Leonard sported an impressed look as he added, "Nice suit."
"Thanks," Alex replied, looking equally impressed. "Your outfit doesn't look half bad either."
Leonard stood on the deck of the luxury yacht, fishing rod in hand, wearing full fishing gear with an orange hat, an orange vest with too many pockets, a white shirt and brown cargo pants.
Below deck, Alex recognized three auras, one adult and two children, who were likely Leonard's wife and children sleeping.
"I see you've chosen your path wisely," Alex said.
"You were very convincing," Leonard replied. "Who knew you were able to take our bases down in droves in less than half an hour? I bet mine is the only one left in the region."
"You haven't detonated it yet?"
"No, that would be your job."
"I see," Alex said as he released his water team.
They dove down and returned a minute later, having accomplished their task as Alex retrieved them.
A few minutes later, people started surfacing in a panic, riding on Pokémon or calling for help while stuck in escape pods that made it to the surface. There were easily a hundred of them, which meant a thousand people had died in a watery grave.
"Congratulations on bringing down Team Dominion in Unova," Leonard said. "I hope you don't regret your decision once they begin their retaliation."
"I've brought down plenty of bases before without much of a problem," Alex said. "I don't think they'd particularly mind."
"That's because you managed to do so while leaving little to no evidence. Now they know you were responsible after reading the report Orvan submitted before his death."
"We both know he isn't dead."
"Don't bother. HQ won't be convinced otherwise, not when you were the threat that caused it."
"I see. I suppose I get to find out exactly why all of you base leaders were so terrified of them."
"I hope you don't come to regret your decision."
Alex smirked, "So long as they put up a good fight, I don't think that will be much of a problem."
Leonard shook his head, satisfied with the decision of quitting while he was ahead. Alex was simply too powerful and violent an opponent to mess with. He hoped from this point on all focus would be on this bounty hunter rather than spent on hunting him and his family.
"Give them hell, Mr. Wattson."
"We'll see," Alex said before patting Iris's Butterfree on his shoulder and teleporting to their rendezvous point.
Once he emerged from teleportation, he found himself in Desert Resort amid a forest of Maractus, with everyone already there waiting for him. The group included all the bounty hunters, Clarissa, Sable, Olivia, who was coordinating her own forces, and even Nyx, who was directing the bounty hunters via hologram.
"Alex! You're safe! We thought something happened to you since you took so long," Clarissa exclaimed.
"Speak for yourself. I knew he'd be fine the entire time," Lyra said before turning to Alex. "So what took you so long?"
"Orvan wasn't at his base, so it took me a while to figure out my next move. Then he destroyed his own base, throwing me for a loop. My second target managed to get pretty far before Grim's team chased him down. As for my final target, we talked for a bit. How were things on everyone else's end?"
They all shrugged or nodded, meaning things had gone as well as could be expected. They were simply too prepared this time to allow for any sort of drama.
"I guess that just leaves Rhea then," Alex said.
"Yeah, I just hope she doesn't end up destroying all of Castelia City while she's at it," Clarissa said.
"Don't worry," Nyx's hologram said. "She's doing just fine."
-----
BOOOM!!!
Fireballs erupted into the night sky as seemingly random warehouses and factories in Virbank City's industrial district exploded in unison. Roofs splintered and were flung into the air, sending showers of debris raining down while sparks, smoke, and flames twisted together into a blazing inferno that consumed the targeted facilities.
"That's the last of it," Rhea said in her all-black Silent exosuit, standing on the rooftop of a warehouse, hands on her hips as she admired her work from afar.
She had spent the last half hour running across Virbank City, planting her personalized explosives in every factory and warehouse registered under Argent Solutions. She could have done this on her first day, which had been her original plan, but Alex and Nyx had convinced her to wait until Argent Solutions lost their supporter.
As for casualties, there were none, surprisingly, since it was the middle of the night and the guards had been knocked out and removed from the buildings. She had also focused only on the hardware rather than the structures themselves, so there shouldn't have been any undue harm.
"I guess there's only the finale left," Rhea said with a sad smile. "I would have loved to blow up a bunch of other buildings, but I should focus on my main targets instead."
She was forbidden from attacking Argent Solutions' storefronts, ships, distribution network, or offices, leaving only the factories and warehouses as exceptions. It didn't feel like complete revenge, but the coup de grâce come morning would probably be more than enough to satisfy her.
"Alright, just a bit more running to go, and I can finally return to work and focus on my new baby," Rhea said, hyping herself up, before leaping from the roof, ready for her grand finale.
