With the enemy's front-line tank gone, Reiji immediately shouted, "Gyarados, Hyper Beam the Trainer!"
Gyarados roared and surged to the front at once. It reared its head back, orange light gathering fast in its mouth before it fired a blazing beam straight at the Rocket boss.
"Damn it! Spread out! Alakazam, Protect!" The Rocket boss ducked behind Alakazam without hesitation and used it as a shield.
"Scyther, speed up and use Fury Cutter. Cut that snake down first. Poliwhirl, Toxicroak, back Scyther up!"
Scyther snapped its head toward the Arbok coiled around a branch, staring at them with cold eyes and flicking its tongue. It boosted its speed, burst forward in a silver flash, and sliced straight through the tree Arbok was wrapped around.
Arbok saw the silver streak coming and instantly looped around the trunk, vanishing into the crown just in time to avoid Scyther's strike.
It hissed at the three Pokémon closing in, its head raised high. With Intimidate, it had no reason to fear them.
But Poliwhirl, Scyther, and Toxicroak were not the kind of Pokémon that would back off from something as simple as Intimidate.
Poliwhirl slammed one foot into the ground, sending a shockwave racing out from the earth beneath Arbok and throwing its balance off.
Toxicroak seized the opening and spat Mud Shot straight at Arbok's face, smearing its vision shut.
Scyther's blades flashed. Its wings beat hard again as it cut in for another slash.
Arbok tried to shake the mud out of its eyes, but its whole body suddenly locked up, as if something murderous had pinned it in place. Then, out of the corner of its eye, it caught that silver flash again. It reacted on instinct, snapping forward with Fire Fang and catching Scyther's scythe in its jaws, only to be forced backward step by step.
Toxicroak moved the instant it saw the opening. Its hind legs coiled, then it launched forward like a spring. Dark violet poison energy gleamed around the spike on its fist as it drove an uppercut straight through Arbok's chest, punching right through the black pattern on its body.
Arbok screamed and spat out a cloud of purple poison, forcing Scyther and Toxicroak back.
At that moment, Poliwhirl dropped out of the tree above. With the explosive force of Waterfall behind it, it smashed through the branches and came down with a punch straight to Arbok's head, driving it face-first into the muddy ground. Blood spilled from the corner of Arbok's mouth, and the poison cloud it had just spat out was blown apart by the impact wave before it could become a threat.
Poliwhirl saw Arbok still struggling and moved to finish it with another punch, but several wind blades suddenly came screaming in from above and forced it back.
Scyther immediately rushed over and shredded the incoming blades with its scythes, covering for Poliwhirl.
Toxicroak fired another Mud Shot into the air to disrupt Golbat, and the three Pokémon covered one another as they withdrew to Reiji's side.
"Arbok..." The Rocket boss had never expected things to turn that bad that fast. He had only been trying to block Gyarados's Hyper Beam, and by the time he reacted, Arbok was already crippled.
In the end, it was his own hesitation that had cost him the initiative. He should have been able to win. The strength that kid had shown was roughly on the same level as his own.
But one careless mistake had shoved him onto the defensive, and now he wanted out. Explanations, future prospects, buying time—none of that meant anything compared to staying alive.
"Gyarados, Hyper Beam," Reiji ordered again, giving him no room to breathe. The moment Poliwhirl and the other two ruined Arbok, he had Gyarados fire again.
Gyarados opened its jaws once more and launched another orange beam at the Rocket boss and the Pokémon clustered around him.
"Alakazam, Teleport!" The Rocket boss was done. He had no interest in fighting anymore, and he was no longer trying to stall either. Even exile was better than dying here.
That was why he had accepted Petrel's arrangement and stayed behind as shop security in the first place. A man who valued his life was never going to throw it away for glory.
A Trainer like this was too dangerous. The smarter move was to go back, investigate him slowly, and hit him through his weak points.
Chasing him out here had already cost two subordinates, with Nidoking and Arbok gravely injured on top of that. That alone proved this had been the wrong move.
Alakazam's eyes flared blue as it prepared to use Teleport.
The moment Gengar saw them trying to run, it burst out at once. Its scarlet eyes fired two black beams into Alakazam, and the psychic ripples forming around it vanished instantly.
