Hard Enough - Chapter 94 - Debriefed (Patreon)

I could say one thing about Timothy: he was quick about his business. I tried to shield Surge from any issues by pointing out how I was with him the entire time, but Surge was quick to denounce me as merely being dragged along in his wake.

Timothy hummed and didn’t write anything down. “Hmmm, perhaps we’ll just say you were enthusiastic in performing your duties while assisted by Gym Leader Brock. It appears that you were able to take as many precautions as you could and you may actually have been the best suited for the task from what I gather. The business with the Electrodes… I haven’t heard anything like that since…” He shook his head and clicked his tongue.

He then made a few notes which left Surge and I to share a sceptical glance.

Timothy finished his report with a flourish. “Very well, I do believe that about covers all of the questions I need to have answered. I believe Lady Agatha of the Elite Four wanted you to come and speak to her after that was done?”

He shot a glance at the clock before checking his own watch. “Oh! And we wrapped it up in twenty minutes! Look at that!” I shot the clock a disbelieving look. Hadn’t it been hours?

“Oh wait! My mistake! The clock is wrong!” The man stood and adjusted the clock on the wall as I mentally screamed that I knew it. “Just need to correct this…It’s two minutes out, can you believe it?” He shook his head again before waving his hand to a set of doors. “You both head down the hall, I need to get this reading properly!”

I stared as he set about correcting the clock. I mentally made a note to myself, run the clocks in my house slightly wrong so if he ever comes again I will have time to escape as his obsessive-compulsive disorder trapped him.

Surge dragged me out of the chair. “Right! Thanks, bye!” he said as he led the tactical withdrawal.

When we reached the doorway he pushed it open and paused when instead of Agatha we ran into a wall of muscle that flexed in preparation to knock us back. I looked up, half of me wondering why Trixie was here, while the other part of me remarked that she was most likely doing some form of training.

“Hmpf!” said a much deeper voice. There was also disdain there which was something I’d never heard from Trixie. I peered up and found myself staring into Bruno’s face.

“Bruno! Baby! How’s it been?! When was the last time we hung out?!” Surge said with a jovial grin. From behind Bruno a Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee swaggered out to inspect us. I inspected both and founds them impressive specimen. Both pokemon were held in the same regard as Scyther as ‘cool’ pokemon to own. But then again they were also all pokemon with a deep well of potential for any trainer. Bruno’s pokemon were pros. Hitmonlee stayed light on his feet and Hitmonchan had his hands slightly raised while his body bounced from side to side.

Bruno stared, like a rock wall. Then he spoke, his voice rumbling from the depths of his throat, “We’ve never, hung out Surge.” He then pivoted his head to look at me. “Agatha said to expect you.” He turned back to Surge, “Surge.” His eyes narrowed. “... You can go in as well.”

“Great! Great! Good to see you!” Surge said as he walked around Bruno who was pointedly standing in the middle of the hallway watching the door we’d come through.

“That guy is nuts,” Surge said as soon as the door closed behind us. I shot him a look.

“Bruno? What’s wrong with him?”

“Just a meathead. And I’ve seen enough meatheads to be a pro at judging them. Sadly this meathead is damn good at what he does.”

“Which is?” I said glancing around at the room we found ourselves in. There were a number of other entrances. So why was Bruno standing in front of that one and not another? I practically knew where to go based on the Machamp standing in front of one of the doors. It practically announced that something important was going on behind that door. We approached slowly.

“He’s a gatekeeper, or a guard. Ask him to hold a position, and he’ll do it until he’s ordered to stop.” Surge gave me a look. “He does after all have the best record against challengers against the Elite four. Then again all he does is train and fight strong pokemon in the wilds. He doesn’t do any of the other duties of the Elite four.”

“Isn’t he the second in the roster for Elite Four?”

“Yeah but way I hear? He’d prefer to be first so he gets to face everyone. Lance wants to keep him second though. Doesn’t stop Bruno from throwing himself against Agatha though. When she’s gone, he’ll be the longest-serving Elite Four member.”

