I know it's kind of recent for an update considering I submitted the story about 2 minutes ago but hey heres chapter 2~
disclaimer: i do not own pokemon/team rocket/w.e
Chapter 2: And She Paid Dearly;
As I walked into Goldenrod City, my eyes narrowed as I tried to spot a sign, any sign, to that of Team Rocket. They must be somewhere around here – it only makes sense! I thought rapidly to myself, the cold air interrupting my trail of thought as I walked along the bright city streets. Kabutops followed behind me cautiously, dragging it's scythes across the floor; causing it to make a high pitch screech that caused a few of the city locals to stare in annoyance. One thing I'd learned to live with is Kabutops's screeching scythes – I couldn't really help it – it's not as if I can give him a piggyback anywhere. However, for my Mother's wish for me to join the Rockets, I decided that it wouldn't be safe for me to have an extinct Pokémon walking around behind me, so I'd bought a Luxury ball for him for the meantime. I'd seen a few people before who kept Pokémon out of their balls before – but they were normally smaller, weaker Pokémon who could easily sit on their owner's shoulders. Unless somebody found some sort of shrinking ray, my hopes of having Kabutops as a shadow without him getting stolen by a grunt was slim to nothing. ...Well, now that I think about it, they probably wouldn't have the balls to touch the cold, walking screech machine.
"Don't give me that look – this is for your safety." I turned around to my tired looking companion, who was glaring at me in annoyance before I concentrated on my task of finding Team Rocket. Checking my Pokégear, most of my numbers were deleted to keep suspicion down - think about it, if I were to be in some sort of meeting or plot to capture some building, it wouldn't be very good on my part if a random picnicker phoned me up to tell me that their Nidoran just got eaten alive by an Ekans. I walked past the towering mart and glanced inside the massive windows before Kabutops made a screeching noise. Turning around at him, he was nudging his head towards the radio tower, or more specifically, a man dressed suspiciously in black.
"Well, Kabutops, this is it." I sighed, reaching into my pocket for the newly bought luxury ball. Kabutops rolled his eyes before a blinding light glared around the cityscape.
"Sorry!" I whispered at the ball, before pocketing it again. I adjusted my tie and adjusted my skirt – I decided to dress up for the occasion, so I was wearing a suit. Welcome to hell, I thought to myself before walking over to the ominously dressed grunt.
"Er... Ehem" I tapped him on the shoulder before getting pushed backwards a mile. Christ, this guy needs to learn what manners are!
"Get lost, brat!" The man snarled at me, attempted malice shining in his eyes.
Again with the brat.
"Pardon you but... I'm looking to join in on the scene... if you catch my drift." I replied, standing my ground and staring the man right back in the eye.
"You want to join Team Rocket?" He shouted in surprisement, causing a few people to turn around and stare daggers at us. Idiot.
"I guess so." I coolly replied, raising my head in defiance of the glaring citizens. If looks could kill.
"Follow me, then." He abandoned his post and started walking towards the subway, expecting me to follow. I looked around apprehensively at the people listening into my conversation, who were now whispering among their selves with looks of disgust, before I lumbered after the grunt.
He didn't say a word to me as we walked into the dank, badly lit subway, more people looking at the blazing red R on the man's chest. I smiled awkwardly at the hairdresser, standing in his stall in which I'd have my own hair cut, who looked back at me in confusion and disappointment. My courage sapped away like dew on a tree and I folded my arms to try and make myself look smaller – goose bumps ran across my arms and my hairs brushed against my shaking hands. It wasn't long until we walked through a short pathway that lead to a rusted shutter with a "NO ENTRY BEYOND THIS POINT" sign crudely hung up towards the side of it. I looked towards the end of the pathway and noticed a little girl staring at me in confusion from the side of the wall. I tilted my head towards her before the Rocket grabbed me by my forearm and roughly pulled me into the darkened room which he had apparently opened.
As soon as I entered the room, a damp scent crept into my lungs as the grunt closed the rusted shutter. All of the light dashed out of the room and was eaten by shadows as a crash sealed the exit off. I admit, I was starting to feel very nervous. There was nobody else around, the only noise I could hear was the rasping breath and the clumsy footsteps of the grunt yet the only sight I could see was a dark void.
"Excuse me, where exactly are we and where are we going?" I whispered, my breath trailing into the atmosphere as I dared to break the silence.
