route_1065 | Good Guys

Entry tags:

Good Guys

Who: Ralph and Wrath
Where: Goldenrod
When: May 6, night time
Summary: TIME TO GO STEALIN'
Rating: PG
Log:

"You remember what you're supposed to do?"

Ralph was a hulking shadow in the alley, all in black and red, face obscured by his cap and mask. His fists were taped. Blanca, his Ampharos, crouched by his trainer's heels, eyes trained on a stray Meowth lazing on the fire escape above them. His light was low. They were crouched between two tall buildings and though the alley was full of puddles and garbage, the festivities just on the other side of the damp bricks couldn't be more posh.

The clinking of glasses, the jovial laughter of the far-too-wealthy, and the happy cries of rare pokemon spilled out into the night. The party was in the latter half of its full swing. People would be retiring to their rooms soon. The job outline made it sound a lot like the first prom he attended. Ralph ached a little in his chest. He'd gone to that party on the job but returned with nothing. He'd gotten in a food fight instead and generally just took up space. He'd bee so determined to turn his R the other way around.

And now here he was. In the sparkin' rain with an empty burlap sack thrown over one shoulder. If Gene could see him now he'd laugh his stupid mustache right off his square little face.

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The little black-clad gremlin crouching in the shadows next to him nods like a dashboard bobblehead, practically vibrating with enthusiasm.

"Yeah!"

Unlike Ralph, his pint-sized partner couldn't be more excited to be here. Wrath has no compunctions against stealing. Or against lurking in shady alleys. So there he is, jittering and bobbing in place with his lopsided mask and a sack that's about as big as he is.

"Claim Pokemon for the glory of Team Rocket!!"

Ralph wished Wrath's enthusiasm was contagious because he could think of about a hundred places he'd rather be right now.

As the boy shouted, Ralph cringed and leaned in closer, a finger to his lips.

"Quietly. We claim Pokemon for the glory of Team Rocket quietly. If anybody wakes up, it'll blow the lid off the whole operation."

"Oh! Okay!"

Lowering his voice conspiratorially, he squats down again, still a-quiver with excitement but trying to tone it down a little, at least.

"How do we get in? Through the door? I don't think you'll fit through a window. Unless you made the window bigger. But that would probably wake people up, wouldn't it Ralph?"

The wrecker shook his head and tried to ignore the comment about the window.

"There's a garage on the other side of this place. We'll use Blanca here to trick the automatic door." The Electric-type, as if on cue, flashed the gem on the top of his head in a well-practiced pattern. Ralph patted him absently. "Then I'll roll it open like a can of sardines and we're in."

"Okay! And then we put all the Pokemon we find in these bags, right?"

He pauses to duck his head INTO the bag. His voice is muffled when he continues.

"It's pretty big, so they'll probably all fit!"

Ralph sighed. This was going to be a disaster. A weird part of him hoped it would be. Maybe it would convince him to try to be a Good Guy again.

Then again they could pull it off without a hitch and cement their roles in this world forever. The hours crawled on and slowly the party quieted down. Windows in the alley grew dim. The people and Pokemon who weren't going to stay the night went on their way. Finally the keys turned in the locks and all was quiet.

"Pharossss," Blanca gave Ralph a little zap to pull him out of his doze. He'd been having bad dreams anyway. The wrecker stood and popped his back and his knuckles before tugging his hat down over his eyes. "Show time."

He motioned for Wrath to follow him around to the back. Sure enough there was the automatic garage door. Several boxes and confetti littered the lot. The electric-type bounded into position and flashed the code at the little sensor above the door. When nothing happened, the Ampharos flashed again and this time a small trail of smoke started to drift from the top.

"Good job, Blanca." Ralph patted him again and recalled him into his ball. He crouched down and wedged his fingers under the door and started to peel it back. The thin metal groaned loudly and Ralph froze, teeth gritted. "Gonna have to do this slow-like."

Wrath doesn't sleep much. When he does, it's in catnaps so brief that they're easy to miss. So while Ralph drifted, the boy was awake and watching the bright windows intently.

This is more the work he's familiar with. Watching and waiting.

As much violence as the Homunculi encountered (and incited) over the course of their 'professional' lives, a great deal of their machinations involved a whole lot of sitting around until the opportune moment struck.

He's obediently quiet when he follows his large companion-- MIRACULOUSLY, he apparently DOES know how to be quiet when it matters.

"Should I crawl under?" he whispers to Ralph when the wrecker's door-opening attempt comes to a halt. "I can fit."

...!

"Good thinkin', squirt." Ralph gave him a good and honest compliment. He'd been counting on Wrath's uncanny scurrying skills but this wasn't one of the uses he'd imagined. "See if you can't unlock that side door for us! Blanca, you go with 'em."

The Ampharos gave a smart nod and squeezed under the gap, his tail blinking red in the low light.

Wrath's wolfy teeth flash in the darkness as he grins happily at the compliment. Then, quick as a chipmunk, he drops right down to all fours and wriggles under the door after Blanca.

Once under, he gives his head a shake and squints around, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dark. That had been another change he didn't quite like since getting here. His slitted cat's eyes had been great for seeing after dark. Now he was blind as a bat at night.

The Ampharos' tail helped a little at least, painting the interior of the garage in a dim bloody glow.

Edited 2015-05-18 16:06 (UTC)

Blanca turns up the heat by sending a Flash out into the garage, illuminating a small bus, several boxes of storage, a canoe, and shelves of tools and cleaning supplies. At the far side is a staircase that leads up into the house and on the other side of the bus is a door to the outside world with tented glass.

