The more Reiji thought about it, the more he felt this was a huge opportunity. Tomorrow the entire underworld might erupt into chaos—and the funniest part was that Viper had actually accepted the challenge. That was downright insidious.

Someone was going to be in real trouble. Team Rocket were no pushovers. From what Reiji remembered from his previous life, the number of Elite Four–tier trainers that Team Rocket had on the surface alone was more than four, and even their undercover Elite-level trainers weren’t just four.

Half of Kanto’s Gym Leaders were secretly on their payroll. The Kanto League was riddled with holes like a sieve—how was the League supposed to “compete” with Team Rocket like that?

Even so, Team Rocket were still sewer rats in the eyes of the world. As long as they didn’t step into the light, they would always be rats hiding in the gutter.

Out in the open, Team Rocket couldn’t beat the League head-on. But if they decided to turn this situation to their advantage here, they could very well annihilate the Rock Gang and the Storm Gang in one stroke. The only question was whether that black ship offshore would decide to make a move.

What did this have to do with the black ship?

First, you look at whether this big slab of meat was oily enough. Then you look at how many strong trainers were on that ship. Propping up a few local proxies to get in on the action was perfectly normal.

Team Rocket might be a small fry compared to the giant that was the Pokémon League—but compared to the local powers in the Orange Archipelago, the roles instantly flipped. Team Rocket became the behemoth, and the local “big shots” of the Orange Archipelago turned into small-time players.

Those local powers might be small fry on the global scale, but standing in front of one of those “small fry,” Reiji himself was the small one. He had to move carefully.

Once he untangled that web of relationships, he realized he didn’t have much time left.

Next, he needed to start researching Gastly’s evolution into Gengar immediately. Tomorrow night’s shift would be the perfect chance—a fat score waiting to be taken.

And if his guess was wrong?

Then tough luck. What else could he do?

If he missed this opportunity, he’d just look for the next one. As long as Team Rocket existed, the underworld would never truly be peaceful. He’d never run out of chances.

He also couldn’t just walk away right now. He had to maintain his current identity. If his prediction was wrong, that identity would still leave him room to maneuver. Lose the identity and he’d have to start over from scratch—and he hated job-hopping.

“Darkrai, keep probing the other two gang bases. Figure out where they keep the valuable stuff. We might kick off the plan tomorrow,” Reiji whispered to Darkrai, sending it back out to scout.

He himself wouldn’t move for now. If his guess was wrong and this wasn’t a trap set by the Rock Gang, he’d just continue undercover and wait for an opening.

If his guess was right, then tomorrow would be a fat, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He had to seize it and sweep away all the assets of the three gangs in one go.

What followed was another stretch of mind-numbing guard duty. By the time Darkrai finished its scouting and returned, dawn was almost breaking.

Darkrai reported back that the defenses at the other two gang sites were very loose. Most of the valuables were inside the tents—especially the boss’s big tent, where a backpack had been hidden very carefully.

After hearing that, Reiji finally felt more confident.

Before shift change, he told Tai not to rush things. You couldn’t rush finding a Pokémon. After midnight, Tai had come to him several times anyway, but all the Electric-types he brought were trash.

Not a single one with even forty points of potential. Fine for a house pet, maybe barely passable for battle. But Tai wanted the best Electric-type he could get, so of course he didn’t want something with awful talent.

By the time tonight’s shift ended, Tai still hadn’t found an Electric-type with decent talent, and the two of them were finally off duty.

After work, Reiji didn’t go straight back to the villa. He needed to swing by the black ship first. He told Darkrai to return to the villa ahead of him to check whether anyone was still tailing them and keeping watch on the place.

Once he split off from Darkrai, Reiji headed back to the black ship. This time he knew his way around. He quickly found the shop where he’d bought Poison-type gems last time and picked up five more Poison-type Gems at four hundred thousand each, spending two million.

Then he went over to the gem blind-box shop. The Ghost-type gems there were five hundred thousand apiece, mixed in with all kinds of other stones he could pick freely from.

He planned to pick out six Ghost-type Gems—three million total. He quickly finished choosing those, and while he was digging through the pile, he suddenly noticed a round, dusty gray stone.

