The short ceremony to make me a full agent only consisted of Director Falon and the highest-ranking members of the council, as well as my mentor who had been my teacher for the past seven years. I took the oath to protect the peace of all of the regions very seriously and was proud when Pikachu sat tall and rested his front paw on his own heart as I recited it. Once I was sworn in, I was immediately ushered out of the room and into a small conference room where my mentor, Agent Rickshaw, handed me a dossier filled with all of the background information I would have to memorize to build my alias.

Agent Rickshaw gave me a few final pointers and then left me to my studying. My new name for the foreseeable future was going to be Satoshi Kilian. Satoshi was a native of the Sinnoh region who had attempted the Sinnoh league several times but could never make it past the top 16 of the league battles. Feelings of frustration led him to look for somewhere he belonged and he'd heard through the grapevine about Team Galactic and their plan to create a new world.

My pride was a little hurt that I would have to play the part of a failed pokemon trainer, but I shoved that aside and continued to study the dossier. I would have to know all of these details, such as my new birthday and family information, better than I knew my own if I was going to pull this off. As I read that 'Satoshi' was an orphan though I frowned and glanced at the partially opened conference room door.

"Do you think they'll let me say goodbye to Mom?" I asked Pikachu with a nervous frown.

Pikachu jumped up onto the table and patted my arm comfortingly. I smiled down at him and nodded before turning back to the dossier. Even if it was just a video call, I would make sure I would let Mom know I was going to be gone for a long trip so she wouldn't worry.

Being a trainee spy was cooler than anything I had ever done, but the hardest thing was that it meant I had to lie to the people closest to me. My old friends like Brock, Dawn, May, Tracy, and Misty who traveled with me in the past all thought that I was still traveling around the world as a pokemon trainer. I was allowed to tell Mom a little bit more of the truth, but I couldn't tell her anything that might put her in danger, so she wasn't allowed to know the organization's name or any of the specifics about my assignments.

A knock pulled me out of my thoughts and I looked up guiltily, realizing that I had let my mind wander instead of memorizing my new life story. An unfamiliar woman walked into the room dressed in black slacks, a white shirt, and a shimmery sequin purple vest. I blinked in shock at the unusual burst of color from her vest and she grinned broadly at me.

"Hello, Satoshi. I'm Miriam, the agency stylist. It's my job to make you look a little less like an IIA agent and more like Satoshi Kilian," she said with a broad grin. Before I could respond she skipped over to where I was seated at the table and took one of my hands in both of hers.

"Come on, then!" she urged with an exuberant squeal. She tugged me with more force than I anticipated and I found myself stumbling after her, only barely snagging my dossier filled with background information before she whisked me out of the conference room.

Three hours later I looked into the mirror and it was all I could do not to chuckle. My hair, which had always been a spiky mess my entire life, had been trimmed back so that it was short in the back and then Miriam had used gel to get my normally crazy spikes to actually look somewhat cool. I wouldn't be able to wear a hat comfortably with my hair like this, but I guess that was a sacrifice I'd have to make to become 'Satoshi'.

She had also shaved off my scruff of a beard that I had so proudly grown and I was disappointed at how much younger I looked without any facial hair to brag about. Even stranger though, was that she had given me what she called 'highlights' so that I had vibrant blue streaks randomly throughout my black hair.

"You can use any gel you want, but I would recommend the Ariados Supreme Stick," Miriam said as she handed me a dark purple bottle of gel depicting an Ariados shooting its sticky web into a guy's perfectly spiked hair. The image was a little disturbing, to be honest, but I laid it on top of the dossier I'd set on the table where Pikachu had curled up to take a nap during my transformation.

"Thank you for your help, Miriam," I said with a small bow. Miriam tittered and waved her hand as she beamed up at me.

"No thanks are necessary, Satoshi! Do your best not to be caught, okay?" Her tone and smile were bright and cheerful, but as I looked into her chocolate brown eyes my heart nearly stopped at the glare that seemed to be more of a threat than an encouragement. I swallowed quickly and bowed lower, looking back up to see that the scary look had disappeared and she was once again smiling happily at me.

Pikachu startled awake as the door banged open and an agent with rippling muscles that I could only dream of ever having walked through the door without announcing himself. Miriam looked at the bodybuilder with a curious expression and the agent nodded respectfully to her.

"It's time, Ms. Miriam," the agent stated.

"We just finished," Miriam replied with another tittering giggle. 

Pikachu jumped from the table to my shoulder and I scooped up my dossier and bottle of hair gel before turning and following the agent out of the room. I made sure to wave in thanks to Miriam and she wiggled her fingers at me in a silent farewell.

