After entering the Mt. Coronet, Aaron spent the entire morning making his way through the mountains. He passed through the territories of several dominant wild Pokémon along the way, and though it was dangerous at every turn, he still managed to reach the location marked in the assignment.
"This should be where Kricketot and Spinarak live."
Aaron swallowed the last bite of bread in his mouth, gradually slowed his pace, and began searching for signs of the Flying-type Pokémon mentioned in the mission.
Beside him floated his Vespiquen. It released a large number of Combee to scout the surrounding area.
Neither Aaron nor Vespiquen noticed that Kael was watching them from a distance behind.
The only reason Kael had decided to trail Aaron was because he was bored.
Gallade's psychic senses could cover the entire Coronet range. The moment anything unusual happened, it could alert Kael and Teleport him straight to the scene.
So Kael hardly needed to put in any effort. Truth be told, he was simply curious about Aaron, the future Bug-type Elite Four member.
At the same time, over on Aaron's side, one of the Combee flew back from the distance and relayed what it had found to Vespiquen.
"Bzzz..."
"Vespi..." After receiving the information, Vespiquen called back all of the Combee, then turned to Aaron and gave him a nod.
"You found it?" Aaron asked, delighted. "Lead the way!"
Vespiquen nodded and led Aaron off the mountain path and deeper into the Coronet range.
Watching Aaron head farther into the mountains, Kael was just about to follow when Gallade suddenly Teleported to his side.
"Gallade!"
Gallade's sudden appearance meant only one thing. Another student had gotten into trouble.
"Let's go." Kael stopped in his tracks with a helpless sigh and nodded to Gallade.
Gallade placed a hand on Kael's shoulder, and in the next instant, both Trainer and Pokémon vanished from the spot.
Meanwhile, as Aaron and Vespiquen pushed deeper into the Coronet range, the chirping cries of Spinarak began to reach his ears.
Aaron immediately quickened his pace and ran toward the source of the noise. He could tell from the cries that the Spinarak were panicking.
Very soon, Aaron caught sight of a well-feathered Pidgeotto attacking several Spinarak. The little Bug-type Pokémon had no way to fight back and could only cry out anxiously.
The moment he saw the Pidgeotto, Aaron was almost certain it had been released by a student from Coronet Academy. Pidgeotto was a Pokémon native to Kanto and rarely appeared in Sinnoh.
"Attack Order!" Aaron quickly commanded Vespiquen to rescue the Spinarak.
"Bzzzz..." Vespiquen unleashed a great swarm of Combee. Packed tightly together, they formed a sharp blade and shot straight toward the Pidgeotto.
"Pidg!"
The Pidgeotto noticed Aaron interfering with its hunt and beat its wings hard. Instantly, two twisting cyclones formed and swept toward Aaron and Vespiquen.
But the blade formed by the Combee split both whirlwinds cleanly apart and continued forward without losing momentum.
"Pii!" Pidgeotto cried sharply as it tangled with the swarm.
After several exchanges, its stamina began to fail. The Combee blade slashed across it hard, and the Pidgeotto crashed awkwardly into the snow, unable to continue battling.
"Whew..." Aaron let out a long breath and quickly took out medicine to treat the injured Spinarak, though something about the situation already felt wrong.
This Pidgeotto seemed way too weak...
A Pidgeotto at this level should not have been enough to threaten the survival of both the Spinarak and the Kricketot in this area.
Aaron shook his head and pushed the thought aside for now. After tending to the Spinarak, the next step was obvious: catch the Pidgeotto in a Poké Ball, then release it somewhere in a Flying-type habitat.
Aaron stood up, took an empty Poké Ball from his belt, and threw it toward the fallen Pidgeotto.
But just as the ball was about to touch it, it bounced away as if it had struck an invisible wall.
It could not be caught.
This Pidgeotto was not wild. It already belonged to a Trainer.
Aaron instantly realized something was wrong. After so much harassment from the student council and Sylas, his mind had grown especially sensitive to traps like this.
And in that instant, his mind went blank.
---
Kael was not the only one watching Aaron in secret.
There were two other people nearby as well.
They wore Coronet Academy uniforms, and blue Coronet Academy crests were pinned to their sleeves. They looked like student council members out on academy patrol, but the student council had no duty that involved patrolling the Coronet range.
The two of them were crouched behind a snowbank not far from Aaron, silently watching his every move.
"Boss, President Julian never came back last night. Do you think something happened to him?" the council member standing farther back could not help whispering.
"Quit worrying about that. We just do the job President Julian gave us," the other snapped impatiently, gripping the Poké Ball in his hand and keeping his eyes locked on Aaron.
His name was Soren, one of the student council officers. A month earlier, he had publicly mocked Aaron's Bug-type Pokémon, only to get thoroughly humiliated by Aaron's Vespiquen in return.
Ever since then, he had not been able to hold his head up around the other council officers. That incident had been the real start of Aaron's feud with the student council.
Soren hated Aaron to the bone, and his grip on the Poké Ball tightened.
He glanced down at the red-and-white ball in his hand and thought viciously, Now I can finally teach this guy a proper lesson.
The moment he saw Aaron's Poké Ball get knocked away, Soren sprang to his feet and charged toward him, barking an order to the student behind him.
"Don't let him get away!"
---
"Aaron, you actually dared to attack Dean Sylas's Pokémon!"
At the sight of Soren bursting in out of nowhere, Aaron froze in shock. But in the very next second, everything clicked into place.
"Soren, are you saying that Pidgeotto belongs to Dean Sylas?"
Aaron's hands clenched into fists, then slowly loosened again. His face remained calm as he looked at Soren.
"That's right!" Soren sneered, chin tipped high. "Aaron, you've really crossed the line this time. No respect for authority at all."
"Soren, you really never learn, do you? Did you already forget what happened the last time I put you in your place?" Aaron said through gritted teeth.
"Hahahaha!" Soren threw back his head and laughed smugly. "Aaron, I'm not afraid of you now!"
He hurled out the Poké Ball in his hand.
"Piiidgeot!!!"
A massive Pidgeot appeared in front of Aaron in a burst of light. Powerful currents exploded from its wings, hurling snow high into the air. The blizzard of white blurred Aaron's vision, and only the huge bird's commanding silhouette remained sharply visible through the veil of snow.
The moment Aaron saw the Pidgeot clearly, his face turned deathly pale.
It was Sylas's Pokémon.
In that instant, he understood everything.
The Pokémon that had been terrorizing the Kricketot and Spinarak in this area all along had been this enormous Pidgeot. The severe ecological damage had drawn the academy's attention, which was why the mission had been posted to the academy task board in the first place and why Aaron had been lured here.
But once Aaron arrived, they had withdrawn the Pidgeot and sent out a much weaker Pidgeotto instead.
Then, after Aaron defeated that Pidgeotto, they would step in and accuse him of "maliciously attacking a teacher's Pokémon."
After that, they would expel him on the charge of "disrespecting faculty."
Aaron had seen this kind of trick from the student council before. They had already used tactics like this to drive plenty of students out of the academy.