As Gary was over in the corner crying about his car and his cheerleaders tried to cheer him up, everyone else was sitting and still talking.

"So back to the question I asked, do you guys wanna take a break and go back home, I mean the holidays are coming up and we do have a bit of time."

"I mean I wouldn't hate going back to the Gym and spending more time with my folks," Misty said.

"Yeah, and I would like to spend the holidays with my siblings, also I'm not sure if they could survive the holiday dinner my father would make. Though I wouldn't have any gifts."

"You can borrow Abra and go over to like Celadon or something, either way, I have all my badges and I'm just going to relax for a while, and hey Misty at least you can take care of that Lapras that hates you."

"Hey! That's not my fault that he was born like this," Misty tried defending herself.

"Sure, and I'm also sure that a passive Pokemon was just born angry for no reason, but whatever I'm not the water-type expert"

"If you didn't just get a building dropped on you I would hit you on the head," Misty said, crossing her arms.

Ash smiled smugly, "Yeah because if you do I'm pretty sure it's considered a hate crime in a few places." he said jokingly.

"Weelllll, unlike you and Gary I'm not a masochist so I'm perfectly fine with just this much, I'm not going to face more of whatever that was for like 2 extra days with no battle," Green said, slightly elbowing Ash in the side.

"Oh yeah, kinda forgot Gary wants to go back out there, well sucks to suck I guess, we can all relax, how about you Yellow?" Ash asked

"W-well, I wouldn't mind staying with Uncle Wilton again, we usually have a party here in Viridian with everyone in town, but I don't know if we can now that… you know the gym kinda-"

"Exploded, yeah that might make things pretty bad," Ash said, "Well you're always welcomed over in Pallet if you want, you know my mom will always feed you till you blow up on the wall,"

"Hehe" Yellow nervously laughed, since Delia had a tendency to overfeed all of them when they visited Ash at his house for anything really.

"You know that sounds so good I'm tempted to even ask if I can go, she at least sounds more tolerable than this idiot next to me," Misty said pointing towards Ash

Green got a smug look, "Oh you bet, Ms. Ketchum's is the best, and her cooking is even better, if you thought this doofus was good you should know the one who taught him."

"Hey, I take offense to that!" Ash said, "Besides you say that but at least I know how to cook, last time you tried you nearly burned my house down."

Green rolled her eyes, "Yeah yeah Master Chef, you keep bringing that up but your mom already forgave me…. and the others that tried."

"Right," Ash said turning Back to Yellow, "Well if you ever change your mind you always have my number!"

"Ok!" Yellow said happily

"Anyway you think we should do something about-"

"What happened here!" a voice said coming from the sky, when they looked up they saw a man in fisherman attire with Butterfree wings flying down, it was Wilton.

As Wilton landed the Butterfree on his back let go and flew up as he finally noticed Yellow, "Yellow is that you?"

"Uncle Wilton, it's good to see you," Yellow ran forward and hugged Wilton.

Wilton returned the hug as he looked at the destroyed remains of the Gym, "What happened here?"

"You might want to take a seat, it's a long story," Ash said.

—

{Underground}

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Giovanni was hurt pretty badly, the debris that fell on him nearly killed him but it took everything he had and he survived, though those Keystones were lost in the rubble, he had to take them off.

But that was the least of his problems, he managed to take his suitcase that had all his Pokemon but that took most of the remaining energy as he limped his way through the halls, the Gym was of course connected to one of his underground Team Rocket bases.

It wasn't long until someone saw him, that someone was Ariana, Giovanni's wife. Seeing Giovanni's current appearance Ariana quickly went to him and helped him get to a place to sit down.

"John, what happened?" Ariana asked as she quickly grabbed a nearby first-aid kit and started working on him.

"Things went wrong, incredibly wrong," Giovanni said, also gritting his teeth from the pain from the alcohol Ariana was using on him.

"I told you it was a bad idea to test that thing here, couldn't you have called Archer to test against?"

"Yeah, you're probably right," Giovanni said weakly, "I really should listen to you more."

"Well in the end what happened to it," Ariana asked, she didn't like it but Giovanni spent a lot of time working on this project and it would be a waste to just leave it off like this.

"It escaped, it managed to break out of its armor after some kids dealt enough damage, then it turned against me and brought the Gym down."

Ariana looked shocked to hear that, "Oh Arceus, you don't think Ghetsis of Team Plasma betrayed us and gave you faulty armor."

"It is definitely a possibility, and I wouldn't put it past him, but we can't be sure yet. We can discuss if we want to invade Unova another day, for now, we have more important things to do."

Ariana nodded, "Would you like me to contact other Admins and the Executives to keep a lookout."

"Yeah, so contact as many bases as you can, any Rocket that isn't directly on a mission should go and search for any signs of Mewtwo, and make sure to tell them that if they find it, do not approach."

Ariana sighed at Giovanni's words, "Fine, but John you own me one after this~"

Ariana went to a monitor and sent the message out to every available rocket, taking time to emphasize that under no circumstance should anyone approach it.

Meanwhile, Giovanni made his way to another monitor, it was about time he checked in on Sierra and Arlo to see if they found anything. And to see if Colress returned.

