Big Wave steered his character and ran over to find that more than a dozen kids around his age were already standing there. Every one of them was gaunt and sallow, their eyes filled with fear and unease.
Standing before them was a new Team Rocket executive.
This one was different from the last. He was younger, but far more ruthless.
A long scar ran down his face from the corner of his eye all the way to his chin, marring what might have been decent looks and giving him an air of menace.
He wore a sharp black uniform, a silver badge pinned to his chest, hands clasped behind his back. His piercing gaze swept over the group. Everyone lowered their heads and held their breath.
The executive let out a cold snort and spoke.
His voice was quiet, but carried an unmistakable authority.
"Welcome to hell."
In any other game, Big Wave might have laughed at a line like that.
But right now, for reasons he couldn't quite explain, he just frowned.
"This trial is the official Team Rocket entrance qualification exam: seven days of wilderness survival."
The executive raised one finger.
"There is only one core rule: stay alive and complete your objectives."
He then began reciting the trial regulations.
"One: all useless emotions, useless sympathy, and useless mercy are strictly forbidden."
"Two: reckless action is forbidden; allowing personal feelings to endanger yourself or the mission is forbidden."
"Three: survival, efficiency, and results take absolute priority."
"Four: Team Rocket has no need for bleeding hearts, cowards, or anyone weak enough to fail because of kindness."
He paused here, fixing the group with a dead stare as his voice turned glacial.
"Any violation of the core principles results in immediate disqualification and permanent expulsion."
Silence fell over the entire area.
Big Wave was stunned.
"What the hell? Team Rocket is actually this serious? Aren't they supposed to be the comic-relief villains?"
He watched the kids on screen trembling in place, and felt a strange, creeping tension rise in his chest.
The live chat exploded.
[Wow, straight into hard mode from the jump.]
[Wild concept. They're literally making "evil" the core value system.]
[So the streamer's about to go through this trial? This is going to be rough to watch.]
["Useless mercy is forbidden," so mercy itself isn't? Interesting.]
Big Wave opened up, visibly on edge.
"Alright chat, this game is clearly not messing around."
If the hunger pangs from before were any indication, surviving seven days out here was going to be harder than any battle royale...
The scene shifted, and the trial began.
Big Wave guided his character to the far end of the island.
This was true wilderness.
Dead yellow grass grew taller than a person. Withered trees clawed at the sky with twisted branches.
The last light of the setting sun stretched his shadow long across the ground.
A cold wind swept through, stirring the fallen leaves with a dry, rustling sound.
Big Wave instinctively hunched his shoulders, as if he could actually feel the chill.
"The detail in this game is still something else..."
He opened the inventory screen, hoping to find some starting gear.
But when the menu loaded, he just stared.
Empty.
Nothing but a battered water bottle with half a serving of water left. No Poké Balls, no potions, not even a pocketknife.
"You've got to be kidding me. We're starting with literally nothing?"
Big Wave's eyes went wide.
"How are we supposed to play like this? Run into a wild Pokémon and we're just done?"
He moved his character forward through the wilderness. Every step felt heavy, dragged down by bone-deep exhaustion.
The hunger was getting worse. A gnawing cramp in the stomach kept forcing him to stop and catch his breath.
Weird. How was this game making him feel this stuff?
Just as he rounded a bend, a figure burst out of the tall grass.
Big Wave jumped so hard he nearly knocked something over.
"Who's there?!"
He looked closer. It was a boy about the same age as his character.
Just as thin, dressed in ragged clothes, face smeared with grime.
But unlike his character, this kid's eyes were sharp and guarded, his expression locked tight.
He had a jagged rock clenched in his fist and was staring at Big Wave's character with the focused intensity of someone ready to fight to the death.
Big Wave quickly backed his character up two steps and raised both hands to show he wasn't a threat.
The boy watched for a long moment, and once he seemed satisfied there was no danger, he relaxed slightly, though he kept his distance. The two of them stood there in silence, sizing each other up.
