“This is the direct aftermath of one of the battles from the Great War twelve years ago, taken by photographer Richard Nelson, who was killed two weeks later.” The teacher in front of them was pointing a stick at the board. Her arbok continuously prowled the classroom. Claire had no idea if that was an intended intimidation tactic, but it worked. Every time the snake pokémon came near her Claire couldn’t help but stare at how massive he was.

It was like staring at a fucking dinosaur, for fuck’s sake. The solid 36 floating above its head didn’t help.

“Can anyone guess why he was killed?” The woman turned to them, a serious look on her face. Claire stared at the photo and felt nausea pulse through her. The scattered bodies of various pokémon and humans on the screen were what they had seen all day, but having whole classes centered around the tragedies of wars was unnerving.

The class, the trainees Claire had been stuck with for weeks now, didn’t say a word. No one really wanted to be ridiculed by this woman. Her fucking arbok stood higher than almost all of them. Especially Claire.

“He was a close associate with Professor Oak,” She clicked the remote. “This photograph was taken after a battle with various Johto and Kanto officials, including gym leaders Pryce and Chuck, current Champion Lance, and previous Indigo League Champion Samuel Oak. in the Battle of Mt. Silver. It was one of the conclusive battles of the war.”

The following photos she showed us in silence. The first was of wild and tamed pokémon in the aftermath of the battlefield in various states. Some were visibly injured, others raging against the trainers there, and some were sitting loyally by fallen parties. Claire kicked Totodile under her desk to wrap her legs around him. She put his head on her lap to hide him from seeing it.

The second photograph was of Samuel Oak, whose face was becoming as familiar to her as Chris Pratt’s used to be. He looked angry but too tired for his body. He was holding something unseen to a tauros who was heavily injured. There was a crying woman in the corner, holding the head of a nidoqueen who was splayed in the left part of the picture. Her attention was also caught in how disturbed the landscape looked around them. As if multiple natural disasters had occurred at once.

Being aware of what superpowered pokémon could do in a war is different than seeing the reality of it.

The anger on Professor Oaks' face haunted her, even as the teacher in front of them went on and on about the effects of this battle on the war. It was such a loud anger. Something that you flinched away from another person’s face when you saw it in front of you.

Claire felt a nip at her wrist, and she blinked down. Toto was staring up at her, and she relaxed her hands when she realized she had clenched them. Her knuckles were white.

“Richard Nelson was assassinated after a disagreement with Professor Oak on the continuity of the war. His death resulted in Professor Oak’s decision to pressure Kanto forces to surrender to Johto and create a treaty, then the Indigo League was established.”

The woman snapped her stick against the wall the projector was on, and her arbok rushed to the front and curled around her feet.

“All but a select few of you are too young to remember what happened when Kanto surrendered to Johto, but it still affects you to this day. That is the necessity of Team Rocket.” She curled her head on her arbok’s massive wings framing his head.

“Can some of you give me examples?” The older woman ventured, the darkness of her uniform disappearing as her arbok made himself comfortable wrapping around her slightly.

The older girl a few seats ahead of her raised her hand. Claire thinks her name is Mary and she always talks softly, her zubat was curled around her neck.

“Kanto landmarks were destroyed in the war and were banned from being rebuilt.” She said, more determined than Claire had ever seen her.

“Correct Maru. Kanto is still recovering its cultural heritage from all that was destroyed. A harrowing example is the destruction of the Saffron Library.”

Claire thought of the Library of Alexandria. She also wondered if all this was real or how biased it was. This was a terrorist organization that told them stealing pokémon was allowed constantly. There was a war. Claire knew that because even though people avoided it in Cherrygrove it was still mentioned. The fact that no one had told her how bad the war had been was because she was a child and the fact that she had holed herself in a room for almost a year from her ‘awakening’.

“What’s another example?” The woman asked, looking as pleased as her arbok receiving affection.

“People weren't allowed to keep their pokémon.” Someone snarled behind her. She looked and Ferris was talking. He was someone she avoided, he was always calculating and belittling the people around him. Ferris was also the one with the pidgey who had almost mauled that zubat to death one of the first days they were there, and she could see Maru flinch when he spoke out of the corner of her.