"Mean Look?" The Rocket boss stared blankly at the Gengar that had suddenly appeared. So that was the thing that had stolen from the shop.
But with Teleport sealed, he had no way out.
He whipped his head around and saw Reiji closing in through the rain. At that moment, he realized he had no option left except to fight for his life.
What came for him instead was a blazing orange beam carrying raw destructive force, rushing straight at him.
"Golbat, Weezing, Protect!"
By now he was numb to Gyarados's Hyper Beam. Every one of this kid's Pokémon was wrong in some way.
That Rhydon's defense and brute force were wrong. The Gyarados that could fire Hyper Beam again and again was wrong. The three Pokémon that had mobbed Arbok were wrong too.
He could only order two Pokémon to use Protect at once and hide behind them. Betting everything on a single barrier holding was not a risk he dared take.
That beam Gyarados fired was too violent. It was every bit as savage as that Ursaring had been.
They had barely blocked the Hyper Beam when another shockwave surged up from the ground. A massive fissure split open beneath them and ripped across the battlefield toward his feet.
"Not good—Earthquake!"
The Rocket boss was snatched off the ground by Golbat and hauled away from the widening crack.
But the instant they escaped the tearing earth, several huge boulders came crashing down from above, followed by a freezing beam lancing toward him.
"Alakazam, use your psychic power!"
He no longer dared rely on Protect and could only order Alakazam to hold the attacks back with telekinesis.
But passive defense was suicide.
The moment he chose caution, chose to stall for reinforcements instead of going all in to capture this man, the outcome of the skirmish had already been decided.
In a six-on-six fight in the wild, Reiji had wrecked two of his Pokémon in just a few minutes—Nidoking, his front-line bruiser, and Arbok, his support and interference piece. With two gone, his odds only got worse.
"Gyarados, Thunder."
Seeing that the other side was still doing nothing but defend, Reiji kept pressing the assault. In rain, Thunder never missed.
He had no idea how long it would take reinforcements to get here, but it had taken them more than half an hour to reach this forest.
That meant any backup would need at least half an hour to find the place too. He had to finish this fight before then.
"No. This can't keep going."
The Rocket boss saw Alakazam starting to pant, its psychic barrier flickering in and out. Orange lightning kept crashing down from above, and Alakazam was nearly spent, yet the storm showed no sign of stopping.
They had already taken seven or eight major attacks in a row. If this continued, every last one of them would die.
"Muk, Golbat, Alakazam—you three make an opening for Weezing. Get it in there and use Explosion!"
He sent Muk back out and barked out orders at once, setting four Pokémon against Reiji. Then he met Alakazam's eyes. He trusted it to understand.
Alakazam did. It gave a silent nod and took over command of the battle from there.
Then the Rocket boss released a Pidgeot, jumped onto its back, and fled.
"Heh. Think you can get away?" Reiji looked up as the man rose into the air and shouted, "Gengar, stop him!"
Gengar burst out from the treetops and hurled a Shadow Ball at the Pidgeot overhead.
Pidgeot immediately slashed out several wind blades with a beat of its wings, colliding with the Shadow Ball and canceling it out.
Rain hammered the Rocket boss's face as he rode through the storm. Then something clicked in his mind—rain strengthened a certain move.
"Pidgeot, Hurricane!"
The storm roared to life.
In the middle of the rain, Hurricane's power surged. Reiji threw both arms around a tree trunk to keep from being blown away.
By the time the wind died down, the Rocket boss and his Pidgeot were already gone from the sky.
Reiji was not worried. Darkrai was still hiding out there, and with Gengar on top of that, the man was not escaping.
What he did not understand was whether that idiot had lost his mind. He had left four Pokémon behind, and the other three were all trying to cover for Weezing.
Did he forget this was rain?
"Rhydon, pin down that Alakazam. Shadow Claw!"
Hanhan lumbered forward and planted itself at the front. Muk's poisonous sludge slammed into it, but every drop was stopped by the rocky armor covering its body. A cold gleam flashed across its sharp claws as it charged straight at Alakazam.
The instant Alakazam saw Reiji respond like that, it understood that he had guessed what they were trying to do. Getting close to him was going to be difficult.