-----
In an emergency meeting just before dawn in Castelia City, the surviving founders gathered inside Argent Solutions' executive conference room high above the skyline. They sat around a long obsidian table to discuss the recent destruction of their warehouses and factories, as well as losing contact with Team Dominion for support.
"We're fucked!" Itamar Lestrane, the head of the gaming division and architect behind Argent's immersive VR ecosystems, said. "Without Team Dominion and their backing from the government, we'll be looking at bankruptcy once they terminate the gun manufacturing deal and take back their upfront payment."
"I told you we should have covered our asses in that contract," Gerald Falkner, the company's lead systems engineer and overseer of their VR hardware integration, said. "But all of you insisted it wasn't necessary."
"It still isn't necessary, you dumbass," Yasmina Olvesson, Argent Solutions' chief legal officer and the architect of the original contract, replied. "There isn't an insurance company that would give us such an outrageous policy. No amount of strong-arming will force them to hand over all their money in circulation. Team Dominion may be powerful, but they can't take on everyone at the same time. Besides, if Team Dominion were still around, we would have received an extension on our deadline to remake our production line."
"Is bankruptcy really our only option?" Chad Veylan, the marketing director who rebranded Argent from a VR entertainment startup into a defense contractor, leaned forward and asked. "Can't we salvage this by rerouting the guns we already have in stock to fulfill our quota?"
"Our contract with the League has quality specifications, so we can't offload our trash from other regions. We have to give them what we promised."
"Can we buy them from other manufacturers at a premium? I'm willing to put up some personal funds to keep us afloat."
"Not with our reputation and our sudden lack of a backer."
They continued arguing until the glass wall overlooking Castelia City shattered inward. A sleek, all-black metal robot flew through the opening, sending shards scattering across the polished floor as powerful gusts of wind from so high up swept through the room.
Everyone froze in shock.
The helmet of the machine split open, revealing it was piloted by a woman. Their shock gave way to intrigue as they realized this was brand-new technology they could invest in, all while they repeatedly slammed the emergency distress button under the table and called for security.
"Hey, bitches! Remember me?" Rhea shouted as she tossed several Poké Ball-shaped devices onto the table.
They burst open midair, unfolding into mechanical tentacles that shot outward and bound each of the founders to their chairs.
"Gah!"
"What are you doing?"
"Release us!"
"Aww, I guess none of you remember me," Rhea said with a shrug. "That's fine. You don't need to know who I am. You just need to give me your memories."
She released Alex's Malamar, which she had borrowed for the occasion.
"No!"
"Stop!"
"Get that thing away from me!"
Malamar began moving from one founder to the next, its psychic power probing into their minds and extracting memories.
Halfway through the process, the door to the meeting room exploded inward. A squad of well-trained gunmen flowed inside with tactical precision, weapons raised as they locked onto Rhea and Malamar, the intruders.
Fwoom! Fwoom! Fwoom!
Multiple pulse-like projectiles, reminiscent of Water Pulse and about the size of a head, shot out of each gun. They quickly found their marks in Rhea, in her exosuit, and Malamar, who was just finishing up.
Upon impact, both were sent flying through the opening they had come from, hurtling into Castelia City's darkened skyline as if struck by miniature Whirlwinds with exaggerated force.
"Packages secured," one of the gunmen said, pressing two fingers to his earpiece. "Taking them to the personalized extraction points now."
Five of the gunmen drew knives that emitted a high-pitched sound and began cutting into Rhea's metal tentacles that held the founders down, like a hot knife through butter. Once freed, the founders were quickly escorted through five different exits.
One went through the roof into a jet that had just arrived. Another went through an adjacent building connected by a sky bridge. A third exited via a hovercraft parked at the window Rhea had broken through, and the last used a secret underground passage accessed through the building's private elevator.
They raced through the city until they made it out, some heading to their secured mansions, others to their secret bases. One of them, Chad Veylan, was making for a massive luxury yacht anchored a few miles from Castelia City.
Throughout the journey, he kept thinking about the suit their attacker had been wearing. If there was anything that could get them out of their current predicament, it was the promise of brand-new technology. They already had exosuits being integrated into their robots, but what if they did away with the machinery and enhanced humans instead? It was a huge step toward Team Dominion's dream of humans holding all the power in the world, so it was guaranteed to receive plenty of support and funding.
Chad continued to daydream as he was escorted to his private room on the yacht, where he could finally relieve himself after soiling his pants in the face of a sudden threat to his life. He had always thought he was prepared for danger, but he had never truly experienced it, until today.
He took off his soiled pants and underwear, tossing them aside for the maids to take care of, and took a seat on his private luxury toilet when he suddenly heard the tiniest of beeps.
BOOOM!!!
-----
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