Blasting Off! (Pokemon)(Team Rocket OC)

The fools had actually gone and done it. If Oak needed any further proof of the collusion between his old colleagues and that fumbling fool of a businessman, Giovanni… then here it was, staring him right in the face. They'd gone and unearthed the Catastrophe and given it to this… this whelp of all things!

Watching the Catastrophe tear Red's Lapras a new one damn near gives Samuel Oak an aneurysm. Not because of the reality-breaking the insanely dangerous Pokemon engages in, because Oak has long trained himself against such effects and remains strong, even as a trickle of blood leaves one of his nostrils. No, the aneurysm is because he sees the Pokeball that that stupid Rocket brat uses. A Master Ball. This insignificant whelp had a fucking Master Ball.

Red had one too, to be fair. A gift she'd earned when she stopped Team Rocket in Saffron City. Oak had counseled her through one of her aides to hold onto it for the time being, fully intending on having her use it on Mewtwo when the time finally came.

But if Red had the one that Silph Co. had made, then that meant this second could only come from one place. Bill. That idiotic brat had gone and not only created a Master Ball for this Rocket Whelp but allowed him to use it to catch the Catastrophe, threatening to derail all of Oak's carefully constructed plans.

It shouldn't have been possible! Oak's plan was flawless, from start to finish! It had contingency after contingency, fail safe after fail safe! He'd even gone so far as to remove issues like Gary along the way. Gary's death was regrettable, but unfortunately quite necessary. He would have drawn undue attention to Oak and his family long before the Pokemon Professor was ready to pull the trigger. So… in the end, he'd had to kill him.

Even that had barely been a blip on Oak's radar. All in all, there had only been one TRUE bump in the road. One real hiccup. But it was fine. So what if the original Red disappeared into the woods? So what if the idiot boy had gone and gotten himself killed? Oak had the back up, so it was all fine.

In the years since his male clone had run off and died on him, Oak had not been idle. He couldn't merely send Yellow out into the world at the age of ten as he'd originally intended, not when she had not received the same training for the first eight years of her life as the male clone had. In the end, he'd needed more time.

So, he'd made more time. Yellow had become the new Red, in name as well as truth. Oak had poured all of his energy, all of his focus, into making sure that she was ready when she hit eighteen. Yes, eighteen was a little older than most left home on their Pokemon Journeys, but it wasn't totally out of the question. And given the sheer number of advantages she would have; it shouldn't have mattered. It HADN'T mattered.

Until now, the replacement Red had played her role perfectly. Keeping tabs on her through his numerous aides and sometimes even watching her himself from afar, Oak was confident when he said she'd never lost a single Pokemon Battle… until now.

Worst of all, Oak couldn't even blame it on only the Catastrophe. This Rocket whelp… he had fought his battle with Red in a very specific manner, waiting until the very end to bring out that madness-inducing Pokemon. The Catastrophe was nothing more than a coup de grace on what Oak was forced to acknowledge was a masterfully conducted Pokemon Battle.

Red had lost. His trump card, his perfect weapon, his female clone. She'd lost to this damnable Rocket, Giovanni's secret weapon. It had been a deadly dance from the very beginning, and more than that… a begrudgingly beautiful sight. The Rocket had used all six of his Pokemon, and each of them had easily been twice as strong as Red's own team to Oak's practiced eye.

That shouldn't have been possible though, right? Until this moment, the Pokemon Professor would have said with some confidence that Red and her team were the strongest in all of Kanto. Sure, there were plenty of Trainers out there with more experience and a lifetime of battling compared to Red… but that didn't matter. Red was the perfect weapon. She was MADE for this. Well, no, she was made for something else entirely… but she had been repurposed. It shouldn't have been possible for her to lose. It-

… His thoughts were going around in circles. He was better than that. With herculean effort, Professor Samuel Oak refocuses on the matter at hand, narrowing his eyes at the boy in front of him. It takes him a moment to come up with a name, having put out feelers a while back to find out just who the fuck this whelp thought he was.

"Cam. Your name is… Cam, isn't it?"

There's a beat of hesitation. A bead of uncertainty. Cam is looking down at Red when Oak asks the question, and when he looks up, his eyes narrow.