I frowned at Surge. “Do you respect him or disdain him?”

Surge worked his jaw back and forth. “Eh, I can do both.” He put a hand under his jaw. “I’m a rare breed of man. Complex and mysterious and such!”

I stared at him. “You read that out of a comic book didn’t you?”

He sniffed. “I plead the fifth,” he said before pausing in front of the Machamp. It sniffed at us and tossed its head to the side, indicating a door to the left. A shadowy arm reached out of the wall and beckoned us forward.

Surge swallowed and eyed the hallway we were in. “Listen, if the lights flicker and the walls start bleeding I’m blasting my way out. Fuck this horror show vibe I’m picking up.”

I blinked and stared before considering how, if you weren’t used to Agatha’s antics with her ghost pokemon, that would be rather unsettling. I merely nodded as I noted that Surge would be the person most likely to survive in a horror setting. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

“Good idea? That’s how I got out of at least three death traps back in the war!” he said as he scratched at his elbow, eyeing the walls, ceiling and floor with furtive glances.

I raised my hand. “Hey, it’s cool. I understand.” Post-traumatic stress was something that could lay dormant for ages until triggered after all.

Surge grunted and edged up to the room. This time, he was much more cautious when he opened the door.

Inside we found a room that I could only describe as an interrogation room. Or at least the viewing room. We had an obvious one-way mirror that we were on the viewing side of.  In the room with us was Agatha, Koga, Lance, Officer Jenny —who was looking way out of her depth— along with what appeared to be a man. It was tough to judge due to how he was hidden from the neck down in a trench coat. I assumed it was a man due to the five o’clock shadow stubble that featured on his face. He didn’t look at us as we entered but remained locked on the scene on the other side of the glass.

I glanced in and found Sabrina sitting behind Daniel. Daniel was trying to peer over his shoulder at Sabrina, but Sabrina was just out of sight. Not that there was much to see. Sabrina was as stone-cold as I’d ever seen her.

I hummed. In fact, was this the least expressive I had ever seen her? When had she ever been so flat and emotionless? When I first met her perhaps? That almost sounded right to me, but also made me rather concerned.

The man across from Daniel was a solidly built man. With his coat off and no tie, badge on his belt next to two pokeballs, he announced himself as cop to anyone with eyes. He also looked like a man that this was merely another day at the office. Like this was just routine. A simple chore. He occasionally made an aborted gesture to reach for the cigarettes in his top pocket before stopping. His eyes had shadows but there was a spark of intelligence that made me wonder how carefully curated this entire procedure was.

I took it all in before I spoke. “How’s it going?” I said to the room at large. Jenny swallowed, her eyes darting at the other people in the room. Lance grunted and nodded. The man in the trenchcoat ignored me. Koga stroked his chin.

Agatha gave me a smile. “Oh, we’re learning quite a lot more than we thought we would. Daniel is quite the catch it would seem.” She flicked her eyes to Surge who was glowering at Daniel through the one-way glass.

“Want me to go in and make him squeal? I know how to do it,” Surge said tightly.

Jenny stiffened. “What?!”

Lance gave Surge an assessing look. “There won’t be any need for that Surge.”

The trenchcoat-wearing man grunted. “Wouldn’t be effective. I’ve seen the results from such methods. You end up frying the captive and only getting a portion of the actually actionable information. This method…” He waved a hand towards Sabrina and the man in the room with Daniel. “It’s slower but we’ll get more.”

He continued to watch Daniel. “There! He just lied again, mark that for later playback.”

Jenny hurriedly noted it down on a notepad but I spotted that the man also marked it off for himself. So, a discerning man with interrogation and investigation skills. One that had lived through the war? Or just studied the restricted documents?

I hummed. “Should I ask for your name?” I said pointedly.

The man flicked his eyes to Lance and Lance hummed. “This… This won’t be something I want to be spread around, but I am thinking of enacting code names so that agents in the field are better protected.” His eyes flicked to Agatha’s shadows and the door we’d come through. “For now call him… Agent… Coat…” That got a few looks as he coughed.

