I had some random preparations ready. They were made without much regularity and procedure at all. It was like, potion here, bandage here, lollipop here. In fact, I don't even know most of what I did. However, little planning is necessary to beat as poorly planned as Team Rocket. You must understand their stupidity so you can face it head on.

Some Mission Impossible music was playing at the Radio Tower this time. That part was good, because there's nothing that ruins the beginning of a fantastic journey like laid-back elevator music. Unfortunately, however, laid-back elevator music is Johto's everyday theme song, which means that usually the beginning of my fantastic journeys are ruined daily.

When I went up the staircase that lead to the second floor of the Radio Tower, I noticed that the original staff—Buena, her workers, all of them—were still there. I had guessed that they were kept from leaving, and never mind that there wasn't a grunt blocking the staircase by then. It wouldn't help their reputations as hostages for them to go ahead and help themselves.

"Why would they want to take over the Radio Tower?" one of the employees asked me, her makeup smudged.

I agreed with her. Why not take over the grocery store? You get free food that way.

The first Team Rocket person I had to battle there was a woman, her pink hair clipped close to her head. (It was a terrible haircut on her, and I'm glad I didn't go that far. I don't know what the fuck I would do with hair like that.) The Team Rocket grunt had no visible indications of a lethal weapon, nor was stationed near the staircase. So I still had no idea why the hell nobody just walked downstairs to gather help from the Gym trainers, or something like that. At that point, it was long enough already. You would've thought they would have died of starvation by now. I was hungry by then myself, and I'd just eaten thirty minutes ago.

Anyway, the grunt sneered at me, the heel of her tall black boots clipping loudly and annoyingly at the floor as she approached. Each step pounded in my ears. I winced, but she just sneered harder.

"Heh, it was easy to take over the place," the grunt commented, her lips bending to make some species of the sly smile. "It was boring! C'mon, amuse me." She tossed out her Arbok.

There was no way in hell I was going to walk past that gigantic snake. First of all, you could tell that her dumb snake really thought itself something, because it launched right in front of me. And I don't really have to mention the rest. Its fangs stuck out, wet with venom, and its bright purple tail coiled threateningly. Yanking at my collar, I stepped back several times. The Arbok slithered to me in the length of a human step, and I stepped back several more times.

"Sure!" I shouted at the grunt, but I was still staring at her disgusting snake. "After all, it'll be easy to get this place back. It'll be boring, too."

Well, it was boring. My mind was drifting away as I won the battle, up until she asked who I was exactly.

My attention snapped back to her. "Lynn," I said. "My name is Lynn."

"You beat me, and I won't forget it, Lynn," she snarled, adjusting her hat. Though she didn't know it, she had actually adjusted her hat wrong. Her face had turned pale, and the name Lynn sounded like poison on the grunt's lips, which is unfortunate because I rather like the name Lynn.

I walked past her, not looking at her once while she glared. She was probably going to try to track me down later under the name "Lynn," and try to get a re-battle. I'm tell you right now, I'll only do something like that if I was bribed with some French tea, and maybe a lollipop.

Buena was still at her desk, staring mindlessly at her microphones. I paused, then gently tapped her shoulder.

Buena blinked and turned towards me, her long brown ponytail flipping behind her. She looked at me, but her eyes looked right past me. I shifted under that gaze.

"Huh? Today's password?"

"Uhhh..."

"HELP, of course!"

I stepped back as she turned away to mindlessly stare at her stuff again. I think she needed help. The other kind of help, I mean.


These Team Rocket people need to go back to Pokémon School. They have no sense of strategy at all.

For example, who had the dumb idea of giving a grunt Pokémon of only one type? And why poison, of all types? It's not like psychic moves are that uncommon.

For the most part, you don't need to know about the battles I had to go through. It would probably bore most people. Many of the things I go through would.

Sometimes I wonder why I have to go through all of this shit, over and over again. Then I wonder about what the hell I'll be doing if I didn't. So I direct Cinder to battle again.


Some interesting things happened, though.

I met Mary at an office. Mary, that girl who's always saying totally irrelevant things on Oak's show. She had fluffy pink hair that was tied up by two green ponytail holders, and was pretty short. I thought she'll be, you know, older? Like, one of those moms who always try to make jokes for their kids but are always failing? I don't know. I didn't expect her to be that way.