“Elaborate.” Their teacher said.

“If pokémon are deemed dangerous,” He looked solidly at Claire as he kept speaking. The hair on the back of her neck rose. “The League is allowed to reign in and take any pokémon that is perceived as ‘too’ dangerous to handle. But what they really are doing is taking all the strong pokémon for themselves. They took my pokémon from me. After it took six years to establish the Indigo League again, and that traitor Oak resigned, they put a ban on him battling and made a law that said they could steal pokémon.”

Claire had no idea how to digest that hypocritical rhetoric, so she turned away. How could you condemn a government for stealing pokémon but join an organization that centered around it?

Heels clicked on the flow as their teacher, Claire really needed to learn her name, stepped out of the wrapping of her arbok. She walked to Ferris, who had gotten loud in his rant.

“You are correct, Ferris, very passionate about this.” She clicked her tongue and looked down on him.” “Dear Ferris raises one of the main points of Team Rocket. Not only do we fund the establishment of all those who were affected by the war, and have done so for years, but we fight for pokémon. We fight for them to return to the owners they were stolen from. We fight for them to belong to people who deserve them. Not the greedy, money-driven higher-ups who left all their people to rot in the war.”

Claire felt an unease rise in her by all the awestruck teenagers and young adults around her.

She turned back to the front and snapped her hand. Her Arbok stood tall behind her.

“When we take over the League, and the corrupt center inside of it, we will bring glory back to how Kanto and Johto once were. We will rebuild our cities and establish a society where those who truly deserve to stand on the top stay there.” She looked at all of them. Claire noticed how dark her eyes were at that moment.

“We will rebuild our libraries. We will punish those who have wronged and killed innocent men and women. We will be strong enough to make the difference the league cares little about. We will preserve the future of our nation.” The woman smiled then, patting her arbok on the head as she looked ahead, imagining her utopia

“Just wait. We’ll make you all glorious.

…

Claire felt like she was going mad. Totodile barked at her every few minutes as she paced the room. It was stupid to skip the meals they provided for them like trained dogs, especially with their training every day. Totodile had been growing bigger and a 9 shone above him but that made her sick, too.

All she could do was look at the excited teenagers around her, practically children, and she wanted to yell. Maybe it was the hormones of having such a young, growing body under so much stress. Maybe it was her mind warring with her emotions. Maybe it was how much she missed talking to Lyra and Matron Mary, or even her mother. God forbid she let herself think of her friends and family from her past life, otherwise she would truly go insane.

She couldn’t get the photo of that battlefield out of her head, no matter how much she beat it. No matter how many times she washed her hands, she had the phantom sensation of fur there and the rhythm of a slow beating heart.

…

“You're lucky Commander Fern didn’t kill your blue mutt,” Ferris said to Claire as she tried to keep her head down and eat. After two weeks of ignoring everyone around her, she was almost successful in avoiding contact with anyone but the trainers.

Until this absolute menace tried to get her to speak to him. She didn’t even look up at him. There was very little that could make Claire interested in him, not after how his psychopathic pidgey had nearly mauled that zubat on the first day of training. Not after he constantly ridiculed and made fun of the other trainees for their weaknesses. He probably just saw her as his next target.

“A feraligatr murdered his starter in a war, did you know? Seeing a little brat have the same evolution line that murdered his pokémon must have made him very tempted to just do away with it.”

The teenager’s voice had a heavy kantonian accent and Claire felt as if all eyes were judging her once again. When she had first been here she hadn't realized that the instructor who had beat her Toto into the ground had the same accent as well. Being surrounded by war-torn Kantonians changed that really fast. Nothing like people hating you because of where you are from to make the divide between you present.

“Hello, are you deaf?”

Claire didn’t take another bite but didn’t look up. She eyed Toto beside her, who was tilting his head at the teenager a couple of years older than her. Her eyes met the dickhead’s in front of hers and she knew she was giving him what he wanted when he grinned at her. His hair was a shaggy dark blonde and his uniform swamped him, making him look like a stupid scarecrow.

