Alex was very tempted to investigate this lead on Team Dominion's new main headquarters in Cinnabar City. He wanted to head over himself and find out what they were up to, but ultimately decided against it. He was on vacation with his family, after all, and if Rhea and Alvera would have to make do with a possibly secret warehouse on Five Island, then so would he.
It wasn't like he wanted anything from Team Dominion anyway. At this point, it was more of a habit than anything else, considering their history. Still, he wouldn't simply drop the matter now that he had some intel. It was best to follow up on it while providing opportunities to his own people.
"Nyx," Alex called out from the secret compartment of the Gray Wake. "Set up a Champion ranked mission for the Silver Network and set the payout to one million credits. Make it an undercover operation to locate the secret base of Team Dominion in Cinnabar City. Bonus points if they can take down the base and apprehend the leader, who is most likely a Champion ranked trainer. Let them know they're likely up against at least a thousand gunmen and a hundred mind-controlled Pokémon."
"Are you sure about this, Alex?" Nyx asked. "This seems a bit too dangerous for our bounty hunters. At most, only Dale and Morgan can take on a mission like this."
"I was an Elite when I took down my first Champion. I think they can manage something with their training and their teams."
"Are you seriously comparing them to you from a decade ago?"
"They've been trained in my methods and fully armed by Rhea. I'm sure they'll be fine. Besides, the mission is to locate the base, not to storm it. If they want to go any further, that'll be completely up to them."
"All right, I'll put it up, but don't hold your breath waiting for anyone to take it."
"Great. I'll start unloading the cargo then."
"Yay, loot!" Rhea exclaimed as she jumped into the compartment and started helping Alex store the contents of the crates.
"Can I help, Dad?" Alvera asked.
"Sure," Alex replied. "Jump up here."
Alvera joined them and started opening the crates with Alex.
"Wow… there are so many guns," she exclaimed before her eyes caught a particular black collar in one of them. "What are these collars?"
"They're called Dominion Restraints," Alex explained. "They're used to mind-control Pokémon into doing whatever you tell them to do."
"That's horrible!" Alvera exclaimed. "Why would anyone want to mind-control them when you can just bond with them? They'll love you so much that you can get them to do anything, so long as you take care of them."
"They don't like Pokémon, but at the same time, they can't deny their usefulness in battle, so they mind-control them instead to avoid bonding with them. It's also easier for them to have Pokémon sacrifice themselves in battle compared to trainers who care about their Pokémon."
"So, they're all bad guys. Are you going to stop them, Dad?" she asked innocently.
"I can't bring down an entire criminal organization all by myself, sweetie," Alex answered. "I don't even know where they're hiding."
"What about the League?"
"The League is also trying its best, but they're not the only criminals in the world with bad intentions. There are more criminals and terrifying threats than just a group of criminals who like mind-controlling things. Besides, they've been around for decades, and so far, they haven't been able to do much."
Alex was speaking relatively, considering the atrocities Team Dominion had already managed to pull off. Indoctrination campaigns, socially engineered riots, mass casualties in Hoenn, and countless smaller crimes committed solely to give them footholds across the world. Still, in the grand scheme of things, it was less than the atrocities committed by other criminal organizations. Slavery and human trafficking were still quite prolific, after all.
Alvera continued watching Alex and Rhea's progress in silence. She wanted to say she would go out and find them herself, but if even her dad couldn't do anything, then neither could she. She was still too weak.
Suddenly, she noticed a familiar device in a rather large crate. It was a full-dive capsule that completely enclosed the user, sleek and pod-like in design. The device was a virtual reality cabin, a gaming system that had grown steadily in popularity over the decades. At first, it was little more than a low-quality immersion station, but recent models had improved significantly.
She had wanted the latest model for herself but had ultimately decided to focus on training her Pokémon instead. Now, one sat right in front of her, ready to be taken from the bad guys.
