Steven Durante + Dirk, Carly, Steve Palchuck, Emet-Selch, Doppio, Speedwagon, Jules, Scorpia, Hermes, and Lanque
CURRENT RANK: Steven, Dirk and Carly are Betas.
Emet-Selch, Doppio and Steve Palchuck are Privates.
Scorpia, Jules, Lanque, Hermes, and Speedwagon are Grunts.
REQUESTED REWARD: Steven, our mastermind, is definitely looking to make Alpha soon, but will take a large cash bonus + whatever else the Team wants to give him if that’s not on the cards quite yet.
Dirk also wants to be promoted to Alpha and is the senior Beta in this scheme, so if only one of them gets promoted, it ought to be him. Otherwise, he mostly just wants reusable TMs and possibly a shipping crate of Cramorant-safe duct tape. He will give up the cash part of his reward for his duct tape if he needs to. It doesn’t even need to be Cramorant safe. He has lost so much to this bird’s gullet. Help him.
Carly just wants that cash money! Holla holla get dollar.
Emet is looking to be promoted to Beta. If not, he’d like a reusable TM, a Hidden Ability Patch, or a held item.
Steve Palchuck wants either a battle item or a Hidden Ability Patch.
Doppio would like a promotion to Beta as well, although it might be too early for that? If so, he has no real preference for his alternate reward.
Lanque wants money, a reusable TM, a good pokemon, a Hidden Ability Patch, or a held item.
Speedwagon would like to be considered for promotion to Private. He doesn’t have any preference for his alternate rewards either.
Scorpia would also like to be promoted to Force Captain Private. If not, she’d probably want a special pokemon of some kind (Shiny or HA or rare or only found on Sevii.) Reusable or rare TMs are also good. Or something to help evolve her Swirlix! Basically, she loves all pokemon and is always looking for ways to make her team stronger
Jules would also like to be promoted to Private. If not, he’ll take a Dubious Disk instead.
Hermes would like that fat cash and some useful pokemon/TMs.
As a note: Steven would almost certainly attempt to make a case for everyone’s (eventual) promotions during the heist debriefing. Not only did they pull off something extremely impressive and lucrative if this succeeds, but everyone who’s shooting for promotion has done a lot of consistent good work and most of them went above and beyond for the Team at the Christmas Heist.
JUSTIFY THE REWARD: So the thing about crime is that in many ways, it’s an arms race between the Rockets and the Jennies. The Rockets do a lot of showy crime, so security beefs up everywhere. The Rockets are then forced to find other ways to do crime that won’t lead to mass arrests. Small-time heists, cybercrime, doing something big and showy to distract from the more subtle crimes elsewhere… they’ve found a whole host of ways to get around the heightened security. And that’s all fine and dandy, really, but what if you miss larceny?
Steven Durante does. And Steven Durante has been thinking about how to get around security set-ups like Janine’s gym had, where merely sending in a rotom to disable that security had, in fact, tipped off the secondary computer system. Which leads him to the conclusion that the only way to get around security systems would be to convince those security systems that they’re authorized personnel.
Which means they’re going to need hackers. Fortunately, however, Team Rocket currently has not one but three computer geniuses… well. Two computer geniuses and one idiot-savant fueled by Red Bull and petty spite, who nonetheless had the third-biggest botnet in North America at one point.
Steven first goes to Emet-Selch, Dirk, and Jules to talk about his plan. If they can get into the security systems of the First Regional Bank of Kanto in Saffron City in order to block any outgoing calls to the Jennies and subvert the security systems in general, up to and including constructing devices to cheat any biometric locks, then Steven will take a team of transfer Rockets into the bank in the wee hours of the morning in order to neutralize on-site security personnel and open the vault, removing as much as possible on a single trip
While this is happening, he’ll need Emet-Selch and Jules to be part of a remote hacking team during the heist itself. Working live, Emet’s job is to circumvent security from afar, making sure no signals for reinforcements leave the building. Jules, meanwhile, is interfering with the cameras at the bank, making sure that instead of video footage of the robbers, what it records and saves is an unholy concoction of dank memes from this world and Jules’ own. As for Dirk...
Laid up at home with a broken leg, Dirk's had to sacrifice his usual preference for in-person.
