The air outside the western mouth of Mount Moon smelled of wet pine and distant ozone, a sharp contrast to the suffocating, blood-greasy sulfur of the caverns.
Emily dropped hard into the knee-high grass of the ravine, her lungs burning as she dragged Angel's dead weight completely into the shadow of the rocky outcrop. This was one of her old blinds—the exact, dirt-floored ridge where she had hidden herself out of sight, watching Angel kill and trail her way directly toward Mount Moon. It was hidden, thick with tall grass and briar, and completely invisible from the main transit paths.
"Down. Fucking stay down," Emily spat, rolling Angel onto the soft grass.
The girl didn't move. Her skin was clammy, the heavy field gauze around her throat already stained a dark, uniform crimson that leaked out into the soil. Emily didn't check the pulse again; she knew the clock was ticking down to the fucking second.
She whipped out her Pokégear, her fingers smearing a line of Angel's cold blood across the glass screen. The interface flickered, showing a single, static green icon blinking deep within the mountain's structural wireframe. The coordinate tracker she had dropped on the rocky ridge during the panic was still throwing a hard signal.
"Perfect," Emily muttered, her teeth clicking together from the residual adrenaline. "The anchor's live."
She looked out through the break in the treeline toward the main entrance of Route 3, a few hundred yards away. The entire sector was dissolving into absolute horse shit.
The mouth of the mountain was vomiting out humanity. Tourists were sprinting into the mud, dropping bags, screaming for lost family members. Heavy-set hikers in dirt-stained gear were acting as meat-shields, dragging crying civilians out by their collars while pulling out their own mid-tier rock types just to form a desperate perimeter. Weaker wild Pokémon—shivering Zubats, terrified Paras, and confused Geodudes—were breaking from the caves alongside the humans, fleeing the localized apocalypse Weezing was cooking up inside the middle tier.
In the distance, the low, wailing shrieks of Officer Jenny's motorcycle sirens and heavy League transport cruisers began to echo down the valley from Pewter City. They were moving fast, lights throwing blue and red streaks against the overcast sky. They were coming to rescue the people inside and they were coming to lock the fucking doors. The League was burning the bridge, sealing the entrance to turn Mount Moon into a containment tomb until a heavy-hitter—Brock, a mercenary squad, or high-tier bounty hunters—could arrive to put the monster down.
Emily turned her back on the chaos, locking her eyes on her Kadabra. The psychic type was kneeling in the dirt, its chest heaving, a thin line of pink, metallic-smelling saliva dripping from its narrow jaw.
"Listen to me, Kadabra," Emily hissed, her voice cutting through the distant sirens. "No breaks. You start drawing energy right fucking now. Pull it from the air, pull it from your own damn blood, pulled it from your ass, I don't care. We have a long-distance relay race ahead of us and I need you fully loaded for multiple teleports. Do not stop until your spoon is vibrating."
The Pokémon grunted, its fingers tightening around its silver spoon as its eyes rolled back into a dull, glowing pink sheen, absorbing the latent psychic current from the atmosphere.
With her free hand, Emily unclipped her belt and recalled her Murkrow. The bird vanished into the red light of its ball with a soft click. "I have an urgent call to make," she told the concentrating Kadabra. "Just stay focused on the warp reservoir."
She swiped through the encrypted Team Rocket directory, found the direct channel for the Pewter City Rocket Base command hub, and dialed Executive Ariana's private line.
miles away, inside the underground alloy bunker beneath Pewter City, the silence was absolute.
Executive Ariana sat behind a heavy oak desk, her posture perfect, completely unbothered by the chaos bleeding into the regional network. She pulled a slow, deliberate breath from her long kiseru pipe, the sweet, heavy scent of dark tobacco curling up toward the concrete ceiling.
