I landed with a splash in the numbing cold waters of the Orange Sea and immediately dove underwater as fast as I could. I swam downward until I was almost sure the bombs had already gone off before kicking back up and surfacing. I gasped for air as I looked up and saw that the explosion in the engine room had apparently been under the waterline. Immense waves of water were created from the force and swept over us, and flames had erupted from that room and were now consuming the higher parts of the ship. Although it wasn’t completely annihilated, as it would have been if I hadn’t gotten most of the explosives off the ship, it was clear that the S.S. Anne was starting to slip downward into the sea’s endless murky depths.

Several of the passengers were submerged by the towering waves and most of the others were having difficulty swimming. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the raindrops were practically pounding on our heads and the normal waves now seemed to be the same size as the ones created from the explosion. I had learned how to swim when I was very young, but I was horrible at treading water and I could already feel my legs tiring while I was smothered by the rush of seawater around me.

One of the trainers had released her Gyarados, which growled lightly and allowed her to sit atop its massive, draconic head. Many of those who couldn’t swim well were climbing up the marine snake-dragon’s thick, blue armor-like scales and onto its serpentine body, but even the enormous cobalt beast found it difficult to navigate the storm with so many passengers. After I considered the fact that the Orange Sea and the islands in the southern parts of it had tropical characteristics, I had a sudden fear that a hurricane was nearing. I wasn’t sure whether hurricanes formed in winter, but the clouds didn’t seem to be swirling with the circular hurricane motion. I struggled to remember what I had learned in school about hurricanes, but wasn’t sure whether the spiral cloud thing happened until later. Wait a minute—if there was a hurricane, then the weather officials would’ve known, and the S.S. Anne wouldn’t have been sailing here. Right?

“Crap, this is getting me nowhere,” I said, attempting to shake all of the thoughts on the storm out of my head and swimming toward the others.

I didn’t notice it until it was too late.

All of the other waves were tiny compared to this one. It rose over all of us, massive and seemingly endless. If I had only seen it earlier, I might have been able to dive under and avoid it, but it seemed to come from nowhere. I was caught in the middle of it and struggled to swim away, but my efforts were pointless—like a lone soldier fighting against an entire army. It thrust me under the surface and knocked the air out my lungs. I kicked upward, but was rapidly feeling a lack of oxygen. I hadn’t really had time to inhale deeply beforehand and had already been out of breath at the time. I swam as hard as I could, but the surface seemed to be miles away, and a constant feeling that I wasn’t going to make it lingered at the back of my mind, hindering my progress.

Finally I surfaced with a splash and gasped for breath, just thankful to be above the water that it took me a second for the full effect of my surroundings to hit me.

It was gone. The storm, the waves, the rain…everything was gone. The others looked up at the sky, amazed at the phenomenon. I swam over, and was about to ask someone what on earth had happened when something caught my eye. I turned to the left to see a rescue boat speeding toward us as though nothing had ever happened.

At first, I was surprised that a rescue boat had arrived so fast, but not after I learned that we were right off the coast of Fuchsia, a beach city on a southern peninsula of Kanto. We were all standing, most of us shivering as well, aboard the white and red rescue ship, which was about five times as large as most recreational boats, but still nothing compared to the S.S. Anne.

A computerized touch pad was passed to me with the names of everyone who boarded. We were evidently supposed to sign our name so the officials could know many had escaped the ship in time and survived, so I took the stylus, scribbled my messy, printed signature next to my name, and passed it on. Before I did though, a particular name caught my eye and I stared long and hard at it to make sure it was really there: Rudy Flaranel. It had a signature next to it.

Rudy was there the whole freaking time and didn’t even bother to let me know that he was?! I mean, there hadn’t really been that many of us who had made it off the ship, how could I possibly not have seen him?! I groaned and walked though the group of huddled people, searching each face until I found him sitting down inside of the boat rather than out on the deck. I walked inside and sat down next to him.

“Hey Jade,” he said brightly before laughing slightly at the look on my face and saying, “Guess I should explain some stuff, huh?”

“Ya think?” I asked, laughing a little myself, the air of anxiety gone just from being with a good friend. “I’d sort of like to figure out this weird coincidence.”

