So the black market really was under the power plant...
Reiji had already spotted Officer Jenny's patrol cars flashing red and blue as they sealed off the power plant above the underground market.
To avoid getting boxed in, he had already moved away from the plant and slipped into a dim alley, quietly watching what Officer Jenny would do next.
The patrol cars had only just arrived when Darkrai and Gengar rose out of the sewer and slipped back into his shadow.
"How did it go?" Reiji asked the moment he felt them return.
"We got Riolu back, but the shop's security spotted us. He had an Alakazam with him, and they're already coming this way..." Darkrai said, having Gengar spit out the Poké Ball as it quickly explained what had happened.
"Gengar?" Reiji looked at it. The plan had been simple: grab it if there was an opening, pull out if there wasn't. He had not expected them to get spotted anyway.
Gengar hunched up like a child that had done something wrong. One moment of greed had exposed them, brought the enemy after them, and now it did not even dare look up at him.
"It's fine. We leave first, then deal with the pursuers," Reiji said, patting Gengar on the head. After comforting it, he picked up Riolu's Poké Ball and spoke softly to it. "You're safe now. Go back to sleep for a while..."
He had no time to deal with Riolu's feelings right now. Officer Jenny had the power plant surrounded, and Gengar's slip had brought pursuers with it, including an Alakazam. Staying here was no longer an option.
He immediately called out Pelipper and rode it straight out of the city.
At the same time, the three Team Rocket men chasing Gengar escaped the underground black market through a hidden passage. With Alakazam tracking for them, they locked onto Reiji in the sky almost instantly.
"Call out your Flying-types. We're going after him," the Rocket boss said, staring into the black sky ahead. He had already noticed that Reiji was fleeing toward the outskirts instead of hiding in the city. To him, that was practically suicide.
All three released their Flying-type Pokémon and gave chase.
"Here they come. Three people," Darkrai warned after sensing the three pursuers and their three Flying-type Pokémon closing in from behind.
"They still haven't attacked, and they haven't used Teleport either. They want to wait until we're outside the city," Reiji said at once. He understood their plan immediately, and it suited him just fine. He had wanted to settle this outside the city anyway. Fighting in town would only make things messy.
After more than half an hour in the air, he was already far beyond Gringey City and over a vast, uninhabited forest.
He no longer knew exactly what direction he was flying in, only that he was heading farther inland. But he could not keep going forever. He needed to set his trap in the forest below.
"Darkrai, scan the forest. Find the strongest wild Pokémon nearby."
"Over there," Darkrai said, pointing the way. Pelipper immediately turned in that direction.
"Take us down," Reiji said.
Once they reached that wild Pokémon's territory, he had Pelipper land quietly, careful not to wake it, then asked Darkrai, "How strong is it?"
"It's an Ursaring..." Darkrai sensed that the Ursaring was fast asleep and led Reiji in without a sound. Now all they had to do was wait for the pursuers to walk straight into it.
Alakazam floated in the air, still keeping Reiji locked down until he dropped into the forest.
"Where is he, Alakazam?" the Rocket boss asked, switching on a flashlight. They were exposed while the other side was hiding in the dark, so there was no point sneaking around anymore. When he saw Alakazam point into the woods below, he shouted to the two men behind him, "Move. Search down there."
His beam swept through the dense forest below. Reiji saw it too. He was already crouched beside the tree hollow where the Ursaring slept.
"Yes, boss."
The two grunts landed in the forest, pulled out flashlights of their own, and released their Pokémon to search the woods.
"Golbat, find him."
Two Golbat joined the boss's Alakazam and Golbat. With that many eyes searching the dark, they were certain he could not stay hidden.
Behind the hollow, Reiji carefully steadied his breathing and watched the lights draw closer. The three of them were almost on top of him now.
Then Alakazam narrowed its eyes. Floating beside its Trainer, it turned toward a tree ahead. The human it had been tracking was hiding right behind that hollow.
"What is it?" the Rocket boss asked.
Alakazam slowly raised its spoon and pointed toward the huge tree ahead—the very tree where the Ursaring was sleeping.
The Rocket boss grinned. "Heh. Spread out and flank him."
He made a silence gesture to the two men beside him, then waved them off to either side.
The two grunts understood immediately and split up, circling around the tree from both directions.