Spread out across her desk was the daily administrative load—hundreds of standard intelligence sheets, financial ledger summaries, and logistics files that kept the Johto-Kanto underbelly running smoothly. Her slender fingers drifted over one particular document near the top of the stack. It was a standard manifest sheet containing a high-resolution, grainy monochrome image of a massive piece of ancient resin—the Amber Fossil. A short, typewritten note at the bottom detailed its scheduled transit and arrival at the Pewter City Museum in a few weeks' time. It was just another piece of the massive puzzle, another file in the endless ocean of regional data she oversaw every single day.
On the corner of the mahogany desk, her private Pokégear began to vibrate against the wood, its screen lighting up with a red alert banner from the public League channels.
The public emergency network was going frantic. A Level 37+ rogue Weezing was actively slaughtering civilians and licensed trainers in the Mount Moon crossroads. The casualty count was already ticking past thirty. Ariana glanced at the alert, her face entirely blank. She knew a Red Alert was live, but the public feed was completely stripped of detail—no names, no master profiles, no context. Just a rogue poison-type causing a bloodbath. She didn't know why it was throwing a tantrum, and she didn't particularly care.
Then, the private line underneath the emergency feed cut through. The screen flashed with Emily's high-priority operational ID.
"Report, Emily," Ariana said, her voice a smooth, icy velvet that carried the weight of an executioner. "I assume you have a spectacular reason for interrupting my desk hour while the mountain outside is burning down."
"Reporting, no signs of Odin or Lucy yet," Emily said, her voice taut as she looked down at Angel's pale face.
Across the line, the silence lasted for a heavy beat, broken only by the faint, rhythmic crackle of burning tobacco. In her private quarters, Executive Ariana shifted slightly in her leather chair. She was wearing a silk robe that hung loosely over her shoulders, revealing a teasing glimpse of her collarbone. She slowly crossed one long, slender leg over the other, her bare skin smooth and gleaming under the dim lamplight. She took a slow drag from her kiseru pipe, looking absolutely fucking seductive as the pale smoke curled around her lips.
"Then, my dear Emily, why is it that you are calling me?" Ariana asked, her tone dripping with a smooth, dangerous velvet.
"While I haven't found both of them yet... I have a lead," Emily replied quickly, keeping her eyes fixed on Kadabra's glowing spoon.
"And what is this lead of yours?"
Ariana uncrossed her legs, letting her foot trace a slow, lazy circle in the air before draping her other leg over the top, the silk robe parting just enough to expose the full, distracting length of her thighs. She didn't look like a warlord; she looked like a high-class whore who could order a man's execution without shifting her gaze.
"Well, about that.. this lead comes in the form of a person..." Emily muttered.
"Hmm, a person you say?" Ariana blew a thin stream of smoke toward the ceiling, her lips curving into a lazy, amused smile. "Hmm, do tell, my dear... what could be so important about this person, that instead of chasing Odin and Lucy, you are here calling me to talk about some person?"
"Does the name Angel ring any bell, Executive Ariana?"
Ariana's smile didn't fade, but her eyes narrowed just a fraction, a predatory glint appearing in her dark irises. "No... none alive that I care for. Who is she?"
"Long story short, I saw an albino girl, as beautiful as she was haunting.. she looked like a ghost girl," Emily explained, wiping a streak of rain from her forehead. "So I began following her.. it was right around the time you called me to go investigate Odin and Lucy's appearance."
Ariana paused, the kiseru hovering an inch from her lips. The image struck a chord in her memory. "Hmm... ghost girl... that term at least does seem very familiar."
"Well, I found she is directly connected to Odin," Emily pressed, gaining confidence. "And it seems like she might know where he is.. or at least have some kind of contact with him."
Ariana let out a soft, low purr of approval, shifting her weight in the chair as her bare thighs rubbed together with a soft rustle of silk. "Now... that's a progress I wanted to hear. So you followed a ghost-looking girl, out of sheer intuition, and it turns out she is heavily connected to Odin, and might be our ticket to finding our golden goose and my dear, dear vexing cousin... so the question now is, why haven't you extracted any information from her? Why stall?"