But its Trainer had already escaped. It had bought enough time.
Alakazam cried out and used Ally Switch, swapping Weezing into place.
At the same time, Golbat—already aware of what Alakazam was about to do—beat its wings and fled the battlefield at once, while Muk immediately used Dig to escape underground.
The moment Weezing started to glow, Alakazam dropped the psychic barrier wrapped around it. It had only kept that barrier in place to stop the rain from touching Weezing and ruining its ability to use Explosion.
"Explosion? So you really are willing to pay that price," Reiji muttered as white light burst across the battlefield.
He immediately shouted, "Rhydon, use Drill Run and dig down!"
Then he turned to the rest. "Scyther, keep your eyes on that Golbat. Poliwhirl, all of you get over here. Use Protect together!"
Reiji dropped flat to the ground as his Pokémon faced the glowing Weezing and cast Protect together to meet the coming blast.
They were twenty or thirty meters away from the main battle line. Rhydon had been closest, only two or three meters from Weezing, but it had already dug down to evade.
Then the white light peaked.
The explosion hit with a deafening roar. Even behind his Pokémon's Protect, Reiji could feel the earth convulsing under him.
Without those barriers in front of him, the shockwave alone would have swallowed him whole. Even so, the pressure from the blast pinned them down so hard none of them could lift their heads.
Several breaths later, the aftermath finally passed, and Reiji pushed himself back up from the ground.
A huge crater had opened up in front of him, and at the bottom lay a dying Weezing.
"Rhydon? Rhydon!"
Reiji rushed to the edge of the crater and shouted down into it, hoping Hanhan could still hear him.
A heavy pounding answered from underground.
Moments later, a spinning shape burst up through the earth and drilled out onto the surface. Rhydon shook itself off and called to him.
"You okay?" Reiji flicked on his flashlight and checked Hanhan over. When he saw the rocky armor was still intact and unbroken, he finally let out a breath.
Hanhan beat its chest to show it was fine.
"Good. Back you go."
Reiji recalled Rhydon, then looked back up into the sky. The rain had stopped because of the Explosion. Earlier, he had sent Scyther after Golbat, but he did not yet know whether it had caught it.
The buzz of wings answered that question.
Reiji turned toward the sound and saw Scyther descending out of the air with Golbat in tow.
"You all right, Scyther?" He patted its shoulder, then looked down at the Golbat with its wings severed. This one probably was not one of the man's core battlers, or Scyther would not have taken it down that easily.
Scyther shook its head to show it was fine. By the time the explosion happened, it had already chased Golbat far enough away to avoid the blast entirely.
"Muk's still here too?"
Reiji had seen Muk escape through Dig. If it got away, that would be a real problem.
Toxicroak was guarding the area when it suddenly spotted a mound of sludge writhing up from inside the crater and immediately called out.
"Kingler, Ice Beam. Don't let it run!"
At Toxicroak's warning, Reiji swung the flashlight over and finally spotted the shrunken Muk clinging to Weezing's body at the bottom of the pit.
Kingler raised one huge claw and fired a freezing beam downward, sealing Muk in ice on the spot.
At that moment, Gengar and Darkrai returned. Between them they were dragging a man, a Pidgeot, and even the Alakazam that had fled earlier. All three had been captured and brought back.
"Gengar, hypnotize him. I need answers."
The moment Reiji saw the Rocket boss, he had Gengar wake him up and put him under sleep.
Gengar slapped the man awake, then fixed him with its crimson eyes and sent him sinking into a dazed, unfocused state.
"What's your position in Team Rocket?" Reiji asked. At the same time, he sent Poliwhirl and the others over to move the two grunts' bodies back here.
"I'm just security for the shop..."
"Who's your superior?"
"Petrel..."
"Whose black market is this?"
"Petrel's..."
"Who knows about Riolu?"
"The shop owner. My two subordinates. And me..."
Reiji let out a breath he had been holding.
If only those few people knew, then as long as he erased Riolu's treatment record at the Pokémon Center, nobody would be able to trace this back to him.
"Spinarak, finish them. Use Toxic."
He sent Spinarak to poison them, just as Poliwhirl and the others finished dragging the bodies over.
"Gengar, take the poison sacs."
