Fall of Aqua

Contrary to what one might think capturing a pokemon wasn't automatic grounds for it to obey you in battle or in general. All the artificial bond that the ball created should you imprint it does was make the pokemon consider joining you. This wasn't a matter of instant enslavement which a surprisingly high amount of people misunderstand. If a pokemon didn't want to belong to a specific trainer for whatever reason it could easily just not comply with any order it was given making it worthless to the trainer.-

It was for this reason any trainer worth a damn asked the pokemon if it would even consider getting trained, hence consent was the foundation of a good trainers team. You might be asking about Hades at this point since I had not asked for permission before capturing and forcing a bond on it. The difference in that particular case was that Hades needed to be brought under control regardless and I made the call to capture it instead of letting the league seal or exorcise it. After that though I got it in a controlled environment and flat out told it it's options and it chose to work with me rather than have me hand it over to the league because it was too dangerous to simply release.-

It was a situational type deal rather than the normal way things needed to be done. For the pokemon from the system though this wasn't even really an issue as according to those I got this way the system only "spawned" them with the willingness to be trained by the person with the system, me. The word spawned was very specifically chosen by the way as none of them had any past before the system brought them into existence. They very literally just came from nothing with everything they would need to be considered a normal pokemon.-

Sorry got side tracked there for a moment, anyways after looting everything I wanted from the base I finally came across four individuals tied up with various different expressions. Archie and Matt had stoic expressions as they were tied up but Shelly and Amber who was actually a dude oddly enough looked pissed. All four of them saw me and paled as I walked casually towards them with Vulcan at my side.-

"It seems my reputation precedes me. All bad news for you lot i hope?" I said with a grin. "If you are just going to kill us then there is no need to torment us beforehand, just get it over with." Archie said calmly but I could tell he was afraid. "Now who said anything about killing all of you? As it just so happens I happen to have a bit of a proposition for you in fact. See I am currently in the process of wanting to dismantle the illegal goods trade here in Hoenn and your four unlucky ducks happen to have information on the heads of this particular ring."-

"My deal is very simple, you will tell me everything you know one by one and after cross referencing it with what the others of you had said I will then either leave you intact and unharmed or I will cripple you in a suitable manner so that you will never be a threat to anyone. Ah with the exception of you Admin Matt. You likely have nothing to do with that goods trade from my previous source so you'll need to work extra hard to convince me not to kill or leave you wishing for death. Any questions?" I said casually as I looked down on them quite literally.-

"So if we tell you the truth about everything we know you will just turn us over to the authorities unharmed? No funny business?" Archie asked suspicious. Not that I could blame him considering my reputation where criminals were involved. "If I deem your information to be worth more than the sins you've accumulated then yes that is exactly what will happen. Not to worry about my personal bias getting involved I am a man of my word."-

"I have never broken it to date and I swear that I will be as impartial as possible a judge." I said seriously and Archie stared me in the eyes for a few moments before telling his subordinates to cooperate. After that I took each and every one of them to a separate room separately and asked them the same very carefully worded questions before putting them back with the rest. Once I was done I went over the answers to each question in front of all of them that they each gave and only one of them surprisingly tried to lie to me.-

Admin shelly had tried to mislead me on the weight of the sins that team aqua bore and either directly lied about their involvement or underplayed it heavily. "I must admit you certainly have loyal subordinates Leader Archie. Matt and Amber both complied with your order without hesitation and Shelly only tried to lie to cover your backs but otherwise complied as well. My judgement is thus that only you are going to receive some punishment. As the one who created team aqua your sins are the sins that every single member of the team has accrued in it's name. The price you will pay is simply that I will remove your arms and tongue so that you will never be able to lead again." I spoke firmly.-

Archie didn't struggle or complain but merely nodded stoically in understanding. His goal might have been stupid and his actions to achieve it terrible but the man knew how to accept responsibility if nothing else positive could be said of him. I wasn't so cruel as to keep him awake when I removed the parts I specified and healed him to ensure his survival. After that I turned all four of them over to the league as well as the base itself that nobody was stupid enough to ask why it had been stripped of a bunch of things in an obvious manner.-

In the same day I destroyed ten of the depots as they were in the warehouse area of Lilycove after knocking everyone there out with my alchemical gas and sorting through the innocent and guilty. The guilty were killed and buried under the depots while the innocent were taken to safety before the depots were brought down. The sudden fall of team aqua sent a shockwave through Hoenn as the crime rate dropped to an all time low historically as a vast amount of criminals hid or stopped all activities while holding their breath in fear.-

My quest had also updated as five handlers and twelve depots were "retired to the league" to hide the rest of the goods trade. This meant I had one kingpin , two handlers and sixteen depots to take down still. Not as big a deal as before but still definitely not a small one by any means. Thankfully the difficulty of the quest going down by a lot didn't result in my reward being lowered as well since the system wasn't the sort to punish me for something outside my control.