Life in Team Magma was nothing like what she'd been promised.
From the posts she'd seen while browsing the PokéNav internet app's seamier forums, membership in Team Magma was a ticket to fame, fortune, and the respect any two-bit trainer had so far failed to obtain. The Team's founder Maximillian Matsubasa, "Great Leader Maxie" to many forum posters, was a science god. He'd been kicked out of Hoenn's top university for his theories, which had been too much for the coddled establishment to handle. Those stuffy officials couldn't accept the hard scientific facts that current species of Pokémon were vastly inferior to what they could be if the ocean were only a fraction smaller. And yet the Great Leader's video lectures, spread across the shadowy corners of the internet, resounded with Hoenn's disenfranchised young adults like almost nothing else. He was a man with a vision, with true passion in every word he spoke.
But it wasn't Pokémon that took center-stage in Maxie's grand web of scientific theories. No, that position was reserved for humankind alone. Humanity's potential would be limitless and population growth wouldn't be a problem if the planet's continents grew in size. Measures needed to be undertaken to halt the gradual erosion of valuable rock and soil, and methods of expanding the land had to be developed as soon as possible. This was Maxie's philosophy, his master plan to further humankind's interests and create a better future for all life on Earth. It had the potential to become a movement. Who wouldn't want to be part of a team led by a man who believed in not only the potential of collective humanity, but the potential of individuals as well? He certainly talked enough about how valuable each uniquely-skilled member of his team was to him, no matter how low in rank they were.
All could achieve greatness, with due skill and diligence. Or so Maxie said in his lecture Self-Motivation: The Core of Success, as he smiled faintly at the camera.
The young woman had been so fired up by those forums and videos that she'd scraped together all the PokéDollars she could and all the clothes her worn-out backpack could carry in order to travel to Lilycove City. Thankfully Team Magma's recruitment officer was expecting her when she arrived, thanks to a fellow forum member contacting him on her behalf. She never would have been able to join otherwise. What would the local authorities have thought about a scruffy traveler asking townspeople where the signup sheet for Team Magma was?
Once she was admitted to the hideout, she was given the welcome package: a uniform, a bunk, and a strict schedule. Wake-up call was at 6:00 in the morning. Shower time was from 7:00 to 7:30, no earlier and no later. All Grunts (or so those in her lowly rank were nicknamed) were to be dressed and lined up for roll call at 8:00. From 8:30 to 9:00, breakfast in the mess. From 9:00 to 10:30, all Grunts were run through countless drills and respective morning duties. And from 11:00 to 12:30, everyone in the hideout was ushered into an auditorium to listen to Maxie speak.
Somehow, Maxie's talks were a lot less engaging than they had been when she'd watched them online. Probably because he spent half of his speech time publicly berating those Grunt teams he felt weren't pulling their weight. Every little thing seemed to set him off. One Grunt she knew had stopped drinking his favorite soda pop from the vending machines, just because Maxie had complained about how expensive it was to get new shipments of that drink smuggled in. She'd tried to share a bottle of that soda with the Grunt one day, only for him to refuse.
"Our leader would be upset. Besides, water's healthier, right?" He'd smiled, but it was a strained one. How could causing someone to give up something that made them happy help them reach their full potential? That was a question that haunted her. It seemed like such an insignificant thing to worry about, and yet it bothered her anyway.
She tried to ignore her growing sense of unease in the organization, working hard and being the best Grunt she could be. Fortunately for her, that wasn't too hard. She'd gotten repeatedly sorted into the "Promising" category on one of the mandatory monthly assessment tests, and so she'd been enrolled into training coursework authored and graded by Maxie himself. This should have felt like both an honor and a privilege to her, given that (1) the Great Leader deigned to give her individualized feedback on her work, and (2) she got to spend the evening hours before lights-out studying and collaborating with other Promising Grunts instead of performing thankless work or drills. But it all felt empty. Even when Maxie wrote on her geological science reflection that she had a shot at being his next Admin if she kept up the stellar work.
Worse still was how often a certain Legendary Pokémon was being brought up in those daily speeches. Maxie seemed to be obsessed with awakening Groudon, a creature that she'd thought was long dead and fossilized if it had ever existed at all. Lately Maxie'd begun to rant for hours over the usual ending time, declaring that Groudon was humanity's best and only hope for future prosperity. Though the Grunts around her led cheers of TEAM MAG-MA, TEAM MAG-MA after such impassioned words, she just got the creeps.
But she couldn't get out, could she. She was a wanted criminal now. There was no going back to those days in her little hometown, sitting glued to her Pokénav internet app and cursing at the area's crappy wi-fi reception. No, she had left her old life behind, and had moved up from mucking out the Mightyena kennels and Numel stalls to being one of Maxie's possible picks for the title of Administrator. If she left, she'd either be arrested by the police, or a patrol of Grunts would catch her and take her before Maxie. And she knew the Great Leader didn't take kindly to those who tried to leave the Team. Her only option was to stay. She had joined Team Magma in pursuit of the best in life, but she seemed to have gotten the worst. Uncertainty and dissatisfaction dogged her steps like a grinning Gengar.
Arceus help her.