Me and Slowpoke scouted out the house while there was still light out briefly, well kinda, we just did a walk by to see what we were working with.
It was a pretty swanky 3 story Victorian style brick home with manicured lawns and squat hedges replacing a fence along the outlines of the property.
The neighbourhood while not in the wealthiest area of viridian it wasn't far off, people in this area were definitely close to the upper class.
Wealth distribution in this world is kinda wonky compared to my old one, 70% of people in the word were apparently middle class, and middle class in this world was a nice 3-4 bedroom house you owned with enough money to provide for a family of 5 and still save for a holiday every year with no trouble what so ever, hell they could even afford a Pokémon or two, unevolved non battlers of course but still..
10% of people who there the "upper class" were insanely wealthy, like multi millionaires who more often than not include very successful trainers and mid sized business owners that specialise in Pokémon related industries.
And then you have the 1 percenters who couldn't run out of money if they tried, mostly big businesses like silph co, Devon inc and other big names of that nature….but you could also include the hyper famous and powerful trainers as well like the "elite 4" and the champion with the gym leaders following up right behind them.
And then you have the bottom ring of society where the dregs of humanity survive, mainly people like me… people with little to no prospects, orphans, crack heads, horribly failed Pokémon trainers, really just your general losers at life…. And as you could assume that's where crime thrives.
Fellas like "Darkness" and the "toxic arboks" are just people who decided they were sick of living in poverty and made life shittier for everybody while dragging themselves up….pretty much exactly what I'm doing…..but that's just human nature really and that's all I feel about the matter….I don't have some hero complex where i need to save every damsel in distress I come across or to sacrifice myself for the greater good…so I don't plan on trying to take them down or make them pay for their wicked ways….they stay in their lane and I'll stay in mine..
I've had a rough start in this world and I doubt I'm going to be on top of the world any time soon…or ever….but that was never my goal, my general goal is enough power to look after myself no matter what happens….because I'm in a world with sentient nuclear weapons they call Pokémon roaming everywhere and death is an every day part of life with Pokémon waves every so often, so it pays to have some nukes of your own WHEN and not IF shit hits the fan..
But I got off topic…
Me and Slowpoke do a couple walk by's and find a decent teleport spot for later tonight just behind the hedges of out victim to be's lawn, out of sight from street line…
We end up teleporting back to find meowth and machop still watching over an unconscious hogtied man, both looking kind of bored….
We spend the next few hours just casually chatting and interrogating bengie for small bits of info like which keys on his keychain open what doors and general layout of his house before putting him back to sleep and before we know it, it's game time..
I call back machop as he won't be much help with what we were about to do and apply a fresh coating of "yawn" to mr kusunawa before teleporting behind the hedges and have Slowpoke do a quick sweep around with his psychic Pokémon bullshittery to find the coast was clear…
I already had my beanie covering my hair and a scarf covering my face, rubber gloves and cloth over my boots to hide footprints….I don't know if any of this is even necessary, I don't know how they investigate crimes in this world….would they have forensics and finger printing? Or do they just have a Pokémon that can somehow look into the past and point a finger in the right direction? I have no idea but it's better to be safe then sorry..
So me, Slowpoke and meowth sneak around the back carefully with bengie kusunawa floating behind us still gagged, hogtied and covered in a shimmering dull pink wispy energy…
The back yard is pretty big with heavily manicured hedges and trees, some even in the shape of Pokémon, we make our way up to the back patio where we see a fancy looking glass siding door when I pull out they keys in my pocket carefully to minimise noise and flip through them to find the back door key…
Slowly sliding the glass door aside we make out way in, me meowth and Slowpoke all scraping our feet thoroughly to get any excess mud and dirt…no need to leave foot prints
We make our way through the eggshell white painted halls and what looked like dark marble floor eventually finding out way to the kitchen on the first floor
The place was super stylish and modern with a granite kitchen island in the middle with granite bench tops and grey chrome appliances.
To be honest I'd rather just smoke this guy, raid all his shit I like from his house and then burn it down but the guy dieing in a fire the same day he publicly threatened me? People saw him and me in that little tiff, so I'd rather not have people potentially looking my way just in case. I'm pretty sure I'm being overly paranoid but it just makes me feel better to cover my basses, I've seen far to many cop shows to see little things snowball…
So my plan is to pump this guy full of wine, have Slowpoke snap his neck and throw him down some stairs….make it look like an accident….poor guy drank to much, slipped and broke his neck, it could happen to anyone… it was the best I could come up with
And during my questioning I found out he was a bit of a wine collector and a known drinker, so it probably helps my case….
To the left of the fridge there is a lacquered door that from what I was told leads to the wine cellar, deciding to make a move I turn to Slowpoke.
"Keep him up here and make sure he doesn't wake up….meowth I need you to check out whatever is behind that door to make sure it's safe"
I walked over and opened the door that lead into the darkness of the cellar, meowth being the bro that he was didn't even question it and stalked down there to see if anything was down there…..he was telling the truth when he said he had no guards, human or Pokémon at home but I wasn't taking chances…
Meowth popped back up not even a few minutes later and gave me the "all clear" nod which had me make my way down….the light switch was down stairs which to me was an awful design, but I guess I know where mr kusunawa is going to be falling now….