“It’s not a coincidence. You know that Stalker dude who gave out the tickets? He prob’ly told you how he’s way involved with Team Rocket. He actually saw our whole battle against Tyson.”

“What?” I suddenly asked. “You mean he was there the whole time and didn’t help us?”

“I dunno, I think he said he had something to do with your friend showing up. Anyway, he talked to me and gave me the card thing after I got back to Viridian and mentioned that he’d given you one, too. I sort of got in trouble for being gone all day, but I did tell your mom that’d you’d gone on a journey with Swift and that you already had a Charmander and a Pikachu. Anyway, around a week later—”

“Wait, wait, wait…how’d my parents react?” I asked, wincing a little.

“Oh…yeah, um…” Rudy put his hand behind his head and looked a little sheepish. “Let’s just say that before I told ‘em, your mom was like, ready to call the cops and thought that you’d been kidnapped or something. I figured it’d be smart not to tell ‘em the whole Team Rocket story.”

“Oh, God, I’m dead,” I muttered. “Someday I gotta like, write a letter and explain that everything’s going okay. Meh…anyway, what happened after that?”

“Oh, yeah…um, my dad let me start on a Pokémon Journey about a week after that, so I made sure to grab the bus from city to city until I made it to Vermilion, and I got there about four days before we left,” Rudy explained.

“But I was at the Pokémon Center the whole time, how could I not have seen you?!” I exclaimed.

“Oh, I never stayed at the Pokémon Center, I spent most of my time looking for Pokémon along the outside of the city,” he replied.

“Did you catch anything new?” I asked with curiosity.

“Yeah, I spent a long time looking and I managed to find a Pikachu in the Viridian Forest, and well, he obviously doesn’t have super powers or anything, but he’s still pretty formidable,” Rudy said, grinning.

“So anyway, how come I never saw you on the S.S. Anne?” I asked.

“I was looking for you during the Trainer’s Party but couldn’t really find you,” he said. I decided not to mention that I had spent most of the evening during the party in my room unless you counted my talk with Chibi. At the thought of Chibi, I ached inside. Team Rocket wouldn’t kill him, but what kind of tormenting things would they do to him to further their other ways of experimentation? While I was lost in my thoughts, Rudy explained something about seeing me while in the sea and trying to get my attention, but me not seeing him. That suddenly reminded me and I instantly asked, “What happened to stop the storm?”

Rudy stopped and gaped at me. “You mean you didn’t see it?”

“No,” I replied a little awkwardly. He had made it sound as though no one in his or her right mind would have missed it.

“It was a little creepy, but way awesome,” he said. “That last big wave was made by this huge…thing swooping down at the ocean. The clouds were blocking the moon and stars, so I couldn’t really see it, but right before it appeared, the storm stopped and the waves calmed down. Right as it dove into the water, the moon showed through the clouds, but even then, all I could really see was the shadow of a dragon thing in the water.

“Sweet,” I said, seriously wishing I had seen it. That said, the conversation somewhat seemed to be over. I stared out the window for a long while before going over to one of the other bench chairs and lying down. I rarely fell asleep very fast; it sometimes took me over an hour to get to sleep, but this time was an exception.

I woke up at about ten to the sound of everyone moving around. I had thought that the boat would just take us to Fuchsia, but apparently, those in charge of the rescue ship had thought it better to take us to our original destination.

I slowly stood to my feet and walked out onto the deck. The boat was docked at a fairly small harbor at the edge of a city. I looked along the side of the boat and saw a ramp leading down toward the dock.

“What’s going on?” Rudy asked, walking over while rubbing his eyes.

“I think we’re here…Midnight Island,” I replied looking out at the city. It was fairly small actually, though it probably seemed that way since I grew up in the big city. Along the outskirts of town, a forest started and looked like it covered most of the island. Out in the distance, on the far north side of the island, I could see a large building, possibly the stadium Stalker had rented, though I wondered why it was out in the woods.

“Hey, everyone!” one of the trainers yelled after walking out of the Pokémon Center. “The lead nurse in there just told me that we’re supposed to go to that stadium way out there,” she said, pointing first to the stadium, and then to a street that led to it. Many of the trainers hesitated and looked at one another, as through regretting the decision to come here. At first I figured that last night had made them realize the danger they would have to face, as even I had trouble blocking out the memory of what had happened. But then I realized it.

