Hoshi had to admit, the excitement was getting to him a little bit.

  He almost felt like a little kid again as he sat heavily in front of the transfer machine’s screen and disparate controls, each button set against the ground in an arrangement that seemed stunningly less workable now that he was actually about to use the thing. How many times did I build an imaginary team with my friends in elementary school? A hundred? More than that?

  The nostalgia flowed in, thick and multicoloured. Even back then, I already had a thing for ground types – and electabuzz, and bugs, and ditto. That last one had been courtesy of Genji the Transformer, one of his favourite cartoons; it starred an alchemist and his ditto partner, on a quest to bring the former’s mother back to life. Kind of morbid for a kid’s show, actually. I guess the war’d just ended, so things being a bit morbid was just normal. Ditto…

  Somehow I doubt they’ve got one of those in here, rare as they are.

  After indulging himself for a few seconds more Hoshi shook the swirling emotions loose, and inserted his ID. The graphic of a Poké Ball spun wildly in place before dissolving, replaced by a plain text-only list with a large ‘3/6’ in the corner. That’s probably my team count. Pretty bare-bones – is that because we only built half the thing, or because it’s in ‘safety mode’?

  Hoshi knew slightly more about computers than the average Joe, almost entirely from hanging around Danny… but his practical knowledge was still basically zero. “What am I looking for?” he asked as he started to scroll. It’s in the Kanto Pokédex order, I think – damn, that’s a lot of butterfree and beedrill.

  “Quite near the bottom,” Ryan answered from over his shoulder. “I think you’ll be pleased.”

  With a grunt of acknowledgement, Hoshi continued. There was a squirtle up there near the top; should remember that for later if I don’t find anything evolved. The official Oak Labs starter Pokémon were amazing ‘mons, and basically impossible to find in the wild. A few raticate. Could pick Guts up a harem… heh, no. Fearow’s a good choice, there’s a good number of nidoran and nidorina, some strong plants and bugs…

  He lingered on the lone persian punctuating a trio of meowth, then kept scrolling. Pain in the ass to press a button that isn’t attached to anything…

  The list reached the end of the Pokémon originally documented by Oak and continued down, stretching into the crumbs he’d left for Elm and Johto’s natives. Hoshi sent a raised eyebrow backwards, and Ryan made a keep going gesture as he replied with a narrow-mouthed smile. Not a Kanto Pokémon? If you got me all hyped up for a quagsire or something, I’m gonna be pissed… though actually, that wouldn’t be a bad choice. Water-ground was a great combination.

  Speaking of the giant salamanders, there were a few – right after an ampharos. Marking that one too; I wanna finally get my own electric type. He scrolled; the Johto Pokémon passed, then a small selection of Hoenn natives. A slakoth? If I can get that to evolve all the way…

  But with a huff he continued, increasingly impatient as the bar on the screen’s right ticked down closer to the very bottom. “Something from another continent?”

  “No, you’ll know it when you see it.”

  Hoshi clicked his tongue. Sinnohan, then. I can think of a few strong candidates; torterra, gastrodon… maybe a claydol? Despite admonishing himself to keep his expectations grounded, the senior grunt couldn’t help but speculate. What if it’s a krookodile? Or a garchomp – hah, like there’d be a Champion-tier Pokémon just sitting around-

  Mid-thought, Hoshi reached the bottom of the list. His eyes remained unfocused for a moment, still trying to protect themselves from the nausea-inducing electronic blur, and then he blinked and started to read. That weird Paldean tentacool, some normal types… Sobble? No, I don’t think so. Salandit, deerling, woobat- “A munchlax?” he half-exclaimed, genuinely surprised.

  Snorlax are some of the strongest Pokémon on the continent – holy shit, this is-

  “Not that one,” Ryan countered, causing Hoshi to whirl around in confusion. “One above it, Mutsu. Though I’m gratified to have guessed you’d appreciate a baby Pokémon, if it contains enough potential.”

  Baby..? He turned back, and immediately his eyes lit up again. “Holy shit,” he repeated aloud.

  Gible, the list proclaimed in plain white text, and Hoshi immediately clicked up and then fumbled for the blue yes button. “How the fuck did you convince Kenny to leave this alone?”

  A slither of cloth that might’ve been a shrug; Hoshi was absolutely not turning again to look, not with the young dragon’s statistics opening on the screen. Male, estimated to be four months old, no badges on his record… Who left you in here?

  “It was surprisingly easy, once I pointed out the fully-evolved nidoking.”