She was just a kid, and there really weren't that much difference between our ages. She was shivering.

"Why?" she cried, clutching to my sleeve like a kindergartener. "Why do I have to suffer through this?"

"Please let go of my sleeve," I said.

Mary's grip slipped off. She cast a tormented look towards her Meowth all the same. "Meowth, help me!"

Meowth looked up at her weakly. I studied him, and concluded that he was never trained for battle. He would faint if he tried to battle now.

"I don't think using him in battle is a good idea," I told Mary.

"But he can meow!" Mary protested. She leaned down and started petting the Meowth frantically. It made an irritated purr. "See?"

In response, Meowth abruptly puked on her. I gave Mary a towel and decided to let her be. If she wanted to escape, the staircase was right next to her.

DJ Ben was next to them, looking equally put out. He had an airy, stereotypical surfer aspect to his voice that the radio somehow never caught. "Team Rocket..." he said. "There is something that they lack! It is music!"

I stared.

"Music enriches people's heart and soul. Music lovers would never do such horrible things at a place like here."

"Well..." I muttered, my eyes drifting up to the ceiling where Mission Impossible music was playing, "if you say so."

I walked past them, approaching a female Team Rocket grunt who was staring at somebody through the see-through window the office had.

"Hey..." I cleared my throat.

She didn't even hear me. "Proton, the leader of this Radio Tower mission...he is so cool."

"Er..."

She heard me this time. Her eyes widened, and she glanced over me almost defensively. "If you are in the way of Proton...I mean Team Rocket, I won't allow that!"

I pushed her to look through.

Well, look at that. He was actually there.

PURPLE PROSE ALERT. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Of course, he hadn't noticed that I was looking over at him like a creeper. He was about as good looking as I remembered, perhaps more so. His hair, which was in that bold turquoise color, was still under a large, circular black hat. That hairstyle of his still curled around the edges of his face in a tasteful manner, his overall stance confident and full of authority as he spoke to a few Team Rocket grunts, his back to me. The grunts left Proton to go up a staircase and he relaxed, brushing away a stray piece of his silky hair. His lanky body stretched lazily under the artificial lights the way I always do, the creases of his attractive dark uniform expanding and straining as he did so. My attention floated towards his white belt, slung around his wrists in a loose manner. It slipped a little as I watched, and I didn't realize I was gazing at him for more than a second until the female grunt cleared her throat.

END OF THE PURPLE PROSE ALERT. ENJOY YOUR DAY, EVERYONE.

Six words: Damn my taste in older men.

Bending my face into indifference, I looked at that female grunt who was poised next to me, her face wrinkling from when she saw my obvious admiration.

"Er...he's all right," I said awkwardly.

She leaned against the desk behind her, her head turning back to stare at Proton from the other side of the window. "Proton and Team Rocket are all I need," she said suddenly. "Who cares about Pokémon?"

I thought about Lance, Pika Boy, Jasmine and, well, a bunch of random people. I shrugged.

"You still should've gone into another business, though," I said. "Left the whole thing for the poor saps who actually care."

"Did you not just listen to anything I said? I care so little about the whole thing, the only thing meaningful is that he's doing this." The grunt unsubtly gestured to Proton.

"Well, then, you need some morals," I said simply, and proceeded to walk away. I made a short glance back some distance away—she was still staring at Proton from the other side of the window, as though I hadn't spoken with her at all.


Not much later I got a call from Irwin. Something died in me when I saw the caller ID, but I picked up the phone anyway because I knew he was going to keep calling, and walking around with a loud Pokégear wasn't much to my tastes.

"I heard, I heard, I heard!" he shouted gleefully from the speakers of my Pokégear.

"Well, hearing is better than seeing, I guess..."

"You smashed Team Rocket's hideout! You're like a move hero, even!"

"Yeah. Only I don't get a Wikipedia page."

"But, um...what exactly is Team Rocket?"

Silence.

"I'm totally out of the loop, aren't I?" Irwin said fretfully.

"It's okay. The police are probably more out of it than you are." I gave a brief explanation of who Team Rocket was and everything, and I guess he began to understand it.