I had gotten lucky. I hadn’t even known that Rudy was on the ship, and both of us had gotten off alive anyway. But many of the trainers had to have lost friends when the S.S. Anne sank. After some time, however, a few kids walked down the ramp onto the dock, and the others followed soon afterward.

Looking back at the ship, I asked Rudy, “Do you think we’re allowed to just leave?”

“I dunno, but I don’t really think it matters,” he replied, shrugging.

I then suddenly realized that Firestorm and Swift had been in their Poké balls all night ever since I had to jump overboard. I pulled the red and white spheres out of my pocket and opened them, releasing the two Pokémon.

“Huh, what’re you releasing your Pokémon for?” Rudy asked.

“Well, they’ve been stuck in their Poké balls for a long time,” I replied simply as Firestorm and Swift appeared and looked up at me expectantly.

“*What happened?*” Swift asked immediately.

“*We obviously made it off the ship in time if we’re here,*” Firestorm said, rolling his eyes slightly. “*What I’d like to know is what happened with Chibi before we woke up.*”

“*I meant after the battle. I didn’t see what happened,*” Swift said.

“I’d also kinda like to know what was up with the ship exploding and all,” Rudy said, since he had probably managed to catch the general idea of what they were saying.

I sighed before going into the events of the previous night. From when Chibi and I heard the Rockets in the storage area to when the Manectric initiated the automatic detonation, I explained everything as we walked on toward the stadium. Finally the trees grew sparse and we emerged into a large clearing where the stadium lay surrounded by gray pavement. It was shaped like a wide cylinder and had tons of windows lining the side of it, most likely where the rooms were. The main entrance at the front opened as we approached, so the hundred or so trainers made their way slowly inside. We were in a large waiting room type place with a desk at the far end and two hallways branching off to the left and right. Large computer panels lined the walls, most likely used for trainer registry during competitions.

Having heard us enter, Stalker soon walked in from the left hallway. He surveyed the group before saying, “I know there were more people I gave tickets to. Are the others late or—”

“The S.S. Anne blew up…some of us didn’t make it off in time,” one of the kids in front said, looking down slightly.

“Blew up?” Stalker said, looking slightly taken aback. “I’ll have to get the details on that later. Anyway, everyone line up so I can get you all registered.”

At once, the huge mass of trainers all started to shove for a spot close to the front. Rudy and I were around twentieth until a bunch of people cut several others in front of us. One by one Stalker led the kids to his office to get them registered for the rebellion. Finally, after nearly an hour, Rudy was at the front of the line, followed by me. Around seven minutes after his turn, Rudy came back carrying two small cards and some black clothes.

“See you when you’re done,” Rudy said, walking down the other hallway.

“Next,” Stalker said from the office.

“I think you guys had better stay here,” I said to Swift and Firestorm. They nodded and I walked down the hallway and into the room. It was small and didn’t really look like an office. There was a small table with a laptop and various other computer-related devices, a small bookshelf with several books that, at a glance, seemed to mostly involve Pokémon training and legends. The few pictures on the walls seemed to be of mythical Pokémon.

“I’ve asked most everyone this and only the Rudy kid had any info, but what happened with the S.S. Anne?” Stalker asked. I briefly explained to him the string of events involving Team Rocket. Stalker nodded and said, “I figured that Team Rocket would somehow figure out about our team, and that’s why I took a couple of precautions.”

“Like what?” I asked, sitting down in a small black chair.

“Well, for one, I didn’t say anything about where our base was or who I was on those cards. Otherwise, Team Rocket could have easily destroyed this stadium, though their whole midnight operation to kill all the team members would’ve been way worse if it had gone through. And second, they can’t know I’m involved in all this, because I’m also on their Johto Force. Trust me, you do not want to be caught as a Rocket traitor. Also, I had a friend of mine hack into the database for the S.S. Anne so that it was listed as sailing to Cinnabar,” he explained.

So that explained what the Rockets said about the base being on Cinnabar Island.

“So as far as the Rockets know,” Stalker continued, “the rebellion against them was stopped in its tracks and the ship was destroyed along with everyone on it. Of course, they’ll probably figure out the truth once their missions start ending up failures.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask this…why didn’t you just have us all take some ferry here from Lavender Town instead of going though all this?” I asked.

