The voice came out of nowhere. A.J.'s back went tight, and he spun toward the forest. Two people walked out from between the trees, a big black hound and a Mightyena at their sides. They were the same hunters who had been chasing him since yesterday.
"Run. I'll hold them off." The moment A.J. saw them, he stepped in front of Reiji and released his Pokémon, ready to repay the life debt by buying him time.
"Run?" Reiji gave a soft laugh. "Did you forget who I am?"
Robbing other criminals was practically his specialty. Better yet, these two had delivered themselves right to him. Why would he leave?
"Huh? You…" A.J. watched Reiji walk forward. The Pokémon behind him were already fired up, practically itching for a fight after going too long without one.
Only now did A.J. really take in Reiji's team: Pelipper, Poliwhirl, Kingler, Rhydon, Scyther, Gyarados, Forretress, and Accelgor. Eight Pokémon in total, and none of them looked weak.
Every one of them carried pressure no lower than his Sandslash. He had underestimated Reiji. Somehow, with everything that had happened, he had forgotten the obvious: Reiji was not just another Advanced-tier Trainer. He was one of the dangerous ones.
"Gyarados, Hyper Beam."
Reiji had no interest in trading words. Villains died because they talked too much, so he opened with the biggest hit on hand.
"Gyara! Gya!" Gyarados opened its mouth, and a terrifying mass of energy gathered between its jaws. The attack caught everyone across from them off guard. A beam of violent light tore forward, forcing both hunters to scramble behind their Pokémon for cover.
"Pelipper, Scyther, Poliwhirl, Accelgor—cut off their escape."
"Kingler, use Iron Defense and push in. Forretress, Gyro Ball. Ram them."
A.J. pressed his lips together. Reiji had already started the fight, and A.J. understood what this meant. It was a chance to shake off the pursuit—and a chance to make sure it never came back.
"Sandslash, Graveler, Magneton, Forretress, Scyther, Quagsire—go!"
Half an hour later, the fight was over. Reiji and A.J. cleaned up the battlefield and gathered the spoils.
Both hunters were Advanced-tier Trainers. Each had five main Pokémon and two support Pokémon, fourteen Pokémon in total. Their packs were stripped and piled together with everything else.
"Thanks," A.J. said, sitting beside the fire. He no longer mentioned leaving. The danger had been dealt with. "You saved me again."
"Let's split the haul." Reiji had only helped because it was convenient. Those two had picked the worst time to show up. If they had arrived just a little later, maybe they would not have died wondering where it all went wrong.
"One pack each. Whatever's inside comes down to luck. I'll take six Pokémon. You handle the rest." Reiji casually picked one backpack and six of the enemy's main Pokémon, leaving A.J. four main Pokémon and four support Pokémon.
They were all common species anyway. Maybe two million Pokédollars total. Not even close to the Omanyte A.J. had.
If Reiji ever lowered his standards enough to trade Fossil Pokémon like a hunter, he would never be short on cash. He would have more money than he knew what to do with.
Someone in his previous life had been right about one thing. Some people were poor not because they were lazy, but because the money they earned was clean.
And some people were even rarer than that. They could make dirty money with one easy reach, but still refused to cross that line.
"You saved me twice. How can I take any of this?" A.J. did not want the spoils. Reiji had done most of the fighting. A.J. had only backed him up. Add the life debt on top, and the haul should have belonged to Reiji.
"Raising Pokémon burns through resources. So if you can avoid poaching, avoid it." Reiji did not even look at the pile again. A.J. had no backing. With this haul, he could sell what he did not need, buy training resources, and keep moving for a while longer.
"Why?" A.J. did not understand him. They barely knew each other, yet Reiji kept treating him strangely well. He had no idea where that goodwill had come from.
"I think you've got potential. Join me."
Reiji stopped hiding his intentions. He was ready to recruit him.
A.J.'s future was worth betting on. At worst, he should grow into a Trainer on Naoki's level. He had discipline, a goal, and the will to act on it.
Otherwise, he would never have reached Advanced tier while still in his teens.
