Ash was on his way home from his last journey and decided to swing through Mt Silver. When he was finished there, having captured an Arbok, Golbat and Ursaring, he'd sent all of his pokémon back to Professor Oak's Lab at the Mt Silver pokécentre, wanting to spend some time alone with Pikachu. They were both walking along a path through the forest, pikachu walking ahead of Ash when, suddenly, he fell into a hole that someone had dug and covered over. He groaned when he landed, saying, "Really? Another freakin' pitfall trap? Who dug this thing?!" Then he heard a distressed 'PIKAAA?!' and stood up angrily demanding, "Who's up there?"

A female voice that Ash didn't recognise, said, "Prepare for trouble!"

A male voice said, "Though I would suggest that you make it double."

"To defend the world from annihilation!"

"To unite the people within our nation!"

"To denounce the deception of truth and love!"

"To extend our reach to the stars above!"

"Christie"

"Frank"

"Team Rocket, shining bright!"

"Surrender now, or you'll lose to us this night!"

Ash commented, "Well, that's a new one…wait! Hey! I've never met you before! What do you two want with Pikachu?"

Christie said, "Nothing special really. It's a pokémon. We're pokémon thieves."

Frank said, "Well, see you later!" and started to run away, unaffected by Pikachu's thunderbolt, the cage that they'd put him in being the latest in electric type capture technology, using non-conductive metal.

Ash frowned and said, "Damn it! How does this ALWAYS happen on my way home?!" and wasted no time clambering out of the pitfall and charging after the two thieves.

Eventually, he came across a massive building on the top of a cliff. Where he saw the two of them run into a cave and saw the rocky doors close back over and frowned. He thought, 'There's no way I'm going to be able to just break through those doors. Even if I did, there's probably going to be like at least ten guards just waiting around in the odd case that someone did break in.' He looked up at the building. 'I suppose with a building like that, it's probably Team Rocket's Kanto HQ, isn't it. It's pretty brazen of them, situating their HQ so close to Pokemon League HQ…wait! Or is it? Are the bigwigs of the Pokemon League in on their dealings, or is it the other way around, or…' Ash clutched his hair as he exclaimed, "AAAARGGHHH! It doesn't matter! The long and the short is, I can't call anyone for help if they've got influence in the Pokémon League!"

He sighed and said, "I suppose I'm going to have to wait until tonight to do anything, but that door is still an issue. I suppose the best way to deal with that would be to just climb the wall and go through one of the windows, or see if there's a door on the platform up there. But if I do that, there's probably going to be alarms and guards there too!" Ash sighed. "Well, I suppose it doesn't really matter in the end. I'm just going to have to do it. After all, it's not like I can just blast the door down without any of my pokémon with me." He set out across the clearing, looking at the cliff walls the entire time, trying to see if there were any paths to climb up that looked safer than any other. There wasn't and Ash started to climb. After about an hour's climb, he reached the top and lay down, panting as he tried to catch his breath, only to see six muscular guards that bore little resemblance to any member of Team Rocket that he'd ever seen, with the sole exception of the stylised 'R' on their jackets.

Ash rolled over, saying, "Hey. Who are you guys?"

One of them said, "You look like you're here for trouble."

Ash groaned, thinking, 'Not another one!'

Another of them said, "So we came here on the double."

A third said, "We unite our forces with determination."

Another said, "To defend Team Rocket from humiliation."

The fifth said, "We subdue any intruders with all our might."

The sixth said, "We're team rocket…"

Together, they all finished, "…and we're here to end this fight!" before two of them grabbed Ash's arms and pulled him up. When he was, two others dove at his legs, holding his feet in place so that he couldn't move them to gain any force to struggle against them while a fifth put him in a sleeper hold as the sixth held back, his hand over a pokéball, should their regular methods of subduing an assailant fail.

Ash tried to struggle against their hold, but failed miserably, unable to generate any strength to resist thanks to how they were holding him in place and weakly said, "Pik…a…chuuu…" before he lost consciousness.

