The New Normal - 14-8 - Interlude - Archer

The New Normal – 14-8 – Interlude – Archer

For most of his adult life, he never would have thought that he’d be doing anything with his life that he hadn’t been explicitly ordered to by Giovanni. After everything his boss had done for him, and for the region that he so dearly loved, there was nothing he wouldn’t do to repay back what he felt he owed.

This was why both Petrel and Ariana were so loyal to Giovanni as well. All three of Giovanni’s closest subordinates were all people that had suffered and despaired due to the poverty that had once ravaged Kanto.

Ariana was a failed researcher. A woman that had just been fired from one of Kanto’s many failing laboratories that were all shutting down one by one, and left with very few options to make a decent living. Petrel was a conman, someone forced to lie and cheat just to scrounge up enough money for him to make it through another day without going hungry. And himself? He was nothing more than a petty thief. A man who stole from others because he didn’t see any other way that he could survive.

All three of them were headed to live empty and hollow lives. But Giovanni had recognised and acknowledged their talents, and brought them up to what they were today.

So if his actions in service to Giovanni meant getting his hands dirty with all sorts of underground and very likely illegal activities, to be the silent hand that ‘nudged’ things from time to time so that his boss could achieve his goals, then so be it.

However, the nature of his tasks meant that his actions and deeds were almost always left unknown to the wider public. As a result, he never really had the opportunity to take credit for his actions – to be able to point at something and publicly say that he did that. But he never really cared about not receiving the glory, since most of his thoughts revolved around serving Giovanni to the best of his ability. As a tool.

Therefore, when Giovanni had approached him and asked if he wanted to become a so-called ‘Frontier Brain’ and take up a position as part of the new Battle Frontier, completely independent and separated from Giovanni’s influence, he was completely taken aback.

This would be his very first position where his name would be in the spotlight. Even when he had taken on other ‘official’ roles on behalf of Giovanni, such as his time working as an analyst for Silph Co., he was never really more than another nameless face in the crowd. But this time was different. If he were given the position, the level of fame and attention he would receive would turn him into a celebrity overnight.

The idea of being famous and recognised was… unusual, but the more that he thought about it, the more he wanted to give it a shot. After living a life in the shadows, maybe it would be good to spend some time in the sun.

Besides, with Giovanni no longer wanting to involve himself with the criminal world any longer in favour of spending his time with Ariana in raising their son, and with Petrel now wholly occupied with his duties at the Cerulean Gym, he was the one left with nothing to do. So instead of sitting on his empty hands, he decided to take a chance and accept the invitation from Cynthia to meet.

Though the interview with Cynthia proved to be quite simple, and he passed through those tests without too much issue.

Naturally, Cynthia demanded a very high level of strength to become a Frontier Brain, but as one of Giovanni’s trusted lieutenants, he wouldn’t allow his strength to be a disappointment for his boss. He was pretty confident that his strength could match up against your average Gym Leader.

He might not be a Type specialist, but he had a solid roster of Pokémon consisting of a Houndoom, Pinsir, Weezing, Crobat, Mismagius, Claydol, Ursaring, and Cloyster.

He admitted that his team was a rather big mish-mash of many different Pokémon, and unlike many other trainers, he did not have a ‘starter’ Pokémon or an ace. That was because his team was basically cobbled together over the course of many different missions, and therefore he didn’t raise them from scratch as many other trainers usually would.

However, that did not mean his team was weak. They may have been so at first, but after spending so many years together, they had forged themselves into a proper team in truth. It was a team that had gotten him through some pretty tough shit over the years, and he trusted them with his life.

He was confident that they would be able to hold up to his future peers at the Battle Frontier.

Speaking of them, he had arrived at a small restaurant in Jubilife City, having been invited there by his future colleagues as a way of getting to know each other. That was a pleasant surprise, as he was both the latecomer and a foreigner, so he initially thought he would have been snubbed or at least politely ignored.

“Hey, over here, Archer!” A loud blonde man waved him over as he entered into the restaurant, “We saved you a seat!” He made his way over.

“My thanks.” He said as he took a seat at the table, “You must be Palmer.”

“Sure am.” Palmer grinned easily, “And this young man right here is Thorton. Then the two lovely ladies over there are Dahlia and Argenta.”

“Not so much of a lady anymore, Palmer. I’m getting on in years.” Argenta chuckled.

“Nonsense, you look good for your age!” Dahlia reassured, “I’d be happy if I could maintain my looks like you did once I get to your age.”

He supposed he could add a compliment of his own, “Having been partially acquainted with Agatha, I can say for certain that you’ve aged very well, Argenta. Don’t let her know I said that though.”

That got a few chuckles, just as he hoped for.

“Say, Archer. You used to work for Silph Co, right?” Thorton asked, “So are you good with technology?”

