Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This story began with the human who rejected infinity.
It will end with the human who accepted it.

PROLOGUE

There was no light at the bottom of the sea.  No disturbances, no strife.  Nothing but calm, sweet silence and solitude, and that was how the guardian of the seas liked it.  The ancient creature spent most of its time in the heart of its domain, deep in meditation.  Taking in the whispers and wanderings of a thousand sea currents.  Guiding them with its wings.  This was how things were meant to be.  This was ideal.

At least, until a jolt of awareness in the back of its mind suddenly woke it from its slumber.

Piercing blue eyes snapped open, glowing within the pitch-darkness.  The eyes narrowed as their owner contemplated the intrusion.  Some kind of psychic signal.  Perhaps the creature could ignore it.  Pretend it had felt nothing, and sleep for several more months.  It knew that signature, and therefore who must have sent it.  The guardian knew what they wished to discuss and wanted no part in it.

The future was full of many uncertainties.  Not so in the deep.  The deep was always dark and always would be.  The deep was always calm—not like the surface.  The deep could always hide those who wished to be hidden.

Another psychic signal prodded at the back of the creature’s mind, and it let out a sigh.  It wasn’t going to be getting back to sleep, was it.  Apparently, solitude was too much to ask for.

Something was approaching.  Another mind had brushed against the guardian’s psychic field.  A deep-sea fish of some kind—Relicanth, perhaps.  Not that there was any question who it truly was.  They weren’t even bothering to hide their psychic presence, after all.

<Are you awake?> came a cool, clear psychic voice, light as an afternoon breeze.

<I am now.>

Relicanth airily drifted around the much larger guardian, their movements playful.  Rather unbecoming for that form.

<Are you coming?>

<Must I?>

Relicanth lightly headbutted the creature’s wing with a giggle.  <I can teleport you if you like.>

<No.  I’ll fly by my own wings.>

<Suit yourself.>

With a flash of light that felt disturbingly out of place for the deep, Relicanth vanished.

Alone once again.  The sea guardian would have liked nothing more than to return to its meditation.  But the Order no doubt wished to discuss the state of things.  It couldn’t be helped.

With a single flap of its wings, the creature shot up from the ocean floor like a silver torpedo.  The crushing depths released their hold as it flew through the water, countless fish scattering in its wake.  Closer, closer… the waters grew lighter.  There—the inviting glimmer of the surface.

The legend rocketed out of the sea.  Cool, salty air swept over its body, a sharp contrast to the water’s embrace.  The sensation prickled like needles against its feathers, but still, there was something freeing about beating its wings through currents of wind and taking gulps of air that burned sweetly in its unused lungs

The sky was so different from the deep, but felt just as right.  Flying was, indeed, one of the simplest joys in the world.  The legend effortlessly soared higher and higher, its wings stealing bits of silvery cloud to shield it from view.  One could never be too careful, especially these days.

Each passing day brought them closer to the one when the balance would fall, just as it had so long ago.  The sea guardian had not witnessed that time itself, but every legend knew the tale.  Even the humans had stories from the cataclysmic era.  And soon the conflict would resurface.  No one had wanted to believe it, but recent events had confirmed those fears.

It was a strange thought, knowing that the balance of the world would soon unravel again.  Would they be ready?  It wasn’t as if the Order had no course of action before them.  They all knew what was required.  They’d known for ages.  The search would have to begin soon.

Even as the fires of the Revolution subside, the balance that the Order fought so hard to preserve is already on the inevitable path to being torn apart once again.  Seven among them—the ones who dedicated both mind, body, and spirit toward ending the war—shall be empowered to forge an alliance with humankind so that both might endure.

Such a strange course of action, joining the two sides together.  But the legend knew just as well as the others that it couldn’t refuse.  It had seen the threads of fate with its own eyes, much as it hated to admit it.  The real question was… when would the conflict reach a point that the interlopers would be forged?

Lugia gazed down over the mainland, its mind swimming with doubts.  The next seven years would be interesting, that much was certain.

The school bell’s loud ring filled the air—and it was about time, too.  I quickly stuffed my books into my backpack before following after my classmates and pretending I hadn’t heard the last-minute assignment that we’d been given.  It would have been just a normal afternoon, except my head was still filled with rumors from that morning.

I stood on my toes as I glanced back and forth down the hallway, hoping I’d spot Starr somewhere in the crowd.  She wasn’t anywhere to be seen, but I did manage to spot my friend Ajia, a small fifth-grader with dark hair and eyes.  At least I’d get to talk to her before the end of the day.

“Hey Ajia!” I called out, waving to her from the crowd of fourth-graders before quickly running over to her.

“Heya, how was class?” she asked.

“Eh… failed a Pokéspeech quiz—you know, as always,” I replied with a shrug.

Ajia laughed.  “Yeah, that class is a whole lot of confusing doom when you first start out.  It gets better later on, though,” she said.

“Mm,” I replied.  This was my third semester at it, so I wasn’t really just starting out.  I didn’t feel like saying that, though.  And my mind kept wandering back to what had been bothering me most of the day.  “So, uh… have you seen Starr?  I didn’t even see her at lunch.”  I fidgeted a bit, unsure how to ask what I wanted to know.  “Is it really true that she’s…?”  My words trailed off and died.

Ajia sighed.  “She… told me she didn’t want to talk about it with you ‘cause she knew you’d take it the hardest.”

“What?  What does that even—ugh, I’ve got to talk to her before she leaves.”

“I think she’s waiting for a ride out front right now.  If you hurry, you might catch her.”

My heart skipped a beat.  “Okay, I’ll see you on Monday!” I yelled, immediately taking off through the double doors behind me.

The bright afternoon sun stung my eyes as I raced down the sidewalk.  I quickly glanced at each of the kids sitting on the ledge by the parking lot… and then spotted Starr sitting off to the side, head bent low so that her short, reddish-brown hair hid her face.  My footsteps slowed.  I hesitated for a bit before walking up to her.

“Hey Jade,” Starr mumbled as I neared, without looking up at me.

I sat down next to her, but didn’t say anything at first.  She had only vaguely hinted at what was going on, and I had no idea what I was supposed to think.

“So… this is really your last day at school here?” I finally asked.

Starr nodded slowly without looking up.

“Where are you moving to?” I asked cautiously.  She obviously didn’t want to talk about it… and I almost didn’t want to know.

In a low voice she muttered, “Cianwood.”  I didn’t even know where that was supposed to be.

It was like nothing around us existed.  I couldn’t get my thoughts straight—all of this had come up too fast.  Sure, I’d known that she was going to leave at the end of the school year, to start her Pokémon training journey.  And I’d been trying not to think about it.  But I’d thought we’d have three more months together.  Not… this.

“It’s not fair!” I cried, burying my face in my arms.  “Why’d this have to come out of nowhere?  And moving on your birthday?  What’s up with that?”

“I don’t know,” Starr replied with a huff.  “It’s all my mom’s idea, and she didn’t tell me anything.  And Dad’s not even coming with us.”

I slowly uncovered my face.  “You never really see your dad much anymore, do you?”

She shook her head.

“Still… it’s dumb that your mom won’t tell you why all of this is happening,” I added.

“Yeah, she just keeps saying that she wants me and my brother to have a better life that we couldn’t have gotten here.  Or something like that,” Starr grumbled.

“Hey, that’s right—what does your brother think about all of this?  Isn’t he friends with Ajia?”

Starr sighed.  “I don’t know, Lexx has been acting weird and not talking to me much lately,” she said with a scowl.

Neither of us said anything else for a while.  I just stared at the ground, feeling sort of lost.

“Why didn’t you want to talk to me before you left?” I finally asked.

She sighed again.  “I didn’t want you to make a big deal out of it, okay?”

“Who says I was gonna?”

Starr laughed.  “What do you think you’re doing right now?”

I opened my mouth to say something, but then realized that she’d got me with that, so I just glared at her.

“Pfft, see what I mean?  You’re such a little kid,” Starr said, smirking.

“Don’t call me that!” I yelled, punching her in the shoulder, but she just laughed even harder.  Yeah, I was annoyed, but I was also glad to see her smiling.  Anything to make things feel normal.

“So… were you planning to get a starter Pokémon, or is it just gonna be you and Ponyta?” I asked.

“Of course I’m getting a starter,” Starr said with a scoff, like there was no way she wouldn’t.  “I’m gonna see if they have any water-types.  I’d love to train a Totodile.”

I smiled.  “Yeah?  That’s cool.  It just sucks that I won’t be able to start my journey for three more years.  Then I could meet up with you and…”  My voice trailed off as the realization hit me.

“Hey—hey, wait!  If you’re gonna be a Pokémon trainer, that means you can travel anywhere you want, right?  So then you can come visit Viridian way before I start my journey!”

Starr paused, blinking in surprise.  “I… hadn’t thought of that.”

My face fell.  Why wasn’t she more excited about it?  She was just kind of… staring into space, distracted.

“You… will visit, right?” I asked quietly.

Starr blinked, like she’d just snapped out of her thoughts.  “Huh?  Yeah, of course.  It might be a while, but I will.  Promise.”

Something in her face told me that she wanted to say more.  I kept waiting, expecting her to turn towards me and finally say it, whatever it was.  But she never did.  And I was too afraid to ask.

We sat there for some time.  It was probably only a few minutes, but I wanted it to last forever.  Eventually, Starr glanced up at a blue car that had just parked along the curb.  She stared at it for a few seconds, then stood up and threw her backpack over her shoulder before walking towards the car, feet dragging a bit.  She had only taken a few steps when she paused, turning back towards me one last time.

“Bye.”

Just hearing that one word made me feel weirdly numb.  I forced a smile—it felt fake, and I could tell from her face that she wasn’t fooled.

I didn’t watch as she got in the car.

Chapter 1: Ravaged Mountainside

June 1

Summer days were made for this—made for feeling the wind in my face and the rush of adrenaline as my bike flew down the hill.  My eyes focused, teeth clenched, fists tightening on the handlebars as I closed in on my target, dead ahead.  Just a few more seconds and my front wheel would hit the ramp and I’d pull back on the handlebars and then—!

“Aw yeaahh!” I yelled, throwing a fist towards the sky as my bike flew through the air.  No matter how many times I jumped the same ramp, those few seconds of being airborne were the best thing in the world.  My bike landed several yards away with a thud, and I immediately doubled back the way I came, waving toward the top of the hill.

“Did you see how much air I got?!” I yelled.

“Big deal, I can beat that!” Rudy called out, racing down the hill.  A broad grin covered most of his tan face, and his dark eyes held a wild, confident energy.  I wasn’t too sure how far I’d jumped, but I was pretty sure there was no way he could beat it.

I slowly pedaled back up the hill, still watching him speed downward. Which is why I didn’t see it until the last second.

A flash of black out of the corner of my eye.  I swerved instantly to avoid it—too far!  My front wheel skidded on the dirt and pitched sideways, and I just barely had enough time to throw my arms out before I toppled over into a sprawled heap in the dirt.

Well, that was random.  Not that I had any doubts as to who was responsible.

I coughed hard, wiping my long hair out of my face as I attempted to sit up.  Not a second later, I was forced back down by a pair of heavy paws colliding with my chest as black fur filled my entire field of vision.

“Ow, c’mon… lemme up, Ebony!” I yelled, shoving a hand against the Houndour sitting triumphantly on my stomach.  She finally jumped off, looking way too pleased with herself as she trotted over to her owner… who was now standing next to his bike, cracking up.

“Pfft—shut up, Rudy,” I said, climbing to my feet and wiping the dirt from my baggy clothes.

“You gotta admit that’s hilarious,” Rudy laughed, wiping his eyes.  He then gave the Houndour a bewildered look and added, “Okay, but seriously Ebony, how the heck did you get out?”

The firedog barked out a reply that had something to do with the gate.  Had we… left it open?  We weren’t that dumb, were we?

From the triumphant grin on her face, I suspected we were.

“Aw c’mon… you know I’m the one who gets in trouble when you wander off, right?” Rudy said, rubbing the back of his head.  Judging by the cheerful barks she let out next, I didn’t think she cared.

Rudy sighed.  “Oh well, maybe it’s a good thing that you followed us.”  His face split into a mischievous grin.  “Gotta keep practicing, after all.  Now where was it…” He spun around, looking in all directions for a few seconds until his eyes fell on a dry log.  “Perfect!”

An uneasy feeling came over me.  “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

“It’ll be fiiiine,” Rudy said dismissively, waving a hand.  “There’s no grass nearby, look.”

“Mm,” I replied vaguely.  I guess that was true. It would probably be okay.

Rudy took up a fighting stance, like he was facing down a serious opponent and not just a dead log.  He planted his feet, thrust his arm forward, and yelled, “Alright, go!  Ember!”

Ebony’s eyes flashed.  She stamped her paws, took a deep breath, and—!

—breathed out a half-dozen red flares that fizzled into nothing before reaching the target.

Rudy’s face fell.  “Lame.  Oh well, there’ll be plenty of time to practice fire breathing out on the trail.”

“Out on the trail…?” I asked.

“Yeah, when I start my journey, duh.”

And there it was.  The reminder that he’d be leaving soon.  Just like everyone else.  I’d been trying to ignore it, to pretend it wasn’t really happening.  But there was no avoiding it forever.

“So, you’re leaving soon,” I said in a low voice.

“Well, yeah!  Why wouldn’t I!” Rudy replied cheerfully, oblivious to my tone.  “And Ebony’s coming with!”  The Houndour let out a bark of approval.

“You realize you’re pretty much the only person I know who hasn’t left on a journey yet?”  The words were out of my mouth before I’d had time to fully think them through.

He shrugged.  “I guess?  But that’s only because I’m starting late.”

“Getting your license at thirteen isn’t that late.  Me not having a license at fourteen?  That’s late,” I grumbled.

“Oh, come on, Jade,” Rudy said, looking kind of bored with my complaints after having heard them a dozen times.  “I still say you should just take Swift and leave, license or not.”

I stared at him.  “I’m not gonna train Pokémon illegally.  I’m not that stupid.”

“Alright, alright, it was just an idea,” he said, waving a hand impatiently.  “I’m just saying if I failed the exam twice, that’s what I’d do—just take Ebony and leave.  Though it would kinda suck not getting to challenge any gyms.”

“Yeah, that’s definitely the worst part about training illegally,” I said with an eyeroll.  Then again, this was a nice place to change the subject.  “So, is Ebony going to be your starter?”

Rudy shook his head.  “Nah.  Dad said we’re not responsible enough to keep each other in line.  Wanted me to get a ‘proper starter’ who’s trained in that sort of thing,” Rudy said, with a mocking tone added for good measure.  “Just wants me to have a babysitter, more like.”

I shrugged.  “I figure it can’t be all bad having a Pokémon by your side who knows what they’re doing.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.  And they’ll be all-in for the League, obviously.”  He put a hand to his chin.  “Wonder what kind of Pokémon they’ll have.  I know everyone says we’re not s’posed to care about that, but like, come on.  What if I get a Charmander?  That’d be so frickin’ awesome.”

Wait, but then… if Ebony was coming along, and he was planning on getting a Charmander, then…

“Is Chloe coming too?”

Rudy shook his head.  “Nah, she’s not really into battling, so she’s staying home.”

Ebony’s face fell, and she mumbled something disapproving under her breath.

Rudy gave her a look.  “Hey, I’m upset too, but Dad said we can’t bug her about it, okay?”

I shoved my hands in my pockets.  “I guess it’s probably for the best that she’s not coming.  Then you’d have three fire-types.”

Rudy raised an eyebrow.  “That supposed to be a problem?”

I shrugged.  “I just thought you wanted to go competitive.”

“There are monotype trainers,” he said defensively.

“Well, I guess if you feel like losing to one Blastoise…”

That earned me a shoulder punch.  Worth it, though.

We ended up heading back home soon after that since Rudy’s dad would flip if he got home and saw that we left the gate open.  Rudy and I each held onto one end of the ramp and carried it between us as we walked our bikes home.  Ebony made a game of running in a figure-eight around us and under the ramp.  When we got back to Rudy’s house, Chloe was waiting patiently by the open gate, wagging her tail.

“See, she follows the rules,” Rudy pointed out, and Ebony let out an indifferent snort before bolting forward to tackle the Growlithe.  The two firedogs collided in a heap of black and orange fur.

Rudy glanced around the backyard.  “Huh, I guess now that we’re back, I should prooobably do my chores before my dad gets home.”

“I thought you said you did them before we left,” I said, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, uh… might’ve exaggerated a little,” he said, running a hand through his spiky black hair.  “I did like, one.”

“Wow, one entire chore.”

“Oh, shut up,” Rudy replied, jabbing my arm.  “Help me get the ramp inside and then I gotta get to work.”

We dragged the bike ramp into the garage and then waved each other goodbye.  I rode my bike across the street to my house, folding my arms behind my head and debating what to do with the rest of the afternoon.  It seemed like a nice day to go for a ride around town, at least… just to take my mind off things.

I grabbed my wallet from my room, quickly scribbled a note to my mom on the first piece of scrap paper I could find, and was about to head outside when I noticed the sound of the TV playing in the other room.  Most likely Swift; he always liked watching TV when no one was home.  I paused to listen to the audio—some kind of documentary?  Yep, definitely Swift.

“I’m heading out!” I called.

The TV abruptly shut off.  I heard the fluttering of wings behind me and turned to see Swift perched atop the bookshelf, preening his wing like he’d been there the whole time.

“You wanna come with?” I asked.

The Pidgey glanced away shyly, but then nodded.

“You know you don’t have to ask, right?” I said, smiling as I held the door open.  He didn’t waste a second before fluttering through the doorway and out into the open air.

The afternoon stretched by as I wandered the streets of Viridian City, glancing at various storefronts as I passed, half-tempted to stop by the card shop or the gas station or the library, but deciding against it.  I mostly just wanted to ride aimlessly under the shade of the trees, enjoying the cool breeze and the empty sidewalks that came with it still being early in the day.  Every so often, I glanced up at the sky through the trees, catching glimpses of Swift following overhead.  My hands idly drifted from the handlebars as my mind wandered back to the earlier conversation.

Rudy was leaving.  Going on a Pokémon journey, like everyone else.  And as much as I hated to admit it… I was glad when he didn’t have the credits to take the training exam last year.

I’d never had all that many friends, but it seemed like for each one that left, I always had someone still here.  Starr had been the first to leave, five years ago.  Then Ajia three years ago, then all the aspiring trainers in my year, and then everyone I knew in the year below me.

I didn’t even want to be a competitive battler; I just wanted to go with them.

First I screwed up by failing Pokéspeech so many times that I didn’t have enough credits the summer after I turned twelve.  Then failing the test the summer after I turned thirteen.  And now this year.  The crushing feeling of seeing that failing score… for the second time.

I hated to think about it, and yet I didn’t want to do anything but think about it.

I was nearing the edge of Viridian city; the trees and buildings on either side of the road had grown further apart, replaced with open stretches of tall grass.  I’d just reached the point where the road merged with the highway to Johto, with trails leading north branching off into the forest. This was usually where I turned around.  I glanced up at the sky and called for Swift, but he wasn’t there.

“Swift…?” I asked hesitantly, half expecting him to hear me and suddenly fly into view.  But the sky was completely open.  Where had he gone?  He had never done this before.

“Swift!” I yelled, pedaling harder.  Unease crept into the back of my mind.  This wasn’t like him.  Did something happen to him?  I didn’t want to believe that, but I couldn’t see any sign of him in the entire…

Sky.  The sky was empty.  No birds within sight, and these fields were usually full of Spearow.

“That’s… weird…” I muttered to myself.  My eyes traced the horizon, hunting for any possible clue, when I spotted a plume of smoke over the trees to the north.  What was that?

Feeling almost compelled to head that way, I turned and rode along a trail leading north—towards the forest.  I reached the treeline within minutes and kept going, unsure of whether I’d be any nearer to finding Swift when I could barely see the sky anymore.

The terrain here was rougher.  I had to work to keep my bike moving over the uneven path studded with rocks and tree roots.  The deeper into the forest I went, the dumber I felt.  Obviously heading toward smoke was a bad idea.  What was I thinking?  Well, obviously I wasn’t thinking.  I just wanted to find Swift and get out of here.

I was just about to turn around when a winged figure passing overhead caught my eye.

“Swift?!” I yelled, daring to let my hope rise.

The figure banked around to swoop down through the trees, and I felt a surge of relief.

“Swift!” I cried, holding out my arm for him to perch.  “Why’d you fly off like that?”

His expression was reserved but noticeably troubled.  He pointed a claw in the direction I’d been heading.

“Did you check out the smoke?  Is there a fire?” I asked.

The Pidgey nodded.  I glanced upward, but now that a thick canopy of trees covered us, I couldn’t make out the smoke anymore.  Then again… weren’t there a lot of fire-types living in the area?  Fires had to be pretty common.

Swift gave a low string of chirps.  This time they had meaning, and I knew enough Pokéspeech to catch the words, “*It’s bad… come see.*”

He took flight again, circling overhead.  I hesitated.  Wasn’t this a job for the rangers?  What could I possibly do to help?  Still, part of me had to know.  So I pushed onward through the trees, unsure of what I’d find.  After several minutes, the air grew thick and hazy, and my nose burned.  The feeling of unease intensified.  Still, we continued on until the trees abruptly ended.

One moment we were within the thick of the forest, and the next, there was nothing but the charred remnants of tree trunks and scorched bits of grass and leaves.  Flurries of ash saturated the air, stinging my eyes.  And that foul smell just wouldn’t go away.

I stopped dead when it hit me.  The odor saturating the air was burning flesh.  These woods had been filled with Pokémon—and some of them must have been caught in the blaze.

My brain couldn’t process any of it.  Who on earth expected to see something like this on an ordinary day?

“C’mon…” I muttered to Swift.  “We don’t need to be here.  We shouldn’t be here.”

But Swift just landed at the base of a nearby tree, looking up at me imploringly.  I was about to ask why, but then a glimmer of orange caught my eye.  A small ember, still clinging to life at the edge of a dark mass.  I leaned my bike against a tree and approached it hesitantly, eyes widening once I got a good look at it.

It was breathing.  The mound was alive.  It was a Charmander.

The lizard’s scales were charred black and covered in ash.  Every few seconds, it took a shuddering breath.  The flame on the tip of its tail was just a tiny ember, flickering weakly.

What could have done this?  To burn a fire-type…?

It was like my arm was moving on its own.  I held my breath as my hand hovered right over the Charmander’s back, feeling the residual heat emanating from its body.  I couldn’t possibly move it in this condition, could I?  No.  No, it would only do more harm than good, carrying it.  But what else could I do?

“I wouldn’t stay here if I were you.”

I jolted at the sudden voice and threw a glance over my shoulder to see a tall figure slowly approaching through the haze.  A young man, judging by the voice.  Once he was close enough, I could see him more clearly—roughly college-aged, with a sharp face framed by wavy brown hair.  A long, gray trench coat covered most of his lanky frame.  His thick boots left clear footprints in the ash.

“What did you say?” I asked.

He examined me with icy blue eyes that seemed to stare right through me.  “It’s dangerous.  The disaster isn’t far from here, and they wouldn’t want any witnesses.”

“Witnesses?” I blurted out.  “Who caused this, do you know?”

“I can show you if you follow me,” he said, tilting his head in the direction I’d been walking.

I was about to stand up, but then I glanced back down at the Charmander, a sinking feeling settling into my gut.

“What do I do?” I said miserably, staring at the helpless fire lizard.  “It’s gonna die, and I don’t know if it’s safe to move, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Put it in a Pokéball,” he replied, as though this were obvious.

I stared blankly at him.  “I don’t have any.”

He reached into a belt pouch, retrieved one, and held it out to me.  I flinched.

“I can’t... put it in a ball,” I said quietly, avoiding his eye.  “I’m not a trainer.  It didn’t challenge me.”

“Desperate times,” he said simply.  “The pact allows for life-or-death scenarios.”

Right.  I should have known that.  But it still felt wrong.

Hesitantly, I reached out a hand and fought to keep it steady.  I took the ball from him and gently tapped it against the lizard’s unconscious form.  It immediately transformed into bright red energy before being sucked into the ball.  The button on the front flashed red, then only a second later went white.  Capture successful.

The trainer nodded approvingly.  Then he turned and walked off into the haze.  Half of me still wanted to leave.  The smoky air was thick and uncomfortable to breathe.  But… I had to know.

I glanced back at Swift to see if he had any objections, and he just fluttered up to perch on my shoulder.  Guess we were in this together.

The trainer was already a hazy figure in the distance, and I had to walk quickly to catch up with him.  He gave me a sideways glance as I approached.

“You’re not a trainer?” he asked.  “You look old enough to be one.”

“No, I’m not.”  I didn’t feel like elaborating.  Instead, I asked, “What happened here?  And how recently?”

“So recently that it’s still happening,” was the only response.

I exhaled sharply through my nose.  The whole situation was only getting more unnerving. Part of me wanted to turn around, but my legs kept carrying me forward.

By now I could see a red glow through the haze.  My pulse quickened.  We reached the edge of a ridge that overlooked an open valley between the forested hills.  And that’s where I saw it.

A brilliant fireball tore across the clearing, setting everything in its path ablaze.  It stopped suddenly in the center of the valley and unleashed a heat wave outward, and when the flames cleared, there it was.  Silhouetted against the flames, a fantastically bizarre beast like nothing I’d ever seen before, with a wild mane and a billowing, cloudlike tail and jagged spikes running down its sides.  The beast whipped its head around in a weirdly anxious manner, almost like it was on the lookout for something.  Then it turned in our direction, and I stared into that brilliantly colored face that I’d seen only in books, like a red star with a golden crown.  There was no mistaking it.

Entei.  The Beast of the Volcano.  A Legendary Pokémon of Johto.  Right here, right in front of us, for real.  I couldn’t help feeling the urge to... avert my eyes or bow or something.

And then another sound caught my ears, even above the roaring flames.  It was almost like… engines?

Over a dozen jeeps and trucks burst into the clearing at once, closing in on Entei from multiple directions.  Entei recoiled backward, pelted by bullets—they were shooting it?  The volcano beast slammed its heavy paws to the ground and unleashed a heat wave, turning the valley into a sea of fire.  But when the flames died down, the jeeps were unharmed, surrounded by shimmering energy shields.  Several dozen Pokémon appeared from Pokéballs, immediately unleashing torrents of water at their target.  Entei stood its ground with a furious roar, but it still winced in pain as steam poured from its body.  And the next time it tried to run, a ghostly aura kept it from straying too far.

I was frozen, staring at the scene in a stupefied shock.  “What?  What are they… why?” I stammered.  “Why would anyone attack—?”  Didn’t they realize what they were doing?

There was a pause.  Then came the reply, “Have you ever heard of Team Rocket?”

I tilted my head.  “I mean, everyone’s heard of them, right?”  They were only the biggest crime gang in the region for as long as anyone could remember.  Everyone had heard stories and rumors about them.  Although… how many of those rumors were true was another story.

“To the general public,” he continued, without acknowledging I’d said anything, “Team Rocket is nothing more than a widespread criminal gang.  What the public doesn’t know is that for the past twenty years, the team has been making a slow push for total control over all of Kanto and Johto.  On the surface, they’re still the same thieves, smugglers, and traffickers they’ve always been.  But that just hides the fact that there’s another side to the team that no one knows about.”  He motioned to the ongoing struggle down in the valley.

Team Rocket.  They were the ones responsible for this.  A gang of thieves was going after gods?  Words failed me.  Everything he had said was overloading my brain, and the only thing I could manage was, “How do you know about this?”

The corners of his mouth turned up slightly.  “Not all Rockets are satisfied with the direction the team is headed.  Some of them have their own plans.  Some of them are working against Giovanni from within the team.”

“Giovanni?”  He couldn’t mean… the Giovanni?  Leader of the Viridian Pokémon Gym?

“The current boss,” he clarified.

I shook my head.  “Hang on, hang on.  You’re telling me those crazy rumors that he’s involved with Rockets—they’re not just true, but he’s the boss?!”

He nodded.

I couldn’t help staring.  “You’re serious?  That’s supposed to be, like… tabloid fodder for conspiracy nuts.  If it’s actually true… shouldn’t more people know?”

“You underestimate the team’s influence,” he replied with a slight laugh.  “They have agents working all over.  Turning him in wouldn’t do anything.”

Well, that was… unnerving.  Really, what was I supposed to say to that?  With a glance back at the blazing valley, I asked, “Shouldn’t we do something?  I mean, if we don’t—”

“We?” he asked with just the slightest hint of amusement.  “I thought you said you weren’t a trainer.”

“I… I’m not,” I mumbled, lowering my eyes to the ground.  Then I looked up at him hopefully and said, “Can’t you?”

The trainer closed his eyes.  “I know my limits.  My team is strong.  But not strong enough to stop them alone.”

I wasn’t sure why I’d said it.  I didn’t know anything about this guy.  Of course it was stupid to imply that he could take out an entire squad of armed Rockets alone.

I glanced down at the Pokéball in my hand, feeling rather miserable about everything.  Why did he even bother explaining anything only to flat-out tell me I was useless?

“What would you say,” he began slowly with a curious tone, “if I told you that a regional takeover might soon be within their grasp?”

I whirled around to face him, gaping in shock.  “What?”

“That’s why they’re aiming to capture Legendary Pokémon.  If the combat unit had legends at their disposal, there would be no stopping them.”  His tone was perfectly casual, as though Team Rocket being on the verge of a regional conquest was normal, everyday conversation.

I was frozen, unable to process all of this.  “…What do we do about that?  Why are you telling me this?”

He gave me a very serious look.  “Are you interested in helping stop Team Rocket’s Legendary project?  Would you be willing to fight them?”

I stared.  How exactly was I supposed to fight them, and how did he expect me to?  Didn’t he just say there was no way I could help?  I kept waiting for him to say something like “it would be nice if it were possible,” but his expression was cold and unflinching.

“How… what do you mean?” I asked.

“If you were able to stop Team Rocket from catching Legendaries, would you?”

I wanted to say, “well, who wouldn’t?” but that didn’t seem like a very good answer.  I simply nodded.

He considered me for a while before reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out a small card.  “I’ve been handing these out to people just starting their journey,” he said, handing it to me.  “This is your formal invitation to join a team against the Rockets.  If you want to know more, meet me at the specified location after you become a trainer.”

“But how—?” I began.

“What’s on that card is all I can say for now,” he said firmly.  “Don’t lose it, and don’t reveal it.”

He unclipped a Pokéball from his belt and opened it.  The flash of white light from inside took the form of a tall dragon with glossy orange scales and huge wings—a Charizard, the final evolution of Charmander.  I’d never seen one in person.

He replaced the Pokéball on his belt and climbed onto the dragon’s back.  It stretched its wings, flapping hard and sending flurries of soot into my face.  I shielded my eyes reflexively until the fire lizard had lifted off.

“I’ll see you there,” the trainer said before the two soared off into the sky.

“Later…?” I said, more to myself than him.  The whole conversation had felt very bizarre and surreal, and part of me half-expected to wake from a dream any moment.  But I knew that was too much to hope for.  So I looked down at the small card he had given me and read:

If you have received this card, it is because you have been recognized as either a beginning trainer with high potential, or an ambitious young trainer willing to face danger for the sake of stopping Team Rocket.  If you are serious about joining a rebellion against the Rockets, then meet at pier 3 in Vermilion harbor prior to June 16 for further instruction.

Well, that sure was vague.  Still, it made sense, just in case Team Rocket got their hands on a card.  But was he really just giving them out to random trainers?  Why was he doing this?  And how on earth had I gotten myself mixed up in all of it?

My eyes drifted back to the ongoing battle, no matter how badly I didn’t want to look.  Everything about it was completely mind-boggling.  Entei was still keeping its attackers at bay, but even its incredible strength was waning.  It wasn’t invincible, no matter what the stories said.

“C’mon… you can beat ‘em.  You have to…” I whispered.

Most of the fire in the valley had been put out by torrential waterspouts.  Entei’s fur was waterlogged. Its movements had grown sluggish.  Was I seriously about to watch a Legendary get captured?  And not be able to do anything about it?

No.  I couldn’t watch this.  I didn’t want to be able to say that I saw a legend get captured.

“We shouldn’t be here,” I muttered to Swift.  He glanced between me and the Rockets, then looked down, conflicted.

Coming here was a mistake.  I couldn’t do anything about all this.  I was just a kid; I wasn’t even a trainer.  Why had the Charizard guy even given me a card?

I glanced at the Pokéball still in my hand.  At least I could save the Charmander.  It wasn’t much, but it was something.

But before I could turn to leave, movement caught my eye.  One of the jeeps had broken from the rest of the group, driving away from them at breakneck speed.  Up the hill.  In our direction.  I stared stupidly at it, unable to process what I was seeing.

“Don’t… don’t tell me they…”  I took a step backward, eyes wide.

I’d been spotted.  And they were coming for me.

Chapter Text

I immediately bolted in the opposite direction, mind racing.  They were coming for me—why were they coming for me?  Swift flew by my side as I sprinted though the woods, ash burning my eyes, my throat.  Couldn’t think, had to run.  One foot in front of the other, pumping my arms as hard as I could.  My heart pounded and my lungs ached, but the smothering wave of fear pushed me forward.  I threw a glance over my shoulder, and—

I shouldn’t have done that; they were too close.  The jeep was bowling over the uneven ground and fallen trees like they were nothing.  The forest wasn’t dense enough to slow them down, not after the fire.  Dammit.

My bike, had to reach my bike.  Nothing was more important than that.  I could make it to town before they caught me and then lose them on the side streets.  Just that tiny shred of hope was enough to keep me going, but was I too far away?  I couldn’t help glancing over my shoulder again and—oh god.  They were right behind me.  I wasn’t going to make it!

The jeep sped past me and swerved abruptly into my path.  I skidded to a stop just before I would have slammed into the side and spun around as fast as I could.  Too late—the driver threw open the door, and a fist locked around the back of my shirt collar.

“No! No, stop, let go!!” I screamed, flailing as hard as I could, but I couldn’t get free.  The Rocket dragged me toward the jeep, flung open the back hatch, and threw me inside.  Then he climbed back into the front seat and drove off.

I lay there in a crumpled heap, my heart racing and my breathing shallow and my brain still trying to work through what the hell had just happened.  Why was this happening to me?  Why, why, why?  I tried to get my mouth to form the words, “what do you want with me?” but the sentence died in my throat.

The Rockets were talking.  One of them said something and laughed, but their words seemed to bounce off my ears.  Nothing felt real.

I wasn’t sure how much time had passed before I finally attempted to sit up.  My heart was still pounding so hard I thought it would burst.  First a shuddering breath while I tried to clear the dizzying panic from my head.  Then my arms pushed against the floor and lifted my upper body from the mud-caked surface.  Okay, that made my head feel lighter at least.  Another deep breath and I managed to sit up fully.

I found myself peering over the back seat without meaning to, glancing between the four Rockets in the jeep.  The man who’d grabbed me was driving.  He was tall, burly, and looked older than the others.  My eyes slid to his reflection in the rearview mirror—he had thick black hair and dark eyes surrounded by a stern and commanding face.  Just looking at him made me shiver; I couldn’t help ducking behind the seat.

My eyes wandered to the window and caught sight of… buildings?  We were nearing Viridian, but why?  Why hadn’t we rejoined the group going after Entei?  If we drove through Viridian instead, would it be possible to yell for help?

No.  The windows were up, and the Rockets were likely armed.  There was no way out of this.

I sank back against the seat, staring numbly out the window.  And then I saw him—Swift was following us, flapping his wings rapidly to keep up.  My heart leapt for a moment… until reality caught up with the simple truth that he couldn’t do anything either.

“Just go,” I whispered, though he couldn’t hear me.  “There’s nothing you can do…”

But he kept following.  He trailed us all through Viridian City, even as we passed the outskirts and headed into the forests east of town.  I kept my eyes on him the whole time.  It was comforting… but also made my heart ache.

Eventually, the jeep turned off the road we’d been following and into an empty parking lot surrounded by trees.  We slowed to a stop in front of a large warehouse, where the driver rolled down his window and reached out to tap a card key to a scanner.  The oversized garage door began to slide open, revealing a wide ramp descending into darkness.

As the driver took us inside, I turned to look behind us one last time.  Swift was gone.  Even if he’d still been there, it would obviously be a bad idea for him to follow us inside, where he could get trapped.  It was better that he’d left.  And yet… I couldn’t help feeling more alone than ever.

At the bottom of the ramp, we emerged into a massive underground hangar filled with trucks, small aircraft, and even a jet plane.  I stared around at it all, utterly floored.  Team Rocket was really this huge?  The Charizard trainer had said as much, but… I hadn’t wanted to believe him.  Seeing all this, right in front of me, it was pretty hard to ignore.

The jeep finally came to a stop, and the engine shut off.  Doors swung open; the Rockets all exited the vehicle.  I watched the driver walk over to an office door and scan his card key to unlock it before walking inside.  And so, I was left alone.  The only person who even knew I’d been taken was Swift.  And what could he do about it, really?  I found myself idly reaching into my pocket and grabbing the Pokéball with the Charmander, rolling it in my palm.  I couldn’t let it out, not in its condition.  And now it was in Team Rocket’s grasp just as much as I was.  Some help I’d been.

I jolted at the loud slam of a door flying open.  A man stormed out wearing an irritated expression, closely followed by the driver, who had a much smaller, more defensive air than earlier.  It looked like the two were arguing.  Maybe… maybe I could listen to them?  I had to know if I was dead.  The suspense was eating me alive.  And so, acting more on impulse than anything, I slowly edged myself over the back seat and cracked open the car door.

“Of course no one ever feels like telling me a damn thing about the mission status,” the new (higher-ranked?) Rocket snapped.  “And what the hell made you think it would be a good idea to grab some random kid who happened to see it?  Sure, she reports someone attacking a legend, big deal.  No one would have any idea that it was us.  But now she sure as hell knows too much.  Honestly, Tyson, I don’t even know why I—”

“That’s not all,” the driver cut in.  “I saw him.  The one we’ve heard rumors about from the new recruits.  Of course, he was far off so I didn’t see what he looked like, but I know she did.”

A very heavy pause followed.

“Don’t tell me you’re taking that crap seriously?” his superior asked.  “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but all I’ve heard is that some dumbass is going around gathering a bunch of kids to fight us.”

“I heard he was a part of the revolt.”

Yet another pause.  “So he might know more about us than we thought,” the other Rocket said, sounding at least somewhat intrigued.  “But how many others left us that day?  Have any of them accomplished much?  I don’t see how this is any—”

He was interrupted by the ring of a cell phone.  Tyson answered it and proceeded to listen for nearly a minute while his superior watched, still irritated.  After some time, Tyson gave a short, curt response and hung up.

“Well?” the higher-rank snapped.

Tyson straightened.  “It was a mission update.  Entei was just about to escape, but then—you’re not gonna believe this—the Johto combat unit showed up.”  His superior made an exaggerated sound of disgust.

“They took control of the situation,” Tyson went on, “and of course one of their agents was the one who caught Entei.  But now he’s refusing to hand it over; he’s waiting for orders from the Johto commander.”

I went rigid with shock.  They had actually caught it?  They’d caught Entei?  A Legendary Pokémon had been captured, and these two were talking about it like it was as normal as homework.

“The idiot.  Boss’s word isn’t enough for him?” the higher-rank muttered, folding his arms.

Tyson shrugged.  “It’s the Johto force.  You know how they are.”

“Tch… always making their own terms for everything…”  He scoffed.  “Anyway, we’re almost ready to ship the experiments to Celadon for testing, along with the supplies and machinery.”  The higher-rank jerked a thumb toward the far side of the hangar.  “Since you’re back, and you have a… vested interest in that program, I want you on board.”  At this point, he let out a sigh.  “Now, about the kid…”

“Should I just dispose of her?” Tyson cut in, and my heart stopped.

“Well, if you’re convinced that she knows anything, it could be useful,” the higher-rank said.  “But I don’t have time to question her, and I know none of the admins do.”  Unexpectedly, he laughed.  “I know, this is perfect—most of the department heads are at Celadon HQ right now.  Stick the girl on the transport jet; let them deal with what to do with her.”  With that, he walked off to discuss things with some of the other Rockets.

I collapsed into the seat, letting out a huge sigh of relief.  My situation hadn’t improved, but just knowing that I wasn’t dead yet was enough to make me feel slightly better.  But then a few seconds later, Tyson started walking back toward the jeep, and my heart jumped into my throat.  I threw myself over the back seat and tried my best to look like I hadn’t moved.

“Well, it’s your lucky day,” Tyson said with a sneer as the back hatch opened.  “If you keep your head down and answer the executives’ questions, they might not mind letting you live, though I’m not offering any guarantees.”  He grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me out of the jeep.  I wanted to resist, I wanted to run, I wanted to do something, but I was paralyzed.  Where could I run?  I’d be shot if they decided I was more trouble than I was worth.

“Here,” Tyson said, handing me off to one of his subordinates.  “Tie her up and put her on the transport jet.  Don’t forget the standard procedures.”

Tyson walked off, and the grunt dragged me toward the large, black airplane on the opposite side of the hangar.  Several mechanics were checking the plane over while other Rockets loaded crates into the cargo hold.  That’s where Tyson’s subordinate was taking me.  We reached the front of the cargo hold, where the Rocket opened a door that led into a small, dimly-lit space with a stairwell leading upward.  He proceeded to pat down my pockets and immediately found the Charmander’s Pokéball, which he took.

My heart crumpled inward.  “What do you want with Charmander—it’s badly hurt!”

“I’m sure they’ll heal it before it’s sold,” the Rocket drawled, pocketing it.  I wanted to reach out, make him give it back, anything.  But my arm wouldn’t move.

The only thing else I had on me was my wallet, so the Rocket took that as well, flipping through its contents.

“So…” he said, pulling out my school ID, “Jade Arens, fourteen years old.  I’ll be sure to get that on file.  And… what do we have here?”  I felt like kicking myself when he pulled out the wad of cash I had stuffed in there.  It was my birthday savings, which I’d intended to use on a journey someday.  Part of me had known that it was a stupid idea to carry it around like that, but… there wasn’t much I could do about it now.

After finding the money, the Rocket didn’t bother looking at anything else I had in there and simply tossed the wallet into a bin.  He then zip-tied me to a metal railing with my wrists behind my back, then shut the door.

I was alone.  For how long, I had no idea.  I couldn’t see my watch.  The only sound was the occasional clunk of more cargo being loaded onto the plane.  It was nerve-wracking just sitting there drenched in sweat mixed with soot, not knowing how much longer until something happened, or even what would happen.  Struggling against my bindings only made them dig into my wrists even more.

After what felt like hours, I heard another door shut and then the heavy thud of what must have been the cargo hatch closing.  The air filled with the steadily growing hum of engines.  The plane was moving now, slanting backwards as it traveled up the long ramp that led outside the hangar.  Once we were outside, the plane turned, and I felt a sudden rush of acceleration until the moment we lifted off.  And with that, we were airborne, and I was heading off toward an unknown fate.

Thoughts wouldn’t stop buzzing in my head, no matter how badly I wanted them to stop.  What would I have done differently if I had the chance to redo today?  Going into the forest was probably my biggest mistake.  Or maybe following the mysterious trainer I’d met.  But if what he’d said about Team Rocket’s goals was true…

The Rockets had caught Entei.  That was just… wrong.  My brain didn’t know how to process it.  I still found myself wishing I could have done something.  Even if…

A sudden thud jarred me from my thoughts.  I strained my ears to hear more, but the hum of the engines was too loud.  At least, until another clang rang out a minute later, much closer to the door this time.  I tensed up immediately.  What did they want now?

…Wait.  That door led into the cargo hold.  Why on earth would anyone be in there?

I had no idea what I expected to see when the metal door swung open.  …But I definitely wasn’t expecting what I did see.

A teenage boy about a year or two older than me stood in the doorway.  He had a messy look about him, with thick, dirty-blond hair and way-too baggy clothes and a Pokéball belt hanging low on one side.  And he was currently looking rather pleased with himself.

“Hello there,” he said.  “It looks like I’m rescuing you.  My name’s Spencer—I think we’re gonna be good friends.”

I blinked.  I had about a million questions, but about the only thing I could say was, “What?”

He frowned.  “That’s all the response I get?  Boring.”  He stood aside, allowing a sleek, tan and black-furred beast to step in front of him.  “Alright Typhlosion, go ahead and cut those ties.”

Typhlosion’s claws lit up with white light, and a few well-placed slashes later, I was free.  I stood up, rubbing my wrists and clenching my hands to get the blood moving again.

Still trying to make sense out of this random turn of events, I asked, “What are you doing here?  And how did you know I was here?  Who are you?”

“I already told you my name,” Spencer said matter-of-factly, folding his arms.  “And, uh, I guess if you wanna know how I got here, you’ll have to ask him.”  He motioned a thumb over his shoulder.

A voice behind him said, “Yeah, Jade, I hope you’re happy, because I hadn’t planned on getting stuck on some stupid plane like this.”

What?  That voice… it couldn’t be…

Spencer stepped aside, revealing a rather disgruntled Rudy standing in the entrance to the cargo hold.

“How did you get here?” I asked, completely floored.

He groaned slightly, putting a hand to his face.  “Well, Spencer needed to find his Pokémon, and luckily it was the same place they had taken you, so we snuck on board.”

I clapped a hand to my forehead.  “Okay, just… what?  That doesn’t answer my—how about you actually start at the beginning?  How did you know I was here?”

“Alright, alright,” Rudy said impatiently, as though the details didn’t matter and he wanted to get them out of the way as quickly as possible.  “It’s because of Swift.  I walked to your house to show off my starter, and I saw him pecking the windows in a fuss, and—what’s with that look?”  My jaw had dropped upon hearing the word “starter.”

“You got a starter?” I blurted out.  “Already?”

“Hey, uh, not to break up the reunion or anything, but aren’t there Rockets upstairs?” Spencer asked.

I glanced up the stairwell.  We were down by the cargo hold, which meant that the upper level probably led to the cockpit.

“Riiight.  We should probably move out of here,” I said.  Luckily, the engines were loud enough that it didn’t seem like anyone had overheard us.  The Rockets probably would have come barging down here by now if they had.

We made our way inside the cargo hold.  It was colder in here and barely had any lighting, so Spencer gave Typhlosion a pat, and the Pokémon’s neck lit up.  The firelight was comforting somehow.  Really, just them being there was enough to make the entire situation feel better.  I wasn’t alone anymore; with four of us here, we had to find some way out.

“So… Swift was the one who led you to the Rocket base?” I asked Rudy.

He nodded.  “Yep.  Saw him flying around like crazy, and from what I could tell, he was saying you were in trouble?  So I followed him to the edge of town and that’s when I ran into Spencer.”

“Yeah, my Pokémon were stolen from me a few days ago,” Spencer added.  “I’d been scoping out the entrance to the hideout for a while, but I had no idea how I was ever gonna get inside.  Then Rudy showed up in the area, and about an hour later, a bunch of jeeps were returning to the base, so we took the chance to sneak in behind ‘em.”

I stared at him, impressed.  “You guys snuck into a Rocket base?  What was your plan?”

“No plan, really.  Just kind of improvising, y’know?” Spencer said, laughing awkwardly.  My face fell slightly.  Okay, so maybe my new ally wasn’t the most capable.

“We hung out by the cargo area where we could keep out of sight and eavesdrop on the passing Rockets,” he went on.  “Then I overheard stuff about transporting Pokémon and supplies and a prisoner.”

“And just look at this awesome mess it’s gotten us all into,” Rudy added.  His tone was somewhere between a joke and an accusation.

“You didn’t have to come and get me,” I muttered, a bit defensive.

“Ah, don’t be stupid,” he said, waving a hand dismissively.  “Anyway, we’re here now.  This Team Rocket crew sounds like bad news, so we’ve gotta find a way off this plane.”

“I doubt that’ll be happening until it lands,” Spencer piped up.  “I didn’t pack a parachute.”

“Well…” I said, “I guess we’re not in any danger right now, so we’ve got time to plan.”

“Exactly,” Rudy said.  “Anyway, why don’t we start by screwing up as much of the crap on this plane as possible.”

With a glance around at the crates surrounding us, I replied, “Screw up things how?  I don’t think we can just go around destroying random crap while flying.”

“Well, for one thing… what do we do about the rest of the stolen Pokémon?” Spencer asked, motioning towards an open crate.  “I already got mine back, but—”

“Wait, those are stolen Pokémon?” I asked, running over to see the box full of stacked Pokéball trays.  “I had a Charmander with me before I was captured.  It might be in here.”

Now it was Rudy’s turn to gape at me.  “You have a Charmander?  What in the… how?”

“I found it out on Route 22, where I got captured.  It’s… kind of a long story.”  I shifted through some of the Pokéballs in dismay.  “How am I ever gonna figure out which one it’s in?”

“Here,” Spencer said, pulling out his Pokédex and opening it.  I watched curiously as he held the Pokéballs up one by one to the device’s scanning lens.  After about twenty or so of them, he announced, “Here we go.  Low-level, unregistered Charmander.  Uh… its energy is reeaally low.  I know they always say you gotta defeat the Pokémon before they’ll let you train them, but come on now.”

“I didn’t catch it,” I said, a bit defensive despite his joking tone.  “It was half-dead when I found it.  I’ve got to get it healed.”  I turned to gaze vaguely around all the boxes in the cargo hold.  Maybe one of them had healing supplies?

“Alright you fix your Charmander, and I’ll go see if I can find anything useful,” Rudy said, taking the opportunity to wander off.  I could have sworn I heard him mumble, “We should totally set some of this junk on fire at least.”

I stuck closer to the front of the plane, prying open boxes and scanning their contents as I went.  I had wondered what the jet was intended to transport, but now it seemed like the answer was almost anything.  Most of the crates were filled with machine parts and computerized devices, but then others were packed with battle enhancements or stronger types of Pokéball.  Finally, I scored—a box packed with healing supplies.  I picked up the first thing I could find and read the label.

“‘Full Restore—effective on all types of surface damage or injuries, including burns, frost, poison, paralysis’… sounds great.”  I noticed the rather unappealing price tag of 3000p—good thing I wasn’t buying it.

I held out the Charmander’s Pokéball and carefully pressed the button, splitting it open and letting out a burst of light that condensed into the fire lizard’s unconscious form.  It shivered a bit, but otherwise didn’t move.  Still in the same condition as earlier.

I kneeled down and sprayed the liquid all over the Charmander’s skin.  The lizard flinched, but soon enough, the charred flesh slowly regained its normal color, leaving only patches of scabs on some parts of its back.  It was honestly amazing how quickly Pokémon could heal when given a bit of help.  Now I just needed something to wake it up.

“Hey Spencer!” I called out.  “Do you know the name of the stuff that can revive Pokémon?”

“You mean like a revive?”

Oh.  Duh.

I dug through the box some more.  “Got it,” I said, pulling out a small yellow crystal.  After skimming the instruction label, I cracked the shell of the crystal to activate it and then gently held it against the fire-type’s forehead.  After about 20 seconds, I noticed that the tiny flare on its tail had grown into a full flame.  Finally, it opened its bright blue eyes and stumbled to its feet.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

The lizard spun around, eyes wide with alarm.  It clutched its tail and glanced cautiously around at the strange environment.

“This has got to be a pretty big shock.  And, uh… you’re probably wondering how you got here.  I didn’t mean to take you from your home.  It’s just that you were sort of… dying,” I finished lamely.

The Charmander relaxed slightly, but didn’t give much of a reaction to my words.  Could it even understand me?  As a wild Pokémon, it might never have heard human speech before.

“Can you understand me?” I asked.

It stared, apparently confused at my confusion.  “*Yes…*” it said slowly, in a tone suggesting that it found the question very strange.

“Well, uh, okay—so you’ve been around humans before.  Do you have a human name?”

The fire lizard gave me a long, quiet stare, something shifting in its eyes.  “*Firestorm,*” it eventually said.

“Alright then.  So, uh, are you male or female?”  I wasn’t quite sure if that was an offensive question or not, but I couldn’t really tell.  And it hadn’t referred to itself yet, which would’ve made the answer obvious, given how Pokéspeech worked.

“*Male,*” he replied simply.

I nodded, not really sure what else to ask him.  After having gotten over his initial shock, Firestorm was curiously sniffing some of the storage crates, seemingly unconcerned with the whole ‘kidnapped by strange human’ thing.

The Charmander turned to me and said, “Mander char charmander char’charrman?”  But it was longer than the previous one-word statements, and I didn’t catch most of it.  It sounded like a question—something to do with a Pokémon trainer?  I was about to ask him to repeat it, but then I heard Rudy call out, “Hey Jade, come check this out!”

I stood to my feet and motioned for the Charmander to follow if he wanted.  After making my way down the center aisle, I found Rudy, Spencer, and Typhlosion, the former sitting on the floor and undoing the latches on a long metal case.

“Oh hey,” Spencer said, giving a small wave.  “Normally I’d say that warnings are meant to be ignored, but I don’t know about this.”  He flashed a skeptical look toward Rudy.

I stared blankly.  “Huh?”

“Check it out,” Rudy said, holding up the case.  Engraved on the top in sleek lettering were the words: “Pokéball Containment Unit.”  Beneath that, a label read, “Caution: Experimental Pokémon are extremely unstable and must be kept in the containment unit at all times unless removed by an experiment handler.”

“Experimental Pokémon?” I said incredulously.  Then again, Tyson’s superior had mentioned something like that…

“Yeah, yeah!  Just think—these could be like, super-powerful mutant Pokémon.  If we used them to fight the Rockets, we’d be able to get out of this for sure!” Rudy said excitedly.

I hesitated.  “That… does seem like our best chance to escape, but… we don’t even know if they’ll listen to—hey, don’t let them out now!” I yelled frantically.  He had opened the case, revealing several black Pokéballs encased in holders, each labeled with info on the experiment within.

“I’m just looking,” Rudy countered.  “I’m not gonna let them out.  Huh… these are weird looking, aren’t they?”  He pulled one of the black spheres out of its holder and rotated it in his palm.

“Okay, okay, just wait.  We’re not gonna have to fight until this plane lands, wherever it’s going.  Spencer, how many Pokémon have you got?”

“Six,” he replied, posing importantly.  “Typhlosion here is the strongest, but the rest are also pretty tough.”  At his words, Typhlosion struck a pose along with him.

“Alright, that’s good since, uh… Rudy and I will be pretty useless in a fight.”  It felt rather awkward to admit.

“Hey, what do you mean?!  I’ve got two Pokémon,” Rudy shot back.

I clapped a hand to my forehead.  “Don’t be stupid, these Rockets are dangerous.”

“How about when the plane lands, we confuse the experiments into attacking the Rockets, and then we run away during the commotion?” Spencer cut in.

“How do we do that—?”

An explosion of lightning erupted from within our circle, knocking the four of us backward into a wall of boxes.  I sat up shakily, completely stunned.  What on earth had just happened?

Spencer looked about as flustered as I felt.  “Okay, what the heck was that?”

I glanced around rapidly, my eyes falling on Rudy, toppled over in a heap with his eyes wide, clutching an opened Poké ball.

“What did you…?” I gasped.

“I didn’t open it, I swear!” he yelled back.  “It—it let itself out!”

“Wait, where’s the experiment?!” Spencer cut in frantically.

The three of us whirled around in a panic, all eyes falling on the Pokémon that had appeared behind us.  A jagged, lightning bolt-shaped tail twitched.  Four paws slowly lifted a small, golden-furred mouse off the floor.  It couldn’t be…

“It’s… it’s a Pikachu?” Spencer blurted out, stifling a laugh.  “A Pikachu?”

Except something looked… off about it.  It was missing the familiar red cheek markings.  And the fur on its head was long and stiffly pointed, almost like feathers.  And then its eyes snapped open, revealing a pair of piercing, birdlike eyes.

I hesitated.  “Guys… I don’t think—”

A burst of sparks shot from the rodent’s body at once!  I jumped backward and tripped over a box as a lightning bolt flew dangerously close to where I’d been standing.  With a vicious cry, the experiment shot past us in a flash, bolting up to the highest point and sending waves of electricity through the air.

“Let me see that!” I shouted, practically shoving Rudy out of the way so I could get a look at the label on the Pokéball slot.

Experimental Pokémon 009: Hybrid series - Pikachu / Zapdos.  Possesses abnormally high power level and untamable disposition.  Experiment classified as failure due to undersized power capacity, unstable energy signature, and immunity to standard experiment control procedures.

My face fell with dread.  “This thing was mixed with the Legendary Zapdos.”

“What?  No way…  That is awesome!” Rudy exclaimed.

“Hey, focus!  If we don’t stop it, it could end up taking down the plane!”

“Er, right, I’ll put it back in the ball—”

The Pikachu turned sharply and shot a string of lightning at us, shattering the black Pokéball before we could do anything.  I gaped in horror—what were we supposed to do now?  Firestorm clutched at my leg in fear.  Typhlosion leapt in front of us and snarled defensively, its neck blaze flaring to full height.

And then, in the midst of all this, the overhead lights suddenly flipped on, followed by the sound of a metal door creaking open.

“WHAT.  THE.  EVER.  LIVING.  HELL?!!”

My stomach sank even lower as I turned to see Tyson standing in the doorway to the cargo hold, his eyes wide with shock.

“Uhh, hey,” Spencer said, waving awkwardly.  “Could you leave for a bit?  We kind of have a situation here.”

Tyson stared at us in a sort of stupefied rage for several seconds until his eyes slid over to the experimental Pikachu.  He clenched his teeth and grabbed one of the black Pokéballs from his belt, opening it.  The flash of light took the form of a huge green mantis with armor plating.  Blank, pupil-less eyes flared mindlessly from a reptilian face.  Wings twitched, ready to strike at any moment.  Light glimmered off a pair of scythe-lined forearms that looked sharp enough to cut the air.  From its perch atop the mountain of supplies, the Pikachu stared at the Scyther, eyes wide with what looked like anger and dread.

“Thought you’d play with the hybrids, did you?” Tyson asked with a sneer.  “Then have fun facing the strongest of them.  Kill them, Razors!”

The three of us couldn’t do anything but sit there, frozen in horror as the blade-armed nightmare shot toward us, too fast to even see.

Chapter Text

The Scyther shot toward us, blades outstretched. Time slowed to a crawl.  I was frozen, my mind already generating the image of its scythes tearing us apart, and—

A burst of lightning!  Razors leapt back to avoid the Pikachu that had dropped suddenly into its path, sparking wildly.  For just a moment, the Scyther stared, its eyes perfectly emotionless.  Then it lunged, blades flashing.  Too late—the electric-type was already out of reach.  Another lightning bolt flew, but Razors dodged it effortlessly and darted after the Pikachu, so fast it was practically a blur.

I sat frozen, unable to believe it.  The Pikachu was… helping us?  Or maybe it just shared the same enemy?  Either way, we weren’t dead yet.  If the Pikachu managed to beat Razors, we actually had a chance at getting out of here alive.

“Pssst!  Over here if you want to keep your head!”

I spun around to see Spencer motioning to me from behind a stack of crates, and I immediately scrambled over to him.

“What should we do?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.

“Er… I was actually hoping you’d have a plan…” he said sheepishly.

Great, so both of us were relying on the other, who was equally clueless.

“Oh, come on!” Rudy exclaimed.  “We’re not gonna get anywhere by just hiding!”

Before I could protest, he pulled out a pair of Pokéballs and opened them both to release Ebony and… a Squirtle?  Yeah, a Squirtle.  Ebony glanced around the cargo hold with wide-eyed curiosity while the Squirtle took one look at the battle and promptly retreated into its shell.

“You should probably take this,” Rudy said, handing me a Pokéball.  “I had to put Swift in a ball before sneaking on board.  Otherwise, he couldn’t come with.”

I blinked at it.  “This is Swift’s Pokéball?”

“Sure is.  Now, come on!  We’ve got to battle our way out of this!”

I gaped at him.  “Are you serious?  We’d just end up getting our Pokémon killed!  We’ve got to leave this to Spencer, okay?”

Rudy paused, looking half offended and half confused.  Like the thought of losing honestly hadn’t occurred to him.  Ebony mumbled something in a disappointed tone and then put her nose against his leg reassuringly.  Squirtle, on the other hand, just looked relieved.

“Leave what to me?” Spencer asked, like he’d just noticed I mentioned his name.  “Oh, right… Typhlosion should be able to get some ranged attacks off, right bud?” he asked.  The fire beast nodded, then dropped to all fours and crept forward to get into a position where he could attack from behind cover.

And then, with a sinking feeling, I spotted Firestorm creeping after him, eyes full of conviction.  He wasn’t about to join the fight, was he?  The Charmander’s tail swished as he prepared to leap.  Crap, he was definitely about to.  I reached out and grabbed his arm, and he jolted in surprise.

“I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said.

Firestorm’s brow furrowed.  “*Why not?*”  Why not?  Couldn’t he see how dangerous it was?

“Look, it’s great that you want to help and all, but…”  But he wasn’t strong enough.  I couldn’t just say that, though.  “…They’re too strong.  The rest of us wouldn’t stand a chance if we got in their way.”

Firestorm stared up at me for several seconds and then turned away, nodding distantly.  Part of me wished I had his conviction.  Or Rudy’s.  I wasn’t the only useless one here, but I was the only one who had given up on being able to help.  The thought burned.

Another blast of lightning. Tyson kept barking orders constantly to Razors.  The Scyther slashed away mercilessly, responding instantly to Tyson’s every command with a precision that was almost scary.  Still, none of its strikes managed to hit the Pikachu—it was just too fast.  At this rate, the fight would come down to who tired out first.

And then a burst of flames shot toward Razors, striking the mantis dead-on.  Yes!  A direct hit from Typhlosion!  No way the Scyther could withstand that.

…But even as I watched, Razors stood up and turned sharply in Typhlosion’s direction, preparing to leap at him.

“Ignore them!” Tyson barked.  The Scyther instantly obeyed, darting after the Pikachu once more.

Spencer and Typhlosion exchanged bewildered looks.  “Well, crap.  I thought that would be, well… super effective.”

“I don’t get it…” I murmured.  “How did it shrug off a Flamethrower like that?  I thought Scyther were weak to fire.”

“We’re up against freaking hybrids, what did you expect?” Rudy exclaimed, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Typhlosion let out an indignant huff and peeked around the corner again, looking for another opportunity to strike.

“Afraid to come out of your hidey hole?” Tyson called out to us.  “That’s fine by me, Razors isn’t my only experiment!”  His words were followed by the sound of two more Pokéballs opening.  He was letting out more Pokémon?  There was barely enough room for a battle between two Pokémon!

Lightning flew wild.  The Pikachu snarled something at Tyson before unleashing a blast of electricity at the other experiments.  Seizing the chance, Razors shot forward, blades flashing.  Then a burst of flames—Typhlosion launched another Flamethrower!  Razors stopped short, forced to swerve, but that left it wide open.  The Pikachu turned sharply and fired another bolt of lightning just as Typhlosion followed up with a burst of flames. Fire and lightning collided in a blinding burst with Razors caught right in the middle.

“Scyy!” it cried out pitifully, dropping to the floor.

“We got it!” Spencer cried out, high-fiving Typhlosion.  “I was really starting to worry there, y’know?”

Tyson pulled out Razors’s Pokéball and recalled it.  He muttered a string of curses, then ordered his other experiments to focus their attention on the Pikachu.  His Rhydon didn’t exactly have any space to move, but it was able to act as a shield, spreading its arms wide to protect its trainer.  Pikachu hammered away at the rock-type with its tail, which gave a metallic clang with each strike.  Rhydon didn’t react at all.  Its eyes were creepily blank and soulless, just like the Scyther’s had been. What was the deal with these Pokémon?

“Strong enough to take down my best experiment?” Tyson called out.  “You’re more of a nuisance that I gave you credit for.”

“Razors was your best guy?  Awesome, that means we’re in charge now,” Spencer said, standing up.  “Tell the pilot to land this thing and let us off.  And also get us pizza,” he added as an afterthought.

Tyson stared at him, unimpressed.  “You think you’re hot stuff just ‘cause you managed to beat one of my experiments with help from a crazy overpowered rat?”

“Nah, Typhlosion is the one made of hot stuff.”

“What the hell are you even doing here?!” Tyson roared.  “I don’t have to take this crap from some random-ass kid!”

Spencer’s eyes widened with panic.  Then he practically shoved me aside as he dove behind cover right before an earsplitting bang tore the air.  Had—had Tyson just—?

“He shot at me?” Spencer blurted out, picking himself up from the floor, completely stunned.  “I—I know I shouldn’t be surprised, but… yeah, I wasn’t ready for that.”  His eyes flickered to Typhlosion.  “Er, make sure you stay out of view, bud,” he added distractedly.

“Fine, keep hiding, it doesn’t matter!” Tyson spat, motioning to one of his Pokémon.  “Back there, kill them!”

He couldn’t possibly be expecting Rhydon to get at us with all these supplies in the way, could he?  No, Rhydon was staying behind, guarding him.  The other experiment, a spiky-furred Raticate, bared its teeth at us and darted forward, too fast to see.  Before I could even blink, it had cleared the length of the room before being tackled by Typhlosion, whose fur blazed with flames.

“Backup, backup, definitely time for backup,” Spence muttered quickly, fumbling with his Pokéball belt and opening the first ball he could get his hands on.  An Electabuzz appeared in a flash, flexing its arms and letting sparks dance between the prongs on its head.

“I thought you had six Pokémon,” Rudy said, a bit disappointed.

With a weak smile, Spencer replied, “We’d be starting one crazy party if I let out all six of my guys in here.  I don’t think the plane could handle it—this battle’s probably dangerous enough as it is.”

He motioned forward, and his two Pokémon got into a defensive position on either side of us, ready to lash out at the experiment if it dared to come close.  The Raticate darted in for another attack, but then recoiled backward when faced with Typhlosion’s fireball.

Movement behind us caught my eye.  I spun around, heart racing… but it was just Rudy.  He’d apparently ducked out from behind cover for just a moment—long enough to grab an open box by the corner and drag it back to our hiding spot.

“What are you doing?” I hissed.

“Well, it was just sitting over there—I’ve been wanting to grab it for the past five minutes or so,” he said, proceeding to dig through its contents while Ebony stuck her nose in the box, sniffing.

Really, couldn’t he ever explain anything?  But before I could reply, I noticed the “Technical Machine” stamp on the side of the box.  TM discs—each of them designed to teach a different Pokémon move.

“I’m tired of sitting on the sidelines,” Rudy continued, occasionally pulling out a disc and looking it over before throwing it back in the box.  “I know my Pokémon wouldn’t stand a chance if they got hit,”—the words sounded painful for him to admit—“but if I use these to give them sweet moves and have them attack from behind cover, they might have a shot.”  It… did seem like a good idea.  We were completely surrounded by the Rockets’ supplies—why not use that to our advantage?

A wide grin crossed Rudy’s face as he pulled out a blue TM.  “Dude, Surf—I gotta teach this to Squirtle,” he said, fumbling with the disc’s case.

“Surf?” I asked incredulously.  “What, do you want to flood the plane with us inside it?”

“Fiine, I’ll pick a different one,” Rudy grumbled, tossing it back into the box before digging through the TMs again.  “Hey Jade, bet you’ll be excited to see this,” he said, holding up a TM with a glossy red case and the words “Series 5: No.38” written on the front.  I blinked, unsure of how I was supposed to respond.

“It’s Fire Blast,” he said, pointing at the label.  “Now hurry up and use it on Charmander before I take it and use it on Ebony.”

I took the disc, unable to come up with a reply.  It hadn’t occurred to me that this plan was something I could get in on.

Firestorm was staring at me intently.  I glanced warily between him and the disc, then shoved it in my pocket.  “No way, I still think it’s a bad idea for us to get involved.”

But wasn’t it his choice?  If he wanted to throw himself into danger, then who was I to stop him?  This was our chance to make a difference.  But was I too much of a coward to take it?

In the midst of the ongoing battle, the Pikachu had given up on trying to get at Tyson and was now letting loose strings of lightning at anyone that came too close.  Its movements had grown shaky from exhaustion.  Sparks shot out of its fur at random.  The fire was now all but gone from its eyes, and it almost looked… desperate.  The experiment made one last attempt to jump over the Pokémon and blast them all, but came up with nothing but sparks.  Then its eyes rolled back, and it collapsed limply off to the side of the cargo bay.

I stared at the fallen Pikachu for a long while.  At first, the experiment had seemed like our only hope.  Then, more like a violent wild card.  And now, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for it, and what it must have gone through to have ended up like this.  Raised as a lab experiment and then branded a failure…

Time seemed to stop as I cautiously edged toward the experiment.  I couldn’t explain why I was doing it… I just was.  Five feet away, an ear twitched, and I flinched.  Suddenly, its face snapped toward me, fur standing on end.  I stumbled backward, throwing my arms in front of my face.  But the hybrid was out of power—nothing came out but sparks.  There wasn’t much it could do to me now.

“What’re you doing?”  Rudy hissed.  “Didn’t you see how crazy that thing is?”

“It’s out of power,” I said defensively.  “And it’s not like it’s on Tyson’s side or anything.  It’s been fighting against him all this time, so we might be able to—”

“Pikaa’pi,” the Pikachu growled, slowly lifting its upper body from the floor and glowering at me.  “Pikapi ‘chuu pi‘piika—”

“Wait, wait, talk slower,” I stammered, unable to translate the Pokéspeech quickly enough.

I honestly didn’t expect it to listen, but it stopped.  It actually stopped, and it gave me a skeptical glare before saying, slowly and deliberately, “*I don’t need your pity, human.  This is my problem, not yours; stay out of it.*”

“It’s not like we asked to be involved in this,” I replied heatedly.  I was just trying to help him… and admittedly hoping that he would help us in return.

Pikachu didn’t reply.  In fact, he was now ignoring me in favor of staring at the battle with a pained look on his face.  He muttered something under his breath.  And then he leaped to his feet and dashed away.

“Wait, come back!” I yelled.  But he didn’t stop.

“So… think it’s gonna help us?” Rudy spoke up all of a sudden.

I shrugged.  It was the only response I could give.  I had no idea what he was planning.  The fight was still raging and he was out of electricity, so I wasn’t sure what else he could do.

Crack!

The noise had come from the front of the cargo hold.  I couldn’t help it—I peeked over the boxes.  Pikachu was standing atop a wall of crates, panting hard, his tail glowing.  He leaped at the wall and smashed his tail into the window. Cracks spread across the surface.

Tyson spun around.  “Number nine, what the hell are you—?”  His face went pale.  “Stop that thing, now!” he yelled, and his Rhydon lunged forward, smashing through a wall of boxes and slamming a heavy fist into Pikachu.  I flinched as the mouse’s body flew through the air, landing in a crumpled heap.

“Goddamn it, number nine, either you’ve got a death wish or you really are stupid enough to think you can escape by jumping out the window,” Tyson spat, still pale.

Pikachu slowly picked himself up from the floor, face screwed up with pain.  He stared downward for a few moments before nodding to himself, like he’d just decided something.  Then he took off running.

I didn’t get it.  Had he… wanted to put a hole in the plane?  But that would let all the air out, and…

Tyson spun around to stare at us in horror, like he’d just made the same realization.  “Stop that thing now or we’re all dead!!”

Pikachu shot past me towards the back of the jet.  Without thinking, I bolted after him, not even sure what was driving my legs forward.

“No, please don’t!” I yelled, unsure of what else to do.

He paused suddenly.  No way—he had actually listened to me?  It was only for a second.  Then he shot toward Spencer’s Electabuzz.

“What is he—?” I gasped.

“Electabuzz, stop him!” Spencer called out in confusion.

The electric-type threw up its arms and unleashed a blast of lightning.  Pikachu didn’t even attempt to dodge—the attack struck, and he cried out in pain, tail raised high.  But he just stood there, taking the attack.  Almost like it was what he’d wanted.  Electabuzz glanced back at Spencer in confusion before ending the blast.  The rest of the electricity flowed into the hybrid’s body, and his eyes snapped open with a newfound fire.

“Did… did he just absorb the lightning?” I muttered, stunned.  No one answered.  None of us knew what to do now.  Tyson’s Raticate shot past us in a blur, but even with its speed, it wouldn’t catch up in time.  Pikachu glanced back at me with… almost an apologetic look.  Then he turned away and fired all his power at the wall before collapsing.

Everything happened too fast to process.  First lightning, then an explosion ripping through the back of the plane. Air rushed out, pulling me toward the hole.  My arms flailed in a panic, grasping at the ropes around the boxes closest to me.  Then the sound of a Pokéball opening, followed by a high-pitched beam, and the airflow suddenly stopped.

It was all over within a few seconds.  I lay there in a daze, breathing hard and taking a few seconds to realize that I could still breathe.  Then I whirled around to see that the hole was completely sealed with glittering ice crystals.  How…?

A Dewgong sat next to Spencer, exhaling frosty air.  Spencer collapsed against the Pokémon’s side, letting out a huge sigh of relief.

I stared openmouthed.  “That… that was quick thinking.”

“Yeah?  It happens sometimes,” Spencer said, rubbing the back of his head before patting the ice-type.  “Nice one,” he said.

Except… the hole may have been sealed, but that wasn’t the only damage that had been done.  Through the window, I could see black smoke billowing from a ruined tail engine.  Were we losing altitude?  Were we going to crash?

Tyson was having a furious back-and-forth over his communicator with someone.  “It’s not my goddamn fault, it was number nine!”  He listened to the response with a look of building rage before roaring back, “I’ve been trying to!” and shutting the device off.

Then his eyes fell on us.  “This is all your fault,” he snarled, reaching for his belt.

The horrible truth hit me—after all the commotion, we weren’t behind cover anymore.  Tyson had just grabbed his gun, he had a clear shot, but Spencer didn’t look concerned?  Why not?!

And then all I could do was stare dumbfounded as Typhlosion leapt from nowhere and grabbed Tyson in a bear hug, knocking the gun aside.

“What,” I said stupidly.

“Hey, that worked even better than I expected,” Spencer said, giving a massive sigh of relief.  “It’s always great when that happens, y’know?”

I stared.  “How… how did you…?”

“Well, I knew we’d never get anywhere with him having a gun and all, so with all the Pikachu chaos, I told Typhlosion to hide and take him down the first chance he got,”

I couldn’t think of anything to say.  I was too shocked by how much the tables had turned in our favor with just that one move.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!  Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with?!” Tyson raged, struggling against Typhlosion’s hold.

“I think we’re dealing with someone I just beat,” Spencer said.  “You should probably recall your Pokémon now; it’ll make things easier.”

Typhlosion flexed his claws threateningly to emphasize the point, letting waves of heat shimmer around them.  Tyson’s Pokémon were standing still, blankly awaiting orders.  Almost like they couldn’t think for themselves.  Clenching his teeth, Tyson managed to unclip two Pokéballs from his belt and recall his Pokémon

“So, how about you tell us if there’s any chance we can land this thing,” Spencer said simply.

Tyson glared.  At first it seemed like he wasn’t going to say anything.  But after several seconds, he finally replied, his words extremely slow like it was painful just talking to us.  “With a missing engine, we probably won’t reach the base we were supposed to land at.”

“Eh, well, the Rocket base didn’t sound fun.  Anyways, you should probably figure out if we can land it anywhere else.”

I know I would have flinched if I’d been at the receiving end of the venomous glare that followed.  But still… Tyson must have realized that his only chance at survival meant saving us as well.  Taking a deep breath, he said, “I need to check with the pilots, but… if we use the GPS to see if there’s a big enough clearing ahead of us, we might have a chance of making a rough landing.”

“Alright, sounds like you’ve got it under control.  Typhlosion, you be his copilot, m’kay?”  Despite Spencer’s bright tone, Typhlosion understood the serious intent behind the request, and released his hold, still keeping a menacing eye on Tyson.

Tyson glowered at the fire beast, but there was nothing he could do.  He pulled out his communicator and growled something at whoever was on the other end, most likely the pilots.

“And that’s that,” Spencer said rather matter-of-factly, walking back to me and Rudy.

At first, all I could do was stare openmouthed.  A wave of laughter suddenly overtook me from sheer relief.  “That’s it, then.  We’ll be miles away from any other Rockets when we land—there’ll be nothing stopping us from getting out of here.”  The shock was wearing off and my body felt lighter with each passing moment.  I couldn’t believe it, but we’d won.  Well, Spencer had, anyway.

“See, Jade?” Rudy said, elbowing me lightly in the ribs.  “Told you we’d be able to get out of this.”

I couldn’t help laughing again.  “You never had to see what the Rockets could really do… but I’m glad.”

Still a bit lightheaded, I sank back against a wall of boxes, infinitely glad for a chance to breathe.  The adrenaline slowly died down as that crushing feeling of certain death finally vanished.  We were going to make it.  Now the only problem was figuring out what to do once we landed.

Eh, I’d worry about it when the time came.

I felt warmth by my side; Firestorm had plopped down next to me, looking a bit tired.

“You holding out okay?” I asked.

He nodded.  Though I couldn’t figure out why he’d been glued to me throughout the whole ordeal, in an odd way it felt… reassuring.  And then it hit me—Swift was here too.  I grabbed his Pokéball from my pocket, and with a flash of light, the Pidgey appeared, ruffling his feathers.

“It’s so good to see you,” I said, holding out my arm.  He immediately fluttered up to my shoulder and sat there with his feathers fluffed out.  It was a familiar, comforting warmth, having him there.

It struck me that I should probably say something.  “Uh… Swift, this is Firestorm.  Firestorm, Swift.”  Lame, but I was never very good at introductions.

Despite my failure at figuring out how to start a normal conversation, Firestorm took it upon himself to start one.  “*How did you get involved in this?*”

I laughed slightly.  “Wrong place at the wrong time.  Just like you, I guess.”

He nodded.  “*I’ve had lots of that.*”

I wanted to ask him what he’d gone through before I found him, but I couldn’t think of a delicate way to ask.  After a while, I settled on, “Did… did you even see what caused the fire?”

He hesitated a bit before answering slowly.  “*The others all ran away.  Some of them were shouting about the Great Fire Beast.  I never saw it, though.*”

I stared downward, images from the incident burned into my memory.  It still felt bizarre and unreal.  “That fire was caused by humans trying to catch Entei.  I actually saw it happen, but I couldn’t do anything about it.”

Firestorm looked a bit puzzled at first.  “*Catch?  Humans can… catch Legendaries?  Just like Pokémon?*”

To be honest, it was not something that had really crossed my mind before, either.  The Legendaries had always felt just… on a level above Pokémon or humans.  Sure, every school-age kid in the world dreamed of partnering with one, but legends didn’t need partners.  They were already strong enough to beat any foe.  And yet… Entei had been taken by force.  And it would probably happen again, unless…

“You know… I met someone who was trying to stop it.  He couldn’t do it on his own, but he was trying to get people to help him,” I said, more thinking aloud than actually hoping for a response.

A voice chirped, catching me off guard.  I had been so focused on the Charmander that hearing a different form of Pokéspeech was a bit disorienting.  I turned toward Swift and was met with a very intent look.  Then my brain finished processing that he’d asked if I was going to help.

“I… hadn’t really considered his offer until now,” I said weakly.  “I mean… what could someone like me do to help?”

“*Legendaries shouldn’t be captured,*” the Pidgey replied.  I couldn’t help feeling surprised by how firmly he’d said it.  Swift rarely talked at all, and I never would have described him as forceful.

I couldn’t think of anything to say in response, so I just found myself looking away sheepishly.  The lull in the conversation suddenly made me aware that I could feel the plane descending more rapidly now.  Rudy didn’t seem to have noticed it—he’d gone back to digging through the TM box with Ebony.  Spencer was chatting away at his Electabuzz and Dewgong.

Swift perked up slightly, like something was about to happen.  I was about to ask what was wrong when it happened.  First a rumbling impact that shook the whole plane, followed by a sharp slowdown that sent me flying headlong into the side of a crate.  I clutched onto it instinctively and screwed my eyes shut as loose items smacked into my back.  The air was filled with rumbling, shouting, and the frantic cries of more Pokémon than I could count.  Claws gripped my shoulder and I cracked an eye to see Firestorm grabbing hold and refusing to let go.

Finally, after what felt like ages, the plane grinded to a halt.  I would have sunk to the floor in relief if I hadn’t already been on the floor.

“What the heck was that?!” Rudy yelled, shoving a crate aside and standing to his feet.

“He wanted us to land the plane.  It’s landed,” Tyson replied coldly, a smug edge to his voice.  He was now leaning against the doorway to the cargo hold.  Typhlosion stood firmly next to him, fixing him with a suspicious glare, but Tyson didn’t seem to care anymore.

“Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t think I’ll be flying Rocket Airlines again anytime soon.  I say we get out of here now, and worry about spamming them with bad reviews later,” Spencer said, walking over.

“Where is here, exactly?” I said, glancing around for a window.  I spotted one on the far end of the hangar and started walking toward it, but Rudy beat me there.  It looked like we had crash-landed on the edge of a forest, right alongside a rocky outcropping.

“Alright, so… for starters, how do we get out of the plane?” I asked.

“We could try melting through the ice,” Spencer said, jerking a thumb toward the hole in the back of the plane.  “I’ve got two fire-types, so—”

“You have another fire-type?” Rudy said, looking shocked.  “Why didn’t you use it earlier?”

“I didn’t need to?” Spencer said, shrugging as he recalled Electabuzz and opened a different Pokéball.  The flash of light took the form of a huge striped firedog—taller than any of us.  The Arcanine tossed its head with a proud look upon noticing the attention, ruffling its thick, fluffy mane.

“No way…” Rudy breathed, staring at the firedog in awe.  “Maybe I should’ve tried to convince Chloe to come with…”

“Come on, let’s get outta here,” Spencer said cheerfully, motioning to his Arcanine.

“What are you doing?!” Tyson demanded all of a sudden.

“Getting out of here.  Why, do you like having us around?” Spencer asked tauntingly.

Tyson clenched his teeth.  “You idiots don’t even know where we are.  What are you supposed to do, wander around the forest?”

I raised an eyebrow.  What was he trying to accomplish… getting us to stay here?  How on earth would that help him, given his situation?

Even weirder was the fact that until we had tried to leave, Tyson had seemed weirdly okay with everything that was going on.  Earlier he’d been trying his hardest not to explode with rage.  Now he just seemed… impatient.

“You guys?” I said, lowering my voice to a whisper.  “Anyone else think it’s weird that Tyson’s not pissed at us anymore?”

“Maybe he found his anger meds?” Spencer said with a weak grin.  Rudy and I glanced at each other, then back at Spencer, unimpressed.

“Yeah, okay, that was stupid,” he said, putting a hand to his forehead.  “Anyways, think he’s planning something?”

I couldn’t really tell.  He wasn’t really doing anything, although every so often he’d glance down at the small red and black handheld that he’d been using as a GPS.

Wait… his GPS.

“Oh crap, that’s not a phone, is it?”  I said, my mouth dropping.

Spencer and Rudy looked up at him immediately.  Tyson must have noticed that we were staring at him because he said, “It’s a GPS, idiots,” before going back to fiddling with the buttons.

“Hey Typhlosion, I really need to have what he’s holding.  Like, right now,” Spencer called out.

“Oh, come on!” Tyson roared before being promptly tackled by the fire beast.  After a few seconds of struggle, Typhlosion tossed the black device to Spencer, who caught it.

“Give that the hell back, what do you need it for?!” Tyson raged at us from under Typhlosion’s hold.

“I just really love GPSs,” Spencer replied as he pressed a button on the device, which had the letters “R-com” inscribed on the front.  Both Rudy and I leaned in to get a look at the screen.  A half-finished text message read, “Landed on schedule.  Requesting your current location and—”

“What,” I said flatly, staring at the message.  “Don’t tell me…”

Spencer flipped through the previous messages in the conversation.  “Team dispatched.  ETA 1815.”  “Coordinates sent.  Crash time approx. 1810.”

All three of us looked up at each other incredulously.  I glanced over at Tyson to see an incredibly smug grin.  “I was able to call for backup as soon as I figured out where we’d land,” he said.  “Since we were both converging on the same spot, I bet they’ll be here any second.”

It felt as though the air had been sucked from the room.  For several seconds, no one said anything.  There wasn’t anything to say.  I could already feel a hole in my stomach from dread.  We had been in the clear.  We were going to make it.  And then this.

“Actually!” Spencer exclaimed suddenly.  “I just remembered I have somewhere very important to be, so y’know, I’m just gonna have to take a rain check on the whole battling Rockets to the death thing, so sorry I can’t make it, very urgent, hope you’ll understand, hey guys you’re invited too, let’s go now, Arcanine!”

On that last word, Arcanine barked out a blazing Flamethrower, instantly bursting clean through the ice at the back of the plane and filling the cargo hold with steam.

“Alright, get on board everyone, or we’ll be late for our date with getting-the-frick-out-of-here!” Spencer exclaimed.  Rudy nodded sharply, recalling his Pokémon and jumping up onto the firedog’s back.  I motioned for Swift to follow us in the air before glancing around my feet and seeing Firestorm standing there, looking wary.  And then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the experimental Pikachu’s limp form, still unconscious from destroying the plane’s engines earlier.

It was more of an impulse than anything.  I dashed over, snatched the Pikachu with my right arm before scooping up Firestorm under my left and throwing a leg over the Arcanine’s back.  I glanced back at Spencer, who motioned to Typhlosion, who threw Tyson into a pile of boxes and hurriedly dashed forward on all fours, pausing just long enough for Spencer to leap onto its back.  That was all I saw before Arcanine sprung through the hole in the ice, landing nimbly on the plane’s tail fin before bounding down to the ground.

And then the screeching of tires and what sounded like gunfire tore the air.  Spencer shouted something as he and Typhlosion jumped through the ice hole, and then I was nearly thrown off as the firedog bolted forward with an insane rush of speed, apparently trying to avoid something.  More yelling, more gunshots.  Trees flew by as Arcanine dashed up the side of the rocky ledges alongside the crash site, finally ducking down behind a large boulder, followed by Typhlosion.

I slid down from Arcanine’s back, feeling slightly dizzy as I set Firestorm and Pikachu on the ground.  “What… what is going on,” I gasped, still disoriented.

“The Rockets were on the other side of the jet,” Spencer managed.  “They tried firing at us; couldn’t really get a clear shot, though.”

“What do we do now?!” I panicked.

“I don’t know, I didn’t think they’d be here already!” Spencer exclaimed.  “We could just try making a break for it?”

“Can your Pokémon outrun jeeps?” Rudy asked, sounding honestly optimistic about it.

“I don’t know—maybe over a short distance?”

At that moment, the jeeps pulled up and skidded to a stop on our side of the jet, throwing dust into the air.  I peeked around the ledge to see one of the Rockets jump out in one smooth motion and proceed to look over the damage done to the plane.

“You know, Tyson, when you said the transport jet was going to crash, I never would’ve guessed it was because of some random stowaway kids and a prisoner you were supposed to bring to me,” she said icily.  Was she the executive I was supposed to be interrogated by?

“I—but—don’t go blaming this on me,” Tyson called out.  I glanced up to see him now standing on the tail fin, looking bruised and battered.  “And why didn’t you bring more backup?!  Just a bunch of grunts?”  He sounded on the verge of losing it.

“Cleaning up after the mess you made of the jet sounds like grunt work to me,” she replied lazily.  “That leaves me stuck taking care of the idiot kids.”

“They’re not just kids,” Tyson said defensively.  “One of them has Pokémon that are a match for my experi—”

“Tyson, your experiments were never all that amazing anyway,” she cut in, waving a hand dismissively.  “I don’t even know why you still bother training them after all the progress that your division’s made on number thirty-six.”

“Better than using regular Pokémon,” Tyson shot back.  “And I think you’re forgetting that it’s what I was assigned to do.  Of course, you wouldn’t know what that’s like because the second you joined, you were—”

“Still going on with that crap about how I was always an executive, is that it?” she replied icily.  “I think you should watch what you say there Tyson, unless you feel secure enough in your position to pick fights with me.”  Tyson flinched and didn’t say anything more.

I really had no idea what they were talking about.  Especially confusing was the fact that the executive didn’t sound much older than eighteen.  Could someone so young be ranked that highly on Team Rocket?

“Anyway, if you’re done whining, time for me to fix this mess,” the executive said, turning and walking toward us, her heavy combat boots kicking up dirt.  That was when we got our first real look at her.  She had a tough build with a hardened and mature look about her, which almost made me forget that she was probably younger than most of the other Rockets there.  The way she carried herself just oozed confidence.  Somehow, I couldn’t help getting the feeling that fighting her would be a very, very bad idea.

“Spencer, uh… we need a plan.  Like now,” I muttered, my voice shaking.

“Gimme a sec.  At least they can’t shoot us while we’re back here, right?”

I heard the sound of several Pokéballs opening and looked back at the Rocket to see—“Oh crap, here they come!”

Spencer’s eyes went wide with panic as he motioned for his two fire-types to get on our other side so they could attack from behind the rocks.  A fierce howl filled the air—it sounded like an Arcanine, but it wasn’t Spencer’s.

I edged around the corner just enough to see another striped firedog, this one flashing a horrifyingly vicious snarl at us.  Typhlosion and Arcanine recoiled slightly, losing some of the tension in their stances.

“Crap, gonna hit us with Intimidate, is that it?” Spencer mumbled through gritted teeth.  “Time for ranged moves, then.  Both of you, Flamethrower!”

Twin streams of fire flew down the hill, striking the other Arcanine head-on.  It snarled as it weathered the assault, wincing despite its fire resistance.  But then a tan horse jumped in front of the blaze, scattering the flames as its whole body glowed with a fiery sheen.  It didn’t even seem to notice that it was being hit.  In fact, its fiery mane and tail only intensified.

“Did that just make it stronger?  Oh crap, it must have Flash Fire.  Typhlosion, stop the Flamethrower and use Dig!  Arcanine—”  Spencer’s face suddenly lit up like he’d just made the best realization of his life.  “Dude, I’ve got it!  Typhlosion, quick—use Flamethrower on Arcanine!!”

Typhlosion paused its digging just long enough to spit out a fireball before disappearing underground.  Arcanine’s coat glowed red as the flames seeped into its fur, empowering it.

“Her Arcanine might have Intimidate, but mine’s got Flash Fire!” Spencer exclaimed, looking thoroughly pleased with himself.  “Now for reinforcements,” he said, opening the rest of his Pokéballs.  “Electabuzz, hold them back with nonstop Thunderbolts!  Dewgong, Brine; Pidgeot, Air Slash; Mightyena, Dark Pulse!”

All of his Pokémon got into position upon hearing the commands, Arcanine already throwing a scarily bright Fire Blast into the fray.  But then my eyes lit up when I registered that he had just let out a Pidgeot.

“Wait!  You have a Pidgeot!  Can’t we just fly out of here?!” I exclaimed, jabbing a finger toward the huge eagle taking wing.

Spencer paused, smiling weakly.  “It’s cool that you think he’s that hardcore, but… yeah, no way can he pull off carrying all three of us.”

“Crap…” I muttered.  “Okay, how about one person rides off on Pidgeot while the others stay here protected by the rest of your team, and then Pidgeot comes back to get the others?”

“I… guess that could work?” Spencer said, rubbing the back of his head.

But then a sudden flash of light blinded me as an earsplitting crack tore the air.  I ducked my head and screwed my eyes shut, but the last thing I’d seen was a giant lightning bolt flying overhead.  A pitiful cry rang out, followed by the dull thud of something hitting the ground.  I dared to open my eyes a crack, and then I saw it.  Pidgeot, lying in a crumpled heap, feathers scorched black.  Taken down with a single bolt.  At the bottom of the hill, a Raichu stood, clearly smirking, with sparks still leaping from its cheeks.  It swished its long, inky tail before dashing into the fray.

Spencer was staring wide-eyed at his fallen Pokémon, mouth agape.  Slowly, he reached a trembling hand to his Pokéball belt and recalled Pidgeot in a beam of red.  In that one moment, the real weight of the situation crashed down on us.  It had seemed like we had a fighting chance to get out of here, but… we really didn’t, did we?

“Yeah, that would have been us if we’d tried flying away,” Rudy pointed out.  No one said anything as the implications of his words sunk in.

Chapter Text

I couldn’t do anything but stare at the raging battle, all hope dying rapidly.  Really the only advantage we had was our defensive position, hidden from view with the Rockets out in the open.  That was the only thing stopping them from crushing Spencer’s team and then killing the rest of us effortlessly.

The battlefield was a raging inferno.  A shimmering Light Screen shielded our side from the worst of it, but the heat was still overwhelming.  Even from where I stood, sweat dripped down my face constantly.  Electabuzz was doing its best to paralyze the enemy, but it constantly had to retreat behind the rocks to avoid the blazing flames.  Mightyena’s soot-gray fur was charred black; its moves were sluggish, limbs shaking with burns.  Arcanine darted around too fast to see, soaking up as many fire attacks as it could, but taking plenty of other hits in the process, and the firedog was already looking worn.  Dewgong kept the fires at bay with constant bursts of water fired into the air and crashing down on the opposition.  That was probably the only keeping the enemy Rapidash from getting close enough to attack us.

The executive watched the battle with an almost detached look.  Of course she didn’t have to focus.  She knew she was going to win.

A small bit of movement near my feet caught my eye, and I looked down to see the experimental Pikachu twitching slightly.  I had almost forgotten that I brought him with us—now I wasn’t quite sure if it had been a good idea or not.  He pulled his limbs underneath his body and attempted to raise himself from the ground, but couldn’t stop trembling with exhaustion.

“You… you probably should save your strength,” I said hesitantly.

Pikachu jerked his head toward me, looking disoriented.  Like he instinctively wanted to lash out, but couldn’t figure out how or why.  After a few seconds, the experiment turned sharply toward the battlefield.  Strings of electricity coursed through his feathers, slowly intensifying until, without warning, the hybrid collapsed face-down, muttering incoherently to himself.

I slowly let out a breath, a bit relieved.  It was weird—I didn’t want to risk Pikachu snapping and attacking one of us, but at the same time… I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was our best chance at getting out of here.

At some point Rudy had let out Squirtle and was now fervently relaying instructions.  The water-type nodded warily and took a few careful, timid steps out from behind cover.  Then, upon seeing that he hadn’t become an immediate target, he inhaled deeply and spat a lopsided ring of water across the battlefield.  The attack splashed into the executive’s Rapidash, who shook it off, looking more annoyed than hurt.

Rudy folded his arms.  “Huh, that kinda sucked.  Try it again—Water Pulse!”

Of course—he’d been teaching his Squirtle all kinds of moves while we were on the plane.  I immediately reached into my pocket and grabbed the Fire Blast TM that Rudy had given me, running a finger over the glossy case that enclosed the red disc inside.  Any little bit could help turn the tide of the battle in our favor… I had to use it.

“Firestorm, can I ask you something?”

The Charmander turned from where he’d been watching the battle with rapt attention.  I held out the TM, pausing to find the right words.

“It’s a Technical Machine,” I explained.  “Spencer’s Pokémon can’t handle this alone—if we’re gonna get out of this, we need to help too.”

(We?  What could I do to help?  Nothing, that was just it.  I wasn’t even his trainer.)

I forced the thought from my head and went on, “This thing will teach you how to use one of the strongest fire attacks there is.  Would you be willing to learn it to help us fight them?”

Firestorm nodded almost immediately.  Did he realize what he was agreeing to?  How dangerous it was?  (But what choice did we have, really?)

Swift watched with curious interest as I held the disc a few inches above Firestorm’s forehead, flipped a small switch on its side to unlock it, and pressed the largest button.  The disc glowed for a few seconds and began spinning—giving off some sort of wave, from what little I knew about TMs.  Firestorm froze, looking like he’d been seized by some invisible force.  Different parts of his body began to glow faintly.  After nearly a minute, the disc slowed, and I pulled it away.

“How do you feel?” I asked, stepping back a bit so he could get into position.

The Charmander didn’t move.  He still looked a bit dazed, like he was stuck in a trance that he couldn’t pull himself out of.

“…Firestorm?” I asked slowly, a bit puzzled.  I’d never actually seen a Pokémon’s reaction to a TM, so I had no idea if this was normal.  I took one hesitant step towards him.

And then his gaze sharpened instantly.  Shimmering waves of heat began to leak from the Charmander’s mouth, like he couldn’t hold it back.  That was the only warning before his mouth snapped open and a column of flames poured out, sending his small figure reeling backwards from the force.  So much fire that it almost looked ridiculous coming from him.

“Good, good!” I called out, shielding my face from the heat.  “Now aim it at the Rockets’ Pokémon!”

Firestorm furrowed his brow, looking a bit strained.  With effort, he tilted his head downward, but that just caused the flame to spiral out of control, splitting into five branches that twisted wildly in different directions.  The lizard’s eyes went wide, and he tried to force his mouth shut, but the flames kept pouring out relentlessly.  My face fell with dread.  This wasn’t supposed to happen.

“Did you teach the Charmander Fire Blast?!” Spencer exclaimed, running over to me.

“Err, yeah?” I replied, a sinking feeling growing inside me.

He clapped a hand to his forehead.  “Aw crap, I should’ve warned you—pretty much everyone tries it at some point.  Arcanine, block the flames!”

The firedog let out a bark and leaped right into the center of the blast, cutting off the torrent of flames and preventing it from streaming all over the place.  Its fur glowed red with heat, but otherwise the Arcanine was unaffected.  The whole attack probably only lasted a few seconds but it felt like ages.  Finally, the stream of fire began to wane.  Firestorm sank to the ground, coughing and sputtering, brightly glowing flares still dripping from his tiny fangs.

“Using a TM just gives a Pokémon the ability to do the move.  They’re not suddenly gonna be an expert at it without any practice.  That goes double for the uber ones that’re hard to control,” Spencer explained while directing his Pokémon back into battle position.

I felt like shrinking into a corner somewhere.  What had seemed like the only way I could help had backfired completely.  I glanced down at the TM case, now noticing the label along the bottom corner that read “Rating: 120 (Highly Advanced).”

“I… I’m sorry—I didn’t know…” I mumbled.

“It’s okay,” he cut in, trying to sound optimistic.  “Arcanine blocked it from hitting the rest of my team.  We’re still behind, but I’m not counting us out just—”

A sudden blinding flash forced us to shield our eyes.  Squinting through my fingers, I barely managed to make out a raging ball of red energy right before it plowed into the unsuspecting form of Spencer’s Arcanine.  Brilliant orange shock waves radiated out from the impact, digging deep into the firedog’s body.  With a garbled cry, Arcanine’s powerful frame collapsed like a ragdoll.

“I… what?  W-what the heck was that?” I stammered.

Spencer was frozen, unable to process what had just happened as he numbly reached for a Pokéball to recall his fallen Pokémon.  Now visible in the middle of the battlefield was a stout crimson fox, panting hard as steam leaked from its body.  Was… was it the one who had just done that?

“No.  No, no, no, whyyy?  That’s not fair, I didn’t even see that she had a Flareon out,” Spencer said, his words strained.  He pulled out his Pokédex and pointed it at the fire-type, smacking his forehead upon reading something.  “Superpower.  Really?  It used Superpower?  Can I just forfeit now or get a handicap or something??”

No one said anything.  With Arcanine down, the executive’s Pokémon were now free to throw as much fire around as they wanted.  Not even Dewgong’s water could a dent in it now—the ice seal cried out in pain, constantly bombarded with flames.

“I’m… I’m out of ideas,” Spencer said.  “Any time you two want to reveal that you’ve secretly been ace trainers all along, I’d love to hear it.”

I looked miserably down at Firestorm.  The fire lizard was still panting badly with embers dripping from his mouth.  Swift sat next to him with feathers fluffed out, probably trying to comfort him.

“I don’t know what to do.”  Just saying it made my blood run cold.

“Stop talking like that, you guys—we can’t lose!” Rudy cried, but even his voice was starting to break.  Squirtle was panting hard, tired out from attempting Water Pulse so many times.

We all stared at each other hopelessly as the flames raged on in the background.  What else could we do?  Already my brain was trying to grasp at ways that we could convince the executive to let us go, all of them equally stupid.  There had to be some way out of this.  There just had to.

And then without warning, a high-pitched screech tore the air.  I glanced upward right as a piercing neon beam shot down from the sky, aimed straight at the Rockets’ Pokémon.  It struck them with a blinding flash of light, sending shock waves running through the earth.

“H-hyper Beam?” I stammered, my knees shaking from the beam’s not-so-distant impact.  I turned my gaze skyward, where I could barely make out something approaching us with terrifying speed.  Leathery wings; long, spaded tail—it was an Aerodactyl.  And as it neared, I could see that it had a rider.

“Hey, Jade!” the rider yelled.

I jolted in surprise.  They weren’t clearly visible yet, but I could never, ever forget that voice.

“It can’t be…” I muttered.

When the winged Pokémon got within view, I could finally make out a petite teenaged girl riding on its back—fair-skinned with a bright, confident face and short, black hair blowing in the wind.

It really was her.

“No way… Ajia?!” I yelled.

Ajia was here.  How?  Why?  It didn’t make any sense.  But I had no doubt that the approaching trainer was my old friend, even though I hadn’t seen her in so long.  The only thing I could do was raise a hand and wave, still in shock.  Grinning slightly, Ajia waved back from atop the pterosaur.

“Who invited you here?!” Tyson shouted.

“Shut up, I’m the one handling this,” the Rocket executive said, looking rather intrigued by the new arrival.

Raichu fired a bolt of lightning into the air, but Aerodactyl easily dodged it, swooping down to land behind the rocky ledge that we’d been using as cover.  After unclipping herself from the Pokémon’s flight harness, she slid down from its back, now standing next to me at about shoulder height.

“What’s wrong, Jade?  I thought you’d be happier to see me,” she said, laughing and elbowing me lightly in the ribs.

That broke me out of my trance.  Still, I felt more than a little overwhelmed as I struggled to find my words.  “You… how—how are you here?  I haven’t seen you in… over a year, at least.  Not since you left to train in Johto.”

“I wanted to visit Viridian sooner, but I got caught up with things.  And from the looks of it, so did you…”  Her voice trailed off as she looked over the bizarre setting, from the mangled jet plane to the crowd of jeeps, the executive still glowering at us, and the hybrid Pikachu lying a few feet from me.  The look she gave me next made me suddenly aware of the fact that I was still covered in soot.  “…How did you even get involved in this mess?” she asked, rubbing the back of her head.

I put a hand to my forehead.  “I don’t even know anymore.”

“Hi, guys. I love reunions, and the best way to bond at a reunion is to beat the crap out of the people that want to kill us with awesome top-class Pokémon that you totally have, am-I-right?” Spencer cut in rapidly with an overly hopeful look on his face.

“That’s why I’m here,” she said simply, putting a hand on his shoulder.  “Don’t worry, I’ve got this.”  Spencer looked ready to collapse from relief.

Ajia turned sharply to face the battlefield with an expression that had shifted into intense focus.  Spencer had just recalled his battered Dewgong into its ball, which left only Electabuzz and Typhlosion remaining in the fight—the former still desperately holding the opponents back with lightning, and the latter avoiding blows by popping in and out of the ground and striking unexpectedly.  The bottom of the hill was scarred from the Hyper Beam, but none of the Rocket’s Pokémon had fallen.

“She probably had Raichu put up a Light Screen at the last second—at least, I wouldn’t expect anything less from her,” Ajia muttered to herself.  Her hands moved animatedly as she took stock of the Rocket’s lineup before coming to a decision.  “Raichu has to go down first—Pichu, you’re up!”

She swung her bag down from her shoulder, and a small, pale-yellow mouse leaped out, instantly dashing into the fray.  The very same Pichu she left Viridian with on that day nearly four years ago.

“She still hasn’t evolved?” I asked, watching the nimble mouse skillfully ducking under her opponents and zapping them with small jolts of electricity.

“She didn’t want to,” Ajia replied with a shrug.  “We’ve focused all our training on getting around it.”  She was already opening two more Pokéballs and giving out rapid-fire orders to her Pokémon.

An Espeon gave a flick of its forked tail before dashing into the fray.  An Umbreon followed not far behind, squirting out a noxious liquid from its pores and hitting the Arcanine right on target.  The dark fox didn’t even try to dodge the overwhelming flames that followed, but it didn’t even try to.  It just stood its ground against the inferno, wincing slightly but looking like it could endure them all day.  Overhead, Aerodactyl was tilting and rolling through the air, forcing the Raichu to waste all its energy just trying to land a hit, all while sending blades of air flying from its wingtips, keeping the Rapidash from breaking through the lineup.

Ajia nodded to herself.  “Alright, this shouldn’t be tooooo bad,” she said.  “Not the worst situation in the world.  And they were already weakened a bit before I got here, so I should be able to come out on top.”

I stared at her, chills running down my spine.  Everything that she’d said was starting to come together.  “Ajia, you’ve… have you fought Rockets before?”

The question made her pause, but then she nodded.  And from the sound of things, she’d had much worse fights than this.  Just what had she been doing since I lost contact with her?

My attention snapped back to the fight as Pichu darted past the executive’s Flareon, easily dodging the fire fox’s attempt to bite with fangs like hot iron.  Raichu kept trying to charge up one of its huge lightning bolts but couldn’t keep its concentration with Pichu firing energy stars into its face.  Meanwhile, any of the opposing Pokémon trying to land a hit found themselves held in place by a psychic aura from Espeon.  And in the moment it took them to shake off the telekinesis, they’d be easy targets for Aerodactyl, whose tongue was hanging out as it looped through the air, almost lazily enjoying its role.

I couldn’t help staring in awe.  Even though Ajia hadn’t given any commands more complex than just move names, her team seemed to already know what kind of strategy she wanted them to use.  Like she’d already spent time training them for this sort of melee.  By now, half of the Rocket’s Pokémon were covered in a toxic film, gradually dulling their movements the longer they had to struggle against Ajia’s disruptive tactics.  Sure, the opponents had ridiculously strong attacks, but it didn’t matter if they couldn’t pull any of them off.

A pitiful cry drew my attention to the executive’s Arcanine.  It had just collapsed, finally succumbing to poison and exhaustion.  Seconds later, a red beam drew it back into its Pokéball.

“All right!  One down!” Rudy exclaimed.

I had to admit, it was a huge relief.  Finally, a real sign that it was possible for us to win this.

Ajia grinned to herself before pressing the attack.  Aerodactyl finally got an opening to soar low over the battlefield, striking the earth and sending a Rock Slide cascading down the hill.  Raichu tried to send more bolts toward the rock-type, but Umbreon kept hounding it up close, unfazed by the lightning.  Espeon had leaped onto Rapidash’s back, pelting the horse with psychic blasts no matter how hard it tried to buck the fox off.  Ajia was winning.  We were going to make it out of here.

And then a vicious howl echoed through the air, making Ajia’s team all flinch.  Wait, but that sounded like…?  I edged over to get a better view of the Rockets and stared in disbelief.  The executive’s Arcanine was back in the fight, barking out Flamethrowers and looking completely refreshed.

Ajia slapped her forehead. “Of course they have a portable healer.  They would have one of those, the cheats.”  Her brow furrowed, and for the first time since she’d arrived, Ajia looked slightly worried.  I glanced back at the Rockets and finally spotted it—a sleek, capsule-like device almost like a rounded briefcase, held by one the grunts in the closest jeep.

“Could… could we try to destroy the healer?” I asked tentatively.

Ajia shook her head.  “Those are combat jeeps—they’ll have shields.  We need a way to retreat.  Aerodactyl should be able to fly with two riders, at least.”  She motioned to get Spencer’s attention.  “Er, sorry, I don’t know your name.”

“Spencer Dailey, at your service,” he replied with a mock bow.

“Right—do you have any flying Pokémon big enough to carry anyone?”

Spencer’s face fell immediately.  “I, er—well, I did.  Pidgeot got hurt bad at the start of the battle.”

Ajia clicked her tongue.  “How bad?  I’ve got a revive for emergencies.”

Spencer winced.  “It was pretty bad.  He’d need some serious healing just to carry me, let alone—”  He paused, looking ready to smack himself.  It took me a few seconds, but then then it hit me.  We were idiots—there had been a massive box of healing supplies in the plane.  If we’d only thought to grab some of them.

Ajia raised an eyebrow at the expressions of horror suddenly crossing our faces.  “Let me guess—things just got worse?  Really guys, this is enough surprises for one day.”

“It’s not that,” I said, putting a hand over my face.  “We left behind a huge crate of potions and such in the plane.  If we had thought to bring them with us, we could have done the same thing the Rockets are doing now.”  Or better yet, we could have figured out a way to escape.

Ajia nodded, her expression tough to make out.  She observed the plane’s wreck and I could practically see the gears turning in her head.  “So, we just need to figure out a way onto the plane.  It’d be too difficult for us to make it over there while they’ve got any Pokémon out.”

“And guns.  Guns are pretty bad too,” Spencer piped up.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan for that,” Ajia said with a wink.  “But as for the Pokémon, since they’ll just get healed anytime we take one out…”  Her eyes lit up, and she tapped a fist to her palm.  “We just have to take them all out at the same time.  Then we can storm the plane while they’re being healed and get out of here, no problem.”

Her enthusiasm was rubbing off—I couldn’t help feeling a jolt of excitement, though it immediately gave way to doubt.  “We have to knock them all out at once?  How the heck are we supposed to do that?”

“Pii pika’chu pikaa.”

The sudden voice in Pokéspeech caught me off guard, and I whirled around to see the experimental Pikachu finally pulling himself to his feet.  He swayed a bit unsteadily, but kept his sharp gaze fixed on us.

“…What?”  It took me several seconds to piece together that he wanted to help.  “How are you supposed to—you’re out of power, what could you possibly do?”

I hadn’t meant to say it so bluntly.  The hybrid’s tail twitched angrily, and I flinched.  But then, to my surprise, he called out to Pichu.

Pichu glanced back at her trainer in confusion in between ducking and weaving around opponents.  Ajia looked just as puzzled for a few seconds, but also curious.  So she gave Pichu the go-ahead, and Pichu rushed over to us.

Then Pikachu explained something at length to the both of them.  He spoke too quickly for me to make out what he was saying, though Ajia seemed to have no trouble with it.  Every so often I caught a few words like ‘power’ or ‘knock out’ or ‘lightning rod.’

Throughout all of this, Ajia kept half of her focus on the battle, still giving commands to the rest of her team.  Pichu was staring at Pikachu, looking half-impressed, and half like she thought he was insane.  She glanced up at her trainer incredulously.

“Sounds weird, but he’d know his power better than we do,” Ajia said, still facing the battle.  “I say we go for it.”

Pichu nodded and turned to Pikachu, who held a paw against the electric pouch on her cheek and closed his eyes in concentration.  Strings of lightning began surging across his arm, flowing into him from the smaller mouse.  He recoiled in pain, but kept his paw firmly in place.  His breathing grew labored and his limbs trembled.  Sparks leapt from his fur erratically.  And yet he gave no sign that he wanted to stop.

“What exactly is going on here?” I asked, feeling horribly lost.

Ajia tilted her head, looking confused.  “Didn’t you hear what he—ohhh, right, I forgot you had trouble with Pokéspeech.”

“Er, well… I’m a lot better than I used to be,” I mumbled, feeling my cheeks go red.  “Maybe not fluent, but…”

Ajia nodded, obviously realizing I didn’t want to talk about it.  “Well, Pichu is channeling her power supply into him.  He said he could absorb it, but from the way he described his ability, it’s… strange.”  She trailed off, looking both intrigued and puzzled.  At least I wasn’t the only one confused.

It took a few minutes for Pichu to drain her remaining power supply into Pikachu, and she had to pause several times.  When it was finally done, Pichu slumped to the ground, exhausted.  Pikachu slowly rose to his feet, fur standing on end and eyes filled with a renewed vigor.  Still, something about his plan didn’t make any sense.

“I don’t get it,” I said to him.  “I understand that your power is—I don’t know—more intense from being part Zapdos and all, but if she’s just giving her power to you… what can you do with it that she can’t?”

He paused heavily.  And then, for the first time that I’d seen, he managed to wrench his face into something other than pain or rage: an ironic smile.  “*Most Pokémon can’t drain their whole power supply into one move.  It’s not natural.  Their bodies can’t handle it.  But me?  I have a hard time not doing that.*”

Ajia kneeled down and scooped up the small, sad form of her drained Pichu, gently placing the mouse in her bag.  Then she turned to the rest of us and asked, “Is everyone ready?”

Pikachu was the first one to nod, saying, “*Raichu is the only problem.  He’ll be able to deflect some of my lightning.*”

Ajia nodded.  “Alright, so we pretty much have to ditch strategy and take out that Raichu however possible.  Sounds fun.  Got any sure-shot moves?”

It took Spencer a second to realize that she had addressed that last bit to him.  “Oh?  Oh, yeah!  Typhlosion, Electabuzz—use Swift!” he yelled, pointing straight at Raichu.

“Umbreon, Faint Attack!  Espeon, Swift!  Aerodactyl, Aerial Ace!” Ajia ordered.

Raichu recoiled in surprise and tried to make a break for it, but was there was no dodging the ridiculous barrage of attacks aimed at him.  Energy discs, blades of wind, bursts of shadow—Raichu cried out in pain as he was smacked between one attack after another.  The Rocket executive shot a murderous glare at us, but she had no choice but to recall him.

“Alright, it’s now or never!” Ajia exclaimed motioning for her Pokémon to return to her side.

Typhlosion ducked underground again, and Electabuzz stumbled back to where we stood, bruised, burned, and exhausted.  Rudy recalled Squirtle, which made me realize that I’d need to do the same for Swift and Firestorm.  I flashed an apologetic look to the Charmander as I held out his Pokéball, but he didn’t protest, so I recalled him.

Only the experiment remained standing between us and the Rocket’s Pokémon.  We didn’t have much time before Raichu would be fully healed again.  Had to make it count.

“*This ends now,*” Pikachu said.  A flash of hate flickered in his eyes.

He raced down the hill into the fray, an explosion of sparks leaping off his body.  It wouldn’t have even been right to describe the ensuing lightning as bolts; more like a flood of electricity pouring from every inch of his body with no way to hold it back.  The Rocket’s Pokémon countered with a rush of fire, but they were no match.  The wave of lightning broke through the flames like they were nothing, completely enveloping the enemy lineup.  One by one, all of the Rocket’s Pokémon collapsed to the ground.

But there was no stopping the flood of lightning.  I wasn’t sure Pikachu could have controlled it even if he’d wanted to.  Huge bolts shot from his body at random, most of them flying into the air, others hurtling toward the Rockets.  They didn’t even get a chance to run—all of them standing outside the jeeps collapsed instantly.  I couldn’t help wincing—it was strange to see our attackers suddenly rendered so… helpless.

And then, just as suddenly as it began, the flood of lightning abruptly ended, giving way to erratic bursts of sparks right before Pikachu collapsed.  The whole thing couldn’t have lasted more than thirty seconds, but it had felt like ages.  I couldn’t help tensing up—time to move.

“That’s our cue!” Ajia called out.  Her team immediately huddled around her in a defensive formation.

Spencer motioned to Typhlosion, who spewed a thick cloud of smoke down the hill, completely surrounding the Rockets.  Then he gave Electabuzz an apologetic look and said, “Just a little more, buddy, we’re almost free.”  The electric-type grunted with fatigue, but joined Ajia’s defensive lineup.

Next, Ajia turned to me and Rudy and said, “You two hop on Aerodactyl, the rest of us will follow on foot.”  We didn’t need telling twice—both of us jumped up and got positioned on the winged reptile’s back, tightly gripping the straps on its harness.

“Everyone ready?  Let’s move out!”

Aerodactyl vaulted into the air, and I clutched the straps for dear life as my stomach suddenly flipped upside down.  Oh man, was I not ready for my first flight to be on something this fast.  For the first few seconds I screwed my eyes shut, refusing to look down.  But then…  I had to know if Ajia and Spencer were alright on the ground.  So I opened my eyes just a crack, and barely caught a glimpse of two figures sprinting down the hill as quickly as possible, surrounded on all sides by Pokémon.  It was hard to see them clearly through the smoke, but the Rockets must have noticed them—my heart stopped as gunfire broke out.

But Ajia’s plan worked—most of the shots completely missed.  One or two bullets pinged uselessly off of Protect shields.  I let out the breath I’d been holding, then immediately held it again as Aerodactyl tucked its wings and swooped forward and shot straight through the hole in the back of the jet.  Then it flared its wings to kill our momentum, and I nearly toppled right over its head before we all came to a stop in the middle of the cargo bay.

My limbs shook as I slid down from the reptile’s back.  Rudy looked a bit nauseous and muttered, “That would have been so cool if we weren’t running for our lives.”

Not far behind us, Ajia and Spencer leaped through the hole almost weightlessly, glowing with the aura of Espeon’s telekinesis.  Ajia paused just long enough to recall the psychic-type before racing forward to meet us, holding the experimental Pikachu under one arm.

“I grabbed him from the battlefield,” she said, thrusting the spiky furball into my arms.

I blinked confusedly, taking several seconds to process what had just happened.  My brain attempted to form the words, “He’s not mine,” but Ajia cut me off by asking Spencer where the healing supplies were.

“O-oh, right, they were near the front of the plane last I saw them,” he replied.

Ajia nodded, and the two of them dashed off through the maze of boxes and crates.  I stood there with Rudy, unable to do anything but wait, now uncomfortably aware of the clock ticking down until the Rockets’ Pokémon would be healed.

“Found them!” Ajia exclaimed, and the two soon reappeared, carrying the box.

Spencer released his Pidgeot, and they immediately began spraying the massive bird with nearly every medicine they could get their hands on.  Slowly, the blackened skin and feathers began to heal.  Once most of the visible damage was gone, Spencer pressed a small yellow crystal against the bird’s head, and it finally snapped awake.

“Hey bud, feeling better?” Spencer asked as Pidgeot stumbled to its feet—still a bit dazed and weak, but clearly in much better shape than before.

“Alright!  Time to get out of here and never get captured by Rockets again!  Sound good?  I thought so, now get over here Rudy!” Spencer called out.

Not wasting any time, Rudy sprinted over and jumped on behind Spencer while Ajia ran over to me and the two of us mounted her Aerodactyl.  Both Pokémon outstretched their wings, and I barely had a few seconds to brace myself before we took off.  Aerodactyl shot forward, straight through the opening at the back of the jet, nearly throwing me off with its speed.  I clenched my teeth and struggled to keep my grip on the harness straps, all while holding the Pikachu tucked under my arm.

Suddenly, Aerodactyl swerved to the left to avoid a streak of lightning that tore past us, rending the air with an earsplitting crack.  I barely caught a glimpse of the Raichu sparking wildly beneath us, apparently fully healed.  So they’d managed to heal it in time.  But then the sickening realization hit me—Pidgeot hadn’t been fast enough to avoid the mouse’s Thunder last time.

I threw a glance over my shoulder to see Spencer and Rudy trailing behind us.  Time slowed, and my insides froze as the Raichu prepared for another attack.  They weren’t going to make it.

And then without warning, Pidgeot accelerated out of nowhere, speeding forward to catch up with us and narrowly avoiding the lightning bolt that was aimed straight at them.

“Ha!  I knew it’d be good to give you a dose of that X Speed in there!” Spencer exclaimed wildly, patting his bird’s neck.

I couldn’t even see the Rockets anymore, that’s how fast we were speeding away from them.  My eyes were wide and my breathing shallow and I could hardly believe what had just happened, but none of that mattered because we’d made it.

Chapter Text

January, 5 years ago

“So, are you finally gonna tell us what you’re upset about?” Ajia asked, breaking the tension that had followed us ever since school got out.

Starr let out a frustrated sigh. “Ajia, I thought I already said I didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Ahh, sorry, I’ll stop asking,” Ajia replied, holding her palms out.

The three of us were walking to Ajia’s house. She lived closest to school, so we usually hung out at her place. My house was too far to walk. And I’d never even seen where Starr lived.

Starr’s arms were folded. Her face looked like she was arguing with herself in her head. “Alright fine, it’s Lexx,” she finally said. “That little worm stole my report card.” She glowered at Ajia like it was somehow her fault.

“Has he done anything with it?” Ajia asked patiently.

Starr paused to think. “Well, no. But he’s obviously planning to use it as blackmail or something.”

Ajia put a hand to her chin. “Do you want me to talk to him?”

“I wasn’t asking you to,” Starr replied quickly. “Besides, he’s my brother, not yours.”

“That just means he might listen to me,” Ajia pointed out with a sly grin.

Starr let out a snort. “I swear it’s like you’re the only person he listens to sometimes. But of course my parents always go easy on him.”

“Was the report card really that bad?” I asked curiously.

Starr had to tilt her head to look up at me. I was walking on top of the brick wall that ran along the sidewalk, so I was way taller than her.

The look Starr gave me said that she wasn’t too happy with my question. But then she made a face like she didn’t care and said, “Well, if you really need to know, I didn’t pass math or writing.”

Oof. That was pretty bad.

“Don’t give me that look,” Starr said, rolling her eyes. “Are you really doing that much better?”

“I’m passing most of my classes,” I replied defensively. Not Pokéspeech. But that class was impossible anyway, so it basically didn’t count. I don’t know how anyone managed to pass.

The wall stopped when we reached the end of the block, so I jumped down and landed next to Starr. We were almost the same height, even though she was older than me.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter,” Starr went on. “When we get to Ajia’s place, I just want to hang out and watch shows and pretend I’m an only child.”

I shrugged. “That’s fine with me.”

Ajia elbowed Starr. “Seriously, do you want me to talk to Lexx? I hate to see my friends fight. Even if they’re related,” she added with a wink.

Starr let out an exaggerated groan. “Ajia, when are you gonna learn that I don’t want you to fix things all the time?”

Ajia laughed. “Sorry, sorry.”

A few seconds passed. Starr rubbed her arm, glancing away. “But like… if you wanted to help, I’m not gonna stop you or anything.”

Ajia’s face lit up. “Sure thing.”

Today

“All in all, great job today, everyone.  I’d say we’ve graduated to top class as far as not-getting-killed-by-Rockets goes,” Spencer said, stretching widely and flopping to the ground.

We were resting in a small, shaded clearing in the woods some twenty minutes west of the crash side, after Spencer’s Pidgeot had proven too sore to make the full journey back to Viridian—especially with two passengers.  None of us protested the chance to stop and catch our breath after the harrowing escape.  I hadn’t moved from the spot I’d collapsed onto after sliding down Aerodactyl’s back, utterly numb.  It would have been nice to just lie there with the wind rustling the leaves and watch the sky slowly melt into red as the day drew to a close.  I still had too many thoughts swirling through my head to appreciate it, though.

“And as an added bonus, check it out,” Spencer added, sliding his backpack down from his shoulders and opening it to reveal… Pokéballs.  Lots and lots of Pokéballs.

“The other stolen Pokémon from the plane,” he went on, grinning broadly.  “I only had a few seconds, so I pretty much just dumped ‘em all in while we were looking for the healing items.  No clue where any of ‘em came from, but I figure I can drop them off at a ranger station so they can get back to their homes or trainers or whatever.”

The other Pokémon—I’d completely forgotten about them after all the fighting for our lives.  At least something good had come from us needing to return to the plane.

“So, Jade… you’ve really got to tell me how you got mixed up with those Rockets in the first place,” Ajia said, giving me a sideways glance—or at least, what looked sideways, given that I was sprawled out on the grass looking up at her.  It was hard to tell with everything upside-down.

I couldn’t help letting out a laugh.  “Me?  What about you?!  How did you even know we were there?”

“I asked you first,” Ajia replied with a playful smirk.

Oh, come on.  That wasn’t fair.

I sighed, unsure of how much I wanted to say about it.  “I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and saw something I shouldn’t have.  That’s really all it was.”  Okay, so that wasn’t the whole truth.  Still, I wasn’t exactly sure if I wanted to bring up my conversation with the Charizard trainer—not because he told me to keep it a secret, but because I was afraid of the reaction I’d get.

Ajia raised an eyebrow, looking confused.  “They kidnapped you just because you saw them doing something?  That seems like a waste of time.  A big organization like Team Rocket shouldn’t care if some random kid saw them doing something.  It’s not like you could do anything with that info.”

I paused.  “Well… it wasn’t just ‘something.’  I saw them trying to catch Entei.”

That got a noticeable silence out of everyone.  Rudy sat up immediately, eyes wide and jaw hanging.

“You actually saw Entei?” he finally said.

I nodded blankly, unsure of what else to do.

“Entei.  As in, Legendary beast, Entei?  Makes volcanoes erupt, and all that?” Spencer said incredulously.

“Has anyone ever captured a Legendary before?” Rudy asked with an awed look.

Almost immediately, Ajia replied, “No.  Never.”

I closed my eyes, feeling miserable.  “They succeeded.  They actually caught it.  There wasn’t anything I could do.”

Ajia gave me a weird look, like she found my words completely bizarre.  “Well, come on.  It’s not like you could have done anything.”

I couldn’t have done anything.  It was the same way with the Rocket situation we had just been in.  In both cases, I’d been powerless.

“What would you have done in that situation?” I found myself asking, not entirely sure why.

“Huh?  That’s… what kind of question is that?”

I sighed.  “Never mind.  It was stupid, forget it.”

“Scary organization that tried to kill us now has an ultra-powerful fire-breathing weapon.  I hope I’m not the only one bothered by this,” Spencer remarked.

I didn’t really know what to say to that so I just stared up at the sky.  It was almost night—pinpricks of starlight had begun shining above us.  If we didn’t get back to Viridian soon, I’d have a world of explaining to do.  The idea of returning home after all of this felt strange and foreign.

“Even if you saw them going after Entei, I still don’t get why they cared so much,” Ajia went on, apparently still trying to figure out the missing link in my story.  “It just seems weird that they had to kidnap you even if you didn’t know all that much about them.”

“Can… can we not talk about this anymore?” I asked, looking away.  “And in any case… what about you?  You never said how found us there.”

“I saw the Fire Blast from the air.  It was pretty hard to miss, actually.”

I gave her an incredulous stare.  “Um.  You just happened to be flying by and see us?”

Ajia chuckled slightly.  “Okay, okay, I already knew you were in trouble.  I heard about the situation from a friend.  It’s kind of a long story, though.”

I raised an eyebrow.  “We’ve got time.  And does this have anything to do with the fact that you’ve fought Rockets before?”

She considered the question for a bit and then nodded.  “I don’t want to end up dragging you into that mess, though.”

I couldn’t help staring.  “I’m already involved in this Rocket mess after today, so what’s the difference?”

“Jade, be glad that what happened today didn’t pull you in too deep,” she said, suddenly looking very serious.  I blinked, a bit taken aback by the sudden tone shift.  My brain still had a hard time accepting the fact that she was used to situations like this.

Ajia paused, seeing the look on my face.  “I’m sorry.  It all happened a long time ago.”

I didn’t say anything.  It was kind of obvious that she didn’t want to tell me anyway, and I couldn’t help feeling annoyed, even if she had a good reason.

“So… what are you going to do now?  Were you on a training journey before this all started?” Ajia asked.

“Eh… not exactly… I still don’t have a trainer’s license, so—”

“You don’t?” she asked, looking confused.  “How did you get a Charmander, then?”

“He’s, uh… not mine.  I found him in the woods before I ran into the Rockets.”

“Which is completely unfair, if you ask me,” Rudy interjected.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said exasperatedly.  “Y’know, I’m… kind of surprised you chose Squirtle as your starter.”

Rudy folded his arms with an overly sulky expression.  “Yeah.  Thanks a lot, Dad.  He specifically requested a water-type for the job.  He thinks me and Ebony aren’t responsible enough to travel on our own without starting a wildfire or something.”

His dad was probably right about that, but I didn’t dare say so out loud.

“So, think we’re ready to head off now?” Ajia asked, standing up and stretching.  “Back to Viridian, right?”

I hesitated.  After the events of today, the idea of returning home like nothing had ever happened felt… strange.  Going to school, doing homework, knowing that the legends were in danger?  Sure, maybe I was too weak to do anything about Team Rocket now.  But wasn’t that what the Charizard trainer was aiming to change?  How could I go home and do nothing after hearing what he’d said and seeing the proof right in front of me?

I hadn’t wanted to get involved because I didn’t think I could make a difference.  Now I wanted to join because of that.  Maybe I was just insane.

“Hey Ajia, can I talk to you about something for a bit?”

“Sure?” she said, looking a bit puzzled when I stood up and walked away from the clearing.  I guess it was kind of weird that I wanted to talk about it in private.  But I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone to begin with, and I’d known Ajia the longest, so it just felt right.

“What is it?” Ajia asked once we were a good distance from the others, who were now looking rather confused.

I took a deep breath before pulling the card out of my pocket and handing it to her.  “I want to know what you think of this.  I’m honestly considering joining a group working against Team Rocket.”

Something flickered in her eyes when I said that, though I couldn’t quite figure out what.  “So you really want to fight the Rockets, huh?  Even after what I said.”

I nodded.  Much to my surprise, she just smiled and shrugged.  “Hey, if you’re set on trying to help stop them, I’ll stop trying to talk you out of it.  I’d be lying if I said I regretted my decision to get involved way back when.  It’s been hard… but it’s worth it.”

Ajia proceeded to read the card several times, repeating certain bits out loud to herself as though trying to discover some hidden meaning that I’d overlooked.  “This is… really vague.  Possibly just to protect the leader from being found out.  It doesn’t even say where you’ll be going… I guess you’re supposed to learn that in Vermilion.  Overall, it’s suspicious, but I don’t think it’s a trap.”

“A trap?” I said blankly.  The thought hadn’t really occurred to me.

She nodded.  “There’s always the possibility, but that’d be very unlike the Rockets.  What would they gain by going and finding a bunch of kids, pointlessly feeding them info, and then killing them?  No, I think it’s real… though I can’t say I know what the motives are.”

The motives?  What other motive could there be other than stopping Team Rocket for its own sake?  Before I could ask, Ajia said, “Who exactly gave this to you?  The leader of the team, or someone working for them?”

“Um, I’m pretty sure he was the leader.  Tall guy, college-aged… er, I’m not very good at describing people.”

Ajia paused, deep in thought.  She considered something for a few seconds and then said, “Make sure he gives you more info before you commit to anything.  And I hope you’ll get to train for a while before actually fighting any Rockets.  Then again, only an idiot would throw newbie trainers against them and expect anything good to come out of it.  So depending on how good the training is… this could actually be a really good opportunity.  But do you need to get a license first…?”

I clenched my fists.  “I failed the test again, so I can’t.  But I don’t care.  I’ve wanted to be a trainer ever since you left.  Heck, even before that, back when Starr left.  So… I’m doing this, with or without.”

Ajia’s expression faltered for just a second.  But then her face split into a wide grin.  “I don’t know whether to tell you that’s a bad idea, or tell you that’s the best thing I’ve ever heard you say.”  I couldn’t help laughing slightly.  “So I guess you want to go to Vermilion now?”

I paused.  This was it.

“Yeah.  To Vermilion.”

As we walked back to the clearing, my head already felt lighter.  This was real.  I’d made my decision.

“So Jade, mind telling us what your ultra-secret talk was about?” Rudy asked with a bit of a laugh.

I took a deep breath and said it: “I’m starting my training journey.”  Somehow, saying it out loud made it feel all the more real.

Rudy stared at me, taking a few seconds to process my words.  “…Wait, seriously?  Hey, I told you it was a good idea!  But seriously, this is kind of out of nowhere.  What changed your mind?”

I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.  I repeated that excuse in my head, but it wasn’t the whole reason.  This crazy plan was my choice, and he didn’t need to be involved.  I kind of already knew he’d want to be involved if I told him.

“I guess you could say that all of this—everything that happened today—changed my mind.”

I glanced around the clearing, eyes falling on where I had placed the limp experimental Pikachu.  His back rose and fell lightly with each breath, but there was no sign of him waking up any time soon.

I didn’t know what do with him at this point.  It seemed cruel to just leave him here where a predator could find him out cold.  And even if it had been for his own reasons, he had helped us.

“Well, he destroyed his Pokéball, so I guess I’ll just have to hold him again,” I said, picking up the hybrid as gently as possible.

“Wait a minute… you’re gonna keep that thing?” Rudy asked, staring wide-eyed at Pikachu with a mixture of incredulous fear and envy.

“Of course not,” I replied.  “I’m just going to hold onto him until he wakes up, then explain the situation to him.  He’ll probably leave afterwards.”  At least, I hoped so.

Ajia put a hand to her chin thoughtfully.  “Well, it couldn’t hurt to put him in one temporarily, could it?  Just to move him safely?”

I wasn’t too sure how I felt about that, but… it was probably best, so I nodded.  Ajia grabbed a Pokéball from her bag and tapped it against Pikachu.  His body flickered red for a moment, but nothing else happened.

Ajia tilted her head.  “Huh.  Does he already have a Pokéball?

“No, I’m sure he destroyed it.”  That should have broken the link.  Then again, his Pokéball had been jet black.  I’d figured it was just a cosmetic thing, but maybe it was special.  A ball to contain hybrid Pokémon?

“Well, I guess you’ll have to keep holding him, then,” Ajia said with a shrug.

She climbed up onto her Aerodactyl’s back and strapped herself into its flight harness, prompting the reptile to stand up and stretch its wings.  I climbed on behind her, taking care to hold Pikachu as best as I could while still keeping a firm grip on the Aerodactyl’s straps.

“Leaving now, huh?” Spencer asked.  “Take care!  Nice fighting with you, or… alongside you, I guess.”

It wasn’t like I had done much, but his words still made me smile.  “Thanks for everything.  I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t shown up.”

Aerodactyl launched from the ground, and we were off.  The air was dusky and cool, and the wind whipped at our faces and through our hair as we flew onward.  I lost track of how long we flew, but the sky had deepened into navy by the time I spotted city lights reflecting off the sea in the distance.  Finally, the winged reptile swooped low over Vermilion City, landing in front of the Pokémon Center.  I let myself down from its back slowly, my hands now sore beyond belief from all the flying we’d done today.  It was difficult just holding Pikachu now—I had to constantly shift his weight between my arms.

Ajia dismounted Aerodactyl to stand next to me, putting a hand on my shoulder.  “So, this is it.  Staring your journey… it’s a pretty big step!  Glad I got to see it.”

