DISCLAIMER: I don't own Pokémon or any of its characters, place names, etc. The only character I own here is the lovely Samara Kantaris.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the first time I've ever written anything like this so please give feedback (but no flames please!)...I dunno how detailed I should be with the battles and the Pokémon catching etc. so if anyone has any suggestions, that would be nice! Hope you enjoy it so far!

(And for any pedantic people...hehehe...yes, I know Lance traditionally has red hair, okay? Let's say he dyed it, or something...)

Kantaris and her team of Rockets were sitting in a warehouse on the outskirts of Saffron City, another of Team Rocket's many hideouts. It wasn't exactly her squadron – she herself was only a Grunt like the rest of them – but all of the Elite and Executive Rockets were too busy at Silph to be in backup. Kantaris liked to think of herself as a 'higher Grunt', so she'd kind of taken charge of the group.


The lights were out. The only illumination came from a chink under the back door, and a flickering candle at the other end of the room. They were all silent. All they could hear was the rush of vehicles outside. Kantaris was sitting with her back pressed against the door, holding her breath. She clutched her pager in both hands and bit her lip, thankful that none of her teammates could see the worried expression on her face. She was worried like crazy about what was going on in Saffron City. It was the best thing Team Rocket had ever planned, and yet it stood on the edge of a knife. One mistake, and it would fall apart.

When Kantaris had left the Silph Office (reluctantly), Giovanni had seemed content. But they both knew that it wouldn't be over until they had Silph's manager's signature permanently on that contract. How close was that to happening? Would it happen at all? Kantaris had no idea. She let out her breath in a shaky sigh.

After what seemed like an eternity, the pager beeped.

"Let's move!" Kantaris whispered.

There was the sound of about twenty guns being sheathed, and then Kantaris threw open the back door. She threw two sets of keys to two of her teammates. They all piled into three black minivans waiting outside the door.

About fifteen minutes later, they pulled up at the back door of the Silph Office. An Elite Rocket, dressed in black, was already there waiting. He sneered.

"Reinforcement, what took you so long?"

"What's the problem?" Kantaris asked, unfazed.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he replied, leading the team inside and into the massive downstairs foyer.

Kantaris paled.

"Try me," she said.

"Some kid managed to break his way into the office. He defeated all our guards and everything. The amount of time you guys took to get here...! He must be on the sixth floor by now!"

Kantaris turned to her squadron.

"You lot," she said, gesturing to half of them, "go find the brat and take care of him. The rest of you, come with me."

"Yes, Miss Kantaris," they replied sarcastically.

"Oh, don't argue with me. Now isn't the time."

Half of the team charged the staircase while Kantaris and the rest took the lift up to the top floor. When they got there, they drew their guns and hastened down the corridor to the main office. They were halted by a Rocket Executive.

"You can't go in there," he said. "The Boss is in a battle."

"A battle? Bullshit! With who?"

"A kid fought his way up here and challenged the Boss to a fight. He said that if he didn't accept, he'd tip off the cops."

Kantaris shook her head. The police probably knew that they were there by now anyway. But Giovanni would never turn down a challenge.

"You guys better turn round and head back to where you came from," the Executive said. "If the Boss loses, we're out of here. All of us."

Kantaris fought her way past him – despite her average height and young appearance, she was pretty strong – and she burst into the office. Sure enough, there was the kid. He couldn't have been more than thirteen years old. He looked like a street rat, dressed in filthy jeans and a torn jacket. Strands of his dark hair stuck out from under a faded cap. And yet, on the pocket of his tatty jacket gleamed five Pokémon gym badges. Kantaris stopped in her tracks.

"Okay, Vaporeon, finish it off with a Bubblebeam!"

Kantaris watched in a mixture of horror and fascination as the impressive-looking Vaporeon unleashed a powerful Bubblebeam upon Giovanni's Golem. The Golem went down instantly and the kid re-called his Pokémon. Giovanni slammed his fists down onto the desk in rage. Kantaris flew out of the room and down three flights of stairs. The place was deserted – everyone else had cleared out already. Bloody cowards. Kantaris' common sense told her to do the same, but she didn't leave. She stayed behind and waited.

Suddenly, the kid tore past her, a streak of red and blue.

