23:00.
Nugget Bridge looked innocent at night.
The lamps along the railings cast a soft, artificial sheen over the dark water below. The wind cut down from the north like it had somewhere better to be, carrying the chill of the mountains. A couple of late pedestrians crossed in silence, heads down, minds elsewhere. Behind them, Cerulean City slept, its lights bright in the distance, unaware that the bridge was a meeting point for people who didn't exist on any public schedule.
Lambda Unit stood near the north sector marker.
Enzo kept his hands in his pockets and his posture relaxed, the way you did when you wanted to look harmless. Ronnie couldn't stop shifting his weight, glancing at the road like he expected something dramatic to explode. Proton was the calmest of the three, eyes scanning angles and exits, marking blind spots the way breathing marked time.
A car arrived without noise.
Black paint. Tinted windows so dark they swallowed the bridge lights instead of reflecting them. No plates Enzo could read. No logo. No driver visible.
It stopped exactly in front of them.
The rear door unlocked with a soft click.
No one spoke.
Enzo opened the door and slid inside first. Proton followed. Ronnie hesitated half a second, then climbed in too.
The interior smelled like leather and something clean enough to be expensive. The windows were so dark that Nugget Bridge vanished the moment the door shut, as if they had been sealed into a moving coffin.
The car pulled away immediately.
Ronnie leaned forward, trying to see the front. "Who's driving?"
No answer.
Proton didn't bother asking. He stared out the side window, seeing nothing, and still somehow looking like he was tracking the route.
Enzo closed his eyes and counted turns by feel.
One left. A short straight. Two rights. Then a long descent that made his stomach shift. The vehicle entered a tunnel. The sound changed, tires humming against concrete. Then another tunnel. Then another.
They were being disoriented on purpose.
No landmarks. No city noise. No sky. Just movement and the quiet certainty that if you wanted to disappear someone, you started by taking away their sense of direction.
Finally, the car slowed.
A gate opened somewhere ahead. The car passed through, descended again, and stopped.
The rear door unlocked.
Cold air hit Enzo first, sterile and dry.
He stepped out into a corridor lit by white panels that didn't flicker. No windows. No decoration. A place designed to be forgotten.
A heavy door waited at the end. Beside it was a scanner. A camera. A red light that turned green the moment Enzo approached, as if the building had recognized him before he arrived.
The door opened.
Inside was a room that made Enzo's instincts tighten.
No windows. No clocks. No shadows deep enough to hide in. The air was colder here, filtered again and again until it tasted like nothing. Voices moved in low pockets around the edges. Dozens of people.
Squad Leaders.
Some wore insignias openly. Others kept them under civilian coats. A few had that dangerous stillness of professional killers who didn't need badges to be respected. There were also technicians, assistants, handlers—people who carried tablets and avoided eye contact with anyone carrying rank.
In the center of the room was a circular table.
Above it, a single ring light. Bright. Unforgiving.
At the top of the circle, elevated by a half step like a subtle throne, stood Nero.
No speech. No dramatic posture. Just presence.
Enzo didn't recognize most faces. That was deliberate too. Shadow Unit was a compartmented machine. You weren't supposed to know more than you needed.
Still—one presence made his focus tighten.
Instructor Viper.
He was close, standing only a step to Enzo's left, posture relaxed like he belonged in any room that smelled like danger. The insignia on his coat was different now—heavier. Squad Leader. Delta.
Delta Squad Leader.
Enzo's eyes lingered for half a second too long.
Viper noticed immediately.
He leaned in just slightly, voice low enough that it wouldn't travel.
"You staring? Don't tell me you want another bottle?" he murmured.
Enzo's mouth twitched. A brief, controlled smile, more reflex than emotion.
Viper's gaze stayed forward, amused without showing it.
Nero waited until the last arrivals settled. The room's noise slowly died, like someone turning down a volume dial.
When the silence was complete, Nero spoke.
"You're here because we have a lead."
His voice didn't rise. It didn't need to. It carried cleanly through the room, cutting straight into attention.
"A remote island has been identified. Genetic and environmental markers match old reports tied to Mew."
A subtle shift ran through the group. Nothing loud. Just a collective tightening. The name alone carried weight, even among Team Rocket's elite.
"Our objective is simple," Nero continued. "We retrieve viable DNA."
Someone at the far side of the circle made a quiet sound of approval, like the mission had already become a trophy in their mind.
