Interlude Twelve: Motivational Speaking
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Re: How to Conquer Kanto in Eight Easy Steps - Blog 12
Interlude Twelve: Motivational Speaking
Four days after he had been found unconscious and bleeding in the lower basements of Silph Co., Buzz Bolton finally had to answer for his crimes.
He had put it off for the past several days. Whenever Mr Silph had arrived at his room in the Saffron City Hospital and Medical Centre, Buzz had pretended to be asleep, or had urgently requested treatment that prevented his most senior boss from harassing him. However, on his fourth night in the tiny, bland and overly sterilized room, Samson Silph arrived right after Buzz had finished having his wounded groin checked and was unable to escape from this latest visit.
His nerves, his fears at what may have been revealed, held Buzz back at first, but it was fortunate for him that Mr Silph only cared about his reputation and money, and was otherwise as thick and useless as Snorlax shit. The producer talked up how his memory was hazy and he had forgotten most of that day: he claimed he had no idea why Zapdos had attacked them, and said he had headed down to the basement as he believed that was the safe thing to do.
"But what about all of those robots in the basement?" Mr Silph huffed, and this was what Buzz was afraid of; how much did the foolish man know, and could he stand in the way of his final goal now that it had been exposed so publicly?
"They are part of Indigo Dreams, sir, and we have been storing them down there until they are needed," Buzz explained cautiously. "Anyway, when I got down to the basement that was when I saw that Alaska Avocado girl and several of her associates clashing with these armed men. I have no idea how the girl got down there or why she was there, but I do know she has it out for my show – I only learnt recently that she auditioned and was cut after the first round of interviews. Anyway, I was attacked moments after I stepped into the room, and that is all I remember until I woke up here."
There were several tense seconds when Mr Silph did not reply, staring beadily at his producer as he dwelled over the story. Buzz Bolton rarely got nervous or intimidated, but he felt weak and exposed here, dressed in a flimsy hospital gown, and he had no idea what Silph did or did not know.
"Okay, that helps clarify a few things," Samson said finally a minute later. "Thank you for sparing some time to talk to me, your statement fills in a lot of blanks. I must go chase up the Champion and find out why his Pokemon destroyed my building."
"I hope he tells you why it targeted it my office!" Buzz added. "Now, if you don't mind, I need to get some sleep."
"Oh yes, of course, of course – good luck with your recovery," Mr Silph said, nodding absently, and he left the room without another word. Buzz watched his superior go with a smirk growing across his face. It had been stupid to be so concerned about the rich idiot. Samson had no idea how to run a company and relied on whatever his senior staff told him to make a living. He had sapped up everything Buzz had said without a second thought, even the garbage about Alaska auditioning, a fact that could be easily disproved if he bothered to check, but Samson was far too gullible to do that.
Buzz laughed to himself as he rolled over in his bed, tenderly keeping his legs apart as to not upset the fresh stitches in his groin. This latest loss had been the most painful and humiliating yet, and his strive to ruin Alaska was more powerful than ever, but he could not help but laugh at how easily he had gotten away with things. Silph would have no idea that Buzz had kidnapped the two girls, that the robots were not simply for the show, and that all the dead bodies Looker had left in the basement were all tied to the company. Buzz roared with laughter as he imagined Silph's reaction when his plan came to fruition, and the daft fool realised how easily he had been played.
"My, my, Miss Samson really did stab you in the groin – and here I thought our mutual enemy had simply embellished."
Buzz's laughter died instantly, and instead cold fear spread through his body. He remained frozen on his side for a moment, eyes bulged, the hairs on his arms and legs standing on end. He had suspected for weeks that this day would come, but in all the pain and confusion of the past few days he had not stopped to think for a second that it would happen here, where he was most exposed, the most unprotected…
"You really should have killed her when you had the chance; I, of course, tried, but we all know Charlotte likes to make sure things go her way. Rest assured, once I am finished, the ghost will quite literally be a thing of the past, but for once she is merely a background character in the latest drama engulfing Kanto. As you can imagine, that is what I am here to discuss with you today Bolton, if you and your genitals are up to it."
Buzz could not put it off any longer; full of dread at what he may find, he rolled onto his back and stared up into Gideon's cold, pale face looming over him from the end of the bed. The scientist flashed a yellow toothed smile as he put down the clipboard detailing Buzz's status and moved to a cushy armchair beside the bed.
"Do you plan on staying long then?" Buzz asked coldly as Gideon sat down, the producer doing his best to stay calm, but it was unsettling to lay eyes on a man he had last seen five years ago in a burning building.
"Oh no, not really, but it is much easier to see people entering when you can actually face them," Gideon replied with a gentle smile, pulling a black pistol out from his pocket as he spoke and aiming it at the door. Buzz knew that any chances of him gaining control of this unexpected meeting had evaporated with that one move and he sat in silence, waiting for his former colleague to speak, wondering if he would survive this little chat.
"It has been so long since that last day on Chrono Island, hasn't it?" Gideon purred, his smile thin and sadistic. "Five years, yet I still remember it as though it was yesterday. The searing pain, the suffocating heat, watching as years of research and planning went up in smoke. It's hard to imagine that the Charmander I defeated in Mt Moon would end up destroying my life…"
"How did you survive?" Buzz asked quickly. The question had been inside his head for the past few weeks, and it slipped out before he could stop it.
