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The New Normal - 6-5
🕑 Added 2023-11-03 12:20:42 +0000 UTCThe New Normal – 6-5 – The Hunt Continues
We made use of the time where the Jennys were parsing through all of our collected information to rest up. Drake and I knew we were going to be pushing our Pokémon very hard over the next few days, so we cherished any available time to take a break.
Drake got admonished by Wallace for his ‘over-enthusiasm’ when it comes to dealing with the grunts. But I could tell that Wallace was only telling Drake off because he had to, and not because he was genuinely upset with Drake hurting the grunts too much.
Drake shot me a thumbs up after Wallace hung up.
Of course, that didn’t mean that we weren’t discussing things while we rested. And we had slightly differing opinions on what we should be prioritising.
“Our goals should be prioritising the infrastructure of these teams.” Drake argued, “These fanatics are far too entrenched into Hoenn, and we need to make sure to destroy all of their foundation so that they won’t be able to recoup their losses.”
“But a decapitation strike against their leaders should be a bigger priority.” I tried to argue, “Yes, they’re much harder to find. But I guarantee you that without their leaders, their grunts will be nothing. They will have no direction.” And I knew that the true danger behind the evil teams were the insane ambitions and determination leaders, not their individual strengths.
“And how are we going to find these leaders, John?” Drake shot back, “You can’t expect us to hold off on raids just for the small chance we locate them. I get that taking them down is important, but we can’t just spend time overanalysing every single clue to try to find them, nor waste time trying to set up bait to lure them out. No, we need to strike back as hard and as fast as we can.”
I frowned, but I eventually yielded to Drake’s logic. He had more experience at handling such matters than me, so I followed his expertise.
Drake sighed as he patted me on the shoulder, “I appreciate your concern for the state of Hoenn, and I get that you’re worried about whatever data they were able to retrieve from their scanners. But things don’t always go your way; you’re going to have to adapt to situations like this from time to time where you’re on the backfoot.”
“I understand.” I nodded back.
“Good.” Drake smiled for a moment before his signature frown returned, “Then what do you think they’ll be doing about the Porygon research? They must have stolen that for a reason.”
“Mass production of unstable, yet powerful Pokémon to use to fight against us.” I instantly replied, “It’s not cheap, but Porygon ARE Pokémon that can be produced entirely from scratch. This means they don’t have to take risks wandering outside of their bases to capture Pokémon for their grunts and are able to just produce it from their facilities.”
“Wait, how powerful are these Porygon anyways?” Drake interrupted to ask, “I know you have that Porygon2, VERY creative name by the way, but I heard from Joseph that they found a more powerful, but unstable evolution to Porygon2?”
“Yes, Porygon-Z.” I confirmed, “…Imagine if you traded your Pokémon’s mental stability for raw offensive power. Porygon-Z are powerful Pokémon, but due to their mental instability I doubt they’ll ever be well-disciplined or even be able to obey anything other than the simplest of commands.”
“Ah, so they’ll be like your standard artillery barrage of ranged attackers then.” Drake nodded in understanding. “Well that’s just fucking great – but that only emphasizes the need to shut these bastards down before they can get started on production.”
“What I’m more afraid of is the hacking ability that having Porygon will provide them.” I added with concern, “It’s not completely all-powerful, and the Porygon WILL have to be trained up to get good at it, but it’ll give them a significant boost to any technological espionage that they’ll attempt. Fortunately, I seriously doubt they’ll be able to mass produce that many Porygon nor train them up anytime soon.”
Unlike what I initially believed, Porygon were not automatic super hackers just because they were created out of data. It was the same as how humans didn’t have full understanding of other humans despite being the same species. It still took time for them to learn the intricacies of hacking. But Porygon just picked it up faster, which was still very valuable to have.
“…Technological security is outside of my comfort zone.” Drake admitted, “I’ll inform Wallace to help look out for this, but I think this is something Joseph might be help out with.”
He stared at the clock nearby, “You should get some sleep, John. We have a long couple of days ahead of us.” He told me, “Oh, and I just remembered. I need to tell Wallace to move the Orbs from Mt. Pyre to a safer location. I think I’ll get him to store the Orbs with himself for the time being; I can think of no safer place than that.” I nodded at that prudent suggestion.
The next day, we both awoke early as we headed straight to the Jennys to inquire about any updates regarding other locations for the grunts. Unfortunately, we got a little more than that.
“I heard from other branches of Jennys that they’ve been diverted to help control the protests that have broken out against Silph Co’s alleged espionage attempt.” A Jenny informed us, “The protests aren’t very serious for now, but there are fears that the longer that we don’t hear a proper response from Silph Co, the worse that these protests might get.”
