Boom—boom—boom—
"Finally found you," Reiji said. "You two rats."
He hit them from the side, but they were jumpy. Poliwhirl and Scyther didn't catch either of them off guard.
"Who are you?" one of the young men snapped. They'd already switched back into their Team Rocket uniforms.
"Team Rocket?" Reiji's frown eased the moment he saw the outfit.
He'd changed too—black stab-resistant gear under a hood, Ditto covering his face, and Spinarak perched on his shoulder.
Now that he knew who they were, the last bit of caution fell away. The only thing he hated was fighting an unknown enemy. If it really was Team Rocket like he'd suspected, then he didn't need to hold back. No one was walking off Rind Island alive.
"Hiding under a hood—too scared to say your name?" the other one taunted.
Seeing Reiji stay masked only made them relax. If he wouldn't show his face, that meant he feared Team Rocket too.
"Just a nobody," Reiji said.
He glanced over the Pokémon they'd thrown out. Eleven on the field—thirteen total if you counted the two Fearow he'd already crippled earlier.
One of them had a Fearow overhead, with Arbok, Weezing, Tentacruel, and Magneton at his side—five Pokémon.
The other had a Golbat overhead, with Victreebel, Arbok, Weezing, Tentacruel, and Electrode—six Pokémon.
Reiji's eyes flicked to the first man again. Only five? Then he had one more—probably a Water-type he didn't want to release in this terrain.
The moment Reiji read their pressure, he settled. Their strongest were only Advanced tier, and there were five of those among the eleven he could see. Add the hidden Water-type, and that made six.
Three Advanced-tier Pokémon each. That was enough to rank as seasoned trainers—strong enough to be a squad leader in Team Rocket, but the weakest kind.
"Just a nobody?" They exchanged a look, then studied the Pokémon around him.
Spinarak. Butterfree. Pelipper. Poliwhirl. Kingler. Scyther. Rhyhorn. Croagunk.
Eight Pokémon, all common species—yet none looked easy to push around. Otherwise, there was no way he'd buried the poaching crew's boss. That man had been known in the underworld.
Reiji didn't bother talking anymore.
"Poliwhirl—see that Victreebel? No mercy. Full power!"
The fight ignited instantly, and Reiji's whole plan still hinged on Poliwhirl cracking the line.
Once Poliwhirl's Waterfall got rolling, anything in the same tier got beaten flat. If one Ice Punch wasn't enough, then it took two. If two weren't enough, then three. Again and again, until the target dropped.
Poliwhirl kicked off the ground and rushed Victreebel.
Reiji barked the rest of his orders in one breath.
"Rhyhorn, Kingler—those two Arbok and those two Weezing are yours. Lock them down. Ground-type moves only!"
"Scyther, hold Golbat and Fearow. Prioritise Golbat!"
"Pelipper, Croagunk—stall the two Tentacruel!"
He waited for Poliwhirl to punch the opening. Magneton and Electrode could be ignored for now. The two Rockets weren't even committing them yet.
Gengar, Darkrai, Ditto, Spinarak, and Butterfree still hadn't moved either. Reiji kept his voice low and spoke to the shadows at his feet.
"Darkrai, Gengar—watch for openings. Use Psychic-type moves to ambush Arbok and Weezing."
"Understood," Darkrai replied.
But this time, the Rockets weren't clueless. After getting hit once by a shadow ambush, they'd be guarding their blind spots. They wouldn't fall for the same trick twice.
Reiji's tone sharpened.
"If you can kill the trainers, do it."
He let his Pokémon fight in separate lanes because they'd never trained coordination together. A messy "combo" would just sabotage him. All he needed was Poliwhirl to break the first piece—after that, the rest would collapse.
The two Rockets weren't unprepared, either. They still hadn't seen the Ghost-types, so they hesitated to commit too many Pokémon.
That hesitation cost them.
Victreebel couldn't handle Poliwhirl at all. After a few Ice Punches, it froze solid. Even when it cracked free, it lay there shaking, too stiff to stand.
They tried to peel an Arbok off to support it.
The moment Arbok shifted, it exposed its shadow.
A pitch-black Gengar rose out of it without a sound.
Red light burned in Gengar's eyes. It caught Arbok with telekinesis and dragged it backward, inch by inch, into darkness—until both vanished into the shadow.
Arbok disappeared in a blink.
Neither Rocket knew where it went. That was the nightmare of shadow fighting: if you couldn't break the technique, you couldn't even start rescuing what got taken.
Then a thick, black arm tossed something out from beneath the trees.
Arbok hit the ground already split clean—head and tail separated. Dead, beyond doubt.
"Damn it… so it really is a Ghost-type. A Gengar!" Arbok's trainer nearly choked on the words. That Pokémon had been with him for years.
"Now isn't the time to mourn," the other snapped. "He's worse than we thought. We win together, or we don't win at all."
Reiji saw the body too.
Inside shadows, Gengar and Darkrai ruled. Once they pulled something in, it became a two-on-one. Almost nothing got out.
And Darkrai's pressure alone could lock ordinary Pokémon in place. Even an Advanced-tier Arbok wasn't immune—because Darkrai was Advanced tier too, and it was Darkrai.
Before they could reset, Gengar struck again.
Another Weezing got dragged into the dark.
When it came back out, it wasn't intact anymore—split into two, gas leaking from slack mouths. It didn't move again.
And then everything started falling at once.
Poliwhirl finally smashed Victreebel into the dirt. It couldn't hold on anymore and slumped into the crater, unconscious, bile pooling beside it.