He brushed off the dirt. The stone underneath looked like a glass marble. Inside the “gem,” a black vein curled like a leaf.

The glass bead felt oddly familiar. He didn’t bother guessing. He just opened up the bead’s status panel.

[Key Stone: Resonates with a Pokémon’s Mega Stone, allowing your Pokémon to Mega Evolve…]

Sure enough. Reiji’s heart clenched. He hadn’t expected to find a Key Stone here of all places. He immediately combed through the pile more carefully and dug up a second one just like it.

Two stones, both Key Stones—and not a single Mega Stone among them. That left him a bit disappointed. He’d thought he could grab some bargains here before Mega Evolution was widely known, scooping up as many Mega Stones as he could. You couldn’t detect any energy from them before activation, after all.

Compared to rare Mega Stones, Key Stones were much more common, and their role was simple. Each trainer only needed one to trigger the Mega Stone a Pokémon was holding.

He set aside the two Key Stones with his six Ghost-type Gems, then went to pay—and asked the owner whether he had any other stones like them.

The owner told him no one wanted that kind of crappy rock. He’d already tossed a bunch out, and there were still plenty more in the warehouse waiting to be thrown away. If Reiji wanted them, he’d bring them out.

Of course Reiji wanted them, so he told the owner to fetch the stones. The owner asked what kind of stone they were. Reiji only said they looked nice and said nothing else.

There was no way he could share the secret of Mega Stones. Before Mega Evolution became public knowledge, he wanted to stockpile as many Mega Stones as he could.

Once Mega Evolution went public, those “worthless pebbles” the owner couldn’t even give away would skyrocket to tens of millions apiece. Trading one for a pseudo-legendary wouldn’t even be an exaggeration.

Seeing he wasn’t going to get anything out of Reiji, the shopkeeper gave up on asking and went to the back to fetch all the unsellable stones. When he came back, the cardboard box he brought over was piled with glassy beads—multicolored “gems,” several of which looked similar.

Reiji reached in, picked one up, and opened its panel.

[Glass bead: An ordinary glass bead…]

Well, damn. So the owner did know how to mess with people. Reiji grabbed bead after bead, and every single one was a normal glass marble. Finally, he looked up at the owner with a half-smile and said, “Boss, if you don’t want to do business, I’ll just be on my way…”

With that, he got up to leave. The boss was obviously just playing with him; Reiji saw no reason to buy anything.

“Hey now, kid, let’s talk this out. If you want to keep buying gems, you’ve got to tell me why first,” the owner called out, quickly stopping Reiji when he saw him heading for the door.

“Boss, information also costs money. If you’re not planning on paying for it, forget it,” Reiji shot back bluntly. There was no way he’d let the guy leech his intel for free.

“Alright, kid, name your price,” the shopkeeper said, genuinely curious how much this “intel” could possibly be worth.

“Ten million.” Reiji held up one finger and tossed out a random number. He knew a shrewd businessman like this would never pay for unverified intel. Even if he’d said one million, the man wouldn’t have bought it.

“Heh… You serious, kid?” The shopkeeper forced a laugh and dropped the subject. He didn’t believe any intel could be worth ten million. Clearly, the kid just didn’t want to talk.

“If you’re not going to buy it, fine. If you’re going to sell those junk stones, then hurry up,” Reiji said impatiently. Just the intel on Electivire alone—from the way people had gone crazy over Elekid those few days—the club had easily made at least a billion.

And that was just over Electivire’s three-stage evolution line. The potential value of Mega Evolution intel blew that away. Run properly, it would make even more than the club had.

Seeing Reiji wasn’t joking, the owner went back and lugged out another huge basket of gems, all kinds of stones mixed together.

Reiji looked over the dusty, neglected gems and actually managed to find a single glass marble that matched the Key Stones. He opened its panel—and this time it was a real Mega Stone.

[Mega Stone: Resonates with a trainer’s Key Stone, allowing the Pokémon holding this Mega Stone to Mega Evolve (Blastoise)]

…You’ve got to be kidding me. It was a Mega Stone for Blastoise. When Reiji saw the panel, he was speechless.

