Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon. Rated T for mild swearing, future violence, some dark themes, yada yada.

Author's Note: Guess what? I DID IT.

Uh huh, that's right — after months and months of publishing nothing, I finally finished this! -cheers- So. I'm putting it up. One chapter a week, how does that sound? Or every five days? Three days? Every other hour? XD Just kidding.

Anyway, I don't deserve any credit for the awesome idea behind this fic. That goes to Bittersweet Romanticide, an awesome author who writes awesome one-shots who wrote one awesome one-shot in particular called "Not Team Rocket, TR."

Natty (am I allowed to call you that?), if you're reading this, I hope I did your talent justice. Which, considering my ability, I highly doubt, so feel free to smack me if that's the case. After all, I vowed to raise your baby well.

...That last sentence sounded weird.

With that said! The plot features the cast from the Pokémon anime. Main shippings are Ash and Misty, May and Drew, Dawn and Kenny/Paul, and others. Not much fluff (it's the apocalypse, for crying out loud) but romantic tension is definitely in there.

Okiedoke, here we go!

Under the Blood-Red Sun

1. Beginnings

Red sky in morning,

Sailors take warning.

Red sky at night,

Sailors delight.

- Judith Yeung

-x-

August 12, Year 2056

Kanto Region

Resistance Laboratory 6674, Building B

Sixteen-year-old Ash Ketchum was neither superstitious nor a sailor, but the crimson dawn that graced the skies today scared him.

He clutched the copy of a note in his hand:

Destroy the city of blue under a blood-red sun.

He'd been up all night with the others at Res-Lab 6674, and for the last few hours he didn't speak a word. Neither had anyone else. There'd been silence in the building ever since thirteen-year-old Max Maple intercepted the order from TR headquarters and successfully decoded its message.

Destroy the city of blue under a blood-red sun.

Ash clenched the note in his fist. A part of him was still holding out on the vague, desperate hope that it was wrong somehow, that the message was a mistake. But Max was never wrong about this. The city of blue was Cerulean; the blood-red sun meant today.

Cerulean was a small, quiet, defenseless town. There was absolutely no reason for TR to issue a specific order to attack it. No reason. Except... except...

He buried his face in his hands. Except her. Mew, this was all his fault.

"I have to get her," Ash said suddenly. The others in the room — Oak, Brock, Norman, Max, and Tracey — jumped at his voice, but the response was instantaneous.

"What?"

"Ash, no—"

"What're you thinking?!"

Ash folded his arms and said shortly, "I'm thinking, gee I dunno, maybe they're gonna kill Misty if I don't get her out of there pronto."

Brock looked gravely at him. "Max forwarded the message to Cerulean City hours ago, and the people who can't fight have already been evacuated. Misty and her sisters made the decision to stay behind with the Gym. It was her choice."

"They're gonna kill her," repeated Ash stubbornly.

"Ash, you'd be playing right into TR's hands if you get anywhere near Cerulean City," said Norman. "They figure once the fighting starts in Cerulean and word gets around to you about it, you'll go there without hesitation. Haven't you realized it's not Misty they want? It's you."

"I know that!" Ash yelled. He crumpled up the note and threw it aside. "But they're gonna kill her! That's right, kill! For the love of Arceus, don't you guys have any heart left? What's this Resistance done to you? Saving the world and all that crap, but you're just gonna stand there and do nothing while one of our own gets murdered?!"

He paused, seething, waiting for a response. A tense silence descended upon the group. The others looked at each other nervously.

"...Ash," said Oak hesitantly, "she's not one of us."

"Well she sure as heck isn't one of them," Ash replied shortly, then stomped out.

"Where're you going?" said Max.

The raven-haired teenager didn't look back. "To get Charizard. I don't care if Misty's part of the Resistance or not; she's my friend and she's on our side and I'm not letting TR get away with this."

Then he was gone.

Brock looked as though he wanted to go after him, but Oak put a hand on his shoulder. "The boy's made up his mind."

"I know," said Brock wearily. "But it's so dangerous for him to be doing this. He's the Chosen One..."

"Maybe that'll give him some extra luck," Tracey said grimly.

Oak sighed. "Knowing Ash, I doubt it."

