The Demand (in Progress)

Pokemon Wanted: Magikarp & Horsea
Category: Easiest & Hard
Recommended Length: 23k-35k
Actual Length: 9k
All spelling correct to English UK
This is not finished at the moment!!!!

The Demand

“No. No. Please stop! Don’t do it!” the boy’s screams echoed in the dark room. The shadows made the size of the room impossible to gauge. A lone bulb flickered overhead. A man stood in front of the boy, his face masked by the darkness. He raised his arm, the knife in his hand glinting from the feeble light from the bulb behind him.

“Remember, this is your fault” the man said, his voice loud in the silence.

“Please give me another chance! I beg you!” the boy pleaded, then broke into sobs. The man raised the knife, and plunged it into the boy…


Alex gasped. He sat up and looked around, and then sighed. He was back in his room, with posters of Giovanni covering the peeling paint and the rock hard bed. It was just a dream. He felt his entire body slick with sweat. He got up and walked into his bathroom. He splashed water on to his face, trying to cleanse his mind of the horrifying dream. He had dreamt the same dream nearly every night ever since he had made the mistake. The mistake that could get him kicked out of Team Rocket. He feared to think what would become of him. His family had rejected him the moment he entered Team Rocket and he had no friends outside of the criminal organisation. But he still didn’t think he was to blame for what happened. Or at least, not fully.
…
….
…

It was a cold morning in Mahogany Town. Alex was standing guard outside the secret Rocket base. He was dressed in street clothes and was happy, despite the cold. Finally Team Rocket would become the most feared force in all of Johto, and soon after, the world. The scientists had created a machine. A machine so powerful that only the upper ranks knew about it, but word gets around and the rumours spread like wildfire. The rumours ranged from a machine that could recapture trainer’s Pokemon to a Evolution-inducing radio message. Yeah, as if, he thought.

He had been chosen to protect the work going on while the finishing touches were made to the machine. He could not think of any greater responsibility. Today had been a quiet day at least. All of the civilians were at the Lake of Rage. Apparently there was something going on there. Still, it made his job a lot easier.

It was past noon, and Alex was sitting on the floor, bored out of his mind. He hadn’t seen another human being for the past two hours. He was playing on his Gameboy Advance SP when a shadow fell over him. He jumped up, surprised and pocketed his game. In front of him was a boy, no older that ten or eleven. He was wearing a red cap and a bag on his back. Alex sighed. He had gotten all worked up over a kid. He fixed the kid with a steely gaze and told him to get lost. The boy pulled out a Pokeball and held it up.

“So, you get your butt kicked, eh?” Alex grinned. Three minutes later he found himself on the floor, dazed, with his wallet missing and a giant hole where the entrance to the secret base was. Alex rubbed his head. It hurt. The last three minutes were a blur. He barely remembered his Golbat and Koffing getting annihilated by a Quilava. Then of course his Voltorb exploded. He could remember that well at least.

The severity of his failure became clear over the next few days. The kid had entered the base and, along with the Pokemon League Champion Lance, put an end to their plans. Alex became a whipping post. Everyone, even Giovanni himself apparently, blamed him for the failure of the mission, purely because he lost a battle and in doing so, revealed the secret base. Now Alex was waiting for his punishment. The only problem was, he had no idea what it would be.
Alex awoke. He looked around at his room, as he did every day. It didn’t look much different in the sunshine coming in from the windows than from last night when it was lit gently by the moonlight. The only real different was that you could now tell that the walls were painted red, although a large amount of it had peeled away revealing concrete. He got out of his bed and started getting ready for another day in Rocket HQ. He was one of the lucky ones here. He was lucky that in the sense that before he ran away, he had the brains to empty out his parents’ wallets. Not that it mattered. His dad would earn as much as he took in a few weeks. But the money he took had helped pay for his own room instead of the free housing which involved sharing a room only slightly bigger than his one, but with anything from three to ten other people. He had at least a month left in this room before his money ran out and he was forced into the free housing.

