Disclaimer: It's been six years, you should know I don't own Pokemon by now. C'mon, guys. Get with the program.

Forward: Six years ago, I moved three states away from home to start college. Those first two semesters were hell for me, as I had no friends or family nearby for support and my depression hit rock bottom. There were days and moments where I almost didn't make it through, and I wasn't getting help. The only thing I really had in my life at the time was the fic Slowpoke Tails and Koffing Fumes, which I worked on day and night and gave me meaning enough to keep pressing on. Two years ago I uploaded the STKF finale, and one month ago I graduated from college. Looking back, STKF is the reason I'm still here today, which is a thought I've never expressed before now. I intend to leave it on my profile as long as FFNet exists, but I intend now to offer a new version of STKF since I am in a much better, much more stable time in my life. If you have read STKF before, I hope you enjoy this new rendition, and if you have not, I hope you enjoy this fic all the same. ~ Kura

"Di Mercurio."

Matori glanced up from the planner spread across her desk and indifferently eyed the admins seated across the room from her. There were three still left for today, all of whom she was relatively acquainted with. Well, to some degree, at least. Saki Tachibana was a regular to the office, being an admin with the field division. Of the three, she was sitting nearest to Matori, and was also the least irritable. She mostly kept to herself, came in mostly to drop off reports or to deliver items of high interest. She was respectful, resourceful, and efficient; moreover, she was from Viridian City, and had first worked as a trainer in Master Giovanni's gym there before being recruited into Team Rocket. Her pokemon were cared for diligently and demonstrated quite a good amount of battle prowess. If Matori had to pick anyone out of the line-up to receive the coveted title of Executive, it would probably be Tachibana.

Of course, sitting next to Tachibana was Tao Kuang. Kuang was just as regular as Tachibana, though for a much different reason. He worked under Archer, Matori knew, and his duties were mostly relegated to accounting. His pokemon were not, by any means, as well-trained as Tachibana's, but he was a hard worker. If he were to receive the promotion, it wouldn't take him long to catch up to the others. He already got along wonderfully with the twins as well, which was certainly a plus. Perhaps, if he were to be presented with the promotion, it would take just some of the pressure off of Archer's shoulders. He had been recruited in Blackthorn, though apparently hailed all the way from Olivine. Despite their differences, Kuang certainly would have been just as good of pick as Tachibana.

And then there was Lance.

Lance Di Mercurio wasn't necessarily a bad pick, per say. His pokemon—a single, low-level zubat—was not by any means comparable to even Kuang's pokemon, let alone Tachibana's. He was some awkward, scrawny kid one of the recruiters had picked up in Goldenrod a few years back, only barely old enough to even be considered an adult. Matori only rarely interacted with Lance face-to-face; more often than not, their correspondence only occurred through HQ's internal messaging system and was always so brief and to-the-point that it was bordering on impudent. He worked for the security department and specialized in correction and interrogation. If Matori had to admit one good thing about Lance, it was that he got results; his first year working he outed no less than seven traitors and managed to crack a member of InterPol badly enough to make them reveal the organization's foreknowledge of a rather important heist Team Rocket had been planning for ages. But Lance was still very crude; very unrefined. He didn't treat Team Rocket the way most of the other admins did, mostly just treated it as a means to an end. It was that quality which Matori found particularly unsavory, and she honestly couldn't fathom how he had made it this far into the interview process. Yet here he was.

When Matori had called his name, Lance's eyes shot up from the pokeball he had been fidgeting with and for a second, he pursed his lips. Matori, however, was not going to repeat herself, and stared pointedly at him until he slowly began to push himself to his feet. Light footsteps glided across the floor; she watched him as he passed her desk by. Threadbare uniform, shaggy green hair... How could anyone dare to present themselves to Master Giovanni in such a manner, she wondered. But maybe it wasn't her place to say. The analog clock above her desk tick, tick, ticked on in the silence. Lance opened the heavy walnut door and disappeared inside.