The other thing in the garage? A sleeping Granbull.

Wrath gives the area a quick once-over-- then freezes.

That's a BIG Pokemon.

On one hand, that could be a serious problem if it wakes up and alerts the homeowners to their presence... or worse, attacked.

On the OTHER hand... what a great acquisition for Team Rocket that would be!

"Ralph!" Wrath hisses urgently back under the door. "There's a big purple dog in here!"

Blanca noticed it too and his short fur prickled all over the way it used to when he was a Mareep.

"Sega Dreamcast," Ralph cursed under his breath as he leaned down on his hands and knees to squint under the door. "Do you have a Pokemon with sing or sleep powder?"

He knew Blanca could paralyze it but that would also be noisy.

Wrath thought about that for a moment... then shook his head.

"Nnnnuh uh, I don't think so! Pipsqueak can confuse things, but... in order to do that, he screams!"

And while Wrath might not always get the finer points of stealth, he definitely knows that SCREAMING is not the thing to do when you don't want to attract attention.

This was not good. Ralph wasn't super skilled with this stealth thing, he hadn't thought about the possibility of a guard dog. Okay. Okay, he's got this.

"Come back out, you an' me are gonna make an emergency snack run. If we give 'em something nice to eat, maybe that'll destract 'em long enough for us to get into the house."

Wrath needs no further urging to come skittering back out from under the cracked door.

"Ooh, ooh, good idea. Pokemon like food. If we give him food, maybe he'll even be our friend. Do you think the bosses would like it if we gave them a big purple dog?"

Blanca follows, giving the Granbull a last, wary look.

"You bet they will. C'mon, there's a convenience story at the end of the block."

And so their heist was put on hold. Ralph ducked around into the other alley and grabbed up his bag, sapped out his shirt for his old gym shirt and stuffed away his hat and mask. Couldn't just waltz in dressed like a bad guy. Then, it was on to the store!

It was a small place, glowing yellow in the night and manned by one sleepy, pock-faced guy with green hair. His punk rock Furfrou dozed behind the counter with him. Ralph didn't even look at them as he tromped into the store and all but bowed the doorway with his shoulders.

Wrath... didn't really have much in the way of clothing outside of his Rocket uniform, and what little he did have, he certainly didn't think to bring with him.

But he knows the value of secrecy a LOT better than the value of public decency, so when Ralph swaps out his shirt, Wrath simply pulls his OFF and thinks nothing of it.

To be fair, it's nice and warm out and hey, at least he still has pants. He's also young enough that it's probably not TOO weird for him to trot into the store shirtless.

"Can WE get snacks too? We were sitting out there a LONG time."

"No time."

Ralph hunched low and started shuffling through various packages of cookies and chips. What did dog Pokemon eat? That fake jerky stuff? That was sort of meat. He spied a whole case of them behind the stand and changed course.

"Hey, you. We need a..." Squint. "Lean Jeffs."

The clerk snorted completely awake and stared up at the hulking figure of Ralph. "Uh, sure thing, dude. How many do you want?"

"Yes."

"Uuuuh?"

"All of them." Ralph tugged out his wallet.

If Wrath looks a little put-out by the fact that they're not getting anything for themselves, he quickly perks back up when Ralph confirms just how many they WILL be getting.

Surely if they're taking ALL of the Leanjeffs, he can sneak one or two for himself on the way back!

Beaming, the half-dressed boy holds up his burlap sack, wide open and ready to receive dozens of weird processed meat sticks.

"We brought our own bag!"

The clerk looks between the two of them. That was a burlap sack. The only kinds of people that used those were robbers! Was he being robbed? BUt the big guy was already laying Poke'Dollars on the counter. His head swam and his Furfrou peeked over the counter at them curiously.

"That oughtta cover it," rumbled Ralph.

The clerk eyed the display behind him and the pile of money. This guy was so big. And the kid was-- "Hey! No shirt, no shoes, no service!" He pointed sternly at the sign on the door.

Smile fading, Wrath blinked before looking at the sign.

... Well, he couldn't read, but he had to assume that was in fact what it said. What a weird rule.

"Oh..."

Frowning slightly, he turned and passed the sack to Ralph. Then looked back to the clerk.

"You can serve HIM, though, right?"

The poor clerk opened and closed his mouth a few times, still pointing at the door.

"Well...yes, but you have to wait outside."

"He's not going anywhere." Ralph cast his big square shadow over the man who was little more than an overgrown boy. "Put the Jeffs in the bag."

Without realizing it, the clerk reached back to the cardboard stand and stared shaking the Lean Jeffs out into the bag that Ralph held.

Wrath actually starts to step for the door until Ralph puts his foot down. Then he stops, staring up at the giant man in something like wonder. Wow! Ralph can make NEW rules!

This opens all kinds of doors that Wrath had never previously considered.

Behold, Wrath, the world of intimidating your foes.

Ralph nodded with a stern frown as the bag was filled. He shoved the money forward on the counter, grabbed up a roll of bubble tape that he did not pay for, and turned to give the kid a beckoning nod.

"Let's roll. Back to work."

The night was still young and luckily nobody had stirred in the mansion since they left.

A whole new world.

That impish, too-big grin pops back onto the boy's face when Ralph gives him The Nod, and he bounds back out the door of the shop like a dog off its leash. Still shirtless. HE IS WILD AND FREE.

They arrive back at the mansion without much further delay and he wastes no time in dropping to his hands and knees to squeeze back under the door.

"Ralph! Give me the meat-maybes, I got this!"

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