, it was the same as what he was on. Tan sands, thick green grasses, interspaced with grey rocks. Save there’d been no effort in taming the flora across the gap. 

 

The tall grass was living up to its moniker of “tall” by being taller than the average man.  

 

As he watched from across the gap, breathing easy now, pulse tamed, he saw something tall and long-limbed shuffle about. When whatever was stirring things up didn’t go for the bridge, or the skies and swoop across to him Giovanni disregarded it. He wasn’t in the mood to add to his team and wasn’t hungry enough to go after some mystery ‘mon bigger than himself.

 

And Beedrill was content to sleep through the second fall of Silph it seemed.

 

Deciding he’d had enough of the scenery, Giovanni stood, rolled his aching shoulders, and tromped back to the tent. He’d strike it down, and if Beedrill didn’t wake up, that was its problem.

 

Repacking around the drowsing bug-type was a bit of an adventure. Digging up something tolerable to wear, too large jeans with precut knees, a striped shirt that set his teeth to clench. Baby blue with dark blue stripes, it looked like a knock-off of an Aqua grunt uniform, save twisted into a PJ top. Despite his disgust, the Rocket wrestled the too small thing on. The pants were too large, sporting stupid, pre-made, tears about the knees. Still they fit well enough he wodn't be holding his pants up as he wlaked, so he'd survive.

 

And trash the damned thing at the firt opportunity.

 

As for the rest of the fabric, he folded and bundled what he’d used as bedding and pillows. Digging out the bag of electronics he hunted up Moon’s phone. A press of the on button showed it to be working and at eighty percent charge. 

 

To that, the Rocket softened. It’d be safe to call Silver then without having to stop to let the thing charge. With luck, the phone could handle a call and last the whole day until he got to the city. Talking to Silver would be something to look forward to.

 

 Sliding the electronic bag back in, the cell phone slid in his pocket for immediate use once the packing was done, he sidled clothes about in the backpack. Bracing the fragile things, the things he meant to sell. Once that was done he worked in the ropes. They were more purple than not, and though his uncalloused hands protested each motion he picked the knots apart. Strain and suffering would build callouses, he just had to mindful not to cut himself least the purple part of the ropes change from “mild cosmetic touch” to “going to kill me if its sweat gets access to any ingress”.

 

Snug as a bug in its hammock of string shot and purloined pink audnido shirt, Beedrill tapped its bladed forelimb against the stone. The motion caused the bug's “hammock” to rock. A buzz of wings affirmed the creature was up, and though unable to blink or scowl the bug set his head to follow his trainer’s motions with a peculiar slowness and ire that felt decidedly grouchy.

 

Sleepy pulsed down their link, as the bug used Giovanni’s Gift to file a complaint.

 

“Do not tempt me.” The Rocket hissed. “Not until I’ve had a cup of coffee and we’re a mile from this pestilence hot spot in the making.”

 

Ropes coiled he shoved them at the pack's top, gathering the last of the blankets he folded them, hiding the envenomed binds. 

 

More than happy to get away from the folding Beedrill squirmed down from its self-inflected bindings and thumped on the ground to scuttle off. Antenna quivering, the bug walked in a slow tight circle, clearly feeling something wrong with its back if the halfhearted jabs with a stinger and the whined buzz up at its trainer meant anything.

 

“I am busy, can’t you wait?”

 

Clearly, Beedrill couldn’t.  

 

Unable to see what the problem was after patiently chasing itself in slow tight circles, head bobbing up in down in frustration, the bug stretching its wings. A thread of string shot snaped and the recoil smacked the bug’s antenna, making it wince.

 

Huffing an amused laugh, Giovanni left the bug to it and finished packing.

 

XX

 

Picking his way down the path, towards Iki and its rat problems, Giovanni had idle plans. 

 

Borrow a hose on the outside of some fool's house, do a quick clean up. Perhaps head to the 'Center for a cup of free coffee and buy something prepackaged and clearly not nibbled on by little fangs. 