Surge snorted. “Just call him Agent Brown and be done with it. Any attempts on this punk by Rocket or otherwise?” his eyes lingered on the cameras in the rooms. “Got the vents covered?”

“We’ve had two Haunters come and a Mr Mime we thought was just on cleaning duty try to break into the room,” Jenny offered up. She glanced at the vents nervously.

Koga chose to answer the question Jenny wasn't sure of. “I have some Muk in the vents in minimized forms waiting. The vents are secured.”

I whistled, impressed at the security they’d laid out for this, before tilting my head. Something had just occurred to me about the layout of the hall. “What door do you have Bruno’s Machamp standing in front of?”

“A meeting room that we have filled with security pokemon,” Koga said, his lips twitching. He seemed to enjoy the ruse, perhaps it had been his suggestion?

“Why have Bruno standing at the door leading into the corridor?” I said as a flaw presented itself.

Agatha cackled. “Hehe! Oh Brock this hallway only has two normal points of entry and the other is guarded just as well.”

I considered that and then shot Lance a look. “You have Lorelei standing guard?”

Jenny coughed. “I offered…” she said quietly but was ignored. Lance coughed and didn’t meet my gaze. Was he still making her do annoying errands? Was this bullying?

“She understands the importance of what we’re doing. She took down the Mr Mime in fact,” Lance offered up. He almost sounded begrudgingly complimentary.

I huffed and looked back at Daniel. My stomach clenched as I remembered how close he’d been to my family. I felt a dark urge rise up before I sated it with the memory of kicking Daniel through a door. I smiled a little and listened as Daniel was grilled about his involvement.

The man in the room was completely relaxed about the entire thing. He merely asked his questions and when Daniel got agitated he merely shrugged.

Daniel snarled and tried to twist around to spot Sabrina. “I know what you’re trying to do! I’m not going to just give you that information!”

The interrogator paused. “Hoh? Not just, so you do want to do a deal then?” he said while lounging in his chair, his hand inching towards his cigarettes before stopping once again. “Well, that’d be fine and dandy. You’ve gotten yourself in quite the pickle after all. You’re Magikarp  with no puddle and the Houndoom are circling young man. We want everything you can offer. Any intel and sources, names, faces. We want the lot.”

Daniel twitched to look behind him. But he could only just see Sabrina. With how he was cuffed he couldn’t twist to face her. “Aren’t you just taking it?”

The man across from him smirked. “Oh? That? Now that’s just our little… guarantee that you’ll give us what we want. See that’s the beauty of having a psychic in the interrogation process.” the man leaned in and his next words were spoken with a carrying whisper. “You really have no idea what we know. But we’ll have lists, names, places, and faces that we can work from. You? You won’t know when we know for sure you're lying. But that’d take time and a bit of effort, which we honestly have. Don’t know about you but I’m getting double pay for this so I’ll happily sit on my hands.”

The man snapped his fingers. “Oh wait you’re worse than fired, your burned. No sweet paycheck waiting for you… Unless you talk.”

The man scratched his chin. “So, much easier all around if you start talking.”

Daniel remained silent and the other man sat lower in his chair. I noted his chair was much more comfortable looking than Daniel’s.

“Is this—” I started to say only for Agent Brown to shush me.

“Quiet now, he’s close… we’ve got him right where we want him. Just… Stay quiet.”

I shut my mouth. We waited five minutes and eventually, Daniel collapsed in on himself. “I… I want a deal!”

The man sat up. “Well you start thinking about how you’re going to tell your life story and I’ll go deal with that pesky paperwork and get you something to sign. You sit tight.” He got up and walked out. Sabrina most pointedly did not.

Daniel relaxed in his chair only to frown and glance behind himself and realise that he could just make out that Sabrina was still behind him.

Waiting, and watching.

“Why are you still there?! I agreed to talk!” he said.

Sabrina didn’t say anything. She merely sat and waited. Daniel continued to try and glance back at her as the man that had left them marched around the corner to our group.

