DISCLAIMER: I don't own Pokémon, any of its characters or any of its place names. If I did, it would be full of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll and wouldn't be suitable for kiddies. This story is rated T for occasional bad language and a few references to drugs and violence. It really won't break your eyes, I promise.

LONG INITIAL AUTHOR'S NOTE: Several years ago, I was writing my first ever fanfiction. It's not really worth looking for it. It was a Mary-Sue-laden piece of drivel. I also promised that I wouldn't leave it unfinished. I broke that promise. But, anyway, All That Glitters is my attemptto salvage this piece of fanfiction. I've reworked the characters and the whole storyline into something that is hopefully (!) a bit more interesting, although there may still be flaws here and there. If you've read the original, you'll recognise this, but many important things have changed.

THE 'PROPER' SUMMARY: A Rocket decides to take the Gym Challenge and finds a few mysterious 'aids' along the way. Mainly OC, but includes a lot of Domino and appearances from the Gym Leaders and Elite Four. Later chapters and the sequels, if I post them, will focus more on Team Rocket's history, Giovanni's past and what happened in Johto (in G/S/C), but you'll have to stick around for that ;)

Chapter 1

Fire

The smoke was rising against the distant backdrop of the Saffron City skyline as Lorelei pulled over at the suburban roadside in her dark blue Jeep. She got out of the car and slammed the door behind her. The young woman's face bore a look of controlled anxiety as she began to walk towards the throng of people that had gathered at a safe distance from what was left of the detached house. She had managed to pry her way through the crowd and was digging out her identification and press pass to show to one of the policemen holding back the onlookers when she caught sight of four firemen coming out of the blackened remains of the front door. They were carrying two body bags.

Lorelei gasped silently in shock and grief. Tears welled up in her eyes, obscuring her vision. Forgetting about her job and the official reason why she was there, she returned to her Jeep and leaned against it, sifting a hand through her long hair. She raised her head to gaze up at the smoke-dulled sky and took her phone out of her pocket. She didn't have to look at it; she just pressed speed dial and waited.

"They didn't get out."

Six years later…

The two-dozen-strong team of Rockets were sitting in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of downtown Saffron. The place was one of many properties in the city which belonged to Kanto's most infamous crime syndicate – heck, practically half the city was theirs by now – but it wasn't much to look at, and neither were the group themselves. They were all Black Squad members, the lowest and most basic tier of Team Rocket, often referred to as 'Grunts' by the higher ranks. They never called themselves that. Amongst themselves, they were 'squaddies', the foundation and backbone of the organisation. They were usually under the watchful eye of an Elite Rocket, but this time, they had not been assigned a leader. The higher ranks were all too busy at the Silph Corporation's headquarters to be wasting their talents in back-up.

The lights were out. They'd been trying to convince the local authorities that this was just another development site which had been put on hold for financial reasons, nothing to see here. Lights were a no-no. The only illumination came from a chink under the door and a flickering lantern that was perched atop a pile of boxes at the other side of the room. The Rockets were silent apart from a few whispered smatterings here and there. It was too noisy to talk and be heard. All they could hear was the rush of vehicles outside and the metallic hum of the nearby Magnet Train.

One of the Rockets was sitting with her back pressed against the door and her head bowed into her chest, holding her breath and clutching a pager tightly in her hands. She was gripping it so tightly because she'd fought tooth and nail – quite literally – for the right to hold it. Having something in her hands helped to calm her nerves. She was glad that it was relatively dark; she didn't want any of her teammates to see the worried expression on her face. She had good reason to worry. Worrying proved that she cared. This was one of the best things that Team Rocket had ever planned and yet it all stood on the edge of a knife. One mistake and it would fall apart.

The last time they had been at the Silph office, Giovanni had seemed content. But everyone knew that it wouldn't be over until they had the manager's signature permanently on that contract – and even then, they wouldn't be out of the woods until the Silph directors began to truly understand the benefit of a protection racket. But, like so many others, they were being stubborn.

