"Silver," a woman called his name softly. "Let's play that game again." She pulled a blanket over the cold wooden floor and lifted the small boy into her lap. Settled in her arms, he looked up into her face. She was important to him. Important but indiscernible. With this gap in his memory, he couldn't remember her face. But even so, he could never forget those sharp, black-rimmed glasses framing her eyes.
Those glasses tangled in her stringy red hair and she pulled them loose. With their plastic clicking, she placed the frames on him—taking them on and off after each utterance of, "R—k. Silver. R—k. Silver..." What kind of name was R—k and why couldn't he remember what it was? It was a guttural sound, and personally, it was unimportant. The only thing that mattered was her happiness. This was enough.
The woman took the frames off him. "Silver," she said. "You're Silver now. But if I do this..." The woman placed the frames back on the boy, possessively clutching him closer. "R—k, mom is sad that she can't see you anymore... But mom is working hard so you and Silver can live together with mom, just like this."
Silver closed his eyes and relaxed. This game was weird... she'd always pretend that I was some other boy, he thought; It was confusing. My stupid, childish self would worry that she'd forgotten my real name. But if I cried at all, she would be angry and scold me, placing me in a bed to sleep for what felt like a century. So I remained silent.
The background flashed through his eyes like a sudden thought. A mob of pokedolls smiled down from the surrounding, towering shelves.
"That's right. You're a good boy," she went on, "for now... If only. Mom wishes she could stuff you both and keep you here with her forever... Preserve you. So you won't go rotten like your fathers! One after another, they did, in one way or another... I hate it. You understand? Don't you dare do the same. Otherwise, mom will have no choice, will she?"
Abruptly, Silver's mind slipped back away.
He had fallen asleep on that familiar hill blanketed in plush green grass and red flowers—the hill behind the daycare where that old couple lived. The breeze was always warm and gentle there, but if one strayed too far, it was easy to be frozen by the icy draft that blew from the craggy side of the bluff.
"Be good! Don't go into the cave while mom is gone. Mind the Old Man and the Old Lady, because if you're bad," his mother warned with a laugh, "the Sneasel will come out of the cave at night and get you...!"
When she spoke like this, it was easy to believe that she hated him. Internalized, her cackle was like a long-winded shiver. Of course she hated him.
"Don't you dare cry! Silver... You have nothing to fear if you behave!"
Scared, he listened to her and behaved as told. And every day, he thought, I would stand on that hill overlooking the water... at a sea that was probably swallowing the island and me, and everything on it. The days flowed into each other. I waited. But she never came back. And one day, despite her promise...
"This is him, Sir," a Team Rocket grunt said. "The records match up." The uniformity of this grunt and the others pressed upon him like a life-sentencing.
A tall, suited man stepped forward and stood over the young boy. His face was one the boy would see well into the future—sunken and sculpted. His very presence emanated authority. The boy didn't know it at the time, but this man was his father.
After flipping through his suit jacket, the man pulled out a stiff card and glanced at it. He chuckled menacingly as he gazed upon Silver. "It's him! Such a cold stare," the man said. "Just like your mother."
Silver backed away but bumped into the legs of a grunt. "What now, Boss?" the grunt asked.
"Bag him. We're leaving."
White, gloved hands reached down and snatched Silver away, covering up his screams and his eyes. He kicked and struggled but nothing was changed. Where were the Old Man and the Old Lady? he wondered in hindsight; Couldn't they hear me? No, I was too far away, they couldn't hear me from this hill... I cried and called for HER... But of course, no one came.
With a black bag over his head, there was the hum of a boat engine, and the grunts taunting him with their idiotic words: "You're fortunate the boss took pity and picked you up. That ice queen abandoned you, little boy."
"Isn't that too bad, kid?" another asked. "Ah, but don't you worry. The Boss has a special place for you. Didn't you know? Don't you know who you are?"
From then on, the boy's recollections of that green hill and the clear sea were replaced with those of moldy warehouses, hidden caves, old mansions, and secret passages. Up until this strange rumination, it seemed he'd mostly forgotten about that clear place where he had waited for his mother. For, while crawling amongst the shadows and cobwebs of those basements, he realized the truth. Such a crisp and clear world never really existed.
