Jessie and James had never been in a meeting room so large. It stretched from one end of the hallway, all the way to the other end of the hallway. There had to be at least twenty Cipher Peons there; and there were probably about thirty Rockets mixed in.

But there was only one reason that they were all there. It was to hear Lovrina assign them tasks to carry out in the region.

"But what if—"

Jessie elbowed her partner. "If we're going to do anything right, we're certainly not going to start off by telling Lovrina about that…incident."

"ATTENTION!"

Almost instantly, the noise in the room died down when a Cipher Peon called for their attention.

"Lovrina, Cipher Admin. in the Orre region, is now going to announce who will carry out important tasks here. Some of you will be reassigned to a different base, but some of you will receive the honor of going on a mission. The price for failing the mission—well; let's just say that it isn't pretty—without further adieu, Lovrina!"

The scattered applause gave way to the appearance of a tall, Cipher Admin. with annoyingly long pink hair.

"Hello. I have decided who will be lucky enough to go on a mission. Well, we have a ton of missions that need to be done—but, there's one that needs to be done right away."

"Naps, my assistant, is in charge of a mission to kidnap Professor Krane. As you all know, Professor Krane is the head of a project to create a chamber that purifies shadow pokémon. And because of our deal with Giovanni, we must send Rocke—"

"You, you, and you," Naps said, finishing Lovrina's sentence for her. He had merely pointed to three random members of Team Rocket.

Jessie frowned, "Hey! We're perfectly capable of carrying out this assignment!"

"Shh," James hushed, who was elbowed in return.

Lovrina flipped her hair, before glancing over at Naps. Almost as if by telepathy, the two of them worked out a solution for the situation.

"I haven't heard very much about you two. You're not by any chance Jessie and James?"

"Ye—"

"Never heard of them," Jessie finished for James, clamping her hand over his mouth.

Lovrina nodded, "Well, I don't see why not. We're running short on time. The two of you may go with Naps."

By some incredibly good luck, Jessie and James were able to make it out of the meeting room without any of the Rocket members speaking up about them. Well, it could have been luck, or the fact that most of them hadn't even seen Jessie or James enter or exit the room.

O.O.O.O

"Hey! Isn't that Gateon Port?!"

May leaned over the side of the boat, pointing to a tall lighthouse on the edge of the harbor.

"It is," said Professor Oak, "we should be pulling into Gateon Port within five minutes."

"Excellent!" Ash exclaimed, "I wonder if Orre is ready for us, Pikachu."

May turned around, and rolled her eyes. "Oh please. No region is ever ready for you, Ash."

Ash fumed, "Like—"

"Guys—could you stop fighting a few seconds?" Brock asked, gazing up at the sky.

It was perhaps the best day for taking a boat someplace. The sun was out, making the sea glisten in the light. Wingulls and Pellipers flew overhead, searching for food. And there were no other boats in the harbor, except…

"Whoa! Look at that boat!" Max exclaimed, pointing to a luxury cruiser that seemed as though it had pulled into the harbor a while before they had even come close to Orre.

"I wonder who that belongs to," Ash said, marveling at the sight of the beautiful cruiser.

"Probably somebody famous," suggested May.

They had just passed the lighthouse, and the captain of the boat had sent a few sailors with orders to make sure that the boat was securely tied in at the dock. A few others went inside the cabins to retrieve the luggage for the boat's passengers.

"Let's go!" Ash proclaimed, and luggage in hand, he stepped off the boat, and raced towards the entrance of Gateon Port.

"Ash, wait up!"

"Pika, pika!"

Ignoring his friends' cries for him to wait for them, he continued to run until he bumped into something rather large.

"Hey! Watch where you're going, kid."

Ash looked up to see a tall man with blonde hair standing in his way. He quickly grabbed his suitcase, and mumbled an apology, before beginning to walk away.

"I didn't say that you could walk away!"

Before Ash could respond to this, the stranger released a sinister looking Zangoose from its pokéball.

"If it's a battle that you want, you got one! Go, Grovyle!"

Ash tossed Grovyle's pokéball, releasing the pokémon for the fight.

"Stop this battle at once!"

Ash blinked back the harsh sunlight, and when he did, he realized that three men were standing by him and the stranger, one of them looking as though he was old enough to be the father of the other two.

"I'm afraid that we can not allow this," stated the oldest man, the other two nodding in agreement.

"Wait!"

Before Ash knew it, one of the men had stepped in to battle in his place, and he hadn't had a say in the whole affair.

"I can battle him myself!"

No answer.

"Ash—where have you been?" asked May, "Professor Oak says that we're going to the Pokémon HQ now."

He nodded, and followed May to where Professor Oak, Max, Pikachu, and Brock were waiting for him.

"Now, let's see," Professor Oak remarked, checking his watch, "Professor Krane is supposed to pick us up in about ten minutes."

"But it's always good to be early, isn't it?" A voice inquired.

The group turned to see a man of medium build with messy brown hair, wearing a lab coat standing a few feet away from them.

"Krane; how nice to see you."

Professor Krane smiled, and adjusted his glasses. "It's very nice to see you again, Oak. And these are the adventurers, correct?"