His luck was almost comical. Among the Pokémon he’d already caught—Scyther, Magikarp, Slowpoke, Gastly—every one of them could Mega Evolve. Yet the Mega Stone he picked up was for Blastoise. Was he supposed to go catch a Squirtle now?

Don’t kid me. High-potential starters weren’t something you just “got” because you wanted one. Sure, he could randomly catch a Squirtle, but he’d have no way to guarantee its potential, and raising it would take time.

Even so, for this Mega Stone, raising a Squirtle wasn’t off the table.

After pocketing the Mega Stone, he kept digging through the pile but couldn’t find a second Mega Stone. In the end he just paid the fifty thousand for the Mega Stone and walked away with Blastoise’s Mega Stone at a massive bargain.

Finally, he left the black ship with five Poison-type Gems, six Ghost-type Gems, two Key Stones, and one Mega Stone for Blastoise, then headed back to the villa.

Sitting on the sofa in the villa’s living room, it all still felt a bit unreal. Then the excitement surged up uncontrollably. It was a Mega Stone—he’d actually gotten one that easily. That really was the day’s biggest pleasant surprise.

The two Key Stones were a bonus too. If he hadn’t spotted those first, he never would’ve realized there were Mega Stones hidden in that pile.

Forcing his excitement down, he turned to Darkrai. “Anyone still watching the villa?”

“No one,” Darkrai said, shaking its head. It had been waiting outside the whole time and hadn’t spotted any surveillance.

Seeing Darkrai shake its head, Reiji released every Pokémon he had—eighteen in total.

His public main team and support stayed the same. For his masked “Spider Robber” persona, his main force now included Darkrai and Zubat. That made five Pokémon on that identity’s roster.

For the Spider Robber, Darkrai was the trump card. But Darkrai couldn’t show up too often. The one holding the front line still had to be Croagunk, so Croagunk needed to grow up fast.

If Magikarp could evolve into Gyarados, it would instantly become his strongest fighter. Gastly and Zubat were still a bit green. Neither of the little guys had even started proper training, and Zubat still needed to wait for its injuries to heal before it could train at all. That was a ways off.

He told Zubat again not to fly around, that it could only fly after its stitches came out and its wounds healed. Then he headed into the kitchen to cook breakfast for his Pokémon.

While they were eating, he also had Gastly detox Croagunk and Zubat. Even if they couldn’t train their bodies yet, daily detox sessions still needed to continue.

After breakfast, Reiji posted Darkrai on lookout to prevent anyone from spying on them. Then he took Gastly into the storage room to see whether it could evolve into Gengar.

“Gastly, evolve into Haunter first,” Reiji said once he shut the door. He didn’t bring out any gems yet. Those eleven stones were all he had left. If Gastly couldn’t become Gengar on its own, the gems would come into play.

“Gooost, gooost…” After eating some Pokéblocks, Gastly evolved into Haunter.

Then Reiji called, “Haunter, think about how you evolved in that dream. Try evolving into Gengar…”

“Gooost, gooost…” Haunter stuffed its mouth full of Pokéblocks until it literally couldn’t fit another piece. Its dark face turned red from straining—but it still couldn’t evolve into Gengar.

“Try this,” Reiji said, taking out all eleven gems and tossing them into Haunter’s huge mouth, letting it try again.

“Goo… gooo…” With its mouth stuffed full, Haunter couldn’t even speak properly, but it still remembered to focus on evolving. A blinding light exploded off its body.

Once Reiji’s eyes adjusted and he lowered the arm shielding his face, Haunter was gone. In its place stood a pitch-black Gengar.

Haunter’s white eyes had vanished, replaced by Gengar’s crimson gaze. It grinned, baring its big front teeth, the corners of its mouth curling up in a wicked smile.

“Hahaha, it really worked. Hold it, don’t revert,” Reiji said quickly. He didn’t let Gengar devolve. If it turned back and he wanted to push it into Gengar again, he’d need another ten-plus gems.