"From now on, you'll train to become... the successor of Team Rocket!"
With reality fading in and out and his sleep deteriorating, Silver became aware of the cold cavern floor beneath his body.
"What a bad tasting dream," a voice muttered. "So bitter... It's not sweet at all."
Gasping, Silver jumped awake. He found a pair of blue, narrow eyes leering down at him. Morty was crouched over him, observing his face and seemingly studying him in the same manner one would study dried-up roadkill.
"Urgh!" Silver yelped, scrambling away and grabbing the cave wall as he stood up. "What the... Don't stare at people as they sleep, you sicko!" Just... now, he then thought, holding his head. Didn't he say something about my dream tasting bad? Was he eating my dream? Ugh. Isn't that a move? Just... what the hell is he? Wait, is he a POKEMON?!
Morty turned away, calmly digging through his backpack before asking, "You hungry, Shrimp?"
"No! I don't want any ice cream!" Silver yelled. "What the crap were you doing to me in my sleep?!"
Morty took his sweet time before answering: "What are you talking about, Shrimp? I was only looking at your face... and thinking about how fun it would be to draw on it with a marker..."
"How old are you?" Silver retorted. "...Eight?"
"Eighteen," Morty answered. "I'm only four years ahead of you... and already so much taller..."
"Humph. You're nothing special." Silver crossed his arms with extreme grumpiness. And are you trying to play innocent now? he thought defiantly. Trying to trick me into thinking I'm crazy? Ha! Well whatever. I know what you were doing! ...I think. It was then that Silver realized that he was all alone with Morty. Juggler Irwin was nowhere to be found. Gah. Silver glanced around. Where'd that other disgrace to nature go?
"They say that 'he who rejects ice cream for breakfast... is a health freak.' Heh. It's an ice cream koan... Get it? Here." Morty threw a packet at him. "I was told that it was a cookie, but it's not very sweet... It's actually made from baked seaweed and rice... False advertising, I'd say."
Silver opened the packet and inspected the savory cracker within. Why am I even trusting food from this freak? he wondered; It was still wrapped, but still... Damn it, I'm so hungry! Silver gave in and devoured it.
"You're welcome," Morty said. He then poured a tidal wave of cookies from his bag. "Oh. You can have the rest... I don't like them."
"Don't shove your unwanted crap on other people!" Silver blasted. Regardless, he quickly gathered them up and stuffed them into his pockets.
"Share them with your pokemon. They're probably hungry by now..."
"Heh... Pokemon don't need to eat." Silver held out his arms and shrugged. "Just take them to a pokecenter and they're shot up with nutrients. That's all they need."
"MORTY!" Irwin suddenly yelled, tumbling down the stairs.
"Hoi. Did you find out what it was?" the Gym Leader asked, somewhat startled.
"T-t-t-t-tea-" Irwin twittered, holding his terrorized face.
"What's going on?" Silver demanded. "What's all this about tea?"
"Shh, Shrimp. Team Rocket's nearby," Morty said, lightly patting the frightened Juggler's head. "Good Irwin."
Silver quickly lost his composure. "Team Rocket?" he repeated.
"That's right... Your old man's people are nearby." Morty glanced back at Silver. "Want to go fight them now... eh?"
"Geh..." Silver stepped away. This guy, he thought. He probably knows... everything about me by now.
"Don't worry. I don't care who you are. You're still a shrimp..." Morty folded his arms shiftlessly. "A shrimp... with really bad-tasting dreams."
"You!" Silver ejected, pointing at him. "Follow logic when admitting to your crimes!"
"What did you mean by his 'old man'?" Irwin beseeched an explication from Morty. "A retired individual?"
"A parental unit," Morty clarified.
"I'm getting the frick out of here," Silver informed them. Thankfully, he was unaware of this unwarranted verbosity of said-isms, otherwise he would've caused quite a scene. Tch. When you meet people crazier than Lyra, he thought; you know you're screwed!