He's modified his BroPro (aka that unsettling but useful autonomously self-correcting three-camera rig he made) to be worn by SIN, his Greninja, and to transmit the visuals from all three cameras to a laptop he's working from at 'home.' ('Home' here is defined as 'Emet-Selch's bedroom, where Dirk is being forcibly contained by people who don't want him to make his leg worse.')
With the BroPro worn by his most eminently versatile Pokemon in terms of mobility and stealth, he can issue text or voice commands to SIN in real-time (remember, the BroPro is hooked up to Dirk's PokeGear, so that's worn by SIN along with the triangle shades-style camera visor) to instruct his Greninja for infiltration and/or battle purposes.
Frankly, if he wasn't so FUCKING stubborn, he could have taken advantage of the same resources to do this a lot fucking sooner. But here we are.
Anyway. So Dirk is technically remotely tagging along while riding shotgun to his ninja frog. Along with Dirk-SIN, Steven’s also enlisted their fellow Beta, Carly, to come along with him, as well as taking advantage of Privates Doppio and Steve Palchuck, as well as Grunts Scorpia, Lanque, Speedwagon and Hermes to help with the on-site infiltration and the loot. In short, pretty much every other Transfer Rocket, with the exception of Diego, who Steven hadn’t been able to get ahold of. Of course, poor Doppio is unlikely to remember most of the heist itself--his “Boss” has chosen to handle it himself, not in the least because the only time Doppio is granted release from the incessant spam calls on his gear is when the Boss is in the driver's seat.
Steven’s on-site crew is instructed to arrive in Saffron over the course of the Saturday after the Contest, and to spend the evening either resting up in the hotel rooms they’re renting as part of the night’s cover or to have some fun out on the town--just not any fun that involves recreational substances. (Steven wants everyone sober for the heist.) Additionally, all the Rockets have either had the Teleport TM purchased for a pokemon of theirs that can use it or have had a pokemon with the ability to teleport lent to them. All their luggage is full of secret compartments and places to hide loot. Although they’ll be wearing their normal street clothes for Saturday and most of Sunday, during the heist itself they’ll be wearing plain, dark colored clothes that are easy to move in, with balaclavas hiding their facial features.
At one in the morning, they all assemble at a predetermined safe location, in order to make contact with the remote hacking team, who’re gathered in Emet-Selch’s bedroom together, with Hythlodaeus-supplied snacks to fuel them. Once contact is set up, SIN is dispatched into the night and the on-site infiltration team waits until the remote team gives them the signal to go, at which point they teleport into a dark alleyway nearby the building. SIN by now has had enough time to not only reach the bank building itself, but to see if there are any exterior security guards. Whether or not there are, SIN will infiltrate the building by way of a vent. If there are alarms in the vents, the hacking team will use their fake admin account for the security system to turn those off--as well as any motion-sensor alarms in the halls of the bank. Once in, SIN opens a side or back entrance to allow the on-site team in, while the hacking team temporarily fuzzes out any local CCTV to hide their presence while they enter the building--and that of any exterior security guards that need to be dealt with.
Because no matter if they are inside the building or out, any local security--and their pokemon--have to be dealt with. As it turns out, that’s what a number of the pokemon our on-site infiltration team have brought are there for. In particular, that’s what the pair of Zoroark, belonging to Steven and Emet-Selch, are there for. The Zoroark disguise themselves as Rocket Grunts, with Hermes’ Chatot clinging to the head of one to give the otherwise silent illusions a bit more audio verisimilitude. In any case, the ersatz Grunts will draw the guards into a dead end where the Rockets' pokemon are waiting. Steve P’s Galvantula is there to trap them in webbing; Carly and Speedwagon’s Salazzles, Laque’s Salandit, and Scorpia’s Bellossom and Ribombee all have Sweet Scent to get them stoned; Carly's maxed out Mimikyu can just fuck with them in general; and Speedwagon’s Watchog, Hermes' Hypnos, and the Hypnos that Steven inherited from Tyler all have Hypnotism—and that inherited Hypnos has Dream Eater as well, allowing it to fuck with the memories of the security guards.
