Chapter Seven

Choices

A week in, and she couldn't have been happier with his progress.

Of course she never let it show.

But Ash was doing splendidly, he had but on a good forty pounds, making him 165lb. She kept him exercising, running, jogging, weights, sit-ups, push-ups. He was far stronger than he had been one week ago; it amazed her at how much effort he was putting into this.

And it was very rare for something to amaze her.

But he was doing it.

She was tempted; she truly was to go ahead with her plan of rewarding him for doing well. By bringing him to watch a battle or two, it was his favorite pastime there. Whenever she went to look for him she always started at the training fields, either he'd be sitting on the stands, or up at the window overlooking the field.

But she had to hold back, for now at least until she had him loot something. If he could do that first go, than she'd bring him down to the fields and let him watch an hour's worth of battles for a break. But that was the thing; she was still trying to come up with a way for him to steal something.

Yes there was the classic, attach a bell to a jacket and have him try and snatch a wallet out from it without setting the bell off. But she figured he'd be able to do that without a hitch. That was child's play.

In her spare time, she was laying out blue prints for mock buildings in the simulators that would be constructed for his attempts at gaining access. But that was a long ways away. So she needed something for him to start off with in the meantime…

She watched him from her seat on a bench in the weight room, her right leg hooked over her left. His shirt was drenched with sweat, hair swishing forward and then falling back as he did rapid sit-ups. He had gone from seven, to ninety seven once he had started eating properly. For push-ups, five soared up to seventy three. Pull ups? One went up to twenty.

He was doing absolutely extraordinary.

And it honestly baffled her. How was he going from a junkie into an Olympian in less than a week? Hell she wanted to skip two weeks and see what he was like then. Giovanni must have some… Knack for recruiting talented people. The Elites of Team Rocket were truly the best of the best, and Ash. Even though he had only been working out since he had been brought in, would be surpassing most of the current Elites in no time.

His drive to push himself past the limit was absolutely remarkable.

"That's enough," She called from the bench, "Take a breather, and clean up,"

He collapsed onto his back, knees still bent and let out a grateful sigh, "You're doing well," She forced herself to admit, but he remained silent, "But at the moment, we have a problem,"

His eyebrows furrowed, and he drew an intake of breath, "You're progressing far faster than my ability to get a proper routine sorted out for you. So…" She chewed on her bottom lip, keeping her eyes fastened on her unmoving trainee, "I want you to take tomorrow off, but I want you to eat properly, wake up same time, and go to sleep same time okay?"

After a moment of silence, "Okay, are you sure? I could still workout. I mean we've only been going at this for a week,"

She stood up and tossed him a towel, which landed on his stomach, "No exercise, if you want to, feel free to run after you eat. But that's it, nothing else. Now I'll leave you to clean yourself up,"

His head lolled to the side as she started for the door, brown eyes watching her slim figure pass through the door and around a corner.

At least he wasn't in trouble, in fact. She may have seemed a little pleased, and that was far more than he could have asked for.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Following a morning run, he had showered, and then had gone straight for the training fields. There were four scheduled battles for that day, and he was excited for every single one of them.

He learned from Domino, that he was a Grunt, a lower ranking member of Team Rocket. He found the term odd, but accepted it without question. There were currently two Grunts' on the field, one using a Zubat, the other a Rattata.

The battle was… Defiantly sub-par to those he had witnessed earlier in the day. Such as a battle between a Mightyana and Wartortle, or Raichu and Charmeleon… He really wanted to battle, he really did.

But he knew that that would not be happening until he and Domino got well into his studies of Thievery. That's why he was here, not to battle. He was to go and free Pokemon from abusive Trainers, and he'd damn well do that.

But as she had said yesterday, that she had yet to set up a proper routine for him was a little surprising. From the get go, she seemed on top, and six steps ahead of everything. With that clipboard of hers housing notes of… God knows what, but probably a bunch of things…

He shook his head, if he even went to sneak a glance at the clip board, he'd be packing his metaphorical bags out of Team Rocket in seconds.

