Chapter 6: Say My Name
Giovanni carefully secured the incubator to his back—the Team Rocket uniform was designed with a special harness for this purpose—and met Nohara's glare with eyes as cold as stone.
Nohara took a deep, shuddering breath and charged, roaring like a cornered animal.
Though the ordeal in the forest had hardened Giovanni, he was still much smaller than his opponent— a direct confrontation would be foolish.
However, Giovanni possessed the cunning of two lifetimes. To beat a simple thug like this, he just needed to be more ruthless.
He also needed to send a message to the vultures circling nearby. He had seen their hungry eyes. They thought he was an easy target, a ripe fruit ready to be plucked. He would show them how wrong they were.
Nohara barreled forward like a maddened Tauros— but at the last second, Giovanni sidestepped, letting the bigger boy's momentum carry him past. As he did, Giovanni pivoted and threw a sharp, precise punch that connected solidly with the side of Nohara's face.
Crack!
The impact split Nohara's lip, and blood began to trickle down his chin. Enraged by the pain, Nohara abandoned all technique and grabbed the front of Giovanni's uniform, violently throwing him to the ground. He moved to pin him, to end the fight with his superior weight.
But as Nohara came down, Giovanni shot his leg up, delivering a vicious kick straight to his groin.
Nohara's eyes bulged. His face turned a deep, painful shade of red, and his body curled into a ball, like a cooked shrimp. The onlookers winced, some instinctively covering their own groins.
Giovanni scrambled to his feet and unleashed a merciless flurry of punches and kicks, each blow landing with a sickening thud. Nohara screamed, but his raw strength was undeniable.
He was bigger and bulkier. He weathered the storm, his fury overriding the pain, and managed to tackle Giovanni, reversing their positions and pinning him to the ground.
"I'll kill you! I'll kill you!" Nohara shrieked, raining down clumsy but powerful punches.
Giovanni could only cover his head, protecting his skull as best he could while he waited, enduring the blows. The tide had turned. The onlookers relaxed, smirking.
"When he's done, I'm taking the next egg that kid finds."
"No, I am!"
In their eyes, Giovanni was already finished— a resource to be exploited.
But Giovanni was just waiting. He was letting Nohara burn through his rage, to exhaust himself. As the punches began to weaken, Giovanni saw his opening.
He dropped his arms and surged upward, slamming his forehead directly into the bridge of Nohara's nose.
A sickening crunch echoed in the chamber. Nohara's nose collapsed, and a fountain of blood erupted from his face, blinding him. He clutched his face, his vision blurred by a mixture of blood and tears.
With a bruised and swollen face, Giovanni climbed to his feet. He grabbed a heavy, discarded incubator from the floor and raised it high above his head.
Nohara, through his pain, saw the weapon descending. Terror replaced his rage.
"Wait! I was wrong! Please, big brother, spare me! I don't want the egg!"
Giovanni's expression was blank. He brought the discarded incubator down with all his might.
Thud.
Once.
Thud.
Twice.
Thud.
He didn't stop until the ground was stained crimson and the metal incubator was slick with blood and gore. Only when Nohara's body stopped twitching did Giovanni let the weapon fall from his hands.
He coldly scanned the other children who had been watching. Their smirks were gone, replaced by pure terror. Giovanni was drained, his arms trembling, but he walked over to Nohara's corpse, dragged it a few feet away, and sat down on it as if it were a throne.
It was a bluff. He was exhausted, but he needed to project an image of absolute dominance to deter the others.
It worked. The onlookers quickly turned away, pretending to be busy, their bodies trembling.
I won...
In truth, Giovanni's hands were shaking, not just from exhaustion, but because this was the first time he had ever killed a person. He had seen plenty of death in the slums, but to be the one to cause it... it was different— a cold dread washed over him. His stomach churned, and he fought the urge to vomit. He held it all back. He had to.
Whispers started up nearby, quiet but clear in the relative silence. He heard every word.
"He's insane. It's just a Bug-type egg. Was it worth it?"
"Yeah, there were plenty of others."
"Did you see him look over here? Oh god, I hope he doesn't come for me..."
Was it worth it? Giovanni asked himself the same question. He looked at the chaos still unfolding, at the trampled bodies and the rivers of blood. He felt the gentle warmth of the incubator on his back, the faint, trusting consciousness reaching out to him.
He wiped the blood from his cheek. His gaze, once uncertain, hardened into steel.
"Yes," he whispered to himself. "It was worth it."
This was Team Rocket. Killing was just business. If he couldn't accept that, he would never survive, let alone thrive. This was his chance to claw his way out of the gutter, and he would seize it with bloody hands.
As the hour drew to a close, the frenzy died down. Hundreds had been trampled to death. Dozens more were killed in fights over the eggs. The injured and the weak were simply left behind, their dreams crushed.
Giovanni, the boy sitting on a corpse, had made a name for himself.
He was busy. He could feel a strange energy flowing through him again, knitting his wounds closed. More than that, the energy seemed to be forming a bridge between him and the egg, flowing into it, helping the creature inside absorb the incubator's nutrient fluid. It was a symbiotic power.
Viridian Forest... the green light... The pieces started to click into place.
He pulled the incubator from his back and held it in his arms. "Could it be...?"
He whispered, his eyes wide with disbelief. He looked down at the Bug-type egg. "You... you wouldn't happen to be a Weedle, would you?"
The egg wobbled, but the meaning was clear to him now. A deep, instinctual certainty settled in his gut.
He had been so worried about meeting the future Boss of Team Rocket during this test, a man known for his Ground, Rock, and Bug-type Pokémon. He had been afraid of having to compete with him.
But now...
He stared at his own reflection in the polished surface of the incubator. He saw the buzz cut, the cold eyes, the face bruised from a fight for survival. He saw the boy who had just killed another for a single Pokémon egg.
The final, horrifying piece of the puzzle fell into place.
There was no other boss to worry about.
I am Giovanni.