Giovanni, Realgam Tower, Orre

To deal with others of the Criminal Underworld was risky at its best.

Giovanni was not the only criminal mastermind; no there were others in most regions. However, while they generally had their regions in which they tried to maintain exclusive influence, they had agents elsewhere.

After all, if Team Magma was to develop a lake destroying bomb, there were others who would want it. Team Galactic from Sinnoh had an odd desire to find the secrets of lakes, after all.

Giovanni had no idea why, something about a legend.

Team Rocket was not like the fanatics in other teams; they believed in profit. No prophecies, no destroying the world, just profit. Their technology was thus developed for money making purposes only.

However, sometimes their projects didn't quite pan out as Giovanni had hoped. Some devices meant for making money were, as had been originally envisioned, useless.

However, it wouldn't make do to just keep them in storage when you could sell it to another criminal organization for large profits, as opposed to waiting for some infiltrator to steal it and thus make no money back, or destroy it and get no return at all. Particularly when Giovanni couldn't quite understand why they'd want it.

"Oh, well aren't you early, Giovanni?"

The well-dressed man, accompanied by a protective force of six grunts flanking him, was approached by a young looking man dressed in a high collared lab coat with a large bang of hair zigzagging along the side of his head.

With his pointy glasses and nasty smirk, he seemed particularly malevolent.

Giovanni just glared at him as if totally unimpressed, so the man chuckled darkly, "No need to look so cross with me, I am Ein, Admin of Cipher's science division. I'm told you have something for us."

"Do you have the money?" Giovanni asked right up front.

He wasn't here to make small talk. There was no way that he was going to stay in Orre any longer than he had to. It was a miserable crime ridden hell hole, and it was hot.

And he was in a black suit.

His potential business client however did not seem to like his show of disdain however.

"Why, what do you take Cipher for, Giovanni? Cheap? Have you seen this construction project?" Ein questioned proudly as he extended his arms to emphasize the large, ivory tower, being built in the middle of the desert wastelands. "This tower costs more that the total worth of Pyrite Town and Agate Village combined, and it probably cost more than that fancy Cycling Road you Kantonians built. We have your money, don't worry."

An armored Cipher Gru...Peon, descended from the ceiling with a suitcase in hand, which the peon promptly handed to Ein, who opened it and revealed its contents to Giovanni.

"One million Dollars, as promised."

Giovanni eyed the money for a moment, before raising his hand. A Grunt in his entourage stepped forward, drawing a PDA type device that began to scan the money with a visible purple beam.

Ein rose an eyebrow in theatrical surprise, "You don't trust us?"

"Forgive me but if I trusted people, I'd be a dead man." Giovanni said darkly as the grunt seized and checked the results of the scans.

"It's all legit sir," the Grunt confirmed for Giovanni as he gestured for another grunt to come forward with a suitcase of their own, which the grunt opened and presented to Ein; a gauntlet type object of a shiny metallic coloring, which Giovanni promptly picked up and placed on his own arm.

"The Duel Anchor," Giovanni demonstrated as he pointed the device at the scanner Grunt and a red energy rope rapidly flew from the gauntlet and bound itself to the grunt's left arm. The rope quickly became invisible as Giovanni yanked the arm with the gauntlet, which promptly caused the grunt to mimic the action, though not of his own will, however.

But as if the rope was still attached to him.

"With this device, one can bind yourself to another for as long as the user wishes. While I can deactivate this device at any time, the victim cannot."

It was originally meant to be a long distance device for opening doors, even sealed vault doors via enhanced force, however it was too weak to do so, and attempts to tinker with the prototype to allow it to do so had ultimately failed.

Originally it was called the Energy Rope, but was given the designation, 'Duel Anchor' by an aspiring scientist in the R&D division who believed Team Rocket could benefit from forcing people to battle them via the anchor.

However, as most Grunts used weaker Pokémon and were more suited to intimidation than battle, this would be in fact counter-productive for Team Rocket's ability to terrify the masses, and for virtually all Grunts in general.

