65Chapter 1:
"Is that all you got you slowpokes?! I wanna see you run; pick up the pace if you don't want to clean the floor during break!" a harsh voice boomed through the gym, causing several desperate groans and wheezes from the lap-running folk in front of him. The about two dozen runners were made up of boys and girls ranging from early to late teens, with all of them running more or less close to each other around the track. Well, except for a trio that was a good way behind the rest; a taller girl with a long magenta ponytail that almost reached her butt, an equally tall boy with similarly drawn back, if way shorter lavender hair, and a clearly shorter boy with short blonde hair. The former two were panting and barely managed to keep running, while the later ran a bit behind them, cheering them on.
"Come on guys, you're almost done, just a bit more!" the blonde cheered, not nearly as exhausted as the other two.
Looking at the boy with disbelief, the taller boy managed to wheeze out, "Easy for you to say, kid … you're the furthest behind …"
"James, he's a lap ahead …", the girl coughed out and redoubled her effort, running a bit faster.
Not wanting to be outdone, James did the same. "Dammit, Jessie, and damn you Arthur for having so much energy!"
Arthur gave him a cheeky grin and sped up himself, the little shove he gave them being enough that they wouldn't be stripped of their lunch break. While the other two caught their breath, he gathered walked over to their instructor, who was writing down everyone's performance. "Ah, recruit Anderson, there you are. The facility head has altered the subjects for the rest of the week, as well as put together class Red and class Blue for it." The older man scratches his scruffy black goatee and handed him a lean folder. "Still can't believe that we have a child teaching our recruits … I trust there are no objections?"
Arthur briefly skipped over the what's in the folder before putting it under his arm and saluting with the other. "No, sir!"
The wary look the man shot him turned into amusement. "Good, 'cause you've raised my classes grades out of the dumps almost all by yourself! What better motivation than not to be outdone by some kid, am I right?" He bellowed in laughter as the older recruits shot them some stinky eyes and began leaving the gym. "While I'd love to see how those recruits from class Blue react to this arrangement, I'm afraid I'll have to report to Admin Archer. If they have a problem with you, just tell them that's it's on his orders, understood?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Dismissed!"
Not soon after he arrived in the cafeteria where all the other recruits were currently eating. While the tables weren't separated in any way, there was a clear divide between the classes with each of them sitting together and taking over one of the corners. All of them wore the same simple grey uniforms and the only distinguishable part of them were the colored stripes and their collars; red, blue, green, and yellow. He received a few curious looks when he walked through to get something to eat but was quickly waved over by the same duo he'd been running with.
As he sat down opposite of them, he noticed that the other younger recruits of their class were also seated there, chatting among themselves how their grades improved. When they got to the topic of their next class a few eyes wandered over to him before waving at him.
"I guess we should thank you for keeping us running," Jessie mumbled while sipping from the straw of her juice box.
James, who'd his mouth stuffed, looked up and quickly swallowed before adding "Yeah, urgh, I certainly wouldn't want to clean the whole gym floor. Again."
Taking a bite out of his apple, Arthur tilted his head to the side "I think you were fast enough for that even without me. Just didn't seem that way 'cause the others were even faster."
"So, we went all out for nothing?!" James cried out with Jessie shooting both of them an angry look.
"No, you certainly improved your scores with it. Since you're older recruits-" Arthur tried to reason but was quickly pulled across the table by a furious looking Jessie.
"Are you calling me old?!" she shouted as she shook him, which had James laughing until he choked on his food.
Another female voice shot over from the other side of the room, calling her exactly that, to which she let go of the boy in her hands and looked over, instead entering a shouting match with the owner of the other voice. Using his newfound freedom, Arthur slid over the table and hit James on the back a few times until he could breathe again.
He coughed a few times. "Oh dear, I think that asparagus went somewhere it shouldn't have. Thanks, Arthur, but you might want to refrain from using that word wither her."
The shouting above their heads only grew more vicious as Arthur chuckled. "I didn't mean it like that, but looks like she really doesn't like it."
