route_1065 | You have no chance to survive

Who: Rocket Grunts, Magma Grunts, and Aqua Grunts! Basically all the Grunts!
Where: The Whirl Islands and Cinnabar Island
When: February 1st
Summary: Pretty much this
Rating: PG-13? It doesn't need to higher than that? Right, guys?
Log:

The orders are pretty simple. Go in. Wipe out the Team Aqua and Magma Grunts. That's it. So there's not going to be any farewell speeches or anything like that from the Admins because they're of the opinion that you guys have totally got this.

And if you don't...

Well, don't worry about that for now.

Instead, just worry about getting to the nearest base and boarding a helicopter. After that, you've got a short (or long, depending on which base you're heading to) ride ahead of you to some islands in the middle of the ocean, inhabited by a bunch of Aqua and Magma Grunts who have no idea this surprise is on the way. So just do what you do best, Rockets!

And as far as the Admins are concerned what you do best should be to win at all costs. Anything less and well, that would just be an embarrassing return to the region for them. And nobody wants that.

QUICK LINKS
EVENT INFO | QUESTIONS | PLOTTING POST

☆ HELICOPTER RIDE THREAD ☆ TEAM AQUA BASE THREAD ☆ TEAM MAGMA BASE THREAD ☆ AFTERMATH THREAD

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It's just like back home. Except in all the ways it isn't even a little like back home. Still, going on a mission with Parker there... That's familiar and he trusts it. It's at least something to hold onto. Hell, having a set task helps in its own way, too.

Even if he doesn't like it very much. It's just been too long since he's worked for bad people and it doesn't feel right anymore. But that's something he'll sort through later. Now's not the time for that.

For now, he's sticking close to Parker. Better figure out a battle plan first.]

What do you know about these guys?

[Ah, yes, good. Being on a mission with Eliot is vastly preferable to being on a mission without Eliot; it's no wonder she gravitates right over to him, herself.]

Not a whole lot. We ran into them last Halloween, there was this big battle between blue guys and red guys. These ones are the blue guys, their boss brought a big whale thing up into the mountains and it was shooting at a big Godzilla thing.

[Which makes perfect sense.]

They're gonna try to fight with watery Pokemon, I think. Fish and sharks and stuff.

[Well. Then.]

...Bad guys, fish, they dress in blue. Got it.

[He got the important bits, at least. And of course they're going to use sharks. Because why wouldn't they.]

So okay, they carry around sharks. They any threat themselves?

Uh-uh. They don't really...

[This is actually really weird to explain, hang on.]

I think the only way they know how to fight is with their Pokemon. And their sharks probably aren't trained to attack people, so they'll try to start a Pokemon fight. I can probably get to their roster balls and disarm them, but I think that's what they're gonna try first — they're not hitters.

Whole damn place seems to revolve around Pokemon, yeah. Guess I shouldn't even be surprised.

[...Wait.]

So technically speaking... There's nothing stopping me from just taking them out?

Nope. It probably won't even occur to them that somebody would; they're gonna expect a battle if there's a confrontation.

[...]

Do you think that makes it kind of...wrong, to beat them up?

Not that much worse than taking out regular security guys who're just doing their jobs and aren't supposed to see real action.

[...Plus it's never a bad day to punch a pirate.]

I'd say I'll try to be gentle with 'em, but there's nothing really gentle about what I do.

...Yeah. Okay.

[The comparison is a good one; it seems to pacify her concerns enough to get her back on track, anyway.]

Okay. Let's go clear them out.

Right. C'mon.

[Into the ~~woods~~ base it is. Considering the whole point of this operation, avoiding confrontation at all probably isn't gonna happen. With this many people, scattered and doing their own thing, while the enemy's got home turf advantage? Yeah, no.

So walking right in it is. He can't say he's much of a fan of the layout of this place, but what can you do. Let's just take some of those stairs and see where that leads them.]

Those stairs are going to lead up to another room full of crates. Because apparently neither base can have enough crates of things. In fact, in one corner of the room, there seems to be two bored looking Aqua Grunts (one male and one female) who seem to be in the process of counting...what appears to be Damp Rocks.

“Ugh, this is so boring.”

“Yeah, why do we even have to count these things anyway? It's not like they're going to go missing. We don't even use them.”

Yup. Sure is a lively day at the Team Aqua base. And yup, they have absolutely no idea anything's amiss today or that some intruders just came up the stairs. Maybe they should've seen if a crate had an alarm system instead of just rocks.

[At the sight of the two Grunts, Parker falls back slightly, casting a significant look at Eliot before disappearing along the wall to use the network of crates as her cover. It's an old and familiar pattern that's played out on plenty of missions before this one: Eliot can more than handle a situation where he's outnumbered two to one, and if her hunch is right, these guys won't fight the way he expects to, which in the end should prove to work to his advantage.

So, rather than make her own presence known right off, she's going to slide the walls and slip around behind those Grunts, trying to get into position to steal their Pokeballs before they ever have a chance to draw them.]

[He knows this is a different world with different rules and expectations and all that, but he still can't help but roll his eyes at this (lack of) security. This is the best they got, huh? He nods briefly at Parker as she goes off. This part's his to play.

...

You know, now he actually does feel a little bad. But only a little.

His steps are quiet, but his approach other than that is very casual as he goes right up to the grunts.]

What's up?

[You know what time it is after that greeting? If you guessed 'let's punch a pirate in the head' time, then congratulations, you win the prize! He's going for the male grunt first, intending a quick knockout. If there's one thing Eliot is good at, it's hitting hard and hitting fast. Here's hoping these two are as slow as they look.]

When Eliot greets them, both of them turn around. The guy's only real reaction to the punch if a brief thought of “wait, that's not a Pokemon battle” before getting his face punched in. Yeah, he's basically down for the count now. There's no Pokemon battling here.

As far as the other one, she's just confused. Where did this guy come from and does this mean she has to count all these rocks on her own now?

“Hey, what do you think you're doing? You can't just...sneak in here and start punching people!”

There. She managed to form some sort of reaction besides being confused. Also, she seriously means that last part. You're supposed to challenge them to a Pokemon battle, not go all Hitmonchan on them.

Parker's approach is completely unnoticed since one's not in any sort of position to notice that and the other one's still trying to comprehend that Team Rocket apparently just goes around here hitting people in the face.

[Speaking of that approach, Parker works fast as she hears Eliot getting into position to confront the Grunts; like a well-oiled machine, she's slipping in behind the female Grunt at just about the same time as Eliot is launching his punch at the male.

Executing an ordinary lift frequently involves having some kind of distraction to act as misdirection — an innocent bump while passing by each other, a friendly poke to cover the abrupt lightness in the mark's pockets.

Parker is far from ordinary, and the fact that the female Grunt has her attention on her partner for at least one second is more than enough time for her to accomplish her ends.

"Her ends" being "relieving the Grunt of her roster and ducking back out of sight", naturally.]

You have no chance to survive

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