"Easily enough," Gideon replied, shrugging. "After you and Amanda abandoned me, I knew I would not be able to escape the building without greatly risking my life in the blaze. Instead, I retreated further into the warehouse and reached a bomb shelter I had had built in years ago." Gideon explained all this with an almost misty expression in his eyes.
"I will admit it was painful to leave my life's work to burn, but by chance I was able to find one of the key components from one of my riskier projects, and I have spent the past five years rebuilding my scientific empire with the limited resources I had left." Buzz nodded, intrigued and further frightened by what Gideon may mean, and startled to think that this scientist could have lived inside a tiny room for five years. Gideon had never been the most stable man in the first place, but what would half a decade of isolation have done to that mind?
"Well, I am so relieved to know you survived," Buzz said with his broadest grin, the one he usually slapped on whenever he wanted something from someone. "Amanda and I felt terrible once we realized we had left you behind, and –"
"Oh, do not insult me with your lies Buzz," Gideon interrupted, his eyes narrowing as he spat out each word, and Buzz sank deeper into his mattress. "You and Amanda are afraid of me, afraid because you left me to burn, and you have been terrified since the moment you learnt I was back about what I may do to enact my revenge! We both know that you two fled to save your own skins, abandoning your posts as at the first hurdle we came across. You would have been Admins under my rule, you could have been better than even Archer and Arianna, but instead you ran, ran like little children, and right now you are probably wishing Zapdos had killed you instead of leaving you to face me!" The words echoed inside the tiny room, and Buzz's shivered in fear and revulsion, feeling as though there were a hundred Gideon's surrounding him, hissing at him, spreading their evil words.
"Well, if you are going to kill me, get it over with and don't draw out my misery!" He snapped. He looked across at Gideon and saw the scientists face had gone blank, and then the mad man began to laugh. It sounded worse than his hate filled words: high, shrill and cruel, and Buzz felt weak and pathetic as his question was so openly mocked.
"Kill you, kill you? Oh dear Buzz, if I wanted to kill you I would have put this gun against your temples and decorated the walls the second I arrived. I have had countless opportunities to kill you over the past weeks – you have remarkably low protection for someone planning on murdering the Champion – but instead I have decided to bide my time until I was sure we could be alone and talk undisturbed. You see, I am quite curious about what you are planning on doing, and I do not want you dead until I know for certain what your grand scheme is."
"Same here," Buzz said quickly, not wanting Gideon to have all the control. "The museum, attacking Vermilion, Lavender Town – I have no idea how any of those connect, but I certainly have wondered why." Gideon flashed another vicious smile at this, and Buzz suppressed his own grin, his confidence slowly returning. .
"Shall we take it in turns then? You tell me what you and Miss Anderson have planned for our Champion, and I will tell you what I have planned, revealing as much as you see fit. Agreed?"
"Agreed," Buzz said. He had not prepared for things to go this way, but there was no denying that behind his fear for Gideon there was an insatiable curiosity for what his former comrade had planned, and he was willing to sacrifice a few details if it meant putting them on even ground.
"Very good – the reality show: it is just a front, I take it," Gideon asked quickly.
"Yes," Buzz replied. "Amanda and I needed to hide after everything that happened to Rocket, so we decided to emerge ourselves into a new career, one where no one would think to look. Silph TV was only just beginning then, part of the re-branding after what we did," Buzz added, winking at Gideon, "So we created a fake CV, said I had come from a great career in Unova, knowing no one will bother calling them up, and Samson Silph hired me as soon as we met.
"At first, we just planned on working stably and trying to build a normal life. Making TV shows was actually fun, and for a while it seemed we could forget about everything that had happened. But everyone else saw Red as this great hero, this saviour of Kanto, and the more I heard about him the more my resentment towards him grew," Buzz explained bitterly. "He and Leaf ruined our lives, stole the glory and power that Rocket deserved. Every time I saw his face on TV, my desire to embarrass him, to humiliate him the way he humiliated Rocket all those years ago grew, and I knew I had to do something."
"So you want revenge against him – fair enough reasoning, if a tad simple," Gideon chastised. "Now tell me, how do those wonderful robots fall into all of this?"
"I began work on a reality show concept where the end destination would be the League, something that would bring me easily into Red's home, but I needed a way to properly defeat him," Buzz continued. "I learnt that the Research and Development Department were creating realistic Pokemon robots, things they could test on without having to harm real Pokemon. I wondered what would happen if you modified them and added weaponry, and then wondered how you could use that power…
"I pitched the idea of Indigo Dreams and it was picked up immediately, and we were given a huge budget because Silph wanted it to be big, but he has no idea more than half of that money has gone into building our own take on the robots. The reality show was going to give us an opportunity to test them on real Pokemon, to find weaknesses so we could keep improving and make them indestructible. Unfortunately, that bitch Alaska got in the way, posting about the robots on her blogs and ruining any chance we had of working them into the show without drawing comparisons or suspicions."
"But I suppose you planned on making them a key part of your show, and once you reached the Indigo League it would be perfectly acceptable to bring your army in with you?" Gideon asked with a smirk, and Buzz nodded, dismayed at how easily his plan had been cracked.