The wind howled through the wilderness between them.
After a long stretch of nothing, Big Wave cautiously stepped his character forward.
The boy didn't move. Didn't object.
And just like that, the two reached an unspoken agreement: travel together, at least for safety.
They walked without talking.
The boy stayed on high alert the whole time, eyes scanning in every direction. At the slightest noise, his entire body would go rigid, instantly ready to fight.
Big Wave watched this quiet, guarded companion and felt a flicker of curiosity.
"This kid doesn't feel like a normal NPC... What's his story?"
The scene shifted. Night fell.
The wilderness at night was colder and more dangerous than the day.
The two found shelter behind a cluster of rocks and built a small fire.
The flames flickered and danced, casting pale light across their faces.
Big Wave sat his character down by the fire and stared into it, mind drifting.
Then, without warning, the boy who had barely said a word finally spoke.
His voice was flat, carrying a weariness that had no business being in someone so young.
"You know, I never had anyone looking out for me."
Big Wave blinked and looked over at him.
The boy kept his eyes on the fire, like he was talking to himself.
"Got robbed, got beaten, got laughed at. Couldn't even afford a Poké Ball."
There was no bitterness in his voice. Just a kind of hollow calm.
"The League only sees prodigies, rich kids, big families. People like me are invisible."
He tilted his head back, looked up at the dark sky, with the ghost of a bitter smile on his lips.
"I have to fight just to survive every single day. And they get to walk through life like it's nothing."
"Don't you think that's unfair?"
Big Wave felt something heavy settle in his chest. He didn't know what to say.
The boy turned to look at him, those hard, cold eyes cutting straight through.
"This world runs on one rule: the strong take from the weak."
"Soft hearts get walked over."
"If you don't want to be the one getting crushed, you have to be meaner and harder than everyone else."
"That's why I want to join Team Rocket."
He said nothing more after that, just looked back down and tossed another dry branch onto the fire.
Big Wave went quiet.
He didn't respond. He just watched the fire burn.
He didn't agree with any of it. But he understood that for this kid, these weren't opinions. They were survival rules, learned the hard way.
The live chat went quiet too.
[These two are both just... tragic.]
[This hit me harder than I expected. How is this game so real?]
[Team Rocket is basically a shelter for people the world threw away.]
[What he's saying is awful, but given where he came from, in this world... it kind of makes sense.]
Big Wave let out a long breath into the mic. "His thinking is way too extreme. But when you think about what he's been through... it's hard to argue with."
The next morning.
Before the sun had fully risen, both of them packed up and headed deeper into the forest.
Under the trial rules, they had to push farther in to find enough supplies to stay alive. The farther they went, the harder it got. It wasn't long before they reached a fork in the path.
The left path was choked with tall, restless, overlapping Pokémon cries drifting out from somewhere inside the grass.
The right path opened into a grove of dead trees, eerily still and silent, but seemingly safer.
Big Wave hesitated.
By standard game logic, noise on the left meant an event, while the quiet path on the right probably meant nothing.
"Let's go left. Might be something worth finding."
He moved his character without hesitation into the grass on the left.
But they hadn't gone far before he stopped dead.
In a small clearing up ahead, a brown Weedle was being swarmed.
Three Pidgey had it surrounded.
The Weedle was covered in wounds, its green body riddled with pecks and bite marks.
It shuddered and scraped frantically at the ground, desperate to burrow away, but the Pidgey gave it no opening, attacking again and again.
"Hss..."
A weak, miserable cry escaped the Weedle.
The image hit hard. Big Wave watched the little creature trembling and felt his chest tighten.
"That's brutal..."
The chat started lighting up.
[Are you going to save it, streamer?]
"Obviously! That's what you do in every game! Save it, get affection points, maybe even catch it!"
He was already moving his character forward as he talked.
"Here we go, little guy! I've got you!"
Reality answered with a slap to the face.
