2023-12-28: The Power Of Suck
- Log: The Power Of Suck
- Cast: Anne Aomori, Jessie and James
- Where: Aomori Pokemon Lab, Viridian City
- Date: December 29, 2023
- Summary: The foremost duo of Team Rocket have an appointment at the Viridian lab to get some equipment for their upcoming mission from Doc Aomori.
<Pose Tracker> Anne Aomori has posed.
The lab in Viridian is mostly clear today. It's on the outskirts of town, not so often traveled, and most of Anne's assistants have the day off today. She's still there, though. Becauuuse...
There's a table in the back of this particular room, along with a number of computer terminals and other bits of technology, on which stands various equipment. Anne Aomori is there at one of the terminals, tapping away at something, while she waits. Her back is to the door, but...
Her Tylphlosion's isn't. He is currently curled up near her, watching the door for their soon-arrivals.
This is, in theory, a fairly clandestine meeting. Only one assistant, who knows the deal, is on duty in the room helping her.
But it doesn't have to be totally hush-hush.
<Pose Tracker> Jessie and James has posed.
Hush-hush, huh...?
Then, the true power of shush...
Two LIBRARIANS enter the Viridian Laboratory. One is dressed in drab brown blouse and pencil skirt, her magenta hair all done up in a bun; the other, in a painfully olive vest over grey slacks, his lavender hair combed back. Both of them have glasses on their noses, and the man is carrying several books.
This is, of course, a disguise.
Team Rocket's disguise, that is--!!
And as soon as they get inside the lab, James drops the pile of books with an almighty clatter. "Haaa--!!" He sighs, slumping, knees all bent. "Doctor Aomori's books are always so heavy...!"
"Stop complaining!" Jessie chastises him, picking up a treatise on evolution through trading to swat him over the head. "If the good Doctor wants to operate in polite society, everyone has to think this is a normal Pokemon lab!"
"Myarrr!!" Meowth meows, ganging up on James immediately.
"But I'm always the one who has to carry..." "Never mind that! Come on, we have to go our equipment!" "I'll have to carry that, too..."
Anyway, it's pretty obvious Team Rocket have arrived even before they pile into the room Anne is in. And, dear god, they sent this team.
"Doctor Aomori!" Jessie calls, cheerfully, waving herself in. "How are you~!"
"Aww, Laqui," James focuses on the Tylphlosion, instead, approaching the burning ferret with hands up. "Good boy, gooood boy..."
"Myaowth!" Meowth meows, as he hops up onto the table to bat at the various pieces of equipment.
<Pose Tracker> Anne Aomori has posed.
Clatter clatter. Laqui wrinkles his nose. So does Anne. But she turns, and by the time Team Rocket's favorites have stepped into the main area she's facing them, currently still seated in her rolling chair. It's a very nice chair. Her long gray hair drapes over the back.
"Librarians should be more careful with my books," she reflects. Then she smiles. "It's nice to see you, Jessie. You too James, Meowth."
Laqui looks up with interest at James. He snaps his jaws a little. "Tyyyy..."
"Meowth, don't knock over anything important," Anne warns, and then says, "I'm good. I've got some very interesting experiments going at the moment. We'll have to see how they go."
How is Sprigatito doing? Well, that's not important right now.
"Are you three ready for your next mission?"
<Pose Tracker> Jessie and James has posed.
"Eeheheheh... good, good boy..!!" James laughs, nervously, as Laqui snaps his jaws. Normally, he'd love to ask about Sprigatito, but they have a mission. "Sorry, Doctor!" He laughs, rubbing the back of his head with a hand. "They're just so heavy!"
"Mwowr..." Meowth grumbles, and Laqui, at least, can clearly hear Giovanni's Top Cat (no one fact check this) calling James a wimp.
"What are you working on now?" Jessie asks, as she bustles over to the desk. She's always been interested in Anne's work, naturally, because Anne is just so nice to her. By Anne's standards. But then, she remembers -- "Oh, yes, the mission! The Boss has entrusted us with going to Pewter --" "Pallet," James interjects, without missing a beat, "Pallet Town to steal all the Pokemon from the Pokemon Centre --" "Lab," James sounds a little exhausted, "Lab! And to do that, we're going to need some real firepower!!" Jessie isn't talking about guns, of course.
She's talking about the power of a vacuum.
<Pose Tracker> Anne Aomori has posed.
Laqui seems satisfied with James's reaction, and settles back down to nap. Did he do that just to mess with James? ...Maybe. Laqui is a Rocket, too!
She waves a hand vaguely, "You should lift more. I can set you up with a good regimen." This is not the first time she's said this.
Jessie bustles over, "This moment, I'm analyzing Pokemon reaction to new stimuli. If you happen to notice any of our 'visitors' while you're out, do tell me about it." She doesn't explain in any more details yet, though, because, "Right. On to the mission."