I rubbed the back of my head.  “Yeah, it’s… pretty wild.”  I wasn’t sure when it would start to feel real.

Ajia snapped her fingers.  “Hey, let me give you my new Pokégear number, alright?  In case you need anything.”  She grabbed a pen and notepad from her bag and quickly scribbled onto a blank page before tearing it out and handing it to me.  I took the paper, and my brain immediately conjured the image of failing.  Needing to call Ajia to get a lift back home.  I did my best to force it from my head.  None of that.  It wouldn’t do any good.

Ajia climbed back onto Aerodactyl’s back and waved lightly to me.  “Good luck.  I hope things work out for you.  I mean it.”

I waved.  “Thanks, Ajia.”

And with that, they were off, soaring into the night sky and out of sight.

So now it was time for me to figure out how to handle myself on my own.  Though I suppose I wasn’t on my own—I did have my Pokémon.

And then it hit me.  I had made this decision without even thinking about the fact that I still had a confused Charmander that wasn’t even on my team.  I pulled out Firestorm’s Pokéball and rolled it around in my palm. I’d have to tell him what had happened eventually… and apologize for taking him here without his consent.  No sense putting it off.  A flash of white light formed into the flame-tailed lizard, who glanced around, looking puzzled.

“*Are we safe now?*” he asked.

I nodded.  “We’re far from your old home, though.  I’m not sure what you want to do, but—”

He cut me off with, “*Aren’t you my trainer now?*”

I blinked stupidly at him.  If I’d been expecting anything, it wasn’t that.  “I guess?  I never properly captured you, but…”  I trailed off awkwardly.

Firestorm swished his tail and said something to do with not caring about formalities like that.

Well, that wasn’t my only concern…  Sure, it was nice to know that he was apparently pretty on-board with the whole having a trainer thing.  But the whole point of battling a Pokémon to capture them was to prove yourself.  To prove you could make them stronger.  I didn’t know if I could do that for him.

“You know I’m not a real trainer, right?” I asked.

He paused to consider this.  Then he asked if I’d be traveling and battling, or something like that.

“Well, yeah, but…”

“*Doesn’t that make you a trainer?*”

I opened my mouth to speak, but then stopped.  His words played on repeat in my head.  He wasn’t worried about formalities.  Why was I so worried?

“I… guess it does.”  I was a trainer now.  I had to get used to that idea.  And even if I didn’t feel like I could make him stronger now… maybe we’d both get stronger together.

A veil of anxiety still hung over my head, but underneath it all, I couldn’t help feeling excited.  Though this wasn’t the way I wanted it to happen, I was now a Pokémon trainer.  An illegal one off on a mission to join a secret rebel team, sure… but a trainer nonetheless.

A cool, salty ocean breeze ruffled through my bangs as I strolled down one of Vermilion’s coastal walkways, shopping bags in hand.  I had put it off as long as possible, but eventually I’d needed to buy more clothes, no matter how much I hated clothes shopping.  Would have been nice if I’d somehow known to grab some spare outfits when I left home.  Of course, I’d had no idea that any of this would happen; I had just planned on riding around town while Rudy finished his chores.  It was almost crazy how something so small had led to all of this.

Almost absentmindedly, I found myself thumbing through the money in the new wallet I’d bought.  It was a good thing TMs were so valuable; I’d held onto to the Fire Blast TM after I made the connection that Series 5 discs were the reusable ones.  Pawning it off the second I got to Vermilion had managed to land me 20,000 pyen—probably far less than it was actually worth, but I was far too desperate to care.  I had spent well over half of it within my first two days in Vermilion, but hopefully I wouldn’t need to buy anything more than food for the remainder of my time here.

I paused just long enough to stuff the bags into my new backpack before continuing down the road alongside the bay, occasionally shooting a glance out over the horizon.  I couldn’t help staring in awe at the endless stretches of sea that surrounded half the city—it was so much more open than the hilly, forested setting I was used to seeing around Viridian.  Still, rolls of fog were starting to drift in from the ocean, and the day had grown more overcast as it went on.  I shivered a bit as an unusual chill swept in.  Better to head home for the day.

I felt a slight pang in my chest as I walked past the Pokémon Center and its promise of a roof and a warm bed.  Those things were for licensed trainers—without being able to receive the trainer’s discount, I’d have gone broke within days.  I’d had no choice but to settle on… much cheaper arrangements.

I had just reached the northern edge of the city when I felt the first few raindrops hit my arm.  Breaking into a run, I took the training path away from the roads and toward the trainer’s campground that sat amidst the grassy hills of Route 6.  It had the basic rest stop amenities like water pumps and restrooms, but otherwise left food and shelter up to the trainers.  It was there that I’d set up the tent that I bought the first night I arrived.  Because of all the trainers, camping supplies were fairly cheap and thankfully didn’t require a license to purchase.  That was at least one thing that had gone in my favor.

“I’m back,” I announced upon entering the tent, taking care to close the flap behind me.

“*Hello,*” Firestorm replied.  He was sitting patiently on the non-flammable, waterproof tarp that I’d bought to cover the floor of the tent.  Swift was huddled in the corner.  That just left…

“…Where’s Pikachu?” I asked, glancing around apprehensively.  Given his intimidating air, it felt extremely weird just calling him ‘Pikachu,’ but I couldn’t think of what else to call him.

“*He went out to train,*” Firestorm answered.  “*Sometimes you can see a Thunderbolt out in the field.*”

“Just so long as he doesn’t make actual lightning strike,” I said with a nervous laugh, though there really probably wasn’t much risk—the sky was covered in more of a misty haze than storm clouds.  I felt a bit relieved that he hadn’t decided to take off, but I couldn’t figure out why.  Why did I care if a random Pokémon that didn’t even belong to me just decided to up and leave one day?  It wasn’t like he’d said a word to any of us; he hadn’t even agreed or disagreed to staying with me.

Firestorm was now sniffing at the shopping bags I had set down.  “*What’s that?*” he asked.

“I already told you guys that I needed to buy clothes,” I replied, sitting down.  “And hey, I thought I said that I wanted you to talk fast so it’s harder to catch what you’re saying.  I wanna be sure I can understand you in any situation.”

“*Again?*” he said, raising an eyebrow.  “*If you can understand me enough, then why—?*”  The Charmander said all of this much more quickly, and my brain didn’t really have time to register the second half of his words.

“See, that’s what I’m talking about!” I exclaimed, as if he’d somehow read my thoughts.  He stared at me confusedly.

“I only got through two semesters of Advanced Pokéspeech, and before that I was completely horrible at it,” I explained.  Sure, I’d been doing okay with understanding my team for the past few days.  But I wanted to be as fluent as possible, and the only way to do that was to practice.

Firestorm put a hand to his chin, looking puzzled.  “*Huh, that’s weird… why does it take you humans so long to learn it?*”

“Pfft, we’re not like Pokémon; our brains don’t just ‘pick up’ languages like that.” I snapped my fingers to emphasize the point.

“*Well alright… then couldn’t you talk with Swift?*” he asked.

Rubbing the back of my head, I answered, “Er, not really…”  Swift had never exactly been one to talk very much.  Upon noticing his name come up, the Pidgey turned away shyly.

“Now say something completely random or illogical,” I instructed Firestorm.  “You know, so I don’t have context to help me out.”

The fire lizard rolled his eyes, but then spat out a rapid string of words in Pokéspeech: “Char’ charmann‘der charmaan ‘charr.”

Okay, sharp cutoff on the first syllable, the sentence was about me.  Next the object: full syllables, a trill, a sharp pause, tone shifting down, then back up.  The verb was easy.  Then the first syllable repeated with that trill at the end, that switched it to a negative, so—

I raised an eyebrow.  “Did you seriously just say, ‘you’re bad at Pokéspeech’?  I wanted something illogical.”

“*That was,*” he said promptly.

I snorted.  Alright, I kinda walked into that.

“*Why don’t you try talking in Pokéspeech?*” Firestorm asked me.  “*You humans can make any sounds you want, right?*”

I shook my head.  “That won’t work.  There’s no way I could get the tone changes down.  It’s a lot easier for humans to learn how to hear them than to actually make them, and that’s saying something.”  It was impossible to appreciate just how different Pokéspeech was from human speech were before diving into it firsthand.  It hadn’t made a lick of sense at first.  How could a tiny handful of syllables make up every word in an entire language?  How could every Pokémon species use an entirely different syllable set to make the exact same words?  ‘Char’ alone could mean a dozen different things.  But eventually they’d trained us to ignore the sound itself, and notice only the way it was said.  I’d been awful at it for the longest time.  Even fumbling through slow and awkward conversations with Firestorm would have been completely unthinkable a year ago.

Firestorm took that opportunity to end my practice and resume his investigation of my purchases.  It didn’t take him long to grow bored of that and start digging through a bag of Pokéchow instead, though.

A sudden flash of light drew my attention to the outside.  I crawled forward and peeked out the tent flap to see scattered bolts of lightning coming from a field north of the campsite, twisting and flailing wildly into the air.  When I stood up, I caught a glimpse of the experimental Pikachu darting around the grass as though tangling with an invisible opponent.  Part of me suspected that he’d already defeated all the willing combatants on the route and scared away all the unwilling ones.

“Pikachu!” I called out, feeling rather silly.  “Hey, Pikachu!”

He didn’t give any indication that he had heard me at all.  The hybrid simply continued ducking and weaving throughout the grasses in a very precise and streamlined motion, occasionally leaping out and slicing his tail through the air.

“You know, I heard when you snuck into the tent last night to steal food.  You could have just asked.”

Not a word.  Not even a look.  His spiky fur stood on end as he leaped forward and tail slammed the dead remains of a tree, unleashing a wave of electricity from the impact and scorching the trunk even more than it was before.

“Seriously, I know I’m not your trainer but could you at least give me a reason you haven’t left yet?  I have no idea what to think about you!”

The rodent’s breathing was starting to grow heavier from the intense training.  With each wave of sparks that leaped off his fur, he let off a narrow string of lightning straight along the ground.  Compared to his previous moves, this was a lot more precise and controlled.

“You know, in a few weeks, I’m gonna be leaving to join a group fighting the Rockets!  Are you going to follow me then too?”

His movements faltered.  It was only for a moment, but he definitely paused before leaping back into the tall grass and out of sight.  I waited several seconds, but didn’t see any more signs of his training.

“Ugh, forget it,” I muttered, climbing back inside the tent and flopping down onto my sleeping bag.  My eyelids started to droop and my muscles went limp, even though it was the middle of the afternoon.  I’d felt similarly exhausted throughout the past few days too.  Maybe it was stress—I didn’t really know.

The wind whipped against the tent as I looked out toward the overcast gray sky.  Three more weeks in Vermilion…

My footsteps dragged as I walked down the boardwalk for what felt like the hundredth time.  I paused to lean against the railing and pulled out the card I had been given, reading it over for what must have been the thousandth time.  It had seemed like a good idea when I’d first made the decision to come here.  But as time went on, reality was starting to set in.  I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing here, or how I was even supposed to find the guy with the Charizard.  For a while I’d wondered if I needed to board the S.S. Anne, but if that was the case, how was I supposed to afford a ticket?  For now, my only plan was visiting the harbor each day, hoping to run into the trainer again.

I had just turned to leave when I heard the rushing of air behind me.  I spun around and was met with the familiar sight of a blue-winged fire lizard descending from above.  And on its back was a tall, cloaked figure wearing a dark mask that completely covered his face.  My heart caught in my chest.  Finally.  It had to be him—the one I’d met in the forest.  Although the mask hiding his face threw me off somewhat.

“I assume you’re here learn more about the team I’m creating,” he said as his Charizard landed alongside me.

“What’s with the mask?” I blurted out without thinking.

He tilted his head.  “That’s right, you saw my face back then,” he said distantly.  “I hadn’t been planning on picking up any recruits that day, so I didn’t take care to hide my identity.  Everyone else I approached only saw me in this.”  After he said that, I expected him to remove the mask, but he didn’t.  It felt a bit strange being stared at by someone whose face I couldn’t see.  Then again, even without being able to see his face, I still couldn’t help feeling like I was being x-rayed.  Just like when I’d looked into those icy eyes of his back in the forest.

“First of all, I need to make sure you’re willing to go through with this.”

The words snapped me out of my thoughts.  “Well yeah.  I mean, after you first told me about it, I wasn’t so sure.  That was because I didn’t think I could do anything, but…”  My words trailed off.  I wasn’t exactly doing the best job at selling myself here.

The masked trainer considered me for some time before he next spoke.  “I don’t want anyone joining because it sounds interesting and then quitting after they realize that there’s danger involved,” he said, his words slow and deliberate.  “Of course, I’m not going to throw you into the fire until you’ve been trained.  But one way or another, this is going to test your resolve.”  His voice was harsh.  Even though he had probably said this same thing to all of his potential recruits, for some reason I felt like a perfect target for it.

And yet… I’d already been through danger with Team Rocket, and I still wanted to do this.  That had to count for something, right?

I took a deep breath.  “I… I can’t just ignore what happened that day.  I want to be able to make a difference.”  I hoped he didn’t notice the slight quiver in my voice.

A few seconds passed.  “Alright,” he said, pulling a small, stiff sheet of paper out of his coat and handing it to me.  I took it and skimmed the text quickly.  No way… this was…

“This is an S.S. Anne boarding pass?” I said, staring blankly at it.

“How else would you be allowed on the ship?”

“Yeah, but… if you’re giving tickets to everyone who’s joining the rebel team, then—”

He cut me off with, “I told those in charge of the ship that I wanted specialty invites for the Pokémon trainer’s party on board and then bought a hundred and fifty of them.”

I gawked at him.  “Holy crap, you must be rich.”

“I wouldn’t be starting something like this if I weren’t prepared,” he said simply.  “Still, I spent most of my funds on the tickets and renting the stadium we’ll be using as headquarters.”

“Which is where…?” I asked, as I’d been wondering it for a long time.

“That’s classified until you arrive.”

I stared.  But… couldn’t anyone just check the ship’s records if they really wanted to know?  This whole situation was starting to seem kind of strange, but then, there was something else that I had wanted to ask him.

“You said you were recruiting beginning trainers,” I said.  “Why?  Why not more experienced ones that would have a better chance when fighting Team Rocket?”  I couldn’t help thinking back to the way Ajia had battled.

He paused, mulling the question over.  “I suppose I just preferred having a blank slate to work with.  I want to be able to train you all from the start in the battle style that will be most useful for our missions.  As opposed to forcing an experienced to trainer to relearn everything.”  That didn’t fully make sense to me.  But before I could say anything, he asked, “Have you caught any more Pokémon?”

“Oh, um… I kept the Charmander that I found that day, and I also have a Pikachu,” I said.  I wasn’t entirely sure if it made sense to include Pikachu, or tell the guy about the hybrid’s nature.  But it didn’t seem right to leave him out either.

The masked trainer nodded.  “Your Charmander could be a pretty good fighter once it evolves.  Of course, I can’t say I’m not partial to Charizard,” he said as he mounted his fire lizard once more.  “It sounds like I’ll be seeing you with the others.”

This was it.  This was really happening.

“Yeah.  I guess I’ll see you later then,” I said as his Charizard spread its wings.  But before they could take off, a random thought struck me.  “Hey!  What’s your name?”

He paused to consider the question.  “I suppose you guys will need something to call me…”  He turned away, and the last thing he said before taking to the air was, “Stalker.”

Stalker… dodgy name for someone who wasn’t totally free of suspicion himself.  Still, when going against Team Rocket, it probably wasn’t best to reveal too much.  So as much as I wanted to know more, I’d have to be patient.

I glanced back over the harbor, my thoughts swimming with both anticipation and anxiety, and the realization that I was now definitely bound to this crazy, spur-of-the-moment adventure.  I had long since given up my opportunity to return home and put things right from the moment where they had first gone very wrong in the forest that day.

But that almost didn’t matter anymore.  There was no turning back now, and in a weird sort of way, I didn’t mind.

Chapter Text

February, 5 years ago

“Alright, I admit it, I’m lost.”

A groan came from the phone. “Are you serious, Jade?”

I screwed my eyes shut, not wanting to look at the phone. I knew she’d be upset.

Starr let out a frustrated sigh. “How did you even… didn’t you get a ride?”

“I rode my bike,” I mumbled. “I thought it would be cool if I found my way by myself, so I told my mom I didn’t need a ride because it wasn’t that far, and then…” My voice trailed off.

Starr didn’t say anything. It was a good thing she couldn’t see my face burning with embarrassment.

“I was excited to finally get to see your house,” I added quietly. “It sounds really nice.” She had a huuuge TV and a pool and a million snacks.

“I gave you the address—can’t you just look it up on your phone?” Starr asked.

“I don’t have my own phone, remember?” Mom said I was too young for one. Usually I didn’t care, except for right now.

Starr was quiet for a while. “Are you calling from the Pokécenter or something?” she finally asked.

I paused. “Yeah.”

“Alright. I’ll be there in five minutes.” And then the call ended.

I blinked in confusion. She was coming here? And so soon? I wasn’t sure what to make of that, so I just went outside and sat down on the bench. It was a cold day. Another reason why trying to go by myself was a dumb idea.

Five minutes later, I heard a clip-clop sound coming from down the road and looked up to see a Ponyta trotting toward me. And Starr was riding on its back.

“Whoa!” I called out, jumping up from the bench. “Where’d he come from?”

“He’s my mom’s,” Starr said as Ponyta stopped in front of me. “I go riding with him twice a week.” Right, she had mentioned getting riding lessons before.

I reached out and ran my hand down Ponyta’s neck. His fur was warm. I was a bit worried about getting too close to his mane, but the flames were just a warm tickle. It felt nice compared to the cold air.

“Sorry to make you come get me,” I mumbled, glancing away.

Starr rubbed the back of her head. “Look, don’t worry about it, okay? You ready to eat way too much popcorn and candy?”

I brightened a little. “Yeah!”

Starr gave Ponyta a pat on the neck, and he took off down the road at a trot. I followed them on my bike, finally starting to feel better.

“It’s really cool that your parents finally let you have friends visit,” I said. I’d never even seen her parents.

Starr glanced over her shoulder with a mischievous grin. “They’re not home.”

Today

The S.S. Anne was huge.  It towered over everything else around it, which was saying something, as the rest of the cargo ships that frequented Vermilion harbor were the biggest I had ever seen.  (Not that I’d ever been to a port town this large before, but still.)  I had to crane my neck upwards just to get a look at the uppermost deck and the orange-rimmed smokestacks rising from the top.

I’d been standing in line for the S.S. Anne for about half an hour and still found myself staring at the ship.  But then again, it was mostly to distract myself from the anxiety of having to stand in such a large bustling crowd.  Adding to the anxiety was the experimental Pikachu, who stood at my heels with an indifferent sort of expression like he was trying to pretend he wasn’t following me, even though he clearly wasn’t here with anyone else.

I was kind of afraid to question him at this point, as I couldn’t afford any unpredictable reactions with all these people surrounding us.  Honestly, I didn’t even know if someone stepping on his tail would be enough to send him into a violent rage.  It was a valid concern given how often people were shuffled between lines, getting bags checked and Pokémon registered and ID cleared and—oh crap.

It hit me like a brick to the forehead.  I had no ID on me whatsoever.  No Pokédex, no passport, no anything.  This single realization managed to instantly shove any vague concerns about Pikachu clean out of my head.  What would they even do if they encountered someone trying to get on board with no ID?  I couldn’t possibly be arrested for that, could I?  My eyes immediately flew to the security staff.  And then, if it were possible, my stomach melted into even more of a black hole.  I was carrying Pokémon inside Pokéballs without a license.  That was definitely illegal.  But if I left now, staying in Vermilion would have been entirely pointless.  This had felt like my one chance to get out into the world and do something.

“Boarding pass?”

Oh crap, now I was done for.  I hadn’t even noticed that I was now first in line.  For several seconds I just stared at the woman at the check-in stand, completely unsure of what to do, or if it would even make sense to run away now before they could find out I had Pokémon without a license.

To anyone watching, the dread on my face probably looked ridiculous. My legs seemed to move without me telling them to. One step, then another, and I was at the check-in booth.  At this point I didn’t know what else to do but hand my ticket to the woman behind the stand.  She paused slightly before looking it over, apparently a bit confused by my behavior.

“Ah, specialty invite.  You’ll be joining that line over there.”  She pointed off to the right, at a much smaller line in front of a different entry staircase onto the ship.

I blinked stupidly, unable to do anything but take my boarding pass back from her and mutter a distracted, “Thanks.”

My footsteps were somewhat shaky as I wandered away from the main registration lines and down the pier toward the separate check-in booth.  I glanced down at the boarding pass in my hand, vaguely recalling how Stalker had mentioned that it was a specialty invite.  Still, with my luck, this had probably only delayed the inevitable ID check.  I craned my neck to get a better look at the people in the front of the line, and if they needed to show ID, but I couldn’t quite tell from this angle.

The people in this line were almost all my age or younger.  But while I felt awkward and out of place, everyone else was chatting excitedly about the upcoming trainer’s party.  They didn’t have to worry about being found out, or sent back home.  That’s what it meant to be a real trainer.

…Were any of them recruits for the rebel team?  Would I see them after we arrived at our destination, wherever that was?

After several minutes, I reached the front of the line.  The uniformed man at the check-in booth gave a welcoming smile, and I attempted to look like I wasn’t dreading what would happen next as I set my boarding pass on the table.  The attendant scanned it into a machine and then typed something for a bit.

“Are you a Pokémon trainer?” he asked.

This was it.  The moment of truth.

“…Yes?” I said tentatively, wincing.

“I’ll need to have the Pokémon you’re bringing onto the ship recorded here.”

I paused.  I hadn’t been expecting that.  “Er, Charmander, Pidgey, and Pikachu.”

The man typed a bit more, and then a small printer next to the computer spat out a plastic card.  He hooked it onto a cord and handed it to me along with an instruction booklet.

“This is the card key for your room and we request that you wear it at all times during your stay.  Welcome to the S.S. Anne.”

And that was it.  That was all it took for me to be admitted onto the ship.  My mind was frozen in a stupefied shock as I slowly walked away from the check-in booth and approached the giant metal staircase that led up into the ship.

“They… they didn’t check ID?”

I didn’t even realize I had said it out loud until the kid behind me in line said, “Yeah, specialty invites aren’t pre-registered or anything, so they don’t need to.”

I jumped a bit at his voice, as I hadn’t been expecting a reply.  Then I immediately had to banish the look of intense guilt from my face as I turned to face him.  He was a small and skinny kid, maybe twelve or thirteen, with straight, dirty-blond hair that fell to his ears and light blue eyes.  He gave me a bit of a searching look, like he was trying to figure something out.  “What did you do?”

I stared blankly.  “Huh?”

“You just have this look like you did something wrong.”  He laughed slightly.  “What is it?  Don’t worry, I won’t tell.”

Great, just what I needed—some random kid interrogating me.  I racked my brain for the best explanation that wouldn’t give anything away.

“I just… thought they’d do a Pokéball inspection, and right now I don’t have one for my Pikachu.”

He waved a hand dismissively.  “It’s a trainer’s party, they don’t mind if Pokémon are out and about, so long as they’re not too big.  Weren’t you paying attention when they announced all of this?”

No, I really hadn’t.  I had been too busy wondering if my Pikachu was going to kill anyone or not.

“By the way, I like your Pikachu.  He looks cool.”

I didn’t bother to point out that he wasn’t actually mine, as my previous statement had sort of made it seem like he was.  And really, what else could I say?  No, sorry, this isn’t my Pikachu; he’s a violent half-Legendary genetic experiment that sort of just decided to follow me around.

The kid raised an eyebrow.  “You’re kind of weird, you know that?  I’m guessing you either you have a lot bothering you or you just don’t like talking.  Try to have fun at the party, m’kay?  I’ll see ya later.”  Here he lowered his voice to a whisper and said, “Or maybe at the place where we’re all going, yeah?”

I blinked, unsure of how to respond.  We had just reached the top of the staircase and were now taking our first step into the S.S. Anne.  The kid gave a light wave before walking off.  I waved absentmindedly, still caught off guard by what he’d said.  So that confirmed it—there definitely were other recruits here.

I took several slow, uncertain steps into the main entry lobby, immediately floored by how massive it was.  I never really had any expectation for what the inside of a cruise ship would be like—it was a lot like a fancy hotel lobby, with bright red carpet and massive circular staircases winding their way up past rows and rows of elaborate wooden banisters.  At the far end of the room, several uniformed crew members were standing on a podium and directing the passengers around.  The room had to be filled with nearly a thousand people already, and there were still others entering from the registered passenger entrance to the left.  It didn’t seem like we’d be able to leave the room until everyone had finished boarding, so I found the nearest staircase and walked up to the second level so there’d be more room in the entrance.

After about twenty minutes, a voice finally rang out over the intercom.  “Welcome to the S.S. Anne!  We all hope you enjoy you have a fun and relaxing stay on our inter-regional cruise, no matter where your destination may be.  We will now take a moment to relay the mandatory safety briefing before leaving port.  This ship is specially designed to accommodate and entertain Pokémon trainers, and as such…”

For the rest of the hour, the crew explained the rules of the ship, gave a brief rundown of what events would be taking place, and demonstrated what to do in an emergency—where the exits were located, how to use the personal flotation devices, stuff like that.  Finally, after what felt like forever, the crowd was dismissed and we were free to roam about the ship.  Almost immediately, life returned to the crowd as everyone in the lobby began chattering excitedly, making their way to the doors that led to the rest of the ship.

I had no idea where I wanted to start.  The idea of participating in one of the many trainer’s events just felt awkward since I wasn’t a real trainer.  I mean sure, they probably wouldn’t check ID since it wasn’t an official tournament or anything, but it still felt weird.  I’d have to shake that feeling if I ever wanted to learn how to battle, but it didn’t want to leave.

I unfolded the info booklet and browsed the list of events.  Even if I couldn’t work up the nerve to enter any of them, they would at least be entertaining to watch.  My eyes settled on the special event starting tomorrow morning.  Apparently, there would be an exclusive challenge open only to invite holders.  Would that be when we found out more about the rebel team?

As I read, I couldn’t help glancing down at Pikachu more often than before.  He was staring intently into the crowd on the floor below us.  Every few seconds his ears twitched.

I sighed and forced myself to look away.  Come on, enough already.  Everything was going to be fine.

Everything was not fine.

My heart was pounding and my breath racing as I charged away from the battle I’d been watching.  I kept my pace to a fast walk to avoid looking suspicious, despite the fact that I wanted to scream.

Pikachu had stayed by my side the whole time while I got food and browsed a shop—why had he disappeared now?!  Just when I’d gotten comfortable and thought I could watch a battle all the way through without checking on him every thirty seconds.  Had he seriously just been waiting for a chance?  But really, he could have left at any time—whether I saw him do it was irrelevant.  So why now?

What was I supposed to do?  My violent, unstable Pikachu was now loose because I was an idiot with no Pokéball for him.  I didn’t even want to think about what they’d do if a trainer’s Pokémon attacked someone on board the ship.  It was stupid for me to even bring him with me—what on earth had I been thinking?  Granted, it wasn’t so much that I was keeping him as that I was afraid to tell him to leave.  But that fact didn’t really make me feel any better.

Alright, had to find Pikachu now.  Where could he have gone?  My fingers were almost a blur as I unfolded the info booklet and skimmed the map of the S.S. Anne, desperately hoping for a clue.  The ship’s entry level was the middle deck, on the same level as the restaurants, shops, lounges, and dance room.  Just above was the Pokémon Center, small arenas, contest hall, spa and suites.  The lower decks held the engine room and all of the basic cabins and none of this was helpful, argh.

I folded up the booklet and shoved it into my bag before storming off in a hurry, attempting to navigate the crowded halls.  I found my way back to the main lobby pretty quickly and took a turn for the front of the ship—that seemed like as good as any place to start.

Working my way through groups of passengers, I scanned all of the shops and training areas one after the other, stopping just long enough to get a good look at each one.  It quickly became obvious that between all the trainers and the sheer number of areas, if he was trying to hide, there was almost no chance of finding him.  I could only hope that hiding wasn’t his goal.  Then again, I didn’t want him out in the open where it’d be more likely for someone to run into him either.

This never would have happened if I’d just told him to go be free in the wild.  I’d been afraid to say it the whole time.  But did I even have a reason to be so afraid?  He hadn’t attacked me or anything yet.  I just didn’t know.

At some point I made a wrong turn and found myself near the back of the ship, in a hallway devoid of passengers with only the occasional crewman walking past.  I was about to turn around when it hit me.  All of the areas I had searched were packed with people.  And yeah, I’d been most worried about him hurting someone, but… what if he was avoiding people after all?

My brain latched onto that hope and wouldn’t let go, so I pressed on toward the back of the ship, passing scattered crew members as I went.  I glanced down each hallway branching off from mine one after the other, most of them leading towards lounges or souvenir shops.  I didn’t see him anywhere.

“So much for that…” I muttered, turning around in all directions.  I was just about to head back; it was my only option at this point, but then—

I caught a glimpse of yellow out of the corner of my eye and spun around.  Standing at the edge of a doorway was a Pikachu—the very spiky-furred hybrid Pikachu I was looking for.

“There you are!” I called out, running towards him and feeling more relief than I had in a long time.  His eyes flickered in my direction but otherwise he didn’t seem concerned with my arrival.

My footsteps slowed as I neared him, and it struck me that I’d have to do something about what had happened.  Not later, now.  I’d been putting off talking to him, and it couldn’t wait.  Even if I was dreading his reaction.

“We need to talk.  Now.”  Even as I forced my voice to sound firm, I couldn’t help wincing.  There was no way he wouldn’t hate being ordered around.  But this wasn’t a situation where I could afford to seem weak-willed.

The hybrid glanced at me over his shoulder, looking more annoyed than angry.  “*Does it have to be now?*”

I stared at him incredulously.  “Kind of, yeah!”

My fists were clenched, my heart pounding.  Part of me still expected him to get angry, to lash out.  But he didn’t; he just gave me a hard stare for several seconds, then turned his back to me.  I stood blankly, not sure what I expected him to do next, but he didn’t move.  Was he… waiting for me?  Hard as it was to believe?

Hesitantly, I knelt beside him.  “Alright, so…”  How exactly was I supposed to start this?  I still felt uneasy around him, but the fact that he hadn’t done anything yet made it hard to put into words.

“I honestly have no idea what to think of you.  I don’t know why you’ve stayed with me.  I don’t know if it’s safe to have you around other people, and I’m constantly worried that you’ll, like, attack someone.”

His fur bristled, and I half expected him to whirl around and snap at me.  But he didn’t, so I kept going: “There’s no reason why I should assume you aren’t dangerous to bring around people.  And… I can’t have you with me if I don’t know what to expect,” I finished somewhat awkwardly.

For the longest time, Pikachu didn’t give any indication that he was even going to reply.  Finally—without looking at me—he said, slowly and meticulously, “*I didn’t give you a reason for staying with you because I hadn’t decided why.  I don’t owe you a reason.  So you can stop acting like I’m some kind of mindless, raging monster.*”

I blinked.  “Wh…”  A wave of guilt hit me, but then… no.  No, I had to be firm on this.  Even though I was already starting to question myself.

“I wasn’t trying to treat you like one, it’s just… you haven’t given me any reason to think that you’re not.  All I’ve got to go off is what you were like on the plane.”  Violently lashing out at everyone around him and trying to break a window to kill us all.

“And besides,” I went on, “if you’re going to be staying with me, then I want a reason.  You can’t just follow me around forever without my say-so.”

Again, he spoke slowly, with a deliberate emphasis on each word: “*You’re not in control of me.  Why should my actions concern you?*”

“What?  It doesn’t have anything to do with control.  If you’re with me, then I’m responsible for you, that’s why.  Why on earth would I think that I was in control of you?”  The idea was almost laughable. 

At that point, he finally turned to face me, his expression unreadable.  I had no idea how he felt about my words until he said, “*You’re strange.*”

I stared blankly.  His piercing, hawk-like eyes stared back.  I was just about to come up with a reply when he continued, “*Or maybe I just need to learn more about humans.  You’re not all the same.*”

I really had no idea how to respond to a statement like that.

“*I still don’t have a reason for why I followed you, but…*”—he closed his eyes—“*what you saw of me on the plane… that wasn’t normal.*”

I exhaled slowly.  Alright.  That was a good sign.  And it did match up with what I’d seen of him the past two weeks.  He’d been cold and elusive and aggressive… but he hadn’t actually attacked anyone.  So even though I had no way of knowing if he was telling the truth… I still felt like I could trust him more now.  At least a little bit.

“Well… thanks for that… Pikachu,” I told him.

His ears twitched.  “*Don’t call me that.*”

I hesitated.  “Do you want me to call you number nine like the Rockets—”

“*Anything but that,*” he immediately cut in.  “*And I do have a name.  I only ever used it with…  But that doesn’t matter now…  Call me Chibi.*”

I couldn’t help cracking a smile.  Chibi?  The name sounded sort of… small and cute.  Not really fitting for his personality.

He glared a bit at my reaction.  “*What’s so funny?*”

“Nothing, nothing,” I said, not wanting to ruin the moment, since it must have taken some amount of trust for him to be willing to tell me his name.

“*So, you’re going to show me the world outside of Team Rocket.*”  It was a statement, not a request.

“I… guess I am?” I said with a bit of uncertainty.

Chibi nodded.  “*Alright then.*”

I stood to my feet, a wave of relief washing over me.  “Well… should we attend the party now?  You’d get to battle—and it wouldn’t be for your life or your freedom or anything,” I added with a half-smile.

The Pikachu’s expression hardened.  “*That would be nice.  But there’s something you should know.  The reason I left—I saw someone I recognized.*”

It took several seconds for the implication to sink in.  “But… you were created by…”  My voice trailed off.  He’d never been around any humans other than Rockets, had he.

“*What’s more…*” he continued.  “*I overheard some kids reporting that their friends had gone missing.*”

I stared at him in disbelief.  They’d found us.  The Rockets had found us before we’d even gathered together as a team.  Before we’d even started training to oppose them.

“You… you can’t be serious,” I finally managed.

“*Come on,*” Chibi said, turning to walk further down the hallway.  “*Before you found me, I was searching for them.  I want to find out what they’re doing here.*”

It was obvious he was going to look into this with or without me.  My legs were on autopilot as I shuffled after him, my mind still reeling with shock.  It didn’t seem possible.  He had to have made a mistake.  But I didn’t dare question him as I followed—I could only desperately hope that we wouldn’t find anyone.

The hybrid walked several yards ahead of me, stopping at each corner to glance in all directions before motioning that it was safe to follow.  His expression was wary, but calm and collected at the same time—it had the effect of calming me, in any case.  Chibi knew what he was doing.  I had to put my trust in that.

And then the Pikachu’s ears stood bolt upright.  His eyes focused with laser intensity onto a supply closet before he bounded over to press a black-tipped ear against it.  Not more than second later, he motioned for me to join him.  My stomach twisted into a knot instantly.  This was it.  No losing my cool now.  I cautiously tiptoed forward and put my ear to the door as well.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about!  I’ve never heard of anyone called Stalker and I don’t know anything about any rebels!” a voice cried out.  A young voice—couldn’t have been any older than thirteen.

“That’s what everyone we’ve asked has said.  Why should we believe you?”  This one was a lot older.  Mid-thirties at least.

“Because it’s the truth!”  The voice was now growing desperate.  “I’m just here for the trainer’s party!  Why else would I be here?  And if there really are dangerous rebels hanging around, then shouldn’t everyone know about it?!”

So they were interrogating passengers.  This had to be why Chibi overheard some kids reporting missing friends.  How many Rockets were elsewhere on the ship, kidnapping more trainers?

Several seconds passed.  I could almost hear my heart thumping, and part of me was afraid they’d hear it through the door.  Footsteps paced back and forth inside the room, until finally—

“Knock her out, Machoke.”  The voice was dripping with disappointment.  I winced as I felt the dull thud of an impact vibrate across the floor.

A second Rocket, younger than the first, sighed.  “This is the fourth kid who’s had no idea what the hell is going on.  Starting to think this is a lost cause.”

The first one chuckled.  “Don’t let any executives hear ya say that.”

“There are hundreds of trainers on board for the party,” the second countered, sounding frustrated.  “Even if the rebels are here, what’re the odds we’d find one?  We can’t possibly question everyone without giving ourselves away.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like we can just pass up this opportunity.  You should’ve seen it—the head execs were freaking out when they heard that the guy organizing this was going around calling himself ‘Stalker.’”

The younger Rocket gave an unimpressed snort.  “Yeah, that narrows it down.  Wasn’t it all but proven that the original Stalker was multiple people?  I mean, I know that all happened before I joined, but—”

“That’s just the point.  We have no idea who it is, and that’s why we can’t afford to ignore him.  Whoever it is knows about the revolt.  He could be a deserter.  He could be the former commander.  Do you have any idea how important that is?  If there’s even a chance we could get him, or any of the others working with him, we can’t ignore it.”

The revolt?  Former commander?  Tyson had mentioned something like that at the Viridian base, but I hadn’t paid it any mind at the time.

Chibi nudged me with his elbow.  “*So you and the rest of the potential recruits aren’t their concern,*” he whispered.  “*They’re trying to flush out the leader, or anyone in his group.*”

“Huh.  Well, from all the times I talked with him, it seemed like he was doing this alone.  I don’t even think he’s on the ship right now.”

“*That’s good for us.  They can’t act too suspiciously or else risk tipping him off and losing their chance to get him.  But they can’t just do nothing.  They’ve got the disadvantage here.  And if I know the Rockets, they wouldn’t have started this mission without a fallback in case things didn’t go as planned.*”

Just then, I heard a buzzing sound like a text message alert, followed by one of the Rockets rummaging through a pocket.  A few seconds passed in silence.  Suddenly, the older Rocket let out a low whistle.  “Well then! Looks like one of our teammates caught one!”  My heart jumped into my throat.

“Really?  Did they get any info?”

“…Doesn’t look like it.  Sounds like the rebels were kept in the dark about everything.  The kid doesn’t know the leader’s real name, where they’re going, what they’ll be doing.  Can’t really say I’m surprised.”

The younger one groaned.  “So this was all for nothing?”

“It’s too early to say that.  Once we get everything set up tonight, the leader will have no choice but to reveal himself.  And if he doesn’t, we can just end the threat anyway.  Now come on, let’s meet up with the others.”

Chibi leaped back from the door at once, jerking his head in the opposite direction and taking off for the nearest corner.  I scrambled to my feet as quietly as I could and jumped after him, ducking out of sight the instant before the door swung open.

Now that I got a good look at the two Rockets, I couldn’t help but stare—both of them were dressed as crew members.  No wonder Chibi was the only one to notice them.  And with a sinking feeling, it hit me—I wouldn’t be able to warn the crew that Rockets had infiltrated their ranks.  How could I know that the person I reported it to wouldn’t be a Rocket themselves?

Chibi was fixated on the two Rockets now walking away from us.  I gave him a puzzled look, but he just nodded sharply to himself.  And then without warning, the hybrid shot forward in a blink, unleashing a blast of lightning at the older of the two.  I didn’t move from my spot on the tile floor.  I could only stare in horror as the man gave an awful, garbled cry and sank to the floor instantly.

The younger Rocket spun around with a look of terror, but the hybrid didn’t even hesitate.  He lunged forward and—no, no I couldn’t watch.  But the sound of the man’s screaming still gripped every inch of me.

Several seconds passed.  Hesitantly, I opened my eyes a crack.  The Rocket was cowering against the wall, and—what on earth was Chibi doing?

“Chibi?!  What—?”  My words just died.

“*Tell me your mission!*” he demanded.  The experiment was standing on the Rocket’s chest, holding a brightly glowing tail right up to his neck.  The young man was shaking all over, eyes wide and pleading.

“W-what do you want from me?!” he yelled.  “I’m just a grunt!”

Chibi hesitated slightly, raising an eyebrow in confusion.  After several seconds, realization crossed his face.  He turned to me and called out, “*Translate for me!*”

“What?”

“*Come on, we need this information!*” he shouted.

I stared at him weakly, my brain too muddled to work out what he meant.  Translate?  Because the man didn’t know Pokéspeech?

I opened my mouth to speak, but the words felt hollow and lifeless.  “What’s your mission?”

The Rocket gave a frantic glance between Chibi and me, but didn’t say anything.  Chibi glared before shooting out a wave of sparks, causing the man to jerk backward and shout, “Our mission is to identify the rebels and their leader!”

“*And how do you plan to do that?!*”  Again, I repeated the question.

The Rocket stared at him, sweat dripping down his face—he was clearly afraid to say too much.  Chibi pressed his tail harder against the man’s neck until it was nearly digging into the flesh.  God, I had no idea what move that was, but he probably could have ended the man’s life right there.

“W-we were gonna use explosives to hold the ship hostage and force the rebel leader to reveal himself,” the Rocket finally stammered out in one breath.

I jumped upon hearing hurried footsteps echo from the other end of the hallway.  Was it just the crew coming to investigate the commotion, or was it more Rockets?  Or both?!

“Um, Chibi, I think we need to—”

“*I hear them,*” the Pikachu said.  He had just pulled a small, red and black cell phone from the man’s pocket with the label “R-com” inscribed on the front.  Chibi slid the device across the floor to me, and I caught it.  He then gave one last look at the captive Rocket before slamming the flat of his tail into the man’s temple and running off.

I sat there frozen, still too stunned to work through what I was supposed to do.  Chibi stopped running and turned back towards me with an exasperated look on his face.  “*It’s only a matter of time before the others figure out what happened here.  We need to go somewhere they won’t find us!*”

I shook my head, trying clear the haze of panic and just think straight, for the love of crap!  Somewhere they couldn’t find us… somewhere they couldn’t—

“My room!” I exclaimed, jumping to my feet and bursting into a sprint to catch up with Chibi while grabbing the card key hanging from my neck.  “It’s room B120!”

“*I saw the stairs this way!*” he called out.

We continued to race down the hallway, turning a corner leading to the elegant staircases nearest the main event room and bolting down them.  I couldn’t hear if any footsteps were after us with all the battle sounds from the trainer’s party.  Either way, had to keep running.  I jumped two or three steps at a time, desperate to catch up with Chibi while constantly throwing frantic glances over my shoulder.

We reached the right floor and didn’t waste any time sprinting down the hallway lined with cabin rooms.  Just a little bit more, and—there it was!  I held my card against the scanner on the door handle, unlocked the door, threw it open, and bolted inside with Chibi before slamming it shut behind us.

I stood there, doubled over and panting hard and trying to work through if we were safe or not.  This was insane—we weren’t supposed to be in danger on this ship.  How did they find us already?!

My brain was too wracked by frustration and stress to think logically at this point.  I threw my backpack to the floor and stumbled toward the bed, now completely lightheaded.  I had no idea what to think about all of this, least of all if I should do anything or not.  The whole thing was insane, and I just wanted to pretend I had never found out about it.

I vaguely realized that I’d been staring at Chibi since we got to the room.  I tried to convince myself that I had no reason to be afraid of him anymore.  We’d sorted things out.  And now I couldn’t stop shivering just from being in the same room as him.  I needed to say something—anything.  For about the millionth time that night, the words wouldn’t come.

“*I know what you must think of me,*” he said.

I almost jumped.  The hybrid gave me an incredulous look, and I immediately tried to rearrange my face into one that was less freaked out.

“I… just… that was kind of brutal back there.”

His expression hardened.  “*They were Rockets.  I did what I had to.  I’ve always done what I had to.*”

I sighed.  He did have a point.  I didn’t like it, but it was a point.  But then…

“…Does that include what happened on the plane?”

I had no idea why I said it.  His eyes widened—I tensed up, expecting him to lash out.  But I was completely unprepared to see him turn away with a tortured look, body quivering.

“*Don’t bring that up.  Again.  Ever.*”

“I… I’m sorry?”

Chibi continued to face the wall, his expression torn.  Slowly, he forced his eyes shut.  “*Why did I think he would have wanted…?*”  He shook his head sharply.  “*Never mind.*”

He didn’t say anything else after that, so it seemed best to give him a moment.  His words still echoed in my mind, however.  He’d done what he’d had to.  Opposing Team Rocket and living through it would sometimes mean striking back at them violently.  I didn’t have any reason to be bothered by that… and yet it still bothered me. 

I clenched my teeth, feeling stupid—it was the sort of thing I’d have to get over during my time on the rebel team.  Ajia had done it.  It only made sense that I’d have to as well.

Ajia…

“Ajia!” I exclaimed, bolting upright and whipping my wallet out of my pocket to grab the small, torn piece of paper she’d written her Pokégear number on.  In an instant, I grabbed the phone off the bedside table and punched in all the numbers before realizing that I didn’t have a dial tone.

Instead, a recorded voice said, “We thank you for staying aboard the S.S. Anne.  If you would like to place outgoing calls during your trip, please register your bank card or trainer’s license, and you will receive the bill at the end of your—”

I slammed the phone back on the receiver and buried my face in pillows.  “Great.  There goes my only hope.”

“*Don’t tell me you plan on hiding in here all night,*” Chibi said, leaping onto the bed.  I detected a bit of scorn in his voice.

“What else am I supposed to do?  If I leave, they’ll find me.  I’ll be captured, killed, whatever, end of story.”

He gave me a piercing stare.  “*You don’t honestly think you can just ignore Rockets being on this ship when it’s filled with potential enemies against their cause?  They want to hold the ship hostage with explosives.  But you said it yourself—the rebel leader isn’t here.  What do you think they’ll decide to do when they figure that out?  Leave and go home?  Or teach him a lesson by ending the threat right here and now?*”

Almost as if on cue, the R-com in my pocket vibrated, making me jump.  I retrieved the device and tapped the main button, causing the screen to light up with a new text message.

“Primary mission potentially compromised.  All agents meet at the rendezvous point immediately.  Secondary mission to commence at 0300,” I read aloud.

Chibi nodded.  “*Thought so.  Do you still think you’ll survive the night even if you hide in here?*”

I shivered at his words, unwilling to look him in the eye.  “What am I supposed to do to stop them?”

“*Anything.  Whatever we can.*”

I raised an eyebrow, both incredulous and hesitant.  “Are… you saying you’ll help me?”

“*If I’m with you, then I’ll be helping you.  Simple as that.*”

I paused, taken aback by how straightforward he was being now.  “I… wasn’t sure if you’d get angry if I asked for help.  You were pretty angry about the idea of me being in control of you.”  In retrospect, it made sense.  He was raised by Team Rocket.  Had he ever had a choice in anything at all?

The Pikachu scoffed.  “*It’s only fair.  And besides, humans have their uses.  Even if I don’t need one to battle well.*”

He didn’t need a human to battle well?  What was that supposed to mean?  It was just sort of a basic fact that humans were better at strategic thinking.  But I guess he wasn’t exactly a normal Pokémon.

I took a deep breath.  “Alright, so we’re going to stop them.”

Chibi paused slightly, but then nodded.

We were going to stop them.  I repeated it again in my head, but it still felt fake and it was hard to ignore the fact that I just plain really didn’t want to do this.  I had agreed to join the rebel team knowing that my life would be in danger, but now that it actually was, I couldn’t handle it.

Chibi’s words still echoed in my head, though.  No matter what, I had to do something.  If I was killed while trying to stop this (I went numb just thinking about the fact that it was a very real possibility), then it didn’t matter, because if I didn’t do anything, we’d all be doomed.  Yes—I kept telling myself that I had no choice.  No matter what, I had to do something.

“So the mission begins at 3am,” I said, swallowing hard just to get the words out.  “That’s when we’ll make our move.”

Chibi turned to face me, his expression softening.  *Then I suggest you get some sleep.*”

Chapter Text

June, last year

I sat tapping my feet on the floor as the phone rang once, twice, three times. It would just go to voicemail, like always. I wasn’t sure why I still bothered.

But then, miraculously, a face appeared on the screen.

“Hello?”

I brightened instantly. “Ajia! It’s been forever!”

She gave a sheepish grin. “Ahh, sorry, I know I’ve been really bad about answering my phone lately.”

“Guessing you’ve been… busy with stuff?” Busy, always busy.

“You know it,” Ajia replied with a wink. “What about you? You’re on summer break, right? Have you started your journey?”

“Uh…” I didn’t want to think about failing the test. Not right now. “It might not be for a little while.”

Ajia tilted her head. “Huh… well, let me know when you do, alright?”

I nodded distantly. If I ever did get to leave before she came home.

“Are you coming back to school in the fall?” I asked, a bit too hopeful. I was still torn between wanting her to return home and wanting her to keep journeying long enough for me to join her.

Ajia shrugged. “Well, I’m planning on participating in the Johto League in August. After that, who knows?”

It was pretty rare to keep journeying during high school. I had thought she’d be home after fighting in the Indigo League last year, but…

“Dad’s cool with me staying out longer,” she added. “And I’ve been doing fine with my online homework. So, y’know, I might keep going another year.”

Next year. It felt so far away.

Anything I could talk about from my life felt boring compared to what being on a journey would be like. Who cared if Rudy and I saw a wild Rapidash on Route 26 the other day? Real trainers could see them all the time.

“Have you seen Starr lately?” I found myself asking.

Ajia’s face fell. “No, not for a long time.”

So much for that. I’d had even worse luck getting ahold of Starr than I had with Ajia.

I was still stuck on what else I could say when a large pair of ears poked into the corner of the screen. And then another.

Ajia glanced down at them. “Yes, hello, what do you two want?” she asked in an amused tone. Two curious faces suddenly popped into full view. One violet-furred, one black.

I gaped at the screen. “How on earth did you meet an Espeon and an Umbreon?”

Ajia chuckled a bit at my shocked look. “I got them from a rescue organization. And, you know, I’d been kinda thinking I wanted to train some more team members ever since Furret and Clefable went back home. I need a full team for the Johto League, anyway.”

Espeon tilted his head and said something to Ajia in Pokéspeech. She laughed and shushed him.

A slight grin found its way onto my face. “What did Espeon say?” I’d caught the words ‘interesting’ and ‘story’ but that was about it.

“Ah, he was just making a joke about how we met,” Ajia said casually. “Which reminds me! I’ve got to tell you about what happened in Goldenrod last week. So these two were walking with me and we were looking for some place to eat, and then—”

She rambled on for a while, telling various stories from her journey. It was easy to listen to her and imagine that one day I’d get to have experiences like that.

We didn’t usually get to talk this long. It felt a little bit like old times. I’d enjoy it while I could.

Today

A faint beeping pricked at my ears.  I blinked in the darkness before groaning and rolling over, trying to block out the sound.  It wouldn’t go away… why not?  And then somewhere in the cloud of sleep, my brain registered that it was, in fact, my alarm.  I reached over to hit the watch button that turned it off, and then sat up, trying my hardest to clear the haze of tiredness and stress from my head.  But it didn’t want to leave.  And part of me kept screaming that I was insane.  I was insane, I was trying to oppose Team Rocket, and I was going to fail miserably.

But I’d already made my decision.

By now I could see a roughly Pikachu-shaped figure in the darkness walking across the covers toward me.  I blinked a few times, trying to get a better look at him.

“*Time to go,*” he said.

I put a finger to my mouth.  “Quiet.  We don’t want to wake the others,” I whispered.

He tilted his head.  “*Why not?*”

I didn’t answer.  I turned to look at the floor where Firestorm was curled up on the tarp, which was the only thing I hadn’t sold out of the camping supplies.  Swift was perched on the back of a chair with his head resting under his wing.

Chibi gave me a sideways glance.  “*What good is a trainer without Pokémon?*”

“I’ll have you with me, won’t I?”

I watched him for a response, but he didn’t give one, so I slipped on my shoes and grabbed my room key before carefully stepping over to the door.  I opened it and peeked around the corner, slowly at first, then gradually leaning my whole head out.  The lights in the cabin hallway were dimmed and there was no one to be seen.  Then again… three in the morning, most everyone was probably either asleep or in one of the all-night lounges or bars.  (And with trainer’s party attendees making up the majority of the passengers, that would leave most too young for the latter.)

I took my first tentative step outside, content with the lack of Rockets within sight, and waited until Chibi had stepped out before I shut the door behind us.  We walked down the hallway in silence—I had the vague urge to say something but couldn’t figure out what.

“*You didn’t tell them what we were doing,*” Chibi said slowly.  His tone was rather deadpan, so I couldn’t tell why he said it.

I didn’t respond.  I just stared at the floor as we walked, hoping the elaborately patterned carpet was a believable enough distraction for me to ignore his statement.  I could tell he was still eyeing me, though.  It was weird—even without any force from the hybrid, there was that one look that unfailingly could get me to give in and answer him.

“It’s just…”—the more I thought about it, the more stupid I felt—“this is something I have to do.  I don’t want to drag them into it pointlessly.”

“*But if you fail, they’ll die anyway, so it doesn’t make any difference.*”

I froze, feeling an uncomfortable tightness in my chest.  “…Yeah.  I guess you’re right.”  He sure had a knack for jumping right to the unpleasant truth of any situation.  After that, Chibi looked away, either satisfied at getting to me or content to let the topic die.  Not long afterward, we arrived at the staircases that led to the other decks, which had the effect of yanking my attention back to why we were here.  I had to focus—we were going to stop the Rockets.  It was just a matter of how.

“So… we know they’re going to set up explosives.  What else do we know?”

The Pikachu paused, looking contemplative.  “*Not much.  Though with remote bombs, they could leave the ship and blow it before anyone had a clue what was going on.*”

At least he seemed to know a thing or two about Team Rocket’s standard operations, being created by them and all.

“*… It’s just a matter of where they’d be.*”

“Well, we’re on one of the lower decks right now.  The engine room isn’t too far away.  We could start there.  Blowing up the engine room would be the fastest way to sink a ship, right?”

“*Let’s go, then.*”

We continued down several flights of stairs until we reached the right deck, then followed the hallway to the ship’s aft.  I’d spent most of last night studying the S.S. Anne info booklet repeatedly, so at this point I knew the ship’s layout by heart.  The lights were off in this area—I wasn’t sure if that was because the engine room was unmanned, or because the Rockets had done it.  I could feel myself already starting to tense up.  I knew I couldn’t afford to get nervous, especially before anything had even happened, but couldn’t help it.

We were nearing the end of the hallway.  Various metal hatches lined the walls, but our goal was at the end.  I was only vaguely aware that I’d started glancing over my shoulder every ten seconds.  Of course there was nothing there—why did I keep looking?

Had to keep my focus—that was the only way I was going to get through this.  Focus…

“*Don’t lose your nerve now,*” Chibi said, jolting me out of my thoughts.

“I’m trying not to,” I replied, a slight edge to my voice.  Still, he’d said it with concern, not scolding.  Then I had to pause as it hit me—I hadn’t been anticipating his words, yet I still had understood them.  I really was getting better at Pokéspeech, wasn’t I?

A dull roar of machinery was starting to fill my ears, but I was honestly surprised we had gotten this close before being able to hear the engines.  A few more steps and we reached the end of the hallway.  A large, rounded metal door lay in front of us.  Time seemed to slow as I reached out to turn the wheel.  It didn’t move.  No, don’t tell me… we’d be screwed if it was locked.  I braced myself and turned it more aggressively, willing it to open.  Come on, it had to.

Finally, after a few metallic creaks, the door swung open, and I couldn’t help letting out my breath.  We stepped inside, and I closed it behind us.  From the faint illumination cast by a small, blinking light in the corner, I could tell that we were in some kind of changing room filled with goggles, gloves, and other safety gear.  The door on the opposite end of the room was cracked open.  I blinked at it in the darkness, seeing a dull glow coming from the other side.

“*Careful,*” Chibi said sharply.

I nodded, walking forward with slow, controlled steps.  I pushed the door open as gradually as possible and extended a leg through the doorway.

The engine room was huge.  I mean, I was expecting big, but this was just crazy.  A system of metal platforms spanned the area, with massive generators on level with me, and from what I could tell, countless tanks and pumps covering the platform below us.  I couldn’t make out the ceiling—the room just seemed to keep going.  The noise from the engines overwhelmed any other possible sound, and the air was hot and sticky and uncomfortably thick.

“Well, nothing we can do but start search—oof!”  My foot struck something and then I was falling.  I hit the platform hard, sending a jolt of pain through my knees where they’d collided with the metal.  Fueled by a burst of panic, I rolled over in a hurry and kicked myself away from whatever I had tripped over.  Except… it was soft.  I froze, my blood running cold.  I’d tripped over the motionless body of a man in engineer’s clothing.  And… something told me he wasn’t a disguised Rocket.

I pushed myself away from him, now breathing hard, which wasn’t very easy in such thick air.  Chibi bounded over to me, looking unfazed.

“*This proves they’ve been here,*” the Pikachu spoke into my ear.  I nodded weakly, my mouth still hanging open.  I wanted to say something to the degree of, “Is he alive…?” but couldn’t manage the words.

“*Come on.  Don’t go losing yourself already.*”  He grabbed my hand and pulled it, willing me to stand.  I shook my head roughly, trying to clear my mind.  The hybrid’s words kind of stung, and I didn’t want him to think of me as weak.  I couldn’t let him.

I stood to my feet in one swift motion before continuing down the platform, ahead of Chibi.  I couldn’t hear anything over the roar of the engines, so I just turned in every direction, looking for anything out of place.  Where were they?  Had they already left this area?  I rounded the corner at the far end of the room and scanned the lower level… and then got my answer.

From this angle, I could finally see where the dim, ambient glow in the room was coming from.  Its source was a small light piercing the darkness on the far end of the bottommost platform.  Within it, I could make out several human figures dressed in black, and a four-legged Pokémon standing with them, generating the light.  I motioned to Chibi before carefully maneuvering down the stairs as low and slow as possible.  It may have been fairly dim in there, but any sudden movement could be fatal.

I reached the platform and crept closer alongside one of the many tanks inhabiting the space.  My heart was pounding now, almost painfully.  I ignored it and kept going.  Step by step I closed the gap between us, keeping out of view until I was in position to glance around the corner of the tanks.

I could finally make out the Pokémon with them—it was a Manectric.  The blue and yellow dog stood firmly alongside a female Rocket, spiky fur standing on end.  Every so often, a string of electricity coursed through its tall mane.

The Rockets were huddled closely in a circle, probably discussing something, though it wasn’t like I could hear a word they were saying.  I caught sight of Chibi approaching from behind, and turned towards him.

“Can you hear what they’re saying?” I asked.

He scoffed.  “*Just because I have better hearing than humans doesn’t change how loud it is in here.*”

“Well, then what do we do?” I hissed, my teeth clenched.

“*Just look there,*” he said, pointing to one of the Rockets.  I suddenly noticed that the man was holding some sort of small, black control device.  “*I bet that’s the detonator.  I can’t knock them out without the risk of shorting that thing and blowing this place up.  So as soon as I get it from him, I want you to take it and run off.  See if you can find the explosives.*”

I stared.  “What?”

Without another word, the Pikachu raced off into the shadows and out of sight.

“But… what are you doing…” I whispered to no one, still staring at where he had disappeared.

Time dragged on, and all I could do was wait.  While not knowing exactly what I was waiting for.  It looked like the Rockets were preparing to move out—where was Chibi?

And then I spotted him.  He was… clinging to a metal overhang?  How…?  A crackle of electricity swept across the Pikachu’s paws as he slowly crawled forward into position above the group of Rockets.  Just a few more inches…

And then the Manectric barked out, “*Up there!*”

Half the Rockets snapped their attention upwards.  With a look of frustration, Chibi dropped to the floor suddenly, shooting out strings of lightning and forcing the Rockets to jump backwards, colliding with one another.  With a wave of sparks, the Pikachu rushed off into the shadows.

“What the hell was that?!” one of them shouted.  Most of the Rockets had pulled out guns and were preparing to run after Chibi, but then—

“I didn’t say weapons at the ready, now did I?” a male voice called out.  It wasn’t angry, just decisive—the sort of voice that wasn’t to be argued with.  The Rockets halted on the spot, turning to face the one who had issued the order.

“Looks like number nine has graced us with its presence after all,” he said.  “Firearms down.  Pokémon at the ready—electric-types for defense and physical attackers for offence.  Don’t want to blow the place yet, do we?”

But before any of the Rockets got a chance to grab a Pokéball, a yellow blur shot out of nowhere, right into the heart of their lineup.  The Manectric snarled and put up a shimmering barrier, but the Pikachu wasn’t aiming to shoot any lightning at them.  At the last second, he leapt upward, swung his bolt tail, and smacked the control device from the hand holding it.  The device hit the ground with a clatter right as several flashes of light burst out of Pokéballs, but Chibi darted forward, grabbed it in his mouth, and tossed it away from the group.

“*Now go!*” he cried out before a newly-materialized Nidoqueen landed a punch on him.

I clenched my teeth and sprung forward, pausing just long enough to grab the controls before darting back the opposite direction.  I heard the crashing of lightning against a barrier, which faded amidst the engine noises the further I got from the conflict.  As soon I reached the end of the platform, I ducked behind one of the tanks and sank to my knees immediately.  My heart was pounding, but I couldn’t help feeling exhilarated—we’d gotten the controls from them.  We honestly had a shot now.

I took a moment to finally get a good look at how the device functioned.  It had a few small buttons on either side of a small screen.  I hit the one that looked most likely to bring up a menu.

[Initiate countdown sequence?] the screen asked.  Wrong one, wrong one, go back go back—

The opposite button closed the prompt and opened a menu, thank god.  On closer inspection, the menu had a long list of unit numbers, each of them labeled ‘armed.’

“Hang on…” I muttered, hitting the arrow buttons to scroll throughout the list.  “These must be all the bombs they’ve set.”  An option at the bottom of the list read ‘locator mode.’  I selected it.  And then I suddenly became aware of a small red light blinking at the corner of my vision.  Was that…?

I stood up and approached it, holding out the remote to use the light from its screen like a limited flashlight.  And then, sure enough, there it was—a smooth, circular device about the size of a CD was innocently sitting on the side of the tank.  And yet it was a bomb poised to blow this whole place.  I gingerly reached a hand toward it, feeling the hair on my arms raise the instant my fingertips touched it.  Nothing happened.

I let out a breath.  Come on, it wasn’t like these things would blow that easily, right?  Slowly, I curled my fingers around the edges and tugged at it.  It detached easily.

I held the bomb in my palm delicately, scrolling through the unit list to get an idea of how many of these things there were.  Five, ten, fifteen…god, there were eighteen bombs scattered around this place.

I swallowed hard before gently sliding the bomb into a cargo pocket and jumping to my feet.  I didn’t have a choice—I had to get them all.  Or at least… as many as possible before I was caught.

I took off sprinting again, using the remote’s locator mode to light up the remaining bombs and stopping just long enough to pry each one from the wall before aiming for the next one.  One after the other, just had to focus on that.  It wasn’t long before my lungs burned and legs went numb from exhaustion, and yet I still couldn’t think about anything other than finding the next one… and the next one…

Several times I caught scattered flashes in my peripheral vision, probably from electric barriers.  Chibi couldn’t attack effectively in such a dangerous space where one stray bolt could kill us all.  And the Rockets had known that, which was why they were sticking to physical offense.  But then, even if he’d had his electricity, how long could Chibi last through that?

I’d made three loops around the engine room, and my pockets were stuffed full with something like nine or ten bombs.  It almost would have been hilarious if I weren’t running for my life.  I had to get rid of them somehow—throwing them overboard seemed like the best bet.

I threw open the door to the engine room and sprinted back down the corridor that led there.  It was like a wave of cool water washing over me, leaving the hot and stifling environment of the engine room, but my lungs still felt like they were on fire.  Couldn’t pay attention to that though, had to keep going.

My footsteps echoed off the walls as I flew up the staircases one after the other, finally reaching the closest deck with outside access.  I was met with a gust of wind in the face and what felt like the early onset of a rainstorm.  I stumbled over to the edge railing and began the process of emptying my pockets, made longer by the way my hands just couldn’t stop shaking.  After what felt like ages, I had finally thrown the last bomb into the sea, where they sank to the ocean floor.

And then I sank to my knees, doubled over and gasping for breath.  Couldn’t stop… had to keep going.  I glanced at my watch—it had been twelve minutes since I’d last seen Chibi.  I’d heard scattered bursts of electricity as I ran; they were probably outside of the engine room by now, but he was still managing to keep them from following me.  I grasped the edge of the deck and pulled myself to my feet.  There was no time to stop; I hadn’t even checked outside the engine room.

Except I’d just spotted a man striding towards me, dressed in the standard white crew shirt.  His walk was forceful—not too quick, as if to avoid drawing attention, but with a definite sense of purpose.

I backed away slowly, feeling a prickle of apprehension crawl up my neck.  He couldn’t be…

The man’s walk quickened.  You had to be kidding me.  Come on!  There was no way the entire crew was Rockets!  Heck, I wouldn’t even assume a tenth of them were.  Why did I keep meeting all the fake ones?!

I immediately took off sprinting in the other direction, back down the staircases and jumping four or five steps at a time.  My mind was racing—had to think of some way to get him off my trail.  Chibi was right.  I’d been stupid, and now I desperately needed help.

I cleared one staircase after another before arriving on the right floor.  When I reached my cabin, I snatched my card key and waved it across the scanner on my door, then burst inside, slamming the door behind me.

“Firestorm, Swift, wake up!” I immediately shouted while flipping the light switch.  The noise and sudden light woke them instantly.

Firestorm jumped to his feet.  “*What’s going on?*”  Then his eyes widened as he realized that I’d been gone.  “*Where did you go?*”

“Team Rocket was”—I gasped for breath—“planning to kill everyone, and Chibi seriously needs our help,” I said in a hurry, grabbing my Pokéballs and shoving them in my pockets.

“*What?  Is that why you were so quiet last night?  Why didn’t you tell us?!*” Firestorm demanded.  I’d never heard him speak with that much conviction.

“I didn’t want to drag you guys into this mess and wind up getting you hurt,” I managed to say as I hastily shoved all of my belongings into my backpack, just in case I never got a chance to come back here.

“*Pokémon are… they’re supposed to protect their trainer,*” Firestorm muttered.  I ignored him.

“Come on, we’ve got to go,” I said, throwing open the door and waiting for them to follow me.  Firestorm had a weird mix of hurt and dread on his face, but he followed just the same.  We stepped out into the hallway, and I threw several hurried glances in both directions.  “…Alright… we should be g—”  I was cut off by the sound of rapid footsteps to the left.  And then I saw him—the man who had been chasing me earlier had just reached the bottom of the staircase leading to this deck.  Had to do something.  Had to do something.

And then out of nowhere, without even thinking, I found myself pointing forward and shouting, “Swift, use Gust!”

From behind me, the Pidgey’s tiny, feathery form fluttered into view, flapping his wings quicker than seemed possible.  In an instant, it was like all the air in the hallway had rushed forward, throwing my hair into my face and nearly knocking me off balance.  I brushed a few strands out of my eyes just in time to see the Rocket struggling against a whirlwind before it swept him off his feet and sent him crashing into the wall.  The wind ceased, and he slumped to the ground, looking dazed.

Swift fluttered down to the ground and turned to face us, tilting his head.  “*I think that worked out well,*” he said, rather matter-of-factly.

I gaped.  “Not just well… brilliant.  Come on, let’s get out of here before he gets up.”  I motioned for the two Pokémon to follow me and then took off down the hallway.  Firestorm had to struggle to keep up on his short legs.

“*How come you didn’t have anything for me to do back there?*” the fire lizard said in a small voice.

“The heck?  What, you think I wanted to set him on fire?  What could I have had you do?”  The Charmander didn’t say anything else.

I glanced back down at the remote that Chibi had stolen.  All the bombs that I had already thrown overboard had stopped responding, and no longer showed up in the list.  Still nine left, and there was a lot of lower deck left to search.  I took a deep breath before resuming my search, stopping briefly to grab each bomb one by one.  After a while, I was incapable of thinking about anything else.  Just one bomb after the next, filling my pockets with them.

And then I had to stop and blink when I first felt my pockets full to bursting again.  It barely felt like I’d spent any time gathering them.  Either way, time to go back to the middle deck, and hopefully not run into any Rockets for once.

My pace was slower than normal as I made my way up the stairs, both so my Pokémon could keep up and also because my legs were nearly done transforming into jello.  And then my feet had to go and catch the edge of the steps, because obviously that was what I needed right now.  I had to finish this soon, or else I wouldn’t even be able to.

My movements were on autopilot as I navigated back to the first open deck I could get to, going through the motions of disposing of the bombs yet again.  When I was done, I began the descent back to the lower decks.  It had been over twenty minutes since I’d left Chibi in the engine room.  Where was he now… and was he still alright?

I stopped suddenly.  Had I just heard that?  I’d been thinking about him, so it might have been my imagination… but I could’ve sworn I heard the pained cry of a Pikachu echoing throughout the deck I’d just passed.  Slowly, I backtracked a couple of stair steps and approached the nearest room to find that it was the main lobby we’d first entered on the S.S. Anne.  It was completely dark aside from the moonlight shining in through the windows.

“Chibi! Are you there?!” I shouted, hoping my voice wouldn’t grab any unwanted attention.

Suddenly, I tensed up.  Footsteps.  Lots of them.  Heading this way.

“Crap,” I muttered, whirling around to take off in the opposite direction.  And then out of nowhere, a burst of flames shot into my path.  What the heck?!  I recoiled backward, narrowly avoiding the sudden blaze as waves of heat rushed into my face.

 “*Jade!*” Firestorm yelled, dashing forward to stand by my side.

Shaking slightly, I turned to look behind me.  I was met with a view of the dozen or so Rockets that had infiltrated the ship, half of them in crew uniforms and the other half dressed in what was probably a standard black mission outfit.  In front of them stood the Manectric from earlier, now joined by a Ninetales.  And then a crushing pain gripped my chest when I saw what one of the Rockets held under her arm: the burned and beaten form of a spiky-furred Pikachu.

The lead Rocket chuckled a bit at the look of my face and said, “I suppose I should thank you for returning number nine to us.”  Now that I actually had a full view of him, the lead Rocket was tall and thin, with an angular face and dark circles under his eyes, which gave his face a cold look in contrast to his ironic grin.

“You know, we were rather… upset when you took him,” the man went on.  “We need him for our experiments, otherwise we might never figure out how to break those overpowered, undeserving monsters you call Legendaries.  That said…”—he held out a hand—“you have something else that’s ours.”

I hesitated, clutching the remote.  “…You’re not getting this back.”

“*You’ll have to go through us,*” Firestorm said in a cracked voice, stepping in front of me.

I stared at him.  “What.  No, there’s no way you can take down their Pokémon.”

To my surprise, Swift was the one who replied, “*It’s too late for you to back down.  So we have to be brave too.*”

“*We don’t have a choice,*” Firestorm added through gritted teeth.

The lead Rocket closed his eyes and chuckled slightly at our inane attempt at resistance.  “Still want to play games?  Alright.  Ninetales, attack!”

The large, cream-colored fire fox rushed forward, tails swirling dramatically as it leaped into the fray.  It let out a battle cry and unleashed a plume of white-hot flame at its opponents.  Swift took flight while Firestorm lunged aside, barely dodging it.  While Ninetales dashed forward, closing in on Firestorm, Swift dove toward its face, talons outstretched.  But it saw him.  In one smooth motion, the fire fox turned aside and struck him on the back with its slender paw.  I flinched as the Pidgey smashed into the floor with a pained cry.  He just managed to flutter into the air before another spurt of fire hit the spot where he’d landed, but the superheated air prevented him from approaching his opponent.

Firestorm tried to take advantage of the enemy’s distraction by breathing scattered embers, but Ninetales didn’t even look fazed.  In fact, the embers just sank into its fur, making its whole body glow with a fiery sheen.  The fox smirked, then unleashed a pitch-black pulse of energy from its body, striking the fire lizard and knocking him back.  Swift saw the opening and dove from above, ready to strike.  But upon hearing its trainer’s order of “Hypnosis!” the fox lunged to the side, eyes radiating with a creepy red aura and tails swaying rhythmically behind it.  Swift caught its gaze and crashed to the floor, fast asleep.

I stared at the ongoing battle, a wave of dread slowly spreading through me.  The sheer difference in skill—both between the Ninetales and my Pokémon, and between the Rocket and me—was starting to sink in.  I pulled out Swift’s Pokéball and recalled him before yelling, “Firestorm, we have to get out of here!”

Firestorm shook his head resolutely and turned back to Ninetales.

“Here’s a fun move—Ninetales, Fire Spin!” the lead Rocket ordered.

My eyes went wide.  Ninetales breathed out a narrow stream of flame, which circled around Firestorm no matter how he scrambled to get away.  It caught his leg and snaked around his body, pulling him to the center of a swirling inferno.

“Firestorm!” I yelled, panic shooting through me.  I pointed his Pokéball forward, but the flame blocked the recall beam.  I could barely see his silhouette in the midst of the vortex, curled into a ball as Ninetales added more and more fire with repeated Flamethrowers.  Sure, he had a natural resistance to fire, but how much more of this could he take?

And then out of nowhere, the vortex exploded.  Ninetales jumped back, fur standing on end.  I shielded my eyes from the flash of light as a flood of embers dissipated into the air.  And when I opened them again, I saw Firestorm standing to his feet, wreathed in a raging red aura.  He growled at the Rockets, gathering a large fireball in his mouth.

Without warning, the Charmander was engulfed in light.  I blinked, staring in awe as his body doubled in height and completely changed in shape.  Limbs stretched outward, heavy claws bursting from their tips.  His face stretched into a dragonish snout, a single horn sprouting from his skull.  The light faded, revealing deep crimson scales…

“He’s… evolved into a Charmeleon,” I whispered in awe.  I’d never actually seen a Pokémon evolve in person.  Part of me couldn’t believe that lanky red fire lizard was really him, even though I’d seen it happen, right in front of me.  Firestorm glanced back at me, his gaze sharper, fiercer, even.

Ninetales blinked in stunned shock for a few seconds.  But the surprise quickly wore off, and the fire fox crouched defensively and snarled.

The lead Rocket eyed the Charmeleon with a sigh, shaking his head.  “Just don’t know when to give up, do you?  How are you supposed to attack us with nothing but a fire-type, even if it’s evolved now?  I doubt you’ve taught it how to do anything beyond biting and scratching, and Ninetales can absorb all of its fire attacks.”

What?  It could—what?!  Something in the back of my mind told me I should have known this—Ninetales had the Flash Fire ability, just like Arcanine.  What on earth were we supposed to do now?!

Thoroughly enjoying the look on my face, the Rocket said, “As much fun as it would be to slowly beat the lizard down, I say we cut playtime short.”  He recalled his Ninetales and continued, “We’ve got a job to do, after all, and you’re in the way.”  I tensed up.  His words held a dangerous air, contrasting with his previous smooth attitude.

He paused and reached into his belt pouch to pull out a small item, hidden by the darkness, but glinting with a metallic sheen as it caught the light of the moon shining through the windows.  “I don’t think running would be such a good idea.  In fact, you shouldn’t be thinking about doing anything, really… besides handing over that remote.”

I froze, unable to do anything but stare mindlessly at the gun pointed at me.  I wanted to do something, anything, but I was paralyzed, terror spreading like ice in my veins.  I was trapped.  There was no way out of this.  If I gave the remote to him, he would probably shoot me anyway, and even if he didn’t, everyone on the ship would still die.  I tried to manage some sort of response to the Rocket’s demand, but I couldn’t remember how to speak.

“I… my pockets are full of bombs.  I’ll activate this.  So don’t try anything.”  Words were coming out of my mouth, but I wasn’t sure I was the one saying them.

“Mmm… somehow I don’t believe you.”

“I’ll do it.  You’ll just kill all of us anyway if I give it to you.  This way everyone else will still make it.”

The man laughed.  “At least they would have if we hadn’t reapplied explosives to the engine room after you so thoughtlessly ruined all our hard work down there.”

It was like my insides just stopped existing.  I tried to keep my reaction off of my face, but I already knew I’d failed because of how much the Rocket was enjoying my expression.

But then I noticed it—Chibi had opened his eyes.  He moved his head side to side ever so slowly, so none of the Rockets would notice.  And then he kept throwing meaningful glances toward the lead Rocket with just his eyes.  I stared blankly, confusion now added to the mess of emotions running through my head.  But then somehow it clicked into place.  There was a spark in his eyes.  He had to have charged up some energy in the past few minutes.

“Well, what’s it gonna be?” the Rocket said.  “You’ve got five seconds.”

“*Now!!*” Chibi yelled, discharging all of his power into the Rocket, who slumped to the floor instantly.  While I took off running with Firestorm, Chibi struggled to wrench himself free.

“Someone immobilize the damn thing properly!” the lead Rocket yelled, all amusement gone from his voice.

Seconds afterward, a high-pitched whistle tore the air.  Then a pained cry from Chibi, followed by the sound of him dropping to the ground.  I threw a hurried glance over my shoulder and saw the hybrid sprawled out on the floor, a dart sticking out of his shoulder.

I whirled around on the spot, ready to run back for him, but then—

“*Get out of here!  They need me alive, but they’ll kill you in a second if you wait around!!*”

I recoiled backwards, staring in disbelief.  I couldn’t just leave him.  I couldn’t just leave him.  But he was right, the Rockets were heading right for him, they’d catch me, they’d kill me, they’d—

“*Go!!*”

His shout snapped me out of my spell and I bolted in the opposite direction, catching up with Firestorm.  My legs were on autopilot, sprinting for what seemed like the millionth time that night, making as many turns around corners to make it both harder for the Rockets to find me, and harder to shoot if they did.

Had to get away, but… to leave him back there like that…?

I kept glancing over my shoulder—mostly to see if I was being chased, but also out of hope that I’d somehow see Chibi racing after me.

(He had a plan of escape, right?  He had to.)

A flash of sparks, and a yellow blur streaking toward me.  My heart leaped into my throat, but—no, it was too big to be Chibi, it was— 

I staggered backward just as the yellow thing crashed into my side.  A gasp of pain and I hit the floor, tingling numbness filling my limbs.  What the heck was that?  I rolled over in a hurry and then froze, staring eye-to-eye with the Rocket’s Manectric.  Firestorm snarled at the thunder dog, daring it to make another move.  But all it did was fire a small string of lightning at the remote and race off before either of us could move.

I held an arm around my stomach as I struggled to stand, wincing at the pain worming through my insides.  Seriously, what the heck was that about?

Sparks leapt from the remote and I jumped back, letting it clatter to the floor.  I blinked at it, clutching my hand.  Its screen was jumbled and glitchy, but I could just make out the words—

“No… you’ve gotta be kidding me…” I mumbled weakly.  “I spent all that time… this can’t be happening.”

Automatic timed detonation activated.

The screen stuttered a bit before displaying a countdown, starting at five minutes.  I fumbled with the buttons, but nothing would respond.  My mind flew into a frenzy, struggling to think of something, anything to stop the detonation.  The engine room was too far away; I couldn’t possibly remove all the bombs in time.  I stared hopelessly at the screen, crushing despair filling every inch of me.

It was over.  The Rockets had won, and the ship was doomed.

The ship…  But if we managed to make it off in time…

The idea hit me, and once it was there, it slowly spread through mind like wildfire.  Could I even do it?  No, whether I could or couldn’t didn’t matter—I had to.

“Come on Firestorm,” I said hoarsely, once again dashing for the nearest staircase.  He had no trouble keeping up—in my current state, the newly-evolved Charmeleon was faster than me.

We reached the main deck, and I froze at the sight of rain pouring down in violent sheets outside.  Something nagged at the back of my mind—the sky wasn’t like that before.  But I couldn’t afford to worry about that right now.  Had to reach the topmost deck.

Only a few more staircases now.  Soon I found myself in front of the sign for the ship’s bridge and couldn’t help feeling the slightest glimmer of joy at having made it this far.  I grasped the door handle, threw it open, and—

And then my legs gave out and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.  I was falling face first, only barely able to throw my arms out to catch myself from faceplanting into the ground.

“What in the world—?!”

“Kid, what are you doing here?”

“Someone radio security, and get a medic while you’re at it.”

Voices surrounded me.  I craned my neck upward to get a look at the four crew members standing around me with mixtures of concern and surprise streaking their faces.  I couldn’t tell which one was the captain.  For all I knew, he might not even be awake at this hour.

There wasn’t much time left.  I had to warn them.  “Explosion… in the engine room.  We have to get off the ship.  Now.”

“An explosion in the engine room?  Why wouldn’t we have noticed?  What were you doing down there?”

In the background, I could hear a voice saying, “Bridge to engine control, what’s your status?”

I felt a hand grip my shoulder, not hard enough to hurt, but firm.  I couldn’t do anything but extend a shaking arm, still barely grasping the control device, and hope that someone would look at it.  Less than four minutes left.

“Captain, I’m not getting any response from engine control.”

A heavy pause filled the room.  The man nearest me—apparently the captain, now that I got a good look at his hat and stripes—turned to face someone sitting at a control monitor and said, “Run the fire emergency alarm.  Send the engine crew to perform emergency response procedures on any damaged areas.”

Fire emergency?!  They’d all just be heading to their deaths!

“There’s no time!” I shouted, tears now stinging the corners of my eyes.  “There are bombs all over the lower deck!  We have to get out of here!”

In my blurred vision, I could barely make out the captain taking the control device from my hand.  The color drained from his face as he stared at it.  “Where did you get this?  Answer me, now!”

My head felt hazy and distant.  Words didn’t feel like something I was capable of.  “There’s… no time…”

Everything hurt.  I couldn’t think anymore.  But we had to get out…

The room was silent for several seconds.  I had no idea if they were going to listen to me or not until then the captain stood to his feet.  And I couldn’t help letting out a long, slow breath when I heard him say, “Gather all the passengers at the emergency stations.  Send someone with this device to check the lower decks and report back to us the instant they can confirm anything.  If that’s the case, we must be prepared to abandon ship.”

Chapter Text

“This is your captain speaking.  We have an emergency situation—all passengers must report to the main deck immediately to await further instruction.  Recall all Pokémon to their Pokéballs and bring them with you.  If you are in your cabin, please retrieve your personal flotation device.  If you are not in your cabin, do not go down to the lower decks—additional flotation devices will be available at the emergency stations.  I repeat, this is an emergency situation—”

The captain’s voice boomed powerfully over the ship’s PA system, and the crew immediately scattered in response to the orders.  A desperate voice in the back of my head kept shouting at me to stand up, but I couldn’t process how to make that happen.  I was probably in the way, collapsed on the floor like this, but… I just… I couldn’t figure out how to do anything about it.

A hand firmly grasped my right hand, and before I knew what was going on, a set of claws had taken hold of my left and both were pulling me upward at the same time.  I blinked twice, trying to clear my vision before seeing that both a crewman and Firestorm had a hold of me.  I clenched my teeth and fought to maneuver my legs under me.  The movement was sluggish and awkward, but I managed to plant one foot heavily and lean my weight on it long enough to drag the other one into place.  It felt ridiculous.  But I really wasn’t in a position to care right now.

“Can you stand on your own?” the crewman asked, carefully letting go of my hand while keeping a close eye to make sure I wasn’t in danger of falling.

My brain told me to say no, but for some reason I nodded.

He gave me a stern look, like he didn’t quite believe me.  “We’re gathering on the main deck to aid the rest of the passengers so I’ll escort you there.  It’s raining pretty hard, so you should recall your Charmeleon.”

I squeezed Firestorm’s claw to let him know it was safe to let go, then rummaged through my pocket for his Pokéball before recalling him in a beam of red light.  I nodded to the crewman, and we made our way toward the bridge stairwell, which was now rimmed with flashing emergency lights.  Blasts from the ship’s whistle rang throughout the air as I forced my legs down one stair at a time, bracing most of my weight against the railing.  More than once, my foot missed a stair and I would have been sent tumbling down if the crewman hadn’t caught my arm just in time.  One stair at a time.  Just had to focus on that—nothing else mattered right now.  One stair at a time.  At least I only had to conquer two staircases to make it to the main deck, while everyone on the lower decks had who knows how many to go through.  It was a stupid thought, but it helped.

Somehow we reached the bottom without me noticing.  From there, we only had to make it outside.  The captain strode forcefully past us, continuing to repeat his emergency message into a handheld PA microphone.  A mass of people was migrating up from the lower decks, and a huge weight settled in my chest from the sheer amount of panicked faces, many of them younger than me.  Countless crew members got into place directing the crowd of passengers to the emergency area on the outermost portion of the main deck.

“Captain!” a young voice called.  I turned to see a crew member sprinting up an otherwise empty staircase that had been marked authorized personnel only.  “You were right, the lower decks are filled with explosives.  There’s no way we could remove them all in time.  Most of the lower decks have been evacuated, but many passengers still haven’t made it out yet.”  She was holding the control device for the explosives, which was now flashing red with a large ‘30’ displayed.

Numbness swept over me just looking at it.  Less than a minute left… but if everyone could make it up here before the bombs went off, we’d still have a shot of escaping.  The ship wouldn’t sink that quickly, would it?

The captain pulled a radio from his belt and said something into it before racing outside.  The man escorting me patted my shoulder and said, “Just follow this crowd outside to the closest emergency station,” before joining the nearest group of crew members directing the evacuation.

An awkward feeling swept over me as I stumbled over to the group.  Most of them were still in their pajamas, having been asleep just five minutes ago.  Now they were wearing life preservers and looking terrified.  Half the crowd was tripping over each other, either pushing to get outside or running back to find their friends, all while desperately trying to be heard over the mass of panicked voices.  The other half was tense, glancing around anxiously and clutching their Pokéballs with a death grip, ready to open them at any second.  Part of me wanted to panic like the first half, but I’d used up the ability hours ago.

The instant we stepped outside, we were soaking wet.  It wasn’t cold, but man was it jarring.  I’d been running out to this deck constantly not even an hour ago—where had this come from?  The water poured down on us like a torrent, the skies were a twisting, writhing mass of gray, and no sooner had I noticed it than a burst of wind knocked me into the nearest trainer.  Because we really needed things to be harder now.

The crew inside the ship were still running around, directing everyone outside as quickly as possible.  But the nearest crew members outside were shouting into their radios, looking flustered.  What was going on?  Wasn’t this where we’d board the lifeboats?

Wait.  No… no, the Rockets, they couldn’t have…

“This is your captain speaking.  Everyone needs to brace themselves.”

This was it.  No time left.  Everyone who wasn’t up here yet wasn’t going to make it.  I dropped to the ground and clenched my teeth as hard as possible.

I still wasn’t ready for it.

A deafening roar and the squeal of crunching metal bombarded my ears, completely overwhelming the sounds of the ongoing storm.  My hands and feet vibrated from the shockwave radiating outwards, and everyone still making their way outside was knocked completely off their feet.  Within seconds, smoke started billowing up from the staircases, quickly filling the enclosed part of the middle deck.  And on top of it all, the rocking motion of the ship grew more violent by the second.

“On behalf of the captain, I am relaying the order to abandon ship!” a woman close to my group shouted.  “The lifeboats are gone, so the only way off is to jump overboard!  If you have Pokémon large enough to carry you in the air or the water, release them now!  And even small water-types should be able to assist both you and others while in the sea!”

At these words, countless trainers pulled out Pokéballs, and flashes of white light filled the air around the deck’s outermost edge.  The crowd thinned as the trainers with flying-types didn’t hesitate to jump onto their rides’ backs and take off, flying in low circles around the ship.  That just left the rest of us.  Sure, we were already soaked to the bone and being in the sea wasn’t gonna be much different, but the waters below us had grown increasingly violent.  And I didn’t have any water Pokémon.

Finally, a scattering of trainers worked up the courage to climb the railing and jump off.  Several people gasped, but the effect was obvious—after the first few had done it, more and more had found the confidence to make the plunge as well.  I couldn’t hesitate.  Taking too long would only hold up everyone behind me.  I grasped the edge of the railing and used my arms to swing my legs over.  Then all I could do was close my eyes, grit my teeth, push myself over the edge, and oh god I was falling.  I couldn’t possibly have been ready for it.  The fall dragged on forever and the water was a million miles away and I was moving way too fast and my stomach turned inside out and—

The sudden impact stopped my thoughts cold as every inch of exposed skin burned like fire from striking the water.  I thrashed my arms instinctively, trying to get my bearings.  I was still underwater—no good, I had to surface!  I opened my eyes and spotted the surface right above me before paddling as hard as I could to reach it.

My head burst out of the water and I immediately found myself gasping and sputtering for air.  The water wasn’t frigid, but still cold enough that the tingling in my limbs didn’t want to go away.  I flailed about, trying to control my movement and see was going on with everyone else.  My legs wouldn’t move; it was just my arms doing all the work now.

Most of the passengers had grouped together around the trainers who had water Pokémon.  I squinted back at the ship.  From what little I could see, it didn’t look like anyone was still making the plunge from the upper deck… which had to mean that everyone who was able to had made it off by now.  Now we just had to weather the storm.  But the rain kept pouring down in violent sheets and the rush of seawater tossed us relentlessly.  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t keep the salty water from finding its way into my mouth—I was spending more time choking and spitting out water than making progress.

A sudden flash of light nearby caught my attention.  A girl had just released a massive blue sea serpent from its ball.  The Gyarados let out a roar before leaning its head down, allowing its trainer to climb aboard.  Already many of the nearby passengers were following her lead and climbing up the serpent’s thick, armor-like scales.

I wasn’t that far away.  If I could just make it to her, I wouldn’t have to brave the storm by myself.  I just had to make it over there.

Before I could do anything, the water forced my head under the surface and knocked the air from my lungs.  I blinked frantically in the darkness, still reeling with shock.  Which way was up?  Why couldn’t I tell?!

I burst free of the water just in time to wish I hadn’t.  An enormous wave had swept in from nowhere, now looming over me.  I stared blankly, feeling my limbs turn to ice and refuse to move.  Even if I’d had time, I couldn’t react—what on earth was I supposed to do?  I couldn’t possibly avoid something like that!

The world dissolved into rush of water and the spray of salt and tumbling and disorientation and a burning pain now tearing its way through my lungs.  I couldn’t tell how deep it had pushed me—direction didn’t exist anymore.  I’d been flipped and tossed and my entire body felt like a ragdoll.  Where was I?  My surroundings had become an endless expanse of water and darkness.  Even if there was anything to see, my eyes burned too much from the salt.

I suddenly remembered that my lungs were on fire—it was a weird contrast to how detached the rest of my body felt.  My legs still wouldn’t move—it was almost like they weren’t even there.  Were they there?  I couldn’t see them.  I couldn’t see anything.

Somewhere in the back of my head a voice screamed to get a grip but there wasn’t anything to get a grip on.  Nothing was around me.  Nothing except…

A huge, shadowy mass swept under me.  Everything was dark, but this thing was dark enough to stand out… somehow.  It slowly turned in my direction, and the only thing I saw was a pair of glowing blue eyes before it turned and dove further below me.

Wait… below me!  It had to be below me, right?  I had no idea if that made any sense, but I knew that it was below, I just knew.  Without even thinking, my arms drove me in the opposite direction—upward.  I shot through the water so fast it felt like I was flying.  Almost there.  Just had to reach the surface.  Almost there—!

I broke free.  My face hit the air and nothing had ever felt half as amazing.  It didn’t last long—a round of coughing and sputtering took over as my worn-out lungs tried to expel all of the saltwater I’d taken in.  Each breath sent another wave of fire running through my chest, but I didn’t mind—just breathing at all was relief enough.

Except… this was too easy.  I was just floating here breathing, and my head wasn’t being forced under the water every five seconds.  The sheer relief of being on the surface had been so great that I hadn’t even noticed.  It was gone.  The waves, the wind, the rain… everything was gone.  Clouds churned lazily above us, giving no indication of the raging storm that had just vanished.  Calm skies and waters now made it easy to see the S.S. Anne tilted backward at a harsh angle, slipping down into the sea’s murky depths.

I was close to the Gyarados now, so my main priority became drifting vaguely in that direction using as little effort as possible.  Six or seven passengers were crowded onto the upper half of its body, but there was room for me to grab one of its lower fins.

Just as my brain was trying to work through if I should ask anyone what happened, something caught my attention out of the corner of my eye.  I turned to the right and stared blankly at the sight, now even more confused.  A squad of rescue boats was speeding toward us as though nothing had ever happened.

Rescue boats.  How on earth had they gotten here so quickly?  An overwhelming flood of questions started to fill my head, but with my body now far beyond exhausted, I almost didn’t care if I got any answers.  The Gyarados started making its way toward the boats, moving very slowly to avoid losing any of its far-too-many riders.  By the time it was my turn to climb aboard, most of the passengers had been rescued, and I felt a wave of euphoric relief upon being pulled onto the deck and being able to sink to my knees.

A bustle of movement surrounded me as the officials went about gathering information from everyone who had been rescued.  I glanced upward at the man nearest me; the first thing I thought to ask was, “Where are we?”

“Just off the southern coast of Fuchsia,” he replied.  Fuchsia… that was… at the far south end of Kanto, right?

The man held a towel in front of my face.  “Here.  Are you hurt?  Anyone with injuries should see the medical staff.”

Right… I was still sitting lamely on the floor, limbs shivering uncontrollably.  I shook my head lightly before grabbing the deck railing and pulling myself to my feet.  He raised an eyebrow, apparently not believing me but figuring that I had enough sense to get aid if I was injured (which, as I kept having to remind myself, I was not).  I accepted the towel with a low murmur of “thanks” before pulling myself into the nearest seat.

Being able to dry myself was, quite simply, heaven after braving the ocean waters.  I watched the group of shivering trainers being led around by the staff, my head slowly fogging up with fatigue.  I was certain there was too much noise and commotion to fall asleep, but…

I opened my eyes slowly, then immediately blinked as my eyes burned with a bright light.  I glanced around in confused before realizing that it was daytime—a glance at my watch told me that it was 8am.  Well, that didn’t make sense… I could have sworn that I’d only closed my eyes for a minute or two…

I stretched long and hard, my limbs filled with a dull, throbbing pain, before looking around.  The ship was now docked in the small harbor of a coastal town surrounded by rolling plains and gleaming white beaches.  The staff was busy directing people off the ship, or at least some of them—about half of the trainers were being pointed back into their seats rather than onto the dock.  Feeling a bit perplexed, I wandered over to the staff.

“What’s going on here?” I asked.

“We’ve docked near Fuchsia City.  All of the trainers who were given a specialty invite to the party are to remain on the ship until we can relay a message intended for them,” a man explained.

Specialty invite… the tickets Stalker gave to the potential rebels?  How could they tell which people he’d invited?

Sensing my confusion, the man said, “Let me see your card key.”  I handed it over, and he scanned it through a device before handing it back.  “Alright, please wait around here until we’ve finished with the remaining passengers.”  As I walked back to my seat, a small group of trainers behind me started making a fuss because they had apparently left their card keys behind—the staff was attempting to sort through it.

I wasn’t sure what to think of the whole situation now.  I had been frustrated at Stalker for having underestimated Team Rocket, but he clearly had a plan set into motion for an incident like this.  Still, why couldn’t he have gotten an ally to make sure nothing went wrong with the voyage?  Did he even have allies, or was he doing this alone?

I wandered around the ship’s deck as the number of passengers slowly started to thin, gazing at the ocean and admiring how calm it looked, with the bright sunlight reflecting off ridges of water.  My thoughts strayed back to the previous night, and how impossible it all seemed now.  Mere hours ago, we’d all been so close to death… it was obviously an uncomfortable thought, but it was slowly starting to become more familiar.  And this was how it was going to be from now on…

I was just vaguely wondering how the Rockets had escaped, and if they’d had actual rockets in their backpacks, when a hand clapped my shoulder.

“Hey Jade.”

…What.  Why on earth was I hearing that voice here?

I spun around to stare at the olive-skinned, dark-haired face behind me.  And really, all I could do was let my mouth hang open in shock.

“…What are you doing here, Rudy?” I managed to say.

He gave a small laugh at the look on my face and said, “Guess I should explain myself, huh?”

“You think?” I asked, laughing a little bit myself, the air of anxiety gone just from being with a friend.  “You… have no idea how glad I am to see you here… especially after last night.”

Rudy smiled weakly.  “Yeah… that…”

I gave him an incredulous look.  “I’m starting to think you have a thing for always showing up at my Team Rocket run-ins.”

“Hey, it’s not a coincidence,” Rudy said quickly.  “You know the dude who gave out the tickets?”

I blinked.  “You met him too?”

Rudy nodded.  “Sure did.  I met him after I got back to Viridian.  He said he’d heard about our battle with those Rockets at the plane, and that anyone who’d gone against Team Rocket was important to have as an ally.  He asked me if I wanted to train under him and learn how to fight Rockets, and well…”  He forced a grin, some of his normal enthusiasm shining through for a moment.  “You know I couldn’t say no to getting back at those guys.  So he gave me the card and that was when he mentioned that you got one too.”

I couldn’t think of what to say.  Stalker had said he’d been recruiting any new trainers with the guts to take on Team Rocket, but the idea of someone else I knew being a part of this felt very strange.

“Course… I sort of got in trouble for being gone all day,” Rudy continued, looking down.  “It’s kinda hard to be afraid of something like that after making it through the Rocket mess, though.  And I was gonna tell your mom that’d you’d gone on a training journey with Swift, but… she kind of already knew?  I was expecting her to be way more upset about it, honestly.”

I smiled faintly.  “Yeah, I, uh… I kind of wound up calling home later that night anyway.”

Rudy paused.  “Wait seriously?”

I rubbed the back of my head.  “Yeah.  I was dreading it at first, but it worked out for the best.”  I wasn’t sure if I should explain the deal that I’d made to get my license before I turned fifteen, but Rudy was still staring at me like he was waiting to tell the rest of his story.

“Go on,” I said, rolling my eyes.  Though I didn’t want to admit it, hearing him ramble was definitely helping take my mind off things.

Rudy didn’t need telling twice.  “Kay, so I started my training journey a couple days after that, and I made sure to grab the bus from city to city until I made it to Vermilion.  I got there about four days before we left.”  He paused for a bit and then added, “Y’know, I was surprised I never saw you around the Pokécenter or at the gym or anything.”

“Yeah… I spent most of my time at the campsite near the start of Route 6…” I mumbled, feeling slightly embarrassed.

“Catching Pokémon?” came the immediate reply.

I snorted.  “You know I can’t buy Pokéballs.”

“No, but what you could’ve done was ask some random trainer to go buy them for you, and hope they don’t report you to the—”

“Thanks for the advice—I’ll file that away under ‘what not to do.’  But what about you, did you catch anyone new?”

“You bet!  I got a Spearow and a Nidoran, and they’re made of awesome, and now I’m up to four Pokémon,” Rudy said, his voice slowing dramatically near the end.

“Oh yeah?  Pretty cool.  Although…”—I suppressed a snicker—“I seem to recall you saying—what was it again?—that you’d find Mew and team up to defeat the Legendary birds within the first month of your—”  I had to stop because I was laughing too hard and he was smacking my arm with a fist repeatedly.

“Oh, oh yeah, and then at the League, the Johto guardians would be so impressed by your feat that they’d ask if they could join you, and—”

“Hey I never said any of that… and if I did I was like ten!” Rudy said quickly, his face reddening.  “Besides, I’m doing better than you, aren’t I?  Four against three, so there.  And hey, that reminds me—how come I never saw you on the S.S. Anne?  I wanted to battle you during the trainer’s party but couldn’t really find you.”

“I… spent most of the night in my room, actually,” I said sheepishly.  I had forgotten about how I’d needed to hide after Chibi and I had discovered the Rockets.

Chibi.  That’s right—the Rockets, they had…  The thought was painful.  He’d been captured because he saved me.  And I’d just let them take him?  Why hadn’t I done anything about it?

I was too lost in thought to pay close attention to what Rudy was saying after that.  He went on about seeing me while in the ocean and trying to get my attention, but me not seeing him.  In an instant, my memory flashed back to last night, and I immediately blurted out, “What made the storm clear?”

Rudy stopped and gaped at me.  “You mean you didn’t see it?”

“No,” I replied a little uneasily.  His tone made it sound like no one in their right mind would have missed it.

“It was a little creepy, but way awesome,” he said.  “This dark shadow seemed to block out everything, even the moonlight, and there was a giant gust of wind and then suddenly the storm stopped and the waves calmed down.  Then this huge… thing dove down into the water.  It was so fast, I couldn’t tell what it was.”

The excitement plastered all over his face was almost too much to bear.  It was enough to actually make me feel jealous that I hadn’t seen it happen, although Rudy was the one who had always wanted to run into super-powerful Pokémon.  Then again… that dark figure I had seen in the water… could that have been the same thing Rudy had seen?

At this point, it seemed like everyone had finished transferring over to the new ship.  I found myself idly wondering where we’d be headed, then heard a voice calling out through a microphone.

“Everyone here was given a specialty invite to the Pokémon trainer’s party.  Those who managed to complete the invite-only event onboard the S.S. Anne were meant to be rewarded with enrollment into an exclusive training internship.  In light of what happened… that event will no longer be taking place.  Enrollment will be open to all of you, and we’ve been requested to send you all there now.  But first, we need to relay the following message,” one of the rescue staff said.  He paused for a few seconds, taking a deep breath before saying, “There’s no doubt that having to flee the S.S. Anne like that was a terrible ordeal for young trainers like yourselves to face.  It’s advised that you think carefully about the special training you signed up for, and decide if you still wish to go through with it.  If not, you should resume your training journey.  Thank you.”

His words were like a cold splash of reality, right in the face.  A reminder that even though we’d survived, joining Stalker’s team would only mean facing even more horrible situations like last night.

The announcement brought scattered murmuring amongst the trainers, and now that I looked around at all of them, I could see traces of doubt and regret streaking their faces.  And, even worse… my heart crumpled inward when I saw a few of the kids crying softly away from the main group.  The crushing realization slowly hit me—I had gotten lucky.  I hadn’t even known that Rudy was on the ship, and both of us had gotten off alive anyway.  But some of the trainers had to have lost friends when the S.S. Anne sank.

Time froze as a small number of kids scattered amongst the crowd made the slow walk off of the transfer boat with an almost tangible air of shame.  Several others, upon seeing that they wouldn’t be alone in leaving, hurriedly stood to their feet and followed suit.

“Well… I know it’ll be dangerous, but… that’s the reason I joined.  Fighting those guys and saving the Legendaries?  I’m not giving up something like that.  I can’t turn my back on something like that,” Rudy said with a decisive tone.  His words had a slight edge, though.  Like he was desperately trying to persuade himself that it was the right decision.

I already knew there was no going back for me.  I couldn’t return to my old life, knowing what I knew now.  This was my chance to make a difference.  Had to keep telling myself that.

Around fifty kids were still on board.  After several minutes had passed from the time of the announcement, the majority of the staff left the ship as well, leaving just a single young man behind.

“We’ve managed to secure a teleporter who has your destination memorized,” he said.  “They’ll be sending you there two at a time, so please line up and wait your turn.”  At his words, an Alakazam stepped forward alongside him.  The golden humanoid, twiddled a pair of spoons in its claws and surveyed us with a bored expression before gesturing to the trainers at the front of the group.  The first two kids walked forward uncertainly, and Alakazam touched a spoon to each of their shoulders before disappearing in a sudden flash of shimmering light.  Around twenty seconds later it reappeared alone with a similar flash.

It would probably take over twenty trips for all of us, and after the first five or so, the psychic was already looking tired and had to drink some Ether.  Wherever we were headed, it must have been pretty far for the jumps to tire the psychic out that much.

After around ten minutes of this, my turn came up.  I stepped forward, feeling a small twinge of anxiety in the back of my head.  This was my first time teleporting, and I honestly had no idea what to expect.  A spoon tapped my shoulder.  A tingling sensation quickly spread across my skin, my surroundings melting into rippling waves of light.  Then, just as suddenly as it came, the feeling left, and the world suddenly snapped back into clear view.  That was it?  It was a lot smoother than I’d been expecting.

I glanced around at my new surroundings and found myself… on a dock.  But it was obviously a completely different one—the sea was to the west rather than south, and the coastline was rocky and forested.  Not to mention the nearby town was a lot smaller than Fuchsia.  I still had absolutely no idea where we were though.

The Alakazam gave a nod before disappearing from view, and I jumped off to the side so I wouldn’t be in the way of the next trainer to arrive.  Rudy appeared not long after I did, and within a few more minutes we were all here, stuck together in a large group and wandering vaguely towards town.  As was typical of trainers, our group eventually honed in on the local Pokémon Center.

The center was small (it probably didn’t have to accommodate many trainers most of the time), so there was no way we were all going to fit inside.  The lead nurse at the front counter blinked in surprise at our sudden arrival, but then she said, “You must be the specialty training group I was told about.  If you follow the road that leads north to the edge of town, you’ll find Midnight Stadium, where your training program will be held.”

Midnight Stadium… so that was our destination.  But then, where were we anyway?

“Where are we?” one of the kids blurted out before I had worked out whether or not it would look too stupid to ask.

The nurse gave an amused half-smile.  “Midnight Island, just off the coast from Lavender Town.”

I wasn’t the only one who craned their neck to get a glimpse of the map on the side wall, as I had never heard of either of those two locations.  It took me some time to locate Lavender Town on the large map of Kanto that adorned the wall, as it was a very small town on Kanto’s eastern coast.  Sure enough, a tiny island alongside its shore was labeled Midnight Island.

“Why couldn’t he have just told us that to begin with?” Rudy complained as we made our way outside.

“The Rockets found out that we were meeting on the S.S. Anne, so if the headquarters hadn’t been a secret, they’d probably have targeted it too,” I said, a little exasperated.

Rudy gaped at me.  “Wait, that was Team Rocket who sank the ship last night?  How do you know?”

“I was there; I fought them, and—”  I suddenly realized it.  Swift and Firestorm—they’d been in their Pokéballs all night ever since I had to jump overboard.  I retrieved the minimized spheres from my pocket and opened them, releasing the two Pokémon.  I actually had to do a bit of a double take upon seeing Firestorm emerge from the ball—I still wasn’t used to seeing him in his larger, red-scaled form.  Apparently, Rudy was surprised too, because—

“Whoa—your Charmander evolved?  Awesome!” he exclaimed.

“Yup,” I answered, and I couldn’t help grinning.  My face fell when I saw that Swift was still beaten and bruised from last night’s battle, though.

“Crap, do you have a potion?” I asked Rudy.  He rummaged in his bag before pulling one out, and I immediately sprayed down Swift’s limp wings and crumpled feathers.  The injuries weren’t too serious—within a few seconds, the Pidgey shook his head and made a relieved chirp.

“*How did we make it back to dry land?*” Firestorm asked, looking up at me expectantly.  “*The ocean sounds like an awful place.  Did you have to swim through it?*”

I was about to answer, but then Rudy cut in, “Okay, hang on Jade, you’ve gotta tell me—you battled Rockets?  How’d you even know they were there?”

I sighed before launching into the events of the previous night.  From when Chibi and I had eavesdropped on the Rockets to when Manectric initiated the automatic detonation.  I explained everything as we walked down the road that led out of town, which eventually turned into a dirt road as the buildings grew sparse.  I realized about halfway through my story that every trainer standing near us had now ceased their own conversations to listen in, but by that point I didn’t care if I had an audience.

The sun had climbed higher into the sky by the time we arrived at a wide coliseum on the edge of the forest.  It was a lot smaller than the stadiums I’d seen on TV, but still larger than any building in town.  The sign on the front read “Midnight Stadium” in dramatic purple lettering.

The front doors automatically opened as we approached, so the fifty or so trainers made their way slowly inside.  We entered a large waiting room with a desk at the far end and two hallways branching off to the left and right.  Posters of countless League events and training programs covered the far wall, while large computer panels lined the sides, most likely used for tournament registration or accessing the online storage system.

“Everyone line up facing the front counter.”

I almost jumped at the loud, booming voice that seemed to come from nowhere, realizing a moment later that it must have come from speakers.  We all glanced around in bewilderment for a few seconds before arranging ourselves in several horizontal lines—I recalled Swift and Firestorm and took my place in the back line.  At both far corners of the room, I spotted the cameras that were likely watching right now.

After some time, the voice came again.  “Forty-eight.  That’s how many of you survived the attack and still had the determination to come here.”  It was a young voice, but it sounded hardened… mature…  I recognized it from our previous meetings.

Footsteps echoed off the side hallways.  We all held our breath in anticipation as Stalker walked into view, wearing the black mask and long cloak.

“You had to endure far more than you should have in order to get here,” he said.  “But now you’re here.  You’ll all become valuable allies in the fight against Team Rocket.”  And with that, he removed his mask and cloak.

It was easy to sense the group’s surprise from the revelation that he was probably not much older than eighteen.  Still, he gave off the impression of someone much older and more mature; in a strange sort of way, I felt childish by comparison.  He surveyed the group with icy blue eyes and a reserved expression.

“So…” he said after some time.  “You all have seen my face, so now I’m in the same position as you.  If Team Rocket learns my identity, I’ll be done for.  But I want to be on equal terms with all of you, so I believe it’s worth it.”  He paused heavily, giving us time to process it all.  “I’m sure all the secrets surrounding this were frustrating.  I had thought that keeping you in the dark and having you gather together, surrounded by ordinary trainers just like you, would be the best way to keep you safe.  I never expected the Rockets to go so far… just to get to me.”  At this point, several of the trainers—the ones who had overheard my account of the previous night—now glanced back at me.

“You can call me Stalker,” he announced.  No one commented on the strangeness of this.  “And this is Midnight Stadium.  It’s commonly rented for specialty training programs and casual non-League tournaments, so none of the locals will find it odd that there are so many of you here.  Just remember to say that’s why you’re here if any of them ask.”

Stalker paused to make sure everyone was listening, but he hardly needed to—we were all hanging on every word.  “The first thing to do is get you signed up.  I’ve got the registration computers here connected to my own personal database.”  He motioned to the large screens covering the front walls of the lobby.  “Once you’re done, you should familiarize yourself with the battlefield while I finalize the Rocket information with everyone one-on-one.  And then after that…”—he gave what was probably the first smile I’d seen from him—“then we can get started on that training.”

Chapter Text

I had seen plenty of indoor battlefields on TV, but being inside one was an entirely different experience, even if Midnight Stadium was a lot smaller than the stadiums used for the Indigo League.  The battlefield area was a huge, flat space with a smooth, densely-packed clay surface.  Sheer concrete walls at least twenty feet high surrounded the entire area, and above that the audience seats were arranged in rows extending backward to the outer edge of the stadium.  The ceiling was currently shut, though the surrounding machinery probably meant that it was capable of being opened.

Most of the kids had finished signing up in the lobby and had moved on the battlefield by now.  I glanced around for Rudy, since he’d gotten registered before me, only to see that he had already located an opponent for a practice battle.  I couldn’t help laughing a bit at his impatience.  He was literally bouncing up and down as he pointed forward and yelled for his Spearow to attack.

“Hey there,” a voice behind me said.

I whirled around to see who it was and found myself looking down at a smaller kid, maybe a year or two younger than me.  He had straight, dirty-blond hair, light blue eyes, and was currently giving me an “I know something you don’t” sort of grin.

Did I know him?  His face did seem vaguely familiar, but I wasn’t sure why.  He obviously knew I didn’t recognize him, but seemed content to wait until I figured it out.  Where had I seen him before?

Oh right… he was that kid I’d seen when boarding the S.S. Anne.  Meeting him was the first proof that there were other recruits on the ship.

“Oh, it’s you.” I said blankly.  “Er, hello you.”

“Mm, close, but actually my name is Darren, not ‘you,’” he said matter-of-factly.  “But anyways, how was the S.S. Anne trip for you?  My team and I had fun.  Well… aside from the sudden ending.  I don’t think anyone much cared for that part.”  Even though he was clearly being sarcastic, he said it with the same sort of tone that you’d use for something dead serious, which was a little off-putting.

“Can’t complain really.  Fighting Rockets at 3am is one of my favorite things to do,” I said dryly.

“Ah, you too?  I guess we’re in the right place for that, yeah,” he said, nodding his head in a “that makes sense” sort of way.  I raised an eyebrow.  He paused for a second before saying, “Yeah okay, actually… I don’t think I’d say fighting Rockets is my favorite thing.  That’s probably not true.  It’s okay if it’s yours though.  I won’t judge.”

I really wanted to ask him to stop using that tone, but how do you ask something like that?

“So anyway, want to battle?” Darren asked, suddenly pulling out a Pokéball.  I was really gonna have to get used to that being the default greeting for Pokémon trainers.

“Oh, uh… sure?”  I retrieved my Pokéballs to let out Swift and Firestorm with a flash.  I then had to mentally smack myself—you weren’t supposed to let out your whole team for a battle.  Was this seriously my first ‘normal’ Pokémon battle?

“Oh.  Or we could show off our team first… that works too,” Darren said, shrugging.  I was about to say that I’d just made a mistake, but he had already grabbed two more Pokéballs and opened them along with the first one.  When the light faded, an Ivysaur, Sandshrew, and Psyduck now stood before me.

“Cool, so you started out with Bulbasaur, right?”  I hadn’t seen its evolved form up close before.  As I knelt to get a better look at it, the flower-backed reptile drew itself up proudly and shook its leaves.

“Yeah, ever since he evolved he’s been kind of a showoff,” Darren said, rubbing the back of his head.  “It’s even worse when we’re battling and he thinks someone’s watching.”  Ivysaur folded his ears back and shot his trainer a glare for that comment.  Darren ignored him and continued, “So, are we still gonna have that battle?”

“Oh.  Uh, sure, we can battle.  I’ll use…” I trailed off as I looked over my two Pokémon.  Firestorm was obviously stronger now, which meant I should use—“Swift.”

Firestorm’s face fell immediately.  “*What?  I wanted to—*”

“You evolved last night, let’s give Swift a chance to catch up, yeah?”  The Charmeleon didn’t much care for my explanation and folded his arms with a sulky expression.  Swift glanced back and forth between Firestorm and me, looking conflicted.

I waved a hand dismissively.  “Ignore him, this is your turn.”

The Pidgey blinked in surprise but then nodded before fluttering forward to stand between Darren and me.

“Alright… I’ll use Sandshrew then!” Darren called out, pointing forward.  The yellow-scaled Pokémon at his heels struck a triumphant pose before leaping in front, baring its claws with an aggressive smirk that didn’t seem to fit such a small creature.

First real battle… okay.  Didn’t have to worry about dying if I lost, so there was no reason to stress out over it.  No reason to forget everything I’d ever learned in battling class.

Except I’d learned nothing from battling class.

“Sandshrew, use Defense Curl!” Darren ordered.

Crap, I had to order an attack!  What moves did Swift even know?  There couldn’t be that many—he hadn’t been trained before.

“Uh, use Quick Attack!”

Faster than I could see, Swift took off from the ground and shot forward like a bullet, striking Sandshrew dead-on and sending it reeling backwards.  But as Swift pulled out of the dive, the yellow shrew quickly regained itself and rolled its body into a tightly curled ball.

“Alright, we got the first hit, now follow it up with a Tackle!” I shouted, already feeling my heart pound with excitement.

Swift swooped back around and aimed for his opponent again, this time going for a full-body slam rather than a quick passing strike.  The Pidgey slammed headlong into Sandshrew, but the thick-scaled Pokémon was braced to endure the hit—the impact barely moved it.

“What?  But why…?” I muttered.

“*Defense curl toughened its body.  It won’t be hurt easily now,*” Swift observed.

Darren grinned.  “Alright, now go for a Rollout!”

I just had the chance to see the ground-type’s hide turn rough and rocklike before it rotated at high speed and took off rolling across the stadium floor like a boulder.  Swift was flying overhead, so there wasn’t any way he could get hit, right?  Wrong—Sandshrew used its momentum to leap off the ground and hurtle through the air, aiming right for him.  Tilting a wing, Swift banked to the left at the last second as Sandshrew barreled past.  I would have sighed in relief if I weren’t still staring, unsure of what to do now.  So Swift wasn’t safe in the air.  What was the best option now?  I’d have to order an attack if we were to get anywhere.

“Go for another hit, Sandshrew!”

Crap, I had to come up with something, anything.  “Uh, Swift try another Quick Attack!”  Maybe if he could hit Sandshrew before it hit him?

But Sandshrew was already mid-Rollout again.  Swift glanced back at me with an uncertain look, but then dove forward too fast to see, closing in on the Rollout heading straight for him.

This was bad—Swift was going to get hit!  Why had I told him to attack like that?!

I flinched hard when the two collided, but that didn’t block Swift’s pained cry as he tumbled backward, rolling along the stadium floor before coming to rest in a battered heap.  I’d basically just told him to fly into a rock.  Why?!

I grabbed his Pokéball, ready to recall him, but amazingly, the Pidgey was already standing to his feet, shaking his head to get his bearings.  It had been a powerful hit, but it was the only hit he’d had to endure so far.  So we might’ve still had a chance.

“Sandshrew, come back around for the second hit!”  Darren called out, and I could have sworn its rocky armor grew a bit thicker.  Was this attack seriously going to get stronger as the battle went on?

Swift glanced back at me expectantly.  I stared at him, blank confusion plastered all over my face.  He nodded softly, as if trying to say that I should do something.  But whatever I said would only make things worse.  My mind was racing, but it wasn’t coming up with anything at all.  We only had a few seconds left!

Finally, Swift hung his head and turned back to face the oncoming Rollout.  He stretched out his wings and hopped in place, waiting for it to get near to him.  Then, at the very last second, he took off from the ground, letting the Rollout speed past.  I watched with bated breath, knowing that it was about to turn around for another blow.  But at that moment, Swift flapped his wings in a sudden frenzy, creating a blast of air that formed a spiraling whirlwind.  Sandshrew’s rolling form had just leaped at Swift when the rush of wind swept under it and flung it around in the air, knocking the ground-type out of its balled-up position.  It flailed its limbs in a panic, unable to resist being thrashed about by the whirlwind.

Of course—Gust.  How could I have forgotten about that?

The Gust attack finally dissipated and Sandshrew was sent flying to the ground, too dizzy to land on its feet and instead crashing awkwardly on its back.

“Come on Sandshrew, launch a Poison Sting at it!”

But in that split second before it could regain itself, Swift dove forward too quickly to see and struck Sandshrew right in its vulnerable underbelly.  The yellow-scaled Pokémon flew backward from the hit, and when it finally slid to a stop, it was clearly too dazed to move.

“Dang,” Darren said flatly.  “I thought Rollout would make for an easy win.”

I’d won.  But the victory didn’t feel like my own—I’d mostly just gotten in the way.  I definitely had a lot more to learn from the training here than my team did.  But then… the whole point of this was to make myself stronger, right?

Darren recalled his Sandshrew in a beam of light.  “So I guess that’s the last time I’ll underestimate a Pidgey.  Good job!  Although,” —he laughed—“it kinda seemed like that was your first battle or something.”

I could feel my cheeks go red.  I wasn’t sure if I should tell him that it was.

Swift had fluttered down to stand next to me, but he kept staring at the ground like he’d done something wrong.

“What’s up?” I asked.

He paused, unsure of how to put it.  “*I used moves on my own.  Is that allowed?*”

I almost laughed.  “If your trainer doesn’t have a freaking clue what to do, you can’t just stand there, right?”  The Pidgey blinked slowly, processing the thought.

“Hey Jade, I just got done with my battle, and—oh cool, you had a battle too?  Nice!  Who won?” Rudy said all at once, appearing from behind me and brimming with excitement.

“Swift won,” I answered.  It would’ve been weird to say that I won.

“Awesome!  Anyway, my plan is to like, at least double my Pokémon’s power within the first month here, and—”  He stopped mid-sentence, eyeing Firestorm and Swift in confusion.  “Hey, I just realized—where’s your Pikachu?”

My heart curled inward on itself, and I fought back the sudden urge to disappear from the conversation.  Why did he have to ask about that?  The memory burned a hole in my chest every time it came up.  How could I have let the Rockets take Chibi?  Why couldn’t I stop them?  Why?

After several seconds, I finally replied, “He left.  I told you I didn’t think he’d stay with me.”

“Aw… your cool Pikachu left?” Darren said, frowning.  “I liked him.”

“That sucks.  So now you only have two Pokémon?” Rudy asked.

I nodded, really hoping we could get off this topic as soon as possible.  I got my wish when a large amount of the surrounding conversation died down suddenly.  After a few seconds’ glancing around in confusion, I realized that Stalker had walked through the entrance to the battlefield, causing everyone in a twenty-foot radius around him to pause in silent anticipation.

“There’s no need to be like that.  We’re all teammates now,” Stalker said, motioning for everyone to relax.  “I asked a few people individually if they knew anything more detailed about what happened on the S.S. Anne.  Some of them have mentioned hearing one of you say you were there during the Rockets’ mission.”  He paused expectantly.

I glanced around the battlefield.  Right… it looked like I’d have to reveal my actions.  Hesitantly, I raised my hand into the air.  Stalker scanned the crowd for a few seconds until his eyes fell on me.  He then said, “Alright, come to my office.”

I hadn’t really been expecting that.  I gave Rudy and Darren a bewildered shrug before motioning for Swift and Firestorm to follow me, only to be met with a wide-eyed look of disappointment from the latter.

“Oh fine, stay with Rudy and Darren if you want to battle so much, sheesh,” I said, waving a hand dismissively.  Swift opted to stay too, though it was clear that he planned on observing more than taking part.

Everyone’s eyes were on me the whole time I walked to the front of the battlefield, though the only stare that mattered was Stalker’s.  His expression was impossible to make out, which only fueled the prickles of anxiety starting to fill the back of my head.  When I reached him, he simply nodded before turning and walking back up the stairs leading to the main entrance.  I followed him out of the battlefield and back into the lobby before he turned down the right hallway and opened the first door we came to, motioning for me to enter.  The room was fairly small, and taken up mostly by a large desk that was currently covered in a wide array of computer hardware, all hooked up to a laptop.  Above the desk was a bookshelf that, at a glance, seemed to mostly involve Pokémon training and mythology.  The few pictures on the walls were illustrations of Legendary Pokémon.

“So…” he said, sitting down at the desk.  “I don’t know what you were involved with or how much you know.  Can you tell me?”  His voice was inquisitive but still had a firm tone like I didn’t really have a choice in the matter.

I took a seat in a small black chair across from him, unable to keep from feeling at least a bit nervous at the idea of telling him what I’d done.  I paused for several seconds, then finally said, “Alright.”  And with that I recounted—for the second time that day—the story of my clash with the Rockets.  He stayed silent the whole time, his expression inscrutable.  When I finished telling it, he didn’t say anything, but simply sat there with a look of deep concentration on his face, carefully mulling everything over.  I had to admit, I was feeling kind of anxious to hear what he thought of the whole incident.  Heck, it would probably impact the role I would play on the team.

“So.  You and a renegade experiment managed to stop them.  You did what needed to be done, given the circumstances.  I wouldn’t have expected that kind of initiative from you.”  I tilted my head, unsure of how I was supposed to respond to that.  He continued, “I’ll have to wait until the mission report to know for sure.  But from the Rockets’ point of view, they either were able to take me and most of the rebels out, or send a strong message of ‘this is what happens if you try to oppose us.’  So either way, they’ll view it as a win.”  He didn’t mention why the Rockets would have been so desperate to get at him, but I didn’t have the nerve to ask.

“So, enough about that.  I might as well get you registered for Team Rocket now.”  I almost laughed at how bizarrely matter-of-fact that statement was in this situation.  He flipped open his laptop and began typing on it.  “Your name?”

“Oh, uh, Jade Arens.”

He looked over his screen for a bit before saying, “Mm, here you are.  Now, for your Rocket ID, I’ll be randomizing your name, birthday, hometown, and Rocket initiation, so…”—he paused to click a few things—“it looks like from now on, you’re Allie Farias from Cerulean City; first registered at Northern HQ, born on the 6^th of September, 2983.  Once you get your ID, you should memorize all of the information so you don’t slip up when an executive asks you about yourself.  There are other things like evaluation status, rank, department, and commanding officer, but those aren’t the sort of info I can fake—they’ll be assigned to you when you make your first trip to an actual Rocket base.”

“How many bases are there?” I asked.

“There are four major ones in Kanto,” he replied.  “Northern HQ near Cerulean, Financial HQ in Saffron, Operations HQ in Celadon, and Main HQ in Viridian.”

Viridian.  The main headquarters for Team Rocket was in my hometown, and our representative gym leader was its boss.  As if I needed more reason to take the fight against Team Rocket personally.

“I just need your photo now,” Stalker said, and I nodded.  He tapped on a few things with his laptop, and it clicked when the picture was taken.  “That should be everything for now.  I’ll hand out everyone’s IDs before your first mission.  By the way… you don’t have a trainer’s license yet, do you?” he asked.

“No.”  My voice was a bit hollow.

“Mm, then you wouldn’t have gotten a room number registered to your license when you signed up.  You’ll need this,” he said, handing me a small plastic card.  “It’s a card key for a room here.  And since I’m renting the stadium and letting everyone stay in it for free, you won’t be paid as much as I had originally intended,” he added.

“Paid?” I asked.  We’d get… money for this?  It hadn’t occurred to me that we’d be paid to fight Team Rocket.

“Of course.  And depending on how well you act the part of a loyal, contributing member, you’ll get paid by Team Rocket, too.”

“You have… no idea how great that sounds,” I said with more than a little relief in my voice.

“Low on cash, I take it?”

“Yeah, I spent it all while waiting in Vermilion,” I said sheepishly.

Chuckling slightly, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a billfold before tossing a 5000p note onto the table.  “Can’t have my team members starving.  And I owe you for what happened on the S.S. Anne.”

I stared at it.  “Seriously?”

He gave me a hard look and said, “Take it.”

My feet dragged against the road as I trudged back from my trip downtown, backpack loaded up with both groceries and Pokémon food.  Sweat poured down my face, making me even more uncomfortably aware of how high the sun had climbed.  And it wasn’t even high noon yet.  But the air on Midnight Island was thick and stifling and not at all like the mountain breezes I was used to in Viridian.  Part of me wished that I had made Firestorm come with so I could have had someone else help carry what I’d bought, but it was too late to do anything about it now.

A wave of relief swept over me as the stadium came into view, and I would have run the rest of the way if my legs weren’t still dead from last night.  I was tempted to take the groceries up to my room and eat there, but Swift and Firestorm were probably just as hungry as I was.  And so, ignoring the part of my brain that kept whispering promises of a shower and pillows, I walked straight to the battlefield.

It didn’t take long to find my Pokémon, even amongst the numerous battles still taking place.  Swift was easy to spot, practicing some aerial maneuvers in a relatively empty corner of the battlefield.  And below him was Firestorm, sitting on the ground with a miserable look on his face while Darren sprayed him all over with a potion.

Darren waved when he spotted me.  “Hey Jade, I’m just healing him up after that last battle.”

The Charmeleon stared up at me with a sulky expression.  “*I lost to Ivysaur.  Ivysaur.  I feel humiliated.*”

Darren gave me a helpless look.  “I… tried to tell him that he’d be at a disadvantage without a trainer to strategize for him.”

Ivysaur muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “*Even with a trainer, he’d have still lost,*” but luckily Firestorm didn’t hear him.

“*I want a rematch,*” the fire lizard said, standing up the instant Darren was done healing him.

“No, you don’t.  Food.  Now,” I said flatly, gesturing to my backpack.  “Come on, let’s find a place to sit down.”  I gave a small wave to Darren before heading off to the stairway leading to the audience stands, Swift flying close behind and Firestorm dragging his heels.

The view from the stands let me look out over all of the rebels in the battlefield, and from the looks of their Pokémon, most of them were about the same skill level.  Over half of the trainers had the middle stage of their starter Pokémon: Ivysaur, Charmeleon, or Wartortle, though there were a couple of trainers who still hadn’t evolved theirs yet—Rudy among them.  Quite a few trainers had the common bird Pokémon like Spearow, Pidgey, and Hoothoot or the common field Pokémon like Rattata, Sentret, Meowth, and Ekans.  But every so often I spotted a trainer with a more uncommon team member like Magnemite, Slowpoke, Jigglypuff, and one kid who even had a Heracross.

I tore open the bags of Pokéchow and poured some out into a pair of plastic bowls I’d bought, then proceeded to hastily throw together a sandwich for myself.  In between shoving fistfuls of food into his mouth, Firestorm mumbled, “*Never lost to any of the Bulbasaur at the starter house.*”

“Holy crap, are you still going on about that?” I asked, rolling my eyes.  But the important bit of info in what he’d said jumped out at me.  “Wait a second… did you say starter house?”

“*Yeah.*”

“As in, place where they raise starter Pokémon?  You were a starter Pokémon?”

“*Yeah,*” the fire lizard said, as though nothing were more obvious.

“But then… why were you living in the forest?  Did you get separated from your trainer, or did you never have one, or…” I trailed off.

Firestorm swallowed a mouthful of food and said, “*I had a trainer, yeah.*”

“…Had?”

He closed his eyes, as though he’d been expecting me to ask, but hoping I wouldn’t.  “*We… only ever made it to the first city on our journey.  That’s where I was stolen from him.*”

My mouth fell open.  “Seriously?”

Firestorm nodded. “*I managed to escape eventually, but I couldn’t find him after that,” he went on, a strange monotone to his voice.  “*I didn’t have any choice other than running away into the woods.*”

I stared at the Charmeleon, lost for words.  I never would have guessed that he’d gone through anything like that.  I couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t feel hollow and tactless.  Finally, I managed to ask, “Did you ever go looking for any League officials?  Even a Pokémon Center employee might have been able to help you find him.”

He shook his head.  “*I was afraid to go back into the city again.*”

“I guess I can’t blame you for that… although it’s still sad.  Now that I think of it, if I was able to capture you, then your old Pokéball must have been destroyed.”

Firestorm shrugged.  “*Probably.  I ended up meeting a group of Charmander living in the woods west of that city.  I spent a long time there until… well, until that fire,*” he ended.

I nodded to show that I was paying attention, but I couldn’t think of anything more to say that didn’t feel empty.  Then again, it had been a long time ago, and while he hadn’t wanted to tell me, he didn’t seem especially broken up by saying it.  At least the revelation that he was a starter explained his behavior on the S.S. Anne.

“You know… I never did get to thank you,” I said distantly while lost in my thoughts.  He looked up, confused.  “For being so determined to protect me last night,” I clarified.

Firestorm stared at the ceiling.  “*Pokémon are supposed to protect their trainers,*” he said simply.  He then gave me a very serious look and said, “*But I wouldn’t have been able to keep them from shooting you.*”

I rubbed the back of my head a bit sheepishly.  “I guess… but that situation was my fault.  You can’t be expected to be able to save me from every impossible mess I get myself into.”

He didn’t respond—he just stared at the ground with a skeptical face, like he didn’t agree with what I’d just said, but couldn’t think of how to argue it.

“What about you, Swift?  You’ve sure been quiet,” I said.

The Pidgey turned toward me quizzically.  “*I don’t have anything to say.*”

I laughed.  “Ah come on, I’m pretty sure you have a heck of a lot more on your mind than you let on.”  At that comment, the feathers on his face ruffled with embarrassment, and he focused intently on his food bowl.

“C’mon.  What are your thoughts on us being here?” I asked, giving him a light nudge.  “It was my decision to come here, but you guys are affected by it too.”

“*I’m gonna get stronger right?*” Firestorm blurted out all of a sudden.

I slapped a hand to my forehead.  “Yes, Firestorm, you’re gonna get stronger.”

“*I’d like to learn more about Pokémon battles,*” Swift said finally, looking up.

“Oh yeah?  Like what?”

He paused thoughtfully.  “*I want to understand all of the options in battle.  It’s more complicated than just one attack and then another.*”

I sighed.  “That’s what I’m afraid of.  Even using the simulators at school—which are nothing like the real thing, they’re more evenly paced—I could never get a handle on anything other than just… random powerful attacks, one after the other.  I also don’t know most Pokémon’s strengths and weaknesses—it’s too much to remember.”

“*Strengths and weaknesses?*” Swift asked, tilting his head.  “*You mean how I would be harmed more by electricity than Firestorm?*”

“No, I mean like how some Pokémon species can take physical hits better than special hits, and vice versa.  But not always—everyone’s different, and the trainer has to know everything about how their Pokémon fight, ‘cause that determines what the best moves are, and—”  I was making the situation sound more hopeless by the second.  “Man, I’m screwed.”

“*This is different from school.  You’ll get it,*” Swift said, closing his eyes with a matter-of-fact nod.

I smiled weakly.

Firestorm was staring at the battlefield with a concerned expression, like he was still getting over the revelation that random power attacks were no way to battle properly.

I suddenly became aware that the trainers had begun to clear out the battlefield and were making their way up the stairs to the audience stands where I was sitting.  Darren plopped down into a seat next to me without saying anything.  Only a few seconds later, Rudy took the seat on my other side, saying way too many things.

“Oh man, what do you think the first lesson is gonna be, do you think he’s gonna use his Charizard, I’ve wanted to see that thing battle ever since I first saw him riding it, but then again, the rest of his team is probably awesome too, and—”

“You wanna try telling me what’s actually going on?” I asked.

Rudy paused, looking mildly embarrassed.  “Oh, er… Stalker’s gonna start the first lesson, and he needed the battlefield empty for it.”

I turned to look down at the battlefield and saw that Stalker was now the only person down there.  By now, everyone had found a seat and all eyes were focused completely on him.  Even Firestorm had stopped sulking and was now staring intently.

“So, I’m sure the thing you’re all looking forward to most is your training,” Stalker said.  “Getting stronger will be useful in more ways than one.  As new members of Team Rocket, proving yourself worthwhile in combat will be the first step to making the Rockets view you as a valuable asset.  This will increase how much of the team you have access to, which will make it easier to carry out your true mission of sabotaging them from the inside.  As for the opposition…”

Stalker paced back and forth in front of us as he talked, considering his words carefully.  “A lot of grunts are dropout trainers looking to make a quick buck.  With enough training, you should be able to take them on.  Officers, on the other hand… they’re ones most often called upon to fight rebels or Legendaries.  To make it to that rank, they have to be skilled at taking down enemies, one way or another.  In short, you don’t want to fight them.”

Here he paused, letting his words sink into us.

“But if you do find yourself fighting them… what do you think would be the best course of action?”

Honestly, I had no idea.  I wasn’t sure if it was rhetorical or not either.  A couple of the trainers discussed it amongst themselves for a minute before a kid two rows ahead of me stood up and said, “Exploit their weaknesses?”