"Darkrai, get ready," Reiji whispered. "Wake the Ursaring out of its nightmare and make it come up raging. Hit the one on the left with Dark Void first. Gengar, finish him. Kill him."
"Understood." Darkrai was already prepared. All it had to do now was wait for that man on the left to come a little closer to the hollow.
Gengar gave a slow, ugly grin and ran its tongue across its lips. It had been waiting for that Alakazam for a while now. Time to pay back what happened earlier.
Thunder rolled overhead.
Lightning flashed through the forest, and rain began to fall, cool drops striking Reiji's face. He pulled up his hood against the rain, removed his mask, and tightened his grip on Poliwhirl and Toxicroak's Poké Balls.
Another crash of thunder rolled through the sky.
The Ursaring's steady breathing suddenly caught. In the flicker of lightning above the canopy, it snapped its eyes open, wild and violent, catching the scent of humans.
It smelled them, and it saw the flashlight almost right in its face.
The Ursaring threw back its head and roared.
The moment it saw that light, it burst out of the hollow and charged straight at it—straight at the Rocket boss.
"Now," Reiji said.
The instant the Ursaring roared, he sent Darkrai and Gengar into motion and hurled three Poké Balls of his own. Poliwhirl, Toxicroak, and Scyther burst into the rain.
Poliwhirl hit the ground running. With rainwater under its feet, it was twice as fast as usual and reached the teenage Rocket grunt in an instant.
Toxicroak exploded forward right behind it. Without Poliwhirl's rain advantage, it was a little slower, but not by much.
Scyther's wings shrilled through the storm as it drove forward through the rain. The extra drag slowed it just enough to make it the third to arrive.
The Rocket boy was still staring blankly at the Ursaring that had barged in and rushed his boss. He had been completely thrown off by the wild bear and never even noticed the three Pokémon charging straight at him.
Poliwhirl struck first. Ice Punch slammed into Victreebel's belly and launched it backward. It smashed through several trees before finally stopping, frozen solid and motionless.
Toxicroak slipped through the woods like a shadow, then drove its poisoned spike upward. The blow punched straight through Golbat and pinned it to a tree trunk, dead on the spot.
Scyther arrived last. Its scythe flashed once across the boy's neck. He never even had time to react. His head spun off into the dark, and his headless body collapsed into the rain.
Poliwhirl, Toxicroak, and Scyther wiped out one Rocket grunt in seconds.
On the other side, Darkrai's Dark Void had set up the ambush perfectly, and Gengar finished the second Rocket grunt with a lethal Poison Jab.
That left only the last one—the Rocket boss, who had been caught off guard by the Ursaring and was still tangled up with it.
A white beam tore across the night sky and blasted through the forest. Reiji had no idea whether that man could actually take an Ursaring's Hyper Beam head-on.
"Let's go have a look," he said.
He waited for Poliwhirl and the other two to return while Darkrai and Gengar slipped back into the shadows. Then he started through the rain toward the fight.
Cleaning up those two elite grunts had taken barely any time at all—so little time, in fact, that the Rocket boss still had not managed to bring down a single Ursaring.
But strong or not, the Ursaring could not handle being surrounded forever.
By the time Reiji arrived, all he saw was the Ursaring let out one last unwilling roar before collapsing into the rain.
Then he got a full look at the Rocket boss's lineup.
Alakazam held the center. Nidoking stood in front. To the left was a pitch-black Muk. To the right, an Arbok coiled around a tree trunk with its tongue flicking in and out. Behind them floated a Weezing belching thick black smoke, while a Golbat perched on the man's shoulder.
"None of them are Elite Four tier yet, but they're close," Darkrai said after sensing the strength of each one.
"So, only in the mid-fifties," Reiji murmured. "And aside from that Alakazam, the rest are all Poison-types."
Seeing the man had six Pokémon, he took out three more Poké Balls and released Kingler, Rhydon, and Gyarados.
With Poliwhirl, Toxicroak, and Scyther already on the field, that made six against six. Perfect for a straight skirmish.
As Kingler and the other two came out, Reiji lowered his voice and said to Darkrai, "Get over there and stay hidden near the Trainer. If he tries to run, stop him. I don't see his mount anywhere—if he sends it out, bring it down immediately."