The pager bleeped. Kantaris almost dropped it in alarm and realised at once that she had picked a bad place to sit. She had chosen to 'guard' the door, thinking that she would be the first out as soon as they were called to action. But now that the moment had arrived, she found herself scrambling out of the way of her teammates and tagging along at the back of the group.

Nearly twenty minutes later, three black minivans pulled up at the back door of the twelve-story building that was the headquarters of the Silph Corporation. They were met by a white-clad Elite Rocket who sneered as they got out of the vans.

"Reinforcement, late as usual. What took you so long?"

"The traffic was bad," one of the Grunts replied with a scowl. "We thought we'd better stick to the rules of the road. You wouldn't want us to get stopped by the police, would you?"

The Elite Rocket beckoned to the squadron and led them into the downstairs foyer. Kantaris ran to catch up and briskly walked beside him.

"What's wrong?" she asked, trying to sound professional but failing as the sheer curiosity in her voice betrayed her.

The Elite Rocket glanced at her and turned his nose up slightly. He had neither the mood nor the time for chitchatting with the squaddies, but he supposed that they had a right to know what they were dealing with. He halted in his tracks, turned to the twenty-four Grunts who were following him and announced,

"First, you need to be aware that this is a hostage situation – but the cops don't know that yet, and we want to keep it that way. As soon as they get wind of hostages, they'll be all over us like a Beedrill swarm. Understand?" A few of the Grunts nodded; others simply stared at him expectantly. "Now, on top of all that, a kid managed to break his way into the office."

"A kid? You called us out to deal with a kid?"

"He might be just a kid, but his Pokémon are tough. He defeated all of our guards. He must be on the fifth or sixth floor by now. Disperse and search, preferably in groups."

The Rockets saluted smartly and charged both of the staircases that lay at either ends of the foyer. Their Elite supervisor, meanwhile, went outside. Kantaris stared after him, wondering whether he was in a frame of mind to lose his temper if she ignored the orders that he had just given. She wandered over to the elevator and pressed the call button. He must be on the fifth or sixth floor by now, the Elite Rocket had said. Kantaris's button-pressing finger hovered over the 5 and 6 buttons on the elevator pad. Then she pressed 12 with a shrug, thrust her hands into her uniform's pockets and hummed over the faint sound of the calming elevator music.

There was only one corridor on the twelfth floor, and it led to only one room: the Chairman's office. Kantaris briefly examined the portraits on the corridor wall – previous company managers, presumably – as she sauntered towards the double doors at the end. Just before she reached them, they opened, and a young man with an 'R' on the breast pocket of his dark suit stepped out to meet her.

"You can't go in there," he said, his voice leaving no room for argument. "The Boss is in an important battle."

"A battle?" Kantaris cringed at the way her voice echoed in the portrait-lined corridor.

"Where are you supposed to be?" the Executive asked sternly. "I'm ordering you to return to your post."

Kantaris scampered past him before he had even finished his sentence. She slammed into the heavy doors and entered the office. Sure enough, there was the kid that everyone was talking about. He turned around briefly, startled by the intrusion. That moment was enough to leave Kantaris stunned. The boy couldn't have been more than fourteen years old. At first glance, he looked like little more than a street urchin. He was dressed in filthy jeans and a torn jacket. Strands of his hair stuck out from beneath a faded baseball cap which he wore low enough to hide his face. But when he turned around for that split-second, her gaze fell to the pocket of his tatty jacket, attracted by the glitter of five small badges.

"Okay, Vaporeon, finish it off with a Bubblebeam!"

Kantaris watched in a frozen mixture of horror and fascination as the sleek, impressive Vaporeon unleashed a powerful Bubblebeam attack upon Giovanni's Golem. The rock Pokémon went down instantly and the kid recalled his Vaporeon. Giovanni slammed his fists down onto the table in frustration. Kantaris felt a hand on the scruff of her neck, seizing the dark ponytail that had managed to escape from the constraints of her cap. She yelped as she was pulled out of the office by the same Executive who had tried to stop her from entering in the first place. He almost threw her down the corridor.

"Leave! Now! This is your last warning!"