“You can barely keep up with the physical exercises.” Claire felt herself tense as he kept going. “You were the last person to come out of the ‘rattata room’.” He looked like he was genuinely becoming angry as he kept speaking. That was alarming but she really couldn’t do anything but sit there. It was odd to see a young teenager act so unstable, but that was Team Rocket for you. They truly accepted the best, didn't they?

Then he said the final piece to the insult. “And you're from Johto.” Claire decided to keep eating despite her nerves becoming distracting. The silence around them from the other trainees felt thunderous.

Most of the Rockets were from Kanto, but now that they were stationed in Johto, or she assumed so by the ranting they heard droned on every day that they were, there were Johto recruits. Which followed her knowledge of the games.

However much that mattered, anyway. The other Johtonese people there always avoided their origins as much as they could in conversation and the group activities they were forced to participate in. Some of them had made a group that sat at the table in front of her in their meager trainee lunch hall.

“You aren’t going to say anything?” He said, deceivingly calmed despite his clenched fists. And that's enough of that. Claire grabbed her bowl of potato soup and decided the best option was to leave.

Putting her back to the guy gave him a chance to push forward. Toto growled, and she turned around rapidly to watch him before he tried to do it again.

“I'm speaking to you.” Was all the blonde said, staring down at her.

Claire didn’t answer. She just stared at him. She had no idea what to do. He looked disgusted at her lack of answer and rolled his eyes at her.

“Good to know you are a pussy, too.”

As he walked away from her, Claire felt a sense of dread rise in her. The other trainees around her were looking at her with some disdain or embarrassment. She had the idea to throw her stupid soup bowl at the guy, but that was childish.

All she felt was childish and useless these days anyway.

…

The days stuck together over and over again. It was probably a numbing tactic to make them lose their individuality, but it did work. They trained together, they ate together, they learned together, and they hated together. Even if Claire was disliked they liked her more than Commander Fern, who had beaten all their pokémon at this point. Even Ferris.

Right now, they were forced to all sit in a circle. All thirty-six of them. They were all told questions to answer in the circle. Like a church camp revival or some type of sorority. Why the fuck could she have not been reborn in some nice part of Sinnoh or something? Damn.

Right now it was Sally’s turn, who was telling us how she had found her pokémon.

“I found Miracle in a poacher’s trap by Pewter City. She’s the reason I wanted to join Team Rocket. Gym Leader Brock is great, but he can only do so much about the people who hunt pokémon out there in the mountains.” Claire thought rather sardonically that was a sure brilliant way of stopping poaching. By joining a poaching organization. However, after days of hearing all the doctrine and rhetoric being pushed down her throat, she wondered if there was some truth.

“Another lesson on things Rocket will work to prevent when we come into power.” Their teacher said, staring over them at the desks pushed against the walls.

They were picking and choosing certain information and how to tell them. The battles and tragedies happened, but were they just the League’s fault? It gave Claire a headache. It made her feel sick because she was starting to think some of it might honestly be true and that she was considering it in the first place.

People don’t join a terrorist organization if everything is alright, after all. Seeing all these young children and teenagers here made her know at least some adults were fucking failing somehow.

The blonde fourteen-year-old, Samuel, beside her from Lavender Town, shocker what you learn about people against your will, spoke next.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“My growlithe was from my dad. He died in the war.” That was blunt, Claire thought, but then she felt bad about being comical when he looked genuinely sad. Sally patted him on the back, and he just sat there looking at his growlithe.

It got quiet for a few awkward minutes before Claire realized it was her turn. Goddamnit.

“I uh…” Claire wanted to kick herself for how quiet her voice was. She coughed into a fist before speaking again. “I fell into a river and Totodile saved me.” Let them make up their own ideas about what happened after that.

“Seriously?” Maru asked, squinting at her. Well, Claire wasn’t lying so she just nodded and looked away.

“Can you not swim?” Janet said from the other side of her, a bored look on her face as her dark blue hair framed her expression.

“No,” Claire said. It was a raging river. Eventually, they got bored of her responses despite her starter story being interesting. That was the most she had spoken to someone in weeks. Damn, she missed listening to Lyra speak.

