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The New Normal - 7-3
🕑 Added 2023-12-01 08:51:21 +0000 UTCThe New Normal – 7-3 – Psychic Revelations
Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay for much longer after Karen and Steven had finished up with their match, as enough time had passed that I had to head to my next appointment with mayor Henry.
That meeting went far smoother than I had hoped. When I asked about how we managed to get Mt. Moon under the authority of Cerulean, he told me that it had been quite simple and that no major issues really cropped up. Apparently, the leadership of Pewter City knew a losing fight when they saw one, and folded quite quickly.
As such, they didn’t put up much of a fight trying to hold on to their authority over Mt. Moon. In exchange, we promised some concessions in terms of discounts and priority purchasing rights for the resources found in Mt. Moon, which seemed to placate them.
I asked for more information regarding the security arrangements of Mt. Moon, and whether there was any strain on Cerulean for handling it. Henry assured me that there was a sizeable contingent of Jenny’s and rangers patrolling the entire region of Mt. Moon, always on the lookout for any poachers or trespassers.
But I wasn’t comforted by that just yet. I KNEW just how much of a big deal that the Fairy reveal would have regarding Mt. Moon, and how it was bound to be swarmed by eager trainers hoping to get their hands on the ‘new’ Clefairy. The current assignment of security just wouldn’t be enough.
And I repeated that thought to him. Without getting into any details, I told him that the security of Mt. Moon WILL be tested to its utmost limits very soon, and we had to be ready to ensure that we wouldn’t lose control of Mt. Moon to a horde of rabid trainers.
He gave me a very curious look, and it looked like he was holding back the desire to ask me why I thought so. However, he was wily enough to heed my warnings without asking any more questions. He said that he trusted me to not feed him bad information; that if I had decided to warn him, then the situation was serious enough to warrant such a response.
Unfortunately, simply knowing about the upcoming situation was a very different matter to actually being able to prevent it. Despite his earlier words, Cerulean just couldn’t manifest more Jennys and rangers out of thin air. They would have to be obtained from other places.
Luckily, as a member of the Elite Four, I had more than sufficient authority to relocate the Indigo Police, so long as those arrangements were reasonable, and I explained myself to Lance. That I had to slightly delay – I wanted to ensure that Oak and the others were okay with it before informing the Champion. I didn’t want to step on any toes, after all.
And with that, another day of meetings came to an end. I spent whatever remaining time I had catching up with my family and getting some training in, just so my Pokémon had something to do. I particularly wanted to test out Euphie’s new strength as a Sylveon, and she seemed eager to continue her sparring matches against Pixel, especially now that it seemed like she was its equal in strength.
It became clear that, with her evolution, Euphie was far more powerful than she was previously. Not only did she gain a plethora of fairly hard-hitting Fairy moves, which gave her a ranged option that she previously didn’t have, but her physical attacks had an added ‘oomph’ that really allowed her to hold her own against Pixel.
Of course, she was not anywhere close to being an Elite Pokémon yet, but this was still a significant step forward. Now with her evolution and her ability to use Fairy type moves, we could really begin to knuckle down with more specialized training in order to gradually get her up to a level where I could reasonably use her in my proper fights.
Sadly, Euphie’s evolution into a Sylveon meant that poor Ornstein was the only one left that hadn’t evolved. Not for a lack of trying, but it just seemed like he couldn’t get past whatever barrier it was holding him back from evolving. That’s why, outside of training with Euphie and Pixel, I made sure to dedicate time towards Ornstein to make sure that he didn’t feel neglected or left out.
I reassured him that his evolution was soon, he just had to not give in to despair and continue training hard. Which shouldn’t be a hard ask considering he had enthusiasm in spades.
With training done, I finally retired for the day, deciding to rest early. For some reason, I felt that tomorrow would be one of the busier ones.
==========
My gut instinct was quickly proven correct, as pretty much as soon as I woke up, I received a call from Lance telling me to head to Cinnabar Island. It was where the prisoners that I had delivered from Hoenn were being kept, and today was the day that they would be going through the Psychic interrogations.
Lance wanted the entire of the Elite Four there to oversee it and to our opinions. Lorelei would also join us over from Hoenn through video.
Thus, steeling my heart with a grim expression on my face, I made my way to Cinnabar Island as I prepared to witness the slightly inhumane practice of gleaning and potentially ripping information from their minds.
I truly thought that Lance was only able to get away with this because of how fresh the memory of Team Rocket’s acts of destructions was in the minds of the public and the committee. It was no wonder that the Hoenn League refused to employ such methods.
