Reunion

On a clear night amidst the vast sea, there stood a small island covered in lush trees.

A young man, frail and pallid, sat on the sandy shore. His sunken eyes betrayed the signs of malnutrition. His ragged clothes hinted at his age, roughly around fifteen.

With complex emotions, the young man gazed at the creature beside him. It was roughly the size of a child's knee, shrouded entirely in jet-black feathers, devoid of any other color. If not for the bright moonlight, its features would have been nearly invisible.

His trembling hand cautiously reached out to touch the creature. In the moment just before contact, he hesitated involuntarily but then resolutely placed his hand upon it.

Feeling the creature's tangible presence, he withdrew his hand, exhaling gently. "I never expected to return," murmured Larry, his words seemingly without a definite destination.

Everything felt vividly remembered.

As a powerful trainer with the strength of pseudo-Elite Trainer, Larry recalled his previous life. He had endured arduous trials after being captured by Team Rocket, emerging as a survivor. Leveraging his skills and unique abilities from his past life, he had thrived within Team Rocket, even gaining some renown in the underground world.

However, during a League operation, his overconfidence, stemming from his promotion to pseudo-Elite Trainer, had led him to believe he could survive the League's crackdown. Little did he know that the League, on his account, had dispatched two Elite Trainers.

Although the opposing trainers didn't use their most powerful Pokémon, they proved insurmountable for Larry.

Desperate and with no way out, he had given it his all to defeat the second-tier Pokémon of the two trainers. In their rage, they had jointly buried him beneath the earth.

Upon opening his eyes again, he found himself in the current scene.

Larry extended his hands with great effort. All the scars from injuries and training in his previous life were gone. His previously jaundiced hands now revealed the intricate patterns of veins and the traces of bones due to malnutrition.

He clenched his hands with all his strength, his fingernails digging into his palms, almost unaware of the sensation.

"Murkrow..." the Murkrow cry softly, curiously observing the man before it, who seemed to have undergone an inexplicable transformation.

Hearing the call of the Murkrow, Larry struggled to curve his lips into a smile. It had been so long since he'd last smiled that the muscles on his face seemed to have forgotten how to.

He reached out to touch the Murkrow's back once more. It wasn't entirely smooth; much like him, it bore the signs of malnutrition.

"Murkrow, having you here is truly wonderful," Larry said with a complex tone.

In his previous life, Larry had been rigid in his interactions with others. Even though he had changed later on, it had been too late. However, the Murkrow, as his initial Pokémon, had been with him from beginning to end. It had been his closest protector and friend. Even in his final moments, it hadn't abandoned him.

All the Pokémon he had forcefully captured, bought, or stolen had eventually left him. Only the Murkrow had never deserted him. Only the Murkrow remained his greatest regret.

"Murkrow!" The Murkrow called out. Though it didn't understand why, it could distinctly sense the man's sentiment.

Despite this being their first encounter and the man's motives being unknown, the Murkrow didn't feel inclined to attack.

So, after Larry released it, it didn't attack, nor did it flee. It simply gazed curiously at the man before it.

Larry was also taken aback. In his previous life, it had taken immense effort to fully tame the Murkrow, and even more time to completely understand its characteristics. Regretfully, he had wasted much time.

As someone who once fancied himself a Pokémon connoisseur, he had only watched a few episodes of an anime, with a vague understanding of a character called Ash and the mysterious relationship between him and a special Pikachu. He couldn't even name all the Pokémon species, let alone understand their traits, abilities, and training.

In this world, there was a saying that the upper limit of a Pokémon's growth depended on its innate talent, while the lower limit depended on the trainer's nurturing.

Larry didn't know how much time he had wasted fully comprehending the Murkrow's traits. By the time he had completed its training, it was already too late, and some of the Murkrow's innate talents had been squandered.

As for why he had excelled in the trials in his previous life, it was solely because of the Murkrow's innate talents. The path he had taken was filled with detours, and he couldn't even count how many.

"Murkrow, I'll never give up on you again," Larry's hands, caressing the Murkrow, trembled slightly.

"Murkrow!" As if sensing the complex emotions within Larry, the Murkrow timely let out a cry.

Larry smiled faintly, and finally, his body gradually adapted to the expression.

However, his heart tightened immediately afterward. Based on the current situation, he must have just been captured and brought to this uninhabited island, with all his Pokémon forcibly confiscated. His survival in this trial was entirely thanks to the Murkrow.

It should be noted that among all the participants assigned by Team Rocket for the trial, most of them had Zubats, Koffings, and Ekans as their Pokémon. In contrast, the Murkrow was relatively rare, as far as Larry knew.

After the distribution of Pokémon, the first challenge all participants faced was to tame the Pokémon in their Poké Balls. This wasn't like the animated world; this was a real world, and all of Team Rocket's Pokémon were untamed. In the first moments of release, the wild Pokémon would often launch attacks, even killing their captors and escaping.

In Larry's impression, all the trial participants were around 300 boys and girls aged 15 to 18. After the first challenge of taming their Pokémon, only around 150 to 160 participants should have remained.

This illustrates the cruelty of the trials; just in the first stage, almost half of the participants were eliminated. And elimination meant death.

By the end of the trials, only about fifty people would have survived. These fifty would be absorbed into various teams and branches of Team Rocket, becoming a largely expendable part of the organization. Only the top ten would have the privilege of choosing the branch they wanted to join, and among them, only the top three could report to various branches as team leaders.

Furthermore, the first-place finisher in this trial would earn a precious starter Pokémon. Yes, starter Pokémon were considered precious here, as they were rarely obtainable in the wild outside of the official League members who paid their fees. The starter Pokémon rewarded by Team Rocket were also of excellent innate quality.

Vaguely, Larry remembered that the first-place finisher in his previous life had chosen a Bulbasaur. It was with this exceptionally talented Bulbasaur that he had become a Regional Director in Team Rocket, eventually reaching the peak of the pseudo-Elite Trainer. He was only a step away from becoming an Elite Trainer. As a key figure in Team Rocket's training program, he was seen as a potential successor of the Executives.

Although Larry had performed well in his previous life, the gap between him and the first-place finisher was significant. In the later stages, he had also become a direct subordinate of the winner, so he was well-informed about the winner's development.

After brushing off the dust from his body, Larry slowly stood up. However, his body froze in place as he suddenly realized that if he had indeed been reborn, then "that" should already exist.

He silently uttered, [ System, activate! ]

[ Ding... Chip activation in progress... ]

Ten seconds passed, and just as Larry was about to give up, a mechanical voice resonated in his mind, devoid of any emotion, like that of an emotionless robot.

"As expected..."