Reiji looked at the Poison-types on the ground. These had all been raised through poison-feeding. Their poison sacs still had some value and could help strengthen Weezing's toxicity.
Gengar slowly ran its huge tongue across its lips and flexed its claws, visibly excited. Chances like this did not come often. These were poison sacs from quasi–Elite Four toxic Pokémon. They had to taste incredible.
Reiji had always been strict about this. He never allowed his Pokémon to butcher wild Pokémon just to harvest poison sacs. He would rather pay money for poison materials than let them do that.
But Team Rocket Trainers who raised Poison-types by feeding them toxins were another matter entirely.
One by one, Gengar cut the poison sacs out of those advanced-tier Pokémon. It planned to save them and snack on them slowly with Weezing.
Reiji also released Weezing and let it search Muk and the fallen Weezing for any poison material it liked so they could take that along too.
Unfortunately, all three men had been careful. None of them had brought bags. After this fight, he had gained almost nothing apart from a few items stripped off the Pokémon, and every one of them was Poison-type gear.
Once everything was dealt with, Reiji had Gengar light the bottom of the crater with Will-O-Wisp and burn the bodies.
As for the Ursaring from earlier, it had only been injured. The Explosion had scared it back into its hollow, which spared Reiji the trouble of dealing with it again.
He had no intention of catching it anyway. Ursaring was too violent by nature, and this one's potential had already been spent. It no longer had any training value.
Watching the flames rage inside the crater, he recalled all his Pokémon, got back on Pelipper, and circled through the forest once to avoid running into Team Rocket reinforcements before returning to Gringey City and landing outside the Pokémon Center.
"Darkrai, go see whether Nurse Joy is asleep."
Reiji checked the time on his watch. It was already past three in the morning. Nurse Joy should have been asleep by now.
"All right."
Darkrai slipped away through the shadows and entered the Pokémon Center. Nurse Joy was still awake, standing behind the front desk waiting for word from Officer Jenny and hoping Riolu could be rescued.
"She's still awake," Darkrai said after returning to Reiji's shadow and reporting what she was doing.
Reiji let out a breath. "Can you hypnotize her? Have her delete Riolu's treatment record and my registration record, then put her to sleep."
"No problem."
Darkrai slipped back into the Pokémon Center, opened its eyes from within the shadow at Nurse Joy's feet, and released hypnotic waves toward her.
The moment Nurse Joy met Darkrai's gaze, she fell under its hypnosis. Darkrai planted the necessary suggestions in her mind, telling her to erase Riolu's treatment record and delete Reiji's Trainer registration record as well.
Then it had her fall asleep over the desk, and on top of that, it suggested that Riolu had already been recovered and that she should forget the whole matter for now.
Once it was done, Darkrai returned to Reiji's shadow and told him it had taken care of everything.
"Nicely done. Teach that trick to Gengar sometime."
Reiji had to admit this kind of move was incredibly useful. In Mewtwo Strikes Back, Mewtwo had done the same sort of thing to Nurse Joy and later sealed the memories of Ash and the others.
In truth, the memories were not erased. They were only buried, made easy to ignore. Humans did the same thing sometimes.
But once someone brought those memories up again, or once the person saw something familiar enough to trigger them, they would come back.
That was a problem for later. As long as nobody could remember right now, that was enough.
After leaving the Pokémon Center, Reiji did not leave Gringey City. Instead, he returned to the hotel from earlier and planned to hide in plain sight by staying there one more night before leaving tomorrow.
Back in the hotel room, he released Riolu. He still did not know how badly the little blue dog had been frightened.
"Riolu, are you hungry? Did they hurt you?"
Reiji carefully cut away the spider silk binding its body, set out Moomoo Milk and Pokéblocks, then stepped back with the same care.
The moment Riolu saw Reiji again, it quietly let out some of the tension inside it.
Counting the time on the ship, this human had already saved it twice.
He had treated it well too.
But Riolu still did not trust humans. It did not dare give that trust again.
The cost of trust was too high. Once, it had trusted its former Trainer too.
And what had that brought it?
The more hope you had, the worse the disappointment cut.
Toxicroak had been like that once. Riolu was the same. In truth, it was a lot like the Croagunk from before.
