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"Where am I? Where am I?"

"Hello?

"Please someone . . . "

"Someone, anyone, answer me!"

"Someone, please . . . "

"Anyone!"

Lennyka's eyelids snapped open as wind sailed sharply in and out of her mouth. Reflexively, the grunt tried to whip her hand to her chest to grab her palpitating heart, but she had forgotten the limb was tightly woven in a cast and couldn't be moved. Instead, she grunted with pain from jerking it and instead, practiced her breathing exercises to help calm herself from her sudden panic attack.

Wiping her brow with her free hand, Lennyka sighed, and thought, That dream again...

It'd been two weeks since Lennyka's failure of her first mission. Higher-ups didn't trust her completely and had sent out a scout after her to clean up any loose ends. When she fell from the helicopter, the agent used his Alakazam to help slow her descent to the earth, but was too preoccupied chasing down Team Galactic to fully save her. Despite surviving the impact, Lennyka still sustained injuries in the form of a broken arm and concussion. After days of spending time in TRH's medical bay and being chewed out by elites, Lennyka was allowed to recover in her own room. She was suspended from missions until she recovered, much to her dismay. Being in Team Rocket was a curse.

Lennyka sighed after the cold rush of water quenched her thirst. She smiled to her Raichu and patted her lap. Daffodil yipped happily and flopped onto the woman's lap with a giddy pounce. The teal-haired grunt winced a bit with the Raichu's impact onto her arm, but ignored the pain and patted the electric rodent's head.

"Chuuu..." Daffodil purred at the scratchies.

But Lennyka wasn't entirely calm petting her closest friend. She did it to think. After her first mission, the grunt felt something burst in herself she felt she had a need to exact: Revenge. What the woman -- Cetus, was it? -- did to her was unforgivable. She could've died!

Her shoulders slumped. I can't do anything in my current state, though, she frowned. A broken arrow never hits its mark... Or something like that. Lennyka was ready to give up when a light bulb blared brightly in the clouded chasms of her mind. She could do something. It'd be a small step, but the first one she needed to take.

When Lennyka's cast was reduced to a few layers of bandages to keep her limb straight, she started perusing the magazine stands of Katarina for anything about Cetus's alias, Claramay Pearls. From the interviews about fake coordinator, she learned that the middle-aged grunt acted out the role of a sweet, humble housewife hoping to make it far in the world of coordinating. Claramay was regarded as with a large amount of positive reviews, although the persona was built on top of a foundation of lies. It sickened Lennyka to know the woman was so full of herself.

Maybe... Maybe that's why she approached me that day, Lennyka thought one evening as she flipped through a magazine with yet another interview with the green-haired woman. She wanted to be showered with compliments! What a sap!

Researching Cetus covered the last four weeks required of Lennyka's recovery. Still, elites were still weary of letting the newbie out on missions again for fear of another failure, so she was commanded to do cleaning duty instead. During her time scrubbing toilets while in the underground base beneath Motterossa's abandoned gym, Lennyka again took the time to think. During one of those days, she raised the scrubbing brush that was dripping with toilet water to the light like a scepter and proclaimed, "I have an idea. It'd be a small step, but the first one I need to take."

Flushing the toilet of the last stall, Lennyka threw the disposable brush into the thrash and raced to the training grounds. Not only was the indoor battle fields there was training Pokemon, but there was also side areas for training grunts. She'd need to learn a few moves if she'd ever stand a chance of besting Cetus.

The gym area was bare of anyone save a single soul pummeling the heck out of a punching bag. Lennyka could only stare wide-eyed at the muscular woman as she punched and kicked the hanging piece of equipment into submission. She only stopped when she saw the grunt looking at her.

The bulbs in the grunt's room were dimmed and silence flooded the area with chilling suspense. Lennyka had unraveled her modest braids so that her hair fell in streams like algae-infested waterfalls. Her fallow gaze beheld the pointed ends of a pair of scissors that, even in the dank lighting, seem to glitter sinisterly. She swallowed, but had accepted the fate of what she would sacrifice to bring Cetus down.

I'm going crazy over this, she thought. I have an idea. It'd be a small step, but the second one I need to take.

Lennyka ran her fingers through the silk-soft locks she had grown out since small. Never once had she even considered putting a pair of scissors to them and even screamed like a wounded Loudred when her mother dared to do so or even brought up the idea. Part of her inspiration was her big brother, Sorano. He liked long hair and, eventually, she grew to like it as well. Cutting it would be like cutting the past out of her life. This thought only fueled her desire to do it.

Taking a deep breath, Lennyka grabbed a fistful of locks and pulled it to the front. Separating the ends of the scissors, she slid the taut jumble in between the blades and, without any hesitance, snapped them together. The sharpness of the utensil slit through the hair like butter. The hair fell onto her lap. Repeating the action again and again, eventually the twenty year old's thighs were covered in her own chopped locks. When she figured she was done, Lennyka launched from her bed (disregarding the hair that now blanketed her floor) and clambered for the mirror in the bathroom.

Lennyka stared at herself in awe. Touching her reflection, she smiled grimly, and thought, I look terrible.

Orange wasn't her color, nor was lime green or a yellow jumpsuit with black stripes going down the sides. Lennyka tossed the third outfit onto her bed and sighed miserably. Waste of money, she thought to herself as she changed back into her uniform. Her last item on her agenda was to toughen her outlook. Unfortunately, it was better said than done. Though they said new clothes could change a person, it only made her look like a fool.

Still, two of the three was the best she could manage. With these two items steeling her resolve, Lennyka returned to the gym in the base. Again, the woman who she begged before was at one of the punching bags. Her gloved fists made meaty slaps to the weighted cylindrical object with each impact. At the appearance of a figure in her periphery, the woman turned, and blinked to the new image of the same face she saw but a week before.

She regarded Lennyka as she did before, but was thoroughly impressed. But if it was a joke, she wasn't laughing.

"Seems you took my advice," the woman commented. "You look like a bit more respectable."

Lennyka blinked. Was she just complimented? That was a good sign, right? "Yea," she replied. "So about that thing I asked you about before..."

"To train you?"

Lennyka inclined her head.

The woman shrugged. "Fine, sure, I'm game." She pinched the end of each of her gloves and pulled them loose before extending a naked hand to Lennyka. "Name's Luce."

Lennyka clasped it. "I'm Lenn- W-Wah!"

She should've expected it, but the girl's own manners got in the way. Luce's hand clamped around her wrist. The woman turned and, in a movement as smooth and swift as the wind, she flipped Lennyka over her shoulder and pinned her by the throat onto the gym's plush rug.

The redhead grinned at the teal-haired grunt and said in a matter-of-fact tone, "First rule: If you're aren't ready, you're going to get your a** kicked. Clear?"

"C-Crystal," Lennyka croaked. "I'm, e-erm, L-Lennyka, by the way."

Luce laughed. "You've a lot to learn, Len."

"I-I-I've... all of the time, erm, in the world."

With a grumble, Lennyka fixed her fists back before her face and narrowed her eyes. Luce mirrored her stance, her everlasting grin plastered on her features.

"Ready for round twenty-three?" the woman asked.

Lennyka nodded her head. "I'll go to round one hundred if I have to."

"Good," Luce replied. "Because you all of the time in the world."