The metropolitan city of Saffron glowed with night lights emitted by corporate buildings, among them, most notably, the large building which served as the base of the great technology company.
Silph Company.
Anyone who wasn't used to the city might even be surprised by the superficial impression made by that great urbanized and modern mass - the greatest pride of Kanto - but Leaf knew very well the rot that existed inside.
Of course, the mayor and gym leader Sabrina tried hard to keep everything under wraps. After all, the illusion of the perfect city could not be undone if the rest of the region knew about the garbage that was kept under the rug.
The elite triumphed over the proletariat. Families starved while that bitch, Sabrina, was drinking the most luxurious wines at the local gym. Or even other things, if you could believe what the bad tongues said.
She was in that dark hallway, watching the street move. Just waiting for the best opportunity to attack.
Beside her, her partner in crime, Jiggly, accompanied her on the prowl. In her bag was a hidden knife.
Lily.
She still remembered like it was yesterday the day she got there.
Before arriving in the Kanto region, she lived in the Sevii Islands archipelago - specifically on island three. In her house she lived with her mother, Magnolia, and that bastard whom she preferred not to remember her name, her stepfather.
And how she hated him.
Carlos had met his mother at some party. Not even a month had passed since they started dating and had decided to get married and live together.
In the beginning it was all a bed of roses. Until it was no more.
Carlos began to act abusively. He drank almost every day with those bums he called friends and, of course, the one who paid for all the drinking was his mother.
If that wasn't enough, when he was contradicted by his mother, he would attack her. During the beatings, Leaf used to go into her room and force Jiggly to sing to her, so she couldn't hear her mother's scream of pain.
She even tried to hide the bruises but, at that point, everyone on the island already knew what was happening to her in that humble house next to the forest.
"Mom, you've got to let go of this asshole! You deserve so much more than that," pleaded Leaf every time she looked at Magnolia's state.
"I know Carlos will change! My role as his wife is to keep our family together despite adversity."
What the hell kind of family is this? she thought.
He hasn't changed. Otherwise, he only got worse. He drank more and more and spent the day out with the island bums, getting drunk. Her mother, on the other hand, would kill herself to work as a vegetable seller to support her drunkenness.
When Leaf noticed the looks he was giving her, she decided to start walking under cover. She took a hidden knife from the kitchen and kept it under the mattress of her bed.
One day, when she was alone at home taking a shower, Carlos had walked into her house, drunk as usual. It was that day when her life turned upside down.
When she came out of the bathroom, covered only by a bath towel, she saw the man looking up and down with that look that made her shiver.
When she saw him looking at her, Leaf had quickened her pace.
"Where are you going, cutie?" Her voice exhaled cachaça. He took her by the wrists and pulled her close to him.
"Let me go!" she had been trying to get rid of his filthy touch.
That's when she kicked him right in his private part and ran towards her room. However, when she went to close the door he put his leg between it, preventing it from locking.
"Stop running, cutie. I know you want to."
He then grabbed her and threw her on the bed, while the girl screamed and clawed at him. "GET OFF ME!"
He tried to kiss her hard, she tried to escape his lips.
That's when she remembered the knife she'd kept.
Without even thinking twice, she managed to push him long enough to get the gun.
So she stabbed him once.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
At that point she had gotten lost in the number of stabs she had given the man.
But she didn't care.
She didn't know that killing someone could be so...
Funny.
Her bed was covered in a pool of blood.
And that was how Lily had been born.
When her mother arrived, she burst into tears next to the corpse's body.
"YOU SEDUCED HIM! CARLOS WOULD NEVER LEAVE A SKINNY GIRL LIKE YOU!" accused Magnolia, even after Leaf explained everything.
And that's how that cow had thanked her for getting rid of the backrest.
"You are a monster," she said in a dark voice. "GO AWAY FROM HERE."
Leaf hadn't even tried to argue.
She packed his things in a bag, took Jiggly's Poké Ball and left the house, not knowing where to go or how she would survive from there. Only in her body clothes and a bloody knife.
Before walking out the door, she turned to her mother and said, "If you want me to be a monsterokay, I'll be a monster."