"You'll see." The grunt whispered back, his footsteps still echoing around the- thud. I walked into a wall.
Great.
Losing my bearings was the least of my problems, as I had just lost my only way of finding my way around this bizarre room. The only way I could think of getting around this situation was to release Gengar and make it use thunderbolt to illuminate my path. It was too risky though; I was in possible Team Rocket territory and if they saw me with a relatively strong Pokémon they could attempt to steal it off me; that didn't stop them in the Kanto region three years ago. I decided to try and pinpoint where exactly the grunt was headed by his fumbling footsteps. The footsteps sounded far away but were still distinguishable, and I started trying to inch my way towards the pinpoint of audio. My arms reached outwards as if I was about to walk into another cold, brick wall when I walked into the grunt again.
"...Got lost" I apologised to him, my face turning away in embarrassment.
The grunt made a 'TSK' noise and carried on walking, until we stopped at another doorway. Knocking quite violently, the door rattled as it got thudded by the gloved fist. An unenthusiastic voice shouted "Password?" through the slit of the shutters.
"RageCandyBar" The grunt replied, sounding equally as bored. And with that, the door swung open and my vision was submerged with light again.
I warily walked into the room and the damp scent increased, making me shiver. There were many pipes, some of which leaked a translucent liquid, crowded around the low down ceiling – I had to duck to make sure my head didn't collide against any. The floor was bare with concrete, as if tiles had previously been there and had been ripped off unprofessionally; the leaking liquid was splashing against it and leaving blotchy patches. Many other grunts were standing by the grey walls, some leaning on them, but they were all staring at me. My escort carried on walking towards the end of the room, and I nervously followed behind.
I thought it would just be a simple "Okay, here is your uniform, go out and catch a few Ratata then you can go back home!"; not walking around underground with a total stranger!
We carried on walking, until the shutter slammed shut. I stopped walking and flinched, turning around. Trapped.
"Whats the hold up?" The grunt asked me in annoyance.
"It just made me jump, s'all." I retorted, not meeting his glare and fixing my gaze at the floor instead.
"Humph."
We carried on walking until we reached a battered mahogany desk, the wood was chipped off on it to an extent to where I was questioning how it hadn't collapsed yet. Another reason why I questioned that was the fact that there was another Team Rocket grunt resting his legs on it whilst he leaned back on an equally as battered chair. Something about this grunt was different though – instead of having the conventional pink hair, his hair was a luminous teal. He was dressed slightly differently to the other grunts, too – his gloves were pulled up to his forearms, they were white instead of the regular grey and had an orange stripe around the top. His boots matched his gloves, although they only went up to his knees. He was still wearing the conventional jumpsuit, but his was partially unzipped and had a collar that was tipped with a gold streak. Of course, he still had the ridiculous hat on. The grunt I was following walked up to him – I could tell from his body language that he felt somewhat intimidated. Welcome to my world.
"E-Executive Proton" ...Proton? Is that really his name? Proton? ...Really? "I've got a new recruit." He stuttered at the smirking man, before stepping aside and leaving me in full view. I could see why he was intimidated – 'Proton' had piercing green eyes – and I mean piercing. They had a cold edge to them... something that made me on edge. He had an unnerving smirk on his face too, as he looked me up and down. He rose up from his chair and waltzed over to me - I was pretty tall, but this guy was even taller as he looked down at me.
"What do we have here, then?" He asked; his voice making me even more nervous. It had an icy ring to it, something that made me wonder how these grunts dealt with him on a day to day basis.
"I ...uh... want to join Team Rocket" I replied to him, trying to avoid his glare. I was normally a confident person, but my confidence was slowly but surely breaking every time 'Proton' let out a chilling breath.
"Interesting. I haven't heard that before." He grinned at me sarcastically before walking back over to his desk. I reluctantly shuffled over to him again and put my hands in my pockets, holding onto one of my Poké balls for comfort. He collapsed back down onto the chair and resumed his leaning position, before asking me a question.
"Maybe we should begin with your name."
Begin? Is this some sort of game?
"Oh, uh, my name is Elizabeth."
"Elizabeth what."
I don't want to give out my last name to this guy! I might think of a fa-
"Come on, Lizzy, I don't have all day."
Did he just seriously call me Lizzy? I can't believe it. I-
"Don't waste my time."
