A picturesque Route 117. The connective tissue between the bustling city with its teeming masses and media economy, and the quiet town, whose clean air made it a must-visit for people who spent too long in Fallarbor. This route is marked by grasslands and meadows, occasionally flanked on one side or the other by a lake.

The mission was the sort that he'd taken for granted, time and time again. A group assignment skirting the line between manual labor and pokemon battles.  He'd had a number of these, between rearranging Slowbros for smuggling on the sub, and his recent battle with Zarude, whose fallout nearly landed him 13 years in jail.

"Well, here goes nothing." He said, deciding to dwell on the mission brief for no longer than he already had. The assignment ahead was obvious, with an above-average sized congregation of Pikachu clogging the stretch of land between Verdanturf and Mauville.

Truth be told, he flinched when he heard a stranger approach. It was... some kid? He'd already had his fair share of indignities, but now he had to set a good example, too? Giona had to tamp down his desire to break out a cigarette and slowly whittle it down. This left him a little restless, and extra talkative. He put on a weak grin, calling forth his Trapinch. "Hey. I'm just about to get started. You're here for the uh... wildlife preservation work, right? We have to stop the Pikachu from running roughshod on the population of the lakes nearby."

Giona said, quickly spinning his attempt to bag and tag Pikachus with a nearby shipping pallet of pokeballs into something noble. He hadn't met her yet, and had learned his lesson when Lulu stared daggers at him for even mentioning the Rockets. He whistled, and his Trapinch used Bulldoze. It kicked up dirt, bowling over and stunning a few Pikachu clustered together. He threw a pokeball at each of them, and then kicked the pallet so it sat between him and Ms Vela. His element of surprise was gone, but now he was slightly less outnumbered.

TL;DR: It's the mission where they wrangle pikachu!!!

They passed through the threshold. Into the darkness, lit only by whatever faint lights were on their person. Whatever she thought of him... He was stupid as hell, and her friends that met him thus far took a shine to the tenacious 23 year old.

His missions thus far had all been manual labor. He was the person Rocket sent to staff their fronts, or squeezed into places they got protection money from. Under this guise, he'd been a landscaper, a roofer, and now a line-cook. The profession most prone to drinking and smoking to cope with stress.

The jump Lulu got from a Haunter made him flinch. He turned around. The space between them was occupied by a suspiciously purple looking shadow, unaffected by the light of the slowly disintegrating cigarette. It licked her, then flew off.

Nonetheless, she saw fit to draw her Lucario. The hound dutifully put up a Counter, only to be met with silence, all the more tense than the silence preceding this encounter. He could feel her staring at him again, just as intimidating as before. "I'm not even a made man yet. They'd only send me on this assignment if it wasn't worth giving to someone higher up. Are you scared of ghosts, or somethin'?"

Giona then saw fit to dig around in his pockets, drawing a pokeball from it. He'd then send forth from the black capsule a stunning Luxray, in a flash of light that briefly illuminated the room. To greet the two of them, Haunter played a nastier sort of prank. It dislodged a hook stuck in the ceiling, of the sort used to support a boat during a stress-test. The dull hook swung, embedding itself in the concrete wall next to Giona's head, with the sharp sound of metal on concrete right next to his ear. His eyes widened, and he could barely move, out of shock. A chill ran up his spine, and he tripped over his own feet when he tried to step aside. He laid back, propped up by his elbows and looking up.

Luxray used Charge, glowing as it built up electrical energy and steeled its defenses against non-physical attacks. The soft ambient light brought by this hit the entire warehouse floor equally, but Lulu would be able to make out a shadow cast on a sharp corner of the big room that had more of a... purple tint than the others. Furthermore, Giona pointed it out to her, with an outreached finger, just barely within the radius of his cigarette's orange glow.

TL;DR: Ghosts??? Ghost types??? Some of them are actually spirits possessing objects, but who's to say if ghosts are real.

Fortree City. A quiet town to the northeast. While Chryssa had her feet held to the fire for the second time that month, the sound of the ongoing discussion in the front didn't even reach his side of the police station. His well-insulated interrogation room, with bare walls. It was a short distance to the warden's booth, which held both a keyring and a pallet full of pokeballs, and a short distance from that to his holding cell, one of about twenty-five.

While her credibility was checked, while it was questioned if a sixteen year old could hold down a job like this... His credibility was buffed. The officer in there with him seemed nice at first, but he was eager to inflate his importance in the, yes, admittedly bad looking poaching and forest fire.

The officer's offered cigarette was snatched up. A Camerupt Crush, from a pack of 18 or so. It was a little thicker than Giona was used to, and he reached to the lighter in the middle of the table. This was the kind of cigarette befitting a frazzled college student, in the hands of a man who was thirty, at best. At any time, you could pinch it to add a burst of menthol as well as menthol flavor.  "Feel free to chime in, but from what I can tell, there was a pack of Zarude nearby. Not close enough to threaten the town, but if they were, we could've gotten them. You moved in and separated one from the pack. In the ensuing chaos, a forest fire began. You badly mangled one of them, and fanned the flames to make your escape. You didn't even catch it." He said, standing from the table and starting to act it out. He really hammed it up, and bellowed out his lines, like Willem Dafoe in Boondock Saints.

