REQUESTED REWARD: For brainstorming and masterminding the heist, Steven D asks that his abilities be remembered for the future (hint hint) and also would be very much in favor of another multi-use TM or perhaps a shiny pokemon or something with a cool mega-evolution. (Honestly, just being able to get himself on the air for fifteen minutes was reward enough but he’s not telling the admins that.)
Steve P would like either a reusable TM or a battle item!
Tyler will nab one of the slowpokes for his own if it’s either Shiny or Galar (or BOTH), but if not, then he’s just sort of phoning the whole reward request in. Cash money, TM, whatever’s good.
JUSTIFY THE REWARD: Okay. So. Our story begins with Steven Durante, annoyed with his recent failure at binning Jasmine in Olivine, deciding that before he goes back to try again, he’s going to want to actually go and get those warps he’s missing in Azalea Town and Violet City. But given how long it take to travel to these places, it’s fairly likely that he’d need to take off work for it--and if he doesn’t want it coming from his PTO, then he probably should frame the trip as something crime related, so that not only can he get his time off easily, but then he can expense the entire trip to the Team.
Now, the easiest thing to do in this case would just be to declare his intentions of going there to mug a couple people while in uniform and then split. But that’s not how Steven Durante rolls. If he’s going to do this, he’s going to do a proper heist, one that will remind the admins how capable he is, so that when the proper time comes they will promote him to Beta. So Steven goes to the Rocket Archives and starts going through their records of various crimes and capers done in Azalea Town for inspiration and that’s when he sees it: The Incident With Kurt At The Slowpoke Well.
Steven immediately hatches a Plan. One that not will only give him an excuse to travel to Azalea and expense it to the Team, but one that will also give him the chance to be broadcast on the radio, albeit as part of a pre-recorded fifteen-minute segment and not as an actual host. He frames the entire heist as a long-delayed revenge on Kurt to the admins: long years ago, Team Rocket was absolutely humiliated by being forced out of the Slowpoke Well by an old man and a couple of kids. Now they’re going to humiliate him back.
So! Steven heads down to Azalea by way of Violet alongside Tyler--who he tells about the heist plan along the way--and finally grabs the two early warps he missed. He then spends a couple days in town, interviewing people about the slowpoke well and the incident all those years ago--including Kurt and his granddaughter Maizie, in their own home, which allows him to do some preliminary casing of the joint. In the course of the interview, he asks just the right leading questions to ensure that Kurt and Maizie both make statements that can be seen as a challenge to Team Rocket.
Then it’s back to Goldenrod, where Steven edits his audio recordings from Azalea into a coherent narrative piece, even as he and Tyler are reaching out to Steve Palchuck to help them on the heist itself, since the plan that Steven’s developed (with Tyler’s input) is definitely a three man job. They also buy some Teleport TMs at the Department store.
Steven’s fifteen-minute segment airs at some point mid-month. Two days later, the three of them strike.
Everyone has a job. Tyler’s is to incapacitate Kurt. He makes liberal use of his Hypno Teller’s psychic abilities to put Kurt to sleep, divest the old man of his Pokeballs and handle items without leaving marks or disturbing any dust marks that exist--as well as to stash Kurt at the bottom of the slowpoke well at the end of their heist. But more about that later.
Steve P’s job, as primary muscle, is to distract the fuck out of Maizie. Although he initially won’t deign to physically fight a girl, once she blacks his eye playing nice is off the table. And once she makes it clear that she’s not going to let her grandpa go without a fight, Steve P has his Grumpig, Slinky, hit her full-on with a Confuse Ray to make her stop and a Belch to knock her out, so Steve P can tie her up as well without any issues. She’s going to be locked into the back room of Kurt’s workshop. (When she’s found later, for some reason she has a black eye.)
Meanwhile during all this, Steven D is using his Klefki, Skeleton, to circumvent all the locks and take anything that can be safely lifted--mostly in the form of cash there, but since there’s likely to be a lack of that it’s mostly snooping to see if there’s anything else worth taking that can be easily fenced for a high value. Steven D is also the one who makes the executive decision to put Kurt somewhere where he won’t be easily found, to send a message that Team Rocket isn’t to be trifled with.
