Well, it's this fic again. I hope you like it… The bit at the end may be confusing but I'll elabourate next chapter. Feel free to flame; if you're comprehensive I may even pay attention.

MORNING GLORY: DESTINATION by Morbane

-Pallet Town, Kanto (The same day)

That night he had done a lot of pacing. He hadn't felt as out-of-control in the game he was playing since he'd first cast the dice.

Team Rocket didn't just suspect him. Team Rocket wasn't just watching him. Team Rocket was observing him, noting his experiments, letting him continue with them for the moment because perhaps to them his experiments were useful. Deliberating when to confront him, and ask him to either join them truly or... not.

For all Professor Oak knew, they could be planning to approach him in the next few days. His contact's uncertainty made that believable. As a matter of fact, Professor Oak doubted that Ritchie could be really reliable to him after this. Ritchie was a fairly devoted Rocketeer and obviously bent a personal code every time he 'helped' Oak - although Oak had tried to convince him logically of the reasons why he *needed* to help him. This time, Oak read, Ritchie had gone beyond his own pales and had probably decided that, the fair warning given, he couldn't-slash-wouldn't help anymore.

So in Ritchie's case, the Professor was on his own.

He was going to have to end the game.

He hadn't thought it would get to this stage again. When they took over, Team Rocket had carefully removed authority from him, and he'd played along, pretending that Team Rocket had well and truly removed his fangs. Obviously, as he had continued to dabble on the side a bit in science, he had expected Team Rocket to keep a suspicious eye on him, the Team's attention waning and waxing according to his actions.

He hadn't expected them to have kept such a steady watch on him, such a professional and minute observation of what he was doing. The realisation of how much he'd been fooled was probably freaking him out exactly as much as they'd expected.

Luckily, he was coming to terms with the shock here, not in Team Rocket's 'negotiation' rooms.

He had an escape route, but he'd need the help of his assistants, and by those he meant the only three people he could trust. They were Ash, Gary, and May.

-Northwest of Cerulean, Kanto

The Team Rocket Cerulean Institute rose tall above the trees, its white, bright heights reflected in the Azure Lake. It still looked almost new - but then, it was only about forty years old.

From an island in the middle of the lake, the Institute's top student stared across at the school. And back at his two new Pokémon. Both Natu knew perfectly well that the less able one would be released back into the wild - and both were determined not to be that less able one. Gary wondered if these two were already friends.

"Fine," he said, throwing up his hands. "I'll keep one of you and give the other to my rival. Happy?"

Both Natu focussed into one place, instead of spinning around in a disconcerting blur. "That's better," Gary said. He had already decided which one to give away. The one with the slightly disobedient grin and the uneven markings - it would get along well with his friend's Pikachu.

"Return," he called both of them, setting them back on his wrists. "Remoraid?" The young man leapt onto his raft, holding out the rope that Remoraid would pull.

His Pokégear beeped at him.

"Okay, okay, okay," Gary muttered, expecting it to be an email from a supervisor, warning him not to go over the excursion time limit of two hours.

May's email took him completely by surprise.

Go to the leader of Morning Glory and ask her help... leave Kanto, possibly forever... take Ash, on his discretion... Grandpops? What had happened to him?

Gary sank to a sitting position, the raft luckily balanced by the nimble Remoraid. For Professor Oak. And for May.

But to risk his whole life against the Rockets...

-Celadon City, Kanto

It was a rainy day outside Ash's boarding-house window. Inside, the young Pokémon scholar was sitting at a table with his Pikachu, guiding the little Electric's paw across a page.

"Now how about F?"

Pikachu drew the upper case, lower case and Unown forms of the letter very carefully, and very well. Ash smiled. "Great work, Pikachu!" Pikachu gave Ash a Pokémon smile and began to slowly write a message in his exercise book.

Turning back to his own notebook, Ash twiddled his pen, trying to think what he should put next. He was trying to write a poem about the rain. So far, it went,

Grey spreads into my room;

my Pokémon smile at its scent.

The clouds have arrived,

yesterday they came and went -

but today they release their burdens,

and with them the colour, grey,

I wanted to laugh with my Pokémon,

but rain washes my zeal away.

It didn't really work as a poem, especially as a rhyming one. In fact, it was pathetic. Ash knew this, and was wondering if perhaps he should leave it and start all over again. The poem was too depressing. He wanted to include the peaceful feeling that came from watching rain slide down the window over and over again, and the smell that came when rain hit hot pavement. Gloomily, he left a few lines blank, and started to write down new words.

"Pika, pi, chu?"

Ash looked up, startled, as Pikachu pushed his exercise book towards him.

"'I wonder what Gary is doing.'" He read aloud. "Me too, Pikachu. Let's see..." he glanced at the TV screen set in the wall, "Weather for Azure Lake?"

"Sunny, with a few clouds appearing in the mid-late afternoon, developing into thick cloud cover by sunset," the speakers underneath recited.

"He'll be out on the lake, then," Ash said. "Probably looking for Psychic types."

"Pikachi."

"You think I should give him a call?"

But just then, the phone rang.

Azalea Town, Johto

It was somewhen just on the side of morning. The Water Mistress stared at her monitor, willing it to emit something…

Not even Psychic Pokémon were allowed to tag Duplika on her latest mission. She was deep inside Kanto, deep inside the Team Rocket headquarters, and wasn't even carrying any Pokémon but her damned beloved Ditto! She gives me a run for my money on sheer obstinacy, Misty thought, and gulped down a knot in her throat.

Her Quagsire nudged her. "Leave me alone, Muddy," she mumbled. She didn't generally give her Pokémon nicknames, but Muddy had refused to be referred to by its species designation.

Muddy gave up on nudging her and pushed her clear off her chair.

"Okay," whispered Misty, far too tired to protest, and curled up on the floor. As she'd known he would, the Quagsire jumped onto the chair on her place and kept watching, a sentinel to their only link with Misty's friend and fellow agent.