XXXXX

Ash didn't know how long he'd been out of it until he woke up, stripped down to a singlet and his boxer shorts and shouted, "Hey! What the hell happened to my clothes!?"

He heard a voice call back, "Quiet in there! We don't need you making any more trouble for us than you already have."

"The hell do you mean 'the trouble I've made for you!' You're the jerks that stole Pikachu!"

"We're thieves! What'd you expect would happen." The voice scoffed. "Some legend you turned out to be."

Ash frowned as he quietly said, "Legend? The heck is that about?" in a louder tone he asked, "Can you at least tell me how long you'll be holding me here?"

"However long Giovanni wants you held."

Ash thought, 'Giovanni? He's still in control? I thought that he'd disbanded Team Rocket after 'that' incident and then they'd reformed under someone else!' Ash saw a bed and thought, 'Well, I suppose I'm going to have to reserve my strength and wait for the first chance that I've got to escape, so I might as well lie down and try to relax.' He lay down and crossed his legs and rested his head on his hands and thought on what he would do to Team Rocket when he reunited with Pikachu.

Many stories above him, Giovanni was sitting behind his desk, across from Christie and Frank, who were glancing at each other as they waited for Giovanni to speak. Eventually he said, "I don't know if I should be congratulating you, or having the pair of you join the menace in the dungeon for leading him here! In any case, the first thing that we have to do is get that yellow rat well away from here. We can't have those two reuniting whilst they are still at full strength."

Frank said, "Uhhhh…excuse me…boss…but…"

"Spit it out. I don't have time for ums and ahs."

"I was wondering what exactly it is everyone here fears about that guy. All he had on him was a scrawny Pikachu. From what the security guys were saying, he went down without a fight."

"I don't have the time to give you a history lesson. Ask someone that's been here for any length of time and they can tell you what you want to know. You're dismissed, and being reassigned to Johto."

Frank and Christie immediately, simultaneously, exclaimed, "What? Why?"

"This isn't a punishment. You two did a good job and took out a major complicating factor in our aims within the Kanto region. However, Ketchum has many friends in high places that will make it their business to interfere with ours and neither of you are experienced enough to tangle with the likes of them. I shouldn't need to say this, but you don't have the pokémon needed to tangle with them either."

Frank nodded and said, "Yes Sir." Christie looked set to complain, but Giovanni's glare made her hold her tongue and she nodded before following Frank out of the room.

When they were gone, Giovanni turned back to his computer as he said, "Now, what AM am I supposed to do with him? I wasn't lying to them. I can't keep him locked up indefinitely and, despite being a criminal organization, I don't have the stomach to just straight up kill him, and freeing him as is, is completely unacceptable. He knows where this base is, so he'll just be able to lead the cops here! I suppose the best thing that I could do, would be to discredit him somehow, but with the relationships that he's formed, it would be easy to disprove any false rumours, if they could even get to the numbers that would need to be to have the police do anything about it themselves. I suppose for now, just keeping him on a diet of bread and water will have to do."

Giovanni sighed. "I suppose I can figure that out later. For now, I'll just do what I can about relocating Rocket HQ. He went into the Base Tracking System to check on the status of the other Team Rocket bases, to see if there were any big enough, and active enough, to not draw any real attention at the added resources available in and around the area.

XXXXX

That night, Ash felt his stomach start to growl and called out to the guard and said, "Hey! What's the time? Don't you guys have any food here? I'm hungry!"

The guard called back, "Well, you should've thought of that before you ate earlier. You're our prisoner. You didn't think that this was going to be like some resort stay or something?"

Ash sighed and thought, 'Shit! If that's the game they're going to play, then I'm going to have to plan out how to conserve whatever it is they end up giving me so that I can preserve my strength rather than just wait it out like I normally would. But why is it different this time? This can't be Team Rocket HQ, surely? We're too close to Viridian City, where Giovanni's Gym used to be. That's not even mentioning the proximity to the Pokémon League! Unless…' Ash bit his lip.

