The Mission.

"How are things in Johto going? I heard that Team Rocket has been exceptionally active lately."

"It is a mess." Sabrina shook her head as she gave a reply, "I have had few encounters with them, but Kadabra was enough to take care of them for me."

[Alan, focus.]

"Stay safe," said Alan as he looked at Sabrina with a slight glitter in his eyes.

"What are your plans right now?" inquired Sabrina as she too looked at Alan with a slight warmth in her ever-so-cold eyes.

"I have a small mission coming up, nothing much," replied Alan as he cut off a Weepinbell with his swords.

[This little shit is ignoring me.]

"Don't get hurt."

Alan just showed a confident smile to that, "you too, make sure you stay safe and away from Team Rocket. We know very little about them, and from what I can tell, they are a powerful organization with deep roots within Kanto."

To that, Sabrina, too, said nothing and showed a confident smile.

"Did you talk to Cyn?" she asked instead.

"No, I am sure she will kill me when we talk next," said Alan with a slight shiver in his spine, "I did not want to disturb her during the rookie tournament of Sinnoh."

Sabrina nodded her head in understanding.

"I heard it was delayed due to some reasons," she inquired.

[Do you want me to use a Hyper Beam on you?]

"Similar to Team Rocket, another criminal organization has appeared in Sinnoh Region. They had to delay the rookie tournament due to some things they did. Cynthia petitioned it not to be rescheduled, but the League declined. " replied Alan with a giggle.

"Wh-what?" even Sabrina, who never showed many emotions, was surprised at that.

"It was a big mess. They did not do as Cynthia said, and now I feel sorry for all the people who will face her since she was pissed that they were wasting her time."

Sabrina agreed with Alan's statement. Nothing is scarier than an angry Cynthia.

"I have to go now; I will call you later," said Sabrina in a plain tone but reluctant eyes before she cut off the call.

Alan switched his Pokedex off before focusing on the battle before him.

"Shin, use Thunder Punch on that Scyther."

"Eve use Psybeam on the Victreebel."

Alan gave out commands as he looked at the chaotic battle before him.

'How did it end up like this?'

[Tsk, finally. We need to get out of this mess]

Alan gave it a deep thought, looked at Eve and then at Shin before he shook his head, "maybe we can use this to our advantage."

Alan had ordered Shin to lure a group of Weepinbells while Eve lured another group of Scythers. They fought the ones in their power level to gain more experience and train their moves. However, their actions were noticed by the leaders of the respective colonies while the sounds of battle were heard by other pokemon living in the Viridian Forest.

Right now, there were at least five different groups that were at each other's throats: Butterfree, Pidgeot, Victreebel, Scyther and Alan's.

It was no longer a pokemon battle but a battle royal where each side attacked whomever it saw.

Eve was not only fighting against other pokemon, but she also helped Shin with Helping Hand every once in a while. Alan was also constantly fighting by boosting himself with Aura while he kept his reserves of Psychic energy in case of an emergency.

Ignoring any useless thoughts, Alan instructed his pokemon while making sure he watched over their blind spots, especially Shin, who was at the frontlines. At the same time, Eve supported him from behind with her strong Special Attack.

'This is going to be a long fucking night.'

******************

"Where is he?"

"Weren't we supposed to meet him by five in the morning?"

"There are still five minutes left."

"Misty, why are you taking his side?" asked another girl after hearing what the youngest Williams said.

"N-no! I am not taking anyone's side; I am just pointing out that we still have ten minutes before the decided time," she retorted in an annoyed expression, 'where the hell are you, Alan?'

The group stood close to a river that went through Viridian Forest and also flowed towards their next destination.

"We wait five more minutes, else we will leave without him," said the boy who was the leader of this group.

"Derek, you are too soft on this foreigner. This mission is really important; the last thing we want is some foreigner messing it up for us," said another boy with a displeased face while many others nodded at his words too.

"Last thing I know of, it was Kanto League who asked me for help."

A voice came from behind them, and everyone immediately put their guards up, surprised by how someone had reached so close without anyone noticing his arrival.

They looked at the trees, and the first thing that came to them was not the person who spoke but a thick scent of rotten corpses followed to be the stink of putrid blood.

They immediately held their noses to stop the foul smell, but it became worse as the person it was coming from came closer.

Alan walked out from the woods covered in pokemon flesh and blood, which had rotten overnight. His whole body was covered in green blood of Bug-type pokemon with a mix of red from some other pokemon he had fought.

The insides of many were still on his body since he had no time to wash up as of yet.

Every one of them looked at the person who had appeared before them. They could not see his facial features clearly since they were covered in blood, but his black eyes were clear for everyone to see.

The thick aura of death still loomed around them, which made everyone shudder.

"W-who are you?" asked the boy who had just complained about Alan but was ignored.

Alan instead looked at Derek, who was least affected by the smell of rotten flesh and blood, also keeping himself together under it.

"I would say, you are the leader?" said Alan before he walked up to him and extended his hand, "as you can see, I run into a bit of a 'situation' I hope I can get some time to wash?"

Derek thought for a moment before he took Alan's hand, "but you would need to give me a brief overview of what happened since I need to report to The League about it."

Alan said nothing and walked away towards the river in some distance.

"Name's Alan Salvador; I don't think I am too late," said Alan as he removed his clothes before jumping into the river.

"Derek Blackthorn," replied the leader as he looked at his Pokedex, and it was still eight minutes to the decided meeting time.