At the island's port, she managed to board a cargo vessel as an intruder. A girl with her innocence broken and aimless, just waiting for the waves of the sea to take her somewhere far away.
When she arrived in Vermilion, she lived for a while on the streets, surviving as a beggar and begging for whatever money they could give her. However, she could barely earn enough to buy even a meal at a crappy restaurant.
That's when she discovered that girls like her could only survive in that world in two ways.
The first was selling the body. Girls date older, committed men for mediocre money. A criminal and hidden prostitution ring existed, in which girls were enticed by greedy, money-hungry businessmen.
She knew this because she had already been approached by that type of person.
"You're pretty pretty, you know? Are you interested in modeling? You'd make good money," a woman had said as she approached her on the street. She had introduced herself as a booker for a modeling agency.
Leaf had turned to her, hands on her hips. "Model? Cut it out, I already know how this business works and I'm not interested."
That was not an option for her. Despite that, she didn't judge those people who survived that way. It was the way they had managed not to suffer in misery and hunger.
The second was theft.
And that was the reason why she was there in that city, at that exact spot.
Two unsuspecting boys were walking quietly, talking.
It will be them.
She nodded to Jiggly.
Then, the two sneaked off, following the two boys closely.
When they arrived at a deserted street, she initiated the approach.
She took Lily out of her bag and laid her against the neck of one of them.
"You're done, playboy. Give me the money," she said next to his ear. Her knife scraped across her neck. "If you scream or try to run away you'll end up choking on your own blood."
The boy had shivered in horror. She hated that guy, he was the worst kind of person to steal from.
Jiggly had summoned a Barrier through the Reflect strike, trapping the other and preventing him from escaping.
The cowardly boy, trembling, stuttered, "N-n-don't t-t-have any money with me."
"If you're lying, I'll make you visit your fucking great-grandfather."
"N-I'm not, I s-swear!"
Leaf ran her hand over his body.
"Damn it!", she said as she realized he was telling the truth.
The other boy, however, carried a Pokédex.
"Pass the pokédex," Leaf charged.
The calmer boy had reached his hand over the invisible barrier and handed the device to her.
"Jiggly, put them to sleep."
Jigglypuff started to sing. The effect of theSongput them both to sleep. Leaf was unaffected, after all, she had already been trained to withstand that blow.
She kept the Pokédex in her bag.
I hope it make me a good money, she thought, already imagining how much money she could make with that outdated model.
Jiggly began to inflate, until it became an air balloon.
She looked again at the two boys lying on the floor and snoring loudly. She noticed that one of them had peed his pants.
"Cry Baby." She laughed to herself.
She held onto Jiggly and flew through the Saffron night sky.
The man analyzed the Pokédex with the help of a magnifying glass.
"Hmmm," he blurted out enigmatically.
When he was done, he jotted something down on a piece of paper. He handed it over.
Leaf looked at what was written on it.
"That's all!?" Leaf blurted out in disbelief.
"I'm already doing you a favor to buy this outdated model with signs of use, darling. That's considering I know very well how you get these things. It's a take it or leave it. I guarantee you that you won't get a price below that with anyone else, especially coming from a thief like you."
Leaf sighed.
"All right..."
The man took a sum of money from his wallet and handed it to Leaf. She kept it in her bag.
"It was a pleasure doing business with you," he said. Then he gave that cynical smile.
Good for you, since you outmaneuvered me, she thought.
She knew he was just bluffing, but as she had no better option, she was left to settle.
She left the man's office by the door. Then she emerged into a dark, busy alley. Some gangsters used this place to trade drugs, so the entire path was filled with a thick layer of smoke.
Oddish stone, she thought. That was the most common and cheapest kind to get.
Leaf pushed her way through the small crowd of junkies there and walked down the hall. When she got close to a street, she started to head towards her "house".
If you could even call that tiny room home, she thought.
But it was what she had managed to pay with her money. A crappy pension with even meaner people.
As she was about to cross the traffic light, she noticed that a vehicle was slowly following her.
A limousine.
She started to quicken her step.