"Hold it," Morty said, digging into his pack again.
Silver stopped on the stairs, desperate to escape. "What do you want NOW?" he demanded.
"Take these with you. Catch." Morty threw a stapled stack of papers and a disc player at him. "It's a walkthrough of this place and HM 04. Follow from the marked area... Team Rocket is in the basement level as we speak... Good luck."
"R...Right," Silver answered strangely, gripping both the disc player and paper stack. "I-I didn't need a guide or anything... I can find my way! But of course. This will make things quick." Why... is this guy helping me? he wondered. Weird... And now I'm even more confused...
Morty glanced at Silver sideways, eternally all-knowing of the boy's thoughts, but still choosing to remain silent.
With no further words of gratitude, Silver left the Juggler and Gym Leader behind, and in the ensuing moments, an earth-shaking rumbling accosted the cavern.
"And there it is now," Morty said, sitting down in exhaustion. "I wonder what will happen next?..."
"Eee! He's trying to stop Team Rocket? All by himself?" Irwin squeaked "He'll be alright, won't he? Oh!" He clasped his head in sudden realization. "He forgot to sign up for the Lyra Fan Club!"
"It's better off that way..." Morty said, lying back down to sleep. "He'd only break all our rules, anyhow."
Standing on a cave ledge overlooking her busy Team Rocket grunts, a red-haired woman held her arms akimbo and scowled. Sensing her displeasure, her minions below hastened to bind and gag their last victims: a whole pile of defeated pokemon trainers.
"Look at this haul, it's amazing, yes?" a grunt remarked to another, holding a load of pokeballs in his arms.
"The trainers down here had surprisingly tough pokemon!" the other grunt said. "They sucked at using them, though... Mwahaha! Well it doesn't matter now. These stolen goods are in capable hands!"
All the defeated pokemon trainers who had been unfortunate enough to traverse Mt. Mortar at the time of the raid had been tied-up, gagged, and collected in a heap. Squirming helplessly, they let out muffled pleas and cries.
"Madam Ariana," a grunt said, addressing the red-haired woman who sternly watched over them. "We've successfully kidnapped every trainer from the basement levels!"
"Excellent," Ariana said. "Where is Executive Proton? I want a status report!"
Proton emerged from the shadows. "The mission has been accomplished... Phase two of the deconstruction is underway and the hardware has already been removed," he said. "Shall we reorganize?" He tipped his cap and stared at Ariana with his sharp green eyes.
"Of course. Brilliant work, Proton. Archer is waiting for you at the Goldenrod base," she said, a self-satisfied smirk settling on her dreadfully-stiff face. "From there on out, you'll proceed with phase four. In the meantime, my unit will mobilize at nightfall... So be waiting for us."
"Mwahahah... Will do." Proton laughed evilly, disappearing back into the shadows.
"Now then, back to business!" Ariana declared, turning around and yelling at a hole in the cave wall. "What's taking so long?... Haven't you finished the maser removal yet?!"
"Un-installation is at eighty-eight percent," a grunt answered.
"So close!" She gritted her teeth and her smirk became an insane barring of her fangs. "Bring in the Armorized Dynamic Heavy Dolly and begin loading it! Though this random secret plan was a failure, due to Mt. Mortar's uncontrollable electric field, the next secret plan will SURELY make use of our genius technology... five men per component! Don't forget to lift with your knees!"
"Yes Madam! You guys, she wants to bring in the ADHD!"
A rumbling shook the cave once again.
"Wohohohohohoho!" Ariana whooped a backhanded laugh. "Once we re-install at the Goldrenrod Radio Tower, all of Johto will be ours! Ours, ours, ours! ...Mind-control all around!"
A house-sized mechanized tank with a lofty truck-bed rolled forth, drilling through the cavern's far wall and parking alongside it. A massive ramp was pushed against the tank and grunts scrambled left and right to lift tarp-covered boxes and equipment into it. Among this procession, about ten grunts carried a computer case that looked more like a wall.
"Load the mother brain last," Ariana said. "Be aware that it, along with the maser, is one of the most sophisticated pieces of equipment we own... No, in the world! Our current scientists won't be able to re-build it if anything happens, so don't be taking it apart!"
