When Silas saw the mission notification, his eyebrows rose.
Come to think of it, this was the first time since becoming a recognized League-registered Trainer that he had received a regional task summons.
Responsibility, duty, and rights—those three were inescapable.
If a direct-line Trainer enjoyed rights and privileges, they were equally bound to take up the corresponding responsibilities and duties.
The League didn't take five million Pokédollars from you just to let you train a starter, grow strong, and then sit back and watch.
Without much hesitation, Silas tapped the "Accept Mission" button.
Yes, technically such missions could be refused. In fact, to exaggerate a bit—you could refuse every single mission if you wanted.
As long as you had sufficient justification, the League was lenient. If you explained you truly couldn't participate—say your Pokémon was sick, or you'd just finished a tough battle and needed to head to a Center—those reasons would work.
The League didn't mandate that you join every mission.
But of course, everyone knew: if you overused excuses, people would notice.
According to the "veteran wisdom" posted on the Pokémon Forums, taking part in one mission every two or three months was enough to avoid criticism, and it wouldn't affect your standing.
But if you simply didn't want to contribute, the League had plenty of ways to remind you what responsibility and duty meant.
The Prosecutors weren't just for show and that was before even counting the Officer Jennys and Nurse Joys who supported enforcement to the end.
So Silas's immediate acceptance wasn't careless—it was logical. Usually, assignments were scaled to a Trainer's strength.
If you were registered as an Elite-level Trainer, the League wouldn't throw you against a Champion-level opponent out of nowhere. That wasn't a mission—that was suicide. And it would harm the League's stability.
According to those same "forum veterans," this was most likely a case of Pokémon species rioting.
That sort of thing was common in Viridian Forest. Viridian City had to deal with such incidents every year.
In fact, his old villa had been destroyed by Pokémon charging out of Viridian Forest before it was rebuilt.
Fortunately, the League covered all such damages.
Still, the original owner of that villa had hurried to sell and move downtown. His words: he didn't want to keep getting scared half to death.
If not for that, Silas would never have been able to buy the property for fifty thousand less than market price.
He chuckled. Funny to think of that now.
These days, fifty thousand—or even five hundred thousand—didn't matter to him. He'd already sold that house anyway.
Shaking his head to clear away the idle thoughts, Silas tucked the feathers into his backpack and opened the mission details.
"Hm?" He made a soft sound of surprise.
It wasn't a Pokémon riot.
It was an operation to wipe out a Team Rocket base.
Before accepting, he'd only been able to see the general area—that much was deliberate, to prevent leaks. If dark organizations caught wind of missions too early, they could either ambush or evacuate, both outcomes disastrous.
It wasn't that the League refused secrecy—it was that over-secrecy caused more problems. There had been ugly lessons learned before, sparking protests.
So now, some information was disclosed.
And besides, if a League-registered Trainer could be infiltrated so easily, there was no point in even having the vetting process.
Every mission assignment was logged, and if info leaked, it was easy to identify a mole.
For truly major operations—like the crackdown on the black market—the League handled things with airtight secrecy, not casual mission postings like this.
Silas activated the wristwatch's GPS, checked his distance to the rally point, recalled Snivy, and released Blaziken to carry him through the forest at speed.
As he darted through the trees, a thought kept nagging at him:
A mission to destroy a Team Rocket base in Viridian Forest?
To him, it sounded absurd.
Viridian Forest? That was Giovanni's backyard.
If Giovanni wanted to hide a base here, who could possibly find it?
Silas had every reason to believe this so-called base was nothing but a decoy—and that Rocket had other moves in play.
But his belief didn't matter. No one would accept it, and he had no proof.
Still, that was fine. If it was only a front, then the risk would be much lower. At least he didn't have to worry about diehards fighting to the death—those types would already have been evacuated.
Team Rocket was desperate for manpower at this point. They hadn't yet reached the future stage where they could dominate alone.
The only question was—who had the League sent to lead this mission?
Giovanni himself was out of the question. Setting aside the absurdity of him targeting his own base, Silas hadn't seen the Viridian Gym open in the past three days. Clearly, Giovanni was away again.
Soon, Silas arrived near the rally point, crouching in the grass.
The assembled Trainers were tense, their eyes snapping toward him in unison.
Silas stepped out calmly with Blaziken at his side.
"Number 24," he stated simply.
This was the designation automatically assigned when he accepted: he was the twenty-fourth direct-line Trainer in Viridian Forest to join this mission.