Neither Steven D nor Tyler is actually very pleased with this--the general order to ‘deal with the old man’ comes from higher up, so it’s not exactly something they can leave out of the general plan. Steven D suggests leaving Kurt down the well with a Team Rocket sweater on him ostensibly as further humiliation but really to keep the old man warm, as a callback to the major event, and passes the task off to Tyler so Steven D himself can keep an eye on Steve P--he trusts Tyler’s discretion to handle the old man, after all. That’s his job here.
Tyler, however, makes something of an other plan. Sure, he leaves Kurt tied up at the bottom of the well--but in a location where he’ll be easily spotted or heard from whoever might come down the well later. And to guarantee that, he makes sure to get Teller to telepathically ping as many people as he can in the surrounding houses so someone will spot Tyler in full Rocket get-up “climbing out of the well”, which should hopefully prompt someone to search it. It’s not like most people would be able to tell the difference between a fake distress call from a Hypno and a real one from a Slowpoke. He also leaves Kurt’s Pokeballs dropped randomly around the entrance to the well.
The three of them multi-stage teleport away to a predetermined location in Ilex Forest, change out of their Rocket Uniforms as much as possible (as a note: Steven and Tyler were wearing their gas masks for full facial coverage), and fly most of the way back to Goldenrod. They’ll break for a late supper at Steven and Jack’s house and to catch up with any news reports surrounding their attack on Kurt, then report to the admins with whatever they managed to bring back from Kurt’s house, as well as photographic proof (in polaroid form) of Kurt gussied up at the bottom of the Slowpoke Well with a slowpoke tail stuck into his mouth, having been stuffed in that Team Rocket sweater for added humiliation and warmth.
Steven D in particular will be very interested to see how EV News treats their attack, especially since he timed the heist and edited the broadcasted segment in order to frame the crime in a particular way to the general public, so they’d assume that Team Rocket, having been reminded of their failure by the broadcasted new segment in general and by Kurt’s and Maizie’s inflammatory statements in particular, had sent their team after Kurt as a barely-planned crime of passion and not as a fully prepared for heist, weeks in the making.
(There is no real reason for him to attempt to manipulate public opinion, of course. He’d just be doing it for the sheer enjoyment of making people assume what he wants them to assume, because Steven Durante is one of nature’s spin doctors.)
let's go fuck up old man kurt
or something with a cool mega-evolution. (Honestly, just being able to get himself on the air for fifteen minutes was reward enough but he’s not telling the admins that.)Steve P would like either a reusable TM or a battle item!
Tyler will nab one of the slowpokes for his own if it’s either Shiny or Galar (or BOTH), but if not, then he’s just sort of phoning the whole reward request in. Cash money, TM, whatever’s good.
Now, the easiest thing to do in this case would just be to declare his intentions of going there to mug a couple people while in uniform and then split. But that’s not how Steven Durante rolls. If he’s going to do this, he’s going to do a proper heist, one that will remind the admins how capable he is, so that when the proper time comes they will promote him to Beta. So Steven goes to the Rocket Archives and starts going through their records of various crimes and capers done in Azalea Town for inspiration and that’s when he sees it: The Incident With Kurt At The Slowpoke Well.
Steven immediately hatches a Plan. One that not will only give him an excuse to travel to Azalea and expense it to the Team, but one that will also give him the chance to be broadcast on the radio, albeit as part of a pre-recorded fifteen-minute segment and not as an actual host. He frames the entire heist as a long-delayed revenge on Kurt to the admins: long years ago, Team Rocket was absolutely humiliated by being forced out of the Slowpoke Well by an old man and a couple of kids. Now they’re going to humiliate him back.
So! Steven heads down to Azalea by way of Violet alongside Tyler--who he tells about the heist plan along the way--and finally grabs the two early warps he missed. He then spends a couple days in town, interviewing people about the slowpoke well and the incident all those years ago--including Kurt and his granddaughter Maizie, in their own home, which allows him to do some preliminary casing of the joint. In the course of the interview, he asks just the right leading questions to ensure that Kurt and Maizie both make statements that can be seen as a challenge to Team Rocket.