 

Then he’d leave. 

 

If he moved quick enough he’d likely avoid the ceremony around this “challenge” and avoid whatever rival the Legends were curing up for him to wrangle with. And if the oblivious residents or their gym leader even noticed him, what of it? He could easily just keep walking. Most people were placid enough to be utterly frozen by such a basic tactic, and these Legend wrought fools in their fake world, he didn’t anticipate any of them adjusting fast enough to stop him.

 

Thus, fully preoccupied with idle plots he approached the last rise. Right before he’d descend into the heart of rat-filled Iki, near the hill’s apex, he stopped. A rather pretty young girl with silver eyes and in a sun hat was coming up the path towards him. She was preoccupied with a long satchel of some sort. The sun hued sports bag rustled and jerked ahead of her, making her a parody of a dog walker walking an invisible arcanine.

 

Still, despite suspecting some foolishness like an adolescent prank, Giovanni stepped aside. 

 

Old manners drove him to tip his hat in a mute salutation that’d gotten him through many early morning encounters before he was utterly unready to talk to anyone.

 

His fingers brushed his hair and he changed the motion to smoothing his locks instead. Still, despite her troubles, she recognized what he was doing. She smiled her understanding before going by.

 

Only to, by the sound of things, trip over her own two feet mere minutes after passing him by.

 

Well, that was her problem. 

 

Lips kicking up in near benign malice, Giovanni continued on his way or meant to. A few steps and there was a scream of “Nebby, that Beedrill doesn’t look nice! Don’t play with it!” stopped him dead in his tracks.

 

Her voice… That young woman’s voice it was… She had…    Holy Mother Mary , he near prayed, this  child   in this  never-never land   had  her  voice.

 

The child spoke with his wife’s voice. Grace Sakaki, who’d shed her family name all too eager to take up his own and leave her checkered history behind her. 

 

Who’d been dead thirteen years and counting. 

 

The tenor was younger, but the inflection and pitch were near perfectly the same that just hearing a few words was like feeling his heartbreak.

 

Then  what  she said hit.

 

And Giovanni swore, turning in his heel and  running.  Because “not nice” would be an understatement when describing his Beedrill. And, if by some insane chance it  wasn't  his 'mon, well the child was in obscene amounts of danger regardless if it was his 'mon looking for a snack or some wild thing looking to make a killing.

 

Chapter 9: Giovanni: A pleasure

Chapter Text

If there was any mercy in this abomination pseudo world it was that the child, bearing his wife’s voice, looked very little (precious little) like Grace.

Age distanced them, though at this moment he seemed younger, time-reversed, and all that was his curse for the moment.  But at that moment his mind felt infinitely older.

Experience with seeing a near generation grow up had trained his eyes to anticipate how potential could manifest.  Long-legged, long-necked, skin near glistening white, all tells of a… how had he heard it referred to?  A swanmay build?  There was a promise of near ethereal grace to this girl. With training and time, she might become one of those few blessed people considered a timeless beauty. 

As it was her dress hid her knees and obscured the fact they were knobby, probably scraped from a fall and there was nothing to grace to the girl as she staggered to her feet.  Though it was likely nerves rather than an upcoming growth spurt playing with her balance just then.  She seemed horridly timid, dangerously fragile just then.  It’d taken several minutes for her to understand that she could uncurl from where she’d fallen, never mind that her ‘mon, a black and blue star-speckled tuft named “nebby”  was placidly sitting at her side.  Hinting this had happened often enough the beast knew to wait her out…

While her altruism –she’d curled around her companion to shield it even as she fell- was an admirable trait in certain circumstances… Shown in someone this young… to this extreme… compiled with her instinctual fawning that’d make a deerling proud.   The hints were disquieting.

