Mikale smiled at the pokemon trainer in front of him. This encouraged the trainer to smile too, all guards dropped, and he shook hands with the innocent-looking, sixteen year-old boy in front of him.
The boy, he thought, seemed like the quiet type, with brown hair and dark glasses that covered his eyes. This would make an interesting battle. His eyes flicked briefly to his pokebelt. Just two pokemon. Then his eyes flicked up again, and he saw another pokeball held tight in the boy's hand. That was fast.
"Ready for that battle, huh?" Mikale said.
The trainer nodded, copying the boy's confident smile.
Suddenly the boy's pokeball-free fist flew out, hitting the man in the temple. He staggered backwards, temporarily blinded by sudden pain. He struck again, knocking the man out completely. He never gave so much as a groan.
Mikale clipped the pokeball back onto his belt and knelt down next to the twenty-year old man. Jason had tought him that move, and it wasn't the first time he'd used it. He only had to keep changing routes every hour or so, otherwise the trainers would get suspicious. But he was surrounded by Fortree forest on all sides at the moment, which was a safe option.
Quickly, in case the man regained concoiusness- though he would probably be out cold for half an hour, Mikale didn't want to risk anything- he started to detatch the man's pokemon. Six of them. Without bothering to see what cargo he had hauled this time, Mikale took of his backpack and threw them in with the rest, careful not to make any burst open.
Then he rumaged through the man's own bag. He wasn't supposed to be looting for himself, but Mikale never could resist taking a few valuble items. He pulled out several used Potions and some empty pokeballs. He put them back- he didn't want to leave evidence, which was partly why he was wearing gloves. In the last pack, he'd found a valuble and unused TM, but in this man's bag was nothing important, save a two-way radio. He was obviously a forest ranger.
Mikale took out the radio and trod on it. He didn't want the man calling for help when he awoke- there were still many pokemon trainers left here. Finally, he pulled the lifeless man into the bushes, where they hid him completely, dusted his hands and continued walking.
After a tedious five minutes, Mikale finally found a trainer. A thirteen or fourteen year-old girl with black hair, tied up in some weird coil. He shook his head. Fashions. She did, however, seem familiar.
Before Mikale could start up the usual routine of smile-and-challenge, the girl started screaming and threw herself at him. He dodged her pummeling fists and scowled. He'd finished her off already.
"Give me back my pokemon!" she screamed.
"Get off," Mikale answered, annoyed, "or I'll hit you again."
"Give back Amber!" shouted the girl. Louder. Mikale started to worry. She would attract attention.
"Heath, sort her out," he said, throwing his charizard's pokeball. The dragon reared up over the girl, and she made a small whimpering sound.
"Take my advice, OK?" he told her as he climbed onto Heath's back. The charizard snorted out a curl of flame that made the girl jump back. "Stay out of my way unless you want to get hurt."
With that, Heath to took the skies, lashing out her tail to knock the girl to her feet. Pokemon and trainer left the Fortree forest quickly, heading back to Team Magma's base. As they flew, Mikale heaved his bag onto his knee and examined the contents.
"Reckon these are worth a bit," he said to Heath as he pulled out the TMs.
"What are they?" she wanted to know.
He shrugged. "Dunno. I'll sell them if they're not useful."
"How many did you get?" she asked.
He peered down into the contents. "Got a good haul. I think around thrirty, cos this man and that trainer back in route 120 both had six. I don't know how many of these aren't Wurmples and such, though. I might have caught them training up some weak ones."
"They would have had a strong pokemon with them then," Heath corrected him as they entered Route 118.
"I suppose... but one ain't as good as six."
She didn't answer that, but swerved slightly to avoid Mauville and continued flying north.
He patted her neck. "I don't know what I'd do without you, Heath."
She laughed. "Probably swim here. Nothing stops you, Mike, and you know it."
Mikale grinned properly for the first time since he'd started the looting. "Alright, you win." He leaned over to see how close they were.
"Oh, wait. We're here, Heath. You keep forgetting we've got a new entrance."
She nodded to that and landed in graceful circles onto a smooth patch of grass. This place had few trainers in it, and any that did come near the entrance were chased off by the guard's mightyena.