"What am I supposed to believe. That you either had your Torchic use Flame Burst, knowing fully well the consequences?! Or that you could NEVER do this by yourself. Not in a million years. Either way, you were involved. Why?" He said, building up to a crescendo. Accusing the man, and yet... putting a fork in the road. Does he own up to all of it, or rat people out. Admit that he's a widdle wurmple who needs to be stepped on, or that he single-handedly nearly burned Fortree down? The choice was obvious.

Giona took a drag, letting an adidas-lace sized line of ash slough off onto the dark, hardwood table. He pinched the sides of the Camerupt Crush before speaking up. "I'm not sure what happened either. There were six people there, as I recall. Nobody else wore my uniform, so it's safe to say I was alone out there. As for the Zarude... Aren't we supposed to seek out opportunities like this? Nobody would get mad at me for going to Mount Pyre to catch a Duskull. I couldn't catch Zarude because five people cornered me."

That subtle insinuation seemed to be the last straw. The man who stood from the table and had a sudden change of heart raised a leg and shoved the table into his ribs with a kick. In fairness to him, Giona did technically do attempted arson, as well as poaching. He raised a hand, stopping the cigarette from either burning the table, or going all the way in his mouth. Ribbons of smoke filled the room, the officer sat back down and lit a cigarette off of his.

TL;DR: It's the Prison Break Mission. We're doing Prison Break. The mission where someone breaks out of prison.

Though the scent of tequila was on her breath, he could just barely make it out over his cheap, fragrant cigarettes. She had a lazy look on her face, which could pose its own problem with regards to the mission.

She snapped awake, staring daggers into him at the mention of the Rockets. Nonetheless, he had a toothy grin across his face. This was certainly better than chaperoning a half-asleep drunk. He'd made grown-ups mad at him before. He turned, facing the warehouse again.

As they ascended the steps together, she posed that question they were both here to answer. He didn't believe in ghosts, in a consciousness without a body to act on the world. Nonetheless! He had to come up with an answer that was sufficient to take the mission seriously. "I don't know for sure, but places like this... places where humanity totally gave up... Ghost types would love to move into such a place. Either way, we'll have to comb through it, so this doesn't blow up in our faces a few months from now."

TL;DR: Ghosts??? Ghost types??? Some of them are actually spirits possessing objects, but who's to say if ghosts are real.

Through the thick ribbon of smoke, she trained her eyes on him. He could feel them, like someone peering over his shoulder. With the door propped open, he descended the concrete stairs, small and tightly packed together. His rhythm as he caught himself instead of eating shit on the concrete seemed to mimic a tap-dancing routine. Hello my baby, hello my honey, etc.

She seemed to admire his gusto, his productive use of his restless nature. A little laugh escaped Lulu as he explained the lighter trick. She lingered there, outside the doorway. No matter! He would simply finish descending the stairs and move closer, so as to avoid yelling. Everything seemed 15% louder at night, and he wouldn't dare push his luck with the cops being called again. He took a drag off his cigarette, and an adidas-lace sized line of ash fell between his shoes.

Was it confidence? Stupidity? Either way, he broke down his trick to try and cut the tension. To put himself out there, regardless of if she was here to rat him out. He looked up at her, and whispered. "I think I can trust you, for whatever reason. You would've bagged and tagged me already if you were an officer, watching me trespass. I'm here on orders from Team Rocket to scout out this haunted warehouse, so we can use it to smuggle shit. I'll... look the other way, if you help yourself to something nice in there."

He offered to her, in the same manner that a cat would tell you to help yourself to the rat it fetches for you. He dug around in his chest pocket, offering her one of his cheap, fragrant cigarettes. It was a thin white tube, the kind of bendable and match-like cigarette you'd see in an anime.

TL;DR: He's a clown! A fool! He'd already been arrested once!

Giona had a nice little setup in the submarine. He had his lunch, a meatball sub split neatly in two, off to the side. He wore a plain black tee and matching bike-shorts, with a black mesh cap on backwards. He was something of a king among grunts. Not quite a made man in the mob yet, but he had some impressive missions and near-death experiences under his belt. It was like being rumored to be a truly gifted baseball player... and being trapped on a AA farm-team in the middle of Ohio.

"Welcome back, homie. This sub is our base of operations... not sure if you knew that. Feel free to take half of my lunch if you get tired, and... my name is Giona Ferrara. And... you are?" He beamed up at the other man who entered through the doorway, nodding aside at a docile looking Slowbro, and a shipping pallet of pokeballs, presumably containing other Slowbros.

He then put his arms around the vice-like grip the large, calcified shell had on the Slowbro infront of him. He held it with one elbow under it and one bicep over it, like he was attempting a Rear Naked Choke on a human. He planted his feet firmly on the ground, standing up and separating the two creatures after a minute of wrestling it in this fashion. It let out a dull cry, and seemed to shrink down to the quadrupedal, skinnier Slowpoke.

