The sound of his cellphone ringing at three in the morning was never something that J. T. wanted to wake up to... ever. Still, the surprised ringing of the phone caught him off-guard, and he groggily answered it as coherently as he could muster at dark-o'clock-in-the-morning.
"...hrgl... Hello?" J. T. managed to mutter after clearing his throat and putting on his glasses.
“Meet me at the lab. It's quite important.” It was the professor--he sounded rather troubled, moreso than normal. What could have been so important that it could not have waited until the morning? Was something hatching? Did something try and escape the corral? The intern sighed as he stood up and stretched before throwing on his shirt from the previous day and quickly grabbing his pants. After hastily putting the trenchcoat over his shoulders and neglecting to grab any footwear except for a pair of bland slippers, J. T. quickly shuffled his way across the sleeping town toward the lab, which, strange enough, had the front door propped wide open.
When the intern entered the lab, he was almost stupefied by the chaos that greeted him. The place was almost in complete and utter disarray--papers strewn across the floor, other aides standing by with puzzled and bewildered looks across their faces, but most intimidating was the crimson R that was painted across the far wall. Most confusing, however, were the frantic duo of Angelique and Oak scrambling around the area searching for something... or somethings. While J. T. was rather amused by the fact that Angelique looked frazzled for once, there was in fact sheer panic strewn across her face--even for someone that he did not see eye-to-eye with, he knew better than to gloat or show any sign of schadenfreude. There were more pressing matters than his petty squabble with her, and he knew it.
"...what happened here?" J. T. asked, although he could tell from the blatant vandalism that it was anything but good.
The Professor glanced over, catching sight of J. T., giving a slight "Ah." He cleared his throat and motioned towards his now messy (or messier, for that matter) fact. He then pointed to the giant red 'R' that was painted on the back wall. "That. That is what happened here. This certainly gives me reason to believe that Team Rocket has been here. Or some sort of new gang modeled after them. Either that or its just extreme pranksters, and my dear boy: This is not funny." His voice was stern, but still rather sleepy in tone. Oak enjoyed his sleep and no disaster could snap him wide awake in such short time. Angelique herself was pacing, rubbing the tears away from her eyes and mumbling incoherent sentences underneath her breath. It was quite possible that she would have some sort of breakdown. "Mister Eische, I'm going to have to ask you to stay here with me and help me dial up the police as well as the other Professors and notify them of this. I can ony pray to Arceus that this is just a silly prank." Oak knew better - But it was a mix of his optimism and exhaustion speaking. He turned to Angelique. "My dear, I'm afraid that J. T. and I can be of no assistance - or at least not much - in retrieving your stolen Pokemon. If I remember correctly, you have more at your disposal." He was answered only by a simple nod. She had ceased her pacing and hair-pulling, opting to sit down in a chair she had turned upright, placing her face into her hands. This was a disaster, indeed! Oak turned back to J. T. "Ah - Angelique woke earlier to find that her Pokemon and their pokeballs were missing." That was never a good thing. Angelique had to choke back a sob at the reminder, as if she had tried to forget and pretend it to be nothing more than a dream.
A very terrible and nasty dream. A nightmare. But it wasn't.
Oak continued on speaking to J. T. "I myself will call up our colleagues within the Kanto and Johto areas. You will call those in Hoenn and Sinnoh and we can split the Unova branch down the middle. We can only hope that nothing like this has happened there. That...wouldn't really be good."
The gravity of the situation hit J. T. in the chest like a brick. He had heard of the activities of the Rockets, but they had disbanded nearly eleven years before. Granted, they had never tried to come to Unova with the same intensity that Plasma had a few years ago, but this must have been a serious problem in Kanto if Oak was going to great lengths to warn the other professors. Angelique's pokemon had been stolen, too--this was something that someone would have needed a deathwish to even think to pull off on someone as reknown as an Elite. Still, the deed had been done, and Oak was absolutely correct--J. T. had never been good with battle theory, nor could he really control his pokemon well enough to get them to battle for him the way he wanted them to. Still, there was the ability to warn the other professors, even though J. T. did not have Professor Birch's nor Professor Rowan's numbers. Still, he had Professor Juniper's, and he could at least let her know--she would remember him from his days back in school, and she would take the situation to heart and let the others know. She had to!
