Day 23 since setting out for Kanto. Overcast.

Another day without sunlight. Reiji woke up at the hotel, washed up in the bathroom, and fed his Pokémon breakfast.

Darkrai and Gengar had gone out again yesterday and found more than two hundred toxin crystals, but Koffing had already been raised successfully. That left the extra crystals sitting in Gengar’s belly, and Reiji had no intention of touching those.

Those crystals were basically Gengar’s snacks now. All he did was remind it not to gorge itself, and to share some with Weezing whenever it ate so Weezing could absorb them little by little. The bond could come later. There was no rush.

During breakfast, he reached down and rubbed Marshtomp’s head. The little guy couldn’t handle the light, so he spent most of his time inside his Poké Ball, training in the nightmare world. Reiji did feel a little bad about that.

Marshtomp was still too weak. He didn’t have much strength yet, and if he wanted to be any real help, he needed to at least reach his final evolution first. For now, this was the only option. The air in this city was awful anyway. Once they got out into the wild, Reiji would be able to let him stay outside.

“Groh, groh.” Marshtomp nudged his head into Reiji’s hand and enjoyed the petting, completely attached to him.

That made sense. Reiji had hatched both Zapdos and Marshtomp himself, and both had bonded with him the moment they first saw him. To them, Reiji was the head of the family, while Poliwhirl and the others were the older siblings helping raise them.

After spending a little more time with the little ones, he recalled them and left the hotel for the Pokémon Center. He wanted to check on Riolu and Poliwhirl and see how they were doing.

He had spent all of yesterday working on Weezing’s evolution and only went to visit them at night. Still, those two had been at the Pokémon Center under Nurse Joy’s care, so they should have been fine.

The moment he reached the entrance, he saw Nurse Joy pacing anxiously by the front doors. Poliwhirl stood beside her, stretching his neck and staring into the distance.

“Yobo! Yobo!” The second Poliwhirl saw Reiji, he ran over at once, crying out so fast that Reiji couldn’t make sense of a word.

“Trainer Reiji, Riolu is missing,” Nurse Joy said the moment she saw him. Guilt was written all over her face. She knew she had failed to keep watch over him.

“What?” The news hit Reiji so hard his mind blanked for a second. Riolu was a full-grown Pokémon, and an injured one at that. It wasn’t as if he could sprout wings and fly off. “When did this happen?”

“He was still there last night. He’d been asleep in the hospital bed the whole time. He was there when I changed his dressing, but when I came back this morning, he was gone…” When she saw the disbelief on Reiji’s face, she rushed to add, “I’ve already contacted Officer Jenny. I’m sure they’ll find Riolu soon.”

“Last night?” Reiji was absolutely not calm. He pressed a hand to Poliwhirl to steady him and said quietly, “Poliwhirl, this isn’t your fault. Go back and rest first.”

“Yobo…” Even after hearing that, Poliwhirl still looked crushed. He blamed himself for not watching Riolu properly. He felt he should have stayed beside him instead of going off to train at the battle field.

“Poliwhirl, trust me. I’ll get Riolu back.” Reiji could see how low his spirits had sunk, but right now he could only say that much. First he needed to know whether Riolu had gone off on his own or been taken.

He recalled Poliwhirl, then went straight to Riolu’s room. Officer Jenny was already inside, examining the scene.

“This area’s sealed off. You can’t come in,” she said at once when she saw him approaching, worried he might contaminate the evidence.

“All right.” Reiji gave a quiet nod and stayed outside the door, watching in silence. He didn’t bother announcing that he was Riolu’s Trainer. Even if he did, it probably wouldn’t get him inside. Instead, he sent Darkrai in to take a look.

Darkrai slipped out of his shadow and entered unseen. Fooling ordinary people was effortless for it.

A moment later, it returned and sank back into Reiji’s shadow. “There are traces of Sleep Powder,” it said. “Riolu was probably put to sleep and taken.”

Good.

Reiji nearly laughed from anger. He was going to find out exactly which blind idiot had dared steal from the one person he shouldn’t have touched.

Anyone who made a habit of playing dirty ought to know the rule: if you’re going to steal, kidnap, or do shady shit, do it at noon. Morning or night, sooner or later it blows up on you.

He’d been the one ambushing other people for ages, and he’d never slipped once. Now someone had managed to steal from him. Fine. He didn’t care if he had to dig through the whole city. That bastard wasn’t staying hidden. Sooner or later, this was going to blow up in his face.

