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YOU'RE ALL THAT I SEE

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[attr="class","freiwantmid"]CHARACTER FACTION team rocket

[attr="class","freiwantmid"]CHARACTER RANK grunt

[attr="class","freiwantmid"]FACE CLAIM Isuzu Sohma from Fruits Basket

[attr="class","freiwanttop"]ABOUT THE CHARACTER

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The Bjorklund Ranch was at the end of a long a winding dirt road on the very outskirts of Turffield town. Gunnel and Otto Bjorklund had already been married for 12 years and had had a few kids already by the time Blix came into the picture. She was the fourth child born to the couple, but she would not be the last. Her parents were not the kind and warm-hearted types that other children were blessed to have. Her mother, Gunnel Bjorklund, was a strict authoritarian, and she demanded respect and obedience out of all of her children. The only reason she had had any of them in the first place was because she had wanted extra hands to help out on the ranch. She was a barely passable parent when it came to raising babies, doing the bare minimum but showing little affection. As a baby, Blix learned that crying would not necessarily get her mother's attention, at least not every time she needed it. As for her father Otto, he was a very busy man who was everywhere and nowhere at the same time; or so it seemed like anyway. Truthfully Otto's marriage to Gunnel had soured the third year in, but he had stayed out of loyalty and a sense of responsibility to his one child, and he had resigned himself later on when Gunnel had more. His wife was frequently on his case about whatever fault she could find, and so he made himself scarce. It wasn't Otto's only reason though, as there were often many issues around the ranch that needed his attention. When Blix was too young to so much as carry a pail of water, she was made to do household chores instead.
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The chores were very small things at first, such as picking up laundry and putting the clothes in the hamper, helping to clean the bathroom, shaking the dirt out of the entry mat in front of the door, and whatever other small tasks they could give her. Playtime was restricted to one hour a day, and that time could easily get taken away for minor offenses such as arguing with a sibling or complaining about anything related to the chores. At five years old, the most precious thing that Blix owned was a little Galarian Ponyta stuffie that had father had gifted her on her birthday. She managed to keep hold of it for a couple weeks, until her brother Josef borrowed it from her. What he brought back was nothing more than a charred lump of wool, which resulted in her throwing a crying fit. She complained to her parents later about it, but her mother just said something about boys being boys and threatened to take her playtime away if she pushed any more about it. Blix learned to hide away anything she valued from her siblings after that day, but her brothers often went to her room when she wasn't there and took whatever they wanted, and her hiding spots weren't the most creative. Having reached the age of six at the time, meant that Blix was old enough to start taking on other responsibilities. That was something her mother told her before instructed her to follow her older brother Noak around. He would be teaching her how to do some ranch chores. That day was an eye-opening experience as she got to see for herself just how big the ranch was. She saw more pokemon in that one day than she had seen in the years leading up to it. When she asked more questions, her brother was happy to brag about the ranch. Blix learned the ranch had 112 Tauros, 94 Bouffalant, 75 Miltank, 68 Dubwool, 39 Wooloo, 33 Unfezant, 25 Rapidash, 12 Ponyta, 4 Boltund, and 2 Yamper. As for her chores, they would be related to helping to look after all of those various pokemon or be outdoor chores. Noak took her on a tour around the ranch first, showing her the stables, the fields, the garden, and various other areas of the ranch.