Half an hour later, the team had dispersed. Kantaris and her squadron were at the underground basement in Celadon City. Giovanni was in his office downstairs, furious and inconsolable. Kantaris had decided to leave him to it – he obviously didn't want to speak to anyone at the moment. And everyone knew that if he would want to talk to anyone, it would be Kantaris. The Rockets had dubbed her 'the Boss's confidante'. They often teased her about it. Some of them may have been jealous, but Kantaris shrugged it off either way. It had never mattered to her what anyone thought. She did what she liked, and she liked being in Team Rocket, even though she wasn't very popular among the Grunts. She wasn't very popular anywhere, come to think of it. The Grunts resented her for acting above her station, the Elites resented her for rebelling against their authority and trying to be one of them, and the Executives just couldn't understand what Giovanni saw in her.

So, after failing to calm Giovanni down or get any information about the boy who'd defeated him, Kantaris put on her long black leather jacket that hid her uniform, and she went out for a while. As she was walking, she thought about the kid. He'd seemed a very powerful trainer for his age. Heck, he'd beaten off all the guards at Silph, and as if this wasn't enough, he'd beaten Giovanni, whom Kantaris had always thought to be pretty unbeatable: he'd taught her everything she knew about Pokémon training and she'd never managed to beat him. Never. And those gym badges...that kid had only had four or five but he could have had all eight judging from how strong he was.

Some people are just talented like that.

Kantaris stopped by the Pokémon Centre on the street corner. Just outside the door, as usual, was the usual box of pamphlets about the Pokémon League. Kantaris had never really paid much attention to them, but now she picked one up. She'd never really given much thought to the Gym Challenge before, but having been around Giovanni who was a Gym Leader himself, she knew the ropes.

Eight badges to collect...then the Elite Four...

Kantaris glanced down at the two Pokéballs at her waist. They were the only Pokémon to her name. There was a Cyndaquil that rarely listened to a word she said, probably because she didn't have the right badges. And then there was Stella, a Misdreavus that Kantaris had been given when she was eleven years old. She was of a reasonably high level but she always listened to Kantaris. They had a special bond. Kantaris sometimes thought that Stella was her only friend.

It wasn't as if Kantaris didn't have confidence – no, she had plenty of that – and it wasn't that she considered herself to be a bad trainer. Compared to the rest of the Rockets, she was very good. She'd even been to Pokémon Stadium before and won one of the major tournaments there. In fact, the only reason she'd never really considered doing the proper Gym Challenge before was out of her own laziness. She couldn't be bothered training that much or catching Pokémon in an honest way and levelling them up. And besides, at the Stadium, it was no big deal if you didn't win. In the actual League, Kantaris had heard, it could all get pretty serious. And she wasn't sure if she wanted that. Kids these days would charge into Pokémon training blissfully unaware of the selfish, cutthroat industry that awaited them if they made it beyond Viridian City Gym. That didn't happen often, anyway. Kantaris had seen Giovanni end the careers and shatter the dreams of lots of young trainers. She was sure that it had to hurt.

Kantaris had decided a long time ago that if she were ever going to become an excellent trainer, it would be for the good of Team Rocket. That was where her loyalties lay. But after seeing that kid and his confidence...she wasn't so sure. She folded up the leaflet and put it in her back pocket.

When she got back, she went in through the back door and went up to the arcade upstairs. It was a Sunday, so they had closed the arcade. This meant that the Rockets were free to go wherever they wanted, even dressed in full uniform. The amusement arcade was one of their safest bases. A bunch of Grunts were lounging around, watching the television that was mounted on a wall bracket near the counter. There was a major Pokémon battle on TV.

Kantaris stood behind them, unnoticed. The battle was pretty fierce: it was between an Arcanine and a Dragonair. This caught her attention immediately: it took a special kind of trainer to be able to control a Dragon Pokémon. After a while, the Dragonair's trainer came into view. He wore a black cape and what looked like black and red armor, but the picture wasn't all that good, so Kantaris couldn't be sure. He was pacing back and forth at the end of the battlefield, but he didn't exactly look nervous. He looked thoughtful, if anything. When the camera angle changed, Kantaris got a better picture. He looked young, probably around twenty years old, with strawberry blonde spiky hair and dark eyes that almost seemed to be on fire. The camera angle switched again to record his Dragonair dealing a mighty Dragon Rage attack.

After watching silently as the opponent's Arcanine went down, Kantaris clapped and whistled.