Kantaris was already running. She ignored the elevator and darted into the stairwell where she began to clatter her way down the endless staircases. Before long, she stopped to catch her breath and she cautiously stepped out into another whitewashed hallway. The plastic number on the wall told her that she was on the ninth floor. She marvelled at how deserted the place was. Everyone else had fled already. Her common sense told her to do the same. She could hear sirens in the distance, but she was rooted to the spot, her eyes fixed on the stark wall in front of her. The tiny section of the battle that she had witnessed was replaying itself in her mind. But he was just a kid. Why would the Boss agree to battle him?

She blinked, awakening herself from her trance, and looked around to make sure that there really was nobody else there. When she was satisfied that she was alone, she called the elevator again, took it down to ground level and left the building by the back door, zipping up her coat to hide her uniform as she did so.

"Oh, Silph is gonna be sorry. Every smart business in Saffron is paying its dues to Team Rocket, and the ones that don't..."

"Yeah, but what if all those other 'smart businesses' get wind of this and start fighting back? We could lose that city..."

Kantaris stood outside the Rocket Gaming Corner for as long as it took to smoke a single cigarette, listening to the muffled conversation about extortion and racketeering that drifted through the door. It was a cold night and she was shivering. Her free hand was in her pocket, her fingers trailing over the firearm that she always carried with her when she was out at night. Celadon City wasn't nearly as bad as Saffron, but Kantaris didn't want to rely on her pair of Pokémon to protect her; she had more faith in solid gunmetal and bullets.

She threw the stub of her cigarette over her shoulder and started walking. She couldn't stop thinking about that boy. He'd seemed much too powerful for someone his age. She'd never seen anyone so strong. He may have beaten every single Rocket at Silph – or those who had bothered to stick around, at least. Team Rocket had assembled their best from all over Kanto for that operation. Was that really the best they could offer? Or was that kid simply unbeatable?

Maybe that wasn't such a ridiculous notion. After all, prior to that afternoon, Kantaris had always thought that Giovanni was unbeatable. But she'd just seen him lose. To a child. The kid didn't know it, but he'd just beaten the Viridian City Gym Leader. That could have been his Earth Badge, right there, as easy as that. His big ticket to the Indigo Conference – or even the League. Kantaris might have laughed if she weren't so jealous, not to mention mortified that she had just witnessed her mentor being defeated.

She paused at the Pokémon Centre on the street corner. Just outside the door, as usual, was a box of pamphlets about the Gym Challenge. Kantaris had never paid much attention to them in the past; now her hand lingered over the box in consideration. But, after a few seconds, she shook her head and kept walking. She'd never liked reading. Not much of an excuse, though, was it? No excuse at all for not taking an interest in the Gym Challenge. But she'd spent enough time observing Kanto's most powerful Gym Leader to know that it looked like too much hard work.

Kantaris glanced down at the two Pokéballs that were attached to the belt around her waist. She always made sure that her trainer belt was showing under the close-fitting waistband at the bottom of her jacket in the vain hope that people would notice that she was carrying Pokémon and form some kind of opinion. Whether that opinion was admiration, respect or envy, Kantaris didn't mind. She just wanted people to know that she was a trainer. In truth, she wasn't much of a trainer at all. But nobody else had to know that. Nobody else had to know that those two Pokémon were the only ones to her name, nor that one of them didn't even listen to her.

It wasn't that she didn't have confidence. Neither was it that she considered herself to be a bad trainer. Compared to a lot of Rockets of her rank and experience, she was good. She'd been to Saffron City's Pokémon Stadium the previous year and won one of the little tournaments. Then again, she'd cheated. The Pokémon she'd used hadn't actually been hers – they were throw-outs from Team Rocket's black market supply – but she believed that the victory still counted for something. It was only an amateur tournament, after all. She hadn't hurt anyone by bending the rules a little, had she?