XXXXX

A week later, Giovanni was in his office, when a phone icon appeared on the side of the screen. He clicked on it and saw Rocket Executive Alvin appear on the screen. He frowned and said, "Alvin? What are you doing calling me now? Our scheduled meeting is on…"

"Sorry Sir! But there's a problem."

"What do you mean 'problem'? You're in the operating in the Sevii Island Chain!" Giovanni remembered his prisoner and asked, "It's not someone from the Pokémon League or Pallet Town, is it?"

"No sir. They're…"

Just then the door blew open to Alvin's office and a Machamp strode through, followed by its trainer, a man wearing an multi-shaded orange long coat that separated into chevroned tails at the back that had an almost comically large lapel over a tan shirt and darker orange pants with a stylised 'L' on his breast pocket and a bigger one on his back. He smirked as he said, "I'm Henry, you could call me an enforcer of Team Lantis' will in this realm.

Giovanni said, "Alvin, change the camera so I can see this moron."

Alvin nodded and did as Giovanni requested, not knowing that, even as he did, Giovanni pressed a button, causing a panel in the wall to slide open, revealing multiple large screen monitors that showed what was happening at their Sevii Island bases. He raised an eyebrow at the sight before him. Multiple people were standing across from his men, all dressed in orange with some logo on their shirts, He couldn't make it out, but he didn't need to to know that they were also from this new player on the stage that was 'Team Lantis'. He said, "Alright then, Enforcer Henry, what exactly makes you think that attacking Team Rocket is, in any way, a smart idea?" He thought, 'It can't have anything to do with our capturing Ketchum, could it? No. that's beyond absurd. There's no way that he could have gotten a message out after we captured him and, by all accounts, he would have had to have been focused entirely on retrieving that pikachu of his before we finally got him in our clutches. And, at this point, it won't have been long enough to really raise an alarm, so it must just be some freak coincidence.'

"What makes you think that we're the ones doing the attacking?"

I don't have time for your sophistry. Alvin. Don't bother toying with this fool."

In an indignant, angry tone, Henry said, "How dare the likes of you try to dismiss me! What makes you think that you have the right to address me in such a manner?"

Giovanni raised an eyebrow and thought, 'He's got some attitude on him. I wonder though, is it deserved, or isn't it?'

Henry said, "Return, Machamp! Come out, Tyranitar!"

Alvin frowned as he thought, 'So, he's going with Tyranitar is he? In here? It must be a close range type. I can't exactly use a long range type in here myself, so…' He said, "Go, Salazzle!" A white Salazzle with a purple and pink underside appeared in front of him as a slightly larger than average Tyranitar appeared in front of them. He thought, 'Holy crap! That thing's big! Far too big for a normal pokémon. Are they experimenting on thooeir pokémon?' He raised his eyebrow as he asked, "So, you've made it bigger. Is that all?"

Henry smirked and said, "Tyranitar! Use Hyper Beam!"

Alvin exclaimed, "What? Hyper Beam!? In here!?" As he did, Salazzle gathered energy in front of it. Seeing what Salazzle was doing, Alvin said, "Salazzle, Terra Blast!" Salazzle launched a glowing orb at Tyranitar's beam. It shot through the beam, splitting it, causing the streams to shoot by Alvin's sides and exploded in Tyrantar's mouth. It did next to nothing. Tyranitar seemed to smirk down at the Salazzle in front of him. "Salazzle! Use Toxic!"

Salazzle said, "SSSall!" and shot globs of purple poison at Tyranitar, who didn't even try to dodge.

The area around Tyranitar's eyes glowed purple and purple sparks appeared around it, but it didn't react in anyway as Henry said, "Tyranitar, use Power Gem!" and it shot a beam from its mouth, directly as Salazzle that shot at it faster than the hyper beam had earlier.

