While Cynthia is moving to a random city (though the nearest is either Lavender or Fuchsia) after finding someone she deemed interesting, the man who was the main target of all this operation that reeled the two most prominent trainers of Indigo Plateau: Indigo League Champion Blue and his rival 1st runner up of the previous Pokemon League challenge Red, the team leader of Team Rocket, Giovanni is having a crisis of his lifetime.
It's not even a month since his operation to kidnap Anthony Dover, son of the former head of the headaches he has, named Hana and Ben, and all of his double agents' small bases and even legit cover-up businesses in Pallet, Cinnabar, and even his lookouts in several routes have been under extreme surveillance and slow attack from the Interpol. Worse is this time, they don't care about their righteous facet, people will die if they die, Pokemons on the side of evil are evil until they're rescued, and any way of interrogation that yields results is a good way to interrogate.
They are going all out, and all because of the pressure of two people: the Pokémon Professor of Kanto, Samuel Oak, and the parents of that damnable child who just have to continue being a headache for Giovanni despite not being in the service of Interpol anymore. Giovanni is not even sure if Hana and Ben really retired or are just pretending to be so they can deal a lethal blow to Team Rocket, something that already happened before and always gives Giovanni nightmares.
The only difference this time and before is that Interpol is very adamant on ending the carefully built organization that he erected with his sweat and blood. And as if everything that's happening right now is not enough already, Giovanni, while pacing left and right in front of his table, suddenly saw a common Team Rocket grunt slam the door open in a hurry.
"Projected Champion of Sinnoh Cynthia Celestica is seen on a plane to Kanto! The information needs to get through 3 agents' deaths to be relayed to your office, Boss Giovanni!"
_________________
That night, it was Anthony's turn to act weird, as for the first time in his two lives, he had his phone open on the table where all of the satellite lab scientists were eating. Even when the two interns helped with the washing of dishes, Anthony was glancing at his phone as if waiting for something. Indeed, when Anthony was able to receive the follow of Cynthia, Anthony expected a message from her, but surprisingly, nothing came even after all the stuff they had to do to prepare the lab for the night (especially cleaning the dining area and kitchen, since they're just sleeping here to have some rest before feeling the real effects of enduring water pressure in their small body).
He is also not keen on starting the conversation since they're not really that close, and he's honestly quite shy. In his previous life, his first friend in high school was someone with whom he shared his notes on the class because he had busted his phone on the way to school, making him unable to take a photo of it.
He's not the one who started the conversation.
_Whatever, being followed by Cynthia is still good anyway, though it may be because he found in me a good future potential rival instead of a good friend. Which is quite fine, I guess._
With such thoughts, Anthony decided to sleep that night without studying any breeder or Pokémon knowledge since he was very tired. The next morning, Anthony grunted due to the expected body pain that was brought about by their activity yesterday.
_Indeed, it's a good thing that we don't have any data collection to do today or the succeeding 3 days..._
Anthony sighed as he once again grunted and forced himself out of the body. After all, he still has to get going since he and Mary will separately explore Route 12 and its surrounding places to look for inspirations, apparently, Mary even thought of hers, which added 1 to her original one, which she sent to him late at night.
_She's probably figuring out herself if she really wants the grind of being an associate field researcher or is just wasting her time. Good for her._
As Anthony thought of the attitude of her friend yesterday and approved of it, he finally stood up after once again forcing himself to do so. At that moment, he suddenly heard his phone, which he unknowingly just left on his bed while sleeping, ring, and when he opened it, he saw the logo of the Pokegram with the name 'SomeonewithaGarchomp' sending him a message.
This is Cynthia's username, and in her message, it says, "I'm inside Mama Kangaskhan with your mom and dad. Good morning," with a photo attached to it. Anthony felt as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over his head with this message, making his whole consciousness go back to him after wandering in the land of dreams for so long, as he once again went and sat down on his bed before opening the message.
What appeared on his phone is a photo held by a Bulbasaur's vine that it uses for the Vine Whip move, taking a selfie with Bulbasaur itself and Mama Kangaskhan, who is flexing her big muscles while using its pouch to carry 4 people at once: Anthony's mom and dad, Cynthia, and Baby Kangaskhan. After receiving this, Anthony also received messages from his mom and dad.
Both of them are saying: So that's why you created a Pokegram account, word for word, with several smirk emojis and some premium custom emojis of Cynthia's face winking. Of course, Anthony decided to ignore the teasing of his mom and dad and instead replied to Cynthia.
"You are, huh. I did that a lot when I was younger, too."
To not make him sound bland, which he already does in real life, Anthony called his Pokemons who had just finished their morning self-grooming routine, took a picture of them, and sent it to Cynthia before combing the fur of his Pokemons with a brush designated for them. After which, Anthony went out of his room to the recreational area of the satellite lab, where most of the scientists and interns are staying before their office hours.