Kantaris had never caught Pokémon in an honest way and she had never trained her own pair properly. She didn't know if she had the energy or the motivation. At the Stadium, it was no big deal if you didn't win. Hundreds of trainers competed there every summer; most came away empty-handed but happy. The Gym Challenge seemed much more real. Nobody collected badge for fun, and Kantaris had never been serious about anything in her life except for her career in Team Rocket. Kids these days would embark on the Gym Challenge, blissfully unaware of what awaited them if they made it past Viridian City. And it wasn't as if many of them made it that far. Even the Indigo Conference, a knock-out tournament against fellow trainers, was a daunting prospect. And then there was the League itself, and the Elite Four...

No, Kantaris had decided a long time ago that if she were ever to become an excellent trainer, it would be for the good of Team Rocket. That was where her loyalties lay. She had sworn an oath, and attempting to leave Team Rocket rarely had good results. No matter how much the Grunts liked to talk about quitting, Team Rocket only offered one kind of membership, regardless of rank – and that was a lifetime membership. Of course you could quit, if you were willing to skip the country and watch your back. Kantaris had never considered leaving. Even without pain of death hanging over her head, she didn't want to leave. If nothing else, there was the blood issue to consider. But she believed that she was committed to Team Rocket itself.

When she returned to the hideout, Kantaris stayed in the arcade which formed the Rocket Gaming Corner's 'respectable' front, relatively speaking. The place was closed. This meant that its 'employees' were free to go wherever they liked. This was one of their safest bases. To a lot of them, it probably felt like home. To some, it was a lot warmer and more luxurious than home. Six Grunts were watching the television that was mounted on a wall bracket above the counter. Kantaris stood at the back of the small crowd, unnoticed, and after a few minutes of watching, she could see why they were all so transfixed.

It was an advanced Pokémon battle. Something in particular caught Kantaris' eye: there was a Dragonair on the battlefield. It took a very specific kind of trainer to control a Dragon Pokémon. Kantaris waited impatiently for the trainer to come into view. When he finally did, she saw that he was sporting a jet-black cape. The camera angle changed and showed a close-up of his face. His eyes looked like they held more fire than the Arcanine against which he was battling, and Kantaris sighed when she saw that he couldn't have been much older than twenty. Same age as me and he's battling on television. With a Dragonair. What a bastard.

The camera angle switched again to record the Dragonair unleashing a blinding attack upon the opponent's Arcanine. Kantaris had never seen an attack like that before. It was like a giant lightning bolt seen at close range, accompanied by a high-pitched, scream-like sound that made Kantaris' hair stand up on end even though the volume on the television was turned down low.

"How did he do that? He didn't even call out an attack!"

The Arcanine teetered on the spot before collapsing into the dust, as if all of its strength had been drained in mere seconds. A few of the Rockets whistled and applauded along with the crowd in the stadium, but there was a distinct taste of spite – or malice, even – in the air. Kantaris didn't understand it.

"Sorry, who is he?" she asked.

"Lance Owens," one of her teammates replied, sounding very unimpressed. "Elite Four."

"Makes you feel sick, doesn't he?" someone else remarked.

Kantaris cleared her throat. She was feeling quite jealous, but not exactly 'sick'. "Well, he seems pretty good – "

One of the Rockets turned around for a moment. "Did you just say 'pretty good'? We're talking about Lance! He's only the best Pokémon Master of his generation!"

"He's the greatest ever," someone else added. "Makes my skin crawl, though."

"Then why are you watching him battle?" Kantaris asked uneasily. This whole thing smacked of sadomasochism, somehow.

"Because he's fun to watch! I've never seen him lose, it's like he's invincible."

"I saw him lose once!" another Rocket interrupted. "Might have been funny if he actually lost his cool as well, but I don't think he ever freaks out."

"See, he hates Rockets," someone else explained to Kantaris. "So, obviously, we hate him right back. But we know that he could crush us with a single Pokémon, so there's not a lot we can do. Then again, anyone who's anyone hates Team Rocket. That's why we never get anywhere, see? Never have done and never will. You can forget about Silph."

Team Rocket as an organisation was strong, almost at the level of a small army these days if you considered the mass of wealth and weaponry at its disposal, but it was standing against some seriously terrifying opponents. And if a mere child could destroy a major Team Rocket undertaking, Kantaris shuddered to think what the Elite Four could do if they ever got involved, if Lance was an accurate representation of their power. She sat down at one of the slot machines.

