"Everyone, over here. I'll explain why I called you all here."
Once the Trainers had gathered, the foreman hurried over and climbed onto a platform, ready to explain why he had invited them.
A few people on Reiji's side still looked like they wanted to challenge him to a battle, but he waved them off. Running into Ash and Gary here had already been unexpected enough. He had no interest in battling anyone else.
Besides, he did not care what the foreman had to say.
He had come here to catch a Diglett, not to drive them away.
If he was right, then once these Trainers realized the reservoir would destroy the homes of wild Pokémon, they would refuse to come out and fight anyway. The whole thing would fall apart on its own.
So while most of the Trainers gathered around the platform, Reiji turned and walked away without a second look, ignoring the foreman calling after him.
"Hey, you there! Where are you going? You there—"
"Sorry, I'm not taking this job," Reiji said, waving back without turning around.
He followed the route Darkrai had already scouted out and headed toward the reservoir site to see the Diglett for himself. If he got lucky, he might find one with decent potential.
"That's weird. He was obviously strong, so why won't he take the job?"
"Brock, why did Rai-nii leave? Doesn't he want the free hot springs anymore?"
"I don't know either. He's from the Orange Archipelago. Everything about the way he acts is kind of strange..."
"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I really can't figure him out," Misty said.
"Strange..." Gary muttered to himself. "So there really is something off about this place? Is that why he turned the job down? What did he see?"
Since Reiji clearly meant to leave, the foreman did not bother trying to stop him. There were plenty of Trainers here already. Losing one made no difference.
He picked up a loudspeaker and explained the Diglett problem that had been plaguing the reservoir project, then asked everyone to help drive the Diglett away.
But none of the Trainers could get their Pokémon to come out.
Every last one of them stayed inside its Poké Ball and refused to fight.
Then, to make things even stranger, the Diglett returned the Poké Balls to the Trainers, leaving everyone completely baffled.
"What's going on? Our Pokémon were fine battling just a minute ago, so why won't they fight now?"
"He definitely knows why," Brock said, thinking of Reiji again. The way Reiji had left had been far too decisive. It was almost as if he had already known this would happen, which was why he had refused the job from the start.
"Let's go find him," Ash said. "We can ask him why the Pokémon won't fight."
"Sure. I want to know too," Misty said, suddenly a little more curious about Reiji.
"Looks like they don't need Trainers here after all. I'm heading out, Ash," Gary said with a wave. He climbed into his sports car with his cheer squad and drove off down the mountain road before Ash could even say goodbye.
"That jerk Gary," Ash muttered, grinding his teeth.
That was one of the biggest reasons he always seemed to lose more than he won against Gary. Even when Ash won, Gary still carried himself like he had come out on top, and that drove him crazy.
At the same time, Team Rocket's trio poked their heads out of the nearby grass and started whispering among themselves as they watched Ash leave.
"That boy from before was really strong. If we grab Pokémon like those and hand them over to Boss Giovanni, he'll definitely reward us."
"Meowth, no way," Meowth said. "That guy's too strong. We can't beat him."
"Yeah, Meowth's right," James agreed. "A Trainer that strong is way out of our league. How are we supposed to steal his Pokémon?"
"The twerp's already gone after him. Let's follow them and take a look. Maybe we'll get a chance to steal the Pokémon after all," Jessie said.
"Meowth, don't mess with him," Meowth muttered, sniffing nervously. "I can smell danger all over that human."
"Enough talking. The twerp's getting away."
Meanwhile, Reiji had already made it into the reservoir valley.
What he found there was a huge group of Diglett planting trees.
Dugtrio were loosening the soil. Pairs of Diglett were planting saplings. Water-type Pokémon were going around with Water Gun, watering everything. The whole valley looked peaceful and orderly.
Then he brought Poliwhirl with him and went to talk to the Dugtrio, hoping to take one of the little ones with him if the group would allow it.
"Dugtrio, I'm a Trainer just passing through. Can I catch one Diglett?"
The Dugtrio immediately shook their heads and moved to shield the Diglett behind them.
Reiji smiled. "Dugtrio, I'm only taking one little Diglett. If you won't agree, I'll have Gyarados tear this whole place apart."
He was not worried about whether they would give in.
Sometimes talking nicely got you nowhere.
Sometimes you needed pressure.
In truth, it was not that every Pokémon refused to fight. The real question was whether a Trainer was willing to force their Pokémon to do it. And between a Trainer they knew and wild Pokémon protecting their home, Reiji figured the answer was obvious.
Poliwhirl flexed its muscles and stepped forward.
It did not care about the valley itself. Reiji was its home. If the Dugtrio were sensible, they would let them take one Diglett and be done with it. If not, then Poliwhirl was perfectly ready to stop being polite.
The Dugtrio looked at Poliwhirl's fists, then at the Diglett around them and the saplings they had worked so hard to plant.
In the end, they could not bear the thought of it all being destroyed.