“Shit.” I muttered, “Thanks for letting me know. Let me make a call.” I walked away and dialled up Giovanni.
“Giovanni, I hope you’re making good progress on clearing Silph Co’s name.” I told him as soon as he picked up the call, “I don’t mean to rush you, but things aren’t looking great here in Hoenn. The longer this goes on, the worse it’s going to get.” I quickly described the protests that were taking place around the region.
“I have already prepared a public statement that I will be making tomorrow.” Giovanni responded firmly, “In it, I will be revealing to the world that the accusations have been completely false, and that the evidence against us has been manipulated. I have also conducted a formal audit against the company to prove that no such payments have been made towards Team Rocket.”
“Are you sure that will be enough?” I asked back, trying to make sure his confidence wasn’t overblown. I knew Giovanni could be prone to arrogance at times.
“I’m confident that, at the very least, it should placate most of the public in Hoenn.” He reassured me, “After all, Team Rocket don’t have the most stellar of reputations, so any kind of formal refutation should be sufficient to discredit their claims.”
“Alright, thank you Giovanni. I look forward to the good news tomorrow.” I thanked him before hanging up. Drake, who had been overhearing the call, nodded to me.
“I’m glad you have some trustworthy allies, John. Competent and trusted allies certainly make things easier.” He smiled, “I should probably send Giovanni a gift or something for helping out like this.”
“I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.” I replied, before turning serious once again. “Any news on the hideouts?”
“Yes, we got lucky and managed to recover a whole bunch of locations from the data servers.” Drake responded with a frown as he pointed at the map where the Jennys had marked down the locations of the bases. Many of them were on the outskirts of major cities, but there was one particular base that seemed to be in the centre of Slateport City.
I studied the map at the moment, concern lining my face, “I’m very concerned about attacking that base in Slateport. There’s a huge risk of collateral damage.”
“Let us handle it, John.” One of the Jennys spoke up, “We’ve been trained to handle threats like these while minimizing collateral damage. We can do this.” The other Jennys nodded in agreement. I shot Drake a look and he gave me a slight nod.
I turned back to the Jennys. “Thank you, then I’ll leave that one to you.” They nodded and one of them starting barking order as a group of them rushed out.
“John, you and I should split up.” Drake suggested, “There are too many locations to hit for us to go together. Just bring a few Jennys each, but I’m sure you can handle it.”
“Are you sure we can’t bring in the other Elite Four members?” I asked with a frown.
Drake shook his head, “I spoke to Wallace last night before heading to bed. He said that our early success has bit us in the ass. Because we seemed to have the situation handled, the Committee are now even more insistent in putting their fucking heads in the sand and pretending that the situation isn’t as big of a shitshow as it really is. They won’t be authorizing the other Elite Four to be sent out – no matter how much the others want to help. They think that this way, we can ‘avoid panic’ or whatever fucking nonsense they’re still trying to peddle.”
“Fuck.” I commented, “Fine, we’ll do it ourselves.”
“That’s the spirit.” Drake chuckled, though I could tell it was slightly forced. “Come on then, pick your targets. And happy hunting.”
And with that, Drake and I split up the targets between us, and then we were off. I set off on Port with a few Jennys on their Swellow trailing after me for one of the bases on the outskirts Dewford Town.
However, as soon as I arrived, I quickly realized that unlike when we hit that first base, these grunts KNEW we were coming. And they were ready for us.
A small group of grunts were waiting for us outside the base, accompanied by their Crawdaunts, Mightyena, and Golbats. The Crawdaunts immediately fired off a barrage of Ice Beams as they tried shooting us down out of the sky, and the Golbats took to the air and began firing off Air Slashes as they tried for the same.
“SPLIT UP!” I commanded to the Jennys, “We need to land!” In order to cover the Jennys, I released Klee onto Port as well. She immediately created a large Light Screen that was able to absorb most of the incoming hits. And Port, being a Water/Flying type, wasn’t particularly vulnerable to Ice Beams anyways.
“Ice Beam, Port! Knock out those Golbat!” Despite not being specifically trained for battle, Port had still spent enough time around my other Pokémon to fight back if he needed to. As we continued our descent, he let out a sweeping beam of Ice that was mostly used to cut through any of the incoming Air Slashes and to force the Golbat to dodge out of the way, buying time for us to land.
Around me, some of the Jennys had already landed, only to immediately be swarmed by the Mightyena that had been patiently waiting for them. In response, they sent out their Arcanine and the fight turned into a brawl as the two groups began to fight. In the distance, I saw a few grunts trying their best to run away while carrying a few briefcases of something.
