Pokémon Transversal headcanons and oneshots

[K_S]

Chapter 1,
Grace's final fate (allusions)

reader's note: set a little after chapter 9 of "transversal crossing the backs of legends" this snippot focus' on the surreal au version of Alola that Celebi shunted Giovanni into, as well as the internal and external struggles the setting and his situation are causing.


It was two in the morning. That special time when insomnia was at its peak, and the aches and rigors of travel were persistent enough that he couldn't sleep through them if he wanted to.

And experience had taught him he shouldn't sleep through them if he wanted to have full mobility say... After breakfast.

So he was awake, and after a long span staring at the ceiling decided "screw it" and rolled out of bed. A quick grope at the empty span of bed beside him found the next day's clothes laid out where he'd left them. Though the hotel room was pitch black he got changed and slipped out of his room without waking the blond girl in rooms the other bed.

And while his body went through the motions of a perimeter check, poking through each room of their rental, slipping out to patrol the hallway... His mind had the freedom to meander.

And meander it did.

He hadn't expected to see Grace ever again... And it was an accidental mercy that he hadn't. Despite the damned Legends best to make him relive his greatest failures again and again.

Celebi and friends had crafted this faux region and defiled his mind in the process. Plumbing his memories to extract fragments of Grace all the better to crudely copy and paste her onto the populace.

The echoes of his late wife were supposed to be punishment for his sins. It had strayed from agonizing to aggravating in under a month. The loss of shock did it. When most of the women had her silver-hued eyes despite the fact that the real residents of Alola should not have the kantoian mutation. The hairstyles Grace had favored became more prominent the longer they lingered in towns. Upgrading from seeing them from the corner of his eyes as they wandered along swaths of the city, to scaling up to people they'd spoken to the day before having suddenly changed hairstyles.

The first time that happened, it'd been a lady trainer of Skull. The lanky, malnourished, adolescent had gone from an imperfect buzz cut with whisps of black frizz to shoulder-length red tresses overnight. The change, so overt and glaring, had startled poor Lillie enough she'd been candid. Asking the woman where she'd gotten her pretty wig.

That had led to quite the scuffle... But Lillie had triggered the fight despite Giovanni hissing at her not to stare... Because eye contact made trainers rabid, 'mon slinging, savages, here.

But the girl's curiosity had made her careless.

She'd had Silver's sandshrew. So Giovanni had left the girls to their fight. He'd also ignored Lillie's complaints about him ditching her when she staggered back, seeping sand from every seem and sporting a few new scratches.

As the vacuum was worked, because Lillie insisted on cleaning up her own mess at thier hotel room despite the place being staffed, Giovanni had been unable to help himself.

"I did say not to talk to her..."

All in all it was a rather tepid "I told you so." Not that piccola bambina Aether lost her strope despite his kindness.

"I was looking at her wig... Except it's not one..."

Lips quirking, eyes crinkling in amusement, Giovanni drawled. "Did you figure this out before or after the hair-pulling?"

Lillie sputtered at the teasing, completly tongue tied.

In part because she'd likely never been teased. She was such a sheltered little thing. But also because she nurtured the fond delusion of "I'd never sink that low as hair pulling". Such brutal displays were against her gentlewoman's creed of trying to resemble a door mat.


ever knowing that every time she spoke she sank to lows well beyond being crass in a fight. Oblivious that her every syllable twisted the knife of Giovanni's loss all accidental.

Because Lillie had Grace's voice. And in commandeering this child's voice to make an echo of his wife's the Legends made a poltergeist of a woman so divorced from malice she'd of been infuriated at the idea.

Hallway check complete, he circled the outer walkways with soundless steps. He found the emergency exit in an out-of-the-way corner. Unmarred by an actual alarm, or proper sign, or wheelchair access, (really the Legends had no clue about fire safety, OSHA would hardly approve) he nudged his way in. It was a tower of cement with a stairwell that went both up and down.

Nevermind the style conflicted with the beachside paradise the five rise was aiming for. Or the reek, mold, and must, made no sense considering this island was more desert than anything. The humidity that could have encouraged the reeking growth hadn't happened.

Because despite being an island paradise, there hadn't been one humid day in all his days in Alola.

He took the steps to the top, and at the last landing, there was a trap door with a pull-down ladder. The thing was jammed and locked. A few shakes didn't jar it loose, but like all Legend-born issues, there were workarounds.

A flick of his wrist, a toss of a pokeball, and Beedril swirled into being. The bug was always happy to help, and thwarting a Legend-born block had the bug salivating acid in enthusiasm. Once he explained that acid wouldn't help, Giovanni directed the bug to spit string shot ropes. It took both of them tugging, but eventually, the ladder clanged down.

Giovanni climbed up, Beedril perched upon his back barely making a dent in his clamber. After a few nudges, the trap door was up, and they were on the roof. With a buzz the bug lifted off, flitting around the pipes and edges in a loose grid pattern.

Filthy didn't even begin to describe the place. The cement atop was a darker grey than the walls along the walk-up. The roof was smog-crusted, ash ash-smeared, and paper trash was plastered on every flat span as if it were glued.

Never mind a good wind should blow the papers off. That there were no factories or cars in all of Alola to make this much pollution. And the fact that the hotel attached to this path was so pristine it looked like it'd been newly minted.

"Fucking legends can't get anything right."

And nevermind his new, clean, clothes, Giovanni flopped on the filthy roof. Glaring up at a sky devoid of stars moon and clouds. It wasn't too different from say staring at a massive movie screen before the show had started. Except that was the whole of the sky.

Beedril fluttered over, search done, dropping on the adolescent Rocket's stomach with a thump.

Grunting at the bug, Giovanni almost flipped over out of spite. But that felt like too much effort.

He was tired, he wasn't an adolescent, wasn't even a young man anymore, and days like today he felt his real age and not the age his body was shunted into.

For him, middle age was looming. Right before his sickness, before the madness of children named after colors, before dragon trainers turned omnicidal, and Silph's fall, Giovanni had been like any other man doing his shopping. Dickering in the men's health care department, seriously contemplating hair dyes to hide the encroaching silver hairs he'd found during his last trim.

Glaring at the fake sky Giovanni grumbled, smoothing Beedril's wings with a hand.

"They can't even get regenerations right."

His voice cracked. Because why not? This second puberty had been designed to be more embarrassing than his first. Or at least more prone to vocal warbling.

Because why not play on his pride whenever he talked?

He was just lucky the Legends hadn't thought to trigger some latent genetic disease and make him stagger through the tail end of this second childhood while ill.

Beedril soothed and comfortable scraped his foreblades with a hum. Legends always inspired thoughts of murder for the bee.

An antenna ruffle and the bug oozed bliss, and a want to murder plant types. Giovanni laughed, letting go and letting the mental bond dim even as the bug cuddled close for a nap.

Following suit, Giovanni closed his eyes, and slowed his breathing. Strived to just be.

It was good to be out, even if the world was wrong. Good to be alone. Because of who and what he was, sometimes it was just safer for others not to be near him.

Especially after the type of dreams he'd been locked in before deciding to stay up for a while.

They were simple dreams. Of waking with her in his bed. Besides him, sprawled, his blankets stolen away because in this one way, she was more a thief than he'd ever be. Oblivous to the world, its pain, his pain. He'd stir, slowly, sitting up and stare at her for a while. His idle thoughts of her beauty being highlighted in the moonlight strayed from admiration to how best to use the chancy light to trace a path to pin, then snap her neck. Still her pulse.

When he'd woke from that dream to hear Lillie asleep mere feet away... Getting up and getting out seemed safest. Indulging the routes and routines of justifiable paranoia was a way to ward off the phantom sensation of bones breaking under his hands.

Not that he had actually snapped Grace Even Sakaki's neck. That'd been a death for others... But still...

it'd been better for everyone if he just... Stayed away...

Habit made his hands slide into his pockets. Old impulses guided him. Reach in, pull out a lighter, a cig, strike the flame, set aflame. The soothing give and take of sweet clove smoke would take the edge off of his nerves and thoughts

But like everything else, the motions went wrong. Giovanni's fingers closed over the battered edge of his phone. He hadn't been able to have a smoke since landing on this Nevernever Land. Legends, not grasping the soothing self-destructive pleasure of indulging in a good smoke, hadn't manifested one smoke shop, in this alien place.

It was another thing to curse about under his breath. Withdrawal was a royal bitch, especially on nights like this. Breathing deep, of the remnants of grit and ash, it wasn't a perfect facsimile, but it would have to do.

For now.

 

[K_S]

Chapter 2
Plots and the Family,

readers note: set incredibly pre-Transversal, a snippit of the Sakaki extended family is given as well as how Giovanni fits into things.


He hadn't meant to stay in the business. In all honestly, he hadn't meant to get in it either. But his hands were never really clean and his family made sure of it.

When he was a boy he delivered packages, the type you didn't ask questions from even when they oozed red. The type that you avoided the beats of the sbarrio when carrying.
Sometimes it was goods for someone else to do a job. He'd seen guns pulled out of a package and pointedly didn't remember who was doing that pulling, or logos, or even street signs. He'd deliberately gotten good and lost after that job. All the better to taint his memories if any psychic type came a-knocking on his skull.

That wasn't quite how psychic types worked, Nona had told him, but she'd been so proud of that bit of sneakiness. He'd gotten the good gelato for a week for that and some extra coins for the arcade.

Sometimes the jobs were gentler. Like dropping off some good homemade food from someone's mama while they waited out in a rat hole for a gumshoe to buzz off.

Men in his house worked, so when Uncle Sal needed some bricks, not construction, the type you quintuple wrapped in plastic and exposed to no water, no questions asked. He did it.

Especially after Uncle Sal yanked him aside, by his ear no less, and shaking him by that ear, snarled, "I mean it, I will fuck you over sideways if a drop touches this thing. I will chop off your little boyhood my little man, as a warning, to future dumbasses."

The allure of five hundred dollars pay dimmed with that threat over his head. But blessed saints he'd made that run, did it clean, not a drop. And Giovani made a point to be busy when Sal roared through the Sakaki homestead on his sports car "looking for strapping boys to do some work".

His brothers had called him timid after that. As scardy cat because after school he'd play with the chowder outside his elementary rather than the bigger boys. He was Nona's widdle worm because he'd had a Weedle and stayed home to do arcane things like study and learn. Anyways, Kakuna wasn't a worm now. Hadn't been one for ages.

That truth didn't stop them from jeering him when Sal visited. Visits Gio learned to be very busy because Sal feared Nona. Wouldn't bother Gio if he was helping "the lady of the house" or "one of the girls". During one of those visits when Gio was helping his older sister, Gemma, shine the scales of her sirviper his brothers and nephews descended. Thrilled to catcall him before getting out of the house to get paid.

Gemma was doing the tough stuff with the 'mon's care. Scrubbing the mysterious red spots that were not left over lasagna sauce. He got the fussier job because of his picolli mani carni. And even at seven she knew, and he knew, that Gemma and only Gemma had the privilege of calling him cute.

Sirviper, a champion show 'mon who sometimes was rented out to do other jobs, rose from her post-job pampering session with a hiss. Beady eyes flicking to a Glare red. And Gemma shucked off her rags and oils and hopped to her feet, hands on hips, pissed. She barked at the teasing throng to "fuck off", and wonder of wonders they did.

Suffice to say Gemma was his favorite. And perhaps he became hers too when with stars in his eyes he babbled an awed

"How did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Swear, and scare them off... When I do it they laugh about bambino giani learning new words."

Gemma barked a laugh. "Well, your lisp going away probably should help when your choppers grow back in. But you gotta put some bite in it. Wind up to it like you wind up to hit someone hard..."

Gemma, Giovanni decided with all his seven years of wisdom, was his favorite.



And she stayed his favorite sister, ever, even after the drive-by. That horrid day where she hadn't been a victim or participant, just a pretty face at the wrong place and the wrong time during the aftermath. The responding sbarrio had been itching to fill his arrest quota and the pretty Italiana walking her sirviper to the park had looked "suspicious".

She'd popped off. Firey as always. Her attitude had been dubbed "resisting". The fatal fallout, "an accident".

He'd found the incident report (how could they call her death an "incident"? How dare they?). Tracing paper to prescient, precinct to beat route, time to badge number, badge number to the murderous son of a bitch pretending to be a cop.

It'd taken weeks after the funeral. He'd become eight between the burial and attack, but by God Giovanni found the cop. A weeks stake out and he figured the bastard's favorite "shop" car, days he worked, and struck. Using an older brother's knife, he slashed the tires.

And that was when he learned movies lied. There'd been no fiery crash from that spat of vandalism. When the vandalism (he bristled at that, even as an adult, it'd been a blotched hit not spray paint) was traced to the Sakaki house, the act had been dubbed "youthful grief". Because for better or worse, the knife had been found. He'd dropped it in terror when the sbarrio had summoned an Arcanine. Still, the knife only got them so far, because almost all the Sakaki kids had played with it at some point. Making fingerprint evidence worthless.

The only mercy was that no one had turned on anyone, and that was a cheap kind. Because Sakaki's do not snitch. Not to sbarrio, to God, or countryman.

Nona waited, cool and quiet until the police car had wheeled away. Once sure they were gone, and after having the older kids sweep for bugs, Nona called Giovanni to her. Nailed fingers bit into his cheeks as she tipped his head up, making him meet her blacker then black eyes. Then in a voice as tight as the packed earth over her granddaughter's grave, told him to report.

And that was yakuza words, madam tones. There were no evasions, no saviors for him now. When she called Giovanni to the kitchen he went without fuss.

Spare the rod, spoil the child had never been a concern in the Sakaki household. Nona had a rod, a beast of a thing lined with blunted sandslash spines. And though she was old she wasn't frail, and she never missed, once.

It was two days before the bleeding stopped, five days before he could sit comfortably with proper posture. So every meal for two days he'd wipe his own blood off the chair before reporting to do the dishes. For five days he earned new bruises for whimpering and daring to slouch.

And for a month he worked with Uncle Sal, and screwed up his grades for being overworked.

And though it wasn't fair-

("Do you think we Italiano get if fair Gianni? " Sal'd spat shaking him until his teeth rattled. "Fair's a fantasy and the faster you learn that...")

-he was punished for that as well. All to scare the Hell out of him, scare the fury to an ebb.

He just buried it, feeling it seeth in his guts when he saw a flash of blue, a glint of a sbarrio's badge.

As an adult, he'd fought himself and all his demons not to crush the whispy Virdian mayor's hand in his grip during his Gym opening. The bastard being a retired cop, his children all part of the force. Giovanni had picked Viridian to set up base for the sheer irony of setting his seat of power right to the pulse point of Kanto's "law and order" capital. Really, the move had been a multifaceted decision, part to soothe the searing Forest wrought dreams behind his eyes, part from spite.

Mainly for spite.

"I'm just sayin' e's got some potential. Shouldn't waste it with fucking school." Uncle Sal drawled over dinner one night.

"And you and your street smarts would have chased down Gemma's killer like Giani did with his... Compiter thing.."

No one dared breathe the correction. Nona was speaking, and she was right even if she didn't fully get the word computer quite right.

"Still..." Because Sal wheeled and dealed, it was his nature to try even in the face of a no.

"No hard business until fourteen for the girls. Fifteen for the boys. Unless the madam says otherwise."

And Sal, rightly scared of both Nona and Madam didn't say another word.

 

[K_S]

Chapter 3,
Giovanni: The Clowder, part one

Readers notes: Set pre Transversal during Gio's early years/pre-adolescence, describes how Gio was foisted off onto his extended family amd the Sakaki ckan matriarch's reaction to the strange, little boy.

Clowder, definition. A group of cats. Thought to be a modernization of the old english term clodder.


A gathering of cats, was called a clowder. There were other names too. They were called colonies as a nod to how invasive and destructive their hunting could be. Named mousetraps by those who saw them as means to exactly one end.

Right now, as she stomped her way towards the front of Viridian Gym, the Madam decided to call this... mass... what it was. Nuisances.

As well as other, four letter words that were hissed under her breath as the Madam waded through the morass of semi-fluid, coiled form frolicking all about.

They boiled around her feet, a cream carpet that spit and scratched if she moved her feet too fast. Every colony in Viridian was sprawled in the afternoon sun, or mosying about the front of the heart of Viridian. Her Gym. Looming above the masses, defacing the beautiful marble busts depicting the madam with their sheddings, and claw marks, the Persians, creme of the crop, alpha of each colony, watched over the throng.

Or had been. One spotted her, swatted its mate, then both stared down at her. That started the ripple effect, and at the end all the Persians glared at her, red ruby eyes glinting, head gems flaring like misplaced embers.

Death threats were written on every sharp face, disapproval tipping ears sideways, hisses set whiskers to quiver.

Then every Meowth, from kitten to nearly grown and evolved kit, just stopped. Be it mosying, lounging, or pouncing on one another. At some unspoken signal they froze and pivoted, all the better to glare at her.

This creepy shit was why she liked dogs. Dogs did not pull this synchronized, silent, shit.

Taking a deep breath, making a bit of a show of it because she was in public, out in the open, there were trainers, which meant onlookers, cameras, witnesses-

(There were over one hundred cat-slant eyes)

The Madam tried for friendly. Hit freaked out. And mentally gave herself a pass because who wouldn't be?

"Gianni... Tesoro, dove sei?"

Sweet as sin, acting oblivious to the sheer insanity of the scene... Giovanni's voice rang out.

"Eccomi qui."

Of course, the brat was in the center of the cluster, a kitten in his lap, another perched on his head. And of course, the brat wouldn't just know to come to her when addressed. Four-year-olds were so worthless.

"Gianni, come here."

"Why?"

Dio, l'inferno di fuoco e tutti i santi benedetti... She was getting a why jar when they got home. And every time he dared breathe that word he'd owe her money. His formulative stupidity would fund her retirement in her old age.

" Because I said so."

"But why?"

There were clicks of cameras, chatter from hanger-ons, and a few sniggers from the brave. They weren't alone so swears weren't an option. Above one of the blasted felines sprayed, pissing on a bust. Buisness done the cat tipped red eyes down at her, an almost speculative cant to its white face.

"Hai tempo fino al conteggio di cinque" She warned, tones razor sharp, ignoring the rising backs and fluffing fur around her the Madam snarled. " ..uno..."

A finger snap to show that the moment was gone. She got to three, only because like a fool he was he slowly unhooking the kitty attachment from his lap instead of dumping it. The cat headpiece came with him, spitting at her as the two approached, because, why the hell not?

Lips locked in a facsimile of a smile, teeth grit, the Madam swept the toddling boy up, the cat off (and let it scratch him, let him learn), making quite the show of crooning about how worried she was.

Her grip was tight enough to warn him he best nod and smile lest he get a walloping at home.

"Where did all these.... Wonderful... Creatures... Come from Gio?"

And since he was short a few teeth, the exciting times of losing baby teeth and waiting for new ones to grow in, he whistled and slurred a bit despite going near cross-eyed in trying to enunciate properly.

"Well I was talkin' ing to Madam Snowfur and she asked me about my welshing.. Welping... day? And when I mentioned it was today... She thought we should have a party."

Welping... Of all the damned fool... Where'd he even hear that word? Shaking her head the Madam hauled the brat behind her. The faster they got home the faster she could make the fool make sense.

Still, with how insane the boy's babbling was, why did she even try?

Xxx

"And you're wanting to foist another of your babbling, brain-defective spawn with me because?"

Trust her Mama to cut to the heart of the matter. Thin lips quirking into a tight smile the Madam chuckled.

"Because I said so." And wasn't that a familiar echo and an irony, all at once? "And the statute on your last spat of creative problem-solving involving arson isn't up yet, but I'm not unreasonable. I know where the police put the remaining witnesses. I'll tidy up one a year for every year you watch the brat. By the time he's fifteen, I'll emancipate him, all your mess will be tidied, and you wash your hands clean of it all."

A hum as Mama considered the offer... Finally, "and he's only a bit strange... Not stunted like the last one?"

Giovanni was shunted into his room, the two locks in place, oblivious to that fact and probably babbling at the ratatta in the walls like the little moron he was.

"Yes." Madam boss lied. "Nothing more than some time with the Rod won't straighten up."

"If he's not... If he's broke..."

Like her firstborn, Antonio, had been dubbed, long long ago. The Madam had hoped, prayed her gut was wrong. Had sent Antonio to the extended brood, a last-ditch effort to "help him along".

Sal had demanded a king's ransom in tidying up the mess afterward. Literally. The Madam had arranged for his personal gallery to hold the treasure of a monarch. Some Hoenn tart who'd ascended to power by lies and duplicity, and rolling from one bed to the other.

The irony of back then made her smile. Even if the ransom had pinched her pocket and then some.

Still, smile dimming, the Madam looking back at such blind sentimentality and her guts roiled. She wouldn't make the same mistake with Gio. She barely coddled the boy, since that's where Antonio had obviously gone wrong.

Giovanni knew his place, knew her fist, and knew his paces so he could perform well enough for short bursts...

It was just this one soft spot, this fixation of 'mon talking. And the boy's coodling of cats. Mama wouldn't tolerate it a lick and the efforts she took to correct wouldn't damage the Madam's social standing.

And if worse came to worse... If this was Antonio's softness again...

"Then I'll gift you a one-time use of one of my cleaning crews. No questions asked."

"Fine, send him along. But I want the first proof before he gets off the plane, and one million, untraceable."

And this... This was why the Madam never willingly dealt with the old sandshrew. Greed ass Garchomp that she was.

"You think... A million... Mama do I look like I'm made out of money?"

"You're Madam of Tohjo and Johto, you better damn well better be..."

She managed to argue the old murkrow down to half a million, it took an hour, some screams, and throwing things... But there was the principle of the thing.

And when it was done, it was done. The half-wit was only one plane ride from being out of her hair and it took every scrap of control to contain the girlish glee of having that weight off of her neck. All but fliting to the nearest computer, she arranged for the first flight out, even tolerating the horror of second class to get him gone faster.

Xxx

What Nona saw when she spied little Gianni at his mother's side, was a little boy flinching at the hand wrapped around his own but smart enough not to try to saw at the grip. Begrudgong and distant, distracted, but no fool. There was no vapid look, no brainless bright smile that bellied a sunny personality, and nothing else.

Where poor Antonio had been a thing of glee Gio was a soul cast in dark. There were black rings about the boy's eyes, a shallow look that spoke of jet lag and a possible cold peaking in him, and a sullenness two sizes too tall for his scrawny frame. There was nothing sunny about the boy. Though he was bright enough to know what to call her. How to bow. He'd been gifted a dated photo book, and instead of sleeping during his flight been grilled over and over again. Shame most of the pictures were dated to near worthlessness and half the people in it were dead.

But let no one accuse the Madam of sentimentality, or of the basic decency of reaching out to keep the photos recent.

Or that the woman had any sense.

"You can call me Nona" the older woman drawled. And she took Giovanni's hand in her own. Not the clawing hold of his Mama, but like he was fifteen and selling his soul to work for her.

It was the closest to warmth she could dredge up for the Madam and her spawn. A Sakaki so distant he'd likely never heard his own name said right.

And the introduction was a mercy of sorts, it hid for a moment the sight of a mother who was leaving and never looked back. It obscured the impersonality of this all. Because this exchange wasn't happening at the steps of Nona's home, but at a hotel. A special building where if he failed, truly stumbled, there was a special room just for him. One shrouded in plastic, and a gun with a silencer, he'd check in and never leave.

"I think we'll have an interesting partnership in your future young man."

And he was a blessedly smart thing, in his way. Even when the car door slammed shut, he didn't look up. Didn't cry. Didn't ask why this was happening. Only stared up at her, goggling up at her like a lost little goldeen.

And really Nona was about to suggest he take the keys, room to the far left, she'd be along in a minute, don't mind the plastic...

"This is the part where you say something." She hinted because blood splatter was hell on her clothes, she'd really rather not.

"You don't look like any of the pictures. Your colors are prettier than the black and white ones."

It was said in a rush, wrapped in a mumble, punctured by a whistle...

And those words were probably the sweetest talk she'd gotten in twenty years. If he stuck around to fifteen there might be trouble. Especially if any of his cousins taught him how to score in The Game. Trained to charm and with a seemingly sweet front he'd bring the the type of girl trouble that led to little feet puttering around way too soon.

Nona waffled between anticipation and dread and decided, screw it. He was four. That was Giovanni's problem nine years in the future. Not a her problem. Not today.

She offered her arm, and he scrambled to take it. Too short and too young to really understand how to best help but drilled to act a certain way. It was not unlike a baby mankey clinging to her arm.

Still, he tried. More then than the worthless horde at home. Which was sad because he was just a very very short, friz-topped walking stick to her.

Because she would not be charmed, not by a brat she might have to smother under a pillow by own hands.

Under the Madam's orders, the boy's mother, no less.

And perhaps it was to spite the Madam (a selfish bitch who'd never should have spawned on kid never mind this being unlucky sap number two) that Nona decided just exactly what her first real conversation with the brat was going to be.

"So I understand you like cats."

That was a mistake, and she knew the second he lit up that it was one. The boy flipped like a switch, it was like seeing Antonio all over again, and Nona swallowed something thick and bitter as the boy babbled on never knowing the knife he was twisting.

Until what he was saying hit... Then Mama Mary Nola knew this boy was infinitely worse than the last. Cats giving him things, telling him things, this brat was mad where the last had been simple.

Nona let him ramble on, taking her to her room and its service. While on the phone she waffled about requesting some "additives" to the boy's order. There'd be less mess but more evidence and alibies were a pain in the ass to pay off. Especially the uppity ones that wanted to be paid off twice.

Giovanni flopped his little self on the bed without bags. Smart enough to realize the other was hers, and starfished, taking a pose that made her bones ache and envy prickle as he flipped over painlessly to set a positively heartbreaking look at her.

"You don't believe me, do you?"

Ung that wounded look, those limpid eyes... it'd be a damn shame to lose the bribe potential of waving that about as a distraction. It'd get her over the border with scalds of contraband. At least twice. Nipping her lip, wondering what tell she'd let slip, or what turn his little head had made to imagine a tell, Nona smiled instead of grimacing.

Lies were an old hat after all.

"By the time you reach my age young man you'll learn the world is a weird place," call done, additives decided against, she folded onto her bed with placid care. Then in tones you told secrets in, she continued. "people move spoons and forks with a look in Saffron you know.."

Well, the scalds of frauds did. Not that he needed to know that. Little feet kicked, as he thought over something and left a bit of a mess on his sheets. Were it her sheets she'd of boxed his ears. Since he was going to be lying in it sooner rather than later, Nona didn't say a word.

Sal would be back in a week, the big conversations meant to be handled far away from little ears could be done then.

But until then, well she'd humor, and pretend to be charmed. And maybe... Pulling a pokeball from her belt, run a test or three.

"So is it just cats, kanto cats, you can talk to?"

"No," the boy assured her, not quite gleeful, but not sliding into a sulk. A cautious hope lit his dark-eyes. "the morning pidgy outside Madam's guest bedroom are gross. They talk about bug burps and eggs way too much."

Alright... That might be a passably little boy lie, the bird burps sounded like a boy thing... The eggs, less so. But it was an opening and Nona knew how to make full use of openings.

"How about I introduce you to someone special and you tell me the rest."

"Alright?" Rolling to sitting, the boy was literally on the edge of his seat. Vibrating with the need to be believed, and Nona cursed the Madam in her head. Because all it'd of taken to thwart this murder in the making was a whiff of attention.

"Alright, I'm going to draw a mon and you do the rest."

A flick and she'd drawn her oldest 'mon, a she-hounddoom that was scarred to hell and back and distinctly not friendly, with chipped horns and a condition that made smog seep through her needle-sharp teeth with each breath. Nona was banking on smog, flame, and frame to both dissuade any lies and speed this along.

Cool as a swinub, this boy was, as he chipped at the literal nightmare of many a police officer.

"Hi Saint Lawrance."

After getting her jaw off the floor and confirming that Law' wasn't wearing a collar or name tag Nona numbly picked three tests.

The boy talked to the hellhound as if he were chattering at some playmate at the schoolyard. In five minutes he'd sussed out what color collar and tags were packed for him. The other members of her traveling team. And, when being vague ("tell me something she knows that's private, not business private") got the chillingly accurate read out of her credit card number.

And her ccv number.

She cut it off at her passwords because that was more than enough for today, thank you.

And there'd been purchases six months ago made by touchscreen for prime cut donphan steaks that suddenly made a great deal more sense. Nona withdrew Law, idle plans of speeding up a vet visit, because cheek that sharp needed to be slapped down somehow...

Looking down at the little boy, who'd shrunk into himself, mon born courage sapped away by just withdrawing a mutt Nona wondered about many things.

How long had the boy been like this?
How long had he been told to just shut up?
Why was he never offered tests, or assurances that he wasn't mad, or sick, or something?
And how many kitties had the boy snuck in, how many had the Madam found, and how many had she killed out of spite?

Considering all the chowders in Viridian Forest had used the boy's birthday as justification to try to tear Viridian Gym to the bedrock, far too many and far too often.

There was fear in the boy, and the anticipation of pain in his hunched shoulder, and to that Nona sighed.

Stupida idota donna

She wasn't even sure if she meant herself now, or the Madam.

She'd talk to Sal, to all the men and woman who were working when she got home, and to some of the older bambinos as well... But for now...

"You know... Just between you and me, I think you got those stupid fork pushers beat."

Giovanni didn't laugh, been trained not to likely, but the brat could smile. And he'd be a heartbreaker in his prime. Dios help them all.

 

[K_S]

Chapter 4,
The Clowder part 2, (Nona, the Sakakis, and cats)

Teaders note: set pre-Transversal during Gio's early childhood. The piece covers a few months with the Sakakis and c9ntains a meeting between two Madams.

Spoiler: Translations

Aunts and uncles: zie e zii
Bastard: bastardo
Sulky face: Faccina imbronciata
"chi dici? Ditelo bene: what did you say? Say it well.
Molto bene: very good
Adesso abbassa lo zucchero: now get the sugar
farina: flour
Imbecille, non si calunnia una donna incinta..." : you idiot you dont talk about pregger women like that-"
prete: priest

He wasn't allowed a mon, after all, there were laws, and there were laws. The ones that incited scrutiny were memorized and doled out over each Sakaki's cradle in place of lullabies. Childish clap games ran to the rythum of wheeled and dealed so the workarounds were touch close. Whether they developed the wit to optimize on that information was touch and go, considering a Sakaki had a fifty-fifty chance to be incarcerated.