Then it’s back to Goldenrod, where Steven edits his audio recordings from Azalea into a coherent narrative piece, even as he and Tyler are reaching out to Steve Palchuck to help them on the heist itself, since the plan that Steven’s developed (with Tyler’s input) is definitely a three man job. They also buy some Teleport TMs at the Department store.
Steven’s fifteen-minute segment airs at some point mid-month. Two days later, the three of them strike.
Everyone has a job. Tyler’s is to incapacitate Kurt. He makes liberal use of his Hypno Teller’s psychic abilities to put Kurt to sleep, divest the old man of his Pokeballs and handle items without leaving marks or disturbing any dust marks that exist--as well as to stash Kurt at the bottom of the slowpoke well at the end of their heist. But more about that later.
Steve P’s job, as primary muscle, is to distract the fuck out of Maizie. Although he initially won’t deign to physically fight a girl, once she blacks his eye playing nice is off the table. And once she makes it clear that she’s not going to let her grandpa go without a fight, Steve P has his Grumpig, Slinky, hit her full-on with a Confuse Ray to make her stop and a Belch to knock her out, so Steve P can tie her up as well without any issues. She’s going to be locked into the back room of Kurt’s workshop. (When she’s found later, for some reason she has a black eye.)
Meanwhile during all this, Steven D is using his Klefki, Skeleton, to circumvent all the locks and take anything that can be safely lifted--mostly in the form of cash there, but since there’s likely to be a lack of that it’s mostly snooping to see if there’s anything else worth taking that can be easily fenced for a high value. Steven D is also the one who makes the executive decision to put Kurt somewhere where he won’t be easily found, to send a message that Team Rocket isn’t to be trifled with.
Neither Steven D nor Tyler is actually very pleased with this--the general order to ‘deal with the old man’ comes from higher up, so it’s not exactly something they can leave out of the general plan. Steven D suggests leaving Kurt down the well
with a Team Rocket sweater on him ostensibly as further humiliation but really to keep the old man warm, as a callback to the major event, and passes the task off to Tyler so Steven D himself can keep an eye on Steve P--he trusts Tyler’s discretion to handle the old man, after all. That’s his job here.Tyler, however, makes something of an other plan. Sure, he leaves Kurt tied up at the bottom of the well--but in a location where he’ll be easily spotted or heard from whoever might come down the well later. And to guarantee that, he makes sure to get Teller to telepathically ping as many people as he can in the surrounding houses so someone will spot Tyler in full Rocket get-up “climbing out of the well”, which should hopefully prompt someone to search it. It’s not like most people would be able to tell the difference between a fake distress call from a Hypno and a real one from a Slowpoke. He also leaves Kurt’s Pokeballs dropped randomly around the entrance to the well.
The three of them multi-stage teleport away to a predetermined location in Ilex Forest, change out of their Rocket Uniforms as much as possible (as a note: Steven and Tyler were wearing their gas masks for full facial coverage), and fly most of the way back to Goldenrod. They’ll break for a late supper at Steven and Jack’s house and to catch up with any news reports surrounding their attack on Kurt, then report to the admins with whatever they managed to bring back from Kurt’s house, as well as photographic proof (in polaroid form) of Kurt gussied up at the bottom of the Slowpoke Well with a slowpoke tail stuck into his mouth, having been stuffed in that Team Rocket sweater for added humiliation
and warmth.Steven D in particular will be very interested to see how EV News treats their attack, especially since he timed the heist and edited the broadcasted segment in order to frame the crime in a particular way to the general public, so they’d assume that Team Rocket, having been reminded of their failure by the broadcasted new segment in general and by Kurt’s and Maizie’s inflammatory statements in particular, had sent their team after Kurt as a barely-planned crime of passion and not as a fully prepared for heist, weeks in the making.
(There is no real reason for him to attempt to manipulate public opinion, of course. He’d just be doing it for the sheer enjoyment of making people assume what he wants them to assume, because Steven Durante is one of nature’s spin doctors.)