A bus and a plane ride later I found myself back in Sinnoh after seven long years. The agent that had accompanied me made me rehearse every detail about my new alias from the dossier before taking it into his beefy hands and giving me instructions on how to find the Team Galactic secret base. After ensuring that I understood my assignment he handed me a blue backpack that was packed with just the essentials. It also sported a false bottom where I would keep my five strongest pokemon and the communicator that I would use to relay information back to the IIA.

"Good luck, Agent Ketchum," the burly man said with a smart salute. I bowed to him but when I straightened he had already disappeared from view.

Shrugging lightly I took fifteen minutes to call my mom and explain that I was being sent on an assignment where I wouldn't be able to contact her for a while. She told me to take care of myself and to be sure to not forget extra underwear. I rolled my eyes at that but couldn't help but chuckle at the reminder of when she first sent me off on my pokemon journey back when I was just ten years old.

My life sure has turned out differently than I thought it would, I observed to myself as I ended my call with Mom, making sure to tell her that I loved her. Even though I hadn't continued the path of a normal pokemon trainer, I felt like I was getting closer to my goal of becoming a pokemon master. And if I could help keep the regions of the world safe from evil lunatics in the process, then that was something I would gladly sacrifice anything to do.

"You ready, buddy? I asked Pikachu, who was once again perched on my shoulder.

"Pi pikachu!" he responded with a determined nod. I smiled at him, grateful that the agency hadn't tried to make me leave him behind. There had been a mission where I was required to keep Pikachu in his Pokeball or not bring him at all and I had felt off-balanced and like I was missing something the entire time.

It took several days of traveling on foot to get to the secret base that the IIA had described to me. Apparently Neptune had stationed herself in the heart of Mount Coronet and had concealed the entrance to a labyrinth of caves that she and the rest of Team Galactic used to hide what they were trying to accomplish.

The agency had figured out where the entrance was, but no matter how much they dug they had not been able to figure out how to get past the mechanism that opened up the tunnels. So, once I was certain that I was in front of one of what I was sure was a dozen different entrances to Team Galactic's base I simply folded up my map, concealed it in the false bottom of my backpack, and cleared my throat loudly.

"HELLO!!!! I'M HERE TO JOIN TEAM GALACTIC! ANYBODY HOME?" Cupping my hands around my mouth, I yelled as loudly as I could. This sent my voice in every direction I could, just in case there were some team galactic grunts wandering through the tunnels.

It only took about two minutes of me yelling like a crazy person before a scraping sound began behind me. I instantly lowered my hands and jerked back, trying to look like I was in awe as what looked like a perfectly solid rock split down the middle and slowly scraped to the side to reveal a dark opening. It was easy to fake amazement because I actually was impressed by the workmanship of the door.

As I stood gawking, a small group of people walked through the opening and circled me threateningly. They were all dressed in dark gray clothes with small accents of blue and a small blue G stitched on the right side of their shirt. I tried to look intimidated as I carefully took in small details such as each of the people surrounding me only had two Pokeballs at the most on a belt looped around their waist. All, that is, except for a short young woman with platinum blonde hair. She looked like she was barely pushing five feet tall and a large stunky waddled up to stand at attention next to her as she leveled an acidic glare at me.

"How did you find us, simpleton?" the woman asked with a disgusted curl of her lips.

"I overheard someone talking about how a cool team that wanted to create a new world was recruiting members down at the pokemon cemetery," I rehearsed naturally as I mentally pictured the occurrence as if it really were my own memory. The young woman's eyes narrowed at me and she folded her arms.

"If you saw our recruiter why didn't you talk to him there?" she asked suspiciously, moving her gaze from me to Pikachu who was perched on my shoulder. I knew that his eyes were probably darting from one grunt to the next but just as we had discussed, he remained securely on my shoulder, looking as non-threatening as an electric mouse pokemon could be.

"I needed to settle a debt before I could join up with you guys. I didn't want my pokemon breeder to send the cops after me because I hadn't paid him or something," I explained with a dejected sigh.

The short woman smirked wickedly and all of the grunts chuckled at that. I watched as the woman stepped closer to me and looked me up and down with an appraising expression.

"If we succeed then you won't have to worry about bad debts ever again," she said with cruel amusement. "What makes you think you've got what it takes to be a part of Team Galactic?" she barked out suddenly.

"Me and my partner, Pikachu, have been traveling together for almost ten years now and it seems like everywhere we go there is corruption and sadness in the world. If you're planning on making a new world where we can have a fresh start then we want to be a part of it," I said firmly.