Giovanni's office wasn't huge by any means, but it wasn't small, either. The floor was a charming dark hardwood, and the far wall might as well have been one giant window if such a thing had been possible. Various shelves and display cases lined the room, interspersed with a few pieces of expensive-looking art on the wall, but what took command of the room was the ornate desk in the center of the room, walnut, just like the door. Giovanni sat behind this desk in his usual crisp suit, leaning comfortably back in his seat. Lance silently trudged through the space to the comfortable armchair across from him to sit as well, Giovanni offering him a patient smile all the while.

"Welcome back, Mr. Di Mercurio," he greeted smoothly, "I expect you've been busy since our last meeting."

"Yes, Sir," Lance replied as he removed his hat, inclining his head ever so slightly, "the correction facilities' always busy this time of year. New recruits 'n all."

Giovanni let out a short chuckle and leaned forward onto his desk, steepling his fingers in front of him. "Don't sell yourself short," he said, amusement crinkling at the corners of his eyes, "keep in mind, won't you, nothing happens in this organization without my hearing of it." They sat in silence for a minute, Giovanni's focus boring into Lance as the latter, meanwhile, drummed one set of fingers anxiously against the armrest of his seat. To his credit, Lance did not budge by a hair's width, and green eyes never strayed from brown. Neither man made to break this silence for a minute longer. But as always, it was never Giovanni who folded first.

"You're right," Lance agreed, though perhaps more disgruntled than he ought to have been. He turned the pokeball in his hand over once, tossed it lightly into the air, then activated the expansion mechanism and leaned forward to place it just in front of Giovanni. It was only when he took it that Lance began to explain himself.

"'Bout three weeks ago, we rooted out a Cipher shitlord bunkerin' down with some of the raw recruits," he continued, "bitch thought he could just waltz right in and take whatever he wanted, so I took out his nervous system. Not before I got that, though."

"And what's so special about this?" Giovanni prompted.

It looked like an ordinary pokeball in every way. Nothing was housed in it, at least, not anymore. Lance grimaced at the memory and had to try very hard to keep himself from rubbing his bandaged ribs. Who knew a larvitar could have caused so much damage? He'd been the only one with the balls to get close enough to put the damn thing down. And that was when the confusion had started. Laritar shouldn't have been able to cause that much damage, and that one had been 'roided up, or something. No one else seemed to have been concerned. Pokemon from Orre were weird, they'd said. Pokemon from Orre couldn't be compared to their Johto or Kanto counterparts. Lance had been the only one to notice that the pokeball, in fact, was not an ordinary pokeball.

"It's been modded," he explained, "you can tell when you open it. Chip's starting to warp in a weird way, limiter and compressor are damaged by design. Don't see those kinds of scratches on 'em any other way. Cipher's workin' on some weird-ass tech. Pokemon that used to live in this one was a nightmare. Big, mean, stupid. More than normal."

Giovanni did as Lance suggested, flipping the pokeball's lid open to peer inside. He let out another chuckle before reaching to hand the pokeball back, and Lance flipped it shut and pocketed it. "I hear this has been your pet project since then," Giovanni said, though he didn't wait for Lance to confirm, "burning the midnight oil a little harder than normal, eh? That's the kind of work ethic I like to see. The kind of initiative."

"I didn't expect to get called back," Lance admitted.

"Oh, no one did," Giovanni dismissed, "you're more frustrating than anyone has time to deal with. But I like you, Di Mercurio. I like how you get things done without needing to be told." Lance was quiet again. Giovanni took it in stride, pushed himself to his feet and motioned carelessly towards the door. "Ms. Tachibana and Mr. Kuang are wonderful, of course. Raw power, raw skill... Qualities that ought not be overlooked, wouldn't you agree?"

"Yes, Sir."

"So why are you here, Mr. Di Mercurio? Why do you think I've had you brought back to me, today?"

