17 Duke

It's late-night and tomorrow is the last day, I still have no clues on Gregory. Is he dead? That's the conclusion I came to, I searched half the zone and I couldn't even find one person around.

But I have an odd feeling that he is alive, maybe he trespassed the zone just like me? That would be bad, I thought I would get him on my side by giving him a rare Pokemon like joltik.

Personally, the last six days were both lucky and unlucky. Overall the luck points helped me obtain a lot of benefits, due to this fact I can overlook the bad things that happened. The main advantage was not coming across numerous people, I don't want to deal with them before I join the Team Rocket officially.

The people I met had all kinds of characteristics from peak psychotic to timid, I did not come across one guy who talks normally in this trial. So I have no other option but to recruit Gregory as he is the only one that seemed normal, it also means that he has high mental strength which is a must for trainers.

He also might be hiding his true nature which is not advantageous for me, I can't just randomly give Joltik and ask him to trust or follow me. I should also be certain that he doesn't betray me which is highly impossible to do in a week.

Let's see what happens!!! Tomorrow we will fight a lot of wild Pokemon to train Electrike and feed Sandile. I need to make sure that Electrike reaches level 19 before the trial gets over.

I put Scope lens on Sandile, I removed the lagging tail and gave it to Electrike. Sandile is physically grown and he has to concentrate on picking the right spots to attack. Electrike needs more weight training when compared to Sandile, so it's better that way.

Manectrics mostly depend on their speed so it's better to train her early, Sandile felt very comfortable after I removed the Lagging tail, his speed improved by 1.5 times. He has a high endurance to physical attacks than normal Pokemon due to the thrashing he got from higher level Pokemon. Sandile main concentration from now on will be to hit the critical-hit spots using the scope lens.

I asked Electrike to tutor Sandile with Snarl, she immediately disagreed. They both seemed to be a little off since the first meet, I had to beg her and coax her with stories from other regions and after making the deal she grudgingly agreed to teach snarl.

Sandile's long-range attack will be solved for a while, he needs to evolve to learn more long-range attacks. So the thing that's left is to wait for tomorrow and then see if I can buy some TMs from Team Rocket.

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10KM away from Jay:(POV change)

"Corphish, we just need to wait for one more day. We will be alright so don't worry," I said. I had no energy and I looked like a skeleton. My orange hair looked brownish as I applied mud all over for disguise.

"Corphish...Phish" said the little shrimp pokemon to comfort me.

I got Corphish due to a lucky encounter near the pond, Corphish fainted due to lack of food and I fed my berries to him which made him join me. The reason I am in this condition is due to those bastards, It all started on the second day of the trial.

Fifteen people were used as bait in that cave, I can't believe Team Rocket are allowing this kind of behaviour. This was supposed to be a normal trial right? Why did it change like this?

On the second day of the trial, a guy found out that there was a weird cave near the lake where I found my Corphish. He informed his other companions about the cave and all of them went in to explore it.

The problem started after finding what's in the cave, it was a baby Baltoy which seemed like it hatched a month ago. Baltoy's mother was already dead and no one knows the reason. Baltoys are psychic types and they are not friendly to humans that trespass their home, sometimes they get furious and kill humans.

These guys went in and did exactly that, who goes and provokes a psychic Pokemon? Out of four who went in, only one returned. The guy who returned spread the information around which piqued the interest of a guy called Duke. Duke is the son of a Team Rocket Captain and he is a bit psychopathic. He has spikey purple hair and snake eyes which are creepy.

He took his three underlings and started hiring people around, he baited them with rare pokemon location and asked them to help him so that they can get good profits from his father.

Even I was among those people, a total of 24 people entered the cave. The Cave was like an underground tunnel which went lower as we moved forward. Baltoy which was inside noticed that there were too many people trespassing his home and tried to escape in desperation as it can't take on this many, but it failed because one of the underlings of Duke had a Pokemon which can use mean look.

Psychic pokemon are very intelligent and also cruel when provoked, so it immediately hid in the shadows to lure people from the group with weird noises into a corner and killed them silently. This happened for five times and that's when Duke noticed the decrease in people, so he understood the situation and backed away with his underlings leaving us inside the dark cave.

Baltoy was still a baby so he doesn't have infinite stamina to attack twenty people. After thirty minutes, we were in chaos with a lot of infighting and blaming. Only five people wanted to leave and the rest were blinded by greed for a rare psychic pokemon.

I and four other people retreated knowing the situation. We found Duke and his group standing outside the cave, but we did not say anything because the tension between us was high, we were waiting for each other to make a move. Seeing the stalemate, Duke started taking first,

"We don't need to fight, you guys can leave if you want to. There's no point in a four vs five battle, I retreated because I too understood the consequences of staying there."

I knew he abandoned us and he is waiting to go inside after the psychic gets tired but I did not say anything, we all nodded and left our ways. Duke stayed there till the chaos inside settled and went inside to defeat the worn-out Baltoy, I don't know the specifics but an escaped guy told that a total of fifteen people died and Duke successfully caught the Baltoy.

It should have been fine if the matter was over but that damn Duke wanted to kill everyone involved so that the rumours about his backstabbing don't spread out. He did not want to start his Team Rocket career with a tag of Untrustable and cruel person. He seems like a kind of guy who likes to act like a sage on the outside and a devil inside.

'Hypocritical bastard'

I met duke three days ago, he was hunting down everyone that's involved. Me and two more guys who I befriended in the Orphanage teamed up, we had a bloody fight with him, sadly my friends died and I managed to escape. Thinking about it makes me cry, I never expected that people from team rocket are this ruthless.