He was basically broke. He couldn’t afford to have Gengar revert and re-evolve. For now, it had to stay as it was. After this job, they could talk about reverting it to farm potential.

“By the way, how many of those eleven gems did you actually use? Spit them out, let me see,” Reiji asked curiously. He wanted to know how much energy Haunter had drained to evolve into Gengar.

“Gooost, gooost…” Gengar opened its big mouth. The Pokéblocks from earlier were fully digested, and the gems it spat out were completely drained. Nine had gone totally dull, and the remaining three were extremely dim.

“Alright. Keep those three and absorb them slowly,” Reiji said, telling Gengar to swallow the three dim gems again. The empty husks would have to be thrown out later.

Right now, this Gengar was also his Pokémon with the highest potential—even higher than Darkrai’s…

[Gengar (shiny)]

[Type: Ghost + Poison]

[Gender: Male]

[Potential: 87.25%]

[Level: 9.43%]

[Ability: …]

Eighty-seven percent potential—already above Champion-tier. What more could he ask for?

Seeing that number, Reiji sighed inwardly. His previous worries had been justified. If he didn’t have Darkrai, once Gastly grew up, no one would be able to keep it in check. Gastly would be his strongest Pokémon.

He had to build a strong enough bond with Gastly. Once Gengar fully matured, without a solid bond, even Darkrai might not be able to suppress it when it went off the rails.

“Gastly, come with me to the guest room,” Reiji said. He still preferred calling it Gastly. After Gengar followed him into the room, he started tossing over the desk lamp, pillows, drawers, towels, and other small items, asking Gengar to swallow them.

“Gastly, swallow these,” Reiji said, wanting to see whether Gengar’s “fourth-dimensional stomach” was real—whether it could actually store things.

He watched as Gengar gulped down everything he threw. Its belly didn’t bulge in the slightest. You’d never guess it had just eaten that much.

“Gooost, gooost…” Gengar stuck out its tongue and spat everything back out, as if to say the stuff tasted bad.

“Hahaha.” Reiji scratched Gengar’s head with a grin, then pulled out two boxes of Pokéblocks—one Ghost-type, one Psychic-type—and tossed both to Gengar.

“Here, Gengar, eat these first,” Reiji said, then explained, “This is a space backpack. The inside is just like your stomach—it can hold tons of stuff. Tomorrow I need you to steal things together with Darkrai. You have to listen to Darkrai, got it?”

“Gooost, gooost.” Gengar shook its head. It didn’t need that guy Darkrai.

“Gengar, stealing is so I can buy you food. Everything we grab has to go into the backpacks. If they fill up, we just switch to another one. Where you’re going to steal from, there are a lot of bags like this…”

“Gooost, gooost.” Gengar nodded. As long as there was food involved, stealing was no big deal.

It just really didn’t like being paired with Darkrai. The memory of being pinned and ground into the floor by that guy was still painfully vivid.

“Come on now, Darkrai’s actually pretty nice. You can share snacks with it—then you’ll be friends,” Reiji said, patting Gengar’s head. This glutton wasn’t hard to coax at all. It was just like placating a kid.

“Gooost, gooost.” Gengar had no intention of sharing its snacks with Darkrai. It barely had enough for itself, never mind giving any to that annoying shadow.

“It says it doesn’t want to share its snacks with me,” a voice said suddenly from the shadows. Darkrai surfaced from the dark and helpfully translated Gengar’s grumbles.

“You’re here?” Reiji jumped. Darkrai’s sudden appearance had startled him.

He’d clearly told Darkrai to stand guard outside. If Darkrai was in here, then no one was watching the villa anymore. Looked like that first tail job had just been to confirm where they lived.

“Gooost, gooost!” The moment Gengar saw Darkrai, it stuffed both boxes of Pokéblocks into its mouth, terrified that Darkrai would steal them.

“Gengar, I’m not going to steal your food,” Darkrai said, its brow twitching. It felt Gengar had a huge misunderstanding about it, zero trust whatsoever.

“Gengar, all of you are my Pokémon—my partners and my friends. You’re supposed to share good food. Eating together is what makes it fun,” Reiji said, pulling out two more boxes of Pokéblocks and setting them down in front of Darkrai.