"We'd bring the best robots in with all of our crew and equipment, and then have them defeat and destroy Red's team live on camera before killing him and destroying the stadium." Buzz had lost every sense of fear he had had felt earlier, all the concerns and nerves Gideon's appearance had generated: he had not been able to speak so openly about his mission for months now, not to anyone new, and now that he had started Buzz could barely stop. "We are not doing this for power or glory or anything like that: I simply want to murder Red and have him die embarrassed and humiliated like he left Rocket! He needs to pay for what he did, and Amanda and I are the only ones left to do anything about it, and I will not rest until I see him suffer!"
Buzz stopped as he heard a rapid beeping noise ring out through the room. He turned and realised it was his heart monitor, the leads attached to his chest feeding his excitement into the machine. Buzz leaned back into his tower of pillows and breathed deeply, trying to steady himself, but his fingers and toes felt jittery with excitement and pride.
Gideon did not say a word. He sat calmly in his seat, eyes focussed on Buzz, the gun lying carelessly across his lap. Buzz watched him, waiting for some kind of reaction, hoping for positive and dreading the negative, but Gideon gave away nothing, his face as empty as a blank piece of paper. There was a brief second where Buzz thought he saw something light up in Gideon's eyes – was it amusement, scorn, or perhaps something more knowledgeable than that – but it was gone a second later.
"Aren't you going to say anything?" Buzz snapped before he could help himself, but his irritation at the situation was beginning to boil over: what right did Gideon have to come here when Buzz was at his weakest and question him about his plans, only to offer nothing in response? This is supposed to be my chance to be powerful, Buzz thought angrily. I will not let him or Alaskatake my shot at glory and revenge away from me!
"I did not realise you were so petty that you need the commendations of others to gain satisfaction," Gideon replied in a tone that was both cold and bored. "You want feedback, Mr Bolton? Well, your plan is… interesting, to say the least." He paused there, and Buzz waited several moments for him to continue, but Gideon gave his interviewee a look that implied he was finished. And that was when Buzz snapped.
"Interesting? Interesting? Is that all you have to say?" He hissed, hands angrily clutching the side of his bed. "This plan has been in development for years now, and the only thing you can think to say is interesting? Fuck you Gideon: fuck you and fuck your fucking opinion! You have always been a self indulgent dickhead; one of those people that thinks being smart and being able to invent things makes you the most important person in the room, when really everyone thinks you're a great big fucking idiot! How about you tell me your plan, let's see if the mad shit you've planned this time is any better, eh?" Buzz was breathing deeply again, and he was well aware Gideon could kill him at any moment if he really wanted to, but it felt good to unleash these built up feelings. The wound to mark where Sandy had emasculated him felt like a constant presence in the room, something that perhaps showed Buzz to be weak, but he was not going to let Gideon think he could still control him, still get the better of him.
Gideon did not respond straight away, simply sitting in silence as the outburst echoed around them. Buzz thought the scientist looked uncomfortable, and his beating heart swelled with pride at the thought of bringing a once superior down to his level. But then, moving as rapidly as an Ekans through grass, Gideon stood and lunged for the bed. All of his confidence faded, and Buzz reached for the button that would summon a nurse, but before he could reach it Gideon had swatted back his hands. The scientist climbed onto the bed, making the old springs creak and the thin frame judder, and he sat so his legs were either side of Buzz, his knees resting firmly on the producer's hands. For a brief second, Buzz was reminded of Amanda, the way she had done this back in his office after a long days planning, but that thought escaped him as Gideon grabbed hold of his lower jaw and forced it open with one hand, while the other aimed the rich black gun inside.
"My goals, Mr Bolton, are the same as they have always been: to gain power through the use of my own intelligence and the skills I have developed in the fields of science," Gideon whispered coolly to his prisoner. "Everything I have done, all the research and projects I did before, during and after the rise and fall of Rocket, have been to fulfil my own science based curiosities and wonderments. I never originally cared for power before I met Giovanni, but after I saw the things his money and his protection did for me, I realised what power can do for a person. Humans are nothing unless they can feel dominance, unless they can assert their natural authority. We thought we had power when we tamed the beasts that live among us, but I am not satisfied with the simple, repetitive control of Pokemon. There are far greater things to worship out there, and I intend to show this region a thing or two about what really power is."
"How does everything you've done fit into this?" Buzz managed to gurgle. "Blowing up Five Island, attacking Vermilion, what was the point of all of that?"
"Oh, that was just me having fun," Gideon purred back with relish. "I don't want to reveal my end goal until the eleventh hour, so I am having fun confusing my opponents. I had to cover my tracks with Five Island anyway, and I thought Giovanni's safety supply of nuclear material would be sufficient to obliterate the last five years of my life and perplex the authorities. And with Vermilion, I decided some random terrorism would help spice things up after Alaska interfered…" Gideon trailed off, apparently lost in thought, the joy dying from his face and being replaced with something cold.
"Alaska… yet another teenager meddling where she does not belong…," the scientist mumbled, the power and gravity of his voice all but gone. He turned and looked directly into Buzz's eyes, his eyes manic and mournful at the same time, a stare that sent fresh shivers through Buzz's body. "I did have ideas about causing some wide spread destruction to further befuddle everyone, but it may have been another city at another time, I may have never attacked Vermilion if it was not for her. I just happened to be in Vermilion that day, taking some time to appreciate the chaos and horror my latest actions had caused, when I saw Alaska walk past, wandering around with Steven Stone… another teenager, another opponent being moulded and trained to defeat me… I had to send her a lesson, to show her how powerful I am, how far I am willing to go to achieve my goal, the goals I have had for decades.