Still, it was acknowledged among his zie e zii that it was a crying shame he hadn't been reared right.

Then plots were doled out to fix the glaring errors in his education and fix them fast. Giovanni's first month in the Sakaki household was filled with alien things, like:

"You don't know what the fifth is, aie we need t' fix that."

Luckily he had a hoard of kin eager to fill in the gaps.

And screw with him, because what else were cousins, nieces, and nephews for?

"So when a sbario approaches, gettin', in your business?"

"The fifth." Giovanni parroted.

"And on Sundays?"

"Walk through crosswalks backwards?"

"You're gettin' it Gianni... Now about that walk you know what the torchic dance is?"

"No?"

Giovanni squinted up at his oldest cousin, eighteen years old and a veteran of the dreaded Time. And even though five and a fraction, he knew gut-deep that trust was stupid. But eighteen meant wise as the ages, but young enough not to be boring (a vice Nona and Uncle Sal relished in being).

"Well, that we can fix right now."

Xxx

Cousin Enzo was the biggest bastardo to ever do whatever bastardos did... The spat of public humiliation had been filmed. And Sakaki's lived off of malice and blackmail, so the video spread through the famiglia like wildfire. Giovanni had scores of people he cajoling small favors out of him or else they'd play the footage in public.

Hiding under the covers got him yowled at. One morning when he'd royally sulked he had been hauled out from under his bed to do his chores by his ankles. The hall lined with an anticipatory mob of older kids with smartphones in hand.

His defience and tears only gave his tormenters more ammunition.

And it got him a new nickname, Faccina imbronciata.

All because Giovanni was small enough that his face was an open 8book. He could only sort of pronounce the words. And asking the elderly harmless-looking Auntie Bea' to translate got him trapped in a cycle of "chi dici? Ditelo bene!" Because the Italian Mama spoke at home was the wrong type for here.

"You sound like you're reading from a dictionary." Nona admited. She became a bit miffed that she then had to explain what a dictionary was. He hadn't been to school proper though, so he was given a pass. But only a small one.

They were close, him on the top of a step stool, her right behind holding and guiding his hands so he could feel the cuts and angles as the knife worked through the soft skin of a fruit. Nona's voice rose and fell with the clean snick hiss of the cuts. "Kanto Italian's a bastard whore of our tongue scavaged from the wreckage of old translation books. Our ancestors were Sicilian, not those slant eye yappers, and we don't tell outsiders the real ways."

"Like how to talk?"

"That and other things." The blade clacked against the cutting board, a bit too hard because his fingers buzzed a bit after. "Now scrape that to the side... Feel the blade hum over the board, that's how you feel you won't lose any juice, and right... Into... The bowl.."

Wet red slivers flopped over the edge and into the bowl. Barely a drop was left.

"Molto bene."

That sounded... Good...Nice maybe. Giovanni had all of a minute to bask in the sensation before the indulgent hair ruffle turned into a testy thwack.

"Adesso abbassa lo zucchero."

He was utterly lost until Nona pointed to the biggest bag he'd ever seen on the far counter. She swatted his rump, a wordless "get to it" that got him going.

In the after math he learned two words.

Zucchero and Farina, and that they were not the same despite both being fly away and white.

Xxx

He played with the cats outside. Took a half day (reporting his intent to be gone to Nona like he'd report to the madam) every Monday, Wednesday. And Friday to take himself, and his homework, outside to the park. He got extra chores for it, but there was nothing better than to have too heavy paws walking along his back to remind him reading wasn't everything. Whisker scritchy faces scraped his hands, wanting pets. Beaded paws rattled the contents of his pencil cup. Sometimes to knock it over, sometimes to flitch a colored pencil or a regular one. Sometimes the cats of Nona's hometown were really exciting and they stole an eraser.

It made his boring bilingual color book homework much more exciting.

Needle teeth flashed when the cats practiced yawns, practiced looking bored, but to spite that pseudo placidity there were little voices in his head. A frantic chorus of "share share share" poking his brain while he ate his sandwich. During lunch they clusterd around him, statue still, vibrating purs, and voices positively hyper.

And sometimes when it was a good 'witch, like tuna, he would share.

The cats of Nona's hometown followed him home. First one, then a pair, then a swarm. Fuzzy scuddling clouds of fluff, that danced a path along powerlines, walls, and roofs. They mewled a sweet chorus of "stay stay stay" even as he left.

They only stopped at the front door when he told them to. Mainly because stop confused them, and the allure of the forbidden faded real quick. The weather outside was better than inside.

Also there were no birds in the Sakaki household.

After a week of turning away kittens, a She-Persian popped through an open window. Gravid with coming kits she waddled into the center of the mud room, nipped her paws clean, and tipped her pointed chin at Giovanni.

Her pur was rocks roiling together, rocks wrapped in velvet. Small face scrunching, Sakaki listened again, and only somewhat sure he hollered what she said.

"Nona. The Cat Madam wants to talk to you about a carpet?"

Xxx

The only reason Sakaki was allowed in this business meeting was because he was the only one who could speak Cat. Madam and Madam glared at each other, both hissing and spitting at each other from time to time. There were whispers from the gathered capos (important men and woman who he was to bow to, and he had to remember his signore and singoras too and not screw up their first names) that this meeting was going to turn into a real catfight.

Sal'd wagered his money on Nona, an unnamed niece put fifty on the fat as-hell furball.

"Imbecille, non si calunnia una donna incinta..." Hissed a nephew, a son of Sal's Giovanni hadn't met yet. A brown-haired man with a whisp of a beard who had smiled down at him, doffed his cap, and let the young boy wear it since this was "his first and all". Sal's son looked at Nona like she was going to wallop him and the niece.

"It's a cat!"

Both Madams stopped negotiating to glare at the two and everyone suddenly found the far wall or their hands very fascinating.

Order restored, tired of how long this stupidity had dragged out, Nona snarled.

"Fine, one cat, a kitten. Only one per day. breaks given on Work days so he can learn how the Buisness and to nurture or whatever culture thing your chowders pushing. I'll give you some of our patrols and some of your older kits can pull lookout... For fresh cooked, fried calamari... I'm not cooking all of it, I do not run a kitchen, so don't expect it to be top-notch all the time..."

"Pert?"

Running one hand over her face, pinching her nose, Nona's voice was muffled. "Gio?"

"Quality... question?"

"Not all these bozos can cook and not every pers- cat likes the same tasting things I figure. It'll be a bit... Eh... sometimes"

"Merow rowwr?"

Gio, perched on his stool to the side of the scarred round table where everyone else sat was in a curious spot to see everything. He counted drinks he wasn't supposed to touch, and guys and gals, and who had pokeballls and who didn't. All in time to the tune he kicked his feet to.

Even with all that fun stuff to keep ratling through his brain Gio recognized the cat's tone. Maybe Nona did too, because she sighed, the testy noise stilled Giovanni's little kicks and he translated without having to be asked.

"She wants cat nip toys..." Red eyes glinted at him. "To negotiate a monthly quota."

"Per l'amore di Dio e di tutti i santi!" Nona screamed, yanking at her hair. "You listen to me you fu-"

Someone thoughtfully slapped thier hands over his ears, cutting off Nona's bad words. When the words tamed the hands came up, and Sal's son scraped a hand over his hair witha smirk.

"I gotta enough for confesion, I ain't adding this to that. Prete'd commit me if I even told a fifth of this."


Murmurs rose among the gathered capos. Nona sounded one inch from "letting the cat go". A few openly speculated on how to arrange a hit on a cat when no one knew its TMs. Or if the thing was a pet....with a tracker.

The hatless son of Sal clearly forgot about his confession about ten minutes in.

"Is this cat reading, Corriere della Sera just to fuck with us or what?"

"Meroooow."

Cringing a bit, Gio swallowed. "The asking price went up, three weekly from that organic place on Sixth Street."

Giggling a niece broke protocol and chimed in. "I got some dingle balls... Olie likes them and there's always spares?"

"Mew."

"Ah... No thanks?"

"That's really what she said?"

"No," Giovanni confessed with a wince.

"Huh, well spare my virgin ears and catholic sensibilities then."

"Merow..."

"Gio?" Nona sighed.

Feet kicking Gio looked at the pretty niece, she had a nice smile, it met her eyes, unlike all the Madam's smiles at Viridian. Giovanni decided to trust in luck and that smile and ask... " Aunt Capo Teresa, whats a v-"

"Giovanni Accario Sakaki!"

Nona was using full names. Giovanni froze, stiff as a board with only a few quivers to belay his nerves. A few younger Capos winced and shifted in their seats out of instinct, and even the pretty niece went stone still.

"You are working, not gossiping."

"Yes ma'am."

Negotiations went on for another hour until both sides utterly loathed one another and terms were set.

Done, the feline hoped out of her chair with a mewl and chuff. The sounds were part eye roll, part curse about how the damned barbed tom by Ninth was paying in blood... And thus the meeting of the minds ended. Capos took shots from the do not touch drinks on the table, toasting how weird the world was, moving on to other things. Or rather, thats how the meeting almost ended. The Cat Madam waddled to the front door, hopped at the handle, and after failing to get it open yowled until Giovanni scrambled to let her out.

Later that night one kitten had been left with Giovanni, and the Capo who'd suggested just "drowning the furry problem" found his tires slashed.

She got traded out with another in three days.

After that, the cat got tripled and Gio nearly went cross-eyed hiding and nurturing the little hairballs until the next swap out. There'd been a scare with Gemma's Sirviper with the trio, but no one got eaten.

So alls well ends well.

Xxx

The second time cousin Enzo wanted to give him a hint to better learn the lay of the land Giovanni pretended to listen. Pretended to go along with it. And when the phone came out to record he whistled, one shrill note, and the meowths outside the familgia home swept down and made a sap of the older boy. Batting his phone into a puddle and swiping his wallet for fun.

And never mind Enzo was an adult, he went to Nona to whine.

It wasn't something even Giovanni had thought to do. Going to an adult just to complain about what was done? It felt like an arcane solution, like throwing salt at a ghastly to make it disappear.

(That wouldn't work, but if you threw a meowth and told it to bite, it worked every time)

Nona listened, because Sakaki's liked gossip, and news, and blackmail, and at the end of Enzo's rant, flashing her off-white teeth, she drawled.

"You're telling me you lost face to a bleeding five-year-old?"

The backward chicken dance video was soon forgotten by the much juicier tale of Nona skinning Enzo alive with her words and tone and leaving his fragile ego out to dry.

 

[K_S]

chapter 5
in ogni caso necessario

reader notes: set during Transversal post chapter 9, in Celibi's eldritch Alola, after gameverse Lillie and mangaverse Giovanni have established thier deal and are grudgingly familiar with one another.

(Italian title translated into English means "by any means necessary)



It'd been a disaster, from start to finish. A skull grunt trying his hand at extortion was doing a mugging in broad daylight. The victim garishly dressed in all white, saw it coming and screamed like a banshee. There were witnesses, and the target was armed.



if this was a yakuza operation he'd of broke his civilian facade to box the dumbasses ears. Was tempted to anyways because dio in paradiso the unprofessionalism was causing his brain to shut down.



Because who brought a.... A beat box to a mugging... What idiota used their assault mon to flip a power switch to set the mood of the crime... instead of just committing the crime.



Oh, it got worse... To the throbbing strum of techno music, the skull grunt made a grab, missed, and the victim tripped. It should have been as easy as shooting magikarp in a barrel at that point. The grunt was young, able-bodied, and up before the victim. He just had to stoop, grab the purse, and run.



Of course, he didn't, spouting some nonsense about the girl ruining his 'creed. It was a long rant, long enough for Sakaki to decide, yes, he was going to have to help. Still, he wasn't prompt about it. Lingering over finding a secure place to put his groceries, doing one last check to see if any of the glassy-eyed residents of Iki were going to give a damn...



Then a light at the end of the tunnel. The girl drew out a pokeball, finally remembering she was armed. The light turned into a tunnel side crash as the girl gripped, threw, and failed to trigger the ball.



And even that opportunity skated over the thug's head.



Storming through a throng of coffee seekers, skirting the edges of outside table with folding chairs, each step was stomped.



"For the love of fricking-" because of course he couldn't swear, God protect the virgin Legends and their precious precious sensibilities. "I leave you alone for half an hour." A flick summoned Nidorino, which made the thug's muscle 'mon stagger to the fore. It was one of those thread-beaked birds. "And you get mugged by the stupidest yakuza knockoff I have ever seen."



And that was considering his history of seeing doting, delusioned familgia trotting out their toddlers in Rocket colors.



Said fool yowled a rough "hey!" That tapered off in a scream as Nidorino skirted around the annoying bird and went after the trainer. The bird, a hair smarter, aimed itself at Giovanni.



Without even looking he fitched a tray off the nearest table and arrested the pointy tackle with a firm thwack. The creature, mainly consisting of a threading needle for a beak and feathers fell dazed, at his feet. Looking down at the prone creature there was a temptation to crush the thing under his boot.



There were more important things to consider.



"Where the heck did you learn to fight?"



Wiping tears from her eyes, and dust from her legings, Lillie Aether looked at him. Pale face flushed, clearly not realizing Sakaki had been there long enough to see the whole disaster go down, her small nose wrinkled. With that aristocratic moue of distaste twisting her features Lillie looked like the Aether matriarch.



"Girls," the tone was near perfect, nevermind the voice was Grace's through and through. "Do not fight."



Giovanni wasn't a bastard enough to point any of this out, not when there were so many other important things to bring up.



But first things first.



"My son trusted you with his secondary mon, for your protection, so, before we talk-"



She flinched at that word and he wondered what new abuses he'd find when they truly got into things. But it was an idle thought, nothing of depth. Fury softened his tones, put the pur of his accent into every syllable, and kept him from giving a damn as fear chased itself over her eyes.



"You will get Silver's pokeball, and make sure the mon inside is unharmed. Am I understood?"



Xxx



He supposed, Giovanni mused, rolling the familiar tan batton in his hands, that the Sakaki hoard expected him to be like his Mama. It wasn't an unfair assessment. In many ways, genetics had played their hand. He had the ex-Madam's cruel streak, and his biological father's temper (a temper so violent the Madam had offed the man out of fear for her own safety). And Giovanni's exploits were not known for kindness, not even his civilian ones.



You would think that his familgia would have learned to read between the lines. Paid attention enough to know that after gaining a misdemeanor for attempted assault (only his youth, poor camera quality, and stellar lawyers had kept the wool over the jury's eyes. It'd been attempted murder.) he'd gone to court-mandated therapy. Stuck to it until he'd tamed his own demons. After he regularly donated to mental health charities for the fiscally vulnerable. It'd been the first charity event he'd met Grace at for God's sake.



But observation was an on-and-off-again trait he supposed. Rolling the rod in his hand, its blunted dust-brown burs pricked his fingers.



There were twenty-six burs. Tradition was that the giftee would have one bur added for each year of life and was expected to add their own as they aged up.



The sandslash rod wasn't a surprise, really. All his nieces and nephews with their first born got one. He'd seen the gift doled out plenty of times at baby showers and the like.



What was surprising, nearly scandalous, was that he'd been a bit late in spawning offspring. Most Sakaki's were proud teen parents. His waiting until he was secure in a legitimate business as well as established, then extracted, from the Game, was an outlier. It brought whispers that his childhood strangeness had redoubled in adulthood and driven him mad.



Still, supposed madness notwithstanding, Nona had thought of him. And told what she thought of him, and what was expected with this one little gift.



Shame it wasn't winter, he'd throw the damn thing into the fire.



"Please tell me that isn't what I think it is?"



Grace worked as a nurse, in pediatrics, so being sheltered wasn't a thing. While not specializing in trauma there were enough vile cases rolling through Viridian General and the Saints Free Clinic that she'd gotten an education.



To add insult to injury there'd been a spurt of media about 'slash rods... About them being banned in 'mon training, dubbed as too cruel.



There was no hiding that he was holding a weapon, and perhaps seeing it she recalled the patterns on his back and made certain connections.



"Gianni," her cool calloused hands clasped over his wrist, stopping the mindless rotation that set the burs into his palms and made them hurt. "Why in heaven's name would your grandma send you... This?"



She was trying so hard not to spit vitriol. Against Nona, the weapon, and all the implications. Pressed as she was against his side he could feel her vibrating in suppressed fury.



The easy answer teased his tongue, a wry "hell if I know". He swallowed down temptation, while he picked at a rusty patch between some spines with a nail. It was a stain, nothing was coming up, still, he kept at it. Wondering as he worried at it, if the blood was his. After all the curl to the handle, the jag poking at his palm was very familiar.



"My Nona and Mama were of the same school of thought, spare the rod, spoil the child. We were expected to show familgia loyalty by using it on each other sometimes, when someone did something really stupid..." He huffed leaning into Grace's hold, it's all that kept him from shivering. "I half expect it was to keep parents from beating their kids to death and it served more than one purpose. The pain kept the young from truly... Bonding... Rallying against the older heads. After all, there was no way you'd trust- not after"



He could hear the click of his swallow. Throat dry and tense. Grace worked the thing out of his hands, set it on a nearby table, and guided him to the nearest chair. It took some doing but she was partially perched on the chair's arm by sitting askew, a feat more impressive considering her gravid condition.



"I know you... I know you'd never.."



And Grace truly was a wonder. Cutting off the assurances that were bubbling in his own throat just by saying them first.



"I'd never..." Another swallow as he tried not to get sick, because damn him that was a lie. And Grace hated lies. "I can't say I never.. Because I did.. But I would never again..."



"Gianni, whatever happened, you were a child. What they made you do..."



Always so damn eager to save himself from his own damned sins... She wasn't a small woman, but he wasn't a weak man, and he swept her into the chair with him. It was tight, but no less tight than their wedding bed.



They wound up braced and bound, a benign tangle that supported each other. It was a bit precarious, but in the end, they were facing each other, eyes locked, her gently pinning him. There was no evading her eyes, no evasion, period. The intimacy made his heart hammer, and his skin creep. He had to hold his courage tight to met her eyes.



"When Gemma died... Was murdered by an officer, I hunted the man down and slashed his tires. I wanted him to die, a car crash wasn't long but maybe it'd of been scary enough that he'd be scared like she was..." He huffed a bit of a laugh. "Anyways let's say I wasn't the sharpest kid. While the coppers traced things to my home Nona didn't turn me in... She... Well, that was the stupidest thing she caught me at, and she did the strokes herself. Ten lashes. It felt... Worth it at the time..."



Closing his eyes, bracing himself, Giovanni only opened his eyes when he felt brave enough to meet hers. Her fingers feathering over his scalp, smoothing his hair, nearly undid him.



"Anyways, I ah... Accidentally inspired some of the other children. They made that copper's life a living hell and Nona looked away until one of the bambina's got caught. Gemma's younger sister. I was eight, she was thirteen, and the punishment was ten lashes plus the difference between our ages. To "make up for my weak arms"."



It'd been more vile, a stab against his manhood, and scrawny ass frame, all wrapped in Italian, but Grace wouldn't understand so he didn't indulge the agony of translating old painful words.



"We were close, I had been close to all of Gemma's sibs until then... Even though I got ten lashes after because I said no... The extra four... The fact that I would... Was too much and grudges were set."



As they'd been meant to be. Loyalty went first to the Madam (or Boss), the family matriarch second, immediate family third, distant relations fourth, then God, and then country.



"Gianni, she ordered you and had the power and authority to do whatever she wanted... You knew that and you still had the courage to say no. None of this was your fault."


Calloused fingers trailed down his face, smoothing the tears that fell.

"None of it. And I guess this explains why you've gone to every parenting and maternity course you could squeak in around work?"

He croaked out something too watery to be an affirmative, she took it as a yes anyways. Chewing her lips, silvery eyes flicking as she thought about saying something, recanted, and went back to musing again... Whatever the temptation he could feel the hum of aborted words along with the thrumb of her heart.

It went on long enough that he wondered if she'd ask him to arrange a hit in Nona. Had enough time to twiddle out some plans and waffle on if he would say yes.


Finally, she settled on a dry. "Damned if it's too warm to make a fire, we could use it for kindling."


His laughter was cracked and wet, thick as vomit, and just as involuntary. She joined in, spitting out apologies, she was so sorry... Even as he croaked out that he'd been thinking the exact same thing.

It was a mutual hysteria born of shock for her, and trauma revisited for him. Utterly human, utterly understandable.


"We could... I guess we could... A barbaque, subsitute it for charcol?"

"Gio, no," there was horror, some medical knowledge playing in her mind. "The contamination risk on the raw food... Sanitization.."


She folded against him, still babbling of arcane medical things. They twined together, not quite comfortable but uninclined to break apart.

"Alright... Not for a barbeque..." He ceeded, letting one hand get lost in her scarlet locks, the other cradling her tight.


" Though a vegetarian one sounds nice."

Pregnant women and their food cravings. He snorted.


"I'll have King dig a pit, once I check what we've got to cook over it." An order to maintain a steady flamethrower would cover for a lack of charcoal. "Do you think you can manage a protean? I know you need to keep your iron up, your last test results... If red meat is the issue I can boil some eggs and make a salad..."

"Ung... Maybe?"

it was tentative but better than nothing. Deciding, screw it, even though they had a perfectly fine bed not too far away, Grace snuggled down. Intent to nap on him right then and there.


Their closeness, her warmth, made him drift. She said his name, making his eyes flutter. Not quite open, still he scrapped up the energy to hum a wordless acknowledgment.

"Gianni, I know this is famil- familgila stuff... But I want you to let me deal with this... I don't want you to even touch that Thing. Alright? You trust me, right?


He hummed an agreement.

"Then trust me to deal with this sweetheart."


When he woke, Grace was up and about, and mercy above the Thing was gone. He asked no questions and suspected it was buried in the backyard. Why else would Grace be in the backyard, hands covered in his protective gauntlets, lavishing Nidoking with a chin rub after all?

Xxx


He got his answer a week later, and a familiar aged voice reached him after its owner waded through Viridian Co's hellish IVR.


"È una ragazza coraggiosa, te ne do tutto il merito. But you should be very careful of what lines your little comare crosses. She does not tell me what to do."

He'd flicked the scrambler on at the first syllable, and the line flickered green throughout. So it was safe. But then what she said hit, and his mouth dried, and dread squeezed his chest. Further mercies, Nona's phone was an old model, so video call wasn't going to be a thing. HE could dare to be overt in his reaction, so long as he wasn't vocal.

He choked down a childish "what" by mere centimeters. Managed a dry. "I'm afraid Mrs. Sakaki, I don't know what your talking about."


Nona made an irritated noise. Frustrated by his Kantoian, insulted further by his refusal to speak Italian. His fingers were turning white, they gripped the desk edge so tight.

What in Hell's name was she talking about? Grace had never, would never reach out to the Sakaki hoard. Openly disgusted by his tales. Helping him see the damages they'd done...


They'd already adjusted their wills, blocking Giovanni's blood family from custody and unsupervised visitation. This call would be very different if Nona felt she were being cut out.

There'd be more threats for one.


"She," and Nona was smart letting her tone convey emphasis. Dare she say what she was thinking he'd hang up and cull every Sakaki out of Kanto. Nona knew that and he knew that. "Dared to return my gift to you and the... She had the balls to send a note calling my rearing primevil and that Silver, would not benefit from my methods."

Loosening his hold on the desk, Giovanni slumped into the chair near high from relief.

"What is the meaning of this?" Nona barked.


He blames the rush for his loose tongue. "Well, we talked, and we decided to skip the family-induced trauma-themed therapy to cut back on the bills."

"What the hell are you saying?"

And her snarl is savage, and Giovanni's heard those inflections before hits were made. Some ending in the Rod others with cement. Breathing through his nose, out his mouth, he got his heart to stop hammering.


"She beat me to it I suppose," by years, possibly decades. "But her statement stands and I'll elaborate in words you'll understand. Se tocchi mio figlio, uno qualsiasi di voi, vi ucciderò."

Then he hung up.

Xxx


Why had Grace dared poisoning and worse to scritch Nidoking?


Because he likes chin rubs, Gianni why else?

He gave himself an hour to calm down. Making Lillie do the bulk of the sandshrew's physical exam though she squirmed and cringed through most of it. He snapped corrections, because her fear made her rush, and his orders were mainly slow down and redo. She would do this right, and she did, eventually. It took almost an hour, sand was everywhere, but he permitted her to withdrawal Rollie. Satisfied the rodent was well.


He pointedly ignored her red eyes and sniffles. She'd been on the edge of crying the last leg which was why he ignored her last few cut corners. He could re-file the sand mouse's claws personally and would that night.

"Anything you carry, you learn how to treat."


Of course, she tried to give him Rollie's pokeball at that announcement.

"You give me that pokemon you will walk yourself to Kuki and consider yourself fired."


She froze, gawped at him, incredulous. The oblivious souls of Iki swirled around them, never seeing a thing. Like they hadn't seen anything before. She opened her mouth and he cut her off with a gesture.

"In this, you listen to me Lillie Aether, because I am speaking as both as a gym leader and a man darn-" he was going to kill Celibi slowly. "well experienced in the ways of the world. Your mother is an imbecile, girls and women do fight, and not just these stilted 'mon contests this Never Neverland locks its people into. And today if nothing else has cemented one thing in my mind...you travel with me you are learning how to fight."


"But I... I shouldn't..."


"Because you're the poster child of blind obedience." He couldn't keep the snide note out of his voice. And she proved him right by bristling.


It probably confused the hell out of her when he flipped from stern to fond. Softened his tones, he pulled out a cafe chair and she sank into it, looking utterly spent as he settled himself across from her.


"I think your rescue of Nebby said exactly what you thought of Madam Aether and her plans. The fact you repeatedly sought out help and worked with anyone and everyone to thwart her... Says even more. And if this world was sane, i believe that would have been enough. But it's not."

"So why, when you've been fighting through every indirect method possible is it that doing so directly is the one thing that scares you more than 'mon?"


Lillie opened her mouth, closed it, then trembling, shook her head.


"Women don't-"


"Lillie," he swept the child's hands in his own. Soothing and grounding her. "You know that's a lie. There are female trainers, skull grunts, gym kakunas" she almost smiled at that deliberate lapse. "You have proof. It's a lie. So when someone clings to a lie despite all the proof to the contrary... When someone clings because they're scared... That usually means something bad happens when that lie gets proven wrong. So tell me, is that what happens? Something bad?"


She looked hunted, silver eyes skittered left and right, then flicked down and stayed down. He waited, grip loose enough she could easily wrench free. She could get up, leave, give him Rollie, run.


He wouldn't stop her. But she didn't take the opportunity. Instead, she hunched into herself, and shivered. Wanting to leave, flee. But staying.


"Can I... Can I tell you a story?" She whispered.


"I've all the time in the world."


It wasn't even a lie.

 

[K_S]

chapter 6
in ogni caso necessario, part 2

readers note: set after chapter 9 of Transversal, Giovanni and Lillie compare traumas while going through the motions of making a living in Alola.


It became a sharing game because the give and take softened the blows, allowing them time to breathe.



Giovanni went first.



He'd had felines ripped from his arms, thrown to the floor, and shot before they could recover and bolt.



Sometimes when the Madam was feeling playful it wasn't a clean shot. Rather something messy that left the animal screaming with gore pooling out of its front or back. When she was being creative it was both.



"Next time, try to bring me a little pidgy Gianni, something with a bit of pep." She drawled, holstering her gun with a wide smirk. "Now be a good boy, and clean up your mess."



The Madam was unaware that he wasn't hearing just animal noises. She wouldn't have cared had she known. And even as a young boy, he'd never tipped his hand. He also had learned at a young age that he'd bear the brunt of the madam's switch dare he leave before "cleaning up the mess".



So he sat and waited for the dying to be done, cleaning kit in hand, the reek of lemons in his nose.



Xxx



When she was bad others were punished. It was a bit like the little prince and whipping boy tale... Except worse. Trainers with their 'mon were set in a line before her. Faces ranging from white to near grey, dread pressing their lips to a thin line. They stood at stoic attention, Aether uniforms snowy white against a wall of off-white.



None of them cried, those who had had already been culled, their mon executed. She was told to pick one and then go into the observation room and wait. A few minutes later the hiss snick of the door opening heralded Mother's arrival.



Across from them, beyond a sheet of glass, the 'mon was hauled in by burly guards in Aether white. The beasts were always panicked, flashing fangs, claws, wholly mad, and vengeful, their trainer no where in sight.



Mother would set her hand on Lillie's shoulder, not to support her but to keep her from running.



"Now, while we watch," watching as the mon was beaten, by man-made means. Sometimes guns, other times crackling batons. "I am going to talk to you about the many ways you've disappointed me because you see... When you disappoint me, you disappoint the world... Because Aether is the world, and its people bear its brunt. So when you fail?"



"A..aether suffers."



"That's right," the praise was said in sugar-sweet tones. "'And good girl you are, you're going to watch, listen, and learn... We wouldn't want any of this happening again, now, would we?"



"No Mother," Lillie quivered under her Mother's hand.



And it wouldn't happen again, not for this reason. But there'd be others, each smaller than the last. Each worse than the first, until Lillie'd finally snapped. Taking Nebby and running.





Xxx



They went for gelato, part because during their give and take it'd been revealed that the rooms-



(a sterile bird cage, Giovanni'd called it. The correction: a monochrome spherical living receptacle tumbled past Lillie's lips without a thought)



- that'd been Lillie's home were so controlled she had never encountered the idea of a sweet much less indulged. That was a crime, Sakaki assured her, of the highest caliber. And should be fixed.



Secretly Lillie suspected that talking of his Mother made Sakaki want sweets too.



They wandered about town and soon came up to a shop. Lillie couldn't read the sign but he did, and assured her it would do.