  Wait – if he saw this, that means Kenny bothered to check all the way to the bottom of the list. Huh. Hoshi didn’t need to think about it for even a second longer; he pressed the button again, then a third time as a ‘Withdraw? Yes/No’ popup appeared. The machine started up whatever arcane ritual it used to turn its stored Pokéballs from data to atoms, and he waited, elated, with his hand below the nook.

  “Are you sure you want that one?” Casca asked from the sidelines. “Sure it’s rare, but it’s still a baby.”

  “The Sinnoh Champion’s ace is a garchomp,” Hoshi argued as the fans whirled like tiny typhoons. “And she’s held her title for as long as Oak did.” And with a lot more competition. “Besides, Jorm’s one of our stronger Pokémon, and he’s not even close to evolving – this is basically a second him. Actually, I’m surprised you didn’t take it, Ryan.”

  “As if-”

  Finally the ball appeared – an Indigo Ball, purple and black with a slight rainbow sheen – and the rest of this subordinate’s sentence went beyond Hoshi’s ears as his attention focused in. It was in its storage mode as it dropped into his waiting palm, but a quick double-tap of the lens brought it to full size. Texture feels good. It looks like glass, but feels like fine sandpaper – or rough leather, maybe. I could throw this a damn mile.

  “Gible, go,” he said, and lightly tossed the ball. It bounced once, the sound muffled yet beautiful, and opened with the customary electronic whoosh-oosh-oosh. A torrent of red light was disgorged, and as the ball propelled itself back into Hoshi’s hand said light coalesced into a small, muted-blue shape.

  It was comparable to bagon, in many ways – fitting, since they were both the baby form of their region’s most powerful dragon. The gible was a darker shade, with a much rounder body, but their height was similar and both stood on two legs. Rather than a thick bony plate, Hoshi’s new Pokémon had two horns tipped with sharpened ovular growths, and something like a shark’s fin swooping upwards and backwards. Echolocation, his brain absently supplied as he marvelled. The horn structures help with sensing vibrations – because the adult form can swim through the ground. And fly as fast as a plane.

  The dragon turned, blinking its large-pupiled eyes, and Hoshi beamed. “Look at those teeth. Amazing. C’mere little guy, let’s introduce you to-”

  The gible lunged, its stubbly legs pushing with startling force to turn it into a missile with the teeth Arcus fuck-

  He was saved from having a sizable chunk of his left thigh bitten off by Crow, who suddenly drew up to interpose her body between the dragon and Hoshi. The fearful cry of Astonish sounded out as she spread her wings, each limb nearly the size of her entire previous, unevolved body.

  As the sound washed over him the gible flinched in shock, hit the golbat’s gaping maw, and the two went down doing their level best to sink their fangs into one another – a fight the baby dragon seemed to be losing, given that it’d started with the severe handicap of diving directly down its opponent’s throat.

  “Oh wow,” Casca said. “That’s- should we..?”

  “Return,” Hoshi answered the unasked question, and the gible disappeared – but still, he was smiling. “Feisty thing. We’ll have to do what we did with Quake, let it loose inside a posse.” It’s a fighter. That’s good, that’s what we’ll need.

  His girlfriend shook her head. “Feisty doesn’t seem strong enough. Looks like Crow’s gotten one heck of a french kiss.”

  Hoshi could only nod; his golbat’s tongue had a wide bite mark oozing blood, painful-looking proof that her toothsome new teammate was, indeed, a dragon.

  Then they collectively flinched again as Ryan clapped his hands. He, too, was smiling, though the expression was a bit put-on. “Looks like Jormungandr will have a sparring partner to match his zeal! Here, let me lend you a Potion-”

  “No need, there’s a pile of them in that bag there.” And some other stuff too, I think – probably other battle items. “Give me one sec, I’ll be right back to choose the rest.”

  As he returned his aggrieved bat to spare her a few unnecessary seconds of pain, Hoshi felt his expression turning sardonic. Hah, I hope I don’t get in trouble for taking too long; paring that massive list down to just two will take a while.

  As his human partners got the grunts lined up and doing simple drills – not only a necessity for the new recruits, but a good cool-down exercise from the uneven battle they’d all gone through last night, the executives included – Meowth found himself with a certain amount of trepidation turning sourly in his stomach.

  Dey ain’t quite reddeh yet. Even with stronger Pokémon, and even with the fire-baptism inherent to fighting a Gym Leader’s real team, the grunts were still green. A month, mebbeh. Two, prob’ly. If we send ‘em in now…

  But they didn’t have that much time. With Jitsu gone and his Inner Ministry decapitated, they were on a strict time limit before the volatile cult realised they were done for and everything exploded – Jus’ like tha academy. Dere but fer da grace a’ da maker. He was going to miss Petrel; the organisation had been bleeding out its old blood steadily over the years, and any day now it might just be him, Jessie, James, and Ariana. And mebbeh Archer, if we can bust ‘im outta dere.