When she turned the corner and saw that the vehicle was still following her, Leaf quickened her pace. She turned around in time to see the vehicle pick up speed.
Who?
She was so distracted that she didn't notice the man standing in front of her. She bumped into him.
"Sorry."
She looked ahead and saw that, by the man's attire, he wasn't just anyone. He wore an elegant suit and carried a black briefcase.
"Your name is Leaf... Right?" he asked.
"N-no!", she tried to lie.
"Leaf, born in the Sevii Islands, daughter of Magnolia and Isaac."
How did he know?
It only accentuated her impression that she was dealing with powerful people.
"I think you would be very interested in accompanying me..."
Leaf was ready. She took Jiggly's Poké Ball and prepared to fire it. If she could move quickly, she'd put the man to sleep and fly away with Jiggly. She had a chance - however small - of escaping.
The man saw the movement he had made and said: "You don't understand... I... My boss just wants to talk to you. If I were you I would listen to what he has to say, the man is very of rich and powerful."
Leaf hesitated. She glanced at the parked limousine. She had stopped.
That changes everything, she thought, still suspicious. She had enough experience of the world to know that nothing came free. Everything had a price.
Knowing she had nothing to lose, she agreed to accompany the man to the limousine. Anyway she left the knife ajar in her bag in case she needed it.
The man opened one of the vehicle's doors and placed the suitcase on the back seats. Leaf came in and sat down. There were two seats facing each other and a space that only a vehicle of that level could demand.
In front of her, a man was reading a comic book. It was a manga with the title "Pokémon Adventures."
She had already read it when she was a child. A stupid story about children who set out across the world in search of adventures and battles. Before Leaf met the harsh reality of real life, she had also thought about following that dream. But now it all seemed to have happened in a past life, which no longer exists.
The limousine began to move through the city streets.
The man lowered the magazine and looked at her.
"Leaf, nice to meet you!" he said, smiling.
Leaf just cut him off: "We can skip that part now and get to the point. What do you want with me?"
The man took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it with a lighter.
"You're straight like a razor."
"Pragmatic, I would say."
He exhaled smoke through his nose.
"Well... If you want it, it will be so. My name is Giovanni and I'm starting a project, as I would say... Revolutionary", he began. "For this I am recruiting those interested in being part of my new organization..."
"Team Rocket?" She squinted. "I have my contacts, I've heard a buzz about it."
"Well, gossip always spreads too fast, it's a shame because I wanted everything to be a surprise."
He sighed. He continued, "Well, we're still in the recruiting phase... And I'm especially interested in you. A thief girl who has managed to outmaneuver Officer Jenny and not get caught. Something exceptional for someone of your age. "
"And what's in it for me?" Leaf interrupted.
"Why don't you open that suitcase you have there with you?"
Leaf did the bidding. Upon seeing what she had in the suitcase, her jaw dropped.
There was enough money for her to live well for eternity. Probably more than triple from what she would earn in her entire life as a thief.
She closed the case, now extremely malleable.
"It's closed to me. For that amount of money I would kill Lance and the entire elite four."
Giovanni smiled.
"I knew you would."
"When do I start?"
"Well... For you I have something special in mind... A secret mission, so to speak," he blew out a large amount of smoke. "I need you to get me something..."
Leaf had taken out one of the cigarettes. She asked Giovanni to light it and started smoking.
"Children shouldn't smoke," he scolded.
But she was no longer a child. Her childhood had been lost as she discovered the harsh reality of life, being forced to mature before her time.
"I'm not a kid anymore," she said after exhaling smoke.
The man made one last warning before telling her everything he had in mind: "Do you know that from here there is no turning back, are you prepared for the possibility of losing everything you hold dear in the name of something greater?"
Leaf looked out the limo window.
The movement in Saffron was intense. People were pacing, hurried to get home after an exhausting day at work. Children held their mothers' hands, looking this way and that, attentive to the movement of cars. Beggars begged for money from people who were just ignorant of their existence.
"There's nothing to lose when you're lonely and friendless," she replied contemplatively.
Then he started to explain everything.