Author's Note: This chapter is really long and boring, but hopefully after all this background stuff we can have some fun.
Chapter 1: A Waiting Stranger
"Ivan, don't give up! Get up!"
Groaning, I stumbled to my feet, a brisk sweep of my tail stabilizing me. My opponent stood dead ahead, panting with effort. Her pale face was flushed with red, but there wasn't a drop of sweat on her face—certainly due to her already simmering Ponyta blood.
"Ivan, think back to your lessons. It's your move." The teacher shouted at us from a chair at the corner of the large Gym. Students sat around on the floor, awaiting their turns to battle.
There was really no use in trying to defeat her—Victoria was one of the top students in Training class. She was Bonded with her Ponyta two years back, not too long before me, and she had grown into it wonderfully. Following the teacher's orders, I scanned my mind for what I could do. I was close to collapsing… better to get it over with sooner.
Victoria braced herself as I leapt forward, slamming into her with a quick jump. Her long hair covered me in a tangle of red, and it was searing hot to the touch. For a moment we seemed hung in midair, but she quickly stabilized herself under me and twisted her body to send the full flame of her tail into my chest. It was too much; I pushed myself away and fell down before her.
"Well, looks like Victoria wins this battle," The teacher scribbled something into his notebook, "Someone get Ivan off the floor. Carrie and Bridget, you're next."
-o-O-o-
A couple hours later, the class was shuffling back to the Rocket Unit Academy. Most of us were bruised up, others were gloating in their lack of injury. We were just a bunch of normal twelve-year-olds, laughing and teasing, walking through Goldenrod City. I looked back to the crowd of students behind me. Victoria was talking with her friends, her crimson curls bouncing as she walked. She saw me looking back and waved. I smiled and waved back. There were never any hard feeling during Training class; everyone won or lost at some point.
After some time we found ourselves back at the Academy. Before entering, we split off into our class groups to be counted. Students were grouped based on what kind of pokemon they were Bonded with—a system that made perfect sense when people like Victoria were considered, who couldn't even sit at a normal desk. Our group—the "Normals"—was surprisingly small, but not entirely unexpected. Non-Normal Bonded students tended to have more opportunities to work within Team Rocket because of their specialties, so parents would sometime encourage their children to Bond with such pokemon.
"… And Ivan… and Mark... Samuel… okay, Normals, head to your next class." The teacher shooed us away before turning to yell at the rowdy Waters.
"Hey Mark, are we going to History today?" I asked, walked up behind him. He looked up from wrapping new bandages around his tail. His Smeargle side meant it constantly produced green liquid, and even outside of battle he always had to rewrap it in thick dressings.
"No, today is Technology. Every other day, remember?"
"Oh yeah," I grinned, "Thanks. I wish we'd do Battle more often, though."
"Well, we're Normals," He rolled his eyes, "They just want specialty types to battle. But that's okay, that means we'll be smarter!"
I laughed, then hurried behind him through the classroom doors. It was a common joke among our group—a mere seven students—that other groups weren't trained in intellectual studies because they weren't as smart as us. It was a sorry lie, but we had to keep up to them somehow.
"Hey, get in your seats, we have a long lesson today." The teacher stood at his desk, tapping on the side with his fingers. Like all the other teachers, he wasn't Bonded, and he wore the generic Rocket instructional uniform. His black hair was combed enough to be presentable, but still frizzed out everywhere.
We all quickly got to our desks, and found some way to sit that was comfortable. It was different for each of us; we were each Bonded differently. Some had tails to contend with—like Mark or me—and some had to deal with things like odd body shapes. Settling down easily, I looked around the familiar room—a small space, crammed tight with various contraptions hanging from the walls and ceiling.
"Alright," The teacher walked behind his desk and pulled out a small suitcase from behind it, "Today I've got a history lesson for you kids. Emily, don't give me that look, deal with it."
We all watched curiously as he unlocked the case and opened it, turning it so that we could see its contents. Straining my neck, I could see a neatly organized set of disks, each slightly tinted a different color. He waited. We stared.
"… Well, if no one's going ask what it is…" He rolled his eyes and carefully reached down to pick one up. "This is a Technical Machine, or a TM. Whatever. I'm willing to bet money that none of you have seen one of these—put your hand down, Samuel, I know for a fact you're too sheltered. Anyway, these used to be all over the place in the E4-Era, when pokemon training was still legal."
Everyone sat still at the mention of the pokemon training. Outside of vague lessons in History, we never heard much about it.
"These small machines are wonderful inventions, despite not being Rocket technology. When used on a pokemon, it allows it to learn new attacks and strategies, even if it's something that it did not have the intellectual capacity to before. For example, this one…" He held up the one in his hand. It flashed yellow as light hit it. "… Will teach a pokemon to produce a thunderbolt, even if that pokemon is not an Electric type. Pokemon trainers would use these often to make their pokemon stronger, for use in battle. Yes, Emily?"
"Sir, why is pokemon training illegal now?"