…

They trained and exercised over and over again. They started training them in drills to use the moves their pokémon knew, and Claire was in slight awe at how much she could see the people around her progress. The pokémon grew stronger under pressure. Even if some of them needed encouragement or didn’t like fighting, they wanted to please their partners.

Like Totodile. He shone like a diamond in how much he progressed compared to the other pokémon. It was like he was built for battle. She got many dirty looks for how tough his skin was when they did endurance exercises and how strong his jaws were when they attacked the dummies. The label ‘warfare’ kept getting thrown around, and Claire grew increasingly nervous.

They needed to get out of here, somehow.

They had been trained in only the practical aspects. Their teacher, whose name was actually Professor Milkwood from Kanto, had been telling them about battle strategies for the past week. She had been showing them battles in grainy videos from the war and even just battles that weren’t limited to League rules.

It was harrowing, watching a walrien gut pokémon with ice spears left and right. It was also illuminating how much Claire did not want to be a professional trainer, even if this was nothing like professional battling.

“This is the real world, kids, where people will want to maim you and your pokémon, not make ‘em faint. There ain’t no rules in the real battles.” Commander Fern had told them.

Every day Claire was nervous about the inevitable day they would force them to battle each other for practice.

In her past life, Claire had avoided crowds like this like the plague. She had been born in a poor area, so the inevitable link between crime and poverty had forced her to grow up in the cold reality of crime and every sort that fell into it willingly or not. She had seen kids whose parents had handed them their first fix, their first line of coke. She had watched it happen once or twice in silent agony.

But to become part of something she knew was wrong? Claire had prided herself on not doing that before when she was just a girl in some backwoods part of southern America. The strip of choice had been bothering her more with every day. Especially when she was surrounded by people who had joined for misguided, good reasons. It made her feel stupid as hell.

However, every time Totodile wiggled at her for a successful water gun, she found herself forgiving herself a little bit.

So they practiced in their small room. Claire didn’t know pokémon fights like the back of her head or even remotely a pokémon trainer. Yet, she guided Totodile to jump over her arm and dodge imaginary strikes. Over and over again she practiced with him how to duck and bite. Totodile adapted faster than she could come up with moves. She told him about all the stuff she had seen pokémon do before. Nothing that would get her locked up and mindraped if there was a recorder in here. But as if it was from the videos or something she watched online.

“Okay, remember the move we saw that lapras do on the screen today?” Totodile shook his head. He was probably dozing.

“It was…” Claire struggled to word it. She disliked even teaching her adorable pokémon something so vicious. That’s life for you, though.

“She bit the seadra here,” She placed her hand on his stomach. “And used a water move.” The poor thing had flown across the screen and fainted instantly.

“You can’t be dependent on me to order you around. Not when these crazies are going to be pitting us against each other like dogs. Even though they were both water pokémon used to heavy currents, the force of a water blast that close bruised the pokémon and probably caused…” Claire felt a lump in her throat. “Internal bleeding.”

Totodile watched her closely and then nodded his head.

“Trust your gut. I think you can fight better than I can if you can’t hear me. So, try to incapacitate your opponent or weaken them.” Claire said, and Totodile nodded again. He stared at her before motioning to her arm again. She stuck it out so he could dive under it, again and again.

…

Totodile had been flexing his jaws for days, but Claire could not remember his moveset for the life of her. Instead, she just sat in her empty room and told him about paintings as he repeatedly opened his mouth. This time, however, he was slapping it shut. Over and over again.

“Wiggmann, sorry Wegmann was born in 1847, and she was born somewhere in the ass crack of Switzerland. She wasn’t even trained until she was nineteen. Did you know that Totodile? And-”

Again and again. All Claire could hear was the silence of her empty cell room and Totodile chomping his jaw shut.

“She began her training with the support of her parents but eventually decided it would be best to learn from ‘nature’. She made friends with Jeanna Bauck, and they had this legendary friendship. She-” Again and again and again. Claire had to stop and gather herself.

