Day 42 of the journey to Kanto. Cloudy.
"Nice weather…"
Reiji stretched. It wasn't that he wanted to sleep in. The mountain was just too noisy. From early morning, the whole place had been alive with insects and bird calls, loud enough to drag him awake.
The fighting from last night had only died down after Nidoking passed through. Elite Four tier really was something. Just showing up had been enough to shut everything down.
He had been worried Poliwhirl alone might not be enough for night watch, so he also released Spinarak and had it string webbing through the tunnel as an alarm. If anyone stepped inside, it would wake him.
With Poliwhirl, Spinarak, Gengar, and Darkrai beside him, they could handle the first wave of any attack and buy him enough time to release the rest of his team. Thankfully, nothing happened overnight.
Reiji packed away his moisture mat and sleeping bag. The tunnel was too narrow for breakfast, so he decided to get out first.
He recalled Poliwhirl and Spinarak, then released Pelipper to head down the mountain and find a stream where he could wash up properly.
"Peli! Peli!" Once Reiji settled onto its back, Pelipper beat its wings and flew down from Mt. Moon. From high above, it quickly spotted a small stream near the foot of the mountain.
Pelipper landed beside the stream and started washing up. Reiji released the rest of his Pokémon too. Some drank water, some grazed, and everyone busied themselves around the bank while he prepared breakfast.
Breakfast for the Pokémon was simple. Their food was mostly Pokéblocks, so he tossed them one by one into their mouths and called it done.
If that wasn't enough, they could pick fruit in the forest. They weren't training today, so eating too much would only slow them down. When there was training, he would add extra food.
Reiji started a fire, boiled water, and made breakfast for himself. After eating, he still needed to keep moving toward Pewter City. Once he got the last Badge, he could head for the Indigo Plateau and wait for the Indigo Plateau Conference opening ceremony.
While he was making breakfast, though, a black-clothed person drifted down the stream. Marshtomp spotted him first.
"Mar! Mar!" Marshtomp dragged the person onto the bank, and its cry drew the others over to look.
Reiji waved the Pokémon back. Only then did he get a clear look at the person by the water. Black clothes. Dark green hair.
"Huh? I saw this guy two days ago." The moment Reiji saw him, he remembered. They had battled at Cerulean Gym the day before yesterday.
That green hair was hard to forget. So was the man's Sandslash—the one that didn't fear water or ice and could break out even after being frozen.
Judging from that Sandslash's performance, this guy had at least Advanced-tier strength. So why had he washed down from upstream like a corpse?
"Damn it. Ugh. My mouth is ruined." The thought hit Reiji all at once. This guy had floated through the stream, and Reiji had just used that same stream water to brush his teeth and wash his face. Disgusting.
Thank goodness he had used bottled water for the noodles, or his stomach would have been ruined too.
He hurriedly rinsed his mouth with bottled water, recalled the weaker little Pokémon into their Poké Balls, then reached out to check whether the person was still breathing.
In. Out. In. Out.
Still alive. That made things easier. Reiji dragged him beside the fire to keep him from losing more body heat, then recalled Toxicroak and the others, leaving only the Pokémon he openly showed.
He didn't know who this guy was, why he had ended up like this, or why he had appeared here. They had already met two days ago, so there was no need to disguise his face. Still, caution never hurt. He kept a hand hidden just in case.
Reiji went back to cooking and eating his noodles. When the other boy finally came around, his eyes snapped open. The second he saw Reiji, he pushed himself up, scrambled back, and reached for the Poké Balls at his waist—only to grab empty air.
"Your Poké Balls are fine. Come sit down and eat while it's hot." Reiji had removed them already and placed them by the fire, right beside a steaming bowl of noodles.
He had checked those Poké Balls. Inside were the Sandslash from two days ago, plus Graveler, Magneton, Forretress, Scyther, and Quagsire.
Six common Pokémon. A very civilian kind of team. The only ones with Elite Four-tier potential were Sandslash, Magneton, and Scyther.
Forretress and Quagsire had already hit their ceiling and only had quasi–Elite Four potential. Graveler still had one evolution left. Given enough years—seven or eight, the way Naoki had been grinding—those three might still claw their way up to Elite Four tier.
"Who are you?" The boy stayed wary. Reiji's casual attitude only seemed to confuse him more.