  Watching Jessie and James personally training a new cell of Rockets made him feel old, even more than the grey starting to show in his fur.

  And so when the metallic scent of fresh blood hit his nose, it was from a need to look away from the heartache-inducing sight as much as anything else that made Meowth turn. What’s all dat now?

  Oh. Mutsu. Waddah we gonna do wit’ you, kid?

  It wasn’t like Meowth didn’t understand; he must’ve had a thousand similar arguments with his humans over the years, their resolve waxing and waning as they’d flown from one continent to the next. Because yes, it had been exciting, and beautiful, and the adventure of a lifetime… but trying to catch up to the Boss’s shadow while also keeping Rocket alive had been hard, dangerous, and, for the most part, entirely thankless work.

  But now we ain’t tree stooges out roamin’ da countryside; we are da bosses. And we gotta keep a tight ship. The thought brought with it something he had no name for – the opposite of nostalgia, almost, like looking back to see that he didn't recognise his own tracks. Used ta dream ‘bout bein’ on da top. Turns out, it’s still a lotta dirty work. Dirtier ‘n bein’ on da bottom, sometimes.

  The thin human finished pilfering from the sack of loot Meowth had snuck out of the nearby Pokémart, his young golbat waggling its tongue at the taste of Potion. Too young. Must’a been some fight to get da girl to evolve so early. Meowth kept watching as he went back to the PTS console, where his mate and rival were waiting – and the persian wasn’t sure whether to nod at the care he was making his selections with, or wince at how long it would obviously take.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The thought repeated itself: waddah we do wit’ you, kid? He didn’t want to rat the guy out, but as things stood he might be a liability if things started looking sour.

  “Meowth! Could you take over here? I need to refresh James’s bandages.”

  “And I need to do yours!”

  He turned back to see his two humans bickering – and under the zeal, under the fervour and the high spirits and the sparkle of this is it, we’re finally doing it, he could see that Jessie and James were, like him, tired.

  Ya know, I’m prob’ly over-tinkin’ it. Might be a good long talk solves everytin’ – we’re due one ‘a dose anyhow. “Meow.”

  The two blinked, immediately discarding their argument over who needed their wounds cared for first. “A private talk?” James said, understanding.

  Jessie winced. “But we need to be in Saffron by-”

  “Meow.” He didn’t like putting his foot down too often, but there were still days where these two really couldn’t read the room. They looked at each other, James mirroring Jessie’s wince, and then back to him.

  “Fine!” they both said. “But you’re doing the bandages!”

  “Oh hey,” Casca said as Hoshi scrolled carefully, making sure his eyes didn’t skip over any potential gold among the dross. “Corphish evolves into a dark type, right? One of those would be really useful.”

  “Enforcer Moon has his tyranitar,” Ryan countered. “And Tor picked out an Alolan raticate as well.”

  Hoshi grunted. “Might pick one up anyway. Immunity to psychic’ll be useful.” And maybe a psychic of my own? Or maybe not; Ryan had already snagged the one kadabra, and while he’d seen a hypno on the way down that pick felt… weird. Probably because I’ve spent so much time around the Doc lately. Blah.

  He went up, checking profiles and enduring side commentary all the way, gradually filling up a list then winnowing it back down. “Okay,” he eventually said. “First thing’s first, I’m getting that magneton.”

  Ryan made a sound of protest, but it didn’t stop Hoshi from pressing the button. “Gah! It’s such a niche type, we don’t need three of them! Honestly, you Vermilions are as bad as Ceruleans with their fish.”

  Casca blew a raspberry, and Hoshi snorted. “Yeah, and I noticed that scyther on your team.” The fans spun up once again, the machine conjuring a standard Poké Ball with a beep. “Besides, magneton is steel, too. That’s good defensively.”

  The blond sighed, giving up his protest. “Fine. But at least check those normal types to see if any of them are fairy.”

  Ugh, like I’d use a jigglypuff even if it was immune to dragons. “Fine,” Hoshi conceded. “I’ll take a look even though we both already have dragons ourselves. But if the instructors yell at me, you’re taking the blame.”

  After carefully checking the one clefairy, two jigglypuff, three marill, and four snubbull, it was concluded that none of them were miraculously of a foreign type. “There we go,” Hoshi said. “Happy?”

  Ryan huffed, his arms crossed. “It was worth looking at. But yes, fine, I’m happy.”