Now that the guards have been neutralized, it’s time to go forward towards the vault. Using a combination of remote hacking, devices to override biometrics, and their Pokemon's special capabilities—Speedwagon’s Ampharos, Hermes and Scorpia's Bolthunds, and Carly's Joltik can be used to mess with electrical things and the heat and corrosive abilities of the Salandit and Salazzles can just plain melt off locks, with Carly in particular being an expert in using her Salazzles as a blow torch—the team ought to be able to get the vault and some of the internal safes open open… or at least to make their way into the vault in some fashion, with Emet still making sure no signals for reinforcements leave the bank. Lanque’s two Noibats and their sensitive hearing, along with Hermes and Doppio’s respective Murkrows are standing sentry/lookout, while Steve P’s Grimmsnarl is there to both help with the outright theft and to be some backup muscle.
Inside the vault, the order of the day is to maximize the amount of cash and valuables they can extract from it. Since Hermes is there and it’s still January, said amount of cash and valuables should be increased in accordance with his Snorunt blessing. Does this count for the whole heist or just for what Hermes himself is carrying away? Who knows. Given the missing trees, the broken legs, the spam calls and the wet socks, they owe us.
The plan is that once everyone’s got everything they can carry away, the on-site team leaves again from the back and teleports away--except for SIN who melts off into the night like the froggy ninja he is--the better to return to their rented rooms, change back into street clothes, and ideally hide their ill-gotten goods in their luggage, to take back with them on the first magnet train from Saffron to Goldenrod at five in the morning. Until it’s time to get on the train, the Rockets are meant to lie low. And if there's anything especially heavy taken from the vault, such as gold bars, it should probably go into Scorpia's luggage, as she'll be strong enough to effortlessly carry it.
If we’re all very, very lucky, this will allow us to get in and out of the bank without the Jennies being any the wiser, at least until the night security’s daytime replacements come in at six that morning to relieve them--at which point our Rockets would already be an hour into their train ride back. If we’re less lucky and the Jennies catch wind of the robbery after we leave or while we’re still in the process of raiding the vault, the loot gets dumped into a pre-arranged secret location to be retrieved later on. Fortunately, the sentry/lookout pokemon ought to be able to alert us to any Jennies arriving in time for us to stop what we’re doing and teleport the fuck out and away, without being caught.
Whether it’s later that day if things go well or later in the month if things go… less well, as long as we make it to vault, whatever the group has managed to grab from will be presented to the Admins once we get it to Goldenrod and Steven will explain how the remote hacking team took care of the security concerns for the on-site infiltration team in real time during the heist and how despite not being physically present, they were as much the reason the heist worked as well as it did. He’ll also warn that once the Jennies figure out what happened, people will be beefing up security again to counter things like the remote hacking team… but if we only had this one opportunity, at least we used it to rob a fucking bank.
shit let's rob a bank
Emet-Selch, Doppio and Steve Palchuck are Privates.
Scorpia, Jules, Lanque, Hermes, and Speedwagon are Grunts.
Dirk also wants to be promoted to Alpha and is the senior Beta in this scheme, so if only one of them gets promoted, it ought to be him. Otherwise, he mostly just wants reusable TMs
and possibly a shipping crate of Cramorant-safe duct tape. He will give up the cash part of his reward for his duct tape if he needs to. It doesn’t even need to be Cramorant safe. He has lost so much to this bird’s gullet. Help him.Carly just wants that cash money! Holla holla get dollar.
Emet is looking to be promoted to Beta. If not, he’d like a reusable TM, a Hidden Ability Patch, or a held item.
Steve Palchuck wants either a battle item or a Hidden Ability Patch.
Doppio would like a promotion to Beta as well, although it might be too early for that? If so, he has no real preference for his alternate reward.
Lanque wants money, a reusable TM, a good pokemon, a Hidden Ability Patch, or a held item.
Speedwagon would like to be considered for promotion to Private. He doesn’t have any preference for his alternate rewards either.
Scorpia would also like to be promoted to
Force CaptainPrivate. If not, she’d probably want a special pokemon of some kind (Shiny or HA or rare or only found on Sevii.) Reusable or rare TMs are also good. Or something to help evolve her Swirlix! Basically, she loves all pokemon and is always looking for ways to make her team strongerJules would also like to be promoted to Private. If not, he’ll take a Dubious Disk instead.
Hermes would like that fat cash and some useful pokemon/TMs.