Before they entered the consensus was neither would order "nothing red" and "nothing lemon", and they stepped in side by side. Lillie's hand gripped Sakaki's sleeve so she could feel he wasn't right behind her.



It was so stupid... So little girl... But it helped. The tangle of her nerves dimmed enough that when the door of the shop hissed shut behind them Lillie didn't leap out of her skin like normal.



She ordered a chocolate caramel monstrosity. Part because it was the furthest thing from healthy she could ever order, part because it looked horridly messy.



Sakaki, with his cookie vanilla scoop perched precariously on a honey drizzled waffle, looked up from his tiny bites, seeing the mess she'd made of her shirt front, and called her a savage.



He smiled while he said it.



Xxx



Madam Aether was a firm believer that everything had a place, everything in its place. Lillie's rooms were slotted two turns down from Mother's, and there were abandoned taboo rooms between the third and first.



Lillie never did have the courage to go within those forbidden walls. But she knew bone deep that something within was missing. Like the puzzles missing their pieces, she'd been given to play with as a little girl(until Lillie asked after their brokenness and they'd been whisked away after that).



She struggled to explain the exactness of everything. It wasn't fussy, but some fuzzy boundary beyond that idea. You lived, but couldn't let where you live get a lived-in look.



It was like making a camp. Lillie explained her analogy while helping Sakaki set up their tents. Except you couldn't even scrape the ground smooth before you put down your blankets, you couldn't set up stakes to set up the tent, you'd mark the ground, scar the ground... And everything and every person had to be perfect. Be it rain or shine or tsunami.



"And how does Madam Aether expect you to live, perfectly, if you can't live at all?"



Lillie wasn't sure, but not being perfect led to consequences. She told that tale after dinner, a warm cup of chamilla tea held in her small hands.



If things weren't perfect, if she wasn't perfect, there'd be a meeting in the observation room, a bad place where madness and cruelty would be unleashed... But only within the right set of walls.



Lillie had nightmares, screaming nightmares, of being picked instead of picking. That she was hauled into the observation room's other side, the bad side where the irretrievable assets were shunted...



But in her nightmares, it wasn't them. But her. And she begged as they had: How she'd be better, could be perfect...



Lillie Aether begged for her life while the guards picked their weapons and Mother settled into her usual place behind the sheet of glass, hand clasped on the shoulder of a perfect little Lillie doll, as she watched on.



Xxx



Sakaki was up when she woke up. Sitting on the floor, sandshrew shedding sand in his lap, a file in one hand, a paw in the other. Wordlessly she settled across from him, just not wanting to be alone



And her misery had to be obvious. Her throat aching from her calls, and her eyes were red-rimmed and irritated from crying. He passed her a cup, half full, likely once his. A dig in his pockets and one toss later and a spare bottle of eyedrops smacked her lap.



He waited for her to take a large gulp, then asked. "Did you want to talk about it?"



Wordlessly Lillie shook her head. She'd already told him, knew she was courting this nightmare again by talking about it. What was the point?



"Then take your meds and clean your nose."



She did so. And as she worked he did too, half stooping, slinging an arm around Rollie the sandshrew's chest as he wrangled a renegade hind paw into his hold.



In his off-hand he set the file, a coral pink thing smaller than his fingers, to work. The rodent squealed and squirmed. Shedding sand with each high-pitched warble and likely jacking the hotel bill up with each pound of sand.



"Is it... Is it hurting him?"



She... Couldn't stay for that.



But she also knew sometimes that's what Sakaki did. She'd seen Sakaki hurt Beedril. Distorting the bee's blades with practiced strokes until one was whittled into a saw blade that seeped purple and black. The bug usually laid on a purple-stained blanket for the proceedings, hunched over a wooden plank that it scraped at with its spindly limbs and gnawed into while the boy worked over him. The bug's trainer only stopped when the insect arched to spit acid and splinters, exoskeleton quivering in agony, stinger making gouges into the earth.



When that show of agony stopped and the bug's wings stopped beating so fast they blurred, Sakaki would take up the mutilated limb, massive mudale file in hand, listening for a command only he could hear.



Then he'd continue, without a word



If this was like that Lillie'd have to leave.



And have a long think about coming back.



"No, he's just too young to have shaken off all his instincts and ticklish besides."



Asking him to "please no" would likely get her ignored. Or have him tell her to leave. Disbelief and demands for proof would end the same way too.



It's how all the other adults treated her whenever she was away from Mother's side. Sometimes with a smile and head pat, sometimes with chilly indifference.



So Lillie learned she always had to have a reason. It made her "articulate", or so Kuki had told her once. Before he'd gotten sick and though he smiled and talked and laughed once he got better... There was something permanently wrong with him afterwords.



"When Mother took small mon into the observational room... Sometimes the guards would... Have to unfold them to rip them open... To make them stop fighting."



It was so stupid. Just words. Nothing was happening now or recently except her dream... And realizing that's why she felt what she did the feeling changed. Lillie's heart hammered and it took all her will not to get sick.



Perhaps sussing her thoughts from her parlor Sakaki let go of Rollie. No longer being grandma seatbelted, the mouse lived up to its name. Seeing the beachball sized mouse-ball made her heart slow, and Lillie took a long sip, finishing off the cup.



The sick feeling receded.



Sighing, reaching out to roll the mouse off his lap, he looked at his sandlogged legs with a grimace. Not noticing how he'd been almost buried.



His spat of dusting off the excess was more futile habit than anything else. Lillie had to help him dig his left leg out.



"Since we're both up half past stupid anyways......you find the hotel's vacuum and I'm taking a shower. After... We'll find a different way to clean his paws."



Xxx



Two shredded pillows, a stint trying to drape the 'mon over a chair like a towel that led to Rollie curling and working the chair into it.



"This really isn't working" Sakaki sighed, skirting around the chair that was pointed in his direction. A mute "back off" with a threat of skewering via chair leg.



Perhaps, Lillie suggested, they'd find something to break Rollie's curl, outside?



Xxx



Rollie lived up to type, melding with rocks. Defied type by plastering himself against tree sides. And when he tried to dig an escape route Sakaki caught him by the ankle and wheeled him out of the hole.



It was seeing the 'mon trying to curl up again in the trainer's hold that gave Lillie an idea.



It was probably a bad idea. She shivered at it... but... With a grimace, Lillie opened her arms.



"Pass him here... I'll hug him and you can... Try... But hurry?"



Before the last symable's whimper ended she found her arms full of Rollie. The mouse, Lillie learned, was stupid heavy and a sneeze waiting to happen. Still, the ground type went from hugging himself to hugging her with a confused chitter. That turned into a squeal as Sakaki descended, nailfile in hand.



She didn't know who was shaking more, her with her terror, or the mouse with his tickles, but by the end of it the claws were filed down and cleaned.

And she shouldn't need or feel comfort from the firm pat Sakaki put on her shoulder as he withdrew the mon, but she did.

Xxx



They sat side by side in the waiting room before a battle stage for the trial captain to wrangle some hyper challenger through their paces.



The kid, all squeals and bouncing, was young in a way Sakaki was supposed to be. And only a year younger than Lillie.



Listening to all that raw enthusiasm was making Lillie tired. Sakaki, sprawling in his chair beside her was about an inch from nodding off.



She nudged his ankle with her foot, and he jolted, smooth features squaring up into familiar irritable lines. She'd of made a stab about when he was older but didn't. It felt too Grace to say.



And he'd been old once and likely knew how he looked better than she ever would.

So Lillie settled for a dry, "I think if we both pass out the trial captains going to make us wait another week before accepting your challenge."



"There's nothing to read, I'm going through three types of withdrawal for adhering to this, "Spiritual purity" crap this granola lifestyle pushing brat is inflicting on me, and they have a phone blocker somewhere..." which meant little to no chance of Sakaki pretending to be nice in case Silver, called, great. "Sleep is better than me awake and them dead."



He hunched a bit, arms crossed across his chest, chin tucking against his sternum, eyes sliding shut. Lillie knew better than to pooh-pooh Sakaki's crabby threats. The mix match of experience that was part an echo of a woman long gone (and had never been there, like Kanto had never been there until all the madness had started) and her own experience of seeing his temper should have dissuaded her.



Boredom was a malicious mistress, and it was the fifth time the kiddie trainer before them got lost, so suffice to say Lillie was bored.



"Never have I ever?"



Black eyes flicked open, and truly the depth of his boredom was beyond measure because he was considering it.



"Only after you turn eighteen."



That was... ominous... Lillie screwed up her courage because he was awake, so that was something?



"Stupidest thing?"



"Besides this conversation? Let's say you need to be twenty-one for that one."



"Really? What could be so bad-"

Lillie cut herself off. Because this was Sakaki. It was a really stupid question and the slow smirk that unfurled over his face felt like a threat. Still he minded her "sheltered sensibilities" a tinny tiny bit.



"Let's say getting the birds and the bees conversation from a Persian matriarch... A prickly pregnant one... Was an education."



Lillie opened her mouth, considered calling his bluff, and then closed it. Nope, she wasn't going to ask. But Giovanni looked half awake and amused, his lids half lidded... and the ghost of Grace's memories warned Lillie of one thing.



When he looked like that his filters were off.



"I think the most alarming thing about it was about the barbs." He carried on, slowly stretching, one arm over his head as he shifted to something like attentive.



"Stop."



"Refractory and barbs."



"Please don't explain."



"Oh, it wasn't my explanation... The Cat Madam really felt that the holes in my education were deplorable. I will admit I made a mistake after, I took this knowledge to a more discrete relation... Who after becoming deeply alarmed referred me to a doctor and a woman-friend-"



"Tapus and starlight... Please I am begging you to stop."



He flashed his teeth, all edges, and malice, not laughing but touching close to the act.


"Well since you asked so nicely..." arms crossed behind his head, black eyes slid closed, wickedness done for now

She should leave him be, that last line while playful was a warning. He knew that and she knew that. Still, something like duty niggled.

Sakaki had been helping her not be scared of Rollie. Of random mon on the street. He'd assigned her homework and took her out to observe until the once alien creature were.. If not familiar at least not quite as terrifying.

Lillie could use a pokeball to call Rollie and summon a sandstorm to better run away. She only forgot to recall the mouse some of the time. And once when Skull tried to bug her while she was brushing excess sand off of the tan rodent she'd thrown the mouse and brush in a crude sort of self-defense

Belatedly yelling at Rollie to scratch post-toss.

(The mouse had sandstormed)

Boredom dovetailed into frustration and inspired something like bravery in Lillie Aether.

"How'd you learn to fight?"'

Giovannni's eyes flicked open. Exhaustion packed away for now. He stared at her, long and hard.

"Do you want me to answer fully and honestly?"


Nothing could be as bad as feline refractory and barbs, right? Lillie nodded and the boy... who wasn't... grunted.

"It was a progress..." Giovanni's consideration made Lillie's skin creep. Still, she steeled herself, holding onto the chair's arms to better steady herself. "But the first time I decided to fight it was while I was being shoved between two nephews... They got bored, were bigger than me, and meaner. They started shoving me between them. Funner than getting a ball I guess. But they got bored and started shoving me into the wall. I didn't have a 'mon, just a temper and a sense of I was damn sick and tired of being hurt. So I hit back." He ran a finger along the top of his nose, as if feeling for a jag, then set his hand under his chin to contemplate the air behind Lillie. "It was the first time I got my nose broken. But it was one way to learn how to deliver a good right hook."

 

[K_S]

chapter 6
in ogni caso necessario, part 3

readers note: Set in Celebi's eldritch Alola, post chapter 9 of Transversal. Flashback heavy, as Lillie's bad life choices make Giovanni recall the terrors of encrouching fatherhood and he has more then enough time to stew on those memories.


Finding adolescents to swell the ranks of Rocket grunts had been disgustingly easy.

The culling of various programs by the powers that be had been a win for Rocket. Idle hands were prone to mischief. He'd snapped some of the more malicious and entrepreneuristic children of Viridian over the years. Praise and flattery drew them under his banner, training and efficiency slotted them into their proper place.

For the more wild ones, Giovanni was a bit more hands-off. Usually waiting until they got a bit of a record. Letting them do so let Giovanni learn how they handled the pressure and to have leverage after the fact. It was well known that Viridian Co was one of the few havens for misdemeanor-carrying hooligans.

And since only he would tolerate them they only had him to turn to.

So when Lillie Aether started showing all the signs of future Rocket employment, unexplained absences, mysterious new injuries, and small things going missing or misplaced, he was at a quandary.

Were she a potential Rocket employed in Viridian Co he figured he was at that stage of mentorship where he eased his grip and let her wander and crash into things. Hopefully, she was smart enough not to get caught by the police as this world gave him none of his old clout. Any misadventures were hers to bear, and any benefits she garnered would be shared as was proper.

It's how a Sakaki would have dealt with a friendly face outside the familgia.

But how things had been handled before didn't quite fit with the world he was in now.

For one, Lillie was possibly the most sheltered child he'd ever met. Being denied the idea of sweets, most basic biology, and survival needs, and 'mon. Fear had been planted and exacerbated with every trauma, tying daughter to mother in a diseased protector protectee role. It was a miracle Madam Aether hadn't mentally crippled Lillie further by denying her basic schooling.

A pretty thing without the ability to read or write would be insanely vulnerable. As it was she had problems aplenty just navigating the world as is without dipping her toes into potential criminality.

Which meant, to spite all his training and life experience, Giovanni Sakaki was going to have to arrange a "don't do crime" speech and make sure it stuck.

Unfortunately (and ironically) he had a pretty good record in doing so.

Lucky him.

Xxx

His charity activities were usually remote. Donations here, speeches there, he became very hands-on in the league scene per his work, and occasionally sweeping a recent graduate into legit businesses under his control.

He was pointedly distant. So much so many knew his name over his face. Which was how he liked it.

Over dinner, long ago, Grace had been talking shop. It varied wildly from what a Sakaki considered acceptable shop talk. It was a shock to learn that nursing was more graphic than his old work. Planting a bullet in someone was messy, no bones about it. Extracting said bullet so that the victim did not bleed out or lose any functions, biological or mortar, was significantly more so. Balancing that revelation, was that nursing, unsurprisingly, tended to hold a more optimistic tone.

She'd been espousing preferred facilities, emphasizing some point with her butter knife. Bemoaning the bureaucracy and drawing him to chuckle over the more catty work gossip.

Because doctors and their seniority squabbles sounded painfully similar to capos and their "tenure benefit" snits. Serving as one of the Viridian don's consigliere, ironically, gave him comparable tales.

So long as he scrubbed out certain aspects, which he did, with practiced ease.

It wound up with Grace swearing on all 'mon sweet and sacred that if she were dying, or him, that Azulian Arcean branch, insurance, and facilities, were, in trainer speech "the spawn of Giritina hopped up on berserk genes".

In layman's terms, she'd suggested it was better dying then going there.

He'd demanded examples because that was a bit extreme.

The tale she picked to share set his hackles up because he knew the shell-shocked teen twins being escorted out of his gym...

He'd done the escorting and helped haul them in the vehicle himself because the whisp of a paramedic had been having trouble.

Mainly he remembered those metallic threaded shag shirts the duo had been wearing in his nightmares...

"You're telling me the ambulance took those injured kids from that freak electric minum plusle double battle were charged triple transport fees then turned them away without treatment."

Last he'd seen them they'd been immobile.

"You knew them?"

"They blew out the weather control and light systems in my gym with their 'mon, it sticks in one's mind."

The smaller, a girl, had been foaming at the mouth. Her eyes rolled back in her head as she seized.

"They were dropped off at a facility that doesn't take trainer injuries, and while we don't know this officially the girls at the desk do know that the 'drivers get a generous "holiday check" for dropping someone off at the AzArc. No matter their state. Oh Azure will see you, diagnosis you, well them," the kids that Giovanni was starting to feel a bit guilty about, "for electric exposure, but then they referred those kids out because, and I quote, Aura is Supernatural per Arcean writ, and thus an act of god."

"How did you find out about that Pezzo di merda fumante di una politica?" He spat.

Concern and fury set his face into stony no tell lines because knowing certain things could be deadly. On one hand, the yakuza plants in the hospitals were few and far between, mainly being in the morgue for evidence tampering duties, but still...

"Sometimes the girls in billing need a night out, drink, and tell tales," Grace confessed, squirming at the mild stain of illegality.

Relief let his shoulders loosen, he let his honest emotions cross his face.

"I'm sure any names accidentally dropped were pseudonyms Grace. And if they weren't you technically didn't know that and can say that if a sbarrio asks."

"Still..." She hesitated, worried.

"And you have my lawyers on speed dial."

"Even Arceus would fear them."

"They are the human-born sharkpedo frifluff of Kygore's eye."

Wiping her hands on a towel, Grace flicked him a pointed look.

"Slow that down and explain that in non-trainer speak."

The dishes were cleared and stored by that point, and Giovanni's responding chuckle was more directed to the glassware that he was putting up than her.

Motion from the edge of his eyes made him turn, thus Grace's sneak attack was thwarted. It was a bit awkward, but the hug was appreciated. She leaned into him while he set his head atop her hair. Noticing she'd changed the scent of her hair products to something airy and sweet.

"Holding me hostage until I break?"

"Host- where do you get your ideas Gio, really? I need a hug about now. It's been a bad few days..."

Which is why he'd cooked, and let her ramble on. Granted he did that most days unless it was finals league at the gym. He got to monopolize the quota of grousing that week.

"I hate working shifts at Az' but they're so damn skinflint if I didn't Marice wouldn't have gotten any maternity leave."

"Tomorrow's your last day and you cycle to General the day after tomorrow?"

"If you say I should just do the logical thing and stick it out-"

"I was going to say call out sick." He hummed, deciding he liked this new brand quite a bit. Stealing a quick peck, he also stole a page from her own book. Twining her close, he led the dance as it were, a slow sway. All the better to better sway her his way. "After all stress isn't good for anyone long term."

"Do I hear you quoting me?"

"As it technically isn't under copyright..."

She laughed which meant he'd done something right. Her cool fingers tapped against his shoulder as she considered his suggestion. Then in typical Grace fashion tipped an idea on its head.

"How much litigation of yours can I borrow, Mr. Sakaki?"

Both of his eyebrows hopped and he pulled back to look at her with utmost seriousness.

"And what crimes are you planning Madam?"

"Social upheaval, maybe some civil unrest." Under his scrutiny, she folded. "Suing Az for neglagance? But
I'd have to know what happened to those kids after... And there are other cases..."

"Alright." He heard her, that's all the affirmation was and he tried not to wince at the hope that lit her eyes. "We'll talk specifics in the living room. Can you get a spare laptop and I'll wrangle up some drinks?"

Because this conversation was going to be ugly and he wasn't tackling it without something to take the edge off.

To start, Grace's request would require less than legal avenues to reach out to the victims. Considering big corporations held secrets in a death grip and Az' was one of the biggest. Rivaling Viridian Co in power.

Honestly, the only reason they'd left him alone was he dabbled in everything but pharmaceuticals and human medicine. There'd been a few encounters, where they'd perceived his 'mon medications to be in their territory and tried to intimidate him into backing down.

Pointing out their hypocrisy had barely slowed down the representative who'd broke into his office and tried looming in his personal space. Being apathetic to every threat, there were neither guns, 'mon, or the Rod pointed at him, had pissed them off further. Sicing a lawyer and two guards and revealing the whole conversation was recorded and would be released publically had done it.

The fact he'd followed through with his threat had led to two incidents of retribution.

They'd hired an investigator to dig into everything and anything he'd ever touched. Even trying to net interviews on the Sakaki clutch back home.

The familgia's sheer paranoia had sunk that boat and arranged the disappearance of the whole investigation team. He wasn't even sure they knew the poking about was about him (he suspected not or the familgia would have set someone around to talk tribute), but still, they drug up enough to stir something of a media storm.

It came and went, and Giovanni had hauled the tabloids and main papers into court to pay out for baseless mudslinging and accusations of espionage. He ripped enough money out of them that they wouldn't write a good-feel piece about his lowest employees without asking Giovanni's permission first.

No matter how much Az' had bribed them.

As for the second attempt, his wife worked in their facilities as a volunteer nurse. Taking shifts so the main staff could have some flexibility. A bout of protective corporate espionage had given him the timeline and methods for their next attempt. The plan, to plant evidence Grace was taking prescriptions recreationally was a devious one...

So credit where credit was due.

An impulsive man with his resources would meet force with force. He suspected that any direct Mob efforts would have revived the whole media storm. Not wanting another round of that he'd gotten creative. He'd managed to bribe a morgue plant to charm his way into Grace's friend circle and keep watch over her and her things.

The effort to drop off the "evidence" had been intercepted and redirected. The favorite nephew of Az's director, an oblivious sod who'd actually been committing the crime they were trying to pin on Grace had been the patsy. All it'd taken was a security tab on a bottle and the scandal had done itself

Caught at the front door, the idiota had pulled out his case for security, a classic "look, nothing to see here." During which, no less them five bottles had rolled free. In front of patients, guards, and cameras.

The silence and cessation of plots came across as a bit sulky. Which was about on par with the Director's emotional intelligence. Granted, Giovanni couldn't throw stones considering he'd been, to quote Grace, "unbearable" for two weeks after.

Not that she knew why.

Since then Viridian Co and Az paid each other no mind. And the consigaire was content to leave it at that. He'd had other businesses to control and didn't expect any overlap personally, so what could they honestly do?

It was a stalemate. A grudging one that hinged upon the two corporate entities to play "I don't see you" that'd held for almost three years. Now Grace, with her altruism, was likely to upset.

The glassware clicked against the bottle in his hands as he settled into the couch besides Grace. She raised both her eyebrows. Her mouth twisting into a worried line.

"Gio we aren't going to drink the whole bottle if we're researching."

No, they weren't. But he suspected they'd need more than one shot apiece. And once he was settled he wasn't getting up for anything.

Because it was going to be a long night.

Xxx

it'd hurt to be the cause of her hurt. To be the one to pluck the rose-tinted shades off her eyes and ask her to see.

A few drinks in and their tongues were loosened. Enough for Giovanni to slip into Italian and stay there, and enough for Grace's reasons to come tumbling out...

The injustice, the tragedy suspected then discovered (a nasty tale, the two trainers had died en route to a second hospital, and with no family to dig into things it'd been swept under the rug) rankled. Near physically damaging for someone of Grace's sensibilities. Things like that shouldn't happen, much less to kids

It'd been a firey reiteration of the anticipated and he'd soothed her through the pains and gently worked the ideas of using his clout out from her hands. Showing how each plan was a danger. Because Az' was not one to pull punches. He revealed a very sanitized version of the evidence of the plot against her and how he'd defanged it via "a friend of a friend."

Then there'd been the agony of comforting her through that loss of innocence.

The unanticipated reasons, all wrapped in tears during the comforting, had been a sharp kick in the gut.

That she'd been thinking long term. Had bits of ideas to make the world, if not the best place a better one for their upcoming children. They had discussed children of course, but as abstracts. A misty, benign neverland of someday.

To hear the idea spoken so candidly did strange things to his brain. Joy and fear crackled up his spine, near electric, and made a mess of his thoughts. He shoot up like a watchog smelling a sirviper, looking down at her in stupified wonder.

"You're not?"

"Good God no Gio, but if I was... What kind of mother would I be if I raised our kid in a world like... With a place capable of evil like this."

The tragedy was that she'd be like any other mother. The state of the world wasn't on their shoulders any more than it was on any other woman or man.

"You'd be magnificent." He breathed. Strangling his accent to a mere whisper because she needed to hear this and understand it bone deep. "You'll be magnificent. I have no doubts."

Xxx

Grace had, unfortunately, planted a seed of her altruism into Giovsnni's mind. To add insult to injury it was a worry seed. It kept him from sleep, and among the few capos and signoras, he knew professionally that had kids he cast out his feelers.

A few he immediately retracted, their toxic dynamic a bit too much like the hoard back home... But to those more sane he started to socialize.

And sought a more grey path his peers had taken to contrast Grace's snowy white expectations.

After a rather placid heist where he'd serve as an executive, Giovanni had taken the more family-minded capos on a night on the town. They wound up in a little out-of-the-way diner run by a retired made-woman who could cook traditional and had the best wines.

It'd been a bit disconcerting to have two of the capos bow out. Sitter complications. And amusing to see everyone else check plans and calendars before deciding to tag along.

"Oh, you laugh now you fucker," Ace a middling tier grunt whose complete lack of filter barred her from promotion. "You think it's cute but it's gunna be you someday... Almost everyone else who hosts these familgia nights gets someone knocked up or gets knocked up. We got a betting pool on you kitty whisperer. My money is on you swinging a secretary at your gym office, and the times six months, so how close am I to gettin' the jackpot?"

He suggested she screw herself, who and what he bed was his business, and for the sniggering grunts to go to hell.

"Business only comes up until after they're of age. You want them to have a good grip on their goods," a lewd gesture explained which type well enough. "and a getaway car first. Escape 'mon are for chumps."

That statement raised a tide of boos and hisses and conflicting opinions. The end-result was distinctly undecided.

"-oy! Shut up you wiseguys! All I'm sayin' is I don't have ta check my type chart, and a coppers assist mon, and reference it to moves known to see if my pet abra is gonna be gutted by a pursuit."

Jeers and laughs a few back slaps and even Giovanni cracked a slight smile. Remembering which mon could learn pursuit was a chore. And, in the grunt's defense, the workarounds were a bitch.

"Honestly, Ernesto, best cat burglar in Kanto, flat out retired cuz of his adhd one. Don threw a fit, Ernny-boy cut him a deal. You deal with my kid for thirty minutes, set him up for bed, and I'll come back. E' locked the Don in with his kid and the Boss managed.. Five... Ten minutes..." Laughs barked over cigarette and cigar smoke. Glasses were chinked. A toast to the Boss' fallen grace. "So get this the Boss contracted out to the kid. Uses the brat to occasionally break the real stubborn ones. Made a copper flat-out cry... And the boys an ace at distractions. All but ordered Ern' to screw his wife more to make more and the more defective the better. Damned best set of standing orders ever, am I right?"

When the whoops died down Giovanni tossed out.

"So for someone getting in the parenting Game sooner rather than later what all would you advise?"

You could hear the water in the kitchen boiling after that.

Clearing his throat an older capo, a crusty forty-year-old, managed. "So congrats and all but like... Are you single or paired? Like the other half, they gunna be in the business or no or..."

"And that matters why?"

"Honey," and damn Ace for sounding so soft then. "If they're part of your life and your kid's life, that's gunna be the first step to everything."

Xxx

The rest of the advice had been less mawkish but undeniably reasonable.

Anything sensitive be it weapons, blackmail, 'mon, and otherwise were to be secured. As in, get a safe, two types of locks, and make the area around it look boring.

Because nothing was nosier than a four-year-old and nothing could stop little hands questing.

A network of bodies to serve as spare eyes, and for babysitters, and what families to avoid for having sbarrio ties.

And so on and so forth.

He'd asked after the mysterious adhd that was bandied about and got five different alarming (if amused ) explanations. He smacked his head into the table, just done with everything and everyone.

"Tell me it gets easier."

"Nope." Ace chirped. "You get sleeplessness, allergies, feeding, diapers, socializing, preschool, school-school,..."

"Aye fuck ptas!"

That made the masses toast much to Giovanni's stupefaction.

"You will feel like your world's ending when you're Working and kiddos home sick. You will want to punch the Don when he calls you in, keeps you late, and fucking makes you debrief and account for every single little thing."

That was... Alarming... And it got worse as things were expanded and the mobsters fell into a fit of royally bitching about the horrors of parenting.

Xxx

After a week of watching him put it up and add layers upon layers Grace gently pried him away from what she referred to as his "murder board". A corkboard monstrosity smothered with pins and thread and papers detailing, among other things, various child psychology articles, baby formulas, and educational plans.

"if I hear your printer hum one line I will take a hammer to it," Grace warned. "We are both taking the day off and are going to talk about this sanely and with no intervention of your printer or computer or cell phone. I will decide when and where we research, capishe."

He didn't know what killed him more. The poorly pronounced threat, her term for the cork board (which was no way near how you planned a killing), or the fact she commandeered all the technology. Their couch was distinctly hostile considering she was curling around computers and phones instead of him. She was channeling vengeful garchomp, and hissed when he shifted, by accident, towards his research aides.

Then in a fit of spite, she skimmed over his notes and hummed they were a good starting point... But...

"It's all abstract. We're going to need to do things hands-on. But be sneaky. The paparazzi are everywhere after all."

Which was how Giovanni Sakaki was cajoled out of near-total professional isolation and thrown to the juvenile wolves of the school systems. His gym leader status gave him a perfect in, he was able to fabricate both excuse and paperwork stating he was checking things out for the league and no one batted an eye. Furthermore, he was tentatively approuchable. His caustic personality notwithstanding, a cute rhyhorn did a lot to deflect from that, and Grace's suggestion of it knowing how to "shake" and "roll over" was stupidly helpful.

Despite Grace being one halo short of an angel her vocation was a thing of nightmares. Little minds had long memories for surprise needle shots, assurances of "this wouldn't hurt a bit" and other sins. She'd been aware and amused that her job was a thing of nightmares for children. Had she wanted to be more threatening she'd gone into dentistry.

A fact she had milked, using scrubs to fudge a dentist's costume, complete with healthy candy to traumatize small minds and not share her candy.

As to why, "it was a bad breakup," she hummed. And that "sometimes gorging on candy while watching slasher flics is soothing."

Xxx

Between delicate negotiations from a Business front, work, league season, and Grace-sanctioned research, Giovanni dipped in and out of the local Viridian academia. Binding league with learning and sussing out a few potential souls for legal and illegal acquisition.

Between those tasks, he'd had to sit through a few odd events. Pep rallies baffled him to no end (pride was only for self or familgia after all). The "beware gangs and drugs" speeches that the cops had pulled (and dragged him into the irony of ironies) had him able to identify sbarrio clutches versus mob by the reactions from the kids. While both were glassy-eyed, the mob families kept flicking glances at the guest speaker with guarded expressions and their legal counterparts took a nap.