“Midnight Island doesn’t have that many people going to and from it, and on top of that, Lavender is a tiny town with hardly any people. Two hundred or so Pokémon Trainers going there at one time would be pretty suspicious,” he explained. “Now enough of that, I need to get you signed up so we can get everyone registered today. Your name’s Jade, right?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Okay, well, you’ll probably need a fake name cause sometimes you’ll fight Team Rocket just as yourself and other times you’ll infiltrate their bases posing as one of them.”

“Oh, okay,” I said, going over several names in my head. After a few seconds, I finally settled on one that I had used in games as a kid. “Um, Aly I guess.”

“Right,” he said, typing that before saying, “you can use the same last name unless you want to use a fake one.”

“Nah, that’s okay, my last name’s Arenesa,” I said.

Stalker typed for a while and clicked on several things before asking for my birthday. I answered, “November 12, 2009,” and that seemed to be all the information he needed.

“Right, that’s everything. Now just the uniform,” Stalker said, leading me to another room that was sort of like a huge closet filled with tons of pants, shirts, and optional parts of the Team Rocket uniform like hats. “Of course, you won’t wear this while pretending to be a part of Team Rocket missions. As you’ve probably noticed, they’re almost never in uniform while on undercover missions, but you’ll need to be in uniform while at their headquarters. Pick out what you want,” he said, leaving and closing the door.

I tried on various pants and shirts, all black and bearing the red R of Team Rocket, before finding an outfit that fit well and looked cool. I had managed to find a gray vest, a regular black T-shirt, and also black cargo pants, but my best find was the skullcap. It, like everything else except the vest, was black with an R, but it looked awesome and best of all, I really did not look like myself while wearing it. Though it probably wouldn’t change anything if I were to run into Tyson or one of the other Rockets that knew me, it would help so that everyone else didn’t realize that Jade and Aly were the same person. I put on the clothes and walked out holding my backpack and the outfit I had been wearing before, which was wrinkled and stiff from the seawater. I left the room and walked back into the office, where Stalker was leaning back in his desk chair.

He nodded and said, “I doubt you’ll be discovered as long as you always wear that when acting like a real member of Team Rocket. Now for the picture.” He adjusted a small camera on top of his computer that I hadn’t noticed before. He clicked once and I tried not to blink. He then clicked several times, and one of the machines turned on and made a loud noise as it did…whatever it was meant for. A few seconds later, a small card popped out of a slot on the bottom of it; Stalker handed it to me.

“Cool, a fake Team Rocket ID,” I said, looking at it. It had the Rocket logo on top, my picture on the side, and various pieces of information on the right including my position as a beginner on Team Rocket, my join date, age, gender, and being registered for the Kanto Force.

“Nope, it’s real,” he said.

“You mean I’m really in with Team Rocket?” I asked incredulously.

“Well you’d have to be to be able to get into their bases undetected. A fake card could be easily found out. But I’m allowed to register new members any time I want, so if I submit you guys’ registrations over time, no one on Team Rocket will get suspicious,” he explained.

“But…” I said, confused, “if all of us joining the rebellion are really registered with Team Rocket, then we are real members.”

“Alright, officially, yes, but technically, no, cause your sole purpose for joining is to screw with Team Rocket, so Rocket traitor is more appropriate a title. Anyway…you don’t have a trainer’s license yet, do you?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then I can’t register your license with a room, so you’ll need this,” he said, handing me another card, slightly smaller than the ID. “It’s card key for a room here. The main battlefield entrance is down the hall and to the right. Only one last thing to handle…I’ll need your ID card.”

After I handed it to him, he opened a drawer in his desk and went through its contents. He pulled a small blue device that looked like some sort of cell phones and plugged my ID card into the bottom. After several seconds, there was a beep and he removed the card.

“Rocket Communicator,” he said, handing it to me along with my card. “All Rockets are issued one, and they’re going to be absolutely invaluable to The Rebellion. They work a lot like cell phones except that they can only call other Communicators.” I suddenly remembered Tyson’s mention of that when he called for reinforcements on one.

“Oh yeah, and since I’m renting the whole stadium and letting you guys stay in for free, you don’t really get paid as much as I had originally intended,” he added.

