Cynthia was looking at Ramiel's group suspiciously and the garchomp behind her was posing to attack them. Which was understandable due to Tatsumaki being a little nerd.
"Woah, calm down. Team galactic? Who are those guys?" Ramiel stepped in and tried to diffuse the situation. "I've been getting reports of pokemon missing around Sinnoh. And you guys are quite catchy, especially because there are also reports from Sandgem town that matched your descriptions." Cynthia squinted her eyes.
She received a message from the officer Jennys in Sandgem town and apparently, there was a group where a huge ass man was walking around with a rayquaza wrapped around him. "Ahhh, did the officer Jennys tell you about Ray? She's a sweet little thing."
Ramiel remembered that champions aren't just simply pokemon league winners. They're also like peacekeepers that the government communicate with. They do have the best pokemon in the region if they became the champion.
"So it is true, a man walking around with a legendary. You understand where I'm coming from right?" Cynthia was vigilant and with her senses as a hardened pokemon champion, they had an unnatural aura around them.
"Are you insinuating that we were the ones that are kidnapping pokemon around Sinnoh?" Ramiel raised a brow and Cynthia hardened her expression. "A pretty reasonable assumption, your identities were crafted not too long ago by professor Rowan."
Ramiel shrugged, they did do the procedures pretty sloppily with a lot of trails. It was pretty easy to investigate them and learn that they are not from Sinnoh.
"You got us, we're actually from Hoenn. We were attacked by Ray and I managed to reason with it. Though our ship got destroyed and all our belongings got lost." Ramiel took out Ray because if Cynthia wouldn't comply, then they would just fly out of there.
"Hoenn?" She raised a brow and was still apprehensive of course. "Yeah, let me call someone there." Ramiel took out his phone and called Samus. They were currently in Hoenn after he got a feel of where they were.
"Ramiel? What's up? I thought we were having our own adventures for now, did you miss me?" Samus snickered and he waved at them in their face time. "Ahh, you see. We're being investigated by the champion of Sinnoh."
He put up the hologram on their phone and Cynthia saw a group of people. "He says he is from Hoenn with you people? How can you prove that?"
Ramiel then smiled sheepishly at the girls. "Jirachi?" A cute little white pokemon with a yellow star head looked at the phone curiously. "A jirachi? How the hell did you guys get one?" Ramiel was stupefied and Tifa's eyes shone when she saw the cute little pokemon with stubby limbs.
"Heh, when I was singing, It appeared before me. Awesome right?" Rapunzel had a smug smile on her face and Tatsumaki was green with envy.
"A jirachi!?" Cynthia couldn't believe it and that changes things. Jirachi was said to wake up every thousand years and it was done with a singing voice of purity. It was a stretch, but it sure as hell was something. It's a jirachi after all, a mythical pokemon.
"Ahem, our identity." Ramiel coughed and they remembered. "Oh yeah, we're in Petalburg city. We returned to our hometown. Why is the champion investigating you though?" Samus made a story up immediately.
"It's because we lost our ID's really. We haven't told you this, but we had a run in with a rayquaza while we were on the way to Sinnoh. Though she's a friendly fellow now." Ramiel panned the camera to Ray.
"I see, we're glad you're okay though. We can send the miss champion your papers here if you need to?" Samus suggested and Cynthia decided that they can't be with team galactic for now. They're too strong, and they'd be in their radar by now with their firepower. The team won't waste that for their heinous crimes.
"It's already fine, I apologize for the suspicion. There are a suspicious amount of gibbles disappearing in the wild. Most likely being traded in the black market to raise into garchomps." Cynthia explained and they nodded.
"Gibbles are pretty easy to catch too, they're small and ambush predators. If you put your back into it, catching them would be net you some huge profit by raising or selling them." Ramiel could see why team galactic would do that. Or if there are other teams that are involved.
"Well, what are you guys doing about it?" Fubuki asked and Cynthia frowned, petting her garchomp who looked uncomfortable at the notion that gibbles were being sold.
"Currently, we are still trying to find their base of operations. And we aren't having any luck on it." Cynthia sighed, massaging her temples at the headache.
