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A hum. A burst of static, coming from right behind his left shoulder, like reality itself was being torn apart and hastily repaired.
Giovanni didn't turn. He finished reading through the last page of the contract on his desk—land rights for a plot north of Lilycove, to expand his casino operations—and then popped the cap off his pen and signed the bottom with his stark, careful signature.
Things had been going well for him. Now they were going better.
"Come here," he said carelessly, motioning the figure behind him forward. "Did Hoenn treat you well?"
Apparently, the answer was no: the first thing Giovanni noticed as Red sank down into the chair across from his desk was a harsh, angry-looking scratch on his forehead, cracked and scabbed and matted with dirt. His espeon, still perched on his shoulder, glared at Giovanni with glittering amethyst eyes as though blaming him for its trainers injury before leaning in and giving Red's scab a careful, pitying lick.
Red's pokémon loved him deeply and overwhelmingly, with all the wild force of an earthquake, but they loved little else. Giovanni had their loyalty, because he had Red's loyalty, but he had few illusions as to whether they'd stay with Team Rocket should their trainer leave it—and if Red were to somehow die in his service, he knew full well they'd be showing up in his Celadon office with fangs bared and claws extended.
Luckily for them both, they had some common goals. Chief among them keeping Red alive.
Giovanni stood, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, and moved to stand in front of Red. He dabbed at the scab, testing it, and found it still wet and smelling faintly of infection.
He frowned. "Haven't you gotten this looked at yet?"
"Not yet." Red shrugged. His voice was as quiet as ever. On any other man it would've seemed a weakness—but with Red, people went silent just to hear the rare moments when he chose to speak. "It was a long trip. I wanted to report back."
Giovanni pressed the scab a little harder. "How did you get this?"
Red's mouth didn't move, but the corners of his eyes crinkled in a smile. "Worried?"
"Ha!" Giovanni grinned. "For my plans, maybe. I hope you weren't seen."
"Not by anyone who's going to be reporting back." One of his hands drifted to the poké balls on his belt. His fingertips found the oldest, most scuffed one, and gave it a loving stroke.
Giovanni scoffed. No surprise there, really. Once Red was injured, the real trick would be to stop his charizard from destroying everything in its path.
"Well, I suppose I have no complaints, then." He ruffled Red's hair, making him lean into the touch. "I got the contract sent to me yesterday. The Lilycove Property Council's very eager to have a new casino in place. Sounds like the old one was having a hard time of it. Barely even functioning, they said"
Another not-smile from Red. "I'm not surprised."
Not surprised hardly covered it—if he hadn't sent Red to clear out that two-bit den of petty criminals, someone else would've come along and overthrown them soon enough. No plans, no ambitions, no structure, just people swindling random civilians out of their spare change and thinking that made them strong.
Petty thieves. Pickpockets. Small-time smugglers, racketeers, protection scams, none of it given any thought, none of it meant for any grander cause than lining the pockets of a few small-minded men.
Hoenn's underworld lacked leadership, that much was clear. And Giovanni had been hesitating for far too long about branching out more widely—hesitant in the face of over-extending himself, afraid he might let his organization down—but with Red at his side that was no longer an issue. Who would stand against the two of them together? Who wouldn't see them both and want to follow their command?
Red's pokémon were loyal to Red. Red was loyal to Giovanni. And Giovanni was loyal to Team Rocket, to each and every last member of the organization who put their trust in him.
...And to Red, when it came down to it. Red so rarely needed protecting—but when he did, Giovanni would always be there to crush those who might harm him.
Giovanni curled his hand more gently into Red's hair, and ran the other down his cheek to let Red press himself into the touch.
Red had been barely more than a child when he first came to Giovanni: a teenage boy with scuffed shoes and threadbare clothes, a face streaked with dirt and a hungry-looking charmeleon crouching at his side. Giovanni had very nearly turned him away for that alone. What did it matter that one pipsqueak had beaten a few trainers on a backwater bridge somewhere, that one underling of Giovanni's thought he saw potential in the scrawny boy? But then Giovanni had seen the hunger in Red's eyes. The thirst for power, for purpose. Recognized it, and known better than to let someone with a look like that escape.
And now Red was the furthest thing from a child, and it wasn't just Kanto that knew Giovanni's name.
Red was still so hungry in some ways, though: desperate for validation, for touch, for someone to tell him he'd done well. And there was no one who could provide that for him half as well as Giovanni.
"Go get yourself cleaned up," Giovanni told him. "Get that wound looked at, get your team healed, and"—he wrinkled his nose—"take a shower while you're at it. Then come back down here." He waited a moment, to let it all sink in, and added, "You did well, Red. I'm very pleased."
The smile Red gave him then was one of the rare ones to make it to his face, and in the warm light of Giovanni's office it seemed bright enough to to power all of Celadon. Even Red's espeon couldn't quite seem to stay angry at Giovanni in the face of it—it flicked its ears at him, eyes half-narrowed, as if to say it was glad he'd at least managed to do one thing right.
A common goal, indeed: protect Red and make him happy. In that, Giovanni and Red's team weren't so much either allies or enemies as they were rivals. And Giovanni wasn't the sort to lose at anything.
"All right," Red said, still grinning as he stood. "Be back soon."
"I look forward to it." Giovanni nodded, and with a burst of light and another sound of reality tearing open, espeon teleported its trainer away.
Giovanni sat back down in front of his papers, trying once more to focus, but his heart wasn't in it anymore. All he could think about was Red's return.
Red deserved a reward, after all, for a job well done. Giovanni would be more than happy to give him one.