“Gooost, gooost…” Hearing that, Gengar felt a little guilty about being so selfish.

“If you want them, you can have all of these,” Darkrai said, pushing the two boxes toward Gengar. It wanted to smooth things over and took the initiative to share.

“Gooost… really?” Gengar stared, surprised. It hadn’t expected Darkrai to share food with it.

If it knew those boxes had originally been meant for it anyway, Gengar would probably complain that Reiji was just putting on a show. But it had no idea.

“Of course. We’re partners. Partners share food,” Darkrai said, copying Reiji’s phrase and emphasizing the word “partners.”

It had only been a few days, but it already saw Reiji and his Pokémon as its friends. It was doing its best to fit into this big family. This was the first time it had ever had this many friends.

“Gooost.” Seeing Darkrai be so generous, Gengar immediately took out some of its own Pokéblocks to share in return.

Reiji saw Gengar opening up and struck while the iron was hot. He produced bottles of Moomoo Milk and Pokéblocks of other types and said, “Gengar, since you’re all partners, you should invite everyone to eat together. Use your new form and go say hi to everyone.”

“Gooost, gooost!” Prompted like that, Gengar gulped down all the Pokéblocks and Moomoo Milk on the bed, then slipped through the wall and headed for the living-room downstairs to share the feast with the others.

Watching Gengar phase away, Reiji felt genuinely relieved. His first step had worked—getting Gengar to form bonds with the other Pokémon. Once they were all bonded to each other, and all of them had bonds with him, that meant he and Gengar would have a bond too.

“Darkrai, anyone watching the villa today?” Reiji asked as he motioned Darkrai out of the guest room, checking on the security situation.

“No. I haven’t found anyone yet. If I do, I’ll put them to sleep,” Darkrai replied, floating along behind him back to the living room.

The two of them watched Gengar happily sharing food with the others. Reiji patted Darkrai’s shoulder and said softly, “Go on. Join them. Everyone here’s a good Pokémon.”

“Alright.” Darkrai nodded lightly and drifted over to the group in the living room.

Seeing Darkrai blending into the family, Reiji felt that as long as they kept living like this, their bond would naturally form. There was no question about it. Fully winning Darkrai over wasn’t going to be a problem.

Earlier, he’d worried that a more “mature” Pokémon like Darkrai wouldn’t be able to mix well with a bunch of kids. Turned out Darkrai was having a great time.

And Gengar too. To get Gengar to cooperate with Darkrai, he’d had to spend some food to nudge its personality in the right direction—but that was a bargain.

If Gengar refused to cooperate later, or even deliberately clashed with Darkrai, the entire burglary operation could fall apart. A failed heist was one thing—if he got caught, he’d be dead.

He couldn’t allow this job to fail. Any factor that might cause failure needed to be cut off. With Gengar’s limitless potential, there was no way he’d let this heist flop.

Watching the little ones happily eating breakfast together, Reiji figured that as their trainer, he couldn’t sit it out. He didn’t eat anything himself, though—he just opened a bottle of regular milk and kept them company while they ate.

Then he sat down on the sofa and pulled out his little notebook to check how much money he had left. He still hadn’t bought Zubat’s Pokéblocks, and he still needed Electric-type Pokéblocks for Shelmet. There were too many mouths to feed. He could barely afford to keep them all.

First, fifty thousand for black market intel.

Two thousand for booth fees, twice.

Ten thousand to register for the Poison Gang.

Three hundred and twenty thousand for Zubat and the uniform.

One hundred thousand for surgery fees.

One million for two Key Stones.

Five hundred thousand for Blastoise’s Mega Stone.

Then two million for five Poison-type Gems.

Three million for six Ghost-type Gems.

Total: 6,982,000.

(Just under seven million.)

Previous balance: (1,520,000) (7,450,000)

Remaining balance: 1,988,000.

(Just under two million.)

Good. He still had a bit of retirement money. If tonight’s heist went well, he’d never have to worry about money again…

(End of Chapter)

[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]

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