Stalker gave a tiny smirk.  “Not bad.  But the answer, of course, is finding a way to escape.”  A bunch of the trainers glanced back and forth at each other, murmuring confusedly.  Our goal was to escape?  How would that help us stop them?

Stalker closed his eyes and shook his head.  “Until you’re decently experienced, you don’t actually want to be fighting any Rockets.  The training for your Pokémon is just a general-purpose thing.  The focus will be on your training, as a trainer.  If you’re doing your job right, the Rockets should never even know you’re there.”

Everyone stared, and you could almost feel the disappointment.  Stalker stared back at us coldly, content to wait until the group was done whispering its concerns.

“That being said…” he continued, “there are a few ways you can maximize your chance of success against a stronger opponent.  How many of you watch League matches on TV?”

Well over half the kids around me raised their hands into the air.  Even I had to admit that I’d watched them a couple times.

“How many of you watch matches from other regions?”

Everyone’s faces fell, and the majority of the hands sank slowly downward.  Had I ever given more than a second glance to another region’s matches on TV?  I couldn’t imagine I’d have ever cared—they used weird rules and their battles were hard to follow.

“I know that we’re awful fond of singles here.  It’s the dominant format for all official battles in Kanto.  But double battles are the primary format in Hoenn.  Sinnoh runs a large number of tag battle tournaments.  Unova has more than one format with six Pokémon on the field at once.  These formats are collectively known as multi battles.”  At this point, scattered bits of groaning could be heard from the kids around me.

“Come onnn… multi battles are confusing, don’t tell me we have to learn those,” someone called out.

“You’d better, if you want to stay alive.”  That got everyone to shut up.  “There’s a higher learning curve, but multi battles will let you get a lot more synergy out of your Pokémon.”

Everyone stared in silence.  A lot of the trainers had that look like they wanted to protest, but couldn’t figure out how to without being shut down.

Stalker continued, “You’ll need synergy.  It’s one of the things that can let you take down a foe with stronger Pokémon, which for the first couple months will be everyone.  If you only have one Pokémon out, an enemy Rocket that is confident enough might only send one to meet you.  But that is not always the case.  If they send out more, you need to be ready to have a multi battle with them.  It might be uneven.”  My mind wandered back to the battles with Tyson and the executive.  Huge melees with many Pokémon per side.  It had been impossible for me to keep track of all the action.  But after training here, would I be able to?  Ajia had been able to keep her cool even in such a chaotic fight, and if I could reach that level too…

“I know this is hard to believe.  So I’ll prove it to you—watch this battle.”  And with that, Stalker pulled out four Pokéballs—two in each hand—and tossed one pair toward each side of the battlefield.

On the left side, two dragons emerged, one of which was the Charizard I’d seen him riding several times.  The fire lizard flapped its wings and took to the air, swinging its flame-tail aggressively and exhaling scattered embers with each breath.  The second was a tall, bulky, golden-scaled dragon with small teal wings, and the moment I registered what it was, my jaw fell open.  A Dragonite.  He actually had a Dragonite on his team.  One of the rarest and most powerful Pokémon around, and the hardest to train at that.

Facing them down on the opposing side was a pair of armored dinosaur Pokémon.  The first one, a Tyranitar (another rare and powerful Pokémon!) took a low bow before drawing itself proudly up to its full height, showing off the impressive spikes jutting from its green, rock-armor plating.  Its partner, on the other hand, was clad in metallic plating with a trio of horns atop its head.  It swung its heavy black tail side to side, looking excited to start the fight

A wave of murmuring filled the stands, and it wasn’t hard to see why—the latter side had the overwhelming advantage.  Even I knew that two rock-types against two flying-types was a bad matchup.  And Charizard was a fire-type too!  Its flames would barely do anything here.

Stalker motioned to each of the four combatants in turn.  “Charizard and Dragonite versus Tyranitar and Aggron.  Battle start.”

Not even a second later, Charizard roared and began flapping its wings, sending a rush of superheated air toward the opposing side of the field, cloaking the armored dinosaurs in a haze of shimmering heat.  Tyranitar regained itself first and stomped the ground, tearing loose chunks of rock and sending them hurtling through the air at the dragons.  Aggron staggered backward from the first attack, parts of its armor glowing red-hot from the heat, but after a few seconds’ hesitation, it also managed to send a Rock Slide at its opposition.

Alright, so Charizard had been fast enough to get the first move off, but what was it supposed to do now?  There was no way it could dodge all those rocks.  But for some reason… it didn’t even look like it was planning to?  Behind it, Dragonite had begun twisting and turning in midair, making a sort of rhythmic, tight-circled flight.  Sparkling red and green embers quickly started to sweep across its body.  At the last second, Charizard dove forward in front of the oncoming rocks and folded its wings tightly around its body.  A shimmering translucent wall of white energy instantly formed in front of the fire lizard.  I stared in awe—rocks smashed into the wall one after another, but none could even touch Charizard.  Its partner was struck by a few of the more far-flung boulders, but didn’t look nearly as hurt by them as I’d have imagined.

Darren leaned over and whispered to me, “Oh man, I think Dragonite just used Dragon Dance.  It’s gonna be way faster and stronger now.  Ha, the other side better take it down fast or they’re screwed.”

I still couldn’t get over the fact that both dragons were still in the fight.  I had thought for sure that the double Rock Slide was going to be the end of it.

Aggron charged forward toward the opposition, gathering a huge amount of flashing red energy around its head.  Tyranitar stood its ground and took a deep breath before blasting out a jagged blue beam of ice crystals—what, Ice Beam?  Seriously?  Tyranitar could use Ice Beam?  Dragonite didn’t look concerned, though.  The bulky dragon just swooped low over the battlefield, folding its wings around itself, and then the same shining wall of energy formed in front of it.  Jagged strings of icy energy shot off the barrier when the Ice Beam struck, but not a single one could touch Dragonite.  Not a second later, Aggron smashed its head into the dragon with a sickening crack… and somehow the barrier absorbed the entire force of the attack?  What?

A giant orb of blue and white energy flew in from the side, striking Tyranitar while it was preoccupied with its attack.  The spiked dinosaur recoiled backward, howling in pain before sinking to its knees from the shock of the blast.  I turned my head to the left side of the battlefield to see Charizard’s claws glowing faintly from having launched the orb.

Charizard was the one who had done it.  Charizard had brought Tyranitar to its knees.  It didn’t seem possible, but I’d just watched it happen.

Dragonite took that opportunity to shoot back into the air, its small wings carrying it impossibly fast.  Without warning, it dove down and slammed its feet into the ground, letting loose a shock wave that rippled out from its center.  The waves travelled across the floor striking both opponents and shattering the ground underneath their feet.  Amazingly, we could barely feel the impact up in the stands.  Then again, it made sense for modern stadiums to be protected against things like that.

Tyranitar was struggling to stand after two powerful hits in a row, but Aggron managed to stand up long enough to stomp the ground, sending jagged blades of stone ripping up from the ground and digging into Dragonite, stopping its flight cold and sending the dragon plummeting downward.  But right at that moment, Charizard sent another wave of scorching heat flying at the opposition, and though both dinosaurs managed to weather it for a few seconds, eventually they both collapsed to the floor and didn’t get up.

No way.  They’d done it.  They’d actually pulled off beating two rock-type Pokémon.

Everyone burst into cheers and applause the instant the battle was done, and I couldn’t help but join them, clapping furiously until my hands hurt.  Sure, I didn’t know what half the moves being used were, but what did that matter?

Dragonite slowly struggled to its feet and gave a curt nod, while Charizard spread its arms wide, letting the praise wash over it.  I couldn’t help noticing Firestorm clapping even harder at that point, his eyes wide with admiration.

Stalker recalled the two fallen combatants, then waited a bit for the applause to die down before he recalled the two victors.

“I should tell you right now—that battle was staged,” he said, pacing in front of us.  “But I wanted it to demonstrate something.  Even if you have the disadvantage, there are still options in every fight.  And you can exploit those options to put yourself in a better position.  So, yes, while you shouldn’t really be fighting any Rockets… you are going to learn how.

“Over the next few months we are going to train—not just your Pokémon, but yourselves—physically and mentally.  Some of you will be taking an active role in making sure their field missions don’t succeed.  Others will take on a more covert role gathering information for us to use against them.  Both are equally important.  In agreeing to join this cause, all of you have shown a lot of nerve, and that’s already been tested with the S.S. Anne attack.”

And in that moment, for what felt like the first time, I felt a glimmer of pride for being a part of all this.  Last night had been awful, but I’d managed to make a difference, hadn’t I?  And I finally had an opportunity to make sure I’d be able to handle things better next time.

Stalker finally stopped his pacing and turned to face us directly.  “Once I think you’re ready, you’ll get the chance to put everything you’ve learned to the test and infiltrate a Team Rocket base.  It’ll be your first real mission as members of this team.”

“What are we gonna be called?” a voice called out from the crowd.  Stalker paused, as though he hadn’t considered that.

“Yeah!  We need a team name!” someone else yelled.  And with that, more and more of the kids built up the courage to let their excitement pour through and start throwing out ideas.

“How about Team Midnight, ‘cause we’re on Midnight Island!” one kid exclaimed.

“No, we could be the Team Rocket Rebellion!” another shouted.

“That’s too long, just the Rebellion!  It sounds more mysterious!” a girl yelled excitedly.

“I like the sound of that,” Stalker said all of a sudden, his face breaking into a grin.  “All in favor of the Rebellion, raise their hands!”

Over half the kids shot their hands into the air.

“Well, that settles it.  In a few months, the Rebellion will be a force to be reckoned with.”

Chapter Text

My feet pounded against the dirt as I ran, ducking and weaving around trees.  The beating of wings and the thud of claws on the ground followed not far behind.  I had to be nearing the end of the forest—it felt like I’d been running forever.  A quick glance at my watch showed that twenty minutes had passed since we started.  Alright, not too bad.  I was making good time.  Just had to keep going.

A rustle in the bushes to the left caught my attention and I froze.  Swift noticed it and launched into a series of powerful flaps to stir up a Whirlwind in that direction.  The force of the winds was a lot stronger than I was used to—I had to plant my feet firmly on the ground not to lose my balance.  Still… nothing flew out.  But I didn’t let my guard down.  There was something nearby—I could feel it.

The crunching of leaves behind me.  That was no mistake.

“Everyone dodge now!” I called out, jumping aside as a group of Pokémon leaped out at us from behind.  I whirled around in an instant to size up our attackers.  Nidorino, Spearow, Wartortle—alright, our opponent definitely had to be Rudy.

“Swift, use Sand Attack on Wartortle.  Firestorm, Scary Face!”

“Water Gun, Fury Attack, Peck!” Rudy yelled, jumping out from his hiding place.

Firestorm stood his ground and flashed a horrifying snarl at Nidorino.  Spikes quivering with fear, the poison-type’s movement slowed, letting Firestorm easily jump out of the way.  Swift then swooped low over the ground to kick up a rush of sand at Wartortle before he could do anything.  The turtle stumbled backward, rubbing his eyes.  Spearow rushed in and jabbed Firestorm in the back with her beak while he was busy avoiding repeated blows from Nidorino’s spikes.  The flame-tailed lizard whirled around to scratch with his heavy claws but was caught in the leg by the Fury Attack.  Swift beat his wings forcefully to send a Gust attack flying forward, throwing Spearow’s flight off-balance and letting Firestorm focus on avoiding the—

I almost didn’t notice it.  The soft padding of paws on the ground behind me.  I lunged to the side just before Ebony went hurtling past me.  The black firedog landed nimbly on the ground near the ongoing battle, looking rather disappointed that she’d missed.  Judging by the mischievous grin on her face, she wasn’t planning on giving up so easily, though, and I had to duck behind the nearest tree to avoid another lunge from the Houndour.  Meanwhile, Wartortle had just washed the sand from his eyes and proceeded to tackle Firestorm to the ground, pinning the Charmeleon under his shell.

Rudy grinned confidently.  “Water Pulse!”

“Er—use Ember!” I blurted out, trying to keep a good view of the battle.

Firestorm was faster.  As Wartortle was inhaling, the fire lizard spat a flurry of red-hot flares right into his face.  The turtle recoiled backward instantly, coughing and sputtering in pain, feathered ears smoldering a bit.

The sound of excited panting turned my attention back to Ebony, who was still in hot pursuit.  But then out of nowhere, Swift shot forward like a bullet and struck her with a Quick Attack.  The Houndour was completely bowled over from being struck by a bird so much larger than her.

“Alright, that’s one hit on each of ‘em, time to run!” I called out.

Firestorm immediately jumped out of the battle area and rushed over to my side.  Swift banked hard and soared back towards us, his crimson head feathers trailing in the wind.  I spun around and dashed off with them.  Rudy’s Pokémon weren’t far behind.

“Use Pursuit!” he ordered.

Crap, I should have been ready for that.  Had to avoid it somehow.

“Use Smokescreen!” I called out.

Firestorm spun around and quickly spewed out a thick cloud of black smoke behind us, completely obscuring Rudy’s Pokémon.  Alright, that would probably do the trick.

Nope.  A red-winged bird shot clean through the smoke and struck Firestorm just as he had turned tail to run again.  Swift pulled back to go for another attack, but Spearow had already vanished after getting her last hit in.  Firestorm growled in frustration.

Great.  Rudy was the second trainer in the lineup who had managed to land a hit while we were escaping.  The whole point of this exercise was to not get hit.

“*Evasive tactics like Smokescreen won’t work on Spearow—she has Keen Eye just like I do,*” Swift pointed out.

“Right.  I forgot.”  Keen Eye.  A lot of birds could see right through stuff like Smokescreen and Sand Attack.  “But then how are we supposed to avoid Pursuit from them?”

Swift didn’t answer.  He seemed to be in deep thought over the question.  Either way, it was best if I didn’t focus on it right now.  We still had to finish the exercise, and there were two more trainers to fight in this forest.  At least Firestorm and Swift were still in decent shape after that battle.  Good thing too, cause I didn't have many healing supplies left.  Just two potions and a handful of berries.

Salty sweat stung eyes my eyes as we ran, and I brushed it out for what felt like the hundredth time.  The burning hot August sun beat down us from above, and even the shade couldn’t keep out its oppressive heat.  After about three minutes, I started scanning the trees for signs of our next opponent.  They had to be around here somewhere, and I didn’t want to be caught off guard.

Twin blurs of orange shot out of nowhere.  Swift barreled upward at the last second to avoid the first, but the second one landed a glancing blow on Firestorm, who spat out a flurry of embers reflexively.  The attacker slowed to a halt after being scorched by the flares, and only then could I see the sleek, two-tailed otter now blocking our path.

Rustling all around us.  I spun around in all directions, hoping to get an idea of what Pokémon we were facing.  The shaggy-furred rat that had initially jumped out at us was still bouncing around, trying to land a hit on Swift.  Swift kept a safe distance from it, dodging each of its tackles one after the other.  But then a large, brown owl shot out of the trees straight for him, forcing the Pidgeotto to make an awkward dive straight down, only narrowly missing the ground.

“Use Quick Attack when you get the opportunity!  Firestorm, back him up with Ember!”

Firestorm had just opened his mouth when he was suddenly tackled into the ground out of nowhere by the leaf-necked dinosaur that had been hiding in the bush right next to him.

Buizel, Raticate, Noctowl, and Bayleef…  Liam?  Pretty sure our opponent had to be Liam.  He was the only rebel with a Johto starter.

Sure enough, a tall, pale boy with spiky black hair stepped out from behind a tree, pointed at us, and ordered, “Noctowl, use Hypnosis!”

“Firestorm, use Smokescreen!” I yelled back.

The Charmeleon immediately filled the clearing with a thick black haze.  Alright, hopefully that would give us a better chance at dodging their moves.  I could make out a large flapping shape hovering over the battlefield—probably Noctowl, judging by the forked crest on its head.  It whirled around to face its opponents one after the other but couldn’t seem to lock eyes with any of them in order to pull off a Hypnosis.  Good, one less thing to worry about.

“Not bad with that Smokescreen,” Liam said.  “Guess we’ll have to kick it up a notch.  Bayleef, Razor Leaf; Buizel, Aqua Jet; Raticate, Quick Attack!”

Swift made a last second lunge to avoid the Buizel surging toward him in a torrent of water, but wasn’t fast enough to dodge the Quick Attack from Raticate.  Firestorm rushed forward to help repel his attackers but then was caught in a flurry of razor-sharp leaves, slicing him all over.  The fire lizard growled and slashed wildly at the leaves before breathing out a burst of embers, burning up most of them.

“Come on, use Ember on Bayleef!” I called out.

Firestorm whirled around, sending a spurt of scattered flares in the direction he’d been attacked from, but Bayleef wasn’t there any more—it had retreated back into the shrubbery.

“Good job, Bayleef.  Raticate, Buizel, don’t let the Pidgeotto get an opening.  Noctowl, use Confusion,” Liam said calmly.

“Swift, use Gust behind you!  Firestorm, aim your Ember upward!” I yelled, desperately hoping it would work.  The fight was taking way too much time, and we’d be screwed if we didn’t finish it quickly.

Swift flipped backwards in an instant and flapped his wings to send a spiraling vortex of air straight at his pursuers.  They were so close on his tail that they didn’t even have a chance to avoid it—Buizel and Raticate were both swept up by the Gust and thrown into the nearest tree, and the rush of wind thinned the smoky haze somewhat.  Firestorm craned his neck upward and shot another Ember straight up into the air, scoring a direct hit on Noctowl, who was right in the middle of charging up a wave of psychic energy.  And then, without me saying anything, Swift dove straight into a Quick Attack, aimed at one of the bushes nearest Firestorm.  Bayleef looked up in alarm at being spotted, right before the tawny bird struck it headlong, throwing it to the ground.

“That’s all of them! Time to run!” I called out, my heart pounding with excitement.  In an instant, the tables had turned in our favor.  Firestorm spun around and didn’t waste a second running after me, and Swift didn’t take long to regain his flight speed and catch up to us.

Liam grinned.  “Bayleef, Magical Leaf; Raticate, Pursuit.”

Crap.  Not Pursuit again.  No matter how many times we tried running from it, fleeing only made Pursuit stronger.  What were we supposed to do?  Running away wasn’t an option.  That only left… standing our ground?

I locked eyes with Swift, and it was obvious we were thinking the same thing.  The Pidgeotto banked hard in order to land facing our opponent, wings outstretched.  He stood there, tensing up as the orange-furred rat shot forward, cloaked in dark energy.  And then at the last second, he leaped aside and smacked Raticate with his wings, sending the rat face-planting straight into the ground.

I pumped a fist into the air.  “All right!  Now dodge the—”

Too late.  A whirling storm of multicolored leaves zeroed in on Firestorm despite his best efforts to avoid them.  The fire lizard sank to his knees, flailing his arms around trying to knock the leaves away, but they didn’t want to stop.  Moving as quickly as I could, I dashed over and grabbed him roughly by the claw, trying to ignore the tiny cuts being inflicted on my arms by the leaves.

“Come on!” I exclaimed, pulling him to his feet and attempting to run with him in tow.  And with Swift flying alongside us, we finally managed to flee the battle area without getting hit by anything else.

It wasn’t until we were a good distance away that we paused to catch our breath.  I leaned against a tree before sinking to the ground, feeling dazed.

“Well, so much for our escape,” I said, still breathing hard.  “Come on, let me spray you both with the potions.”

Swift fluttered over and I pulled the first Super Potion from my bag and sprayed it all over him.  He shook his head and ruffled his feathers, looking relieved.  Firestorm was still standing a ways away, staring at the ground.

“Your turn,” I said, and the fire lizard finally wandered over to let me spray him as well.  He’d sustained a lot more injuries from the battle, but at least it looked like they’d all be healed by the potion.

“*That was stupid.  Can’t believe I got hit so much,*” Firestorm muttered while the slices on his crimson scales closed up.  “*And how did a grass-type’s moves cause this much damage?*”

“Ever think it might’ve been ‘cause we were caught off guard?”  I asked, giving him a hard look.

The Charmeleon snorted but didn’t say anything.

I sighed.  “In any case, that last part was my fault.  I think Magical Leaf is a sure-shot move.  They’d have followed you even if you dodged in time.”

I quickly guzzled some water from a bottle before replacing it in my bag with the empty potions.  Time to run again.  We set off along the marked path towards what would hopefully be the last battle.  Within a few minutes I finally started to recognize the scenery.  We were near the stadium—we had to be.  That meant we’d almost reached the end of the course!  But that also meant there was probably another fight coming soon.

Sure enough, in a clearing up ahead, I spotted my opponent.

Oh man—it was Ray.  Figures he’d be one of the enemies—he almost always got assigned to that role.  He wasn’t even hiding or anything.  He was just standing there out in the open wearing the same frustratingly calm expression he always wore before completely destroying you.

My heart was pounding.  “Swift, use Gust; Firestorm, go for a Scratch!”

His Charmeleon and Luxio lunged forward the instant we were within range.  Swift flew into position and stirred up a blast of wind at the opposing fire lizard.  But then he wasn’t able to dodge the electrifying tackle from Luxio seconds later.  The Pidgeotto cried out in pain as sparks coursed through his feathers.  Meanwhile Firestorm and the other Charmeleon had collided with each other, growling and slashing at each other in a ball of claws and flames and crimson scales.

“Scary Face,” Ray ordered.  His Charmeleon responded by flashing a terrifying grimace at Firestorm; the latter recoiled backwards, his movements growing sluggish.

“Firestorm use your own Scary Face; Swift, get out of range and use Sand Attack on Luxio!” I called out, mentally smacking myself for not thinking of it sooner.

And then for whatever reason, it hit me.  He was only using two Pokémon.  Crap… that could only mean—

No sooner had the thought entered my head than a huge violet snake burst out of the trees above Swift, unfurling its hood and flashing the bright face pattern at him.  The Pidgeotto dropped to the ground at once, frozen in shock.  And then a crazed ball of tan fur and gangly limbs jumped into the fire lizard brawl, landing repeated blows on Firestorm.

What, seriously, Mai too?  It wasn’t bad enough we had to fight Ray at the end here, but now Mai too?  There was no way we’d be able to get past both of them!  I mean… yeah, we were still fighting a total of four Pokémon, but… seriously Ray and Mai?

At least this exercise was in the woods so she couldn’t use her Gyarados.

Anyway… I had to focus.  Swift’s best trait was his speed, so I desperately needed to cure his paralysis.  I just hoped that Firestorm could handle being the only target for a few seconds.  I whipped out Swift’s Pokéball and recalled him before immediately re-releasing him next to me and giving him a cheri berry.  He gulped it down and then bolted back into the fray, already whipping up a Gust around the other combatants.  The swirling winds pulled them apart from each other, allowing Firestorm to wrench himself free from the melee, looking bruised and bloodied.  He lashed back at his opponents with his tail, striking both of them with the flame.  Ray’s Charmeleon was barely fazed, though the Mankey’s fur was singed.

“Poison Sting,” Mai said coolly.  And then I caught sight of Mai’s Arbok slithering up the tree nearest Swift while he was focused on the others.

“Swift, look out!” I yelled.

He whirled around in an instant, but it was too late.  The snake opened its jaws and fired a wave of poisonous needles at him.  The Pidgeotto recoiled backward, flapping his wings frantically to get out of the line of fire while also staying out of Luxio’s range.  The thunder cat made another lunge at Swift, electricity coursing through its pointed black mane.  But it couldn’t manage the height needed to land a blow.

“Swift, Quick Attack; Firestorm, Ember!” I called out.

“Dragon Rage.”  Ray’s voice was confident, but intrigued, like he almost wanted to see if we’d make it through the fight.

“Karate Chop.”  Mai, on the other hand, just looked like she just wanted the fight to be over as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, Firestorm had to duck and weave in an attempt to dodge blows from Mankey, who wasn’t giving him a moment to breathe.  The fire lizard’s movements were still slow and forced from before, and his injuries certainly weren’t helping.  Swift barreled to the left to dodge the spurt of blue flames from Ray’s Charmeleon but then finally got the opening he needed to shoot forward and strike Luxio right after it landed from a failed pounce.  The blue-furred cat was knocked reeling backwards.

And then Arbok made the mistake of closing in on the melee just as Firestorm spun in a circle, spouting embers all around just to keep his attackers at bay.  A few flares managed to hit the violet snake and that was it—we’d landed at least one attack on all four of them!  I couldn’t believe it.  Swift and Firestorm realized it as soon as I did, because I didn’t even need to say anything before they both took off from the battle as fast as possible.  Firestorm was still struggling to keep going.  But before I could say anything, Swift whipped up a huge whirlwind behind us, knocking back our opponents and preventing them from giving chase.  I still kept expecting a hail of sure-shot moves to follow us even as we ran.

And yet… nothing?  I glanced over my shoulder, unable to believe it, but they really weren’t following us.  Maybe they didn’t have any sure-shot moves?  Or maybe the Whirlwind had worked better than I expected?

Well, the fight was miserable, but at least it was over quickly.  I could see sunlight piercing the edge of the treeline ahead of us.  We stumbled out of the forest weakly, and a rush of joy swept over me now that training was over.  Except it wasn’t over.  Stalker was waiting next to the stadium, his cold blue eyes focused on us, and a look of calm expectation on his face.  I had no idea how he could still wear that long overcoat in this kind of heat.

“How many times were you hit while escaping?” he asked.

I took a deep breath.  “Three.  But that’s only because everyone was using Pursuit.  And I figured out how to deal with that!  But I still don’t know what to do about sure-shot moves.  I mean… they’re impossible to dodge, right?”

He didn’t answer.  He just motioned for us to step forward.

I swallowed hard.  It wasn’t going to be a real battle.  I knew that much by now.  He could wipe the floor with the entire Rebellion at once, so a real battle would have been pointless.  Even the idea of a mock battle was intimidating.  But we still had to do it.

I pulled a handful of bright blue oran berries from my bag and fed them to both of my Pokémon.  Firestorm in particular gulped them down ravenously, and his wounds slowly scabbed over.

“Are you ready?” Stalker asked.

I clenched my teeth and nodded.

I didn’t even see him throw the ball.  There was just a sudden white flash, and then a tall, bright green reptile was bounding toward us.  Firestorm rushed forward to meet it, brandishing his claws and slashing wildly.  But Sceptile leaped straight over the fire lizard with a midair somersault before landing behind him and spinning in place, smacking him face-first into the dirt with its leafy tail.  It glanced up suddenly to see a tawny-feathered blur closing in from above, but then dropped to the ground to dodge the blow before jumping up and striking with its pointed arm leaves.

Stalker shook his head.  “Come on.  Will a direct attack really work in this situation?”

No… no of course it wouldn’t.  Why had I let them?

Sceptile landed nimbly from its attack and made a “bring it on” motion with its claws.

“Firestorm, use Scary Face; Swift, Sand Attack!”  I really wished we had better disruption moves, but that was pretty much it right now.  And even with its movements slowed and sand in its face, Sceptile was still impossibly agile and precise.  Firestorm rushed in, mirroring the forest reptile’s leaps and bounds as best as he could.  The grass-type grinned wildly and increased its speed slowly, seeing if the Charmeleon could keep up.  Firestorm was panting hard but refused to let the opposing reptile get away from him.

“Good, now use a Metal Claw, I know you’ve been working on it!” Stalker called out.

Firestorm clenched his teeth and drew his arms back, claws glowing.  He lashed out wildly, Sceptile blocking each blow with its leaf blades.  It didn’t seem different than any ordinary attack, though.

The fire lizard growled in frustration.  “*It’s hard to concentrate.*”

“Of course it is!” Stalker shot back.  “You’re changing the composition of your claws—it’s going to be hard!”

The Charmeleon let out a snarl and pressed the attack harder.  The sounds of frenzied slashing and the dull thud of claws striking leaves filled the air.  Swift circled the battle overhead, waiting to see what the outcome would be.

And then the light faded from his claws to reveal a silvery sheen, and the strike against Sceptile’s block reverberated with a metallic clang.  Firestorm froze in shock, staring at his claws with wide eyes.

“You did it!” I yelled, unable to keep the excitement from my voice.

Stalker nodded approvingly.  “Good.  Now it’s your turn,” he said glancing up at Swift.  Sceptile suddenly jumped back from Firestorm and launched a flurry of leaves into the air, forcing the Pidgeotto to drop down to ground level to avoid them.  With a powerful flapping of his wings, the tawny bird sent a vortex of air rushing at his opponent.  The forest reptile crouched low to weather the attack.

“Put more power and rage into that Gust!”  Stalker called out.  So he was hoping Swift would be able to pull off that move finally?

The Pidgeotto closed his eyes in concentration, wisps of energy trailing through the wind from his wings.  But it faded before it could reach the swirling column of air.

“Get closer to your opponent,” Stalker instructed.  “Use the adrenaline to your advantage.”

Swift put on a burst of speed before making a tight circle around Sceptile, who made occasional swipes at the bird.  Energy streamed off his wings once more, but with a final burst of flapping, the Pidgeotto was able to force it into the gust.  The winds suddenly intensified into a cyclone of white energy tearing at Sceptile, who leaped out of its center and landed some distance away before flashing a thumbs-up at Swift.

“Not bad, I wasn’t expecting you to pull off a Twister for another week at least,” Stalker said, holding a hand up to show that the exercise was over.

Firestorm sank to his knees, still panting hard but with a look of crazed triumph on his face.  Swift landed next to him with a reserved, yet clearly self-satisfied look.

“Oh man, I’m so proud of you guys,” I said, jogging over to them.  It was hard to believe, but we were actually making progress.

Stalker walked over with what looked like a pleased expression, but as always it was hard to tell.  “You’re improving.  Keep practicing the things you know you need work on.”  He paused, then continued, “Oh, and you shouldn’t even be trying to dodge sure-shot moves.  Just brace yourself for it.  They’re weak—enduring the hit puts you in a perfect spot for a counterattack.”

I nodded before recalling both of my exhausted Pokémon.

That was when I noticed the rest of the trainers that had already finished the exercise, all standing off to the side near the entrance to Midnight Stadium.  I had been so single-mindedly focused on training with Stalker that I’d completely overlooked them.  They likely had been watching my battle, but now that it was over, most of them had turned away and started chatting amongst themselves.

“There’s only one more person running the course after you, right?” Stalker asked.

I thought back to when the group of us had started the run on the other side of the forest.  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I was second-to-last.”

We didn’t have to wait long.  Within a few minutes, the final trainer in the lineup stumbled out of the forest—a small, skinny boy with scruffy blond hair and large green eyes, currently wearing the most frustrated and incredulous expression.  Alongside him, a Meowth dragged its paws and a Zubat struggled to stay aloft.  Even his Voltorb didn’t look like it could roll anymore.

After a few seconds he just sort of dropped all pretenses of finishing the training and sank to the ground.  His Pokémon looked more than happy to stop.

Stalker folded his arms.  “You don’t look very ready to fight me, Reed.”

Reed stared up at him in disbelief.  “Why did we have to fight Ray and Mai at the same time?  Everyone knows they’re the best.”

“You just answered your own question.”  That got a few laughs from the crowd.

A girl with long, braided hair walked over to help pull him to his feet.  “Maybe if you trained more often this wouldn’t happen,” she said, snickering a bit.

“I train plenty,” Reed snapped.  “I’m just not crazy enough to do double time like you, Kris.”

“Well, since you’re in no shape to fight now, we’ll postpone our battle,” Stalker commented.  “Next time there’s a training session, you’re getting special attention.”

Reed groaned but didn’t say anything.

Stalker turned to face the rest of us.  “By the way, this was the last exercise limiting the Rocket players to double your team number.  Next time they can use their full team—even if they’re tag-teaming you.  Be ready for it.”

Figures that would happen eventually.  I really had to think about adding another Pokémon to my team.  Maybe Rudy could buy me some Pokéballs at some point.

Stalker turned to walk away from the gathering.  “Have a rest, everyone.  I’ll be giving an important announcement in the battlefield in one hour.”

After a shower on my part and a quick stop by the healing machine for my team, we were back in the stadium and eagerly awaiting the announcement.  Even though he hadn’t explicitly said it, everyone was pretty sure it was gonna be a mission announcement.  I mean… what else could it be?  We’d been here for over a month, and the days of generalized battling lectures were mostly over and replaced by one-on-one training sessions like today.  And I’d actually improved.  That fact alone was mind-boggling.  I mean… yeah, that was one of the reasons I’d even joined the Rebellion, but the idea of it actually happening was still weird and foreign.

“Hey Jade!”  Rudy shouted, running over to me.  “That was an awesome fight earlier!  Ha, I bet you thought you were gonna escape from me without getting hit.”

I snorted.  “Yeah, well, at least it went better than our previous battle.  Besides, I figured out how to deal with Pursuit, so there.”

“Aw, you did?  Lame,” he said, frowning.  “Guess I’ll have to try harder next time.  But anyways… what are the odds we’re getting our first mission now?  I’m thinking at least 150 percent.”

I rolled my eyes.  “I don’t think it’s that high—more like only 110 percent.”

“You’re on!”

I stared.  “How… how do we even tell who wins that bet?”

Rudy was spared the details of trying to figure it out when Stalker walked into the battlefield and waved an arm to get everyone’s attention.  The entire crowd instantly stopped what it was doing and turned to face him.  I was pretty sure he’d never be able to enter the room without it being a big dramatic deal to everyone.

“So, today’s the day you finally get your first mission.”

The reaction was immediate.  The entire group let out a cheer, most of them throwing a fist or two into the air, and it wasn’t hard to see why.  We’d finally be getting the chance to put everything we’d learned to use.

“I’ll be formalizing your mission groups now,” Stalker continued.  “Rockets are generally assigned one or more partners for carrying out small-scale activity, and we’ll be doing the same.  I’ve settled on groups of three, so there are sixteen mission groups.  Twelve groups will be assigned to sabotaging the Rockets’ upcoming mission.  The remaining four are going to be stealing some of their resources for us to use against them.  Either way, you’ll all be infiltrating the ranks and putting on the appearance of a genuine Rocket.  So this will test everything you’ve learned from me over the past six weeks.”

I clenched my fists.  If this was a test, then I felt ready.  As unbelievable as it was, I actually felt prepared to show that we could make a difference in this fight.

“When I call your name, come up and get your ID and a Rocket Communicator.  Group 1—Ray, Mai, and Sasha.”

No surprise the two best trainers on the team would be in the same group.  Sasha was a bit unexpected though.  I’d seen her hanging out with the other two occasionally, but her Pokémon choices were… a bit weird.  I mean, no one else had a Farfetch’d.

“In my absence, the members of Group 1 are in charge,” Stalker said.  “I want everyone to report to them during multi group missions like this one.”  He then proceeded to call out group members as the rest of us waited with bated breath for our names to be called.

“Think we’ll be in the same group?” Rudy asked after a few groups had gone up.

“It seems like he’s grouping people together based on their usual training partners, so yeah, I’m guessing we will,” I said.

We didn’t have to wait long to find out.  After a few minutes, Stalker’s voice rang out saying, “Group 12—Jade, Darren, and Rudy.”

I barely had time to react to the high five that Rudy threw my way.  We wasted no time in walking forward through the crowd to claim our IDs, Darren joining us along the way.  Upon receiving it, Rudy stared at his ID like it was the coolest thing he’d ever seen.  And then it hit me—here I was training Pokémon without an ID, and I had just received a Team Rocket ID first.  It was ridiculous.  But somehow kind of cool at the same time.

As for the R-com… I had already seen them before, on the Rocket plane and the S.S. Anne.  Still, it would be interesting to actually own one.  I pressed the only button on the front, waking the device up and causing it to display the message: “To begin, scan user RID card.”

I tapped my ID to the port on the top of the device and it immediately brought up a digital record of my information: “Name: Allie Farias; Born: 6 September 2983; Registered: 11 July 2998; Rank: Trainee.”  Flipping through the various apps, it looked a lot like a cheap Pokégear from what I could tell, aside from the fact that the texting and calling was limited to other R-com devices.

“And lastly, Group 16—Reed, Wes, and Kris,” Stalker called out, snapping my attention back to what was going on.  The last three trainers walked forward, Reed and Kris shoving each other lightly along the way and Wes looking like he desperately didn’t want to be involved in any of it.

“Take this moment to add your mission partners to the contact list on your R-com,” Stalker announced once they were done.  “For security reasons, don’t add everyone on the Rebellion.  Group 1 will be in charge of keeping contact between everyone on multi-group missions.”

That was easy enough.  The contact number was just our agent ID.  I punched in the numbers and the device showed that I had successfully registered “Toni” and “Andy” as their Rocket names were called.

“Which Rocket base are we going to?” one of the rebels nearest Stalker asked.

“Groups 1, 5, 12, and 16 will be going to Cerulean,” he replied.  “Groups 2, 6, 9, and 13 to Viridian.  Groups 3, 7, 10, and 14 to Saffron.  And groups 4, 8, 11, and 15 will be going to Celadon—those are the ones that will be recovering supplies and Pokémon for us.  With so many groups going, that does mean you won’t all be able to leave today.  We’ll space it out over the next few days so you don’t all show up at the bases at once.”

He had warned us previously that we’d never all be going to the base at the same time.  Obviously, it’d be completely suspicious if we did.  But it was still kind of frustrating—I was almost certain out of the Cerulean groups it’d be Ray’s group going first, so ours would have to wait a few days.  Rudy didn’t seem to have pieced that together quite yet, otherwise he would have looked way more disappointed.

But then… there was one important detail Stalker hadn’t exactly revealed yet.  I glanced around at the crowd, and it was obvious from their wide-eyed stares that everyone was in suspense over the same thing.  Finally, one kid spoke the words everyone was thinking: “What mission are we going to stop?”

The edge of Stalker’s mouth curled into a faint grin.  “Within the next two weeks, Team Rocket will attempt to capture a Legendary Pokémon.  Your job is to find out which one and do whatever it takes to stop them.”

Team Rocket’s Northern HQ was a rather unassuming office building right in the heart of downtown Cerulean.  Stalker’s Charizard and Dragonite dropped us off in a nearby park and then we walked the remaining couple of city blocks to the base.  It had been a while since my last time walking through such busy streets, and I found my attention constantly grabbed by all the sights and sounds of the city after spending over a month in a quiet island town.  It felt even weirder to be here since we’d gotten dressed in our Rocket uniforms ahead of time, though at least we had vests to hide the signature logo on the shirt.

“I wasn’t expecting it to be so out in the open,” Darren said, tilting his head as the building came into view.

“Stalker did say that Team Rocket’s not exactly a secret, just the Legendary-catching regional takeover stuff is,” I said, shrugging.

“I wasn’t expecting it to look so boring,” Rudy added once we’d gotten a closer look at the headquarters.  “Kinda wish we’d been sent to Celadon.  I heard that base is inside a casino—how cool is that?”

I wasn’t even going to bother with a comment, but Darren countered with, “If we’d gone to Celadon, we wouldn’t be involved in the Legendary mission.”

Rudy’s face fell immediately.  “Alright, forget I said anything!  Let’s just go in.”

The front lobby was a stark contrast to the outside of the building, with shiny black stone tile floors and sleek, red-papered walls covered in gaudy decorations.  Something glinted in my peripheral vision and I had to stop myself from jumping upon seeing the life-size Persian statue perched on a pedestal next to the entrance.

Alright, I couldn’t stare too much—any ordinary Rocket who’d gotten registered in Cerulean would have been here before.  Though at least it would be expected that I hadn’t seen much more than the lobby and an office or two.

Straight ahead of us stood a glossy marble front desk with a lone receptionist seated at it.  She hadn’t looked up when we entered, and still had her face glued to the book she was reading.  I wandered forward vaguely, unsure if she had noticed us enter or not.

“Hi, uh… we’re new recruits and we’ve been assigned training at Northern HQ,” I said awkwardly.

The receptionist looked up at us slowly, and it was obvious that she’d known we were there but was just waiting for us to say something.  In a flash, she shut the book and assumed a more professional posture.

“Do you have your IDs already?” she asked.

I nodded, and we each handed them over.  She inspected them closely and ran them through her scanner before handing them back.

“Alright, I’ll call a recruitment officer up and they’ll give you the tour.  You can wait over there in the meantime,” she said, gesturing to the couches along the side of the wall.

Well, that was easy.  Not that we’d been assuming it would be hard or anything.  The three of us wandered over to plop down onto the couches, which were unbelievably squishy and made of leather.

“We’re in a Rocket base right now,” Rudy said quietly, like he was still having a hard time believing it.

“Don’t say anything you’ll regret,” Darren warned him with the slightest bit of a taunting edge to his voice.

Rudy shrugged.  “Wasn’t gonna.  It’s still weird and cool though.”  I almost laughed at how quickly he’d changed opinions of the base.  Still… I had to admit that being inside one was a lot more surreal than just seeing it from the street.  We were actually here, inside a Rocket base, and it was perfectly okay.  I still half-expected someone to appear out of nowhere and chase us out.

After several minutes, the elevator on the far side of the lobby dinged, and out walked a man in his mid-thirties wearing a black Team Rocket uniform with white boots.  He had rather frazzled brown hair and the worn face of someone with too much on his plate.  The officer guzzled the remainder of a coffee before tossing out the cup and walking over to us, tablet in hand.  He paused in mild surprise upon seeing how young we were but didn’t seem too taken aback by it.  Rockets our age were a bit uncommon, but nothing unheard of.

“My name’s Warren, I’m a recruitment officer for Cerulean HQ, heard you were just assigned here?”  It was all said a lot more quickly than I was expecting.

“Yeah, we’ve already been registered,” I replied as we held out our IDs for the second time.

“Right, that’ll make my job easier,” he said, tapping the IDs to a card scanner on his tablet.  “Let me just pull up your files.”  He swiped through a few pages on the screen, reading the stats out loud to himself.

“Toni, Allie, and Andy… looks like you all applied for membership a month ago, got your executive approval all in order, background check good…”  He nodded approvingly.  “Alright, welcome to the team.  It’s my job to give the new recruits the rundown on how things work around here, so I’ll be showing you around and explaining things as we go.  You’re already been issued an R-com, right?”

I held mine up to answer his question.

“Alright, good.  It looks like all three of you already have Pokémon, so we won’t need to loan you any.  And before you ask, grunts are not issued firearms.  Agents who reach officer rank on the combat unit can apply to receive one, but it’s no guarantee.”  Owning a gun was not exactly on my priority list.  Good to know that the average grunt shouldn’t be expected to have one, though.

He led us to the elevator on the far side of the room and pressed the down button.  Once it arrived, he held the door open and motioned for us to enter.

“The top floors are mostly offices and public relations,” Warren said, pushing one of the elevator buttons.  “You’ve never seen any of the floors where the real activity is, have you?”

“No, not really,” Darren said.

“Looking forward to it though!”  Rudy added.

Warren chuckled.  “It’s good to see enthusiasm in new recruits.”

The elevator doors opened to reveal a huge lower lobby full of Rockets going about their business—some of them carrying goods or paperwork around, some of them accompanied by Pokémon.  They all sported a wide variety of uniform types, from the standard black clothes and gray boots, to white boots with red stripes, to white uniforms, to completely unique outfits with rank patches and equipment belts.

“Typically only grunts in training or on active duty spend a lot of time at the base,” Warren explained.  “But since we have a high-level operation coming up in the near future, you’ll see more members than usual on active duty right now.  Mostly combat unit types—we’ve got the second largest combat unit on the force,” he said proudly, motioning for us to step out of the elevator.

Warren led us through the bustling main room towards one of the hallways, which was significantly less crowded.  As we walked, he continued with his explanation on the workings of the team.

“So, as a member of Team Rocket, you’ll be expected to serve the team’s best interests in whatever you do, whether it’s carrying out missions or performing base duties.  The team is divided into several divisions all working to further the team in different ways.  Of course, the majority of Rockets are assigned to acquisitions—obtaining and selling goods and Pokémon.  But the others are equally important.  The business division keeps large corporations in check and allows us to fund our projects.  The tech division breaks new ground in science and technology, strengthening our forces with new equipment and enhanced Pokémon.  And the combat unit enforces our will against those who would threaten us, as well as handling the acquisition of particularly rare and powerful Pokémon.”

It had a somewhat rehearsed feel, like he’d definitely said all of this many times, but still believed in it.

“All new recruits go through orientation and training, so I’ll be assigning you an officer to watch you and track your progress,” he continued.  “Once initiated, grunts carry out tasks for their officer.  All officers report to a senior officer, who reports to an executive.  Everything a Rocket does is a reflection of those higher than them.  So you see—you work hard not for yourself, but for those who have taught and guided you… and for the overall good of the team.  And if you prove your loyalty and dedication, you could even become an officer yourselves… once you’re old enough, that is.”

“Old enough?” Rudy asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Age limit for officers is 15.  For executives, it’s 17—adults only.”

“Is executive the highest rank?” I found myself asking.  I’d already run into at least one executive previously… was she the toughest kind of opponent I’d ever encounter?

Warren paused.  “Not quite… the boss has an inner circle of admins who run things behind the scenes.  They plan most of the important missions and delegate authority to the executives in control of the different branches, bases, and units.  Oh, and the head of the combat unit normally holds the rank of commander… though the Kanto force doesn’t have a commander right now.  Executives are pretty much the highest ranked agents we’ll ever see, though.”

More questions were suddenly jumping out at my mind—the few things that Stalker hadn’t told us.  “Have you ever seen the boss?”

“Well… he runs things from the Viridian HQ, so… no.  And I’ve heard that he’s always surrounded by the top executives there, so even the Viridian Rockets don’t see much of him.  But everyone says he commands the respect and awe of everyone around him.”

A bold feeling suddenly struck.  This was the second time I’d heard mention of the commander, and I had to know.  “Why doesn’t the Kanto force have a commander?”

Warren jerked slightly, taken aback for just a second before regaining himself.  “He resigned.  Apparently there was some drama involved, so it’s not talked about often.  I don’t know the details.”  He stared straight ahead as we walked and didn’t say anything more.  Rudy flashed me a look that clearly read “what are you doing?” while Darren just gave a cheeky grin and a thumbs up.

Warren led us to the end of the hallway where a huge pair of double doors stood.  He pushed through them, and suddenly we were in the middle of a battlefield, much smaller than Midnight Stadium, but a lot more high-tech.  The walls and ceilings were lined with passive energy fields to absorb stray blasts, and the far corner had training dummies for practicing moves on.  Warren glanced around at all the various faces in the room until he found who he was looking for.

“Hey Karen, I heard you were looking to train up a few subordinates.”

A young woman with waist-length black hair turned to face him upon hearing his words.  She had a piercing expression and small, dark eyes that seemed to bore right through us.  Her uniform was of the white clothes with dark boots variety.

“Did I say that? You’ll have to refresh my memory,” Karen commented dryly.

Warren raised his hands in a disarming manner.  “I’m just here to make good on my offer.  Got three new recruits for you.”

She gave us a dismissive glance before staring at him.  “I wasn’t planning on training a bunch of kids.”

“All the lower-ranked officers currently stationed here are already maxed out on grunts,” he said simply.

“Send ‘em to another base then.”

“Their training in Cerulean has executive-level clearance,” he said, giving an innocent shrug with just the slightest bit of a smirk.

Karen stared incredulously.  “Okay, now I know they’re just screwing with us.”  She sighed.  “Fine, I'll train ‘em.  You owe me for this one, though.”

Warren chuckled a bit and then turned back to us.  “This where I leave.  Welcome to Team Rocket.  May you and your Pokémon prove to be useful assets to our cause.”  He gave a slight wave and then walked off.  I kind of didn’t want him to leave—he seemed a lot friendlier than our new officer… even though that was probably because it was literally his job to be accommodating.

“Alright, you three, agent numbers, now.”

That got our attention in a hurry.  I scrambled to pull my ID from my pocket, as she already didn’t seem like the sort of person we’d want to keep waiting.  One by one, we announced our agent numbers.  Karen whipped out her R-com and entered them in.  She then pocketed the device and gave us a long, hard stare.

“Listen up, kids.  The way this works is I train you, teach you how to succeed, you work hard for the team, and that reflects good on me.  Mutually beneficial, right?  And then maybe I can finally get that promotion I was promised six months ago only to have it withdrawn at the last second because I ‘didn’t have enough experience leading subordinates.’”

I gave Rudy and Darren sideways glances.  I… wasn’t really sure what that had to do with us.

Karen sighed and regained her composure.  “So why did you join Team Rocket?”

Easy, I’d had an answer prepared weeks ago.  I had run away from home after failing the trainer exam, stolen some Pokémon, and then found myself unable to get by without being able to take part in League-sanctioned battles, so I had to turn to Team Rocket.

I opened my mouth to speak and got cut off immediately.

“Actually, I don’t care.  You can keep your past to yourself because it doesn’t matter now.  You’re a Rocket.  All that matters is that you’re serious about serving us now.”

I stood there feeling more awkward by the second.  I guess overall it was a good thing that she wasn’t interested in prying into our personal matters, but I still felt increasingly uneasy about having her as our officer.

“Pokémon out now!”

Okay, I was just gonna have to get used to sudden demands out of nowhere.  I grabbed my Pokéballs from my pocket and fumbled with the buttons, trying to be quick.  Rudy and Darren had theirs open first, and I let out Firestorm and Swift to join their teams.  Firestorm took one look around the Rocket battlefield before drawing himself up in a tall posture with a very serious expression.

Karen paced back and forth in front of our nine Pokémon lineup, mumbling to herself.

“I don’t have time for kids who can’t battle.  Lucky for you, it looks like you already know a thing or two about fighting.  That’ll make things easier for both of us.  Good type coverage going on here too.  You’ll be a decent unit… once you’re cleared for actual missions that is.  You’ve got a long way to go until then.”  She stopped in front of us and paused, looking contemplative.  None of us dared say anything unless she addressed us first.  Finally, she crossed her arms and gave an affirmative nod.

“Alright, I think I can work with this.  Get used to the way things work around here today.  Watch and learn.  You’re Rockets now.  We’ll start your training tomorrow.”

Chapter Text

“Come on, faster!  Your target’s getting away!”

My legs burned as I willed them to keep going, despite every corner of my brain telling me not to.  Firestorm sprinted alongside me, a look of fierce determination on his face—no clue where he’d gotten it from.  Rudy, Darren, and their starters raced along with us, Wartortle’s cloudlike tail streaming behind him and Ivysaur taking big bounding leaps to catch up.  Meanwhile Karen’s Houndoom was so confident we couldn’t catch it that it was practically running circles around us.  Firestorm clenched his teeth in frustration and breathed out a blast of red-hot flares, but none of them came even close to hitting the dark-type.

Karen smacked a hand to her forehead.  “Disable the target first, then go for the knockout, is that really so hard?!”

I locked eyes with Darren and it was obvious we were both thinking the same thing—he had the best Pokémon out of any of us for disabling.

“Sleep Powder!” he called out, and Ivysaur leaped forward into position, releasing a cloud of blue powder from his flower bud.  But the black firedog was way too quick and dodged it easily.

And then it hit me.  I felt like an idiot for not realizing sooner.

“Firestorm, use Scary Face!”

The Charmeleon twisted his face into a horrifying grimace, meeting Houndoom’s eye and making the dark-type flinch, its movements growing sluggish.  Ivysaur took that moment to rush in close and let out another burst of Sleep Powder, and this time the firedog got a face full of the stuff.  Its eyelids drooped, and it stumbled once before toppling over, sound asleep.

“Alright, now!” Rudy yelled, and Wartortle’s eyes widened, realizing it was time to make his move.  The turtle planted his feet firmly and took a deep breath, spitting out a ring-shaped pulse of water at high speed… which flew clear over the prone form of the sleeping Houndoom.

“How could you miss a sleeping target?!  What the hell is wrong with you?” Karen shouted, fixing him with an intense glare.  Wartortle froze with a devastated look on his face before staring at the ground and not saying anything.

Our officer muttered incoherently to herself while striding over to her Pokémon, pulling out a bottle of blue liquid and spraying the firedog all over.  At once, its eyes snapped open and it jumped to its feet with a manic expression, ready to resume the training.

“You’ve been discovered, make a getaway!” Karen announced with a smirk.

Oh crap, I hated this part.  We immediately spun around and took off running towards the opposite end of the training field.  Houndoom would be on us in seconds, we had to put as much distance between it and—

I almost tripped over myself as a pulsing shock wave of black energy shot past me, no more than two feet to my right!  The attack was obviously intended to miss, but the sight of it passing so close still sent my heart jumping into my throat.  We were supposed to get used to being in the line of fire—why did it still catch me off guard every time?  I had to act now if we were gonna pull this off—a getaway never meant just escaping in this kind of drill.

“Firestorm, Smokescreen!” I shouted.  Firestorm spun around while running and spewed out a thick cloud of black smoke behind us, hiding our pursuer from view.  We only had a few seconds to act now.  Rudy and Darren raced in opposite directions to take a stand on the left and right sides of the smoky area.  Firestorm and I stood our ground at the front.  Any second now…

Houndoom burst through the smoke cloud and our Pokémon all acted at once!  Firestorm breathed out a shimmering ball of blue dragon fire, Wartortle spat another ring of water, and Ivysaur rushed forward and struck the firedog headlong in a full-body Take Down.  The dark-type was thrown backward from the force of all three attacks catching it off guard, and when the smoke cleared, it was lying on its side, unconscious.

Karen raised her eyebrows, like she hadn’t expected to be impressed.  “Not bad.”

I hated to admit it, but I was actually learning.  And Stalker had probably been counting on that.  Her lessons were similar to the things he’d been teaching us, just more… in your face.  I didn’t even want to think about what enduring her training would have been like without the prior experience from Stalker.

“I suppose that was passable at the end there, so we’ll call it early…”

Rudy pumped his fist in the air a little too soon, but I knew by now that she had something else in store for us.

“…On your training,” she finished.  “My unit brought back some new assets from a mission.  They’ll need someone to catalog everything, won’t they?  Sounds like grunt work to me.”

‘Assets.’  That was code for they’d stolen some Pokémon and needed someone to scan and sort the Pokéballs depending on whether they’d be sold or trained and loaned to other Rockets.  Not hard, just tedious and time consuming, especially considering it was nearing dinnertime and food was starting to become the only thing I could think about.

Almost as if she’d read my mind, Karen handed me a tablet and said, “Better get started if you wanna eat anytime soon.”

Everything hurt.  My feet dragged against the tile floor as I stumbled into the mess hall, Rudy and Darren not far behind.  We swiped our IDs one at a time at the front counter, unlocking the fridge and allowing us to grab one of the cheap, pre-packaged lunch boxes available for grunts.  I was pretty sure the cost of meals here just went on a tab that would eventually get taken from payments for successful missions… that is, if we were normal Rockets intent on doing any missions.  Apparently it was pretty common for new recruits to rack up a sizable debt during their training, and we were told not to worry about it.

It was just a simple boxed lunch of meat, vegetables, and rice, but after the training we’d just endured, it was like a feast.  All three of us wolfed down our meals like they were nothing.

“So far I think the best part about being a Rocket is the way-too-long hours and always getting yelled at,” Darren said in between bites of food.

I snorted into my bowl.  “No, I think the best part is getting stuck with all the jobs that no one else wants.”

“Well I don’t know what’s wrong with you two, because I hate those parts,” Rudy grumbled.

I didn’t bother pointing out to him that we were being sarcastic.  He didn’t care.

“It would be kinda nice if we could get through a lesson without someone’s Pokémon getting chewed out,” I said, knowing full well that “someone” in this case almost always meant “Rudy.”  “She was really laying it on thick with Wartortle this time.  Is he gonna be alright?”

“Ah, you don’t gotta worry about him, he’s tough,” Rudy said, waving a hand dismissively.  “Well… as tough as a water-type can be, anyway.”

I rolled my eyes.  More backhanded ways of saying he’d have preferred having Charmander as a starter.  He only had himself to blame for not getting one.  And it was more than a little ridiculous that he hadn’t been able to shut up about Ebony getting yelled at yesterday but barely acknowledged the same thing happening to Wartortle today.  Then again, when our Pokémon weren’t completely exhausted, it was obvious that they were getting stronger.  The training was working, no matter how much we didn’t like it.

At that moment, all three of our communicators buzzed with a text message alert.  I pulled mine out and read, “Grunt quarters 7 is free.  We’ll meet in 15 mins.”  It was from Ray.

“Looks like we’re finally having that meeting.”  He’d sent out another text to every rebel earlier that same day telling us to expect it.  It was a bit exciting, knowing that everyone on the Rebellion was currently in a Rocket base and ready to start gathering information.  And at the very least, it was something to focus on other than how much training sucked.  The rest of the meal didn’t involve any more complaining.

It was late enough in the evening that we were all done with our tasks for the day, but early enough that most of the other grunts were still at dinner.  Perfect time to get all the rebels from all the bases in on one chat.

We were huddled together in one of the grunt quarters, all twelve of us.  Group 1 (Ray, Mai, and Sasha) had obviously been the first ones sent to this base, and Group 5 (Zoe, Alec, and Liam) had gone next.  Then it had been me, Rudy, and Darren, and finally Group 16 (Reed, Wes, and Kris) a few days later.  Mai stood guard at the door, her dark eyes scanning the hallway outside so no one could walk in on us without warning.  Meanwhile, Ray and Sasha worked on getting a group call set up with the rebels at the other bases.

I was sitting on one of the many double bunks that filled the cramped space, Rudy and Darren alongside me.  Across from us sat the members of Group 5.  Zoe, a tall, pale girl with short brown hair and amber eyes, had volunteered to take notes, and was already scribbling furiously despite the fact that the meeting hadn’t even started yet.  Liam had been trying to coax a conversation out of his teammate Alec, a short, chubby kid with curly red hair who I hadn’t really seen much of until now.  Couldn’t really tell if they were a boy or a girl either.  They were hunched over a book and every so often flashed a half-hearted smile at Liam, in that reluctant “I really don’t want to talk but don’t know how to say no” kind of way.

Reed and Kris were both hanging upside down off the top bunk nearest me, excitedly swapping battling tips.  Their partner Wes, a short, quiet boy with dark skin and tightly braided hair, was busy brushing his Vulpix’s fur and occasionally shot an incredulous glance at his teammates’ antics.

“I think we got it,” Sasha announced, holding up her communicator.  “We started a three-way video call.  My R-com is linked to the Viridian groups, and Ray’s is linked to Saffron.”

“Awesome!  Can you guys hear us?” Reed called out.

“Sure can,” one of the Viridian rebels replied, waving to us from the tiny screen.

“Sweet, I wanna be in the video call,” Kris said, rushing to climb down from the top bunk and nearly falling on Wes in the process.

“Not if I get there first!” Reed called after her, immediately falling straight to the floor with a loud thud.

“Can everyone be quieter?!” Mai hissed, eyeing the outside hallway suspiciously.  “We don’t want everyone in the base hearing us, do we?”  Zoe snickered a bit at the commotion but then stopped when she saw the look on Mai’s face.

“So how are things going in Viridian?” Sasha asked the group chat.

“Really tough,” one of them replied.  “I swear everyone here is on the combat unit, and they’re constantly jumping in to make our training tougher—like our officer wasn’t doing a good enough job of that already.”

“What, really, you guys get to battle?” one of the rebels in Saffron asked.  “We haven’t gotten to battle at all since we got here, and I’m pretty sure the other three groups in Saffron haven’t either.”

Another kid chimed in, “It’s all like… lectures on how to get goods and Pokémon for Team Rocket and, like… profit analysis crap.”  That got a solid round of laughter from almost everyone in the room.  Sure, I hadn’t been too fond of the training so far, but at least it was preferable to that.

“I wandered into a meeting on how to get businessmen to do what you want,” a third Saffron rebel added.  “It was… uh… interesting?”  Her teammates started snickering.

“You know it’s not that great, getting to train here,” Reed spoke up in a too-loud voice.  “It’s crazy hard—makes Stalker’s training seem like cake.”

“Considering you couldn’t even finish Stalker’s most recent training, how are you still alive?” a Viridian rebel asked.

Reed’s face fell.  “Ha ha, real funny.”

“Come on, guys, seriously?” Mai groaned exasperatedly.  “We don’t have forever in here, we’ve gotta keep this short.”

Sasha chuckled a bit.  “Gotta admit she’s right.  Anyone heard anything about the mission?”

An awkward silence fell over the group, and everyone glanced around to see if anyone else had been successful.

Ray shrugged.  “I didn’t expect anyone to have found anything yet.”  About half the rebels let out a sigh of relief.  It was kind of funny to see the reactions everyone normally reserved for Stalker being projected onto Ray now that his group was in charge and Stalker wasn’t around.  It wasn’t hard to see why though—he had the same cool and collected air and intense expressions.\

“At least it seems like we all got set up on the team without too much trouble,” Liam offered, and there was a murmur of agreement from everyone.

“We should focus on figuring out which of us have officers assigned to the mission,” Zoe added.  “Then we know who to target for info.  If you find out your officer isn’t on the mission, then just ask around.  Play the noob card, like you just wanna know what’s going on with the higher-ups.”

That sounded doable.  Granted, Karen wasn’t the most approachable Rocket around, but the idea of hunting for rumors amongst the other grunts didn’t seem too bad.

“I’ll send out a mass text when it’s time for the next meeting like this,” Ray said.  “Hopefully by then we’ll have something to work with.”

Sasha nodded.  “Sounds good to me—everyone else got that?”

“Yup!”

It was the middle of a training session.  Karen had just shown us some tips for quickly ganging up on and incapacitating a target, and now we’d gotten a rare moment to rest and catch our breath.  I just had to take advantage of it and try getting some info on the Legendary mission.  It was the only opportunity to come up all day.

“So, we heard there was a huge combat unit mission coming up?” I said, trying my hardest to make it sound as casual as possible.  Maybe a bit too hard.  Dangit.

“Yeah?  What about it?” Karen asked dully.  Good, she hadn’t noticed.

“What kind of mission is it?”

She scoffed.  “That’s not exactly the kind of thing they tell those of us who aren’t assigned to it.”

“You’re not?” Rudy blurted out.

Her eyes twitched.  “No.  Even though I’m more than qualified, some people don’t seem to think I should go anywhere on this team.”

I clenched my teeth.  If there was one thing we didn’t need, it was Karen going on another one of her rants on how the higher-ups were determined to see her fail.

Darren jumped in with, “But you’ve heard rumors about it… right?”

Karen laughed.  “Oh man, take it from me, kid, the kinds of rumors you’ll hear around the base are nuts.  And what’s it to you?  It’s not like you’ll be on the combat unit any time soon.  It takes years to qualify.”

Well that was some shut down.  Was there any way to ask what she knew without it seeming totally suspicious?  Nothing was coming to me.  I locked eyes with Rudy and Darren, but from their expressions, it seemed they were just as clueless as I was.

“Well don’t just stand there,” Karen said, giving us an impatient look.  “Let’s run through that drill one more time.”

Every conversation with Karen ended the same way.  There was absolutely no way we were going to get any information out of her, and I could only hope that the rest of the rebels didn’t have such disagreeable officers.  Either way, it meant that grunts were our best bet.

Rudy, Darren and I were sitting in the mess hall during an ordinary lunch, watching the other Rockets.  The problem was that none of us actually wanted to go first.  We’d been sitting here staring for fifteen minutes, and it was starting to get a bit ridiculous.

“So we should probably try actually talking to people,” I finally spoke up.

“Do we have to?  They’re Rockets,” Rudy whispered.

I put a hand to my forehead.  “You were all excited about it yesterday.  What happened?”

“Well… I was, but then I thought about it.”

“That’s gotta be a first.”

I winced from a sudden punch to the arm.  Yep, couldn’t say I was surprised; I kind of deserved that one.

“You should do it, anyway.  You’re the oldest,” Rudy said simply.  Darren nodded in a “that makes sense” kind of way.

I groaned.  “Fine, I was gonna do it anyway.”

At least it was easy to identify who was a grunt based on the uniform—black pants and shirt with gray boots.  I scanned the crowd for any nearby grunts who were eating alone, and caught sight of one two tables down and across from us.  Alright, now was as good a time as any.  I got up from our table and wandered over, trying my best not to look completely awkward.

“Hey, uh… I’m new here,” I said, sitting down alongside the grunt.

“‘Sup?” she replied, not looking up from her lunch.

I paused for several seconds, not really sure how to proceed.  “So, uh… is it cool if I ask you some things about how stuff goes around here?  My officer’s not too talkative.”  Not entirely true.  Karen was plenty talkative—just not about anything we wanted to know.

“Sure.  Fire away,” she said, finally looking up.

Alright, had her attention.  Now I just had to think of what questions to ask.  I hadn’t really thought that far ahead.  The first thing that entered my mind was, “How long does it take before newbies can get assigned to actual missions?”

The Rocket paused thoughtfully.  “I didn’t go on my first mission ‘til I’d been here for two months.  And even then, it was just a simple heist.”

“What kind of missions have you done since then?”

She shrugged.  “All sorts.  Bigger heists, catching rare Pokémon, added muscle during business negotiations—I actually got to rough up a few guys on my last job, that was fun.”

It was… really weird hearing someone talk about Team Rocket activity so nonchalantly.  Still, I kind of needed to expect that by now.  Time to push the topic further.

“Do you know what kind of missions the higher-ups go on?”

“Depends on what department,” she replied through a mouthful of food.

“The combat unit, of course.”

Her face split into a grin.  “You’ve heard the rumors, haven’t you?  About the combat unit planning a big mission soon?”

I nodded.  “No one seems to know anything about it.  Is it really that big of a secret?”

“Well yeah.  Course, word gets out anyway.  You shoulda seen the base two months ago.”

Two months ago… I had a feeling I already knew what she was talking about, but I couldn’t let that on.  “I take it there was a big mission then?”

She lowered her voice.  “Hell yeah, the combat unit was gonna catch Entei.”

I widened my eyes to put on the look of shock that she’d be expecting.  But I almost didn’t have to fake it at all—the memory still burned just as brightly as the day I saw the attack unfolding right in front of me.

“I know, right?” she said upon seeing my expression.  “That was my reaction when I first heard.  Sucks that those Johto assholes got to it first.”

I let out an exasperated sigh.  “Okay, what’s the deal with the Johto force?  Is there some kind of rivalry going on?”

The Rocket groaned and put a hand to her forehead.  “Buncha crap went down last year—Johto force came out of it way better off, and they never let us forget it.”

Well that was… interesting.  But none of this would help us on our mission—and we already knew the Johto force had Entei.

“Anyway, my break’s over, good luck with your training.”  She grabbed her empty lunch tray and gave a small wave before walking off.

Well… that hadn’t gone terribly… but it hadn’t exactly paid off either.  Might as well try again with someone else.  I glanced around the crowd once more, searching for another conversation target.  Eventually my eyes fell on a grunt who looked to be staring off into space.  He seemed as good an option as any.

I wandered over, trying to look as casual as possible before sitting down and going, “Hey.”

“Shh!”  He pointed forcefully at the TV in one of the upper corners of the room.

I blinked, a bit taken aback.  The TV was muted and had captions on, since it would’ve been too hard to hear it in such a busy area anyway.

“There’s… no volume,” I said, confused as to why he wanted quiet when there was nothing to hear.  The Rocket ignored me, staring intently at a pair of trainers on the screen.  I shot a helpless glance back at Rudy and Darren, who just kind of gave a clueless shrug.

I turned back to the TV, where a Nidoking and a Blastoise were locked in combat, each of them shoving against the other, trying to get an opening for a move.  Blastoise threw its weight around in an attempt to get Nidoking on the ground so it could aim the water cannons on its back, but the armored, rabbit-like beast refused to budge.  Both fighters were panting hard with exhaustion, but eventually Nidoking pulled back enough to fire a sudden bolt of lightning from the horn on its head, and the opposing water-type collapsed.

The screen cut away from the trainers and switched to a pair of excitable commentators, and that’s when the Rocket came out of his trance and realized that I was still there.

“The hell do you want?  The semifinals started today; I’m not missing a second,” he said.

I blinked.  “The semifinals of what?”

“…The Indigo League?” he said, staring at me like I was super dense.

I barely had time to react before being shoved aside by Rudy rushing over and yelling, “That’s going on now?!”

The Rocket laughed.  “Second week of August—when else would it be?”

Rudy grabbed my shirt sleeve frantically.  “How did we forget?”

“I… we’ve been busy?” I managed in response, glancing back up at the TV, where slow-mo replays of key moments in the match were being displayed.

“I know Connie is the favorite to win this year,” the Rocket continued, “but I’m a fan of Derek.  I’ve got a lot of money riding on him,” he said, laughing a bit nervously.

I tilted my head.  “Do they take bets on the League here, or…?”

He laughed.  “Are you kidding?  Team Rocket makes a killing on bets during tournament season.”

Darren tapped my shoulder and pointed at Rudy, who was now staring at the screen with a level of wide-eyed enthusiasm that didn’t seem possible, even for him.  I had to stifle a laugh.  Guess we wouldn’t be getting anything done now.

The rest of the afternoon was spent watching the semifinals.  I had to admit, it was a nice change of pace, not to mention it had been ages since I’d watched any League battles (having missed them last year due to sulking in my room most of the summer.)  Still, it didn’t exactly help us get any closer to our goal.  During the intermissions, we tried chatting with a couple other grunts also watching the matches, but didn’t have much success.

Oh well.  At least this was only the first day of trying.

It was frustrating.  Two weeks at the base and we barely had anything to go off.  Two weeks of intense training, Karen dodging all our questions, and random grunts not knowing anything we didn’t already know.

“Not looking forward to being the only ones who didn’t find anything,” I muttered as Rudy, Darren, and I walked down the hallway to the grunt quarters for our upcoming meeting.

“I don’t think we’ll be the only ones.  There might be one or two other failures,” Darren said matter-of-factly.

“Yep.  That definitely makes everything better,” I said, groaning.  I don’t know what I’d been expecting, really.  That Karen would just cheerfully tell us everything she knew, and also that she’d get assigned to the mission and ask us to come along?  I knew that was ridiculous, but I still had imagined we’d be slightly more useful on our first mission.

“I guess we could have been caught—that’s one way things could be worse,” Darren added, shrugging.

I couldn’t argue with that.  And with my luck, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

We arrived at the door to the grunt quarters and opened it to see the familiar sight of the other three groups of Cerulean rebels scattered across the bunks.

“Good to see ya!” Zoe called out brightly, waving to us from across the room.  “We’re just getting the call started, so hurry on over.”

Mai shut the door behind us and took up her usual guard post.  The three of us sat down across from Ray and Sasha, who were busy with their communicators.  We didn’t have to wait long before hearing the voices of the Viridian and Saffron rebels coming from the speakers.  From my vantage point, I could see several kids huddled together to be in view of the cameras.

“Everyone ready?” Ray asked.  Upon hearing or seeing confirmation from all the rebels, he went on, “Alright, we’ll start.  Since our last meeting, my group found out that our officer was actually being considered for a spot on the mission.”

“Unfortunately…” Sasha continued, “that means he’s super paranoid about messing up his chances and wouldn’t spill any details.”

Out of everyone in the room, the members of Group 5 were the only ones who didn’t look disappointed.  They glanced back and forth at each other for a bit before Zoe stood up and announced, “Well I’ve already told some of you, but our group’s officer is confirmed to be on the Legendary mission.”

“No way!” several rebels cried.

“Not only that,” Liam added, “but whatever their target is, they’ve been following it for a while.  He wouldn’t say what it was.  But he said there’s actually a small team out there that’s been chasing it down for the past week.  We think the full attack is gonna happen pretty soon.”

All eyes were staring at Group 5 in admiration.  And here I’d gone and thought we’d be screwed, but this was already a promising lead.  Zoe sat back down, beaming.

Sasha nodded.  “That’s a good start.  Anyone got anything on how the mission’s gonna go down?”

One of the Viridian rebels spoke up.  “Our officer talked to another Rocket about their electric Pokémon being borrowed for testing their attacks against some new tech that had to be ready before a big mission.”

Sasha’s eyes widened.  “Whoa, really?  That’s huge.  That narrows it down a ton, right?”

“Who knows the most about Legendaries out of us?” Ray asked, surveying the room.

“Alec does,” Liam said firmly, giving his teammate a light nudge with his elbow.  Alec glanced up at him with an anxious look, but Liam just gave a reassuring nod.

“Right, so, uh… the only electric Legendaries that live anywhere near us are Zapdos and Raikou,” Alec said slowly.  “Zapdos is… well, it’s thought to roost in Kanto, although it’s been spotted flying over a couple other regions.  Raikou constantly roams across Johto, but it’s also been spotted in Kanto sometimes.”

Zapdos or Raikou…  Either one would be a huge boost to their forces.  But out of the two, my brain kept latching onto Zapdos.  Team Rocket must have encountered it before—where else did they get the DNA to make a Zapdos-Pikachu hybrid?

“They’ve gone after Zapdos once before,” I said slowly.  “They might be trying to catch it for real this time.”

“Wait what?!” Reed exclaimed, gaping at me.  “How do you know that?”

“Jade used to have a totally awesome Zapdos-Pikachu hybrid!” Rudy exclaimed, jumping in front of me.

Reed snorted.  “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.”

“It’s the truth!” Rudy shot back.  “How else do you think we escaped from that Rocket jet?”

“I never thought that story actually happened.  Not the way you tell it, anyway,” Mai said, adding an eye roll for good measure.

“Actually… I have a picture of him,” Darren said all of a sudden.

We all turned to stare at him at once.  Seriously?  He’d gotten Chibi’s picture?  On the S.S. Anne?

“I thought he looked cool,” Darren said, shrugging.  “You don’t see a Pikachu like that every day… well, I guess you did, when he was with you.  I didn’t know he was part Zapdos.”  He grabbed his Pokégear and tapped a few buttons before holding it out to the rest of us.  Sure enough, there was Chibi, standing on the boarding platform.  The photo was blurry, but you could definitely make out the pointed head feathers and the intense, bird-like eyes.

Liam paused thoughtfully.  “Well, okay… so if that’s true, then Zapdos is probably what they’re after.”

“Hey everyone, sorry we’re late!” a voice from the chat suddenly announced.  “I kept messing up at training and our group got held overtime.”

“No worries,” Zoe said brightly, “we just figured out that Zapdos is probably the target.”

“Zapdos?  Why Zapdos?” the rebel asked.  “Hasn’t it been spotted flying over a lot of different regions?  It doesn’t seem like the easiest Pokémon to find.”

Kris snorted.  “And Raikou would be easier to track?”

“Why are we so sure it’s an electric Legendary?”

One of the other Viridian rebels shot back with, “You weren’t here so you didn’t hear the reason!”

And with that, the entire chat broke out into squabbling, most of it between the various groups of Viridian rebels, although Reed and Kris weren’t helping things much on our end either.

“Actually, I know another reason it’s probably electric!” a voice called out suddenly, forcing everyone to pause.  It had come from one of the Saffron rebels.

“No offense, but are there even any Rockets on the mission in Saffron?” Kris asked.  “They don’t exactly keep the combat unit stationed there.  I’m not even sure why Stalker sent anyone there.”

With an exasperated groan, Mai stormed away from her watch post and growled, “Kris, for once in your life can you be quiet?”

Kris froze, looking like she’d been slapped.  Reed seemed to be using every ounce of willpower he had not to burst out laughing.  For several seconds no one said anything, and Ray just kept his face buried in his palms.

“Uh, we’re good here now, you can keep going,” Zoe told the Saffron group.

“Oh.  Right, so… in one of the ‘cost effectiveness’ presentations, they had a thing on using Pokémon energy.  I guess electric Pokémon’s power is the easiest to absorb and use… that makes sense, right?  And if we know they’re testing electric attacks on new tech, that prob’ly means they wanna use it on the easiest target before going for other types of Legendaries.”

There was a moment of silence as everyone paused to consider the new info.

“They didn’t exactly have the easiest time with Entei,” I added.  “It would have escaped altogether if the Johto force hadn’t intervened.”

Everyone stared at the floor.  The story of Entei’s capture was common knowledge amongst the Rebellion by now.  The memory of it only served as a reminder of how we couldn’t afford to mess this up, otherwise the Rockets would have two Legendaries at their disposal.

“How did they catch Entei anyway?” a small voice asked.  I looked up to see Alec glancing around at their teammates dejectedly.  “It’s a Legendary.  Pokéballs don’t… shouldn’t work on them.”

“Oh, um… I think I know how,” a voice piped up from the R-com.  “There was some kind of budget meeting on that.  Did you guys know that Team Rocket owns the Silph Company?”

“What?!” several voices exclaimed at once.  The biggest brand name in trainer tech belonged to the Rockets?  What?

“I know, right?  And they’ve been dumping tons of money into mass-producing Master Balls.”

A chill suddenly fell over me.  Master Ball.  It’d been a long time since I’d heard that term.

“Oh.  Guess that explains it,” one of the other kids replied blankly.

Pretty much everyone had heard the controversy—that Silph Co. had invented a Pokéball that could catch any Pokémon without fail.  There’d been a ton of protests from Pokémon rights groups saying that it totally invalidated the training pact—it was practically the only thing our teachers felt like talking about for a few weeks way back when.  Then Master Balls were banned in most stores, and they made it so you couldn’t even get one without a special license, so most of the chatter died down.  Still, even now, it felt more like a myth than a thing that could really exist.

Zoe glanced around at all of the glum faces in the room and smiled weakly.  “C’mon, enough pouting—how do we stop them?”

“Obviously the Viridian rebels sabotage the new tech.”

Someone in the chat snorted.  “How do you expect us to do that?”

“We don’t even know where it is,” another added.

“You just find someone who looks like a scientist and follow them back to—”

“Okay, stop just… throwing out random suggestions,” Ray said, putting a hand to his forehead.  “We need a solid plan.”

Sasha crossed her arms.  “Ray, I don’t actually think we should be making too many plans ‘til we see how the mission is really gonna down.  We need to know what we’re up against first.  Blind strategies are useless.”

Ray frowned.  “I like being prepared.  And right now, we don’t even know where it is.”

“Why don’t we just have someone follow ‘em?”

Not the voice I had expected to hear.  Everyone whirled around to see where it had come from, and eventually all eyes fell on Wes.

He glanced around sheepishly.  “Well, we know at least one guy on the mission, right?  Why doesn’t the group assigned to him just… tail him to the mission site, let us know where it is and what it’s like?  And then while the Rockets are still getting set up, the rest of us head over and stop ‘em?”

Everyone paused to consider the suggestion.

“Well…” Liam said slowly, “that’d be me, Zoe and Alec.  Anyone else?”

“Our officer’s on the mission,” a Viridian rebel replied.

“Good.  Whoever gets there first, use your GPS app to get the location and send it to me.  I’ll text it to everyone else after that,” Ray said.

“How do the rest of us get there once we know where it is?” another Viridian rebel asked.

“Same way we got here,” Zoe replied.  “We might not have access to Stalker’s Pokémon, but I think between all of us we have enough fliers and teleporters to pull it off.”

Sasha nodded.  “So long as it’s not like… clear across Kanto, my Kadabra should be able teleport everyone in Cerulean one at a time.”  A couple Viridian and Saffron rebels voiced their agreement and their various methods for getting there.

“So it sounds like we have a plan,” Ray said, looking satisfied.

We had a plan.  This was really happening.  It had felt like we were just a bunch of random kids in over our head, and now we actually had a concrete plan for stopping Team Rocket from catching a Legendary.  It was unreal.

Darren nodded.  “See?  Told you we weren’t going to singlehandedly ruin everything.”

I couldn’t help laughing.  “I guess not.”

Chapter Text

I felt movement.  My eyes snapped open suddenly, blinking in the darkness of the grunt quarters.  The tiniest sound of something vibrating caught my ear.  Somewhere in the back of my mind, beyond the cloud of sleep, I realized that it was important.  But… why?

Wait.  It was my communicator.  That was definitely important.  My hands fumbled around, trying to find where I’d stashed it, before brushing against the device hiding under my pillow.  I cupped my fingers over the screen so it wouldn’t light up the room as I checked it.

I’d gotten a text from Liam.  And from the looks of it, he’d sent the message to everyone on the Rebellion: “Just got to the mission spot.  Check the coordinates on this message.  I already told Stalker it’s on now.”

My breath froze in my chest.  The mission was on.  Right now?  What time was it?  3 in the morning.  No wonder there was a faint voice in the back of my head saying I shouldn’t be awake.

The room, though still dark, had a faint glow about it.  I turned to glance around and saw a couple of other rebels checking their communicators.  Suddenly, another message appeared—one sent by Sasha to all of the Cerulean rebels that were still here: “We need to leave one at a time to avoid suspicion, so text the group when you’re leaving, and then again when you make it outside.  I’ll go first.”

Minutes crept by in the darkness.  Every so often my ears caught the faint sounds of someone removing their covers and tiptoeing across the room.  Then a small wave of light from them opening the door out into the hallway.  I hardly dared to breathe.  Part of me still expected a Rocket to barge in all of a sudden and demand to know why we were awake.

But nothing happened.  Three rebels had left the room so far.  Sooner or later, I’d have to join them.  And then, if we made it out of the base, we’d have to make it to the mission location.  And then, once we were there, we’d still have to be on guard to not get spotted.  This was all way too much to handle at 3am.  Yeah… the fact that it was 3am was the problem.  I could’ve handled it at any other time.

Somehow, I still didn’t believe that.  But I’d been able to keep my nerves on the S.S. Anne, and I’d been alone then, not surrounded by allies.  Then again… I hadn’t been alone, had I?  I’d had Chibi with me.  Up until the point when he—no.  I didn’t need to think about what had happened to him.  Not now.

This wasn’t helping.  No more thinking, just doing.  I took a deep breath to calm my nerves and then texted the group that I’d be going next.

I slid myself out of bed as carefully as I could, taking care not to wake any of the grunts in the room that weren’t rebels.  I grabbed my Rocket uniform and quickly got dressed in the locker room before slipping out into the hallway.

It was late enough that almost no one else was awake.  I could hear the faintest sounds of a few Pokémon training in the battlefield, and some voices coming from the mess hall, but that was about it.  Perfect, now I just needed to make it to the elevator without anyone seeing me, and—

The moment the thought entered my head, a Rocket stepped out from one of the side rooms and strode down the hallway in my direction.  Almost every muscle in my body froze, save for my legs, which were on autopilot.  What was the best way to not look suspicious?  Should I walk like I had somewhere important to be?  Try to keep it casual?  I was just getting up for a midnight snack.  No, that wasn’t it, the mess hall was in the opposite direction.  Think!  There had to be some reason I was out of bed.  Anything?  I was almost about to pass him with the most clueless and guilty face in existence.

But the Rocket walked right past me, his eyes glued to his tablet, not even giving a side glance in my direction.  I blinked.  That was it?  He didn’t even care?

Then again… did any random Rocket going about their business have any reason to suspect anything of another random Rocket?  I guess if I’d run into Karen or something, that would’ve been bad.  But what were the odds of her being up this late?

I shook my head slightly.  I was being stupid.  As far as everyone was concerned, I was a Rocket.  I had every reason to be here, and I was just going for a late-night walk to get some fresh air.  That was it.

I swiped my ID to use the elevator back to the main floor, then cautiously stepped out into the lobby.  It was dark and deserted… good.  While there was nothing wrong with a handful of grunts leaving the base one after the other at this hour, it was still impossible to shake the fear that if too many of us were seen too close together, it’d raise some red flags.

The front entrance was locked for the night, so I slipped out the members-only side exit, emerging from the Rocket HQ into an empty city alleyway.  Streetlights and the occasional car headlights illuminated the darkness.  The sidewalks were nearly empty, with the closest person being two city blocks away.

I was outside the base.  I leaned against the building and let out the breath I’d been holding.  The warm summer night’s air swept over me, and I couldn’t help closing my eyes and inhaling deeply.  I could actually feel the tension leaving my body from being outside and away from the constant need to be on guard.

Still, much as I wanted to, I couldn’t relax just yet.  We had a mission.

I joined the Group 1 rebels in the park across the street, and within fifteen minutes, the rest of the Cerulean rebels had all gathered outside, glancing around nervously and waiting for Sasha’s Kadabra to return (it had gone with the Group 5 rebels to memorize the mission location before coming back to get the rest of us.)  Luckily, we didn’t have to wait long until the golden humanoid appeared before us in a flash of shimmering light, twirling a spoon between its claws.

My turn came up sooner than I would have liked.  There was no going back now.  My heart pounded in my chest as I stepped forward to teleport with the psychic-type.  Just like last time, my surroundings dissolved into light and all of my senses disconnected before everything suddenly snapped back into focus.

I now stood in a densely forested area.  Darkness hung over the surrounding—there wasn’t even any moonlight.  In fact, the only light at all was the glow cast by what looked like spotlights off in the distance, beyond the trees.  The rest of the Rebellion was scattered in that direction; Liam waved the newcomers over.

“Okay, so here’s the deal,” one of the Viridian rebels said as soon as we had all gathered around.  “They’ve got a strike team out there hunting it down right now, herding it to this location so they can nail it with all their Pokémon at once.”

I took my first look at the Rockets’ setup.  Twelve flatbed trucks sat in a wide circle around a clearing not far from us.  Each of them carried a large piece of machinery in the back, which opened at the top to reveal a tall, black antenna surrounded by thick, silver coils.  The coils gave off a low hum.  I shivered; just looking at them struck me with an uneasy feeling.

“That’s the new tech they’re gonna use to trap it,” Liam said.  “I heard someone call it the Thunder Field.”

Which meant that our mission would almost definitely involve sabotaging it.  The only question was… how hard would that be?

“Also… we were wrong about the target.  It’s Raikou.”

Raikou?  A guardian of Johto, just like Entei.  Sure, Alec had said that it sometimes roamed Kanto as well, but why were the Kanto Rockets going after the Johto beasts?  Wouldn’t it be better to leave that to the Johto force?

All around the clearing, officers and executives worked to finish setting up equipment.  In the end, one Rocket each was left to man the Thunder Field components on each truck.  That was a problem.  How would we get over there without being seen?

Rudy wandered over to stand at my side, his eyes wide.  “Holy crap, this is intense.  We’re actually going to see a Legendary, right here.”  His voice was shaking—with enthusiasm or fear, I couldn’t quite tell.  Probably both.

“Try not to get too excited.  We’ve got to keep it from getting the crap kicked out of it, after all,” Darren said simply.

“Not if Raikou kicks the crap out of the Rockets,” Rudy countered.  I couldn’t really argue with that, although I highly doubted it.  Not after what I’d seen happen to Entei.

“Alright, we don’t have much time left, time to get a plan together,” Sasha announced, grabbing everyone’s attention.

“Is Stalker going to be here?” a small voice asked.  It had come from one of the youngest kids on the Rebellion.  The question caught me off guard.  It honestly hadn’t occurred to me to wonder whether or not he’d be helping us, but now it seemed like a completely obvious question.

“He’s not coming,” Ray said flatly.  If he was frustrated or content with that fact, I couldn’t tell.  “It’s way riskier for him to get caught than any of us.”

I raised an eyebrow.  It… really didn’t seem right to put it like that.  I mean, I guess in a way it was true—if Stalker was discovered, the Rebellion was over, while if one of us was spotted, the rest of the team would still go on.  But… seriously?  Our goal was to make sure that none of us got caught.

But no one said anything.  Zoe patted a few of the younger rebels on the shoulder reassuringly, while Liam just glared at Ray, his usual optimism gone.

Mai groaned.  “Come on, everyone.  What do you think you’ve been training for?  We can do this without Stalker.”

“What she means to say,” Sasha cut in through gritted teeth, “is that there’s a lot of us, and they’re not expecting any sabotage, so we’ve got the upper hand for now.”

I glanced around at the rebels.  It was pretty obvious which ones, like me, hadn’t actually considered if Stalker would be here or not.  Everyone else’s faces were streaked with fear and disappointment.

“I… guess if we’re making plans now, it’s a safe bet we’ll need to destroy the Thunder Field?” I asked, hoping to move things along.

Sasha nodded.  “We’ll have to sneak over and knock out the technician manning each truck without being seen, so sleep moves are probably best.  Which groups have at least one Pokémon with a sleep move?”

I raised my hand, along with several others.  After all, Darren’s Ivysaur had Sleep Powder.

Sasha counted out nine groups from the rebels who had raised their hands.  “Alright, you guys will take one truck per group.  Sabotage as much as you can without calling attention to yourselves.  As for everyone else…”  She paused, looking uncertain.

“Someone’s gotta make sure Raikou doesn’t get caught by the time you guys get the Thunder Field down… right?” a Viridian rebel offered.

“How are you gonna do that?” another asked, tilting her head.

“Well, it’s gonna be chaos with that many Rockets all fighting Raikou at once, right?  I hardly think they’ll notice if a few extra Pokémon slip into the lineup.”

Ray looked skeptical.  “The fight’s gonna be brutal.  Your Pokémon would have to stay out of Raikou’s way, and also not get spotted helping it.”  I shivered.  That sounded way more intimidating than just knocking out a single Rocket.

“My Pokémon all know Dig,” the same rebel replied proudly.  “And I think a few ‘accidental misses’ aren’t exactly gonna be obvious in that kind of melee.”

“You’re in charge of that squad then.  Make sure no one does anything stupid or obvious—I can’t be everywhere,” Ray ordered.

“Target is nearing our location.  Pokémon out now!” an executive called out.

I tensed up instantly.  Everyone on the Rebellion froze.  This was it—the battle was starting.  Every Rocket in the crowd on the opposite side of the clearing threw out two or three Pokéballs, releasing a massive lineup of enemy Pokémon.  At least thirty or forty of them now stood in a widespread crowd off to one side of the area within the Thunder Field.  And these were combat unit Rockets—they almost definitely had more Pokémon in reserve that were being saved for later in the battle.

A distant rumble of thunder echoed throughout the air.  Gusts of wind howled over the forest, and between the rustling treetops, I could just barely make out the violently churning cloud cover rolling toward us.  So it was true, then… what they said about Raikou being able to generate thunderstorms.

Sudden flashes of light, each one brighter than the last, caught my eye, dragging my attention to the opposite end of the clearing.

It was here.

A massive beast shot through the trees in a burst of lightning, skidding to a stop in the middle of the clearing and throwing a glare back at its pursuers.  Its gigantic, muscular frame tensed up beneath a thick coat of golden, black-striped fur.  A jagged, lightning bolt tail twitched anxiously.  The beast swiveled around, taking in the details of the surrounding trap, and then I got my first good look at its face, from pointed black ears to steely blue whiskers to the nightmarishly long saber teeth.  Piercing reddish eyes fixed on the Rockets’ Pokémon lineup, and the electric-type let out a deafening roar, echoing like the crashing of thunder and gripping every inch of my body.  The sound faded, but my arms and legs wouldn’t stop shaking.

This was the Legendary Beast of Thunder.

The Rockets stood frozen on the spot.  There was no way they could go through with this.  Not now that they’d seen its terrifying presence firsthand.  No way.

“Trappers at the ready!”

Several Pokémon within the lineup—most of them ghosts—started glowing with an eerie red aura before fixing Raikou with a piercing stare, causing the same red aura to form around the Legendary’s body.  It was trapped now—that aura would prevent it from straying too far from the source.

I clenched my fists.  They were seriously still going to try it?

Raikou didn’t try to run.  It clearly understood what had just taken place, and shook its head ever so slightly.  For the longest time it just stood there, staring down the Rockets’ Pokémon, daring them to make a move.  Finally, the tiger opened its mouth and spoke, its words a low, reverberating growl, “*The humans are the ones responsible for this.  Stand down, and you will be spared.*”

Some of the Rockets’ Pokémon shifted uncomfortably, but none moved from where they were standing.  The front of the lineup took a fighting stance, the traces of fear in their eyes overshadowed by determination.

Raikou stared, its expression impossible to make out.  It gave a slow, solemn nod.

“*Then I shall not hold back.*”

Sparks leaped off the violet, cloudlike mane on the tiger’s back, giving way to a flood of lightning shooting every direction and covering an area half the size of the clearing.  But just seconds later, the electricity was wrenched towards the trucks encircling the clearing, absorbed into the coils of the Thunder Field.  Raikou’s eyes widened with shock before narrowing again.  It snarled and crouched low, gathering more electricity around itself, this time firing it in a single thunderbolt, striking the heart of the machine.  Jagged strings of lightning leaped off the impact point, but within seconds, the attack was completely absorbed just like the first one.

Raikou bared its teeth, frustration crossing its features for just a second.  It then turned back toward its opponents and let loose another blood-curdling roar before lunging.  A golden blur shot forward almost too fast to see, colliding with the Rockets’ lineup and knocking down the first Pokémon it met with its oversized claws.  The target, an Ursaring, lashed out at the tiger with a glowing fist, but couldn’t land a hit before seven-inch fangs tore open its neck.  The bear’s eyes widened with shock as blood gushed from the wound, soaking the ground before it collapsed in a heap.  Muzzle splattered with crimson, Raikou pulled back from its target right before a horde of five or six enemy Pokémon all leaped onto it at once.  The beast fell to the ground, snarling viciously and flailing its claws at anything coming too close.  A handful of enemy Pokémon recoiled backwards, clutching wicked gashes to the side or face, but sheer numbers won out, and the tiger was overrun.

I couldn’t look away.  It was impossible not to stare at the spectacle unfolding before us.  My eyes hurt from being open so long.  Every inch of my body had gone numb.  But I was still staring stupidly at the carnage, unable to think.  What was I supposed to be doing?  How could we possibly do anything to affect the outcome of a battle like this?

“Come on.  They’re all focused on the battle, time to move,” Ray said bluntly.

I blinked, feeling like I’d been jerked from a stupor.  Groups of rebels were breaking off from the main gathering and bolting towards the trucks.  With their black uniforms and the cover from the trees, they were almost invisible.

Rudy shook my arm to grab my attention.  I jerked suddenly, spinning around to face him.

“We gotta go,” he said urgently.

“You can panic later,” Darren added.

I took a few deep breaths to steady myself before nodding.  No time to panic.  We had to do this.  The three of us crept towards one of the trucks that hadn’t yet been targeted by one of the other rebel groups.  A single Rocket stood on the truck bed alongside the control panel for the Thunder Field.  He faced away from us, watching the battle.

The chaos and commotion of the fight was easily loud enough to mask the sound of a Pokéball being opened.  Ivysaur materialized in front of Darren, who motioned to the rest of us to step back.  At his command, the grass-type crawled forward until he was right alongside the wheels of the truck before unleashing a cloud of sparkling blue powder from the flower bud on his back.  The Rocket jerked slightly upon inhaling the powder.  For a few brief seconds he glanced around as though trying to figure out where it had come from before slumping to the ground, out cold.

The problem was that now the entire truck was surrounded by sleep powder, and we couldn’t risk breathing it in ourselves.  Except… wait, I’d fought enough powder users to have an easy fix for that.  I whipped out a Pokéball and released Swift.

“We need a Gust to clear out the Sleep Powder over there,” I said.  The Pidgeotto nodded wordlessly before taking flight and flapping his wings rapidly to produce a swirling vortex of wind around the truck.  With the violent sounds of the ongoing battle and the rumble of the overhead storm, you could barely hear anything.  That was at least one thing we had in our favor.

Once the last trace of powder had been swept away, I walked over and pulled myself up onto the back of the flatbed truck, now face to face with the massive, boxy machine at the foot of the lightning rod.  Every hair on my body stood on end—the prickly feeling of the static charge around the machine was impossible to ignore.

“Alright.  Sabotage.  Sounds fun, where do we start?” Darren asked once he had climbed up.

Good question.  I glanced around the glowing control panel on the front of the mechanism, which was covered in way too many dials and switches.  Somehow I didn’t imagine pressing all of them at random would be the best course of action.  But on the far back, near the grate that kept the antenna out of reach, I spotted a very large, important-looking switch.  If any of these was gonna be an off switch, it was that one.  I grabbed it with both hands and pulled hard.  It swung heavily towards me and clicked into place.

I leaped back from the machine, staring up at the lightning rod.  Seconds passed, but… nothing appeared to have happened.  Lights still glowed on the console, and the machine continued to hum.

“Of course.  I don’t know why I expected it to be that easy,” I grumbled.

“Good try though,” Darren said.  I couldn’t tell if his tone was mocking or sincere, and honestly didn’t care at the moment.

Rudy stepped in front of me.  “Alright, my turn!  Water fries electronics, right?” he said, releasing Wartortle.  “Water Gun, all over the controls!”

The turtle nodded and spat out a powerful stream of water all over the console with a violent splash.  The spray of water filled the air as Wartortle kept up the blast, although after several seconds he tilted his head, looking a bit perplexed.  He glanced back at Rudy uncertainly before stopping the attack.  Water dripped down the front of the machine harmlessly; the lights continued to glow.

“What, nothing?  That’s stupid!”  Rudy stomped a foot against the truck bed.  “Let’s just set it on fire, no way it’ll survive that.”

“I think the Rockets might notice something if we set it on fire,” Darren replied.  “Which is cool if that’s what you’re going for, but probably not?”

Rudy folded his arms and didn’t say anything more.

A horrifying snarl snapped my attention back to the battle.  Raikou had just broken free from the horde of enemy Pokémon and sprinted away from them as fast as its legs could carry.  But it barely managed to clear thirty yards before crashing to a halt, its entire body gripped by the red aura of Mean Look.  Raikou glared back at the Pokémon already charging at it before rushing in and locking its jaws around the gaseous body of a Haunter, fangs cloaked in dark energy.  The ghost immediately cried out and went limp, but just as it was recalled, three more Pokémon leaped onto the tiger, pinning it down.

Raikou shook off its attackers and sprang back, crouching defensively and putting up a shimmering wall of light around its body.  A Rhydon pulled back a glowing arm, slamming it into the electric-type.  A resounding thud echoed from the barrier diffusing the force of the attack, and the tiger didn’t waste a second.  It rushed forward and tore into the armored beast’s vulnerable underbelly, giant claws shredding through flesh and splattering blood onto its face until it was wrenched off by the rock-type’s teammate.

It hit me with a sickening realization.  Raikou had no spread attacks other than its lightning.  Without that, it was reduced to attacking things one-on-one, with a flurry of claws and fangs and even a distorted light attack I couldn’t identify.  There was no way for it to take out all the Pokémon trapping it at once.

Then again… it wasn’t like the Rockets weren’t suffering either.  Any Pokémon unfortunate enough to take even a single blow from Raikou was instantly knocked out.  Some of them could still be recalled.  Others couldn’t.

The chaos of the battlefield was working against them another way.  The huge melee made it difficult for those on the outside to land a blow without hitting one of their teammates… but I could have sworn the ghost-types trapping Raikou were pelted by stray moves slightly more often.  And by now the ground underneath them was littered with holes from Pokémon using Dig—it was hard to see, but when I fixed my eyes on one hole in particular, I caught sight of a paw swinging in Raikou’s general direction, but missing and tripping one of the Rockets’ Pokémon instead.

So a few of the rebels had managed to infiltrate the lineup.  Maybe this wasn’t a lost cause.

“This is crazy, we should be doing something,” Rudy muttered through gritted teeth.

“Well yeah… but what?” I asked.  But then I saw Darren fumbling with a panel on the console.  He pulled it free, revealing a tangled web of wires in the heart of the machine.  I almost felt like kicking myself.  Of course we needed to get at its insides.  How stupid could we be?

Darren grabbed a Pokéball off his belt to release his Sandshrew.  The yellow-scaled Pokémon drew back its clawed forepaws and slashed repeatedly at the wires inside the machine, sending sparks flying everywhere.  I leaped back to avoid a sudden wave of them, then glanced back at the machine excitedly.  Several lights on the console suddenly went dead, and my heart skipped a beat.  But then… the lightning rod continued to give off the same low, electric hum.  The same static charge filled the air.  Nothing had changed.

“Huh.  I thought that’d work,” Darren said, frowning.

The brief glimmer of hope sputtered and died.  What were we doing?  We couldn’t even figure out how to sabotage one machine.  Were the other groups doing better than us?  I glanced back in the direction of the forest and could just barely make out dark shapes moving from the trucks back to the meeting spot.  Great, the others were regrouping.  That could only mean they’d succeeded… or that they’d failed just like we had. 

“I’m thinking we probably should’ve come up with ideas before splitting up,” Darren said flatly.

I clenched my fists.  He was right; we really hadn’t thought this through at all.  I’d just figured we’d come up with something once we got here.  But… wait.  If any of the others had figured out how to take these things down, then they could let the rest of us know how to do it, right?  It was worth a shot, at least.

“Come on, let’s regroup with the others,” I said, gesturing in that direction.  “Maybe some of them figured out a way to take these things out.”

Rudy gaped at me.  “Seriously?”

“Well it’s better than just standing here doing nothing!” I shot back.

He didn’t have a retort for that.  He just folded his arms and muttered, “Ugh, fine.”

The three of us recalled our Pokémon.  My legs were on autopilot as we jumped down from the truck and made our way back to the rest of the group.  By now most of the rebels had returned, save for the ones still helping out in the battle.

“Any luck?” Sasha asked everyone.

“No good, we threw everything we could think of at it, but it’s still going,” one of the rebels replied.  “We were kind of afraid to go too far and get captured or something.”  Several other groups muttered similar excuses.  I didn’t want to say anything.  I kind of just felt like melting into the ground.

“Anyone?” Mai demanded, looking more anxious than frustrated.

One mission group raised their hands.  “All the lights went dead on ours and it stopped making any noise,” one of them said.  “I think we broke it?”

“Same here,” a second added.  Behind them a third group of rebels raised their hands.

“That makes… what, three of ‘em dead?”  I asked.  Three out of twelve.  Would that be enough?  How could we tell?

“Also, I’ve been thinking about something… even if the Thunder Field does go down, how do we let Raikou know?” Liam asked.

I blinked.  That honestly had never occurred to me at all.  No one else had an answer either.  And all the while, the battle continued to rage on.  The Rockets’ lineup was noticeably smaller now, but with fewer Pokémon to get in each other’s way, they were getting bolder.  The rebel Pokémon amongst the lineup had no choice but to hang back now—there were nowhere near enough fighters for their sabotage to go unnoticed.

Chunks of rock tore themselves up from the ground, burying Raikou in avalanche of boulders.  Muffled snarls resounded from underneath the rock slide just before the ground erupted with a burst of energy almost like magma.  The electric-type struggled to pull itself free of the heap only to be struck by a blast of flames.

And then a Pokéball hurtled through the air toward the battlefield.  Raikou’s eyes widened with shock right before it lunged out of the way, letting the ball fly past where it had stood not a moment earlier.  The Legendary circled around the opposing Pokémon lineup as quickly as it could, putting as much distance as possible between itself and the Rockets.  But its movements were slowing, its muscles quivering, pelt soaked red with blood in between scattered patches of blackened fur.  More Pokéballs flew through the air.

I felt my insides vanish.  The Pokéballs were purple.  I’d only ever heard of one purple-colored Pokéball.  The Master Ball.  The Saffron rebels were right—Team Rocket had Master Balls.

None of this was supposed to happen.  This wasn’t like last time, with me standing alone, watching Entei get mobbed and being powerless to stop it.  There were thirty-six of us here.  We’d been training for weeks.  And yet we still couldn’t stop them?

“Why don’t we just blow up the antennas?” Reed asked.

I almost snorted.  After all this time, somehow the concept of “don’t get spotted” still hadn’t sunk into everyone.

Mai facepalmed.  “Are we trying to advertise ourselves to the Rockets now?”

With a shrug, Reed replied.  “Not if they don’t see us do it.  And that way Raikou will know it can go free.”

Sasha opened her mouth to protest, but then froze, like she couldn’t believe she was actually considering it.

I blinked.  Wait… the whole problem with an explosion was that it would instantly give us away and we’d have Rockets on our tail.  But if we could somehow destroy one from a distance and never be seen doing it, they’d have no idea it was an inside job.  Plus, it’d mean that by the time they figured out what had happened, we’d all be long gone.

Realization dawned on Ray’s face.  “That’s… actually not a terrible idea,” he said slowly.  “How do we pull it off?”

“Launch all of our attacks at it at once?” Kris asked.

“Hyper Beam!” Rudy called out excitedly.

Mai rolled her eyes and turned to her teammate.  “Got anything, Sasha?”

“So I’m the plan one now?” she replied, raising an eyebrow.  “I never volunteered to be.”

“You’re good at it,” Mai said bluntly.

Sasha laughed.  “A compliment?  From you?  I’ll take it.”  She then paused, furrowing her brow in deep thought.  “Does… does anyone have a Pokémon with Self-Destruct?”

A huge grin spread across Reed’s face.  “I’ve got Voltorb!”

“I have a Geodude,” another rebel added.

“I actually caught a Pineco the day before we left for the base,” a third said.  “I haven’t trained it much, but I can ask if it knows Self-Destruct?”

“But how do we recall our Pokémon after the explosion without being seen?”

Everyone paused.  That was a tough one.  While the rest of us could easily stay out of view, it wasn’t like we could just leave the Pokémon behind.  But there had to be some way to recall them quickly without becoming a massive target.

“I’ll do it,” Ray said all of a sudden.  “I can fly down, recall them all in midair, then fly away.  The rest of you can all hide and they won’t ever have to know there was a group here.”

Sasha raised an eyebrow.  “How will you escape?”

“My Fearow is fast.”

“Uh uh, no, that’s stupid.  You’re taking Kadabra whether you like it or not,” she said, thrusting the Pokéball into his hands.

Ray blinked at it a few times, but then shrugged and pocketed it without complaint.  Throughout the crowd, five rebels had released their Pokémon and were explaining the situation before recalling them and handing the Pokéballs to Ray.

And with that, the rest was up to him.  Ray pulled his hat so low over his face that he was unrecognizable before sprinting forward to the closest truck and releasing his Heracross and Reed’s Voltorb.  While Heracross dragged away the body of the unconscious Rocket at each truck, Ray planted the Self-Destructing Pokémon at the five lightning rods farthest from the main grouping of Rockets.  When he was done, he recalled his bug-type and released his Fearow.  The shaggy bird stood nearly as tall as he did, outstretching a pair of long, narrow wings as he climbed onto its back.  It almost didn’t look like the Pokémon would be big enough to carry him, but with a few powerful wingbeats, the two of them were airborne.

Silence fell over everyone.  Even the sounds of the raging battle in the background barely seemed to exist anymore.  All eyes focused on the Pokémon on the trucks, which would have been barely noticeable from here if we didn’t already know where to look.  Any second now…

Ray swung his arm into the air, and the reaction was immediate.  Five explosions, one after the other, engulfed the Thunder Field machinery in a bright flash of yellow energy as a loud crunch and the squealing of metal filled the air.  Waves of sparks shot out of the devices, and—holy crap one of them was actually tipping over!  The lightning rod swayed side to side, metal groaning before finally giving way and swinging down towards the battle.  It struck the ground with a heavy thud, sending half the Rockets’ Pokémon leaping into the air with shock.

I’d say that definitely got Raikou’s attention.  It also got the Rockets’ attention.  A loud string of curses rang out from the opposite side of the clearing as the Rockets immediately scattered, trying to find the source of the destruction.

And then Ray’s Fearow shot downward in a crazy dive, pulling up at the last second to soar just inches above the ground.  In an impossibly fast motion, he whipped out one Pokéball after another, recalling the fainted Pokémon at each truck while still flying.  I couldn’t help staring—even though he’d planned to do that all along, it was another thing seeing it in motion.

Fearow pulled up from the ground just in time to shoot over the Rockets’ heads, and Ray threw in a dramatic wave for good measure before the two of them flew off.  The reaction was immediate.  At least a dozen flying-type Pokémon appeared in a flash of white light, pausing just long enough to let their trainers mount before taking off in hot pursuit.

But the Rockets wouldn’t catch him.  Ray was speeding away in the opposite direction of our main group.  Now all he had to do was land and use Sasha’s Kadabra to teleport a safe distance away.  And such a massive distraction would definitely give the rebels in the Rockets’ lineup the chance they needed to recall their Pokémon and quietly disappear into the forest.  So as far as the Rockets knew, they were thwarted by a single rebel acting alone, and not the combined efforts of all of us.  They had no reason to suspect it was really their new recruits.

We had actually done it.  It didn’t seem possible, but it had just happened right in front of me.

All the nonflying Pokémon had stayed behind to contain Raikou, but the beast was now staring at the smoking remains of half the Thunder Field, eyes widening.  It turned back to face its enemies, and I could have sworn I saw its face break into a manic grin right before a huge wave of electricity flowed out from every inch of its body.  The remaining lightning rods managed to draw some of it, but there was just far too much for the few of them to handle.  I screwed my eyes shut to block out the blindingly bright flash, but I wasn’t ready for the chilling screams of the Rockets and their Pokémon filling the air.

Raikou had every right in the world to do that.  And we’d given it the ability to.  So why did I want so badly for it to stop?

Seconds passed.  Hesitantly, I cracked an eyelid open.  Only a few electric or ground-type Pokémon remained standing in the clearing.  The rest lay scattered across the ground—unconscious or worse, I couldn’t tell.  All I knew was that my entire body was shivering.  This was what it meant to challenge a Legendary.

The Legendary Beast of Thunder surveyed the scene with cold eyes and a face like stone.  It then let out a deafening roar at the remaining Rockets and their Pokémon before bolting away from them in a golden blur too fast to see.  It took several seconds for my brain to register that ‘away from the Rockets’ in this case meant ‘in the direction we were hiding.’  My stomach tied itself into a knot.  Raikou was escaping this way.

We were all hidden amongst the trees.  There was no reason for it to notice us.  No reason for it to consider us enemies.  Please, don’t notice us.

And then Raikou slowed to a stop the instant it neared the area where we were hiding.

Time slowed to a crawl.  I couldn’t move.  I hardly dared to breathe.  It was right there.  Standing not even five yards away from me, blood still dripping from its defeated face.  I was frozen on the spot, staring at the fantastic beast for what felt like an eternity.  It knew we were here.  It knew we were here.

Finally, it spoke.  “So.  It seems the interlopers have arrived.”

And in the blink of an eye, Raikou disappeared, rushing off to the west in a flash of lightning, echoes of thunder trailing behind it.

Chapter Text

“When we made it to the mission location, we discovered that Team Rocket was chasing Raikou into a trap, and had machines to absorb its electric attacks.  We split into groups with some of us focusing on helping Raikou, and the others attempting to sabotage the Thunder Field.  When it didn’t work, we decided that the best plan would be to outright destroy part of the field, so Raikou could take out the Pokémon keeping it trapped there with Mean Look.”

Sasha’s words dominated everyone’s attention.  Ray and Mai stood alongside her as she gave the mission report.  The rest of us waited behind them at the entrance to the Midnight Stadium battlefield.  And of course, Stalker watched all of us from the center of the room, his gaze intense and focused as he took in every detail of our mission.

“I took everyone’s Self-Destruct Pokémon and planted them in the trucks,” Ray continued, picking up where Sasha left off.  “After the explosions, I recalled them and flew off on my Fearow to give the Rockets a target to chase.  That way they wouldn’t suspect a whole group of their own recruits was behind it.”

“They never saw any of us there but Ray.  And by the time they got back to base, we were already back in bed,” Sasha said.

In the end, it was Ray’s group that made the biggest difference, along with the trainers who had the Self-Destruct Pokémon.  The rest of us had been there for support, but ultimately hadn’t contributed much.  It was kind of expected, in a way.  With thirty-six of us there, it wasn’t possible for everyone to share in the glory.  The sheer numbers had just helped increase the chance that some of us could be useful.  It didn’t matter that I hadn’t gotten to do much.

Yeah, I kept telling myself that, but I didn’t actually believe it.  I just hadn’t let myself express how much it bothered me.  Rudy was already doing a good enough job of that, anyway.  He’d complained the entire way back to Midnight Island.  Darren was the only one who seemed fine with it.

Everyone on the Rebellion was silent as Stalker carefully considered the mission report.  He paced back and forth in front of us in deep concentration.

“I think…” he finally began, making everyone hold their breath, “you all did well.”

An audible sigh of relief swept throughout the crowd, myself included.  I didn’t know why I’d felt so nervous.  We’d succeeded.  And how would Stalker know exactly which of us hadn’t done much?  Even he wasn’t that good.

Stalker chuckled a bit under his breath upon seeing our reaction.  “I’d already heard the Rockets’ story of what happened.  I just wanted to hear it in your words.”

Rudy snorted next to me.  “He could’ve told us that.”

“The next Legendary mission won’t go as smoothly as this one did,” Stalker said, folding his arms.  “The Rockets weren’t expecting you—next time they will.  You avoided a direct confrontation this time.  Next time it will be inevitable.”  His expression had hardened back into its usual intensity.  The idea of fighting Rockets was still an uncomfortable one, even after all our training.  But still—that’s why we were here, wasn’t it?  To get to the point where we could actually do it and come out on top?

“Of course… that likely won’t be for a while,” Stalker went on.  “There’s plenty of things to do in the meantime.  Now that you’re established Rockets, you’ll need to make semi-regular trips to headquarters—don’t want to get flagged as inactive.  But that’s a good thing, because it will give you opportunities for smaller missions, minor sabotage, and gathering information.”  He paused upon noticing several rebels off to the side who were literally bouncing up and down with excitement.

“And while we’re on the topic of non-Legendary missions… I think the Celadon rebels have something to say.”

Of course—the Celadon rebels hadn’t even been a part of the Raikou mission.  They’d had a mission of their own… something about getting supplies?  Honestly, our mission seemed way cooler than that.  Then again, maybe they’d all gotten to be useful during theirs.

The group of twelve all stepped forward, dragging two large boxes with them.  From where I was standing, I couldn’t tell what was inside them, but apparently it was pretty great?  Most of them couldn’t help glancing over at the boxes every few seconds and grinning broadly.

“So there we were, in the dead of night,” one of them began dramatically.  “We followed an unsuspecting group of Rockets to their giant warehouse where they keep the Game Corner prizes…”

“We didn’t really need to.  I mean, we already knew where it was,” a second rebel added.  The first one shot her a glare before continuing.

“After several days of spying on them to find out the right time to strike, we expertly infiltrated the—”

“We had the access codes,” another rebel cut in flatly.

“That’s still infiltrating!” the storyteller yelled, face turning red.  “And we had to have someone standing guard and everything, and we had to avoid the cameras.  Totally infiltrating.  But we managed to keep our cool and locate the goods, and sneak out before anyone saw!”

Everyone in our group was silent.  Somehow not one of them had actually managed to get the point of the story across.  I think one of them realized that, because they hastily added, “Right, so we got Pokémon and TMs for everyone, the end.”

I couldn’t help bursting out laughing at the suddenness of it.  An immediate commotion ensued as everyone rushed forward all at once to see inside the boxes.  We were seriously getting new Pokémon?  Just like that?  I was actually having a hard time believing it.  Apparently a lot of rebels had thrown questioning looks at Stalker, because at that moment he said, “You’re not going to have much time to search for Pokémon anywhere other than on the island.  I figured this would give the team a boost.”

Well, it was a boost I sorely needed.  New moves and new Pokémon.  I honestly wasn’t sure which one I was more excited for.  Sure, I desperately needed a new team member.  But new moves would be a huge benefit to Swift and Firestorm, neither of whom had many interesting tricks.

“Most of the TMs aren’t reusable, so be careful how you use them,” Stalker told everyone.  “No more than one non-reusable TM per Pokémon.  But more importantly, everyone has to learn this.”  He held up a series 5 disc with a glossy white case.  “This is a reusable copy of TM17, and it’s the most important move you'll ever learn—Protect.”

Everyone stared.  I couldn’t quite remember what that move did, other than something involving protection, obviously.

Stalker went on.  “It allows your Pokémon to guard itself from almost anything for a short time.  You’ve been training for multi battles for over a month—you should be able to see the value in that.  Protect is the single best way to buy yourself time, find out more about your opponent, land a free hit with another teammate, and allow your Pokémon to guard you from almost anything.  We’ll be practicing all of its applications over the next few days.”

Well alright then.  If it was really that useful, then I’d be sure to teach it to my team… after I got my new Pokémon.  It just made more sense to get a new team member before deciding what moves the rest of your team needed.

“Everyone gets one Pokémon!” a Celadon rebel shouted.  “And we’re all picking randomly, so it’s fair.  So no cheating!”

Everyone in front of me had grabbed a Pokéball and retreated to somewhere away from the crowd, so I finally had a chance to reach down and grab one for myself.  A new Pokémon.  It felt unreal.  I hadn’t gotten a new Pokémon ever since this adventure started.  I barely had a chance to get five feet from the box before being ambushed by Rudy.

“Hey!  All three of us should open ours at the same time!” he exclaimed, grabbing me and Darren by the shirt sleeve and dragging us away from the main group.  I didn’t bother fighting—there was no point trying to protest once Rudy had his mind set on something.

“I’m guessing you just want someone to brag to,” Darren pointed out.

“Whatever,” Rudy said quickly, letting go of us.  “On the count of three, we open ‘em, alright?”

I rolled my eyes.  “If you say so.”

“One… two… three!”

Three bursts of light appeared in front of us at once.  My eyes widened as the mass of energy in front of me took on its true shape.  The light started to fade, revealing a yellow body.  It was…?

My face fell.  A golden-furred mouse now stood in front of me, stretching its limbs and raising a lightning-bolt tail.  A Pikachu.  I had another Pikachu.  A replacement for Chibi, in other words.  I felt a sudden tightness in my chest and turned away quickly.  The last thing I needed was for the Pikachu to see my face and think it had done something wrong.  And in any case… I did have a convenient excuse for what to look at right then—Rudy and Darren’s Pokémon.

“No.  Way.”

At Rudy’s feet stood a small dinosaur covered in rocky green armor.  It blinked its large, violet eyes and looked around, obviously confused by its surroundings.  Rudy stared at the rock-type with a mixture of shock and total adoration.

Seriously?  He’d gotten a Larvitar?  I mean, in a way I kind of expected Team Rocket to be selling rare and valuable Pokémon, but… Larvitar?

“That’s it.  I won.  I got the best Pokémon.”  Rudy reached down to pick up Larvitar and admire it, but got as far as wrapping his arms around it before realizing that the tiny reptile was much heavier than it looked.  He then settled on kneeling down and shaking its stubby arms.  The rock-type stared back at him, eyes half-lidded, looking totally bored with the attention it was receiving.

“I don’t think I did too bad.  My team has a teleporter now,” Darren said.  On the ground next to him sat a golden humanoid resting its claws in its lap with its thick tail wrapped around it.  An Abra—not just a teleporter, but a powerful psychic.

“Mine’s got a type advantage, so I won,” Rudy said, smirking.

Darren didn’t really seem to care.  “Once it evolves.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to train a Larvitar to its final form?  Cause I’m thinking you don’t.”

“Stalker’s got a Tyranitar.”

Darren shrugged.  “He’s Stalker.”

Rudy didn’t have a comeback for that one.  But at that moment he glanced in my direction, probably because I hadn’t been saying anything.  He opened his mouth like he was about to say something, but then his eyes fell on my new Pokémon.  “You got another Pikachu?  Lame, I’ve always wanted one.  Of course… Larvitar is still way better,” he added quickly.

Darren made eye contact and tilted his head with an odd expression, almost like he knew what I was thinking and wanted to comment.  Then again, the disappointment was probably written all over my face.  Rudy just hadn’t noticed because he was Rudy.

I glanced around the stadium to see everyone else meeting their new Pokémon excitedly.  Pikachu and Abra looked to be pretty common amongst the prize Pokémon, along with the spiked Nidorino and Nidorina, the dainty Clefairy, and the six-tailed Vulpix.  I only spotted one other Larvitar amongst the group.  Similarly rare was the snakelike Dratini—only two kids had gotten one.  A few rebels even looked to be trading their newfound Pokémon, probably in cases where they’d gotten a Pokémon they already had.  In a way… that was kind of what my situation was.  Would it be worth it to try to trade my Pikachu?

I looked back at Pikachu.  The electric-type mostly looked weirded out by everything that was going on.  “*Who are you all supposed to be?*” it asked.

Well this was awkward.  What was the best way to explain it?  “You guys were gonna be given out as Game Corner prizes, but then a few members of our team… rescued you and now… we’re your new trainers?  If you want?” I finished lamely.

“*What?*”

I groaned.  Should I even be introducing myself as its trainer?  If I was already considering trading with someone?  But the only reason I felt that way was because of Chibi, and I didn’t have him anymore, so it wasn’t like I could use the excuse that my team already had a Pikachu.  And it wasn’t fair to this new Pikachu that I was still fixated on what happened to my last one.

But… what had happened to him?  After they took him.  I still didn’t know.  That was the worst part.

“I’ve got to go ask someone something,” I announced suddenly, marching away from the group and leaving everyone staring at me in confusion.

Stalker.  Stalker would know what had happened to him.  Stalker knew everything about Team Rocket.  Okay, that was a silly over-exaggeration, but I didn’t care.

I walked straight up to Stalker, painfully aware of how miserable I probably looked.  “Hey, can I talk to you?” I asked.

Stalker raised an eyebrow but nodded all the same, and the two of us walked off to the side of the battlefield, away from the main group.  Once we were a good distance away, he turned to me and said, “You look distracted.  What’s on your mind?”

I fidgeted a bit, unsure how to bring up the topic without sounding ungrateful to get a new Pokémon.  “I… it’s just… I got a Pikachu from the Pokéball box.”

The reply was immediate.  “You’re worried about number nine, aren’t you?”

I blinked, completely taken aback.  “How’d you know?”

“You stole him from the Rockets.  Then you showed up here without him, and the Rockets reported his successful recapture.  It wasn’t hard to put together.”  I mentally smacked myself.  Figures that he’d be aware of what happened.  That’s what I’d been banking on, after all.

“You… mentioned we’d get plenty of chances to go on small missions.”

He nodded.

It suddenly hit me.  I knew what I needed to do.  “I… I want to rescue him.”

Stalker paused to consider my words, his icy blue eyes staring through me.  For several seconds, he didn’t say anything, until finally: “Alright.  But when you do, I’ll need you to do something for me as well.”

That was unexpected.  But I didn’t really have much choice, did I?  The only thing I could do was nod.

“I want you to get information on experiment number thirty-six.”

Thirty-six.  I’d heard that number mentioned by Team Rocket before.  But what was so important about it?

“I… sure?  What is that?”

“Number thirty-six is the big one.  Their most groundbreaking experimental Pokémon yet.  And almost all the info on it is being kept completely hush.  I need someone to get inside the room where it’s being kept and copy all of its data, especially regarding what its power is like, and whether or not they’ll be able to control it like they did the other experiments.  Number nine is currently being used to test Legendary control technology, so getting it out of there will be additionally helpful for us, because controlling Legendaries is one thing we do not want them to be capable of.”

A chill ran down my spine.  Controlling Legendaries.  That didn’t even seem possible.  But they’d apparently been controlling the other experiments—after all, Chibi was the only hybrid I saw on the plane that didn't have that creepily blank, expressionless stare.  Still… controlling Legendaries?  Somehow, I had never wondered how the Rockets planned to actually do anything with their captured Legends.  Suddenly it all made sense.  That was why they needed Chibi.  And I’d let them take him.

“But first,” Stalker continued, “training.  The next few days are going to involve some of the most important lessons yet.  And Team Rocket base activity needs the chance to settle down a bit.  You can go on your mission in three days.”

I gaped at him with what had to be desperation all over my face.  Three days?

“I know this is important to you.  But it needs to wait.”

Sparks flew as bolts of lightning shot through the air one after the other, crashing against a shimmering wall of energy that went up at the last second.  Rudy crouched low behind the barrier as strings of lighting leapt past him on all sides.  Wartortle stood firmly in front of him, arms spread wide and a look of anxious concentration on his face as he maintained the shield in front of them.  Across the battlefield, Pikachu paused the offense for a few moments to let Wartortle recover before pressing the attack once more.  The electric rodent lunged to the side and fired several more bolts at Rudy, who ducked back behind Wartortle in a flash.  The turtle recoiled slightly from the lightning flying towards him, but still managed to throw up a shielding Protect at the last second.  Scattered bolts flew past the shield, forcing Rudy to huddle closer to his starter to avoid getting hit.

“Might wanna tell Pikachu to ease up a little bit; that last one almost got you,” I said.

Rudy waved a hand dismissively.  “Nah, she’s just making it tough for Wartortle, that’s all.  And that’s the point, isn’t it?  To make sure we can protect ourselves even when they’re trying to hit us?”

I got the feeling from the mischievous glint in her eyes that Pikachu wasn’t so much making the training tough as she actually wanted Rudy to get hit with a Thundershock.  Not in a malicious sort of way, but in a wouldn’t-this-be-hilarious sort of way.

I’d let Rudy train Pikachu for now.  It wasn’t fair to her that I was still hung up on losing Chibi and couldn’t handle battling with her.  And besides… if all went well, I’d be returning to the base with Chibi later tonight, and then Rudy could go ahead and keep her.

“Dang.  45 seconds again,” Rudy said, glancing at the timer on his Pokégear and frowning.  “Haven’t been able to break that with Wartortle.”

“Didn’t Stalker say that 30 seconds or so was the minimum before you can use Protect again?” I asked.

“I guess, but the rest of my team is down to 40 seconds.”  Given that he trained the rest of his team far more often than his starter, that was hardly surprising.  “What about you?  How short of a wait is your Charmeleon down to?”

To be honest, I couldn’t remember.  My upcoming mission was occupying almost every space of my mind.  I still gave it my all at Stalker’s lessons, but after hours?  No way.  In any case, Swift and Firestorm had been practicing their new moves on their own (Shadow Claw for Firestorm and Aerial Ace for Swift).

“Well, enough with Wartortle for now.  Time to train Larvitar some more,” Rudy said, recalling his starter and pulling out a different Pokéball.

I snorted.  “Haven’t you been training Larvitar non-stop since you got her?  I was actually surprised to see you giving Wartortle a shot at all.”

“Yeah, well Darren’s right, I’ll never get her evolved if I don’t train with her a ton,” he said resentfully.  I was still pretty sure that even with all the training in the world, it’d be months before her evolution.  In fact, it was pretty rare for the average trainer to get a Pokémon like Larvitar or Dratini to reach their final form at all. 

I watched Rudy train for the rest of the night, offering commentary when he asked for it and taunting when he didn’t.  At 10 pm, it was time to leave.  I waved goodbye and set off for Stalker’s office, my heart already beating a bit more quickly in anticipation for the upcoming mission.  I had just left the battlefield and rounded the corner towards the left hallway when I heard a voice behind me.

“You’re off to get your cool Pikachu back now, aren’t you?”  I stopped walking and turned around.  It was Darren.

I’d finally told Rudy and Darren the truth about Chibi.  How he hadn’t really left, he’d been stolen.  There was no getting around it—how else was I supposed to explain why I was going on a mission out of the blue?

“You didn’t really have to keep all of that a secret, you know?” he said.  “I mean, you’ve known Rudy a lot longer than you’ve known me, and even he didn’t know.”

I bristled.  “I don’t like dragging other people into my problems.”

He chuckled a bit.  “Well that’s kind of dumb.  As teammates, isn’t it our job to get dragged into each other’s problems?”

Teammates.  I’d always been thinking of this in terms of myself.  The things I had to do.  Just like when I hadn’t told Rudy I was joining the Rebellion.

“I’m not asking to come with you or anything,” he said, holding his arms up.  “It’s your business, and all that.  I’m just saying you might want to try telling the people you’re fighting Team Rocket with about stuff that happened with Team Rocket?”

Well, putting it that way made it sound really stupid that I hadn’t.  Heck, the only reason he even knew about the plane incident was because Rudy had told literally everyone the first week we got here.  The more I thought about it, the more I was unsure why exactly I’d been keeping so many secrets.

I sighed.  “Okay, you’re right.  When I get back, I’m telling everyone what happened, whether it goes well or not.”

Darren blinked.  “Huh, that was easier than I expected.  Alright, I’ll stop keeping you so you can go get him.  Try not to die,” he said brightly, giving a wave before walking off.  I stared as he left, at a loss for words.  But then, I’d long since learned to not put too much thought into half of what he said.

Stalker’s office wasn’t far ahead.  I strode down the hallway and knocked twice on the door before opening it.  Stalker was seated at his desk, reading something on his laptop.  He glanced up at me when I entered.

“You ready?” he asked.

I nodded.  Stalker stood up and walked past me, motioning for me to follow him.

“I finished modifying the permissions on your Rocket account.  You’ll have access to bases other than Cerulean now, plus high security areas that would normally reject your ID card.”  He handed me the card along with a flash drive.  “You’ll also need this.  It has a script on it that will automatically copy all the relevant data on number thirty-six when it’s plugged into the computers in that room.”

The two of us stepped outside, and as always, I was never ready for the burst of warm, humid air that hit even at this time of night.  It was probably my least favorite thing about Midnight Island, and it made me miss the cool, breezy nights in Viridian.

Stalker pulled out a Pokéball and opened it to release his Charizard.  In a flash, the orange dragon appeared in front of us, her tail flame piercing the darkness.  Darren’s Abra wasn’t quite experienced enough for long-range teleportation yet.  So for now, flying was still the best option.  I climbed up onto the fire-type’s back and wrapped my arms around her neck.

“The base will be quiet this time of night.  But that’s no reason to let your guard down,” he said, his voice stern.  “Don’t be seen doing something you’re not supposed to.  This is a stealth mission.”

A stealth mission.  I wasn’t going to be seen.  The Rockets would never know I was there.  All I had to do was grab Chibi, get the data on number thirty-six, and get out.  Simple.

“I’ve got this,” I told him, and for once, I meant it.

Stalker nodded, and his Charizard spread her massive blue wings before launching into the air.  The air rushed past us as the dragon flapped aggressively to gain altitude as quickly as possible, finally leveling off her flight once we reached a comfortable soaring height.

The flight to Celadon didn’t take long.  That, or I just had really bad awareness of time right then.  Either way, it felt like we had just left the familiar sights of Midnight Island before the dazzling glimmer of Celadon’s nightlife greeted me on the horizon.  Stalker’s Charizard dove down in a wide spiral over the city, zeroing in on the most densely populated part of downtown before landing in a deserted alleyway.  I climbed off the dragon’s back and waved as she took flight once more and disappeared into the night sky, leaving only her tail flame visible.

Watching my ride leave like that gave the whole mission an air of finality.  I was here, and wasn’t leaving until I succeeded.  No going back now.

I grabbed both Pokéballs from my pocket and opened them, releasing Swift and Firestorm in a flash of light.  They glanced around at the unfamiliar surroundings apprehensively.

I took a deep breath.  “I’m just letting you guys know that we’re at the base.  The next time I let you out might be in a fight, so be ready to lead with Protect, okay?”

Swift gave me a quizzical look.  “*Why do you think you will have to battle?*”

“I don’t think that,” I countered.  “I mean, I’m hoping this will just be a run in, grab Chibi’s Pokéball, run out kinda deal.  I just know something always goes wrong.”

Firestorm stared pointedly.  “*Then you have to let us out if you get in trouble.*”

“I just said I was going to,” I said, laughing slightly.

Firestorm snorted in a ‘sure, whatever’ kind of way, and I rolled my eyes before recalling both of my Pokémon.  Then I took a deep breath and stepped out of the alleyway.

Cerulean had been full of businesses, and even the downtown area by the Rocket base felt clean and open.  Celadon was… nothing like that.  The alleyway opened into a dingy street lined with the seediest clubs, casinos and bars I’d ever seen.  Bikers, gamblers, and the occasional Rockets filled the walkways, and I couldn’t help stepping back to stay out of view.  My pulse quickened.  Nothing about this felt safe.  I was a kid with only two Pokémon completely surrounded by adults in the shadiest place imaginable.  Why did I think this was a good idea again?  My limbs went rigid and refused to move, so I just stood there at the edge of the building, my mind swimming in anxiety and frustration.  I hadn’t even made it to the base yet and I already had problems.

Then again… I was visibly dressed as a Rocket.  That carried a lot of weight around here, right?  No one was going to bother a Rocket heading to base.  I didn’t have anything to worry about.

Nothing to worry about.  I repeated it to myself three times.  Finally convinced, I clenched my fists and stepped out onto the sidewalk, doing my best to appear confident and in my element despite feeling so completely out of place.

The Rocket Game Corner looked like it was trying its hardest to stand out from its surroundings, and it was succeeding.  The building, with its sleek black walls and gold and silver-painted accents combined with flashing neon signs and cheesy posters everywhere, had a fake-elegant air to it.  It also had a distinct lack of graffiti—but then again, who would have the guts to vandalize it?  With how influential the Rockets were in this area and how well-known their presence was?

I ducked around the corner of the building and scanned the wall for the members-only side entrance, spotting the card reader standing out against the black paint.  I retrieved my ID from my pocket and tapped it to the reader, which flashed a green light and caused the heavy door to swing open.  Beyond the door lay a dimly lit flight of stairs leading down.

That was all it took for me, a rebel, to get into Team Rocket’s base.  It was almost funny how easy it was.  Then again, I could only do it with Stalker’s resources.  And I still had no idea how he pulled off half the things he did.

My footsteps echoed off the walls as I descended the staircase.  At the bottom, I was greeted with a red curtain—brushing it aside revealed the entrance to the base.

The main lobby looked just as fancy as the casino above it, with black and white tile floors, large monitors along the walls, and plenty of gold-painted statues of Pokémon decorated throughout.  Honestly, it sort of looked more like a lounge than the entrance to a base.  But I guess it fit the mood of the area?  Not to mention it was after hours and everyone was off-duty.  The few Rockets in the room were laid back on the couches and chatting with each other while having a smoke.  A couple of them glanced up when I entered but didn’t pay me any mind.  I took that opportunity to sit down on the nearest unoccupied couch and pull out my R-com, bringing up a map of the HQ.

This base was structured totally different from the Cerulean base.  It was a lot bigger and more spread out, with fewer floors.  Judging by the map, it looked like it was broken into divisions, with the main lobby, cafeteria, and acquisitions on the top floor; tech development, Pokémon experimentation and storage spaces in the second basement floor, and all the offices and quarters on the lowest floor.  My eyes traced the map of the second floor, moving from one label to the next until finally settling on the experiment containment facility.

That had to be it.  Time to do this.  I set off down the stairs and into the depths of the base.