Anthony wanted to watch the TV to have some whiff on what his first and new chatmate is actually doing in this place besides wanting to have a photo-op with Mama Kangaskhan and the 'Dover Couple' as the Pokémon world calls them. As Anthony heard the notification of Cynthia reacting heart to the picture of Zubat and Miltank and ignoring it since this signals the end of a conversation, he poured a cup of hot chocolate for himself, which was offered to him by the lounging scientists, and looked at the TV, who's currently flashing the morning news.
"We're interrupting the current segment to bring you this breaking news: the Interpol has intercepted a cargo truck exiting Fuchsia, intending to smuggle Team Rocket grunts to the port. According to initial investigations, the cargo is intended to ship them into the Johto part of the Indigo Plateau, where it was said that the full force crackdown and eradication mission of Team Rocket is milder. Gym Leader Koga and Mayor XXX of Fuchsia City advise residents to become alert to any suspicious activities in their vicinity and report them to the authorities as soon as possible."
Anthony relied on his perpetually neutral face to remain relaxed while sipping hot chocolate and rubbing his eyes. He then turned on his phone and messaged his dad on the message function of his phone.
"Is Cynthia still at our house?"
Seeing the news and also seeing no mention of the nearest powerhouse that can and wants to respond to this matter that's actually happening all over Indigo Plateau. However, to his surprise, his dad responded with a 'yes' and even further teased him with a picture of Cynthia with some sparkly edit while she's eating breakfast alongside her Garchomp.
Anthony suddenly was enlightened as he ignored the photo of his dad with Cynthia and then continued sipping chocolate and eating bread. In his mind, however, he can't help but have tumultuous thoughts that were concealed by his ever-so reliable stiff-muscled face.
_Did they just summon Cynthia here for her to be a decoy? Something that would make Team Rocket focus on fending in Kanto? Is the influence of Prof. Oak that big to mobilize an obstacle of a prominent Team like Team Galactic of Sinnoh? Or perhaps Team Galactic is yet to exist at this time?_
Anthony, however, thought of this as unlikely, as he had already done his job of using a search engine to search for all the teams of the Pokémon games as well as the characters in both games and anime. This made him confirm that Ash doesn't exist at all or at least doesn't exist yet (though Dalia is also not in Pallet, so maybe he really doesn't) as well as the fact that almost all Teams in the Pokemon world already exists while some are even cooperating, one of such is Team Galactic, which is also the reason why Sinnoh can produce lots of talents and has a lot of parity in their champion that changed every year for the last 8 years either because of a successful Pokemon League challenge or an elite 4 overtaking.
This year, it's projected to be Cynthia, who apparently won the Pokémon League challenge but refused to challenge the champion because she only has 5 Pokemons until this year, wherein she caught a Feebas, which she would later on evolve into a Milotic, as the story of the Sinnoh title games goes.
As Anthony was thinking of this, he became more and more convinced that Cynthia was here having a vacation with no intentions of interfering. However, the moment when he was about to convince himself more about his theory, Anthony once again saw the icon of his father on his phone, which made him confused.
"Remember, Anthony, don't figure out things that shouldn't be figured out by children."
Anthony froze for a moment, realizing how much of a hold and knowledge of his personality his father really has.
_Right, Anthony is quite observant before even I took over after he got a concussion..._
And indeed, Ben was right, knowing something that you shouldn't is very dangerous in the real world of Pokémon. Anthony is actually quite lucky that he's in the shit and giggles part of the world and can go on as a normal trainer while pursuing things for himself and not be on the darker side, where he needs to see Pokemons being used for their potential to be weapons.
"Okay, Dad."
Anthony replied, and while doing so, he felt a tug on his hair, which was obviously from Zubat.
"Zuu, zuu."
Zubat was pointing at the door, which Anthony followed, and when he saw Mary and remembered that he had some places to be with her, he immediately stood up and decided to finish his breakfast. Since yesterday, Mary seems to be more eager to find titles than in the past few days, which Anthony is quite happy about; this means his words worked somehow.
_Well, now that I realized it, I'm not the one to talk since I just got fascinated by research because of Ma'am Melissa, and I originally just want the surge of salary and experience in going to different places besides the cities to go to gyms..._
In any case, Anthony is thankful to have helped her friend find her drive, or at least give her the courage to find it herself. After talking about the time when they would be asking for permission to go out, the two went to bathe themselves and went to get their clothes, which were made to be delivered by Prof. Josie to them so they could sleep in the satellite lab peacefully.
After that, the two asked for permission to go out of the lab, and they were allowed to, because of the breaking news, the two are not allowed to go in the direction of Fuchsia and only near and around Lavender Town, which is up north of Route 12. Anthony and Mary understood this as they also heard the news, so they just went and complied, having pet bottles to get samples from different places of the sea before putting them in a compound microscope later, as well as their clipboards and bond papers to write things that can be used as a topic.
In the end, the kids had so much fun looking around and watching Pokemons and the environment of Route 12, despite it being only a large wooden bridge. This is because you can see Pokemons who are friendly who're waving at them shyly while they scribble in their clipboard. This made them so immersed that they had to go back to the lab already, despite being unable to reach Lavender Town.
During this time, when they returned, they heard from the head scientist that they would be defending their titles straight away before getting a new data collection task from Prof. Josie.