On the way back to work, Anya was used to walk the short distance towards the large towering office building during these past years while enjoying the town sights, but today something felt off, the way other people kept their distance and stopped what they were doing when Anya walked past them. Anya was feeling a bit creeped out by the townsfolk acting weird and uncanny towards her more than usual, she quickened her pace and strolled a bit faster under the following gaze of the townsfolk.
All the way to her workplace she had noticed the lack of activity around her and a foreboding feeling was starting to creep on her.
She arrived at her workplace a bit faster than usual she noticed that the windows of the lobby were covered in what she assumed were posters, even the doors windows were totally covered making the whole lobby invisible from the outside. Anya reached for the door, finding it locked she produced her spare key and promptly opened the door. The inside of the lobby was pitch black and only the light from outside was the only thing that illuminated the entrance.
Anya carefully entered the lobby, not daring to close the door behind her lest she lose the last of her visibility, she remembered that the light switch was located behind the reception desk.
As she approached the reception desk, she didn't notice the unnatural darkness around her and just as she was reaching for the lights, suddenly the whole room lit up in a bright light and a crowd of people manifested around her from the darkness, all bowing in a respectful 45 degree angle.
"CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR PROMOTION!" The crowd boomed in unison. Bewildered by this sudden turn of event, Anya froze in shock, not knowing what to do and how to react to this kind of situation.
The bow lasted for a couple seconds and ended when a slow clap came from the entrance, Giovanni gave Anya a smirk.
All of the people in the crowd were the many employees of the Rocket Corporation, some which Anya had only met briefly these past years.
As the crowd raised from the bow, there were many confused looks on their face when they saw Anya, many of them did not know who Anya was or what she was. There was a minor uproar caused by Anya's appearance which Giovanni silenced in quickly after with a glance and soon dismissed the whole gathering and told Anya to come with him to his office.
While the crowd left the lobby, Anya even saw a glimpse of mr. Rufoos casually entering the lift. She wondered how the grumpy old man was doing, she hadn't really seen him since he moved to another office floor.
"What are you waiting for?" asked Giovanni and motioned Anya to join him on the elevator, everyone else kept clear and patiently waited for their turn.
A short but quiet elevator ride later, Anya nervously entered Giovanni's office after him. On the office table was an out of place ornate wooden case with a pattern carved in so great detail that Anya thought it to be an expensive collector's item.
"Apologies to spring this up so suddenly on you, but I had to make some necessary decisions which would allow you to move around more freely in company property without looking out of place"
"Congratulations" He said earnestly as he picked up the wooden case and presented it to Anya. Anya was about to reply him, but noticed that the typewriter has been removed from the office which caused an awkward moment for her, who chirped a flustered acknowledgement.
Giovanni noticing Anya's distress said calmly. "You will not need the typewriter anymore" as he opened the ornamental case, inside it was a thin device that looked like a small keyboard.
"This here, is the culmination of one of our research teams, a prototype of a portable voice synthesizer"
"A miraculous device which speaks out whatever you input here" He said while pressing some of the keys and after a while a distorted female voice sounded out of the device "This. Device. Is. Great."
"It does have some quirkiness to it, but it is portable and works with a simple rechargeable batteries, which can be replaced easily" It felt odd to Anya to see Giovanni in such a business salesman mode, where he advertised a product he was hyped about.
Anya chirped positively at Giovanni as she couldn't really communicate with him at the moment and she knew better than to interrupt her boss and happily watched Giovanni express himself.
It took Giovanni a few moments to realize that he wasn't presenting the product to a new audience and he coughed in his fist, before composing himself.
He motioned Anya to come closer and attached the device to the side of her left cutter with three different straps, identifying few new problems with the straps, such as they were pressing against the sharp edge of Anya's cutters and the lashes to lock the device in place were also not easily operable by her without assistance.
Giovanni grunted in annoyance, 'something for the research team to figure out' he thought.
"All right, how does it feel? Is it uncomfortable to wear?"
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Anya fumbled around with the device and accidentally produced multiple sounds that sounded like broken words that didn't have any meaning. She soon got the handle of the device and she could express herself with a surprising speed even if she had to input every single word separately, it was miles better than lugging a heavy typewriter around for communication.
"This. Requires. Some. Getting. Used. To." Anya typed carefully and slow to avoid making mistakes
"I. Am. Very. Grateful. For. This. Gift." she continued.
