WarCrimes p.34 (Patreon)

This is why I was telling you not to call that Gyarados “Mr. Fish” haha

The Pokémon universe canonically has guns and canonically has war and canonically uses Pokémon in those wars but I get real “why don’t they just shoot Voldemort with a gun” vibes from that whole situation because I don’t think there are many Pokémon that are gonna deal well with actual firepower. I kinda feel like that’s a good explanation for why Surge’s whole deal is hammering you with status effects, paralyzing everyone seems like the most low-mortality way to navigate a battlefield.

If you’re wondering why Giovanni is wearing that short-sleeve uniform but everyone else is outfitted for combat, the art reason is because that’s the uniform I’ve already trained you all to recognize as “young Giovanni”, but story wise I mean, who knows what happened here. Maybe Surge’s nightmare is an unreliable narrator, maybe Gio got this clusterfuck dropped on him before he was ready for it. Maybe he distracted these big Pokémon long enough for all the others dudes who did not have guns and equipment to get past him and reach the guns and equipment, then come back to try to pull him out of there. Invent your favourite scenario in your head, the important thing is just that he was intentionally sent into a very bad situation to “put him in his place”.