He scratched his arm, behind the black cloth of his sweatshirt; he knew there was a large red splotch. He was going cold turkey… And it was absolutely killing him.

Screw the cocaine, or heroine. Just give him a joint and he'd be fine. It was nearing two… Yes two weeks without some sort of high, and with all of the exercise he had been doing, he could go for a proper break.

But as far as he knew, there wasn't anything he could use in the entire damn building.

So he was screwed.

His eyes drifted away from the battle and to the door as Domino entered the Training fields. Had she come up with something for him? She only came down here when- No, she stopped at a door…

His head cocked to the side as she swiped a key card into a lock and passed through the door, what was in the room that she could possibly be looking for? Was it an office? Storage? Janitors closet? Center for Pokemon?

In reality, it had been none of those things.

Domino glanced down to her clipboard before looking up to the aisles of Pokeballs. The sides were labeled from left to right:

A-B C-D E-F G-H I-J K-L M-N O-P Q-R S-T U-V W-X Y-Z

The facility currently held 367 unique Pokemon species, and after doing some research on the types, uses, purposes, and a bunch of other tasks.

She had decided to see if any of them would be good for Ash.

She had contacted Giovanni for Ashs weekly progress report, and during their conversation she had asked whether it would be alright to see if he had any possible instinct when it came to battling.

Which she believed he did.

Hesitant at first, Giovanni had agreed after some bargaining that if Ash showed any promise at all when battling that he be contacted immediately. Seeing as how she could battle her way out of a scrum if she needed to, but she was no Trainer. And if Ash could become an expert battler, as well as thief? Well that would just be excellent!

She didn't have the creative edge, or the cunning to undermine an opponent. So Giovanni wanted to bring in one of their specialists to train Ash in that area.

But he had charged her with finding him a suitable Pokemon and seeing if he had any skill what so ever in battling.

She had narrowed her results of suitable Pokemon under strict categories. They need to be young, untrained, be able to contribute to any mission he was assigned to, and not be the size of an Onix. It would have to be able to follow him into buildings, and air vents, or any other possible indoor situations that may arrive.

There were quite a few selections that she would have trouble deciding between.

A Meowth like the Boss had, an Eevee so it could evolve into his preference of type, a Pikachu who was small and had the ability to stun…

She walked slowly down the aisles, index finger trailing down the list of names until it came to a halt beneath a black Pokeball. The Rocket logo had yet to painted onto the front meaning that this one was still a fairly recent capture- She looked to her clipboard and hunted down its name. A month old, it was bred, not captured… Had yet to partake in any training…

She bit her lip; it was one of her favorite choices from those she had narrowed down. It would suit him well, nice arrange of attacks, it was small, it should be friendly, and in her opinion very cute!

She reached up onto the shelf, removed the lone sphere, and started for the door.

If she couldn't think of a way to start his thieving skills within the next few days, she start him on Pokemon battling. Or attempt to anyways.

As she left room, she held back a jump as a Rattata was thrown into the wall next to her, before it hit the ground knocked out in a pile of dust.

"Get up Rat!" Its trainer called out, "This battle ain't over yet!"

Domino's eyebrow arched. The battle was very much over judging by the swirls in the little rats eyes. Walking away from the Pokemon and to the door, her eyes drifted over to Ash. Who had no doubt watched her enter the keep half an hour ago.

His eyes followed her out of the room, but he made no attempt to stand up and follow her.

She really need to have a chat about that with him.

Not yet though, she had to work on his schedule.

And now include battling into that already extensive list of tasks.

It was going to be a long night.

For those of you who have read the one-shot of mine entitled The Pits. I got bored and wrote a sequel to it.

I don't know if I want to publish it. If you've read it, and find that you'd like a second act to the story, let me know.

AGP's next chapter is almost completed, just running through looking for errors, grammar, and regular mistakes. So that may be up within the week.

Other than that, thanks everyone for reading, and please feel free to drop in a review. I love the feedback, and thanks for reading!