He wished that day would never come. He wasn’t exactly the most popular guy at HQ, and the recent incident didn’t help. A mixture of being naturally cleverer than the other rockets along with the fact that he could afford private housing made sure of that. He finished getting dressed and looked at himself in the mirror. His jeans were scruffy and his shirt was so old he could barely make out the writing that was printed on it. He smoothed out his blonde hair and put on a Blue Beret. There was no uniform in Rocket HQ, apart from wearing Berets, which denoted rank. Red was the lowliest rank, and for new recruits. Next was Blue, which was for recruits who had successfully passed the Recruits test and were now official members of Team Rocket. After Blue was Silver, which was for members who had excelled in their chosen field. Finally there was Black, worn only by Administrators. Alex once had a friend who took a picture of himself and coloured in his Red Beret into a Black one. He was kicked out so fast they forgot to let him pack his things up. Life at Team Rocket was certainly stricter than he expected for a criminal organisation.

Alex picked up his bag, which was for appearances sake only as it was empty, and walked out the door. He made his way through the expansive corridors to his classroom. At six foot he was taller than most people, and as the corridors filled up it looked to him like a sea of red and blue with the occasional specks of silver. He made his way to his first lesson, bluntly named ‘Stealing’ on his timetable. He took his seat at the back of the classroom, which was now half full. The room was incredibly basic. The walls were bare, the floor was wooden, and the desks had been carved into numerous times with the names of Rockets gone by. Even though he had passed the Recruits test, until he was sixteen he had to attend lessons regularly. At fourteen years of age, he was short of that by two whole years. He couldn’t wait for it though. The ability to do anything he wanted to do, even leave HQ without permission from one of the Administrators. He wouldn’t even need to live in HQ. He could do anything he wanted to do. The only the thing he had to do was to answer any call that Team Rocket asked for him, whether it be taking part in a secret operation, or simply running an errand.

Alex stopped dreaming when he heard the door of the classroom opening, and revealing his teacher. Mr Smith was not, at first glance, what you would consider to be a Rocket. He was pocket-sized, only four foot nine, and wore a tweed coat over his pressed shirt and tie. However, his intellect exceeded that of any other member of Team Rocket, inventing a lot of the equipment that was used in the failed mission at the Lake of Rage. As Smith began his prepared lecture on stealing Pokemon, Alex laid his head on the desk in an attempt to continue his day-dreaming, but was unable. When the door had opened to let in Smith, reality had entered as well. He realised that all his dreams could be ended because of his mistake. ‘Not MY mistake’ he told himself, but he barely believed himself. He decided the best thing was to try and take his mind off it by listening to the lecture, which unfortunately turned out to be incredibly dull.

Thirty minutes into the lesson, and the door opened another time. Alex was still unsuccessful in his attempts to nod off, and saw a girl wearing a Red Beret on her head walk in. She handed a note to the teacher, who glanced at it and said “Alex Walker, please make your way to Sector Seven”. Alex’s eyes widened. Sector Seven was where most of the administrators lived and worked. It was also where Team Rocket’s most secretive work took place. Alex stood up and walked out the door, the girl following. As she closed the door, the sound of cheering could be heard behind him. Apparently people wanted him gone badly. Alex and the girl walked down the corridor silently, giving Alex the chance to study her closely. She was about thirteen, but her body didn’t look like it. She had curves that a sixteen year old would be proud of, which were all accentuated by her tight jeans and t-shirt, and she walked with a flirty flair about her. Alex would have asked her out had it not been for the fact that he probably would be getting kicked out in a few minutes time. They arrived at Sector Seven, but the girl walked right past the entrance, apparently heading to Sector Four. Alex looked at the door. It was steel and had a red seven painted rather crudely onto it. Alex readied himself, and pressed the button on the side that opened the door. The time of reckoning had come. ​