My eyes widened, and I tensed to hold in the gasp that threatened to escape. I of course knew about Team Rocket, that most iconic of villainous pokemon teams. But I’d yet to see or hear any mention of them from my parents, the news, or in my explorations of the internet. Despite growing up close to the ghost tower in Lavender Town, I’d never even heard whispers of an evil organization killing pokemon, nor of the marowak they were supposed to have killed. I’d hoped that the existence of Team Rocket was one of the areas in which my meta knowledge diverged from my new reality.

Unfortunately, it seemed like that wasn’t the case.

If Team Rocket was real, did that mean the other evil team organizations were real as well? Was Team Galactic somewhere in Sinnoh, at this very moment working to destroy and then rebuild the universe?

I wasn’t the protagonist of this world. I had no illusions about being destined to save the pokemon universe or anything like that — my adventure in the ghost tower taught me that my life was just as fragile as anyone else’s. But if there really were multiple other teams out there threatening to destroy the world…surely I could at least give the authorities in those regions a quick phone call?

I shook my head. That was a problem for the future — right now, I was still in Kanto, where I (presumably) would only encounter Team Rocket. I…wasn’t entirely sure if that was a good or a bad thing. On the plus side, there was no danger of Team Rocket destroying the world or anything like that. Unlike so many of the other teams, they were motivated by one thing, and one thing only: profit. They were the least likely to destroy the world as we knew it, the least cartoonish in their goals and motivations. Yet out of all the teams, they were ones I could most easily imagine mugging or even killing some random trainer just setting out on their journey. Especially if that trainer tried to interfere in one of their operations.

No, I had no intention of getting mixed in with whatever was going on here.

Sure, I would likely call in an anonymous tip to the authorities once I got out of the mine, but that would be the beginning and hopefully end of my involvement with Team Rocket. This was a real world, with real consequences, and a normal pokemon journey was already dangerous enough; I wasn’t about to risk cutting my journey short by getting tangled up with mobsters.

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So as I took one final look around the cave, attempting to memorize any details to include with my anonymous tip that might make the authorities take me seriously, I readjusted my feet within the narrow crevasse to prepare for my climb back up to the mine shaft.

And somehow, one of the rocks shifted underneath me.

A dull thump echoed into the cavern, and I pulled my head back as the Team Rocket member’s head shot up. I held my breath as I tried to slide further back into the darkness of the crevasse, but I was scared to shift my weight too quickly and make any more noise.

“Smithson, that you?” the Rocket member called, and the only response was the continued faint clatter coming from down the tunnels. “Ekshrew, koffdude,” the man said a moment later, and I tensed upon hearing the unmistakable sound of two pokeballs opening. “Search the cavern, make sure none of our workers escaped. If it’s a wild fused or rare, knock it out and bring it to me. Otherwise…eliminate it.”

“Shrew!”

“Koff!”

I looked back up through the crevasse, barely able to twist my neck to look into the darkness above where I knew Hobbes was waiting.

Ekshrew and koffdude. Unless the Rocket member had some weird nicknaming scheme, those would be fusions of ekans and sandshrew, and koffing and geodude. Not too terribly intimidating, even if there were two of them and they were both fused.

The main problem was the terrain. I did not want to have a confrontation with part ground and rock types deep in an underground mineshaft. And I especially didn’t want Hobbes to have to try and fight them while we were wedged in the crevasse, trying to climb back to freedom. The passageway was tight enough that I wasn’t sure we could switch places for him to protect our rear, and it would be oh so easy for the ekshrew to follow us, closing whatever lead we might gain in seconds with its narrow body. And then all it would take was a single magnitude to do both of us in.

Luckily, it seemed we had a bit of time. The way the cavern distorted sounds disguised our location, and the Rocket member directed his pokemon to start their search closer to the entrance of one of the side tunnels rather than toward the corner of the cavern where we were hidden. But with how methodically the pokemon were searching, I doubted we could remain hidden forever, which meant we had to move. The only question was: where?

With the two pokemon searching for us, and without the distraction of the Rocket member arguing with his subordinate, could I climb back up through the crevasse silently enough to avoid detection?

I wasn’t sure. And that wasn’t a dice roll I wanted to make.

So with a deep, quiet breath to prepare myself, and a fervent prayer that I wasn’t making a huge mistake, I leveraged my arms against the rock walls on either side and slowly — carefully — pulled myself out of the crevasse.

And into the cavern.