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The New Normal - 3-6
🕑 Added 2023-05-12 14:37:10 +0000 UTCThe New Normal – 3-6 – Confrontations
It was afternoon the next day that I found myself on the phone looking for Giovanni once again; I had spent the morning distractedly training with my Pokémon. I slept restlessly the night before as I tossed and turned in my bed worrying about what was going on with Team Rocket and Giovanni.
Petrel said that Giovanni would be here today, and if he didn’t pick up this time, I would personally make my way to Viridian and forcefully try to find out what’s going on.
Fortunately, after a few rings, I had finally gotten through to Giovanni.
“Hello? This is Giovanni.” His smooth voice was finally on the phone.
“Giovanni. This is John.” I said shortly, no longer concerned about being polite for the moment. “I’m not sure if Petrel has told you, but I’ve been looking for you for the past few days to discuss some things.” I didn’t let him respond as I continued. “Since I finally got you on the line, I’m letting you know that I’ll be visiting your offices shortly, so be prepared to meet me.”
I could hear Giovanni spluttering at my demand before his confusion morphed into rage. “John, do not forget who you are speaking to-”
“Oh no, I definitely remember who I am speaking to, Giovanni.” I cut him off warningly. “Did you think I was trying to reach you for the past few days because I was desperate for your help?! No. I was trying to talk to you because I wanted to know if you had FUCKED EVERYTHING UP!!” I shouted, letting out my stored frustration over the past few days.
Giovanni was uncharacteristically at a loss for words, and I took a moment to breathe in and out to calm myself down.
“Giovanni, I’ll speak to you further when I get there. See you soon.” I hung up the call without letting him reply.
Was it wrong for me to have shouted at him and taken out my anger at him before I knew any better? Perhaps. It was possible that Giovanni had absolutely nothing to do with the recent resurgence of Team Rocket, but I highly doubted it. I knew that some way or another, Giovanni was involved with the mess and thus I was justified in letting out a bit of my anger.
Although I did want us to continue our friendship into the future, this was not something that I was willing to shove under the rug to preserve it. Plus, I wasn’t even sure if our friendship would even have a ‘future’; it would all depend on this meeting.
I told my mom that I was off to another meeting; dad had left earlier to handle the new posters, and my mom said to be careful and asked if I would be back for dinner. I said that I would be, as I figured that the meeting shouldn’t extend that long even if it devolved into the worst-case scenario.
I quickly collected up my Pokémon and made my way to Viridian to confront Giovanni.
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I landed in Viridian City in record time, and I found Petrel waiting for me patiently at the entrance of the Viridian Gym. I greeted him a terse nod, and he silently escorted me to Giovanni’s office.
I tried to read Petrel’s body language to gauge what he was feeling right now, but his posture was super stiff and didn’t give anything away aside from the fact that he was wound up really tightly. Perhaps he was nervous about the outcome of this meeting as well?
Nevertheless, he deposited me outside Giovanni’s office, and I quickly made my inside. I was quickly greeted by Giovanni, who I noted looked a bit more harried and uncomfortable than when I had met him last, and he gestured to the glass of water that he had already prepared for me. I didn’t touch it as I skipped over the pleasantries and went straight into the main topic of discussion.
“Giovanni, it is good to meet you after so long.” I began, but my face had no trace of humour in it. “It’s a shame that we had to meet again under such unpleasant circumstances, but I will not apologize for my words or for my demands for this meeting.” I told him strictly, letting him know that I was being entirely serious.
“I need to know what your involvement is with the recent crime wave. And don’t try to deny responsibility either. You previously told me that you and your late mother had plans to make use of a paramilitary group to fight for the future of Kanto, and I can see MANY uncomfortable similarities between your ideas and this wave of criminals.” I locked eyes with him. “Gym Leader Giovanni. I need to know, as a member of the Elite Four, if you are involved with these criminals.”
We locked eyes for a moment, before Giovanni’s eyes eventually shifted away slightly as he failed to meet my gaze. He looked far more rattled than I had ever seen before, and I could see that he really didn’t want to talk about this topic. But I remained silent as pressured him with my eyes until he eventually broke and let out a sigh.
“You’re right, John.” Giovanni finally admitted with a sigh as he rubbed his face. “These criminals were supposed to be under my control as a last-ditch emergency option in case the Indigo League continued to side-line Kanto for Johto. But, like I told you, I abandoned those plans when you were appointed as a member of the Elite Four. And from what I could see, you’ve been doing quite well there too!”
I ignored his attempts at humour, my face as still as stone as I silently pressured him to continue. Giovanni coughed as his joke failed to land. “Anyways, yes, that was the plan, at least. However, some members of the group decided to spit on my generosity, and they decided that they would be split off from my control and begin doing their own thing.” He explained.