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Those initial chores weren't too bad but the older that she got, the more her list of daily chores increased. Some of her chores included feeding the Yamper and Boltund, weeding the garden, cleaning the curry combs after they had been used, collecting Unfezant eggs from the pen, oiling the tack used for riding the Ponta & Rapdish, and much more. She did enjoy spending time around pokemon and didn't mind those chores, especially since the Yamper and Boltund were very friendly. However, her old brothers were shirkers and once they realized they could foist some of their chores off on her, that's exactly what they did. Since their parents were both traditionalist and patriarchal, there wasn't much that Blix could do about it. If she tried to complain about it, her parents would punish her in some way and she would just end up doing even more work. Blix never got to go to a public school and neither did her siblings. Their Aunt Inger had a small cottage on the property that she lived at, and she was the one who homeschooled them and taught important subjects such as reading and writing. The lessons were for six hours each twice a week, because their parents wanted them working on the ranch the rest of the time. By the time Blix was 15, her life had settled into a monotonous routine of completing daily chores, having supper with the family, doing more chores or school lessons if it was the assigned day, and then collapsing to sleep out of sheer exhaustion. She would then have to get up very early the next day and repeat the process all over again. Playtime was no longer allowed by that age, since her parents considered it only suitable for little kids. If anything, her chores had increased because her parents had added two more kids to the family. Her mom had given birth to a baby girl she named Birgitta, and a baby boy that she had named Jannik. Naturally, as the older sister, her mother expected her to help out. She went from having mostly ranch chores to babysitting chores, which was a lot more unpleasant. Her mother basically used her as a nanny for her younger siblings, and Blix wasn't really given a choice in the matter. She knew better than to try and argue, and just tried to adapt to the new duties as best she could.
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Two months after Blix's 17th birthday, life changed drastically after a tragic accident struck. One rainy day, Otto did not come home for supper. When their mother questioned where he was, Josef told her that he had been out in the field trying to train a new Tauros that Otto had recently purchased at an auction. Gunnel sent Josef out to fetch him, since Otto normally wasn't late for supper. Josef left and did not return right away, and that's when Gunnel asked her sister Inger to go look for both of them. Gunnel gave everyone else the go-ahead to eat, since it was obvious something was going on and she didn't want the meal to go to waste. Inger didn't return either, and that's when everyone became really concerned. Gunnel told her family to finish up their meal, clean up the mess, and she would go herself and find out what was going on. It was late when their mother returned and the austere woman was shedding tears, something that shocked the whole family. She had never been one for making emotional displays....unless it was anger. By then most of them had scattered off to do chores, but their mother called them all back to the dining room table. It was there that she made the announcement that Otto was dead, having been gored to death by a Tauros. The news shocked the whole family, and Blix was not immune. She had barely known her father growing him since he was rarely around, but he had shown her more affection than her mother ever had. She broke down in tears too, and even some of her brothers wept too, despite having been taught that men showing emotions was unbecoming.
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It wasn't until the next day that Blix learned the whole story from her various relatives. Josef had been the one to discover Otto's body in an empty field. It was a smaller field connected to a larger one with a wooden fence between. The larger field was the one where the herd Tauros spent most of their time. Apparently, whichever Tauros had killed Otto had broken through the fence and rejoined the rest of the herd. Inger had found Josef crying by the fence when she arrived , and had called the authorities while she had tried to get the story out of Josef. The police had shown up to investigate and of course had kept both Josef and Inger for questioning. In the following days, everyone in the family was questioned by the police and they opened an official investigation. Blix was nervous about the questioning, only because she'd never met a police officer before. The woman that questioned her was a female officer, who was polite and courteous about the whole thing. Blix hadn't been present when it happened and had been with the rest of her family when the body had been discovered, so she was cleared of any wrongdoing relatively quickly. A very somber closed-casket funeral was held, and Otto's loss was mourned by just about everyone in the family. Ultimately, Otto's death was ruled as accidental and nobody was charged in relation to the incident. The officers were able to locate the offending Tauros via ear tag identification, and it was confiscated within its pokeball and taken away. When Blix asked her mother what would happen to the Tauros, her mother told her that it was better she not know and told her not to ask again. Blix knew better than to push for answers from her mother, but she could guess.
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Otto's death had more than just an impact on the family but on the ranch itself. Otto had been responsible to managing the finances of the ranch, and without him, it fell to Josef to take over those responsibilities. Josef was not as good at it as his father had been, and he tended to try and cut corners. He tried cutting back on some of the pokemon's feed to save costs, which resulted in many of them getting ornery and causing damage to the property. The biggest blow to the ranch came when Josef decided to sell off all of the Tauros, because he didn't want a repeat of what had happened to his father. He absolutely hated Tauros because of what had happened, and he didn't want any of them on the property. In his hurry to get rid of them all, he sold them for only half of what they were worth. Gunnel just let Josef do whatever he wanted with the ranch, because she was done caring about anything at. It was like Otto's death had taken something of her with him, because she was no longer the strict authoritarian she once was but she wasn't kind either. She seemed numb to everything and the usually pristine house deteriorated into a complete mess. As for Blix, she ended up picking up a lot of her mother's responsibilities because her mother just stopped doing them. She was no longer just looking after her younger siblings but the entire household. She was the one that cooked the appointed dinners, she was the one that maintained the house, and her mother spent most of her time out in the garden or sequestered in her room. It was bad enough that Blix almost wished her mother would yell at her, because then at least she would be more like her old self. It was painful to see her own mother become little more than a shell of her former self.