Darkrai slipped away at once. With the rain falling and night all around them, the man would neither hear it nor see it.
"You really can run," the Rocket boss said, staring at Reiji. "All this over one Riolu. You've turned the whole black market upside down. Why don't you come with me? Otherwise I won't be able to answer to Petrel."
"You want to take me in?" Reiji smiled. The Ditto mask was still on his face, so being seen meant nothing anyway. "Then show me you can."
But one thing was clear now. He was exposed. Riolu's registration information at the Pokémon Center would become a weak point, and he had to erase it somehow.
If Team Rocket planted a mole there and traced Riolu back through that record, they could strip him clean in minutes.
And as for whether they would investigate—of course they would.
The black market was gone. If a quasi–Elite Four Trainer died here, Team Rocket would never treat it as a small matter. They would keep digging until they found whoever had caused all of this.
"Kid, I hope that mouth of yours stays this hard all the way through," the Rocket boss said.
He was talking to buy time, waiting for his two subordinates to catch up.
But they never came. All he could see were the flashlight beams in the distance, fixed in place among the trees. He had no idea what those two fools were doing.
"Waiting for someone?" Reiji asked. He had noticed the man's eyes flicking past him again and again. That alone told him why the man still had not moved.
Damn it. The Rocket boss bit back a curse. So the two idiots were already dead? They had not even lasted a single exchange?
Only then did he properly look at the six Pokémon in front of Reiji.
Lightning split the sky, and in that instant he saw them clearly.
Poliwhirl. Kingler. Rhydon. Scyther. Gyarados. Toxicroak.
That could not be Reiji's whole team. The black hand he had seen in the shop had belonged to a Ghost-type Pokémon. He just did not know where it was hiding. Only then did he realize he had run into someone truly dangerous.
And only now, far too late, did the real question hit him.
Was this kid unable to escape?
Or had he never meant to escape at all?
Had he been waiting here for him from the very beginning?
The Rocket boss clenched his teeth. Only now was he realizing that he had no real confidence in taking this man down. Still, he had already sent out a distress signal. All he had to do now was stall.
"Still not making your move?" Reiji said, watching him. "Either you're buying time, or you're waiting for backup."
He had no intention of giving the man either. He wanted this over quickly.
"Rhydon, hold Nidoking in place. Ice Punch."
Hanhan lumbered forward at his command. Nidoking did not even need an order from its own Trainer. It charged straight in on its own.
The Rocket boss gave a cold laugh. "In this rain? Fine. Nidoking, Ice Punch too!"
The two hulking beasts crashed together hard enough to shake the ground beneath them. Almost at the same time, both swung Ice Punch at the other's face.
Ice hurt both of them badly, but Nidoking was higher-level, and Rhydon gave ground for an instant. Heat rolled off Hanhan's thick body as a coat of rocky armor sealed over it, hardening its defense.
Nidoking froze in surprise. Its fist had just hit something black, dense, and hard as stone. The feel of the impact was completely wrong.
Rhydon did not hesitate.
Frost spread over the fist already wrapped in rock. Then Hanhan stamped the ground with one heavy foot, an orange-red aura surging up around its body, and drove that punch into Nidoking with crushing force.
Nidoking went flying. It smashed through several trees before finally crashing to a stop.
"How is that possible?" the Rocket boss blurted out, staring through the lightning flashes. "What is wrong with that Rhydon? Where did that thick black armor come from? And how is it hitting that hard?"
For a moment, his mind simply stalled.
Nidoking's Ice Punch had done nothing to Rhydon. Rhydon's Ice Punch had blasted Nidoking off its feet. Just how much brute force did that take?
A second ago they had still looked evenly matched. What had that Rhydon just used? How had it become that much stronger in an instant?
That should be High Horsepower layered into Ice Punch, Reiji thought as he watched the exchange. Steam had already filled Hanhan's side of the field, and that orange-red aura was the telltale sign of Flame Armor and High Horsepower together.
Seeing Hanhan suppress Nidoking so cleanly, he stopped worrying about that side of the field. Even if Nidoking had Poison Point, Hanhan was not getting poisoned through that rocky armor.
If the rest of this man's team was on the same level, then there was a lot of padding in that quasi–Elite Four rank.
Which meant the rest would be easy enough.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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