“Sorry, I only worked there as an analyst.” He replied with a shake of his head, “Tech and science-y stuff went completely over my head. I’m definitely more suited to field work over lab work.”

“Ah. That’s a shame.” Thorton said, frowning slightly, “I was hoping someone here could share my interests.”

“Don’t be like that, Thorton.” Palmer clapped him over the shoulder, “I’m sure Archer’s just being humble. I bet he’s certainly going to be more knowledgeable than me.”

The food arrived shortly after that, and the conversation flowed naturally as everyone made small talk and simply tried to get to know each other better. He admitted that the atmosphere was quite enjoyable – everyone was friendly with each other, and while they were all different, their personalities didn’t clash.

From his first impressions, Palmer was the loud and excited one, while Thorton was his complete opposite. Yet Dahlia and Argenta were both quite kind and easy-going, which helped smooth over any potential conflicts from the former’s differing personalities.

Eventually, after their meal was finished, they moved onto the more important topic.

“So… any of you guys actually thought about how you’d like to design your section of the Battle Frontier?” Palmer asked them, “Because we don’t have much time before we need to submit and finalise our proposal to the construction team. And Cynthia made it clear we’re supposed to add some kind of ‘unique gimmick’ to each of our sections.”

“Then we should use this opportunity to share and brainstorm on ideas.” He said, “It’ll ensure that we aren’t accidentally overlapping our ideas.”

Everyone nodded at that.

“I’ve already decided on making mine a factory.” Thorton said, “And for the gimmick, I want it so that challengers will have to only make use of rented Pokémon that we provide for them. That way, they’ll get to have practice with using a whole range of different Pokémon and what their strengths and weaknesses are. It probably won’t be super popular, but I’m pretty confident that there will be trainers who will see the benefits of such battles.”

That was a pretty interesting idea.

“You could probably have it so that one of the ‘special prizes’ that you give out is that the challenger is allowed to keep one of their Pokémon that they rented.” He suggested, “Might give them incentive to participate.”

“True.” Thorton nodded, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“I think I want to keep things simple for myself, so I’m calling dibs on the ‘standard’ battle experience.” Palmer grinned, “That means hosting 1v1 battles just like you would see in your standard Gym Battle. And I want to call mine the Battle Tower.”

“In that case, I’ve been thinking of having a gauntlet run, in probably what I’ll be calling the Battle Hall.” Argenta said, “I was inspired from the Indigo Gauntlet show match that they did, and I think it’ll be interesting to implement something like that here. Basically, challengers will continuously face other challengers with one Pokémon each and they will keep going until they lose. Their Pokémon won’t be healed between battles, so it’ll be a good way to train up their Pokémon’s endurance and stamina.”

“Oh! Me next! I want to do something like an Arcade, and since Palmer’s taken the single battles, I’ll be focused on multi-battles instead.” Dahlia said, “So I’ll be doing 2v2 battles! I think it’s going to be quite popular since there’s been an uptick of people who enjoy doing multi-battles now.”

They all turned to him expectantly, waiting for his own answer. Fortunately, he had already come up with something on his way here. One that encapsulated his own unique experiences as a trainer.

“I want to have this big open castle with a maze-like arena with plenty of both easy and difficult to destroy obstacles to hide behind and block line of sight.” He said, “So instead of having your typical open arena, challengers will have to face opponents in an unusual and unfamiliar environment, where they’ll be able to make use of the terrain to gain an advantage over their opponent. Basically, they’ll be training up their own tactical thinking and observational skills, while also preparing them for ‘real life’ battles.”

Despite the strength of his team, he knew that his real strength lied in planning ambushes and attacking from oblique angles. He wanted his section of the Battle Frontier to reflect that, especially since most trainers didn’t really practice fighting outside the controlled, flat open spaces of a Gym arena.

“Excellent.” Palmer clapped, “It seems like we all have an idea of what we’re doing, and I’m very glad that there weren’t any overlaps in our ideas. I think we should prioritise finalising and submitting these designs as soon as possible so the construction team can get started on building them.”

And thus, they had laid the foundation for the Battle Frontier to take shape. It would prove to be a great success.

A.N. I felt like it would be good to give some backstory into Archer and the other Team Rocket admins and how they ended up working under Giovanni. Given their respective talents in this story, I wanted their backgrounds to reflect that. I hoped you liked that bit of insight and the reasons behind wanting to join the Battle Frontier.

Also, with Archer joining the ranks of the Battle Frontier, I felt that it was good to try to showcase his contribution to the Battle Frontier and what his ‘section’ would look like. Of course, for the others, I had to make some changes for theirs as well to try to adapt them to a ‘real world’ scenario – as the way they are formatted in the games would simply not make sense logically. Hope you enjoyed the slightly longer Interlude!