The fancy atmosphere was completely gone on the second floor and replaced with a high-tech, metallic appearance.  And even with a map, the layout was confusing.  The moving walkways probably made it faster for Rockets to reach their destination if they actually knew what they were doing, which I didn’t.  Twice I found myself taking the wrong path at a branch and winding up in a storage room clear on the other side of the floor.  Good thing there was no one else around, otherwise I’d have looked completely stupid and more than a little bit suspicious.

Finally, I was pretty sure I’d made it to the right area.  I checked the map again.  Yes, this was definitely it.  There was no way an ordinary grunt would ever have access to a high-security room like this.  Good thing I wasn’t an ordinary grunt.  I tapped my ID card on the card scanner and the door slid open.

I flipped the light switch to reveal a room completely lined with computerized panels.  The majority of the floor space was taken up by giant test tubes and strange machinery I couldn’t identify.  A thin layer of dust covered most of them, although the computer workstations had clearly been used recently—unfiled paperwork and a few food wrappers sat alongside the keyboards.

On the far side of the room stood a heavy metallic door with a small window.  I walked over and peered through it to see dozens of cells that were most likely for housing Pokémon.  Each cell had a bed, a feeding station, and what looked like barrier projectors on the cell doors.

But no one was in there.  And I was so sure I’d been onto something, too.

Kicking the ground in frustration, I turned around to try a different section of the base.  And then I saw it: a sleek metallic case clipped to the control panel along the wall.  It looked… familiar.  As I approached it, recognition suddenly hit me.  It was a Pokéball containment unit, like the one we’d seen on the plane.  That had to be it… the experiments must have been kept in there.

My fingers shook slightly with anticipation as I reached out to undo the latches on the sides of the case before slowly opening it.  Three Pokéballs.  Two of them normal.  One of them black like Chibi’s ball had been.  Could it be him?  What were the odds?

I clenched my teeth.  Yet another instance where a Pokédex would be useful, and another instance for me to feel like an idiot for not having one.  I didn’t have any way of checking the balls’ contents without opening them.  And that was a huge risk.

I stared at the Pokéballs.  It was a risk I’d have to take.  Otherwise this whole trip would have been pointless.  I slowly reached my hand out to grab the black one, fingers trembling.  I grasped the ball and tugged it free from its slot, rolling it in my palm.

“Here goes nothing.”  I pressed the button.

A burst of black energy surged out of the ball, taking the shape of… no.  No, not that one, anything but that one.  A glimmering green armor-plated exoskeleton… bladed forearms… a pointed, reptilian face…

I’d barely registered what I was looking at before it rushed me headlong and tackled me to the ground, knocking the Pokéball from my hand.  My back slammed to the floor, sending a jolt of pain up my spine and knocking the air from my lungs, and then I immediately found myself faced with the razor edge of its scythe poised just inches from my throat.

My brain froze up and my limbs went numb.  I struggled to pull away, but the Scyther had me completely pinned.  I couldn’t even make a sound—I was still coughing and sputtering from having the wind knocked from me.  Stupid!  Why had I let this happen?!  I couldn’t do anything.

Time seemed to crawl.  I lay motionless, gasping and wheezing for air and waiting for a death that didn’t seem to want to come.  All I could do was stare helplessly at my attacker’s face.  Its piercing blue eyes glared back at me.  And then they blinked, looking almost… skeptical.  I didn’t understand.  What was it waiting for?

But… wait.  When we’d fought Razors last time, its eyes had been completely blank and soulless.  The fact that it even had any sort of expression at all this time… if it wasn’t just a mindless slave, but instead more like Chibi…

I swallowed hard, trying to get better control of my breathing now that it seemed like I actually had a glimmer of hope.  If I could just say something, anything, to let it know I was trying to help the experiments…  But my mouth didn’t seem capable of forming any words, just random stuttering.  And still the mantis held me down, considering me carefully.

“*I remember you,*” he said slowly, the words very meticulous.  “*You’re not a Rocket.  What are you doing here?*”  His voice was… weird.  It was a complete monotone, with no emotion whatsoever.

“I…”—damn it, why wouldn’t my voice stop shaking—“I came here to find Chibi.”  It was really all the response I could give.

The experiment surveyed me all the more intensely after I had said that.  “*You know him by that name?*”

“…Yeah?”  Again, all I could figure out how to say.  My heart was starting to hurt from pounding so hard.

He paused, as though considering something that he hadn’t quite realized until now.  “*So then you were the one who took him that day.  But how did he end up back here?*”

“He was taken from me,” I said, my voice a bit dead.  An uneasy feeling had crept over me from talking to him.  How could I know that he was on Chibi’s side, just because they were both experiments?  Should I have even told him I was looking for Chibi?

“*Why did you let that happen to him?*” he asked.

“I didn’t mean to!  He was just… trying to protect me…” I trailed off, again filled with the biting pain of that memory.  And it was weird, but… was that an edge of concern in Razors’s voice?

The Scyther stared at me for some time, eyes boring right through me.  Sweat dripped down the sides of my face.  My mouth had gone dry, and I couldn’t swallow anymore.  No matter how hard I tried to stop, my eyes kept tracing the edge of the blade hovering over my throat.  I just wanted him to do something.  The suspense was tearing me apart.

“*You’re obviously not on their side,*” he said thoughtfully.  “*And he must have trusted you… for some reason.*”

And then he withdrew his scythe and stepped away.  I sat bolt upright immediately, coughing hard and inhaling deeply as my brain suddenly realized how little I’d been breathing for the past few minutes.  My fingertips tingled with numbness, and I had to clench my fists repeatedly to regain feeling in them.

Razors was still fixing me with an intense stare.  “*Did he change… after you took him from the Rockets?*”

I flinched.  “…Yeah?”

His eyes studied mine intently.  “*That’s good.*”

“You seem different now… compared to back then.”  The words were out of my mouth before I’d even thought about them.

A long pause followed.  Something shifted in the Scyther’s eyes.  They had a strange heaviness, almost like he was exhausted just thinking about it.  “*Long ago, my mind was taken from me.  I stopped existing.  It was like a dream that I couldn’t wake from, with the Rockets directing my every move.*”

I stared.  So he really had been under their control that whole time.  But then… this changed everything.  Chibi’s desperation on the plane.  The anguish he’d shown when asked about it.  The two of them… they’d once been close… hadn’t they?

“How do you have your mind right now?”

“*This was the first time I’ve been let out of my ball by anyone other than my handler,*” the mantis said simply.  “*He carries a device that resonates with my mind.  All the experiment handlers do.  It’s how they control us.*”  He paused.  “*The same thing happened to all the hybrids except Chibi.*”

My face fell.  “And now that he’s back here, they’re trying to do it to him too.  All so that they can control Legendaries.”

Razors nodded.

One thing still didn’t make sense though.  “What were you doing here?”

His eyes slid to the floor.  “*I’m… not sure.  I believe they borrowed me for mandatory testing.  A lot of my memories are hazy.  It doesn’t even feel like they’re mine.  I suppose they’re not.*”  I didn’t really know what to say to that.  The Scyther stared downward for some time before fixing me with another piercing gaze.  “*You want to find Chibi?*”

I nodded.  “I also need to get into the room where they’re keeping experiment thirty-six.”

Razors paused, looking thoughtful.  “*Then I’m coming with you.*”  The way he said it made it very clear I didn’t get a choice in the matter.  “*But we’ll need help finding him.*”  He spun around, eyes landing on the other Pokéballs in the containment unit.  “*Only two others?  I thought there would be more.*”  He sighed, reached out a bladed forearm, and gently tapped the front button of both Pokéballs.

Twin flashes of light burst out, taking the shape of two large Pokémon—an emerald-green dragon and a snowy white beast.  The dragon glanced around in confusion, its dark green antennae swaying behind it.  A pair of red-lensed, bug-like eyes fixed on Razors with an incredulous stare.

“*Did… you let us out?  Where’s your handler?  What’s that human doing here?*”  The Flygon froze as though he had just realized something.  “*Wait… are you conscious?  I thought your mind got frozen.*”

“*This human freed me, and wishes to free Nine,*” Razors said matter-of-factly.

“*What?*” the Flygon blurted out, sounding completely baffled.  “*The human…?*”

“*Stay on topic.  You know about Nine, right?*”

The bladed, white-furred beast—an Absol, if I remembered correctly—stepped forward, looking unimpressed.  “*What does that have to do with us?*” she said bluntly.

“*We want to rescue him.  Will you lend us your help in exchange for gaining your own freedom as well?*”

The two experiments turned to face each other, looking completely taken aback.  For several seconds they glanced back and forth between Razors and each other, almost as if they were having a wordless conversation.  Finally, the two nodded to us.

“*I heard Nine was in the Legendary control testing facility,*” the Flygon said.

“*Then that’s where we’re going.*”

Chapter Text

I couldn’t figure out how to feel about the fact that I was surrounded by three experimental Pokémon willing to help me find and rescue Chibi.  On the one hand, three new powerful Pokémon as allies was undeniably reassuring.  On the other hand, the fact that Razors was the friendliest of the lot wasn’t exactly comforting.

Flygon kept tilting his long neck to look at me from different angles, sizing me up.  “*So, uh, what’s your deal, Rocket?  How’d you get all buddy-buddy with Eight?*”

I folded my arms.  “I’m not a real Rocket, and number nine was stolen from me, so I’m trying to get him back.”

“*Wait, you’re the one who stole him?*” he asked.  I nodded, and the bug-eyed dragon gave a swish of his tail fan.  “*Well, aren’t we lucky?  We’ve been graced by the presence of Nine’s rescuer.*”

“*Shitty rescuer if he just ended up back here anyway,*” Absol added.

I bristled.  But at the same time, I didn’t feel like arguing.  Not with experimental Pokémon whose good side I really wanted to stay on.  My eyes couldn’t help tracing the obsidian blade running along the left side of her face… but no.  It was no use thinking of all the things they could do to me, and besides—they needed me.  I could walk around the base freely—they couldn’t.

“So… you two are also experiments, right?  What were you mixed with?” I asked.

Flygon gave me a puzzled look.  “*Huh?  We’re experiments all right, but we’re not hybrids.  We’re clones.*”

I blinked.  “Clones?”

“*Copies of other Pokémon,*” Absol clarified.  “*Though I believe all of the clones that came after us were modified or enhanced in some way.*”

The emerald dragon turned his head sharply toward her.  “*Hey.  Just because we’re copies doesn’t mean we’re not stronger than the Pokémon we were copied from.*”

“*No, actually, it kind of does,*” she muttered dully.

If it wasn’t crazy enough that Team Rocket had created genetically modified hybrids, turns out they’d been making clones too?  And these were just the regular clones—there were also super clones?  This mission just got weirder and weirder.

“*Let’s focus on our task,*” Razors cut in.  “*Do you know the layout of this base?*”

“I’ve got a map here,” I offered, pulling out my R-com.

The two clones moved in close to look at it, and I couldn’t help flinching a bit.  I didn’t really want to get any closer to either of them than necessary.

“*So we’re here?  That means take a left, a right, go that way… and it should be down this hallway,*” Flygon said, pointing a claw at a point on the map.  “*It’s usually full of humans though.*”

Razors nodded.  “*I’ll have to be careful.  If an experiment handler shows up, they could easily take control of me again.*” A chill ran down my spine.  I hadn’t considered that.

“*Right, right, so we’ll be the muscle if it comes to that, yeah?*” Flygon said dismissively.

“If we even have to fight,” I pointed out.  “With how late it is, I should be able to just walk in and grab him.”

Absol snorted.  “*You must be new here.*”

“*Wonder how long it’ll take for that optimism to get crushed,*” Flygon added, leering.

I scowled at them.  Come on, I’d gotten this far without being discovered.  They had to realize that much.

“So if that’s all, then I should recall you now.  You’d kind of be spotted instantly,” I said flatly.

The two clones hesitated, throwing skeptical glances at Razors.  “*I don’t like this.  Even if she did steal Nine from them,*” Flygon said, his wings buzzing with agitation.

“You don’t think this is a trap?” I said exasperatedly.  “It should be obvious I’m not a Rocket.”

“*That’s not it—competency is the concern,*” Absol said, her face completely deadpan.

I closed my eyes and exhaled through my nose, trying my best not to let their comments get to me.  Even if they did have a point.

Razors ignored their concerns.  “*This is our best option, both for freeing Nine and escaping from this place,*” he said firmly.

They both stared at him for some time, flickers of anxiety and uncertainty crossing their features, before finally—

“*Alright, you’re the boss here.  You better be right about this,*” Flygon said with a defeated tone.  He tapped a claw against the button of his Pokéball and dissolved in a beam of red light.  Absol followed suit right after him.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding and pocketed the two Pokéballs before walking over and picking up Razors’ ball from where I’d dropped it earlier.  The Scyther nodded, and I recalled him.

Next thing I knew, I had slumped into the nearest chair, letting out a huge sigh of relief.  That had gone way, way differently than I thought it would.  But not in a bad way.  It could have gone a lot worse.

I sat there for some time, letting my heart rate settle back to normal.  Even after the immediate danger with Razors had passed, the entire conversation hadn’t stopped feeling tense.  Especially with the new experiments who didn’t exactly seem too keen on helping a human.  Still, selfishness had to win out in the end—I mean, I was helping them too, right?  Either way, I couldn’t keep thinking about that.  I had to keep going with the mission.  Mainly because the sooner I finished it, the sooner I could get out of here.  And I really didn’t want to spend any more time here than I had to.

With that, I forced myself out of the chair in one swift motion and took another look at my R-com to remember where my destination was.  On the other side of the floor, apparently.  Great.  Time to get going, then.

It didn’t matter that I was in uniform and technically had all the permissions to be here—it was impossible to shake the feeling that I’d be in big trouble if I was spotted.  Of course, slinking around like a suspect and checking the coast at each corner was arguably more noticeable than just walking around like I was supposed to be here.  But it made me feel better, at least trying to avoid running into anyone.  Besides, a random kid grunt still had no business being in the experimental division at this time of night.  So stealth was definitely not pointless.  Yeah.

I glanced at my communicator.  Looked like I was getting close.  And sure enough, the sign on the door ahead of me read, “Legendary control testing facility.”  This was it.

I crept closer to the door, keeping my back to the same wall.  Almost there… I reached the edge of the door and slowly craned my head up to peek over the edge of the window.

The room was empty.

Pfft, of course it was.  What was I so worried about?  I shouldn’t have let the experiments get to me.  I tapped my ID to the card scanner, feeling more than a bit self-satisfied as I walked in.  The lights automatically flipped on when I entered, revealing a large computer lab with at least a dozen workstations.  Half of them were in sleep mode, so this place had probably been in use recently.  The usual giant monitors covered the walls, and what would have been the few bits of open wall space had spreadsheets pinned up all over the place.  I took a closer look at one and it seemed to be some kind of Pokémon energy level chart.  Or something to that effect, anyway.

Alright, I’d gotten here without any trouble.  I pulled out the experiments’ Pokéballs, both because they deserved to know and also because I kind of wanted to rub it in their faces.  The three of them appeared in a flash of white light, scanning the room apprehensively but then relaxing upon seeing that the coast was clear.

“*Huh, you weren’t kidding when you said you could do it,*” Flygon said, fixing his red-lensed eyes on me.  “*I dunno what kind of magic you pulled to get in here without tripping an alarm, but keep at it.*”  Holy crap, a compliment.  Now that felt unreal.

Razors glanced around, his face the same neutral as it had been, but his movements anxious.  “*We need to find Chibi.*”

Right, where was he?  I whirled around, scanning all the machinery until my eyes fell on a black Pokéball housed within a glass chamber hooked up to one of the computers.  There were no other Pokéballs within sight.

“This has to be him,” I said, reaching forward and flipping the glass open before removing the ball.  An angry beeping suddenly rang out from the nearest computer.  I nearly jumped a foot in the air.  What the hell?  Why had—I froze, feeling my face go numb.  Flashing violently on the screen were the words: “Unauthorized Experiment Removal.  Admin Clearance Required.”

“*Nice job,*” Absol said flatly.

What??  No, not now.  Not after things were finally going right!  I practically threw myself into the chair, yanking the keyboard toward myself and hammering on it.  A login prompt appeared.  I punched in my ID, feeling like an idiot.  Password… I didn’t have a password.  Trying to guess anything to put there wouldn’t even make sense.  And trying to guess the admin password was useless without an ID.  What was I supposed to do?!

“*Fix it!*” Flygon cried.

“I don’t know how!” I yelled back.  They couldn’t read what it said—they had no idea I couldn’t do anything about it.  Without a card scanner, I had no way of getting access to anything.  And I’d only gotten access because of… Stalker!  Like lightning, I whipped my R-com from my pocket and flipped through my contacts, searching for his name.  He’d know what to do.  He’d be able to fix this.

I froze.  The sound of footsteps… right outside.  If anyone saw me here, I was done for.  Without thinking, I dropped to the floor under the desk just as the door suddenly burst open.  Holy crap, that was too close for comfort.  I wormed my way around, hoping to get a look at what was going on.  A pair of officers stood at the door, Pokéballs at the ready, but they froze in their tracks upon seeing three experiments who were very much not supposed to be here.

“What the hell?” one of them blurted out.  “How—”

Flygon flipped the closest table straight at the door, sending a wave of electronics flying around the room, crashing into monitors.  Both Rockets jumped back out the door to avoid the cascade of sparks shooting through the air, right before Absol leaped over the fallen table, her body melting into shadow.  Panicked footsteps and shouting echoed through the doorway, and then—

Flashing lights!  And a blaring alarm out of nowhere.  What now?!  Several seconds later, Absol strolled back through the door, looking nowhere near as concerned by this as she should have been.

“*I could have got them before they triggered the alarm if this idiot hadn’t scared them off,*” the dark-type said, fixing her crimson eyes on Flygon with an annoyed stare.  The latter rolled his eyes and smacked her with his tail fan.

“*What now?*” Razors asked, calmly turning to me.

‘What now?’  How could he ask that like it was such a simple question?!  What to do.  What to do.  Could I just recall the experiments?  And be discovered standing here in the middle of a trashed room with no other possible culprit?  Maybe if I wanted to be an instant suspect.  As it stood right now, I had to keep up the appearance of a Rocket at all cost.  That was my only chance on getting out.

“*In case you hadn’t noticed, now is the time to be doing something,*” Absol said.

I bristled at her tone.  But she was right, I couldn’t freeze up.  Not now, dammit.  Not after all my training.  Had to get away from here.  I vaulted over the table in front of me and dodge-stepped around all the ruined computers, aiming for the door.  If we got out of here in time, we could find a place to hide, and—

“Not that way!” I shouted, jumping back from the door like it was on fire.  Another squad of Rockets was already racing down the hallway toward us.  “We need another path!”

“*Don’t gotta ask twice!*” Flygon exclaimed, turning around and charging up a pulsing ball of violet energy in his mouth.  The bug-dragon waited until it was as big as he could handle, then blasted out a writhing shockwave of dragonfire at the opposite wall, tearing a gaping hole through it with a loud crash.

I stared at the wreckage, speechless with shock.  Had he seriously just done that?

“*The hybrids never had me along on their escape attempts, otherwise they would’ve made it for sure,*” the bug-eyed dragon said proudly.  He vibrated his wings and shot through the hole, shortly followed by Absol.  Razors paused just long enough to tilt his head in a “come on” gesture before following the two clones.  I sighed and pocketed Chibi’s Pokéball.  No turning back now.

The experiments sprinted down the hallway ahead of me, and the moving walkways had been deactivated, so I had to fight to keep up.  But then… did I really want to catch up?  Wouldn’t it look better if I was chasing them instead of running with them?

“Stop right there!” I yelled with as Rocket-like a tone as I could manage.  Hopefully that would sell the act harder.

Footsteps behind me.  Apparently the Rockets had already discovered the convenient hole we’d left behind.  Which meant I definitely wouldn’t get a chance to recall the experiments now.  Not until we managed to get out of sight and—

“Out of the way, grunt!” a Rocket behind me shouted.

Crap.  Something told me I did not want to ignore the order.  I threw myself to the ground right before the high-pitched whistle of tranquilizer darts tore through the air.  Ahead of me, Absol whirled around and raised a shimmering Protect around herself at the last second, causing the darts to ping uselessly off the barrier.  And then more Rockets appeared at the end of the hall.  This was impossible.  We were trapped.

Flygon shot forward and launched a spurt of dragonfire at the second group of Rockets, forcing them to release their Pokémon immediately to block the attack.  The pause that followed seemed to last forever—both clones looked at Razors imploringly, and then he made eye contact with me.  I stared back at his deep blue eyes that betrayed no emotion whatsoever.  And then, without warning, the mantis shot forward too fast to see, flying straight over the scattered Rockets ahead of us.  I caught a glimpse of a green blur rounding the corner at the end of the hall, and then he was gone.  Flygon and Absol glanced back at each other and nodded before they both melted into shadow, slipping under the Rocket lineup, reappearing on the other side, and rounding the corner.

I stared, unable to work through what I’d just seen.  I kept blinking, expecting I’d just imagined it or something.  They’d left me behind?  Had that seriously just happened?  Why?  I’d trusted them.

Except… my cover hadn’t been blown.  None of the Rockets were charging toward me, weapons at the ready.  They were just… standing around, arguing, completely oblivious to my presence.  Maybe being left behind was a good thing.  And Razors had known that.  That final look he gave me… he knew our only chance was to split up.  But how would I find them again?

I was vaguely aware of one of the officers now shouting at me to join one of the other squads to help locate the experiments.  Fine by me.  I mumbled something that hopefully sounded like an affirmation before pulling myself to my feet and wandering over to stand next to a few other grunts, trying my best to give off ‘don’t talk to me’ vibes.  I didn’t plan on sticking with them long.  The first chance I got, I slipped away from the rest of the squad and wandered off in the opposite direction.  There were Rockets scattered all over the floor by now—no one was going to notice a random grunt off on their own.

First things first—I had to know what had happened to Chibi.  It couldn’t wait, especially now that I’d lost the others.  I would probably need his help getting to them… if he was capable of it.  In my quest to find a secluded place to talk to him, I basically just walked in circles until I located an empty hallway, then ducked inside the closest storage room I could find.  I found myself in a dingy concrete room lined with shelves containing practically everything—old machinery, Pokémon enhancements, ammo, you name it.  This would work.  I grabbed the black Pokéball from my pocket and then, as a bit of an afterthought, grabbed my other two Pokéballs as well.  Just… something felt comforting about having Swift and Firestorm by my side when I finally saw Chibi again.  Mainly because I was afraid of what I would find.

I let out those two first.  The Charmeleon and Pidgeotto materialized in front of me, tense at first, but then relaxing when they saw that the coast was clear.

Firestorm’s eyes immediately fell on the black Pokéball in my hand.  “*You got him?*”

I nodded wordlessly.  Swift must have noticed the hesitation in my expression, because he asked, “*Is he alright?*”

“We’re about to find out.”  I shakily held out the black Pokéball and opened it.  The burst of light took the shape of a small, yellow-furred rodent lying on the floor.  Pointed head feathers, no cheek markings—it was definitely him.  He wasn’t moving.

“…Chibi?” I asked hesitantly.  Nothing happened.

I clenched my fists, a knot starting to form in my stomach.  What had they done to him?  I repeated his name, and this time the hybrid’s ears twitched.  Several seconds passed, and then finally: “*That name… how do you know…?*”

I let out a sigh of relief.  “It’s me, Jade.  Can you stand?”

The Pikachu very slowly pulled his arms under his body, struggling to lift his upper body from the floor.  At the same time, he turned to face me.  His eyes had a dull and distant look, heavily glazed over.  They hadn’t succeeded in taking his mind… had they?  The fact that he’d said anything at all seemed to disprove that, but still…

“Can you understand me?” I asked cautiously, not sure I wanted an answer.  Either way, I didn’t get one.  Chibi just collapsed back to the ground, breathing heavily, his eyes wide and staring.

My heart sank.  I turned helplessly toward Swift and Firestorm.  The latter walked over and crouched low next to the hybrid’s crumpled form, poking him with a single claw.

“I don’t think that’s going to—” Before I could finish, the Charmeleon had gone and touched Chibi with his tail flame.  The Pikachu sprang into the air with a pained cry, clutching the scorched fur on his back.

I shot the fire lizard an incredulous glare.  “Really, Firestorm?”

“*You wanted him to react,*” he mumbled defensively.  Whatever, that wasn’t important right now.  I snapped my attention back to Chibi, who blinked a few times and jerked his head around frantically as though he’d just come out of a trance.  Suddenly, his eyes snapped onto me in disbelief.  His mouth fell open.

“*You?  It’s really you?*”  The hybrid stared at me for several seconds before collapsing against my knee, muttering, “*It’s too late.  There’s no hope now… I wasn’t strong enough.  I should’ve fought harder… it’s all my fault.*”  He buried his face against the fabric of my jeans, continuously mumbling, “*It’s all over…*”

I recoiled slightly, completely unprepared for this kind of reaction.  I’d never seen him like this before.  How was I supposed to deal with it?

“Er… it’s okay,” I said awkwardly.  “What happened?  What did they do?”

He didn’t answer.  He just kept shaking his head and making a strangled sobbing noise.

I gave Swift and Firestorm another pleading look.  Firestorm just responded with a clueless shrug.  But Swift slowly walked forward and rested his head on the Pikachu’s back.

“*Try to calm down,*” the Pidgeotto said.  “*We have to leave this place.  Are you out of power?*”

The experiment stared up at us with a look of crazed desperation.  “*Ha, I wish.  I can feel it, I’ve charged up some since I was taken off the machine.  It’s not much, but it already hurts.  It was kind of nice being hooked up to that thing.  No pain, for the first time in so long.*”

I gaped at him.  “What??”

Without warning, Chibi’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he fell forward flat on his face.  I stared at him miserably.  That wasn’t exactly how I’d hoped our reunion would go.  I had come here to help him… I just hoped that he wasn’t beyond help.

“I’m not sure what to do now,” I said to no one in particular.

Firestorm folded his arms.  “*You can’t just recall him and leave?*”

I sighed.  “That would be nice, but… I haven’t finished Stalker’s mission.  And what about the other experiments?”

Swift tilted his head.  “*Other experiments?*”

“I got help from Razors and two clones.”

Firestorm gaped at me.  “*Razors?  The mad Scyther from the plane?  Seriously?*”

“He’s not mad anymore, he was being controlled back then,” I explained.

“*What?*”  The Charmeleon’s face scrunched up with incredulous skepticism.  “*How did you figure that out?*”

“I… talked with him,” I said, immediately realizing how that made it sound worse.

“*That was really stupid.*”

I groaned.  “Whether it was stupid or not”—and it was, it definitely was—“he helped me get this far and we had a deal.”

“*Then you should honor that deal,*” Swift said firmly.  Firestorm gave the Pidgeotto a sideways glance.

“Thank you,” I said exasperatedly, just happy to be done with the topic.  “Now come on.  I’m gonna go find them.”  I was just about to reach into my pocket for their Pokéballs… but then I paused.  Why did I suddenly get the feeling we were being watched?

“Heya, kiddo.  What do you think you’re doing in our base, huh?”

My blood ran cold.  The voice was right behind me.

In an instant, I leaped up from where I’d been sitting and whirled around to see a Rocket standing there—a slender girl with pale skin, long, curly hair, and a pointed face, currently fixing me with a devilish grin.  How long had she been there?  How did none of us notice her walk in?!

My eyes fell on the red stripes on her boots and gloves—officer rank.  And really young for an officer.  Like, right at the age limit young.  Which pretty much meant one thing—she was a powerful trainer.

“Firestorm, Smokescreen!” I called out.  No way I was gonna fight her if I didn’t have to.

“Not a chance!” the Rocket yelled, and a dark green lizard shot out of nowhere, punching Firestorm square in the jaw right as he inhaled for the Smokescreen.  The Charmeleon recoiled backward, coughing and sputtering as the opposing lizard backflipped away before he could counterattack.  It landed nimbly in front of the Rocket, bouncing lightly on its hind legs and leering at us with bright yellow eyes.

Fine then, if she wanted a fight, she’d get one.  My eyes traced the leaves on its head, arms, and rear—a grass-type, most likely.  Both my Pokémon had the advantage against a grass-type, so if they could tag-team the lizard with both close and long-range moves, it’d be screwed.

“Firestorm, Ember!  Swift, Aerial Ace!” I ordered.

“Dodge ‘em, Grovyle,” the Rocket said playfully.

Growling, Firestorm shot out a flurry of red-hot flares at the green lizard, who leaped aside at the last second with a smirk on its face.  Behind it, Swift shot downward like a bullet, beak glowing white.  Grovyle spun around, its eyes going wide for a split-second right before launching itself out of the way.  No chance!  Swift pulled out of the dive the instant Grovyle leaped, then followed up with a blindingly fast down-up strike, clean across the lizard’s back.

All right!  I knew it couldn’t dodge the Aerial Ace!  But then the grass-type spun around in midair and… grabbed hold of Swift’s talon?  What?  Grovyle drew back a forearm and its leaves lit up with green energy, extending into long blades right before slashing Swift’s underside.  The Pidgeotto cried out and kicked his legs to shake the reptile free, but it had already jumped down to avoid more embers from Firestorm.

Dammit—it knew it couldn’t dodge the Aerial Ace so it took the attack and went for the immediate follow-up.  The same technique I’d learned from Stalker.

“Swift, pull back and go for Gust; Firestorm, get in close and use Fire Fang!”  Firestorm could take hits better and Swift had better aim—they needed to switch roles.

Firestorm opened his mouth wide, fangs glowing like hot iron, and lunged forward at the grass lizard, who immediately jumped up and clung to one of the topmost supply shelves, out of reach.  It stuck its tongue out at the Charmeleon, but then was forced to cling tighter as a sudden burst of wind whipped all the air in the room into a swirling vortex.  Swift hovered in the center, adding more power to the frenzied winds, knocking scattered objects off the shelves while Firestorm attempted to climb up and reach his opponent.

I held my hair tight against the wind and squinted at the action as my eyes dried out.  I saw Firestorm lose his grip and drop to the ground.  Saw the Rocket observing the battle with a carefree expression.  And her Grovyle still leaping around like a madman.  Why was it just running away?!  I thought we were the ones trying to escape!  If it was going to keep doing that, then could I just make a break for it?

And then Firestorm suddenly dropped to all fours, eyes wide and limbs trembling.  The fire lizard coughed a few times, his tail flame rapidly dimming.

“What?!” I exclaimed, throwing a glance at Swift.  The Pidgeotto had landed on one of the shelves, clutching it with quivering talons.

“Lucky me!  They’re both poisoned!” the Rocket sang.

Poisoned?!  When had the Grovyle used any poison attacks?  I shot hurried glances between the two of them—sure enough, both Firestorm’s jaw and Swift’s legs had a sickly purple tone.  But how?

I had pecha berries—I could heal their poison.  But by now the Grovyle was advancing on me, blades lit.  I jumped back from where I was standing, then suddenly found myself pressed up against the wall, both the Rocket and the Grovyle between me and my Pokémon, both of whom were struggling to stay standing.  All while the Rocket kept leering at me with a devilish grin.

“You’re part of that rebel team that started up recently, aren’t you?” she asked.  “Sneaking into our base, messing with our plans… I bet the executives will be pretty happy with me for catching you.”

Oh hell no—she knew I wasn’t just some random thief, but part of the Rebellion?!  What else did she know about us?

And then she burst into a fit of laughter out of nowhere.  I stared stupidly at her, unable to process what had just happened.  She was… laughing?  Why?

“Oh man!  You should see the look on your face!  It’s freaking gold, I swear!” she cried, doubling over.  Even her Grovyle was laughing now.

I stood pressed up against the wall, my breathing heavy and my heart pounding at a million beats a minute.  What the hell kind of game was she playing?

“I… don’t get it,” I said finally.

She took a few seconds to wipe her eyes and get her laughter under control before saying, “Come on, it’s not obvious?  I’m just screwing with you.  I’m not gonna turn you in, dumbass.”

I blinked, my head starting to hurt.  “You’re—you’re not?”

“No, but could you imagine?  You’d be totally dead if I were anyone else!”

I stared blankly.  “What’s your deal?”

The Rocket giggled slightly before standing up straight.  “Alright, alright—your team leader’s an old friend from when I was a newbie on the force.  He asked me to join his resistance, and I had to decline, but I agreed to help out where I could with the new rebel team.”

What?  Was that true, or just another trick?  “So… you’re also trying to stop Team Rocket, or—?”

“Leeeet’s not get ahead of ourselves,” she cut in.  “I’m just trying to stop the Legendary project, and if that ends up causing a bit of chaos with the higher-ups, then all the better.  Things have gotten a little boring around here with most of the other double agents gone.”

I tilted my head.  “So you’re… a Rocket who’s against Team Rocket’s main goal?”

With a dark grin, she said, “This wasn’t always Team Rocket’s main goal, you know.  It started as nothing more than just a Pokémon crime gang.”  It was bizarre hearing her nonchalant tone.  “Course, that was long before I joined,” the Rocket continued.  “Ya see, for a long time, the whole Legendary conquest deal wasn’t out in the open.  Sure, the executives knew about it, but it wasn’t until recently that the team was openly pushed towards that goal.  That’s when I started having second thoughts.”

I raised an eyebrow.  “Why?”

“I’m not looking to be a part of some Legendary war—screw that,” she replied with a scoff.  “So if I get to keep my position, screw with the higher-ups, and throw a wrench in that crazy-ass scheme, then that sounds pretty good to me.  Besides, it’s not like you guys are aiming to completely destroy the team, not that you could even if you wanted.”

I didn’t really know what to say to that.  Nothing about this girl made any sense at all.

“So then why did you join Team Rocket in the first place?”

“Because it’s fun,” she said simply, curling a lock of hair around her finger.  “I wanted to get stronger, have some power, and make easy money doing it.  Simple as that.  I follow orders, do ‘em well, and when I was old enough, I got promoted to officer.  You prob’ly noticed, but I’m also a qualified experiment handler.”  I hadn’t noticed.  I hadn’t exactly seen enough Grovyle to know what was different about hers.  Unless it had something to do with magically poisoning my Pokémon without using any poison moves.

“I always did feel kinda bad for the experiments—that’s why I offered to train two of ‘em.  So fortunately for you, I want to help the ones that got loose.”  Her face split into a grin.  “Call it a common interest.”  An endless list of Team Rocket activities to object to, and testing on experiments was somehow the only thing that registered.  Okay.

“What’s your point in telling me all this?” I asked, folding my arms.

“My point?  Not everyone’s satisfied with the direction Team Rocket is going in these days.  The fact that your rebel team even exists is proof of that.”

“So if you’re gonna help, then help,” I said, unable to shake the feeling that I was still being toyed with.  That this entire conversation was a game somehow.  “Do you know where the experiments are?”

“Not at the moment,” she said in a singsong tone.  “But I could probably find out.”

I groaned.  “Alright, then text me when you do,” I said, holding out my R-com.  She shrugged and pressed a few buttons on hers before holding it out.  The lights blinked a few times as the two devices swapped info, then my screen displayed a message that I had added Stracion Decora to my contacts.  I looked back at her face and was met with yet another trollish grin.  It didn’t exactly make me feel any better about all of this.

“I get the feeling you just wanna watch me make a mess of things.”

She snorted.  “That’s true.  Anyway, you’re good to go, yeah?  Cause I should be getting back to the others.”

Good to go?  Seriously?  With Chibi out cold and both my Pokémon poisoned?  “I… don’t exactly have any Pokémon to battle with.”

Stracion leaned over to get a look at look at the unconscious Pikachu lying behind me, as well as the Charmeleon and Pidgeotto who had been watching her very carefully this whole time, the former giving her a nasty glare.

“Right… you should probably wake up number nine.  Try this.”  She pulled a revive out of the pouch hanging from her belt.  “Suppose I owe you an antidote too, while we’re at it.  Sorry to say, I’m fresh out.”

“Yeah, you… really didn’t need to poison them,” I said flatly.

Stracion shrugged and tossed me the revive.  “Nope, I really didn’t.  Laters.”  She gave a quick wave before running off.

I just kind of stared at the doorway after she had gone, still trying to wrap my head around what had just happened.  I’d been cornered by a double agent whose only real agenda seemed to be causing discord.  And she was willing to help me… kind of.  If poisoning my Pokémon for no real reason was helping.

Firestorm scowled at where she had left.  “*I don’t like her.*”

“Not too sure how I feel about her myself,” I admitted.

“*Likable or not… I do not believe she lied to us,*” Swift said, turning to face me.  “*And you will need her help to find the others.*”  He was right.

I sighed and pulled some pecha berries from the pouch on my belt.  “Here, I’ve got these at least… sorry I couldn’t give ‘em to you sooner.”  I waited for them to finish eating before I recalled them, then refocused my attention on Chibi.  He was still lying in a crumpled heap, breathing irregularly.  Well, here goes nothing…  I knelt down and cracked the shell of the revive crystal to activate it before gently holding it against his forehead.  Then I waited.  It wouldn’t take long to react with his energy signature and wake him up, but time had slowed to a crawl, and the suspense was agonizing.

And then the Pikachu’s eyes snapped open.

“Chibi!” I exclaimed, feeling my spirits instantly lift.

The hybrid blinked at me a few times before slowly pushing himself into an upright position.  “*Nnn… what’s going on…?  My head feels like it’s in a vice,*” he said, rubbing a paw over his face.

I clenched my teeth.  “You were practically delusional earlier.  How are you doing now?”

Chibi paused.  “*I… I don’t remember that.  Everything feels hazy.*”  He shook his head as though trying to clear it before looking up at me intently.  “*How did you find me?  And… why?*”

I smiled weakly.  “I met up with Razors and two other experiments.  They led me to—”

“*Razors?*” he gasped incredulously, his mouth hanging open.  “*How—what… Razors??*”

“He… was being held in a containment unit.  I guess they borrowed him from Tyson so they could do tests on him or something,” I answered.  From what Razors had said, it was obvious that at one time they had to be fairly close.  Which made Chibi’s blind rage during the plane incident all the stranger.  Hadn’t he tried to kill Razors?

Chibi stared at the wall, eyes wide with a tortured expression.  “*It’s been so long.  I’d… after he was taken from me, I’d lost hope.  I took him for dead, so having to constantly fight his mindless shell… at the time, it seemed better if he actually were dead.  But now…*”  It was really weird to see him looking so… vulnerable.

“They’re loose in the base right now,” I pointed out.  “If we find them, we can all escape, and then he’ll finally be free.”

Chibi nodded distantly, his expression inscrutable.  Again, he asked, “*Why did you come here for me?*”

“Why?  What does that mean?  You think I’d let them keep testing on you if I knew there was anything I could do about it?  I never forgave myself for letting them take you that night.”

The hybrid raised an eyebrow and surveyed me intensely.  “*Don’t try to pretend we had some deep trainer-Pokémon bond.  Why risk yourself for me?*”

“You… saved my life that night.”  It was all I could bring myself to say.

A long pause followed.  Finally, his expression softened somewhat.  He seemed to consider the matter settled, because he then asked, “*So, who were the others?*”

“An Absol and Flygon,” I replied.

Realization spread across his face.  “*Twenty-four and Twenty-five… *”

I tilted my head.  “Why do the experiments call each other by numbers?”

“*It’s what the Rockets always called us,*” the Pikachu said simply.  “*Of course… Razors and I did have specific names that we used around each other.  The head experiment handler heard us once and jokingly referred to Razors by his nickname for a while, but then it stuck.*”

Huh… I guess that made sense.

I jumped at a sudden buzzing against my leg—oh right, it was just my R-com.  Which meant I’d hopefully just gotten a text from Stracion?  Sure enough, the message read: “Experiments last seen in D block on B2.  Better go now before everyone else gets there!”

Chibi tilted his head at me.  “*What is it?*”

I pocketed the R-com.  “We’ve gotta go now.  I need to find the others as soon as I can, and I might need your—”  Wait.  I’d just been assuming that Chibi was going to come with me… just because I’d found him again.  But had he ever really been on my team to begin with?  Sure, he’d stayed with me during Vermilion, but he had even admitted that was only because he didn’t know what to do with himself yet.

I took a deep breath.  “I might need your help saving the others.  Will you come with me?”

The Pikachu blinked, looking taken aback.  Then something like realization crossed his face.  “*I’d forgotten how many stupid questions you like to ask.  Yes, I’m with you.*”

Chapter Text

No one questioned me as I made my way towards D block, moving as quickly as possible without outright running.  Stracion’s warning had come at the perfect time.  The rumor that the experiments were in D block obviously hadn’t reached any executives yet, because there were way fewer Rockets here than the other departments.  But ‘fewer Rockets’ still meant ‘Rockets.’

I stopped and leaned against the wall, pretending to fiddle with my R-com while I watched the others out of the corner of my eye.  The fact that no one had seen the experiments in a good ten minutes probably meant that they’d stopped running and hid at some point.  Also… the room they were hiding in had to be unlocked.  There was no way it couldn’t be—otherwise there’d be obvious signs of forced entry.

But that also meant it would be pure luck whether or not I stumbled across the experiments before the Rockets did—not a comforting thought.  I couldn’t just go searching randomly.  I needed a plan.

I ducked inside the first unlocked room I could find—an office of some sort—and released Chibi.  The Pikachu appeared in a flash of white light, immediately clutching his head with his paws.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“*I’ll be fine,*” the hybrid muttered, not making eye contact.

He didn’t look fine, and it still didn’t seem right to send him out when he was like this.  But I didn’t really have a choice at the moment.  I needed his help.

“The other experiments are nearby.  But I don’t know where.  We need to draw the Rockets away from that area so I can search without someone else spotting the others as soon as I find them,” I explained.

“*You’re asking for a diversion,*” Chibi said bluntly.

I… honestly wasn’t sure what I was asking of him.  But now that he’d said it, a diversion did seem like the best course of action… if he was in any state to be making one.

The Pikachu gave a self-satisfied nod.  “*Thought so.*”  He glanced around the office, his eyes falling on a door opposite the one I’d come in through.  His expression turned thoughtful, like something had just occurred to him, before he walked over and pressed an ear to it.

“*There’s no one on this side,*” he said, gesturing for me to follow him.

I tilted my head.  What was he planning?  I walked over and opened the door to reveal a dimly lit passageway lined with several other, similar doors.  From the peeling paint and chipped tile, it looked like it hadn’t been used in years.  Just how big was this base?

Chibi glanced back and forth down the passage, nodding to himself.  “*I should have enough charged up for at least one… *” he muttered.  One?  One what?

I soon got my answer.  Sparks leaped off his golden fur, soon giving way to scattered strings of electricity, and then finally a jagged lightning bolt shooting across the hallway.  It was tiny compared to his usual Thunderbolts, but it still blackened the opposite wall and split the air with a resounding crack.

I stared at him, completely floored.  “What was that…?”

“*Your diversion.  Now recall me and get out of here.  Hurry!*” he hissed.  I didn’t need telling twice.  The instant his form dissolved into the Pokéball beam, I bolted in the opposite direction as fast as I could.

The previous hallway was already clear, as all the grunts had run off to locate the source of the lightning.  Which meant I only had a few minutes, if that, to blitz through as many unlocked rooms as possible.  I threw open door after door, stopping just long enough to scour each room before moving on to the next.  Good thing all three of the experiments were so big, otherwise it would have been impossible to search each room quickly enough to make it through them all.  But I still hadn’t seen any sign of them yet.  Where were they?

After the tenth room with no luck, anxiety was starting to creep up on me.  Were they even in this department?  Stracion’s info could have easily been wrong.  Or she could have tricked me.  Or they could have just left before I got here —there were a dozen ways I could potentially fail to locate the experiments.

A few minutes had passed.  I was almost out of time, wasn’t I?  Come on!  I had to find them now!  Another door, another computer lab, another failure.  I wasn’t gonna find them, was I?  But I couldn’t just stop… I had to keep trying.

I threw open a closet, prepared for more nothing… and completely unprepared for the sudden rush of claws and blades flying right at me.

“It’s me, it’s me!” I cried, leaping back and throwing my hands in front of my face.  They’d stop themselves in time, right?!

A few seconds passed and I apparently hadn’t been mauled, so I dared to open my fingers a crack, just in time for a pair of claws to grab me by the shoulders and drag me into the closet before the door was slammed shut behind me.  I tried to jump back, but there was no space—the experiments were all crammed into a too-small closet, and I was now waaay too close to all of them for comfort.  Especially considering the size and wingspan of the Flygon pressed up against the wall to my left.  Razors had tucked himself into the corner, his scythes folded in front of his chest so they wouldn’t accidentally slice the others—I appreciated his effort, since my arrival meant there was now even less space.  And Absol… Absol lay flat across the floor of the closet—I almost didn’t notice her at first.

Still breathing heavily, I managed to ask, “What are you guys doing in here?”

“*We didn’t have a choice.  This guy here basically risked our escape just cause you had Nine,*” Flygon hissed, facing me with an accusing scowl.

“And that’s my fault why…?” I asked slowly.

The bug-dragon paused, as though he hadn’t considered that, then shot a glare over his shoulder at the mantis sitting behind him.

Razors stared back, his expression perfectly neutral.  “*I won’t defend myself,*” he said simply.  The hybrid turned his gaze on me, and I couldn’t help flinching.  “*Do you still have Chibi?*” he demanded, a slight edge to his voice—anxiety, maybe?

“He’s right here,” I said, holding up the black Pokéball.

The mantis relaxed slightly.  “*Then we need to get out of here.*”

I clenched my teeth.  “Hang on.  There’s something else I need to do.”

The two clones fixed me with suspicious glares, but Razors simply nodded and said, “*You mentioned Thirty-six.*”

“*Thirty-six?*” Flygon asked, looking alarmed.  “*What’s the human planning to do with Thirty-six?*”

“I’m just copying information from the computer,” I countered, a bit too quickly.  The emerald dragon tilted his head incredulously.

“*What is your plan for getting out of here?*” Absol asked, licking her mane and generally looking bored with the discussion.

“I haven’t got one yet,” I admitted.

“*Well you’re a brilliant one, aren’t you?*” she said without looking up at me.

“I wasn’t counting on the base being on high alert!  That was you guys’ fault!”  I regretted the words the instant they were out of my mouth.

Absol paused her grooming to give a very deliberate brow raise, but Flygon bared his fangs, hissing, “*Watch that tone, human.*”

“*Twenty-four, this isn’t helping,*” Razors said flatly.  His intense stare was fixed on all of us, though.

Flygon recoiled slightly under the Scyther’s gaze, but then turned away, mumbling, “*I just don’t feel comfortable with any of this.*”

I groaned.  This had gone on long enough, and that Flygon was really starting to get on my nerves.  “Look.  They still think I’m a Rocket, and it’s going to stay that way.  So if you go in your Pokéballs now, then I can freely walk around the base until I feel like leaving, alright?”  Which meant I could then complete my mission and they couldn’t do a thing to stop me.

Flygon opened his mouth like he was going to protest, but couldn’t think of anything to say.  Absol just shrugged and went back to grooming, now licking her oversized obsidian claws.  Several moments passed, then Razors finally broke the silence with, “*So long as all of us, including Chibi, make it out of here… do what you must.*”

He didn’t need to tell me twice.  I immediately felt better once the three of them were inside their Pokéballs.

“Just what is so special about thirty-six?” I asked, unable to hide the annoyance from my voice.  “Everyone makes such a big deal about it.  What is this thing?”

“*I’ve never seen it before—none of us have,*” Chibi replied.  “*But if the rumors are true… we’re gonna need to see it to believe it.*”

The two of us were sitting in an empty lab five doors down from the cloning lab.  I’d had to duck in here to avoid the search team currently scouring this department.  And I wanted to avoid another Stracion situation, so I had Chibi out since he could most quickly incapacitate anyone who snuck up on us.

Chibi’s ears twitched.  “*A lot of Rockets just left the area.*”  His ability to monitor the happenings outside our room was also useful.

I slowly crept closer to the window and peeked out into the hallway.  A few grunts passed by, then rounded a corner on the other side of the door.

“*And that was the all clear,*” Chibi said, walking over to stand alongside me.

I nodded.  “Alright, gonna make a break for the lab now,” I said, recalling him.

I took a deep breath and opened the door a crack, just to be sure that the hallway was indeed empty.  No one was in sight, and the only voices within earshot sounded distant and growing fainter still.  Perfect.  I hopped to my feet and slipped out the door, shutting it quietly behind me before striding across the hallway as quickly as possible.  Within seconds I was there, standing in front of the heavy black doors to the Pokémon Cloning Lab.

A chill ran down my back.  This was it.  The home of the mysterious experiment number thirty-six.  I’d finally get to see it, and get its data, and get the hell out of here.  I tapped my ID to the card scanner, and even though I’d been finding my way into off-limits rooms all night, I still half-expected this time to be the one where my card would get rejected.  There was no way I could just walk right into a room like this.  And yet… the scanner light flashed green and the door slid open, just like the rest.  Having admin rights was crazy powerful.

The room was dimly lit, with black tile floors and dark metal walls.  Ceiling-high computers with dozens of screens completely covered the right wall, currently displaying shimmering, multicolored data graphs of some sort.  Huge glass tubes covered the opposite wall, all of them empty and lined with a creepy orange residue.  But then, in my peripheral vision, I caught sight of something far more interesting.  Seated on a cylindrical platform, hooked up to dozens of tubes and wires, was a Pokémon.  And man, was it bizarre.  Tall, gangly, and humanoid, with thin, wiry arms and huge legs.  But strangely… cat-like?  The pointed ears, rounded paws, and short muzzle all reminded me of a cat… a creepy hairless humanoid cat.  And yet, despite everything, there was something… powerful about it.  I couldn’t explain why, it just was.

My legs carried me closer to the Pokémon without me telling them to.  It was weird, but the air around it felt… heavier than it should have.  Like there was some invisible force exuding from it that made the hair on my arms stand on end.

My eyes slid to the display screen closest to it.  There, in the top left corner, were the words: “Experimental Pokémon 036: Mewtwo.”

Mew… two?  This thing was… an enhanced clone… of Mew?  A Legendary so rarely seen it was practically a myth.  But if Team Rocket made an enhanced copy of it… that meant that it pretty much had to exist, right?  That… also meant that I was basically standing next to a Legendary Pokémon.

Its eyes were closed, and it gave no indication that it was aware of my presence.  Of course Team Rocket wouldn’t keep a super clone in their base without having it restrained in some way.  Still, standing this close to it felt… uncomfortable.  I held my breath as I slowly backed away from the clone, keeping my eyes glued to it the entire time.  I wasn’t sure how standing ten feet away from it as opposed to five was supposed to be safer in any way, but it made me feel better.

The computers opposite of Mewtwo probably held the information that Stalker was after, and the sooner I got it, the sooner I could leave.  It’d be best if I had Chibi out while I was in here, too —just in case I was discovered.  As soon as the hybrid materialized from his Pokéball, his eyes went wide at the sight of the clone.

“*Is that Thirty-six?*” the Pikachu asked.

I nodded.  “Its name is Mewtwo.”

“*Mewtwo… *” he said slowly.  “*So it really is a Legendary experiment, just like me.  A clone of Mew… *”

“You know about Mew?”

“*Just stories.  Stuff I’ve heard from non-experiments who used to live in the wild.*”  He tilted his head, frowning.  “*Does it really look like this?*”

“I think the original is smaller… and less humanoid.”  At least, from what I could remember.  Mew photos tended to be even lower quality than other Legendaries.  I mean, with how many legend spotters were out and about, there’d be a few photos of the Johto beasts or the Kanto birds every few months or so.  But Mew?  A lot of people thought it might not even exist anymore.

I sat myself down in a huge desk chair and pulled out the flash drive Stalker had given me.  As for which computer to plug it into… well they were all wired together, so any one of them probably had access to all the others.  I shrugged and plugged it into the closest one.  A login prompt appeared, but then immediately disappeared as soon as the drive lit up.  Huh.  Well I was glad Stalker had thought ahead on that one, because I was not in the mood to have a repeat of what happened when I grabbed Chibi.

The only thing on the flash drive was a single executable file.  I clicked it, a window popped up with a progress bar, and the drive immediately started to fill itself with files taken from the computer.  And that was pretty much it—I just had to sit back and let it do its job.  I rotated the chair around to face Chibi, who was still staring at Mewtwo in reverent fascination.  The two of them really did have a lot in common, didn’t they?  Both created by Team Rocket… both part Legendary… both destined to be used against the Legendaries if it weren’t for the Rebellion.

All of a sudden, the hybrid snapped his head toward me, eyes wide.  “*He’s talking to me.  In my mind.*”

I stared blankly at him, unable to work through what he’d just said.  He didn’t mean… Mewtwo?

“…What?” was all I could say.

“*I told him that I’m an experiment just like him.  Hang on, I’ll ask him to include you.*”

He was going to what?  How?  Tension flooded my body in an instant.  What was about to happen and how was I supposed to brace myself for it?

A sudden wave of resentment filled my mind.  But that didn’t matter.  Nothing I’d been thinking about previously mattered, I just wanted to know what I was doing here.  I wasn’t supposed to be here.  Why was I here?

Wait… what?  What was going on?  Confusion… but it was distant.  Smothered.  Unreal.  What was any of this?  I was still in the lab, but at the same time I wasn’t.  I was… somewhere else.  Somewhere less real… the kind of place that only existed between thoughts.

<This one wishes for me to speak to you, human.>

I was not ready for that.  Mewtwo’s telepathic voice echoed throughout every corner of my mind.  Resounding.  Powerful.  How had I not known he was psychic?  I should have known, even before seeing him.  Nothing was more true or obvious in this world.  I mean… logically there was no way I could have known that.  But I still should have just known.  It didn’t matter how.

<Why is a human child here?>

<Because she freed me, and she’s fighting against your creators.>  Wait, that was… Chibi?  It sounded like him.  But I didn’t hear his words at all, it was more like I… felt them.  Or something.

<My… creators.>  That one was Mewtwo again, and his words were followed by what felt like a sigh.  A wave of frustration reverberated throughout my mind.  So this was all Mewtwo’s doing, then?  He was broadcasting our thoughts to each other?

But then, from the way he’d said it, he clearly knew he’d been created.  Did he know what the Rockets were planning to do with him?

<Do you… know what you were created for?> I thought, hoping Mewtwo could hear it.  It didn’t really feel any different than just thinking something to myself, so I kind of doubted that I’d get a response.

But then a wave of icy resentment washed over me.  <I know that I was created to fight.  Created to dominate others like myself.>  God, Mewtwo’s presence was overwhelming.  I couldn’t tell what I was feeling anymore.  Too many things.  Too hard to process them all.  My thoughts dragged like mud.  What was I doing here?

“*Are you alright?*”

I blinked.  I’d almost completely forgotten about my other senses in the midst of the bizarre psychic conversation.  Chibi was staring at me with his usual intensity, but there was a touch of concern in his expression.  Something about looking at him and seeing him with my eyes felt weirdly unnatural right now.

“My head hurts,” I muttered.

“*Do you want to stop?*”

Yes.  But this was important.  I clenched my teeth and said, “No, anything we can find out from him could be useful.”  Then, to Mewtwo, I asked, <Are you able to move or use your power at all?>

The tiniest chill of despair pricked at the back of my neck a few seconds later.  <No.  I have looked upon the world with my own eyes only once, when I was first awakened.  The humans have kept me in this artificial sleep ever since.  Speaking through the mind uses only the tiniest amount of my strength.>

Realization flashed across Chibi’s face.  “*Thought so.  That machine he’s on is an energy inhibitor.  Most of the early testing done on me involved one of those.*”

Daggers of impatience suddenly dug into me.  <If you are not aligned with my creators, then what are you doing here?>

I took a deep breath.  Right, all I’d done so far was ask him frustrating questions without really explaining anything at all.  I had to make it clear that I was on his side.

<I came here to get information.  They—er, your creators—they want to use your power to capture the Legendary Pokémon.  My team is trying to stop them, and this info might help us do that.>

I felt Mewtwo give a cold, ironic chuckle.  <Legendary Pokémon… I have heard talk of them.  The most powerful beings of this world, and yet the humans regard them as nothing but pawns… pieces of a plan that must be obtained.>  His thoughts turned darkly serious.  <These ‘Legendaries’ are in danger, that much is certain.>

I swallowed.  So he already knew that much.  <They’re powerful, yes… but not invincible.  Which is why they need our help.>

Amusement.  <And what help could a human child give?>

I hesitated.  <We’ve already stopped the Rockets once before.  And we’ll keep doing whatever it takes.>

<Why?>  His tone felt skeptical.

<Because we don’t want their powers abused by the Rockets!>  That was it, right?  The reason why I’d joined the Rebellion.  I couldn’t remember, and the idea of trying to dig up the memory felt like wading through a bog right now.

Mewtwo didn’t respond for some time.  I felt a sort of… perplexed curiosity from him.  <You said you were going to stop them from using my power.  How do they plan to do that?  They are afraid to even wake me.>

I was hoping I wouldn’t have to explain that.  But I’d been dancing around it earlier in the conversation, and he was bound to notice.  <They’ve taken over the minds of some of the other experiments, and they’re trying to do the same to the Legendaries,> I explained.  <But they haven’t figured it out yet, and their main test subject is free now, so if we can just—>

<It’s too late.>

I blinked.  The words were Chibi’s.  What did he mean, it was too late?

Mewtwo was silent for several seconds, until finally: <Explain.>

Anger and shame flickered across the Pikachu’s expression, and he turned to face away from me, though his emotions still reverberated through the psychic link, clear as day.  <I’m part Legendary,> he told Mewtwo.  <I was the test subject for the Legendary control technology.  They recently had a major breakthrough… they hadn’t gotten to try it on me yet, but… >  He clenched his fists, feathers quivering.  <The next time you open your eyes… it probably won’t even be under your own power.>

I gaped at the hybrid.  So that’s what he’d been rambling about while delusional?  They’d really done it?  They’d figured out how to control Legendaries?

A long pause followed.  Shock had paralyzed my thoughts, slowly giving way to a river of cold dread that permeated every corner of my mind.  And it was coming from Mewtwo.

<If you have nothing more to say or do here, you should leave.>

Out of nowhere, the feeling vanished.  Just like that, Mewtwo’s presence faded from my mind, and it was like a humongous weight had been removed.  The air still felt thick and heavy just from being near him, but I could breathe again—and my thoughts and feelings were mine and mine alone.

I shot a bewildered glance at Chibi.  “We’re not gonna leave just like that, are we?”

At first, the Pikachu didn’t respond.  He was still staring at the floor, fists clenched and body shuddering.  Finally, in a low voice, he said, “*You got what you came here for, right?*”

I glanced over at the monitor, where a completion alert had popped up.  “I guess so, but…”  My words trailed off as my eyes slid back to the machine where Mewtwo was contained.  “Shouldn’t we… do something?”

“*Like what?*” he asked without looking at me.

“We… we could, I don’t know… capture him?”

That got his attention.  He gave me a look as though I’d just spoken the dumbest words he’d ever heard.  “*You know the entire team would be on us in a second if he were removed from that machine.*”

I smiled weakly.  “They’re already after me.”

Chibi folded his arms.  “*Do you even have an unused Pokéball?*”

I sighed.  “No.”  Honestly, for all I knew, Mewtwo was probably already linked with a Pokéball.  I guess there really wasn’t anything I could do.  Not now, anyway.

I turned back to look at the clone one last time.  It was bad enough that Legendaries were being captured and brainwashed, but the idea of that happening to one that had never even gotten to do anything in its life…

“We’re going to get you out of here.  Maybe not right now, but someday,” I whispered.

I wasn’t expecting a response.  Not to something I’d said out loud.  But then a rush of conflicting emotions—hope, despair, rage, and helplessness—hit me all at once, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t mine.

<Leave,> Mewtwo said icily.

I sighed.  That was the end of that, I guess.  I leaned down to retrieve the flash drive from the computer before walking over to the door.

“I’d better recall you again,” I said to Chibi.  “The next time I let you out, we should be out of the base.”

“*With our luck, I’m not counting on that,*” the Pikachu said right before his form dissolved into the ball.  I took a deep breath before opening the door to the cloning lab and venturing out into the base once more.

I’d accomplished what Stalker had asked of me.  I’d succeeded at my own personal mission too.  But the encounter with Mewtwo had left a sour taste in my mouth.  The Rockets basically now had another Legendary at their disposal, and one that they’d soon be able to fully control.  Not only that, but they’d be able to use him to take down and capture other Legendaries.  How were we going to sabotage any missions from now on?

I guess that was for Stalker to figure out.  That was the whole reason I was gathering this info for him.  He’d figure something out.

“What the hell are you doing here, grunt?!”

My heart jumped straight into my throat as I spun around wildly, trying to locate the source of the noise.  It wasn’t hard to find—down the other end of the hallway, a Rocket was sprinting toward me.  My legs instantly tried to run, but then it hit me—I still looked like a Rocket.  Getting in trouble as a random grunt was way better than being caught as a rebel.

As the Rocket neared, I was able to get a better look at her—a young woman with short, auburn hair, a tough build, and stern features.  Not the sort of person I’d like to cross.  High-ranking too, from the looks of her uniform.  She wore a tight black tank top with a thick vest, loose capri pants and heavy black combat boots.  Sure enough, both her vest and cap had the executive symbol emblazoned on them.

But then an eerie feeling washed over me.  Why did I feel like I recognized her from somewhere?

It hit me like a hammer out of nowhere.  She was the executive that cornered us at the plane crash.  I hadn’t seen much of her that day, but that voice and overall demeanor was unmistakable.

“This area is strictly off-limits right now!  We’re in a high-alert situation and no one’s allowed in this department!”

She still thought I was a Rocket.  Good—I had to take advantage of that.  I did my best to make a submissive sort of face as I said, “Sorry, I’m new here and I got lost.”

The executive’s footsteps slowed to a stop.  She stood there for several seconds, examining me carefully with the single, sharp green eye that wasn’t covered by her bangs.  And then a slow look of surprise and recognition spread across her features, followed by a horribly unnerving grin.

“Don’t try making any dumbass excuses—I know who you are.  You’re the kid who stole number nine when our transport jet crashed.  You’ve got a lot of nerve showing up here now.  Either that or you’re just stupid.”

It felt like the air had been sucked out of my lungs.  What?  How?  How could she possibly know it was me?  It took every ounce of concentration I had to keep my face neutral with the sudden wave of dread spreading through every inch of my body.  Had to play dumb.  She had no proof.  Had to keep it that way.

“I… really have no idea what you’re talking about.”  And given my level of confusion, I was pretty confident that my response didn’t seem like acting.

“Think you can bluff your way out of this?  You probably don’t even know how I know that you’re a rebel.  I might not have seen you at the crash site, but we have your photo from when you were captured.  And I never forget a face.”

I stared in horror, all pretenses of posing as a Rocket utterly dead.  She knew.  She knew.

The executive smirked, clearly enjoying the effect her words had on me.  “Looks like we have rebels infiltrating our ranks after all.  The other executives were skeptical, but it makes perfect sense.  Your team was responsible for Raikou going free, weren’t you?”

I gave her the most defiant glare I could muster, to let her know I wasn’t going to play along.

She rolled her eyes.  “It had to be your team,” she spat.  “None of our old enemies would have been able to get the info soon enough—it had to be someone currently working against us from within.  Of course, there are a few more things I’d like to know, and you’re going to tell me.”

I hesitated.  “…What makes you say that?”

The executive laughed.  “You really don’t know who you’re talking to, do you?”  When I didn’t say anything, she went on, “My name is Astrid.  I’m head executive over the entire Kanto combat unit.”

I clenched my teeth, desperately willing my face to stay neutral.  Couldn’t let her know how much dread I was feeling right now.  Of course I’d run into the head executive with every reason to hold a grudge against me.  I should’ve known I’d used up all my luck with Stracion being the first Rocket to corner me today.

My hand hovered over a Pokéball.  Maybe I could… no.  No, there was no way I could ever hope to beat her.  But I couldn’t let her know that.

“Yeah well… I’ve got number nine, and he beat you and your entire crew last time!” I yelled, holding out his Pokéball.  That was pretty much the best show of bravado I could think of.

Astrid rolled her eyes.  “I’ll pretend that wasn’t the biggest fluke in existence.  Anyway, who said I wanted to battle?  I think it’d be faster for me to just knock you out right here, drag your stupid rebel ass to a detention cell, and force you to tell me everything I want to know.”

My eyes unconsciously slid to the gun holster hanging from her Pokéball belt, sending another jolt of ice coursing through my veins.  No, what was I thinking—she had just said she planned to take me alive.  But only because I had information.  And after she’d gotten that information out of me…?

No.  No matter what, I couldn’t be captured.  I’d be as good as dead.  No matter how stupid a plan I came up with, it couldn’t possibly be worse than letting her take me without a fight.  But what could I possibly do?  Chibi was out of power.  Or… was he?  He’d said he’d charged up a little bit in the small amount of time he’d been off the machine.  It wouldn’t be enough for a battle.  But for a single cheap shot…?

I swallowed hard.  No choice.  I had to try it.  With trembling fingertips, I pressed the button on Chibi’s Pokéball.

Astrid’s face lit up with rage.  “What the hell are you—?!”

Before the light had even started forming, I called out, “Thundershock!”

Chibi’s body materialized and he immediately let loose a string of lightning at her.  She screamed, and I bolted in the opposite direction faster than I’d ever run.  My legs were on autopilot.  Had to get away, had to get away.  Nothing else mattered.

Chibi came racing after me several seconds later.  He threw me an accusing glare and yelled, “*What’s going on?!  Why did you give us away?!*”

“She already knew it was me, I didn’t have a choice!”

“Damn it, you’re dead now, you little shit!!” Astrid’s enraged voice echoed down the hallway.

The sound of a Pokéball opening reached my ears, followed by paws striking the ground, rapidly approaching us.  I didn’t dare turn to look, but suddenly my spine tingled.  It felt like… static?

“*Crap.  It’s that Raichu,*” Chibi said, an actual twinge of fear in his voice.

I didn’t get a chance to say anything.  A flash of neon yellow blinded me and then my senses dissolved into a torrent of pain, twisting and writhing and burning through every inch of me.  Limbs went numb, and suddenly I was tripping over useless hunks of dead weight.  The floor rushed up to hit me, but I didn’t feel it.  Couldn’t feel anything but the piercing sting of lightning.

As soon as it struck, it ended.  Was… was it over?  Did I still have a chance to escape?  I wanted to move, but my body refused to listen.  Every inch of me felt numb.  I blinked a few times, forcing my eyes to focus on my fingertips.  Come on, move!  I didn’t have time for this!

Sparks shot past my field of view, and I flinched, expecting another burst of pain.  But nothing happened.  Slowly, I opened my eyes again.  Chibi stood rigid in front of me with his arms spread wide, shielding me with his body.  He was panting hard and wincing in pain; sparks leaped off his back at random.

He’d protected me…  I couldn’t just lie here, I had to do something.  Slowly, painfully, I put every ounce of strength I could gather into forcing my limbs to move again.  I didn’t know how, but somehow I managed to pull my legs underneath me to stand up.  And then I locked eyes with Astrid, who was looking somewhat frazzled, but still wearing that stupid smug expression of hers.

“What was that about number nine being able to beat me?  I know perfectly well its Lightning Rod doesn’t work right—hit it with a big enough shock and it’ll feel the pain just like anything else.”  Her face split into a sadistic grin.  “Speaking of which, how did you enjoy it?”

I glared at her, my fists clenched so hard my nails dug into my palms.  I’d stopped caring about hiding my emotional state from her.  I wanted her to see my reactions and know how I felt.

“There’s plenty more where that came from.  Personally, if I were in your position, I’d surrender right here and now.  But it’s fine if you don’t want to.  I could listen to your screams for the rest of the night,” she said icily.  Sparks leapt off Raichu’s cheeks at her words.

My thoughts didn’t want to flow straight.  I couldn’t tell if it was from the lightning or from the rolling fog of anger clouding my mind.  What was I supposed to do now?  She had us completely trapped.

Except… wait.  Chibi had taken the tail end of the Thundershock for me.  It had still hurt him, but he could absorb electricity.  Which meant he probably now had enough power for a stronger blast that could knock her out.  But the Raichu would protect her if I tried it.  I needed something to distract it.  One of the experiments?  They’d probably kill me if I tried to give them battle orders.

But what if I didn’t need to?  What with her attitude of attack first and ask questions later?  And… what type was Flygon again…?

I gripped his Pokéball tightly, my mind made up.  It was my only option.  I threw the ball forward.

“Not this shit again!” Astrid yelled, immediately pointing forward for Raichu to attack the newcomer.

Lightning struck the burst of energy before it even got a chance to materialize.  But then it took the form of a dragon.  He flared his wings in alarm upon realizing that he was under attack, but then tilted his head in confusion and glanced around, trying to figure out what the heck was going on.  The electricity wasn’t harming him at all.  So he was a ground-type!

There was a split second where Astrid’s eyes widened with the realization that she’d been tricked, right before Chibi sent a Thundershock flying right at her.  She didn’t even get a chance to scream—the force of the attack knocked her unconscious in a second.

Raichu whirled around to see its trainer on the ground and let out a distressed cry before turning back toward Flygon and hissing.  It drew back a forepaw and focused energy into it before charging at the dragon.

Okay, there was no reason for us to be fighting this out when the Raichu’s trainer was unconscious.  While Chibi rushed in to block the punch with his tail, I bolted around them as fast as I could, grabbed Raichu’s Pokéball off Astrid’s belt, and recalled the orange mouse in a beam of red.

I barely had a second to feel relieved before Flygon rounded on me with an offended glare.  “*What was that?!  Don’t do that again!  I never agreed to battle for you!*”

I recoiled backward, throwing my hands up in defense.  “I just needed something to distract Raichu so Chibi could get her!  I knew you wouldn’t be hurt by it!”

Flygon snorted and turned his back to me without saying anything.  It took me a few seconds to realize that he was done with the conversation and probably wanted to go back in the ball.  Fine by me—I recalled him.

I sank to the ground, still not even sure how I’d managed to stand in the first place.  The pain was starting to catch up with me.  Yeah… everything hurt now.  I don’t know how long I sat there, breathing heavily, every nerve in my body firing on overdrive.  I’d been so close to getting captured.  Way too close.

“*We don’t have much time,*” Chibi said, walking over to me.  “*Once someone finds her lying there, they’ll know there was a rebel in the base.*”

I glanced over at Astrid’s fallen form and winced.  Even the most intimidating person looked kind of sad and pathetic just lying there in a crumpled heap.  Now that the rage and adrenaline was starting to wear off, I mostly just felt creeped out sitting so close to her.  I couldn’t help edging away.

“*I’m going to recall myself so I’m not seen.  Try to recover quickly.*”  Chibi tapped the button of his Pokéball and disappeared.

Suddenly finding myself alone was the kick I needed.  Not to mention the fact that I really didn’t want to be seen sitting next to an unconscious executive.  I slowly struggled to my feet, every muscle fighting me the entire time, before setting off for the stairs.

My mission was done.  After all the unexpected running, hiding, battling, and other crap, it was actually kind of hard to believe I could actually leave Celadon HQ now.  Finally.  Nothing had ever sounded more appealing than getting out of here and never coming back.

At least after all this, I had a pretty good idea of how to navigate B2f.  Crossing the floor to reach the stairs took half the time it had previously.  I was about halfway up the stairs when my R-com started buzzing in my pocket.  I grabbed it, took a look at the screen, and… I was getting a call from Stracion?

I tapped the screen and hesitantly held it to my ear.  “Uh… hello?”

“Yo, you dead yet?”

I snorted.  “Obviously not.”

Stracion chuckled.  “Just checkin’.  Didja find them?”

“Yeah.”

“Shweet.  Anyway, you’re gonna have a hell of a time getting out—the base is on lockdown.  No one’s allowed out.”

Great.  Just great.  I swallowed and said, “What if I just wait until the whole mess blows over?  There’s no reason for them to suspect my Rocket identity.”

“Maybe so, but that’ll just make them more paranoid.  And what if they run a Pokéball inspection?”  I hadn’t thought about that.

“What do you think I should do?” I asked slowly.

“Good old-fashioned breakout?  You’ve got experiments with you, in case you hadn’t noticed,” she said flatly.

“Wouldn’t that be… really noticeable?”

“You’re kinda past the point of subtlety here, kid.”

“My name’s Jade,” I shot back, tired of being talked down to.  And by someone close to my age, no less.

“Alright, alright,” she said dismissively.  “Anyway, this is getting to be a pain.  I’ll start a rumor that I saw something weird on floor B3.  That should draw most everyone who’s not assigned to be on guard.  Use that opportunity, cause you’re not getting another one.”  And with that, she hung up.

I put a hand to my forehead and exhaled long and hard.  As if this night needed more complications.  Alright, time to see how bad the entrance was.  I walked up the rest of the stairs, doing my best to look casual despite how hard my heart was pounding.  A commotion of voices echoed from the lobby, and my body tensed up.  It sounded like maybe a dozen or so Rockets had gathered there.  My immediate instinct was to spin around and go anywhere else.  But… no, I had to give Stracion a chance.  It was the only shot I’d get.

Minutes crawled by as I stood alone in the stairwell, waiting.  Suddenly, the voices from the other room rose in volume with a tone of alarm.  Had the message finally reached them?

Footsteps echoed off the walls, racing toward me.  Without thinking, I pressed myself against the wall just as a six-person squad raced past me down the stairs.  It felt so incredibly awkward just standing there as they ran past, but they were looking for rogue experiments, not rebels.  I had to keep telling myself that.

Once I was certain they were gone, I crept forward down the hallway to the entry lobby, the last room between me and my freedom.  I took a deep breath and glanced around the corner.  Six Rockets, all of them armed.  Four of them had a Pokémon by their side as well.  There was no sneaking past them.  And trying to persuade them that I, a random grunt, should totally be let out… didn’t sound like a good idea either.  It was like Stracion said—our only way out was by force.

I retreated back to the stairway where I could open Pokéballs without anyone hearing the sound.  Three flashes of light materialized into Chibi and the two clones.

“Long story short, the base is on high alert and the entrance is heavily guarded,” I said before anyone could ask.

“*How many are there?*” Chibi asked unflinchingly.

“Six Rockets and four Pokémon.”

Absol and Flygon exchanged skeptical looks, but Chibi just stared down, as though in deep thought.  “*There’s no way they’ll shoot to kill any of us experiments.  We’re too valuable.  That’s our advantage here.*”  He closed his eyes and lowered his head in concentration, occasionally muttering to himself while the rest of us stood there and waited.  Waited for what could be our only ticket out.

“*I’ve got it,*” the Pikachu suddenly announced.  “*I’ll rush out there with Agility.  While the Rockets are focused trying to hit me, you two will slip behind them with Feint Attack.  We take out the Rockets first, then go for the Pokémon.*”

Absol and Flygon nodded, and the three of them wasted no time getting into position at the end of the hallway.  Chibi began racing around in a tight circle, his movements quick at first, but rapidly increasing in speed until he was little more than a yellow blur in the middle of the hallway.  Suddenly, the hybrid shot forward into the entry room, practically appearing out of nowhere from how fast he was going.  He paused there, letting the Rockets get a good look at him before racing off.  And the reaction was instantaneous.

“Number nine is loose too?!” one of the guards shouted.

“Number nine is at the entrance, send backup now!” another yelled into a radio.

The room exploded into chaos.  The Rockets’ Pokémon dashed forward, claws and fists and teeth glowing, but their target was moving way too fast for them to get any idea of where to aim.  Darts shot through the air as the Rockets desperately attempted to tranquilize the lightning-fast rodent.  In front of me, the two clones nodded to each other before melting into shadow and streaking across the floor.  I had to creep closer to get a look at what was going on, but getting called out by the Rockets was… not really a concern anymore with all the chaos going on now.  Absol and Flygon materialized from the shadows behind the Rockets, immediately slamming two of them into the wall.  One of the agents spun around at the noise and fired on them, but Absol was ready for that.  She jumped in front of Flygon and produced a shimmering Protect barrier.

And that was the opening Chibi needed.  After dodging blows from both a Raticate and Machoke, a wave of sparks leaped from his fur, giving way to strings of electricity, and then—

And then it hit me—if he planned to use Discharge, everything in the room was a potential target… including me.

I dove out of the room just as a blindingly bright flash and a resounding crack split the air.  When I looked back, three more of the Rockets had slumped to the ground; the one left standing had managed to duck behind her Sandslash for protection.  Chibi was crouched low in the middle of the room, panting hard with sparks leaping off his back.  A Nidorino picked itself off the floor and launched a flurry of poison darts at him while he was prone, but then Absol appeared out of nowhere and struck it in the back of the head with paws cloaked in dark aura.  Sandslash drew back a forepaw and slashed at her, right before Flygon rushed at the ground-type, breathing out a lick of dragonfire in its face.  Chibi dodged another vicious bite from Raticate, and then the last remaining Rocket stood up to take another shot and immediately got nailed by a Thundershock.

 “*Go now!*” Chibi called out to me.

What, now?!  They were still fighting!  Except… with the Rockets down, I couldn’t be shot, and they could fend off the enemy Pokémon long enough to escape.  That’s what he was banking on!

In an instant, I jumped out from behind the corner and sprinted toward the door as fast as my legs could carry me.  A few of the Rockets’ Pokémon glanced in my direction, but Flygon took that moment of distraction as an opportunity to smash them into the floor.  Heart pounding, I raced up the stairs, the alluring sight of the exit finally within view.  We were going to make it, we actually were going to—I slammed into the door with a painful thud.  It wouldn’t open… why not?!  Because the base was on lockdown?

“*Out of the way!*” Flygon called out behind me.

I barely had enough time to process his words and jump to the side right before the bug-dragon slashed clean through the door hinges with flaming claws.  The door crashed to the ground with a heavy clang, revealing the way out.

Holy crap.  Now, more than ever, I was glad to have Flygon on our side.

We burst out into the alleyway, joined immediately afterward by Chibi and Absol.  We were all out!  Now we just had to get out of sight before the Rockets could catch up, and—

Out of nowhere, Flygon shot into the air, his red-lined wings vibrating impossibly fast as he tore through the alleyway and into the night sky.

Wait, what?!  Was… was he leaving?

“Where are you going?!” I cried.

“*Away from here!  I’m finally free!*” the dragon called out.

“*Get back here!*” Chibi barked at him.  “*You have to carry Jade.*”

Flygon almost tumbled over from stopping so abruptly in midair before whirling around to face Chibi with a shocked and disgusted look.  “*What?!  I’m not letting a human on my back!*”

“*She has our Pokéballs—if she escapes, so do the rest of us,*” Absol pointed out.

The bug-eyed dragon stared at her, completely taken aback.  “*But, but—*”

I could hear the Rockets charging up the stairs after us.  In just a few seconds, they’d burst through that door, guns at the ready, and—

“*Quit arguing and just do it!*” Chibi ordered.

“*Alright, fine!*” the dragon roared before shooting back toward us and hovering alongside me.  Any hesitation I might’ve had about riding a Pokémon that clearly didn’t want to be ridden flew straight out the window.  I recalled Absol and jumped onto the dragon’s back, and was about to recall Chibi, but then he leaped on with me, gripping my shirt with his claws.

By the time the Rockets burst out into the alleyway, we were gone.

Chapter Text

The flight home felt much longer than the flight to the base.  I made Flygon head west of Celadon to start with, that way the Rockets wouldn’t know that the base was to the east.  Even a vague hint like that could be disastrous later on.  Practically every instruction I gave was met with some kind of complaint from the Flygon, but at this point I was too tired to care, and he ended up following them in the end anyway.

Finally, after everything we’d gone through to get this far, we were met with the glorious sight of Kanto’s eastern coastline, with the silver light of the full moon glimmering off the waves.  Just beyond that lay Midnight Island, and it had never looked more inviting.  I’d only been gone for a few hours, but it had felt like forever.  What time even was it?  I pressed the button on my watch to illuminate its face, but nothing happened.  Well, that was strange.  Not that it really mattered what time it was—either way, the answer was “way too late.”

I pointed Flygon in the direction of Midnight Stadium and we drifted down toward it, his diamond-shaped wings buzzing with a lot less vigor than they had at the beginning of the flight.  Finally the dragon touched down on the ground with a clumsy thud, immediately collapsing onto all fours.

“*Damn it, why’d we have to fly so far?*” Flygon gasped, his wings drooping.  He’d probably never flown that far in his life.  I almost would have felt bad for him… if he hadn’t tried to leave us all behind at the Rocket base.

“I already told you this is the safest place for us right now, unless you wanted to sleep in a random forest somewhere.”  That got me shaken off his back in a hurry.

Chibi hopped a few feet from me, shaking out his fur while I picked myself up from the dirt and brushed off my pants.

“*Alright, I did my part, I got everyone here.  Now let out the others,*”  Flygon grumbled, folding his wings against his back.

I shrugged and grabbed two Pokéballs from my pocket, one red and one black, opening them to reveal twin flashes of light that took the forms of a white beast and a tall green mantis.  And then Chibi froze, staring wide-eyed at Razors in total disbelief.  In all the time I’d known him, I’d never seen him look so stunned.  But then, this was his first real reunion with Razors in… how long?  Years?  How many years had Razors been brainwashed?  How many years had Chibi been forced to view his companion as the enemy?

“*Jade said she’d found you, but… some part of me didn’t believe her,*” the Pikachu said quietly.  “*There’s no way.  It can’t really be you.*”

The Scyther stared back, his expression impossible to read.  Finally, he gave a gentle nod and said, “*I’m real.*”

With slow, hesitant steps, Chibi walked over to him, not breaking eye contact the entire time.  He then reached out and placed a trembling paw on the green edge of Razors’s scythe.

“*I’ve probably imagined this a million times.  When you were first taken… I told myself I wouldn’t give up hope.  That I would spend every day trying to free you.*”

Razors didn’t respond.  He just stared downward, blinking slowly.

“*But as the years went by, I lost hope,*” Chibi went on, breaking eye contact.  “*I thought you were gone forever.  I…*”—his voice broke—“*I tried to kill you.*”

“*I know,*” Razors replied, his voice the same monotone as usual.  “*So did I.*”

Something flashed through Chibi’s eyes.  “*That’s not the same.  You weren’t you.*”

Razors chuckled.  The sound was hollow and utterly joyless.  “*Does it make any difference?  The outcome would have been the same either way.*”

The Pikachu shook his head.  “*That doesn’t… that’s not…*”

“*What’s done is done,*” the mantis said firmly.  “*Neither of us can take it back.  But it didn’t come to that—we’re both still alive.*”

Chibi opened his mouth like he was going to protest, but then froze, staring at the other hybrid.  Slowly, his wide-eyed, desperate expression faded as he dropped his gaze to the ground and closed his eyes.  “*We’re both still alive…*” he said quietly.

“*Alright, this is all very touching, but where are we, and what are we going to do now?*” Absol cut in, stepping forward and glancing between the hybrids and me.

“This is my team’s base,” I answered.  “As for what you’re going to do, we can ask Stalker in the morning.”

The dark-type tilted her head.  “*Who?*”

“My team leader.”  I tapped my room key to the card scanner and the front door to the stadium opened up.  I stepped a foot inside so the door wouldn’t shut itself, then turned back toward the experiments.  They were still staring at me, perplexed.  I made an expectant face and gestured inside.

Flygon glanced around suspiciously.  “*I’m not going in there.*”

I rolled my eyes.  “Then sleep outside.  I don’t care either way, just make up your mind so I can go to bed.”

I got the feeling from his expression that he was going to be offended either way, and just couldn’t decide which option was more worth getting offended over.  Which meant that basic comfort won out—the bug-dragon slowly shuffled in through the entrance, making sure I saw how much he didn’t want to.  He was closely followed by Absol, who rolled her eyes at the fuss he was making.  Finally, Razors and Chibi stepped in together.

I walked across the lobby and pushed open the double doors that led to the battlefield.  “You guys can stay in here.  If any kids wake up before me and see you guys, Chibi’s in charge of explaining how you all got here.”  The rebels had at least heard of him, unlike the other experiments.  Still, the first kid to wander into the battlefield was probably in for a big surprise.

I left them there and made a beeline for the elevator, only vaguely aware of riding it to my floor, stumbling down the hallway, and scanning my card key into my room at last.  My shoes thudded against the wall, kicked off the instant I walked through the door.  And then, with my last ounce of conscious thought, I let out my Pokémon for the night.

The Charmeleon and Pidgeotto appeared in a flash and took fighting stances, relaxing upon noticing we were back in our room.

“*You made it out,*” Swift said, his voice almost sounding proud.

“*Did you get the experiments?  What about Stalker’s mission?  Did you fight any more Rockets?*” Firestorm demanded, his eyes wide.

“Yes, yes, and… yes,” I answered.  And before either of them could say anything else, I collapsed onto the bed.

“I’d like to thank you for a mission well done.”

Twigs and leaves snapped under our feet as Stalker and I walked along the trail that ran through the forests near Midnight Stadium.  It was a bright, cloudless day, and the September air was cool and breezy now that the oppressive summer heat was finally over.  It was hard to appreciate the perfect weather, though.  The idea of briefing him on what had happened in the base had been eating away at the back of my mind, refusing to let me think of anything else.

“I wouldn’t call it well done with all the trouble I got into,” I said.

“You made it out alive,” he said matter-of-factly.  “Not to mention rescuing four experiments and recovering the Mewtwo data.”  He held up the flash drive I’d given him to emphasize the point.

I grit my teeth.  No sense holding back any longer.

“I ran into an executive… Astrid.”

Recognition flashed through his eyes.  “And you escaped.  That’s impressive.”

I nodded.  “But not before she figured out my identity.  She recognized me from the plane incident.”

Stalker paused, considering the information carefully.  “I’ll keep an eye on your Rocket account and see whether or not it’s been flagged for suspicion.  But just in case, stay away from any Rocket bases for now.”  That was going to be a problem.

“But I’m due for grunt work in Cerulean next week,” I protested.  And my supervisor was… not exactly the kind of person I wanted to upset.

He gave me a pointed stare.  “The last thing you want is to be captured inside a base.”

I couldn’t argue with that.  It was frustrating, but I didn’t have any alternative.

I glanced at my watch for about the millionth time that day only to be met with the same blank face.  I’d realized at some point that it was probably dead from Raichu’s lightning, though I didn’t seem capable of remembering that fact for more than five minutes.

And then, for whatever reason, it hit me.  My watch wasn’t the only sensitive device I’d had on me at the time.

Stalker’s gaze fixed on me.  He obviously noticed my expression take a sudden nosedive, because he asked, “What’s wrong?”

“The Mewtwo data’s probably gone.  It… might have gotten… exposed to some lightning.”  Stupid.  Why didn’t I just say that she’d hit me with Thundershock?  But then… the memory burned.  That feeling of being cornered, unable to do anything, facing down a vastly superior opponent who could do whatever she wanted to me.  It was… humiliating.

“I take it that was Astrid’s doing?” Stalker asked, looking vaguely amused by my choice of words.

Right.  I’d already told him I’d run into her.  He obviously had to realize what had happened.

“Her Raichu is infamous,” he went on, “but you don’t have to worry about the Mewtwo data.  That script wasn’t just copying the data to the drive.  It was uploading it to an online storage.  I actually read some of it last night.”

I gaped at him.  “Wait, seriously?”  Did he ever sleep?

“It wasn’t my idea—you can thank my friend who wrote it.”

“So if you’ve read it… what did you find out?!” I asked excitedly.

Stalker paused, gazing off into the distance.  “Mewtwo is more powerful than we could have ever thought.  Much stronger than any of the Legendaries on record.”

My face fell, and the ridiculously overbearing presence of Raikou and Entei flashed through my memory.  To think that Mewtwo was even stronger than them…?

“Chibi told me that they figured out the Legendary control,” I said slowly.  “They’ll be able to use it in the next Legendary mission.  If that’s true, then… I don’t know how we’ll stand a chance at stopping them.”

Stalker gave me a pointed look.  “Don’t lose hope.  We’ll have to change our tactics for the next mission, but I’m confident we can stop them.”  I was glad he had that much confidence in us because I sure didn’t.

“Not to mention, we have some new allies…” he continued, trailing off at the end.  We’d just stepped out of the trees into the clearing around Midnight Stadium, and were met with the sight of half the Rebellion still crowded around the experiments like they had been when we left.  I couldn’t help chuckling a bit under my breath at how much everyone was admiring them.  Most of the experiments didn’t seem to care about the excessive attention, although Flygon was starting to grow agitated.

The crowd of trainers parted as we approached, allowing Stalker to step forward and talk face-to-face with the experiments.

“Up until now, you’ve lived your entire lives for Team Rocket, haven’t you?” Stalker asked.

“*They made us, so yeah,*” Absol said flatly.

“Well, it’s up to you what you want to do with your lives now.  I suspect none of you have ever spent time in the wild, so you’re welcome to stay here with us.  But in return, I’d like to make a deal.”

Chibi and Razors stared unflinchingly while Absol and Flygon exchanged skeptical glances.

“You already know that we’re fighting against the Rockets.  Will you lend us your strength?  We could use the extra help from strong Pokémon.”

“*I don’t want to have a trainer,*” Flygon said gruffly.

“You won’t have one,” Stalker said, raising his hands disarmingly.  “You’d just be free Pokémon who happen to train with us and fight Rockets with us.”

“*I was already going to do that,*” Chibi said simply.

Absol closed her eyes.  “*Whatever.*”

Flygon glanced around uncertainly, as though looking for some excuse to not have to say anything.  Finally, he put on his best disinterested face and said, “*I… guess I wouldn’t mind still getting to fight.*”

Razors was the only one who hadn’t responded.  The mantis just stared at the ground quietly, as though deep in thought.  His eyes slid to the Pikachu at his feet, who was watching him expectantly.  Then, slowly, he nodded.

“It’s settled then.”  Stalker turned to face the rest of us.  “Experiments eight, nine, twenty-four, and twenty-five will be joining the Rebellion,” he announced, to a wave of excited chattering from the crowd.

“*We’ve escaped from the Rockets,*” Absol said with a huff.  “*We’ll never be tested on again.  Those identities are meaningless now.*”

Stalker folded his arms.  “I see.  Do you have preferred names?”

“*Razors and I do,*” Chibi said.  “*These two don’t.*”

“*Never needed them,*” Flygon added.

Stalker nodded.  “Alright then.  I will give you new names.”

The two clones blinked in surprise.  They clearly weren’t expecting that, but neither of them protested.  Stalker proceeded to pace back and forth in front of them, rubbing his fingers on his chin while they eyed him curiously.

“You’ll be Aros,” he said to the Flygon.  He then turned to face the Absol.  “And you—you’ll be Stygian.”

Absol—or rather, Stygian—tilted her head a bit, but then just shrugged.  Aros paused to consider the name, like he was trying to find something wrong with it, but he wound up nodding in the end.

I couldn’t help feeling really, really proud.  Not only had my mission resulted in four experiments being freed, but they were also joining us?  This pretty much completely made up for my inaction at the Raikou mission.

“Do you still have their Pokéballs?” Stalker asked me.  Right, there was no reason for me to hold onto them if they were going to be free now.  I dug through my pockets and retrieved the minimized balls, handing them to him.  He gave them a curious look before saying, “I’ll keep them in my office.  Having the option to recall them in case of emergencies could be useful.”

And then, for whatever reason, my brain caught up with my hands and realized what I’d done.  Without even thinking about it, I’d handed him Razors, Aros, and Stygian’s Pokéballs, but not Chibi’s.

Chibi, who’d stayed with me all through Vermilion.  Who’d inspired me to act aboard the S.S. Anne.  Who’d protected me just like a member of my team.

“Hey, Chibi… can I ask you something?”  I asked, gesturing away from the crowd.

The Pikachu glanced up at me with a puzzled expression, but then followed me as I led him off to the side, close to the trees.  I couldn’t help noticing how slow his steps were, and the wince that followed each one.

“Um… are you okay?” I asked.

“*I’m fine, everything just hurts… I’ve got to get used to that again,*” he muttered.

I tilted my head.  “Still?”  He’d been off that Rocket machine for over twelve hours by now.  If the effect was lasting this long…

“*It’s normal for me,*” Chibi said, cutting off that train of negativity and replacing it with another.

“…What do you mean?” I asked warily.

The look on his face plainly said that he didn’t want to explain.  Despite this, the hybrid took a deep breath and said, “*My Zapdos energy is too strong for this body.  The feeling of generating power… it’s always hurt, as long as I can remember.*”

He was… always in pain?  And that was normal for him?  How come I never noticed?  Was I just that unobservant, or… was he just that good at hiding it?

“*That’s the reason I train so often,*” he went on.  “*Releasing the energy is one of the few things that feels good.  Although once I start, my body tries to let it all go at once.*”

“Like when you finished the battle at the plane,” I said slowly.  He had been able to absorb Pichu’s entire store of electricity and fire it off in a single move.

He nodded distantly.  “*That felt amazing…*”

I stared at him, lost for words.  I was still having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that it was a thing.  And the kind of thing that nothing could change.  I couldn’t help him.  No one could.

Chibi glanced up at me and glared when he saw my expression.  “*I don’t need sympathy.  I’m like this because they made me this way.  It’s as simple as that.  In any case, you’re stalling.  You wanted to ask something.  So ask it.*”

I hadn’t even realized that’s what I was doing, but he was right.  I still had absolutely no idea how to word the thing I wanted to ask, and I also had no idea how he was going to react.

Finally, I just took a deep breath.  “Last time I saw you, you were kind of stuck with me.  I’m not sure how you felt about that, but I just… wanted you to know that I’m glad you’re here.  And I know you never really got a choice to stay with me before, but…”

“*I could have left at any time,*” the hybrid said simply.  “*I didn’t.*”

I fidgeted uncomfortably.  “Well… yeah, but…”

“*I’ll stay by your side.  It’s the least I can do to repay you for what you’ve done.*”

Honestly, it didn’t feel like I’d done anything special.  Anyone on the Rebellion could have done what I did.  But would they have?  I guess that’s what it all came down to—the fact that I’d wanted to.  Still, I couldn’t deny that I was really, really happy that he was alright with staying with me.  I couldn’t even explain why.

By this point, Aros and Stygian had been dragged off to our outdoor battle area while the rebels fought over who got to battle them first.  Razors had turned down several battle requests and was now sitting off to the side, quietly watching the others.  I couldn’t help noticing Chibi gazing at him with… probably the most content expression I’d ever seen on his face.

“You’re really glad he’s free, huh?” I asked.

For several seconds, the Pikachu didn’t acknowledge that I’d said anything.  Finally, in a weary tone, he said, “*For the first half of my life… he was all I had.*”

I nodded.  He didn’t need to say anything else.  In spite of whatever had happened in the past, things were better now.  And that was true for the Rebellion as well.  And for me.

No more fixating on the past.  Time to move forward.

Two weeks passed and September was suddenly almost over in what felt like no time at all.  No news of any upcoming Legendary missions had reached us, and the atmosphere of the Rebellion had become fairly relaxed.

Which was why it was weird that Firestorm still insisted on training like his life depended on it, every day, long after the rest of us had quit.  I’d left him alone most of time because I figured he’d get it out of his system and stop on his own eventually, and any attempts to ask him why never seemed to get anywhere.  But after two weeks, I was kind of starting to get worried.

It was dusk, and the Charmeleon was training on the edge of the forest.  He’d found an old log amongst the trees and had set it up as a target, practicing all of his moves on it.  Back by Midnight Stadium, Stalker was giving a demonstration on setup moves with his Charizard and Dragonite.  Which made the whole situation even weirder because Firestorm loved watching Stalker’s demonstrations.  And, yeah… occasionally he did stop to glance over at it—largely to stare at Charizard, I couldn’t help noticing.  But then he immediately went back to what he was doing with a renewed vigor.

I didn’t know whether or not to say anything this time.  Would it do any good, or would he just brush me off like last time?  Then again, I was his trainer.  It was kind of my job to take care of my Pokémon.  I couldn’t just ignore that.

“Really, Firestorm, you’ve been at this all afternoon,” I finally said.

The Charmeleon paused, pretending like he’d just noticed me, even though I’d seen him glance in my direction when I’d first walked up.

“*Yeah, and you’re my trainer, why am I training without you?*” he asked flatly.

“Because I already did my training for the day,” I said, folding my arms.  “You just keep insisting on doing double time.”

“*Lazy.*”

I rolled my eyes.  “Yeah, well, when you battle yourself into exhaustion, see if I care,” I said, turning to leave.

The fire lizard snorted and went back to his training.  I didn’t really plan on leaving, of course, but he ignored me after that, so I opted to just sit and watch him for a while.

He took a fighting stance in front of the log and brandished his claws before lunging forward and slashing deeply into its surface, faster than I’d seen him move before.  He drew his arms back for a second strike, and his claws suddenly glowed with a metallic sheen right before cleaving deeper gashes into the wood.  A third strike, and his claws were cloaked in wispy tendrils of purple smoke.

I hadn’t seen his Shadow Claw look that well-developed before.  But I didn’t have much chance to appreciate it before the Charmeleon leaped back from where he stood and breathed out a flurry of embers.  The attack lasted a few seconds before he frowned and stopped.  The fire lizard closed his eyes in concentration, inhaling deeply.  He then spat out a half-dozen small fireballs that burned brightly in midair before going out in a puff of smoke.

He really was getting better.  But there was something almost… desperate about his expression and movements throughout all of this.  Like he didn’t just want to be doing this, but felt like he had to, for some reason.  Maybe I was just reading too much into it, but… it reminded me of something.

The time he’d been desperate to help at the plane incident.  The time he’d been completely shut down on the S.S. Anne.  And, more recently…

“This is about what happened with Stracion, isn’t it?”

The Charmeleon froze mid-move, losing his balance and faceplanting into the dirt.  He picked himself up with a huff, shooting a glare in my direction, but then turned away and sagged his shoulders.  He wasn’t denying it.

“*Even after all the training here… I didn’t stand a chance.  Swift at least got a few hits off, but I…*”  His voice trailed off.

I exhaled slowly.  So I was right.  I’d kind of figured as much, but this trend of him being obsessed with being useful in battle was starting to get out of hand.  I’d originally chalked it up to the time he’d spent as weak little Charmander, but the past two months of being a Charmeleon hadn’t really helped much.

“You know, you don’t have to worry about whether or not you’re useful to me.  I still want you around,” I pointed out.

“*Whatever,*” the fire lizard muttered, standing up and giving a few half-hearted slashes at the log.

I sighed.  This wasn’t the sort of problem that was going to sort itself out.  And if he was upset about losing battles, then that wasn’t all on him anyway.  They always said that in competitive battling, a Pokémon was only as good as their trainer—and as a trainer, I was failing him.  The question was, what was our biggest weakness right now?  During the fight with Stracion, he hadn’t been able to land a hit.  Part of that was because her Grovyle was so fast, but the other part… was not having any decent fire moves to hit it with anyway.

“Alright then… I’m your trainer, I need to be training you.  We need to get you some new moves,” I announced suddenly.

Firestorm whirled around in surprise to stare at me incredulously.

“Don’t give me that look, I’m serious,” I said.  “All this time you’ve been stuck with Ember.  I think that’s the source of a lot of our problems—the lack of a good fire move.  And I know we’ve tried working a bit with Fire Fang, but—”

“*I don’t like Fire Fang.  It’s too hard to land a hit with it.*”

I groaned.  If he could just stop complaining for two seconds…  “Well alright, then we’ll need to try something different.”  What other fire moves were Charmeleon capable of using?  I’d know if I had a Pokédex.  Technically I could go back to the stadium and look it up, but I wanted to figure this out on my own.

Let’s see… he did know Fire Blast, but… we’d only tried it once since he’d learned it from that TM, and it was still every bit as unpredictable and impossible to control, even now that he was a Charmeleon.  I’d been afraid to try it again ever since… at least not without Rudy’s Wartortle standing by.  But there were other options…

“Flamethrower is one of the best fire moves,” I said, thinking aloud.  “Powerful, easy to aim.  Takes a lot of energy though, so it’s not a low-level move.”

Firestorm’s eyes lit up.  “*I wanna try it.*”

I nodded, taking a few steps back.  “From what I remember, it’s basically just a long stream of fire.  Like Fire Blast, but way thinner, and you don’t have to get it to split into five, so it should be easier to control.”

Firestorm planted both feet firmly on the ground, digging his claws into the dirt and taking a deep breath.  He then exhaled a large burst of flame that billowed outward in the air before splitting off into wisps and then vanishing completely.  The Charmeleon blinked a bit in surprise, then let out two or three more spurts of fire with similar results.  The flame was impressive—it just wasn’t going anywhere.

“It keeps fading before it travels far enough.  Try making it hotter,” I suggested.

Firestorm closed his eyes in mild frustration before blasting out an even bigger fireball, but this one travelled even less distance before fizzling into smoke.  The Charmeleon stamped his foot against the dirt and tried again, and again, but the more force he put into it, the more it just kind of… scattered all over the place, until finally one attempt didn’t even catch fire in the air, but just sputtered red-hot flares across the ground.

“*This is stupid, why can’t I just use Fire Blast?*” the fire lizard growled, right before inhaling deeply and—

“Don’t!!” I shouted, lunging forward to grab his arm as the fiery glow rose up from his throat.  At the last second, Firestorm snapped his jaws shut, smoke leaking out of the corners of his mouth.

“Just… don’t.  We’re not there yet,” I said quietly.

Firestorm stared at me in surprise, blinking several times before staring downward.  “*Alright, fine…*”

I gave a heavy sigh of relief.  “Besides, how would we even use Fire Blast indoors?  I mean, stadiums are all well and good, but the average Rocket battle isn’t exactly gonna be in a regulation battlefield.”

The Charmeleon folded his arms and gave a slight huff, but he didn’t complain, which was generally code for when he knew I had a point but didn’t want to admit it.

Alright, so his fire breath wasn’t controlled enough for Flamethrower yet… what else could we try?  I racked my brain for fire attacks, half-tempted to just drag Firestorm over to Stalker and ask him directly.

But then the idea struck.  This whole time, he’d been way quicker to pick up physical moves than long-distance ones.  Slash, Metal Claw, Shadow Claw—he was getting good at all of them.  But the instructions I’d been giving him in battle didn’t really reflect that.  Were we wasting our time trying to figure out how to pull off ranged moves when he already had a solid foundation for close-quarters fighting?

“Can you generate fire around your fist?” I suddenly asked.

Firestorm stared blankly.  “*How on earth would I do that?*”

“Just try focusing your energy into it,” I suggested.

The fire lizard shrugged and held a fist up in front of his face, staring at it.  After several seconds, he clenched it tighter, tensing every muscle in his arm.  His brow furrowed, his breathing grew heavier, every ounce of concentration pouring into it.  I squinted, trying to make out if anything was happening.  A spark, a shimmer of heat, anything…

“*Yeah, this is stupid,*” Firestorm said, letting the arm drop to his side.

I sighed, really wishing he wasn’t so quick to dismiss things.  I was definitely onto something with idea of focusing on physical moves—I was sure of it.

Then again… he’d been able to breathe out decent fireballs.  They were just fading away too quickly in the air.  But if they couldn’t be used as a ranged move, maybe they could work in a different way…

“Try breathing a fireball onto your fist.”

“*What?*” Firestorm asked, gawking at me like I’d just gone insane.

“I’m serious, try it.”

The Charmeleon held his fist in front of his face and gave it an incredulous look, like this couldn’t possibly work.  Still, he went ahead and blew out a small fireball onto it.  The flames surrounded his claws, not really doing anything at first.  But then he stopped adding fire with his breath and the flames… actually stuck around for a few seconds before going out.

Firestorm’s eyes went wide.  “*Did you see that?!*”

“I did—try striking with it next time!” I said excitedly.

With the most enthusiasm he’d shown all night, the fire lizard breathed a huge fireball onto his fist and immediately concentrated on holding it there.  The fireball shrank considerably after the first few seconds, but it was still there, flickering away.  Firestorm stared at it excitedly, then remembered that he was supposed to be doing something with it and swung the flaming fist at the log, striking it with a solid punch that sent a wave of flares flying away from the impact.  It had worked!

“There we go!  That’s the start of a decent Fire Punch!” I exclaimed.

Firestorm stared at the log, like he could hardly believe was he was seeing.  But then the shock wore off and a grin started to creep across his face.

I patted him on the back.  “Not bad.  Now come on—is that enough success for the night?  Ready to stop?”

Firestorm glanced up at me with a sort of weary exhilaration.  Like he was too excited to stop, but had also just realized how tired he was.  “*Yeah.  Alright.*”

I gave him another pat and turned to walk back to the stadium, motioning for him to follow me.  The Charmeleon plodded along after me, slowly at first, then jogging to catch up.

“*Hey, um… thanks,*” he mumbled awkwardly.

“Don’t mention it,” I said.  But then one more thing occurred to me, and I couldn’t just let it go without saying something. “So I saw you staring at Stalker’s Charizard a bunch.  What’s with that?” I teased.

Firestorm’s eyes went wide, and he immediately looked away.  “*Nothing, she’s just… really strong, and I wanna be strong like that someday,*” he mumbled.  Sure, that’s all there was to it.  I definitely believed that, except that I didn’t.

I nudged him playfully in the ribs but didn’t press the matter any further.  The embarrassed look on his face was more than enough for me.

Chapter Text

Firestorm took a fighting stance in front of me, claws flexed, flame-tail swinging back and forth.  Across from us, Darren gave a confident smirk while his Ivysaur posed as tall as he could on his stubby legs.  And opposite the both of us was Rudy.  It was the perfect three-way matchup.  All three of us had a different starter Pokémon, each with an advantage and disadvantage over one of the other two.

Except Rudy still had yet to send out Wartortle.

He shuffled a bit with a look of hesitation.  “I still don’t see why I can’t use Ebony.”

“Cause we’re having a starter battle?  Last time I checked, Houndoom aren’t starter Pokémon,” Darren replied.

“Well… yeah, but she was my first Pokémon.”

“And Swift was my first Pokémon,” I said exasperatedly.

Rudy glanced back and forth between me and Darren and groaned.  “Alright, fiiine,” he said, replacing Ebony’s ball on his belt and pulling out another.  He tossed it forward to release Wartortle before folding his arms in a huff.  The bipedal tortoise laid eyes on his opponents and flinched slightly, but with a glance back at his trainer, he forced himself to take a more confident stance.

The only question now was who would make the first move?  Should I be the one, or would it be better to lead with Protect and wait for an opening?  Go for the easy target in Ivysaur, or try to stall while Ivysaur took out Wartortle?  The other two hesitated similarly.  Rudy’s eyes flickered around, but then settled on me for just a second too long…

And that was the sign I needed.

“Now! Water Pulse!” he yelled, pointing at me.

“Dodge and use Scary Face!” I immediately countered.

Firestorm had already broken into a run by the time Wartortle took a deep breath and shot out a pulsating water ring at him.  The fire lizard easily avoided the water move, then spun around and flashed a menacing snarl at his opponent, making the water-type freeze out of shock.

“Razor Leaf!” Darren called out.

While the other two were focused on each other, Ivysaur was free to launch a flurry of razor-sharp leaves at his opponents, catching both of them with tiny cuts all over.  Firestorm braced his arms in front of his face and weathered the storm, but the leaves dug deeper into Wartortle’s scales, forcing the tortoise to withdraw into his shell.

“Come on, Water Pulse again!” Rudy called out.

“Er… Protect?” I ordered.

I wasn’t totally sure if Firestorm was even the target, but sure enough, another ring of water shot right at him.  The fire lizard had plenty of time to produce a shimmering white barrier around himself, deflecting the attack with a spray of mist.

Rudy stared incredulously.  “The hell?  Come on, you’ve gotta attack sooner or later!”

“You’ve got the type advantage, of course I’m not just gonna rush in blindly against—”  My words were cut off by the whoosh of another Razor Leaf.

“Hey guys, it’s cool if you just wanna keep attacking each other the entire time, but I thought this was a multi battle?” Darren asked, his voice dripping with mock innocence.

Eh… right.

Rudy glowered at him.  “Fine, use Bite on Ivysaur!”

Fangs bared, Wartortle charged ahead as fast as he could before lunging at the grass-type, who made no attempt to dodge.  The tortoise clamped down hard onto Ivysaur’s leg—the latter winced, but stood his ground until his trainer gave out the command, “Stun Spore!”

So that’s why he’d taken the hit.

Ivysaur gave the slightest trace of a grin right before tilting his body so the flower bud was facing forward and unleashing a cloud of yellow spores all over Wartortle.  Firestorm paused as the cloud started to spread out and drift toward him.  But then, without any orders from me, the fire lizard spat out a flurry of embers, which snapped and crackled as they burned up the paralyzing spores.

“Good thinking!” I called out.  “Alright, time for a Fire Punch!”

The Charmeleon breathed out a fireball onto his claws and lunged forward at Ivysaur, catching the grass-type in the side with a flaming punch.  He jumped back just as fast to avoid a counterattack, but then Ivysaur’s vines suddenly shot out from all around him! Firestorm lashed out with his claws, but soon found himself completely tied up with his arms pressed against his sides.

“Try dodging Sleep Powder now,” Darren said with a smirk.

Crap.  If Firestorm got put to sleep, he’d be a sitting duck just asking to get hit with a Water Pulse.  And there was Rudy, pointing forward, ready to call out another move.  Had to do something, and fast!

“Ember!” I blurted out.  Ivysaur’s eyes went wide as he realized his mistake, right before a burst of flares hit him right in the face.  The vines slackened for just a second—enough for the fire lizard to untangle himself.  But not before a blast of water struck him head on.  The fire-type reeled backward, coughing and sputtering.  The culprit, Wartortle was already prepping for another water move.

It had been long enough since the last time Firestorm used Protect, right?

“Protect!” I yelled.

It took a good second longer than the last time, but Firestorm barely managed to raise the white barrier in time to block the second water ring that flew towards him.

Rudy was dumbfounded.  “What?! Come on! Why are you only blocking my attacks?!”

“Well if you’re just standing there ordering Water Pulse the entire time, it’s kind of predictable!” I countered.

“I’m just gonna use Razor Leaf again, if that’s alright with everyone,” Darren said, pointing to his Ivysaur.

Ugh.  Yet again, Rudy had gotten me to only focus on him in the battle.  But of course Darren didn’t want Wartortle to go down first.  That was his best shot at Firestorm getting defeated.  He’d been sticking to spread moves and single targeting Firestorm.  No reason to think that was gonna change.

Come on, think… there was a solution there, I just knew it.

“Alright Wartortle, use Rapid Spin to dodge the leaves and then Water Pulse right in Charmeleon’s face, before he can Protect again!” Rudy yelled.

That was going to be a problem.

Wartortle ducked into his shell before zooming along the ground at high speed, deflecting most of the leaves that had been sent his way.  The tortoise closed the distance with Firestorm way quicker than I’d been expecting.  He sprung out of his shell, ready for the attack—!

…and then dropped to his knees, his muscles twitching from paralysis.

“Are you kidding me?!”

It took me several seconds to realize now was the time to make a move.  Something—not a fire move, not something that would just bounce off Wartortle’s shell, something like—

“Dragon Rage!”

Firestorm breathed out a lick of sparkling blue and green dragonfire onto the downed water-type, who fell onto his back and didn’t move.

“Whaaaat?!”  Yep, that was pretty much the response I’d been expecting.  I ignored Rudy and turned my attention to my sole remaining opponent, who folded his arms and said, “Well that’s exactly what I was hoping wouldn’t happen.”

I laughed and said, “Hey, I’m not complaining.”  Then I motioned to Firestorm and called out, “Fire Punch!”

The Charmeleon grinned and breathed out a fireball onto his claws before lunging.  Darren had his fists clenched in concentration, waiting for the fire-type to draw near.  At the last possible second, he ordered, “Protect!”

Firestorm’s punch collided with a barrier out of nowhere, scattering red-hot flares throughout the air.

“Don’t let up! Fire Punch again! Ivysaur can’t keep that up forever!”

Darren frowned.  “Drop the Protect and use Sleep Powder!”

Trying to catch us off guard?  But Firestorm was too quick and already had his attack ready.  The instant the shield went down, he connected with a flaming uppercut that scorched the grass-type’s scales.  Ivysaur stumbled backward, struggling to stand, and then finally collapsed.

I had won.  I had… actually won.

Firestorm turned around with an equally stunned expression, which slowly faded into a wild-eyed grin.

“You did awesome!” I exclaimed, giving the Charmeleon a thumbs-up.

“Alright admit it, you totally had the advantage there,” Darren said, giving me a snide look.

I snorted and was about to ask what he meant, but then noticed him ever-so-slightly tilt his head.  Right… the Pokémon that Firestorm was weak to in that match also had a trainer completely uninterested in training him.

“Okay, seriously, that was ridiculous, I’d have won hands down if you just let me use Ebony,” Rudy grumbled, walking over to us.

“You’ve been using Ebony in every battle since she evolved,” I said, rolling my eyes.

Rudy was unimpressed.  “Well yeah, Houndoom are awesome and she always wins.”

I wouldn’t have said always, but he definitely had a pretty good record with her.  When the two of them battled, they were almost perfectly in sync.  Which was why I didn’t really feel like arguing against his point.

“Aw whatever,” he said, wandering off.  He barely got five steps away before grabbing a Pokéball and letting out Ebony, who glanced up at him, tongue hanging out of her mouth.

“Ready to kick some more butts?” Rudy asked.

The firedog barked out an overexcited, “*Yeah!*” before running circles around him.  Twice as big as she had been as a Houndour, now sporting a full set of horns and skeletal spines—still just a pup at heart.  Finding an opponent right now was likely gonna be hard, though.  Most of the rebels outside were currently watching the experiments battle.

Stygian only liked fighting the stronger rebels like Ray and Mai—right now the latter had pitted her Arbok and Primeape against the dark-type.  Aros, on the other hand, would battle pretty much anyone at any time, bragging constantly about beating Pokémon half his level.  I wasn’t too sure how helpful that was, but Stalker hadn’t made him stop.  And the dragon never hurt anyone too badly.  Mostly just egos.

Razors stood off to the side, watching the others.  I still had yet to see him battle with anyone here, which was kind of a shame.  I’d been looking forward to seeing his fighting style when he wasn’t controlled by Team Rocket.  But he always turned down any battle requests.

By now, Darren had let out the rest of his team members and was busy discussing the afternoon’s training plan with them.  The freshly-healed Ivysaur sat apart from the others and glowered at Firestorm, still sore from his recent defeat.  Sandslash gave the grass-type a reassuring pat before gesturing for him to join the others.  Psyduck and Kadabra welcomed him over while Sneasel, the newest addition to the team, listened to Darren with starry eyes.

“C’mon, let’s see if we can get Psyduck to evolve today,” he said to his team before the group of them walked off into the forest.

“*When am I gonna evolve?*” Firestorm’s voice suddenly cut in.

“Is that the only thing you think about?  I dunno, Stalker said you still had a ways to go, so I’m gonna trust him on that.”

Firestorm scoffed.  “*He always says that.*”

“Then it’ll keep on being true until he says otherwise.”  The fire lizard snorted but didn’t argue.

At some point the two of us joined the rest of the group watching the battle between Mai and Stygian.  The Absol’s movements were sluggish, and her left foreleg bore a purplish tinge—poison, most likely.  Still, the white-furred beast kept deftly dodging punches from Primeape like they were nothing, following up with slashes of pink energy from the blade on her head.

Heavy wingbeats behind me caught my attention, and I turned to see a Pidgeotto approaching me from the trees.  Swift!  I hadn’t seen him all day.  Earlier I’d been wondering where he’d flown off to, but had forgotten about it with the events of the day.

The Pidgeotto landed on the ground (he was much too big to land on my arm like he used to as a Pidgey) and glanced up at me with an inquisitive look.  “*Can you help me with something?*”

I tilted my head, bemused.  “Sure?”

He glanced down and shifted his wings a bit, unsure of how to follow through with his request.  “*There’s writing on the walls of the quiet place that I like.  Can you read it to me?*”

Was that all?  Well, that was no big deal.  “Sure, I guess?  Is it in town?”

The tawny bird shook his head.  “*It’s in the forest.*”

What?  A walled place with writing in the forest?  Why was there…?

Swift hesitated upon seeing my change in expression.  “*It’s fine if you don’t want to—*” he started.

“No, you’ve got me curious now.  Let’s go see it,” I said.

The crisp autumn air swept through the trees, scattering multicolored leaves that blanketed the forest floor, resulting in a hearty crunch with each step I took.  I was walking too slow for Swift to keep pace with me in the air without making constant circles, so the Pidgeotto glided from tree to tree, landing on the lowest and barest branch of each one.  I hadn’t asked how far away his quiet place was, but he was leading me deep into the heart of the island, in a completely different direction than the Rebellion’s usual training path.

“So you fly out here often?” I asked him.

“*Sometimes,*” the bird replied.  “*I like having a quiet spot to think.  And it’s an interesting place.*”

I still wasn’t quite sure what could possibly be so interesting way out here in the forest, but that’s why I was going with him in the first place.

Every so often, various wild Pokémon took notice of Swift and leaped out of the brush to challenge us.  The wilds around here knew the local trainers were always up for a battle.  And Swift was happy to oblige, striking his opponents down with his wings, dazzling them with his speed, and stirring up impressive whirlwinds with only a few flaps.  After his third opponent, an energetic Raticate, was sent running with a rapid combination of Aerial Ace and Quick Attack, I couldn’t help feeling my heart swell a bit with pride.  Just two months ago, he’d been a tiny Pidgey, and now…

“You’re getting pretty strong, you know that?” I said, unable to keep that pride out of my voice.

“*We all are,*” Swift replied matter-of-factly.

It seemed silly to include me in that statement, but in a weird way, I still appreciated it.  Compared to the others my strategies still felt… really basic.  And I took too long to come up with orders on the spot.  Still, I couldn’t deny that I had gotten better.  My mind wandered back to the downright laughable first battle I’d had with Darren, the day that we’d all arrived on Midnight Island.  The way that I’d just stared blankly at Swift, unable to come up with any orders.  Anything was better than that.

“*Strength is nice, but it’s not everything,*” Swift said, with an airy, offhand tone like he was thinking aloud.  “*Training here has let me learn so many things.  I want to know how everything works.*”  He paused, looking down.  “*It’s not something Pokémon are supposed to think about, though.*”

I tilted my head.  “Why do you say that?”

For several seconds, he didn’t acknowledge that I’d said anything.  Finally, in a soft voice, he replied, “*They said I asked too many strange questions.*”

Now that was hard to imagine, Swift asking too many questions.  He’d barely ever talked at all until we’d started this journey together.  But then… maybe that was because of the way his fellow Pokémon had reacted.

“That was before I found you, right?” I asked.

The Pidgeotto nodded.  “*I do not remember much from that time, though.*”

He had been only a few months old when I’d found him.  It was around six years ago, but the details of it still shone just as brightly in my memory as the day it had happened.  Seeing the small, crumpled form of a Pidgey lying alone in the grass after what had probably been his first time flying far from home.  Frantically biking home with one arm curled around a warm, trembling body.  Getting told to drop him off at the Pokécenter, but staying there the entire time he was being treated.  Releasing him the next day, only for him to return to my house every day after that, following me everywhere I went.

“You know… the last time I asked you why you came back, I couldn’t understand you that much.  Why did you?”

Swift paused to consider the question.  “*I’d been curious about humans for a while,*” he said finally.  “*Humans make so many interesting things.  Humans do so many interesting things.  I felt ready to join that world.*”

I stared at the ground sheepishly.  “I guess you couldn’t have asked me much about how things work back when I lived at home.  I was too bad at Pokéspeech.”

Swift’s eyes brightened.  “*I was glad when you started to learn Pokéspeech, even if it took a long time.*”

It was weird… it seemed like just yesterday that I had to focus all my effort into catching a few words out of Swift’s chirps.  And now we were conversing like nothing was more natural.

“I’m glad too.”

The two of us continued on through the forest as the afternoon stretched on.  After some time, I couldn’t help noticing a gap in the trees ahead of us.

“*This is it,*” Swift announced after landing in a tree far ahead of me.

I jogged a bit to catch up with him and then the two of us emerged into a large clearing—one that was far from empty.  In front of me stood a massive stone structure comprised of a wide, flat platform ringed by rectangular pillars twice my height.  Crumbled chunks of moss-covered stone surrounded each pillar, like they’d once been supporting something even larger that had collapsed with age.  All of the stone had a weathered and worn look that made the whole place feel downright ancient.

“Holy crap… this has been here the whole time?  I had no idea…”

Movement, out of the corner of my eye.  I turned my head to the left and caught sight of a violet gas ball drifting lazily amongst the trees before crossing the clearing and vanishing through a pillar.

A Gastly.

Then again, that wasn’t too surprising.  The island was full of wild ghost-types (something about being close to Lavender Town). But we never saw ‘em during the day.  This was… weirdly early to see one out and about.

Swift must have noticed my bewildered expression because he piped up with, “*They come out early here.  It’s normal.*”  I guess they couldn’t have been too troublesome if he’d been coming here alone all this time, no problem.

The Pidgeotto flapped forward to perch on the closest pillar as I walked up the stone steps that led inside the ruins.  Though the outside had been worn, the inside was practically untouched—not even any dirt or leaves littered the stone floor.  The inward-facing sides of the pillars each featured a single, intricate symbol carved into their surface.  But that was nothing compared to the far wall, which was completely covered with carvings in dozens of different scripts.  Some of them vaguely familiar, most of them totally foreign.  This had to be the writing Swift had been curious about.  But even the familiar scripts were from languages that no one had spoken in, what, a few hundred years?  Just how old were these ruins?

“I, uh… don’t think I’m gonna be able to read any of this stuff.  It’s gotta be hundreds of years old, maybe more, and—”

I blinked.  On one of the slabs was some writing I could actually read.  At first, I was sure my eyes were just playing tricks on me, but there it was—words written in the Tohjoan alphabet.  But there was no way that I’d be able to understand it; it’d likely be some ancient language that just happened to use the same—

It wasn’t.  It was actual, honest-to-god, Tohjoan.

This shrine stands here to honor those among the Order of the Legends who have fought to protect the balance of the world as an extension of the original purpose bestowed upon them.  Yet even as the fires of war subside, the balance that they fought so hard to preserve is already on the inevitable path to being torn apart once again.  Seven among the Order—the ones who dedicated both mind, body, and spirit toward ending the war—shall be empowered to forge an alliance with humankind so that both might endure.  The seven are bound by their duty to seek out the interlopers to protect the balance of power in the coming era.  For though none may prevail, what is set into motion shall be much greater indeed.

Legendary Pokémon.  It was a message about Legendary Pokémon.  But it wasn’t written like a story… it was written like it was something that had actually happened.  Something that would happen again.  A war involving Legendary Pokémon that had happened once before and was going to happen again.

A prophecy, in other words.

“*What does it say?*” Swift asked.

I read the inscription out loud to him.  The words sank deeper into my mind upon reading it a second time, and it was impossible not to wonder if it was more than just a legend.

“*Do you believe there is any truth to it?*”  He’d said the words I’d been thinking.

“I… don’t know.”  A great disaster that would force an alliance between humans and Legendaries… the idea sent an uncomfortable shudder running through me.

But… it couldn’t really be a prophecy.  Could it?

I shivered and started rubbing my arms as a chill swept through the ruins.  The sky was reddening into dusk.  And the ghost-types had grown more numerous, their gaseous bodies floating in and out of the shadows cast by the ruin pillars in the light of the setting sun.  I wasn’t too worried about them—Swift was strong enough to take on almost any wild Pokémon on the island, and most of the ghosts’ moves couldn’t even touch him.  But there was no denying the chilling atmosphere they brought with them, or the way every hair on my body now stood on end.  Right about now, the other kids were probably winding down for the night.  Returning to the warmth of the stadium and curling up in the lounge to watch famous League battles with the rest of my teammates sounded particularly appealing at the moment.

I motioned to Swift.  “Let’s head back now.”  The Pidgeotto spread his wings and took off for the trees, and I hastened to follow him.  There was something weird about that place.  Something I couldn’t quite pin down.  And it wasn’t going to stop bothering me until I got a chance to ask Stalker about it.

I didn’t have to go out of my way to find Stalker to ask him about the ruins.  In fact, he was the one who approached me the following day, flagging me down in the stadium as Rudy, Darren, and I returned from grabbing breakfast in town.  I told the other two I’d catch up with them in a bit before making my way to the audience stands, where he was watching the rebels train.

“I’ve got an update regarding your last mission,” Stalker said as I approached him.

I couldn’t help flinching.  Right, I’d almost forgotten.  It had always been too much to hope that my little misadventure in Celadon wouldn’t have any consequences.

“While your Rocket ID was never officially flagged for suspicion, it’s likely they left it alone in the hopes that you’d use it to get into another base and be an easy target.”

Of course.  Why reject my ID at the door when they could just let me think everything was perfectly fine only to walk right into an ambush?

“I can always get you a new ID and bypass the background checks like I did with everyone originally, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re more likely to be recognized now.  So any missions where you’d interact with Rockets as one of them, those are all off the table now.  You’ll be limited to stealth missions.”

Honestly… I was kind of okay with that.  The idea of going back to Cerulean now and going about my grunt business like nothing had ever happened… wasn’t very appealing.

“And I want a teleporter with you at all times in case things go south.  One of your partners has a teleporter, right?”

“Yeah, Darren’s Abra is a Kadabra now and they’ve started practicing long-range jumps,” I said.  “But I thought all the Rocket bases had teleport blockers?”

“They do, but it’s still useful for making a getaway once you’re outside.”

I paused.  Something was starting to feel a bit weird about all of this.  It almost sounded like he’d be needing me to visit a Rocket base soon.

“Why bring this up now?” I asked.  “Is there a big mission coming up?”

Stalker folded his arms.  “I have a few suspicions.  That’s why I needed to figure out a way to continue to use you.”

“…Specifically me?”

“You have the single strongest Pokémon on the Rebellion now,” he replied simply.

I blinked.  I… kind of did, didn’t I?  It seemed obvious now that he’d pointed it out, but I never would’ve made that realization otherwise.

“I’ll let everyone know once I have more details.  For now, keep training, and be ready for the next mission… it could be a big one,” he said, turning to leave.

Hang on, I still needed to ask him about the ruins.  “Wait.  Before you go, I was wanting to ask something,” I said quickly.  Stalker turned back to face me, a curious look on his face.  I honestly wasn’t sure what the odds were that he’d know any more than I did.  But it was worth a shot.

“I was taking a walk through the forest, and I… found something.  Some kind of ruins.”

At once, Stalker’s eyes lit up with interest, and for a second it was like his calm, guarded air had just vanished.  “What did you think of them?” he asked, the slightest edge of a grin crossing his face.

I blinked.  That wasn’t the response I’d been expecting.  “You knew about them?”

“Of course,” he replied.  No explanation.  Why wouldn’t he know about them?

“How come you never mentioned them?” I asked.

“I didn’t want everyone going there all at once, disturbing them,” he said offhandedly.  “I figured a few of you would stumble across it eventually though.”

Huh.  Well, I guess he was right about that.

“Those ruins are the reason I chose Midnight Island as the base location,” he continued.  “I’m fascinated by Legendaries and everything to do with them.”

A glimmer of excitement was starting to build within me.  “What did you think of the legend carved there?”

Stalker paused, considering the question carefully.  “I believe it refers to the wars that tore through multiple regions 3000 years ago.”

My eyes widened.  “What, you mean the cataclysmic era?” I hadn’t realized the legend could be referring to that.  It was kind of a big deal—the only time in history that basically the entire world was caught up in wars.  It was the start of our calendar and everything.

“You know about it?” Stalker asked, looking intrigued.

“Well yeah.  I mean, I’m not an expert on it, but pretty much everyone’s heard of it, right?” I paused, as the implications of that knowledge suddenly hit me.  “Wait, hang on… if that legend was talking about something that actually happened… then what was with the ending?”

Stalker didn’t respond for quite some time.  Finally, in a low tone of voice, he said, “The writer obviously believed that history repeats itself.”

Well that was unnerving.  At least the odds of someone managing to accurately predict the state of the world 3000 years in the future was pretty ridiculous.  Unless it really was a prophecy.  Which it probably wasn’t.  Hopefully.

“Now it’s my turn to ask you something,” Stalker said.

I tilted my head.  I hadn’t been expecting that, but I nodded for him to go ahead.

“Why did you join the Rebellion?”

I raised an eyebrow.  “What?  That’s a… weird question.”

“Everyone joined this team for their own reasons.  I want to know yours,” he said matter-of-factly.

I immediately opened my mouth to respond, but then stopped.  Why had I joined the Rebellion?  I’d been vaguely in favor of the idea when I first met Stalker in the forest the day that Entei was captured.  But it wasn’t until after the plane incident that I’d really started to consider it for real.  I’d told myself it was about protecting the Legendaries, but… that wasn’t it, was it?

“To be honest… it was for entirely selfish reasons,” I said slowly, more thinking aloud than really answering.  “I wanted to get stronger.  I heard about the fight and wanted to make a difference.  I wanted to feel… important.”

“And do you?”

I glanced up at him.  “Huh?”

“Do you feel important now?” Stalker asked, gazing at me intently.

I stared at the ground, mentally repeating his words to myself.  “I… I guess so?”  I mean, I hadn’t helped any Legendaries yet, but I’d freed the experiments.  That had to count for something, right?

“Good.  Now’s the time for morale to be high,” he said, walking past me.  “We’re doing something important here.  I don’t want anyone forgetting that.”

Throughout the following week, my mind kept straying back to the ruins.  Talking to Stalker really hadn’t helped me stop thinking about them.  In fact, it seemed to have the opposite effect.  Especially considering that I had a strong suspicion that Stalker knew more about the ruins than he was letting on.  He certainly had a way of answering questions without actually providing any info.

That said, I felt really, really stupid as I trudged through the woods in the direction I remembered Swift taking me.  I mean, really… what was I doing?  I had already read the legend.  I remembered what it said.  I just… couldn’t stop thinking about it.  Seven Legendaries had ended the cataclysmic era 3000 years ago, and now it was supposedly going to happen again, and if that was true, then wasn’t it the sort of thing people should know about?

I had no idea what returning to the ruins was supposed to accomplish, but if going back there would help my brain shut up, then it was worth it.

I stepped into the clearing and was greeted with the familiar sight of the ancient stone structure.  And just like last time, the place was crawling with ghost-types.  Orblike Gastly weaved in and out of the pillars, flicking their long tongues and leaving trails of purple mist in their wake.  It was still weird seeing them out this early, even if Swift said it was normal.  I couldn’t help keeping one hand on Firestorm’s Pokéball as I approached the ruins, just in case any of the ghosts decided I looked like a target.  But at the sound of my footsteps, they all scattered to the trees.

Something felt off about the place.  More than the last time I was here, with Swift.  I couldn’t explain why, but an air of unease settled in as I walked up the stone steps into the center of the ruins.  The great wall covered in writing loomed ahead of me.  And then my eyes fell on the gaping hole currently in the middle of it.

What?  That wasn’t there last time.

My legs carried me closer to the opening without me telling them to.  A thick groove was set into the stone floor where the wall segment had slid out of view.  I leaned forward, peering down the passageway.

Stairs.  Leading downward.

The urge to turn around and pretend I hadn’t come back here suddenly struck.  But part of me had to know what was down there.  Especially if it offered more insight into everything that was written up here.  And especially if Stalker didn’t know this was here.  Maybe he did… but the fact that he might not was what drove me to take the first step into the passageway.  And then another.  I shivered.  The air in the stairway was drastically colder than the outside, making the hair on my arms stand on end.  But soon I couldn’t see them any more as the light from outside faded, leaving me in near total darkness.  I braced my hands against the wall and took it one step at a time.  Slowly, my eyes started to adjust, and I caught sight of a glow ahead of me.  Just a few more steps now.

I emerged into a small, dimly lit stone chamber.  The walls were absolutely covered in writings.  And in the center of the room sat a waist-high pedestal.  A jagged, crystalline stone sat atop the pedestal, giving off an eerie sheen.

I exhaled slowly, then coughed as I tried to breathe in the stale air down here.  Just how old was this chamber?  And that stone… had it been here since the ruins were built?  Slowly, I stepped forward into the center of the room, turning around in a circle to look at all of the writing on the walls.  And just like last time, my eyes fell on a portion of text that I could read.  What in the world was modern Tohjoan doing in a place like this?

For several seconds, I didn’t move.  But curiosity won out in the end.  I leaned forward, squinted at the writing in the dim light, and read:

Only one who is marked may remove this orb from its resting place, for none should have their fate bound that have not already chosen it for themselves.  Three orbs were forged from the birth of this realm, and each has been sealed away so that the realms might remain separate forever.  They lie in wait, sensing only the essence of those who would seek to restore balance to that which was never meant to exist.   Though the seven patrons have been tasked with forging an alliance with humankind, they cannot prevent the fires of the Revolution from swallowing the land.  When they have made their stand, joining the orbs together will be the only means to light a path to the truth that was hidden from this world.

A chill swept over me.  Another legend.  And this one didn’t sound so pleasant—whoever wrote this one sure wasn’t very optimistic about the future.  It basically just made it sound like everything written upstairs was dead wrong.  An alliance between humans and Legendaries?  Nope, the world is screwed either way.

Then again, if Stalker was right, and it was written after the major multi-region wars that restarted the calendar, it was probably hard for anyone to be optimistic at the time.

As for the… orb?  (It looked more like a stone to me.  It wasn’t round enough to be an orb.) It was impossible not to get the feeling that it was important, though.  Sealed away in a secret chamber underneath ancient ruins with a foreboding message.  Come on, that was the epitome of suspicious.  But how was it still here?  How come no one had found it and taken it after all this time?

‘Only one who is marked may remove this orb…’

Well that was fine.  It wasn’t like I had any reason to steal a random artifact that I’d just stumbled across.  Still, it’d be interesting to ask Stalker about it.

I turned to look away from it… but my eyes didn’t want to leave.  I blinked a few times, nonplussed.  Okay, yeah, it was interesting, but there was nothing else to see here.  I had to leave.