"Invincible..." she muttered. "Can anyone be that good?"

"It's not like you'd get the chance to find out. Listen, whoever-you-are: if you ran into Lance by some horrible twist of fate, he wouldn't even look at you. And if he did, he wouldn't make eye contact long enough for you to challenge him. And if you did manage to challenge him, he wouldn't accept."

"You can't turn down a challenge!"

Kantaris had been taught a long time ago that, if someone were to make and hold eye contact with another trainer, it would mean that they want to battle. To turn down this preliminary challenge, the other trainer must look away or give some other negative signal. But if a trainer ever went so far as to make an outright verbal challenge, it would be extremely rude to turn it down. But her teammates neither knew nor cared. Battling etiquette was hardly top of the curriculum at the Rocket Academy, after all.

"You couldn't hold his attention for long enough."

"What if he caught me on a Team Rocket job? I bet that'd get his attention."

"It would get you knocked out and arrested – if you were lucky. I don't think you have any idea how much the League hates us. Anyway, the point is, Lance would never battle you. You'd have to be outstanding. And you'd have to have the badges to prove it, at the very least."

"I can get badges..." Kantaris insisted.

"You're a Rocket."

"So?"

"So, the law sees you as a criminal and the Pokémon League wouldn't even use you for Pokémon food."

"Then I'll be sure to wear something other than this," Kantaris said, pulling at the dusty black sleeve of her uniform.

"Apart from that, the Gym Challenge means travelling. You're a Grunt. That means you're as broke as a beggar – with a worse reputation."

"I'll get money when I win battles."

One of the Rockets turned around and glared at Kantaris' belt. "With only two Pokémon, huh?"

"I'll catch more."

"No matter how many Pokémon you catch, you're still just a Rocket."

"'Just a Rocket'? What does that mean? I always thought that the Gym Challenge was open to anyone who was good enough."

"Exactly. You have to be good enough. And you're not."

"Who made you a League officer?" Kantaris asked, irritated.

"If you ever made it to the Plateau, Lance would wipe the floor with you."

"Right now," Kantaris said, "I'd agree with you. But anyone can learn and get better, right?"

"Look, the League isn't just a collection of gyms with an obstacle course waiting at the end. It has power, it has money and it has values. This is Team Rocket. We might have power and money but we don't have values. The two things are complete opposites. If you ever became a member of the Elite Four, whose side would you be on?"

Kantaris sighed and leaned on the slot machine heavily; if it had been switched on, she would have been pressing all of the buttons at once. She gazed up at the television screen. The battle had finished and the two trainers were shaking hands. Lance gave his opponent a sporting smile and a pat on the back. The atmosphere was thrilling, even through the cheap television set. The crowd was chanting Lance's name as he left the battlefield and countless people were leaning so far out of the stands that they could have fallen out and injured themselves; they were calling for an autograph, a touch of hands, anything at all. Lance was very obliging. He looked completely unaffected.

The realisation that he got this kind of treatment everywhere he went made Kantaris bristle furiously. She watched as he took his time, even pausing to engage in brief conversation with some of the fans – as if they were his friends! Finally, he turned and gave a wave to the crowds at the other end of the stadium before leaving with a stylish flick of his cape. Now understanding why her teammates felt so sick, Kantaris scrambled off the chair and walked out of the back door at once, leaving it to slam behind her. In her wake, the remaining Rockets returned their attention to the television; someone had just changed the channel.

Kantaris paused just outside the door. As soon as she got outside, the cold air smacked her in the face and the smell of stale rubbish invaded her nose from the trash cans in the alleyway. She'd never really noticed it before. She heard her teammates laughing and strained to hear what they were actually saying, but she couldn't concentrate. She could hear the bass from the seedy nightclubs down the road, perforated by drunken shouts and the sound of glass hitting asphalt somewhere nearby. It was just another night in down-town Celadon City. And she, after all, was just another Rocket.