The New Normal - 17-10

The New Normal – 17-10 – Extraction

(Civilian POV)

It wasn’t surprising that John and Cynthia were the power couple that had dominated the headlines for several weeks, especially after their engagement had become public knowledge. It only took a single intrepid reporter at the right place and at the right time to snap a picture of the ring on Cynthia’s figure for the whole world to explode from the implications.

Most of known world, especially Sinnoh, were completely stunned and shocked at the reveal that their very own Champion was now actually engaged. But to him, he had foreseen this scenario months ago, though he was still a little surprised when it did happen.

After all, he had been following John’s journey very closely for a long time now. So it just made sense for John to propose when he had finally moved over to Sinnoh.

However, despite the enormous amount of public attention that the both of them got as a result of their engagement, both of them refused to talk about it in any capacity. No matter how much the reporters had tried to badger them with questions about their relationship, they simply refused to answer, citing that it was a personal matter that didn’t need to be shared with the public.

Naturally, that didn’t stop the reporters from trying anyways, and after they did some research, they eventually realised that John and Cynthia were no longer living at Celestic Town – as practically everyone had previously assumed – and instead had purchased a house together in the previously forgotten Route 221.

Frankly, he didn’t even remember that the Route existed, nor did he think that he had ever been there in his life. He had to check a map of Sinnoh just to find out where it was!

Needless to say, after that discovery the reporters had gone over there in droves to try and ‘ambush’ the pair with questions right outside their house, only for them to be barred from entering by a squad of Jennys that shooed them off the premises. Some tried to push forwards anyways, but they got slapped with trespassing charges and were forcibly escorted away.

Personally, he felt that it was a good thing that the Champion and the Protector-Guardian of Sinnoh were entitled to their privacy. They might be public figures, but they deserved a private life too.

That being said, he couldn’t deny being interested in seeing what their new house was like, especially since there had been a few photos published on the Pokénet about their new home.

So after booking a few days of vacation from his usual job as an analyst, he took a quick trip over to Sinnoh and visited the newly renovated Route 221 as one of his destinations.

And the moment he arrived there, he was stunned by just how much the place had changed from the old photos that had been published of the place.

The past Route 221 had been completely barren. It was a place that had been practically abandoned by the Sinnoh League. There was literally no reason to visit this place, since there wasn’t even a convenient land route to here. Many had even suspected that Route 221 had been a den of criminals, since the Sinnoh police hardly even patrolled the place to begin with. Fortunately, it wasn’t the case, as it had just been empty.

Yet now, the sight before him couldn’t be any more different.

The most obvious change was the newly built large house that had been erected in the middle of a newly cleared field. Even though he could only view it at a distance, as it was gated off with a few Jennys patrolling around it, he could still tell that the house had been built with very expensive reinforced material that was usually reserved for arenas and the like.

That could not have been a cheap endeavour. Not when the house looked like it was big enough to fit an entire family’s worth of people inside, even though it currently only had two occupants within.

…Obviously, John and Cynthia were expecting to use that space soon, but that wasn’t any of his business.

However, the new house wasn’t the only thing that had been built in Route 221, as his attention turned to an entire area that had been completely cleared of trees in favour of a massive training field and ranch.

It was easily as large as any of the training fields he had seen attached to a Gym. The same applied to the ranch, which easily expanded to cover a large portion of the Route. And within, he could see several Eevee, Teddieursa, and Miltank running around – which were likely tied to John’s family new breeding business that they had just expanded over to Sinnoh.

He hadn’t heard anything about it in the news so far, but he knew that once the advertisements started to come out, the breeding business would undoubtedly be extremely popular. If only because of John’s incredible reputation alone.

After taking a good look at everything, he was about to leave when he heard someone walking up from behind.

Turning around, he was utterly shocked to see who it was – it was Drake.

But he quickly recovered from his surprise and shot Drake a polite and respectful nod before turning away, as he didn’t want to be a bother. Except Drake was more chatty than he expected.

“Hey there, stranger. You a friend of John’s?” He called out, “It’s not usual that we have visitors here. At least, not anymore. Not after those fucking reporters got the boot. Though he didn’t say that there was anyone else coming over.”

A very small part of himself was tempted to lie, to say that he was a friend of John’s, but he quickly recognised that Drake would see through his flimsy deception and so stuck to the truth.

“No, I’m just a visitor.” He replied, “I came over from Indigo after hearing about all the fuss about Route 221. I just wanted to see it for myself.”

Then he hesitated, “…If I may ask, what are you doing over here, Elite Drake? Are you just here to visit John?”

“Just call me Drake. I’m no Elite. Not anymore.” He waved him off, “And to answer your question – I got called here by John and decided to pay him a visit. Everything else is none of your business.”

Fair enough, he knew better than to push for more.

