"Once again, I want to congratulate you on your infiltration skills, Agent Ketchum. You have done a marvelous job gaining Neptune's trust and working your way into her inner circle," Director Falon said over the video call on my device. She had been ending our meetings like this every day since I told her that I had been promoted to Major. However, when I told her about the terrible forced evolution with their weird stone she only sounded intrigued and not as disgusted as I'd hoped she would be. I mean, I knew that Director Falon didn't really have a lot of emotions, but who wouldn't be disgusted when they heard about that?

"Will the IIA be making their move soon, Director Falon?" I asked, stifling the urge to rub against my forehead. It was the middle of the night and I was exhausted after a day filled with training sessions with the grunts. One nice thing about my promotion was that I was actually relocated into a private room so at least I didn't have to plug my roommate's ears whenever I checked in with the agency.

Director Falon turned away from the screen and seemed to be listening to someone in the office. I couldn't tell what they were saying since they were too far away from the microphone, but after they had finished Director Falon looked at me and shook her head.

"We still need more information before our teams can move in. Have you been able to collect a sample of these new evolution stones you saw?" Director Falon asked and I shook my head in disappointment.

"Neptune hasn't invited me back since she took me the first time. The first opportunity I get I will take one and find a way to send it to you though," I promised. 

Director Falon nodded briskly and after a quick goodbye the transmission was ended. I looked at the black device in my hands and sighed heavily, glancing over at Pikachu who had slept peacefully through the exchange.

"I know they want to wait until we know how Neptune is planning to create her new world," I said to the silent room. "But the longer they wait the more time she has to hurt innocent pokemon..."

Knowing there was nothing I could do except figure out a way of how to get Neptune to confide her plan to me, I burrowed under the covers and drifted off to sleep.

"Satoshi. Wake up, Satoshi."

Blinking the sleep out of my eyes I turned to the side, trying to figure out why my mom was waking me up. She hadn't done that since I was a kid. Looking up through bleary eyes I frowned when I saw a petite body with purple hair perched on the edge of my bed instead of my mother's curly brown hair. Realizing where I was and WHO was in my room I snapped up into a seated position and pushed myself back up against the wall, feeling my pulse quickening at the shocking awakening. Neptune covered her mouth to try and stop herself from laughing and I fiercely rubbed at my eyes to chase away the last of the bleariness.

"What? Why...?" I sputtered, glancing around to make sure that I was indeed in the right room. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed, including the wardrobe where I had hidden my backpack that contained all of my most powerful pokemon and my IIA issued devices inside one of my many Team Galactic uniforms. Neptune cleared her throat, a teasing grin playing at the corners of her mouth as she turned to face me.

"You'll be joining Celeste on a hunt today for more experiment samples," Neptune explained, pushing herself up and off of the edge of my bed. "I thought you would prefer to be woken up by me than by Celeste's Skuntank."

I grimaced at that thought but honestly wasn't sure which I would have preferred. I didn't voice that thought though, and I quickly made my way toward the small private bathroom that was joined to my room.

"I'll get ready. Where does Celeste want me to meet her?" I asked, over my shoulder, feeling extremely awkward having Neptune in my room. How did she even get in here? I could have sworn I locked the door.

"Are you nervous to have me here, Satoshi? You're not hiding anything are you?" Neptune asked with a cool expression on her face. I turned and frowned at her slightly looking down at my old T-shirt I used for pajamas and the shorts I always slept in, then glanced around the room.

"I don't know what I would hide even if I could," I replied, trying desperately to act casual and like I was more worried about her seeing me in my PJ's and not that I was worried she'd find my IIA stuff hidden in the wardrobe. Thankfully she seemed pacified by my response and she turned to leave my room.

"Meet at the South Forest exit in twenty minutes," Neptune called over her shoulder as she walked out of the room as confidently as if it were her own. 

I shuddered slightly when the door finally closed and I immediately went over to the wardrobe. Grabbing out my backpack with all of the things that would prove I was a spy, I spent a hurried 5 minutes searching for a better hiding spot before settling on the wall vent. I made a mental note to change my hiding place at least once a week just to be on the safe side.