Nero's gaze flicked over the room once, cold and precise.
"Don't let the simplicity confuse you."
He tapped the table once. A display on its surface lit up, projecting a rough map outline. Not detailed enough to be useful outside this room.
"The last unit we sent," Nero said, "was Squad Beta."
That name landed heavier than the map.
Beta had a reputation. Strong. Efficient. The kind of squad that didn't return empty-handed.
Nero didn't pause for drama. He delivered it like an autopsy report.
"Squad Beta was eliminated."
For half a second, the room stopped being a room.
A few Squad Leaders exchanged looks. One person's jaw tightened. Another blinked too slowly, as if their brain had refused the information and needed to rerun it.
Ronnie, standing behind Enzo, went very still. Proton's eyes sharpened, as if he was suddenly measuring every person in the room with fresh caution.
Enzo didn't move, but he felt the implication settle into his bones.
Whatever was on that island had erased an elite squad.
Nero let the silence hang just long enough to become useful.
"The problem," Nero continued, "is not only what's on the island."
He dragged his finger across the map projection, then stopped.
"The problem is attention."
He looked around the circle.
"A mission like this creates ripples. The League watches for ripples. Rival organizations watch for ripples. There are people who do nothing but calculate patterns, and this operation will register as a pattern."
His voice remained calm, almost bored.
"We need eyes far from our work."
That was when the brainstorming started.
It wasn't an invitation to be creative. It was an invitation to be ruthless.
A Squad Leader on the left spoke first. "Hijack the S.S. Anne. Public panic. League mobilization."
Another immediately followed. "Burn a Gym in Pewter. Something loud. Something that forces a response."
Someone else snorted and offered a worse version of the same idea. "Detonate a storage depot near Vermilion. Let them chase shadows."
A few ideas were smarter, but still ugly. False flags. Fake kidnappings. Manufactured outbreaks. Anything that turned the League's gaze outward and away.
Most of these plans were amateur violence. The kind that created ten problems for every one it solved.
Enzo's breath barely changed.
A thin blue reticle formed in his vision, drifting across faces as his gaze moved.
He wasn't scanning on purpose. The System was doing what it had been built to do.
Then it locked.
A subtle ping.
[ INFLUENCE SCAN — TARGET IDENTIFIED ]
Rank: Squad Leader
Residue Signature: DARKRAI
Exposure Level: HIGH
Status: ACTIVE RISK
Recommendation: Observe. Do not confront publicly.
Enzo's eyes narrowed by a fraction.
The Squad Leader was on the opposite side of the circle, near a pillar. A man with a clean uniform, calm posture, and eyes that looked too awake for 23:00. Not jittery. Not confused. Just… present. Focused in a way that felt slightly off, like someone was watching through him.
Enzo memorized the face.
Then the man's head turned.
His gaze found Enzo immediately, like he'd felt the lock.
For a heartbeat, they stared at each other across the table.
It wasn't overt hostility. It was recognition.
Enzo broke eye contact first. Not out of fear, but out of discipline. He turned his head back toward Nero as if nothing had happened.
He could feel Nero's attention flicker toward him for the briefest moment, like the Executive had noticed a shift in the room's current. Nero's eyes swept the circle once, then returned to the discussion without comment.
Good, Enzo thought. Keep your mask on.
The brainstorming continued.
A few leaders argued over scale and timing. Viper spoke once, concise and controlled, suggesting a containment tactic that reduced collateral damage. Most of the room ignored him because chaos was easier to imagine than precision.
Then the Squad Leader with the Darkrai residue stepped forward.
Enzo watched him carefully now, keeping his face neutral.
The man's voice was smooth. Confident. Too ready.
"My squad and I," he said, "have a proposal."
Nero didn't react. He simply waited.
The man glanced around the circle, as if checking approval.
"We release Beedrill swarms across multiple League sectors," he said. "Coordinated strikes. Panic. Evacuations. News coverage. It forces the League to move resources immediately."
A few people murmured. Some with interest. Some with hesitation.
Enzo felt ice crawl up his spine.
Not because the idea was violent. Team Rocket thrived on violence. Because Enzo had lived it.
In his previous life, that exact incident had happened. Beedrill released at scale. Civilians hurt. The League furious. Investigations launched. Pressure on Team Rocket so heavy it had warped operations for months. People in Kanto had hated them before. After that, they didn't just hate them, they hunted them.