"Hmmm, what does this gibble look like?" Tifa got curious and thought they can get a bunch of them in order to set up an ambush for the poachers.
"This is what a gibble looks like." Tatsumaki showed her their pokedex information and Tifa went wide eyed. "Unacceptable... They're poaching these?" Tifa glared at the pokedex and her hands were trembling. The ground shaking at her sudden outburst of energy.
"Well, they are pretty cute." Ramiel understood Tifa's murderous intent. She really liked cute pokemon after all, with her preference with budew and azurill.
"You, you're called Cynthia? Tell me any leads you have against this team galactic." Tifa eyed her, clearly in a bad mood. The blonde got spooked by her bloodlust and cold look.
"Let's talk about this in private, this can't be discussed here." Cynthia collected herself immediately and nodded at them, gesturing to follow. They were clearly not normal, their group might be a help to her endeavor in foiling team galactic.
They went to Cynthia's residence in Eterna city and it was a pretty nice mansion. Clearly, she had some dough. Especially because champions have tons of sponsorships from all over the region.
"Please, make yourself comfortable." Cynthia served them some tea and Ramiel sat down on her couch relaxedly, like he owned the place. "Pretty nice house you have here." He sipped some of the tea and made himself comfortable.
Cynthia's eyebrows twitched. "Can you please take this seriously? Gibbles are being poached left and right for nefarious reasons." Cynthia chided him and Tifa nodded.
"Well, you did tell us to make ourselves comfortable." Fubuki retorted, but Tifa glared at her and she shut up. "Okay, as for our investigations. We've only noticed this phenomenon quite recently. Pokemon researchers got a wind of it when they were exploring a habitat of gibbles. They tend to hide in rocks and wait for prey. And that place was filled with them, but they just suddenly disappeared." Cynthia took out a map and pointed somewhere.
"Any plans to try and find their trails?" Ramiel thought of an ambush like Tifa and it would most likely work. Villains in pokemon tend to be quite incompetent and their plans get thwarted by kids of all people.
"I'm quite embarrassed to admit it, but we don't have any leads or plans right now." Cynthia smiled wryly and they understood. She was a pokemon champion, not a detective anyways.
"Well, we've all most likely developed a plan by now. You guys on the same page?" Tatsumaki also thought of setting up an ambush. It was piss easy to catch the bad guys in pokemon. So she just went with a simple plan too.
"What is it?" Cynthia was quite desperate because her partner was related to the poaching. "We set up a trap and wait. Gather some gibble secretly, or even try to buy them in the black market. I'm honestly surprised why you haven't tried those yet." Ramiel gave Cynthia a look.
"Ahh, I'm pretty well known around Sinnoh. Case and point." She pointed at Tatsumaki and they all nodded. "And you know the government..." She sighed and they all rolled their eyes.
"Nobody can escape the woe that is the government eh? Even here?" Tatsumaki sighed and was having dangerous thoughts of a worldwide revolution, even in her own world.
"Well, we aren't. So we'll spearhead the operation then, Tatsumaki and Fubuki will catch the gibble. They're experts in pokemon ecology and capturing them. Me and Tifa will try to get in the black market. Get some gibbles and maybe add them to the mix, also disseminate some rumors about a place with a lot of them." Ramiel gave his orders and the sisters went to work.
"Thanks for this." Cynthia lost her suspicion at them, just looking at Tifa's righteous fury was enough. But they were quickly going into action too.
"No problem, you just keep the spot of a champion nice and warm. I'll be taking it soon you see?" Ramiel smiled and Cynthia snorted with her garchomp. "I'd like to see you try, we aren't afraid of your rayquaza." She confidently affirmed and Ramiel smiled.
"That's what I wanted to hear, but using Ray against your team is pretty overkill. You must've noticed it already, but we aren't normal trainers. I have a nice surprise for the elite four and the champion when it's time to compete." Ramiel remembered his plan with Swolechamp.
"I'm looking forward to it, now if you will excuse me. I'll be going with them to catch some gibbles." Cynthia followed Tatsumaki and Fubuki. Tifa looked at him with a chuckle and Ramiel shrugged. "You're not making this easy for them."