My body didn’t move.  I wasn’t really going to just leave, was I?  Not without investigating it closer.  Even if the writings were just a myth, there was no denying that the orb, right here in front of me, was real.  My legs carried me closer to the pedestal, and I leaned forward to stare at it closely.  The orb’s amber, crystalline surface caught the light shining down through the entryway, glinting with an oddly silvery sheen.  Without entirely knowing why, I reached my hand out to run my fingers along it.  The orb was cool to the touch, and it left an airy, tingly feeling in my fingertips.

I wanted it.

The writings?  I wasn’t sure what to think of them.  But the orb?  The orb was important.  Somehow, nothing was truer than that.

My fingers slowly traced the edges of the orb.  Encircling it.  Clasping it.  Lifting it.  It took more effort than I expected.  Like it was actually made of dense metal.  Yet part of my brain expected it to slip right through my fingers like gas.

Wait.

Okay, no, what was I doing?  Grabbing some random artifact from a cave and taking it?  Yeah, that was a good idea—no way could anything bad ever come from that.  In fact, even just being here felt like a bad idea.  I still had no idea why the chamber had opened up (by itself?), and something told me I wouldn’t like the answer.  I was going to leave now.

Also the orb was still firmly clenched in my right hand.  So I was going to set it down, then leave.

…Any second now.

No.  I couldn’t.  I needed it.

Somehow, I was outside now.  I hadn’t noticed myself leave the chamber.  And the orb, where was the—it was in my pocket now.  Why had I taken it again?  I couldn’t remember.  There was definitely a reason—an important reason—but…

Exasperation prodded at the back of my mind.  Who really cared if I took the orb?  It had been sitting down there for who knows how long, and if I wasn’t supposed to have it, then the chamber shouldn’t have opened in the first place.

The sun had already slipped out of view.  Streaks of red and gold painted the clouds overhead, and the tiniest sliver of a crescent moon had appeared on the horizon.  How long was I down there?  I glanced back at the passage I’d apparently just exited, now feeling a tingle of unease.  The stone entryway had already shut itself behind me.

“I… really need to show this to Stalker,” I muttered to myself, reaching into my pocket to run my fingers along the orb’s surface.  But even as I said it, I knew I wouldn’t.  I couldn’t show him.  I couldn’t show anyone.  No one could know that I had it.

A sudden chill fell over the surrounding.  I barely had a chance to register it before an icy gale swept through the ruins, throwing my hair in my face and chilling every inch of exposed skin.

“Explain your presence here, human.”

I froze.  The words were ice.  They gripped my senses and resounded in my ears long after they had been spoken.  Even stranger, the speaker was absolutely not human… but the words were not Pokéspeech.

Behind me.  That’s where the voice had come from.  I’d have to look sooner or later.  No matter how much I didn’t want to.  My movements dragged like mud as I forced myself to turn around.  My eyes fell on the speaker.  And my heart instantly jumped into my throat.

A slender beast stood atop the stone archway at the entrance to the ruins.  Diamond-spotted cobalt fur covered a lithe frame with muscles poised to strike at any moment.  Twilight glinted through crystalline antlers, casting sea-green highlights across the stone floor and making the ruins feel even more unearthly.  But the weirdest thing was how its violet mane and ribbon-like tails constantly billowed through the air… like it was surrounded by its own personal whirlwind.

I’d only ever seen pictures… but it was unmistakably Suicune.  The Legendary Beast of the North Wind.

It felt as though the air had gone from my lungs.  I wasn’t sure it hadn’t really happened.  Suicune.  Right here, right now.  Not across a clearing, being hunted by Rockets.  Standing right in front of me, focusing on me and only me.  Why was a Legendary focusing on me?  I was nobody.

Except I was a nobody who happened to be standing here right at this moment, in a place I obviously wasn’t supposed to be.  What could I possibly say against that?

The beast spoke.  “How did you get into that chamber?”

“I… what?” I stuttered, feeling my stomach dissolve.  The chamber.  If the ruins weren’t off-limits, the chamber definitely was.  And the orb.  Oh god, I’d stolen the orb.

“How did you get into that chamber?” it repeated.

I had to tell it something.  I swallowed hard and, with every effort to keep my voice from trembling, said, “I… I don’t know.”

“Do you honestly believe you can lie to me?” the cobalt beast replied icily.

My heart was pounding.  “I’m not lying!  It—it opened by itself.”

Piercing crimson eyes bored into me.  But then their owner tilted its head ever so slightly, and for just a second, it looked somewhat intrigued.  “What was down there?”

I couldn’t tell it about the orb.  Wait, what?  Why not?  It was a Legendary Pokémon.  Ancient treasures and prophecies and the like were supposed to be their area of expertise.  At least, that’s how all the stories went…

The North Wind continued to stare at me expectantly.  Right, I hadn’t answered its question yet.  What was down there?

“More writings.  Like the ones up here,” I finally said.

“What did they say?”

I opened my mouth to speak… and found all memory of the legend completely gone.

“I… don’t remember.”

Anger flashed through the beast’s eyes, and the air around it whipped into a frenzy.  Oh god I’d done it now, angering a Legendary right to its face.  I screwed my eyes shut, half expecting a frigid burst of wind to freeze me to the spot.

“Leave now.  Do not return,” the Legendary barked.

My eyes snapped open, and I stared at the beast in disbelief.  I was so stunned that it took several seconds for my brain to register that I was going to be okay, I just had to leave immediately.  Slowly, shakily, I took one step back.  Then another.  Then my legs finally got the message and I found myself bolting in the opposite direction as fast as they could carry me.

I reached the trees and ducked behind one, doubled over from the sudden rush of panic and my heart beating painfully fast.  It wasn’t following me, was it?  I glanced over my shoulder to see that Suicune had leaped down from its perch and was now investigating the stone wall that had opened for me.

I sank back against the tree and let out a huge sigh of relief.  I was in the clear.  Unbelievable.  Part of me had been so convinced that it was going to attack.  I closed my eyes and focused on calming down and regaining control of my breathing.

Four.  I’d seen four Legendary Pokémon so far.  Entei, Raikou, Mewtwo, and Suicune.  All four of them had the same overwhelming presence.  All four gave off the same impression of pure power.

And then it properly hit me for the first time—for as amazing as the Legendary Pokémon were… they were absolutely terrifying.

Chapter Text

Viridian base.  The primary headquarters for all of Team Rocket, and the one which all other branches reported to.  Where all the highest-ranking agents worked.  Where Giovanni himself worked.

It was also the base that Darren and I were currently infiltrating.

“Right, so… no problems so far.  You sure you’re bad luck, Jade?  The way you were talking earlier, I was expecting to get jumped the second we set foot in the place.”

I gave him an unamused stare.  “Look, it always starts off fine, okay?  Then before you know it, you’re running for your life and you don’t even know why.”

The last time I’d been to a Rocket base, it had been nearly deserted.  This time couldn’t have been more different.  All around us, Rockets of all divisions and ranks rushed about, followed by Pokémon carrying assets for them.  Almost all of them had combat unit patches on their uniform.  After all, Viridian base did have the largest combat unit on the force.  Normally this would have been the worst time to sneak around a base, but with how crucial it was that we be here right now, we didn’t have much of a choice.

Like Stalker had feared, there was indeed a big combat unit mission coming up.  The only problem was, we had absolutely no idea what it was.  None of the infiltration teams had been able to gather anything.  None of Stalker’s allies had gotten anything.  We were flying blind.

Well, except for two things.

Mewtwo had been transferred to Viridian yesterday.  That would have been a red flag all by itself, but then Entei had been transferred as well.  The Kanto force borrowing assets from Johto was apparently unheard of, and Stalker had been particularly concerned about it.  The second thing was that Saffron had reported huge amounts of money being poured into tech development.  Way more than normal.  That, combined with tons of shipments of… something coming from Cerulean, had to mean they were building something.

And that’s why we were here.  To figure out what the hell was going on, before it was too late.  Not that that was a hopelessly vague mission or anything.

“Right, so… Group 2 found the room where Mewtwo was being held.  Key word: was,” Darren said, reading the rebels’ group chat.

Great, we still didn’t have a read on Mewtwo.  Finding him would’ve solved a lot of mysteries at once, plus we could’ve waited and seen what they were doing if they moved him again.  But if he’d already been moved… did that mean we were too late?

Darren nudged my side.  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but almost everyone’s been coming and going from that same hallway.”

The Viridian base was one floor and all sprawl, with a central area connecting eight hallways branching off in all directions.  Railways and moving walkways sped up transport between each division of the base.  The primary entrance had been a nondescript warehouse on the outskirts of Viridian, but there were other entrances scattered all over northeast Viridian, including the official gym itself—although that one was only for the boss’s inner circle.

The two of us had been sitting at a table in the mess hall part of the commons, which wasn’t a separate room like in Cerulean.  That way we had a clear view of the goings on in the base without being in the way or looking suspicious.  The hallway Darren had pointed out was the largest of the eight, with the most railways going in and out from it.

I brought up a map of the base on my R-com.  “That’s the transport wing.  Think we should check it out?”

“No one else has checked it out yet, so we might as well.  Who knows, maybe we’ll find the new tech before anyone else—that’d be cool.”

The two of us left our watch post in the mess hall and sauntered in the direction of the eighth hallway, avoiding eye contact with any other Rockets and trying to give off an air like we knew what we were doing.  Not that there was much chance of us standing out with how many Rockets were busy with their own thing at the moment.  Unfortunately, we soon found out why none of the other groups had investigated the transport wing—namely, the guards posted out front.

“Right, they’re checking ID at the entrance.  Something tells me they’re not gonna accept my admin rights as easily as the card scanners,” Darren said sheepishly.

Which meant we’d need another way into the transport wing.  Yeah, there was the forest entrance near the runway, but that’d be… more than a little conspicuous.

Wait.  Spread out as the base was, there were connections between divisions.  And the transport wing was so large that it ran alongside the adjacent wings.  Which ones were they…?  I grabbed my R-com to check the map again.  The storage wing and the office wing.  My eyes widened.  I knew for a fact that there was a connection between the office wing and the transport wing.  I’d seen it the day I was kidnapped and brought into the Viridian base so long ago.

“I think I know another way in,” I said slowly as the realization hit me.  “We have to get into the office division.”

“Even if we make it in, I think they might notice two random grunts wandering around looking lost,” Darren pointed out.

Hm.  He did have a point there.  Unless…

“Not if we look like officers.”  The idea had struck out of nowhere, and to be honest, I was rather proud of it.

“Won’t we, uh… look a little young for officers?”

I shrugged.  “I’m only a month away from being old enough, and I’m tall, so from a distance I could pass.  If you stick with me, you’ll just look like a member of my squad or something.”

“What, so I get to be your subordinate?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

I snorted.  “Sure, if you put it that way.”

Five minutes later, we’d tracked down and unlocked a supply closet with spare uniforms, and I’d swapped out my boots and gloves for the white with red stripes that signified officer rank at a glance.  With that, we set off for the seventh hallway.  The office division wasn’t nearly as busy as the rest of the base.  It was still early enough that the lights were dimmed, and aside from the occasional executive sipping coffee, we didn’t see many Rockets still around.  Which was good for me, because I kept having to stare down at my R-com to not get lost in the maze of hallways.

“Hey Jade, you’re, uh… about to hit a wall,” Darren whispered.

I glanced up just in time to freeze with my face inches away from what would have been embarrassing at best and cover-blowing at worst.

“Er… right,” I said sheepishly, rubbing the back of my head.

In any case, I was pretty sure we were close.  All of the offices in the asset management and transport coordination departments had access to the transport wing.  I glanced around, my eyes tracing the titles of each door one after the other… hang on, there it was—the asset management department.  And sure enough, amidst the various office doorways, I spotted a larger metal door with a card scanner.

“Right here,” I said pointing it out.  He’d have to be the one to open it since my old account—the one with admin rights—had been compromised.

“What kind of officer need a grunt’s help to get through a door?” Darren asked wryly.

I only barely managed to stop myself from snorting out loud.  After a quick scan of the area to make sure no one was nearby, I turned and said, “You expect an officer to lower themselves to opening a door when there are grunts around to take care of it?”

“Oh man.  Got me there.  Right away, officer.”  With an exaggerated look of defeat, Darren pulled out his ID and held it to the scanner.  The door slid open, revealing a massive concrete room.  And then a powerful wave of déjà vu hit me in the face.  This was where I’d been taken the day that I met Stalker in the woods.  The day that I’d seen Entei under attack.  The day it all began.  Last time I’d been here, I’d been a helpless captive of the Rockets.  This time I was here to find a way to ruin them.  That realization was… undeniably empowering.

The transportation hangar was a lot fuller than the last time I’d been here.  It didn’t have any aircraft this time, but the space was full of a dozen or more semi-trucks.  Most of the Rockets stood clustered around the loading bay, which connected to the storage wing on the far side of the hangar.  Darren and I made our way over to the trucks, moving as quickly as possible without looking totally suspicious.  Just had to make it out of sight without anyone getting the wrong idea.  Nothing strange about an officer and a grunt walking towards the trucks that weren’t currently being loaded.  And no one was close enough to see that we didn’t have combat unit patches.  No reason for anyone to raise the alarm.

After what felt like an eternity, we slipped out of view behind the closest truck, and I let out a huge breath that I didn’t realize I’d been holding.  It took me several seconds to realize that we now had a perfect view of the truck’s contents.  And all I could do was stare.

Inside the truck was a hulking black machine—sleek, shiny, and covered in armor.  Its wide flat base was supported by four splayed-out legs currently folded up away from the floor.  The midsection gave way to a swivel joint topped by a long, cannon-shaped section, flanked by twin shields supporting six folded up antennae on either side.  The entire machine was held in place by thick wood blocks spanning the walls of the trailer.

“What… is… this…?” I muttered.

“Whatever it is, I think Stalker’s gonna want to see it,” Darren said, climbing into the trailer.

I climbed in after him, taking care to step lightly so I didn’t alert the Rockets.  Meanwhile, my teammate had pulled out his R-com and started snapping photos of the mechanism.  Whatever it was, it looked like a weapon.  But for what?

Voices nearby.  I froze, throwing a wide-eyed look of panic toward Darren.  He hadn’t noticed—he was still focused on taking pictures.  I couldn’t say anything—not with Rockets approaching.  But I had to do something, and fast.  Which meant awkwardly tiptoeing over to him, now very aware of the sound each footstep made against the metal trailer floor, and waving a hand in front of his face.  Darren blinked a few times at my behavior and tilted his head in total confusion.  I gestured wildly out the opening, feeling like an idiot until his eyes widened slightly and he mouthed the word “oh.”  Finally!

We had to hide.  But the only cover available to us was the giant machine itself.  Which meant climbing up onto its flat base, crouching low behind the cannon and desperately praying that we were out of sight.  I strained my ears to hear the voices I’d caught earlier.  Were they still approaching?  What if the only reason they headed over here in the first place was because they’d noticed us?

Oh man, the voices were getting louder.  I screwed my eyes shut and clenched my fists.  Come on.  Leave.  Each second dragged on like an eternity.  I had no idea how long it’d been.  Long enough that my legs had gone numb from kneeling.  But I didn’t dare shift my weight to regain feeling.  Not until they were gone.

I jumped at a sudden metallic scraping sound.  What was that?!  Wait… it was the trailer door.  They were shutting it?!  We’d be trapped!

We were frozen.  We couldn’t move without giving ourselves away, but I couldn’t just let this happen!

Darkness enveloped the trailer.  Aside from a few pinpricks of light from the seams, I couldn’t see anything at all.  And man was it unnerving.  I wanted out, immediately.  But if we forced open the trailer door… we had no way of knowing who would see or hear us.  That was not a gamble we could afford to take.

Darren sighed.  “Yeeahh, I guess we’re stuck here now.”

No.  No, no, no.

“Just once I wanted to get through a mission without something going wrong,” I muttered through clenched teeth, holding back the urge to slam a fist against the wall.

“It’s not that bad.  Not like they discovered us or anything.”

I whirled around to face him incredulously.  “You’re not scared?”

Darren laughed.  “No, I’m totally scared.  But there’s nothing I can do about that right now.  So I might as well try not to let it get to me.”

I opened my mouth to say something… but then found that I couldn’t think of anything to counter his point.  It just seemed ridiculous not to worry.  Not when there was so much that could go wrong.

“I guess that wasn’t very convincing, huh?” Darren asked.

I took a deep breath.  “No… you’re right.  They haven’t found us yet.”

Darren nudged my shoulder.  “Yeah.  Now come on.  What do you think we should do?”

He was asking me?  How should I know?

“Well, for starters, I hate not being able to see,” I said, pulling out Chibi’s Pokéball and opening it.  The flash of light briefly highlighted Darren and the machine, but the moment it took on the spiky-furred Pikachu’s shape, the trailer was plunged into darkness once more.

“*It’s dark… where are we?*” the hybrid asked.

“In a Rocket truck.  Can you light it up with Flash?”

At once, I had to screw my eyes shut as I found myself staring directly at the piercing glow emanating from the electric-type’s body.  I blinked a few times, willing my eyes to adjust until I could make out the silhouettes of Darren and Chibi, highlighted against the blackness.

Darren nodded approvingly.  “Alright, what next?”

I raised an eyebrow.  “Why are you asking me?”

“No reason,” he said innocently.  A little bit too innocently.

“You’re just trying to get me to focus on making a plan instead of panicking,” I said as the realization hit me.

“Well yeah.  Is it working?”

I paused.  It… kind of was, wasn’t it?  Just having Chibi out and being able to see already made the situation feel a lot brighter.  Even if nothing else had changed.  Not that I felt like admitting that his plan had worked.  Although I didn’t really need to—from the smug look on his face, he’d already noticed.

“Right, so… we need to know when the coast is clear outside,” I said quickly, hoping to change the topic.  “Chibi, you’ve got the best hearing out of us.  We’ll need you to listen for sounds from the outside.”

The Pikachu nodded and hopped over to the trailer door, pressing one long ear against it and closing his eyes in concentration.  “*There’s voices outside.  Distant, but a lot of them,*” he said.  That made sense—most of the Rockets had been on the other side of the hangar.  But would they hear us if we tried to force open the trailer door now?

“Ugh, if only we could teleport out,” I muttered. 

“Believe me, I’ve been wishing that same thing,” Darren said.

What were our options?  We had a couple of Pokémon that could easily cut through the thin trailer walls—Firestorm and Sneasel came to mind.  Of course, if anyone saw the hole, it’d be an automatic giveaway that there were rebels in the base, but if we got outside before everything was put on lockdown…?

“*There’s something else,*” Chibi spoke up suddenly.  “*A smaller sound, nearby.  I’m getting movement from it too.*”  He paused tilting his head in confusion.  “*Hang on… is someone in the cab?*”

A low rumble suddenly spread throughout the floor.  All three of us went rigid as the truck slowly began to creak forward, drawing a low metallic groan from the machine as its weight pushed against the restraints holding it in place.  Slowly at first, then more quickly, our ride started to accelerate.  This was followed by the distinct feeling of everything leaning backward as the truck travelled up the huge ramp leading outside.

The truck was leaving the base.

“Well, scratch everything.  I guess we’re calling Stalker now,” Darren said, pulling out his R-com.

“No kidding,” I muttered.  Our simple recon mission had suddenly become a lot less simple.

Darren held his R-com out in front of him so we could all see when Stalker’s face appeared on the screen.  “We’ve got an update.  Um…”—he glanced back at me awkwardly—“we’re trapped.”

Stalker gave a small chuckle at the bluntness of Darren’s report.  “I see.  Where are you right now?”

“The back of a truck headed who-knows-where,” I answered.

“The good news is you wanted us to find what they’ve been building, and, well…”—Darren rotated the R-com so that the machine was visible behind us—“here it is.”

Stalker nodded.  “I’ve been studying the photos you sent.  It’s some kind of barrier, like the Thunder Field.  What concerns me is the top—it doesn’t just look like it projects an energy field… it looks like can fire a concentrated beam.”

“What?  Wouldn’t that take a crazy amount of power?” I asked.

Stalker nodded.  “They’d have to get it from somewhere.”

But that meant… they’d have to be able to absorb and store energy from Pokémon attacks, not just deflect it like most energy shields.  That… wasn’t possible… was it?  They’d already done it with electric attacks, but that was easy.

“So you’re saying… this thing can absorb any element of Pokémon energy?  Not just electric?”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he said darkly.  “It looks like anti-Legendary tech.”  His expression had gone cold with a subdued fury I’d never seen from him before.  “I should have known about this,” he whispered to himself.  “Why didn’t I know about this?”

An awkward silence fell over us as Darren and I traded uncertain looks.  If we were trapped in a truck that was transporting anti-Legendary tech… did that mean that a Legendary mission was going on right now?

Darren took a deep breath.  “Not that this isn’t fantastic news, but shouldn’t we be finding a way out of here or something?”

Stalker closed his eyes and exhaled slowly before shaking his head.  “No.  This is the easiest way of following them.  Message me your coordinates every five minutes.  I’ll track your trajectory from each one and figure out the most likely destination while I get everyone else ready to go.”

Two incredibly tense hours later, the truck finally started to slow down.  By that point I was thoroughly sore from sitting on the rickety metal floor, and desperate to get out.  The trailer wasn’t exactly small, but something about being trapped in that space with the huge Rocket machine had long since turned claustrophobic.  So I couldn’t help feeling a massive wave of relief the moment the truck finally ground to a halt.

“Just sent the coordinates to Stalker and everyone else,” Darren said.  “I’m just trying to imagine the look on Rudy’s face when he finds out our ‘boring, stupid’ intel mission turned into a Legendary mission.”

I chuckled.  “Yeah, we’re gonna get an earful.”  It would’ve been nice if that was the only thing we had to worry about.  “So now we’ve just gotta get out of here.  We can teleport out now, right?”

“Yeah, but Kadabra can only teleport places he’s been before, or places he can see.”

I clenched my teeth.  Teleporting back to one of his memorized locations would leave us with no way of returning to the mission site.  “So we’ve gotta wait for them to open the door.”  It was that or run the risk of calling too much attention to ourselves before the others get here.  The last thing we needed was for the Rockets to be on guard before the mission even started.

My ears caught the muffled sound of the truck door opening and footsteps circling around to the back.  Darren let out his Kadabra, and Chibi leaped up onto my shoulder, cutting the Flash in the process and leaving us surrounded by darkness once more.  We waited with bated breath for the moment that would either save us or completely screw us over.  It couldn’t be much longer.

There!  Sunlight pierced through a crack at the bottom of the trailer door.  Kadabra squinted at the brightness, trying to make out a target location.  Just a bit more… the door slid open higher and—there it was, trees behind the Rocket and a space beyond them, now within our reach!  In the blink of an eye, our surroundings melted into light and just as suddenly reformed into the spot between the trees that we had glimpsed.  I whirled around to see the Rocket climbing into the truck, giving no indication that he’d seen anything out of the ordinary.

“Come on, I need the team assigned to this ALR to move it,” he called out.

We’d done it—we’d escaped.  Just in time.  I ducked back behind the closest tree and sank to the ground, arms and legs trembling.

“We made it,” I gasped, feeling a sudden rush of exhilaration.  We’d actually made it.  I couldn’t help grinning wildly.

“Told you,” Darren said matter-of-factly.

I raised an eyebrow.  “No, actually, I don’t think you ever did.”

He paused, furrowing his brow.  “Hm.  Well I was thinking it.”

“That doesn’t count!” I scoffed, shoving him lightly.

Details aside, we’d gotten out.  And now we had front-row seats to the Rockets’ latest mission.  The sinister-looking ALR machine had been loaded onto some kind of wheeled transport cart and was currently being moved into position.  With the flip of a switch, its legs folded down and dug into the earth, supporting the machine as the cart was removed.  At least a dozen other ALRs had been unloaded from the caravan.  They weren’t being positioned within the clearing, though—they’d been set up around it, scattered amongst the trees with camouflaged sheets thrown over them.  At a glance, it was actually a bit hard to spot them.

The trucks were now leaving the clearing, following the same path we’d taken to get here, seeing as it was the only way out of the forest within sight (and judging by the dark, uneven earth, it must’ve been stripped of trees recently).  Only a large van remained, and it currently had a group of executives clustered around it.  I motioned to Darren, and the two of us crept around, hoping to get a better look at what the commotion was all about.  The back of the van opened.  I squinted, trying to make out what was inside.

And then a huge auburn beast jumped down from the back of the van.  There was no mistaking it.  That vibrant, crested face.  The jagged spikes down the back.  The smoky tail, billowing constantly.

My chest tightened.  I hadn’t seen Entei since that fateful day west of Viridian.  The day the Rockets had captured their first Legendary Pokémon.  The day I’d vowed to make sure it wouldn’t happen again.  And its eyes were completely blank.  Just like when I’d first seen Razors.  Exactly like that.

I was so focused on Entei, I almost didn’t notice the second Pokémon to exit the truck.  Then my eyes snapped back to it and holy crap, it was Mewtwo.  The tall, humanoid feline floated lightly over the ground, his thick violet tail twisting and turning in the air.  His eyes were wide, unblinking, and blank, just like Entei’s.

An executive was now leading Entei to the center of the clearing while Mewtwo remained behind with the van.  The man said something to Entei before returning to the rest of the group.  And then the Rockets dispersed, breaking off into squads stationed by each of the ALRs.  I tensed up.  This was it, wasn’t it?  It was starting now.  Team Rocket was about to target another Legendary, and Darren and I were the only ones to see it.  Where was everyone?  Why weren’t they here yet?  Were the Rockets chasing the target?  How were they going to herd it here?  What even was the target?  And what were we supposed to do about this kind of opposition?  Even if we got the entire Rebellion here, we couldn’t stop Mewtwo.

The entire area fell deathly silent.  All eyes were on Entei.  The beast inhaled deeply, then unleashed a deep, reverberating roar that shook my entire body.  It seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time.  It… almost felt like Pokéspeech.  But at the same time… not.  It felt like a cry for help.  A cry directed at someone in particular.  But who?

Suicune.

The answer suddenly snapped into my mind, clear as day.  Suicune was the target.  The third and final Johto beast the Rockets had yet to go after.  Entei was just the bait.  It would probably lose to Suicune in a fair fight, but Mewtwo was the real muscle here.

An unnerving silence fell over the area as the roar faded from the air.  We didn’t dare make a move—not until the rest of the Rebellion showed up.  All we could do was wait.  I was practically bouncing up and down with anxiety.

After several minutes, a distant sound finally pricked at my ears.  It sounded like… wing beats.  Heavy wing beats.  Something huge was flying towards us.  No wait… multiple huge somethings were flying toward us and rapidly getting closer.

And then my heart jumped into my throat when I laid eyes on them.

Three enormous birds soared into view, instantly grabbing the attention of everyone in the area.  The first, a dazzling phoenix, spiraled down toward the clearing, each flap of its wings scattering red-hot embers through the air.  The second, a graceful falcon, folded back its narrow wings and dove after the first, swirls of snow trailing behind its long, ribbon-like tail feathers.  And the third, soaring high on short, broad wings, was a golden heron, its jagged plumage coursing with strings of lightning.

Chibi’s eyes widened with shock.  “*Is that it?  Is that… Zapdos?*”  He stared at the thunderbird, slowly running a paw through his own pointed head feathers.

It had to be—there was no mistaking it.  Which meant the other two birds were Articuno and Moltres.

The Legendary Birds of Kanto had arrived.

“All three of Kanto’s guardians?!” one the Rockets guarding the nearest ALR muttered incredulously.

“Calm down, we knew something like this might happen,” his partner said.

Wait what?  They knew?  Could Mewtwo really defeat three Legendary Pokémon at once?  Maybe, just maybe, the Rockets were in over their heads?

But even if he couldn’t… they did have Entei.  And the ALRs.  This was way more one-sided than it appeared.

The birds touched down around Entei with Zapdos in front, Articuno to the left and Moltres to the right, each folding their wings and gazing at the beast intently.

“*It really is you?*” Articuno cried out, its voice high-pitched and melodious, like the whistling of wind.  “*It is so good to see you again!*”  The falcon’s scarlet eyes were wide with relief.

“*So it’s true?  You really have escaped?*” Zapdos asked, its tone much more reserved than the ice-type.  But it too had relaxed considerably upon seeing the beast seemingly alive and well.  “*Suicune refused to believe it—they asked us to come in their stead.*”

“*Guardians of Kanto and all that,*” Moltres said, waving a wing dismissively.  The firebird then tilted its head at Entei, frowning.  “*What are you doing in Kanto anyway?*”

“*Don’t pressure them,*” Zapdos cut in harshly, its words echoing like thunder.  The golden heron turned back to face Entei.  “*Are you well?*”

But the volcano beast didn’t respond.  It hadn’t moved an inch since the Rockets had given it that order to call for them in the first place.  Zapdos’s face slowly fell.  It craned its neck forward and gave Entei a gentle tap with its long, pointed beak.  The lion remained motionless.

“*I don’t understand…*” the thunderbird said, its voice falling.

Moltres’s sapphire eyes narrowed with suspicion as it glanced around.  “*Something’s wrong,*” the phoenix snapped.

The trap was set.  All three birds were now eyeing Entei uneasily.  The attack would begin any second now.  Where was the Rebellion?!

“Now!” a Rocket yelled.

At once, the covers flew off the ALRs and Mewtwo shot forward like a bullet.  The three birds leaped into the air right as waves of yellow energy shot out from the sides of the ALRs, linking all of the machines together before spreading out to form a massive web around the clearing.  Flames erupted from the ground around Entei, enveloping everything within the ALR circle in a raging fireball and making the energy field glow even brighter as it absorbed the attack.  The flames cleared, revealing a scorched clearing filled with the charred remains of tree trunks.  The three birds circled the air inside the web, facing down Mewtwo and Entei, varying degrees of hurt, anger, and betrayal crossing their faces.

“I knew it!  A human trick!  Of all the cowardly moves—come at us with your own strength, if you have any!” Moltres called out poisonously.

Mewtwo’s eyes glowed, and it fired a violet pulse of psychic energy at the firebird, sending it crashing into the barrier with a wave of sparks.  Moltres flapped its wings wildly to regain itself, throwing a wide-eyed glance between Mewtwo and the barrier.  It then let a wave of fire dance across its entire body before shooting forward like a missile, striking the barrier furiously.  But within seconds, a wave of yellow energy rippled outward from the nearest ALRs, knocking the firebird back with a violent shock wave.

Lightning coursing through its wings, Zapdos fired a massive bolt right at one the ALRs maintaining the barrier.  The ray sparked, absorbing the energy and channeling it across the web to the others until finally, it shot back a beam that struck the thunderbird right in the stomach.  It recoiled back, wincing in pain right as Articuno was struck by Mewtwo’s psychic blast.  The falcon retaliated with a piercingly blue beam of icy energy, but then Entei leapt into its path and countered with an overwhelming rush of flames.

The trio couldn’t fly away.  They couldn’t hurt the Rockets.  They couldn’t do anything but desperately attempt to evade Mewtwo’s psychic blasts.  Panic was quickly settling into the birds’ movements.  And we couldn’t do anything about it.  Not alone.

As if on cue, a brilliant Flamethrower tore through the sky, striking the ALR barrier right at its apex.  The Rockets immediately glanced up in the direction the attack had come from.  I tilted my head, trying to spot it through the trees.  Where had it come from?

A sudden flash of orange!  A flying Pokémon?  It slowed down as it approached the space directly above the Legendary battle, and—yes, it was a Charizard!  Stalker’s?  But the rider wasn’t Stalker.  In fact, the fire lizard was carrying two riders.  Two girls, from the look of it—one dark-skinned, the other light.

Wait… it was the rebels of Group 1, Mai and Sasha!

A single combat unit squad mounted their flying Pokémon and took flight after them.  Charizard bolted the instant they got close enough to start launching attacks.  Was it… trying to draw them off?  But not very many Rockets had taken the bait.  We still had plenty of opposition standing guard on the ground.

“Hey!  Group 12, right?” a voice behind us said.  A familiar voice, no less.

I whirled around.  Standing behind us was none other than the leader of Group 1, and the person in charge of missions in Stalker’s absence—Ray.

“You’re finally here!” I exclaimed.

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.  “We’ve got a rendezvous point set up east of the battlefield.  Your third teammate is there.”

We followed him through the trees, giving the ALR circle and the Rockets a wide berth before coming to a section of the forest with about half the Rebellion scattered throughout.  Every so often, another rebel would appear via teleporter or descend from above the canopy on the back of a flyer.  Darren and I barely had a chance to look around and take stock of who all was here—I noticed our partners from the Raikou mission, Groups 5 and 16—before we were accosted by our third teammate, who was… not exactly happy with us.

“Why didn’t you guys tell me you were going to a Legendary mission!” Rudy shouted indignantly the second he found us.

“Right on cue,” Darren whispered.

“What, you think we knew?” I countered, rolling my eyes.  But then a certain Absol and Flygon standing behind him caught my eye, and any qualms that Rudy had with us completely left my mind.

“Aros?  Stygian?  You two also came to help us?” I blurted out.

Stygian scoffed.  “*Don’t think you’re special.*”

*We agreed to join the fight when we stayed on the island.  It’s as simple as that,*” Aros added in as disinterested a tone as possible, just in case I got the idea he cared or anything.  Whatever, the reason didn’t matter.  Either way, them being here was going to be a huge help that I hadn’t been counting on.

Chibi glanced between the two clones, tilting his head slightly.  “*Where’s Razors?*”

Aros shrugged.  “*He didn’t want to come.*”

The Pikachu gaped at him.  “*What…?*”  He shook his head disbelievingly.  “*What do you mean he ‘didn’t want to come’?  What does that even mean?*” he said in a heated voice.

The Flygon huffed.  “*How should I know?  I didn’t ask.*”

Chibi’s ears drooped, and he stared at the ground in total shock.  I had no idea how to comfort him.  I didn’t even really know why he was so upset to learn that Razors wasn’t taking part in the mission.  At the very least, it meant he was safe, right?

With a flash of light in my peripheral vision, Sasha had suddenly appeared alongside her Kadabra, the golden coils of her hair thoroughly windswept.  “Hey guys.  Mai’s keeping ‘em busy—Charizard’s got enough X Speed to last awhile.  So what’s the plan?”

“We can make one now that you’re here,” Ray said simply.

She rolled her eyes.  “Ha ha.  I get it, you’re useless without me.”

“Stalker told us those machines are bad news.  How bad are we talking?” Ray asked.  It took me several seconds to realize that the second part was directed at me and Darren.

“They’re rebounding all the Legendaries’ attacks back at them.  And that barrier is fueled by their power,” I said.

“Plus the barrier protects the machines from the Legendaries’ attacks, so it’s not like they can just destroy the machines from in there, cool as that would be,” Darren added.

Already I could see the gears turning in Sasha’s head.  “What about from the outside?  We could attack the machines from the other side of the barrier, yeah?”

I paused.  That was a distinct possibility.  But then… there was an obvious problem with that plan.

“How do we do that if the machines are all guarded by the combat unit?” a girl asked.

“We take ‘em down, obviously,” Rudy answered as though nothing were more obvious.

A heavy silence fell over the group.  “Are we really strong enough to fight the combat unit head on?” a kid slowly asked.

Ray paused, taken aback.  It was written all over his face that he didn’t think so.  Try as he might, he hadn’t mastered Stalker’s ability to hide what he was thinking.

“We’re not going to fight them head on!” a voice suddenly called out.  I whirled around to see Group 5’s Zoe giving everyone a determined stare.  “They’re stuck out in the open guarding the machines—we’re not.  And we’ve got a lot of tricks.  Stick to the trees, stay out of the line of fire, draw their attention, then strike from behind… use every sneak attack we’ve ever learned.”  Once again, she’d taken on the role of motivator, just like she had in Cerulean.

“Stalker had us all learn Protect, yeah?  Well now we’re using it,” her teammate Liam added.  “Have Pokémon out in front of you at all times that can alternate using Protect while the others attack from behind.  Everyone else… attack those machines.”

Slowly, the fear and uncertainty streaking the rebels’ faces had started to melt away from all the encouragement.  We were stronger now.  We had more Pokémon, more allies, and more skills than we did before.  We were going to do this.

Sasha grinned a bit to see someone other than her making the plans for once.  “If you have any Pokémon big enough to ride, get on them so you can escape quicker,” she added.  “Protect each other.  And for the love of crap don’t get killed, got it?”

“Got it!” the rebel nearest to her called out.  And with that, the rebels began splitting off into ground teams and sky teams, deciding who would take on which ALR.

“*Jade,*” said a voice near my feet.  I glanced down to see Chibi.  Any distress from earlier had vanished, and his expression had turned darkly serious.  “*You’ll need mobility for this.  Ride on Aros.*”

I stared at him.  “What about you?”

“*I’ll be most useful protecting everyone on the ground,*” the hybrid said firmly.  “*But we need as many rebels in the air as we can get.*”

I gave Aros a sideways glance.  He… really hadn’t been keen on letting a human on his back during my last mission.

“Are… you okay with that?” I asked, wincing.

The Flygon turned his back to me.  “*Just get on,*” he said flatly.  “*We’ve got to hurry.*”

I took a deep breath and climbed onto the bug-dragon’s back, gripping his sides tightly with my knees and clasping my arms around his neck.  Alongside me, Rudy had let out his Fearow and was now mounting the tall, shaggy bird.

“I’ll stay here,” Darren said.  “I don’t have a flier, but I do have a teleporter, so I can always help with the hit-and-run attacks.”  Kadabra raised his spoon like he was giving a thumbs up.

Stygian glanced between the rebels, pawing the ground with a bit of a pensive look.  “*I’ll stick with the main group.  They’ll need my strength.*”  Her gaze hardened, and I wasn’t sure if it was directed at Aros or me.  “*Don’t do anything stupid.*”

“*Got it, got it,*” Aros said, waving a claw dismissively.

I shot a glance at Rudy to make sure we were both ready, then Aros and Fearow took off, shooting up above the canopy and sticking low over the trees so we didn’t attract too much unwanted attention.  This gave us a pretty good view of the Legendary battle and… it had gotten a lot worse.  The birds were reluctant to harm Entei, but that just made it even harder for them to fight Mewtwo while having dodge the lion’s flames.  Zapdos covered its body in strings of electricity before loosing a wave of sparks all over the volcano beast.  Entei recoiled backward, its muscles twitching with paralysis, but then Mewtwo appeared out of nowhere and knocked the thunderbird into the ALR barrier.

Articuno let out a cry and flapped its wings furiously, stirring up a violent blizzard in the air.  Ice crystals formed on Mewtwo’s bony arms, but he silenced the storm and shattered the ice into shards with a wave of psychic power from a single hand.  Just seconds later, Entei breathed out a white-hot pillar of flames, striking the falcon dead-on.  With an enraged screech, Moltres shot forward like a bullet, knocking the beast to the ground and slashing wildly with its talons, giving Articuno a chance to escape.  Azure feathers charred black, the ice bird retreated to the side, desperately firing frigid beams at its opposition.

I clenched my teeth and looked away.  That wasn’t something we needed to worry about right now.  The battle didn’t matter so long as the barrier was still up.  Taking down the barrier was our absolute priority.  I scanned the ground around the closest ALR—the Rocket squad guarding it had noticed the commotion going on elsewhere and turned to see what was going on.  Three Rockets—all of them armed.  Four Pokémon—Arbok, Pinsir, Magneton, Poliwrath.  We were going to be in the line of fire whether we liked it or not.

“Alright, disarming tactics, what do we got?” I asked.

“Pikachu can paralyze them with Thunder Wave,” Rudy offered.

I nodded.  “I don’t have much, but both my Pokémon can cut visibility.  We’ll distract them with ourselves while our Pokémon approach from behind.  Swift can fly Pikachu up close to paralyze them and then we can set our entire team against the Pokémon.”  Between us we had nine Pokémon, counting Aros.  Nine against four.

I took a deep breath.  “They’re gonna be shooting at us.  Be ready.”  In a way, it was more directed at myself than anyone else, but Aros replied, “*No problem.*”

Two Pokéballs opened, and Pikachu was now riding on Swift.  Rudy relayed the plan to them and the electric-type grinned mischievously (part of me suspected that she’d been looking forward to something like this).  Swift dove down through the trees so he’d have cover when approaching them, and then the rest was on us.

Aros and Fearow dove forward together, putting us right in the Rockets’ line of sight.  Within seconds, they’d pulled out their firearms and began shooting.  I flinched, clutching Aros’s neck tightly, but the Flygon was ready.  A dark aura wreathed our bodies, and suddenly it was like we had become shadow.  This was what Feint Attack looked like from the inside, wasn’t it?  Suddenly it was like they weren’t even aiming at us at all—we were a shadow tracing the ground, and then we were behind them.  The bug-dragon swung his tail at the Rockets, knocking them all clean off their feet right before their Pokémon lunged at us.  Aros raised a Protect barrier at the last second just as Swift used their distraction to break through the trees.  Without wasting a second, Pikachu leaped off of Swift’s back right into the center of the fallen Rockets, unleashing strings of electricity all over them.  The Rockets cried out in pain as the attack coursed through them, then fell silent.

That wasn’t Thunder Wave… that was Thundershock.  She hadn’t paralyzed them, she’d straight-up knocked them out.  Swift took that opportunity to whip up a swirling dust storm around himself, blinding the Rockets’ Pokémon before they could retaliate.  I whipped out a Pokéball and let out Firestorm.  Rudy let out Ebony, Wartortle, Nidorino, and Larvitar to stand alongside Fearow and Pikachu and holy crap I’d never seen them all out and facing down the same opponent at once.  Seeing his full team of six ready to go was actually intimidating.

“Let’s go, everyone!” he shouted, pointing forward at the Rockets’ Pokémon.  Their trainers were unconscious, they’d been blinded by sand, and we outnumbered them two to one.  This was what Stalker had meant when he’d talked about getting an advantage against opponents who were far stronger than you, wasn’t it?

Firestorm and Ebony tag-teamed Magneton, pelting the steel-type with fireballs and flaming fists.  The magnet trio struck back with a flood of lightning launched from all three of its units, but its attack was just met with more flames, and its metallic shell was already starting to glow from the heat.  Pinsir lunged forward, snapping its mighty jaws at our Pokémon and catching Wartortle in them.  But the turtle managed to duck into his shell in time, leaving the bug-type struggling to damage him.  Suddenly a half-dozen boulders struck it in the face and knocked it to the ground, thanks to Larvitar.  Her first Rocket battle and the little green dinosaur still looked bored with it all, hurling rocks one after another like it took no effort.  And then Fearow descended upon the stag beetle, tearing into it with frenzied talon slashes and spearing strikes from her beak.

Arbok crept along the ground into the center of our lineup and lashed out, catching Nidorino in its coils.  But he just stood his ground and let all his spikes stand on end, forcing the serpent to release him right before it got nailed with a burst of water to the face, and then a rush of flames as the fire-types had already managed to finish off Magneton.  In the midst of it all, Poliwrath stood its ground, weathering the blades of wind that Swift launched at it and the bolts of lightning from Pikachu.  The frog braced itself and fired off high-pressure blasts of water that knocked a few of our Pokémon off their feet.  But then, without warning, Aros shot forward, catching the water-type’s arm in his claws.  What the hell?!  I clung tightly to his back as he swung his arms in a wide circle, releasing his hold at the last second and letting Poliwrath go flying into the ALR barrier.  The frog struck the barrier with a hail of sparks, spasming wildly as the energy surged through it until it finally cried out and fell limply to the ground.

I stared at Aros.  “I… never would have thought of that.”

“*What?  It’s fast and effective,*” the Flygon snorted.  I couldn’t really argue with that.

I snapped my attention back to the battle, but… there was no more battle.  With Aros’s finishing move, all four of the squad’s Pokémon had been utterly defeated.  We’d done it?

Rudy turned toward me, his eyes wider than I’d ever seen.  “Holy crap that was badass,” he said, his tone dead serious.  I honestly wasn’t sure if that was directed at himself, his Pokémon, or all of us, but it honestly didn’t matter.  I climbed down from Aros’s back while Rudy dismounted his Fearow and gave the bird a pat.

“Alright, we’ve gotta be quick before more of them show up,” I said warily, pointing upward.  More combat unit squads had taken to the air now—way too many for Stalker’s Charizard to distract.  Several teams of rebels had joined her, launching attacks at the Rockets any time they approached the ground, basically forcing them to prioritize the aerial threats so those of us on the ground could continue uninterrupted.  Chibi was aiding them by calling down wicked bouts of Thunder from the sky, dropping the Rockets’ Pokémon left and right.

“Aros, stay in the air and keep the Rockets far away from us.  Stick to ranged moves,” I said.

“Pikachu, go with him and spam Discharge,” Rudy added.  With a devious glint in her eyes, the electric mouse leaped onto Aros’s back, and the Flygon vibrated his wings to take off.

Rudy spun around to face the ALR.  “All right!  Time to take down these machines!” he exclaimed with a huge grin.  “Ebony, use Inferno!  Nidorino, Sludge Bomb; Larvitar, Rock Slide; Wartortle, Water Pulse!!”

“Swift, use Air Cutter.  And Firestorm…”  I took a deep breath.  “Well, we’ve got a giant target and nothing nearby to worry about… use Fire Blast.”

The Charmeleon grinned wildly, planted his feet, and took a deep breath.  And then he blasted out a thick column of blazing flame.  Halfway to its target, the blaze split off into five points, half of them spiraling off into the air uncontrollably.  But at this point, it didn’t even matter—the sheer amount of fire striking on-target was nothing to scoff at.  Blazing flames, blades of wind, bolts of lightning, avalanches of rocks, bursts of water, and balls of toxic sludge all bombarded the machine relentlessly, all of them colliding with the energy field surrounding it.  So the ALRs were protected from the outside too?  But we’d come too far to give up now.

“Keep going!  If we all attack it at once we might be able to overload them!” I yelled.

All around the ALR circle, other groups of rebels were launching attacks at the machines at once.  There was no way it could possibly handle all of us, right?!

“*Articuno, Moltres, Zapdos!  Attack the barrier with all your power!*” a voice cried out in desperation.  I whirled around to see Chibi, who had stopped attacking the Rockets and was now unleashing the rest of his power at the ALR barrier.  Zapdos snapped its head in Chibi’s direction, gazing at the hybrid with a perplexed look.  But then the thunderbird let out a cry and unleashed a wave of lightning from all over its body.  Articuno and Moltres did the same, letting loose a torrent of flames and a raging flurry of snow, respectively.  Mewtwo and Entei flew backward from the force, the former putting up a psychic barrier to protect them.  Sparks flew as the ALR barrier strained to contain the Legendaries’ attacks, but this time there was nowhere for the power to go.  Every single ALR was absorbing power from both sides and attempting to distribute it amongst the rest, but they all were trying to do it at once.  Without warning, the machines starting discharging energy into the sky, turning the airspace over the clearing into hail of thunderbolts.

Was it working?  I couldn’t tell.  We were giving it everything we had!  It had to work!

Suddenly, the Fire Blast within the barrier faded as Moltres stopped attacking and took to the air, letting flames burn across its entire body as it made a beeline for the barrier’s apex.  The phoenix struck it with full force but refused to yield, flapping its wings frantically as it pushed against the overloaded energy field.  The effort didn’t do anything at first.  But then, amazingly, the firebird’s beak started to pierce the barrier.  Its head slipped through.  Then its neck.  And then it let out a reverberating cry to the heavens, just like how Entei had lured them here in the first place.  A plea for help.

Out of nowhere, a blue aura surrounded Moltres, violently wrenching it back inside the barrier.  Mewtwo’s arm was outstretched, wreathed in the same aura, fingers slowly clenching, digging the psychic energy into the firebird’s body.  Then the clone flicked his wrist, sending Moltres plummeting into the ground with a sickening crack.

“Moltres!” Zapdos cried, diving forward to land alongside the phoenix and flaring its jagged wings defensively.  Entei had already started advancing on them, flames licking the sides of its muzzle.

“It didn’t work,” I muttered blankly.  “They’re still trapped.”

But then, out of nowhere, a burst of shimmering light appeared above the ALR barrier, quickly fading to reveal a small, feline Pokémon.  It spread its short forelimbs, eyes glowing blue with psychic energy before it shot forward like a bullet and pierced the ALR barrier.  Shock waves radiated outward from the collision point, intensifying until the cat was nothing more than a brilliant white blur, slowly but surely penetrating the energy field.  Finally, with a whip of its long, thin tail, the psychic cat slipped through the barrier and into the battle zone.  Spreading its forelimbs outward, the newcomer’s eyes glowed a fierce blue as it unleashed an incredible wave of power from its tiny body.  All five Legendaries whirled around in surprise.

Mew was here?!

Chapter Text

Mew.  It was seriously Mew.  Right here, right in front of my eyes.  Never, in a million years, did I think I’d get such a clear view of the living myth itself.  Seeing Legendaries in person was one thing but Mew?  The mother of all Pokémon?  The pale rose cat hovered over to the birds, raising a large, pink bubble around them and allowing them the chance to rest.  The trio landed on the ground, folding their wings tightly as a healing glow washed over their bodies.  Mew, on the other hand, was now staring at Mewtwo, head tilted ever so slightly with a sort of… perplexed curiosity on her face.

<Who is this one?> the cat asked softly, her telepathic words reverberating through the air, cool and clear.

“*You tell us!*” Moltres shot back.  “*They have your power!*”

Mew tilted her head the other way, looking even more intrigued.  <And Entei?>

“*Their mind is not their own,*” Articuno said in a low voice.  “*The humans have done something to them.*”

Mewtwo gave no reaction to Mew’s arrival.  He couldn’t.  All he could do was stare back, eyes glowing a mindless blue, waiting for the order that would designate the new arrival as either friend or foe.

“Mewtwo, neutralize Mew!  Entei, don’t let the birds heal!”

Mew turned her head in the direction of the voice, observing the Rockets with a mixture of sadness and pity.  <So humans have become our enemy once again.  But I wonder… are you really prepared for that?>

The squealing of tires and roar of engines assaulted my ears out of nowhere.  I snapped my head in their direction to see a pair of jeeps rumbling towards us through the trees, traversing the uneven, root-covered terrain like it was nothing.  The passengers whipped out their firearms and pointed them right at us, and it was like my brain just shut down.  I had no idea what to do.  There was nowhere to run!

With the flapping of wings and a flash of shimmering light, Fearow shot forward from behind us and put up a Protect just a split second before the sound of gunfire rang out and bullets pinged off the shield.  Stupid!  How could I have forgotten the plan?!

“Aros, we need you!” I yelled.

“*On it!*” the Flygon called out.

 I threw a hurried glance upward to see the dragon streaking away from the aerial battle, his wings a blur.  Fearow’s Protect started to flicker.  Without wasting a second, Firestorm and Wartortle jumped in front, putting up shields of their own as the tall, shaggy bird leaped back and leaned down for Rudy to climb on her back.  Aros swooped down alongside me and in one smooth motion I threw a leg over his back and clung to his neck.  Time for one last Protect, and this time it was up to Aros since Fearow hadn’t yet recovered from the last one.  That gave Rudy and I the chance we needed to recall our nonflying Pokémon and then finally get out of the line of fire holy crap.

“Ha!  We made it out!  Take that!” Rudy called out behind us as Aros and Fearow shot into the air.  My breathing was shallow and it felt like my heart was going at a million miles an hour, but we’d made it.  We’d been ambushed by two squads of Rockets and made it out unharmed.  It was insane!

Just as soon as I had that thought, a hail of noxious sludge started raining down from above, forcing Aros to suddenly barrel to the right to avoid it.  I threw a frantic glance over my shoulder to see a swarm of Golbat and Weezing belting out Sludge Bomb non-stop.  Rudy pointed them out to his Fearow, and the pair of them looped around and shot toward the poison-types.

“What was that move you used in Celadon?  The one with the purple dragonfire?” I asked Aros.

“*Dragon Pulse?*”

“Yes, that!  Do it now!” I cried as three of the Golbat rushed us at once, their wings glowing in preparation for Aerial Ace.

Aros opened his jaws wide, allowing a ball of violet energy to gather in his mouth before unleashing it in the form of a pulsing shockwave.  The draconic energy knocked two of the bats out of the air, but the third managed to skillfully loop around it and shoot right at us.  Or rather—right at me.

I flattened myself against Aros’s back, screwing my eyes shut and clinging to him for dear life.  Seconds later, I felt a sudden wave of heat from that direction.  I opened my eyes a crack, and… the Golbat was gone?  What?  A flash of orange caught my eye, and I whirled around to see Stalker’s Charizard shooting past, flames licking the sides of her mouth.

“*Stop holding so tight,*” Aros muttered.

Er, right, I still had my arms clenched around his neck, even after the danger had passed.  I relaxed a bit, then said, “Come on, we should meet up with the others.”  The Flygon gave a slight huff, but then swooped back down toward the clearing.

My heart sank—the outer perimeter of the ALR circle was now swarming with combat unit jeeps.  Holy crap the Rockets were attacking the ground team rebels with full force, and suddenly they outnumbered us two to one and any hopes of taking them on with sneak attacks and mob tactics were utterly dead.  The rebels had been forced to regroup in order to defend each other.  An outer perimeter of Pokémon alternated using Protect to block the gunfire while teleporters blinked in and out of the crowd, escaping with a few rebels each time.  Chibi raced around the fray, launching Thunderbolts with a frightening level of precision and dropping the Rockets left and right.  But… how on earth was he doing that?  With his undersized power capacity, he should have been out after we all launched our simultaneous attack on the ALRs.  Wait… the ALRs!  They’d been forced to discharge insane amounts of power into the air to avoid being overloaded.  Had he been able to absorb some of it with his Lightning Rod ability?

But even with the rebels putting up an impressive defense, the Rockets were still closing in.  And the more of them escaped from the ambush, the fewer Pokémon were available to use Protect.

“*What do we do?!  They need help!*” Aros yelled.

“I don’t know, let me think!  And since when do you care so much about the rebels?”

“*Idiot!  Stygian is down there!*”

What?  I scanned the ground frantically.  Sure enough, down in the middle of the fray, I caught sight of an Absol, cloaked in the dark aura of Feint Attack, jumping in and out of shadows—and with a with a rider on her back, too!  Wait a second… it was Darren!

“Why doesn’t he just teleport out of there…?” I muttered, but then the answer hit me the moment the words left my mouth.  Stygian was a dark-type—she was immune to psychic skills like Teleport.

Had to focus.  Had to think of something.  Attack the jeeps?  That was the only thing I could think of.  The Rockets didn’t even have Pokémon out!  Not with all the gunfire.

“Use Dragon Pulse!” I yelled, pointing downward.  Aros immediately responded with another burst of sparkling dragonfire aimed right at the closest jeep, only for it to strike something invisible in midair and go hurtling off.  What?  They had rebound shields?!  Of course they did—the combat unit jeeps at the Entei mission did—why would these be any different?  They didn’t do much beyond deflecting special attacks—nothing like the crazy absorbing trick the ALRs could pull.  Except getting in close for a physical attack meant being in perfect range to get shot.

We had to do something, and fast.  But what?!

I had just pulled out Swift’s Pokéball—maybe a dust storm would give the rebels the cover they needed?—when an icy gale swept through out of nowhere, and a distant, unearthly howl reverberated throughout the trees.  I knew that sound.

“Holy crap… that’s—that’s Suicune!” I exclaimed.

“Suicune—seriously?!”  I turned to see Rudy flying alongside us once again, now gaping at me.  “Where is it?!  And wait, how do you know that?!”

“I’ve heard it before!”  I yelled over the sound of the wind.

“You’ve heard it?” Rudy gasped.  “What—how…?”

I didn’t get a chance to respond.  Right that second, a massive cobalt beast shot through the trees, snarling as it raced for the crowd of Rockets.  And then the entire battleground dissolved into pandemonium.  The jeeps immediately broke off from pursuing the rebels, splitting into two groups to attack the water-type from both sides.  A dozen flashes of light appeared as the Rockets’ Pokémon took form around the Johto beast.  Nothing compared to the forces that had cornered Raikou.  Without hesitation, Suicune fired a volley of multicolored beam attacks at the opposing Pokémon without even slowing down.  The lineup crumbled instantly; the beast shot past them, setting its sights on the jeeps and firing at the closest one, only for its beam to rebound wildly off the vehicle’s energy shield.

But rebound shields were nothing compared to the ALRs.  And there was nothing to stop the beast from leaping up onto the jeep and attacking from within the shield’s radius.

“How dare you use my sibling for your sick goals!!” Suicune snarled, smashing the windshield and unleashing a torrential waterspout into the vehicle.  The doors flew open and a flood of water gushed out, followed by the panicked Rockets scrambling to abandon the vehicle.  Suicune didn’t waste a second before it started picking them off with rapid-fire volleys of Bubblebeam.

“You’re all pathetic!!  Stealing our power and using it against us, pretending you have any real strength at all!  Cowards!  Thieves!  You are nothing!”

Bullets pelted its hide, but it didn’t even seem to care.  It wasn’t even slowed down.  One after the other, it sent jeeps flying with high-pressure water blasts, stamping the escaping Rockets into the dirt, catching them in its jaws and hurling them into the ALR barrier with a—

Okay, no, I couldn’t watch that anymore.  The point was, Suicune was keeping them busy which meant that the rebels were safe, for now.  I threw a glance back at the fight within the ALR barrier, and… Mew’s arrival had actually evened the odds.  The nimble feline zipped around the battlefield, pelting Mewtwo with shadowy orbs of black energy, distracting him just long enough for Articuno to land a series of rapid-fire Ice Beams, freezing the larger psychic in a shell of ice.  His eyes glowed, and the ice shattered, but that gave Mew the opportunity to strike him dead on with an even larger burst of dark energy.

On the fringes of the battlefield, Entei raced around in a blazing fireball, launching vicious Flamethrowers into the fray—only for Moltres to intercept it at every turn, using its own fire affinity to endure the flames and get close enough to rake its talons across the beast’s face.  Wicked Thunderbolts lanced across the battle zone, striking both of the Rockets’ Legendaries relentlessly.

Had the Rebellion really done its job?  We’d given Moltres the opportunity to call for reinforcements and now the Rockets were scrambling trying to keep up with the new arrivals.  But with the barrier still up, how would the Legendaries inside manage to get free, even if Mewtwo was defeated?

“Switch the Anti-Legend Rays to offense mode, now!” a voice called out.

I whirled around to see a handful of the jeeps that had fled from Suicune’s assault clustered off to one side of the ALR circle.  And then, in an instant, the force field encircling the Legendary battle just vanished.  What?  Why would they drop the shield?  The Legendaries could escape now!

Without warning, the ALR closest to them retracted its antennae and swiveled its upper half downward, forming a cannon that shot out a blindingly bright yellow beam, striking Moltres right in the stomach.  The firebird recoiled backward, screeching in pain as the beam scorched its feathers black.  Mew shot forward instantly, putting up a barrier to protect the fire legend, but then two, then three more ALRs fired the same beams at her, shattering the barrier with a crash.  I whirled around to look at the ALR nearest us, but it too had folded up its shield projectors and had switched over to firing its stored power.  Stalker was right—the ALRs didn’t just absorb power, they could fire it back too.  Not only that, but the Rockets could control them all remotely too?

“Now!” an executive called out.

Now?  Now what??

Violet Pokéballs flew through the air, and the three birds’ eyes went wide with panic.  In an instant, they each let loose massive blasts of fire, ice, and lightning, struggling to break free of the ALR beams.

That’s why the Rockets dropped the shield?!  To throw Master Balls?!

Suicune raced forward, accompanied by a violent gust of wind that swept half the Master Balls off into trees.  Mew dove in front, readying a shield, but was knocked flying by a sudden psychic blast from her clone.

A flash of red out of the corner of my eye!  I whirled around to see a red beam being sucked into one of the balls—a Pokémon was being captured?!  My eyes frantically darted from one Legendary to the next.  Mew, Mewtwo, Entei, Zapdos, Articuno… Moltres, there was no Moltres—Moltres was caught?!

“No way…” I muttered, staring in disbelief like a bucket of ice had just been dumped on my head.

Zapdos folded its wings back and dove forward, talons outstretched, clearly reaching for the ball that had just taken the firebird, but then a second group of Rockets hurled more violet spheres into the fray.

“*No!*” Articuno cried, folding its wings back and diving.  The ice bird knocked Zapdos out of the way, sending the latter reeling.  Mew shot down after them, again trying to shield the birds with a protective bubble, but then a blue aura formed around her as Mewtwo grabbed hold of her telekinetically.  And in the moment the smaller cat had to spend wrenching herself free from Mewtwo’s grip, an ALR rotated and fired on her.

A third round of Master Balls flew through the air, and this time Articuno was hit—struck on the back by the infallible capture device.  With a horrified screech, the falcon’s body dissolved into red energy and was sucked into the ball.  I gaped in horror.  A second capture?

Mew had taken to blinking in and out of view around the battlefield, teleporting non-stop, pressing buttons on the fallen Master Balls and trying to open as many of them as possible.  But then a blue aura appeared around all of them, and they flew out of her reach, pulled by Mewtwo’s telekinesis.

With a painful and terrifying wail, Zapdos let loose another wave of lightning from its body, shaking itself free of the ALR beam before bolting upward, frantically dodging more beams.  Except the thunderbird wasn’t trying to escape.  It took that opportunity to spread its wings high above the battlefield and let a hail of Thunderbolts rain down on the Rockets.  The first few bolts lanced off the jeeps’ shields.  But the lightning just kept coming without pause, eventually shattering the shields and striking two of the jeeps, causing them to erupt into flames.  I flinched as the Rockets’ screams assaulted my ears.

“You think you can challenge the legends without facing the consequences?!” Suicune exclaimed, staring at the events with cold fury in its eyes.  But then one of the ALRs nearest it rotated and fired, knocking the water beast off its feet.  At that point, Mewtwo finally managed to intercept Zapdos, knocking it out of the sky with a psychic blast, while the Rockets on the ground scrambled to get out of its range.  Two more machines fired on the thunderbird the moment it crashed to the ground.

Wait a minute.  The ALRs couldn’t run the barrier and the ray at the same time.  Now that the shield was down, the machines wouldn’t be absorbing any attacks thrown at them.  Which meant that without having to overwhelm the entire network at once, we could target them individually!

“Hey Jade!” a voice called out.  I spun around to see Rudy and Darren approaching, both still riding on Fearow and Stygian, respectively.

“Ray gave the order to retreat—there’s not much else any of us can do here!” Rudy yelled, grimacing like he hated every word.

“Are you kidding?!  Of course we can do something!  We can stop the ALRs!” I countered.  The two of them paused, looking taken aback.

“I dunno if you forgot, but we already tried that,” Darren said, tilting his head in confusion.

“Oh yeah?!  Watch!”  I pointed at the nearest ALR and said, “Aros, use your strongest move, now!”  The Flygon turned his neck back to give me an incredulous scowl.  “Please, just trust me,” I added quietly.  Several seconds passed.  Finally, his gaze hardened into determination, and he nodded before turning back to face the Anti-Legendary Ray.  The Flygon brandished both sets of claws, letting them glow with a writhing green aura before slashing wildly.  Claw marks appeared in the machine’s outer armor, shallow at first, but deepening with each strike.

“Holy crap, that’s actually working,” Rudy gasped, pulling out a Pokéball to release Ebony.  “Use Inferno, now!”  The Houndoom’s eyes lit up, and she breathed out a massive wave of white-hot flame.  Without a word, Stygian rushed around to the other side of the machine, the blade on her head glowing purple.  She aimed a few strategically-placed slashes, cleaving off the shields on the upper part of the cannon, allowing Ebony’s flames to penetrate the inner mechanisms.  Finally, the beam started to sputter, giving way to a wave of sparks before the entire top half of the machine collapsed in on itself, half-melted.

We’d done it.  We’d actually done it!  The ALRs weren’t unstoppable.  The Legendaries didn’t know that they could be destroying the ALRs, right now!  They needed to know!  If they joined in, we’d be able to take care of them all in no time!  Suicune had seen me before—if it recognized me, I could use that opportunity to pass on the message to it.  And if not, well… Aros was fast, right?

“Let the others know that we’ve got to start destroying the ALRs—there’s something I’ve gotta do!” I announced.  And then to Aros, I added, “Circle the battlefield real quick, I know a way we can end this.”

“*You what?  …Oh, whatever, I’m not even gonna question it at this point,*” the Flygon muttered under his breath before taking off.  We shot around the ALR circle in a wide arc, my eyes rapidly scanning the ground ahead of us.  Finally, I spotted Suicune weaving in and out of the trees, struggling to get closer to a group of Rockets that had gathered between two ALRs for protection and were firing beams at the beast any time it got too close.

“Suicune!” I called out.  Suicune whipped its head around to face us, its crimson eyes boring a hole right through me.  And for a split second my heart stopped as I saw the beast charging a shimmering beam of light in its mouth until its eyes went wide and it froze.

“You!  You’re an interloper, aren’t you?!” Suicune barked.

“A what?”  But the beast didn’t explain.  I shook my head and went on, “Listen to me!  Those machines aren’t indestructible, and they can’t absorb your attacks when they’re in offense mode!”

Suicune paused, blinking in surprise.  It then glanced between me and the ALR circle a few times before sprinting off without a word.

Aros threw a glance back at me like I was insane.  “*The hell was that?*”

“It was stupid, but it’s gonna turn the tide of the fight,” I said firmly.  Across the clearing, Suicune had already started bombarding one of the ALRs with multicolored beam attacks.  Not too far from it, the rebels were doing the same.  Zapdos was still desperately attempting to strike back at the Rockets, so blind with rage that it didn’t even notice the ground glowing white until a pillar of swirling blue flame erupted from below, called forth by Entei.  Zapdos screeched in anguish as the flames enveloped it.  But then, without warning, Mew teleported to Entei’s side, grabbed hold of the beast, and then teleported again.  An agonized howl rang out as the fire legend reappeared within one of the ALR beams that had been aiming at Zapdos.  Its body spasmed wildly as the energy dug into it, then finally collapsed to the ground, motionless.

It was down.  Entei had finally been brought down.  I didn’t know whether to be glad that the free Legendaries had one less enemy, or feel bad that they’d even had to do that to one of their own in the first place.

Mew stared at the fainted beast for several seconds.  Then out of nowhere, her eyes widened like she had just realized something.  The cat disappeared from view again, then reappeared alongside Entei, grabbed hold of its mane, and—

A blue aura formed around her and she froze right as the glow of a teleport had started to form.  Clenching his paws together, Mewtwo wrenched Mew away from the fallen beast before a narrow beam shot out of nowhere, dissolving its body into red energy.

The Rockets had recalled Entei.  That meant its Pokéball was here, at the mission site.  And I’d seen where the Pokéball beam had come from—it was the van that had transported Entei and Mewtwo here in the first place, still hiding amongst the trees, covered in a camouflaged sheet.  Entei’s Pokéball was in there.  Right there, right now!  I could steal it.  And Mewtwo!  And then nothing could stop Zapdos from freeing the other two birds!  Our mission didn’t have to end in failure!

I had to do it.

“Aros, the van, over there.  Entei’s in there,” I said.

“*I saw.*”

“We’re going to steal it.”

For about the millionth time that day, Aros turned his neck to gape at me like I’d just said the craziest thing he’d ever heard.  “*What?*”

“I’ve already got a plan on how to do it.”  My brain felt like it was on fire from racing so fast.

Aros opened his mouth to say something, but then shook his head and turned around, saying “*I never knew humans were so… this,*” before flying over as quickly as he could, touching down alongside the passenger door.  I grabbed both my Pokéballs, releasing Firestorm and Swift.  The van had to be occupied.  I wasn’t taking any chances this time.

“Firestorm, fill the back of the van with a Smokescreen so the Rockets can’t aim at us.  Swift, use your Keen Eye to see how many are in there.  Then Aros, you grab them and throw ‘em out.  If they drop their guns, hurry and grab ‘em.  If not, get back to us and use Protect,” I said.  If any of them were caught off guard by the sudden instructions out of nowhere, they didn’t show it.

Firestorm stuck by my side as I crept around to the back door of the van.  I took a deep breath—no turning back now.  I threw open the door and Firestorm immediately jumped forward to spew a thick cloud of smoke inside.  Swift circled around in the air and called out, “*Only two of them!*”

No gunfire yet.  Aros shot through the smoke, and a couple of panicked yelps reached my ears right before he emerged, carrying two flailing Rockets in lab coats.

Just a pair of scientists.  They weren’t even armed.  The Flygon hurled them off into the trees unceremoniously.

“Make sure they don’t bother us,” I told Aros.  Then, to Swift, “I need you to clear out the smoke.”

The Pidgeotto nodded and whipped up a gust of wind, sweeping the van clear within seconds.  I climbed inside, followed by both of my Pokémon, and we were met with a wall of computer consoles and softly flickering lights.  Alright, where would Entei’s Pokéball be?  I couldn’t see it out in the open.  Maybe it had been stashed somewhere for safekeeping?  I frantically started throwing open every drawer and compartment I could find… but I couldn’t find any Pokéballs.  Or anything resembling a Pokéball, for that matter.  That didn’t make any sense.  It should have been here.

“It has to be here,” I reassured myself, double-checking all the places I’d already looked.  I must have missed it.  That was the only answer.  It had to be here!

“*Hey, we’ve got trouble,*” Aros said.

I groaned.  “What kind of trouble?”

“And just what do we have here?” a chilling voice behind me asked.  My blood instantly ran cold.  Not that voice.  Not now.  Why now?!

Slowly, I turned to see the executive Astrid approaching the van, sitting atop her Arcanine.  Aros spread his wings defensively and brandished his claws, doing everything in his power to look bigger and also hide me from view.

“I know you’re in there,” Astrid called out to me.  Damn it.  I clenched my fists, mind racing.  We’d have to fight the head of the combat unit.  That was the last thing we needed right now.  Except… unlike our last encounter with her, Aros was actually on my side for real this time.  He was strong enough to fight her, right?

“*I’m not afraid of her.  Half her team’s fire-type.  Fire doesn’t hurt m—*”  The Flygon’s words were cut off by a red-hot fireball to the face, knocking him backward.  “*Oh shit, that’s hot!*” he cried, bracing himself against the back door of the van.

“That was a warning shot,” Astrid said poisonously.  “Now get out of the way.”

“*Screw you.*”

Astrid sighed exaggeratedly and with a very slow, deliberate motion, dismounted her Pokémon.  “Arcanine, keep the experiment busy while I deal with this one.”  The firedog bared its teeth and lunged.  I flinched, screwing my eyes shut the moment it struck, hearing Aros howling in pain.  When I opened my eyes, Arcanine had dragged the Flygon away from the back of the van, its jaws locked firmly around one of his arms.  Aros flared his wings in a desperate attempt to stabilize himself while drawing back his other arm to slash with.  But at the last second, the firedog let go of him and dodged the incoming attack before charging forward, its entire body wreathed in flames.

Astrid was now standing at the back of the van, staring at me with a condescending scowl.  Firestorm and Swift took fighting stances in front of me.  Her hand hovered over her Pokéball belt, but she hadn’t sent anyone else out yet.  She was… waiting for us to make the first move?  Why?

Wait… the equipment?  There was a ton of sensitive equipment behind us.  Of course she didn’t want to run the risk of accidentally destroying it.  But… what was so important about it?

The answer snapped into my mind, clear as day.  It was controlling Mewtwo.  That had to be it.  Razors had mentioned that a device had been controlling him.  Mewtwo and Entei had been unloaded from the van before the mission.  Entei had been recalled into it.  This was it!  This was the Legendary control tech.  I clenched my fists, feeling a spark of confidence rising within me.  I actually had way more leverage in this than I thought, didn’t I?

“You can’t hide in there forever,” Astrid snapped.

I gave her a defiant glare.  “I think I can.  I think these computers are the only thing keeping Mewtwo on your side.  What happens if I destroy them?”

“You’ll be in for the worst pain of your life, that’s what,” she spat.  But at the same time, there was actually the tiniest sliver of fear in her expression.  Mewtwo might have been the Rockets’ greatest weapon, but they were also terrified of him, weren’t they?

Neither of us made a move.  Behind her, Arcanine had knocked Aros to the ground, pummeling the dragon repeatedly with a series of rapid-fire blows.  My chest tightened—Aros was faring much worse than I’d expected.  I had to find a way of this, and fast.  But I couldn’t actually destroy the computers with her standing there.  It’d be a death sentence.  At the same time, she couldn’t start a battle without running the risk of destroying them herself—that was a death sentence as well.  And she couldn’t just pull me out herself while I had Firestorm and Swift here.  We were stuck.  And from the look on her face, she knew it just as well as I did.

Without warning, Firestorm spat a fireball right at Astrid.  Her eyes went wide, and she lunged out of the way, dodging it at the last second.

“You’re going to regret that!” she snarled.

And then a sudden bolt of lightning struck her from nowhere, knocking her to the ground instantly.  What the hell?  How—where had that come from?!  My question was answered when a spiky Pikachu shot into our field of view, stopping in its tracks right in front of the van.

Chibi!

Arcanine immediately bolted away from Aros, snarling furiously as it threw itself between its fallen trainer and Chibi.  But then its eyes darted between me, Chibi, and Aros as it slowly stepped backward, ears pinned and tail low.  The firedog let out low growl, then nudged its nose under its trainer and rolled her limp body onto its back before racing off.

I sank to my knees, letting out a huge sigh of relief.  I didn’t have much chance to relax before Chibi rounded on me.  “*What are you doing facing down the head of the combat unit alone?!  I’d expect that kind of overconfidence from Aros, but not you, Jade.*”

“*Hey,*” Aros growled, hobbling over to us.

“I didn’t mean to!  It kind of just happened,” I muttered lamely, feeling my cheeks go red.

Chibi closed his eyes and shook his head.  “*Stay out of trouble, damn it,*” he said before racing off.

“Since when has he been so protective?” I muttered under my breath.  I leaned outside the van to get a good look at where he was heading and saw that the rebels’ sabotage hadn’t gone unnoticed.  With Suicune focusing its efforts on the ALRs and Mew and Zapdos banding together to fight Mewtwo, the Rockets had opted to stay out of the Legendaries’ way, which put them in another direct clash with the Rebellion.

I took a deep breath.  The others would be okay.  The Rockets’ forces had already been decimated by Suicune.  And Chibi was going to help protect them.  I had to focus on what I was doing.  I turned back to see how Aros had fared and—

“Oh geez… are you okay?”

“*What’s it look like?*” Aros said in a low voice, looking away.  The bug-dragon’s scales were covered in nasty red blisters and vicious gashes in jagged, tearing patterns that looked like bite wounds, bleeding freely.  I hopped down from the van and approached him carefully—the last thing I wanted was to catch him off-guard in such a vulnerable state.

“At least take these,” I said, reaching into my belt pouch and holding out a fistful of oran and rawst berries.  The Flygon scarfed them down instantly.

“*Not nearly enough, but it’ll do,*” he muttered.

I climbed back inside the van, a feeling of hopelessness starting to settle in.  No matter how hard I looked, I hadn’t been able to find Mewtwo and Entei’s Pokéballs.  Was there any point in spending more time looking?  But if not, what was I supposed to do now?

The answer hit me like lightning.  The threat I’d made to Astrid… to destroy the Legendary control tech… now that she was gone, I could actually do that.

“Firestorm, time to trash that console.”  The Charmeleon looked like he’d just been told it was his birthday.  Blowing out a huge fireball onto his claws, he drew back a fist and swung it with all his might.  We’d been attacking heavily armored weaponry all day, it was actually kind of funny seeing his Fire Punch tear through ordinary computers.  But the real question was: had that broken the Rockets’ control over Mewtwo?  I leaned outside the back of the van to get a better look at the Legendary battle and—

I stared.  Mewtwo lay sprawled out in the dirt, motionless.  They’d finally managed to take him down.  If I’d been just a little bit faster…

Zapdos’s feathers were charred black, its wings straining just to stay aloft.  And yet it still was bearing down on the Rocket’s forces with an unyielding fury, despite the fact that its bolts had weakened to the point that they couldn’t even break the vehicles’ shields.  Master Balls flew through the air, forcing the electric-type to dive out of the way in an awkward move that almost sent it crashing to the ground.

<Zapdos, we must leave!> Mew pleaded.

“*No!!  I’m not leaving without them!*”

<It will do us no good if you’re captured as well!>

“*I can’t leave them!!*” the thunderbird cried, eyes wide with desperation.

Mew glanced frantically between Zapdos and the Rockets, her eyes widening in horror as a Master Ball flew right at the former.  And then, in the blink of an eye, she teleported to Zapdos’s side, and the two of them vanished together.  This time they didn’t reappear.  Mew had taken them far from here.

They’d escaped.  But it also meant they’d had to give up on rescuing Articuno and Moltres.

The squeal of tires suddenly rang out, alarmingly close to us this time.  Had the Rockets realized I was here?  How?!

Astrid’s Arcanine.  Like it wouldn’t have led them back to me?  Especially now that the Legendaries were gone?  My train of thought was rudely interrupted by Aros clambering inside the van, shoving me, Firestorm, and Swift into a corner in the process.

“Aros, what the hell.”

“*The Rockets are all heading this way.  Excuse me if I didn’t want to be in the line of fire,*” Aros grumbled.

“You couldn’t just fly away?”

“*How the hell would you have gotten out then, huh?*”

I raised an eyebrow.  “Is that concern?”

Aros scoffed.  “*Tch.  As if.  Chibi would never let me hear the end of it if I got you killed.*”

Well alright then.  Either way, we had to get out of here, now.  “Can you still fly?”

“*Don’t have much of a choice if we wanna get out of here,*” the Flygon grunted.

I recalled Firestorm and Swift, then slowly clambered onto his back, taking care to avoid the worst of the burns.

“Alright.  Let’s go.”

Aros bolted out of the van and then everything dissolved into chaos.  Gunfire rang out, so close it nearly split my ears.  And then out of nowhere, Aros barreled to the left and my arms slipped from his neck and for a single, heart-stopping moment I was clutching at thin air before my hands found his tail fan and I clung to it for dear life.  His every move sent whiplash running through my lower body, but there was no chance for him to slow down—I had no choice but to ride it out.  The dark aura of Feint Attack slowly crept across the both of us as we shot across the ground, nothing more than a shadow.  More Rockets in this direction—more gunfire!  Nowhere was safe!  Our shadowy aura faded, but the bug-dragon immediately focused all his energy into flaring it up again, just in time to misdirect a second Rocket squad’s gunfire, right before bolting for the empty airspace between two jeeps.

“*Dammit this is hard—I’ve never used Feint Attack this much in such a short time,*” Aros grunted.

He was running low on energy.  Everyone was.  What would we do if he ran out entirely?  I just had to hold on.  We were going to make it, I just had to hold on!  They couldn’t hit us; we were moving too fast.  I just had to keep telling myself that.  We were moving too—

A sudden, sharp pain tore through my arm and I was falling.  My surroundings spiraled past me in a dizzying whirlwind, and the only thing I could make out was the ground rushing toward me and my voice as I screamed, and I screwed my eyes shut right before I struck the ground and kept going, tumbling over and over before finally skidding to a stop in a crumpled heap, every inch of my body racked with pain.

I clutched my left arm to my chest and immediately felt my right hand soaked with something warm and sticky.  What…?  Slowly, shakily, I peeled my fingers away, revealing a deep gash that carved through—okay no, I shouldn’t have looked.  I clutched it even tighter, wincing as the dirt from my hand stung the wound and blood continued to seep through my fingers.  Damn it, why was there so much blood?!  My right arm was an awful, scraped-up mess, but at least it wasn’t bleeding all over the place like—

Like I’d been shot.  No way… I’d been shot?

I clenched my teeth and struggled to regain control of my breathing as tears stung the corners of my eyes.  They were still after me, weren’t they?  I had to get up.  I had to run!  But my body didn’t want to move.

I craned my neck to look up at my surroundings and saw the Rockets that had cornered us earlier now closing in.  Saw their Pokémon launching attacks at Aros as he made repeated attempts to swoop down towards me.  Saw the familiar form of an Arcanine bounding towards me in the distance and felt my blood run cold.  I swallowed hard and poured every ounce of effort into pulling my legs underneath my body, then somehow managed to put my weight on one leg and lift myself from the ground, still clutching my bloodied arm.  Had to keep moving.  Had to—

A sudden bolt flew out of nowhere and I was on the ground again, crying out in agony as a surge of lightning tore through me.

That was it.  I didn’t have any strength left.  My body was paralyzed, my limbs twitching uncontrollably.  I could barely make out the heavy thud of paws striking the ground near me, followed by the scraping of boots against the dirt.

Had to… do something.  But my thoughts didn’t want to flow straight.  Everything felt hazy and distant, even the pain.

The last thing I saw was Astrid staring down at me, her face devoid of any emotion.  Then everything went dark.

Chapter Text

My eyes blinked, and a dim surrounding gradually came into focus.  Where was I?  I couldn’t remember, but this didn’t seem like the last place I’d been conscious.  I’d been… in the forest, right?  We were trying to escape, and… this would be a lot easier to process if my head didn’t hurt so damn much.  My thoughts dragged like mud.

I blinked a few more times, willing my eyes to focus.  I was horizontal, staring up at a ceiling.  Alright, that was a start.  I tried to sit up and—pain, everywhere, I should have known.  A dull aching throb was the only sensation my body felt like giving me.  But by this point frustration was starting to win out.  I forced myself into an upright sitting position… and found myself on a bench in a dimly lit concrete room.  Its only features were a tiny sink, a toilet that I wanted to stay as far from as possible, and the metal bars comprising the front wall.  Wait… bars?

A cell.  I was in a cell.  A half dozen similar cells filled out the rest of the room.  Near the entrance to the room, a Rocket officer sat reclining at a desk, reading something on a tablet.

My heart sank through the floor.  I’d been captured.  And now I was imprisoned and waiting for who knows what.  I sank back against the wall, the weight of the situation crushing down on me.  And then the memories of the mission itself came rushing back.

We’d failed.

No, we hadn’t.

Articuno and Moltres had been caught.

All of them would have been caught if it hadn’t been for us.  I actually helped, damn it.  I mattered.

And look where it’d gotten me.

I buried my face in my hands, my mind a swirling mess of conflicting emotions.  Out of nowhere, a stabbing pain shot through my left arm.  I went to grab it with my right… and then froze.  My arm was crudely wrapped in medical tape.  Oh crap, I’d been shot, too.  I held my breath, gingerly running my fingers across the tape, feeling the shape of the wound.  The tape was probably only to keep it from bleeding all over whatever vehicle I’d been transported in.  Blood had caked all over the edges and formed an ugly scab.  Removing the tape was gonna suck.  But that was a problem for later.  For now, I had to figure out more about my situation.  What time was it?  How long had I been here?  I glanced at my watch, and… right, my watch was dead.  This was the second watch that Raichu had killed.  If I ever got out of here, my next one was gonna be a wind-up.

I was seriously making plans around the inevitable next time I’d be electrocuted.  What the hell?

A sudden creaking rang throughout the cell block, and I glanced up to see the entrance door swinging open.  And then a wave of cold dread crashed down on me.  Astrid stepped through the doorway, her expression cold and disapproving, like she’d rather have been anywhere else.  Astrid, who I’d escaped from twice, both times knocking her out with Chibi’s lightning.  Except this time there was no way out—I’d be at her mercy.

“You’re awake.  Good.  That’ll make this easier.”  She turned to the guard at the desk and said, “Leave us.”

At first, the Rocket didn’t notice that she’d addressed him.  Several seconds later, his eyes suddenly widened, and he jerked forward in his seat, nearly dropping his tablet.  “Oh!  Uh, right away!”  He quickly gathered up his belongings off the desk and hurried out of the cell block, looking almost as flustered as I felt.

I was alone… alone with the head combat executive.  No Pokémon.  No allies.  Not even any Rocket bystanders would know what happened to me.  With slow, deliberate steps, Astrid walked forward toward my cell. The sound of her heavy boots echoed off the walls, each footfall digging into me like a shock wave.  I had to stay calm.  I couldn’t let her know how terrified I was—not when she hadn’t even done anything yet.

“Why am I here?” I asked, forcing my words to sound calm and collected.

“I think you know why,” she replied, tapping her ID to the scanner on my cell door.

Of course.  The Rockets wouldn’t have bothered to bring me back alive if I didn’t have something they wanted.  And that something was information.

The cell door shut behind her with a metallic clang.  I did my best to avoid eye contact, but she was right there.  Right in front of me, staring down at me like I was nothing, no doubt thinking up the best ways to force me to talk.

Astrid raised an eyebrow.  “What’s that look for?  You should be happy I’m the one interrogating you.  The others aren’t quite as… understanding as I am.”

I highly, highly doubted that.  But was the dread on my face really that obvious?  I quickly tried to rearrange my expression into something more neutral, but even my facial muscles felt distant and unresponsive.

“There are a lot of things I want to know about your little team,” Astrid continued, her tone casual, like this was a perfectly ordinary conversation between two people who weren’t mortal enemies.

“…And if I don’t feel like telling you?”  It was a stupid question.  I already knew the answer, and I didn’t even want to hear it.

Astrid delicately plucked a Pokéball off her belt and opened it, releasing a burst of white light that condensed into the form of her Raichu.  That Raichu.  The orange mouse gave a swish of its long, inky-black tail, sparks leaping off its cheeks.  Just looking at it sent a jolt of nausea through my stomach.

“Use your imagination,” she said.

I clenched my teeth, trying my hardest to give her my most defiant glare possible.  It didn’t feel very convincing.

“Let’s start with where that rebel base of yours is.”

Alright… I had to know she was gonna ask that.  What was somewhere far away from Midnight Island, but still close enough for us to go on missions?  Fuchsia?  The S.S. Anne had sailed past there.  It made sense.

“I’m going to assume you didn’t hear me,” she said icily.  “Where is the rebel base?”

Then again… if I told her too readily, she’d immediately know I was lying.  Why would I just immediately give away the rest of my team without any force?  I wouldn’t.  Which meant—my insides melted away just thinking about it—that I had no choice but to take the first attack.

“Time’s up.”

She snapped her fingers, and Raichu let a string of lightning fly.  The sudden burst of gut-wrenching pain gripped my whole body, tearing through every nerve like wildfire.  I clenched my teeth, desperately trying to keep myself from crying out in agony.  Had to endure it.  Couldn’t let her get to me.  But the pain—!  It consumed every inch of me, threatening to tear me apart.

Finally, it stopped.  I gasped for breath and coughed hard, my arms and legs trembling uncontrollably while Astrid stared down at me with her usual condescending face.  Breathing heavily, I glared back at her—part of me actually wanted her to know I’d taken the attack on purpose.  It meant I had control over something, at least.

“Maybe that question was too hard?” she said mockingly.  “Let’s try a different one.  Who’s your leader?”

I let out a breath.  I could actually answer this one.  Except… she almost definitely wasn’t going to like the answer.

“You already know our leader’s called Stalker,” I said in a low voice.

She glared.  “That’s completely useless and you know it.”  Of course.

I closed my eyes.  “I don’t know his real name.  You think he’d have told us?”

A long pause followed.  “Is he a former Rocket?  Is he a former executive?”

“I don’t know,” I said, my words as slow and deliberate as possible.  “I know he has contacts on Team Rocket, but that’s it.”

A sudden jolt out of nowhere left me doubled over, clutching my stomach as another wave of pain wormed through my insides.  It was short, but it caught me off-guard and left a pit of nausea in its wake.

“You’re not telling me the full truth,” Astrid hissed.  “Was he a part of the revolt?  Is he the former commander?”

“I… what?  I don’t know anything about the revolt!”  I really didn’t!  What was I supposed to say?!  I didn’t even know enough to be able to make up random crap.

Astrid’s face lit up with rage, and she drew back a fist.  I braced myself for the punch… but then she froze, staring at me wide-eyed, like she couldn’t believe she’d almost lost control.  Seconds passed; neither of us moved a muscle.  Then her expression hardened, and she snapped her fingers.

A blinding flash and another flood of lightning.  I screamed as the pain burned through every inch of me, drowning out every other sensation.  I couldn’t think.  I couldn’t breathe.  I was on fire, and it just kept going, with no sign of ending.  Why wouldn’t it end?!

It took me several seconds to notice when it finally stopped.  The pain was gone, and I was… on the floor?  I blinked slowly, my thoughts struggling to flow again.  I must have fallen off the bench at some point.  My stomach clenched painfully, and the stinging taste of acid filled my mouth.  Muscles trembling, my limbs tried to maneuver under my body so I could lift myself off the filthy concrete.  But then… what was the point?  She was just going to shock me again.

Astrid kneeled down next to me and brushed the hair back from my face.  “You know… I don’t actually like torturing people,” she said, her voice cold and quiet.

“You’ve sure showed it,” I muttered dully, not looking up at her.

A fist locked around my shirt collar instantly, dragging my body off the floor.  My limbs flailed, struggling for balance, but it didn’t even matter—she lifted me up to her level and stared me dead in the eyes.

“You listen to me very carefully,” Astrid said, her voice low and dangerous.  “The only reason you are alive right now is because you’re useful to us.  Which means the only way you are leaving this base alive is if you prove it wasn’t a waste of time to bring you here.  So if you tell me where the rebel base is, I might just be so happy that I’d convince the boss to let you go.”

Somehow, I couldn’t imagine her being happy with anything.  But at that moment, it was a really, really appealing lie.  Astrid stared at me expectantly, her eyes scanning my face, searching for anything she could latch onto.

“Did you hear me?  I’m giving you the chance to live if you cooperate.  You should be grateful,” she spat.

The chance to live… it just meant selling out everyone else on the Rebellion.  I willed myself to ignore it, but her words cut through me like a knife.  I had to say something.  Something that would satisfy her without killing my teammates.  But my mind had gone completely blank.  Come on, I had to say something!

“Answer me, damn it!” she yelled, throwing me to the ground.  I barely had a chance to register the pain shooting through my left side before my senses dissolved in a wave of lightning.  It tore through me, scrambling my insides, numbing my limbs, setting every nerve ablaze with agony.

A pause.  The lightning stopped for a single, sweet instant.  Just long enough for me to get my senses back.  Then it returned, somehow worse.  Alternating between pain and relief, my body twitching uncontrollably the entire time.  Couldn’t brace myself.  Couldn’t endure it.  Not like this.

She was saying more things now.  Asking—no, demanding more answers, and it took my brain far too long to piece together the words: “What Pokémon does your leader use?”

How was I supposed to know that?  A small voice urgently prodded at the back of my mind.  I… did know the answer to that?  What was I supposed to do about it?

“Charizard,” my voice said.

“I already know that,” came a reply full of exasperation.  Another blast of electricity shot through my body.

The next question: “How many members are on your team?”  I knew that one.  It was… a number?  What number?  My brain wouldn’t stop counting the seconds it had been since the last shock.  Six… seven… eight…

“Eight,” my voice mumbled.  What was the question?  That… wasn’t the answer, was it?  Another burst of gut-wrenching pain gave me my answer.

Nothing meant anything anymore.  I couldn’t move or talk or do anything but lie there and listen to words I couldn’t understand and wait for the next shock because there was always another shock.

I was powerless.  I couldn’t move.  I couldn’t breathe.  My body didn’t exist anymore, just a swirling torrent of pain, and I was drowning in it.  Why?  Why was this happening?  I couldn’t process it anymore.  Couldn’t think.  Nothing existed but pain.

“Why can’t you just cooperate?!”

Anything to make it stop.  Anything.  Why couldn’t I do anything?  There had to be something.  My brain scrambled to find an answer, clawing through a sea of static, searching for any two thoughts to piece together.  I felt my voice, and then somehow became aware that it was my voice.  It definitely existed.  I could use it.  I could end this!

Screaming.  I’d been screaming.  The past few minutes suddenly flashed through my brain, clear as day.  Lying down, taking the pain, useless, unable to do anything, hovering at the edge of consciousness because there was no way she’d give me the relief of slipping over that edge.

“I’ll tell you!”

“What?” Astrid demanded, taken aback.

“I said I’ll tell you, I just… I need more time.  I need… I need to think about it first.  Please…”  God, I sounded pathetic.

I couldn’t see her face.  I had no idea what her reaction was.  I could only see the concrete floor and my arms stretched out uselessly in front of my face.  Seconds passed.  Glorious, pain-free seconds.  The ache in my body was nothing so long as the shocks stopped.

My senses gradually started returning.  I could feel the cold, rough surface of the concrete scraping against my face.  The sting of the bullet wound in my arm.  The warm, wet feeling spreading across my lower body.

Slowly and deliberately, Astrid’s boots stepped into my field of view.  My ears caught the sound of her leaning down, right in front of me.  And then finally, in a dangerous whisper, inches from my ear, she said, “You have one hour.”

I let out a long, slow breath.  It had worked.  I honestly couldn’t believe it had worked.  How much of my pathetic display had been acting and how much of it hadn’t been?  I had no idea.  Astrid recalled her Raichu, then turned around and strode out the cell, stopping just long enough to shut the door.

I was alone.  Frozen on the floor, body unresponsive.  Each breath came slow and deliberate, like I couldn’t remember how to do it automatically.  Eyelids closed and opened, like I was controlling them for the first time.  The opposite end of the cell slowly came into focus, and it took my brain a few seconds to realize that I could look at things and see them.  That my actions and senses were connected.  Something about the idea just didn’t make sense.

Movement, in my fingertips.  I was moving them.  It took far too much effort, though, and I stopped.  That was fine; I didn’t want to move anyway.  I didn’t want to do anything.  Did feeling things count as doing something?  Some part of my brain remained convinced that none of these senses were mine anyway.  That I was seeing through the eyes of a stranger and feeling pain that definitely had to be someone else’s because there was no way that all of that had really happened to me.  It couldn’t have been real.

Time had no meaning anymore.  My eyes slid to my right-hand wrist, but the watch remained dead.  I had no idea how long I’d been lying there.  This fact was alarming, for some reason.

My eyes snapped open.  I only had an hour.  One hour to figure out some way—any way—to not go through that again.  Breath—my breath—seized in my chest, and fingers clutched at the concrete until skin started to scrape off.

I wasn’t really going to give in… was I?  I could come up with all kinds of logical-sounding cover stories now that I had a chance to think.  The problem was… there was no way she’d ever let me go until she got a chance to confirm if I was telling the truth.  And when she found out I was lying—because of course she was going to find out…

I knew she wasn’t going to kill me.  Some part of me just knew.  She needed me here, so I could feel the punishment and know that I was powerless to stop it and that the only way she’d let it end was if I gave her what she wanted.  A shiver ran through me.  That was it, wasn’t it?  The only way it was going to end.  If I didn’t sell out the rest of the Rebellion, I was stuck in here with no end in sight.  How long would I be able to take that until I gave in?  I didn’t want to know.  Just thinking it about it hurt.

A sound pricked at my ears suddenly.  Footsteps echoing softly down the hallway outside the cell block.  And it was like a bucket of cold water had been dumped on my head.  It couldn’t have been an hour already.  No way.  No way.  I wasn’t ready.  I couldn’t go through that again.

The entrance to the cell block swung open and my entire body went numb.  Please, no.

“Hey, kid!” a hushed voice called out.  Definitely not Astrid’s voice.

My eyes snapped open.  Slowly, painfully, my arms lifted my torso from the floor.  My head turned toward the cell block entrance.  And then I blinked, unable to process the sight.  A familiar face, framed by curly blonde locks.  Icy blue eyes.  A devilish grin that faltered slightly once she got a good look at me.

The girl—Stracion—spoke.  “Wow, you’re a mess.”

“Thanks,” I muttered dully.

“Anyway, I can’t exactly come in there, so we’ll have to talk across the room… cameras and all that,” she said, pointing to the security cameras in the corners, facing the cells.  “Can’t be seen talking to a rebel who’s about to escape.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Aw, come on.  I thought we were friends.”  But then, for whatever reason, my brain finally managed to work through the implications of what she’d said.

“Wait, what do you mean, ‘about to escape’?”

“Slow on the uptake right now, arent’cha?  That’s okay, maybe these will help.”  She produced a handful of minimized Pokéballs and rolled them across the floor into the cell, where they bumped into my side.  I stared at them, confused.  My head was starting to hurt from trying to process all of this.

“How did you get those?” I asked.

“Your leader messaged me; said one of your teammates would be teleporting ‘em over, so I just had to be in the right place at the right time,” she said, twirling a lock of hair around her finger.

I could practically feel the context trying to piece itself together in my brain.  A teammate had teleported two Pokéballs to Stracion, and she was giving them to me…

“Wait.  These are my Pokémon?”

“Nah.  I think your Pokémon are over there, actually,” she said, gesturing to the desk where the guard had previously been stationed.  A Pokéball Containment Unit sat on a shelf behind it, along with a belt pouch.

Right… I’d had my Pokéballs with me when I was captured.  But then whose were these?

“So, I’ve done my part—the rest is on you, yeah?  Better get on that, ‘cause I’d bet you only got a minute or two before someone notices something on the security feed.  Toodles!”  She winked before disappearing out the doorway

I stared at the place where she’d left, blinking in confusion.  Had that… really just happened?  My eyes slid back to the Pokéballs at my side.  Someone had given her two Pokémon to give to me that weren’t mine?  That… that didn’t make any sense.  Not that anything made any sense with how badly everything still hurt.  I didn’t want to think right now, I just wanted to curl into a ball and forget everything.

But I couldn’t ignore this opportunity.  Slowly, my right hand slid down until it reached the Pokéballs.  It took several second of fumbling for my fingers to find the buttons that opened them.  Twin bursts of light suddenly appeared alongside me.  And when they took shape, all I could do was stare.

“Aros?  Stygian?” I blurted out.  “What are you two doing here?”

The clones’ eyes flicked back and forth, taking in the pathetic sight of me.  I screwed my eyes shut, like that somehow made it better.  I couldn’t even describe how I felt to see them.

“*Stalker sent us.  Said it was important to get you out of the enemy’s hands as soon as possible,*”  Aros said, his words a bit… off, like he couldn’t figure out what to make of me.

“How are we getting out?” I mumbled.

Stygian turned around and began investigating the cell bars, pawing at them for a few seconds before scoffing.  “*These bars aren’t meant to hold Pokémon at all.*”  The Absol drew herself back, then lunged, swinging her head so the blade cleaved through the bars repeatedly.  After the third swing, the cell door clattered to the ground in pieces.

She looked back at me expectantly.  “*We need to move.*”

Move.  I had to move?  Just breathing was hard enough right now.  How the hell was I supposed to stand up, let alone make it outside the base?  I could practically feel their eyes burning into me as I propped myself up on my elbows, wincing as a jolt shot through my left arm.  Okay, that arm was useless; just the other one, then.  I grit my teeth and forced a leg forward so I could put weight on it, willing myself to push through the pain.  Everything was slow.  Maddeningly slow.  Why did my legs feel like dead, useless stumps.  Why had I let myself get into this situation in the first place.  Why.

Somehow, I managed to stand, and it was like my legs had switched from lead to jelly, wobbling unsteadily as I braced myself against the wall.  Aros looked me up and down once more and grimaced before turning his back to me.  “*Get on.  It’ll be faster.*”

I felt my cheeks go red.  Why did anyone have to see me like this.  Why.  “Are you… sure?”

He closed his eyes.  “*Just do it.*”

I reached out an arm to grab the dragon’s side, then slowly maneuvered a leg over his back.  His scales were crossed with the scabbed marks of where his wounds from the last battle had been hastily healed.

“Why are you risking yourselves for me?” I mumbled.

“*You freed us from our confinement.  It’s a simple matter of returning the favor,*” Stygian said with a tone that made it quite clear she didn’t want to hear anything else about it.

I crossed my arms around Aros’s neck and then kind of just… collapsed onto his back as every muscle gave out at once.  The Flygon shifted a bit to make sure I wouldn’t fall off the moment he started moving, then carefully stepped over the broken door pieces and ambled towards the cell block entrance.

“Wait.  Are… are my Pokémon really in there?” I said, weakly pointing at the Pokéball Containment Unit on the shelf over the guard station.  Aros tilted his head at it, then reached forward and undid the latches on the case, opening it.  Two Pokéballs and a black hybrid ball—they had to be mine.  My heart skipped a beat—the Rockets had almost gotten their hands on Chibi again.  Except, wait… he hadn’t even been with me when I was captured.

“*Ha, I bet they were pissed when they found out Chibi isn’t in there,*” Aros said with a chuckle.  “*Wish I could’ve seen that.*”

I slowly extended a shaking arm to grab the three minimized balls before stuffing them in my pocket with the other two.  Something about having five Pokéballs felt really weird.  The belt pouch was too far for me to reach, so Aros just grabbed it and slipped it around his neck before exiting the cell block.

“I don’t know where we are.  I don’t know how to get out of here.  I can’t…”

“*It’s Celadon,*” Stygian cut me off.  “*We know this base by heart.  Just be quiet.*”

Just be quiet.  I could do that.  Aros’s wings buzzed on either side of me, and we were airborne, shooting down a deserted corridor.  I caught sight of Stygian racing ahead of us, a white blur in my fuzzy vision.  Second later—or minutes, I couldn’t really tell—blaring sirens split the air, and flashing red lights dug into my eyes.  I buried my face in Aros’s neck and thought about being anywhere else.

“*They’ll be on us soon.  I’ll stay in front and use Protect.*”

Gunshots fired and Aros changed direction suddenly and all my senses dissolved into an onslaught of lights and sounds and motion and chaos.  Every so often I caught shreds of what was going on: the sparkling white light of Protect.  The prickling sensation of Feint Attack’s dark aura.  The writhing nausea caused by our constantly changing flight path as the two clones pushed on, dodging the Rockets’ deadly force at every turn.

“*On your left, watch it!*”

I couldn’t help them.  I couldn’t do anything but keep my head down and pour every ounce of effort into holding fast to Aros’s neck with hands that barely seemed to work while every sense was overloaded at once.

Our flight path zigged and zagged and spiraled tightly upward.  I dared to open my eyes a crack and was met with a view of the same stairwell that I’d once crept up under vastly different circumstances.  At some point Aros spun around, and I felt a burst of heat as the dragon launched some kind of fire breath down the stairs.  Not long afterward, the metallic clang of blades on metal rang out and then cold air pierced every inch of exposed skin like needles.

“*We’re outside.  You need to recall me.*” a voice urgently prodded at my ears.

What?  Oh, right, Stygian couldn’t fly.  I grabbed a Pokéball, pointed it vaguely in her direction, and pressed the button.  Nothing happened.  What?  Why didn’t…?

“*Hurry!!*”

Idiot.  It was the wrong Pokéball.  I fumbled with a few more before finding the right one and recalling the Absol in a beam of red.  And then Aros’s wings powered us rapidly upward, sending a rush of wind and tangled hair into my face.

“*Which way?*”

Dammit.  How was I supposed to answer that now?  Slowly, I peeled open my eyelids and was met with the orange glow of sunset… or was it sunrise?  Midnight was… east of Celadon, so…

“Head… head away from the sun,” I said.  God, I hoped it was the sunset.  “Make sure you’re not followed.”

“*I know.*”

The twilight gave way to a dark, moonless night.  The flight stopped feeling like flight after a while as everything gradually went numb.  I was floating in a void, some part of my brain refusing to accept that we’d actually escaped.  Somehow, I was still in the cell, but also out here at the same time.  Lost in the abyss of dread, waiting for Astrid to resume the interrogation, and also numb from the autumn night sapping the heat from my body.  Both somehow real and not real.

I had no idea how long it continued like that.  There were times I was certain I was dreaming.  That I’d fallen asleep at some point and lost my grip on Aros, slipped from the Flygon’s back and been dashed to pieces on the ground below.  But my hands—numb as they were—were locked tightly around the clone’s neck.  I didn’t think I could have moved them if I wanted to.

Eons later, I heard Aros’s voice telling me, “*We’ve landed.*”

Slowly, my eyes opened.  The ground was right below us.  I exhaled slowly, feeling a rush of… something.  I wasn’t quite sure what.  Relief that we’d made it home in one piece?  I didn’t feel like one piece.

My hands trembled as they slowly unclasped from one another.  Aros straightened himself so that when I slid off his back, I was standing upright as opposed to toppling over.  I wasn’t totally convinced my legs were going to support my weight, but they did.

That’s when I realized we weren’t alone.  A crowd of Rebellion members had gathered outside the front entrance to the stadium, glancing uncertainly amongst each other.  A hot wave of embarrassment washed over me as I became all too aware of the dozens of eyes running up and down the pathetic sight of me.  The hushed voices whispering and wondering.  Everyone knew I’d been captured.  Everyone could look at me and see that I was the first one to screw up so badly.

I could feel the fires of humiliation burning every inch of exposed skin.  The sounds of the whispers and the murmurs and even the genuine questions that my brain didn’t feel like parsing because it had all blended together into a flurry of needles assaulting my ears.  I couldn’t take it.  I wanted to be as far from here as possible.  Preferably in my room, alone, where no one could see me, and I could forget everything.

A finger tapped my shoulder, and I almost melted into a puddle right then and there.  I spun around to see Stalker standing behind me, motioning for me to follow him away from the crowd.  The last thing I needed was everyone staring at me in this state.  Something told me he knew that.  I followed him away from the stadium, where there were no longer a million things demanding my attention and assaulting my senses.  It helped… kind of.

Stalker turned to face me, and he didn’t mince words.  “Were you interrogated?”

His question felt like a knife plunging straight through my chest.  But I nodded.

Stalker paused to consider me carefully for some time.  No doubt mulling over just how badly I’d screwed up.  How likely it was that I’d screwed over the rest of the team.  Finally, he turned around and said, “Go get cleaned up.  We’ll meet in my office to talk privately about what happened.”

The water was too cold.  I cranked the shower handle as far as it would go, but it still felt too cold.  Even when the room filled with steam and my skin turned bright red and I knew it was burning, but I couldn’t feel it.  Nothing felt like anything.  I was going to wake up and realize it’d all been a dream any second now.

I didn’t bother trying to unwrap my wound and redress it properly.  I’d deal with that bloody mess later.  Hopefully much later.  Maybe if I waited long enough, I wouldn’t have to do it at all.

The clothes I’d been wearing previously were still lying in an ugly heap on the bathroom floor.  Just looking at them made me feel sick, so I avoided doing that, but at the same time it was hard to ignore them.  Trying to think about what to do was too much effort, though.  Maybe I’d have Firestorm burn them or something, hell if I knew.

After what felt like an eternity, I found myself sitting at the end of the bed wearing clean clothes and not really sure how I’d gotten there because everything after a certain point was all a blur.  I wanted nothing more than to just fall backwards and pretend no one else existed.  But Stalker was waiting for me downstairs.  Somehow that fact alone was powerful enough to get me out of my room and awkwardly traversing the stairs down to the main floor.  It wasn’t that I was afraid of what he’d say or do if I didn’t.  It was just… I couldn’t disappoint him more than I already had.

I realized about halfway down that I should have taken the elevator.

True to his word, Stalker was waiting for me in his office.  I didn’t say anything when I entered; I just set Aros and Stygian’s Pokéballs on his desk and then eased myself into the chair facing him.  My eyes wandered around the room, not focusing on anything in particular, just avoiding his gaze.

“I need to know everything that was said during your interrogation.  As word-for-word as possible,” he said.

I winced.  Ever since I’d left that cell, my brain had been furiously working to erase all of it.  Like the images and sounds and thoughts and feelings were all some diseased part of my memory that had to be eliminated as soon as possible.

But it was still there.  All of it.

My words tasted like the salt of sweat and the sting of lightning as I recounted every detail I could.  It felt unreal.  Like something that had to have happened to someone else.  My voice echoed dully in my ears, and some part of my brain remained convinced that it wasn’t my voice.

Stalker sat there and listened the entire time.  Calmly.  Patiently.  But there was a slight edge to his expressions.  And I knew the only reason he was having me relay this was because he knew how likely it was that I’d given away some piece of crucial information that’d doom the Rebellion.  He didn’t comment on anything, just offered prompting questions whenever my voice died for more than a few seconds.  I kept expecting him to ask if I had really meant it when I said I would tell her the base’s location.  And yet… he didn’t.

“So overall, what you’re saying is… you didn’t actually give away anything.”

I blinked.  My brain was such a hazy mess of shame and humiliation that it took several seconds for his words to register.  I really… hadn’t given anything away… had I?  Not yet, anyway—I’d been rescued before I’d gotten a chance to.  But… was I going to?  I didn’t know.  I hated that.

“What do I do now?” I said, my voice raw.

Stalker paused, closing his eyes.  He was silent for what felt like forever.  Finally he said, “Take some time to recover.  You’re exempt from training and missions for now.”

I let out a breath as a rush of… something hit me in the chest.  Relief?  I wouldn’t have to endure anything like that ever again.  Shame?  I’d failed so badly I wasn’t getting another chance.  Anger?  He was basically saying that I was no use to the team anymore.

I didn’t want to go on any missions—so then why did his words feel like a punch to the gut?

I muttered something in response and then left before I made the mistake of sharing how I felt.  I was hoping I could make it back to my room without anyone seeing me.  But Rudy approached me as I exited the elevator on my floor.  He fidgeted uncomfortably, avoiding eye contact, like he knew I didn’t want to see anyone right now.

“Hey Jade, uh… wanna hang out and watch League tournaments?  I downloaded the ‘96 Kanto top cut—I heard it was pretty awesome.”

I just wanted to fall asleep and forget the entire day.

“No thanks.”

I walked past him so I didn’t have to see the look of disappointment on his face.  Something told me it would’ve hurt as much as… well, as much as everything else did.  My actions were on autopilot as I scanned my room key and shuffled inside, my mind a swirling mess of conflicting emotions that I didn’t want to sort through.  Instead, I walked straight to my bed and collapsed face-down onto it.

I should’ve let my Pokémon out for the night.  That’s what I always did.  But then I’d have to explain to them, and that… really didn’t sound appealing.  Not right now.  Maybe later.  Or never.

At some point, I managed to kick off my shoes and worm my way under the covers, although I wasn’t entirely sure when.  The blankets felt soft and warm against my skin.  Nothing like the cold, hard concrete floor of the cell.  But there were moments where I could have sworn I was back there.  Like I’d just imagined the escape, and any second I’d feel Astrid standing over me telling me my time was up.  I kept seeing flashes of light in my peripheral vision.  Flinching, expecting another burst of lightning.

It was stupid.  I was home, I was safe… why was it still affecting me?  There was absolutely no chance I’d be attacked here.  But my thoughts kept straying back to the detention cell, no matter how badly I wanted them to stop.  That feeling of being useless, unable to fight back, completely at her mercy, knowing that when push came to shove, I’d betray everyone.

The feeling burned.  I clenched my fists, swallowing hard.  I had to ignore it.  I had to forget it.  It didn’t matter.  I’d escaped.  I was never going back there.  She couldn’t hurt me anymore.

I closed my eyes slowly, digging my nails into my palms as hot tears streamed down my face.

It wasn’t real.  It didn’t happen.

In my dreams, I saw nothing but lightning.

Chapter Text

“Char.  Chaaar?  Meleon’charr?  Chaar, meeleon char’charmeeleon.”

My hazy, sleep-addled brain only barely registered the Pokéspeech in my ear or the claw poking my shoulder.  I pulled the covers over my head, but that didn’t stop either of the two intrusions.

“What is it?” I grumbled, emerging from under the covers to find the Charmeleon eye level with me.  This had better be good.  Though judging by the last few times he’d woken me up, it probably wasn’t.

“*I finally worked up the nerve to talk to Charizard.*”

Part of me vaguely registered that I had wanted to see that.  It had probably been amusing.

“*She’s, uh… got a thing with Dragonite…*” he continued, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.  “*But she did teach me how to use Flame Burst.*”

“That’s good,” I replied dully.

“*It’s better than good.  My fireballs always went out before.  Now they go, like… clear across the battlefield and explode.*”

Alright, yes, that was pretty impressive.  I wasn’t sure what kind of response he was hoping for, though.

“*You should come train me.  I think I’m close to evolving.*”  It was painfully obvious in his voice that he was just saying it to get me out of bed.  I didn’t doubt that he legitimately wanted to train, it just clearly wasn’t the main motivation.

“I’m not feeling it right now,” I said, covering my face with a pillow so I didn’t have to look at him.

Firestorm groaned.  “*That’s what you said yesterday.*”

“It just doesn’t sound appealing, okay?”

“*Then what does?*”

I didn’t want to answer that.  Because the truth was, I didn’t really want to do anything right now.  Eating and showering mostly just felt like a chore.  Sleeping was nice, I guess.  Even if it was impossible to get comfortable and my left arm wouldn’t stop throbbing ever since I’d changed out the bandages and smothered it with every disinfectant I could get my hands on (only because Swift had sat next to my bed and calmly stared at me until I did).

Firestorm had stolen the card key to my room so he could come in whenever he felt like it, which was often.  Bragging about victories.  Complaining about losses.  Relaying every single thing Stalker had ever said about his progress—including reminding me how close he was to evolving about five times a day.  And it wasn’t that I didn’t want to see any of those things—heck, I’d never forgive myself if I missed his evolution.  But… I just…  I couldn’t bring myself to face everyone.  I couldn’t even explain why—the idea was just so completely and utterly uncomfortable on every level that it was just easier to stay in my room until the feeling passed.  Whenever that was.

“You can train without me, you know that, right?” I said quietly, lifting the pillow a bit to look at him.

The fire lizard gave an unimpressed snort.  “*Obviously.  I used to train by myself, remember?*”  When I didn’t respond, he added, “*That doesn’t change the fact that you’re my trainer, and you’re supposed to train me.  So you have to do it.*”

He was still trying to pretend he wasn’t worried about me.  In a way, that was worse than if he’d come right out and said it.  I should have been able to bounce back from this.  I knew how ridiculous it was that I’d lost the will to do anything and that the idea of facing anyone who knew what had happened was nauseating.  I’d already spent countless hours mentally kicking myself over it, but the feeling refused to subside.

When I didn’t say anything, Firestorm glowered and plopped down on the floor like he was going to wait it out.  But he’d get bored and leave eventually—that much I knew.  And then I wouldn’t have to think about the fact that he had a point.

I could count on hearing someone knock on my door several times a day.  Usually they went away when I didn’t respond.  Rudy would sometimes hold entire conversations with the door, though.  This was one of those times.

“Hey Jade!  Get this—Darren’s Ivysaur evolved.  I can’t believe he got his starter to its final form before we did.”

I could.  With how little he cared about training Wartortle.

“So I asked Stalker, and he said that Ivysaur usually evolves before Wartortle or Charmeleon.  What’s up with that?”

Hopefully that meant that Firestorm wasn’t going to evolve quite yet.  He’d been keeping pace with Ivysaur for some time now.  Although I had no idea how much he’d been training for the past few days.

“So yeah, you gotta get out here and help me train, ‘cause I really want a Blastoise—it’s just so much cooler than Wartortle.”

He could train with literally anyone.  He didn’t need to ask me.  And there was a strange sort of desperation in his voice that I couldn’t quite place.  I screwed my eyes shut and willed him to leave as hard as I could.  I didn’t want to think about how disappointed he was that I wasn’t up to training with anyone.  I should have been up to it.  I shouldn’t have felt like this.

Rudy rambled at the door for a few more minutes before finally leaving.  I thought I’d feel better after he left, but I didn’t.  The anxiety had just evolved into a sickly emptiness.

Yep, this sure was easier than just going outside and seeing everyone.

I grabbed the remote and flipped the TV on, willing myself to stop thinking about it.  Normally the competitive battling channels were the easiest way to distract the mind and keep unpleasant thoughts at bay.  I quickly found that there was nothing good on, though.  Not in October, with the regional league over, and all the master trainers biding their time for the championship circuit that would eventually lead into next year’s Worlds.  The kind of matches involving trainers who’d gotten multiple badge sets from multiple regions.

I flipped through the channels idly, passing by everything from boring amateur single battles with no strategy to Kalos matches that could easily be mistaken for super contests with all the stylish outfits and flashy transformations.  I kind of wanted to find a Unova tournament or something—battles with a lot of Pokémon on the field just felt right after all of Stalker’s multi battle training.  Couldn’t find one, though.  Figures.

I finally settled on some kind of weird monotype tournament, with Pokémon teams limited to a single type.  The fire-type trainer was absolutely dominating with a Talonflame, just tearing through the opposing fighting-type trainer.  There was hardly any question of who was going to win, which kind of diminished the entertainment value.  In any case, competitive battling was more fun to watch with Rudy—he always had interesting commentary, regardless of how close the matches turned out to be.

Maybe I shouldn’t have ignored him.

A light fluttering to my left caught my attention, and I turned to see Swift gliding in through the open window, clasping a grocery bag in his talons.  He dropped it on the bed and then landed alongside it.  I stared at the bag for a few seconds before unfolding it to reveal a boxed lunch.

“How’d you buy this?”  I asked.  He hadn’t borrowed my wallet—it was still sitting on the bedside table like normal.

“*Stalker gave me money,*” the Pidgeotto replied.

Great, now I had that to worry about.  I wasn’t sure why that was worrisome, it just was.

I didn’t have much of an appetite, but I knew from experience that Swift wasn’t going to back down until I took care of myself, and that he had way more patience than I did.  So, fighting back every impulse that said food was completely unappealing right now, I opened the box.  It was the ‘trainer’s special’ containing an assortment of rice balls and dumplings—I’d gotten it a few times before.  He must have noticed.

Swift perched on the end of the bed, preening a few unruly feathers and pretending he wasn’t waiting for me to actually eat the lunch he’d bought.

“You can leave now,” I said.  I already knew he wasn’t going to.

The tawny bird shuffled his talons a bit, looking down.  “*You shouldn’t push everyone away,*” he said quietly.

I bristled, then immediately tried to rearrange my expression into something neutral.  “I know what I’m doing.”

“*Are you sure?*”

No, I wasn’t.  Every hour since that night, I’d been doubting myself on literally everything.  This was no different.

The others knew I’d been captured, and that it had been miserable in one way or another.  But I hadn’t told them what, specifically, had taken place.  I couldn’t… except for Swift.  Even when I’d told him to leave just like I’d told everyone else, he’d sat there quietly, sometimes not saying a word for hours on end.  He’d figured out how to unlock the window so he could leave and come back without relying on Firestorm opening the door, and he’d scarcely left me alone since then.

“*You’re hurt,*” the Pidgeotto said, striding across the bed to sit next to me.

“I’m aware,” I said, clutching my arm.

“*I meant here,*” he said, gently pressing his beak against my heart.

I swallowed hard and looked away.  I had no right to be making such a big deal out of what happened.  It wasn’t that bad.  I was being ridiculous.  We’d been through plenty of rough situations by now.  Why was this any different?  Why was this ruining me?

Weak.  That’s what I was being.  That’s what I’d always been.

“What am I doing here?” I announced randomly.  “I’m not the kind of person who can fight Rockets and protect Legendary Pokémon.  Who was I trying to kid?  I’m not strong enough for something like that.  I never was.”

“*But you did it anyway,*” Swift said with a matter-of-fact tone.

“I… what?  That doesn’t matter.”

The Pidgeotto tilted his head.  “*Why not?*”

I opened my mouth to speak, but I didn’t really know how to respond to that, so I just took a large bite of rice ball—too large, my eyes started watering.

“*It was hard from the start.  But you kept going, even when you were outmatched.  Why?*”

I forced myself to swallow the bite I’d taken and then said, “I don’t know.  Because I thought it was important?  Because I thought it’d make me important?”  This was a pointless conversation.  It was the same thing Stalker had asked me a few weeks ago.

Swift didn’t say anything.  He just fluffed out his feathers and settled into a relaxed position alongside me, making it clear he wasn’t going anywhere.  He didn’t understand.  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go outside, I just… couldn’t.  They’d all seen me that night.  They all knew.  Everyone knew.  Why did that bother me so much?

“They all know I failed.  I don’t know how to face that kind of humiliation,” I finally said.

“*They don’t think that about you,*” the Pidgeotto said calmly.

A pause.  “…Yeah, but I do,” I whispered, more to myself than to him.

“*I don’t.*”

I screwed my eyes shut.  Damn it, why’d he have to be all matter-of-fact like that.  It was impossible to argue with.

Maybe if I could just… tell myself that his opinion of me mattered more than my own.  Mattered more than everyone else’s opinion.  Though in a way, it already did, and that was the weird thing.  I wasn’t afraid of Swift judging me over any of this.  He hadn’t gotten frustrated, hadn’t been disappointed, hadn’t tried to push me to do anything… just sat by my side and… was there.  If I could focus more on that than what I was feeling… then maybe…

I took a deep breath.  “I guess it’s probably time I went outside, yeah.  You’ll come with me, right?”

Swift beamed.  “*Of course.*”

Every inch of me protested as I slowly made my way down the stairs with legs I’d barely used at all the past few days.  But I didn’t want to use the elevator.  If I was going to the effort of even going outside in the first place, there was no point in taking shortcuts.  Swift followed me down, flap-hopping a few steps at a time.  Part of me wished he was still a Pidgey so he could sit on my shoulder like he used to.

Cold air washed over me the moment I stepped outside the stadium.  But I kind of appreciated the cold weather—it meant that I could wear a jacket and hide the bandages on my left arm and the scabbed-up scraping all over the right.  The last thing I needed was people staring at them.

I wasn’t too keen on running into Rudy or Darren right away—not after the way I’d been ignoring them.  Maybe later, but not now.  So I avoided our group’s preferred training field in favor of one on the other side of the stadium.  Even there, I skirted along the outer edge of the clearing to avoid catching anyone’s eye before sitting down on a log that served as seating.  Swift landed alongside me, clutching the bark with his talons.

A dispute had broken out between the rebels of Group 1 and Group 16, and Reed, loudmouth as always, had challenged Sasha to a battle.  Sasha… the Rebellion’s primary strategist.  There was no way this was going to go well for him, but at least it would be amusing to watch.  They’d started a double battle—Reed’s Electrode and Persian fighting Sasha’s Pachirisu and Farfetch’d (I’d long since learned not to judge Sasha’s weird Pokémon choices).  The electric squirrel had immediately launched into a weird dance, waving its paws around obnoxiously.  In the background, Farfetch’d was swinging its leek around like a weapon in a complex series of forms.  Both of Reed’s Pokémon immediately went after Pachirisu, much to his displeasure, seeing as he’d ordered Electrode to go for Farfetch’d.  I wasn’t totally sure what was going on, but I was pretty sure it was gonna spell Reed’s downfall.

For the rest of the Rebellion, life had gone on after the previous Legendary mission.  While there had been a fair number of injuries for both rebel and Pokémon alike, everyone had made it back—Rudy had mentioned that at some point during one of his many conversations with my door.  In other words, no one else had been captured.  It was probably unfair for me to assume the others had been unaffected by what they’d gone through.  I mean… being in the line of fire was always terrifying.  That kind of terror wasn’t just going to go away once the danger had passed.  And yet, I’d have taken it in a heartbeat over… that.

Pachirisu’s dance continued—Reed’s Pokémon were still ignoring Farfetch’d.  The leek duck continued its forms, repeating them twice, three times.  Something was about to happen.  No sooner had I thought it than Farfetch’d rushed forward, brandishing its leek like a sword.  A single strike and Electrode was sent rolling backward, sparks shooting out of it.  Persian barely had a chance to register that its partner was down before it too was rushed by the ninja duck—one leek smack to the head, and the cat went down.

A roar of laughter burst out from Reed’s teammate Kris as the former gaped at both of his unconscious Pokémon before recalling them and storming over to his opponent.

“Okay seriously, I know you cheated!” he shouted indignantly.

“Not my fault you don’t know how Follow Me works,” Sasha replied with a giggle.

I snorted.  Alright, that was kind of funny.

Swift had huddled close to me, fluffing his feathers for warmth.  I gave him a few scritches under his long red crest and said, “Alright, this isn’t so bad.  Better than the competitive battling channels, in any case.”  Swift gave a contented nod.

Movement in the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I turned to see Chibi approaching us pensively.  I’d known that he’d made it back from the mission safely, but it was still a bit surreal that this was the first I’d seen or heard from him since then.  Not that that was anyone’s fault but my own.

Whatever small bit of happiness I’d felt upon seeing him quickly faded once I realized how troubled he looked.  Swift glanced between me and Chibi a few times, then flapped his wings and took off for a tree behind us.  Giving us privacy, was he?  It did look like the hybrid wanted to tell me something.

“*Razors wasn’t at the last mission,*” Chibi announced all of a sudden.

I turned toward him.  The Pikachu was staring at the ground with such intensity that I half expected the patch of dead grass in front of him to burst into flames.

“I remember,” I said slowly, not sure why he was bringing this up now.

“*We were all fighting for our lives.  Even Aros of all Pokémon tried to save you.*”

Oh… that was it.  He was forcing me to think about his problems so I wouldn’t think about my own.  Honestly… in a weird way, I kind of appreciated that.

“*I asked him why.  Do you know what he said?*”

I shook my head.

“*He said he was afraid to fight them,*” the hybrid said disgustedly.

I stared.  That… did make sense, from just the short amount of time I’d spent with Razors in Celadon base.  He’d insisted on having Aros and Stygian do the bulk of the fighting.  And he’d refused to spar with anyone ever since arriving here.

“*He was always willing to fight,*” Chibi went on.  “*It was always the two of us against the world… or at least, against our world.  Back then… that was what we lived for.  That’s why I fight.  For what they did to him.  For what they did to me.  For what they’re going to do.  How can he just ignore that?*”

I clenched my teeth.  I was starting to get a better idea of what was going on here.  Razors had been fighting so long that he didn’t have any fight left in him.  And honestly… I couldn’t help relating to that.  It’s what I was feeling, too.

“*I just… don’t understand,*” Chibi finished brokenly, all anger gone from his voice.

“Why don’t you talk to him about it?” I asked.  It was probably a stupid question, but I didn’t know what else to say.

The Pikachu closed his eyes.  “*I don’t know how… not anymore.  It’s like most of him is just… gone.*”

A cool breeze had started to blow, ruffling my sleeves and the hybrid’s pointed head feathers.  We sat there in silence for some time, listening to the wind through the trees and watching the few remaining leaves fall to the ground.

“*I always looked up to him, you know,*” Chibi went on suddenly.  “*No matter what they did to us, no matter how hard we were punished… he always had this way of keeping the rest of us optimistic.*”  His words had a hollow air, like he’d been holding onto them for far too long.

“*I was the one who always pushed for us to escape.  Razors didn’t need to be a part of it—our handler liked him best.  But he went through with it for my sake.*”  He paused, taking a deep breath.  “*There was one escape attempt that went bad… worse than the others.  Our handler was fed up.  He’d always hated me most out of the hybrids.  He was going to kill me, but… Razors stepped in.  Took the attack that was meant for me, and scarred up the handler pretty badly.*”

Chibi lifted his head to stare at the sky.  “*That was the last straw.  They started testing mind control tech on all the hybrids after that.  I was the only one that was immune,*” he said with a bitter laugh.  “*It’s my fault that it even happened to him in the first place.  And now I can’t handle what it’s done to him.  I’m pathetic.*”  He buried his face in his paws, muttering “pathetic” over and over.

“Do you want me to talk to him?” I said, without even really thinking about it.

The Pikachu’s eyes snapped open, and he fixed me with an incredulous glare.  The sort of expression that I would have flinched at when I’d first met him, but I was far too used to seeing it by now.

“I didn’t know him before, so it won’t hurt as much for me to talk to him,” I added.

Chibi blinked a few times, his eyes shifting back and forth.  Finally, he took a deep breath and said, “*If that’s what you want, then sure.*”

The hybrid stood up and slowly shuffled away.  But once he’d taken a dozen or so steps, he paused and said, “*Thanks,*” before leaving.

It wasn’t that hard to find Razors.  He never battled with any of the rebels, but he could usually be found quietly watching Aros and Stygian train.  I didn’t say anything as I sat down on the grass next to the Scyther, and he didn’t acknowledge that he’d seen me.

I sat there for several minutes mulling over what to say.  Telling Chibi that I’d talk to Razors was a lot easier than actually going and doing that.  If the Pokémon that had basically grown up with him couldn’t relate to him anymore, then what chance did I have?  Even though that was kind of the whole reason I was talking with him to begin with.

I ran my fingers through my hair, ruling out a half dozen different ways to open the conversation.  Eventually realizing that nothing was going to sound right and just going ahead and saying, “I noticed you and Chibi haven’t seen eye-to-eye since you came to the island.”

Razors turned his head toward me sharply, like he hadn’t been expecting me to bring that up.  But then, slowly, he closed his eyes and nodded.

“Is… is it alright if I ask why?” I asked cautiously.

For the longest time, the Scyther didn’t answer.  He just surveyed me closely with eyes that didn’t betray a hint of emotion.

“*It’s like we hardly know each other now,*” Razors said quietly.  “*He’s become so bitter, and I’ve become so… empty.  He wants vengeance for what they did to him, for what they’re going to do to the Legendaries.  I want… nothing.*”

The Scyther stared off into the distance, something shifting in his eyes, though it was hard to tell what.  “*I’ve forgotten how to feel things.  He feels everything, all the time.*”  In that moment, for whatever reason, it finally hit me—there was almost something nostalgic about his words.  A longing for something in the past.

“You wish things could go back to the way they were before?” I asked slowly.

The mantis screwed his eyes shut, like he hated just thinking about it.  “*We weren’t happy, but we had each other.  Now I should be happy.  The nightmare is over.  He’s safe.  But… I’m not happy.*”

Razors glanced down at my expression and chuckled softly.  It had a hollow, empty feel.  “*It’s all right.  I thought it might be like this.  He desperately needs to be a part of the fight.  I think I need to be away from it.  I can’t even fight the Rockets.  Not without being terrified of what might happen.*”

Right.  He was still worried that they might be able to take control of him again.  And I didn’t know enough about the experiment control to reassure him that wasn’t the case.  For all I knew, it could have been.

The Scyther shook his head.  “*I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.  I know you’ve endured hardships of your own.*”

“It’s fine,” I said quickly.  “It helps keep my mind off… things.”  So even he knew what had happened to me.  I should have figured… it wasn’t like Aros or Stygian had any reason to hide it.  “So if fighting the Rockets is out… what about training?  It’s how Chibi keeps his mind off bad things.”

Razors looked away.  “*No one should want to spar with me.  I was a killing machine for the Rockets.  I’ve never learned how to hold back.  I don’t know if I…*”

I exhaled deeply and stood to my feet.  “Look.  Everyone and their mom has been asking me to battle all week, and right now I’m finally in the mood to do it.  I think it’ll do me some good to have a bit of adrenaline, and I think it’ll do you good too.”

The Scyther blinked several times in surprise.  “*Are you sure?*”

“No, but let’s do it anyway before I change my mind,” I said, walking off to find one of my Pokémon.  A few moments passed, but sure enough, I heard the crunching of leaves behind me as he followed.  I honestly had no idea where the sudden burst of motivation had come from, but something about being able to focus on someone other than myself was definitely helping.  And I wasn’t in the mindset to question why.

I wound up locating Firestorm before Swift, which was just as well, because he was the one I had in mind for the battle.

“We’re fighting Razors,” I announced without warning as we walked up to him.

The fire lizard gave me the most incredulous double-take I’d ever seen.  “*Seriously?*”  I nodded firmly, and a wide grin formed across his snout.  “*Okay!*” he exclaimed, taking a fighting stance.

I turned to face Razors.  “I know you’re way stronger than Firestorm, so we don’t have to go until the knockout—we can call the match at first blood.”

The mantis glanced between me and Firestorm with the sort of deadpan stare that I’d taken to mean he was severely skeptical of this arrangement.  But he was hardly the only Pokémon on the island with dangerous weaponry.  Darren’s Sneasel had caused her fair share of heavy bleeding in a few matches.  It was nothing to get too worried about unless you didn’t have a Pokéball.

“Would it make you feel better if I keep his Pokéball in my hand the whole time?” I added.  “At the slightest sign of trouble, I can recall him instantly.”

Razors considered my words carefully, regarding me with an intense stare.  Finally, after several seconds, he gave a short, slow nod.

“And that’s okay with you, right?” I asked, turning to Firestorm.

The Charmeleon puffed out his chest.  “*I’m not scared.*”

We took our positions at opposite ends of one of the dirt training grounds surrounding Midnight Stadium.  Firestorm bounced lightly on the soles of his feet, lashing his flame-tail back and forth.  Razors, on the other hand, kept glancing uneasily at his scythes.  Any onlookers who knew nothing about the two would probably assume that Firestorm was the higher-level combatant.

And then it was like all the energy I didn’t have over the past week hit me all at once, and I called out, “Alright Firestorm, show me that new Flame Burst!”

The Charmeleon planted his feet and took a deep breath, embers already starting to gather in his mouth.  He then shot out a brilliant orange fireball that kept its size even as it flew across the battlefield.  My eyes lit up—he’d really done it.  But Razors wasn’t fazed.  In one smooth motion, the mantis leaped aside, allowing the fireball to sail past him, striking the dirt with such force that it exploded into a spray of embers.

I hadn’t really been intending for it to hit, though—it was mostly to get Razors moving.  The bug-type was now watching us carefully, body tensed and ready to dodge again, but making no apparent effort to attack.

“Another one!” I ordered.

A second fireball shot toward the mantis, this time striking much closer to him and catching his leg in the spray from the explosion.

“Alright, now—”

Something shifted in Razors’s eyes, and he lunged forward, closing the gap between himself and Firestorm almost instantly.

“—Metal Claw!”

The slightest trace of a grin crossed Firestorm’s face—he knew why I’d ordered that.  While Razors’s dash had been lightning quick, the follow-up slash was telegraphed.  Firestorm had plenty of time to raise his hardened claws and block the mantis’s scythe with a metallic clang.  We’d used that same tactic against Sneasel a few times, and it had worked just as well here.

Razors paused slightly before jumping back from the clash and darting in again, this time from the side.  Another slash, and the Charmeleon blocked this one just as easily.  The bug-type’s darts and dashes were impossibly quick, but the slashes themselves were… not.  It was almost like he had to come to a full stop before swinging his arms.

Razors was holding back, but not the normal way by dampening attacks.  Instead, all his moves were slow and uncoordinated, like this was his first time battling.  Well, even if it was a quick match, at least a victory would boost Firestorm’s mood and prove that not everything Razors touched died.

“Time for a Slash!” I yelled.