Resistance Laboratory 6674

Building A

Ash's footsteps echoed down the sterile hallway in Building A of the lab. Aside from Resistance security guards, he passed no one that he knew.

Not surprising, since the others were no doubt still in Building B concocting their brilliant plans against TR.

Res-Lab 6674 was originally built in the mountains as a nuclear shelter when Giovanni began his takeover of the Pokémon world five years ago in 2051. However, the prospect of all-out nuclear warfare came to a halt two years ago when TR unexpectedly shut down all its operations on that front; rumor was that the government feared the then-diminutive Resistance would use the technology to gain strength.

So when the threat of nuclear fallout disappeared, the structure had been converted into a two-building high-security laboratory, one of many secret locations where the Resistance frequently met. All information and intelligence passed through one of the Res-Labs for inspection and interpretation.

Only hours ago, Max — the youngest member of the Resistance — had obtained a series of coded messages belonging to TR, of which the first one had been an order to attack Cerulean City.

Ash came to a steel door set in the hall and pressed his thumb against a small pad.

"Thumbprint scanning," said an automated voice. A small green light flashed. "Ash Ketchum, age sixteen. Cleared to enter."

The door slid open to reveal an immense room with shelves upon shelves of Pokéballs.

One of the first laws TR had established when coming into power was limiting the legal number of Pokémon a person could have with them to two, abolishing the original guideline for Trainers and the like to carry up to six.

The government had trackers at various TR bases throughout the world that could sense if a human was carrying above the legal number of Pokémon. Therefore, most members of the Kanto resistance hid their other Pokémon in this sealed chamber. The reinforced steel walls prevented energy radiated by the Pokémon from being detected by the government.

Ash shook his head quietly. Due to the new restrictions, Pikachu was required to spend most of his time in a Pokéball, something the Electric-type hated to do. Unfortunately, Ash couldn't bring Pikachu along today because May had him.

He crossed the room to a Pokéball-filled shelf labeled 'AK.'

"Hey Charizard," he said quietly, picking up one of the balls and releasing his loyal Fire-type; Charizard gave a soft roar of anticipation. "Ready to fly? We're heading to Cerulean."

Resistance Laboratory 6674

Building B

But as Ash took to the skies, little did he know that all was not well in the laboratory he was leaving behind.

Professor Samuel Oak strode briskly down the hall, carrying a briefcase in one hand. The briefcase contained the recently-acquired coded messages from TR, some of which had yet to be deciphered by Max.

A team of five bodyguards surrounded the Professor as he walked. Yet for some unexplainable reason, despite the fact that he was well protected, Oak felt nervous. He wasn't usually on edge, but something definitely felt wrong right now.

Then it hit him. He was in danger. He and everyone else in Res-Lab 6674. It didn't matter how; intuition had a strange way of warning people.

Something bad was about to happen, he just knew it.

And he was right. Unfortunately.

Arrow and Thorn were two of the best agents in TR. They'd been in employment for only three years now, but it had been clear from the start that their skills were far superior to other grunts. Both were geniuses in academic fields and masters of martial arts.

Plus, they were aged sixteen and nineteen, respectively. Young and expendable. If they died on the job, no one back at TR would think twice of it.

Their last assignment from the government had been to determine the location of the Gym Leader Misty Waterflower. Arrow and Thorn had successfully confirmed her to be in Cerulean a few days ago.

Now they needed to retrieve the intercepted messages from Oak's briefcase before the Resistance managed to decode too many of them, then capture "Target X," identified by TR supervisors only as the person who Arrow and Thorn would find sitting in Office 3A of the laboratory.

If they failed, it was TR protocol to terminate them once they returned to the stationed base camp.

Arrow and Thorn never failed.

One floor above Oak in Building B of Res-Lab 6674, an emerald-haired boy in Rocket uniform stood in shadow. The lights weren't on in this hallway, but it was clear from a distance that he had bright green eyes.

"Visual contact made," Arrow whispered into his headset. "Five guards surrounding the target." The slender teenager wore a pair of hypersensitive thermal goggles, which allowed him to see the movements of the people below through the floor.

"Aww, Arrow, is five guards too many for you over there?" replied the voice of a young man teasingly through the headset. "Plastic explosive in place yet?"

