"Rookies. I hope you all live through the three-month trial ahead of you. Try not to die. Hahaha."
On board a large aircraft, a tall man with rough, weathered features and a military cap bearing the letter R was speaking to the boys and girls seated inside, every one of them still young enough to look it.
He was Team Rocket's chief instructor, known as Bloodhand, and a powerful Trainer in his own right.
At his words most of the trainees clenched their fists, and the air in the cabin filled with tension.
Vance sat among them, his expression unchanged. The mood around him did not reach him; he closed his eyes to rest instead.
He had been in this Pokémon world for half a year now. Life after transmigrating was nothing like the anime of his previous life had promised — it was dark, and it was cruel, especially for orphans like him with no backing and no strength of their own. Thugs and street gangs preyed on them constantly. The body's original owner had suffered it over and over; there was no counting how many times he had been shaken down and beaten.
It was one of those beatings that took the original owner's life, and that was the moment he arrived.
Arriving changed nothing. The wages he scraped together from part-time work were taken off him, and on unlucky days he was beaten as well. With his money gone, he often went hungry.
Vance had wanted to fight back, but the moment he saw the Poké Balls in their hands the urge drained out of him. Besides, he had been no elite soldier before he came here, only an ordinary university student. In a fight he was worth very little.
Raising a Pokémon of his own was out of the question. When a man could not eat his fill, what was he supposed to raise a Pokémon on?
Going to the police was useless. The ordinary officers gave vague answers and brushed him off, wanting no trouble themselves. Anyone running the streets these days had someone behind them, and the rumour was that plenty of people in high places were covering for those gangs.
The righteous Officer Jenny had no time for something so small, and there was no other route worth thinking about.
The great Pokémon League was rotten through as well, with the old families holding everything in their hands. Perhaps the life he had seen in the anime belonged only to them. People like him had nothing.
At first Vance had been thrilled to land in the Pokémon world. He was a fan; he had often daydreamed about how wonderful it would be to wake up here one day, to meet legendary Pokémon and travel the world the way Ash had. A few beatings and shakedowns later that picture was gone, and all that was left was the hunger for strength. Only strength would let him hold his own fate in his hands.
Die in the silence, or erupt out of it. So as not to walk the same road again, so as not to leave his life in another man's hands, and for the sake of what passed for a chance, Vance thought it over carefully, and on one dark and windy night he made a bold decision — he would join Team Rocket.
He joined the organisation the League called evil, and became a Team Rocket recruit.
At least here there was a chance. A chance he would have to stake his life on.
When the light no longer comes, darkness is the only choice.
Today, after three months of training, this intake of recruits was to face its last trial, and this one would be live.
All two hundred and more of them would be dropped onto Trial Island together for one month of it. The rule on the island was that there were no rules — do whatever you like, by whatever means, so long as you come out alive.
Come out alive, and you became a member of Team Rocket.
Anyone who wanted more than that, who wanted to be invested in and to climb toward a post that mattered, had to score well in the assessment.
Assessment items had been placed all over the island, scored according to their value and totalled together at the end.
"Scared, aren't you? Get on your knees and call me daddy three times, nice and loud, and I might think about letting you off. Otherwise... tsk, tsk."
The words cut into Vance's rest at the worst possible moment. He opened his eyes. Across from him stood an arrogant-looking youth with a shadow in his gaze, brazen as he spoke.
Five or six more stood around him with the look of hangers-on, and at his words they all chimed in.
"Hahaha, get on with it. Who do you think you are?"
"That's right. Boss Wilder is being merciful, giving you a chance at all. What's the hold-up? Hurry up."
"Come on, hurry up. Hahaha."
Vance opened his eyes and looked at them without expression, his lips barely moving.
"Moron."
Threatened like that, Vance's face did not change. He looked at them the way a man looks at a troupe of clowns.
"Fine. Fine!"
At the sight of it, Wilder, in the middle of the group, gave a cold laugh.
"I hope you're still this calm when the time comes. Let's see whether that Magikarp of yours can keep you alive."
"That's no concern of yours."
"Heh. Just don't go dying before I get to you. That would spoil the fun."
Bloodhand and the others at the front of the cabin had seen the whole exchange, but none of them moved to stop it. They watched with something close to interest.
"Heh, that kid's as good as dead. All he's got is a Magikarp, and Wilder over there has people looking after him — he'll be holding a few cards. Pity. Vance has done well, taken first place more than once. He's promising material."
The speaker was a big man standing beside Bloodhand, one of the instructors for this intake, who had taken some notice of Vance's consistently strong showing.
"As long as they don't break discipline on the plane, it's none of our business."
Bloodhand said it flatly, raising his wrist to look at his watch, counting off the time in his head.
*Where there are people, there are factions.*
Vance sighed inwardly. Team Rocket was hardly going to be one harmonious family. The people in it were not good people, and cliques formed here as they formed anywhere.
His quarrel with Wilder had begun during those three months of training, over nothing at all: he had answered an instructor's question first, and perhaps that had cost Wilder face. He was marked from that day. Afterwards he refused to become one of his followers, and went on taking first place in training again and again, which turned the mark into a grudge. Out of nothing it had grown into a feud to the death, and every one of them across from him now wanted him dead.
It had come this far, and he would not be begging. Nor would he be letting them off. Given the chance, he would kill them.
Inside Team Rocket he had no choice but to fight for his share. He needed resources to grow.
He had to live too.
Fortunately the Team Rocket base had its restrictions, and even Wilder, with a little backing behind him, had not dared push too far. The two sides had left each other alone.
Only now, with the trial about to begin and the restrictions gone, had Wilder found his tongue.
*I'm not an easy mark. It's anyone's guess who comes out on top.*
Vance thought it without letting any of it show. In front of him hung a system panel, visible to him alone; not one of the people beside him could see it.
> **Host:** Vance
> **Gender:** Male
> **Height / Weight:** 180 cm / 75 kg
> **Pokémon:** Magikarp
> **Battle Points:** 220
> **Skills:** Novice Psychic, Novice Breeder, hand-to-hand combat, cooking, driving......
What hung in front of Vance was the system he had gained after transmigrating, the cheat that had only activated when he received his starter Pokémon, the Magikarp.
Three months and more of feeling his way around had given Vance a rough understanding of what it was for.
The Battle Points it held could be exchanged for goods in the system shop, and the shop carried a dazzling array of everything a person could want, living creatures excepted.
The points themselves came from battling Pokémon.
Beyond that, the system carried two kinds of missions, and completing them brought rewards, the rewards varying with how the mission was completed.
> **System Defeat Missions:** Defeat 1 Pokémon (Complete)
> Defeat 10 Pokémon (Complete)
> Defeat 100 Pokémon (Incomplete)
> ...............
> **System Achievement Missions:** Become a Rookie Trainer (Complete)
> Become a Novice Trainer (Complete)
> Become an Intermediate Trainer (Incomplete)
> ....................
Over those three months, alongside the Team Rocket recruit training, Vance had completed several of the system's missions.
His Psychic and Novice Breeder skills had both come out of two of them, and two further missions had rewarded him with a Magikarp breeding manual and a Rare Candy.
And beyond the system, his Magikarp was close to evolving. When it did, he would have a "surprise" ready for them.