“Paid?” I asked. It hadn’t occurred to me that we’d be paid to fight Team Rocket.

“Well, yeah. And also depending on how well you fool the Rocket Executive that’s head of you into thinking that you’re a loyal, contributing member, you’ll get paid by Team Rocket, too.”

“Cool,” I said, before walking out of the office. Seeing that I was done, the next person in line walked down to the room and I went back to the line to get Firestorm and Swift.

“*Whoa,*” Firestorm said, seeing me in the Team Rocket uniform. Swift stared with no recognizable expression.

“Yeah, to be on the rebellion I gotta be registered on Team Rocket,” I said. “Come on, let’s go find our room,” I said, walking down the right hallway past the battlefield and up two flights of stairs.

“249…249, oh, here it is,” I muttered, walking towards the door and touching the card key to the scanner. A small light turned green as the door opened and I walked in.

The room was fairly small, but nice. It was large, rectangular, and had a normal-sized bed by the far wall with a nightstand, a dresser with a TV, and another table with chairs. The window looked out on the forest—I could see nothing but tons of trees with a small clearing to the side and a glimpse of the city and the sea far off in the distance to the south. I threw my backpack in the corner and flopped onto the bed. Swift flew over and perched on a wooden chair and Firestorm sat on the bed with his tail hanging off the side.

“So…we’ve made it here, we’ve got our room, now whaddya say we get something to eat in town and then check out the battlefield?” I asked.

“*You got any money left?*” Firestorm asked.

“Not much,” I admitted. “Hopefully I can make it last until I get paid, or maybe I could ask Stalker to borrow some…? Ah well, let’s get going then, shall we?”

I changed back into my original clothes in the bathroom. When I was done, Swift flapped lightly and landed on my shoulder as Firestorm and I walked toward the door. We strolled out the door, along the stairs and past the actual battlefield part of the stadium, where several trainers were already practice battling. For the most part, we walked on in silence, along the path we had originally followed to get to the stadium. I had always liked nature, and I glanced at the dense forests that covered the bulk of the island, the call of the birds in my ears. Finally, we neared the edge of town, and I wandered in search of a Pokémon Mart until I found one near the Pokémon Center alongside the dock.

It was not unusual for some trainers to keep small Pokémon outside of their Poké balls even inside stores, yet I still felt slightly weird, walking around with a Pidgey on my shoulder and a Charmeleon at my side. As for the mart itself, there were several rows of items ranging from capture devices to Pokémon food. I browsed the latter aisle and found the woodland bird and carnivorous reptile sections. I grabbed one bag of food for each, staggered slightly with the weight, and proceeded to the register. However, I couldn’t help gazing longingly at several of the items in the other aisles. Powerful Technical Machines, stronger variations of the Poké ball—all of the battling supplies required a license to be bought, and I sighed as I looked away from the enticing products.

I bought the Pokémon food and walked quickly to the nearest convenience store, buying some bread, various chips, and some cookies when I got there. I stumbled back outside, nearly overloaded with purchases, and handed the less heavy food to Firestorm, carrying the Pokémon food myself.

“D’you mind holding that stuff?” I asked him.

“*It’s nothing,*” he replied quickly.

“You know…” I said suddenly, just remembering something I had been wondering for a while. “I learned Pokéspeech in school, but when we first met I talked to you in English…so how come you can understand me? I mean, Swift and me have been friends for a while so he understands English, and Chibi was raised by humans, but you were in the forest, so—”

“*The explanation behind that is lots simpler that you think,*” he said, cutting me off. But then he sort of looked unwilling to tell me. “*You see, I was actually raised in captivity as well, as a Starter Pokémon. I was given to some kid…I think his name was Zack…as his first Pokémon. Things went okay for a while; he started a journey and I just sort of did what he said, seeing as I didn’t know any better. Well…one day we were attacked by some older gang kids. I fought their Pokémon and lost and they messed with me for a while, practicing their Pokémon’s attacks and such on me.” Here he paused, heavily considering his words. “Eventually, I escaped from them and they must have destroyed my original Poké ball, otherwise I couldn’t have been ‘captured’ by the one your friend gave me. Anyway, I ran out into the woods right away.*”

He paused again, noticed that Swift and I were hanging on his every word, and continued. “*I soon discovered that there are quite a few Charmander in Southern Kanto, so I hooked up with a small group of them west of Viridian. They all had a pretty negative attitude towards humans, and made it clear that they would despise being captured and forced to do their bidding. Seeing as I was pretty resentful toward humans at the moment as well, they convinced me that humans were the enemy. I spent a long time there, until finally, well…there was the fire,*” he concluded.