I was not going to allow them to escape.
“Klaus!” I sent out him out as soon as I landed, pointing towards the escaping grunts, “Go after them! Don’t let them escape!”
With an affirmative snort, Klaus began leaping through the air on psychic barriers as he chased after the escaping grunts. The Golbats and Crawdaunts tried to stop him, only to be given a harsh reminder of who they SHOULD keep their focus on as Klee sent a flurry of Thunderbolts that crashed down onto them. A few Golbats fell out of the sky as they were struck down by the supereffective attack.
“Port, support Klaus!” I ordered, thinking that his speed would be more useful there. “The rest of you, come and fight!”
My whole team, minus Ornstein, emerged around me. In the meanwhile, the Jennys had already taken down the Mightyena and now joined me in the fight against the remaining grunts. Both sides charged at each other as the grunts refused to surrender to overwhelming numbers. They were met with a full onslaught of rocks, flames, and lightning. And fists.
The fight was brutal, but ultimately short. They stood no chance against our combined Pokémon, and they were quick to be defeated. Furthermore, the grunts that had tried to scape had all been forcefully knocked out by Klaus and Port, and we managed to retrieve the money that they were trying to hide away from us.
It was another successful attack, but it was only the first of many. I only had a few moments to rest as the Jennys quickly arrested everyone, and then we were off again to our next location.
===========
The raids continued. The grunts were increasingly prepared for our arrival, and it had become almost routine that we were met with an onslaught of attacks from the grunts as we neared their base. But the outcome was always the same, the grunts never really outnumbered us too much and our Pokémon were always leagues stronger than theirs, allowing us to overwhelm them in a straight up fight.
And it was because of these series of successes that I may have gotten overconfident. I thought that the raids would always proceed in a similar fashion, so I didn’t think that the grunts would have the coordination to try to adapt to our plans.
And suddenly, as I was flying over the outskirts of Pacifidlog Town with the Jennys towards our next base, I saw in the distance a cloud of small dots suddenly take flight from the floating town. Neither myself nor the Jenny’s really paid much attention to this at first and continued flying away from the town, until we realized that the dots were slowly getting close to us.
And then, suddenly, I realized what those dots were. But it was too late, and I found myself surrounded by a small swarm of Golbat-riding grunts, who subsequently released even more Golbats and Weezing. And as soon as I saw the sheer number of Pokémon arrayed against me and my small group of Jennys, I realized I was in serious trouble. This was nothing less than a planned ambush.
“INCOMING!! DIVE AND DODGE!” I shouted out to Port as a flurry of Air Slashes narrowly missed us.
The Weezings that were in front of us tried to incapacitate us as they expelled a cloud of Poison Gas that Port nearly flew into. Luckily, he had the reaction speed to use a quick Defog that quickly dispelled the poisonous gas before it could poison him.
But the Weezings weren’t done yet, and they tried again as they shot out a barrage of Sludge Bombs. However, their attacks were slow, nor could the Sludge Bombs travel very far, and Port was easily able to swoop out of the way and out of the line of fire.
However, the Jennys weren’t as lucky as I was. Their Swellow clearly were not actually trained for battle, especially not in such unfavourable conditions, and many of the Jennys found themselves falling out of the sky as their Swellow were quickly taking down by a series of attacks by the grunts.
I grimaced, a part of me wanted to prioritize escaping this obviously pre-planned trap by the grunts. But I refused to allow a Jenny to fall into the deprivations of these grunts. And so, I turned course and moved to protect the falling Jennys. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any Pokémon that could fight in mid-air and help them.
“Come out and protect us!” The fact that we were flying over the deep blue ocean of Hoenn meant that I was unable to make use of my stronger Pokémon, such as Vordt and Tyrant, because they couldn’t fly. Therefore, I was forced to rely on my three Pokémon that COULD fight in the air, namely Klaus, Zephyr, and Pixel. There was just enough space on Port for Klee or Luna to also join in as well. I chose Klee due to the more favourable type matchup.
I ordered my Pokémon to try and shield the Jennys as they fell and take down the enemies surrounding us, but things were looking grim. Heavily outnumbered as I was, and without my strongest Pokémon available, this was going to be a very difficult battle.
“BLISS!” Klee shouted as Gravity suddenly intensified in an area around us. A huge group of Golbat suddenly fell out of the air as they were pushed down by the intense Gravity, unused to flying in such conditions. Simultaneously, her eyes flashed blue, and a Light Screen formed in front of me, protecting me from a barrage of Air Slashes that just barely got blocked in time.
In the meanwhile, Zephyr let out a screech as he formed a huge Hurricane in the air that tore through the grunts’ ranks, forcing their Pokémon to dodge out of the way or simply be consumed within the devastating Hurricane.