"Dad! Can I have this?" Alvera asked, pointing to the cabin.
"What do you want a VR cabin for?" Alex asked.
He was familiar with the technology and had even tried the earlier models himself in an effort to gain combat training. Unfortunately, he had recognized how fake everything felt. Simulated combat just didn't scratch his itch like a brutal spar with Kommo-o could.
"So I can practice surviving in the wild."
"Rhea?" Alex asked.
Rhea approached, inspected the cabin, and nodded sagely.
"Oh! It's their latest unreleased model," she exclaimed before furrowing her brows. "I'll take a look at it and make sure it doesn't have anything funky in it."
"Thanks," Alex said, turning to Alvera. "You can have it once Rhea's done inspecting it."
"Yay."
Once they finished storing all the contents of the crates, they filled them with random junk from the cargo hold before sealing everything back up.
"What now?" Lyra asked. "Do we call the League in, sink the ship with everyone on board, or just leave it here?"
"We—" Alex began to say before Nyx interrupted him.
"Dale took the mission," Nyx said suddenly. "They're ready to go anytime."
"Iris," Alex called out. "Do you mind fetching Dale and his team and bringing them here?"
"Sure," Iris replied, coordinating with Nyx to get Dale's location.
She released Butterfree, and together they teleported back to Kanto the way they had come. Normally, she wouldn't need to go along, as Butterfree knew enough to navigate to specific coordinates. But they were currently far out at sea, a long distance from Kanto, and she might need more than one Butterfree to teleport Dale and his team back and forth.
Alex and the girls waited for nearly an hour before Iris returned, accompanied by Dale and a dozen heavily armored bounty hunters. Strangely, every one of them was soaked from head to toe in seawater.
"Sorry it took so long," Iris said as she took off her shorts and shirt to join the others on the yacht. "We got a bit lost on the way back. Did you know the ships have drifted off course by a few miles?"
"We did not," Alex said before turning to Dale and holding out his hand for a handshake. "It's good to see you again, Dale. All of you."
Dale smiled and held his new hand out to shake Alex's with a big grin. It seemed his trip to Bill's had not only removed the Pokémon parts from him and his team but also allowed him to regrow a new arm and eye.
Along with the new body parts came a new demeanor. When Alex first met him, he had been dark, brooding, and cautious. Now it felt as though a massive weight had been lifted from his shoulders, replaced with a hint of optimism for a brighter future. Even so, Alex could still sense something menacing buried beneath the surface. It seemed his crusade for vengeance was only just beginning.
"It's good to see you again, Alex," Dale said before looking over the deck filled with beautiful women. "I see you're living the life fit for a Champion."
"Just a small vacation before I get back out there."
"So, what's this about a Champion ranked target?" Dale asked seriously.
"Team Dominion has been a great source of resources since I started out as a bounty hunter," Alex said with a nasty smile. "I thought I'd extend the opportunity to benefit the Silver Network."
"What's the plan?"
"You can take this cargo ship and pretend to be the smugglers. Then you can nab their contacts and take them to the base, where I can get a look at their memories. Or you can give it a shot and take everything for yourself. I don't mind either way."
"Do they have bounties?"
"Unlikely, considering they've been laying low. But they have top-of-the-line guns and enough ammunition to outfit an army. You can also consider the crew on the ship yours. A few of them have bounties, which should be enough to pay for the job whether you take it further or not."
"Good enough for me," Dale said before turning to his men, who were ogling the girls. "Looks like we'll be playing smugglers this time. Get on the ship and start looking professional."
Dale and his team boarded the cargo ship and began making preparations, setting sail soon after while following the route and instructions Rotom and Nyx had laid out for them. The Gray Wake slipped back into motion, carrying its new "smugglers" toward whatever waited at the other end of the line.
With the matter in capable hands, Alex turned away from the operation. He and the girls resumed their course and continued their vacation as planned, setting a relaxed heading for Seven Island.
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