Saffron City, Silph Co.

Giovanni was sitting in his chair and looked at Lisa softly when Lisa came in. ​​

Lisa, who usually has a playful smile, showed a serious expression as she entered the room. Although she didn't smile, there was respect in her eyes when she looked at the Boss, Giovanni.

Giovanni, who was quietly watching her, said with a slightly friendly tone, "Oh! Lisa, thanks for coming. Sit down so that we can talk further."

Lisa, hearing the kindness of Giovanni's words, smiled. Of course, she thanked Giovanni politely and sat down.

She always saw Giovanni as the father figure she never had. So she was very gratified after hearing the friendly tone of Giovanni. When she was young, Giovanni personally sacrificed a lot of time to train her, which she has never forgotten.

"Lisa, you did a really great job this time. You not only discovered and trained Maria but Alex too."

"Boss, although I'm happy to be so useful, I was just lucky this time. Especially, I didn't give any help to Alex to become so strong. Though he did buy items of my Lugia."

Giovanni looked surprised. He thought that Lisa at least gave help to Alex, who got strong ridiculously fast. His assessment of Alex improved again.

Although some bosses would have feared that their subordinates would become too strong, Giovanni wasn't worried about that. He has confidence that he can control Alex or at least make him useful for Team Rocket.

Giovanni had already made a good assessment of Alex's character, so there was no reason to be worried.

The fact that Alex has a neutral attitude towards Team Rocket shows Giovanni a lot about his character. The difference between slightly positive and neutral might not seem that great, but it is for Giovanni.

Alex, who got a good Pokemon and support from Team Rocket, thinks about Team Rocket in only neutral terms. This shows that he is not very grateful for this help or believes that he can pay it back several times more later.

If Alex had a slight disdain for Team Rocket, that would show that his morality does not align with Team Rocket. And even though Team Rocket helped him, he disagrees with the work they do. Still, Alex would be willing to continue to work for Team Rocket if it brings him advantages. And therefore, he would have slight contempt and not complete contempt. But this is not the case.

Even after the help he received and him not having any problem with the work ethics of Team Rocket, he is neutral towards them. Then what about his slight contempt towards Alliance? The difference between neutral and slight contempt is greater than what it looks like. This is beneficial for Giovanni.

"It doesn't matter if that was luck or not. You did something that brought Team Rocket benefits. For that, you will be surely rewarded."

He took out a briefcase and gave it to Lisa without a word.

Lisa thanked him and asked afterward,

"Boss, now that I'm an Executive, can you tell me more about your plan with Alex and the other Talented Rookies?"

"Hmm, no problem. But I don't have a special plan yet because I want to see who is the strongest rookie after 3 months."

Lisa, who didn't understand why Giovanni wanted to wait three months, assumed that he probably wanted to observe their improvement rate. Though she is not sure about her assumption.

"Boss, I have one more question about the Alliance if that's ok."

Giovanni showed a friendly smile "Of course, Lisa. As an Executive, you should know important secrets like that. Like the fact that we have 3 Team Rocket members as Gym leaders. And this number may soon become 4. I am sure that I can answer your question."

Lisa, who heard this, recognized how much higher the position from Executive to Elite captain is. The difference is really big.

"I always wanted to ask why Team Rocket never tries to control an Elite 4 member and puts more energy on the Gym Leaders? Don't the Elite 4 have the highest power in the Alliance? Why not try to make a Team Rocket member like Koga an Elite 4 member."

"Haha, this question shows that you really don't understand how the Alliance works."

He made a pause before he continued with a smile.

"Although the positions with the most power are the Champions and the Elite 4 of each region, they can't really control the region."

"First of all, you have to know that the Alliance is divided into 7 parts, and each part controls its own region."

"Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova, Alola, and Kalos."

"After that, you have to know that the power of the Kanto Alliance is very divided. Although it's hard to explain, I'll try to make it as easy as possible."

"To explain it more simply, we'll talk about the influence in numerical terms. If I were to give points showing the amount of power/influence, it would be like this."

1 = hardly any influence

3 = minor influence

5 = relatively influential

7 = great influence

10 = 1 of the most influential people in the Alliance

15 = The most influential individual in the Alliance

(EN: I giving this point a term called 'Influence points')

"Each of the Elite 4 has 10 Influence points, and the Champion has 15 Influence points. Which sounds like a lot but isn't really if you know about the other influencer."

"First, the 8 official Gym leaders have 7 Influence points each. Then the mayors of each major city have 3 Influence points. The mayors of a small city have only 1 Influence points."

"Then comes the industry. These sectors also have a lot of power because they have an integral role in our society. For example, the largest food company in Kanto has 5 Influence points. The clothing company, construction company, sales company, USW have Influence points varying from 3 to 5."

"All relatively large companies in Kanto have a say in the Kanto-Alliance. Because a large portion of the funding is contributed by them."

"In addition, there are also the large clans of Kanto. The most well-known should be the Joy and Jenny clan, which are very influential. Only the Clan President of the two has a value of 10, which shows the amount of influence that these two great clans have."

"Moreover, there are other parties like the professor community, which also has a lot of influence. The representative of the professor community, Professor Samuel Oak, alone, has 10 Influence points."

"As you can see, there are a lot of parties in the Kanto Alliance that control this region. Although the Champion and the Elite 4 are indeed one of the most influential people, their influence doesn't even add up to 20%."

"The Elite 4 is just one of the influential people. Nothing more."

Lisa, who heard this, showed an astounded expression. The information Giovanni had given her about the Alliance was very precise. Which is really not easy to find out for a regular person.

"Boss, if the Alliance is as divided as you say, then how do they control Kanto?"

"The Champion and the Elite 4 have enough power to change small things in Kanto and make small decisions for the Alliance. When big decisions have to be made, they will vote with the most influential people to decide. Although they do discuss before the election, normally, each party chooses what is most advantageous for them."

Lisa saw how difficult it is to control the Alliance and realized why Giovanni was unwilling to sacrifice many resources to get an Elite 4 member. Although it's nice to have one, it's not very important to Team Rocket. She could understand Giovanni's step in choosing Gym leaders and other medium-sized parties.

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