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Not everything was doom and gloom though, and one good thing did happen later that year. Blix had taken her little sister Kerstin out to the field that the Rapidash & Ponyta were in when they noticed that the entire herd was standing around in a cluster. Blix instructed her little sister to stay by the fence, while she let herself inside so she could go investigate. To her surprise, there was a small bandy-legged Blitzle foal collapsed in the middle of the field, looking emaciated and exhausted. It didn't have an ear tag for identification, which meant that the Blitzle wasn't recently purchased at an auction or anything. The Rapidash & Pontya were used to her, and moved aside when she went over to examine the Blitzle. She could tell that the poor pokemon was in bad shape and needed help. She decided to try to get the Blitzle into one of the stables, where she would then be able to work on getting it food and water. Blix went to try to pick up the Blitzle, but it raised its head weakly and its mane crackled with electricity. Blix was having none of it, having dealt with recalcitrant pokemon before. She picked up the Blitzle and it was too weak to resist, though she did get a good shock for her efforts. Thankfully, it was just like getting a really bad static shock because the Blitzle was low on electricity. She ordered her younger sister to go to one of her brothers, because she didn't want her sister to risk getting hurt. Also, for some unknown reason, Blix felt she needed to personally take care of the Blitzle. She ended up delegating her other duties to her siblings, while she took it upon herself to nurse the Blitzle back to health. She fed it with bottles of MooMoo milk from the Miltank, and regularly filled a trough with water for it. The bond they formed was a natural one, and as the Blitzle began to recover it grew to trust her. It was the first time that Blix had ever really bonded with a pokemon, because normally she had been run too ragged to spend much time with them outside of chores like feeding them.
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Blix wasn't sure how the Blitzle had gotten there, but her brother Noak had his own theory. He had seen a teenager biking down the dirt road a few days before, and concluded the guy might have been a trainer that had dumped off the pokemon because he didn't know how to look after it. Blix thought it sounded plausible, but the Blitzle's malnourished condition hinted that it had been on its own for longer than a couple days. In the end it didn't matter, because the Blitzle was on the road to recovery. She asked her mother if she could keep it, but her mother just grunted noncommittal and instructed her to ask her brother Josef instead. Thankfully her brother didn't mind, but he made it clear that he expected her to handle the food, upkeep, and all the work that went with it. Blix readily agreed, even though she wondered how she was going to handle it on top of all her other duties. Thankfully, her Aunt Inger was willing to step in and help with her younger siblings, which was a huge relief. As for the Blitzle, it made a full recover thanks to Blix's care. Blix named the little filly Saskia, and the Blitzle followed her around as she carried out her various chores around the ranch. Blix tried to turn her loose in the field with the Rapidash & Ponyta for some exercise, and discovered her new Blitzle had behavioral issues. Mainly, the small Blitzle wouldn't let anyone else near her except for Blix. Any human or pokemon that tried to approach the Blitzle, would inevitably get driven away by the Blitzle's electric attacks. Once Josef found out about it, he was not happy at all. He told Blix that he would let her work on training the Blitzle, but if it got too out of hand, she was going to have to give it up and he would sell it. Blix didn't want that to happen and tried to acclimate the Blitzle to her siblings and the other ranch pokemon, but the Blitzle would turn hostile and no amount of cajoling would change her demeanor.