I switch the light on to see your typical rich guy wine cellar, it's almost cliche, with the stacked grey rock walls, massive finely decorated wine shelves absolutely packed with bottle after bottle of fancy looking wines, there was even some oaken looking barrels stacked in the corner…I knew fuck all about good wine, even less about wine from this world. I grabbed a couple bottles of red and took off back upstairs to see Slowpoke sifting through the soon to be dead man's fridge
So I whisper shout "dude!! Fucking stop that!! We don't want to leave any evidence behind!!"
He turns to look at me with a mouthful of what looks like some sort of berry's in his mouth with that stupid look he always had on his face
"Swoooow?" He responds, mouth to full to speak properly
I just sigh and walk over and push him out of the way and start realigning and putting all the shit he pushed out of the fridge back, but not forgetting to grab the bowl of berry's for him to eat….it's a nice bowl….but I'll put it back before I leave
He starts snacking down on those while I mentally plan on how to do this….I'm just gonna kill this guy first and then hit his safe and possibly a few items around his house….no point of leaving him alive now we are here….it just gives him more of a chance to escape….
"Hrnnnnn"
I notice bengie is starting to wake up so I rifle through the draws to find a wine opener and it doesn't take me long to find one…
Quickly I pop open one of the bottle just when the guys opens his eyes….he looks around and starts to struggle and was trying to scream but even as Slowpoke was eating up this guys berry supply he was still focused on him….he's getting pretty good at fine control building sandcastles under gravity…
I turn to look at the roped up future accident victim with wine bottle in hand and speak "drink this whole thing and I'll untie you….you'll be to drunk to remember anything"
He looks at me with hope in his eyes that he might just escape this, and I knew lying to this guy makes me more of a psychopath than I probably already am….but I gotta do what I gotta do…
Slowpoke has finished his berry's and focused on the man, he might have decent Fine control but he also knew how important this is…even with all his shenanigans…
I remove the gag slowly just incase he tries to scream, and Slowpoke focuses more energy around his throat…
"Yes of course!, if I drunk of whole bottle or 2 of this pewter ranch city red I'm sure I'd forget all about this, and we can both go on with our lives like none of this ever happened, good thinking!"
He was trying to butter me up a little and he was being quiet, he seemed to know I wanted him to keep it down given the situation, but I didn't miss that sneaky look in his eyes that promised retribution
I spent the next 10 minutes force feeding him 2 bottles of …..whatever he called it….red wine….and by the time that the bottles were empty the guy was absolutely shit faced…I made sure to fill a wine glass and feed some of it to him that was, making sure to make it looked used properly…
I already discussed with Slowpoke the general outlay of the plan and he knew what his job was, he seemed absolutely fine with it….the anime liked to portray Pokémon friendly creatures that would never hurt anyone but that couldn't be further from the truth, I mean if they were raised from birth around humans and taught "right" from "wrong" yeah they would hesitate to kill a human….but wild Pokémon? It's just part of life, they kill and die every day, the reason pokemon are way more tame on "trainer routes" is more of a survival instinct than anything else because they know if people die on those routes, bigger and badder people turn up with bigger and badder Pokemon to sort them out…
I walk over to the stairs with Slowpoke and meowth following, I give a nod to Slowpoke who unbinds his ropes while holding him in place and hits him with a couple heal pulses to cover the rope burn till it looks as good a new before....*CRUNSH*
A meaty crack was heard and mr bengie kusunawa is no more as his head is tilted to the side at an unnatural angle and he is quickly flung into the darkness down stairs, a couple thuds and he was as good as he could be for the "accident"…I shone a torch down just to make sure, and yeah he looked like he fell down the stairs landing head first….that should do just fine….
Luckily I thought to slip his wallet and keys back into his pocket beforehand, I even left the 600 cash in there….an empty wallet is a suspicious wallet
With that accomplished it was time for the next part of the plan…
"Slowpoke buddy, make sure all curtains are closed as we move alright? Just make just to do it slowly yeah? No need to get sloppy now"
I get a dopey nod as he floats himself just in front out me as we make our way upstairs from the grand foyer with big marble stairs to the second floor, 3rd room on the right heading left at the top of the stairs and we come to a room…
Opening the grand door I peeked inside, my eyes have adjusted to the low lighting so I could see well enough….I notice the massive windows overlooking the backyard glimmer slightly, not enough to cause attention outside, but I noticed and they slowly and quietly shut themselves, luckily it was the only window we passed….
And wasn't his room just grand? King sized bed, massive on suite, big walk in wardobe, fucking hell this guy had money….but in the walk in class there was a black blaze panel with a keypad, one which I was told was the entrance to his safe…..