"Yeah, she's like that …" James snorted and slowly pulled her back down onto her seat. "But she's right you know, about thanking you for your help. It's not like it's just for the physical lessons."
"Don't mention it," Arthur waved him off, "we're all playing for the same team, aren't we?"
"Does it feel like we are?" Jessie argued as she slowly cooled off and went into an eating frenzy. "I think you're the only one who believes that. Just look at those jerks from Blue class."
'With how disconnected the classes are from each other while taking every chance to antagonize or push back another? No, not really,' he thought. "That doesn't mean we have to be the same, though. And unlike the other classes I think we're way ahead in terms of teamwork."
"We are?" James looked at him surprised, to which he nodded, gaining some attention from their classmates.
"I've overheard our class head mentioning that our class received the highest score for the team exercise last week, so I'd like to think so."
Those who were listening in cheered, patting each other on the back and raised their cups, to which the three of them joined in. Their antics received a number of displeasured looks from the recruits from other classes but they didn't care. Class Red wasn't the bottom of the barrel any more, so their rival classes taunts and insults fell onto deaf ears. When the bell rang for the end of lunch break, they were the last ones to get up, but they got up as a team. A few of their classmates passed them, clapping Jessie and Arthur on the shoulders for a job well done.
While Jessie was positively glowing under the praise, James leaned down to the younger boy. "You really have to give me your notes on all the pokemon related stuff. How do you even know all that?"
"I've my ways," Arthur replied with a smile. "I can give you some more info no problem, but only if you don't fall behind on the other subjects."
James's look of passion for the topic told him not to worry. "I got this, and even if I struggle a bit, I still got you to help out, isn't that right?"
"Sure, as long as you all don't come for me all at once."
"Are you kidding me?!" "What's going on?" "They want a freaking child to teach us?! And from that loser Red class to boot?!" The sound of annoyed, angry, and disbelieved shouts rang out from one side of the classroom, which had been neatly divided in the middle. On each side sat an equal number of recruits, neatly divided by into their respective classes. While the ones with blue coloring cried out, the others either didn't react to the situation at all, simply leant back waiting for their lesson to start, not paying attention at all, and instead drawing doodles in their books, or, in case of Jessie and James, had an incredibly smug look on their faces as they turned to their rival class.
"What's wrong, Cassidy?" Jessie asked the blonde on the other side of the corridor in mock concern. "Aren't you used to being worse than the young?"
Cassidy, taking her eyes of the younger boy standing in front of them, whipped her head towards Jessie. "Say that again you hag!"
"Hag?!" The two started throwing every insult in the book at each other, causing James to lower his head to the table and groan loudly, while Arthur patiently flipped through his folder to see what's on the curriculum for today.
This … really wasn't how he'd expected any of this to go. It was freaky enough considering he was here in the first place; a world that was supposed to be but a world of fiction. Games, shows and movies, books, and merchandise. Lots of merchandise. Oh god the merchandise. When he woke up on that fateful day almost two years ago, he thought all of this was just a very descriptive dream, most likely caused by having failed to refuse another drinking prompt from his friends. "It's just a dream, I'll wake up soon enough," he'd told himself again and again. When Team Rocket had came by and scooped him and the other orphans up from a small, no-name town in Orre he'd thought that it'd be a trigger to wake up. He didn't.
He hadn't even realized where he'd ended up until they arrived. There were practically no pokemon in the Orre region after all; a small amount was held by an even smaller number of trainers, and the number of wild pokemon was close to if not zero. Which is why he'd actually been glad that he was taken and brought over to Kanto. Sure, anything to do with Team Rocket was bound to be nasty, and he was rightfully scared back then when they'd barreled in with their Raticate's and Ekans, but how much would it have sucked if he was stuck in the world of Pokémon, only to be in the one region that barely had any?