"We met two days ago. You forgot already?" Reiji kept eating. He understood that kind of defensive reaction. When he first landed on that deserted island, he had felt the same way—unsafe, exposed. Only after getting Poliwag had he settled down a little.
"Two days ago?" The boy thought it over, but clearly couldn't place him.
"Cerulean Gym. You were pretty confident back then, remember?" Reiji smiled. Where had all that arrogance gone? Two days ago, this guy had looked proud enough to challenge the world. Now he looked like he wanted to bolt from his own shadow.
"Oh. Right. The stand-in at Cerulean Gym." The boy looked at Kingler and Poliwhirl. Those were the two Pokémon he remembered from that battle.
"Come sit down and eat before it gets cold." Seeing that the boy still wouldn't move, Reiji frowned, then let it go and asked, "Pokémon hunter?"
The boy stiffened at once. He didn't trust food from strangers, and having his hidden identity called out to his face made his expression tighten.
"No bounty on you, right?" Reiji set his bowl down. Pokémon hunter was not a clean profession. Their reputation was even worse than bounty hunters. They worked the same dirt as poaching groups, and in the League's eyes, they were rats to be crushed on sight.
Under League law, once someone was labeled a Pokémon hunter, a wanted notice was almost guaranteed. That wasn't the same as getting slapped with a light punishment for being a delinquent Trainer.
"No." The boy swallowed, then shook his head at once. As Reiji's eyes cooled and his Pokémon moved in around him, the boy knew exactly what would happen if he lied while he had no Pokémon in hand.
Beep, beep, beep.
Reiji wasn't going to take his word for it. He took out his phone and called the old drunk. Then he looked at the boy and asked, "Name. ID number. If you lie, you'll regret it."
"My name is A.J. ID number xxxx…"
"Old drunk, check this name for me. See if there's a wanted notice. Name's A.J. ID number…"
"You little brat, since when are you doing bounty hunter work? Why are you checking this?"
"Less talking. Just check." Reiji had no patience for the old drunk's nonsense. He also gave him A.J.'s registered birthplace, Kanto, and told him to search Kanto's wanted notices.
While he was on the call, the air around the campfire stayed heavy enough to choke on. A.J. didn't dare move. Only after several minutes, when Reiji hung up and had his Pokémon drop the encirclement, did the tension ease.
"No wanted notice under that name…"
Reiji cut off the old drunk before he could start chatting and ended the call.
"Good. You pass. Come sit and eat while it's hot." Reiji watched A.J. remain standing and couldn't figure out what he was thinking. He had no leverage here. If he didn't eat, what else was he planning to do?
"My legs are numb. And—cough, cough!" A.J. barely got the words out before he collapsed onto the grass, clutching his mouth and coughing up blood.
"Internal injuries?" Reiji picked up A.J.'s Poké Balls and released Sandslash and Quagsire, letting them help their Trainer over.
"Th-thanks." After A.J. explained the situation to Sandslash, Sandslash supported him to the opposite side of the fire. Reiji handed him a cup of warm water, and after a few sips, a bit of color returned to his pale face.
"I thought you only had one expression," Reiji said, picking his noodles back up and teasing him.
"Heh… yeah." A.J. gave a weak laugh, then hissed as the movement pulled at his wounds.
"Eat first. We'll find a doctor after." Reiji had lost count of how many times he had told him to eat the noodles.
Reiji knew exactly who A.J. was. He appeared in the original Pokémon anime.
A.J. sighed and said nothing. He picked up the bowl and ate a few mouthfuls. His wariness toward strangers came from his line of work—Pokémon hunting.
As a Pokémon hunter, he couldn't trust anyone. Anyone might be another hunter waiting behind him, ready to take the prize after the first fight was over.
"How did you end up like this? You're supposed to be pretty strong."
"I am strong. They were stronger." A.J. could hear the teasing in Reiji's voice. He hadn't been like this when he challenged the Gym.
"How strong?"
"Two enemies. Either one of them could chase me down." A.J. smiled bitterly. He had been hunted all night and only shook them off for a while by jumping into the river. He didn't know when they would catch up.
"What did you steal that made them chase you this hard?"