As a note: Steven would almost certainly attempt to make a case for everyone’s (eventual) promotions during the heist debriefing. Not only did they pull off something extremely impressive and lucrative if this succeeds, but everyone who’s shooting for promotion has done a lot of consistent good work and most of them went above and beyond for the Team at the Christmas Heist.
Steven Durante does. And Steven Durante has been thinking about how to get around security set-ups like Janine’s gym had, where merely sending in a rotom to disable that security had, in fact, tipped off the secondary computer system. Which leads him to the conclusion that the only way to get around security systems would be to convince those security systems that they’re authorized personnel.
Which means they’re going to need hackers. Fortunately, however, Team Rocket currently has not one but three computer geniuses… well. Two computer geniuses and one idiot-savant fueled by Red Bull and petty spite, who nonetheless had the third-biggest botnet in North America at one point.
Steven first goes to Emet-Selch, Dirk, and Jules to talk about his plan. If they can get into the security systems of the First Regional Bank of Kanto in Saffron City in order to block any outgoing calls to the Jennies and subvert the security systems in general, up to and including constructing devices to cheat any biometric locks, then Steven will take a team of transfer Rockets into the bank in the wee hours of the morning in order to neutralize on-site security personnel and open the vault, removing as much as possible on a single trip
While this is happening, he’ll need Emet-Selch and Jules to be part of a remote hacking team during the heist itself. Working live, Emet’s job is to circumvent security from afar, making sure no signals for reinforcements leave the building. Jules, meanwhile, is interfering with the cameras at the bank, making sure that instead of video footage of the robbers, what it records and saves is an unholy concoction of dank memes from this world and Jules’ own. As for Dirk...
Laid up at home with a broken leg, Dirk's had to sacrifice his usual preference for in-person.
He's modified his BroPro (aka that unsettling but useful autonomously self-correcting three-camera rig he made) to be worn by SIN, his Greninja, and to transmit the visuals from all three cameras to a laptop he's working from at 'home.' ('Home' here is defined as 'Emet-Selch's bedroom, where Dirk is being forcibly contained by people who don't want him to make his leg worse.')
With the BroPro worn by his most eminently versatile Pokemon in terms of mobility and stealth, he can issue text or voice commands to SIN in real-time (remember, the BroPro is hooked up to Dirk's PokeGear, so that's worn by SIN along with the triangle shades-style camera visor) to instruct his Greninja for infiltration and/or battle purposes.
Frankly, if he wasn't so FUCKING stubborn, he could have taken advantage of the same resources to do this a lot fucking sooner. But here we are.
Anyway. So Dirk is technically remotely tagging along while riding shotgun to his ninja frog. Along with Dirk-SIN, Steven’s also enlisted their fellow Beta, Carly, to come along with him, as well as taking advantage of Privates Doppio and Steve Palchuck, as well as Grunts Scorpia, Lanque, Speedwagon and Hermes to help with the on-site infiltration and the loot. In short, pretty much every other Transfer Rocket, with the exception of Diego, who Steven hadn’t been able to get ahold of. Of course, poor Doppio is unlikely to remember most of the heist itself--his “Boss” has chosen to handle it himself, not in the least because the only time Doppio is granted release from the incessant spam calls on his gear is when the Boss is in the driver's seat.
Steven’s on-site crew is instructed to arrive in Saffron over the course of the Saturday after the Contest, and to spend the evening either resting up in the hotel rooms they’re renting as part of the night’s cover or to have some fun out on the town--just not any fun that involves recreational substances. (Steven wants everyone sober for the heist.) Additionally, all the Rockets have either had the Teleport TM purchased for a pokemon of theirs that can use it or have had a pokemon with the ability to teleport lent to them. All their luggage is full of secret compartments and places to hide loot. Although they’ll be wearing their normal street clothes for Saturday and most of Sunday, during the heist itself they’ll be wearing plain, dark colored clothes that are easy to move in, with balaclavas hiding their facial features.
At one in the morning, they all assemble at a predetermined safe location, in order to make contact with the remote hacking team, who’re gathered in Emet-Selch’s bedroom together, with Hythlodaeus-supplied snacks to fuel them. Once contact is set up, SIN is dispatched into the night and the on-site infiltration team waits until the remote team gives them the signal to go, at which point they teleport into a dark alleyway nearby the building. SIN by now has had enough time to not only reach the bank building itself, but to see if there are any exterior security guards. Whether or not there are, SIN will infiltrate the building by way of a vent. If there are alarms in the vents, the hacking team will use their fake admin account for the security system to turn those off--as well as any motion-sensor alarms in the halls of the bank. Once in, SIN opens a side or back entrance to allow the on-site team in, while the hacking team temporarily fuzzes out any local CCTV to hide their presence while they enter the building--and that of any exterior security guards that need to be dealt with.