Klaus prioritized catching the falling Jennys with his Psychic. As soon as he had them safely within his Psychic grasp, I gave him a new command.
“Teleport them out to safety! They can’t fight like this!” I ordered Klaus, who looked unhappy with my order. He must have wanted to stay and fight, but he knew better than to gainsay at this moment. With an affirmative snort, he disappeared alongside the Jennys as he Teleported himself out of the fight. I breathed a sigh of relief as the Jennys were safely removed from the fight.
“BLISSEY!” Klee suddenly shouted out in an alarm, and I turned to see a diving squad of Golbats coming straight at me with their Brave Birds. In those few seconds, I realized that THIS was the whole point of their trap. They had wanted to take ME out specifically, by any means necessary.
Klee wasn’t able to shift the Gravity field fast enough in time to stop the diving Golbats. Pixel stepped in and tried to fire off a Thunderbolt to shoot them down. One of the diving Golbat was clipped in the wings and fell out of the sky, but the rest kept coming. And Zephyr was too entangled dealing with the Weezing to be able to help out.
I immediately ordered Port to perform a dive to try to get out of the way, but the Golbat were coming in too quickly for me to move out of the way.
And then, in a move that I will always be grateful to her for, Klee forcefully shoved me backwards as she stepped in front of me. With determination lining her face, and a slowly forming Protect shield shimmering into existence in front of her, she threw herself in front of me, using her body as a wall that separated me from the incoming Golbats.
The Golbats came crashing into her, slamming into her hard with their Brave Birds. Her hastily formed Protect shield shattered instantly, but it managed to block one of the attacks. However, the Golbats kept coming, as if they had perfectly lined themselves up to attack one after the other. Klee cried out in pain, but even as she stumbled backwards as the incoming Brave Birds slammed into her again and again, she continued to hold on.
I saw Klee’s legs wobble as the injuries built up. She was breathing heavily, and I could tell that she was in no condition to even form up another Protect shield. But she continued to stand in front of me, her arms outstretched, and her eyes alight with pure and unyielding resolve. She would protect me with her body until she could stand no longer. And she continued to hold on.
Even as a few of the other Golbats started to fire Air Slashes at us to try to snipe me out of the sky, leaving a litany of cuts on Klee’s body as she stood in the way of the attack, Klee continued to hold on.
I knew that if it wasn’t for Klee’s determined protection, I would be knocked out and in a similar state as the Jennys, likely badly injured as well.
And so, with a mixture of gratitude and resolve swirling in my heart, I promised I would honour Klee’s determination. One of the Air Slashes managed to sneak past Klee and left a small cut on my shoulder as it glanced past me, but I ignored it and quickly took stock of the fight. I noticed that Zephyr had torn up a majority of the Weezings that the grunts sent out, their slower speed making them no match for Zephyr’s blitz of attacks. I moved to redirect his focus.
“Zephyr, Whirlwind! Blow them all away!” “Pixel, continue using Thunderbolt!”
Letting out an affirmative cry, Zephyr gathered up a huge vortex of wind within his wings and unleashed a huge storm of wind that blew everything away, and Port barely managed to swoop out of the way to not get caught up in the powerful Whirlwind. Not letting this opportunity go to waste, Pixel continued firing off Thunderbolts, striking down the surprised Golbats as they were blown away helplessly by the Whirlwind.
The Whirlwind achieved what I wanted it to, which was to halt the grunt’s momentum and to buy us some breathing room to recover. As soon as the Golbats were forced away, Klee collapsed onto Port, her duty finally completed.
“You’ve done well.” I muttered to her with pure gratitude in my eyes, “Thank you for everything, Klee.” I withdrew her into her Pokéball, allowing her a much-deserved rest.
In her place, I sent out Luna. The battle was still not over yet.
And almost in perfect coincidence, I felt a shimmer of Psychic energy appear besides me as Klaus Teleported back into the fight. I nodded towards Klaus as I took stock of the enemies that were still arrayed against us, and I realized that all they had left were their Golbats, and in much diminished numbers. Apparently, Pixel had been doing a good job sniping them out of the sky with its Thunderbolts.
If these were your standard criminals, they would have backed away seeing that they had already lost a good majority of their Pokémon and that my Pokémon were still in good fighting condition. But these were fanatics, and I knew in my mind that they were going to fight to the end.
Instantly, Luna reformed a double layer of Light Screen and Reflect in front of us, ready for the incoming assault once again. Seeing our reformed defences, the Golbat hesitated slightly, but were pushed forwards by the unrelenting determination from their trainers.