"Sorry. My last name is Klarheit"
Klarheit? What sort of a name is Klarheit? Who the hell has a last name that is the german word for clarity?
"There. That wasn't so hard, was it? Just keep it in mind that if you continuously waste my time then you may come to regret it."
Oo-er. What am I getting myself into?
"I'll try to keep it in mind, s-sorry."
"Good. And refer to me as Sir from now on."
"But that grunt called you Executive Proton?" Shit. Elizabeth - Do not backtalk somebody who has just threatened you.
I flinched as I waited for some sort of retaliation, but nothing came. Instead, a pretty angry looking expression boiled right at me. He shook it off though and replaced my question with another question.
"How old are you then?"
"18. Well, In a few weeks, at least. So I'm technically 17."
"Just on the cusp of getting kicked out into the dark. Where do you live?"
"Ecruteak city, though I was born in-"
"Just answer the question. Any Pokémon?"
The question I was dreading. I was still holding onto one of my Poké Balls as I replied "Yes, sir."
"What are they then?"
"Kabutops, Gengar and Tentacruel. All between level 45-50." A flare of greed emerged in his green eyes and I knew I had just said the wrong thing. If he attempted to steal them off me, although, I could release Gengar and use Hypnosis on them. Something Mother had always told me not to do was to use my Pokémon against people – but sometimes, mainly out of boredom, I used them against people who were getting on my nerves anyway. It hadn't stopped me in the past.
"Did you just say you had a Tentacruel and a Kabutops?" A voice echoed from the back of the room. I turned around and saw a grunt walking towards me – confusion apparent in his face.
"Y-yes. Why?"
"Because yesterday, another grunt and I were constricted out of the blue by somebody who looked like you. She came up to us screaming about some Beedrill and even when she beat us in a battle with a Tentacruel and a Kabutops, she still wouldn't give up. She ended up ordering the Tentacruel to use wrap on us before I surrendered my Raticate to shut her up."
...Shit.
Proton looked at me – his face glared with malice yet triumph.
"Did you seriously try and join Team Rocket to bring us down from the inside?" He spat at me, rising up from his chair with enough speed that the chair crashed against the floor with an ear-splitting smash.
"No. I didn't. Sorry to disappoint you, Sir." I glared at him, a new found confidence rising up out of adrenaline.
"You sure? I don't want to go into details of what would happen to you if you were."
"I'm sure."
"As much as I'd love to believe you - even if you don't mean any harm, you still attacked our grunts-" he clicked his fingers and a couple of grunts grabbed me by my arms, holding me back in case I tried to escape. "-Which means you did go against Team Rocket. And even if you do pledge your faith to finding out leader, anybody who stands against us in any form must be punished." He wondered over to me again, leering over me again, trying to cram himself into my gaze again. I held my cool but couldn't help but shake a little bit. What's he going to do? Kill me? Suddenly, he shoved his hands into my pockets and pulled out the contents – including my Pokémon.
"Bastard!" I spat at him, losing the cool concentration I had been holding onto for so long. I never swore at anybody – but this guy had just stolen the only things I could count on as friends.
"Ooo. You're finally showing some spine. Archer will find great use for these things. Besides – if you were so committed to Team Rocket, you'd know that Pokémon are not friends, and only tools for battle."
"Even if you were to use them in battle, You need the Ecruteak badge or higher for them to even pay any attention to you – and being in Team Rocket, you probably wouldn't even dare to try and fight a gym leader!"
"Way ahead of you, Lizzy." He smirked at me, reaching for my trainer card. He plucked the badges out of it one by one with a triumphant glare. "Wow – you are strong, you've gotten all but the Blackthorn badge. That isn't a problem anymore – You need the Violet badge to even get anywhere now!"
I glared at him in horror, my heart thudding as the last ten years of my life were taken away from me.
"I'm afraid I can't let you into Team Rocket now. There's a high chance of you rebelling against me and that simply won't do. I'd suggest running home to your darling Mother and try not to blab about us to her. If you even dare call the police on us, then it might be the end of the line for your 'friends'".
"You're only a strangely dressed grunt though – I can go out there and raise more Pokémon and easily defeat you."
"Correction, Lizzy, I'm an Executive. I have more control over Team Rocket than you could ever imagine. I'll see you around, anyway." And with that, the two grunts that were restraining me dragged me through the door, through the pitch black tunnel and kicked me out back into the Subway.