I didn’t let my mind wander too much as I landed on the outskirts of Cinnabar Island, where Lance had told me to be. It seemed like I was the first to arrive, so I spent a quiet moment just looking around at my surroundings, where there were still buildings aplenty. In the distance, I could see an unassuming building that, upon closer inspection, was actually heavily reinforced, with a small army of Jennys and their Pokémon patrolling the perimeter. That must be the prison.
However, the volcano was what really drew my attention. I knew that it was bound to erupt sooner or later, forcing a complete evacuation of the island, but that was not something I could prevent. I considered warning them of the impending eruption, but not only did I not know WHEN the eruption was going to take place, I didn’t have a single bit of evidence to back it up. And evacuations weren’t just things you could order without evidence.
Still, I resolved to bring up the possibility of an eruption to someone in the future. I didn’t know if any lives were lost from the eruption when it happened, but I hoped to at least give the public somewhat of a head start this time.
The distinct flash of light of a Teleport suddenly appeared next to me, and I turned to see who had arrived. It was Will.
“Greetings, John! Welcome back to Indigo!” He said with a smile, “Let’s hope today will reveal some important information!”
He seemed a little too excited for this, but I returned his smile anyways, “Let’s hope so too. Letting them get away leaves a sour taste in my mouth.” I admitted.
He nodded, “I understand. Many of my business friends wish for the same. It’s bad for business. It’s fortunate that you managed to root them out both here in Indigo and in Hoenn, though a part of me wished to join you in your efforts. It must have been a glorious thing.”
My eyes twitched slightly at his words. I wasn’t offended, far from it, but I felt like he had some overly romantic ideas of what dealing with criminals was like. Sure, the fame and admiration you got for doing it was real enough, but it was often not a pleasant thing to have to do.
Before I could say anything else, a long shadow extended from one of the nearby rocks and Agatha spawned out of it. She looked around for a brief moment before clicking her tongue.
“Che, Lance still isn’t here yet.” She grumbled, before turning to me, “John, hope you’ve steeled yourself. This isn’t the most pleasant of activities.”
“You’ve been through this before?” Will interrupted, looking curious, before he quickly corrected himself. “I mean, of course you have. You’ve been in the Elite Four for some time, after all. It’s no doubt you have plenty of experience to share around!”
Agatha ignored his flattery, but still gave him a short nod, “I have. And it would be wise for you to heed my words. Psychic interrogations are a…necessary evil, but they are certainly not for the faint of heart. Hopefully, nothing goes wrong today, if only to spare you younglings of the more horrific possibilities.”
Will seemed taken aback for a moment, but he quickly nodded in understanding, his previous carefree smile dropping into a serious frown. Good, it was better for him to go into this with realistic expectations.
The conversation fell into an awkward silence after that. Luckily, it only took a few moments later that a large shadow emerged from above and Lance landed on the back of one of his Dragonite.
He looked at us with a scrutinizing expression before speaking, “Thank you all for coming here today; distasteful as this task might be. I have Lorelei ready to join us through video, and the facility has already informed me that psychic interrogations are ready to begin. So let’s get this over with. Daylight’s burning.”
No one said anything else as we silently followed after Lance into the facility. The one thing that immediately stood out to me was the level of security that surrounded the facility; even WE had to submit to security checks despite our status as Elite Four. Only Lance got a free pass. The rest of us had to submit all but one of our Pokémon. Obviously, I kept Tyrant on hand.
Still, it was almost amusing to see Agatha scowling heavily at being told to surrender her Pokémon, only for the Jennys to completely ignore her glares. They weren’t intimidated.
With the security check done, we were escorted to a viewing area that had multiple Alakazam and Gardevoir standing about. Just below us was a single, small room that only had a steel chair as its sole furniture, where plenty of restraints and shackles were attached to it.
The entire room gave off an unpleasant sensation of inhumanity. And, looking around at my colleagues, they all sported grim expressions as well. Lance was in the corner of the room, speaking with the Jennys and fiddling with something on a secure computer before the image of Lorelei suddenly appeared on the computer screen.
“Hello all.” She greeted from what appeared to be the office of a Jenny, except that she was surrounded by soundproofing. It must have been a room specifically created for secure calls like this. We exchanged short greetings before we fell back into silence once more; none of us feeling like making casual conversation in such an environment.
And before long, the first prisoner was levitated into the room by another Alakazam. He looked scruffy, but there was no obvious sign of mistreatment. I was just glad that we didn’t go that far, and hoped we stayed that way.
As soon as the prisoner was forced into the chair, the many restraints and shackled clamped down on him, locking him in place. He struggled, but there was no chance of him breaking free from this.
Then the questions began, blaring through the speakers attached to the top of the room. All the while, a small group of psychics were staring intently at the lone prisoner, their eyes glowing a bright blue. In another room next to us, a small group of Jennys accompanied by Alakazam were all scribbling down notes that their Alakazam was retrieving and interpretating.