“Wow,” I said slowly. I hadn’t realized there had been that much more to his past than I had figured.

“*Yeah,*” he said. “* I’m pretty sure I’m the only one out of the group that survived that day…*”

I wasn’t really entirely sure what to say, so I didn’t say anything, which felt very awkward. Firestorm proceeded to glance along at the scenery. Another thought struck me, however.

“Firestorm?” I said again suddenly, thinking out loud more than really starting a conversation. “I always learned that when Pokémon evolve, it’s like they’re jumping five or so years on the physical maturity scale, right?”

“*That’s more or less what it’s like,*” Firestorm confirmed.

“Well, in suddenly growing that much, most Pokémon often grow mentally as well and sometimes even have a whole new outlook on life and their trainer…how come you didn’t?” I asked.

Firestorm grinned and said, “*I was wondering when you’d ask that.*” He paused for a moment and said, “*Well…have you ever wondered how old I am?*”

“It’s crossed my mind more than once,” I said truthfully.

“*Well…*” he continued, “*I’m seven.*”

“But…Pokémon age faster in their early years than humans, so in Pokémon years that would make you…twelve?” I asked.

“*I guess,*” he said. “*I dunno how humans age, but…*”

“Well…the amount of battle strength a Pokémon has drastically lowers the evolution age, and you’ve already been trained which means you should have evolved like…whoa, two years ago!” I exclaimed.

“*Exactly,*” Firestorm said grinning.

“Well…that pretty much explains it all…” I said. I could almost literally hear the words that my old Pokémon Evolution teacher had said during class: “In the event that a Pokémon evolves after the typical maturity age, less psychological change comes about, due to it having longer time to learn and grow mentally before the evolution.”

“What about you, Swift? You’ve sure been quiet,” I commented.

“*Oh,*” he said, as though being shaken from a trance. “*I was just sort of thinking…*”

“You know, you’re probably getting close to evolving, would you want to?” I asked.

He considered this for a while. “*I suppose. Even being a Pidgeotto would be nice, but to someday soar with the eagle wings of Pidgeot…*” His voice trailed off.

For about an hour more, we walked back until finally reaching Midnight Stadium again. I left Firestorm and Swift by the battlefield as I ran back to the room to drop off the food. We then entered the field.

“Hey, Jade!” Rudy called out to me. He ran over with Ebony trotting at his side. “It’s about time you got back. Hey, listen…you wanna have a practice battle?”

I turned to Firestorm and Swift. The latter just shrugged, while Firestorm said, “*Sure.*”

“Okay, I’m gonna battle with Swift,” I said to Rudy before telling Firestorm, “Swift hasn’t really ever gotten to battle much.”

Ebony stood lightly on her jet-black paws, ready to fight. Swift released his grip on my shoulder and flew down to rest gently on the stadium floor.

“Alright then…” I said, “Swift, tackle her!”

“Ebony, dodge and tackle it yourself!” Rudy yelled.

Swift pushed off the ground with his talons and shot through the air flying in a fast, tight circle over Ebony before finally diving forward for the impact. In an incredibly agile motion, Ebony leaped aside and lunged back at Swift, smacking him with her paws. He was sent sprawling through the air until he managed to regain control of his flight and soared back toward his opponent.

“Are you okay?” I asked. Swift nodded resolutely, not wanting to screw up his second battle. “Okay, then try a Wing Attack!”

Swift nodded and focused his energy into his wings, which began glowing with a shining white light. He swooped low and sped towards Ebony, ready to strike, when all of a sudden she jumped up over Swift right at the second he changed direction. She landed awkwardly from the failed pounce and was immediately struck by the Pidgey’s Wing Attack.

“Ebony, try to jump on it one more time!” Rudy instructed.

With one swift lunge, the Houndour darted out of the way of a second Wing Attack before leaping back, pouncing on Swift, and tossing him back towards me. He hit the ground hard and struggled to stand, his back clearly aching.