On the other side, Scyther had been chasing Golbat—until Fearow tried to interfere and clipped too close.
Scyther shifted targets mid-swing.
One cut took Fearow's wing clean. Another one down.
The rest toppled like dominos.
Hanhan chased one Weezing hard enough that Kingler's pressure eased. Kingler clamped down on the Arbok coiled around it and began to squeeze.
It survived only because its shell had been reinforced. Instead of getting crushed, Kingler crushed back.
The pincers tightened.
Arbok's body gave way.
It snapped in half.
Another Arbok, head and tail separated. Another one finished.
In a heartbeat, the other side lost five.
Two Arboks split clean. One Weezing torn apart. Victreebel knocked out. Fearow left with a ruined wing.
Their eleven became six.
Reiji's side still had eleven in play.
The numbers flipped in an instant.
Reiji adjusted immediately.
Poliwhirl broke off to support Pelipper and Croagunk against the two Tentacruel.
The last Weezing wasn't worth worrying about. One Mud Shot from Kingler would handle it. Ground-type moves hit Weezing hard—and even if it had Levitate, he'd just force it down and hit it anyway.
Hanhan, Gengar, and Darkrai all moved toward the main clash—straight at the two Rocket trainers.
Magneton and Electrode didn't matter against Hanhan in the first place. Add Gengar and Darkrai, and their defeat was only a matter of time.
Scyther kept carving after Golbat. Golbat was slower—so it could dodge forever, right up until it made one mistake.
Scyther could miss all day.
It only needed one hit.
Seeing the loss coming, one of the Rockets went cold and made the call.
"Electrode—Explosion! Max power!"
He was throwing Electrode away. If the blast created enough chaos, he could run and get off the island.
Kidnapping Luana's son was beyond the two of them now. They needed a quasi–Elite Four trainer at minimum, or four veteran Advanced-tier trainers working together.
They'd kicked a steel plate.
This "nobody" was at least quasi–Elite Four tier. His Victreebel—their best Pokémon—had been beaten helpless by that Poliwhirl.
Nice plan.
Reiji didn't let it happen.
"Rhyhorn—knock Electrode into the air!"
Boom—boom—boom—
Hanhan rammed Electrode upward, and the glowing-white Electrode detonated midair.
The shockwave rolled over the battlefield like a hammer. Fire lit the sky. Everyone had to bow their heads against the pressure.
The Rocket who ordered the Explosion turned to bolt.
He didn't get one step.
Gengar dragged him into the dark.
With no Pokémon left at his side, he was just a man. He couldn't resist for even a second.
The other Rocket tried to release Sharpedo and flee too.
Darkrai pulled him into the shadows as well—Sharpedo included, even without water.
The moment Darkrai's grip locked around his legs, he finally understood what real terror was.
This man had Darkrai.
That was why he'd chased them without letting them breathe.
That was why he'd refused to let them live.
Only the dead kept secrets.
"Pelipper," Reiji said, voice calm again. "Go pick up Electrode."
Electrode wasn't dead—just barely alive.
Good.
Everything here needed to be dealt with, all at once. He wouldn't let a single Pokémon escape. He wouldn't sell them either.
They'd seen him. They'd seen his team. If Team Rocket recovered them, they could pull his identity out sooner or later.
Darkrai could talk. It could invade dreams.
If Team Rocket had anything similar—and they would—then Reiji's life became a countdown.
As for why he'd been careless before?
Money.
Back then, he'd only wanted cash. He'd hoped those Pokémon would rot as breeding stock at a daycare and never crawl back out to haunt him.
Pelipper returned with Electrode.
Gengar tossed the two Rocket members back out of the darkness. Both were asleep, along with the Sharpedo. None of them would be waking up soon.
"Spinarak," Reiji said. "Toxic."
Spinarak clicked its fangs like it had been waiting all day. Spinarak, Ditto, and Butterfree hadn't entered the fight at all—just stayed at Reiji's side as his guard.
If Reiji didn't order them, they didn't move. His battle plan came first. If they messed it up and got Poliwhirl's group beaten, they'd be lucky to survive the fallout.
Poison seeped in.
The two Rockets jerked awake in agony.
Their eyes found the pile of dead Pokémon. Then they realised their limbs—and even their mouths—were sealed with webbing.
"Gengar," Reiji said. "Will-O-Wisp. Burn them."
They thrashed and tried to speak through the webbing.
Reiji didn't care.
He didn't need to hear threats. He didn't need the bribes. He didn't need them chanting Team Rocket's name or throwing Giovanni at him like it was a shield.
It was all noise.
In the end, Team Rocket's Pokémon, and the two Team Rocket members themselves, all became food for the group. The two Fearow he'd crippled earlier were still with them too—maybe they'd been carrying them as emergency rations.
The fire reached them after the poison already did its work.
They died with eyes wide open, staring at him.
They'd been squad leaders—or close to it.
They vanished here, and no one would ever know.
Reiji didn't let Gengar absorb their life energy.
Anything alive could become Gengar's food. That was exactly why he'd banned it from the start. If it ever got hooked, stopping it would be a fight he didn't want.
He wasn't too poor to feed Gengar properly. He didn't need to let it drink that kind of filth.
Still, Gengar removed the poison sacs from the Poison-types.
Reiji allowed that much. Advanced-tier sacs were rare, and to Gengar they were pure nourishment.
He also had Gengar spit out the two men's backpacks. Anything with Team Rocket markings went straight into the fire.
Electronics too. Most of that stuff carried tracking, and he wasn't leaving a beacon pointing at Rind Island.
…
[End of chapter]
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