"You see, one place where you have failed Buzz is that you have made Alaska hate you. Hate makes her vengeful, hate makes her want to defeat you, to crush you – it was Giovanni's greatest mistake, the thing that cost us the war. Alaska undoubtedly hates me too, but I can tell she fears me above anything else. She knows what you want to do, but she has no idea what I want, why I have acted how I have, and what I plan on doing next, and that scares her more than she will ever realize. When the girl sees me next, she will remember Vermilion, she will pause and think back to the fear she felt when my Pokemon attacked, and she will pause just long enough for me to finally bring her down. I do not care if Oak, Bill, Stone, if any of those old fools try to stop me, but I will burn everything to the ground before I let another child steal my glory…" and fear makes people pause, fear makes people think, fear makes people wait until it is too late.
Gideon seemed to have finished his rant, and Buzz lay unmoving beneath him, waiting for this ordeal to end. The scientist had not actually revealed anything about his plans, but Buzz no longer had the courage to ask, his attention falling on the gun still aimed towards his mouth. He wished now that he had been given a room with other patients, some witnesses to try and hold Gideon back. But would a man who used a nuclear bomb to clear his tracks really be stopped by a few more pairs of eyes?
"So, are you going to kill me now?" He asked finally. Buzz heard his voice, heard how high and weak it was, and felt ashamed, feeling like the Grunt he had been all those years ago. Gideon, who had been lost in thought, looked down at his former colleague, and his smirk appeared once again. He wrenched open Buzz's mouth once more, and this time shoved the gun inside: it was cold, hard, the metallic taste quickly overpowering all of Buzz's sense. He wanted to gag, the barrel edging towards his throat, but Buzz forced himself to stay focussed on Gideon, the scientist now leaning forwards.
"Maybe one day, dear," the madman whispered, leaning right in so his warm breath brushed Buzz's ear. "Perhaps, but not now… I need you, for the foreseeable future… for once, you can do something useful." And then Gideon began to laugh, his cackle filling the room and bouncing off the walls. Buzz opened his eyes in fearful curiosity, and stared up at Gideon's wide, evil, sadistic, laughing smile. He laughed as he pressed something that looked like a watch, and continued laughing as he finger tensed across the trigger, pulling on it like he was going to fire…
And then, he was gone. Buzz had blinked at the moment of teleportation: one second, Gideon was sitting on him, the gun rubbing against his lips and teeth, the next he had vanished in a flash of light, the weight disappearing from the producers body, his mouth empty though the metallic taste lingered. The second he realised he was alone, Buzz began to gag, finally free, finally able to react: he took deep and rapid breaths as he felt bile crawl up his throat, his chest heaving up and down while the rest of his body remained frozen, locked up in fear. How could he have been overpowered like this, torn down, humiliated, made to feel so, so weak? Why had he let Gideon take advantage of him, and reduce him back to the pathetic Grunt he had been all those years ago?
Rapid footsteps echoed from down the hallway, and Buzz's head snapped forwards as a doctor, two nurses and a security guard came racing breathlessly into his room.
"Is everything alright in here, Mr Bolton?" The doctor, a strapping, middle aged blonde man, shouted the second he stopped. "We heard shouting and laughter from down the hallway; we thought someone else might have been in here." Buzz looked up at them, the urge to vomit lingering, the rapid beep of his out of control heart filling the silence. For a moment, he wanted to tell them what had happened, he wanted them to move him to a new suite, to call Amanda and have her come immediately, to comfort him, to discuss this latest threat, to pleasure him…
But that moment quickly passed. Buzz looked at the medical staff waiting impatiently for an answer, and he felt sick with himself. He had been pushed around by people his entire life: his family, schoolmates, his superiors at Team Rocket. This new life, this new career path, this new mission, they were all meant to be Buzz's way of regaining control. But in the past week, he had let Sandy wound him in the most embarrassing way possible, he had let Alaska and Red expose parts of his plans, and he had just let Gideon walk all over him. If he wanted to win, he had to ensure none of them would ever interfere with him again, that no one else would ever stare down at his master plan.
Buzz turned and looked at the empty chair, thinking of the weight that had just left his hands. He had been wondering what Gideon's plan was, but had been too focussed on his own plans to care: yet it was the scientist who had come to see him, to come and see what his adversary was planning, his opponent in this race to destroy Red was planning.
He's the one that is really concerned, Buzz told himself. He wants to know what my plan is so he can eliminate us, eliminate a new threat. Warmth filled Buzz's body as this realization washed over him, and a smile filled his face as he stared up at the doctor.
He was trying to scare me, but I am not that easily beaten, because he knows we can stop him, we can beat whatever it is he has planned. Nothing can stop my robots, not Gideon, not that bitch Alaska, not our glorious Champion. All of them are afraid, and all of them will fall when my plan truly begins.
"Everything's fine, doctor… everything's perfectly fine…"
A bit of insight into how Buzz and Gideon both think, and some revelations behind what they are both planning and why they have acted how they have - some have been asking why Gideon attacked Vermilion especially, so I thought I would clarify his reasonings here. If anything else is unclear please let me know. Next time, Alaska takes her fifth step forwards...