Emily sucked in a breath, looking down at the bloody gauze packing Angel's throat. "That's the problem here... an accident happened. She got her throat slit... she is bleeding and dying.. she needs immediate surgery and medical care!"
Ariana let out a sharp, mocking laugh that carried a cruel edge, leaning forward toward her mahogany desk. Her amused expression sharpened into a look of cold calculation.
"So you are calling me for permission to bring a civilian inside our base? You expect us to cover medical expenses on the hope that your intuition is correct?" Ariana's voice turned patronizing. "Dear Emily... I am aware of your motivations. You are looking to create emotional debt, hoping that saving this girl will make Odin more inclined to cooperate with you."
Emily remained silent, her knuckles turning white around the Pokégear. She didn't deny it.
Ariana took another slow drag from her pipe, watching the smoke drift before she spoke again. "Suppose I agree. Any failure is on your head. If we get nothing out of her, you will be the one to answer for it."
"Yes, Executive Ariana, thank you!" Emily breathed, a wave of relief washing over her.
"Report the rest," Ariana interrupted, her tone instantly hardening. The playful demeanor was replaced by the cold authority of a commander. "What exactly is happening at Mount Moon, and how is this 'ghost girl' involved? Give me a full situation report immediately."
"The Weezing that triggered the Red Alert... it went berserk because of this girl, Angel," Emily said.
The kiseru stopped mid-air. Ariana's gaze fixed entirely on the wall ahead, the last traces of amusement evaporating. "Explain yourself."
"Before I do... I need to know something," Emily asked, her voice dropping. "Did Odin have a Koffing in his possession?"
Ariana's breath hitched. Her mind raced back through personnel files and backtracking all she knew, yes indeed he only had a Koffing, i delivered him an egg, but i didnt see Koffing at Mt.moon with him.. nor did he have any Pokéballs clipped to his Pokébelt, he only had one... that was probably the Geodude behind him... so where was his Koffing?. Her fingers tightened around her pipe.
"He did," Ariana whispered, her voice dropping into a dangerous register. "What are you suggesting?"
"I think my suspicion was right," Emily said, looking back toward the chaotic mountain entrance where the sirens were screaming. "That Weezing causing the massacre... it belongs to Odin."
Hearing that the unstoppable, ash-making monster inside the mountain was Odin's Koffing, Ariana fell completely silent. The sheer shock of it rippled through the line. She crossed her long, slender legs once more, the smooth, bare skin sliding together with a soft whisper of silk. She pressed the kiseru pipe to her lips, taking a slow, deep drag, but she didn't interrupt. Her dominant, seductive aura completely hardened into a focused, predatory stillness. She just sat there, listening intently as her brain scrambled to piece together the explosive truth of the Mount Moon crisis.
"That Weezing... I don't know how to feel," Emily continued, her voice low as she watched the pink light of Kadabra's psychic reservoir hum against the wet grass. "It's a monster to others, yes, for sure... but if Weezing can be saved... Odin should really have no choice but to be thankful not just to me, but also to Team Rocket. I know this sounds like i'm doing it for gains, and yeah, that's true... but I also just feel really bad about the Weezing."
Emily shifted her stance, looking down at Angel's chest barely moving. "That Weezing isn't inherently bad and evil... it's just fiercely loyal. It lost both its master and the girl I have in my hand. Just one bad day... one massive failure."
She rubbed her temples, trying to process the absolute slaughter she had witnessed from the ridge. "I looked up the identity of this girl. Angel, eighteen years old, no occupations. This Pokémon wasn't hers. And if she is deeply connected to Odin... that can only mean, out of sheer importance she carries for Odin, he left her with that monster just to keep her safe. And he failed."
Emily spat into the dirt, her instinct piecing together the tragedy. "It thinks she is dead, Ariana. That's what caused the whole berserk to happen. The reason Mount Moon is under lockdown. The reason for the Red Alert."