He thought that this was going to be the end of their conversation, but to his surprise once again, Drake spoke up, “And what do you think of this new place that John’s built up, as someone who isn’t part of the upper leadership? After so many years in the Elite Four, I don’t believe my own instincts are reliable when judging what the common man would think. So I’d like to hear for your opinion.”

The question came with far more gentleness than he had expected; had Drake mellowed out now that he had retired? But he didn’t dwell on it for now as he gave his answer.

“If this belonged to anyone else other than the Champion and Protector-General of Sinnoh, then I would think that it’s a bit too much.” He explained, “After all, I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen an entire Route be bought out like this – all just for a home. Its comparable to what the Blackthorns did. But because the occupants are who they are, it’s understandable why such a place belongs to them. I’d treasure the privacy and training fields myself, if I could afford it. And honestly, I think that it suits their titles. It’d be weird if they lived in some common house, as I don’t think that would match their level of prestige.”

Besides, it wasn’t like their home was all that ostentatious. As he said, it was nothing compared to the Blackthorns, who owned an entire city to themselves. And the Blackthorn temples and homes were far grander and larger than anything he had seen here – in his opinion, almost excessively so.

Additionally, while the Blackthorns were the more extreme example, there were many other Gym Leaders or Elite Four members who owned something similar to John and Cynthia. Pryce owned almost all of Mahogany Town. Same with Giovanni with Viridian City. Even in Hoenn, while Sidney didn’t like to advertise it, he was much more well off than he seemed. The man might look like a rebel punk rocker, but he was also very, very wealthy. Not as rich as Steven of course, but Sidney owned quite a lot of high value real estate.

…Hmm, maybe he could actually write up a post about this on the Pokénet. It could be a discussion-worthy topic, especially if a post came from him – TangelaThoughts.

Drake let out a grunt, shaking him out of his thoughts, “Well I appreciate the honesty. I’ll pass on your words to John and Cynthia, I’m sure they’d like to know that their new home hasn’t made them too ‘out of touch’ with the rest of the public. Anyways, I’m going to continue make use of their training field while I’m still here, so you can either head off or stay and watch. I’ll get out of your hair.”

And without another word, Drake stepped through the gates that led to the ranch, leaving him behind. Seeing the two Jennys that flanked the gates, he knew better than to follow after him, so he simply turned around and made his way out of Route 221, pleased with the rare chance to speak with such an esteemed and long-time member of the Elite Four.

Overall, he could see why the two of them decided to live here. It was a place brimming with tons of potential for future development. Considering how much they’d already build up already, and given how there were clearly still things to be built, he wouldn’t be surprised if Route 221 would eventually transform into a small town thanks to their efforts.

He’d probably make a post about it on the Pokénet if it does happen.

==================

(Looker POV)

He didn’t know how it all went so wrong in what felt like such a short period of time, but for every day that passed, he felt his friendship with N slowly start to slip away as N spent more and more time with Ghetsis. Ghetsis now almost completely occupied N’s time, and it seemed like N was totally happy with that.

That was bad. It meant that his initial plan to subvert N away from Ghetsis was seriously at risk.

It was like their earlier promise to investigate the darkness behind PLASMA had been forgotten. Ghetsis had his new hooks into his ‘child’, and was now moulding N exactly how he wanted him to be.

And in the end, in his last conversation with N, where he had done his best to subtly remind N about the darkness that lurked behind the false smiles of Ghetsis, N had hesitated yet ultimately chose to maintain his belief in Ghetsis over himself.

“…I’m not saying that Ghetsis hadn’t made mistakes, but I still believe he’s doing the right thing. I don’t think what PLASMA is doing is wrong.” N had said to him, “I know he wants the best for me and the world. Even the other Sages agree too.”

He remembered the small and sad smile that N had given him, “I know you have your doubts, Hilbert. It’s understandable, given what you’ve seen. But like I said to you before, I’m asking you to believe in us. We will make the world a better place. I promise that.”

At this point, he knew that there was no convincing N. N had made his choice, and he had chosen Ghetsis over himself. It was disappointing, but he supposed he had been too optimistic about his influence over N.  

If that wasn’t bad enough, he had realised over the past few days that he was being watched. His instincts were screaming at him that someone, somewhere, was hunting him.

It didn’t take a genius to realise that his new hunters were related to Ghetsis. The man must have wanted to clear away any and all influences over N, to ensure that his puppet wouldn’t be exposed to any other differing ideas.

He considered trying to push the suspicion off of himself so that he could maintain his cover for longer, but ultimately, he decided it was too much of a risk. All agents were trained to evacuate if they ever felt like their life was going to be at risk, and he definitely felt like it was about to be.

That was when he knew that his time as ‘Hilbert’ had come to an end. It was time to leave.