"… Yes."

"No."

Oak's voice is filled with surety as he says it. In that moment, in his heart of hearts, he knows it's not true. This boy's name is not Cam. Samuel Oak is a genius. At Pokemon, at science, at damn near anything he's ever set his mind to. But he's also old… and in his age, he's apparently reached a point where he's capable of making mistakes. He allowed himself to get TOO focused on what was right in front of him, that he became blind to everything else. Well, now it was right in front of him… and he knew who this boy was.

"Red. Your name was Red."

The Rocket's eyes flash at that, and his lips thin out.

"Yes."

Of course. How could he not have seen it? How could he have possibly failed to realize. All this time…

"Giovanni must have stolen you away right under my nose. He tore the tracker out of you, he tucked you away and raised you as his own secret weapon. That egotistical fool. We would have been out from under Johto's thumb eight years ago, if he hadn't meddled! You and I would have been ruling this Region as Champion and Advisor! But no, Giovanni just had to have control, didn't he?!"

Yes, it was the only thing that made sense, at least to Oak. No wonder he'd never found any trace of the original Red's body. The boy hadn't truly been dead. He'd assumed he'd been consumed by wild Pokemon, but instead…

"How did he find out though? I kept the entire project a secret! Blaine only knew I had something in the works, but when he didn't come along, I told him nothing else! It shouldn't have been possible…"

"Giovanni didn't know."

That catches Oak off guard. He stares at the original Red, as the pink-haired young man in his bespoke suit glares back at him.

"What?"

"Giovanni… didn't know. Left… of my own accord."

That, Oak has to admit, throws him for a loop. To be fair, it was what he'd believed for so long. That the original Red had gone off on his own and gotten himself killed for seemingly no reason. But now… it's hard to swallow. But rather than further question why… it merely ignites a cold, hard rage in Oak's belly.

"You left of your own accord. You abandoned everything I'd been working towards… of your own accord. You little brat. Do you have any idea how much your little insurrection set me back?! And for what? Bah! It doesn't matter now! No wonder the female was useless against you. She was never meant to be able to defeat you, she was only ever meant to spread her legs!"

Snarling, Oak reaches into his lab coat… and palms a Pokeball. Technically, he was banned from Pokemon Battling and had been for eighteen long years. But his surrender all those years ago hadn't been genuine, so why anyone thought he would obey Lance's edict was laughable.

"I'll deal with you myself, you disobedient child-!"

"Samuel!"

Before Oak can fully pull out the Pokeball however, another voice calls out, breaking him and his clone free of their little staring contest. Turning, the original Red looks back as Agatha comes running into the Hall of Fame. The old woman has clearly seen better days. Her cane is nowhere to be seen, and there's not a single Pokeball on her person. Oak narrows his eyes, as his clone steps aside to let her teeter up to him.

"I'm sorry, but I just couldn't wait any longer. Oh, Samuel… I'm so, so sorry. I couldn't keep him from getting inside… I tried my best."

Oak's lightning fast mind immediately processes what she's talking about. His estranged ex-wife was… apologizing to him? For what, failing to hold the line? He honestly hadn't even known she was doing so. That she would do so…

"Truly, from the depths of my heart, I apologize for how I've treated you these past eighteen years! I thought you were a coward! I thought you had abandoned your fighting spirit!"

What even was this? The abrupt departure from the revelation that he was sharing a room with not one, but TWO of his clones to this… this soap opera level confession is jarring to say the least.

"I should have known! I always thought it was off, the way you seemed to abandon your principles in a way that flew in the face of everything I ever knew about you! But I didn't… I didn't understand! I was blinded by grief, by the death of our son. I'm sorry, Samuel. All this time… you've been a man of honor, of strength, and of principle all along! You always had a plan!"

Everything she's saying is correct. But surely she must realize it's not what he wants to hear right now. Agatha… how many nights had he wept in anguish, over what they'd had together? Over what they'd LOST together? And she… she wanted to do this NOW?!

"I should never have left your side, Samuel! But I've seen the light now! I know the truth, and I know now… my love for you has not diminished even a second in all these years! Oh Samuel… please, s-say something!"