Also note that the Prologue has been rewritten slightly to fix old typos and expand on the plot and characters a bit. Will hopefully update and edit more old chapters before the end of the year
Interlude Twelve: Motivational Speaking
Four days after he had been found unconscious and bleeding in the lower basements of Silph Co., Buzz Bolton finally had to answer for his crimes.
He had put it off for the past several days. Whenever Mr Silph had arrived at his room in the Saffron City Hospital and Medical Centre, Buzz had pretended to be asleep, or had urgently requested treatment that prevented his most senior boss from harassing him. However, on his fourth night in the tiny, bland and overly sterilized room, Samson Silph arrived right after Buzz had finished having his wounded groin checked and was unable to escape from this latest visit.
His nerves, his fears at what may have been revealed, held Buzz back at first, but it was fortunate for him that Mr Silph only cared about his reputation and money, and was otherwise as thick and useless as Snorlax shit. The producer talked up how his memory was hazy and he had forgotten most of that day: he claimed he had no idea why Zapdos had attacked them, and said he had headed down to the basement as he believed that was the safe thing to do.
"But what about all of those robots in the basement?" Mr Silph huffed, and this was what Buzz was afraid of; how much did the foolish man know, and could he stand in the way of his final goal now that it had been exposed so publicly?
"They are part of Indigo Dreams, sir, and we have been storing them down there until they are needed," Buzz explained cautiously. "Anyway, when I got down to the basement that was when I saw that Alaska Avocado girl and several of her associates clashing with these armed men. I have no idea how the girl got down there or why she was there, but I do know she has it out for my show – I only learnt recently that she auditioned and was cut after the first round of interviews. Anyway, I was attacked moments after I stepped into the room, and that is all I remember until I woke up here."
There were several tense seconds when Mr Silph did not reply, staring beadily at his producer as he dwelled over the story. Buzz Bolton rarely got nervous or intimidated, but he felt weak and exposed here, dressed in a flimsy hospital gown, and he had no idea what Silph did or did not know.
"Okay, that helps clarify a few things," Samson said finally a minute later. "Thank you for sparing some time to talk to me, your statement fills in a lot of blanks. I must go chase up the Champion and find out why his Pokemon destroyed my building."
"I hope he tells you why it targeted it my office!" Buzz added. "Now, if you don't mind, I need to get some sleep."
"Oh yes, of course, of course – good luck with your recovery," Mr Silph said, nodding absently, and he left the room without another word. Buzz watched his superior go with a smirk growing across his face. It had been stupid to be so concerned about the rich idiot. Samson had no idea how to run a company and relied on whatever his senior staff told him to make a living. He had sapped up everything Buzz had said without a second thought, even the garbage about Alaska auditioning, a fact that could be easily disproved if he bothered to check, but Samson was far too gullible to do that.
Buzz laughed to himself as he rolled over in his bed, tenderly keeping his legs apart as to not upset the fresh stitches in his groin. This latest loss had been the most painful and humiliating yet, and his strive to ruin Alaska was more powerful than ever, but he could not help but laugh at how easily he had gotten away with things. Silph would have no idea that Buzz had kidnapped the two girls, that the robots were not simply for the show, and that all the dead bodies Looker had left in the basement were all tied to the company. Buzz roared with laughter as he imagined Silph's reaction when his plan came to fruition, and the daft fool realised how easily he had been played.
"My, my, Miss Samson really did stab you in the groin – and here I thought our mutual enemy had simply embellished."
Buzz's laughter died instantly, and instead cold fear spread through his body. He remained frozen on his side for a moment, eyes bulged, the hairs on his arms and legs standing on end. He had suspected for weeks that this day would come, but in all the pain and confusion of the past few days he had not stopped to think for a second that it would happen here, where he was most exposed, the most unprotected…
"You really should have killed her when you had the chance; I, of course, tried, but we all know Charlotte likes to make sure things go her way. Rest assured, once I am finished, the ghost will quite literally be a thing of the past, but for once she is merely a background character in the latest drama engulfing Kanto. As you can imagine, that is what I am here to discuss with you today Bolton, if you and your genitals are up to it."
Buzz could not put it off any longer; full of dread at what he may find, he rolled onto his back and stared up into Gideon's cold, pale face looming over him from the end of the bed. The scientist flashed a yellow toothed smile as he put down the clipboard detailing Buzz's status and moved to a cushy armchair beside the bed.
"Do you plan on staying long then?" Buzz asked coldly as Gideon sat down, the producer doing his best to stay calm, but it was unsettling to lay eyes on a man he had last seen five years ago in a burning building.
"Oh no, not really, but it is much easier to see people entering when you can actually face them," Gideon replied with a gentle smile, pulling a black pistol out from his pocket as he spoke and aiming it at the door. Buzz knew that any chances of him gaining control of this unexpected meeting had evaporated with that one move and he sat in silence, waiting for his former colleague to speak, wondering if he would survive this little chat.
"It has been so long since that last day on Chrono Island, hasn't it?" Gideon purred, his smile thin and sadistic. "Five years, yet I still remember it as though it was yesterday. The searing pain, the suffocating heat, watching as years of research and planning went up in smoke. It's hard to imagine that the Charmander I defeated in Mt Moon would end up destroying my life…"
"How did you survive?" Buzz asked quickly. The question had been inside his head for the past few weeks, and it slipped out before he could stop it.