Agent Brown handed him a sheaf of papers. “Nice work in there Agent Blue,” he said.

Blue blinked and shot a look around. “Thanks? What’s with the name?” His hand reached to his cigarettes and he opened it to reveal an assortment of lollipops and not, in fact, any cigarettes.

“A layer of anonymity for you on official reports,” Lance said. He inclined his head to the trenchcoat-wearing man. “He’s Agent Brown.”

“Huh, right then.” He shoved a lollipop into his mouth and sucked on it a bit for humming. “Reckon we let Sabrina sit in there for another five then she teleports out to debrief on whatever she has so we can compare notes before we get into it more with him. Maybe don’t have her visible at all for that part to make him relax even more.”

Brown and Blue went back and forth on how they planned to proceed and I found the entire process fascinating in a morbid fashion. Jenny started taking notes so I had to assume this was like getting a play-by-play explanation from a pro. It was a literal experience on the job for her and she looked delighted to be sitting in for this part of the talk.

The room rocked suddenly and the lights flickered. Sabrina appeared next to me. “Bruno has started fighting a pair of ghost pokemon.”

“Ho?” Agatha said, “He only noticed two of them?”

Surge started searching the room only for a shadow to slip out behind Agatha and to raise through the wall where it formed up into Gengar. It then lunged straight at Daniel who reared back. Instead of the Gengar biting him though it tackled something in the air and a new ghost pokemon was formed.

Agatha frowned at the pokemon that was revealed. “My my, a Dusclops, I haven’t seen one of those in years.”

The Dusclops’ body unravelled slightly a gap appeared at the front that looked sort of like a mouth opening. It tried to ‘bite’ at Gengar only for Gengar to jump back and form a ball of shadowy energy that it shot into Dusclops. The Dusclops wailed and collapsed.

“Tch, I’ll have to scold Bruno, he missed one.” Agatha said as she strutted around to open the door for her Gengar.

Sabrina shifted from foot to foot in agitation. I patted her on the elbow, knowing that there wasn’t anything she could do to detect a ghost that was hiding like that. Agatha was literally the best person for that. It must have stung her pride though.

Gengar grabbed the slumped Dusclops and dragged it out behind himself while Daniel watched on with a horrified expression. Agatha merely tutted and shook her head. “Sloppy. They’re getting sloppy if they think I’d miss this pokemon sneaking in. Let’s see if we can find where it came from though.” She walked off without even looking to Lance.

Koga gave Lance a look and Lance nodded his head. “Yes, you’re right, Koga, sweep the building.”

Agents Brown and Blue watched him then turned and gave each other identical nods “Yeah I think he’s ready to talk now. Sabrina can you review these notes? Then we’re going to get him talking so you can get what you can. Stay out here and press this remote if he’s evading, lying, or otherwise.”

Sabrina gave me a look before she went off to divulge as much of Daniel’s secrets as she could. I had to wonder what she’d learnt about him. That look made me more nervous about having him around my family.

Surge started inching towards the door into the interrogation room. Lance pointedly stared at him. Surge whistled innocently and took another sizeable step to the side.

“I can see you. You do realise that you’re not fooling anyone here right?” Lance said.

Surge sniffed. “Was hoping you’d demonstrate good sense and have a moment of temporary blindness.” Surge waggled his eyebrows. “Come on, sometimes you gotta let these sorts of things play out.”

Lance’s frown grew. “I want you to understand that I consider that entirely unethical and I’m offended you would think I would consider such methods acceptable.”

Surge grumbled and stopped inching towards the door. Instead, he came and stood next to me. “Sorry Brock, was gonna slug him one for you. I know how you wou—”

“He tried to resist. I kicked him through a door,” I said.

Lance and Surge blinked in surprise. Agent Brown, who’d remained in the room gave me thoughtful look. Then his eyes darted to Jenny. She nodded at his unasked question, her hands moved apart to indicate how wide the door had been, which gained a hum as he watched me.