“She had this way of painting women. I don’t know if she just saw them like that, with some lightness and an eternal gaze on the viewer. Almost all of her work draws you into the femininity of her empathy. Her works are godly, I swear. I can still see the details in Roses in A Vase Glass that she did in 1906 when I close my eyes. Each flower represents a different aspect of the cycle of life. In which-”

Again and again and-

“Totodile, can you fucking stop?” Claire snapped. Totodile instantly wilted from his sitting position in watching her. He lowered his eyes and flexed his jaw.

Claire instantly felt like the worst person on the planet.

“Totodile, I didn’t mean that. This place is driving me crazy. What move are you trying to get ready for this time, huh?” Totodile looked back up at her like a scolded puppy. After she patted her lap, he ran into it.

“I can’t believe I was ever going to try and get rid of you…” She trailed off, pushing against his snout as he nipped at them softly.

“Are you learning Chomp or something? Is that a move?” Totodile yipped at her, nodding his head, and Claire was surprised she was right.

“Wait, really? Wanna test it out? Maybe it’ll make it easier for you…” Totodile looked at her and the light in her eyes made her excited, too. Made her feel light for the first time in weeks.

“Okay, are you ready?” He nodded happily, turning in circles and jumping around in their limited room as she dramatically bowed to an imaginary crowd.

“Today, ladies and gentlemen, the loyal Totodile and his magnificent trainer are going to be exhibiting our performance, ‘Chomp’ for the first time. As always, please turn your phones, uh rotoms, pokedexes? I have no idea, but turn it on silent, and no flashing is allowed for respectability.” She then grinned at Totodile, who was yipping loudly now. Posing in various positions they had seen the competitions on the TV when they watched with Lyra and Marill.

“Now, for the moment everyone that everyone has been waiting for, Toto, use Chomp!” Claire declared, painting at one of the feet of her bed.

Totodile flashed his maw, his teeth glowing black softly, and then proceeded to bite the steel clean in two. Her bed frame then proceeded to tilt and the mattress slid off as it lost one of its feet.

“Well… it was a shit bed anyway.”

…

The dull guy took one look at her mattress on the floor and lifted an eyebrow.

“We are not fixing that. Did your Totodile use your bed frame as a chew toy?” She was a little sheepish but she tried to keep her face blank. Toto had to use multiple chomps to cut down the wrecked bedframe enough for them to have room to put it on the floor.

“Whatever, I don’t really care. It’s time for battles, hurry up.”

Totodile gave her an alarmed look. Her face probably matched it like a shitty sitcom.

…

“Today will be the start of your battle training. All that you have learned over the past few weeks will be put to the test. The strategies, conditioning… it is all coming to fruition.” He stopped in front of them and looked all of them in the eyes. Multiple people were shifting in nervousness despite themselves.

“However, I must preface one thing. Some of you will not be the greatest at battling, and that is acceptable. Team Rocket embraces people for many different jobs, however…”

“You will need to be able to protect yourself. Your training will last as long as we can determine you are not ready or supplies last. I suggest you work hard enough for the second option to not be the outcome for you.”

After those foreboding words, they were shifted into pairs. Claire looked at Samuel in front of her with his proud, if quiet, growlithe and saw his pity-filled eyes. Yeah, she didn’t really want to do this either. The shrieks and screaming of trainers calling out moves and the pokémon's pained calls were taking over their practice area.

Claire hated it. Totodile was nervously panting.

Yet, despite the feeling of disgust at the thought of battling like they saw in those videos, some part of her had already accepted it. She needed to get stronger. Team Rocket had taught her that.

There were no bows, no rules being stated. Other people had started battling around them. There was only room for seven battles at a time, so more than half of the people were watching the trainers up right now.

“Well, we don't have all day ladies.” Commander Fern said, standing still at their station. Claire swore that one day she was going to put that man in his place, on his ass.

“Garnish, use howl.” The move had been one of the first ones she would get rid of in the games, along with growl and leer. Now she could see the growlithe, Garnish, lose her anxiety in one move. The level 11 over her head, despite only being two levels above Toto's, made her nervous.

That howl was how she knew this was real. Claire quickly tried to think back to those war videos.

“Totodile, don’t let her hit you if you can help it. Cast water gun on the ground to get the area muddy!” Samuel’s eyes widened.

(“Toto, I know you don’t like fighting.”)