What Cipher wanted it for, Giovanni couldn't care less. There was no way for it to be used to cause him problems down the road. He only continued to call it by the term Duel Anchor because it sounded better for the buying Cipher fools.

"Excellent," Ein said in an impressed tone of voice as Giovanni de-activated the device and presented it to the Cipher Admin, with the money case and device rapidly changing hands, "We should be this cooperative with each other more often."

"Don't hold your breath," Giovanni commented to the obviously fibbing scientist, "Trades like this are merely exceptions that prove the rule."

With that, Giovanni was surrounded by his grunts as he turned to leave the unfinished tower.

As the Rocket's left, content with the exchange, Ein couldn't help but smirk.

One of the Snag Machine's most crucial and difficult to create parts was now theirs.

'Foolish Team Rocket. You just signed the world over to Team Cipher,' Ein gloated internally.

North of Pewter City

Misty absently played with the small stone she'd picked up, attempting to grind it into powder as she reflected on her life.

She wasn't good enough, they always said so.

She was the runt little sister of the Sensational Sisters.

She was the unplanned sibling, with no ability to sing, to dance, or to act.

Thus she was always left behind when her parents took her sisters to child beauty pageants, singing practice, and shopping trips for the finest clothes, toys and food.

Left with nothing but hand me downs, a semi-neglected water type gym and her own tears, as an image of herself at five years old came to her mind, sitting on the side of a tank, crying her eyes out as multiple Goldeen, Magikarp, Seaking and Horsea swam up around where she was crying, as if wanting to cheer her up somehow.

To own a gym was a dream that many would kill for. It was a job that easily earned enough, even after necessary expenses, to easily feed a family of six (her parents, sisters, and herself). If you had an obscenely large family (such as Brock's family), of course, you may need to supplement the income with a second job, and many gym leaders did this anyway, particularly in Unova, where there was a paranoia about the government funding things.

Yet, her parent's didn't really care. It had been the dream child of her grandmother, who had two sons around the beginning of the modern age of Oak, or forty years ago.

One son ended up moving far away to further study Water-type Pokémon, and apparently cooking. She had no idea what that side of the family was like regardless, as they never returned to Kanto and the two brothers never really got along.

The other son, the one who stayed, her father, wasn't as passionate about being a gym leader. He only kept it open to get the money for it and to fund the extravagant lifestyle of 5/6ths of his family.

And the lack of focus was quite evident if you looked for it. The tanks outside of the 'show tanks' where their parents would host shows with Water Pokémon performing jumps, and eventually her sisters once they got older, were murky, the walls that visitors didn't walk by were stained and fading and, perhaps more noticeably, the gym's winning percentage was one of the lowest in Kanto.

And how low could it go before the PIA came in and shut it down?

Another memory of her past came to mind.

"Staryu, use Swift and Water Gun!"

A once again younger version of herself, a ten-ish year old tomboy red head with suspender shorts and a yellow tang top (AKA, the iconic Misty), was now battling in a Battle Club in Cerulean City, with her Staryu and future Starmie simultaneously striking out an opponent's Gloom and Growlithe, as a Nurse Joy and Don George looked on.

It was as Misty left the battle arena some time later, however, now appearing closer to her current age, that she heard some interesting things.

"Her talent is impressive, isn't it. That's her 100th win with her two Staryu, and overall her winning percentage is roughly 87%, and with the amount of grass and electric types trainers have on them for the gym that is quite remarkable," Don boasted to the Joy, who nodded in reply. Misty, out of sight behind a wall, listened in interest as they talked about her.

"Yes, it is quite obvious that the talent of the Waterflower family, even if it skipped a generation, seems to have finally made itself apparent in her in full force. If she was to become the Gym Leader, I would be able to convince my bosses not to revoke the Gym. With the current leader in poor health and the recent death of his wife, they are somewhat lenient, but when he eventually passes..."

"We all know that the 'Sensational Sisters' are actors first, and not even trainers second," George agreed, "They don't even have what little talent their father has, though I feel it is all too likely he would leave them the gym and disinherit the poor girl in his will."

