"Be careful," the man said, keeping his voice low. "Those Trapinch are hiding at the bottom of every one of those pits. The moment you step anywhere near them, they come shooting out and use Bite. They don't let go until they've torn off a piece."
Nova already knew the biology behind it.
Trapinch were modelled after a fascinating insect from his previous life — the antlion. Antlions lived in dry, sandy environments, burying themselves at the bottom of cone-shaped pit traps and waiting for prey to stumble in. They relied entirely on detecting ground vibrations, and once something fell into range, they struck fast. The whole system ran on instinct, no higher thinking involved.
Trapinch inherited that same habit. They were masters of the ambush, patient and precise. But here was the thing — even a real antlion, operating on pure instinct with no capacity for reasoning, would not blindly attack prey that was clearly too large to be worth the effort. A Pokémon with human-level intelligence should be even more selective.
Under normal circumstances, Trapinch were among the most docile Pokémon you could encounter. They showed no natural aggression toward humans at all.
To test what the man had said, Nova reached into his pack and pulled out a tin of processed meat — the kind he had bought as a basic desert ration. It was metal, had some weight to it, and would do the job.
He threw it into one of the shallow pits.
The moment the tin hit the sand, a Trapinch burst out from below. Its jaws clamped down on the can with a Bite, and the sound of crushing metal cut through the still air. In one snap, the tin was reduced to a crumpled piece of scrap and scattered meat. Finding nothing edible in what it had crushed, the Trapinch dropped back below the surface without a pause.
Nova stared at the dented, mangled tin.
One Bite. That was all it had taken.
He thought of the man's daughter, and then deliberately stopped thinking about it.
He could understand, at least partly, why the man had chosen to stay out here and let himself waste away. Some losses did not leave room for ordinary life to continue. What father could face something like that and carry on as normal?
And yet, Nova was certain that somewhere beneath the grief and the rage, the man's real anger was aimed at the wrong thing.
Trapinch were the blade. Someone else had been the hand that used it.
That thought sharpened the moment Nova looked more carefully at the Trapinch that had leapt from the pit. Even in that brief instant, he had seen enough — blood-red pupils, a faint dark energy radiating from its body. Those were the signs of a Pokémon that had been given malicious drugs. The same markers he had seen in the lab back in Lune Town.
His hunch had been right. The Trapinch colony at Sand Village, the disappearances, the years of fear — it all traced back to Taylor.
That man crosses half a desert and leaves damage wherever he goes. You're not slipping away this time.
The man was watching Nova stare at the pit with a tight expression. He must have taken it for uncertainty, because he asked quietly, "Is there a way to get me through to the graves?"
"What is your name, sir?" Nova asked.
It was the first time he had asked. The man might not have read much into it, but for Nova it mattered. It was the difference between dealing with a problem and speaking to a person.
"...Leon."
"Right. Mr. Leon — lie flat on the sand for me, or at least crouch down low."
Mr. Li did not ask why. He lay down.
Nova released Nidoking from its Poké Ball and gave the command. "Nidoking — Earthquake."
Nidoking let out a deep roar and drove both arms hard into the ground.
The impact rolled outward through the sand like a wave, and the earth shook in earnest. The dune shuddered, the pits collapsed inward, and the ground buckled across a wide radius.
Nova had instructed Nidoking to keep the range controlled and leave the grave site undisturbed. That was a difficult ask. Nidoking could channel enormous force across a broad area with ease — precision was the harder skill, and one it was still developing. This was as good a moment as any to practise it.
The Trapinch came pouring out of their pits all at once, thrown upward by the shaking ground.
It said a great deal about what the malicious drugs had done to them. Even after taking a direct hit from Earthquake — a powerful Ground-type move — several were still moving, still showing signs of fight. Nova had asked Nidoking to hold back on the power, but even at reduced strength, a direct Earthquake should have finished most wild Pokémon. That it had not was evidence of how far the drugs had pushed these Pokémon past their natural limits — and how much that had cost them.
"Nidoking — Psybeam."
Nidoking swept the field with a wide beam of psychic energy, catching the exposed Trapinch across the sand. The battle ended quickly.
Once Nidoking signalled the all-clear, Nova walked through and checked each one.
Most were already fading. The malicious drugs had driven them far beyond what their bodies could sustain, and with the battle over, their remaining life force was giving out fast. Those with stronger constitutions might survive, but they would carry lasting damage. There was no reversing what had been done to them.
Mr. Leon had risen from the sand while Nova was checking the Trapinch. He reached behind him and produced a short-handled axe, moving toward the ones that were still breathing.
Nova stepped in front of him.
Mr. Leon's expression hardened. "Move."
Nova did not. He understood the anger — it was earned, and it was real. But he held his ground.
"Mr. Leon. I need you to listen carefully."
He waited until the man's eyes were on him.
"Tell me the location of the main territory of this Trapinch colony. Their core area. I need to go there now."
"After you finish at the graves, go straight back to the village and stay inside."
"If I have not returned within three days, contact the Security Office. Tell them that evidence of Original Team executive Taylor's activity has been found near Sand Village. Use those exact words."
Mr. Leon was not a simple man. The state he had retreated into was the result of years of grief — not a lack of understanding. He took in what Nova had said, and slowly, the meaning of it settled over him.
"You mean... those beasts... someone made them like this...?"
His voice, already roughened by years of dry desert air, gave out before he could finish. Something broke through — something that had been packed down for a long time.
Nova placed a hand on the man's shoulder.
"Yes," he said. "I'm going in there right now to find the person who is actually responsible for your daughter's death. And for those two Trainers."