Thank Arceus, his fellow Rocket had an idea! If he saved his bacon for a second time tonight, Rico would be forever indebted to him. Having surmised by now that their enemy was not in fact a Pikachu but instead some kind of Ghost type, he intended to send another Ghost type to deal with it.

"Wooh, that's a very solid plan, if I do say so myself! I'd help too, but all I have is a bunch of Meowth." The white-clad grunt remarked, hiding behind the manlier and much more physically imposing Kepler.

And so, the plan was set into motion, Kepler's Golett slowly approaching the monstrosity, who had once again donned its Pikachu-like disguise. Something in Kepler's particular choice of words seemingly resonated with the unholy creature.

Friend?

It made no attempt to attack Venus as she drew near, dropping its defenses.

Make... friend?

The angry eyebrows it had sketched earlier were gone, making its eyes look almost as if they were... pleading.

Make friend... with me?

kepler brueshaber

☉

Rico would recognize that pink tail anywhere; it was Cash Money, his second favorite Meowth in the world after Maddie. Speaking of, his non-shiny Meowth was taking a nap on his desk at the time, while the blue-haired youth was typing on his laptop, wearing a stylish pair of glasses, a yellow, open shirt and a white undershirt with the POG Bank logo on it.

It wasn't that often that Martín del Mar himself showed up at his workplace, so naturally Rico got out of his cubicle to see what the buzz was about. Getting straight to the point as usual, the young CEO introduced the new girl to the rest of the employees. Very briefly, he cast a glance at Rico, who felt a tight knot in his stomach.

That must have been the boss' 'don't screw it up' look.

Woken from his stupor by Samantha's voice, the blue-haired youth approached her with a friendly smile. "That would be me! Rico Bassanello, social media handler and content creator, one of the greatest creative minds of our generation that has yet to be discovered! Since you're new here, I'll allow you to call me Senpai, as is customary here in Hoenn." The flamboyant grunt said, oozing a wholly unjustified amount of confidence.

It had taken him all of two seconds to screw up.

"By the way, our workplace has a casual dress code." Rico remarked, noting his new co-worker's rather formal-looking attire. "On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with a woman in a suit. It's a bold fashion statement, if I do say so myself." He gleefully added.

Martín del Mar, @samantha

☉

Mercury to the rescue! The fiery rabbit that could proved to everyone that he really was capable of high quality animation if he put his mind to it, grabbing both humans in a pinch and bailing them out of a truly desperate situation.

Strangely, the abomination made no attempt to chase after them this time, instead snatching its discarded sheet with one of its obscene appendages. Was hiding its hideous form more important to the creature than the pursuit of its prey?

After a while, its distorted cries could no longer be heard. It seemed as if they had lost it... for now. After the group had retreated to safety, Rico would lean against one of the sub's metallic walls, catching his breath. "Hah... I thought I was a goner for sure." He said, while clutching a still passed out Czar in his arms. He turned to his fellow Rocket. "What do we do now? That thing is probably still at large."

kepler brueshaber

☉

"Kyuuuuu!"

The creature cried in pain as the Bounce connected. Kepler's assertion about its typing was likely correct, and its defenses seemed to have been lowered now that it had sustained a couple of hits. It tried to make a quick getaway, but its sheet got caught up in the Scorbunny's foot.

"Hurrah! Looks like we scared it off! Wait..." Much to Rico's surprise, the sheet slipped off, unveiling the creature's true form under the room's poor lighting. And it was a good thing that the lighting was poor, because its form was horrid beyond comprehension; a writhing, amorphous mass of black tendrils.


