This is my first Pokemon fic, so comments and friendly advice are welcome.

I opened my eyes and blinked, looking around briefly. It took me perhaps two seconds to figure out that I was inside my Pokeball. I can tell because as advanced as the Pokeball's environment simulation is, it is still very obviously a fake, and not the real environment. Seriously, how can most Pokemon live in these things for long without going insane? I dismissed the thought for a moment and glanced at the simulated lake next to where I had slept. I really should be asking myself how I even managed to fall asleep in this environment. It reminded me of my home before getting caught years ago, but that knowledge was more disturbing than comforting. This environment was more like a picture of the place, since there were no sweet smells of the flowers, or comforting breeze.

I turned my attention to the water, gazing a few moments at the blue serpent reflected in the water. However, the reflection of myself merely reminded me of how the Pokeball environment was a fake, just as the reflection was not actually me. I paused my line of thought. I definitely had been in here too long, it was starting to mess up my thinking. I focused my energy and the environment shimmered before a friendly, tugging feeling pulled me from that environment into the real world. It may not have been an outside environment I emerged into, but it sure was a hell of a lot better than the fake environment.

I took a quick look around the new area. It was a human office, where humans seem to amuse themselves for hours by doing useless, tedious work that they all seem to hate. I'm seriously worried about the human race's idea of boring work. The office was empty, except for a desk piled with papers, and a lone human at the desk, glancing at me with slight annoyance.

"Dragonair, why do you always break out of the Pokeball?" the man asked me with a slight smile, despite his previous irritation. I smirked at him, but didn't reply. Not like he can understand me anyways. I floated over to the desk and studied the papers that he was working with. I immediately noticed a line of intelligent sounding words, all of which were used in the wrong context, which Ethan probably added to the report to sound more competent. I'm sure his boss has no clue what half those words meant. Considering the sheer tediousness of the report, I doubt his boss would bother to look them up either. Probably for the better, I usually steal the dictionaries. I'd have thought someone would have found them by now.

Next, I came across a different report where literally every other word was misspelled. I wonder which sorry grunt turned in that report. Just then, the office door opened and a young man wearing a black uniform entered the room, looking pleased, but nervous. Ethan glanced up briefly, nodding to the arrival, who was looking at me strangely. I'm guessing he never saw a Dragonair before. Or he has lazy eye. Actually, the second one seemed pretty likely, as Team Rocket always did have a strange taste in employees.

I stared at the youth, mostly because I think it's funny how creeped out the grunts get if you stare at them menacingly for no reason other than that they're there. It adds to their nervousness when they're talking to an executive, especially if they fear that executive, and then they sound even less competent because they're stuttering and stumbling over 'complex' words like 'sir', 'here', and 'report'. Come to think of it, that's usually all the grunts manage to say anyway.

"S-sir..." the youth began, watching me anxiously as I stared unceasingly at him. Ethan glanced up again, a slight scowl on his face. "H-here...r-r-report..." he stammered, dropping a short stack of papers on the desk. "It's d-done." he stammered. Wow, this grunt has above average intelligence, possessing a vocabulary of 5 words, one of which he said without stuttering. Almost impressive.

"Is it? Have it sent up then," Ethan said seriously. The grunt nodded and half-ran to the door. I was tempted to throw a thunderbolt at him, but decided against it. A few minutes later, the youth returned, holding a small box, which he placed on the desk, saluted for some strange reason, and left briskly. Ethan stopped writing his 'attempting-to-sound-competent' report and opened the box, examining what appeared to be a strange collar.

He gestured for me to come over, which I did, glaring at the collar suspiciously. They tried putting some weird restraining collar on me once before, but I broke it and then proceeded to destroy half of the offices with a Hyper Beam in protest. Why they bother trying to control me when I already obey is unknown. Ethan calmly placed the collar on me, but I immediately noticed that nothing seemed to change, unlike the restraining collar which tries to zap you with some weird charge. Resistance to electricity has its uses.

"What the hell is this thing?" I muttered, and was alarmed when Ethan responded.

"I guess it does work. It's a collar that translates a Pokemon's language so humans can understand you. It's just a prototype, we're still perfecting the technology," Ethan said. I was a bit surprised, and also glad I hadn't said anything actually offensive, although his reaction would have been amusing. "By the way, there's an operation soon that we want you to assist with," Ethan said, returning to his report.

"What is it this time?" I asked curiously. When I willingly assist with operations, it also enables me to get some more freedom, as well as possibly fight some Pokemon or destroy things. Usually both. Ethan flipped through some papers and pushed them towards me. I studied them quickly and found nothing worth protesting to, other than the destruction of a small police harbor. "Any need for injuring humans?" I asked challengingly. Ethan shrugged.

"Only if necessary," he said dismissively.

"And if I refuse?" I challenged. I actually have refused operations in the past, either because I didn't feel like it, or some moral issue. I don't expect the Rockets to always avoid attacking the innocent, but I'm not usually going to help them do it.

"We'd have Ed lead, and Dragonair would go," he replied, tapping the second Pokeball at his waist. "The one that actually stays in Pokeballs," he said, smirking. I still have no clue how he managed to get more than one Dragonair. They aren't exactly common species.

"I hope he dies in one of those things," I muttered. "And the operation would be led by Ed? Rhyming joke aside, he's going anyway, but he'd be the leader if I don't?" I clarified. Ethan nodded. Ed was one of the most annoying Rockets because he was very brutal and his Pokemon are just as twisted. If I went, I could actually order that stupid human and his Pokemon around. I had the collar, and the privilege of being an executive's Pokemon. I smirked to myself. This was going to be fun.