Cynthia will be following them around. And the esper sisters won't have the benefit of using their psionic abilities. Making it a bit harder for the two, especially because they can't fly around. They can find anything all over the world like a radar and it would be too easy.
"Come on then, let's go and get us some gibbles." Ramiel took out a card from out of nowhere. "That... That's Cynthia's card." Tifa was surprised, she then laughed. Imagining what the woman's reaction will be when she receives a huge bill for a shipment of gibbles.
"Of course, I can't use our money. And she conveniently forgot about it, who does she think she is? The black market works on money first you know?" He snickered and they roamed around to find information about the market.
Ramiel just read minds around and saw a pretty suspicious individual. He then ransacked his mind for the black market's location with none the wiser.
"It's a pretty conspicuous place. They're pretty daring huh?" Ramiel smirked and thought team galactic was quite arrogant.
They went to a nice building that disguised itself as a company that sells electronics. "Pretty basic, too bad that the government here is too incompetent. They even rely on a busy woman like Cynthia to be a police officer." Tifa saw the building and it was a basic corporation that doesn't stand out.
Something that even the slightly competent criminal organizations do. Which is obvious when you think about it a bit.
"Don't expect too much from them. The special forces here use machamps to infiltrate walls. Which is good, but what if they bust one down and then get rained on by bullets? Those guys just wear a speedo for fuck's sake." Ramiel sighed and they entered the building.
"What is your business, ma'am, sir." A woman greeted them at the reception and Ramiel tapped on the desk.
"I want to buy something a bit more unique." Ramiel handed her a wad of cash for the entrance and the lady smiled.
"Right away sir, please enter the elevator and enjoy your shopping." She bowed and they went to the elevator. A button then appeared when the two entered.
"Wow, they're pretty high tech. Even hiding a mechanism for the underground floors." Tifa was amused.
"Yeah, they are surprisingly good at these kinds of things. But their operations can still be easily tracked by scientists. I don't know if they're stupid or they think they can get away with things easily." Ramiel shrugged.
Rule number one of poaching, is not to gain any attention. Even small time thieves know it. Or you'll get people like Cynthia knocking on your door. And she has spec ops in her pockets with her pokemon.
Not really the person you'd want to come and fuck you up without any warnings.
The elevator opened up and they saw a wide space that had all kinds of pokemon and illegal items in it.
"Hmm, there's a good amount of products here." Ramiel roamed around with Tifa, looking at the merchandise. And he has a lot of money to burn from Cynthia. Albeit unknown by the other party.
"Yes sir, good afternoon. What are you looking for?" A man in a suit went up to them. Thinking they were a rich couple or something. Especially with how they carry themselves.
"I've been hearing that there's some new and small merchandise that arrived here. My wife really loves those small critters you see." Ramiel patted Tifa on the head and it was true anyways.
"I see, you are interested there. I have to say sir, those products are quite expensive." He probed them for some money and Ramiel just laughed.
"Probably a few million a piece? Barely an inconvenience." He waved it off and the seller smiled.
They were led to another room and it was the jackpot. There were dozens of the cute little gibble there, locked up in cages.
"Here's our selection of gibbles sir. Please take your time to select the best out of them." The man bowed and Ramiel nodded.
"Indeed, I'll take all of them." Ramiel smiled at Tifa and she acted delighted.
"Ahem... All of them? How will this sir pay for this transaction?" The seller was both anxious and excited for his commission.
"Ring it up here." Ramiel took out Cynthia's card and changed a bit of its details. The bank transfer was quickly done and Ramiel dived into the system so the information about who the account belongs to isn't exposed.
"How would you like to receive them good sir?" The guy rubbed his hands and was all too happy to serve.
"No need." Ramiel took out some pokeballs and they were quickly taken. "Thank you very much for your patronage."
Ramiel nodded at him and they quickly exited the premises. They went to Cynthia's house and waited for the trio to finish gathering more gibbles.