So we hanged up, but then I got a call from Ethan.

"Hey, Lyra? How are you?"

"Swell. I'm trying to single-handedly beat a criminal organization without any backup. So what's up with you?"

"You're in Goldenrod City, right?"

"Yup. That's where all the evil criminal organizations strike their crimes—in the middle of bustling cities that don't have intelligent police."

"You know, if you look carefully at the Goldenrod City Gym, it's in the shape of a Clefairy?"

"I've noticed..."

"Well, maybe you should bring a Clefairy there! Something really cute might happen."

Does Ethan honestly love Pokémon, or does he just like them because they're cute? Or perhaps is it all, simply because, Marill was Kris's final gift to him?

Well, dammit, both of those two reasons were terrible ones to begin with anyway.


"Ahem...do you hear me?"

I was at the Director's room, and he was speaking at his desk. It was a richly furnished office with a red carpet patterned with yellow squares. Plants lined the newly painted dark walls. His desk itself was messy, covered with various disorganized papers. To the right was a regular laptop, to the upper left of the desk a small pot of flowers sat. There was no obvious signs of a Team Rocket grunt in the room. One may have been hiding under a flowered pot or something, but I decided it'll be a waste of my neck's power to crane and check it out.

The Director, so far, was oblivious to my presence. He leaned over his desk, his mouth way too close to the mic in my opinion. You could see the spit land on the black plastic.

"We have decided to broadcast wonderful shows to praise Team Rocket!"

Petrel. Or whatever the hell his name is, the guy who impersonated Giovanni that other time. It's got to be.

"Everyone, I don't want to hear you complain. Just do a good job to..."

His eyes trailed from the desk, and he noticed me. He backed away from the desk, studying me fretfully with bloodshot eyes. "Who are you?"

I made something between a smirk and a scowl.

He reluctantly came in closer. His eyes scanned my features before they narrowed. "Oh no, it's you again. Lyra?"

I really did come up with "Lynn" too late. Honestly, I don't know what's wrong with me lately. I should've been using a fake name this entire time.

Petrel took off his costume right in front of me. First, he took his long tan coat off, slowly and flamboyantly like a stripper before dropping it on the floor, then he rose his hands to unbutton his shirt, doing so in the exact same fashion and disposing of it in about the same. I looked away coldly as he began to appear to me only partially dressed. When this procedure was done and he was clothed only in boxers and a tank top, he opened his mouth to begin his explanation, but I beat him at it.

"So you were pretending to be the Director to influence the region to support Rocket," I said. "Dude. I get it."

He gritted his teeth, placing his hand on a Poké Ball. Here we go again.

"This time I won't hold back! Give me all you've got!"

I'm not impressed by fervor. I'm not impressed by weakness, either, but I knew that was all this terrible actor was going to show me. Yawning, I nodded to Cinder to attack. I've really been starting to hate battle lately.


I defeated him, to the surprise of no one but him.

"But I didn't hold back this time," I heard him mutter as he placed his last Pokémon on his belt.

"Well, you shouldn't have held back last time, either. If you didn't, you would know exactly how much you needed to improve to win against me this time," I said. I knew he was never going to smart enough to take my advice, which was why I said it.

Petrel pretended not to hear me. "I suppose you want to know what happened to the real Director?"

"Sure."

"Listen carefully," Petrel said, which was a big thing to say considering that he had ignored me only moments ago. "We stashed the real Director in the underground warehouse. It's at the far end of the Goldenrod Tunnel."

"Okay," I said. I was thinking something like, Wow, he's even telling me where to go.

"I am a nice guy. I will give you the basement key to get to the underground warehouse."

Wow, he's even giving me the key.

So, I got the key. There I was, leaving the office and entering the hall. Then I collapsed, because I hadn't slept in forever. The weight of my 95 pounds had blown up on me, and I stared weakly at the ceiling from the floor.

Cinder watched me for a few deep moments before moving forward. He kicked me.


After that, I started on my way to the subway. I was going the right direction and everything when I came across one of the Kimono girls. I didn't know why the hell she was there, but I decided to create a plan: I was going to walk past her and pretend I didn't know her.

