If I Can't Take Your Pokémon, Can I Have Your Heart Instead?

Charm

Childe stepped out of the plane, blinking in the sunlight. Kanto region, it was good to be back after so long. The sound of pidgeys cawing in the background, the chirp of an eevee in a woman's arms, the sight of a bulbasaur struggling to keep up with a young boy with way too much energy.

"Hi Childe, great to see you again!" Said Misty when he finally arrived at the gym.

"Same goes for you," he replied with a smile.

"Alright, I'm just about ready to go, just gotta go gather my Pokémon. Be a gentleman and help me carry my bags to the car, would you?"

And so he did, waving after her until Misty's car was nothing but a tiny speck on the horizon. As soon as she was out of her sight, his smile dropped and his posture relaxed. Time to get down to business.

~~~

This was the most boring job in the world. 

Childe was initially excited to be tasked with such an important mission, but he never expected being a gym leader to be so... mundane. 

His day consisted of waking up, sharing a meal with his pokemon, getting in some exercise with his pokemon, and opening the gym for trainers to challenge. If you could even call them that. They were sorry excuses for pokemon trainers, an insult to their pokemon. Imagine being a pokemon out in the wild, just doing your own thing and then some 5th grader chucks a ball at you and them boom! You're enslaved by this kid for the rest of your life and forced to get beaten up over and over again. There weren't even any pokemon worthy of stealing, just caterpies, ratatas, and the occassional spearow. All of these only took a tackle attack, or a water gun to take down if they were lucky. And come on, this was a water type gym. He'd understand if it were like Koga's poison type gym or something, but grass type pokemon are not only strong against water pokemon, but found literally everywhere. What kind of ten year old can't even catch a clump of weeds? Seriously kids, bulbasaur is a great starter. If Childe knew that this is what his life would lead to, he wouldn't have bothered evolving his magikarp into a gyrados. 

There was even one kid that fainted on the spot when he brought out his gyrados. The pokemon was a little frightened, but it was fine. It's trainer on the other hand, was not, and Childe had to bring him to a doctor. This was actually pathetic. 

Childe understood that he was one of the greatest members of Team Rocket in the company's history. He understood just how powerful his pokemon were as compared to some random ten-year-old's. But seriously, is some malnourished charmander really the best match for his greninja? 

After another horribly mundane day of crushing up ratatas and children's dreams, he decided to take a visit to the nearby pokemon lab. Surely the professor didn't think that giving live pokemon to the stupidest ten-year-olds on earth was a good idea, right? Childe might have been dirt-poor and starving more than half the time, but he always made sure his siblings and pokemon had enough to eat, even if he didn't. 

Surprisingly enough, it was his first time in a pokemon lab. He couldn't start out the way normal trainers did, with being given a starter and a pokedex. The registration fees were too expensive. He had no idea how lab etiquette worked. Does he knock on the door? He just starts reaching out with his hand before the doors swung open by themselves. Automatic sliding glass doors. Classic. He walks into the lobby. 

It is filled with various potted plants and shelves full of different gemstones. Childe thought this was interesting. What kind of pokemon professor would be dumb enough to put such things out in the open for just anyone to steal? But on the other hand, this building did have to have a least a bit of security, so maybe Childe was getting a little ahead of himself.