The boy rolled his eyes and ignored him. "Trigger's in hand and target approaching. I'm set. You?"

"I'm in Building A and ready as always, hon."

The plan was relatively simple: kill the power circuits, take care of the bodyguards, infiltrate the air systems with sleeping gas, then restart the power and knock everyone out once the gas was in circulation.

Once all possible conflict was removed from the picture, Arrow would retrieve the intelligence from Oak's briefcase and Thorn would capture the mysterious Target X.

Bam, bam, bam, mission accomplished.

Lightning-fast blackout strategies like this had worked in the past. But something was bothering Arrow this time; he had the nagging feeling that they'd overlooked something. What was it? The slightest misstep could cost them their lives and worse, the success of Team Rocket.

"What about the alarm system?" he shot at Thorn through the mike. "Won't it be triggered when the power comes back on?"

The nineteen-year-old giggled in reply. "Hon, it'll have to be reset by someone in order to go off, and no one will have time to do that before passing out from the gas. Trust me, just do your part with Building B and I'll do mine in Building A, mmkay?"

"All right." Arrow shuddered inwardly at the idea of someone staying conscious long enough to reactivate the alarm, but he shook off the worry. He had a task to complete. No distractions allowed.

Thorn knows what he's doing. Mew knows he's come up with crazier plans, and we've managed to pull those off without a hitch.

Then why was he so nervous? Even if something went wrong, Arrow reasoned with himself, he and Thorn would be more than able to handle it. He might not have my skill, but I've worked with him long enough to see him take down a considerable number of big guys. We're a good team.

He glanced through the thermal goggles at the floor below. Oak was approaching.

"Thorn, he's here," said Arrow tersely, reaching for the small remote connected to his belt. "Detonating explosive in three—two—one—"

BOOM.

Mission initiated.

Res-Lab 6647

Building A

Thorn was tall, even for a young man of nineteen, and a little odd compared to the rest of his Team Rocket companions.

He had long purple hair and unlike his TR partner, never worked in uniform. Instead he liked to dress up as - of all things - a Cacturne. The reason behind this bizarre habit was long forgotten. Thorn assumed it had something to do with his past, of which he neither knew nor cared about, but nevertheless he'd kept the costume.

By the time Arrow began counting down from three, Thorn had already jumped up, disconnected a ceiling grate that led to the air vents, and pulled himself into the duct system with a grunt.

This took place in less than two seconds, and it was fortunate it did, because next second Arrow's detonator went off and broke the main power circuit. Resistance Laboratory 6674 was now power-less and pitch-black.

"Go," came Arrow's urgent tone through the speaker, and Thorn went.

Once in the duct system, he put on his pair of thermal goggles and glanced around the steel tunnel. Everything appeared cold blue through the goggles — that was expected, nothing dangerous here.

He began crawling through the vents, sneezing occasionally from dust kicked up by his movements as he wormed his way along.

What was that?!

His gaze snapped over his shoulder. The thermal goggles picked up on his crimson-red heat trail, but other than that there was nothing as far as he could tell.

Just my imagination, it's fine, there's no one there.

Shaking his head slightly, Thorn continued on, twisting and turning. Eventually he made his way to the first air-circulation fan and placed a small canister filled with sleeping gas behind the giant blades. Only four more fans to go.

Res-Lab 6647

Building B

The detonator didn't just cut the power and eliminate all light; it also destroyed the tile floor that separated Arrow from Oak. The boy smirked. Perfect.

As the dust settled, two of the bodyguards fumbled around in the sudden darkness, trying to recover from the explosion. The other three were on their backs and pushing off debris.

Arrow landed on the ground and swiftly knocked out security with a few well-aimed punches. He did have a silenced gun with him, which would've made short work of the guards, but his orders were to avoid killing anyone at the lab. Giovanni must've been in a good mood, he thought wryly.

Glaring down the hallway through the goggles, he spotted the red heat of Oak running away. Arrow took off in a sprint and easily caught up to the elderly man.

"You can't outrun me," he growled. "Give me the briefcase."

