Kanto Week 30 Part 1 - Rocket Lore
- Location
- Elsewhere
[X] Spend Time with your Pokemon - Now that you're back in your home city, it may be nice to spend some time at the beach where you met Dragonair.
[X] Check on Team Rocket - You're a bit curious as to what Team Rocket was up to. You should be able to ask Officer Jenny thanks to your participation in battles against the Team.
[X] Check on Team Rocket - You're a bit curious as to what Team Rocket was up to. You should be able to ask Officer Jenny thanks to your participation in battles against the Team.
After a few hours of waiting, a group of 5 individuals from Celadon City arrived to pick up the Rockets. Led by Officer Jenny, they asked a few questions on how Violet and Willow defeated them as well as if they knew what the criminals had planned. Without much knowledge, the two girls simply mentioned that the grunts admitted to fighting other unknown trainers and that they had seemingly accomplished their objectives.
The rest of the trip to Celadon City was far less interesting as Officer Jenny offered to drive them the rest of the way. Willow looked at Violet, clearly interested in the officer. After spending a second to think it over, Violet nodded her head giving her rival approval to agree for both of them.
"That was wild, huh?" Willow broke the silence a few minutes into the drive. Sitting in the backseat of the squad car, Violet noticed Officer Jenny's eyes flicker towards the rearview mirror before subtly pretending not to pay attention. "I mean, taking out 14 Pokemon in one move, that's crazy."
Violet gave a smile at that, subconsciously moving her hand towards Forretress' Pokeball. "Team Rocket isn't the most professional group out there," she quipped.
"Tell me about it," Willow replied. "They spend the entire time arguing, it's like they've never worked together."
Officer Jenny briefly looked at the two through the mirror, clearly having more information on the topic. Catching Violet's eyes looking at the mirror, the head of Celadon's police force added her thoughts to the conversation. "That's because they haven't, this was a group of two cells operating together."
"D-do you know what they were doing?" Violet hesitantly asked, curious about what the Rockets were up to.
The police officer frowned in thought, debating whether or not to tell them. In the end, a combination of factors seemed to make her decision for her as she began to explain. "How much do you know about the Teams?"
"They're regional criminal groups, right?" Willow replied. "Team Rocket is in Kanto and Johto, and other regions have their own Teams to deal with."
"While Team Rocket is in Kanto and Johto, the groups often disagree." Officer Jenny began to explain. "There's still tensions between the regions after the war 15 years ago, and some of that bleeds into the Teams."
"W-was it an in-internal conflict?" Violet asked, trying to fit the pieces into place.
"It's what we suspect," confirmed Officer Jenny. "The Kanto branch was pretty surprised that Lieutenant Surge's gym was attacked, and according to Gym Leader Giovanni, it seems the Johto branch organized it. One of his attendants was able to find a temporary base in the mountains with signs of battle."
At the mention of Giovanni, Willow grumbled. "Is that why his gym is always closed?"
"He's rather busy," quipped the officer with a slight smile on her lips. "He's one of the few gym leaders to get actionable intelligence on Team Rocket. Even Sabrina has struggled with that."
"She's still way cooler than him."
Officer Jenny let out a laugh, "I won't deny that."
"S-so, it was an ego thing?" Violet asked, thinking that there was something more to this than just ego. "I-it seems short-sighted."
"There's very few members of Team Rocket that think long-term," the officer began to clarify. "It's difficult to improve or rise through the ranks, with openings only opening due to arrests. The most likely reason for this was the Kanto branch being annoyed at the Johto branch muscling in." Nonetheless, as she spoke, Officer Jenny began to frown at the explanation growing less and less convincing to her.
"I-is that what you think?" Violet directly asked, causing an expression of surprise to cross the officer's face.
She glanced in the mirror, an approving look crossing her face. "You're surprisingly observant." Officer Jenny commented. "I've talked to some of my family, and I'm not so sure it was as simple as Giovanni thinks. Why would the Johto Team be acting in Kanto when they have so many issues at home? The trainers there aren't weak by any means and have been giving Team Rocket all sorts of problems recently."
"It would be strange," Willow added with a thoughtful look on her face. "Maybe it was another Team?"
"That's what I suspect," Officer Jenny said, hiding an expression of worry well. "And we already have our hands full with Team Rocket."
As they continued to drive towards Celadon City, the two trainers continued to converse with Officer Jenny and learned a good bit about how Team Rocket operated. The organization seemingly had a diverse set of revenues thanks to its large variety of cells. Gambling and white-collar crime were their most lucrative sources of revenue, although both Violet and Willow felt their eyes glaze over when Officer Jenny began to explain the intricacies of tax evasion. Thankfully the officer noticed this and switched to talking about what the Team spent money on.
It was mainly absurdly complex projects and acquisitions, with the temporary conquest of Silph Co being one of them. While they were defeated by a single young trainer, they had managed to download all technical data related to Pokeballs and were using it for nefarious purposes that Officer Jenny refused to discuss. Additionally, they used to have a massive budget for attempting to capture or locate the Legendary Pokemon Mew before abruptly canceling the program. The League also suspected a notable sum of money was spent on shadow training schools for some of their operatives, with D and V being suspected graduates of the program along with the more infamous duo of Jessie and James.
The last major topic covered how Team Rocket managed to be so secretive yet large in scale, a topic which Officer Jenny admitted greatly frustrated the League. Multiple gym leaders had attempted to root out the team in the past, with only Sabrina and Giovanni having any measure of success. Seemingly able to operate with full knowledge of what the Pokemon League's covert groups were doing, espionage and counter-terrorism activity against Team Rocket had proven nearly impossible. A few gym leaders had even shifted towards a more reflexive approach, ceding the initiative to Team Rocket but preparing notable forces to respond. While a few, namely Surge, Sabrina, and Giovanni had been arguing against this, the lack of success of their approach had allowed it to grow more and more popular over time.
From there, the conversation began to shift once more, this time to Willow asking Officer Jenny about what the Jenny family was like, causing her to begin playing coy. Realizing that the officer was about to begin teasing the two of them with misleading answers, Violet began to plan her outing with her Pokemon.
Pick 2 Pokemon to Focus On
[] Dragonair
[] Forretress
[] Chansey
[] Magneton
[] Umbreon