"Such a shame...even if that stage parent duo only tolerate having her around because the negative publicity from abandoning or killing Misty would ruin everything they built for her sisters, even they know that if Misty was to ever challenge her sisters for leadership of the gym, she'd win even if she was using a Magikarp. Hell, the only reason she hasn't challenged for it already is because it is forbidden to challenge a gym leader on his death bed..."

Her daydreaming stopped when Psyduck poked her in the forehead.

Misty's eyes shot open as the duck stared right at her, not sure if she should be annoyed at him for bringing her back to reality, or glad he did.

At any rate the stone she had been playing with had evidently already broken into tiny fragments as she'd clasped it so tightly after reliving such painful memories.

"Psy." 'Feed me human.'

Misty rolled her eyes at Psyduck's begging, however she did notice a most heartwarming sight.

Ash was feeding his three Pokémon; Pikachu, Butterfree and Pidgeotto, while applying the Super Potions to Pidgeotto that Nurse Joy had supplied him with to treat her injured wing for the seven day period she was going to be out of commission.

In particular, she noticed how he was retying the bandages onto her wing. There was just...something about how the normally fast paced rookie took so much care to carefully re-apply them to his injured Pokémon that was just so...appealing to her.

How it just seemed to show how much he cared...even with Pokémon he hadn't even really had that long.

Even still his Pokémon seemed to love him for his devotion to them, in particular Pikachu, but...she couldn't help but feel he cared about her too.

She was sure it was platonic, but it was still admittedly...rather nice.

No one besides her own Pokémon had ever seemed to care about her. Not her sisters, not her parents, no one. All she had realized from a very early age that she was on her own, that if she was to succeed she'd have to do so herself, so to have another person care about her was really powerful on her.

So she couldn't deny that she felt somehow attracted to him no matter in what way he was showing he cared both to her and to his own Pokémon.

It didn't hurt that he was good looking either...

"Duck duck duck." 'If you’re planning on mating with Ash, please feed me first,' Psyduck deadpanned as Misty blushed faster than a Speed Boosting Ninjask as she looked away.

She scolded herself at having given herself away like that, fortunate only that it had been Psyduck and not Ash to notice he had been staring at him.

However that annoyance with herself also transferred a bit to Psyduck as she told him, very seriously.

"For that, you're going to be fed last."

"Duck!" 'Why!?'

Misty didn't dignify him with a response.

One Feeding time later, on the road to Rota

"You did what!?" Misty yelled incredulously as she, Ash and Psyduck walked along the road to Cameran Palace, the duck eating from a can of Pokémon Food as they went along.

Ash shrugged as if it was no big deal as he admitted, "I apparently taught myself Quick Attack while training Pikachu."

Misty just shook her head as she claimed, "Do you have a genetic disposition to doing the impossible or something?"

"Pi." 'Yes.'

Ash ignored Pikachu there before telling her, "So, is it normal to learn moves like that? I mean, I probably did only use Quick Attack because I had been training with Pikachu for it with Don George..."

Misty nodded as she observed, "That's perhaps the first normal thing about you. I mean, I learned Whirlpool and Dive from my Horsea, and Surf and Waterfall from Starmie..."

She paused a moment before inquiring, "Say, can Pikachu learn Counter?"

Ash stopped and took out his Pokédex, curious about that himself now.

"Pikachu is an electric mouse Pokémon native to the Kanto Region, famous for being used in the past by several legendary trainers, including Eagun of Orre. Pikachu have been taught a wide variety of moves, including Rock Smash, Focus Punch, Grass Knot, Zap Cannon, Nuzzle, Rollout, Mega Punch, Electro Ball, Thunderbolt, Iron Tail, and their line's own unique move, Volt Tackle. Rumors of Pikachu using moves such as Surf, Fly and Counter are the results of Pikachu spending an inhumane amount of time in the ocean, having balloons tied to them and from translation errors when texts were shipped from Kanto to Unova. Drugs may have also been involved."