Suffice to say after sitting through a few state-sponsored spiels on gangs, drugs, and one memorable sex ed class made for second graders (an attempt to thwart teen pregnancy, a principal had demurred, perhaps reading the no-tell expression as thunderous, honestly he'd been too shocked at the time) he outsourced his rounds at the public schools to a more sociable employee and informed Grace that no way in Hell their children were going to any of them.

He picked through the stale, trash, monologues as he walked. Nidorino broke a path through the tall grass. While Rino wasn't officially a scent tracker, he was skilled enough to suss one scent from others and if the trail was fresh follow it. It wasn't a quiet walk, interspaced with loud whuffs as Rino protested the blades that got into his snout, but that was fine.

Out in the fringes of Alola there weren't doors to knock on and this slice of pseudo-savannah didn't have much in the way of trees. Stealth wasn't his intent and he'd scratched out most of the openings he'd seen as he walked.

He was neither a beloved but distant figure(a route he pulled as a gym leader) one with any moral authority to trust (his and ironically the sbarrios favored route) and scaring her senseless (as a Don would) would make traveling with her unbearable.

There was a dip and flattish path alongside the road that meandered off in willynilly zig zags. It possibly served as a river bed during the rainy season, even if the formation made no sense for it. Familiar with alolas nonsense he let the butchering of basic geology slide. And since time was fickle and he had no clue if rains were due or not he walked quickly.

The sky was perfectly clear, it was hellishly hot, so even odds both ways if bad weather was coming in.

Around the bend, by a clutch of black squiggle trees and thick brush, there were odd noises that cut off courtesy of Rino pulling a colossal sneeze.

Glaring down, Rino slicked back jagged violet ears with a whine and sniffle, Giovanni gave up any and all delusions of stealth.

Or tact.

"Lillie I'm coming over, you've about a minute to get decent if you aren't."

When he crossed the last stretch of distance she was decent, if dying of mortification, even if she wasn't quite one hundred percent sure what he'd meant it sounded bad enough to make her flush a deep scarlet

Compiling her state, with the state of the clearing, revealed the tip of the colossal screwed-up iceberg.

xxx

(Do not be judgmental)

He'd lead them both to a pair of low rocks. Taking her arm in his to prevent her from haring off. They weren't high enough to be comfortable to sit on, and toasty besides, but worlds better than risking a random ground type like those toupee sporting dugtrios from popping up under them.

(Do not be judgmental)

There were purloined mon targets plastered on trees. One hanging from a branch... And had she been coaching say... Nebby... to hop into them it wouldn't be so bad as this.

She'd been throwing herself at them. Not coaching her mon to do so, but doing it herself in a misguided attempt to toughen up.

She opened her mouth to babble, and he let her. The usual spiel of "I'm sorry" and incoherent apologies for wasting his time.

Honestly, he was too used to it, tuning her out until she stopped to breathe before putting his two doduo in.

"Drink some water and put another layer of sunscreen on, You're about ready to start crisping."

Kindness as always mystified and derailed her frantic self-flagellating monologues. She woodenly followed his orders while Giovanni set his knees on his elbows and made a mount of his hands.

If he was imagining Lumismine Aether between those hands choking out that was his business and no one else's.

He'd try not to be judgmental, but drawing a deep breath and letting it out, he made no promises. Not even to himself.

Xxx

He didn't use any of the speeches. Affirming yet again they were utter wastes of time. He did not yell. Did not threaten. Did not even raise his voice

What he did, was ask to see her phone and use it to research.

He showed her cross references of mon targets versus human durabilities. Showing how tripping into the class she'd found thrown out behind Nanu's office, could lead to broken bones. The things were harder than cement. He debunked a slew of "wood chopping" martial artist experts she'd favored and unsubscribed her from their accounts.

He dug up a video of Bruno doing it and also Bruno's explanation of how you had to work up to it. That it took minimally months of training to get that good.

She'd been sneaking off for about three weeks. And her first week had been pacing around in circles going "What can I do? Woe is me, for I am traveling with a gym leader who could actually give pointers if asked but..."

Giovanni paraphrasing her activities had shaken her out of her embarrassment to loudly protest that "She had not!"

"Of course not kid." He drawled, "Whatever helps you sleep at night."

Arms crossed, pride hit and worked up into a royal stope, Lillie glared at him. Teasing was one way to make her drop her timidness, and while not an attractive look it was better than her traditional deerling in the headlights. She slumped against his side while he flipped through the rest of her research with swift fingers. "Junk, not as effective as advertised, dangerous, quackery, sbarrio endorsed... But tentatively useful... That's new..."

An interesting trick involving escaping zip ties and tape binds was watched from start to finish.

Lillie flipped her white sun hat off her head and balanced it atop his fedora while he researched. Giovanni tolerated her little game by ignoring it. Done, he flicked his black eyes over her slowly reddening frame.

"Alright, I got the gist of what you thought might work... And some of these people lie well enough I would have been tempted to try a few of these stunts at your age." She slumped in despair, making a wordless noise of embarrassment he felt more than heard. "Alright, we are making some very firm ground rules. The first," his lips quirked, in what Lillie knew was a "I'm remembering something smile". "I am controlling what is practiced or not. You are doing none of this," Lillies rotom phone was waved about, "without supervision. It's a miracle you haven't broken bones playing around with the targets. But before we begin this you are learning the basics."

"Like I've been doing, throwing Rollie and running?"

"No," Sakaki shook his head. "That's an emergency patch job. The basics. Situational awareness, break-out tactics, undoing knots. The things I was grilling Silver on before he was taken."

Lillie swallowed, suddenly feeling sick. Silver had been taken right before he turned five. These tricks hadn't worked for him. But then if Alola was suddenly awash in kidnapping legends Lillie was sure lessons were going to be the least of her problems.

"What if..." Lillie shivered, remembering the room. Being trapped within in her dream, seeing it in her waking. Both were nightmares she never seemed to shake. "What if I mess up?"

Because in Lillie's life, imperfect things were, at best locked away.

"In a lesson? We try again or try differently until something fits. In a fight? Well, I'll let you on a little Sakaki secret," his arm slid over her shoulders, drawing out of her chagrined slump and comfortably at his side. "Something, had he been with me longer, Silver would have been told first... In a real fight, a do-or-die situation, there's only one rule you mind. In ogni caso necessario."

Curiosity put a damper on sulking, or perhaps it was the sideways hug, Lillie wasn't sure.

"I don't speak Italian." It was a gentle reminder, near whispered.

He huffed, amused. "You survive, by any means necessary."

Spoiler: The short version

Concise version of In ogni caso necessario part 3.

Gio: what are you doing?

Lillie: sheepishly starts after being caught setting up a rocky esc training spot.

Gio: (takes deep breath)

Alright first, your build and age you will break your arms if you hit that. Second, you are mastering evasion, situational awareness, and breakout techniques before you learn how to beat the shit out of people. Third you aren't doing anything you've seen on chatat tock, mewtube, or from that little pea-sized imagination unless I clear it. And Sandshrew is training alongside you... Because Nebbie is a cheerleader's pompom and not a battle aide... am I understood?

Gio starts Lilie's training, with the stuff he grilled into Silver before age five. Lilli's both horrified at the idea and worried she's in over her head.

 

[K_S]

chapter 7
Corinthians 15:10 part 1

Readers note: set pre-transversal, pre-Manga. Giovanni centric, focusing on being Rocket, and the mounting consequences of criminal upheavel when he is married, to a criminally uninclined partner (Grace).

Introduction

The carpet had been rolled up as the two familgias were, if not content with the middleground reached, were willing to uphold it. A few murmured words, handshakes, and things were wrapping up. Standing at the old Don's side, black eyes a mystery, he watched the two hellishly competative familgias depart.

They'd tried to get thier 'mon to interceed. Make it look like an accident, and while not breaking House rules per say... Don Marchetti had no patience with the effort and drama of getting two new heads to the Viridian dock district. So he'd had his consigaire with the most 'mon skills on stand by.

Most couldn't tell from the younger man's stoney features what he was feeling. But he wasn't quite the stone wall most woukd tjink. Dipping in and out of media regard, the Don suspected his youngest consigliere emoted only when it served him.

And only for those who'd earned a reaction

But there were other ways to aquire information on the state of the younger man's mind.

The fueding familgia's mon had sniffed the air and stiffened in animalistic terror. Before that little hint there'd been other., a bought man who Marchetti had trailing the young Sakaki had reported that during the call to come in a positive swarm of spearow had gone feral. Tearing themselves to pieces while the Sakaki had slipped out of the hospital to take the Don's call.

There was probably a trail of dead or dying 'mon from Viridian Gen to the Don's home.

He'd already had a man picking up the pieces and disposing of them. Best not to make things too easy for interpol after all.

Despite the mess, the payout was worth it. Sakaki had seen the glint of Beedrill venom on the nails of one capo's furret, scented from the breath of the other's growlithe proof of injections that would make its toxic immediatly lethal.

He'd gotten all this information just by greeting both families, guilded them to thier places, and taking his place at the Don's side. Professional incarnate, Sakaki had murmured his warnings about the murderous tells into the Don's ear.

"Make sure thier pets behave." He'd ordered, and with a nod Sakaki had roamed his gaze over the critters. Just that. The 'mon went from mirroring thier trainers posing to near pissing themselves in seconds.

The show was definitly worth the cost of a little extra pick up.

He'd kept Sakaki after. Making the buisness minded man comb over the Buisness paperwork... It was accounting stuff well below his paygrade, but there'd been a frission of unmistakable longing in the young man when seeing the capos out.

Best to squash that right now.

The Don imagined, as the young Sakaki pointed out one clerical error and one spot of probable skimming on the first pile of papers, he'd very much rather be anywhere else then here. He'd been pulled out of the middle of his wife's fertility apointment, after all. Radio silence was a rule here, no little cute calls to see how the appoimtment went.

And for the Mrs? It was all damning silences if she should reach out. In the Don's quarters there was no new fangled technology. Just papers and made men. If he weren't a trainer there'd of been a ban on 'mon too. Marchetti's rules were law and he had jammers set in place to make sure it stayed that way.

Which the Sakaki's youngest found when he flipped open his phone to "activate his calculator app" and found the device dead.

"Sir..." There was a thrumb to the man's voice, a tremble that spoke of terrible controls being clapped down. "How the fucking hell do you expect me to double check thier math devested of one of my tools."

The Don chuffed a laugh. He stood, swatting the younger man on the shoulder with a gusto that should have made him stagger. Bastard didn't though, tough as rocks , that one.

"Pen and paper's right there."

Old he may be, but he wasn't blind. Sakaki hadn't been opening his calculator, the background color while altered wasn't quite right... And the shapes on the screen were off.

"I could have this done in less then an hour..."

"I'll of course want to go over your efforts line by line once you're done," the Don carried on as if genial and oblivious. A dotting zio front a few of the younger grunts fell for from time to time.

This Sakaki wasn't falling for jack shit if the tremble over his shoulders meant anything.

"You'll be up to ah... Giving me the benifit of your fancy business degree? Break it down to laymans terms, so I can really see where those two are fucking up and give them thier proper orders so they can clean house?"

To his little speil the younger Rocket was stone faced, unblinking, and probably (accidently?) williing swaths of innocent 'mon to die.

"Yes sir," Giovanni Sakaki's expression was stiff enough to be mistaken for a dead man's as he saluted. His eyes gave him away though, flicking and as volitile as oil about ready to go up in flames. "If I may have a few moments to tend to my own house before I invest the whole evening tending yours?"

Gutsy brat daring criticism there. Don Marchette wasn't quite sure how lienent his prediscessor had been with the varried capos and consiglieres in Viridian but you'd think five months of him runnimg the show would have taught them all to watch thier step.

"Little thing you're screwing going to compromise my operations if you don't call in?"

The concern, and playful seeming tone was a threat, one the Don let it resonate from his expression to his posture.

Sakaki had balls on him, he didn't flinch at the promise of a hit. Still the younger Rocket's composure, while not shot, was breaking. Giovanni's hands clenched, causing his wedding ring to scrape against the wood of the Don's table.

"No sir, but she might call the police to report a missing person if I'm gone too long."

Ah, devotion. Fuck Don Marchetti sideways, it still existed. And that threat, while more nuescence than substance, did (and had) put a pinch on how versitile this Sakaki was.

He'd have to talk to the Sakaki Matriarch, a shriveled old sandshrew from off mainland, to see of she had another of this cut to spare.

It'd make wacking this one as a love sotted loss eaiser.

"Then I suggest you hurry right along, wouldn't want to worry her if she's expecting, now would we?"

Baring his off yellow teeth wide, a mute "I know something you don't know", he trunged out.

 

[K_S]

chapter 8
Corinthians 15:10 part 2

Readers note: set pre-transversal, pre-Manga. Giovanni centric, focusing on being Rocket, and the mounting consequences of criminal upheaval. In which the newest Don goes after the Sakakis and Giovanni is left considering his options.

As many a working man had learned before him, Sakaki was starting to discover how much of a petty bastard Don Marchetti was.

Having left the car with Grace at the doctor's, he'd considered catching a cab but decided against it. The Don was not subtle in his distaste, even after Giovanni had busted his ass over scalds of paperwork and given a prompt report. The Don had no respect for a family man working in the familgia.

So, he'd bus, since multiple witnesses might dissuade a hit.

Of course, he'd been released right as the busses shut down. Giovanni decided, to screw it, he'd risk a cab. He tried to call the second he got beyond the Don's property but his phone all but lit on fire.

The first message to pop up was expected. Grace asking if he'd made it to the emergency, and for him to call her once he got out. The multiple call attempts after were alarming. The last few texts had his teeth clenched and his offhand fisted.

He could not turn on his heel and storm up to Don Marchetti and sock him in the face.

Because if he started he wasn't sure he'd stop.

Also, murder attempts would draw attention to both the Sakaki matriarch and the Council of Dons.

No matter the temptation Don Marchetti's actions set to dance before his eyes. Glaring at his phone, swearing at an hour old message, Giovanni learned that his car had been towed.

Someone out of the Game would think it an accident. Until you realize, as Grace had, that innocently towed cars did not disappear off of an insurance registrar. Or had their tracker turned off line.

Grace, the smart thing she was, had found a public place, stayed put, and gotten some friends from work to pick her up.

Relief twined with fury, and nearly made him sick, as he read the latest messages.

Come home soon.

His fingers shook as he flicked to the next set.

Three nurses from General were playing honor guard.

Andre, you remember him, the half Kalosian, the ex-trainer with a charmeleon? He was with them, and Melon the 'meleon was acting tougher than tough.

The fire type was making circuits around their property. Everything from the upper floors she'd need was brought down and checked, and the upper stories locked and sealed.

It wasn't much, a few shelves to brace door handles, but it was a warning. The ground windows were locked and there was a rotation to recheck the locks and doors. She'd just wrapped up her turn... The girls were discussing dinner...

She felt shaken but was safe enough. After a debate, they'd voted against order out and made a royal mess of the kitchen.

He forced himself to close her messages. Call a cab, which turned into two calls, then three. Each company insisted they couldn't ping his location. Swore he was not in Kanto. They wouldn't take his credit card. Wouldn't take cash. Couldn't find the cross streets. The last sing-songed that the wait time was twelve hours then threw him onto hold with extreme prejudice.

Beyond caring about property damage Giovanni decided he would summon Rhydon. While not fast, the mon wouldn't tire, and buildings and cars were gnats to its earthen hide.

The same tech that jammed his phone had corrupted his pokeballs. Even outside the device's signal, they were still busted.

And now he had a bigger problem. In one fell swoop the Don had him unarmed.

Taking a deep breath, holding, counting to five, he released. Reigning his fury in, but only barely.

Carjacking was an option. It was a mark of utter desperation he was considering it since if he got caught he'd be sacrificing his public persona and League connections and his relationship with Grace... Still, cars were around. He was in the better districts of Viridian. Every house had a car. The trade-off was every house had a security system.

Staring at his hands, they shook, and wouldn't unclench for anything, he knew that doing anything in his state was a free pass to incarceration.

And while tempting to turn on his heel, commit murder, then carjack off the dead Don, Giovanni grit his teeth and started to run. First, he'd get to the gym. Marchetti's tech wasn't cutting edge by any stretch of the imagination. A simple virus sweep would provide a fix. Once that was done he'd swap out for a flying type, make some adjustments to his team... and figure out this mess once he was sure Grace was safe



Xxx

Come stupid late and half past exhausted Giovanni found himself guiding a crowbat down on the driveway. The creaking wings and shrill screeches that heralded his arrival made Melon's tail flame flare.

The three medical personnel, still in scrubs, and weilding household items as impromptu weapons, winced back from the sudden pytotecnics and hostile poison type.

He could have barrelled through them to the front door, they were spread far too thin, but he didn't point that out. Just slid off the flyers back, withdrawing the Cro' and summoning Persian in one fluid motion.

"Way to make a fucking entrance man." Andre breathed.

"Where is my wife?"

Patricia, a rotund woman with cherubic features tried to stiffen her spine. Demanded to know of he was who he was because dittos were a thing. The idea was smart, but stammered. The mix of fear and cunning put Persian in mind of a baby rattata, and she licked her fangs at Giovanni's feet.

In response, Giovanni drew the rest of his team. They fanned about him, Nidoking's soft snarl setting the medical personnel to cluster amongst themselves.

"I won't repeat myself."

Hopper, a slip of a thing, with more brains than her peers, grabbed Patricia, and then Andre's arm, and hauled them out of the way.

Shooting off a quick. "Inside. Living room." As she did so.

And good thing she did, because Giovanni would have gone through them had she not.

Xxx

He'd blown a shoe in his mad dash, the other held on by a prayer. He was sweat stained and wind burned and his hair was a rattatas nest. Run ragged had never been given a more accurate representation than he was that night.

Grace swept him into her arms without a care.

Xxx

"I think our car is in a chop shop somewhere." Grace warbled. Only talking once the hysteria had died down enough that she clould talk coherently. That thought nearly brought her tears to the fore.

In the kitchen, Andre had declared it hot-chocolate-aclock and made drinks for everyone. Hooper had taken a seat by the window, seemingly entranced by the ground types patrolling outside. Patricia was perched on a nearby seat, fretting, while Persian was sprawled between Grace and the rest of the world.

"Doesn't matter." The loss of the black bently stung, it was his first indulgence he'd got with his league income, but was irrelevant all things considered. He feathered a kiss on her forehead. "You made it home safe. That's the important thing."

"I know it's stupid... I mean we're both kinda made of money..." Hopper laughed and Andre hissed at her to shut up. "But I liked that car."

"We'll pick something better perhaps with more seating."

Silence ticked by, interspaced with the hum of the microwave as water was heated.

"Gio, what in God's name happened? Where were you?

Heaving a sigh, Giovanni nuzzled into Grace's throat. Savoring her warmth and pulse. Basking in the unspoken blessing of she's alive.

"A hell of a lot." He pulled up with a kiss. Considered the room at large. "And I think for everyone's safety we need to wait until we're alone for me to tell you the whole story."

Passing out mugs, Melon at Andre's heels hissing how he could drink some, just a sip, Andre gave Giovanni a cup. The Rocket took it with a nod.

"When a fellow talks like that, that's usually code for there being Mob stuff afoot." Patricia noted.

"I'm a rich, self-made, pristine record holding, Italian businessman who told the previous Don to suck it when he harrassed me at my Gym. I guess the guy bit it instead and there's new management." He let some of his rage creep into his tone. "They'll learn like the last batch did, that I am not to be fucked with. It lands them with broken bones or being hauled off in clappers."

Chocolate was partaken, and nearly everyone's eyebrows were raised.


Andre whistled. "Hooly hell. Scary, but hot."

"Stop trying to poach, Andre," Hopper warned.

"He's mine, we are married for God's sake." Grace snuggled into Giovanni, the contact made the man's dark eyes go half-lidded and he hummed a contented note.

"I'm just saying if you wanna try for the other team I can break you in and I promise to be gentle."

To that, Sakaki roused enough to bark a laugh. "Andre I'm so straight I rank a zero on the Kinsey scale. You could use my preferences as a level. If you're wanting a hot gym leader to screw ask Surge. Anything of age and with a pulse is open season for the man."

That caused a babble as well as the dreaded "war crimes" debacle to be bandied about. The only reason he tolerated it was it made Grace snigger into his side.

"For fucks sake, one: I am happily married. Two: Surge served in the Air Force flying Raichu planes, I was a ground trooper and pressed into attack 'mon training which meant we had very little overlap in leaves, duties, etc. Three: He nearly got discharged for screwing a supperior officer, I don't want that kind of complex in my life. Four: I've committed no crimes, nullifying the crimes part of this. Five: neither has Surge, unless you count a few cases of drunk and disorderly. If you do, do not drag me into that mess." Hot chocolate was not meant to be taken like a shot. It was too thick and cloying to rally work. Mercifully Andre topped his glass, with milk. The thinner liquid kept him from dying. "Six: the time we met was after the War. Surge was in VA aa, or had been. He'd fallen off the wagon. I happened to be taking a walk alongside the bridge he was at... We talked, and I set him up at a hotel for a few months. Cue a timeskip of fuck knows how long, and the dumbass comes barreling into my gym waving his paperwork at me like he's God's gift to man. He's sone cold sober, and hell-bent on proving he could not only run a gym better than me but open one faster."

Taking a sip, Giovanni smirked.

"Never mind I'd been running my own gym a few years by that point."

Snorts and snickers were going all around at this point. "If you're setting your cap for the man you should know exactly how low the bar can get." He warned Andre with a sharkpedos smile.

"Noted." Andre hummed. "He sounds cute. Like himbo cute."

"He gets off to explosions, mayhem, and electricity. Don't expect anything mundane or cutesy to hold his attention for more than a fling."

"Flings can be fun." Patricia noted, in near sync, with Andre. Both looked startled then considered each other measuringly. They also both ignored Grace's squeak of "incoming tmi".

Patting her shoulder, a mute promise of protection, Giovanni raised an eyebrow. In tones that made ten-year-olds cry, rumbled. "If you're going to plan anything, do it at your home, not mine."

Not long after the trio split off. Andre to call his brother back home to say he'd swing back sometime tomorrow. Patricia to scope out rooms for them to take, and Hopper to do another window and door check.

"So I hope you don't mind if everyone stays the night..."

"Honestly, the more friendly eyes the better." Giovanni sighed. Suddenly he felt each step of his mad run ten times and then some. "Persian, take first watch, and wake me for second."

He brushed Grace's assurances that he didn't need to, they were safe, away with gentle kisses.

Infinitely kinder than the razor tones that would have been his norm. And held her and was held in turn until sleep took them both.

Xxx

Claws pricked his side, a purrless kneed that made Giovanni's black eyes flick open. The sun was up, but since there were no clocks he wasn't too sure as to the actual time.

With a huff he relaxed into Grace's hold, wide awake without his daily cup of coffee. It was ironic, that he dreamed of death cast in emerald hues, as he lay in Grace's arms.

Considering his day it wasn't that much of a surprise.

Xxx

He'd been younger, slogging through the tail end of college. The guest bedroom of the Madam's Viridian home allowing a view of the bustling city bit up high. Why a family of two needed a highrise with servants was forever beyond him, even if the lower floors were set aside for the gym and Business meetings how much mess could two people honestly make?

He'd been looming at the window watching the ant people stroll by. A half-complete thesis paper on his desk, eyes half-lidded as they burned between the strain of too much reading, and the emerald pulse of the Forest's fey illumination.

SHE was angry, a supernova about ready to explode. The threat was so real that even the city slicker 'mon felt it in their bones.

He blinked (it was like a sea of clover rushed over him sweeping the world away) and when his vision cleared he was under the familiar boughs of the Forest. Trailing after his mother because she'd never let a man or 'mon break a path for her. His grunt uniform was a bit too large and snagged on the lowest branches as they hiked. Another grunt met them halfway between here and there, passing the Madam papers before bowing back into the ethers and ceasing to exist.

"And what are this one's crimes?" He'd long left the warbling tones of adolescence behind. But that didnt syop his own timbre from startling him sometimes.

In the hush of the path, his voice roiled like thunder.

Because, despite the steady pull of the Forest on his blood, there was only one reason for him to leave Viridian City. And there'd be a body by Works end. His.... talents... were little more than cleaning tools to be applied to the Madam's mess.

As always, when employed like this he had to bite his tongue, lest he spit at the madam to clean her own fucking messes. Dare he , and he'd have his body added to the upcoming compost.

"Defiance, seeing what they shouldn't see." The answer was airy and giggled.

As if there wouldn't be an eye-gouging before the dismemberment started. The Madam's appetites always made Giovanni's skin creep.

Above, the branches rattled a sympathetic echo of his unease.

Another blink, green miasma, it came and went, and once his eyes cleared... he cpuld still see it. Stuffed into corners ans crevices just on the edge of his sight.

There was a thrashing form near smothered in loom and leaves. The body-to-be was disquietingly small. It was made infinitely worse when the Madam pulled back the obscuring foliage to reveal the bound and gagged to be a child.

Eleven years old, more angles than anything else... Even under a shedding of leaves was a mess of familiar brown hair, her hazel eyes were ringed wide with white, and a nodding acquaintanceship with the league world helped him identify her in a moment's notice.

Daisy Oak, missing two days now. Last seen in Celedon. He'd challenged her team when encountering her on civilian rounds last week. She'd soundly lost and then confessed to being lost. He'd had some shopping at the plaza, a stone's throw away from the local Center, and she'd been content to tag along with him to get to her destination.

She got in his graces by being both quiet and enthusiastic. Her subject of choice had charmed him further, as she chattered about cats

She was doing a cat run, she explained. And was over the moon.to get to ride ponyta style on his ragamuffin persian as a treat.

Instead of mastering the League, she'd planned to get a cat from each region, catching common mon and trading her way up to get the ones she wanted. Then she'd kick gym leaders from here to Johto and back.

As to why she'd lost. It was an off day. She'd been taking a day from being wound about the trade station to wander and daydream about glameows and espurs.

That and hit the library to get some new books.

There were some spy novels she wanted to take a crack at. Not crime, she corrected when he asked, because those were all bodice rippers with pretty airhead things trying to redeem made men, but the real meaty stuff.

Like that missing person's case in Johto, where they found people nailed into ice statues.

He'd laughed at that. Having both been a bad influence, and been misled by many being a bad influence, he dared her to read those while eating a red raspberry gelato. She had laughed, bent over double to giggle into Persian's scruff.

Because she could, and did, do better. She, at the age of nine, had read about the "Cinnabar Barbequer" while eating hot dogs with extra ketchup.

"Hot dogs?"

"He was a can-e-bowl." She enunciated the mispronounciation so well he didn't call her out on it. "And liked certain parts extra crispy!"

Giovanni decided to not ask any more questions after that. Just ruffled her hair and once they were in sight of the center and plaza told her to scram.

His last words to her felt more like a taunt now, even if he'd meant nothing by it then.

"Don't get lost, not everyone is nice like me."

Clearly, her love of mystery and poor direction sense, had led to this.

By the scent of human scat and the state of her jeans, she'd spent those missing forty-eight hours here, barely able to move. Her team still clipped to her belt, wailing peons of frustration and grief. Their shrieks were audible, a tinny choir that left words in his head as their mistress was wheeled up in the Madam's grip.

"What a filthy little beast you are roiling around in the muck with your little animals..." The Madam crooned, tones sugar sweet, words interspaced with bone-jarring shakes that made Giovanni wince from bad memories.

Horror gripped him, not something as misplaced as sympathy, but bone-deep flabbergasted shock as the repercussions of this mapped themselves in his mind.

This was Professor Samuel Oak's youngest girl. As in ex-champion, entangled with the police, round about possessor of every non-Rocket trainers benched 'mon... If that wasn't bad enough Oak was notorious for his hot-headed nature and obsession with rules. He'd not be talked down out of investigating on his own. And Viridian, and all of Rocket, would burn.

Because Oak had the resources, the means, and the psychic types to help him find the carrion. All it would take was a friendly ghastly, an Ouija board over the departed, and Rocket was screwed.

Because the Madam Boss of Team Rocket had introduced herself and him to her victim in the making. All to break trust and twist the psychological knife.

Holy fucking God were they screwed.

"Madam."

The fool woman was teasing her prey. A gun caressing the child's cheek with bruising force. She looked up from her sport at the strangled protest.

Not because he was her son. Or that she cared for him. But because his tones were those you'd hiss to another not aware of a looming Pyroar slinking close.

The Forest was thrumming through him, as violent as thunder, it drowned out her words that he report. The Forest's rage was a thousand pinpricks of all its brambles scraping him down to his bones. He opened his mouth to breathe and smothered on something thick and cloying like sap.

"Not this one."

Giovanni couldn't recognize his own voice it was so mutilated. The fool woman didn't care.

"Not here."

There was a noose about his throat, tightening, tighter, too tight. He scrambled at his throat worming off his tie. Like the brambles, and thunder none of this was truly happening.

There was no noose.

But it felt real enough.

Below the sensations, INTENT rose like titanic plates during an earthquake. He shook as each rumble rolled over his nerves. The Forest was tired of all this unneeded compost that smothered instead of nurtured. The leavings that brought growlith and arcanine sniffling at her boughs.

HER orders "stopstopstop" roiled in his brain, nearly smothering out the basic functions that kept him alive and in that paniced moment Giovanni pushed back. Back against the torturous sensations (they weren't real) and mentally clawed to reality to find the Madam had eased her newest toy in the loom and was pointing her gun at him.

"So sad, Gio, even with all your training, all your status, you're nothing more than that broken little thing I sent to Mama. I should have strangled you in your crib."

Even near sensless from alien sensations Giovanni gripped and drew. Nidoqueen shimmered into existance before him with a rumble. Seeing the Madam as nothing more than prey with a gun. Uppity prey that dare endanger her packmate.

The Madam was a champion crack shot. All Giovanni was doing was buying a moment, and honestly in the grip of fury and disgust (and grief) he mentally screamed back at the verdant tide.

The Forest's promise to succor and nurture him had always always been filthy lies. He'd gotten lost in HER shadows as a babe and SHE'D planted 'mon voices in his head without an explanation. SHE'D left him to suffer, thinking himself defective, and what good was that parlor trick going to do him now? He was good as dead. The click of the safety being pulled confirmed that and he opened his mouth to command 'Queen to dig.