Salazzle couldn't dodge it this tie and fell back on its back, its eyes turned into swirls. Alvin cried out, "Salazzle!" He then glared at Henry as he angrily declared, "You're going to pay for that!" as more purple sparks appeared around Tyranitar. Alvine took out two pokéballs and returned Salazzle at the same time as he said, "Go, Crobat! Use Venoshock!" Tyranitar gritted its teeth as pain rushed through it at the powerful attack, but didn't react as the poison dripped off of it and pooled on the floor. Alvin thought, 'What the heck?! I know that that must have dealt serious damage! Even if it is a Tyranitar, it's not invincible!' As he did, Tyranitar roared angrily at the lesser pokémon as purple sparks lit up across its body as the poison took a bite from its hp.

Seeing Tyranitar roar angrily, Henry thought, 'No way! It's been a long time since I've seen him react like this!' He saw its back spikes light up and thought, 'There's no way! He's going to launch an attack without me giving him an order!' and looked at Alvin staring at it, seemingly unaffected by Tyranitar's resilience against the poison attacks being launched at him. He said, "Tyranitar, use Power Gem!" just after Tyranitar had shot a beam of energy from its mouth at Crobat, knocking it out, and through the wall behind it. Then, to Henry's shock, he saw Alvin's eyes narrow.

Alvin thought, 'It was close, but Tyranitar just used that Power Gem attack without being told to by its trainer. Which mean that they must not have been together for very long, or they've been together a very long time and they know each other well enough to know what they'll do. Either way, it's not going to matter when I…' He said, "Go, Heracross! Put Tyranitar down with Megahorn."

"Tyranitar, catch it!"

Alvin exclaimed, "What?!" as Tyranitar grabbed his Heracross' horn before it contacted him and drew it back, seemingly about to slam Heracross into the ground when Alvin said, "Use Brick Break, Heracross!" and Heracross' arm glowed as it swung it at the hand that Tyranitar's was gripping it with, knocking it away from its horn.

That caused Tyranitar to cry out in pain for the first time in Henry couldn't remember how many battles. He thought, 'What in the world?! How is this happening?' as Alvin just stood there, looking at him, unperturbed by what was happening. Then he saw the purple sparks appear around Tyranitar, sapping even more of its health from it.

Alvin said, "Heracross, use Feint!" Heracross charged at Tyranitar as Henry looked on, confused at what was happening, how Tyranitar was seemingly losing to lesser epokémon and why, when he'd taken down two of his pokémon, Alvin was still acting as if he was in control of the situation.

Heracross disappeared from Henry and Tyranitar's sight as Alvin said, "Now, change it up into Megahorn!" and Heracross crashed into Tyranitar's back with his glowing horn, knocking it to the ground on its stomach, its eyes swirling.

Henry's eyes widened as he looked down at Tyranitar's prone form. He thought, 'What in the world?! How? How did Tyranitar…how did my Tyranitar…lose?'

Alvin smirked as Heracross looked down at his prone foe before turning around to ask Alvin why he brought him out for such a weakling. Alvin laughed and said, "He wasn't weak. I suppose for you, Tyranitar is weak, isn't it? I suppose I should have called you out first, huh, Heracross?"

Henry angrily said, "Weak?! You think Tyranitar is weak after it took out your Salazzle and Crobat? The signature pokémon of your pathetic group?"

"Of course I do. To Heracross, taking down a pokémon like your Tyranitar is a piece of Pidgey pie. It's too untrained to be considered an asset. It's a wonder that you managed to get it to fight for the likes of you."

"The likes of me, eh? What the heck would you know, scum!"

"I'm not the one that came to somebody else's home and started launching large scale attacks in an office this size."

When he was done speaking, Alvin smirked, irritating Henry to no end. He growled and said, "Fine then. If you won't submit, then you will be destroyed. Go, Altaria!" as soon as Altaria had been released, Henry said, "Use Earthquake!"

Alvin exclaimed, "What? Here?! Are you crazy?!" as Altaria folded its wings and dropped onto the ground, causing the entire building to shake as Henry rushed forwards and hopped onto Altaria's back before flying out the hole that Tyrantiar had opened in the wall as the building collapsed.