What surprised him, other than the little fact that he was indeed in another world and unlikely to have just a very elaborate dream of it, was the body he'd found himself in. He didn't have his own, not even a younger version of it, nor a character known from the franchise. No, instead he realized that it was from a character he himself had created for another roleplaying campaign he was supposed to play with his friends. One that certainly wasn't supposed to happen in this world. No, Arthur Anderson, his now persona, was supposed to be the orphaned son of a handmaiden turned witch after her husband had been framed and executed for crimes he didn't commit. While he had no idea about the characters parents in this world, the fact that he'd get picked up into a criminal organization fit for the part after that. But it wasn't just the foreign and younger body that affected him …
"Alright everyone, that's enough," he announced while loudly hitting the folder onto the desk in front of him. Without noticing, a big smile appeared on his face as he addressed his class with a soft, yet commanding tone that got everyone's attention. "Some of you may have doubts about me teaching you all I'll have you know that I've been holding these classes for our own Red class for about two months now. While I doubt everyone has been keeping up with the performance of the other classes, I think you should know that we've officially taken the first place on the subject of 'Pokémon Knowledge & Application'."
A rumble went through the whole classroom, with his own classmates being surprised and even smug about that new piece of knowledge, while the others shouted in anger and disbelief. This time he didn't bother quieting them down, instead opting to simply talk over them. "If any of you have problems with this arrangement or your ranking, you may take this up to Admin Archer yourselves." That got them to pause, so he continued. "Should you refuse to take any classes with me as your teacher you're free to leave now and not appear here at any further classes-" A good number of class Blue students stood up. "- but know that I will forward it to your class heads and am authorized to grade you on this subject." And all of them sat down again. Certainly not happy, but it's not like they had much of a choice right now. All they could do was give him nasty if not outright murderous glares, which reminded him how good it was that his own class had each other's backs.
One thing he'd learned in these almost two years was that members of Team Rocket, no matter if they're Recruits, Grunts or even Specialists, tried their best not to be confronted with their higher ups, especially with someone as cold and analytical as Admin Archer. They'd try to butter them up and find a way to climb the ranks quickly, sure, but taking a problem to someone that could assign them to gutter cleaning for weeks if not months at the drop of a head? That was a big no-no, and it was only one of the punishments in the Rocket Academy. Trying to stab direct rivals or whole classes in the back to present themselves better was a daily occurrence, which might be a reason why he'd gotten not only his class heads but Archer's attention to begin with. Unlike many other recruits, he'd given tips and prompts indiscriminately ever since the first lesson he attended, something that bore fruit quickly. He didn't remember exactly what it was that caused him to do this back then, but something must've hit the incredibly soft side of his mixed persona.
Since then, other recruits, except those from class Blue who'd since been hailed the elite of the academy, openly greeted him whenever they encountered him, asked for advice, and seemingly cared about his well-being when they told them about someone that was waiting for him around the corner or was following him. The one time he'd been sent to the infirmary due to one over-eager recruit failing to control his training pokemon there'd been quite a few visitors. While the thought of getting so much attention in an organization like Team Rocket scared him at first, it didn't compare to the fight or flight response he'd had when he was brought in front of Archer for the first time. He'd completely frozen up at that time and took way longer to respond to the man than he should've. Luckily for him, he didn't just have the right touch of getting along with people, but a vast array of knowledge about what this world contained and how pokemon and everything related to them worked, on a purely theoretical level, that is. Years of gaming, not wasted!
His odd behavior and extensive knowledge, which he somehow tried to justify with his supposedly dead parents having been researchers, got him the attention of one of the most powerful people in Team Rocket. While the whole ordeal was way too much in the beginning, it gave him an idea. Of course, he didn't want to spend his time being a criminal; he wanted to see the fantastical world he was thrown into, become a successful trainer, coordinator, ranger, whatever! There was no way he could do that as a simple member of Team Rocket, not even if he managed to climb the ranks. But maybe, just maybe, he could use the attention he got and knowledge he had and pitch the big boss an idea that would not only further his own goals, but the goals of the organization. With it being the criminal group it was, that might not be the best idea but it was the only one he had managed to came up with since then. Maybe this version of Team Rocket could be kept from going full-on terrorist, as they were more like thieves and thugs at the moment. Maybe they would become too radical, too greedy, and needed to be dismantled. Either way, he'd do everything to get his chance to-
A polite cough ripped him out of his train of thought as the assembled recruits all stared at him, James even waving widely to snap him out of it. Crap, he really should keep those thoughts to when he was off the clock. At least he didn't say them out loud, right? He sure hoped so, shook his head, and opened his folder while grabbing himself a piece of chalk. "Ahem, so, today's lesson will be about dealing with opposition while out in the field. First, we'll go over some general points before narrowing it down to specific scenarios. Any takers?"
