Welcome to yet another chapter dearies
Enjoy
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The courtyard was less of a gathering place and more of a prison yard.
High, rusted fences topped with humming electric coils boxed them in.
Floodlights cut through the dawn mist, illuminating the wet, churned earth.
The humidity was already rising, sticking the grey uniform to Alex's back.
In the center of the yard stood a raised metal platform.
On it stood a man who looked like he had been carved out of granite.
He wore a pristine black Team Rocket uniform with red stripes running down the sleeves...a Captain.
Beside him, coiled like a thick purple rope, was an Arbok.
It was massive, easily three meters long, its hood flared.
The pattern on its chest looked like a screaming face.
It hissed, tasting the air, its slit pupils scanning the crowd of shivering teenagers as if they were nothing more than Rattata.
Alex swallowed hard.
That's a Level 40 Pokémon, minimum,Maybe 50.
The Captain tapped a microphone.
The screech of feedback silenced the murmuring crowd instantly.
"I am the commander here," the man said.
His voice was bored, flat.
"I am the lord of this island.
My word is law.
And the first law is simple: Weakness is a sin."
He paced the stage, his boots clicking on the metal.
"You are on Island 4.
It is approximately one hundred square kilometers of jungle, swamp, and ruins.
It is filled with wild Pokémon that will not hesitate to kill you.
There are no Nurse Joys here.
There are no Police Officers.
There is only the Mission."
Commander stopped and pointed a gloved finger at the crowd.
"You have one year.
Every month, you will return here for evaluation.
If you are in the bottom ten percent, you will be liquidated.
If you fail to capture a Pokémon, you will be liquidated.
If you try to escape by sea, the Gyarados herds will liquidate you."
A ripple of fear went through the recruits. Alex clenched his fists.
Liquidated,They mean executed.
"However," commander smirked, a cruel expression that didn't reach his eyes.
"For the strong, there is glory.
The top 50 survivors will be inducted as official Team Rocket operatives.
You will receive a rank.
A salary and most importantly... a League Citizenship identity."
The crowd gasped.
Alex felt a jolt.
Citizenship.
That was the golden ticket.
In this world, if you weren't a League Citizen, you were dirt.
You couldn't buy a house, you couldn't challenge Gyms, you couldn't even enter a Pokémon Center without an ID.
Rocket was offering a way to launder their identities.
"Enough talk," commander snapped.
He gestured to the side of the courtyard.
Large, wooden crates were stacked there. They were stamped with the Pokéball logo.
"Inside those crates are your starters.
They are leftovers.
Defects,Commons,Catch one, and your trial begins.
You have five minutes before the gates open."
Commander checked his watch and looked up, his grin widening.
"Begin."
It wasn't a selection.
It was a stampede.
Four hundred desperate teenagers surged forward like a tidal wave.
Alex was shoved from behind, nearly biting his tongue.
He didn't fight the current; he rode it, using his smaller size to slip between the flailing limbs of the larger recruits.
Focus, Don't panic.
Use the interface.
He reached the crates.
It was absolute chaos.
Kids were clawing at each other, ripping lids off boxes.
Alex saw a nearest crate which marked
[POISON / BUG].
He dove for it, sliding on his knees through the mud.
He reached inside, his hand closing around the cold, smooth metal of a standard red-and-white Pokéball.
Got one.
He didn't stop there.
He pulled it close to his face, his heart pounding.
Status!
The blue window flashed instantly over the ball.
[ Pokémon: Zubat (Male) ]
[ Level: 5 ]
[ Aptitude: Yellow (Solid) ]
[ Ability: Inner Focus ]
[ Moves: Absorb, Supersonic ]
[ Egg Move: None ]
Alex's eyes widened. Yellow Aptitude?
According to the memories he had inherited, most common Pokémon were Black or Green aptitude.
Yellow was... decent. It was workable. With the right training, a Yellow-tier Crobat could be a speed demon.
It wasn't a god-tier starter, but for a trash crate, he had struck gold.