I had no other choice but to hide till the trial gets over. My Corphish being a water type helped me a lot against that Baltoy, my two friends fought the other two people on Duke's side. He had three underlings at first but I guess one of them died in the cave. Duke also had a Gulpin with him, gulpin was still a low-level one but had enough potent poison to kill a person.

Chills ran down my spine thinking about the fight that day, I looked down at my body, I can still see the bloody scars on the hip and legs. I was almost poisoned, it was a good decision to jump into the river at the end.

Corphish somehow managed to get me to the other side, me being unusually thin made it a bit easy for corphish to swim across. After I finish these trials, I will surely take my revenge. I only have a Corphish now so I will wait till I become strong.

Duke not only killed my childhood buddies, he even tried to kill me. That Bastard will pay for it, even if his father is a captain he can't kill the members of team rocket. My main goal for now is to survive and become a member.

I did not even go hunting in fear of death, the poocheyana of Duke's underling can smell and find my location. So I used my entire time to erase my tracks and eat whatever I get on the way. I will survive here no matter what but I feel sad when I look at my Corphish.

He did not eat much since we escaped, I could only find some random fruits to suffice his hunger. I barely hunted some wurmples that we came across and they were disgusting to eat, even after all that and seeing my sorry state of incapability, corphish never left me.

Although I did not read much like what Jay does in the library, I did some research too. Pokemon can feel the inner characters and desires of their trainers so they grow according to that. Most pokemon take after their trainers due to this fact, I think I believe it now. I patted Corphish on his back with my shaky hands, he is tired and starting to fall asleep. I too leaned my back against the tree trunk and started to look up towards the lonely sky.

I am a coward who doesn't have courage, I always try to bear with it and put up with the bullying that happens in the Orphanage.

Trevor used to abuse me but I never retaliated, I was envious of Jay during my time there. I did not even dare to go talk to him, Jay always had these eyes that felt like he can see through your heart.

No one dared to bully him, he never talked to anyone and always had this aura around him that said 'Don't come closer', Miss Vanessa always supported him and made sure no one bullied him. I was quite the opposite, I was buying my time and waiting for my chance to start an epic journey.

I always thought that once I get my first Pokemon, I will be courageous and won't let anyone mess with me anymore but how wrong was I? I am still in a similar sorry state just like in the past. The day I escaped from Duke, I understood that the problem was in me. A pokemon can never change my character or the way I behave, and Pokemon may even get influenced by my character, so right here I need to make a vow that I won't be the old Gregory.

I too need to change and adapt according to my surroundings, if the World is cruel to me then I will be cruel to the World. From now on it's An eye for an Eye and Trust for a Trust. Before I was the only one who used to suffer from abuse but from now on my pokemon might also suffer due to my cowardice. If not for me I need to change for the Pokemon I train.

Just like that, I slept shakily with sharp determination hoping for a beautiful day.

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The next day,

"Corphish, wake up. It's time to shift our location, it is already late and we will be doomed if that fellow comes," I woke my starter up hurriedly.

I overslept a bit and it's most probably around 9 am. Today the sun is shining bright and we need to hurry up before it gets too late. I took Corphish into a Pokeball and jumped down the branch.

Corphish seems week and tired, I need to find some food to make him recover. I don't want my first pokemon to die of hunger, he seems thin for a corphish even before I found him. I start to walk ahead but before I take a step, a poocheyana jumps from my left to bite me. I quickly dodge it by ducking down,

"Pooooo....pooocheyanaaaa", he bared his sharp fangs out and started barking loudly.

The moment I saw the pokemon, I knew it was a bad sign. I need to run, although I made a resolve to fight back, this is not the time for that. My Corphish is in no position to fight, so I started running in the opposite direction.

Before I ran five metres, I was lifted by an unknown force and thrown down. I looked behind and saw Duke smiling maniacally, his white teeth shining under the sunlight. His other two grunts were also with him.

" Finally I found you, don't worry you are the last one so I will make this fast," he said.

"Why do you have to do this? I promise you that I won't let a single word out. If you find any rumours about that day, you can come and kill me directly," I pleaded him with some hope.

He stopped smiling and started thinking about it, a warm breeze passed by as his purple spikey hair waved in the air. His Gulpin was on his shoulder and it was sleeping peacefully. He walked closer and bent down to my eye level and looked me in the eye with his cyan coloured creepy eyes, he stated

"I don't have any grudges against you but my father told me to never leave any loose ends. If I leave you now, I will be paranoid in fear of my hidden character being revealed, I don't believe anyone, not even my father because I was raised in that kind of environment. Those guys behind me will also die, I won't even leave them alive so what makes you think that I will spare you?"

After hearing what Duke said, I had only one word in my mind.... 'Devil', is he a twelve year old like me? I mean what kind of shit did he go through to become like this? There is no way I am surviving this.

"Sorry Man, you have do die today. You can only blame your bad luck. Baltoy, finish him," He got up and started walking back while his baltoy starting spinning at faster rates. Baltoy bent his lower body like a Beedrill with a stinger and came straight for my neck.

As death loomed over me, I saw a miracle burst from the ground with a tail covered in water. The Pokemon that came out hit the psychic with full force, Baltoy flew back with the same speed it came towards me.

"Yo, How you doing Gregory?"

I turned back towards the familiar voice with hope and relief...

x--------Chapter End--------x