I frowned at his explanation; it wasn’t detailed enough and there were definitely things that Giovanni was still withholding from me. Unfortunately for him, my patience was at its limits, and I wasn’t about to let him off so easily.
“Giovanni. We both know that that isn’t the end of the story. You definitely know more. So, spill it. What have you found out in the past few days when you were absent?” I demanded irritably, and I saw that Giovanni was wavering, so I decided to continue the offense. “Let me remind you that you are speaking to a member of the Elite Four, who is currently trying to decide if he should continue maintaining his friendship with you. So, before you decide to withhold more information from me, do remember that I could make things very difficult for you if I do not receive the full picture. Now.” I leaned forward to punctuate my point.
I could see a hint of rage flash past Giovanni’s eyes as I hurt his pride, but it quickly faded away. Sure, Giovanni could also make problems for me considering that I had previously worked with him, but it would hurt him a lot more than it would hurt me since I hadn’t done anything illegal so far whereas Giovanni certainly had. And I’m sure he had also realized this.
He fidgeted with his sleeve for a moment before eventually deciding to come clean with me. I noticed that a level of calm descended upon his face and his whole body relaxed.
“Alright, John. The truth then. As soon as I realized that the organisation, which is called Team Rocket, had gone rogue, I immediately set out to confront their leader, Proton, but couldn’t find him. He used to be one of my subordinates, but I saw him as more of an attack dog than an assistant or a thinker.” He carefully explained to me.
“Since I couldn’t find where Proton was, I contacted my second-in-command, Archer, who was previously in charge of communicating and with Proton and leading Team Rocket in my stead to ask if he knew where Proton was and what had happened to cause the split. Archer told me that Proton was missing and had taken many of the more violent members away and that they were looking for a new financial backer. Fortunately, Archer said that a few members of Team Rocket who were generally more intellectually minded decided to stay loyal to him, and me in turn, and not join in on the violence.”
I nodded slowly as I took in his explanation and allowed him to carry on.
“I had no intention of joining in on their doomed crusade, nor do I endorse their current actions, and I spent the last few days tidying up a few loose ends that could have linked back to me. Now, I am rather confident in the fact that, barring yourself and a few other trusted individuals, no one knows who founded Team Rocket, not even Proton, since I never revealed my identity to him. As far as he was concerned, Archer was the original founder.” He told me and I watched him carefully as I listened to see if he was lying to me. But my gut told me he wasn’t. However, a thought did come up.
“But do you trust Archer to not reveal who you are if he gets captured by those who believe that he founded Team Rocket?” I asked him concerningly, and Giovanni waved it off.
“I appreciate your concern, John, but I assure you that Archer would not dare betray me.” He said confidently, and I couldn’t tell whether he was being overconfident or not. After all, it was more than possible that Giovanni had something on Archer to ensure his loyalty.
“I see…And I think I’ve heard enough from you, Giovanni.” I told him thoughtfully as I went over what he had just told me. From my memory, it matched what Petrel had told me. I contemplated deeply on whether I should continue my connection with Giovanni in light of this revelation. I could choose to not believe him, but then that would be an implicit severing of our friendly relations. Did I need to continue being Giovanni’s friend in the future?
On the one hand, I realized that I was growing into being an influential figure on my own, even without Giovanni’s help. I managed to secure my position in the Elite Four with my achievements in Hoenn and with my support of Lance, so I didn’t strictly need to rely on Giovanni’s support to maintain a degree of personal influence. It would also be less risky as I wouldn’t get involved in any future evil schemes that Giovanni might have.
On the other hand, beyond the advantages that Giovanni’s network could provide me, severing my ties to Giovanni would mean that I wouldn’t be able to influence and provide oversight to what Giovanni was doing. Thus, I believed myself to be a good influence to temper Giovanni’s more extremist actions, and I feared that breaking off relations with him would cause him to lean further into extremism. I didn’t think sending him to prison would neuter his influence either.
Ultimately, after a moment to think things through carefully, I decided that I would continue my ‘friendship’ with Giovanni so that I could remain in contact and ostensibly monitor his activities. Thus, I accepted his explanation, and I could rationally believe in the events that he presented.
“I’m choosing to believe your words, as I’ve detected no lies in your explanation, and this leads me to my most important question, Giovanni.” I finally said seriously, but then I returned to my questioning. “What are you going to do now that your previous ‘employees’ have gone rogue on you?”
Giovanni massaged his head as he pondered my question for a moment before responding, “I intend to silence Proton permanently so that I can tie up the remaining loose end, but beyond that, I don’t see a need to do anything in particular. After all, we could easily take advantage of the recent crime wave to further our own and Kanto’s interests and try to control them so they target areas and people that could benefit the future of Kanto, so I see no reason why we couldn’t just leave it to the League to mop them up while we exploit them for our own purposes.”