"Professor, I'll call Professor Juniper and let her know--I can't call Birch or Rowan because I haven't ever met with them before..." In a flash, the intern whipped out his cellphone and found the professor's number saved in his contact information. He walked off to the side, away from Angelique's sniffling and muttering, just so he could ensure the best chance of communication.
"Angelique, you should hurry before they get too far away. There's no telling what amount of damage they could and possibly will do with a Pokemon team such as yours. I can't honestly say I have any sort of communication with any of the Elite Four - Of any region. Nor with anyone else that has experience with dealing with these thugs. You may want to aler -" He paused as J. T. called over to him, catching his attention.
"I don't think it'd be a good idea to just have Angelique run out with guns blazing... Think about it for a minute--are there any clues to where they could have gone?" J. T. piped up after telling the professor on the other end of the line to wait one moment. "Hadn't they made some sort of secret base in Kanto or Johto that got flushed out some years back?"
"This isn't my first rodeo. I know what I'm doing."
Before Oak could reply, Angelique had stood abruptly. She had made the transition from the stage of sorrow to that of anger, showing in her eyes and clenched fists. She pulled her small PC from her waist where it was nestled in her belt, flipping it open. "I'm pretty sure Unova is having some sort of the same trouble." Her voice came out as an irate sigh, recalling the e-mail she had received from Alexander. Right about now, she wished that she hadn't ignored it. Maybe she should have shaken herself awake and gathered her Pokemon and left for home immediately. Maybe if she had, she would have come across the thugs who had her beloved companions now. She could have dealt with them then. She was most worried about Ashdir and Chomper. And the egg. Ash and Chomp weren't exactly young, but they were so naive. And Caesar! He wasn't the brightest star in the sky - He probably thought it to be another of Ashdir and Chomper's games.
She felt...incomplete. She always had them with her. Whether out or about ot safely in their pokeballs on her waist. She had never thought about what would happen if she lost them because she never imagined it would happen. A groan slipped past her lips as she poked furiously at the keys on her PC. She was answered by the voice of a rather...unhappy sounding female. "What do you want, tramp?" Classic Morganna. She rolled her eyes and continued poking away at the keys. "That's your team? How weak." She never was going to get used to these damned messages. There was a soft click and a tray slid out from the side. Rather than the tray looking as though it would hold a disk, it had six holes that were deep enough to fit a pokeball not in use in each. Which was exactly what happened to be in them. She plucked out the small pingpong ball-sized capsules and clipped them to her waist in the places where the others normally went. Astin, Christina, Leonard, Emmy, Emmy, and Aretha had been her choices. She felt that the others weren't quite ready for what might come. She decided to play it safe and stick with her B-Team.
J. T. closed the cellphone at the sound of the new voice, having finished his phone call with Juniper moments before. It sounded familiar--he recognized the attitude in the voice... but he thought she was... He shook his head. It couldn't have been! Still... He turned toward Oak, his face locked with a serious expression as he turned toward the professor. "Juniper knows now and says that she'll help out in any way she can, which includes calling her colleagues through Unova and even to the other big-name professors in the other regions. I also told her that I'd be back in Unova in a few days..."
The professor nodded and went back to scouring the rooms looking for something that apparently had gone missing or he had misplaced--the intern could not tell. His mind was more focused on the woman typing away on her little device that spat pokeballs at her. These must have been other pokemon that had been stored away for her future use, but he had certainly never seen anything like that before! Still, he cast his wonder aside as he slowly approached the intense woman, hoping to make some sort of amends before this situation spiraled further out of control.