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A month later and she had managed to convince the Blitzle to tolerate the presence of her siblings as long as they weren't too close, and the same went for the rest of the ranch pokemon. However, that wasn't enough to satisfy her brother. He told her that the Blitzle's behavior reminded him too much like that of the Tauros, and that she had one more week to get the pokemon into a state where anyone could handle it, or else he was getting rid of her. Normally, Blix would have panicked and tried to make it work...but she knew that the Blitzle was stubborn and wasn't going to give in. She didn't like the ultimatum her brother gave her and so she gave him one of her own. If he got rid of her Blitzle, he would be getting rid of her too because she would leave the ranch with Saskia and find a way to make a living on her own. Truthfully the thought scared her, because she had never been outside the ranch her whole life. However, Saskia was more than just a pokemon to her, but a friend that she could confide things in without fear of judgement. She reminded her brother of all the work he and their family depended on her for, and how much of that work would have to be shifted onto the rest of them. It was the first time in her life she had ever stood up to anyone and to her surprise, her brother backed down. Perhaps it was because of shock, but more likely it was the reminder of how much he relied on her. He scoffed and told her that she would never be able to make it on her own, before he walked away with an expression that was half anger and half disappointment. Blix had reached the age of 18 and could have moved out if she'd wanted to, but the problem was that she had nowhere to go and didn't know any other way of life. Her brother's words smarted long after the argument they'd had, because she believed that he was right.
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The next year, Josef continued to make a series of blunders with the ranch's finances, which ultimately culminated in the ranch running into the red. He was faced with having to sell off half of the ranch's remaining pokemon, or to seek outside financial help. Upon consulting with his siblings, he decided to go with the latter option. Josef did some online research and answered an online ad that sounded promising. After some back-and-forth discussions over the phone, he was able to secure a loan for the ranch at what he thought was a reasonable rate. He had no idea of knowing at the time that the company he had secured a loan with, was nothing more than a front for a small branch of the Team Rocket organization. Josef had just placed himself in the palms of their hands. At first they were hands off, until Josef couldn't keep up with the monthly payments and defaulted. The family had to make some sacrifices, and they were no longer eating as well as they had been, and the same went for the pokemon as well. Josef ended up going with cheaper and lower quality feed, and it once again affected the temperaments of the pokemon. More than a few of the Bouffalant became difficult to work with, but Josef let his brother Noak and his two Bolthund handle them.
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The loan company didn't resort to threats, but they did call Josef several times a day to remind him of what he owed. Josef tried to ignore them at first, but the calls were so annoyingly persistent that he finally answered. He was surprised when the loan company offered him the one-time use of a financial advisor. They told him they could send a gentleman out to assess the ranch, and that the advisor would help him find further ways to recoup costs and perhaps get the ranch out of the red and generating profit again. Josef agreed out of sheer desperation, and then he informed everyone on the property to expect a very important visitor the next day. The man that showed up looked like he was dressed to go to a boardroom meeting and not to assess a ranch. He was a guy in his early forties with slicked-back dark brown hair, keen hazel eyes hidden behind broad-rimmed sunglasses, and an angular narrow jaw that was covered in a sparse goatee. The man introduced himself as Colvin Huxley, and he carried with him a black briefcase that he assured them were full of legal documents and such. Colvin Huxley had Josef take him on a tour around the ranch, and from time to time the man would stop to ask Josef's siblings some questions if he came across them.
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Blix was in the middle of feeding the Wooloo when she noticed Josef and an unfamiliar gentleman in a suit talking by the gate. As usual, her Blitzle was with her, and Saskia began to shower sparks the moment the gentleman looked in their direction. Blix sternly told Saskia to calm down and then walked over to the gate in order to let her brother and the gentleman in. The Wooloo, normally curious creatures, acted oddly too and scattered away from the gate as soon as it opened. Blix didn't know who the guy was, but Josef had warned her about the financial advisor that was coming to assess their financial situation. The man in the suit stepped through the open gate first, and Josef followed a few paces behind. The gentleman gave her a leering sort of smile, and then introduced himself as Colvin Huxley before holding out his business card for her to take. She reached out to take the business card, but then Saskia rudely shoved herself between her and the gentleman's outstretched hand. With the Blitzle's mane still sending off showers of sparks, Colvin quickly retracted his hand and his business card, looking more intrigued than offended. Immediately, Josef yelled at her and ordered Blix to get Saskia under control. Colvin gave her an odd look that sent chills up her spine, and then asked Josef if he could speak to her alone. Blix was getting a serious case of the creeps from the guy, and apparently Saskia was too. Josef didn't seem to notice though, and walked off saying he had other affairs to attend to. Blix didn't like being left with Colvin, but she knew Saskia was looking out for her.