Mikale called Heath back into her pokeball and started walking towards the hidden cave entrance. Before he could get more than a few feet to it, though, two mightyena leapt out and growled. But they knew him, and one of them spoilt the effect by wagging its tail, and then they were both jumping up at Mikale and licking him.
"Get down, you two marshmellows," he laughed.
A guard poked his head out from behind the trees. "Oh right, it's you, Mikale. Didn't recognise you without your uniform."
"I couldn't wear it, Paddy. I was on looting duty today."
"Get anything good?"
Mikale brushed past them. "'Bout thirty. Not bad."
"Well, see you Mike," the other man said, calling his pokemon back into the entrance. No need to draw attention to this place by attacking oblivious people.
Mikale carried on down the corridor, typing in two securiy codes as he went. Being in Team Magma was like being in a large, happy family. Everyone knew everyone else, and new people instantly felt at home. They all shared the same belief, and the desire to expand the land.
"There you are, Mike!" a girl said, dressed in the typical uniform and seeming to appear from nowhere. "Jason's been looking for you for ages!"
"Just got back," Mike explained.
"Well, he's in staff room C and waiting. The two other loot teams got back an hour ago."
Mikale pulled a face and sprinted off down the corridor until he reached the right room. As he opened the door Jason started shouting. "Where have you been?"
"Rain," Mikale lied smoothly. "I was near Fortree and I ride a charizard, so I got delayed."
Jason's face softened. "Sorry, Mike. I keep forgetting- I'll send you soemwhere dryer next time." He turned back to the other two people. "So, what have we got?"
A girl stood up and shook her head. "Not much, I'm afraid. I had to escape from Route 114 pretty quickly after a while, and 113 didn't offer much. I've got around ten, but no more."
"Not bad," Jason said. "But, you did leave late and you're still over the ten-pokemon minimum." The girl handed him pokeballs, which he checked quickly with a scanner.
Mikale talked to the other person waiting there, a girl named Trish, while Jason wrote down the pokemon names.
"Numel, Marshtomp- good, Shroomish, Lodicolo- good, Altaria- very good, Vibrava- good, Seedot..."
"Trish?"
The girl stood up. "I think I got around forty- a lot of six-pokemon trainers hanging around Route 117 and 116."
Jason gave her his prasie while Mikale turned his conversation to Gabrielle, the girl who had been attacking routes 114 and 113.
Mikale's captured pokemon turned out to be around average, with a Golem, a Blaziken and a Raichu amongst them.
"Have you got anything else?" Jason asked Mikale. Prehaps he knew that Mikale frequently stole items for himself, or maybe the TMs were sticking out of his bag somehow. In any case, Jason's hand was out, and Mikale was forced to give up his precious tresure.
Jason sorted through them like computer games. "Flamethrower, useful, that one; Double Team, Thundershock, Sky Dive, Water Gun." He paused for a moment, then held out the Water Gun TM to Mikale. "Get yourself something nice."
"Thanks, Jay," Mikale said, putting the disc back into his bag.
"Right, you've all done very well-" Gabrielle hung her head "-and I think I'll need Mikale to help me carry them all to Storage. Could you two please tell Jason, Kris L and Flo that they're on loot duty on Wednesday?"
The two girls nodded and left, and Mikale was given a crate full of pokeballs to carry. "Thanks, Mike," Jason said, starting to leave with his own crate.
Mikale decided against telling Jason he had no choice, and instead followed him. The box was heavy, and to him it almost felt like he was carrying a Golem, a Blaziken and a Raichu amongst the rest.
When they reached Storage, Jason grabbed Mike's arm to stop him from leaving. "Sort the out with me, please," he said. "Dark types here, Fire here, Ground or Rock here and Flying here, please. Anything else goes anywhere on one of the other shelves to sell. Take the scanner and write a label for in front of the pokeball- legible handwriting, please. If you're not sure about something, ask me."
So for the next half-hour, Mikale sat on the shiny floor of Storage, passing the scanner over the balls in turn, writing a neat-ish label of which pokemon it was and the strength level, and getting up to place it on the right shelf.