My plans...usually don't work.

"Team Rocket members in black suits have been running around..." she told me, all mysterious and shit. And I was thinking, Oh, fuck this.

"I was wondering what was going on," she said. She studied for a few moments before continuing. "So, you took on Team Rocket."

"Perhaps," I said bluntly, trying to leave but she skillfully blocked my way, broadly smiling.

"You are impressive!"

"Thank you," I said, making a strained smile.

"You may be able to face the legendary Poké..." Her voice trailed away.

"Pokémon?" I suggested.

Well, I'd already faced a legendary Pokémon. Suicune. None of this was news to me.

The geisha nervously laughed. "Never mind." Her dark eyes darted away from me, to the exit. "I must go now."

She left, making me feel slightly uneasy but I went ahead anyway. Nutcases like Team Rocket are the kind I beat up with Pokémon, so it all works out in the end with them. I at least have an excuse when I get rid of them. There was a sign on the wall, next to what appeared to be a metal door.

NO ENTRY BEYOND THIS POINT

Screw that.

I took out a random pen at the bottom of my bag and lightly scribbled out a word, knowing that there shall be no consequences for my actions—

ENTRY BEYOND THIS POINT

Perfect!

I inserted in the basement key and strolled in. Hamako was behind me at the time—it was her time for training. The collected Lapras dutifully followed me through the metal compartments of the storage, not pausing to examine the place. To be honest with you, I was almost waiting for her to mess up with something, but she never did.

I'd just entered the underground, THIS IS TEAM ROCKET ADJFAKDFAJKD part of the place when Pikachu Boy showed up behind me.

"Hold it!" he shouted, jogging up to me. He had changed back to his typical strawberry yogurt stained clothes, sadly enough.

I looked at him blankly. "I thought you were arrested."

"Well, and I thought I was just released," Pikachu Boy said, acting like I should be very impressed or something. "Apparently, due to my somewhat accurate knowledge of Taoism, they let me go."

"You don't even follow Taoism."

"I still know it. Anyway," he continued, "What I told you before was to deceive you."

My money was that he went for Lance, but he lost again, and he didn't want to tell me this because I would be right.

Pikachu boy suddenly had this weird dramatic face on, and he leaned in towards me. "I thought...it would let me tail you."

I gaped at him before the screams came.

"STUPID! YOU STUPID, STALKEY—"

"I ONLY DID IT BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WOULD LEAD ME TO LANCE," he said loudly.

"HOW THE HELL SHOULD I KNOW WHERE LANCE GOES," I said loudly, just to fit in the mood of this conservation at this point.

Pikachu Boy looked devastated at that point. "I thought you guys were friends...but he never did showed up, didn't he?"

"Obviously not."

"Well," he said, reaching into his bag, "I'll just battle you instead."

He took out a single Poké Ball from his bag, taking a deep breath.

Battling Pikachu Boy wasn't part of my to-do list so I frowned. "I—"

At that point I jumped back a little, and stared.

Because a white hologram (as well as rock music) had appeared up out of nowhere, a huge rectangle expanding mid-air in front of me. A cramped, crispy black text began to show up on it. It read:

You are challenged by Rival Pikachu!

My eyes widened as the hologram continued to expand, filling much of the floor around us and some of the walls. "What the hell is that thing?"

Hamako stared at it like it was the Black Death: interesting, but completely useless and painful for us and society.

"Do you like it?" Pikachu Boy took out his Golbat. The words Rival Pikachu took out GOLBAT! appeared on the hologram. "I bought it from some random place online. I realized that sometimes you don't know when to battle, so I got this so you would know."

"I don't like it," I said. "The rock music is too loud, and I can't see the floor as well as I used to."

"Why do you want to look at the floor?"

"I just like the knowledge that there's something sturdy underneath my feet. Also, this music is still too loud."

Pika lowered it with a remote control that he randomly removed from his bag. "Better?"

"Maybe we should choose a different song completely."

Pikachu Boy scowled at me. "Hell no! I love this song! It makes me feel...edgy."

"...I see."

Seeing that there was no point in resisting the evil white hologram and its evil red-haired master, I told Hamako to expose the Golbat to that weird brain radiation thingy. She knew exactly what was I was talking about and proceeded to do it, but the words "Hamako used Confuse Ray" began to appear on the screen.