He was rather hoping that it wasn't drugs that had allowed him to learn Counter, or his mom would have killed him. Though as far as he could remember, he had never used.

Misty had a look on her face as if she had just asked a pointless question, but thankfully this pointless question was the first thing that they heard as suddenly some sadly all too familiar individuals made their presence known to them.

Who are they you ask...well if you're asking that question you must not have ever seen a popular anime series.

"Prepare for trouble, the actual way to go is to the left."

"Make it double, do you want our death?"

Misty and Ash immediately stopped talking as the trio made their return; though Ash had to admit he was a bit relieved to finally see the good old Team Rocket. As pathetic as they were, it was just far too unnatural to not have them around.

Their new theme song was definitely a lot worse though. Perhaps if they spent more time on song writing and less on trying and failing to steal Pokémon they might actually come up with something good.

"To protect ourselves from detouring tots!"

"To prevent us three from getting that most unpleasant of shots."

"To avoid the problems of different laws!"

"To protect our favorite cat from having to touch the stars with his paws!"

"Jessie!"

"James!"

"Team Rocket tells people to go back to somewhere safe for us at the speed of light."

"If you won't, we can make you white out at the end of this fight!"

"Meowth that's right!"

As the custom motto ended, the two just stared at them in more confusion than usual.

"You guys make even less sense than last time, but you're not taking Pikachu regardless," Ash declared as Pikachu's cheeks sparked and James visibly looked worried.

"Oh, we're not here to fight, we're here to ask you two to go back on Route 3 and go through Mt. Moon and onto Cerulean City like good little boys and girls!" James suggested as he pointed the other way.

The two just stared at him in confusion.

"Oh come on, what trainer doesn't want to catch a Clefairy, and they are found in so few places, among them Mount Moon! Nice, safe, Kanto-controlled Mt. Moon."

For some reason James was sounding like a used car salesman here...and not a very good one he might add.

"...I can't say that a Clefairy would do much for me," Ash admitted. While he would train any Pokémon who offered itself up to join him, he generally preferred fast and hard hitters. Clefairy played itself to a different style.

Plus, with how the world changed, for all he knew Clefairy would abduct and probe him. If so he rather hoped Gary was traveling through Mt. Moon right about now.

"Clefairy, the Fairy Pokémon. Clefairy are generally associated with mountain ranges prone to meteor activity. It is said that Clefairy rarely show themselves to humans, however contrary to popular opinion Clefairy are not extra-terrestrial in origin, and are fact biologically related to Jigglypuff. The only Pokémon known or believed to be from different worlds are Psychic types. As Professor Oak has not had a Clefairy or one of its evolutionary family in his lab, he would appreciate it, but recognizes that asking you to drive yourself insane by looking for a Clefairy is counter productive," the Pokédex absently noted.

"Okay then, what about a Paras? Zubat? Geodude..." James suggested.

"What the hell are you guys up to anyway!?" Misty finally decided in order to get them off their Mount Moon strangeness.

Of course Misty didn't know Team Rocket well enough to know that they were just weird all the time and they didn't need moon craziness to act that way.

"We are begging you not to go into Rotan territory; we can't bribe our way out of being executed for being members of a terrorist organization there. So, please just go the other way and let us stalk you safely!"

"James!" Jessie snapped at him.

"..." Misty just stared at them incredulously.

'Note to self, buy a retirement home in Rota,' Ash decided. "If you're after my Pikachu, you have another thing coming."

After all, why else would they be stalking him?

The trio exchanged a series of covert looks.

"Yes yes, we want your Pikachu to give to our boss for money, fame and his everlasting gratitude," Meowth lied, glad the kid had given them an excuse (Though they had no idea why the boss wanted them to stalk him anyway). The cat promptly drew his claws and demanded "now, let's say you hand it..."

"Duck Psy!" 'You three are giving me a headache!'

The trio glowed blue as Psyduck's hidden power was unleashed as they were promptly sent flying into the sky.

"Looks like Team Rocket is blasting off most unusually, again!"

Twinkle

"Duck psy." 'That was fun.'