"Strap. Is. Fine. Not. Tight."
Giovanni nodded, satisfied he went behind his desk and pressed a button.
"Now for the other thing I had in mind" he said while a wave of Psychic energies washed over the room.
He sat quietly in his chair for a moment, his eyes on a piece of paper on the desk, debating with himself on how much should he give to Anya, he sighed took a deep breath and lifted his eyes from the paper, his eyes met Anya's who patiently waited on him, she has gotten used to Giovanni's more brooding side, even if he had just recently taken over the whole of Team Rocket, which put more stress on him.
"Icarus" he finally said after a while, Anya recognizing her new code name straightened up with a shiver, she wasn't sure if it came from anticipation or foreboding. She only knew that it had something to do with the not so legal organization side of things.
"The topic about your" he waited for a pause before continuing "Position in the bigger picture of running Team Rocket is under a much debate"
"You will be professed as a Executive of the Viridian headquarters and due to the dealings with the Indigo League, you are placed in charge of educating the young trainers on how the world works and how to be a proper trainer" He said calmly
After a short breath he continues "This includes the less than legal means of stealing their Pokémon and being a target for their anger. It has been studied that having a proper goal weeds out the weak trainers and reduces the fatality rates of trainers." "Turns out, a motivated trainer, takes their growth more seriously" he gave a low chuckle.
"In other words, the League wants the Team Rocket to act as an antagonizing factor towards the trainer populace and boost their growth and... You have been given the unfortunate position to plan and act towards the betterment of Indigo via crime" he spat out the last word.
"I give this to you with a heavy heart and this may seem like a harsh appointment, but I have high confidence that you will succeed, even the Pokémon Professor Samuel Oak speaks highly of your abilities"
"The bright-er side of things is that due to being in collusion with the league any legal matters of capture by the police force is a non-punishable offense as long as we keep the wrong-doings mild and inconvenience. There is a quite simple list what we are and are not allowed to do and you can read them a bit later" he said as he pushed a folder towards Anya.
"Here are the necessary information, that I think you will require at this point in time, you may ask if you think you are missing something"
"Why. Me. Sir? Surely. There. Has. To. Be. More. Fitting. Candidate." asked Anya as she stood still and tried to make sense of the whole situation, Samuel had hinted her that Team Rocket had something more to it than being just a casual criminal organization.
Giovanni relaxed his posture and leaned back on his chair. "Due to the recent take over, a lot of capable people loyal to Madam Boss left along with her or resigned immediately" he sighed "Thus we are in lack of high quality personnel that can be trusted with important assignments" he paused for a moment to rub his eyes with one hand "We are spread extremely thin with administration level people and I need someone trusted on both sides being the spokesperson between the Team Rocket and the Indigo League. You have the support and endorsement of the Pokémon Professor on league's side to calm the nerves of the management and the government." her worries placated Anya humbly accepted folder on the table and her new Job Position as the new head of 'Acquisition and Allowance' as her official title.
"Any other question? Now is the time to ask" Giovanni asked as Anya took a step back from the desk with the folder in her hand.
"How. Should. I. Proceed?" Anya asked
"First, you should head to the basement levels and take the secret passage behind the water boiler and locate your new secondary office, you should read through the folder as soon as possible to understand the parameters you are to work with."
"Thank. You. Sir." Anya said after which she was dismissed.
After Leaving the office and closing the door behind her Anya was on her way to his new secret office.
Giovanni sat on his chair for a few moments after Anya had left, he soon pressed the button to deactivate the Psychic wave emitters and sighed, he did not like the idea of giving Anya such a job, he knew that as far as Pokémon went, Anya was more peaceful than most of other people he knew and unfortunately the job in hand required some ruthlessness and guile to make it work, which he believed Anya was severely lacking.
The new office was not what Anya had in mind when she though about office spaces, it was more like a briefing room, where a large seemingly accurate miniature replica of Viridian was placed in the middle of the room, she noted that lot of the building were marked with a Team Rocket Token on top of them indicating that it had something to do with the Rocket operations.
There was Anya's old typewriter from Giovanni's office and other miscellaneous things laid around, the room also had a few bookshelves one of them filled with a bunch of folder, which had labels on the back indicating the contents inside them. One of such caught Anya's eyes, it was labeled as 'Potential Targets'.
