That night, Reiji made a full circuit around the tidal power plant, catching Magnemite the whole way, but not a single one even reached fifty potential. In the end, he could only move on to the thermal power plant, where he started catching Koffing as well.

He kept at it until after ten, sweeping up every Magnemite he could find around the area, but still came up empty-handed. Not one decent Magnemite. Not one more Shiny Koffing. He did not even run into an ordinary Koffing with fifty potential.

At that point, it hit him. Finding that Shiny Koffing earlier had probably burned through all of his luck for the day. Shiny Pokémon were rare to begin with. Expecting to stumble into a second Shiny Koffing on the same night had been wishful thinking.

Left with no better option, he released all the Koffing and Magnemite he had caught that evening and let them go back where they had come from. It was time for him to head back too.

That was enough for one night. They needed to return to the hotel, and he could check on Riolu at the Pokémon Center the next morning. The streets were dark and narrow at night here, which made getting mugged a little too easy, so there was no point going over now.

No results today did not mean no results tomorrow. The environment here was too perfect for that. He refused to believe he could not eventually put together two Shiny Koffing. And even if he could not, he could always force the issue later with toxin crystals. There was no need to rush.

Just as he left the power plant, Darkrai and Gengar came looking for him and slipped back into his shadow.

He had not expected to run into Darkrai here. It had probably just come up from the sewers, sensed where he was, and headed straight over.

“How’d it go?” Reiji asked in a low voice from the mouth of an alley, keeping himself out of sight as he checked on Darkrai and Gengar’s haul.

Darkrai did not answer right away. Instead, it looked toward the workers filing out of the power plant. “That can wait. Didn’t you recognize him? There’s someone you know over there.”

“Someone I know? Who?” Reiji had happened to catch the tail end of the night shift letting out, which should have been completely ordinary. But after Darkrai said that, the whole scene stopped feeling ordinary.

“The one with the big black dog,” Darkrai said.

It remembered that man’s aura clearly. They had crossed paths before in the underground black market in Trovitopolis, and Darkrai had not forgotten him.

Reiji searched his memory for a moment, then finally placed him. When he had seen that guy last, the black dog at his side had still been a Houndour.

Even after recognizing him, Reiji did not go over to say hello. The man still had that large black dog with him, and walking up in the middle of the night was an easy way to get mistaken for an enemy. Better not.

Still, the whole thing amused him. He had never expected to run into the man here. By all rights, he ought to have been with Team Rocket. Reiji quietly withdrew deeper into the alley, waited for the other workers to clear out, then slipped after him.

To avoid being noticed by the dog, he kept an entire street between them and followed from a distance. After several blocks, he watched the man enter a house and finally gave up the tail, turning back toward the hotel.

The house his acquaintance had entered was close to the hotel too, just one street away.

Once he got back to his room, Darkrai and Gengar emerged from his shadow.

“So? What did you find?” Reiji asked. He looked from Darkrai to Gengar, figuring that if they had brought anything back, it was probably sitting in Gengar’s belly.

“Not bad,” Darkrai’s voice sounded directly in his mind. “We found a Grimer colony and picked up more than a hundred toxin crystals.”

“That’ll do,” Reiji muttered as he did the math in his head. “At thirty thousand a piece, a hundred of them comes out to three million. This place really is full of treasure.”

If he had found a gold mine like this earlier, Gengar would never have needed to burn through more than six hundred million and nearly bankrupt him in the process.

“Gengar, did you hide some?” Reiji asked, eyeing the plastic box Gengar had pulled out. It was packed with toxin crystals that stank so badly the smell practically hit the walls. Reiji barely glanced at the box itself. He was watching Gengar. The little sneak had definitely pocketed some.

Gengar froze the moment it got called out. Its face fell at once. Then it rolled its tongue around inside its mouth and finally stuck it out again, this time with more than ten extra toxin crystals on it.

Reiji laughed and patted Gengar on the head. The touch was soft and springy, almost addicting. “You did a good job. Keep those for yourself. You worked for them. Just don’t hide it next time. Tell me first.”

Gengar’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

With one quick flick of its tongue, it pulled the crystals back into its mouth and threw itself at Reiji, cackling with delight.

“Keep them,” Reiji said with a smile, pinching Gengar’s fat cheek. “I’ve already spent more than six hundred million on you. A few rocks aren’t worth making a fuss over.”

That only made Gengar happier. It clutched its belly, pulled a face at him, and laughed even harder.

Reiji laughed too, then set Gengar back down and turned to Darkrai. “Everything we got on the ship is still in Gengar’s stomach. Anything Dark-type, take it. You’re almost at Elite Four tier now. You need those evolution stones and Gems with strong Dark-type energy.”

“Not yet,” Darkrai said with a slight nod.

Even so, it didn’t hold back. It had Gengar spit out the backpack, then sorted through the contents and took most of the Dark-type items for itself, including a low-grade Dusk Stone, a mid-grade Dusk Stone, and quite a few Dark Gems.