Banking on a miss, then praying when his body hit the ground 'Queen'd rise up and drag the Madam down with her...

The sap was back. Seething into his throat, squeezing his lungs and vocal cords so when he spoke it was not in his voice. And they weren't his words.

"Fissure."

To the outsider, he spoke and 'Queen answered. And at her tail slap, the earth split beneath the Madam. It swallowed her whole before slamming shut.

The attack had taken less than thirty seconds, only the tremors before the earth ripped asunder had spared him being shot dead.

After all even crackshots could miss when surrounded by their own personal earthquake.

The ground was unsteady... Compromised. But it was like there was a map in his head. He could sense the frailties and threw himself over them to retrieve the hyperventilating Daisy Oak.
He threw the girl to Queen, getting them the hell out of there.

And as they ran the Forest's malice receeded. The Madam had been killing carelessly. She was gone now. The surplus of invasive carrion and its eaters would thin.

All was well.

And as for Giovanni, there were lines every time he blinked. Fault lines, pressure points. He staggered, overwhelmed as the information flared in and out of his mind, sweeping aside thought to drown in knowledge. He could feel the burrows of a nest of rattata, knew he could command Queen and the lines and flaws would condense into one lethal point, just for him, to smother what life he wished.

He held onto Queen's shoulder as they took back paths and side routes deeper into the Forest.

Even as its will shimmered away, like mist to the morning light.

One intrusive thought remained. A warning and a truth.

Let it not be said SHE'D given him nothing. Dare he, and he'd join the wasteful hunter among the roots, smothered under acres of rock and dirt.

Xxx

He'd had Queen strip the girl of her clothing. Poison types being immune to the effects of biological waste. He'd made the rookie mistake of not knocking her out first. But considering who he'd just buried...

Persian stepped in, coaxing the girl into a deep sleep via hypnosis. Sakaki used his survival skills to adlib soap and clean both filth and dna traces off the limp body. A burn heal mended the damage her skin took from its immersion in scat. Leaving Persian and King to keep watch (between hypnosis and confusion the girl could be kept benignly befuddled for days) he slipped into town, stealing clothes from a donation stop. It was more guesses than anything else, and he returned to find Persian crooning, Singing the child to gentle dreams.

"You're too soft." He rasped, dropping the clothes on the ground.

He got to dressing Daisy Oak, and once sure she was clean and set waved both 'mon off. He'd already purloined her 'mon. She was no threat.

A meowth, glameow, espurr, and purloin lay in the pokeballs in Sakaki's lap. She clearly hadn't worked her way up to that pyroar yet.

He ran his fingers over the captured 'mon. Under his touch, they'd ceased their caterwauling but looked through their confinement on their sleeping trainer with wide worried eyes.

It took only a few moments. And Persian, spiteful thing, curled around the child with a quiet purr.

"What part of "stop cuddling" do you not ge-"

Of course, that's when Daisy woke up.

She'd of scrambled up with a scream, but Persian was entangled, and the girl only managed to get to thrash a bit before ivory white paws clamped her close. The justified yowls of hysteria tapered off to sobs so deep they made Persian shake as a result.

It went on so long Sakaki set her pokeballs by Nidoking, staggered across the earth that felt one breath from buckling under him, all to untangle the girl from 'mon before she smothered.

And what a twisted world it was, she stared up at him, face dripping snot and tears, wild eyes racing over his uniform, seeing it's scarlet R.

There was no way in Hell she did not know what he was...

Face twisting horridly, throat trembling on that thin line between puking and sobs, Daisy Oak threw herself at him with a tortured cry.

"She... She..." Spindly arms wrapped over his shoulders, she trembled so hard it took everything in him not to shake in turn. "She... Hurt me... So bad... She'd ... Her walking stick.."

He leaned back letting a nearby tree take both their weight as she babbled on. Not trusting himself to hold an ounce much less this broken girl

"She'd just push and push on the squishy bits like she was trying to push my elbow and ankle off... And when... When I didn't break just right.. When I screamed..."

"She'd call me a... A bad doll... And sit me up and drink it in front of me... And only good little playthings got food and drink..."

Daisy Oak had not been gone a two days. Not by a long shot. She sobbed herself to incoherence and when sense seemed to be on the rise he gave her his water canteen.

"Slow and easy."

It wasn't much, and she was a smart thing. Not drinking herself sick at least.

Flopping against him with a shudder once done. She lay like that, while above them the sun pushed back the dark. False dawn was surreal in its own way. Steel-hued skies, golden light, the fragile crown of Viridian's most delicate leaves gilded in gold yet casting the world around them in cool green tones.

He took it in and concentrated on breathing. Nothing more, nothing less.

"Are you going to bury me too?"

Like he buried his mother? That unspoken truth hung between them, and Sakaki supposed neither one of them felt bad about it. For probably the same reasons.

"No..." Licking his lips, tasting the salt of old tears and dried sweat, Giovanni Sakaki shook his head. "Killing you should never have been in the plan. She was stupid to... Do what she did... And..." He cleared his throat. "I am sorry she did."

Unspoken: no kid deserves that.
Felt bone deep: she never should have done things like that to me.

Both ideas left him breathless and throat-tight. He took a drink, a long one, and drank until he could speak again.

"What happens now?"

The most effective route would be to take her headquarters. Once there he could get her treated for sprains and dehydration. Checked for... Other damages... Then once cleared the quacks could lobotomize her. They'd used Saffron's underground psychic community as a patsy yet again and everyone would move on with their life.

All except for her.

There wasn't enough water in the world to drown out that sick feeling in his gut.

"That's up to you." Terrible truth teased his tongue, but he choked it down. "But before we go the route of least resistance... I want to tell you a little truth, and maybe you with your sleuthing stuff can help me find a better ending."

Xxx

Team Rocket was large. Not a country, but perhaps a fourth of one when you counted made men, paid men, and weighed in the littlest assets, the children.

And if Rocket were found, hunted from end to end... and all of those people corralled into cells.

"It's a lot of people... And Kanto laws don't mark the difference between a guilty adult, coerced patsy, or child in the crib. Sins are inherited... And karma incurred by a grandfather's sins may stain a great-grandchild's prospects. It was the worst of Hinduism and Buddhism on malicious copper steroids and it's meant to punish. Worse, it drives the punished to keep on a wicked track because trying to cleave to virtue is the sickest joke when not only are you stuck suffering your whole life, but you know that even unaware innocents, like half cousins twice removed, are going to pay for your crimes for generations."

Suffice it to say Kanto and its sister Johto did not inspire many good-feel redemption stories.


"One forth... A country?"

She'd focused on the important things it seemed.

"Perhaps more."

She chewed her lip, while he worked his hands over her ankle. Rocket potions had the perk of being multispecies compatible and while not perfect... They worked well enough to tend the traumas wrought by the Madam's steel-tipped walking stick. She'd be able to bear weight. If she were careful sh could make a full recovery in a week rather than the months you normally needed.

Her wrist had already been tended. He'd wrapped it up in a spare shirt that he'd shredded for bandages.

"Has a Team ever been caught before?"

She had no doubts her death would have unleashed Samuel Oak like a mini armageddon. Giovanni didn't debase her of that. Fairly confident that that bit of father worship was well deserved.

"There was a Team in Johto. The Red Garydos'. Their headquarters were taken down in... '84 I think. They found an office with files and a lot of names. About two hundred or so...."

Clicking the last potion closed he gathered up the remaining bandages and got to winding. She watched him work with wet eyes. Wincing as he probably looped the thing a bit too tight.

"In the end, despite five appeals against the initial court's decision that minors shouldn't be bound... Anyone old enough to talk was incarcerated. The logic being..."

"If you can talk. you can talk to a cop." She concluded in a whisper.

"Exactly. There are children who only knew two to three years outside... And for the rest of their lives... It's just cells. Familgi- families were separated."

She was going to chew her lips raw at this point. He distracted her with the water and a nip of fruit he'd scavenged when taking a short walk to the "privy".

It'd been less a need for privacy and more to get away from her wide eyes

She slumped into Persian looking as tired as he felt.

"One forth a country, probably a whole people-"

"Not all Italians are Rocket." Though stupid the broad assumption still stung and the pushback was kneejerk.

"If enough are, do you think Kanto would care?"

Point.

Fucking hell what a point. His mild freak out wasn't obscured, he was too tired for masks, and sitting across from him she watched as he realized that weight. That in taking the low road to better himself and his immediate familgia he was roundabout screwing over his whole race.

Hysterically he realized he didn't want this revelation. He wanted to be working at his desk, outlining market trends and debunking modern stock calculation technology. It was boring, plodding, sane work.

This little pow-wow was anything but.

"Right before I went on my journey..." Daisy's finger shook as she stroked Persian's neck. "We talked about some stuff in school. Heavy stuff. Because the teachers thought that the kids going on a journey should be old enough to handle it."

He nodded, a mute go-on.

"My last two projects were about the halow cast and... Have you ever read a book about Fahrenheit?"

"A long time ago."

"I never heard about the red gyros at home. Not on the news or anything... I even did a paper about Johto, all about the eighties, and... Were they burned away, like with firemen?"

"Their stories were. The future of their children was."

"And everyone in Rocket... It'd be like... That awful place Autsuich."

There were labor camps in Kanto prisons. Most who served hard time came out disabled if at all. On the other hand, there were no chemical showers, no mass cremations.

For now.

There were rumors of people going missing... And, horrid, new medical studies getting fresh blood when a Rocket Cell was hauled in.

There was no guarantee that a government, when faced with that many worthless mouths to feed, with the prospects of their immediate generations going forward would be an equal waste, would be moral. No assurance that Kanto would not dip into Final Solution territory.

He shuddered and told her the truth and his suspicions in simple terms. Not sugar coating but not expanding beyond the bare minimum.


He didn't begrudge her snuggling into Persian to blot out the world for a while. She burrowed her little face in the cat's creamy shoulder and shook for a while. But while he didn't begrudge her he did envy her a little bit.

Gathering her courage Daisy lifted her head. Met his eyes. "I can't... I won't... I won't be the person who starts that."

"The professor might not give you that choice. Even if you return back alive. If you say nothing. You're a minor, psychic types are a thing, an investigation could be launched and we'd be facing this all down anyway.."

"Your.. Your mom was really stupid."

To that, Giovanni huffed a tired agreement.

Xxx

They bounced ideas back and forth for a while.

"The League?"

"Lance is a raging misanthrope." She looked at him blankly. He revisited the idea with less adult vitriol. "Wave a picture of a sad growlithe at him and he'll move mountains to help it. Show him starving children in Unova and he'd say they deserve it."

"The pol-"

His glare said no, and she smartly cut herself off.

"I was gunna say politicians."

That was a lie, Giovanni didn't call her out on it. Just shook his head.

"It'd be the same as going to the police."

"Well, fudge. What am I supposed to say "I'll take the stupid woman's place and join Team Rocket?"."

The mental image of her in a grunt's uniform broke through the numb pall and made him smile.

"You'd make a horrible Madam."

"It'd make me the boss of you."

"Not in a million years."

She sniggered, then wiggled her feet and he'd been with enough little ones to recognize that tell. Helping her up he summoned Nidoqueen to walk her to a bushy patch a bit beyond easy sight.

Once she was gone his fingers closed over Espurr's pokeball, one idea at least taking root.

It was by no means... humane. But kinder than any reality by far.

Xxx

She resisted, complained really, but his solution had one gentler aspect than Rocket's plans, the hell Oak's fervor could kick up, and had the perk of allowing her to keep living. It was a win but making her see that was a bit harder than it should have been.

"It really comes down to this... do you trust me and Espur more than any of them?" He really shouldn't have been a part of the equation, but sadly a casual conversation about frivolities made bonds for life with this one.

"Will it hurt?"

He lied because he must. "It'll be like falling asleep."

She agreed. Once he explained the steps in gentle tones one might read a child thier favorite book.

She'd wake, alone, but not.

He'd leave Persian to guard her.

She'd be guided to Viridian gym, where he would call the paramedics because she was unwell.

"I'm just stiff."
"You're hurt and walking is going to make it so much worse."

The League would launch an investigation and the foreign psychic type that had assaulted her would never be caught. he pinky swore to keep espur for a time, until he found the feline a happy home.

A flat-out lie, he'd have to execute the cat himself. It's mind was awash in deadly evidence that could upset Kanto's social order but it would die knowing Daisy would lose the pain of remembering her assault. Between amnesia and treatment, this would be little more than a bad dream for the child.

She lay on the Forest floor, Persian curled around her, crooning a sweet song to help her dreams along. Nestled among the faults of the earth she could never see, eyes closed, utterly trusting, Daisy Oak drifted off to sleep.

A flick summoned espur, and a touch killed the psychic type's will to flee, to fight. Giovanni waited until the child's eyes moved despite being closed. Signaling true REM sleep. He drove the feline psychic into its mistress's mind, driving its power like how one would command a fire. Hunting each thought, for every trace of Madam Sakaki, even the subliminal ones like scent, the candance of each step. And while her memories burned he burned in seeing them again and again, Daisy's torment had lasted a week, not two piddling days, and it melded with the hellscape of his own childhood via the espur's malice-wrought pain split. He burned as she burned. Jaw locked until he could hear his teeth grind, but he didn't dare ease the pressure.

If he opened his mouth it would be to scream.

Then... merciful there was nothing left to burn. Nothing left but a searing agony behind his own eyes, and the thrumb of shivering psychic type under his hand. Without opening his eyes he shifted the grip, braced, then twisted. The hollow snap of the feline's neck breaking was a relief, and the pain dimmed enough he could open his eyes.

Daisy Oak slept on, oblivious, and with Persian to deepen her dreams she'd likely not wake for some time. Violet and emerald starlets flickered, and dimmed, as the espur's last synapsis went out and Giovanni eased out of the Forest's Gift, shaking off the cat's dead aura with practiced ease. Without either man or 'mon's efforts the supernatural light show had no other choice but to die.

In the dying light he stood, which hurt, breathing hurt, blinking hurt, but he'd endured pain before and would again. With a scoff and shake of his head Giovanni was up and leaving, taking his little body with him. As for Persian...

"Give me an hour, then pull back and wait to guild her when she wakes." He'd summon Nidoking to baste the espur in acids and dissolve the carrion, once safely outside the forest. That would take a few minutes, it was a small thing after all. From there he'd go to the gym, access Daisy Oak's files, and a few presses of the delete button would wipe away all incriminating records. "Then guild her home."

A rumble and pur and Persian wound about the little girl, as tight as if she were one of the old felines' kits, content they had a plan, soothered that nothing was changed, nevermind everything had changed, and would never be the same.

 

[K_S]

chapter 9
Corinthians 15:10 part 3

Readers note: set pre-transversal, pre-Manga. Giovanni centric, focusing on being in Rocket. During the last upheavel helping Daisy Oak rehabilitate to training fit had helped him keep his head. Keeping Grace steady in this cycle would, idealy, do the same




At twenty he'd killed the Capo dei capi of the Kanto and Johto region. The lesser heads had dickered amongst themselves for weeks, assassinations ran rampant as treaties broke down, and alliances were rewritten. And if the police and Interpol were anything like competent they'd of seized the opportunity with both hands.

They weren't though and the Johto branch of Rocket had devolved into a backstabbing power vacuum of a madhouse without any outside help.

Tojho's had tried to follow suit for five seconds, then Nona had pointedly cleared her throat, and all was well.

Willfully oblivious, Giovanni had lived his life. He'd turned in his paper. Had his degree mailed to him. Arranged his mother's cremation, dropped the ashes over Viridian's junkyard, and slipped in and out of sbrrio attention because the Madam had not named a successor for the gym. They, and the League, just assumed he'd been trained for it, and thus were knocking at his door daily for his input on the Daisy Oak case.

He kept busy learning the job of police 'mon world contact. And playing with the legit businesses the Madam had spitefully passed down to him. And by spiteful he meant that she had lied to them. The staff, from lowest cleaners, to thr business partners, thought he was a brain-dead retard. He'd spent months straightening that out. And for those too stubborn to realize Madam Sakaki was a liar who lied... Well, he got a reputation for mass firings and acidic humor.

To add salt on to his wounds he learned that after just graduating he'd have to take more classes. As in he had to attend vocational school to keep the gym.

He waffled between burning the highrise down and bombing it. After some thought he decided to go the saner route. He penned Lance a note. Finding the man's address off of some of the old Madam's stationery, he choked down his pride and begged for a grace period. Unless, of course, the League wanted him to scumble to Karoshi. If so he'd forward his fucking flower preferences and leave some nasty clause in his will to screw Lance out of something (he wasn't sure what but it was the thought that counted).

Lance's return note: "You're a funny man Sakaki. 24 months," had both explained absolutely nothing and so much, all at once.

He'd gotten some notoriety for "rescuing" Daisy Oak. Working along the sbrrio had given him a shield against mob hits. The cops employed him in the futile retracing of steps. To their credit, they did find the clearing. Rain and time had washed away all physical proof. As for psychic proofs... espurs energies and fey aura of the Forest made police everything fail.

They could tell something bad had happened, but nothing else.

Daisy's test results had come back clean of everything except psychic overload, spontaneous prosopagnosia, and physical trauma. She'd been given a free bill of health and released to wander but they warned her to avoid psychics. She was dangerously sensitive now and needed to treat them like a deadly alergin.

Which, when learning there was a partially disabled, handicapped minor journeying... The League did what it always did. Assumed the journey would fix the problem, and made no accommodations for the child to speed the fixing along.

Daisy would, on her good days, fall into a siezure at the aura of a passing abra. Her Meowth , named Amewse, had evolved into a Persian from the poor girl's stress. The mess was turning the feline nerotic and clingy. Add to the fact that Amewse had made a game attempt to sheer off Oak's legs when the man had ignored one of his daughter's spells... and the Persian was labeled as a "problem cat".

Being known as Kantos resident cat-whisperer, both Daisy and Amewse, were referred to him.

As in, they were escorted to the Madam's gym, without warning, by an aide who'd looked bored out of his mind.

Giovanni put his disaster of a life on hold to spend his time doing what Oak should have handled. Testing, then retiring, the animal out of the battling scene. Upgrading the cat to an in training service animal in the League logs. Then getting the girl accustomed to her new limitations and Amewse up to snuff in accomidating those limitations.

He handled Daisy's rehabilitation while trying to deal with his own altered senses.

Fun fact, modern architecture was ringed round with flaws. Sidewalks and buildings screamed under his steps. Nothing could survive a stage anything earthquake, except, ironically, the Madam's gym.

He camped out at the gym battlefield with the girl, part because her training was twelve hours a day, seven days a week, and part because if he went to his studio apartment by the university he'd get sucked into entrepreneur crap that could have waited.

More personally, there were rooms he never wanted to lay eyes on ever again and having a high-need trainer under his wing gave him plenty of reasons to stall in cleaning out the Madam's property.

The first week and a half Daisy could not be left alone. She had violent night terrors. So violent that the first night they both learned that beds were out.

Amewse and Persian had to tag team to keep Daisy pinned safely while she was zipped in a sleeping bag. Eventually, Amewse could handle nights solo, but in all honesty it wasn't safe for Daisy to be alone. Service 'mon or no. Because some nights, when she almost remembered, spitting truths of "please... no no... No burning please please... I'll be good a good doll..." Amewse still had to go for help.

Help being Giovanni.

One morning, after a clusterfuck of secondhand trauma being triggered by her hysterical , sleep-bound, babbling , Sakaki made himself a cup of coffee over a portable coil. He made her one too, adjusted both thier cups to taste, and informed her, that even when they were done, she needed to stay with someone while traveling.

"I'm not a doctor, by any means, but cohabitation might need to be arranged permanently for you, down the line."

He'd had a scratch on his face and she'd kicked him a few times in her writhing, giving him a beautiful shinner because even bound she was a flexible brat.

She gazed up at him in terror... Like a little goldeen gasping at a fearow. Maybe expecting harsh words, to be thrown out...

Instead, Giovanni took a long draw and said.

"A shame you aren't into gymnastics, you have a knack."

She giggled and helped him cobble together a rough breakfast.

Viridian Forest hissed like a pissy Persian in the back of his head during the quiet parts of his day. He idly ignored the whines that he do something. He wasn't a copper. Had no clout. But, his advice went for HER to feel free to drive the sbrrio out with whatever means SHE felt fit.

The once placid woods became Distinctly unfriendly to the growlithe using coppers after that.

'Mon and officers suddenly found all the rattata holes, random 'mon scuffles, and the occasional branch to the head. He got the reports second hand now. Being sequested away with Daisy as she worked her way up to battling.

Or rather, battling around Amewse, who would pace about her an off-ivory barrier between the girl and the world.

After two days of constant face plants Daisy whined.

"I love her and all, but she flows around me and I can't get used to it."

Her word choice niggled something in his brain and he hummed a nonsensual. "Why not flow with her?"

He'd learned to time his steps around Rhydon stomps and Nidoking's slashing tail. Stepping in the breaks around Persian's regular stalking was as easy as breathing. Rocket Grunts were careless with ekans often enough that he'd had to tiptoe through serpentine tangles.

She of course took it to try dancing while fighting... And, to her credit, if she kept the combat simple, it worked.

They dickered about music choice though.

"Ung you listen to noise!" She whined hands clapped over her ears. "I thought rich guys were sophisticated..."

Rock was not noise and it was infinitely better than her sugary jpop. They set the radio to change stations at random every three songs. Unless Orre-styled country kicked in, then a truce was declared and the randomizer was triggered again.

She'd never be a region champion.

She knew that. She grieved her dreams too young, he thought. But Daisy showed surprising grit in declairing she'd give to give her cat run a 2.0 spin. He wrote her a note giving her medical leave to skip Saffron, with the stipulation she'd have to beat him twice to "earn" her Marsh badge. And no, he explained to her while he laughed, he would not use his armageddon team twice. He had a weaker roster of 'mon that he employed when having to subsitute for another gym leader. And no, he wasn't giving out spoilers as to what they were beyond " a surprise".

"You aren't the first, you likely won't be the last either."

Young thing that she was, she asked what had happened to the other trainers to get them special treatment.

He remembered two cases off the top of his head. Two pre-teens that Flint had mentored, once upon a time ago. The man'd called Giovanni his first week as a Gym leader, to tell him cerian tales the children Leaders were too young to hear.

"One nearly got killed by being drowned, it was a blotched Mob hit. So he skipped Cerulean. The other's father was an arsonist, and he didnt start life out as an only child.... and you get the idea."

"But... thats... I'm not..." small face twisting into a moe of distaste, Daisy protested her precieved preferntial treatment. "They clearly needed help, but I'm not that bad!"

"Then tell me, what does the morning shift nurse at the pokecenter look like?"

She froze, mouth opening and closing.

"What do I look like?"

"You...." her eyes frantically combed over him. She was seeing, but the meaning of the descriptors that made him him were beyond her. Wiped away by emergency psychic surgery. "You're you?"

It was a polite evasion at best.

Thier first meeting he had accidently been wearing one of his worst watches. A thick banded, silver time piece, with etched jet geometric patterns.

A girlfriend had gotten it for him for thier first year aniversery, saying the stones matched his eyes and thinking it looked classy. He hadn't the heart to tell her what an inferior stone jet was. Had been trying to figure out who could do repair work on it since the stones were showing wear and tear...

Because it was shiny and distinct, Daisy Oak had latched onto the watch as an identifying accessory. Used it as a crutchto recognize him, at least until he talked, and she'd had time to link voice to the color and cut of his clothes for the day.

"Well?"

"The rocks match the color of your eyes."

She only knew that because he'd said so. Not because she knew it. And to.that truth Daisy huffed. And gave up.

There were no more protests about her not needing special treatment.

The last two days he left her to her own devices and on the last day passed her a pokeball.

"Pyroars base evolution Leolit. A pretty girl with some alterations. Her normal typing grants an edge against ghosts and her ability makes her quite special. Flashfire is a rare one for the Leo line, and with her, it makes her mane tuft flicker and flare but be utterly harmless as she eats her own flame. She won't be a master fire spitter, but..."

But she'd be a serviceable nightlight in the wilds while looking fierce enough not to draw predators like ilumination 'mon usually did. Between being trained to Snarl at the first sign of psychics and being breed to Yawn to help her trainer sleep during bad nights, it was as much of a failsafe as he could wing.

"I love her. Thankyouthankyou..." Daisy squealed, wrapping her arms around Giovanni's waist like the tamest ekans ever.

Xxx

Giovanni's morning paper became shared with four other hands. Because there was staying the night and there was lingering well beyond sane times... Grace's work friends were car sharing and Giovanni was (roundabout) responsible for the fact that Grace had no car to pick them up or send them home. The cabs were all playing the twelve-hour wait game, and Giovanni's malady had spread to all of Grace's friends. So, a slow morning in was decided on.

Even if Giovanni was missing his privacy something fierce.

Why this lead to his paper getting split too many ways... Giovanni huffed and waited for the economics section. Considering it was on the backside of the sports section he was in for a long wait.

"Oh, the chus are making semifinals!" Andre chirped.

"Against the taurs..." Hopper jeered. "They'll be knocked out before..."

Saner than the rest, and content with her reading, Patricia looked up from the home and garden section to tease her friend.

"Really, you read the funnies at your age Grace?"

"It's that or the obituaries on the other side, unless someone would be willing to share."

Giovanni, recognizing her hint, glared. He curled around his crappy local shopping ads because they had more value than the comics.

Also, Grace and her bargain-hunting was something he had no patience for.

"Heh another feel-good article out of Pallet, what are the odds that it's an Oak/Mon drabble."

The ads crumpled under his hands and Grace scrambled to do damage control.

"Andre this is a no Prof Oak household for a reason..."

"What'd he do? Give you a ratatta instead of a char' when you started your Journey?" Andre teased.

Over Andre's shoulder, Grace was making a few "no nope!" motions. Hopper's eyebrow flicked up in surprise while Patricia settled in to watch drama unfold.

"Oh, nothing so banal." The ads were probably unsalvagable at this point as Giovanni shifted his grip and felt something shred. "He just sent his brain-damaged daughter to live with a strange man right after she got assaulted... Possibly even sexually assaulted... by a Rocket."

A dim bulb brightened and Andre winced.

"I remember... Wait... Was that why Viridian was closed for a month back in the day... We got a deluge of trainer accidents that season."

"Yep." Grace winced. "That's why."

Three pairs of eyes flicked onto the Rocket, silently judging. "But you're not..."

"Medical anything." Sakaki loosed his grip before he'd start wringing the paper into confetti. "Without Oak's presence or signature, she couldn't be sourced to a hospital. Couldn't get any type of therapy... So I wound up making calls and training her Persian to be a service 'mon."

"Trade." Patricia hummed. She took Andre's feel-good piece and gave him a riveting article about good summer planting habits. She pulled out a bottle of whiteout from her work apron pocket and started slathering the Pallet piece.

Well, that was one way to deal with things.

Still, while he appreciated these people keeping an eye on Grace, he flicked open his phone and tried to call a rental car company. The sooner they were gone the happier he'd be. When someone picked up, and mercifully was bereft of an Italian accent, Giovanni stood and walked off to make his call out of the room.

He wasn't quick enough, and Andre had hellishly sharp ears since he heard something to identify who Giovanni was calling and had to toss his two doduo in.

"Hey, can you rent us a limo?"

"Oh my Aeceus..." Patricia moaned, dying from secondhand embarrassment. Grace slumped into her arms, seconds behind her. "Andre!" Both women hissed.

"What?"

Hopper just gave up the ghost of sanity, tossing her paper on the table, done, she cackled like a loon.

Giovanni, more than happy to leave them to it, powerwalked out of the room and made his order. Spite driving him to demand the closest thing to a microcar the company had.

Xxx

"I have so many questions," Grace grumbled.

She grouched despite being nestled in his arms. A soft blanket was spread below them, Beedril flitting around nearby but not invasively close. If he strained his ears, Giovanni could catch the rumbles of Nidoqueen napping nearby.

"And stipulations."

They'd had this argument twice now, and he wasn't going to sit through it a third time.

"The 'mon guard stays out and is not going down to lower than two until the Viridian Don and all these threats dim down."

Sakaki had called his office, called out sick, then turned off his phone. He was probably missing some important Work calls but gave no damns. Content to catch up on the peace and quiet, while Grace grudgingly followed suit after her friends had left to go back to their lives.

The retribution was both petty and immediate. A runner from Viridian gym had swung by to report a visit from the "rock clefairy" and that Sakaki's office had been hit as well.

When Grace tried to get up for that, insisting that they had to do something Giovanni shrugged.

"I'm not a glass blower, installer, or even possessing a fire type. I pay people to fix that sort of thing. They'll do their jobs and it'll be like it never happened same time tomorrow."

"How can you be so..."

"Grace, sweetheart." He swept her hands in his, by gently binding her he made her be still. They'd had talks about this before. It was part of her working-class background that sudden big expenses spooked her. Hold her gently, guild her through to see the logic of they were well off, and all would be well.

"Listen to me. No one got hurt. We can afford the repairs. I can afford the repairs." He corrected with a soft huff. Royal we's during money talks made her jumpy, he twined their fingers all the better to feel her pulse slow.

"It's going to be fine."

Beedril, the clown, misconstrued hand-holding for other things and flitted off to massacre the Sakaki garden to get flowers to celebrate. It also ignored Giovanni's mental and then verbal bark to "get back right now". Wafting bliss and buzzes in equal measure, the impressions and suggestions from the bug's mind were graphic enough that Giovanni forgot the simple solution of trapping the bug in its pokeball.

He also forgot to breathe for a bit.

"Gio." Grace shook him back to life. "Ung. Some guard." Grace teased, seeing he was awake she got up and joined the chase.

A shrill whistle got Queen up too and the trio made their way forward.

It wasn't much of a chase, just a brisk walk around the western corner where they both saw Beedril alight among the hydrangeas. Spear blades reared like an overdramatic serial killer, then swished down as the bug started sheering off the prettier blooms.

"And this is why we can never submit our garden for Viridian Homes at Bloom." Despite her grin Grace winced. She'd been trying for two years and every time she got happy with the layout this happened. Or something like it.