“*I…I don’t want to quit, but…can I stop?*” he asked slowly as though worried I would be disappointed.

“Yeah, sure,” I said, pulling out his Poké ball and recalling him, knowing that he would hurt less inside it. I then walked over to Rudy and said, “Good battle, but how come you’re so good already, I mean—”

“Ah, well…that’d be Stalker’s doing. He’s been going around and giving short strategy lessons to everyone, you should talk to him. In fact, here he is now,” Rudy explained.

“I wanted to see how Rudy was doing now and I guess you need some help too, Jade,” Stalker said, walking over. “Did you ever take Battling and Strategy in school?”

“Yeah,” I said, leaving out the fact that I had pretty much forgotten everything I had learned in it.

“Yeah, well, seventy percent of battling should be strategy, only thirty percent brute strength,” he continued. “To give you an example…say I had my Charizard use a Flamethrower attack on your Charmeleon. What would you do?”

I paused and thought about it slightly before saying, “I guess since Charizard’s way stronger and faster, I’d have him dodge it and use multiple fire attacks himself, so he doesn’t miss.” Right after I said that, I suddenly realized that had been, in a way, what Ajia had done: battle a stronger Pokémon, yet win through strategy. It was at that moment that I realized exactly how much I needed to learn.

Seeing the look on my face, Stalker said, “Just figured out how complex battling is, huh? You could have a one-on-one battle between two Pokémon and over a million things could happen. What you just said, however, is the basic concept of strategy. Once you’ve got that, you can start learning how to defeat trainers with more powerful Pokémon than you.” It was yet another example of how Stalker’s training was similar to Ajia’s. I wondered if they knew each other.

“Is that all there is to it?” I asked.

“Well, no. See, pretty much all of the Rockets you’ll battle will have stronger Pokémon that you, and you need to master this to beat them,” Stalker explained. “A lot of people think that trainers just stand there and yell the attacks while the Pokémon do all the real work. Although it is true that the Pokémon do all the battling, no matter how smart they are, strategy has to be up to the trainer.

“See, it’s extremely hard for Pokémon to battle and strategize at the same time because they’re focusing on the battle so intently they’re bound to miss a lot of things. But because the trainer is watching it happen from a distance, they can see what both their Pokémon and the opponent’s is doing, making it easier for them to make a strategy that fits into the entire battle and lets the Pokémon never take their mind off the opponent,” he explained.

Firestorm nodded; he had been hanging on Stalker’s every word. I was getting it now. “So…even if an opposing Pokémon is more powerful than yours, if you can out-strategize the trainer, you have a chance at winning?”

“And that chance will only increase with training, yep, you’ve got it. Now there are a lot more aspects to battling, like training your Pokémon to attack without command, using hand signals for attacks to not give away your moves to the opponent, and even getting to the point where you don’t have to command for your Pokémon to know what you want them to do, but those all take time and we’ll work on that later. For now, I just want everyone to understand the concept of strategy,” Stalker said. He pulled out a small microphone and held it next to his mouth. I looked around the stadium and noticed several speakers along the walls.

“Listen up trainers!” Stalker yelled, his voice issuing from the walls. Once he had everyone’s attention he said, “I’ve gotten to talk to most of you about strategy, but for those of you that I haven’t yet, don’t worry, I’ll get to you. I just wanted to tell everyone that as long as you practice this, you’ll be able to take on Team Rocket ‘cause they don’t stress strategy in their training. When I think you’re ready, I’ll find a mission for you all to go on.”

“What are we gonna be called?” a voice suddenly called out from the crowd.

“Yeah! We need a team name!” someone else yelled. At once, everyone started talking and yelling out ideas. “How about Team Midnight, ‘cause we’re on Midnight Island!” one kid yelled. “No, we could be the Team Rocket Rebellion!” another shouted. “Nah, that’s too long, just The Rebellion! It sounds more mysterious and harder to track down!” a girl exclaimed excitedly.

“I like the sound of that,” Stalker said all of a sudden with a grin. “All in favor of The Rebellion raise their hand!” Over half the kids shot their hands into the air. “Well, that settles it,” Stalker said, smiling. “In a few weeks, The Rebellion is gonna be a force to be reckoned with.”