"I don't know who Angel is to Odin," Emily added, her mind flashing back to her day spent trailing the albino girl from the city all the way through Mt.moon, "but she was too obsessed with him. I've been with Team Rocket for years now, and I have never seen anyone more psycho than her. Her obsession is too unhealthy. She must either be a family member or a lover."
"She is a lover," Ariana said smoothly, the velvet in her voice thick and absolute.
"How can you know?" Emily asked, blinking in surprise.
"Trust me, my dear Emily," Ariana purred, shifting her weight in the leather chair, her bare thighs rubbing together with a seductive friction. "One talk with Odin, and you'll know he only has girls around him as lovers... and you, if you keep involving yourself with him, then expect to join his circle of lovers."
"I won't ever!" Emily snapped back, her professional composure fracturing for a split second. "I'm literally running away from one!"
"Naive girl..." Ariana scoffed gently, blowing a lazy circle of dark tobacco smoke that hung in the air of her luxury quarters. "Did you really think things are that easy? He will definitely demand your body for whatever you want from him."
Emily went completely rigid, her tongue catching in her throat. She stayed silent, the cold truth of the underworld weighing heavily on her chest.
"Also, that Angel girl is ringing a bell now," Ariana mused, leaning her head back against the leather seat, letting her silk robe part a fraction more over her slender legs. "I remember after doing some investigation on him, there were some reports of him having a ghost girl cling to him like an item, walking in broad daylight together, going to Diglett's Cave... they really didn't hide anything. She was apparently just like you described—as beautiful as she was haunting, looked like an albino girl... a ghost girl. If that girl you are carrying is her, then yes... she is absolutely his lover."
"No wonder Weezing cared a lot," Emily muttered, looking at the dried blood on Angel's jaw.
"You actually did good," Ariana said, her eyes flashing with calculation. "Keep her alive and bring her here. She is an important asset... I need answers from her as well."
"I don't get it anymore," Emily sighed, leaning against the damp limestone of her blind. "What makes Odin so special? I chased him for this reason... but the more I know, the more confused I get."
Ariana's demeanor instantly shifted. The smooth, bureaucratic mask dissolved entirely, replaced by something dark, raw, and intensely physical. She uncrossed her legs slowly, her eyes rolling back slightly as she gripped the edge of her mahogany desk, her breath turning shallow and hot.
"What I'm about to tell you stays confidential," Ariana whispered, her voice dropping into an incredibly dirty, heavy rhythm. "It stays between us... or expect death."
".... Yes," Emily said, her heart hammering against her ribs.
"First... I'm only telling you because something tells me... this is another one of his fates," Ariana breathed out, her voice suddenly trembling with an intense, unvarnished heat. "I believe you two are fated to meet, to be intertwined... you will definitely be his lover. My dear Odin... is working hard... even when he is in ghost mode... he is still pulling bitches... ahhh... mmhhhhhh... I wonder how he feels... to have him in me... mmhhhhh..."
Right there in the middle of the secure line, the Executive let out a series of low, uninhibited moans, her breathing completely breaking as she succumbed to the raw, horny fantasy of Odin's Touches.
Emily's face flushed red in the dirt, her eyes widening in sheer, unadulterated disbelief. "Umm... Executive Ariana... focus, please. What were you going to tell me?"
Ariana caught herself, drawing a sharp, ragged breath as she pulled her silk robe back over her trembling thighs. She cleared her throat, the cold, dominant commander instantly re-emerging from the haze of her own lust, though her voice still carried a residual tremor.
"Right..." Ariana said, her fingers tightening around the kiseru pipe until her knuckles turned white. "What makes him so important and mysterious... is not just how he is so lucky... or fated... or has the stench of fate on him... nor that he is our precious little golden goose. No... there is more to this..."
