A Rocket Reborn

Battling was fun and all, but it did tend to get monotonous. While there was always that burst of adrenaline during the match, once it was over, even a win was often leaving Mars feeling hollow.

And there was only one thing she knew of to fix that feeling, so she scoped out the town she was in and chose to take a trip to one of the more clean-looking bars. While she didn’t want to go some place that would give her a disease just from sitting on a stool, she didn’t want to pay an arm and a leg for a drink, either. She happened to find a place that was just right.

Not just a trifle enough to live on, or even just enough to get herself a little treat. Miyamoto could relax. And she chose to spend her night doing just that. 

She was much older than she used to be. No longer did she feel the need to go out looking for someone to spend the night with, nor did she even really need to spend much time up close and personal with any strangers. 

She sat cross-legged at the bar, sipping on a vodka cranberry, and, occasionally, smiling at strangers. At this moment she smiled at a fellow red-head before she brought the glass clinking back up to her lips. 

“Oh?” His attention transitioned from the fidgety dragon pokemon to Miyamoto. “I would love to have her fight against something more challenging than the grunts’ pokemon.”

Jino could no longer contain herself once she heard the word “fight.” The Deino hopped up onto her feet and get out its best roar.

So the dragon was excited. This was neither surprising nor interesting to Jolteon, who looked away, no longer needed. Appropriately, Miyamoto pulled out two Pokéballs when she exclaimed "Excellent!" Pointing one of them at Jolteon, she returned her oldest in exchange for her newest. "I'm sure we'll be able to give you two a good fight", she stated, putting some distance between her and her opponents. "Come on out, Kangaskhan."

There was a stark difference between the reaction of the mother and the child upon release. The adult paid full attention to Miyamoto, allowing her to pet her on the nose. They hadn't battled together yet, but it was clear they got along. The child, on the other hand, couldn't take its eyes off of the Pokémon it had never seen before. It pointed repeatedly and cooed, trying to show off to its mother, who stepped away from Miyamoto's hand specifically to see what the young one wanted. Indeed there was a new Pokémon over there.

Miyamoto crossed her arms in a relaxed manner and stepped next to Kangaskhan. "Ready for our first battle?" There was a sing-songy tone to her voice, but she was every bit serious, even waiting for Kangaskhan to nod and order the young one to retreat into the pouch. "Since this is our first time working together, why don't you show me how you fight first?" This won Miyamoto a perplexed look from the taller mother, but this was soon replaced with an understanding smile. By contrast, Miyamoto's demeanor was unchanged when she looked across the field. She directed her speech to Kangaskhan, but her next words were really meant for the Executive's ears: "We'll let Proton and Jino have the first move."

“We can stand to afford that risk” Giovanni replied. “After all, so many people will be focused on getting those new items they’ll resort to anything to earn the necessary money.” After all, they could afford to hurt a bit if the risk didn’t play out how they wanted. Gambling was certainly like that. You’d win some and you’d lose some. Giovanni wouldn’t mind one way or the other as he always won in the end.

"Ah, so you are going to roll the dice. I had a feeling you'd like that one", Miyamoto teased. A crooked solution that would do the Rocket name proud; of course Giovanni would go for it. "I'll have the area closed off and the slot machines returned to you within the week."

A refill? Miyamoto's eyes flashed between her glass and the wine bottle, and gave a smile followed by a humored scoff. She'd actually managed to forget about it. Soon enough, she came to a nod. It wasn't as though she was going to be quick to get tipsy off of such a mild drink. "Okay," she answered, but didn't go for it right away. 

The Pokeathlon Dome for example was a prime place to acquire some of these items, even if it didn’t mean winning the challenges or earning the points necessary to purchase them. Items such as the Dragon Scale, King’s Rock, the Metal Coat could be gained with a few truck hijackings or finding out where the Dome collected them. Ideal items like the Dubious Disc and the Up-Grade could be requested from Sinnoh by Charon and he of course would be compensated if he agreed to this.

"As for rotation, not much has to change. Eliminating the three TMs mentioned earlier allows for more battle items to replace them. TMs are fairly accessible in any case, so there's no pressing need to have more. We can fill those slots with the more easily accessible items, such as the discs for Porygon and the Metal Coat. After which point I would add only two more items to the list at a time, and rotate them out every one to two months." 

It was a fairly simple concept, actually. Rotating items allowed the Team to spend significantly less resources on more expensive items, while still reaping the rewards. Miyamoto took a moment to let that idea sit, and rested her cheek against her curled fingers. Her pointer finger tickled a little, which had her smiling for no apparent reason, but she continued without adjusting. "Now for the Pokemon I could say about the same thing, but we'll just need to add to the list in general. Having three Pokémon available at a time makes no one happy. Including what we have now, we've got over twenty Pokemon to rotate out, so I don't suggest having any less than ten at the window at a time. Certainly the new choices will excite the customers, anyway."

Twenty-one Pokemon... and she couldn't recall them all off the top of her head. Her pointer finger tapped against her cheek while Miyamoto referred back to her own list. Who to add... 

“I meant to visit her over the holidays but I didn’t get around to it.” At least he had remembered to send her a package with a card and a few of his recipe in a jar gifts. When sending gifts to people who have everything they could want, homemade gifts were generally well received. That or alcohol. There was a bottle of Floaroma Town mead in that package too.

The Deino’s attention turned to the Jolteon at that point. Jino sniffed and huffed at the other pokemon, and she continued to fidget in her spot. It was cute in its own way, like a puppy trying to contain its excitement after its been told to sit and stay. Except this puppy had a mouthful of razor sharp teeth and a bad attitude.