"Why is my life always going to be strange," Ash had to ask himself as the annoying threesome was blown away unceremoniously.

"...Some people are just like that Ash, some people..." Misty shook her head in amusement, "but hey, some people like lives that are interesting, though they often aren't the ones who live them."

A few days later

As the border between Kanto and Rota got closer, and easily just a day away, the two trainers and the nine Pokémon with them were having lunch.

'Peck, peck, peck' 'Aerial Ace...' Pidgeotto liked the sound of that move as she pecked at her bowl of Pokémon Food as Pikachu described the move and its many users of the future Ketchum team (Swellow, Staraptor, Quilava, Unfezant, and Krookodile). 'Well, at least it's something to look forward to.'

While Pidgeotto was expressing interest in a future move, Ash and Misty found themselves at an impasse.

"A month of rice balls my ass," a starving Misty complained with an equally hungry Ash as they found themselves down to one rice ball, "it hasn't even been a week since Pewter City!"

The Rice Balls were the bulk of their food supply for this trip; having devoured the rest in the days previous, along with the rest of the rice balls.

"I'm suddenly realizing why people called my mother's food bill 'abnormally large,'" Ash recalled some womanly gossip he had overheard as a child.

It was fortunate that no one had really connected appetite and metabolism to being a bloodliner, if not just because that would result in the death of most teenage males by mistaken identity and quite possibly cause a lot of problems down the road for humanity as a whole.

"So...split it?" Ash suggested for the most humane solution for all involved, though this was quickly rendered a mute option due to what happened next.

"Ai-Aipom!"

A large, yellowish-white gloved hand connected to a long purple tail shot out of the tree and grabbed the sole remaining rice ball, before yanking it back up into a large tree.

The two teenagers stared up in horror as the rice ball found itself in the possession of a purple monkey Pokémon.

"Aipom!" It cheered as it began to take bites out of the rice ball.

"You...you...you thief!" Misty snarled as she began to form a Whirlpool attack, "Give me back my food!"

The Aipom merely grinned cheekily at Misty as if taunting her even though she tossed the Whirlpool at her. It merely hopped to another tree as if totally unconcerned as it grinned back at Misty again and took another bite of the rice ball, almost like it was saying, "Nah nah, you can't catch me."

Misty obviously didn't like that very much at being messed with and as she charged up a Whirlpool again, Ash decided to see if direct telepathy was something he could do, 'Pikachu...'

It apparently was something he could do, as Pikachu responded by turning his head towards him and mentally responded, 'Yes?'

However the response sounded like it was on a bad radio channel so while he could still hear Pikachu, it was distorted and uneven.

Ash decided to himself that he would not do this that often, seeing as hearing his Pokémon respond to his speech was much simpler. Though when Misty was on a rampage just in front of him, he couldn't really say what he was wondering out loud.

'...Is that our Aipom that Misty's trying to kill in a very May like rampage of food based fury?'

As Misty destroyed the next tree and Aipom calmly hopped to another tree as if it was merely playing, Pikachu seemed to look a tad too interested in watching Aipom.

'Yep. I'd know that ass of hers anywhere...'

Ash just stared blankly at Pikachu, who grinned as he admitted 'what, I was very popular among the lady Pokémon we've traveled with who shared egg groups with me.'

“Shared egg groups with you?” Ash didn’t realize he said that out loud until the Pokédex blared out.

"Pikachu is in the Field and Fairy egg group. Pokémon that are in these groups include Buneary, Snivy, Skitty, Fennekin, Clefairy, Jigglypuff, Roselia, Sealeo, Arbok, Emboar, Hippowdon..."

Ash whacked the Pokédex in his pocket to shut it up and hopefully get the resulting images out of his head. He so did not need that right now...or ever.

'Okay...filing that away in the 'things I really never needed to ever know about' category, why is she suddenly causing problems now, when we didn't even run into her until the Battle Frontier, and more specifically the Kanto Grand Festival? Don George...sort of makes sense I guess, considering the Battle Clubs were well established, but her?'

