Reiji barely slept last night—down at a little past five, up by nine. Four hours total.
He'd napped a bit in the first half of the night and wasn't that tired. Shun, though, was wrecked—only four hours before Reiji shook him awake.
No choice. They had a lot to do today; first order of business was sorting last night's haul.
The Pokémon had already eaten and started morning drills. The three new ones weren't on a plan yet—Reiji decided to let them free-range a couple more days.
He and Shun fixed breakfast in the kitchen, ate, then laid out everything they'd taken: eleven Poké Balls and four space packs.
The Pokémon were: Starmie , Grumpig , Exeggutor , Noctowl , Poliwag, Breloom , Mankey , Kingler, Corphish , Beedrill , Beedrill. The first 2 were the strongest ones.
The rest were mostly average. Lucky they'd gone full stealth and bagged everyone in one sweep; face-to-face they might've lost. Close call. Don't get cocky.
Exeggutor, Noctowl, Breloom, and the two Beedrill were mid-30s.
Mankey, Kingler, and Corphish were low-20s. Poliwag was newly caught with potential only in the 40s.
Best potential among them was Starmie and Grumpig at 52 and 50. Most of the rest hovered in the 30–40s.
Plan: sell all eleven and split the cash later; otherwise division gets messy.
The Poliwag was different—Reiji handed its ball to Pelipper and had it fly to the orphanage so the headmaster could let one of the kids bond with it.
They set the ten sale Pokémon aside and emptied the four packs, piling valuables on one side and daily junk on the other.
Most of the good stuff came from the psychic guy's pack—same for the cash. The other three were basically broke.
Final tally: just over ¥2.2M in cash; 600 boxes of Psychic-type cubes, 128 Water cubes, 32 Grass cubes, 20 Fighting cubes; 50 bags of specialty feed for those eleven Pokémon; one Psychic Gem; two unknown bracelets; lots of balls; a spread of meds (heals/status); and four space packs.
Time to split.
Shun took: the ¥2.2M cash; 100 boxes Psychic cubes (~¥600k), 128 Water cubes (~¥510k), 32 Grass cubes (~¥140k), 20 Fighting cubes (~¥100k); some medicines; all four space packs; 25 bags of feed; and some spare balls.
Rough value: about ¥3.55M.
Reiji took: 500 boxes Psychic cubes (~¥3.0M at his black-market member price of ¥6,000/box), one Psychic Gem (~¥700k), the two unknown bracelets; all antidotes; 25 bags of feed; and some balls.
Rough value: about ¥3.7M.
The only fuzzy piece was the bracelets. Reiji figured they had to be psychic-related, so he kept them. Time to test.
"Butterfree, over here."
"Brii?"
"Give me your hand—try these on and use Confusion."
"Brii." Butterfree held out a hand. Reiji buckled both bracelets on.
"Try Confusion."
"Brii—" Butterfree's eyes glowed… and nothing. A cube on the floor didn't budge.
Butterfree blinked, a huge question mark practically floating over its head. It tried again. Still nothing. Panic.
"Brii!? Where'd my Confusion go?"
"Lost your power?" Reiji watched a while. Even a cube should be easy at Butterfree's current strength. No injuries, so this wasn't real loss. Only odd factor: the bracelets.
"Okay, let's try one." He took off a bracelet, left the other on. "Again."
"Brii—" The cube lifted… wobbled… and dropped after a second.
Butterfree stared at the fallen cube, stunned. It hadn't felt this weak in ages. Plenty of cubes and honey lately, and it had been training—so why?
"All right, that's enough. Who told you to slack off? Can't even lift a cube." Reiji unlatched the bracelet. He'd seen enough—these were psychic suppressors. Basically weight training for psychic moves, same idea as Poliwhirl's weighted gear.
Butterfree's power wasn't gone; it just couldn't push past the restraints. Which also meant… Butterfree's psychic training had room to tighten up.
"Brii… brii—" Mortally wounded by the "slacking" callout, Butterfree flung itself into Reiji's arms, face buried in his chest, tiny fists thumping in protest. Nope, not slacking—it was bad food, bad sleep, Magikarp sprayed it, got it sick, then it couldn't sleep… Clearly Magikarp's fault. Case closed.
Reiji, oblivious to the internal drama, popped a Psychic cube into Butterfree's mouth and gently pushed it away. "Go eat. I've got work."
"Brii—" Mouth suddenly full and happy, Butterfree drifted back to its lounger with honey water, grumbling now and then about the drizzle (Pelipper's Drizzle made the mood gloomy).
Shun asked, "Figure anything out?"
"Yeah. They're psychic limiters. Training weights for mind power." Reiji handed him one.
Shun shook his head. "You keep them. I've only got Staryu using psychic moves. Won't need these for a while."
"Okay, I'll hang on to them." Reiji pocketed the pair. He'd seen similar ideas before—like armor that shuts down Mewtwo's power.
"Oh—copy this, you'll want it for Staryu later." Reiji pulled out a booklet they'd found.
Meditation Manual.
He flipped it: lots of psychic theory he couldn't really parse. He had no psychic ability, so it'd take time to study anyway.
The manual, the limiters, the Psychic Gem, and most of the psychic cubes had all come from the psychic guy's pack. Reiji kept 500 boxes; Shun took 100, since Reiji had more psychic users overall.
They'd priced out each item before splitting. Reiji came out slightly ahead; assuming unknown value for the limiters, he counted himself about ¥200k over and left it at that.
After Shun finished copying the manual, they packed their shares into their space packs. Then they started bagging the trash—clothes, toiletries, snacks, booze, random junk—to toss.
Next stop: the Old Man. They still had ten Pokémon to fence, including three psychic species—should fetch real money.
While cleaning, Shun fished out a black uniform. A big red R on the chest. He froze.
He remembered it perfectly: Team Rocket's uniform. Why was this in the pile?
If it came from those four men… did that mean they'd just killed Team Rocket members?
Shun held the jacket up to Reiji, voice shaking. "R-Reiji… look."
"What—oh, hell." Reiji swore.
Now it all clicked: why the psychic guy carried a meditation manual, those limiters, mountains of psychic cubes; why he himself had psychic power yet kept low as a casino enforcer.
Of course. The guy was Team Rocket—an undercover operative. And they'd just killed him.
"Don't panic," Reiji told himself out loud. The question was…
Was he undercover inside the casino?
Or was the casino itself a Team Rocket base?
Those are not the same.
If he was undercover in the casino, then he likely had no backup—maybe working solo. In that case Team Rocket wouldn't link his death to them, and nobody would be hunting Reiji and Shun.
If the casino was a Rocket base, they could report it to city hall. If that went nowhere, it would mean city hall had Rocket plants—and they'd have to run, with Team Rocket on their tail.
Thinking of one of the brothers he killed before—the other casino enforcer who was local—Reiji had never heard from the Old Man that he was a member of Team Rocket.
And the psychic guy had chosen to compromise to keep Reiji throwing matches, clearly not wanting to blow his cover.
If it were a base, he wouldn't have bargained—he'd have eliminated Reiji on the spot. That's Team Rocket's style.
So: most likely, the psychic guy was planted as an undercover. Which raised new questions…
How many Rocket moles are inside the casino?
Has the place been riddled with Rocket spies?
What about city hall—any Rocket moles there?
The clubs?
Anywhere else in the city?
Too many unknowns. Reporting members of the Team Rockets directly might mean walking into a trap.
Safer plan: let the old man do the reporting. Let that old fox handle it…
[End of Chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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