"I'm Ash."

"I'm May."

"My name's Brock."

"And mine's Max."

"It's very nice to meet all of you. It's nice to see some people that have taken an interest in the region. These are such dark times—the spirit of adventure has pretty much been crushed. Well, except for Michael, that is."

"Who's Michael?" Ash asked, "And does he have pokémon?"

Professor Krane chuckled, "Why don't we go to the Pokémon HQ right now. You can meet Michael, Ash."

Ash nodded. It seemed as though almost as soon as he had arrived in Orre, he had gained a rival— a rival that didn't even know him yet.

O.O.O.O.

"How far is Pokémon HQ from here?" James inquired, shoving another box into the hover truck that they were to take to kidnap the Professor.

"Shh," Jessie hushed.

"Yeah," agreed Meowth, "we don't want to get on their bad side."

"Get in the truck," barked Naps, causing Jessie, James, and Meowth to all jump into the truck with surprising haste.

Naps sat down in the driver's seat, and started the truck, while Jessie, James, and Meowth were shunted into the back seat of the truck, the second that the powerful engine revved up.

"Hold on. These things go pretty fast."

"You could have told us that earlier! Jessie shrieked, holding onto her seat with all her might.

O.O.O.O.

"Here we are."

A large building with a pokéball on top stood proudly in the distance. Even though they weren't very close to the building yet, they could see many researchers milling out both inside the building, and outside.

"Wow!" Max marveled, "the most brilliant minds in the Orre region all gathered in one place.

Professor Krane chuckled, "Well, it's nice that you think so. We've been working tirelessly on a new project that I hope Professor Oak will be able to help us with. The sooner that we complete the proje--"

"Go! Eevee! Use bite on Sentret!"

Everyone turned to see a short, red-haired boy with an Eevee standing in front of him. Opposite the red-haired boy was a teenager with brown hair that had just called out a Sentret.

The Eevee charged, clamping down on the Sentret's tail. In return, the Sentret whacked it with its tail, sending it flying back to its trainer.

"Michael, we're back."

Ash assumed that the red-haired boy had to be Michael. He had no idea why, but just watching him battle made him certain that it was him.

"Not now," the red-haired boy said, still completely focused on what his opponent was about to do.

"Now, Sentret," commanded Michael's opponent, "use scratch!" It lunged forward, compelled to scratch the other pokemon because of the orders that its trainer had given it.

"Dodge, Eevee, now!"

Eevee swirved out of the way in the last second, avoiding being hit by mere centimeters.

"Wow! That's one incredible pokemon," May said, Max and Brock nodding in agreement.

Professor Krane adjusted his glasses, "Michael is considered to be a prodigy--he's lived here at the HQ for his entire life. He takes after his father."

"Lucky!" exclaimed Max, "I would love to live in a place like this!"

Ash didn't hear what they were saying. He was too absorbed in watching the battle. Michael's Eevee was incredible; it was obviously trained with u--"

"So, did you enjoy the battle?" asked a voice.

"AH!"

The battle had ended, and Michael had emerged as the victor. His opponent had just called his Sentret back into its pokeball. Ash stared at Michael for a second. He had red-hair, was rather short...

"I'm ten."

Ash stared at him for another few seconds, "How di--"

Michael shrugged, "It happens a lot."

"Why don't we go inside?" suggested Professor Krane, handing everyone their suitcases from the car, "I have something that I would like to talk to Professor Oak about."

In what seemed like a few seconds, everyone had rushed off in different directions. May had gone to find a bedroom to store her stuff, the two professors had gone inside the other side of the HQ, the side that led to the research facility, and everyone else had decided to stay with Michael.

"So, Michael, you must've trained your Eevee for years to be that good," Brock remarked.

Micheal pondered his statement for a moment before saying, " 'Bout a year."

"A year?" Ash asked, dumbfounded.

"Yeah."

As soon as the conversation died down, Ash began looking around. From the outside, the place looked rather small. Well, the building anyway. The land that the building was on was rather large. There were trees all around the property, and numerous scientists milling about the outdoors. The second that the four of them entered the HQ, it was apparent that the research facility was in fact twice the size that it appeared to be.

They had entered the section of the facility used for housing. There were rooms upon rooms in that area of the building--three of them sectioned off per family.

"Let's see...we really don't have that much room for you guys to stay with us," Michael admitted, "one of the rooms that we have is my sister Jovi's. Hmm...well, May could probably stay with her, and the other room is my mom's. So...you guys could probably squeeze into my room."

When they saw Michael's room it was fairly obvious that staying with him would be kind of difficult, as he had magazines, books, and all manners of stuff that one could not name all around his room.

Just when Max, Brock, and Ash had all set down their belongings there was a loud--

CLANG.

And then a few muffled screams.

"What was that?" cried Max, his eyes wide.

The four of them raced out of the building, closely followed by May, who had been in Jovi's room. When they got outside, they saw something fairly surprising.

A man in silverly armor was dragging Professor Krane away, bound and gagged.

And someone rather familiar was with them.

"Oh no.." muttered Ash.