For a temporary mission, that was a huge number—something only Viridian Forest could produce.
The man at the head of the group, clad in a brown trench coat over a green suit, regarded him.
"Hello. I'm the commander for this operation—International Police, codename Looker. If you prefer, call me '836' or just 'Handsome.'"
By introducing himself this way, he acknowledged Silas's identity.
The others lowered their guard.
Silas said nothing further, simply moving to lean against a tree apart from the group, observing.
From what he saw, most of the others had Pokémon by their side that weren't starters.
That was normal enough. Kanto's three starters were all fairly large, and while they were fine in forest combat, bringing them into a crowded gathering like this was inconvenient.
The clearing wasn't big enough for that.
Luckily, Blaziken's humanoid frame fit the space well. Silas patted its shoulder absently.
Blaziken tilted its head at him.
Of course, walking in with a Blaziken at his side inevitably drew attention. A Hoenn starter Pokémon wasn't something one saw often in Kanto.
The forest fell silent.
As more Trainers arrived one after another, fifteen minutes later Looker checked his watch, clapped his hands, and drew everyone's attention.
"The assembly time is up. All thirty-two Trainers who accepted this mission are here.
Now, the operation officially begins."
He paused.
"As for the mission target, the League's intel is already clear. A Rocket defector, during an expedition, discovered one of their bases.
According to prior reconnaissance, the forces inside aren't particularly strong. The leaders are only two quasi-Elite-class Trainers.
The rest number around thirty or so Advance Level, and dozens of ordinary Trainers.
I'll personally take care of the leaders. You only need to deal with the remaining opposition.
If there are no objections, we depart immediately."
The briefing was unexpectedly short—even lacking tactical arrangements.
Yet no one objected, and Silas had no complaints either.
The reason was simple: the opposition was too weak.
Trainers from dark organizations typically lagged far behind their League counterparts at the same rank—especially compared to direct-line League Trainers.
These people here were all elites.
It wasn't an exaggeration to say most of them could fight two enemies at once without issue.
In fact, even if Looker didn't handle those two quasi-Elites, the direct-line Trainers here had every reason to believe they could still overwhelm them.
It might just be bloodier.
Seeing the silence, Looker took it as acceptance. He turned and began leading the way.
The group marched through the forest in force.
Wild Pokémon sensing the approaching crowd scattered in every direction.
Luckily, the base wasn't far—otherwise the enemy would have noticed and evacuated already.
"Croagunk, break it open."
Looker released his Pokémon and gave the command.
A Croagunk appeared—the dark blue Poison/Fighting-type from Sinnoh, with white band-like markings around its chest like wrappings.
Everyone was a bit surprised.
After all, Croagunk still had an evolution—Toxicroak.
Could an unevolved Croagunk really handle two quasi-Elites?
Some began to doubt. Their leader, this International Police agent, suddenly seemed less reliable.
But the next moment, their doubts vanished.
Croagunk walked up to a massive boulder ahead, set three fingers against it—
BOOM.
With a single push, part of the boulder shattered into chunks, revealing a hidden tunnel leading underground.
The assembled Trainers knew their own Pokémon could break the rock, but not nearly so effortlessly—or so precisely.
More importantly, it was obvious Croagunk had held back. If it had struck at full force, the rubble would have collapsed and blocked the tunnel's entrance.
"Move out," Looker ordered, leading them into the passage one by one.
"What a hassle," he thought to himself.
He rarely handled these brute-force raids. Most of the time, his role was undercover work—slipping into enemy ranks like a spy.
But in purge operations like this, with intelligence files at stake, many of his usual tricks couldn't be used. It was restrictive.
"Tch. What's the point of raiding such a minor base? Couldn't we just level it with an Earthquake and be done with it?"
A Trainer muttered mid-column.
Though he called it a mutter, in the tunnel everyone could hear.
"Well, that's how the League always treats Rocket, isn't it? Strange to think—could Rocket tech really surpass the League's?" another chimed in.
Hearing the intel had relaxed them, loosening the tension before battle.
"That's not the point. What if Rocket really dug up some shocking tech from ancient ruins? Better to be cautious," another said.
That opened the floodgates, and the Trainers naturally began chatting as they walked.
Looker didn't stop them.
They weren't soldiers—total silence was unrealistic.
And besides, he hadn't taken this mission very seriously himself.
If not for stopping in Kanto to consult Professor Rowan on his travels, this assignment would never have landed on his desk.
.....
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