TL;DR: It's time for manual labor, babey!!!

Giona took a long drag from his cigarette. Not only did it puncture the fresh sea-salt scent of the air with a cool and earthy aroma; like someone made a fragrance based on mint chocolate chip ice cream, but it also illuminated his face in the dark. It appeared as though there was a gleam in his eyes, though they merely reflected the reddish-orange light mere inches from his face.

"Well, thanks. It's not that hard to get a pin inside a lock, you just have to buy a cheap lighter and pick it apart. Do it slowly, or you'll have new fingerprints for a while, haha!" He admitted, thinking back to all the attempts at this that she DIDN'T see, wherein he warped his fingers, or set something on fire on accident. Giona gave a toothy grin, and narrowed his eyes to try and zero in on the face obscured by the shade, and the hair framing it so well.

He then pulled the personnel door open, and patted around in the dark inside the doorway for a rock to prop open the door. He then entered the building, his arm beckoning her in as his body was swallowed by the shade. He had just a bit of light, and his eyes would adjust soon enough.

TL;DR: It's the paranormal activity mission. The mission where paranormal activity interferes with their actual stated goal.

It was only a matter of time before he found this place. Giona Ferrara was made a line cook at a restaurant, two thirds of which were technically a safehouse for Rocket activity. Even the parking lot was a den of scum and villainy at certain hours of the day. It was only a matter of time before he was sent to some run-down warehouse to repurpose it for smuggling, like a weed slowly taking over a neglected plot of land.

He'd spared no real mental bandwidth to the rumored ghosts in the warehouse. Could've been a figure of speech. A concept of the people Rockets murdered or simply allowed to die here in years prior doing more than just paint the interior. He wasn't scared of ghosts either way, the biggest scare of his life so far was staring down the barrel of a 13 year sentence in Fortree.

"Well, here goes nothing." He grabbed onto the door on the side, not bothering with the wide steel shutter so heavy that it was on wheels. This place used to store tools for stress-testing boats, as well as outright spare parts for fishing vessels. He pulled the pin from a cheap lighter in one of his pockets and felt around inside the lock on the door, pushing up a succession of ridges meant for a key. He then reassembled his lighter and grabbed the doorhandle. It swung open with a high pitched 'reeeeEEEE' as if the hinges hadn't been oiled in years.

Truth be told, he flinched when he heard a stranger approach. Everything seems 15% louder in the dead of night. A chill ran up his spine, and he turned to face her, propping the door open with one of his heavy grey boots. He then fumbled around with his lighter and a thin yet bendable cigarette you'd see in an anime. Giona put it in his mouth and pocketed the lighter. His eyes couldn't hide it though, he looked like he'd already seen a ghost when he heard her.

TL;DR: It's the paranormal activity mission. The mission where paranormal activity interferes with their actual stated goal.

She closed in, and spoke to him. "Well, since you're offering." He nodded, and spoke just loudly enough for passersby to hear, to diffuse any suspicion. "I have a few tamato-berry salads in a cooler, if you don't want to wait for me to start a soup, grill mushrooms, start pasta, or fry up an Octillery."

It was a matter of time before he got caught. Fortree's authorities closed in from the west. Flanked by League operatives to the east. He wore his jumpsuit, but not zipped up enough to obscure the R. He wore the Rocket uniform for practical reasons, but now it was this big weight hanging on his neck.

He'd spent the night in a jail on the east side of town, adjacent to the pokemon center. Jonah was separated from each of his pokemon, whose Rocket patterned capsules were slightly out of reach, like a warden's keyring in a cartoon. Taunting him. Well, taunting him no more than the lingering back-pain of waking up after 8 hours of tossing and turning, semi-sleep on a rock-hard mattress.

"--I didn't even start that fire. I don't have a fire type strong enough to do it." He whined, as he was transferred from his holding cell to a classic interrogation room, with the door locking behind him. He was dumped on the hard floor, and faced with a table in the center of the room, a chair on either side, and bluish white fluorescent lights. He was beckoned to the table with a smile rather than a scowl by the archetypal grown-up former punk who would show him that modicum of respect.

He had a buzz-cut, and looked pink all over, save for blue and black ink tattoos poking out of his black button-up. He sported an odd mix of hardcore band logos and traditional sailor symbols like Taillows and anchors. "So, what can you tell me about this... forest fire, and the pack of Zarude? You know, you could do anywhere from five to twenty years, but... we can shave a few years off if you start talking... and I like what I hear." He offered a cigarette between his finger and thumb, the extra thin and yet bendable kind you'd only see in an anime. Somewhere between a Virginia Slim and a match from a book of matches. Jonah's nose itched, and he was slightly irritated, having already been set off by Killian smoking in the woods.

TL;DR: It's the Prison Break Mission. We're doing Prison Break. The mission where someone breaks out of prison.