“Don’t let him do that. Ember.” Their pokémon followed their orders loyally. Claire watched as Totodile took an ember that seemed to glance off him. The sight of fire near her pokémon gave her hives. Looking at the marks on his skin, it barely singed him.

(“Totodile, if we are going to make it out of here, we need to get strong.”)

“Fuck.” The kid across from her said, looking more anxious by the second. Totodile kept shooting water everywhere.

“Bite him! Quick!” Dark energy gathered slightly at the growlithe’s mouth, and Claire realized that she had gotten the wrong name for Totodile’s new move. How embarrassing.

Totodile’s eyes flashed. He stopped shooting water at the even area and turned around to meet the growlithe head-on. The canine pokémon roared forward, an echo to the arcanine they had seen race through a battlefield the day before.

(“Trust your gut, I think you can fight better than I can if you can’t hear me.”)

“Totodile when he gets near you-” Totodile already knew what to do. He water gunned the ground right in front of him at the exact moment the pokémon couldn’t stop.

He then turned his body, eyes flashing towards Claire for one even moment. Then he ducked and grabbed the growllithe’s hind leg. Claire didn’t see the dark energy in his mouth from how fast it happened, but she knew how her pokémon looked when he used chomp.

Bite.

The growlithe screamed, and her trainer looked stricken across the field from her. However, as a testament to the resilience of the pokémon, he did multiple embers into Totodile’s face until he let her go.

Totodile stuck his tongue out into the mud, trying to soothe it as the growlithe limped away to prowl at him. Fuck.

(“One day, we’ll get ice cream.”)

“Totodile, when she gets close again do the thing we practiced,” Claire screamed, hands shaking as she gripped them into fists. She had to make it worth it to both of them. She had to make that bite to that growlithe worth it.

Totodile nodded, as he always did. She looked across the field to see Samuel look at her with pure anger.

(“We’ll go to the beach. It’s so much bigger than the river we almost drowned in. You’ll love it.)

“Garnish, bite the shit out of him.” The trainer ordered, and the growlithe, limp and twisted leg and all raced forward to do that. All the sounds of fighting had become mute to her. All she could see was the fury with which the growlithe moved towards her pokémon.

It happened too quickly for her to see properly. The motion they had practiced for hours was lost to her as her Toto dived down and reached up in a quick snap. Like an actual alligator. He locked his jaw on the growlithe, who yelped in pain. Then his back tensed as he used a water gun. The water sprayed everywhere as it had nowhere to impact but the soft belly of the growlithe who looked small in his jaws.

The growlithe writhed. Claire and Samuel both watched in horror as Toto jerked his head to the side to slam the growlithe to the ground again. His back tensed, and he cast water gun again. The growlithe started panting weakly. Her legs started jerking. Toto tensed to use water gun again.

“Stop your fucking pokémon!” Samuel yelled across the field, running forward. Commander Fern grabbed him. Totodile used water gun again, and some of the water sprayed on both of them from the force of it.

“It’s his decision to end the battle.” That interaction was enough to knock Claire out of her shock.

(“We’ll travel to that vacation region I can’t remember.”)

“Toto, stop!” Claire grabbed him, and the pokémon instantly let go. She could only lift him for a second before his weight brought her to her knees. He stared at her in confusion. Samuel raced past her to grab his growlithe. It was forty pounds, but he picked her up instantly. She wanted to tell him to not do that. For patients with internal bleeding or hidden injuries, it could be dangerous to move them. However, nothing left her mouth as she stared at the passed-out growlithe before her.

That was when she realized that everyone around her had stopped fighting and was watching them.

Commander Fern stared down at her, looking considerate.

(“Every human society has always created art. We can see what the pokémon world has to offer. I think they had paintings in…”)

“Did you get that from the Cinnabar scuffle?” He said, glancing down at her slightly charred Totodile. It was surreal.

Claire forgot how to speak for a second. She almost responded in fucking Spanish. Sí, señor.

“Yes, sir.”

“Blaine only had one water pokémon since he was a fire gym leader. It was that damned lapras. He named it Bubbles.” Commander Fern said with humor. Claire wanted to die, really.

“Yes, sir.” She said again.

