Opelucid City is the most technologically advanced city in Unova, and it shows the moment you enter. The skyline is dominated by glass-and-steel high-rises, elevated walkways, and clean, geometric architecture. The streets are immaculately clean, with automated transport gliding along dedicated lanes and smart systems managing traffic and lighting. Public facilities are minimal, as the focus is on high-end restaurants and services, with everything else delivered on demand, giving the city a precise, high-tech, and expensive feel.
Many of the towers double as residential complexes for scientists working in the city's numerous laboratories, which focus on Pokémon energy systems, materials engineering, and battle technology. Compared to cities like Castelia with its commercial sprawl or Nimbasa with its focus on entertainment, Opelucid feels structured and purpose-built.
The city's main landmark is the Opelucid Gym, led by Drayden. It specializes in Dragon type Pokémon, blending traditional symbolism with a modern battle environment built around mechanical platforms and controlled arenas. In addition to the Dragon Gym, Opelucid also maintains Electric and Steel type battle facilities, reinforcing its emphasis on technology and industrial strength.
Opelucid supports both researchers and trainers. The Battle House provides structured matches for competitive trainers, while the Opelucid Academy trains future battlers and scientists with a practical, results-driven curriculum. Unlike other Unova cities that revolve around trade, tourism, or spectacle, Opelucid is built around advancement. It is the region's center of applied research and disciplined battle training.
If Unova represents the many stages of human development, Opelucid stands at its most futuristic and technologically advanced edge. It made sense that Team Dominion concentrated much of its attention on this city in this region over any other.
"I've always wanted to live here," Rhea said, looking around and admiring the architecture. "It was the most technologically advanced city in Unova. Unfortunately, Team Dominion had to come along and turn it to shit."
Over the years since Team Dominion's rise, Opelucid City had gradually shifted its research focus from Pokémon-related technologies to human-centered ones. Their laboratories began prioritizing robotics, weapons manufacturing, and human enhancement, and they even started turning a blind eye to projects that harmed Pokémon. On its own, the shift wasn't immediately alarming, but the fact that the city was slowly being steered toward treating Pokémon less as partners and more as resources for human benefit was concerning.
Even though this affected less than 20% of the research centers in the city, the fact that it had become increasingly normalized over the decades was a problem that would inevitably lead to a point of no return. It was only a matter of time before an irreversible mentality took hold, one that would justify the mass murder of Pokémon for the sake of human development.
"I don't think it's that bad," Alex said. "Drayden has done a good job curbing the trend, despite the opposition of the other two Gym Leaders in the city."
"I guess you're right. At least the academy hasn't allowed any teachers to promote fear-mongering against Pokémon."
The pair were currently in the city to follow through on their deal with the Grimefold, specifically to take down EvoGene Labs, which had been targeting the homeless population as experimental subjects.
Of course, due to their wanted status in the region, they had to maintain a disguise. For Alex, it was just his bounty hunter attire with a tactical helmet covering his face, while for Rhea it was her lab coat, which surprisingly fit with their current location. Her face was hidden behind an illusion created by Zoroark, transforming her into a taller redhead.
They made their way through the relatively idle streets, blending in as a high-profile scientist being escorted by her private bodyguard.
As for the specifics of their objective, their plan was simple. They would storm in, make a mess, steal their data, and publish it to the public while highlighting the inhuman experiments they were conducting.
Was it illegal? Very. But they were criminals anyway. So long as they could justify themselves to Interpol by presenting their damning findings, they should be in the clear afterward. In a way, this made their jobs much easier compared to having to work with the local police to solve the matter.
Eventually, they arrived at EvoGene Labs' main hub in the center of the city, where the company stored its data in massive servers, kept samples of their experiments, and housed the latest technology they had developed.
With a bit of help from Rotom, the pair were able to get past the heavily secured entrance. Normally, Rotom couldn't be used for anything illegal, but there were two main reasons why it was more than willing to help this time.
For one thing, Rotom couldn't be strictly policed, no matter how much training it had undergone from the League. This meant that a trainer with a strong bond with their Rotom could convince it to commit crimes. It would become a problem only if the League ever regained control of that Rotom, as they could use its embedded training to gather evidence of the trainer's illegal activities.
