The Only Path

Keeping his head down, Noah walked through the streets. The town of Viridian city didn't have any slums per sey, but this part of town was not a place for kids, and especially not at night.

When Noah ducked into an alley and turned the corner, a woman's laughing could be heard.

"Oh you're so funny," A middle-aged woman was holding a bottle while standing around talking with another man around her age, and you could smell it from a distance, the stench of strong alcohol.

Noah attempted to walk past, but the middle-aged man moved in front of him each time he tried to walk around, the woman, finding it funny gave another shrill laugh.

"Can you please let me past?"

The man leaned in, cupping his ear as if he were hard of hearing, "Wuzzat?"

Noah was about to leave and go try another way, but suddenly the man tossed something in Noah's path.

'Damn' Noah, seeing the red light knew exactly what was happening, and in a flash of red light the object released an eight-pound rat-like creature which Noah identified to be a Rattata.

With a wurr, and not unlike a yoyo, a small inbuilt torq engine snapped the metal ball back to the man's hand thanks to a metallic string strung around the man's middle finger.

He pocketed the ball, then exhaled a breath of smoke, "How about you empty those pockets for me kid?"

Meanwhile, the small sharp-toothed pokemon gave a squeaky snarl at Noah, seemingly accustomed to these situations.

"Well, what's it gonna be kid?"

Noah turned around, and unfurled his lintless pockets out, showing the empty contents "I have nothing."

Using his phone as a flashlight, the man shambled over intending to frisk the kid, but, upon discovered Noah was covered head to toe in bruises, he instead clicked his tongue and began to walk away, seeming to lose interest due to pity, or some other reason, "Wasta time, come on Rachel"

The women followed behind him, giving Noah a sidelong glance as she went past, as well a predatory wink, sending a shiver down Noahs spine, the rattata lowered its ears, then began following along as well

While the deceased Noah was quite accustomed to being around pokemon, that wasn't the case for the Noah as of now. Noah hadn't seen any pokemon on his way here either, but that is to be expected, considering he was creeping through empty alleys in the night.

Focusing on the rattata's retreating figure, some information suddenly popped into his head after a second, "What in the?"

Hearing the childlike voice, the rattata perks up its ears and looked back, its blood-red eyes glowing eerily in the dark.

A gruff voice belonging to the middle-aged man called the rattata to keep up, and in a few moments, the rattata disappeared into the darkness. Noah was alone once more.

Putting his right hand over his forehead, Noah tried to make sense of what had just transpired, "Okay, what in God's name is happening to me."

As he continued on, he left the alley, and came across a brightly lit building with a few young women standing outside, one of the women giggled, and blew smoke in Noah's face, "What are you dooing here little booy?"

The other playfully pushed her shoulder, "You're so bad, can't you see the wittle boy is hurt?"

Noah ignored them and continued on his way, he was now nearing his goal.

About a block away stood an unremarkable building, when Noah did deliveries for Zack, he would often be sent there for pickups, but he was never allowed inside.

Unlike the anime, Team Rocket didn't wear a uniform because that would be similar to announcing to the world that you were a criminal, instead, Noah reasoned that they used Team Rocket Badges to identify one another, but they wouldn't show them easily. Noah had only ever seen one once, and that was due to Zack accidentally dropping it out of his pocket. The metallic bronze piece that looked like a fancy R was unmistakable.

He knew that If he came here, it was possible he would run into Zack, but this was less dangerous than looking for suspicious people and asking them if they were part of Team Rocket. If he did that, then he believed he would end up in a body bag.

Leaving town was not an option either, he would be eaten alive, literally. This wasn't like the cheerful pokemon anime from earth, those are dangerous animals that wield power beyond comprehension.

Giving the door a few patterned knocks as he had seen Zack do before, he waited a minute.

The sliding sound of a slit in the middle of the door got Noah's attention, so he instinctively looked through the small opening where light escaped from, "Who is it?"

Noah shivered due to the cold, but still answered properly, "Noah, I ran deliveries for Zack."

The person speaking seemed unsurprised that an eight-year-old was knocking on their door during the night, although Noah thought it to be only around ten pm, "Why are you here?"

Noah leaned closer to the door before whispering, "I want to join as a recruit"

As if trying to figure out if Noah was telling the truth, the man behind the door began to peer through the hole from every angle, perhaps looking for tricks.

Seeming to have satisfied his curiosity, the man spoke once more, "You wait here."

.

Inside a dimly lit room, two children sat next to each other on a bed, it could be seen that there were other beds around them, but they were unused.

"We shouldn't have come here, it really wasn't that bad, in a few months we could have left for the army…"

The boy shook his head, "It does matter, he won't stop doing those bad things to you, and you know that."

"But… what if it's true, what if we disappear?"

The boy held his sister's hand firmly, "I won't let that happen, I'll protect you."

Fifteen minutes later the door opened and a short bearded man with a spearow on his shoulder leaned out, seemingly searching for anything suspicious.

Noahs eyes lit up when he met the small bird pokemon's eyes, then suddenly information began entering his brain again, without his control.

Not noticing Noah's frozen state, the man grabbed Noah's shoulder and forcefully brought him inside, while shutting the door.

Each second he spent staring was another piece of information gleamed, as if he could deduce without conscious thought!

He was so shocked that he didn't notice the soreness of his arm thanks to the man's earlier rough treatment. Instead, he was too focused on the information he had just unknowingly deduced.

___________________________

Spearow:

Type: Normal/Flying

Category: Tiny Bird

Gender: Female

Nature: Serious

Abilities: Keen eye

Holdings:

Level: 17/25

Sublevels: 0/25

Potential: 1.8x(Very low)

Health: 4/5 (lacking exercise)

Hunger: 5/5

___________________________

Doing his best to keep his emotions in check, Noah followed the bearded man further in. The man had let him go after locking the door shut, and gestured with his head to Noah, he wanted him to follow, but Noah was in a bit of a daze and reacting slowly. Losing patience, the man grabbed his arm and began dragging him in once more.

Meanwhile, the spearow was orienting itself to eye Noah intently, and seeming to be untrusting of the smaller human.

No matter how long Noah looked, no more information appeared in his head.

Noah's mind was in a bit of a mess, as he tried to make sense of the information, from the memories he had, he immediately knew exactly what this represented for him, but due to his lacking knowledge, he was currently unsure just how valuable his strange deductive reasoning was, or why such a strange thing would exist in the first place. He had certainly never heard of anything like this, and as far as he knew, pokemon in this world weren't categorized by levels, but rather stages of strength, Beginner, Advanced, Elite, and Champion.

If it could be reasoned that the bottleneck for a beginner stage pokemon was 25, then a level 26 pokemon would be much stronger, but then, even if that were true, what were sublevels? What is potential?

The man then pushed Noah into a room, "You, go join the rest" Then he closed the door with a metallic click signaling it was now locked.

The building was more sterile than Noah had imagined, the floors were hardwood, and shined, and it was well lit, at least the hallways were, but he was now in a dimly lit room with a few beds chained to a wall, there was a toilet and sink in the corner, without a hint of privacy, and what looked like hard bread left on a table without chairs.

Noah and two other children traded glances.

With eyes lighting up with recognition, the girl spoke, "Noah? what are you doing here?"

Noah knew this brown girl from the orphanage, but they didn't interact that much, he was almost two years younger, and the older and younger orphans had their own cliques.

He already reasoned that they had the same goal, so he felt there was no point in hiding it, so he answered honestly, "I'm here to join Team Rocket."