"Easily enough," Gideon replied, shrugging. "After you and Amanda abandoned me, I knew I would not be able to escape the building without greatly risking my life in the blaze. Instead, I retreated further into the warehouse and reached a bomb shelter I had had built in years ago." Gideon explained all this with an almost misty expression in his eyes.
"I will admit it was painful to leave my life's work to burn, but by chance I was able to find one of the key components from one of my riskier projects, and I have spent the past five years rebuilding my scientific empire with the limited resources I had left." Buzz nodded, intrigued and further frightened by what Gideon may mean, and startled to think that this scientist could have lived inside a tiny room for five years. Gideon had never been the most stable man in the first place, but what would half a decade of isolation have done to that mind?
"Well, I am so relieved to know you survived," Buzz said with his broadest grin, the one he usually slapped on whenever he wanted something from someone. "Amanda and I felt terrible once we realized we had left you behind, and –"
"Oh, do not insult me with your lies Buzz," Gideon interrupted, his eyes narrowing as he spat out each word, and Buzz sank deeper into his mattress. "You and Amanda are afraid of me, afraid because you left me to burn, and you have been terrified since the moment you learnt I was back about what I may do to enact my revenge! We both know that you two fled to save your own skins, abandoning your posts as at the first hurdle we came across. You would have been Admins under my rule, you could have been better than even Archer and Arianna, but instead you ran, ran like little children, and right now you are probably wishing Zapdos had killed you instead of leaving you to face me!" The words echoed inside the tiny room, and Buzz's shivered in fear and revulsion, feeling as though there were a hundred Gideon's surrounding him, hissing at him, spreading their evil words.
"Well, if you are going to kill me, get it over with and don't draw out my misery!" He snapped. He looked across at Gideon and saw the scientists face had gone blank, and then the mad man began to laugh. It sounded worse than his hate filled words: high, shrill and cruel, and Buzz felt weak and pathetic as his question was so openly mocked.
"Kill you, kill you? Oh dear Buzz, if I wanted to kill you I would have put this gun against your temples and decorated the walls the second I arrived. I have had countless opportunities to kill you over the past weeks – you have remarkably low protection for someone planning on murdering the Champion – but instead I have decided to bide my time until I was sure we could be alone and talk undisturbed. You see, I am quite curious about what you are planning on doing, and I do not want you dead until I know for certain what your grand scheme is."
"Same here," Buzz said quickly, not wanting Gideon to have all the control. "The museum, attacking Vermilion, Lavender Town – I have no idea how any of those connect, but I certainly have wondered why." Gideon flashed another vicious smile at this, and Buzz suppressed his own grin, his confidence slowly returning. .
"Shall we take it in turns then? You tell me what you and Miss Anderson have planned for our Champion, and I will tell you what I have planned, revealing as much as you see fit. Agreed?"
"Agreed," Buzz said. He had not prepared for things to go this way, but there was no denying that behind his fear for Gideon there was an insatiable curiosity for what his former comrade had planned, and he was willing to sacrifice a few details if it meant putting them on even ground.
"Very good – the reality show: it is just a front, I take it," Gideon asked quickly.
"Yes," Buzz replied. "Amanda and I needed to hide after everything that happened to Rocket, so we decided to emerge ourselves into a new career, one where no one would think to look. Silph TV was only just beginning then, part of the re-branding after what we did," Buzz added, winking at Gideon, "So we created a fake CV, said I had come from a great career in Unova, knowing no one will bother calling them up, and Samson Silph hired me as soon as we met.
"At first, we just planned on working stably and trying to build a normal life. Making TV shows was actually fun, and for a while it seemed we could forget about everything that had happened. But everyone else saw Red as this great hero, this saviour of Kanto, and the more I heard about him the more my resentment towards him grew," Buzz explained bitterly. "He and Leaf ruined our lives, stole the glory and power that Rocket deserved. Every time I saw his face on TV, my desire to embarrass him, to humiliate him the way he humiliated Rocket all those years ago grew, and I knew I had to do something."
"So you want revenge against him – fair enough reasoning, if a tad simple," Gideon chastised. "Now tell me, how do those wonderful robots fall into all of this?"
"I began work on a reality show concept where the end destination would be the League, something that would bring me easily into Red's home, but I needed a way to properly defeat him," Buzz continued. "I learnt that the Research and Development Department were creating realistic Pokemon robots, things they could test on without having to harm real Pokemon. I wondered what would happen if you modified them and added weaponry, and then wondered how you could use that power…
"I pitched the idea of Indigo Dreams and it was picked up immediately, and we were given a huge budget because Silph wanted it to be big, but he has no idea more than half of that money has gone into building our own take on the robots. The reality show was going to give us an opportunity to test them on real Pokemon, to find weaknesses so we could keep improving and make them indestructible. Unfortunately, that bitch Alaska got in the way, posting about the robots on her blogs and ruining any chance we had of working them into the show without drawing comparisons or suspicions."
"But I suppose you planned on making them a key part of your show, and once you reached the Indigo League it would be perfectly acceptable to bring your army in with you?" Gideon asked with a smirk, and Buzz nodded, dismayed at how easily his plan had been cracked.