A rose sailed in their direction, sheered then dismissed as not pretty enough.

Ducking the light of its pokeball recall Beedril buzzed an insult. Hip deep in foilage, lowest legs guiding floral stems and roots over its wings to make a makeshift loom, the sense from the bug was "it was helping!"

Giving the bug the TM double team had been a mistake. Three tries later, with an intermission for both Sakaki's have to step on Queen's tail to stop her from helping and escalating the situation from bad to hellish, Grace smartened up. She pretend to be interested in trying one of Beedril's presents.

Thrilled at being appreciated it killed the illusionary doubles and flitted onto Grace's shoulders, blades swinging about its wings to pull down loose flower chains off of its wings and setting the smallest over Grace's head. It slipped far too low, looking like a lei necklace, still, it reared up, mandibles quivering, awaiting praise.

What it got was a flash of red light as the recall beam finally hit home.

"Oh my God, Gio, what has gotten into that bug?"

"We're cohabitating, been cohabiting, and it's trying... badly... to incorporate Beedril hiving instincts with human customs. I'll have a firm talk to it... but I suspect any plant matter is going to be in danger no matter what."

Grace groaned and they went inside, Giovanni carrying the blanket, Grace a budding grudge against bug types as a whole. Flicking off petals with irritated motions as she went.

"If nothing else you can't fault it for its choice in color, the frillier plants go well with your eye-"

"Don't encourage it... Just, don't. Please. Today's been nuts enough."

Agreeing, Giovanni ordered Queen to take watch by the front door and released Persian to take Beedril's shift. Persian made folding the blanket a chore, with her pesky batting but a glare and flick of Forest's Gift made her sit demurly at his feet while he worked. Grace making a pained noise made him look up, she waved him off, stopping him from talking, listened a bit, and then hung up.

Andre'd called her, leaving a message to report that the medical trio had been suspended without cause and there were outsiders in suits asking after her. He'd lied, saying he hadn't seen her all day, but grimly warned Grace to be careful before hanging up.

Don Marchetti, Giovanni decided, was graduating from nuisance to problem. But, setting aside his work to sweep Grace in his arms, and murmur assurances in her ear, he took comfort that he was familiar with dealing with this type of problem. A bit more skilled than he'd been at twenty.

Viridian was crawling with faults and flaws. All it took was a bit of inattention and he could trace the subtle structural damages of the city. A thing golden line that spooled from the Don's home from here, all it'd take was one Fissure in the right place and the right time and the Don would be less than a memory.

And while tempting, now was not the time. But the way things were working out, tomorrow was looking better, all the time.

 

[K_S]

chapter 10
Corinthians 15:10 part 4

Readers note: set pre-transversal, pre-Manga. Giovanni centric, focusing on being Rocket. A medical scare during a mafisio uprising is not what the doctor ordered. Viridian falls into anarchy.


Persian snuggled against Grace's chilly feet. Insulted at the request that slippers be fetched.

What was her trainer, some stinky, sooty, Arcanine?

Nothing needed fetching. Persian was right there. She could be warm, and purr, to help circulation along.

Pinned in place by protective Persian, Grace made Giovanni her gofer. He obliged, ignoring Persian's jeered, "Arcanine! Arcanine! Why don't you chase your tail!".

After tattling to Grace about the cat's jabs, they petered off in an irritated "merp!". Grace smirked, looking up from flicking the cat's ear, smug incarnate, while Persian glared up at the woman. The feline's face was all angles and aggrivation.

Or rather, the cat sported a charming pair of accute angled ears.

"If you don't keep your claws to yourself, Little Miss Furball, you'll get a bath."

Flicking the untwanged ear, Persian rolled her eyes up to her trainer. Giovanni pointedly Ignored the hissed suggestion that Giovanni trade Grace out for another female.

Drinks and papers in hand, he passed up the pages she asked for. For a while, Grace flipped through them, when she was done she tipped the arcane-looking text towards him. It took some time but she walked Giovanni through the meaning.

She had to explain the chemical names, the cause for the imbalances, or rather, the suspected causes.

"I'll need further tests to be safe but... If we're lucky all I'll just need to take a pill twice a day. The symptoms are quiet, and most standard tests don't cover thyroid levels since.. The only reason they caught it was..."

Grace sighed, the noise was part frustration, part pain, part shame.

They'd be trying for a child for over a year, and been over their views enough that Giovanni knew the futility of arguing against her pain. He felt her body would produce a child when it was ready. For Grace, pregnancy was more entangled with morals and Arceus, and as a result, she had been harboring something like religious guilt over her infertility.

The blood test results explained so much. Her chills and sensitivity to winter. Her struggles with maintaining her weight.

"Not to be a pessimist... But what's worse case cause?" Giovanni asked, taking the papers back and passing Grace her cup.

"Thyroid cancer, but they check for all cancers in my tri-annual bloodwork that I have to keep up with for job safety."

Suppressing a chill Giovanni set the pages aside and settled beside her. If he was more tactile than normal Grace didn't seem to mind.

Nestling her head against his chest she held him as tight as he held her.

"This will be the easy route. I'm going to do two tests, I'll come back clean, and just have to pick up a script twice a month. That's all this is going to be."

"That's all it's going to be." Giovanni echoed. "And if it isn't, we'll deal with what comes, together."

Xxx​

What came, was immediate, bloody, and nothing as sane as a medical emergency.

They lost the world in bits and pieces, courtesy of a power-hungry madman.

It started the evening after Gio's late night. He'd detailed that hellish evening with an air of resignation and aggravation Over dinner, once everyone had left, he'd told of his abduction in tones suited to a bad day at work.

The short version. Viridian had a new Don. The man was not content to take Gio's money and leave him alone. He'd manipulated the League network to make it seem as if there was a case of a rampaging rabid 'mon sighted in the warehouse district. There'd been cops who'd led him to the "site of the disturbance" except there'd been no 'mon.

After a scuffle, and a dose of sleep powder, he'd woken up hooded and bound to a chair by a shackle. His team was locked and sealed... And from what he could hear under the muffling of the hood someone wanted to "talk".

The Don, the voice announced, because the hood wasn't taken off and the voice was static-y, like a synthesizer had been used, wanted the Sakaki's good little mareep son pressed into his services. His reasoning, professional pride, and the sick knowledge that Gio, who'd fought tooth and nail for his pristine reputation, would be above suspicion.

He'd been hauled into a side office, with windows coated in thick electric tape, cork walls, and dumped with more paperwork than he'd seen since the last Viridian Co tax reports and audits. Been told if he didn't do it right Rocket could pick up Grace at any time.

Then, considering the scare Grace had endured at her work, Rocket had set the wheels in motion to gather her up anyway. Breaking familgia honor in one stroke.

"It's then I got scared. Really scared." Gio breathed the confession. Looking sick. "A mobster who doesn't hold to the customs is infinitely more dangerous than one who does."

Honestly, Grace was surprised that Gio'd willingly gone with her "fresh air" jaunt earlier. That he'd waited until after they'd gone over Grace's paperwork, until dinner, to tell her what happened.

A mild imbalance seemed so... Trivial... in comparison to them both now being neck-deep in Mob affairs.

"It wasn't trivial. And honestly, if it was something that needed immediate or regular treatment. If it couldn't wait... I'd have told you immediately and we would have gotten the hell out of Kanto even if we had to hike on foot to Pewter's airport. This Don may have the local transport under his thumb-,"

His was an odd kingdom, Grace learned. The Don ruled every cab, every bus. Had access to 'mon locking technology and... From what Gio could gather from the papers, did most his business in Vermillion. Viridian was something like a snow bird stop or something to the mad man. And to realize this might be an annual thing, where this nut case poked and prodded at them for his seasonal giggles...

Grace wished she didn't believe this was happening. It felt like the world was crazy. But there was proofin both their call logs. In Andre, Patricia, and Hopper's hacked accounts. In the intimidation efforts and kidnapping, a fate she had dodged, but Gio, who fought for a living, had not.

That last bit scared her more than.anything. chewing on her lip, Grace gave herself a little mental shake, because Gio was still talking....

"-But not much else. If he had the utilities, for example, he'd have sent a repairman to either us poison by playing with the gas lines, or just cut us off to flush us out. He doesn't appear to have a solid grip on Intimidations or Protection since, no goons..."

Gio's checkered family history was a blessing in that he knew the ins and outs. But that didn't mean Grace wasn't scared out of her ever-loving mind.

"Gio, I know you have really good reasons to hate the cops... But it feels like a cop thing. This feels like an Interpol thing."

"I've already tried to call emergency services." And to prove it he did so again. His phone looped to a local cab company, to the announcement of having to wait twelve hours. Gio hung up. "They couldn't have hacked all the phones. I don't think he has the tech considering he had me doing literal paperwork for him. It's probably a re-router. The strength on those is minimal. Well," he corrected. "The ones I've seen in corporate circles. God knows what is available criminally."

"We could walk to Viridian, and go to the station."

Their house was on the edge of the forest. It wasn't that far away from Viridian City proper.

"Those officers were decked out enough that I'm almost certain they are real. All it would take was one interview in separate rooms and his agents could get to you...."

"And what about you, Gio? You aren't immortal. You aren't even protected now, since money and blood don't mean anything to this bastard. So don't go all "it's for my protection" crap... You need to be safe too."

And even now, after years, such a basic thing like her caring broke him. His expression twisted, and he swallowed, clearly choking back tears. Once composed, he let out a watery sigh, and shook his head.

"We aren't powerless. He's trying to make us feel that way, but we're not. I think, between the forest around us and its... inclination... towards me he won't be able to approach our home from that angle. Right now, here, we're physically safe."

"But we can't go out, and can't reach out."

"Not until we figure out where that tracker is. Once it gets late I'll set Persian to it."

Xxx

No calls out could be made, but calls in were possible as Patricia proved third day in.

Suffice it to say Grace had been able to report to her work once, using Patricia as a proxy to report that she'd "caught a cold". The older woman had been reasonably spooked at the idea that others might be listening in and she hadn't called back since.

From the radio silence from her other friends Grace knew that Patricia had spread the word.

It was the theory she said out loud. Wordlessly she fretted and Giovanni juggled working remotely, a feat done with sending paperwork out tied to Beedril or Persian, and keeping her steady.

"It's safer for them to be distant," Giovanni advised. They were picking through canned goods and making a meal plan for the next few days for something to do. Unfortunately, they were close to needing to do a shop before this disaster. Thier options were a patchy collection of winter stores, noodles, and varried canned vegis.

They hadn't restocked yet, it was just odd and ends, and things were truely dire. the boxed pasta was getting scanty. And while Giovanni assured her they had the means for him to cook fresh...

That he was italiano enough to cook whatever they needed...

"If you can use this and not melt our guts out, I'll accept that."

"Why do we have spicy, picked, artichoke hearts..." He grumbled as they went over thier stock. A note of horror creeping in as some of the backshelf finds were seeing the light of day.

"Clearence sale?" Grace suggested, though there was no discount tag to back that guess. "To try something new?"

His raised eyebrow said more about how stupid both of those ideas were then any words.

Well Grace, by accident, found the perfect counter to that snarky look. She pulled out a pink glass jar crowned in dust bunnies.

All the better to gawk at its title.

"Gio, why in mercy's name go we have pickled, sugared, slowpoke tails?"

"I plead temporary insanity."

Grace couldn't help but laugh at that. It was the first time in days. Gio's lips quirked as he announced the jar was "expired" and chucked it in the trash
All without bothering to check if it really was.

He'd been dealing with their isolation with the same level of lukewarm aggravation he'd level at a trainer at his gym stacked to the top with water types. When she asked how could he, he shrugged, assuring her he'd waited out more rabid paparazzi storms.

Rocket's present activities were a slightly murderous temper tantrum, in comparison.

But then Gio was a shameless introvert. And he had several rooms that were wall-to-wall books to while away the time. He took Viridian going to the social Houndooms as a means to catch up on his to-read list.

Grace, who thrived off of the complex relationships between herself and her patients, the doctors, and staff, all spanning between several hospitals,.was not doing well.

The constant silence got to her. And while Gio did try to fill the the quiet... he wasn't equiped to fill that big of a void. So her portable radio from her collage days was employed. Carted every which way, day one of its appearence had made them lay down some ground rules. Not in the bedroom. No Orre country music. No talk shows or news.

Grace found the device a Arceus send, Giovsnni thought it sounded like a taunting metronome. But letting it drive a wedge between them (aka Grace going off to listen to some of Orre's music) made both paranoid. To seek the other out, even if the proximity of the (per Gio) God damned radio was starting to drive him to fantasize about murder.

Despite being richer than sin the Sakaki's had one television set. It was off more than on as both prefered books. That changed for several days to fill Grace's need to.hear other voices. Until Viridian news, Kanto news, dominated the airwaves. The world had just picked this week to show everything was awash in Mob-related insanity. Viridian's underworld falling apart at the seams was the highlight of every broadcast and everyone had an opinion.

The murders and shootings were scandilous. Experts from far flung Galar weighed in as the most recent footage showed the dead were being left in the streets. The poorest district was turning into a dystopian nightmare as Don turned against Don... well Capo against Capo, Giovanni corrected the Galaruan host with a tired smile.

"If I were to suspect I think the Don overreached. Bloodshed this bad means he overstepped in some way, the fact that I recognize five different families..."

Noting her distaste he let the commentary drop off with a quiet hum.

The day after Galar's broadcast the Mayor of Viridian declared a curfew, it was the hot topic of the morning shows from as far as Kalos.

The television, their sole window to the world, was given a rest after that.

Though horrid at anything exercise based that wasn't running, Grace was dragged outside to practice training. Though she wasn't a trainer she was conscripted into helping exercise Gio's 'mon.

He supervised her efforts while he scraped Rhydon's claws and horn to deadly points with special, diamond-encrusted, tools.

A week later, after braving the pickled, artichokes of death, they needed to get out. Well Grace needed to, Giovanni had legitimate work he didn't dare put off. The violence was increasing to levels that he found disturbing. And as Viridian's gym leader he decided that to shut his gym down. As well as to contact Lance to make sure the League was going to redirect challengers away from Viridian.

"The next fool thing these lunatics will do is to assault traveling kids. The second a trainer dies that'll give Lance and his megalomaniac Elite free reign to raze my city to the ground." He'd growled to her as he shuffled around their living room. Rooting around for what he needed to go out.

Thier standards of living had decreased a bit. There were messes here and there. Mainly piles of books, a few cups, but the odd bits of clothing had started to migrate in. And linger. And breed.

Today, Grace decided, as Gio picked up a pile of odd and end shirts that "he'd mean to fold" but "forgot" was laundry day. Everything that didn't need dry cleaning was being done.

For everything that did need a professional touch, they could shunt it into a different room. It wasn't like they lacked for space.

As for Gio he found his spare keys in a pocket and claimed he fuzzily remembered tossing his fedora towards a corner after having come in from a morning patrol. When pressed he confessed that that was two days ago.

But he needed that hat. Only this lost fedora would match his suit, and heaven forfend if he stepped outside of the door with a bare-head or slightly off-hue hat.

He would just die.

"Perhaps less witty repartee and more helping with the looking would be nice." He gritted out at her.

"I didn't throw it." Grace countered, "also i haven't been channeling my inner college frat boy and leaving things a mess. My clothes are in the closet."

Well, piled in the closet closest to the dryer. But Grace wasn't one to quibble semantics.

Persian, having crawled onto her lap to watch the show while warm and surrounded by nice smells, watched her master's odd little hunting game with quivering whiskers and squinted eyes.

And purrs. So much purring. Even someone who wasn't a poke' whisperer could tell the noise was smug.

"Are you sure it was in this room you threw it at the direction of the door?" Grace sighed.

It was round three of him rooting around the same pile of books. She knew him. He was slowing down, which meant he was going to give up and flop into the nearest chair soon. The fact that she could see a few of his favorites in that pile added fuel to the fire.

She'd been dressed and ready to go for twenty minutes now. He'd been rooting for thirty minutes, going on thirty-five.

"I mean, this never gets odd saying, but we do live in a mansion. There are so many other rooms you could have tossed it, and it toward a door, and it not get there."

He was standing stiff, drawing deep breaths, clearly trying not to scream. And really, Grace didn't blame him. She'd been personally alternating between bitchy and weepy. She got it. It didn't make the rush of irritation at him, and the world, any less hot and bitter though.

Grabbing at the last scraps of her maturity, Grace ran her hand over the cat's broad head. Firm, gentle, strokes around the gem that made red eyes peep open, but only a crack.

"Persian, sweetheart. May I avail your aide with the promise of a nice fire-roasted slab of seaking, or whatever the deli has in stock fish wise, to save Gio from himself?"

A milk-white tail flicked, tapping a one-two tune against the couch.

"Pert?"

"No idea what you said," Persian tipped her head into the pets with a rumbling purr. "Gio?"

"We do not have fresh organic milk, it expired you-"

"We'll add it to our shopping list... Gio we are going to run out of fresh food and your 'mon need special feeds. We are going to have to shop and with it being mid-day if we go out now we can safely get back before the cops start herding people in... God," Grace hissed, revelation hitting hard. "I live in a police state dystopia where the bad guys won, all we need are the robocops."

Silence, where Giovanni clearly reigned in his temper. "We can live without..."

"Not without breaking several poaching laws starting in three days. Do you want your team commandeered by sbrrio?"

His sulky expression said that that was a low blow. But he was listening, not shutting her down. It was an improvement.

"Three hours, just three hours out of the house."

It would have been a half hour before the chop shop incident. Thier gutted car had been dumped at Viridian Gym days ago. Dumped at a meter parking space no less. It was an obvious taunt, one that was racking up the bills, but with Viridian's Don running the transport industry they weren't in a rush to move thier damaged car or get a new one.


"We go out, get to the gym, hit the market, do a blood draw, and walk home, that's all I'm asking."

Her last trip out had been to her work to get that first blood draw and report in for indefinite leave. Flanked by Nidoqueen and 'King because the security at Azu' had Giovanni pegged as a thief and no amount of evidence would disuade them.

This last stick was a double check, and it was a low blow. Grace knew Gio was quietly stewing over her blood test results. Arceus, he'd been almost eager to spring for an out-of-network facility to run her numbers. Guiltily, Grace was using Gio's need for results as an escape rope . Because once they got phoned in Grace would have to go out to get what medications were prescribed.

Persians purrs kicked up a notch. Giovanni scraped his hands over his face with a cute, gumbled groan, that made her think of his Rhydon on a rainy day. Really, if he did that when he lost to a gym challenger, he'd probably be less feared.

Still, it was rather nice that that fun fact was all hers. That he trusted her to hear him be vulnerable, and pissy, and all the other emotions that he genuinely felt rather than his chill public persona.

"Fine." He groaned, worn down at long last. "Fine."

Persian, rolling off the couch, plopped onto the hardwood floors with a thump. Tail up, she wandered deeper into the house. Bemused by something only he could hear Giovanni gathered the tattered bits of his composure and followed her out of the room... Grace could hear one pair of steps going up the flight of stairs,
them there was a click, then a muffled yell.

The tone was outrage, rather than pain.

Still, she had no clue until he flipped from Italian to Kantoian, then she was able to understand what he was saying, rather than rely on his tones.

"Persian, what the hell... Why are half my hats in your cat bed!"

Xxx

There'd been a man watching the gym, and the second they saw Grace watching him he slipped off into the crowd. Grace waited outside, under 'Queen's watchful eye while Gio waded through a small crowd of adolescents. He was hardly at his kindest, barking at them to buzz off. When a few tried to challenge him on the steps up, when the group clustered about him, scared and worn and wanting something familiar, he shut them down with a snarl.

At the top steps of his Gym, Giovanni addressed the masses

"I'm not the mayor, I'm not a politician, and I don't owe anyone goodwill or sponsorship, so I will tell you the truth your parents, brothers, sisters, policemen, and politicians, won't."

"Kanto is going to hell. We're lucky here in Viridian because we're catching fire first."

"You aren't heroes. This is Mob business, and it's no place for kids... Go home. If that isn't safe, Celadon and Vermillion are hosting emergency twenty-four-hour surf training for any and all trainers with water 'mon. My advice for anyone around the age of conscription is to catch a water anything and go to those locations, get trained, and get the hell out. For those journeying to supplement your family's income, you can continue your journeys at Johto or Tajho. The money transfer system's a bitch, but there are laws about fleecing minors. You'll be somewhat protected as long as you're under seventeen. For those thinking about Tojho, i suggest you brush up on your italian and get waterfall training. Surge is the only Kanto Gym leader certified to do so. And Vermillion, for those wuth no clue how to read a map, is that way."

He pointed roughly the right way, fishing for his keys in his pockets, utterly done with the gathering of kids.

"Regardless, Viridian Gym is closed. Get out of here before the sbrrios arrest you all for loitering, or arrest me for encouraging unlawful gathering."

The front doors slammed, and Gio was inside for about twenty minutes before stepping out. The irritated expression on his face stilled any protesters.

Not that there were many of them.

Most of the kids had drifted off in ones and twos, a few had asked her for directions to the local Pokecenter, on their way out.

The maybe-a-Rocket, maybe-not, was long gone. But perched on a the tree where the man had been, was a hoothoot. It stared at her with unblinking red eyes. Wisely Grace did not meet those eyes. Hypnosis was a thing after all.

Giovanni stormed out of the Gym. Pointedly ignoring the straggling trainers that parted like the red sea at his coming.

"Lance gets stupider and stupider... Think of the future of the 'mon, their potential stunting... as if the kids attached to the 'mon were an inconvenience rather than the next generation..."

Grace hummed and twined her arms around his waist, stilling some of the venom. A nudge got him to look up and in the right direction.

"F-" noting a few wide-eyed kids he coughed. "Freaking wonderful. Beedril, persuade the Capo's pet to consider a new career choice."

Beedril's wings swirled in excitement, the bug was up and chasing the bird in a heartbeat. Bug chased owl around the gym once, twice, then a string of white spat by the bugtype caught the bird's back. Gummed the wings.

A jerk on the line of string shot and the hoothoot was slammed into a tree. Beedril descended, spitting more white goop. With practiced turns of the flay of his blades, and hind legs, goop was woven into binds.

All but professionally trussed, the bird was hauled it into some shrubs, screaming hollow hoots in terror as it went. A wet hacking sound affirmed Beedril had spat more string shot out of sight. The ensuing silence suggested the white stuff had been used to seal the bird's mouth.

Grace, familiar with Beedrul's hunting tricks, pulled one curious child away from having "a quick peek". Spinning the kid so they were looking the other way. The others, wiser and older, were already covering their eyes. There was a rattling croak, then a misting of feathers and blood, then nothing but silence.

Until the munching started.

"Beedril will catch up." Giovanni decided with a wince, because a child close to him looked ready to start wailing. He nudged them forward, and that snapped the small cluster out of thier shock and got them moving along.

"Alright, shows over, we're going towards Fifth Street, and the Center's at Sixth, you can come along or not, but I am challenging no one, and answering no questions, am I clear?"

Crystal.

And it was more than the kids that got the message. There were no more men in corners, or left behind mon, after that. It was clear until after the store, where they were encumbered, that Rocket tried again.

Grace was honestly distracted, still wrangling over the embarrassment of having both Queen and King march in with her during the blood draw since the clinic was a "one person allowed in" sort of facility.

"So you're denying service 'mon?" Giovanni drawled, dark eyes half-lidded, tones that dangerous silken note that preceded lawsuits.

Grace understood why he'd insisted she have protection. She got an up close and personal reason in the lobby no less. There was someone wearing Mob colors in the waiting area, and she nearly turned on her heel for it... But damned if she didn't get this done today. So she did, and nothing went wrong beyond scolding Nido not to hiss at the help when they took her blood. When she slipped out the Mobster was still waiting, looking at Gio's 'mon with a calculating gaze, then Grace was out.

Still blushing, and wincing a bit because it'd taken the tech three sticks, Grace was fine, just struggling to wrestle down the lingering embarrassment. She wasn't very successful. And was stuck revisiting an old familiar revelation.

She hated it when Gio used his clout to do things like that.

Trying to shelve the feeling,.Grace tried to focus on the good. A nice thing, she mused, about having bulky 'mon, was they made great carriers and gofers. The dreaded top shelf at the shop was easily surmounted, for example. They could bring home twice as many goods as the car.

Half the team was designated carries, the others were free to roam and block off any who got too close. So far, the 'mon had stopped two pickpockets, and Rhyhorn was a wonder. The short mon had mastered the feat of being an ambulatory grocery cart, perfect balance and a roiling type of locomotion kept their food rolling gently back and forth alo g his ridged back without a can or piece of fruit falling off of him...

Persian, insisting on carrying her fish, had a bag hooked to her collar, flopping like a foul-smelling superhero cape over her shoulders. Giovanni and Grace were enduring backpacks with goods in them so Rhydon, Nidoqueen, and Beedril could move about without worries.

In saner times this much protection would have been excessive.

In the present day, it wasn't enough.

In the 'mon's defense, they had two targets to watch over rather then the usual one. Also, they were used to the formal arena. Not a mob of people, some in gang colors, others not, who decided the intersection of Third and Flint was a good place to start World War Four.

Afterward, between memory, and Gio's terse police statements, Grace was able to get a grasp of the gist. Third and Flint wasn't prosperous by any means, with a slew of tight apartments and cramped communal living. I was a working man's district that was the outer ring between city and Forest. There had been a fight in one of the houses. Some meeting of the Mob went sour, shots were fired. The residents of a nearby house had had their windows blown out, and that'd been the straw that broke the camelrupt's back.

The private scuffle turned into a riot as weary civilians with 'mon turned on anyone who looked Italian adjacent. They were separated in the madness that followed. Grace ran, dodging raging 'mon, and men, when gloved hands grabbed at her backpack. She shrugged off, her goods. Stopped the hands at her back from using her packs as a means to drag her down.

A glance confirmed that her assailent was a leering man with a black shirt with a hellishly familiar red R on it. Her taser was in her hand in a heartbeat. Those red R's made beautiful targets, and the closest Rocket went down... But there were others. They tackled her, knocked her down, only to haul her up. She spat and screamed, and was just another victim in the scrum.

It took her a moment to realize they were dragging her towards an alley. The chilling realization that they had a plan, that this riot could have been staged just to enact that plan, set a fire to her. Grace almost broke free. Definitly downed one of her captors with a lucky kick, but there was five of them and she was fighting prone.

It wasn't a recipie for coming out alive, much less winning.

Hauled out of the fight, thrown deeper into the alley by a brutal tug of her red hair and shove, the bang of her hitting the side of the nearest dumpster rattled her teeth. Her legs bucled and she sprawled at the base, trying to get up as her dazed brain heard the click of switchblades being drawn and realized how utterly fucked she was.

She'd of been dead if not for a good samaritan hiding 9n the fire escape. He was some young man with a zigzagoon and a dashing smile and perchance for tackling alongside his 'mon. One 'mon and man against four trsined kilkers was a recipie for a blood bath. Even with Grace tossing bits of broken brick into the fight. It wasn't a softball, but her aim was good enough to keep the Rockets busy.

Thank God none of these Rockets were trainers.

The trio lasted long enough for a familiar beedril to sweep in and skewer the stragglers. Some 'mon roared, and then it was hailing despite it being a mid summers day. Teeth chattering, breathe steaming, she sent Beedril out into the mess. Assured the bug that she'd hide here. Because if there was a water type stong enough to screw with the weather-

"He needs you, i'll be safe here."

Fireescape man helped her get up. Then they scaled up the side of the building, because so few people looked up.

The young man, who introduced himself sarcastically as Zoon, had been running his own errands before armageddon hit. As to "why help her" he figured 'why not", he was screwed out of his food, might as well play hero... Seeing her safe he'd considered going back into the fray... but the sound of wet tearing stopped him.

He decided to stay with her after that.

She waited and waited, just glad this place was overlooked. No one else had gotten the bright idea to hide here, they were scrambling to find sanctuary inside homes, and cars. Though the last might of been more opportunistic grabbing of the moment. Gio's voice howling her name made her head snap up.

"Here!"

In moments he was there, and while not safe, the world was a bit saner for him by her side.

XXX

The consequences of their outing were ugly and immediate.

The Don, Grace decided, was a flaming madman. Getting away from a screamingly obvious abduction was defiance. Refusing to fold to the will of the Don to die as he willed it needed correcting. When Grace Sakaki had tased one Rocket and punched another in her own self-defense in the riot, she'd committed a cardinal sin as had all the people on that little intersection who'd decided to fight back.

Everyone not in police custody that wasn't Grace or Giovanni had been rounded up. It took the mob three days. On the first day when the first few victims had gone missing, the cops had come to the Sakaki home. It had led to a hissed conversation in the coat closet while the uniformed man and woman lingered on their porch, trying not to look awkward while Grace and Giovanni fought.

"You can't just say "you need a warrant" the second you open the door!"

"I can and I will."

"At least ask them what they're here for first before driving them off?"

"They are rubbernecking trying to scrounge up any reasonable cause. And for the sake of keeping our house safe, I damn well will demand a-"

"Ah. Sir, Madam? We're here involving the incident at..."

Eyes sliding shut, spine a line of tension, Grace could feel it click he went so rigid.

"I gave my statement to the chief-"

"Sir. It's not about that."

How the officer sounded diffident while shouting to be heard was rather impressive. His partner chimed in.

"Mr. Sakaki there's been nine abductions starting at six this morning... If you can open the door... Let us in. We can disclose more details."

Gio blanched. Whipping hard between fury to horrified realization. Both Sakaki's scrambled out of the closet, a quick flick conveyed fear and paranoia and to that Grace folded. She slid her arm around Giovanni's and guided them both outside.

"I'm sorry but the rest of the house is a state. We were remodeling right before this happened and I'd be embarrassed to expose you to it. The entranceway and living room are barely habitable but we don't want to risk hiring anyone to finish the work until the world is a little saner. I can get a drink if anyone needs anything?"

The offer was accepted even if the lie was met with some skepticism.

The talk boiled down to that everyone who'd been on site wasn't in trouble (yet), they were just running wellness checks (checking for bodies) because there'd been some suspicious absences. One smart soul had hidden their phone and set it to record before getting hauled off.