"You see... you say Angel is a ghost girl... or that she looks like one..." Ariana paused, letting the silence stretch down the line so Emily could fully process the weight of the words.
She took a slow, methodical drag from her kiseru pipe, her bare, slender legs shifting lazily as she watched the grey smoke drift through her private quarters.
"But that's all she is... just a ghost look-alike," Ariana murmured, her voice dripping with an icy, mocking amusement. "The real ghost isn't Angel. It's Odin."
Emily, despite carrying a Haunter of her own in her personal roster, felt a cold prickle of unease trace down her spine. She had never been good with supernatural bullshit or urban legends, and the cryptic stalling was beginning to grate on her raw nerves.
"Come on, Ariana... stop with all the suspense and stalling," Emily snapped, her knuckles whitening around her Pokégear as she kept one eye on her hyper-ventilating Kadabra. "You know I'm not good with these kinds of things."
A sharp, genuinely amused laugh echoed from the receiver. Ariana leaned back, her silk robe slipping slightly lower over her bare shoulder as she took another puff. "Haha... the Goddess of Verbal Warfare is afraid of ghosts... cute. Hilarious."
She let out a soft, satisfied sigh, the playful mockery instantly hardening back into the authoritative tone of a high-ranking commander. "But sure, fine."
She paused to pull another deep drag from her pipe before continuing.
"He really is like a ghost, Emily. He has no history. No records. No background. Nothing. No school, no family, no prior Pokémon. Not even an orphanage or a state-run shelter record. No friends, no acquaintances, no past lovers... nothing. Absolutely nothing on him."
Emily blinked, staring blankly at the wet grass beneath her boots. "That's impossible. Everyone leaves at least one trace. Even if it's extremely tiny... a digital footprint, a medical record, a transit log. Something."
"Yes... everyone," Ariana replied, her voice dropping into a flat, clinical register. "Except Odin. He is a complete anomaly in this weird case."
"Then how did he even join Team Rocket?" Emily pressed, her mind frantically trying to find a logical thread. "Where did they scout him from? Where did he sign up? Someone must know or have seen him walk through the front doors."
"That's where things get weirder..." Ariana muttered, the amber glow of her pipe illuminating the sharp, dangerous lines of her face. "The earliest trace of him... is exactly inside the Team Rocket base in Pewter City. Right in the selection room, standing there to choose a Pokémon of his own. Supposedly, he even almost puked just seeing the Koffing."
"Then there must be some trace of how his name got on the roster, no?" Emily said.
"None, Nada." Ariana stated flatly. "The captains didn't know of him. They didn't know where he pulled up from. Everyone did an internal investigation, and there was zero trace of him signing up or getting scouted by our field recruiters. Even though his name was clearly in the system papers, along with his physical information. One hundred and eighty-eight centimeters, name Odin, male, eighteen years old... that's it. Nothing else."
Ariana uncrossed her thighs, leaning forward over her mahogany desk, her bare skin gleaming under the dim lamplight.
"We even investigated the clerk dealing with the intake papers—the one whose job it is to physically sign names up. That person apparently swore he never signed Odin's name up, and he didn't even remember anything about Odin's name being on the paper. Of course, we tortured him to see if we could extract more information."
Ariana's voice didn't even waver as she described the brutality. "Turns out, the poor bastard wasn't lying. Even as we tortured him to death, he always said the exact same thing with his final breaths... he didn't know. Odin is a complete mystery and a ghost inside Team Rocket and this world altogether."
Emily remained dead silent, her stomach twisting slightly at the casual mention of the clerk's execution.
"On top of that," Ariana continued, her tone shifting into a mix of possessive greed and professional reverence, "he is blessed by fate. Lucky, and a complete golden goose. We must not lose him. He is too weird of an anomaly. The Boss wants him strictly for Team Rocket only. He is never to be allowed outside of our organization... and in return, we help and protect him while secretly investigating his origins more."
