"Run!"
"Let's get out of here...!"
When J's subordinates saw her flee, they scattered as well. The driver of the armored vehicle threw open his door and ran, with no intention of putting up any resistance.
J's men knew exactly what kind of person she was. When faced with a strong enemy, she would run without hesitation—she never did anything that didn't benefit her.
That was precisely how J had managed to evade capture for so long.
"You lot are staying right here. Gardevoir, use Psychic," Gary said. He had no intention of letting her subordinates escape. This group had been her accomplices for years—none of them were decent people.
"Gardevoir!"
Gardevoir used Psychic, and the fleeing hunters suddenly found themselves unable to move. Their bodies floated helplessly toward Gardevoir, who then used Hypnosis to put them all into a deep sleep.
J hadn't brought many people for this operation. Including herself, there were only four in total.
If it weren't for the fact that arresting her might affect subsequent events, Gary certainly wouldn't have let her get away.
J's strongest Pokémon was her Salamence, at level 65. Her other two Pokémon weren't anything special. The Ariados was only Gym-level, and although he hadn't seen her Drapion, it was safe to assume it was considerably weaker than Salamence—quasi-Elite at the absolute most.
"Weavile, help this guy out of those webs," Gary said.
Weavile walked over to the young man and, with a few light flicks of its claws, sliced through the spider silk binding him.
Freed from the trap, the young man didn't even take the time to say thanks—he immediately ran to the armored vehicle. Looking at his Aggron sealed under a glass dome, his face was full of anxiety. He had no idea how to make Aggron recover.
"Aggron, are you okay?" the young man asked worriedly, but the petrified Aggron gave no response.
Gary walked over and reassured him. "Don't worry. Aggron is only temporarily petrified. Its life isn't in any danger."
Hearing this, the young man finally relaxed and said gratefully, "Thank you. If it weren't for you, I don't know what I would've done."
"Don't mention it. It was nothing," Gary said. "Let's take a look at what other Pokémon these people have captured."
The armored vehicle in front of them wasn't small—about the size of a small truck. If J had brought a crew out, she definitely wasn't after just one Pokémon. For a single target, she normally would have acted alone.
Gary and the young man opened the rear doors of the armored vehicle. Inside were three more petrified Pokémon, each sealed under a glass dome.
[LV26 Dunsparce / Elite]
[LV38 Vibrava / Gym]
[LV27 Pawniard / Quasi-Elite]
Gary was surprised. None of these three Pokémon were native to the Sinnoh region—they all came from other regions. It seemed J had captured them as part of commissions from clients.
After all, rarity created value. Pokémon from other regions were naturally worth much more when sold in Sinnoh.
And these three were all fairly rare species.
Dunsparce wasn't strong, but it was considered quite rare even in the Johto region. Since they lived underground, they were very difficult to catch.
Vibrava and Pawniard were also relatively hard to capture, and both carried a certain degree of rarity.
After moving the three Pokémon out of the armored vehicle, Gary called Officer Jenny and asked her to come collect them. Since these Pokémon were unique to other regions and essentially didn't exist in the wild in Sinnoh, they had to be Trainers' Pokémon that J had stolen.
Gary also examined the glass domes. There was a green button on the disc at the base—as long as you held it down, the petrified Pokémon inside would recover.
Now knowing how it worked, the young man freed his Aggron from its petrification. As for the other three Pokémon, he left them as they were, mainly out of concern that they might panic and lash out once released.
Officer Jenny moved quickly. In less than half an hour, she arrived with a squad of officers. After briefly asking about the situation, she brought Gary and the young man back to Floaroma Town.
"I didn't expect you'd actually manage to drive them off. You're remarkably capable for someone so young," Jenny couldn't help but praise after hearing the details of the incident.
Hunter J had always been a major headache for the police. She possessed black-market technology that ordinary Trainers simply couldn't contend with, and crucially, her gang operated an airborne transport that could relocate at any time.
That meant Hunter J had no need for a fixed warehouse. Every Pokémon she captured was stored aboard her airship, ready to move at a moment's notice, which made her extremely difficult for the police to track down.
After all, the police couldn't constantly mobilize the bulk of their forces to hunt for her. Standard procedure was to first locate an illegal hunter's fixed warehouse, then concentrate their forces for the arrest.
To capture J, they would need to learn the location of a transaction between her and a buyer in advance, then concentrate their forces there—but that was incredibly difficult. The best way to obtain a transaction location was to plant a spy inside the gang.
The method sounded simple, but executing it was another matter entirely. J was a boss who cared nothing for her subordinates' lives. Anyone trying to infiltrate her hunter crew would inevitably face her ruthless scrutiny.
"It was nothing. But what about the three Pokémon?" Gary asked.
"We've located the Trainers of the Vibrava and the Dunsparce. But the Pawniard isn't a Trainer's Pokémon—no one has filed any report of a lost Pawniard," Jenny said.
"How is that possible?"
Gary found it hard to believe the Pawniard had no Trainer.
"According to our interrogation, the hunters confessed that this Pawniard was a bargaining chip used by a seller in a trade. It changed hands just a few days ago. J was planning to sell it off for a good price, but then she received a last-minute commission and came here to capture that young man's Aggron," Jenny explained.
"So does that mean the Pawniard is unclaimed?" Gary asked.
"Technically speaking, Pawniard isn't a protected rare species—it can only be classified as smuggled goods. And you were the one who rescued it. What would you like to do with it?" Jenny asked.
The Pawniard's potential was quite good, but it was a Pokémon unique to the Unova region and couldn't be used to compete in the Lily of the Valley Conference.
However, Pawniard's final evolution was Kingambit—an exceptionally powerful Pokémon.
Kingambit's base stat total of 550 was higher than that of some Legendary Pokémon. On top of its excellent resistances, it also had three possible abilities, making it well worth raising.
Even if it couldn't be used at the Lily of the Valley Conference, it could be used at the Vertress Conference in the Unova region someday.