The recording wasn't available for non-investigators, sorry.

Grace had to subtly step on Gio's foot to forestall an attempt to bribe for that information because Arceus frolicking in a field of flowers it wasn't going to have anything relevant to them on it. So it wasn't their business. Despite how nosy Gio was and how news-starved Grace was.

Also, bribes were illegal. That too.

They refused police protection because between Forest and Gio's 'mon they were reasonably safe. Not that they told the copper the first part... but they concentrf to be called forwellness checks. Or rather, Grace gave them her number. because the police calling Gio was not a good thing for either of them. After getting her contact information the cops left, and all was quiet.

For the Sakaki's.

Come day three of the first person going missing, the case was closed.

The mob returned them all, stacked the bodies like logs on the police station front steps. No one was spared. Not man, woman, 'mon, or child. Watching the news, sobbing into Gio's shoulder while he soothed and rocked her, Grace realized that she'd never got the young man's real name. The man with the zigzagoon who'd tackled monsters on a whim.

Now he was just another John Doe among a block of them.

"It isn't your fault." Giovanni sighed, they curled into each other, and it was a mercy that he was able to work the remote out of her numb hands and turn off the news program. "When things like this happen, you let the monsters be monsters. And you hope the people around them are smart and fast enough to get out of the way when they strike... And you grieve when they aren't."

"It shouldn't be like this."

"No," The black of his eyes looked positively fey in the dim light as he considered something. "It shouldn't.

Xxx

When the phone rang, her phone, Giovanni picked it up. Grace just shook her head and looked away. Unable to deal with talking to anyone for any reason.

Sounding weary Gio took the call. He verified who he was, then listened for what felt like ages. Ending the call after a few terse words he tossed the phone on the coffee table with a grunt.

She did not have to ask, just looked at him with red-rimmed eyes and waited.

"The Sbrrio are going to make an announcement, Viridian is going to declare a state of emergency. Kanto's demanding all travel to and from the city excluding medical personnel and emergency staff be banned, and Viridian has a week to clean house before Lance steps in. Starting now I'm on twenty-four-hour standby, they're going to rip Viridian down to the bedrock, and when they find something I'll have to leave to help suppress it."

By mutual unspoken decision, they didn't watch the news. And after seeing lines of smoke from town from the eastern window Giovanni shut the shades and they moved their business to the west forest-facing side.

Viridian didn't need a week. It hadn't needed forty-eight hours. The powers had known who the Mob Boss was, down to a man. Some bastard skuntank namde Aldo Machetti. That revelation made Grace sick. Made her shake from outrage. If they'd pulled their heads out of their asses, just done their jobs... There'd be less dead, less broken families, less.. everything wrong.

The squad of cops came knocking at their door come midnight the next night. With them was some young blonde heartthrob with a mohawk, muscles that'd make many a woman swoon, and civilian clothes set in military colors. He stood a head taller than the men around him, not even counting his wild hair.

"Kanto's sending me the big guns are we?" Giovanni drawled at seeing the man, almost managing a smile.

"The biggest," Surge laughed, Grace recognized that laugh from tournaments on the TV. Tipping his broad shades he flashed a wink to go with his twinkling smile. "Hope civi's life hasn't made you soft, Sakaki. You ready to ship out?"

"I'll need a moment."

Shelving her rage, and her fear, Grace managed something like a bright smile for Gio as he gathered his things. His things were mainly medicines and a jacket she hadn't seen before but had seen enough police shows to recognize as flak. He slipped it over his shirt, then hid it under a suit jacket. The last thing he pulled out, from its locked box, was a gun. That he holstered to his hip, alongside his team.

And while she worked, she decided something.

She got her things. A well-stocked medical kit, a few spare sets of clothes she'd never miss, blankets, some water, and a utility knife.

He didn't protest when she stepped out with him, though Surge did.

"Now look here pretty thing, there's no room for civilians on this thing, and I've been with army medical, you don't have that type of steel."

Ignoring him she turned to one of the officers. "How are things at Viridian Gen?"

Grace did not miss the less-than-subtle questioning glance the cop tipped to Gio, or Gio's nod.

"Hell on earth, Madam. It's a slury. The Center got bombed, so they moved base to the Gen's west wing. Everyone mobile whose willing to risk gunfire is just dumping the wounded and the bodies of people and 'mon off in droves. There is no one distinguishing between Made Man, Copper, or Civilian."

That, more than anything, decided her.

"You gentlemen either provide me an escort or I'm walking, your choice." Then to Gio, who surely, sanely, should be protesting, said. "We'll be able to cover more ground, to help more people, if we split up."

Resignation warred with pride, and then, finally he tipped her head up and indulged one languid kiss.

"For luck." He breathed, then broke off turning to the chatty copper. "Santiago, she's with you, you get her there and stay with her. You make sure none of those Made Men get a chance to lay a hand on her..."

"Sir."

The younger man pulled a half salute and then took Grace's arm in his own, guiding her to his car. She looked back once, to find Surge walking beside Gio, both men talking quietly as they were stepping into a different car. Then she was in, and what he was doing had to fade into the back of her mind because what was important was what she could do now.

 

[K_S]

chapter 11
Corinthians 15:10 part 5

readers notes: Surge and Giovanni talk. The depravities of the League are touched upon as Surge realizes just how scewed up the situation is.

The ride was made in silence, Surge pulling out and prepping his guns while Giovanni stared out the window, watching the world roll by. It wasn't much of a view, a smokey grey landscape courtesy of tinting and Reflect and Lightscreen being imprinted over the glass. Black blurs, trees, and buildings, were occasionally highlighted with smears of red. Psychic protections were plastered so tight to the car's walls that the smell of burning wasn't getting in.

"Why the fuck did Lance not send down the guard before it go this bad, Sakaki?"

It was old professional pride more than anything else, for Surge. Were things saner Surge and Koga would have been sent to Viridian by the League before this mess had devolved into riots in the streets. Neither man wondered why the Mayor or President hadn't ordered them to ship out. The second was a spineless coward, the other a Mob yes-man who'd been told by the Council of Don's to keep his head down. Because rigging an election was a pain in the ass, and if the Mayor died his family would be paying in blood for Rocket being inconvienced.

Initially, the verdect had been that if Don Marchetti wanted his township to burn, then fine. So long as the money and tributes were still coming then let the Don be as little a man as he wanted to be. This show of the Mob's boot would quell any rebelious thoughts out of the masses for generations to come.

And if it led to fatal consequences for Marchetti, the Don's could promote another made man. No sweat off their backs. There were too many ambitious Capos and Viridian City was a good way to bloody a man. The crucible of the town being the training hot spot of the police force, add in the scrutiny of the League, and those pressures broke the unworthy. Whittled down the dumb and rash...

Which had changed only when the powers that be realized Marchette had been skimming. Which was why the bombings had happened. In one explosive stroke he'd devistated governemnt and civilian centers hard enough to make Mob and mundane heads spin. It was classic divide and conquer.

But Lance should have been above it all. He was both incorruptible and untouchable. He shouldn't have had such issues about stepping in. And Surge still held onto the fond delusion that Lance "cared, underneith it all".


If he had, this Hell would have been averted and disaster would have found the mob. After all, the man had no pressure points. Was "the stongest trainer" alive.

How did you intimidate or threaten a man who only loved dragons? Well, so far as the Mob could figure, you couldn't. Not unless you tamed a fucking Articuno. Lance didn't even send the bodies back for familgias to identify, just let his dragons feast and let the littlest dratini play with the bones.

"When I spoke to him he stated that Viridian had exceeded its green print for five years, its plastic output was intolerable, and the aura field displacement of violated wildlife was making the forest's currents, fey. Which, I am given to understand, was unacceptable."

"In non-environmental, non-cult speak, if you could, buddy."

Taking a deep breath, Giovanni let it out slowly, then said. "Viridian failed to get an emission ranking of A, got a B ranking over the last five years." Ignoring the blank look Giovanni carried on. "They pined the culprit to the new hospital being built, the uptick in traffic from the emergency vehicles... Basically, in Lance's mind, Viridian is an environmental wasteland pushing back the bounties of nature with its too-high population."

The car thumped over something that yelped, probably a rattata trying to jump ship. Whether it was two-legged or four wasn't the Rocket's concern.

"As far as he's concerned, Rocket's doing him a favor, and when they're done he's going to swing in a blaze of glory and start a genocide."

"What?"

"Lance said, during his last call, that if things hit critical, looting in the streets, dead in the trees, and that if "people didn't solve thier own problems" that "all the better". That he'd "be by in a few days to cull the leftovers,"."

"Tell me you got that recorded."

"Yes, but the government can't touch him, only the Elite, and they're worse than him. Bruno felt it was "survival of the fittest" and thus just. Agatha camped in Pewter awaiting the hubbub to die down so she can harvest the souls of those who suffered the most to enhance her team. Lorilie was not available for comment, she's off Region, tending to some affair in Johto."

Silence, while Surge grit his teeth, sitting this close in near-perfect silence, Giovanni could hear the teeth wearing down.

"So, you're telling me that the only thing standing between a Mob-backed Machetti and a razed city, is us, another branch of the Mob?"

They'd stopped, an emergency vehicle screamed past them, by its light Giovanni could make out a tree and the body hanging from its sturdy branches. The vehicle was gone and the world ouside resolved to its familiar abstraction


"Welcome to the Pokemon League Surge, don't let it kick you in the ass on your first day in."

"Drill Dargent Saki was a royal little bitch, wasn't he?" Both men had had him in basic. Neither pointed out that Giovanni had plagiarized from the bastard.

Long ago military life had kicked them both down, the first day, and every day after. The joy of being considered half a Kantoian at best, and a filthy foreigner pretending to fit in at worst. The social blocks on their savagery had been chipped away in service, rerouted, then directed by superior officers until enough people had died that a treaty had been signed by the warring governments. The war was off, but they'd killed in it and lived to tell the tale. Screwed up and screwed over, and they were called heroes, and brave, and thanked for thier service.

It was a load of Tauros shit, from first to last.

Forcing his teeth to loosen, Surge slumped back, and in a tired voice admited. "I'd rather it was facin' or some white caped mankeys... Why'd the War make more sense than this, Sakaki?"

"Fucked if I know."

Xxx

The thing about being a consigliere was you were invisible until you were not.

Viridian, the brain of most of Rocket's Kanto-based activities, was where all the decisions happened. It was the percolation point of plots, and each Mob branch had a handhold. A member of their flesh and blood was set near the Don so they could caper and contort at his commands. All to earn his favor.

It took Giovanni less than a week to see that Don Marchetti was more promises than substance. He broke his word as easy as breathing. And the only thing keeping the masses from tearing him apart was that no one had cottoned on to his duplicity.

Did such-and-such fall through?

Well Capo so-and-so wasn't quite the expert in his field he claimed he was, wasn't he?

But a new man could replace and double the loss, and look at the shiny new opening that just popped up.

The Don played the pea game on people's competencies. The competitive nature of the standard Capo kept them from taking notes to see through his sham. He played man against man, familgia against familgia, and anyone with even a pinprick of weakness...

Established Mob families devolved into a classic case of brother against brother within the month.

Don Marchetti was a man named after war, and among the consigliere he was whispered to be known as Don Discordia. The shit storm he'd nearly tipped Celedon into was why he'd been shunted to Viridian after Madam Sakaki had kicked it.

Discord, Giovanni had learned, wasn't even the half of it. It had been a joy to discover three months into the mess just how much of a quagmire eveything was
. Once sane familgias were running insane risks to garner the approval of a man who didn't give a damn unless money was falling into his hand.

And he'd grab the wrist of the delibird and shake it down to get more.

Pressed into a corner, more accountant than made man, he'd seen the extortion plied upon an extortionist. But it was done so well the professional grifter never knew he was being swindled. And if this ploy were being used against outsiders, even "trusted" fringe aspects, well and good.

But the man being swindled was an old associate of the Sakaki's. Longer in the Game than Giovanni was alive. He invited the man to drinks after to "catch up on familgia matters", and tested the water. Yes, Capo Carosso confessed after getting the best whisky this dive had to its name in his gut, that he was aware he'd been screwed.

But better to be screwed than deal with the Don's wraith when he thought he was screwed by you.

Proof, the grizzled Capo warned, was not needed, only assumption.

"Watch your back, Gianni, things are going to get interesting."

Fuck interesting, it was like watching everyone's sanity leak out their ears. Despite his well-known personality of being an acidic bastard, he was called out by lesser families to be the voice of reason. And he defanged some monsterous fueds, but it was exhausting dealing with grown men and women reduced to such slavish behaviors. The social climbing, once amusing,.became grotesk when you realized that the ladder going up was obviously greased.

On the other hand, continual exposure made the pattern clearer. Viridian was turning into a pressure cooker. And the pressure was building to a point. Sakaki lived in dread at having to answer any call for Work.

He wondered when the call announcing the end of all sanity was coming in.

Still, he did what he could, and those few assets he valued he planted bugs in their ears. It kept a few from getting cement shoes. But then, after one spectacular luncheon where he'd kept a three familgia verbal scuffle from devolving into a public knife fight, he'd been granted a mercy.

The shrill calls to be a crisis counselor died down.

He'd been left alone for two months. There were no calls to Work, and not willing to look the gift ponyta in the mouth, he'd gotten ahead on League matters.

Hell, he got a bit of drama in his legit business and the lack of extra duties allowed him to sniff out a bit of homegrown non-mob fraud. It'd been almost cute. The busty secretary had had all the stereotypical sympathetic reasons for dipping into crime.

"Cancer in the family," she avowed, eyes dearling wide, lashes fluttering, a mute "I'm so harmless" poise as she posed on his desk.

"Mounting," she'd honest to God unbottoned her dress shirt to flunt her assets. Draggong out the word "mounting" as she did so, like he was a fool. "medical debt."

To his silence she had spread her legs. He'd considered her, her sultry poise contrasting with her supposed innocence, his wedding ring tick-tapping as he drumbed his fingers on the arm of his chair.

His rebuke was soft, almost gentle. "You had complete medical coverage, you stupid bitch."

She'd tried to run. Understanding past tense at least. It wasn't even a scuffle, her struggles hadn't even wrinkled his suit.

He tended to the clean up personally and quietly. Disappeared the girl without even needing to tap his illegal contacts.

He'd culled that bit of ambition, and all was well.

Until the woman's replacement, a man hired from a different firm with loose ties to the Carosso familgia had tried the exact same trick.

A bit of pressure, via Rhydon grinding a clawed foot into the bastard's ankle, had gotten a confession. A confession a quick session under Persian and Nidoking's weak psychic attacks had confirmed. It was a Carosso takeover attempt. The man was digging for dirt, and he flipped faster than a magikarp on the sidewalk on a hot summer's day.

If he hadn't been infiltrating a legit charity organization he might have gotten somewhere. As it was the thief's efforts had led to the displacement of a few food orders, and a mess to be dumped into a vat of Nido' acid.

Giovanni dropped the body in the vat, sealed the barrel, and shipped it off to a chemical disposal waste of a side buisness. Thus thief and trash were taken out together. No one the wiser.

As for Carosso, the man had been bemused to be asked out for drinks again, so soon. They stepped out of the warehouse, near side by side, both watching the angles and shadows for coppers and ambitious made men looking to make a hit. One ambitious whore accosted them near their cars. She flaunted her goods in the most direct way possible and Giovanni helped ease her coat closed and sent her on her way. He was off the market, but if she wanted a good fuck and there was an enthusiastic capo parked at Third and Flint who had decided that today was leg day.

She'd left with a cackle and skip while Carosso, who had let her fondle him and gotten a good grab in too, watched on. His old face twisted to jealous lines.

"If I were a younger man..."

"Well, considering she got your wallet you can say you were acting like one to salvage your pride..."

The Capo patted his pockets and then swore. The little minx had been an enthusiastic thing with her grinding, even with her coat closed. Only the chill night and keeping everything zipped had spared Giovanni. Carosso, not so much.

Anger came and went with Carosso and the man smirked. "Well, not like it's my life savings.... damn... wonder if she's in the Work."

"All yours." Pickpockets weren't exactly Giovanni's district, mainly being the source of mob muscle 'mon throughout Viridian, he wasn't interested at all. "But since you just got fleeced and I'm not paying for your liver's death perhaps we should go out another night?"

"Aw fuck money, I know a place we can get in for free. I figure if I'm driving you to drink, with my old world charm reminding you of your Mama I'm doing something right."

"Don't flatter yourself, you old bastard. Give me the address and I'll meet you there. I got a snakey personnel problem and need that wiser head of yours."

"Fuck," That confession stopped the capo at his car door. He perked up like a spooked furret. "you need me to people person, who for?"

"Gemma's little sister got her hands wet in the field and got caught, nothing big, but I figure you'd know the ins and outs of that better than me."

"Fuck considering how often I had to bail m' own bambina out 'fore she went to tech... I might just be your man."

The address was given and Sakaki stood in the cold beside his car. He texted Grace to let her know he was doing corporate bar hoping and he'd probably be in the hotel for the night. Better that than driving home. She agreed and told him not to do anything that got caught on mewtube or she'd blast it at him when he came home. He sent her a smiley face and slipped the phone away.

The drive gave him time to set his lies in place and he plied them and whined and dined the old Capo.

It was another dive, owned by the Capo's nephew, and after settling into a secluded side room reserved for business, and checking the place for wires, both men settled in. They drank enough until tongues were loosened and the stories got hair-raising. Both were in the same field after all, and murder was quite literally on the table. Done with a racious story about gutting a copper, Corosso looked at Giovanni, almost fond.

"If you were anything like dealing your Mama, I'd be a dead man."

"You still might be." Giovanni promised, "unless you talk."

And talk he had. It was a plot within a plot. Another of the Don's damned pea games aimed at the established consigliere to see who was keeping their eyes open and was watching their backs.

"I did some, some were done to me, it was a fucking do-ce-do of who could screw each over the hardest. What money we get we pay him tribute, and in information, so there was a drive to succeed see..."

"You have evidence of it?"

"Not my marching orders," because Carosso was no suicidal fool. "But a few of the others, because of sticky fingers and all that."

And this was planned, from start to finish, because the bastard had the papers. The list was damning, too many good, stable, familgia and resources were listed here. If even a fraction of these plots succeed Viridian's underbelly would be destabilized in a year.

"So, I gave you advice, on your little personal issue, now I'm asking for you to help with mine."

Giovanni ticked an eyebrow up in exasperation, because this, was not a personal issue. It was a fucking economic and social time bomb.

"You'll look into things?"

There was fear in the old man's tone.. Sincere terror.

A lesser man blinded by overconfidence would have avowed everything would be looked into. Have everything handled. A kinder man would have assured the Capo not to worry.

Giovanni was neither of those things.

"What's in it for you, old man?"

"That bambina of mine had one of her own. A year old and everything... Let's say I'm invested in keeping things sane for a little longer."

Xxx

He wasn't so brash as to confront the Don... nor so stupid as to flag all the familgias, he might as well trigger the Don's mad plan all on his own if he did. He let a few of the plots go off without a hitch, let time pass, and then tipped his hand to the victim. Another time he tipped his hand to the victor.

His message was the same, delivered either via Persian or Beedril in the morning hours as he patrolled his home. "You are being used". The cracks started to appear as the Capo's tried paranoid on for size and began to draw the right conclusions.

One brash consiglier demanded retribution for the dead familgias, from the Don's own cut.

He was ripped into pieces. For heresay, the Don had raved. He'd snapped his fingers, and a statue of stone had sprung to life, and done the tearing in front of a mass of shocked Mobsters.

The Don had been foaming at the mouth, raving.

"You ask me nothing... you give me everything... You roaches will live off the pittance I gift you or you'll pray for the fucking sbrrio to take you away."

Any overt resistance died that night, but the next shipment to the council of Don's went array. Then the next. A query went through, it was the first time Giovanni'd heard his Nona's voice in years and pressed into the corner, being used as a number's man, he wasn't addressed. He was just another piece of the machine after all. Grinding away for the glory of Team Rocket."

Nona was not a happy woman, and by her tones, she had arson on her mind.

Then came the Don attempting to debase him, the butchering of his car, the threat to his wife.

When the next shipment went, the Don went with it, and almost as if by magic, a certain list made rounds...

There were riots, looting, killing. The Don came home to a very upset house, and half of his pressure points weren't working anymore. The mobsters not revolting had decided they liked the look of Viridian burning , and were only with him for that end.

When the phones stopped working Giovanni sent Persian out and she found the device in five minutes. he synced the thing to a special computer in his home office. Set the control to his phone under a harmless seeming app, and made a flaming evidence trail from Don Marchetti's business fronts to the tracker.

If all else failed he'd have the bastard jailed for corporate espionage.

His patrols were more than long walks around the property. He made many calls. Securing allegiances, ferreting out holes in Marchetti's official fronts, and reporting to the council.

Because this Don, apple to the council's eye, had done the cardinal sin of skimming. That'd been quite the revelation. His chain of information ran from capo to capo, who linked him to the Don's ex-numbers man, who had routed him to the present numbers man. The present man was sharp in exactly one sense, he could see his mortality on the horizon.

The book pusher was a ballsy bastard in his humble, anxiety, ridden way. He'd called to compare notes from what Giovanni'd gone over, and it'd taken them two hours... but they found evidence of the man holding some of the Council's take and funneling it into his personal accounts.

"Get me those papers and we'll have the noose off of our necks."

His contact was physically weak, to say nothing of his timid mentality.

He needed obscene amounts of coddling and reassurance to get the job done, but when he worked it was with a laser focus. Numbers, who refused to go by his own name, was a nearsighted whisp of a man with chronic asthma and an allergy to anything floral adjacent. And he'd been reassigned to Viridan. Most would feel pity for the man, so mired in blackmail and debts he'd had no real choice. But not Giovanni. Numbers was a barely tolerable tool that was only useful because of proximity. And his proximity was all but guaranteed to the Don because Marchetti liked to listen to him struggle to breathe.

During his last call, Numbers had found his spine along with his balls. The sun was going to rise, and Giovanni's walk could only last so long. He wanted no risk of Grace discovering him, so this spontaneous bit of character development was an irritant more than anything else.

"I want insurance."

"I'm not your man."

Giovanni did not do the Insurance Game. He was, as far as he was concerned, retiring after this clusterfuck wore down.

"You're my only in, I swear if you don't I will turn so fast you'll get secondhand whiplash from me doing it."

Silence, while Giovanni considered plots and angles, deciding that perhaps, Numbers, would need to be retired early. Worse case he could slip away, break in, take what he needed, and get out.

"I'm listening."

It wasn't even a promise, but Numbers fell into line like the fool he was. It explained how he'd fallen for the old Unova Wife scam, three times.

"My brother, in Viridian Petentuary, prisoner number 8900921, he gets protection from the Mob after my work is done."

"Get me those papers, and I guarantee you'll get everything your hard work has earned you."

It was interesting to listen to a man drown without dying. Not a sound he'd ever learn to savor, but almost like Giovanni was tagging along for those first stages of drowning via cement shoes. It was an odd thought, fitting the odd sounds the man made as he screwed up his thin reserves of courage.

"You'll have it by tonight."

It'd come, spotted with blood, a bit torn, on the wing of a zubat. And on the news, the next day, travel mongrel, automobile businessman giant, Marchetti was a person of interest. A man who worked for him had died in his office, his chest crushed, the body impaled on a still-running copy machine.

Giovanni cleaned the papers up a bit, then then sent them along. Nona's response was whip quick. A quick note was sent along by Saint Lawrence.

Clean up in Virdian isle one, backup porters would be sent along, wait for personal contact for further orders.

Xxx

"She called me clean up." Surge was offended, which made Sakaki smirk.

"You should have heard the shit she called me when I was growing up." A Rocket laptop lay open in his lap he'd set the programs out to kill video feed as they traveled, the radius wasn't perfect but anything synced to wifi was mysteriously having technical problems. On their end, he could see through the borrowed cameras and was using them to confirm they were going the right way and their driver hadn't turned coat. So far, no difficulties on that front. The Don's palatial mansion was quickly being closed on and a few of the cars fanned out red and blue strobe lights on, a mute warning that'd make the most lawful and criminal think twice about investigating. The side exits were being penned in with armored vehicles, it'd be a few moments and the backyard escape routes would be closed off too.

"You know anything about moving rock statues, because that's all my sources could brief me about on route?"

"Officially I'm a ground trainer, not a rock specialist."

"Same diff."

Not going to have that argument again Giovanni clicked a few commands, their agent's phones lit up, the prewritten orders going through. A sabotage team armed with sandshrew was going to dig up at certain points of the man's fence and bring the electric current down. "We're gym leaders, Surge, we're supposed to know the difference."

"Same diff, both are immune to electricity, both are stupid strong against a punch, what else is there to know?"

Looking up, black eyes thinned in irritation that had nothing to do with his Work, Giovanni waited for Surge to say "Just kidding". The man's humor was juvenile as a rule of thumb. So maybe... possibly... Surge's friendly oblivious expression made Sakaki sigh.

Of course not.

"I've written books about the difference, read them." He needed to focus on the screen or Kanto'd be down a gym leader.

"How about this, we both survive and you can tell me all about it over drinks."

He agreed more to stop any friendly whining Surge would have indulged had he not. That was the only reason... but maybe, just maybe, he could bring Grace along. And she could bring Andre. Watching the medic make a fool of himself over this fool would be funny if nothing else.

"Sure, why not."

 

[K_S]

chapter 12
Corinthians 15:10 part 6

Readers note: set pre-Transversal, pre-Manga. Giovanni centric, focusing on being Rocket. What's the difference between a cornered rat and a mad man? One has access to munitions but both are equally rabid.

Don Marchetti was no strategic genius. What he was, was old. Which meant experienced, and with enough resources to be a problem.

The Capos and Sangerie of the Matron's sect had ignored the advice of their Kantoian peers. Sneering at the half-bloods, and slant-eyed sellouts, they proclaimed they knew what they were doing. They'd broken off the vehicle phalanx, letting their lessers worry about sandslash and wires on the perimeter. Ignoring Giovanni and Surge's orders to stick with the plan.

Looking for less open, greener, pastures the out-of-town yakuza had hit gold. There'd been a selection of artfully sheered trees, a rich man's indulgence in butchery that pretended to be hortological and eco-friendly, that'd taken their eye. Right on the edge of the Don's property.

It was perfect.

They could order thier grunts seeded through the other branches forces, and communicate with the Kanto gym leaders, all without leaving the comfort of thier bulletproof car. Thus they expected to remain untouched by the upcoming bloodshed and let the mixed blood Kantoians get thier hands dirty.

Those favored grunts not conscripted to work with the Kantoians expats ran a grid search, and once the underlungs declared the area clean the Executives sent out thier tech specialist to do what he did. In under five minutes communications were up and the Kanto Capos put on mute. The last step of thier defensive measured was more spite then sense. They released a protective swarm of zubat. The near rabbid bats would off any who dared creep upon them, and any who wussed out and made a break for it would meet a simular fate.

Only the Sakaki's transplanted Don had the whistle to call off the bats, and considering the man was snug as a ledybug, on a rug, sipping wine to watch the upcoming bloodbath like it was a spectator's sport....

Honor amongst thieves and all that.


Karma, being a royal bitch, decided to send her conseqyences along via expediated express. It took less than fifteen minutes for shit to hit the fan.

Because Marchetti had a taste for exotic 'mon. The rock statue coming alive to grind naysaters to a pulp was hint one. And by the sights and sounds, he had more than one... pet... capable of camoflauge.

The ruckus from the nominally friendly lines made Sakaki flick the cameras from combing the Don's security system for his people. And once he was on that frequency he couldn't look away.

It took a few moments to comprehend what he was seeing. The snatch and grab was that fast. It was the traiterous Don's last public meeting round two. Impossibility was on a rampage.

The disaster was like a scene out of a Tolkien inspired nightmare.

The trees were coming alive. Thick branches swung down like arms, crushing cars. Men, and 'mon, were indiscriminately ground into multch. The roots rose up from the earth like a grit-covered tide, tripping up then winding over the prone. Men were dragged under, still alive, the churning soil became bloody as gore mixed with earth.

And the Don that Nona had hand picked to replace Marchetti was speared through his seat by a thick root. Taking the rpute of least resistenct it rose up and out, all to wind around the man liek a derainged vine whip. The gargling Don was dragged down through his car to the waiting earth below.

The Don's vehicle thomped and rocked, while in his vehicle Giovanni was nearly being smoothered by a panicing Surge.

"What the fuck are we looking at Gio? I need to understand what I'm seeing here."

"I am working on it." Toggling off the audio to the out-of-towners cameras, Sakaki barked. "All agents at the fore continue to sabotage, close line nine."

For the men and women with the sandshrew on destruction detail, things got quieter. The fence wobbled and started to sag. It'd be down in minutes.

Which gave him seconds to figure out what the hell was going on and if it was going to spread beyond the clearing.

It was a grunt with a growlithe who in his last moments gave Giovanni a lucky break. The man had avoided falling by sheer luck, he danced around the reaching roots and was hopping around like a magikarp on a hot stove. It was chaos incarnate, and the sheer amount of motion was summoning a headache and nausia in the watching Rocket. The man got his fifth pokeball to land on a patch of earth not being ground up and out popped a fire type out. A roundtound growlith cub, more suited for the contest stage floor than this mad house.

"Firespin, burn everything, everyone!"

While not the most sane order the wild spew of fire struck the ground, and dead, dying, and in a lucky break, the animate trees. The air shimmered and illusion was felled, revealing a duo of Trevenant. The undead roared and flailed at the embers that had set their leaves aflame.

Now knowing and seeing, Surge moved to get out. Eschew8ng little things like type chart and common sense. Confident he could take on some grass ghosts.

A firm grip on the soldier's wrist kept Surge from exiting the car. Heroics would only lead the man to his own grave and there were less than five survivors now. It was better to cut those losses. And between realizing thry were down to five one of the outnof town Rockets snapped, ran for freeom. The zubats descended and it was down to four.