Firestorm’s claws lengthened, sharpening within the attack’s glow.  He drew back an arm and swung it at Razors’s chest, but his claws just bounced off the mantis’s chest plates.  Shoot, I’d forgotten.  Razors’s exoskeleton wasn’t normal.  What was it made of?  I’d seen him tank fire moves effortlessly, so… rock?  Wait—that just meant that Metal Claw was our best option for both defense and offense.

All of a sudden, Firestorm leapt back to avoid a slash that had come out of nowhere.  Razors was on him in an instant, flowing from dash to attack in one fluid motion.  The fire lizard swung his arms wildly, knocking away two more slashes, but with a lot less room to spare this time.  My pulse quickened.  So Razors was finally getting into the swing of it?

“Stick to Metal Claw, try to break his guard and land a hit!”

The Charmeleon responded by hardening his claws once again and deflecting two more slashes with an echoing clang.  Razors’s moves quickened, his breathing grew heavier.  Firestorm swung his tail, trying to knock his opponent off-balance, but the Scyther was too quick for that and leaped over it easily.  The Charmeleon darted forward while the mantis’s guard was down, ready for the final blow!

But Razors was faster—while Firestorm was focused on attacking, the Scyther caught him with a clean slice across his left thigh.

“Alright, that’s the match!” I called out, raising both arms.

Firestorm reeled backward, clutching his wound and scowling.  “*Ugh.  Thought I had that,*” he said before I recalled him.

My heart was pounding, my mind flooded with exhilaration.  More surprising than the fact that Razors had gotten into the battle was the fact that I’d gotten into it.  That was actually fun.  A couple rebels were sitting off to the side, watching our battle.  That fact didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would.

Razors paused to wipe his scythe in the dirt before approaching me.  “*You were right… that was nice.*”

“Told you,” I said, chuckling a bit.  But part of that was directed at myself.

The Scyther fixed me with an odd stare, and I couldn’t really tell what he was thinking until he said, “*I have to thank you, you know.*”

“For the battle?”

“*For how much you’ve done for Chibi.  You’ve helped him in ways I never could.*”

I frowned.  “I… come on, that’s not your fault.  You weren’t yourself for the longest time.”

“*I know that,*”  Razors said simply.  “*But that doesn’t change the reality of it.  The things I did while under their control still happened.  I know how close I came to killing him.  I know how close he came to killing me.*”  He paused.  “*I’m glad he didn’t succeed, though.  That would have ruined him.*”

The tiniest bit of unease flickered in the back of my mind at his words.  He didn’t mean… the only reason he was glad Chibi hadn’t killed him was because of how it would have affected Chibi… right?

Razors caught sight of my sudden change in expression and seemed to realize what I was thinking, because he quickly added, “*You don’t have to worry about me.*”

I tilted my head, nonplussed.

“*If I didn’t think there was a reason for me to be here, I wouldn’t still be looking for one, would I?*” he clarified.  So he did know what I was thinking.

“*Besides… if I give into despair, I’ll have let them take everything from me.  I can’t have that.*”  His eyes relaxed in a way that almost felt like a smile… or his equivalent of one.  I smiled back.  There was something oddly comforting in his words that kept resonating in my mind after he’d said them.

The crunching of leaves signaled that someone was approaching us.  I glanced over my shoulder to see Stalker sauntering over, his hands in his coat pockets.

“Mind if I have a word?” he asked once he was a few steps away.

I bristled.  This was the first time he’d seen me in days, and I had a suspicious feeling I knew what he was going to talk to me about.  Still, I found myself nodding cautiously, and he motioned for me to follow him away from the training area.  Neither of us said anything at first; the anxiety of what was coming hung over me like a thick fog.

“Let’s talk your interrogation.  You glossed over your torture, but I know it happened.”

I exhaled slowly.  There it was.  But he was right.  I kept trying to ignore it because it didn’t happen, except it did happen.

“What do you want to know?” I mumbled.

“How are you feeling?”

I blinked.  If I’d been expecting anything, it hadn’t been that.  I raised an eyebrow at him, but he continued to regard me with the same calm, unyielding expression.

“I… just had a Pokémon battle,” I said, as though that somehow answered his question.

Stalker chuckled a bit.  “I suppose that’s good.  The others have been worried about you.”

I clenched my teeth and looked away.  “Yeah, I know.”  Only about half of me wanted to evaporate away from the conversation, so that was progress at least.

“I knew, when starting the Rebellion, that something like this would happen eventually,” he said.  “It comes with the territory.  I didn’t expect how unprepared I was to handle it.”  I glanced back at him, honestly a bit bewildered by the idea that he could be unprepared for anything.

“So I want you to stop holding it in.  Let it all out.  What are you feeling?”

I scowled, rolling my hands into fists.  “I don’t know, a lot of things.  I hate that I can’t stop thinking about what happened.  I hate how badly it’s affecting me.”  My words sped up; my volume increased.  “I hate that I can’t do anything, I hate feeling so useless, I hate that everyone knows I failed, I hate that you know I failed.”  I was breathing hard, a swirling mess of emotions clouding my head.  But in the midst of them all, I couldn’t help feeling a glimmer of… relief? 

“I took you off missions for your sake, not because you’d failed,” Stalker said calmly.  “You did not fail.  From what the experiments told me, that mission would have gone a lot worse if it hadn’t been for you.”  I knew that.  I’d known that all along.  For some reason I’d still managed to convince myself that wasn’t the case, though.  Because I felt like I’d failed.  And rather than face that, it was easier to convince myself that everyone else thought so too.

“I know that,” I said slowly, fighting every word.  “I… think it’ll take a while for the rest of me to accept that, though.”

“That’s fine.  No need to rush it,” Stalker said.  “I should probably mention the real reason I took you aside, though.”  I tilted my head, a bit taken aback, and he went on, “Yesterday I announced what the Rebellion’s next mission is going to be.”

Right, I vaguely recalled Darren knocking on my door and saying something about me missing an important meeting.

“We’re going to free Mewtwo.”

My jaw dropped.  “Seriously?”

He nodded.  “We won’t be able to do anything to oppose the Rockets so long as they have Mewtwo.  We’ve seen it in action.  Now we need to take it away from them.”

I swallowed, feeling utterly torn.  On the one hand, freeing Mewtwo, but on the other hand…

“I… still don’t know if I’ll be able to…” I began slowly.

“I’m not asking you to be a part of the mission,” Stalker cut in.  “But you’re a member of the team, and you deserve to know.  And it’s not as though you’ll have had no contribution—that data you recovered also contained info on how they’re controlling Mewtwo.  It will prove invaluable to our efforts.”

My mind flashed back to the conversation I’d had with Mewtwo in the Celadon base.  The last thing I’d said to him… that promise that I’d free him someday.  It was such an insanely lofty goal.  But Stalker had said it with unflinching confidence.  Like there was absolutely no doubt in his mind that our team would be able to steal Team Rocket’s greatest superweapon.

No wonder the Rockets were afraid of him.

Something else was prodding at the back of my mind now.  Something I’d been meaning to ask him when I saw him again.  One tiny detail from the interrogation that I hadn’t buried away.

“Can… I ask you a random question?” I asked.

“Certainly.”

“Are you the former Kanto commander?  I keep hearing all sorts of rumors about him.”

Stalker raised an eyebrow, intrigued.  “Is that who the Rockets think I am?”

I shrugged.  “They’re not sure if that’s who you are.  I think it’s their main theory.”

“That’s interesting,” he said, rubbing his chin.  “Well, it’s always good to keep them guessing.”

I stared.  He… really hadn’t answered my question at all.  “So… are you?”

Stalker gave me a pointed look.  “Do you think I am?”

“I don’t know anything at all about the former commander, so I have no idea.”

“I see.  Well you wouldn’t have heard much from any Rockets.  They don’t like talking about what happened.”  More redirecting.  He obviously wasn’t going to tell me.  I’d learned by now that pushing Stalker to explain something he didn’t intend to was a lost cause.

“Holy crap Jade, you’re out here?!” a voice called out all of a sudden, followed by hurried footsteps behind me.

Oh geez.  Even if I was feeling a little better, I wasn’t sure how easy it’d be to handle Rudy levels of enthusiasm.

“Jade!  Darren’s beaten me twice in a row, you gotta come kick his butt,” Rudy said breathlessly once he’d reached me.  Oh, for the love of—that’s what he was opening with?  I shot a pleading look at Stalker, but he just smirked and gave a small wave before walking off.  Damn it—now I really wasn’t going to get any answers from him.

I turned back to see Rudy staring up at me way too eagerly.  I sighed, rolled my eyes, and said, “Alright,” before following Rudy back to the training grounds.  Maybe a few more battles wouldn’t be so bad.

Chapter Text

A distant rumble reverberated throughout the air, dragging me out of a deep sleep.  What was that?  Don’t tell me someone was battling at this hour?  I sat up, blinking slowly in the darkness.  My eyes caught the faint hint of movement—Swift or Firestorm waking up and looking around, most likely.

“Did you guys… hear that?” I asked.

Then the alarm sounded.  An earsplitting siren, assaulting my senses out of nowhere.  What the hell?  Why was the fire alarm going off?  I threw my hands over my ears, desperately trying to block out the awful noise, but there was no stopping it.  A bright red light flashed in the corner of the room, highlighting both Firestorm and Swift as they glanced around apprehensively.  Firestorm was saying something, but it was impossible to tell what with all the noise.

What on earth was going on?

I stumbled my way out of bed and rushed to the door as quickly as I could, throwing it open.  A half dozen kids had already emerged from their rooms and were running down the hallway, a few of them still in pajamas.  My dazed brain was still trying to process what the heck was going on when my nose caught the scent of… smoke?  There was actually smoke in the air.  This wasn’t a drill, this was a legit emergency, holy crap.  It took several seconds for the reality of that to properly sink in.  And when it did, everything went into overdrive at once as I bolted back inside.

“We’re evacuating!” I announced, grabbing my bag and shoving things into it randomly.

“*What?!*”

But I just grabbed their Pokéballs and recalled the two without saying anything else. It’d be faster getting out if it was just me.  And… they’d be safer in their balls.  I threw on my shoes and rushed out the door, pulling my arms through the sleeves of my jacket as I fled down the stairs, jumping two or three steps at a time.

Damn, there was a lot more smoke down here.  I pulled my shirt over my mouth as I pressed on, following the arcing hallway to the stadium lobby.  Was this where the fire was?  I didn’t want to run straight into it, but at the same time, this was the fastest way out of the building.  I rounded the corner into the lobby and completely ground to a halt, gaping in disbelief.

The entire front entrance had been demolished, chunks of concrete and glass scattered throughout the lobby.  I strained my eyes to try catching a glimpse of what had caused this, but with half the lights blown out and all the dust in the air, it was impossible to tell.  A couple of kids bumped into me as they bolted past and disappeared into the dust cloud that had once been the entrance.

And then my blood ran cold as gunshots tore the air.

What?  We were under attack?!  I dropped to the floor and ducked behind the wall, my heart pounding furiously in my chest as my mind raced.  Deep breaths… I had to calm myself and figure out something to do.  There had to be some way out of here… deep breaths.

A sudden thud to my left.  I whirled around to see what it was and—oh god, what.  Reed had crumpled to the ground in an awkward heap, his eyes wide and staring and a bullet hole in his head.  I blinked stupidly at the sight, unable to process it until the blood started to pool on the ground around him.

What.  This couldn’t happen.  In all the times…  There was always danger, but… no one had ever…  How many kids had just run outside?  They didn’t have Pokémon out, they couldn’t use Protect, oh god.

Another group was approaching the lobby from the opposite hallway.  I couldn’t see them clearly, just their silhouettes through the dust cloud.

“Don’t go outside!  There’s Rockets out there!” a voice called out behind me.

“What do we do?!” one of the kids across the lobby yelled.  A girl’s voice… Kris?  Oh god, her teammate was dead next to me and she couldn’t see him, oh god.

“I don’t know, just don’t go that way!”

I turned around to see a half dozen or so rebels gathering in the hallway behind me, almost all of them from different mission groups, which meant they were missing teammates.  I recognized Liam and Zoe, although their third teammate, Alec, was nowhere to be seen.

Where were Ray, Mai, and Sasha?  They’d be able to figure out a plan.  Where was Stalker?  He’d be able to fight the Rockets off.  Where were Rudy and Darren, oh god, why hadn’t I wondered that yet, where were they?

I forced several deep breaths to steady myself.  Had to focus.  Couldn’t lose myself now.  I’d done this before.  I’d been in the line of fire before.  I could handle this.  This wasn’t like being trapped in the detention cell.  I had options.  I had Pokémon.  I couldn’t lose myself.

My eyes snapped open, and I whipped out a Pokéball to release Chibi.  As soon as the Pikachu materialized, he glanced around in alarm, folding his ears back from the noise.  “*Shit, what’s going on?*”

“We’re under attack,” I said.  “The Rockets have us cornered—our main exit is a death trap.”

“What about the fire escape?” Zoe piped up.

“They’ll definitely have agents back there too,” Liam replied.

Chibi glanced between me and the other rebels, then closed his eyes in concentration, flattening his ears with his paws.  After a few agonizingly long seconds, he said, “*Our best bet is busting through a side wall.  They won’t be expecting that; it might buy us some time.*”

Zoe nodded before putting her hands on the sides of her mouth and calling out, “Tell everyone you meet to avoid the exits and break through a side wall.  We’ll meet up in the forest outside!”

“Okay!” one of the rebels on the other side yelled back.

“*Alright, let’s go!*” Chibi barked, taking off down the hallway.

I jumped to my feet and raced after him, followed by the rest of the rebels in our group.  All the while the blaring alarm and flashing lights served as a constant reminder of just how wrong all of this was.  How many rebels had run out the front entrance and been gunned down?  I didn’t even know if Rudy or Darren was among them, and the only thing I could do was push on with the others and desperately hope that we’d be able to find a way out.

The smoke was thicker in this direction.  The fire had to be at the back of the building, which meant they’d definitely been trying to drive all the rebels in the direction of the main entrance.  I held my shirt over my mouth and squinted as the smoke stung my eyes and it got harder to breathe.  We’d be out of here soon.  I just had to keep telling myself that.

“*Right here!*” Chibi shouted, waving at a portion of wall far ahead of us.  Strings of electricity leaped off his fur as he gathered energy.  Then, with a flash of light and a crash that was somehow even louder than the alarm, he fired a lightning bolt clear through the wall, shattering it into chunks of concrete and drywall.

“We’ve gotta make a break for it.  Don’t stop to use Protect—our best chance is to keep moving,” Liam said.

“*I’ll attack all the Rockets I can,*” Chibi added.  “*Anyone with priority attackers should send them with me, they’ll be too fast to get shot.*”  Not a second after he’d said it, a half dozen flashes of light appeared all around us as the rebels released Pokémon to join him.

“*Now go!*”

With every inch of me screaming not to, I followed the others through the gaping hole in the wall and out into the cold nighttime air.  I coughed hard, forcing deeper breaths now that we’d left the smoke and pouring all my focus and effort into running as fast as possible.  Chibi’s makeshift exit had put us facing the outdoor training grounds, with scattered bits of forest in the distance across the battlefields.  Completely open and exposed—no cover until we made it to the trees.

I flinched as gunshots rang out, clenching my teeth and forcing my legs to run faster.  On either side of me, Pokémon darted around, so fast they were a blur as they struck down targets that were nearly invisible in the pitch-black night.  Just had to keep running and let them handle it.  Just had to keep running.  We’d made it out of the stadium, we were going to be alright, just had to make it across the battlefield and—

A high-pitched screech tore the air.  I whirled around just in time to catch a blinding flash and somehow my legs skidded to a stop right before a Hyper Beam struck the ground dead ahead of me.  The shockwave knocked me off my feet, sending a jolt of pain running up my spine when I landed flat on my back.  Dazed, winded, and ears ringing, I slowly picked myself up from the ground only to stare openmouthed at the smoking crater just five feet in front of me as clumps of dirt and grass rained down from the impact.

Holy crap that was too close.  Damn it—humans were easy enough to knock down with a Quick Attack or two, but Pokémon?  With all the bullets flying around, it hadn’t occurred to me that the Rockets’ Pokémon were more dangerous in this situation.  Chibi was the only one that could knock them out fast enough.

“Over here!” a voice called out.  I snapped my head in its direction and caught sight of a human silhouette waving to us from within the trees.  Every few seconds, the shimmering flash of a Protect barrier gave enough light to reveal several other kids standing in the area, and an assortment of Pokémon clustered around them defensively.

We weren’t the only group to make it out.  There were others!

“Jade!”  Rudy’s voice.  Rudy was alive.  Holy crap, thank god.

I jumped to my feet and sprinted over as fast as my legs would carry me before ducking around one of the Protect users and slipping inside the circle.  I was immediately met with paws on my shoulder and dog breath in my face as Ebony reared up on her hind legs to greet me.

“You’re okay!” I exclaimed breathlessly, avoiding the Houndoom’s tongue and flashing Rudy a relieved smile.

“Heck yeah, I’m not going down that easily,” he said, forcing a grin.

My face fell.  Had… had he not heard what had happened to the rebels that ran outside the front entrance?  Should I tell him?

Ebony hopped down from my shoulder and happily barked out a small wisp of flame before joining the rest of the Pokémon defending our group.  She took position alongside Wartortle, who had just finished surrounding himself with Protect and was now panting from exhaustion, glancing back at Rudy with an anxious look on his face.

I scanned the rest of the group, an uneasy feeling creeping over me.  “Where’s Darren?”

Rudy’s face fell.  “Haven’t seen him yet.  I thought he’d be with you.”

Crap.  We couldn’t just leave without Darren.  Not to mention all the other rebels that might still be trapped inside the stadium.

I flinched from the ping of bullets against Protect and instinctively ducked down to put more of myself safely within the circle of rebels as the Pokémon all around us alternated between shielding the group and attacking the enemy.  By the light of Ebony’s flames, I caught a glimpse of several squads of Rockets, nearly invisible amongst the trees.  Even harder to spot was the shadowy mist that formed behind two of the squads right before two large somethings appeared from the darkness and knocked them to the ground.  I barely caught a glimpse of the culprits—a flash of green and red wings here, a white, four-legged blur there—before they vanished into the shadows once more.

By this point, another group of kids had escaped through the hole in the stadium and was now racing toward us.  Chibi bolted all around them, unleashing wicked thunderbolts at the Rockets’ forces while the rebels’ Pokémon kept them distracted with blindingly fast maneuvers.  The moment the kids reached the treeline and ducked inside the Pokémon circle with the rest of us, a wave of frantic shouting ensued.

“What are we gonna do?!”

“My friends are still trapped inside!”

“What was wrong with the main entrance?  My teammates ran through there!”

“Listen to me, everyone!  If you can fly or teleport out of here, then do it!” a voice called out, grabbing everyone’s attention instantly.  I whirled around to see that Ray’s team had suddenly appeared right outside our defensive lineup.  So they had made it out.  But that left one huge question—where was Stalker?

“Where should we go?”

“Somewhere safe, like a Pokémon Center,” Ray said, and in that moment, for the first time, he looked just as lost and scared as the rest of us.  “Anyone who’s still missing teammates, stay here and keep our defenses up.”

“I’ll teleport back inside and see if I can find any stragglers,” Sasha added, motioning to her Alakazam before the two of them disappeared.

Darren had a teleporter.  He couldn’t possibly be trapped inside.  Right?

An unearthly screech filled the air, freezing everyone in an instant.  A scarily bright orange glow lit the night sky, and then the brilliant form of a blazing phoenix soared into view overhead.  My stomach tied itself into knots just looking at it.  Moltres.  They’d brought Moltres with them?  We couldn’t fight Moltres!

With another terrifying screech, the firebird craned its neck back before unleashing a massive fireball right at Midnight Stadium, engulfing the entire rear wall.  In the light of the flames, I saw several flying Pokémon fleeing the building through open windows, carrying riders on their backs.  Time slowed as Moltres snapped its attention to them.  It drew itself back, inhaling deeply—no, no, no, this couldn’t be happening—and shot out a vicious stream of fire, completely incinerating two of the fleeing Pokémon and their riders.

I gaped in horror, jaw hanging open.  What were we supposed to do if a Legendary Pokémon was targeting us?  We’d never faced anything like this!  How could we possibly make it out of here?

A pulsating burst of violet dragonfire shot out of nowhere, striking the phoenix right in the heart.  Moltres reeled backward, more stunned than hurt, whirling its head around wildly to locate its attacker.  And then a thunderous roar echoed across the island, and an orange dragon soared into view from the forests to the east.  On its back was a trainer wearing a long, black, hooded cloak that concealed nearly all of their body from view.  But there was no mistaking who it was.  The firebird fixed its blank, emotionless eyes on the newcomers, watching them closely.  Charizard flared her wings outward to slow her flight, staring down the Legendary in return.

And then it hit me—Stalker was challenging it.  The Legendary Bird of Fire was here, and he was going to fight it.  What the hell was he thinking?

Without warning, Moltres shot out a blazing Flamethrower at the opposing fire-type, who nimbly ducked out the way and launched into a high-speed loop around the firebird.  I’d seen Charizard fly—she was fast, but I’d never seen her fly this fast.  The dragon was practically a blur, streaking around, spitting more violet flares at her opponent, but the Legendary wasn’t remotely fazed by any of it.  I held my breath as Charizard only barely managed to swerve away from another burst of flames.  Her flight path zigged and zagged through the sky, almost like Stalker was trying to force Moltres to pay attention to them.

But… why?  They couldn’t possibly hope to put a scratch on the Legendary.  And if they got hit by even a single one of its attacks, they’d be done for.

Except if Moltres was focusing on him, that meant it wasn’t focusing on us.  That’s what he was banking on!  The light of the flames now consuming the stadium clearly illuminated the silhouettes of several flying Pokémon taking to the air.

I obviously wasn’t the only person to notice this, because Ray spoke up saying, “If you’re gonna fly away from here, now’s the time to do it.  Send your Pokémon back once you reach a safe distance away—we’ll need all the help we can get.”

I caught the sound of wings buzzing behind me and turned to see Aros flying over to join us, closely followed by Stygian.

“*Take it I’ll need to fly some of you out of here?*” the Flygon asked.  The same Flygon that had once made such a fuss over letting me on his back.

“I’m… honestly surprised to see you volunteering like this,” I blurted out without thinking.

Aros scowled.  “*This place is our home too.  And it’s under attack.  Why wouldn’t we be involved?*”

This place was their home.  I’d always thought the experiments merely tolerated us, but they actually liked it here, didn’t they?

A yellow blur slowed to a stop in front of me, revealing itself to be Chibi, panting and out of breath from dashing around and knocking out so many of the Rockets’ Pokémon.  Sparks leaped off his fur at random—so he was already nearly drained?  The Pikachu shook his head to get his bearings, then stood up and glanced between the two clones, his face falling.  “*Where’s Razors?*” he demanded.

Aros frowned.  “*Haven’t seen him.*”

“*What?*”  The hybrid’s eyes went wide, and he glanced around frantically.  “*No way… I have to find him!*” he yelled, racing off.

“Wait, come back!” I cried, but the hybrid didn’t stop.  Damn it, why’d he have to do this now?  There was no telling what’d happen if I lost sight of him—especially with him being so low on power already.

“Find Darren and I’ll meet up with you two later!” I yelled to Rudy before sprinting after Chibi.  I heard paws strike the ground behind me, then saw Stygian in my peripheral vision, running at my side.  She was coming with me?  Whatever, I wasn’t about to question that now.

“*Wait, what should I do?!*” Aros called after us.

“Just help evacuate everyone!  We’ll meet up with you later!” I called out over my shoulder.

The roar of flames filled the air as we sprinted along the treeline.  I scanned the training grounds and the forests to our left—it wasn’t nearly as hard to see anymore with the all the firelight—but he’d run off so fast that I’d already lost him.  Had to keep my eyes out for lightning.  That would be my best indicator.  Unless he ran out, which was a very real possibility.  Damn it, where’d he run off to?!

Stygian and I were nearing the front of the stadium now.  I slowed down, creeping close to the trees to avoid catching the attention of the Rocket squads that still remained in the area.  I didn’t like being here, but this was the most likely spot for Chibi to have run.  Still, there was no sign of lightning, and these Rockets likely wouldn’t be standing if he’d been through here.

Overhead, the battle between Stalker and Moltres continued, although it wasn’t so much a battle as a game of cat and mouse, with his Charizard ducking and weaving around nonstop torrents of flame.  The firebird wasn’t the only enemy after him now.  Dozens of mounted Rockets had taken to the air, sticking close to the Legendary and launching their own attacks at him.  I watched with bated breath as Charizard only barely managed to avoid getting zapped by a lightning bolt, right before a jet of water clipped her wing.

My jaw hung open as the dragon spiraled downward uncontrollably, struggling to regain control of her flight.  At the last second, the fire-type straightened her wings, and the two of them pulled out of the dive right above the ground, shooting out in a straight line right past me, closely followed by a squad of combat unit executives.  This was bad.  Avoiding Moltres was one thing, but that was just one thing to avoid, not a dozen executives.

Charizard put on a burst of speed, shooting off into the night sky.  But she didn’t turn around.  Her orange tail flame grew smaller and smaller as she put more distance between herself and the island.  Moltres let out a cry and tore after the dragon, followed by all the mounted Rockets.

My heart sank through the ground.  No way.  Stalker was leaving us?

No—he was leading the Rockets away.  He’d only confronted Moltres because that was the most conspicuous thing possible, and the perfect way to get everyone’s attention.  Of course the Rockets were mostly after him.  The rest of us were just an added bonus—that’s all we’d ever been.

And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her.  There, sitting atop her Arcanine, silhouetted by the flames engulfing the stadium, was the head of the combat unit.  My legs froze up instantly and my whole body went numb.  No.  Not her.  Anyone but her.  Not right now.  Not like this.

Almost like she’d felt me staring at her, Astrid turned and laid eyes on me, and my stomach curled in on itself.  Oh god no, why did she have to notice me, why.

For several seconds, neither of us moved.  She just stared at me.  Something in her face looked downright exhausted.  “I am really tired of you, you know that?” Astrid said.  And then she hopped off her Arcanine and started walking towards me.

I was paralyzed, terror shooting through my veins like ice.  I couldn’t breathe.  I was back in the detention cell with her standing over me like I was nothing, drowning in an endless torrent of agony with no end in sight.  Couldn’t move.  Couldn’t fight back.  Couldn’t do anything.

“Stay away from me!!” I screamed.

And for just a second she actually paused, staring at me wide-eyed with an expression I couldn’t place.  It was only for an instant—then her gaze hardened and she advanced toward us once more.

“*We need to move!*” Stygian hissed, shoving against me.

Her words barely registered.  My brain was caught in a loop, replaying everything that had happened that night, over and over.  She was in front of me, but also somehow standing over me, staring down at me.  The heat of the flames melted into an endless barrage of lightning.  Not again.  I couldn’t handle that.  Couldn’t handle being trapped, useless, unable to move, unable to fight back, unable to—

“*Come.  On!!*” Stygian growled, throwing her body against my knees so that I toppled over onto her back.  I barely had a chance to process what was going on and throw my hands out to catch hold of white fur before the Absol was sprinting away at high speed, half-dragging me behind her.  My heart was pounding so fast it hurt, my breathing shallow and irregular, and the only thing I could think about was keeping hold of Stygian’s mane as she bolted in the opposite direction.  Each footfall thundered through my whole body and my feet dragged against the dirt and I had no idea how far Stygian had run, but none of that mattered so long as she took us anywhere but there.

Eventually the dark-type slowed to a stop.  I relaxed my grip and let myself slide off her back, only barely managing to catch myself from faceplanting into the dirt.

“*Ugh.  I’m not doing that again.  That was hard,*” Stygian muttered in between heavy panting.

“Is she gone?” I said breathlessly, picking myself up from the ground.

The Absol rounded on me with an unimpressed scowl.  “*What was that?  She didn’t even attack us and we had a clear escape route.  Why did you stop?*”

Why did I stop.  Why did I shut down.  Why was just the sight of her enough to send me reeling back to that night?  What was wrong with me?

“*Focus,*” Stygian growled, staring me dead in the eyes with her face just inches from mine.  I swallowed hard and forced myself to stare back at her ruby-red irises, focusing on nothing else.  Not Astrid, not the other Rockets, nothing.  I wasn’t in the detention cell, I was here.  I was nowhere else but here.

Footsteps crunched the leaves behind us.  I bristled, throwing a glance over my shoulder.  Was it her?!  No, it was a squad of Rockets half-hidden amongst the trees.  Wait—that was actually worse.

“*Oh shit,*” Stygian muttered, her fur standing on end.  The Absol jumped in front of me and covered herself in the white light of Protect.

Nowhere to run.  Too many for Stygian to fight on her own.  The moment her Protect faltered, we’d be sitting ducks.

The buzzing of insect wings was the only warning.  A green blur shot out of nowhere, striking all four Rockets with such speed and precision that by the time I had finished blinking, all of them had staggered backward, unconscious before they even hit the ground.

“What the hell,” I said, too stunned to think.

The green blur stopped abruptly in front of us, revealing itself to be a tall, armored mantis.  I blinked several times, trying to process what I was seeing.  It was Razors.

“You saved us?” I said, still reeling from what had just happened.

“*Sure took your time.  The rest of us have been fighting since the attack began,*” Stygian said flatly.

The Scyther looked down and said nothing.

“*Razors!*” a voice cried.  I whirled around to see Chibi bolting towards us from deeper in the forest.  Oh sure, now he showed up.  We wouldn’t have been in this situation if not for him running off like that.

“*You’re here!*” the Pikachu exclaimed one he’d reached us.

“*I’m here,*” Razors said.  “*And I’m not running away.  Not until everyone is safe.*”  He gave the Pikachu a pointed look.

Chibi stared at him in disbelief.  But then his eyes lit up and his mouth hung open ever so slightly in a relieved smile.

“Can we get back to the others now, please?” I snapped.  Yes, I was glad to see that Razors was alright, but none of this would have been necessary if Chibi hadn’t run off in the first place.

I just barely had the chance to register a faint rumble under my feet right before pointed stones erupted from the ground all around us, uprooting trees and scattering chunks of dirt through the air.  I recoiled backward, throwing a frantic glance in every direction as the stones rose higher and higher out of the earth, surrounding us on three sides.

“What now?!” I yelled.  Just when I thought the worst was behind us—suddenly this?!  What even was this?  Rock Tomb?  Stone Edge?

“Well, look at what we have here.  I never imagined I’d be lucky enough to find three of our experiments all in one spot.”

What?  I knew that voice from somewhere… but where?  Razors had gone rigid, eyes wide and unblinking.  I followed his gaze in the opposite direction to see a burly, dark-haired combat unit officer standing alongside a Rhydon and a Raticate at the entrance to the stone circle.

I stared, feeling a chill run down my spine.  I recognized him.  The lead experiment handler.  Razors’s old trainer—Tyson.  What the hell was he doing here?  Sure, he was on the combat unit, but… why here?  Why now?!  We hadn’t run into him in months!  Unless… unless he knew that a raid on the rebel base would give him an opportunity to recapture the experiments?

As if he’d noticed my staring, Tyson narrowed his eyes at me and said, “Yeah, don’t think I’ve forgotten about that shit you and your friends pulled last time we met.  But I’m not here for you.”  He held up a small, black computerized device.

“*No!!*” Chibi cried, unleashing a vicious torrent of lightning.  The electricity swerved to the right, missing Tyson completely and zeroing in on the Rhydon’s nose horn.  The Pikachu took a step back, momentarily dumbstruck, but then let out another cry and rushed straight at Tyson.  Rhydon stepped forward to block him, moving way faster than it should have and taking the brunt of a Quick Attack like it was nothing.  Seeing this, Stygian leveled her blade at the experiment handler and dashed forward, but before she’d cleared half the distance, the Raticate—a hybrid?—tackled her away from its trainer.

Chibi let out a pained cry, snapping my attention back to him in time to see that the Rhydon had grabbed hold of him with its giant foreclaws, squeezing him tightly while he swung his tail like a glowing blade.  With an unimpressed grunt, the rock-type smashed him into the dirt.  Once, twice, three times—it kept going.  I stared helplessly.  It hurt just to watch—each blow felt like a shockwave through my heart.  After what felt like ages of that, the Rhydon finally stopped swinging Chibi around and pinned him under its fist, where the Pikachu continued to struggle against its hold.

“I don’t have any patience for you today, number nine.  You used that up a long time ago.”  Tyson leered at Razors.  “On the other hand, you’re the real prize here.”

Razors was trembling all over, eyes screwed shut, shaking his head repeatedly as he dug his scythes into the dirt.

“*Let him go!  I’ll kill you!!*” Chibi snarled, clawing at the dirt and swinging his Iron Tail wildly, to no avail.  Each swing had less force than the previous one as he succumbed to the pain and exhaustion.

Had to do something.  I could have my Pokémon attack him?  Steal the device controlling Razors?  Something?!

“Might want to think twice about bringing out any more Pokémon,” Tyson said, pointing his handgun at me before I even managed to reach my belt.  I froze, swallowing hard.  Protect wouldn’t do me any good if I couldn’t even let them out without getting shot.

“So here’s what we’re gonna do,” he said to Razors.  “You’re gonna listen to me like you’re supposed to, you’re gonna slice the rest of them to ribbons, including that damned rat, and then I am going to feel infinitely better about things.”

Come on, think!  I had to do something.  Couldn’t let out Firestorm or Swift without getting them shot.  Couldn’t recall Razors without his Pokéball.  What to do.  What to do?!  Recall Chibi and make a break for it (and somehow not get shot in the process)?  And leave Razors behind?  No way—Chibi would never allow that.  He’d just break out of his Pokéball and go back for him.  But if he refused to fight Razors, and Tyson got full control of him, then…?

There had to be something!  Come on, think!

Razors’s frantic struggling gradually faded.  The Scyther’s eyes glazed over, dull and mindless as his movements slowed to a stop.  He then turned to face the experiment handler, calmly awaiting orders.

A satisfied sneer spread across Tyson’s face.  “Good.  Now kill the rat first.  That little shit’s given me enough headaches to last a lifetime.”

Rhydon stepped backward, leaving the bruised, battered, and drained Pikachu lying in a crumpled heap on the ground.

“Chibi!” I shouted.

Razors bolted forward like lightning, blades outstretched.  Time slowed to a crawl.  I saw Chibi lift his head to stare brokenly at his friend, all fight gone from his eyes.  Saw the exact moment he accepted that Razors was going to kill him.

And then the Scyther froze with his blade mere inches from Chibi’s face.  He blinked, his eyes flickering between mindless and frantic.  Numb and in pain.  Dead and alive.  Every part of his body trembled.

“What are you doing?!”  Tyson roared.

Razors locked eyes with Chibi.  With a gargantuan effort, he wrenched his face into a forced smile.

“*I’m sorry.*”

In one swift motion, he raised an arm and drew a scythe across his own throat.  Dark blood sprayed as his body jerked suddenly, then his legs gave out and his body fell to the ground with a dull thud.

“No!!”  Tyson shouted, his face instantly going white.

It felt like all the air had been sucked from my lungs.  No way.  No way.  That had not just happened.  No way.  I stared stupidly at the sight, unable to process it.  In an instant, he was gone.  Just like that?

Chibi’s mouth hung open, eyes wide with horror and Razors’s blood splattered across his face.  For several seconds, he didn’t move—just stared unblinking at the Scyther’s dying body, making an awful sort of choking noise.  Slowly, shakily, he turned his gaze upward to focus on Tyson.

“*I’ll fucking kill you!!*”

The Pikachu shot forward, all exhaustion instantly turned into unbridled fury.  Rhydon’s eyes went wide, and it held its arms out to shield its trainer from the electric-type, but Chibi already had an Iron Tail ready and sent the armored beast reeling backward with a strike right between the eyes.  It crashed onto its back, dazed and clutching its face in pain.  And then Chibi turned his attention to Tyson, who blanched and recalled the rock-type before taking off running.  He barely made it ten yards before the Pikachu caught him with a metallic blow to the leg, instantly snapping it sideways at a grotesque angle.

Tyson screamed.  Chibi hadn’t stopped screaming since it happened.  And he continued screaming the entire time he stabbed the Rocket over and over with his tail as the blood stained his fur and his voice grew hoarse and his movements slowed until his eyes rolled back and he finally succumbed to exhaustion and collapsed.

It was like time had stopped.  I stood frozen on the spot, staring blankly with my mouth open, the past few minutes a blur.  I had to have imagined it.  I had to.  I blinked repeatedly, each time willing my surroundings to change.  But the scene lay in front of me, the same as it had before.

At some point Stygian trotted over to my side, though I wasn’t sure when.  My attention snapped over to her, and for a sickening moment, my breath caught in my chest—the Absol was dripping with blood.  But then some part of my brain managed to notice how the blood mostly ran down her right side.  The side with the blade.  The blade itself was covered—it wasn’t her blood.  My eyes slid behind her, where the experimental Raticate lay motionless aside from its matted fur rising and falling with each shuddering breath.

I flinched.  Whatever, couldn’t think about that now, had to focus on—I glanced back at where Chibi had fallen, but ended up catching another glimpse of Razors lying face-down in a pool of dark blood, and for a moment it was like that image was burned into my eyes and it was the only thing I was ever going to see again.  Fighting back daggers of nausea tearing at my insides, I forced myself to look at anything else as I held out Chibi’s Pokéball and recalled him.

“*You have him.  There’s no reason to linger here,*”  Stygian said.  Her words held a strange heaviness, and she didn’t look me in the eye.

I exhaled slowly.  She was right.  And yet, for some reason it felt like I’d never be able to move from this spot.  Because Razors was here, and we weren’t leaving without him, but he was never moving again, so neither could I, and it didn’t make any sense, but that was the loop my brain was stuck in.

I felt a nudge at my side, and my legs started walking of their own accord.  I reached out an arm to steady myself and loosely grabbed a handful of fur.  The Absol squinted at my hand, but didn’t say anything.

The roar of the raging fire and the call of emergency sirens filled the air as we wandered in the direction that I’d last seen the rebels make their defense.  Neither any Rockets nor rebels remained.  I could only hope that meant the latter had escaped, and that the few Rockets that hadn’t pursued Stalker had withdrawn after their targets had fled.  But I knew better than to hope for the best.  Not after everything that had happened so far.

And then Darren appeared in front of us in a burst of shimmering light.  His expression was frazzled and anxious, but he was unharmed.

“You’re okay?” I asked, taking a step backwards.  But then I realized who wasn’t with him.  “Wait, where’s Rudy?”

“He’s alive, now come on,” Darren said, outstretching a hand.  I stared at it blankly until I realized that his other hand was holding his Kadabra’s.

“Wait—Stygian can’t be teleported and I don’t have her Pokéball.”

He frowned.  “Where is it?”

I threw a useless glance back in the direction of the stadium.  If it was still in Stalker’s office, then it was long since melted.  But wait!  Could I put her in a new one?

“Tell me you have an empty Pokéball,” I pleaded.

Darren nodded before quickly retrieving one from his backpack and handing it to me.  I tapped it to Stygian’s shoulder, and her form dissolved into it.  Then Darren grabbed my hand and our surroundings melted into distorted light before re-forming into somewhere completely different.  We were standing in the middle of the street in a small town.  The polished red roof of a Pokémon Center stood out against a scattering of old wooden buildings, and the oppressive heat of the stadium fire had become a cool, salty breeze.

“This isn’t… where are we?” I asked.

“Lavender Town Pokémon Center,” Darren replied.  “Sasha wasn’t sure the Midnight one would be safe.”  I wasn’t sure here was that much safer.  But right now, anywhere was better than the stadium.

Cop cars and ambulances practically lined the street.  A large crowd had gathered in front of the Pokécenter—rebels, Pokémon, police, nurses, bystanders.  A handful of medical Blissey could be seen bobbing in and out of the crowd, gathering Pokéballs from some of the rebels.  Panicked and crying kids were led inside the center by police Growlithe.

This was all too much.  I closed my eyes, trying to block out the details while my brain struggled to process everything.  A sickly nausea had wormed its way through my insides and didn’t feel like leaving.  I suddenly wanted to be anywhere else.

“I think Ray’s group told them we evacuated from the fire on Midnight Island,” Darren said quietly.  “He didn’t mention anything about us being targeted by Team Rocket.”

I honestly couldn’t tell if I agreed with that decision.  My brain felt like it had slowed to a crawl, and each thought was like trudging through a mile of mud.

The sound of buzzing wings approached, and for a single, heart-stopping second, my brain latched onto the hope that Razors had come back.  But no.  That fantasy was dashed the moment I opened my eyes to see that Aros had landed in front of me.

“*Where’s Stygian?*” the Flygon asked.

Rather than answer, I just pulled out the dark-type’s new Pokéball and let her out.  I then wandered toward the Pokécenter, suddenly desperate to get away from the crowd.  I couldn’t stand being out here and seeing any of this.  I didn’t want to acknowledge any of it.  This was all wrong.

Inside the center was worse.  Rebels—kids I’d lived with and battled with for four months—occupied all the couches in the small lobby.  Crying, consoling each other, hugging their Pokémon tightly.  I saw Zoe comforting Liam along with his Bayleef as he doubled over, sobbing.  Kris, hugging her Furret, neither of her partners anywhere to be seen.  I’d seen one of them die, right in front of me.

There’d been about fifteen kids outside, and another ten or so in here, which meant…  My breath seized in my chest—almost two dozen rebels were unaccounted for.  Some of them had fled elsewhere, they must have.  But… there was no avoiding the sickening truth that most of them had died on Midnight Island.  And that wasn’t even counting how many of the survivors had lost Pokémon.

And then, for some reason, I properly realized that both of my partners were still alive.

“You said Rudy made it out?” I asked, turning to face Darren.

“Yeah,” he replied.  But there was a slight edge to his voice.  Something was wrong.  Something other than the attack itself.

“…Where is he?” I asked warily.

Darren’s face fell, and his eyes shifted a bit.  But then he pointed at the far end of the lobby.  There, seated on a couch, was Rudy, face buried in his hands, shoulders trembling.  My stomach curled inward on itself.  He was safe at least, but something was definitely wrong.  I walked over, my steps slow and cautious.  Ebony was lying next to him, resting her head on his leg.  The Houndoom glanced up at me with a worried look as I neared.

“Hey.  You… you alright?”  It was a stupid question.  None of us were alright.  Not after what had just happened.

“Wartortle’s dead,” Rudy croaked.

It was like the air had been sucked from the room.  I must have misheard him.  I must have.

“What?” was all I could say.

He took several slow, shaking breaths.  “The Rockets were all surrounding us.  He’d already used Protect a bunch, but… I didn’t recall him.  I thought he could handle it, I didn’t think that… that…”

I sat down on the far end of the couch, staring at the floor in shock.  And yet… an insidious voice in the back of my head kept telling me this wasn’t shocking at all.

“I didn’t want him to get hurt, I swear.  I just… I wasn’t thinking… I didn’t realize…”

He hadn’t realized.  I hadn’t realized.  Hadn’t realized that it had been like this the entire time.  How many times had I noticed him being careless with Wartortle and just brushed it off?  I figured it would all work out in the end, because… well, because why wouldn’t it?  Things had always worked out for him before.

I didn’t think anything of it, so I never said anything, and now Wartortle was dead.

The urge to comfort Rudy flared up inside me, but what was there to say?  Reassure him that it wasn’t his fault?  In other words, lie to his face?  Pretend like it wasn’t both inevitable from the way things had been going and also completely avoidable if anyone, including me, had ever stopped to say, “hey, maybe you should appreciate your starter more?”  No, I’d rolled my eyes and thought, “ha ha, typical Rudy,” and then ignored it.

Countless opportunities, all wasted.  The image of Razors lying in a pool of blood flashed through my mind, distorting into Wartortle.

I couldn’t handle this right now.  I didn’t know how to be there for him when I felt ready to collapse at any moment, and if that made me a bad friend, then I almost didn’t even care because I’d already screwed up so many times that this paled in comparison.

“Take care of him, will you?” I said to Ebony, giving her a few half-hearted neck rubs.  The firedog glanced in my direction and gave a light whimper.  Of course this was hitting her hard—she’d lost a teammate.  And on top of that… she was still just a pup, wasn’t she?  Even as a Houndoom?

I stood up from the couch and shuffled away.  But since I didn’t know where to go, I wound up wandering aimlessly around the lobby, lost in a daze.  The scattered voices and crying all around me had blended into a distorted haze of sound that my brain didn’t feel like sorting through.  What was I supposed to do now?  What were any of us supposed to do now?

It wasn’t until my ears caught a familiar voice in Pokéspeech that I felt myself snap back into reality and turn in the direction of the noise to see Aros and Stygian at the front entrance with a rather confused nurse.

“These two say you’re their trainer?” she asked.

“*I just said we don’t have a trainer, but we’re with her,*” Aros said exasperatedly.

I stared blankly for a few seconds before saying, “Yeah, they’re with me.  I guess.”  My face probably looked like I was willing to kill someone for a bit of rest.  I vaguely wanted to rearrange it into something less hostile, but the message got lost halfway, so I wound up just staring at the floor.

The nurse gave me a sympathetic smile.  “You’re welcome to head on back to the trainer’s dorm if you like,” she said gently.

I blinked.  “Right.  Uh, come with me I guess,” I said, motioning to the two clones.

My legs were on autopilot, shuffling against the carpet as I wandered down the hall, rounding the first corner I came to.  I was met with a wide dormitory about the same size as the lobby and filled with a dozen or so bunks.  A few kids were back here already.  Three.  That still left around twenty unaccounted for.  I hated knowing that.

I stumbled over to the closest bed and plopped down onto it heavily, sliding my backpack off my shoulders and letting it fall to the floor.  Aros and Stygian sat down in front of me, glancing around uncertainly.

“*So… uh… do we need to go inside a Pokéball to stay indoors?*” Aros asked in what sounded like genuine confusion.

“I’d feel safer if you didn’t,” I said immediately.  I had no idea what the odds were that we’d be attacked here, but I didn’t want to be without the experiments.  Not now.

A sudden vibration from my pocket gave me pause.  It took several seconds for me to realize that I hadn’t imagined it—my R-com had just received a text message.  Slowly, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the device.  I pressed the button on its front to light up the screen.

It was a text message from Stalker.

By the time you all read this, I hopefully will have been able to draw the Rockets away from you.  Otherwise, you won’t be reading this.

The biggest danger to any of you right now is being connected to me.  For that reason, I will not attempt to approach any of you.  It’s safer if they think I’ve abandoned the rebels.  Stay in public, and stay together.  Don’t give them the opportunity to isolate you or single you out.

The Rebellion is over.  But your real names and identities should still be safe—I’ve made sure of that.  It’s up to you what you want to do from now on.  If I never see you again, thank you for being a part of the fight.  Whether it seems like it or not, you made a difference.  If you want to continue the fight, come to Johto.  I lead the Johto Resistance there.  I can offer its protection.  You’ve all proven yourselves worthwhile allies.  I’d be honored to have you on my side again.

Our identities were safe, he’d said.  Not mine.  Mine was compromised ever since the day Astrid pieced together who I was.  With the Rebellion finished, would I ever be safe anywhere again?

The adrenaline was wearing off, leaving a tidal wave of smothering exhaustion in its wake.  I was only dimly aware that I’d unclipped Swift and Firestorm’s Pokéballs and opened them.  Both of my Pokémon appeared alongside the bed and glanced around in confusion.  Somewhere amidst the torrent of questions from Firestorm, I managed to mumble, “Ask them,” gesturing vaguely in the experiments’ direction.  After that, I fell back onto the bed and didn’t get up.

Chapter Text

Sunlight filtered in through a crack in the curtains, falling across my face and slowly dragging me out of a heavy sleep.  I blinked several times, putting a hand over my face to keep the sunbeam from stinging my eyes.  It felt like I’d been hit by a truck.  I honestly wasn’t sure whether I’d slept for five minutes or five days.  Hazy memories started bubbling to the surface of my mind, one after another.  The stadium engulfed in flames.  Gunshots.  Moltres.  Running for our lives.  Razors…

I shivered.  That was… one hell of a nightmare.

I sat up and squinted at my surroundings as my eyes adjusted to the light.  And then a chill fell over me.  This wasn’t my room.  I was in a small, cabin-style dormitory filled with beds, half of which were occupied by other members of the Rebellion.

So then… all of that from last night… that all really happened?

I collapsed back against the pillows like a heavy weight had just been dropped on me.  All of that had really happened.  The Rebellion was over.  Nearly half the team was gone.  Razors was gone.  Stalker had disappeared.

But those of us who had escaped… we were still alive.  I was so sure we’d be targeted here, I just hadn’t had the energy to deal with it last night.

Both Swift and Firestorm were already awake, the former gazing out the window and the latter idly playing with his tail flame.  Aros and Stygian were curled up on the carpet near the doorway in a way that had probably made it difficult for anyone else to enter the room.  The Absol’s coat was spotless, and it was impossible to tell that she’d been ashy and bloodstained the previous night.  She must’ve spent most of the night cleaning herself.

Swift took that opportunity to push off from the windowsill and glide over to the bed, landing alongside me.

“*Morning,*” he chirped.

“Morning,” I replied automatically, glancing around the room once more.  I had apparently set my Pokéballs on one of the tables by the doorway, judging by the fact that there were three of them sitting on the polished wooden surface next to a black hybrid ball.  The latter of which was currently open.

“Where’s Chibi?” I asked warily.

At my words, Stygian partially opened a single eye to stare at me before yawning widely and sitting up.  “*He broke out halfway through the night and ran off,*” the Absol said, rubbing a paw against her face.

Honestly, I couldn’t even blame him.  Not after the way I’d spent an entire week holed up in my room.  I only hoped he wouldn’t get spotted by the wrong people.  He was usually pretty careful, but… in his current state…

“*I can’t pretend to know how he’s feeling,*” Aros said, sitting up suddenly with an alertness that made me doubt he’d really been asleep.  “*The hybrids were always a lot closer with each other than the rest of us.  We just gotta give him space.*”

Give him space…  All right.  I could do that.

A crushing emptiness had settled into the pit of my stomach.  I couldn’t stop seeing it happen, over and over in my mind.  Couldn’t stop seeing the look on Chibi’s face when it had happened.  It felt like my heart was going to collapse inward on itself.

“I should have done something.”

The experiments tilted their heads in confusion, but Swift seemed to know what I was talking about.  He stepped closer to me and gently asked, “*What should you have done?*”

“I don’t know.  Something.  Razors is dead and I watched it happen and I couldn’t do anything, but I should have figured something out,” I said, burying my face in my hands.

“*Please don’t blame yourself,*” the Pidgeotto said quietly.  “*Not after everything you’ve been through.*”

I didn’t have anything to say to that.  Not while my gut felt like it’d been punched and my hands were already soaked with tears.

“*Why didn’t you send us out?*” Firestorm murmured.  Not this again.

“It wasn’t safe,” I muttered, wiping my eyes.  That horrible feeling of paralysis flashed through my memory.  Wanting to send someone out and fight back, but knowing I’d just be getting them killed.

“*But… I could have helped—*”

“You would have been shot,” I replied in what was probably a harsher tone than necessary, but I wasn’t in the best mindset to be tactful.  The Charmeleon froze like he’d been slapped, then looked away and said nothing.

I put a hand to my forehead.  “Sorry, sorry, it’s just… I don’t think I could handle losing any of you.  Rudy’s going through that right now, and—”

“*Wait, what?*” Firestorm said, looking up suddenly.

“Wartortle,” I replied.  The name said it all.

The Charmeleon blinked at me in confusion like I’d just told him the moon was square.  “*Was he just… not strong enough…?*”

“Yeah, well maybe it wasn’t his fault he never got any training because no one ever thought he was worth anything, alright?” I snapped, slamming a fist against my knee.  Rudy hadn’t thought so, and I hadn’t cared, and now he was dead, and no one could fix that, and I was completely not in the mood to deal with Firestorm’s stupid strength obsession.  Even though I was his trainer, it was my job to deal with it, but dammit, not now.  Later.  I’d deal with it later.  I had more pressing concerns.  Like figuring out what to do with myself from now on.

I took a deep breath to steady myself and looked over each of my Pokémon, but then my eyes fell on the two clones.  Figuring out what I was gonna do was one thing, but what about them?

“I… I’m not sure what you two want to do now,” I said awkwardly.  “The Rebellion is over.  That kind of rules out staying on Midnight Island.”

Aros folded his arms, throwing a sideways glance out the window.  “*Might’ve crossed my mind, yeah,*” he said.  Stygian had suddenly become very interested in licking her already spotless claws.

“I don’t know if there’s anywhere you’ve wanted to go?  Both of your species aren’t even from this region, so…”

The Flygon tossed his head indignantly.  “*You don’t expect us to make a living in the wild, do you?  You know there’s nothing wild about us.*”

“*I was raised by humans, and I lived in the wild just fine,*” Firestorm pointed out.

“*Yeah, well you weren’t made by humans, were you?*” the dragon retorted, pointing a claw at the Charmeleon.

I really didn’t see how that was relevant to anything.  “Look, I don’t care if you’re clones, alright?  Where do you want to live?  We can’t just leave you at the Pokémon Center.”

Aros peered at me through his red eye lenses, his expression hard to place.  Finally, he said, “*Well then, given our choices, I think we could make do with having a trainer for now.*”

A heavy pause followed.  I blinked at him, mouth agape, while my brain processed the implications of what he’d just said.

“Wait, what?”

The Flygon folded his arms.  “*There’s no place for us in the wild, and I still have business with the Rockets.  Sticking with you right now is easiest.*”  So I was just a means to an end, then.

My eyes traced the floor back and forth as I struggled to think of a response.  “I… guess that makes sense?”  Aros nodded in a self-satisfied way, like he’d sure showed me.  “But seriously, you’re both on board with this?” I asked, throwing a bewildered look at Stygian, who’d been silent the whole time.

The Absol cracked one eye open, glancing at me out of its corner.  “*As far as humans go, you’re not absolutely terrible,*” she offered.

I smiled weakly.  “Thanks.”  That might have been the nicest thing she’d ever said to me.

I couldn’t just spend all day in the trainer’s dorm.  Eventually, I had to make my way outside.  I recalled all my Pokémon except for Aros, who didn’t have a Pokéball (I would need to get one for him at some point) before wandering toward the hallway to the lobby.  On the way, I happened to pass by a floor-length mirror and caught a glimpse of my reflection out of the corner of my eye, which made me stop.

I looked like a mess.  Still dressed in the same clothes I’d been sleeping in before the attack—an oversized t-shirt and drawstring pants that were now thoroughly torn on the legs—crumpled under a dirt and ash-covered jacket.  A tangled pile of too-long blonde hair hung around my face (why hadn’t I noticed that it needed cutting until now?), and my eyes held a strange heaviness that I hadn’t seen before.

I didn’t look fourteen anymore.  And not just because I was turning fifteen in two weeks.  There was something else.  It felt like I’d lived four years in the past four months, and that fact was plastered all over my face, even though I couldn’t really describe why.

With a long, slow exhale, I forced myself away from the mirror.  No sense dwelling on pointless things like that.

The Pokécenter lobby wasn’t quite as packed as it had been last night, though there were still plenty of rebels and Pokémon and cops around.  The overwhelming haze of grief and horror from the previous night had mellowed out into a lingering aura of calm, cold despair that hung in the air like a wet blanket.  Some of the kids were talking with the police.  Others were talking quietly amongst themselves in hushed, scared voices, glancing around frequently.  Others sat alone, staring out the window in silence.  I noticed Darren in the third category.  Well, not quite alone; his Sneasel was next to him, making a game of jumping on and off the couch repeatedly.

Darren glanced up at me as I approached.  “How’d you sleep?” he asked.

“I feel like I woke up from a coma and all of this is fake,” I said, unceremoniously flopping onto the couch with my arms hanging over the back.

“Ah… you too?” he replied.

I exhaled through the nose in a rough approximation of a laugh before leaning my head back against the couch cushion and rubbing my temples.  Sneasel began idly clawing at the edge of my jacket.  I didn’t remotely care enough to tell her to stop.

“Where’s Rudy?” I asked.

Darren nodded over his shoulder in the direction of the hallway I’d come from.  “He requested a private room.  Hasn’t come out yet.”  He paused for a few seconds, then added, “I tried knocking but he didn’t answer.”

I gave a hollow laugh.  “Can’t really blame him.”  Not after what I did last week.

“He wouldn’t talk to me last night either.  I don’t think he likes me much.  I mean, that doesn’t bother me, it’s just…”  His voice trailed off.

I furrowed my brow, like I was focusing on some hard to make out detail on the ceiling.  A couple times I opened my mouth like I was going to say something, but no words came.

“I mean, it’s cool.  You two were friends before all this.  I get it,” Darren went on, with a tone that sounded like he was talking to no one in particular.  Sneasel abandoned my jacket to jump in his lap, and he stroked her ear feathers absently.

“Are all your Pokémon alright?” I blurted out suddenly.

Darren blinked.  “They’re fine.  Kadabra saved our butts on more than one occasion.”

“Oh.  That’s good.”

An awkward silence followed as I struggled to find something, anything to say.  Anything we could have normally talked about felt pointless and inane right now, though.

After what felt like ages, Darren broke the silence.  “I know it probably seems like I’m taking all this pretty well.  Guess I’m not that great at expressing this kind of thing, huh?”

I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye without moving my head.  He was staring out the window with an expression that was hard to place.

“It’s a lot to take in,” I finally said.

“Part of me’s grateful that my team and I got out of it as well as we did.  I know that sounds terrible, but… I can’t help thinking it, y’know?”  He paused, frowning.  “Hang on, you didn’t lose any Pokémon, right?”

My Pokémon…  Razors wasn’t my Pokémon.

“No,” I said, my voice hollow.

Darren let out a breath.  “Okay.  Just checking.  Didn’t wanna say anything like that if you were in the same boat as Rudy.”

And then, in that moment, for whatever reason, I was hit with the crushing realization that everything I’d based my life around had completely and totally fallen apart, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do from now on.

“What are you gonna do now?” I asked, suddenly turning to face him.  “I guess… what were you gonna do before the Rebellion?  Rudy was always out for the whole ‘win the League, be a competitive battler’ deal, but I don’t think I’ve ever asked you.”

Darren crossed his arms behind his head with a thoughtful look.  “I just wanted to get out of Celadon.  See the rest of Kanto, maybe travel to other regions.  I was tired of living in a town run by Rockets.  Probably sounds silly that I joined an anti-Rocket team after wanting to get away from them, but”—the corners of his mouth curled up—“Stalker was pretty persuasive when I met him.”

“You can say that again,” I said with a dry laugh.

“What about you?  You’ve never struck me as the competitive battling type.”

I chuckled under my breath.  “Definitely not.”  Why had I wanted to become a trainer?  I could only think of the reasons why I’d decided to become a rebel.  But before that… before Team Rocket, before Entei… what were my goals then?

“I only wanted to go on a journey because everyone else was,” I said slowly as the memories came drifting back.  “I hated being left behind.  All my closest friends were older than me, except for Rudy.  So they all left years ago.”

That was it, wasn’t it?  That’s all I’d really wanted back then.  To meet up with Ajia and Starr and travel around with them.  The idea was almost laughable now.  Like something out of a fantasy.

I took a deep breath, trying to clear my thoughts.  The question of what to do next resurfaced in my mind, and I was again reminded that I had no idea what to do with myself.

“Did you read Stalker’s text?” I asked.

Darren nodded.

“Are you gonna join him?”

He paused to consider the question.  “Nah.  I think, after all this… I’d kind of like to actually go on that journey.  It’s not as exciting as fighting Rockets, but I’ve kind of had enough excitement for a while, y’know?”  He made eye contact with me.  “What about you?”

After what happened last night?  Half my brain was screaming to get out of the fight against Team Rocket and never look back.  But what else was I supposed to do?  What other options did I have at this point?

I could go home.  Leave it all behind.  Pretend I’d never met Stalker or joined his team.  Pretend I didn’t know that Team Rocket was brainwashing Legendaries in preparation for a regional takeover.  But would it really be safe to stay anywhere for extended periods of time from now on?  Especially back in Viridian, the heart of the organization?  No, no it wouldn’t.  If anything, I’d just be a danger to everyone around me.

I couldn’t go home.  I couldn’t stay in one spot.  I had to keep moving.  And I owed it to my Pokémon to continue training—especially the experiments.  But where would I go?  I couldn’t just wander without any sort of destination.  Sure, trainers did that all the time, but I wasn’t a real trainer.  I didn’t have much money either.

“I’m… not sure.  I haven’t decided yet,” I said, more to myself than to him.

As if he knew what I was thinking, Darren said, “Well, regardless of what you choose, you’re still missing a license, aren’t you?  You should probably fix that before anything else.”

If I’d been capable of it, I’d have laughed out loud.  “I failed the exam.”

Darren smirked.  “You don’t think you’d fail it now, do you?”

I was all set with my usual retort that I’d failed it twice and was never going to get any better… and then I realized how colossally stupid that sounded.  I had been training Pokémon for four months under the guidance of an actual master trainer.  I barely knew anything about Pokémon when I started, and now?

“I… I guess I wouldn’t,” I said slowly as the implications of that sunk into my head.  I could become a trainer.  A real trainer.  I could actually earn money by doing officially sanctioned battles.  I could travel around and stay at any Pokécenter I wanted and not have to worry about getting sent home and having my Pokémon taken.  I could head to Johto where the Kanto Rockets were less likely to find me.  I could meet up with the Johto Resistance and get their protection.

This fixed everything.

“I’m going to be a real trainer,” I said suddenly, sitting bolt-upright with my eyes wide.  “Where’s the closest League office?  Probably not here—Saffron, maybe?”

Darren stared at me incredulously.  “I honestly wasn’t expecting that kinda one-eighty.”

“Yeah, well, I needed something like this.  Makes everything feel less hopeless,” I said, letting out a breath before standing to my feet in a surprisingly smooth motion.  Then a thought hit me and I said, “Hey, can I steal another Pokéball off of you?”

“Another one?” Darren asked, raising an eyebrow.

I put a hand to my forehead.  “Yeah, uh… the experiments are gonna stick with me.”

“Ha.  Called it,” he said, looking rather pleased with himself as he fished through his bag.  Sneasel reached in with her claws to ‘help,’ but Darren pulled the bag away from the dark-type before she could tear more holes in it and then retrieved a red and white sphere from inside.

“You owe me,” he said, giving me a wry grin as he handed it over.

“I’ll pay you back after I get my license.”

“Deal.”

Much as I would have liked to, I couldn’t go get my license right away.  That would have involved taking a trip to Saffron, where the closest League office was located.  And while I could probably have made it there and back in the same day, I didn’t exactly want to leave Lavender without Chibi, even if it was only for an afternoon.  Plus, it was probably best if Darren and I waited for Rudy to come around before making too many plans.

That said, it seemed risky for any of us to stick around the Pokécenter for too long.  Stalker might’ve drawn the Rockets off last night, but any center near Midnight Island was an obvious target if the Rockets decided it was better to finish off the rest of us.  Hell, the only reason they hadn’t already was probably because of all the cops around.  Not that I felt too great about the cops either.  I didn’t really want to risk getting questioned about the Rebellion and revealing that I was an illegal trainer with connections to Rockets.  Not to mention the fact that three of my Pokémon were genetic experiments.  I could end up losing them.

So I returned to the trainer’s dorm, introduced Aros to his new Pokéball, and took stock of everything I owned in preparation for leaving town, whenever that would be.  Turns out, I didn’t have much.  I’d pretty much only grabbed my bag and my Pokéballs when I’d fled the stadium.  That left me with nothing more than a single spare T-shirt and a Rocket uniform.  Well… that and the strange metallic orb I’d found in the ruins.  I couldn’t even remember putting it in the bag to begin with, but apparently it had wound up there at some point.

I also still had my R-com.  I’d reread Stalker’s final message to the Rebellion about a dozen times.  I’d even sent him a response asking where he was in Johto.  But I hadn’t received a reply yet.  Which was fine—I still hadn’t decided if I was even going to join the Johto Resistance.  And there would be plenty of time to decide after I became a Pokémon trainer.

I showered and changed into my spare t-shirt and black Rocket pants.  I looked like a dork, but it was better than what I was wearing before.  There’d be time to grab a cheap outfit or two from a thrift shop or something.  I was sitting on the bed, toweling off my wet hair when a flicker of yellow in my peripheral vision caught my eye.

My heart skipped a beat.  It was Chibi.

The Pikachu was seated on the windowsill, looking every bit as disheveled as last night, with fur and feathers sticking out at awkward angles and most of his body covered in scrapes and bruises.  His face still bore the bloodstains of when it happened, only now the marks were smudged and matted where the fur had been soaked with tears.

I swallowed hard and said, “You’re back.”

He gazed up at me distantly, eyes bloodshot and half-lidded.  I had to force my expression to remain neutral when the sight of him felt like being stabbed in the heart.

“I… I was worried about you,” I said quietly, unsure of whether or not I should have said so.

The hybrid glanced away, staring at the floor with no change in expression.

My voice shook as I went on, “I know you probably want to be alone right now, but… I just… want to make sure you know I’m here for you?  If you want me to be.”

Without saying a word, he hopped down from the window and crossed the dormitory on all fours.  I held my breath as he walked past me, but he didn’t even glance in my direction.  He just hopped up onto the wooden table by the door and tapped the button on his Pokéball, dissolving himself into it.

I let out a deep breath.  Yeah, that’d gone about as well as I’d expected.  Aros had said to give the hybrid some space… well that’s what was going to happen, whether I liked it or not.  I couldn’t even begin to imagine how much he was suffering.  At least now that he was back in his Pokéball, I could have one of the center’s staff heal him.  The crushing realization hit me that I honestly didn’t even know how badly he was injured.  He could have had broken ribs for all I knew.  He wouldn’t have let it show, either way.

A faint, lightheaded feeling had suddenly overtaken me.  Like I’d been running on overdrive ever since last night but somehow hadn’t noticed until the stress of seeing Chibi again.  Maybe it had something to do with the fact that my appetite had suddenly decided to appear out of nowhere, making me painfully aware of just how ravenous I was.

I guess that answered the question of where I was headed first.

Lavender Town only had one trainer’s cafe, and it was tiny.  Given Aros and Stygian’s size, we had to eat at one of the outdoor tables, which was less than ideal given the cold wind blowing in from the sea.  Everyone argued over who got to sit next to Firestorm, we talked about our upcoming trip to Johto, and for a little while it actually felt like things were normal.

I kept Chibi inside his ball.  I wasn’t ready to talk to him yet, and he almost definitely wouldn’t want to come out anyway.

After eating, the walk back from the cafe was considerably less miserable than the walk to it had been.  That kind of bothered me.  I wasn’t allowed to be feeling kind of alright.  Not after what had happened last night.  Not after what Rudy was going through.  Not after what Chibi was going through.  There was no such thing as normal anymore, but it was like all the pain and despair had just melted into background noise that I could barely sense anymore.  It was just the way things were.  This was life now.

I was lost in thought as I walked down the streets of Lavender Town, not paying attention to anything in particular.  Which meant I was completely unprepared for the hand that reached out of nowhere, grabbed hold of my shirt, and dragged me into the nearby alley.

“What the hell?!” I cried, whirling around to face my attacker and—I froze up instantly.  It was Astrid.  Again.  Why was it always her?!  What was she doing here?!  While I was frozen, she pushed me up against the wall of the nearest building, pinning me completely.  Every inch of me wanted to scream, but my voice caught in my throat.  I couldn’t move, I couldn’t fight back, I couldn’t do anything.  Why not?!

“Quit shaking.  I’m not here to kill you,” she muttered.

She wasn’t?  But then… that could only mean…  My insides melted away just thinking about her Raichu.  Not that.  Not again.

“Where is your leader?” Astrid demanded.

“H—he’s in Johto!”

“Where in Johto?!”

“I don’t know, I swear I don’t know, he didn’t tell us anything, I’m not lying I swear!” I said all in one breath.

Her eyes bored into mine, looking almost… desperate?  Now that I was paying attention, I could see the exhaustion covering her face and the dark circles under her eyes.  Seconds passed with neither of us making a move.  My heart thundered in my chest and sweat dripped down my face and every inch of me hoped and prayed that she’d somehow, miraculously be satisfied with my answer.

After what felt like an eternity, Astrid released her hold on my collar, pushing me away.  “Lucky for you I can tell you’re not lying,” she said with a scowl.  “If your leader’s really abandoned you, then you’re useless to me now.  Your team’s finished.  You’re powerless.  You’re no threat to Team Rocket on your own.  So I suggest you take advantage of my generosity and get the hell out of here.”

I stared at her stupidly, unable to process what had just happened.  “What?  You’re letting me go?”

She didn’t say anything.  She just turned and strode off down the alley with the same intensity she’d approached me with.

What?  Why was she doing this?  And worse, why did I feel like I should know why?

“W-what kind of game are you trying to pull?” I called after her, my voice shaking.  This had to be some kind of trick.  It had to be.  “Even if I’m not a threat, there’s no way you’d ever just let me go.”

Astrid froze mid-step.  With her back to me, she said, “You’re not worth the time it’d take to kill you.  It’d be a wasted effort.”

I stared incredulously.  “That doesn’t…  I know what you’re like.  You’ve always enjoyed making me suffer.”

She whirled around, her face lit with fury.  “You don’t know a damn thing about me,” she spat, sounding almost offended by my words.  She then turned to leave once more.

Nothing about this made any sense.  Astrid had always targeted me, right from the start.  I’d always thought she had a grudge against me ever since the plane incident—which had only gotten worse with each time I escaped.  But the kind of grudge that would lead her to target me without killing me?  Because if she was really as dangerous as she acted, then there was no way I should have lived through all my encounters with her.

Unless it really was all an act.  Which would make this just another link in a long chain of slip-ups and character breaks that I’d never pieced together before.  The exaggerated threats that somehow never led anywhere.  The total lack of enjoyment during the interrogation.  The pain in her eyes during the raid last night.  Too many unexplainable things.

Without thinking, I blurted out, “You—you actually don’t want me dead.”

Astrid spun to face me again, eyes narrowed.  “Figured out that much, have you?”

My pulse quickened.  I was actually right?

“I just don’t know why,” I went on slowly.

She squinted at me like I’d just said the dumbest thing she’d ever heard.  “God, I’m lucky you’re such an idiot.”

A horribly unnerving feeling swept over me.  After all the times she’d given me the usual death glare or arrogant smirk, seeing this kind of expression from her felt really weird.  There was almost something… familiar about it.  The image felt ancient in memory, much older than any of my run-ins with Team Rocket.  I was suddenly years younger, with her making that exact face and telling me how stupid I was being.  How did I have this memory of her looking at me like that from way before I’d even met her?

Because I’d seen that face before, five years ago.

It hit me like a ton of bricks to the face.  Five years.  Five years—had it really been that long?  Long enough that I’d forgotten what she looked like.  How was I even capable of forgetting something like that?  But there was no other explanation.  It had to be her.  That would make her seventeen now?  Old enough to be an executive.  How did I go this long without realizing?

My mind was racing.  Too many thoughts to process all at one—it felt like my head was going to burst.  It all made sense now.  Everything fit.

Astrid was still looking at me like I was a moron.  “Are you even listening to me?  What else do I have to do to make you go away??”

“Oh god, it really is you, Starr.”

Astrid froze, like the words were a slap to the face.  She stared at me in horror, swearing under her breath.

Five years ago, my best friend had suddenly moved away from Viridian with no explanation whatsoever.  Now, she was back in my life again, in the form of the person who’d been haunting my nightmares.

Her expression hardened.  “So… what are you going to do now, Jade?”

She wasn’t denying it?  Some part of me had still hoped, desperately, irrationally, that I was wrong.  But I wasn’t.  All this time my worst enemy was actually my childhood best friend.  The same person I’d been devastated to lose years ago was the one who’d stalked, terrorized, and outright tortured me now.  I stared at her, feeling a horrible chill run down my spine.  This couldn’t be real.  It had to be some sick joke.

Starr frowned.  “You look upset.  How do you think I felt when I found out you were involved with that damn rebel team?  It was bad enough that Ajia’s involved in rebel matters, but now you too?  Do you think I wanted this?”

“I just… I don’t understand… how did you turn into this?  What happened after you left?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she said darkly.  “My past is my business, and you’d do well to stay out of it.”

I bristled.  “Am I just supposed to forget that my old best friend is part of an organization that wants me dead?”

“Yes, you are.  Damn it Jade, I knew you’d react like this.  The fact that we were friends five years ago shouldn’t matter anymore.  Things are different now.”

“‘Things are different now’?!”  I shouted, my blood starting to boil.  “Does that make it okay to be a Rocket?  Is that your excuse for everything you’ve done?”  I was seething, fists clenched, heart pounding.

“Jade, my situation is a lot more complicated than you’re making it out to be—”

“I don’t care!  How could you do all of those things to me?!”

“Damn it Jade, do you have any idea how hard I’ve worked to keep you alive the past few months?!” she shouted.  “I knew who you were from the start, and I had to keep every other Rocket from figuring that out!  Every damn time you snuck into the base or sabotaged our missions, I had to make sure I found you before anyone else, otherwise you’d have been shot and killed in a second.

“As for that night in the detention cell…” she went on, her voice breaking.  “Did it never occur to you that I tortured you because that was the only alternative to killing you that wouldn’t look totally suspicious?  Do you think I enjoyed that?  I had to make damn sure that I was convincing.  And guess what—if I lost my position, I wouldn’t have been able to keep my subordinates from killing you the second I was done interrogating you.  You know they all wanted you dead!  And if it weren’t for me, you would have been.”

I stared at her, lost for words.  “I don’t… I didn’t think—”

“Tch.  That much is obvious.  Now, look.  We are going to forget that any of this ever happened.  I don’t even care if you keep doing your rebel crap, just do it somewhere far away from me, got it?”

“Well you’re quite the loyal Rocket,” I muttered as she was about to walk off.

Starr spun around furiously.  “Yes.  I am a loyal Rocket.  And you’d do well to remember that.  So stop trying to question my loyalties, got it?!  We’re done here!!”

Astrid was Starr.

That single, unavoidable fact burned in my thoughts for the rest of the day as I wandered aimlessly down the docks south of town, staring blankly out to sea, occasionally catching glimpses of Midnight Island through the fog.

My old best friend had tortured me.  That thought wouldn’t stop echoing in my mind either.  Even though we weren’t friends anymore and hadn’t been for years.  She should’ve been no different than any other Rocket who’d tried to kill me.

Except she was different.  We had been friends.  Didn’t that mean anything to her?  What had caused her to change so much?  What had happened in the last five years?  Why did she even join Team Rocket to begin with?

I shook my head.  Would knowing really change anything?  This was the new Starr.  So what if we’d been friends as kids?  Those kids were long gone—both of us were different people now.  There was no reason for me to care about any of it.  I was going to Johto in a few days, and I’d never see her again.  An old friend I’d lost contact with years ago suddenly reappearing as a terrible person was really not my problem.

It wasn’t my problem.  I didn’t care.

…

Yeah.  Right.

It was so, so stupid, but I had to know, or else it was going to eat away at me forever.  I had to talk to her again… get some answers.  But the idea was… not exactly a comforting one.  Try to talk to the person who’d imprisoned and tortured me?  She’d spared my life this time.  And apparently several other times.  But there was no way I could trust that would always be the case.  Her loyalties lay with Team Rocket now.  I never wanted to be at her mercy again.

I was going to need backup.  Someone who’d be able to defeat her if it came to a fight.  Someone more logical than me, who could talk to her without losing their cool.  Preferably someone who knew her and had a reason to care about the situation.

My eyes widened.  I actually knew someone who fit that description perfectly.

Chapter Text

My heart wouldn’t stop pounding as I sat down at the Pokécenter video phone and opened my wallet to retrieve the small, wrinkled, water-stained piece of paper that Ajia had written her Pokégear number onto so long ago.  I took a few deep breaths to steady myself, then placed a few coins into the console before punching in her number.  There was no need to be nervous.  I was just calling an old friend.  No need to be nervous.  Not like I was calling to tell her that a mutual friend was part of Team Rocket’s upper ranks.  My feet tapped the floor without me telling them to.  I tried to make them stop, but that just made them tap faster.  Then Ajia’s face appeared on the screen and my heart jumped into my throat.  No going back now.

Her eyes lit up the moment she saw me.  “Jade?  Hey, how’ve you been?  You shoulda called sooner, it’s been ages!”

I forced a smile, though it was only slightly forced—there was something undeniably uplifting about seeing her again after all this time.  Something that cut through all the nerves and reminded me why she was the one I was reaching out to right now.

“It’s good to see you,” I said, and I meant it.

“So what’s up?” she asked.

I swallowed hard.  There really was no way to open this conversation that wasn’t totally awkward.  Why bother trying to find one.

“It’s our old friend Starr,” I said slowly, fighting every word.  “I found out that she’s a Rocket executive.”

Ajia’s face fell.  “Oh.  You… you know about that now?”

My heart crumpled inward on itself.  “You knew?”

She paused, eyes glancing away ever so slightly.  “It would’ve been better if I’d never found out, honestly.”

Ajia knew.  This was yet another thing that Ajia knew.  Yet another thing that exposed her history fighting Team Rocket… one that I hadn’t even known about until five months ago.  Another reminder that my friends were entangled in a vast conspiracy, and that I’d only started to scratch the surface.

“So that day, at the plane crash… you knew that was her?”

Ajia nodded.  “And I’m sure she knew who she was fighting then, too.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, hurt leaking into my voice despite all efforts to keep it out.

She paused, frowning.  “I… it had been so many years since we’d seen her.  I didn’t think it would do any good to bring up that kind of drama out of nowhere.  Things didn’t go so well when I found out.”

I bit my lip and glanced away.  “Ugh, I didn’t realize.  I wanted to talk to her again… try to get some answers, you know?  But… if that’s a bad idea—”

“Well hang on, I never said that,” Ajia cut in, smiling faintly.  “Things didn’t go so well the last time I talked to her.  But that was just me.  She’ll have a lot harder time refusing both of us.” She winked.

I stared at her.  Somewhere, deep within all the hurt and confusion and shock that this day had held, it was like the tiniest flame of hope had just been lit inside of me, its warmth gradually radiating outward.  Ajia was willing to help.  I hadn’t even had to ask.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“I…”—I shook my head to get my bearings—“I’m at the Pokémon center in Lavender Town.”  A pause, and I added, “Do you know where that is?”

“I’ve got a Pokégear.  I can find it.”

Right.  Obviously.  “I guess I’ll see you here then?”

“Yup, see you!”  She waved once more before hanging up.

I collapsed against the seat cushion, letting out a massive sigh of relief—one that it felt like I’d been holding for hours.  I had Ajia on my side in this.  I wasn’t alone.  Someone else knew what it felt like to discover that their friend was on Team Rocket, and that someone was also an expert trainer who had fought Team Rocket before.  That alone was enough to remove a huge weight from my shoulders.

Ajia arrived far more quickly than she had any right to.  Sure, her Aerodactyl was fast, but it felt like I’d only been waiting a couple of minutes before I glanced up to see a petite teenaged girl walking in through the front doors to the center with a Pichu perched on her shoulder and an Espeon trotting at her heels.  The bright energy in her dark eyes stood out in contrast to the grim atmosphere that hung over everyone I’d seen in the past twelve hours, and I couldn’t help suddenly feeling self-conscious about how exhausted and worn-out I probably looked.  Last time she’d seen me, I’d been trying to convince her that I really did want to fight Team Rocket.  A fresh wave of embarrassment hit me from how bad an idea that had turned out to be.

I stood up from the couch a little too late and wasn’t ready when Ajia threw out her arms and pulled me into a hug, saying, “It’s good to see you!”

Words failed me, like I’d momentarily forgotten what to do when confronted with such good cheer.  In the end I settled on, “Thanks for helping me out,” with what hopefully wasn’t too defeated a tone.

She elbowed me lightly as we separated.  “Hey, what are friends for?”  But then she cocked her head, gazing at me like she was trying to figure something out.  “Are… are you doing alright?”

I closed my eyes, smiling weakly.  So it was that obvious, huh?  “I’ve been better,” I said, grabbing my bag and slinging it over my shoulder.  “Come on, let’s walk outside while we talk.”

A cool sea breeze swept through our hair as we stepped outside the Pokécenter.  Espeon dashed ahead of us, zigzagging across the path that led to the boardwalk.  Ajia held her arms out to the side while we walked, allowing Pichu to scamper from one end to the other.

“So, you start,” Ajia said.  “What have you been up to?”

I gave a dry laugh.  No way, I definitely wasn’t going to open with that.  “I’d reeeally prefer for you to answer that first.”

She blinked a bit in surprise, but then folded her arms behind her head, which prompted Pichu to jump down and cling to her jacket front.  “Ah, you know me, I’ve been traveling.  A few odd jobs here, a local tournament there.  Spent some time in the Sevii Islands recently, that was fun.  It’s still warm there this time of year.  And they’ve got tons of novelty tourneys and unofficial gyms—I got to take Lapras through a surf race where the competitors use water attacks to knock trainers off their Pokémon.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but then stopped myself.  ‘You know me,’ she had said.  But I honestly wouldn’t have been able to guess half of that stuff.  Her combat skill went without saying, so I probably could have assumed something related to competitive battling, but other than that… it was like I didn’t know anything about her anymore.

“They’ve got a bunch of cool ruins down there too,” she went on.  “Lots of rare Pokémon.  Took Ninetales to the fire festival they held on the solstice at Mt.  Ember.  It’s really popular with the legend-spotting community—they say Moltres has shown up a few times in the past to give its blessing.  Didn’t get to see it this year, though.”

I could hardly blame Moltres.  The solstice was not long after Entei’s capture—of course it wouldn’t have wanted to go anywhere near humans.  Not that it mattered either way, because the firebird had been caught two weeks ago and would never show up at the fire festival there, or anywhere else ever again.

Pichu jumped down from Ajia’s jacket and dashed up one of the wooden posts lining the boardwalk.  The electric-type then hopped from one post to the next while Espeon jumped up and tried to catch her in midair.

“Any League stuff?” I asked, looking for any excuse to keep Ajia talking so it wouldn’t have to be my turn.

“Nah, I haven’t done official competitive since the Rocket stuff last year.  I try to stay off TV, y’know?  Don’t wanna advertise where they need to send a hit squad,” she said with a chuckle.  I had a hard time finding humor in that.  Then again, she could have been laughing at the fact that Espeon had caught Pichu mid-leap with its telekinesis, and the mouse was now flailing indignantly against the psychic-type’s hold.

“I mean, they’ve got agents scattered across the islands, but nothing large-scale.  I took down a smuggling ring while I was there, but they never found out it was me, so…”

Why the hell hadn’t I been traveling with Ajia all this time?  Even leaving out the fact that she had the unexplainable ability to fight Team Rocket and actually win, I could have been spending all this time having fun with one of the people I’d most wanted to meet up with when I became a trainer.  And I’d had the opportunity after the plane incident, too!  Sure, I had been opposed to leaving home without a license, and she’d been opposed to getting me mixed up in Rocket drama.  But then I’d gone and done both of those things anyway.  Was it just because the Rebellion had seemed important enough to leave home without permission and without a license?

“So… hang on… is that why it’s been ages since you last visited Viridian?  Staying off the team’s radar?” I finally asked.

Ajia clicked her tongue in thought.  “Part of it.  My dad’s work transferred him to Indigo, so there’s also that.”  She smiled faintly and gave me an encouraging nudge.  “Alright, your turn.  What’s it like being on that rebel team?”

My stomach tied itself into a knot.  I’d known she was going to ask at some point, but that hadn’t made it any easier to come up with a suitable response.

“Don’t ask how I know this, but it sounds like you guys have really been making a difference,” she added once my pause had lasted more than a few seconds.  “I mean… saving Raikou and Zapdos?  Not to mention Mew!  How many people can say they’ve even seen Mew, let alone saved her?”  Her words held a cheerful air, but at the same time there was something… measured about them.  She’d seen how worn and ragged I looked.  She knew something was up.  But she didn’t know what, so she’d focused on lifting the mood before it had the chance to drop.

I swallowed a lump, clutching the wound on my left arm, hidden from view under my jacket sleeve.  Nope, I wasn’t ready to explain any more than the bare minimum.

“The rebel team was disbanded not long ago.  It was getting too dangerous to continue, so we had to split up.”  The sooner I could transition this into talking about Starr, the sooner I could stop thinking about the Rebellion’s fate.  “That’s why I’m here, and that’s how Starr found me.  You said we were gonna talk to her, right?”

Ajia blinked, obviously caught off-guard by the sudden subject change.  “Oh, of course!  Want to head to Viridian now?”

Now it was my turn to pause in confusion.  “Viridian?  I’ve only ever run into her in Celadon.”

“Yeah, it’s not uncommon for combat unit execs to bounce around depending on where they’re needed and what their mission schedule is like,” Ajia explained.  “But as far as I know, Starr primarily leads the Viridian combat unit.”

The irony of it—I’d been so disappointed when Starr never returned to Viridian.  Turns out she had.  Just not the way I’d been expecting or hoping.

Ajia pivoted on her heels and put her hands over her mouth, calling out, “Alright, time to go, you two!”

As some point we had passed her Pokémon, both of whom were now perched atop opposing posts, shooting small, star-shaped bits of energy to knock each other off.  Upon hearing Ajia’s call, however, they bolted over to us, neck-and-neck until Ajia held up a Pokéball and the yellow mouse instantly skidded to a halt.

“*Whaaat,*” Pichu said, fixing her trainer with an incredulous frown.

Ajia put her other hand on her hip.  “Come on, we’re heading to the Viridian base.  Everyone knows you there, I can’t have you out.”

“*I can hide in your bag,*” the electric-type pleaded.

Ajia cracked a smile.  “Only if you stay in there,” she said, sliding her backpack from her shoulders.  “We don’t need a repeat of the Cerulean incident.”

“*That was one time,*” Pichu mumbled, leaping into the bag the moment her trainer unzipped it.

Ajia shouldered her backpack before turning to face me and saying, “Need to run back and grab anything before we go?  Oh, and is this your first time teleporting?”

“No to both of those,” I said, tugging at my own backpack strap for emphasis.  But then my brain caught up with her second statement and I added, “Wait, we’re teleporting?”

She gestured to the psychic fox sitting at her heels, who was now fixing me with a curious stare.  Well that explained how she’d gotten here so quickly.  Ajia put a hand to my shoulder before reaching out her other hand to grab Espeon’s forked tail.  Then the foggy surrounding of Lavender town melted into shimmering light.

Espeon took us straight to Viridian in a single jump, which was crazy far—farther than I’d seen any Pokémon do at once.  We entered the base through the northwest entrance, located in a discreet warehouse on the edge of town.  It was one of the less commonly used entrances, from what Darren and I had seen during the time we’d spent scoping out the base.  Probably because it led directly to the storage division.  Of course, that just made it easier to track down replacement boots and gloves for my uniform.  Ajia already had a Rocket uniform, and a working Rocket ID for that matter.  When I asked her how, she just said, “It’s a long story.”

“Well, when this is all done, I’d like to finally hear it,” I replied.

Ajia kept her hat pulled low over her face as she led us into the commons.  Viridian HQ didn’t harbor nearly as many bad memories for me as Celadon, but I couldn’t help feeling the grip of anxiety just from being inside a base again.  I had told myself I was done.  That I was going to Johto to turn a new leaf.  And now this.

We made our way toward the private rooms, which were generally reserved for executives, admins, or other important agents who were stationed at the base long-term.  Apparently Ajia knew which room to check first, because she walked with a sense of purpose, like someone who didn’t have any doubts as to her destination.  She stopped in front of room 160, checked her R-com once (she had an R-com too?), and then knocked three times.  My chest tightened—this was it.

Several seconds passed.  Then, a muffled voice from the other side of the door: “Oh, for the love of—”

I could hear the clattering of locks being undone before the door swung open to reveal an extremely unimpressed Starr.  She was dressed more casually than the full executive getup I’d always seen her in—just a black tank top and gray capris—and was currently fixing me with a particularly disapproving scowl.

“What are you doing here?  And what’d you bring her for?” she demanded pointing at Ajia.

“It’s great to see you too,” Ajia said brightly.

Starr put a hand to her forehead, dragging it down her face and pulling at her eyelids exasperatedly.  She then leaned out the doorway and shot a couple of furtive glances down the hallway before stepping aside and roughly gesturing inside her room.

While I didn’t fancy being overheard any more than she did, the idea of setting foot in her quarters was… hardly appealing.  Then again, it wasn’t as if I was alone—I did have Ajia with me.  That made it better, right?  My footsteps dragged against the carpet as I walked through the doorway into a narrow entry hall.  Once the two of us were inside, Starr slammed the door shut, locked it, and rounded on us.

“You’ve got five seconds to explain what the hell you’re doing here.”

“We’re just here to talk,” Ajia said, holding up her hands defensively.

“I don’t want to talk with the likes of you guys,” Starr spat, putting her hands on her hips.  “You’re just a bunch of no-good rebels trying to ruin my position on Team Rocket.  Do you think I’ve forgotten the revolt?  How many Rockets were totally screwed over because of you?”

Ajia frowned.  “Screwed over?  Really?  That’s a bit harsh.  Also, I think you’re giving me too much credit for everything that happened back then.”

What was this revolt they were talking about?  I’d lost count of how many times I’d heard people mention it, but no one ever felt like explaining what it was.

Starr glared at Ajia silently for several seconds.  Then she caught sight of my confusion before giving Ajia an odd look like she was trying to figure something out.  Finally, a slow, satisfied grin made its way across her face, and she quietly said, “You mean Jade doesn’t…?”  Starr decided against finishing the sentence, however, and instead threw a few unsettling glances my way, like she knew something I didn’t.

“What?  I don’t what?”  I asked, scowling at her.

Ajia, on the other hand, seemed to understand what Starr was insinuating, even though I had no idea.  She gave her a sort of annoyed stare for a few seconds, but then casually said, “I think we’re getting off-topic.  So, do you mind telling us why you’re so loyal to Team Rocket, or do we have to be here all day?”

Starr tilted her head.  “What?  That’s a stupid question.  Why are you loyal to your rebel cause?”

“Simple.  I’m against Team Rocket’s goals.  I want to prevent them from going through with their plan to use the Legendaries to increase their power and influence.  And I don’t want to see any more lives ruined by Team Rocket.”  Ajia smiled and said, “Now it’s your turn.  Go on, don’t be shy.”

Starr clenched her teeth, looking apprehensive.  Her hand hovered over her pocket, where the outline of an R-com was visible through the fabric.  I shot a nervous glance at Ajia, but she had a rather amused expression.  “Going to turn us in?  I’m surprised at you, Starr—I’d think an executive like you would know what would happen if two wanted enemies of Team Rocket were captured.  But nah, I guess it’s totally cool if they kill us—no big deal, right?”

Starr continued to scowl at her.  “That’s my biggest problem.  It would be a lot easier if I could just pretend I hadn’t known you two before I joined Team Rocket.”

Ajia put a hand to her forehead.  “Right…  So, the only reason you care if the other higher-ups kill us is because we used to be friends.  That’s comforting.”

Starr scoffed.  “I’m head of the combat unit, what do you expect?  Any threat to Team Rocket is the enemy, and I’ve gone through this debate in my head enough times.  The past few years I’ve learned to ignore any sympathy, although Jade pretty much owes her life to it.”  I glanced away, too embarrassed to look her in the eye.

“The point is… it’s my business why I’m a Rocket,” Starr continued.  “Why the hell do you two even care anyway?  Why does it matter?”

“Because…”  Ajia began, choosing her words carefully, “you can’t be loyal to Team Rocket and help its enemies at the same time.  Trust me, it doesn’t work.  Sooner or later, you’ll be found out, and you’re gonna have to choose.”

Starr folded her arms.  “I’m not a double agent like your allies.  Stop making it sound like I’d help rebels.”

“I guess all the times you made sure I wasn’t killed don’t count, then?” I said dryly.  “How many times was it?”

Starr’s mouth hung open, like my words were a slap to the face.  “Not wanting you dead doesn’t count, alright!  I’d never help the rebel cause or anything!  And I wouldn’t have any problems if you two didn’t keep showing up in my life trying to test my loyalties.”

“So, what you’re saying is that you’re 100% satisfied with being a Rocket,” Ajia said.  “It’s never made you feel uncomfortable at all.  You’ve never once regret something you’ve had to do for the team.  Ten out of ten, would join Team Rocket again.”

Starr gave her a horrified look, like she couldn’t believe what she’d just heard.  “What the hell are you trying to say?”

“What I’m saying is—can you really blame me for trying to help the Rockets I met who wanted a way out but didn’t know what to do?”

“I’m not like all of them, alright!  You really think someone in my position can just leave?!”  Wait—her argument wasn’t that she didn’t want to leave, but that she couldn’t?  That was totally different than what she’d implied earlier.

“There have been Rockets higher ranked than you who managed to—”

“I can’t do what the commander did!!  I won’t!!  That was your fault anyway!  He actually agreed with all your rebel bullshit.  That’s not who I am!”

“Then who are you, Starr?  Is serving Team Rocket all that you have?”

“Yes!!!” she shouted, her eyes wide with desperation.  “I threw away everything from my old life when I joined Team Rocket!  Even my name…  And I thought that included my friends.  But I’ll never be entirely free, will I?” she asked, glaring at us.

I flinched and looked away.  She… kind of had a point, much as I hated to admit it.  If Starr really wanted nothing to do with us anymore, then what was the point of trying to force her to?  It wouldn’t help her.  It definitely wouldn’t help me get over what she’d done.  Why were we doing this?

“For how loyal you are to the team, I assume they must be loyal to you as well, then?” Ajia asked, her tone casual.  “The boss really wouldn’t mind if he knew what you’d done?”

Starr’s eyes widened with shock before immediately narrowing into the fiercest rage I’d ever seen from her.  “Get out.  NOW.”

I was about to protest, or at the very least try to calm her down, but then Ajia raised both arms and said, “Fine.  That’s all I needed to know.  It was great talking with you, let’s do it again soon.”

I shot an incredulous glance at Ajia, who gave me a meaningful look but didn’t say anything.  Starr took several heavy steps over to the door and threw it open, pointing out.  I did my best to avoid eye contact, but still caught sight of the glare she fixed on us the entire time we walked out.  The instant I had cleared the doorway, I felt the door slam shut right behind me.

“We’re leaving just like that?” I asked, staring at Ajia in confusion.

A long pause followed.  “I wasn’t lying when I said I’d found out everything I needed to know,” she said quietly.  “Let’s go to the Pokémon Center for now.  I’m starting to get an idea of how we can settle this.”

“I think we can actually get Starr to quit Team Rocket.”

The announcement came out of nowhere.  Ajia had been mostly silent as we’d walked to the north Viridian Pokécenter, where she’d reserved a double bunk room for us.  Having the silence broken with such a bold claim was definitely not what I’d been expecting.

“Seriously?”

Ajia nodded, sitting up straight in her chair.  “She’s trapped.  She’ll never admit it, but it’s obvious there are a ton of things she hates about being a Rocket.  She’s just had to ignore all of them in order to stay alive.  It really is the same as the other ex-Rockets I’ve known.  But even if we were to convince her of that, there’s no way she’d ever follow that path.  I gave up trying to convince her to quit when I first found out.  But with you being involved, things are different.  The things she’s had to do to save you have made her question the things she’d always believed to be true.”

The idea that she wasn’t too far gone… that the person we used to know might still be in there, deep down.  It was obviously appealing.  But… it didn’t change the things she’d done.  Nothing could change that.  Trying to be friends with her again was almost more uncomfortable of a thought than just the fact that we were enemies now.

“Are you… sure about this?” I asked slowly.

Ajia nodded again.  “But I don’t think we should push her to make a decision.  What we should do, is show her what Team Rocket would do if they found out what she’s done.”

I grimaced.  “I’m pretty sure she knows.  That’s why she doesn’t want to oppose them.”

“Exactly,” Ajia said, eyes shining.  “She refuses to betray them, but what if they betray her first?  What if we show her that they don’t deserve her loyalty?  All we’d have to do is trick her into revealing the fact that she’s helped us.”

I paused.  That… did make a bit of sense.  I wasn’t sure how we were supposed to do that exactly, seeing as she’d been willing to go so far as to torture me without breaking character.  But Ajia didn’t know that.  Ajia didn’t know half the stuff Starr had done.  And I didn’t exactly feel like going into detail on most of it.

“By the way… how did you find out Starr was on Team Rocket?” Ajia asked.

Friggin’ hell.  There was just no getting around it, was there?

I exhaled slowly.  “She was on the mission to end the Rebellion.  Her subordinates killed half the team.  The rest of us only escaped because our leader drew them off.  I ran into her the following day in Lavender Town, where she was stalking me.”

A sickly, hollow feeling filled my chest, intensifying with each word.  Ajia had gone quiet, listening carefully with worried eyes and tight lips.  She brought her hands to her mouth and leaned forward with her elbows on her knees.

“…Seriously?” she just said.

Aside from that one word, the silence in the room was so thick it threatened to crush us.  Even Pichu had ceased rummaging through Ajia’s bag and peeked out, glancing between the two of us with drooping ears.

“Looking back, I’m pretty sure she was only there to make sure she found me before the others.”  That didn’t make it okay, but it was… something.  My hands started trembling, and I clenched them shut to make them stop.  “Our next mission was going to be freeing Mewtwo.  Now we’ll never get to.”  Why was I saying any of this.  I’d already answered her question—none of this needed to be said.

“Yeah, I’ve heard of Mewtwo,” Ajia said gravely.  “Team Rocket’s ultimate weapon.”

“I… kind of made a promise to him—that I’d figure out a way to free him someday.  I know it was naïve and stupid, but I meant it at the time.”

At those words, a sly grin made its way across Ajia’s face, and I could practically see the gears turning in her head.  “…Don’t count that idea out just yet.”

I furrowed my brow, staring at her in blank confusion.  She couldn’t be serious, could she?

“Alright, I’ll bite.  What are you planning now?” I said, bemused.

“Nothing too concrete yet…”  Her voice trailed off as she whirled around in the desk chair and grabbed her bag from the floor, prompting Pichu to jump to her shoulder.  “I’m gonna talk with some friends, see what I can dig up,” she said, retrieving a tablet from her bag and tapping away at it.

I still wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened.  Just when I’d thought things were at their most hopeless, Ajia had suddenly gotten some sort of epiphany that could potentially solve everything?  I sat there for a good five minutes before realizing that she was probably gonna be at that for a while.  No sense just sitting here waiting.

“Alright, while you’re working on that, I’m gonna go… get some new clothes… or something.”  I stood up, grabbed the room’s card key and stepped outside, leaving Ajia and Pichu muttering excitedly to each other.

Wandering down the streets of Viridian after all this time was surreal.  Granted, it wasn’t like we were staying in an area I was totally familiar with.  I was never supposed to wander around north Viridian, and it wasn’t too hard to see why—the streets and buildings were undoubtedly grimier and more worn-down, both from age and vandalism.  The area carried a shifty feel, like it was the sort of place that would have made me feel uncomfortable five months ago.  But in spite of that, it still held a tangible air of familiarity.  The same sky.  The same cool breezes carried down from the highlands to the west.  The same shadows cast by the sun slipping behind Mt.  Silver.

I could have stopped at home if I wanted to.  Even if I’d already decided I couldn’t stay there, and had to keep moving—just to visit…  But I couldn’t risk giving away how badly things had gone.  And I still hadn’t held up my end of the bargain and gotten a license yet.  No matter what, I had to do that first.

I managed to track down a thrift shop and get a pair of jeans and a spare t-shirt for less than 1000 pyen.  Even that was pushing it on what I could afford, but with most of my clothes burned up in Midnight Stadium, I didn’t have much of a choice.

Night had fallen by the time I returned to the Pokécenter.  I tapped the card key to our door’s scanner and entered the room to see Ajia and Pichu in exactly the same spot I’d last seen them.  I’d have guessed that neither of them had moved while I was gone, although a few half-eaten boxes of Hoennese take-out scattered around the room implied otherwise.

“Hey Jade, grab some food if you want, we’re just about done here,” Ajia said without looking up from her tablet.

I dropped my shopping bag to the ground and settled back against one of the beds with a box of noodles.  I didn’t have to wait long.  No more than five minutes later, Ajia rotated in her chair, facing me with a wide grin.

“Alright.  I think we’ve got it,” she said dramatically.

Pichu jumped onto her trainer’s head and spread her paws to the side for emphasis.  I sat up straight, setting down the noodles and focusing all my attention on them.  Time to finally learn what this was all about.

“Figuring out the part with Starr—that’s easy,” she said, waving a hand to the side.  “The hard part is how we set up the trap in our favor, and how to make sure that we’re all able to escape afterward.”

I nodded.  “Right.”

“That’s where Mewtwo comes in.”

I put a hand to my face, still feeling embarrassed about bringing that up.  I knew it was an unrealistic goal.

“I found out something interesting,” Ajia went on.  “Moltres and Articuno are typically managed by a pair of Legendary handlers who are also top combat unit executives.  But ever since the last Legendary mission, Mewtwo has belonged to the boss himself.  He actually keeps its Pokéball on his person at all times.”

I blinked.  “Whoa.  Really?”

“The other important thing I found out is how the Legendary control technology works,” Ajia said, grinning slyly.  I raised both eyebrows, intrigued.  How on earth had she gotten her hands on that info?

“It’s different from what Team Rocket has done with their experiments in the past,” she explained.  “The others just had a chip implanted into them which communicated with a device that the experiment handlers kept on them at all times.  But the Legendaries’ energy signatures were way too strong for that.  Once they figured out how to make a chip that wouldn’t be overloaded, it had to be shielded so much that it could barely communicate with any external devices.  They managed to pull it off with some big and powerful machinery, but it wasn’t a long-term solution.  Without a perfect resonance with the Legendary’s energy signature, they’d adapt to the signal and become resistant over time.”

Right… that made sense, from what I had seen at the birds mission.  But what about the attack on Midnight Island?  The Rockets wouldn’t have been able to transport that kind of machinery to the island, would they?

“Wanna know the secret?  They modified their Pokéballs to contain the same hardware as the devices that the experiment handlers kept.  It’s perfect—the link between a Pokémon and its Pokéball is the only way to get a signal that will perfectly match.”

I raised an eyebrow.  “How does that help us?”

“It means that destroying a Legendary’s Pokéball will not only free it from capture… it’ll free its mind, too.”

I gaped at her.  No way.  That’s all we had to do?  Granted, once I’d taken more than a second to think about it, that didn’t seem quite so easy.  After all, the boss had personal ownership of Mewtwo.  He’d hardly allow us to walk up and take the clone’s Pokéball.

I took a deep breath.  “Okay… so we need to get the boss involved in this… that’s the only way we’re getting access to Mewtwo.”

“Right.  So combine this with the other idea—we get Starr to reveal that she helped rebels.  Now imagine she does it in front of the boss.”

My jaw dropped.

“There’s no way he’d be able to overlook that level of treachery from a head executive, let alone her.  Then, in the midst of all the Rocket drama, we steal Mewtwo’s Master Ball, destroy it, and escape with Starr while Mewtwo wreaks havoc.”  A wild grin had spread across her face, and her eyes were lit with a level of excitement I’d never seen from her—and that was saying something.  In a weird way, her absolute confidence that we could pull this off was almost intimidating.

“So here’s the plan…”

My heart pounded as we descended the elevator into the Viridian HQ once more.  We’d gone over the plan a dozen times.  I’d had all last night and all morning to psyche myself up for what we were about to do.  Ajia was 100% confident, and her confidence was downright infectious.  But even with all that, I was still an anxious ball of nerves, and nothing could change that.

We emerged from the elevator and set off.  Our first goal: wrecking the anti-teleport field surrounding the base.  That would be our ticket out of here when our mission was done, plus it was the only way for us to bail early if things got too dicey.  To do that, however, we had to get into the primary control room.  In other words, the most important room in the entire base, save for maybe the boss’s personal office.  This was so far beyond anything I’d done on the Rebellion, and considering the mess I’d caused when I freed Chibi, that was saying something.

Ajia led the way through the commons, down a hallway adjacent to the office division, one that I had never properly explored.  I kept my hand on my Pokéball belt the entire time, half expecting every Rocket we walked past to suddenly lunge at us.  It felt so incredibly obvious that we were up to no good, and part of me was amazed that half the base hadn’t already felt an aura of intended sabotage from us.  But we looked just like any other Rockets, and we had working IDs to match.  Nothing would give us away until we did anything.

“This is it,” Ajia whispered, and my heart jumped into my throat.  Already?  It felt like we’d just left the Pokécenter, and now we were already here?

The two of us stood in front of a large black door with thick metal hinges and a computerized lock.  No way to get through something like this without admin rights, which neither of us currently had.  We’d have to break in.  From this moment on, the base would be on high alert.  With a smooth, subtle motion, Ajia retrieved a Pokéball and opened it.  The light took the shape of her Umbreon, whose eyes flashed red the moment he appeared.

“Your turn,” she said.

Right—I was the one in charge of getting us through the door.  I was the one who had to kick all of this off.  One last mission.  One last blow against the Kanto force before escaping to Johto.  After this, I’d be free.

I released Stygian.  The dark-type appeared in a flash of light, glancing around wordlessly and then nodding.

No turning back now.

The Absol drew herself back, the blade on her head glowing before she swung it into the lock with a heavy metallic crunch.  Once, twice, three times the blade gouged through computer chips and mechanical parts until finally the latch clattered to the ground.  The base alarm instantly started blaring.  We’d known that was going to happen—I ignored it and threw open the door, and our group rushed into the control room all at once.  We found ourselves inside a massive black-walled space—part server room, with massive computer towers covered in flickering lights and a jungle of cables—and part security station, with an entire wall of monitors displaying video feed of every division in the base.  But none of that was important.  What was important was the squad of guards at the control panel who had just rotated in their seats to face us, gaping in disbelief.

Ajia didn’t even have to say anything.  She just swung her bag down from her shoulder and out leaped Pichu.  Time slowed.  The Rockets drew their firearms and Stygian dutifully raised a Protect in front of us.  And then Pichu shot forward as nothing more than an electric blur, zipping from one Rocket to the next faster than my eye could follow.  Flashes of sparks and strings of electricity shot out from each impact, one after the other, followed by garbled cries and bodies slumping to the floor.

Pichu slowed to a stop in an instant, twitching her oversized ears.  The mouse then jerked her attention to the right and shot off once more, into the server maze.  I caught several more flashes of light before the electric-type rushed back to us.

“*That’s all of them in here.  More are coming down the hall, though.*”

I couldn’t help staring.  I’d seen feats of raw electric power from Chibi, but never anything even remotely close to the speed and precision that Pichu had just displayed.  Couldn’t focus on that, though—we didn’t have much time before this room would be swarming with more Rockets than we could ever handle.

“The field generator should be this way,” Ajia said, walking off towards some of the larger machinery and gesturing for me to follow her.  She stopped in front of a large device—at least eight feet tall and topped with a glossy black dome surrounded by antennae—before pacing back and forth in front of it, looking it up and down.  “I’m pretty sure this is it,” she said, folding her arms.

I raised an eyebrow.  “Pretty sure?”

She flashed a grin at me and shrugged.  “Well, we won’t know for sure until we take it out, will we?”

Fair enough.  In any case, while Pichu could’ve just zapped it, we were better off not doing anything that might cause an explosion with us in the room.  Which meant Stygian was up again.  The dark-type stepped forward, claws clacking against the floor tiles, and lit her blade once more.  She then lunged forward, slicing clean through the wires and cables trailing out of the machine with repeated swings until none were left unsevered.

Ajia paused with a look on her face like she was straining to hear something.  Then her eyes lit up, and her face split into an excited grin.  “Alright, we did it!  The field is down.”

“What, really?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.  I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the full-blast fans on the server towers.

“Yep.  Time for phase two.”  Ajia shot a quick glance at her Umbreon, and he nodded, eyes flickering red for a second.  She then pulled out a Pokéball, and in a shimmering flash, her Espeon appeared in front of her.

Now for the part I was least enthusiastic about.  Throwing ourselves headlong into danger was one thing, but relying on the experiments to cause a commotion to draw the team away from us was an entirely different thing.  I exhaled deeply, then grabbed Aros’s Pokéball to release the bug-dragon alongside Stygian.

“So you guys know what you’re doing, right?” I asked.

“*Leading with Double Team and then alternating between Faint Attack and Protect,*” Aros replied in a bored tone.

Double Team alone would make them a nightmare to hit, but with the addition of the other two moves, it’d be almost impossible for the Rockets to get them.  Probably.

“*You still haven’t explained how this diversion is going to help you free Mewtwo,*” Stygian said bluntly.

I hadn’t told them about the Starr portion of the mission.  I’d decided it would be better to open that can of worms after we escaped.  If I told them now, the response would definitely be a universal ‘are you insane?’ and it would be easier to refute that after Starr was off Team Rocket.

“It’s complicated,” I said.  “Just promise me you’ll watch out for each other.”

The Absol rolled her eyes.  “*No need to be so sappy.*”

I kneeled beside Espeon and clipped both clones’ Pokéballs to the makeshift collar around the fox’s neck.  When things went bad, which they definitely would, the plan was for Espeon to recall them and teleport back to Ajia.  That at least made me feel a little bit better.

Ajia reached into her bag and started pulling out multicolored bottles, handing them to me one after another.  Temporary battle enhancements—X Attack, X Speed, and the like.  Apparently Ajia had grabbed them from a Rocket storehouse a few months ago.  We unscrewed the lids and started holding out pills for the two clones.  Taking battle enhancements was hardly a new experience for them—they gulped the pills down without even flinching.

Out of nowhere, Pichu cried, “*They’re almost here!*”

I jolted.  “Alright, go now!” I yelled, pointing out the door.

None of them needed telling twice.  Aros bolted forward, tearing a good-sized chunk out of the doorway with his claws as he did.  Stygian rushed after him, her form already blurring into multiple copies of herself with a Double Team.  Espeon wasn’t far behind them.  Almost immediately, I heard shouting and firing and attacks crashing against walls and all the chaos one would expect to hear from rogue experiments loose inside a major base.

Ajia stuffed the bottles back into her bag and then held it open for Pichu to jump back inside before pivoting on her heels and motioning to me.  “Come on, the experiments won’t be able to distract them forever.”  But there was still one Pokémon unaccounted for.

“Wait, what about Umbreon?” I asked, glancing at the dark fox.

“I like to keep him out during missions.  For luck,” she said, winking.

I stared.  Wouldn’t he be kind of noticeable?  Maybe we wouldn’t be the only Rockets with Pokémon out now that the base was on high alert?  But still?

Ajia was already heading for the door.  Alright then, she’d gotten us this far—I just had to trust her.

Outside the control room, the clones had already torn a hole clear through the wall and detoured into a different hallway.  That way the path we’d taken to get to the control room wouldn’t turn into a firing zone.  Combat unit agents raced past us, and my stomach twisted into knots.  But they completely ignored us.  Didn’t even glance our way.  Sure, we were in uniform, and the experiments were a little bit more conspicuous, but I’d been expecting at least a few Rockets to notice us or call us out as rebels or attack us or something.

We raced down the hallway back toward the commons, which were now frighteningly empty compared to five minutes ago.  Guards remained at their posts, but everyone on the combat unit had taken off to corner the experiments.  I couldn’t help feeling like all eyes were on us as we crossed the area, making our way toward the entrance to the transport hangar.  But no one confronted us.  No one said anything.  I shouldn’t have been bothered by the fact that things were going better than expected, but I was.  Why were things going so well?  What was going on?

Before I knew it, we’d already made it to our destination—we were now standing in the middle of a vast concrete space half-filled with trucks and jeeps.  I paused to catch my breath, keeping my eyes glued to the entrance, still half-expecting a squad to burst in and demand to know why we weren’t with the others.

In any case, I knew what my next task was.  It hadn’t exactly been hard to locate Starr, or rather Astrid, in the Team Rocket agent directory on my R-com.  I brought up her number in my contact list and then, feeling like an idiot, snapped a photo of myself and Ajia standing in the transport hangar.  If that didn’t get her to separate from the other Rockets and come running straight to us, nothing would.

“I just messaged the boss,” Ajia said.  “I wrote, ‘In five minutes, there will be an incident in the transport division that you’ll want to see.  Your head executive is going to betray you.’”

It was almost funny how matter-of-fact that was.  She’d just text messaged the leader of Team Rocket.  That was a thing you could do.

“Course, that means I won’t be able to use this Rocket ID ever again when this is done, but…”—she smiled distantly—“well, it’s worth it.”

My R-com vibrated suddenly.  Well, that sure hadn’t taken long.  I tapped the screen and was met with a text reading, “Wtf are you two doing there?!”

“You’ll have to come here to find out,” I typed back.  Almost immediately, I received a reply consisting of a near-keyboard mash of incoherent swearing.

I winced and pocketed the device again.  “I think I got her attention.”

Now all we had to do was wait for the real mission to begin.  Everything else was just setup.  This was what it was really about.  Confronting Starr.  Confronting the boss.  Saving Mewtwo.  My heart pounded uncomfortably in my chest.  Seconds dragged by like minutes.  I couldn’t stop glancing at my watch, expecting more time to have passed.

And then Starr appeared at the entrance to the hanger.  She froze the instant she saw us, staring with a mixture of rage and disbelief.

“Hey, you made it!” Ajia called out, waving to her.  “Come on over, we’ve got a lot to talk about.”

Starr shook her head to regain herself before charging towards us, fists clenched.  “Stop acting like you know me!  Someone will hear!” she hissed.

“No one’s here, that’s why we sent the rest of the team on a wild experiment chase,” Ajia said, waving a hand dismissively.

“There are still cameras!” she shrieked.  “Get out of here now or we’re all dead!”

Ajia folded her arms.  “Nah, I think we’re gonna stay right here.”

Starr’s face lit up with fury, and before I knew what was happening, she had whipped out a Pokéball to release her Raichu.  I froze.  Not the Raichu.  She wasn’t seriously going to—?  Sparks leaped off its cheeks and I screwed my eyes shut, desperately trying to brace myself for it even as panic shot through my veins.  But then I heard paws strike the ground near me and the crash of lightning against lightning.  Seconds passed.  The pain didn’t come.  Slowly, I opened my eyes a crack, then widened them fully when I saw Pichu standing firm with her back to us, cheeks sparking.

“Was that really necessary?” Ajia asked, her voice uncharacteristically harsh.

“Yes, it was,” Starr answered coldly, tilting her head down so that the brim of her hat covered her face.  “Now I’m only gonna ask this once.  Why are you here?”

“To prove that you can’t play both sides forever,” Ajia said simply.

Starr took a step backward, eyes widening.  “…What?”

“You can’t be loyal to Team Rocket and help its enemies at the same time.  So if you’re gonna have to choose eventually, why not leave before they find out?”

Starr glowered at us.  “I wouldn’t have to choose if you two didn’t keep pulling this rebel crap.”

“Do you expect us to just ignore all the things that you’ve done?” I asked, clenching my fists.

“Do you have any idea how much easier it would’ve been to just tell myself I didn’t know either of you?!” she shouted, her eyes now wide and frantic.

I folded my arms.  “You wouldn’t have to do that if you weren’t working for a group that wants to murder us.”

“Stop acting like it’s that simple!  Team Rocket is all I have!”

“It wouldn’t have to be,” Ajia said exasperatedly.  “You’ve already proven that you haven’t completely changed.  So come with us, before they find out you’ve helped us in the past.”

Starr took another step backward.  And for the first time throughout all of this, a shadow of doubt had fallen across her face.  She clenched her teeth, glancing back and forth uncertainly.

“No…” she said slowly and shakily.  “I can’t and I won’t!”  Her Raichu nodded fervently and shot out a wave of sparks.

And then a voice rang out over the PA speakers.  A deep, commanding voice tinged with cold amusement: “Well this certainly is an interesting turn of events, isn’t it?”

Starr froze in horror and swore repeatedly under her breath.  Ajia made eye contact with me, and the tiniest trace of a grin crossed her face.  One more thing had gone right.  The boss had seen and heard everything.

“Two rebels and a double agent, very interesting indeed.  But with such a unique situation as this, I think I know the perfect solution.  All combat unit agents will proceed to the transport hangar.  Leave the experiments—they were only a diversion.”  And with that, the speakers fell silent.

Starr immediately rounded on us with a horrified expression.  “You told the boss?!”

I flinched.  “We… might have done that, yeah.”

“Why?!”

“When I asked if the boss wouldn’t mind if he knew what you’d done,” Ajia said carefully, “I’m guessing the answer is no?”

Starr opened her mouth like she was about to speak, but then suddenly froze with her mouth hanging open.  For several seconds, she didn’t say anything; she just stared at us, gears turning in her head.  “You were trying to turn them against me,” she said quietly.  “That’s the only reason you’re here.”

Ajia smiled weakly.  “Aw man… I didn’t think you’d figure it out so soon.”

Starr gaped at the both of us, shaking her head in total disbelief.  “I can’t.  Believe.  I actually cared about you two!” she yelled, pointing forward and signaling for her Raichu to attack.  The orange mouse gave an impatient cry and jumped in front of her, yellow cheek pouches already sparking.  Without wasting a second, Pichu dashed forward, readying a Thunderbolt of her own and launching it at the same instant Raichu did.  The two bolts collided in midair, shooting out waves of sparks and strings of lightning in all directions.

“You want to keep testing my loyalty?!” Starr yelled.  “Fine!  Then be ready for me to prove you wrong!”

Chapter Text

Bolts of lightning tore the air inside the transport hangar, smothering all other sounds in a barrage of thunder.  Pichu countered the first couple of strikes with bolts of her own—much smaller but perfectly timed to deflect the stronger attacks.  Stray lightning flew wildly, colliding with walls, lancing along the ground, and narrowly missing the vehicles parked in the far end of the hangar.  But it quickly became obvious that Raichu wasn’t going to let up, and the smaller mouse would run out of electricity first.

“Agility!” Ajia called out.  Pichu dropped to all fours and dashed around in a zigzag pattern, accelerating to the point that her movements were hard to follow.  Raichu charged up another Thunderbolt and fired it straight at her, but by that point she was moving so fast that his attack completely missed its mark.

 “Why are you so committed to them?  After everything they’ve put you through?” Ajia asked, her voice calm and matter-of-fact, like she was just having an interesting discussion with Starr and not whatever the hell this was.

Starr clenched her teeth.  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she growled.  “Raichu, Quick Atta—”

“Encore!”

Before Raichu could even process the command, Pichu seamlessly switched from running to clapping her paws together, unleashing a shower of white sparks over Raichu.  The moment the sparks touched his fur, strings of electricity jumped from his cheeks, and he was forced to charge up another lightning bolt.

“You’re only doing this because you’re afraid of them,” Ajia went on.

“Shut up!  Shut!  Up!” Starr screamed, clapping her hands over her ears.

Raichu was already panting from the effort of all the wasted Thunderbolts.  Ajia took advantage of his momentary exhaustion and ordered a quick Nasty Plot.  At her words, Pichu froze, deep in concentration.  The mouse’s face split into a twisted grin as a dark glow started to spread across her body.  And then one of Raichu’s bolts finally found its mark—I flinched as the burst of lightning knocked Pichu’s tiny frame rolling along the concrete like a ragdoll.  But the mouse regained herself within seconds—far faster than I would’ve thought possible—and retaliated with a burst of star-shaped energy discs.  Raichu lunged out of the way in time, but it didn’t make any difference—the stars just looped around and struck him in the back of the head.  He pivoted around, readying another Thunderbolt, only to catch another Swift to the face.  Starr ground her teeth out of frustration, looking ready to punch Ajia for that move.  But then a manic grin spread across her face when the white sparks clinging to her Pokémon’s body finally faded.

“Now! Quick Attack!” she called out.

A shimmering flash caught my attention out of the corner of my eye.  I glanced over and—Espeon was back!  Before I knew what was happening, I had already dashed over, practically sliding to a stop in front of her.

“Are the others alright?”

The psychic fox nodded, lifting her chin to show off the two Pokéballs clipped to her collar—Aros and Stygian, both safely recalled.  I let out a huge sigh of relief and unclipped them both, replacing them on my own belt.  At least that was one less thing to worry about.

Meanwhile, Raichu was refusing to let Pichu gain any ground in the match.  He dashed after her, matching her move-for-move, making it harder and harder for her to avoid him.  But then she started firing more swift stars behind her as she ran, hitting him dead on now that he was so close.

“Raichu, use…”—the larger mouse staggered back, pelted by stars—“Use…”—he started charging up another Thunderbolt, but lost concentration halfway through as more stars struck him right in the face—“Come on, we can’t lose to her!  Use Mega Kick!!”

Raichu was in bad shape.  He’d wasted most of his electricity on pointless Thunderbolts.  His trainer was beyond flustered and not at all prepared to deal with Ajia’s tactics.  His moves were stronger, but that didn’t mean much if he kept getting bombarded with small hits and never got a chance to focus.  Ajia was winning.

Raichu shot forward with the speed boost of a Quick Attack, pulling out of it at the last second and catching Pichu in the side with a powerful kick.  Without warning, a flood of electricity surged into him the moment he made contact.  Raichu cried out in pain and alarm, staggering backward under the force of the lightning.  And then Pichu jumped up and headbutted him in the face, knocking him to the ground with a thud.  The larger mouse lay there twitching wildly for several seconds, struggling to lift his body from the concrete.  Finally, his limbs gave out, and he collapsed.

Pichu had defeated Raichu.  A fellow electric-type far bigger, far stronger than her, and she’d managed to win.  I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it happen firsthand.  The tiny mouse stood there on all fours, trembling slightly, but then turning and flashing a grin back at Ajia and me.  Her trainer smiled back and opened her bag, and the little electric-type dashed over and jumped back into it.

Starr stood rooted to the spot, jaw locked, fists shaking, face red with rage.  “Raichu’s not my only Pokémon,” she growled, recalling the orange mouse and reaching for her belt.  But before she got the chance to open another Pokéball, someone began clapping slowly.

“As much fun as it is to watch you two battle, perhaps we should get to business.”

Everyone froze.  That was him, wasn’t it?  Slowly, we all turned to face the entrance to the transport hangar, where the leader of Team Rocket now stood, flanked by executives.  He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, dressed in a crisp black suit bearing the Rocket insignia.  Every inch of him oozed professionalism, from his slicked-back hair to his dark, piercing eyes and sharp features.  I’d seen him before—as my hometown’s representative, his battles were frequently shown on TV.  But that didn’t compare to seeing him in real life.  TV couldn’t capture the overwhelming aura of authority that he gave off.  I couldn’t help feeling small and insignificant just standing in the same room as him.  This was a gym leader, and strong enough to command the respect of everyone on Team Rocket.

But none of that was important.  Right now, the only thing that mattered was the fact that he had ownership of Mewtwo.  This was the moment of truth.

Espeon’s eyes flashed blue, and a psychic aura surrounded Giovanni.  The executives surrounding him recoiled backward in shock right before a minimized Master Ball flew out of his pocket.  It shot toward us, pulled by Espeon’s telekinesis—our plan had actually worked?!

And then the ball froze in midair.  Espeon stared at it, confused.  The fox squinted in concentration, jerking her head as though trying to force the ball closer to us.  But it didn’t move.  It was like her psychic abilities had just stopped working.

Oh no.  No, no no no no.  Her powers hadn’t stopped working.  They’d been negated.

The Master Ball slowly drifted back toward Giovanni, who grabbed it and replaced it in his pocket.  A subtle yet condescending sneer crossed his face.  “Really now, I’m a bit disappointed.  You honestly believed I would walk right in here and allow you to snatch something so valuable and use it against me?  I was expecting something a bit more creative.”

Out of the shadows behind Giovanni emerged a tall, humanoid shape.  Pointed ears, a catlike face, a long purple tail—Mewtwo now stood alongside the head of Team Rocket, his eyes radiating an eerie cobalt aura.

We’d been played.  I threw a panicked glance at Ajia, whose eyes had gone wide.  She made eye contact with me, then tilted her head toward her Espeon.

Wait… her Espeon.  That’s right!  We could still teleport out of here!  There was still a chance for us to escape!  The violet fox suddenly bolted towards us.  She’d reach Ajia first—I just had to grab Ajia’s hand and then reach out to Starr and—

My body froze, like an invisible force was gripping me from all over.  An unrelenting, smothering, all-powerful force—one that pressed down from all sides, threatening to crush me with its sheer presence.  I couldn’t move.  No amount of effort made any difference.

“You’re not going anywhere.  I want to have a discussion with you three,” Giovanni said calmly, gesturing to Mewtwo with all the nonchalance of someone giving orders to a family pet.

The psychic hold on us relaxed, and I doubled over, coughing hard.  Even if we could move again, the point had been made very clear.  Mewtwo could stop us no matter what we tried.  We were trapped.  Trapped with Starr and the boss and the combat unit and Mewtwo.  With just one move, the boss had completely dismantled our plan.

More Rockets kept funneling into the transport hangar behind Giovanni, laughing once they saw us trapped here like this.  As if we needed an audience.  As if it wasn’t bad enough that Mewtwo had us completely pinned, no, we needed half the combat unit here as well.

I glanced at Ajia again as a wave of cold dread washed over me.  But she smiled weakly and mouthed the words, “It’s going to be okay.”  I didn’t believe her.  This was so many levels of not okay, and I got that it was kind of her thing to be reassuring in these kinds of situations, but what were we supposed to do now?

Giovanni surveyed us carefully for some time, no doubt mulling over what to do with us.  Finally, his cold, disapproving gaze settled onto Starr.

“Astrid, get over here.”

It took her several seconds to acknowledge the fact that he’d said anything.  With slow, shaking steps, she approached the leader of Team Rocket, avoiding eye contact the whole time.  Several times she opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t find the words.  Finally, she managed, “I… this isn’t… I would never betray Team Rocket, you know that.”

“This isn’t a question of your loyalties to this team.  It’s whether or not they exceed your loyalties to its enemies,” Giovanni said slowly, his tone unreadable.

“I am not a double agent!” Starr practically screamed.  “I would never do anything against this team—haven’t I shown that?!  Just because I don’t want them dead doesn’t mean I’m on their side!”

Giovanni wasn’t listening, however, and had focused his attention back onto Ajia and me.  “You’ve certainly done a good job of ruining my head combat executive, although I wouldn’t expect anything less.  I finally have the honor of meeting one of the most notorious criminals in Team Rocket history.  Haven’t had your fill of luring high-ranking members towards treason, have you?  You certainly caused quite a mess last time.”

Ajia… was one of the most well-known enemies of Team Rocket?  With a history of luring Rockets into betraying the team?  That couldn’t possibly be true, could it?  But… it was what we were doing right now.  Starr had accused her of ruining Rockets’ lives.  That was… also what we were doing right now.

Giovanni fixed his gaze on me, and I couldn’t help flinching.  “And… who is this one?” he asked his subordinates with an amused tone.

The executive nearest him whipped out a tablet and tapped the screen a few times before answering, “Jade Arens—a member of the rebel team.  Crashed a transport jet; stole experiments eight, nine, twenty-four, and twenty-five; was captured during operation L005 and broke out of Celadon detention block.”

The boss’s lips curled into a smirk.  “So you’re the rebel that keeps mysteriously escaping unscathed.  I’d have chalked it up to dumb luck, but it appears you’ve had help on the inside after all.”

Starr’s face lit up with panic.  “I never let her escape!  I don’t know how she broke out of Celadon!  That wasn’t me!”

“Even if it wasn’t, it’s clear that you need to sort out your priorities.  But never let it be said that I’m not fair.”  His face split into a cruel grin.  “If I can’t be confident in your loyalties, then you deserve the chance to prove them to me, wouldn’t you say?”

“I… I don’t…”

He turned to face her, his expression cold and unflinching.  “I’m giving you one last chance, Astrid.  Here we have two rebels against our cause—a common situation.  I believe you know the protocol.”

Starr glanced around anxiously, fidgeting with her gloves.  “But… they knocked out Raichu…”

“No, no, not your favorite Pokémon,” Giovanni said, his voice dripping with false amusement.  “Punishment from your Raichu just isn’t… isn’t effective enough.  No, I was thinking more along the lines of your first Pokémon.”

Starr stared at him, eyes wide and pleading, but he didn’t say anything more.  Finally, she closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths to steady herself before removing a Pokéball from her belt and opening it.

Her first Pokémon.  Which one was her first?

The burst of energy took the shape of a huge reptile—tall, upright, and towering over her.  White light became leathery blue scales and jagged crimson spikes.  Piercing amber eyes leered at us like we were prey.  Massive, toothy jaws opened and snapped shut.

A Feraligatr.  The final evolution of Johto’s water-type starter.

My chest tightened.  I’d actually forgotten how much she used to love water Pokémon.  What else had I forgotten from all the time we’d spent together?  Five years ago…  I clenched my fists, fighting back a wave of nostalgia obscuring my thoughts.  Not now, dammit.  I couldn’t handle it.

“Much better,” Giovanni remarked.  “Now…”—he leaned back against the wall, like a spectator watching a tournament—“you know what to do.”

Starr glanced from Giovanni, to Feraligatr, to us, and then back to Giovanni again, gaping in disbelief.  “What?  You can’t be serious.”

“Did I not sound serious?” he asked.  “I assumed this was the perfect test.  After all, you’ve given the order many times before, and I should think you’d be able to do it again.  Unless there’s something different about these two rebels.”  The last part was said in a more threatening tone.

“But… that’s not—I can’t just…”  Starr’s eyes flew from side to side, desperately searching for an answer.

My stomach had dissolved away into nothingness.  He seriously was trying to make her kill us.  As if it wasn’t bad enough that we were going to die here, he was making Starr be the one to do it?  And she’d done it before.  How much of an idiot had I been to think maybe there was a chance she wasn’t too far gone?

We had to do something.  But what?  With Mewtwo there, what could we possibly do?  Fight back?  We couldn’t fight him.  Not even Ajia could remotely hope do that.  I made eye contact with Ajia, desperately hoping for… something, though I wasn’t sure what.  But she just stared at the floor, tenser than I’d ever seen her.

“Are you under the impression that your actions here will decide their fate?” Giovanni asked, once the silence had gone on too long.  “They are enemies of Team Rocket.  It should be quite obvious what will happen to them either way.  This decides your fate, not theirs.”  My body went even more rigid at his words.  No way.  No way, this could not be happening.  We had to do something.

Starr took a half step backwards, hands trembling, staring at him wide-eyed.  “Anything but that.  Please.  Anything at all.”

“I have generously offered you the opportunity to prove your loyalty,” her leader snapped.  “You will accept it, or you will be regarded as no different from the likes of them.  This discussion is over.”

A deadly silence fell over the area.  Feraligatr shifted uneasily and glanced at its trainer, obviously confused by her hesitation.  Giovanni tapped his foot against the concrete.  Starr glanced around frantically, from us, to the boss, to the combat unit, her expression one of petrified horror.  My heart pounded so fast I thought it was going to explode and save her the trouble of having to decide whether or not to kill me.  Because there was no reason for her not to.  Giovanni had flat out said that we were going to die either way.  Every time I blinked, my mind generated the image of her pointing forward, Feraligatr lunging, its claws and fangs tearing into us…  There was no reason for her not to, and the anxiety of waiting for that single, inevitable moment was tearing me apart.  I’d have given anything for it to end.

And then the words—two simple words—came and shattered my every expectation into a thousand pieces: “I can’t.”

“What?” Giovanni demanded.

“I said I can’t—you had to know I couldn’t!!” Starr exclaimed, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Starr had refused.  She absolutely would not, could not kill us, even if refusing wouldn’t save us, and would only doom her.  It didn’t make any sense.  It didn’t even change anything.  And yet, for some reason, I had never felt more relieved.  It was so, so stupid.  We weren’t saved.  Nothing had changed!  She’d only screwed herself over by refusing.  But in that instant, it was like nothing else in the world mattered.

Giovanni stared at her, his expression flickering between outrage and shock.  And in that moment, it honestly looked like he had no idea what to do.  It was so weird seeing that level of hesitation from the leader of Team Rocket.  The Rockets surrounding him started throwing sideways glances around and muttering amongst themselves, like they couldn’t believe it either.

“I will not lose another Rocket leader to rebel ideals,” Giovanni said slowly, his voice shaking with suppressed rage.  He then glanced back and forth at the executives nearest him and said, “Raven, Ender—escort Astrid to a detention cell.  The rest of you may dispose of the rebels in any manner you see fitting.”

Two executives broke from the lineup and advanced on Starr.  She took several steps backward, shaking her head slowly, whispering, “No…” under her breath all the while.  And then, without warning, all the fear and hesitation and pain on her face contorted into utmost fury.

“No!!” Starr yelled, bolting towards Ajia and me.  She reached us within seconds, pivoting around to face the Rockets, her eyes lit with rage.  “I’m not leaving them.”

This was it.  She had really, truly chosen us over Team Rocket.  I couldn’t believe it, even though I’d just watched it happen.

Giovanni stared at her incredulously.  “You know what this means.”

“I don’t care!!” she snarled, fixing the boss with a venomous glare.  “I gave up everything for this team!  But you’re always singling me out with this kind of bullshit!  I’m done!!”

It took several seconds of stunned disbelief for her words to sink into everyone.  Feraligatr stared at Starr like she’d gone insane, but then slowly lumbered over to stand alongside its trainer, facing down the Rockets with her.  The pair of executives that was originally supposed to apprehend Starr shot a glance at their leader questioningly.

Giovanni’s cold gaze rested on Starr for the longest time.  Finally, he closed his eyes and turned his back to her, saying, “Then you’re no different from them.”

And in that moment, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the faintest hint of a grin appear on Ajia’s face.  Out of nowhere, an explosive pulse of dark energy shot towards Mewtwo, striking the clone right in the face.  My jaw dropped through the floor—what the actual hell had just happened?  Slowly, my eyes slid down to Ajia’s Umbreon, who was currently tensed up in an anxious fighting stance, eyes glowing red.

No one dared to move an inch.  Mewtwo’s eyes were closed, his facial muscles clenched—the only sign he’d even felt the attack.

Giovanni stared at Ajia incredulously, then slowly broke into a deep, echoing laugh.  “Are you planning on fighting Mewtwo?”