Any Trainer with a little experience knew this much: Advanced-tier Pokémon with three-stage evolutions were everywhere. Give ordinary people enough time, and plenty of them could grind their way into Advanced tier by age alone.
But a young Trainer, born with no backing, and still able to reach that point? That was different. That was already impressive.
Reiji was not the League. He could not hand out starter Pokémon, did not have Gyms to screen talent, and did not have the Indigo Plateau Conference as a testing ground. From beginning to end, he only had himself.
And if he wanted to avoid getting dragged around later, he needed people. The Orange Archipelago was a mess of tangled interests, and thinking about it already gave him a headache.
That problem could not be fixed with one or two Elite Four-tier Trainers. It could not be fixed with ten. If raw manpower were enough, the League would have solved the Orange Archipelago long ago.
That was why Reiji had considered growing quietly inside the League system—using the League's authority as cover, then building his own people from within its shell.
Right now, he had only found six people worth shaping: Shun, Tai, Naoki, Gulzar, Sou, and Keith.
Travis, Senta, and the other children from Trainer families did not count. They belonged to their Gym families first, the League second, and only then were they his friends.
He could not forget the order of those loyalties, and he was not arrogant enough to think he mattered that much in their lives.
The only future Trainers he could actually influence were those six. Add A.J., then count himself, and that made eight.
Even if all eight of them slipped into the League, they would still be only a small faction. Against the League's slow push into the Orange Archipelago, they were fragile. Team Rocket alone would be hard enough to handle, never mind the powerful local families who smiled at the League in public and ignored it behind closed doors.
Who knew how many generations those families had spent marrying into one another? By now, their bloodlines and interests were probably tangled beyond repair.
Otherwise, even an organization as powerful as the League would not have been stuck outside the Orange Archipelago for so long, forced to divide and soften them bit by bit instead of simply conquering them outright.
Some of the families that had once sided with the League had clearly grown their own ambitions. They obeyed when it suited them and stalled when it did not. The League had probably been focused on larger regions back then and treated the Orange Archipelago as too small to worry about.
That had given those local turncoats enough time to start thinking they were untouchable.
Reiji was sure the League would make a real move against the Orange Archipelago sooner or later. When that happened, even a minor official position would be useful. It would let him live much more comfortably inside the League.
As for the rot inside the League itself, that required an even higher position. The higher he climbed, the more he could gain from the chaos—especially if Team Rocket and the League moved into open conflict, or if the League launched a full purge against Team Rocket.
Whether the League went after the Orange Archipelago's local families or went to war with Team Rocket, there would be openings everywhere. If he could ride those openings all the way into the Elite Four, that would be the real jackpot.
While Reiji thought about the future, A.J. did the same.
He barely knew Reiji. He only knew that Reiji was strong, ruthless when he had to be, and still had lines he would not cross. If Reiji could offer him something worth following, then joining him was not impossible.
After all, A.J. was a Pokémon hunter. The League would never accept him easily. If he got too close, the background check alone could dig him up.
The League had not gone after him yet only because it had not noticed him—or because someone like him was too small to matter. Team Rocket was the real enemy. People like A.J. could be cleaned up whenever the League had time.
Once the League dealt with Team Rocket and turned around to sweep up the little pests still jumping around, going legit would be far harder.
"Who are you? What do you actually do?" A.J. looked at him. "You have to tell me something. You can't just say 'join me' and expect me to agree."
"My name's Rai. I'm a Gym Trainer from the Orange Archipelago, and I'm taking part in the Indigo Plateau Conference." Reiji smiled as he gave the public version of his background. They had already met, and that identity was easy enough to check. No point hiding it.
"I'm guessing… it's not that simple."
A.J. did not believe that was all there was to him. Reiji fought too hard and killed too cleanly. He did not look like someone raised in the safe routines of a Gym.
"Guess."
Reiji only smiled. That was all he would say for now. If A.J. became one of his people, then he would hear more.
"What do I get if I follow you?" A.J. had considered joining a criminal group before, if it meant room to grow.
But groups like Team Rocket were too tightly controlled. Their brainwashing of Trainers had gone almost fanatical.