Koga returned before Agatha or Sabrina and Agent Blue. “They must be long-range sniping us… or it is possible they are merely putting up feints.”

“They can’t use Psychic pokemon to scry us can they?” I asked.

Sabrina, Jenny, Agent Brown and Lance all shook their heads. I accepted it with a nod, my gaze focused on Daniel.

“What’s going to happen to him?”

It took me a moment to realise I’d been the one to voice the question.

Agent Brown shifted. “He’ll be secured here for a while. Held as we extract information from him. The process will take a while, however. After that… if he’s co-operative enough we will probably place him in protective custody with the understanding that he remains close to his assigned home.” Agent Brown shrugged. “Maybe give him a nice mountain to brood on, or a secluded island. Plenty of those around. It’s… It’s not going to be something you should know Brock.”

I turned and locked eyes with him in challenge. “Oh?”

He matched me undaunted. “You’re too close to this.” He glanced around. “In fact, we should clear the room of anyone none essential to this investigation for the next part. Narrow the potential points of weakness in our information security.”

Surge, rather than grumbling and throwing up a stink like I expected, gave a tight nod. I blinked as I once more remembered that he’d been in a war. Information security probably wasn’t a foreign concept.

Surge instead turned to me. “You want to say anything to him?”

When I tilted my head Surge huffed. “You know, make sure he knows that if you ever see his face again you’ll thrash him.”

I chuckled and shook my head. “Nah I’m good. I don’t need anything like that.” I jerked my head to the doors. “They’ve got our report and know where to find us Surge. I think we should get back to our Gyms. We’ve got other things to see to.”

Lance clapped me on the shoulder. “I’m glad Brock. I know this would be tough but I’m happy your not consumed with needing to do something ill-advised.”

I rolled my eyes. “I got him to you, you know?” I paused as though something had just occurred to me. “... I guess I shouldn’t ask about any other raids that might be being conducted from what we found should I?”

Lance smiled. “Erika and Janine were able to lock down the Games Corner that you uncovered. The executives escaped but Erika has a number of rare pokemon and a lot of money that will be held securely. They did miss out on the Executives however due to the Games Corner’s… structure.” Lance drummed his fingers on his forearm. “ They did well but for us in the League not noticing this? This is going to be a costly mistake Brock, but it is a victory I am going to tout for all Law enforcement as soon as it is advisable to do so.”

Agent Brown shot Lance a pleased smile and Jenny straightened up.

I nodded back, then, oh so casually, I said, “Might be worth putting out a notice for any trainers that pick up suspicious behaviour to report it. With all this pressure on Team Rocket, they might make some other mistakes and show more of their hand.”

Koga pointedly didn’t react but I got the impression he was mentally tipping his hat to me as Lance nodded. “That’s something we already considered but good to see you’ve considered this. Keep this in-house at your gym for now, and don’t answer anything if any reporters ask questions.”

I nodded and made for the door where I marched out past Agatha in the hall with the Machamp glowering at the Dusclops. She was prodding it with her cane to wake it up. Her shadow notably was not lined up with the lights. I offered her a wave of farewell.

“We’ll be in touch,” she said, as she inclined her head. Her shadow smiled at me.

I gave her a grunt of acknowledgement but didn’t break stride as I made my way out. Bruno watched us march out, his hallway bore marks of fighting and his pokemon were both bouncing around with far more energy than they’d had before.

He didn’t say anything and neither did we. When we got outside Sabrina’s Alakazam was levitating and waiting for us. I nodded and started to relax, ready to put this day behind me.

“Guess I’m proud of you too,” Surge said suddenly.

I glanced up at him. “Hmmm? What’s this about?”

He stared pointedly away from me. “You not being all gung-ho to tear Daniel apart. Guess it was wrong of me to suggest you threaten him.”

I snorted. “Please, if Daniel ever appears in front of me he’ll just disappear, but I wasn’t going to say anything like that there.” I rolled my eyes and offered a joking wink. “That’d be possibly incriminating.”

