A Golden Ticket

Noah sat in thought for a long time, 'A child would have cracked and revealed their inner thoughts, but I'm not one, your attempts at brainwashing, and the little games you've played against me… you'll-'

Noah's was interrupted mid-thought as there was a knock at the front door of the house.

Silently creeping down the stairs, he checked through the windows with a hand mirror. He had been taught this method, as there were no surveillance cameras for the door.

Although it was primitive, it effectively allowed you to spy on another without revealing yourself.

Through the hand mirror, he spied two boys a little older than himself, then he heard one complain to another while furiously scratching his short black hair, "Why did I let you talk me into this, he's going to think we are idiots…"

The other replied, with unusual enthusiasm, "Nah he won't, it's much weirder if we show up out of nowhere don't you think? If we show up at the front door, we can introduce ourselves in a more natural way!"

"No, I'm out, I'm going back in before he lumps me in with your stupidity, he was expecting us anyways."

"Wait!"

"Let go of -"

The words were cut mid-sentence as the door suddenly opened to reveal Noah standing in the doorway.

Rubbing his eyes, Noah asked tiredly, "What are you two doing exactly?"

Noah then saw an outstretched hand rush to his face, as a voice accompanied it, "Hi, I'm Andrew, but you can call me Andy, we are here to work under you, and the guy beside me is Nicoli!" Andrew's energy and bright blue eyes momentarily caught Noah off guard, but he kept on topic, "That wasn't my question, did you two just leave the house, and knock on the door…?"

Nicoli held his head in frustration, then punched Andrew in the shoulder, "See, I told you it was stupid!"

Pouting for no more than a moment, Andrew quickly regained his disposition, as he leaned in to inspect, "You're much younger than I thought you'd be, are you really an agent?"

Nicoli punched him again, harder this time, "He's a higher rank than you, you have to be respectful!"

Watching their display, Noah began to feel a headache coming on, " Can you two stop messing around and come inside, we need to have a little talk."

When the three were seated around the second of two tables, Noah began, "First off, I am a Trainee Agent, not an agent, you can call me Noah..." Something was feeling off to Noah, these two Grunts should have already been briefed on their task if they had come this far, but when he noticed Andrew had begun to rock back and forth in his chair the moment he sat down, he now realized that whatever they were told beforehand had likely gone in one ear and out the other.

Noah felt disappointed, 'It seemed Team Rockets' criteria were rather lax, and they valued loyalty over basic competence… although it's harder to fault them for being hyperactive kids, well at least in the case of Andrew.'

Ending his thought, Noah continued, "Secondly… you are here to assist me, so at least sit still while I'm talking to you."

Andrew suddenly froze, and then straightened in the chair, "Of course, sir."

"Now then, as you should be aware, this place is missing things like running water, so here's what you'll each be doing..." After sorting out the chores of his underlings, he finally dismissed them.

.

Closing the door behind himself, Noah turned his tablet phone on as he sat on the bed, and began flipping through it.

The Rockets had their own online store of sorts, the items were paid for with Poke, which was the defacto currency of this world, however, you could also purchase things with Rocket Credits, which discounted many things. You could buy almost anything, and it would swiftly be delivered through the teleport channels.

He felt it was convenient, but as an agent trainee, he received a meager stipend of fifty Poke a month, but when he browsed for pokeballs Noah had found a sad truth, the standard pokeballs were two thousand a pop. However, these weren't the expendable kind of pokeballs from the pokemon games that break after every failed catch, but rather an advanced technology that stores a pokemon very soul within it, speeding up their recovery and drastically reducing food consumption.

They allowed for easy transport, so how could it be cheap? There were downsides however, once a pokemon was bound to a pokeball, that pokeball could never be reused even if the pokemon perished.

Even though the stipend was small, he was given an extra pokeball for his promotion, and this was far better than the grunts who had nothing, and had to rely on the free food given to them to not starve.

Noah reasoned that it was perhaps their way to keep them motivated to work hard for the missions.

The missions were comprised of mandatory and offered missions, you could also capture rare pokemon and bring them for trade, but common pokemon would not even sell for the price of the pokeball it was carried in, but, even if you caged them and bring them back for reselling, it would still be pointless, since you also had to force the pokemon you captured to swear an oath. This oath is the very same ceremony where a pokemon allows itself to be captured in a pokeball.