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Colvin seemed to realize that the Blitzle wasn't going to let him close, so he just stood where he was and started asking her questions. They were standard customary questions that seemed in line with the reason he was there, and although hesitant, Blix did answer them to the best of her ability. The creepy guy was there to help them out with their financial situation, and so Blix tried to be on her best behavior. As time progressed though, his questions seemed to become odd and probing, enough so that she began to wonder if he was some kind of undercover police officer. Had the case of her father's death not been properly closed after all and this was their way or searching for answers? Yet, the line of questioning didn't really fit with that guess either. Colvin, seemingly having gotten comfortable despite the angrily sparking Blitzle, took one step forward without really thinking about it. However, Saskia didn't like the man and didn't want him anywhere near Blix. The Blitzle, who had been showing better restraint recently, seemed to lose all composure and charged for the man with her mane lit up and glowing brightly. To his credit, the man didn't panic but smoothly reached into the right pocket of his business suit and produced a pokeball, which he immediately dropped to the ground. The pokeball released a Snivy, which used its vines to restrain her Blitzle, though not without taking an electrical attack in the process. Mortified, Blix pleaded with Saskia to stop and in the same breath apologized profusely to the gentleman, saying that she didn't know what had gotten into Saskia. Colvin told her not to worry about, and suggested they have a battle to work the aggression out of Saskia's system. What kind of advisor was he? He seemed so calm and collected, and the Wooloo seemed to sense something was wrong because they had all clustered around the edges of the pen.
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Blix was shocked by the offer, but thought it was very weird. Why would a financial advisor be carrying a pokemon around, and why would he be suggesting a battle? The problem was that she hadn't actually had Saskia fight any pokemon. She only knew two of the Blitzle's attacks off the top of her head. She apologized again and explained that she didn't have any experience with official pokemon battles. Colvin was the one who looked surprised by that bit of news, and he told her a young woman her age should know how to do a simple pokemon battle. He also told her one of the reasons her Blitzle might be more aggressive is because she had too much electricity stored up. He encouraged her to give the battle a try, if only to get Saskia to discharge some of that extra electricity. Blix was hesitant but with her Blitzle trapped in the Snivy's vines, she didn't feel like she had much choice. However, she suggested they take the battle to an empty pen because she didn't want the Wooloo to get caught in the crossfire. Upon an order from Colvin, the snivy retracted its vines and let her Blitzle go. Blix immediately rushed over to the Blitzle's side and put a restraining hand on Saskia's back.
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Once they had established themselves at an empty pen, Colvin invited her to have her Blitzle attack first. Blix started it all off with a Spark attack, which was one of the two of Saskia's attacks she could remember. The little Blitzle was fast and fierce, and landed her electric attack on the Snivy easily. However, the Snivy seemed unphased by it and Colvin had it counter with an incredibly strong Leaf Tornado attack. The battle lasted for all of ten minutes, with Blix getting Saskia to alternate between Spark and Shockwave. The Blitzle was aggressive and her electric attacks strong, but the Snivy was well-trained and Colvin soon had the Blitzle completely paralyzed. The Snivy soundly defeated her Blitzle with a Leaf Blade attack. Blix asked to be excused so she could go get her Blitzle's pokeball, which was stored back in the stables. Colvin told her it was fine, and he thanked her for being willing to try a battle with her Blitzle. He said the Blitzle was strong but needed more training, and commented that they both had potential. When Blix asked him potential for what, he merely shrugged and Blix left to get Saskia's pokeball. When she got back to the pen, Saskia was still there unconscious, but there was no sign of Colvin. However, she did find his business card sticking out from the pen's gate. Written on the back of it in pen were five words. Call me privately. Discretion required.