So one day, in the dead of night, he made his move. After sending off a full report about everything that he had seen and obtained thanks to his cover as Rood’s assistant, he had pretended to go to sleep as he waited for the dead of night, where he knew most of the personnel would be asleep as well. Then when it was time to strike, his Croagunk moved around and destroyed all of the hidden cameras and devices that he had long-since identified. As soon as they were, he snuck out of his room and left the PLASMA headquarters behind.

Since they were on an island, he needed to get to the parked speedboat that Croagunk had hidden away earlier in the day.

However, just as he entered into the clearing where he had left the speedboat, his Croagunk suddenly leapt towards him and narrowly managed to parry a Night Slash that would have taken his head off.

He turned around just in time to see his Croagunk engaged with a single Bisharp, while two more rushed in from behind. Meanwhile, three people dressed up as ninjas emerged from the shadows.

These must be his hunters.

“Surrender.” One of them said, an undercurrent of malice present in his tone, “Or you’ll just make this more painful for yourself.”

He didn’t bother to give a response. They weren’t worth it. They might have thought of him as an easy mark, as undefended as he looked, but he wouldn’t be so easy of a mark to take down. Nor would his Croagunk be easy prey.

As one of the Bisharp engaged his Croagunk, the other two must have thought that it would have been too distracted to stop them from rushing him down.

They were wrong. With an incredible level of martial prowess, Croagunk ducked under another Night Slash as it tripped up the Bisharp with a Low Kick, allowing it to disengage itself so that it could fire off a wide Vacuum Wave at the other two Bisharp, forcing them to throw up Protect shields.

The third Bisharp recovered the quickest and retaliated with a Metal Claw. Only for Croagunk to parry it out of the way and return the damage with a powerful Counter – sending the Bisharp crashing into a tree. It was instantly knocked out.

The other two tried to take advantage of this, but their follow-up attacks were uncoordinated, allowing Croagunk to block one with a Protect while simultaneously ducking under another and blasting it away with another Vacuum Wave.

From these few exchanges, he had already figured out that these Bisharp – as intimidating as they might look – were nowhere near as strong as they seemed. They were trained only to ambush, meant to take down a Pokémon in a single surprise strike. However, now that they had failed to do so, they were struggling to match his Croagunk’s skills in a fair fight.

Perhaps that wasn’t all too surprising, given that they were never expected to be in a fair fight to begin with.

Yet it wasn’t only the Bisharp that he had to worry about. Seeing their Pokémon unable to secure a swift takedown, the three ninjas themselves also decided to take action and rushed straight for him.

Knowing that Croagunk was already busy enough dealing with Bisharp, he knew that it was time for him to defend himself.

One of the ninjas went for a high kick for his face, but he backpedalled just in time for the kick to narrowly miss. Then before the ninja could recover, he rushed forwards and threw his full weight into a body slam that sent the man into the ground before he bashed him in the face with his fist.

Then he felt his head spinning as he felt something heavy slam into the side of his head. But his trained instincts kept him in the fight as he raised an arm and caught the sucker punch that was aimed for his stomach.

However, before he could try to retaliate, the third ninja snuck up from behind and kicked him hard in the back – sending him sprawling to the ground.

Fortunately, before they could stomp his face in, his Croagunk intervened with a devastating Brick Break that sent one of the ninjas flying through the air. A Bisharp tried to punish this, but Croagunk moved like it had eyes on the back of its head, rolling to the side and out of the way of the Metal Claw as it spun itself in the air and delivered a heel kick into the Bisharp’s face.

Looker scrambled up from the ground just as another Bisharp dashed forwards as it tried to bisect him with a Night Slash. But his Croagunk was faster, rushing over with a Bullet Punch and blocking the blow with its own body. Then it channelled that energy with Counter and fired back with a huge Vacuum Wave that knocked the Bisharp off balance and to the ground.

One of the ninjas tried to capitalise on this distraction as he launched a powerful punch towards him. He blocked it with both hands, before using his caught arm to pull the ninja forwards just so that he could kick him away as hard as he could with a boot to the chest.

He knew he wasn’t as skilled as these guys, so his goal was to buy time until Croagunk could take them out. So until then, even as his head was ringing from the blow that he had taken earlier, he knew he had to hold his ground.

A sound from behind had him instinctively throwing himself to the side, just in time to dodge away a roundhouse kick that would have struck him across the back of the head. Then he pulled himself into a forwards roll as he rolled into a bush and around a tree, which gave him a little bit of breathing space to pull himself off the ground.

And then he had to be promptly rescued by Croagunk as one of the Bisharp had nearly snuck up on him with a Sucker Punch, which was only parried away last second by Croagunk. Another Bisharp suddenly appeared from below, erupting out of the ground with a Dig, though another Vacuum Wave from Croagunk forced it back before he was slashed in half.