I barely made it in time to the meeting since it was practically on the opposite end of the mountain. Luckily, I had memorized all of the shortcuts so I screeched into the hallways that led out of the hideout just in time. I was greeted by several sniggers from grunts that I had come to know pretty well from our classes. With a goofy smile, I held my arms out in the classic "safe" gesture. Several people laughed but Celeste cleared her throat irritatedly and everyone faced forward. I was a little surprised to see that Neptune wasn't there, but I shrugged that thought off as Celeste gave a brief summary of what we were expected to do.

We were each given a bag of pokeballs that had at least thirty of them inside and a strange harness that everyone clipped on around their chest. I was thoroughly confused as to what its function was until Celeste began passing out incubator tubes, all of which had a single pokemon egg inside. Frowning heavily I accepted the incubator that was passed to me and watched as the grunts took turns helping each other attach it to the harness on their back.

Where did Neptune get so many pokemon eggs? I thought to myself uneasily as a grunt who had free hands came over and helped me strap the pokemon egg onto my back. Pikachu turned on my shoulder and glanced down at the egg inside the incubator tube curiously. Feeling more uncomfortable by the minute I followed the group of grunts led by Celeste out of the hideout and into the forest. As we made our way through the forest without any conversation, I began to recognize the direction we were going.

"Hey Pikachu, isn't this the place where all of those pokemon were attacking us?" I whispered to him. No sooner had I said anything though than a fully grown Staraptor swooped from the treetops with a high-pitched screech. It seemed to be aiming at anything that moved and the grunts were sent into a panic, trying to dive out of its way. 

Before I could say anything, Celeste pointed at the Staraptor and her Skuntank shot a large Sludge Bomb directly at its face. The ball of gunky poison splatted across the Staraptor and it cried out in pain, crashing to the ground with a heavy 'whump'. Without a word, Celeste threw a Great Ball at the injured pokemon and I frowned heavily when the ball shook three times and then rang out with a successful capture 'ding'.

"Put that in the fully evolved pouch," Celeste called out before turning and continuing her way deeper into the forest. 

One of the grunts who hadn't been given a bag of pokeballs picked up the discarded pokeball and placed it into an empty pouch he was carrying. Pikachu's ears were pressed flat against his skull in obvious unease, and I felt the exact same.

Why would Neptune need evolved pokemon as well? None of it made sense to me, but I forced myself to follow the crowd. Several more pokemon attacked on the way to wherever Celeste was taking us and each time she and her Skuntank either poisoned them or confused them and captured them without a hint of pleasure in her expression. Celeste seemed to be forever grumpy and I wondered why.

Celeste opened up a holographic map briefly after we had walked for several hours and after making a quick note she closed it and turned to look at all of us. "Alright, you know the drill. Half of you split off and start searching for pokemon nests. The other half start searching for first or second stage pokemon and capture as many as you can. If your pokemon egg hatches just keep it in the incubator tube until we get back to base."

My heart plummeted into my stomach as I looked at all of the pokemon eggs strapped to everyone's backs. "THIS is why those pokemon were attacking us, Pikachu," I whispered to him with horror. "They're stealing the eggs from their nests and then treating them cruelly right in front of their parents. Of course they would attack."

"Pika pikachu," Pikachu whispered back, sounding as disgusted as I felt. I had never heard of anything so barbaric and it was taking all of my energy not to tell Pikachu to electrocute every single grunt and release the pokemon eggs right now.

"Killian, over here." Celeste barked, pulling me out of my inner struggles. I forced my feet to move forward and take me to Celeste, who was giving me her usual annoyed sneer.

"Yes, Celeste?" I asked dully, not having the energy to be perky. Celeste arched one blonde eyebrow at me but didn't say anything as she turned to gesture at the grunts dividing into groups.

"Neptune wants you to help the grunts become more efficient at catching pokemon. They have a bad habit of picking fights with pokemon that are too strong for them and then their pokemon get knocked out and they are useless to us the rest of the day." Celeste grunted with annoyance as she glared at the grunts who seemed to be having a difficult time evening out their groups.