  “Good. Now…” Flexing the joints on his right hand, Hoshi once more took hold of the down button. “I’ve narrowed my last pick down to six. Quagsire, umbreon, ursaring, houndour, slakoth, and munchlax.”

  As he listed them out, both members of his audience hummed – and Crow let out a steady chirp as well, though she was probably just trying to fit in. “Why quagsire?” Ryan asked.

  “I’d like to have a water type, and pairing it with ground makes for only one weakness.”

  Casca spoke next, slender fingers cupping her chin. “You should kick out one of the dark types and two of the normals. That seems like the easiest way to start.”

  “Yeah, but I’m torn. The umbreon is probably stronger – it looks like a battler from the picture – but when the houndour evolves it’ll get a big boost in power.”

  “If it evolves,” Casca corrected, “in time to be useful.”

  “I’m sorta making these picks on the assumption that we'll, you know, win. Kind of pointless to plan for failure.”

  A moment of thought, and then she shrugged. “But a stronger Pokémon now makes us more likely to win. So…”

  So there’s the quandary. Do I build my team for the next month, or assume we’ll make it through and plan for the next year? ‘Cause we definitely aren’t rebuilding the whole government anything close to quickly. “Okay, I can drop the slakoth at least.”

  “But not the munchlax?” Ryan asked.

  “Snorlax is just too strong to write off.”

  He scoffed. “Just because Red had one…”

  The argument went on, long enough that Hoshi was surprised someone hadn’t come over to see what the fuss was about. But eventually, he was persuaded to choose between umbreon and ursaring.

  “Offence or defence,” Casca summarised as they all looked at the screen, and Hoshi grunted.

  “Well, I do still think a dark type would be useful…” So… Umbreon it is.

  His hand hovered over the button, hesitating – and his girlfriend noticed. “You don’t seem satisfied with it.”

  Hoshi’s teeth clenched. “I dunno. I feel like it’s… not my style, if that makes sense? Fuck, Surge was always on my ass for only going on the attack, and he’s right, but I…” I don’t fucking know what I’m saying. “I find it infuriating, fighting guys like Kenny’s lickitung. Maybe it’ll feel different from the other side, but I don’t think so. It feels…” Again, he struggled to find the right words. “Like I won’t be able to use a defensive Pokémon the right way. I’m not a patient guy, not when a fight’s happening. Hit the other guy first, harder, until he goes down. That makes sense, right?” When I tried to get tricky fighting Bart, I lost. When I toughed it out and turned it into a brawl with Bob, I got my first really good-feeling win. Am I just seeing shapes in the clouds?

  The two grunts looked at each other, and shrugged simultaneously. “In the end, the choice is yours, Mutsu,” Ryan concluded.

  “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that corphish anyway this whole time. And I’m sure Puce would love an umbreon – if we can get her out of bed.”

  Hoshi stared at the screen, sour, but eventually sighed. “Thanks for supporting my bad decisions, guys,” he said, only half-joking, and slapped the down button until he hit his third and final pick. With three more inputs the machine began to rumble, and he sighed again, softer but with greater emotion. There, it’s done. Full team of six. Arcus, I feel like I fought another battle. Despite feeling giddy as a child loaded down with candy, he was undeniably drained – and there was still whatever fallout was hanging over their heads from Meowth overhearing his and Casca’s plans. Gonna need a damn nap at this rate.

  The ball appeared – a black Jet Ball this time – and fell into his waiting hand like the first two. “There we go. Machine’s all yours, Casca.”

  “Great!” she exclaimed, trading places. “I’ve already got it basically done in my head; I can’t believe everyone ignored that cloyster just sitting there!”

  “He’s what?!” “She’s what?!”Jessie and James exclaimed, the force of the combined shout rattling the scrolls packed neatly along one wall of Janine’s office.

  Hopefully not quite loud enough to make it through the vacuum-sealed walls, but better to nip their anger in the bud regardless. “Meow,” Meowth said, then continued when he saw the short answer didn’t quite get the message across. “Not attack. Fear both ways.”

  “Still!” James yelled. “Even thinking about abandoning ship – and right when we’re on the cusp of victory!”

  “Exactly! Why, we should march out there right now and-”

  Meowth let out a long, aggravated yowl, causing the two humans to freeze. “You. Sleep bad.”

  A moment of silence – and then they replied sheepishly, James speaking first. “Well, yes-”

  “We have been burning the midnight oil…”

  “-But it’s necessary. Clair’s strongest Pokémon won’t be on the mend forever.”

  “And the Professors can’t keep Sabrina contained forever, gengar or no.”