My anger rose at his callous answer that I missed the fact that he had just casually told me he planned to murder Proton. I might have been okay with allowing Giovanni his vices and his manipulation and bribery, but I was not okay with allowing the general public to be harmed due to his actions, intentional or not.
“Giovanni.” I said with false calm, a hint of my smouldering rage leaking out at my tone. “I’ll pretend that I didn’t just hear that answer, and I’ll tell you what I want you to do. Consider it a request for keeping up our friendship together.”
Giovanni frowned at my answer, and I could tell that he wanted to protest, but he quickly caught on to my simmering rage and realized that he had likely crossed a line somewhere. I watched him hesitate slightly as he mentally debated whether to lower his pride and accept my request or not.
Eventually, he nodded.
“Fine. I will bow to you on this, only because I have found great value in continuing our friendship. But do not push me any further than this, John.” He warned me with another glare that I matched. I wasn’t going to let him cower me on this. His sharp eyes locked onto mine as a silent battle of wills raged on between us. I did not hesitate though, and I was determined to not let Giovanni to have his way on this.
I recognized that this was a pivotal moment in establishing how our relationship would be moving forwards, and I was determined to ensure that Giovanni would view me as an equal. We may help each other, but I was, and would never be, subordinated to him.
I had to get him to recognize that I was no puppet for him to manipulate.
Eventually, our stare down ended, and I could see Giovanni giving me a subtle nod as he recognized my status and power. Accepting his subtle gesture for what it was, I continued in a friendlier tone.
“I want you to help out in pacifying the recent crime wave. I want you out in the public, working hard to pacify this threat.” I told Giovanni, and I could see that he instinctively frowned at the thought of taking orders. Luckily, I had something to sweeten my request with.
“If you do so, I will be giving you my public support for your actions in helping to clean up Indigo. And I will also promise to keep silent about your involvement with Team Rocket so long as you do not do anything else like this again, since revealing your involvement would cause irrevocable and long-lasting damage to Kanto’s reputation.” I could see a considering look in Giovanni’s eyes. “This way, you can bolster your popularity with the public as you’ll be seen as one of the first Gym Leaders actively cracking down on the criminals. You can even make charitable donations or set up public work schemes to prevent such a crime wave from happening again. Feel free to milk it for your own popularity.” I finished.
Of course, I concealed my true reason for having Giovanni publicly fighting against Team Rocket, which was to force him to be an enemy of Team Rocket and Proton. I didn’t want him to be sitting on the fence, as that means he might be continuously tempted to re-join or support Team Rocket in the shadows. However, if he were to fight Team Rocket publicly, that would permanently cut off his ties to Team Rocket.
Eventually, Giovanni broke his silence. “Alright. You make a convincing point, John.” He admitted. “I can see that there are many advantages to declaring my intentions to fight back against these criminals, so I’ll play along with your scheme for now.” He glared at me again. “I hope that this is the last demand you will make to me.”
I nodded back this time. I felt that, so long as he stuck to the promises that he just made to me, I believed we could have a functional friendship moving forwards. So, I eased back and switched the topic to something more friendly.
“Changing the topic now that we’ve agreed on our course of action, I thought I’d let you know that both Pryce and Lance have approached me about gaining my support for their battle over the title of Champion.” I informed Giovanni, and he took the hint that I was looking to repair our connection.
“Oh? That’s not unexpected. But what did the two of them say to you?” He asked, relaxing his posture.
“Pryce offered an apology and a list of reasons why he had to remain Champion.” I scowled at the memory, and I could see Giovanni frowning as well. He hated Pryce more than I did. “But Lance was far more forthcoming. He offered me a guarantee that he would not side-line me as Pryce did, and he also gave a general promise to look out for the balance between Kanto and Indigo as well as his political support for my political endeavours towards this aim. It was a vague promise, but I could tell that he had no intention of favouring Johto so heavily like Pryce did, since it’s not in his interest to do so.” I explained.
“Also, I’m not sure if you saw my recent interview about re-evaluating the 4-badge restrictions.” Giovanni nodded. “But Lance also gave his public support for that as well, honouring our agreement. And as a result of all of this, I decided that I found Pryce generally too distasteful to support and decided to support Lance.”
Giovanni thought carefully as he listened to my explanation, and his face turned into one of serious concern. “Do you truly believe Lance will be able to defeat Pryce in a Pokémon battle? Because all of this support is moot if Lance can’t beat Pryce.”
I gave Giovanni a smug smirk. “Oh, I’m very confident that Lance can beat Pryce despite the type disadvantage. It would take a miracle for Pryce to win.” I answered with certainty.
