"What did you find?" Rhea asked.
"These guys are part of the transport team between an underground base and the docks, unlike the travel agency, which only holds victims temporarily," Alex explained. "The base is where they clean up their victims before shipping them out of the region. It also functions as a market, selling the victims' belongings to their own people, and even has an auction house for the most desirable victims, sold online before being sent to their destinations."
"Do you think that's where Amelie ended up?" Lianne asked.
"It should have the largest holding cell in the region, so there's a good chance we'll find your friend there. Even if she isn't there, we can still find out from the Champion in charge. He should know every location they operate in Unova, or at least have an idea of where to look."
"Are you sure you can take a Champion down?" Lianne asked with concern.
She had heard stories about how devastating fights with Champion ranked criminals were. They fought nothing like regular trainers, who only knew how to fight in official battles or encounters in the wild. It took a professional to bring them down, and even then, the professional usually fought while outnumbered.
"Honey," Rhea said with a smug smile, "our Alex has been taking down Champions ever since he was an Elite. I'm sure we'll be fine."
Suddenly, Alex's danger sense flared. A major threat was inbound, one that would almost certainly result in deaths if he simply deployed Protect.
"Gardevoir, Expanding Force, 10 meters! Rhea, bunker!" Alex shouted.
Gardevoir reacted instantly, releasing a tightly controlled Expanding Force that blasted outward through the window and into the apartments above and below them, carving out a clean void. Rhea moved the moment the space opened, tossing out a 10-meter-thick, cube-shaped bunker and shoving Lianne inside before diving in herself.
PING. PING. PING.
Over a dozen bullets ricocheted off the metal shell, followed by a blinding flash of yellow light.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Multiple impacts slammed into the bunker, denting the surface but failing to breach it. It had been an Elite ranked assault, opening with Feint and Phantom Force rounds before being immediately followed by a series of powerful Zap Cannons. The sequence was reminiscent of the sniper assassin sent after Alex long ago, but it was powerful enough to take down an unsuspecting Champion.
Alex took a moment to calculate the trajectory before pinpointing the source. He pointed toward the rooftop of a distant building, signaling Gardevoir to pursue their assailant. She teleported him to the location but found nothing on the rooftop except scorch marks where the Zap Cannons had been fired.
He scanned with his Aura but detected nothing in his immediate vicinity. Whoever had ambushed them was already gone.
"Well done," Alex said, giving an approving nod. "They're finally reaching the level of a proper military after all these years. I feel almost proud of their progress."
Alex teleported back to the apartment, where Rhea had already opened the bunker after not hearing anything for a while.
"What the hell was that?" Rhea shouted as she stuck her head out of the bunker door.
"Team Dominion," Alex replied. "Trying their best to take us down."
"Oh… then they kind of sucked at it, since it barely dented my bunker."
"They fired from a considerable distance, so their attack wasn't strong enough to penetrate your bunker's thick Champion rated armor. They also vanished immediately after firing instead of continuing the bombardment."
"Meh, they still suck."
"Is this normal?" Lianne asked, slightly regretting coming along.
"No, but it's about to be," Alex answered. "Come on, we'd better go before the landlord shows up."
The three teleported from the apartment building and headed south, toward the Pokémon World Tournament complex. Nearby was the entrance to a cave system that led down to the Relic Passage, an old route that was connected to the Castelia Sewers and the Relic Castle.
The underground of Driftveil was unusually expansive, a result of the mining operations Clay had promoted over the years. Eventually, a single cave system formed that linked the Relic Passage to Clay Tunnel, Twist Mountain, Mistralton Cave, and the Underground Ruins. Over time, criminals of the Underworld had carved out their own hidden bases along these old mining tunnels.
One of them was Tavian Corvax, the leader and chief organizer of Black Transit, who believed he was strong enough to establish his own base after years of running their successful trafficking operations.
Alex and the girls made their way around the southern side of the city until they found an old, abandoned warehouse with an elevator that descended a mining shaft down to the Relic Passage's cave system. The elevator was offline and needed Rotom to charge the engine before it could operate. Once powered, they descended into the depths below.
At the bottom, they found themselves in a pitch-dark underground passage, marked by tracks that suggested frequent use. They followed the narrow, winding tunnels for an hour, tracing the suspiciously worn paths through twists and turns, until they arrived at an unassuming dead end.
"This should be it," Alex said, releasing his pair of Rhyperior. "Dig through and be ready for combat."
The pair nodded and began digging, quickly realizing that the wall of dirt was hollowed out and built to disguise the entrance. Once they got through, they were immediately confronted by a pair of Krookodile acting as sentries.