One of them cried out to the others, asking which Diglett was willing to leave with the human Trainer.
"Just keep doing what you're doing," Reiji said at once after Darkrai translated for him. "I'll choose one myself."
He pulled out a Poké Ball and began catching the Diglett one by one.
The Dugtrio had already warned the Diglett that one of them would be leaving with the Trainer, so none of them resisted. They simply kept on working while Reiji checked them.
Whenever he caught a Diglett with low potential, he released it again and let it go back to planting trees.
Watching that, the Dugtrio quietly relaxed.
So the human had not lied after all. He really did only want one Diglett.
That made things easier.
Poliwhirl's presence alone was enough to make them nervous. If a fight broke out, they would definitely get hurt. And unlike the construction crew, this Trainer had never shown the slightest interest in stopping the reservoir project. All he wanted was one Diglett from their colony.
With a colony this large, they could afford to lose one.
And so, by threatening them just enough, Reiji got his chance to catch a Diglett.
He checked hundreds of them.
All low-potential.
By the time Ash and the other two finally arrived, he still had not found a single really worthwhile one.
"What's he doing?" Ash asked as he watched Reiji stare at Diglett one after another.
"No idea," Brock said. "But it looks like he's trying to catch a Diglett."
"But why check every single one? Why not just catch one at random?" Misty asked, confused by how carefully Reiji was going through them.
"Maybe he's inspecting how well they've developed," Brock guessed. "I didn't expect him to be a breeder too."
They were still too far away to see clearly, so Brock could only work from what he knew and guess at what Reiji was doing.
"Let's go down and take a look," Ash said.
The three of them headed down into the valley.
The moment they got there and saw the Diglett planting trees, it all clicked.
"I get it now," Brock murmured, looking around at the saplings the Diglett had planted. "These Diglett are reforesting the area and trying to protect the environment. If the reservoir gets built, this whole place will be flooded. The Diglett will lose their home, and a lot of other Pokémon will lose theirs too..."
"So that's why they're trying to stop the reservoir project," Misty said. "They don't want the workers building it here."
Ash understood too. He loved Pokémon, so something this simple was not hard for him to grasp.
At that moment, Reiji finally found the Diglett he wanted.
Its potential was fifty-three.
He had checked well over a thousand Diglett, and this was the only one with potential high enough to be worth taking.
Once he caught that Diglett, he was ready to leave the valley.
He had said from the beginning that he would only take one, so one was all he would take.
There were still a few hundred Diglett he had not checked, but he could not be bothered anymore. There would be more chances later. No need to keep squeezing the same flock dry.
When he looked up, he spotted Ash and the other two standing not far away.
He had no idea what they were doing here, so he just walked straight over.
"Ash, are you here to catch a Diglett too?" Reiji asked, giving the Poké Ball in his hand a small shake. Inside was the Diglett he had just caught.
"Rai-nii, so you already knew," Ash said, rubbing his nose. "No wonder you left early."
"Knew what?" Reiji asked, completely baffled.
"These Diglett planting trees," Ash said, pointing at them. "That's why the Pokémon wouldn't come out and fight, right?"
"Oh, that," Reiji said, then laughed when he saw the look in their eyes. They had clearly only just figured it out. "No, you're overthinking it. I came here for the Diglett from the start. That's what brought me over. As for the reservoir, I don't have any say in it. Thinking about it too much won't change anything."
"Oh," Ash said awkwardly, scratching his cheek. Just like that, the whole image he had built up in his head fell apart. So Reiji had not been seeing farther than everyone else. Ash had just imagined it.
"I knew it," Misty said, laughing so hard she bent over. She had overthought it too. Looks like they had given Reiji way too much credit.
Of the three of them, only Brock really understood what Reiji meant.
"That's true," Brock said. "The foreman is only doing the construction work. The real people behind the reservoir are someone else entirely. This isn't something he could stop even if he wanted to."
"But our Pokémon still refused to fight," Ash said, asking the dumbest possible question.
Brock still answered him patiently. "Those were our Pokémon. That doesn't mean every Pokémon would refuse."
"What are you two even talking about?" Misty asked, tilting her head. Ash looked just as lost.
"Hahaha. It's fine if you don't get it," Reiji said with a laugh.
Then he turned to Brock and asked, "It'll be dinner soon. Want to find a place to camp and have a couple drinks later?"
"Drinks?" Brock looked him over from head to toe. "You're not even an adult yet. How are you supposed to be drinking?"
Reiji just grinned and slapped him on the shoulder. "Come on. We're out in the middle of nowhere. Who's going to find out?"
That was enough to settle it.
And since Brock could cook, Reiji's dinner was basically taken care of.
"What's alcohol, Misty?" Ash asked quietly, covering his mouth with one hand as he whispered to her.
"Alcohol is alcohol," Misty said. "And you're not drinking any."