“Can you still sense Riolu’s aura?”

By then Reiji had already left the ward and come back outside. Nurse Joy was still standing there, and she still couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes.

“Nurse Joy, I’ll find Riolu. Don’t blame yourself,” Reiji said softly. Before she could answer, he pulled up his hood and turned away.

“You…” Nurse Joy opened her mouth, then stopped. She could only watch him go. Riolu had disappeared inside the Pokémon Center. That was on her, and there was nothing she could say to change it.

Once Reiji left, he headed straight for the underground black market. No matter what that sneaky bastard planned to do with Riolu, the black market was the perfect place to move stolen Pokémon.

“I can sense Riolu. He’s underground,” Darkrai said. It only took a moment of concentration to lock onto Riolu’s aura. In its senses, Riolu stood out like a beacon in the dark.

And the closer they got to the power plant, the clearer that aura became.

“Good.” Reiji had suspected the underground black market from the start, which was why he went straight to the power plant.

When he arrived outside, he had Darkrai deliver a note to Tai and tell him to come out.

Not long after, Tai emerged in his work uniform. Reiji immediately backed into an alley, and Tai followed him in.

“What happened? Is it really that urgent?” Tai asked. The note had sounded serious. They had only been apart for a day, so he had no idea what kind of disaster could have blown up this fast.

“One of my Pokémon was stolen. It’s in the underground black market. I need you to take me down there,” Reiji said plainly. There was no point hiding it. He needed Tai to guide him once they were below.

If things turned violent and Team Rocket sealed off the underground market, he would need Tai’s identity to get back out. He had to set up an escape route now in case everything went bad.

“What?” Tai blurted out before he could stop himself. He honestly hadn’t expected Reiji to be the one getting robbed. In his mind, Reiji was always the one stealing from other people. With how careful he was, how had this happened?

“I left it at the Pokémon Center for treatment. I got careless.” Reiji still felt half-stunned himself. Hearing it out loud did not help.

“I’ll get you underground first.” Tai didn’t ask anything else. Reiji was in too much of a hurry. The stolen Pokémon had to be important. If one of Tai’s own Pokémon vanished, he would be losing his mind too. That much was only natural.

“Good.”

Reiji watched him leave, then waited. A little later, Tai returned with a spare power plant jacket and handed it over.

Reiji put on the jacket and followed Tai into the plant. They took the internal elevator down to the underground black market.

Once they were below, both of them stuffed the work coats into their bags. Dressed in black and masked like everyone else, they moved quickly through the market.

Following Darkrai’s directions, Reiji and Tai stopped in front of a shop that sold Pokémon hatchlings.

The sight of it made Reiji’s heart drop.

Had the bastard already sold Riolu? The timing was way too fast.

Even if this place was a lion’s den, he was going in. He had barely started forward before a hand caught his arm. Tai was stopping him.

“What?” Reiji looked over sharply, not understanding why Tai was holding him back.

“Come here.” Tai pulled him into a corner before lowering his voice. “If the Pokémon’s really inside, then this is bad.”

“Bad?” Reiji kept his face blank and flicked a glance toward the shop, signaling Darkrai with the movement of his foot. Then he listened as Tai went on.

“That shop belongs to Team Rocket.”

“Team Rocket? And?” Reiji could tell from Tai’s silence that this was worse than that.

“This whole black market is under Petrel, one of Team Rocket’s Four Generals. The owner of that shop is Petrel’s relative. There’s also a Team Rocket executive in there handling security, someone with quasi–Elite Four strength. He has several rookie squads under him too.”

Tai had no idea whether Reiji knew who Petrel was, but that was a genuine heavyweight in Team Rocket—someone on the same level as the League’s Elite Four.

“I understand.” Reiji’s face stayed calm, but his heart sank a little. So now this had gotten tangled up with an Elite Four-level figure after all. That did make things messy.

Not unmanageable, though.

It just meant he would have to kill with a borrowed knife again.

“You head back. If you can get leave, then do it. Don’t come down tonight,” Reiji said, giving Tai a light pat on the shoulder. Whatever happened tonight, it was going to be loud. He couldn’t afford to drag Tai into it. A mole inside Team Rocket was too useful to waste.

“All right. Be careful.” Tai nodded and quietly left the market.