The second and more important reason was Alex's status as a Champion ranked trainer, which afforded him certain liberties with the law. He was operating in a technically gray area, infiltrating a legal business to catch it conducting illegal experiments. Even without a warrant, his position gave him enough legal leeway to bypass normal restrictions and act as he saw fit.
Once inside, the pair moved easily through the building and accessed restricted areas, thanks to Rotom. Normally, facilities this highly classified would be protected by Rotoms, Porygons, or Metagross, but Team Dominion shot themselves in the foot by avoiding the use of Pokémon to defend their mainframe. Operating illegally also prevented them from relying on League-controlled Pokémon.
Still, they could only go so far into restricted areas before the staff realized they were suspicious.
"Hey! You're not allowed to be in here," shouted a bespectacled scientist in a lab coat as Alex and Rhea entered the specimen storage vault.
"And yet, here we are," Rhea replied. "What are you going to do about it?"
The old man at least had enough guts to reach for the security alarm before Alex knocked him out with a Hypnosis bullet.
The pair then proceeded to raid all the samples in the vault as evidence. There were quite a number of them, requiring an hour to carefully collect, lest they accidentally start a zombie apocalypse. In doing so, they also ended up knocking out three more groups of scientists who were supposed to store or retrieve samples.
Once they were done, they made their way to the data center beneath the building, where Rotom had been busy downloading all the files onto a set of hard drives. Surprisingly, they didn't encounter any problems, since it was an area that was barely maintained and primarily monitored through cameras that Rotom had already hacked. They strode inside, picked up the hard drives Rotom had set aside, and then made their way to the holding cells for the lab's more successful specimens.
Unfortunately, that was where their easy infiltration ended, as the specimen vault had been discovered empty, along with several knocked-out scientists.
Alarms blared, vault doors slammed shut and engaged their locks, while security guards scrambled and paid-off cops were sent to investigate.
"I'm surprised it took them so long to find out," Rhea said as they strolled past the panicking staff. "Do you think we could have gotten away with it if we had gone here first?"
"Hey! You can't be in here!" one of the staff shouted as he strode forward to confront them, only for Alex to punch him in the chin, knocking him out and scaring the rest of the staff away.
"Does that answer your question?" Alex asked before pulling out his phone and noting which individuals could be released and which ones required machine support to survive.
There were easily over a hundred people suspended in glass tubes filled with liquid, being experimented on with a focus on genetic modification, cellular fusion techniques, and Pokémon DNA integration. Since these were the successful subjects sent to the main lab for further research, it could be assumed that thousands had already died from the earlier stages of experimentation.
Alex and Rhea took their time as they began shutting down the containment units. Their goal was to gather as much evidence as possible so that EvoGene Labs would draw enough attention from the League to warrant sanctions. Of course, there were plenty of ways for the company to continue its experiments, but Alex and Rhea would have at least fulfilled their end of the bargain with Grimefold.
They spent nearly an hour inside the locked specimen containment unit, manually overriding systems and opening pods one by one. Those who were still mentally coherent were released, though most were disoriented and confused after prolonged suspension and experimentation. Others were left in place, either because their minds had deteriorated beyond recovery or because their bodies were so heavily modified that disconnecting them from the machines would have killed them outright.
Among those freed were people like Dale and his crew, individuals with missing limbs, bodies infused with unstable energy signatures, grafted Pokémon tissue, or additional appendages that clearly belonged to Pokémon. Some cases were more extreme, not just modified humans but full proof-of-concept transformations. One containment unit held what scans identified as a Gardevoir, yet medical records confirmed she had once been an ordinary woman who had been completely converted into a Pokémon.
"Help… me…" she begged, slowly emerging from a medically induced coma.
"Are we really just going to leave them here to fend for themselves?" Rhea asked.
"We can't bring them all with us. Besides, I think Drayden can be trusted to do the right thing."
"I just hope they don't end up back where we found them," Rhea said with a sigh. "It would absolutely kill me if it ever happened to me."
"They'll be fine," Alex said reassuringly.
Suddenly, the locked door to the lab creaked open as the police finally arrived to catch the criminals disrupting the facility's operations.
"ROAR!!!"
At least, that was what should have happened. Instead, they were met with a Champion ranked Conkeldurr, easily twice its regular size at 9'10" (3.0 m), holding what appeared to be a pair of cannons in its hands.
"Where are the intruders!?" it shouted as it stepped into the lab, leaving Alex and Rhea completely stunned.
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