—

Lance sat at his desk much happier than he had been for the last few weeks, now that the news about him taking in all those Rockets and 'capturing' 2 Admins the public has been getting off his back.

Of course, there is still the occasional 'Lance is a Johto meat rider,' but that was easier to deal with and nothing out of the ordinary for his line of work.

But now that he has been able to relax and actually go back and forth the breeding program of all the Aerodactyls, results…. Varied.

In fact, he was actually talking to the Master and Clair to talk to them about the results, he sent all the Aerodactyls to them right before he left to deal with the incident over in Cinnabar.

"How's everything going with the Aerodactyl?" Lance asked as Clair was looking at him with an excited expression.

The master rubbed his chin, "Well we integrated the Aerodactyl with the chosen Pokemon, however, the males seem to be unwilling to mate at the moment, the largest one especially."

Lance sighed, he did expect as much, but then he noticed Clair was still holding something back, "Ok, then what about the 1 girl?"

Clair stepped in and raised an egg she was carrying under the camera, "Ta-da, we got one, can you believe it this is the first egg of a Pokemon thought to be extinct!"

Lance smiled seeing his cousin actually act her age for once, he then looked at the Egg, he certainly couldn't give it to Ash since he asked for one from the big one specifically, and admittedly he also wanted one from the big one.

Lance saw Clair looking at him expectedly so he sighed in defeat, "Alright Clair, you can have that one."

Clair put the egg as high as she could as she smiled in celebration, "Yeah! One more step so that I can become the strongest dragon master!"

Lance and the Master watched Clair run off and grab an incubator for the new egg, "She certainly is excited isn't she?"

"Well can you blame her, an extinct Pokemon that she now gets to raise, you saw how strong those Aerodactyl were, and now she gets the first egg."

"Well I can't say I see a problem in that reasoning, I just hope she treats that Pokemon with love and doesn't immediately put it to train."

"We can certainly hope, but I trust her," Lance shook his head helplessly

"Where did you even find them? I doubt they were just sitting around in the open." the Master asked.

"Err, well, let's just say you'll find out, soon enough," Lance said, scratching his cheek.

The Master squinted but didn't pry any further, "Very well, then I shall keep you informed on further progress, however, I can't guarantee we will have results any time soon, after all our breeders never worked with Aerodactyl."

Lance nodded, "That's alright, we aren't exactly in any kind of rush at the moment, just take your time." Then he hung up.

Lance stretched back in his chair and looked at his desk, for the first time in a while he was actually done with work and had some free time for himself.

He looked at the clock as he took his cloak off, "Huh, Tempest and Darwin aren't back yet, I wonder what they're doing."

{Meanwhile}

Tempest and Darwin had Electivire grab onto Cliff and use his tails to shock Cliff to get more information, to no avail.

"Just talk Old Man," Darwin said as he slammed his hands on the table signaling for Electivire to stop.

Electivire stopped sending electricity through Cliff as he looked up breathing heavily, "I'm… Not…. Old you brat."

Darwin frowned and snapped his fingers towards Tempest, she nodded as Electivire grabbed a hold of Cliff again and the room lit up with electricity.

{Back with Lance}

Lance thought to himself but then shrugged, it's not like anything can ruin his mood right now! But then his phone started ringing.

Lance was already one foot out of the door as he felt like punching himself, "Why did I say a single word? Well at least it can't be too bad"

—

{Ashtwo}

Ash, Enid, and Jay were sent out to do a mission together, both Enid and Jay were happy to go on a mission with Ash specifically, and Ash was…less than thrilled.

Especially when he found out that after he left a mission was called for Team ROcket members not already on a mission to go look for Mewtwo, if only he was alone, this would be the perfect time to go on that heist.

But anyway, at least the Mission they had to go through was interesting, according to Sayoko a new group in the Black market has popped up and started distributing poached Pokemon and Drugs to make Pokemon 'stronger' if you can even call it that.

In a simple term, it was like a booster, in fact that's what it was called, Boosters, they do exactly what you think, make a Pokemon stronger for a moment, but that's not all, in some cases it gives Pokemon abilities or moves they shouldn't have access to.

Now while that sounds fine on paper what you need to understand is that it is extremely unstable, and in some cases, if a Pokemon gets too much their hearts may explode.

In the end, according to what he read not even Giovanni wants this stuff around, I mean he's not a great guy but professionals have standards.

Like, nothing he read from the documents he had Porygon2 steal made Ash want to kill him or anything, at most maybe just turn him into jail, but not yet, specifically he hasn't leaked any information to the League that reveals that Giovanni is the leader.

I mean sure some suspicion will be drawn to him after what happened to the Gym but nothing of what he did can directly connect him to Team Rocket, and for the moment he wants it that way.

This very mission he is on is a prime example, if Giovanni isn't the one in control of Team Rocket then the underworld will become more chaotic, and he would prefer Giovanni in charge instead of the other choices.

Seriously, let's name a few Madame Boss the original leader who wanted nothing more than money, Carr that self-obsessed idiot, then there's Grey from the Golden Boys manga…. We don't talk about him.

Anyway, as much as he doesn't want to admit it, Ash needs Giovanni to continue being the leader, but he won't do anything. He already has a plan on what to do next, but for now, he needs to deal with this whole Booster situation.