"We'd bring the best robots in with all of our crew and equipment, and then have them defeat and destroy Red's team live on camera before killing him and destroying the stadium." Buzz had lost every sense of fear he had had felt earlier, all the concerns and nerves Gideon's appearance had generated: he had not been able to speak so openly about his mission for months now, not to anyone new, and now that he had started Buzz could barely stop. "We are not doing this for power or glory or anything like that: I simply want to murder Red and have him die embarrassed and humiliated like he left Rocket! He needs to pay for what he did, and Amanda and I are the only ones left to do anything about it, and I will not rest until I see him suffer!"
Buzz stopped as he heard a rapid beeping noise ring out through the room. He turned and realised it was his heart monitor, the leads attached to his chest feeding his excitement into the machine. Buzz leaned back into his tower of pillows and breathed deeply, trying to steady himself, but his fingers and toes felt jittery with excitement and pride.
Gideon did not say a word. He sat calmly in his seat, eyes focussed on Buzz, the gun lying carelessly across his lap. Buzz watched him, waiting for some kind of reaction, hoping for positive and dreading the negative, but Gideon gave away nothing, his face as empty as a blank piece of paper. There was a brief second where Buzz thought he saw something light up in Gideon's eyes – was it amusement, scorn, or perhaps something more knowledgeable than that – but it was gone a second later.
"Aren't you going to say anything?" Buzz snapped before he could help himself, but his irritation at the situation was beginning to boil over: what right did Gideon have to come here when Buzz was at his weakest and question him about his plans, only to offer nothing in response? This is supposed to be my chance to be powerful, Buzz thought angrily. I will not let him or Alaskatake my shot at glory and revenge away from me!
"I did not realise you were so petty that you need the commendations of others to gain satisfaction," Gideon replied in a tone that was both cold and bored. "You want feedback, Mr Bolton? Well, your plan is… interesting, to say the least." He paused there, and Buzz waited several moments for him to continue, but Gideon gave his interviewee a look that implied he was finished. And that was when Buzz snapped.
"Interesting? Interesting? Is that all you have to say?" He hissed, hands angrily clutching the side of his bed. "This plan has been in development for years now, and the only thing you can think to say is interesting? Fuck you Gideon: fuck you and fuck your fucking opinion! You have always been a self indulgent dickhead; one of those people that thinks being smart and being able to invent things makes you the most important person in the room, when really everyone thinks you're a great big fucking idiot! How about you tell me your plan, let's see if the mad shit you've planned this time is any better, eh?" Buzz was breathing deeply again, and he was well aware Gideon could kill him at any moment if he really wanted to, but it felt good to unleash these built up feelings. The wound to mark where Sandy had emasculated him felt like a constant presence in the room, something that perhaps showed Buzz to be weak, but he was not going to let Gideon think he could still control him, still get the better of him.
Gideon did not respond straight away, simply sitting in silence as the outburst echoed around them. Buzz thought the scientist looked uncomfortable, and his beating heart swelled with pride at the thought of bringing a once superior down to his level. But then, moving as rapidly as an Ekans through grass, Gideon stood and lunged for the bed. All of his confidence faded, and Buzz reached for the button that would summon a nurse, but before he could reach it Gideon had swatted back his hands. The scientist climbed onto the bed, making the old springs creak and the thin frame judder, and he sat so his legs were either side of Buzz, his knees resting firmly on the producer's hands. For a brief second, Buzz was reminded of Amanda, the way she had done this back in his office after a long days planning, but that thought escaped him as Gideon grabbed hold of his lower jaw and forced it open with one hand, while the other aimed the rich black gun inside.
"My goals, Mr Bolton, are the same as they have always been: to gain power through the use of my own intelligence and the skills I have developed in the fields of science," Gideon whispered coolly to his prisoner. "Everything I have done, all the research and projects I did before, during and after the rise and fall of Rocket, have been to fulfil my own science based curiosities and wonderments. I never originally cared for power before I met Giovanni, but after I saw the things his money and his protection did for me, I realised what power can do for a person. Humans are nothing unless they can feel dominance, unless they can assert their natural authority. We thought we had power when we tamed the beasts that live among us, but I am not satisfied with the simple, repetitive control of Pokemon. There are far greater things to worship out there, and I intend to show this region a thing or two about what really power is."
"How does everything you've done fit into this?" Buzz managed to gurgle. "Blowing up Five Island, attacking Vermilion, what was the point of all of that?"
"Oh, that was just me having fun," Gideon purred back with relish. "I don't want to reveal my end goal until the eleventh hour, so I am having fun confusing my opponents. I had to cover my tracks with Five Island anyway, and I thought Giovanni's safety supply of nuclear material would be sufficient to obliterate the last five years of my life and perplex the authorities. And with Vermilion, I decided some random terrorism would help spice things up after Alaska interfered…" Gideon trailed off, apparently lost in thought, the joy dying from his face and being replaced with something cold.
"Alaska… yet another teenager meddling where she does not belong…," the scientist mumbled, the power and gravity of his voice all but gone. He turned and looked directly into Buzz's eyes, his eyes manic and mournful at the same time, a stare that sent fresh shivers through Buzz's body. "I did have ideas about causing some wide spread destruction to further befuddle everyone, but it may have been another city at another time, I may have never attacked Vermilion if it was not for her. I just happened to be in Vermilion that day, taking some time to appreciate the chaos and horror my latest actions had caused, when I saw Alaska walk past, wandering around with Steven Stone… another teenager, another opponent being moulded and trained to defeat me… I had to send her a lesson, to show her how powerful I am, how far I am willing to go to achieve my goal, the goals I have had for decades.