“Isn’t that what it looks like?” Ajia replied simply as both her Espeon and Umbreon leaped forward, putting themselves a good distance from us.

Ajia was going to fight Mewtwo.  Ajia was going to fight Mewtwo what in the hell how??  She might have been the strongest trainer I’d ever seen (as strong as Stalker?) but fighting Mewtwo??!

Giovanni’s laughter died down to a quiet chuckle.  “I could do with some entertainment after all of this.”  His eyes slid to the psychic cat still standing at his side before he snapped his fingers and said, “Destroy them.”

Mewtwo’s eyes flickered blue, and the clone drifted forward, levitating a few inches from the concrete.  He extended a bony arm, flexing his bulbous fingers outward and firing a burst of psychic energy at the pair of foxes, who scattered immediately.  Espeon’s form blurred into a dozen illusory copies while Umbreon dissolved into a shadow tracing the ground.  In response, Mewtwo gave a slow, sideways hand sweep, dispelling all of the copies instantly and knocking Espeon flying.  Seconds later, Umbreon emerged from the shadows behind the clone, lunging for him and a striking with a dark aura.  Slowly, the psychic cat turned his head to face his attacker, staring down at the fox like he was nothing.  Umbreon flinched, eyes going wide with panic.

“Aura Sphere,” Giovanni said lazily.

Without hesitation, Mewtwo brought his palms together by his side, focusing energy into a pulsating blue orb between them.  Umbreon jumped back in alarm, then melted into shadow once more, but the clone hurled the orb, and the orb pursued.  It zeroed in on the shadow instantly, mere inches away from striking when it suddenly exploded in a blinding flash.  I shielded my eyes from the glare, and when it waned, I saw Espeon standing firm in front of Umbreon, eyes squinting in pain, steam leaking off her body.

It took me several seconds to figure out what had happened.  Espeon had teleported into the Aura Sphere’s path.  She had taken the attack to protect Umbreon.  But most importantly—she was still standing?  I mean, sure the psychic fox had a natural resistance to fighting-type energy, but damn.  Espeon took that moment to generate more afterimages of herself dashing around the hangar, and Mewtwo wasted no time picking off the copies with multicolored Psybeams shot from his fingertips.

This wasn’t a fight.  This was a game.  What did it matter if we had ten, or even twenty more Pokémon between us?  I’d seen Mewtwo take on all three Legendary birds at once—each bird a match for twenty Pokémon on its own.  But Ajia was completely absorbed in watching the events unfold, as though this were the most important battle of her life and not Espeon and Umbreon running around stalling for time while Giovanni and the other Rockets all laughed at the inane resistance.  The fact that she was even willing to fight Mewtwo at all had initially staved off the cold dread of imminent death.  But now the truth was starting to sink in—Ajia didn’t have a plan.  Neither of her Pokémon could remotely hurt Mewtwo.  And if we tried to teleport again, Mewtwo could stop us just as easily as he did last time.

And yet… in spite of everything… there was still a part of me that would not, could not accept that.  I couldn’t just go down without a fight.  If Ajia was willing to go down fighting, then so was I.  And my Pokémon would definitely prefer that.  Especially the experiments—I couldn’t just let them get recaptured without them even knowing about it.

So it was settled.  I was going to fight.

“Not you too,” Starr muttered once I’d grabbed a Pokéball.  “This is a waste of time.  You can’t beat Mewtwo—no one can.”

“Then why did you side with us if you knew we were screwed?” I asked, giving her an incredulous stare.

Starr dropped her gaze to the ground, eyebrows furrowed like she was in pain just thinking about it.  “I don’t know.”  She screwed her eyes shut, muttering through clenched teeth, “I don’t know, I don’t know—”

And then, without looking back at us, Ajia randomly announced, “You were forced to join Team Rocket, weren’t you?”

Starr bristled.  “What are you talking about?”

“You tried to figure out what was up with the sudden relocation to Johto, but you got in over your head and found out too much, didn’t you?  You had no choice but to join at that point,” Ajia went on, not taking her eyes off the battle.

Starr glared at her for several seconds, then turned her gaze away sharply, refusing to make eye contact.  “That’s not…  It was my choice…”  Her tone wasn’t very convincing.

Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that they both knew something I didn’t.  “What does her moving away have to do with Team Rocket?”

Ajia shot a surprised glance in my direction.  “Wait, what?  I thought you knew—”

“I’m the boss’s daughter,” Starr answered before Ajia got a chance to say anything.

Oh.  Oh.  That did explain a lot, didn’t it?

“Do you still want to side with Team Rocket?” Ajia quietly asked.  “They might have given up on you, but we haven’t.”

“It’s not like I have a choice at this point.  But what does it matter, we’ll all be dead soon,” Starr muttered, staring brokenly at the floor.

Ajia put a hand to her forehand.  “Starr, it’d be a big help if you stopped being such a pessimist while I’m trying to get us out of here.”

What.  What was she talking about?

“Umbreon, it’s time!”

At once, the panic and fear crossing Umbreon’s face twisted into a wild grin, and his eyes flashed red.  Then, without warning, a cloud of black fog billowed out from his body, quickly enveloping both him, Espeon, Mewtwo, and Giovanni in total darkness.  What was Umbreon doing?  What kind of move was this?  And even if Mewtwo was weak to dark-type attacks, it was still Mewtwo.

“An amusing tactic, but ultimately pointless,” Giovanni said.  Then, to Mewtwo, he added, “Dispel it.”

Mewtwo’s eyes flashed blue from within the haze, but nothing happened.  And then out of nowhere, a brilliant white light pierced through the fog.  Two different grunts of pain rang out, followed by the sound of something clattering to the ground.  Then, without warning, the haze vanished into thin air.

And all I could do was stare in utter shock and confusion at the sight in front of me.  Espeon and Umbreon, both panting and looking incredibly tense.  Mewtwo, trembling and on his knees, one hand over his face.  Giovanni slowly standing to his feet, his expression a mixture of outrage and shock.  And at his feet, Mewtwo’s Master Ball—broken.  Snapped clean in half, the insides blackened.

No way.  How the hell had that happened?  What had I missed?  Had anyone else seen it?  Something had managed to drop Mewtwo’s defenses long enough to break his Master Ball?  Espeon?  Umbreon?  How?!

Giovanni’s face went white as he absorbed the details of what had just happened.  An expression of utmost horror slowly crept across his features.  “No…  NO!!  Somebody bring another Master Ball!  Articuno, Moltres, assault rays, anything!!”

At once, the hangar exploded into a frenzy.  Half the Rockets immediately made a break for the exit, and the other half released an army of Pokémon.  And at the center of it all Mewtwo rose stiffly, swaying a bit as he stood to his feet.  His tail twitched.  Fingers clenched and unclenched, like he was controlling them for the first time—and he was.  Finally, his eyes snapped open, revealing a pair of brilliant purple irises.  He turned his head from side to side, taking in his surroundings, and the numerous opponents taking shape all around him.  And then the clone laid eyes on me, and I froze.  Something flickered across his expression—recognition?—and he gave a slow, curt nod, followed by a sideways flick of the wrist that obviously meant for us to leave.

We’d actually done it.  Mewtwo was free.  We could escape.  We were going to live.

My ears caught the nearby sound of a Pokémon being recalled, and I spun around to see that Umbreon was back in his ball and Ajia was now walking towards me with Espeon.  She held out a hand, and I took it.  Then I held out my other and said, “Come on Starr.”

Starr had gone rigid with shock.  Her Feraligatr nudged her shoulder gently, its face alternating between concern for her and disdain for us.

The hangar shook with a massive impact.  Mewtwo had just destroyed one of the assault rays by hurling it against the wall with a heavy metallic crunch.  Countless Pokémon attacks flew towards him, but he deflected them with a barrier and sent a blast of psychic energy at his attackers, smashing them into the concrete.

“Starr, come on!”

Finally, after several seconds, Starr managed to move her arm enough to take a Pokéball from her belt and recall her starter into it.  Immediately, I reached out and grabbed her other hand.  And then the dark, concrete surrounding of the Rocket base melted into shimmering light.  We reappeared in a small clearing ringed by sparse woods with an overcast sky hanging over us.  Judging by the peak Mt.  Silver in the distance and the nearby sounds of city traffic, we had teleported to somewhere on the outskirts of Viridian.

We’d survived.  I’d been so sure we going to die, and somehow, we had managed to escape.  My body was still shaking with the remnants of fear and adrenaline as my brain struggled to grasp that single, unbelievable fact.

“Well… it might not have gone the way we planned, but Mewtwo is free,” Ajia announced, breaking the silence.

I snapped my attention to her.  A single, burning question surfaced in my mind and threatened to consume all other thoughts until I got an answer: “What on earth did your Pokémon do back there?”

Ajia’s face fell immediately.  Shadows of guilt and sympathy flickered through her eyes.  “I’m sorry, Jade—I really am—but I can’t tell you that.  In fact, I really, really wish it hadn’t come to that, but with Mewtwo screwing up our first plan, I didn’t have a choice.”

My throat clenched up.  Ajia had a backup plan the entire time.  That whole time I thought we were going to die, and she had a plan.  I guess she had tried to tell me it was going to be alright, but… I hadn’t believed her.  I really had no idea how to feel about all of it.  We’d survived.  Things had worked out in the end.  So why didn’t I feel satisfied by any of it?  All I could feel was a burning, useless frustration with nothing to point it toward.

“And you really can’t tell me?” I said incredulously.

She nodded.  “I’m sorry.”

“Why not?”

She closed her eyes, shaking her head.  “I’m sorry.  I just can’t.”

I sighed.  Just another thing to add to the list of secrets I didn’t know about Ajia.  It was starting to feel like I barely knew her at all.

Starr was still standing motionless, staring at nothing with a look of total shock.  Honestly, in spite of how angry I’d been at her earlier, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her.  It finally made sense.  She’d been forced to join Team Rocket because her father was the boss.  The sheer amount of pressure she’d been under, combined with zero tolerance for disloyalty.  And then in an instant, her life had been turned completely upside down… because of us.

Starr blinked a few times, her eyes growing more focused.  She weakly glanced around at her surroundings like she was seeing them for the first time.  And then her eyes fell on Ajia and me, and her expression slowly hardened.

“You guys fucking ruined my life.”

Ajia rubbed the back of her head.  “That’s a bit overdramatic.”

“This isn’t a joke!  What the hell am I supposed to do now?  Team Rocket was all I had.  There’s nowhere for me to go now… Why couldn’t I have just done it?  Why?  Why, why, why??”  Starr collapsed to her knees and buried her face in her hands, mumbling continuously.

I clenched my teeth and looked away.  She didn’t actually wish that she’d been able to kill us.  That much was obvious at this point.  But there was no denying the fact that her life would have been much, much simpler if it hadn’t been for us.

Starr finally pulled her hands from her face and stared at the sky hopelessly.  “It doesn’t matter what I say, the point is I couldn’t do it.  I don’t know why.  Maybe those memories meant more to me than I wanted them to.”

Again, her argument seemed to hinge on there being no real problem with murder so long as it wasn’t us.  I was really getting sick of it, especially since there was no possible counterargument that would work on her.

“I still don’t understand,” she continued.  “Why were you guys willing to risk your lives for something like that?”

“Maybe those memories meant more to us that we wanted them to,” I said quietly.

Starr laughed.  “Well we’re a sentimental bunch of idiots, aren’t we?  I thought I’d trained myself better than that.”

Ajia sighed and walked over to Starr, her steps slow and cautious.  She crouched down next to her, putting a hand on her shoulder before speaking in an impossibly calm and measured tone.  “I know this is a big shock.  It always is.  But if you’re worried about Team Rocket hunting you down after this, I’ve got a lot of experience at avoiding them.  And I know some friends who can help with—”

“Just go away.”

Ajia paused, looking taken aback.  She stood there, staring wordlessly for some time before standing up straight and turning away.

“If you say so,” she said quietly.  She then made eye contact with me and forced a smile.  “You’ll be okay, right?”

Honestly, at this point it was hard to imagine myself being fazed by anything.  That was the only good thing about having endured everything up until now.

“I’ll be fine,” I said, and for once, I meant it.

Espeon, who had wandered off at some point, now came trotting back to her trainer’s side, casually flicking her tail from side to side.  Ajia glanced at the psychic-type, then back at me.

“Get a Pokégear why dont’cha?  We need to keep in touch.”

I snorted.  “Maybe once I have the money.  But I’ll call you when I get to Johto.”

“Sounds good,” she said, waving.  “I’ll see you, Jade.”

I waved back, and the two of them blinked out of sight.

Now it was just me and Starr.  Just like it had been when this all started yesterday morning.  I shuffled my feet against the dirt, unsure of whether I should say anything.  Of course she wouldn’t want to talk to me right now.  I’d just helped ruin her life, after all.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why the hell are you apologizing?” she snapped.  “Have you forgotten what I did to you?”

No, I hadn’t forgotten.  I’d never be able to forget that.  And that’s why I knew that none of this had come from any desire to put things right, or recover from what she’d done.  It was solely because I’d been angry and had wanted answers.  And only now that I’d gotten them was I able to see how badly things had gotten out of hand.

“What are you going to do now?” Starr asked, practically choking on the words.

For once I actually knew the answer to that question.  Mewtwo was free.  That was my last goal here in Kanto, which meant—

“I’m going to Johto.  That’s where the rest of my team might be heading, and it’s the safest place from the Kanto force right now.”  That last part was somewhat directed at her.  There was no doubt the rest of the team would be after her.  Maybe Stalker’s resistance could protect her too.  I gave Starr a pointed look, hoping she’d get the hint.  But she just continued to stare at the ground, arms clasped around herself, trembling slightly.

I swallowed.  “I… do you want me to leave you alone too?”  She didn’t answer.  I stood there, awkwardly watching her, waiting for some kind of response.  But none came.

“I’ll… leave you alone now,” I said quietly, turning to leave.  I barely made it five steps before she called after me.

“Jade!”

I closed my eyes, exhaling slowly through my teeth.  “What?” I asked, turning to face her.

She fidgeted a bit with her gloves, avoiding my gaze.  “Things… can’t ever go back to the way they used to be.”

Well, that was a bit insulting.  “I know that.  I’m not that naïve.  Even if they could… I’m not sure I’d want that anymore.”

“…Me neither,” she said, looking away.

A long pause followed.  I wasn’t quite sure what she was getting at.

“But… if we could start everything over…” she began slowly, “I’d like that.”

I blinked.  If I’d been expecting anything, it hadn’t been that.

She wasn’t able to look me in the eye.  “I don’t have anyone else right now.  I guess I didn’t really have anyone else on Team Rocket either.  Sure, at my rank, I had countless admirers.  Any time I needed someone to chat with, or fool around with, I didn’t have to look far.  But… I didn’t have anyone I could trust.”

I didn’t know what to say.

Starr closed her eyes and clenched her fists.  “I guess… after everything that’s happened… after everything I did… I don’t deserve to ask that from you.”

“Alright.”

Her eyes snapped open to stare at me in shock.  “…What?”

“I said alright.  I want to start over too.”

“You… you do?”

I took a deep breath.  “Everything that’s happened between us has been so messed up.  But neither of us wanted that—it was only because we were on opposing teams.  I think we both need the chance to move on.”  I was so, so tired of being haunted by that night.  And this was probably the only way to heal from it.

I offered a hand to help her stand up.  She hesitated, staring at it for a few seconds before slowly reaching out to take it.  I pulled her to her feet.  And then out of nowhere she threw her arms around me, pulling me into the tightest hug I’d ever felt.  My body immediately tensed up, every instinct telling me to pull away.  But then, after several seconds had passed, I found myself relaxing into the embrace.  Slowly, I lifted my arms from where they’d been pressed to my sides, clasping my hands around her as she trembled all over, tears soaking my shoulder.  Weakly at first, my hold gradually tightened until I felt some of the stress and hurt and anger finally starting to melt away.

I wasn’t sure how long we stood there like that.  All I knew was that it was the first moment since this all started that I didn’t regret finding out who she was.

Starr sniffled a couple times, fighting to regain control of her breathing.  And then she finally managed to speak, her voice barely audible.

“So, we’re going to Johto, then?”

I swallowed hard and nodded.  “To Johto.”

Chapter Text

A sharp autumn wind cut through the air, tossing my hair into my face and forcing me to hold it back.  I was seated on a bench in the middle of a training park in southern Viridian—the only familiar sight I’d allowed myself throughout this entire ordeal surrounding the Viridian base.  Rudy and I always used to come here to watch matches between kids older than us—or rather, older than him—who had already started their journeys.  In the summer, it was so popular that battles often cropped up over who could train on which field—with the field at the top of the hill at the center of the park being the most heavily contested spot.  We’d make meaningless bets on the combatants and excitedly call out whenever anyone sent out a Pokémon that was definitely going on our team someday.

It was a place full of memories from a time when the biggest concern in my life was whether or not I’d finally pass the training exam and be able to join that world.  It was also the place where I’d decided to break the news to my Pokémon regarding what had just happened not more than an hour ago.  And where I’d received pretty much exactly the response I’d been expecting:

“*You’re kidding.*”

They didn’t even need to say anything—the reaction was plain from their faces and body language.  Aros flared his wings like the news was a personal attack.  Stygian drew herself back, eyes narrowed, claws digging into the dirt.  Swift cocked his head to the side, his gaze soft but concerned.  Firestorm stared downward, more confused than upset, although he couldn’t keep his tail flame from crackling in agitation.

Yep, couldn’t say I was surprised at all.

“*Say it again,*” Stygian said, her voice low and dangerous.

I took a deep breath.  “The head of the combat unit betrayed Team Rocket and joined our side.”

The dark-type’s piercing, crimson eyes dug into me.  “*And it hasn’t remotely occurred to you that this is a trap?*”

Of course it hadn’t.  Because the idea of it being a trap was completely absurd.  My right eye twitched, and I fought to keep a stern face as I said, “Did you miss the part where I said the boss himself has rejected her?”  The Absol gave a dismissive huff and turned away sharply.

“*So what if she’s a traitor now?*” Aros growled, baring his teeth.  “*I’m more concerned with all the shit she’s pulled in the past.*”  My eyes couldn’t help tracing all the faint marks on the dragon’s scales from where Starr’s Arcanine had viciously torn through him not even a month ago.

“I’m not asking you to forgive all of that stuff,” I said plainly.  Hell, I wasn’t so sure if I’d forgiven any of it yet, even if I did want to move past it.  “I just want you not to attack her on sight.”

“*She attacked us first,*” the Flygon shot back, lashing his tail from side to side.

“*Many of our allies have attacked us.  Chibi tried to kill us when we first met him,*” Swift chirped, obviously trying his hardest to sound calm and measured.  Maybe a bit too hard, but the effort was appreciated.

Aros tilted his head, antennae twitching.  “*Was he even sane at the time?*”

Swift paused, shifting his wings a bit.  “*I suppose not.*”

The Flygon snorted in a ‘well, there you go’ sort of way.

“*She didn’t just attack us,*” Firestorm spoke up suddenly before fixing me with a serious look.  “*She attacked you.  That doesn’t make any sense, if you say she was your old friend.*”

I groaned, rubbing my eyelids in frustration.  “Look, I know this sounds weird as hell.  But you guys weren’t there.  You can’t imagine what it was like.  She risked her life to help me and Ajia.  She was… she was willing to throw her life away rather than betray us,” I said, feeling my throat clench up from the memory of it.

No one had an easy retort for that.  Aros opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, but decided against it.  Firestorm made eye contact with me, his brow furrowed.  Skeptically at first, but then slowly relaxing into something more… uncertain.

“*She risked her life for you…?*” the fire lizard asked.

I nodded as forcefully as I could, hoping that as least some of that force would show how adamant I was about this.  “Yes.  Definitely.”

The four Pokémon shot confused glances at each other.  The head of the combat unit, risking herself for me.  Even I had to admit it sounded strange.

“*I still think you’re insane,*” Aros said, folding his wings.

I closed my eyes.  “I know.”

“*If this bites you in the ass, I’m not saving you.*”

“That’s fine,” I said, standing up from the bench and stretching my legs.  I walked a few steps and then pivoted to face the others.  “I’m gonna go back and talk to her now.  I’ll let you know if anything else comes up.”  With that, I recalled them.

Good thing I’d decided to have that conversation with them away from Starr.  Not that I could really blame any of them for having that reaction.  After all the things she’d done…  A shiver ran through me, and I suppressed the memory.  Didn’t want to think about any of that now.

I cast one last wistful glance around the park before turning and walking down the trail in the direction I’d originally come.  On the other side of the park, Starr was doing much that same as I had done—informing her Pokémon of what had just happened.  Which was far more important for her team than it was for mine, considering that her entire life was going to be different now.

She’d removed her hat, vest and gloves, all of which made her Rocket status pretty obvious.  I shivered again upon seeing her sitting there in a tank top, but she didn’t seem too bothered by the cold.  Then again, she was surrounded by fire-types.

“Need me to come back later?” I asked upon seeing that she was still in the middle of talking to her team.

Starr glanced in my direction.  “No, I’m pretty much done,” she said, motioning for me to join her.

My eyes swept over her Pokémon warily as I stepped forward into their midst.  Feraligatr jerked its head upward, leering suspiciously the entire time.  Arcanine, on the other hand, refused to look at me—the firedog kept its hateful gaze firmly on a tree further down the trail, as though it were trying to set it on fire with just its eyes.  Flareon glanced around at the others uneasily, folding its ears back and swishing its fluffy tail from side to side.  Rapidash stood calmly off to the side, eyes closed and flames flickering gently in the wind.  Raichu… I could hardly look at Raichu without feeling sick, so I didn’t.

At least not until the electric-type dashed up to me and I almost flew out of my skin.

“*So you’re not the enemy anymore!*” the mouse said cheerfully.  Oh god why.

“*She’s not the enemy anymore because she pushed our trainer to treachery.  Don’t forget that,*” Feraligatr growled.

“*I know that, I heard what Starr said,*” Raichu said, puffing out his cheeks in a pout.

“Alright, easy with the growling, Feraligatr,” Starr said, giving the water-type a stern look.  The gator immediately stopped glaring and stood at attention.

Starr motioned for me to sit and I did, slowly relaxing onto the bench next to her, but keeping a wary eye on all of her Pokémon.  Especially that one.

“I told them what’s up.  They’ll, uh…”—she made eye contact with Feraligatr—“they’ll get used to it.”  She hesitated a few seconds, then took a deep breath and added, “I’ll get used to it.”

“Might take a while for my team to do the same,” I admitted.  “In the meantime, it’s… probably best if I not let them out around you.”

Feraligatr scoffed at my words.  “*Might not like any of this, but wouldn’t ever disobey a direct order.  Not much of a trainer, are you?*”

I bristled.  There was something bizarre about being insulted by a Pokémon claiming I didn’t have enough control over my team.  Granted… I really didn’t, but that was none of its business.

And then Raichu jumped into my lap and every muscle in my body tensed up instantly and every thought dissolved into a torrent of oh god, oh god, get him off, get him off.

“*I think it will be fun being on the same side,*” the mouse said, cocking his head to the side.  “*Even if I don’t get to act scary anymore.*”  God, why’d he have to talk like that, all bubbly and friendly like he wasn’t Starr’s torture Pokémon of choice.  Didn’t he remember what she’d had him do to me?

“Does—does he have to sit here?” I stammered, desperately attempting to force my facial expression into something neutral even as every instinct devolved into an endless loop of nope.

“No, he doesn’t,” Starr said flatly, giving the electric-type an unimpressed stare—he instantly jumped over to her lap and I could breathe again.  Raichu sat there drumming his paws on Starr’s arm and giving playful flicks of his tail, all while continuing to fix me with an oblivious grin.  I looked away.  That was really not the sort of thing I felt like dealing with right now.  Maybe later.  Or never.

“It’s still hard to believe that all of that actually happened,” Starr said distantly, staring at the clouded sky.  “Part of me still thinks it’s a dream, and I’m gonna wake up and be back in my room.  Part of me still wants that to be the case,” she added with a hollow laugh.

I clenched my teeth and glanced away.  It was only natural for her to feel conflicted about it.  But it was still an uncomfortable thought—imagining what would have happened if she hadn’t turned her back on Team Rocket.

“But this is real,” she went on.  “I’m a traitor now.  The thing I’ve spent the last five years hating with all my guts.”  She sighed deeply.  “Can’t afford to get caught now, so I’ve started thinking about what I’ve gotta do from now on,” she said, gesturing to a duffel bag on the ground by her feet.  “I already pulled all the money out of my bank account.  The team has that on record, so the last thing I need is them tracking me that way.”  I blinked at it, taking more than a few seconds to realize that it was packed full of cash.  When had she had time to do that?

“It’s gonna suck carrying so much cash around, but anyone stupid enough to try and rob me deserves what’s coming to them.”  She scoffed at the thought.  But then her expression hardened.  “What I’m actually worried about is my license.  They have contacts in the Pokémon League.  They could have my trainer ID flagged for anything—and odds are it’ll be something I’ve actually done, too,” she added with a grimace.  I didn’t even want to think about how long her list of arrestable offences probably was.

“I could always get a new ID under the table, but all the providers I know have ties to Rockets,” Starr said, setting Raichu on the ground and then leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees.  “We’ve got the region’s black market on lockdown, pretty much, so any rival dealers are gonna be hard to track down.  Maybe we could take a quick trip to another region?  Figure out who runs the show there…?”  She shot an inquisitive look my way as though hoping to see what I thought of that idea.  But I just stared at her blankly.

Starr raised an eyebrow at my clueless response.  “What?  It’s not that hard if you know what to look for.  There are a lot of tells.  Like if you go up to a shop and they’ve got—”

“You sure know a lot about this kind of stuff.”  The words were out of my mouth before I’d really thought them through.

Starr paused, blinking.  A crooked grin slowly crossed her face, and she gave a slight laugh.  “Come on, I’m—I was an executive.  I know there’s that stereotype that combat unit execs are only good at bashing skulls in, but we had to know our stuff too.”

“Mm,” was the only response I gave to that, shuffling a foot awkwardly against the dirt.  The less I thought about combat unit execs bashing skulls in, the better.

Starr leaned back against the bench, crossing her arms behind her head.  “Anyway, point is, it might take me awhile to get a new license, so I won’t be able to book us a Pokécenter room.  The real question is whether your ID was compromised,” she said, giving me a sideways glance.

I snorted.  “Well that’d be hard considering I don’t have one.”

It took several seconds for the full implications of what I said to hit her.  But it was obvious when it did—her eyes snapped open and she suddenly turned to face me, one eyebrow raised as high as it would go.  “You’re joking.”

I just responded with a deadpan stare.  Slowly, her face split into an incredulous smirk, until she finally burst out laughing.

“Seriously, you’ve been training Pokémon illegally this whole time?  Oh man, that’s rich!”

I felt my cheeks go red.  “Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m an idiot.”

“No, I’m serious, I’m legit impressed,” she said, elbowing me.  “I never would’ve expected that from you.”

I shoved my hands in my pockets.  “Yeah, well, I only got this far because of the Rebellion’s resources.  I never would’ve been able to do it on my own.”

“Okay, okay, that’s fair.  Still hilarious though.  Anyway, let’s hit Goldenrod first.  It might be a Rocket hotspot, but it’s also frickin’ huge, so I think I have a decent shot of finding what I need there.”

I shrugged.  “Fine with me.  But how should we get there?  Flying?”  Starr didn’t have any flying Pokémon, to my knowledge.  We could both probably fit on Aros?  But that’d be pushing him too hard, especially for long-distance flight.  Not to mention he didn’t trust her at all.

Fortunately, Starr cut down that train of thought immediately.  “Hell no, do you have any idea how far that is?  We’re taking the bullet train.”

I blanched.  “All the way to Goldenrod?  Aren’t the tickets like 10,000 pyen?”

Starr gave me a look that plainly said I was an idiot while gesturing both hands at the duffel bag full of money.

“Eh… right.”

It had been years since the last time I’d ridden a high-speed bullet train.  While the southern Pokansen line wasn’t near as fast as the northern line that ran directly from Saffron to Goldenrod in an hour, it had the perk of making additional stops, one of which was near Viridian.  Starr bought the tickets, and we boarded the train, where I wasted no time in finding a seat to collapse into.  Honestly, I was just plain exhausted.  I hadn’t exactly slept much the previous night because of the looming anxiety of the Mewtwo mission, and I’d been running on fumes ever since the adrenaline from the mission had worn off.  I wound up sleeping through most of the trip.  Not like I missed out on much scenery.  The forests on the southern edge of the Tohjo Mountains were gorgeous most of the year, but by now they’d lost most of their leaves, leaving the surrounding draped in shades of brown and gray.  And it was too foggy to see Mt.  Silver anyway.

Three hours later, I awoke to Starr grabbing my shoulder and shaking it to pull me out of a shallow half-sleep.  I blinked groggily, taking more than a few seconds to realize that the train had stopped and almost all the other passengers had already left.  I grabbed my bag and followed her off the train and onto a huge, densely-packed platform.  Starr led the way through the station, weaving around the crowds effortlessly while I trailed after her.  And then we set foot outside onto the streets of Goldenrod.

Sunlight glimmered off the windows of the tall buildings around us.  The dreary fog we’d left behind in Viridian had been replaced with an impossibly bright sky, forcing me to shield my eyes the moment we were outside.  Or at least until we walked under the shadows of the huge arches supporting the overhead railways.  No longer blinded, I could instead focus on the sounds of nearby traffic and the chattering crowds and overhead planes.  I’d barely been here five minutes and I was already certain this was the busiest city I’d ever been to.

“Man, it has been a while since I’ve been here,” Starr said, stretching widely.  “Course, the last time I was on vacation, not… whatever this is.”  She sighed and turned to face me.  “What about you?  Ever been to Goldenrod?”

I shook my head.  “Furthest west I’ve ever been was visiting relatives in Cherrygrove when I was a kid.”

She clicked her tongue.  “Huh.  You’ve been on your own before, though, yeah?  I mean, I’d have assumed yes, but if you’re not even a real trainer…”  She trailed off, smirking.

I raised an eyebrow.  “Yes, I’ve been on my own.”

Starr nodded.  “Good, cause I gotta go check out some shady places, and I don’t want you coming with.  Wanna say we’ll meet up at the central district Pokécenter?”  I was about to respond, but she had grabbed a Pokéball and opened it.  The flash of light took the shape of an oversized mouse, and I immediately averted my eyes.

“You’re letting Raichu out?” I asked, all too aware of how immediately tense I’d become.

“He’s my best defense if I get jumped,” she said, a bit defensively.  “I’m kinda surprised you don’t have number nine out.  You still have it, right?”

My stomach curled inward on itself.  “Yeah.  I have him.”  I hadn’t talked to him since… since the morning after it happened.  Which was only two days ago, but still.  I’d deliberately kept him in his ball while explaining things to my team because I’d wanted to talk to him in private.  But now I needed to actually go through with that.

“Hey, wake up.  You good for meeting at the central Pokécenter?  I dunno what time, but probably after sundown.”  She stared at me expectantly.

I shook my head to clear it.  “Oh, sure.”

“Alright, see you then,” she said, giving a slight wave before turning and walking off.  She made it about ten steps before she spun around and called out, “Oh yeah, avoid the west side of town!”  Five more steps and she added, “Oh, and the underground!”

I chuckled a bit under my breath.  That probably wouldn’t be too hard.  It seemed best to just head straight to the central district and kill time there.

Bus stops lined the streets outside the train station.  It wasn’t hard to find one of the iconic red and white buses that led to the Pokécenter in most towns.  No license meant fishing coins out of my pocket to pay the fare (and enduring the confused looks as to why someone my age wouldn’t just pay using a license), but I’d gotten used to that by now.

Twenty minutes later, I was standing in front of largest Pokécenter I’d ever seen—several stories tall and practically covered in posters showing off new trainer tech they had available inside.  The nearby buildings weren’t much different, dwarfing their surroundings and lined with signs and ads.  Central district was clearly the most popular destination for both tourists and trainers, as the streets were packed with both.  It would’ve been nice to be here as a tourist.  To just forget everything going on with Team Rocket and get lost in the sights and sounds of the city.  But then again, was there anything stopping me from doing that, at least for the afternoon?  It wasn’t like I had a destination.  Heck, I still hadn’t even heard back from Stalker.  The only thing stopping me from enjoying myself was, as usual, myself.

So it was decided.  I was here as a tourist after all.  With that, I set off in a random direction, cyclists weaving around me as I vaguely followed the flow of the foot traffic.  My first priority was food.  The last thing I’d eaten was a simple Pokécenter breakfast with Ajia six hours ago—although it felt closer to six days ago from how much had happened.  But if there was ever a place to be looking for food, this was obviously it.  Restaurants and food carts were everywhere, practically lining the streets no matter where I went in Central district.  And each one had a line of trainers out front too.  I bought something resembling a bacon pancake (a local specialty) from a food cart and then sought out one of the many training parks in the area.  I soon found one on the edge of a river that cut through the city.  Trees lined the walking paths, but the fields were wide, open, and full of short-cropped grass and dirt battlefields.  I sat down at a picnic bench and ate while watching a group of trainers in the closest field as they practiced a tag team attack with a Growlithe, Wooper, and Chikorita.

It wasn’t until that moment that I managed to properly appreciate the fact that I was in Johto now.  Not only that, but I was on my own in the biggest city in Johto.  That would’ve been completely unthinkable five months ago.

At some point, I unclipped Chibi’s black Pokéball from my belt and rolled it around in my palm.  It had only been two days since the attack on Midnight.  Two days.  And he had spent most of that time in stasis, inside his Pokéball.  It’d be crazy to expect him to have recovered at all.  At least, not emotionally.  But still… I needed to talk to him.  No matter how much he didn’t want me to.  Even if he put himself back in the ball the moment I let him out… I had to try.

I held my breath and pressed the button.  A flash of light, and the Zapdos-Pikachu hybrid materialized in the grass next to me.  Slowly, he opened his eyes.  He didn’t look at his surroundings, or even make eye contact with me.  He just stared straight ahead and said, “*What do you want?*”

“I just want to talk,” I said gently.

“*What’s the point,*” he said.  It wasn’t a question.  His tone made it clear that he didn’t want an answer.  But I was going to give him one whether he liked it or not.

“The point is that I want to help you through this.”

For several seconds, he didn’t say anything.  He just stood there, unmoving aside from his eyes flickering back and forth as he considered his words.

“*What do you think…*”—his eyes slowly slid upward to meet mine—“*you can possibly say that will make anything better?*”

I almost flinched.  His eyes were cold and dead, devoid of any energy.  I took a deep breath to steel myself and said, “Nothing.  I can’t fix this.  I know that.”

“*Then why bother?*”

I swallowed hard.  “Because I don’t want you to suffer through this all by yourself?” I said, trying to keep the edge out of my voice.  “You suffered alone for how many years because they took him?  I can’t let you go through that again.”

The Pikachu bristled.  “*It’s none of your business.*”

“Of course it is,” I said, gripping my knees tightly.  “You’re a part of my team.  I’m not just going to ignore you.  Not when I need to be there for you.”

He paused, flattening his ears.  “*If you’re worried about whether or not I’ll still fight for you—*”

“You know that’s not what I’m worried about.”

“*—I’ll do it.  I’ll fight.*”

My mouth hung open.  That was completely not the answer I’d been expecting.  “I’m… I’m not just going to throw you into danger while you’re like this.”

“*I can let myself out.*”

I put a hand to my forehead slowly, trying my hardest not to let the exasperation show.  This wasn’t right.  I was supposed to be comforting him, not getting frustrated with him.

“*I have to fight them,*” Chibi said, suddenly fixing me with a serious glare.  “*Don’t you see?  That’s why I exist.*”

My throat clenched up.  “That’s… not true.  I know we’re still going to be fighting them, but that’s not your purpose.  You don’t have to—”

“*I called Razors a coward,*” he said, eyes wide and desperate.  “*I accused him of hiding from the fight while the rest of us risked our lives.  That’s the last thing I said to him before he died.  That’s why he put himself at risk like that.*”  He was shaking all over, fur standing on end.  “*It’s my fault.  I did this.  It’s my fault,*” he muttered over and over to himself.

“It’s not—”

“*If I can’t hold myself to what I said to him, then what am I worth?  I have to fight them.  They have to pay.  It’s the only reason I’m still here.*”

I exhaled slowly.  “Don’t do this.  You don’t have to live for revenge.  He’d… he’d have wanted you to live for yourself.”

“*Don’t you dare try to say what he’d want,*” the hybrid snapped, suddenly livid.  He jabbed his tail at me and said, “*I joined you because I knew it would give me the opportunity to fight them.  That’s the only reason.  And if that changes, then I have no reason to stay with you.  I don’t need you.  Don’t try to stop me.*”

He swung his tail around to hit his Pokéball and dissolved into it.  I sat there, completely dumbstruck, staring at the place where he’d been as a burning pain wormed its way through my chest.

I didn’t feel like watching any of the trainers in the park anymore.

It was past 5 when I made my way back to the central Pokécenter, and the sun had already set, leaving the sky streaked with the red glow of twilight.  The surrounding hadn’t darkened, though—far from it.  Between the glow of the nearly-full moon and the overwhelming glare of the huge billboards and screens that lined the buildings, Goldenrod was somehow just as bright and lively as it had been a few hours ago.  That fact was comforting.  It was hard to imagine getting ambushed by Rockets in a place like this.

I was about to walk inside the Pokécenter when someone waving caught my eye in my peripheral vision.  It was Starr, seated at one of the benches out front, although I almost didn’t recognize her.  She’d gotten a haircut—shorter than it was before—and completely changed her outfit.  She was now dressed in a leather jacket with gray leggings and a dark violet skirt.  Her signature oversized combat boots were gone, replaced with lighter, lace-up boots.

“You look… really different,” I said as I walked up.

“Yeah?  Well, that’s the idea.  Make it harder for any Rockets to recognize me from a distance.”  She paused for a bit, then added, “I think this is the first time you haven’t flinched when you saw me.  First time in recent memory, anyway.”

I winced.  “Really?”  I hadn’t realized I’d been doing that.

“Yeah.  I… I’m glad,” she said, glancing away.

It made sense.  I’d hardly just be able to turn that instinct off.  The instinct that associated her with nothing but pain and misery.  The part of my mind that still couldn’t understand how she’d done those things.

“So, uh… no luck on the license,” Starr went on awkwardly.  “This would be so much easier if I could just hit the underground, but that place is practically owned by Rockets.”  She muttered some miscellaneous obscenities regarding the Johto force before continuing with, “With my luck, this’d be the one time they actually got their sorry asses in gear and came through on a hit issued by the Kanto force.”

Yet another weird bit of internal Rocket politics that I had no real say in.

“Whatever.  No Pokécenter tonight, so we’ll have to stay at a hotel,” she said, standing up and motioning to me.  “Come on, I know a few on the west side of town that don’t ask for ID.”

I raised an eyebrow.  “I thought you said to avoid the west side of town.”

“Yeah, well, you got me with you now,” she said bluntly.

It was hard to argue with that.  She did know way more about this city than I did.  It was a strange thought, but I glad to have her by my side.

“Probably better that we stay away from the Pokécenter,” Starr went on.  “Place’ll be crawling with kids.  We’d stand out pretty bad.  Or at least, I would.”  She flashed a smirk at me from over her shoulder.

I rolled my eyes.  She was really dredging up that old joke?  “I’m almost fifteen.  You can’t call me a little kid forever.”

“Watch me.”

And for that moment, even just a tiny bit, it felt like old times.

That good feeling didn’t last.  Not with my dreams dragging me back into the Rocket base, just like they had in the week following my capture.  Maybe it had something to do with us staying in a tiny hotel room in the shadiest part of town.  Or maybe it was falling asleep and being completely vulnerable in the same room as the person who’d tortured me.  Either way, the night was an endless chain of sinking into a shallow, restless sleep, only to be jolted out of it minutes later.  I kept seeing Astrid standing over me, and she’d tell me it was all a trick, and that I was a naïve idiot to have ever believed that she could change.  Then she’d snap her fingers and suddenly Raichu would appear, only this time he’d grin stupidly as his electricity tore me apart.  Sometimes Mewtwo was there, and he’d clench his fingers together and I’d feel an unbearable pressure from all sides, forcing the air from my lungs and crushing my bones with a sickening crunch.  And I’d be certain that I’d died, only to feel another string of lightning shoot through my heart.

Sometimes the experiments were there too, and Stygian would give me a look of cold disgust while Aros would laugh and say, “I told you so.”  Chibi would scold me and say that I wasn’t any use to him dead, and then he’d leave, and I’d try to run after him only to abruptly realize that my legs didn’t work anymore.  Then I’d blink, and I’d be back in the hotel room, and I could feel my pulse, but my limbs still wouldn’t move, and for some reason Astrid was still there, standing across the room, glaring at me.  But then I’d blink again, and she’d be in bed, asleep.  And I’d be left with a sickly feeling of unease worming through my insides until I rolled over and buried myself in the blankets and started the whole thing all over again.

I didn’t mention any of it the next morning.  Not when we got ready for the day, or when we rode the bus back to the central district.  When Starr joked that I looked like a zombie, I just replied that the bed was uncomfortable.  And then we parted ways at the Pokécenter, and I was left to wander the city with my thoughts still stuck in the twisted mess of nightmares and the realization that it would be impossible to just erase the memories of what she’d done.  No matter how badly I wanted to.

The rest of the day passed by in a dull haze.  I wandered through department stores looking at items I couldn’t buy and stumbled across more parks where I debated training but found that I wasn’t up to it.  I spent hours arguing with myself over whether or not it was worth it to talk to Starr about it, and at the end of those hours, I was no closer to having an answer, so I wound up just asking Swift.

“*Of course you should tell her,*” he had said.  “*She joined you for a reason.*”

And in a way, I had already known he would say that.  But actually hearing it from him still helped.  So before the afternoon was over, I made my way back to the Pokécenter early and waited out front for Starr.

She returned before sundown, disembarking a bus that had come from somewhere that wasn’t part of the typical trainer circuit.  From the look on her face, I could already guess that her search had gone better today than it had yesterday.

“Guess what?” she asked sitting down next to me.  “Got lucky and found a guy who was able set me up with a new trainer ID.  Gonna take him a few days to get around some of the League checks, but it should be good to go after that.  Won’t be able to use it to enter any official tournaments or the like.  But for everyday use it should be fine.  Nice to finally have things go right for a change.”

My chest tightened.  Great, now I was going to ruin her good mood.  But I couldn’t ignore this.  Not if I wanted to travel with her without turning into a ball of nerves all the time.

“Hey, um… can we talk?”

She raised an eyebrow.  “Yeah?”

I gripped the edge of the bench so hard my knuckles turned white.  “I can’t stop thinking about that night in the detention cell.”

Starr’s face fell immediately.  “I really don’t want to talk about that,” she said, glancing away.

“I need to talk about it,” I forced myself to say.  “Maybe you can brush it aside or pretend it didn’t happen but I don’t have that luxury.”

Starr flinched, like the words were a slap to the face.  She turned away, screwing her eyes shut.  Slowly, like she hated every word: “Right.  Say what you want to say, I guess.”

I really only had one question.  One single, burning question that consumed my thoughts and made it impossible to think about anything else.  I took a deep breath and said, “I, just… why?  Every single time we ran into each other, it’s like you were dead-set on seeing me suffer.  I don’t get it.  You said you had to keep the others from suspecting you, but… why’d it have to involve that?”

I didn’t want to be angry at her—not after everything we’d been through yesterday.  But dammit, that wasn’t the kind of thing I could just forget.  I’d tried.

Starr couldn’t look me in the eye—she just stared downward for the longest time, looking absolutely miserable.  “I was afraid they were going to kill you,” she whispered, her voice trembling.  “I couldn’t make the same mistakes I made with Ajia.  I couldn’t take the risk that anyone would find out that we knew each other.  I thought if I put on a good show and got you to confess, then maybe no one would care if I let you go after we finished off the rebel team.”

I winced.  It hurt to hear her talk about the death of my teammates with such… casual language.

Starr buried her face in her palms.  “I didn’t care if you hated me, or if you never wanted to see me again… I just wanted you to live.”  She paused, dragging her nails against her forehead as she balled her hands into fists.  “I know that doesn’t fix anything.  I know I can never take it back, no matter how badly I want to.  That was… the most painful thing I’ve ever done.”

I stifled the urge to sarcastically reply that it had been more painful for me.  Because the truth was… I didn’t envy her.  The idea of being forced to torture someone I cared about without breaking character… it was nauseating.

Starr finally pulled her face out of her hands, staring brokenly into the distance.  “I could have betrayed them sooner,” she said bitterly, her words dripping with self-loathing.  “I could have refused, taken you, and tried to escape.  It’s just… I’ve seen what happens to those who betray Team Rocket—I’ve done it to traitors myself.  I was a scared, selfish idiot, so I did what I’ve always done and just buried it all away.”  She swallowed hard and inhaled deeply.  “But… I’m glad you and Ajia didn’t give up on me.  I still hate the way she tricked me, but…”—she exhaled slowly—“it’s better this way.”

I was silent for a long while.  I didn’t know what to say.  I wasn’t even sure what kind of answer I’d been hoping for.

“There’s still a part of me that’s afraid of you,” I admitted.

She closed her eyes.  “Yeah, I know.”

“I do still want to start over,” I added quickly.  “It’s just… going to be harder than I thought.”

“That’s fine.  It’s the best I can hope for.”  She stared downward for a few seconds, then abruptly stood up.  “Hey, how about we get something to eat?  My treat.”

“You’ve been paying for everything this entire trip,” I mumbled.  I still hadn’t puzzled out how I felt about that.

“Yeah, well, I’ve got a lot of lost time to make up for.  Five years?” she asked, offering a hand to me.

I stared at it for a long time.  Then my eyes slowly slid upward to meet hers.  That wasn’t the face of someone who just wanted to brush aside my pain or act like it never happened.  Not by a long shot.

“Yeah.  That sounds good,” I said, taking her hand.

Dinner was nice.  Starr led the way down a maze of side streets to some backroad full of restaurants that would have been impossible to find unless you were looking for it.  I ordered what ended up being the best bowl of noodles I’d ever had, and we swapped stories about our early training days.  Stories like the time when Starr’s Totodile and Ponyta refused to train together.  Or the time when I’d used Swift against Sandshrew and had forgotten what moves Pidgey could use.  Her stories were from five years ago and mine were only from four months ago, but mine might as well have been from five years ago, that’s how distant they felt.

At some point around the end of the meal, it occurred to me that I hadn’t checked my R-com ever since we’d left for Goldenrod.  I fished it out of my bag and turned it on to see that I’d gotten two texts yesterday.  Around the time Starr and I had been on the train, from the looks of it.  I tapped the first one and read:

Hey, Rudy said more than five words to me today so that’s progress.  Btw, where’d you go?  You sorta just vanished, lol.  Went to get your license I’m guessing?  When you getting back?

Oh my god, I’d forgotten about Rudy and Darren.  I’d completely ditched them without saying a word, and then forgot about them for three days.  Granted, three absurdly stressful and eventful days, but still.

“You shouldn’t use that,” Starr said, snapping me out of my thoughts.  “Get a Pokégear.”

“Yeah, with what money,” I said flatly.

“I’ll get you one then, just don’t use that.  They can track—”  Her eyes went wide, and she fixed me with a skeptical glare.  “Wait, hang on.  If the rebels all had legit Rocket accounts, why didn’t we ever have a record of you guys spending time on Midnight Island?  I had my people check the new recruits, too.  They all came back clean, nothing suspicious.”

“Stalker told us he tampered with the trackers in our R-coms,” I replied.

She smacked her forehead.  “Of course.”

I went back to the texts.  The second one was from a number I didn’t recognize.  Intrigued, I tapped on it.  My eyes widened instantly.  It was from Stalker.

I can’t tell you my current location.  However, I can meet with you if you’d like.

My heart jumped into my throat.  This was the first I’d heard from Stalker since the night of the attack.  Finally, I’d be able to talk to him and figure out what I was going to do from now on.

“Where do you want to meet?  I’m in Goldenrod right now,” I typed back immediately, my fingers flying across the screen.  Did he have his R-com on him at the moment?  How long would I have to wait for a reply?  The next few seconds seemed to drag on for ages.  Until finally:

Johto National Park.  West Garden.  One hour.

Johto National Park… that was nearby, wasn’t it?  I brought up the GPS app (it loaded lightning fast—a perk of being in Goldenrod?) and checked it out.  Just north of the city.  Perfect—wouldn’t take more than twenty minutes to get there by flying.

“Mind sharing what you’re reading over there?” Starr asked dryly.

I glanced up to see a rather unamused look on her face.  Okay, so maybe staring at an R-com while we were trying to move past the time she spent on Team Rocket was a little tasteless.

“Uh.  Just talking with a friend.  We’re planning to meet up at the Johto National Park.”

She raised an eyebrow.  “Who?”

I sucked in a breath.  She definitely wasn’t going to like the answer.  I could have just lied.  But I didn’t really want to do that.  I wanted things to be more open between us.  But at the same time, why did it have to be this?

I exhaled slowly and said, “Stalker.”

Her eyes widened instantly.  “You’re meeting the rebel team leader?” she asked in a low tone, leaning forward across the table to stare at me face to face.  “Who is he?”

I narrowed my eyes.  “Why do you ask?”

“Because that asshole was the bane of my existence for months.  I’ve got to know.”  I gave her an unimpressed stare.  She threw her hands up and said, “Come on, it’s not like I can turn him in now.”

“Well, I don’t know who he is anyway,” I said matter-of-factly, leaning back against my seat.

Starr snorted.  “He really didn’t tell you his name?  Some leader.  He must have really trusted you guys.”

“He didn’t tell us so we couldn’t have that kind of info forced out of us,” I muttered without thinking.

Starr froze, looking like she’d just been slapped.  She blinked a few times, then turned away sharply and said, “Right.  Whatever… just go.”

I frowned.  “Now?”

“Yes, now,” she said without looking back at me.  “I’m covering the bill anyway, so there’s no reason for you to stick around.  I’ll be at the same Pokécenter as before.”

I sat there for several seconds, still processing the turn the conversation had just taken.  Finally, I grabbed my backpack, stood up from the booth, and walked out the door.  It wasn’t until I got a few steps away from the diner that I really stopped and thought about what I’d said.  And… alright, maybe I was too harsh, especially since we were making an effort to heal the bad blood between us.  But honestly, I wasn’t gonna deal with that Rocket crap after everything we’d been through.  Not anymore.

I wandered around until I found a park that doubled as a takeoff and landing point for flying Pokémon.  From there, Aros and I took to the skies, and within minutes we were soaring over the city, the buildings below us glowing golden in the light of the setting sun.  The crisp November air swept over us as we flew north of the city.  I was glad that it was November.  October had… well, it had sucked.  Not to mention my birthday was coming up.  Something about the idea of not being fourteen anymore sounded extremely appealing, and I couldn’t wait for that day to come.

Eventually the buildings of the city gave way to open fields, and I spotted the National Park in the distance.  It would’ve been hard to miss the iconic Pokéball shape that its trails formed through the grass.  I pointed Aros in the direction of the west garden, and the dragon spiraled down to land.  And then I waited for Stalker to arrive.  He’d requested that we meet in an hour, but with how quickly I’d left the diner, I’d gotten there far earlier than I needed to.  But that was fine.  I found an empty picnic table and sat down, watching bug Pokémon flit in and out of the tall grass as the sky slowly darkened and the majority of the park’s visitors left.

And then I heard the sound of heavy wingbeats.  My pulse quickened, and I glanced around hurriedly until I caught sight of a Pokémon flying high above the park—broad-winged, orange, and flame-tailed.  And on its back was a trainer.

“It’s really you,” I said, standing up from the bench as Charizard landed in front of me and Stalker dismounted her.  Part of me was having a hard time believing it.  Last time I’d seen him, he’d been desperately flying off into the night sky, closely pursued by Moltres.

He recalled Charizard and turned to face me, taking a few steps forward.  “How have you been?”

I bit my tongue.  If that wasn’t the hardest question to answer right now, I didn’t know what was.  So much had happened in such a short amount of time.  I was still pretty sure that it was all going to hit me in the face at once.

“This has probably been the hardest week of my life,” I admitted.

Stalker nodded.  “I’m not surprised.  I only wish it hadn’t been necessary for me to leave.”

My mouth went dry.  Did he have any idea how hard it was for us to make it through the aftermath of the attack without him?  For four months, we’d looked up to him and relied on him for everything, and then he was suddenly gone with only a text message telling us that he was even alive.

“Why didn’t you come back?”

He gave me a pointed look.  The hurt in my voice clearly hadn’t escaped him.  “I’m a huge target.  That night proved as much—approaching the rebels in that situation would have been a death sentence.  For them as well as me.”

I’d known that all along.  Part of me had just hoped that there was more to it than that.

“You’re one of only a few rebels to contact me, you know that?” he said.

Probably because I didn’t have a choice.  My identity had been compromised.  It wasn’t safe to return home.  Not to mention everything that happened with Starr in the Viridian base.  Even the boss himself knew my name now.

“Yeah.  I believe it,” I said flatly.  “I can’t go back to my old life, so I might as well make the best of this one.”  I couldn’t help but get the feeling that his eyes were carefully analyzing my every reaction—almost like being x-rayed.  It was a little unnerving, so I decided to turn the conversation back to him.  “What about you?  What have you been doing?  You know, now that the Rebellion’s over.”

“Lots of catching up on things,” he replied.  “I’ve been busy ever since I got here.  But it’s nice to finally be back in my home region.”

“You’re from Johto?” I asked.  For some reason, it had never occurred to me to ask where he was originally from.  He didn’t have much of a Johto accent either, so I never would have guessed.

Stalker nodded.  “It was convenient that you came to Goldenrod.  It’s not far from where I live.”

I shuffled a foot against the dirt.  “Huh.  I had no idea.  I was only there because a friend suggested it,” I said.  But then I was suddenly struck by how strange that was.  “So, hang on… why didn’t you run the Rebellion from Johto?  Have us infiltrate the Johto force instead?”

“That’s actually what I hoped to talk to you about,” he said, the corners of his mouth turned up ever so slightly.  “You see, I needed to weaken the Kanto force.”

I tilted my head.  “Wait, really?  But… both halves of Team Rocket are working together toward the same goal, right?  What’s the difference?”

“The Kanto force is the real threat in this situation,” he said matter-of-factly.  “They invented the Legendary control technology.  They created Mewtwo.”

Mewtwo.  I hadn’t told him yet!

“Mewtwo’s been freed,” I immediately replied, feeling my heart swell a bit with pride.  Sure, Ajia had been behind most of it, but still.

Stalker’s eyes lit up.  “I heard.  And I can’t thank you enough.”

“Wait, what?” I asked, taken aback.  “You heard?”

“The news spread like wildfire.  Mewtwo caused a great deal of damage to the Viridian base before it was forced to flee,” he explained.  “I don’t know if you’ve realized this, but freeing Mewtwo was probably the most important thing that’s happened in the entire fight against Team Rocket.  More important that all the other missions combined.”

I paused.  There was definitely something strange about the way he’d said that.  Almost like he’d been planning the Mewtwo mission all along.

“Did… did you create the Rebellion specifically to free Mewtwo?” I asked.

Stalker blinked, gazing at me curiously, as though the thought had never really occurred to him.  “It’s hard to say.  I didn’t know much about number thirty-six back then.  But I can’t help feeling like it was always our most important task.”

I don’t think I could have given him a more weirded-out expression.  But before I could say anything, his eyes slid past me, and he chuckled.  “Well, this is unexpected.  I think we’re being watched.”

I jolted.  What?  Someone was watching us?  And he wasn’t concerned by that?  I whirled around to look in the direction he was facing.  And then my jaw fell open when I saw who it was.

“Starr?!  What are you doing here?!”  I blinked a few times, half-expecting my mind to be playing tricks on me.  But no, it was really her standing there, half-hidden in the bushes, watching us.  Her arrival was so completely random that I was having a hard time processing it.  How had she even gotten here?  I had flown but it would’ve taken way longer to get here any other way.

For several seconds, she didn’t say anything.  She just stood there, staring at me like she was having just as hard a time figuring out why I was here.  Finally, in a low tone of voice, she said, “Jade, what are you doing with him?”

I scowled, taking several steps toward her.  “Come on, don’t change the subject.  Were you seriously that desperate to find out who Stalker is?”

“He’s Stalker?!” she exclaimed, staring at me incredulously.  She threw a glare at Stalker, and he nodded softly.  And then she broke into a fit of manic giggles.

“He’s Stalker.  He’s Stalker.  Oh man, I knew it had to be one of the creeps from the Johto Resistance, but him?!”  What the hell was she talking about?  Did she know him?

Starr forced herself to regain control of her breathing, wiping her eyes as she shook her head in disbelief.  “Jade, do you have any idea who the hell you’re standing next to?  That’s Sebastian Shepard, the fucking commander of the Johto combat unit.”

Chapter Text

I stared at the two of them, a feeling of unease growing inside me.  Stalker appeared relatively unfazed by Starr’s revelation and was simply watching us with a calm, expectant look, like we’d go right back to our conversation as soon as this minor interruption was taken care of.

“What’s she talking about…?” I asked hesitantly.

He put a hand to his chest.  “She’s not wrong.  That is what I’m known as, and I am the Johto commander.”

Stalker was the Johto commander.  Not the former Kanto commander like everyone had thought.  That’s how he had access to so much of the team’s inner workings.  That’s how he’d been able to bypass security checks for the rebels, give out admin rights left and right, and draw suspicion away from us by modifying things behind the scenes.

I took a wary step back from him.  “What?  How?  You were… helping us defeat Team Rocket.”

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” he said simply.

“But… why?  If you’ve been a commander all this time?”

“Because the Kanto force can’t be allowed to capture the Legendaries.”

I paused, giving him a skeptical glare.  “You say that like the Johto force is different.  Like they’re not also catching Legendaries.  Well guess what, they caught Entei, and that’s what started this whole mess.  How do you explain that?”

Stalker appeared completely unconcerned with that accusation.  “Every Legendary that my force catches is one that the Kanto force cannot.”

A wave of anger suddenly flared up inside me.  “So, what, you were only having us prevent the Kanto force from catching the Legendaries so that you could get them all yourself?”

He chuckled under his breath.  “Of course not.  We’re only catching certain ones.”

“Certain ones?” I said incredulously.  “Why would it matter which ones you catch?  What difference does it make?”

“It makes all the difference in the world,” Stalker replied immediately.  His expression had turned darkly serious.

“Well, it’s good to see that you’re just as full of shit as you’ve always been,” Starr cut in all of a sudden, stepping out of the bushes and folding her arms behind her head.  “I don’t know what the Legendaries have to do with anything, but I do know that spouting hypocritical garbage to trick people into following your cause sounds exactly like you.”

Stalker closed his eyes.  “Astrid, I don’t think any of this concerns you.”

“Like hell it doesn’t,” she spat.  “Jade’s my friend, and if you think I’m gonna let you pull one over on her, you’ve got another thing coming.”

He paused, both eyebrows raised, looking impressed.  “Ever the loyal one, I see.”

Starr glared at him.  “Maybe I am.  Not that you’d know anything about loyalty with all your lying and double-crossing.  By the way, don’t think I didn’t notice the way you up and left your little rebel team the moment things got too risky for you.”

“You’d do well not to talk about things you know nothing about,” Stalker shot back coldly.  “The Rebellion accomplished what it needed to.  My decision to end it was as much a tactical one as it was for their protection.”

“What, don’t tell me you actually cared about your pawns this time?” Starr said with a laugh.  “You never did before.  Where were you when we caught your followers after the revolt, huh?  You didn’t exactly step in to stop their executions.  No, that would’ve required actually owning up to something for a change.”

“A better question perhaps is where were you?  Carrying out said executions, I presume?”

Starr clenched her teeth.  “Yeah.  I’m a screw-up.  I know that.  Least I don’t try to pretend I’m not.”

“I was under the impression that’s what you’re doing right now.”

“Oh, screw you,” she spat.  “You don’t get to act all self-righteous after what you did.  Especially since the rebel team was you pulling the exact same shit you did last year, only with kids this time.”

“And what of the fact that your unit was responsible for those kids’ deaths?” Stalker asked calmly.

Starr’s face went red.  “You want me to beat your ass right here and now?!”

Stalker closed his eyes.  “I highly recommend that you don’t try that.”

Starr’s hand flew to her Pokéball belt, and that was enough.

“Okay, stop!” I yelled, holding out both arms and staring down the both of them.  “I am sick and tired of hearing about all this stupid Rocket drama through vague rumors and sideways accusations, and I want answers.  You two are finally going to tell me what this freaking revolt was about, and what the hell it has to do with anything, now.  In detail.  I’m sick of always being in the dark about everything.”  I was seething, fists clenched, breathing hard.  No more.  I was not just going to accept any of this crap anymore.

Stalker raised both eyebrows, looking impressed.  “Fair enough.  I’d say it’s time you knew the truth as well,” he said, grinning slyly.  Starr rolled her eyes, but then swept her hand in a “go ahead” gesture.  He paused for a moment, and then began.

“It all started spring of last year.  I’d just turned seventeen, was promoted to executive, and finally in a position to start making changes in the team.  You see… I’ve had plans for the Johto force for a very long time.  Right after I reached officer rank and learned about the Legendary Project, in fact.  So I’d been making it my goal to forge as many connections as I possibly could—I wanted to know everything that happened on the team.”

He closed his eyes, carefully considering his next words.  “So imagine my surprise when I heard that a teenage girl was causing discreet mischief amongst the lower ranks.”

I took a step backward.  No way.  He couldn’t be talking about Ajia, could he?

“It was nothing too serious—ambushing grunts, stealing assets, that sort of thing.  At least, that’s all it was at first.  She has a real knack for reading people.  She found anyone on the team who felt scared or trapped—namely younger Rockets who had nowhere else to go—and started convincing them to turn traitor.  Of course, most of them had already come to me with the same concerns at one point or another—it wasn’t hard for me to hear about what she was doing.

“One day I finally confronted her.  She wasn’t afraid—she could immediately tell that I was no ordinary Rocket, and that I had my own agenda.  I decided I could use her, so I told her the identity of several high-ranking Kanto agents who were conflicted about the things they’d done.”

He paused again, carefully taking in my reactions to what he’d said.  It felt like his eyes were boring straight through me.

“You might be wondering how the former Kanto commander factors into all this.  I trained under him for a year when I was stationed in Kanto, shortly after being promoted to officer.  He wasn’t the commander yet, but he was the most powerful trainer I’ve ever known.  Unfortunately… when he did get promoted to commander, he was forced into running the Legendary Project.  I’ve never seen a Rocket break so quickly.  He hated the idea.

“I talked to the commander and proposed the idea that we use our position to capture the Legendaries ourselves, so they would be safe from Rockets who would abuse their power.  He utterly refused.  I think he was already planning to quit Team Rocket, but just needed the final push.”

Stalker paused again, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly.  “I’m sure you can see where this is going.  I told Ajia to go meet the Kanto commander.”

Starr let out an exaggerated sound of disgust.  “Okay, I like how he’s conveniently leaving out all the bullshit.  First of all, Ajia was pulling a lot more crap than just spreading treasonous ideas and screwing up grunt jobs.  Oh sure, it started as that, but then even the combat unit started reporting subtle things going wrong here and there.  Second, he’s the one who gave her the ability to do half that stuff.  I started looking into it ‘cause it always looks impressive if you catch a traitor.  I was officer-rank and a candidate for becoming executive so I was under a lot of pressure, okay?”  That last part was forcefully directed at me.

I raised an eyebrow.  “I… wasn’t going to say anything.”

“You were giving me that look,” she said with a huff.  “I was a loyal Rocket, and I did what had to be done.  Until I found out that Ajia was the traitor.  I tried the same thing I did with you—making sure they never caught her while trying to keep suspicion off myself.  Of course, she eventually figured out that I was the one shadowing her.  I tried to get her to leave Team Rocket alone, but she wouldn’t listen to me.  We argued a lot, she tried to convince me to quit, I was pissed that she’d even dare to try that.  Well… you know how that ended up.”

Stalker chuckled.  “So you wouldn’t have even had anything to lose from the revolt if you hadn’t pursued her.”

“Don’t think I don’t know that,” she said, glaring fiercely.  “I’ve lost a lot of things from trying to protect my friends.  But you wouldn’t know anything about that.”

Stalker ignored her.  “So Ajia met up with the commander, he found others like him who didn’t want to catch Legendaries, and he started training everyone who was part of their growing rebel band.”

“Oh, and by the way,” Starr cut in, “the only reason Sebastian told Ajia to go to Kanto was to get her out of the way while he built more of an influence in Johto.  That and the fact that he wanted to get rid of the Kanto commander to weaken the Kanto force.”

“No arguments here.”

I stared at them.  This wasn’t getting anywhere.  “Okay, I still don’t get what specifically happened between you two, and I kind of think it needs to get mentioned.”

Starr snorted.  “Well for starters, he’s a traitor and he didn’t get caught.  And second, I found out that he was getting everyone else to do his dirty work, setting the Kanto force up for failure without actually doing anything himself, so he’d never get connected to any of it.  I threatened to turn him in, but… he was one step ahead of me,” she said through gritted teeth.  “He knew I’d done far more traitorous things trying to keep Ajia from being caught, and he made it very obvious that I’d be screwing myself over if I did anything against him.”

Stalker held up his arms defensively.  “Just covering my tracks.  So long as neither of us reported the other to the admins, we’d be alright.  And we were.”

“Easy for you to say,” Starr growled, still giving him the death glare.

I glanced between the two, feeling more awkward by the second.  “Alright, enough of that.  What happened next?”

Stalker folded his arms.  “Well, as the number of rebels grew, so did the tensions on the Kanto force.  Rumors of treachery started flying around and a lot of members were taken in for questioning.  Quite a few important rebels found themselves on the chopping block,” he said with a wry grin.  “But then one day Ajia got a little too cocky with her sabotaging and was captured.  I suspect it might have been intentional, but I never did find out for sure.”

I raised an eyebrow.  “Why on earth would it have been intentional?”

“Because that was the tipping point that got the commander to turn traitor,” Stalker said darkly.  “He gathered all the rebels, declared their betrayal, and broke her out of captivity, causing massive damage to the base before they all escaped together with her.”  He paused to let the moment sink in.  “That was the revolt.”

The infamous day that no one on the Kanto force wanted to talk about.  They’d lost their commander, a chunk of their forces, and had failed to hold onto their most wanted criminal.

Starr clenched her teeth and closed her eyes, like the memory was painful.  “It… took us a long time to recover.  Losing dozens of agents, just like that.  It was impossible to track down all of them.  We had our hands tied just trying to get things back on track.  And my loyalty was… called into question.  I’d previously been under orders to hunt down and eliminate Ajia.  I got closer than I’d like to admit, but… obviously I didn’t succeed.  The boss always suspected that I had some connection to her, but he never had any definite proof—that’s the only reason my punishment wasn’t as severe as it could have been,” she said, wincing.

“I did become executive the following spring, but the boss always kept me under a close watch after that.  And of course, Sebastian and his Johto pawns got off scot-free,” she added, shooting a nasty glare at him.  “So, in case you don’t get it, Jade, this is what he does.  Draw people in, get them to do his dirty work, and let them take the heat when things go south.”  She paused, then added, “Just like what happened to the rebel team.”

I stared at her, unwilling to believe it.  But at the same time, there was a part of me, deep down, that knew it wasn’t a lie.  Which meant that the Rebellion had only ever been an extension of the revolt—a way to weaken the Kanto force to put him in a better position to take control of the team.  He wasn’t trying to put an end to Team Rocket.  He wasn’t even trying to prevent the Legendaries from being captured.

I swallowed hard as a sudden feeling of numbness overtook me.  “So then… all along… we really were just pawns in something that’s been going on much longer?”

Stalker stared at me with a frustratingly blank expression that was impossible to read.  I at least wanted him to get defensive, or gloat, or something.

“Go on.  Tell her that you were just using them.  Just like you used me.”  Wait, what?  Why was I hearing that voice?

Everyone spun around suddenly.  Sure enough, there at the edge of the trees stood Ajia with her Pichu perched on her shoulder.  Relief welled up inside me.  And then it immediately transformed into confusion.

“Ajia?  How…?”  I barely managed.

“Well, this is a new one, Astrid,” Stalker cut in.  “When you figured out that Jade was a few steps away from joining my side of the resistance, you had to make sure you’d have backup before coming here.  What, afraid to face me alone?”

Starr’s smirk immediately changed into a scowl.  Ajia walked forward to stand alongside us, her expression strangely cold.  Everything about her looked tense.  On-guard.  Like she was expecting a fight to break out any second and had to be ready for it.

“It’s been a while, Ajia.”

“Sebastian,” she said, nodding.  “I should have realized you were the rebel team leader.  Nice touch having them call you Stalker, by the way.”

“Judging by the fact that Jade knew nothing at all about the revolt, I’m guessing you kept all of your encounters with Team Rocket a secret from her,” Stalker said.

Ajia sighed.  “That’s true.  But did you seriously tell your newest set of pawns that you were trying to stop Team Rocket?”

“I never said anything of the sort.  I said I wanted to stop the Legendary Project.”

Ajia turned to me.  “Do you believe him, Jade?”

I bristled.  It definitely made sense for Starr to hate him after what she’d gone through on Team Rocket, but it still seemed like Stalker and Ajia held a common goal, even if they were going about things completely different.

Everyone was still looking at me, waiting for my answer.  Unsure of what else to do, I nodded.

Starr chuckled.  “Yeah, he’s really done a number on her.”  I shot her a glare—she really didn’t have to talk about me like I wasn’t there.  If they wanted to talk about how this affected me, the least they could do was get my opinion on it.

Ajia gave Stalker a sideways glance.  “Yeah, well, he can be pretty convincing.  After the revolt, I met up with him again, ready to work together from then on.  That’s when he told me that he had no intention of giving up his position on Team Rocket, and that everything we’d done would make it easier for him to take control of the team.  And of course, he became the Johto commander not long afterward.”

Stalker didn’t say anything.  He just continued to regard her with the same neutral expression.

“I’ve gotten over the fact that I was just a pawn,” Ajia went on, staring downward with a pained face.  “I was naïve, and I wasn’t prepared for it.  I just don’t want to see anyone else used for his goals like I was.”

Stalker exhaled slowly through his nose.  “If that’s the way you want to see it, then fine.  But don’t try to pretend that you know how things were between me and the rebels.  I’ve hid things from Jade, but so have you, and I don’t think that—”

Ajia cut him off.  “Jade, did Sebastian even tell you what the Johto resistance is actually working towards?”

“I was ready and willing to tell her before you two showed up,” Stalker snapped, looking cross for the first time in the conversation.  But then he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and his calm, collected air was back.  “Our goal is to prevent Giovanni and the Kanto Rockets from abusing the power of the Legendaries by capturing them ourselves.”

Ajia snorted.  “And somehow it’s alright if you’re the one doing it.”

Stalker raised an eyebrow.  “You know, Ajia, you’re not exactly one to talk about not using Legendaries.”

I stared.  What on earth was he talking about?  I shot a glance at Ajia, but she looked just as confused as I felt.

Stalker put a hand to his forehead.  “Right, I don’t suppose you told them that, either.  Jade, Astrid… do either of you know exactly how you three escaped from the Viridian base?”

“Are you saying that you do know?” Starr asked, fixing him with an incredulous glare.  “You weren’t exactly there.”

It would have been easy for anyone else to miss it, but I’d known him long enough to catch the tiny glint in his eye.  Like he’d been waiting for someone to ask him that, and was already relishing the chance to explain.

“I admit that it took me a long time to figure it out.  I watched the security footage and reviewed the reports all night.  You two somehow managed to disappear within a crowd that was actively looking for you, then make it all the way to the transport wing without any Rockets or cameras spotting you.  And you did it all with an Umbreon at your side for seemingly no reason.”

That’s right—Umbreon had been with us the entire time.  And he hadn’t done anything until the fight with Mewtwo.  Of course that was strange, but when I asked Ajia why, she’d just said he was there for luck.  Of course there was more to it than that.

Stalker fixed his gaze on Ajia, lips curled into a smirk.  “You were very thorough, I’ll give you that.  But there was the slightest weirdness about the flash of light when you sent out your Espeon.  And why did your Umbreon look like it was concentrating at that exact moment?  A moment which took place immediately after the anti-teleport field went down.  That wasn’t your Espeon at all, was it?  It was something teleporting to you from outside the base.  But I don’t think I would have suspected that of being an illusion if not for the fact that no one saw what happened to Mewtwo’s Master Ball.  Your entire mission was hidden within an illusion, wasn’t it?  And that would explain your Umbreon—or should I say… your Zoroark?”

Zoroark?  What?  I’d never heard of that Pokémon.  And how could it disguise itself as an Umbreon and somehow hide a bunch of other stuff going on around it?  I glanced at Ajia, hoping for answers, but she was staring at the ground, brows furrowed in concentration.

Stalker went on, “But what could have been so important to hide?  Something strong enough to land a hit on Mewtwo and drop its defenses long enough to break the Master Ball.  Something that not only had the ability to teleport, but also to disguise itself—because everyone saw it as an Espeon, even when it was nowhere near Zoroark.  And you would never put such a high-stakes plan into motion without some kind of trump card.

“There aren’t many options.  I know who the seven are.  The only one that fits is Mew.  You’re Mew’s chosen.”

What.  Ajia was Mew’s… chosen?  What?  He didn’t honestly believe that Mew had shown up to help us free Mewtwo… did he?  Why would the Legendary Mew get involved in our personal drama?

Starr burst out laughing, completely unimpressed.  “Are you insane?  You don’t seriously think Ajia’s got a friggin’ Legendary, do you?”

I shot another glance at Ajia, desperate for some indicator of what the hell Stalker was talking about, but… she was just staring at him, impressed.  She wasn’t denying it.  And from the slow grin spreading across Stalker’s face, he knew he was right.

Starr glanced between the two of them, her amused smirk slowly fading into a suspicious glare.  “Hang on.  He… is just making shit up… right, Ajia?”

He had mentioned “the seven.”  The seven Legendaries who would form an alliance with humanity?  Mew was one.  And it had chosen Ajia?  Chosen her for what?  I clenched my teeth, desperately forcing every ounce of thought into piecing together the scraps of information.

Stalker knew about the legends.  And the Johto force owned Legendaries, but only certain ones.  Did that mean there were certain Legendaries he didn’t want to catch?

“You’re only trying to protect the seven special ones from the legend, aren’t you?” I said slowly, my eyes widening as the realization hit me.  “The seven that will pick a chosen?”

“What the hell is up with this ‘chosen’ thing that you and Sebastian keep going on about?!”  Starr demanded all of a sudden.  She then turned toward Ajia and added, “Don’t tell me he’s actually right about this.  Was that seriously Mew that broke Mewtwo’s Master Ball?  Why didn’t you tell us?!”

And with that, Ajia’s silence finally broke.  “I already told you guys that I couldn’t tell you, remember?” she said desperately.  “The chosen aren’t supposed reveal their position to anyone; it’s too dangerous at this point.”

“That still doesn’t explain what it is,” Starr said flatly, fixing her with an unimpressed stare.

I turned toward her expectantly, waiting for an answer.  Ajia hesitated, her eyes flickering between me and Starr.  Both of us staring her down, no longer willing to accept a lack of answers.

“It means I was picked to fight alongside Mew and protect her as the conflict gets worse,” Ajia said slowly.  “And… if necessary, she can lend me her power.”

That legend… it was more than just a myth?  If the Legendaries were actually making deals with humans, then it had to be real.  But why were they doing it?  What possible reason could there be for Legendaries to get help from humans?

“I thought you were against humans using the power of the legends, but I suppose not,” Stalker said, folding his arms with a smug grin.

Ajia scoffed.  “It’s not the same.”

“Explain to me, then.  Why isn’t it the same?”

Ajia raised both eyebrows incredulously.  “Mew chose me and I accepted.  Your force’s Legendaries didn’t have a choice.”

“Neither did any of the Pokémon you’ve captured, but they accept that and fight for you just the same,” he said, gesturing to her with one palm up.

Ajia threw her arms in the air.  “Oh, come on!  I’m not having this conversation with you again.  No one who fights for you ever really has a choice in it.  You just make it look like there is.”

“If you’re going to keep saying things like that, then you’d better be willing to back it up with force,” Stalker muttered, his eyes cold.  He had grabbed a Pokéball from his belt, gripping it so tightly his knuckles turned white.

Ajia smirked.  “I’ve beaten you before.  If it’ll make you leave Jade alone, I’ll do it again.”

Wait, what?  Hang on… didn’t I get a choice in any of this?

“You honestly think you can beat me now that I’ve got a Legendary?”

“You just told everyone I’m partnered with Mew, so yes.”

“And how are we different, exactly?” Stalker asked, throwing his arms to the side.

“Stop it!” I yelled, stepping in between them.  If I wasn’t careful, we all risked a Legendary fight breaking out right here and now, and that was definitely something I wanted to avoid.

“I get that this conflict between all of you goes way back.  But this is about me, and what I’m planning to do from now on,” I said shooting a glare at each one of them in turn.  “If you’re gonna talk about what I should do, you should at least talk to me about it.”

Ajia paused, looking taken aback.  She threw a confused glance at me, like she honestly hadn’t realized she’d been talking about me like I wasn’t there.

Stalker nodded slowly.  “That’s a fair request.  You should know that my side is the one that’s going to make a difference in this fight.  What can the outer resistance do without access to the inner workings of the team?  I accomplished more with twelve-year-olds in four months than the resistance has in the past year.”  He turned to Ajia.  “You don’t even have the commander on your side anymore, do you?”

Ajia bristled, and for the first time in the conversation, she didn’t have a comeback ready for him.  She just glanced away, avoiding his gaze.

“Why does there have to be a ‘side’?” I asked quietly.

“An excellent question,” Stalker said, throwing a significant look towards Ajia.

She screwed her eyes shut.  “I tried that.  He was the one who used me.  He’s the one who thinks imprisoning the Legendaries counts as saving them.”

And then, just as Stalker was about to respond, the muffled sound of something buzzing caught everyone’s attention.  It was coming from Stalker’s direction.  He sighed, then reached into his pocket and pulled out his R-com.  He took a look at the caller, raised an eyebrow, then answered it.

“I said no calls.”  Several seconds passed, and then, “How urgent?”  His eyes flickered back and forth as he listened to what the caller was saying, then at once, he raised both eyebrows in surprise.

“…that is urgent,” he said slowly.

And then out of nowhere, Ajia stiffened, mouth hanging open like she’d just made a horrible realization.  She blinked a few times, eyes darting around until they fell on Stalker.

“This is bad,” she announced.

“I expect you just got the same message I did,” Stalker replied, pocketing his R-com.  What?  She hadn’t gotten any messages at all.  How did he—

“What’s going on?!” Starr demanded.

“Legendaries are attacking the Viridian Rocket HQ,” Ajia said.

A moment of heavy silence followed as Starr and I gaped at each other incredulously.  Legendaries were attacking the Viridian base?  What?  Where the hell had that come from?

“What?” we both said in unison.

Ajia was now pacing back and forth, rubbing her temples.  “This is bad, this is really bad,” she said repeatedly.

“Why?  So let the stupid Legendaries clobber the Kanto force.  I really couldn’t care less anymore,” Starr grumbled.

“It’s not that.  The battle’s happening over the city.  Just think of how many innocent people are gonna get caught up in that.”

Starr clenched her teeth.  “So…?” she asked in her best attempt at nonchalance, despite the obvious concern crossing her face.

“Don’t forget—the Kanto Force isn’t exactly a pushover, even without Mewtwo,” Stalker interjected.  “They might be scrambling now, but they will organize.  We don’t want them adding to their selection of captured Legendaries, do we?”

That crushing sensation I’d felt after Articuno and Moltres had been captured… I didn’t think I could handle that for a second time.  Not if there was something I could do about it.

“I’d go, but after the Entei fiasco, I don’t think I’d be welcome there,” Stalker continued.  “And if I caught one of them while disguised, my forces could never use it.”  The slightest trace of a grin crossed his face.  “But it doesn’t matter, because you three will make sure none of them get caught, won’t you?”

“Like hell we will,” Starr spat.

But Ajia didn’t respond for some time.  She was still staring at him, both eyebrows raised incredulously.  “Of course.  Just like old times.  Why take action yourself when you can get everyone else to do your dirty work?”  With a half-hearted chuckle, she added, “The funny part is even knowing that, I have to do it.”

Stalker turned away.  “There’s no need to be so dramatic.  We both want the same thing here.  I’m unable to take action right now.  You’re able.  It’s as simple as that.”  And with that, he started walking away.

“Wait, you’re leaving just like that?” I asked.

Stalker paused.  “I know better than trying to turn friends against each other.  I’m not making the same mistake Giovanni made.”  He made eye contact with me.  “You would have made a good ally.  You had one of the most drastic transformations out of anyone on the Rebellion.  But you still lack resolve.  What are you really fighting for?  I’ll be interested to find out.”

A Pokéball opened, and a flash of light took the familiar form of an orange dragon.  He mounted his Charizard and whispered something in her ear.  With a nod, she flapped her huge wings and took off to the north.

Starr glared at the space where he’d left.  “Of all the arrogant, lying, hypocritical, traitorous shitheads, it had to be Sebastian.”

Even knowing the reason why she despised him so much, her words still stung.  That was my leader she was talking about.  The leader who’d taught the rebels how to fight people like her—of course she’d hate him.  But then… if it was only ever to serve his own agenda…  Damn it, what was I supposed to think anymore?

Ajia sighed.  “Never mind him.  We can’t afford to let him get our spirits down, right?”

Easier said than done.  My mind was still reeling from everything I’d just learned.  Most of all, the revelation that after all our hard work to protect the Legendaries, he’d been catching them himself anyway.

“I have to know which Legendaries he’s caught,” I said slowly, fighting back the feeling of numbness that was spreading inside me.

Starr gave me a sideways glance.  “The Johto force has both Raikou and Entei.  And Sebastian has personal ownership of Latios,” she said, her voice dripping with contempt.

My heart sank through the floor.  Raikou?  After all that effort we went through to save Raikou last August, he just went ahead and caught it?  Not to mention… Latios?

Starr turned to face Ajia, arms crossed and looking reluctantly impressed.  “So you’ve got a friggin’ Zoroark, huh?  No wonder you escaped from Team Rocket as many times as you did.  I swore I was going crazy a few of those times you gave me the slip.”

I was still having a hard time wrapping my head around that fact.  “So… you don’t even have an Espeon and an Umbreon?  It was Mew and Zoroark?”

Ajia shook her head.  “No, I do have them.  You saw them both for real after that plane crash.”

“But then in the server room… when you let out Espeon, it was actually Mew?”

“I never let Mew or Espeon out of a ball in that room.  Sebastian was right; it was all one of Zoroark’s illusions, to hide the fact that Mew teleported to me.  I would never ask Mew to go into a Pokéball, even for the sake of a mission like that.  And against Mewtwo, Umbreon was the perfect cover—you might not know this, but Zoroark can’t maintain illusions when they’re hit by attacks.”

Ajia had ‘Umbreon’ out with her the entire time we were in the Viridian base.  That’s why we had such an easy time getting around the base without incident.  It wasn’t that she had better luck than me.  She’d made her own luck.  She’d always made her own luck.

Ajia was pacing again, muttering to herself.  She did this for several seconds while Starr and I watched, then abruptly turned to face us.  “I’ve got to help out in Viridian,” she said firmly.  “You’ll help too, right Jade?”

I bristled.  The idea was honestly terrifying, but… I didn’t have a choice.  I couldn’t just let that kind of disaster strike my hometown.  Not if there was something I could do about it.  Slowly, I nodded.

“I’ll come too,” Starr said.

I gaped at her.  “Wait, seriously?  You got pissed off at Stalker for even suggesting it.”

“This whole situation is pissing me off, so I might as well go with you and beat the crap out of my dumbass subordinates,” she muttered, folding her arms.  But then her eyes widened with realization, and she suddenly added, “But if you think for even a second that I give a crap about your rebel cause, you’re dead wrong, you hear me?”

“Alright, alright,” Ajia said, holding both palms out defensively.  “Anyway, you’ll both want to brace yourselves.  We’re gonna teleport to Viridian now.”

It took several seconds for the weirdness of that statement to sink in.  But when it did: “How?  You don’t have Espeon out.”

Ajia made eye contact with me, grinning sheepishly.  “Espeon doesn’t know how to teleport.”

And then, while I was still processing what that meant, a small, pale-rose cat appeared before us in a flash of shimmering light.  I blinked stupidly at the sight, barely able to get out the word, “Mew?” before its psychic aura took hold of us, and we all vanished.

Chapter Text

We’d been warned.  I already had some idea of what awaited us when we appeared on the edge of Viridian, looking down on the city from atop the hills to the east.  But that didn’t compare to seeing it in real life.  Nothing could have prepared me for the sight of my hometown crumbling under a hail of wind and fire and explosive power.

A giant pair of silver wings beat against the night sky, lit by the full moon above and the city lights below.  Their owner—a sleek, long-necked dragon-bird—fired a blindingly orange beam from its beak, lancing through several blocks of northeast Viridian.  Cries of fury echoed through the air like a haunting melody, sending chills down my spine.  And the bird wasn’t alone—the unmistakable silhouette of a humanoid feline circled the skies alongside it, firing concussive pulses of psychic energy nonstop, flattening entire city blocks at once.  Below them, vicious winds tore through the streets, flipping cars and shattering glass storefronts.  Suicune, if the flashes of blue and the unearthly howls in the air were anything to go off.  And then, just when I thought I’d seen all of them, a burst of flames illuminated the night sky.  A brilliant golden phoenix soared into view, its wings shimmering with the colors of the rainbow.

Seeing Mewtwo here was one thing.  Hell, even Suicune wasn’t too surprising—not after the fury it had displayed toward the Rockets last time.  But the other two—the pair of gold and silver birds.  Ho-oh and Lugia.  The guardians of the skies and the seas.  And here they were raining destruction upon my hometown.  The only consolation was that the damage was limited to the northeast side—far from my old home—but for how long?  The Viridian Gym had already been reduced to a smoldering crater.  No doubt about it—the Legendaries knew the Rocket HQ was under there.  And they didn’t care how much of the city they’d have to destroy to get at it.  How many people had already been killed?  How many more would die before the night was over?

I turned away, swallowing a lump in my throat.  It was too much.  I’d seen the power of the legends firsthand.  But this was different.  Before I could at least pretend it was alright because the Rockets had brought it on themselves.  Not anymore.

Mew hovered a few feet in front of us, gazing at the enraged Legendaries in the distance.  <Of all the stupid, risky actions…  I don’t blame Mewtwo, but Lugia should know better.  At this rate they’ll be captured, and for what?  Senseless destruction.>  The rose cat shook her head sadly.

“Why is this happening?” I asked weakly.  “Why now?  What triggered this?”

Mew sighed.  <Not all the Legendaries agree on how to handle the human threat.  Mewtwo’s escape hurt the Rockets.  Some of our number wish to use that opportunity to land the finishing blow.  But it’s not that simple.>

“We can’t just murder a bunch of random Rockets and expect that to fix things,” Ajia cut in, speaking to no one in particular.  “I don’t care what they’ve done—it’s not worth it.  It wouldn’t even put an end to Team Rocket.”

<And what of the innocent humans and Pokémon that will die in the crossfire?  Ho-oh and I have been doing all that we can to stop them, but it’s not enough.>

I blinked.  Ho-oh was on our side?  I had just assumed, when I saw it there…  My eyes snapped back to the ongoing battle, where the blazing phoenix spiraled low over the city, tailing Lugia relentlessly and diving in front of it every time the silver bird attempted to charge an attack.  Lugia drew itself back, visibly annoyed, then beat its wings rapidly, stirring up a fierce whirlwind and knocking the sky guardian out of its way.  The silver bird then began gathering energy for another beam attack until a fireball stuck it in the belly, sending it reeling backward.  It snapped its head in the opposite direction to see Ho-oh soaring upward to meet it once again, flames licking the edges of its crooked beak.

Mewtwo paused, glancing back at the gold and silver birds locked in combat with each other.  It was only a momentary pause, though—within seconds, he’d gone back to ripping up chunks of concrete and asphalt with his mind, effortlessly tossing them aside.  And then, from the trees, a jagged blue beam and a jet of flames shot right at the clone, forcing him to loop out of the way.  A dazzling phoenix shot into the air, its wings scattering embers as it zeroed in on Mewtwo.  Seconds later, Articuno’s cry filled the air, and the cobalt falcon flew upward to join Moltres.

Weirdly enough, I was glad to see them.  Even though it was another reminder that we’d failed to save them.  Even though that might have been the only reason they were fighting Mewtwo, which meant that in some small, twisted way, I was actually glad that the Rockets had control of them right now.  It was completely messed up, and sure as hell wasn’t a reason to want the Legendaries to get captured, but right now, in this moment, it was fortunate.  If Mewtwo was busy with Articuno and Moltres, that would give people time to evacuate, right?

“Holy shit, you guys.  You really think this was worth letting Mewtwo go free?”  Starr asked, fixing me and Ajia with an incredulous glare.  “Cause I know for a fact the Rockets weren’t planning on using its power like this.”

“Starr, the only reason we made it out of Viridian base alive was because we freed Mewtwo,” Ajia calmly replied.

“Bullshit, you had Mew,” she shot back.  “You didn’t need to let Mewtwo go free.  But you two had been planning it all along, right?”

I swallowed hard and glanced away.  Of course we’d been planning to free Mewtwo all along.  And until now, I’d never remotely questioned if it was the right thing to do.  It just went without saying that he deserved to be free.  Which meant that in a way, the destruction of Viridian was our fault.  Except… the Rockets had started it by targeting the Legendaries in the first place—that had to count for something, right?  But the Legendaries weren’t even attempting to prevent any collateral damage, and to any unknowing observer it looked like the Rockets’ legends were protecting the city, and damn it all, why did this have to be so backwards?

“Don’t tell me you’re okay with the way Team Rocket brainwashed Mewtwo and used him to catch the others,” I mumbled, trying and not quite succeeding at driving away my own uncertainty.  Freeing him was the right thing.  It had to be.  Nothing made sense if it wasn’t.

Starr squinted at me.  “I haven’t figured out how I feel about that, alright?” she snapped.  “My issues with Team Rocket are all personal—the Legendaries have nothing to do with any of it.  But this?”—she gestured to the ongoing chaos—“This is not okay.”

<No.  It’s not,> Mew agreed.  <But neither Mewtwo nor Lugia intends to back down today.  No matter the cost.  They intend to end the threat.  We must stop them.>

My stomach dropped through the floor.  Would we be… actually fighting Legendaries?

Seeing the look on my face, Ajia quickly added, “Mew and I will try to stop them.  You and Starr should stick to the ground and find out how the Rockets are reacting to all of this.”

“You guys do know we had a plan for something like this, right?” Starr cut in.

All eyes turned to her.  She paused, then hastily added, “Er, the Rockets, I mean.”

<Any information you can provide will be invaluable,> Mew said, fixing her large eyes on Starr imploringly.

Starr blinked, obviously still having a hard time grasping the fact that a Legendary was right in front of us, asking us for help.  I could hardly believe it myself.

“Riiight, so…” Starr began, glancing back and forth at all of us.  “It’s pretty obvious Articuno and Moltres are both sticking to defensive tactics.  But their handlers will be nearby in case either gets knocked out.  The boss, the admins, and all the other important members will have already been evacuated through one of the secondary entrances.  Grunts will probably be moved away from the commons and to the storage and acquisition divisions—they have service elevators connecting to a few warehouses across town.  That just leaves the combat unit.  Bet you anything they’ve moved the ALRs above ground through the transport ramp, and they’re not going anywhere.  So if you don’t want them catching more Legendaries, that’s what you’re gonna have to deal with.”

“Destroying ALRs sounds a lot better than fighting Legendaries,” I admitted.

Ajia tapped a fist against her open palm.  “That’s perfect—if the combat unit’s defenses go down, they’ll have no choice but to retreat.  That way, no one will be captured.  And with the Rockets gone, the Legendaries won’t have any reason to attack Viridian.”

It was an optimistic plan.  Too optimistic.  But at the moment, that’s what we needed.

Mew’s eyes turned steely.  <I will take us closer to the battle.  Prepare yourselves.>

Within seconds, the surrounding trees and hills melted away into the tall grasses on the outskirts of Viridian.  From here, we no longer had a clear view of the city’s destruction, but the sounds—the explosions tearing through the streets, the blare of the emergency sirens, the engines revving from cars no doubt trying to escape—the sounds made it impossible to forget why we were here.

Ajia wasted no time in letting out her Aerodactyl and mounting the flying-type.  Mew glowed for a few seconds, then suddenly ballooned outward in size.  Arms, legs, and tail thickened; ears receded; wings and antennae sprouted, until finally the light faded to reveal golden-orange scales where there had once been pale rose fur.  The newly-transformed Dragonite gave her wings a few test flaps before turning to face Starr and me.

<I wish you the best,> she said.  <Both of you.>

Starr raised an eyebrow at that last bit, but Mew had already launched herself into the air, closely followed by Ajia on her Aerodactyl.

“Let’s get this over with,” Starr muttered, releasing her Arcanine and climbing onto its back.  An instinctive shudder ran through me upon seeing her like that—seated atop the firedog, wearing that stern expression.  In that moment, it was really, really hard not to see her as Astrid, no matter how badly I wanted to burn that image out of my brain forever.

I forced my eyes shut, taking a deep breath to steel myself.  Then I grabbed Aros’s Pokéball and released him.  The Flygon appeared in front of me, glanced around at his surroundings, then promptly tensed up when he laid eyes on Starr and her Arcanine, flaring his wings outward and hissing.

Damn it, I should have realized he’d have just as much reason to instinctively see her as a threat.  I carefully laid a hand on his shoulder, rearranged my face into one that was as calm and reassuring as possible, and said, “Aros, listen to me—Rockets and Legendaries are fighting over Viridian City.  Starr’s going to help us stop them, but I need you to—”

“*No.  No, I don’t like this,*” the dragon growled.

“I don’t like this either,” I replied, ignoring that our use of ‘this’ was referring to two entirely different things.  “But we have to hurry.  The longer we wait, the more damage gets done.”

Aros wouldn’t look at me.  His red-lensed eyes were fixed squarely on Arcanine, fangs bared in what probably looked like an intimidating snarl to anyone who couldn’t see right through it.

And then, in the same authoritative tone she’d always used as a Rocket, Starr snapped, “People are dying, Twenty-four.  Listen to your trainer and let’s get a move on.”

Aros drew himself back like he’d just been slapped.  The former head of the combat unit had just ordered him to listen to me.  He glanced back and forth between Starr and me, lost for words, but slowly lowering his wings until they lay flat against his sides.  I paused, unsure what his posture meant, but then a quick tilt of his head over the shoulder and it was obvious he wanted me to climb on.  So I did.

I didn’t want to ignore his discomfort.  I wanted the chance to talk to him about it, but right now was not the time.  Later—I’d talk to him later.  Even if the list of conversations I owed my Pokémon was steadily lengthening.

Starr gave a rapid series of hand signals to her Arcanine, and the firedog took off running north.  I pointed after her and, after a few seconds’ hesitation, Aros fluttered his wings and took off in pursuit.  We raced across the grassland, aiming for the forest on the northeast edge of the city, the sounds of the raging battle growing louder all the while.  It wasn’t long until we crossed the treeline and Starr motioned for her Arcanine to slow down as we approached the area surrounding the transport ramp.

The combat unit was here, just like Starr said.  Lights from their jeeps pierced the darkness, illuminating the ring of ALRs encircling the ramp entrance on flatbed semi-trucks.  All around the clearing, Rockets were scrambling, some of them taking up guard posts with Pokémon at the ready.  Others piled into jeeps and took off toward Viridian, while others still grabbed machinery from transport trucks before taking flight on their Pokémon, following after the jeeps.

As Arcanine shifted its weight, getting ready to leap forward, Starr glanced back at me and said, “You’ve fought enough Rockets that I’m gonna assume you know what you’re doing.  Stay out of the line of fire and don’t you dare get yourself killed, you hear me?”  She fixed me with an intense stare that didn’t let up until I nodded.

She gave a sharp nod in return.  “Good.”  Then her Arcanine dashed off so fast it was practically a blur.

I nudged Aros, and the two of us shot after her.  Arcanine led the way, barking out flamethrowers in front of us and forcing Rockets to leap out of our way.  It was dark, visibility was against them, and half the combat unit was busy dealing with rampaging Legendaries.  We actually had the advantage here, and damn it if I wasn’t gonna take full advantage of that.  Aros and I stuck close to Starr until we reached the ALR circle, then we broke formation and zeroed in on the closest machine.  I ordered a Dragon Pulse, and the Flygon breathed out a lick of violet dragonfire, but it just crashed against an unseen energy field with a wave of sparks.

So the ALRs were in barrier mode now.  But they’d have to drop the barrier eventually to let their transport vehicles escape the base.  That’s when we’d make our move.  Right now we had other concerns, though…

“Feint Attack!” I called out just seconds before gunfire rang out.  The dragon-type barreled out of the way, dark aura already flaring up.  I caught a glimpse of combat jeeps racing past us, full of armed Rockets, right before we faded into the shadows and slipped behind their lineup.

“Now Sand Tomb,” I ordered.

Aros dropped to the ground just long enough to dig his claws into the dirt, instantly dissolving a wide swath of land around us into quicksand.  He just as quickly bolted back into the air the instant the gunfire started up again.  The jeeps didn’t pursue; their tires spun uselessly against the sand.

A rush of satisfaction flooded my mind, mixing with the ongoing adrenaline shooting through my veins.  It was nuts.  I was supposed to be afraid.  I was supposed to hate this.  But the only thing I could think about was the next move, the next target, the next way to take advantage of the Rockets’ disorganization.

We swooped back down to fly past Arcanine, who was deftly leaping out of the line of fire with erratic bursts of Extremespeed.  Then a flash of orange caught my eye as Raichu shot out of nowhere—tail glowing metallic—and slashed holes in the Rockets’ tires.  Not too surprising that Starr was doing alright against them, but I was still glad to see it.

Nothing else took priority, so I ordered another quick Dragon Pulse against the ALRs.  Same result—how much longer was that barrier going to stay up?  We could only avoid the Rockets for so long.  And we didn’t have nearly the numbers to pull the same trick the Rebellion did last time.

An explosion of light burst from nowhere so close it practically blinded me.  I shielded my eyes, squinting as stars danced in my vision.  A Pokéball flash?  But how was it right in my face when there was no one else around?  Unless… it was one of mine.  Only one of my Pokémon knew how to break out of a Pokéball.

My heart sank through the ground as my eyes finally adjusted enough to see the Pikachu that had materialized in front of me.  Strings of lightning coursed through his fur as he surveyed the Rockets’ forces.

“Chibi!” I cried.  The hybrid’s ears twitched.  He turned his head just enough to glance at me out of the corner of one eye.

“*I told you I was going to fight them,*” he said in a low tone of voice.

My stomach curled inward on itself.  I had to do something.  I should have done something before.  Should have helped him.  Should have tried talking to him again.  Should have…

“At least stay close by so I can—”

He shook his head.  “*Not this time.*”  Then he raced off.

I swore under my breath before hastily grabbing a Pokéball from my belt and throwing it forward, releasing Stygian in a flash.

“Follow him,” I said, pointing.  “I’ll need you to bail him out if he knocks himself out.”

The dark-type nodded wordlessly before slipping into the shadows and dashing away.  She’d never failed yet.  In fact, she’d proven herself to be a master of getting out of tight spots.  And this was the perfect opportunity for her to abuse her Feint Attack to slip in and out of the shadows.  I didn’t have anything to worry about.  Just had to keep telling myself that.

A brilliant orange glow suddenly lit the clearing, and I jerked my head in its direction to see Arcanine spouting massive fireballs at the cargo hold of a truck attempting to leave the base.  A squad of Pokémon suddenly materialized nearby, half of them launching jets of water at the firedog and the other half extinguishing the raging flames.  Arcanine crouched down, raising a Protect around Starr and itself.  The Rockets’ refused to let up; their Pokémon increased the pressure on their waterspouts.  Raichu jumped in front and fired off series of Thunderbolts, dropping two of them before retreating behind the truck to avoid the Mud Shots launched back at him.

And then the important detail in all of that action finally jumped out at me: trucks.  Leaving the base.  The ALR barrier was down!  Had to attack while we had the chance!

I tapped Aros’s side and pointed at the closest target.  “Another Dragon Pulse!”

The Flygon’s dragonfire struck the ALR’s metal shell in a blaze of violet sparks and I couldn’t help pumping a fist.  Finally, no more pesky barrier to deal with.  Finally, we could do what we’d set out to do.

And then a sound caught my ears.  An unearthly howl, echoing in the wind.  A shiver ran down my spine, and I couldn’t help glancing around uneasily.  I knew that sound.

A waterspout burst through the trees, knocking a combat jeep flying backward so hard it flipped over in midair and landed on its roof with a metallic crunch.  Seconds later, a cobalt beast burst through the trees, gale force winds slashing outward from it, sweeping enemy Pokémon off their feet and slamming them to the ground just as hard.

I clenched my teeth.  Suicune.  One of the Legendaries responsible for this mess.  A major problem for the Rockets, sure, but I still wasn’t happy to see it here.  I turned back to check Aros’s progress on disarming the ALR and—my face fell.  The metal was glowing hot but had only just barely started warping from the dragonfire.  Dammit, this was taking too long.  Even in offense mode, these things were still ridiculously armored and almost impossible to take down alone.

A high-pitched wail split the air.  I whirled around to see the adjacent ALR firing a bright yellow beam at Suicune.  The beast staggered backward under the force of the attack, snarling furiously and opening its mouth to retaliate with a Hydro Pump.  Then Aros and I had to duck as the ALR we’d been attacking suddenly rotated its upper half 180 degrees to fire at the water-type.  Suicune let out a pitiful cry and sank to its knees, caught between the force of the twin beams.

Without thinking, I grabbed two Pokéballs from my belt and threw them forward, yelling, “Air Cutter, Fire Blast!”

Firestorm and Swift appeared in front of me.  Their eyes widened at the sight of Suicune paralyzed and howling in pain, but they knew better than to question things in the middle of a mission.  We’d trained for this.  A massive five-pointed blaze and a relentless flurry of wind blades joined Aros’s dragonfire in tearing through the ALR armor.

This was stupid, focusing all our efforts on offense while we were out in the open and could be attacked at any time.  I threw a glance over my shoulder and caught a glimpse of more Rockets approaching from the shadows of the forest.  Too dark to count them.  Had to flee.  Had to save Suicune.  Couldn’t do both.  Flashes of light signaled more Pokémon being let out.  We were running out of time.  Chunks of molten metal slowly slid down the ALR, exposing the machinery within.  We were so close!

Then the unmistakable sound of attacks crashing against Protect reached my ears.  Slowly, I turned in its direction, then blinked in surprise.  Arcanine, Feraligatr, and Rapidash stood firm between my Pokémon and the Rockets’, using the same alternating Protect technique that the Rebellion had perfected.  Starr barked out orders to Flareon and Raichu, who darted in and out of the fray, attacking with electrified punches and glowing hot fangs.

“We need to target both ALRs!” I yelled, throwing an arm toward the machine on the opposite side of Suicune.

Starr didn’t look back at me; her attention was held firmly by the battle.  But then, after several seconds, she called out, “FF, machine target, strongest moves!”

Feraligatr and Flareon broke from the lineup, racing toward the ALR.  Arcanine and Rapidash stayed behind to keep using Protect.  Raichu kept up the offensive pressure by switching to Discharge, catching both the Rockets and their Pokémon in a web of lightning.  I flinched and turned away—I knew what that felt like.  I didn’t need to see it.

Firestorm paused to catch his breath, embers dripping from his mouth, before pressing the attack once more.  Aros’s dragonfire was down to a narrow stream, only half as bright as it had been.  We had to be getting close—we had to.  On the second machine, Feraligatr’s claws tore jagged holes in the armor while the internals glowed white-hot from Flareon’s breath.  Both beams flickered once… twice… come on!  Just a little more—!

Finally, an explosion of sparks shot out of the ALR cannon as the top half of the machine literally collapsed inward under its own weight.  On the second ALR, the middle portion finally melted enough for Feraligatr to rip the cannon off entirely, instantly shutting down the beam.  We’d done it.

Raichu dashed over to us, looking rather self-satisfied.  A shiver ran through me when I saw that the entire squad of Rockets was now on the ground, out cold.  Without any more gunfire to worry about, Arcanine and Rapidash had rushed forward to engage the enemy Pokémon, unleashing a barrage of fire on all of them.

“I’m… I’m honestly surprised more of them didn’t attack us,” I said, my voice shaking from… exhilaration?  Stress?  I couldn’t tell.

“They’re a little busy dealing with number nine,” Starr said dryly, jerking a thumb toward the other side of the ALR circle.  Now that I was paying attention, I could see the occasional lightning flash in that direction.  So he hadn’t run out of power yet.  That was good.  Although part of me hoped that he would so he’d pass out and then Stygian could bring him back.

A low growl snapped my focus back to Suicune.  The beast took a few trembling steps, its eyes dazed and unfocused.  Then it shook its head as though trying to clear it before glancing around hurriedly, its gaze falling onto Starr and me.  The Legendary squinted as though trying to identify us.  Then its eyes went wide.

“Interlopers… I should have known,” it muttered.  “Your intervention is neither wanted nor needed!”  Just as pleasant as always, then.

Movement in the trees above caught my eye.  Dammit, what now?  Couldn’t we have five minutes without another problem showing up?

I barely had enough time to recall Swift and Firestorm before a mounted squad of Rockets on flying Pokémon dove at us.  Suicune took off running, firing a lightning-fast Bubblebeam volley that knocked three Pokémon out of the air.  The remaining Rockets broke formation, circling around the beast, those in front taking defensive positions while the ones in the back swooped in closer.  Light glinted off metallic devices strapped to their arms.  I squinted at one, trying to make out the details, when the Rocket wearing it grabbed hold of a handle with their opposite hand and pulled back sharply.  In the blink of an eye, an explosion of energy shot a ball straight at the water beast, instantly transforming it into bright red light.  I gaped at where Suicune had just been standing, where there was now only a violet Pokéball vibrating furiously on the ground.

The Rockets had Master Ball cannons now?  That wasn’t allowed!  How were we supposed to stop that?!

A Xatu’s eyes flashed blue and a psychic glow surrounded the ball, lifting it upward.  The ball.  Had to get the ball before the Rockets did.  Had to get the ball.

“Feint Attack!” I hissed, pointing forward.

Time slowed.  Dark aura flared up as Aros dove for the ball, wings straining.  The Rockets turned.  Their mounts charged up attacks.  Flames and poison darts and rocks shot toward us, missing their mark, the shadows hiding our true position.  Just a little further, had to destroy the Master Ball, just a little further—

The white glint of stars caught my eye.  I turned at the last second.  Too late—the Swift attack hit Aros’s left wing, sending our flight path spiraling out of control.  I clung to the dragon’s side as tightly as I could, desperately trying to keep my eyes on the Master Ball even as our surroundings blurred into a dizzying whirlwind.  A flicker of blue shot by, but by now it felt a million miles away and there was no way we could possibly reach it in time.

And then, in a burst of dark aura, a white-furred shape emerged from the shadows.  A blade flashed through the darkness, striking the ball and shattering it with a wave of sparks.

Yes!  Stygian had got it!  Suicune emerged in a flash of light, lashing out in snarling frenzy the moment it took shape.  Oh crap—no way was it in the mood to tell friend from foe.  Had to back off now.

Vicious torrents of water shot in every direction.  Aros darted upward, only narrowly avoiding one that passed so close I felt the icy mist spray against my arm.  I held tight as branches scraped at us until Aros burst above the treeline and into the open air.  I blinked at the sudden brightness assaulting my eyes, then glanced around quickly, trying to take in as much of my surroundings as possible.  I saw the streets of Viridian backed up with cars evacuating the area.  The news choppers hovering overhead.  People wearing brightly-colored uniforms—rangers?—flying on Pokémon, ducking and weaving through the chaotic sky battle, actually trying to calm the rampaging legends.  Squads of police Pidgeot patrolling the air above the major roads, using Protect to shield cars from flying debris as Mewtwo tore apart more buildings.  Still the same number of Legendaries flying around—good.  Or bad, in a way.  None had been captured, but none had left either.

Moltres and Articuno circled around Mewtwo like vultures, spouting fire and ice at him repeatedly.  The clone raised a psychic barrier, but the sheer strength of their attacks was making it spark and flicker with each strike.  Finally, Mewtwo turned to face the pair of birds, lifting an entire building over his head.  With just the tiniest flex of his hand, cracks shot across the walls, crumbling the building in midair.  Then, before either of the birds could make a move to dodge, Mewtwo hurled an avalanche of concrete through the air, knocking the pair to the ground and burying them in a makeshift Rock Slide.

But Mewtwo didn’t go back to demolishing the Rocket base.  He remained in the sky, scanning his surroundings for more opponents.  Lugia and Ho-oh were still locked in combat, trading wind and flames and dragonfire at each other.  For the moment, Mewtwo had no one to fight.  In fact, the only thing within his line of sight was one of the news helicopters that had strayed closer to the battle than the others.

Wait, he wasn’t going to…

The clone drew his arms to the side, charging up a blue ball of aura between them.

Seriously?!  Collateral damage was one thing, but now he was going out of his way to attack innocents?  I had to do something.  If there was even the slightest chance I could convince him not to…

Too late—I’d barely opened my mouth to call out to him before he fired the Aura Sphere forward.  I stared, frozen in shock as the orb shot through the air, zeroing in on the helicopter.  And then an orange blur shot out of nowhere, right into the Aura Sphere’s path.  The attack exploded in a burst of light, which faded to reveal a Dragonite hovering lightly in midair, steam leaking from its body.

“*You must stop!*” the dragon cried.

Mewtwo paused, turning to gaze at the dragon hovering in front of him and tilting his head ever so slightly.  Then his eyes narrowed.  <That form does not fool me.  I can feel your presence.  I know it’s you.>

Mew ignored his comment and simply replied, “*Nothing good can come from any of this.*”

Mewtwo turned away, refocusing his attention on the aerial combat unit squads gathering in the skies above the Rocket base.  He spread his arms wide, wisps of psychic energy leaking from his bulbous fingertips.

“*You’re only putting yourselves in danger!  Do not underestimate the humans!*”

In an instant, Mewtwo spun around and shot towards Mew, stopping right in front of her so that he was staring her dead in the eyes.

<I have no reason to fear the humans,> the clone said, his words slow and meticulous.  <I have captured myself in a Pokéball and hidden it where no one can find it.  I cannot be captured now, correct?>

Holy crap.  I had never thought about it like that, but he honestly had a point.  Not only that, but if we hadn’t destroyed Suicune’s ball… if we’d just let it out and kept the ball… the beast would have been immune to capture too.  Why hadn’t I thought of that?

“*You can still be defeated!*” Mew countered.  “*And imprisoned.  Even without a Pokéball.  And what will you do then?*”

Mewtwo narrowed his eyes.  <Just stay out of this.>  He swung an arm forward, already charging an orb of black energy in his hand.  But Mew put on a burst of speed and zipped away instantly.

A flash of flames and a burst of ice shot up from the ground.  No way—hadn’t the birds been defeated?  But then, sure enough, Articuno and Moltres soared upward, their wounds freshly healed.  The Rockets—they must have healed the two birds while Mewtwo was distracted.  Now the aerial combat unit squads were gaining altitude to join their Legendaries.  If they weren’t just leaving this fight to Articuno and Moltres, that could only mean one thing—they had Master Ball cannons.  They were going to capture Lugia and Ho-oh.

My brain froze up and instinct took over and before I’d even worked through my own plan, I found myself pointing forward and yelling, “Sandstorm!”

Aros’s wings buzzed into overdrive.  Dirt and dust and debris from the ground rushed upward to form a swirling vortex of sand all around us.  No shortage of material to work with—the storm grew and grew, fed by the rubble scattered across the city blocks to our west.  It clouded the sky, blotting out the moon and obscuring the Rockets and their Legendaries.  I couldn’t help grinning.  They didn’t have goggles on or anything—try taking aim at the legends in that.

And then a sudden rush of cold crashed against us.  Aros’s wings faltered with the impact, fluttering erratically for a few seconds before the vibration stopped and I felt them brush limply against my legs.  And for a single, heart-stopping moment, we were weightless, and then we were falling.

“Aros?  Aros!!”

All I could do was hang on for dear life as we plummeted through the trees.  Aros hit the ground, and the impact from the blow shot through me, breaking my grip and knocking me flying into the underbrush.  I landed in a crumpled heap, arms limp, head spinning, and pain wracking every inch of my body.

Damn it.  What the hell had just happened?  I grit my teeth, forcing all my effort into flexing each limb, one after the other.  Everything hurt, but nothing felt broken at the very least.  I took a deep breath and winced as I braced myself against the roots of a tree and slowly lifted myself from the ground.  First one leg.  Then the other, until I was on my feet, swaying a bit from dizziness and brushing snapped twigs and dead leaves from my jacket with scraped-up hands.  Once I’d finally got my bearings, I whirled around to find Aros splayed on the ground several yards behind me, his belly covered in glittering ice crystals.

Damn it, why hadn’t I been paying more attention?!  I’d already been pushing him hard all night and he hadn’t even wanted to be a part of the fight, and now this?

Wait.  He’d been hit from below.  We’d been attacked from the ground.  Our enemy was nearby!  In a flash, I recalled Aros and let out Swift and Firestorm, just as I heard footsteps sprinting toward me.

“Protect!” I yelled.

Both my Pokémon raised shimmering barriers around themselves, and I ducked behind them as an Ice Beam shot past me, right where I’d been standing.  Heart pounding, I glanced up to see a Rocket grunt jump out from the thick of the trees.  What looked like an ice-type Eevee—how had a grunt managed to get her hands on one of those?—stood pawing the ground in front of its trainer.

Just a grunt—no firearm.  No other Pokémon.  I had two, and enough experience in double battles to keep track of both of them.  Firestorm had an overwhelming advantage.  Swift could stay in the back and offer support.  We could win this.

“Glaceon, Icy Wind!” the Rocket yelled.

“Flame Burst; Air Cutter!”

Frigid air rushed toward us.  Swift took to the air and beat his wings rapidly, sending out blades of wind that cut through Glaceon’s attack, but not before a layer of frost had formed on both my Pokémon.  Firestorm stood his ground, retaliating with a blazing fireball, but the ice fox was quick enough to dodge.  The fireball landed in the bushes, setting them ablaze and casting a bright, flickering firelight throughout the trees.  Swift dove at Glaceon, hurling more wind blades at it and leaving dozens of tiny cuts on its frost-colored pelt.

“Ice Shard!” the Rocket ordered.

The Pidgeotto didn’t even have a chance to react.  A thin sheet of ice instantly formed on Glaceon’s head crystals, then shot forward like a bullet, striking him right in the heart.  I winced, practically feeling the impact as Swift fell backwards, crashing to the ground in an awkward heap.  Firestorm took that opportunity to spit another fireball at the Glaceon, who just barely managed to leap out of the way at the last second.  But this time the attack hit the dirt and exploded into a cloud of embers, singeing the fox’s coat.

Swift was struggling to stand, chunks of ice embedded in his feathers, muscles quivering from the cold.  And then he started glowing.  Feathers dissolved into a bright white light before his whole body expanded outward—talons thickening, wingspan doubling, head crest lengthening—until the light faded just as suddenly as it had appeared, and I found myself staring at a Pidgeot.  I blinked at him in surprise and awe, mouth hanging open.  He’d evolved?  He’d evolved!!

The Rocket swore under her breath.  Firestorm grinned wildly.  Swift—the Pidgeot—took to the air with a mighty flap and circled overhead, the firelight gleaming off his glossy head feathers.  And in that moment, I couldn’t help feeling really good about our odds.

“Another Flame Burst and Air Cutter!” I called out.

Swift was faster now—a single flap of his wings instantly sent a flurry of wind blades flying at our opponent.  Firestorm took a deep breath, gathering a bright ball of flame in his throat, but then—

“Mirror Coat!”

Oh no.  No no no.  Just those two words were enough to bring cold reality crashing back down on my head.  An iridescent sheen rippled across Glaceon’s coat as the fireball shot toward it.  Time slowed to a crawl.  I saw the fire fly through the air, striking the Glaceon dead-on.  A shudder ran through the fox’s body as it staggered backward… and then a blinding burst of shimmering light erupted from the spot where the fire had landed.  Firestorm’s eyes widened.  He took a half step back before the light consumed him.

I shielded my eyes.  Both from the brightness and because I couldn’t handle seeing him take that kind of attack.  When I finally looked again, the fire lizard was on all fours, coughing hard with steam leaking off his body.  My heart sank through the ground, and my hand drifted toward his Pokéball, until—

“*Don’t recall me!!*” Firestorm hissed, digging his claws into the dirt.  No way.  I had to recall him.  There was no way he could fight in that condition.  And yet… he was still our best shot at winning this fight.  And he’d been devastated the last time I didn’t let him help out against Team Rocket.  And he’d never forgive me if I recalled him now.

Slowly, muscles trembling the entire time, the Charmeleon dragged a foot forward and put his weight on it.  Then the other, until he was standing on two legs again, swaying slightly, body glowing with the red aura of Blaze.  I swallowed hard.  So it was decided—he was going to keep fighting.  I wasn’t in a position to play it safe.  If Glaceon could rebound our distance moves, then we needed to take the fight to it.

“Get closer and use Fire Punch!  Swift, use Aerial Ace!”

By the time Firestorm even managed to take a step forward, Swift had already closed the gap with Glaceon, beak glowing.  He struck the Glaceon once, then immediately followed it with an upward slice.  But he still wasn’t done.  While Glaceon was reeling, the eagle was already banking around for another strike.

“Ice Beam the Pidgeot!” the Rocket called out.

A frigid blue beam shot toward the flying-type, nailing him right in the belly.  Swift recoiled backward, shaking off the blow before diving at the fox once more.  But then a second beam fired at him, and this one hit a wing.  The Pidgeot’s eyes widened as his wing froze mid-flap, and he plummeted straight to the ground with a heavy thud.  But by this point, Firestorm had actually managed to stumble his way closer to Glaceon while it was distracted with Swift.  He blew out a fireball into his palm and drew it back in a fist before slamming it hard into the side of Glaceon’s face.  The fire went out with the impact, but he pulled his arm back to follow up with another punch.  Suddenly, his fist burst into flame right before smashing into the fox’s head crystals, scorching them black, the ice-type crying out in pain.

Firestorm paused, staring at his fist incredulously and at the flames licking his claws that had flared to life without him needing any fire breath.

“*I did it,*” he whispered.  “*For real this time!*”  And in spite of our situation, I couldn’t help but feel a swelling of pride.

Glaceon sank to its knees, panting hard and trembling all over.  The Rocket took a few steps backward, glancing back and forth between Swift and Firestorm.  We had her beat, and she knew it.

“What’s going on here?!” a voice called out through the trees.

The grunt’s eyes widened.  “I need backup!” she yelled.

Damn it.  Not more Rockets.  We’d only just barely managed to beat one.  This wasn’t the time for more!

An officer burst through the trees, running toward the cornered grunt.  Without warning, Firestorm spat a glob of embers at the ground near the newcomer’s feet before he could get too close to any of us.

“*Stay back!*” the fire lizard snarled.

The man jumped back, one hand on a Pokéball and the other hand on his firearm.  He glanced from Swift and Firestorm to the beaten grunt and her Glaceon.  And then his eyes fell on me, mouth curled into a smirk.

He leveled the gun at me, and my blood ran cold.

“*No!!*”

The next few seconds lasted forever.  I saw the gun pointing straight at me.  Saw the man’s finger tighten on the trigger.  Then his eyes abruptly slid to the left and his face twisted up in alarm.  Firestorm lunged, the man turned his gun on him at the last second, a gunshot split the air.  Then a spray of blood, a cry of pain, and horrified shouting as the fire lizard sank red-hot fangs into the man’s arm, his tail flame blazing with rage.  What the hell?  The other Rocket panicked; her Glaceon fired Ice Beam repeatedly, but Firestorm was unfazed, his body consumed by the blazing red aura.  Blood poured from wounds, claws slashed about in a frenzy, the Charmeleon held tight and refused to let go.

“Firestorm?  Firestorm!!”  I screamed.

And then he started glowing.  A blinding white light engulfed his body as it doubled in height and expanded outward.  His neck and jaws both elongated;  a huge pair of wings suddenly sprouted.  With a terrifying roar of pain and rage, the Charizard easily overtook the Rocket and threw him to the ground.  His jaws were still clamped around the man’s arm—snarling in fury, Firestorm jerked his head back, ripping the shredded limb off and throwing it aside.

“Firestorm, what are you doing?!!” I screamed, gaping at him in horror.

Still hopelessly reaching for the gun with his other arm, the Rocket gave one last frantic cry of, “G-get this thing off of me!!” before Firestorm slashed open into the man’s torso and oh my god what was happening.

“*Not again…*” the dragon muttered, oblivious to the man’s screaming.  “*Not again!!*”  He expelled a vicious blast of heat that enveloped the body under him, blackening the flesh.  The other Rocket had long since run off, which left Firestorm alone with the man’s charred remains, blood spattered across his face and claws.

I stood frozen on the spot, breathing shallow and limbs trembling and brain still trying to piece together what the hell I’d just seen.  My Pokémon, the one who had once been that helpless little Charmander, had just brutally murdered someone.  Someone who was going to kill us, but still.

“I—you… you saved my life, but… you… why did you… that?” I stuttered, still reeling with shock.  I’d never even imagined that he’d be capable of anything like that.  I couldn’t stop seeing it, even when I closed my eyes.  His crazed desperation in a blaze of blood, and—

“*First with my trainer in the city… then with you on that ship… I was always too weak to do anything about it, but not again!!*” the Charizard roared, looking practically deranged.

I took a step backward as Swift hopped between us, flaring his good wing defensively.  Pulling out Firestorm’s Pokéball, I carefully said, “Okay, okay, ‘not again’… whatever that means.  I’ll just, y’know, recall you now…”

“*No!  You can fly on me out of here!  Finally, I can do it!*” he exclaimed with a crazed expression.  No, definitely not.  I pressed the button on his Pokéball, and the fire lizard dissolved into a beam of red light.

I stood motionless, staring at his Pokéball in disbelief, part of me desperately hoping that I’d imagined the last two minutes.  But the evidence was right there.  My eyes unconsciously slid back to where he’d done it, and oh god why did I look.  The body was charred so thoroughly it might as well have been anything, but the blood splattered around it said otherwise, not to mention the arm lying ten feet away.  And in a weird way I was still glad he’d saved us, but for the love of crap, why this?  He was a Charizard; a single punch would have knocked the guy flying.

I sank to my knees, arms clasped around my middle, struggling to hold back a wave of nausea.  Eventually failing and throwing up onto the ground.

“Why… why did he think that…” I said, choking on the words before wiping my mouth on the back on my hand and furiously rubbing the hand into the dirt.

Talons cautiously stepped into my field of view.  Huge talons, not those of a Pidgeotto, but a Pidgeot.  Something about seeing my first Pokémon now standing over me, even if it was because I was kneeling, made me feel unbearably small and helpless.

“*He wasn’t able to handle the evolution.  And there are… some things he hasn’t told you about himself,*” Swift replied, his words slow and careful.

I didn’t ask what he meant.  I didn’t want to know.

Something touched me out of nowhere, and I flinched before realizing that Swift was resting his head on my shoulder.  “*It’s not safe here,*” the Pidgeot said gently.

All at once, something inside just broke, and I threw my arms around his neck, burying my face in his feathers.  And even in the midst of all this, the back of my mind kept screaming that we had to keep moving, had to get back to the fight.  Viridian was in danger.  The Legendaries were in danger.  I was in danger, if I just stayed here.  But right now, I wanted nothing more than to ignore all of that and just stay here, holding Swift like this forever.

After some time, I finally managed to pull away.  My eyes slid over to Swift’s frozen wing.  He couldn’t even fold it against his side—it was just hanging there, stiff and useless.

“Your… your wing,” I said lamely, pointing at it.

Swift craned his neck back to look at it.  “*I’ll be fine.  But I won’t be able to fly until it’s healed.*”

Had to get a hold of myself.  The mission wasn’t done yet.  Not until either the Rockets or the Legendaries retreated.  But then the cold truth hit me.  Aros was unconscious.  Swift was injured.  Firestorm was delusional.  Chibi and Stygian were elsewhere.  I couldn’t do anything without their power.

Maybe I could find healing supplies.  Unlikely, but worth a shot given that the Rockets were currently emptying their transport hangar.  Either that or meet up with Starr or find Stygian or any number of other things that didn’t involve sitting here feeling sorry for myself.

 “I’m gonna get back to the others and then I’ll heal your wing, I promise,” I said, grabbing Swift’s Pokéball.

“*Stay safe,*” the Pidgeot said as he dissolved into red light.

Everything still hurt like hell from the fall, but I pulled myself to my feet and set off toward the sounds of the ongoing battle.  I hadn’t fallen far from the Rocket base; it wasn’t long until I reached the clearing where the ALRs had been set up.  They were down to about half—Suicune must have destroyed more of them, although I couldn’t see the beast itself, and could only hope that it hadn’t been captured.  I saw flames and lightning flying through the air across the clearing, but I was too far to tell if it was Arcanine and Raichu… or Chibi.  If I could just get to them…  The only problem was the squads of Rockets patrolling the ALRs like vultures.  Without any Pokémon, I didn’t have a shot in hell at making it through.

But I had to do something.  I spotted an overturned jeep and crept closer to it, heart pounding the entire time.  Several crates in the back seat had spilled out when the jeep flipped and now lay scattered across the ground, some of them cracked, others half-crushed.  Maybe one of them had healing supplies?

Worth a shot.  My hands flew to the closest box, prying open its broken lid to reveal jars of battle enhancements.  Fished through the shards of a second box and found nothing but Pokéballs.  After that, communicators, scope lenses, power bracers, and none of this was helpful. There had to be something I could use.  Anything.  Some way I could help.  Some way to not be totally useless.

Last box.  Opening it revealed stacks of sleek, metallic arm cannons.  Master Ball cannons.  Dammit, those wouldn’t do me any good.

Or… would they?  Mewtwo was immune to capture.  Because he’d already technically been captured.  Why couldn’t all the Legendaries do that?

The staggering weight of that realization took several seconds to fully process.  I stood there, frozen on the spot while my brain attempted to work through the implications of such an idea.

This was what Stalker had been trying to argue.  He’d said that his side was catching Legendaries so the Kanto Rockets couldn’t get them.  At the same time, he was still willing to use their power to his own ends.  But… if someone else were to do it.  Someone with no intention of stealing their power and using it for themselves?

No.  It was wrong.  But… why?  It wasn’t wrong to catch Pokémon in general.  Why the Legendaries?  Because no human should even have access to that kind of power.  Maybe if their power was being abused?  But if it wasn’t…

Mew had said that she didn’t expect Mewtwo or the others to back down.  Not even if the odds were against them.  They’d do anything to end the fight against Team Rocket today.  But even if they managed to destroy the entire Viridian base, that wouldn’t end the fight, not by a long shot.  The boss and the other higher-ups were long since evacuated.  All this battle was doing was endangering both them and everyone else.

I had to protect the city.  I had to protect the Legendaries.  I had to do something.  And I couldn’t possibly fight the Rockets head-on.  But what if there was another way?  I was tired of doing nothing.  Tired of being powerless.  I actually had a chance to make a difference this time.  How could I turn that down?

I was running.  At some point I’d grabbed a Master Ball cannon and strapped it to my arm, and now I was running as fast as my legs would carry me, away from the Rockets, the ALRs, the entire forest.  I didn’t stop running until I’d reached the grasses on the outskirts of Viridian, and then I doubled over, gasping for breath but high on the surge of adrenaline shooting through my veins.

I couldn’t see Mewtwo.  Had Mew managed to drive him away?  Not likely.  In any case, he’d already captured himself, so he wasn’t a factor.  I could hear Suicune’s howling wind echoing throughout the streets of Viridian—so at least it hadn’t been captured, but there was also no way for me to get close to it without walking straight into ground zero.  And then there was Lugia.  Soaring low overhead, knocking Rockets out of the sky with only a light fluttering of its wings.  Aside from a few scorch marks, the bird looked practically untouched.  Just how tough was it?  If the fight had been going on this long and it still had plenty of fight left in it, then at this rate… it would either level all of Viridian or get captured by the Rockets, and I wasn’t willing to let either one happen.  It wouldn’t be expecting an attack from the ground, not when all of its enemies were in the air and all the ground Rockets were either evacuating or guarding the base.  And the Rockets wouldn’t have any reason to think that a rebel had captured their target before them.  I could escape into the trees.  I could actually save a Legendary all by myself.  Without anyone’s help.  Not Stalker.  Not Ajia.  Not even my own Pokémon.

I had to do it.

Lugia wasn’t looking this way.  Occasionally it raised a psychic barrier to block an attack from Articuno or Moltres, but that was easy to anticipate.  I had a clear shot.  I held out my arm and leveled it at the Legendary.  And then I froze, arm trembling.  My heart thundered in my chest.  Sweat dripped down my forehead.  My hand refused to move.

I couldn’t do it.

               Had to do it.

Had to leave.

               Had to put a stop to this.

It was wrong.

               It was the only way.

I pulled back on the handle.

An explosive force knocked me off my feet, shooting the Master Ball towards its target.  I didn’t see the hit, but I did see the look of utmost terror that struck Lugia’s face as its body transformed into blood-red energy.  It flailed its wings in a desperate bid for freedom, but nothing could stop the capture process now.  I flinched as a wave of horrified screeching assaulted my ears.  Then the energy was drawn into the ball, which snapped shut and fell to the ground, vibrating furiously.  I half-expected the ball to burst open any second.  But it didn’t.  It gave one last futile shake and grew still.

Lugia was caught.  No single fact mattered more than that.  Not the Rockets.  Not the other Legendaries.  I had done it?  Had I meant to?

The image of its terrified expression flashed through my mind, and I couldn’t help wincing.  If I was saving the legend, it sure didn’t feel like it anymore.  What was I supposed to do with it now?  Take it far away from the Rockets and Viridian City?  Explain that it was immune to capture just like Mewtwo?

My legs trembled as they carried me closer to the ball now lying motionless on the ground.  Gingerly, my fingers reached out to touch it, still expecting it to lash out at any moment.  But the ball didn’t move.  My fingers wrapped around it.  Still trembling, I lifted the ball to my face.

“*What…?*” a voice gasped in Pokéspeech.

I almost jumped out of my skin as I whirled around to locate the source of the voice.  My eyes fell on a small, yellow shape amidst the grass, lit by the light of the full moon.  Chibi?!  What was he doing here?!  Had he followed me?

“Chibi!  I can explain… at least, I think I ca—this isn’t what you think!” I stuttered, dumbstruck.  This wasn’t what it looked like.  What was it, then?  What was it?

The Pikachu just stared at me, mouth agape.  Finally, he shook his head as though trying to regain himself before hissing, “*What the hell did you do that for?!*”

What the hell did I do it for?  All my reasons and justifications suddenly felt hollow and trite.  It had made sense in my head, in a world where the consequences of catching a Legendary didn’t exist.  But in this world, where everyone I knew was so adamantly against the thing I’d just done?  I was the same as Stalker.  But was Stalker really wrong?  Ajia certainly thought so.

Wait… Ajia.  How would I explain it to her?  How would I explain it to Lugia?  Did I think it would be okay with this?  Did I care?

I only wanted to protect the Legendaries.  But they wouldn’t get a choice this way.  Capturing them took that away.  Even if their power wasn’t being abused… to steal their freedom, even for the sake of protecting them…

It was wrong.  Absolutely.  I wanted nothing to do with it.  I drew back my arm and hurled the Master Ball as far from myself as I could.

“*No, don’t!!*” Chibi shouted, absolutely horrorstruck.

The ball struck the ground and burst open, unleashing a brilliant surge of white light taking the Legendary’s giant form.  Lugia shrieked in surprise and rage, flapping its wings rapidly to steady itself in the air as it glanced around, frantically searching for its captor.  The avian dragon fixed its gaze on the Rockets in the distance, then suddenly whirled around to face me, its eyes blazing with unparalleled fury.  My heart stopped and my body froze up.  My eyes took in the sight of it charging a ball of energy in its mouth, but somehow my brain couldn’t piece together what to do.  I couldn’t move.  I couldn’t breathe.  I could only stare in paralyzed terror at the deadly beam of energy that was going to end me.

I was an idiot and I was going to die for it.

And then a giant lightning bolt flew out of nowhere, striking Lugia head-on.  The giant silver bird recoiled backward, its Hyper Beam flying off wildly into the air.  It blinked in surprise, as though it couldn’t believe what had just happened.  And then, slowly, it turned its gaze past me, to where I knew Chibi was standing.  I glanced back at him, dumbstruck.  The Pikachu was sparking wildly and out of breath, trembling all over.  He’d… he’d put his entire remaining power supply into that one bolt, hadn’t he?  And he was still conscious?

“*Please don’t!!*” he pleaded in between gasps for breath.  “*She’s not with Team Rocket, she’s fighting against them!  That capture was stupid and impulsive and it didn’t mean anything!  So please… don’t!!*”  Tears streamed down his face.

The birdlike dragon paused, and for a moment, it honestly looked taken aback.  At least… for a moment.  Then its gaze hardened.  It lifted Chibi into the air psychically before tossing him into the forest unceremoniously.  And then a telepathic voice filled my mind, chillingly bitter and overbearingly powerful, its sheer presence threatening to crush me.

<The half-legend speaks on your behalf, human.  But it does not matter if you are opposing the ones who seek to overthrow the legends.  Alliances mean nothing.  Ambitions run awry no matter the side.  It is all the same to me.>

It flicked a single wing feather.