'Time travel makes everything strange,' Pikachu offered up his two cents about the confusion.

'Er, do you think that catching Aipom this early will result in the destruction of time again...I mean none of us have any idea how this thing works and all...' Ash was also partially terrified that Misty, now having destroyed her sixth tree in her food rampage, might do something if she caught Aipom right now (with Aipom unable to avoid it).

"Aipom, the Long Tail Pokémon. Aipom are a social species who live in groups known as troops in forests both tropical and temperate. Aipom breed fast due to their tendency to be killed by predators, which is in part why so few Ambipom have been recorded out of captivity. Aipom who are alone are generally lucky if they survive for a week,” the Pokédex added in its two cents to this debate.

"Pika" 'Well, better to take a chance with Misty then with Mother Nature,' Pikachu claimed as he had decided to go back to the regular communication style for its efficiency, and also as a subtle message for Ash.

A message that, for once, Ash picked up.

"Okay, Butterfree use String Shot to grab Aipom and drag it this way!" Ash called as both Pikachu and Butterfree stared at him in confusion, before Butterfree did as commanded, shooting a thread of string that caught Aipom as she was jumping from tree to tree.

"Ai!?"

"Hey!" Misty, having just broken a ninth tree, complained to Ash as he had her prey dragged over to him, "That food snatcher is mine!"

"I think, for the sake of both this forest and this Aipom, we should put this whole thing down quickly." Ash pointed at Aipom. "Butterfree, Sleep Powder!"

The blue dust quickly covered the monkey, who collapsed into a sleeping heap, her half eaten rice ball still in her large hand tail, as Ash drew a Pokéball and tossed it, though not before Misty grabbed the rice ball and ate it.

Ash was briefly going to argue, but it was too late for that, and she would probably argue that having a new Pokémon was worth half a meal. Plus, getting into an argument with Misty would probably make them hungrier.

"Pokémon capture registered to system. Pokémon, Aipom. Gender, female. Ability, Run Away. Moves; Scratch, Swift, Power-Up Punch, Astonish. Data on this Aipom specimen being sent to data base as this unit vocally announces this; 5%, 6%, 7%..."

Ash removed the Pokédex from his pocket and grumbled, "Why do you feel the need to do that?"

"This unit is complicated, 15%, 16%, 17%..."

Ash had no idea why his Pokédex in this timeline seemed to have a personality, but he couldn't help but worry about it.

Wasn't that how 'robots take over the world' stories started?

A few hours later

In the end, it really didn't matter who ate the remains of the rice ball, the two were still incredibly hungry, and Pokémon Food did not make good trail mix.

Grumble

"...Rota is just a few hours ahead..." Misty groaned as the starving duo continued on, "We can make it...and that Pokédex of yours can pay for an all you can buffet."

Grumble

"Please... don't talk about...food," Ash mumbled deliriously as their stomachs kept alternating in grumbling.

Grumble

'I am so glad that my species electric sacks are lethal to human consumption,' Pikachu morbidly joked to himself, walking behind Ash and Misty to give Ash a slight break on the whole 'weak from hunger' thing.

Grumble

However, as the two starving teenagers and moderately concerned Pikachu continued to walk forward, they missed seeing what marked the exact border between Rota and Kanto.

A ring of green crystal-like roots from the Tree of Beginning, which flashed as Ash passed them by.

Meanwhile, in Cameron Palace

The crystals in the throne room of the Duchy of Rota glowed a vibrant color, shocking the two inhabitants of the room at this time; a young and beautiful blond woman sitting on a throne and dressed in a purple dress, and a gray haired maid.

"Oh my..." The maid said in astonishment as the light illuminated the throne room, and every other crystal in the kingdom. "I have never seen something like this before..."

"It's true then..." the queen lady on the throne said in utter shock, as if she had just met a mythical or legendary being.

"What? What is true, Lady Ilene?" the maid inquired, "Please tell me this has nothing to do with that Nostradamus person?"

"An heir has come," Lady Ilene declared solemnly.