The moment Reiji saw the two Pokémon hunters disappear into the forest, he sent Darkrai and Gengar after them. Once they got a little farther away, Darkrai could drop both of them with Dark Void. In an ambush, there was no way it would miss.
Then he headed over to the rocky clearing and looked at Tommy, still tangled inside the net. Reiji smiled and said, "Well, if it isn't Tommy. Where'd all that attitude go? What now? Your Kangaskhan mom got taken, and you're not going to save her?"
If this were the anime, things would have gone differently. Tommy would have rescued the whole herd himself.
But Tommy was just a kid. He was not even ten yet, probably only eight or nine.
And this was not the anime. It was reality. A little kid like that, with no Pokémon of his own, could not do anything.
So Reiji mocked him without holding back. No matter how ugly Tommy's expression turned, Reiji just kept going, tearing into him for overestimating himself.
He wanted this wild brat, who had no idea how the world worked, to see for himself what the adult world was really like. Otherwise he would go on believing he could protect the Kangaskhan when he was still just a child himself.
"Oh, I get it now. You can't even get out of one net, so how were you ever going to beat Pokémon hunters? Hah."
Tommy glared at him under the moonlight, teeth clenched at that infuriating smirk.
Only now did he realize it. He had not escaped earlier because he was clever. Reiji had let him go. Reiji had never cared whether he ran, because catching him again would have been easy—just as easy as those hunters taking the Kangaskhan.
"Please save them," Tommy said at last. "You're a Trainer, aren't you? Please save the Kangaskhan..."
"I can save them," Reiji said. "But after I do, what then? Are you coming with me, becoming a strong Trainer, and protecting the Kangaskhan that way? Or are you staying with them, playing baby in their pouch, and watching them get taken again? And next time, who exactly do you think is going to save you? Save the Kangaskhan?"
Tommy fell silent.
He was not stupid. What had just happened proved everything.
He had lived with the Kangaskhan for years. Poachers showed up now and then, but the Kangaskhan always protected him, and Officer Jenny's people cracked down on poaching often enough that the herd still had a safe place to live.
But a thief only had to get lucky once.
Maybe the Kangaskhan could be saved once. Maybe twice. But there was no way they could keep being saved forever—unless he grew strong enough to protect them himself.
And that meant leaving them.
If he stayed, he could keep living with the Kangaskhan. If he left, he could become stronger. But if he stayed, he would never become a Trainer, never grow strong enough, and never be able to protect them.
It was a brutal choice.
"They're already getting farther away," Reiji said. "Made up your mind yet? I'm not in a rush. Take until sunrise if you want."
Tommy gritted his teeth. "I'll go with you. Back to that home from the dream."
"Good choice." Reiji cut through the net with a knife and pulled Tommy free. Before they left, he added with a grin, "Come on. Let's go save your Kangaskhan mom."
Tommy snorted and looked away. No matter whether it was Reiji or Officer Jenny who saved them, that was not what he wanted. He wanted to be the one protecting the Kangaskhan himself. But he was just a kid. He was not even a Trainer yet. He could not even protect himself.
"Heh." Reiji smacked him on the back of the head. Wild kid through and through. Even his pride was stubborn.
Still, as long as Tommy agreed to go home with him, that was enough. Once the reward money was in hand, the rest would be somebody else's headache. Reiji only wanted the money. Fixing this feral brat properly could be left to his family.
"Move. Keep up." Reiji had Poliwhirl lead the way, followed behind, and Tommy trailed after him.
They spent more than half an hour weaving through the forest before Darkrai guided them to the two fleeing hunters.
Both men were already unconscious. Reiji released Spinarak and had it go through their things while he picked up their packs. Inside were nothing but Poké Balls containing the captured Kangaskhan.
He did not release them right away.
Off in the distance, flashlight beams were already sweeping through the trees, and dogs were barking somewhere deeper in the forest. So he only rummaged through the packs long enough to pull out one Kangaskhan with decent potential, then took Tommy and moved away from the two hunters.
"The Kangaskhan are still there," Tommy protested, trying to stop even while Reiji dragged him along.
"The Poké Balls are still there too. Officer Jenny will release them soon enough, so stop worrying about it. Keep shouting and I'll shut you up myself." Reiji shot him a cold look. If the brat refused to behave, he would just have Darkrai put him under sleep again.
As for the hunters' belongings, the packs were practically empty. Those two were dead broke, and even their Pokémon were nothing special.
Reiji did not bother taking any of it. He stuffed everything back into the bags, slung the bags over the men again, and then had Gengar give each of them a Poison Jab and leave them to die.
There had been nothing worth stealing anyway. He might as well stage the scene as an attack by wild Poison-types.
As for tracks and scent—
Thunder rolled overhead.
