"I've looked over most of what we collected with my team and there was a lot of promising leads to go off of" a thin man said, looking over some papers and drawing on a map. The map was large, covered with various holographic pieces much like Pokemon figurines and other landmarks. Around them, there was shades of colors.
"True dat, the candidates been putting in work" a girl descending from the Indigo Plateau region commented. She was laying down sideways in the wide spinning chair with her legs over one arm. She used her hand to spin around in her chair. It slowed in its rotations when a Jolteon jumped in like a blur of yellow spiky fur.
There were others in the room, a young woman with brown hair hanging just past her shoulders sitting nicely on a bench next to a man of similar age and average features except for his cutting gaze. The man narrowed his eyes at the pieces on top of the map before glancing at the projector above them. Lastly there was a nicely dressed blonde boy. He was clean shaven and fiddled with some sort of phone in his hand.
"Can we get this over with, I have things to do" that same boy said.
"Julian, you know these meetings are important. It's what keeps us on track to reach our goals" the young woman answered.
"Yeah sure, and that's why we're still talking about objective 1" he emphasized the number but put away his phone as he felt a psychic presence upon him.
"Cut that out Metagross" the psychic pressure decreased at the woman's command. "You should really handle her, I know she's supposed to be your bodyguard but she shouldn't control you like the others."
Julian frowned at the accusation but didn't deny the jab. He wasn't a great battler and that was why he was here.
"Like seriously, she's a total control freak. Even Espeon can't stand her" the teenage girl twirled in her seat to face Julian to make a mean face at him, before spinning again to face the oldest in the room. Her Jolteon shifted to a more comfortable position before plopping down and resting its head on her leg.
"Let's get back on track guys, we have three things to talk about before we leave" he gestured to the young woman. She seemed to be presiding this meeting and began listing things off.
"Despite Cass not being able to make it to this meeting due to her busy schedule, it shouldn't matter as long as I talk with her later. So, like the briefing said, we'll go over the next group of jobs we each need done assuming you still have assets to cover operations?" Julian nodded and pulled out his phone again.
"Yeah, along with two new potential officials. One's the mayor of Luxom, man's been having troubles paying off his personal debts due to the opposing political party. Allegedly they hired a man with a Banette and some of his most important investment deeds disappeared. Really, he shouldn't have this problem by getting with the times and have them digitally" He showed them a document he had taken a picture of with terms to cover his debts for the next 6 months in return for favors. Specified was that he wouldn't do anything illegal for them but the funds for doing contract work was within reason as long as they actually did the work. It was more complicated than that of course but the gist was such.
"Man of principles I see. Those commitments are reasonable. Who's the other?" The average looking man had light brown eyes and his eyes scoured over Julian.
"An advocate for city expansion in Darklauf, he doesn't have much to offer except for his connections to the mob. He somehow figured out about Dawn" the words hung over the group for a second before Julian specified "He approached me."
"That is concerning, I'll do an internal check within that branch" the man said, his stare turning even sharper as he turned it to the leader.
"Ignore him, we don't need his help. Poisoned trees will grow poisoned fruit" she rolled a strand of hair back and forth as she focused more on the task at hand. She had faith that the internal check would reveal what happened, her trust in the man's skill and ability high. Concerned but not willing to dwell on that particular matter, she turned the conversation to her original purpose of discussing jobs and rewards for objective 2. There would be special ones would be of higher risk and so would have a larger reward waiting for those who took them. The gains would be just as well though in finding which leads were worth continuing.
After awhile their conversation wrapped up and after recording everything on her computer the woman in charge brought up the next topic. "Next on the agenda is the hunt. Do you think you are ready Mulin?"
The younger girl thought about it for a bit, unfazed with everyone looking at her "Sadly, I still need some time. Give me, like, a month and I'll be ready to roll. You remember your pinky promise, right?"
"Yes, if you can successfully trap that Toucannon you can do the leader challenge you wanted" the leader sighed and hung her head. It was so unnecessary, but could be a good way to build their public image early with Mulin.
“Slay” Mulin was excited with this prospect, her gym would be so cute and she could invite her fam over and see them after so long. Hopefully they were still able to find work nowadays, but if not, the money she had left them would have to make do. It was too dangerous to send more now that they were being watched.
"I pray for your enforcers sometimes" the thin man sighed, making Mulin giggle. Jolteon didn't like that and tried to thunder wave her trainer only to get whacked in the head. It shifted uncomfortably but didn't try again.
"Now onto our final topic for today, Max Bo" the leader set her laptop aside and reached to turn off the projector.
"I heard he got discharged from the hospital, pretty easily too" Julian said, trying to appear aware of events as Metagross fed him the words.
"That's right, he doesn't appear to be watched from a physical standpoint but it's too weird that he just hopped up and left that same day" discussion moved in circles with more data and reports being offered, trying to figure out how he was doing and who was working on tilting the future certain ways through him.
"I still think we should drop him, Gardevior and Xatu predict that we can still find the it without his help. It’s a waste of resources" the sharp eyed man argued.
"That will set us back years, we already made contact with him, and he could still lead us there. He has the best chance out of anyone we've met now and in the future" the oldest shot back.
There was silence then. Those were the most apparent sides in this discussion. One was wanting to rely more on themselves and the other on Max. It would have been easier before the attack but now things had changed. His path had been cut off into the abyss and hidden from all normal future readings. The two youngest didn't seem to care much about him with the other three being for, against, and abstaining in their votes.
"How about we make him a candidate? That would be easy enough and then we can get him to help us either way" the woman in charge had closed her eyes and was thinking hard. It was her Pokémon's vision that they were arguing about so it was only right she figure something out. The others had no objections although the thin man looked miffed.
"Then it's decided, we'll let him in and we'll see if he can still offer us as much as he could before" with that the others started teleporting away until only the thin man and Mulin were left.
"Don't sweat it too much Hen Hen, with boss girl and me we'll do amazeballs either way" she walked away, heading out of the meeting room to train again.
The thin man stayed at the map for awhile, searching it as if he could find what they were all looking for right there. The way to make the world a more equal place. One where humans could rule the wild and one day the gods.