The key to a good lie, my mentor's voice floated through my head, is to hide it amidst the truth. It was completely true that I had seen a lot of sadness and corruption in the world and that was exactly why I decided to stay in the spy-training program with the IIA. The more I saw evil teams wreaking havoc on different regions the surer I was that I wanted to be there to put a stop to it. And, essentially, create a new world.

Even though I had rehearsed this bit and it sounded completely natural as it rolled off my tongue I could feel myself becoming nervous as the chibi of a woman glared up at me without reacting to my declaration. After what seemed like forever though she finally smiled and nodded emphatically, causing her platinum blonde pigtails to bounce.

"That's good enough for me. Search his bag," she snapped at one of the grunts. I reluctantly released my backpack into the grunt's hand and had to try really hard not to smile smugly when it was returned within seconds without them noticing the false bottom.

"What's your name?" the woman asked after that had been taken care of.

"Satoshi Kilian, ma'am," I responded immediately, bowing slightly towards her.

"Well then, Satoshi. My name is Celeste. I'm one of the Team Galactic captains and I report directly to our leader, Neptune. Follow us and we'll show you to your barracks and get you an outfit to change into."

I breathed an inward sigh of relief as I followed after Celeste. Several of the grunts introduced themselves to me as we traveled through the twisting tunnels of Mt. Coronet. I claimed to be poor with names and asked them to forgive me if I messed them up. The truth was that I used to be terrible with names, but after all of the memory exercises during my training with the IIA I had no trouble memorizing massive amounts of information at a time now. However, Satoshi was supposed to be an unassuming, unremarkable team galactic grunt wanna-be, so I decided I would purposely mix up their names at least for a few days to help sell my cover.

"Celeste, I need you to... Who's this?" 

Turning around quickly I felt my jaw fall slack as I found myself staring at the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was an average height, probably around 5'5", and she was dressed in a completely black pantsuit with just the team Galactic insignia stitched in blue across her breast pocket. She had pale purple hair that cascaded like a waterfall from the top of her head down to the small of her back, and her eyes were large and the clearest lavender purple color I had ever seen.

"New recruit. Satoshi, this is our leader: The beautiful and visionary Neptune," Celeste said with pride in her voice.

I quickly sketched a deep bow, mentally shaking myself. Meeting the leader of Team Galactic hadn't been in my plans until I had made a name for myself as a grunt, but I was thrilled that I would be able to give a description to the IIA sooner than later. Schooling my expression into one of humble awe I peeked up from my bow and smiled hesitantly at her.

"I will do everything I can to help you create a new and better world," I promised with a confident tone. Neptune smirked at me and waved her hand dismissively.

"I will look forward to your support. Now, Celeste, I need you."

"Right away, Neptune. You two, take Satoshi to the barracks and get him a uniform," Celeste snapped at the two lead grunts behind her. They immediately bowed to her and all of the grunts, including me, bowed respectfully as the two women walked away from us, discussing something in a hushed tone.

"This way then."

For the next week, I slowly fell into a new pattern of living. During the day I would go out with various grunts to gather materials for Neptune's "experiments". No one knew what the experiments were for, but I made careful notes of everything that we were collecting and reported it to the IIA every night once I was certain everyone was asleep.

Exactly a week after I was accepted as a team galactic member I left my room that I shared with three other grunts to nearly stumble over the tiny body of Captain Celeste. I quickly moved back and bowed low to her as she tapped her foot in obvious annoyance at something.

"Good morning," she said testily. I slowly raised from my bow and nodded to her.

"Good morning, Celeste. How can I help you?" I asked, trying to sound eager but not overdramatically so.

"Neptune has run out of poison barbs. I need you to go to Eterna Forest and gather as many as you can. Be back within two days," Celeste snapped. 

Even though I'd only been here a week, I had come to realize that Celeste was almost always annoyed with something or someone. Not wanting to become her newest target, I immediately agreed and slipped my backpack on, making sure I had everything I needed to spend the night outside.

With a nod at the grunt manning the concealed door I waited for the now-familiar scraping sound to stop before I walked through the opening that had been created and walked confidently through the tunnels and towards Eterna Forest. Pikachu hopped after me excitedly and I grinned down at him. This was the first time we had been trusted with a gathering mission by ourselves and I knew that Pikachu was excited to let off some steam. Since Satoshi was supposed to be a bit of a failure as a pokemon trainer Pikachu had to dial back his power and I knew that he was getting frustrated with the lack of any real training.

"Don't worry, buddy," I said under my breath. "We'll definitely take advantage of the time alone."

A/N Hmmm it's harder than I had thought to write in Ash's POV :P Is it flowing okay so far? Thank you for those who are reading this! It means a lot :)