I immediately turned to Pikachu Boy. "What the hell is this? Is it going to keep saying stuff like that every time our Pokémon use a move?"

"I guess," he said as "GOLBAT used Air Cutter" showed up. His Pokémon started doing the exact same move right after that.

"This is so fucking annoying," I said, before adding, "Hamako, go pump some cool water into Golbat's icy soul."

The words "Hamako used Water Pulse" slowly began to appear, letter by letter.

"Pika, you should seriously get a refund for this."

Pikachu's Golbat was defeated by Hamako's "Water Pulse". As Pika Boy retreated his Pokémon, more words started to show up on the screen.

"Hamako wants to learn Ice Beam. But Hamako can't learn more than four moves. Make it forget another move?"

"Okay, now it's getting into our personal lives," I said. "Shut that thing off right now."

"I don't think I can," he said apologetically. "It's in battle mode right now. The holograms might, I don't know, become real and chew off my arm or something if I try to turn it off."

"I don't think that'll happen. That would be a terrible situation for their customer service."

"Still, I don't think it'll work. May as well suck it up, baby."

"You're not going to call me that again. Anyways, I'm going to search this up once I get access to a twenty-first century phone. What's the company's name?"

He shrugged.

"You don't know? It wasn't on the box?"

"What box?"

"The damn box it must've been mailed to you in. Surely it had some sort of address or whatever on it, at the very least?"

"What the fuck are you talking about, Lyra? I used the internet." He looked at me expectantly as he retreated his newly fainted Pokemon.

I switched my own Pokémon. "You bought it used? You got it outside of the box?"

"I used a fucking 3D printer and printed it out. Isn't that how online shopping works?"

"Not usually."

He looked confused, so I elaborated. "You pay for the item using a credit card or some crap, then ship an order to your address. Something like that."

Pikachu Boy went pale. "Fuck, I spent two thousand something dollars on a 3D printer! For nothing!"

"Who told you to do that?"

"A 3D printer salesperson!" He twisted his red hair in his hands. "Fuck! Fuck!"

"Well, you officially wasted money," I said. "Congratulations."

Privately, I was surprised. It never would have occurred to me that he could have spent two thousand dollars on something. I thought he was poor, since he keeps losing battles all the time. You would think the costs of losing random battles left and right would be devastating to his budget.

Five minutes later, Pikachu Boy was taking out out his last Pokémon. By then, the battle had been moving so quickly that our conservation barely stuttered as we went through the tiring motions of "Trying to Fucking Care." We had talked about donuts (Pikachu Boy hates donuts), books (and he hates books), as well as school (and he forgot the name of his own school). We had talked about all of that, and more, and we were still going through this awful battle. I would've kicked something, if we weren't around the end of the battle by then.

Hamako made a killing move towards Pikachu Boy's last Pokémon, though the Pokémon stayed on its feet. It swayed, his face pinched.

Strangely enough, shock passed by Pikachu Boy's features. He quickly tried to amend the expression as though it was a joke, but instead, a godawful grimace settled itself into his pale face. "Hey, hey!" he said weakly. "Why so serious?"

"Why, we weren't serious the whole time?"

Hamako made another move. You can guess what happened to Pikachu Boy's Pokémon after that.

After one of the most annoying battles I've ever gone through, it was done. I had received monetary payment for my annoyances. As I slowly placed the money in my bag, Pika's eyes twitching, I briefly considered out loud to give a few dollars to charity.

"I don't understand..." Pikachu said.

"I actually enjoy helping people who are far more unfortunate than I am," I said. "The hard part of it is finding someone like that."

"No, no...what that Lance guy said. Is it...true that I don't treat Pokémon properly?"

I blinked, lifting my eyes from my bags to him. My mind spun for a few moments before I remembered what happened, which was this: Pikachu Boy was called out for being a jackass Pikachu Trainer, and then he took everything too seriously.

Pikachu Boy was staring at a Poké Ball in one of his hands, moving it around his palm with his thumb in a circular motion. His other hand was in his pocket, perhaps curved around one of the other balls.