Closing that line, Giovanni flicked communications to the sabotage teams. His orders were blunt. The second they were done all agents were to pile into the cars and drive through the downed gate as fast as possible to avoid any... euntrepruernic roots... they'd spread out in Marchette's front yard, draw support mon, and then fan out.

Still high on thwarted herocis, Surge had the guts to protest Giovanni's orders.


"What if the bastards got ieds planted, Sakaki?"

Killing the audio Sakaki canted the military man with a grim grin.

"That's why the car with Don Pelle's grunts and favorite Capo is going first."

Earlier in the day Surge would have been pleased. Less rivals in his home turf and less bodies totting the flesh game in his town. A double win for the morally inclined militant. But now the man was just a good example as to why you didn't let guilt into the equation.

Or hero complexes.

But that was Surge's problem, not Gio's.

"The colony would just see you as a snack."

And the motion sensors that should have pinged thay the Madam's upper echion were at least alive were definitly off.

"Fuck, I want March's head."

Working one-handed, because loosing his grip on Surge's arm would be interpreted as permission to storm out and start shocking shit, Giovanni tightened his grip. A mute "Not now".

Holding Surge back was like holding a balding wire. You were just waiting for the current to snap through some flaw and strike you dead.

"Get in line."

The gates came down with a rattling thud, red flashes of light signaled a mass of 'mon withdrawals and the grunts scrambled into their purloined patty wagons, leading the charge down the wide gravel paths.

Mercifully there were no ieds.

The leading vehicles crept to the front of the mansion, police lights off, every inch of their approach crackled. Because despite being richer then sin the drive up was loose rock. A catburgler's nightmare.

Between the noise and the wide windows in both the first and second stories looming down at any who approached, there were no delusions from Grunt to Capo that this was going to be a quiet job. Alternating his view from Capo camera to Marchetti's security system. Giovanni had a good amount of time to consider the targets house.

The front facade was wide as sin, almost wide enough for a car to power through, and the white marble pillars that married second story to earth were an eyesore. The columns were styled after three different forms of pillar, and each's pedestal and top, be they doric, ionic, or whatever the third one was called. He didn't recognize the style beyond gaudy as all hell. And the fool had wasted a fortune wrapping the base in precious metals.

It was like the Don had said "Do whatever just make me look rich" and the architect had decided to throw up sarcasm in the form of foundations.

"Can we just bring it down?"

It'd be a gift to humanity but...

"Only as a last resort, the Matriarch wants an identifiable body."

Motion from the second story made Sakaki flick from looking through Marchetti's cameras to looking through the car's cameras. They were far enough back he could see most of the house. A tap got the driver to stop.

Not even noticing their lead, Pella's crew pulled to a stop between the front door and some saint who was carved to piss forever into a fountain. The car should be visible from the camera's perspective.

And it wasn't.

Wrongness settled over him like a too-big coat. There had to be guards. Someone should have turned on the lights, a lookout to call for backup, rouse Marchetti..

But nothing...

Giovanni flicked open line seven.

"Capo Pellas, this is consiglire five, our visual is being distorted. Repeat, do not trust remote visuals. Respond."

"Pellas. Noted. Coms seem clean. Lights are out and it looks deader than-."

A thump on the top of Sakaki's car, and the hellish screech of claws scraping over the Reflect and Lightscreen barriers drowned out the rest of that report.

"Stay in the car." Sakaki snarled at the driver, then flicking open the door released Nidoking's pokeball.

"Kill whatever is on the car. Do not smash the vehicle."

Then he closed the door. The barriers were weakened, not spent, so he was able to set his last gamble. A virus to scramble Marchetti's communication network that would lock all outbound communications to the same twelve-hour wait message Sakaki had been listening to for so many weeks. Then, he fed a loop through all the cameras that would show no one and nothing on the property. Once set, the technical issues would be remotely controlled by a Capo stationed at Viridian Tech.

The only clean line was Giovanni's line, and short of enrouching roots, or the car's defenses giving out, he wasnt moving an inch until he was sure nothing could see him.

Outside, 'King roared at something. The vehicle rocked, claws did a taping run across the roof then slammed into Surge's side window. The veteran didn't wince, but had a pokeball in hand, and was all but vibrating.

The man was seconds away from ripping open his door and socking whatever was on the other side, public identity be damned...

"A few more...." With a chirrup, his phone pinged and the security screen showong Marchetti's network flicked green, then black. Task done, the program's self destruct kicked in ans it soundlessly it gutted itself. "Done." He clicked the laptop closed. Slid it into its case and set his wristwatch to five minutes. "Stay here. We'll be back shortly." He ordered the driver.

The man looked at him more wild-eyed than a rapidash seeing a hose.

"Fucking finally." Surge was up and spoke to the pokeball in hand. "Light and Ref. Keep it in front of you and braced, we're being shot at from twelve-o-clock."

He flicked open the door and let the pokeball roll out. When the red light dimmed and the static whine of a duel 'screen sounded Surge stormed out of the car. Gun in hand.

Giovanni meant to join his fellow gym leader. But was slowed by a bone-rattling thud of something slamming into the trunk then being dragged alongside the car to darken his window. The driver squealed at the racket. Nerve gone completly. The man made a game attempt at tying to curl under the dashboard. Under the scrape of horns against claws, and cracks of gun fire, Giovanni could just barely hear it. A wooden click, as the driver's hands moved. Believing end times or his end was immenet, the driver was twiddling with a rosery while whimpering to Mother Mary.

A familiar roar sounded and the window no longer had a writhing, dark furred, form, smashed against it.

"Don't worry, he won't flip the car."

Then Giovanni was gone.

Gun in one hand, pokeball in the other, it was funny, the Rocket mused, how the driver hadn't calmed down after getting a reasonable fear assuged.

Rolling his eyes, drawing an Onyx and ducking behind the stony behemoth, Giovanni used that last sane moment to roll his eyes.

Civilians.

 

[K_S]

6

Old life just gets worse and worse. Shooting cats deserves worse than jail, Madam.

Diving into the personal connections between him and Lille makes a lot of sense--and also proves Alola is a lot less sanitised than I thought it would be based on Giovanni's frustrations. I always wondered about Lusamine. She did not seem like a great mother at the best of times.

truuuuu get her hooked on sugar, she's earned it!

but awww, it's sweet. I don't know what I expected, but their relationship is cute. He's got a kinda mentor/father figure thing going on with her stemmign from his moving past this experience they're at different points on. A surprisingly good influence, too. This is late praise, but I love how much emphasis he puts on teaching her to fight and her immediate rejection. It says a lot about the extreme contrast and yet surprising similarities to the way they were both raised.

Hmmmm.... I wonder about the timeline here. In between pokemon care, Lillie mentions staying with Kukui. Plus, a sickness and a strangeness after. I'm trying to think if there's precedent for this in the game, or if this is somethign invented for this. I will be keeping an eye out, either way.

I also wonder how rough Giovanni's being with his pokemon. There's a bit of uncertainty there: he clearly cares about his pokemon, but it's also presented through LIllie's lens of watching pokemon get tortured soo....

I also regret learning the birds and the bees through Giovanni, thank you.

I had less to say about this chapter than I thought. Icontinue to enjoy Lillie and Giovanni. Like I said, they're good foils for each other. So far he's had less to learn from her, but I'm excited for a future where she gains some confidencer and world knowledge and finally learns karate or something. Their development is an unexpected highlight in only two chapter. I continue to enjoy reading this, even if I only got to two chapters this time. Thank you!

Review reply
chapter 6

I headcanon that Rockets mainly poachers....so of course the Madams an animal wrongtivist and uses cats for shooting practice to make a "man" out of her kid and make him learn not to cry.

Shes really lucky gio didnt snap and smoother her in her sleep.

Lus' is terrifyingly controlling, and considering her end goal "mother of the year shes not" and its something Lillie's learned to live with.

Until she couldn't and then Lillie grabs the region's dues ex mechanica baby mon and runs.

Lillie, like in canon, escapes and latches onto kukui. When the "sickness" (a non canonical event) strips kukui down to a script (the game's script, which since the game wasnt being played -Gio wasn't present yet- rendered him glassy eyed and mute....when Gio got there there was nothing upstairs beyond the script....which makes bailing a fair and reasonable reaction all tjings considered. She latches onto Gio as a means to find whats going on, and as a means to get out.

In contrast to her broken mother and ill kukui, by day two Lillies learns to recognize Gio's parental streak and live with it.

He cant seem to help himself in limiting her liesure screen time, remotly running herd on a half feral Silver, and explaining healthy food to her... All.while plotting less than legal activities to accure money and info.

He might be mix messaging her but he's at least sane and stable...

Giovanni is being abusive as a baseline for his mon as a Rocket.

With Rollie its minimal since the rodent is a get away 'mon via sandstorming to cover thier escapes (and is Silvers pet). Its a sliding scale but half his abuse is using a lifetime as a gym leader skills to min - max ivs and evs and temporize.on tms.

Hes not lying about tickling rollie
But he also has abused the mon in other tales in body of proof he damags its claws so.it had to master sandstorm because scratch and slash were.out. his treatment of beedril would be constituted as torture.but beedril concents and is willing because the pay off is more murder for the murder bug.

Glad you liked the mans traumatizing tales. He did warn lillie with the age stamp but she did make the classic "what.could go wrong" motion so he answered her to disuade that trait.

Laughs. While she won't learn karate she'll get a few tricks. Gios idea of self defense starts with anti kidnapping measures and scales up to nasty street/brawl tricks and improvised weapons to gun and knife work. He wasnt formally trained and his methods are going to reflrct that.

Thanks.for.the thoughtful review hope you like the reply.

 

[K_S]

5

Part five start us off strongly. I don't remember how much of a threat Team Skull was in their original games, but i do remember a few jokes at their expense. That's all to say, I think this works quite well. Team Skull are much more a collective of maligned teens than a criminal enterprise. Your writing makes it especially funny knowing Giovanni's past, though. It's very easy to find yourself in his shoes, rolling your eyes and judging these numbskulls like they're wanna mafia.

Overall a comedy of errors. Alola was certainly not built for a man like Giovanni lol. I especally like details like him not being allowed to swear. I don't remember if e were introduced to Lillie earlier and I just forgot, but she's an interesting companion for him. Good foil as an edging-on-naive nice girl.

And we jump around a little bit after. I suspect the main fic covers a lot of Giovanni's present life and we'll see less of it here, but I find the after interesting in the way it contextualizes a lot of what I haven't seen. It seems he was an outlier in more ways than just talking to pokemon--taking his time before having children, therapy, what appears to be an attempt to settle down and have a stable life. Good for him! I haven't seen many fics that focus on Giovanni's retirement in hg/ss, but it was always an interesting angle to me. A little fitting, to. In retrospect, I think he's the most normal of all the pokemon villains.

I really liked this moment with Grace. It's a great moment of tenderness and humanity, and placed in a really great position where the callbacks to his childhood make sense and feel visceral, and his displacement to Alola becomes all the more empathetic and frustrating.

And oops maybe Grace comes on a little too strong and forces his hand. I wonder how this will play out.

5 reply.

Skulls level of threat varries based off the medium... Here and in game verse they're a more powerful social pressure threat than a physical one. An under the table warning to those who fail, and dont get absorbed into aether, that this is what happens to you.

But beyond that, they are wannabe yakuza, and if this Alola had a bar Skull would be driving Gio to drink.

Ironically Lillie was introduced in the last scene of the base fic, "Transversal" and "Transversal" shows some of the flaws in the Alola Region. A follow up drabble/mess (i need to rewrite it) "a body of proof" deals with thier first few days via Lillie's perspective and shows "kukuis sickness" in bits and pieces.
In Headcanons:
Chapter 1 Lillies been with Gio a few weeks.
Chapter 5 -8 Lillies been with him a while. Between 2 to 3 months.

Alola was built by power tripping legends without a clue how indoor plumbing works much less anything else.

So main plot timeline since this is an oddly placed set of ficlet...

In the MANGA Giovanni doesnt pull a "i'm gunna reform" when he loses to the hero. He loses multiple times and just packs up and changes stratagies and comes back hitting harder.

His self improvment, and like ninty percent of headcanons, is set pre game and manga. He learns from seeing his step sibs, nieces, and nephews screw up by being too young to have kids. He gets a life outside of the mob and between reflection and Grace gets therepy to deal with his jellscape of a childhood.

When he marries Grace he starts distancing from the mob. The aftermath of the first half of Headcanon's Corinthians 15:10 seemingly slams the door on that part of his life pernamently.

Silver's abduction in manga canon is what drives him over the edge and back into Rocket. A lot of what he does as a Rocket (and as an antagonist to the heros in the Manga) is him dealing with the loss of his kid and making whole regions share his pain.

i'm glad the Grace/Gio moment worked out so well as i honestly waffled hard on it. As for the fall out... Yeah theres ugly, complicated, fall out. But its for later.

 

[K_S]

Hi! Here for Catnip. I read Grace's final fate part 1 (allusions), and here are my thoughts.


So... the women around Giovanni start looking like his late wife to him because of something the Legends did? But they're also not just in his head because Lillie can see them and interact with the hair on one of them? Are the women actually physically turning into his wife? Are the Legends changing reality and the appearances of hundreds of people just to teach one guy a lesson? Is this some kind of nightmare realm parallel to the real world?

well, you are following along pretty well.

So, go me?

Yeah, Gio is in a mix match of nightmare/punishment land via the legends that (seemingly) is based off of Alola. Lillie has been pernamently altered to twist the "remember Grace" knife but found a way out of her punishment so can see reality and Gio's punishment. It's one of the complicated reasons theyre sticking together. Both serve as a sanity check for the other.

If Giovanni hears Lillie's voice as Grace's and Lillie can see the morphing women as well, does that mean Lillie also hears her own voice as having changed?

She's aware her own voice has changed. She waffles between doggedly pretending it hasn't and torturing herself listening to her own voice mail messege so she can remember what she sounds like (that fics upcoming).

I'm not sure why he assumes that a jammed ladder is jammed because of the Legends and not because of any mundane reason? I guess it also points to the direction of this being a nightmare realm created for Giovanni in particular.

Justifiable parainoia? Honestly, the jurys out on that one.

I guess this is also a product of the nightmare realm, unless it's just talking about how light pollution makes the stars disappear - but the sky is referred to as a "fake sky" later on, so I suppose it's not. Cool imagery, anyway.

Thanks.

Huh. Well, I didn't see that one coming. I wonder why he wanted to kill her.

Presently answering that one much later in this fic.

Spoiler: Gios reasons

Its established in Grace centric fics later in the collection that Grace was incredibly alturistic and hot headed. While Gio had distanced himself and later retired from the mob (see Corinthian. for fuller details of the incident from both thier perspectives) that was not enough in Graces books. Between her demanding he turn in those he knew, Kantos laws that would have incarcerated him for life had he done so, and the fact that Silver would be black listed and possibly Silver's children as well -Kanto's legal system is vicious and vindictive to disuade but in turn prevents any attempted redemptions- ... Giovanni had to pick between Grace's morals and his and Silver's stability. To put it shortly Grace lost, and he had to do the hit himself to make sure it was done right.

Personally, I'm not big on the "violent person wants people to stay away from him in case they'll hurt them" trope as I feel like the people that actually are that violent usually are just sociopaths that would not worry themselves with whether they hurt people, and less so for Giovanni, who I've liked to see as a ruthless crime lord... but I'm also the last person in existence who should be telling other people how to write canon characters.

My spin on Gio keeps a few lines he wont cross. Mainly (unless his life or Silver's is on the line) he leaves civilian women and children alone. Manga Gio is incredibly hands off until the kid hero's start causing problems. Then he's scarily proactive and scales up violence and ruthlessness once the civilian aspect of the kids is dropped. Grace's murder was one of the few times he broke the rule and he's worried between dream, the fact that the Legends regularly screw with his head, that he'll be manipulated into killing her dare he linger. It's a legit concern. The legends have tried to make him do worse at this point with mixed results.

---

I like the vibes of this oneshot. It's kinda liminal. I also like the Beedrill segments and the bond between him and Giovanni.

It's the wadding pool of the idea "this Alola scenario be nuttier then a peanut factory" with only a few, small, examples. Also his main destressor is bonding with his murderous mon so expect a lot of Beedril and Persian moments during the Alola segments.

I have to admit that the unusual phrases and expressions in the prose and the fact that the events are surreal has me uncertain about what's literal and what's metaphorical, and uncertain about whether or not I should feel uncertain.

Also toss in inexperienced amnesiac perspective (Lillie) and unreliable narriator (Gio) and the cast are sharing your questions too.

Thanks for dropping a line and glad you liked it.

 

[K_S]

Spoiler: Part 6 i.p.

Corinthians 15:10, Part 6

Clamboring out of the car he flicked his wrist and summoned rhyhorn and Persian. The cat wisely scrambling under the low limbed beast at the first crack of gun fire. For now, the snipers, if they were the shots sounded too rapid fire to be from real sniper rifles, were concentrating on Pellos car. Some shots further back affirmed some ammo was being rained down on the Grunts who were stationed on taking the mansion from behind.

For now it was him, Surge, a few of his 'mon, and whatever the electric specialist whipped out.

That, and Nidoking, who had a black maned, red clawed, humanoid, whatever the hell it was in hand. The poison type had his purple mits wrapped around the thing's waist and was slamming it into the earth with a frantic zeal.

A flurry of wings and sharpened air aimed just so a made King let go of his kill with a yowl. There was a scramble, the alien beast was ripped from 'Kings hands. Snarling, 'King lifted a bloody paw at the retreating Golbat's back. It wasn't exact, not having an equal amount of claws to raise and what not, but it was close enough to to a man's hand that the motion was easily recognizable as flipping someone off.

"Leave it."

Sullenly the violet monster snapped his jaws shut. Killing the budding blue illumination of a retalatory ice beam.

"Persian, Rhyhorn, both of you cover each other and get to the main entrance. Pick off the Don's gunmen."

Persian hooked her claw in the mons sides. Squishing herself against the mon's belly, holding on for dear life as the ground type scrambled forward. Closing on the pllared building front.

A few shots slammed into electabuzzs twin barrier, sizzling into non existance from the electric energies. The two men behind the shield drew the rest of thier teams, and at the sight of surges last 'mon nearly asked the dumbass if he'd aquired brain damage in the last five minutes.

Snuggling a voltorb under his arm, like the explosive orb was a rugbe ball, Surge flicked an eyebrow at his companion's sudden palor.

"Whats your problem?"

They did not have time for this... Otherwise Giovanni had whole manifestos on his mind to explain how fucking stupid-

"Nidoking, Ice the upper levels. Rhydon-"

The orders died in his mouth as one and all, every door, and window of the buildings front exploded into a swarm or raging arbok and ekans.







The dress guardens to keep the front from that kept were monochrom boxes of whatever plants could tolerate being shoveled together. clash rose Giovannis hackles. How a man with so much wealth could be so tasteless...

It was the gold plated pedestals.the wven numbers sported, and the slowing silver frilled tops that the odd numbered ones had stamped on.

that purloined the gaudiast aspects of three different cultures and banked more on rococo than sense.

Unfortunatly the Don had a few more exotic mon on his roster.

and enough funds to buy out snipers.


Don marchettis team
Treavent 1 (guard on grounds)
Treavent 2. ("")
Zoraoak. (Assassin)
Golbat ("")
Ursaring (brute)
Runerigus (lead/personal guard)

Giovannis team
Persian
Sandslash
Rhydon
Rhyhorn
Nidoking
Nidoqueen

Surges team
Raichu
Voltorb
Electabuzz
Jolteon 1
Jolteon 2
Wheezing (on loan)

The Rocket grunts have either zubat, koffing, ekans, pikachus, or voltorbs.



Bewear and ursuling hadike was standard protocal on the edge of the property line they'd of been torn to shreds by now. As had been the fate of the grunts who'd cut the wires to the outer parimiter fences.

Even if Surges juvinille hairstyle was at risk of taking out an eye. Flicking through the cameras, comparing them to a blue print courtesy of the Viridian historical building department, both Surge and Giovanni and Vermillion dock districtshere were traps and guards. Gunmen aligned at the main doors


outline/to-do list
Machetti pulls a taking you with me by having a berserk gene/ insane/ Runerigus (it uses pain split when hit, aiming at the trainer, not the mon. rock type hiding it in a gallery and killing people. Gio has to beat the mon down with his own team before being able to kill the don with it.

Machetti rants about he is a god and you all are roaches in the corpse of his world and other insanities while doing a shoot out with the varied capos there to take him out.

Post-battle scene idea 1

The members of the mob are collectively dying because the fight with Michetti cost over a million and who the hell has that type of cash just sitting there? And how the hell are they going to report this to the council of Don?

Report? Whose reporting I'm looting, (the mentality of about half the capos)

It's an utter mad house, Gio, who is like one of five sane Capos, knows the camera loop isn't gunna hold forever and is setting his own ribs to keep him stable for the long crawl to the hospital and being conspicuously quiet because he is, to quote grace's bff "made of money" and doesn't want any of these asses to realize that.

Suffice it to say he crawls to Grace's work looking like he got dragged ass backward over a battlefield.

The staff:
"Normally people are happy to wake up to their spouses so why did Mr. Sakaki look scared out of his ever-loving mind?

Grace, heard through the whole bloody ward: you said you were going with them to scope the structural integrities and spy on his mon. what the fuck is this. Two broken ribs, a graze gunshot wound. and none of the police could route me to you. What the FUCK Gio.

Gio: I can... not... explain... because of police confidentiality paperwork? (cringes under his wife's fire) also.. things went to absolute hell?

Grace: Arceus did not craft me to be a fool and you need to remember I control your pain meds, I will have to feed you, and set up your bandages, I can make your recovery hell and I will if you dare lie to me.

The mobster/fake cop that slips in to drop off the papers showing Gio signed a silence order under risk of psychic wiping suddenly gets all the vacation and fiscal reimbursement for the rest of his Working days, and probably canonized after his death in Gios' mind.

Post battle tail end of chapter? set after Gio returns home after reporting to Nona and the various mob heads.

Gio: so I might have made some life-altering changes between there and home. In my defense, I was very... Very... Drunk.

(Sheepishly slides shirt off shirt)

Running a bit above the small of his back the tattoo stretched from hip to hip. A nidoqueen leering, looming forward, one foot stomped, a fissure of broken earth crackling under her paws, originating from that impact point

It was so detailed there were pebbles and debris rising from the edges of the jag. Grace could see the lines of Queen's poison sacks and pick out the scales of her shoulders that started platelike and thinned to pebbles down her arms.


It's beautiful but Grace sucked a breath because while fresh the skin was inflamed well beyond the healing flush of needlework like you'd expect.


"I got oral antibiotics and have been taking them but there's a topical regimen I've been lackluster in upkeeping and it shows"


It was less poor upkeeping and more unable to keep per the things position.

"And no one back at the Sakakis?"

"They insisted it looked fine to them. I went to the hospital the second I looked in a mirror. Basically the night after. That's why I had to catch the bleedeye cabin flight home. I was hungover to hell and back. And I've been trying but..."


Yeah, physics did not avail him. Still...


"I get none of your family willing to help but... Not even the hospital staff? You couldn't swing an appointment with a nurse at urgent before getting home?"


"Nona saw no problem. The various medical persons were encouraged not to either. The only reason I got the script was I threatened to sue for malpractice. And I suspect the biotic isn't strong enough because I feel like crap."


The last was a bit meek. And his gaze was definitely puppy eye adjacent.


"Oh God stop channeling sad growlithes and lie down. No corporate secrets in your things?"


"Not that type of trip." He settled in slowly. Hissing as he eased down onto the couch.


Things rattled as she went through his bags. She'd never touch them without his permission and the one time she'd poked through with the intent to get his things settled up...She'd found paper work, internal investigations on an h.r. sex assault case still spooked her. Part because it was assault. Actual battery. And partly because when she demanded to know why he didn't go to the cops he had fished out their report. A forum "we thank you for your time but do not investigate on hearsay".


Suffice to say if Grace were nosy she wasn't now.


The medical bags and receipts were thankfully at the top. A quick read confirmed Gio was actually wrong. He'd been given an antiviral, one that sounded like the common antibacterial. The topical treatment was even worse being a motioniser.

"Gio if I were a wagering woman I'd say Nona was trying to kill you. A mistake like this can be fatal. We need to get you to a hospital, now."


"It can't be that bad.?"


Her hands ran over his face and winced. She'd thought he was hung over and jetlagged but he was running hot. Stupidhot.

"it's a miracle you survived the drive. You're either having me drive us now or I'm calling an ambulance. Your choice."


Xxx


He had required an iv. Been furious at having to lie "ass up and struck through, like a spoInk meant for the fire."


Grace assured the staff he was normally like this when sick and to stay out of biting range. She called out sick, and actually just poked her head into h.r. and announced Gio was laid up so she wasn't working, (it wasn't like they could fire her) and that was that.

She watched his medicine exchanges like a pidgeot, cross referencing names to the bag number codes, and having to intercept two attempts to give him something he was mildly allergic to.


"Clerical errors" they claimed. Considering his previous medical misadventures Grace didn't buy it. She memorized the workers who dropped it off i.d. card number rather than name...


And wasn't surprised to find when she returned a quick skip in the worker lookup had found one of those numbers deceased and the other fired eight months ago.


Xxx


He drifted in and out for days. Finally stabilizing, and back to his surly self before the week was up. Still, she downplayed it in public. She was as acidic as he was and the only reason people didn't suspect was because she had a pretty face. When she saw the sanity in his eyes she sighed and sadly told him she was a hologram and the year was...

He'd thrown a pillow at her for that.

Then suffered because she wasn't giving an open wound infectee anything off the floor and the staff was slowking slow about answering the call button.

He bitched at her. Shed sent a picture of him to Daisy, Daisy sent a picture of a spoink for the split w an apple in its mouth.

Declaring he hated them both he tried to sleep but couldn't. Daisy took Gio on long rambling discorces about international league practices and contest protocols. Funny stories about trainers and mon even while Grace slapped his hands away from the machines and their volume controls. Grace teased and tweaked him so that he stayed up. Relenting so when he fell asleep it was reasonably close to his normal time and his cycle was more or less undisturbed.

He watched her weariness with the staff and his meds, dark eyes glinting with understanding. The first question he had was how soon he could be released. The date was set and when he left to a mild media buzz trotted out a "funny story" about the dangerous misadventures of unclean needles (the place was name-dropped) and international medical ineptitude (the hospital name-dropped multiple times and yes, Viridian Co would be pursuing charges for damaging corporate property, his personal lawyers were building medical negligence and abuse cases while he spoke). He declined to "show the goods" from the teen magazine reps. Pulling a totally bashful front that fooled everyone except for Grace.

She'd seen him preening in the mirror often enough to know she was going to have to run herd or she'd be drowned in a "mysterious" barrage of total nudity and shirtlessness" and while not a bad thing they did need to work.

He slipped off the medical and media leash to complete his recovery at home.

Once home and safe Grace held him close. it'd been close...too close.

"What the hell Gio."

"My drink was spiked. They took advantage of it to rough me up and toss me at the dingiest dive they could to "celebrate" my coming of age. It's a miracle I got something half as good as this..."

Rolling eyes at his vanity Grace drawled. "It looks pretty but it's a damm miracle you didn't die for it."

"If I decide on more body art it'll be somewhere with some damn sanitization."

"More?"

"Maybe." He was preening a bit as he tried to get a good look at it. Exhaustion and physics worked against him. "It looks nice, you even said it does."

While sweet her judgment was the final end all to his reasoning, (if not a bit worrying) Grace would never tell that she agreed. It was pretty and made something that was pretty dangerous which fitted him very well. After healing the tattoo was sensitive and she shamelessly milked it. Feathering kisses down his spine, minding his scars, raking her nails over the fissure lines. Gio positively melted in bed at that. Some experimenting taught her that a hand at the small of his back, right near 'Queen's impact point made him shiver and go still in public.

And lead to other things in private.

"You like it." He drawled one night over dinner. Shirted, thank Arceus. That had taken a week of arguing and then half a week of her slowly lowering the temperature until he got the hint...

Instead of being angry at the manipulation he'd been delighted at her dabbling in sabotage. Sakakis, Grace mused, were a bit insane. But she was worse of all, she'd married one after all.

"You having an on/off button is nice."

She didn't call him out as a hypocrite when he started researching tattoo facilities in Viridian. Only insisting they be safe. It was ultimately his body and his choice, but there were lines. And she was a medical expert, there were some things he needed to know.

"Gio you do not want to get a tattoo there, men sag in that area as they get older." As well as a bad choice derailed by the wry "And when your metabolism slows down as you age and you gain some weight, how is it going to look then?"

That'd broken his brain a bit, but the absolute worst choice he almost made had led to her frantically hissing at him.
"There, you want a tat over... you wouldn't be able to stand the pain..." When he'd looked to rally due to his bruised male pride, she put her foot down. "Alright new rule, anything that technically goes into me, if it wants to maintain that privilege, does not get touched with ink. Period."

He'd sulked a bit. But on some forethought, when sober, he'd proposed a third rule, no body art decisions while drunk.

Grace decided to never tell him about her second ear piercing.

"It would have been a cute hoothoo-"

"My God Grace, show me some mercy."

She did, eventually. He in turn didn't tease her for inspecting the records of the palces he decided to parton. And for doing a hands-on inspection herself.

He didn't even resent the evening she made him stay in. When she trapped him on their bed, ringed round by warm oil jars and paints. He spent one evening laying on his stomach, her cool fingers feathering warm henna paint waxes and oils over his back so he could see the difference between the two Persian designs he was waffling on. Seeing both on his back made the choice infinitely easier.

And she had no complaints when he'd done different patterns on her back. Only sulking a little when she decided she preferred temporary art over permanent.

The armored car Sakaki had set up base in was a bit cramped. It was meant for him, a labtop, and a mon guard... Or in this case, Surge, who'd insisted on riding double with him.

Key word being, intended.

The various capos and consiglire of Viridian and Vermilion were shoveled into one car. It'd of been a sick parody of a cop car turned clown car if half the men and women inside weren't bloodsoaked, soot smeared, and near smothering Sakaki while he tried to work out a plan E.

Because the opperation had gone to hell in minutes