Back in Viridian HQ, all of the screens in Giovanni's office, turned black. Giovanni growled angrily as he knew what that meant. He grabbed a paperweight and threw it at the wall. His Persian appeared out of its pokeball and walked over to him and nuzzled his leg. Giovanni sighed as he rubbed Persian's head and neck. "Well well well…it's been a while since there's been a rival criminal organization that has tried to supplant us, hasn't it, old friend? But this Team Lantis seems to be a different case to all the other ones we've had to put down before. They don't seem to care about their subordinates' lives, so long as they can achieve their goals. That means that either their subordinates are unaware of their leaders' lack of care for them, or they do understand and are alright with the risk. If the underlings are aware of their attitudes, then they think that the risk is worth whatever reward they think is in store for them. In either case, it means that their goal is either death, unlikely based on this Henry's actions, great enough to risk their lives to accomplish, or merely death itself."

Giovanni thought, If it's the last, then it's not just Team Rocket that they are a threat to, but the entire Pokémon Nation. In that case, despite our current relationship with them, now that I've been ousted from my position at the Viridian City Gym, I would have to contact the Pokémon League as they are the only ones currently capable of organising a large enough a force to defeat them,' not wanting the recording devices in his office to have a record of that treasonous line of thought, lest anybody else in his organisation try to oust him, like he had been from the Pokémon League. "That said, given the recency with which we'd expanded operations into the Sevii Islandsd, it could just be that they already had a presence in the region and saw us as moving in on their territory."

Giovanni sighed and said, "It could even be a combination of both. Either way, I need to know more about this Team Lantis before making any plans to deal with them, so…" he pressed a button on his intercom and said, "Matori, get Researcher Coren to come in as soon as he can get away from Silph." He heard a 'Yes Sir' and leant back in his chair. He said, "Now, what to do with his pokémon? What to do…what to do…? I suppose the Hoenn Breeding Centre has been asking for electric types. That'll keep Ketchum, those two and his rodent from meeting again."

XXXXX

Two weeks later, Researcher Coren was standing in front of Giovanni saying, "Alright. I'll start looking into this Team Lantis as soon as I can. But my work at Silph Co…it will take time away from that and if I take too long, then…"

Giovanni sighed and said, "I understand. Believe me, I do. Your position at Silph is almost required for our operations."

Coren frowned and asked, "Almost? What aren't you telling me?"

Giovanni started to say, "That this Team Lantis is alright with…" when the same panels that had opened up a few days ago, opened up again, this time in the bases that they had in Cinnabar Island and Gardenia Town appeared on the screen, full of men and women in orange. Giovanni glared at the screen and said, "Alright Coren, you wanted to know what was prompting this request. That is Team Lantis, attacking two of our facilities at the same time."

As he did, his laptop chimed, with the leaders of both bases appearing on the screen, saying, "Giovanni/Sir, the ones that you told us about! They're here!"

Giovanni frowned and said, "Yes. I know. Make sure that you two at least have a way to escape. If either of you face off against some dipshit named Henry, beat him, but don't antagonise him pointlessly. He's got a thin skin about something that we need to know to properly prepare."

The two base leaders nodded and said, "Sir."

Giovanni opened up a program to record a backup of what happened on the screens as he stood up. He said, "Coren, you can stay here to watch, or I'll send you the recordings."

Coren said, "Please, the recordings will be sufficient. I really need to get back to Saffron as it is. My wife can be a little…temperamental…when I don't tell her what's going on."

"Then thank you for coming at such short notice."

"If you don't mind my asking…" Giovanni raised a questioning eyebrow. "What is more important than overseeing what is going on right now?"

"I've got to talk to Rocket R about something."

"Do I want to know what it is?"

"It's best you not."

Researcher Coren nodded and said, "Very well then. I'll see you later then, Giovanni."

Giovanni nodded and escorted Coren out of his office, before heading in the opposite direction, straight to Rocket R . When he reached the R Department, he headed straight to Professor Namba and said, "Professor. Thank you for coming in. I know it can't have been an easy trip."