"Yes Madam!"
"Hmm hm hn," she laughed quietly to herself. "Perfect. Everything is going as planned. Soon, every pokemon in Johto will be under Team Rocket's command. Then... the possibilities will be endless!"
"Wah!" Cries and screams began to surface from the darkness, sending countless grunts scattering in terror.
"Aaagh!"
"You! Stop!" Ariana shouted, disconcerted by the sight a looming figure. "What's... going on down there?"
With his hands in his pockets, Silver emerged as the mysterious figure, his Sneasel and Croconaw following at his sides. "...Me," he announced, glowering at Ariana.
"Silver!" she choked, visibly bewildered. "What are you doing? Are you still trying to defy your father's grand intentions?"
"Grand intentions? What are you going on about, you old hag?" Silver scoffed. "There's nothing grand about Team Rocket... You're all just like bugs... crawling back up the wall after being squashed with a slipper!"
"How dare you!" Ariana hissed, grasping her arm as if his sharp words had left a wound there. "I tire of your foolish disobedience... that's no way to speak to your mother!"
"Shut up!" Silver snapped, his eyes flashing with anger. "I didn't come here to listen to one of your damn lectures. I came here to eradicate the pest known as Team Rocket, once and for all!"
"That's it!" Ariana screamed. "It's time for some long-awaited discipline!" Sliding down from the crumbling ledge, she produced a large medical syringe from her belt. "You won't be escaping from me again," she said, threatening him with it. "Don't you understand yet, Silver? You're going to sleep until you do... This is the power of SCIENCE!"
"Get away from me, you psychotic wind bag!" He stepped away. "Sneasel, icy wind, stat!" Sneasel raised his sharp forked claws and mewled fiercely, all before opening his mouth and hissing out a frosted gust of wind.
"Err...agh.." Ariana fell to her knees, shivering. "You brat! If that's how you want to play, then..." She managed to throw out two pokeballs. "Arbok, Gloom! Crush them!" she ordered. "Poison sting! Mega drain!"
"Haaaaar!" Arbok spat and slithered forth, bearing her fangs. Gloom drooled and began to drone.
"Hmph! Faint attack!" Silver pointed, directing Sneasel forward. "Croconaw! Ice fang!" He sicked the reptile on Gloom. Whipping his blue tail, Croconaw swept through the air like a sweeping razor and tore into Gloom, frosting the pokemon with a single bite and dropping it, fainted. Stopping abruptly, he began to glow in a brilliant white light.
"Sneasel, take care of this... You know what to do!" Silver said, running off.
"You, come back here!" Ariana ran after Silver as Sneasel and Arbok tore at each other.
Silver ran for the wall-like computer sitting alongside Team Rocket's gigantic tank. She said that this bulky thing was their irreplaceable mother computer, he thought, knowing what he had to do. If it's important for their stupid comeback, then...
"Then I'll just have to destroy it," Silver said aloud, raising his fists, "with my own two hands!"
"Nooo!" Ariana screamed desperately, flailing at the surrounding grunts and yelling, "Stop him, at any cost!"
Rocket launchers clicked into place, ready to be fired, and remaining grunts moved into position behind rocks and ledges.
Sneasel finished off Arbok with a powerful Quick Attack and, with his feline grace, lithely pounced Ariana to the ground.
Yelling to summon his strength, Silver frenetically rammed his fists through the steel-walled computer, breaking through its circuitry and ripping out fistfuls of wires. Tearing at it, he screamed with unending outrage, "Useless! Useless Team Rocket is no more!" He yanked out components, like the still-beating organs of an enemy, and threw them on the ground, stomping them into chunks. "Take this, you pathetic weaklings! ERAGH!" His stomping continued to SUCH an excess, that it admittedly looked kind of ridiculous.
"You UNGRATEFUL BRAT," Ariana screamed, her nose wrinkling with pure rage. "How dare you reject our vision for the future... your father's dream! I'm going to tell him about this!"