Pallet. Lab. James is paying attention, at least.
"You are," Anne says. "And I have just the thing to give that old Oak a nasty surprise."
She gestures to the table, where Meowth might already be inspecting it. "This is a powerful vacuum that is perfectly calibrated for the weight and mass of Pokeballs. Which of you will be using it?"
<Pose Tracker> Jessie and James has posed.
"M--maybe later," James laughs it off, and not for the first time. By 'later' he of course means 'never,' but he's too polite to say that.
"Heeeh?" Jessie wonders, peeking at Anne's screen. "Visitors?" They've been busy with their various schemes, and haven't noticed the distressingly well-armed interlopers who just appeared! "Then we'll just have to give them a good greeting...!"
But: the mission.
"Mrrrar..." Meowth wonders, tilting his head, whether Oak even knows their labs are in eternal conflict. He's never seemed like a particularly... attentive guy. Still, he hoists up the mouth of the vacuum in both his paws, showing it to Jessie. "Mrowr!"
"Wow, this is just what we need!!" Jessie exclaims, clasping her hands together. "James, you can operate something like this, can't you?"
"Why do I always have to lug around the tools?!" James wails.
"Because you're a tool!" Jessie shoots back.
"Gah! In front of Doctor Aomori?!" He yelps, throwing up a hand.
"Exactly," Jessie says, hand to her hip. "Strap him up, Doc!!"
<Pose Tracker> Anne Aomori has posed.
It's nice that he's polite, at least.
Anne's screen has some images of some STRANGE-LOOKING PEOPLE who have been about Viridian Forest. Just who they are is unimportant right now. She smiles at the notion of a good greetin.
"That's beside the point," Anne says to Meowth in the meantime, and then of course, the answer is given. Anne looks between the two until Jessie sells James out, and suppresses a laugh at their antics. It wouldn't do to let them know it was funny.
"Here goes." Aomori happens to be fairly strong; this is important, because this piece of equipment is heavy, though once she puts on both straps at his shoulders the weight evens out, properly distributed. It's handleable. But also complainable.
"You should be nice to James," she says vaguely, and then pats him on the shoulders once she's satisfied that he won't drop it.
"Remember, if you break my equipment, you pay the penance. Get out there and show Oak that it's time he made like a tree!"
<Pose Tracker> Jessie and James has posed.
James immediately sags a good five inches when that heavy vacuum is strapped to him. "Can't you make these any lighter?", he whines.
"They're going to suck us up all the prize Pokemon, so stop complaining! Don't you want to suck?!" Jessie shoots back, looking at him from behind Anne.
"Maybe I'm just a sucker..." James sighs.
"Myaowth," Meowth agrees.
"But don't worry, Doctor!" Jessie flashes her a victory-V, as she bustles over to grasp James's hands. "We'll take good care of your equipment! It won't be like last time!" Or the time before that, or the time before that, or...
"Mrowr, mrawr!" Meowth hops off of the table, to wag his paws eagerly beside them.
Well, at least they're ready for another mission.
<Pose Tracker> Anne Aomori has posed.
"Yes," Anne answers James's question.
It is harder not to laugh at their antics this time, but Anne maintains reasonably cool detachment between them. And Jessie of course...
"See that it isn't," she says. It will be, and she will enact the punishment again. It's just going to happen. But they can pretend, for a while.
"'And leaf'," she adds. "To make like a tree, and leaf."
She says this patiently. Calmly.
"Oh, and..."
"Make us proud."
<Pose Tracker> Jessie and James has posed.
"Hahaha! That's the Doctor!" James and Jessie laugh, as she finishes her tree pun. They're definitely pretending that they're not going to wreck her equipment and end up on her bad side again.
"Myamyamyamyamya," Meowth laughs, too.
"For the honour of Team Rocket!" James punches his fist into the air, despite the vacuum latched onto him. "... and the riches of success!!" Jessie adds, dollar-signs, in her eyes.
"THIS TIME, WE'LL WIN!!"
They bustle out of the Lab, all pumped up, and no one thinks to question the library equipment James is carrying. Because he is, you see, a librarian, and the people of Viridian are trusting folk.
<Pose Tracker> Anne Aomori has posed.
Anne is pleased with that reaction. Of course, it won't save them, when they come back with wrecked equipment. But for now it's good.
"Yes," Anne says, as they leave the lab, and aren't at all suspicious. It's fine. The gray-haired Doctor looks after them for a few moments. "Honor and riches..."
She glances at Laqui, who peers up at her where he was starting to nap.
"It's true," Anne says.
"...She looks more like her mother every day."
She takes a seat again, scoots it under her desk, and gets back to work.