"Nonsense. Tropius might be slow, but it's a steady flier. And crossing the oceans on Lapras…" Professor Namba barked a laugh as he finished, "…well, it's elementary."

Giovanni scowled and said, "Yes, quite," not in the mood for inane jokes when he had two bases being attacked.

"Hehem…umm…well…yes…anyway…what did you want me here for?"

"A few years ago you were lead developer on that gender inducing technology, weren't you?"

"Yes. That was me. A real pity that we could never get our hands on a legendary to test it. Those porygon's certainly came in handy for testing though."

"So it was successful then?"

"Yes, in so far that it can induce the female gender in pokémon. Why?" Professor Namba excitedly asked, "Did you do it?! Did you finally capture a legend?"

"Hmmm…a legend, yes. A legendary pokémon, no."

Professor Namba frowned as he cocked his head, asking, "Now, what do you mean by that?"

"From memory, you ran into the menace with the Pikachu a number of times, didn't you?"

"The brat." Professor Namba frowned. "Yes. I did. He got in my way every time we crossed paths. If only he could have been turned to our side, he would have made an incredible asset."

Giovanni frowned and said, "Yes…Yes he would…wouldn't he? Well, in any case, my question for you is is it possible to tailor that technology away from pokémon use, to use on humans?"

Professor Namba looked at the ground as he played with his beard, saying, "Hmmm…could it be…could it be…I wonder…I suppose that technically it should be possible. It's not exactly like the Fossil Revival Centre on Cinnibar Island revives them perfectly as they were. They need to add dna from other creatures to it to complete the genomic sequence. So if we tinkered with that, we should be able to tailor it to human use. Why?"

"Make a list of what you need to do it and put it on my desk by noon tomorrow. Welcome back to Rocket HQ." Doctor Namba smiled.

XXXXX

A week later, Dr Namba was standing in front of Giovanni's desk. Giovanni asked, "So, I take it that your presence before me means that you have finished it, yes?"

"That's right, Giovanni. After much work and many sleepless night we finall-!"

Dr namba was cut off by Giovanni, who said, "Good. Now, while you're here, I'd like you to review the de-aging tech we developed a few years ago."

"If…uhhh…you don't mind my asking, Sir…why the sudden interest in projects that we'd deemed too unsafe for human trials?"

"Because, desperate times come for despera-!" suddenly, the wall parted and the hidden screens came to life with Team Rocket members fighting against a group dressed in orange. Giovanni growled, "Again?! This is getting ridiculous. He said, "Dr Namba. Be ready for use within 24 hours. Things have gone too far now."

Dr namba jumped, surprised at Giovanni's reaction and demand as his attention shifted from him to the screens behind him. He said, "Very well, Sir." And went back to his lab as he saw Giovanni's fury reflected on his face.

When Dr Namba was gone, Giovanni pressed a button on his intercom and said, "Matori. Get Sierra in here. I need to talk to her." When his secretary had acknowledged the order, he said, "Thank you."

When she heard Giovanni thank her, Matori asked, "Are you feeling sick, Sir?"

In an annoyed tone, Giovanni said, "No. Why?"

"Well, it's just that you don't normally thank me for much of anything."

"Ah. Well, there's a reason for it, and no, I'm not sick."

"Very well then, Sir." Matori ended the intercom call, then picked up her pokegear and selected 'Sierra' and heard a dial tone. It rang three times before she heard Sierra greet her. Matori said, "Sierra. I know…I know…it's been a while since I called last…but this isn't a personal call."

Matori heard Sierra say, "Oh. That's too bad. Here I was, thinking that you'd just missed the sound of my voice."

Matori sighed. "This isn't a time for jokes. Giovanni wants to see you."

Sierra blinked. She said, "Giovanni does? Why? Our operations in Johto have been going really well recently and…"

"I don't know. For the last week or so he's been getting more and more irate though. He's also been acting strangely too."

"Strange? Strange how?"

"Well, he's reinstated Professor Namba as a researcher in Rocket HQ."

"I see. Alright then. I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Thanks. I'll see you soon."

"Yeah."