Her timidity and the fact that there were no callouses to this child’s hands as he pulled her up, served as another wedge between this girl and Grace.  Though her apologies, of wasting her time in that voice were like knives to the gut. Snapping his finger set  Beedrill to alighted upon a nearby tree, and startled her to silence.  Above them all, Beedrill forgoed scraping his blades for such obvious prey that clearly wasn’t worth it.  While the blonde child got combobulated Giovanni stayed kneeling. Allowing the vaguely amorphous thing that’d attached itself to the girl’s side as her starter to sniff his fingers and chirrup up at him.

It looked, vaguely mind, like a star-speckled hopip, save less solid, and looking at it directly made his head ache.

So he looked away as he stood, brushing his knees and sliding his hands into his pockets.

She was taller than Grace had been at that age, or so he supposed.  Grace had a small collection of school photos he’d flipped through a time or two, while they’d spent one afternoon reminiscing about their educations and plotted tame things, about how they were going to accommodate their child, perhaps multiple children, into a school and training regimen.

This legend wrought approximation, his rival he supposed,  was different, and each difference was a mercy. He tallied them even as listening to her chatter about nothing much at all sent him back, to the bittersweet give and take that’d been the whole of his and Grace’s relationship.

It’d never meant to be.

Grace had worked near all her life.  Menial jobs at first. Finances and lack of opportunity binding her to the most mundane of lives.  Only a lucky lottery ticket had gotten her enough resources to elevate herself into the proper circles and into his regard.

And yet she hadn’t caught his eye. Not in the traditional ways.  With her windfall, she’d aspired to an education, and her ambitions had been of an altruistic slant.  Human medicine, nursing to be specific, and she’d had the freedom to pursue her passion at whatever clinic she wanted.  She worked at the high-end hospitals, to test her skills, and spent chunks of her time volunteering at the poorest facilities to help those in need, refusing pay because she could and refusing to allow her services to be charged because to do otherwise would be amoral.

He’d found her a pretty face among a wash of them at some medical charity or other.  A reoccurring guest among the elite as Viridian was promoting itself as humane and medical break troughs and humanities went hand in hand. 

At first, he’d thought the elderly man on her arm her father, and for a grown woman to have such deep seeming familial attachments, had led to him dismissing her beyond her prettiness and lowered her status to that of a babble.  When her escort had proven to be a director or other, some supervisor of hers, the illusion of being attached to her family at the hip was dispelled.  She’d cycled through a small clutch of elderly men who looked nothing like her and been shamelessly using them as a means to access, and then poke and prod at the elite without being “available” and thus accosted by the powerful and preyed upon.

It was an interesting tactic.

 When he’d found… or rather not found the biological relationship between her and the first guest.  And discovered her angle and her source of shield…   Well, it was a curious mode of operation, to go as friends with such elderly souls.

And she’d seemed to genuinely like humoring the old curmudgeons she went with.  Spending her time trading catty work gossip and commentary on those about her to the delight of her companion of the evening. 

She continued to brush against his world all accidental.  And once affirmed that she wasn’t a professional escort -

And in such a humorous way no less! The Rocket had considering hiring her as such, thinking an evening on his arm would be a reprieve for them both when one of Giovanni’s rival, some oil dealer from Driftveil, had approached her to crassly suggest she spend the evening with him, rather than her present companion.  The lewd undertones hadn’t been missed, and her refusal, to word it gently, had been to shoot both men and offers down.  Calling any who’d hire her, a spineless reprobate, and suggesting a number of graphic medical conditions be inflicted on any who’d hire another as fucking eye candy.

Watching Clay slink off, tail between his legs, shirt front soaked as she’d ordered him to get back and when he hadn’t she’d lashed out. First with her glass’ contents, then by snapping up a knife from the table.  To the sight of bared steel Clay’d backed down, blearily baffled as to why she’d get herself in such a twist at such a friendly offer.

But he’d left, to shamble off and inflict his drunken self on some other poor soul.  And it’d been a treat to not only see an opponent debased but in such a way…   

-So she was not to be confronted or approached as an escort, noted.