  “And there’s only so many hands to lighten the work! Honestly, we should probably have been doing more…”

  The three looked at each other, tired and irritable… Then they pulled together. “Meow. Salvageable.”

  Jessie sighed. “Yes, but for how long? He’s going to find out that Surge is dead eventually – and almost certainly before we get to Saffron. We can’t just stash them all in a bunker and wait; as James said, we need able hands.” She looked to her blue-haired partner. “Or everything we’ve built will just fall apart…”

  James was uncharacteristically silent for long seconds, staring at the pattern woven into the floor’s coverings. “…We need to be the ones to tell him,” he concluded.

  “James?”

  “I can’t think of any way out other than through, Jessie. The young man’s on edge – Cascade as well.”

  “Meow.”

  Jessie reluctantly nodded, her teeth bared. “I can’t believe Ariana had the gall to almost nearly lose; if we had twenty or thirty more Grunts, a few Executives…”

  A collective sigh. “Gold flakes. Rocks with steel hit. Big spark.”

  The other two nodded, and their path was set.

  “Are you sure you want just water and grass? There’s still the houndour; you could finish the classic triangle.”

  Hoshi’s words caused Casca to pause. She put a finger to her lips, chewing lightly at the edge of her nail. “I think one unevolved Pokémon is enough for me.”

  “Magcargo?”

  A quick head-shake. “No, I think Mimi took enough fire types for all of us. I know I said I didn’t want a specialist team, but I’m kind of changing my mind; I don’t have the knowledge you or Ryan do. Keeping it down to three with Quake will make them easy to feed, and I can use what I learn with one on all the others…”

  Hoshi nodded, more to himself than Casca. Those are legitimate reasons to specialise. “Alright, I’ll drop it. So, leafeon or ludicolo?”

  “Ugh, I don’t know. Which one’s better?”

  If I could say straight-out, I’d have already suggested it. In truth, he wasn’t very familiar with either; leafeon was a lot rarer than the other eevee evolutions, given there were so many other targets for a leaf stone, and ludicolo wasn’t a ‘mon he’d ever paid much attention to.

  All they had to go off of were the stats pages the transfer system provided, and they were less informative than even what the Mini-Dex gave, let alone a proper Pokédex. “Ludicolo is a third-stage evolution. It’s probably better?”

  His tone caused Casca to let out a soft moan of frustration. “That was a question, Hoshi. I don’t want you to answer my question with a question!” Her over-dramatic tone cut the tension they were both feeling, and Hoshi laughed.

  “Ha. Want me to call Ryan over?”

  Another shake. “No, no, I think I’ve waffled long enough. Ludicolo is fine; it’s water type anyway. Two are better than one, right?”

  Now that’s a complicated question. But she was right; they'd both taken long enough. “That’s the prevailing wisdom.”

  Twenty seconds of menu fiddling and waiting later, a strange Pokéball appeared. While it retained the solid-colour upper-lower divide of the standard Poké Ball and Jet Ball, the top was an unfamiliar dull gold – and even weirder, the lens was bright fluorescent orange. It is glowing..?

  “Huh, never seen that one before.”

  “Me either.” Custom? A promotional ball for some special event? “Whatever, it’s yours now.”

  Casca spun the ball in her palm, letting it settle naturally before magnetically attaching it to her belt. “And that makes six. How does this thing know how many we have anyway? Is it just proximity?”

  You know, I don’t actually know that one. “I think it connects to our IDs? I know that trying to catch a seventh Pokémon just teleports the ball away, so it isn’t the machine that knows…” You’d think Rocket would’ve left that feature out. I suppose they would’ve if they could; it’s probably a prerequisite to using the transfer system at all. “We’ll have to see if it counts Puce as having two or four when she comes out.”

  “Uh-huh. Anyway, with all that done…” They turned, focusing on the other Rockets training furiously in twos and threes. “I’ve got four monsters to break in. Let’s-”

  “Meow,” yet again from behind, and this time Hoshi managed to suppress his startlement. Hah, I’ve been expecting it.

  He turned to see the persian looking at the machine, an inhuman look in his eye. “Sir?”

  Meowth turned back – but when he opened his mouth, what he said was definitely unexpected.

  “Ho. Shi. Mu. Tsu.” The Pokémon turned his head towards his girlfriend. “Ca-as, cade. Ki. Chi.” Then he did a one-eighty, tail flicking like a long, loud exclamation point. “Come.”

  Hoshi was speechless. He glanced to his side, and saw the rare sight of his girlfriend absolutely gobsmacked.

  “Yo!” came Kenny’s growling voice from the background. “Did that cat just fuckin’ talk? That’s so fuckin’ cool!”