She tapped the edge of her kiseru against the ceramic tray. "He pops out golden-potential assets like it's nothing... and he even gave the Boss a perfect Diamond-Potential Dugtrio. If it wasn't delivered straight to the Boss, that Pokémon would have been recorded as the very first documented monster in the entire world with a perfect Diamond-Potential status. Odin is a priceless treasure to us."
Ariana's eyes narrowed into sharp slits. "Do you understand now, Emily? We must bring him back at all costs. We have to keep him happy as well, so bring me that Angel girl alive. I will ensure our medical teams save her. And as for that Weezing... let's hope my extraction squads get to it before Brock does."
"Yes, I'm on my way there now executive Ariana" Emily said.
"Good"
*Boop*
The line went dead with a sharp, final click.
Inside her private quarters, Executive Ariana slowly lowered her Pokégear onto the dark mahogany desk. The lingering haze of dark tobacco smoke drifted lazily around her, but the seductive, loose demeanor she had maintained during the call vanished instantly. Her dark eyes grew completely cold. Odin wasn't just a high-value Rocket; he was a walking breach in the fabric of the world, an untraceable ghost who had handed a perfect Diamond-Potential Pokémon directly to Giovanni.
She stood up from her leather chair, her silk robe sliding off her shoulders and pooling onto the floor. Stripped of the lazy, horny facade, her movements became sharp, precise, and military. She walked over to her tall wardrobe and pulled out her official Team Rocket Executive uniform.
Piece by piece, she dressed. The pristine, stark-white fabric went over her long, slender legs, hugging her hips tightly and rising to a sharp, high collar. She zipped the jacket up, the blood-red 'R' emblazoned across her chest standing out like a fresh wound against the white material. She pulled on her dark, calf-high leather boots, snapping the buckles shut, before sliding a silver-plated holster onto her thigh. Ariana adjusted her gloves, looking at her reflection in the long mirror. The seductive whore was gone; the warlord of the Pewter City underworld was fully armed and ready to mobilize her personal extraction squads.
Back outside of Mount Moon, Emily shoved her Pokégear back into her tactical pouch.
She looked up at sky, feeling a slight wetness hit her face.
"looks like it might rain soon." She said. Then she Turned the dirt around her boots into a thick, slick paste.
She turned her head to look at her Kadabra. The psychic type was still kneeling in the grass, but its posture was pathetic. Its shoulders were hitched high, its breathing a series of short, wet wheezes. The silver spoon in its trembling hand was throwing off a faint, sputtering pink light, but the glow looked watery and weak.
"Hey," Emily said, her voice rough as she stepped closer. "How much did you manage to drag in? We've been on the phone for a bit. Tell me you're good for at least two teleports. Maybe three?"
Kadabra didn't lift its head. It slowly gave a firm, but painfully weak nod. Its narrow eyes briefly flickered open, showing a dull, bloodshot pink before the lids drooped shut again. The truth was written all over its body. The creature had been forcing high-mass, multi-target spatial warps all fucking day. Its psychic reservoir wasn't just drained; it was practically bleeding from the edges. Its gathering speed was slowing down to a crawl, its mind desperate for a dark room and twenty-four hours of uninterrupted sleep. It could make the jumps, but it was running entirely on structural fumes.
Emily cursed under her breath, knowing she couldn't afford to push it into a fatal brain hemorrhage. She slid her arms under Angel's fragile body, lifting the civilian tenderly, keeping her hands clear of the wet, bloody gauze packed into the girl's ruined throat. One wrong jolt would tear the remaining artery open and turn her into a cold corpse before they even hit the city limits.
"Hold it together, Kadabra," Emily whispered, locking her arms tight around the ghost girl. "Just get us to the next marker. Teleport!"
The spoon gave one final, violent creak. The air around them warped, turning the wet grass and the distant sound of police sirens into a smeared, purple blur before the entire group blinked out of existence, leaving the empty ravine to the gathering storm.