His amusement was only mildly tempered when he’d gone to look up a few of the more obscure diagnoses and been sickened by the reading. 

Parties in Viridian were funerals with a festive spin.  Perhaps off-put by the natural greens and spring about the city the rich and famous who gathered in Kanto’s green heart wore colors long associated with funerals.  Black, near see-through, speckled with gems to the point of looking like cheap sequins made of diamonds, was the norm.  She skipped that memo, cycling through a few vibrant colors before settling into a flattering red, ankle-length dress that’d made it easy to trace her moments as she wandered about.

It was about the time she’d settled into her preferred colors that he’d admit he was attending more events just to see her.  That he was gathering tales and weighing approaches, and it’d been a year and a half that she’d gotten that lucky ticket.  And the wonder of her, such a low-class girl, being a part of the upper eulachons, was starting to wear thin in his circles. She’d been getting fewer invites, and he’d come to the realization that he’d have to approach, sooner rather than later, but there was a terror in doing so.  Clay wasn’t the only man she’d shot down in self-defense, and while he wasn’t like that, drunk or cold stone sober, he had his own reputation she might misinterpret

Though, on the other hand, she seemed oblivious to him, his regard, and really anything beyond her altruism and her amusements.

It was a curious and endearing sort of tunnel vision.

He’d normally not listen to the various chat shows and gossip rags given air time, but it made acceptable and educational background noise while he worked.  Winter was coming, a time when he focused on the social aspects of his public persona.  Not bothered by holidays, religious leanings,  or familial obligations, he’d been neck-deep in the workings of his syndicate until a day ago.  Unfortunately working among the dredges of society had its… messy aspects… And he was dealing with the residue of executions on his wardrobe.  While not quite neck-deep, it’d made a mess of his shirt and undershirt, as one of the fools to be killed had had the audacity to fight back.  He’d peeled off his shirt and was working off a pair of blood-stained gloves while the tv prattled on.  Rocket uniform shucked off and thrown upon a sheet of plastic, he made idle plans of burning, tossing one glove after the mess, and fighting a bit with the second.

Her name, and the word scandal, stopped him halfway with the other glove.  The horror that she’d raised was a tame thing. Not dressing as the other social climbers.  Some interviewer or other had pinned her down at her work, ignored her calls to security, to grill her on the many social norms she was eschewing.  Wasn’t she aware of the shame of not stimulating the fashion industry, by not trading her garb with every event… 

Her response, that this prattle was keeping her from her patient, and that the interviewer needed to go, now, was hardly marking a dent…  And, because she hadn’t been taught better, she made something of a fatal mistake, she’d responded to the question pressed to her. 

Why waste the money?  Her candor had caused Giovanni to huff a laugh, the other glove off and among the pile, relief both surprising and potent as it ran through him and the prattle went on.

Grace, a woman without many social ones, merrily alternated between tearing into the interviewer about how it was better to be frugal than flagrant and how he was compromising the care of her patient…  Then security had come and hauled the damned fool of an interrogator off and the media bit had tapered off, switching to other subjects.

Some affair or other, utterly expected and boring, only mildly intriguing how the married woman managed to step out with five partners behind her husband’s back in their home.

The alluded security holes of that caliber could easily be exploited for break-ins in due time, he’d have to send a Capo to look in on that.

The Rocket, near buzzed on a rush of relief, finished the chore of changing and gotten on with burning what evidence needed to be burned. The following interviews faded to mere background noise as he got back to work.

She favored flowers wound through her hair instead of the bejeweled clips, gemmed tiaras, of her betters. Deciding that if she was going to do “something with her hair” she was going to stimulate a part of the economy that wasn’t horridly wasteful. When winter descended she swapped the woven plants for nothing.  Picking warm scarves and fluffy muffs, and despite lacking style, the accessories had shown off a bit of her ingenuity.  Grace had slipped a blue tooth earbuds among the fuzz and synching the technology to her watch which she could activate by seeming to stretch.  She’d been listening to some talk piece before he’d approached; smiled and nodding at her companion who’d been awkwardly talking at her for a while now.  The man was some director’s son she clearly wasn’t interested in and wasn’t paying a whit of attention to.

