- Soul of Steel -

Chapter 26: Out of the Red...Part 1

- - - - A few days before the Fighting Gym Incident - - - - -

- - - - - ???? - - - - -

Throughout the hallways of grime and rust, populated with the air of unfavorable villains and wickedness across the lands, Syra walked in silence. Guarded by a lone officer that was assigned to her person, they came to a cell. Number B16 appeared with a grossly dark green tint, and with only a slot for shoulder-height viewing to see the prisoner within, and one for either handcuffing the prisoner to move them, or hand them food. The cell guard looks to Syra. "You've 5 minutes, ma'am. I'll be at the other end of the hallway to escort you out should you come before that time is up." he says, turning to her with a bow as Syra exhaled slowly. Inside the cell she could sense the irritation coming from within, and swallowed to regain her composure. Lightly tapping on her cheeks and shaking her head from side to side, she leaned forward for the voice to reach through.

"They told me that they were moving you to another, more isolated facility. Maybe that will give you plenty of time to reflect."

Inside the cell a man was seen in the corner with one leg up on the bed and having an arm rest on it; a small grin coming to him as his eyes closed. "They should have put you in here with me....Syra." Came the voice of the once great leader of the evil organization known as Team Rocket, Giovanni.

She kept her eyebrows furrowed intensely. Despite him being behind a jailcell, she did not want to admit that a part of her was still somewhat scared of him. After all, he did point a gun to her head during the operation that ended up with his headquarters taken over. "Seems that self-reflection is beyond even you, huh? I hope I never get to that state when I'm old."

"Feh. Spare me your eagerness to show how limited your worldview is, child. There's no convincing me that you've suddenly turned a new leaf for good. You were one of the better agents on the field; helped us rocket to a greater technological heights for Pokemonkind...and man." he sighed, chuckling to himself in bemusement.

Turning to lean against the jailcell with her head leaned forward to peer in, Syra bit her lip. "Your team has been exhausted, captured, and resources stripped. Even when you had all the power added to Mewtwo, you fell down just like all the other villain groups in other regions. Just as Red and Gold did, Haru, Sam and I beat you fair and square." Syra huffed while her teeth grit. "If you'll excuse me the confusion, I don't understand how you can still talk like you own me. It's not like I chose to keep my uniform for a cosplay shoot or anything."

Giovanni shot straight up to his feet confidently. "Own you? Oh, but I do, dear girl: even in here. Look at us..." his left arm relaxing while his right hand rested within the pants pocket of his cell uniform. "The part of you that feels responsible for putting me behind these bars equally knows that for all this self sacrificial heroism, your change is only performative: a skin-deep performance for the whole of Galar to buy hook, line, and sinker."

Syra said nothing and just stared hard at him. That alone seemed enough to satiate his ego, as Giovanni huffed. "Those eyes of yours...they are the same ones that glared at me when you took over my headquarters in the underground. Such fire behind them. You walked into my office and had me dance for you, and like an oaf, I went along. Did you come because you feel pity for the one who held you into subservience? Hmm, no, perhaps that's not it."

"You get real fucking boring when you're preachy, you know that?" Syra said, sounding annoyed.

The older man laughed. "It's a shame that this means you were only going to waste everything you did for me just to rally behind Oleana."