Surge turned back to me grinning. “Heh! That’s the way Brocko.” He glanced about and offered me a less-than-subtle wink and thumbs up. “Still proud of ya!” He tapped Alakazam on the shoulder. “Gonna steal a ride first, Vermillion good for you?”

Alakazam nodded and vanished in a flash. I sighed and looked up at the distant stars.

I didn’t do anything else out there but wait.

The doors of the building opened and running feet announced someone racing after me. I whirled around to find Jenny red-faced. “Wait for me! Sorry! Sorry! I just got reminded that I wasn’t need to know!’ she stopped when she saw I was still here. “Oh good, you haven’t left yet.”

“Nope not yet, Alakazam will be back soon.”

Said pokemon reappeared with a flash and eyed us both. I nodded at the unasked question and a moment later we vanished only to reappear in front of my gym.

Jenny shook herself like a growlithe shaking off wet fur. “Brrr! That always feels weird for me.”

I shrugged. “You get used to it after a few teleports,” I said mildly.

Jenny shot me an incredulous look. “Well, this ended up being a much longer, and way more interesting evening than I bargained for.” She looked up and for a moment I thought I saw fire in her eyes. “But so good! Watching those detectives work on Daniel? That was incredible!”

She smiled hugely at me. “Thanks for trusting me Brock, that was amazing to sit in even with my missing some of it!”

I nodded. “Well, I doubt you’ll be asked to sit out for much longer. The Champion knows your name now and will know you’re trustworthy.”

Jenny practically floated at that and I chuckled before a yawn escaped me. “Well on that note I think I should get to bed.” I almost offered her a bed at the gym before considering how that might come across.

Jenny didn’t seem put out as she was still buzzing from thinking about Lance noticing her. “Yeah, yeah. Night, Brock,” she said distractedly as she turned off to the space that was set aside to park her bike.

I started walking around to the side entrance for my home. I made it to the front door when running feet once more had me turning back. I was turning around, ready to reject a challenge when I found a worried-looking Jenny running up.

“Hey uhm Brock? Any chance your gym trainers moved my bike? I know I left it parked in my spot is all and… it's not there?”

I hissed at that, knowing that no one in my gym would have touched a police bike. “Let’s check the cameras.” I offered.

Jenny’s head bobbed up and down and I opened the door and led her through the house. When we passed the kitchen we found Forrest passed out on the kitchen bench with a blanket wrapped around him. Munchlax was likewise slumped over next to him and across from them was Flint. He straightened up.

“Is everything…” He trailed off when Jenny peeked around the door. “Oh.” then he blinked. “Oh! Right well have a good night you two!” he said as he picked up Forrest to carry to bed.

I stared after his retreating form. Then realisation set in. “It’s not what it looks like!” I hissed after his retreating form.

Flint shot me nod that showed he totally didn’t believe me along with a thumbs up. I groaned and pinched the bridge of my nose. How the man thought I could be like that I had no idea.

“Let’s just… come on,” I said to Jenny who was blushing crimson.

We entered my office and I toggled up the cameras and clicked through them. When I got to the three that looked over the entrance Jenny leaned in closer.

“Where’s this one from?” she said tapping the third camera feed.

“The hill overlooking the gym. It’s a good vantage point and the camera is hidden, it’ll pick up anyone watching the gym too closely. Also it’s new.” I  expanded the camera and ran it in reverse until the bike suddenly appeared on the screen.

Jenny hissed as she caught sight of two small forms creeping up to the gym. I frowned at their covered-up forms. They were obviously up to no good with how they had face masks and hoodies. They’d have been sweating buckets in that get-up.

Jenny and I watched as they crept up to the bike, a few times vanishing from one of the cameras only for the third to keep them in sight the entire time. They were making… What I could only deem amateurish attempts to avoid the first two cameras’ arc points of vision.

They only stood out thanks to the third.

Out of curiosity I toggled the internal security feed and found out why this hadn’t been flagged. The security team I had chosen to have someone outside the Gym’s door and had been in the middle of securing another door. They were going above and beyond while also dropping the ball simultaneously. I clicked my tongue at how fortunate the kids that had done this had gotten.