The world dissolved into pain.  Psychic energy tore through my body and a blinding pain suddenly dug into every inch of me at once.  I was on fire, every nerve ablaze with agony.  I tried to clench my fists, cry out, do something, but nothing would respond.  I was helpless.  Drowning.  Couldn’t do anything, couldn’t see anything, my senses were gone, my body didn’t exist, nothing existed but pain—god, why wouldn’t it stop?  Couldn’t tell how long it had lasted.  Seconds, minutes?  Couldn’t keep track, thoughts wouldn’t flow straight.  Couldn’t do anything… couldn’t stop it… couldn’t keep going… Just end it now, Lugia.  Anything but this.  I didn’t want to… hadn’t meant to… no way to take it back…

The last thing I saw was Lugia’s eyes glowing in a void, terrifying, beautiful, and unreal.  Then everything faded to nothingness.

Chapter Text

After spending forever lost in a hazy void of nothingness, the tiniest bit of awareness slowly started returning to me.  How much time had passed, I had no idea.  Scattered images and senses drifted to the front of my mind—a dizzying patchwork of memories that I wasn’t entirely sure were mine.  A burst of cold before falling out of the sky.  Someone’s Charizard tearing a man limb from limb.  A giant silver bird soaring overhead, eyes flashing murderously.

Something deep inside gave a terrified lurch at that last image as a flood of memories spilled out of my head.  I saw a violet Pokéball strike the bird, and somehow knew that I was the one who’d thrown it.  Saw the terrified look on its face when it realized what had happened.  Saw that terror distort first into fiery rage, then into cold hatred as it flicked a single feather and tore my existence to shreds.

I sucked in a breath as my head split open again just from the thought.  That had actually happened.  I’d really done that.  And then Lugia had…  It had…

A thick haze of fear and regret suddenly flooded my mind.  No.  No way.  I couldn’t be dead.  No.  I was still here, wasn’t I?  And… and I could still move, right?  Right?  But… when I tried to, my body felt distant and unresponsive, like it wasn’t even there.  Almost.  A dull, aching pain consumed every inch of me, and the idea of trying to fight that pain was too exhausting to think about.

Wait.  If I could still feel my body’s pain, then—

At once my eyes snapped open and I sat bolt upright, then immediately regretted it as a wave of dizziness struck and I clutched my forehead for dear life.  I sat there, heart drumming uncomfortably and head spinning from the sudden movement, but most importantly, very much not dead.  Hard as it was to believe.

It took several seconds for me to pry my eyes open again and take a proper look at my actual surroundings.  When I did, I found that I was… in a hospital room?  With a Pidgeot standing next to my bed and an Absol sprawled out on the floor.

Swift beamed.  “*You’re awake.*”

“*Told you two she wasn’t gonna die,*” Stygian said, yawning widely.

The Pidgeot gave her a bemused look.  “*You were not so confident of that before we got here.*”  The dark-type scowled at his comment and rotated herself so that she was facing the wall.

I coughed as a random jolt of pain shot down my spine, followed by my legs clenching up and my vision going dead for a second.  Right, okay, sitting up—way too draining.  I slowly sank back against my pillow, willing myself to relax as muscles kept twitching and random senses blinked in and out.  Swift was saying something, but the tones were all distorted and I couldn’t make out any words without the tones.

“*—shouldn’t push yourself,*” he finished.

I gave him a weak smile.  “Wasn’t planning on it.”  But then I couldn’t help glancing around at the unfamiliar scenery.  “Where are we, anyways?”

“*Some human building,*” came Stygian’s muffled reply.  Yes, because that narrowed it down.  Shouldn’t have expected Pokémon to know or care about such things.  At the very least, the sunlight streaming through the drapes told me I’d been out cold all night (maybe longer?).  I glanced at my watch—it was a little past noon on Tuesday.  So I’d been out for less than a day, at least.  But sixteen hours was still a long time to be unconscious.

My eyes fell on Swift’s left wing.  It was folded at his side, good as new.  “At least it looks like whoever brought us here healed you guys,” I said.

“*Fed us too,*” Stygian piped up, only slightly concealing the satisfaction in her voice.

I smiled.  “That’s good.”

And then, I finally noticed the small, spiky yellow shape curled up in the blankets alongside me.  I stared at it for a few seconds, not entirely convinced that I wasn’t just imagining it.  But no, it was really Chibi.  I wasn’t sure if a part of me had expected to never see him again after he ran off during the fight, but…

“I’m glad you’re here.”

For several seconds, he didn’t give any indication that he’d heard me.  He might have even been asleep.  But then, the Pikachu’s ears flattened against his head.  Slowly, he turned to glare at me out of the corner of one eye.

“*Don’t ever do anything that stupid again,*” he growled.

I glanced away sheepishly.  He wasn’t wrong—it was stupid.  And now that I finally had a chance to think about what had happened, and how he’d reacted at the time… I’d really scared him, hadn’t I?  Almost as much as he’d scared me when he ran off.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

After a long moment, the hybrid relaxed slightly, ears lifting, fur lowering.  “*I’m glad you’re here too,*” he said quietly.  Then he paused, like he wanted to say something else, but was having a hard time finding the right words.  “*…I was lying.*”

I tilted my head, confused.

“*When I said that I didn’t need you,*” Chibi went on.  “*That was a lie.*”

Oh.  The conversation in Goldenrod.  The one that had hurt far more than I was willing to admit.

His paws gripped the sheets tightly.  “*I can’t lose you too.  I won’t.*”

I couldn’t really explain why, but I found myself reaching out and stroking the fur on the Pikachu’s back.  It was a weird thing to do, and moving my arm felt sluggish and unnatural.  But in that moment, it just felt right.  I half expected him to glare at me or swat my hand away, but he didn’t.  He didn’t protest either.  He just curled up into the sheets again, and within minutes, his breathing grew soft and steady like he’d fallen asleep.

I wasn’t quite sure how much time had passed, but eventually, the door swung open and in walked a woman dressed in a brightly-colored uniform covered in belts and pouches.  Her tired eyes and mile-a-minute movement gave off the impression of someone who’d been working all night and was only functional thanks to caffeine.

“Good, you’re awake, I was worried I’d have to come back later again.  My name’s Jen, I probably don’t look it, but I’m your nurse,” she said rather quickly while removing her gloves and washing her hands at the sink.  “Our staff’s been stretched pretty thin thanks to the disaster, and I just got back from working in the field, so you’ll have to excuse the getup.”

I blinked.  Her outfit was the least of my questions.  “Where am I?” I asked.

“Medical wing of Viridian’s Pokémon Ranger HQ,” she replied, grabbing a chair from the wall and pulling it over to my bedside.

Ranger HQ?  Not where I would have guessed.  Though it did explain the uniform.  But then the rest of what she’d said began stirring up memories in my still-clouded mind.  Things that had been there, buried underneath the rush of pain and fear from my last conscious memory.  The entire reason I’d been in harm’s way to begin with.

“Wait, what happened?!  Is Viridian still in danger?!” I exclaimed, sitting bolt upright.

She raised both hands disarmingly.  “Calm down, calm down, everything’s under control.  The attack stopped hours ago, and we’re all still busy helping out with the recovery effort.”

I settled back against the pillow, head already spinning and having to force back a wave of nausea.  I grabbed my face with both hands and took a few deep breaths to try to steady myself.  Why did something as simple as moving have to suck so much?  The nurse offered me a plastic cup of water and I took it gratefully, grasping it with both hands and downing it in just a few gulps.  It wasn’t until that moment that I realized I was probably thirstier than I’d been in my entire life.  I handed it back, immediately wishing I had more.  But she just picked up a clipboard and began writing something onto it.

“Why am I here?” I asked.

Jen raised an eyebrow.  “Well I don’t know if you’ve noticed your condition, but…”

I shook my head (ow, why) and said, “Er… that’s not—how did I get here?”

“Ahh, I know what you meant.  Your friends brought you here.  Anyway, enough worrying about that.  Your scans came back normal, but now that you’re awake, I need to run you through some tests.”

Scans?  I’d been scanned while I was unconscious?  I guess that made sense, but it was still a strange thing to hear.

“What kind of tests?” I asked warily.

“I’ve got to check your motor skills, senses, balance, coordination, reflexes—things like that.  If there’s any nerve damage, we want to know.”

I clenched my teeth.  Somehow, in the wave of relief I’d felt just from waking up alive, it hadn’t occurred to me that my current state could be permanent.  I really, really hoped not.

Jen went on to run me through a hopelessly long list of actions that seemed to go on forever.  Bending my limbs in certain ways, holding things, pushing against her hands, you name it.  She tapped various instruments on my joints to check the response and had me identify various sensations, from cold to hot to sharp.  And in between giving instructions and taking notes on a clipboard, she talked almost constantly.  My suspicion that she’d been up all night had proven to be correct, but when I asked why she didn’t just trade off with someone else, she said that everyone on the force had been working just as long.  Even after the Legendary attack had ended, the recovery effort wasn’t going to be over any time soon.

Standing up to check my balance was definitely the worst part of the exam, as my legs had apparently decided to become gelatin and refuse orders… at least at first.  With each movement, it was like they were remembering more and more how to be legs.  But by that point I’d started to feel lightheaded again and had to sit back down.

“So… how bad is it?” I asked, wincing.

Jen tapped her fingers on her clipboard with a thoughtful look.  “Well, you’ve got some pretty obvious psychic sickness, but thankfully it doesn’t look like there’s any nerve damage.  Looks like whatever got you was only trying to cause pain.   Oh, that reminds me—can you tell me what Pokémon attacked you?  None of your friends had any idea.”

My throat closed up and my heart dropped like a stone.  Couldn’t tell her it was Lugia.  Had to think of something else.  Anything else, but my brain chose that moment to conveniently forget the names of every other psychic Pokémon in existence.

“It was dark.  Didn’t see it.”

Jen tilted her head, and for a second, I was sure she was going to call me on the obvious lie.  But then she just clicked her tongue and said, “Shame, that would’ve made it easier to treat.  Oh well, like I said, no long-term damage, so you got off lucky, eh?  We’ll have you stay here another night to make sure, though.  You’ll probably feel random dizziness and numbness throughout the day but be sure to give a holler if anything worse crops up.”

I nodded softly.  At least doing that didn’t hurt.

“Anyway, before you leave—or whenever you feel comfortable holding a pen—I’ll need you to fill out some paperwork.  I got as much info as I could from the friends who brought you here, but I need a little more from you, plus your signature on a few things.  Also…”  She paused, and this time her expression grew more serious.  “I couldn’t help but notice you don’t have any legal ID.  Seeing as you’re a minor, that wouldn’t normally be a big deal.  But then there’s the fact that you have Pokémon…”

My stomach dropped through the floor.  Not this.  Not now.  I was supposed to have gotten a license by now!  But then everything had happened with Starr, and then we’d had to go to Johto and then—

Jen sighed, eyeing me closely.  “Look, technically our organization is separate from the Pokémon League, so while I could report you, League bureaucracy isn’t exactly my biggest concern, especially right now.  I just need to know if there’s any reason you shouldn’t have Pokémon.  Like if you had your license taken away, or—?”

“Of course not!” I cried.  “I just… I failed the exam, that’s all.  But that was a long time ago, and I’ve learned a lot since then!  You—you can ask my Pokémon if you don’t believe me,” I said, gesturing wildly in their direction even as my limbs protested.

But Jen’s face softened, and she chuckled a bit.  “Relax, I’m just giving you a hard time.   Just… do me a favor and go get your license after you leave here, okay?”

I stared downward, cheeks burning red.  “Right.  Okay.”  No more delays, then.  I was finally going to get one.  But first… “You said my friends brought me here.  Can I see them?”

Jen gave me a curious look, but then she stood up and said, “Alright.  I’ll send for them.”  Then she stood up and exited the room.

I didn’t have to wait long.  Even with my hazy time sense, I could at least trust my watch.  A few minutes later, the door swung open and Starr practically burst into the room, storming over to me with such conviction that I half expected I was about to be punched.  But instead she flopped down into the chair next to my bed and grabbed my hand so hard I thought she was going to crush it.

“Dammit Jade, don’t ever scare me like that ever again, you hear me?” she snapped, staring me dead in the eyes.

“I didn’t mean to,” I mumbled sheepishly, glancing away.

“Glad to see you awake,” Ajia said with a smile, shutting the door behind her and taking a few steps toward us.  Starr still had my hand in an iron grip and I suspected I wouldn’t be getting it back anytime soon.  And by now my mind had finally cleared enough to realize that I had about a million questions.

“How did you guys find me?” I asked.

“Number nine,” Starr replied.

I blinked, throwing a sideways glance at where he was sleeping.  “Wait, what?  How did he…?”

“Starr and I met up near the end of the fight,” Ajia explained.  “She wasn’t sure where you’d gone, and we were getting ready to go looking for you.  Then your Pikachu and Absol came running up to us, and… they said you’d been attacked by a Legendary,” she finished, her expression turning grim.

“We thought you were dead,” Starr said bluntly, fixing me with a very serious stare.

My chest tightened.  A distant, echoing shadow of the psychic blast radiated throughout my whole body.  I couldn’t help visualizing it.  Ajia and Starr following my Pokémon out of the forest and seeing me lying there, presumably dead, because what else could they have expected if I’d been attacked by a Legendary.  And Chibi knowing that it was my own damn fault, but apparently not saying anything.

“Did they… say anything else?” I asked cautiously.

“You implying there’s something else we should know?” Starr asked, raising an eyebrow.

I closed my eyes, massaging my forehead with my left hand.  “Never mind.  I’m still out of it.”  That answered that question at least.  But something still didn’t add up.  Even if they hadn’t revealed why I’d been attacked, what about the Master Ball cannon I’d been wearing?  That would have been a dead giveaway.

“What happened with the Legendary battle?” I asked, desperate to get my mind off that topic.

That question finally got Ajia’s eyes to light up.  “Our efforts worked.  You two plus Suicune took down enough of their offenses that once their evacuation was done, the combat unit gave up on trying to capture any of the others and retreated.  Mew finally managed to convince Mewtwo to lay off after that, and the others followed him.”

I blinked at her in disbelief.  Our efforts had worked?  We’d actually made a difference?  Part of me couldn’t help feeling cheated that I hadn’t gotten to see it.  And I still couldn’t help feeling like there had to be more to it than just that.  Lugia had left me alone—why?

“Mew told me you rescued Suicune, by the way,” Ajia added with a reassuring smile.  “She wanted to thank you, since you’d never hear that from Suicune itself.”

Right.  I had rescued Suicune.  Or at least, Stygian had, but I’d been going for it too, she’d just gotten there first.

“Hey, did you hear her?  We won.  You can stop looking so miserable,” Starr said, nudging my shoulder with her free arm.

I was about to protest, but honestly?  She was right.  There was no point dwelling on all the things that had gone wrong when so much had actually gone right.  All three of us were still alive, and none of the Legendaries had been captured.  It really was the best we could have hoped for.

“So why’d you guys bring me to the Ranger HQ anyway?” I asked.

Ajia grinned and held up two fingers.  “Two reasons.  Hospital was overfilled.  And I’m familiar with this place since my dad used to work here, I’ve got friends interning here…  aaaaand, rangers don’t really pry too much,” she added with a sheepish grin.  “Huh… I guess that’s three reasons.  Anyway, we brought you here, said you’d been hurt in the attack, and that was that.”

At this point Ajia grabbed one of the visitor chairs and pulled it away from the wall so she could sit facing both Starr and me.  “So Starr and I were talking while we were waiting for you to wake up,” she said.  Something about her words sounded rehearsed, like she’d been eagerly awaiting the chance to say them.  “We both think it’s pretty likely that after the attack, Team Rocket’s gonna be lying low for a while.  They’ve got a lot of recovery to do after this.”

I squinted.  Where was she going with this?

“So like, now’s the perfect time for us to team up and slow them down, while they’re having a low point,” Ajia went on, eyes shining with the same energy and enthusiasm she’d shown when she first came up with the plan to free Starr from Team Rocket.  “We can actually fight them together now, you and me.  Won’t that be awesome?”

Wait, what?  Why was she talking like we’d already decided that was how it was going to be from now on?  I mean, yeah, it was a nice idea, fighting Team Rocket alongside her.  But I still didn’t know if I even wanted to be in the fight anymore.  I’d finally gotten a chance to walk away from it all after the Rebellion ended.  And I hadn’t even gotten to decide if that was what I really wanted before being thrown right back into even more deadly situations.  The only reason I had even approached Stalker to join his resistance was because I’d wanted its protection.  And he’d just been using me.

This whole time… I’d just been a player in Stalker’s games, and now I was a player in Ajia’s, and what if I didn’t want to follow anyone’s plans?  I was tired of only considering how I could be useful to others.  Was that all I was good for?  Helping other people achieve their goals, while not even being important enough to tell all the details of how or why?  And yeah, okay, maybe it was an important goal, but still.

Starr glanced back and forth between Ajia and me, squinting like she was trying to figure something out.  Finally, she came right out and said, “Hey, uh, Ajia?  Me and Jade are gonna talk alone for a bit.”  I shot a confused glance her way, but she didn’t look at me.

Ajia paused, blinking in surprise.  She made eye contact with me, and I just shrugged, so she said, “Uh… sure?  No problem.  Just… come and get me when you’re done?”  She stood up, threw one last confused glance between us, and then walked towards the door.

“What was that about?” I asked once Ajia had left.

Starr sighed deeply and let go of my hand, allowing feeling to return to it.  “Look.  I don’t have any interest in opposing Team Rocket.  With my situation, I don’t ever want to see, hear, or think about them ever again.”

That was wasn’t too surprising.  I’d already kind of assumed that much.  Why did she need to say that now?

Starr went on, “And I’d prefer if you two didn’t go getting yourselves into trouble with them from now on.  But I know better than to expect that, so—”

“I don’t want to either,” I replied immediately.

Starr froze, staring at me incredulously.  “You don’t?”

I shook my head slowly, mind reeling.  Had I finally come to a decision on the question that had been plaguing me since the end of the Rebellion?

Starr stared at me for several seconds before closing her eyes and exhaling through her nose.  “Mostly because of me, right?”

I clenched my teeth.  “I’d be lying if I didn’t say yes.”  While the dangers of being captured by Astrid were a thing of the past… there was no denying the effect that she’d had on me.

She crossed her arms behind her head.  “No, I get it.  But I guess that kind of means we’re in the same boat.  In a way… I’m kinda glad you’re not buying into all of Ajia’s resistance crap—and no, not just because I hated rebels when I was a Rocket,” she added quickly.  But then her expression softened, and she glanced away.  “I just… was really looking forward to us traveling together.  And there’s no way that would work out if I had to deal with you going off to fight Rockets all the time.  I know it’s selfish, but I don’t care.”

Selfish or not, it was what I wanted too.  It was why we’d headed to Johto together in the first place.  I still wanted that, even with the various detours that had come up.  I wanted that more than I wanted to fight Rockets, that much was certain.

“Figured out how you’re gonna tell Ajia?”

I swallowed.  “Not quite.  She was so excited to work together.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty hard to say no to her,” Starr said, chuckling under her breath.  “Might as well get it over with.”  She stood up and walked over to the door, opening it and gesturing outside.  A few seconds later, Ajia walked in, still looking rather perplexed.

Starr leaned back against the wall and folded her arms.  “Right, so Jade’s not joining your resistance.”

“My resistance?” Ajia asked, giving us both a puzzled look.

“Yeah, you and all the Rockets that left with you during the revolt, and all that,” Starr said, waving a hand dismissively.  “You were talking like she was gonna join you guys, and she’s not.  So… yeah.”

Ajia glanced back and forth between us, confused at first, but then slowly, a look of understanding spread across her face.  She smiled awkwardly and said, “There is no resistance.”

She’d said it like it was some big revelation, but the significance was somewhat lost on me.  Starr, on the other hand, was gaping at Ajia in disbelief.

“What.”  Her voice was a flat deadpan.  “You’re… you’re kidding me.”  She stared at Ajia, as though waiting for her to confirm that she’d been joking.  But Ajia just closed her eyes and shook her head.

“But… you and all the agents who left us… you’re not… working together?  Sabotaging us with all your inside info?”

“We’d been planning on it,” Ajia said.  “Or at least… I’d been hoping we’d get to do something like that.  But it didn’t work out that way.”

Starr blinked repeatedly, mouth hanging open like she’d just had her entire worldview shattered and was desperately trying to find some grain of truth in what she’d been assuming all this time.

“What about the former commander?” she asked.

Ajia sighed and glanced away.  “We… had a falling out shortly after the revolt.  No one’s seen him since.”  She paused, folding her arms tightly around herself.  “The commander was the real face of the revolt.  When he left… everything fell apart.”

The room fell silent.  Twice, Starr tried to say something, but couldn’t find any words.  The Rockets had spent all that time paranoid that the Rebellion was led by their former Kanto Commander when no one had heard from him in over a year?  It was almost laughable.

“So like… you weren’t just bullshitting me when you said you weren’t actually that big a part of the revolt?” Starr asked, still disbelieving.

Ajia shook her head.  “I was just… Sebastian’s pawn.  And without the commander’s influence, none of the other deserters wanted to join me, so they all just…went their separate ways, trying their best to avoid being hunted down.  I still have a few friends on Team Rocket, and that’s where I get all my info.  But other than that…”

From the moment Ajia had first showed up out of nowhere on that fateful day I’d been captured by Rockets, I’d seen her as someone who was far more deeply involved in the fight against Team Rocket than me.  It just went without saying that she was part of something greater.  But in reality, it was just her, a couple of friends on Team Rocket, and Mew.

Ajia lowered her gaze to the floor.  “That was the lowest point in my life.  I was so, so tempted to just run away from it all.  Pretend it never existed.  Live my life far away, oblivious to what was going on in my home region.”

What?  None of that sounded like Ajia at all.  I couldn’t imagine her running away from anything, let alone something so important.  Which of course was hypocritical of me, since I didn’t want anything more to do with the fight against Team Rocket.  But Ajia… Ajia was supposed to be stronger than me.  She wasn’t supposed to feel the same fears and regrets that I had.

“But I couldn’t stay out of it for long,” she continued, looking up.  “Even moving far away wouldn’t keep me out of it forever.  If the Rockets get free rein to do whatever they want here, who’s to say that’ll be the end of it?  What’s gonna stop other gangs in other regions from doing the exact same thing?  The Rockets would make a killing selling goods to their own copycats in distant lands.”

“We already are,” Starr added with a scoff.  “Where do you think all the funding for the anti-Legendary tech came from?  Not out of our own pockets, that’s for sure.”

“You keep saying ‘we’ to refer to the Rockets.”  The words were out of my mouth before I’d put any thought into them.

Starr groaned exasperatedly.  “Jade, it’s been two days, give me a damn break.”

All this conversation was doing was reminding me why the fight against Team Rocket was so important.  I already knew that it was important.  That wasn’t the problem.

“I guess that explains why you were so hopeful that I’d join you,” I mumbled, tapping my fingers together.

Ajia nodded.  “Sounds like you’re pretty set on staying out of it from now on, though.”

Was I set on it?  I wasn’t sure.  I wasn’t sure of anything anymore, other than the fact that way too many things had happened this past week and I still needed time to process all of them, and I’d never get that if I jumped back in right away, and especially if it felt like it wasn’t even my decision.

“I get that you have to keep fighting them—you can’t exactly turn your back on Mew,” I said quietly.  “And I guess there’s six other people out there who are in the same boat as you.  I don’t know if you’ve met any of them yet, but they should be able to help you, right?”

Ajia opened her mouth to speak but then paused, heavily considering her words.  “Right.”

So it was decided then.  I wasn’t going to fight alongside her.  Part of me still wasn’t sure if this was the right decision, but there was no taking it back now.

After several seconds of silence between us, Ajia let out a sigh, putting a hand on my shoulder.  “I think I need to apologize.”  I sat there, staring blankly until she continued, “It wasn’t right to drag you into that mess even further.  That was the one thing I wanted to avoid when we first ran into each other last summer, and then I went and did it anyway.”

I tilted my head.  “I mean… you did tell me not to back then.  I decided to join the Rebellion anyway.”

She smiled weakly.  “Maybe so.  That didn’t give me a free pass to string you along for the past few days, though.”  She glanced between me and Starr, her face falling.  “You both had to go through a lot of pain because of me.  I know things worked out in the end, and I honestly thought that made it alright, but… it doesn’t.”    She bowed her head deeply.  “I’m sorry.”

Starr raised both eyebrows.  “Well, this is a switch,” she said, looking reluctantly impressed.  “I’m still pissed about the past few days but… I’ll get over it.  It’s pretty obvious by now that I needed this.”  She glanced away.  “So… thanks, or whatever.”

I stared at the floor, unsure of how to put my thoughts into words.  “I guess… I would’ve preferred not being in the dark all the time.  I get why you couldn’t mention anything about Mew, but even with the rest of it…”—my throat clenched up—“it felt like I wasn’t good enough to know anything.”  I hadn’t realized it at the time, had I?  But like most things, looking back at it hurt a lot more than it had in the moment.

“Yeah, no more of that secrecy crap from now on,” Starr added, glaring at her.  “We’re all on the same page now, right?”

Ajia glanced between us, her face slowly splitting into a relieved half-smile.  “Right.  I can promise that.”

Starr nodded firmly, as though glad that we had that settled.  “In any case…” she went on, folding her arms with a bit of a smirk.  “I hate to admit it, but it’s pretty cool that you’ve got a Legendary in your head.  If we—if the Rockets didn’t have a reason to fear you before, they sure do now.”

Ajia closed her eyes, shaking her head.  “That’s nice to hear, but nothing I’ve done is special.  All the access I had to the inner workings of Team Rocket was only thanks to the commander.  And anything I’ve done since then was only possible because I had Mew’s help.”

Starr put a hand to her forehead.  “Just take the stupid compliment.”

Ajia laughed.  “Alright, alright,” she said, rubbing the back of her head.  “Anyway, I guess now I’m wondering… what are you two going to do from now on?”

I glanced at Starr.  “We were planning on traveling around Johto.  We want to stay away from the Kanto force, and, well… make up for lost time.”

Ajia nodded.  She was smiling, but her eyes held an air of hesitation.  Like she wanted to say something but was holding back.

“Oh, just say what you want to say,” Starr grumbled, waving a hand in her direction.

Ajia clasped her hands in her lap, debating her words.  “Right.  So… I know I’m on my own when the time comes to fight Rockets, and I really mean it when I say I’m not gonna drag either of you into that.  But… I’d love it if I could meet up with you two on your journey… at least occasionally?”

My eyes widened.  “What?  Of course!”

Starr threw me an incredulous glare.  “Dammit Jade, how am I supposed to say no if you go and agree to it immediately?” she muttered.

I jerked my head toward her, blinking in surprise.  She wasn’t okay with it?  I hadn’t thought… I wasn’t trying to decide for her, but—

She rolled her eyes.   “I’m joking.  God, and people say I’m the one who can’t take a joke.”

It took several seconds for her words to sink in.  But when they did, I found myself laughing like an idiot and not even sure why, because it wasn’t exactly funny, but something about the deadpan in her voice and the way I’d walked right into it was hilarious in a way that didn’t make any sense.  I was laughing, and it hurt like I was sore all over, but I never wanted it to stop.  Then Ajia grabbed both my hand and Starr’s, and Starr tugged her arm in a half-hearted show of disapproval even though she obviously could have gotten free if she’d really wanted.

Five years.  Five years since the three of us had talked and laughed and actually been able to enjoy each other’s company.  No less than three days ago Starr had been my mortal enemy and Ajia had been practically a stranger with all the secrets she held.

And now the three of us actually had a road forward.  To heal from our pasts.  To find a new tomorrow.  Together.

The next day, I was cleared to leave the Ranger HQ, and save for some general pain and dizziness, the psychic sickness was largely gone.  I still had a hard time believing that I was walking away unscathed from a Legendary attack, but after the fifth time bringing it up, and the fifth time hearing Swift tell me not to worry about it, I was finally taking his advice to heart.  In any case, I had more important things to think about.  Like my upcoming training exam.

I’d left the Ranger HQ alone after insisting to Ajia and Starr, for what felt like the millionth time, that I’d be fine on my own, and that I didn’t want them to call me a taxi.  I could hardly blame them—I still felt weak, and it was almost certainly obvious in my movements.  But there was something I needed to take care of away from them.

It was easy to find an empty park not far from the Ranger HQ.  The air was cold enough that no one was outside, especially considering that the city still had yet to recover from the disaster two days ago.  I pulled out two Pokéballs, opening one of them to let out Swift.  The other was Firestorm’s.  Something told me I didn’t want to be alone while confronting him.  Not because I was afraid he’d attack or anything.  I just… needed the support.

“Has he even been out since it happened?” I asked, feeling the pit in my stomach starting to swell.

“*They let him out when they healed us,*” Swift explained.  “*They had to give him something to calm him down before he’d let anyone get close though.*”

Maybe he’d still be feeling the effects of whatever it was.  Since he’d been in a ball this whole time, his condition shouldn’t have changed.  I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, but it was… something.

I opened the ball.  The burst of light started to take shape, and half of me still expected to see the waist-height, red fire lizard standing in front of me, not the huge, orange dragon that he’d become.  But no, there he was, wings folded at his sides, arms resting limply on his belly, neck hanging low with his eyes on the ground.

He’d obviously been cleaned up since it had happened.  The only image of his new form in my memory was one with blood splattered across his face and claws.  It suddenly struck me that someone was dead because of him, and I immediately wanted to put him back in the ball and forget everything.  But no.  I had to deal with this.  And so, swallowing every doubt and hesitation and lingering suspicion that I could have done something to prevent his breakdown, I opened my mouth to speak.

“Do you want to talk?”

“*What’s there to say?*” Firestorm replied without looking up.

I shifted a bit.  “Well, I can think of a few things.”

The Charizard exhaled sharply through his nose but didn’t say anything for some time.  He just stood there, head low and eyes glued to the ground.

“*I know what you must think of me,*” he finally said.

I took a deep breath.  “I don’t know what to think.  Do you want to explain?”

“*I should have told you ages ago,*” he said through gritted teeth.  “You even asked me.*”

I furrowed my brow.  “What are you talking about?”

The fire lizard glanced away, eyes screwed shut like he’d rather be doing anything other than having this conversation right now.  But eventually he turned back and, without making eye contact, said, “*You’re not my first trainer.*”

I tilted my head.  “I… already knew that,” I said cautiously.

“*I never told you why I had to leave my first trainer.*”

I frowned.  “…Didn’t you?  You told me you were stolen from him.”

He flinched, claws balling into fists.  “*That’s not what happened.  We—my trainer and I—came to the first city on the path.  We couldn’t find the Pokémon Center, and… I guess we wandered into an area we weren’t supposed to go through.  These older guys showed up and… their Pokémon attacked me, just for fun.  I didn’t stand a chance… it was pathetic…*”

So far, it all seemed to match up with what he’d told me before.  It didn’t… seem like he’d lied.

“*I wasn’t strong enough,*” Firestorm whispered, his voice quivering.  “*I was supposed to protect my trainer.  I failed.  And it would have been me if he hadn’t tried to save me.*”

…Oh.

I exhaled slowly, searching for the right words to say, but everything felt hollow and tactless.  “Your trainer… he’s dead, isn’t he?”

Slowly, the Charizard nodded.

“Were you two close?”

Much to my surprise, the dragon let out a low, raspy laugh.  “*No.  He was only my trainer for a few days.  But why should that matter?  I didn’t serve my trainer well, I didn’t protect him, I didn’t do anything.  I never have—even with you.*”

How could he say something like that?  “I don’t get it—how have you failed me?”  I regretted the question almost immediately.

“*Are you joking?*” Firestorm asked, lifting his head and staring me dead in the eyes.  “*How many times have the Rockets almost killed us and I haven’t been able to do anything about it?  Do you know how many times I’ve re-lived that day?  Do you know how many times I’ve seen you lying on the ground, dead?*”

I took a half step back, pulse quickening, fears and regrets flashing through my mind.  Times I’d felt the same as him.  Deaths that I could have, should have done something to prevent.  But… no.  No more of that.  I’d been down that road.  I’d blamed myself enough.  It only led to pointless misery.

I stepped forward, struggling to keep my face calm and collected.  “It’s not your fault that you couldn’t protect me before.  You didn’t need to do what you did back in the forest,” I said quietly.

Slowly, he lowered his gaze to the ground once more, looking utterly miserable.  “*It was the first time I was able to protect you.*”

I put a hand to my forehead.  “Firestorm, that’s…  I already told you a long time ago, didn’t I?  You honestly can’t expect yourself to get me out of every crazy situation that I get myself into.  And I don’t want you considering what you did last night as your only success in a history of failing at life or something.”

“*I was always too weak to kill.*”

I paused, staring at him directly, a chill running down my spine.  “Firestorm, what are you talking about?”

He twiddled his claws, tail lashing back and forth.  “*Anyone who would kill my trainer… I wanted them to die.  But the thought scared me because I was too weak to handle it.  I was hoping that once I evolved, I could—*”

“Do you feel stronger now?”

He looked up at me with a broken expression.

“We could sit here and try to work out the morals of killing Rockets all day, but I’m more concerned about you,” I said harshly.  “I don’t want you protecting me if it means obsessing over it and losing yourself.”

Firestorm turned away again, unable to meet my eyes.  A tangible silence fell over the area as he stared at the ground in deep thought.

“*…I don’t feel stronger,*” he said finally.  “*And… that’s not what I wanted to be like when I was finally able to protect my trainer.  Not even strong enough to control myself?  I just… no… it’s not what I wanted.*”

I let out a long breath and slowly took another step closer.  “Look, I’m… sorry that you had to go through that… with your old trainer.  I should have realized something was up.  Looking back, it’s pretty obvious how it affected you.”  So many signs.  So many things I’d brushed aside.  Careless mistakes that had led to someone’s death.  “I want to be a better trainer for you.  If you felt like you had failed me, well… I didn’t do the greatest job telling you otherwise.”

One last step and I was able to put a hand on the Charizard’s shoulder.  It was weird standing so close to eye level with him.  Just last summer he’d been that wide-eyed, naive little Charmander.  Now, all these months later, he was taller than me.

“Just… please promise me you won’t lose yourself again.  It… hurt to see you like that.”

Firestorm didn’t reply.  But then, slowly, he lifted his arm to lay his claws over my hand, squeezing gently as he gave a small nod.  We stood there for a long time—wordless, motionless, not even making eye contact.  And yet I didn’t want it to end.

“Come on,” I said finally.  “We’ve gotta head to the other side of town.  I figured it would be a good chance for Swift to teach you how to fly.”  At my words, Swift, who had been silently watching us this whole time, stepped forward to stand alongside us, giving a light flutter of his wings.  Firestorm craned his neck back to look at his own wings and flexed them experimentally, as though he’d only just now noticed that he could actually control them.  Then he turned back to face me and Swift, eyes relaxing for the first time since his evolution.

“*I’d like that.*”

Chapter Text

I arrived at the League registration office and barely even had to wait—it wasn’t as if very many people applied for their license in November.  And I was already in the system as having passed all the required classes.  All that was left was the exam.  The dreaded exam that had thwarted my last two attempts to become a trainer.

As the examiner led me into the back room, I expected to feel… something.  Fear.  Anxiety.  The pain of past failure burning a hole in the back of my mind.  But now?  After everything I’d been through?  Enduring countless battles, calming unruly experiments, facing down raging Legendaries?  This was nothing.

The test ran through everything from wild Pokémon interactions, trained Pokémon handling, conflict resolution, trainer interactions, League policies, Pokémon rights, and yes, even the dreaded battling that had once been the bane of my existence.  Two hours later and the results were in my hands and I was staring down at a passing grade.  For years I’d imagined how this moment would feel.  I’d imagined it would be my grandest triumph, finally beating the unjust system that had kept me trapped in Viridian for two long years.  But now, in the moment… I mostly just felt relieved to finally have it finally over with.  No rush of excitement.  No explosion of joy.  Just… relief.

I was finally, finally going to be a real Pokémon trainer.  And I’d done it before my fifteenth birthday, just like I’d said.

So I told the staff I wouldn’t be needing a starter Pokémon, as I already had one lined up elsewhere.  The first Pokémon registered under my ID would get logged as my starter, in this case.  It only seemed fitting that it should be Swift—the only one who had been with me since before it all began.

I’d pick up a Pokédex later.  I’d need one if I wanted access to things like the automatic payment system, online storage system, or automatic Pokémon registration.  And I’d want those things eventually, but for now, just having a trainer ID was enough.

And so I found myself walking down the streets of Viridian, staring at the glossy card in my palm, part of me still not convinced that it was real.  What next?  There were almost too many options.  I could go meet up with Ajia and Starr right away.  I could finally follow up with the texts that Darren had sent me.  I could call home and show that I’d finally upheld my end of the bargain, the one that had gotten me allowed to go on this journey in the first place.  But first, and perhaps most importantly, I had to share the news with my Pokémon.  After all, this was going to have a big impact on their lives from now on.  And… there was still one thing I hadn’t considered until now—the experiments.  All three of them had only joined me because I’d been fighting Team Rocket.  Turning my back on that fight meant saying goodbye to the one thing that had brought us together.  And for all I knew, it was the only thing keeping us together.  The sooner I told them, the better.  And if they wanted to leave, then…

I sighed.  No sense putting it off.  I veered off from the sidewalk into an open lot between two buildings.  Then I grabbed all five of my Pokéballs and opened them.  Seeing them now, lined up together—Pidgeot, Charizard, Pikachu, Flygon, Absol—I couldn’t help but feel a swelling of pride in the team I’d brought together throughout the past few months.  Even if a few of them might not be around for much longer.

“*So you two really evolved, huh?*” Aros asked, tilting his head to get a good look at Swift and Firestorm.  The latter blushed and glanced away, his evolution obviously still a sore topic.

“*Well, congrats,*” the Flygon went on.  “*Our fights might be a bit fairer now.*”  He smirked.  As if he cared at all about having a fair fight.

“So, I’ve got a bit of an announcement,” I said, holding up my trainer ID for all of them to see.  “I’m finally a real Pokémon trainer.”

The significance of this was lost on the experiments, whose expressions varied between confusion and apathy.

“*You weren’t a trainer before?*” Aros asked dismissively.  “*Then what were you?*”

But before I could figure out how to answer that, Firestorm cut in with, “*You passed the test?*”  His eyes glinted with an enthusiasm that I hadn’t yet seen on his face as a Charizard.

“*I knew you’d be able to do it someday,*” Swift added, beaming.

It was silly, but seeing my first two Pokémon looking so proud of me, well… now I really couldn’t help but feel proud of it.  Even if it wasn’t that big a deal—the kind of accomplishment that kids three years younger than me commonly pulled off.

Aros glanced back and forth between us, still confused.  “*Huh.  So you’re a trainer now, or whatever.  Does that actually change anything?*”

I almost chuckled under my breath.  “No not really.  Just makes things easier for me, that’s all.”  But then my mind snapped back to what I’d really called them all out to tell them.  “It’s… not the only news, though,” I went on slowly, my mouth going dry.  “I’m still going to be training in Johto, but I’m not going to be meeting up with Stalker and I’m not joining his resistance.”

The Flygon tilted his head, antennae twitching.  “*Why not?*”

I exhaled slowly through my nose.  “He’s… on the Johto force.  He was just using us to get back at the Kanto force.  He wasn’t trying to protect the Legendaries—his force has been catching them after we save them.”

That got more of a reaction out of everyone.

Firestorm jerked his head toward me.  “*What?*” he asked, eyes wide.  “*You can’t be serious.*”

Unsure of what else to say, I just nodded.  Several seconds passed with nothing but stunned silence from all of them.

“*I’m so sorry,*” Swift said, lowering his head.  “*That must have been hard to learn.*”

I clenched my fists and looked away.  “Yeah, it… it definitely hurt.”

“*So that’s why you’re not going to fight Team Rocket anymore?*” Stygian asked, fixing her large, crimson eyes on me.

Aros jolted, throwing a glance at the Absol.  “*Wait, you knew about this?*”

“*Just the part about leaving the fight.  I didn’t know about Stalker.*”  Right, she’d been in the room when I’d told Ajia.  So had Chibi, for that matter.  My eyes slid toward the Pikachu, who hadn’t given any visible reactions to anything so far.  He was just staring at the ground, deep in thought.

“*Wait, but… what does this mean for us?*” Aros went on, still confused.  He glanced back and forth between Stygian and Chibi, then back at me with an imploring look.

I sighed.  “Well… I know you three joined me because that’d give you the opportunity to strike back against Team Rocket.  You won’t be able to do that if you stay with me now.  So… I guess what I’m saying is you’re free to go, if you want.”

“*Go where?*” the Flygon asked blankly.

I shrugged.  “I don’t know.  You’re all strong Pokémon, you could probably live wherever you wanted.  I guess we can look up where your kind is from, if that’s what you mean.”

He shook his head, tail lashing back and forth.  “*That’s not…*”  His voice trailed off.

Stygian gave him a rough nudge with her shoulder.  “*Just say what’s on your mind,*” she said bluntly.

The Flygon shot a glare at her, but then stared downward, twiddling his claws.  Finally, he said, “*I don’t want to live in the wild.*”

I blinked.  “I mean, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” I added quickly.

Aros flattened his wings.  “*But I can’t just stay with you if you’re not fighting the Rockets anymore.*”

Firestorm gave him a skeptical look.  “*Why not?*”  I couldn’t help wondering the same thing.

The Flygon squinted at us from behind his red eye lenses.  “*How am I supposed to…?  How would I ever…*”  He let out a frustrated huff and vibrated his wings to float a couple dozen yards from us, sulking over by one of the buildings lining the lot.  Stygian stared after him as he left, shaking her head slightly.

“What about you?” I asked her.

She turned to face me, considering me carefully.  “*I’d be fine with the wild.  He’s just soft.  Couldn’t even catch his own prey.*”

I winced.  Well that seemed a bit harsh.  Lots of human-raised Pokémon had trouble with that, and it wasn’t exactly hard to see why.

“*That whole ‘needing to get back at the Rockets’ thing has always been an excuse,*” she went on.

“What’s stopping him from just staying, then?” I asked her.

The Absol pawed the ground, furrowing her brow.  “*Well… okay.  There’s a bit more to it than that.  But that’s the gist of it.*”

I stared.  That really didn’t answer my question at all.  But by now Aros was looking back at us from where he’d flown off to, swishing his tail fan in agitation.  Stygian let out a sigh, then trotted over to him.  The two experiments conversed away from the rest of us for a few minutes while I just stood there feeling awkward.  Firestorm made eye contact with me and gave a clueless shrug, so at least I wasn’t the only one confused.  I glanced down at Chibi, who still hadn’t said anything.  He didn’t give any sign that he was going to, either.  Which meant that it was probably best if I speak with him alone, like we usually did.

“*Just go if you want to, then!*” Aros yelled out of the blue, grabbing all of our attention.

Stygian smacked his leg with a paw.  “*Idiot!  I’m not leaving without you.*”

I jammed my hands in my pockets and did my best to look like I hadn’t noticed.  And I was suddenly struck by the realization that out of all my Pokémon, I knew the two clones the least.  Sure, Chibi wasn’t very open with his emotions, and Firestorm had held his fair share of secrets until recently.  But at least I knew them.  And, well, it kind of made sense.  The two of them hadn’t even technically been on my team until… what, five days ago?  Longest five days of my life, but still.

After several minutes, the two clones slowly made their way back to the rest of us.

“So… is it alright if I ask what that was about?” I asked, halfway expecting to get chewed out just for asking.

Aros snapped his eyes to mine, wings flaring.  “*Look, I could live in the wild just fine if I wanted to.  I just don’t want to,*” he said, pointing a claw at me.

I really didn’t believe that at all anymore, but I nodded to spare his feelings on the matter.

The Flygon relaxed slightly, lowering his wings.  He glanced once at Stygian, then back to me.  “*Okay, look…  If we’re gonna stay with you, then you owe it to us to do something that isn’t boring.*”

I blinked, completely not expecting that kind of one-eighty.  I flashed a questioning look at Stygian, as if to ask ‘what the heck did you say to him?’, but the Absol didn’t respond.

“We’d… be traveling across the region,” I began slowly.  “Seeing new places.  Having new experiences.”

Aros cocked his head to the side, unimpressed.

“…And battling new opponents, yes,” I added.  Typical.

The Flygon exhaled sharply through his nose, giving a curt nod.  “*That is acceptable.*”

I gave a sigh of relief and smiled weakly.  “Alright, glad to have that settled.  And… thanks.  I appreciate it.”  That last part was mostly directed at Stygian, who just shrugged dismissively.

I recalled all of my Pokémon except for Chibi.  And I was about to ask him his thoughts on the news, but then… something occurred to me.  Something else I’d been wondering since I’d first woken up after the attack.

“Can I ask you… what you think of me?  After what I did to Lugia.”

The hybrid took several seconds to mull the question over.  “*I think you were an idiot.  But you already knew that,*” he said simply.

 That was it?  Nothing about how I’d basically betrayed the cause that we’d dedicated ourselves to for months?  How I was the same as the Rockets?

“Nothing else?”

He opened a single eye and peered at me through its corner.  “*I trust you had your reasons.  I also trust you know to never do anything that stupid ever again.*”

He wasn’t wrong.  I’d done what was probably the stupidest thing I’d ever done in my life.  And yet, I’d survived.  How?  That single nagging question had returned in full force.

“Did you see what happened after I blacked out?”

He shook his head.  “*After Lugia threw me away, I ran to get Stygian and your friends.  By the time we got back, Lugia was gone.*”

“What about the Master Ball?”

“*I wasn’t exactly looking for it.  I had more pressing concerns,*” he said flatly.

I rubbed the back of my head.  “Eh… right.”  In any case, that wasn’t the main reason I’d wanted to talk to him in private.  “So… when I asked the others if they were alright with me leaving the fight…  What are your thoughts?” I asked, already anxious to hear his answer.

He stared at me, unblinking.  “*You know I can’t just ignore what they’re doing to the Legendaries.  It’s too big a part of what I am.*”

I closed my eyes.  “I know.”

Several seconds passed.  He let out a sigh and then said, “*But I don’t want it to be all that I am.*”

My eyes snapped open, meeting his.  The hybrid’s gaze had softened, his ears raised slightly.

“*It’s like you said.  I want to live for myself.  It’s what he would’ve…  It’s what I want.  But I have to discover what that means first.*”  He paused.  “*Same as you.*”

Chibi had a point.  After all, that was what I was planning right now, wasn’t it?  Traveling around, finding my own path as a Pokémon trainer, free from the pain and trauma of the past.

Hesitantly, I replied, “I’d like it if we could both figure out what that means… together.”

He smiled faintly, giving a slow head shake.  “*We can’t hide from the past forever.*”

“Maybe not.  But I think we deserve a break,” I said, giving a weak smile of my own.

I held out my hand, just the same way I had when I’d asked him to join me in the fight so long ago.  And now I was asking him to join me in leaving the fight.

The Pikachu stared at my hand for a long while.  Finally, he reached out a paw and said, “*You’re probably right.*”

My next destination took me to Route 8, past the expansive urbanization of Saffron and over the rolling grasslands crisscrossed with roads that led towards Lavender on the coast.  I’d flown this same path plenty of times—mostly when returning to Midnight Island from Celadon HQ—but it had always been at night, and I’d never quite gotten to appreciate the waves of gold sweeping through the fields with the wind.

It wasn’t hard to find Darren.  Since we were still using R-coms for communication, I had the exact coordinates.  I pointed out a cluster of trees running along the trainer path, and Swift folded his wings back to spiral down towards it.  I clutched his feathers tightly as we descended.  I still hadn’t quite gotten used to how much swooping momentum there was to his flight—nothing like the straight-line hovering of Aros’s insect-like wings—and there were times it felt like I was going to slide right off his back.  But the Pidgeot levelled out his flight gradually, and the two of us landed softly on one of the dirt paths that cut through the grassland.  Not too far from us, I spotted Darren reclining against his Venusaur, who appeared to be napping against a tree.

“Hey, good to see you’re not dead,” he said, waving as I walked over.

I snorted.  “That’s more relevant than you know.”

His face fell.  “Oh geez.  And here I thought we were done with that.  But I guess you said you were joining Stalker in Johto, huh?”

I shook my head.  “Not anymore, I’m done with Stalker.  This was a different thing.  And it’s… kind of the reason I ditched you in Lavender,” I said sheepishly.

 “Yeah, I was starting to think you weren’t just getting your license,” he said, chuckling a bit.  “Guessing it was something more important?”

I grimaced.  “Yeah, I… there was a bit of an emergency situation with an old friend of mine.  It’s hard to explain, but—”

The awkwardness on my face must have been blatantly obvious, because he cut me off with, “You don’t gotta tell me if you don’t want to.  But did it work out in the end?”

I blinked.  I hadn’t really been expecting that kind of question, but looking back at it… all the fear, all the pain, all the stress from the past few days, and in the end, things had mostly worked out.

“Yeah.  It did.”

He folded his arms behind his head and grinned.  “Sounds like it was worth it then.  Better than we can say about some of our missions.”

I couldn’t help giving a small laugh.  “You can say that again.  In any case, you weren’t wrong about one thing.”  I reached into my pocket and held up my shiny new trainer’s license.

Darren’s eyes lit up.  “Heeyyy, nice job, told you you’d pass,” he said, elbowing me lightly.

“Yeah, I really shouldn’t have waited this long, but… I’m just glad to have it done with,” I said with a relieved grin.

Darren nodded, putting a hand to his chin.  “So what’s your plan now?  Gonna do the Kanto League with Rudy?  Well, wait, you said you didn’t want to go into competitive battling, right?”

I winced.  I would’ve had to explain it eventually, even if I didn’t want to.  “Actually… that situation I mentioned with my old friend.  It’s not really safe for either of us here in Kanto.  And she doesn’t really have anywhere to go, so… I told her I’d be sticking with her.”

Darren gave me a sideways glance.  “Only came back to say you’d be ditching us again, I see how it is,” he said with a smirk.

I opened my mouth to protest, but before I could get the words out, he cut me off with, “I’m just messing with you.  It’s not like you said you’d be traveling with us or anything.”

“I was gonna say,” I said, laughing slightly.  “You had me worried there.”

Darren leaned back against Venusaur, idly stroking the reptile’s leaves.  “Besides, I’ll be sticking with Rudy.  He acts like he doesn’t want me following him, but he hasn’t told me to leave yet.”

I glanced around.  “Where is Rudy, anyway?”

“Out in the tall grass that way,” Darren said, pointing toward the hills to the south.

“Cool, thanks.  I’m gonna go talk to him,” I said, setting off in that direction.

“Also, just so you know, I’m not letting you off the hook for those two Pokéballs,” Darren called after me.

I spun around and called back, “Wasn’t expecting you to.  Since I’ve got my license now, I can actually make good on that.”

I trudged through dry, crunchy grass that reached up to my knees.  A pair of Growlithe atop the nearest hill leered down at me as though looking for a fight, but then saw that I didn’t have any Pokémon out and realized they probably weren’t going to get one.  Then something grabbed their attention and they tore off into the grass.

I continued walking deeper into the field until a flash of black caught my eye off in the distance.  I squinted at it until I was able to make out the form of a lithe, black dog leaping in and out of the grass.  A Houndoom.  So I was close.  Sure enough, once I rounded the hill, there he was, dressed in a winter jacket but also still wearing his usual cargo shorts despite the cold autumn wind.

“Hey, how’s it going?” I asked, giving a small wave as I neared.

Rudy turned.  He smiled, but his eyes held a faint heaviness.

“We’re just working on some of her dark moves,” he replied.  “Never really practiced them before ‘cause I always just stuck with fire.”

I cupped my hands over my eyes as I squinted out at the rolling grassland.  Now that I was paying closer attention, I could see that Ebony wasn’t just vanishing into the grass, she was literally vanishing, her body fading in and out in a flash of darkness.  But once she noticed that she had another onlooker, the Houndoom quickly came trotting back to us, her tongue hanging out of her mouth.

“That was… really good,” I said.

Rudy gave me a sideways grin.  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure she learned it from the experiments, I just never drilled her on it ‘til yesterday.”

Ebony bounced lightly in front of me, eyes shining.  “*Absol taught me!*”

“Really?  I’ll have to let her know you’re doing so well with it.”

The Houndoom beamed.  Then her tail pricked up and she swung her head roughly in the opposite direction.  I followed her gaze to see the same pair of Growlithe that had been eyeing me earlier, now leering at Ebony from the top of a nearby hill

“Looks like you’ve got some new opponents.  Go get ‘em, Ebony.”

She took off bounding through the tall grass, full of endless energy as she tackled the opposing firedogs.  Just like all the times I’d seen her roughhousing with Chloe back in the days before Rudy became a trainer.  How was the Growlithe doing, anyway?  She’d probably been sadder to see him leave with Ebony than I ever was.

We stood there, watching the Houndoom blink in and out of view with wisps of black smoke clinging to her body.  It was actually a bit weird seeing her battling without managing to accidentally set fire to everything and needing… and needing Wartortle to put out the flames.

“So.  How are you really doing?” I asked, giving Rudy a meaningful look.

He gave me a sideways glance, then closed his eyes with a low sigh.  “Trying my best to stay together.  Y’know… for hers and the others’ sakes.”

I nodded softly.  That was probably the most that anyone could ask.

“How are the others doing?”

He exhaled slowly, shuffling his foot against the grass.  “Aside from Ebony, Nidorino took it the hardest.  I never even noticed he was close with Wartortle.”

I hadn’t noticed either.  I hadn’t noticed a lot of things.  I hadn’t been there for a lot of things either.

“I’m… I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you after the attack.”

Rudy didn’t respond for some time.  He just gazed off into the distance, his expression blank.  “I can’t really blame you for that.  You were dealing with a lot of crap, too.”

“You tried to be there for that, though.”

“Yeah, well…”  He sighed, staring downward and running a hand through his hair spikes.  “We all had crap to deal with, in our own way.  No one was really in a spot to be helping anyone out.”

I grimaced, mind flashing back to that night.  Still in shock from Razors’s sacrifice, unable to help him, or Chibi, or myself, or anyone.

“I don’t think I ever took the Rebellion seriously,” Rudy spoke up, suddenly turning to face me.  “It was all just a game, y’know?  Like, it was dangerous, but somehow… things would always work out.  They just… would.”

I swallowed.  “It wasn’t like either of us were really ready for it.”  We were just kids.  Stalker had known that.  In retrospect, he’d probably been banking on that.  Sure, I’d spent all my time constantly worrying about everything that could go wrong, but there were times where I’d envied Rudy’s carefree view.  Maybe that was also naive of me.

We’d both been naive.  It felt like we’d aged years in just the past few months.

 “I’ve thought about quitting training, you know.”

I jolted.  “Why?”

Rudy shuffled his foot against the dirt, mulling over what to say.  “I guess… I wasn’t sure if I deserved to be a trainer.  After what happened.”  He clenched his fists.  “I keep trying to think of ways to make up for it, but there’s nothing.  It was only him.  He was the only one I treated like that, and I don’t even know why.  How screwed up is that?”

It was only Wartortle.  And now it was too late to change that.

I sighed.  “It sucks, but trying to do better is, well, better than nothing.  Even if you don’t know how to do that.”

He was silent for a long time.  But then his face relaxed slightly.  “Y’know Darren said the same thing.  Hate to admit it, but he’s right.  Giving up, quitting… that’s the easy road.”  He straightened his back, clenching his fists at his side.  “I… think I’m gonna keep training.  I owe it to my Pokémon.  And, I dunno… maybe I’ll figure out how to do better from there?”

Rudy unclipped a Pokéball from his belt and stared at it for a few seconds, rolling it around in his palm.  “I caught a Buizel the other day.  I don’t know, I just felt like… like I needed a new team member and it should probably be a water-type to make up for the way that I…”  He paused and shook his head.  “That’s a stupid reason to catch a Pokémon.  I think I knew it was stupid, because I haven’t even let the Buizel out at all.  It might not even know I caught it.”

 Several seconds passed.  I wasn’t quite sure what he was getting at until he roughly thrust the Pokéball in my direction.  “Here.”

I stared blankly.  “What.”

“Take it.  I shouldn’t have it,” he said, giving the ball a shake for emphasis.

My eyes flickered between the ball and his face, which was deathly serious.  “Are you… sure?”

He glanced away.  “I still owe you for letting me train Pikachu.  Consider it my half of a trade.”  It was obviously just an excuse.  But not a bad one.  It at least got me considering it.  The chance to train a new team member.  One who didn’t have the same awful past with Team Rocket as the rest of us.  Something about it felt… symbolic.  A clean start to training.

I held out my hand.  “Yeah.  Okay, thanks.”

Rudy dropped the Pokéball into my open palm and then shoved his hands in his pockets, nodding forcefully like he was glad to have that settled.

“So where you off to now?” he asked.

I opened my mouth to answer.  But then something grabbed me about the way he’d said it, and I realized that he wouldn’t have asked if he hadn’t already known that I wasn’t going to be joining him.  Or at least, he’d already figured.

“I’m going to Johto.  After all that Rocket stuff, I wanna stay away from the Kanto force as much as I can.”

He folded his arms.  “Johto, huh?  Can’t say I had any plans to head out there until after I’ve seen all of Kanto.”

I’d already expected that much.  Which meant that this was the last time we’d be seeing each other for a long while.  And yet…

“I… don’t see why I couldn’t stop back here from time to time though,” I added quickly.  “I’m sure my team would love having a battle at some point.”

The faintest trace of a smile crossed Rudy’s face.  “We’ll see.  If I’m up for it.”  He paused.  “If my team’s up for it.”  He held out his fist.

My chest tightened.  I’d come here to say goodbye, and he’d straight-up acknowledged that, and now I was the one having a hard time with it.  It hurt, but… we both needed different things out of our journey right now.  And hopefully this was the best way for both of us to heal.

I tapped his fist.  “See ya around.”

A flock of Pidgey took to the air as I stepped out of the tall grass and into a clearing on the western half of route 8.  The towering buildings of Saffron rose above the horizon in the distance, and the sun was starting to near them.  I pulled my jacket tighter to myself, then took out the Pokéball Rudy had given me.  This was as good a spot as any—I opened the ball.  A burst of white light spilled out and condensed on the ground in front of me, forming a small, orange-furred creature lying on its side.  A Buizel—my new Buizel.  Twin cream-tipped tails curled around its body, which still bore the scuffs and scrapes from the battle where Rudy had caught it.  Nothing too serious—a potion would handle it.  I grabbed one from my bag and began spraying down the weasel’s pelt.

At least, until its eyes snapped open.  Without warning, the Buizel leaped away from me, flaring its arm fins to the side to look as big as possible.

“*You’re not the human who caught me,*” it hissed.  “*What gives?*”

I paused, a wave of awkwardness washing over me.  Right.  It had no idea what was going on.  How was I supposed to explain it?

“Er… the trainer who caught you… he traded you to me, and—”

“*You can shut yer yap cause I ain’t heard enough humanspeak to know it yet,*” the Buizel said, sticking… her?—it sounded like a her—nose in the air.

And… yeah, trainers didn’t exactly make a habit of trying to hold conversations with freshly-caught wild Pokémon.  It usually took a couple weeks for Pokémon to understand human speech, if they hadn’t already heard enough of it from battling trainers while in the wild.  Which this one obviously hadn’t.

Feeling rather silly, I grabbed Swift’s Pokéball and let him out.

“Gonna need you to translate,” I told him before launching into an abridged retelling of how Rudy hadn’t felt right about catching the Buizel and had given her to me in return for Pikachu.  The sea weasel’s eyes twitched impatiently as Swift relayed the message.  Then, without warning, she fired a stream of water right at me.  I ducked instinctively, feeling the cold spray as it shot over my head.

I snapped my attention back to the Buizel.  “What was that for?!”

“*You didn’t beat me.  You didn’t catch me.  I don’t gotta listen to anything you say.*”  She stuck out her tongue.

I sighed.  “Fair enough.”  I held up the Pokéball that Rudy had given me—the one that she’d been originally captured in.  Then I pressed the center button to open it before tossing it in front of her.  She didn’t waste a second.  The ball had barely touched the grass before the sea weasel spat a narrow stream of water, soaking the inside of the ball.

The outer shell of a Pokéball was incredibly durable.  The internal circuitry?  Not so much.  Her captured status was as good as gone.

“Run away or battle,” I said firmly.

Some things didn’t need translating.

With a wild, toothy grin, the Buizel generated a swirling pulse of water around her body, shooting forward in an instant.  Swift braced himself against the impact, flaring his wings to the side to keep his balance as the weasel struck.  He winced a bit from the blow, but other than some soaked belly feathers, didn’t look too damaged.  The Buizel’s face fell.  She jumped back, aiming a Water Gun at his face, but the Pidgeot took flight in that instant, and the water missed its mark.  He flew in a tight circle over his opponent, dodging two more water streams before diving forward, beak glowing brightly.

The Buizel didn’t try to dodge; she braced herself for the hit, obviously hoping to follow up with a counterattack.  But Swift’s Aerial Ace completely bowled her over, tearing a streak of red across her fur in the process.  I winced.  Okay, I might have overestimated how tough this Buizel was.  Or underestimated how strong Swift had become.  Either way.

But the sea weasel wasn’t down and out yet.  She pushed herself up off the ground, staggering slightly, but ultimately managing to keep her footing.  Then her paw stomped the dirt and another swirl of water enveloped her, sending her shooting into the air.

This time Swift was ready.  Even with the Aqua Jet’s incredible speed, he had the altitude advantage.  All he had to do was clap his wings together, unleashing a violent whirlwind below him.  The Buizel pushed against it, water spraying everywhere as she struggled to keep her trajectory on-point.  And with just a bit more force, she might’ve been able to pull it off.  But her jet faltered, and in that instant, the winds swept her up in a tight vortex before slamming her into the dirt.

This time she wasn’t so quick to stand back up.  In fact, it wasn’t until several seconds passed that it hit me—I was fighting a wild Pokémon, and I’d just knocked it prone.  This was supposed to be where I’d catch it.

I fumbled with my bag.  Pokéball, needed to grab a Pokéball (why didn’t I already have one in hand?)  I hadn’t even thought to buy any yet—thank god it was standard for new trainers to get five Pokéballs with their license, otherwise I might not have even had one.  Finally, my fingers managed to grasp something small and round.  I yanked my arm out of the bag, Pokéball now in hand, hit the button to expand it, and then—

Wait.  This was actually the first time I’d ever even attempted to catch a Pokémon.  What if I missed?  The mental image was too embarrassing to bear.  And so, resisting the urge to do a full overhand windup like they always did on TV, I gave the ball a light underhand toss.  It made contact with the Buizel’s fur and sucked her prone form inside before falling to the ground.  I held my breath as it shook once, twice, three times, the center button flashing all the while.  And then the flashing stopped.

I exhaled slowly.  I’d done it.  I’d caught my first Pokémon.  After five months of being on this journey, I’d hit the milestone that most trainers hit within the first week.  It was surreal.  It was also the coolest I’d felt in a long, long time.

After the shock had worn off, I cautiously walked over to where the Pokéball lay motionless.

For the second time today, I let Buizel out of her ball.  She materialized on the ground and gave me a dirty look before turning her back to me and setting to work licking her wounds.

“You wanted me to catch you fair and square, so I did.  Willing to listen now?”

After Swift repeated my words, Buizel turned from licking her cuts and shot me an incredulous glare.  “*Your Pidgeot is way tougher than me.  Whaddya need me for, huh?*”

“I don’t ‘need’ you, but I’d like to have you on my team if you’re willing.”

That gave her some pause.  She tilted her head, considering my words carefully.

“*How many badges you got?*” she finally asked.

I blinked.  “Well… none, but—”

“*What good are you, then?*”

“Look if you’ll just listen…”  But Buizel had already gone back to cleaning herself.

Alright.  I wasn’t exactly doing a good job of selling myself.  Granted, I wasn’t entirely sure why it mattered so much to me, but it just didn’t feel right to take her from Rudy only to immediately release her.  Of course, I’d still do it if that was what she really wanted, but…

“If you’re worried that I can’t make you stronger, then you’re wrong,” I said, not really sure where I was going with it.

Buizel didn’t turn to face me, but her ears did twitch slightly.  And her licking noticeably slowed.

“I was… part of a team,” I went on, struggling to find the best way to explain it.  “A secret team.  And we were trained to protect Legendary Pokémon from people trying to hurt them.”

That got a reaction.  The water-type spun around, flashing me a skeptical brow raise.  “*Nuh-uh.*”

I nodded forcefully.  Buizel’s eyes darted toward Swift, and he nodded as well.

“*You’re telling me you guys were heroes?*”

‘Heroes’?  That was… a weird way to put it.  It didn’t feel quite right to call us that.  Not after all our failures.  Not after all my failures.  But…

“Sure.  If that’s how you want to put it.”

Buizel’s mouth hung open in shock.  After several seconds, she finally regained herself enough to ask, “*What was it like?  What were the Legendaries like?*”

So she was curious now?

“I can tell you all about it if you want.  But it’s kind of a long story.  You might have to stick with me for a while if you wanna hear all of it.”  I gave her a sideways smirk.

Buizel snorted, clearly wise to the game I was playing.  And yet, the water-type stood on her hind paws and began walking toward me, shaking her head like she couldn’t believe what she was doing.

“*Yeah, alright fine.*”

Wings beat heavily on either side of me—nothing like the smooth, rhythmic buzzing of Aros’s wings.  But at the same time, I could get used to flying on Swift.  His takeoffs might not have been as smooth, but his feathers made for a warmer, softer grip.  And once we reached a high enough altitude, we could just soar effortlessly for miles.  There was something undeniably calming about watching the clouds drift by underneath us as the sun slowly sank below them, painting the sky a vibrant pink and tingeing the edges of the clouds a brushfire orange.

Swift was leading the way, and I trusted his navigation well enough to leave it to him.  After all, Viridian City and its outskirts had once been his home too.  And now, after all this time, we were heading back to Route 22.  Where it all began.  Where I’d been riding my bike all those months ago, Swift flying overhead as a tiny Pidgey.  Where I’d first seen the blazing hillside and Team Rocket trying to catch Entei.  Where I’d first been dragged into a war with absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into, all just because I’d wanted to go on a training journey with my friends.

It was weird to think that now, after all this time, that wish was finally coming true.  Not at all in the way that I’d thought it would, but it was still happening.

Swift dipped below the clouds, wisps of water vapor trailing from his wingtips.  I scanned the ground below, my eyes tracing the dirt path snaking its way through the tall grasses, skirting the edge of the forest as it led up into the highlands, and eventually, to Johto.  Swift spotted them long before I did and began his descent.  Then I saw them too.  Ajia was laughing about something.  Starr gave her a light shove but started laughing just the same.

And in that moment, soaring on the back of my first Pokémon, preparing to set out on a journey with my best friends, it stuck me properly that for the first time in a long while, things felt sort of alright.  It was easy to forget that Team Rocket wanted all of us dead.  It was easy to forget that we had to stay on the move to avoid them.  It was easy to forget all of the terrible things that had happened to us.

In that moment, it was easy to pretend that everything was alright.

END BOOK 1

Chapter Text

July 3

Sweat dripped down my forehead as my hand hovered over a Pokéball, and the audience waited with bated breath to see what my final Pokémon would be.  On the other side of the arena, Gym Leader Jasmine considered me with the same calm, composed air that she’d always shown.  In front of her, a gigantic ironclad serpent slowly traced a circular path in the center of the battlefield, his body segments rotating rhythmically and massive jaws grinding against each other.

Three on three, no substitutions, and both of us down to our final Pokémon.  Steelix hardly looked worse for the wear after his brief scuffle with Aros, which he’d brought to a crushing end through a well-timed Ice Fang.  I’d watched Jasmine take down dozens of opponents with him throughout the past week—he had the endurance of a champ and could shrug off small hits all day long.  But I already knew who I wanted to use against him.  We had to clear out all the electric-types first, but now she was in the clear.

“Go!” I called out, throwing the Pokéball forward.  The burst of light condensed into the form of an orange weasel, who bounced lightly on her hind paws, spreading her arm fins wide before sizing up her opponent.  She had to crane her neck back just to make eye contact with him.  But rather than flinch or show any sign of apprehension, the Floatzel just grinned.

Technically Jet had the advantage.  Technically.  Our opponent was still huge metal snake that was not gonna go down easy.  The referee waved both flags to start the round, and the match was on.

“Aqua Jet!” I called out

Jet crouched low and sprang into the air, a swirling pulse of water propelling her forward.  The water jet traced a jagged line in midair, zeroing in on Steelix’s lower body and striking the joint between two segments with a fierce spray of water.  Steelix jerked slightly, eyes tensing for a moment.  A solid opening hit, but nothing too devastating.

“Thunder Fang,” Jasmine said, her voice so soft I could barely hear it.

But Steelix definitely heard.  The iron snake slowly turned his oversized head, keeping his eyes on Jet as she dashed around to his other side.  Suddenly, he lunged, massive jaws opening, boulder-sized teeth crackling with lightning.  Jet saw him coming though, and deftly backflipped away just in time for his jaws to snap shut on open air.

“Nice dodge!” I exclaimed.

Jet landed a good twenty feet away from Steelix and spun around on her front paws, sticking out her tongue at the giant snake.

Jasmine frowned.  “Autotomize,” she said.  Again, I could barely hear her over the grinding of dirt as Steelix pivoted in the middle of the battlefield, keeping his head trained on Jet the entire time.  But this time, rather than pursue her, he began rotating his body segments.  Slowly at first, then building in speed.  Fast, faster, past the point that he should have been able to, moving so fast that his spines were just a blur.  Finally there was a powerful crunch, and the outer layers of his metallic skin snapped off, clattering to the floor with an echoing clang.  The freshly-shed Steelix gave a swish of his tail and did a quick loop in the center of the battlefield, segments still whirring like an engine, dirt grinding beneath his body.  Satisfied with the increased speed, he leveled his head at Jet, body tensed with potential energy, ready to strike.

Well, there went our mobility advantage.

“Now.  Another Thunder Fang.”

Steelix lunged at Jet with so quickly he was almost a blur.  The Floatzel dashed to the side, using a spurt of water to push herself faster than she’d normally be able to run.  But neither of us were ready for how quickly he managed to turn and zero in on her, teeth already sparking.  He was right behind her.  Only a few more seconds and he’d close the gap.

“Jump now!” I yelled.

Jet leaped upward the instant before Steelix would have struck, somersaulting over his head in a wide arc.  But the steel-type snapped his head upward at the last second, and his jaws locked tight around one of her tails.  Electricity surged through the Floatzel’s body, and I flinched as her pained screeching filled the air.  When it finished, she was left dangling from his jaws, flailing indignantly, punching his teeth repeatedly, to no effect.

Oh crap.  Jet was stuck.  Steelix’s teeth began sparking again.  He’d have no problem just repeating the attack, over and over.  Unless—!

“Water Gun!” I blurted out.

The reaction was immediate.  Jet used the momentum from her flailing to swing her body upward and spit a narrow stream of water straight into Steelix’s eye.  The iron snake recoiled backward, grunting in pain, and that was all the opening that Jet needed to wriggle her tail free and drop to the ground.

Shouldn’t have wasted a moveslot on Water Gun of all things, but it managed to get her free, so it was worth it.  But now I was stuck on what to do next.  With Steelix’s increased speed, we couldn’t just go for repeated light blows.  I could have Jet stop and try to pull off a Bulk Up, but the benefits likely wouldn’t outweigh the damage she’d take from being an open target.  Come on—what was the best move?

Jasmine pointed a finger forward.  No need to give a command, there was no reason not to keep going with Thunder Fang.  Jet couldn’t take too much more of that.  Had to think.  Some way to get our advantage back.

Then, out of nowhere, an idea struck, and I shouted, “Whirlpool!”

Jet flashed a toothy grin, then dove at Steelix within a pulse of water, swerving around his lower body as he lunged with his jaws.  Tighter and tighter she spiraled around the steel-type, until the outer circles joined together with the inner ones, forming a swirling vortex that swallowed up his lower body and held him firmly in place.  There!  It’d be that much harder for him to pivot now.

Steelix gave a small snort of annoyance, then lunged again, but the swirling waters held his lower body in place, and he couldn’t pull himself out.  Jet laughed and pelted him with a few spurts of water now that he had no way to close the distance.

Jasmine paused, observing the turn of events carefully.  Then she said, “Bulldoze.”

Ah, crap.

From within the watery grip of the swirling whirlpool, Steelix wrenched his tail free.  Then he struck the ground, letting loose a rolling shockwave that churned up the dirt floor as it traveled across the battlefield.  Jet stopped laughing abruptly, then attempted to leap over the wave, but the moment she landed, the dirt under her paws crumbled into chunks, then dug into her body from all sides.  The Floatzel grunted in pain as she sluggishly wrenched herself free, swaying a bit on her feet once she stood back up.

On the plus side, that was Jasmine’s fourth move command.  No more surprises now.  On the downside, Jet’s legs had taken the full brunt of that shockwave, and her movements had noticeably slowed.

“Don’t worry about it, just use Aqua Jet!” I called out.

That’d make up for the loss of speed, in any case.  Once the burst of water flared up around her body, Jet shot forward like a bullet, using it to close the distance much faster than she’d have been able to run.  The Floatzel swerved around Steelix, narrowly avoiding another tail smash, then dove into the whirlpool surrounding him, following the momentum of its current.  Her silhouette was little more than a blur as she pelted the serpent with repeated Aqua Jets from within the swirling waters.  He flinched with each blow, eye twitching.  I knew that tell.  The attacks were getting to him.  Slowly.  But at the same time, he was just watching her do it.  Carefully waiting for the right moment…

“Keep your guard up!” I warned.

But there was a moment’s pause after her next Aqua Jet.  She hesitated for just a second too long.  Suddenly Steelix’s head zeroed in not on where she’d been, but where she was going to be the moment she darted forward.  Boulder teeth locked around her midsection, crackling with electricity.  Jet gasped in pain and shock as lightning coursed through the entire whirlpool with her trapped inside.

No!

But the Floatzel hadn’t gone limp yet.  She was still struggling against Steelix’s hold, bubbles streaming from her mouth with each thrash.  Only a few more seconds before she’d run out of air and we’d have to forfeit.

Last chance, had to make it count.

“Waterfall!”

I wasn’t even sure if she could hear me over the rushing water of her own whirlpool.  Or if she’d register the command with how much pain she had to be in.  But then, without warning, the whirlpool broke, and all the water in the vortex suddenly collapsed together in a rushing wave, shooting straight upward with Jet right at the center of it.  Steelix’s eyes went wide just a second before the wave crashed into his face, snapping his head backward with a grinding crunch.  For a single, heart-pounding moment, he leaned back as though suspended in midair.  Then his weight dragged him down and his head crashed into the dirt, where he lay unmoving.

The referee swung a red flag towards Jasmine.  “Steelix is unable to battle. The challenger is the winner!”

A sudden wave of noise burst from the audience stands, where all the gym trainers had been watching their leader’s match—half of them cheering for our victory and the other half groaning at Steelix’s defeat.  The waterfall collapsed, streaming over the battlefield, and Jet emerged from within, coughing and sputtering.  It didn’t last long though—she quickly regained herself and flashed a wide grin at the audience.  Jasmine recalled her Steelix without a word, but then folded her arms behind her back and gave a gentle smile.

We’d done it.  We’d won the gym battle.

I realized too late that Jet was bounding towards me now.  Eighty pounds of wet furball collided with my chest and knocked me to the ground.

“*I did it!  That’s right, me!*” she called out, posing for the onlookers in the audience.

“Yep.  You sure did,” I gasped, thoroughly winded.  “Now, could you please get off.”

It had been eight months since the rebellion against Team Rocket was brought to a crushing end, and some days, when I was particularly distracted, I could forget about everything that happened and just be a normal trainer enjoying their journey throughout the Johto region.

There were, of course, reminders.  My friend Ajia, who was still deeply involved in the fight against Team Rocket, but avoided bringing it up, for my sake.  My friend Starr, who had once been a top Rocket leader and my greatest enemy, but who had thrown it all away to save my life.  My Pokémon, half of which were genetic experiments, rescued from Team Rocket’s labs.  Sometimes the memories would creep up on me when I was least prepared for them, like the dead of night, lying in bed, suddenly flashing back to the floor of a Rocket detention cell.  My dreams were laced with threads of lightning, pierced by the mindlessly glowing eyes of Mewtwo, and haunted by the looming spectre of a giant avian dragon, glaring murderously, ready to end me.

But for the most part, life had gone on.  Each day on the road in Johto was another day that I’d survived beyond all of that.  And each day brought new experiences that had nothing to do with any of it.

After a quick stop at the Pokécenter, I found myself and all six of my Pokémon—Swift the Pidgeot, Firestorm the Charizard, Chibi the Pikachu-Zapdos hybrid, Aros the Flygon, Stygian the Absol, and Jet the Floatzel—seated at the trainer area of an outdoor cafe, eating lunch and listening to Firestorm recount his battle with Magneton for his teammates that hadn’t seen it.

“*So that was a direct hit with Thunderbolt, yeah?  Didn’t think I could take another one, even if it was real slow and I was dodging everything, eventually one of them was gonna land.*”

The Charizard was standing back from the table, giving him room to spread both his arms and wings to accentuate the dramatic beats of his story.  On his opposite side was Aros, listening to the story with as disinterested a look as possible, though he couldn’t help giving a nod of approval at certain parts.  Chibi stared off into the distance, the salty sea breeze ruffling his pointed head feathers.  Stygian was sprawled out under the table, pawing at something beneath the deck floorboards and not particularly paying attention.  But Swift was hanging on every word, beaming with pride at his teammate’s success.

“*So then, uh…*”  The Charizard paused, tapping his claws together.   “*Wait, what was next?*”

“Smokescreen,” I offered.

His face lit up.  “*Oh yeah!  Jade ordered Smokescreen.  So Magneton starts using Swift a ton.  I mean a ton, there’s stars everywhere, and they’re all hitting me, even with the smoke.*”

I smirked.  “When are you gonna remember that Swift is a sure-shot move?”  He’d forgotten during the match, too.

But the fire lizard just snorted.  “*That’s your job.*”

Alright, that was fair.

“*So I had to land and cover my face with my wings and just slowly walk toward it, taking the hits.  And I couldn’t see, but neither could it, but I could feel where the stars were coming from.  So I just let off this huge Flame Burst that explodes right in the middle of all three magnets and boom!*”—Firestorm clapped his hands together with a small wisp of flame between his claws—“*Down it goes.*”

Jet leaped onto the table, throwing a paw up to give him a high five—which would have knocked my food tray to the floor if I hadn’t managed to catch it before it slid all the way off.  I gave her an unamused stare, and she grinned sheepishly before jumping down.

“*I took down Magnezone.  That’s a lot harder than beating Magneton,*” Aros pointed out to me in the kind of tone you’d use for something helpfully informative and not stating the obvious.

“You know, you might have forgotten this, but I was there, and I saw the whole thing,” I said with a laugh.  “In any case, sorry about that whole Hidden Power thing.  No one else used any dragons against her, so I had no idea it would hit so hard.”

“*It’s not that impressive,*” Jet chimed in.  “*Aren’t those magnet guys mad weak to ground?*”

Aros opened his mouth to protest but I cut him off with, “Actually, in his defense, it had used Magnet Rise, so we had to totally change our strategy.”  The Flygon gave a satisfied huff at my explanation.  Jet just shrugged before dropping to the ground and hunting under the table for lost fries.

All of a sudden, I felt my Pokégear start buzzing.  I grabbed it from my pocket and checked it to see that Starr was calling me.

“Hey, how’s it going?” I answered.

“Terrible.  When are you gonna save me from Ajia?” Starr replied in an exaggeratedly defeated tone.  I heard a laughing voice in the background call out, “Oh, whatever!”  Starr snorted and then added, “Yeah, okay, I might be lying.  It’s been nice.”

Since Starr and I had been primarily travelling together, with Ajia only meeting up with us once a month or so, the two of them had spent the past week in the Sevii Islands, just the two of them.  Plus it had given me the chance to spend some time with just me and my team.  Having both our teams out together could sometimes get a bit… tense.  Not outright hostile like eight months ago, but still.  (Not that any of that had affected Jet.  She’d immediately gone up to Starr’s team and tried to make friends with all of them, to varying degrees of success.)

“So, you still up for Blackthorn?” Starr asked.

“Of course!” I said with a grin.

“Sweet, it’s been ages since I’ve been to the hot springs there.  Looking forward to that.”

I chuckled under my breath.  “Yeah, you have fun with that.”

She scoffed.  “Don’t think you’re getting out of it.  Anyway, when do you think you can meet us there?”

“Tonight’s fine.  I’m done with my gym battle so we’re just wasting time in Olivine.”

“Oh nice, you’ll have to tell me how that went.  So see you tonight?”

“Yup, see you then,” I said, ending the call.

Swift turned to face me once I had put my phone away.  “*So where’s our next destination?*” he chirped.

“Sounds like it’s gonna be Blackthorn City.”

“*Who’s flying?*” Aros asked.

“It gets pretty cold in those mountains, even this time of year.  So I was thinking Firestorm.”

The Flygon shrugged.  “*Fine with me.  But we should stop at the beach before we leave town.*”

Firestorm snorted and rolled his eyes.  “*You always want to do that.*”

“*I like sand,*” Aros replied defensively.

“Yes, we can hit the beach,” I said, standing up.  “Might as well enjoy the sun before we head up into the mountains anyway.”

I was pretty much done with my food, so I picked up the tray and went to throw its contents in the trash.  At least, until Jet poked my side and made grabby-hands at it.

I rolled my eyes and lowered the tray so she could reach it.  “Here.”  She shoved the remaining fistful of fries into her mouth.

Olivine City was a heavily industrial town, with the majority of its coastline taken up by piers and shipping yards.  That said, there were still a few nice public beaches out on the western edge of town.  My shoes kicked up sand as I left the main path and walked down the gleaming white shore, shielding my eyes from the sun as I went.  Maybe I should have thought to pick up sunglasses, but it was a little late for that now.

Once I’d located a stretch of sand that was relatively clear of other beach-goers, I set down my bag, kicked off my shoes, and let all six of my Pokémon out of their balls.  Jet dashed forward and dove into the water immediately, surfacing a few seconds later and playfully squirting a few streams of water at the others.  Firestorm shielded himself with his wings and gave an annoyed snort before turning around, giving a few flaps, and taking off, soaring low overhead.  Stygian pawed at the sand for a bit, then took off running down the shoreline and through the flocks of Wingull that lined the beach, scattering countless fluttering white shapes into the air.  Meanwhile, Aros had set to work digging out a massive hole and constructing a large mound of sand around himself.

“You better smooth that back out when you’re done; the lifeguards don’t like it when people leave holes everywhere,” I told him.

“*I got it, I got it,*” the Flygon replied, giving a swish of his tail.

I grabbed a towel from my bag and laid it on the sand.  I wasn’t much in the mood for swimming, and the ocean was always too cold for my tastes anyway.  I could at least relax on the beach while everyone else had fun though.  Swift wound up settling down next to me, fluffing out his feathers to absorb maximum warmth and closing his eyes contentedly.  The only other one who hadn’t gone off to busy himself was Chibi.  The Pikachu was sitting by himself in the sand, gazing out at the ocean with a troubled look on his face.

“Something up?” I asked.

“*It’s nothing,*” the hybrid replied.

I made sure he wasn’t looking at me before I smirked.  “With you, it’s never nothing.”

He gave a small huff but didn’t dignify that with an answer.

I tilted my head.  “You weren’t hoping you’d get to be in the gym battle, weren’t you?”

Chibi turned and gave me a face that said, “who do you think I am?”  Alright, so I didn’t really think it was something as dumb as that.  Just wanted to rule it out.

Several seconds passed in silence.  Finally, he opened his mouth and said, “*I know we said we both needed to take a break from it all…*” but his voice trailed off before he could finish.

Oh.  It was this again.  Seemed like every few weeks, he’d start asking about the situation with Team Rocket again.  It was making it harder and harder to pretend that we’d left that world behind.

I took a deep breath.  “Okay, look.  I’ve been asking Ajia about it practically every time I see her, which is what you told me to do, by the way.  She still hasn’t heard anything.”

His ears pricked up at my words.  “*That’s even worse.  Eight whole months and nothing?*”

“She said they’re probably just working on gathering funds to recover from their main HQ being totally fried last November,” I said pointedly.

He paused, taking a few seconds to think of a response.  “*That, or they’re working on something big and they don’t want anyone to know about it.*”

“We don’t have any proof of that.”

“*We can’t disprove it.*”

I put a hand to my forehead.  “No, I guess we can’t, but that really doesn’t tell us anything.”

Chibi turned away, flattening his ears in frustration.  He sat there like that for several seconds before standing up suddenly and announcing, “*I’m going for a walk.*”  He then wandered off down the beach, kicking at the sand as he went.

I sighed.  I wasn’t like I didn’t understand his anxiety.  There were times that I felt it too, no matter how many times I told myself that the fight against Team Rocket wasn’t my problem anymore.  But there wasn’t any sense in stressing out over something that we had literally no information on.  It wasn’t like we could do anything about it now.

I was dragged from my thoughts by a sopping-wet Floatzel leaning into my field of view and staring me straight in the eyes.

“*Hey.  I’m bored.*”

I smirked.  “We’ve got a whole ocean here,” I said, gesturing to it as though she hadn’t noticed.

The sea weasel flopped down into the sand next to me, sending a wave of it into my lap.  “*Whatever.  Tell me one of the rebel stories.*”

“You’ve already heard them all,” I said with a snort.

“*I don’t care.  Tell me the one where your friend was gonna kill you but then she didn’t.  I like that one.*”

I let out an exaggerated sigh.  “Alright, you asked for it,” I said, sitting fully upright and spreading my arms for dramatic effect.  “So there we were in the main Rocket base.  Alarms blaring, Rockets all around us with no way out…”

And so, like I’d done a dozen times before, I told the story of how Starr betrayed Team Rocket.  From the unruly lightning that tore the air from Pichu’s battle with Raichu, to the crushing checkmate at the hands of Mewtwo.  From the overbearing presence of Giovanni to the smothering feeling of certain death when he gave Starr his ultimatum.  Halfway through the story Floatzel flipped onto her back and stretched out widely, sunning her belly.  It was always hard to tell if she’d dozed off or not.  But either way, I kept going.  It felt good to tell the story.  Especially when I got to that single, unbelievable moment when Starr had decided to turn her back on the Rockets, despite the fact that there had been absolutely nothing in it for her.  By all accounts, it should have been a death sentence.  And yet she’d done it anyway.  And that was why I’d known without a doubt that her change of heart was genuine.  Even though there had been times when it had been difficult to move on, or difficult to forget the things she’d done, that moment always managed to stand out more, like a flame piercing the rest of my memory.

The afternoon stretched into early evening, with Jet dozing off periodically (but still opening one eye every so often to make sure I was still talking.)  At some point Chibi wandered back, and he and Stygian passed the time by racing each other up and down the shoreline, thus ensuring that no Wingull could safely land there for the rest of the afternoon.  But eventually Stygian took a break from that and went to pawing at Aros’s now quite formidable sand mountain, knocking down some of its spires.  Aros was content to deal with this by occasionally swatting the Absol back with his tail.  At least until Firestorm swooped over them and upped the ante by breathing out a small, concentrated spurt of flames at the mountain, melting its tip into a brightly glowing lump of glass.

“*What are you doing?!*” Aros demanded, standing up in one swift motion that knocked most of the sand from his body.

“*It looks better this way,*” Firestorm said, landing next to Stygian and flashing an innocent grin.

The Flygon glared at him, then dug his claws into the sand.  Seconds later, the ground underneath Firestorm and Stygian collapsed into a sinkhole, sucking the two of them down and ensnaring them in a Sand Tomb.

“Oh my god, you guys…” I said, chuckling under my breath.

“*I want in on this!*” a voice cried out near me. I glanced to my left, where there was now a Floatzel-shaped indent in the sand, conspicuously empty.  Now Aros had to defend his rather sad and abused-looking sand mountain from invaders on three different sides.

“You know, if you guys wanted to battle, we’re not on the right beach for it,” I said, gesturing towards the designated battle area on the other side of the volleyball courts.  No one heard me, and even if they had, I doubt they’d have cared.

For the second time today, my Pokégear started buzzing.  I reached for it, careful not to get sand on it, and half expecting to see Ajia or Starr calling me back.  But nope, it was the name I hadn’t been expecting, but really should have been.

I answered the call with, “Hey Rudy.”

“Got your text, how’d the battle go?” he asked immediately.

I grinned.  “It was great.  Came pretty close to the wire, but we pulled through and got the badge,” I said, unable to keep myself from pulling it out again and admiring its metallic surface in the gleaming sunlight. 

“Awesome, you gotta send me a pic of it later,” he said rapidly, his words ending in a sudden pause, as though he was waiting for something with bated breath.

I waited a few seconds for good measure and then slowly asked, “…So what about you?”

“Oh man, thought you’d never ask!” he exclaimed, and I could practically hear the grin behind his voice.  “Just got to the plateau.  Man, you should see this place, it’s freaking huge.  I can’t even tell how many stadiums they got here.  I think five.  It’s at least five.  Man, even the side ones make Midnight Stadium look like kid stuff.  They’ve got huge-ass shields too, so you can just cut loose and practice your attacks as hard as you want.”

I couldn’t help smiling.  Rudy had been looking forward to the Kanto League tournament for months, and now that it was finally on the horizon, it was hardly surprising that it was all he could think about.

“So I got registered, got my Pokémon approved and everything, so we just spent the day checking out everything.  You wouldn’t believe it, there’s gotta be like a million shops here.  Everything’s freaking expensive, but I did get some sweet gear for my team—I’ve gotta show you when you get here.”  He paused for about two seconds but then immediately kept going with, “Well, alright, I’ll tell you one of them; Nidoking’s wearing an Expert Belt.  But that’s the only spoiler you’re getting.  Oh, did I tell you how many people are here?  Well, actually, it’s not that many yet, I think I was one of the first ones.”

I laughed.  “Honestly, when you said you were gonna get there early, I didn’t believe it.  Since when do you arrive early to anything?”

“Hey, if you wanna be serious about the tournament, that’s what you gotta do,” he said matter-of-factly, like nothing was more obvious.

I shrugged.  “Alright, that’s fair.”

A couple seconds’ pause followed.  “So… you sure you’re not entering the tournament?” he asked in an overly-hopeful voice.

I put a hand to my forehead.  “Rudy, there’s a month left, and I have zero Kanto badges.  I’ve been traveling through Johto.  And I only have four of those badges.  So no.”

He gave an exaggerated sigh.  “Lame.  I don’t think they let guests enter the tourney site until August.”

“I can wait.”

“Fine.  Guess I gotta bother Darren then,” Rudy said.  “If he ever shows up.  I swear, it’s like he’s not even trying.”

I raised an eyebrow.  “Where’d you two get separated, anyway?”

“I went on ahead of him on Route 23; he wanted to take it slower.”  All of a sudden Rudy gasped.  “Hey wait, I haven’t even told you about Victory Road yet!”

Oh no.  That was definitely going to take a while.

“You can tell me all about that in person, okay?”

“Seriously?”

“I’m heading to Blackthorn soon, and I wanna make it there before sundown.  Aaand I get the feeling this is a long story,” I added with a slight laugh.

Rudy snorted.  “Yeah?  Alright, you got me there.  I wouldn’t be able to do it justice over the phone anyway.”  In the background, I could just barely make out a muffled barking sound.  “What?  Oh yeah, Ebony says hi.”

I chuckled.  “Tell her I’m looking forward to seeing her.”

There was the muffled sound of Rudy saying something with the microphone pointed away from him, then a much louder and clearer voice barking out, “*Really?!  Oh boy, oh boy!!*”  Then some other scattered background noises, some of which sounded vaguely like Pokéspeech.  Then Rudy’s voice came back with, “Gotta go now talk to you later!” all in one breath before he ended the call.

I couldn’t help snickering as I pocketed my phone.  Now I had that to look forward to as well.

I stretched widely before standing to my feet, dusting the sand off my shorts, and calling out, “Hey, guys!”  Aros, Stygian, Jet, and Firestorm all glanced over at me from their wrestling pile surrounded by lumpy mounds of soaked or melted sand.

“We’re heading out soon.  Come on, let’s get the beach cleaned up.”

My words were met with scattered grumbling, and it took me repeating it several times before everyone took the suggestion to heart.  (Granted, it mostly involved Aros using Sand Tomb to dissolve the mountain and Firestorm flying the melted bits off to sea.)  After that, I gathered up all my stuff, recalled everyone except Firestorm, and braced myself for our flight into the northern mountains.

“Well, we’ve got a month until we meet Rudy in Indigo,” I said as the fire lizard spread his wings.  “What do you think the odds are we can get the Blackthorn gym badge in that time?”

Chapter Text

The Tohjo Mountains stretched out in every direction as Firestorm and I soared eastward from Blackthorn with Starr riding Swift not far behind us.  By now, the sheer slopes of Mt. Silver towered over the southern horizon as we crossed over into Kanto, and from there the terrain gave way to rocky highlands, and then forested hills.  Until finally, a wide, flat-topped mountain appeared on the horizon ahead of us, the only landmark for miles.

“*Is that it?*” Firestorm asked.

I grinned.  “Yep.  That’s Indigo.”

The massive rock face practically glimmered in the mid-morning sun, its surface streaked with red and purple.  I caught sight of the cave entrance at the base of the mountain, beyond which lay the sprawling labyrinth of Victory Road that any first-time competitors would have to pass through before being allowed entry.  Good thing I wasn’t actually participating in the tournament.

Warm updrafts sent us soaring upward until we were flying directly over the city, and I finally caught my first glimpse of the tournament site.  A massive central building was ringed by an impressive array of stadiums.  I had spent so long training on Midnight Island that I thought I had a good idea of what stadiums were like, but like Rudy had said, these put Midnight Stadium to shame—able to fit an endless number of spectators and boasting towering screens to report ongoing battle statistics.  Surrounding the main stadiums were smaller battlefields and lines of training ground, where trainers’ Pokémon could be seen launching attacks into the air.

As we neared the airspace over the plateau, it became increasingly obvious just how many other trainers were making the same journey, as the sky was absolutely swarming with flying Pokémon.  A scattered group of uniformed people riding Pidgeot circled the area, waving colored flags to direct the aerial traffic.  I nudged Firestorm’s side in a way that told him to slow down, and then we waited until one of the rangers gave us the go-ahead to land in a roped-off patch of dirt on the southwestern edge of the plateau.

Everyone making the flight today had to be guests.  Most of the competitors had probably been here for at least a month, training and preparing for the tournament to begin tomorrow.  There was still the occasional frantic and out-of-breath trainer sprinting up the grand stairs from Victory Road at the last minute, however.

“*I’ve never seen this many trainers in one spot,*” Firestorm said, craning his neck around to take in all the details surrounding us.  “*Just think of how many people we could battle here.*”

I gave him a nudge.  “Hey, remember we’re not here to compete, we’re just supporting Rudy and Darren.”

Firestorm shrugged.  “*Doesn’t mean we can’t have fun in the meantime.*”

A sudden burst of air rushed into my face as Swift landed alongside us.  Starr jumped down from his back right before I recalled both him and Firestorm to make room for the other fliers landing all around.

“Man, that took way too long,” Starr said, stretching widely.

I raised an eyebrow.  “It was only a thirty minute flight?”

“Yep.  Too long, if you ask me.  Shame Ajia can’t just have Espeon give us a lift everywhere.”

I snorted.  ‘Espeon’—in other words, Mew.  “I think ‘Espeon’ has better things to do,” I said dryly.

Starr shrugged.  “Whatever.  Speaking of, is Ajia here yet?”

“I texted her earlier.  She said she was busy and that she’d be getting here later today.”

“Attention all guests!” a recorded voice blared from speakers mounted around the landing area.  “Please see the visitor’s booth for a spectator badge and a map of the tournament site outlining which areas are off-limits to all non-competitors.  Tickets for designated seats can also be purchased at this time.”

Well, that wasn’t going to be a problem.  I’d already reserved a basic spectator badge, which was enough to get me into the tournament site and let me watch the preliminaries.  If anyone I knew made it into the top cut, I’d think about buying seats for it, but otherwise it was too expensive to consider.

“So I’m gonna go meet up with some friends,” I said, pausing slightly.  “You can come with me, if you want?”

“No thanks.  I’ll just entertain myself around the city until Ajia gets here,” Starr replied.

“Alright, I’ll catch up with you two later,” I said, waving to her before I walked off.

After sending a quick text to Rudy to let him know I’d made it here, I waited in line to pick up my badge at the visitor’s booth.  Within seconds, I’d received his reply of, “Alright!  I’m over at public battlefield C.  See you there!”

All I had to do was show the attendant my ID and she handed me a glossy card that read ‘99 Kanto League Championships’ with the word ‘spectator’ under it in big, bold font.  Simple though it was, I couldn’t deny that it felt really cool to hang the badge around my neck and freely set foot inside the tournament site.  Who didn’t dream of visiting Indigo Plateau during tourney season?  Granted, that dream usually included being an actual participant, but I’d long since abandoned the idea of being a competitive battler, and just being here was cool enough.

So I wandered the tournament site, passing under the shadows cast by the grand stone arches at the entrance.  My eyes traced the ridiculous array of vendors’ stalls that had been set up along the walkway, which was absolutely packed with trainers.  I saw battle enhancements of every shape, size, and color, the majority of which I didn’t even know the names of.  An absolute rainbow of different types of Pokéballs.  Walls upon walls of TMs.  An assortment of League-branded merch like shirts, bags, and plushies (including a ridiculously huge plush of Bubba the Venusaur, this year’s tournament mascot.)  It was almost dizzying.

I really wasn’t too keen on draining my account while I was here, and that was almost definitely going to happen if I stayed here too long.  Instead, I pressed on through the vendors’ alley and made my way toward the public battlefields that rimmed the eastern edge of the tourney site.  Once there I was met with the sight of dozens of trainers, all with Pokémon by their side—some of them studying new moves, others holding mock battles.  Attacks were kept fairly low-key.  A quick glance at all the signs lining the area revealed why: ‘Moves with ratings exceeding 90 are strictly prohibited on the public battlegrounds.  The complete list of League-approved moves with ratings can be found here,” followed by a code that could be scanned to visit the webpage.   Well that made sense—there weren’t exactly any shields out here to keep big, explosive attacks from going out of control.

I wandered along the outskirts until I reached battlefield C, then weaved through scattered groups of trainers.  I passed by a crowd gathered around a Dragonair practicing looping figure-8s in the air, then a duo of Marowak and Scyther doing a synchronized Swords Dance.  And then when I reached the far corner of the battlefield, I finally caught sight of an olive-skinned, spiky-haired boy standing alongside a full team of Fearow, Nidoking, Pupitar, Houndoom, Breloom, and Tauros.  He turned in my direction.  Then his eyes lit up and he waved, proudly holding up the competitor badge hanging from a cord around his neck.  Before I could respond, the Houndoom dashed forward in a blur of black, rearing up to put her paws on my shoulders and licking the side of my face.  Some things never changed.

“Well about time you got here, Jade,” Rudy said in a mock scolding tone as he strolled over, hands on his hips.

“I got here as soon as I could,” I said, laughing as I shoved Ebony down.  “This is literally the first day that the tourney site’s open to non-combatants.”

“I know, I know, just trying to give you a hard time,” he said, elbowing my arm.  “I still think it sucks that you’re not actually in the tournament.  But at least you’ve been keeping up with badge collecting, yeah?  How many you up to now?”

“Five,” I said.

He nodded approvingly.  “Ever considered entering the Johto League?”

“I’m a little late for that this year,” I said with a laugh.

“Next year, then.”

I shook my head.  “Nah.  The gym battles were just the best way to keep my team from getting bored.”

“Fine, whatever works for you,” he said, shrugging.  “I can’t say it’s too different for me either.  After the rebellion ended, training and badge collecting has kinda been what’s kept me going, yeah?”  It was kind of a surprise to hear him mention that.  Neither of us exactly brought up the rebellion’s end very often.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter that you’re not entering,” he went on, waving a hand dismissively.  “In fact, it’s a good thing.  Y’know, it’s getting close enough to the preliminaries that I really shouldn’t train with anyone who I could be fighting in the tournament.  So you need to be my training partner.  My team needs all the practice it can get!”

I couldn’t help chuckling a bit under my breath.  There hadn’t been a single time we’d met up that he hadn’t challenged me.  And while I’d always left out the experiments in the past, Rudy’s Pokémon had been making leaps and bounds in strength lately.  It could actually be a fair fight now.

“How does three rounds of one on one sound?” he asked, taking a few steps back to put some distance between us.

“Fine by me,” I said.  “You send out first.”

He spun around, sizing up all of his team members.  Ebony hopped up and down in front of his face, but he gave her a pat on the neck and said, “Not this time,” with a small laugh.  He glanced at each of the rest of them in turn, muttering various things to himself.  And then his gaze fell on the rock-armored cocoon sitting off to the side, ignoring everyone else.

“I choose Pupitar!” he exclaimed.

The rock-type gave no response at first.  Her eyes were half-lidded with the usual bored expression, which I would have chalked up to her species not being very expressive, although she’d never exactly showed much interest in anything or anyone as a Larvitar either.  Rudy didn’t seem too fazed by her (lack of) response though.  He just waited patiently while she seemingly considered the idea.  Finally, after a lengthy pause, the rock-armored cocoon hopped forward heavily, the pointed end of her shell digging into the dirt with each hop.

“So you’re entering the Indigo League tournament, and you haven’t gotten one of your team members to their final form yet?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Ah, screw you,” he said, giving me a shove.  “No one gets a pseudo-legend to its final form in their first year of training.”

I smirked.  “I know, just giving you a hard time.”  It wasn’t like I’d have been able to do any better.

I took a good twenty or so steps back to put some distance between us before I let Stygian out of her Pokéball.  The Absol appeared in front of me in a burst of white light, then glanced around briefly before her eyes fell on her opponent.

“*Interesting,*” she just said.  Probably referring to the fact that I normally didn’t use her or the other experiments in my battles with Rudy.  He must have noticed too, because his eyes widened slightly, but then he just pumped a fist and shouted, “You got this, Pupitar!”  Pupitar gave a slight rock that seemed to be her species’ equivalent of a shrug.

“Let’s open with a quick Night Slash,” I said.

Stygian dashed forward, dark aura flaring to life around her forepaws as she ran.  Pupitar didn’t move.  Sure, it was unlikely she could dodge in time.  But she just sat there as Stygian closed the gap between them.  Within seconds, the Absol reached her opponent and swung a paw down, carving shallow gashes into Pupitar’s shell.

Then Rudy suddenly yelled, “Headbutt now!”

Stygian was mid-move and didn’t have a chance to react.  Without warning, the rock-type shot upward and smashed into her face.  The Absol staggered backward, clutching a paw to her forehead and glaring daggers at the pupa.

Alright, shouldn’t have rushed in like that.  If he just had Pupitar go for the counterattack on every move, her endurance would win out over Stygian’s strength.  Had to play this smarter.

“Swords Dance!” I called out.

Stygian circled back to where her opponent most likely couldn’t reach and began honing her claws in a complicated, rhythmic series of forms, her movements growing sharper and more forceful in the process.

Rudy watched her dance, furrowing his brow.  Then he just shrugged and said, “Alright, we’ll go with Rock Polish.”

Shoot.  I’d expected him to press the attack while Stygian was setting up, not respond with a setup of his own.  Since when did Rudy use setup moves, anyway?

As Stygian finished her dance, Pupitar began spinning against the dirt, slowly at first, but quickly increasing in speed.  The rocky surface of her shell smoothed over, the plates of armor clicking against each other, almost like they were loosening.

“Alright, now for a Rock Smash,” Rudy said, grinning.

The rock-type vented a burst of gas from her shell, instantly propelling herself forward like a rocket.  Whoa—I’d definitely never seen Pupitar do that before.

“Cut her off with a Night Slash!” I ordered.

Stygian dashed forward.  Her claws, honed from the earlier dance, flared up with a far larger and more vicious aura.   She rushed forward, intent on landing a hit first, hopefully knocking her opponent prone, and then we’d be free to dish out a follow-up attack.

The two met at the center of the battlefield.  The Absol’s claws landed first, cleaving deep gashes into the rock-type’s armor.  But the move didn’t stop her momentum, not by a longshot.  The pupa plowed straight into Stygian just as fast, bowling her over like she was a ragdoll.  She tumbled over her side, but then sprang to her feet quicker than I’d thought possible and smacked Pupitar in the back before she had a chance to react.

And then I realized the same thing that Stygian just had—Pupitar was fast, but only in a straight line.  She still had trouble turning on a dime.

Rudy shook his head.  “Alright, you are still too fast and we gotta fix that.  Bulldoze!”

Pupitar burst up into the air before Stygian could slash at her once again.  She reached the apex of her leap and closed her eyes in concentration before plunging back to the ground, unleashing a shockwave of rolling dirt all around her.  Stygian leaped back in a hurry, but the waves reached her in seconds.  She jumped once, twice, avoiding the first two, but then tripping over the churned-up earth left in their wake.

Damn it, now Stygian’s paws were covered in mud and she was obviously fighting the urge to stop and kick it off but also had to keep moving to avoid the nonsensically fast Pupitar and argh.  None of her hits were doing enough damage.  Granted, there was always Iron Tail… We hadn’t exactly perfected it after learning it from Jasmine while training in Olivine, and it was hard to land, but…

Pupitar let out another burst of gas, shooting forward.

Ah, screw it.

“Iron Tail!” I yelled.

Stygian’s bladelike tail began to glow, flickering at first, then gradually increasing in brightness.  But it was slow, and the Absol had to jump back to avoid the oncoming attack.  Finally, the light faded to reveal a metallic sheen, and the dark-type lunged at her opponent.  She stopped, pivoted on her front paws, then swung her tail in a wide arc—

—and went completely over Pupitar’s head.

“Dammit!” I hissed under my breath.

“Another Headbutt!”

Alright, bad idea, bad idea, had to salvage this.  Something, anything—!

“Sucker Punch!” I blurted out.

The second before Pupitar made contact, Stygian ducked down and slipped behind her in one smooth motion.  Before the rock-type had a chance to react, Stygian caught her with a heavy strike right to the back of her head, right between the armor plates.  Pupitar pitched forward, eyes going wide for a second.  Then she kept going, faceplanting into the dirt at full speed.

I pumped a fist in the air.  And in the seconds it took Pupitar to begin wrenching herself free from the earth, I almost forgot to order a follow up.

“Now go for the Iron Tail!”

Stygian crouched low, tail glowing again.  Pupitar struggled, the boost gas digging her horns deeper into the dirt.  Not fast enough.  The Absol’s tail shed its glow, fully metallic.  She swung it in a downward arc, striking the pupa in the back of the head with a resounding clang and knocking her flying.  The rock-type tumbled across the battlefield before finally coming to a halt.

Pupitar picked herself up from the dirt, giving us… what would have looked like an either annoyed or pissed-off face if it weren’t her default.  Though there was also subtler tells.  The way her body had started trembling.  Her eyes twitching.  Our moves had done more damage than I’d thought.

The next few seconds dragged on weirdly long as Pupitar paused, seemingly considering something.  Then, without warning, she let out a burst of gas… and shot right past Stygian and back to her trainer’s side.

“Done already?” Rudy said, staring at her incredulously.

The rock-type gave no response, continuing to eye me and Stygian with the same annoyed (?) glare.

He rolled his eyes.  “Alright, alright, you’re the boss.” He gestured to me and Stygian.  “First round is yours, I guess.”

I stared blankly.  “What was that about?”

Rudy shoved his hands in his pockets.  “Ah, you know how she is.  Doesn’t always wanna battle, but then gets grumpy when she doesn’t get to.”  He gave the cocoon a playful jab before recalling her.

Huh.  Then, again, now that I thought back, that had been the case when we trained on the Rebellion as well.  Back then, he’d always brush it off with the fact that it’d all be worth it when she became a Tyranitar.  At least, before he got bored and switched to training Ebony nonstop.  I’d never seen him so calm about it.

“But like, it’s not her fault!” Rudy added quickly.  “Just part of being a Pupitar, y’know?  Prob’ly more boring for her than it is for me.  That’s part of the reason I wanna get better, so that she can evolve.  I think she’ll like having legs again.”

I smiled.  “I think you’re right.  In any case, that was a lot tougher than our last match.”

“Yeah?  I’ll take that as a compliment then, cuz she won’t,” he said with a slight laugh.  “Anyway, you won that round so you send out first.”

I nodded, recalling Stygian.  My hand hovered over the rest of my Pokéballs, but then settled on one.

“You’re up, Aros!” I called out.  The buglike dragon took shape in front of me, already tensed for battle.  But then his red-lensed eyes fell on Rudy and he relaxed slightly, mouth curled into confident smirk.  “*Well this should be fun.*”

“Don’t underestimate him,” I warned.  “He’s entering the league, after all.”

“*I got it, I got it,*” the Flygon said waving his tail fan.  His tone wasn’t too convincing.

Rudy grinned upon seeing my pick.  “Time for the real star of the show,” he said.  “Nidoking, you’re up!”

The armored, rabbit-like beast lumbered forward, striking a dashing pose once he reached the center of the battlefield.  Nidoking.  One of the Pokémon that Rudy had been training the longest.  The team’s powerhouse.

“Did you see his new belt?” Rudy asked.  “It’s pretty badass, isn’t it?”

Nidoking lifted his bulky arms to better show off the tattered black belt tied around his midsection.

“Oh yeah, I remember you mentioning that.  Guessing you taught him some new fighting-type moves?”

“You’ll see,” Rudy said, still grinning cheekily.

I snorted.  “Alright then.”  I motioned to Aros and said, “Open with Dragon Pulse!”

The Flygon opened his mouth wide and breathed out a jagged burst of violet dragonfire.  Nidoking responded by lunging to the side in one deceptively fast motion; his thick hind claws scraping the dirt as he skidded to a halt.  He flashed a grin that seemed to mirror his trainer’s, then flexed his foreclaws as if asking for more.

Egh, what a waste.  Aros was way too far away to guarantee a hit.  We’d have to close the distance.

“Alright fine, fly closer and use Dragon Claw!” I yelled.

Rudy’s grin still hadn’t lessened.  And he wasn’t the sort to fake confidence to psyche out his opponent.  He was planning something.  Nidoking stamped a foot and held both arms forward, clearly readying himself for a counterattack.  Aros vibrated his wings and shot forward, claws flaring up with dragonfire.  The poison beast made a lunge at the last second but Aros swerved around him effortlessly, drawing back his claws and slashing down right alongside the row of thorns running down his back.  Nidoking grunted in pain, stumbling forward.  But then he swung his heavy arms in a wide arc before the Flygon could make a move to get out of the way, catching hold of his tail.

“What the hell?” I muttered.

Rudy’s smirked.  “Ice Beam.”

Oh, hell no.

Nidoking pointed his horn, ice crystals glittering around it before a jagged beam of bright blue energy shot forward, striking Aros right in the face.  The bug-dragon let out a pathetic cry as his wings slowed and he crashed into the dirt, shivering like mad.

Ice Beam.  He knew freaking Ice Beam, the one thing Aros was hopelessly weak to.  He couldn’t possibly endure another one of those.  Had to do something fast.

“Get in the air!” I yelled desperately.

It’d take Nidoking a good couple of seconds to charge up the energy for another beam.  More than enough time to put some distance between them.  It’d buy me some time to think, anyway.

Aros shook the frost off his wings, shaking all over.  But he grit his teeth with a look of determination and wrenched his tail out of Nidoking’s grip before taking to the air.  His flight faltered a bit at first, but he quickly put on speed, flying so high I had to squint at the sunlight.

“Coming back down anytime soon?  You know regulation battlefields have a height limit,” Rudy pointed out, sounding far more amused about it than he had any right to.

“Oh, quiet,” I shot back.  He was right, but I wasn’t about to admit it.  I motioned to Aros and yelled.  “Dragon Pulse, and spread it out!”

Aros inhaled deeply before breathing out another burst of dragonfire.  But this time instead of a single jet, it exploded into wide flurry of embers raining down on Nidoking.  The poison beast raised his heavy forelimbs overhead, shielding his face.  His horn glittered with ice crystals, and I sucked in a breath.  But then Nidoking paused, eyes tracing Aros’s path through the sky.  There was no point in wasting the energy on a move that was so easily dodged from far away.

Rudy clearly realized the same thing too, because he nodded and called out, “Toxic!”

Nidoking opened his mouth wide, gathering a pool of sludge in his throat and spitting it out so that it splattered apart in the air.  Aros turned away to shield his face, but several drops of the stuff splashed against his side.  He shook them off with a sound of disgust, but the damage was done—his scales remained tinged with a sickly purple.  Couldn’t afford to waste time, then.  Had to go for an all-out offensive.  While also avoiding Ice Beam.  Ugh, what a pain…  Judging by the smirk on Rudy’s face, that was exactly why he’d done it, too.

“Sand Tomb!” I called out.

Aros pitched his wings backward and shot toward the ground, keeping his eyes on Nidoking the entire time.  The Flygon reached the earth within seconds, digging his claws into the ground and clenching them tightly.  At once, the dirt around Nidoking dissolved into a vortex of sand, sucking him into its center no matter how hard he thrashed against it.

“Alright, he’s immobilized!  Now stay behind him so he can’t hit you!” I yelled.

Aros took off flying in a wide arc, quickly putting himself out of Nidoking’s prime Ice Beam range and pelting his back with more dragonfire.  The poison-type struggled to pivot, but the sand weighing down his lower half made it difficult.  Wrenching his legs upward only made him sink deeper.

“Dig!” Rudy called out, and I had to stop myself from laughing out loud. Was he insane?  Using Dig against a ground-type.  Nidoking would be a sitting duck while he was underground!

Nidoking didn’t waste a second diving headfirst into the sinkhole, scattering fistfuls of sand behind him as he tunneled downward.

I pointed forward with what must have been a manic grin on my face.  “Get him with Earthquake!”  And then, for whatever reason, the alarm bells went off in my head.  Moves rated over 90 were banned on the public battlefields.  Earthquake was definitely on that list.

“Wait!  Wait wait wait!” I called out frantically just as Aros was preparing to slam his legs into the ground with all his might.  God, the last thing we needed was toppling over a dozen trainers and Pokémon.  What other moves could hit Nidoking while he was underground? Bulldoze maybe?  I wasn’t so sure.  But wait—I’d already used up all four of my move commands with that stupid Earthquake.

Nidoking popped his head out of the dirt a good twenty feet away from where he’d submerged, now perfectly free from the Sand Tomb.

“Now!”

Ice Beam fired, striking Aros perfectly while he was still waiting for me to order something.  A wave of frost rushed over his body from the impact point, and he flailed his wings in an attempt to get away.  But it was too much.  His tail thrashed desperately against the air for several seconds, then his wings gave out and he crashed to the dirt, unmoving.

I let out a low groan, screwing my eyes shut while I grabbed his Pokéball to recall him.  Then I shot Rudy a glare.  “Been using TMs, I take it?”

He grinned.  “You noticed.”

“Well it’d be a little hard not to!” I yelled, laughing slightly.

“Also, it’s an Expert Belt, not a Black Belt,” he added, jerking a thumb toward Nidoking, who was now flexing.

I rolled my eyes.  “You think I can tell the difference?”

“Obviously not.”

Ouch.  I’d walked right into that.

“Whatever, we’re one round apiece and you have the first sendout again,” I said with just the tiniest bit of irritation leaking into my voice.

Rudy pivoted on his heels and had barely looked over his lineup before turning back and announcing, “I’ll use Tauros, then.”

A recent addition to his team.  The young bull gave a snort and trotted forward, shaking his mane proudly.

After that Ice Beam nonsense from Nidoking, I was fully expecting more unexpected moves.  I just obviously didn’t know exactly what kind, which made it hard to anticipate.  Obviously, the best choice would be the team member with the fewest exploitable weaknesses.  That was Chibi, but… I still wasn’t totally sure if anyone on Rudy’s team was a match for him.  And there was no point to this if it wasn’t an even match.  So, in that case…

“Your turn, Firestorm!” I called out, releasing him.  The fire lizard took shape in front of me, flaring his wings and spitting a few embers.

“Let’s open with Work Up!” Rudy exclaimed.  Tauros gave a flick of his tails before launching into an energetic march, tossing his head with each hoofbeat.

I pointed forward.  “Get in the air and use Flame Burst!”

With a mighty flap, Firestorm shot skyward.  He opened his mouth wide, gathering a large ball of flame, then launched it downward.  But Tauros was fast.  By that time, he seemed to have somehow finished his march already, because he was able to break into a full gallop and avoid the worst of the fireball.  It hit the dirt right behind him and exploded into a flurry of embers.

Firestorm was too high to land a direct hit without Tauros being able to dodge everything with ease.  At worst, he’d take a few minor scorches.  Same tactic as last time, forcing us into close quarters.  Fortunately, Firestorm was good at that.

“Fly down behind him and use Fire Punch!”

Firestorm pitched his wings back, shooting into a steep dive.  He flared his wings out once he neared the ground, aiming to close the distance before his opponent could try anything.  Tauros lunged with his horns, but the Charizard was moving much too quickly and tilted a wing to instantly loop behind.  He drew back an arm, flames bursting to life around his fist, then swung it, landing a scorching blow to Tauros’s back.  The bull recoiled backward, pivoting on his forelegs, face scrunched up with pain and then—

“Rock Tomb!”

Dammit.  There it was.

Firestorm’s eyes went wide, and he spread his wings to gain altitude again.  But he’d already lost too much of his momentum from the Fire Punch, and wasn’t ready for the giant boulders that erupted from the ground around him, smashing into his belly and knocking him to the dirt.  Tauros didn’t waste any time charging at him the moment he crashed to the ground, which had the added impact of knocking him flying right back into the rocks.

“Get back in the air!” I yelled frantically, clenching both fists tight.

Firestorm struggled to pull himself free from the rubble, but his movements were slow, and he had to raise his arms to catch Tauros’s horns before the latter could ram him again.  What was I doing?  This was the same gambit Rudy pulled last round.  Couldn’t get flustered just from one unexpected move.  Rock Tomb was weaker than Ice Beam anyway, and it wasn’t like Tauros had any equipment powering it up either.  Firestorm wasn’t down and out yet.

“Another Rock Tomb!” Rudy yelled.

“Smokescreen!” I blurted out.

Tauros reared back, ready to strike.  But the Charizard breathed out a billowing cloud of black smoke right into his face, and he stumbled backward, coughing.  And in the moment it took for him to regain himself and slam his hooves into the dirt, Firestorm shot into the sky, one wing slightly crooked.  Stones erupted from the ground right behind where he’d been just seconds earlier.

Rudy’s eyes followed Firestorm turning tail back into the air.  Then he just shrugged and said, “Alright, another Work Up then.”

Ughh no, not more setting up.  That was the whole reason we’d pressed the attack in the first place.  Did Tauros even have any long-range moves?  I could maybe play it cheap and just have Firestorm stay out of reach the whole time?  Either way, couldn’t waste time, had to give a command.

“Flame Burst!” I called out, because I really didn’t have anything better to say.

The Charizard breathed out another raging fireball, and this time his aim was true, striking Tauros right on the back and exploding with a plume of embers that made him grunt in pain.  But the normal-type had already finished his march, and despite the damage, his movements were as sharp and energetic as ever.

Rudy put a hand to his chin, thinking.  Then the corners of his mouth turned up and he ordered, “Swagger!”

Really?  That was awful bold of him.

Tauros slowed down, fighting back the pain from the previous hit.  And then he began to strut, tossing his mane and whipping his tails with an overconfident smirk.  Firestorm glanced away, determined not to look at it.  But as the seconds went by, his eyes darted back more and more frequently.  He muttered something under his breath.  I saw his muscles tighten up with anger.  Saw him go slightly cross-eyed.

“You wanna power him up? Alright fine.”  I stamped a foot to the dirt and yelled, “Fire Punch!  But don’t get too close to the ground!  Be ready to dodge the rocks!”  Man, that was a tall order right now, especially with him flustered by the confusion.  I already regretted it, but taking it back would be even more confusing.

Firestorm dove.  I flinched, half expecting him to just crash into the dirt, but he flared his wings and caught himself, moving so fast that he’d hopefully be hard to hit with more rocks.  Tauros braced himself, ready to meet his opponent head-on.  The Charizard drew back his fist, raging flame licking his scales, and then—

The fire went out.  Firestorm stared stupidly at his own fist for a few seconds, then forgot to flap his wings and crashed to the ground with a dull thud.

I smacked a palm to my forehead.  Dammit.

“Wild Charge!” Rudy called out.

Tauros drew himself back, his body crackling with… electricity?  Yeah, strings of lightning leaped off his fur as he charged forward, slamming himself into Firestorm with full force.  The fire lizard faceplanted into the dirt and didn’t move after that.

I stared, my brain taking several seconds to process the full weight of what had just happened.

“Heeeellll yeeeaaah!!” Rudy yelled, jumping three feet into the air

“Oh my god, I am never gonna hear the end this, am I?” I asked, putting both hands to my forehead in what was only slightly exaggerated defeat.

“Hell no!” he exclaimed, pumping both fists above his head

I’d lost, and it wasn’t even a close loss on the last two.  And I hadn’t even really won the first match, Pupitar had just gotten bored.  That was even worse.  Granted, we probably would’ve won that round anyway.  At least I could tell myself that.

I recalled Firestorm and put my hands on my hips.  “Well fine, if you call getting a single cheap shot with new moves your strategy, let’s see how that carries you.”

“Not my fault you weren’t expecting it,” he said with a smirk.  And in his defense… any opponent in the League would be expecting those moves.  I just didn’t care to do any research because I wasn’t entering.

“Alright, you asked for it, next time you’re fighting Chibi,” I said, sticking out my tongue.

He scoffed.  “Bring it on, we’re not scared of him anymore.”

“*I beg to differ,*” Fearow cut in dryly.

He craned his neck to glance back at the shaggy bird.  “Well hey, no one said you had to fight him.”

I tilted my head.  That wasn’t the first time today that he’d just casually replied to his Pokémon without thinking about it.  “You’re getting better at Pokéspeech, huh?”

Rudy paused, considering it.  “Yeah?  I mean, I never cared too much about it in school, but then… I guess you guys made it look cool, so I started working on it again.”  He shoved his fists in his pockets, like he was making an embarrassing admission and not describing something really cool.

“I think it’s neat,” I said.

He just shrugged and turned around, grabbing a potion from his bag and spraying down Tauros’s scorched fur.  Behind the two of them, Breloom was chatting with Fearow about something while Nidoking posed for random passersby.  And Ebony… well, Ebony was currently running circles around Pupitar, trying in vain to get the latter to play with her, while the pupa slowly rotated herself so that she wasn’t facing the energetic pup.

He had a pretty solid team.  The six in front of me, not to mention Raichu, who must have been in storage at the moment.  And they’d all obviously been training a lot.  It honestly seemed like they had a shot at making it to the top cut.

“Hey, good to see you here!” a voice behind me called out.  A familiar voice.  “Let me guess, this one already dragged you into a battle, yeah?”

I whirled around and sure enough, there was Darren strolling up to us, a soda in one hand while he waved with the other.

Rudy jerked his head toward us.  “Well look who decided to show up!” he exclaimed, throwing his hands forward dramatically.

“He’s exaggerating,” Darren said, raising a hand to the side of his mouth in a mock whisper.  “I’ve been here for two weeks.”

“Slacking off for two weeks, more like it,” Rudy shot back.  “Are you a tourist or a competitor?”

Darren rolled his eyes, but then my attention was stolen as a furry black shape dashed up my side, clinging to my shoulder.

“Ow!  Claws, claws!” I cried, freezing with my arms out to the side—moving only made the claws dig in more.  A huge fan of pink feathers edged into my peripheral vision, and it wasn’t hard to guess who the culprit was.

“Alright, get down Weavile,” Darren said, struggling to lift her until she finally jumped down herself.  The dark-type grinned up at us toothily.  Then she immediately dashed off as Ebony rushed after her, correctly identifying her as a much better playmate than Pupitar.

“So you’re competing too?” I asked upon seeing the competitor badge hanging from his neck.

“Yeah, this one bullied me into it,” he said, jerking a thumb towards Rudy.

“Oh whatever, you wanted to do it too,” Rudy said dismissively, standing up and shoving the empty potion bottle back into his bag.

Darren shrugged.  “Mostly for the novelty, but whatever.”

While he’d insisted in the past that the competitive battling scene wasn’t his thing, I couldn’t help but notice that he’d been keeping pace with Rudy’s badge-getting throughout the past nine months.

“Anyway, are your teams hungry?” he asked.  “I was just about to take mine to the feed tent.”

Rudy gave him an indignant look.  “We just barely got started on our training.  We’ve got at least two more hours before it’s time for a food break.”

The rest of his team didn’t seem to feel the same, in particular Ebony, who took that moment to conveniently reappear next to us and yell out, “*Snacks!!*”

Rudy glanced back and forth between his team and us before putting his arms up in mock defeat.  “Yeah, alright fine.”

We stopped by the Pokécenter for a quick heal (none of our team members were too terribly injured) before following Darren out to a huge tent where they had a Pokémon feeding station set up.  It allowed trainers to pay a flat fee for each member of their team and the Pokémon could eat as much as they wanted from a wide variety of foods.

With all three of us letting out our teams at once, I got the opportunity to see Darren’s full team of Venusaur, Sandslash, Golduck, Alakazam, Weavile, and Skarmory.  All of them but Skarmory had been on his team during our Midnight Island training (the steel-type had joined the party sometime a few months ago.)  Even if Darren wasn’t as big into competitive battling as Rudy, there was no denying that he had a solid team.

Rudy chattered nonstop about the strategies he’d been developing for each of his team members, then badgered me until I spilled the details of my most recent gym battle.  Compared to my previous one versus Jasmine, it hadn’t been the most interesting win.   Gym Leader Claire’s Kingdra had been kicking my ass with crazy fast moves until I sent out Chibi and took advantage of the rain by spamming Thunder over and over.  Normally I wouldn’t have wanted to win like that, but… Chibi had been wanting to let off some steam for a while, and it had seemed to do him some good.

Now, on the other hand, the one who seemed like he most needed to let off steam was Aros.  He kept glowering at Rudy in between shoving fistfuls of food into his mouth like he was trying to show the food who was boss.

“Got something to say?” I asked dryly.

The Flygon glanced away.  “*He’s gotten better.*”

I gave him a pointed look.  “Well yeah, of course he has.  He’s been training a ton.  I mean, he’s entering the Indigo League tournament.  There’s no shame in us losing to him.”

Aros huffed.  “*I’ll just have to go all-out next time.*”

I rolled my eyes.  Either he was just lying to look better, or had actually been giving a weak effort—I wasn’t sure which one was worse.

Around twenty minutes later, and just as we were preparing to leave the Pokéchow tent, I received a text from Ajia that read, “Hey, I just got here.  Already found Starr.  Wanna grab lunch and chat?”

“Sure thing,” I texted back.  Then I turned to Rudy and Darren and asked, “Mind if I take off?  Gonna grab lunch with a friend who just got here.”

“Leaving us again, I see how it is.” Darren said with a smirk.

I rolled my eyes.  “Ha ha.  I’ll be back later this afternoon, alright?”  At this rate I was never going to live down that time I left for the afternoon and then vanished for five days.

Rudy gave me a look that said I was insane.  “Um, how about no.  I’ve still got like a billion moves I wanna practice.”  He paused for a bit before adding, “And you need more practice too.”

I snorted.  “I’m not even in the tournament.”

“All the most reason to improve,” he said earnestly.

“That doesn’t even make any sense!” I yelled, but for some reason it was just dumb enough that I was laughing all the same.  “Like I said, I’ll be back in a few hours, and we can all beat the stuffing out of each other just like old times.  Deal?”

Rudy scoffed.  “I don’t need multi battle practice, this isn’t the Hoenn League.”

“Ah, come on, it’ll be fun,” Darren said, elbowing him.

“Whatever.  But I swear, if you two gang up on me again, you’re gonna get it.”  What exactly we were going to ‘get’ remained to be seen.

After checking to make sure that my team was done eating (and having to stop Jet from shoveling treats into my bag for later) I recalled them all and gave one last wave to Rudy and Darren before taking off.

Ajia texted me the name of the restaurant and I found it on my Pokégear map.  It was a smaller place about 10 minutes out from all the stadiums.  And while it still had plenty of trainers inside, it wasn’t anything like the wall-to-wall packed establishments that filled the tourney site.

I quickly spotted Starr and Ajia after the latter waved to me from a booth in the far back of the room.  I waved back, then went and placed my order at the front counter before going back to join them.

“Good to see you,” Ajia said brightly as I sat down across from her.

“I’m just glad you could make it,” I said, grinning.

“Of course!” she said with a wink.  “In any case, you said you had friends competing in this one, right?”

I nodded.  “Yeah, I just got done meeting with them.”

“How d’you think they’ll do in the tournament?” Starr asked with the slight edge of a smirk.

I paused.  “Well, I don’t know if Darren is all that into it, but his team is really well-balanced.  And Rudy… he’s gotten really hardcore recently.  I actually lost to him, just now.”

“Niiice,” Starr said, laughing slightly.  I rolled my eyes, determined to not let it get to me.

Ajia put a hand to her chin, as though thinking about something.  “You three trained together last year, right?”

“Yeah,” I said.

The unspoken implication was clear.  It was unlikely that the three of us would have gotten as good if we hadn’t trained under Stalker.  But Ajia didn’t continue that train of thought.  She just leaned back, glancing wistfully around the restaurant, and all the League memorabilia lining the walls.  “Man, being here brings back memories.”

“What year did you compete here again?” I asked.

“It was in ‘96.  I made it to the top 16, though I honestly don’t know how, I was pretty terrible back then,” she said, giving an embarrassed smile.

I waved a hand dismissively.  “Ah, you couldn’t have been that bad.”

Ajia chuckled.  “I dunno, you should’ve seen me.  I took a break from training after that, and then I started traveling in Johto.  And then I got mixed up in all that Rocket stuff, trained under the commander, and, well… for better or worse, I got a lot, lot better.  That’s definitely the only reason I won the ‘97 Johto Championships.”

I smacked my forehead.  “I still can’t believe I didn’t watch that one live.  Spent that whole stupid summer sulking because I failed the trainer exam.”

Starr snorted.  “Wow, really?  Even I watched that one.”

Ajia raised an eyebrow.  “Oh really?” she asked with just the slightest bit of a wry grin.

Starr scowled.  “Oh, don’t get the wrong idea.  We were enemies, alright?  I had to stay informed on your location and your strengths and your—”

“Uh huh, sure,” Ajia said, elbowing her playfully.  Starr just rolled her eyes with an exaggerated scoff.

The side mention of Team Rocket had dragged up the memory of what Chibi had been badgering me about, though.  I really didn’t want to bring it up, but at the same time, it wasn’t fair to just ignore it.

I glanced around a few times, just to make sure that I wasn't in danger of being overheard.  But with all the noise in the restaurant it was almost impossible to pick up individual voices.

“Hey, uh… I know I’ve asked you a million times, but… Chibi was wondering if there’s any news on the Rocket front,” I said.  Starr raised an eyebrow at my words, but then turned to Ajia just the same.

Ajia leaned back in her chair, folding her arms.  “Same as last time, I’m afraid,” she said.  “No more targeted Legendaries, no more major combat unit missions.  It’s all business as usual.”

“That’s what I told him, but he wouldn’t buy that,” I said.  “Kept saying that they’re probably working on something big.”

She paused, considering something carefully.  “Well… he could be onto something there.”

“What?  But you just said—”

“Nothing’s actually happened,” Ajia added quickly.  “But one of my contacts keeps hearing about how the higher-ups are really, really upset about losing Mewtwo.”

Starr laughed.  “Of course they are.  Take away their ultimate weapon, they’re gonna be pissed.”

“Not just pissed,” Ajia said, shaking her head.  “They straight-up can’t proceed with any of their plans until they have a way to deal with it.”

I tilted my head.  “Well, that’s good, right?  That’s why we haven’t heard anything.”

“Probably just afraid if they try anything, Mewtwo’s gonna show up out of nowhere and kick their ass,” Starr said with a smirk.

Ajia gave her an exasperated look.  “Starr…”

“Alright, I’ll stop.”  She let out a sigh.  “Look, we all know they’re not gonna give up.  Just means that when they do try something it’s gonna be fast and decisive.  Something that’ll get them the biggest advantage in the shortest time, before there’s any chance for a counterattack.  Also something that is totally none of our business,” she added, giving me and Ajia a pointed look.

Eh… right.

None of us brought up Team Rocket again for the rest of the conversation.  I was also fairly certain that I didn’t want to relay anything we’d said to Chibi.

Chapter Text

“Breloom, use Drain Punch!” Rudy yelled.

The bouncy, mushroom-capped Pokémon fired his back legs to leap forward, driving an arm into his target’s thorax.  The opposing Scizor tumbled backward and slumped over, still passed out from the earlier Spore attack.  Beads of orange light clung to Breloom’s fist from the impact point, slowly settling into his body.  Rudy smirked and threw a hand forward, ready to order another move.

And then Scizor’s eyes snapped open.  The armored bug shot to its feet in one sharp motion, shaking its head to clear the haze of sleep before its eyes focused on the opponent now standing right in front of it.

“Yes!  Use Aerial Ace!” its trainer called out.

Breloom sprang backward, but Scizor pursued, blades of white light forming around its pincers.  It swung once; Breloom slipped under it with a smooth dodge, but the follow-up came impossibly fast, tearing into him first with a downward strike before smashing him back with the upward one.

“And a brutal Aerial Ace attack sends Breloom flying!  Rudy’s in a tight spot—Connor might just be able to turn this match around!” the commentator’s booming voice called out over the speakers, whipping the audience into a frenzy.  I clenched the armrests of my seat.  Rudy was probably wishing he’d brought Ebony to this match—would’ve been nice to just make short work of Scizor with a Flamethrower or two.  Then again, his opponent’s team was stacked with rock-types so he’d opted not to (though part of me had still half expected him to bring her anyway.)  Now he had a way tougher fight ahead of him.