"Hoh?"

Alan was surprised at the boy's identity, but he cared less about it and more about cleaning himself.

"Derek, what do you think happened with him?" asked the same boy, and from the way he talked to the leader of this squad and son of the Elite Four, it was clear they were pretty close to each other.

"No clue, but I might not want to be in his place for whatever he went through to be in that situation."

"Seems like he faced a small pokemon tide," commented a girl,

"Riya, do you think he is strong enough to face a pokemon tide of any level?"

"So tell me, what else could it be?"

While the group was busy discussing what could Alan had possibly gone through; Misty showed a worried expression as she looked at his back which a large number of wounds.

"Can the ladies turn around?"

They paused with their discussion and looked at Alan, who was all cleaned up from head to toe, still in the river.

All the girls looking at him gave a slight blush; he was too good-looking to be ignored, especially when his upper body was visible for all of them to see, which made his attractiveness shot through the roof.

"Gyara, cover him," said Misty before she threw a Pokeball and a huge Gyarados appeared in front of Alan, blocking everyone from seeing him.

'Hmph.'

Alan quickly changed his clothes and walked out of the river while cleaning his glasses.

"Sorry to make you wait; I am ready to leave whenever you say."

He walked towards Misty, trying to ignore him as much as possible. Why? He had no clue about it.

"And thanks for earlier," he said with a soft tone.

"Had fun showcasing yourself to these little sl...Uhm."

Alan gave a small laugh and looked at Derek, who was about to explain the specifics of the mission.

"We will raid the Team Rocket base in a specific manner," he took out a small device before a hologram of an underground cave appeared before them, "the cave has five entrances, but only three of them will be accessible to us."

He pointed at the five dots.

"There are ten of us, and we will travel in groups of two," said Derek before he looked at Alan, "you seem to know Misty well; would you be okay with teaming up with her?"

"Sure."

"Then it will be Group 1: me and Stain, Group 2: Alan and Mist, Group 3: Riya and..."

He announced the groups and then their roles.

"Our primary focus is to rescue the captured pokemon while our next goal would be to capture the leader of the base."

"Group 4 and Group 5 will stay outside and take out any Team Rocket member that tries to escape while informing us in case they receive any reinforcements, which is very unlikely since there are other teams spread out in Viridian Forest to take care of that scenario."

"Group 2 and Group 3 will enter through these exits; they are closest to the place where they store pokeballs."

Then he took out a small device from his bag and handed it to them.

"This is a Pokeball transport machine; it will teleport all the pokeballs to the Viridian City pokemon centre; you just have to place them in it."

Alan received the transport machine from Derek and took a good look at it. He checked through it, and indeed, the destination was set at Viridian City pokemon centre.

"Stain and I will try to locate the leaders of the base; our sources have said that there are two Advanced stage trainers while the rest are intermediate or below..."

This was where Alan cut him off.

"What if there are more?"

"You! How dare you cut him off like th..."

Derek raised his hand and stopped Stain from saying anything further.

"League has double-checked on that information; there are only two advanced rank trainers."

Alan nodded his head but kept a note of this point. He would never be naive enough to think League had complete knowledge of Team Rocket's base or their inner workings. Who knew if there was another Advanced stage trainer?

"As I was saying, me and Stain will look for the two Advanced stage trainers and keep them busy. The other two groups will save the pokemons before they come to our aid. It will be easy to take those guys out but very hard to capture them easily. They will have a field advantage as there might also be many hidden doors or traps."

Derek laid out a complete strategy for them and Alan was impressed by his thought process except one thing. 'He is trusting the information give by The League too much and is not planning in case the plan fails.'

Alan believed that your plan would never be fruitful so one needs to always have a back up in case things go astray.

"Any questions?" asked Derek but nobody voiced any, "good, then make preparations, we are leaving in five minutes."

He walked of to a side to make a call. Nobody knew whom he was calling but Alan had a guess that it was The Kanto League and Derek was probably informing them about him.

"So we are in the same team?" said Misty before she walked close to Alan with a soft smile.

"Surprising but its for the best since you are the only one I know within this team," he welcomed her with a smile before he asked her for something with an embarrassed expression, "do you have something to eat?"

Misty raised her brow since she could not understand how Alan would run low on food. She attributed it to his previous condition and asked nothing while handing him few sandwiches she had prepared before hand.

"Thank you," said Alan before he started gobbling them down, "I will buy you..." he spoke with his mouth full, "...something after this mission."

'Is he asking me for a date?' Misty looked at Alan who had his face stuffed with sandwiches since he was too hungry to care about how he was eating. She shook her head intensely, 'no, no, no. Misty what are you think? B-but what if it is...'

Alan did not see the expressions the girl beside him was making since he received a call from someone important.

"Hello My Cute Baby!"

"I give up," he said before he excused himself from the group to talk with Cynthia, "how are you doing Cyn?"

"I am doing good but why is that I have not received one call from you ever since the last time we talked?" she asked with a smile but Alan could feel the evil energy behind that sweet smile.

"Uhm, about that..."

"Is everyone ready?" Derek asked in a loud voice.

"I have to go, there is a mission I need to take part in. I promise I will call you after it."

"Stay safe. Make sure you call me or the next time we talk, I would have flown to Kanto."

"Take care," said Alan with a soft smile.

"You too."

They cut the call and Alan walked back into the group. The mission had officially started.