"...I... I wanted to offer my condolences for what happened to your pokemon..." J. T. kept his voice low, but he was being sincere. It was a terrible fate to befall anyone, especially someone as well-respected as an Elite. "...I don't know why they struck now or how they got away with it, but... this should not happen to anyone, least of all you...'
"Emmy, I'm going to need you to use yo-" Angelique had paused her speech, having been speaking to a smallish Riolu that was gazing up at her with intensity. The mint-haired woman watched as J.T. came closer, her small hands curling into fists as she slightly expected him to have something to say about her speaking out earlier. Normally, she would apologize for having used such a harsh tone. But she wasn't exactly in the kind mindset right now. Her eyes narrowed as he stopped near her, watching him intensely. Emmy let out a soft growl and took a fighting stance as well - She didn't know J. T. or what he had done that might have put Angelique on edge. But she simply took a cue from her taller companion, expecting a brawl. Oh, how Emmy loved to brawl! What had come out of J. T.'s mouth did something that rare people could do when she was angry: It made her speechless. It's not that she thought his sentence was random - She would say the same had it been him in her shoes. But she was quite sure from his earlier behavior that he wasn't exactly her biggest fan.
She had met her biggest fan once. He was a creeper.
She took a moment, blinking rapidly in the way that she normally and seemingly quite often does, her mouth agape. "Rii." Emmy nudged her, looking back up to her. "I know - Shut up." She sighed, irate once more. She then quickly shook her head and placed her left hand to her face, splaying her fingers. "Er - Not you, J. T. Emmy. You shut up." The Riolu rolled her eyes and delivered a jab to Angel's calf, producing a yelp and a light kick to her own shin. Emmy did her best to lighten the mood. Slightly effective! Angelique gave a soft smile to J. T., at least glad that he didn't hate her. Or maybe he did. But at least he wasn't being a jerk at the moment. "It could happen to anyone. I'm no better than anyone else that it shouldn't happen to me." She gave a light shrug, doing her best to compose herself. She wasn't going to leave in blind anger.
"...says the woman whose face is plastered across billboards all over Unova," J. T. smirked a bit at the joke, but realized that it might have been in bad taste. Shaking his head again, he crouched down, trying to get on the woman's level. "Look, about earlier... It's just been a long couple of days for me, let's just leave it at that. I apologize for acting like a jerk earlier... It's not quite the way I should present myself to people as a future professor, I admit... Like Oak said, I can't really help you get your pokemon back, but the very least I can do is maybe keep an eye out for anything suspicious in Unova while I'm there?"
His apology warranted a light smile from her, showing from underneath the base of her palm just a bit. She lowered her hand some, looking up a bit into his eyes. She did still have to look up some, considering she wasn't really the tallest woman in the world. "Thank you...I apologize as well. I really didn't mean to speak to you like you were a child...I didn't mean to upstage you or anything, either." She gave a light sniffle and brushed under her nose gently with her forefinger. "I'd really appreciate that...I should probably go now. I'll repay the favor somehow." Ha. A rhyme. Slightly better mood. Apology: Super effective! She stood slowly and took only a step towards him, her arms outstretch as if to hug. Though, her fingers started to twitch along with the muscles in her face as though she had been suddenly paralyzed. Her hands finally formed fists and she gave an awkward, tight-lipped smile before giving him an even more awkward light punch to the arm. "Uhnn...Good luck." Way to motivate, Angelique.
"...likewise. I should get a few more hours of sleep before I begin the trek to Vermilion..." J. T. yawned before turning toward the door and walking out, rubbing his arm as he did so. Of course she'd offer to repay me... The woman has everything in the world; she could afford to do that... Still, the offer was a nice gesture, even if he dreaded the thought of being given an egg for free--an egg, he might add, he did not need nor care about receiving. His thoughts began to wander toward the next day; he had yet to hear from that Evee girl...