Not long after they left, a light drizzle began. Then it turned into heavy rain, washing away scent and traces almost at once.
By the time Reiji and Tommy were well clear of the scene, the rain had already stopped. It had only been rain called down by Rain Dance, so the area it covered could not have been more than a kilometer or two.
Once they were clear of Officer Jenny's lights, Reiji opened the Kangaskhan's panel.
[Kangaskhan]
[Type: Normal]
[Gender: Female]
[Potential: 57%]
[Level: 55.11%]
[Ability: Scrappy/46.13%]
[Moves...]
Out of all the Kangaskhan he had checked, this one had the highest level. It was probably the lead Kangaskhan from the herd, and it was already close to quasi–Elite Four tier in strength.
Now that Tommy had agreed to leave and wanted to become a Trainer strong enough to protect the herd, a starter Pokémon was essential.
If he went back home, he would not be short on options. A kid from a family that rich could probably start with one of the standard starters if he wanted.
But Tommy's bond with the Kangaskhan herd ran deep, and his bond with the lead Kangaskhan was already strong enough. Becoming this Kangaskhan's Trainer should not be a problem, so Reiji decided to do him a favor and bring one along as his starter.
As for the fact that its potential had not even reached Elite Four tier?
That was not Reiji's problem. Tommy's family owned a private helicopter. If they wanted to raise its potential, they could just throw money at it.
"Take this Poké Ball, but don't let it out yet," Reiji said, handing the ball to Tommy. "If you want to become a Trainer, you need a starter Pokémon. You already know this Kangaskhan better than anyone. It can be your first partner."
"Starter Pokémon...?" Tommy stared blankly at the Poké Ball in his hands, but he did not release the Kangaskhan. At least he listened to that much.
"You've been away from human society for too long. There's a lot you don't know. You've got a lot to learn, but that can wait until we get back." Reiji kept moving through the forest, with Scyther scouting the route ahead.
They walked until dawn before they finally left the Pokémon Preservation Area behind.
"So this is the outside world..." Tommy had spent the whole night listening as Reiji explained Trainers, human society, and how the world outside really worked. He had learned how different it was from life in the wild and what kind of people Trainers really were.
But now that dawn had come and he was finally about to step into that world himself, he stopped. Sunlight spilled across the road ahead, and he could not make himself take another step.
"Scared?" Reiji asked with a faint smile. Anyone who stayed shut away from the world too long got awkward when it was time to step back into it. That was normal. Once you spent enough time around strangers, you got over it. Reiji knew that firsthand.
"I'm not scared." Tommy tightened his grip on the Poké Ball, squinted into the blazing morning sun, and forced himself forward. If leaving was what it took to protect the Kangaskhan, then he would do it.
So he followed Reiji into the streets of Fuchsia City.
Tommy was still wearing animal skins, and with Reiji walking in front of him, he drew plenty of curious looks the whole way. By the time they reached the Pokémon Center, a lot of Trainers were staring at the strange kid in leopard-skin clothes, but no one guessed who he was. Most of them probably just assumed he had odd taste.
Reiji did not bother explaining. After all, this was a hundred million Pokédollars they were talking about. If the wrong person got greedy enough, trouble could start. So he took Tommy straight to his room, sent him into the bathroom to wash up, and called Tommy's parents himself.
Since the family owned a helicopter, they arrived at the Pokémon Center not long after.
The moment they rushed in, Tommy's father began badgering Nurse Joy.
"Nurse Joy, where's my son? Where is he?"
"I'm sorry, sir, but I have no idea what you're talking about..."
Nurse Joy looked utterly baffled. She did not know who these people were, and she certainly had not called them.
Tommy's mother was much calmer. "It's like this, Nurse Joy. Someone called and told us our son had been found, and that he was here at the Pokémon Center. Do you know where he is?"
Before Nurse Joy could answer, Reiji walked up to the counter and asked, "You're Tommy's parents?"
The two of them matched the photo from the missing-person notice.
He had heard the helicopter landing a moment earlier, stepped out, and now found himself face-to-face with the exact couple from the poster.
"Was it you? Were you the one who called?" Tommy's father—short enough that he barely reached Reiji's chest—rushed over, grabbed Reiji by the arm, and demanded an answer.
"Yes. Now calm down and come with me." Reiji had to use real force just to pry the man's hand loose before leading him—and the woman, whose eyes were already shining with hope—back to the private room.
Their arrival had already attracted the attention of plenty of Trainers in the lobby. Reiji had no intention of hiding anything anyway. If he wanted to keep it private, he would not have arranged the reunion at the Pokémon Center. Since the missing-person notice had been posted there as a job request, it was better to have the Pokémon Center witness the handoff.
"Tommy—!"
The moment the door opened, Tommy's mother saw her son sitting on the bed in a leopard-skin wrap, eating potato chips.