"Who's that?" she asked, visibly impressed.

"Lance," one of her teammates replied, not sounding impressed at all. "Dragon Master. Elite Four."

"Wow," Kantaris whispered. "He seems pretty good."

"Duh! He's, like, the best Pokémon Master ever!"

"Yeah," another one said, "and even you would have no chance with him, Kantaris."

Ooh, I sense a challenge there. Kantaris hid her smile and pretended to be surprised at the reply.

"In what context?" she asked innocently.

"In any context. He's the greatest there is. He's totally unbeatable. And most of all, he absolutely hates Team Rocket."

Kantaris pouted.

"So you think he's totally unbeatable?" she asked slyly, sitting down at one of the slot machines and spinning around on the stool slowly. "How much do you wanna bet...that he's not?"

They all turned and stared at her like she was insane. Finally, one of them said,

"Um, let's have a reality check, Kantaris. Lance wouldn't even make eye contact with you for long enough for you to challenge him. And if you did challenge him, he probably wouldn't accept."

"You can't deny a challenge!" Kantaris said automatically.

Unlike some of her teammates, Kantaris was much more educated when it came to Pokémon training. She knew all too well that if someone makes and holds eye contact with you, it means that they want to battle. If you don't want to battle, you have to blink and/or look away at once. But if anyone ever goes so far as to challenge you verbally, you can't turn down the challenge. It's just not done.

But her teammates didn't care. They shrugged.

"Lance would never look at you for either a battle or anything else. You'd have to be outstanding. And you'd have to have the badges to prove it."

"Fine, then!" This was the straw that broke the camel's back. Kantaris jumped down from the bar stool. "I'll take the Gym Challenge! That's where everyone else starts, isn't it?"

"Kantaris..." One of her teammates interrupted her, more sympathetically than nastily. "Honey, you're a Rocket Grunt. You've had hardly any education – "

"What's school got to do with this? You have to be streetwise to be a trainer, and you can't say that I'm not!"

"Oh, sure, you're streetwise. You should be. You were living on the streets for a few years."

"Exactly! I can take care of myself!"

"You have two Pokémon and no money. What are you gonna do?"

"I can catch more Pokémon! I'll battle for money, and before you know it I'll be well-off enough to travel all over Kanto as I please!" Kantaris walked up and down the aisles. "And what difference does it make if I'm a Rocket? Are Team Rocket members not trainers as well? Is there a rule that says that anyone who calls his or herself a Rocket cannot enter the Halls of the League? No, there isn't! It's open to anyone who's good enough! And if that kid can do it, I can do it! I'll catch loads of Pokémon, win loads of badges...and before you know it, I'll be right there on Indigo Plateau, taking that hotshot Dragon Master to pieces."

The Rockets laughed.

"In your dreams, Kantaris. If you ever made it to the Plateau, which you won't, Lance would wipe the floor with you and your Pokémon. Believe me."

"As I stand now, I wouldn't disagree with you. But I will learn. I will improve."

"Listen, everyone has their place in the world! You have a future in Team Rocket, you say so yourself!"

"I'm not disputing that. I'll always be a Rocket."

"You can't do both. The Pokémon League and Team Rocket are completely opposite and incompatible things. You can't have your cake and eat it."

Kantaris sighed and leaned on one of the slot machines. She gazed at the television screen. The battle had finished now. The two trainers were shaking hands. Lance gave his opponent a sporting smile and a pat on the back. The crowd was chanting his name as he left the battlefield, and kids were leaning over out of the stands just to touch his cape as he went past. He paused for a moment to shake a few hands, sign a few autographs...and then he was gone.

Kantaris was star-struck.

"Right," she said in determination. "You can all just sit here and carry on your level plain, believing that you were never destined to be anything more than backstreet vagabonds – "

"We're not vagabonds!" her teammates yelled. "The Boss would kill you if he heard you saying that."

" – but I, my friends, have a vision. I see – "

"The Boss has a vision, and that's why we're all supposed to be working for him, remember? Have you completely forgotten your Team Rocket oath, Kantaris?"

"You can all stay here and let your lives pass you by if that's what you want, but just keep your eyes on that damn television screen because the next time you see the fabulous Master Lance, he'll be losing..." – Kantaris smiled dazzlingly at her unimpressed, skeptical teammates – "...to me."