Most of the good stuff had come from that punk’s backpack. He had not even had the chance to sort through it all yet. On top of that, all the Advanced-tier items the guy had won at the gathering the night before now belonged to Reiji too.

Darkrai did not take everything, though. It left one medium-grade Dusk Stone for Gengar and did not touch the Ghost Gems. Those suited Gengar better.

Darkrai had already been holding onto plenty of good items from before, including the things they had taken off Riku. Besides the Dusk Stones, there were also the seventy or eighty Dark Gems from Trovitopolis, another fifty or sixty from Riku, and another ten or twenty from the other bags.

It also had all the Dark-type Pokéblocks. In its own way, the arrangement worked well enough for both sides.

Ever since Darkrai had joined him, more than two months had passed without Reiji checking its panel. He had no idea what it looked like now, so he had Darkrai enter a Poké Ball once just so he could take a look.

[Darkrai]

[Type: Dark]

[Gender: None]

[Potential: 79.23%]

[Level: 55.77%]

[Ability: Bad Dreams / 51.55%]

Dark-type [Moves: (Dark Void / 46.84%) (Nasty Plot / 31.52%) (Dark Pulse / 44.56%) (Sucker Punch / 13.71%) (Knock Off / 12.16%) (Taunt / 6.31%)]

Psychic-type [(Dream Eater / 53.45%) (Hypnosis / 41.37%) (Psyshock / 36.24%) (Psychic / 25.28%) (Calm Mind / 40.55%)]

Normal-type [(Disable / 13.16%) (Quick Attack / 31.41%) (Double Team / 38.62%) (Hyper Beam / 12.44%) (Protect / 35.78%)]

Ghost-type [(Night Shade / 13.37%) (Shadow Claw / 27.36%) (Shadow Ball / 25.48%)]

Ice-type [(Haze / 10.76%) (Icy Wind / 11.27%) (Ice Beam / 19.94%)]

Other [(Rain Dance / 8.24%) (Drain Punch / 17.42%) (Poison Jab / 18.53%) (Swords Dance / 19.61%) (X-Scissor / 12.96%) (Will-O-Wisp / 22.91%)]

Darkrai’s potential looked good. It had climbed from seventy-eight to seventy-nine. At this rate, it would not be long before it stepped into Champion tier, which made it something worth looking forward to.

Its level had reached fifty-five too. Gaining eleven levels in a little over two months was solid progress.

Most of the energy from those Gems had probably been diverted into raising its potential. Otherwise, its level would not have increased so little. Even so, the Gem energy still helped Darkrai grow.

Its Bad Dreams ability had changed the most. That much was obvious. Darkrai had clearly learned how to control it. It could keep that nightmare effect from leaking out by accident now, which meant sleeping Pokémon around it no longer got dragged into bad dreams for no reason. That alone was a huge improvement.

If Darkrai wanted to leave now, Reiji would not stop it. Their relationship had always been mutual from the start.

Darkrai helped him fight, and he helped Darkrai learn to control Bad Dreams. Now that Darkrai had more or less done that, staying or leaving was up to it.

Its moves had improved too. Sparring with everyone else had let it pick up quite a few techniques. It learned fast.

Most of those moves had been copied from other Pokémon during training. Only one or two were Darkrai’s own same-type techniques that it had figured out by itself.

All in all, Darkrai was doing well. It was a shame it was not actually his Pokémon, but that had never been the arrangement. Even so, Reiji was glad he had met Darkrai on this journey.

And if Darkrai chose to leave, then so be it. They could part on good terms.

He had never been the clingy type. He took things as they came.

…

If Darkrai really did leave, then Gengar would be the only one he could rely on. And with Gringey City sitting right in front of him like a treasure vault, this was the perfect place to give Gengar another major push and cover the gap Darkrai would leave behind.

If he and Gengar did not already have a strong enough bond, he would never have let it grow this fast. But with Darkrai’s departure always a possibility, he had to prepare in advance.

At the very least, he wanted to raise Gengar to quasi–Elite Four tier before Darkrai left. That way, the next time he had to do dirty work, he would have a little more protection.

Gengar had already stepped into Advanced tier. With its double growth speed, it would not take that long to reach quasi–Elite Four tier.

[Gengar (Shiny)]

[Type: Ghost + Poison]

[Gender: Male]

[Potential: ???]

[Level: 44.10%]

[Ability: Cursed Body / 22.12%]

Ghost-type [Moves: (Shadow Ball / 40.82%) (Shadow Punch / 33.11%) (Shadow Claw / 31.92%) (Confuse Ray / 32.57%) (Lick / 36.55%) (Curse / 30.15%) (Hex / 30.23%) (Destiny Bond / 29.63%) (Phantom Force / 37.56%) (Night Shade / 27.13%) (Spite / 16.13%) (Nightmare / 25.66%)]

Poison-type [(Toxic / 50.84%) (Acid Spray / 36.52%) (Venoshock / 37.21%) (Poison Jab / 45.15%) (Toxic Spikes / 43.54%) (Sludge Bomb / 30.35%) (Clear Smog / 22.14%) (Poison Gas / 17.55%)]