And the man was that special type of bore not to notice he was being ignored. 

It seemed such a horrid way to spend one’s winter holiday, being monopolized by a boring bastard, so plucking a bit of courage up, Giovanni approached.  Amused that such a cunning woman would be content to seem vapid for a man she wasn’t going to be talking to again.  But then considering the last time she’d been obviously without an escort and Clay’s attempts at… getting her attention… And how no one had intervened.  She probably considered it safer to tolerate and play a fool than do without.

  She was clearly dying of boredom because she didn’t drive him off when he approached.  When he asked her something “borderline intelligent”, well that’d been it for her companion, who once recognizing Giovanni, was quick to leave and leave her unprotected as well.

“He’s a poor defense,”  Giovanni noted, dark eyes following the fleeing doctor, lips pressing into a scowl.

 The soft buzz of the broadcast cut off as she rolled her wrist and cut the signal with the flick of a finger that looked like a pet stretching gesture.  She considered her companion who’d merrily abandoned her, then considered him, clearly bemused.

“Yeah, he’s definitely not the best…  But I knew I was getting into when I got saddled with him.  An at-work lottery…  Anyways,” Shaking her head, red locks tickling her ears, surly, she tipped her head at him, hands on her hips.  “I got a taser, just in case.  I’m not going to need it, am I?”

“Hardly.”

It was a quick dart from here to the nearest refreshment table; she could adlib a weapon and drag up a scene in seconds. The rug under his feet could easily be pulled, though her dress would make the motions awkward…  He could see her weighing the various environmental factors to use against him, and he slid his hands into his pockets, letting her complete what mental tally she needed to feel safer.

“You could get a ‘mon, pass it off as a companion and no one would need to know it was meant as a guard animal, especially if you forgo the Arcanine line.  It’d be less obvious.”

“Think they’d let me in with a grimer?”

Just imaging the sheer chaos a grimer, or muk would kick up.  He smirked, envisioning rivals and lessers all trying to tactfully not wither away under the fumes and scream as art, rugs, and shoes were ruined in masse.

“Probably not.  But if you do let me know, I’ll bring a few antidotes along, just in case.”

And if a few of those antidotes were duds, setting certain enemies and inconsequential to die or have long lasting side effects… well it’d be an interesting springboard to launch a smear campaign against a few of his rivals in the poke-medical field.  Archibald’s organic flouted medicines were getting enough traction on certain crowds to be irritating, and a recall would likely beat the entreprenuers sales down enough to get them out of Celedon, and eventually out of Kanto without too much mob interference.

Really, he just wanted that bald man’s face off the billboard across from his office, if a few more odious irritants died as a result, all the better.

She smirked at him, obviously trying not to laugh and endearingly oblivious to the true slant of his thoughts.

“Who’d of thought there was something like humor under all that broody staring and dithering.”  She drawled and to that stab, at his pride he snorted.

“So you did notice me.”  He might have preened a bit for that, but her smirk had him rewind what she said.  Mirth felled, his face twitching in irritation as he translated from Kanto slang to Italian and realized what she actually meant.  “I was not being broody.”

To that bit of petulance, she rose an eyebrow, tipping her head up a bit because she was just short enough to need to do that to look at him properly.

“Whatever delusion gets you through your day, sweetheart.”

Then she left him, to carry on with what she’d later tell him, were her “ rich person rounds”.

As if her presence amongst them had been a duty and chore.