Because no matter if they are inside the building or out, any local security--and their pokemon--have to be dealt with. As it turns out, that’s what a number of the pokemon our on-site infiltration team have brought are there for. In particular, that’s what the pair of Zoroark, belonging to Steven and Emet-Selch, are there for. The Zoroark disguise themselves as Rocket Grunts, with Hermes’ Chatot clinging to the head of one to give the otherwise silent illusions a bit more audio verisimilitude. In any case, the ersatz Grunts will draw the guards into a dead end where the Rockets' pokemon are waiting. Steve P’s Galvantula is there to trap them in webbing; Carly and Speedwagon’s Salazzles, Laque’s Salandit, and Scorpia’s Bellossom and Ribombee all have Sweet Scent to get them stoned; Carly's maxed out Mimikyu can just fuck with them in general; and Speedwagon’s Watchog, Hermes' Hypnos, and the Hypnos that Steven inherited from Tyler all have Hypnotism—and that inherited Hypnos has Dream Eater as well, allowing it to fuck with the memories of the security guards.
Now that the guards have been neutralized, it’s time to go forward towards the vault. Using a combination of remote hacking, devices to override biometrics, and their Pokemon's special capabilities—Speedwagon’s Ampharos, Hermes and Scorpia's Bolthunds, and Carly's Joltik can be used to mess with electrical things and the heat and corrosive abilities of the Salandit and Salazzles can just plain melt off locks, with Carly in particular being an expert in using her Salazzles as a blow torch—the team ought to be able to get the vault and some of the internal safes open open… or at least to make their way into the vault in some fashion, with Emet still making sure no signals for reinforcements leave the bank. Lanque’s two Noibats and their sensitive hearing, along with Hermes and Doppio’s respective Murkrows are standing sentry/lookout, while Steve P’s Grimmsnarl is there to both help with the outright theft and to be some backup muscle.
Inside the vault, the order of the day is to maximize the amount of cash and valuables they can extract from it. Since Hermes is there and it’s still January, said amount of cash and valuables should be increased in accordance with his Snorunt blessing. Does this count for the whole heist or just for what Hermes himself is carrying away? Who knows. Given the missing trees, the broken legs, the spam calls and the wet socks, they owe us.
The plan is that once everyone’s got everything they can carry away, the on-site team leaves again from the back and teleports away--except for SIN who melts off into the night like the froggy ninja he is--the better to return to their rented rooms, change back into street clothes, and ideally hide their ill-gotten goods in their luggage, to take back with them on the first magnet train from Saffron to Goldenrod at five in the morning. Until it’s time to get on the train, the Rockets are meant to lie low. And if there's anything especially heavy taken from the vault, such as gold bars, it should probably go into Scorpia's luggage, as she'll be strong enough to effortlessly carry it.
If we’re all very, very lucky, this will allow us to get in and out of the bank without the Jennies being any the wiser, at least until the night security’s daytime replacements come in at six that morning to relieve them--at which point our Rockets would already be an hour into their train ride back. If we’re less lucky and the Jennies catch wind of the robbery after we leave or while we’re still in the process of raiding the vault, the loot gets dumped into a pre-arranged secret location to be retrieved later on. Fortunately, the sentry/lookout pokemon ought to be able to alert us to any Jennies arriving in time for us to stop what we’re doing and teleport the fuck out and away, without being caught.
Whether it’s later that day if things go well or later in the month if things go… less well, as long as we make it to vault, whatever the group has managed to grab from will be presented to the Admins once we get it to Goldenrod and Steven will explain how the remote hacking team took care of the security concerns for the on-site infiltration team in real time during the heist and how despite not being physically present, they were as much the reason the heist worked as well as it did. He’ll also warn that once the Jennies figure out what happened, people will be beefing up security again to counter things like the remote hacking team… but if we only had this one opportunity, at least we used it to rob a fucking bank.
It is, after all, the criminal dream.