"Hey, Celeste," I said without not meeting her eyes. From the corner of my eye, I could see her looking over at me with her usual annoyance but I plunged on. "What does Neptune do with the fully evolved pokemon?"

Celeste's eyes widened and she quickly glanced around, as if looking to see if there was anyone near. Her eyes narrowed as she looked up at me and I turned to meet her gaze, hoping that I hadn't just made a mistake. To my surprise though, Celeste's annoyed expression dropped slightly and she let out a small sigh.

"You shouldn't have tried so hard, Killian. You like pokemon too much to be involved in all of this higher-up nonsense," Celeste said quietly, sounding unfathomably tired. I frowned deeply at her reaction but she turned her eyes up to meet mine looking resigned. "You'll have to find out sooner or later, though."

"What is it?" I asked, feeling my dread mounting to a fever pitch and making my ears buzz slightly. Celeste hesitated, opening and closing her mouth several times as she searched for the words to explain.

"You have to understand... Neptune doesn't want ANY reminders of this world. In her view, every pokemon that is in this world will eventually be destroyed... so they might as well serve a purpose before they meet their end..." Celeste trailed off, looking uncomfortable and seeming to have forgotten the grunts that were finally beginning to fade away into the forest, leaving us behind to talk.

"You're kind of freaking me out, Celeste," I muttered, not bothering to hide my growing uneasiness. Celeste grimaced, looking more human than I had ever really seen her, and she sighed once more before continuing.

"She... harvests things from the fully evolved pokemon. Organs, bones, whatever she needs... Or she uses them for genetic mutation experiments," she whispered unhappily.

Celeste's words hit me like a punch in the gut. A painful yank on my hair from Pikachu hanging on for dear life as his little legs wobbled on my shoulder was the only thing that kept me from stumbling backward. I'd never had a stronger desire to vomit in my entire life. Celeste looked at me with a surprisingly compassionate expression as I tried to get a hold of myself and I wondered if this was the reason Celeste acted the way she did.

"I... No..." I stuttered, trying to process this horrendous turn of events. My mind went back to Jackson's question about whether or not my 'facility' dissected pokemon...

Arceus help me. I pleaded in my mind as I struggled to retain my Satoshi persona and not let Ash come out and sound the alarm to all of the pokemon in the forest. I jerked with surprise when I felt a small hand pat my elbow. When I looked down, Celeste was giving me a kind look and she sadly shook her head.

"I know. Believe me, I know," she said with emphasis, looking slightly sick herself. "But for Neptune to be satisfied with our new world this has to happen. We don't have to like it, but we have to help her, right?"

Celeste was looking at me as if looking for confirmation. I wanted to tell her that she and this whole thing were nuts if they thought ANYTHING justified what Team Galactic was doing. But... I couldn't blow this. Who knew if there would be another agent who would be able to work his way up to a position like mine before Neptune triggered her doomsday plan. Even though I would never forgive myself in my entire life... I had to do this. To help protect the world and all of the pokemon and people in it.

"Right. You're right," I said after a healthy pause and nearly choking on the words as they clawed their way out of my throat. 

Celeste smiled gratefully at me and for the first time, I saw a glimpse of the pure, happy girl she must have been in the past. But then she walloped my back so hard I stumbled a few steps forward, breaking the odd spell of camaraderie between us.

"That's how it is, Killian. So get on out there and help those grunts," Celeste ordered in her usual gruff tone. I didn't look back at her but nodded my head and began jogging towards the group that had gone in search of young pokemon.

"Pikapi. Pikachu pi pika," Pikachu muttered, sounding queasy. I looked over at him for a second and could see tears welling up in the corners of his eyes. Gritting my teeth, I tried to keep my own eyes from watering and swiped fiercely against them to keep the tears of frustration and disgust at bay.

"I hate this too, buddy," I said through gritted teeth. "Let's take these monsters down."

A/N ....is anyone surprised? I tried so hard to keep it elusive but still give a few hints here or there >.< Anyways, I hope I'm not making Ash OOC or anything. I mean, he's going to have to be because of the situation and being older and everything, but I hope I'm still staying true to his core personality. Thank you all for reading and I hope you keep enjoying the story!