Many people ask me, through the rusty bars of my prison cell, why I did it. Why I joined them.

"Why did you leave everything behind?" They'll say. After a while, they all just blurred together, forming one giant mess of frowning faces and disapproving glances. I never tell them why, because it's fun to see their irritatingly righteous faces contort into a vexed expression as their hands clench into fists, but I guess I can tell you.

I wasn't always a bad person, you know?

Yeah, it's a big shock. Leaf Green, feared Rocket Admin, a good person? Laughable. But it's true. When I was young and oblivious to all the horrors of the real world, I was happy and joyful and full of life. I would sprint around Pallet Town, flowers gently brushing against my skin as I ran, my high-pitched laughter ringing loudly through the small, homely town. My mum would always say that my smiles were infectious.

But then I left, with my trusty charmander at my side and pokedex in hand, ready to conquer the real world.

Only, I wasn't ready. Not even close, actually.

Let me tell you something about our world: it is unforgiving. Oh, you're only ten years old, with only a weak starter pokemon on hand? Too fucking bad. Oh, you went into the Viridian Forest without buying any antidotes? Unless you can find that magical berry to cleanse a pokemon's body of poison, you can do nothing but watch as your pokemon slowly fade away with every few steps you take.

And, as a trainer, your main source of income are trainer battles. There's just one glaring problem: more often than not, the trainers you battle don't have shit. You'll get, what, a measly 57 pokedollars? That isn't even enough to buy a one-person meal, girlie. All I could do was battle and battle and battle during the day in hopes of acquiring enough money to get myself some proper nourishment. Then my money supply was completely depleted and I had to start from scratch again.

Yeah, sure, pokecentre rooms are free for trainers, but you're only given the bare minimum - a bed, fully healed pokemon, and a chair for all your clothes. The rooms aren't even of good quality either, with their peeling white wallpaper, rough crimson carpet and thin, stained bed sheets. Every single day of my former, pitiful life, I had to live like this. I managed to claw my way to Cerulean City before my money completely ran dry and I began my now repetitive routine, barely scraping by in life.

And while I worked my ass off trying to get enough money to survive, there was Blue, with his entourage of preppy cheerleaders, perfectly gelled brown hair and freshly cleaned clothes. Meanwhile, my own brown hair was greasy and dreadfully tangled, and my clothes were dirty from days spent in the wild battling pitifully poor trainers. He even managed to acquire a bike that could probably pay for an entire month's worth of food for me.

You wanted to hear about why I joined Team Rocket, right? Well here's the reason why.

Here's the reason why, when the guy at the end of Nugget Bridge presented me with a gleaming golden nugget worth more than the clothes on my body, as well as the enticing offer of organized crime and thievery, it only took me 3.45 seconds to decide.