"Yes," Alex hissed, a genuine smile breaking across his face beneath the mask.
"I can work with th...."
BAM
A boot slammed into his shoulder, spinning him around.
Alex sprawled into the mud, the breath driven from his lungs.
He gasped, clutching the Pokéball to his chest instinctively.
He looked up.
Standing over him were three boys.
The one in the center was tall, with a shaved head and a nasty, jagged scar running through his left eyebrow.
He looked like he had been fighting in the slums since he could walk.
"Hand it over, freak," the scar-faced boy spat.
Alex scrambled backward, mud slicking his hands.
"There are other crates!
Go get one!"
"They're empty," Scar said, stepping closer. He cracked his knuckles.
"And you have a nice, shiny one right there."
Alex looked around.
The frenzy at the crates had died down.
The slow kids were left empty-handed, looking terrified.
The strong had taken what they wanted. And now, the predators were looking for seconds.
"I said," Scar growled, aiming a kick at Alex's ribs, "hand it over."
Alex's mind raced.
I have a knife in my inventory.
I can summon it.
I can stab him.
But hesitation paralyzed him.
He was Alex Hales, a pharmacy student.
He had never stabbed a human being.
In the split second it took him to debate the morality of murder, the boot connected.
CRACK
"Gah!"
The air exploded out of Alex.
Pain, white-hot and blinding, radiated from his ribs.
He curled into a fetal position, coughing into the mud.
The agony was overwhelming.
It wasn't like a video game health bar going down; his body screamed that it was broken.
"Grab him," Scar ordered.
Two other boys pinned Alex's arms to the ground.
He thrashed, kicking out, but he was malnourished and 14.
They were stronger.
Scar reached down and pried Alex's fingers open.
Alex tried to hold on, his nails digging into the metal of the ball, but Scar stomped on his wrist.
"Ahhh!" Alex screamed, his grip failing.
Scar snatched the Pokéball.
He held it up to the light, smirking.
"Zubat, huh? Better than nothing." Scar looked down at Alex, who was wheezing in the dirt, clutching his broken wrist.
"Thanks for the donation, Ares.
Or whatever your name is."
"Give... it... back..." Alex choked out, tears of pain mixing with the rain on his mask.
"Or what?" Scar laughed.
He leaned down, his face inches from Alex's.
"You're going to tell the who?
Grow up. There are no rules here."
Scar stood up and spat on Alex's chest.
"Let's go, boys.
The gates are opening."
The trio walked away, laughing, disappearing into the crowd of recruits moving toward the massive steel gates leading to the jungle.
Alex lay there for a long time.
The mud was cold.
His wrist throbbed with a dull, sickening rhythm.
His ribs felt like they were on fire every time he took a breath.
He checked his watch.
[ Points: 100 ]
[ Pokémon: 0 ]
He checked his Inventory.
[ Knife ]
[ MP3 Player ]
He had hesitated.
Because he hesitated, he lost.
Because he was weak, he was robbed.
Slowly, agonizingly, Alex pushed himself up to his knees.
He vomited bile onto the ground.
The physical pain was bad, but the humiliation was worse.
He had the Knowledge, he had the Cheat, and he was still face-down in the dirt.
Yellow Aptitude, he thought bitterly.
That Zubat could have been my partner.
He looked toward the open gates.
The jungle loomed dark and foreboding.
He had no Pokémon to protect him.
Entering that treeline was suicide.
But staying here meant execution.
Alex wiped the mud from his mask.
His eyes, behind the synthetic skin, were no longer panicked.
They were cold.
The 22-year-old morality was dying, suffocated by the reality of Island 4.
"No rules," Alex whispered, his voice hoarse.
He summoned the Combat Knife from his inventory.
The weight of the steel felt heavy in his good hand.
He hid it inside his sleeve.
He didn't need a Starter from a crate.
He needed to find a victim.
Alex Hales stood up, limping, and walked toward the gates of hell.
Authors Note:
Well that's chapter 2 .
Support with collections and power stones.