“Follow Me, Luna!” “The rest of you, blast them down!”
However, taking no chances with my own safety, Luna drew their attention with a Follow Me, forcing the Golbats to have no choice but to direct their attacks against my well-protected Luna, only to be shot down shortly afterwards by a burst of Thunderbolts and Psychics from my team.
Seeing their brethren being knocked out so quickly transformed the Golbats hesitation into fear. They refused to be knocked out and fall into the watery depths below. Nor did they have enough loyalty to their trainers to perform what was effectively a suicidal last-ditch dive towards us.
Their trainers may have had the fanatical zeal to charge in regardless of the costs to themselves, but their Pokémon did not.
And so, in an act of what I considered to be a mixture of cowardice and wisdom, the Golbats turned around and flew away from the fight, dragging their trainers along with them. Their trainers railed and protested against their retreat, but their mounts refused to listen to them, and they slowly disappeared into the horizon as they flew away.
I was tempted to chase after them, but I decided that I had already pressed my luck enough today. There were far too many occasions where if I had nearly been hit by a direct attack. And if it was not for Klee’s pure determination, I may have been knocked out of the fight entirely and severely injured.
And as the adrenaline gradually faded, I suddenly felt my arm flaring up in pain. I turned and realized that the earlier cut by from the Air Slash was much deeper than I initially thought, and my arm was bleeding profusely. Luna shot me a look of concern, but I waved her off.
That, coupled with the sudden reminder of my mortality, I decided to instead check up on the Jennys to see how they were doing. Giving Port a few taps, we slowly flew downwards back to Pacifidlog Town, and Klaus directed me to where he had deposited off the Jenny’s.
As I landed, I was immediately greeted by the sight of a few Nurse Joys running around with their Chansey and tending to the Jennys, who I realized were also injured from the attack. The Nurse Joys suddenly spun towards me as soon as they noticed my injury.
“Elite John! You have to rest!” They admonished me and practically forced me into a makeshift bed that they had set up. “We understand that you have to be rushing around, but you have to take care of yourself. Do your Pokémon need to be healed?”
I nodded, caught up in their pace. But then I shook myself out of it and asked them, “How are the Jennys?”
“Some worse than the others. One was caught in a Poison Gas by a Weezing and needed to be rushed to Sootopolis for more intensive care.” She informed me as she carefully disinfected my wound. I winced as I felt the sting of the alcohol. “The others were had the wind knocked out of them as they fell off their Swellow. They’re technically perfectly healthy, but we wanted to check up on them just in case.”
I frowned as I heard that one of the Jennys was badly hurt in a trap that was set out for ME, and I felt guilty that I unintentionally dragged them into it. Nevertheless, I thanked the Nurse Joy as she finished covering my wound with a bandage and called up Drake, putting my guilt aside for the time being.
“John, I know you’ve just been through a lot of shit, but if you’re doing okay I need you to quickly heal you and your team up and get back to Mt. Pyre as soon as possible.” He told me in a rushed tone.
“Why? What’s wrong? And I’m fine, they just nicked me in the shoulder.” I responded back.
“We collected a few phones from our raids, and I was just told that the grunts are planning another raid at Mt Pyre for the Orbs.” He explained, “But this time, the bastards aren’t sneaking in. It’s going to be a full on aerial assault.”
As I listened to Drake, the pieces clicked together in my mind, “They must have tried to knock me out of the fight for long enough so that they could conduct their raid at Mt. Pyre without me to interfere.”
And yet my gut was telling me that this wasn’t the full story. But I didn’t have time to think it over any further for the time being. Luckily, we had already removed the Orb from Mt Pyre and replaced them with false replicas.
“Perhaps, but we can leave the speculation for later.” Drake replied tersely, “If you’re healthy, get over here to Mt. Pyre. Your presence will help out a lot.”
“I’ll be there.” I promised him and I let out a sigh as the call ended.
Back into the fray once more.
A.N. I hope you enjoyed the ambush, I really struggled with this one! I wanted to put John in a scenario where he’s forced to fight in a scenario where he’s not able to use his full strength. AND I wanted to show that despite John’s overwhelming strength compared to the grunts, he himself is still vulnerable and that the grunts are not going to just roll over, even if they are retreating.
This chapter has been BETAed by Allute! Huge thanks!
Comments
Cerber
Hm, i dont think John has the luxury of waiting for the corrupt/dragging League committees now. Things are picking up a little too fast for John handle and he doesnt seem to be quick and decisive enough to handle certain situations like Drake. Maybe he will learn, but how much regret will he build up because he hesitated. We already see signs of his guilt and hesitation to act
Sick Meme
Klee is a badass