"Hmm, they won't be here for some time. Maybe I should raid the fridge?" Ramiel went to the fridge with Tifa and they found a bounty of ingredients right there.
"As expected of a champion, she eats well. We'll eat well too." Tifa chuckled and they started cooking things. Also adding more food for the gibbles they captured.
Creating an illusion on her backyard. They released the round balls that were quite distrustful. But Ramiel threw them some steaks and the famished little things went ham on the meat he gave them.
"Hmm, can I have at least one of them? They look really squishy." Tifa picked one up and fed it some meat herself.
"I mean, why not? They also grow up to be garchomps. Those things are pretty strong." Ramiel shrugged and he thought one wouldn't hurt.
After some time of playing with the pokemon. Cynthia and the esper sisters arrived back to the former's house.
Tatsumaki and Fubuki looked annoyed, because their efficiency was shot by Cynthia being with them. Though they were hauling a huge amount of gibble due to their power to locate them in their hiding places easily.
"I never thought they were that good. They just looked at a cave and said there's plenty over there." Cynthia was still shocked as Tatsumaki and Fubuki gathered them like wild mushrooms.
"It's pretty easy you know, you just have to get a feel for their intent. They are hiding and don't want to blow their cover." Tatsumaki shrugged and Cynthia looked like rocket science was explained to her.
"Want to see the gibbles we got? It's a lot too." Tifa guided them to Cynthia's backyard and they saw dozens of gibbles lie around, sunbathing lazily.
"How? Those guys are pretty mistrusting and scared of open spaces." Cynthia went wide eyed at the relaxed pokemon and she picked one up. Hugging it to her chest.
But it didn't even complain and just gave her a look while continuing to close its eyes.
"Heh, wouldn't you wanna know?" Ramiel chuckled and returned her card back to her. And not much longer, she received a message that her bank account lost tons of money.
"Wha!? What the hell is this?" She paled at the massive bank transfer. Tatsumaki and Fubuki gave Ramiel a look and he shrugged.
Cynthia thought how was it possible. But then she remembered that Ramiel and Tifa went to the black market.
"Hey... Don't tell me you managed to use my money to buy all of them?" Cynthia's eyebrows twitched, feeling complicated about it.
"Well, you didn't give us any money to at least enter the black market. So we went up and beyond, saving these poor gibble from their enclosure." Ramiel tugged on her heartstrings.
"Yeah, don't you have a heart?" Tatsumaki added into it and was smirking in her mind. Thinking that's what she gets for beating her up in her villa without any warning.
"Ugh..." Cynthia groaned and looked at her bank account that got suddenly slashed. Losing a lot of money.
"Hey, you can just document it and get some reparations from the government. If they don't want to... Then we'll gladly help you in that legal battle, call me Saul." Ramiel smirked and would get all the money he can get from the government if they want to play rough.
"I see, that's smart... Please tell me everything later..." Cynthia sighed and she massaged her temples for the mess this will be, later.
"So, what should we do next?" Fubuki yawned and they wanted some action now. Bring down team galactic and pool their resources to Jessie and James so they can take down team rocket much easier later with their influence.
"We go to a place where there's a small amount of gibble and release them there. Then Cynthia, you'll be responsible in spreading rumors that there are tons of them there. We'll take them down red handed." Ramiel gave the process and they agreed.
"I see, those bastards team galactic will get what's coming for them." Cynthia squinted her eyes and Ramiel handed her a milkshake.
"Don't be too aggressive, be calm and collected. You'll make it obvious that we're baiting them. Relax and have a Snickers." He handed her a candy bar and she nodded.
"Oh my Arceus... What is this beverage?" Cynthia stared at it and was shocked on how good it is.
"Your fridge and pantry has a lot of items in it. Makes for some good food yeah?" Ramiel smiled and Cynthia immediately ran into her house, looking at her fridge and supplies.
"Y-you used almost all of it?" She wasn't even surprised anymore. "Yeah, the gibbles really liked it too. You have some expensive tastes yeah? Especially those steaks that have tons of marbling on them." Ramiel laughed and Cynthia regretted in asking them for help.
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Thanks for reading everyone, ciao.