Riolu had already trusted the wrong person once. Trusting a human again would not come easily. To protect itself, it refused to give that trust away a second time.
Then again, humans were not any different.
Simple Pokémon and simple people alike had lost their lives because they trusted the wrong thing.
"Eat, then get some sleep. Don't run off. I'll see you tomorrow."
Reiji released Poliwhirl and had it stand guard over Riolu.
He knew Poliwhirl blamed itself for losing Riolu. This was his way of giving it a chance to forgive itself, even if all it did tonight was keep watch.
While Reiji lay comfortably on the hotel bed, the Team Rocket captain who had come to reinforce the Rocket boss arrived more than half an hour too late and found nothing but a scorched crater and a heap of remains.
"Damn it. Too late. The boss and the others..."
"Who did this?" the captain asked the squad leader with him. The two did not belong to the same branch inside Team Rocket, so he had to ask.
If you wanted to be precise, the captain belonged to the headquarters side under one of the higher-ups, while that squad leader served under Petrel and had been recruited locally in Gringey City.
"No idea. Before he left, the boss only said he was going to catch the one who killed the shop owner and reported the black market. I never thought it would end like this..."
"What started it?"
"The boss was doing a private job for the shop owner. I think they were stealing some really valuable Pokémon. Only they knew the details, and they never told us what Pokémon it was. Just that it was valuable. Then later the boss said the Trainer they stole it from had shown up at the shop, so they were going after the culprit, and then... this. That's all I know..."
"All right. I understand. Bury this place. I'll have people look into what valuable Pokémon have shown up in Gringey City recently."
"Captain, you have to catch the bastard who did this. He's also the one who reported the black market to Officer Jenny."
"Fine. I got it. I'll report it to headquarters and ask for more hands."
The captain answered absently, but the black market being shut down was not entirely a bad thing.
Petrel had controlled this place before, so the other higher-ups had never been able to get a piece of it. Now, though, they finally had a chance. Their own boss could buy in and take a share.
Morning came over the power plant in Gringey City.
After being sealed off all night, the power plant was finally reopened. Tai stepped out into the morning and let the sunlight warm his body.
He had grabbed quite a few good things last night, then spent the rest of the time in the workers' break room. Once Officer Jenny confirmed their identities were clean, everyone in that batch had simply been told to wait until the lockdown ended.
Of course his identity checked out.
Only Team Rocket knew he was an infiltrator. The League did not.
So on paper, he was spotless.
Even getting him a job at the power plant had been arranged by Instructor Viper. The man really had been farsighted. Without an identity this clean to cover him, Tai's whole plan would never have gone so smoothly.
He wondered how Rai was doing.
Had he gotten his Pokémon back?
There was nothing he could do now except wait until they were back in the Orange Archipelago three months later and make contact then.
At the Gringey City police station, Officer Jenny returned after shutting down the black market. This time, she had landed a huge catch. The credit alone was enough to get her promoted several ranks.
But that was not what mattered most.
She had been so busy last night that she seemed to have forgotten something important.
Some request from a good friend of hers.
Something about helping look for a Pokémon.
But she had rescued too many Pokémon last night, and now she could not even remember which one she had been asked to find.
At the Pokémon Center, Nurse Joy woke up slumped over the counter the next morning. She stretched, rolled her neck, and winced. She must have slept in an awful position.
"Huh? Why did I fall asleep here?"
She could not remember how she had fallen asleep, and she had forgotten something important too. She had waited and waited for news, and then apparently drifted off.
Since she could not remember it, she stopped trying. A new day was starting anyway.
Still, the weather here was awful. Every day the sky looked dark and heavy, and it was impossible to stay in a good mood for long.
As for Team Rocket's investigation?
They did not investigate at all.
Reiji's caution had turned out to be a bit unnecessary.
Inside Team Rocket, everyone was too busy scrambling over how to rebuild the black market, how to redistribute the profits, and how to buy their way into a share of it.
Maybe after things settled down, someone would finally bother to dig into why the old black market had been reported in the first place.
Seen that way, erasing the registration records still had not been pointless. With no record left at the Pokémon Center, no matter how they investigated, they would never be able to trace it back to Reiji.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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