"̨̼͍̟̬͖͈̣̆̆̈́͛̏̚K̸̢̡͕͓̺͎̖͇̂ͩͮͬ͑ͨ͂ỹ̵̱̝̲͖͔ͨ̂͋̂̎́̈û̶̺̦̯̬̹̦ͯ̾͆̑̚ư͎̞̩̹̥͚̼͖ͪ͛̀͡ű̷̝̮̤̯͉͈͚͓ͪͮ̅́u̸̺̲ͧͮͧͪ͆ͨ͌̐ͅư̸̷̟̟̘̓͛ͦ̓͐u͇̒͆̓̋̃̾̽͘͟͜ų̵͇̯ͭͥͥ̋͒̾ͮ̉u͔̻͈̥ͫ̃ͩ͐̂͘!̢̹̳̹̝̹͉́́"̛̛̞͑̏ͣͤͦ̆ͦ


It was a wretched abomination humans were not meant to lay eyes upon. Their brains couldn't fully process what they were seeing, registering it as a blur. Czar's eyes rolled to the back of his head, fainting from sheer shock. The cat's utterly mortified trainer wasn't that far behind. "W-w-w-w-w-what the hell is that thing?!"

kepler brueshaber

☉

"Cash Money... it's got a nice ring to it. Cash Money and Dollar!" Rico mused, hearing the POG mascot's name for the first time. It was very fitting, all things considered, what with Meowth usually being associated with money due to their weird alchemy. How else could you describe the power to create money out of thin air?

"That's right, her name is Maddie. And this handsome little man is called Addie. The two are closer than siblings." The flamboyant grunt explained, while gesturing at his own Meowth and Persian respectively, whom he dotted with much affection. "There's something so endearing about feline Pokémon, don't you think?" He added, gaining a newfound interest in talking about his favorite pets.

Martín del Mar

☉

Within seconds, the flamboyant grunt's focus was divided between checking on Czar's injuries and trying to catch up with his foul-mouthed, retreating cohort. "H-hey, you can't just run away and leave me behind! Rockets should stick together!" He cried out, cradling the Meowth in his arms and running after the effeminate youth.

The sussy Pikachu impostor gave chase, once again blending into the shadows on the wall. It was wicked fast too, easily outrunning the two grunts and cutting in front of them, blocking their escape route. In a submarine where everything was so compact, there weren't many places to run to anyway.

"Eeek! Czar, fire another Dark Pulse!" Bass yelled in desperation. The second wave of dark energy courtesy of his Meowth knocked the strange, Pikachu-like creature backwards. "Aha! We hit it this time!" The grunt said with a wide grin.

Getting back on its feet, or lack-thereof, the creature's shadowy claw reached backwards, plucking out its own 'tail', which was apparently just a tree branch with a black, ink-like substance dripping from its tip. Using it like a pen, it scribbled a pair of angry eyebrows to its childish doodle of a face.

Shit'd just gotten real.

kepler brueshaber

☉

The effeminate-looking boy questioned why Bass had made such a fuss about a Pikachu. Clearly he hadn't experienced the terror that was Pikachu's Thunder Wave. "It made a scary noise at me!" Bass replied, being all defensive.

The Dark Pulse connected, causing the head of the 'Pikachu' to droop limply to the side. "You broke its neck! Good job, Czar!" The white-clad grunt exclaimed, but his celebration was cut short when the creature started to sway deftly in the shadows. "Huh?! How is it still moving?!".

The 'Pikachu' merged with its own shadow, sneaking behind the Alolan Meowth, before emerging from the floor and striking the cat with an elongated, black claw that came out of the bottom part of its body.

In that moment, its form became clearer; the 'head' was just a decoy with a badly drawn face, the creature's actual body being concealed under a pale yellow sheet.

"Mi-mic... Youuuu!"

kepler brueshaber

☉

"O-orange jumpsuits?!" The cerulean-haired youth blurted out, the thought of wearing a prison uniform somehow shocking him more than the prospect of ending up inside a casket. Then again, being incarcerated was basically a death sentence; a handsome, yet physically weak man like Rico would be eaten alive there.

Such a dark thought was quickly brushed aside when the Rocket Admin confided his true identity. "Martín del Mar? THE Martín del Mar? World-renowned playboy and philanthropist Martín del Mar? Oh, what an honor!" Rico enthusiastically shook the man's hand. "I love POG Bank! That pink-tailed Meowth you use in your ads is just adorable!"

