Inside were profiles.
Clean League formatting. Clean League language. Photos cropped to make everyone look competent. Credentials arranged like medals. Areas of research. Licenses. Recommendation stamps from people with titles long enough to hide knives.
But Enzo wasn't fooled.
He'd lived long enough to recognize what "clean" usually meant.
Scrubbed.
He flipped the first page.
"Professor Havel," Proton read over his shoulder. "Specializes in battle conditioning and competitive training."
Ronnie leaned in, squinting. "I've heard that name."
Enzo didn't look up. "From where?"
"From the cages," Ronnie said, blunt as always. "Material Grunts talk. That guy buys supplies. Doesn't like questions."
Proton's mouth tightened. "So he's ours."
"Or he's rented," Enzo said.
He turned another page. Another face. Another list of achievements that felt too polished.
Ronnie tapped a photo with one finger. "This one's legit. Professor Sato. I saw him on a screen in Viridian. League news. He does public seminars."
"Public," Proton said, skeptical. "Which means he's visible."
Enzo nodded. "Visibility is risk."
He kept flipping.
Each profile was a different kind of asset. Some were obviously Team Rocket. Some were compromised. Some looked like they'd sell their own mothers for grant money. A few looked honest, which was usually another kind of danger.
And then Enzo stopped.
The name on the page didn't belong here.
Professor Leni.
There was a photo: tired eyes, careful posture, the look of someone who had learned to take up less space in rooms full of louder men. The credentials were solid. Real licenses. Real League accreditation. Research experience listed under Kanto's most prestigious institution.
Under "Current Placement," the file stated it plainly:
Pallet Town Research Center.
Enzo's fingers tightened slightly on the edge of the paper.
Ronnie noticed. "You know him?"
Enzo didn't answer at first. His mind was already moving, stacking implications.
Because this world wasn't the world from the games.
In the games, Professor Oak was a friendly old man. A mentor. The face of a warm beginning.
Here, Oak was a machine.
Not long ago, he had been Kanto's Champion.
The kind of Champion nobody wrote children's stories about, because there was nothing heroic in the way he fought. Oak didn't win with flair. He won with a team built to hunt.
A Tauros that hit like a charging bull and moved like it had no right to be that fast.
An Exeggutor that turned battles into nightmares.
An Arcanine that didn't just burn you, it pushed you back, forced you to obey the tempo of the fight.
And a Gyarados, pure violence given shape, waiting in the back like a sentence.
But the worst part was his ace.
He always kept a fully evolved Kanto starter behind him, the final answer on the board. Venusaur, Charizard, or Blastoise, depending on what he wanted the League to fear that season.
Not flashy. Not theatrical.
Just efficient. Predatory. The sort of team that made every Gym Leader but Giovanni look away when he walked past, and made League officials smile with teeth they didn't mean.
Even now, with the title gone, the weight of it remained.
Pallet Town housed Kanto's largest research center, and Oak sat at the top of it like a king. Not because he was the smartest in every room, but because he owned the rooms. He owned the funding. He owned the publications.
He had dozens of low-rank researchers working under him, like gears in a factory.
And all of their work came out with one name on it.
Oak.
In this world, Blue, Leaf, and Red existed at the same time.
Blue and Leaf got along. Leaf was beautiful, and Blue liked beautiful things the way he liked trophies. Status. Attention. A world that bent toward him.
Red didn't fit into that world.
He was poor. Fatherless. Quiet.
And kids like Blue could smell weakness like blood.
But the rot didn't start with children.
It started with the adult whom everyone trusted.
Because Red's mother wasn't just some woman in town.
She was one of Oak's many younger lovers. One face in a long line of secrets that never became scandals. Not because they weren't real, but because Oak's influence strangled stories before they could learn how to breathe.
Power in the League didn't only protect reputations.
It erased consequences.
In Enzo's previous life, Oak had proven how far he could twist a narrative.
He hadn't given Red a starter out of kindness.
He'd done it because Red's mother had pressed him for it for months, demanding repayment. Because she'd done favors, paid prices, and refused to leave him alone until Oak decided it was easier to hand the boy a Pokémon than to deal with her.
A small concession.
A quiet problem solved.
And then Red had turned into a monster.
A prodigy. A weapon with a trainer's instinct that no one could deny.
And Oak had done what he always did.
He stepped into the spotlight with a warm smile and claimed the story as his own. He told the League it had been planned. That he had seen the potential from the start. That Red's rise was proof of Oak's genius.
And people believed him.
Because in Kanto, the truth didn't matter as much as who had the authority to write it.
Proton read the placement line and frowned. "Oak's center."
Enzo nodded once.
Leni wasn't Oak. He wasn't a predator.
He was a worker. A researcher.
The kind Oak used. The kind Oak stole from.
In Enzo's previous life, Leni eventually broke free. Built a name Oak couldn't swallow. Made discoveries that mattered.
Right now, he was still another forgotten cog in Oak's machine.
And that made him valuable.
Not just because he was competent.
Because he was rescuable.
Because if Enzo pulled him out early, he didn't just gain a support professor.
He stole something from Oak.
He weakened a pillar of Kanto's League without touching it directly.
Enzo slid the file forward, decisive.
"This one," he said.
Ronnie blinked. "Leni?"
Proton stared at the page, then at Enzo. "You're sure?"
Enzo's voice was calm. "Yes."
He closed the dossier, held it for a moment, then spoke like someone issuing an order into a system that had to obey.
"Submit the request through Rocket channels," Enzo said. "Human Resources. Priority relocation. Cerulean."
Ronnie whistled softly. "You move fast."
Enzo didn't smile.
"We don't get many chances," he said. "When a door opens, you step through it."
He stood, tucked the dossier under his arm, and looked at the two of them.
"Cerulean first," Enzo said. "Then everything else."
Proton nodded, a thin spark in his eyes.
Ronnie grinned again, the unease buried under adrenaline.
Lambda Unit moved.