His character had no Pokémon, no weapons, nothing but his bare hands.
The moment he charged into the fray, one of the Pidgey wheeled around and drove its beak straight into his arm.
"Ow!"
Big Wave yelped as a bloody gash opened across the arm.
Two more Pidgey immediately flew at him, ramming him to the ground.
"I can't move!"
Big Wave was sweating, frantically mashing controls trying to get up, but nothing worked.
All he could do was watch as the Weedle took hit after hit, its wounds mounting — until finally, it let out one last sharp, desperate cry and collapsed motionless to the ground.
Then the world drained to grey.
While Big Wave sat there in stunned silence, a cold voice came from somewhere above, the executive's, completely devoid of emotion.
"Reckless compassion saves no one. It only drags you down with them."
"Team Rocket has no use for fools who can't make basic judgments. Goodbye."
Big Wave: ...
The chat detonated. Comments flooded in like water through a burst dam.
[What??]
[You save it and STILL fail?!]
[First time I've seen a game end because you picked the kind option.]
[That's called subverting expectations!]
[Exactly. You ran in with empty hands. What did you think was going to happen?]
[This game doesn't moralize at you. Love that.]
Big Wave stared at the grey screen for a long moment without speaking.
Finally, he let out a dry laugh into the mic. "Alright chat, I was wrong. I thought this was a feel-good game where doing the right thing always works out. But this... this game is actually teaching me something."
"Reckless compassion... yeah. What I just did, if that was real? All I accomplished was making myself feel heroic. Nothing else." He took a slow breath, and his expression steadied.
"Alright. Loading the save. We're trying again."
The scene snapped back to the fork in the path.
Big Wave stood his character at the junction and took a breath.
"I think the game isn't saying don't help. It's saying... earn the right to help first."
This time, he looked to the right.
"Let's check the other path. See if there's anything useful."
He guided his character into the dead grove.
The air was dim and damp, heavy with the smell of rot. The ground was blanketed in thick fallen leaves that gave softly underfoot. Big Wave moved carefully, searching every corner.
Then something in a shadowed spot caught his eye.
A thick wooden branch, abandoned there by someone at some point, looked worn but was solid and dense, satisfyingly heavy in the hand.
[Obtained: Crude Wooden Club]
[Item Grade: D]
[Note: A sturdy stick. At least it's better than your fists.]
"Yes!"
Big Wave's mood flipped immediately.
"With this, I can actually take on those Pidgey!"
Without another thought, he turned and ran straight back toward the left path.
The scene played out the same way. The Weedle was still surrounded, still losing ground.
But this time, Big Wave was ready.
He gripped the club tight and charged in with a shout.
"Back off!"
The club cut through the air and cracked hard into the nearest Pidgey. A sharp smack. The bird screeched and spun away, clearly dazed.
The others flinched back, thrown off by the sudden attack.
Big Wave didn't give them time to recover.
He worked the club steadily — blocking, swinging, staying in control.
The movements weren't refined, but they were focused and deliberate.
One Pidgey dove at him beak-first. He sidestepped and brought the club down across its wing on the backswing.
Two more tried to flank him.
Big Wave read it early and batted them away before they could connect.
Slowly, the wild Pokémon began to give ground. This human with a club, fighting with calm, relentless intensity, wasn't worth the trouble.
They called out a few last indignant cries and scattered, disappearing into the grass.
The fight was over.
Big Wave's character stood there breathing hard, a handful of minor cuts on his arms, but nothing serious.
He turned and looked down at the Weedle.
The Weedle lifted its head weakly and looked up at the human boy in front of it.
Fear still lived in its eyes, but underneath it, something else had taken root: gratitude.
It worked its battered little body forward, inching across the ground until it reached Big Wave's feet, then pressed its scarred head gently against his shoe.
The contact was through a screen, through a game, through a world that wasn't real. And yet, somehow, it left a warmth in Big Wave's chest that felt completely genuine.
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