If Reiji had asked, he would have helped to repay the favor he owed him. Since Reiji hadn’t said the word, Tai didn’t need to get involved. He was still making his living inside Team Rocket. There was no way he could start playing both sides openly and still expect to survive there.

Not long after Tai left, Darkrai returned and slipped back into Reiji’s shadow. Its voice sounded inside his mind.

“Riolu is with the shop owner. He wasn’t sold to the shop. The owner had him stolen.”

Reiji smiled.

“Good. Very good.”

That made it simple. Petrel’s relative was definitely going to die.

It was still too early to move. Night hadn’t fully settled in yet, and nobody in this place seemed to sleep. For all he knew, that shop owner might stay glued to Riolu the whole time. If he did, making a move would be awkward. Reiji would have to wait and see.

Fortunately, Riolu had already been caught in a Poké Ball before. Unless someone got their hands on Riolu’s original ball, they couldn’t capture him with a second one. That was probably why they hadn’t simply transferred him away already.

Riolu had been stolen last night. The bastard had only had him for a day, which meant he probably hadn’t had time to move him yet. That also meant Reiji had to act tonight. If he waited too long, Riolu might get transferred somewhere else.

He wasn’t going to stand around doing nothing in the meantime.

He took out a phone—he didn’t even remember whose it had been, though it almost certainly came from that batch of loot on the passenger ship. He just hadn’t gotten around to dealing with it yet.

He pulled out the SIM card and tossed it away, then handed the phone to Darkrai and showed it how to use the camera. He wanted Darkrai to go around the black market taking photos of everything that couldn’t stand the light of day. Illegal trades were happening all over the place. Evidence was everywhere.

After Darkrai left, Reiji started wandering the streets again. If chaos broke out later, he might be able to grab a few useful things and patch part of his money problem at the same time.

Just like that, night came down fast.

Tai, meanwhile, had decided not to listen to Reiji’s warning or take leave from the power plant. He had already realized this was a chance to make money.

Fortune favored the bold. In Trovitopolis, he had been too weak to do anything when chaos hit. Back then, survival had been enough.

This time was different.

Now he was at least a Team Rocket squad leader, a Trainer just about to step into Advanced tier. That was enough to make a move if he planned it well.

Too bad Gengar was asleep. If it had been awake, he could have grabbed even more while the place was in turmoil. Even without Gengar, though, there should still be plenty to gain. Team Rocket’s own shops were off-limits, but the other shops were fair game.

He also knew where one of the black market’s hidden exits was. He could take what he wanted, slip out unseen, and walk back into the light as an ordinary power plant employee.

Most of the people working at the plant were locals, not Team Rocket. They had no idea Team Rocket was hidden underneath. Only moles like him knew the truth.

In front of Team Rocket, he could be one of them. In front of Officer Jenny, he could be a power plant worker. As for the shop owners, it didn’t matter who he was as long as no one saw his face.

Yeah.

This one had real potential.

…

Back in the underground market, Reiji had already put away Spinarak. That Pokémon was too recognizable. Before, it hadn’t mattered. Tonight, he was planning something big, so he couldn’t leave anything that might expose him.

He spent the whole day wandering the market aimlessly. When he got tired of walking, he went to the battle arena, sat in the stands, drank tea, and watched the matches to kill time.

Darkrai had already gathered enough evidence from the market, then went back to watching the shop owner. Its job was to keep track of Riolu’s location and make sure the bastard didn’t transfer him away. The moment there were any signs of a move, they would act immediately.

Even if it exposed them, that was fine. Getting Riolu back came first. They could worry about the aftermath later.

It wasn’t until a little after midnight that the market finally started to thin out. There were clearly fewer people around than during the day. So not everyone here was a nocturnal freak after all. Some still went home to sleep.

Just as the whole thing was starting to bore him numb, a shadow slipped into his own, and Darkrai’s voice echoed in his mind.

“The shop owner’s asleep. Other people are watching the store now. Riolu is locked in the owner’s room.”

“Good. We’re leaving first.”

Reiji rose from the stands, went to the exit, and joined the line outside the small room where visitors waited for Alakazam’s Teleport.

Getting in had cost money. Getting out was free.

A moment later he was back outside the power plant. He took out a note he had already prepared and handed it to Darkrai.

“Take this to Officer Jenny at the city police station. The note has the black market’s location on it, along with Team Rocket’s crimes. Give her the phone too, with all the evidence on it.”

[End of chapter]

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