The teacher stopped, and from his face I thought he was going to yell at her. He seemed to consider it for a moment, but then he laughed… a bit too nervously. "Geez, what do they hire these History teachers for? Pokemon training is illegal because there's no need for that sort of brutality. Now that we have Bonding, pokemon and human can battle together. They're on equal grounds. It prevents abuse. Right? You have the souls of pokemon within you, you can feel their gratefulness, right?"
Everyone nodded, except me. I felt left out, but… even trying as hard as I could, I could not reach Rezzie. It was as if our bodies were Bonded, but our souls went separate ways. Was I strange? Was I not good enough to feel the connection?
"Anyway, back on topic. Rocket scientists are working over the border in Kanto to develop Technical Machines that are able to work on Bonded battlers. However, as you know—or maybe you don't—Kanto still used the E4 type of government, so the scientists are having to work undercover and in secret laboratories."
"Sir, why can't Team Rocket just take over Kanto, too?" Mark asked.
"It's not that easy. Pokemon training is still legal in Kanto, as it is in most other parts of the world, so the government is using trained pokemon to hunt down undercover Rocket scientists. But, that's not to say we can't fight back." He grinned, then gestured around the room. "Students like you are our future in Kanto. The Elite Four may be able to whip pokemon into obedience, but can they connect with them on such a level that there is no physical barrier anymore? They say that Bonding is an atrocity, yet they force pokemon to slave away for their political entertainment. As we speak, Bonded graduates from the Academy are being sent over to help the fight for liberation. Someday, New Kanto children will look up to you and say, 'I want to have that relationship with my pokemon', and they will be able to wear the Rocket uniform with pride, as you all are now…"
-o-O-o-
When school let out that evening, the setting sun was hidden behind thick rainclouds. The rain made the city misty and blurred, and everything seemed just slightly uncertain any mysterious. I watched from my perch on the outside stairs as the Fires scrambled towards an underpass, where the Grounds and Rocks already stood shivering. For once, I was glad to be a Normal.
I waited until most people had cleared out to start walking home. My house was on the other side of Goldenrod, so I had quite a ways to go. As I strolled, I thought back to today's lessons. What the Technology teacher said still made me uncomfortable. Rezzie… where were you? Ever since I woke up after the Bonding, I felt… empty. My last memory was of his terrified face looking up into mine, pleading something from me that I could not understand. That image still disturbed me.
I was pulled out of my thought by a dim glowing ahead of me. I squinted to try and see what it was, but in the waning light and the fuzzy rain, it was impossible. I had never seen anything like it; it seemed to be pulsating, like a soft purple heartbeat. I slowed my pace; it made me nervous. I was close enough now to hear a faint voice, and I strained to hear what lied ahead.
"Sir… have to ask… not welcome here… cooperation is…"
I could see two blurred figures standing in the rain now, both wearing. As I drew even closer I could tell that one was obviously a Rocket officer, and the other… the other made me duck behind a trashcan as soon as I saw him.
He was tall, and completely bald. He seemed to be Bonded, but to what pokemon I could not even imagine—certainly nothing from New Johto. Where ears should have been were two strange blocks of flesh, lined in the center with green, and all over he was a strange shade of orange. His attire was ridiculously conspicuous; he wore a long black coat with no indication of a shirt underneath, and darkly tinted sunglasses.
None of this was as disturbing to me, though, than the fact that the Rocket officer seemed absolutely terrified of him.
"Sir, please come with me. You're not authorized to be out here without a Bond license." He gave no indication that he was going to try and make him.
"I will stay here. I am waiting for someone." The man spoke with a deep voice, and seemed to be distant.
"Um… you can't really…" The officer seemed lost in awkward fear.
"I will stay here."
I was enthralled with this stranger; I couldn't look away. The officer and he went back and forth, never getting anywhere. I was so engrossed in listening to their futile argument, wondering what was going to happen, that I didn't notice that I wasn't the only one listening until it was too late.
It took less than a second for gloved hands to wrap around my mouth. I could feel hot breath on my fur as someone lowered their face to my ear.
"Don't make a noise," It whispered, almost too soft to hear, "You'll regret it."
I was paralyzed with fear, and had no intentions of struggling. Whoever had me in their grasps—a woman, I thought, judging by the voice—seemed to be exerting a force over me mentally. Something like this would not normally scare me so deeply that I would not fight; it was as if my fear was being amplified. I was quickly pulled behind the trashcan, so that the man and the officer were out of view, but I could still hear their voices.
"Sir, can you please remove your sunglasses?"
"For what reason?"
"Concealing personal identity is illegal in New Johto."
"Very well. I will tell you, though, that I am not from New Johto."
This statement seemed to draw a reaction from whoever was holding me, as she jumped enough to slam rather conspicuously against the trashcan.
"…Shit."
"Who's there!?" The officer snapped defensively in our direction, his voice tense. When neither of us made a sound—as hard as I was trying to against my mental block—we could hear his footsteps splash in the rain as he walked towards us. After they stopped, I held my breath—and then the trashcan was kicked over.
It would have been an interesting scene, had anyone been there to see it: A bright-haired Psychic woman holding a Bonded child hostage behind a felled trashcan, a shocked police officer in a Rocket uniform, and a confused bald man taking off his sunglasses to reveal that he had no eyes.