The list of questions began fairly standardly. They asked general questions like who their leader was, what they hoped to achieve in Hoenn, and what their future plans was. Unfortunately, this particular prisoner was likely one of the lower ranking grunts, because he didn’t know a thing.
A couple more non-standard questions were asked, such as what type of Pokémon he used, and questions about their training schedule and what it was like. After that, the Jennys asked us if we had any other questions before moving on to the next prisoner.
That kept going for a while. Fortunately, there were no ‘incidents’, and the prisoners managed to leave the room with their mind intact. And while the first few prisoners didn’t know much, we still managed to learn a few things.
For one, the existence of the three evil teams working together were confirmed, as the prisoners revealed that they were working in unison under a united banner. Thus, this proved my earlier suspicions to be true; Team Magma, Team Aqua, and Team Rocket were working together.
We also got insight into their training program, which was a lot more disciplined than we had been expecting. Their procedures made it seem more like a military program rather than anything typically expected of thugs and criminals. Even the way they used Pokémon were specialized to some extent for hit and run attacks and precision strikes.
This revealed two concerning things. First, the leaders of these teams were far more than just your usual street criminal, though by now it should’ve been fairly obvious already considering their scope of activities. Two, the amount of financial backing they must have to be able to fund all this was far greater than we had anticipated. Sure, we knew they were well-funded, but now we actually had a good idea of the scale of their operations.
Will was most taken aback by that. He remarked that the amount of funding that it would all take would be more than most businesses were able to afford. On the other hand, Lorelei remarked how lucky it was that they had to abandon most of it, which I agreed with. But I knew that until we really hit Team Galactic, they’d have it all back soon enough.
And thus, the process kept going, with more prisoners being brought in and psychically questioned. There were a few incidents where some of the more fanatical grunts, often from either Team Magma or Aqua, tried to resist the mental probe, leading to painful side-effects.
One prisoner thrashed painfully against his restraints as he tried to fight off the psychic incursion, but another Alakazam stepped in to forcefully hold him down so that he could no longer resist. I saw his eyes turn from defiant to glassy after a moment, and I was concerned that we had pushed a little too hard.
Fortunately, we didn’t, he just mentally shut down for a moment. He was probably in for a major headache, but the doctors we had on hand said he’d be fine.
Next to me, Will and Lorelei were both sporting uncomfortable looks on their face. Lance and Agatha were more stoic, though I could tell that they weren’t completely unbothered by what was happening in front of them either. I was probably in the same boat.
Still, that particular prisoner netted us plenty of good information. He had apparently been one of the higher up grunts on the ladder, which meant he had actually spoken to and knew about the upper leadership. He didn’t know who a few of the admins were, either because he never met them or because they were wearing masks, but he managed to name Maxie and Archie as the boss of Team Magma and Aqua respectively. His mind was also able to form a basic description of their appearances.
“That’s good news, right?” Will commented, “Now that we know who they are, we can track them down and nab them before they do anything else!”
“No, not exactly.” Lorelei denied, “If there’s one thing I’ve learnt since coming over to Hoenn, is that these criminals are remarkably good at not leaving a digital trail to follow. Their source of funds is always heavily disguised, and I doubt that chasing after their identities will lead anywhere.”
However, it was the next reveal that was more alarming. We had routinely asked every prisoner about the Pokémon that they used, and they mostly answered with Pokémon commonly found in Hoenn or Indigo. Yet, this particular prisoner revealed that they also had access to a whole variety of Pokémon from Sinnoh as well, such as Purugly and Skuntank. They just were not deployed in Hoenn.
And for good reason, because that was a very important clue that we had towards figuring out the identity of the backer.
“That just reinforces our theory that they’re from Sinnoh.” Lance concluded, in line with my own thoughts, “There’s no way that they would have access to Sinnoh Pokémon unless they were.”
“They could be getting them from the black market.” Agatha challenged, but Will shook his head.
“Not with these kinds of numbers.” He stated, tapping his finger against his elbow, “The logistics would be impossible, not to mention the cost and the unreliability of relying on black market vendors. It just wouldn’t work.”
“And we’ve already done a thorough search of potential black-market sellers here in Hoenn.” Lorelei added, checking through a few of her notes, “The few we’ve located had never come into contact with anything from Sinnoh. With their borders not open, getting goods to and from there is nearly impossible at the moment.”
“Damn it all.” Lance grumbled, rubbing at his face tiredly. “I guess I have to inform Bertha as soon as possible then. And probably Sidney as well. They need to be told so that they can be prepared.”
Then, an idea popped into my mind, and I reached out to a nearby Jenny. “Hey, can you ask the prisoner if they have ever spotted any identifying logos from their backer?” I hoped that they would have used the signature ‘G’ that was the logo of Team Galactic.