He looked at Nero.
Nero's face was unreadable, but Enzo saw the calculation behind the calm. The room was full of bad options, and this one had a cruel simplicity.
The problem was that the simplest disasters were also the easiest to trace.
Enzo didn't speak aloud. He couldn't. Not here. Not in front of the circle.
So he did something else.
He reached for Nero with the same silent channel he'd used before, the unnatural thread of thought that bypassed air and lips.
Executive Nero.
The Executive's posture didn't change. But his eyes sharpened, imperceptibly, like a man hearing a sound no one else could.
Don't accept that plan, Enzo sent.
A pause. A fraction of a second where Nero processed what had just happened.
Telepathy a psychic very Rare, even in Kanto.
Enzo continued, keeping his face still.
I'll handle the distraction. Personally. Not the Beedrill plan.
Nero's gaze remained on the speaker, but Enzo could feel the Executive's attention split, like a blade turning in two directions at once.
For a moment, Nero looked genuinely… surprised.
Not impressed. Not amused. Surprised.
Then the mask returned.
Nero lifted his hand slightly, a small gesture that silenced the room without effort.
He looked at the Squad Leader who had proposed the Beedrill release.
A long beat.
Then Nero spoke, voice calm enough to be dangerous.
"Your enthusiasm is noted."
The man's smile tightened. He was waiting for approval.
Nero's eyes moved across the circle.
"We are not finalizing a distraction plan in this meeting," Nero said. "Not here. Not like this."
A few leaders nodded.
"This gathering is to discuss the island operation," Nero continued. "The distraction will be handled separately."
He let the words settle.
Enzo exhaled slowly through his nose, keeping it invisible.
He had stopped the worst version of history from repeating itself. For now.
And Nero, for the first time since Trial Island, looked at Enzo like he was reconsidering what kind of weapon Lambda Unit will become.
"Now," Nero said, turning back to the holographic map, "we return to the mission parameters."
The map zoomed in on a specific sector of the ocean, far south of Kanto's trade routes. A jagged, isolated rock formation appeared.
"This Island," Nero said. "It was assumed to be uninhabited. It is not."
He tapped the console. Four red dots appeared on the island's perimeter.
"Our drones were shot down before they could land, but they transmitted thermal signatures. We confirmed four distinct entities guarding the interior."
Nero paused, letting the weight of the next words settle.
"Two Registeel. And two Regirock."
A murmur rippled through the room. Four Legendary Titans? In one location?
But Enzo didn't look impressed. He looked calculating. He stepped forward, breaking the hierarchy of silence.
"Are they Primes?" Enzo asked.
The question cut through the murmurs like a knife.
The entire room went dead silent. Every Squad Leader turned to look at Enzo, then back to Nero.
In this world, that distinction was the difference between a difficult battle and a funeral.
It was universal knowledge, taught everywhere, that not all "Legendaries" were created equal. Seeing a Trainer command a Latios or an Entei in a high-level tournament wasn't a myth; it happened. But those were Minor Legendaries. They were the biological offspring of the originals. They had the shape, the type, and the instincts, but their DNA was diluted. They were powerful, yes, but they were mortal. They could be hurt. They could be captured.
But Primes? Primes were the originals. The Progenitors. They didn't just have high stats; they were forces of nature wrapped in flesh or metal.
And the Regis were even more complicated.
They didn't reproduce biologically. They didn't lay eggs. The Regis propagated through Ancient Fragmentation. Over centuries, a Prime Regi would shed parts of its body—a rock from a shoulder, a shard of metal from a limb. Those fragments, charged with the original's energy, would slowly regenerate over hundreds of years until they formed a new, independent body. A Minor Legendary regi.
Fighting a Minor Regi was like fighting a tank. Fighting a Prime Regi was like fighting the mountain itself.
Nero looked at Enzo. His expression remained unreadable, but his eyes were grim.
"We don't know," Nero admitted.
The fear in the room spiked instantly.
Squad Leaders shifted uncomfortably. A few looked at the map with sudden dread.
"The energy readings are unstable," Nero explained. "They are too high for standard Minors, but the island's magnetic field is interfering with a deep scan. We cannot confirm if we are dealing with four descendants..."
He looked at the red dots.
"...or if one of them is the Progenitor."
"If there is a Prime Registeel on that island," Viper said from across the table, his voice low, "then a standard assault team is useless. It will wipe us out."