That was it.
The tears in her eyes spilled over at once, and she rushed forward to pull him into her arms.
What followed was a full family reunion, and Reiji had no interest in standing around for it. He quietly shut the door and left the three of them alone.
More than an hour passed before the door finally opened again.
The couple thanked him over and over, but gratitude was not what he was after. He wanted the reward from the missing-person notice. That was the whole reason he had spent this much time tracking down that feral brat in the first place.
"Thank you for bringing Tommy back to us. Truly, thank you. This is the reward from the notice. The bank card has one hundred million in it. You can check it at the Pokémon Center ATM."
"Good."
Reiji took the card, got the PIN, and went straight to the ATM. The moment he saw the 1 followed by eight zeroes, he was satisfied enough to pull the card back out.
Clearly, Tommy's parents had prepared the hundred million long ago. They just had not found Tommy until now, so the card had sat there untouched.
And unlike the other money Reiji had handled before, this was clean.
It was a proper League bank card, not an unregistered one. No shady handling fees. No dirty trail. It even earned interest.
That mattered.
The two hundred million he had before was black money. Spending small amounts was fine, but if he started throwing around hundreds of millions from a dirty source, that was the kind of thing that got noticed.
This hundred million, on the other hand, was legitimate. He could spend it openly.
The card itself belonged to Tommy's parents, though, so he immediately transferred the money to the League account under his own ID right there at the Pokémon Center.
As for the old card—
After he said he did not need it, the staff cut it up and threw it away.
That brought his total savings to three hundred million.
Still seven hundred million short.
And this money was only for pushing combination-evolved Pokémon past their potential limits. Raising a whole team cost money too. A lot of money. He would have to keep finding ways to make more.
By the time he got back to the room, Tommy had already started adjusting to the sudden reappearance of his parents, and the family was preparing to leave.
Tommy's parents still wanted to thank him properly. They even invited him home for a meal.
He turned them down.
Before Tommy left, though, he grabbed Reiji and asked, "Hey. How do I find you later?"
"What for? I thought you were going to become a Trainer and join the preservation rangers."
"Quit talking nonsense." After spending the whole night with him, Tommy had already worked out that Reiji was not actually a bad person. He just had a terrible mouth. Reiji had mocked him plenty the night before.
But Reiji had saved the Kangaskhan.
Tommy would not say it directly, but he was grateful.
Reiji scribbled down his number and handed it over. "Here's my phone number. Call any time you want. But if you're broke, don't bother me."
Tommy really was a rich kid.
Reiji did not know exactly how rich, but rich enough. Private helicopter. Hundred-million-Pokédollar reward. Huge estate. That was not normal-people money.
Compared to someone like Steven, Tommy was a smaller mine, but the comparison was not exaggerated.
"Tch." Tommy did not even know how much money his family had. He only knew it was a lot, and he clearly looked down on the way Reiji's eyes lit up whenever money came up.
"Get lost already, brat." Reiji waved him off the moment Tommy's face started souring again. His parents had been waiting outside for a while now.
Tommy gripped the Poké Ball holding the Kangaskhan, opened his mouth, and after a pause muttered, "Thanks."
Then he followed his parents out of the Pokémon Center, boarded the helicopter waiting on the rear landing pad, and flew away from Fuchsia City.
Reiji never went out to watch it leave.
He had not slept at all the night before, and by now the exhaustion was hitting hard. After feeding breakfast to his Pokémon, he took a quick shower and collapsed onto the bed in the private room.
What he did not know was that the Pokémon Center lobby had already exploded into gossip.
Everyone was trying to guess who had completed the missing-person job, found the boy who had been gone for five or six years, and claimed the hundred-million-Pokédollar reward.
The only person who knew Reiji's real identity was Nurse Joy. Once she had pieced things together, she pulled up the Pokédex registration he had used when checking in and saw that he was from the Orange Archipelago and registered as a Trainer from Mikan Gym.
He already had three badges and was currently taking part in the Indigo League. His registered party and personal details were all there in the system, and none of it showed any kind of red flag.
After seeing that, Nurse Joy relaxed, closed the League Trainer database, and went back to treating the Trainers who were lined up with injured Pokémon.
...
Day 27 of the journey to Kanto. Night.
Reiji did not wake up until evening.
He fed his Pokémon in the room at the Pokémon Center, ate dinner himself, then spent some time watching other Trainers battle at the nearby practice field before heading back to his room.
That hundred million had cost him two full days.
Tomorrow, he could finally head for the Safari Zone—a place outside the Pokémon Preservation Area where catching wild Pokémon was actually legal.
The Safari Zone saw plenty of Trainers, so there probably were not many rare Pokémon left to find there.
Even so, he still wanted to go.
If nothing else, he could at least see whether the rumor about Dratini was real.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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