Jenny glared at the screen. “Some punk kids have stolen my bike…”

“Yup,” I said. Jenny swore and I pat her on the shoulder only to have her storm off. I watched her march back out to the front of the Gym with a thunderous expression on her face. I toggled the sound as she unleashed an Arcanine.

“Smell! Find!” she ordered firmly. Instantly the giant fire dog dropped to smell the ground before sitting up and nodding. Jenny hopped onto the pokemon’s back and slashed her arm forward.

“Arcanine! Hunt!” she shouted. Arcanine took off in a burst of speed with Jenny riding atop.

I whistled as I watched Jenny disappear from the camera feeds. “Those kids are screwed.”

[hr][/hr]

The next morning I was extra glad that I had had the foresight to cancel the gym matches for the day. A number of reporters were quick to appear and claim I was being negligent.

Rachel was quick to appear at my side while I was cooking breakfast.

“Brock, what’s the situation? Alexa messaged me that all the gym matches were cancelled last night and I’ve been freaking out! There are media all over this cause of how many trainers have been put out by this!? What’s happening?” she said fluttering from foot too foot like a started pidgey.

I plated up the pancakes and gestured for her to walk with me into another room while the kids were distracted. Yolanda tracked me with an assessing look but I just waved her off. “Don’t worry about it,” I said as I swept past her.

When we reached the room I shut the door and sighed. “Daniel was a spy for Team Rocket,” I said deciding to go straight for ripping the bandaid off.

Rachel gaped at me a whispered. “Oh shit,” escaped her and I nodded.

“Needless to say when I discovered this we had… words…”

Rachel swallowed, “Is he in police custody or…”

I huffed. “He’s at League headquarters due to this being a serious crime.” When Rachel shot me a confused expression I continued. “Spying on a gym that is on the border of Kanto like we are is considered a national crime with the charge being espionage against a defence asset. As such—”

“He’s in it deep isn’t he?” Rachel said with huge eyes. I nodded and she considered that. She licked her lips and looked me over. “How are you feeling? Must have been a bit of a blow to learn he was a traitor?”

I inhaled and exhaled. “Yeah,” I said simply.

I waved a hand towards the front of the gym. “I need you to go out there and assure the media that I did what I did after careful consideration with an ongoing event affecting the Gym. The League is aware of this incident and working with us, but as yet we cannot offer more to the public due to the nature of the incident. Ask for people’s forgiveness but know that we will be back in business as usual tomorrow with the displaced trainers having some temporary slots offered to them.”

Rachel nodded seriously. “I’ll take care of it!” She said clenching her fists in determination. She then hopped from foot to foot. “He made a mistake you know?”

I raised a brow wondering what she meant.

“Just that working here should have been a dream job for anyone. Him spitting on that… He really thumbed his nose at something great.” She chewed her lip. “Does that make any sense or am messing this up?”

I snorted. “Well, thanks for trying,” I said before nodding my head towards the door. Rachel turned and marched off, a woman on a mission. I smiled, happy that despite being betrayed I still had a lot of people willing to stand with me that I felt I could trust.

I considered that for a moment before slowly nodding. Yeah, I’d still extend them my trust. I didn’t need to demand Sabrina or Jenny interrogate them. I wasn’t going to let one bad egg ruin what I had here.

I checked my watch and walked back to the kitchen to get ready for the day that was to come. I’d have a gym meeting to clean things up and then I’d reshuffle Daniel’s duties to other people. I’d be behind on trainer matches but those could be handled n the short term. I’d just need to adjust the rest period for my gym and pokemon to much earlier.

Yet another flow-on effect of the Trainer flood coming into play.

But we’d be back in business the day after, just as good as ever, I vowed to myself.

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A.N. Special thanks goes to my patreons for their support!

Special thanks goes to Raikor, Ab9999 and Elnoorz for betaing and editing this chapter.