"Go ahead! Tell him!" Silver swung around, rebounding from the rockets which rapidly fired at him. "Tell him that I brought down his cowardly, feeble organization. Tell him 'Silver did this!' Nothing could make me HAPPIER. Because if that stupid man heard about that, maybe he'd take me SERIOUSLY for once."
Ariana turned to the grunts who were firing. "Y-you idiots! I said STOP him at any cost, not blow him up!" She held her face and roared. "You incompetent fools! Grab him! Stop him, stop him!"
"Tch!" Silver clicked in annoyance. "Get out of my way!" Running up the wall alongside the mechanized tank, he flipped and then landed on it. "It's time to give it up! You don't need ANY of this!" He punched his fists together, and upon raising then, swung them down and punched at the vehicle's hood relentlessly, denting it into a fizzled explosion of static and smoke.
"Seize fire and mobilize the Armorized Dynamic Heavy Dolly! Hurry!" Ariana commanded. "Reposition and collect the maser. Start the Giga Drills!"
"Yes ma'am!" the grunts chanted. "Mobilizing the ADHD! Giga Drills, on!" From a high vantage point, several Rocket Scientists appeared and played with what looked like portable video game devices, switching on the armored transport vehicle and moving it forward.
"GYUUUUUUUN!" the vehicle's two front drills screeched as they spun. Rattled, Silver shook away his short-lived fright and kept smashing the hood, panting as his bloodied fists kept hammering away. The engine below him began to grind and sputter.
"Such a powerful child... You had all the makings of a Rocket Executive or even the next Boss..." Ariana said dolefully, turning aside and spitting. "But you could never accomplish what you were told to do. So unruly... That is what makes you the ONLY useless child in the family!"
"That's right," Silver stopped long enough to declare; "I'm nothing like your perfect, spoiled little alien. That bowl-headed martian! Why is that? I wonder..." He clenched his swollen fists together for a moment of rest, but then his wrath urged him to continue punching. "Hrgh!" His fists thinned the metal. "Did you really send her to Sinnoh? Just to become a scientist?" he continued; "Or did you finally realize how pitiful life in Team Rocket was? Of course you didn't want your precious, only daughter in such a LAME environment!"
"You leave your sister out of this!" Ariana hissed and stammered. "You should... should learn to respect your family... We simply needed more scientists, so your father and I! We decided! That sending her there was for the best! And I..." Ariana wiped dirt from her mouth and stood up. "I wanted my daughter to lead the happy, ordinary school life that I never had... There's nothing wrong with that! It's a short time in a girl's life, and... it's every girl's dream! So... You shut up about it!"
"Lucky her! That's why I have nothing in common with my so-called family." Silver laughed resentfully. "You have stupid standards of living and pointless dreams! You play favorites and coddle the weak... And you hold back the strong in favor of letting the rest catch up... Bumbling around as a big, disappointing group of weaklings... that's why you never get anywhere! You want me to respect you just because we're family? Mars is but half a sibling, and you... You're not even my real mother! And there's NEVER been respect between us! So shut up the hell up!" As he had said this, the vehicle beneath him backed him against the wall—its drills finally turning on him in threat but pausing.
"You will regret your insolence," Ariana said, facing away. "We'll be the ones to find your father! And when we do, we'll rebuild Team Rocket... and then we'll NEVER take you back!"
"Fat chance, you old bag!" Silver yelled. "Team Rocket is finished!" Huffing, he went back to work, pounding-in the now-exposed engine. Boiling grease spurted up from it, like blood, and the vehicle began to to overload.
"Stupid child! Get down from there before you kill yourself!" as she warned him of this, a rocket missile exploded beside Silver and sent him rolling across the massive vehicle's hood.
"Who did that?" Ariana screamed. "I said 'seize fire'! What the hell are you fools doing with those drills?!"
"Nngh..." Silver grunted, opening his eyes. In just a small amount of time, both the tank's Giga Drills had repositioned toward him. With their monstrous sounds, they spun closer and pinned him to the cave wall, the threat of obliteration eminent. There was no where left for him to move or run.
~To Be Continued...~