She knew what it was, though she had never actually tried it herself. She had only seen her sisters drink before.
Soon after, the four of them found a small river and made camp.
The tents went up first. Brock took charge of dinner. The others gathered firewood, berries, and wild mushrooms for soup.
Before long, night had fallen.
Dinner was ready, and even the Pokémon's food had been prepared.
The four of them sat around the table and ate together.
"So you're heading to Fuchsia City too," Brock said casually while chatting with Reiji. It turned out they were headed the same way after all, which meant they could travel together for a while.
But Reiji turned the idea down immediately.
The last thing he wanted was to tag along with Ash's group and get dragged into the Team Rocket trio's nonsense every other day.
"Brock, come on. Half a glass first," Reiji said, pouring him some liquor. "Just enough to take the edge off."
These were all expensive bottles he had looted from that rich punk's room. They had to be worth a fortune, and they tasted pretty damn good too.
"Sure. Thanks," Brock said.
He clinked glasses with Reiji and knocked back half a glass in one go.
The moment he finished, Reiji topped his drink back up.
A flush was already creeping onto Brock's tan cheeks.
It made sense.
Brock spent his days taking care of a house full of younger siblings. When would he ever have had time to drink? This was probably his first time, which meant there was no way he could outdrink Reiji—a shameless little boozehound in both this life and the last.
"Hah, this is good stuff," Brock said, holding his glass as he kept drinking and talking with Reiji. By the time he got through another cup, the alcohol had clearly started hitting him.
"Looks like you've had some good stuff before too," Reiji said with a grin. His own face had started to go a little red as well. "This is from my private stash."
"Oh, come on," Brock said, forcing a laugh.
He had never had expensive liquor in his life, and he barely had time to drink at all, but there was no way he could admit that now.
"Hey, Misty, I want to try some too," Ash said, looking over as Reiji and Brock got more cheerful with every cup.
"Then ask for it yourself," Misty said. She had no interest in humoring him. She had seen what happened when her sisters got drunk, and she wanted no part of it.
"Rai-nii, I want some too," Ash said, carrying his cup over hopefully.
Reiji froze and glanced awkwardly at Brock.
He and Brock were fifteen or sixteen. Brock might even be a year or two older. Drinking was one thing for them.
But Ash?
Ash was ten.
That was maybe a little too much.
"Ash, if you wanted a drink, you should've said so earlier," Brock said, already half gone. He threw an arm around Ash's shoulders and poured a little clear liquor into his cup.
Ash stared at the clear liquor in his cup. Then he gave it a cautious sniff and caught the sharp sting of alcohol.
Then he raised the cup to his lips and took a small sip.
The next second he erupted into coughing.
"Cough—cough—cough! It burns! That tastes awful!"
Brock burst out laughing at the sight, then clinked glasses with Reiji again and went right back to drinking and chatting.
By the time the night had gone fully quiet, Brock was sprawled facedown on the table and completely out cold.
The two of them had not even finished one bottle before he was done.
"Ash, you two carry Brock off to bed," Reiji said. He was not drunk yet. He had not even finished half a bottle. That was nowhere near enough to put him down.
"What? You're not drunk?" Ash asked, now understanding at least one thing about alcohol.
"Of course not," Reiji said.
He was definitely a little tipsy, but he could still stand on his own and find his way back to his tent without a problem.
Still, he did not go to bed right away.
First he stepped off into the woods to take a piss.
And that was when he ran into Team Rocket's trio sneaking around in the dark.
"What do we do, meow?" Meowth whispered. "If he comes into the bushes, he's going to find us."
"What do you mean, what do we do?" Jessie said, rolling up her sleeves and grabbing a wooden club. "He's drunk. We knock him out and steal his Pokémon."
"All right, all right, but let's make it quick," James said, following along with Jessie and Meowth as they crept forward.
What none of them noticed was the shadow already watching them.
The moment the three of them turned, Darkrai dropped a Dark Void right on top of them.
All three were forced straight into sleep, and only then did Darkrai slip back into Reiji's shadow.
"How did you know they were in the woods?" Darkrai asked, curious. Even it had missed them.
"I didn't," Reiji said with a helpless laugh. "I just told you to take a look around. Didn't expect there really would be people hiding in the bushes."
He swayed a little as he looked at Team Rocket's trio sleeping like babies, then slowly made his way back to camp.
He crawled into his tent, pulled the blanket over himself, and muttered to Darkrai, "Don't bother with them. If they wake up, just put them under sleep again. Don't let them ruin our sleep."
"I'll keep watch," Darkrai said with a silent nod. Two ordinary humans and a talking Meowth with no real fighting ability were easy enough to handle.
The campsite fell quiet.
Brock snored like a log.
Ash and Misty finished cleaning up the dishes and went to sleep too.
Reiji drifted off soon after.
Team Rocket's trio went right on sleeping as well, with the sky for a blanket and the ground for a bed.
And so the night passed in peace.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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