There was a right answer there, somewhere. There always was with Giovanni, especially when Team Rocket was the matter at hand. Always a right answer, a right move, and always, always consequences. Lance knew that better than most of the grunts and admins in the organization. Sometimes, you could get away with playing the idiot, and Giovanni would tell you what the right answer was. This was not one of those occurrences. Instead, he moved around his desk to lean back against it, towering over Lance's seated form as he simply waited.

"Because I'm better than them." His answer did not disappoint. Giovanni's small smile grew wide and self-satisfied.

"That's one way to put it," he agreed, "you're not content with your one job, are you? And you're not the typical sadistic meathead we use to keep our mareep in order, eh?" It was only when he snapped it up and waved it at him that Lance realized Giovanni had his file out, and he watched as his boss flipped it open and perused the papers. "A full ride to Blackthorn University's engineering program... an estranged father who worked for Silph Corp... your quaint little side project, there, from Cipher. And I hear you've been doing pokeball maintenance for grunts in the field division?"

"Need the money," Lance tried to explain, but Giovanni continued over him.

"I think you've made your interests quite clear, Mr. Di Mercurio. Your other prototypes—how many have been successful?"

For a second, Lance nearly opened his mouth to ask how Giovanni of all people knew about his hobby, the prototype pokeballs he tinkered with in his dorm for fun, but his breath caught quick in his throat. Of course Giovanni knew. Giovanni always knew. Instead, he nodded and began to rattle off his pet projects. A pokeball meant to strengthen itself in the dark. A pokeball meant to be augmented by the radiation of evolution stones. A pokeball with a stronger power source. A pokeball that could function as a TM. Every idea Lance had dreamed as a child, every half-working prototype he explained, Giovanni's glee with the situation only seemed to grow. He had been in the middle of explaining his idea for using a double feedback loop to improve the capture rate of an ultra ball when Giovanni finally cut him off.

"Mr. Kuang has been skimming off the top of Team Rocket's finances for months, now," he said, "and Ms. Tachibana recently decided a very rare jewel would be better suited to her wardrobe than for any plans I or the research division may have had for it." That was it. That was all he said. He leaned across his desk and opened a drawer, pulling something out and setting it next to him on the desk, within Lance's reach. It was then Lance finally broke eye contact, stared confusedly at the handgun Giovanni had placed expectantly in front of him, and the room was yet again thick with silence.

"I don't...?" Lance began.

"You want your mother to live comfortably, don't you?"

Lance swallowed hard. Slowly, he nodded. Again, Giovanni seemed pleased.

"Then make the right decision."

Lance reached out and took the cold metal of the gun in his hand, turning it this way and that as he eyed it. Without another word, he rose to his feet and turned on his heel. Giovanni watched idly as he left the room, buffed his nails on his suit jacket's sleeve as he waited patiently. Nothing for a second. He didn't flinch as the first gunshot tore through the air, smirked as he heard the scuffle. A second gunshot rang out, and only a moment later, Lance returned, poker-faced. He handed the gun carefully back to Giovanni, then resumed his seat as if nothing had happened at all. Giovanni clapped him amicably on the shoulder and then resumed his seat behind his desk.

"You see?" he said, "initiative. I'll have you sign some papers, we'll reassign your residence, and then you can get fitted for a new uniform. By the end of the week, you'll have a brand-new ID card, to boot! Yes, I think you'll fit right in. A gearhead like you is exactly what I need." He fished around in his desk as he went on and on, pressed forms and forms and more forms towards Lance to sign. He felt like he'd signed twenty or thirty of them when Giovanni finally paused, pressed one more towards him, and asked what he was to be called. "New position," he explained, "we don't want anyone thinking of you as the little admin who used to be security's errand boy, do we?"

No, Lance agreed, they didn't, and he sat and thought and considered until finally, finally he reached out to sign.

"Proton," he said as his pen glided across the paper, "I think... I want to be called Proton."

"Well, then, Proton," Giovanni replied, "congratulations. You've been promoted to Executive."