The grunt's own Meowth gave him a sullen look, prompting him to kneel down and pet its bulbous head. "There, there. No Meowth in the world can replace you, Maddie." He consoled the jealous feline, who purred lightly while being pet.

Martín del Mar

☉

As destructively loud as Addie's Hyper Voice was, it made him a sitting duck for Sawsbuck's Jump Kick. The screaming feline got a hoof to the face for his troubles. It was super effective!

Bass swiftly turned to his fellow Rocket, who suggested that they bailed the scene. "I couldn't agree more!" The blue-haired youth nodded, hastily calling his two Pokémon back into their balls, before running after his cohort, hoping to use the ruckus as the perfect cover for their getaway.

Even if they hadn't captured a single de-evolved Slowpoke, the shells themselves should sell (try saying that three times fast) for a decent price at the black market. All in all, this mission wasn't a complete bust.

DANNY HALL, ollie morales

☉

'Nutty' was an apt way to describe what was going on. That tanned ranger had virtually no chill, even going as far as to order his Pokémon to attack humans. Bass was petrified with fear. "M-Maddie, do something!" He yelled at his Meowth, which was petrified with paralysis.

"I'm so sorry for this, Maddie..." With a rush of adrenaline injected into his still numb from the Thunder Wave muscles, the white-clad Rocket grabbed his paralyzed cat with both hands, and yeeted her straight into an airborne Tofu. The world's first flying Meowth intercepted the Slam by crashing head-first into the Pikachu. The force of the impact should send both Pokémon tumbling to the ground, whereupon Maddie started Playing Roughly with the electric mouse.

Meanwhile, Addie had finished plotting nastily, and fired a supercharged Hyper Voice against the Sawsbuck, his earth-shaking roar meeting with the opponent's Solar Beam in the middle and triggering a violent explosion as the two attacks were evenly matched. A dust cloud engulfed the small island, yet the Slowbro and Slowpoke that were hanging out at the beach didn't seem to even acknowledge the intense battle happening right beside them.

DANNY HALL, ollie morales

☉

Bass kept screaming like a distraught housewife until his lungs were bereft of air. It took him a moment to realize that he'd just sprinted past a fellow Rocket. Him running away like a coward definitely did not bode well for his image. If the other grunts found out that he was a scaredy cat, they'd bully the everliving crud out of him.

Maybe he could turn things around, though, by using that (admittedly pretty cute) youth as a meatshield. At the end of the same hallway he'd run away screaming from, where there was previously nothing, one could now make out a shadowy silhouette with elongated, pointy ears and a lightning bolt-shaped tail. Who's that Pokemon?

"Kyuuu!"

"It's Pikachu!" The white-clad grunt cried out, his body still aching from his last encounter with one of those electric rodents. Standing behind Kepler, he hurled a Pokéball forward. "Czar, exterminate that rat with your Dark Pulse!" He ordered his Alolan Meowth, which fired a wave of darkness and malice towards the completely stationary 'Pikachu'.

kepler brueshaber

☉

"Dollar..." Rico nodded understandingly. A fitting name for a Pokémon owned by a rich and powerful man. The azure-haired youth pulled a Pokéball out of his pocket, revealing a Persian of his own. "This one is called Addie. Look at them, they looks like twins!" He mused, while Addie stood in front of Dollar like a mirror image, letting out a rumbling purr of his own.

Rico's blue eyebrow twitched when the Rocket Admin suggested that he refrained from wearing his white uniform in public, as if the very idea of doing things in a subtle manner was annoying to him. "What's the point of doing anything if you can't do it fashionably?" The flamboyant Grunt smugly responded, producing a single red rose from his sleeve. "Money and power are important, but above all, Team Rocket does things in style, unlike other boring gangs out there. Simply put, I've always been impressed by how good you people look while doing nefarious deeds. That's why I'm here."

Following his impassioned, if a bit eccentric speech, Rico proceeded to squint at Martín's form once again. "By the way, there's something that's been bugging me ever since coming in here. Have we met before?" He asked in a puzzled manner. "I swear your face looks familiar, and I never forget a memorable face."

Martín del Mar

☉