Psychic-type [(Hypnosis / 41.41%) (Dream Eater / 38.12%) (Psychic / 37.64%) (Trick Room / 31.44%) (Rest / 43.81%)]

Normal-type [Moves: (Mean Look / 32.48%) (Perish Song / 15.78%) (Protect / 37.87%) (Hyper Beam / 29.32%)]

Dark-type [(Payback / 30.26%) (Taunt / 31.77%) (Sucker Punch / 26.88%) (Dark Pulse / 34.42%) (Nasty Plot / 19.92%)]

Fire-type [(Will-O-Wisp / 37.45%) (Fire Punch / 18.98%)]

Other [(Ice Punch / 17.23%) (Thunder Punch / 9.15%) (Drain Punch / 16.55%)]

Gengar’s potential had not changed. It was still the same three giant question marks, and Reiji could not even be bothered complaining about it anymore.

What had changed was its level. That thing was climbing frighteningly fast. If it kept going like this, then without a solid enough bond, even he would not be able to hold Gengar steady. Still, he trusted the bond between them. After all, he had raised this Gengar himself.

As for “forcing growth too fast”?

That did not exist here.

What Gengar lacked was strength. Battle experience could come later.

Once its level rose high enough, he could always throw it into more real fights and let the experience catch up naturally.

There was not much to say about Gengar’s old moves. The ones it liked using had all improved. The ones it did not care about had barely moved.

Reiji had not even been supervising its training. At this point, Gengar’s talent was hard to put into words.

After sinking more than six hundred million into it, Gengar really could grow stronger just by eating and drinking. The only time it understood what effort meant was when Poliwhirl beat the hell out of it.

That burst of motivation usually lasted two or three days. Once the lumps on its head went down, Gengar would forget why it had been working hard in the first place and go right back to being its usual carefree self, laughing, eating, playing, and pranking anything smaller than it.

Reiji could not be bothered policing it all the time. As long as Gengar trained with everyone else when he said so, the rest of its schedule was its own business.

Gengar also had access to the move Perish Song, but that move hurt both sides. Any Pokémon that heard it would go down in three turns.

It was not that Reiji did not want to use it. The problem was the world he lived in. This was a real Pokémon world, not a turn-based game.

He had no way to isolate the effect of Perish Song. Once it was used, the most he could do was trade Gengar for one opposing Pokémon, and that was a terrible bargain.

Unless it took out the opponent’s ace, maybe. But Gengar was one of his own core battlers, so even then the exchange still looked bad.

The same went for Toxic / Substitute / Protect stall. That worked in games. Reality was another story.

Substitute cost a quarter of Gengar’s maximum HP to create a decoy. That alone was already a major issue.

The more often it used Substitute, the more HP it burned. It was not the kind of move you could just throw out whenever you felt like it.

Protect had the same problem. In the games, if you spaced it out between other moves, the first use always worked. Reality was not a game. What if it failed when you needed it most? At that point, all you could do was cry about it later.

In the real world, if the opponent was already poisoned, there was no need to force a Toxic / Substitute / Protect loop anyway. He could just have Gengar drag the fight out. With how nasty Gengar’s poison was, the other side would fold sooner or later on its own.

And with Gengar’s movepool, it had no shortage of ways to stall for time. Why get hung up on Substitute and Protect when the simpler answer worked better?

Games were turn-based. Reality was not. The things each one rewarded were never exactly the same, and some tactics simply could not be copied over intact.

Still, one truth held up in either world: speed mattered.

As some slipper-wearing master once said…

In the end, speed beats everything.

…

After checking Gengar’s panel, Reiji had it swallow the toxin crystals again. They were lethally poisonous, so letting Gengar keep them was safest. He could always take them back out later when he needed them.

Right now, something else mattered more: the acquaintance he had run into on the way back.

“Darkrai, that house not far from the hotel,” Reiji said, glancing toward the residential building outside the window. “You saw it too. Later, pull that trainer with the big black dog into a dream. I want to talk to him.”

“Fine,” Darkrai said with a quiet nod, committing the location to memory. Then it added, “When Gengar and I found the Grimer colony, we also saw one that had been cast out. A black Grimer.”

Darkrai knew Reiji liked collecting unusual Pokémon, the odd ones that stood out from the rest, just like the Shiny Koffing he had caught earlier. That Grimer had been the same kind of abnormal.

“A Shiny Grimer?”

Reiji thought it over, then shook his head.

If even a Shiny Koffing smelled that foul, then a Shiny Grimer would probably be worse—nastier, more toxic, maybe even blackened by its own poison.

The Pokédex-style books were clear enough on Grimer. Its body carried more than a hundred kinds of toxins. Anywhere it passed, bacteria spread so thick that plants could not survive.

Worse, the bits of sludge it left behind could grow into fresh Grimer, which only made the surrounding area filthier.

Sure, Grimer came off pretty well in the anime. But just imagining life with one by his side was enough. That was a Pokémon that could poison you by accident and turn every place it touched into a breeding ground for germs.

No chance.

Koffing was already his limit. He was never catching a Grimer.

[End of chapter]

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