Stepping forward, Agatha reaches out and grabs one of his hands in her own. Oak stares down at that connection between the two of them for a moment. It's been a long, long time since the woman he married was willing to touch him. Perhaps in a different time and a different place, he would have welcomed Agatha's apology. It was no less than he deserved… but also far too little, in the end.

In this time and place, having just watched his first creation defeat his second, realizing that his grand plan was in danger of being destroyed by his own clone… Oak could only look down at his and Agatha's hands and see how old and wrinkly they'd become. The years… the years had not been kind to either of them, in truth. They were aged now. Decrepit, even. And in those wrinkled hands, all Oak could see was the time he had lost because SHE abandoned him.

"… Say something? You want me to say something?"

Sneering, Oak tears his hand from Agatha's grip and takes a step back. He leaves her teetering without her cane, as she looks at him imploringly.

"You tossed me aside at my weakest point! You threw away the life we had together, the memory of our son! YOU LEFT ME, AGATHA!"

"Oak, p-please!"

"No! The moment I return to power, you come begging for scraps. Why am I not surprised?! Rather, why is THIS what it takes, for you to realize I AM and always have been the man you married?!"

Agatha's eyes are filled with tears, her lower lip wobbling.

"I-I didn't know!"

"YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE HAD TO KNOW!"

Oak's roar makes her take a fearful step back, as he all but snarls in her face.

"There is a REASON it is called a Leap of Faith, Agatha! You were my WIFE! My better half! You shouldn't have had to know… you simply had to believe in me."

Agatha's mouth opens and closes wordlessly, no response coming out. But then, Oak knows… there is no response to this. Agatha's betrayal ALWAYS cut the deepest. He understood why everyone else turned their backs on him, even if he had fully intended to get his revenge on ALL of them once he took power again. But Agatha… Agatha was an old wound that had festered and become infected and in this moment, all Oak could see when he looked at her was eighteen years of heartache and pain.

Sure, perhaps he should have confided in her. But who was to say she would have understood any of what he had to do? Oh, she was making all the appropriate lip noises now, but that was only because he'd WON! Back then, he couldn't say for certain whether she would have betrayed his trust or not. He couldn't trust anyone… except for himself. Heh, and even then, he couldn't trust himself, could he?

Oak's eyes drift to the original Red for a moment at that thought… before snapping back to his ex-wife and sharpening considerably.

"You talk of honor, of principle. I'll show you what I think of your fucking honor, Agatha."

Whipping the Pokeball out from under his lab coat at long last, Oak lets his Tauros out of its ball right there on the spot. His Pokemon automatically and instinctively understands his desires of course, their bond unshakeable. Moving into position, the Tauros huffs as it glares at Agatha of the Elite Four… the Ghost Type Trainer not having a single Pokemon left to her name.

"Tauros! Giga Impact!"

Shaking like a leaf, Agatha barely has the chance to cry out as Tauros huffs and puffs, stomping at the ground for a moment before charging forward in a way that creates a puff of smoke. Oak expects a meaty impact and Agatha's cry to be cut off by the goring strike. He expects the smoke to clear, and his ex-wife to be dead on the ground.

Alas… he's had a lot of expectations today that haven't panned out, hasn't he? The smoke clears… and Agatha is unharmed. His Tauros has been stopped in its tracks by a truly majestic Dragonite, who currently has ahold of both of his Pokemon's horns. Stepping in front of Agatha, who falls back against a pillar, unable to keep her legs under her for a moment longer… is Oak's clone, the Pokeball that his Dragonite came from still held up, outstretched in his hand.

Oak smiles a sardonic smile, knowing it doesn't reach his eyes.

"Hmph. If you want something done right, you do it yourself I suppose. To think… I would be my own worst enemy. Come on then, boy! Let's see what you can do against the Real Deal!"

-x-X-x-

If you'd like to read more of my work not seen on this website, check out Hentai-Foundry.com and QuestionableQuesting.com where I have over a thousand stories!

If you'd like to contribute to funding my writing at all, check me out on Patreon.com/Cambrian

Thanks for reading!