This means pokemon like rattata, pidgey, or spearow, the common ones found here would sell at a loss, mankey, and nidoran on the other hand, would bring you triple the price of the pokeball, making it very much worth it, but that's only if you can find one.

.

Looking through the offered missions, Noah found some in his area, but for now, he could not accept any since he was on standby, still, one caught his eye.

It was a 'target' mission, from what he was allowed to read, a person had been spotted with a rare pokemon, and they were moving towards viridian city, but he wouldn't know the direction, or any other details unless he accepted the mission. Still, Noah smiled, since there was a small loophole here, essentially, missions were based on location. He was currently living on the far outskirts of Viridian City, and this meant the target will likely be heading somewhere in their direction.

Noah muttered, "Even if I'm on standby it doesn't mean I can't do anything, I doubt I have the luck to run into that trainer, and even if I did, it's doubtful I can win."

Stuffing his phone in his pocket, he prepared to leave, but he was stopped by Ryan, who quickly rushed out of his room upon hearing Noah's footsteps, "Are we leaving Noah sir?"

"You can drop the sir too, it's just Noah, I am just going into the forest for a while, you can stay here, I'll be back before dark."

Ryan looked mortified, "Noah sir- er Noah, we have to come with you, it's, it's the rules. "

Noah was beginning to feel a headache coming on, "Right, the rules, well, I order you to stay here, the rules state you have to listen to me."

Feeling uneasy, Ryan still relented and stayed behind with Daniel.

The forest was similar to one from the three-week test, but there was an abundance of edible berries and fruits. The amount of pokemon around was much lower, and Noah reasoned this to the fact that they were so close to the city.

He encountered an eevee in the forest, Noah's eyes narrowed, 'This is too much of a coincidence, is this the target's pokemon?'

Noah carefully crept closer. The eevee was lying down and hadn't noticed him yet.

Licking his finger, Noah held it up and found that he was downwind!

He approached the Eevee slowly to get a better look, and as he rounded a large tree, he found a boy around eleven years old lying against it.

Noah immediately stopped, and after a moment of thought, he rationalized that since he was almost half a day into the forest, then this was very likely the target mentioned in the mission, the mission he was unable to accept.

Once a mission was accepted, he would have to give whatever he gains to the one who offered it, and he would be forced to enclose what he had gained to the organization.

Noah moved closer, and intentionally stepped on a twig to announce his presence.

The boy got to his feet, and accused, "What are y-you doing out here?"

Noah acted startled, and looked back as if he were unsure, "I'm out here training, are you alone? What's your name?"

"N-no I'm not alone, I'm with Eevee, m-my name is Rily Steelsworth, I'm h-here training too."

'that's a lie,' Noah thought.

Looking at the boy's fine clothes, Noah wondered how he came to be out here, he didn't look like much in Noah's eyes, but a pokemon like this was not something a commoner could afford. All he had was his Rattata which had seen better days, Top had been weakened after being kept in his pokeball so long, and he dropped down to nine. He would have trained him, but his pokemon was taken from him during the time he spent being brainwashed.

Suddenly Noah's eyes widened in realization, but he quickly concealed his expression, 'That boy's last name, he's a Steelsworth?!'

The Steelsworth were a family that practically built Pewter City, and they were extremely wealthy! With this new information, Noah supposed that Rily had taken his Eevee and run away from home, otherwise, he wouldn't look so much like a scared runaway, alone, and without any guards.

Noah began to piece things together, as he decided what to do next.

.

Steeling himself mentally, Noah took a step forward with a smile, but there was a ruthlessness he hid within it, despite his own morals, despite what he wished to do, he was a member of Team Rocket, and he even had blood on his hands, and endless nightmares and sleepless nights these days. He wasn't some rich kid that was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and an easy life ahead of him.

Smiling, Noah went closer for a handshake, and when Rily reciprocated, Noah suddenly grabbed Rily and pulled out his knife as he held it next to Rily's throat, the boy shrieked and struggled in Noah's arms, "W-WHAT ARE Y-OU DOING?"