"You probably know even if I don't say it." A.J. glanced at his backpack, which had been placed with his Poké Balls. He assumed Reiji had checked it already, so he explained without hiding anything. "I caught an Omanyte in Grampa Canyon. Two people in the same trade saw me, and they've been chasing me ever since."
"Omanyte? fossil Pokémon. Black-market price starts at twenty million Pokédollars, easy. Of course they chased you." Reiji hadn't looked through the backpack, but the moment he heard Omanyte, he understood. Fossil Pokémon were money.
"Black market? You know about that too?" A.J. clearly wanted to say, You're not clean either. He stopped himself before the words left his mouth. Even with Sandslash beside him, he wasn't confident he could beat Reiji.
Reiji's Kingler had already proved itself two days ago. One pincer was enough to beat Sandslash.
"Don't make things up in your head. Knowing the black market exists doesn't mean I sell Pokémon." Reiji was not a Pokémon hunter. If they were talking about Pokémon trading, the only wild Pokémon he had ever sold was a Grimer.
But Grimer, Beedrill, Magikarp, and Carvanha didn't get "Pokémon rights" in his book. They weren't included in his no-trading, no-killing line.
After all, the Magikarp Salesman could openly sell Magikarp to James. That meant Pokémon like those weren't protected by the League in the same way and could be bought or sold freely. Reiji had no reason to tie his own hands over that.
"Fine." A.J. had no answer for that. He was a nobody with no backing, and raising a team on his own had worn him down. Somewhere along the way, Pokémon hunting had started looking like the only way forward.
"You should quit while you still can," Reiji said. "If the League had a wanted notice out on you, this conversation would already be over."
That was as much warning as he could give him.
Reiji knew exactly who A.J. was: the Trainer from the original Pokémon anime who ran an unofficial Gym and built a hundred-win streak with his Sandshrew. That old memory gave Reiji a bit of goodwill toward him, even if the man in front of him was clearly walking a dangerous road.
A.J. had been strong enough to push around Ash and Gary when they had just started out. That alone proved he knew how to train Pokémon.
If Reiji had never run into him, he would not have cared. But now that A.J. had landed in front of him half-dead, Reiji could not just watch him keep going down this path.
A.J. had shown real skill in the anime, but he never appeared at the Indigo Plateau Conference. He had not even made it onto the bracket. With his level of talent, that only left one likely answer: something had happened before he got there.
With a Sandslash that had Elite Four-tier potential, had already reached Advanced tier, A.J. had more than enough strength to break into the top sixteen.
Even Ash had managed that much with a team full of unevolved Pokémon. There was no reason A.J. should have failed.
Unless he never made it there at all.
And right now, that looked very possible. If the people chasing him caught up, A.J.'s journey would end here. Not everyone had Gengar and Darkrai hidden in reserve, ready to protect them or pull dirty tricks when things went bad.
"I know. I know…" A.J. lowered his eyes. "But without Pokémon hunting, I don't have the money to keep raising my team. I've already hit my limit. From here on, every step costs resources I don't have."
"Then go after other criminals," Reiji said.
That was how he had built himself up, so he understood the problem better than anyone.
Before Darkrai joined him, every step had felt like walking a wire. One mistake and he would fall. After Darkrai, things became much simpler. Very few problems could survive one Dark Void. If one was not enough, then he used another.
But most Trainers did not have Darkrai. They did not have a proficiency panel either. Without visible progress to keep them going, how many people could keep pouring resources into a bottleneck for three years? Five? Ten?
People burned out. That was normal. Asking a Trainer to spend years chasing improvement they could not even see was asking for more patience than most people had.
"Going after other criminals is risky too," A.J. said with a bitter smile. "Look at me. I got hunted down like a stray dog."
"Compared to getting hunted by the League, I'd rather deal with criminals."
A.J. understood him the moment he heard that. For Pokémon hunters, the most dangerous enemy was always a bounty hunter.
"Well… if there's nothing else, I should go." A.J. set the bowl down and bowed. "Thank you for saving me, and for the meal. But those people are still after me. I can't stay here. If I survive long enough to reach the Indigo Plateau and enter the Conference, I'll repay you."
"Go?" a voice said. "Where exactly are you going? We chased you all night. You really made us work for it."
"If we hadn't spotted smoke over here, finding you wouldn't have been easy at all, A.J."
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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