Commander Fern looked at her some more. “Go sit down, recruit.” She nodded and followed his orders. Totodile walked loyally beside her. It wasn’t his fault, but she couldn’t look at him. She told him to do that. She told him…

The rest of the first round of fights went on. People were giving her nervous looks. All the victors sat back down.

“Holy fucking shit… did you see how he had ordered his pokémon to keep going after almost biting that growlithe’s leg off?” Totodile nudged her leg. Claire could barely feel it. She looked at him, his confused eyes. A ten glowed above his head.

“You…” She found it hard to find the right words. “We won.” The words did nothing to soothe him.

(“We’ll have real battles. Real pokémon battles. Where there are rules and we don’t have to see Ferris’ dumbass, evil pidgey ever again.”)

Was she creating a monster?

They called her up when the first round was over, first. It was easy to tell Toto to take out Maru’s Zubat with various water guns. The other pokémon had been weakened in the last battle it had, but Totodile had a nasty bite on his shoulder from a quick shot for it. She was hyper-aware the whole time. Calling out the pokémon’s exhaustion and weaknesses. Maru looked at her with disgust since she couldn’t do anything else.

“Ethan,” Commander Fern said. “You and Hill go first.” Hill was a girl with a mareep. She was younger, about the same age as Samuel. Claire could tell she was terrified of going against her, even with a type advantage. Her mareep was a solid level 10. The wool on the mareep was dirty, and its tail was glowing dimly. It had used most of its stored electricity already, Claire thought numbly.

(We can watch the championship with Lyra this year like we were supposed to. I wonder if Connor Winters trained up his team enough to actually win this year…”)

They stood across from each other. Claire had watched her battle before, but she couldn’t remember what had happened. The girl called out the move first like Claire had let happen in the previous battle.

“Use cotton spore!” Hill announced. Totodile started moving as the mareep followed its trainer's orders.

“Totodile keep dodging. Its fleece has electricity!” Totodile shot a water gun to counterattack the avoidable spores, and Claire was shocked that it worked.

The trainer hesitated, and Claire continued on. “Toto, aim for its face.”

“No!” Hill panicked, her mareep doing the same, scrambling away from Toto. “I surrender, I surrender!”

("What do you want to do, Totodile?")

“Totodile, stop!” Claire yelled, stopping the prowling pokémon who almost reached the trembling mareep. He trotted to her, and she felt like puking.

Commander Fern looked sternly at both of them. Claire felt like her body purely at that moment, like a little boy fearing punishment.

Instead, he turned to Hill and slapped her clearly in the face.

“Girl, the enemy will do worse to you if you ever surrender like that. You know what they do to women on the other side of the battlefield?”

Totodile pressed against her side and whined. Hill started crying, her coily hair falling across her small face, scrambling away from the large man in front of her. Her mareep zapped the man with a weak shock wave, and the man took it and stared down at it. The mareep started shimmering, but he picked it up easily. He threw it at Hill, who grunted as an electricity blast hit her. To her credit, she took it like a champ. She avoided everyone’s eyes on her, glaring at the ground and heaving.

("Yaknow, I miss the stars and the sun. We haven't seen the sun in weeks...")

“And you…” Commander Fern walked up to her, and Claire felt herself freeze up like she had never done in this life.

“Always hesitating. The only thing holding you back is your softness.” Claire looked down.

“Yes sir.” She said, “I’ll work on it.”

“Sit back down. You both lose.”

Claire did. She watched the rest of the trainees fight and ignored every look she received. Ferris and his dumb pidgey won their mini-tournament. She despised that guy and his smug look at her. Have your dumb victory, she thought. It’s not worth your soul.

“Some of you did better than others.” Commander Fern said, head up. “One day, you’ll thank me for this. Heal up. Tomorrow, we begin more battle training. Less extensive to allow your pokémon some rest. We’ll make monsters out of you all yet.” He said the last part in good humor. Claire felt her hands itch with the urge to rip his scraggly ass beard out of his head.

Totodile nudged her, and she followed the others to go to their separate rooms.

She looked down at her pokémon. We can do this, she thought. Just gotta get through all this darkness.