Uprising

Chapter 9

After a short five- or ten-minutes wandering around the dark, soundless halls of Team Rocket HQ, Nanu and the infamous Rocket quartet arrived at the massive doorway to Giovanni's private meeting room. The door was almost twice as tall and the automated fence that surrounded the building, and was painted a regal red with the organization's iconic red 'R' logo in white, making it look like Jessie's and James's uniforms, but inverted. On opposite sides of the door, two larger-than-life snarling Persian statues, presumably made from solid gold, stood guard as their piercing eyes seemed to watch the group's every move. Nobody even dared to move a muscle, until Nanu volunteered to brave the beasts. He slowly raised his shaky, wrinkled, fist to the door, but before it even could make contact, Giovanni's voice growled through a nearby intercom: "No need to continue, agent. Come in."

He called him 'agent'. Nanu felt both invigorated and infuriated at Giovanni assigning him that title. It caused him to hesitate for a second, looking back at Jessie and James behind him with innocent eyes, before they motioned for him to enter the room without them. He accepted their command, and walked into the room, his eyes gazing down at the blood-red carpet beneath him.

Giovanni smiled: "Agent Nanu, so very good to finally see you again after all these years." He slowly reached his thick hand for him to shake. Nanu did so, slowly, almost like it was a question.

"My, you seem nervous today, agent Nanu." Giovanni evilly chuckled, making Nanu jump a little and his skin crawl. It was terrifying to listen to Giovanni laugh, as Giovanni is, indeed, a terrifying man. Even though he was much younger than Nanu, he still felt intimidated by him.

"I guess you could say that, sir." Nanu mumbled a little.

Giovanni laughed again. "Now now, Nanu, there's no need to be nervous. You may be a police officer now, but there's still quite a bit of Team Rocket blood in your veins. Just tell your supervisor that you're doing a favor for an old friend, that's all. Now, before we get started, I believe you owe me a little something."

Nanu paused for a brief second before remembering what he had explicitly told him to bring during one of their phone calls, "Oh, yes, of course." Nanu reached into his pocket and presented Giovanni with a rolled-up piece of paper. He opened them swiftly and read them with hungry, eager eyes.

"Yes, yes, this is exactly what I needed." Giovanni said, still looking down and examining every word on the slip of paper. After a few seconds, he looked up and grinned at Nanu, "Excellent work, Nanu. You've proven to me that you're still one of the best hackers Team Rocket has ever seen. Nobody else here on base could have possibly done as well as you with finding a loophole in the Aether Foundation's private research server to gain research on Cosmog. I knew I could count on you for giving me exactly what I want."

"It didn't take much. I work for the Alola PD; I have the ability to access virtually every computer in Alola. Grant it, I can't do it legally without probable cause, but you did beg me ever so nicely to doing your bidding once again, so I made an exception." Nanu mumbled.

"You flatter me, Nanu. You really do." Giovanni chuckled, taking a seat in his armchair at the head of the long, wooden table, "But in all seriousness, thank you. This is exactly the kind of information we need in order to carry out the first phase of our operation."

"With all due respect, Giovanni, now that I'm here, would you kindly inform me what this 'operation' is, and why you needed such information on such an incredibly weak Pokémon?"

"My dearest Nanu, did you not read the data you collected before handing it to me? If you did, you would know that Cosmog is quite the opposite of weak. In fact, this creature has the ability-"