She relayed the question, but unfortunately there was nothing. I guess I should have known better than to expect the criminals to just leave out things like that.
Then the prisoner was escorted away, and more took his place. That carried on for a while longer, and we mostly received repeats of what we already knew. Fortunately, there was another prisoner that seemed higher up in the ladder too, as he knew that they were planning to move to Sinnoh as soon as the operation was over, confirming our earlier thoughts.
He proved to be another font of information, but it was information that all of us wished we didn’t hear. He was someone who was fully aware of the true purpose behind why they targeted the Orbs, and they revealed to us their intentions of making use of the supposed mind control abilities of the Orbs to eventually be able to develop their own item to gain full control over a Legendary to remake the world.
“…What the fuck.” Agatha blurted out, uncharacteristically shocked. There was no sign of her usual crassness. Her shock quickly turned to anger, “Are these madmen INSANE?! That’d doom the world!”
The rest of us were doing no better. Even I, with my meta-knowledge, had a bitter taste in my mouth with my suspicions confirmed.
“Maybe things won’t be as easy as they make it sound?” Will suggested, trying to stay optimistic, “After all, it should not be that easy to gain control over a Legendary.”
“Even the idea of awakening a Legendary itself is a terrifying prospect.” Lance disagreed, unknowingly channelling my own words to Drake from back in Hoenn, “The Blackthorns have always described Legendaries as forces of nature, mostly uncaring to human nature and laws. Who knows the destruction that they could unleash? Especially if angered from a failed mind control attempt.”
“How do we beat a Legendary?” I dared to ask. Obviously, the methods of just beating them up with our own Pokémon weren’t going to work. Legendaries were on a vastly different level than regular Pokémon. Even Tyrant and Emperor, Pokémon that I consider to be at the very top of a Pokémon’s achievable strength, would be like ants to them. Especially for the creation trio, which I suspected they intended to make use of.
“With another Legendary.” Lance replied seriously, getting nods from the others, “And you don’t ‘beat’ them. You just placate them. There is no ‘winning’.”
“…Then I guess we better stop them before we get to that point.” I stated. “We really should make this our top priority.”
“Naturally. This supersedes everything else.” Lance agreed, nodding. “I think I better inform my counterparts as soon as possible in both Hoenn and Sinnoh. This isn’t something we can cover up.”
“The public needn’t know, though.” Agatha commented with a frown, “No need to scare them and cause panic.”
“Is there anything I should focus on in Hoenn? While I’m here?” Lorelei asked seriously, looking around at all of us.
Lance thought it through for a moment, but eventually let out a sigh. “Even though we know the threat these teams represent, we can’t do much about them unless we can locate them. Just keep doing what you’re doing in Hoenn with the International Police; now more than ever we need to make sure that we’re all on the same side.”
Lorelei nodded firmly, and Lance turned back to us. “Right, this has been an enlightening session. I’m going to have to do some damage control as soon as possible, so I’ll be contacting you all shortly. I’ll have the Jennys fill me in on anything important, which I will pass on to you all when necessary.”
His eyes narrowed into slits, “And, I do not think I have to remind you of this, but you are NOT to tell ANYONE of what you informed here. Not your friends, not your family, not the Gym Leaders, and not your counterparts in other regions. This is to be kept TOP SECRET! AM I UNDERSTOOD?!”
His voice flared at the end, and I almost instinctively took a step back from his forcefulness. But we all nodded solemnly, all of us recognizing the importance of this matter. Satisfied with our response, Lance thanked us again before making his way out.
We followed suit, though we had to take a detour to pick up our Pokémon from when we had surrendered them earlier. All the while, my mind was a mix of opposing emotions.
On the one hand, I was pleased that the psychic interrogation revealed to my colleagues the true threat that these evil teams represented, and that they would be acting seriously to stop them. On the other hand, I hated the fact that we had to deal with a threat such as them in the first place. The prospect of facing a Legendary was a nerve-wracking one.
I just hoped that we could stop them before it ever got to that point.
A.N. This is probably one of the darker chapters I’ll write for this story; things shouldn’t get any darker than this (outside of OMAKEs). I just felt like to gloss over the idea of Psychically ripping information out of minds would be too blasé.
As usual, future scenes that might have psychic interrogations will not be this detailed. I just wanted to highlight what it would be like. And yes, now that the other Elite 4/Champion have now realized the true threat of these evil teams, they’ll be taking things even more seriously now.
After all, a doomsday threat like that HAS to be taken seriously.
This chapter has been BETAed by Allute! Cheers!
Comments
Juicywafflepancake
Regigigas would be nice.
Cerber
If nbly John was able to befriend or catch a legendary himself