I cleared my throat awkwardly. "So...you don't treat Pokémon properly?"

Pikachu boy didn't answer. I don't think he thought I warranted an answer. So I continued on.

"Uh, what did you do to your Pokémon this time?" Here, I have to admit I didn't even notice the battle at all as I was going through it. I was too mad at not seeing the floor.

Pikachu Boy halted the swirling his Poké Balk around to answer.

"Golbat could've kept going, but he didn't," Pikachu Boy lamented. "My starter, too. Haunter..."

"Oh," I said blandly. "I had no idea." At around this point, I decided I needed a snack.

"Love...trust...are they really what I lack? Are they keeping me from winning?"

Let me tell you what he did, because I couldn't tell him.

Pikachu Boy had trained Pokémon this time, but his strategy needed work. He should've returned his Pokémon when they were so clearly at a type disadvantage. This is what I did whenever something like that happened, and that's one of the reasons why I won today. You need to know when to switch your Pokémon.

He should've considered investing in some potions. He should've trained his Pokémon more, because mine were stronger in every way—they had weathered through more battles than his Pokémon, training with all kinds of Pokémon to reach their competency today. Also, he chose terrible Pokémon to use longterm on a journey. Like, you should really not use Golbat, unless you're a Poison-type Gym leader or something. Then it'll be educational for the kiddos who have no idea what a Poison-type looks like.

That's one of the few reasons why he lost today, and why I won. This is why I won: my Pokémon trained harder, they trained more, I'd bought a pack of potions, I know my Pokémon's moves backwards and forwards. I picked a team with a slight chance of not being totally awful. I know that a Golbat is a terrible addition to my team, and that Pikachu Boy lost to Lance for obvious reasons beyond "friendship." Even I would lose against Lance, even though I am the Trainer so praised by Gym leaders for my "love of Pokémon". I know hadn't trained my Pokémon up to the point I could beat Lance yet. I know I'll lose, and if I would lose, Pikachu Boy surely would as well.

Pikachu Boy was watching me carefully then, the iris of both of his eyes gleaming red under the artificial lights. The lights weren't even reddish, either. It was eerie, how so fast and so easily his eyes could seem to turn from a deep silver in natural lights to a bright flashing crimson in some artificial ones. It was like something out of a scary movie, only we're supposed to notice it then. You're not supposed to notice something like this.

This confirms everything. Pikachu Boy is a weirdo, and now I have visual proof.

I hesitated.

"All right," I started. "Do you love your Pokémon?"

His eyes raised from the Poké Ball in his hand and met mine. "Only if they're winning."

"Uh...that probably doesn't count," I said. "Next question. Do you trust your Pokémon?"

"No."

"Okay then, you definitely need work." I was already walking deeper into the hideout before he said another word. Pikachu Boy jogged up to me, his face still baffled and thoughtful. I sighed and stopped, leaning against the wall wearily, my hands reaching into my pockets.

"I...I just don't understand," he confessed to me, like I was a shrink, or something. "But it's not going to end here. Not now. Not because of this."

I allowed my hands out of my pockets.

"Well," I said, shuffling around things in my bag in search of a lollipop, "a lot of people don't get it, anyway. You're not really alone. However, to be great, you must, uh, think great things, and do fantastic and great things. Because just doing great things isn't great enough. You have to make them fantastic too. So hold onto your spirits, because I think you have, uh, a lot of spirit in there, and listen to the voice of the dolphins—I MEAN, Pokémon. Your Pokémon. Also, don't give up your dreams, or any of that...stuff."

Crap, I was thinking. I don't have any lollipops left.

"You're right, Lyra," Pikachu Boy said, smiling just so slightly. "No matter what happens, I won't give up my dream of becoming the world's best Pokémon Trainer!"

"Uh...good for you?'

"I'm gonna go beat Lance right now," he said, starting to run away. "Good luck with your life, loser."

He obviously didn't hear a single thing I was thinking. He didn't listen to much of what I said, either. Maybe I should've said what I thought, but oh fucking well. Those eyes of sheer crimson will haunt my dreams tonight, and not in a sexy way.

In fact, those thoughts are so picking at me, I think I just broke my finger out of frustration. Damn.