Giovanni stared at me for a moment before he eventually formed a pleased smile. “You did not disappoint me, John. I admit to being uncertain about your ability to handle high-level politics, despite your negotiations with Devon Corp and Gym Leader Norman, but if the things you tell me are true, which I suspect they are, then I’m glad to see that you have exceeded my expectations.”
I accepted the compliment and thanked him politely. Giovanni continued.
“As you know, the Blackthorns have been a huge element of the politics of Johto and now Indigo, and with Lance as both their representative and the future Champion would give him an enormous amount of influence over the future of Indigo. Aligning yourself to him and being able to influence his decisions will be a huge boon for the future and ensuring the prosperity of Kanto.” He explained.
“Of course, I would have preferred to have gone through a plan with you of what we would request of Lance or Pryce, but I can admit to being at fault for being absent over the past few days. However, the promises you have extracted from Lance are more than sufficient for the time being, and we can easily hash out the details later.” He finished pleasantly.
We then proceeded to discuss what we knew and felt about Lance and his future proposals. I told him about Lance’s idea for an international police force, which Giovanni dismissed as overly ambitious and naïve but ultimately harmless to his goals, so he let it slide. He asked several questions about Lance’s personality, so I told him that my impressions of him was that he could be prone to arrogance, and respected those with strength, but my gut told me that he did have the well-being of Indigo in mind.
I also informed Giovanni about my plans with Lance and how I would stay silent for the time being as to not give away the fact that I was going to be supporting Lance so that Pryce could not discredit me. Then I told him about how Lance was planning on attacking Pryce on my side-lining to Hoenn and the recent crime wave. Giovanni approved of our proposal and told me that if he thought of anything else he would let me know as soon as possible.
Since he said that, I asked Giovanni if he would be supporting Lance as well, to which he said that he would do a bit more research first. Though he conceded that he was definitely leaning towards supporting him. I requested that, if he chose to support Lance, if Giovanni could also reach out to other Gym Leaders so that they could offer their support as well. Giovanni easily agreed.
Giovanni then switched topics and notified me that the new Devon Corp branch had already been established in Viridian City, although it was very basic and small for time being. He thanked me for helping out with the discussions, and I accepted his thanks and told him that I would visit the new branch soon enough. I then asked him about the progress of the joint-research facility, and he told me that the scientists were still being selected and the building was still being rebuilt to be suitable for their needs.
Then a thought popped up in my head, and I asked Giovanni if I could have some way to contact the head of the joint-research project in case I had any insights into Porygon that I wanted to share.
“That’s no problem.” Giovanni said as he quickly took out a piece of paper and jotted down a number. “Here you go. I’ll let Ariana know that you’ll be in touch.”
I was surprised to hear the name of another future Team Rocket admin, but by this point I’ve accepted that the Team Rocket admins were just selected from Giovanni’s closest subordinates, so I easily took it in stride. So, I put it out my mind and just thanked Giovanni.
Eventually, we decided that we had spoken enough and started to wrap up our meeting. I reminded Giovanni that I expected him to make a public statement soon denouncing the recent crime wave but appeased him by thanking him for his work and hoping that we could work together more in the future.
I could see it in Giovanni’s expression that he also hoped for our friendship to continue in the future, as this time he barely reacted to my reminder and said that I had his word that he would do so. We shook hands as a symbolic gesture of our revitalized relationship, and I was then escorted out by Petrel.
“Thank you for not breaking your friendship with Giovanni.” He told me quietly as he walked me out of the Gym, “I understand that you may have been outraged by Giovanni’s past actions, but like I said before, Giovanni truly does everything for the betterment of Kanto. And having your support would make things much easier for him.”
“I understand, Petrel.” I said politely. “Still, there are lines that I will not allow to be crossed. So long as Giovanni doesn’t cross that line with his actions again, then I foresee no problems with continuing to work with him in the future.”
Petrel simply nodded at my words before we continued walking in silence until we eventually exited the Gym through the side entrance. He thanked me again for my continued support and I waved back at him as I took off on Port back home.
I reflected on our meeting while I flew home. It was probably the most important and tense meeting that I’ve ever had in my life, but I was proud of myself for not being intimidated and asserting myself as Giovanni’s equal.
I would be keeping a stricter eye out for Giovanni’s actions in the future. But I personally hoped that we wouldn’t need to have another one of these meetings ever again.
A.N I hope that John was the right amount of forceful in this chapter, and I hope that following advice from my commentors that John properly respects his status in the Elite Four. This chapter was very important in establishing the future of Giovanni’s and John’s relationship, so I hope I resolved it well.
Thanks to Allute for BETAing this chapter!
Comments
The Tallest Tree
Good stuff. John is starting to come off as confident or at least knowing his own worth. That he brings value just by being himself.