I walked over and the numbers on the panel were all lit up ready to be punched in so without any fanfare I hit the numbers I'd been repeating over and over like religious gospel
"7..1..3…5…8….6"
Suddenly there was a beeping sound and a distinctive unlocking noise following, and with a *BSSHHHHH* the side of the wall in wardrobe swung open slightly….I pulled the door open and "safe" which was closer to a small panic room lit up…..it wasn't super futuristic or anything, just two neon tube lights brightening up a 8x8 foot steel room….
I wanted to gape for a bit longer, and even if I was technically on a rushed timer like I was with my last break in, I wanted this over quickly….but me being my paranoid self I wasn't about to step into a steel coffin like this if I didn't have too….even with a Pokémon that could teleport me out….what if it had some sort of anti teleport technology in it?….not worth the risk…..
"Slowpoke buddy, think you can float everything out here for me? Clear the room out completely and set it down over here"
Without any fuss he starts pulling out everything from a distance, metal boxes containing who knows what, plenty of stacks of paperwork, and most importantly …..cash….lots of it…. Mostly in hundreds but with quick eye math I'd say he has a good 500k here…..a rather large amount for a mid level manager to have, but the house it a little big for someone like him as well….so he's probably even shadier than I gave him credit for..
Luckily this time I didn't come ill prepared and brought 4 black canvas myself instead of stumbling onto some….
I quickly started stashing the cash into one of the bags while Slowpoke continued to levitate stuff out and meowth was keeping watch….only a few minutes and all the stuff in the safe room was sitting on the floor of the gigantic walk in closet….
But something caught my eye….2 non descriptive black….not I'm sure of the material….backpacks came out as well….I hope those are what I think they are….
I pulled one up to check it out and see if I was right and it turned out…..yea…..I was, BAGS OF FUCKING HOLDING!! Or whatever the people of this world call them…these things were a cool 450k just for a basic model, and they've been out for a few years now…they started out over a mil
No idea how they work….most people I've talked to don't, because most people I've met never had one because they were so expensive….but I did pick up a tip from a particular drunken and depressed trainer quiet while back in my escapades in selling stolen cigarets in seedy bars about how he had his stolen and he wished he put a tracker on his….so as much as I would love to use these bad boys right away…..I'm going to have to bury them out in the wild for a few months to make sure they aren't being tracked…..
But putting my excitement aside I went through all the metal boxes I found a menagerie of interesting and pretty solid loot….one box contained multiple evolution stones….fire, leaf, thunder, water, even what looked like a dawn stone…I wasn't sure….but they were all going in the duffel bag..
One box contained 8 encased gold bars sealed behind nearly indestructible plastic with certifications for their authenticity….not sure what their worth is but I'm sure I'll get a good price for em….not in viridian though….I'll sell em in another city to be safe….while heavily disguised….but that won't be for ages….
No pokeballs though, this guy didn't seem like a Pokémon guy….I'm sure his grimer was just for "work"..
Plenty of property deeds though….mainly focused around the slums but a few buildings in the wealthier districts….a few bank statements….holy hell this guy had money, his last statement showed he had millions in his account….I would have salivated over it but it was pretty much out of my reach….I would never make it to that money; and even IF I knew his bank pin for his atm cards I doubt I could pull more than a few thousand out….so as much as I wanted that money….I can't touch it…
There was a bit of paperwork with things I didn't really understand but I didn't care much for it anyway, but maybe someone be else will…I'll spread it over the countertop where he was drinking alone before his "accident", maybe the cops will find something with it….
I had Slowpoke float the boxes back into the room and I stacked up the paperwork and shifted the now 3 full and one empty duffel bags together while meowth pushed the safe door shut….
Looking around before I was planning to leave I saw a few towels and bath robes…..I could use some of those….and they look like the expensive kind….so I stuffed a few towels and robes into my empty bag and had Slowpoke float them downstairs while I carried the paperwork to the kitchen..
I spread out everything near the pulled out chair at the kitchen island to make it look like he was drinking and reading paperwork before his "accident"…..I turned to leave..but I noticed the nice ceramic bowl Slowpoke ate his berry's out of still out and decided I take it as well and stuffed it in with the towels and bathrobes as cushioning…
We walked out the back door, headed to a spot out of site and teleported back to the outskirts of the "abandoned zone"…
But before I got to ahead of myself I grabbed machop and Ferroseeds pokeball and called them out so we could wander a little further off trail to find a good place to bury these space bags just incase they have trackers and someone comes looking for them….I've said it before and I'll say it again….better safe than sorry…
But as we were wandering in a tight formation all my Pokémon all tense and before I could react a big dark blur was upon us….or more specifically….me…..it made it nearly an inch from my face behind it was launched back violently by an extremely hard packed flaming fist courtesy of machop…..
And when I look around I see we have been surrounded on all sides by ambush predators….arboks….not ekans….fucking arboks….and there is a bunch of 'em….
Fuck….me…..sideways...all my paranoia to avoid trouble and stay safe only to walk into the woods of a nighttime in a restricted zone?
My own stupidity amazes me sometimes….this is going to be a long night…