Chapter Ten: Flock of Wolves



You'd think that winning so many battles in a row would make Misty feel better. But not when they're all against the same person, a Host that just doesn't know when to quit and would be a lot healthier if he did know when to quit.



It was bad enough that Abe kept challenging Misty. It was annoying enough that, despite her Lapras and Starmie clearly being above and beyond what his team could ever accomplish (she thought), the kid just wouldn't quit. But, no, it had to be worse than that.



He kept trying to steal her Lapras.



In fairness, he always apologized for it. "It's not my fault!" he kept insisting. "The Voices--"



"I don't care a Slowpoke Tail what your Voices want," Misty shot back. "You know you're never leaving Cerulean City if you can't beat me. That's why the Voices keep leading you back here, isn't it? To try to take my badge?"



"Why are you so bloody concerned about keeping me in Cerulean?" Abe asked. "Why prevent free passage from town to town?"



"Because of the freaking Rockets, that's why!" Misty snapped. "You know full well what they tried to do to Kanto -- you're the history nut! We monitor all transport from between cities to keep the citizens in and the Rockets out. What else are we supposed to do?"



Of course it was a lie. The Gatekeepers and the Rocket Brigade had been two sides of the same coin since forever, and not even Surge realized it. It was a flock of wolves, nothing more or less.



But the Host didn't need to know that.



Abe took a deep breath. "Listen up, Misty. I know you have... reasons... for disliking the Voices. I didn't ask to be a Host, or whatever this is! I didn't choose to be possessed! Whatever you have against the Voices, there's no need to take it out on me!"



"You're right, there's not," Misty deadpanned. "I'm just doing this for kicks."



And her Starmie blasted Abe's last Pokemon away for the ninth time.



---



Of course Misty had more issues than Abe to worry about. Bill had escaped his prison; how the heck he'd done it, she had no idea. The security cameras had glitched out without warning, then come back online ten minutes later as if nothing whatsoever was wrong. Even Deputy Chief Roberts had no clue what was happening. Not that he ever did, but you go to war with the army you have, not the army you need.



Misty called up Giovanni, who called up Admiral Catbar, who, predictably, believed it was a trap. The mutated Meowth gave Giovanni orders to lead Team Rocket on a search for all Cubone in the area, removing their skull masks until they found the transformed Bill.



Naturally, the stated excuse had nothing to do with Bill. Cubone skulls sold well on the black market, considered collector's items from the difficulty had in procuring them from their wearers. Why wouldn't Team Rocket be in on a racket like that?



Now the only problem was dealing with Abe.



---



With Bill absent from the PC system for quite a long time, and currently lacking a few fingers, Giovanni had full reign of the system. He'd had his top hackers write up a little virus that would specifically target the Host whenever he approach the PC system. A bloody good one, too, if he did say so himself.



Targeting Abe's Pokemon would have been easy, self-rewarding, and totally pointless, given that the boy could always just catch new ones. Giovanni was going to need to be a little more clever than that if he wanted to leave this child high and dry.



Giovanni pulled up all the known files on the kid. Top of his class in history and political science, son of a single mother named... okay, so he'd file that one away as a special interest case to examine on his own personal time. Can't just tell Catbar THAT. Chose Charmander, and a rabble-rouser Charmander at that who'd mooned a Gatekeeper in protest -- not that Charmander even wore clothes, but it's still quite rude to show one's hind end to a Gatekeeper, especially if said hind end constitutes a fire hazard.



And he was travelling with Shaquille O'Nix of all people. The baccer star was a regular celebrity, and his job had allowed him to travel throughout Kanto along with his baccer team on multiple occasions for tournaments. That could indeed prove problematic.



The important part, at least the part that Catbar would find important, was that Abe had been seen carrying a fossil and consulting a map. Giovanni knew the fossils had all been destroyed (at least to the point in which anything immortal can be destroyed) and locked away in Mt. Moon. Their attempts to get the Super Nerd to steal Abe's fossil had failed, and while the Gatekeepers could just walk up to Abe and order him to hand over the fossil, that would draw too much obvious attention to the Gatekeepers looking for fossils.



And Giovanni would rather not let the region know about the Gatekeepers containing two god-tier beings. The whole mess with the Super Nerd killing that Poliwag in the Pokemon Center had already drawn too much attention to their having the Helix Fossil. One fossil contained was just doing their job; two fossils was potentially worrying, and the last thing Giovanni needed was a population worried about its caretakers.



Especially with that Bill character running around. The Sabrina automaton had confirmed that this Bill had powers bordering on god-tier himself, and there was no guarantee that the Improbity Badge's scrambling of his genetic code would last forever. And Bill was on Surge's side, which meant he'd be against any genuine threats to the stability of the region -- and probably not see things Giovanni's way.



If the Gatekeepers wanted the Dome Fossil, they were going to have to be sneaky about it.



That was where the virus came in. The next time Abe accessed a PC, the virus would act as a magnet, drawing Abe's map and the Dome Fossil into itself. Cards on the table, Giovanni had no idea exactly how that was possible, but he trusted his hackers, so it had to work, right?



The boy surely couldn't get far without direction. Why, he couldn't even beat Misty.



This wasn't going to be any problem at all.