Knowing he couldn’t stay here, he sprinted in the opposite direction of the Bisharp, though as he did so he noticed that one of the Bisharp had already been knocked out. But he didn’t last long before one of the ninja appeared in front of him and tripped him with a leg sweep, sending him painfully crashing face-first into the ground.

Before he could pull himself up, he felt a boot strike the center of his back, causing him to let out a pained gasp as all of the air left his lungs. He tried to roll over, but one of the ninjas had kept in pinned in place with his arms around his neck as they strangled him.

“We need him alive!” He heard one shout, “We need to know what he knows.”

Fortunately, before the darkness could envelop him, his Croagunk delivered a bone-crushing Brick Break that sent the ninja crashing into a nearby tree – likely having broken several bones in his body.

He gasped for air as everything hurt, but he still allowed himself to be pulled to his feet by his Croagunk, knowing that the ninjas had probably already reported his escape attempt back to their bosses and that the whole compound was likely, or was already, hunting for him.

But, probably guessing what he was thinking, his partner gave him a reassuring croak as Croagunk pointed forwards. Following to where it was pointing at, he saw that all 3 Bisharp had been taken out, all of them having been knocked out and slammed against the various trees and rocks that surrounded them.

And the ninja were soon to follow suit, as now that Croagunk didn’t have to waste time dealing with the Bisharp, the remaining two ninja were swiftly taken down by precise Poison Jabs that knocked them right out.

However, he knew that the danger wasn’t over yet, so he limped his way to the speedboat as he ordered his Croagunk to haul their unconscious bodies onto the speedboat. This include the Bisharp too, as he didn’t want them to be able to give anything away either.

Then he sent out another message from his phone, informing his superiors in the International Police that he was going to be bringing potentially high-value prisoners back home and that he was going to need another method of extraction from Unova.

Their original plan was for him to sneak out to Castelia City, where it would be easy for him to just take a ship home. However, now that he was lugging around all these bodies with him, that was no longer an option anymore. He would look like a kidnapper – which, technically, he was.

Fortunately, after he had gotten everything and everyone onto the boat and was departing from the island, he received a message back from his superiors letting him know that the plan had changed.

They were no longer going to keep Unova in the dark about this operation. Instead, given the value of the prisoners that he had just obtained, they were going to interrogate them alongside the Unova Police to justify a full investigation into PLASMA with International Police support.

The fact that they had undertaken an unauthorised operation within Unova’s borders was not going to go over well with the Unova League, but apparently his superiors (or more likely, the Champions/Elite Four that they reported to) had decided that the urgency of the situation was more important than political optics.

They had judged that Unova couldn’t afford to be kept in the dark anymore, not when their were major discrepancies in PLASMA’s operations that absolutely needed to be investigated.

But that was a concern for later. For now, he had orders to make his way to the nearby Nuvema Town, where a contingent of Jennys from the Unova Police should be waiting to take his prisoners off his hand. After that, he was to cooperate with them, explain everything he had uncovered, and wait for further instructions. More reinforcements were already scheduled to arrive as soon as possible.

However, as he sailed to Nuvema Town, he felt a pang of guilt for leaving N, his friend, behind. Even though his identity as Hilbert had been completely fake, and he had approached N with hidden intentions, that didn’t change the fact that their relationship had been genuine. Or at the very least, he had done his best to look out for N, even if it was to use N to subvert PLASMA.

So he felt bad for abandoning him like this. Especially because he knew that N would be devastated when he heard Hilbert had ‘left’ – no doubt Ghetsis would do all he can to twist the narrative so that he would be painted in a far worse light.

It was truly a shame, but there was nothing he could do about it. At the end of the day, he had an objective to complete, and he prioritised that over everything else.

It was just another day on the job.

A.N. A split chapter this time, since I didn’t want the entire chapter to be focused on Looker and wanted to do a bit of worldbuilding with John’s new place – especially in the eyes of an outsider. Hope you’re happy with the descriptions about how Route 221 is looking; things have really changed a lot!

As with Looker, I’ve felt that it was about time that his time as an undercover agent in PLASMA should come to an end, given that he had done all he could. And while he tried to sway N over to his side, sadly, Ghetsis just has far too influence over N’s life and can make it very difficult for N to break away from his manipulations. I didn’t want everything to be smooth sailing, and I felt that it was realistic for Ghetsis to be able to manipulate N, given who he is.

As for the Shadow Triad that Looker confronts, I tried to portray them somewhat realistically compared to what we got in the games. In the games, they can teleport and appear at will – disappearing in a blink of an eye. I found that completely unrealistic and it didn’t fit to the existing worldbuilding I’ve already done for TNN. So instead, they’re just very capable martial artists, but not actually superhuman. As for their Pokémon… I didn’t see any reason why they should be any stronger than the average. And as I’ve mentioned before, Looker’s Croagunk is far from ordinary, and I wanted to portray another ‘real’ fight.

Hope you enjoyed! We will be back with John in the next chapter!