"Roar!" they bellowed, alerting everyone in the cavern that they were under attack.
The Rhyperior pair charged forward immediately, using Bulldoze to engage the sentries and carve out space for Alex to release the rest of his team. With a flash of red light, Alex sent out all his Pokémon, who scattered to every corner of the cavern surrounding the facility.
The cavern itself had been carved into a brutal prison compound. Barred holding cells lined the walls, each one holding silent, motionless captives. Narrow patrol corridors wound between makeshift fences and guard towers, while dim, flickering lights cast long shadows that hid every corner. The air was thick with the scent of damp stone, metal and refuse, carrying the faint echoes of distant cries.
Sounds of battle erupted as the attack team swept through the compound, taking down any Pokémon or criminal in their path. Meanwhile, the defense team pressed along the perimeter of the cavern, cutting off any chance of escape. Gardevoir coordinated the assault, directing their movements to ensure maximum efficiency.
Lianne went through a whirlwind of emotions, from relief at the open space and light compared to the dreary tunnels they had been walking, to awe at Alex's many powerful Pokémon, and finally to abject horror at the prison compound. She couldn't even wrap her mind around all the death and destruction around her until she remembered why she had come in the first place. She was here to find her friend Amelie.
"Amelie!" she shouted, running along the perimeter of the cavern and peering into every cell for any sign of her friend, with Rhea trailing close behind to make sure she didn't get herself killed.
Alex, meanwhile, strode to the center of the compound, where a large building had been put up that was likely the operational hub. He ignored the exploding watchtowers, crumpled fencing, dying guards, and henchmen who lay on the ground in surrender as he moved forward.
Once he entered the building, he stepped into a massive mess hall where the captors were free to eat, trade belongings, or engage in leisurely activities. There in the center, amid overturned tables and chairs, was the Champion ranked Tavian, surrounded by his Pokémon in a defensive formation, doing his best to survive Grim's and Raticate's teams' assault.
Deciding to speed things along, Alex bolted forward from Tavian's blind spot, cloaked in Dark type energy. Grim and Raticate coordinated with him as they charged as well in a full frontal assault, acting as the distraction.
With the defenses concentrated on one side, Alex slipped behind Tavian, locked him in a chokehold, and secured his Poké Balls, ending the fight in seconds.
"Gardevoir," Alex called out.
She quickly made her way to him and read Tavian's mind as instructed. From his memories, Alex identified several additional locations where the "products" were temporarily held before transport through ships the human traffickers had ongoing deals with.
No specific company or port authority was responsible. Instead, individual ships aided in the transport, similar to Captain Daxen, who, on top of his regular shipments, smuggled goods for Team Dominion as well.
With this information, he had effectively taken down 60% of Black Transit's operations in Unova. The remaining 40% consisted of decentralized henchmen whose only roles were kidnapping or transport, easy pickings for the police now that their Champion ranked backer was in Alex's hands.
"Rotom, contact the police and inform them of what's happening down here," Alex instructed.
He wasn't about to clean everything up, which would include rounding up the criminals, releasing the captives, sorting through them, taking inventory, and bringing them to the surface. That was a job for the police, who had the manpower to handle it, not a bounty hunter.
"Gardevoir!" Gardevoir called out, telling Alex that there was a bit of a complication between Rhea and Lianne.
Alex quickly knocked Tavian out and left him in Raticate's care while the rest of the Pokémon began rounding up the criminals.
He then made his way to the perimeter, where Rhea stood in her exosuit with Tinkaton by her side, locked in a standoff against Lianne, who had her Pokémon out and ready for battle. There was Serperior, Roserade, Sawsbuck, Lilligant, Leavanny, and Whimsicott, all at Expert rank.
Behind Lianne was, Alex assumed, Amelie, a disheveled young girl with long black hair, the same age as Lianne, who was crying her eyes out.
"It wasn't my father, Rheabel," Amelie cried. "I'm so sorry for what happened to you, but I know my father had nothing to do with it. You have to believe me."
"Liar!" Rhea shouted. "Your father watched as my family was murdered in cold blood and even took over my father's shares after he died. Do you have any idea what I went through after that? Do you even care, Amelina?"
"I'm sorry. Please, please don't kill my father. I'm begging you. Please."
Alex, meanwhile, watched the drama unfold with a sigh. The day had already been quite long, filled with running around, confronting Clay, surviving an assassination attempt, and cleaning up a prison, and it seemed it was about to get even longer.
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