Oak glanced at him with determined eyes and swung the briefcase in an attempt to strike Arrow in the face. Arrow managed to dodge the hit, but couldn't grab the Professor in time before he ran into an open elevator and pulled the doors shut behind him, trapping Arrow outside.

"Damn!" Arrow hissed. With the power out, the elevator couldn't go anywhere, but that didn't compound the fact that there was no way for Arrow get into it. Unless...

Oak crouched in the far corner of the elevator, knowing that if the TR agent made it inside he was dead.

The PokéNav in his pocket crackled to life.

"Professor! Professor, it's me, Max! Someone cut off the power! Cerulean City was in the middle of transmitting a message to us! I couldn't get it before the power died! Professor, what do we do?"

Oak seized the Nav to see Max's white face on the screen. He took a breath. "The lab has been infiltrated by Team Rocket. I'm trapped in an elevator and a TR agent is trying to get the briefcase with the intercepted codes."

"WHAT? Professor—"

"Listen, Max. If I die, they'll get the codes back, we can't do anything about it. But you must delete all traces of Resistance plans from the computer systems, you hear? You must. If they gain access to that information, everything will be lost."

"The power's out! I can't do anything!"

"Get the others — Tracey, Brock, your father — and meet together in the control room. Try to find a way to reboot the systems using backup generators. If I get out of this, Max, I'll meet you there too."

"What about my sister? She's over in Building A, she could get killed on the way to the control room here!"

"Leave May in Building A," said Oak firmly. "She has to stay where she is, to attend to... issues of utmost importance. Don't worry, she'll be able to protect herself; Ash left Pikachu with her. But no matter what happens—"

Suddenly a loud thud came from the ceiling of the elevator. The TR agent's breaking in. Beads of sweat ran down Oak's forehead; this was the end and he knew it. Intuition was never wrong.

"Goodbye Max," he said hoarsely, then disconnected the PokéNav and let the line go dead.

Arrow used a crowbar to get into the elevator shaft, landed atop the elevator in which Oak was currently hiding, and found its escape hatch easily. He pulled the hatch open and dropped down into it.

He glared at the unarmed Professor in the corner.

"Get up," said Arrow sharply. Oak just stared at him. "Do you speak English? Get off the damn floor."

The Professor didn't move. Arrow took a threatening step closer, and as he did so, his face came out of shadow. Oak let out a gasp.

"I know you," he said, his eyes widening.

"Shut up, old man—" Arrow grabbed the professor by his collar and dragged him to his feet. "Cooperate, and you'll be able to extend your pathetic life for a few minutes."

"I know you," said Oak again. Arrow faltered slightly in spite of himself. There was something haunting in the way he said it. But that's not possible... I've never seen this old man in my life. His eyes narrowed.

"Quit bluffing and hand over the codes."

"Do you really think I'm bluffing?" The Professor's stare was almost piercing. "She has a picture of you. I've seen it."

"Who has a picture?" he asked harshly. Dammit, Arrow, can't you see he's just stalling, stop yakking and get the briefcase already! But a dim memory was tugging at the corner of his mind, urgent but unfocused, what was it?

"She worries about you every night," Oak continued. "Sometimes she cries. She still cares, she still wonders; she never knew what happened to you after you were captured. Imagine her reaction if she saw you now..."

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Arrow through gritted teeth.

Unexpectedly, a flash of anger crossed the older man's face. "I should've realized. Boy, they've done something to you. You've lost it. You're brainwashed—"

"Shut up, you moron—"

"—supporting them blindly, killing innocent people! Have you done any Coordinating lately?" said Oak loudly over him.

"I said SHUT UP!" Arrow dealt him a swift blow to the head and the professor crumpled to the floor. The boy's emerald eyes were livid. "I don't know what you're talking about! Shut the hell up!" His eyes were suddenly stinging. Arceus, this was stupid, tears! Tears! "Shut the hell up," he said again, though it wasn't necessary. Oak lay unmoving on the ground.

Arrow grabbed the briefcase, forced the elevator doors back open with the crowbar, and sprinted silently down the darkened hallway, leaving the professor where he'd fallen like a broken doll. As the young agent ran he brushed his arm across his eyes impatiently.

Team Rocket agents didn't cry. Especially for no reason.

To be continued

There we go. How was it? Hit me with your worst.

-M