He pointed towards the first raised hand, which happened to be Jessie's. "Any opposition faced should be tried to scare off at the first chance with the advantage in numbers!"
Before he could comment on that, Cassidy interjected while looking eyes with Jessie. "Encountered police forces should be aggressively dealt with immediately, preferably in an ambush, if they're not accompanied by a stronger trainer. Rangers are a coinflip for Grunts to deal with, while Ace Trainers are to be left to ranks Specialist and above. Random trainers and bystanders, as well as wild pokemon are to be scared off."
The two girls growled at each other, a clear spark of rivalry in the air between them that was almost visible, while the others looked towards him for a clear answer. "Both of you raise valid points here. In any scenario, whether you're going towards or from your objective, it's best advised to scare off whoever you encounter." A huge smirk graced Jessies face, before she stuck out her tongue at Cassidy. "This is because every second spent fighting is not only time wasted from achieving your objective, but a potential to get noticed. A scared of trainer might call the authorities once they think they've gotten away to a safe distance from you, but a beaten trainer will do so instantly. Not to mention the commotion a battle will cause in the first place will have everyone in the vicinity curious to what's going on."
"However; if push comes to shove, then everything Recruit … Yamato-," he'd taken a moment to look at the names of the recruits, as he couldn't be on first-name basis here "- mentioned is correct and should be followed." That in turn cause Cassidy to grin, igniting the two girls' fervor once more. "In most cases you won't know how strong a trainer is unless you've got intel on them. While every piece of information added to your assignment should be carefully reviewed, there isn't always enough on everyone you can possibly encounter. Thus, the number of pokeballs they carry, as well as their model, may indicate their strength, as does their age. While there're always exceptions, older trainers with full teams are to be avoided unless a member ranked Specialist or above is present. High ranked Ace Trainers, Rangers, and everything above them is only ever to be engaged by a team of top Specialists or Executives. Never, under any circumstance, get into a fight with Gym Leaders, Elite Four members, or even the Champion."
While this piece of information was clear from a pure gameplay standpoint, it was so much more important in this 'real' world. "While some of you might make the rank and power to have a chance, it is ill advised to battle them anyway. They're way above your paygrade and can cause not only collateral damage, but critically injure if not outright kill you or your pokemon." With that said, everyone's attention was back on him as he wrote down everything on one side of the blackboard. It was a heavy topic he'd only caught onto when listening to the non-recruits that sporadically come into the facility. He hadn't seen much himself yet, but considering that these types of trainers were supposed to be the pillars of their regions, their strongest trainers that had teams beyond those they used in the Gym Challenge, it would be silly to think that they would be defeated by a bunch of grunts, no matter how many there were.
"Now, let's see how much you can come up with when dealing with different scenarios. We'll start with a forest excavation with you only having a Rattata on you …"
Hello and thanks for reading, kind stranger! Welcome to my second ever (released) story, featuring an OC with hints of more, totally original, I know, I know. But with how many of those I'm reading and liking, I just had to try one myself. As for the setup I chose somethign I haven't quite read like and have a few ideas for, which is why we'll be dealing with a lot of Team Rocket in this fic, especially with the loveable trio of Jessie, James, and Meowth. In case anyone's wondering, I took the japanese names of the characters as their last names, as I felt it was weird to have everyone on first-name basis and found them quite fitting as Kanto is a japanese area. How I'll do that with other characters where that might not fit? I'll find out until then, I promise.
If you enjoyed reading I hope you'll come again next time and maybe leave a review with whatever you'd like to tell me. Constructive criticism is always welcome, as are notes about your enjoyment. Hope to see you again!