"I'll get someone to chip them later," Jason said as they started to near the end. "You can go now, Mike, I think it's almost supper."
Mikale nearly tripped over in his hurry to leave, which earned an amused raised eyebrow from Jason, before he bowed quickly and left. Storage was a boring buisness. He hoped he never ended up working there.
Maxie clapped his hands twice. It was a tough crowd, and although he'd been in command for almost a year now, they sometimes escaped his command. But this time the people at the front heard him and stopped talking, and it quickly spread right to the back. Maxie felt rather like a headmaster talking to his hundred of pupils.
He cleared his throat. "For the work at Mt Chimney, we have finally created the device to cause the volcano to erupt!"
This simple sentence sent the crowd cheering. Maxie held up a hand for silence. "Please. But for this machine, we need to harness the power of a meteorite found in Meteor Falls." Th ecrowd was silent as they listened. "Fortunatly I know how to find this meteorite. There is a Professor living in Fallarbor, by the name of Cozmo." A slight rumble of laughter echoed around the room, but Maxie kept on. "If he shows us where the meteorite is, we can take it and set the machine working!"
More cheers followed. Maxie was pleading for silence again, but now becoming more friendly. "For the following mission, I need the following people: to persuade Cozmo, we'll need the lovely Gabrielle Green."
More laughter as Gabrielle blushed. Now that Mikale thought, she was the perfect choice- sweet and kind, but not very good at battlepower.
"Battlearms: Rita Sept, Mikale Brummel, Paolo Iver. I will go myself, and..."
Mikale jerked his head up at his name. He was on battlearms? That basically meant he was there in case things turned nasty, or in case anyone they encountered disagreed with them.
Paolo, who was standing next to him, nudged him and laugh. "You got the strength?" he asked in a sing-song voice, starting to dance around. "You got the power for it? You got the eh-ner-gee?"
Mikale pushed him as Maxie started talking about time and dates. "The team will please arrive at my office at eight-thirty. I'm sorry for the short notice, but this has to be quickly done. Team Aqua are on our tail..."
A growl was repeated throughout the hall at the sound of the name. "Aqua scum!" someone shouted. It sounded like Paolo.
"Please, people. This is a serious matter, and if we play our cards right, it will work in our favor."
There were some mumblings and cheerings before everyone left for bed. Mikale shared a dormitory with Paolo and a guy named Roi. They were all sixteen, but Paolo was the immature and annoying one. He had been friends with Mikale since they joined Team Magma, when they were both ten.
Six years living wherever their base was at the time. Mikale had lived in three so far. They'd moved into this one when Maxie becae the leader. Mikale didn't mind. It was all the life he knew. His adoption father and mother were both executives, called Tabitha and Mark. He knew his mother had commited suicide soon after he was born. He thought it was because of him, which made him sad, but he knew he could do nothing about it.
Roi was someone who liked to be the boss, which meant he could be snappy and irritable. He'd calmed down since Paolo and Mikale first shared a room with him, when they were all fourteen. Since then they'd become friends, though he still had an annoying streak they couldn't stamp out. A different annoying from Paolo, but still pretty annoying.
Paolo got excited easily, which possibly explained why he kept singing all the way through showers, which was enough to get Roi's soap thrown at him. In a very Paolo-like way, however, he just smiled, yelled, "Thanks!" and continued, using his soap and singing just as loudly. The only thing that shut him up was Roi smothering him with his own towel afterwards.
Finally, the three boys lay in bed, with Paolo gagged by Roi using a flannel, which was the only wasy they could shut him up.
"Are you going out tomorrow too, Mike?" asked Roi.
"Yeah, I'm on battlearms like Pao," he said. "What about you?"
"Cleaning duties." He made a face. "That's something I'd like Pao to do if anyth--"
He was interupted by Paolo, who seemed to have untied his gag at last. "You got the strength? You got the power for it? You got the eh-ner-gee for you to endour it? You need the--"
This time, Roi's pillow asn't the only thing that hit Paolo in the face.
E/N: Well, different from the prologue, but this is mainly just an intro in its own right. Please review anyway!