As Deino struggled to stay put, there were two pairs of eyes on it. Miyamoto was apparently thinking, a smile gradually working its way onto her face. With Jolteon though, it would have been hard to tell that he was giving her the time of day had it not been for the direction in which he was looking. Deino could snap all she wanted, but he wouldn't even flinch so long as Miya was okay.

He listened to her story. Well, if she was one of the Madame Boss’ top agents, then it wasn’t all that big of a surprise that Giovanni was willing to let her come back. Every once in a great while the Boss tossed out a charitable act, this sounded like one of them.

Proton looked down at Miyamoto and his Deino when the woman knelt down. The little dragon sniffed towards Miya, huffing puffs of air at her.

“Yeah, she does. Careful, Jino likes to bite too.” Proton had to make an adjustment to his uniform and get thicker gloves. His hands bore plenty of teeth marks underneath that fabric.

As if to prove his point, Jino snapped her teeth together but didn’t go for Miyamoto.

“Hey, knock that off.” Grumbled Proton as he nudged the Deino with his foot again. “She’s not a grunt, treat her with some respect.”

Jino fidgeted in frustration at getting nudged again, causing her to snap at Proton’s boot and catching a mouthful of the steel toe. Proton wasn’t fazed by this and shook the pokemon off with a quick jerk.

Miyamoto had her wrists resting on her knees as she beamed at the Deino until Proton gave her his warning. Her attention returned to the Executive, and before she could confirm that she'd understood, Miyamoto could hear the sound of clashing teeth. Her head snapped back toward Jino and Miyamoto giggled, however there was a yellow-furred Eeveelution who wasn't nearly as amused. A single paw moved forward, expression unchanged. When Jolteon realized that Miyamoto wasn't harmed, however, a foot returned to its starting position, and it gave the dragon a small nod. Jino was fine. But he'd still be keeping his eye on her.

Jolteon's watchful eyes were forced closed when Miyamoto patted him on the head repeatedly. While it humored her to watch Jolteon open and close his eyes with each pat, the real purpose was to get the electric dog to relax some. "Oh, you. There's no need to be so protective, see? She's under control." 

“Sorry, can’t say I’ve heard of you. Are you an Agent transferring from one of the other bases?” That was the only reason he could think of as to why he didn’t know her.

Team Rocket’s cruelest Executive returned with a vengeance upon his company of grunts. His initial demeanor had been relatively calm when he first returned, but even in the small amount of time after his arrival something happened that set him off into a fury. There were plenty of whispered words in the halls that hinted at the possibilities. Perhaps he was upset because he had failed to capture the leader of the rival gang in Sinnoh, or he had gotten in trouble with Giovanni again for one reason or another, no one knew for sure. The reason didn’t matter because they were all suffering for it.

Miyamoto did indeed stumble upon Executive Proton while he was in the middle of training. There was a field dedicated not only to training in pokemon battle, but also in physical fitness of the trainers. Most of the grunts were being pushed to their limits in running laps, push-ups, pull-ups, etc. A smaller group was put through their paces in battle, both with pokemon and without. It was Proton’s style to use his pokemon to his own advantage in a fight, and he was demonstrating that to this group of grunts.

“Remember!” Barked the green haired Executive to the grunts that surrounded him. “Beating someone fairly in a pokemon battle is not what we’re here to do! Simply take out the trainer and you save yourself a lot of trouble!” There was a new pokemon by his side. It was a small, black and blue pokemon that was definitely not native to the region, and it fidgeted in anticipation. “Use your pokemon wisely!” With no further warning Proton slammed down the pokeball that was in his hand and released his Weezing. Once out, the pokemon opened up with a smog attack at one of the nearby grunts and his Raticate. Proton dashed into the smog, and with a whistle he commanded the Deino to follow in with him. They disappeared into the smog, and the confused shouts of the grunt and his pokemon were the only hints as to what was going on. That is until the other grunts were smart enough to use their Zubats to blow away the smog and reveal the aftermath. Sure enough, there was Proton pinning down the poor grunt with a boot to his chest and the Raticate doing its best to try to fight off the Deino.

Proton caught sight of Miyamoto approaching and decided to end the lesson there for now. “Not bad for starters, but you’re going to have to think and act faster than that next time.” He stepped off of the grunt and called off the dragon pokemon with another whistle. “That’s enough. Now all of you go run laps until the session’s time is up!” The grunts didn’t waste any time in getting away from Proton, which left him and his pokemon to greet Miyamoto.

“It’s a good strategy. Perhaps be sure to include a few of the Pokemon that can only evolve via trading or special other methods. It will make trainers want to get the other evolutions if they’re collectors.”

Finally deciding on a few selections, he marked a few Pokemon.

Kanto

Abra, Machop, Lickitung, Ditto

Johto

Mareep, Murkrow, Swinub, Hondour

Hoenn

Aron, Duskull, Mawhile

Sinnoh

Shinx, Buizel

Unova

Tumburr, Sandile, Scraggy, Cubchoo, Paniward, Joltik

"Hmm... in that case, it may be worth your while to consider adding the tradable bugs from Unova... Karrablast and Shelmet, don't you think?" She nodded before taking the list back. There was a hint of a smile on her face when she realized that most of her suggestions remained. Shaking her head, Miyamoto placed the paper onto the desk and slid it back. "Other than those two, I've nothing to add."

They had a few options. They could risk going into Hoenn and Unova territories, or they could play it safe, sticking to the Johto and Sinnoh Pokemon where they had branches already in place.

"Alright," Miyamoto smiled momentarily, took a glance-over of the desk, and took it upon herself to borrow a pen. Intent on asking for nothing, she wrote on the back of one of the pages in her folder, listing Pokémon from various regions as they came to her. She was speaking as she wrote, but it sounded more as though she were relaying her thoughts rather than speaking directly to the Rocket Boss, even if the information was ultimately intended for his ears.