While she didn’t bring a grimer, her borrowed Kanguaskhaun made quite the impact.  He’d known about well before because she’d gone through the tiresome legalities of filling out all the paperwork to rent a beast from a company he’d owned that dealt in renting retired battlers for various charity or sportsmanship events as mascots. The request was so odd, she’d wanted to deck the thing out in a gown, and had asked for something with high tactile tolerance and affability for children, loud noises, and glitter…  It’d been so damned odd it’d landed on his desk rather than an underling’s. And he’d granted it with the request he be allowed to see the process and end results of all these odd caveats personally.

Which was how he’d found out where Grace worked on the weekends. And spent one amusing afternoon among the long-term care children in a hospital assisting them “make Kanga pretty” for some party of other that they could scarcely pronounce.

He’d ruined a perfectly good suit in the chaos, lost a shoe, and was finding glitter for days.

He could not imagine this child to have such spirit as his Grace.  And that revelation soothed some of the pain gripping his heart.  He’d humor her, perhaps linger a bit, because Grace would have wanted such and he wasn’t such a shoddy Gym Leader to throw children to the ‘yennas…  Then, once an appropriate amount of time had passed he’d leave her, hopefully, safer. But if not…  Well, he’d do what was reasonable to make sure she wasn’t in immediate danger when he left and that’d have to do.

 “If I may?”  He indicated the ground beside her, he’d coaxed her to sit upon a smooth rock after they’d walked a little way because she was limping, and she’d followed his lead woodenly.  Still, he was tired, and standing over her was more irritating than anything else.  So when she nodded he took a seat on the ground beside her, leaning against the sun warm stone, thinking of too much and too little, all at once.

“Th.. Thanks for saving us.  Me and Nebby, from your Beedrill. Not that we needed it. I’m sure he’s a nice.. um Bug Type and wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

To that Giovanni huffed a laugh.  “Oh no, it’s an utter avaricious-“  tipping his head up he considered the child and her age.  “-black hole. It’d of eaten your fluffball and you for a snack and gone for a  rattata for seconds if I weren’t around to slow it down and remind him that we can’t afford to empty out whole echo systems because you’re feeling peckish.”

The last he hollered at the tree.  Blades scraped then, irritation and a wordless assurance that if he’d have a settled nest/hive Beedrill wouldn’t have to go showing it’s superiority and hunger among the masses.  With a certain amount of hatchling weedles to tend to it’d hunt less, not more.  Lies, from first to last, and were he alone Giovanni’d of called the bug out on its Taurus shit.  As it was he rolled his eyes and ignored both the scraping lances from above.  And the fact that the girl wasn’t breathing.  She’d either fix it or pass out and her subconscious would fix it for him.

“You know, I don’t think I caught your name.”  She managed to squeak out, finding something like courage in acute discomfort and kicking her feet a bit as she sat… well not beside him per-say… but close enough that he scrunched a bit away from her least she miss and kick him by accident.

“Giovanni Sakaki, you?”

This was so different, so wrong….

Having stepped out “for some air” and mildly intoxicated, she’d hung rather unseemingly about the edge of a balcony.  Ground level, mind, so the fall wouldn’t be too great, but she was far gone and surprisingly melancholy.  A curious mix and it was a peculiar backhanded honor that she’d let him see her like this.

“Haven’t you hear of me?, I’m the luckiest bitch in Viridian, won two lottos back to back, and have all the mandibuzz of a region calling my phone.  I changed my number twice, block the bastards and they still won’t leave me alone.  I’m seriously considering changing my name, might slow the carrion eaters a bit.

“Lillie Aether.”

From over a decade ago, hearing her voice now brought the memory of her voice as and words as clear as the night he’d heard them.

“ ‘M, Grace Evens”

And he responded then as he did now, unable to shake off the fact that this echo was not a benign bit of whimsy, but somehow ominous.

“Well, regardless of how we’re meeting, it’s a pleasure.”

The child's resultant confusion to what must seem utter nonsense was more than understandable, still, he didn't explain, dare not explain, though she clearly wanted answers.

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