That was why he had become a Pokémon hunter instead. Catching wild Pokémon, selling them, and using the money for resources was freer and simpler.
"What do you get?" Reiji smiled. "How about I help you reach Elite Four tier?"
That was the strongest promise he could make. With his proficiency panel, giving his people a shortcut was easy.
The panel was the only real card he had, but the offer still carried enough weight. For Trainers with no backing, Elite Four tier was a peak so high most of them never even got to see the path.
"Elite Four tier?" A.J.'s breathing slowly grew heavier.
Those words carried too much weight among Trainers. The fact that they could press down on so many ordinary Trainers until they could barely breathe said enough about how high that threshold was.
For Trainers with no backing, that threshold was almost out of reach.
No background. No resources. No connections. No knowledge. No discipline. How were they supposed to compete?
When Reiji landed on that deserted island, he had none of the first three. Luckily, he had his own advantage: foreknowledge of plots, maps, and people, plus enough Pokémon knowledge to put him slightly ahead of ordinary Trainers.
Of the six helpers he had gathered, Shun had the old drunk's support, which counted as resources and connections. Add his own discipline and willingness to study, and he would not end up too badly.
Tai was inside Team Rocket. A big tree offered shade, so that counted as backing and resources. He also had discipline and the drive to learn. Team Rocket was not a place ordinary people could survive.
Naoki was rebuilding from scratch, but he had old connections, experience, and more than enough discipline. If he had been weak-willed, he would never have made it this far.
Among Gulzar, Sou, Keith, and A.J., only Gulzar had it a little better because he had joined the Kumquat Gym. The other three were each worse off than the last. If they did not work harder than everyone else, they would only fall behind.
A.J. was slightly better than Sou and Keith because he had already broken through. But breaking through also meant hitting his current ceiling.
If Advanced-tier A.J. wanted to raise his Pokémon further, he needed more resources. More resources meant bigger risks.
Reiji did not know whether A.J. had parents. Even if he did, they clearly could not help much. Otherwise, A.J. would not have become a Pokémon hunter.
Compared with these people, Reiji was practically coasting. His previous life had already taught him that hard work alone could still make you someone else's crop to harvest. Everything he did now, all the running around and scheming, was so he would not end up harvested again.
There was no helping it. In the Pokémon world, living without strength was terrifying. He did not want Kyogre to roll over one day and drown him with the tsunami.
And nobody should let the jokes about Kyogre being a big goofy fish or Groudon being unable to fly fool them. Humans were not even the size of those ancient monsters' toes. Before a person could get close, the heat from their breath alone would cook them. If one of them turned over, that was a natural disaster. Anyone still calling them cute had a terrifyingly big heart.
A cockroach the size of a thumb could make humans scream. A mountain-sized monster was another matter entirely. You had to be out of your mind to call Pokémon like that cute.
"So?" Reiji asked. "Have you thought it over?"
He was not in a hurry. He had time to let A.J. think.
"How do you prove you can do that?" A.J. asked. "You're not Elite Four tier yourself."
A.J. could tell that much. If Reiji had an Elite Four-tier Pokémon, dealing with those two hunters would not have taken so much effort. He could have crushed them with pressure alone.
"I'm not Elite Four tier yet," Reiji said with a smile, "but you still can't beat me."
He really was not there yet. But after the Indigo Plateau Conference, he would be.
Gengar had already reached level fifty. Its doubled growth speed was absurd, and it showed no sign of slowing. Reiji suspected it would not stop until Gengar reached Elite Four tier.
Once the Conference was over and he returned to the Orange Archipelago, he could start arranging Gengar's breakthrough. Gengar would become his first official Elite Four-tier Pokémon.
At that point, Gengar would take over Poliwhirl's job as the partner he used to keep disobedient Pokémon in line. Reiji trusted that his bond with Gengar was deep enough to avoid ending up like Ash and Charizard.
Then, after he obtained the Water Stone he needed and evolved Poliwhirl, Poliwhirl could start catching up. Even so, Gengar would still stay ahead. Talent built with more than six hundred million Pokédollars was simply too monstrous for Poliwhirl to match.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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