"You see, one place where you have failed Buzz is that you have made Alaska hate you. Hate makes her vengeful, hate makes her want to defeat you, to crush you – it was Giovanni's greatest mistake, the thing that cost us the war. Alaska undoubtedly hates me too, but I can tell she fears me above anything else. She knows what you want to do, but she has no idea what I want, why I have acted how I have, and what I plan on doing next, and that scares her more than she will ever realize. When the girl sees me next, she will remember Vermilion, she will pause and think back to the fear she felt when my Pokemon attacked, and she will pause just long enough for me to finally bring her down. I do not care if Oak, Bill, Stone, if any of those old fools try to stop me, but I will burn everything to the ground before I let another child steal my glory…" and fear makes people pause, fear makes people think, fear makes people wait until it is too late.
Gideon seemed to have finished his rant, and Buzz lay unmoving beneath him, waiting for this ordeal to end. The scientist had not actually revealed anything about his plans, but Buzz no longer had the courage to ask, his attention falling on the gun still aimed towards his mouth. He wished now that he had been given a room with other patients, some witnesses to try and hold Gideon back. But would a man who used a nuclear bomb to clear his tracks really be stopped by a few more pairs of eyes?
"So, are you going to kill me now?" He asked finally. Buzz heard his voice, heard how high and weak it was, and felt ashamed, feeling like the Grunt he had been all those years ago. Gideon, who had been lost in thought, looked down at his former colleague, and his smirk appeared once again. He wrenched open Buzz's mouth once more, and this time shoved the gun inside: it was cold, hard, the metallic taste quickly overpowering all of Buzz's sense. He wanted to gag, the barrel edging towards his throat, but Buzz forced himself to stay focussed on Gideon, the scientist now leaning forwards.
"Maybe one day, dear," the madman whispered, leaning right in so his warm breath brushed Buzz's ear. "Perhaps, but not now… I need you, for the foreseeable future… for once, you can do something useful." And then Gideon began to laugh, his cackle filling the room and bouncing off the walls. Buzz opened his eyes in fearful curiosity, and stared up at Gideon's wide, evil, sadistic, laughing smile. He laughed as he pressed something that looked like a watch, and continued laughing as he finger tensed across the trigger, pulling on it like he was going to fire…
And then, he was gone. Buzz had blinked at the moment of teleportation: one second, Gideon was sitting on him, the gun rubbing against his lips and teeth, the next he had vanished in a flash of light, the weight disappearing from the producers body, his mouth empty though the metallic taste lingered. The second he realised he was alone, Buzz began to gag, finally free, finally able to react: he took deep and rapid breaths as he felt bile crawl up his throat, his chest heaving up and down while the rest of his body remained frozen, locked up in fear. How could he have been overpowered like this, torn down, humiliated, made to feel so, so weak? Why had he let Gideon take advantage of him, and reduce him back to the pathetic Grunt he had been all those years ago?
Rapid footsteps echoed from down the hallway, and Buzz's head snapped forwards as a doctor, two nurses and a security guard came racing breathlessly into his room.
"Is everything alright in here, Mr Bolton?" The doctor, a strapping, middle aged blonde man, shouted the second he stopped. "We heard shouting and laughter from down the hallway; we thought someone else might have been in here." Buzz looked up at them, the urge to vomit lingering, the rapid beep of his out of control heart filling the silence. For a moment, he wanted to tell them what had happened, he wanted them to move him to a new suite, to call Amanda and have her come immediately, to comfort him, to discuss this latest threat, to pleasure him…
But that moment quickly passed. Buzz looked at the medical staff waiting impatiently for an answer, and he felt sick with himself. He had been pushed around by people his entire life: his family, schoolmates, his superiors at Team Rocket. This new life, this new career path, this new mission, they were all meant to be Buzz's way of regaining control. But in the past week, he had let Sandy wound him in the most embarrassing way possible, he had let Alaska and Red expose parts of his plans, and he had just let Gideon walk all over him. If he wanted to win, he had to ensure none of them would ever interfere with him again, that no one else would ever stare down at his master plan.
Buzz turned and looked at the empty chair, thinking of the weight that had just left his hands. He had been wondering what Gideon's plan was, but had been too focussed on his own plans to care: yet it was the scientist who had come to see him, to come and see what his adversary was planning, his opponent in this race to destroy Red was planning.
He's the one that is really concerned, Buzz told himself. He wants to know what my plan is so he can eliminate us, eliminate a new threat. Warmth filled Buzz's body as this realization washed over him, and a smile filled his face as he stared up at the doctor.
He was trying to scare me, but I am not that easily beaten, because he knows we can stop him, we can beat whatever it is he has planned. Nothing can stop my robots, not Gideon, not that bitch Alaska, not our glorious Champion. All of them are afraid, and all of them will fall when my plan truly begins.
"Everything's fine, doctor… everything's perfectly fine…"
A bit of insight into how Buzz and Gideon both think, and some revelations behind what they are both planning and why they have acted how they have - some have been asking why Gideon attacked Vermilion especially, so I thought I would clarify his reasonings here. If anything else is unclear please let me know. Next time, Alaska takes her fifth step forwards...
Also note that the Prologue has been rewritten slightly to fix old typos and expand on the plot and characters a bit. Will hopefully update and edit more old chapters before the end of the year