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The whole thing was so wild that Blix didn't know what to think of it. She did pocket the business card with the thought in the back of her mind to call in a day or two. The next day, she was out to feed the Wooloo again around the same time when she found her brother out there recalling a bunch of the Wooloo into their pokeballs. When she asked Josef what he was doing, he told her that he had come to an agreement with the financing company. They had told him that rather than money, they were willing to accept repayment in the form of pokemon. He also needed to auction some of them off to recoup some costs. Some of the Wooloo were going to be sent to the financing company, and the rest were going to be auctioned off. Blix objected and told her brother that made no sense. What would a financing company need a bunch of Wooloo for anyway? He told her that it wasn't just the Wooloo that were going, but half of the Bouffalant as well. Blix restated her question, which Josef finally rebuffed and told her it was none of her business. She noticed alarmingly that he wouldn't meet her gaze. She didn't really have a say in the farm's finances, since her father's will had made it clear that it all fell to Josef. As for her mother, well her mother hadn't changed since their father's death. She just spent a lot of time drinking and watching game shows, seemingly having retired from the ranch entirely.
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That evening after supper, Blix retreated to her room and called the number on the business card Colvin had left her. She suspected that the reason her brother was going along with such a wild deal had something to do with him. Colvin, ever the smooth talker, sounded positively chipper when he answered the phone. He told her that Josef and his company and reached a mutually beneficial agreement. He advised her not to interfere with their agreement for her own good and that of her Blitzle. It sounded like a threat to Blix and it didn't seem like Colvin cared to disabuse her of that particular notion. Blix, who normally didn't speak up for herself, grew angry because she wanted to know what was going on. She was upset and asked Colvin to enlighten her more on the deal that had been reached. Colvin promised her that he would tell her, but he needed her word that she would not tell anyone else. He also asked her to consider whether or not she really needed to know, implying that there was more to it than just a simple conversation. Colvin also told her that there was a deal available to her too, if she cared to take the opportunity.
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Blix didn't think that she could live with not knowing, and so she reluctantly agreed to Colvin's request not to tell anyway. He seemed happy to hear it and answered all of her questions as efficiently as he could. It turned out Josef had indeed made a deal with the financing company, which was that he would maintain ownership of the ranch in name, but that they would be the ones calling the shots. In exchange, the Bjorklund ranch would have full access to the financing company's funds and manpower. The financing company would be sending a few of their employees over to live on the ranch and work there, in order to keep an eye on things. Josef in essence would be a figurehead, but he would still be the ranch owner on paper...so any financial decisions he made would affect his credit. The family would be permitted to live there still, but they were not allowed to question the decisions made by the financing company. Apparently, Colvin had set it all up by having a private discussion with her brother shortly after he had left after their battle. As for Blix, he wanted her to leave the ranch because she had no real world experience outside of it. That and well...his company had some tasks they could use her help with, and in exchange they would supply her with pokemon, training, and free use of their facilities. When Blix mentioned it made no sense for a financial company to operate that way....Colvin snickered and told her she should have figured it out by that point. Blix had kinda of, and guessed it wasn't really a financial company. He snickered again and told her his organization was more in the business of procuring finances. That's when it finally clicked as to who she and her family were dealing with...Team Rocket!
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Blix ended up going along with it and agreed to the deal that Colvin extended to her, moreso for the sake of her family than herself. Team Rocket had saved the ranch from forclosure, at the cost of some of its pokemon. Josef had already gotten rid of some pokemon to try and save it and she didn't blame him, as the ranch had been in their family for generations. As for Blix, Colvin supplied her with a very hard to handle Tauros and also gave her the very same Snivy that had defeated her Blitzle. He had her battle her Blitzle against other new recruits to the organization, and when her Blitzle won a battle against a Sobble, Saskia surprised her by evolving into a Zebstrika. She knows that she owes the organization much, and is willing to learn what they have to teach her. Living beyond the ranch she knew her whole life is a huge adjustment, but it's a welcome one and getting to keep Saskia with her is something she's also grateful for. She is still learning the ins and outs of being part of Team Rocket, but so far they've allowed her far more freedom than her parents ever did.