A Faded Relic of the Glory Days

"Dunno what kind of Pokemon we’ve got to spare. Probably have a fuckton of Zubat, because we’ve always got a fuckton of Zubat. Would be kind of cool if we could actually get our hands on some actual Ghost types, though. Maybe a Ditto, too; can you imagine what kinda chaos one of those things could cause if we had it turning into really creepy shit outta the blue? It would freak the hell outta the Grunts; can tell you that much right now. Would probably work as one hell of an ankle-grabber- who needs hands when you can just, like… Morph tentacles or pincers or whatever the hell you want?

"I'm thinking, like, trick mirrors at the ends of the halls like in that, uh, that one movie with the ginger girl and the guy out of the psych ward, y'know? Liking the Zubat idea if we could gut the upper ceilings and make 'em all creepy and decrepit. We're gonna need something of the ankle-grabby variety, maybe under the couches or like anywhere people will be handing out thinking they're safe... Also Spinarak and... Ooh, roaches, can we get roaches?"

So he left annoyed. Then he carried on with his day, then the days and weeks after that until the event was no longer on his mind. He had more pressing matters to worry about than to sulk over his mother ditching him. 

Giovanni was in his office when she decided to show up. At first he was unsure who was at the door. Usually visitors were turned away, or told to wait by Matori until she called him to inquire if they should be let in. Only a handful of people were allowed to go to the office without hindrance: Executives, and family. Even then, he generally only expected the Executives to walk into his office. Silver certainly wouldn’t visit on his own accord.

The Boss stood up and walked over to the door to open it. Lucido followed him at first, but halfway there the Persian broke away to go back to sit behind the desk. A peculiar reaction, Giovanni thought, but he took little note of it as he opened the door. Ah, that explained it.

"Hello, Madre." He said, and then asked, "To what do I owe this visit?"

"I was thinking like one of those sit-down sandwich places or sommat," Mercede continued, letting her eyes wander into Giovanni's office. "Like somewhere we can pick our shit up front and then be left the hell alone. I want to talk to you about this bullshi- this uh, this business endeavor of yours, kiddo. This uh, new base thing."

Having acquainted herself with the smells, Niney zipped past her trainer's legs and into the room, stopping first to beg Giovanni for attention (primarily by nipping at his hand) and then moving further down to harass the Persian into going under the desk. She never did make it clear if her intentions were hostile or playful. It was hard to tell with Niney, given her constant and consistent growling.

A couple of grunts were walking down the hall and made eye contact with him. That gave him a chance to pass the bags of trash on to them and tell them to take them out. It’s not like they could tell him no.

He brushed off any stray slivers of paper or dust off of his suit and looked back into the room. He hoped he wasn’t going to regret this, though he probably would.

"Hell if I know," croaked Mercede, commenting on the narrative. She paced around her room, which had stayed somewhat cleaner than she had implied or intended, selecting an outfit. Over the years she'd gotten used to wearing the same once-nice blazer and skirt every day without variation, but this was a special occasion, in a way. She picked out a relatively plain navy dress and held it up to examine. It was still hanging up on her closet door from when she'd gone out to see a doctor. Mercede had chickened out of that engagement too.

Yeah, maybe that wasn't the best choice. She reached further back into her closet- which contained more scattered firearms and random shit than actual clothing. In the very back she discovered several blouses, only one of which was clean. Baby blue it was. 

Once she was dressed, Mercede felt a bit reassured. She looked nice, especially in contrast to her everyday appearance. Everything was straightened out, and even her usual cascade of greying hair was neatly pulled back in a ponytail (despite a sleepy Mew's protests.) Vanni was fond of neatness and propriety, so perhaps she could send the right message for once.

When it came to sports, in Whitney’s opinion, nothing beat softball. She had taken her supplies with her to Team Rocket, in hopes that she’d have time to use them. She was right, as it turned out on one warm, lazy day. She grabbed the stuff from the corner of her dorm and headed out, the smaller things in a bag and her bat slung over her shoulder.

Finding an empty spot in the yard wasn’t difficult. Even with the massive amount of people here, the grounds were massive and empty, quite a change for the city girl. It actually caused her some amount of confusion, since there was no designated ballpark for her to meet up with other players. She set her bag on the ground and pulled everything out.

It was catching that she did first. She threw the ball, with her ungloved hand, against a tree, where it bounced off and she caught it with the gloved one. This went on for about fifteen minutes before she switched to batting.

The lack of a batting tee or someone to throw the ball made it a bit difficult. She had tried teaching her Pokemon to throw it, but, putting aside their collective lack of fingers and thumbs, the only one who liked it was Cleffy, who preferred to throw the ball away from Whitney and make her run for it. Therefore, the pinkette would just throw the ball in the air and hope she could get the bat in position before it came down, so she could hit it. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, sometimes it only worked halfway.

It was one of those that times that it worked halfway that caused her problems today. She tossed the ball up in the air and rushed to get a proper hold on her bat, swinging out as soon the ball came out. Unfortunately, she wasn’t holding it quite properly and the ball sailed in the wrong direction, towards the building behind her.

The sound of shattering glass could be heard, Whitney was sure, across the grounds.

Oh well, that wasn't about to stop Mercede from having a little bit of fun, especially when said fun was so readily available. She hopped down, floating slowly to the ground amid the shattered glass. While she couldn't see what had done the damage, she knew she could rule out a bullet, but since no one was nearby the candidate must have been a projectile. "What asshole's throwing rocks at my company?" she muttered to herself, or perhaps not to herself, as she hobbled in the general line of trajectory. 

Cede had gathered that the culprit was a girl by the voice she had maybe-heard, but she wasn't expecting someone so cute and pink. A wicked grin spread across the old lady's face imagining just  kind of fuckery could she get up to with this gumball of a girl. Mercede's grunt-screwing personality instantly shifted to its strictest and most intimidating form...

...That is until she noticed the bat. Suddenly the grin lost its menace, and gained instead a kind of intrigued, rambunctious amusement. The old lady strolled up and made her presence known, swinging one leg across the other and leaning against a tree.

"I’d like to head back to the old Kanto HQ one day, but…."